Provider's Son (32 page)

Everyone in the circle, except Jon and William, shook their heads and turned their backs to Bill.

The sirens drew closer.

“Please,” Bill said, holding his hand out for his father's gun. It appeared as if he was about to cry. “Dont underestimate the danger youll put yourself in by keeping those guns in your hands.”

William held his rifle across the fire out of the circle, which had already begun to die down. Bill didnt hide his relief as he took it. Johanna's father gave him his gun as well. Jon held his a moment longer, then passed it along. After checking the clips and chambers to make sure they were empty, Bill took all the rifles back to his truck and threw them behind the seat.

Once the people in the terminal saw that the men had gotten rid of their rifles many of them came outside. Some lit cigarettes and watched curiously. Others cursed and grumbled.

“Get the fuck out of the way,” a tradesman yelled across the ditch. “Weve got work to do!”

“Fuck you!” one of the natives yelled back.

Two large, angry men approached the fire. Bill turned and yelled that if they came a foot closer they would be on the next bus to Edmonton, jobless. They stood there for a moment, and grudgingly turned back.

A few minutes later three police cruisers and a van arrived. They set up a road block five hundred meters down the road. There were six uniformed officers and six officers in riot gear. The first thing they did was demand that the CBC move back behind them, along with the other news teams that had arrived shortly behind the police.

“Now do you see what youve got your grandfather into?” Bill said to Jon.

“I got myself into this,” William said.

“And youll know it when one of those cops puts his knee in your back.”

Levi and Sinead watched as a police sergeant and another uniformed officer approached the fire and asked to speak to whoever represented the group. Bill began walking around the circle to meet them.

“Where you going?” Jon said to his father. “You might be a leader on site, but youre not the leader here.”

Jon marched over to meet the policemen. They spoke quietly for about ten minutes, and then Jon came back to other side of the fire. The policemen walked back to the road block.

Jon said that they were mostly concerned about the firearms, but he assured them that they no longer had any. The sergeant then told him that if they moved out of the road, and allowed the firemen to douse the fire, then there would be no charges laid. Everybody could go home.

“So?” Bill said.

“So I told him we werent going anywhere yet. Then he wanted to know how long. I told him I didnt know, and he said thats not good enough. He said if wer not out of the road in one hour theyll arrest us for being a public nuisance.” Jon turned to his grandfather. “I may have led this, but youre the elder here. Its your choice.”

William smiled. “We stay until they arrest us.”

Everyone in the circle nodded in agreement. Bill sighed.

An hour later the police did as they had promised. When they stepped into the circle of fire the flames had burned down to coal and blackened lumps of flesh. Singed maple leafs lay scattered about the ground. The people of Provider offered no resistance as plastic handcuffs were placed on their wrists and they were led to the vans.

As Jon was being led away he looked into the CBC camera and said, “There is a baby in Provider and his name is David. We stood in that circle of fire for him and all the generations that will come after him. You have not seen the last of us.”

Levi believed him.

“Phone me from the station!” Bill shouted at his son, but Jon was talking to his grandfather as they put them in the van, and didn't respond. Whatever Jon was saying, they were both laughing as the doors closed on them.

“Do you think he heard me?” Bill said to Sinead.

“Im sure he did,” she said, putting her hand on Bill's shoulder.

The firemen moved in and doused what remained of the circle of fire, soaking it in water, and raking it together, so that it was nothing but a smoldering black mound, while on the horizon the stacks of Erbacor Energy bellowed their ceaseless inferno. The tradesmen, tired and irritated, were finally able to board the buses which groaned out of the airport parking lot and brought them back to their jobs.

Bill, Sinead, and Levi drove back to camp.

“What are you going to do with them guns?” Levi asked.

“Oh boy,” Bill said. “Throw them away.”

“Rifles aint cheap.”

“No theyre not. But if I got caught trying to bring them through security Id never get a job in the oil sands again. And I got a feeling Ill be looking for employment soon anyway.”

“Why?” Sinead said. “They cant fire you for this. Just because Jon is your son.”

Bill smiled. “Any slip-up, Sinead. Any little mistake that Erbacor would normally look over, Ill be gone. Its just a matter of time now. But dont worry, theres no shortage of work in the oil sands.”

“Well, if youre going to get rid of the rifles you should do it now,” Levi said. “Before we even gets to camp.”

“Oh I am,” Bill said, and soon after they turned off on a road near a small pond. Bill and Levi got out. Levi took one of the rifles and Bill took the other two. Sinead waited in the truck while they walked down to the edge of the water. It was deceptive in that it was small but so black from depth that Levi could not even see the bottom near the shoreline.

“This is going to kill me,” Levi said, staring down at the rifle in his hands.

“Not me,” Bill said, and he threw the two rifles into the water. Levi reluctantly followed, and all three guns quickly slipped beneath the surface.

Back at camp Levi was happy to see his room. That first week it had felt like a jail cell, but now, at the end of each day, when he opened the door and collapsed onto his cot, he felt at ease. As long as a man had his own space, it didn't need to be anything special. Not that it felt like home. The hardest thing was finding a way to keep himself occupied in the evenings, especially now that him and Jon wouldn't be working with each other anymore. Because when those panic attacks set in, he knew where it would lead him. To the bottle. It was calling to him now, if only faintly, and he wasn't even feeling any anxiety. Yet.

He took out his cell phone and called Anita.

“Are you home?”

“Im home, Levi.”

“For how long?”

“I dont know. For good maybe.”

“I need you to help me. If you wont have me back…I still need you to help me.”

“Help you with what?”

“I told you about the panic attacks. Well, I started drinking more to deal with them. But I gave up drinking cold turkey, and…Im having a hard time. Can you help me? When I come home? The booze is something I understands. Its the panic attacks I dont know how to deal with.”

“I'll try. You should see a doctor though, if the attacks are that bad.”

“But you will help me?”

“I will help you.”

“Thank you.”

“Youre welcome.”

When he got off the phone Levi lit a cigarette and laid back on his cot. Could he do it? Once he got in her presence could he do and say the right things? He had never been good on the phone, but he mentally rehearsed his approach once he had her in person. He would not let the rage take over. Not this time.

His mind wandered and his eyes fell upon his steel nosed work boots sitting near the door. Despite today's commotion, tomorrow would be another work day in the oil sands. He would be up five o'clock sharp, because Erbacor Energy was Levi's employer, and they paid him well. But before he went to sleep, he thought about Jon, and prayed for him.

LEE STRINGER grew up in the outport village of Little Hearts Ease, in Newfoundland's Trinity Bay, but has been living in the nearby town of Clarenville most of his adult life. Stringer is a welder who has worked on different large scale projects from the Alberta oil sands to Labrador Iron Ore sites, and like thousands of other Newfoundlanders, commuted by plane for multiple week shift work. The vast majority of this novel was written in the late evenings in the work camps of these giant construction sites.