Blackstrap Hawco (67 page)

‘The moon.'

‘It's over there.' She points, remembering where it should be. Knowing even after having been away. Fitting back with the place she knows. ‘I used to come here and watch it. Remember?'

He should have known too. Maybe he did. Maybe he wanted her to find it for him. His head not right after that fall. Certain memories weaker or gone. Direction sometimes changing without him knowing. He nods. ‘How long you home for?' He finishes off his beer. Reaching back, he flings the bottle toward the ocean where it plunks into the water.

‘Five days.'

Five days.

Then gone again.

That's not enough. Not enough time. It makes him feel even worse. Like he might say something bad to her. Five days. Leaving him. He takes the other beer from the pocket of his jean jacket. Pops the cap off with the rim of his belt buckle.

‘I'm starting my internship.'

‘Dr. Bishop.' It comes out wrong. He takes a mouthful of beer. Looks at her. Swallows. Proud of her despite everything. Watching her like a challenge. Another mouthful. You're something else. You'll always be.

Agnes smiles in a way that says she's had a few drinks. Her heart coming out more. Her goodness better than ever. ‘How're your mom and dad doing?'

‘Fine.'

She knows it's not true.

He knows she's really asking about his mother. But it's his father she should be asking after now. He seems the sick one. His mother getting better. Stronger. Planning on something. She's told him about the Arctic. How she wants to go with dogs and a sled. How she wants to see all the white stretching off for all eternity. A secret between them. Promise not to tell your father. His father faltering. Forgetting.

‘Who're you staying with?'

‘Aunt Myrtle. Mom and Dad are back too.'

Blackstrap wishes that he had a boat. He wants to take her on the
water. And feel the calm sea beneath them. In a boat. Out with the water and the sky and just him and her. Anchored over in Deep Gulch beyond the cliffs. Sitting on the deck and watching her face in this blue light. With the water beneath them, life would be fit to stand.

If he'd known, he would have gotten the key to Andy's boat. If he'd known they were going to end up here. But there was nothing in his head about plans when he saw her. When he talked to her. No plans when he was next to her.

He turns to look at her face. The headland behind her. And his breath drops out of him. Her face. He can't stop looking. The sight of her face softens every spot in him. Her eyes watching his eyes. Wanting to say something. Hiding something and going softer. Prettier. Still. Sorry. She looks away. So sorry. Raises her left hand to put her hair behind her ear. The glint of a ring in that blue light. On her ring finger. A diamond.

Blackstrap's nose grows warm. He takes a step away. Further down the beach. Watching the rocks. The beer bottle cold in his hand. He chugs back the rest of it. Holds the empty. Stares at the empty he can almost see through. The brown glass. He had been thinking about gathering driftwood for a fire. But that's no good now. He wipes at his nose with his shirt sleeve. And grips the bottle by its stubby neck. Hurls it up into the air where it rises then drops, popping to pieces on the beach rocks.

Then he looks back.

To see that she is still stood there.

Not calling out his name.

Not stepping after him.

He can barely make her out.

Mostly in shadow.

Then black.

Never there at all.

Nothing but an outline.

Like the headland behind her.

As he keeps moving and angles away toward the bank. Her shadow slips aside. Slips across the water with moonlight on it.

For all of his years.

That is how he remembers her most.

 

(July, 1976)

