Broken Man on a Halifax Pier

by Choyce, Lesley;

I followed her into the living room and then she waved me to follow her to the kitchen. All serious talk about anything takes place in the kitchen on this shore. She pointed to a chair and I sat down. She poured coffee, didn’t ask me if I wanted cream or sugar. She remembered I drank it black.

  “It’s been a while,” she said. Understatement of the year.

  “It’s been a lifetime.”

  “I know. But here we are.”

  “Funny, eh? All that water under the bridge. I hear you have a boat, do some fishing.”

  “It’s what I do. When we were young, no one ever thought about women going to sea to fish for a living. But here we are.”

  I sipped the coffee. It was strong. “Guess I should start by saying I’m sorry.”

  She waved her hand in the air. “Let’s not go there. It was so long ago. We were so young. I think I always knew I couldn’t hold onto you or hold you back once you left. You’re a writer, right?”

  “Was,” I said. “Paper closed. Big corporate decision in Toronto.”

  “Sorry to hear that. You back for good?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She sipped her coffee, hesitated. “You with someone?”

  That word. With. Was I with someone? “Hard to say.” I cleared my throat, wanted to change up the subject. “I, uh, I met your son today. He brought me some lobsters.”

  Beth Ann scrunched up her brow. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking. “That’s nice,” she said. “He just turned thirty-seven last month.”

  “All grown up.”

  “Sort of. But in some ways he’s just like a kid.”

  I guess my brain was at least partially functioning because I decided then and there not to mention the fact her “kid” had stolen money from me. I looked around. “Looks like you’re doing okay,” I said flatly.

  “It’s a life. I’m getting kind of weary waking up before dawn and hoofing it down to the dock. The sea just doesn’t seem as inviting as it once was.”

  “I can’t quite envision you …” But I didn’t finish the sentence. I was remembering the Beth Ann from high school. Young, pretty, feminine, long silky hair and a smile that could light up the darkest days. She was still a fine-looking woman.

  “We all do what we have to do.”

  “So you and Joe Myatt got married?”

  “We did.”

  “He stopped by the boat yesterday. Wasn’t that happy to see me.”

  “He’s not much happy to see anyone. Got a big ole chip on his shoulder.” She paused, looked more than a little concerned. “What did he say to you?”

  “Not much. Surprised to see me. I can’t quite believe Rolf kept my father’s old boat going all these years.”

  “It’s old. A good boat but old. Not sure I’d want to go out to sea in it myself now. But Rolf leased it to me when I was starting out.”

  “You fished in my father’s boat?”

  “Otherwise, it just would have sat there and got dry rot.” She sounded defensive.

  “No. I mean, that’s kind of ironic.” Maybe ironic was the wrong word. “I mean, it was just kind of, um, curious.” I didn’t know what I meant.

  “It’s a small community. I needed a boat and it was available. It wasn’t like you and Pete were around to take up where your father left off.” There was a bit of an edge in her voice now. I don’t think she meant anything, but there it was. “Besides, when Rolf found it, it was adrift in the sea, remember? By salvage rights, it was his at that point.”

  “I guess so,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t have a right to use it.”

  “Don’t worry. I have my own boat now. Almost paid for too. Another couple years and I won’t owe the bank a cent.”

  I wanted to apologize for the way I had screwed up our conversation but didn’t know how. “Brody, he fish too?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not exactly.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “Cause trouble.”

  “How’s the pay?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  And that’s when Brody walked in the door and into the kitchen. He was big. Funny, I hadn’t really noticed how big before. Big and tall and his head barely made it under the door frame. He looked stunned when he saw me sitting there at the table.

  “Here’s my boy,” Beth Ann said.

  “Hey,” Brody said.

  “Hi again,” I said.

  “Want some coffee, Brody?” Beth Ann asked.

  “Nah. Just came to get my truck.”

  “You’ve met Charles.”

  “I did. Gotta go,” he said. And he left.

