Once You Break a Knuckle

by W. D. Wilson

  On the third evening Winch watched headlights flash through a slat in the curtain. Tires churned gravel and a car door whooshed shut and a man cursed. Winch went to the curtains and the light slashed across his face as he peeked through. His dad steadied himself with a hand on the hood of his Sweptline. He reached through the open window and killed the ignition and the lights died.

  —Winchy, et’s yer dad, he slurred. The front door was locked – to prevent Chris entry – and his dad rattled the rickety thing in its frame. —I dunno where I put muh fucken keys.

  —Why ya comin back now? Winch hollered through the wood.

  —Muh dad’s dead ya dumb cunt. Came back to pay muh dues.

  —Ya never called me Winchy before.

  —Aww come on.

  Winch opened the door and his dad came two steps through and stopped dead as rock. He sucked on breath, and those maimed hands tugged on the hem of his shirt, like a boy. They stayed like that, with the door flown wide. Then his dad eased it shut and pressed his forehead to the wood. —Goddammit, he said.

  —I can’t rebuild the rifle, Winch said.

  —What?

  —Gramps’s rifle, Winch said. —I can’t.

  His dad pushed off from the wall. He smelled like a locker room. Winch saw ruddy stains on the sleeves of his dad’s T-shirt, frays at the edges, smudges on the collar like oil smears, or unwashed fingers.

  Winch went to the kitchen table where he had the rifle parts piled and ordered. His dad followed, the sound of his boots clunking on the lino like a loose timing belt. The two of them sagged into wooden chairs. Winch surveyed the disassembled Winchester, sought similarities among the pieces, hooks and eyes, threads and mouths and notches that could click together like molars. It should’ve been easy for him. It’s what he did – it’s all he knew how to do. His dad pinched a chunk of metal between thumb and index, gave it a twirl. It was jagged, big as a Christmas orange. —Ken ya make some coffee?

  Winch put on a pot. His dad massaged his temples, one thumb on each side.

  —I done muh best, Winchy.

  —Why ya callin me Winchy?

  His dad squeezed and unsqueezed that metal part – a component of the stock, if Winch hazarded a guess. —I always call ya Winchy, ya dumb cunt.

  —Ya don’t never.

  —The hell cares about that now, his dad said, and flicked the part aside. —Why ya got this mess here?

  —Told ya, Winch said. —I can’t rebuild it.

  —Can’t rebuild what?

  —I just told ya. Gramps’s rifle. I just said.

  —S’just a gun, Winch.

  —It’s Gramps’s.

  —Awright, his dad said. The coffee blurbled, and Winch lasted a few good seconds of his dad’s distant stare before he got up and poured two cups. His dad didn’t drink his – only held it in his palm and gritted his teeth.

  —Yer a good kid Winch, his dad said. —An’ I’m a shitty dad.

  —Shut yer mouth, Winch said.

  —What’re ya goin on about?

  Winch sipped the coffee. It burned the roof of his mouth. —Ya don’t know me. Ya never even knew me.

  —Awright?

  —Whatcha want me to say? Winch said.

  —I’m a shitty dad, awright?

  —Yeah, awright.

  —Yeah? his dad said.

  —You ain’t even said yer sorry.

  —Fer what?

  —For leavin us, Winch said. He took another sip. —Chrissakes.

  His dad put an elbow on the table. He made a fist, and the knuckles cracked like a ratchet.

  —This ent how I thought it’d go.

  —How’d ya think, then? Winch said.

  His dad just shook his head. —I dunno, Winchy. Like when I got back ya’d be happy to see me or sompthen. That’s how et’s spose to go. Yer my son, fer fucker’s sake. I done muh best.

  Winch felt a whole lot bigger all of a sudden. —I dunno, dad, he said.

  His dad’s face scrunched up, went old, worn out. —I’mma sell this house.

  —And where’re we goin then? Winch said, but he knew the answer, had known the answer for a long time by now.

  —Dunno where yer goin, Winch, his dad said.

  —That’s why ya came back, then.

  —Need to get out.

  —Yer my dad.

  —Nah Winchy, his dad said, down toward the coffee and the four-fingered hand that gripped it. —Muh dad was yer dad, I didn’t do good as him. He got it right or sompthen.

