Blackstrap Hawco (14 page)

‘Well, I was hoping to take the journal—'

Jacob slapped Bill Riche on the back, this time a little harder than before so that the wind was almost knocked out of him. ‘Dun't be so foolish now. G'way widt ya.'

Hearing a sound of movement, Jacob turned to see Blackstrap step from the kitchen doorway and head for the door that led to the back porch. Blackstrap opened it and went out. A second later, he passed by the kitchen window, no doubt going to move the pickup truck so that Bill Riche might drive away in his yellow VW Bug. The sooner, the better.

In a fuss of confusion, Bill Riche bent to gather his woollen purse. Hurriedly, he hooked it over his shoulder as Jacob edged him toward the door.

‘When can I come back then?' Riche asked in desperation.

The sound of the young feller's voice was beginning to irk Jacob. He thought of grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and heaving him through the doorway. A stranger in a man's house, thinking he had some right to be there with his busybody questions.

‘Why not give us a call. Dat'd be lovely.' Jacob had Bill Riche in the back porch now, his hand on the young feller's arm, guiding him out.

‘When?'

‘Any old time ye likes, b'y. Give us a call. By da way, how ye plan on voting in the election?' The back door opened and out they went.

‘I don't usually vote, as a protest.'

‘Ah, good fer ye.' Not a speck of sense in his head, Jacob thought. The poor lost soul. ‘Back ta Sin-Jon's widt ye den. Where ye can 'av a nice long think about it all.' Like a wet noodle, Jacob told himself, dat shit-soft townie.

 

‘Mom?'

‘Yes,' said Emily, groggily. ‘Who's out there, Blacky?'

‘A fellow from the university.' Blackstrap always tried his best to speak plainly when around his mother. She had heard him talking on the telephone and around his friends, in the dialect more like his father's. She recalled telling him how Junior used to speak, with a pure voice, perfect grammar, his words always clear. She was proud of that. But,
now, she wondered if she had done the right thing, comparing the two of them.

‘Why's he here?'

‘He found a diary.'

‘What?' she asked quietly and moved a little in her bed.

‘A diary.'

‘From who?' Emily shifted more, leaned up hopefully on one elbow, as though willing to come awake. ‘Who wrote it?'

‘This guy says it belonged to Dad's father.'

‘What?' She squinted at him, unable to get a clear view in the dim room. The drapes were pulled, masking the daylight. Morning or night, the drapes remained the same. ‘Come in. I can't understand what you're saying.'

Blackstrap stepped across the threshold. She heard him taking a breath, pausing. With the fresh air flowing in from the hallway, she got the sense of the smell in her room. Dust and medication. Menthol. A sourness.

‘From when?' she asked, almost with regret. ‘You have it?'

‘Yes.' He held it up. ‘It says he lived off shipwrecks. He didn't freeze on the ice at all. He survived.'

‘Let me see it.' Her hand came out from under the covers.

‘It's old.'

‘Here,' she said, her fingers stretching toward it, her face not so much worried now as interested. She leaned her body a little. ‘Let me see.' She reached for the light on her night table. Her thumb and forefinger slowly turned the switch stem until it clicked. Low, yellow light filled the room. It took a while to sit up and arrange the pillows right behind her. She still felt weak, the strength gone out of her since the overdose.

In her hand, she held the journal, knowing that it had been found, saved, knowing that it had endured. There was a warmth in the leather, a subtleness. The pages were delicate. She turned them and studied the words, written in ink by a nib. Already, for reasons unknown to her, there were tears in her eyes. It was too much for her to take. The words of a life in her hands. She blinked and tears flooded loose, streaming down her cheeks. She sniffed and wiped at her nose. Soon, she was sobbing uncontrollably. She shook her head, trying to dam the tears. In
her eyes, the words were a mess, although she could still make out the flow of the script. It was beautiful. Words from the hand of a dead man who lived off of shipwrecks. Her chest bucked with greater sobs, her hands trembled. Wondering why she was reacting that way, she took a breath and laid the diary on her lap, reached for a tissue. Blackstrap was there for her, taking the tissue from the box and handing it over.

