six@sixty

by Mark Anthony Jarman

  The shop did a fairly good business because he made cabinets as well, and because he overpriced his artwork outrageously, for the tourists. He had also acquired a reputation for being a character, and local people were always stopping by to see what he’d do. They found his insults endearing, but if they ever loitered too long, he’d bark. “If you’re not buying, you’re leaving,” in such a way as to make the people fear that they had offended him somehow. In such a way as to prompt them to buy, perhaps, one of his twenty-five-dollar golf balls. With those, he peeled away half of the ball’s pitted skin and then carved more goofy faces into the hard rubber beneath. Everyone thought this was ingenious.

  What a lot of people really came for, though, were Bridget’s father’s decoys. His decoys were simply beautiful, more perfect than any actual duck. They were entirely smooth and flawless — he did not bother with feathers or any other realistic detail that might disturb the decoy’s linearity. The result was a perfect, liquid platonic ideal. Perfect duckness. He stained — never painted — and then varnished them. The wood was what mattered, the acknowledgment and refinement of the wood, as opposed to any attempt to deny it, that was what made the carvings very nearly sublime. People came from far and wide to purchase one of Bridget’s father’s ducks. They were all exactly the same.

  When Bridget got home from the hospital, there were two pieces of news right off. One was that the trial of the girlfriend-murdering Archie Shearer had finally gotten under way, and the other was that her father had taken to bringing Rollie down to the basement with him, and now Rollie was an artist, a craftsman, too.

  Rollie’s school had been shut down. Rollie used to go to a special school every day where he would make bread with other adults like himself. The bread was very good, and Bridget’s mother bought loaves of it every week. It spoiled the family for the store-bought kind, and on weekends, if they ever ran out, Gerard would sometimes go on rampages, rummaging through the deep freeze in the hope of finding a forgotten loaf, hollering, “Where’s the retardo bread?”

  Rollie loved going to school, and if Bridget’s parents ever wanted to punish him for not going to bed when they told him to, or taking a piss out of doors, or pulling his shorts up over his belt and ripping them, then they wouldn’t let him go. It was a very effective punishment, and they were relieved to finally have discovered some kind of leverage to use against him. It was widely acknowledged within the family that Grampa and Margaret P. had spoiled Rollie most of his life — cutting his meat and pouring his tea and putting his mittens on for him — and so when it came time for Rollie to live under Bridget’s father’s rule, Rollie knew how to be quite stubborn. Bridget’s father didn’t know any way to make him do anything except for cursing at him and giving him the occasional shove up the stairs. It was still a little difficult with Margaret P. around. Sometimes Rollie would stumble into her room in tears, and Margaret P. would bang on the wall with her bedpan, wanting to know what had been done to him.

  “Jesus Murphy, Ma, I was just trying to get him to take off his own goddamn shoes!”

  “He’s never had to take off his own shoes, for the love of God!”

  Bridget’s father saw that changes had to be made, so he sent Rollie to the “special school” as soon as it opened up. And Rollie surprised everyone by loving it. He had even managed to acquire something like a girlfriend, a woman named Emma, overweight and smiling. Every night before going to bed, Rollie would ask Bridget’s father, “Who’s going to wake him up see Emma?” — and her father would revel in his new-found power.

  “Well, now, I don’t know if anyone should wake you up for school tomorrow, not coming in for supper when Joan calls you.”

  “He’ll come in for supper. ”

  “You will, eh? You’re not going to do that again, walking around in circles going No no no no like a Jesus lunatic?”

  “No, he’s not. ”

  “You’re going to come in next time, then, are you?”

  “No he’s not, no he’s not, ” Rollie would say rapidly, putting his hands over his ears.

  “Well, are you going to come in next time or aren’t you?”

  “He’s going to come in next time. ”

  “All right then. Go on up to bed. ”

  “Who’s going to wake him up for school, Raw-hurt?”

