Minister Without Portfolio

by Michael Winter

  What are you going to do about it all, Henry said to her.

  About Rick, you mean.

  About any repercussions that are being set up.

  My god don’t tell Rick is all I’m asking, Colleen said.

  You think he doesn’t know?

  It’s one thing to suspect something, she said. He can live with that.

  You’re wrong, Henry said.

  LEONARD DISAPPEARED DOWN the hole and Henry fired up the wand and rolled out the torch-on on his roof. He worked for an hour then ran out of propane and climbed down the ladder with the empty bottle. He looked down the hole. Leonard was leaning awkwardly against the metal ladder, his head against a rung of the ladder staring down at his feet.

  Are you okay?

  Leonard made a gurgling sound but it was not comprehensible. Was he concentrating on something down there. Leonard was unable to raise his head. Henry unplugged the orange extension cord and the sump pump stopped and Leonard rose himself off the ladder, his neck and head and shoulders all came to life and his head was like a flower to the sun. His eyes wide open. He shook his shoulders and climbed up the ladder. He was laughing and twisting his neck. I was electrocuted, he said. I couldn’t get my head off the ladder.

  Leonard stood at the top of the ladder very bright now and alive again and whipped his head back and forth like a swimmer and laughed and wiped his eyes clear. I was stuck on the ladder. Had one hand on the sump pump and it was running up my arm and shoulder and out my head.

  Henry got him a glass of water and he drank it off and tossed the cup onto the grass and banged his chest solid and said, They say it’s good for the heart.

  Then he went back down the hole.

  Leonard you can’t go back at it.

  Work to do.

  Henry tried to coax him out but he said fire up that pump. I know what not to touch now.

  THAT NIGHT THEY WALKED into Kingmans Cove, the abandoned community that they both liked to imagine still existed. It would be one of the last times before the baby came. The Happy Adventure. The foundations of old houses. The cellar. As they walked Martha said that Colleen had asked her to be a helper during the ceremony Larry was planning. To be there for her, she said.

  What kind of ceremony.

  A drinking of a herb. A vine or root.

  That chanting thing he does.

  They will be intoxicated.

  Henry wasn’t sure she should witness that.

  I should be there. It’ll be safe and it might be something wonderful. It could be a ceremony for the birth. I guess what I was thinking is you might want to do it.

  Do what.

  The herb.

  That juice in his cellar.

  I think so.

  There was a load of fill now over the Morris garbage. The hillside burnt to cinders. But there was something else different. It was Martha who noticed it: the profile of the cellar was caving in—rocks had been disturbed. Someone had removed rock. There was a heavy quad track. Some idiot with no sense of the sacred.

  Jesus there’s rock everywhere on this coast.

  They could harvest rock from the new highway.

  No Martha, they have to come all the way out here with a quad and rip rock out of a hundred-year-old cellar.

  They both were astonished at the effort.

  They followed the track and the quad joined up to the side road and must have gone right past Tender’s house.

  Baxter, Martha said, would have seen who came by with a quad and trailer.

  Yes, Baxter would know.

  He sees everything.

  Though I’m half afraid Baxter might be involved.

  Ask him in a neutral tone, Martha said.

  When they got to Baxter’s he knocked on the storm door. He explained the situation and Baxter waited to hear more. The side of the cellar, it’s been carved right off. You never saw a quad come along here with rock, did you.

  Baxter was puzzled. You mean besides Leonard King, Baxter said. He took what you wanted for your well. That rock is in the bottom of your well now.

  They crossed the road and Martha said aloud, So Kingmans Cove is full of modern garbage, it’s burnt over and the cellar’s torn out and thrown into the bottom of a well. She put her hand on her stomach. The past will never be resurrected.

  37

  Silvia and Clem and Sadie were out picking the tiny strawberries and the kids were bored with the work. I’ll meet you at the beach, he said to Martha. Come on kids. We’re going to give your parents the afternoon off.

