Provider's Son

by Lee Stringer

  “That doesnt mean she gets to exploit me — us, for her own gains.”

  “Youre gone off your head,” Levi said. “If it gets our name out there she can use us all she wants.”

  “Really?” Jon said. “Thats disappointing.”

  As Sinead was about to add something they heard the dorm doors open on both sides and the panting of a happy dog, its paws clicking off the linoleum.

  “Shit, I didnt think theyd get here this soon,” Jon said. “My boss is with them. This is going to look bad. Im not supposed to be in peoples rooms, chatting. Hes not that fond of me as it is.”

  “Yes by?” Levi said. “Easy-going fella like you and all.”

  “Do they go in every room?” Sinead said.

  “No they, randomly,” Jon did air-quotes with his fingers, “pick rooms, and the dog goes in.”

  “Well, weve got nothing to worry about then.”

  When the dog pranced past Levi’s door Jon’s forehead was damp. His supervisor was talking to the policeman, and they stopped a few doors down.

  A knock on a door.

  “Security.”

  No answer, followed by another knock.

  “Security.”

  Levi knew whose room it was, The Supplier. There was a jingling of keys and the door was opened.

  Levi cracked his door just enough to hear.

  “Why didnt you answer the door?” Jons boss said to The Supplier.

  “I was asleep,” he answered. “Whats up with the dog?”

  “We want to check your room,” a female officer responded.

  “Theres no pot in here,” he said, but the fear in his voice was obvious.

  “Its a random check.”

  There was no response, and even though Levi was not the one being questioned he felt his stomach tighten.

  “Dont you need a fucking warrant?”

  “We have one,” a man said, obviously another policeman.

  “Let me see it.”

  “We dont have to show it to you,” the female officer said. “This is not your room. Its the property of Erbacor Energy.”

  “My private property is in here. You cant just fucking tear my shit up with that dog.”

  “We have a right to search your room sir. I already explained it to you. We wont damage anything unless we have to. Now please remove yourself from the room.”

  “Step out into the hallway with me,” Jon’s boss said.

  “Im not going anywhere.”

  “Do you want to be placed in handcuffs?”

  “Im not moving buddy. You dont have the right.”

  “Turn around.”

  “Fuck you,” The Supplier said.

  “Turn around or we will use force.”

  “You know why women become cops? Because that gun is the closest youll ever get to owning a cock. Now get the fuck out of my room.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence, followed by an eruption of squeaking shoes on the linoleum, and the grunts of someone being wrestled to the floor. The sharp hiss of what sounded to be an aerosol can followed, and The Supplier screamed in pain as the dog began barking incessantly.

  “Fuck it,” Levi said, and went into the hallway. Jon and Sinead followed him.

  A female police officer was holding the leash of a German Shepherd whose jaws were snapping at The Supplier’s doughy arm. He was covering his genitals and face with his hands as he screamed to call the dog off. The male officer, shaven-headed and nearly seven feet tall, was trying to handcuff him at the same time. He kept yelling to his partner to call the dog off, but as much as she dragged on the leash and shouted commands, the dog would not listen.

  Levi grabbed the leash to help and was then nailed with pepper spray from the policewoman. He fell back on the floor coughing and rubbing his eyes.

  “He was just trying to help!” Sinead yelled as she helped Levi back toward his dorm. “Dont rub your eyes, Dad.”

  “Jesus, it burns!” Levi cried between coughing fits. It felt as if his eyeballs were boiling under his eyelids, and the urge to rub them was so strong that he almost had to sit on his hands. He coughed so much that it was hard to breathe.

  Several of the other dorm doors were open now with men gawking at the excitement. Others were standing right in the hallway cursing and shouting at the police to relax. The two officers had now switched places, with the policeman holding the dog. Out of the room they brought out two Ziploc bags of pills, and another of a yellowish white powder.

  “If you cant control your dogs any better than that you shouldnt have them,” Jon said.

  “You need to control your cops, too,” Sinead said.

  “You would be better off going back to your room,” the female officer said. “Unless you want to be led out of here in handcuffs as well.”

  “Oh, of course,” Jon said. “Why dont you arrest everybody in the dorm while youre at it?”

  “Thats exactly what we’ll do if we have to,” the policeman said, cautiously looking about at the other men standing outside their doors.

  “On what basis?”

  “Relax,” Jon’s boss said to him, as more of a threat than advice.

  “This conversation is over,” the policeman said. “This is a crime scene. Everybody go back in their dorm rooms or Ill start making arrests. Back to your rooms. Now!”

  Most of the men went back to their dorm rooms, but some did not. Jon stayed with his supervisor.

  As Levi stared in the mirror at his swollen eyes it suddenly dawned on him that he had not gotten the chance to get the rum. And it was too late to go looking for it. Most men were in bed by now. He thought of climbing up those scaffolds cold sober and it made him nauseous. There was only one thing he could think of.

  Levi headed quickly down the hall. The bar would be closing any minute.

  “Fuck, that door was supposed to be locked,” Caprice said when he walked in. “Last call was a half hour ago.”

