Blackstrap Hawco (6 page)

Taking a deep draw, Blackstrap pulls the smoke into his lungs. Glances back at his earth-moving machine. Heavy in the dimness. A capable presence. He exhales, the smoke discolouring the air. His eyes fixed on the shovel of his backhoe. Again, he checks the house. If he were a smiling man, he would do just that. But not him. With a slow inner nod, Blackstrap envisions it. How to issue his warning. This late at night. How to properly rouse Isaac Tuttle from his bed. From his sleep. To scare the living bejesus right out of him. To set things right.

 

Karen counts out the dollar bills in the porch. Then steps back into the house. Over to the dining room, just off the kitchen. The tin cash box. It rests on a long factory-made table. Brand new. One hundred and sixty-nine dollars at Woolco. She counts out correct change. Takes it from under the black tray. Counts it again to make certain. She forgets. Counts one more time. She brings back three twos. Hands them to Walt Coombs. Walt Coombs shows her his pink gums. Missing teeth. A few brown spikes. Rotting away. Sickening. Dirty. Dips his head three times. Gleeful. Creepy. Appreciation.

‘T'anks, me duckie. T'anks.' A scary wide-open grin. The stuff of
nightmares. One eye crossed. He picks up the beer cases. The ones Karen has handed over. Carefully backs out the front door. Turns to navigate the slant of concrete steps into the shadows.

‘You're welcome,' Karen says, trying to be mannerly. Distracted by her fear of Walt Coombs. Despite what Blackstrap has said about him. Calling him a hard worker. With so many children. Everyone lost count of the number years ago. Looks after them all. A hard case. But looks after his children. She watches through the door. Walt loads the beer cases into his van. A thin man with a thin head sits in the passenger seat. Not saying a word. Just staring. Straight ahead. Stupid. Violent. Mindless. Who will they torture tonight? Kill? They might sit in the van. In the woods. Drink beer. Fling empties out into the trees. Laugh at the explosion. Man over nature. Something from English classes. School. Forget school. Those years ago. Bad years. Done with the beer. The two men with other thoughts. They might come back. Rape her. Like in that movie. The two of them. Laughing. Screaming. Kicking. Spitting. In their wreck of a van. Her trapped in the back. Pounding to get out. In the middle of the woods. Trees good for hiding things. The smell of fall rot like shit.

Karen shuts the door. Hard. Then opens it a crack. Her father-in-law has gone off into his shack next door. Set slightly back from their new bungalow. Its old narrow clapboard painted bubblegum pink. Hubcaps – dully gleaming under moonlight – litter the yard. She thinks of the months when she lived there. In the house that Blackstrap had lived in. Since resettlement. The 1960s. Being forced to move from Bareneed. A cost-saving government plan. She remembers how the old man used to tell her. How they took the house apart. In sections. Moved them here. A lie. She knows. She's heard different. About who really owns the house. The land. How the old man used to watch her. Like it was her fault. Even standing outside their bedroom door. She imagined him. Staring in. She had to get up and shut the door. In the middle of everything. Blackstrap grunting and falling away. She saw a show on fathers lusting after their daughter-in-laws. It was on television. And some of these women were even into it. Laughing about it. Big faces. Big mouths. Hair off in all directions. Her shoulders shudder. It was a blessing to get clear of living in his house. Before he did something. She doesn't trust the line of thought. The old men from out this way. Uncivilized and always thinking below their waists. Inbreeding for
centuries. Mongrels in wheelchairs. Turned eyes. Sex with anything. Anything with a crack and a hair. What she heard in school. Old enough to bleed. Old enough to butcher. Close your legs, I can smell your last customer. Children. Where did they learn these things? Heads shaped wrong. Retarded. It meant nothing for men to try and have their way with their son's wives. That's probably what drove Blackstrap's first wife away. Patsy'd gone off. Pregnant. A small boy. Had a girl later. Three years ago. Karen knew her name. Patsy. Only because she'd been told the specifics by Mrs. Quinton. The woman at the corner store. Another woman at the post office. Talking. Telling. Always with news. Right or wrong. It didn't matter. Just say it. Tell it. Like it was fact. No one speaks of Patsy. Not even Blackstrap. He doesn't even mention his kids. Not a single word. Not their names. Not their ages. They don't call. Nothing. Karen tries to imagine his children. She doesn't want to have any. She'll have her tubes tied. Soon. She has an appointment in the hospital. St. John's. Won't tell Blackstrap. Can't tell him. No children. She could never look after them. Not properly. The way it was meant to be. Not like that. She wouldn't know how. And if she did she might hurt them. What would Blackstrap do? Leave her. And her children too. Hurt them. Like she was hurt. What sort of father would he be? Blackstrap. Not hers. Not him. Would he be mean? To his children. Ignore them. Beat them? Or take them everywhere with him. Always have them at his side. Him and the children. Against
her
. It was hard to imagine how he would behave. He was like his father. Spiteful. Silent. Stubborn. But Blackstrap was never one to show it. Like the old man. Blackstrap held it inside. Nuzzled it so silently close that it perished.

