The Bay Bulls Standoff

by Chris Ryan

  “Dutch, none of you work.”

  “Well, this is harder than work. Here some days eighteen to twenty hours. I never worked as hard offshore. But those were only twelve-hour days.

  “Thanks, Jeff. Ah, nice and cold. Paddy has the coldest beer on the shore, God love him.

  “Joe, town hall, quick. What’s the big truck that just pulled up in front of the building?”

  “Dutch, you can see that better than I can with the scope.”

  “Bingo. Pumper . . . fire truck. Looked like four or five people walked from it towards the town hall.

  “So I guess the rumour is true. We will see police, with the help of volunteers, destroy a house tonight. I’d say they’re gone in there to be debriefed. If I was a volunteer fireman there’s nothing that could convince me to do what they’re about to do. I mean absolutely nothing. And I’m sure there were firefighters who did not show up for this event. More or less ignored it. Ignored the call.

  “I’m guessing all or most of them don’t know Leo. Don’t know him like we know him.

  “Well, I tell you what: they will. And his lawyer, when the Crockwells take the RCMP to court for destroying their house. Which there is a high probability they will do. I’m willing to bet someone on that fire brigade will be on the stand, being asked by the lawyer for the Crockwell family something like, ‘Can you tell me why you accepted the RCMP’s request to help them destroy Mrs. Crockwell’s house?’ Bob Simmonds will have a field day with them. If not Bob, one of his partners. Erin Breen or Rosellen Sullivan. Or the new fellow that’s with the firm. I believe his last name is Ralph. I see him on the news every now and then talking about people who have mental health problems who are charged with crimes. He’s involved with one of the mental health groups. He knows his stuff. I believe the group he is involved with is called CHANNAL—Consumers’ Health Awareness Network of Newfoundland and Labrador.”

  “Dutch, why do you think he would use that law firm?”

  “Why? It’s simple. Bob Simmonds and his partners have the best record of success in Newfoundland and Labrador. Especially if it’s a criminal issue.”

  “Dutch, I agree with that.”

  “He’s always on the TV representing someone. And when he cuts a deal, it’s a very good deal most of the time.”

  “Thanks, Kevin. Good to see you’re paying attention.”

  “Now, Dutch, you’re not the only news junkie in this rig.”

  “No. But the smartest.”

  “Now, Dutch, you’re piling it on thick tonight.”

  “Boys, anyone timing how long they’re in the building?”

  “I’m betting forty to forty-five minutes.”

  “Kevin, imagine if one of those firemen gets hurt during this operation. You want to talk about a lawsuit. I’d say this is a first in Canada. Bringing in volunteer firemen to assist police in destroying a home rather than try to save one.

  “Man, the media will have a field day with this story. Not just our local media, the national outlets as well. This is a separate story, over and beyond this standoff. Think about it. Where has this ever been seen before?

  “Boys, don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for the Witless Bay volunteer firemen. They do yeomen service for our community and ask for nothing in return. They spend a lot of time training, time spent away from their families. Getting out of bed all hours of the night, and in all kinds of weather, for fires and car accidents. Not knowing what they’re going to see or have to do when they arrive on site. Some stuff they see at car accidents I wouldn’t want to see. But I wish they had said no to the RCMP. They could have, as volunteers. They answer to no one. Not the mayors, not the MHA, or the MP. I mean absolutely no one. They answer to themselves.

  “Joe, I’d say VOCM will be on the horn to you in the morning.”

  “And I’ll still say the same thing as I said the last time they called: no comment. I’d tell them to go back to the news bag they’re getting their information from.”

  “Boys, the truck is heading for St. John’s Road. They’re going some slow. There are no less than three Suburbans tailing it, all black. Reminds me of a funeral procession. I’d say that truck is full of water, that’s why it’s creeping along.”

  “You mean they’re not using the hydrants?”

