The Glass Harmonica

by Russell Wangersky

  But the chickadees didn’t come, the chickadees won’t ever come, because on the 17th of August, while I was getting my prescriptions filled—I have four regular prescriptions, all properly given on my doctor’s advice, a diuretic and a heart drug and two for blood pressure—lying Chris Wheeler and his friends came into my yard and ripped all of my sunflowers out by the roots, and they must have run around the yard swinging them at each other, because when I got home, the sunflowers were strewn all around the yard and the stalks of the flowers were so battered that they were limp like old green rope. And the sight was so shocking that I sat down in my yard, I sat down right there in my yard, and it was all I could do to keep from crying. I know my hands were in front of my face, because I remember seeing it all through the frame of my fingers. And wouldn’t Chris Wheeler have liked to have seen that?

  They must have watched me come home from the store from where they were sitting on Wheeler’s steps, their eyes following me the whole way, and I think I knew that something was different about their reactions. I knew something was different about the way they were looking at me, even before I went out back and found the flowers.

  I am sure they heard me yelling, but I was not swearing—no, I was not swearing. I was angry, and I was yelling, but I was yelling about the Charter of Rights, and I’m sure I need not tell you about this, but it was Section Seven, and I will copy it down for you, just so that you know for sure that I know what I am talking about—that “everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

  And that is really all I am asking you to protect for me—my life and liberty, and my faith in fundamental justice.

  Because I do not think it is just that I should be persecuted by lying Chris Wheeler, that I should have to be on my guard all the time, that the security of my person should be at risk while the likes of Chris Wheeler get to make decisions about what the quality of my life will be like.

  When I looked out the window at them that afternoon, that 17th day of August, I could see from their smug faces that they thought they were pretty smart, just as smart as they must have thought they were in April when they put cold chicken bones and chips and gravy into my mailbox, just to see if they could get me in trouble again, just to see if they could make me come after them.

  When I found the chicken bones, I stayed calm, but I carefully looked around to see if I could see anyone watching me, looking to see my reaction.

  Wheeler’s car was across the road, but there was no one in it.

  I am sure they were watching from inside, from Wheeler’s basement apartment with the small windows, standing there like they were watching a movie or something. I could not see them, but I had to be careful not to be caught staring—that’s all I need, for them to know that they were getting to me.

  When you deal with bullies for long enough, you know how a sign of weakness will set them off.

  Cocks of the walk, they are, and it seems there is nothing that anyone can do about it.

  Daring me to do something, and the restraining order was barely restraining anything. I can tell you more serious things, tell you about how they killed my cat Marble, a sweeter cat you will never have seen.

  I was in the front room upstairs, the small room with the desk where I keep all my papers, and I couldn’t help it—my hands were bunched tight in fists and I was even shaking. But when you’ve already got a restraining order against you, well, it’s never that far from your mind that it doesn’t take long for the police to show up and pull your hands behind your back for the handcuffs, even if they can never seem to find the right address when it is me who is calling them.

  They do not like me here because I came from a different part of the city, because I bought this house cheap before anyone else had a chance to, and I freely admit that, but we live in a capitalist country, and it is my choice to invest my capital in the ways that I see fit.

  I shouldn’t have to live like this. And I shouldn’t always have to expect worse, just waiting for whatever it is they choose to do next. I am not stupid, and I can see the weaknesses in my own house.

  There is a small window at ground level in the front of my foundation, and what used to be a coal door, boarded over now with old wood. On the back of the house, there is only the door and the kitchen windows, and I barricade the door at night so they can’t get in.

  It’s darker back there, but I imagine they will wait until I am sleeping, until everyone on the street is sleeping, and then force their way in through the scuttle into the basement. Both the scuttle and the window are on the street, so I can hardly reinforce them without being seen—and if I’m seen, I know they will only change their plans.

  For two weeks, I collected jars and broke the glass with my hammer, carefully, the bottles lying on their sides on newspaper I’d spread on the counter in the kitchen. I carried the shards downstairs still wrapped in the paper, and I could feel the sharp edges grinding against themselves inside the paper, and I filled the concrete valley under the coal lid with them—five trips in all, and even in the gloom of the basement, the glass shards looked wickedly sharp. Lying there, it looked as if they were just waiting to bite, like hungry teeth.

  If Chris Wheeler’s friends come in that way, they will get a fine surprise.

  They might still come through the window, but it is very small—I hope I will hear them coming, even if they wrap something in soft cloth and use it to smash the two small panes of glass.

  I have to confess, I did one or two other things to be sure that they can’t surprise me. Either way they get into the basement, they will still have to come up the basement stairs. So I have cut the stringers under the treads right at the top near the door. I’ve cut them very carefully, and I even swept up the sawdust so that they wouldn’t have any kind of warning at all.