Blackstrap sits in his Galaxie 500 with his eyes on Agnes' old house. He is parked across the road. The tires resting on bulldozed land. An old fisherman's house once there, in place of the car. The slate foundation, bits of wood and brick now buried beneath the earth. A house that had been moved up from Bareneed back in the 60s. Moved in sections on a flatbed and reassembled. Torn down now. He was one of the two men hired to pull it down. Hammer and drawbar. Three days' work. First day, up on the roof, watching out for rotted boards while the other fellow tore out the inside walls. Almost went through the roof twice. Caught himself. The roof gone with only the dark rafters left. Then the west side wall of the top floor. Beating out lengths of board. Full one inch thick and a foot or more wide. Old boat board. That's how they used to build the houses. Most of it pine, darkened by age on the outside but still good board, light and dry and blonde with an orange tint inside. Smashing it loose in sections with the clapboard attached to the other side. The walls falling in chunks. The flies were the worst of it. On the second day, the front wall of the top storey. Gone. Stood there with the land spread out in front of him. Agnes' old house always there across the road. He wishes it was her house he was tearing down. The sky going on forever, the trees too. The other fellow at the chimney, knocking it with a sledgehammer. The whole works tipping a bit. The mortar loose. A few starlings swooping up out of the top. The other fellow not able to get the chimney down. Too careful, too watchful of his feet. Blackstrap went over and stood up on a chair with pieces of the floor gone beneath him. And smashed the brick until the whole length of it went over. Tipping out and falling to the tall grass with not much sound at all. The bottom storey taken down on the third day. Only thing left were the old milled studs, rough and rounded on their edges, two storeys in length. So dark brown they were almost black. They took them down and saved them for the guy who was tearing the house down. He wanted them for something. Paid in cash. Plus Blackstrap's share of the scrap wood. For burning. And old furniture he brought home to his mother. Because she likes old furniture. He didn't know at first. The first few pieces he brought home. Cut up for burning. Good and dry and made to rage the fire. But when his mother saw the pieces stacked near
the stove, she bent toward them. Ran her hand over the old varnished surfaces. Even picked up a few pieces, trying to figure out how to put them back together. Looking up at him with an expression. Like he had done her harm.

‘Alphonsus,' she had said. That name she never called him. ‘Did you do this?'

After that, he brought back the pieces of furniture in one piece. To see what she might want to keep. His mother found a place for each one. In the living room.

A new bungalow soon to be built in place of the old fisherman's house. The lumber stacked there for cribbing in the concrete foundation. Trees chainsawed down in a wide area. So the roots won't bother the house. So the bugs don't get too thick. So the crows don't nest and bark in the early mornings. Plenty of construction. With everyone leaving. Not many left to do the job for those staying anyway, wanting to remain despite everything.

The bonnet of Blackstrap's car glimmers under the moonlight. Blackstrap washed and waxed the car that morning. He hears the whistle of the last train leaving for the night. Just as a car goes by in front of him. Dodge Dart. Clunker of a car. Heavy like a tank. Like a locomotive. Mildred Piercy at the driver's wheel. On her way to the Thursday-night card game at the fire hall. Blackstrap glances at the clock on his dashboard. The second hand revolving smoothly. Like it's in water. Mildred's late for cards. Maybe she's not going there at all. Maybe she's going to Walt Coombs' place instead.

Watching the big window, he expects to see Agnes step up to the glass. Alone in that house. Some true part of her living on in those rooms. A ghost that knows no better, only where it should or must be. The thought brings to mind Ruth. That night he smashed up his boat. Her hand on the throttle. He would swear that it was all real. Not just his head haunting him, but her. He thinks about Agnes up in Halifax. Considers flying there to find her.

Why did Agnes go to the beach with him? When she was home. Why did she want to be with him? To torment him? What was in her mind then? Her stood on the beach. Nothing to her when he left and waited for her in the car. Not a word between them when he drove her home.

Earlier that night, Andy Coffin had called. To tell Blackstrap that he'd got Brent Parsons to agree to play fiddle in their band. Andy's half-plugged voice through the telephone. Blackstrap was almost used to it now. The fiddle always interested him. It had been his idea to add one to the group. A couple of years ago, he'd dug out the fiddle that used to belong to his father. Started practicing. But he never stuck with it. Too much practice involved. Not as easy as the guitar. Although he told himself that he'd go back at it one day.

There was something else too that Andy Coffin told him. About Agnes being engaged. An announcement printed in the
Evening Telegram
. Even though Blackstrap had already known. Had heard it from the boys at Wilf's Place. He had gone out and bought the paper. Found the photograph. The picture of Agnes. So close beside another man. Her hands on his shoulders. Someone telling her to pose that way. It made his eyes burn. And both of them smiling. Like Blackstrap had nothing to do with them at all. The man's name was Peter MacLeod, Andy told him. His hair was combed just so. He had on a suit. And a tie. He had a likeable face. Not a face that was easy to hate.

