Blackstrap Hawco (91 page)

He figures the house can be done in two years if he takes his time. He's got a start on it just to shut Patsy up for once. The foundation this summer. Walls up in the fall. Leave it for the winter until he gets more money in the spring. After the court case to see what's taken, what it's going to cost for the lawyer and, maybe, a fine. Court in St. John's. Driving without a proper licence. Witnesses brought in to testify. No doubt Agnes will be there to see or explain the injuries, to give details. The man and the little girl. That's the killer of it. The sight of that little girl. Will she be there? Will he have to see her? Put him in a cage for all eternity for that, just so he didn't have to look at her. The poor crippled thing. Ruined. He would step freely into the cell, if not already.

He'll go sealing if he can, to pay for whatever that little girl needs. Sell his boat. He'll offer to do that. They can have it. The loss of his nut good for something anyway. What does that little girl need? He'll have to ask. Out on the water to the sealing grounds. Stuck in ice for days. His gut churning at the thought of it. The house afloat. A boat. A ship. And Patsy at him all the time. She'll get her goddamn house. Just to shut her up. Have it and rot in it.

But Patsy leaves, is gone after telling him: ‘He had me up against da counter. In front of Junior. Groping at me.'

Jacob had been trying to hug her, trying to hold on, trying to remember. This is how Blackstrap sees it.

 

With Patsy gone and his father being looked after by Mrs. Shears, Blackstrap goes back and forth to St. John's. Gets a job working backhoe in the city. Up at 5 a.m. to drive in, home at seven, unless there's overtime. On the weekends, he stays in with Little Tuffy. He buys the beer and hangs around the apartment for two reasons. He likes Little Tuffy. Plus he wants to see Tuffy's sister again. Karen. She shows up sometimes, out of the blue, while they're at the table with a case cracked open, cigarettes going and talking about Tuffy's big plans to start his own bar downtown. ‘No line-ups,' he says with his palms held up like he's trying to stop something. ‘That'd be a rule.' His wheezing laugh while he looks from Blackstrap to Karen.

Karen not giving any sign of them kissing on that ship. Only there like she's joining in just for the sake of it. But Blackstrap catching her eyes on him every now and again, when he's explaining something.

Tuffy knows about Blackstrap's troubles from the newspaper.
Ocean Ranger
Sole Survivor Sued. Little Tuffy offering Blackstrap some money, if he needs it. No, Blackstrap says. No need of dat. Little Tuffy wanting to arm-wrestle eventually. Blackstrap putting up a good fight, but letting him win.

Little Tuffy with a ‘ha-ha,' a wink and a finger pointing straight at Blackstrap's face. ‘Ya can't beat the brutal likes of me. I'm near godly, sure.'

Karen sits and has a beer. Blackstrap likes the way she's quiet. The way she drinks from the bottle, her lips barely around the top.
Refined. Her eyes on him to see what he thinks, or seeming to want more of him.

On the weekend, he goes downtown to see a band or two. Mostly young people in the clubs. A few oldtimers sitting alone, out of the house so they won't be by themselves forever. He likes watching one musician in particular. A guy with a guitar sitting up on a little riser. Long curly black hair. Blackstrap hears he's a poet too. And an artist. Boyd Chubbs is the name given when he asks the bartender. A gentle man. A delicate man with a soft face. Dressed in black all the time. Blackstrap buys him beers and gets the girl with the tray to deliver them. And sometimes Boyd comes over to sit and talk. Blackstrap admires the way he speaks. Careful, almost whispering, like he's from a faultless and kind world where no harm is ever done.

Boyd tells him, ‘My father was a fisherman, up on the Labrador where I come from.' He pauses to slowly smile, his eyes knowing so much, his words soft and exactly formed. ‘My father used to say, the fish come to a fisherman. The fisherman knows.' He touches Blackstrap's hand. ‘You know. The fish come to the fisherman, as with you.'

Boyd tells stories about Ireland, where he's been playing the guitar, where he's been reading his poetry. Just back from Dublin a week ago. Blackstrap doesn't tell him he plays guitar too. Used to. Before his fingers were lost to him. They talk about family, and discover they share memories of people they've heard of, a relative from Bareneed who went up to the Labrador and settled there. Related to Boyd Chubbs, too, from way back. They might even be related themselves. Small world. They smile at the thought of that.

Cheers. Bottles tapped together.

