Provider's Son (12 page)

“Fisherpersons,” Levi said, and rolled his eyes.

The worst thing about a greenhorn was that even if he was the hardest worker that ever laced up a pair of steel nosed boots on land, on the water he might be utterly useless. Working on the water when the wind was up was like trying to do a job with an able mind but blind-drunk legs. Even simple things were difficult, like putting on your still wet oil clothes while falling against the walls of the cabin from the roll of the waves. Throw in a good bout of sea-sickness, three or four hours sleep, microwaved food, and the constant danger of capsizing, and there you have it. Needless to say, the more experienced men a skipper could get for his crew the better. Unfortunately, the dropping price of crab in past years — except this year — along with the lure of the big bucks out west, kept drawing away the capable young recruits from what was left of the fishery.

The best crab prices in years, meaning Frank and Barnaby were going to make more money than ever. It was almost unbearable to think about.

Levi took the receipt with the cell phone number out of his pocked, rolled it up in his hand and threw it on the truck floor.

Maybe he could get a loan to start up his woodworking business. Goddamn it, he was in his fifties, but he wasn't stupid. No sir, he was an...artist.

“Believe me, what you make is art,” Jon had said.

He was an artist. Why shouldnt he sell his rocking chairs? He could start up his own shop and work on them all day long. There wasn't anyone in Gadus that sold rocking chairs like his. There probably wasn't anyone in Newfoundland for that matter. Or maybe he could sell them on that website, the one Sinead talked about all the time. eBay. No matter how, he was going to work at it, and the chairs were going to be unique. They were going to be unique because Jon was going to carve them. Levi would convince him. He would find a way.

Levi pulled in the driveway, hopped out with the case of beer in his hand, and went straight to his shed. He cracked a beer, and as always the quick hiss relaxed him just a little. He took a long, slow mouthful, the cold froth soothing the back of his throat. That relaxed him more.

After he savoured the first mouthful he laid the beer down on his bench and picked up a fresh piece of sandpaper. He began at the top, the crest rail, and forgot about time.

The Ocean

Thirst woke him up. Levi had stayed up until three in the morning sanding the chair, and drinking. Even as he was sanding he had felt the doubt creeping back in. He couldn't even remember what kind of wood Jon said he carved with, and if he did, he probably didn't have the wood in his shed anyway.

“Who in the fuck were you trying to kid?” he said.

He wasn't bothered about getting drunk in itself. After all, it was his time off, but he didn't like being drunk when he worked on a chair. At one point he remembered almost wasting his sixth beer over the arm. Three beers would be the limit from now on when working. Three beers relaxed him. So did a dozen for that matter, but so much that it made him sloppy.

Gulping a cold glass of water, he gazed out at the day. If he wasn't going back to Camp Wisti what choice did he have but to call Bryan? It was a stroke of luck that he even met him at the store. But perhaps Bryan had already found someone.

Levi sipped a cup of tea and gnawed on a piece of peanut butter toast. Damn, the house was quiet. Even bickering with Anita was better than this. He got up and went out to his shed for the radio. The chair was waiting patiently for him, but he resisted the urge to go near it, and brought the dusty little radio into the house. There was a time when he had a lot of friends he could visit, but the older he got the less patience he had for socializing.

Levi considered heading over to his mother's for breakfast. If Frank's truck was there he would turn around. If Barnaby's was there he would go in anyway, and have fun ignoring him.

First things first. Levi called Bryan and told him that he wouldn't mind coming out for a trip, but he made no promises that he would join on. Two hundred dollars for a trip would be a ridiculously small amount of money compared to what he was used to, but he wanted to see if he still had the stomach for it before he made any promises to stay on and take a percentage.

“When you coming back ashore?”

“Youre in luck there. We got to come in tomorrow I dare say. Rons young fella is sick. I should have known better but we was desperate. Ill call you.”

“Hows the other boys doing?”

