by Tyler Keevil
‘Thanks for the ride, man.’
‘Sure, man. No problem.’
Then he shut the door. I watched him trudge up the steps towards the station. As he reached the top, I leaned over and shouted at him through the passenger side window.
‘Hey kid! How in the hell you gonna get home?’
He turned back and looked at me and didn’t answer.
‘Tell you what. I’m gonna go park up, get me some matches. I’ll have a smoke and wait out here a spell. Then I can give you a lift back, later.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I know I don’t.’
He raised his arm, in thanks or acknowledgement, then went on in.
I parked up the street. On the corner of Cordova was a little minimart where I picked up some matches. Then I walked back and sat on the station steps, which were covered in gobs of spit and polka-dots of smashed gum. The cops going in and out of the doors ignored me. I was still aware of that smell, clinging to my clothes and lingering in my nostrils. The cigarette helped, some. I sat and smoked and tried to imagine how the kid would do it – how he’d show them that child’s arm. He’d probably just walk in, put the bag on the counter, open it up, and reach inside. It was too late to worry about fingerprints. He must have touched it a bunch already. And if the cops had any sense then it wouldn’t matter a whit.
Any idiot could see that he was innocent.
Scalped
Today is my last day on the barge, and I’ve been consigned to the ice bins. Roger’s got me oiling the chains that pull the rakes. I’m spraying them down with an industrial-strength lubricant. What I do is this: I shake up the can, making the widget clack, and hose down a series of links. Then I wait while the lube leeches in, foaming and sputtering and creating a kind of lather, stained brown by rust and grease. Afterwards, I slot the end of my crowbar into each link and bend it back and forth, back and forth, slowly freeing up the pins. Every herring season the salt air causes the chain-links to rust, and every year we go through this ritual to loosen them and prevent them from seizing up. I’ve started with the starboard bin. All the ice has been cleared out – we did that a few weeks back – but in here it’s still cold and damp as the bottom of a well, and the leftover moisture is oozing down the walls and pooling on the fiberglass floor. The power has to be shut off, for safety reasons, so my main light source is a halogen work lamp, strung in on an extension cord from the lower deck.
Roger and I were supposed to be doing this together, but last night he got a call from our supplier. The new alternator for the motor in one of our ice-making machines was ready, and he had to go pick it up – way the hell out in Delta. That was his reasoning, anyway. But I figure it’s also partly my punishment for telling him that I’m leaving, for abandoning ship.
He seemed to take a certain satisfaction in explaining my duties to me.
‘You’ll be on your own in the bins, greenhorn,’ he said.
‘I can handle it.’
We were up in the lounge: me on the sofa and him sitting in his big reclining chair – his captain’s chair. Doreen had already gone to bed. In the evenings she likes to retire early, as she calls it.
‘I’ll be back later on. Until then, you’re in charge.’
‘Captain for a day, eh?’
‘That’s right. Just watch yourself on them rakes.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
To do this work, the chains and rakes have to be at head height. The rakes are metal girders that span the whole width of the bin. Each one is studded with two-inch steel spikes, for combing and flaking the ice. I am very wary of these spikes, hovering at the edge of my vision, glinting in the half-light like the claws of a hawk. I’ve always had a thing about the rakes. Now that we’re back in dock the nightmares have settled, but I won’t fully relax until I’m safely ashore, and have put some distance between me and them. For now, for today, I move very carefully: ducking and stooping and lurching about with a hunch-backed gait.
At around two o’clock I run out of oil. We have more canisters up top, in the storage cupboard in the breezeway. Leaving my crowbar on the floor, I crab-walk sideways towards the door of the ice bin – keeping my head tilted at an angle, bending low beneath each rake. I’ve left the door open for the extra light it affords, and the entrance is a pale square in the dark, like the far end of a tunnel. Against it, the rows of rakes stand out in stark silhouette.
