Once You Break a Knuckle (24 page)

I checked in on my wife. She had our hot water bottle hugged to her chest and some of the liquid had spilled across her and probably made the evening heat bearable. Then I grabbed a yoke of three Kokanees from the fridge and headed for the beach. About everybody I know likes the beach at night, and even though the sign says it closes at ten, the cops won't kick you off if you don't cause a ruckus. One time, when me and Andie were first dating, I brought her there and spelled out her name with tea lights in the sand. It seemed like a good idea until a motorboat made a wave that put them out all at once, but maybe that was pretty cool itself. Later, a cop named Berninger found us and gave a sharp
tsk
, but we weren't causing a ruckus.

I cut along a dirt path that brought me around the rim of the gully, not because it'd get me to the lake any quicker but because I'd pass by my new house, still in its skin-and-bone state. I'd be a liar if I said it didn't make me proud, that house. Just seeing it gave me a tingle in my chest, in
that spot right above the gut. Three thousand square feet, a good size for a family. My dad helped pay for it – said he owed me, from when I helped him build his own home, putting in sixteen-hour days for two bucks an hour, way back when I was thirteen. He slapped a sweaty cheque in my palm, for a wedding present. Twenty-five thousand dollars.

I thought I'd drink one of the beers on the porch, since that way I could stuff the other two in my pockets and be less conspicuous if I bumped into a cop. Not that they'd take them away. But when my house came into view I saw flashlights on the upper floor, zipping around as if searching the nooks and crannies. Fucking thieves. Probably the hicks – the same rednecks I'd been fighting since grade seven.

If I went in solo I wouldn't stand a chance. Usually I'd go get Will and we'd take a beating and hopefully dish one out, but I had no idea where he was, even if I figured it'd be with Ash, and she lived across town anyway. I couldn't even call the cops, hadn't brought my cellphone. Right then, I felt like an idiot kid again, like when I was thirteen years old without a place to go in the world. That time, I'd ended up going to Will's old man, which, as I watched those lights in my house, in the house I'd built and paid for from scratch, was the only place I could think to go.

He lived a couple streets down. It was twelve fifty-two when I reached his yard, and I knew he drifted asleep way earlier than that, on the couch, watching whatever movie happened to be playing on satellite. I knocked once and
heard rustling, the unmistakable
thump
of their tomcat hitting the carpet, and then Will's old man peered through the slatted living room blinds, scowled like only he can, and came to the door.

—What is it, Mitch? he said. He wore grey Nike sweatpants and a T-shirt with a picture of two bears in bandanas eating human bones. The caption read:
Don't Write Cheques Your Body Can't Cash
.

—Sorry, Mr. Crease, sorry to wake you.

—Couldn't sleep anyway.

—I saw lights at my house.

—Lights? he said, and when he did it sounded so stupid, even to me.

—Like, flashlights, I said.

—You think there's someone up there?

—I got my tools in the basement.

—What're they worth?

—I don't know.

He scratched the nape of his neck, his whole arm moving in a circle above his head, looking old in a way I couldn't pin down. Maybe that ratty T-shirt made him seem frail, who knows. He blew a long, tired sigh out his nose and opened the door enough for me to step through. —Let me get some pants, he said, and waved me in. As he walked away I saw one arm bent at his hip, fist pressed to lumbar, and he shuffled his feet as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Operational police work is a young man's job – that's what he always told Will. It's a career with an expiry date.

He came downstairs in jeans and socks and sandals,
with his handcuff key chain in one palm, and he flipped the keys in the air and caught them without looking – a trick him and Will perfected years ago when they did judo together. He jerked his chin at the door. To the west, you could trace the outline of the Purcells – silhouettes against the dark tungsten sky. Will's old man tugged the door shut, and then he turned and faced those mountains, his chin raised and his eyes squinted, as if staring something down.

—We're going on evac warning, he said, but not in a way that invited me to comment. He did his cop's shrug. Then he stretched, probably to ease a knot in his lumbar, and I imagined those muscles of his untangling like galley ropes. I stood a full head taller than him but it felt like looking up.

