Blackstrap Hawco (85 page)

Only one small voice saying ‘hello' as a question. Shrill ringing in his ears.

 

Jacob sits in the chair by the side of the hospital bed. He watches Blackstrap for a while, then reaches forward, takes hold of his hand, rubs and pats it.

‘Cripes, b'y,' he says. ‘Dat's no way ta bag a moose.'

Blackstrap cannot find a stain of humour in it. He thinks about Jacob, thinks there should be other people. From that house. He wonders who: a woman and a boy. Not a girl. His child. A boy, not a girl.

‘Tell us wha' happened,' says Jacob, seated in the chair by the side of his bed. ‘I looked fer da doctor but he's not in till later.'

She, thinks Blackstrap. She's not.

‘She,' he says.

‘Wha'?'

‘She doctor.'

‘She dev'l?'

‘Agnes.'

‘Who?'

‘Agnes.'

Jacob checks toward the doorway. No one passes in the hallway. He turns his attention back to Blackstrap. ‘Tell 's wha' went on. Wreckhouse's da wickedest of places.'

Blackstrap remembers about the moose. Larger than the entire windshield. Something about a little girl. Tiny. He sighs right away, anger from confusion mounting. He shuts his eyes. He wants out. His head muddled. He sees a little girl, but the face is entirely unfamiliar. She could be anyone.

‘Best not talk den. I'll get da news from da doc.'

‘Who?' he says, not knowing why.

‘Yer out of it.' Jacob laughs. ‘Patsy couldn't come 'cause o' Junior.'

Blackstrap tries looking for the doorway. Patsy there. No one there. A bundle in her arms wrapped in a pink blanket. A girl. Isn't that what happened? Or was it something else about a girl. They grow up, all of them. They grow up and old.

 

There is a small television on an arm that can be pulled out over his bed. The screen put in front of his face. The nurse shows him how this is done. She presses the button and an image beams on. A picture of water turned black. Black washing up on a beach. Dead sea birds. The woman puts the ear plug in his ear. ‘Eleven million barrels of oil spilled…'

‘Someone has been calling for you,' says the nurse.

‘What?'

‘A man but he won't leave his name. You should get a phone in your room.'

Agnes steps up to the foot of his bed, like she just came from somewhere else where she was busy. She stands there smiling at him. Her hands in the front pockets of her white coat.

‘You know where you are today?' asks the nurse.

Blackstrap looks at the nurse, her face a mystery. He thinks: The beautiful nurse. The one from the delivery. In a different hospital. Where is he?

‘Do you know where you are?'

‘A…hospital.'

‘Right.' The doctor looks at the nurse. ‘Good.'

There is talk in one of his ears. Tiananmen Square. Troops opened fire on demonstrators. Hundreds dead. Orientals. Who's to do what about it. The people watching are expected to stop it.

Agnes is talking. Why is she there? Why is she looking after him? So many years after she left, here now.

Blasphemous. A five-million-dollar reward to murder a man who wrote a book. Was he British? Was he from India? A man on TV wants to know. A British man says ‘yes,' another argues ‘no.' ‘Of course, he knew what he was getting into.' ‘Even though he speaks with a British tongue, he's intimate with the Muslim faith.' The men with British accents but with dark skin.

‘I can't hear.'

‘Do you want me to turn it up?' asks the nurse.

‘What?' He looks at her, looks back at the foot of his bed.

The space where Agnes was.

 

Outside, there is a smell in the air, a rotten egg stink on the wind. Cars are parked everywhere. Set up in lines. Back to back. Front to front. Colours that would startle anyone. Jacob mentions a pulp and paper mill. ‘Smell dat?' He looks toward the water. The brick building with smoke billowing out. He knows a few people who work there, men whose families were from Bareneed. They moved to the west coast of the island for whatever work.

It takes them a while to find the truck. Jacob does not remember. Blackstrap does not know either, even with Jacob asking: ‘Where'd I park da pickup?'

Finally, it is there before them, backed into the space the way his father always parks. The hard part first, then easy out. Straight ahead.

Blackstrap opens the passenger door. His fingers doing what they should, despite his head. Jacob stands close by, asking if Blackstrap needs a hand. Blackstrap's legs not all there. Movement hurts his eyes, makes him feel stomach sick. People and cars. Colours shifting. The size of the sky above him. It takes a second for his mind to catch up, to settle him down.

