Man Descending

by Guy Vanderhaeghe

  The Ogdens stood with their hands in the pockets of their bib overalls while my grandmother talked to them. They were quite a sight. They didn’t have a dozen teeth in their heads between them, even though the oldest brother couldn’t have been more than forty. They just stood there, one sucking on a cigarette, the other on a Coke. Neither one moved or changed his expression, except once, when a tow-headed youngster piddled too close to Grandma. He was lazily and casually slapped on the side of the head by the nearest brother and ran away screaming, his stream cavorting wildly in front of him.

  At last, their business concluded, the boys walked my grandmother back to the car.

  “You’ll get to that soon?” she said, sliding behind the wheel.

  “Tomorrow all right?” said one. His words sounded all slack and chewed, issuing from his shrunken, old man’s mouth.

  “The sooner the better. I want that seen to, Bert.”

  “What seen to?” I asked.

  “Bert and his brother Elwood are going to fix that rattle that’s been plaguing me.”

  “Sure thing,” said Elwood. “Nothing but clear sailing.”

  “What rattle?” I said.

  “What rattle? What rattle? The one in the glove compartment,” she said, banging it with the heel of her hand. “That rattle. You hear it?”

  Thompson could get very edgy some days. “I should be working on my dissertation,” he said, coiled in the big chair. “I shouldn’t be wasting my time in this shit-hole. I should be working!”

  “So why aren’t you?” said Evelyn. She was spool knitting. That and reading movie magazines were the only things she ever did.

  “How the christ do I work without a library? You see a goddamn library within a hundred miles of this place?”

  “Why do you need a library?” she said calmly. “Can’t you write?”

  “Write,” he said, looking at the ceiling. “Write, she says. What the hell do you know about it? What the hell do you know about it?”

  “I can’t see why you can’t write.”

  “Before you write, you research. That’s what you do, you research.”

  “So bite my head off. It wasn’t my idea to come here.”

  “It wasn’t me that lost my goddamn job. How the hell were we supposed to pay the rent?”

  “You could have got a job.”

  “I’m a student. Anyway, I told you, if I get a job my wife gets her hooks into me for support. I’ll starve to death before I support that bitch.”

  “We could go back.”

  “How many times does it have to be explained to you? I don’t get my scholarship cheque until the first of September. We happen to be broke. Absolutely. In fact, you’re going to have to hit the old lady up for gas and eating money to get back to the coast. We’re stuck here. Get that into your empty fucking head. The Lord Buddha might have been able to subsist on a single bean a day; I can’t.”

  My grandmother came into the room. The conversation stopped.

  “Do you think,” she said to Thompson, “I could ask you to do me a favour?”

  “Why, Mrs. Bradley,” he said, smiling, “whatever do you mean?”

  “I was wondering whether you could take my car into town to Ogdens’ to get it fixed.”

  “Oh,” said Thompson. “I don’t know where it is. I don’t think I’m your man.”

  “Ask anyone where it is. They can tell you. It isn’t hard to find.”

  “Why would you ask me to do you a favour, Mrs. Bradley?” inquired Thompson complacently. Hearing his voice was like listening to someone drag their nails down a blackboard.

  “Well, you can be goddamn sure I wouldn’t,” said Grandma, trying to keep a hold on herself, “except that I’m right in the middle of doing my pickling and canning. I thought you might be willing to move your lazy carcass to do something around here. Every time I turn around I seem to be falling over those legs of yours.” She looked at the limbs in question as if she would like to dock them somewhere in the vicinity of the knee.

  “No, I don’t think I can,” said Thompson easily, stroking his goat beard.

  “And why the hell can’t you?”

  “Oh, let’s just say I don’t trust you, Mrs. Bradley. I don’t like to leave you alone with Evelyn. Lord knows what ideas you might put in her head.”

  “Or take out.”

  “That’s right. Or take out,” said Thompson with satisfaction. “You can’t imagine the trouble it took me to get them in there.” He turned to Evelyn. “She can’t imagine the trouble, can she, dear?”

