***
So the summer just past, Hutch had sailed with his uncle to Shrimp Fishing Area Six. Uncle Em let Hutch watch the sonar in the wheelhouse so he was there when they spotted shrimp. He watched the guys lower that big ramp at the back to let out the net. It had doors on the sides to keep it open, weights on the bottom line to keep it down, floats on the top line to keep it up, and that gate inside the net to siphon off the bycatch. He liked the way they worked together, didn’t get in each other’s way. And when the net came up, what a catch! An orange flood of cold water shrimp, millions of them. Hutch helped with the bagging and the throwing of those thirty-pound bags down into the hold, where another guy heaved them into the pens along with shovels full of crushed ice.
He loved sleeping on-board. The rumble and throb of the engine went right through his bones when he was lying down, although there was always that smell of diesel and fish. He was used to ocean and wind noises, but here you were right inside them: the creaks and groans, the hissss of water being pushed aside by the hull. He could feel each climb up a wave and the slide down the other side, the surge and the pause, the bang when they hit a deeper trough. Things he hardly noticed in daytime with everything going on.
The next morning was grey with a much bigger sea and more whitecaps—everything restless and twitchy. Hutch had to stand with his feet farther apart to steady himself as he worked, one foot turned out so he could balance himself in more directions. His grandfather always walked that way from having his foot turned out for so many years.
Hutch pulled his mind back to land, back to the here and now. He dropped the front legs of his chair to the floor with a thump and stood up. He’d made up his mind. He was going on the boats.
The Game
It didn’t get better than this. The crowd was lifting off its feet, shouting, the horn gave a blast, and the organ played one of those hockey tunes you only hear in rinks. Da da da daa, da daaaa.
Jack’s cousin, Gus, had been called up from the East Coast League to play a game in the American Hockey League with the Leafs farm team, and everyone was in full-on support mode. It was a rush to get ready before the game. Not that Hutch did much other than root around in the cupboards for Gramps’s old Newfoundland flag until his mom growled about the mess. Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard did all the work: the block of tickets at the stadium in St. John’s and transport to and from Mariners Cove. There were too many people for one bus so they met up with a crowd from over Gander way—where Gus was from—to share a second one.
Jenny had made a banner with Go Gus Go in blue letters on white, which looked great. She was good at that stuff. And here they all were, jumping up and down: Paul and Bud on Jenny’s other side, Hutch between Jack and Eugene, all that carroty Sheppard hair sticking out from under a sea of blue Leafs caps, and Gus on the ice with his big orange beard.
The first period was a bit slow but the game picked up in the second with a goal each and a bunch of shots on net and a couple of nice little fights. Then Gus got an assist with three minutes to go in the second period and the crowd went crazy.
The PA announced the goal: “And an assist by Gus Sheppard.”
Hutch and the Sheppards were cheering fit to burst, and Hutch was jumping up and down, fizzing with energy, giving off sparks. One of their own was down there on the ice and people were yelling his name. The roar bounced off walls and circled and crashed back over them like breakers. And it mattered, that goal. Their team won three to two in overtime.
It was different watching a game on television with replays from every angle so you could see just who did what. Hutch saw Gus deking two players and making the pass across the goal, but he couldn’t see the winger flick it in—just saw the puck hit the back of the net as the red light flashed. They put it all together afterwards, on the bus.
Dad always said you saw more of the game on TV, so he hadn’t come. But at the game itself you were right in it, the vibrations rattling your teeth, the noise exploding in your head. You smelled winter melting off people’s jackets, wet wool, dust from old concrete, hot dogs and aftershave. You were part of the crowd when it roared to its feet at that perfect moment.
They came out of the stadium around eleven into a messy mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain.
“St. John’s,” Eugene scoffed. “Even the weather doesn’t know its ass from a hole in the ground.”
No use griping about it, that was Hutch’s philosophy. Ignore it.
But if you live on the eastern edge of everything with your face in the North Atlantic and a four-hour drive after the big game, you can never ignore the weather.
