Blackstrap Hawco (51 page)

 

voices through the hollowed earth, the muddled sound at night, dead miners dreamt, faces red with dust, solemn tearless eyes aglow, in darkness, the harmony boomed beneath the atlantic, through the ragged shafts of shut mines, number 4, number 3, and soon number 2, the iron ore tankers sunk, resting in sediment, hulls torpedoed by nazi sub-marines, rusted like iron ore dust that the ghosts toiled among,

miners sang steadily for junior hawco, an echo through the underground chambers, the resonant, iron-tainted harmony, a dull nocturnal heartbeat, slow as cold molasses,

 

we'll rant and we'll roar,

like true newfoundlanders

we'll rant and we'll roar

on deck and below

until we hear rumbles

inside the mine tunnels

when straight through the rock wall

to water we'll go

 

shab reardon's drunk doe-eyed gaze searched the face of the girl-child sat upon his lap in tousled embrace,

‘be t'ankful,' said he, giving nil a big hug and bouncing her on his knee, ‘roof o'er yer head, food on da table, a family ta look after ya,' he checked off toward the open door of the bedroom, gertie seated on the bed with the smiling baby boy, while shab took a draw from the cigarette held between his fingers, he mussed up the girl-child's hair and pecked her on the cheek,

‘give's a smile,' he said, searching nil's face for expressions of love,

the girl-child smiled for him,

he tickled and then hugged her again until she giggled and hugged in return,

‘ye be t'ankful,' said he, ‘ 'member dat, always be t'ankful fer what ya got in dis sorry existence,' and in the centre of his mind, the thought of another man's death relieving him,

 

My grandfather, Blackstrap Hawco, failed in his first stab at murdering Isaac Tuttle. His unsuccessful attempt to enter the Waterford Hospital in St. John's occurred three days before visiting his ex-wife and son and daughter in Heart's Content. Although Blackstrap's initial murderous exploit did not come to fruition, he tried again three weeks later, his frustration mounting by incidents described below.

1989-1994

(September, 1989)

There are boats on the screen. They sail out into the night toward some impending danger. Jacob can tell by the music that something is going to happen. He can tell by the strings of the violins. The low rumble of the bass drum. Tension and fear. The boats continue to sail out. They disappear until there is nothing but blackness.

Jacob waits.

‘Why are you crying?' Emily asks.

Jacob opens his eyes. ‘It's Blackstrap,' he says. ‘It's on da TV. What he done. A miracle.'

‘Shhh,' says Emily, cradling Jacob's head. ‘Shush-shush, my darling, you know that's not real.'

And his sorry eyes staring up at the memorable blank of her.

 

(July, 1992)

Jacob is on the Bareneed wharf. He knows where Blackstrap will tie up. The place for Blackstrap's boat. There is such a large crowd on the wharf. He can barely find a place. But then the crowd recognizes him. They make a path to allow him a view. Right up front. Blackstrap Hawco's father. The crowd mutters. Hands are on his shoulders. Squeezing his arm. A few applaud him. Your son, the hero, they say. It doesn't take long for the people with cameras to catch on. They ask him questions about Blackstrap. Questions that he cannot answer.

The boats are larger dots now. Sailing from the horizon. Recognizable. Seven minutes away. The crowd begins to applaud and cheer. A roar goes up. A roar to the heavens.

‘Did he mention anything to you?' asks one reporter.

‘Mr. Hawco, what do you think of your son?' another wants to know. ‘How does a father feel when something like…'

He sees his son in the lead of the boats. Only a few minutes up the bay. He swipes the tears away. The backs of his hairy hands doing the job. He keeps swiping them clear of his eyes. He hasn't cried like this since he was a teenager.

‘Why do you think no one has undertaken this sort of action until now?'

‘Do you think this will affect government policy on…'

‘The cops are here,' says someone.

Jacob looks over his shoulder. Four RCMP officers at the back of the crowd. And more coming in cars. He faces the water. The scent of the ocean being pushed forward.
Bareneed's Pride II
glides alongside the wharf. Wood skimming against wood. A perfect docking. And the other boats soon find their places. When Blackstrap comes out of the wheelhouse. The cheering and whistling hurts Jacob's ears. Blackstrap tosses the rope to his father. Jacob catches it. Ties it around the gump.

‘Get dem inta da fish plant,' Jacob shouts above the racket on the wharf. Pointing and nodding at the Portuguese stood on deck. ‘Just the right size fer splitting 'n salting. Da smaller ones we'll feed ta da dogs o'er da winter.'

Jacob offers his hand and Blackstrap takes it. Up he rises. Looking the same as ever. His feet on the wharf. Everyone leaning near. Wanting to shake his hand. Pat him. Touch him. He doesn't like much of it. Uncomfortable in the centre of everything.

