Blackstrap Hawco (101 page)

‘You had to learn to do all those things. That was an education of sorts.'

‘No.' Blackstrap goes silent as a cloud moves across the blue, propelled by sky-high wind. Then he shifts to face the counsellor, the sound of his rough voice like a bark: ‘You just know from yer life. Living. That's all you need. Living. People say you need ta know other things, and you think you do. I don't need ta know because you say so.'

‘Yes, exactly. You see, you're a smart man. I understand what you're saying. I do, Mr. Hawco, believe me.'

‘Well, I feel privileged.' Blackstrap checks over his shoulder to see through the window in the door. The guard watching in, then looking back at the counsellor, him nodding toward the guard. Everything's okay.

‘Go ahead.' The counsellor raises his hand toward Blackstrap, mannerly, like it's his fair turn. ‘Please.' He folds his arms and sniffs, rubbing at his nose.

‘When I were in Toronto, I'd look at all the office buildings. Hundreds 'n hundreds of windows. People in there. What they all had ta learn. I'd watch them moving around. Small and high. The higher, the smaller. And I t'ought, look at all those people in those buildings, on the street, passing by, they're all just out hunting.'

‘Hunting? Searching, maybe.'

‘Just hunting. Everything they're doing. All the work, all that fast walking 'round, in a hurry. Looking important. They're just hunting. What they're doing just to put a piece of meat on the table. Fancy hunting. Instead of shooting it, they go ta the supermarket. So, then there's no blood on their hands.'

‘Fancy hunting, hey?' The counsellor chuckles and leans his pink cheek on his pink hand. ‘That's very good. I like that, a lot.'

Staring back at the window, Blackstrap joins his hands, holds them between his knees. Then he leans forward to watch the tile flooring beneath his feet. The talk is making him tired. Those office towers in Toronto. Desks and papers and filing cabinets and telephones and
machines. And pretty women all done up. There had been something exciting about it too. The buildings and the factories. The blind woman, Heather. He wonders whatever became of her. Stuck in his mind like that. Returning to him for a moment, as though she were there. He'd like to be back in Toronto to see what might have happened. Or maybe he just wants to be anywhere except here.

‘I know you're a smart man from your psychological evaluation.' The counsellor flips a page over in the file folder. ‘Very bright. Superior IQ.' His eyes up from the papers to see Blackstrap. ‘But you're one of those stubborn men who thinks there's a certain way of doing everything and that's the only way. Right? I know. I see it every day. You think you're special. Born of tradition, from generations of sea-going hearty men. I'm a Newfoundlander, too. There's more than one kind, Mr. Hawco.'

Blackstrap still watching the floor, shaking his head. He tilts his eyes up to look at the man. ‘The ones not interested in changing people are easier ta stomach.'

‘It's my job, friend. I'm just trying to do some good.'

‘In here.' Blackstrap shifts his eyes to the yard. ‘There's no fuh'k'n good in here. And how'd you know what you're doing's good?'

The counsellor goes silent, thinking. Elbow on the desk, his fingers against his temple. ‘Why so bitter, huh? Why? You're in here now, locked up, but maybe your head's already been locked away for years. How about that?'

Blackstrap's eyes go narrow. ‘And maybe you're just…'

‘What? A pompous ass who wants to force everyone else to believe in what he believes? I know the word for what I am:
pompous
. Pompous. Pompous. Pompous. Do you know how to spell it? Why don't you spell it for me?'

Blackstrap snickers. ‘Right.' Smiles at the floor. ‘Good for you. You win, sir.'

‘No, not win. It's not about winning. If you had a little more education you could have said that yourself. That was my point.' His voice not hostile, but full of pleading. ‘Defend yourself with words, instead of beating the daylights out of someone. Deal with your frustration. Articulate it.'

Blackstrap smiles a little more, shakes his head again as though he
can't believe any of it. The man at the desk who knows the everything of nothing. ‘You know, that sounds just like a brilliant plan.'

‘Believe me, I'd like to beat the daylights out of people sometimes too. I really would. God, how I would
love
to, really and truly,
love to
. I mean it, but then we'd all be animals in cages. You get what I'm saying.'

‘I don't need words to pretend I'm a better man because I don't got the
guts
to defend what should be.' A burning has risen in his face. All these words are the most he has spoken in years. No reason to ever talk, but maybe a reason now, with this man. Or maybe not.

The counsellor eases back in his chair, sighs, then frowns, seeming to be done with it. He pokes at his glasses and blinks for a while, then stands from his chair. Pausing, he shoves his hands into his pockets and moves things around in there, while watching down at Blackstrap. ‘It's a shame. You could accomplish so much. I know your potential. I can see the potential
wanting
to get out of you,
trapped
in there. I've read about everything you've done. Serious accomplishments. Serious. But, that's not enough for you. Killing your own potential, you seem intent on doing that. Why?'

Blackstrap frowns.

‘Don't you feel like a lost cause? Going around trying to prove yourself all the time. Haven't you already done that? Losing more and more of you in the process. That's all, just less and less of you.'

