Authors: Joel Thomas Hynes
Under any other circumstances, like if I’d come across this stuff in a cabin in the woods or somewhere, I’d count myself the luckiest bastard on the planet. But my knees were shakin’ and I could feel sweat rollin’ down my back in buckets. I stuffed the bottle and the smokes into my backpack. As I was tyin’ the string on top, I turned around to see Sally Ann standin’ in the open doorway. Watchin’me. A tight, stoned grin on her face. Busted. I yammered what excuses I could muster up, but she just waved me off and told me to help myself. I doubt she meant the gun though, if she even knew it was there. I tried to push my way past her. Had to get as far away from that house as fast as my legs would let me. But she wouldn’t let me pass. She made a grab for my crotch, tellin’ me that Renny was out for the night and maybe she’d like to give me a freebie. The whole shebang. She pressed her bare
tits to my chest. For the first time I noticed the stench of festered sweat rising up from her body. I cringed at the thought of what a fine state her bed must be in. Her and Renny’s bed. Fuck. I could hardly have been declared Mr. Hygiene Newfoundland myself, what with piss dryin’ into the leg of my pants, but I have my limits, if not my preferences. I’d not be rollin’ around on her sheets anytime soon. I bulled past her and made a straight cut to the front door. She started whinin’ and huffin’, wantin’ me to stay. Apparently I had no idea what I was missin’. She told me I’d never find another night like she could show me. I was in total agreement. She called me an ingrate and a stupid fool, until finally, as I was walkin’ down the front path, I heard her screamin’:
—Renny! Renny! Get the fuck up! He’s after stealing a case of liquor. RENNY!
But Renny didn’t stagger out the front door wieldin’ a shotgun in a shit-stained strap shirt. I was pretty sure Renny was out for the night. Still, to be on the safe side, I ran like hell ’til I thought I’d drop dead.
Set to wander once again. Round and around in circles like a dyin’ spin-top. Back up and down the same streets ’til they became one strangled mess of fences and road signs, streetlights and parking lots. On the verge of collapse, I flagged down a cab. A green cab. I had the back door opened and one leg in before I realized it was old hook-nosed Gerard. He grinned a big toothless grin back at me.
I slammed the door and took off straight down the road in the other direction from where he was facin’. The road was pretty narrow, so I figured he’d have a hard time turnin’
around a big car like that. He’d at least have to find a driveway and I’d run until I heard him turn around, then I’d duck in out of it somewhere. Maybe I’d even have to shoot him in the face if he got out of hand. But I didn’t hear him. He wasn’t comin’. I stopped and looked back. He was pulled up to the curb where an old couple was gettin’ into the car. I s’pose he had his money made by then and decided I wasn’t worth the trouble.
One thing though, between Gerard and Metal-Head and Sally Ann, I hadn’t had that much exercise in years.
I fell into a phone booth. When I picked up the goddamn receiver there was no dial tone. A couple of buttons were missin’ too. For the love of fuck. I rifled through the phonebook for a roadmap. Sure enough, there was one on the inside cover. I tore out the map and walked into the street to see where I was. I walked ’til I came to a couple of signs where Robie and Young Street crossed and from there I had to swing back around to get to Agricola Street. Sure it was just around the fuckin’ corner the whole time. When I turned onto it I realized I’d already been on it once or twice already. I counted down the numbers on the houses ’til I finally found Natasha’s place.
Funny, but I had it pictured different from the stale yellow house that stood before me. One of them row houses. There’ll all over downtown St. John’s. Everybody squat right tight. People on either side of you. No yard. The fella next door has a smoke in bed and the whole block goes up. Rat-holes. Deathtraps. Thing is, any time I spoke to Natasha on the phone, I had
her pictured livin’ in some bright, spacious Victorian-style mansion with a huge lawn and garden, complete privacy, trees, bronze water sprites round back. The good life.
I sauntered on up to the door. Absolutely good intentions. Absolutely. Put on my best sober face and gave a loud bang on the screen. Waited for a bit. Not a stir in the house. It was already pretty late and Natasha was likely asleep, so I whacked a little louder. Footsteps. A light in the hall popped on and the door creaked open a few inches ’til it brought up on a chain. Right out of the movies. It was Gertie. Shit. Forgot all about her. She’s an old friend of Natasha’s mom. No relation, but Natasha still calls her Auntie Gert. I think she used to live in St. John’s but moved to Halifax years ago to work with underprivileged kids or some such shit. She won some kinda humanitarian award a while ago and it was all over the news back home. So she took Natasha in as a favour to the family, meanin’ that Natasha had no real bills to pay, no real expenses, aside from long-distance phone calls. But I doubt
that
particular bill was very costly, seein’ how the precise reason I was there on her doorstep was because she couldn’t pick up the goddamn phone once in a while.