  Henry walked down to the dory with this truth. He was in charge of things now. It was all up to him, finally. He loaded up the Happy Adventure with a picnic and when Martha came down he got the two kids aboard with life jackets and he pushed the boat out and jumped into the bow and Martha gently rowed across the bay to a beach they’d only ever seen but never stepped on. A dory full of kids, Henry said. And you, eight and a half months pregnant, rowing a boat. Now this is my way of a ceremony for the youngster.

  It feels good, this, Martha said. I should have been rowing all summer.

  They got close to the far shore and Martha shipped the oars and Henry jumped over the gunwale and steered the nose in to the calm beach.

  Henry pumped the Coleman stove and boiled the flat-arsed kettle. Pull out the whiskey, he said, and Clem got out the tube that a bottle of scotch goes in and inside the tube Henry had a roll of paper and markers. On a quilt they all drew pictures of the coastline they had just come from, out to the lighthouse, clear pictures that even included John’s truck as they saw him arrive.

  When’s the baby coming, Sadie asked.

  In about ten days, Martha said. Not this Sunday but next Sunday.

  Henry was having that feeling he’d had in the dory: that it was good to look back on the land you lived on. It gives you perspective, Martha said.

  You realize you can easily leave it, the way we all at some point have or will. That something will be waiting for you once you leave, something you had never imagined but, once possessed, would not ever be rescinded.

  He told Martha how wounded he felt about the cellar.

  You’re as spiritual as Larry Noyce, she said.

  I don’t need his ceremony.

  I’m still going to do it.

  As long as there’s nothing in the air. There’s no smoke is there. I’ll take care of myself.

  The kids had finished their pictures and rolled them back into the whiskey tube. They boiled the kettle and ate their sandwiches and decided to head back. A bit of mist is coming into the bay, Martha said. It’ll be okay, Henry said. Clem and Sadie were nervous that the boat was going to float away on them. Get in, they said, get in.

  We have to have a discussion about the fog, Martha said.

  It’s a direct row across the bay. I timed it. It’ll take fifteen minutes.

  They got in and pushed off and Henry told the kids they had to stay in the stern and not move around. He laid into the rowing. He was facing the back of the boat and Martha was in the bow looking into the fog. I don’t like this, she said. I can’t see any land.

  But Henry could see the land they had left. He kept this land to the back of the boat so he knew he was rowing straight across. He checked his watch. After ten minutes the kids announced that they couldn’t see any land now, anywhere.

  Henry stopped rowing to listen. His ears widened. Just the sounds they were making in the boat. No sea against the coast. A small faucet of water pouring off the oars. The wind picked up a little and there was a swell and they were buffeted by a dense fog that had texture and you couldn’t see anything now. Henry dipped his oars in. Martha, sternly: You have to turn more, Henry, you have to paddle into the cove more. But he felt he was turning the dory and turning so much they were just carving a big circle. You don’t want to miss the cape and lighthouse entirely, she said. That meant rowing out to sea. She wasn’t happy with the situation. Henry, very quietly: You have to stay calm, Martha, and not say those
things.

  We’re scared, Sadie said.

  It’s okay kids. You just have to not move too much and we’ll be okay.

  He rowed without a word. Nothing but fog and the waves and feeling like it could be possible they were out at sea now rowing to Ireland. There was a different wave pattern under them, a wave perhaps that doesn’t live in waters close to shore. The kids stayed quiet, stunned by their predicament, waiting for Martha or Henry to say something they could believe in.

  A little wave breaking behind them. Henry rowed towards it.

  Martha: I saw something tall above us.

  Henry peered up and it was a cliff. It looked just like the drawing Sadie had made.

  I can’t recognize it, Martha said.

  Henry rowed closer and the waves were crashing onto a shelf of rock so they had to look out for shoals. The tall stem of the automated signal floated there. They were at the end of the boardwalk. They had drifted that far out but had hit the cape. He gave one oar a few flicks and turned them with the high coast above them and rowed back along this wall of rock. There, in the rock, he saw Baxter’s white fish.

  The kids were okay now but Martha was quiet and he couldn’t see her. Dry land. They got up into Kingmans Cove and back to Martha’s car. Support our troops. The sun had come out again, down in the bottom of the bay. At John and Silvia’s the kids were busy telling their father what had happened and they were very precise about missing the cape and drifting out into open water and sharks finishing them off. They had no compass or flare or phone.

