In a Mist

by Devon Code-mcneil

  After he wiped up the tea and swept the shards of porcelain into the garbage he poured himself a glass of water and walked out onto the second story balcony in his bare feet. There were no clouds in the sky. Oak and maple leaves riddled with caterpillar holes hung limply in the heat. Bags and cans of trash lined the residential street below. A bearded man in a tracksuit stood behind an empty shopping cart, prodding a bulging bag with a cane. He said something to himself, rested the cane inside the cart and started pushing it, the wheels rattling over the cracks in the sidewalk. Students headed down the street in the opposite direction, toward the university.

  The trouble had begun in March when Richard’s grandmother passed away. He had been writing all along, bartending four nights a week, spending the afternoons in his study before he went to work and writing for a few hours on his days off. But he was sick of the job and as soon as he got word of the inheritance he knew he’d quit and write full-time. His grandmother had always been supportive of his writing and he liked to think she’d approve of this decision. She hadn’t left him a lot of money but he figured it should last him almost a year if he spent it wisely.

  “Give it time,” Laura had said at first. “It takes time to adjust to a new routine.” But by the time she went back to school in the third week of August things still hadn’t improved. He hadn’t finished anything since he’d quit and now the inheritance was more than half gone. He went inside and sat at his desk in the walk-in closet off their bedroom. The closet had been one of the reasons they had decided on the place when they moved in together the year before. He’d insisted on having a study but they hadn’t been able to aff ord an extra room. The closet was just big enough for his desk and chair. When Laura was studying at home she would lie on the bed with her textbooks and notes and listen to the classical station on the radio. He would close the door and work at his desk with earplugs in his ears. When they first moved in she had once asked to use his desk to write a paper but he had refused, claiming that he needed the space to concentrate and that she was capable of working anywhere. She had shrugged and accepted this, setting up her laptop on the kitchen table. Occasionally, when he’d come home from work, he’d sit at his desk and write something that had been on the back of his mind as he pulled pints and wiped down tables. He would have overheard a conversation. Someone would tell a peculiar story or confess an infidelity and he would do his best toremember the details so he could write them down as soon as he got home. He’d sit in the closet with the door closed, writing by the light of his desk lamp while Laura lay asleep in the adjoining room. It was nights like these that made his job tolerable. But they did not happen very often. Most of time he couldn’t stand O’Grady’s or the business majors who drank there. He told himself that the place was stifling his creativity, that he’d quit as soon as possible. He would often have a drink with the staff after closing, usually four or five on Saturdays when his workweek ended, and when he sat down to write on Sunday afternoons he was fuzzy-headed and struggled to work out of the haze.

  The last thing he’d finished before he quit O’Grady’s was the eulogy he’d written for his grandmother. His mother had insisted he read at the funeral. It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He started a dozen drafts without getting anywhere. Finally he decided on writing his earliest memories of his grandmother. Sitting on her lap after she’d read him a story, watching her cat on the windowsill—a kitten then—swat houseflies out of the air. His grandmother standing in her garden with a red kerchief in her hair, picking a cucumber off the vine, showing him how to rinse it with the garden hose, smoothing off the tiny green spikes with her thumb. Everyone told him that the eulogy had been moving, that he’d surpassed their expectations. His degree in English literature, all the hours spent sitting in libraries, scribbling away in walk-in closets were justified to his family by this performance. But in his own eyes he had failed to convey how he felt about his grandmother. Writing the eulogy had only frustrated him, made him doubt his ability to do what was most important to him. Now, sitting at his desk six months later, he admitted to himself that the eulogy had made him realize how much his grandmother had meant to him, even if he hadn’t been able to express his emotions. He was saddened by the fact that he had never thought to write anything about her while she was alive. This gave him an idea.