‘You have any children?' Blackstrap asks.

‘No, why?' The counsellor straightens, almost takes a step back.

‘Sounds like ya need a few. The way you talk to people.'

‘Is that so?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Maybe these men are my children.'

Blackstrap bursts out with a laugh. ‘Jesus Christ…God help us.'

‘You find that sort of thought amusing, right? That's part of not being comfortable with yourself, not knowing—'

‘I know what I am.'

‘Yes, you most certainly do, Mr. Hawco. I have to say.'

Blackstrap stands from his chair and stares the man down. ‘I know what I was born into.' His finger pointed at the desk, tapping the
surface. ‘I'm not pretending to be something else. Trying to make myself out better.'

‘Better than what, who?' More words in the counsellor's eyes that he won't speak. Instead, his attention shifting to the door. ‘That's sad. For me or for you, I don't know. Let me think about it.' And he seems genuinely bothered, watching the floor.

The door opening.

The guard stepping in.

‘You leaving?' asks Blackstrap. ‘Because you can leave, ya know. You're just the sort. You can just walk away.'

‘No, no, your time's up,' says the counsellor, coming out of deep thought, his eyes on Blackstrap. ‘I'm sorry to say. There are people waiting.'

‘Just walk away,' Blackstrap says, passing by.

‘I've been here almost ten years, Mr. Hawco. And I'll be here when you're gone. Some people I have helped, others not, but I don't plan on ever leaving.'

 

Blackstrap dreams of being on water, gliding up and down over the crests of waves on the blue sea, the green sea, the grey sea, the black sea. A storm lashes salt water in his face, spray that never stops. He dreams of his snowmobile, gliding up and down over fresh snow, like floating, opening up trails through the evergreens, ducking to protect his head from the low, snow-laden, evergreen boughs. The machine straining, rattling and banging across a stretch of open brook and rocks to rise freely again, up over a snowbank. Not caring about the machine, running the machine, punishing the machine to get him through. If it breaks, he will leave it where it sits. The time he went through the ice down on Black Duck Pond and crawled his way out. Paddy's pickup that came and pulled the snowmobile out of the water. Everything freezing and popping when it resurfaced into the air. The speedometer shattering. The engine a block of ice. His dream of that machine sealed in ice. And then Paddy in his house. Being beaten by his father with a belt in the kitchen. Paddy escaping to Blackstrap's house. Spending the night until his father's rage from drink died down.

He dreams of Mrs. Foote, the woman from St. John's who moved out
to Cutland Junction. The woman who picks up wrappers, tin cans, and coffee cups on her slow walks, watching around the community, stopping to study an old house, lord over everything. The woman who runs the train museum, who has taken control of the memory of the town, and is disliked by most for sticking her face where it doesn't belong. The woman who fights the council, working to stop old houses from being torn down because no one else cares. Suburban bungalows going up in place of square fishermen houses. Demolished. The woman who raised the money to restore the cannon that Blackstrap stole to sink the Portuguese trawler. The others borrowed from museums and historical sites across the island. Port aux Choix, Signal Hill, Lance Cove, all under the cover of night, all of them back in their places now. Pointed at nothing. Guarding what?

In his dream, he follows Mrs. Foote from above, like a bird tracing her wandering steps along the road. He sees where she stops to consider a house, a group of trees, a dog running loose. She is in no hurry as she crosses the train track where the rails and ties have been torn up, where all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles now race wild. A train bed cut right across the island by men who slaved for the sake of transport. He sees Mrs. Foote stooping down, picking up an empty fast food box thrown out the window of a passing car by one of the residents of Cutland Junction.

She keeps walking and walking. She will not stop.

He floats, following her from above, mesmerized by every detail of the community.

This woman he could never understand. What does she know about anything?

 

The guards, all ex-fishermen from Cutland Junction, send out a warning. He has heard it from others. Everyone leave Blackstrap Hawco alone. No one lay a finger on Blackstrap Hawco. The prisoners wonder about him. Some of them have heard how he sunk that boat for over fishing, how he survived a capsized oil rig when all others died in the ocean. Then he murdered a man. Why? No one knows. Gone wild on his own power, thinking he might be immortal. Indestructible. They'd seen it happen before. Bits of speculation passed back and forth at meal time.

He walks through the corridors, unseen, untouched.

‘Dis place,' one of the guards, Darren Quilty, says to Blackstrap. ‘Dis fuh'k'n uniform.' The guard has a job. This is his job. Once from Bareneed by the ocean. Night watch inside now. Checking the concrete corridors, looking in each cell, what's left of everyone. One hand always held covering his own throat, a flashlight in his other hand, sweeping the beam over a bunk, making sure the men are sleeping, not trying to do away with themselves.

One night, Darren Quilty slips Blackstrap a postcard through the bars, an old photograph of Bareneed from decades ago. Blackstrap sees writing on the back. Someone sending someone news. An old postage stamp with a king on it.

‘It were a message sent frum me great-gran'fadder,' says Darren Quilty. ‘To 'is mudder back in Ireland.'

