Blackstrap Hawco (81 page)

He hears Patsy's voice calling to him from below. But he hears it as his mother's.

Home. Their house in the valley.

He gazes up at the clarity of stars. Vivid points of light arranged against the deepest blue. The faint impression of clusters like dust. Far off. Like he can see millions of miles into space. The sight saddens him, troubles him. His feet on a rock. The truth of planets. He shies away from thinking that big. The swell of it roaring up in his head.

‘Come up,' he calls to avoid himself. ‘Fer a taste of the sky.'

He hears her laughing a little.

‘Yer frig'n crazy,' she says.

Patsy Newell stood in the darkness far below.

If he doesn't look at the sky, he feels at peace up here. The water cannot reach him. Unless he plunges into it. A story he has heard about someone falling off the cliff. Hundreds of years ago. Someone from Ireland who drowned himself. The headland was named after him for a while. Tommy's Drop. Then it changed into some other name. For whatever reason. And another.

He feels how it might be possible. Nearer to the edge now. The toes of his boots a bit over. Made happy by the sight of that. The distance to the dark rocks and water. Nothing as powerful as what that drop might take from him.

With Patsy trailing after his bootprints to this place. Knowing now that she will follow him anywhere. Scare her and make her laugh at once. Hook, line and sinker.

 

Blackstrap has heard of a course he can take to drive a backhoe. There is plenty of work because men keep heading off to the mainland. Working for better wages. Why stay in Newfoundland when more money can be made elsewhere? The townies and mainlanders keep buying up land and old houses in Bareneed. They get everything for cheap because no one in Newfoundland knows what it's worth. He's heard a few mainlanders talking about how cheap the properties are. Them dressed in creased summer clothes meant to make them look casual. One of them wearing a strange hat. Like's he going hunting lions on a safari. They keep using the word ‘cheap.' How cheap the old houses are. A steal. Right on the ocean. You'd pay millions of dollars anywhere else. For a view like this. Millions. They'd laugh and keep talking while Blackstrap did work on their places. Like he wasn't there. Tearing out old boards to put in new. Replacing split clapboard and nails with the heads rusted off. Jacking up a house on one end to dig out a rotted sill. Tearing tar paper off a roof and mending a soft patch of wood here and there. Nailing shingles on. Not black like the normal ones. The townies want them brick red or green. Something different to set them apart. As long as he's in Bareneed, he doesn't mind the people. He still feels at home there. Rebuilding the houses that might've fallen down otherwise.

He knows he doesn't need the backhoe course. He just wants to learn
how to drive the machine. How long would it take? Half an hour. Just give him a backhoe and let him drive it. There are a few of them parked at night by one of the contractors doing work down in Bareneed. The townies not wanting to hire local guys. Bringing in workers from St. John's who charge twice as much for the same thing.

He thinks through all of this while he waits for another beer at the bar in Tommy's. Patsy wants Tia Maria and milk with a little straw. She has to have the straw or she can't drink it. He hands her the glass and she sips from it while watching him. Lighting a new cigarette off the butt of the old one. She likes her smokes.

The band strikes up. The boom of the bass drum in his chest. Patsy turns and watches. Blackstrap stares at the space behind the bar. Thinking about when he sang up on that stage. Playing when Agnes walked in. ‘Black Velvet Band.' What he wouldn't give to see her now. Andy Coffin drunk most of the time. The bottle getting the better of him. Something the matter with his legs now. Rubber-legs, they've been calling him lately.

Someone taps him on the shoulder. He looks to see Patsy.

‘Wanna dance?'

He shakes his head, drinks from his bottle. All the people in the hall from all around. Most of them know who he is. Especially after the
Ocean Ranger
. He wouldn't make a fool of himself by dancing. The band up there that he could be playing in. No time for music anymore. The guitar no good without all his fingers. And he won't be one of those freaks with a special talent. His picture in the paper because he can play the guitar.

Another beer and him staring at his hand holding the bottle.

 

Music sounds loudly in the large dance hall of the Caribou Lounge. The band on the stage in the corner is playing a Freddie Fender song, one that Patsy likes. They left Tommy's hours ago after Blackstrap started talking in a strange way. Going on and on with words that made no sense. Like song lyrics but too strange to make out. His voice almost singing, but not quite. Looking straight at her and speaking in that voice. Deep, complicated strings of words.

