Blackstrap Hawco (8 page)

‘You know there were bloods found outside your house. Drops and drops lead down the road.'

‘Wha'? I can't hear ye. Deaf as a doornail in dis ear.' Tuttle taps that ear. Leans to the other side. And in that mighty hand, and in all the great terror. He stares with big eyes. In all the signs and the wonders. Shoves his glasses up on his nose. And the Lord shewed him. Silent to it.

‘Do you own a firearm, sir? There were bloods found.'

Isaac Tuttle stares. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass. Shifts his eyes to the mark. The sign. The Wound. To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time. ‘Me own blood.'

‘I'm going to have to ask you answer the question.'

‘Wha' question?'

‘Do you own a firearm?'

‘Naw.'

‘You are certain?'

‘Yays. Me own blood out dere where I climbed down frum da dogberry 'n tore up me trousers 'n me leg and went ta 'av a look.'

Constable Pope writes on his pad. Turns the page. Writes more. Then he shuts it. Stands. Hat on the table. He puts it on his head. Looks at Isaac Tuttle. Then turns for the door as if not wanting to hear another word. Pausing, he glances briefly back. ‘Thank you, Mr. Tuttle. I will write up the statements here. You come by to sign tomorrow.'

‘Is awright,' he says, nodding. But he does not stand. He simply watches the officer leave. Door shuts. Boom. Safe again. He looks up at the ceiling, mumbling, ‘No, no, no, yes,' and stands to move into his
bedroom. Where he walks close to the pedestal in the corner. The suckling also with the grey hairs. Reads aloud from the good book, Matthew 5:37: ‘Let wha' ye say be simply “Yes” or “No” anyt'in more den dis comes from evil. No or yes,' he says. Ashamed of himself for speaking so many words. For their rock is not our Rock. Nothing right. Always too many words since Emily's death. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom. His mind torn to word shreds. The teeth of beasts upon them. His head. Their grapes are grapes of gall. Blackstrap. To do such a thing to him. Of all people. He smacks his forehead with his knuckles. They shall be burnt with hunger. He would put out his eyes if he had the courage. Which did eat the fat of sacrifice. Put out his own eyes to live in utter blackness. Is not this laid up in store with me? To face the loss of her. And seal up among my treasures. Stood still, blind and seeing.

III

Come back home

‘If you see him, tell him to call,' Karen says into the receiver. She nibbles on her bottom lip. Chews on a piece of skin. A sob catching in her throat. Why has Blackstrap? Why has he left her? What has she done? ‘The police were here.' Her chest shudders. Making her aware of the weight of her body. She presses one arm against her chest. To steady her flesh. Her shoulders hurt from the heft of her breasts. They ache all the time. Even worse now with her period coming. The straps of her bra cutting into her shoulders. Two deep grooves in her flesh that will not go away. She knows a friend who had that done. Made them smaller. Moved the nipples. You couldn't have children. Not after that. She doesn't want children. Never. She thinks of vegetables. Carrots. And lettuce. Diet food. A rat nibbling in her mouth.

‘You come stay with me,' says the man's voice. Reasonable on the other end. ‘Come back home. I've got a spare room. I'll even drive out and get you if you want.'

‘No.'

‘Yes.'

‘No, I can't, Glenn.' She remembers them. The three of them as children. Her brothers always with her. Taking care of her. Her parents. Hating them.

‘What's going to happen to you out there, alone, in the middle of nowhere with lunatics everywhere? Crazy baymen. I went to school with crazy baymen. They used to bus them in.'

‘No.' She begins crying. ‘They're not baymen.' Wiping at her eyes. Dragging her mascara toward her temples. Imagining her face. How horrible she must look. Her eyes too small. ‘I can't.' She pulls the long cord away from the wall phone. Winds it around her hand. Turns in the kitchen archway. To stare into the living room. Thinks of straightening things up. Of vacuuming. Of dusting. The shelves lined with her ceramic angel collection. Thinks of eating. Of throwing up. Another pill. Don't throw up. The pill. Valium. Birth control. Vitamins.

‘I have to go, now, Glenn.'

‘You call me if anything happens. Anything. I'll be here. I'm just watching a movie.'

Karen leans to glance ahead at the window. Only the road and the trees rising up from the valley. And across the distant highway. She cannot see. She knew where she was coming. She knew what it would be like. Didn't she? In hiding.

‘Karen?'

‘Yes.' Her voice barely squeaks out.

‘Karen, you hear me?'

‘Okay,' she says, sadly.

‘Just call.'

‘Okay.' She hesitates. Him always looking after her. Then asks: ‘How are Mom and Dad?'

Silence.

Quiet.

Keeping quiet.

In their heads.

‘I don't know.'

‘Okay, bye.' Karen presses the disconnection button. Slowly resets
the receiver. Her stomach grumbles. She steps to the refrigerator. She does not want carrots. Or lettuce. She wants chocolate. Ice-cream. And chocolate sauce. Butterscotch sauce. Whipped cream. Cherries. The sweetness in her throat. Her head deep in it. Turning to glimpse the kitchen window. She sees a face. A horrid face. Smeared with red and black. The face disappears. Then there is the sound of someone trying to enter. Through the back door.
Is it locked?
she asks herself. No one really there, is it? Lock your door.
No, not locked!
Gasping, she slams the refrigerator door. Bottles jingle inside. The face again. She rushes for the wall phone. Lifts the receiver. Her finger trembling. Her fear finally. The dial tone. The electronic beep of each punched number. Spaced too much. Too close.

The back door flung open.

The connection ringing.

Footsteps hammering across the floor. A man's bulky presence. Charging up behind. Out of sight. Muttering something. Reciting words. And her scream. Brought upon itself. Shrill. Alert. Coming to her from somewhere else. Deep inside. She drops the receiver.

A hand over her mouth. A grunt in her ear. All of it like before. Years ago. When she was smaller. Bigger now. More of her tininess.

‘Emily.'

Sadly, most of the people in this book are now dead. Shab Reardon is no exception. And most might say: Good riddance. Saved numerous times from death, Shab seemed indestructible, and the very facts of his demise continue to change, depending on who you talk to. Some say he was killed by a man named Spoke Cummings in a small open boat while struggling over a shotgun to blast birds from the sky. Others say he was beaten to death by his foster daughter who disappeared some time following Shab's own disappearance and was later discovered in a mental institution in Alberta. Shab's foster son maintains that Shab was killed by a stranger, a man who didn't like the explicit propositions that Shab was directing toward him. Shab's foster son claims that he was there and witnessed the entire episode. Whether this is believable or not is anyone's guess, because the boy was known to be the worst sort of liar.

1962

wabana/bell isle

dear mom

‘'luh, i'll fuk'n level ya,' shab reardon bellowed, his greyish-white hair combed neatly with the grease of brylcreem, his stout face that of a handsome, charismatic man gone bad from drink and a heritage of brutality, a guttural howl in the name of some forefather's forefather, down the line of ramshackle midnight terror suffered by their children and their children and theirs, usually a quiet, meek soul, a man who drank and brooded alone for hours, watching where his hands were set against the table, meant to be left alone while studying his glass and thinking on self-shaped shadows, until he chuckled away the foolish darkness made golden now, worked himself up from his solitary table in the back of dick's lounge, buoyed by drink and reclaimed rage like a fortifying punch in the arm, buddy buddy this violence, a friend to him, a friend to a friend, shoving his six-foot-five mountain of a body to its
feet and, with a riotous declaration, slapping his own table aside, all eyes on him, knowing he might murder every single person in the bar in a fit of blind rage, and not suffer the slightest scratch in return, not a blessed mark, ‘i'll flatten ya, flatter den piss on a plate,' slamming his fist so hard against the bar the entire building shook on its foundation, even the stray handful of men out talking close to the island's dock turned their heads in the midst of conversation, knowing that a racket must be underway in the one-storey rectangular building, and casually returning to take in the bloody carnage,

grabbing the nearest man by the sides of his head, a man near dead from drink and wobbling out a string of meaningless words, shab thrust his forehead between the man's eyes, the body crippling back and hitting a table, glasses and bottles exploding like death-trap carnival merriment, before collapsing entirely, dropping with a boom, the music from the jukebox: wolverton mountain, where they warn you not to go,

jacob hawco junior stepping in from the parking lot was forced to turn sideways to avoid the recoiling body, his shift ending, he entered with the others, unwashed in overalls, red iron ore dust caked to their skin, fingernails caked with dirt like dried blood, impossible to scrub clean, jacob junior looked down at the man on the floor and then at shab who gave him a wink and a manly, everything's-right-as-rain nod, then raised both meaty fists above his head and roared pain-laughter as other men, men of a similar profoundly ragged distinction, roared as well, roared and cheered and, in a liberating rampage of mashed memory release, commenced beating the daylights out of one another,

the arriving men, wishing for a few beers and a bit of reasonable conversation, gathered around the bar, shouting out orders, paying little mind to shab and the others, knowing that it would all end in time, the energy expended, wound down and half-hearted forgiving, bruised and bloody chummy, until others reached similar breaking points, brought there by the thought of one family name fighting another, bad dealings from one to the other, or the theft of one woman, bad blood boiling in beer and rum a few hours further on and on, the violence as common a sight in dick's as the pool tables, tables and chairs, and jukebox,

‘what're you drinking, man?' the canadian, norman park, asked junior, pulling a wad of bills from his pocket, norman, labelled a canadian, even
though newfoundland had been suckle-squeezed into canada, an afterthought of an island afloat and tagged onto the vast largely uninhabited country since 1949, always the canadian, mainlander, come-from-away, new foundlanders still newfoundlanders, only newfoundlanders, always new foundlanders, only newfoundlanders knew newfoundlanders, no matter who claimed them as theirs, ‘that's what i like, always paid in the green stuff,' grinning to show perfect teeth made that way by canada, he spread the bills before his thin face and – with head thrown back – laughed like a snaky madman, all pleasure to him, nothing but, a fast car, engine taken apart and put back together in a morning, as simple as that, no one thought nothing of knowing what they knew,

‘india,' junior agreed, glancing back at the man on the floor, jimmy linegar, who now stirred and slid one leg over the other before rolling onto his side, crippled child, son, father, there he lay, ten children at home in rags and filthy with lice, a hut in shacktown, one and the same, he had made himself almost everyone who had ever suffered, he suffered for them, suffered through them,

‘two india,' norman called to the bartender, elbows on the bar, eyeing his young friend, eyes slit with the humour that kept him moving, always forward, toward the sign marked: give up on anything, laugh it off, ‘you look freaked,' he checked junior, checked the body on the floor, saw that jimmy linegar was rising on two wobbly arms, two streaks of blood smeared from two nostrils, two eyes staring straight toward wide-opened nothing, picture perfect,

junior smiled his boyishness brighter, an ever-expanding smile that often came early but showed signs of uncertainty, in his mind, his mind always what he was, never much of a body, always a mind, even down in the clay-dirt grave of a mine, more mind watching the ragged, etched walls, more mind wondering on oxygen, than body doing, but to help others, not himself, without word, stepping ahead to offer jimmy linegar a hand from the littered floor, broken bits of glass sprayed here and there, cigarette butts soaked through, then guiding jimmy back to the bar where jimmy settled and, paying not the slightest bit of attention to his bloody nose nor the state of his nicked and cut fingers, raised one shaky-blur of a hand for another beer, called out to make certain he was seen, for he was near blind to himself and secretly wished for feathery
wings and the stunning end in which to wear them, amen, he was saying, garbled as it was and making itself heard as ‘beer',

norman turned to the sound of beer bottles pulled from the cooler, uncapped, clunked down before him, the end of the shift, the chubby brown bottles on the bar, the bartender's tattooed hands that held cards all night, liked playing poker at one end of the bar until he'd won everything, watches and wallets and wives, he paid the bartender and left the change, a gift that meant more than its face value,

‘thanks,' junior took hold of the beer, tilting it at norman, feeling how the bottle was only vaguely cool, he took a drink, the unchilled sting of ale going down, ‘not cold,' a glance at jimmy linegar counting coins out on the bar with the concentration of a shell-shocked surgeon, norman shrugged, made a clicking sound with his tongue, broke out his big handsome grin, with two dimples framing white teeth, ‘settle for what you can get,' nothing touched him,

‘right,' junior took another drink, stared off across the club, the wooden tables and chairs and workers sitting, some with women in high-neck terri-cloth halters or sleeveless pullovers, long skirts, with polka dots, or plaid slacks, laughing-kissing-arguing, picture perfect, oh, where was his camera, back at his room, frame that, eyes that saw only portraits and snippets, captured, he always thought of everything in the past tense, including himself most of all, junior hawco was a, junior hawco felt that, junior hawco believed in, black and white pictures, he didn't care much for colour,

norman's eyes watched junior's, ‘you getting any sleep, man junior's smile broad, not a clue how to explain how he could not sleep, how he had no time for sleep, rather be awake in that alert sense of sleeplessness that made even the most common objects astonishing,

‘you don't sleep, right, too fucking groovy in the head,' norman's fingers fluttering by the sides of his head, eyes cast around, witness to a brilliant wash of psychedelic colours, ‘you're too groovy in the head,'

junior laughing at the canadian's words, like an animal in a cartoon, a loud noise catching his attention, he turned to see shab reardon with the fire axe from its case, swinging it over his head, then down, a few women screaming while wood splintered, a table fell away in ragged halves and glasses smashed, in a surprisingly gentle way, as they slid onto the floor,
everyone stood back, out of range, an expectant mumbling from the men, the jukebox now with connie francis' voice, speaking lamentful words about not hurting her, please don't make her cry, for love was life's greatest joy,

‘far fucking out,' norman said, a low frisbee-caught whistle, watching the action, junior ran curved fingers along the stubby neck of his bottle, looked at norman's lips that just then sang along, his eyes moving away when norman returned his gaze from the commotion,

‘you hear about shab's rat,' asked the canadian,

‘what rat,'

‘the fucking rat he feeds, got him branded and everything, his initials branded on the rat with wire, the rat died,'

‘i never heard,'

‘not listening then,' junior smiling,

‘took him years down there to get the rat to take the food, came right up to him eventually, he loved the rat, you know that bag stuffed with grass, the one shab catches a nap on,

'junior nodded,

‘nish said he saw the rat sleeping there, on the pillow, right by shab's head, both of them snoozing away, he saved the rat from the guys that had him wired with a blasting cap, the rats they put in the water down there, then hit the charge, sparks and a fried rat, you seen that,' junior nodded, more madness noise behind them, so they turned to witness what might collect them together,

‘crazy, man, that big gorilla's outta control, magilla gorilla,' he glanced at junior's bottle, ‘finished that one,'

‘no,' his smile spiked with nerves, junior shrugged barely, to himself, not at the question, he picked at the beer label with both thumbnails, he wanted quiet, always, a candle in a small clean room, the idea with the action only slower, ‘what happened to the rat,'

‘crawled off into an engine, that's what they say, no one saw it, but then the engine caught up and there was a smell,'

junior trembled a nervous laugh, took a drink,

‘you should get some sleep, man, shit,'

junior nodded, ‘okay,' heard shab's roar, thinking, s
leep a dog's jaws, snatching away my eyes, yelping with the hotness of them against its tongue as it runs,
he peeked at norman's pants, the red dust on cloth, feared the mines, the depth of a ceaseless burial, but desired nothing more than to be down, underground, within the stifling, comforting hold of earth, fear that he lived for,

‘HEY,' shab roared up beside junior, threw his huge arm around the young man's shoulders, towered above him, ‘how's she go'n, me old trout,' he twisted his head around, shouting out over the crowd, ‘junior's da fucking best 'a all you shit-maggots put ta'gedder,' he raised his hand that still held the axe, and with his free hand jabbed one thick leathery finger toward the side of junior's head, ‘da fucking best, give'm a beer, give'm two,' slapped junior on the back, stared at the canadian, narrowed his eyes, norman took a slow drink from his bottle,

‘wha' da fuck are you,' norman thought maybe to say: a rat,

‘where you from, buddy,'

‘toronto,' norman answered at once,

‘fuh'k dat place, shithole widt flash'n lights,'

‘sure, fuck that place, you bet,' norman raised his bottle in salute, took a drink, easy as that, shab stared, ‘ahright fer now,' spoken through his teeth, ‘ahright, yer almost funny, buddy,' again slapping junior's back and trudging off, gripping the axe handle with both hands up close to the blade and sweeping his eyes around for anyone who dared poke a look at him, norman shook his head, turned toward the bar, slouching, leaned both elbows there, ‘serious downer, junior jones,' junior studied norman's back, narrow shoulders, gently laid a hand there, ‘don't worry about him,' he said, norman laughed at impossibility, took a drink, ‘to rats everywhere,'

‘shhh,' a smiling look over his shoulder, ‘not so loud,' then the announcement, ‘my round,' sensing the alcohol displace fatigue, smarter, brighter, he felt almost right to himself, again glanced over his shoulder for norman's sake, saw that shab was pacified by a few of his buddies, now sitting at a table, leaned back in his chair throne, as the men talked
to him, reasoned with him, king shab stared, listening, nodding like every word they spoke was pure reason that rallied to extend the kingdom,

junior thought through the night ahead, women would come to him as they always did, how he would make excuses, patiently regarding the side of norman's face, wondered if he should try something with him tonight, heart speeding at the mere thought of action, sometimes afraid he would not have the power to stop himself from leaning closer, then closer still, the man's lips, his rough stubbly face, eye to eye, sensing aftershave, the presence of the canadian, his foreign and perfect lush heat, naked by candlelight, a pen to paper, poetry, anatomy, the lines of a torso in near darkness, he thinks he loves the man, feels love, imagines love, and from love finds his mind alight with images of his family he would write down this way:

 

the sun on the grass drew a smell that was both sweet and earthy, blackstrap watched his father work, putting in posts that he drove deep into the ground with the maul, his mother, emily, hanging wash on the line and there were the shapes of fabric and colours that stirred languidly in the slightest gesture of a breeze,