‘This and that.’
‘A man of secrets. I respect that.’
‘What were you doing?’ I asked.
‘I’d been up and down through the night vomiting, I thought a walk might do the trick, but alas . . .’
‘Alas indeed.’
‘Besides, I think we all should be up in the early hours. Early birds catch the worm.’ John winked, sipped whiskey, made a gurgling sound as he swallowed. A peculiar man.
The bar was noise and drink. Men challenged men then quickly gave up the fight. After a time, John asked where I had come from.
‘It’s a story,’ I said.
‘But you’re not from around here?’
‘No.’ I didn’t care to be friendly like this with him but we were under unusual circumstances. ‘You from here?’
‘No, not me. I’m here to visit before moving on to Fall River.’
‘What’s there?’
John rubbed his nose. ‘Family. Of sorts.’
‘Of sorts?’
‘My sister’s daughters live there.’
‘But not your sister?’
He smoothed palms over his hair. ‘She died many years ago.’
‘I’ve sisters.’ I said it like we were becoming buddies.
‘You get along with them?’
‘I used to. I haven’t seen them in a while.’
This made him smile. ‘So you like to keep your distance from people.’
‘Sometimes.’
John looked at me like I was a calculation. ‘What is it you want?’ I asked.
He palmed his hair again. ‘I’m just trying to get to know the person who helped me.’
‘I see situations and I fix them,’ I told him. A half-truth. If only he knew.
John grinned. ‘I bet you do.’
We stared at each other. John bit his fingernails, like he was thinking things over, and after a time he said, ‘I hope this doesn’t push our newfound acquaintance, but I wondered if you would consider helping me one more time.’ A waver in his voice.
‘In what way?’
‘I need someone to take care of a problem.’
‘What kind?’
‘Familial.’
I nodded. ‘I know about those.’
He smiled. ‘I had a feeling you might.’ John looked me over again, looked down at my leg. ‘That needs to be seen to.’
Blood was resting on the surface of my pants, my leg giving off all types of smells. ‘I’ve had worse injuries.’
‘Still, you wouldn’t want a cut like that to get in your way.’
‘Guess I don’t.’
The men in the bar kept up their drinking, kept up their card-playing, kept up. Outside the sun brightened, cast long shadows into the bar. I thought about the officer, whether he’d been found yet, whether he had sent anyone to come for me. Sitting still was a danger. I said to John, ‘This problem you have, is it in Fall River?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you want the problem to be taken care of soon?’
‘The sooner the better.’
‘What exactly do I have to do?’
‘I’m having trouble deciding. I don’t want it to get out of control.’
‘I’m very controlled.’
John nodded. ‘Yes, you are, but can you disappear? Can you keep secrets?’
I got the rush feeling of danger, felt it push along my body. I’d been asked this type of thing before. There would be gold times ahead. ‘It’s what I’m good at.’
John nodded and nodded, his head bobbing for a tipping point. ‘Good. Because we’re very private people. We simply need help. We need someone to be a kind of mediator, someone who doesn’t know us and won’t play favourites.’ His gap-toothed smile.
‘Who exactly needs help?’
‘My wonderful nieces.’ He paused. ‘Unfortunately, they don’t see eye to eye with their father. He’s a stubborn man, doesn’t take too kindly to anyone who questions him.’
I knew about fathers. Origins are important. There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to take care of such business.
John studied his fingernails then slid them one by one over his teeth.
‘Do you want me to talk some sense into him?’ I asked.
‘I want you to be forceful with the man. He needs to listen to reason.’
‘What message do you want me to send him?’ I thought of the ways I could do that. The fun it would be.
‘I want him to know that I’ve been paying close attention to how he’s been treating his daughters lately.’ He paused again, thought some. ‘And I want him to reconsider where he’s spending his money.’
Rich people. This I was interested in. ‘I understand. How far do you want me to go?’
‘I just want the girls to feel that I’ve taken care of them, the way I promised their mother.’