Boyd Chubbs the way Patrick Hawco was.

Blackstrap takes Karen to see Boyd play at the regular spot on Duckworth Street. He's secretly thrilled when Boyd comes over. A celebrity. But more than that. Hoping Karen will be impressed. Blackstrap watching her face when Boyd talks, seeing what she thinks of it. She is polite and doesn't say much. She listens like she really wants to know, not like Patsy who listens to get it done with, so she can start arguing. He sees an affection in her that is the same as love.

‘This is a good man,' Boyd says to Karen, his eyes steadily on Blackstrap, then a serious, almost priestly, nod. ‘A good soul.' He turns his head to face Karen: ‘You take care of him.'

 

Chapter XV – 1991–1993

Serbia

(September, 1991, 37 years old)

The construction of the house has been delayed, just the hole dug for the basement filling up with water. Blackstrap did that himself with the backhoe borrowed from Lloyd Batten. His own machine gone. The payments too hard to keep up. After Patsy left, he would have no part of it. But with Karen living in his father's house now, he wants a place for her, something new and better.

He waits to hear about the court case against him, but word doesn't come for a while. Then he gets a call from a lawyer telling him that the man has dropped the law suit. He wonders if Agnes had anything to do with it. Her looking after him despite everything. A fine for driving without a licence. He pays that off a bit at a time. And tries to forget, but his sleeping hours won't let him.

He picks up more lengths of two-by-fours from Peach's mill, tosses them down to bang against each other on the soft spring ground. The wood is enough to crib-in the basement.

He goes back for the two-by-sixes – joists for the floor.

Karen has gone to Homeowners Trust to get money, enough to buy windows and doors. She wants it all new, not the recycled ones he has out in the shed. She wants a brand new house, like her mother's in St. John's. Blackstrap has nothing to do with it. She just brings the money home and gives it over to him. Her contribution, she says. He won't take it at first, but she comes close to crying, her eyes filling up, until he agrees.

When he's done cribbing in the foundation, he calls the cement truck
from Burke's. The driver stands with his hands in the pockets of his overalls, moving the chute a little one way then the other while the cement flows. He tells about working on the mainland in Alberta. Hauling cement around. The money to be made. ‘The heat's fierce though,' he says. ‘I've seen big men drop from it.' Back to Newfoundland in the fall after he gets his stamps, collecting pogey plus working for cash. ‘That's the way ta do it.'

Blackstrap stands over the basement and stares down into it. The hollow in the earth, all walled in. Never has he had a basement in a house. Lots of room down there for storage. He wonders what might be put down there to fill up the space. The main floor will be done tomorrow. Then the studs for the walls built on the floor and raised. The whole works eventually crowned by trusses. He's been pricing vinyl siding. Karen wants white. He looks at the hammer he's using. The small one he bought for Junior to teach him like this. How far away in Heart's Content? He should go and visit, but a clean break seems a better plan. Not the sight of anyone to torment the other. He won't show his face in Patsy's house. Not that way. Like a dog with its tail between its legs. He won't be a part of that. Junior seeing him crawling back. He hasn't heard a word about the baby being born, if at all. A boy or a girl? he wonders, hammering the floor planks in place.

 

Word is going around that the cod fishery will soon be shut down. People are blaming it on the seals eating all the cod. The seal population growing to alarming numbers. The Keep It Green people claiming that seals don't eat cod. There are jokes about seals eating pizza and hamburgers and fries. That's what seals eat, hanging around fast food take-outs. Some blame it on foreign overfishing. Others blame it on mismanagement by the federal government, the scientists not having a clue.

The days of going out in the boats are numbered.

In Bareneed, where Blackstrap is working doing up houses, there are only a few fishing boats tied up. Mostly expensive ones now, owned by townies. Leisure crafts.

When he gets home for lunch, a furniture truck pulls in behind him. He checks his fingers. They're full of splinters from tearing old wood out of old houses. Terrible how those splinters trouble a man. He keeps it in
his mind to remember his gloves, but they're only a nuisance most times. He'll see what Karen can do about it with a pair of tweezers. The driver of the furniture truck gets out and puts on his gloves. Slides the back door up. The other man pulls on his gloves while Blackstrap watches.

Karen is up in the window of his father's house.

The truck from a store in St. John's.

Blackstrap nods hello to the men and goes around back of the house to open the door. At once, there's the smell of new wood and new carpet. He leaves the door open.

