Blackstrap Hawco (80 page)

‘Hey,' says the girl. Still sat there. Her face staring up. ‘How we get'n out?'

This is something that strikes Blackstrap. The girl looking at him. Her face gone white. Like that for what reason? Fear? The blood drained completely from her.

The fear in him.

To make or match it.

‘Climb,' says the boy. ‘Easy.' Digging at the walls with the shovel. Trying to dig a tunnel the other way. A hole about two feet in before Blackstrap notices.

‘Hey.' Blackstrap snatches the shovel away.

‘I was dig'n, buddy.' The boy pissed off.

‘Up. G'wan,' says Blackstrap. ‘You had yer fun.'

‘Up,' says the boy. ‘Right.' He tries climbing. Can't get a grip on anything. His hands pulling at dirt. Knocking small rocks loose. His feet climbing nothing. Loosening more dirt.

‘Here,' says Blackstrap. Bending down. Meshing his fingers together. ‘Put yer foot dere.'

The girl hurries ahead of the boy. Steps onto Blackstrap's hands. He lifts his arms. Tightens up his back. Straightening. Waiting for the pain. But there is none right away. ‘Hold my shoulder.' The girl holds his shoulder. Stood there in his hands. Then he rocks her up and down. ‘One…Two…' Blackstrap aiming away from the headstones. ‘…Threeee.' And up she goes. Screaming. Flying from the hole. Higher than the grass. Higher than the earth.

The girl drifts out of sight.

Followed by a different scream. Not the girl. ‘Mother of mercy. Saints preserve us.' A visitor, no doubt. ‘Sacred heart of Jesus!' An old woman from the nearby distance. By the sounds of it.

‘Right fuh'k'n on,' says the boy. ‘Put me higher.'

Patrick Hawco, Catherine Hawco, Ace Hawco. The names on tombstones scattered around the Catholic Cemetery. Markers white and weather-beaten. The facings worn thin. Unreadable. But people knowing who owns what. Someone always present to remember.

A quiet crowd gathered around the hole. Faces watching toward what will be put in the ground. Most of the faces familiar to Blackstrap. From seeing them around. But Agnes not there. The death of his mother. He always thought Agnes would be home for that. The death of his mother or father. Agnes leading to Heather. A paler presence. That rooming house on Brock. Not an idea of what happened. He keeps away from it. The three of them. And Susan. Susan in a room too. Which room? Where? The confusion chokes the breath in him. Blackstrap's eyes on the hole. The casket there. The words of the priest.

The graveyard is surrounded by dense spruce trees. Beyond the wire link fence. What used to be an old church. The steeple has been removed. Set down at the back of the graveyard. The cross at the top pointing north to south. When it should be pointing east to west. For all of Blackstrap's life. A wooden sign secured to the side of the building. Four brass bolts. One in each corner. Bareneed Bed and Breakfast. On consecrated ground. A four-star establishment with a patio built on the back. Big umbrellas with logos for alcohol makers. People drinking while the burial service goes on. That sort of loose laughter spilling out from there. Pure torment for those gathered around the body of Emily Hawco.

 

After the service, Jacob says he wants to walk down toward the old houses. The welfare houses and the ones redone. A number of them, the ones leaning toward ruin, have been bought by townies and Americans. There is talk of building a golf course. And developing some kind of adventure trail. A few of the houses have been restored. But there have been things added. Curly-swirls of trim up around the eves. Hanging planters. Big decks with barbecues and iron furniture. The houses look like the old square fishermen houses Blackstrap remembers. But they're done up. Like they've been made to look brand new in an old way. Clean,
smooth clapboard. Double-hung vinyl windows. Painted colours never invented until now. A make-believe village.

It doesn't sit right with him.

Blackstrap silently follows along. Knowing no words for this. Only fuming pain that chars the rage. Deadens for now. Jacob moving slowly, although not old. Careful of his step. Blackstrap keeping his eyes off the balcony of drinkers when he passes. In the corners of his eyes. Men in baseball caps and white polo shirts. Women in summer shirts and slacks. Watching the world go by. Ice cubes jingling in a glass. Jacob looking there. Not saying anything in reply to greetings called out. Those people from somewhere else. Staying in a room in a church. Overlooking a graveyard. What they can tell their friends when they go home. Slept in a church. Ate breakfast where the altar used to be. What do they think they're saying by saying that?