  Laura was the most important person in my life. We never talked about it openly, but we both assumed that we would spend the rest of our lives together. She was pragmatic, rational, systematic. But also compassionate, and optimistic. More so than I. We were very diff erent. But we seemed to complement one another. She was the perfect companion for someone like me. I knew this at one point but gradually I began to forget. I withdrew into myself. She realized what I was doing before I did and she reacted with anger. This only caused me to draw further away from her. The day she died we were more distant from one another than we had ever been before.

  He tore the page out of his notebook, crumpled it up and threw it in the wastebin. After staring at the notebook for some time he considered retrieving the page and continuing. But he thought better of it. He got up from his desk and walked out of the room. He could not bear the thought of staying in the apartment alone all afternoon, waiting for her to come home. He went to the hallway closet and took out a short sleeved shirt and put it on over his sleeveless undershirt. He sat down on the bench in the hallway and put on socks and shoes, pausing after he tied the lace of the right shoe, wondering where he would go. He considered the university library but he could not stand the presence of students and did not want to risk running into her. He locked the door, descended the stairs and decided to head north. The air was heavy with the odor of garbage at the curbs. At the end of the block he watched a mangy tabby retreat from a torn bag of trash toward the underside of a front step, something dark and limp hanging from its mouth.

  When he passed the convenience store at the end of the next block he left his neighbourhood behind. Victorian homes converted into student flats gave way to identical row houses, and then a stretch of squat brick tenements where there were no trees lining the street to provide shade. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. In front of one of the tenements two young girls sat on overturned milk crates behind a folding table. They wore matching one-piece pink and yellow bathing suits and cotton baseball caps and their skin was tanned a dark brown. There was a clear plastic pitcher on the table, Styrofoam cups, and cans of soda glinting in the sun.

  “Lemonade. Seventy five cents. Pop for a dollar,” said the older of the two girls, eyeing him. She fidgeted, twisted on her milk crate, the palms of her hands resting beside her slender thighs. Her fingers drummed the side of the milk crate, as if keeping time to a tune only she could hear. The younger girl looked up at him silently. Richard reached into his empty front pocket.

  “Do you have change for a five?” he asked.

  “Umm . . .” said the fidgeting girl, her smile vanishing.

  “That’s alright,” he said. “You should put that soda in a cooler.”

  “The lemonade’s cold,” said the older girl. He could see half-melted ice cubes floating in the pitcher of cloudy white liquid.

  “I’ll get change.” She jumped up and ran toward the building, her flip flops slapping against the asphalt. He looked down at the younger girl and smiled. She looked up at him with two fingers in her mouth. He did not want to stand in the sun and wait for her companion to return.

  “You picked a good day for selling lemonade,” he said. “I wish you luck.”

  Soon after he passed between a series of car lots, the pristine vehicles reflecting heat and light off their polished glass and chrome. A balding salesman in a dark green suit shielded his eyes with a clipboard, making his way between a row of brightly coloured Korean compacts toward the air conditioned showroom. It occurred to Richard that he’d have to walk back as far as he’d come, but he felt compelled to keep going. Beyond the ca
r lots lay a commercial zone full of sprawling factory outlets and aluminium-sided warehouses with loading bays for tractor trailers. In the distance he could make out the towering cranes of a container pier and the glimmer of sunlight on the ocean. Across an empty parking lot stood a squat building with pale blue vinyl siding and a patio of varnished wood, empty of patrons. As he approached he could read the words “Crow’s Nest” arched in yellow letters around a ship’s wheel on the sign that hung from the side of the building. He wasn’t sure if it would be open but there were two cars parked out front and he decided to give it a try. An air conditioner rested in an open window next to the door. There was a damp stain on the pavement directly beneath it where water dripped steadily, evaporating almost instantly in the sun.

