by Lee Stringer
Two men stumbled their way up the hallway in front of him. Coming towards them was a scrawny young man, looking bored, walking behind a floor scrubber. The two drunk men walked in front of him, forcing him to stop. They slapped him on the back as they talked to him, but Levi was still too far away to discern what they were saying. The young man was chuckling along with them, but it was obvious that he was trying to get back to work.
Levi could pick out what the young man was saying as he neared them.
“Twenty-three dollars an hour,” the young man said in a slightly defensive tone.
The two men scoffed. “Sure thats fuck all!” one said. “We makes almost thirty-five dollars an hour at the scaffolding. Whudnt you rather be at that than cleaning toilets? Go back home and get a trade by!”
“I might yet,” the young man said, blushing.
“Tell them youll do whatever makes you happy and to leave you the fuck alone, eh by,” Levi spoke up as he came within talking distance. The two men looked at him and grinned maliciously, their eyes nearly vacant from inebriation. They rocked against one another and stared at him, surveying. Levi was glad he didn’t recognize them from his crew. The janitor turned the floor scrubber back on and escaped.
“Where you from?” one with a ball cap asked. He looked no older than forty. His buddy looked in his late twenties.
“Gadus, in Bay Vierge.”
“Wer from Conception Bay.”
They stared at each other for a moment.
“What did you think of ol Willy? Past his prime aint he?” the younger one said.
“He still got the energy, but he dont have the voice anymore.” “Thats right,” the older one said. “He used to be the best in Newfoundland one time.”
“Well, I got to head back to me room,” Levi said.
The younger one sidled up in Levi’s face, stumbling against him, whispering comically loud. “Buddy, you know where we can get some pussy? I heard they got hookers in this camp. Probably a few old squaws or something. Crackheads. But what odds, eh? You hear talk of any or what?”
“No by,” Levi said. “Cant say as I have.” He then continued on to his room, shaking his head.
Back in his room he laid down in his bed and tried not to think about work the next morning. In sleep he dreamed of nothing he could remember, but when he awoke the next morning his teeth were clenched.
Home Sweet Home
After twenty-one days of anxiety Levi’s first shift was over. All he could think about now was getting his hands on that number four chisel.
When the bus pulled up and Levi dragged his suitcase and himself on board he wondered if he would ever come back. The camp life wasn’t as bad as he thought at first, but the job...
The bus roared down a gravel road for twenty minutes, driving by the project and two tailing ponds before it came to the airstrip. Everyone groaned because there was another bus at the terminal just before them, which Levi thought was childish seeing as everyone would be issued their seat numbers inside the building anyway. But once he got inside he realized there were no seat numbers. Those with carry-on bags were checked halfheartedly, but those with laptops had to show them to security. Levi wondered how easy it would be for dealers to bring drugs back and forth on these flights. No doubt it was being done. Probably right now.
It seemed that everyone got as close as possible to the gate before they sat down. The plane was already at the terminal so the wait was about a half hour before the security called out for everyone to line up. Everyone jumped up and crowded into line. Levi was near the end, but what did it matter as long as he got on the plane?
When they opened the gate the men went forward. Some of the women were jostled about, and one lady, who looked well over sixty, fell to the floor. Levi helped her up.
“Jesus, slow down!” he yelled at everyone. The lady thanked him and they were the last two to walk across the runway and climb the steps to the plane. Air North was written on the wing, although the outline of an older logo showed through underneath.
“Grown men can be awfully childish sometimes cant they?” she said.
“Like five-year-olds.”
“At least youre a gentleman. Wheres you from?”
“Gadus. Bay Vierge.”
“Im from Bay Roberts. Some glad to get home out of it and see the family.”
“Youre not the only one, my dear,” Levi said, but all he wanted to see was his shed.
This was not Air Canada. Not that Air Canada was the height of luxury, but at least it looked like a passenger airplane, and not a cargo plane converted into a makeshift airbus. There would be no movie selection on the back of these seats.
There were no aisle or window seats available so he sat in the middle. It was then that he realized why everyone was in such a hurry to get on the plane. He had never sat in the middle seat before, and as soon as he turned to sit he saw the thinly veiled annoyance on the faces of the men in the isle and window seats. Although their irritation would be small compared to his, doing the subtle fight for arm room, and the shifting back and forth with no direction to lean. No leg room. No escape.
“How long do it take to get home?” he asked.
“Depends on how many stops we haves,” the window sitter said. If we stops in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg youre talking eight hours for sure.”
“Yeah, and provided theres no fog in St. Johns.”
“What happens if theres fog?”
“Youll fly back to Stephenville, or even Halifax. But we got to land in Stephenville first anyway. Thats where wer getting off to.”
The flight attendant delivered the usual spiel about emergency exits and procedures and the plane started moving down the runway.
“Say a little prayer. These planes is not fit,” the window sitter said.
“Why?” Levi said, laughing to cover up his nervousness.