That period of living with Blackstrap's father. Karen had tried going for walks. Or locking herself in her bedroom. Pretending to read one of her thrillers. People living in fear. The paperbacks told her. Everything. Lock your door. She felt it. Perfectly. A page turner. Someone at the window. Something in the basement. Whenever she was left alone. With her book. With her father-in-law. Lock your door. The way he watched her. Her chest. When telling those stories from his past. Stories that involved Jacob's wife. Blackstrap's mother. Emily. The stories. They were all familiar to her. She'd heard them countless times from Blackstrap. When he got in a talking mood. Every few months a story would come out of him. While he nursed a beer bottle at the
kitchen table. Karen tried to pretend interest. But she found herself drifting off. Eyes shifting out of focus. Going cross-eyed. Fitting in. Karen hadn't met Emily Hawco. But she had seen photographs. A real beauty. That old-fashioned sort. Delicate. Graceful. From a different age. Long black wavy hair. Like Karen's. And there was a resemblance. Too many stories. Karen listened to the tales. Over and over. Until she felt she might scream. That was the past. Get your head out of the past. And lock your door. Someone always watching. Wanting harm. Occasionally, though, she would get a laugh out of Jacob's biting sense of humour. But most times she just endured. Blocked him out. Thinking of more immediate thoughts. Grocery lists. Or recipes. New diet plans. Cutting down. Cutting back. Cut off. Gash. Clothes in the catalogue. What she could wear. And not wear. Shows she had seen on television. About AIDS. Infant killing. Sexual abuse. Fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. It was sick. Ugly. Insane. She wanted more. And less. More of it. In her head. To be gone.

The noise of the rumbling muffler. Walt Coombs' van draws Karen's mind back to the calm. Sunday night. She shuts the front door. Sits in the green velour chair. Sits. Still. The smell of new carpet. Sits. Still. Plain in her nostrils. Everything freshly painted. Her face. Make-up. Fix her make-up. The smell of newness. Almost too strong. She sits still. Glances around. The sparse clean room. Not a stain on anything. Not a smudge. Not a speck of dust. And she is pleased. A little okay. Allows a little. Pleased with Blackstrap. He built the bungalow just like the one her mother owns. Back in St. John's. They even have the latest universal remote control. It works for their television. Twenty-four channels. And their video machine. She rents movies at least a few times a week. From the convenience store and take-out down in Brigus.

Leaning forward, she picks up the remote. From the glass-topped brass coffee table. Switches on television. Watches the opening sequence of a show. A helicopter shot of a city. And its building towers. Streets. Bold handsome people in suits and expensive evening gowns. She flicks the channel to a dog food commercial. Watches that. Food. A dish. A leather collar with studs. Head in a bowl. Eating. Eat, you bitch, eat. Then flicks the television off. She thinks of the dishes. They should be washed. Head in a bowl. And the phone calls she could make back to
St. John's. To talk with friends. She misses them. Nothing to do out here. Blackstrap gone most of the time. Working jobs. Hobbles, he calls them. With his backhoe. Or building cabins. Day and night. Putting up walls. Tearing things down. Or gone up in the country. To his own shack in Horsechops. Why the country? Why the woods? Don't they already live in the woods? Why deeper into the woods? Nothing but trees and animals and a pond with a boat. She misses her friends who would joke about this. Make fun of it. The way they live. Out here. The women all around here. All thinking alike. Always gossiping about stupid little things of no interest to her. Always displeased. And finding fault in everything. Blaming everyone for everything that goes wrong. In their lives. Everyone at fault. The schools. The mail. The telephone company. The council. The government. All to blame.

On clear moonbright nights like this. She often misses the city. Misses downtown. The lights. The cars. The memories flow into her head, effortlessly sweeping her up in the comfort of recollection. Easy and lovely and fluid to remember. The clubs with the men who used to buy her drinks and fall all over her. She misses that shy edge of control she had down to a science. She was always the quiet one in the group of girls, certain to get plenty of attention. The boys trying to get to her, teasing her. Not overweight like now. Maybe a little plump. Voluptuous in a way that was attractive. The boys thinking she was a virgin because virgins behaved that way. That's how she met Blackstrap. In the Sundance Saloon on George Street. He was standing there alone, leaning against a wooden post on the edge of the dance floor. Boldly watching women moving in beat to the pounding music. Then staring right at her. He'd watched her dancing with her girlfriends for half the night. Then bought her a beer. Delivered it to her, handed it over with an unsure nod. She had thanked him, and he had asked her name. He had asked so many things about her, so interested in what she had done, where she had come from, where she grew up.