  Evelyn threw her spool knitting on the floor and walked out of the room.

  “Evelyn’s mad and I’m glad,” shouted Thompson at her back. “And I know how to tease her!”

  “Charlie, come here,” said Grandma. I went over to her. She took me firmly by the shoulder. “From now on,” said my grandma, “my family is off limits to you. I don’t want to see you talking to Charlie here, or to come within sniffing distance of Evelyn.”

  “What do you think of that idea, Charlie?” said Thompson. “Are you still my friend or what?”

  I gave him a wink my grandma couldn’t see. He thought that was great; he laughed like a madman. “Superb,” he said. “Superb. There’s no flies on Charlie. What a diplomat.”

  “What the hell is the matter with you, Mr. Beatnik?” asked Grandma, annoyed beyond bearing. “What’s so goddamn funny?”

  “Ha ha!” roared Thompson. “What a charming notion! Me a beatnik!”

  Grandma Bradley held the mouthpiece of the phone very close to her lips as she spoke into it. “No, it can’t be brought in. You’ll have to come out here to do the job.”

  She listened with an intent expression on her face. Spotting me pretending to look in the fridge, she waved me out of the kitchen with her hand. I dragged myself out and stood quietly in the hallway.

  “This is a party line,” she said, “remember that.”

  Another pause while she listened.

  “Okay,” she said and hung up.

  I spent some of my happiest hours squatting in the corn patch. I was completely hidden there; even when I stood, the maturing stalks reached a foot or more above my head. It was a good place. On the hottest days it was relatively cool in that thicket of green where the shade was dark and deep and the leaves rustled and scraped and sawed dryly overhead.

  Nobody ever thought to look for me there. They could bellow their bloody lungs out for me and I could just sit and watch them getting uglier and uglier about it all. There was some satisfaction in that. I’d just reach up and pluck myself a cob. I loved raw corn. The newly formed kernels were tiny, pale pearls of sweetness that gushed juice. I’d munch and munch and smile and smile and think, why don’t you drop dead?

  It was my secret place, my sanctuary, where I couldn’t be found or touched by them. But all the same, if I didn’t let them intrude on me – that didn’t mean I didn’t want to keep tabs on things.

  At the time I was watching Thompson stealing peas at the other end of the garden. He was like some primitive man who lived in a gathering culture. My grandma kept him so hungry he was constantly prowling for food: digging in cupboards, rifling the refrigerator, scrounging in the garden.

  Clad only in Bermuda shorts he was a sorry sight. His bones threatened to rupture his skin and jut out every which way. He sported a scrub-board chest with two old pennies for nipples, and a wispy garland of hair decorated his sunken breastbone. His legs looked particularly rackety; all gristle, knobs and sinew.

  We both heard the truck at the same time. It came bucking up the approach, spurting gravel behind it. Thompson turned around, shaded his eyes and peered at it. He wasn’t much interested. He couldn’t get very curious about the natives.

  The truck stopped and a man stepped out on to the runningboard of the ’51 IHC. He gazed around him, obviously looking for something or someone. This character had a blue handkerchief sprinkled with white polka dots tied in a triangle over his face. Exactly
like an outlaw in an Audie Murphy western. A genuine goddamn Jesse James.

  He soon spotted Thompson standing half-naked in the garden, staring stupidly at this strange sight, his mouth bulging with peas. The outlaw ducked his head back into the cab of the truck, said something to the driver, and pointed. The driver then stepped out on to his runningboard and, standing on tippy-toe, peered over the roof of the cab at Thompson. He too wore a handkerchief tied over his mug, but his was red.

  Then they both got down from the truck and began to walk very quickly towards Thompson with long, menacing strides.

  “Fellows?” said Thompson.

  At the sound of his voice the two men broke into a stiff-legged trot, and the one with the red handkerchief, while still moving, stooped down smoothly and snatched up the hoe that lay at the edge of the garden.

  “What the hell is going on here, boys?” said Thompson, his voice pitched high with concern.

