“What money?” Everette said, sitting up. He walked out of the gloom and into the main room in his underwear. It was the first time Michael had seen his muscular body, covered with ink tattoos. “There’s no money here,” Everette said. He was angry that Michael had woken him up. “How can you expect us to make a deal if you keep grabbing at our funds?”
“What deal?” Michael smiled.
Everette looked into a drawer and began shaking some seeds back and forth, looking for enough grass to roll a joint. The sun came partially into the shack and the flies soundlessly moved at chest level in and out of the sun.
“The deal I told you we were making —” Everette said.
Later, when Michael went back to the farm, Madonna and Silver listened to him, staring out at the dull, sunbaked shoreline.
“He says we have a deal of some kind — which is part of our investment. Do you two know about it?”
They both looked at him and shook their heads.
“He mentioned a deal — once or twice —” Silver said. “I mean about earning twenty thousand. I don’t know.”
“Well, Jesus Christ, I just lost three hundred dollars,” Michael added.
And again the three of them looked at each other.
“Tom always said —” Madonna began.
Michael raised his hand. “Come on,” he said. “We'll leave Tom out of it”
They had pooled their resources and their capital at the end of May. That was the main reason Michael did not take the job his father had secured for him for the summer. Everette had spoken of this collective as a way to ensure everyone had a good time, and to ensure that Michael was able to stay downriver, instead of going back to town.
They had, until this moment, believed that it was working wonderfully well. But the real problem was that neither Silver, who waited for Michael’s instructions, nor Michael himself wanted to blame Everette for doubledealing them.
“This is what we have to do,” Michael said to Madonna and Silver. “We just have to talk to him — calculate what he has taken if it’s not in our best interest we’ll break it off.”
“Breaking it off- now — would be good,” Silver said, his forehead reddened by the band of his old leather hat, and by the sun beating down upon him.
The bells of the church pealed for Sunday Mass, and they could hear cars driving down the church lane and parking. The sound of children, the slamming of car doors, all sounded depressing.
At this moment on this particular Sunday the idea of his article seemed depressing too. One man from Sackville kept saying, “Michael — if this comes out — if this comes out — talk to Terry about that incident — that was his fault — you talk to him.”
This was a boy, who was now a lawyer, whom Michael had secretly detested. It was strange, but Michael felt sorry for him now.
Now, turning to Madonna, he asked: “What do you think Everette has up his sleeve?”
“A way to earn money.”
“By doing what?”
“By selling drugs — but sooner or later hell want us to sell them for him “
Michael looked at her. He squinted slightly. He immediately envisioned two scenarios. Everything would be fine and they would get away from Everette as soon as possible, or they would get caught and end up fined or jailed. But there was of course a third possibility that enticed him — and this was that they would actually make a lot of money — and that Everette was doing all of this for them.
They decided to talk to Everette that night. They drove over in Silver’s old Pontiac.
Everette was very used to inquisitions. And he claimed that all the money was safe and hidden and, in fact, he could have charged them for the lobster that they had eaten one night the month before.
Then he offered advice. He crouched on his haunches, drawing some numbers in the sand with a stick he had picked up at the side of the woods.
As he drew these numbers, in tens and twenties, he spoke.
“We have about three thousand now — but I need another thousand. Then we can get fifteen thousand in uncapped mescaline for four thousand dollars “
He said that they should all keep tabs on how much each one earned or spent. But they should start earning some money, because he could not do it all by himself. It was as if he had taken over a part of their lives they had not willingly cast his way. And this was done as naturally as all other things that he did, so that not to go along with his scheme, of getting mescaline from certain people he knew, and selling it on the Island in a month, would display deep ingratitude.
“It’ll be the biggest deal I ever worked on,” he said, smiling at them.
To Michael it didn’t seem possible that he had not heard of this deal before, but, so as not to embarrass himself or Everette, he kept pretending he had. And he felt at that moment that this was exactly what Everette was relying on, that is, Michael and Silver’s omission to ask the pertinent questions, or demanding out of a deal that had not been fully explained to them.
In the evening air was one other notion — and this notion, as the three of them stood side by side, was this; they themselves realized they were weak, and had no qualities that would allow them to escape, or stand up for themselves.
As Everette spoke, Michael could only look at the knots on the old birch stick in Everette’s hand.
Michael sat in the shack later that Sunday night, looking at the vicious stingers outside the window and wondering how all of this had happened.
“This’ll get me outta my scrape with Daryll,” Everette said. “That’s the first thing we got to worry about.”
Yet no one knew why they themselves should be worried about this.
They then went back to the farm and sat in silence.
Madonna wanted to ask Tom’s help in getting their money back, but Michael could not bring himself to.
“It is an awful good deal — if he can get fifteen-thousand-dollars’ worth of uncapped mescaline for four thousand — it’s a big profit for us all,” Silver suddenly said. “I don’t think we should worry — he’s a good guy.”
Being called a good guy in Everette’s world always came when someone had just done something dishonest.
