Blackstrap Hawco (104 page)

 

III

St. John's

Ruth Tuttle is wheeling the stroller up Long's Hill when she looks back to see a man behind her. He's the same man she's seen for the past few days or weeks. She's not exactly certain of the time frame. The trouble is she can't tell if the man is really there or not, because she thinks she might have seen him in a dream first, or once when she was half drunk downtown. Her mind is hazy and sharp at the same time, burnt out from lack of sleep. There hasn't been much rest for almost two years, since the baby was born. The place she's walking around in feels like something not exactly her life, her body just a bunch of flesh and bones she's taking up space in.

The man has blonde hair with grey in it and a rough face. Hands in his pockets, he slows down when she looks at him, his eyes dead set on hers. He's following her. Not just behind her. The energy of want coming off him, almost reaching her, like a weird touching sensation.

She pushes the stroller faster, leaning into it because the hill is sort of steep. When everything levels off up on Freshwater Road, she waits for a clear space in traffic, then crosses the street. The man behind her is a worry, and it's even worse because she's already feeling horrible after coming from the welfare office. She decided to quit her job at Leo's Take-Out to stay with Jacob. Every time she dropped him off at that daycare, she had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. He would cry and toddle after her. The women there would have to hold him back, saying reassuring words to him. They'd always try to make it look like Jacob would be okay, but they'd be restraining him all the same, holding on tightly while trying to smile her away. And every time, he would manage to get loose and be at the big window, with his hands pressed against the glass, bawling and screeching out ‘Mommy,' his little face a mess of tears. There was only so much of that she could take, her mind always going to that memory when she was dishing out orders of chips,
dressing and gravy. The smell of cooked food making her wonder what they were feeding her baby at that place. She'd rather be at home with him, playing games or reading books, than having strangers doing whatever they wanted to him. Why did everyone tell her she had to work anyway? People saying she had to get a job because she had to make something of herself. And, besides, she should take advantage of the work programs because there were plenty of daycare programs that would look after her child. The government funded those places, so the mother could go out and feel worthwhile by making money of her own. But that didn't make her feel worthwhile. It made her feel worthless.

Ruth takes another peek back when she gets to the turn for Field Street. The man is still there, coming straight toward her, steady but holding back, like he's walking through water. He's probably in his fifties. One of those guys who still wears jeans and a jean jacket. He's got a black T-shirt on underneath. Even though he's familiar, it's like there's only a part of him she recognizes. That's why she thinks of the dream. But she doesn't know if it's because of his face or the way he dresses.

She turns around the corner and walks up Field Street, hurrying for the row house where she's renting the bottom floor. One of the stroller wheels gets caught on a rock and she has to stop to kick it loose.

‘Ruth.'

She's right outside her door now, her name echoing in her head, but she won't look back. Just because the man knows her name doesn't mean he knows her. In fact, because he knows her name it might mean that he's dangerous. Not knowing her, but knowing her name. That means he knows something about her, went out of his way to find it without her having any idea what he was up to. She checks Jacob, sees that he's sleeping, and digs in the pocket of her tight jeans for her key. There are a few guys in their twenties up the road. Drug dealers, she knows, but they're okay. They'll help her out if this guy gives her any trouble.

She senses the man drifting nearer, and has to stop the little movement of her head trying to look back because she feels that he's stopped about ten feet away.

The man's voice quieter now, ‘Ruth?'

‘Yeah?' she asks, finally giving in to curiosity and turning to see him. ‘What?'

‘Ruth Hawco?'

‘No.' She lowers her eyes.

‘Ruth.' The man watches her, then moves his gaze to the stroller. He can't see the baby from where he's standing. His voice even quieter now, ‘Ruth.'

‘I said “no.” I'm no Ruth.' Her eyes with the gleam of a threat in them, she stares the man down. But the man seems so familiar that she feels sad, wrong, misplaced. It's not like she knows him from seeing him around. It's more than that. The way she gradually recognizes him is doing something to every part of her body. Excited and scared and loving and hating…She thinks she recognizes him from TV. Someone she saw on TV before, but not famous, not like an actor or anything. It's so confusing to try and remember that her heartbeat speeds up and she starts sweating. The man is like a blind spot in her eyes, scaring her, filling her with panic.