Then there are cameras and tape recorders in his face. Blackstrap watches his father's eyes. And his own eyes glaze over. Not having any of that.

‘Christ,' says Jacob, pawing away his tears. ‘Ye've turned me inta da worst sort o' crybaby.'

 

(December, 1992)

A quick journey at Blackstrap's speed. The drive from Cutland Junction across the slushy Trans Canada Highway. Down through the rolling pastures and shacks of Shearstown Line. And into Heart's Content. In
less than an hour he is there. But first he must pass through Sculpin Cove that has no cove. Nor ever did. Then Broke-up Beach. Jagged as a mess of exploded rocks. The road running close to the Atlantic. The loose greyish-green ice at his right. Glowing blueness beyond. A blinding winter sun in a cloudless sky. The water soon lost behind a hill. The snow-laden trees as he rises further inland. And higher up. The curving hill with Dead Soldier River below him on his left. Over the crest of the hill and down into Bay Roberts. A larger town with two strip malls. Two supermarkets. Two hardware stores. Two gas stations. Four fast food shops. One RCMP detachment. One arena. Where he used to watch hockey games as a boy. The boys from the Bell Isle team always the ones to beat. Beyond the traffic lights. And up another hill. Levelling off. Past Ascension, the high school. Then steeply down. He cruises across the flat land of Spaniard's Bay. Again, the ocean at his right. The hills of snow-covered spruce. To his left ridges of rock stuck out here and there. The church high on a steep cliff. Towering right above the road. Through the barrens of Tilton. And the long stretch. Before the rusty hull of the shipwreck. The
Kyle
. The boat that used to bring people up and down the Labrador. Left there now in the shallows as a sight for tourists that signals the beginning of Harbour Grace. The older houses well kept. One old house. Something called a bed and breakfast. The country-living spirit catching on. From the covers of magazines Blackstrap has seen in drugstores. Then inland. Again a curving rise. The lifting and falling of the land that Blackstrap pays no mind to. Yet takes as a presence to be dealt with.

More snow on the road now. Whiter. Thicker. The sky grey. It snows for a few minutes then stops. He rolls on. Listening to Kris Kristofferson on the radio. The sky blue again. Coming upon the grey smoke of the incinerator drifting across the road. Then up a steeper hill. The sign for a radio station. Another RCMP detachment. Then racing down around the sloping valley that cups the town of Carbonear. The ocean a huge U nestled into the land. Up the wide gradual hill that winds for minutes to his right. With its expansive view of land and water. A peninsula that must be Bay Roberts in the distance. Back toward the east. Across the flat desolate barrens that run on forever. Beyond Victoria. And into Heart's Content. Again, water. This time,
on the other side of the road, on his left. A long narrow harbour. A proper bay with a wharf and fishing boats. No confusion. This is where he is.

Blackstrap Hawco knows the house. He has been inside many times. Years ago. And is certain that Patsy is in there now. He can sense her behind the walls. Knows that she moves within the comfort of her parents' home. Memories of when they were first dating. Her parents then alive. Welcoming him into their home with open arms. They had heard of his Uncle Ace. The remarkable stories of his triumph against Mr. Bowering, the despised merchant. They were aware of his father, Jacob, and the tales of him on the traplines and on the ocean. And his part in the attack on the Bareneed merchant shop. Patsy's father had told the stories to Blackstrap. Details that Blackstrap was not even aware of. The addition of a spirit who spoke to Jacob when his leg was broken on the trapline. A woman who some thought might have been Jacob's mother, Catherine, warning him of the cold that ate at the dead. Making the stories sound thrilling, monumental and unforgettable. Patsy's father adding his own bright points here and there. Raising his eyebrows. The white hairs long and swirling away. Narrowing his eyes, suspicious of whether the listener understood. Jabbing a finger to poke the scene alive.

Pausing with a frown, and a nod of agreement, ‘Yays,' while drinking his rum without ice or water. And then the yarns of his own ancestors' triumphs, their reckless and unbelievable tales of survival in the face of the most wicked bile that nature could heave at them, their blasting and carving up of large animals that threatened one life with their own, and the netting of limitless fish in savage seas that could never muster the might to swallow them, merely spit them back onto land to endure more torment.

Done with his long and extravagant tale, Patsy's father would sip his rum while his wife, a large, solid woman who moved with a dark silence about her, tended to her chores. Not tending to Patsy's father the way he would have liked but out in the back yard after supper splitting wood for the fire, replacing a foot valve down in the well, milking the goat or weeding the garden. Blackstrap would see her through the kitchen window while Patsy's father tipped the bottle to their glasses, and Patsy
waited, coming into the kitchen again and again to gripe about their lateness getting to the dance they were meant to attend. While the two men immersed themselves deeper in rum and the intoxication of memories that shrouded them in self-settling hues. The wife would be bent there for hours, flinging stones behind her to crack against the side of the small barn, tearing out weeds and checking them with her earth-stained fingers, devoting careful attention to the garden that was no longer there.