  “They definitely will, Jeff. That truck will drain pretty quickly, in ten minutes or less. I’d say they’re planning on putting in more water than what’s in that truck. We’ll have to sit back and watch the show.

  “Okay, they’re on the right-hand side of the hangout, in Bernie’s yard. I can see all hands moving around the truck with flashlights. They’re pulling hoses off her, rolls of them.

  “Joe, look at the hydrant. There are four people there. One of them is holding what looks like a long wrench. Looks like a Johnson bar. Or a torque wrench. You see it? See the stacks of rolled hoses?”

  “Yes, I see both.”

  “One of them just laid down another roll of hose next to the hydrant. Notice there are three cops holding shields. No, I’m wrong—four cops. They’re staying between the people at the hydrant and the house. I’m guessing they’re all cops.”

  “Dutch, those shields won’t be much good if Leo starts firing.”

  “Joe, from what I understand those shields are bulletproof.”

  “I see them, Dutch. Man, these binoculars are deadly.”

  “Imagine trying to look at that house all week with no binoculars, or cheap ones. It would not have been an enjoyable week. You’ll have to buy a set of them. I see water running. You notice it, Joe? There was a big spray of it.”

  “Yes, saw it.”

  “Look, look! They’re spraying the house. Upstairs window. Glass didn’t take long to shatter.”

  “I’d say not, with that force. It would flatten a very big man.”

  “Joe, notice the spray coming off it. Like a fog. I forget what they call that, but there’s a name on it. Yeah, water freezing in mid-air. How much water is going into that house! I’d say that truck is pumping eighty or a hundred gallons a minute. Where is Leo in all this? I hope he’s not wet.”

  “Dutch, I’d say it’s impossible for him not to be wet.”

  “If he’s not wet, he has to be after climbing into the attic.”

  “Never thought of that. Well, it’s either that or sit on a tall bureau in a room farthest away from the side of the house that the water is flowing into.”

  “I can picture Leo in there with rubber boots on, Joe. The type Newfoundland fishermen have worn for generations. And a complete set of oil clothes. I said the same thing earlier about oil clothes. He may be doing better than we think. Tell me there’s not three or four feet of water on that top floor.”

  “Probably more, Dutch.”

  “Keep an eye on the top windows. We may see water flowing out through them.”

  “Dutch, you tell me that they’re not after aiming for the ceiling where the water is going in?”

  “I’d say they’ve already thought of him going to the attic. The poor fella. My heart is breaking for him. If he gets wet he’s fucked. He’ll freeze to death. It’s below five Celsius out. And a little windy.”

  “You might say a little windy. It’s blowing thirty-five kilometres an hour from the northeast. You factor that in with the temperature and it will definitely be colder than minus five tonight. What a night he’ll punch, if he’s wet.”

  “I’d say he’ll sit and freeze to death rather than walk out for those bastards, Jeff. He’s that determined. He’ll never let them say they won this battle. They’ll find him in a sitting position, probably on an upside-down five-gallon salt beef bucket, or a steel tar bucket, froze solid. Like when they found most of the seventy-seven sealers from the sealing vessel SS Newfoundland who froze to death, may their souls rest
in peace. Froze in the last positions they were in when they closed their eyes. The great sealing disaster of March 1914. Actually, that was only one of the great sealing disasters. We have had a number of them over the years. May their dead rest in peace.

  “Tonight I actually feel hatred in my heart. And I can honestly say before now I hated no one. Never have. Joe, don’t get me wrong. I have respect for the cops, but I’ve lost a lot of it this week. And now we have our friends and neighbours helping them do their dirty work. I wonder, if this was one of their brothers, nephews, friends, or neighbours, would they be doing this tonight? I doubt it.

  “I bet they’re over there with all their big guns focused on the house. Waiting for Leo to walk out from the silhouette of the spray coming from the hose. They’ll freeze in position like the sealers if they think that Leo Crockwell will give in and walk out that easy.