  Beth Ann looked at his back as he walked away, then she looked at me. “After Joe and I were over, I had to raise Brody by myself. I’m not sure I was the best mother in the world for him. But I tried to do what I could.”

  “I’m sure you were a great mother.” I felt like I had overstayed my welcome. Awkward conversation and all that. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said. “I’m gonna head back to my place. Let’s talk again. Let’s remember old times.”

  She smiled a soft smile and placed her hand on mine. “Sure. Old times. Good times.” Then she rapped her knuckle on the table. “Let me give you a ride back.”

  I wanted to say no. I wanted to escape from there, escape from the past that I pretended I wanted to talk about. But she’d already grabbed her keys and was walking toward the door.

  I followed, got into her pickup. She backed out of the driveway and headed us toward the causeway. We drove in silence. And then she came to a stop in front of my shack.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It was great to see you.”

  “Charles,” she said, leaning on the steering wheel, the engine still running. “I promised myself never to tell you. But I have to tell you this.”

  More worlds colliding, more planets imploding. Shit. “Tell me what?”

  “Brody. He’s your son. He doesn’t even know it. I never told him. Joe accepted the fact I was pregnant. He knows Brody is yours. He tried his best to accept Brody as his own and did okay at it for a while. But then we broke up. He never told a soul. And I never told Brody. Maybe it’s best to just leave it that way. But I had to tell someone. And when I saw you today, I was just bursting to tell you.” She paused and flexed her fingers on the steering wheel. “And now I told you. Just thought you should know.”

  14

  I sat down on the old narrow bed and watched dust particles ascend to the ceiling in the bright morning sun. Denial was my best buddy at that moment. Couldn’t be. No way. She would have told me back then. No one keeps secrets that long. Maybe this was her idea of revenge. Now get out of town before someone makes up some other blarney.

  But.

  But, I knew in my gut it was true. And it was just like the old Beth Ann that I knew. Make the best of a bad situation and don’t hurt anyone.

  I didn’t have to get a DNA test. It fit the story of my life. Get involved. Make a commitment. Then walk away. And walk away I did. Deadbeat dad of the worst kind.

  There was a noise. I didn’t know what it was at first. Oh, the phone. Buzzing, vibrating on the table. I got up and looked at it. Text message.

  Ms. Danforth:

  We’ve booked your next appointment for next Wednesday at 2 pm. Please confirm.

  Dr. Jenkins

  It was Ramona’s phone. Made sense someone might contact her on it. I was about to give her a call, but I was afraid of what I might say. Maybe say the wrong thing. And I was afraid to text here, afraid she wouldn’t respond at all. I was feeling manic. Just like yesterday on the pier in Halifax. Was that only yesterday? Fuck me.

  Sleep seemed like a wonderful option. Curl up and take a nap. But my brain was on fire. I got up and tromped out the door, headed for Prosper Point. Used to go there when I was a kid. I walked past the wharf, heard voices, laughter. Possibly at me. The lobster thing. Good story to spread around. If only they knew the rest. So, he knocks her up when he’s a teenager, leaves town and come
s back decades later, the boy sells him a couple of lobsters that he lets go back in the water. And get this, his kid, his own flesh and blood, steals the only money he has in the world and walks off.

  I swear I could still hear them laughing as I walked past the last shack, an abandoned one that used to be owned by Jess Kinsey. The windows were all boarded up and the door was off its hinges. Beach rocks and sand had been driven by a really high tide and waves into the front room. One day, all these old buildings would have the same fate. So long Stewart Harbour. Only a matter of time.

  Fortunately, it was low tide.

  Prosper Point was once a fairly substantial headland, but it had been washed away on both the east and west sides and was now a long spit of rocks leading to a wedge-shaped narrow vestige of the headland with dirt cliffs on both sides. Another drumlin. Used to go out there all the time as a kid. King of the Drumlins. Place to daydream, dream of a magnificent future. Marine biologist was the goal, until I discovered I didn’t have math or science skills. But the teachers said I could write.

