No Quarter

by John Jantunen

  “Fighting over book is as good for ‘plop’ as reading book,” Dinko said, reaching for the toilet paper and grinning as if things couldn’t have worked out better. “I must remember that.”

  By then René was already settling onto his bed, muttering “Fuckin’ jail,” as he opened the book on the mattress before him.

  He made a go at the first page but his head was aching so bad by the time he flipped to the next it was a good bet it’d feel like a nail had been driven into it if he tried to read the whole thing. He was on the verge of closing it when his curiosity got the better of him and he flipped forward to page 397.

  This is what he read:

  The old man was seventy the first time he met one of his grandsons.

  He was living in the hunting shack his grandfather had built when he was but a young man. It was on the shores of a lake too small to bear any mention of on a map but which he’d called Koueeeeee, stretching the last syllable so that it sounded like a wolf howling a mournful lament. It was kihcêyihtâkwan—a sacred place—and when he was a boy his grandfather would take him and his brother up there for a month every summer to teach them what he called “The Old Ways.” During the fifteen years and change he’d spent laying on the bunk in one cell or another, his thoughts would often wander back to the shack and the good times he and his brother had had there. After he was released it was only natural that it was the first place he’d want to see again.

  He hadn’t meant to stay more than a few weeks, long enough, he’d reasoned, to summon the courage to return home to beg his wife’s forgiveness for the hurt he’d caused her and the kids. When the summer had passed and he still hadn’t, he wrote her a letter telling her where he was and leaving it in her mailbox one night, thinking that was at least something. That was thirty years ago. Every spring he cleared the path leading from the lake to what had once been their backyard and was now only hers—a distance of almost three miles—but she’d never come to visit. Aside from the twice yearly visits from his brother—once in the spring and once in the fall—nobody else had either.

  The year that he’d turned seventy, he hadn’t seen his brother in five years. He assumed he was dead and he’d all but given up on the hope that he himself was meant for anything short of dying old and alone, his bones like to have turned to dust before anyone stumbled across them. Still, he went out as soon as the snow had melted with his machete and his bow saw, the latter in case a tree too big to move had fallen over the path. There usually was and this year wasn’t any different. It was a cedar tree, its trunk two feet thick and its base uprooted from the ground, most likely in that storm in late February that had torn the roof off the shack, shocking him awake under an avalanche of snow. He’d cut a three-foot section out of the middle of the cedar. He was using a thick branch as a lever to roll it off the path when, from behind him, there arose a snarl. Spinning around, he saw what appeared to be a grey wolf, standing in the middle of the path, not five yards away. Its lips were curled back and the span of drool leaking out from between its exposed teeth left little doubt in the man’s mind as to what it meant to do.

  He’d lodged the machete in the crux of a tree, five or six strides at a hard run from where he now stood facing off against the wolf. It might as well have been on the moon for all the good it would have done him. The wolf took a step forward and growled again, yet the man did not feel afraid. He’d known all along that the violence that had marked his previous life would catch up with him and, knowing that the time was finally at hand, he closed his eyes and released himself to his fate, conjuring her face so that it would be the last thing he would see before he met his end and finding that he could no longer remember what she looked like.

  And in that absence he saw his life for what it was: a gaping black hole as big as the night sky. He cursed himself for his idiot pride and in the sudden up-swelling of rage tightening his chest he knew then and there that if it had been a hundred wolves standing before him he’d kill them all with his bare hands if that’s what it took to see his beloved one last time.

  Opening his eyes—his fists clenched and the snarl curling over his lips revealing his own intent—he motioned to charge. He was thwarted in this by the sight of a boy now standing beside the beast. He was wearing a pair of black jeans, worn to tatters at both knees, and a black hooded jacket pulled over his head, the drape of his dark brown hair flowing from within, almost to his navel. His hand was set on the ridge of hackled fur raised along the creature’s back and in his eyes there was a look of such stark fear that it revealed to the old man who the boy was (for hadn’t his own daughter all too often gaped at him in exactly the same way when the darkness had come pouring out, most often through his hands and his feet and washing over the girl’s mother with the fury of a springtime flood—an image he’d often called to mind when wrestling with thoughts of the man he’d once been).

  Seeing the child thus, the old man was suddenly stilled. His hands loosened at his sides and his eyes averted from the boy, settling on the machete cleaved into the tree, yet another reminder that the violence that had forsaken him was still lying in wait, as much a part of his being as his skin.

  For if he’d had it at hand when the wolf had appeared—

  A thought that was mercifully interrupted by the boy’s first words.

  He said: It’s okay, mister. He won’t hurt you. He just gets a little jumpy around strangers.

  The old man turned back to the boy, seeing in the restless fret with which his fingers stroked at the dog’s fur that he too had seen where the old man’s gaze had settled and was even now worried for the safety of his pet.

  There passed then between them an uneasy silence, the old man clearing his throat as if preparing to speak, the young boy biting his lip as if trying to summon the courage to do the same.