At the last rake, right near the door, I misjudge my step – or maybe the rakes lurch a bit, making a sudden movement just as I duck under. The tension in the chains causes them to do this, occasionally, and in this case it’s as if they’re reaching out for me. Something connects with my head and my neck crackles and then I am on the floor. I am on the floor and there is this searing, scalding pain in my scalp, right atop my skull. I clutch at the spot, twisting and squirming and arching my back as if the pain is electrocuting me, coursing through my whole body. I don’t cry out – there’s nobody to hear me cry – but what I do is make these soft whimpering noises, almost childish. And for a moment, in my pain-addled panic, I have the crazy thought that what I’ve always feared is actually happening: the rakes are coming for me, lurching into life and slowly descending, to break me and mangle me before I can get off the barge for good.
I’m so convinced of this that I open my eyes to check. But the rakes aren’t moving – they just hang there, glistening like obsidian. Eventually the scalding pain dulls to something more tolerable: a kind of scorched feeling, like when you’ve burnt your hand on the stove. I sit up slowly, testing my neck. It’s kinked, and I can feel the tendons creaking, but it seems okay. Then I shake off my work gloves and feel my head. The hair is wet and matted and when I inspect my fingers they are sticky-slick with red. The sight makes me think of a phrase Roger is fond of using: bleeding like a stuck pig. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.
‘Hell,’ I say, and the word bounces around me in the darkness. ‘Aw, hell.’
Eventually I pick myself up. Just outside the ice-bin doors, on the lower deck of the barge, there’s a bathroom that we use while we’re on shift – delivering ice or servicing boats. I stagger in there and splash cold water over my head, then scrunch-up some toilet paper and press it to my scalp, trying to staunch the bleeding. It stings like acid. I perch on the toilet and have a bit of a think, trying to decide just how in the hell I’m gonna explain all this to Doreen.
When I come into the galley, Doreen is standing at the counter with her back to me. She’s got potatoes bubbling on the stove and I can smell something – a crumble, probably – baking in the oven. On the countertop she’s kneading a mound of dough the size of a bowling ball, massaging it with her small, firm fingers. She hears the door and greets me without looking back. She knows it’s me since we’re the only two on the barge today.
Then she says, ‘Thought I’d make us some bread to go with your meal tonight.’
That’s how we’re referring to it: my meal. Not the last meal, or the goodbye meal. It’s just easier all around, I guess.
‘That’s great,’ I say. I hover in the doorway, fiddling with my work gloves – bending the empty fingers back and forth. Then I clear my throat and say, ‘Uh, Doreen?’
Finally she looks my way, and her expression changes when she sees the blood on my shirt, my dripping hair, the ball of scrunched-up tissue stuck to my head like a wilted flower. I start explaining that I had a mishap, just a little mishap, down in the ice bin. A bit of an accident. But she can see that. She smacks her palms together, striking them in an up-down motion once, twice, to dust the flour off, and puts her hands on her hips in a schoolmarm pose.
‘What did you do?’
I explain about the rake, about misjudging my step. I don’t tell her I think the rake might have moved because that would sound odd, paranoid, maybe even a little insane. But Doreen, she’s real understanding. Sh
e reaches down for her glasses, which hang from a cord around her neck, and puts them on before motioning me over. She’s nearly a foot shorter than me, and I have to kneel down in front of her, like a penitant, so she can take a look. She peels away the padded tissue – the sting making me stiffen – and then I feel her exploring up there, pushing my hair to one side. She makes a slight sound of affirmation in her throat.
‘That’s a war wound, all right.’
‘Is it bad?’
‘It’s not good.’
‘Will it need stitches?’
‘Come and see.’
She makes an elevating gesture with her hand, palm-up, and leads me from the galley into her and Roger’s bathroom, which is at the back of the cabin. During season, Doreen doesn’t like the deckhands using it. She’s always saying, ‘You grease monkeys have your own toilets to dirty up.’ It’s got square floor tiles, a shortened bathtub, and a vanity mirror above the sink. She gets me to crouch in front of the mirror. Fresh blood is leaking from the cut, not just in my hair but over my face: a single streak has snaked down my cheekbone and jaw like warpaint. Doreen takes up position behind me. She’s holding a small make-up mirror – the kind in a clamshell case, that snaps open. I can’t read her expression. It’s almost sly, as if she’s about to share a secret. She asks me if I’m ready, and holds the mirror up behind my head, so I can see the damage to my scalp in the double-reflection.
