—You deal with him then, and we’ll be done with it. He’s cleanin’ up that mess before he goes too. And ask him about Becky’s little cat.
She leads me over to the couch and sits me down, goes into the laundry room and comes back with a first aid kit. She washes my cheek with an alcohol pad.
—Who were you fighting with? The cops were here.
—I wasn…fighdin…I was—
—My God, you’re loaded drunk. On a school night, Keith? You were told last time about this. Stan wants you gone. He don’t trust you.
—What?
She takes out a patch of gauze and tapes it over my eye. Goes to work on my lip with a cotton swab.
—…and Natasha won’t talk to us anymore. We lays down rules and no one listens. I found an ashtray under her bed this morning. She doesn’t smoke. I can only assume it was you—
—I’m not—
—Why is it so hard for her to sit down and have a conversation? Tell us where she’s going or what’s going on in her life? I asked her what time she was coming home and she flew right off the head at me. Like I’m some kind of animal.
Her expression is pained and her eyes well up.
—What am I doing so wrong that my own daughter won’t sit down and talk to me without cursing and swearing and—
—Maybe she’s not fit.
—Pardon me?
She stops cleanin’ my lip. Stands back and looks at me. Looks at the bloody cloth in her hand as if she’s just now realizing that I’m not one of her own.
—What did you say?
—Mentally I mean—
—Mentally? You’re going to look me in the face, with that face, and tell me my daughter’s not mentally fit to talk to?
—I don’t mean—
—Go.
—I didn’t mean—
—Go. Get out of my sight. Get out of my house. We’re not having a live-in boyfriend. Nor a thief. God knows what you’re fillin’ Natasha’s head with.
—Where’m I gonna go to?
—I don’t care where you goes, but if you don’t go now, I’m gettin’ Stan.
She can’t be fuckin’ serious? This can’t be happening. She walks back up over the basement steps. I hears her cross the kitchen floor. She hollers at the old man. He’ll be down soon to have a go at me.
What in the fuck did I have to go and say that for?
I coulda just gone to bed out of it.
I was only tryin’ to say…ah fuck it. Fuck it.
Headlights comin’ my way as I’m walkin’ out the road from Natasha’s. I jumps into the ditch and squats behind an alder. It’s the cops. Jesus. They pulls in at Natasha’s. This is bad. I racks my brain to remember if I’ve done anything illegal. No. Not that I knows of. I’ve been playin’ it pretty straight this past few weeks. Maybe it’s about Francey’s seatbelt? Or the pocketknife? Or the old man might have called ’em when I showed up. He’s like that. I watches him come onto the front porch to meet the cop car. He gestures down the road towards me. I moves further into the woods. Christ, I’ve spent half the day in the woods. The cops swings their car around and crawls down the road with their big spotlight shinin’ back and forth. I lies down flat and seconds later the light passes over me. They creeps along for a bit, then picks up a bit of speed, and they’re gone. I lets out a breath I never even knew I was holdin’. I rolls down out of the woods into the drain and claws my way back onto the road, the whole time with my eyes on the taillights of their car. They pulls off at the end of the Point and carries on past the old graveyard. Fuck.
I can’t go home. I can’t. Sure the last time I laid eyes on my father I took a smack at him. I came home from school that evening and Mom scarcely missed my head with my ghetto blaster. She was up in my room with the window open, tossin’ all my shit onto the balcony below. Tapes, books, clothes, posters tore in half and balled up. My stereo didn’t break, but when she came downstairs to greet me, I showed her how it was done. I jumped it and stomped it and kicked it and smashed it into the ground while she stood watchin’. I had no idea what it was all about, if I had a defence or an alibi or what the fuck was going on. But I figured it was bad. Turns out it was all over a pair of binoculars. How the fuck was I supposed to know they belonged to her father? They didn’t look antique to me. What do she want with a pair of binoculars? Lookin’ around. What’s goin’ on over at the Sweenys’ this evening I wonder? That’s perverted if you asks me. Anyhow, I sold the fuckin’ things in Tors Cove one night for forty bucks and I honestly thought I was rippin’ the guy off. I told Mom I’d get her the money back. She told me to go and not to come back. So I left for a while. Waited ’til about ten o’clock before I went back. Her and Father were sittin’ in the kitchen. The rest of my shit was jammed into garbage bags. They gave me a choice: I could either seriously change my ways, live there under a new trial basis where if I screwed up once more I was gone for good, or I could just go now and find some other place to live. I still thought it was all a bit much for a fuckin’ old pair of binoculars. So I said as much, grabbed a couple of garbage bags and went for the door. My mother lost her head.