  When it seemed that neither would, the old man cleared his throat again.

  What’s his name? he asked.

  Fang, the boy said. He’s part wolf. Leastways, that’s what the man who gave him to me said.

  Well, he sure looks it.

  He’s real friendly. Once he gets to know you. Then looking down at the dog: Go on, Fang, say hi. It’s a’right.

  The dog stepped away from his master, his snout low to the ground, his ears perked, and his fur still bristling. The old man bent to one knee and held out his hand. The dog approached it as he might have a porcupine. He gave it a sniff and the man ran his fingers along the thick mat of hair behind his ears. At that the dog nuzzled into the man’s chest, almost knocking him over.

  I told you he’s friendly, the boy said, taking a step closer.

  I can see that now.

  He’s just a big old suck, is what he is.

  The man stood. He wiped the hair that clung to his hands on his jacket and the dog lay with lolling tongue, panting at his feet.

  I— the boy started then bit his lip again.

  What’s on your mind, son?

  My uncle, he started again. He said if I followed this path back to the lake, I might find my gramps there.

  That right? And who’s you uncle?

  The boy told him.

  He still alive?

  He had the pneumonie most of last winter, but he’s out of the hospital now.

  That’s good to hear.

  You know him?

  Course I do. He’s my brother.

  The boy nodded, then snuck a sideways glance at the old man as if he was now unsure more than ever of how to proceed.

  What’d you want with your gramps?

  My uncle said he might be able to help me with some trouble I’ve been having.

  And what kind of trouble’s that?

  The kids at school—they’ve been picking on me on account of my dad’s in jail and my ma’s—well, they say she’s whoring herself down in Timmins.

  Hearing such a thing, out of the
mouth of a boy as young as him, struck the old man with the sting of a hard slap.

  Well, kids’ll say all kind of things, he said after he’d recovered. Like they’s just feelin’ bad about themselves. You ought just to ignore them.

  That’s what my grams says.

  She’s a wise woman, your grams.

  I know. But it still don’t stop me from getting beat on three days out of the week.

  He couldn’t conjure any words to argue with that.

  And your uncle said your gramps might be able to help you?

  He said my gramps was the toughest sumbitch he ever met. He said anyone might learn me how to fight, it was him.

  The old man scratched at the greyed scruff beneath his chin, pondering on that for a moment.

  Then:

  As far as I know, your gramps’ fighting days are long past.

  The boy’s face sunk. His fingers picked at the seam of his pants and he craned his head ever so slightly back the way he’d come.

  But I guess he might could still remember a few things, the old man said, his only defence against the boy leaving.

  The boy turned back to him and in the sudden brightening within his eyes the old man saw that he’d been right, that he had been waiting for someone to come, even if it wasn’t exactly the someone he’d hoped for. And that it would be the violence he’d been fleeing all these years that would bring his family back to him hardly diminished the joy he felt as he wheeled around, motioning for the boy to follow with a sweep of his hand.

  Come on, then, he called over his shoulder. Let’s go and see if we can’t find where your gramps is at.

  Here René slammed the book shut.

  Ever since René’d known him, his grandfather had lived in the house at the corner of the 118 and Moose Point Road, bought from Clarence Bailey after Clarence’s brother, Earl, had died of a heart attack while returning from the fridge with a bottle of milk. The first time they’d met, his grandfather had been in the garage he’d built beside the house, rotating the tires on a Honda Accord. And René’s dog, which had indeed accompanied him that day, was a border collie named Richie, and nobody but a blind man could have mistaken him for a wolf. Still, it was close enough to the truth that it seemed George had somehow stolen this, his most treasured moment.

  What kind of devilry is this, he’d thought, overcome with the sudden urge to tear the book up, light the cursed thing on fire, have at any guard who’d dare try to put it out before anything was left but ash.

  Taking a deep breath, he massaged the tail on the wolf on his left hand. When his anger had relented some, he flipped the book over as if the picture on the back might reveal to him how George had managed to divine so clearly his future before he’d even been born. His rage swelled again at the sight of the white man, grinning with his crooked smile as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and he punched that arrogant-looking son of a bitch square in the jaw hard enough to peel the skin off one of his knuckles.

  He never read another word.

  * * *

  Now, sitting at his grandfather’s kitchen table and looking at the same picture on the front page of the Chronicle, he no longer felt anything but a mild irritation for thinking George—through devilry or otherwise—had stolen that moment from his past, as ignorant an idea as those Indians in South America believing a photograph could steal their souls. René’s grand­father must have told George a few stories and he’d, what was the word, extrapa-something or other, the rest, a realization that itself didn’t provide much comfort, revealing to him only that he was caught up in an endlessly repeating cycle, helpless to do anything but play a part assigned to him before he was even born.

  He drank the rest of the lemony citron staring at the picture on the front of the newspaper, not bothering to read what was written below, certain that he already knew everything about the man he’d ever care to know. After he’d finished his cup, he emptied two more packets of the powder into it and was waiting on the kettle to boil again when he heard a honk.