‘Right along here,’ she says, pointing with a forefinger.
The gash is about five inches long, and half an inch across. The skin on one side of the cut is buckled and peeled back in a flap, like when you slice the tip of your finger while chopping vegetables. Underneath, in the crevasse, I see something smooth and pink, which is either a layer of fat, or maybe my skull. Seeing all this, I make a small meeping sound, like a mouse or a baby bird. That’s all that comes out.
‘Yep,’ Doreen says cheerfully, ‘I’d say you’ll need some stitches.’
I still don’t say anything. My face has gone very white, like porcelain.
‘But don’t you worry – we can see to that right here.’
I look at her, in the mirror. ‘Shouldn’t we go to the hospital?’
‘What for?’ She’s frowning, now. ‘I was a nurse for twenty-odd years before joining Roger on the boats. I’m not just the cook around these parts – I’m the First Aid Officer, too.’
‘It looks pretty serious.’
‘Don’t be a nervous nelly. Nothing to it.’
I turn my head – feeling the tendons clicking in my neck – so I’m looking up at her, face-to-face, rather than at her reflection in the mirror. She’s got her arms crossed, and peers down her nose at me from underneath her spectacles, waiting while I decide.
‘But if you’d rather I drive you down to A and E, and make a big deal about it…’
‘No, no,’ I say. ‘It’s okay. Let’s do it.’
She beams and pats my shoulders. I can still smell the flour on her – that comforting scent of cooking and home and wholesomeness. ‘That a boy. Now the first thing we have to do is get this cleaned out properly.’
She tells me to take off my blood-spattered workshirt, and directs me to kneel beside their tub. There are two bath balls next to the taps, and the tub smells of lavender and Epsom salts. The shower head is the kind attached to a metal hose. She removes the nozzle from its holder and turns on the cold tap. Then she instructs me to lean forward and lower my head. I kneel like that, as if I’m praying, with my chest pressed to the edge of the tub, and wait. In a moment I feel the cold water wash over my scalp, making the cut sting.
‘That’s it,’ Doreen says, ‘You’re okay, there.’
The water spattering into the basin and swirling down the drain is pinkish. Doreen lets the shower run for several minutes, until my scalp goes numb from the cold and the water clears. She twists off the tap, straightens me up, and pads my hair dry with a face cloth.
‘You hold that there,’ she says, guiding my hand up to the cloth to replace hers, ‘and apply pressure, while I fetch the field kit.’
She leaves me perched on the toilet seat. Beneath the cloth, the cut begins to throb again as the blood returns to it. There is a fan in the ceiling – tucked away behind a vent – and I can hear it rattling around and around. I feel dizzy, dazed. I’m staring at a spot on the tiled floor, worrying about this whole scheme with the stitches, these do-it-yourself stitches. It’s the kind of thing you hear about going horribly wrong. The wound gets infected, and turns septic, and then some poor bastard gets blood poisoning and dies, just like that. Or at the very best, the stitches are a botched job, and you end up with a hideous, zigzag scar.
It’s not really the kind of predicament I ever thought I’d find myself in.
When Doreen comes back, she’s carrying the big green First Aid kit that we keep on the barge. It’s the size of a fishing tackle box, and built in the same way: with a flip-up lid and plastic fasteners to snap it shut. Doreen stands in the doorway, surveying the bathroom critically. She tells me there isn’t enough room in here – there’s not much counter around the sink – and that to do this right, to do this proper, we’ll have to go into her and Roger’s bedroom, across the hall.