—You can go out and give blowjobs to old men, sell drugs, rob the gas station. But the first time I hears tell of anything, I’m goin’ straight to the cops.
She took the rest of the bags and threw ’em out on the ground. I told her to go fuck herself. That’s when Father shoved me off the step. I jumped up and made a run at him. Mom took off into the house and he backed in behind the door, slammin’ it just as I would’ve hooked him in the face. My fist made full contact with the door and afterwards I found out my knuckle was broke. But the look on Dad’s face was the worst. An expression somewhere between fear and…empathy. An expression I never expected or wanted to see on my father’s face. A lot of bad shit, a lot worse than that, has gone down over the years. But something felt different this time. A line had been crossed and I knew there was no going back. I wish I’d just turned and walked away without runnin’ at him like that. That’s no way to be carryin’ on with your father. It had nothing to do with him. He didn’t care about the goddamn binoculars. He was just following orders.
I took a few things from one of the garbage bags, went over and lay down in his truck for the night. But I couldn’t get comfortable. All I saw when I closed my eyes was his face through the glass as I struck the door. I think I bawled. I managed to get to sleep for a couple of hours, but I got out of the truck before he went to work the next morning. I stood up on the bank overlooking our lane as he made his way to the truck. He got in, started her up, then put his head down on the steering wheel. I figured he must only be tired, that he never got enough sleep.
I wonder if I should go back to Gerald’s and crash on the couch? He’s probably after drainin’ the rest of my beer, passed out at the table. He won’t remember fallin’ out with me. Or I could swing by and see if Andy’s home. No. Me and Andy are after driftin’ apart these days. All he minds is his fuckin’ hockey. And I think he’s shaggin’ around with some young one from up the Shore.
Fuck.
I can’t go home.
The rain is pickin’ up again. The church is my best bet for now. Surely the Good Lord will have me. Keep me dry for a while. I’ll figure out what to do in the morning. I picks up the pace, not feelin’ so lopsided now that I got a place to go.
We spent a fair lot of time arsin’ around in the church when we were growin’ up. Runnin’ up and down the aisles, jumpin’ over pews, climbin’ down from the choir like monkeys, bangin’ on the organ. I even had Shannon Kelly on the go in there one night. We drank what wine we could find. One time myself and Bobby O’Neill went in and swiped every hymnbook from every pew, lugged ’em down to the beach and burnt the works in a bonfire. There was some uproar over that.
It’s rainin’ good and hard again now. Lightning flashes in the mouth of the bay. I scurries up the church steps only to find the door locked. Surprise. I probably would’ve been too creeped out
to go to sleep in there anyhow. Still, who the fuck do they think they are to go barrin’ people out of the goddamn church?
I sits down on the steps and tries to think.
My face is poundin’. My arms and legs are stiff and bruised, my feet hot and itchy in my army boots. Soaked to the bone. My cigarettes too damp to smoke. I’m all-in. I lies back, closes my eyes and lets the rain beat down on me.
A dull pain in my armpits as a pair of leather hands jerks me to my feet. I smells cinnamon. My heels clunkin’ down the church steps, draggin’ through the mud of the parking lot. Pain in my head like a knife stuck on the inside tryin’ to stab its way out. The squelch and bleep of a two-way radio. The world turns blue, then red. Blue. Red. Then a steady gust of dry, hot air blankets my body. I’ve died and gone to heaven. A brief surge of alarm penetrates my new-found bliss as I hears the words:
—We got him. We’re bringing him in.
Then darkness…
They releases me the next morning, after makin’ me sign a dozen fuckin’ papers and askin’ me a ton of questions about Gerald Careen and Francey O’Dea. Even though it’s nowhere near true, I tells ’em that Francey supplies half the Shore.
I’m being charged with break-and-enter and theft under a thousand dollars. My court date’s in two months. On top of that, they’re tellin’ me I’m s’posed to come back to the station every Friday to sign my name. Christ. All over Harold Reddigan’s maggoty old duffle bag. What fuckin’ next?
Steam rises up off the cold, wet road ahead of me. At least the sun is shinin’. Looks like it’s gonna be a dandy day. I have no idea why I’m headin’ back towards the Cove. There’s nothing there for me no more. Never was. Sure even if I wanted to stick around and there was a bit of work on the go, who the hell is gonna hire me? I don’t even have a place to go lie down for fuck sakes. I s’pose I’m after pissin’ too many people off over the years.
Fuck ’em.
I checks my pockets, counts out a little over eighty bucks. I got a few places to crash in St. John’s. Eighty bucks might do me for a couple of nights. I’ll figure things out from there. I crosses to the other side of the road and starts thumbin’ towards the city. There’s lots of early morning traffic. Most people just slows and stares at me like I’m some kind of fiend. The rest speeds up and pretends they don’t see me. I resigns myself to a long walk. People still slows and stares. Twenty minutes of this by the time some human being pulls over and stops up ahead of me. I keeps my head down and tries to collect myself as I runs towards the vehicle. I’m in no mood to talk to no one, but, if they’re going right to St. John’s, it’s a good hour and a half drive. So I’ll have to be halfway civilized.
My head is in such a mess that I’m already sittin’ in the cab of the truck by the time I realizes what I’ve gotten myself into. Father’s truck, Father at the wheel. On his way to St. John’s. It’s gonna be a long, long ride.
9. One Last Second Chance
Look at him, shovelling it aboard himself like a savage. That vicious scowl on his face. Swear he never saw a bit of ground beef in his life. Get it in you, b’y. Don’t choke. My God. Dogs eats like that. It’s in their blood. I saw it on Discovery last month. Goes back to before they were domesticated, when they ran in packs. Barely chewin’, afraid they won’t get enough. But sure it’s only me here. I got my own plate. I’m hardly gonna leap across the table and grapple him to the floor for his share.
We’re here two weeks now. Not much light gets in, but it’s a nice little apartment. Decent area. Lots of trees. Twenty-four-hour shop just up the road. Walkin’ distance to the university. Suits me. Keith had his heart set on a spot downtown, but I talked him out of it. I’m after hearin’ too many stories of people gettin’ sucked into that scene. Plus he’s on a court order, not allowed to possess or consume alcohol, and so I figured the last thing we needed was pubs and clubs on all sides.
A few months back he wandered into the Reddigans’ place on the South Side of the Cove and made off with a duffle bag and a short-wave radio. Stupid. He was cockeyed. The cops found the bag at Gerald Careen’s place, but the radio never turned up. Keith swore in court he knew nothing about the radio. But, I don’t know, sounds like something he’d rob. Anyhow, there was a load of break and enters goin’ on at the time, the high school in Ferryland and the gas station in Fermeuse. The cops were comin’ down hard on everyone. They gave him a year’s probation with all kinds of retarded regulations: the alcohol thing, no non-prescription drugs, sign in at the station every Friday, no hangin’ around with anyone with a criminal record. Half the Shore’s got a criminal record for God sakes.
They made him go see a counsellor too. A place in St. John’s called the Second Chance Society. How cheesy is that? Anyhow, I started drivin’ him into town in Mom’s car every Friday after he checked in at the station in Ferryland. When I picked him up after his first meeting with the Second Chance crowd, he was in seventh heaven, goin’ on about how he finally found someone who could relate to him, someone to trust, someone who actually understood what he was goin’ through. But that’s Keith for you, always havin’ to lug around the heaviest burden. No one else knows what it’s like and all that.
But, to be honest, I was excited for him myself. Long time since I’d seen him so energized. He’d been mopin’ around since his court date, mumbling and depressed. No interest in doin’ anything with me. Wanted to be off by himself, readin’ books about vampires and listenin’ to The Doors. I was at my wit’s end.
On the way back to the Cove after that first visit, he broke down screechin’. Right out of the blue. He’d been goin’ on and on about this counsellor guy he was talkin’ to, how easy it was to open up to him, then in mid-sentence he started wailin’ and howlin’. Frightened the life out of me. I’d seen him shed a few tears in the past, but never like that. It wasn’t the regular old what-am-I-gonna-do-I’m-so-fucked-up kind of cryin’, but more or less this huge outburst of, well, liberation. Guttural sobs. Nice to see him with his guard down for a change. I pulled in on the side of the road just past Tors Cove and let him cry in my arms for a while. Maybe things were gonna start lookin’ up.
And they did. I’d drop Keith off at Second Chance on Friday evenings and he’d come skippin’ back to the car an hour later. And he was that much easier to talk to. My God. He opened right up. All his doubts and worries about his livin’ situation, his future. Our future. It was new ground for me. For the most part I figured he just lived from day to day, not carin’ how the world saw him or where he was gonna be in five or six years down the road. So it was nice to know that he included me in his plans. It made it easier to move forward in my own life, knowin’ I had him with me. He even broke down and confessed to sleepin’ with my cousin Margaret at a Christmas party in Aquaforte. Said the guilt was tearin’ him up and he didn’t want them kinds of things between us. We had a fine-sized row over it, but, in the end, I was glad he came out with it. I resolved to move past it. If he was willin’ to wipe the slate clean, then so was I. Things were lookin’ up.
Reverend-Doctor Shane Adams. That was his name, the guy Keith was assigned to, the head honcho at the Second Chance Society. He supposedly had lots of pull in the courts, counselled inmates down at the Pen and everything. He came out to meet me after Keith’s fourth or fifth session. Nice bit of gear he was too. Early thirties. Wicked shape. Pale blue eyes and an easy smile. I could tell right away there was something about him, like a glow. He had this fire in his eyes, this infectious energy that made me want to just jump out of the car and break down bawlin’ in his arms. Take me! Take me! I needs a second chance too! I don’t know, maybe I was a bit jealous.
As Keith was about to get in the car, Adams walked over to him with his arms held open for a hug. Keith wouldn’t. They shook hands instead. Keith had told me that was the one thing he wasn’t so struck on. At the end of every session, Adams’d spread his arms out as an invite for a hug, like it was some kind of test to see if Keith had made any real progre
ss. Or maybe a trust thing. Sure, me and Keith are goin’ on three years together and it still drains me to coax a hug out of him. But I thought it was a bit odd, Adams puttin’ Keith on the spot like that, right in front of me. It didn’t seem appropriate.
Keith wasn’t near as enthusiastic about that particular session. He hardly opened his mouth. I wasn’t gonna push it. But by the time we got past Kilbride and he still hadn’t said nothing about it, the tension was drivin’ me cracked.
—So?
—So what?
—So how did it all go?
—You don’t want to know, girl.
We drove on in silence for a while, him wolfin’ back the last of my cigarettes. Bruce Springsteen came on the radio and I turned it up on bust. Thought that might cheer him up a bit. Halfway through the song he turned it off.
—All he wanted to know about was sex.
—Like your sex life? Keith, you didn’t talk about me?
—No. He wanted everything but. It was fuckin’ creepy. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on what he was doin’ to me. Like, he got this way of askin’ questions—
—Well that’s what they does. I mean, he is a psychologist—
—No. It’s different. It was like he was tryin’ to mesmerize me. Like he was takin’ me places against my will. Had me sinkin’ deeper and deeper into the past. Little details I never thought about for years. And I was tryin’ to keep my wits about myself, but he kept askin’ why and how and how did that make you feel. And the questions were comin’ out of him so fast that I barely had a chance to think about what I was sayin’. And before I knew it, I was down in the lower meadow playin’ dicky-birds and shit.
—Oh.
—Yeah. And it was like he got right off on it. It was right fuckin’ weird. He didn’t want to know about girls or what women I went out with or how things are with you. He wanted to know about things I did when I was little.
Down to the Dirt Page 10