Provider's Son (31 page)

“Sure I thought you was there for research you said?”

“Ive got more research than I can stomach. Now Im going to stay here and research a way to beat those fuckers. Im going to use my art, the media, protests, politics, Green Peace, whatever it takes to save this place.”

“You cant win.”

“One person can make a difference. Its been done before. What are
you
going to do?”

“Im going back to work. A man got to make a living.”

“Man, dont you feel bad about going back to that place after what youve seen here? You brought that little boy here to be raised up. In this community.”

“I dont put the poison in that lake out there. Im only a welder.”

“But thats the same excuse everybody has! ‘Just doing my job.'”

“What will I tell your old man if I sees him?”

“Tell him Im going to drive the company he works for out of his land.”

They shifted their feet and stared into the forest.

“What about the next chair?” Levi said.

“Ill call you. We can work on them here. My grandfathers shed would be perfect.”

Levi nodded and shook Jon's hand, knowing they would never build another chair together.

The drive back to Wisti was a long one, and his hands trembled on the wheel for a reason he knew but could not even admit to himself. Then he saw the plastic flask he had thrown away, lying in the middle of the road. He stopped and stared at it in the mud. Then got out, walked over, and picked it up.

He held it for a moment longer, then closed his eyes, unscrewed the cap, and turned the bottle over. The sound of the vodka splashing onto the ground was not pleasant, and back came the tingling sensations, racing through his shoulders. He threw the empty flask into the woods.

As he drove he thought about work. No matter how he tried to justify it, by working on that project he was contributing indirectly towards the suffering in Provider. Then he began to think of all the different kinds of suffering that might be caused by technological conveniences in the modern world, and the possibilities kept stacking on top of one another until he could think of it no longer. He reached over and slapped on the radio. It was CBC Radio, and of course, there was a panel discussing oil prices and the economy. One male panelist was guessing that the price of oil would hit the two-hundred-and-fifty dollar mark in the foreseeable future. An awkward female panelist began talking about a looming housing market bubble in the United States, and how their inevitable recession would affect Canada, but she was laughed at by the others and didn't get to finish her point. Levi quickly changed the channel to something with music.

At camp he parked Bill's SUV and brought the keys to him. As an outport fisherman it was almost in his genes to be intimidated by official authority. Off the job Bill was just another man, but here on site he was Erbacor Energy Senior Project Manager.

Bill asked if Jon had checked into his room and Levi told him he wasn't coming back. He also told him everything Jon said about taking on Erbacor Energy.

“Im not surprised.”

“Do you think hell stir up a lot of shit?”

“Yes, if he puts his mind to it.”

“Almost sounds like you wouldnt mind.”

“Id be proud of him.”

“I met your father.”

“Did he talk your ear off?” he said with irony.

“He can still handle a gun,” Levi said.

Circle of Fire

Walls of scaffolding had come and gone in the time that Levi was away. When it was taken down later the racks of pipeline would appear utterly naked. For now, however, the scaffolds were simply shifting from place to place. It seemed as if nothing was changing until every so often he would stand back and realize thousands of tons of steel had been erected in places that had once been empty.

Levi was welding a lot of small structural jobs now, but never pressure pipe. According to Quality Control he wasn't actually supposed to be welding at all, because he didn't have the proper certification yet. But he learned that when things got busy, rules got bent. The welding he had done on his boat was with an old alternate current welder, and was sloppy. Having a proper direct current diesel welder on site he learned how flawless a weld bead could be laid down, if a talented and experienced hand was guiding the rod. He knew he had talent, but lacked experience.

The truth was, except for the heights, Levi enjoyed welding. If the weather was right and the weld was easily accessible there was something almost as meditative staring into that glowing red puddle as it was sanding the leg of a rocking chair. He even liked the smell of melting steel, and the flux, which was caked around the welding rod, and as it burned, shielded the molten steel from being contaminated with oxygen.

Sinead had come upon her father welding a guide onto a support. He had not put fireblanket under his feet or across the side of the scaffold, so welding sparks and hot spatter was showering down onto the ground.

