Mission

by Paul Forrester-O'Neill

  Two days later Lester was sitting in the same seat listening to the young man seethe and snarl at the timber mill and the people in it without a single invitation to do so. There was nothing he had for that place, he said, that was not smeared in bitterness and bile. There was nothing he owed them, nothing they deserved. He blamed them, held them responsible. Anything and everything that had happened to him since the day he left was the fault of the timber mill. Plus, the foreman, the flunky, had stolen the best friend he’d ever had from under his nose because he’d got money and prospects and a suit he could wear, and now there was no-one in the town or the world that he could tell his shit to.

  Lester didn’t have to move. Jake did it all for him. There was the lack of funds, for one thing, there was the blame, and right there on a plate, fully cooked and piping hot, there was the resentment. With those alone, Lester was more than happy, but throw in the hubris and the bravado and the radiant inability to self-reflect and it was all he could do not to grin and stroke his whiskers. OK, there was a looseness that bordered on the chaotic, but Vincent could deal with that easy enough.

  And, later that day, when he told his master he’d found him his sabot, when he licked his lips and dropped the young and frothing Jake Massey down at his feet, Vincent simply smiled.

  “You know what it is about you, Lester?” he said, “You always come up with the goods. Every time. No matter what. Now, stay clear and tell me where to find him.”

  Vincent turned up at the apartment just over a week later. It was evening, a drape of rain over the prairies. He wore a twill suit the colour of charcoal, said he worked with Lester, and had a proposition that might be of interest.

  The apartment was as cool as the air outside on account of Jake had left the window open to smoke. There were two empty beer cans on the table and the smell of refried beans and roll-mops seared through the nicotine fug. Vincent refused to sit, preferred to stay in the frame of the doorway with the door closed behind him. On the wall were a topless Bruce Lee and a coked-up Scarface. He flitted from one to the other as Jake reached for a cigarette.

  “Don’t smoke.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “But it’s my apartment.”

  “I don’t give a fuck whose apartment it is. I want you to do something for me, and when I want you to do something and I’m willing to pay you good money to do it, it has to be done my way, otherwise there’s no deal, and I find someone else. You understand?”

  Jake’s brow furrowed. “D’you want a drink?” he said.

  “Look at Bruce Lee, Jake. Does he look like he drinks? Does he look like he fills his lungs with twenty Lucky Strikes a day? No, he doesn’t. I don’t want you to smoke or drink for three days, is that clear? Now,” he said, “it’s going to rain for those three days. It’s going to be damp. On the fourth day temperate air will come in from the east and dry things out.” He paused. “I want you to be Bruce Lee for me. Can you do that? I want you to loosen up enough to climb a log pile and get through a small window. I want you to get inside the timber mill and I want you to burn the place down. You think you can do that? You think you can do it so it looks like negligence on the company’s part?”

  “The place is falling apart.”

  “You think you can do it and not breathe a word of it to anyone on God’s earth?”

  “I do.”

  “Not even Rita?”

  “How do you know Rita?”

  “Good. Because if any of this gets out, or is traced back to us, there will be repercussions you don’t want to think about. D’you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s why we’re paying you well. Some now, some in a month’s time when it’s all blown over.”

  Vincent put his hand in the right-hand pocket of the jacket and pulled out a manila envelope folded in half. He tossed it down on the worn sofa strewn with clothes and stained towels as thin as paper.

  “We’ll be in touch,” he said. “You don’t know me. You’ve never spoken to me. You don’t know who I am or what I do. And get some sleep, you look like shit.”

  The rain came early, pelting the crags and flutes of Rupture Hill well before morning. It swept in from the north, coming over the pate of Blessings Point, down through the groins and folds of the valleys until it spattered the poorer soil of the burial grounds and headed into town where it fell on the rooftops and the covered walkway that sheltered the arcade.

