Blackstrap Hawco (95 page)

Blackstrap takes a swig without wiping the rim, and hands it back.

‘Dat John Crosbie's here on Friday. You see that on da news? Making an announcement on the fishery. Not gonna be good. Shut 'er down, I suspects.'

Blackstrap shifts his gaze to the other man in the other bed. He's sleeping. A shadow laid flat. This is the ward where they're put to bed forever. There's a name on it that Blackstrap can't pronounce.

‘What you gonna do 'bout it?'

‘'Bout what?' Blackstrap's attention drawn back to Tuffy. He notices
Tuffy's face, how thin it is, how far gone. The light outside the window dimming over the landscape. A skeleton in a narrow bed. A bed that looks too big. Little Tuffy lost in it.

‘Dat Crosbie feller,' says Tuffy, running out of breath. ‘Wha' you gonna do…'bout him, cause yer the man?'

 

Back in Cutland Junction, the telephone keeps ringing. Blackstrap had the number changed after the sinking of the Portuguese vessel. But it's not long before the new number circulates around the community. Men from the area won't stop calling to see how he's going to deal with this John Crosbie business. Donny Cole tells him Crosbie's on his way to St. John's with his suit pockets stuffed full of bad news. ‘As is usually da case,' says Donny. Someone in the community has been talking to the media because they soon get Blackstrap's new number. They call wondering if he'll be attending the meeting. Does he have a plan of attack? A group of fishermen from Port de Grave, Cupids and all around are heading to St. John's for a show of solidarity.

Pickup trucks meet in front of Blackstrap's place for the drive in. Karen doesn't want anyone in the new house. She hides in the bedroom, more and more nervous all the time, like she fears everyone, scared of everything. The way she sees the world turning worse while Little Tuffy wastes away. She won't go visit him. He'll be dead soon and she won't even go see him. A fit of nerves. Blackstrap's even had to stop bootlegging. There's nothing he can do that doesn't worry her. The telephone ringing is the worst.

‘Something's going to happen, Blacky,' she says. ‘Something bad.' Like a trapped animal always backing away.

He tells the men to gather in Blackstrap's father's house. His father knowing everyone. Almost back to himself since the Portuguese incident, like it snapped him out of it. The way he talked to the media about the decades of companies raping Newfoundland of every virtue and treasure. His father with fit words for every reporter who put a microphone in his face. Then watching himself on Karen's TV. Coming over to catch the news. Unable to believe it was really him. Chuckling and shaking his head. He sits for hours in the kitchen, wanting the story from Blackstrap's mouth every minute of the day. Leaned forward and
then sitting straighter and straighter as the story goes along. ‘Dose Portugee showed ya da respect ye deserved.' He encourages the fishermen who come into the house. ‘Dis it wha' it's all 'bout,' says Jacob. ‘Yays, b'ys. Dis is it.' He smacks his fist on the table and tells the men the story. ‘Out on da two-hundred-mile limit, I were. Firing cannons at dose foreign bastards.' He laughs and slaps Blackstrap on the back. ‘We sunk one o' 'em. Didn't we, me son? Den captured da Portugee. Dey never gave us no worries. Dat lot. ‘

The fishermen crowd into the kitchen, standing or seated at the table. Cigarettes and beer bottles in hand, nodding at Jacob's words, waiting on Blackstrap. The heat of so many bodies, mingled with smoke and gruff anticipation. When Blackstrap finally stands, they all stand. Chairs scraping over the wooden floor. Cigarettes snuffed out. Beers finished off. Bottles set down on the counter.

‘Right, b'ys,' says Blackstrap.

And his father stands laughing at the burst of movement. ‘Go get 'im,' he calls out, tears of joy glistening in his eyes.

 

A string of pickup trucks head in over the highway.

Court in a week, Blackstrap thinks, hands on the wheel. The insurance company will be looking for damages, the Fishermen's Union's lawyer has told him. The cost of the vessel and equipment. A small fortune. The lawyer asks: ‘You ever give any consideration to declaring personal bankruptcy?' That's what's in his mind now. Losing the house. Karen. Such a mess of considerations on such a fine, sunny day. Heat through the windshield. He struggles to pull off his coat while driving. What more harm can be done? What's there to lose? Fucking John Crosbie. The Crosbies. Another family of merchants with a bunch of big businesses in St. John's. Businesses built from the profits earned off the sweat of half-starved fishermen. Merchants turned politicians, as was always the case. Government-sanctioned slave drivers.

