The Second Son (15 page)

“
Ah ben, je n’ sais pas, Michel
.” He puffed on his pipe a couple of times.
“Ça fait longtemps .
. . it’s a long time since I fixed a flat. Do you have any patches?”

“Yessir.” I gave him a big nod and held up the patch kit I had bought with my own money. “I could do it myself, only I can’t get the tire off. It keeps going back on.”

“Okay
d’abord, va chercher des outils
. . . get some tools. We’ll need a couple of screwdrivers, and your pump to blow the tube up. You have a pump?”

“Yessir,” I answered, elated at the idea of his helping me. I was still young enough to think my father was God, who could fix anything. It never occurred to me that my grandfather might not be God the Father, who could do even more. He smiled down at me and assured me he’d come around back and help, just as soon as he finished his tea. I ran around to the tool shed behind the house and set my bike up for the operation. Grandpa arrived a few minutes later and set to work.

After a few false starts, he got “the knack of it,” as he said, working the two screwdrivers under the edge of the tire. Then he levered his way around the rim until it was free, and pulled the tube out for inspection. We pumped it up and found a hole pretty quickly. I should have known that was suspicious, especially after all the trouble he had cutting the patch out — he said the scissors were no good — but I was so happy to have it fixed I wasn’t about to secondguess my saviour.

My joy was short-lived. After some time spent levering the tire back on, we pumped it up and put the valve cap on. With a big smile and a pat on the back I was off, for about a block. The tire was flat before I turned the corner on Dominion. When I took it back to Grandpa he had a quizzical look on his face.

“
C’est bizarre, Michel. Peut-être
. . . could be you’ve got the wrong kind of patch, there. You better have your father look at it. I wouldn’t want to make it any worse.”

I didn’t understand why he would say that, at least not until later that evening when I dragged my father out back to investigate the problem. Of course the first thing I reported was that it must be pretty bad, because Grandpa hadn’t been able to fix it. “Waddaya mean, Grandpa couldn’t fix it?” my father growled. His tone made me nervous.

“Uh, this morning . . . he put a patch on for me.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” he snapped, “you got your grandfather to fix a tire? Why in hell would you do that?”

Still mystified, I stated the obvious, “You wouldn’t, so I asked him.”

“Godammit. Why couldn’t you wait?”

“It’s summer holidays,” I whined. “I really need my bike.”

He kept shaking his head. “That man is all thumbs. He couldn’t fix a bicycle if his life depended on it.”

And that was before he had the tube off and blown up. My poor grandpa. He must have pinched the tube with the screwdrivers, taking it off and putting it back on, because there were seven or eight patches on it before my father finished. I kept thinking how lucky it was that Grandpa and Grandma had gone out to the farm to visit with Uncle Gustave. With each new hole came another round of cursing at Grandpa’s incompetence. My father’s last warning to me as he handed back the bike summed it up: “That damn fool is dangerous with a tool in his hands. Don’t you ever ask him to fix anything of ours again. Do you understand, boy?”

It wasn’t so much what he was saying that scared me, it was the level of anger that was pouring from him. The shock of hearing that my grandpa wasn’t perfect was doubled by the intensity of the resentment in my father’s voice. Of course I wasn’t old enough to understand what was happening to our family, and why my father’s rage was so close to the surface. I just know what I felt. Stung by the sharp point of his anger, I was more observant in the future. I began to notice things about my grandfather, and my grandmother. I noticed how she did more talking than he did, and how often he deferred to her. Eventually I came to see that my grandmother was a strong woman, resentful of a world where men took their pre-eminence for granted, and hardened after years of fighting with her father over the running of the general store.

And I began to notice my own father’s preoccupation with who “wore the pants” in other people’s families. He said a couple of other things, too, that made me wonder if he was mad at his father for not being “the boss” in their family. Funny, though, how understanding my father’s anger didn’t help much with my own. Probably because I had yet to learn that you could love someone at the same time as you hated them. Or maybe because I’ve never been convinced it makes any difference, this “understanding” crap. What people say and do to each other, that’s what makes the difference, not the reasons. All those reasons are just the rationale you come up with after the fact — just so much justification. In fact, what you
say
isn’t worth much, either. What you do, that’s what counts in this life. The rest is bullshit.

