Charlie's Key (11 page)

“Sorry?” I say, not listening again.

“On where you might like to scatter the ashes.”

I shake my head. And that’s when I decide: I’ll go now. I was going to wait till after the service, but now that I think about my dad and the ashes, I don’t care if I go to the service, because my dad isn’t going to be there anyways.

So I say to Dezzy, “There’s one thing I gotta do. I gotta put on a T-shirt—a special one my dad gave me. It’s in my backpack.”

“Sure. Put it on.”

“I gotta pee too. Maybe can I just use the bathroom?”

“Sure.”

We’re crossing the lobby when I hear a voice call, deep and raspy like it’s coming from the bottom of an old bucket full of gravel.

“Charlie, b’y,” it calls out. “Jesus, I knowed it was you, soon as I seen ya.”

I turn and there’s two people coming at me together: Constable Tubby, his belly busting outta his shirt, and this other guy I never saw before. Even so, I know right away who he is. He’s got the same curls, same face, same big steps when he walks—same as my dad, except harder, tougher. The hair’s grayer and the face has got wrinkles, like how my dad might look if he camped out in the woods for a month.

It’s my uncle. Nick Sykes.

Then he’s in front of me, kneeling down so he can look me in the eye, stinking of cigarettes when he opens his mouth to talk.

“Jesus, you look like your dad,” he says. He’s close now, close enough to see he’s not exactly like my dad. He’s missing two bottom teeth, for one thing. And he’s got big old hairs shooting outta his eyebrows and ears, like weeds coming up through a schoolyard in summer.

“That’s close enough,” says Tubby.

Nick Sykes gives him a glare. “Close enough, my arse,” he says. “I’m not on friggin’ parole, ya know. This is my nephew, who I never had the chance to meet till today. If I commits a crime with him, arrest me. If not, piss off.”

He looks at me again.

“Now,” he says, “let your uncle get a good look at ya.”

It’s when he puts his arms out that I see the hand—the right one, the one sitting on my shoulder. It’s a giant claw— the middle three fingers missing, the other two bent inward, black and cracked and wrinkled.

“Looking at my clinker, are ya?” says Nick. He pulls it off my shoulder and holds it up.

“Got that in a fire,” he says, then looks up at the cop. “Trying to put it out. Anyways,” he goes on, “don’t let that bother ya none. It don’t hurt no more, and it’s got its uses.”

He opens it and closes it two or three times, the black nails clicking each time it shuts. He stands up and gives my hair a toss with his good hand.

“You and me should have a talk sometime—after all this racket dies down.”

I don’t say anything.

“Ya needs ta get ta know yer family, now yer old man’s gone. Ya gotta have somebody lookin’ out for ya in this world, Charlie, b’y. That’s the key to gettin’ along.”

The hand is back on my shoulder.

“That’s the key,” he says, looking right at me, the claw giving a squeeze that keeps getting tighter.

Does he know what my dad gave me, back in the hospital? I wonder, trying to pull away from a squeeze that’s starting to hurt.

“Family’s the key to a happy life,” he says, finally letting go. “I mean, if yer family don’t look out for ya, who will?”

“We will,” says Dezzy, doing his best to look official. “I appreciate you’re breaking no laws, Mr. Sykes, but for now, Child Services is Charlie’s legal guardian, and it’s our job to oversee who he associates with. You’re welcome to attend the service, of course,”

“Oh, I appreciates that,” says Nick. A bit of spit comes outta his mouth when he says it.

“Sarcasm aside,” Dezzy says, “it’s a family service so you’re free to attend. But I’ll be sitting with Charlie, and right now he wants to change into a clean shirt. Charlie?”

We head over the bathroom, and I slip past Dezzy while he holds the door.

“Don’t bother locking it,” he says. “I’ll stand guard out here.”

Inside, it’s like Frankie said, and soon as Dezzy shuts the door I get up on the toilet seat and open the window.

“All right in there?” Dezzy calls.

“Yup,” I say. My heart’s beating so fast I figure I could see it thumping in my chest if I looked down. “I’m just having a pee,” I say, figuring that’ll keep Dezzy on the other side of the door for a bit. But only for a bit, I know, so quick as I can I toss my backpack out the window and go through right behind it, tapping my foot down to find the oil pipe. I’m on it, then on the ground and at the fence. Then down to the right and through the hole in the fence. Except the backpack gets stuck—a wire goes right through it. I pull and pull and finally yank it free. Then take off for the highway without looking back. I don’t slow down till I see that culvert, running under the highway just ahead.