  He opened the front door and the cool air enveloped him. He ran his hands over his bare arms and felt goose bumps. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the bar. A few empty wooden tables and video lottery terminals filled the back of the room. On the back wall hung a wooden ship’s wheel draped with plastic pennants advertising beer. There was a television with the volume turned down mounted over the bar. A man sat at the far end of the bar and another man stood behind. When he entered they stopped talking to one another and turned toward the door. Richard exchanged nods with both men and sat on a stool halfway down the bar so that he could turn to see the television screen. The bartender had a crewcut and a goatee and wore a Boston Bruins t-shirt tucked into his faded jeans. The man who sat at the bar was older and heavier with thick eyebrows and greying hair. He wore a dark red flannel shirt with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, tawny work boots and brown work pants with a western-style belt. A pint glass half full of draft rested on the bar in front of him. The air conditioner hummed.

  “What can I get you?” asked the bartender.

  “Scotch please,” said Richard. “And a glass of water.” The bartender thumped the bar once with his fingers and turned to the shelf of spirits. Above the liquor bottles was a second shelf full of sports trophies: gilded figures of hockey players blanketed in a thin film of dust.

  The bartender stood with his back to Richard and looked over the selection, his hand suspended in the air before the bottles. He muttered something, chose a bottle of Irish whiskey, measured an ounce in a shot glass and poured it into a tumbler. He rested the glass in front of Richard on a cardboard coaster, then ran the tap for several seconds before filling a water glass.

  Richard said nothing and lifted the whiskey glass to his lips. He chased the whiskey with a sip of water and turned his attention to the television. An image of a supersonic jet filled the screen and then a razor blade. An athletic, bare-chested man ran the tips of his fingers along his cleanly shaven jaw.

  “Work around here?” asked the man seated at the bar.

  “No, I don’t.” Richard turned to face him.

  “Funny place to come on your afternoon off ,” said the man. Richard noticed a slight lilt in his speech. The bartender cleared his throat.

  “Quit bothering the customers, Lloyd,” he said, winking at Richard.

  “It’s true though,” said Lloyd. “Wouldn’t catch me anywhere near this place if I didn’t work down the street.” He drank from his beer. “You’re looking for work then,” Lloyd said to Richard. “You can tell when a man’s been out of work for a while.”

  “Can you now,” said the bartender.

  “No shame in it. Being out of a job,” said Lloyd.

  The bartender counted a stack of bills into the till.

  “Need any help around here, Stu?” asked Lloyd. Stu looked at Lloyd, then made a show of looking around the room.

  “Think I got it under control,” he said, focusing his attention back on the till. Lloyd leaned in over the bar.

  “Might try hiring a young fella to work evenings. Just might get some females in here then. Be good for business.” Stu ignored him and Lloyd turned to Richard. “You don’t want to work in a place like this anyway. Depressing.”

  Stu paused for a second, looked up at Lloyd. Richard finished his whiskey.

  “Another?” asked Stu.

  “I’m good for now.” Richard took another swallow of water, then took out his wallet and laid a five dollar bill on the counter. Lloyd set his empty pint glass on the bar.

  “Guess I’d better head home,” he said.

  “You don’t intend to get started on that job this afternoon?” asked Stu.

  “In this heat?” said Lloyd. “I know better.”

  “Maybe this young fella doesn’t,” said Stu.

  “What I was thinking,” said Lloyd.

  * * *

  The vinyl upholstery of Lloyd’s Olds 88 clung to the bare skin of Richard’s arms. A cardboard pine tree hung from the rear view mirror, filling the air with its chemical fragrance. They rolled down the windows and when they got on the highway the breeze began to cool the car’s interior. Lloyd had the radio on low, tuned to a classic country station, and Richard could make out the faint twang of Dolly Parton.

  Lloyd had one hand on the wheel and his other arm hung out the open window. A pair of aviator sunglasses obscured his eyes.

  “Ever think about heading out west? To find work?” he said.

  “Can’t say I’ve given it much thought.”

  “I’ve got a son. Jim. Went out that way as soon as he finished high school. Found something right away. Makes good money.”

  “Glad it worked out for him.”