  I’ve cut a few other beams as well, in spots they wouldn’t suspect but in places that I circle around carefully, so there are places where the floor is not at all like it should be.

  It took me a long time, because my hands get stiff and sore very quickly working the saw. The stair risers were only spruce, but they are very dry, and they feel as hard as stone. If nothing else, I should be able to hear them, the stairs falling in under their weight.

  And I trust that men in your position will not share these personal confidences, not if as officers of the Crown you serve all Canadians, instead of just serving the Chris Wheelers of this country.

  Because Wheeler is not without cunning, and given any warning at all, he will no doubt search out another path, one of less resistance.

  I will certainly call the police when I am sure I hear them down there, but by the time they get here, I’m sure that lying Chris Wheeler and his friends will be far away again, probably sitting on those steps and trying not to burst out laughing. And if Wheeler and his fellows do find a way up here, I will be in no shape to even answer the front door before the good officers shrug and stroll back down to their police cruisers, because there’s coffee to be bought and doughnuts to be eaten.

  You should now realize full well my circumstances, not only because of this letter but because you can certainly read up on all the complaints I’ve filed, complaints that no one has seen fit to do anything about.

  Because you and your people have chosen to believe lying Chris Wheeler and his dangerous-driving friends, friends who say that all this clear torment is just practical jokes and paranoia and nothing more.

  But if I put my bike down by my back gate, unlocked and leaning on the fence, and then I lie on the kitchen table in front of the window with the shotgun and the window just slightly open, well, if someone tries to steal my bike, then I am only defending my property, and I am well within my rights to do so.

  The shotgun is easily as old as I am, bought for rabbits when I was young enough to get out of the city, when I was strong enough that no one would dare to mess wit
h my property while I was gone to the country. It may be old, but it is regularly cleaned, its barrel still blue with gun oil, and even though it is single-shot and bolt-action, I know I could load at least a second shot before anyone made the distance from the gate to the back of the house.

  I have a new box of slug ammunition, it could knock down a moose, not that your new federal legislation made it any easier for me—an honest and law-abiding citizen—to buy those shells. And even though the gun kicks hard, I think I would get off a few shots, at least two, even though it would take days for the cordite smell of the gunpowder to completely clear from the kitchen.

  So when that gate opens, I will only be defending myself, even if lying instigator Chris Wheeler or one of his friends is only planning to steal my bike as some sort of joke or something, a joke I can no longer find in the least bit funny.

  Because a person can only be asked to put up with so much, and I have certainly been more than fair and reasonable over the years that lying Chris Wheeler has made my life a living hell.

  At least I am man enough to ensure that I can protect my own property, and well read enough to understand that the law makes some distinction for those who are pressed to the very limit of their endurance, suffering abuse the justice system is, for some reason, not willing to address.

  Honourable sirs, I know that you will understand my circumstances and the torment that has driven me to this. I realize you may interpret my concerns about the state of justice in this country as meaning that I do not believe you have properly done the jobs you have sworn to do. If you feel that way, then so be it.

  I, good sirs, am no lawyer, but I am an honest man and a taxpayer, and I rest my case.

  With every best wish,

  Albert Carter

  104 McKay Street

  Albert signed the letter carefully and then addressed the envelope, wondering for a moment when his handwriting had gotten so uneven and what the Prime Minister would think of that.

  32

  McKay Street

  VINCENT O’REILLY

  MAY 13, 2002

  SOMETIMES Vincent felt the uncontrollable eagerness under his skin as clearly as if he was at the starting line in a race, just waiting for the gun to fire. Every part of him straining forwards, pushing, waiting to explode out of the blocks. And at the same time, he was always left with the feeling that the gun would never fire.

  He knew nothing good would come of waiting.

  Twenty-one years old, and Vincent spent every night anticipating the morning and every morning, waiting for something to finally happen.

  And every morning, it felt like he was having the same conversation.

  “Why do you have to go? And where do you think you’re going to be, anyway?” his mother would ask. Hearing the questions never failed to almost completely empty his mind. The answers that looked so simple in his room, while he was staring up at the same ceiling he had always known, sounded both complicated and hollow in the daylight, and after explaining them a few times he almost couldn’t force the words out anymore.

  It was simple, if anyone was willing to really listen. Here was a trap, and the only way to spring it was to find a place somewhere away.

  “I’ll find something, Mom. I’ll find something every bit as good as I’m going to find here.” Vincent imagined that he said the words with his chin pushed out, as if he were the one picking the fight every time.

  “But you’re not even looking for a job here.”