It’s one of those big old steel culverts, and when I step inside it’s all echoey, cars zooming along up above, truck tires
puck-puck
ing across the seams. For a sec, standing there, I feel invisible, thinking how none of those drivers have any idea there’s a kid right under them, thinking how all those people back at the funeral home are figuring out—right now— that I took off, and none of them knows, just for this little bit, where I am. No one has got any idea that I’m right here, leaning my backpack against the culvert, thinking the steel looks like ribs inside some giant dinosaur that I’m right in the middle of. Invisible. Except I know I’m not invisible. I know I got to find that storm sewer and climb inside, because sooner or later someone’s going to think to have a look under here. So I start through the culvert to the other side.

It’s spooky in the middle. Light at both ends, but dark here, the rocks
ponk
ing when I step on them. Just when it gets scariest, when I get a feeling on my neck that makes me shiver my shoulders, it starts to get lighter from the daylight at the other end. Then I’m through and the storm sewer is right there—a round, concrete tube just big enough for me to crawl inside. It’s tight. I have to take my backpack off and push it in front of me. But I can keep my feet dry by walking like a crab, shuffling up the side of the pipe. I don’t want to get a soaker, with the key being inside my sneaker and all. Every once in a while I look back down the pipe, and when the light at the opening is pretty much just a little dot I stop and wait.

When you wait someplace where there’s nothing to do, you start to think about stuff. That’s probably why they have those ratty old magazines in the doctor’s office—to give you something to think about besides how much your ear hurts. But there’s no magazines here, so I start to notice other stuff, like how quick it gets cold in a place where there’s no sun—cold that goes right into the middle of you. And about Nick’s hand—about if it gets itchy. That’s the kind of thing you think about when you’re waiting in a dark place where you can’t read. If I can’t read anything, I can still hear plenty, and what I hear is a
skitter-skitter
behind me, getting closer. Whatever it is sounds big, but everything seems big when you can’t see it—like a bump on your leg you find in bed at night and it feels like it must be bigger than a big brown egg, which means it’s gotta be cancer, except in the morning you look at it and it’s a little pimple. That’s how it is with stuff you can’t see—it always sounds bigger than it is. Except I suppose it doesn’t always. I suppose sometimes it probably is as big and scary as you think, but I guess you don’t hear about those times because the person ends up getting eaten by a grizzly bear he thought was a raccoon.

But this isn’t a raccoon—I know that for sure because they don’t have raccoons in Newfoundland. I read that before we came out here. It could be a rat, though, or a bunch of them. Which I’ve never seen before because we don’t have rats in Alberta. That’s true. Not one rat. We’ve got a Rat Patrol that goes around killing them, right at the border, if any try to sneak in. I’d sure like to see that Rat Patrol right now with their big flashlight and a .
22
, shining down here to scare off those rats. I think that’s what it’s got to be. Yes! I see one now, something furry, moving back and forth along the concrete. And another one behind it—and another one. Jesus. I’ve got to move toward the light, even if it means somebody might see. There’s no way I’m going to let a bunch of sewer rats crawl on me.

I scrunch along till I’m right at the opening. And that’s when I hear the signal: three barks. I listen for a bit and then it comes again: three more, right together. I stick my foot outta the pipe, then my head, then the rest of me, standing there for everybody to see, blinking in the sun. Except there’s nobody to see me; leastways, nobody I can see. But there is a smell—that first draw on a smoke. Then the smoke, too, a puff of it from the other side of the storm sewer, where I can’t see. Frankie lighting up, I figure. Until I spot the hand holding the cigarette, right in the middle of those two claws.

“Jesus Christ—still using the old signal,” Nick says, stepping out from behind the sewer pipe. He’s smiling. “Figured you might—worked good enough for me and yer old man.”

I back away, though there’s nowheres much to go, the brook behind me, a steep bank in front.

Nick holds up the claw.

“Now don’t be running off, Charlie, b’y. I just wants to have a chat, that’s all. A bit of a chat. Get to know ya—which ya don’t seem so keen on, seein’ how’s ya took off two minutes after layin’ eyes on me.”

He puts his black fingers to his lips and sucks in another drag.

“I planned that before I ever knew you were going to be there,” I say.