  By university, I wanted to be a novelist. Write the great Canadian novel. Set it in Stewart Harbour and dig down deep in my psyche, nail down all the universal truths that all those other writers were too wimpy to scratch at. Three false starts at it and I signed up for journalism at King’s College. Kept trying to find my way back to fiction but the facts kept getting in the way. Straight out of school and into a job at the Tribune. Interviewing MLAs, covering city council meetings. The odd interview with visiting important people. Met Bill Clinton once after he was out of office. He told me a couple of jokes, pretended like we were old buddies. Even invited me to play golf with him and the premier at Ashburn Golf Club. I bowed out. Knew nothing about golf.

  Wrote words on a computer screen for all those years and then suddenly the job disappeared. And the novel, the latest one, the one I’d been working on for at least ten years, the one I never gave up on, but could never find my way to the end of — well, it sat in a drawer back in Halifax.

  Lots to ponder. Father of the Year. I climbed the embankment and sat on the edge. The top of this diminishing peninsula was covered in wild roses, thistles, mostly things with spikes and thorns. But it brought back good memories. Memories I’d walked away from. Put in a drawer that I forgot to open again. Until now.

  The image of Ramona swam up in my head. I pictured us having a life. Doing things. Travelling. Laughing. Kissing. Daydreams. All of them. Just like the ones I used to have there. The anything-is-possible daydreams. So fresh and vivid at one time. Too bad real life keeps chipping away at them until there’s nothing left.

  Two fishing boats were passing by me now, headed in to the wharf. Most of the boats looked alike. An old guy waved at me. I swore it could have been my father. I waved back. And I suddenly ached. I missed him. I missed him and I missed my mother.

  She went first. That summer after I graduated high school. She was diabetic and had taken good care of herself all her life. And my father was always asking, “Did you take your insulin? What’s your blood sugar?” He loved her and watched out for her. Then, one day when he was out to sea, something went wrong. She missed her insulin maybe. He was at sea; I was at Prosper Point. That was why this was coming back. I was out here on the Point with Beth Ann. Maybe if I had been there, I could have done something, got her to the hospital on time. Something.

  It destroyed him. My father. Never the same after that. Kept going out fishing, but he must have been charting his own course to disaster. But not before he tore down the house that fall.

  I looked across to the little treeless chunk of land called Goat Island. Supposedly, a French ship sank off the coast here a long time ago. Only survivor was a goat, who swam to that island in the sea. A local fisherman found the goat and took it home. Male goat. White one. Sired a couple of dozen baby goats and was locally famous. Too bad no one raised goats anymore around there. There were seals, though. A big, fat family of seals lounged on the ledges off Goat Island and provided a musical soundtrack for my reveries.

  Memory is a funny thing. So much I had forgotten, but it was all stashed away. Not at all sure what good any of it did me.

  I looked away from the seals and back toward the mainland. Someone was walking this way, picking his way from dry rock to dry rock, over what would be the sea floor a few hours from now. Beth Ann and I had to wade our way back sometimes on those summer days. Came out there to make out and sometimes we forgot all about tides. The moon would tug the sea back toward the land, not really having the slightest bit of concern for horny young lovers. We got wet, soaked on the way back, but we figured it had been worth it, of course. It always was.

  The guy coming this way. Couldn’t be. But the cap, the red flannel jacket. Brody.

  Come to see his old man? Had she finally told him? Or was he just coming to rip me off again? He’d be disappointed. I was broke again. Nothing to do but sit in the sun and see what was up.

  He walked to the base of the dirt cliff below me, looked up, didn’t say anything. Then he scrambled up toward me, kind of clumsy, getting footholds on protruding rocks and handholds on the roots of scrubby spruce trying to survive on the side of an eroding drumlin.

  “Fuck,” he said when he got to the top, somewhat out of breath. “Fuck.” He plopped down beside me, breathing hard.

  I said nothing. Waited. His move. Whatever that might be.