  Roy’s Silverado was idling in the driveway when René stepped onto the porch. The caustic drone of death metal blared through its window glass and he took that to mean Roy and his wife had been fighting again, which would explain why he was late. Roy wouldn’t want to talk about it—he wouldn’t want to talk at all on the way to the job site, in fact—and that suited René’s mood just fine.

  He’d made about two steps away from the stairs before the old man stuck his head out of the garage’s door.

  “You drink the last of the milk?” he yelled over at him.

  “I didn’t touch it,” he called back.

  “There ain’t but two drops left in the jug. You’ll pick up another on your way home?”

  “The job ain’t anywhere near town.”

  “But you’re going through Maynard’s, ain’t ya? You can stop in at the store.”

  “They charge eight bucks for a jug a milk. And I ain’t paying no eight bucks for a jug of milk.”

  “I’ll get you back.”

  “I heard that before.”

  The old man stared at him like he didn’t know what he meant. In the look of static befuddlement René saw his future spread out in front of him as clear as the strains of sunlight winking between the pine trees on the far side of the road: the old man standing in the parking lot of the Tim Hortons as he drove past with Tawyne. He’d be wearing his moose hide jacket, black cowboy hat, and freshly polished boots, black jeans, loose at the waist from the weight he’d lost since he wore them last and cinched with a bronze belt buckle bearing the image of an eagle, what he called his “Indian getup.” He’d be staring after them, lost and forlorn. No doubt, Jean would see him standing there too, and there’d be hell to pay when he brought Tawyne back, four hours later.

  “I really don’t ask for much, René. Really, I don’t,” she’d say.

  It was enough to have his thumbs twitching at the tails of the wolves on his hands for the entire twenty-minute drive to the job site. To chase away thoughts of the recrimination that would be souring Jean’s voice while she said it, he replayed his plans for his son’s birthday. When he came to them soaking in the whirlpool at the base of High Falls, he nodded, again thinking: It was shaping up to be a helluva day, alright. But as the truck dipped into Maynard Falls, passing by the tourist shops and cafés lining the village’s main street, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

  An ending, he thought, that’s what it is. The perfect end to the day.

  “The way a day ends most often depends on how it began.”

  It was something his grandmother had once told him. He’d been fourteen and had just been suspended for fighting in the high school’s parking lot. She’d been plenty sore and hadn’t said a word to him on the drive home from the principal’s office. But when they’d pulled up in front of the house and René was reaching for the door, she’d grabbed him by the arm. The pudge of her fingers made them feel like breakfast sausages against the taut of his bicep but her grip was plenty firm as she said, “I know you’re feeling pretty good about yourself.”

  It was true. He couldn’t have been happier about the way things had turned out—there having been two of them, both a grade older, and him with only a black eye to show for it.

  “But you listen to me and you listen good,” she continued. “You can tell a lot about how a day ends by how it begins. And I’m not talking about when you woke up this morning. Most days don’t start when you wake up. They start weeks or months or even years before that. I want you to think of this, right now, as the beginning of one of those days and give a long hard thought as to how you think this one’s going to end.”

  During his incarceration, he’d had plenty an idle hour to spend pondering on that. What she’d meant, he’d come to understand, was that he had a choice in the matter. It hadn’t given him much comfort in ja
il but now it seemed it might, at least, provide him with some direction and he traced back in his memory, searching out the beginning of the day he hoped would end this Saturday at High Falls.

  It’s Tawyne’s birthday, he told himself, so it must have been the day he was born.

  But thinking of what had come after was enough to ruin even the best of days, and he discarded the thought, skipping ahead instead to the first time he saw his son after he got out of prison.

  That first visit had been supervised and had taken place in the family room of the Children’s Aid Society in Tildon. There was a thirty-two-inch flat screen in one corner and a sliding door that led out into a fenced-in play yard. Across from that was a mirrored window that was meant to give the “supervised” visitor the feeling that they were alone though, as René paced the room waiting for his son to arrive, it had produced the opposite effect. During his pre-visit briefing, a social worker he’d never know as anything beyond Amy had suggested, for an “icebreaker,” he might want to play a game with his son. So to distract himself from the feeling that he was being watched, he wandered over to a shelf on the far wall that was stacked with enough board games for a lifetime of rainy days.

  There were all the old standards—Monopoly, Life, and Chinese Checkers, Snakes & Ladders, and Operation—and a bunch he’d never heard of before—Labyrinth, Carcassonne and Break the Safe, and a stack of boxes with Munchkin written in colourful script on their spines. None of them piqued the slightest interest and he’d pretty much given up on the hope that he’d find something he might want to play with his son when he spotted a familiar red plastic box tucked in the shelf’s bottom-most corner.

  Perfection, he thought as he carried it to the child-sized table in the middle of the room. I haven’t played that in years.