Provider's Son (20 page)

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Do that mean well get any more money for it?”

“No. Its already sold. If it wasnt sold already it would. We might get more money for the next one though. For sure.”

“When do we get that money by the way?”

“You dont have to worry about Edward, Levi. Ive been dealing with him for years.”

A muffled cheer went up from a poker game down the hall. Levi said goodbye, and he closed the door and collapsed on his bed. Now, instead of his hands, his whole body was trembling, muscles twitching, and his mind... He noticed while he was talking to Jon that there were terrifying moments when it seemed as if he was standing behind a window looking out of his own eyes, and listening to the sounds coming out of his own mouth. Anita had spoken of this at various points of her life when she was depressed, and he was glad she did. At least he knew it was a symptom of illness and not that he had finally lost his mind. Anita had found out from the internet that it was called “depersonalisation.” Was he depressed? He didn't feel sad per se, as much as he did angry. Or was anger not separate from sadness, but a symptom of it? When he really thought about himself he felt more exhausted and numb than anything. He knew of a remedy of course, and it was sitting behind a bar in forty-ounce bottles. Or had that cure gotten him where he was now? “Nerve pills” was the next remedy, but the mere thought of trying to talk to a doctor about things that he could barely articulate to himself made him feel worse.

What about God? a voice said in his head. He had prayed a lot when he was a child, and unlike many of his friends growing up, he actually didn't mind church. He liked those old stories for the same reason he liked watching documentaries on the History Channel. The dead had all the power. They dictated the rules and no one could talk them out of it.

“Theres no such thing as God,” Levi said, to hear it on his lips. But he couldnt help cringing.

David is his nephews name. And the strangest thing of all is that Levi loves the boy in spite of him being just like his old man, Frank. The constant need for the center of attention, the bossiness, the inability to lose gracefully at anything, in that little boy all of these traits are somehow charming.

David has been fascinated with Levi's tools, and his work. So much so that Levi decides one day that he should let him do some early-stage sanding on a chair. He doubles up a small piece of fine sandpaper and hands it to the boy, expecting him to grow tired of it in minutes. But no, an hour later little David is still sanding the legs, absorbed in his work, smiling to himself and asking endless questions. The boy has inherited another trait from his father that Levi has to grudgingly admit is a valuable one. He puts his all into everything. The questions can get annoying, but it is something Levi can tolerate.

One day David asks, “Uncle Levi?”

“What.”

“Is trees alive?”

“Yes by, trees is alive.”

“So when theyre chopped down and turned into wood do that mean theyre dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Do they go to heaven?”

“No.”

“Why not? Theyre alive.”

“Yeah, but they dont have souls.”

“Do souls mean ghosts? Theres no ghosts in them?”

“No. Yes. Jesus, me buddy, youre asking complicated questions there now.”

“So what do souls mean?”

“A soul is something inside you, like energy in a battery. Invisible. But alive.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, cool.”

“So trees is alive but they dont have souls.”

“Yeah.”

“But when you chops them down theyre dead.”

“Yeah.”

“So this rocking chair is dead.”

Levi stops.

“Yes, but it gets some soul left on it.”

“But the rocking chair is made out of the dead tree.”

“Its made by a mans hands. My hands in this case. And some of me soul gets rubbed off.”

“It rubs off your hands?”

“Only when you makes something…yeah.”

“It rubs off like dirt.”

“No. Like…warmth. That chair is not alive, but it still got the warmth of something that is.”

“What about when you dies?”

“Now see theres the good thing. What I rubbed off on that chair will still be there for a long time after Im gone. If its still around.”

“I dont get it.”

“You will. Concentrate on what youre at. Youre getting the real crackerjack at sanding. In no time at all youll be doing whatever you wants in here.”

“Uncle Levi?”

“What.”

“Do you ever think Ill be as good as you?”

“Considering how young you is, if youre at it until youre my age youll be the best in the world.”

David has taken that compliment seriously. He puts in even more time after that, at least two hours a day. It's becoming obvious that David will eventually be a gifted woodworker. The only problem is that, like his father, he gets ahead of himself. One day when Levi is eating his supper he suddenly hears the lathe running. At first he thinks it might be Frank or Barnaby, but upon investigation he sees David standing at the lathe as casual as if he has been using it for years. He is carving a notch into a leg that Levi had placed there, but had planned on working on after he ate.

“David!” Levi shouts. “What do you think youre doing?” He runs over and shuts the lathe down. “Dont ever let me see you turn that on again. Goddamn it by, you could have hurt yourself.”

“I knew what I was doing, Uncle Levi,” is the boy's response.

Levi stares at him, and can't keep a smile from his face, so he turns around and faces the door. “No, you didnt. If I catches you using that lathe again I wont let you in here no more. Now get home out of it before I calls your mother.”

David runs out the door, fully aware how nervous his mother is.

Levi picks up the leg. David has created a kind of design, sloppy and unusable, but a design none the less. Certainly better than Levi thought a boy his age could ever be capable of on his first try.

Six months later the leukemia-ravaged body of that confident little boy is lying in a hospital bed, and all that was David is slipping from the world. A head that had been once covered in curly black hair like Frank's, is now hairless. The bed is surrounded by toys David no longer has the strength to play with.

“I wish I could have helped you finish that chair,” David says.

“You will, me buddy!” Levi says. David smiles at his uncle, as if he knows better.

Helah and Frank do not leave David's side. Levi is the only other person allowed in the room, he has prayed every day for the boy to pull through, offering his every possession for the boy's life.

“Tired,” is David's last word before he slips into a coma.

The next day his breathing slows until he lets out one long final exhalation.

That night Levi decides there cannot be a God. And if he is up there he hates him anyways. He has not prayed since.

