by Lori Lansens
The knife had been Zach Heron’s idea. He thought to mark Chester’s face, a slash on his cheek or above his eye, to brand him as the one that had done Addy wrong and to keep him away from Rusholme forever. L’il Leam agreed. It seemed a right and fair thing to do, and more lasting than whatever minor discomfort his own small fists might inflict. Slowly, L’il Leam pulled the long blade from his pocket.
Chester Monk looked at him, not comprehending why this boy he called brother might have come here with a knife, nor what exactly he intended to do with it. He tried to cry out, but Zach Heron clamped his huge salty hand over his mouth. L’il Leam raised the knife and caught the glint of the automobile light. A north wind kicked up a maelstrom of dry maple leaves at their feet. Chester tried to shake his head. Zach Heron throttled him, shouting, “Do it, Boy! Do it!”
L’il Leam couldn’t cut his friend, but it wasn’t because he thought Chester was innocent. He couldn’t do it because he had not the spirit to make a man suffer no matter what suffering that man made. L’il Leam stood there, watching Chester’s eyes bulge and redden, listening to the sickening quiver of air stuck in his closed-off throat. Zach Heron sucked his teeth, feeling powerful, tightening his grip.
With some extraordinary effort, for his fight was fading and he could sense peace in some near place, Chester Monk decided he would not die like this. It was his foot he thought to use, and wished he’d thought it sooner. With the scant strength he still possessed, he lifted his leg, then brought the full force of his heel into the kneecap of the huge man behind him. Heron yelped in pain and lost his hold and that was enough for Chester to break free.
It was not that Chester planned it as such, but L’il Leam was standing only a foot away with the knife. Chester snatched the knife when he was clear of Zach Heron and held it up against both men as he struggled to fill his lungs with air.
Zach Heron sneered at L’il Leam and spat mightily. “Coward! After what that devil done to your sister?! How you gonna live with yourself, Leam?”
Chester Monk turned to L’il Leam, his chest heaving as he spoke. “I don’t know what you think I done, or what Addy told you I done, or even what been done. But I’ll tell you, brother, and may I be struck by the Almighty’s hand, that I never hurt your sister in any way I know, except to suppose she’d understand I’d come back for her. That’s all. And I don’t see you stabbing me for that. And I don’t see why you come all the way here to hurt me and brung him along to help.”
L’il Leam didn’t care he was crying like a baby. He didn’t care Zach Heron would lose respect forever. He only knew he was betrayed by his friend and deeply grievous for his younger sister. He couldn’t think what to do then, except to recount for Chester his crime, like he was standing on a hanging platform, waiting to hear why he’s got to die.
Chester had a hard time grasping, at first, what L’il Leam was saying through his blubber and sorrow. But when he finally understood, though it was beyond understanding, that someone had gone to Addy, his Addy, and defiled her and now she had a baby coming and was ruined, Chester Monk lost his soul. He had a flash in his head and a picture of Big Zach Heron stumbling out the door of Shadds’ house on Fowell Street. In that instant, he knew.
When Chester lifted his face and trained his fire eyes on the bigger man, Heron could see that he knew. It did not occur to Chester to share the truth with L’il Leam. The only thing that came to Chester’s mind was that Zach Heron would die for what he’d done.
With an animal roar, his long blade primed, the boy attacked the man, seeking his heart or liver or lung. L’il Leam, not knowing that Chester was the friend and Zach Heron the fiend, jumped into the melee to wrest the knife from Chester’s hand.
To explain the struggle of the man and two boys is to describe the chase of an eddy, or the melding of sand into glass, or the frenzy of wild dogs shredding one of their own. It was one set upon another, set upon another, thrashing and stabbing, biting and clawing, shouting and gasping and finally rolling back toward the river.
In the end it was silent and still and the moon felt safe to come out again. Zach Heron lay crumpled on the ground, a small twig stranded in the cave of his nostril and twenty-four stab wounds patterned on his huge dead body. Chester sat soaked and freezing on the river’s edge, looking down into the deep murky water.
Chester’d heard the splash when L’il Leam fell and left Zach Heron bleeding on the riverbank to dive in after him. He couldn’t see anything under the surface. He rose for a gasp of air and went back under, and up he came and back down again, but he couldn’t find Addy’s brother in the black water, and after a while, he was too cold to keep looking. He didn’t have to wonder what happened because he knew.
L’il Leam’s arms had been broken in the clash of bodies, his legs were weak and bruised. He’d fallen and stumbled into the cold grim river and was unable to rise back to the surface. The poor wrong boy floated down to the bottom and got lost among the sunk jalopies and wasted whisky. Chester couldn’t believe, though he knew it to be true, that that was the last of L’il Leam, who had more courage than most grown men, and such goodness that Birdie Brown chose him alone to love. Chester wished he still believed in Heaven, so he’d have a place to put his small, dead friend.