  “Hello to you too,” Levi said.

  “Hows your eyes?”

  “Jesus, word travels fast in here.”

  “Congrats by the way. I heard about your rocking chair.”

  “Thanks. Listen. Any chance you can do me a favour?”

  “No liquor. Not a chance, Levi. I could lose my job for that.”

  “Ill pay a good price.”

  “Why do you want booze eleven oclock in the night? Dont you have to work tomorrow?”

  “Its going to be a slack day. Figured Id have a few drinks for a laugh.”

  “Well, Im sorry but I cant help you.”

  “Ill give you fifty bucks if you pour off a flask for me.”

  “No.”

  “A hundred? That would be a nice tip for the night, wouldnt it?”

  “Levi, I dont need a hundred dollars so bad to take a chance on losing my job.”

  “How much then?”

  “If you dont leave Im calling security. Im sorry.”

  Levi left the bar. He stood in the hallway and a hard-looking young man passed by.

  “Hey young fella. You wouldnt know where I could get some booze, do you?”

  “Thats the hardest thing around here to get buddy. That and weed. But if you wants the good stuff I can hook you up no prob.”

  “Ill pass on that.” He wasn’t even sure what “the good stuff” was.

  That’s it, he had to accept that he would not have his flask tucked away on his person tomorrow. He could do it, he worked for the first few weeks without it. He would manage. Yet, a voice in the back of his skull kept telling him he was lying, that he was no longer capable of climbing a scaffold without a helping hand from Mr. Smirnoff.

  Collaboration

  Levi could see that his hands were still shaking when he placed his card on the security gate reader. He knew the booze had been helping him, but he didn’t realize how much until now. Even on the awkward ride home with his general foreman, or GF, as everyone called them, and union shop steward, he felt trapped, and for a moment thought
he might have to tell the guy to stop, that he would walk back to camp. But his GF would not have let him anyway, and he would have humiliated himself even more than he already had.

  “Youre back early,” Jon said, meeting him at the security gate, and then looking quizzically at the two men standing next to him.

  “I just got fired,” Levi said

  “Shit, why?”

  Levi didn’t respond, but headed to his room with the other two men following him closely. They stood outside his room as he began packing his things. If not for Fiona’s Fancy going down he would have been almost relieved, but the sinking of that boat made him realize just how dangerous working on the water could be. Now he not only had no berth on a boat, but he didn’t really know if he wanted to go back to fishing in the first place.

  He had his suitcase half packed when someone knocked on the door. When Levi opened it the shop steward stood there smiling.

  “You want to keep your job, Levi?”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to keep your job? We just got a call. You can stay if you want. I dont know what changed, but, well, consider yourself lucky.”

  Levi stood dumbfounded.

  “I suppose by.”

  “Okay,” the shop steward said. “But there is going to be a safety stand-down tomorrow morning for an hour. Because of the incident. Safety will probably have a slide show on dropped objects or something. It might be a bit embarrassing, but its better than losing your job.”

  “Not much I can do about that I suppose.”

  “No, there isnt.”

  When the shop steward left Levi stood staring at the doorway. He shook his head and pushed his suitcase back in under his bed. Another knock on the door. It was Jon, and he wanted to know what happened.

  “Seems like I still got a job.”

  “Right on! So what happened anyway?”

  “I tipped over a pail with a few welding rod stubs on a scaffold, and where do you think they went? Raining down on a safety reps hard hat, with his head still in it, from about ten feet up. There was only a half a dozen stubs in it, but he acted like the sky was falling.”

  “Did he get hurt?”

  “Not even close. How could he?”

  “So they just fired you on the spot.”

  “No, thats the funny thing about it. They thought they had me, see. I had to take a piss test, for the second time.”

  “Second time?”

  “When that scaffolder got hurt I had to take a piss test.”

  “Who else had to take it?”

  “No one. I didnt have me Safety Card filled out, which got me in even more shit. But because I didnt have it filled out there was no one else signed on and no one else had to take a piss test. So they thinks they got me. I takes the test. And nothing. No alcohol. Then they makes me do it twice!”

  “Twice? Was your shop steward there?”

  “Oh yeah. He made a little bit of noise about it, but nothing like a steward in a real union would. And I says, no by, thats alright. They can give me ten if they wants. And I takes it again, and I passes it again. So when they cant get me on a piss test they just fires me for what I did anyway. Until five minutes ago.”

  “Well, you got your job back. Thats the important thing. Ive got news too. You might see it as good news. Im not so sure. Our chair is going to be on the news show, Alberta Now. Its getting a lot of attention.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do that mean well get any more money for it?”

  “No. Its already sold. If it wasnt sold already it would. We might get more money for the next one though. For sure.”

  “When do we get that money by the way?”

  “You dont have to worry about Edward, Levi. Ive been dealing with him for years.”