Then he was leaving the bar. He wanted her to come along. She was reluctant to abandon her friends but he tempted her away, stepping off, staring back at her with dark challenging eyes. There was something dangerous about him. Something she had seen in no other man, but something more than danger. A sturdiness, but with obliging
tenderness. She sensed it in the way he handed over her beer. A gracefulness that humanized his hard looks.

She followed him while her girlfriends said ‘no, don't go, you don't know him,' or laughed and wished her luck. She and Blackstrap had ended up down on the harbour, walking along the long stretch of docks with Blackstrap pulling her onto one of the big boats, up the plank and then down the metal steps, stalking her around the deck, around the huge spools of thick cables and the slippery steel floor with the paint worn off. A wonderful, head-spinning adventure like nothing she had experienced. He had grabbed her while she laughed, and they had kissed up against the side of the boat. No sex, no feeling her up, just that contact, that kiss, slow and meaningful. His fingers on her cheek, his palm flat there, kissing like it meant everything. The way he looked in her eyes made her feel like he would protect her. Like he recognized her absolutely. Everything about her. And then he put her in a taxi, sent her home. Karen didn't see him until a few weeks later in a different bar. The Ship Inn. He was sitting alone, drinking a beer, and she left her friends to sit down with him, wondered why he was in St. John's again, knew where he was from, where he lived. Cutland Junction. An hour away by car. He said he was just looking. Looking for what, she wanted to know. He just watched her. Again, he asked more questions. Where her mother came from, where her father came from. Ireland or England. Her family. Way back. They came from somewhere. And brothers or sisters. This made her feel good. That he was interested, but she would not say much about her father. Mother. He saw why. He knew why. Her family, it had harmed her. He stopped asking. Her family was nothing to her. And too much to her. Both at the same time. Silence for a while as he stared off at a group of people laughing by the door. Then they talked, quietly, in the pub with the low lights. He asked for her phone number, and she gave it to him. He folded it into his pocket and winked at her.

‘Nice talking,' he said, then stood and left.

Now. The difference. Now, there is a difference. In this room. This house. Alone. Blackstrap never dotes over her. He is kind. And considerate. But he often just takes what he is after. Yanking down her jeans. In the kitchen. And leaning her over the counter. Reaching forward to pull up her T-shirt. Pull her breasts from her bra. So they roll
and press against the cool counter top. The quickness and thrust of him. Behind her. Is sometimes crazily arousing. Angry. Sad. Hurt. Excited. Ashamed. Behind shut eyes. Seeing other things. Hating. Him harder. Wishing. Him harder. In her. Harder. Bigger. In her. For once. She would like to lead him on. And just leave him standing without getting his. That kind of thrill. Emptiness. Nothing. Punishment. Every once in a while she has had to teach him. About arousing her. Placing his hands in tender places. Encouraging the gracefulness that she first saw in him. Not, now. When she cries. Because it can be good.

Thinking such thoughts. Memories of that first night, playfully then warmly kissing on the ship in the harbour arouses her, the steel and sea beneath her feet, she encourages the feeling to ward off the boredom.

Now. She feels heavy. Inside. Grey. Weightiness. She sighs. Forcing herself to think: Sex. Away from the perfectly clean living room. Freshly painted. Pushing Blackstrap away from her. Making him do exactly as she tells. Shoving his face into the places she likes best. Or worst. Her body grows warm and loose. That corner in her mind. Corner of tears where she stood. She will not face it. No one is home. She will not stand there. No one to harm her. The void of an empty house. She moves over. Sits on the couch. Closes her eyes. Pornographic images she has seen in rented movies. Nothing of the person. Where she gets it. Where it gets it. All those men. Lying down. She opens her legs. Her breasts too big. Cut them smaller. Tubes tied. Hospitalized self-mutilation. The way she used to do herself. Cut herself. The hospital now. It will do it for her. She has an appointment with the surgeon. Saw him once already. He took pictures from different angles. Drew lines. Showed her how it would happen. Stitches. Nipples moved. The doctor showed her more pictures. Bruised sliced breasts sewn back together. Less of them left. Less of her. Took more pictures of her breasts. Standing there with her shirt off. Her bra off. Open up and show him. The doctor. Soon. Only ten days more before they're off. Gone. Smaller. Not afraid of them. Men watching them. Always. Smaller. Hide to make her smaller. But not that small. Never that small again. So tiny. Hands rub the thick material. She imagines herself. Surgery. Jeans down along her thighs. Thinking. Following her thoughts. Her gut. Too flabby. Tummy tuck. Cut. Sucked out. Suck. They take her. Slice her. Suck it out. Stitch her up. The men. They make her. Bend her. Pull her. The men.
Operate. Suck. She bends her right knee. Raises her bottom. Forces her hand deeper. Internal. A hand inside searching. Lets her left leg drop off the couch. Open wider. You might feel a little pressure. Her face scrunching. Hurting nice. You're so young. Whose was it? The corner of tears. On her cheeks. Hurt me for being so…My body. Hurt. My body. Hurt
it
.