  So you’ve learned a lesson, John said.

  Silvia was looking at Henry with disgust.

  Don’t be too hard on me now, Henry said.

  Silvia finally spoke: She could have gone into labour out there.

  38

  There were two cars in the driveway. Larry Noyce had cleaned out the living room and placed camping foam on the floor around the woodstove to hold ceremony. There will be eight of you, Larry said. There were three men from town Henry had never met before. A woman from South Africa. Silvia and Colleen were beside him, preparing their sleeping bags in the corner. Martha was asking Larry when exactly he wanted the lights turned off. Martha was not taking the ayahuasca, but wanted to help Larry and look after Henry and Colleen and Silvia if things went badly. You could sense that a child was almost in the room.

  One man touched the leather case of his phone. It was enough to put Henry off. I like to leave the room sometimes, the man said to Larry.

  Well don’t leave the space.

  You mean the house?

  Yes. Don’t leave the space.

  The South African woman, next to Henry, said you have to be humble, and be grateful. Be vulnerable. Open yourself up rather than curling into yourself.

  She had travelled the world and done ayahuasca many times. Her name was Zola. This country, she said, is fabulous. Water, crown land, health care, and people aren’t afraid.

  Henry: I thought South Africa was beautiful.

  It is, Zola said, but you can’t see it. I can’t travel through it.

  There was a man from Peru with an eagle feather. His name was Piero. This room—this space—was going to be Peru. Colleen had not gone to Peru in the end, had cancelled that trip and so was making the most of this Peruvian who had come to Larry Noyce’s. Piero waved smoke over your face. You stood in front of him and he touched you on a shoulder with the feather to turn you around. Then tapped you again with the feather to say you’re done, you can lie down.

  They were all lying down. And Martha turned off the lights, although there was still some light shining from the floor in the kitchen, perhaps a lamp on the floor. Henry decided Colleen had never been with Keith in this house. It was always at her place. He heard Larry talking low. He had that white plastic orange juice container of what they were to drink. He was blowing smoke into the container. Then he poured out the brown liquid into a small glass and chanted like he was blowing through his teeth. He drank the liquid. He asked Piero to come forward. Piero knelt in front of Larry and took the glass. The South African woman, Zola, stood up. Henry was next. The drink tasted like a spicy malt. He saw Martha’s face and she was worried. The silhouette of her pregnancy lit up by the floor lamp. You can rinse your mouth, Larry said. There was a residue like brewer’s yeast, thick and sludgy.

  Henry lay on a mat he had last used to go camping with Nora many summers ago. Martha sitting there. The pale light in the trees in the dark outside—Henry could see a roof—Colleen’s. A half hour went by and nothing was happening. Others were moaning but his mind was clear. Oh well, he thought. A boring night of listening to the passion of others.

  Then the chanting began.

  He concentrated on Martha’s silhouette. He was glad Martha had insisted on coming. Larry and the man from Peru, Piero, sang a rhythmic chant from the Amazon. Larry is not a shaman but he has been working with one for years.

  Henry felt a second jawline. A transparent jaw or one made of see-through cartilage. It was peeling away from his jaw. If he held his hands up over his head the arms felt foreshortened. Panels of colour shifted like brilliant wallpaper. Now, an image of a tiny dark-leaved plant, sort of like an alfalfa sprout with its pod head of a seedling. This is the origin of life. It was welcoming and Henry asked it a question.

  How can I do a better job. How can I be less false and more honest and do better.

  What you are doing is the way you must do it. We all do it this way.

  The chanting subsided and the panels of colour drifted over one another. There were little clicks and Henry felt like he was in a temple. I’m conscious and in control and enjoying the feeling of peace.

  The chanting resumed. You think this is the real life? Yes, he said. A dimension shifted away to reveal another slide of the universe. A giant amber necklace hovered in front of him, a raised knob of amber pointed towards its own centre. The misery of the world is worth it. All will be forgiven and Henry understood that death is normal. Don’t treat illness. Dying is not an issue. Life is teeming and joyous and everywhere and of the same fabric.