  “Was wondering why you were at the house,” he said. “Why were you speaking to my mother?”

  “We used to know each other.”

  He nodded. “You tell her about the money?”

  “Nope.”

  He nodded again. “Sorry about that.”

  “You come out here to give it back?”

  He shrugged. “No. Spent it. Kind of guy I am.”

  “Darn. It was all I had.”

  “How come you didn’t tell her?”

  I shrugged.

  “Why?”

  “Just didn’t. Didn’t see the point.” I looked off toward the seals again, listened to them moan.

  “I came to pay you back,” he said, reaching in the pocket of his flannel jacket. He held out a baggy with what was unmistakably weed in it. “I brought you this.”

  I just looked at the bag of weed and gave him my best scowl.

  “I’m truly sorry,” he said. “I was tempted, you know. All my life, I see a thing I want and I just take it. Guess it’s kind of a bad habit.”

  “You should probably get that fixed.”

  Brody laughed. My son laughed. He thought I was funny.

  He set the baggy down on the ground after making what looked like a little nest for it in the weeds. He took out some Zig-Zags and started to roll a joint.

  “Look,” I said, “I haven’t smoked pot in a long while.”

  “Pot. That’s funny. I haven’t heard anybody call it that for a long time.”

  He concentrated on his work, filling and rolling the most elegant and fattest joint I’d ever seen. “This one is called Tuna Kush. Don’t know what that means, but it’s very relaxing.”

  “So, you selling this stuff?”

  “A bit. There used to be a pretty good market for it, but now, you know, people can legally grow their own and they can buy it too. Nowhere to buy it here, but you can buy it online. It gets mailed to you just like buying from Amazon. So, not much point me working hard trying to sell it.”

  “You still enjoy smokin’ up, though.”

  “Yeah, I get a nice buzz. Hey, I’ve got other goods if you’re interested. More powerful stuff.”

  “No thanks.”

  “’Kay.” He lit the joint with a Bic lighter and took a big hit, handed me the doobie. I took it from him and just stared at it for a second. I didn’t really have the slightest desire to get high. But there he was. There I was. Father and son smoking a joint. It made me smile. How crazy was that? I took my first hit of weed in a long, long time.

  I can’t say I smoked more than three
hits before I felt my head expanding. The seals were singing their mournful tune, the sun was warming the top of my hair in a most benevolent way, and the waves were moving shoreward like tiny dancers.

  I felt myself dozing off and thought I’d better say something to keep myself awake. “So,” I asked, “how’s life here?”

  At first Brody looked at me and gave a kind of grunt — half laugh, half snarl. “You really want to know about life here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Enlighten me.”

  “Enlighten you?” he repeated sarcastically and then took another hit from the joint, after which he coughed hard, exhaled smoke, and then broke out into a goofy smile.

  “Okay,” he said, “you asked for it.”

  Brody started talking about himself. Told me he was a loner, a screw-up at school. Barely graduated, kept wanting to leave town and go to Toronto, find a stripper there for a girlfriend. Maybe make one big score, one big fat sale, and go legal after that. Put it all behind him and settle down.

  Mostly garbage talk. My son, the drug dealer. I wondered how deeply he was involved. Looked like just weed and pills maybe. If his mother could keep him from going to Toronto, he might just survive to be an old man.

  “You don’t fish?” I asked. “I thought all the men here fished.”

  “I hate boats. Hate being at sea. But I sell to the lads. They all count on me.”

  I nodded. “Kind of providing a community service, eh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Do you read?”

  “Read?”

  “Books.”

  “Not really. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “You a big reader?”

  “Yep. And a writer. Or was.”

  “No shit. What do you write?”

  “Wrote for a newspaper. Been trying to write a novel.”

  “You should write screenplays. For movies. That’s where the money is.”

  “Maybe I should give it a try. I’m dead broke.”

  “Hey, like I said, I’m sorry. If I had the sixty bucks, I’d give it back.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Beer. I bought beer.”

  “Good choice.”