Provider's Son (23 page)

“How was it?” Jon said.

“Dry. Very dry.”

“So what is the word?” Levi said.

“Toman..I think...”

“You still dont know!” Jon said.

“I used to know a lot more Cree when I was younger. I wish I could have known her now though, that Im older. Id understand her more. I thought she was tough as nails at the time, but I guess she wasnt that tough if she took her own life.”

The next day Jon came to Levi's room as he was doing his walk-down on that dorm. He looked confused.

“Dad just called. He wants us to go to Harpers apology in Ottawa.”

“Us? You mean you and your father.”

“No, I mean us. The three of us. Wants us to go to parliament and sit in the balcony. Dad is going to cover the bill for everything. You wont have to spend a dime.”

“No thanks. Ill watch it on TV.”

“You should go,” Jon said.

“I didnt even know what it was all about until you told me.”

“That doesnt matter. You certainly know now.”

“Id feel out of place by.”

“Now you know how
we
feel...on our own soil.”

“You always got a answer. I suppose this means we should celebrate though.”

“Oh right, Sinead told me about that.”

“The fellas on my crew is either too nish because they got to work the next day, or too young and rowdy to take to a bar.”

“So I was your default choice. Gee, I feel special. Drinking in Fort Mac excites me as much as drinking here.”

“Come on by. Harper is going to apologize and youre going to see it in person. Thats cause enough to celebrate aint it? Never mind that youre a big time artist now. One of these days youll be like that fella…whats hes name...used to hang around with the rock stars…Andy Walhal.”

“Warhol.”

“Yeah, that fella. Andy Warhol. Big superstar.”

“Let me see. He was gay, white, and his art had nothing to do with what we do.”

“We? I thought it was all you.”

“Please dont start that man. You know the difference. I cant help what the newspapers print. I keep telling them its a collaboration with you. The fact that I have previous work by myself makes it even more confusing for them.”

“Ill stop if you go to Fort Mac.”

“How about this. If you go with me to the apology Ill go with you to Fort McMurray.”

“A night on the town for a trip to Ottawa? Not exactly a fair and square deal.”

“For you or me?”

As they drove to Fort McMurray it wasn't warm enough to roll down the windows. Cool currents pushed over the land as the green in the leaves began to fade. Levi welcomed the fall air, even if it wasn't Atlantic fall air. They were past the oil sands and driving by a small town where he caught the whiff of wood smoke. Back in Gadus the old fellas would be loading up the wood-box with splits now, ready to face another winter with the wood stowed in the shed, while hoping they would have the good health to saw another half a dozen cord next season.

It was dark when they reached the parking lot of The Pied Piper. Two attractive young women were walking across the lot and they stopped next to Levi and Jon as they were getting out of the SUV. One was white, and the other, who was native, wore a man's leather jacket that appeared about four sizes too large. She was already tiny, so the jacket made her appear almost childlike.

“Hey Jon,” the native girl said.

“Hey...do I know you?”

“You dont remember? I used to chase you around the playground in Provider.”

“Oh...Johanna! Right. Hey, how are you?”

“Im okay, buddy. Im okay. You want some hometown pussy? Discount price.”

“What?”

“Discount price.”

“Are you joking?”

“Do we look like wer joking?” her friend said. “What about your buddy there? Working in the oil field? I bet youre hard up for a bit.”

Levi laughed nervously. “No, Im alright.”

The smile dropped off her friend's face and she turned her attention from him as if he no longer existed. “Lets go.”

“Why are you here in this shithole?” Jon said to Johanna.

“Why are you here?”

“I dont live here.”

“Neither do I.”

“Where do you live then?”

“Nowhere in particular.”

“What about Provider?”

“Fuck Provider.”

Johanna and her friend walked away from them.

“I remember her as a girl.”

“Jesus,” Levi said. “Hookers, the two of them. I never seen a hooker in person before.”

“Her mother died. I guess thats what happened.”