The street lamps are far and few between in Invermere. We walked in darkness. Only the spill from living rooms and porch lights lit our way. Will and me used to hike around Invermere's dead streets at night, when the air smelled like paving salt and pine needles and lake. Since Will left I didn't have so much time to just walk around doing nothing, and even less since I got married. I suppose that's the way things go. Part of me wondered if Will's old man might not mind walking in the dark.

My house wasn't far off – in the daylight by now it'd have been in sight, or at least the roof would've.

—Is Will going to marry your sister? Will's old man said.

—
He is?
I said, coming to a stop.

—No, I'm wondering.

—What'd he say?

—He never said.

—Well, they've been sleeping together for like ten years.

—Jesus, Mitch, Will's old man said, this look on his face as if to say
what the hell
, as if he might headbutt me. Then a beam of light flashed around my house's second floor and Will's old man snapped his eyes away to look at it. He ran his tongue along his teeth. —Don't you keep your tools locked up in the basement?

—Yeah.

—Wonder what we're gonna find, he said with a little grin.

We kept on. Part of me hoped to find rednecks there so me and Will's old man could beat them pulpy, maybe smack them with his elbows – the hardest impact point on the lower arm. I have a history with the rednecks. Will's old man used to bitch about the justice system, until he got worried me and Will would turn into vigilantes. He might not have been unjustified in that fear – the two of us got in our fair share of scraps, and our dads had to spring us out. Will never got special treatment for being a cop's son.

—The kid, Duncan, Will's old man said all of a sudden. —He tried to kill himself, this evening.

—Why?

Will's old man stopped again, at the foot of the driveway. —That's what I like about you, Mitch. Everybody else asks
how
.

—Thanks, I said, but I'm not really sure what he was getting at.

—Know a girl named Vic Crane?

—Her dad's an electrician.

He rubbed the back of his neck. —Well, she saved his life, he said, and did his cop's shrug, and that was that. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and I looked right at it. Those hands of his – I've never seen any part of anybody that took such a beating. Once you break a knuckle, he always said, you will break it again.

—Don't let Will throw his life away.

—Okay, I said.

—You're a good friend, Mitch.

My house had no doors installed yet. Will's old man used his cellphone to light our way over the empty wire spools and other stuff that could make a racket. For an old guy, he glided around.

When we reached the stairwell he raised a finger to his lips and we listened in the darkness. I heard a squeaking sound, like a rusty teeter-totter. Will's old man cocked his head, bent his arms to half-guards – ready, I guess, in case one of us got jumped. All me and Will kept on the second floor was drywall and bags of fibreglass insulation – pink plastic packages big as couch cushions. I used to know a guy who stuffed his boots with that insulation.

Then a great Jesus
ka-thoomp
shook the house from upstairs, in the master bedroom. Will's old man gave a nod, like in cop films before guys storm a room. We went up. And there was Will and my sister, in the master bedroom, playing with the pulley-swing. Not fucking, thank the Lord – I'd rather get shot than see that. Will had his end
of the rope coiled and he twirled it round and round so Ash whipped about the pivot at forty-five degrees. Her red hair was flung loose near her shoulders.

Will saw us standing there, let my sister slow down and drop with a
thump
to the plywood. She put a hand on his shoulder, probably not for balance. Will had this smug little smile on his face – almost a frown, actually, as if only half his face dared grin. His old man leaned on a stud and it creaked so he scowled at it.

Everyone stared at each other as if we were in a Western movie. Then Will's old man snorted. —Mitch thought he was being robbed, he said, and I damn well expected him to smack me. —I thought we'd find you guys sleeping together.

—In my brother's bedroom? Ash said.

Will's old man yawned, his big mouth opening wide. He sat down on a wire spool and brushed his hands over his thighs in a pair of slow, methodical swipes, his whole body – arms, shoulders, even his back – stretching with the action.