  There was a desperate, reaching tone to her voice, a high note at the end, that rattled around while the early spring sunshine was belting in through the window and lighting the table and the toast. Vincent’s father was already up and gone to work, close enough to retirement that it seemed like he was trying even harder, turning it on because the finish line was almost in sight. Vincent had grown, but the world inside the house hadn’t changed. Vincent was reasonably sure he was stronger than his father now, but there was no way that Keith O’Reilly would give up even an inch of the power he held in the house: his arms might not be as strong, but his voice was harder and sharper and louder, and he was more frustrated, his edicts on what would happen in the house, and when, even more hard-edged. And his mother just took it—that always surprised Vincent, because she had been the disciplinarian all through school. Sometimes a flash of frustration would light her face, but mostly she went along, even as Vincent bridled.

  And Vincent couldn’t explain that he didn’t even want to look in this city, that the whole purpose was the getting away, that a job in St. John’s would just be another anchor, another thing that would stretch out a sticky cable and fasten him tight in a place he no longer felt he should be. That each new string just made the spiderweb stronger, and that any job, anywhere else, would be preferable to being given even one more reason to stay.

  Because staying now had a feeling like forever to it.

  Vincent felt tied to the chains of the everyday, unable to reach for anything. How do you explain to your mother that when she makes toast for you every morning, it is like she is trying to keep you prisoner?

  After he finished eating, Vincent left the house and walked down one shoulder of the city until he reached Forest Road. Past the penitentiary, along the edge of the lake, and then he turned off and headed up towards the bare knob of rock above Quidi Vidi village. There was no real path to the top of the rock, a dome that arched a hundred feet or more above the water with plenty of sheer rock on the sides, but there were breaks in the low spruce running up the sides of the hill, and occasional wide fans of washout where the angle of the incline had brought water down the hill fast enough to strip away the thin sepia clay. It was possible to climb up there, using occasional handholds and footholds of purplish puddingstone, a rock made out of some long-forgotten and petrified river bottom now tilted unnaturally up to the vertical by tectonics, the gritty sandstone packed full with a leaven of round stones like raisins in bread. Even though it had been warm, there were still thick pads of ice on the edges of the parts he was trying to climb, ice that was rounded and sweating with melt, but ice just the same.

  Every now and then a breeze would blow across the sheltered snow and ice under the branches, and it would come out from under the edges of the trees like a low, cold breath on his skin, unsettling enough that he would look over his shoulder to make sure he was alone.

  The higher he went, the more the ground cover thinned out, falling away to lower and lower bushes, stick-thin blueberry with the fat buds that would soon be leaves, rhodera with its waxy leaves browned from the winter but still smelling faintly of their August rush of faux eucalyptus. Without any cover, the ice vanished, leaving the flattened bushes behind it. There were yards of partridgeberry curled up in snow-flattened coils and wormed, complex patterns, and when Vincent finally reached the top of the hill, his breath regular and heavy, there was nothing left that was higher than ankle-deep, except for one low alder thicket and the grey shoulders of rock shrugging up through the ground. The tops of the rocks were white where the seagulls liked to stand, and there were small collections of bones—chicken scraps, the occasional T-bone—the gulls had brought up to the top so they could strip off remnants of meat without disturbance.

  The sun was warm on Vincent’s shoulders, and he was high enough up that the elevation entirely flattened out the waves on the sea below, the peaks and valleys of the rough water erased except for the pale scars of the whitecaps, and even they seemed to have no more depth than an eyebrow has on a face.

  It was far enough along in the year that the sun felt like it had finally decided to start working seriously, and the water reflected chips of sunlight back at Vincent in bright semaphore. He had to shade his eyes while he watched a red and white Coast Guard vessel chew its way towards the harbour.

  If he turned around, Vincent knew that he could point directly towards the house, back behind the low roll of Signal Hill, his arm straight and unerring as any compass even though he couldn’t see
a single patch of the flat roof. And when he thought about that, knowing exactly how something was—trusting where it was, maybe—without actually seeing it, Vincent thought it might be the perfect explanation for why he was sure he would have no choice but to leave.

  But how do you explain to your mother that if you’re able to point out the house where you grew up, you know you’re too close to home?

  111

  McKay Street

  BRENDAN HAYDEN

  FEBRUARY 2, 2006

  BY THE TIME four years had passed, Vincent had escaped the confines of his childhood home. Almost a block away, Brendan Hayden hadn’t. The only distance Brendan found was on the Internet, and in his imagination.

  Brendan hadn’t thought that the Niagara River was going to wind up being so important, not when he’d never even seen it, not when it was thousands of miles away. The idea of Niagara Falls—the concept of it, that he knew.

  Who wouldn’t know about Niagara Falls, about the honeymooners, the strip of motels, about the ribbon of bright lights throwing themselves up against the sky along the photographed edge of the gorge? But this was something different, the way he felt about it now—this other Niagara River, the one he kept tripping over again and again, finding in report after report. He’d been ready for a lot of things, for the hard photos and the blunt descriptions, but the repeated references were what really jarred him, the idea of people going to the very same place just to hurl themselves over the edge and into the water. Was it supposed to be somehow significant, or was it just that the height of the falls was so great that it could be expected to do the job completely?