  In one of Winch’s better memories, he and his dad crouched before a bonfire and tried in vain to make s’mores. They’d just hung the tree fort, and his dad smelled as if he’d been tending a blaze all day. He had a moustache, dark hair that only barely receded past his forehead. Winch was six and his dad seemed noble then, like a man from the nineteen-thirties. They slurped tap water from a steel canteen. They wrestled on the grass, wrapped roasted hotdogs in white bread. And that night they bunked in the tree fort until darkness had settled around them and Winch had drifted asleep with his dad’s arm draped over him like a blanket.

  His dad pressed a knuckle to his forehead. Please dad, Winch wanted to say.

  —I’m real sorry, his dad said, and rubbed both eyes with the heels of his palms, and Winch wondered if the good memories would remain, or if they’d all rust down to this dim kitchen, that broken rifle, his weeping dad. The coffee cooled and thickened but when Winch raised it to his lips he still blew across it – an act of denial, because if it was hot, and if it stayed hot, he had reason not to leave the table, and he and his dad could persist as father and son at least a few breaths longer.

  WINCH SPENT A GOOD long time with the rifle parts, this time in the dark, while upstairs his dad ruffled through sock drawers and medicine cabinets and the dusty underside of beds in search of who knows what. Winch couldn’t fix the rifle – probably never would – but he still liked the weight of the pieces, still liked the way their metal smell chafed onto his calluses and the outside of his hands. So he rolled them around his fingertips, let miscellaneous chunks clack and tick together, let them knock the wood with their hollow baritone sounds. Sometimes he smelled sulphur, or guncotton. Sometimes he heard his dad intake a breath, creak on a floor joist, shut bedroom doors more forcefully than they needed to be shut. The house stayed dark, and Winch stayed still. The fridge hummed, cars trundled by on Invermere’s broken streets. Hours later, getting hungry, he rose and moved blindly upstairs to his gramps’s bedroom where he found his dad on the bed with a razor and a rail of cocaine laid out on a baking pan.

  —So this is it, he said.

  —I done muh best, his dad said.

  Winch flipped his keys, tried to look anywhere. —I’m goin for a drive.

  His dad wiped a sleeve under his nose, sniffled. The room smelled like musk, and semen.

  —That’s muh truck, Winchy.

  —I’m takin a drive.

  His dad set the baking pan down, touched his toes to the floor. —I said et’s muh truck.

  Winch had his wallet and his own set of keys, one of which could operate his dad’s truck. He just needed to get there first. —Awright, he said.

  —Yer lyin to me, his dad said.

  —Am not.

  —Winchy, that’s my truck.

  Winch bolted, dragged the door closed behind him and skipped down the stairs in threes. His dad gave chase, clambered out the door and craned heavily into the banister. Winch hit the front door in all-out sprint. —I fucken swear to God, his dad called, but he tripped somewhere in the house and Winch heard the clatter of things knocked askew.

  He hauled ass down the driveway. The truck’s passenger door was unlocked and he jumped inside and dropped it in reverse. His dad flew out the entryway and lurched a couple steps before he heaved his hands to his thighs and huffed like a man exhausted, and Winch peeled out and felt his dad’s eyes trace him all the way around the curve.

  He ended up at Miss Hawk’s house
. His headlights beamed through her front window and movement skipped past the slatted curtains. When she came onto the porch she wore an unflattering dress that hung straight from her shoulders down, men’s white socks. Her hair had grown out to its dusty blond, and at a distance, in the low light, she looked like she had the skin of a teenager. Winch dropped from the driver’s seat to the ground, her paved driveway. He only knew where she lived because she’d taken her whole tech class, years ago, for a field trip.

  —Have you been eating? she said.

  —I need to shower or somethin.

  —You can come in.

  —I’m dirty as all hell.

  —Winch, Miss Hawk said, and combed a hand through her hair.

  —Muh gramps passed.

  —I heard.

  —Muh dad just showed up, he’s selling the house.

  —Why don’t you come inside, she said, and pushed the door open a sliver.

  Miss Hawk’s house was more cluttered than his but it smelled sweeter. A fire burned in her living room. The boot closet brimmed with steeltoes and hikers and a bunched-up pair of Carhartts. Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” hummed from a radio in the living room by a butter-coloured couch.

