The Ravine

by Paul Quarrington

  “Oh. I seem to recall you calling me Norm.”

  “Norman. Please. What did they do to you?”

  “They didn’t do anything to me, Phil.”

  “What?”

  “They didn’t do anything to me. Whatever they did, they did to a ten-year-old boy. That boy is gone forever.”

  “Well, how did that happen?”

  “Excuse me, Jay?”

  “That’s quite the stunt. Because Phil and I, man, we’re the same kids that ran screaming out of that ravine.”

  “Surely not. You’re quite an accomplished musician, Phil is a well-known writer. By the way, I enjoyed Padre quite a bit. It reminded me of a movie I saw at the Galaxy Odeon one time, The Cross and the Bullet.”

  “It was The Bullet and the Cross. Anyway, Reverend Norm, we’re not really successful. I mean, Jay plays in a little fern bar called Birds of a Feather. He lives there, for chrissake, and he’s kind of afraid to go outside.”

  “And Phil isn’t a writer.”

  “I am so a writer.”

  “Phil, you’re not a writer like you wanted to be a writer when you were a kid. You don’t write novels. You write shit for teevee, simplistic shit that really should be shot in black and white, that’s how hackneyed it is. Christ, you stole your biggest idea from a movie we saw at the Galaxy Odeon!”

  “I’m aware that I fall short of whatever mark you’ve set for me, Jay. I’m aware that I have fucked up. I’m a shit and a moral wash-up. I get it. But what I don’t get is why you keep throwing it in my face. Why do you want me to live in a constant state of guilt?”

  “Umm … it’s not so much that I want you to, I guess. You do live in a constant state of guilt. And I suppose that sometimes I take advantage of that fact. But, another point of clarification, it’s not really guilt, it’s more like free-floating self-hatred. It’s, um, general auto-damnation.”

  “Where does this shit come from?”

  “It comes from the ravine. It only goes to prove the point, what happened down in the ravine has fucked us over profoundly. Look at Norman! He’s a goddam priest!”

  “I’m a minister, Jay.”

  “The point is, we weren’t really looking for you, all those years ago, to become a man of the cloth. Then the thing happened.”

  “The incident.”

  “Phil likes to call it the incident. He likes to give things names. So, the incident happened, and now little Norman Kitchen is a minister. Coincidence? I think not.”

  “No. You’re right, Jay. It’s not a coincidence.”

  “What did they do to you, Norman?”

  “Phil, you know what they did to me.”

  “Okay. Okay, I guess maybe there was part of me that was hoping, you know, that maybe they just, I don’t know, had done something less severe.”

  “It was very severe.”

  “You know, Reverend Norm, right now you seem a little pissed off. For a reverend,” Jay says.

  “Hmm. You’re right. I’m sorry. Anger is an incredibly destructive force. And when I came out of that ravine, I was a very angry boy. Weren’t you?”

  “I don’t think we came out angry. Do you, Phil?”

  “No. We weren’t angry, exactly, we were …”

  “Afraid.”

  “I was going to say confused.”

  “I was afraid,” said Jay. “Still am. Afraid of everything. Boys. Men. Women. So I came up with these lame solutions. I stayed inside a lot. Played the piano all the time. If I ever stumbled into a relationship, I made sure I scuppered it long before it could bite my ass.”

  “I was confused. I liked people, and then all of a sudden people were these evil creatures, so how could I like them any more?”

  Norman says, “I feel so sorry for those boys.”

  “What?”

  “What sort of desperation, what sort of pain and hopelessness, would drive them to do what they did?”

  “Reverend Norm, surely as a minister you endorse the notion of evil,” I say.

  “Evil is a choice.”

  “Not always. Some people just pop out that way. Rabid and red-eyed.”

  “I disagree. Because if you’re right, what would be the point of my vocation? I would have no influence. In your universe, the deck is stacked.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Reverend Norm. You came out of the ravine angry. And …?”