I used to be butter—the way I’d disappear at the sign of heat. There had been all those schoolboy days of knuckle busting skin, taunts about my chicken coop smell. My papa was a tall, hulking fist. He had ways of shaping children into adults. I used to wake at night, sweated lumberjack fever, to find my papa kneeling above me.
‘You’re not going to school today.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll be teaching you how to be a man.’
Being men, we would head out, guns in hands, and stalk through trees fighting off cold-spine shivers each time Papa slapped my head for missing a target.
At home, Mama was a dust keeper. Hours then hours of menial tasks to keep herself from thinking, ‘If I stop, I’ll leave and I’m not sure I’d take the children.’ But there she stayed, haloed us with love.
My sisters and I would watch the way Papa kissed Mama, always with a danger tongue, demanding knuckles under skin. ‘Let me love you my way,’ Papa would say.
‘No, not now. The children.’
‘What good are you?’ Papa would slap her. ‘You’re ugly, anyway.’
I wanted to get him off her but never could work up the nerve. What was wrong with me? How was it possible I could look an animal in the eye, dagger a throat, but be too scared to pull Papa away?
Then one night Papa came home and said, ‘This family’s gone to shit.’ He spat on the floor before sitting down at the table. We watched him eat the cold mutton soup that had been lovingly prepared for him that afternoon. He slurped.
‘What’s gotten into you?’ Mama was a mouse. She moved to him.
‘Shut up, woman.’ He slapped her across the face.
I cleared my throat, tried to be the man Papa wanted. ‘Don’t you hurt her.’
He stood from the table, inched and inched towards me until nose touched nose. For the first time I noticed wild-boar–like hairs covering the sides of his nostrils. ‘You questioning me?’
‘God will punish you. That’s our mama,’ I said. I got knotted up, heart pounded, thought I’d vomit.
Papa pushed his index finger into my throat. ‘You’re wrong. I can’t be punished.’
The index finger pushed, pushed harder, and I could feel my breath trap underneath the weight of Papa.
He packed his bags and lofted his hat onto his head, he gripped my shoulder and said, ‘You’re it.’ My sisters waited for him to say he loved us, that he might come back for us one day. I tried not to get my hopes up—I loved and hated. But all Papa did was leave and that was it.
That night Mama sat on her knees and crossed her chest. I walked through the house nursing a hurt so big it made me feel like I would break. He had to come home. I thought of tracking him, wondered if I might need to take a gun. I wasn’t sure I had it in me. Instead, I walked to the Mackenzie River, sat on the bank, thought about the time Papa had let me hold his fishing rod. Light wood against the current. ‘Am I doing it right, Papa?’
‘Yes, sir, son. Yes, sir.’ He even young-pupped me on my back.
Papa had said that nice thing once.
I needed to cool off and so I walked into the water until it
filled my boots. I looked up at the moon. ‘Why’s he get to do this to us?’ I said, I cried. Once when I had killed a deer and sobbed, couldn’t stop my shaking, Papa had said, ‘The first time doing this is always hardest, but it gets easy. Trust me.’ Hitting, fighting, blooding, yelling, strangling. A lot of things were meant to get easy.
Mama once told me, ‘You ask God for the right thing to do and he’ll tell you the answer is always in you. You just gotta trust it.’
I looked up to where the Lord might have been and said, ‘God, I want to make things better. What’s the right thing to do?’
I waited for an answer. I thought of Papa, all the hurt that he had made, thought about what he might do in my position, thought of him back home with us, what that could mean. I thought about holding a rock above Papa’s face, teeth smattering over lips, blood on cheek and chin. From a very dark place, I told myself, ‘It’s right to protect and it’s right to take care of problems.’ In my mind I smashed the rock into Papa’s face, felt a whole lot better. I didn’t hear God tell me what I was thinking was wrong and so I willed myself into being Papa’s son. I would make him pay, make him come home and everything would be right. I walked out of the river, water rushing from my clothes. A baptism.
Several weeks later, my uncle stood on our steps, his hat tilted low over his eyes, and with a clotted mouth told us, ‘Just saw him. Your papa’s been living just over in Rising Sun. I saw him at a wedding.’
My sisters breathed in shallow rhythms, burst into crying. They held each other’s hands and pulled at finger webbing as they called Uncle a liar. It made me want to hold them, tell them everything would be okay, that I would take care of everything.
‘He a guest?’ I asked.
‘It was his wedding. I saw him’s bride hold a new baby child. Looked a lot like him. Like you, even.’
I said, ‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘Don’t go looking for him, Benjamin,’ Mama said. ‘You stay right here with me.’
Uncle smoothed his fingers through his beard. ‘Yup. I followed him home. ’Bout a quarter mile from Baptist church you . . .’
I spat onto the ground. My tongue curled from a rancid metallic taste and I sucked it away.
I pushed past my uncle, began the hunt for Papa. I walked. As I entered Rising Sun, the smell of burnt hay and mud welcomed me after twenty long miles. I walked around town for hours, looked through windows and under fences for signs of new family life. Some houses were a ransack, others bare and ghost-like. I walked on.
And then, just like that, I happened across Papa and his bride. They were tucked behind a red fence. The wife, red hair and too-long dress, sat on the front porch reading a woman’s palm. Papa cut grass by the side of the house, wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. He looked happy. I had thoughts of rock, teeth, blood.
When the wife had finished with the woman, Papa walked over, kissed her on the forehead. ‘Gotta get these cutters fixed,’ he said. I imagined Papa’s lips on foreheads—Mama’s, sisters’, mine. I lifted my hand to my mouth.
‘I love you,’ the wife told him.
‘I love you too.’
What a thing it was to hear Papa say those words, like he had said them all his life. He took off down the street and the afternoon breeze picked up.
Papa’s wife saw me, came out from behind the fence. She smelled sickly sweet, her hair, around fingertips, threads of her blouse, stupid lips and full cheeks. Papa’s wife’s brow shadowed. ‘You alright? You seem lost.’
Sweat cracked along my back. ‘Not entirely.’
She grinned then. ‘Aha, well, I can make you see the light, all God’s good things. Get His spirit into you.’
I grunted at her. I did not care for magic.
She reached a hand towards hand. ‘I’m Angela.’
‘Benjamin.’ We shook. I sucked my tongue. Angela, her face peach-calm, pretty like a faun, and I smiled back, got an idea. I got the idea that Angela would be punishment for Papa.
Angela.
‘Come inside.’ Chirped like a bird.
I followed. I clenched my teeth and bit my lip.
‘Please take a seat. Be comfortable.’ And she sat beside me. ‘You’ve such an angelic face. Look at your dimples.’ She leaned in, looked right through me. ‘Your eyes remind me . . .’ Her voice wet, made my spine convulse.
Angela giggled. ‘You met the devil somewhere?’
‘Maybe.’
Their house was filled with books and furniture, more than what we ever had, and in the sitting room there was a small statue with a bulging belly. ‘What’s that?’
She waved her arm towards it, like shooing a fly. ‘That’s Buddha. Gotta make sure you cater for everyone.’
For a moment I wondered what it would be like to see inside of her, all the red. ‘You’re young to be out on your own,’ she said, scooping hair from her neck.
I tried to think of what she would want to hear. ‘I don’t really have a family.’ The sitting room windows were half open, the light breeze waltzed into the house carrying with it the smell of sycamores and chicory.
‘It must be difficult for you.’
I nodded.
‘Well, once you let God’s light in, you’ll never be alone.’
I laughed, a little boy. ‘Sounds strange.’
‘My husband thought so too when I met him.’
‘Was that him cutting grass?’ I leaned towards her.
Angela sat back, pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘Is he a good man?’
She nodded. ‘One of the best.’
I would not let her off the hook. ‘How did you meet him?’
‘Out walking one day.’ She rubbed her eyebrows, as if I was giving her pain.
‘What were his first words to you?’
