Blackstrap Hawco (72 page)

Sunday night, he goes to night service and there is a different priest, one he does not like as much. The older priest seems strict and humourless. The story he tells has nothing of himself in it. There are fewer people in the pews than at the morning service. Blackstrap goes back to his apartment and kneels on the mattress, lies back, watching the ceiling and listening for the woman above him. In time, he hears her footsteps, not as hard as before. He thinks she must be barefoot. Then music begins playing that he can barely hear. He falls asleep trying to imagine what she looks like, and wakes in the middle of the night. Listening to the silence, he feels that the house is dead around him. He tosses and turns for an hour and a half before being able to get back to sleep.

 

When he arrives home from buying a stereo on Monday afternoon, there is a woman going in the main door ahead of him. She holds the door open for him. She's dressed in a long purple coat. Her hair is short and copper-coloured. She wears small glasses. There's a briefcase in her hand and a bag of groceries dangling from the other. She smiles at him in a friendly way.

‘It's bitter out,' she says.

He nods and makes a sound of agreement, setting down his boxes to shut the outer door. A few dried boughs stacked on top of the boxes.

His apartment door is directly ahead on the main floor. Hers is on the second level. There is another apartment downstairs, entered by a back door in the yard. Sometimes, a man comes and pounds on the door, shouting to be let in, but is never admitted. The woman glances back as she steps up the shadowed stairs, giving him another smile. She is a professional, by the looks of her. She works in an office.

In his apartment, he unpacks the stereo and moves the coffee table against a wall. He hooks up the speakers and puts on a cassette. The speakers deliver the music with perfect clarity. The cymbals, the thump of the bass, the guitars and vocals. Everything crisp, even with the music down low. He bends near the mantelpiece and taps it with his knuckles. Hollow. A board, plywood by the looks of it, over the hole. There is a hammer under the sink, left by whoever was there before. He uses the claw to remove the half-inch round trim. It snaps in places as he pulls it off the top, bottom and sides. Then he tries using the claw to remove the board, but can't get it under an edge. The plywood is too tightly cut and snuggly fit. So, he stands and swings back his steel-toed boot. The impact crumples a hole in the centre. He kicks again and then bends, yanks the splintered, caved-in plywood away. The hole is clean. He leans to look up the chimney. Too dark to know anything for certain. But the bricks look in fine shape.

Bunching up some advertising flyers, he then breaks the boughs, laying them on top. He strikes a match and watches the fire grow. It crackles with the flames vaguely visible. Standing, he checks for smoke, but smoke doesn't seem to be flowing back into the room. Satisfied, he leaves the apartment and crosses the road. He watches the house, slowly backing up with his hands in his pockets, until he is deep in the church parking lot and can see the chimney. Thin smoke rushing out of it on the angle of the breeze.

Back in the apartment, he wishes he had a telephone. He would like a pizza. Something he has taken a liking to after drinking downtown. He thinks about eating while listening to music and tending to the fire. The boughs crackle nicely and he wonders about sparks on the carpet. He lets the fire go out and leaves for a pizza and a screen for the fireplace.

In the porch on his way out, he meets the woman coming in. They face each other for a few moments. The door shuts behind the woman, the wind doing that. She doesn't bother checking to see what might have happened. There seems to be no need to move. The woman watches Blackstrap's eyes. She's not wearing glasses this time. She has green eyes with flecks of brown that fill Blackstrap with astonishment.

‘Well,' she says, with a happy sigh and moves aside. ‘We live in the same house,' she says.

Blackstrap cannot get the meaning of this. All he can say in reply is: ‘Yes.'

‘I'm Susan.'

He shakes the hand she offers. ‘Blackstrap.'

‘Really.' She seems to approve. She nods a little. ‘Blackstrap. How's your new stereo?'

‘Good.'

‘I like your music.'

‘I'll turn it down.' He smiles because he's not certain what she really meant.

‘No, that's okay. Tom Waits is great.'

‘Louder then?'

‘Sure.' She laughs and the sound opens Blackstrap's heart wide. Her laugh and her lips remind him of Agnes. His muscles relax because he finds simple peace in watching her face. She is older than him. How old, he cannot tell. Sometimes she looks younger, too, or prettier than the moment before. But she must be ten years older, at least.

‘You've got a fire going?' She checks his blue and black flannel jacket. ‘I can smell smoke.'

‘The chimney works.'

‘Mine is boarded over.'

‘Mine too.' A moment later he laughs because of the way she's watching him. ‘Not anymore.'

‘I was going to ask how you managed that. It works?'

‘Yup.'

‘Maybe mine does, too.'

Blackstrap waits. The woman doesn't say anything and his mind finally puts it together. ‘I can have a look.'

‘Really? That'd be great.'

‘I wasn't going anywhere.'

‘You want to come up now?'

‘Sure.'

She hoists the bag in her hand. ‘I'm making supper. I'll pay you in food for your services.'

Blackstrap goes directly to Susan's mantelpiece. Hers is in a different location than the one in his apartment. He looks up at the encasement built around what must be a brick chimney. He assumes it's connected to one of the other chimneys he saw coming out the roof. There is a screen in front of the fire box, even though it's boarded up. Why is that? he wonders. For looks maybe. He glances around the apartment. It's done up nicely, like she's been living there for a while. He checks over the couch. Lots of pillows. There are plants hung from the ceiling in knitted holders. Posters framed on the walls. It feels like a one-room home.

‘You have a hammer?'

‘Sure,' she says from the kitchen.

Blackstrap can see her from where he's crouched. She shuts the refrigerator door and brings him the hammer. Watching her step toward him gives him a peculiar feeling. The two of them alone in a room. He becomes aware of the fact that he does not know this woman. Her slim hand coming toward him to pass him the hammer.