  “I’d say their adrenaline is flowing, much like us when we aim for a moose or caribou. I know I shake as soon as I see the animal. Boys, don’t get too excited. This could take longer than they expect. They’ll have to pump water until daylight.”

  “You mark it down, Dutch. If I had to bet, I’d say that Leo is as dry as us. Dry as a church mouse.”

  “How long have they been there?”

  “Twenty minutes, I’m guessing.”

  “Well, they started the water flowing at approximately five to nine. And no Leo yet. Hey, cops . . . getting nervous, boys? I’d say they are. They’re starting to wonder where the fuck he is, why he hasn’t come out. He’s not going to stroll out with a big hug for you all. He’s in there planning his next move. Or probably in the middle of his next move. What I wouldn’t pay to know what he is at this exact minute.

  “Pump, boys, pump. If they see Leo tonight, it will be in a picture. Yes, and a picture with him smiling. Or the picture now on Facebook.

  “Joe, roll up the windows and turn on the heat. I’m burnt from the cold. Imagine how cold the firemen and the cops on the hoses are over there. They’re not cold enough for me.”

  “Starting to snow. Man, I hate snow.”

  “The Inuit don’t. They have fifty-two words to describe it. I hope their pumper breaks down. Like the breakdown of one of the pumpers that was sent up from St. John’s to assist the volunteer fire department at the second fire at the Bay Bulls fish plant in 1995. The city charged us, the Town of Bay Bulls, for two pumpers, with only one working. We went to the fire chief in Witless Bay, Randell O’Rielly, to confirm that only one of the two pumpers had worked before we brought it to the attention of the St. John’s fire department. They said it was an oversight. Oversight my ass. And if the volunteers have a breakdown tonight, then they would have to go get one from the St. John’s Regional Fire Department, where the RCMP should have gone in the first place. Not volunteers or equipment belonging to a volunteer department.

  “Another thing I’m wondering. Did the cops go to the mayor of Witless Bay or the regional committee that oversees the operations of the fire department with their request to use fire department equipment and the volunteer firemen?”

  “Good question, Dutch.”

  “And I’m also wondering if they spoke to the mayor of Bay Bulls, Jeff.”

  “Why the mayor?”

  “Bay Bulls subsidizes the fire department in Witless Bay. It’s not just a Witless Bay fire department, but a regional department that covers the area from Bay Bulls in the north to Bauline in the south. And I’m betting if they asked the mayor he’d have told them he would leave it up to the firemen themselves.

  “Some of these volunteers probably haven’t sat back and thought about what they’re actually doing tonight. Their hearts wouldn’t be in it, but they wouldn’t refuse when asked by the RCMP. All I can say is, boys, put yourself in their shoes, or, rather, their rubber boots.”

  “Good way to put it, Dutch, even though it was sarcastic. But a good choice of words.”

  “Thanks, Kevin. When this standoff is over, I’m going to try to find another situation where a police force, specifically the RCMP, have ever done something like this before.”

  “You mean destroy a house using water with volunteer firemen assisting them?”

  “Yes. I’d say I’d have to look very hard to find another example. If I do a freedom of information search to the RCMP, or to the attorney general, I’d find something. That will give me something to do all winter, a good use of my time. Okay, Joe. Windows down. I’m warm now. You warm, boys?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Speak for yourself, Jeff. I’m still cold, Joe.”

  “Kevin, you can’t still be cold. What are you made of? Joe, I have to look with the scope. We haven’t looked in a while. Geez, the damn window, now!

  “Thanks, Joe. They just stopped pumping. About time. They’ve been at it non-stop for thirty-five to forty minutes. I’d say that basement is full of water. Only so much will seep through the ground, and once the ground gets soaked like a sponge, it won’t hold any more water and will gather in the basement. We can’t see from here, but I’d say there is water coming out through the basement windows. Kind of like the reverse of a boat sinking. Water coming out through a window instead of going in through it.