They both entered The Pied Piper shaking their heads.

It was an Irish Pub, but not a real one, a franchise. Dark wood decor with big plastic shamrocks plastered over the walls. Not that the shamrocks were fooling anyone. The patrons were such a mishmash of age, sex, and cultural identity — at least a third of them from Newfoundland — that there was no true atmosphere, only a static hum of human noise, something akin to laughter but vaguely empty, fuelled by watered-down liquor and overcut cocaine snorted off flush boxes in the washrooms.

As the night went on Levi was drunk before Jon, but Jon was too drunk to notice. The plan was that Levi was to be the designated driver, but two beer turned into three, and three turned into four, and four turned into a dozen.

“Sinead is a good girl,” Jon said from nowhere. “Ive never met anyone Ive had so much in common with.”

“Thats good,” Levi said. “But its no good to have too much in common either.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, if you got too much in common youll get on each others nerves — Jesus, why do bars have to have the music so goddamn loud these days? I dont have to talk this loud over a grinder at work.”

“Seriously,” Jon said, slightly slurring, “I think I want to marry Sinead, your daughter, some day.”

“Marry? You havent even lived together yet! Trust me, you wants to live with someone before you marries them.”

“So youre turning me down then?”

“Turning you down for what?”

“Your daughters hand.”

“Is that what you come down here with me for?”

“No, I mean her future hand. Im not ready for marriage yet.”

“Do she want to?”

“No no no. Hypothetically speaking. In the future, Levi. I mean in the future. God, dont tell her I said this. I wouldnt want to scare her away.”

“Good. Dont. Shell only say no anyway.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I knows me daughter. ”

“Im not ready to settle down either, I just meant — look, never mind. Forget I said it. I dont know what I want.”

The bartender dropped a glass on the floor and Jon and Levi and every other male standing to the bar stared at her behind as she bent over to clean up the shards.

“Tell me the truth,” Levi said, dragging his focus away from the bartender's hindquarters, “if I wasnt Sineads father, would you hate me?”

“Probably,” Jon said, with a drunken snort. “No, hate is a strong word. I know I wouldnt like you though.”

“Why? I got nothing against natives.”

Jon laughed and slapped Levi on the back. “Youre racist. Archie Bunker racist. But thats still racist. Well, a loveable bigot shall we say.”

“Im not a bigot.”

“All you tradesmen are bigots. Stems from ignorance. Lack of education.”

“And youre arrogant. Same thing. The same way you thinks Im not good enough to be associated with our rocking chairs.”

“Here we go again.”

“Im not a little boy, Jon. I knows youre not being honest about this.”

Jon took a mouthful of beer. “Look…its not my fault.”

“Okay, now here we go. What do you mean, not your fault.”

“When it comes to selling, in this business, the artist is as important as the art. It sounds bad but its true. Im only realizing now how true that is.”

“So you dont want my name on it.”

“No. Its just that, well, I already had my name out there to some extent. I kind of had a small following. When it comes to the showings, we should slowly introduce you to the buyers, depending on who they are. They already have an image in their heads, who they think I am, so we dont want to screw with that too quickly, by bringing you onto the scene.”

“My name is on it so they knows its not just you.”

“Yes, but a name is not the same as a face.”

“Oh I see. What if I shaved off me moustache. Would I be cool enough then?”

“I didnt mean it like that. I knew you wouldnt understand.”

“That fairy, Edward, told you all that didnt he.”

“See, there you go. The people who like my art probably wouldnt want to buy it from someone who uses words like fairy.”

“Fairy, queer, gay, sure its only words. What difference do it make?”

“It makes all the difference.”