  —Bathroom’s down the hall, she said. —I was making a grilled cheese. I’ll make you one.

  He realized he had no toiletries, but it’d been days and he wanted, if nothing else, to feel clean in Miss Hawk’s house. The bathroom was a tight, storage-sized room with a standing shower and iron decorations. He torqued the hot water crank until steam filled the stall like fog, and fit himself under the tap and let the streams rivet down his chest. The water pounded his skull and he thought about things like money and Chris and if his dad had reported the truck as stolen. Then he heard a thud and the walls shook, and a woman’s voice shrilled through the house. He shut the water off. His dad’s Sweptline in the driveway, like a trail of goddamned bread crumbs.

  —Where is he! Whore, the truck’s out front, where is he!

  —Get out, Miss Hawk said.

  —Millie, his dad growled. —I don’t wanna hurchya.

  He pictured his dad’s lined face, the grey hair and the eyes bloodshot and high. All those years at the barium mine, the hard work, the good example – and now a cokehead like his mother. He wanted to grab his dad’s hair and smash that face into a tabletop, until the wood was dented with his dad’s front teeth and all that remained in his fist was a bloody husk of hair and sinew.

  Winch didn’t bother to put on clothes. The adrenalin was in him like an awakening. He stormed out the bathroom and his dad wheeled and said, —There’s the pussy.

  Winch couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. A great pressure moved him forward. His dad wore a thin grey T-shirt ripped at the collar, blue jeans stained like a drunk’s. His eyes were red and wild and open. Winch took long strides, booted a stack of books aside, and with all the upward momentum he could muster he lunged and hooked his dad by the neck, heaved him against drywall. His naked, beaded arm tensed, the muscle strained. His dad latched his fingers, clawed at the grip. It was like the day he watched his dad and mom fight, how his pupils narrowed and his actions went frantic.

  Winch backhanded him, hard enough to split his knuckles on his dad’s gums.

  —Take yer truck an’ get out, Winch said through his teeth.

  His dad grunted and cold air breezed over Winch’s legs, his abs, up his exposed ribs. Miss Hawk stood in the doorway to her kitchen, lit, angel-like, and moved her head once sideways, no.

  —Get out, Winch said, and let his dad drop to his knees.

  —Don’t want no boy anyway, his dad coughed, upward.

  When he’d gone and Winch had reclaimed his clothes, Miss Hawk dabbed his knuckles with a lukewarm cloth. He’d never had her skin this close to him. Sometimes she moved her hands aside to see him, but he pretended to examine the decor. Her cabinets were deep maroon and she said she painted them herself. A Coke bottle, wrapped in masking tape, centred on the tabletop, plugged with a thin, unused candle. Winch’s gramps kept a syrup container covered in glued-on beans as the centrepiece of his table – an art project from his dad’s youth.

  He didn’t realize he was crying until Miss Hawk set the cloth aside and laid her delicate, callused palms on his cheeks.

  She locked the door behind them. His cheeks burned as she cinched his shirt in her fist and drew him close. She smelled like she’d been in the shop all day. He clasped her at the waist, unpinned her buttons. She pried his shirt, notched his jeans, and he tightened against the denim. She was square, almost boyish beneath her clothes, stronger than him, and when she clapped her palms on his deltoids his whole body startled at the impact. He trolleyed his lips along her stomach, across her belly button, to the rigid hairs at the fulcrum of her pelvis. She rocked and shuddered like a truck. When he wedged himself into place a breath trilled through her teeth. Their thighs skidded together. She shifted him, adjusted angles, linked her fingers through his hair. Her nails raked over his ribs. He tended to lower his chin to his chest, stare at her breasts, but she leveraged his head upward with two fingers under his jaw.

  Afterward, Winch tucked the sheet under his chin. A horseshoe moon slipped behind clouds. Cars zoomed the Friday streets and their headlamps swivelled through the window like searchlights and Winch pressed his face in the pillow that smelled like Miss Hawk. A tow truck approached from the distance with the distinctive gurgle of diesel and power. Winch waited for it to Doppler. Miss Hawk’s pale back faced him and as the tow truck ambled past the window its amber hazards lit her skin like honey. She sniffled, and Winch realized she was weeping. A mole perched on the cusp of one of her vertebrae, another behind her ear. She made a noise, almost like a horse’s whinny, and he reached out with tenderness and brushed his knuckles along her spine, but she shimmied forward against her knees and left his hand, cold, in the space between them.