‘Thanks.' He works slowly. He does not break any of the half-inch round. This takes a while. The longer the better, to try and impress her. He lays the strips aside after tapping their finishing nails out so the sharp ends won't cut her hands or fingers. He gets a screwdriver and carefully works the edge of the plywood loose until he can lift it away. The space in there is clean. He leaves her apartment and goes down to his, brings up some branches and newspaper. He builds a fire and places the screen in front of it.

‘Well,' she says, coming up beside him. She hands him a beer, like she's known him all her life. ‘Isn't that something.' She has another beer for herself. She taps hers against his and searches his eyes. ‘Fire-maker. You should rent yourself out.'

They stand there drinking beer and watching the fire.

Susan turns to look at the room. ‘Nice light. Orange shadows.' She makes a sound like she's considering something. ‘Almost like sunset.'

Blackstrap notices movement through the window. Snow falling, big flakes drifting down lightly in the dusk.

‘Major storm coming,' Susan says. ‘Good thing we have a fire.'

He looks at her and she is watching him, the bottle rim to her mouth, her wet lips coming away from sipping.

‘At least we'll be warm.'

 

In the days that follow, Susan continues to cook for Blackstrap. Dishes he never tasted before from other countries. Food from Morocco, India, Mexico…She uses fresh herbs and spices from a store named Mary Jane's. A health-food store, she calls it. ‘Ever try a smoothie?' she asks.

‘No,' he says.

She puts one together for him in a blender. The blender makes more noise than he wants to endure. ‘It has yoghurt, bananas, ice cream, cinnamon…'

When he tastes it, it reminds him of eggnog. It's like liquid dessert.

‘Good?' She wants to know.

‘Um…' He tastes more, not knowing whether to swallow or chew it first.

‘You like it?'

He doesn't say anything. He takes another drink, waiting to answer. His eyes go to the table. There are pictures of performers and other people there. She notices him looking at them.

‘Do you like his music?' Susan asks.

‘Who?'

She gives a name and nods at the photograph.

‘I don't know.'

She goes to her stereo and puts on a cassette. It's like country and western music with a flavour of Irish in it. It makes him want a beer, not a smoothie. He lays the glass on the table. Too sweet for his stomach.

There are big envelopes on the table with Canadian government logos up in the corners. ‘We're sending him to Europe.'

‘Why?' He looks right at her face. ‘What'd he do?'

She laughs lightly until her lips part. ‘On tour. The Department of Heritage is footing the bill.'

‘Oh, yeah.' He has no idea what she's talking about.

‘Do you play guitar?'

‘No,' he says, not understanding why he answered right away, or why he lied.

‘I thought you might play guitar.'

He asks himself why she would think that and glances at his hands.

By the end of the week, they are sleeping together, but they do not have sex. Blackstrap sleeps soundly in Susan's bed. Her sheets are soft and she has heavy quilts that pin him to the bed. She touches him under the covers, puts her head on his chest. She kisses him on the cheek, then on the lips.

‘Goodnight,' she says sweetly. ‘Lover.'

 

Weeks later, Blackstrap wakes one night, incredibly aroused with all of his senses charged. He slides on top of Susan and rests his head on her shoulder. He raises her long lacy nightdress and gently parts her legs. What drives him to do this seems more natural than breathing, the sensation without complication, reminding him of safety and boyhood. Not a word is spoken, only their eyes set on each other. He thinks he might cry from the way he's feeling, from the way Susan is content to watch him so peacefully this close up.

When he is done, he kisses her on the neck and rolls away. She touches his arm. How he has found himself in this place with her is a mystery. They say very little to one another. Each day, Blackstrap comes upstairs and knocks on her door. Susan smiles and lets him in. They sit on the couch with the fire going. They watch the flames. They eat and go to bed. Although he knows little about relationships, he suspects he has come across something impossible to find.

 

‘You're going back out there,' Susan says when he shows up at her door with his duffel bag. ‘It must be freezing cold.'

‘It is.'

‘When are you going?'

‘Now.'

‘Why didn't you tell me before?'

He says nothing to this.

‘It hasn't been twenty-one days?'

He nods, thinking that she looks like a little girl.

‘Really? Let me drive you to the airport.'

‘I got a cab downstairs.'

‘You don't need a cab.' Just like that, there are tears in her eyes. She wipes at the tip of her nose. ‘What do you need a cab for? When will you be back?'

‘Twenty-one days.'

‘Right.' Her eyes wetter. ‘Twenty-one days…Be careful, will you.' She kisses him on the mouth. Her lips are hot and wet. She hugs him and kisses his face, his cheeks, his lips again. She runs her hands over his body and through his hair, her tears smearing on his skin, whispering, ‘Please, please, be careful. Please.'

 

(February)

Up on the drill floor, the weather is a curse. Snow melting against machinery, then freezing in clumps. Snow banking up. The roustabouts de-ice the working area, and try shovelling the snow away. The steel floor is a slippery mess. The men continue to put together pipe. The wind catches the top end of a pipe length and tosses it toward the drill shack. The driller ducks inside. The pipe bounces off the roof. Billy Cullen slips and falls. Hits his head. The hard hat protecting him. Blackstrap helps him up. He looks at the driller, then up at the derrickman. But he can't see the derrickman through the snow.

Cuntz screaming: ‘I got ninety thousand dollars invested in this rig. If we don't find oil soon, I am going to
lose…my…money
.' His voice rising to such a high pitch it's almost a squeal.

More pipe gets loose. Billy Cullen slips again. Snatches for his hard hat wobbling away. The pipe falls three feet from where he's trying to get up off the floor. It bounces and clangs around while Blackstrap makes a grab for it. Billy's gloved hands sliding on the deck.