Halifax. It isn't that far away, he thinks, taking up the newspaper. From that place right next to him where Agnes used to sit. Tears out the photo and lays it on the seat. He can drive it in two days. Ten hours to the ferry in Port aux Basque on the west coast of the island. Across the strait. And then how far from North Sydney to Halifax? He isn't exactly sure. No more than half a day. If he remembers his maps.

He takes another look at the empty house. Then at the photo on the seat. Another car goes by. A Ford pickup with Johnny Gosse at the wheel. Going where? Who knows. He picks up the bit of newspaper. Folds it and stuffs it away in his wallet.

 

Chapter V – 1977

Gary Gilmore

(January, 1977, 23 years old)

Blackstrap hears this on the radio: ‘EMI Records fails to renew the contract of punk rock group the Sex Pistols.' Driving in his car. Seeing nothing but the snowstorm to all sides of him. The way the headlights stretch into the blizzard. Show him nothing but white. He wonders who the Sex Pistols are. If Sex Pistols is another name for cock. If an animal stepped into the blinding white, its eyes would be electric green or orange. Then it would be struck down. Erased. Out in a blizzard that made the land. One huge terrain. Where cars and machines were invisible.

Halifax was nothing like he'd expected. He hadn't realized there were bay communities around Nova Scotia. Places like in Newfoundland. On his first few days in Nova Scotia, he had driven around to some of them. They had old houses and fishing boats tied up. Were called villages. But it wasn't like Newfoundland. The people were different. In another place, Annapolis Valley, there were apples being picked from trees. Apples everywhere. They grew red apples there. Not that far from Newfoundland. A nine-hour sail across the Atlantic. Where it was only possible to grow crab apples. That much of a difference in the weather. The snow had been the same. The winter blizzards. But people told him that spring came earlier there. He thought he might see it for himself. But he ended up not staying that long. If he had stayed, he might have been arrested.

His first night in Halifax, he had been in a bar. Met a man with a neighbour from Newfoundland. The man said that he liked Newfoundlanders. They were hard workers. Good people. Trustworthy. Reliable. Interesting things to hear from a man. A few beers later, the man offered Blackstrap a job on the Halifax docks.

‘Doing what?' Blackstrap had asked.

‘Lifting,' said the man. ‘Nothing to it.'

He had slept in his car that night. Stretched out on the back seat nearly long enough to get comfortable. But colder and colder as the hours went on. And the beer waking him up to go outside and piss in an alleyway.

The next morning, he showed up with only a few hours' sleep and wandered around, looking for the man. He was about to give up when he found him. Worked eight hours loading boxes into a truck. The foreman found him a room in an old house down past the train station.

He drank more than usual when he wasn't working, and couldn't bring himself to look for Agnes. It was the loneliness that led him to the bars and kept him half-snapped most times.

There was a naval base near where he worked. Sometimes he saw the navy men going around in their uniforms. He gave some thought to enlisting. Getting the hell out of Halifax. Off of land altogether. One way to get back to the sea.

In the blizzard. In the quiet car. On his way home to Cutland Junction. He shakes his head at the thought of chasing after Agnes. What was he expecting? To take her back to Newfoundland with him? A foolish idea now.

He imagined going out to sea. On one of the big grey frigates where he used to see them tied up behind the wire fence. Two weeks after landing in Halifax, he went into the recruitment office. Talked to the recruitment officer who turned out to be a nice fellow. Bright and friendly. Mannerly. Not nasty and shouting. Like expected from movies.

‘Where you from?' the officer had asked Blackstrap.

‘Newfoundland.'

‘A Newfie? Good for you. My wife's from there. From Glovertown. Pam Greening.'

Blackstrap shook his head. He didn't know Pam Greening. Only Pam Kearney from Shearstown Line.

‘Here's an application, if you're interested.' The officer slid the paper across his desk. ‘And some information here. More pamphlets over there.' In a room with posters on the walls showing men in uniform doing different things. ‘Spend any time on the water?'

‘Yes, sir. Plenty.'

‘Perfect.'

Blackstrap had taken the application and glanced at one of the posters. Big grey ships at sea. He knew some of the words on the application. But knew it would be impossible to fill out the entire form. He imagined the look of it with his scribbles in only some of the spaces. Also, they would know he couldn't read or write when they interviewed him. Or maybe they wouldn't ask. Wouldn't need to know. He wondered if you had to read and write. It was a question that was hard to ask. Did it matter?