Gertie in her nightdress. Half asleep.
—Hi. I’m Keith. Is Natasha at home?
Gertie the nervous twitch.
—Keith? Natasha’s Keith? How did you get here? It’s two in the morning.
—Listen, I’m sorry for the intrusion but I really needs to see her. I’m not cracked or nothing. It’s been a long day.
—Well, she’s not here now. She won’t be back until tomorrow morning. She’s staying at a friend’s house. You can’t stay here—
A friend’s house? A fuckin’
friend’s
house? I knew it. My heart raced at the thought of Natasha off with some fuckin’ artsy Nova Scotian mommy’s boy. Smokin’ cigarettes in bed and watchin’ late night TV in the buff. All fucked out. And there I was, half-dead from exhaustion on her doorstep. After comin’ through all this shit. All the way from St. John’s. Just to lay eyes on her. And where is she? Off fuckin’ some pansyassed theatre cunt.
—Ah…what exactly do you mean by
friend
? Like a b’yfriend or something? Do you know the address? I really needs to find her.
She knew but she wouldn’t say. Grizzly old bitty.
—No, and I don’t know how to get in touch with her either. Come back tomorrow. During the day.
Well, at least I was invited back. She went to close the door but stopped long enough to witness me fallin’ backwards off the step and givin’ my head a good crack on the sidewalk. She peeked out at me. I could see the pity motherin’ up in her eyes. I s’pose she was seein’ me as one of them fuckin’ underprivileged youngsters she worked with. Enough to turn your goddamn guts. Sure I never came lookin’ for nothing off her. I’d sooner sleep in pig slop than lay my head down in her house.
—I’ll tell Natasha you’re in town if she calls.
She shut the door and locked it.
Well, fancy me, sprawled off on a Halifax sidewalk with no money and no place to sleep. Miserable old bag. What am I, some kind of leper? Havin’ to roam around for a place to sleep. Imagine.
I lurched up and down the street lookin’ for a decent place to lay my head. Some place discreet. I finally sat down in an
alleyway just up from Gertie’s house. I watched two cats fuckin’ for a while. The old tomcat doing the pushin’ was all black except for his two white hind paws. Got me thinkin’ about Metal-Head screwin’ missus with his boots on. Made me feel a little lonesome. People all over the world, curled up with their lovers in beds and on couches and poor old Keith got no one ’cause he’s too fucked up to hang on to anyone. Fuck. The cats finished up with a howl and a shudder, then took off in separate directions. Just the way love should be. No bullshit. Once the cats were gone I felt
really
alone.
Crouched in a shitty alleyway.
Halifax.
Lord dyin’ Christ.
It had to be love. There certainly seemed to be no logical way to explain it. Love is the most illogical force on the face of this planet. Love is a lie someone made up a long time ago that everyone fell for. I fell for it. But Natasha was worth all this to me. Yeah. I tried to convince myself that I was only jumpin’ to conclusions. Maybe she really was just off to a friend’s house. A girlfriend. Natasha. Love. They’d find me dead in this piss-ridden alleyway and Gertie’d curse herself and her cold notions. Natasha’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of her days. Might even make the papers.
Newfoundlander Abroad Dies In Search of Love.
I could hear ’em already, all the old bags back home in the Cove.
—Jesus Christ, couldn’t she let the poor young fella sleep on the couch? Sure she could have given him an old blanket or something. Not twenty feet from her house and he froze to death. Imagine. Knees hugged right tight to his chest and they nearly needed the Jaws of Life to straighten him out to send
him home. Imagine his poor mother. God love him. I remembers the lovely speech he wrote in Grade Eight. I don’t know why he went the way he did. Must be the drugs and the booze, but that’s hardly his own fault. Sure once that stuff gets ahold of you you’re as good as gone no matter where you lays your head. Poor lost soul. What’s the world comin’ to at all?
Now this is the self-pitying garbage sloshin’ through my head as I’m suckin’ on the bottle of Jim Beam, which is growin’ on me, considering the circumstances. Keith, says I to me, who twisted your arm tonight? Airport security? And I mean, how can I blame Gertie? I wouldn’t let the likes of me in at two in the goddamn morning either. A fine sight I must be, on the booze this week without a shave or a shower. I could be home in bed now, curled up with the cat, readin’ my book and havin’ a smoke. Beer for breakfast.