By the end of June, Michael was worried whenever he went to his parents’ home lest Everette come visit him there.
He remembered how casually mistrustful Everette’s smile was every time he looked at anyone.
He also felt obligated to Madonna and Silver, who had already put their savings into Everette Hutch’s hands. They had put in about twelve to fourteen hundred dollars. And now they waited with innocent faces for Michael to tell them what to do.
One day after a party, Michael went over to pay Everette for a certain amount of marijuana.
“What about the other fifty?” said Everette.
“What fifty?”
“The other fifty — the interest for the pool — it’s for all of us. I told you the other night — Daryll is patient but his patience will wear out — and how will I explain to him that you are welshing on us — “
“Do I owe another fifty?”
“Gail — what does he owe?”
Gail looked abashed and tried to speak, but Everette cut her off.
Everette smiled and rubbed Michael’s head playfully, as if he were trying to keep Michael in line, implying that he had caught Michael just then trying to take advantage of them.
“Oh oh oh oh oh — I’d better not tell Silver this, or he’d be some disappointed in you,” Everette said. “You know he doesn’t have that much. And he worked for a week hauling traps for the little money he got,” he added in a pious whisper.
The idea that Michael would ever be thought of as duplicitous in anything was infuriating to him, especially at the tail end of that false and pious whisper. But his fury was only spent in Everette mockingly pointing a finger at him.
“Come on,” he said, smiling a sugary smile. “Admit it — I caught you!“
And Michael could not
help but smile at this falseness, a smile which made the accusation seem true.
“Ahh-ha — you see that?” Everette said, pointing the smile out to Gail
Michael then went back to Brassaurds’ and told Silver that if Everette ever said that he, Michael, had cheated them, they should not believe him.
But this made Silver suspicious. He sat on the grass, looked here and there, and spat.
“Where is the pickle jar?” Silver kept saying, pulling grass up with his hand. “Where is that pickle jar? I’d love to have a look at it. I put my money in it, and it’s been a month and there is not a cent. We have to buy groceries — what in Christ are we doing mixed up in this? What are you and Everette doing?“
Both he and Madonna felt betrayed. Michael did also, but now they both suddenly suspected him.
Still, Everette said the one deal that would allow them to recoup all of this money, and more, would come through. That he and his cousin Daryll Hutch could be trusted with this.
By the early summer, this deal was constant in Everette’s conversation. And he spoke about it as if they were the principle investors, so that almost every cent Michael got from home, he gave over to his friend, because now he had committed himself.
One night he was at his parents’ house. His mother left fifty dollars — two twenties and a ten — on the ironing board, and Michael, going out the door, picked it up. And, instead of keeping it for himself, he went down to Everette, thinking: I’ll give him this, and prove it
He had no idea what he was trying to prove at that moment. There were two other men with Everette that night. One was Daryll Hutch, the other a biker from somewhere in Quebec. Michael tried to be nonchalant and brave. Now it seemed imperative that he show them who he really was.
“Look, I’ve got some money,” he said, laying it on the table. But Everette, in agitated conversation, only looked at him and looked away.
“Hello,” Michael said to Daryll But the man said nothing. It was a terrible moment, for the moment said this: Pick the money back up, put it in your pocket, and leave-prove to them who you are. But he could not do it. This was the conversation in which Everette convinced Daryll to wait a while longer for his money by telling him how they could rely upon Michael Skid, on his sailboat — and that they could do three or four runs that year. He also convinced Daryll to put in five hundred dollars himself. With this windfall he had collected almost all the money needed for the initial buy, and had himself given exactly the one twenty-dollar bill he always kept in his wallet.
A week went by. Michael went to visit his parents again. Just before he left, his mother mentioned the money.
“Did you see any money on the ironing board?” she asked. “I was sure I put it there.”
“Money — why would I take your money?!” Michael yelled. His mother flinched and smiled timidly. “If you think that I steal — well, I’ll never come back.”
“I didn’t say you stole, dear. I would never say that.”
And the same feeling he had from the time he was a child, that he could have his mother do his bidding, overcame him. He looked furiously put-out, and, turning at the door, said he would go downriver and stay there, if this was how he was going to be looked upon at home.
“No, dear — come back — please,” his mother said, holding the patio door open. But he didn’t go back.
Downriver he could see only his mother’s timid smile, and tears came to his eyes.
Everette asked them over that night. And things were again the way they had been in May. That is, Everette seemed once again happy to see Michael, who had always felt warm in this man’s presence, was glad of this turn. What he didn’t know was that this turn had come because Daryll said he would give Everette another month.
“Michael,” he said, “come in — please. Gail, get Michael a drink — how are you boys? Close the door get out of the rain — cold tonight.” And he smiled at Madonna and shook his head.
They sat and drank for quite some time, while Gail’s child sat in the corner near the door, yawning continually, and having the perplexed, bored look he often had when Everette spoke.