  “And I started making everyone’s life hell. My mother’s life, especially. Other people’s lives, too, whoever I came into contact with. I was confused. I acted out quite a bit. I shoplifted. I started—this is hard to explain …”

  “Go on, we’re listening.”

  “I started breaking into people’s houses.”

  “No!”

  “Little Norman Kitchen?”

  “I wouldn’t steal things,” he hastens to add. “At least, I wouldn’t steal anything big, anything that might be noticed. I might take a family photograph, or a souvenir from some vacation. I wasn’t there to rob anybody, I was there to, I don’t know, see what it felt like to live in a normal home. I’d make a sandwich, sometimes. Turn on the television, watch for a few moments. I’d always leave the television turned on. Anyway, I got caught doing that and I was sent to reform school.”

  “Norman Kitchen got sent to reform school?”

  “Yes. When I was fourteen. And, of course, there were many boys there like the boys in the ravine. So I thought, you know, that’s it. Game over. But then I thought, no. I’m not getting tied up to any more trees.”

  “Guys. They made me tie you up.”

  “Philip, I’ve forgiven you for that.”

  “I haven’t forgiven him for that.”

  “Do you think I’ve forgiven myself?”

  “There was a gymnasium at the reform school …”

  “Seriously,” I say, “do you think there has been one night, a single night, in my entire lifetime when I have gone to bed not feeling like the worst piece of shit on the planet?”

  “Phil.”

  “Yes, Norman?”

  “I’m talking.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “There was a gymnasium at the reform school. I started weight training.”

  “Norman, I don’t like to sound rude, but … are you making this up?”

  “I was doing the bench press one day and I lost control of the bar. I dropped it on my head and knocked myself unconscious.”

  “Ah! This sounds more like it.”

  “I woke up at the hospital. And there was a man there, a minister, Frank Ulmer, who became a very good friend of mine. He died a few years back … anyway, we talked about, oh, you know. Getting tied to trees.”

  “And he said, let me tell you about a man who was tied to a tree.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Segue to Jesus.”

  “Jesus wasn’t tied to a tree, Phil. He was nailed to a cross. Big difference.”

  “Even I knew that,” puts in Jay.

  “But if he could forgive the people who did that to him, I figured I could forgive those boys. And here I am.”

  “Well, frankly, that had never occurred to me,” says Jay. “Forgiving them, I mean.”

  “It seems to me, Jay, that if you play music, you’re concentrating on one of the beautiful things that people do. And forgiving people, in general. Those boys get included in the mix.”

  “I guess if I just write shit for television, I’m not really forgiving anybody.”

  “You have to forgive yourself first, Philip.”

  “I don’t know if that would do the trick,” I say.

  “Plus, it may not be the easiest thing to do,” my brother adds.

  “How’s that, Jay?”

  “Well, let’s think about this, okay? Let’s just make sure we’re all on the same page, that we understand exactly what went down. You tied Norman up so he could escape. You tied me up so that I couldn’t. You tied me to the tree. I mean, I could have gotten away, I was pulling and yanking on my ropes, I c
ould have gone for help or … forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You guys. You guys never did really understand what was going on. You never watched enough television. I practically had to beg you to join me in that escape attempt and, Jay, let me point out, I myself was in the clear, I could have kept going. But I came back. The point is, I knew Ted and Tony …”

  “Tom and Terry.”

  “Father Norman, what were their names?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know. It was such a long time ago.”

  “I knew they were going to check the knot. And they did.”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “Sure they did. It’s in my book. They said, ‘Philly Four-Eyes is a tricky little bastard.’”

  “Just because it’s in your book doesn’t mean it happened,” Jay says. “They never checked the knot.”

  “I remember.”

  “No, you don’t, Phil.”

  “I’m pretty sure they checked the knot, and if it had been a trick knot, who knows what might have happened?”

  “We are not discussing what might have happened. We are discussing what did happen.”

  “Look, Jay. I didn’t want to die alone. Okay? That’s why I tied you to a tree. Satisfied?”

