Burrard Inlet

by Tyler Keevil

  Later Liam would remember all that, and the way it had happened.

  To reach the Seattle Liam had to pilot his tug by the gap in the breakwater that gave access to Burrard Inlet, and through which the fishing boats passed during the herring and salmon seasons. Out there the water was choppy and surging with whitecaps; he could see sailboats skimming the surface and cargo freighters lying flat like toppled skyscrapers, and beyond them he could see the North Shore, where he lived, with its beaches and condos and wooded slopes, and its mountains that rose up in grey swells still topped by snow, like larger versions of the whitecapped waves. The sense of space was vast and captivating and, as always when heading that way, he imagined momentously turning the wheel, hand over hand, and steering out through the gap into the uncharted waters beyond, and, as always, he didn’t do this or even seriously consider it but instead stayed on course and continued towards his destination.

  The Seattle was as old as the Kraken and just as imposing. Frank was the contractor who had been hired to rebuild the cabin, on behalf of the Native owners, after the end of last herring season back in March. Frank was younger than the union guys and had treated Liam differently to them. For some days, especially when Frank had been replacing the strakes in the hull, Liam had worked alongside him, but the job was done now and so was Frank.

  In the galley Frank had left the old cupboards that he’d removed, as well as a series of rusty two-inch pipes that looked like they’d been part of the boat’s freshwater supply system. Sprinkled on the surrounding linoleum were wood chips, sawdust, and flakes of rust, and all that mess needed cleaning. With a crowbar Liam broke the cupboards into individual panels; beneath the fake oak laminate they were made from cheap plyboard that cracked easily. The counter was thicker and stronger and had to be cut down with a handsaw. He carried the pieces out one at a time, followed by the piping, and laid it all down on deck near the bow. Next he set to work on the debris, which he swept slowly into piles, then re-swept for no real reason except to waste time. With a dustpan he transferred the rust, wood, and sawdust into a black garbage bag that had turned hot and tacky in the heat. Then he walked around deck, carrying the bag and hoping he looked busy and trying to think of something else to do.

  The new counters in the galley were still dusty so he wiped those down, smearing the dust into grey streaks and then wiping the surface a second time. He did the same to the table and when he finished he sat at it, twisting the damp cloth back and forth in his palms and feeling the easy, listing rhythm of the boat beneath him. He checked his watch and knew it was time to go but still he did not move. As he sat there he glanced out the galley porthole; across the marina he noticed two, blue-clad figures, tiny as toys, standing by his tug in the shadow of the wharf. It was the same spot that he usually fed the seal.

  He went outside and clambered onto the starboard gunnel and perched there, bracing one hand against the cabin roof for balance. He shielded his eyes from the sun to peer at the two men and tried to make them out. It looked like Rick and Elmore. He couldn’t tell what they were doing but they were hunched over something on the dock. He felt it then: a sense of anticipation and foreboding, a kind of sickness, curdling in his stomach.

  ‘Son of a bitch.’

  From the gunnel he jumped down to the dock and landed hard, tumbling forward onto his hands and knees. Then he was scrambling upright, sprinting full-tilt through the marina; his boots pounded on the wooden docks, which swayed and rocked underfoot like the floor in a funhouse. At one of the gaps between sections of dock he tripped and stumbled and caught himself and kept running. As he drew near the gangplank he slowed down. The men were there, in the shadows of the wharf. It was Rick and Elmore like he’d thought and they were hoisting something off the dock, using a rope they’d looped over one of the crossbeams that supported the underside of the wharf. He could tell by the tubular shape that it was a seal, his seal, but at first he didn’t know what they had done to her; she was no longer grey and speckled like the sea but bright crimson as if they’d dipped her in red paint and made a piñata out of her. Then he saw the blood drizzling from her tail, and he saw the bare muscles and tendons, and he saw the way she hung there all skinless and garish and shining like some nightmarish vision of hell.

