Down to the Dirt

by Joel Thomas Hynes

  Of course, it became the ultimate of fantasies. Plain old nipples wouldn’t do it for me no more. I hauled myself off over it every other day. Only thing was, as soon as I’d finish, I’d get all pissed off. Couldn’t relax in the aftermath. I felt like runnin’, hidin’ away out of it. That winter I had a few scraps with Andy, fistfights, over the stupidest things. My father caught me swipin’ twenty bucks out of his bedroom. I was suspended from school for writin’ shit about the teachers on the bathroom wall. Suspended from hockey for the last three games of the season.

  Now, I’m not tryin’ to say that that stuff had anything at all to do with Glenda, that because of her my behaviour took a nasty turn. That’d be the furthest thing from the truth. I crossed a line when I went with her. Sure. But I crossed lots of lines that year.

  One evening in late April, Glenda poked her head out her back door while I was passin’ by. She told me to come down, that she had something to give me. I wanted to say no, give her some excuse, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Felt like I couldn’t say no to her, like I had no right. Her eyes were on me as I walked towards the house. I felt small.

  —You weren’t even gonna say goodbye, Keith?

  Boxes all over the floor of the porch. She was movin’ again. Off to St. John’s where there’re more opportunities for a woman her age. Better nightlife. A brand-new start. She had an apartment lined up already and the forklift jerk would be comin’ soon to give her a lift. The youngsters were gonna be livin’ with their dad from then on.

  —Keith, you never told no one, did you? We could get into a lot of trouble.

  I s’pose she was right. There’d be an awful mess if my mother got wind of it all. I’d never hear the end of it.

  —I never told no one, girl.

  —Do you think you might?

  —No.

  —Good. Thank you, Keith.

  An awkward silence then, like she was expectin’ me to talk about it, say something reassuring, but I’d nothing more to offer. I said I wouldn’t tell and I meant it. She pulled a little white envelope from her pants pocket, held it out to me.

  —I’ve had this for a while now, Keith. Found it last August under the steps. Thought you might like it for a keepsake.

  She was lookin’ at me all strange. Her eyes started to fill up. I just stood there shivering in the silence, tryin’ to think up something safe and kind to say. Nothing came.

  —Well, I s’pose this is it, Keith b’y? Still, never can say for sure. It’s a long old life.

  I told her goodbye, glad to hear myself say it. She disappeared inside the house without another word.

  When I got up on the road I opened the envelope and emptied it into my hand. Three stubby pieces of stark white bone. I connected all three together, the thickest piece sliced clean off at the end. I weighed them up and down for a second before fully realizing what they were.

  Mrs. Mary-Angus’ missing middle finger.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  I couldn’t wait to show it to Andy and Bobby.

  They were gonna be some jealous.

  2. Firebug

  Sure every young fella in the Cove had a go at it one time or another. Light a match, toss it in the grass and see what damage it does before the panic sets in and you’re forced to stomp it out. It’s about knowin’ when to back down without losin’ face. I s’pose that’s what Keith was up to that evening, only he was down on the far side of the Gut Pond doin’ it by himself and he either couldn’t or wouldn’t back down in time. Of course, no one knows whether his side of the story is true or not. His sides of the story I should say. There must be a dozen or more, and I’d say they’re all true to some extent. Except for the part where he says he never struck a match.

  It’s true that he’s a bit of a savage, but he’s only ever guilty of half the shit he gets the blame for. Now if it was me that nearly burnt the North Side of the Cove to the ground, they’d be rushin’ up to me all concerned and worried about smoke inhalation and mental trauma. It’d automatically be assumed an accident and some mother hen would drive me home. Keith though, he spits on the side of the road and there’s just got to be some dark motive behind it. But, I’ll give him this much, if he got something in mind he does it out in the open, not carin’ who sees what, or just too stunned to wrap his head around the notion of discretion. That particular evening his idea of discretion happened to be a mushroom cloud one of the Murphys said later that they spotted from out past Stone Island.

  —Ahhh…it wasn’t that bad. It went out on its own sure.