I follow her over there. I’ve glimpsed their room in passing before but I’ve never entered it. All of us deckhands sleep in the bunkhouse across the breezeway. Their room is bigger and more spacious, with a proper double bed and furnishings. Like everything else on the barge, it’s functional, tidy, and well maintained. The bedclothes are tucked in and pulled taut as a trampoline. Next to the headboard is a small table and on the table sits a lamp, an alarm clock, and the King James Bible. Against the far wall, adjacent to the window, stands a dressing table. That’s where Doreen sits me down. Atop it there’s another mirror – the oval kind you can swivel around. This time when I look in the glass I see a young, frightened face.
‘Sorry about this, Doreen,’ I say.
She plonks the First Aid kit down on the dresser. ‘You didn’t do it on purpose.’
‘No,’ I say, thinking back, ‘I reckon not.’
‘Then you got nothing to apologise for.’
‘Feel like a damned fool, is all.’
I don’t know when I began talking like this: saying things like ‘I reckon’ and ‘damned fool’. It’s happened sometime during these three seasons I’ve spent with them. It’s as if their words and phrases have been slowly sinking into my brain, becoming part of my vocabulary.
‘Wasting your time, is what I’m doing.’
‘I’m still getting paid, aren’t I?’ She thumbs open the clasps on the kit, flips back the lid, and starts rooting around inside for whatever it is she needs. ‘It’s no skin off my nose if I’m patching you up instead of cooking and cleaning and tending to the barge.’
‘No – it’s just skin off my scalp.’
We both laugh about that. I stop laughing when she begins taking out her equipment. She lays down a hand towel first, then places each item on it in a well-spaced row: a bottle of betadine, a pair of scissors, some tweezers – which she refers to as the pick-ups – and another tool that’s shaped like a set of forceps.
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘The needle holders.’
Next to the needle holders she puts a small plastic package, about the size of a sugar sachet, labelled 4-0 nylon black monofilament. Then she continues poking about in the box.
‘Wow-ee,’ she says, ‘lookie here.’
She holds up a green flask. It’s a small bottle of Napolean brandy – about half the size of a regular mickey. The label is faded and peeling, the glass filmed over with grease.
‘Roger would flip,’ I say.
‘He must have forgotten about it.’
Roger keeps a dry barge, and has for years. I don’t know if it’s because of some accident back in
the day, or if it’s to do with their religion, or if it’s just his policy. But he’s fond of saying that alcohol and water don’t mix – and enforces it whether we’re docked or at sea. The deckhands all grumble about it, but not in front of Roger.
‘Could come in handy,’ Doreen says, placing it to one side.
But she’s still after something else. She keeps digging for another few minutes, and eventually shakes her head. ‘Gosh darn it,’ she says, which is as close as she gets to cursing.
‘What’s missing?’
‘The needle. Can’t suture a laceration without a needle.’
‘Darn, eh?’ I say. ‘Guess it’ll be the hospital after all.’
‘Don’t be silly. I got plenty of needles in my sewing kit.’
‘Sewing needles?’
‘Yup.’
She’s already headed for the door. I call after her, ‘Don’t you need a different type of needle for, uh, suturing?’ I don’t know much about stitching wounds, but I know that much.
‘It’s not that different,’ she shouts back.
I can hear her opening drawers in the lounge.
‘But doesn’t it have to be sterilised or whatever?’
‘I’ll boil it.’
She says it as if we’re talking about cooking dinner. An egg or a potato, maybe. I’ll boil it. It’s that simple. And maybe it is. But it’s not making me feel any better about this whole operation of ours. I sit tense and still, listening to her and trying to deduce what she’s doing. I hear the kettle whistle, followed by the pouring of water – into a pot, I’m guessing – and then Doreen returns to get the needle holders and pick-ups, which apparently have to be sterilised, too. She putters around for a few minutes out there, and when she reappears she’s got a bottle of Tylenol in one hand, and a mortar and pestle cupped in the other. She tells me it’ll only take a few minutes to sterilise the needle, and while we wait she’s going to fix me up something to take the edge off. That’s the phrase she uses: to take the edge off.