“We might get our quota,” he said, then laughed.

“Youll do alright by.”

NLLive
was also playing in his mother's house when Levi stood in the porch. Delilah looked up and smiled at him.

“There you is,” she said.

“Here I is.”

She got up and went to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“I was only gone three weeks Mom.”

“Did you have anything for breakfast?”

“Not really.”

“What do you want?”

“Anything to have here with a cup of tea, besides that bakers fog you buys?”

“No I dont buy no bakers fog. I buys the good homemade bread at the store.”

“Yes, I daresay its homemade. Mind now it whudnt baked in a woodstove. Id give anything now for a slice of your bread.”

“I cant make it. Me back cant take it anymore.”

“I know, Mom. What have you got there besides bread?”

“Lemon Creams, and there might be a few Tip Tops left in the box.”

Delilah placed the table as Wade Wallace, the host of
NLLive
, debated with a caller over the state of the oil industry in Newfoundland, not failing to mention that it was not a renewable resource.

“So what do you think of it out in Fort McMurray?” she said.

“The money is good.”

“You dont like the job?”

“Who likes their job?”

“What do you be at out west? What do welders do?”

“Weld. High up too. Up over a hundred feet sometimes.”

“Oh my Lord! You better mind yourself.”

Levi regretted telling her about the heights, even though he had done it on purpose.

“Poor Jake was always afraid of heights.”

“Was he?” Levi asked, but she didn't catch the irony in his voice as she shoved his elbows out of the way and put a placemat under them. He had once seen his father's legs trembling on a six foot step ladder.

“Sure back in the fifties when he was helping build the church he got right giddy and nearly fell off the roof. Your Uncle Abe just caught him, and nearly fell off himself.”

The kettle whistled and she poured up their tea.

“Poor thing,” she said. “At least he died quick when he went.”

“Hard to believe its been twelve years. How much did he and Frank argue.”

“Youre a lot like your poor father. Neither one of you could get along with Frank.”

Levi laughed. “Frank used to try to boss the ol man around aboard the boat when he was sixteen.”

“Frank was always a leader.”

“Franks no leader. Franks full of shit.”

“Well most leaders is full of shit isnt they?”

Levi buttered a biscuit.

“I might be taking a berth on Bryans boat.”

“Now there you go. Yes. You dont need to be flying back and forth out there. Id be worried to death. Sure did you hear about that plane that caught on fire?”

“How come Im the only one didnt hear about that?”

The next morning Levi was running late. Something he had never been when it came to fishing. A tangle of clothes sat in the middle of the kitchen floor, half of which was still damp from the washer. His rubber clothes were scattered about the porch and he tripped over them looking for his cell phone. Anita would have had his lunch, changes of clothes, and whatever else he needed, ready for him. Bryan called and told him that he was leaving at twelve o'clock, and if Bryan was anything like the boys said he was then Levi better be there by twelve on the dot or earlier.

His cell phone rang. It was Anita.

“Got a berth with Bryan,” he told her.

“Bryan? I thought you was working out west?”

“Fuck out west.”

Anita laughed.

“You loves to hear me say that dont you. You never believed in me.”

“Oh shut up, Levi, and let me talk. Its important.”

Levi felt a flutter in his chest, and for the moment Bryan and his boat didn't exist.

“What about?”

“We were together for a long time...”

“Yeah...”

“I left you with almost everything, but theres a few things in the house I feels like I deserves.”

Levi dropped the hand holding his phone down to his side and stared up at the ceiling. His eyes blurred, and he lifted the phone again.

“You left me with the goddamn bills too! That credit card bill was bad enough,” he screamed into the phone. “That was the deal, remember? I gets everything, and all the debt that comes with it. You gets nothing, and you dont have to worry about nothing. Remember? Remember that?”

“Youre not capable of discussing anything with me are you?”

Her calm demeanour was maddening.

“What did you think you was going to get?”

“Well one thing I definitely wants is me chair.”

