The Long Stretch (13 page)

Sextus says: “The old man knew? I’d never have guessed.”

“Why not?” I say.

“I just wonder why he never told me. That he already knew.”

“You talked to him about it?”

“The last time I saw him, I told him the whole thing. He acted like he didn’t know.”

“He was pretty sick at the time,” I say. “Probably forgot things.”

“I blamed myself for a long time. Thinking it was too much for him. Mentioning it to him. Trying to get him talking. The stress.”

“All I know is it was him told me,” I say.

“If I was guessing who told you I wouldn’t be half as surprised if it was Squint,” he says, testing. “If you ask me, old Squint’s the man with the missing pieces of the puzzle.”

But the first time I asked Squint how my old man managed to get shot, all Squint said was, “Oh, a lot of good guys got shot. Lots didn’t live to talk about it.”

“How come he never talked about it?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Squint said. “Them who lived to talk about it usually wouldn’t. Haw haw. Anyway, what’s to talk about? You ever been shot?”

“No.”

“It’s not actually something you ‘know’ about. Usually just happened. You might know afterwards. But really, you know nothing. Except you’re alive, if you are. Then it hurts like hell. Sometimes. The squealing and squirming around can be pretty wicked.”

“You been shot, Squint?”

“No, but I seen lots who were,” he said.

“You saw Pa when he was shot?” Squint studied me for a long time, then said: “Maybe.”

“What was it like?”

“Oh well, now,” he said, “you’re a little young.”

By this time the sun was a big red-orange ball deflating on the horizon. The bay was turning a kind of lavender. The water
had little slivers of light dancing on the ripples. It was getting cooler fast.

He said, after another swig: “I just want to sit here for a few more minutes. You’ll see something.”

He held up his flask, measuring what was left.

“Now watch what happens when the sun hits the water.”

I watched as the great ball of fire settled slowly, spreading flat out over the skyline.

“Now look,” he said.

“What?”

“The fire ditch,” he said, pointing. “Look. There’s a big trench, full of fire, running from the land right out to the sun. Look at it.”

I see the reflection of the setting sun in a great streak running up to the shore.

“Now,” he said. “That’s the sewer that carries away all the shit and misery of the day, straight into the big incinerator on the horizon. Sucks the crap out nice as you please.”

It looked just like a molten metal stream.

“Of course the world starts filling up with shit and corruption all over again. But for the next minute or so, everything is clean as a whistle.”

I looked.

“Am I right or am I wrong,” he said aggressively.

“You’re right.”

“You hear any foolish talk about…anything. You just let it go. All right?”

“Right,” I said.

“No telling what you might be hearing around. But you just let it slide right into the ditch there. Out to the big furnace.”

I was comforted, somehow.

“Okay. Let’s go back,” he ordered, and he took another swallow. I started the half-ton and turned it around carefully.

The talk was, of course, already going strong. Just not where I could hear it.

Sextus is looking relieved. Suddenly refreshed. Says: “I’m trying to think of the old man coping with knowing that all those years.”

“He always held it against Angus,” I say. “Not that he’d say much one way or the other.”

“Never heard him say a hard word against anybody. They can be pretty wicked around here. With the talk.”

“Jack never let things eat at him,” I say.

“When did you first know there was something wrong with him?”

I shrug. “Just the coughing.”

He fumbles a cigarette out of the package on the table between us.

You could tell there was something bad wrong with Uncle Jack long before I left Bachelor Lake. I lived with his cough for years there and in Tilt Cove. But then forgot about it for a while when he moved to the staff house. But during the winter of ’67-’68, he’d scare you sometimes. In the cookhouse. Or having a beer at Ikey’s. The coughing fits.

They’d make jokes: “If it has hair on it, swallow. It’ll be your arsehole.” That’s the way he coughed.

Then you’d think: That’s just Jack. And there were a lot of people coughing in the bunkhouses those days. Especially the ones who had worked in Newfoundland during the war.
Especially St. Lawrence. The radiation. They were only finding out about the radiation there in the sixties. When we were in Bachelor Lake.

“Ma said it was what saved him from the war. Said the three of them came home in the spring of ’40. Going to join up. Went down to Sydney. But the old man got rejected. Something about the lungs. That’s what saved him.”

“From what and for what?” I ask.

“I guess from whatever it was got into the other two. And for what?”

He thinks about that for a few seconds, then smiles. “I guess for what’s sitting in front of you right now.”

Sextus was born in ’42.

One evening a few years ago, after I dried out, I took Millie up to the top of Creignish Mountain to show her the fire ditch. Would never have felt comfortable showing Effie. Millie is different.

After everything went black and you could see the beads of light over the mainland, she said, “Did you make that up?”

I couldn’t lie. I told her about the old man taking me up here.

“He had a good soul,” she said.

“So where do you think it is?”