  “Well … we’re getting there.”

  “If I was going to get slaughtered by those fuck-pigs, I wanted to be with you. I wanted you to be with me.”

  “I forgive you.”

  “What?”

  “I understand. You didn’t want to die alone. You wanted to die with me there. So you tied me to a tree. It’s not a decision I can really get behind intellectually, but I suppose I can understand it. After all, I’m your brother. So I forgive you.”

  “I don’t see how you can be pissed off for so long and then just forgive me.”

  “That’s because you don’t understand—-yet—what is so wonderful about human beings.”

  “Well put, Jay,” says Norman. “Have you ever considered the vocation?”

  “In my own way, Norm. In my own way. Let us pray.”

  “Yes. Good idea. We in the United Church tend not to be so, um, dramatic about it—”

  “Akela!” Jay’s voice rings, golden and pure, in the empty church.

  “We will do our best,” chants Reverend Norm.

  “Dib dib dib…”

  “Dob dob dob …”

  The sun has continued its journey across the sky, and the light that comes through the stained-glass window now illuminates our tear-glistened cheeks.

  The timing of our departure from Thunder Bay, combined with the cruising speed of the Dodge Super Bee, meant that when we were ready to stop for the night we were just a few kilometres away from the Shady Rest Motel. We decided to stop there. At least, I decided we should stop. Jay thought we should drive through the night, allow the rusted-out land shark the freedom to prowl in the darkness. He always was a romantic at heart. The girls wanted nothing to do with that place. “Daddy,” they chastised me, “the bathroom walls say Fuck, fuck, fuck. And the guy running it is like really, really a creepazoid.” But I insisted. Maybe I was just exhausted, maybe—and here we’re getting close to the truth—I knew that the Shady Rest had a bar attached, the Luau Lounge, and I was just a tiny bit thirsty. Whatever. My will prevailed.

  When we pulled into the empty parking lot, the odometer on the mighty Dodge, the Super Bee, had rolled to 299,999 miles. The last little white roller was stuck between numbers.

  There was a woman behind the check-in counter this time, a large matronly woman who clucked over the girls and made us all feel better. This woman (perhaps forty-three years of age, perhaps as many pounds overweight) wore a man’s wife-beater. It was inadequate.

  Anyway, the girls were tired and wanted to go straight to bed. I supervised the hair-and tooth-brushing, standing in the doorway that separated the bathroom and the bedroom. Then I pulled out the banjo and sang a few verses of “The Window.”

  Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,

  Eating his Christmas pie.

  He stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum,

  And threw it out the window.

  The window, the window, he threw it out the window…

  What, I didn’t tell you that I brought my banjo with me? I tossed it into the trunk when Jay came to pick me up, just after my wife had left on a Mexican holiday with her young lover. Look, you readers shouldn’t be so suspicious at this point in the game. I’m heading toward the finish line here, and I’d appreciate your support. After all, I’m limping and stumbling and starting to lose it.

  I went outside and trod the wobbly walkway to the door marked “114.” I could hear my brother’s muffled voice coming from the other side. “Jay!” I called. “Hurry up. The book’s almost finished.”

  He pulled the door open. He held the almost antique telephone base in one hand, and had the receiver squeezed between his shoulder and his ear. He muttered, “Look, I’ll talk to you later,” into the mouthpiece and ejected the receiver from the crook of his neck, catching it as it hurtled toward the ground.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Ex-wife number four,” he answered. “What’s up?”

  “Let’s go get a drink.”

  My brother eyed me suspiciously.

  “What?” I said. “Did you think that all of a sudden we wouldn’t be fucked up?”

  “Well, I was trying,” he argued. “I mean, look.” He gestured with the telephone. “I was reaching out.”

  “Yeah. But it’s not over. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen, but it’s not over. It’s almost over.”

  “Say what?”

  “My book isn’t finished.”

  “Well, can’t you just make something up?”

  “I am making something up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s just go get a drink, okay? You and I have had drinks before. Like you said, we’re alcoholics.”

  “Oh, all right.” Jay grabbed a windbreaker for the journey across the tarmac. “I was looking forward to a nice little wank.”

  “Now that’s reaching out.”

  “Let’s go.”

  We entered the Luau Lounge, which seemed unaccountably gloomy, and stood still and waited for our eyes to adjust from the starlit night to deep shadow. In my case the wait was fated to be long—in point of fact, my eyes are incapable of adjusting—so I was still rather blind when I heard a voice say, “Hey. It’s you guys.”

  Todd seemed subdued, even depressed.

  “Hey there, hi there, ho there,” whispered my brother.

  I could see that Todd stood beside the bar. He gestured with something (was that a gun?) at a figure slumped over the countertop. (It was a gun!) “Les pissed me off. He couldn’t stop talking about cunts.”

  “Todd?” said my brother. “I think we should call the police now.”

  “Right,” snorted Todd. “Like that’s gonna happen. Come off it.”

  “I’ve got children,” I offered meekly.

  “I’ve got children, too,” Todd snapped. “Twin girls. Fifteen years of age. I’m not allowed within a mile of them. Why? Am I some kind of monster? Well, that’s what the Court of Cunts says, that I’m a fucking monster, so I figure what the hey? Les wouldn’t shut up, so bango-bingo. How about you assholes?”

  “We’ll shut up.”

  “You might.” Todd waved the gun at me. “I’m not so sure about your brother.”

  “He’ll shut up.”

  “Tell you what,” said Todd. “Let’s shut him the fuck up.”

  Todd set down his beer bottle (he had been holding the gun in his right hand, a brewski in the left), reached behind and threw up the hinged leaf that allowed staff behind the bar proper. He backed up, training the gun on us with such concentration that he was actually biting the tip of his tongue, and began rooting around back there.

  I could see better now, enough that I took note that Les the bartender had only half a head left.

&nbs
p; “So like, where have you guys been for the last couple of days?”

  “In, um, Thunder Bay.”

  Jay said, “Todd, you don’t want to make this any worse than it has to be.”

  “How much worse can it get? I’m already going to the gas chamber.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Huh?”

  “We don’t have the gas chamber in Canada.”

  “Here we go!” Todd had come up with a roll of duct tape and some lengths of rope. He held them up in the air triumphantly and wiggled back toward us. “Let’s shut your brother up, Phil!”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Or … I could just shoot you both. Bang-bang. What do you think?” He tossed me the rope. “So I think you should just shut the fuck up and tie your brother’s hands together.”

  “Shoot us both,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Do it, Todd. Like you said. Bang-bang.”

  “Don’t take the easy way out, Phil,” Jay said. “I think you should tie me up.”

  I searched my brother’s face. I detected a small movement in his eyes, an intense whorliness. I’d seen this before, years and years ago, when as kids we experimented with extrasensory perception and silent thought transference.

  “Okay, Jay? Jay, listen. I’m going to tie you up, now. I’m going to tie an Irish Sheepshank.”

  At this, Todd’s head bounced like that of a bobble-head doll. “Don’t do that, goofus,” he said. “He can just pull that knot apart. Tie something good.”

  “Um,” I asked, “were you a Wolf Cub?”

  “Dib dib dib dob dob dob get a job. Or however that goes. So tie something good. A Buntline Hitch. That’s like the best knot there is.”

  “Oh.” I held the piece of rope up and looked at it. I imagine that my look was more than pitiful.

  “You know that one, Philly Four-Eyes?” asked Todd.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know how to tie a Buntline Hitch.”

  “So do it. Before I shoot the both of you cunts.”

  “Jay, I—”

  “It’s okay.” Jay folded his huge hands together and proffered them.

  I looked at Jay and tried to communicate that I was still going to tie the Irish Sheepshank, but even as I did so, we heard Todd say, “And I’m going to check that knot, too! So make it a good one.”