An arguing boy and a girl slapping at each other in the street come over to look at Jacob. The boy smacks the girl hard on the top of her head and runs off.

‘Oww,' says the girl, ‘you frigger,' shouting after the boy who calls out: ‘Ahhhh-ha-ha,' and joins the drug dealers, bumming a smoke off the oldest one stood there like a statue.

The tough girl whispers sweet things to the baby, the way her body moves turning soft as butter. ‘He's sleep'n,' she says, smiling so kindly and natural that every bit of harshness is erased from her.

Ruth gives the girl a bit of a smile, then checks for the man, because she thinks he might have left, the vacancy there in the corners of her eyes.

‘Who're you?' she snaps, finally seeing him, even closer now and more disturbing in daylight than in darkness.

The man does not seem to know what to say. He gives his head a forgetful shake and looks down the length of the street where someone has just smashed a bottle.

Ruth sees the marks on his face. The button-shaped scar on his cheek. The other welts and scrapes. The lines along his throat.

The tough girl looks up at the man, then at Ruth, her face confused and changing.

‘These are for you.' The man pulls a bunch of small envelopes out of his jacket pocket. They're held together by an elastic band, resting there in his opened palm.

Ruth sees the name Annie Gull written on the front of one of the envelopes. There's an old stamp on it. A picture of a king on the stamp. Up in the return address is the name Amanda Duncan. The envelope reminds her of the cover of a book she once read. It was a book from the library and it was about life in Newfoundland ages ago. The way women and men used to live. The work they did. Never a moment's rest in that world. But they were happy, content to be together, she suspects.

The man steps toward her, making a move like a nudge in the air for her to take the bunch of envelopes.

‘Please,' he says.

‘What's that?'

‘Letters.'

‘From who?'

He doesn't seem to have the courage to answer, but soon says, ‘It's important. About your great-grandmother.'

The tough girl makes a quiet noise, a sound resembling distress. She rubs her hands in her jeans and squints in wonder, straightens from where she's crouched by the baby.

Ruth looks at the girl, and the girl checks the blank space in front of Ruth. ‘Who ya talk'n to?'

Ruth stares back at the envelopes.

A photograph in the man's hand.

Not envelopes, but a photograph of the man.

Again, there is movement in the corners of her eyes. This time, to the other side. Jacob has woken. The girl too near him, drawing him from sleep, because the girl's voice is unknown to Jacob.

‘I'm not taking that,' she says.

‘It's from me,' says the man, his voice so low, with a hint of hurt in it. Pained. Because he is almost feeling.

Junior's voice.

His.

Ruth's.

‘You alright?' asks the tough girl, pawing some hair away from her face.

‘What?' Ruth asks the girl, the question only now sinking in. ‘Yes.' She looks back at the man.

What man ever? Who?

The man stood there.

‘Can I pick him up?' the girl wants to know.

‘Sure.' Ruth sees only the man's face, thinking she might know who it is for certain now, the man on television who killed someone. It
is
him. The man who died. Was it in the water or in prison? A hero, a killer, then dead himself. How? She cannot recall exactly. If he is dead at all, if he is here. How can he be? She does not want to know. One way or the other.

Not a father. Not another father.

The real one maybe worse than the other.

Maybe the one she wanted all along.

The truer pain of that.

The photograph now in her hand.

She drops it in the white plastic bag with her carton of milk and her novel that smells old from the second-hand store. The photograph discovered in the book when she bought it earlier that day.

The man takes another step closer, his eyes shut, facing the baby in the tough girl's arms.

Ruth watches his eyes open, staring at the baby, but watching into her, while she remembers something else from television, how the man went out in a boat and did battle with big fishing boats. Draggers, she remembers they were called, the ones that were tearing up the ocean bottom, destroying every bit of life down there. She had learned that in school. Social studies. He was a hero, but then he was some sort of criminal. Nothing to her that she remembers. So, why does she feel?