It wasn't long before they graduated to shooting tequila. Levi had drank all his life, and like most who have experience in binge drinking, in the back of his inebriated mind was that little voice that kept reminding him, yes youre having fun now, but you know damn well what's to follow. Jon, however, was making the common mistake for most inexperienced drinkers when it came to hard liquor. As Jon slammed back shot after shot he kept bragging how he didn't feel drunk. He didn't realize that in an hour, perhaps less, the alcohol would slam into his brain. Levi knew all this, and although he didn't want the boy to hurt himself, there was also that other side of him that secretly grinned at the thought of Jon with his head down a toilet, his guts raw after heaving up all its contents. It was quite possible of course that Levi would be in the same predicament by three or four am, but it wouldn't be the shock that it would be to Jon.

“Ive got to work tomorrow,” Jon said, as if it just occurred to him.

“So do I,” Levi said.

“We better not go home too late,” Jon said, and Levi found that funny.

The din of The Pied Piper grew louder and Levi looked around. There was something beautiful about approaching chaos when one was drunk on liquor. It was different than beer, more energized. But the music was still too loud.

“Youre not a bad guy,” Jon said, avoiding eye-contact. “I guess theres worse future fathers in law I could have.”

Levi put his hand on Jon's shoulder. “She might say yes, by. I barely knew anything about her book until you told me, so what do I know?”

Levi nodded to himself and leaned on the bar for support. It was then that he caught a bouncer staring at both of them. He wished he wasn't as drunk as he was, because like many bouncers, this bad boy wasn't there to keep the peace, but to find an excuse to break it. Not that Levi liked fighting, but he wouldn't back down from any asshole if it came down to it. Even if said asshole was all muscle like that bouncer. He thought of fights in his past. He had only been in three or four, and one of them was with his own brother. He and Frank were teenagers then, when a few years of difference in age made a big difference in physical strength. It had started off with jostling and headlocks during a game of road hockey, but Levi had accidentally kneed Frank between his legs. From there the violence escalated until they were throwing full on punches at each other. He had to admit Frank had landed more, but he remembered getting around Frank at one point and landing two perfect blows to his brother's left kidney. There was a grunt of agony from Frank as he fell to his knees with his hands on his lower back. But with Levi's bloody nose he looked to have gotten the worst of it anyway, and this was enough to save face for Frank from the other eight boys who were watching. The fights with other boys had gone in Levi's favour, some more than others, but he had been afraid during all of them, and he didn't like being afraid. Like most men, it wasn't the potential physical beating that he feared, as much as the humiliation that would accompany it.

“Wer going to either have to slack off drinking or go to another bar,” Levi said. “That bouncer is eyeing us.”

Jon turned around. “Where?”

Levi pointed him out.

Jon scoffed at him and the bouncer saw it. He grinned back in an unfriendly way.

“You ever be in a fight?” Levi said.

“I was picked on in school when I was younger, because I was chubby, but I took martial arts when I was sixteen.”

“You still havent answered the question.”

“I just told you I was in martial arts. Ive been in lots of fights.”

“Street fights? Bar fights?”

“No.”

“Well you was never in a fight.”

“Violence is violence.”

“No it aint. But either way, I hope youre ready, because that fella is looking for violence.”

“Oh Im ready,” Jon said. Then he stared down the bouncer again on purpose. “Why is he concerned with us?”

“Dont say it,” Levi said.

“Because Im a native.”

“Every problem you haves with white people is not because youre Indian. Relax. Forget about him.”

“Son of a bitch. Hes still staring.”

Levi glanced over and the bouncer had not yet taken his eyes off of them. It wasn't much longer before he strolled over.

“I think that might be your last drink,” the bouncer said to Jon.

“Why is that?” Jon said, but he avoided the bouncer's eyes as he spoke.

“Because youre too drunk. You and your buddy there can barely stand up.”

“I thought getting drunk was the purpose of shitholes like this?” Jon said, turning around to the bar again.

“No it isnt. And seeing as youre going to be a smartass I want you to leave now instead of when you finish that drink.”

“Alright,” Levi said. “Calm down. Wer just having a bit of fun here buddy.”

The bouncer grabbed a handful of Jon's shirt. “Get out.”

“Okay. Just let me go,” Jon said.