She looked out over the bay for a while, then said, “How do you remember him?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“If people remember you well, that’s heaven.”

“What if they don’t remember you at all?”

“Extinction,” she said.

“Like Limbo,” I said.

“Like Limbo,” she said. “Hell but without the pain. Sorrow instead.”

“Better than the real thing.”

“For some people,” she said.

“So where does that leave the old man?”

“Depends on you,” she said.

“In one way, the war was the best thing that could have happened to them,” says Sextus.

“Didn’t do much for Uncle Jack.”

“Makes my point, doesn’t it? Jack was what they’d all have been if there’d been no war.”

The final months were full of surprises.

Near mid-August the old man called home from the power commission and asked me to drive in and get him. Me with no licence. Ma didn’t object, but said, “Be careful,” as I left.

Pulling in to the parking area in front of the power commission, I almost ran into a big fancy black car. The Chrysler. The two of them sitting in it. Himself and the Swede’s wife. He didn’t even try to conceal anything when I stopped alongside.

Late August, Ma asked me to go upstairs with her. Something ominous. Grandpa and Grandma looking at us, curious. Ma wasn’t one for private conversations.

She took me to their bedroom and opened his closet door.

“Look at that,” she said.

There was a brand-new suit hanging there.

“Where did he get that?” I asked.

“Who knows?” she said.

It was your basic charcoal wool suit, the kind men wore on special occasions. Or to church. Or their own funerals.

“The man never darkens the door of a church,” she said.

“Maybe he’s got a girlfriend,” I said. Joking.

She looked at me hard. “Aren’t you after getting the mouth on you,” she said and shut the door.

Labour Day weekend, the Friday. Sitting alone in the dark under the big pine tree halfway between our lane and MacAskill’s, puffing on a Kool. Home was getting too tense. I heard somebody coming. I cupped the cigarette in my hands and held my breath. It was somebody walking slowly along the shoulder of the road. Crunch. Crunch. Jesus. A woman.

She stopped about twenty feet from me and just stood there, arms folded. She was wearing a pale blue checked blouse and pink pedal-pushers. Effie.

“Where are you heading?” I said.

She squealed. “Cripes,” she said, when she saw it was me. “What are you trying to do?”

“Sorry.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Just having a smoke,” I said.

“A smoke!” She was grinning at that. “When did you start that?”

“Want one?”

“Sure.”

And I jumped up.

When she bent her face into my hands to take a light, the flare of the match made her look like a woman.

“So,” she said. “Waiting for somebody?”

“Nah,” I said. “Just hanging around.”

Then I heard the purr of a car out on the Trans-Canada.

“That’ll be him,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“A woman’s instinct.” I could picture the smirk.

“I thought he had Hollywood mufflers,” I said calmly.

“Who?” she said. “Oh, you’re thinking of him. He’s gone back. To Ontario.”

“So who’s this?”

The headlights were intruding already and the hum of the engine was getting louder.

“You’re way behind,” she said, laughing at me.

Then the car crunched onto the shoulder and pulled alongside. The driver leaned over and pushed the door open. The dome light came on. Warm radio sounds.
I found my thrill…on Blueberry Hill.
I recognized the fellow at the wheel, somebody else home from away with his hair all creamed into a black, shiny tangle like you’d see in the movies. Wearing a black leather jacket. He gave me a limp two-finger wave as she swept onto the seat beside him. I noticed then that she was chewing gum. I hated that.

“See ya round,” she said as she slammed the door.

The car wheeled in toward where I was standing by the tree, then backed out swift and smooth. Then whipped away with a rattle of gravel. Leaving her smell and the smells of the car and Brylcreem all mingled in with the night.

Labour Day weekend, the Sunday. The old man was restless all evening. Then got up and walked out without a word. I followed him, at a distance. Out of the house and down the lane. Who knows what was going on? Caught a glimpse of him at the end of the lane, just strolling casually, hands in his pockets. Then the shadows swallowed him.

The night was quieter than usual. The summer sounds of insects screaming at each other were gone. The sky was luminous with stars and constellations, a full moon hanging there.

I began to focus on a dark shape near the big pine tree. A parked car. I wanted it to be Effie and a boyfriend. But I knew it wasn’t.

The way his step quickened, I got the impression he was expecting it to be there. He walked right up to the passenger side, opened the door. The inside light came on. He climbed in and shut the door. It was only for a flash, but I could see that there was a woman behind the wheel. Golden hair piled on top of her head. Then I could imagine plain old Ma, home. Frowning and wondering.

The car started quickly. Obviously a V-8, probably a 420 engine under the hood. A big Chrysler by the look of it when it pulled out from beneath the tree and turned toward the Trans-Canada. They drove some distance before they turned on the headlights. Which was a good thing because if they’d turned them on pulling out from the tree they’d have seen me standing there like an idiot.