  He closed his arms that had been wide open to receive the chanting. Then he threw up in a bucket. Martha, he understood, was holding his shoulders. He floated into sobriety. It must be over. That was powerful and moving. A real acceptance of what one is and what is out there. We are all one thing.

  Then the chanting returned and he had to lie down again.

  He had been peering into the cellular level of the cosmos, but now the cosmos approached him. It marched into him, a vastness took over and he was no more.

  He hooked into himself again. Awareness. It alarmed him, knowing he had no longer existed. But there was a sound of little flutes and chimes. They were the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard and a candle was lit. A light came on. The silhouette of a pregnant woman. A man said he’d been trying to quit cigarettes for thirty years. There was a plugging in of a kettle.

  Where’s Larry?

  Martha: He’s gone over to Colleen’s to rest.

  I need to talk to him.

  Wait until he’s ready.

  39

  It was really something, Martha said. The way he conducted things. I mean, I think Colleen saw something. Silvia too.

  Henry: Everything Larry said about it is true.

  Henry paid a visit. He walked down to the lightkeeper’s door and knocked on it. Hello, he said. And he told Larry what was happening between his son and Colleen.

  Have a seat, Larry said. Yes, it makes sense. I did not know this until just now. Colleen told me.

  Well word’s gotten out. But the word is the father. I know you’ve been nothing but kind. I know you are not at fault. However with the ceremonies and Colleen here it doesn’t look good.

  Larry Noyce closed the book he was reading. There’s an old saying, he said. Don’t let the dead bury the living. I’m hoping you’ve recovered from what happened to you in Afghanistan.

  I’m converting the
power of past experience into positive outcomes, if that’s what you mean.

  Use the ladder given to you, Henry. But then discard the ladder. Don’t hold on to the ladder.

  I feel like I’ve come here for you but you are unconvinced.

  I see the trouble. I’ve talked to my son. But I can’t stop the trouble. I love it here and I have a duty here. Perhaps you’ve found a duty.

  To protect you.

  He walked home. He liked how the house sat now on the land. He realized Larry would not move. He’s had fish dumped in his car. What next. They will burn him out. Baxter and Emerson probably talked about that at the dump. While he was falling into the incinerator they were drinking and planning to torch a house.

  He told Martha he needed to sit on the roof for a few minutes.

  He climbed the ladder to his new roof and sat down against the chimney. The old lighthouse. He looked out to sea and waited for the problem to reach him. The knowledge was in the sea. Baxter and Emerson had begun with high stakes. Baxter was a retired police officer, he knew about evidence and motive and suspicious behaviour. He understood what it meant to cut the brake lines of a game warden or throw a dead pig in a well. The men would return safely to a torched house. To cultural thuggery. The men would wait until the boy was out. They’d allow the American to visit Colleen and lug two gallons of gasoline in a container exactly like the one the boy used for hitchhiking. The boy often went to the Copper Kettle with Justin King and Baxter would discover that routine. They’d wait for an empty house. And this is where Henry worried about variables. Perhaps the American no longer visits Colleen or is crafty with his excursions and they are surprised when he answers the door. Please come in I was meditating with the lights off. He sees their gas can and they act impulsively. They’d make sure there was nothing handy around him when they grabbed him by the neck and armpits and kicked him between the legs and carried him to the bed to smother him. A panic sets in but also an appreciation of how successful their movements are. Until they get him on the bed and then things even out a little. The pillow wasn’t going to work. Something deep in the man would come out of him that they weren’t expecting. So there’s a struggle that creates a scene that isn’t pretty to come onto. The men will know this and, before leaving, they douse the floors with gas and open up the woodstove and kick the fire into the room. Leave the door open for ventilation and that is what raises the alarm. The lightkeeper’s house on fire. They throw the gas can in the field next to the burning house. The boy returns to police officers and a dying fire and no service for a pumper truck. Forensics will comb for evidence and discover the gas can in the field and notice a lack of forcible entry. It’s difficult with scenes of domestic violence—you’d be surprised at how much calamity there is. And everyone knows they were at each other’s throats for years ever since the divorce really and the boy do like a good fire.