Further ahead. Beyond the road that runs between tombstones and the old church. There is a perfect spot for picking blueberries. Cranberries and partridgeberries too. The blueberry bushes where they would pick buckets. Just by reaching down and grabbing up handfuls. Plump berries in the mouth. A different flavour from the different sizes and shades. Purple as light as pink and blue as deep as black. Every other tint in between. The autumn boil-ups they used to have in the clearing beyond the bushes. Making a picnic out of it. With Junior watching over Blackstrap. Eventually the two of them off playing together. Climbing the nearby dogberry trees. Up high in the branches. The sight of their old house from a distance. Down further in the valley. Beyond the dirt road and the bushes. Where the land slopes away toward what has become communal pastureland.

Halfway down, Jacob begins to tire. Forgetting the immensity of the land. Smaller in his mind because he knew every square inch. The rolling green pastures before him. The distant headland of black rock that towers from the earth. Spotted with twisted and squat-together trees. A piece of it gone toward the left. Dug away to be tested. The grey rock and shades of brown clay uncovered and showing. A trench shaped like a V. The earth fresher, brighter, the deeper the cut went. A quarry company given a permit to test the rock. Before it was all stopped by protesters. He'd heard all about it when he came home. And the ocean
beyond. The thick flat slab of Bell Isle in the distance. The salt water in the air. Every morning, every day, every night. That salt water that used to fill his lungs. So sweet. Like honey in the blood.

‘How long's it been?' says Jacob. ‘Block'n it from life.'

Blackstrap doesn't get his father's meaning. He watches the headland. Remembering when he had climbed up there. After hearing of Junior's death. Then Ruth's death. The blind eyes open from not seeing to not seeing. Then shut. The desperate sinking shudder in his bones. The love still there. His little sister in a small box. But the hole the same size. What won't be filled up.

Now, his mother's death. In a bigger box. The hole cut the same by his hands. He wonders now if it was the thing to do. The right thing.

Everything taking its time.

They move further into the pastureland. The tall grass green and bent. The smell of someone barbecuing from one of those done-up houses. A herd of goats rushes to one side. Flowing like a startled flock of birds. Pounding the earth. Hooves instead of wings. The sound in the grassy earth. The feel of it travelling.

Jacob pauses by the foundation of their old house. Falters slightly as if losing his footing. The rumble of those goats in his black Sunday shoes. While he checks the blank space inside the square of stacked slate. And his hands come up to cover his face. His two huge hands covering his entire face. His face buried.

‘Mudder,' he sobs.

Blackstrap watching his father. In his old suit slightly too small for him now.

And the herd of goats continues running. In a flowing pattern toward the edge of the cliff. But veering away together as one. Mere inches from the drop.

 

The next morning in his mother's bedroom. Facing those rows of books beside her bed. Staring at the titles. Whose lives in there? Blackstrap wonders. He takes down one book and flips through it to a bunch of glossy pages. Photographs of a four-master stuck in ice. Men in old clothes surrounding the ship. He suspects that they were explorers. Probably a hundred years ago. He suspects that they were trapped. He
studies their faces. Men just like any others. He shuts the book and slides it back into its hole. If they did not die on that voyage then they are dead now. Who cares what they did?

He goes out to the kitchen. Jacob is sitting at the table. A small envelope in his hand with markings on it. Like a form to be filled in. He turns it over. Weight shifting as the jewellery slips out.

Emily's wedding ring.

A locket.

Two of these in his palm.

‘Quincy MD gave me dis,' Jacob says, raising his hand a touch. ‘Yer mudder said she never wanted it buried with her. It were fer yer wife, should ye ever find one. Dat's wha' Quincy said.' The look in Jacob's eyes. Like he can't believe anything. Eyes straining for a pluck at the truth.

Blackstrap lifts the locket from his father's palm. The thin chain dangling. Swaying. He opens the heart. Inside, there is a photograph of Ruth. An image of Junior in the other half. Blackstrap lays it on the table. The chain pooling. Jacob takes it up. Studies the small photographs. Then gazes up at Blackstrap. While he fits the chain around his own neck. Clips it at the back.

Blackstrap picks up the wedding ring. Holds it between two fingers. Some of his other fingers gone. Never a thought of rings. He sits in the chair across from Jacob. Thinks if he should try it at all. What it might mean to do that. He turns the ring over. Looks for an inscription inside. Not knowing why. He tries the ring on his pinkie.

It fits snugly past the knuckle.

Jacob feeling the locket at his neck. His palm cupped over it. Like a woman. That pose. He keeps his palm there and stares at Blackstrap.

Blackstrap watching his pinkie. The plain band of gold.

The smell of bread baking.

They both turn to watch the stove.

It is morning.

But then it is night.

 

Chapter X –1985

Rambo

(June, 1985, 31 years old)

Patsy tells Blackstrap how she watched him come down the walkway. Between the desks in the unemployment office. Years later, when she is dying, she likes telling the story. It brings her comfort because it is about how they met. She tells the children, too, when Blackstrap is locked away. He was her third client that day. Ticket number 44. The number called out over the crowd of men and women sat waiting on chairs. She remembered because 4 was always her lucky number.

It was Patsy's first day. Her first summer job that her father got her. Being friends with Mr. Maher, the supervisor. She had a new car from the Ford dealership in Spaniard's Bay. A gift from her mother and father. She drove from Heart's Content every morning. The wide-open burgundy barrens tinged with blonde and green hilly grass. Wildly stretching in all directions. Then into Victoria with its old houses right near the road. Until barrens again. Up and gradually winding, down into the valley with the ocean and the sprawl of Carbonear to her left. Past Incinerator Road. The haze from burning garbage drifting into passing cars. Climbing another hill and down again, listening to the Bee Gees on her car stereo. Sometimes singing along. For the half-hour run to the unemployment office in Harbour Grace.

Both of the people she had interviewed before her third client were strangers. She was a little nervous, but trying to be in control. Knowing the questions she was meant to ask. Neither of the people too concerned about her. Friendly, in fact. Seeming to like her. Like she was special. Could do things for them. ‘You'll be holding da purse strings,' her father had told her. Her confidence building. She was happy to have a job. The extra money in her pocket.

The man paused to search the five desks in the big room. Turning to
look ahead at her nameplate on her desk. Then looking at her with serious eyes that somehow shocked her. The man was familiar. He was wearing faded blue jeans. A white T-shirt. The short sleeves tight around his thick biceps. A package of cigarettes rolled up one sleeve. He stepped over to the chair and stood there without sitting down. His form held in one hand by his side.

‘S'posed to see you,' he said.

‘Please have a seat.' Patsy motioned toward the chair with her hand. But the gesture seemed foolish in his presence. Having seemed natural with the others. Things turned awkward right away. A sense of threat. She was afraid of him and shy, too.

The man checked the chair. Then her. His thick hair was blonde. His face handsome in a rough way. She smiled, but the man glanced off across the office. Like it might be a trap. Like he was checking to see if anyone was watching. Then he placed his hand on the back of the chair. Pulled it out while he sat on the corner of it. Leaning forward. Still watching her face.

‘Your form, please.' Patsy tried speaking clearly and properly. Knowing that she should cover over her accent. The way to get ahead, one of her teachers used to tell her. A woman from St. John's who taught at their high school, Holy Trinity. ‘No excuse for ignorance,' the teacher had said. ‘Just because you're from Newfoundland. There's no pride in dropping your “H”s.' She pronounced ‘H' like aych, not haych. But Patsy's accent came through anyway. Here and there. She sometimes heard the sound of it after the fact.

The man didn't smile at her. He just handed over the form. And she saw that it wasn't filled in. She began to ask him why, but stopped herself. Remembering one of the points emphasized during her training course. A good number of the people coming into the office won't be able to read or write. Not wanting to embarrass anyone. She smiled again.

‘Your name, please.'

‘Blackstrap Hawco,' he said bluntly.

‘Blackstrap,' she said, searching for a pen. Patsy found one under a form she had previously completed. ‘That's interesting.' She wrote the man's name in the spaces provided. The name was known to her. From somewhere. TV. A newspaper. ‘That's a nice name.' No, she thought,
‘nice' wasn't the word. When she looked up, she saw that he was staring at her. Not pleased. And she felt the smile dissolve from her lips.

‘Different,' she managed to say. Knowing now where she recognized him from. That oil rig that sunk. He was the only survivor. Famous for it.

Blackstrap had noticed Patsy Newell's long hair. He gave it but a glance. But admired it all the same. Like someone he had seen. A woman in the Sears catalogue. She was wearing a purple button-up blouse. And maybe a skirt. Blackstrap could not see. Her hair combed whip straight.