***
The first bus was full and pulling out as Hutch wandered across the parking lot with the Sheppards. After they’d shouted goodbye and banged on the side of the bus and caused a nice bit of havoc, they piled into the second one. They took over the back three rows and saved the back corner seat for Jenny, who stayed outside saying goodbye to Paul until the very last minute. The driver had to rev the engine before she climbed up the steps. She turned at the top, ducked down to look back, and called, “Seven weeks ’til Easter.”
There were replays everywhere.
“—definitely high sticking.”
“Should have…”
“Did you see?”
Jack dug a bologna sandwich out of his backpack, a bit squashed. He gave half to Hutch and they shared Hutch’s Cheezies. Then Hutch said Jack’s hands matched his hair now and Jack yelled, “redhead joke!” and rubbed his cheesy hands into Hutch’s face. Eugene leaned over the top of the seat from behind and grabbed Hutch’s ball cap, mussed up his hair, and rammed the cap back down, laughing his big boom of a laugh. There were chuckles all down the aisle, people craning round to see, murmurs of “There goes Eugene.” And it was comfortable tucked away on the bus—friendly—but black as your heart outside.
After an hour or two there was a change of topic here and there, to gossip and plans for next week. Fathers closed eyes. Mr. Sheppard snored in front of Hutch and Mrs. Sheppard leaned across the aisle to chat to her friend. Eugene and the rest were singing some old Beatles songs in back with Jenny adding top notes in a jokey kind of soprano. Hutch joined in now and then, yelling, “Love, love me do!”
Jack went up front for a minute and Hutch tucked himself into the corner, half seat and half side of the bus. He leaned his head against the window, shoving the hood of his jacket between him and the cold glass. His legs were stretched out diagonally, feet under the seat in front on Jack’s side, one foot snarled in the straps of Jack’s backpack—
Smash. Breath knocked out of him. Falling. Flickering. Black.
Goal Change
The weather had been spring-like the previous weekend on the west coast around Corner Brook. One of those freak occasions that happen sometimes in early February around Groundhog Day. Sarah said she and Tim were going over to Corner Brook for “meetings” and would Cathy like a ride out. There was a visiting exhibition she might like to see at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial, which housed the art school she had been dreaming about. The art exhibit was showcasing work by a well-known portrait painter from NSCAD—the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design—in Halifax. They left right after school on Friday and Mom arranged for Cathy to stay with some cousins.
***
That Saturday, Cathy stood in front of each portrait, examining it inch by inch—close up and farther away—searching for clues as to how the paint had been used. Sometimes she could work out a technique and the reason for it, sometimes she couldn’t. She went round all the exhibits then started again. Kept going back to her least favourites to find out what was missing, and the best ones to see what made them best. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of technique; maybe it was how each picture made you feel.
Cathy only left when the caretaker started saying, “Miss…excuse me, Miss?” Said he was locking up. Then she realized she ached from all th
at standing and was a bit lightheaded from skipping lunch and supper.
Sarah and Tim went with her on Sunday to the public lecture Madame Papineau—the artist from the exhibition—gave on portrait painting and Cathy didn’t miss a single word, not a breath taken, not a wave of the hand. This woman would know the answer to all Cathy’s questions. She knew. Cathy hung around afterwards, waiting for the crowd around Madame to thin, waiting until last so she wouldn’t be rushed. Finally, there was Madame, looking at her.
“I need you to teach me,” Cathy blurted. “What do I have to do?”
Madame seemed to be waiting for more.
“Please,” Cathy said. “What do I have to do to be your student?”
Madame stood up a bit straighter then and her eyes drilled right into Cathy. “You must apply to NSCAD, in ‘alifax. Talk to your teachers.” She walked away, then stopped and looked back, said there was always a waiting list for her classes, no guarantee she would get in. “What is your name?”