  It fell on the river and the slats of the bridge that led to the mill where it juiced the log pile and slapped at the tarpaulin and the sheets of the roof. It fell on the untended stretch between the mill and the migrant housing, on the neighbourhoods to the south and the land that went out to the rickety bridge, on the crown of Coronation Point and the routes that ran down to the level land and the washing wires freed of Anderson sheets and bonnets. Only the crucifix in the cover of the doorway was spared, the figure of Christ, head-angled, forlorn and dry.

  It fell on the rough terrain owned by Vincent Clay and across the Mallender estate, stirring Ted from his fitful sleep to pad his way to the bathroom, to take a piss that burned and see the hang of his mouth in the mirror, to hear the patter amid the emptiness of the house in pockets of which, still, were the lingered scents of Lily’s sprays.

  And it fell on the Cassidy land, on the half-timbered, half-slated roof, on the porch-way and the three-sided veranda with its slats and rail. It fell on and dripped from the old, mounted gargoyles. It darkened the handles of the spade and the rake, riddled the flat side of the saw and seeped through the teeth, ran off the arc of the scythe and into the gashed armchair with its open and widening wound.

  John sat at the kitchen table. He knew all about Jake, and Vincent’s visit, and Lester and the coffee house and Dan Cruck’s latest concerns as whispered to Rita. He knew that in four days’ time, after the rain had blown over and temperate air had come in from the east to dry out the log pile and seal up the earth around it so that no prints could be made, the timber mill of Mission would be no more, that it would be history only. He knew that the livelihoods of men, women and children, all of whom directly or by association, were culpable of damage to his father, would be tightened like a noose around them. He knew that Vincent Clay would slither in with his hairy-eared sidekick and become for those people, a knight in shining armour. And he knew that Ted Mallender, Lily or no Lily, would begin to, finding it hard not to, let his own keen interest be known, and that Vincent would use him. He knew all those things as he sat there in the gloom, just as his father used to do.

  Jake stood in the doorway of the apartment and tried to gather himself. It wasn’t easy. He checked the pockets of the black hooded jacket that cowled him, felt for the lighter and the pack of cigarettes, for the silver hip-flask with the initials of whoever he’d stolen it from grooved into the side. His mouth was dry. The sweat clung to his sternum like a compress and the wiring in his head, never harmonious at the best of times, was close to sizzling out. Across his brow and cheeks he’d smeared lines of camouflage paint, mud-brown, olive and black. It was three in the morning, the first dry night in four, moonless.

  He locked the door behind him and tiptoed as well as Jake could tiptoe down the stairs of the building. Outside the air was rain-free, the streets of the neighbourhood empty. He could hear the run of the river as he made his way along the trodden grass-tracks that followed it round. Seedlings stuck to him. Blades of dampened grass latched to his sneakers. Just past the railway station, the river ducked back towards the eastern edge of the town, past the migrant shacks and the unmade road. At the point where it narrowed and the track grew thin, he quickened up. Over to his right, beyond its growths and shallow bank, lay the Indian burial grounds, the hallowed land older than the town itself where no-one had dared to tread and where, so the story went, the vengeful spirits of massacred men would one day whirl up and dance.

  He could see the mill, an outline of bulk against the tree
s behind and the sky above. He could smell the sawdust and the wood-chip, the cuts and blocks and piles. He moved towards the windowless back until he came to the log pile, pulled away the tarpaulin that covered it, showering himself as he did so with gathered rain. Then he looked up, his eyes like jellied amoebas amid the earth and oil smudges of his face. He took in the angle and the height of the wood packed and chained. It was a natural climbing frame, the kind he’d go at like a monkey as a kid, the kind he’d be at the top of in a matter of seconds. But he waited. He closed his eyes and pushed back the cowl. He felt a ride in his gut, a clench to his jaw. He set his feet right, so too his shoulders and hands. His face was shiny with paint as he looked up again to the top of the pile. His life had not panned out. The dice had not rolled his way, the cards had been stacked against him from day one. But all that was about to change.