When Blackstrap rolls near the big hotel, some of the trucks are there ahead of the others. There's a bit of traffic. A mess of cars and trucks parked everywhere, on both sides of the road and up on the curbs. Blackstrap has to park a few minutes' walk away. Men and women already in the street, marching past him, heading for the hotel. He leans
back against the bonnet of his pickup, smoking a cigarette, one boot heel up on his bumper, waiting for the men from home to join him. People wonder who he is when he approaches the hotel with a crowd behind him. Others know exactly what he's done. They call out and wave. ‘Good job, Blackstrap.' Thumbs up and a wink from a man or a woman here and there. More friends and admirers pat him on the back and follow after him. An oldtimer in a baseball cap, with a hairy hand extended. ‘You showed 'em, Mr. Hawco, sir. Dat's da way ta do it.'

The guy in the fancy uniform at the front of the hotel opens the door for him.

In the lobby, there's a mean buzz of conversation. People standing everywhere in groups. Nice couches and chairs. Nice tile underfoot. A fancy place to make a devastating announcement. The lives of men and women soon reduced to nothing, but everyone sitting comfortably. Men talk to other men, no end to the heated discussion. Women the loudest of them all. The sauciest, the ones who won't stand for being treated like dirt. A few chubby and scrawny ones cursing and making pledges. Not fucking likely. They'll push us too far. The government and plant owners. Mark me words. They've got their money and we're nothing to 'em. We're just a bunch of bottom feeders. There'll be blood. He won't be getting away with it, that Crosbie feller.

There is not enough room for everyone. The heat and the noise only make it worse. When John Crosbie shows up, the volume of the crowd rises at the point where he has entered. The chatter surging over the people like a wave as Crosbie is led through the crowd by two men in suits. Just the sight of his grey hair, fat neck and jowls, and him straightening his glasses while he's being moved by fast, makes the fishermen press nearer, wanting a piece of that man. Crosbie barely makes it to the conference room. Then the doors are shut with the reporters in there. No fishermen permitted access. A press conference. Men and women knock on the door to gain entry. They wait, growing angrier by the second. Snubbed is how they feel. They pound on the high doors, rattling them, and shout in anger. Enough is enough. Barred out like that. Pouring gasoline on fire. They can't hear what's being said, only muffled words, so their minds finish it for them, make it worse, add insult to injury. Treated like shit, they are. Treated like the scum of the
earth. They begin beating on the doors. Kicking on them. Politicians destroying our communities, everything we worked for. The son of a merchant. They pick up a couch and try to beat down the door with it. Me fadder were a fisherman and his fadder before 'im. I won't have none of it. Rallying calls in agreement. The couch hurled ahead by twelve strong arms, ramming the shut doors, rattling the brass handles and catches.

The city police, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, have had enough. They are given the signal to clear the men out, arms are grabbed and twisted. A chin knocked to the side. A head banged. The throb swells worse with the ache of injury. The crowd growing more rigid, tighter and fiercer.

Blackstrap is front and centre, his back killing him, the hollow where his left testicle is gone, hands with fingers missing, a headache with the roar like waves on a beach all around him. Always a headache with noise since the accident. What accident? Which one? He can't recall. His vision clouds over. Something is suddenly pulled in his back. He notices his body when he thrusts ahead, his mind slicing up with pain. Not himself at all. His mind in the shell of someone else.

The shove of men peaks him ahead, closer, bawling his name out: ‘Blackstrap.' That's all they need, his name to make them stronger. He pulls at the door, might pass out in a second, until the door is slowly opened out, the fishermen having to shuffle back or be struck. Blackstrap given credit for yanking those locks open, praised to the high heavens as the fishermen spill in, ready to fight.

But the sound of them dying low as their progression slows to a crawl.

The room is empty.

Only rows of chairs with the stray bit of paper here and there. Whoever was in there was taken out the back way.