  That’s Keith’s argument. True enough too. It did go out on its own. By the time the little gaggle of firemen and plant workers made it up to the scene of the fire, it’d burned itself out. Keith was lucky, and so was the North Side. Caused a fair bit of damage though. What used to be a healthy, thick patch of evergreen and alders was suddenly nothing more than a smokin’ black scar, a hole in the woods you could see from miles away for years after.

  Of course Keith had to drag me home with him that evening to face his old man. Figured it’d be easier with me around, hopin’ by the time I left the news would have lost its effect a little and things might’ve cooled down. I knows my father wouldn’t spare the rod on me. Although, to be honest, no one really knows for sure what goes on behind the closed doors of the Kavanaghs’ house. Keith don’t say much when it comes to that kind of stuff. But there can be no dispute that there’s always some kind of drama unfolding there; Keith the victim of some grand injustice, some tragic misunderstanding with his version of the bigger picture. I can only imagine the racket if his folks finds out about him and Glenda Devereux. It’s not exactly the big secret he pretends it is.

  Myself and Bobby O’Neill were up on Gormon’s Hill haulin’ up our old rabbit snares and markin’ out the good paths for next season. Bobby spotted it first.

  —Ho-ly shit!

  He nudged me and I turned to catch it at its peak moment. Blackish-green, snot-grey soot fumin’ up into the evening. It curled upwards, thick and heavy, for a short minute before it brought up solid, hung there in mid-air for a second, then sank back down around itself. Even from that distance, over a mile away, the sheer size and immediacy of it frightened me. It didn’t belong. Like the time the big bull moose came down from the track and swam across the harbour. He looked so foreign in the water. Because he was. He didn’t belong there.

  Another blast of greenish smoke shot up through the middle of the cloud and I fancied I could feel a wave of heat brush my face. I’d only ever seen one on the TV before. A real mushroom cloud here in the Cove. Sweet Jesus.

  We wasted no time covering the mile between Gormon’s Hill and the Gut Pond. Down over the tops of the trees, through the bogs and streams, staggering and somersaulting down the side of the gravel pit, over across the beach and down to the slipway at the edge of the pond. Something to look at, something to do. The Cove needed a good fire. As we got closer we began to make out actual flames, smelled the sweet, spiced aroma of blazin’ evergreen. Then another mushroom cloud, this one only half as big and almost cute by comparison. The whole North Side of the Cove threatening to go up in flames.

  —That’s Keith now. Betcha any money.

  Bobby could hardly hold back his excitement but mine was rapidly givin’ over to panic to think on Keith burnin’ the whole town to the ground, spendin’ the rest of his teenage years at the b’ys home in Whitbourne, comin’ home ten times worse and full of stories. I imagined Keith standin’ back laughin’, watchin’ it all burn, smokin’ a cigarette and tossin’ matches at the blaze. Or maybe hidin’ out somewhere so’s to stay out of trouble, cursin’ himself and the wind?

  I knew it was Keith. Just as well as I knew he’d once again come out on top. And, as time passed, the tale would distort and garble into something heroic and somehow historic. For about a week Keith Kavanagh would be a household name from Bay Bulls to Trepassey. The story would get bigger and bulkier ‘til it just burned itself out
and was only ever mentioned in reference. But it’d be enough. Keith’s name turnin’ up in conversations in places he’d never been. Never havin’ to introduce himself to the young ones down the Shore. Never havin’ to buy a toke or a beer.

  I crossed my fingers and hoped for more wind. Let just one house catch fire on the North Side and then we’ll see what kind of a household name he’ll be. Let this be something that’d finally stick. Put the fear of God in him. Not like that time his mother brought him down to the cops in Ferryland and got him locked up for a couple of hours for smashin’ up that old truck down by the plant. That never done him shag all good. He got worse, if anything. Keith said the cop grabbed him by the collar, shoved him in a cell and slammed the door shut.

  —How would you like to spend the rest of your life in here, young man?

  Keith said he lay there on the bunk for two full hours and thought about cigarettes. Had to walk all the way home ’cause the cop wouldn’t give him a ride. Then he tried to get me feelin’ guilty about it ’cause he never mentioned my name at the station!

  —Why didn’t you tell on me sure, Keith? Think I couldn’t handle a jail cell and you can?

  A week later he robbed his father’s car and ran out of gas passin’ through La Manche Bottom. That was some uproar.