‘Address?' she asked. With her pen hovering over the spaces on the form.

Blackstrap flipped the pack of cigarettes out from under his short sleeve. Tapped the box on the desk. He waited until Patsy thought he had not heard her. Until she began to ask again, ‘Addr—'

‘Cutland Junction,' he said gruffly. Sticking his thumb into the bottom slot of the cigarette box. Pushing up. Opening the fold. Crumpling off the foil covering. Tossing it for the basket. When he looked up, he saw Patsy studying his hair. The blonde already streaked with wide streams of silver-grey. He took out a cigarette. Tapped the end on his knee.

‘Hav'n a good look?' He leaned slightly to the side. To pull out his Zippo lighter. Flipped it open with the butt of his palm. Flicked the flint wheel. One quick recoiling motion. Puffed the flame to life. Then snapped shut the casing. He slid the warm metal back into his pocket. His fingers almost making a jumble of it.

‘No.' Patsy locked her eyes on his eyes. Her cheeks flushing red. She tried smiling, but it came out wrong. Saucy, maybe. The smell of the lighter and a newly lit cigarette.

Blackstrap noticed her two crooked teeth. One to either side of her front teeth. He noticed the brown freckles on her nose. Her fine plucked eyebrows. Lipstick, slightly purple to match her blouse. Eyeshadow too.

‘Do you have your Record of Employment?'

Blackstrap looked away. He sat up in his chair. Put one leg over the other. He blew smoke at the floor. Left hand on top of his right one in his lap. Glanced up at her. ‘No.'

‘We're gonna need that.' She nodded, trying to be serious, but look pretty too. She thought the way he was sitting was almost like a girl. ‘Where was it that you worked? Maybe we can request the record.'

Blackstrap stared down at his cigarette. Flicking the end with his thumb. Knocking the ash away. He sniffed and slowly rubbed at his nose. Twice with the side of his index finger. Thinking for a moment. Then he stood and put the cigarette between his lips. Closing one eye to protect it against the smoke as he gathered up his cigarettes. Folded the package back in his sleeve.

‘Forget it,' he said. Glaring over at a chubby, middle-aged woman who had taken an interest in him. His eyes on her, unmoving, until she looked down at her desk.

Patsy watched his face. Then took notice of the woman. Her name was Viola. She was from Harbour Grace.

Stepping away without further comment, Blackstrap headed for the door.

Patsy wanted to stop him. To tell him to come back, but could not summon the courage to call out. To hear her voice shouting in the big office. She looked at the clock on the wall. Almost lunchtime. She stood from her desk to see six people waiting.

‘G'wan,' Viola called to her. ‘I'll look after dem.' She nodded toward the waiting people. ‘ 'Av yer lunch, girl.'

‘Thanks.' Hurrying for the front door, Patsy hoped Blackstrap Hawco would be lingering on the steps. She was dying for a smoke too, after having Blackstrap smoking right there. But she wasn't allowed to smoke. Rules. There were tons of them in a government office. Closer to the door, she slowed her step, thinking he might still be there. Not wanting to seem like she was rushing after him. She opened the glass door and leaned out. Searched the unpaved parking strip in front of the building. Saw the back of him, the silver of his hair against the blonde, down by a big forest-green car at the far end. Luckily her car was parked right next to his. Her heart sped as she stepped out. Trying not to look at him where he was getting in his car. The sun bright and hot, and she felt it on her skin. Opening her purse, she slowed her step. Poked around for her keys. She heard the heavy door shutting. A muffler rumbling. A screeching of tires. Dirt and pebbles flicking back. Pinging
off the other cars. Looking up, she saw that it was his car. Blue smoke hanging in the air. Drifting toward her until she was standing in it, coughing.

Him gone.

This is the story she tells. Years later. The God-honest truth, she swears to Junior. Little Ruth too young to know any different.

‘And yer father so proud. Never a cent of unemployment coming inta dis house,' she says, mimicking Blackstrap. ‘Well, dat's where we met. When he a'most gave in.'

 

And more of the story, most of it never told. Unfit for children's ears:

The big forest-green car is parked in the woods. Barely visible against the dark clot of trees, melding. Patsy is nervous to find herself here. Having just passed a vacant church at her right that looked haunted. A small graveyard surrounded by a chainlink fence to her left. All of this she has seen in the sliding arcs of Blackstrap's headlights. She looks at him. She is nervous and excited. The graveyard bothered her. She had held her breath while she passed. Like she used to do when she was a child. So the souls of the dead wouldn't enter her. She thought of blessing herself too, but didn't want to do it in front of Blackstrap.