  The man with the blue mask reached Thompson first. One long arm, a dirty clutch of fingers on its end, snaked out and caught him by the hair and jerked his head down. Then he kicked him in the pit of the stomach with his work boots.

  “Okay, fucker,” he shouted, “too fucking smart to take a fucking hint?” and he punched him on the side of the face with several short, snapping blows that actually tore Thompson’s head out of his grip. Thompson toppled over clumsily and fell in the dirt. “Get fucking lost,” Blue Mask said more quietly.

  “Evelyn!” yelled Thompson to the house. “Jesus Christ, Evelyn!”

  I crouched lower in the corn patch and began to tremble. I was certain they were going to kill him.

  “Shut up,” said the man with the hoe. He glanced at the blade for a second, considered, then rotated the handle in his hands and hit Thompson a quick chop on the head with the blunt side. “Shut your fucking yap,” he repeated.

  “Evelyn! Evelyn! Oh God!” hollered Thompson, “I’m being murdered! For God’s sake, somebody help me!” The side of his face was slick with blood.

  “I told you shut up, cock sucker,” said Red Mask, and kicked him in the ribs several times. Thompson groaned and hugged himself in the dust.

  “Now you get lost, fucker,” said the one with the hoe, “because if you don’t stop bothering nice people we’ll drive a spike in your skull.”

  “Somebody help me!” Thompson yelled at the house.

  “Nobody there is going to help you,” Blue Mask said. “You’re all on your own, smart arse.”

  “You bastards,” said Thompson, and spat ineffectually in their direction.

  For his defiance he got struck a couple of chopping blows with the hoe. The last one skittered off his collar-bone with a sickening crunch.

  “That’s enough,” said Red Mask, catching the handle of the hoe. “Come on.”

  The two sauntered back towards the truck, laughing. They weren’t in any hurry to get out of there. Thompson lay on his side staring at their retreating backs. His face was wet with tears and blood.

  The man with the red mask looked back over his shoulder and wiggled his ass at Thompson in an implausible imitation of effeminacy. “Was it worth it, tiger?” he shouted. “Getting your ashes hauled don’t come cheap, do it?”

  This set them off again. Passing me they pulled off their masks and stuffed them in their pockets. They didn’t have to worry about Thompson when they had their backs to him: he couldn’t see their faces. But I could. No surprise. They were the Ogden boys.

  When the truck pulled out of the yard, its gears grinding, I burst out of my hiding place and ran to Thompson, who had got to his knees and was trying to stop the flow of blood from his scalp with his fingers. He was crying. Another first for Thompson. He was the first man I’d seen cry. It made me uncomfortable.

  “The sons of bitches broke my ribs,” he said, panting with shallow breaths. “God, I hope they didn’t puncture a lung.”

  “Can you walk?” I asked.

  “Don’t think I don’t know who’s behind this,” he said, getting carefully to his feet. His face was white. “You saw them,” he said. “You saw their faces from the corn patch. We got the bastards.”

  He leaned a little on me as we made our way to the house. The front door was locked. We knocked. No answer. “Let me in, you old bitch!” shouted Thompson.

  “Evelyn, open the goddamn door!” Silence. I couldn’t hear a thing move in the house. It was as if they were all dead in there. It frightened me.

  He started to kick the door. A panel splintered. “Open this door! Let me in, you old slut, or I’ll kill you!”

  Nothing.

  “You better go,” I said nervously. I didn’t like this one little bit. “Those guys might come back and kill you.”

  “Evelyn!” he bellowed. “Evelyn!”

  He kept it up for a good five minutes, alternately hammering and kicking the door, pleading with and threatening the occupants. By the end of that time he was sweating with exertion and pain. He went slowly down the steps, sobbing, beaten. “You saw them,” he said, “we have the bastards dead to rights.”

  He winced when he eased his bare flesh onto the hot seatcovers of the car.

  “I’ll be back,” he said, starting the motor of the car. “This isn’t the end of this.”

  When Grandma was sure he had gone, the front door was unlocked and I was let in. I noticed my grandmother’s hands trembled a touch when she lit her cigarette.