Damage of some sort. Tests were done by a man with cards asking questions. The man's face a blank. ‘This is not about me,' the man kept saying, when Blackstrap wanted to know.

The honking of a horn in the parking lot. Blackstrap turns his head. A car is there, facing them with its headlights on, even though it's
daylight. The car starts rolling toward them. The horn keeps making a sound. Short toots. A warning. A series of letters. A code. Then a straight long honking.

Are they in the way? Blackstrap thinks.

The car pulls right up beside them. The man jumps out from behind the wheel. He rushes toward Blackstrap. He's shouting: ‘You fucking,
fucking
murderer.' He pushes by Jacob, shoves him toward the pickup where Jacob strikes the bonnet. Then he's against Blackstrap. A body pressing near his. The man shouting in Blackstrap's face. The man's face full of rage. The man's eyes in dark circles. White spit on his lips. The man's hands shoving at Blackstrap's chest. Shoving and grabbing, then letting go. All at once. A fist held back. The pain roaring up. Blackstrap cringes forward. A blade down between his eyes. He slopes forward but does not fall. There is a scuffle of movement. The man being pulled away.

Blackstrap's hand against metal. He straightens to see a police officer holding the man back, holding the man behind the arms. The policeman's talking to the man. Talking quickly into one of his ears, trying to reason with him. Buddies that know each other. On a first-name basis.

Blackstrap looks toward the man's car because there has been movement there. He sees in the back window. A baby's seat. A girl in it. Her head on an angle, staring straight at him. She just keeps staring, for all the world to see. She's too big for a baby seat. Then she smiles, a big wet smile that stays that way. Her face as happy as anything possible. Her tongue slipping out. Until her hand comes up and slaps at the window. The girl smiles and screeches.

Sweet Jesus Christ Almighty!

The man checks toward the car. He sees the girl and looks back at Blackstrap. His face a mess of anger. ‘Don't you…you look at her.' He tries pulling away, to get at Blackstrap.

Jacob now stood in front of Blackstrap, pointing at the man. Jacob uttering oaths and nodding solid. ‘Mind yerself.' Words fast and clipped so that Blackstrap has trouble making them out.

‘Just get in your vehicle,' says the police officer. ‘Please.'

Jacob takes a while to calm down. ‘Get 'im in
'is
vehicle.'

‘Just drive away. Now, please, sir.'

A crowd has gathered, slowly walking through the grey. Sad faces turned to watch in. But there is nothing to see.

Blackstrap cannot help staring at the little girl. She bangs a toy against the window. A clear hole made of something. He shifts his jaw to one side. His shoulders go weak. He opens his mouth and takes a wet breath. The image of the little girl slips out of focus.

To put his head against hers.

To shut his eyes.

To whisper to her in whatever language.

She might likely understand.

For all the love that could never be hers.

 

The nine-hour drive east, from Corner Brook to Cutland Junction, goes by in silence. Occasionally, with Blackstrap shifting more and more in his seat, the pickup pulls into an Irving gas station on the highway. Blackstrap gets out, aware of how he's paused in a spot in the middle of nowhere. The movements of wheels stopped. His feet on the ground, just like the others taking a break in mid-journey. He goes inside and watches people buy coffees, chips, soda pop and bars. There's a restaurant attached where people sit at tables or in booths. He's been here plenty of times over the years, but never is there a familiar face. Only now he seems to recognize everyone.

They get back in the truck. Without a word, his father hands Blackstrap a chocolate bar like he used to do when Blackstrap was a boy. His favourite type. He takes it and looks at the wrapper. Saves it for later.

Back home, Patsy gives over bits of news. Things that have happened while Blackstrap was gone. She remembers more bits of news as she is reminded by other things. Blackstrap tries to imagine what or who she is talking about, but can only put together fragments.

He is meant to rest for three weeks and then physiotherapy should be scheduled. People call from the hospital in Corner Brook. And then people call from the nearer hospital in Carbonear.