Thinking this, she begins to cry. What has he ever done for her?

‘Hey?' asks the tough girl. ‘Jeeze, you okay?'

The man squats next to the baby in the tough girl's arms. Then he looks up at Ruth, his eyes that pretty cool blue, just like Jacob's.

The baby watching her.

She shakes her head to never know him, sniffs, and wipes at her eyes.

‘What's his name?' asks the man.

 

 

Acknowledgements

Numerous individuals and publications aided the author over the fifteen years required to collect, research and transcribe the various life experiences and periods depicted in this book. The sources are too extensive to list.

The journal entries of Bishop Flax (contained in these pages) are based on the actual journals of Bishop Wix and Bishop Field (the Bishop of Newfoundland). They are interwoven with complete sections reprinted verbatim and interspersed with the author's own intentions to create a single voice of no exact religious affiliation.

The renowned and actual Bishop Flax, who hailed from Limerick, Ireland, and is a distant relative of the author, is not the one represented here. Only his name has been used for the sake of highlighting lineage.

The journal entries of Flax are not meant to reflect truth nor are they intended to ape or, subsequently, diminish the fine character of either Wix or Field, who remain two stellar gentlemen.

The stories contained within this book have been transcribed from recordings of stories told to the author by people throughout Newfoundland. They were collected and then transcomposed to create the life of one family – the Lamblys/Hawcos.

This procedure of melding the written words of true-to-life individuals, to create a single voice, mimics the style of the transcomposite narrative which was first introduced by the Newfoundland writer Kenneth J. Harvey in his novel
Skin Hound
(The Mercury Press, 2000).

In the spirit of the transcomposite narrative, various descriptions in this book have been taken (word for word) from short stories previously published by the author of this work. All of this to finger the notion that fiction is the braggart whore's child, fathered by a burglar with an insatiable itch for stolen facts.

While the author's short stories, when originally published, were exclusively in the domain of fiction, by copying them from a book that now exists in reality and in the past, they become more a consequence of
fact, as the passages have been lifted from an actual book that exists on its own and in the actual or non-fictive world as a concrete product. These once fictional sections then, reused, might now be labelled non-fiction, as might a large chunk of the material in this project.

The letters written by Amanda Duncan to Annie Gull are those written (with alterations) by Lady Hope Simpson in
White Tie and Decorations
(University of Toronto Press, 1996), its author, Peter Neary, being the author's first cousin (once removed). Lady Hope Simpson, too, is a relative of the author, although farther removed.

The newspaper article detailing the death of Junior Hawco is reprinted with permission of the
Toronto Star
. Although it details an actual event, the article, once copied in this book, becomes an incident of supposed fabrication, thus erasing it from the confines of reality and reinstating Junior Hawco's fictional life.

The words spoken by the man on the soapbox at the hanging of Mary Snow were lifted, practically word for word, from a newspaper commentary printed in the
Royal Gazette and Newfoundland Advertiser
. Only one word has been changed, where the author substituted ‘ideal' for ‘exemplary.'

Patrick Lambly/Hawco's poems, while partially the design of the author, have lines inserted here and there, where fitting, from the long-dead master poets of Ireland along with snippets from Patrick Lambly/Hawco's writings which were discovered in original documents collected at the Centre for Newfoundland Studies at Memorial University.

Within the book, there is a plethora of such transcomposite meldings. To describe each one would mean to impinge unnecessarily upon the reader's time and thus tax his or her patience.

A slew of academics and scholars aided the author in the re-creation of various periods and settings. They will remain unnamed, as the author does not wish to embarrass them by misrepresenting a lifetime of facts collected and provided. The author hopes they will forgive him for mending the truth to suit his needs.

The above method of writing has been employed so that, as the years rise toward the actual year (2042) when the author is committing these words to paper, more and more of what has been recorded in this book
will align with plausibility. In fact, there is only one day in which the underlying premise of this book becomes sound – January 22, 2042. On any other day, this book simply is not.

 

Jacob Hawco IV

New Bareneed

January 22, 2042