  A muffled cheer went up from a poker game down the hall. Levi said goodbye, and he closed the door and collapsed on his bed. Now, instead of his hands, his whole body was trembling, muscles twitching, and his mind... He noticed while he was talking to Jon that there were terrifying moments when it seemed as if he was standing behind a window looking out of his own eyes, and listening to the sounds coming out of his own mouth. Anita had spoken of this at various points of her life when she was depressed, and he was glad she did. At least he knew it was a symptom of illness and not that he had finally lost his mind. Anita had found out from the internet that it was called “depersonalisation.” Was he depressed? He didn’t feel sad per se, as much as he did angry. Or was anger not separate from sadness, but a symptom of it? When he really thought about himself he felt more exhausted and numb than anything. He knew of a remedy of course, and it was sitting behind a bar in forty-ounce bottles. Or had that cure gotten him where he was now? “Nerve pills” was the next remedy, but the mere thought of trying to talk to a doctor about things that he could barely articulate to himself made him feel worse.

  What about God? a voice said in his head. He had prayed a lot when he was a child, and unlike many of his friends growing up, he actually didn’t mind church. He liked those old stories for the same reason he liked watching documentaries on the History Channel. The dead had all the power. They dictated the rules and no one could talk them out of it.

  “Theres no such thing as God,” Levi said, to hear it on his lips. But he couldnt help cringing.

  David is his nephews name. And the strangest thing of all is that Levi loves the boy in spite of him being just like his old man, Frank. The constant need for the center of attention, the bossiness, the inability to lose gracefully at anything, in that little boy all of these traits are somehow charming.

  David has been fascinated with Levi’s tools, and his work. So much so that Levi decides one day that he should let him do some early-stage sanding on a chair. He doubles up a small piece of fine sandpaper and hands it to the boy, expecting him to grow tired of it in minutes. But no, an hour later little David is still sanding the legs, absorbed in his work, smiling to himself and asking endless questions. The boy has inherited another trait from his father that Levi has to grudgingly admit is a valuable one. He puts his all into everything. The questions can get annoying, but it is something Levi can tolerate.

  One day David asks, “Uncle Levi?”

  “What.”

  “Is trees alive?”

  “Yes by, trees is alive.”

  “So when theyre chopped down and turned into wood do that mean theyre dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do they go to heaven?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Theyre alive.”

  “Yeah, but they dont have souls.”

  “Do souls mean ghosts? Theres no ghosts in them?”

  “No. Yes. Jesus, me buddy, youre asking complicated questions there now.”

  “So what do souls mean?”

  “A soul is something inside you, like energy in a battery. Invisible. But alive.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah, cool.”

  “So trees is alive but they dont have souls.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But when you chops them down theyre dead.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So this rocking chair is dead.”

  Levi stops.

  “Yes, but it gets some soul left on it.”

  “But the rocking chair is made out of the dead tree.”

  “Its made by a mans hands. My hands in this case. And some of me soul gets rubbed off.”

  “It rubs off your hands?”

  “Only when you makes something…yeah.”

  “It rubs off like dirt.”

  “No. Like…warmth. That chair is not alive, but it still got the warmth of something that is.”

  “What about when you dies?”

  “Now see theres the good thing. What I rubbed off on that chair will still be there for a long time after Im gone. If its still around.”

  “I dont get it.”

  “You will. Concentrate on what youre at. Youre getting the re
al crackerjack at sanding. In no time at all youll be doing whatever you wants in here.”

  “Uncle Levi?”

  “What.”

  “Do you ever think Ill be as good as you?”

  “Considering how young you is, if youre at it until youre my age youll be the best in the world.”

  David has taken that compliment seriously. He puts in even more time after that, at least two hours a day. It’s becoming obvious that David will eventually be a gifted woodworker. The only problem is that, like his father, he gets ahead of himself. One day when Levi is eating his supper he suddenly hears the lathe running. At first he thinks it might be Frank or Barnaby, but upon investigation he sees David standing at the lathe as casual as if he has been using it for years. He is carving a notch into a leg that Levi had placed there, but had planned on working on after he ate.

  “David!” Levi shouts. “What do you think youre doing?” He runs over and shuts the lathe down. “Dont ever let me see you turn that on again. Goddamn it by, you could have hurt yourself.”

  “I knew what I was doing, Uncle Levi,” is the boy’s response.

  Levi stares at him, and can’t keep a smile from his face, so he turns around and faces the door. “No, you didnt. If I catches you using that lathe again I wont let you in here no more. Now get home out of it before I calls your mother.”

  David runs out the door, fully aware how nervous his mother is.

  Levi picks up the leg. David has created a kind of design, sloppy and unusable, but a design none the less. Certainly better than Levi thought a boy his age could ever be capable of on his first try.

  Six months later the leukemia-ravaged body of that confident little boy is lying in a hospital bed, and all that was David is slipping from the world. A head that had been once covered in curly black hair like Frank’s, is now hairless. The bed is surrounded by toys David no longer has the strength to play with.

  “I wish I could have helped you finish that chair,” David says.

  “You will, me buddy!” Levi says. David smiles at his uncle, as if he knows better.

  Helah and Frank do not leave David’s side. Levi is the only other person allowed in the room, he has prayed every day for the boy to pull through, offering his every possession for the boy’s life.

  “Tired,” is David’s last word before he slips into a coma.