  The first time I met Keith we were barely five years old, splashin’ around in Slaughter’s Pond. The summer before we started kindergarten. I gave him a lend of my flippers and snorkel. A little while later he reared up behind me with a snarl and jumped on my back. The water was only up to my knees so when the weight of Keith landed on me, I fell forward and scrunched my face on the bottom. Split my lip open on a rock. Came up for air and the first thing I saw was my mother runnin’ towards me with her arms out to scoop me up and drag me to safety. I wiped my hand across my face. The sight of the blood on the backs of my fingers had me screechin’ straight away. My mother got a towel and held it to my lip. Someone handed me a green Popsicle so it wouldn’t swell up too much. Blood stained the Popsicle. I just sucked it off. Then a woman, the lady from the post office, shoved Keith in front of me. His mom.

  —Go on. Say you’re sorry.

  —But it was an accident.

  On the verge of tears himself.

  —It wasn’t an accident, Keith. An accident is something that you didn’t mean to do. Are you saying that you didn’t mean to jump on his back and push him down? How can that be an accident?

  —I never meant to make him bleed.

  —Well that was the result of your actions and now you have to say you’re sorry.

  He shook his head and stared defiantly out over the pond. His mom grabbed him by the arm and whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear. Then she shoved him back in front of me. He stood facin’ me with the meanest expression on his face, as if I’d been the one who bloodied him up and ruined his trip to the pond.

  —I’m sorry I pushed you down and made you bleed.

  Wouldn’t be the last time I heard him say that.

  My mother gave my lip another dab with the towel. It came back green.

  —Ah, sure it’s only a scratch, sweetheart. Go on out now and have another dip before the sun is gone.

  I looked at Keith. His eyes were fixed on my Popsicle. He looked up at his mom and she handed him the other half. We took off down to the water, pushin’ and splashin’ like long lost brothers.

  There was already a fine sized crowd gathered, lookin’ across to the scene of the fire on the other side. The fish plant was shut down, the offal hopper brought up short, droves of nosey, gossip-faced workers in aprons and fishy gloves, all gawks and tut-tuts at the sight of the flames on the other side of the pond.

  —That’s young Kavanagh up there now. Smokin’ cigarettes.

  —He was walkin’ over the road this afternoon with a piece of pipe in his hand and I says, ‘Keith, what in the name of Christ are you up to with that pipe?’ He looks at me and says, ‘Jimmy, you sees me goin’ over the road with a piece of pipe, you knows fuckin’ well I’m up to no good.’

  —Har Ha.

  Sirens screeched and wailed from all angles. The Forestry. Police. Fire trucks. Ambulance. A full-scale, big budget production at the drop of a match.

  But when the fire trucks showed up there was nowhere for them to go. They couldn’t very well drive up through the woods and cross the river to the other side of the Gut. The only way up is on foot. So a small group of plant workers who knew the area volunteered to join the firemen and the one forest ranger. Luggin’ buckets, old blankets, and a couple of hatchets, they made their way across the slipway towards the blaze. I looked around for Bobby and spotted him jumpin’ into the car with his older brother. Cops questioning bystanders.

  —Has anyone seen Keith Kavanagh?

  —Someone saw him earlier with a piece of pipe…

  —Go home, ye pigs! This is not yere business. It’s a little woods fire, not a goddamn murder.

  —He’s one of them, watcha call it, py-ro-maniacs.

  —He’s a little firebug!

  —Keith Kavanagh is in St. John’s to the doctor, officer.

  —Keith’s gone out to the trap with Martin Sweeny.

  —He’s up there in them woods somewhere, watchin’ all this. Lock him up if ye catches him. We’ll all be burnt in our beds some night.

  Another burst of black smoke and flame rises up out of the woods. A cop beckons me over to his car. I pretends I don’t see him. He calls out to me:

  —You there! Young man!

  I turns back towards Gormon’s Hill and I hears him calling:

  —Over this way! You there!