Blackstrap stares at the old handwriting, then flips it to look at the photograph of houses and schooners in the water. The photograph turns his breath hot. Houses and boats and water caught there in a sepia tone.

‘Me mudder gave it ta me ta give ta you, when she 'erd you was in 'ere.'

Blackstrap shifts his eyes to Darren. ‘Why?'

‘She said t'were criminal fer a man like Blackstrap Hawco ta be locked away like an animal. She said ta give dis ta you and ta tell you dat yer in 'er prayers. She knew yer mudder 'n she always looked up ta 'er.'

Blackstrap recalls Darren's mother, an old woman who used to keep vigil at the window, searching toward the sea, like all the women in Bareneed, stood or sat there behind their windows, patiently scanning the water for the boats' return. An old woman, like all those other old women, dead so many years. He hands the postcard back to the guard.

‘She wanted you ta keep it, Blacky.'

Blackstrap shakes his head.

‘Not in here,' he says. ‘It was nice of her though. Tell her I said that.'

‘I will.' Darren takes the postcard and shifts his eyes over the words. Then he looks at Blackstrap and his eyes deepen. ‘I'll go back and tell her.' That hand still up to his throat, holding it covered in a way that makes Blackstrap know.

‘Darren?'

‘Yeah?'

‘How long you been dead now?'

‘I dun't 'member.'

‘How's that?'

‘I dun't know. It's not like dat.'

‘How'd you die?'

‘Prisoner killed me widt an electric cord.'

‘Take it back to your mother.'

The guard nods. ‘If I had a key, I'd let you out. I cun only check on da men.'

‘That's okay,' says Blackstrap.

‘How long 'av you been dead? You can't tell, can you?'

‘No.'

‘Ya see, it's like dat, truly. 'Cause yer not proper dead.'

Blackstrap stands with his hands holding the bars.

Darren Quilty turns and walks off with the postcard in one hand, the other up to his throat. He whispers into other cells, wondering who might hear him, his voice carrying through the corridors like a sift of dust.

 

Book Three

No Time, No Land

 

The walls in Blackstrap's cell are blank. They remain blank. The cell is not his. There has been mail for him. He has sent it back. No visitors. Not after Karen years ago. He has heard of how she survived. But not her baby. The policeman from Quebec in here now too. For a while and then gone in the ground. The mystery of who removed him.

Visitors amount to nothing. Patsy seeing him in this place once. Enough to end her. Patsy gone now, as expected.

Bury them all. How to join them in their blessed repose.

The long-haired lawyer brings a small TV. Donated from some group on the outside. The lawyer still visits every so often, working on appeals.

‘I know you never wanted one of these,' the lawyer says, setting the TV down next to his toiletries. ‘But there's something you should watch.' The lawyer names the channel, the day, the time.

Blackstrap wonders how much longer the lawyer will hang on for. He lies with his cheek against the pillow. Stares at the black and white screen. The program the lawyer suggested. A talk show with suffering every day. This one about National Child Abuse Awareness Month. Teenagers and young women in their twenties, talking about what happened to them. What was done by relatives.

The host introducing everyone. Seated in chairs in a line up there on stage. The name. The face. One after the other. Until Ruth Tuttle. Her teenaged face alarming him. That can't be her. His daughter. Not a toddler anymore. But it is her. Her last name changed. He watches her tell her story. Ruth's voice shaky with emotion. A quiet story that hurts and leads to tears. Trying not to listen. Only to see. Trapped in that box. He does not believe it is possible. He weeps. The pillow over his
shaking, open-mouthed head. He reaches to slap off the volume. But slaps off the picture too. He scrambles to sit and switch the TV back on. Ruth talking with no sound. Ruth crying. Being comforted by the others. Words beneath Ruth's image on the screen. Words he can almost read. He watches until she is done talking. Faces in the audience looking horribly sad. Then another teenager. Not Ruth anymore. He waits and watches. Only a flash of Ruth's face every now and then. The show over soon enough. He thinks all night until the next day. The same show with different people. He watches every single morning at the right time. But Ruth is there no more.

He hands the TV to one of the guards.

‘What?' asks the guard, eyes on the TV.

‘Take it.'

‘You don't want it?'

‘No.'

Watching Blackstrap's face. ‘I know…I saw her too.'

What to think of that?

One day only.

Hold to it when you wake.

Let it go when it ends.

Never add them up. Try to not make it feel like time, like one hour to the next. All the prisons on all the lands beyond the walls. The land where animals roam. Outside these walls.

Lights on.

Lights off.

Lights on.

Never make these men his brothers. Never create a society from nothingness. Like the other men do. Create a society from how you have been made less than yourself. He refuses to become this place. While in prison, he becomes a blank. A blank is what he is meant to be. He will not try to make this blank into something else because that something else will be him.

He will not speak. He will not remember.

Never attempt to create a family in here. Never attempt to claim space. Only accept what is given him. Not land, but space. He will not claim space.

He becomes the no one

They thought

And wanted

Done with