She watches Blackstrap turn off the headlights that glare against the soft black-green tangle of evergreen boughs where the overgrown road keeps going on. Only a few houses with people in them, she's heard. Down in Bareneed. She wonders if they drive on that road. It must be rough to go over.

Blackstrap opens the car door and steps out.

‘Where ya going?' she calls. But the door is shut quickly and with such force that she straightens in her seat. The darkness. She sees Blackstrap's shadowed body moving in front of the car. Hears him hawk and spit. Then his head tilted down while he lights a cigarette. The whoosh of flame gone. The orange dot bobbing. He had been talking about going back to Toronto while they drove down here. He worked up there in some kind of factory. The exact type of place he wouldn't say.

Glancing at the ignition, Patsy sees that the keys are gone. She rolls down her window and leans her head out. ‘Hey?'

Blackstrap's voice dull, already far away, ‘Don't be a scaredy-cat.' And
he laughs. Not a good one. Almost like a bark into the night. ‘Come on, womb'n. Udderwise da boogeyman'll get ya.'

Patsy pulls up on the steel handle and pushes open the heavy door. The sky is a moonless charcoal blue, but with stars. The rocky road leads downhill, in the direction where Blackstrap has gone. She follows it carefully, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Then seeing the darkness clearer. Walking slowly on her heels. Holding her arms out at her sides in case she loses her footing and falls. She has forgotten her sweater in the car. More and more scared stepping down the sloping land, she finally makes out the shape of a man. His back to her while he trudges blindly ahead. Not much to him but a shadow.

‘Hey,' she calls. ‘Where ya going?'

He stops to wait for her, half turned so that part of him is seen. He has reached the large, blasted-flat surface of stone where he used to play as a boy. Scraping designs on the stone with smaller rocks. Home base for tag and spotlight. Cowboys and Indians. Forts built nearby in tiny clearings hidden in the trees. Bareneed always down beyond. Never too far away.

He reaches out and takes hold of Patsy's hand. Meshing his fingers with hers. A few spaces where his fingers are missing. Smooth and strange. It almost makes Patsy pull away, but she catches herself.

Blackstrap leads her further into the grass. Curving away from the road that goes off to the right. Instead stepping toward a fence with grey wooden rails and large squares of wire. He finds the gate and opens it.

‘Where are we?'

His voice beside her, strange out in the open darkness, ‘Pastureland.'

‘Any bulls?' She hesitates, feels her weight stopping.

His soft tug on her arm. ‘Come on.' But he pauses to give her some time. ‘What's da matter, ya don't like be'n out widt murderers in da dark?' He grins and widens his eyes.

She makes a noise. A yelp smothered in her throat. ‘Stop it!'

And he laughs, heading on with her hand in his.

She goes ahead, to avoid being dragged, but leaning slightly back. She hears a sound, her eyes searching a nearby grove of trees. ‘You hear dat?' she whispers tightly.

‘Dat's da murderer I was tak'n about. I got a meet'n set up widt him.'

‘Stop it!'

They rise up over a bank. And they are among the horses and cows. The solid shadows that do not stir as Blackstrap and Patsy pass. Moving down toward where the ocean is. The open gleam of it in the night. Lights from a few houses down deeper in the land.

Patsy can hear the dull surge of water, smell its nearness. The lights across the water on Bell Isle. And beyond, the more distant shore of Portugal Cove.

Blackstrap's voice, ‘I'm go'n up dere.'

She sees his eyes.

He takes his hand from hers, draws it away.

‘What about those horses?'

‘Dey won't hurt ya, luv.'

He begins up the headland, his boots digging in at the edges. It takes a while and his body hardens on the climb. His fingers knowing how to work with the others gone. Up on the top, no longer the noise of him struggling. The sea and the land an eternity around him. The dark mass of Bell Isle against the blue-black water. Topped with lights. Like something afloat. The churn in his guts.

The lights of Port de Grave reflected in water to his left. All mirrored straight along the long strip of land. And the brighter lights of Bay Roberts on a slightly higher ridge behind that rising. Stillness that he breathes into. Not a sound outside his own body. Only the glassy black plain of water before him and the night land at his sides and back.