The Second Son (26 page)

Of course, I was the totally ignorant one. That’s the only reason I found the whole thing so funny. My brother knew what Paddy wanted. And he wasn’t laughing. He was standing there with a look on his face like someone had pissed in his mouth. “That’s a sin, you know. A mortal sin,” he finally got out.

“Whaaat? Everything’s a sin with you.” He was always spoiling my fun with that crap about sin. I turned my back on him and finally started emptying my bladder against the cement wall, listening to what went on behind me.

“Maybe what you did isn’t,” Andrew said. “But what Paddy was doing is a sin, and he knows it.”

“Fuck off, Landry,” Paddy snarled. “It’s none o’ your fuckin’ business.”

I should have realized Paddy was in with some bad people. Back in the fifties you didn’t hear that language from grade school kids. Not in our school, anyway. Andrew was no match for him, “You’re a pig, Dolan. Go on home.”

“Fuck you, ya big suckhole,
you
go home.”

By the time I finished peeing and zipped up, Paddy had a rock in his hand and was threatening Andrew. I suppose he was a bit like me. That talk about sin really ticked him off. I came up behind him and grabbed his arm, “Cut it out, Dolan. It was just a joke.” I twisted his wrist and made him drop the rock. “You wanna fight, use your fists.”

“Fuck you too, ya big prick.” He tried a few swings at me. They weren’t hard to block. Paddy had an awful mouth, but he was never much of a fighter.

I suppose by that time, with my brother’s talk about sin and Paddy’s reaction to it, I was beginning to understand what Paddy had done must have something to do with sex. At the same time as I was repelled by the idea, I was starting to feel sorry for him. But unlike my brother, I still saw it more as a joke. I tried to tell Paddy that. “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t have done it. I thought you were joking, that’s all. I mean, what did you think was going to happen?” I couldn’t help it. The grin kept coming back. “I promise not to do it again.” I laughed some more.

“Fuck you, Landry,” Paddy spit out one last time as he started to leave. “Everybody knows what your old man did.”

Andrew took a few steps toward him and yelled, “You shaddap, Dolan, or I’ll . . .”

Paddy ignored him and kept going. When he got up to the road he turned back one last time and yelled, “And don’t fuckin’ ask me for any more fuckin’ cigarettes, ya fuckin’ freeloaders.” Poor Paddy; at least he had a way with words.

So I knew, when my mother asked Andrew that day, how he’d feel about walking in on Gail in her underwear. “I guess I’d be embarrassed,” he finally answered.

“I should hope you would be,” she asserted. “And maybe you had better start knocking before you go in. And waiting for someone to answer.”

“It doesn’t matter. She says I have to call her before I go over, on the phone.”

My mother sounded puzzled at first. “But you only live across . . .” Then she seemed to figure something out. “Well, you have been spending a lot of time together. Maybe it’s a good idea to let things cool down a little. Both of you are much too young to be going steady. Isn’t that what you call it?”

“Yes, but — ”

“There was none of that when I was your age. When we went out, it was always with a group of friends. You never went out with just one boy. Your father was the first person I went steady with, and I was much older than you are.”

“But that was in the horse and buggy days. It’s different now that — ”

My mother laughed. “Thank you very much, Andrew Landry. That’s how my mother was courted, not me. Your father had a brandnew car.”

“Aw, Mom, she’s trying to drop me, I can tell. She thinks we aren’t good enough for her anymore, now that — ”

“Don’t be silly. You know, now that I think of it, her mother did mention last week that Gail’s marks have dropped this year. Maybe that’s why she thinks — ”

“That’s not it. She just doesn’t want to be seen with me any more. I can tell.”

“Andrew, Andrew, don’t be silly. Sometimes I think you’ve grown up too quickly. You’re only fourteen. You should be out having fun with other kids, playing sports, not spending all your time with one girl. You’re much too young to be so serious about one girl.”

I smiled when I heard that one. I couldn’t remember how many times she had given me hell for not acting more grown-up, like Andrew. I wonder now if she knew how pissed off Andrew was about us losing the store and having our old man working as a day labourer for Mr. Watson. I wonder if she really understood how hard he was taking it, that Gail MacDonald was dumping him.

She didn’t seem to take it too seriously when he told her, “I’m not stupid, Mom. She keeps making comments about Dad. Asking if he gets paid much, if he likes his new job. I knew this would happen, I knew it.”

“Oh, that’s just idle talk. I’m sure she doesn’t mean anything by it. Your father’s making an honest living, supporting his family. There’s no shame in that.”

“I didn’t say I was ashamed,” he blurted out pretty fast. He was lying. Just the week before he had been complaining bitterly about Dad making him go door to door, asking people if they wanted their lawns cut that summer. He wasn’t afraid to complain to me. He knew there was no one I could tell.

I often wondered what would have happened if I had tried to tell my mother how bad Andrew was feeling, how poorly he was coping with our reduced status. Would she have listened to me? Would she have accepted for even a second that her perfect son wasn’t nearly as grown-up as he pretended to be, that he needed more than the occasional pep talk to handle the change in our fortunes? I never found out. Any chance of that happening was soon overwhelmed by my own problems with the Landrys’ new reality.

MY FATHER FELL OFF THE WAGON
on Easter Sunday. Uncle Angus was home from the North and we were up at the farm. Aunt Sissy and Uncle Roddy had gotten married the summer before and bought the place from Grandma Bessie, who had moved into town. That’s why Uncle Angus was there, on the farm. Naturally my father had a hard time turning down a drink with Uncle Angus. The two of them had killed many a forty-ouncer over the years and it was a tradition that had to be upheld. For the family honour, at least. A Landry couldn’t let a MacRae outdrink him, now could he?

The old man must have gotten wound up pretty tight, working for Mr. Watson. He was already three sheets to the wind by suppertime. I could see he was working himself into a foul mood, at about the same rate as the two of them were working through the rye. Uncle Roddy only had a nip or two. He was more the type to sit back and watch the action.

Not long after supper, my father got onto the subject of his new job . . . and his new boss. It seemed he was beginning to wonder if his old friend might be enjoying himself a little too much, having a former prominent businessman as his general helper and “shit shoveller.” It wasn’t something I wanted to hear. I gave Andrew the eye and nodded toward the back door. He shook his head. He wanted to stay.

I shrugged and made my way outside. I had snagged a couple from Aunt Sissy’s pack — it was sitting on the sideboard — and was anxious for a smoke. That Easter weekend was a warm one, and it was nice out there on the porch, alone in the fading light. I felt safe, thinking the old man would be busy for a while, educating my uncles on the furnace business. I don’t know what happened back in the house. Perhaps they weren’t paying him close enough attention, or maybe he just headed outside to take a leak in the bushes. Or maybe Andrew saw me pinch the cigarettes. Whatever it was, the old man came around the corner with Andrew a few steps behind, and caught me halfway through my first one. I was helpless, sitting there with my legs hanging over the edge and him on the grass with his fist in my face.

“Aha,” he yelled as he grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me to my feet. I had grown a lot in the last year and was almost as tall as he was, except I knew he could break me in two any time he wanted. He had seventy pounds on me, along with years of throwing crates and boxes of groceries around. “So,” he yelled some more, “you didn’t learn your lesson, did you?” He grabbed the cigarette from my mouth and threw it on the ground, then slammed me back down. “You stay right there,” he snarled as he fished his pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He took out a whole side and put the rest back in his pocket. “You like these things?” He reached down and wrapped one of his big hands around my lower jaw. I tried to twist my head away but he was too strong. And too angry. I could see Andrew in the corner of my eye, backing away in fear.

The old man squeezed hard and forced my mouth open. “Here’s some,” he said as he shoved the handful of cigarettes into my mouth.

“Mmmuumm,” I tried to protest, to yell out, hoping someone would come out and stop him. No such luck. I couldn’t make much noise, not with a mouthful of cigarettes.

When I tried spitting them out he just clamped the other hand over my mouth and yelled at me, “Eat ’em, goddammit! You want them so bad, eat ’em.”

I stared up at him, wide-eyed with fear, my senses assaulted by the mouthful of mushy tobacco and the stink of fuel oil on his sandpaper hands. I knew I was finally paying for the fire. I chewed, even as I hoped for a reprieve. I could see it wasn’t going to be Andrew who saved me. He just stood there, staring at us, not even smart enough to go and get my mother. For some reason I started thinking about Paddy Dolan and felt shame for what I had done to him.