Five months ago. When Agnes was back in Newfoundland. On their pickup ride from the Caribou Lounge to Bareneed beach. She had mentioned the name of the university where she was studying.

On his day off, three weeks after landing in Halifax, he finally found himself in the right frame of mind. Something that just needed to be done. He went to the university campus and walked around. Feeling like he wasn't allowed there. But no one bothered him. No one asked him a question. They thought he might belong. Not so different from the others. Or that he worked there. Maybe he worked in maintenance. Or fixed furnaces in the buildings. Maybe they thought that. But he was the same age as a lot of them. Why would they think he wasn't just like them?

When he first visited campus, he thought he would come across Agnes. Right away. As easy as pie. He feared it in a way. Feared seeing her walking right in front of him. In this new world of hers. But there were thousands of people coming and going. Watching their faces, it hurt his eyes. All that steady movement. It made him think of time passing, and he wanted to leave.

But he had forced himself to find the medical building. Gone in there. What to do next? He had found the classrooms. Looked in the small windows. They were like movie theatres. Hundreds of people in there watching one person talking. That had been enough. He went to a bar and drank to steady himself.

He visited campus again. Six times over six weeks. Finally feeling comfortable there. Thinking he might be able to do it himself, become a doctor. It didn't look so hard. These people with books. He found the bookstore and went inside. The stacks of thick hardcover books in the
aisles. Cardboard tags hanging off the front of the shelves, in front of each stack. People picking up the books and opening them. Their eyes skimming the pages. Others were just walking around and talking. Normal people dressed different ways. But then he'd see them reading.

He never came across Agnes. He thought that he might run into her in the bars down around Barrington Street. In the Seahorse Tavern where he liked watching the oldtimers drinking and talking. A few of them had been in WWII, and he overheard stories. Old men still rattled by the memories. One of them in tears whenever he spoke of it. Every day no matter what. The story of how his friend went out for him on a mission. A fighter pilot who never came back. In his place.

But he never did see Agnes. There were several times when he thought he saw her alone at a bar. Drinking beer after beer, he might look around and see a woman who had long, sandy-blonde hair. Was the same size as Agnes. But the face. The face never the same. Impossible. The eyes different. The chin too wide or narrow. The lips smaller. The cheekbones not so high. There were plenty of opportunities when a woman squeezed in next to him at the bar. Plenty of young people around. The bars crowded. A woman would look up at him. Smile. Her money in her hands to buy her drink. And he would nod to be polite. But that was it. The way a woman watched him. One who wasn't Agnes. He'd feel poisoned by the attention. Then he'd sip his glass of draft. Something new to him. Cheap, pale, watery beer that they never had back in Newfoundland. Beer that they poured from a tap. And people bought by the glass or jug. It was a party beer. A beer that was swallowed fast. Because there was nothing to it. He kept drinking.

Then he would walk down Barrington Street. A mile east. Toward the railway station. The trains he sometimes looked at in the yard. Remembering the earth-heavy rumble from home. From in his yard when the train went by. Always hookers down that way across from the station. He liked the attention they gave him. The way they joked with him. He liked the honesty of their words. The easy movements of their bodies. But he never went home with them. He lived nearby and they knew it. Sometimes, he would stand against one of the old stone buildings. The corner of South Street or Tobin. Light a
cigarette. Just to watch what was going on. Cars coming and going. Headlights slowing. Some of the hookers were in hard shape. Every now and then a woman would disappear. Another woman or two would take her place. They would be the same. But they would be different. Taught to behave like they were made for one thing. Walking around in clothes like that. Where did they come from? Who let them do this to themselves? Where were their mothers? Their fathers? These women were alive. They were blessed. They were beautiful in a way he never thought possible.

One or two would be beaten up. Not in front of him, but off in one of the cars. He couldn't understand that. What sort of man would do that? From under what dark rock of shame?

He wanted to go up to some of the cars. Stick his head in the window. Right there beside the hooker and look at the guy. Check the guy over to see that he was a nice fellow. Maybe just a bit lonely and pathetic. To look into his eyes. To make sure the guy, sitting there in the shadows at the steering wheel, wanting to drive away with a woman, was harmless. Either way, it was sad. One long silent curse at someone. And it was mean.