Madame Papineau had asked Cathy her name. Madame knew her name. It changed everything. Cathy wanted to go to NSCAD. Yes, Grenfell was probably wonderful but Madame was at NSCAD. Cathy remembered nothing about the trip home, her head full of painting and plans. She would still apply to Grenfell, but also to NSCAD. Now she would need two portfolios.
“Everything will be more expensive: tuition, transport, accommodation,” Dad said when she told her parents. And they needed a new truck.
Mom was shrinking down into her chair, into her clothes. “It’s farther away,” she said. “You won’t have the money to come home for the short breaks. Or the time. Won’t have the money for anything. It’s bad enough Mel being away all summer but at least he’s earning. And he didn’t have any choice.” Mom wasn’t even twiddling now. “And what do you get at the end?”
“A bachelor of fine arts,” said Cathy. Same as Grenfell.
The argument went on all year. Sarah kept out of it, except she was already in it.
“If Sarah Brooks hadn’t taken you to that exhibition you’d be happy enough with Grenfell,” said Mom. “Remember when the only thought in your head was to go to art school? Remember when you didn’t think you’d ever get there? Now all of a sudden Grenfell isn’t good enough.”
Even Dad nodded at that.
“It’s not that I don’t want Grenfell,” said Cathy. “Grenfell would be great. It’s that I want Madame to teach me.” Over and over, round and round. And Mom just banged about saying first it was Sarah this and Sarah that and now it was Madame.
Out of the Blue
Twelve holes across. Twelve holes the other way. One-hundred-and-forty-four holes in each tile. Ten tiles over to the wall make 1,440. Seven tiles to the fluorescent light make—8, carry 2—10,080 holes. A woman was looking down at him, her face coming, going, coming back. It steadied. Mom? No, but she had the same stop-messing-around-and-listen expression.
“Glad you’re awake, Hutch.”
A nurse. It took a while for the information to sink in—like a dry sponge that floats on the water for a bit before it starts getting wet. An accident. The bus….
Bus?
Gone off the road on a bend. Bad visibility. Ice buildup. Crashed rear-end-first down a bank. He tried to get his tongue to work, to ask questions. Hutch had the worst injuries, the nurse said, but a lot of folks had broken bones or concussions, or soft-tissue injuries—whatever those were. Someone had a punctured lung from a broken rib, and Jane Butt’s father had a small heart attack. Didn’t know they came in sizes.
He began to remember pieces—singing and eating Cheezies—but nothing about the crash itself. He started to notice his body in a muffled kind of way, everything stiff. Too stiff to move. He tried turning his head to see his mom better and his side hurt all the way down. He turned back and noticed the lights shining in his eyes, making his head ache. His mouth tasted like he hadn’t brushed his teeth for a month. He started to take a deep breath to ask where everybody was and knives stabbed through his ribs, so he took a little breath and kept his voice small. Mom said folks hurt the least were taken to Clarenville or Gander but they’d brought Hutch straight to town.
“What about Jack?”
“He’s got a minor concussion and a broken arm. Gone to Gander.”
“And Eugene? And Jenny?”
Mom looked at Dad. “Not sure where they were taken,” said Mom. “Weren’t brought into town.”
His parents kept getting into a huddle with whatever nurse walked in the door, muttering so he couldn’t hear. “Just checking,” they said when he asked. “Just making sure everything’s being done.” He wondered about that but it was too much effort to keep after them to see what they were hiding.
And anyway, what about him? What about Hutch Parsons? This was going to mess up every-frigging-thing. Just when he’d applied to the Marine Institute. He’d miss a pile of school and this was grade twelve. This would affect his grades. It mattered this time. Why hadn’t that bus driver been more careful? Why had they set off at all if the roads were so bad? It’s February, b’y. The other bus made it. Not fair.
***
There was a meeting. They wheeled his bed with all those tubes and stuff into a tiny space off Intensive Care. They were slow and careful but something bumped and he felt the bump go all through him. Felt like he’d just jumped down onto concrete. Hutch tried to move his legs a bit to ease them but it only made it worse.