Some shithead stops at the mouth of the alley and has a good gawk in at me, his big white sneaker-boots the only thing I can clearly make out. Sneaker boots? Fuck sakes, they’re all the rage in Halifax. And they says Newfoundlanders are behind the times? A car passes up the road and I gets a brief glimpse of the shithead’s dodgy beard. My heart goes up in my throat. Is that Renny? Jesus. Could very well be. Tracked me down and hungry for violence. Knowin’ full well I just had my dick in his wife’s mouth. But I was a payin’ customer! My hand grips the handle of the gun. Renny’s gun. My gun. I’ve got a gun in my hand. I’m about to pull it out of my inside pocket and point it when the shithead steps into the light. It’s not Renny, just some poor, drunken scrap lookin’ for his own place to crash. I lets go of the gun and stands up to face him. My alley.
—Have I got something on belong to you, buddy? Well, what the fuck are ya lookin’ at?
Shithead mumbles and totters back into the street. Wise fuckin’ move too. I slumps against the wall and slides back down the ground.
I s’pose this is the place where I’m expected to just kick off and die? All heart-broke and defeated? Well, fuck that. It’ll take more than a bit a cold weather to put Keith Kavanagh in the ground. The way I sees it, if you’re gonna kick the bucket, you gotta kick it good and fuckin’ hard. Smash it in bits with your big steel-toes and be fucked to the lot of ’em. Don’t think I’m gonna fester and bloat like some strung-out old boozehound. Sure I’ve been two hundred miles offshore for two weeks at a time. Draggin’ scallop in ragin’ sadistic sub-zero winds, compliments of the devil himself. Tied on by the ankle, geared up in a big old floater-suit tryin’ to haul up an old Digby deathtrap in the pitch black. Monstrous black waves swampin’ across the deck, nothing left to do but wait. Wait to see if we sank to the bottom. Completely and utterly at the mercy of the merciless North Atlantic. Three or four of us tied on so’s if we were tossed overboard, no one would have to go in after us. Just grab ahold of the rope and haul you back on deck. If the boat went down, I was goin’ down with her, not havin’ done one fuckin’ worthwhile thing to be remembered by. And, assuming my body ever turned up, it’d be found draped in slimy secondhand oilskins, and they’d say:
—Oh. He must have worked for Black Diamond.
Drenched to the bone and freezin’, I was exhausted and resigned to die. My whole life would mean nothing, would
have been lived to reach that end. Half a dozen of the hefty older fishermen on board, men on the water all their lives, jabbering out the rosary. And I doubt it made fuck all difference, the rosary, but we made it. We made it. Got home and got drunk and got tattooed, blew every red cent. So the way I sees it, if I wasn’t taken back then, I’ll more than likely live through a cold night in Halifax.
There’s a fine racket comin’ from the street. A herd of drunken muscle-heads wrestling their way past my alley. Could be trouble. But I’m too far back in the dark for them to notice me. I listens to ’em whoop their way down the sidewalk. Wise move, motherfuckers.
I huddles up in some sour corner, drinks some more whiskey, and slowly shivers myself to sleep.
I wakes up a lot throughout the course of the night, baffled and bitter, thoughts of Natasha runnin’ through my mind. I slips in and out of my dream about the Grotto. I’d give anything to be hunkered down in the Grotto. I’d face it.
Sometime after dawn I heaves up my guts. My pants are soaked on the inside and my arse and feet are numb. It takes me a minute to realize where I am. Sweet bald-headed Jesus. What have I done? Horror and paranoia soon turns to selfloathing, which inevitably turns to disgust towards every livin’ soul on this planet. Cocksuckers. Juliet Carey. For the love of Jesus. Renny. You stupid fucker. Gertie.
I gets up and takes a piss and a stretch and a good long swallow of Mr. Jim. That clears up the old noggin. From the end of the alley I can see Gertie’s house. So it’s just a matter of time before I sees Natasha. I makes myself comfortable with my
bottle. I don’t have no matches so I bums a light off every second person that passes on the street. A fine sight I must be. A group of young ones have a laugh at me like I’m some old bum. Which I s’pose I am. After about an hour of this I manages to trade a pack of Player’s for a nice black Bic lighter. My favourite. Dandy. Fuck the lot of ’em now. No life at Natasha’s place yet, so I just shifts from one foot to the other, and drinks.