  “It’s starting to freeze. The second they stop, that house is ruined, destroyed with the assistance of our regional volunteer fire department, that pledges to save life and property. So much for property. Imagine, all Mrs. Crockwell’s stuff ruined, her heirlooms collected for the last sixty-plus years, things passed down from her mother, and all of Dermott’s military memorabilia. They say Dermott had a lot of military mementos, including pictures taken during the Second World War. Impossible to replace. Memories of her life with her late husband. Stuff her grandkids would have given her. A home she lived in for over fifty years. The home she raised her children in. A sad day in the history of our proud town. I could cry thinking about it.

  “It would be different if her house was destroyed in the Hurricane Igor storm in September. An act of nature. Not a lot you can do in a situation like this. Someone blatantly destroys your house, it’s not like you can go to your insurance company. What do you tell the insurance agent when he asks what happened to your home? ‘Oh, uh, my local fire department destroyed it.’ Then he would say, ‘Oh, so you had a fire?’ And you say, ‘No.’ The fellow on the other end of the phone up in Ontario or wherever would ask you to repeat it again. How would you explain this to someone who knew nothing about it? He would think he was talking to someone in a psychiatric hospital. Or the person he was talking to was pulling a prank.

  “And it’s not like the community can start a fundraiser. It’s not like something Bay Bulls wouldn’t do. They’ve done it a number of times in the past for homeowners who have lost homes due to fire. But why should they now? When the government of our great country destroyed the house. They should be made to replace every item that was destroyed. Not that I wouldn’t help with the fundraising. Or give to the fundraising.

  “I guess every time Leo hears the Ron Hynes song ‘House’ he’ll get a bad feeling.”

  “Dutch, you’re getting pretty deep.”

  “I know, Kevin. I have to change the topic before I get depressed.”

  “Boys, where do you think Leo is in the house?”

  “I don’t know, Jeff. But if I had to bet I’d say he’s drier than either one of us. And I’d bet big money on that. No, really, think about what it’s like in there. Temperature below zero, ice on everything you touch, wind howling through the place from all angles, water up to your ankles, in some rooms up to your knees. Sounds, loud and strange, coming in from the outside. Not a place I would want to be in. Not a place any human being should be in, definitely not in a civil society. But civility has been put on the back burner since some overpaid, so-called expert came up with the stupid idea of destroying this home. It should have never c
ome to this.

  “Think about it. Seven days. Everything in their tool box has been thrown at him. And still no Leo. So do you think a few thousand litres of water are going to move him? I think not. I wouldn’t bet against him.

  “When this is over, whenever that may be, I’m going to rent every action movie that Stallone ever made.”

  “We should plan that, Dutch.”

  “My house some night, with a few beers. On the big forty-two-inch plasma, with surround sound. Those movies will remind us of Leo. Imagine sending a manuscript of this standoff to a production company in Hollywood. I could see someone putting this standoff in a movie format. Like I said earlier, they have made action movies out of stuff with less action than we have seen here in our community this week. And it’s not over yet. So the ending of this could be movie-worthy. Think about it.”

  “Dutch, you got that old brain working overtime tonight.”

  “My brain wanders every now and then, so don’t take everything I say to heart. Some of it is off the wall. Actually, a lot of it is off the wall. There goes Stacie. Take your time, Stacie.”

  “That’s her going down the top road?”

  “Yes it is, Joe, and she’s going too fast for my liking.”

  I grabbed my cell and phoned Hollie. “Hollie, tell Stacie I said to slow down! It’s pitch-black out, and there could be moose on the highway anywhere going out the road. Especially up around Con Brien’s hill. Tell her I’m scoping you guys going up the Pinch.”

  “I’ll tell her. Where are you to, Chris, that you can see us?”

  “Hollie, haven’t I been in the gravel pit since last Saturday, since this standoff started?”

  “Chris, I don’t know where you’ve been all week. I just know you haven’t been at our house much. And it’s some nice and quiet without you around.”

  “Geez, thanks, Hollie.”