In stillness, in inactivity, the murmur dies down up front, until a single fisherman curses the sight of a government press release laid there on a chair and kicks it over. A rattle. A bang gone off. An explosion. With the ripple of movement spreading from one man to another, the noise gains in volume, prompting the fishermen to commence wrecking the room, tossing tables and chairs, bellowing in rage, overturning anything within reach. Hands gripping and legs kicking, heartbeats
speeding, the men flow toward the back doors that lead to the kitchen. No time for the constabulary to block the way. A corridor there that is filled by their teeming numbers. They pass by cooks and the clatter of dishes. They pass through the heat of cooking and washing.

But no John Crosbie to be found. The Minister of Fisheries safe in a car and gone, the driver heading directly for the airport. Crosbie in the back with his briefcase on his lap. A first-class seat back to Ottawa, to the mainland capital of Canada.

 

(November)

Karen denies the death of her brother, refuses to attend the funeral because Little Tuffy isn't dead. This she screams at Blackstrap, ‘Why are you saying that?' Her hand to her forehead while she wanders around the living room.

One of the saddest days of Blackstrap's life, watching that casket go down. Glenn there with his video camera aimed at the broken earth. Two old people up front. The mother and the father, he suspects. Two of them back together, even though they were separated decades ago. Information he heard from Karen. All she ever mentioned of her father. But two of them reunited now, the way death can do that. Glenn near his father's side, so close their arms brush together.

Two weeks later, Blackstrap's father's death.

Karen does not attend that funeral either, stays at home, muttering something about being the cause. Nothing he can do with her except feel hurt and angry. In his head, he hears the words he knows others are saying: Just what's to be expected of a townie like her? But Patsy is there, with the children. Patsy shows that much respect because she was raised proper. Standing there by his side with Ruth in one arm and Junior by the hand.

The two funerals coming in a row like that has burned the life out of Blackstrap. Everything he breathes in turned to ash.

 

What were once the usual, unconsidered moments of life have greyed over and become noticeably occupied by absence. What to do when waking in the early morning without a catch to sail toward.

Then Karen disappears. Dropped off the face of the earth, people
think. And an RCMP officer comes sniffing around, asking questions he has no reason to. Friend, father, lover, all gone, taken away as though to spite him.

Blackstrap thinks on Patsy. Junior and Ruth. He's already been to visit once. Couldn't stay away from seeing his daughter after his father's funeral. Ruth's sweet face in the forefront of his mind, because she looks like his father and mother. The similarity so intense it spooks him. Junior and Ruth stuck there in his head now. That little girl. His daughter not what he feared, not twisted up and sick.

At night, in the darkness, the thought of being alone starts to grieve him. The shorter November days. The empty house. With the darkness coming on, there's a dread he cannot explain. He cannot sit still. He walks fast through the community. Then back into his father's house. From the moving darkness into the brightness and stillness to check his father's room. The man just watching the ceiling, the walls around him. Whose face on his father. Whose body in that bed where Blackstrap lies down to rest.

That announcement from Crosbie. The news that did this to his father. Their failure to stop the man.

The thought of his children in his head. Failing them.

The thought of Patsy.

Agnes an impossibility that could choke him. He does not want to seem desperate, even though that's how he feels. The more he drinks, the more he feels. The smell of beer when he uncaps a bottle brings his father fully to mind. Lights on in all the rooms. The stillness of the furniture a torment to him.

Then he hears about Karen being found in St. John's. Where? And why? Something about a hospital, Mrs. Shears tells him. An accident. Run over by a car. Fell down over the stairs. Attacked by dogs. She has heard how Karen took up with the RCMP officer. The one who can't speak good English, from Quebec.

He remembers how he stopped visiting Tuffy in those last weeks. Would not watch the final ugliness taking hold. A monstrosity. A perversion. And when he died, he seemed to take Karen with him.

At least Patsy didn't hook up with another man, didn't put the children through that.

Patsy calls Blackstrap while he is thinking, fearing the early darkness, fearing the coming winter cold, seated at the kitchen table with his eyes on the black window. The receiver in his hand. Patsy mentions Christmas. The children. It would be good to be together, maybe. He doesn't say anything, but feels both relief and the quickening dread of certain mortality. A chance to gather his family together might rid him of that fear.