  He saw all that and the men saw him at the same time. Rick was squatting down and tying off the rope they’d used to string up the seal and Elmore was standing at his side. They turned to face Liam and for a brief moment seemed uncertain how to behave. Spread at their feet were the tools they’d used to catch and kill her: a bucket of herring, a fishing gaff, some netting, a claw hammer, a serrated six-inch knife. There was also something grey and reddish and rubbery that looked like a jellyfish. Rick bent down to pick it up, clenching it in his fists, and lifted it so it unfolded to reveal itself. It was the seal’s skin. The side Rick displayed was red as a matador’s cape, and like a matador Rick shook it to taunt him.

  ‘I warned you, didn’t I? I told you what I’d do.’

  Liam said nothing but only stood there. He had started to cry and when they saw that they made sad and sympathetic and mocking faces; they joked about killing his little pet and snickered at the jokes for each other’s benefit. Standing there laughing, with their tools strewn about them and the skinned body hung behind them and their coveralls spattered in red, they looked less like men and more like demons or some malevolent imitation of men.

  Liam made an outraged, animal sound that wasn’t a word and wasn’t a scream but something in-between, and then ran at Rick and grabbed him and started hitting him. They wrestled and clawed and punched at each other until Liam felt something connect with the side of his head and then he was on the dock. He pushed himself up and rushed at Rick again and got hit again and went down again, and this time he stayed down as they stood over him and kicked him a few times – quick and vicious toe-punts – in the ribs, the back, the kidneys.

  He had closed his eyes and when the blows stopped he opened them and saw the two men looming over him. They told him that he was crazy and that he had brought this on himself and that he had got what he deserved. Then they were gone and he was alone on the dock staring up at a blue sky. The seagulls were circling up there; they’d already caught the scent of fresh blood and meat and flesh. A few swooped down and settled on the dock; they eyed Liam and eyed the hanging seal as if trying to decide which one was dead. When he moved they fluttered back out of reach, and began croaking indignantly as he rolled over and pushed up onto his hands and knees and eased himself to his feet. He felt as if he had been in a car accident: not quite sure how it had happened but knowing that it was bad and knowing also that it was partly his fault. He was still crying but not sobbing, just weeping steadily from the pain, the tears blending with the blood on his cheeks as if his eyes were bleeding.

  He shuffled over to the rope they’d used to hang the seal. It was lashed to a cleat on the dock with a clove-hitch. He undid the knot and held the rope, struggling with the weight of the seal, which was surprisingly heavy – probably a hundred pounds or more. He allowed the rope to slither through his hands, the nylon threads scouring his palms, and in this way lowered the seal down to the dock. A puddle of blood had formed beneath her, and in it she landed wetly and heavily, her body folding upon itself before flopping to one side.

  She looked as if she had been turned inside out and he didn’t understand how her innards could hold together like that without spilling everywhere. She did not resemble his seal any more but he recognised her by the eyes: they were still dark and doe-like and gazed up from the depths of death as if she recognised him and understood the role he had played in her fate. There were cracks in her bare skull where they had hit her, and they’d used the end of the gaff as a makeshift meat hook, shoved up underneath her shoulder blades to hoist her. He gripped the hook and yanked it down and it came out with a soft sucking sound, like a spade shearing turf. Laying it aside he knelt with her and pett
ed her muscled back, so tender and vulnerable without the tough hide, and spoke to her in the friendly tones he had used while feeding her. The seagulls created a circle around him like the attendants at a funeral, waiting for him to finish his mourning so they could enjoy the after-service feast.

  To prevent that, he slid his hands beneath the seal and rolled her towards the edge of the dock and off into the sea. She landed with a splash and bobbed back up, before the head dipped under and dragged the rest of the body down, dropping as still and silent as a scuttled ship. As he stood the gulls squawked bitterly and hopped forward to inspect the place where the seal had lain. Others approached the skin Rick had left on the dock and began to peck at it. Liam swatted them away and picked up the skin, clutching it protectively. He stroked it. One side felt just like he expected it to feel: sleek and smooth as human skin, but thicker and stronger and more resilient. The other side, the inside, was tender and had a wet, gelatinous quality, softened by fat and blubber. He held it draped over one arm and carried it with him up the gangplank. He was limping badly; one of their kicks had given him a charley horse in his thigh and the muscle spasmed at each step.