Patsy stands with her back against the lip of the bar. A short glass of
rye and ginger in her hand. Her fingers on the two thin straws. She gave up on the Tia Maria. Only a few or they'd make her sick. She is half listening to the music. Half watching Blackstrap lean with one arm against the wall by her side. His head bowed down. Staring at the tile. He's stopped saying the strange words. They had been dancing to a slow song because those are the only ones Blackstrap will dance to, close and slow.

The boys had been buying him drinks of rum in sympathy for the death of his mother. And he had drunk them quickly. Pretending that he was alright, his expression unchanged. That was the first Patsy had heard of the death. Blackstrap hadn't mentioned it to her the first few times they went out together. Hearing that had been like a kick in the heart to her. Not knowing what to say to Blackstrap about it. He wouldn't look at her after she said, ‘I'm sorry fer yer loss.' Wouldn't meet her eyes from that point on.

Blackstrap comes over to sit at the table. Two chairs away from Patsy. He stares at the crowd. Seeming unfocused. Lost with so many people all around him. Patsy watches his rough face with its grey and blonde stubble. Then his arms as he takes hold of the table edge with each hand and pushes himself up. Bracing a palm tighter against the beer-cluttered top for an instant before he turns. He carefully steps through the tables toward the back. Next to the bar where the crowd is thickest.

Right away, he returns to Patsy. ‘Let's go,' he calls, stepping up alongside her. The band silent between songs, only the static of the crowd. He tilts his head toward the steel double doors at the front of the hall. The ones he helped install a few years ago. A new door box put in and a bit of rot needing to be cut out.

Patsy takes one last sip of her rye before slipping the thin straws from her lips. She lays the drink down because Blackstrap has already started off. His stride through the crowd surprisingly even.

Outside, he says, ‘Gimme da keys.' Turning and leaning with his back against the building. His voice so clear in his ears out in the night. The muddled sound of the band starting up through the walls.

Patsy opens her small white purse. Digs around while glancing at him.

He looks at her, his face demanding, almost hostile. But he says,
‘Don't worry.' Standing straighter. The air seeming to sober him. He makes a noise in his throat, the beginning of a cough. He hawks and spits, flinging his head in the direction of the saliva.

Patsy finds the keys. Holds them out to him in her closed hand. Searching his eyes. ‘Ya alright? Blacky?'

Blackstrap stares intently. Something off kilter in his eyes. He takes hold of her arm and pulls her closer. Uses his other hand to bend open the fingers holding the keys.

‘I'll drive ta Cutland,' he says, meaning she can drive herself home. If that's what she wants. Only so far.

Patsy follows after him. The soles of her white shoes skimming the gravel in the parking lot. She finds it difficult to walk in the tight white skirt. Attempting to hurry, she is forced to walk in a way that frustrates her.

Opening the driver's door and sliding in, Blackstrap feels cramped. Slides the seat back. Then the passenger door opens and Patsy climbs in. Her skirt hiking up, so that she flushes red and tugs it down as soon as she sits. The centre patch of her panties revealed for a second. Glancing at Blackstrap, she sees that he has been looking there. His face telling nothing. She buckles up, clicking the belt snugly into place.

‘Ya sure?' she asks, touching his arm.

Blackstrap starts the engine. Staring through the windshield.

‘Put on yer belt.' She reaches for it and pulls it across his chest. Clicks the buckle in place. Just as the car roars ahead. Out of the gravel parking lot. Blackstrap not checking either way.

Oh, God,
Patsy says to herself. ‘No,' she whispers. ‘Blacky.'

Speed increasing, the car takes a curve in the road. The passenger tire sliding onto the soft dirt shoulder, then back onto the even asphalt. Nothing that cannot be easily controlled.

Patsy grimaces and worriedly peeks at Blackstrap. But his eyes are fixed straight ahead as if chasing after something he might recognize or pass through.

‘What're ya trying ta prove?' she finds herself saying, her voice gone teary.

Blackstrap says nothing.

Patsy leans to check the speedometer. The needle between 100 and 110.

‘Stop it,' she says, her fingers on his arm. Fingernails digging in. Shaking his arm. ‘Stop it.'

Another glance at the speedometer: 120.