Then my father squeezed my face harder and said, “Swallow them, boy. Have a real good feed.”

I finally accepted there was no help to be had and gulped them down. To this day I don’t know what he thought he was doing. He said afterwards that he was trying to make me quit smoking. I’ve never believed that. He was drunk and he was pissed off at the world and I was one of the few people he could still exert power over — so he did. He made me swallow every last one of those cigarettes.

“There,” he said as he balled up the tinfoil and jammed it in my shirt pocket, “think about that before you light up your next one. And I won’t even ask you where you got them. I know you’re too lazy to work for the money.” He started to leave, then stopped to hurl one final threat, “First thing next week you’ll get that goddamned hair cut. You understand?”

I had no answer for him. I didn’t know he could be that hard, not until that night. All I wanted now was to hold the tears back. I could have told him lots of things, like I’d looked for a job and couldn’t find one, like I didn’t deserve to be treated like that because of one accident with a cigarette, like I was only trying to help the family, like I’d be leaving home the first chance I got. Then they’d be sorry, all of them. I wanted to tell him all those things and more, but I didn’t. Or couldn’t. My heart was exploding, yet when I opened my mouth nothing came out. All I could do was slink around the back of the granary and pound my fist against the wall while I tried to barf up the cigarettes.

I was hiding in the back seat of the car by the time the three of them came out to go home. I guess Andrew had told my mother what happened. After she asked me if I was all right and got a noncommittal grunt in reply, she started giving the old man hell. “You’ll be the one cleaning up after him if he gets sick during the night, I promise you that.”

“Aw, he’s all right,” he answered, trying to make light of it. Maybe he had sobered up on some of Aunt Sissy’s coffee. “I was just teaching him a lesson, that’s all. He’s too damn young to be smoking.”

“Some lesson. You’d have looked cute if he’d choked on all those cigarettes. Andrew said you shoved half a pack in his mouth. What were you thinking?”

Hoping he wouldn’t tell her what he was thinking, I found myself grateful for small favours when he turned his head and shot Andrew a dirty look. “It wasn’t that many. Besides, he’s tough, he can take it.” Then he looked back at me, “He’s the tough guy in the family. Right, Mike?”

I knew my father well enough to know this was his version of an apology. I didn’t answer him — wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. And we never discussed it again, although I’m damn sure he thought about it often in the years to come. I made sure of that, later that night.

I lay awake for hours it seemed like, burning with rage, or maybe nicotine poisoning. I hatched a hundred different plots in my head, until I finally resolved to act on one. I slipped on my clothes and crept down to the basement, where I took the twenty-two down from the rafters. I suppose if I had been totally serious I would have chosen the deer rifle that lay next to it. I found the ammunition under the workbench and loaded the gun. It was a bolt action, single shot. I would have to pick my target, I remember thinking. I must have been down there a good half-hour, sitting on the stool with the gun in my hands, thinking evil thoughts and working up my nerve, when I heard a noise. I looked up to see him in the doorway, silhouetted against the hall light.

“What the hell are you doing down here?” he whispered. He didn’t look so tough, standing there in his underwear. He looked like he did after that first day of furnace work. My hands tightened on the gun and I asked myself if I was ready. No answer came as I watched him move a few steps into the room. Whether my mind was frozen with fear or paralyzed with hate, I have no idea.

He gasped when he saw the gun and I started to swing the barrel around in front of me, probably just a nervous reflex. Then he did something smart — he was no fool, my old man. He stepped quickly, right up in front of me, less than the gun’s length away. “Jesus Christ,” he blurted, what are you doing with that thing?”

“Loading it,” I answered in a low monotone, feeling more and more like I was in some kind of trance, not sure if I still wanted to kill him, yet not prepared to back down, thinking about the cigarettes.

My silent stare got to him. “Jesus Christ, are you crazy? Things can’t be that bad. A little fight with your father. You’re tougher than that, aren’t you?” I have never been sure what he thought that night, whether he thought I had loaded the gun for him, or for myself. At the time I thought it was obvious. I realized later that it might not have been so clear, given what he said next, “Mike, life is never as hopeless as you think it is. That’s what I’ve learned since the fire. People are never as bad as you think they are, not deep down.” He reached out and put a hand on the barrel. “You don’t really want to use that, son. You’re just pissed off at the world right now, that’s all.”