It takes nearly seven years, but Frank does seem to recover. Unlike Levi, who stops believing, Frank's faith grows stronger than ever, never missing a Sunday in church, as if to remind God what he has taken. And he is only too glad to talk about David. The house becomes a shrine to the boy, with eight by ten photographs on every wall. Not that Helah notices. Even though she has hung them there.

And so here was Levi again, with his eyes closed, kneeling at the cross. There was neither one in his room so he kneeled in what he assumed was an easterly direction, towards Newfoundland, towards Gadus, where in his mind he pictured the twenty-foot, wooden cross hanging silently in the church. He never believed that prayers spoken in the mind could be heard, so he would have to speak out loud, but sound travelled so freely between the dorm walls that laughter could be heard five dorm rooms away.

“Dear God,” he whispered. “Its been a long time. What can I say? I was pissed off. I might was well be honest about it. I couldnt forgive you for taking David. I suppose I figured that not believing in you was the only way I could hurt you. But what do you care about me? What do you care about anybody? See Im still upset about it. I cant help it. That little boy never hurt anyone. He was the cutest little boy I ever laid eyes on and he whudnt even me son. I knows Frank is a hard case, but he didnt deserve that. I loved David. Yes, I loved him. I got to tell you all this because I needs you to understand why I turned away. And now Im here on bended knee asking for your...”

As Levi was about to say “forgiveness” the image of David standing at the lathe came to his mind. Wasn't asking for mercy a betrayal of the boy? What did Levi need to be forgiven for anyway? All the pain in the last year. How had any of it been his fault? His wife's infidelity, the sunken boat, the betrayal by his own brothers.

Levi stood up with his teeth clenched. “No. No, I wont. What have you got to say to that?”

Levi's room phone rang and he leaped in fright. Having used only his cell phone he forgot he even had a room phone. It had never rung before. It was Anita.

“I just wanted to know how you were doing with the new job.”

“Alright. Hows you getting on?”

“Alright.”

“Just alright?”

“Alright. The lawyers been calling me.”

“Oh, thats why you called.”

“No, Im just telling you.”

“Whats the rush?”

“No rush.”

Silence.

“I was just thinking about God,” Levi said.

“Oh. That all? Why?”

“What happened to David…the boys on the boat.”

“Oh.”

“Did it change you?”

“Change me how?”

“What do you think of it all, God, and all that stuff?”

“I still believes in God I suppose.”

“You suppose? Sinead says shes an atheist, dont she?”

“Yes, but I dont think it had anything to do with David. Shes that type anyway. Shes still young. She might change.”

“You dont have no doubts?”

“Yes, but…I dont know, I just dont think its my nature to be an atheist.”

“We used to talk like this all the time.”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“I think I already told you that a few times.”

They talked a little while longer, and when he hung up he felt a glimmer of hope for the first time since she left him, but he wouldnt even say it in his mind for fear he would jinx it.

During supper the conversation revolved around the accident. His crew poked fun at him, as they poked fun at everyone's mistakes. The worst weakness any man could have on a construction site was not a lack of strength, but a lack of wit, or over-sensitivity. If he was no good with clever comebacks, he at least better be able to shrug anything off. Because the fun-makers, and every crew had at least one, could smell out this weakness like a predator to its prey. And mild insults were part and parcel in just about every conversation.

Jon was having supper with Sinead six tables down, and at one point Levi and Sinead made eye contact. She gave him a silly smile and he gave her one back. Even though Sinead was with Erbacor safety and not Shale safety she had to have known what happened. Surprisingly, however, when he later sat with them she said nothing about it. Instead she only talked about the other news.

“
Alberta Now
, Dad. Thats awesome. You guys better not forget me when you get famous.”

“Look whos talking,” Jon said. “Youre the budding Atwood there.”

“I wish.”

Levi had no idea who Atwood was but he passed on embarrassing himself. He had a feeling Jon knew he didn't know who Atwood was anyway.

“Do you think youll be nervous in the interview?” Sinead asked her father.

“Interview?”

“I didnt tell him about that part,” Jon said.

“Why not?”

“Well...he seemed to be having a bad day, so I left that out. Wasnt sure how he would react.”

Levi looked at Jon.

“
Alberta Now
wants to conduct an interview with us about the chair and how we came into collaboration on it,” Jon said. “Obviously theyre going to be angling the whole white and native thing, but theres not much we can do about that.”

Levi nodded.

“So what do you think?” Sinead said.

“Yes, why not. Will it be aired all over Canada?”

“I doubt it,” Jon said.

“Who cares,” Sinead said. “Ill put the link to the video on Facebook so everybody back home can watch it. Uncle Frank will be some jealous.”

Levi laughed. She knew what to say. But it was true. It made him glow inside to think of Frank's inevitable jealousy. This was something Frank could never match. For he had not inherited their father's creativity, and he always resented Levi for that. Their father Jake had been known as the best boat builder in Gadus. Even if most of those boats were less than two feet long. Levi's prized possession was a one inch to one foot scale dory his father had built a few months before he died. Dories were rarely used in Gadus, as opposed to punts and skiffs, so Jake had only built a few, just to see if he could.

“I suppose youre right into the computers too,” Levi said to Jon.

“Yeah, but not like some. Mostly just to promote my art.”

“You really should buy a laptop, Dad. Everybody on camp has one in their room. Youd be a lot less bored.”

“The only thing I hears young fellas on my crew talk about when it comes to the computers is porn and Facebook. And that u-too.”

“YouTube.”

“The guy who works in the server room told me half the reason the internet is so slow here,” Jon said, “is because theres so much video porn streaming through the system.”

Canadian Wood

As the three of them drove into the parking lot of the AGA Jon got off the phone with his grandfather, William, in Provider.

“Another funeral,” Jon said. “Another goddamn funeral.”