Down to the Dirt

by Joel Thomas Hynes

  She knew but she wouldn’t say. Grizzly old bitty.

  —No, and I don’t know how to get in touch with her either. Come back tomorrow. During the day.

  Well, at least I was invited back. She went to close the door but stopped long enough to witness me fallin’ backwards off the step and givin’ my head a good crack on the sidewalk. She peeked out at me. I could see the pity motherin’ up in her eyes. I s’pose she was seein’ me as one of them fuckin’ underprivileged youngsters she worked with. Enough to turn your goddamn guts. Sure I never came lookin’ for nothing off her. I’d sooner sleep in pig slop than lay my head down in her house.

  —I’ll tell Natasha you’re in town if she calls.

  She shut the door and locked it.

  Well, fancy me, sprawled off on a Halifax sidewalk with no money and no place to sleep. Miserable old bag. What am I, some kind of leper? Havin’ to roam around for a place to sleep. Imagine.

  I lurched up and down the street lookin’ for a decent place to lay my head. Some place discreet. I finally sat down in an alleyway just up from Gertie’s house. I watched two cats fuckin’ for a while. The old tomcat doing the pushin’ was all black except for his two white hind paws. Got me thinkin’ about Metal-Head screwin’ missus with his boots on. Made me feel a little lonesome. People all over the world, curled up with their lovers in beds and on couches and poor old Keith got no one ’cause he’s too fucked up to hang on to anyone. Fuck. The cats finished up with a howl and a shudder, then took off in separate directions. Just the way love should be. No bullshit. Once the cats were gone I felt really alone.

  Crouched in a shitty alleyway.

  Halifax.

  Lord dyin’ Christ.

  It had to be love. There certainly seemed to be no logical way to explain it. Love is the most illogical force on the face of this planet. Love is a lie someone made up a long time ago that everyone fell for. I fell for it. But Natasha was worth all this to me. Yeah. I tried to convince myself that I was only jumpin’ to conclusions. Maybe she really was just off to a friend’s house. A girlfriend. Natasha. Love. They’d find me dead in this piss-ridden alleyway and Gertie’d curse herself and her cold notions. Natasha’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of her days. Might even make the papers. Newfoundlander Abroad Dies In Search of Love.

  I could hear ’em already, all the old bags back home in the Cove.

  —Jesus Christ, couldn’t she let the poor young fella sleep on the couch? Sure she could have given him an old blanket or something. Not twenty feet from her house and he froze to death. Imagine. Knees hugged right tight to his chest and they nearly needed the Jaws of Life to straighten him out to send him home. Imagine his poor mother. God love him. I remembers the lovely speech he wrote in Grade Eight. I don’t know why he went the way he did. Must be the drugs and the booze, but that’s hardly his own fault. Sure once that stuff gets ahold of you you’re as good as gone no matter where you lays your head. Poor lost soul. What’s the world comin’ to at all?

  Now this is the self-pitying garbage sloshin’ through my head as I’m suckin’ on the bottle of Jim Beam, which is growin’ on me, considering the circumstances. Keith, says I to me, who twisted your arm tonight? Airport security? And I mean, how can I blame Gertie? I wouldn’t let the likes of me in at two in the goddamn morning either. A fine sight I must be, on the booze this week without a shave or a shower. I could be home in bed now, curled up with the cat, readin’ my book and havin’ a smoke. Beer for breakfast.

  Some shithead stops at the mouth of the alley and has a good gawk in at me, his big white sneaker-boots the only thing I can clearly make out. Sneaker boots? Fuck sakes, they’re all the rage in Halifax. And they says Newfoundlanders are behind the times? A car passes up the road and I gets a brief glimpse of the shithead’s dodgy beard. My heart goes up in my throat. Is that Renny? Jesus. Could very well be. Tracked me down and hungry for violence. Knowin’ full well I just had my dick in his wife’s mouth. But I was a payin’ customer! My hand grips the handle of the gun. Renny’s gun. My gun. I’ve got a gun in my hand. I’m about to pull it out of my inside pocket and point it when the shithead steps into the light. It’s not Renny, just some poor, drunken scrap lookin’ for his own place to crash. I lets go of the gun and stands up to face him. My alley.

  —Have I got something on belong to you, buddy? Well, what the fuck are ya lookin’ at?

  Shithead mumbles and totters back into the street. Wise fuckin’ move too. I slumps against the wall and slides back down the ground.