The men take out a fridge, tilted to carry it properly. They bring it in. Then a stove, a couch and recliner, bureaus, headboards and mattresses. Blackstrap gives them a hand to move the stuff in. All the things Karen saw on the television ad for the store. And then in the flyer from the mail.

Blackstrap thinks of all the furniture in his father's house. Old things that Karen didn't seem to want. Furniture made by hands that knew what they were doing. The items he has been collecting over the years, for his mother's sake. Not that Karen refused. But Blackstrap told her she should get what she wanted. So Karen did just that. Laminate over pressboard.

Blackstrap has to sign for everything. The man holding the pen over the piece of paper. He calls for Karen to do it. She's on her way out from checking everything in the new house. Blackstrap watches her signing her name. There's a perfectly pleased look on her face that makes him smile.

When the men go away, Karen steps around inside the new house, checking the different pieces of furniture in boxes or covered in plastic, happy with what she sees. A new life in a new place. This much she has said to Blackstrap.

A new start.

Blackstrap strips the cardboard off the stove, the splinters in his hands bugging him. He thinks of stopping to get a tweezers or nail clipper, but, instead, finds the wire. No plug. Shit. This is something that should have been checked. His own stupidity. He has wired a female 220 plug already. He'll have to splice it in a box. Or buy a male

220 connector.

He strips the cardboard off the fridge and opens the door. Clean in
there. He plugs it into the wall socket he installed just for the fridge. The unit clicking in. Blackstrap opens the door again just to make certain. The light on. The shelves bare. He likes the look of that. The clean smell. The steel shelves and plastic walls. Before everything gets cluttered up.

Karen comes up behind him. She wraps her arms around his waist, then turns him around.

‘Thanks, Blacky,' she says and kisses him warmly on the lips. Her eyes going to the scar on his cheek. ‘You're a keeper.'

 

(December)

Karen does up the new house with tiny white lights along most surfaces. They smear in the corners of his eyes if he looks at them quickly. Spruce boughs from real trees stapled around doorways. Blackstrap cut them from the trees out back on specific orders from Karen. Little houses with little lights. White teddy bears here and there with red bows around their necks.

Their first Christmas in their new home.

Karen buys boxes and boxes of coloured lights for the front of the house. It takes Blackstrap two days to put them all up. He wonders if the breaker panel will handle it. He takes the face off the panel and carefully clips onto the main line. He turns on all the lights and heaters. Does an amperage test. Plenty of juice to spare.

The house lit up like nothing else, aglow from a distance whenever he comes up over the valley and takes the turn. He thinks Junior would like it, wonders if he should go get him, just take him to show what he's done. And Ruth almost two months old now. He hasn't seen her yet, hasn't laid eyes on her. But he knows that she's named Ruth. Patsy called to tell him that much in a saucy way. He thought it might have been out of respect, naming the baby after his dead sister, but it might have been out of spite. He can't tell for certain. Patsy always angry. There's no way of figuring her out.

He should get Christmas presents for the kids. Karen has mentioned it, offered to do it for him. But she has no place in that. He told her so. No. Even though he keeps thinking of shopping, believing it might be the right thing to do. But the wrong person to do it.

Two days before Christmas, Karen invites her brothers out for dinner. Glenn and Little Tuffy. No sign of her parents. No talk of them either. He doesn't ask. Karen does up the house weeks before, worried that everything should be perfect. She vacuums twice a day, washes the windows and dusts everything. With her acting like this, he wonders about marriage. There's been no mention of it, so he leaves it that way.

Glenn and Little Tuffy arrive in the same car. Little Tuffy, already on the beer, hugging everyone and joking around with Karen. He has a big sack of presents slung over his shoulder that nearly topples him. ‘My Santa sweater,' he says, tugging at the front of his red sweater with a big Santa face on it. ‘Wha' ya think? Sexy or wha'?' He passes out early on the couch, after dancing a few jigs to the cassette of Christmas fiddle music he brought along. Glenn doesn't drink. Doesn't touch a drop. His face doesn't seem pleased with anything that's going on. Blackstrap hears him saying something to Karen about it being the cruellest season of the year.

Glenn gets the whole meal on video. The table. Karen bringing things out. He gets a lot of Karen. The lens aimed at her.

‘Show the house,' she keeps saying.

Glenn gets a little of the living room. Zooms in on Little Tuffy on the couch. One arm hanging over the edge.