“Dad,” Sinead hissed, turning about to see if anyone was watching, “you could get sent back to camp for doing that! Wheres your fireblanket?”

Levi laughed.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You, me ducky.”

“What if you got kicked off site? Would you laugh then?”

“Id feel embarrassed I suppose. Especially if it was by me own daughter.”

“I should –“ she said, her voice breaking, and then she looked as if she was about to cry.

“Whats wrong?”

She looked about herself in embarrassment. “Jon.”

“Oh.”

“Hes going to protest this project, and he wants me to join him. I said how can I join you? Ill lose my job. He says if I really want to stay and be a part of the destruction of his community then he doesnt know if we can be together. What am I going to do if I give up this job? Work at Walmart? Be a waitress? Ive got thousands of dollars in student loans to pay off, and to top it all off Im trying to be a writer. How many rich writers do you know?”

Youre the only writer I know, Levi was going to respond, but he didn't because she wasn't really asking him.

“He wants me to move into Provider with him. He says it will be great research for my book. I cant live in Provider. Its in the middle of nowhere. The road is washed out half the time. I mean, I wouldnt mind going for a holiday there or something. But to live? No way.”

“I cant blame you there.”

“He says hes going to protest. Actually, no, he says hes going to make a work of art. Performance art, in the form of protest.”

“Yeah, he told me that. Kind of.”

“I mean today. He says hes going out on the road next to the airport.”

“To do what?”

“I dont really know. He wants me to join him. I guess hes going to setup a roadblock or something.”

“Jesus, Sinead,” Levi said. “youre not foolish enough to be at that is you? Hes just going to stand in the middle of the road?”

“No. He said hes bringing people. I told him site security would never let him do that. He said they were bringing protection. I asked him what he meant by ‘protection,' but he wouldnt say. He just kept saying ‘dont worry about it.'”

“They wouldnt bring guns would they?”

“I dont know.”

“Guns. Thats just asking for trouble.”

“Jon is going to hate me for it but I called his father and told him. Wer driving out to see whats going on.”

“Im going too.”

Levi, Sinead and Bill drove to the airport in a company truck. Bill didn't want to bring them along, but Sinead said that she could be of help in persuading Jon if any kind of persuasion was needed. And Levi said that if his daughter was going then he was going.

It was smoke they saw first, billowing upwards and to the east. Then the smell, similar to a barbecue, but burnt. In the distance a fire winked in and out of view.

“Is it a car accident?” Sinead said.

“No,” Bill said, as if he had already been informed of what was going on.

As they got closer Levi could see what appeared to be a group of people standing engulfed in flames in the middle of the road. It took him a second to realize that the people were not on fire, but surrounded by it. A circle of flame. Three men were holding rifles, and Jon was one of them. A fire truck had blocked the center of the road a few hundred meters before the fire, its red light a steady pulse on the situation. The firemen stood on the side of the truck facing away from the fire.

When Bill pulled up the firemen wouldnt let him go around.

“Im the Project Manager on this site, and I have to get in there to talk to those people.”

“We cant allow you to go in there. They have firearms. The police told us not to let anyone past this road block.”

“All the more reason for me to go in there. My son is among those men. Hes the ring leader. I need to talk to him.”

“Im sorry. Wer not moving this truck.”

“Do you want to keep your job? Move that fucking truck!”

Turning deep red, the fireman stepped back and shook his head. No.

Bill began to speak, then snapped his mouth shout, backed up the truck, drove down in the ditch around the fire truck, and back up on the road again, nearly tearing the truck's rear bumper off in the process.

Many kinds of blackened meat, fish, and poultry mixed in with green and dry trees sat burning in the road, placed in a circle around Jon, William, and a dozen other natives. Johanna's father was one of them, but Levi didn't know the rest. Half of them were women. He assumed they were all residents of Provider. The circle of fire encompassed the whole width of the road with rising heat from the flames refracting the light so that everyone inside it seemed to shimmer and bend. The fire was placed so that it blocked the entrance into Erbacor Energy's airstrip. Two buses sat in the parking lot, and the tradesmen who were supposed to be on them, heading to work after flying four thousand kilometers, were instead packed inside the tiny terminal, looking out the windows at the action. A CBC van and camera crew were there as well.