—I've got beer, Will said, nodding to a flat of Kokanees near the exit to the unfinished balcony. He flipped on a pair of halogen work lamps that lit the room amber, like a great big candle. —Was going to try and seduce Ash with them.

She belted him, and good on her.

I leaned on a sawhorse and Will tossed me a drink and I fumbled it and left it to sit so it wouldn't foam up. He and Ash had that look about them – not exactly sweaty but almost there, not red-cheeked but somehow blushing.
They sat shoulder to shoulder. If it were anyone but Will and my sister, I'd have left them be.

—We got shot at today, Will's old man said, his eyes on the plywood.

—Where? Will said.

—Up Mount Tobias. Was probably Duncan.

—Jesus.

—That's all I need, another hole in my chest, Will's old man said. He meant it as a joke but nobody even giggled. Will slurped beer suds and watched his old man, who didn't stop staring at the floor. They barely ever looked at each other at the same time, that summer. A confrontation was brewing, anyone could see it. It'd been brewing for a while.

—I want to join the Force, Will said.

—You think I don't know that?

—Crossed my mind.

—
Why?
Will's old man said, but there'd be no answer to that. He'd played all his cards, spent so long and done so much to get Will
out
, to get Will
happy
, and he knew – Christ, he knew – that Will's happiness would fly right out the window when he strapped on his first gunbelt. Ash rubbed her hand up and down Will's spine, the only support she'd shown. Will and his old man each chewed their lips, and at two different moments their eyes flickered to me, and I had this horrible feeling that they wanted me to take a side. Which they did, of course – I was the closest thing to a brother or a second son they had. Mitch Crease, they'd both called me, on separate occasions, growing up.

Then Will's old man noticed the pulley-swing. He waved his arm at it. —So what's this thing?

—A pulley, Will said.

—For what?

—Tug-of-war.

Will's old man laced his hands behind his head. —That so?

—Yeah, Will said, crossing his arms and getting into it. —That's so.

Even as he finished, his old man rose to his feet, wandered to the pulley, and took hold of one end of the rope. He gave a slight jerk, as if to appraise its worth. —You got what it takes, boy? he said, a devious twinkle in his eye.

Will stepped up. His old man rolled his neck around his shoulders and if it were an action movie you'd have heard the vertebrae crack. He adjusted his grip on the rope and Will did the same, and their hands and arms tightened until that thing went taut. Will's old man had the weight advantage by damned near seventy pounds, but Will had his unmatchable stubbornness.

—This is out of our league, Ash said to me, and gripped my arm as if to pull me away. She was dead right. The pressure in the air was tectonic. We sat down on the porch – not even in the same room – shoulder to shoulder, and I felt the evening wind rush past us and wondered what exactly was at stake.

I shouted the go-ahead, and in unison Will and his old man dropped a few inches, knees bent and their whole
bodies straining. Their arms barely moved: father-son, sweating pearls and wearing beer-grins. Happy as ever, it looked like. You could see their determination. Will's old man had been shot, bludgeoned, once had both his shoulders popped from their sockets when he held three grown men on a rope ladder. But the way his teeth grit and his lips peeled over his gums – it was as if this stupid test was
the
standard to measure a guy's worth. Will looked the same. His arms were tenser than the rope. His face squeezed together around his nose, and his cheeks reddened even in the amber working light.

I could have watched that tug-of-war forever. It seemed like nothing would happen. They were so even, the two of them. Then Will's old man yelled out – a guttural, barbaric sound, a sound like you'd make to benchpress a car – and he heaved like I never knew a man could heave. Will flew straight into the air. He really flew. It was like something out of a Shakespeare play. His arms snapped above his head and his body just glided on up. And his old man kept the heave on. Yell, heave, flight – the whole thing lasted maybe a second, but I remember it in detail: Will's old man with his whole face bending inward and this wild amusement in his eyes; Will not even registering the fact of his ascent; the
ca-REAK
of the ceiling truss as it fulcrumed the weight of Will's whole body. I remember it in slow motion. And then
like that
Will was lodged two knuckles deep in the pulley-swing.