Remillard had seen many things in his day and understood men’s rage too well, so when the Frenchman pulled his automobile down to the river a short time later, he was not shocked by what he saw, only concerned for his friend Noir Gross. Chester tried to explain, but what had happened was indescribable. He could only say how he ached at the loss of L’il Leam and wasn’t sorry he killed Zach Heron after what he’d done, and that he had to return to Rusholme and explain it all to Addy himself.
Remillard knew, even as he said this, that Chester could never return to Rusholme and never explain what had happened to anyone. He’d go to prison when the police found Zach Heron’s body, and if L’il Leam ever drifted back, he’d be blamed for that death too. Remillard looked at him squarely. “Mon ami, you must go.”
Tears came to Chester’s eyes but he would not let them pass. “Addy…?”
Remillard understood because he knew of Chester’s love for the girl back home, and he was sorry for his young friend. “C’est fini. It cannot be, Chester. Better for her to think you are dead. You must go. Go now before the Patrol comes by. First help me dump this pig in the water.”
Each man took a huge foot and dragged the animal to the river. Together they rolled him in and were soaked by the great splash. Chester shuddered, watching the river swallow Big Zach Heron. Remy remembered an overcoat in his automobile and went to retrieve it. He put the coat around his young friend’s shoulders and gave him a roll of ten-dollar bills and the name and address of an American man who would help. He saw him to the rowboat and embraced Chester before he set down in it. Remy said he would take care of things, though neither was sure then what he meant.
Chester knew he was leaving Remillard and Rusholme and Addy Shadd and even his country forever. His heart rose to his throat as he pushed away from the dock. He heard, or thought he heard, his name, whispered like a curse from the river’s edge. Chester turned to look but Remillard was gone, and though he knew it wasn’t possible that L’il Leam was alive, he wished it was him cursing from the bulrushes and not just the wind bemoaning his fate. He drove his oar through the water, his face hard as he set out toward the near shore of a new country and an uncertain future.
Mum
THE SUN PEERED IN from behind the white eyelet curtain and kissed the little girl sleeping on the trailer floor. Sharla wasn’t afraid. She knew where she was because the first things she saw when she opened her eyes were the salt’n’pepper shakers way up on the shelf above. She turned her palms over to feel the cool of the floor and recalled falling last night and Addy Shadd’s good face and Ivory soap smell. It was the softest pillow Sharla’s head had ever been laid on, but she still felt a headache between her eyes. She reached up, found the goose egg on the bac
k of her head, and tried to push it back where it came from but that hurt too much so she stopped.
The trailer floor had the look of creamy grey marble, same as in the busy place where Collette took her to try to get their telephone back. Sharla put her cheek on the sun square part of the floor and watched a line of teeny ants coming toward her from a spot under the sink. She thought how the ants looked like babies and wondered where was the Mum that should be leading them.
The sound of Sharla’s crusty breathing made a concert with the morning dove outside Addy Shadd’s trailer. Sharla used her feet to turn herself around on her back so she could see down the skinny hallway. The bedroom door was closed, but Sharla wanted to go see what Addy Shadd looked like in her bed. Then all of the sudden she got a squeeze in her gut because she remembered she was in trouble for two things: she broke the china salt’n’pepper shakers and never brought the envelope with money.
Sharla sat up, fingering the soft blue plaid blanket, rubbing it against her cheek awhile before she felt ready to stand. She pulled herself up and looked at the butt-filled ashtray on the little kitchen table. She blew a short gust at the ashtray and watched the white and grey ashes scatter like snowflakes. She wiped the ashes off the table, then sniffed the cigarette smell on her hand.
There were three kitchen cupboards but none could be reached without a chair. Sharla was hungry so she dragged a chair over to the cupboards and climbed up, losing a heartbeat when she nearly tipped and fell. The cupboard door made a sceerauk sound and it was all just pots and dishes inside. Sharla was mad at that and because she couldn’t reach the next door without getting down and moving the chair again.
The next cupboard had bags of flour and sugar and cornmeal and a loaf of bread that was not soft and white but hard and black and something Sharla’d never seen before. On the bottom shelf was a large tin her pudgy fingers struggled to open. Inside the tin was a package of cookies, chocolate-covered coconut logs. Sharla’s favourite. She lifted the Cellophane, careful not to let it crinkle. She stuffed two cookies into her mouth, and the taste of the chocolate and coconut made her feel smooth and right. She put two cookies in one pocket of her shorts and three in the other pocket, and that was the end of the package.
Sharla stepped off the chair, pressing the gritty bits of coconut to the roof of her mouth. She took up her soft pillow and blue plaid blanket and brought them to the couch that was pulled out like a bed. She wished she could watch a cartoon, but after having a good look around, she saw there was no television. Sharla kept reaching into her pockets until all those good cookies were gone and just a smear of chocolate left on her shorts to pick at and lick off her fingers.
They weren’t toys, they were china things and she knew that, but Sharla thought how the dancing lady looked like something she could pretend was a toy. Sharla dragged the chair to the salt’n’pepper shelf, snatched the dancing lady, and held it like a doll.
She checked down the skinny hallway then whispered to the doll, in Collette’s voice, “I’m gonna have a date, so the babysitter’s coming and that’s Greg what’s visiting his Aunt Krystal. You can have some chips but don’t be a brat.”