  “Robert will wake him up for school. ”

  But now — due to lack of resources — Rollie’s school was shut down. It was a trying time for everyone. Bridget’s father didn’t know what was to be done with Rollie during the day. He sat in his chair with the television on and would complain. “When’s Rollie going to school see Emma?” every time Bridget’s mother or father went by. This, along with his constant inquiries over the last few months about where Bridget had gone, was combining to drive the two of them up the wall. So one day Bridget’s father announced, “Shit on this. You come downstairs with me, sir. We’ll get you going on something. ”

  This was how Rollie became an artist. Not just an artist, but, according to Bridget’s father, a religious artist, the best kind of artist to be. Her father had stuck a piece of wood into Rollie’s hand and let him go at it with the sander. So Rollie stood there, humming to himself and sanding and sanding the wood until Bridget’s father took it away from him and held it up to the light. There and then he declared the overly sanded block of wood to be uncannily — one might say miraculously — representative of the Virgin holding the baby Jesus. He ran upstairs to show it to Bridget’s mother and asked if she agreed, and Bridget’s mother said that she supposed so, and so he hurried back down to the basement to varnish the new work and put it on display, stopping only to hand Rollie another piece of wood to get started on.

  According to Bridget’s mother, Rollie was becoming famous. Her father had a whole display of his religious carvings lined up on the shelf above the golf balls. Little cards in front of each announced what the wooden blobs were supposed to represent, from “Jesus Heals the Sick” to “Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus. ” Some people who visited the shop seemed initially dubious about the carvings until Mr. Murphy explained who had done them. He daringly set them at the same price as his carved golf balls, a great favourite among locals and tourists alike, and, in a flash of inspired business savvy, put up a bigger sign above them all which read:

  Religious Wooden Statues.

  Done by Retarded Man.

  Twenty-five Dollars a Piece.

  And now they were her father’s number-one seller. Even more than the ducks. They were especially popular with Christmas being on its way. Bridget’s father, in anticipation of the season, had glued sprigs of plastic holly to the occasional piece.

  That, and the trial of Archie Shearer for murdering Jennifer MacDonnell in August, only now beginning. Now. At Christmas, people emphasized. Sad for the family, they said, meaning the MacDonnells. And the thought of sad families at Christmas inevitably brought to mind that of the self-slaughtered Kenneth MacEachern from down the street. The state of the local young people was freshly lamented around Bridget’s kitchen table. So much unhappiness brought upon the families. Killing each other and killing themselves.

  The visitors, coming round the house all through the holidays, said that. There was teensy Mrs. Boucher, Margaret P. ’s old housekeeper, rasping between drags on her DuMauriers and kicking her dangling feet, which never reached the floor when she sat down. She always kicked them back and forth like an impatient six-year-old.

  “It just make me sick, ” she would mourn, “all de deat. ” Mrs. Boucher was a mournful woman, sickly, with a sad life. She’ d sip her tea, everybody aware of her fear for her married nineteen-year-old girl, in and out of the women’s shelter every two or three months. Everyone in the house found themselves wanting to get things for Mrs. Boucher.

  “I tell her, come home with me, Louise. No, Ma, I rather get the crap beaten out of me than live with my mudder like a little kid. Well, what do you do?”

  Uncle Albert, down with Bern
adette for the holidays, would nod soberly even though he wasn’t. Bernadette reported that Albert was “back at it again, ” after thirty-three years. No one could really believe it. Apparently he had turned up with a bottle of Crown Royal one day last week and ecstatically poured himself three fingers in front of his wife.

  (“What in the lord’s name are you about with that?” I said to him.

  “To hell with it,” he says. “It’s Christmas, the kids are all gone, and I’ve been sober for thirty-three years. It’s time to celebrate, Mommy!” And doesn’t he gulp the Christly thing down in front of my eyes!)

  Now, everyone sort of had the feeling that they should behave very disapprovingly and discouragingly toward Albert every time he came out from underneath the sink with his bottle shouting, “Who wants a snoutful?” — but with the exception of Bridget’s father, no one could actually bring themselves to do it. He was too much fun. Except for putting him in perpetual good cheer and turning his cheeks and nose a welcoming pink, the liquor had no great effect on the man, certainly none of the adverse effects that everyone, for some reason, had been expecting. He was simply the same old Albert, spreader of good cheer, offering to replace poor Mrs. Boucher’s tea with a hot buttered rum.

  “No, it no good for my stomach, Ally. ”

  “Ach, it’s good for every goddamn piece a ya. A nice toddie then, Marianne?”

  “No, Albert, no, I just have more tea.”

  Which meant Albert had to content himself with making a toddie for the priest, whom he did not approve of half as much as he did Mrs. Boucher, a woman who had spent six years of her life caring for Margaret P. in spite of her own hardships. Bridget could remember being small and sitting at the kitchen table at Margaret P. ’s house with Mrs. Boucher, watching her smoke and listening to her ghastly stories about her no good brudder. Her no good brudder used to break into her apartment and steal the television set for booze. Her no good brudder would threaten to beat her if she didn’t give him money. Mrs. Boucher said back then that she was so relieved to be working at Margaret P. ’s, away from her no good brudder, that she was almost sick.

  Bridget remembered trying to keep up by telling Mrs. Boucher about Gerard, who always beat her up and spit in her hair and wouldn’t play with her. He had gotten hold of her Wonder Woman doll and sawed the top of its head off with his pocket knife.

  Albert was in a state that Bernadette cluckingly called “High Gear” — scuttling around to make toddies for himself and sleepy, pink Father Stewart, another harmless and uninteresting drunk, and then darting down the hall to check on Margaret P. ’s cheer, which lately hadn’t been too bad. Margaret P. had taken to singing the song about the three Marys since Bridget got home, and despite the depressing lyrics, the singing seemed to keep her content and less likely to succumb to her usual macabre hallucinations. When Bridget first showed up, Margaret P. had been convinced that Bridget herself was one of these spectres, having returned from the dead after being shot by a boy. Margaret P. thought Bridget was Jennifer MacDonnell. Or else thought Jennifer MacDonnell had been Bridget. But this notion didn’t seem to frighten Margaret P. in the least. She said, “Hello, dear. Are you still in purgatory?” and began to say a rosary. Since then, every time Bridget stopped into Margaret P. ’s room, the ancient thing would say nothing beyond holding up the rosary, shaking it encouragingly and calling — as though Bridget were far away — “It won’t be long now, dear! You just hold on a bit longer. ”

  “I’m not in purgatory, Gramma.”

  “We’ll get you up there, dear. I’ve lived a good life and they’ll listen to me. ”

  But now Margaret P. had forgotten about the continual rosaries and taken to singing “Mary Hamilton” all day long. She sat, rocking back and forth and singing about the three Marys over and over again, a smile nestled somewhere in the folds of her face. She only remembered the one verse.

  Yesterday e’ en there were four Marys.

  This night there will be but three.

  There was Mary Beaton and Mary Seaton.

  And Mary Carmichael and me.

  Albert and Bridget’s father were pleased to hear the old lady singing after so long, but only Bridget seemed to recognize that Margaret P. had confused it for the rosary, that in her cobwebby mind she was still busy praying for Bridget’s unworthy soul. And she must have considered it pretty unworthy because she hadn’t stopped since Bridget got back.

  Albert had been explaining all this to the priest and Mrs. Boucher — how Margaret P. had gotten it into her head that Bridget had been shot instead of Jennifer MacDonnell, and as yet no one was able to convince her otherwise — and this was what set them off on the subject of the dead, bemoaning particularly the young people, and all the dying and killing they did.

  “It’s the parents!” Albert pronounced recklessly. High Gear had the effect of causing Albert to make several reckless pronouncements throughout the day. Ideas he might otherwise have made every effort to suppress in front of Bridget’s father.

  “It’s not the goddamn parents,” the latter countered at once. “I’ve never bought into that psychiatric free-love save-the-seals horseshit and I’m not about to now. Blame everything on the parents, forget about personal responsibility. I say if some little bastard is gonna be a weirdo goon and pick up a rifle to shoot some young girl stupid enough to get tangled up with him, then that’s what he’s gonna do. And people encourage that now, anyway. They think its cool to be wanting to do away with themselves or the young girls. It’s in the videos they watch. Well I say let them kill themselves if they want to, but if they start aiming those guns at anyone else, by God, I’ll hold the door to hell open for them and kick their arses through. ”

  Bridget’s mother said: “Well, I didn’t know Archie Shearer, but Kenneth MacEachern was in my religion class and he was just a lovely lad. He told me he wanted to be a priest. ”

  “Oh, yes, but the sons of bitches change once they hit their teens,” Bridget’s father said, happy to be angry and deliberately not checking his language in front of Father Stewart. “They get arrogant and start thinking they know everything, and you can’t tell them a goddamn thing after that. ”

  All the proof he needed of this was, Bridget supposed, sitting at the table with him. He had made his disgust at both her and Gerard’s respective betrayals known since the first day they had ever disagreed with him. Gerard had been about thirteen, Bridget a couple of years older, and their father had been so offended that he hadn’t bothered to try and tell them anything since. Now if he ever wanted to express displeasure at something they did, he pretended to agree with it, not speaking to them, but to the air. “Yes, that’s what he wants to do,” he would say. “He figures it’s the right thing. Well by the Jesus, why doesn’t he do just that? Why the hell not? Goddamn, if that isn’t just a dandy one. ” Gerard could imitate their father at this with uncanny accuracy.

  Bridget had to reacclimatize herself to all the chaos she’d forgotten about, especially now that she had the empty, echoing ward to contrast it against. She had read somewhere that people who are colour-blind all their lives find it too overwhelming, once their eyes are operated on, to experience the world in colour. They lose all perspective and are terrified and lost and sometimes get physically sick. That’s what coming home was like, even though Bridget had spent all her life there and only four months on the ward. Coming out was a far greater adjustment than going in had been.

  She would sit and drink tea until about three in the afternoon and then switch to rum and eggnog before dinner, wine during, and anything else went for the remainder of the evening. She could get away with this because it was Christmas and because everyone wanted her to be happy. She was genuinely pleased at how much easier it was to get drunk after four months’ abstinence, although it was not the same kind of drunk as before. It made her serene, content to be doing whatever thing it was she happened to be doing. If she was baking cookies with her mother, she was content to be doing that. If she
was helping Margaret P. to the toilet, she was content to be doing that. Because her feeling was that really she wasn’t doing that. This was a relief. She didn’t get edgy and excited like she used to, and have to leave the house at two in the morning.

  And nobody chastised her, about anything. Her father did not even confide his displeasure to the air.

  “What about you, Bridget? Didn’t you know Kenneth? Or was it Archie Shearer you knew?”

  Her mother had always been one to forget about unspoken household rules. Her father said she did it on purpose. Once, when he had decided a few years back that he was going to disown Uncle Albert, and made it understood that no one in their family was to have any contact with him, Joan had forgotten all about this edict in the second week and ruined the effect by calling up Bernadette to make plans for a day of shopping at the Mic Mac Mall. So Bridget shouldn’t have been surprised, really, that her mother would conformingly tiptoe around her for the first couple of days, clearing away teacups, before absently letting drop a question about killing and dying.

  “Bridey’s one of the good ones, goddammit!” Albert interjected, pink-faced and reckless. She could hear the recklessness in his voice as he stood at the counter behind her, and she could feel everyone willing him to sit down and have a piece of bannock or something.

  “God only knows she could have taken the easy way out, or done something foolish or what-have-you,” he came up behind her chair and Bridget could hear him swallow. She looked up at Gerard, who sort of smiled. He was leaning on his hand, fingers tapping against his head as if they were feeling for a trap door.

  “We should just thank the lord she had enough sense to do the right thing!” Albert finished in an even louder voice than he started with.

  “Yes, Bridget, you’re a wise girl, ” Father Stewart agreed, being priestly in his attempt to save Albert from awkwardness.

  “Goddamn right!” Albert barked, repaying the father with blasphemy. He gave Bridget a pat on the head which was too hard.