  I sets my eyes on the edge of the woods and starts walkin’. I’ll never live it down if I’m seen talkin’ to the cops. Not on this day. Not any day. The best bit of advice my old man gave me was to never ever talk to the cops. He said if ever I finds myself in a position where I absolutely have to talk to ’em, tell ’em lies. Anyway, no matter what I might say in Keith’s defence, it’ll only be remembered that I spoke to the cops the evening of the big fire. There’ll be a racket some evening over a game of road hockey and someone’s guaranteed to shout RATBAG! And that’ll be it. Shag the cops. I don’t know nothin’ anyhow. Shag Keith too.

  As I’m comin’ off the edge of the gravel where the bog begins, the cop is pullin’ into the pit behind me. Lord fuck. Of all the crowd down around the plant, he has to zero in on me. I puts my head down and keeps walkin’. I glances back to see him steppin’ out of his car. He’s scratchin’ in a notebook. I breaks out across the bog and hurls myself up over Art Ryan’s wire fence. The cop is yellin’ at me to stop now but I’m off like a rabbit on a first frost. No fuckin’ cop is catchin’ me. I runs ’til my face is poundin’, adrenaline and fear pushin’ me on. Then my foot snags in a bit of upturned root and I goes face and eyes into the bog. One arm sinks clear to the elbow in the thick, black, stinkin’ muck and I have to pull hard to get it back out. I gets back to my feet and makes a mad dash to the edge of the woods. I climbs the bank ’til I finds the secret path leadin’ straight up the middle of Gormon’s Hill. Me and Keith cut it out last year and blocked off the entrance with an old dead Sally tree. You gotta climb over the tree to hit the path, but when you do it’s all easy walkin’. Wicked for a game of prisoners.

  I climbs up onto the tree and looks back towards the gravel pit. From this height I have a safe look at the cop. He’s standin’ outside his car gabbin’ into his two-way radio. He’s scannin’ the woods but I knows he can’t see me. Then, top of his lungs, Keith shouts:

  —Fuck you, copper! Chew me goddamn nuts!

  I gets such a fright I falls off the old tree onto the path behind it. Keith is peekin’ out through the spy-hole, laughin’ and smokin’, takin’ it all in. He looks me up and down, my chest heavin’ to burst, my clothes blackened and drenched with bog. He hands me the butt of his smoke.

  —Calm down a bit, Andy b’y. Where’s the fuckin’ fire?

  I
snaps. Can’t stand the look of ’im and I drives the lit cigarette into his chin with the full force of my fist, burnin’ my knuckles in the process. An explosion of sparks and oaths from Keith as we hits the ground rollin’. Knees and elbows colliding with ribs and balls. Heads crackin’ together hard with spite. Keith giggling under his breath, delighted to be fightin’ with someone. For all my anger though, I can’t last long after all the runnin’ around. We separates and rolls onto our backs, all-in, and I notices that his eyebrows are gone, his hair singed back flat to his head. His new hockey jacket burnt and crispy, hangin’ on a branch nearby, still smokin’. The bottoms of his jeans are burnt through and there’s a bright red patch of skin showin’ through his sock. He looks like he’s come through hell. I gets a bit overwhelmed with the guilt for havin’ wanted him to get caught. He could’ve been killed. He could have stopped being alive. And they says fire is one of the worst ways to go. I pictured him burnin’ alive, his flamin’ body runnin’ deeper into the woods and catchin’ everything else ablaze, his last thought some foggy scene from his primary school days he hasn’t remembered for years. We lies there for a minute, pantin’ like spent dogs.

  Keith lights another cigarette. The air is thick with the smell of burnin’ woods but it’s hard to say if it’s comin’ from the site of the fire or if it’s off Keith. His lip is bleedin’. He hands me the cigarette, the butt soaked with his blood. It squishes and caves in when I takes a draw.

  —Never meant to hit you, Keith. I was just pissed off.

  He props himself up on his elbow, this grim, worried look on his face.

  —You gotta come home with me, Andy. I’ll be shot. Everyone’s gonna think it was me.

  3. Halfway to the Devil’s Kitchen

  It was my mother I finally went to. Of course. She nodded in all the right places and when I was done bawlin’ she just stood there starin’ at me. For a brief second I fully expected, wanted, desperately needed her to wrap her arms around me and love me, lighten me and make it all go away. But she didn’t. She carried on foldin’ the sheets and said: