The Long Stretch

by Linden McIntyre

  Look for yourself.

  Well I’ll be goddamned. He must be ossified.

  He looks sober.

  It was the only time I ever saw them going out together in my seventeen years.

  “People ask me,” he says. “Would you ever tie the knot again.” Half laughing. Shaking his head. “Only thing I want from a woman you don’t have to get married for. You’ve got a right to ask why I had to fuck up your life before I discovered marriage wasn’t my cuppa.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” I say steadily.

  “We wrote to each other,” he says.

  All the letters she wrote to me are suddenly in my mind. Everything starts with letters. Ends with letters.

  “The letters got intense,” he says. “But compared with the kinds of relationships I was used to, it was sort of…pure. I thought it was just little Effie, Little Orphan Annie like always. Childhood chum. But she was…reaching out to me.

  “And when we saw each other here, when the old man…with all the conflict, me and the old man, and the whole unresolved mess with Uncle Sandy from back in ’63. And it was clear from the letters things weren’t the best with you two.”

  Now his eyes are full and I am mesmerized.

  “Jesus. I just. I was like a teenager.”

  “It isn’t important,” I say.

  Knowing that Effie was drawn to me once not just because of my needs but in an even bigger way, her own…she would reach out, again. And why not to him? He was big and famous and he could see things and explain things. And give her things and take her away. That was probably the big attraction. Take her away.

  Who knows what the Swede’s wife had in mind. Or what the old man might have done. Maybe just gone away. Like everybody else.

  “It was only when I wrote about it…or, not about it, but something based on it. That I realized.”

  “I read your fucking book,” I say, wearily.

  “Never mind the book.”

  3

  November 11, 1963. He and Angus went to town that day, as usual. Alone. Don’t remember how I got there. Watched the parade alone. Saw them and their comrades marching by in their berets and clinking medals. And afterwards there was the usual retreat to the Legion. Then to MacAskill’s, with their bottles. It was all routine by then.

  But he surprised us. Came home early. Looked like he’d been sick. Ashen face. Almost as if he’d been weeping. We just stared at him, Ma and me.

  “What the fuck are you looking at?” he said.

  Then went down to the living room. Sat in the big chair without taking off his coat.

  It was the only time I saw Ma flare at him.

  “I’m wondering why you came home at all,” she said, “if it’s just to sit there like a zombie.”

  I said to myself, Here it comes.

  But he just made a strange sound, almost like a sob. He went to bed soon after that. But that was how he stayed until the end. Speaking to nobody. Coming straight home after work, disappearing up to their room. No more absences.

  It was like that for eleven days.

  Till the day they killed Kennedy.

  Not nearly as much wind. Some rain on the day. But a tempest in the memory.

  The voice has become flat. Stripped of feeling. Out of consideration? Out of fear? I take the bottle and pour into my teacup. Perhaps it will calm me. Maybe restore the good feeling you always remember from other times.

  “I’m in Halifax, boarding up on the north end of Windsor Street, near the Forum,” he says. “It was Atlantic Bowl weekend, but I forgot. And I forgot Duncan was coming up from Antigonish. St. F.X. was in the bowl game, as usual.” He sips thoughtfully. “And I remember I was studying for a quiz, listening to a little radio. Guy breaks in. I think it was about three o’clock. A Friday afternoon. Says, ‘We take you now to Dallas.’ Wow. It was tough studying after that. I made a pot of tea. On my hotplate.”

  He looks at me, waiting.

  “What do you remember?” he asks.

  “Nothing.”

  Except maybe that in the morning Pa had gone hunting. I jokingly said I should take the day off school, go with him. We were all worrying by then about his mood. Something dangerous and new. But going hunting almost seemed normal.

  He smiled at me. That’s what I remember.

  “I guess it was about five that afternoon,” he says. “The phone rings at the boarding house. It was Duncan. Calling from the Lord Nelson. Fuck. I forgot I was supposed to meet him there.

  “‘Did you hear about Kennedy?’ he says.

  “‘Christ yes,’ I say. ‘Who do you think did it?’

  “‘Some Protestant,’ he says. I can’t help laughing.”

  What else do I remember? There was a dance that night. In Creignish. The regular Friday night. Buddy MacMaster playing, as usual. There had been talk that Father Donald was going to call it off. Out of respect for the president, who was a Catholic. But they went ahead with it and everybody was talking about Kennedy. I was there. Actually inside, standing at the back. Listening to the music, feeling okay in spite of Kennedy.

  I’d left home about eight o’clock and Ma was kind of concerned that Pa hadn’t come back from hunting. A short time back you’d have automatically thought: The Legion. But he hadn’t been going there lately. Not since the eleventh. Probably over at Angus’s place. But there had been no sign of Angus lately either. Not since the eleventh. No matter what you thought, there were some things that you’d just never do. You’d never call looking for him. I used to say to Ma, “Why don’t you call the power commission, or the Legion, or the tavern and see if he’s there?” And she’d just roll her eyes. You didn’t do that with him. Not ever.

  Effie was at the dance with a gang. Driving by her place, I almost went in to ask if she wanted a ride. The latest boyfriend had gone back to Ontario by then. But of course there were lots of boyfriends and I could tell she’d left for the dance already. The only light was in the kitchen. In any case I wouldn’t want to run into the old man if he was in there. I could imagine them sitting there. Himself and Angus. Talking about God knows what. Probably drinking wine.

  Sure enough Effie was at the dance ahead of me. And I could tell there were a few guys with the eye on her already. Sniffing and circling. She asked me to dance with her once and I did, though I wasn’t very good at it.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  “A ride,” she said. Tipping her head to one side.

  “I guess the old fellow is at your place,” I said.

  “Your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  I should have been worried then, but I was distracted by the tilt of her face. Not that worrying would have made any difference.

  She said: “You’re good. You must have been practising.”

  I knew it wasn’t true. But that raised interesting possibilities. And as the last set started, I spotted a grade eleven girl from Long Point on the sidelines. Asked her to dance and she said yes. Halfway through the third figure, I asked her if I could drive her home. She looked at me with a half-dubious expression, then laughed and said, “I suppose.”

  Holy mother of God.

  “We got pretty ripped that night. Drunk college students everywhere. Next day there was a minute’s silence for Kennedy before the game. I think about half the St. F.X. team were Americans. Good Catholic boys from Maine and Boston. Duncan was saying he hadn’t seen so much emotion in the St. F.X. crowd since the Cuban missile crisis the year before. Them worrying then that poor Kennedy was going to start a nuclear war. Little did they know that the poor fellow had already started the war in Vietnam. Where half of them would end up in a few years anyway. Jesus.”

  Settling into the truck, after the dance, I was trying to find something on the radio. Nothing but serious music. Classical.

  “Awful about Kennedy,” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  Wondering where he might have got to if he wasn’t with A
ngus.

  “How are you finding grade twelve?” she asked.

  The way Uncle Jack put it: “He was like a frigging Indian in the woods. Never a sound. Some fellows would be blabbing and drinking rum. Shooting at anything that moved. Not him. He’d go in with one or two bullets and he’d have them coming back if he didn’t get something. He was real at home in the woods. Serious about hunting, Sandy.”

  I discovered later he’d taken a pint of rum with him that day.

  “After the football game I had to go back to the boarding house. To get money or something. Anyway, there’s a message to call home. So I do. Thinking maybe one of the old people. Ma answers, making some small talk at first. But I can tell something is wrong. Then I figure it’s the old man. Something in the mine. In Tilt Cove then. I never thought for a minute Uncle Sandy.”

  Driving away from the dance, in the truck, for God’s sake, she was sitting away over by the passenger door. Usually they’re in the middle, close. So how does that happen? Do they just come over? Are you supposed to drag them over? How do you do that?

  “So how are you finding it? Grade eleven,” I said.

  “Good,” she said. And went silent again.

  “Buddy was playing pretty good tonight,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But I wish he’d get a guitar player or something. Or play records once in a while. They do that some places now. For round dancing.”

  “Yes.”

  “I like round dancing. The slow stuff. Now and then.”

  This sounded like a beginning. Intimate disclosures coming out.

  “Do you want to go for a drive somewhere?” I asked. Meaning park somewhere.

  The classical music grew on you. It was slow, at least. Some of it had a nice melody.

  “I have to go right home,” she said quickly.

  We were passing the end of the Creignish wharf road and I could see taillights going down there slowly. Cars going down to park. Whitecaps flashing on the dark seashore.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Ma says, ‘By any chance you haven’t been in touch with your uncle this weekend?’

  “I thought she said Duncan and I said, ‘Yes, we were just at the football game.’

  “She says, ‘Football game?’ Surprised like.

  “I said, ‘Yeah, St. F.X. won.’

  “She says, ‘I mean your Uncle. Sandy.’

  “‘Sandy?’ I say.”

  Down her lane, up to the darkened house. I stopped, turned out the headlights, and cut the engine. But left the key on accessories. The music continued. Then I put my arm on the back of the seat. My hand came close to her left shoulder. I guessed they must just haul them over at this point. But my arm was frozen.

  She said, “I’ll have to go in.”

  “Sure,” I said, jumping out my side. Then she slid across, under the wheel and out behind me. Hey. She could have used her own door. But she used mine. A signal of some kind. So I walked with her to the door.

  “I hope they didn’t lock me out,” she said.

  I hoped they had, but said: “They should put a key someplace. Just in case.”

  She laughed and said: “Usually we don’t even lock the door. But we’ve been locking it lately. A lot of new people around.”

  “That’s for sure,” I said.

  She turned the knob and the door opened.

  “Well,” she said. Half questioningly. Hand still on the knob, holding the door half opened.

  “Ma told me then. He’d gone hunting the day before. Never came back. Big search on. Said she was really grasping, calling me. But I should know anyway. He’d been acting strange. Maybe he went to Halifax.

  “‘Where’s Angus?’ I asked. ‘Right here,’ she said. Then I figured: This is peculiar.

  “After I hung up, Duncan and I decided to drive down right then and there. Once of the priests at the university had loaned him a car to go to the game.”

  I could tell just by the way she was standing that she expected something. So I carefully put my arms around her waist. She closed her eyes and started to turn her face a little to one side. But I then pressed my mouth against her warm dry lips. She accepted. Then moved her head gently around, working the kiss, thrusting just a little. There was a little bristle under her nose. Then I could feel the softness of her body leaning on me. Then she pulled back and said, “I better go in.”

  “Yes.”

  I remember driving home thinking: That was pretty easy.

  When I got home the Mounties were in the yard and a bunch of other cars. Some guys from the power commission. West Bay Road fellows from the pulp mill. But it was too late to go looking.

  They asked me if I ever went hunting with him.

  No, I said.

  Did I know any of his places?

  Well, I said. He often goes up back of Creignish Mountain, around the old Shimon Angus place.

  No, somebody said. That’s too far. He went on foot. He’ll be out somewhere around Sugar Camp or Queensville.

  So that’s where we spent Saturday.

  “I never really took it serious, until I got here,” he says. “Jesus, the commotion. Cars and trucks lined up along the road. The house full of people. The old lady in control. Poor Aunt Mary in pretty bad shape. I think that was the end of Grandpa, that night.”

  Tramping through the woods all day Saturday, I couldn’t help thinking of the girl in Long Point. Figuring the next time I’d know what to do. There was a regular Saturday dance down near Port Hood. At Neilie MacDonald’s. Should have made a date to go to that. All the time suspecting this was a waste of time. Nothing could have happened to electric man. Sandy the Lineman. A frigging Indian in the woods. Shot in his big thick head in the war and survived that. Could take on any four people and they wouldn’t lay a hand on him. Probably holed up somewhere with a crock. But also with a rifle. What if he broke his own rule about hunting and drinking? Then the Swede’s wife crept into my mind. And I kept seeing him getting into that big car. Maybe they just took off. For Halifax. Or Sweden. Who knows? The old man always made the world seem small. So maybe that was it. They were gone. And we were wasting all this time. Time better used making plans for tonight and the one from Long Point. And wasting the time of all these people. Pulp mill guys. Linemen. Mounties. Christ Jesus. Knowing that all these people would add the futile stupid search to the rest of the stories about Sandy the Stickman. The Fugitive. It was embarrassing, seeing all the people who were spending their Saturday trudging around the woods. Half the fucking Legion here. We’d pay for it. Bastard. Leaving me to face this.

  Then you’d think about Kennedy. Everybody talking about that.

  Of course the real reason we were wasting our time was because we were looking in the wrong place.

  It was other hunters who found him. Two fellows from Louisdale who didn’t even know about the search that was under way down near Queensville. They were hunting up back of Creignish Mountain, a couple of miles to the northeast, at Ceiteag Alasdair’s.

  It was Sunday.

  “Everything changed then.”

  “I guess so,” I say, pouring a little more rum into my cup.

  “Where were you when you heard?” he asks.

  “I think everybody was at Mass when they found him.”

  The priest prayed for him and Kennedy together even though we didn’t know Pa was dead. Hearing their names together, I felt panic. Wanted to jump out and shout at Father Hughie: What the fuck do you think you’re doing?

  “We got in late from Halifax. We had to stop in Antigonish, tell the priest we were taking his car down here. Then when we get out here, herself meets me on the doorstep. Says they found him. Fuuuck.”

  Ceiteag Alasdair. An old woman from another time. Stamped her name and character on a patch of woods up in the mountains. By natural selection, her name had overwhelmed the memory of any man who might ever have been part of her life. There were women like that. Henrietta Maclnnis. Her descendants were known as Henny�
��s, no matter who their fathers were. Ciorstaidh Maclntyre. Her descendants were known as the Ciorsti’s. No matter who their fathers were. And Ceiteag Alasdair. Talk about women’s liberation. They’re like spruce trees, women like that. Indestructible.

  All that was left of Ceiteag’s life was a small cellar, crowded by bushes that bore lush berries in the summer but exposed in the winter, at least until the snow came and filled it up. It was lined with careful fieldstones. About ten feet square and you’d hardly notice it. Until you were into it.

  That’s what they figured. He came along not paying attention. Fell in. Rifle went off. Boom.

  You’d never have expected something like that could happen to Sandy Gillis. A veteran of the war. Slogged all the way through France. Battle of the Scheldt. Lots of action in Holland. An experienced hunter. Like an Indian, he was. But then you’d never have expected him to take a flask with him hunting either. He loved a dram, but never when he was hunting. Drinking and guns don’t mix, he always told me, and that is what they were all saying at the wake. But there it was, beside him. The little brown paper bag with the empty bottle inside. A pint. Golden Diamond. The receipt said Thursday evening. You could still get a pint of rum for about $2.50 then.

  The other thing they were saying was that it was completely unlike Sandy Gillis to have had a bullet in the chamber, unless of course he saw something. Was getting ready to shoot. In any event, they figured he fell in, landed on a rock in the bottom of the old cellar, the rifle under him. The force of the fall broke the stock, right at the hand grip, caused the thing to fire. The bullet went in under his chin and right out the top. A frigging mess.

  “When I came home for the long weekend in October, Thanksgiving, everything seemed just fine,” he says.

  “It was.”

  “Ma told me they went to the masquerade dance in Glendale.”

  “They won a prize.”