  Outside the processing area two workers stood with their face masks pulled down around their throats like the breathing sacs on frogs. The workers were smoking and they stopped smoking to watch Liam as he walked by carrying the sealskin. He knew he was bleeding because he could feel the warmth of the blood on his chin and taste it in his mouth, and because red drops splashed onto the concrete every few steps, but he didn’t know how bad it was until he got to their warehouse and went into the washroom and turned on the lights and looked in the mirror.

  His lip was split wide and his nose was bleeding and swollen and probably broken; one of his bottom left molars felt loose and he could wriggle it with his tongue, like a kid about to lose a primary tooth. He draped the sealskin over the nearest sink and then ran the tap in the sink next to it and splashed water on his face. The water was cold but each handful seemed to burn. As he washed away the blood more continued to drizzle from his nose. It hurt too much to pinch the bridge so from one of the stalls he tore off pieces of toilet paper, which he twisted into plugs that he stuffed up his nostrils to stem the flow of blood. He had just finished doing this when Bill appeared in the doorway. Seeing Liam, he stopped in mid-stride, and then came another few steps forwards. Liam didn’t turn around but gazed at Bill in the mirror and waited for him to speak. Without quite meeting his eyes Bill told him that he had heard what they’d done and that it was a shitty thing and that he was sorry. He didn’t say exactly what he’d heard, but the sealskin was right there in the sink and Bill glanced at it uneasily without commenting on it, so it seemed as if he knew everything.

  ‘They worked you over good, eh?’

  Liam acknowledged that they had.

  ‘I’ll make sure they get written up for it. It’s almost impossible to touch these union guys but they’ll get a warning, at least.’ Bill scratched at his beard in that nervous way of his and twisted his left boot back and forth on the linoleum floor, making it squeak. The tap was still running and Liam stood over it with his hands braced on either side of the sink.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Bill said. ‘Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Take a couple days off if you want. Don’t come back until you’re ready.’

  Liam said that he’d do that and thanked him and waited some more. Bill said he was sorry again and eventually, finally, he left. The twisted tissues that Liam had jammed in his nostrils had bled through. He plucked them out and discarded them and replaced them with fresh ones. Afterwards he looked at himself in the mirror for several minutes as he thought about what had happened and then thought about what had to happen now because of it.

  *

  His trolley cart and garbage skip were still where he had left them that morning by the dumpsters. He folded the sealskin and laid it carefully inside the skip before returning to the warehouse. From the low shelves just inside the entrance he got down three cans of marine paint in the primary colours and three cans of primer. At the back of the warehouse was the gear locker where they stored all of their tools, and from one of the cabinets he took a rivet punch and a hammer and that was all he needed. He put the paint cans and tools in the skip and pushed the cart down the dock, moving as slowly and painfully as Sisyphus pushing his rock. The workers were no longer on their smoke break and nobody noticed him. The tide was higher now and the marina water getting choppier as afternoon wore on. The gulls still circled ceaselessly, endlessly, indifferently.

  As before he used the crane to manoeuvre the skip, this time angling it over the tug and lowering it directly onto the deck. He walked down the gangplank without hurrying and detached the skip from the crane. Only once did he look at the place where the seal had been; its blood was already going dark and tacky in the sun, like treacle. He turned away and gazed across the marina. From the tug he could see the Western Kraken and he could also see Rick plodding back and forth on deck, mindless and purposeful as a golem. Liam watched him for a few minutes, and then hobbled over towards the boat, deliberately accentuating his limp. Rick saw him approaching and stopped what he was doing and came to stand at the stern, facing the dock. In one hand Rick had a paint brush and in the other he had a pot of decking oil.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  ‘Bill asked to see you.’

  ‘You ratted on me, you little scab.’

  ‘No. But he knows. I guess somebody saw. He called me in to tell my side of it and now he wants to hear your side.’

  ‘I got shit to do,’ Rick said, and spat a gob of black goo onto the dock at Liam’s feet.

  ‘Whatever. I’m just saying what Bill said.’

  Liam turned and limped away, hoping he looked weak and defeated, and took shelter on his tug. In the wheelhouse he hunkered down to wait, feeling the burn in his back and side where he’d been beaten. From his position he was fairly well-hidden but he had a good view of the gangplank and wharf above. A few minutes later he heard the sound of boots on the dock, and then saw Rick lumbering up the gangplank. After he’d passed, Liam counted to ten before he untied the tug, fired it up, and piloted it directly to the north end of the marina. This time at the Kraken he docked with deliberate carelessness: grinding the prow right into the hull and scouring out a two-foot gouge. He lashed one tieline loosely to a cleat on deck and lifted the cans of paint and primer one at a time, placing them on the portside gunnel, and once they were all lined up he climbed aboard with the hammer and rivet punch.

  The forward deck gleamed in the sun with the fresh coat of oil Rick had given it. Now that the new teak planks were stained they blended in better with the older ones, but the contrast was still evident and always would be. The pot of oil was sitting on the deck; Liam kicked it over casually and got down to work. He took the first can of paint – the red can – and rested it upside-down on the portside gunnel. Placing the rivet punch against the bottom, he brought the hammer down on the punch and drove it through the tin. As he worked the punch back and forth to free it, red paint started leaking out like the first evidence of a wound. He picked up the can and, holding it between his palms by the lid and base, shook it like an odd musical instrument as he walked methodically around the deck. The red paint splashed and spattered across the newly oiled planks, leaving coloured arcs like slashes of blood, as well as blotches of various sizes, from large spots down to tiny speckles. When the spurts of red dwindled to a trickle he let the can drop and started on the next. This one was blue and the brightness of the hue created an unreal contrast against the red. The red alone had looked like a mistake; two colours made it more meaningful and more like art. He added the blue judiciously, using the entire deck as his canvas. The paint had a chemical smell that reminded him of the model paints he’d used as a child, only stronger. He breathed it in as he worked and the heady odour made him giddy and dizzy and high. Then the
last of the blue sputtered out, so he punted the can towards the prow and reached for the can of yellow.

  The result was becoming more beautiful with each coat, and he grew so engrossed in his project that he paid no attention to who might have noticed, or whether Rick could be coming back, until he heard a shout from the direction of the wharf. He looked up and saw the big man rumbling down the gangplank, his whole body rolling with the motion like a bull on the rampage. Liam dropped the half-finished can of yellow and left it to spill across the deck. In quick succession he punched holes in the remaining three cans of primer, knocking one overboard in his hurry. He left one of the others dribbling over the gunnel and bulwark and hull, and the last he lobbed like a grenade into the galley, where it landed with a clunk and began emptying across the floor.

  Rick’s footsteps were pounding on the docks, closer now, and Liam moved to undo his tie line. As he did he shoulder-checked and saw Rick’s hands appear at the portside gunnel, followed by his head, rising up like a baleful moon, his expression full of rage and hate and something worse, something murderous. Holding the rope in one hand Liam leapt down to the tug. Rick was screaming and rushing at him and Liam knew that he didn’t have time to start the engine so instead he just shoved hard with his hands against the hull of the Kraken, pushing away from the larger vessel. As he did he felt something brush his scalp and looked up and saw Rick leaning out over the water, having lunged for him and missed.

  ‘You son of a bitch,’ Rick was screaming, ‘you son of a bitch!’

  His face had gone almost purple and he continued shouting and screaming at him, telling him he was going to kill him and calling him a faggot and a cocksucker and a Newfie scab bastard, but all these insults sounded meaningless and empty over the five feet of water between them. Liam stood and stared at him like you might stare at a dog barking on the far side of a fence, and continued to stare as Rick shrieked and shook his fists and stomped up and down the deck, going rabid, working himself into a frenzy. Behind him, on the wharf, an audience had gathered. Rows of packing plant workers stood gazing down, in their white lab coats and face masks, observing the display like medical students who had come to witness some kind of strange human experiment.