Blackstrap can't stand Glenn. Always with his video camera, looking out through the lens, thinking what he's capturing is important. It's just life. Every second comes and goes. No need to be seen again because there's always more. Another minute. Hour. Day. Blackstrap just turns his head when it's aimed at him. It makes him angry, like a weapon pointed his way. Someone trying to take something from you, to have it as their own. No way of acting natural. He'd like to punch Glenn in the face and smash the video camera.

After dinner, Blackstrap comes out of the bathroom and sees Glenn talking to Karen. Face to face. Talking low. Bodies too close for his liking. Glenn steps back when Karen's eyes go to Blackstrap.

Glenn watches the kitchen tile. ‘Time to head off,' he says.

Blackstrap loads Little Tuffy on board by himself because Glenn won't lend a hand. ‘Let him crawl,' says Glenn. ‘Never raise a finger to help an alcoholic.'

‘Is that what dey say?' Blackstrap asks hotly.

Little Tuffy sings and waves his arms, protests about leaving so soon. He kisses Karen before getting in the car. ‘I loves you, sis. Dun't forget, a'right. Loves ya.' Karen tries laughing him away. Little Tuffy kisses Blackstrap. Blackstrap lets him. Then Blackstrap laughs at it. Laughs loudly. ‘Loves ya, too, buddy. Yer watch'n fer my sis.'

Blackstrap glances toward his father's house. His father in the window, drawn there by what must have been noise. A shadow that refused to eat with strangers. But it's not like he's facing them. He's facing straight ahead, staring off. Only a little light behind him so his outline can be made out, but nothing else. No Christmas lights over there. No Christmas tree inside.

Karen waves goodbye. Blackstrap is already on his way up the path. Around back. Into the porch. The kitchen.

He is silent. Something about the gathering he does not like; what was left from it. Glenn. He doesn't mind Little Tuffy much. A sick man. A man destroying himself. It's a funny way of life, but sad too. He helps clear away the dishes, scrapes them off in the back porch bin. Karen loads them in the dishwasher, turns it on. The hum he hates.

She is quiet all the rest of the night.

Then in bed. Two of them silent, eyes on the ceiling, until she turns to face him.

‘Turn off the light,' she says. He switches off the lamp by his bed, the one Karen picked out. Then she switches off hers. She stays still. A while later, he shifts toward her, his hand on her belly.

‘No,' she says, moving his hand away.

This makes Blackstrap angry. What is she after? He waits, thinking of other lives, other lives he might have. Other women. In the dark, he sees anything. Agnes with that man in Corner Brook. He should go back there. The way that man beat him. Why did he let that happen? Stronger now. Then Karen with her hands on him, one hand down his underwear, pulling.

She climbs on top of him.

‘Shut your eyes,' she says.

He can barely make her out. He shuts his eyes when she puts him in her.

Her movements getting faster. ‘You won't tell.'

Only a noise with him not saying anything.

‘Just be a good boy.' Moaning and then gasping, sniffling, moving faster. She holds down his arms, leans forward and moves faster, the heavy meat of her breasts pressed into his face. ‘Suck my titty.'

A deep, long moan that stretches her body higher, then stillness for a long time.

Small weeping sounds, quiet like a girl.

Blackstrap flinches. Tears spotting his face. No idea why or what has made her, in the darkness, in the clean sheets, in the new bed, in ruins.

 

(February, 1992, 38 years old)

It's a hard run into St. John's in a blizzard. No definition to anything in front of you. By the time Blackstrap reaches Holyrood, he has to slow to ten kilometers. On the booze last night. Drunk with Paddy. Karen still pissed off at him. He should give up driving a plough in St. John's. It's too hard to get in there and back again. But it's a job he's held on to.

The hours are good because there's been plenty of snow. He clears parking lots in the morning and at night. Bob Buckingham has the contract to clear the university lots. Blackstrap enjoys that. Not a car in sight at night. In a parking lot, pushing snow into mounds. The lone sound of the engine over the cleared lot. The sound of his machine beeping, backing up. The snow falls so gently that it can only be seen in the lights of a nearby streetlamp.

He sits in the plough in the middle of the parking lot. With no one around to bother a man, he has a nip from his flask of rum. He could drop off to sleep, he's so content. Not a care in the world with him in the middle of that cleared lot. The snow in the lights of the streetlamps a miracle to him. Leaned back in his seat, just watching that.