Angela shook her head, whispered, ‘This moment isn’t about me. I’m more interested in healing you.’
‘Did you heal him?’
‘Yes.’
I thought of her bones. ‘How did you fix him?’
‘With love.’ Angela’s cheeks rosed round.
‘Does he stick it to you?’
Angela shifted back on the sofa, got pale. ‘That’s very rude. I’m not sure I can help you today.’
‘But I was looking forward to it.’
‘I’m sorry, you have to leave.’ Angela went to the front door.
I didn’t care to be told what to do. I reached for her. She locked eyes with mine, mouthed a silent God rhythm, red lips sugar dancing. I took a deep breath. Her eyes pulsed. I gripped her hard. I wanted to drag all that blood and life out of her.
I ground my teeth. Somewhere in the house a baby cried. Angela tried to push against me, looked towards the back of the house. There would be no escaping me. Outside two women walked past the house, their heels diving into rock and soil. I breathed deeply, held Angela’s bony wrists tight, and pulled her into me, her cheek on my cheek.
‘You need to let go of me,’ she said.
A surge of electricity carried through my veins then skin, hands trembled. Her breath became shallow, saliva dripped onto my chest. She was so warm.
The baby cried. Angela pushed against me again, said, ‘Please, let me go.’
‘I have something to tell you, Angela.’
‘What?’ she whispered.
I choked her into my body, felt her tense. ‘Your husband’s already got a family.’
The baby cried. ‘Please, let me go to her,’ Angela said.
‘Before he stuck himself inside you and gave you a baby, did he tell you about his other children?’ I was the sound of a boulder rolling.
The baby cried. Angela sobbed. ‘What are you saying?’
Together in embrace we made a shadow across the wall. Then I threw Angela into the sofa.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’ve come to have words with your husband. You should be thankful, really. He’ll eventually get tired of you, especially when you get ugly.’
‘Let me go.’
‘Let’s play a game now, Angela . . .’
Angela had tried to curl herself into a ball when my first punch landed. I stepped back and watched her face burn and I thought of Papa, the time I told him, ‘I love you,’ and was ignored. I lifted my fist in the air and brought it down hard into Angela’s cheek. A bone cracked.
‘It’s your fault Mama isn’t smiling.’
Another punch. Angela slumped deeper in the sofa as each fist came for her. I closed my eyes, my face wet. The baby cried. Everything was becoming right and the air smelled of blood, honey-sweet.
It wasn’t until Angela hoarsed, ‘Please, no more,’ and the front door opened that I stopped. The smell of leather, a sourness, hit me. I snapped my head towards the man standing in the doorframe. Papa. He dropped his keys at the sight of Angela. My knuckles sang.
He almost sobbed, ‘What’ve you done, Benjamin?’ All that caring in his face. Where was his anger?
The baby cried. Angela howled a call of pain. I pushed past Papa, gave a jaw snarl, went out the front door and down the road. I ran, I ran.
When I finally reached home, Mama was waiting on the porch. ‘Police came here looking for you. Christ, where you been?’
I reached for her. ‘I’ve been out fixing. I love you, Mama.’
She wrenched her head, hit my hands away. ‘You’ve got blood all on you.’
I looked at my hands; the small cuts and lion-bulge knuckles, the dried blood and ripped fingernails. ‘It’s okay, it’s not mine.’
‘Police said you were in your papa’s house.’
I didn’t answer her.
She lifted a kerosene lamp to my face. ‘Did you hurt that woman?’
‘I didn’t hurt her. I hurt Papa. I was doing the right thing for you.’
Mama shook her head like she would cry. ‘I don’t know you. I’m sending for the police.’
‘Mama, please . . .’
She slammed the front door. I stood on the bottom step. This wasn’t meant to happen. I thought she loved me.
I banged on the front door, yelled, ‘Who’s gonna look after me?’
She whimpered back, ‘I can’t have someone like you in the house. It’s too much.’
I banged again.
‘If you don’t leave, I’ll get the police.’
See What I Have Done Page 7