He would stand there. Smoke his cigarette. The sole of one boot up against the stone building he was leaning on. Sometimes, he would take a few steps ahead. And he would see the eyes in the car, shifting from the hooker to him. And the car would move ahead a little. And the hooker would look back at him. Like he was a problem. A nuisance.

One time, he moved ahead when one of the girls was shouting. A new girl named Bonnie. Only a child by the looks of her. Younger than Blackstrap with that make-up making her like something from a nightmare circus. A man with her by the hair. Trying to pull her into the car. Blackstrap had run toward the man. And the man had raised his arm and an explosion let go. Blackstrap had stopped. Struck by something. The man gone with a screech of tires. The girl on the sidewalk. The other women tending to her now. Taking her off to make sure she was okay. Not a tear out of her. Just quiet. The world quiet around him. The other cars gone after that sound. And he had remained. Thinking he was hit. But there was no wound. He looked over his shoulder at the building. A gunshot that had missed him. Then he was on the ground.
The women looking down at the scene. Like someone might have been killed. Another beer was what he needed. He was fine. They stood over him and watched his eyes slowly shut.

The bars in Nova Scotia had different names on them. The beverage houses would close early. Sell only beer. The cabarets would stay open much later. Served beer and liquor. It was a place where he could get a shot of rum. After the beer had given him all that beer could give. There was a cabaret up across from the artillery. A few streets up over the hill from Barrington on Brunswick where he went late at night. They had a dance floor there. He liked to watch women dance and think of Agnes. The women didn't remind him of Agnes because they were nothing like her. They were only female. None of them could be anything like her. Agnes wouldn't dance the way they did. Dancing because people were watching. She would dance because the music was making her. Doing it to her body. Into it. Like she used to dance with him. Listening to the music. Watching his face. His face and the music making her dance. A bit of a smile on her lips when she looked at the ground. None of them talked the way she did. They seemed fake. Giddy and foolish. They were in it for something. It wasn't natural. But sometimes he'd feel okay about it. He'd have a few more beers. Then start drinking rum. And he wouldn't like to watch the women dance. He'd shoot back the rum because they were interested in him. And that was the thing to do. There was no stopping him. That was the message. He'd keep drinking. To kill something off. To make the way they were watching him go away. The women serving bar were impressed. They had secret conversations about him. There he was, shooting back rum after rum. In a small plain glass. No ice. No cola.

After so much rum, he'd leave the bar. Find a pay phone outside. He'd call the operator and ask for a number for Agnes Bishop. He'd say, ‘from Newfoundland.' There was never a listing. He wondered if she had a phone. He'd ask for numbers for the places where they stayed on campus. The residence? the operator would ask. Yes, he'd say. That's it. The residence. Then he'd call the different places. Ask for her. A young woman answering a phone. Who he thought might be Agnes. No one named Agnes Bishop lived there. Were they lying? Because she didn't want to talk to him? He began to suspect that she didn't live in the
residence. That she lived in an apartment somewhere. Maybe with the guy. That rotten fucker, MacLeod. Or she wasn't even in Halifax. He began to suspect that
she
had lied to him. That she wasn't studying medicine. That she was doing something else. Just to confuse him. Studying to be a she-wolf, or a taxidermist. What he'd like to do to her if he saw her now. Those hookers in his mind. It was ugly, getting uglier.

He started buying flasks of Newfoundland Screech. Carrying them around in his pocket. He couldn't find her. He hated where he was. He loved where he was. If he had enough drinks in him, he loved where he was. Nothing to do with him, nothing to do with his father and mother. Nothing to do with Newfoundland. Nothing.

He'd rest his back against the stone building and drink from his flask. The women leaned in the car windows. Talking like they already knew the man. Friendly as anything. Their new best friends. Money. Money was the real whore. He gave them money when some of them asked and he had a little extra. But it was never enough to change anything.

When his flask was empty, he'd wander over to the station yard. Walk around the big engines and cars. Run his hand over the steel wheels. Want them to roll out of here. He'd touch the train body. Talk to the train. ‘Go,' he'd quietly say. Like it was an animal that recognized him. Just him and the train under moonlight.