“My father had to walk twelve miles to work,” Everette said. This came after he’d been speaking for a long time about hardship, callously mentioned names of adversaries long dead, speaking about being turned away from school, about trying to take care of his sisters and brothers, with his father working and his mother ill, about eleven kids living in an upstairs apartment overlooking the wharf.
“When the eleven of us got running back and forth on the floor the old lady who lived below us said it was like a herd of rats over her head,” he laughed. “She was a kind old lady to me but she died when I was still a kid. I always thought — didn’t I, Gail? — if she hadn’t died I might have got on the right track about things.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Michael blurted tenderly, and looked about, his eyes shining.
There was a pause. Everette looked like a man who had just demonstrated his internal fortitude, and he nodded and drank. Yet, in every way possible, in every way that counted, the men he spoke about — the biker from Quebec who would bring the drugs across the border to him, Daryll, who had just gotten out of jail, and others — were violent, untrustworthy, and dangerous.
Everette then told them that the sailboat was the key He wanted it for one night, to take the drugs across the strait to REX, where certain people were to wait for him on a patch of dune, miles from any police or any spying eyes. They could make a fourfold profit on the east side of P.EI., where a lot of back-to-the-landers were. And of course in Charlottetown also. He couldn’t see selling the drugs in New Brunswick, because he was being watched, and trusted no one. Here his eyes glittered. Nor could he travel to P.E.I. by car and ferry, because of the rcmp. He was afraid they had a tap on his line in Chatham and were tailing him whenever he went anywhere.
There was a pause. The trees outside blew, and far away they could hear the cawing of a crow.
Michael said it wasn’t his sailboat — it belonged to his father, and his father was a judge. “I’m sorry — I can’t risk it,” he said, and smiled naively
“I can’t take The Renegade?” Everette asked.
“I’m sorry,” Michael said, still smiling.
“You’ve been talking about this deal all winter — you’ve come and gone as you pleased, this is your side of the bargain,” Everette said, astonished, and he looked about quickly at the others to see which way they were leaning.
Michael had not remembered talking about anything. Everette was silent a long time. The crow kept cawing.
“Who’s been talking about this deal more than anybody else,” Everette said, looking up suddenly, “if it wasn’t Michael?”
Both Madonna and Silver looked sheepishly about and shrugged. It was the moment for them to unite in force against him. But they could not. Not after Everette had talked about hardship, not after he spoke about living in an apartment overlooking the wharf.
“All of this money is ours — ours,” Everette said. Suddenly his hands seemed to shake just slightly.
“How much is in the deal?” Silver asked, in a voice that sounded as if this were the main question, the answer to which would allow them to decide whether or not the sailboat could be used. Yet even this question was answered enigmatically.
Everette looked at Silver with a pleading expression. “It’s something I can’t disclose,” he said, and he looked quickly at Michael again.
Michael was furious with Silver for asking this, as if Silver could make any decision about his father’s sailboat. He suddenly saw his position and felt sickened. The last thing he would have thought was that he would do something for money.
Finally he said: “I’ll do it — once — and that’s it — but I’ll only sail it — you have to do all the other stuff.”
“Only sail it — well, that’s better than nothin,” Everette said, laughing. They all began laughing.
But when M
ichael, whose mind kept racing, wanted to know certain details about the plan and why Daryll had looked at him so coldly, Everette became impatient and said: “We can’t have a moment to party without him talking business.” And everyone laughed again.
It was June 21.
All of a sudden Michael had became an active participant in a scheme he had once thought was simply Silver’s talk, a scheme he thought he was superior to, just as he had always believed he was superior to people like Madonna and Silver, and to people like Tom and Vincent.
He had always believed he was superior to every one of them. That he would have some fun in the summer, and though he had never thought about his future, he always believed he would soon go up to town and once again see Laura McNair. He had already, in the back of his mind, chosen her as his wife. And this was partly because of the fatal heroics of her brother Lyle, whom Michael admired the more he thought of him, and partly because he knew she was in awe of him, and was pleased by his own impulsiveness.
There was a fine smoke from the dump, where the young rat with the slick black face spent the evening,
“Why didn’t you say something to protect me in the shack?” Michael said, when they were back at the farm later, “no — you couldn’t,” he said, “You leave everything up to me!“
“We should just go see Tommie,” Madonna said, “if we want out of this. Tom would bust his head if he thought we were in trouble, and he wouldn’t be afraid of no Daryll Hutch neither.“
“Don’t you think I can handle it?” Michael said. And to himself at that moment he suddenly sounded like a child. And he felt like a child.
“I used to think so,” Madonna answered. “Up until a month ago — Silver and I believed everything — now” she added with certainty, “just go to Tommie — just for us.”
Michael didn’t want to humiliate himself by doing this.
“No — I’ll do it for Everette once and get your money back for you and then we’re out of it. If you two get some money out of this I’ll have done my job — that’s what I figure.”
Madonna just puffed out her cheeks and crossed her beautiful legs.
The Bay of Love and Sorrows Page 9