  I s’pose this is the place where I’m expected to just kick off and die? All heart-broke and defeated? Well, fuck that. It’ll take more than a bit a cold weather to put Keith Kavanagh in the ground. The way I sees it, if you’re gonna kick the bucket, you gotta kick it good and fuckin’ hard. Smash it in bits with your big steel-toes and be fucked to the lot of ’em. Don’t think I’m gonna fester and bloat like some strung-out old boozehound. Sure I’ve been two hundred miles offshore for two weeks at a time. Draggin’ scallop in ragin’ sadistic sub-zero winds, compliments of the devil himself. Tied on by the ankle, geared up in a big old floater-suit tryin’ to haul up an old Digby deathtrap in the pitch black. Monstrous black waves swampin’ across the deck, nothing left to do but wait. Wait to see if we sank to the bottom. Completely and utterly at the mercy of the merciless North Atlantic. Three or four of us tied on so’s if we were tossed overboard, no one would have to go in after us. Just grab ahold of the rope and haul you back on deck. If the boat went down, I was goin’ down with her, not havin’ done one fuckin’ worthwhile thing to be remembered by. And, assuming my body ever turned up, it’d be found draped in slimy secondhand oilskins, and they’d say:

  —Oh. He must have worked for Black Diamond.

  Drenched to the bone and freezin’, I was exhausted and resigned to die. My whole life would mean nothing, would have been lived to reach that end. Half a dozen of the hefty older fishermen on board, men on the water all their lives, jabbering out the rosary. And I doubt it made fuck all difference, the rosary, but we made it. We made it. Got home and got drunk and got tattooed, blew every red cent. So the way I sees it, if I wasn’t taken back then, I’ll more than likely live through a cold night in Halifax.

  There’s a fine racket comin’ from the street. A herd of drunken muscle-heads wrestling their way past my alley. Could be trouble. But I’m too far back in the dark for them to notice me. I listens to ’em whoop their way down the sidewalk. Wise move, motherfuckers.

  I huddles up in some sour corner, drinks some more whiskey, and slowly shivers myself to sleep.

  I wakes up a lot throughout the course of the night, baffled and bitter, thoughts of Natasha runnin’ through my mind. I slips in and out of my dream about the Grotto. I’d give anything to be hunkered down in the Grotto. I’d face it.

  Sometime after dawn I heaves up my guts. My pants are soaked on the inside and my arse and feet are numb. It takes me a minute to realize where I am. Sweet bald-headed Jesus. What have I done? Horror and paranoia soon turns to selfloathing, which inevitably turns to disgust towards every livin’ soul on this planet. Cocksuckers. Juliet Carey. For the love of Jesus. Renny. You stupid fucker. Gertie.

  I gets up and takes a piss and a stretch and a good long swallow of Mr. Jim. That clears up the old noggin. From the end of the alley I can see Gertie’s house. So it’s just a matter of time before I sees Natasha. I makes myself comfortable with my bottle. I don’t have no matches so I bums a light off every second person that passes on the street. A fine sight I must be. A group of young ones have a laugh at me like I’m some old bum. Which I s’pose I am. After about an hour of this I manages to trade a pack of Player’s for a nice black Bic lighter. My favourite. Dandy. Fuck the lot of ’em now. No life at Natasha’s place yet, so I just shifts from one foot to the other, and drinks.

  Then I remembers the Nevada tickets and I whips ’em out all excited. Nope. Nope. Nope. Cherries! Lemons! Nope. Nope. Nope. I goes thro
ugh the whole stack and all I comes out of it with is a free ticket and five bucks. And that’s why I never gambles, ’cause I’m always left holdin’ the shitty end of the stick. Even though I knows it’s useless and stupid to try and cash the tickets in somewhere, I can’t bring myself to throw ’em away. At least it passed a bit of time. So does the whiskey. Soon I’m loaded again.

  It’s gettin’ cold so I goes back in to the end of the alley to sit down out of the wind. I pulls a greasy cardboard box out of the dumpster and sets it on the ground to sit on so’s my arse won’t get so numb. I keeps on drinkin’ ’til my head starts to feel so heavy that I decides to grab a quick wink to pass the time. First I roots around in the dumpster for another box, which I pulls around myself to block the cold. With my backpack for a lumpy pillow, I drifts off to sleep. This time more soundly.

  I dreams Natasha is standin’ over me. Her hair is brushin’ my face and it’s the nicest thing I’ve smelled in a long time. It’s the old Natasha. The Natasha I fell in love with. The one with long, careless blonde hair and the army boots. Not the new Natasha with the designer jeans and them flimsy new-age fake-leather fuckin’ George Street shoes. She’s strokin’ my face, smilin’ and callin’ my name.

  —Keith. KEITH! Get the frig up!

  I’m yanked out of my sleep to find that she really is here in front of me. I tries to stand up but I trips out over the cardboard box that I’m wrapped up in. When I hits the ground I gets the sickly-sweet stench of regurgitated booze off the ground and this causes me to wretch, and wretch again ’til I’m heavin’ and chokin’ to beat the band. Nothing comin’ out of me only the raw liquor. It burns my throat and runs out my nose and my eyes are stingin’ and watering. Can’t breathe right.

  I feels her hands in my hair and I wants to scream in her face. I wants to whisper in her ear and I wants to tell her everything and I wants to not have to say anything, or say exactly the right thing, ’cause I never meant to be so drunk and I’m not drunk, I’m just sick ’cause I missed her and I still loves her so goddamn much and she’s my little girl and I’ve come through all this just to lay eyes on her and please, please don’t make me explain it all over again. Please just come home now.

  But Mr. Jim Beam has his own plans for what comes out of my mouth this fine morning.

  —You cunt-face. I nearly froze to death last night and you were—

  Someone else is with her.

  He’s holdin’ her hand.

  He’s got a tongue.

  —Listen up, Keith. I can’t have you talking to Natasha like that. Watch yourself.

  Watch yourself? Now what the fuck is this? I wipes the vomit off my mouth and tries to stand up. Arms reach out for me but I pulls away. I gets my hand against the wall for balance and manages to half-lean, half-stand against it. They’re not holdin’ hands now. But they were. I saw it.

  —Hello, Little Red Riding Hood. Not happy to see me? Who’s your friend?

  I makes a lunge at buddy, but I’m so badly off balance that he don’t even know I was aimin’ for him. I staggers and falls and cracks my head off the other wall, but I don’t stay down. I’m up now. And I’m sober.

  —You’re in my fuckin’ bedroom, you know. Know that, Mr. Fuckin’ Cock Rock?

  I’m gonna rip his Jesus throat out. I’m gonna shove my fingers up his nostrils and ram his head off the concrete wall ’til shit runs down his leg.

  I takes another step towards him and trips in my own boot. Fuck. Natasha reaches out to steady me and I lets her. Her hand on my arm feels real.

  —Keith, listen, what’s going on? You’re after scaring the life out of Auntie Gert. She didn’t want you back at the house because she’s afraid of you. She watched you come in here last night. I didn’t know but I’d find you dead. I was afraid to come alone. This is Mitch. He’s a friend. You’re after screwing up this time. Look at yourself for frig sakes.

  For frig sakes. How grand is she after gettin’ at all?

  —You were holdin’ his hand, ’Tash. How fuckin’ friendly are ye? How stupid do you think I am?

  —I was not holding his hand. You’re seeing what you want to see now. So wrapped up in yourself that you have me pinned down as a slut or something just because everything isn’t going your way. I haven’t been seeing anyone up here. I’ve been looking for work.

  She’s fuckin’ him. I can feel it in my bones.

  —Gertie told me you stayed at his house last night.

  —She said nothing of the sort, so don’t lie. I stayed at Jenny’s house. Remember Jenny? If you’d get past yourself for a second and listen to what someone else might have to say you wouldn’t be in this mess now. Would you?

  This sounds half-reasonable, like half of me wants to believe it so there don’t have to be a big racket, but I ain’t swallowing it. Not right away. If it don’t smell right, don’t put it in your mouth. If it don’t taste right, don’t fuckin’ swallow it. I knows this girl. She can be pretty goddamn cute when it comes to covering her own tracks.

  —So here I am then, Natasha. A bit hungover, but I’m not dead. Might wish I was dead but that’s something else altogether. Nothing to be afraid of. It’s just me. I’m not lookin’ to hurt no one. I just wants to talk is all.

  I looks across at Mr. Mitch, but he won’t make eye contact. He’s not so fuckin’ big. He looks a bit nervous and I wouldn’t blame him in the least. He’s got on his good jeans too. He could get his head split open. Then I remembers the gun. I reaches into my pocket to feel the handle. If I pulled it out and stuck it in his face, he’d shit himself, and so would Natasha, and it’d be something neither one of us would ever forget for the rest of our lives. Then I looks at Natasha and her hair is all flippin’ around with the wind and I knows that somewhere in there she’s the same girl she always was. Way back when. Sure I can’t hurt her, not like that. Besides, it’d probably be a ton of paperwork if the fuckin’ gun went off.

  —Mitch, why don’t you mind your own business and fuck off out of it?

  He takes a step towards me and I watches his fist tighten up. His right fist. That’s the one that’s comin’. I readies myself for a good brawl. Natasha gets in between us and pushes him back.

  —Why don’t the two of you grow up? God. Look, Mitch, can you just give us a minute?

  He gives Natasha this intimate concerned-for-your-personal-safety look. She walks him out to the mouth of the alley, tells him she’ll catch up with him later. Like fuck she will. I offers him a shrug and a little grin. He looks back and forth between myself and ’Tash, then sulks out to the road and disappears. Sure I didn’t need no gun to take that nancy-faced bastard to the ground.

  So. We’re here. At long last. Face to face in a filthy alleyway in Halifax City. It’s come down to this. I had this chunky notion floatin’ around in my head that things’d be much grander than this, that this was more than anything anyone’s ever done out of love for her. I’ve travelled a thousand miles to see her face and this is what love is all about. But no. None of that. The Big Bad Wolf is after trackin’ ’er down. I s’pose Andy was right with his talk about there not bein’ no romance to it all. He got a decent head on his shoulders for all his bullshit.

  —Keith, before you start, I don’t want to hear it. I have enough money here for you to take the twelve o’clock bus to North Sydney and fare for the ferry as well. There’s a bit here for food, but not much, so I hope you got cigarettes. I’m right to assume that you’re flat broke?

  —Don’t be talkin’ so fuckin’ grand, girl. It’s only me.

  —Keith—

  —Are you sleepin’ with him, ’Tash? Tell me the truth.

  —Keith, I told you, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear about another one of your big neurotic adventures, about how you almost froze to death. You’re here now. You got what you wanted. Alright? You caused your big scene. Now you’re gettin’ on that bus supposing I have to knock you out and put you on it!

  I laughs at this and takes a big suc
k out of my Jim Beam. She belts it out of my hand, bangin’ the rim of the bottle hard off my teeth. It bounces off the wall but it don’t break. Most of what’s left seeps down through the cracks in the concrete. Tragic. I picks it up and finishes it off, this time out of range of her barbarism. I smashes the bottle myself when I’m done. I loves that dramatic shit.

  —Holdin’ his fuckin’ hand, strollin’ up the road like you knew him all your life. That’s what I saw. And you were with him the last time you called me.

  She tries to reply but I don’t let her. I’ve come this far and I’m gonna have my say.

  —Half of me felt so stunned you know, ’Tash. I hoped I was just bein’ paranoid, that it was all in my head, that I was just bein’ irrational. But it was my gut, the other half. And my gut is always right. Something to trust. Oh, but you don’t care about this shit. I’m just an inconvenience now. I ruined your day is all.

  She pushes the money into my hand and yawns in my face.

  —Keith, listen for a second—

  —I won’t! I just slept here in this fuckin’ shit and I’m gonna have my say. All you tells is lies anyhow…I got a blowjob off a prostitute last night.

  She just smiles and nods like I’m makin’ it up to hurt her. Like she knows me or something. She don’t fuckin’ know me.

  —I did, Natasha. Best blowjob I ever had. Unless you counts your lovely cousin Margaret.

  She puts her head down, brings it back up poker-faced. I s’pose I shouldn’t have said that last bit.

  —’Tash, I’m sorry. I’m just pissed off—

  She pulls an envelope out of her inside pocket.

  —Keith, this is a one-way ticket home. I bought it last week. I was coming home this Tuesday night. Do you have any idea how hard it was not to tell you? Bawling in my ear like a youngster. Accusing me of sleeping around on you. Cutting yourself up. Now, what was I thinking to want to come home to you? I hate it up here and I missed you. I told you that from day one. Theatre sucks and so does the nightlife. But now I’m thinking I’m probably a lot better off up here than I would be in that grimy little hovel with you. So, we’re going to the bus station and you’re gettin’ on the bus and going home.