Mom and Dad came in and smiled at him, but their eyes were scary. There was a tall guy in a white coat with a hawk face and bushy old-man eyebrows, a younger doc wearing a name tag, Somebody MacPherson, and the nurse who was around all the time with the singsong voice. Then a grey-haired lady with brown folders under her arm and glasses. Never seen her before.
The singsong nurse introduced everybody. Said she was the charge nurse. Hawk-face was the orthopaedic guy and his name had ov and evsky in it like hockey names all strung together. The young one was his resident. The nurse’s voice was nice but distracting—Hutch kept listening to her voice, not her words. Not from around here. Welsh, she told him afterwards. The grey-haired woman was a social worker.
The nurse looked at his mom and dad and him, each in turn, and talked about the accident and his injuries. Chatty. Said something about his rib cage, something thoracic crushed. Crushed didn’t sound good. Couldn’t get too excited because it all sounded so far away, nothing to do with him. Stable spine. Discs, nerve roots…pressure. Inflammation. Swelling going down nicely. Wait and see. Lost some blood, under control, lucky the paramedics got to him in time.
Holy shit.
“And I’ll let Dr. …evsky explain about the legs.”
Hawk-face looked straight at Hutch. Nice that he was talking to him, but hard to be stared at like that. Just him. That guy standing and him stuck flat on his back like something in science class with a pin through it. What was he saying? The right leg had been sorted out. The left leg: “bone fragments…tissue loss…vascular surgeon….”
A whoosh of fear scorched through Hutch, white hot.
“Limb salvage….”
Like a frigging ship wreck.
“…best we can hope for.” Not. Minimal. Unable. None. Eventually. “Best outcome, the most functional outcome, would be to remove the severely damaged leg below the knee and—”
“No. No!” Hutch was yelling in spite of his stitches. “No way you’re cutting off my leg! Never.”
Dad said, “My boy,” and Mom said, “Hutch, Hutch,” and Hawk-face kept on explaining and Hutch kept on yelling. Didn’t care about the risk and all the surgeries, didn’t care how good prosthetics were these days. He wanted his own leg. It was his fucking leg. He heard the doc saying, “Just think about it and we’ll talk later.”
But Hutch wasn’t changing his mind. No way.
***
They moved him into a general ward. T
here were people in other beds but he couldn’t see them. Dr. MacPherson, the resident, was around a bit. Said he’d been to Mariners Cove once, paddled in with a group from Memorial back when he was doing his undergrad.
“In sea kayaks?” Hutch was interested then and told the doc maybe he was with the group Dad saw. “Dad had a good look at a bunch of kayaks that visited one day, then he took a paddle in one and built one himself. Still has it. It’s called May after my mom.”
He said how the Parsons had always built their own boats for the inshore fishery but there was no market for them now, so his dad had turned to kayaks instead. Sold about fifty. Hutch even told the doc about Dolph because he seemed an okay guy. He didn’t say about kayaks being made of fibreglass these days, made by the dozen in factories on the mainland. So the arse was out of that industry as well. The legs.
***
Hutch went right on refusing an amputation. And everyone had a go at him: Dr. MacPherson, his family, the nurses…the frigging mailman was probably on his way. Dad said he was thinking with his gut not his head.
Mom said, “They’re treating you like an adult, Hutch, giving you a choice.”
“What choice? When I choose everyone yells at me and tells me I’m choosing wrong.”
Mom came nearer the bed, loomed over him. “Patients your age usually go to the children’s hospital. You only ended up here because the ICU was full. But you’re still a child—”
“I’m not a frigging child!” The roar made his ribs stab and he broke off. Dad shifted in his chair, told him to watch his tongue, and Mom glared at Dad for a change.
“I know it’s hard, Hutch.” There were tears in her eyes. “But you have to look facts in the face. You’ll walk better, look better, have less side effects…if you have an amputation.”
Catching the Light Page 7