“Figured that,” says Nick. “The way ya got outta there— real sharp, like. Figured you musta had a plan when ya come in.”

“But how’d you know I’d be here?”

“Didn’t,” says Nick. “Soon as Mr. Suit and Tie started his hollerin’ ’bout you doing a runner, I slipped out and had a boo at the window you got out through. Then I just went where I woulda gone. Found this”—he pulls a bit of blue canvas outta his pocket—“where ya squeezed through the fence. Followed the path. Come to the culvert. Had a look around. Then I seen the storm drain. Listened here for a bit, too, but you was good and quiet. That’s when I remembered the old signal.”

“I got friends coming,” I say. “To pick me up.”

“Figured that too. Figured a Fort Mac boy like yerself would need a townie to tell ya where you’re to.”

“That’s right,” I say. “My friend—from The Hollow— he told me about the window back there, and the sewer pipe and stuff. And he’s coming to get me. Anytime now.”

“S’pect he is,” says Nick. “S’pect he is. Which is fine by me. I ain’t up to no mischief. Jesus, I’m just after gettin’ out from inside; I ain’t plannin’ on puttin’ meself back there. No, no, Charlie—I just wants a little chat.”

“About what?”

“You, I ’spose. I ain’t heard much about you since Mikey went upalong.”

“Upalong?”

“Upalong, sure—the mainland,” says Nick. “I forgets, yer a Westerner. You looks so much like yer old man, an’ not that much younger than the last time I seen him.”

He flicks his cigarette into the stream.

“Come ’ere,” he says with a nod. “Let me get a better look at ya. Come on, now. I ain’t gonna bite.”

I step closer, and he puts a hand on each shoulder, then slips his hands under my arms and gives the side of my chest a couple of thumps.

“Yer a strapping lad,” he says. Then he squeezes me all of a sudden and picks me up and gives me a shake. I can feel his burned fingers under my ribs, moving, searching.

“And solid all around too,” he says, putting me down. Up close I see a scar I didn’t notice before, long and thin and white, from the corner of his lip all the way up to the soft bit just under his left eye. He sees my eyes follow it.

“Come precious close to having a patch to go with this hand a mine. A real pirate I’d a been then. Ah, Charlie, but I had a hard old life of it, by times, though there’s little of it you knows about.”

He leans back and takes a look at me.

“Did ya even know you had an uncle, Charlie, b’y?”

I shake my head.

“Jesus. Yer old man, he didn’t say nothin’ ’bout me?”

“No.”

“Nor why he were comin’ out here, on this trip you was on?”

I shake my head again.

“Well,” says Nick, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket with those two fingers, “it’s a sad thing when a family forgets one another like that.”

He digs a smoke out, his fingers clicking like robot hands.

“I means it, Charlie. I means it—it’s a terrible thing to be forgettin’ yer family. I hope ya got something from yer old man to remember him by—a little keepsake—a letter, a picture. Could be anything—just something to remember him by.”

The quiet drags on till Nick speaks again.

“Well, Charlie. Do ya got something?”

“A watch. I got his watch.”

“Nothing else?” Nick asks. He’s leaning toward me, the scar doing a little zigzag on his face when he squints from the cigarette smoke. “He didn’t leave ya nothin’ like an old coin? We used to have our own money here, Newfoundland did. He mighta left ya an old Newfoundland nickel. Or a key?”

He wants to sound all casual when he says it, but his eyes never leave mine. They’re pinned to me, drilling through the smoke that slips between his lips.

Before I can answer there’s the
ponk-ponk
of stones falling down the steep bank. It’s Frankie and another kid—somebody I’ve never seen.

“Cowboy, me old trout,” Frankie says when he gets down to the stream. “What are ya at?”

He stops when he sees Nick behind the sewer pipe. “Who’s the old guy?”

“Never mind who the old guy is,” says Nick. “Who the hell are ye?”

“Old guy’s got some mouth on him,” says Frankie. “And he’s got some hand too. Jesus, Cowboy, where’d buddy come from anyways? The circus?”

Frankie’s friend is beside him now. He’s taller than Frankie, and wider too. He gives Nick a long look and shoots out a spit while he does it. It hits a big gray rock halfway to Nick and runs down the side.

Nick flicks the smoke away. He glares at Frankie.

“I beat a man till he bled for saying less than that,” Nick says.