“Why do you want that?”

“Its a good chair. Im used to it. You cant buy chairs like that.”

“Theres a lot of things you cant buy. I made it for you and my little girl. Why would you want that chair now?”

“I...”

There was silence on the phone and Levi hoped she was crying. So far in the separation she had hardly showed any emotion at all.

“Anita?”

“...yeah.”

“Do you understand what Im saying?”

“Yes...but maybe there are things...I dont need to forget.”

“Well why are you with him? If you dont want to forget.”

“I cant live with you anymore, Levi. There is a part of me that will always love you, but theres a part that doesnt. And you did it. I know Im no angel, but you did it. You took me for granted. You cut yourself off from me. You did it, Levi. Its your own fault.”

“Hows it all my fault when you was the one who was fucking around?”

“Oh my God, you just dont get it,” she said, and hung up.

Levi called back her number but she wouldn't answer. He called back three times with no success. A picture of Anita and him stared down from the wall. Levi tore it off and threw it face down across the kitchen table. It slid onto the floor and the glass shattered.

Once he got on the road and reached the Trans Canada Highway the speedometer hovered between one-hundred-and-thirty and one-hundred-and-forty km. There was a time when that was his regular cruising speed on the highway, but he didn't have the nerve for it anymore, and his neck and shoulders were tense. He had forgotten to drop in to Missy's Convenience and pick up a half dozen Hungry Man microwave dinners. So he would have to run into the Sobeys in Catalina, which would slow him down even more. There were convenience stores close to the government wharf, but he couldn't remember what frozen foods they carried, so that would be even more wasted time if he was wrong.

He rounded a turn to a long stretch of highway and put the pedal to the floor. There were two gently sloping hills in front of him and the highway was cleared of brush for twenty feet on each side. The speedometer in the old truck crept up to one-hundred-and-fifty kilometers per hour, working its way toward one-sixty.

When he topped the first hill he saw a long white car parked on the side of the road. Levi hit the brakes.

“Goddamn it. Thats just what I needs.”

But as he drew closer he saw that the car had hub caps, so it wasn't a police car. He cursed on the heavy set woman that was apparently picking berries not far from where they were parked. But as he got closer he could see that she was holding a three foot long wooden cross in one hand and tending to flowers with the other. She was much older than he first thought, and looked awkward trying to arrange the flowers, as if she didn't want to lay the cross on the ground. And was that another younger woman waiting in the driver side of the car? Why wasn't she helping? As Levi went by he knew he would think about both of those strangers every time he passed that cross for the rest of his life, and never have any answers.

Finally, he passed the sign indicating the town of Melrose, next exit. This meant that Catalina was fifteen minutes away. He had been driving inland for over an hour, and now the road was following the coastline once again. There would be no bay now. Only Catalina Harbour, open to the ocean, right to the horizon. He didn't like that feeling of openness on the water. Yet at night, when he could see the endless stars, it comforted him.

It was already twenty after twelve but he needed food.

Once in Catalina he stopped into Sobeys and hurried to the refrigerator section. A full isle of frozen foods packed into freezers on both sides made finding the Hungry Man frozen dinners a lot harder than it should have been. Variety. There was so much variety in everything now that it was smothering. The coolers were lined out with everything from chicken nuggets to flash frozen salmon shish kabobs, all of them with box pictures much more appetizing than the factory made slop that they actually contained. Eventually he found the Hungry Mans. He snatched a half-dozen and headed to the checkout. The boxes were so cold that he had to rest them on the magazine rack in the checkout line because the tips of his fingers were going numb.

He checked his watch and realized how late it was. He reached in his pocket for his cell phone to call Bryan and tell him he was almost there. But his phone wasn't in his pocket. He realized that when he switched his jeans back at the house he had forgotten to take it out.

He threw the frozen dinners in the back where they broke through the bag and slid across the liner. He jumped in the truck and burned out of the parking lot.