  “He had nothing keeping him here though.” Lloyd took his eyes from the road and glanced at Richard.

  “I won’t pretend I don’t miss him,” said Lloyd. “But you can’t blame young people for doing what they have to do.” Richard looked out the window at the side of the road.

  “No you can’t,” he said.

  “I left Newfoundland for the mainland when I was seventeen.”

  “Ever been back?”

  “Once.”

  The city limits fell behind them and they approached the trees and lakes beyond.

  “Is there a bus that heads back to the city from out this way?” said Richard.

  “Closest bus leaves from Fall River. But I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you.”

  Lloyd turned off the highway onto an exit ramp that led to a side road lined with dense forest. They slowed to cross a set of railroad tracks and then pulled into a gravel driveway another few kilometres down the road. The driveway ended in front of a squat wood-shingled house, its brown paint flaking off to reveal patches of dark red paint beneath. There was a small satellite dish mounted on the side of the house and a power line leading back down to the road. Lloyd parked the car beside the rusted body of an old Pontiac station wagon with no tires and no windows. He opened his door and got out and Richard followed. The yard was covered in tall grass that had wilted in the sun. To the left was the dried bed of a pond that had shrunk to the size of a puddle. Past the pond Richard could make out the railroad tracks on a slight embankment about a hundred meters away. Beyond the tracks lay dense evergreen forest.

  “I like my privacy,” said Lloyd, gesturing beyond the pond. “Those tracks made it a luxury I could aff ord when I bought this place. Thirty years later and I’ve almost gotten used to the noise of the trains.” He made his way to the back of the house, to a weathered shed built of unpainted slats with a slanted, shingled roof. Between the shed and the house there was a tree stump about half a meter wide, its pale ringed surface chipped and dented. Blocks of fire-wood were stacked against one side of the shed, reaching almost as high as the taller side of its roof.

  “Suppose I should’ve asked if you ever done this before. Jim used to take care of this. Ever since he was old enough.” Lloyd lifted the latch on the shed door, stepped inside and came out carrying a long-handled axe. He rested the axe against the wall of the shed, and set a block of wood on the stump. Richard stepped back.

  “Get a good stance, let gravity do the work,” said Lloyd, raisi
ng the blade of the axe and bringing it down dead-centre on the block. The wood split in two and fell at his feet.

  “You’ll want boots and gloves.” With one hand he sank the blade of the axe into the stump and went off toward the back door of the house. The worst of the day’s heat was over but Richard could feel the sweat on his neck and under his arms. He unbuttoned his shirt and hung it on a rusted nail protruding from the doorway of the shed. Then he sat down on the stump and untied his shoes. He wondered whether Lloyd intended to give him the boots he had been wearing on his own feet. But Lloyd came back out a moment later carrying a much older pair with the steel exposed at the toe. His left hand held a pair of leather work gloves and a green mesh ball cap.

  “Keep the sun off your head.” He held up the cap and Richard could make out the same ship’s wheel and yellow lettering he had seen on the sign outside the Crow’s Nest. It looked as if it had never been worn.

  “Stack it up in the shed once it’s split.” Lloyd set down the boots and went back toward the house.

  The boots were only slightly too big and Richard laced them tightly. He put on the ball cap and the gloves and then set a mid-sized block of wood on the stump as Lloyd had done. He could feel the old man’s eyes on him from the doorway of the house as he raised the axe and brought it down, heard him chuckle as he grazed the block and knocked it to the ground. Richard set the block back on the stump, braced himself, raised the axe and brought it down a second time, this time sinking the blade a third of the way into the block. Using the handle of the axe he raised the block as high in the air as his strength would allow and brought it down with a grunt. He lost his footing, stumbling toward the stump as the block split in two, and fell to the ground. He looked back toward the house but Lloyd had gone inside and shut the door. He could hear the sound of the television coming from an open window. Richard’s stomach rumbled and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.