  He moved the tarpaulin over to the side and made his way steadily to the top. He balanced himself, took a vantage point scan. In front of him was the small window of the foreman’s office which, like every other window and door was as old as the mill itself, so scoring the softened wood of the frames and sills and taking out the glass was no problem. And neither was laying it down, climbing inside, vaulting a low radiator and standing in the middle of Dan Smugfuck’s room with a downward turn of his mouth.

  The room was neat. There was a desk stacked with papers in either in- or out-trays, some stamped and signed, others waiting. Labelled and colour-coded binders and files nestled where the desk met the wall and to their right were two framed photographs, one of Dan looking pristine on his Graduation day and one of Dan and Rita Outside a fancy hotel somewhere, Dan with his arm around Rita’s waist, like he’d won her as a prize, a look on his face part-pleasure, partownership.

  With a sweep of his arm, every object on the desk was sent to the floor, including, unfortunately, the unseen and sizeable paperweight, the dainty primrose ensconced sneakily into so many pounds of shot and leaden glass, which landed plumb onto the toes of his right foot. He winced, the sound of a mewling child followed by a curse through gritted teeth.

  He hobbled out of the room and stood on the prow of the stairway, looking down across the insides. He made his way down, the pain shooting through his foot with every step. His eyes watered, his hands grabbed the rail and when he got to the bottom, he used every surface he could, the machines, the benches, and buzz-saws, to move across the floor. And when he found his place he sat.

  He worked quickly, in spite of the dark and what felt like free-floating bones in his foot, in spite of the sweat filming his face, hands nicked by splinters, muscles cramping, in spite of the piston-like bounce between sternum and throat and the booming out of his heart through ears and chest. It was a chain. And all he had to do was to make sure the links of the chain were in the right order: Inspection box, fuses, a loosened wire, a mound of dry sawdust, a cone of pine sticks suffused with pitch and a trail of viscous oil leading, as straight as he could make it, to the almost empty can of propane, all assembled, all spaced. And then when that was done, it was the pathway out; stairway, office, open window, log pile, gone.

  When it was assembled, he stood, blew the dust off his fingers and took out the pack of cigarettes. He put one in his mouth, held it there a few moments, looked round at the place of his misery, and then lit it. He smoked it most of the way down, the nicotine zinging his lungs, the taste of tobacco sweet on his lips. And then he knelt, and with its glow and its crackle, he lit the fuse.

  People began to gather from first light; bleary, half-dressed arrivals, many in makeshift protective face-masks, in calico and hessian wraps, handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs, torn garments pocked for ventilation. They gathered once the fencing was staked out, standing at those perimeter points, staring out through the plumes and coils of smoke that towered through the breaking light, gripped by shock, across the flattened land and what was left of the mill, across the wider acreage of black, strewn with metal and glass, the blazes of oil and thick timber, the minor rages of indigo and blood-orange, and the ash that fell like snow, blessing the cindered earth, the woodlands and the burial grounds, covering the river and its banks in a patina of silver-white.

  Throughout the morning, they lined the fencing on all sides, from the bridge in the town to across the river, from woodland gaps to the unmade road, watching the smoke slowly thin, the flames becalm and the metal of machinery turn to stiff and bended forms. Some went up to Coronation Point to see. Some to the arc of the road. Some went away and came back with food and drink and collapsible chairs, sitting in clusters and slowly, as the hours passed and the clasp of incredulity began slowly to unfasten itself, they lowered the masks to the choky air and began to talk. Briefly to start with, in curt sentences of disbelief, but then expanding, moving back to the history of the place, to the Wallbecks, to what the mill meant to the town, to the heart and soul, and the generations that’d walked through its doors and punched its clock day after working day.

  By mid-afternoon, everything was all but extinguished. The volunteer firemen from Serpentine, called out at five in the morning with nothing left to save, had scoured and hosed and cleared, and by then the law enforcement officers, in protective suits, visors and fire-proof boots had checked out the trees and land behind the mill and evacuated the dazed occupants of the migrant housing to a community hall, their ears and skulls still ringing from the blast. Some of the lawmen held positions around the fence. Some spent a few more hours gathering evidence. Or, more accurately, picking up a series of random objects and, with a rationale as flimsy as rice-paper, putting them in either waste sack or sachet, dependent on size. Others asked routine questions around the town, taking statements and filing them away, by Christian name.