I did feel sorry for my old man, sometimes. Most likely he had hoped in vain for his father to do things with him when he was a kid, like take him fishing and stuff. He sure made it into a big deal with us. He bought the cottage in the forties, when he was in the money and we were just babies. He must have been pushing for us to go fishing with him pretty early, because I remember my mother saying, “You’re getting them all worked up for nothing, Ed. You’ll ruin it by rushing them too much.”

“Aw, c’mon, if they’re old enough to go to school, they’re old enough to go fishing.”

“They should go when they want to, not before. It’ll be the same as the swimming. You pushed Andrew too soon and now he hates the water.”

“That’s only because you took his side. If it had been up to me he’d have gone right back in.”

“Throwing a child off a dock is a dumb idea, no matter what your reason.”

“Aw, you’re exaggerating,” he protested. “I showed him how to dog-paddle before I threw him in.”

“You lost patience and threw him in, Ed. Admit it. He nearly drowned.”

“He just swallowed a little water. I was right there.”

“He was terrified.”

“Aw, he’s just afraid people will laugh at him if he’s not perfect at something right away. He’s too proud by half.”

I loved conversations like that, even though my mother always had a comeback. “And who does he take after for that?”

My father didn’t accuse her of trying to change the subject, probably because he didn’t like the first one any better. “You stick up for him too much. I did the same thing with Michel and he swims fine now.”

“He’s more independent, like Angus was. He doesn’t care what anybody thinks. They’ve been like that since they were babies.”

My father must have backed off, though, because I don’t remember Andrew going fishing with Dad until I was old enough to go, too. I was the big cottage-lover in the family, the one who cried to go and complained when we had to come home. What I loved best was being out in the boat. I think Andrew only went because my mom made him. “Do it for your dad,” she used to say; “he works hard for us all week and never asks for much.”

Andrew would do it, too, even though he hated it. He didn’t mind putting the minnows on the hook, or taking the fish off, like some kids do. What he hated was sitting there for hours, with nothing happening, and Dad and me not even talking much. I was the opposite. I loved it, just being out there on the water with my dad.

Sunday was when we went. Dad had to be at the store the other six days of the week. That was the one time I didn’t have to be bugged to change my clothes after church, and the one time it was Andrew who lagged behind. Me, I loved everything about fishing. Usually we’d stop at the store and my dad would make us a lunch — he’d never do that at home. He’d spread a dozen pieces of bread across the counter and slather on some butter and mustard. Then he’d take one of those huge rolls of baloney out of the cooler and slice off some pieces on his big silver cutting machine, pieces twice as thick as my mom ever used, and slap together two sandwiches each. “A couple of hours out on that water,” he would say, “and you’ll be ready to eat a horse.”

Then he’d tell us to pick out the chocolate bar we wanted and get one for him. He didn’t have to tell us what kind. He always had a Malted Milk. Andrew always had an Eatmore, and I liked a different one each time. On the way out the door Dad would pick up a carton of cokes, two for each of us, though he’d always have to finish my second one. In those days it was still the eight-ounce green bottles that he’d hang over the boat in a burlap bag to keep cold. I can still hear the big burps we’d make, after those baloney sandwiches and cokes. Andrew was convinced the coke in those small bottles was stronger than the stuff in the bigger bottles. “It’s more concentrated,” he would say.

Dad would pick up some minnows at the marina in Summerstown and if the rain held off we’d be out on the river for hours. Sometimes Andrew would ask how much longer we were going to stay, only not very often because Dad would always say, “the sooner you start asking about going in, the longer we’re going to stay out.” I don’t know if there were any limits on your catch in those days, but we sure hauled a lot of perch out of Lake St. Francis, which is what they call that wide spot on the St. Lawrence River. Not only did we catch them all day, on the way home we would stop at Jack’s Place on the highway near Lancaster and get some fish rolls for supper, which were even better than baloney sandwiches.