Bill was out of the truck before it came to a complete stop in front of the fire. He shouted across the fire at the reporter telling him that he was on private property. The reporter, a thirty-something male with a slicked-back hairdo shouted back that it wasn't private land until they crossed the security gate a mile up the road. Bill gave up on the reporter and went to his father and son. Levi and Sinead got out of the truck as well and approached the fire.

“What are you doing?” Bill said to Jon and William. “Please dont tell me those guns are loaded.”

“I cant remember,” Jon said, smiling.

“You better remember! When the cops get here theyll see those weapons as being loaded no matter if they are or not.”

“We brought the guns so the security and the firemen would leave us alone long enough to make the fire,” Johanna's father said.

“Well youve got your fire so give them to me then. All youd have to do is point one of those guns in the wrong direction when the cops get here and youll be a dead man. There could be snipers in the woods right now for all we know. This is not some art project, Jon. This is dangerous. Do you want another Oka to happen here? And where did you get all this meat and fish?”

“Out of freezers in Provider. All of it poison.”

As Bill turned to his father he tried to harden his expression but it looked weak. “Please give me the gun.”

“Well, youre a stranger,” William said.

“Give me the gun. The cops will be here any minute.”

“Why havent I seen you in so long?”

“Give me the gun.”

“I dont know if I will.”

Bill turned to Jon. “Why did you drag him into this?”

“He came here on his own. I didnt ask you for obvious reasons.”

“Jon, youll go to jail!” Sinead said.

“Sinead,” Bill said, “let me talk to them. Please.” He turned back to Jon. “You will go to jail. All of you.”

“Hes right about the guns, bys,” Levi said. “Youre only asking for trouble. Big trouble. You dont want to get killed over this.”

“Wer already getting killed!” one of the women shouted. “Bowel cancer hurts a lot more than a bullet.”

“You dont have to leave right away,” Bill said. “Just give me the guns. Please.”

Sirens could be heard in the distance. Bill looked panicked.

“We get what youre doing here, Jon,” Sinead said. “We totally get it, but...”

“Well, why dont the three of you join us?” Jon said. “Imagine the impact it would make Dad? The Senior Construction Manager, standing in protest with your father and son. Levi and Sinead as well, two white people standing with us in this circle of fire. Step into the circle! The three of you right now. Ive never felt this kind of purpose in my life.”

“Jump in with us!” a woman shouted.

“Join us, Bill. Do it,” the others began to shouting. “Jump in the circle!”

“No,” Bill said weakly. His face had grown pale.

“Id like to, but I cant, Jon,” Sinead said. “Theyll fire me. I was lucky to get on here.”

Levi met Jon's eyes. He knew in words he could never articulate that even though the circle was surrounded in fire that it was actually a sanctuary, that stepping forward would be stepping into freedom. In spite of this he could not move his legs. Going back to Newfoundland and scraping about for a berth on some crab boat with a bunch of men he wasn't used to working with made him nauseous to think about. And without the right connections he had a better chance of winning the lottery than getting a job as a first year apprentice tradesman on the Island. There were bills to pay. There was Frank and Barnaby. If he stuck it out here he would soon be making more money than he ever had in his life.

“Theyre trapped,” William said.

“No,
youre
trapped,” Bill said. “Everything that we were is dead. This,” he said, sweeping his arm towards the steel stacks billowing flame in the distance, “will be here until every last drop of oil is sucked out of this earth. And theres not a goddamn thing we can do about it. Do you think anyone in this country gives a fuck about a few dozen Indians tucked up in the bush somewhere? The only thing you are for those cameras over there is entertainment. The only thing that will come of having a protest here is a loss of work for the men who need it the most.”