“These planes is not fit by,” the aisle sitter said. “They used to be cargo planes, half of them. The right wing caught on fire on one there last week. Did you hear about that? They was carrying the Quebec crowd home.”
“Sure what about the last time we flew home,” aisle sitter said. “The pilot came on and told us he got to rev up the engines before we took off because there was something wrong with something or other in the engines.”
“Okay bys, dont tell me no more for Jesus sake,” Levi said.
The take-off seemed normal enough so Levi managed to relax a little. And he made up his mind right there that he wasn’t coming back. Fuck Alberta and fuck that Indian going out with his daughter.
The first stop was Winnipeg for refuelling. Levi couldn’t believe how truly flat it was. There was nothing to see but a city squat around a twisting river, with endless squared off farmland surrounding it. No mountains, no rocks, no trees. Nothing.
“Jesus bys,” he said. “What do they do in this place besides go to work?”
“Freeze their arses off. You should be here in January. Minus forty and wind enough to blow the socks off you.”
“I suppose its wherever you grows up,” the window seat man said. “Theres just about eight months of winter in Labrador, but I knows fellas grew up there that wouldnt leave if you put a gun to their heads.”
“Yeah, thats it. Where ever you grows up is home.”
Levi chuckled and looked out the window again. “All the same though bys. What do they do here in the winter? Get on their skidoos and ride for three hours in a straight line?”
After an hour in the Winnipeg terminal they were in the air again. It had felt good to stretch his legs, but after another hour in the middle seat Levi was agitated again, and the other two men were sound asleep. Yet, no matter how long Levi closed his eyes he could not do the same. A burp surfaced and with it so did a flutter of panic. He got up from his seat, pushed his way out over the aisle sitter, accidentally waking him up, and made his way to the washroom.
Once in the tiny washroom he splashed his face with water and stared in the mirror
.
“Jesus not now.”
He wished he had sleeping pills. He would take at least three now. Anything to be unconscious in that chair.
“Three hours...”
He took a flask out of the inside of his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and took a swig. He felt like a drunk, sneaking a nip when no one was looking, as if he had something to hide. But that was nonsense. He was no drunk. He simply used the booze in bad situations like this to help him through.
Levi took a deep breath and stepped back out of the washroom. The flight attendant smiled at him, but he ignored her and made his way back to his chair. The lights were off and everyone was asleep. The roar of the plane engines, much louder than on Air Canada, was the only sound, and eight rows up ahead an overhead light was shinning for someone who obviously couldn’t sleep either.
Levi sat in his chair and sighed.
“Cant sleep?” the aisle sitter said.
“Im not used to this flying racket.”
“It gets easier...a bit.”
“How long you been at it?”
“Ive been a cook on sites all over Gods creation for the last twenty-five years.”
“Married?”
“Was.”
“Yeah. Im going through the same racket now. Split up with the wife.”
“Her choice or yours, if you dont mind me asking?”
Levi was going to lie, but figured this wasn’t the place. “Hers.”
“Id give you some advice but there is none, except time. Time is the only thing that makes it easier. Me and the ex been divorced about five years now I suppose. She didnt even leave me for another fella. She just left me.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
“No you dont by. No. At least then theres a good reason, but Mary just said she didnt want to live with me anymore. Hard thing to accept after being married for close on forty years.”
The aisle sitter whose wife’s name was Mary looked at Levi. “And you know what I blames it on? This goddamn racket. I spent over half our marriage being away from home for two to three weeks out of every month — sometimes months at a time, and we got used to not living with each other. Then when I retired and came back, well, I wasnt used to cleaning up after myself. I was used to a camp attendant doing that for me. I wasnt used to taking care of bills, I wasnt used to the kids, I wasnt used to anything that people have to deal with in the real world.”
“I dont think Im going back anyway. Not my cup of tea.”
“Good man. Youll be better off. Most fellas complains they dont like it, but some of them is addicted to it if they told the truth. They gets sick of it, but give them a few months at home and youll see them hopping on the next plane to wherever, anywhere away from The House. Anywhere away from the bitch theyre living with or the house bills or the son beating up the car or the daughter coming home pregnant.”
Levi laughed.
“Now you knows Im exaggerating, but you sees what Im saying.”
“Oh I sees it perfect by.”
“To tell the truth me and the ex got along good until, like I say, I retired,” he said. “All downhill from there. But thats it. What are you going to do?”
It was six in the morning when they landed in Stephenville. The captain came on and told everyone that although they were refuelling that everyone who was getting off in St. John’s had to stay on the plane. The two men sandwiching Levi got off and he sighed with relief. He seriously considered lying across the seat and going to sleep but he assumed the flight attendants wouldn’t let him. At least now he had leg room.
After a half hour the captain came on and reported that there was still a lot of fog in St. John’s, so they would not be leaving the runway quite yet.
An hour later they were still on the runway.
“I dont know about the fog,” a fat man across from him said, “but if they dont soon let us off for a goddamn smoke Ill be lighting up one right here. Fog or no fog.”