‘That's okay,' she said, her mouth a grimace while she wiped at her eyes. She looked up at Blackstrap. What was he seeing of her? ‘It's okay.' She balled up the tissue in her fist and regarded the journal. ‘Don't worry.' Her hand over the page. Her sobs became shorter. She held them in and they rocked her body until she opened her mouth and shut her eyes, shut the book cover and placed her palms against it. What did she want to see? She wondered. What did she want to see in her head? There was nothing, only blackness. She would not imagine. But then she saw the dead man stood on that desolate coast. The masts of submerged ships poking out from the water. Hundreds of them practically blocking the view of him.

A minute later, to the sound of Blackstrap's voice, ‘Mom,' she opened her eyes and saw him.

‘It's okay,' she said. ‘I'm just going to read this.'

Blackstrap stood in wait.

‘Thanks for bringing it to me.'

Blackstrap nodded. ‘You want anything?'

She shook her head, carefully opened the book to its front endpapers. Written there in script: The Marooned Adventures of Francis Hawco Who Will Perish on This Day or, Perhaps, the Next.

Emily heard the click of her door shutting, then she turned the page:

 

The month of May, 1919.

It is my assumption that one day this diary might be found. I am remiss to report that I have had to cleave off my left hand and three of the toes on my right foot. Fire irons were utilized to staunch the flow of blood. The operation would not have been possible had I not witnessed a similar procedure aboard the SS
Newfoundland
three years prior, for that procedure had been burned into my memory, as though by those very fire irons. How I managed to remain conscious is a mystery. There was
a great quantity of perspiration and pain like a bodily fit or seizure. During the amputation, I found myself speaking as though to another person. ‘You'll be fine, yes,' I said. ‘The pain will only be pain. Endurable.' The toes I did first, tiny little fobs with barely a bone in them, knowing that the hand would be a greater chore, one that would leave me with fever. It is only now, three weeks after the ordeal, that I have resurfaced from the hallucinations, from under the scowls and leers of the faces that have come to visit me in my delirium, to question my very existence and how I found myself upon this watery land which appears to be a living museum to shipwrecks.

The ice is large in my memory, a vast field of white like unconsciousness itself, looming and plaguing my sense of self. Lost as I was in my hunt for seals, I recall losing sensation in my limbs. The ice chill working its way through my toes, feet and shins. My arms like stubs, for that was all that seemed to remain of warm, blood-flowing flesh when I felt a shuddering in the ice beneath my feet and suspected it might be a whale about to smash through the ice at any moment. I shifted in various directions, all the while surveying the ice for signs of cracking. Finally, I stared in the direction I assumed to be east and saw, through the grey blizzard, the masts of a ship. A ship that was not under steam. A ship that was silent and languidly moving as though adrift. At first, I believed it to be a trick played upon me by the weariness in my head. I assumed that I was so near to perishing that whatever I witnessed now would be mere fabrication, a peek into the world of all possibility where I was soon to exist eternally.

How I made my way toward the steamer is unknown to me. I had no sensation in my legs and so the drift forward was just that, a hovering and nearing until I could discern the fullness of the ship. It darkened morosely and became distinct. The large pans of ice that the bow was cutting through were loose enough to be penetrated. The ice was piled to either side of the vessel in ridges. As I came alongside it and drifted sideways to follow its gradual movement, I peeked to my right to see that – beyond a final ice ridge – open water was worrisomely ahead. Intuitively, I scrambled toward the ridge, trying to climb and grip the edges of the ice pans that had been tossed into small hills by the cut of the vessel, yet my hands were useless and I could manage nothing. The
bow of the vessel was now in open water and the hull would soon pass. I tried shouting, but there were no men present on the deck. This realization struck me and I almost lost my feeble grip and gave up, tumbled toward the pans six feet beneath me. Not a man on deck. A cursed ship.