  Officials and representatives from committees and boards made token appearances, including the suited Dan Cruck, splayed still, even as he stood there amidst the pall of disbelief, between his duty to the company and to what he knew of their lapses. Plus, he was there with Rita, beautified that same morning, and herself torn on the less philosophical wrack between the good life of hotels and restaurants and the fact that if the shit hit the fan, and the talk in Sylvie’s was that it would, then she’d have to drop Dan like a stone and let him sink.

  Elsewhere, Sizzlin’ Steve’s had a lunchtime run on comfort steaks and extra-large fries. The local church had a few more visitors, as did Harry’s bar, and old Mr Parker made a series of short-term killings on roofing felt, crepe bandages, ice packs, antiseptic spray, smoke, car, house and personal alarms, quantities of eggs (for the sound-proof boxes not the contents), different sizes of mesh and, with a nod in the direction of the burial grounds, a number of religious trinkets and charms he’d picked up.

  The migrant workers were taken to see Dr Stone for perfunctory hearing tests and something for the persistent head-ringing. In relation to what might happen to their homes, their livelihoods and their future existences, which was essentially all that they spoke of, Dr Stone said he was a doctor not a politician. His role was medicinal not civic. The medication he handed over, the bottle of sugar-coated, snow-white cylinders was, incidentally, from the same pharmaceutical company that sent him his cheques.

  By late afternoon, there was a sniff in the air that was nothing to do with the chill or the dying smoke. The majority of the townsfolk had packed away the chairs and foodstuffs and drifted home. But some stayed, predominantly the mill workers themselves, past and present, and, for them, as sentiment and nostalgia turned into tales of gashed and broken limbs, of missing digits, malfunctional hearing and lungs that rattled like wash-boards, the smell had got stronger.

  Individual complaints became generic. One man’s raised concern became the groups, his voice theirs until, by evening, the choral consent was that, given just how old the machinery was and how little investment there’d been, the Mission mill was an accident waiting to happen, that any blame should be laid firmly at the feet of the company and that financial compensation was definitely
due.

  And then, close to midnight, with only a handful of the men left, with animal clouds prowling over Rupture Hill, it shifted again. The blame became suspicion. The company had talked for years about closure, about how much of a burden the mill was, about cutting those losses and moving out, so wasn’t it the case, they said, that the place was worth more to them as cinders and rubble than it was still standing and leaking profits like a perforated sump-pump?

  The following day Ike’s was busier than usual. And not for his notorious marine-cuts either. No, most of the day the theories buzzed louder than the razors. Talk of the insurance scam was high, talk of an unseen, unknown arsonist. There was the lone wolf, then the grievance wolf, and the unhinged wolf. There was the wolf on the inside and the wolf on the outside. There was the loose wiring, the faulty fuse-boxes, the exposed leads. There was the lack of rain and the moonless night.

  And, in Ike’s and Sylvie’s on that day, beyond the scam, beyond the wires and the wolves and the missing rain there were those other zany curveballs that hurled out of people’s mouths: What about the traumatised cattle over at Blessings Point, or the tumbled rock from Rupture Hill? What of the plague of beetles, the upturned haystacks and the curious arrangement of stones down by the rail-tracks? There was the fallen chandelier in the Prairie View hotel and the stopping, temporarily, of the station clock. And there were the corn dollies and the juju chains in Mae Chattus’ store, all gone.

  Lester, meantime, sat in his various seats; in the coffee house, in Sizzlin’ Steve’s, in Harry’s, on steps across from the police department building and on two slats of held-together wood on the path out to the rickety bridge. He purred wherever he went. He scratched at the back of his neck, his forearms, between his legs. Sometimes he spoke, that everyman tone that went with the straggle of his look, but mostly he listened, not because he was priest-like, or because amongst his purring and scratching he was in any way empathetic, but because he was dutiful, because his master had told him not to say boo.