I was still living through those days when I met Millie. Memories still feeding on me the night I drove her up the General Line, over the back of Creignish Mountain, and showed her how the sun falls into St. Georges Bay. Except I didn’t have his faith in its cleansing power.

“I guess I’ll never forgive him,” I said to her that night.

She let the statement sit there. Me wondering if it was because it was too much for her to embrace or too silly to be worth acknowledging.

“Forgive what?” she said finally. “Him dying?”

“It’s more complicated that that.”

“The Swede’s wife?”

“Forget it,” I said.

“It’s possible,” she said, “you were just jealous.”

“For Jesus sake. That’s sick.”

“She could make quite an impression.”

“What do you know about her?”

“I think I remember her,” she said.

Around Labour Day weekend Ma came down with something. Nobody was sure what. But it was bad. She was losing weight and was generally low. And she was cranky, which was unusual for her. These days you’d think cancer right away.

She refused to see a doctor and by the end of the first week of September she wasn’t getting out of bed. Grandma cooked the meals.

Jessie would often be there when I’d get home from school. Up in the room. You could hear them talking. Grandma and Grandpa pretty well ran the house. Which was okay except for the cooking. As time dragged by something about it all made me think I didn’t really want to be in on it. Adult emotions. Alien territory for sure. I could imagine what it was about but I more or less tuned out.

The old man was hardly ever around. Of course this wasn’t unusual. He’d be out at night a lot working. New power lines going through. Substations being built. There was even talk of a new generation station over by the pulp mill. A couple of nights a week you could expect him to stop at the Legion on the way home. Or he’d be over visiting Angus. When he was home, I’d be out cruising around with the truck. Staying out of the way.

I had my licence by then and he was pretty liberal about letting me take his rig when it was available. He’d even throw in gas money.

Sextus is standing by the kitchen window, looking out at the storm.

Maybe Millie was right. Maybe I was just jealous of the bastard. I’d never seen the like of the Swede’s wife this side of a movie screen. I remember when the papers and magazines were full of Lana Turner, when her daughter supposedly murdered the boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato. Or when Grace Kelly married the prince of Monaco. They had nothing on the Swede’s wife for looks. The thought of my old man, with his caved-in skull and the gloom where a personality was supposed to be, going with her was enough to make me feel like throwing up.

When I was little I’d feel that quick tingle when I’d hear them say Sandy the Lineman. Now they were saying Sandy the Stickman. The gossip about him and the Swede’s wife getting loud enough to hear. Even for me and Ma.

Ma told me once about birds conducting electricity through their bones and out. He was like that, I thought. Of course that wasn’t possible but it was an image that stuck. The electric man. It gave a funny glow to his eyes. Made his hair frizzy. Kept him lean and tense. Explained the angry flashes. Gave me distance. Ma never talked to me about the trouble. And I wanted her to think I didn’t know. Grandma and Grandpa hardly breathed.

I’d just drive around. Out to Hastings. If there was a dance somewhere not too far away I’d hang around outside. The mill was pretty well up and running so there was a lot happening in Hawkesbury. A new by-pass and a shopping centre. There was a new drive-in up on the Sydney Road.
It was historic in a way: first time you could get a proper hamburger anywhere around here. Big and fat and juicy with lettuce and tomato and onion squishing out of them. There would always be people sitting out in front in cars. Later there would be an A&W and a Colonel’s, and a Dairy Queen. Prosperity was setting in.

One night sitting in front of the drive-in I saw the Chrysler arriving. This time a guy in a suit gets out. He had the kid with him, the boy. The two of them went inside and came out a few minutes later with a bag of food. When they were gone, I went in, returning my pop bottle. Asked the Newfoundlander behind the counter, “Who was that?” The guy shrugged and said, “Some big shot from the mill. One of the Swedes. Why?”

“Just admiring the car,” I said.

“Some car, all right,” he said.

Just once I talked to Uncle Jack about it. In Tilt Cove. Or maybe it was Bachelor Lake. You could see how uneasy he was.

“There was bugger all to it,” he said.

Me nodding. Regretting I ever raised it.

“People got nothing better to do than talk. I told the wife years ago, keep to yourself. Give them nothing to talk about. You know what I mean?” Started rolling a cigarette. Slow and deliberate. “The wife was only going to card games. But it doesn’t take much to get them started.” Rolling the tube gently, with great concentration. “Jesus Christ,” he said, as if to himself. Licked the paper with the tip of his tongue, sealed it with one hand, between thumb and forefinger. Then just looked at it.

“Only way he could have known her was when his crew ran the power into the new house, the place they built up back of Grant’s Pond.”

The mansion. It had a big carport for at least two or three rigs.

“Right,” I said.

That was my point. There was just no common ground between them. No common meeting place. It was totally illogical. And her a foreigner. Maybe even a German.

“It’s an awful thing,” he was saying sadly.

“Yes.”

“The talk of them.”