  “You can’t stay away from him, can you?” she said testily.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “He was hurt. You ought to have let him in.”

  “I ought to have poisoned him a week ago. And don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about.”

  “Sometimes,” I said, “all of you get on my nerves.”

  “Kids don’t have nerves. Adults have nerves. They’re the only ones entitled to them. And don’t think I care a plugged nickel what does, or doesn’t, get on your nerves.”

  “Where’s Aunt Evelyn?”

  “Your Aunt Evelyn is taken care of,” she replied.

  “Why wouldn’t she come to the door?”

  “She had her own road to Damascus. She has seen the light. Everything has been straightened out,” she said. “Everything is back to normal.”

  He looked foolish huddled in the back of the police car later that evening. When the sun began to dip, the temperature dropped rapidly, and he was obviously cold dressed only in his Bermuda shorts. Thompson sat all hunched up to relieve the strain on his ribs, his hands pressed between his knees, shivering.

  My grandmother and the constable spoke quietly by the car for some time; occasionally Thompson poked his head out the car window and said something. By the look on the constable’s face when he spoke to Thompson, it was obvious he didn’t care for him too much. Thompson had that kind of effect on people. Several times during the course of the discussion the constable glanced my way.

  I edged a little closer so I could hear what they were saying.

  “He’s mad as a hatter,” said my grandmother. “I don’t know anything about any two men. If you ask me, all this had something to do with drugs. My daughter says that this man takes drugs. He’s some kind of beatnik.”

  “Christ,” said Thompson, drawing his knees up as if to scrunch himself into a smaller, less noticeable package, “the woman is insane.”

  “One thing at a time, Mrs. Bradley,” said the RCMP constable.

  “My daughter is finished with him,” she said. “He beats her, you know. I want him kept off my property.”

  “I want to speak to Evelyn,” Thompson said. He looked bedraggled and frightened. “Evelyn and I will leave this minute if this woman wants. But I’ve got to talk to Evelyn.”

  “My daughter doesn’t want to see you, mister. She’s finished with you,” said Grandma Bradley, shifting her weight from side to side. She turned her attention to the constable. “He beats her,” she said, “bruises all over her. Can you imagine?”

  “
The boy knows,” said Thompson desperately. “He saw them. How many times do I have to tell you?” He piped his voice to me. “Didn’t you, Charlie? You saw them, didn’t you?”

  “Charlie?” said my Grandmother. This was news to her.

  I stood very still.

  “Come here, son,” said the constable.

  I walked slowly over to them.

  “Did you see the faces of the men?” the constable asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Do you know the men? Are they from around here?”

  “How would he know?” said my grandmother. “He’s a stranger.”

  “He knows them. At least he saw them,” said Thompson. “My little Padma-sambhava never misses a trick,” he said, trying to jolly me. “You see everything, don’t you, Charlie? You remember everything, don’t you?”

  I looked at my grandmother, who stood so calmly and commandingly, waiting.

  “Hey, don’t look to her for the answers,” said Thompson nervously. “Don’t be afraid of her. You remember everything, don’t you?”

  He had no business begging me. I had watched their game from the sidelines long enough to know the rules. At one time he had imagined himself a winner. And now he was asking me to save him, to take a risk, when I was more completely in her clutches than he would ever be. He forgot I was a child. I depended on her.

  Thompson, I saw, was powerless. He couldn’t protect me. God, I remembered more than he dreamed. I remembered how his lips had moved soundlessly, his face pleading with the ceiling, his face blotted of everything but abject urgency. Praying to a simpering, cross-eyed idol. His arm flashing as he struck my aunt’s bare legs. Crawling in the dirt, covered with blood.

  He had taught me that “Those who are in the grip of desire, the grip of existence, the grip of ignorance, move helplessly round through the spheres of life, as men or gods or as wretches in the lower regions.” Well, he was helpless now. But he insisted on fighting back and hurting the rest of us. The weak ones like Evelyn and me.

  I thought of Stanley the rooster and how it had felt when the tendons separated, the gristle parted and the bones crunched under my twisting hands.