The physiotherapy causes more pain than he thought possible. Even after everything, he stops going to the appointments in Carbonear. The
long drive only makes his back worse. There are exercises he is meant to do. Leg lifts. One leg bent at the knee, then raise the other. Tilt the toes back. Pelvic tilts. Lie flat on the floor and angle the hips up, hold for five seconds, then down. A crushed lower vertebra.

Agnes calls to check on his progress. She asks specific questions, then waits, listens. Patsy has answered the phone and handed it to him. It might be anyone, but the voice he hears he recognizes. Patsy stands right there and watches him, mouthing: ‘Who's dat?' He answers quietly; small words while he studies his feet. The missing toes behind the socks. Lumpy is how he feels. The pain not so bad in the light of her voice. He won't take the pills like he's supposed to. He sweats from the pain. And the headaches that blind him, until Agnes says that it appears he will make a full recovery. But by the sound of her voice, he knows that she is worried. Not asking about the mother and the little girl. Those two people fill the space of what's been taken away, keeping them at a distance. Every single person dead in his life. That woman and that little girl add it all up. Strangers, but once his. Once, they were more to him than now. That's how he feels. He's positively convinced.

Full recovery, he thinks after hanging up. Will she call again?

Patsy watches him, her arms folded across her chest. ‘Dat doctor again,' she says. ‘She was from 'round here, right? You just try it.'

Strained words: ‘Try what?'

‘Just try it.'

He does not understand what she is saying. Or why she is saying it.

Up and around, he cannot lift Junior into his arms. Work, he loses track of. The thought of work smothers him. His back pains if he moves his legs to the side. And, sometimes, his mind just goes. It leaves him. He finds himself again a few moments later. On a journey through a blizzard. A voyage. A fire. A hanging. A battle…Coming back from something he cannot rightly place himself in.

He barely breathes as an onlooker.

At night, lying in bed, the pain like metal in his blood, he can feel it in his teeth, coating the roots. He tries tilting up his hips, holds it. He is glad that he is alone, that Patsy is watching television, that she is not next to him. He does not like her. He hates her now. He has always tried not to hate any person. Something his mother used to say: Never hate a
person. They can never do so much badness to deserve being hated. But he feels hatred toward her. Patsy knows nothing of what he is feeling. She doesn't care. Only complaints about herself.

He tries not to, but he has to take a pill.

He struggles up to sit on the edge of the bed. Shifting his legs is the worst of it, his arms stiffening with the effort. A bottle of pills from the night table in his hand. All of the physical misery adds up to a memory of his mother. He watches into the hollow of the pill bottle. How many would he need to take, to relive Christmas?

 

Patsy keeps telling him there is no money coming in. No worker's compensation. Blackstrap without a rig licence in the first place. Compensation cut off. An investigation under way and talk of him being charged with something. He shouldn't have been on the road without a rig licence.

The police come by and serve him a summons.

Then, a few weeks later, another summons. A lawsuit from a man in Corner Brook. The husband of the wife. The father of the little girl. Blackstrap cannot fix cars or haul wood, and Jacob is useless. He doesn't like it when Patsy says that word. ‘Useless' to describe his father.

Patsy goes to work at the fish plant in Port de Grave. She comes home stinking. She has to take off her rubber gloves, boots, hairnet and apron outside before she steps into the house. While Patsy's at work, Blackstrap or Jacob watches Junior. Most times, after kindergarten, Junior sits in front of the television, watching children's shows.
Sesame Street
or
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
. Junior has only half a day of school in the mornings or afternoons. Hard to keep track of which days. Junior there one minute, gone the next. Sitting in front of the television in his space. Then his space a blank.

Blackstrap takes Junior out for slow walks. He can't drive the truck yet. It's easier to manage the car because it's lower. But his mind. One stretch of road like another. He wonders where, and watches every car that passes in the other direction. The faces of the drivers never the same. He gets lost for a while, but eventually finds his way.

The woods is easier to remember. They step along trails. It's difficult over the uneven ground. Plus carrying the chainsaw. He cuts down two
trees before he begins to sweat. Almost collapses to his knees. His hand against a trunk. Junior kicks at trees, side-kicking and pretending to punch while making karate sounds. Swatting at flies, Blackstrap wants to show Junior, but the way he is now is wrong. He has to stop. He has to give up.