Blackstrap is thrilled by the speed. His legs turning lighter and lighter. The pleasurable movement in his crotch. He knows the road. Knows its length, but his timing might be off. Travelling at such speed. He spots the stop sign up ahead.

Coming crazily, unpredictably close.

Shearstown Line running perpendicular with the strip of asphalt they glide along. The yellow sign facing them with the black dots and black arrowheads pointing in either direction. Vivid in a flash. It is all upon them before his foot reaches the brake. He slams hard and fiercely cuts the wheels to the left. The car leans off, sideways, on two wheels, then none. Tilting silently up through the still air. Through the sign. A weightless drift that cannot last much longer…A wave descending. A shock of lost breath…Before impacting against the hard ground. Metal easily giving way. The shape of the earth indenting.

A crashing blur of chassis and bouncing crunching glass as Blackstrap and Patsy roll.

 

Black silence.

A plunge through ice.

Frozen, crystal mercurial and still.

The silence holds chaos back.

The dead men nudge him.

Blackstrap moves to free his breath. Eyes that see in unknown darkness. A moan beside him almost lovely. Instinct. A way out. He reaches for a handle, tries opening the door. Stuck, damaged, dented. Shoving it with his shoulder, it scrapes open mere inches. Something stopping it. Bodies. He pushes harder with his shoulder. More scraping. The green dashboard lights glow before his eyes. The headlights pan out in front of the car. No sea. No waves. The trees hold their branches like roots to the ground. But everything afloat. He looks at Patsy staring at him. Her dead eyes fixed on something beyond. But then she blinks.
Her lips blue beneath the pink lipstick. They open wordlessly. A quarter inch between top and bottom rows of teeth. They chatter in code.

Blackstrap tries the door again. Shoving at it. The grating into earth. The gouging. Only now noticing the ground at the top of the door. And his perception wobbles. Slides toward…what?

He looks at Patsy. His head heavier than it should be. Wanting to drop the wrong way.

‘A'right?' he asks.

She turns her head and stares through the windshield. The ground as the sky beneath them. The earth dropped away and only space remaining. Patsy tingles everywhere. She thinks that she has had an orgasm. Her body alight. What that might mean frightens her.

Am I dead?

Blackstrap shoves harder at the door. Until it opens a foot more. Enough to squeeze through. He is suspended in place. Why? Searching his chest. The seat belt. He reaches for the buckle. Presses the button. And falls out onto the ground. Rolls onto his side. Bracing the clumpy grass and dirt with his hands. He lies there for a moment. The smell of the damp earth. Like in the grave he dug. Something wet on his hand. A slug. A worm. A maggot. His eyes watching the roof of the car. Level with his face. He stumbles to his feet to discover how damaged he might be. Stepping away from the car stuck there. Upside down. The metal crinkled and busted up. Not a new car anymore. He checks toward the road. Sees that they are eighty feet in from asphalt. Not a car in sight. He walks around to the other door. Opens it with a series of tugs.

‘Careful,' he says to Patsy. Leaning in, he unbuckles her seat belt to help her out. His right hand behind her neck, his left behind her knees. He lifts her from the vehicle. Tipping her body until her head is higher. Her feet aimed at the ground. He sets her down. But holds her with one arm around her waist.

Patsy looks at the car, then at Blackstrap's face. A tingle of newer fright. A tremble everywhere in her face. Her knees give way. Blackstrap tightens his hold on her to keep her upright.

‘Me car,' she whispers. ‘Fadder's gonna fuh'k'n kill me.'

My
car, thinks Blackstrap in his mother's voice.

Patsy has dirt in her hair. Where it had rushed in through the broken
passenger window. Blackstrap gently flicks the sprinkles away. Then grips her shoulders and stands in front of her. Checking her clothes and body. His hands all over her. Touching places she barely feels.

Not a scratch on either one of them.

‘I'm gonna…' Patsy's hand darts up. Turning, she chokes and vomits into the dark grass. Crying now. ‘Me car.' Being sick has let loose the tears. Her head hanging forward. Holding her hair away from her mouth.

Blackstrap tries to touch her. But she leans away. Slaps blindly back at him. Sobs with her head bowed. Again, Blackstrap checks the street. No cars yet. He thinks of turning off the headlights. Goes to the driver's side and bends in there. Pushes the knob off. Night only. The moon soon giving its own scary light.