Sometime in the spring of 1955, going fishing with my father took on a whole new meaning, when Andrew stopped coming with us. The first few times it was an excuse, like having a cold, or some school assignment he had to do. Eventually he got up the nerve to tell Dad he didn’t really like fishing that much. Well, actually, he got my mother to tell him. He just kind of added his two cents worth after she broached the subject one Sunday morning when we were getting ready to go. I was watching all this closely, trying to keep the grin off my face, all the while hoping Dad wouldn’t try to talk him out of it.

My father must have known all along. He didn’t get pissed off like I thought he would. He just sat there for a moment or so, sipping on his tea, before he looked at me and said, “What about you, squirt? You still like fishing with your old man? Or are you getting tired of it, too?”

“Oh, no,” I assured him, “I love it. Even when they’re not biting.”

He looked at my mother and shrugged, “Well, I guess I can’t complain. One out of two isn’t bad. Bernie Leblanc’s got four boys and only one of them will go fishing with him. And Jimmy’s girls, they won’t even look at a fish.” He looked back at me and said, “Hurry up, kid. Get your stuff ready. Those fish aren’t gonna wait all day.”

I felt pretty good about that deal, being number one with my dad when it came to fishing — his favourite thing. I didn’t even mind when he started asking Johnny Gervais along. Johnny was Uncle Gustave’s son, and was working for my dad in those days, in the store. He was about twenty-five that summer and was more like a big brother, even though he was my dad’s cousin. He and my dad were always joking around and playing tricks on me, but I didn’t mind. My mother always said that when people teased you it meant they liked you.

The only thing different when Johnny came with us, except for me having to ride in the back again, was that my dad would bring a case of beer. They’d even drink it in the car on the way there. My dad would open the case from the bottom and take a couple of beers out, then sit it right side up on the floor in the back seat. He would always tell me to keep my feet on it, in case the cops stopped us. They had a lot of fun, those two, and we did a lot of fishing that year. Things were looking pretty good when we put the boat away in the fall, from where I was sitting. I guess life is a lot like fishing, though. Luck has a big part to play, bad and good.

THERE WAS A BOY IN OUR TOWN
who thought he was a horse. His name was Emmanuel. My mother said his name was special, that it meant “God is with us.” That was when she told us that Emmanuel was simple-minded and we should never tease him or laugh at him. I don’t know who would have wanted to make fun of him. He must have been about fifteen, that fall my brother was twelve and I was eleven. He was a husky kid, built for running, although I never understood how he ran so fast in those big rubber boots of his.

They were the high, black kind, with the orange soles, and they looked kind of funny with those old suits he wore. I don’t know where he got those suits — they were always too small for him. When he got a new one he would wear it all the time, with a white shirt, like he was dressed up for church, and that peaked cap he had. You didn’t see baseball caps in those days. There were hunting caps with that red flap that folded over to make you stand out in the bush like a big woodpecker, my father used to joke, but no baseball caps. I’ll bet Emmanuel would have loved one of those hunting caps, but all he ever had was an old brown cap with a short bill on it.

And boy, did he love to run. Whenever we’d pass his house on our bikes he’d jump down off the porch and run along beside us, neighing and throwing his head back like a trotter, his boots clomping along like crazy. When a real horse happened by he was in his glory. He would let out that neighing kind of laugh he had and paw the ground with his feet, then pull that old cap down over his ears and take off after the horse. He must have been on the lookout for them all the time, because horses were getting scarce in those days.

There was Mr. Ouimet the bread man who still used a horse, but that was only good for short walks between the houses getting deliveries. Mr. Lafleur the garbage man also used a horse and wagon, which Emmanuel would run beside. Only Mr. Lafleur was an old man and he would yell at him to get away. I think Mr. Dunn, the milkman, had already switched to a truck by that time. So that left only the occasional horse and buggy, like my Uncle Andy’s. Emmanuel loved to see him coming. Uncle Andy would slow down when the boy ran beside him and give him a chance to keep up. They’d run all the way down Main Street like that, my uncle and his buggy and the boy who thought he was a horse. It kind of made you want to smile.