  IN A WEEK HE’D have no money, but Miss Hawk would forward his name to a goateed mechanic everyone called Shank, and Winch would receive a phone call, drop from highschool two months before graduation, and start his apprenticeship. While finishing his first year at a community college in Nelson, he’d find out Emily Hawk was knocked up, and he’d count the months backward on his fingers with dread.

  But that night he lay awake, naked and spent, and waited, hoping she would circle her tough arms around him. He wanted to feel the taut muscles in her stomach, the swell of her breasts, her nose. As he drifted to sleep he dreamed a future where Miss Hawk birthed a daughter he nicknamed Caboose, where his dad became her gramps, where he built a hangar in his backyard with a concrete floor and a tar-sealed dome in which he undertook a lifelong project to construct a yellow biplane. He would tailor it with two sets of wings and a propeller bolted to the nose, a rudder Miss Hawk would swear he salvaged from weathervane parts. And in that dream he sparked the engine and the plane sputtered and he snugged a pair of aviators over his eyes, and while his daughter and Miss Hawk watched and his dad manned the gunner’s seat, those ever-pink fingers strong and patient as a father’s, Winch took off in a contraption he’d hand-built to carry him from the earth.

  ACCELERANT

  A long time ago I shot Mike Twigg in the back with a potato cannon. We were getting shitfaced on flats of Kokanee at the marsh behind my buddy’s house. Twiggy dove sideways even as I grabbed for the cannon, but only his head and shoulders had cover behind the upturned lawn table when my thumb found the igniter. The potato thoowunked from the barrel and a husk of pool noodle floundered behind it – we used it as stock – and I watched the projectile beeline for the bastard’s kidney. It cracked him pretty good and he spewed curses like a foreman, but I just disengaged the chamber and sniffed the residue accelerant. —You deserve every goddamned shot, I yelled.

  Twiggy had violated the Code. Nowadays he pawns it off as a mere cock-block but it was more than that. Twigg, with his screwdriver-blade eyes and that smile like a bullmastiff, kiboshed my first real chance
at losing the V-card, and to Ash Cooper of all people; I can still see those red bangs and the ponytail as it bobbed up and down the soccer field. Twiggy tells me to shut my yap because it’s not his fault I couldn’t wrangle another girl before college, but let me just say that the school of freshwater fish is pretty limited in Invermere, B.C.

  Twiggy trench-crawled on the dirt as I breeched another round into the cannon. I hear stories about guys who fashion “spud guns” that shoot thumb-sized morsels with compressed air. We dubbed ours a cannon because we’d constructed an ABS beast that launched whole potatoes with the power of propane combustion. I locked the chamber into place, injected a few hisses, and hefted the cannon onto my shoulder.

  —Matt, Twigg says up at me. —Matt, come on.

  Then I hear my pal Duncan laugh from the roof of his house, a dumpy panelboard bungalow that used to be a laundromat. He’s got a view of us from up there. Twiggy yells for help and Duncan says, —Yeah, I’ll help you, but he doesn’t move. I level the cannon where I suspect Twigg’s ass is, though I can’t be sure because I’m shitfaced and because Twigg has come into possession of a campaign sign for the local election – there’s a pile of them ditched into the marsh, another story – and spread it over his crotch for defence. I pinch one eye shut and sight down the barrel at the salesman grin of Don Chabót, Conservative Party.

  Me and Ash dated for a couple weeks before Twigg ruined it. I’d ferreted her from this goody-goody named Will who thought himself tough because his old man was a cop. I pegged him as a pushover. Ash had freckles and a small upturned nose and muscled arms, the kind of grey, appropriately spaced eyes that always seemed a tad disappointed in everything I had to say. Progress with her was slow but gradual, the occasional palm on her flat stomach but no further, maybe a glance down her shirt while we made out. Most evenings we’d do things like skirt the lake and examine odd-looking driftwood or loiter at the gelati café to sip coffees with long-winded names.