Nothing growing. Now. From the patch of earth that had once been. Made fertile by Patsy's mother. Snow-covered, but that patch always greener than the rest of the grass. In the summer. The soil remembering.

Driving by the house. Blackstrap sees a young boy playing in the snow. And thinks of his brother. Jacob Junior. And the years long ago in Bareneed. He will not remember. Stuck in the crack and his last breath. But here now. Here always.

It is Sunday. Quiet and still. And he feels a longing for his dead brother. The recollection of times spent together. At play. He knows that the boy in the yard is his son. Without needing to see his face. Hidden in the hood of his blue snowsuit and wrapped with a scarf. Tied around his mouth and nose. He knows by the way the boy moves. The way he pounds something against the ground. And the shape of his body.

Blackstrap drives by slowly. The boy does not look up. From the mound of snow he now pats together.

Tires on wet pavement.

Driving on. Blackstrap leaves Heart's Content. And thinks of continuing. Moving through the barrens. Until his sense of solitude couples with the feel of the land. To disappear in sudden desolation. To drive forever and reach nothing. But he finds his foot pressing into the brake. He pulls over onto a wide shoulder. A straight deserted piece of highway. With snow-covered barrens on either side of him. Only the burgundy hip-high bushes poking out from the ditches. He begins to turn the big Tornado around. Having to curve the wheels and reverse. Move forward. Reverse. Curve the wheels. Tightly one way and forward. Finally free. Facing the direction from where he has just come. The gear shift clicks down to drive. Telling himself it will do no harm to
visit. His daughter must be walking by now. A pang that he has kept in check by distance. Showing Patsy how he could survive. Without her. And he has. No more of her lip. Her nastiness. The boldness of Patsy's mother's silence. Finding voice in her. But not crossing over to action. Laziness. All her energy in talk.

The driveway just ahead. Not ploughed. Not shovelled. The snow with tracks in it. An old car up to its undercarriage in snow. He pulls over and ahead so not to block the vehicle. Who owns that? he wonders. Not Patsy's. Maybe a man's. Hearing the sound of the stopping car. The hum of the idling engine. The boy jerks his head up and watches toward the road. There is a familiarity to the large green two-door. Recognizing it. The boy lifts himself from his knees. His hands hanging by his sides. His fingers covered by the rounded edges of blue waterproofed mittens. He steps toward the car. The material of his snowsuit making a wispy sound. And stands a few yards away. His head tilted back slightly. To see beyond the edge of the hood that hangs down.

Blackstrap opens the door. Steps out. He is not wearing gloves. And he feels the cold on his fingers. He thinks of putting them in his jean jacket pockets. But wants to keep them out. In case the boy might welcome him.

The boy watches. He does not move.

‘How ya doing, Junior?'

Jacob Junior steps forward. For a better look. He stares. Three years ago. Patsy pregnant. And gone. Junior almost seven years old now. Junior. Looking confused. Not surprised when he says, ‘Dad?'

Blackstrap does not nod. Why should he? And the boy runs off. Races toward the back door of the house where he crashes in. Blackstrap catches sight of the kitchen window no more than six feet to his right. He sees Patsy stood there with Ruth. His daughter. In her arms. The name she had chosen. His dead little sister's. Out of respect. Patsy still had that. But now she seems angry. The way her mouth moves. Her head turned to see him. The way she flicks back her thin head. He is not certain if the motion was meant as an invitation to enter. Or done out of habit. Left over from the time when she had long hair. Her face seems harder now. Stricken. Sharper cheekbones. She stares at him. And he cannot determine what it is that moves in her eyes. Before she shifts
away to watch Junior in profile. She nods down at Junior. Her face aware of Blackstrap. Of Blackstrap stood there. Watching into her life. Suddenly.

Blackstrap hears the muddled dullness of her raised voice. Behind the glass, ‘Yes, yes, Junior, I sees 'im.'

 

It is an awkward visit. The policeman at the foot of her bed. Karen feels caught doing something she should not. The policeman says she has been reported missing. She wonders who reported her. Blackstrap? She doubts it. She cannot imagine him. Behaving with hysteria. She wonders why the policeman is in the room. He does not seem to know.

What happens next.

‘I'm not missing,' she says. Her throat sore. Dry. A croak.

‘Yes.' The policeman nods. He stares toward the window.

‘Where's your uniform?' Her voice barely heard.

The policeman looks at her. It takes a minute. His eyes shifting to think. ‘I change to come here.'

Karen raises her hand from the bedsheet. Touches her hair. There is more to this. A policeman in a hospital room. He has found her. Now, he should go away. Because everything is fine.