Twenty minutes later they left the runway. And eventually they did land in St. John’s.
It was foggy. So foggy Levi didn’t know that ground was near until they struck it. The plane jolted, struck again, and was rolling over it with the brakes and reverse thrust on at full force, the whooshing sound filling the plane and Levi’s nerves and ears still popping.
“Jesus, if they were going to land in fog like this why didnt they just do it in the first place?” the fat smoker asked loudly, followed by a few tired mumbles of agreement. Everyone seemed too relieved to be back home to be angry about anything anymore.
When they walked off the runway and into the terminal it seemed that everyone had someone waiting for them, except Levi. And this hit him so hard he felt like running in the washroom and bawling his eyes out on the toilet. But instead he went to the bus that was waiting for him and others in the parking lot. Another three hours of being cramped up in a seat next to a stranger.
The bus was worse than the plane, but Levi eventually made it to the Irving Station at Slate Line. This is where his father would have gotten off the train fifty years ago when he came home from logging in Badger for four months. But unlike Levi, who had his truck waiting in the parking lot for a twenty minute drive down over the 308 highway, his father would have had a five hour walk ahead of him.
His house never looked so simultaneously lonely and welcoming. But before he went in he stopped in his shed, turned on the lights, and looked around. The heat was still on, had to be on, as long as it wasn’t too warm that it would warp certain woods he had stowed about the place. The smell of sawdust was what hit him first. All the time working in it, he had forgotten how good it smelled. He figured there must still be tiny particles of sawdust floating in the air from the first project he ever worked on. Right now, combined with thousands of other particles, he knew that he was smelling at least some part of that first chair. Why did smell, above all other senses bring back such strong memories?
He approached his latest project quietly, and stood staring at it as if it were asleep. A thin layer of fine sawdust had settled over the chair like a veil, giving the illusion that it had been sitting untouched for years. After a moment he reached out with one finger and rubbed along the length of the arm.
Levi grabbed a cloth and began rubbing the sawdust off the chair, until five minutes later it was completely uncovered. A rough section of the back of the arm caught his attention, and unconsciously he picked up a piece of sandpaper and began sanding it. Lightly at first, but gradually gaining speed and momentum.
It was a half hour before he truly realized what he was doing, that he was on his knees, sanding his rocking chair after traveling for nearly fifteen hours. He shook his head at himself, stood up, and went into his house.
He left the luggage in the porch, flopped down on his couch, and was asleep in minutes.
Levi is climbing a scaffold, and he is afraid. What’s worse is that no matter how much he climbs he doesn’t get any closer to the top, as if it extends to eternity. And when he tries to look up, to see how close he is, he is blinded by the morning sunlight. So he levels his head and keeps climbing...climbing...
Eventually he gives up, and stares across at the boy working without his harness, his arms and face covered in dark bruises.
“You still climbing?” the boy says.
“How far up does it go?”
“How do I know?”
“You should wear your harness.”
“Wer not all pussies like you, buddy.”
“What are you doing here?” Levi says.
“Working, greenhorn.”
“No, I mean…” but Levi is afraid to tell the boy what happened.
“What are you staring at greenhorn?”
“Dont talk to me like that. Im old enough to be your father.”
“You are my father.”
Now the boy is Jon.
“Im not your father.”
“Sure you are.”
“I might be your father-in-law so
me day. But Im not your father.”
“Honour Thy Father,” Jon says, laughing. He holds a big family Bible in his hand and throws it at Levi. It hits him in the chest and knocks him slightly off balance. This terrifies him because he knows he is up high. Higher than he has ever been.
“Jon!”
Jon throws another Bible at him, laughing. “Come on, pussy. Its just the Good Book. It cant hurt you.”
He throws another Bible and it hits Levi’s hand and knocks it off the rung. He falls but catches himself.
He is no longer on the scaffold and walks towards Jon who is preparing to throw another Bible at him. Jon leans back in an exaggerated baseball pitch, but before he can let the Bible fly Levi pushes him, and watches Jon fall silently with a man screaming somewhere on another scaffold. Then he realizes that man screaming is him.
Levi stared at the white ceiling of his kitchen after just catching the tail end of the echo of his own voice. He had been yelling. He wasn’t used to nightmares. He only could remember a few in his life, and already the memory of this one was fading. He got up and rubbed his eyes. It was suppertime.
The phone rang and he picked it up to hear his mother’s voice. “Youre home is you?”
“Im home.”
“How long?”
“Since this morning.”
“You should have called me.”
“I was asleep, Mom.”
“What did you have for supper?”
“Nothing.”
“What! Come over. I got a roast on.”
“No. The only way youll see me from now on is when you comes here.”
“What for?”
“You think I wants to be around Frank and Barnaby?”
There was a pause on the phone, and Levi wondered with annoyance if she was crying already.
“Levi my son, I knows brothers that stopped talking to each other, and they always wished they worked it out when one died.”
“Im finished with the two of them, Mom. Theyre off me books for good. I wouldnt even go to Franks funeral.”