Casting aside the shudder of superstition, I leaned into the ice and attempted to roll to the top of the ridge. I had lost sensation in my hands and so my fingers were entirely useless, unable to grip. I pushed with what muscle remained in my legs and hopped upward, bending at the waist and rolling onto the top of the ridge. The vessel was scraping against the ice and I practically lost my footing. If I did not jump at that exact moment the ship would be beyond, and my chances of escape forever lost. Yet I knew that if I threw myself toward the vessel, I would be unable to grip hold of any stick of wood. It would have to be a descent onto my side. The rear of the vessel was close. I threw myself and struck the railing and plummeted, not landing as anticipated. Regardless, I had made it. Winded, I remained on my back for several moments and stared up at the masts, then I shifted my eyes along the deck. Where were the hands? Not a soul was present. I could not help but wonder if I – by delivering myself here – had saved myself or rather thrust my being into an even more perilous situation. What plague had taken this ship? What ambush awaited me?

 

(September)

The television screen showed masked men in tracksuits. One of them was holding a machine gun out a window. It was not a clear picture, which made the image even more frightening.

The announcer said: ‘Five Arab terrorists, dressed in track sweat suits to disguise themselves as athletes, had climbed the fence surrounding the Olympic Village. The men have been identified as belonging to a PLO faction called Black September. Their demands: Israel must release two hundred Arab prisoners. The terrorists have also demanded that they be given safe passage out of Germany. Otherwise, they claim that the nine Israeli hostages will be killed.'

‘Savages,' Jacob muttered. ‘Worse den dose black Protestants.' A few seconds later, he recalled that he was a Catholic and was shaken by the
realization that he had forgotten, that he was looking at the situation as an outsider.

He reached for his bottle of beer. Taking a drink, his eyes went to the living room window. He could see the sky. Stars. A clear summer night. A nice night for a run in his pickup, to check up on the community, but his favourite program was coming on in a few minutes, right after the late world news. He looked at the side table by his chair and saw the plate of supper sent down from Rosalyn Shears. Cod tongues and fries made in a cooker. A good shake of salt over the works. He was a little parched. He finished off his beer and set the bottle at rest. The news was almost done. He got up for another beer, went to the fridge in the kitchen, took out a bottle and popped the cap off with the opener. Satisfied, he returned to his chair and noticed his stomach. He held it with both hands, squeezing. ‘A bit of a gut on me,' he said. ‘Right prosperous, I am.'

 

Emily Hawco saw the flicker on her way from her bedroom to the bathroom. She shut the door and stood before the mirror, tried to avoid her eyes, the too-familiar outline of her face. The sound of the television was indistinct, although the occasional word came through. She heard a clang, metal against metal, and looked out the bathroom window at the front yard. Blackstrap had a light run out by extension cord and was under a car, its front wheels up on a ramp. Emily wondered about stability. She imagined what might happen if the ramp gave way or the car slipped its gear and reversed. What might be crushed in Blackstrap?

There were three other cars lined up on the road. All of them in need of repair.

Emily watched Blackstrap slide out from under the front of the car. He stood and stared at the shut bonnet. He did not move for a while but he was breathing heavily. There was mist coming from his nostrils. He scratched his forehead, scratched the back of his head. Then stared off across the dark land.

Her son. The most complicated man she had ever known. Filled with the need to prove himself. But to who? And why?

The journal she had been reading, written by Francis Hawco, contained many facts she did not know, facts that Jacob and Blackstrap
did not know. Secrets. But how sane was Francis Hawco? How much damage was done to him out in the icy wilderness and then alone all those years? How believable were his stories? How true? And why didn't he leave? Why did he continue to stay on that shore when he might have left at any time? Been rescued by the ships that passed, the ships that knew he was there. The ships he traded shipwrecked goods with. Why did he remain there in that shack, living through his days and nights to bury the dead who washed ashore?

Reading the words had elicited such peculiar feelings in her. It were as though the voice she had been hearing was a combination of Blackstrap's and Junior's. Both of her boys. Francis alone with himself on that shore. Exiled. Like Junior, the fact that he was so different, and Blackstrap alone, too, always alone, never belonging, never wanting to belong, but believing he belonged to this shelterless place. Believing that the most important thing was to be a Newfoundlander, against all the odds.