Sharla acted mad and shook the doll. Pepper sprinkled out the holes in her head and fell on the bed. “See what you done now you little bugger? Spilt pepper all over the shittin’ place. Don’t make another mess or Emilio’s gonna take care of that.”
Sharla didn’t like how Emilio came up and soured her play, so she decided that she would sing a song to the pepper-shaker doll instead. She tried to recall the words for the Elmer Safety Elephant Song, which was taught to her by Collette’s boyfriend from a while ago, Claude, who said criticizing things when Collette fed Sharla just cheezies for supper.
Claude was the janitor at the school in Chatham where Sharla’d be going this fall. He had flat yellow hair and red spots on his chin, and Collette had said he was going to be Sharla’s new Daddy. Claude drove Sharla by the school in his blue truck and said it was a religion school so she’d have to get acquainted with God and Mary and Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins. Claude paid the tickets for the boat to Boblo Island, and he never took away Sharla’s corn dog when she was only half done.
There was a smell about Claude: vinegar and Ajax bleach and Peter Jackson cigarettes. Collette had to have a talk with him about a bath and not so much VO5 grooming lotion in his hair. But Sharla liked the smell of Claude and thought she’d be proud to say that’s her Daddy and to eat her jam sandwich in his janitor room with the rusty buckets and tall grey mops. He taught Sharla a funny way to count. “One, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred,” and he sang the Elmer Safety Elephant Song for her whenever she asked him to, even when you could tell he’d just rather smoke his Jacksons and watch the sky.
Claude liked the looks of Collette, and he said she must be the devil herself the way she could lead a man to temptation. He came by the trailer after work most nights and Collette fed him supper from the cans in the cupboards. For a treat on Fridays he’d bring a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, promising the drumsticks to Sharla. He said his old Mum was moving out of her red brick house on the Thames River and it was time he found a wife to move in there with him. He never felt so strong about anyone as he did about Collette, and when she saw that house on the Thames River she never felt so strong about anyone either.
On Collette’s birthday Claude showed up with his truck and two of the best things Sharla’d ever seen: a brand-new green velveteen La-Z-Boy that you could lay back in like a bed, and a curvy coffee table with not one scratch. Collette cried because they were beautiful things and she deserved them. After that, Claude came every night.
When supper was done, Claude’d give Sharla her bath and teach her songs. Collette would roll her eyes when Claude said Sharla had to have a bath every night, even when she wasn’t very dirty. Mostly Claude and Collette got along fine, until Collette got mad one night because he wouldn’t ever sleep over.
“I don’t get it, Claude,” Collette said after she thought Sharla’d fallen asleep between them on the sofa. “You can fuck me in my bed, but you can’t sleep in my bed?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Claude gestured at the beer in her hand and the empty bottles on the table. He didn’t imbibe and didn’t approve.
Collette took a long swig. “I’m sick of this. When we moving out to River Road?”
“After we get married.”
“When we getting married?”
“After you meet my Mum.”
“When am I meeting your Mum?”
“When you stop saying the ‘f’ word.”
“Does your Mum say you can’t sleep here? That it?”
Claude didn’t answer.
“You’re twenty-fucking-four years old! Fuck your mother!”
“Shut up about my Mum, Collette. It’s not just my Mum. What about Father Charlie at the school?”
“Who gives a shit what Father Charlie thinks?”
“You knew when we started I got religion and that’s important to me. I give a shit. God gives a shit. And keep your voice down. Your daughter’s sleeping right there.”
Collette laughed and pointed at him with her beer bottle. “You know what God thinks?”
Claude rose, pulling on his skunky cowboy boots, saying, “I’m going now.” He bent to kiss her but she pulled away. “I’ll swing by tomorrow.”
Collette shook the beer bottle at him, not laughing this time. “What does God think about me sucking your cock, Claude?”
Claude’s face turned red then white then red again. He snatched his vinegary coat from the kitchen chair and he was gone. He never swung by the next night or any other night. Collette was sorry about missing out on the River Road but she told Krystal she’d have likely choked him in his sleep anyway and didn’t she just save herself a peck of grief.
Sharla knew she wasn’t getting the words right as she reached up with her voice, remembering the way Claude sounded and how she wis
hed he were her Daddy and singing along with her. “Be just good and right and you’ll see tonight. Have a happy safety day.”
It wasn’t the singing that woke Addy Shadd. She couldn’t hear the child in the other room, didn’t know she was singing, or that she’d eaten all the coconut cookies Addy kept for when her sweet tooth acted up. What woke Addy Shadd was a dream she wasn’t anxious to get back to. Still, she wasn’t ready to get out of bed just yet and didn’t know how she was going to tell this child she had to go back to her mother.
When the bedroom door opened, Sharla stuffed her pepper-shaker doll into her pocket and sat still on the sofa bed. She watched Addy Shadd grow from small to large as she moved forward down the hall. Sharla wanted to say many things but she learned it was best not to say too much in the morning because there was usually a hand nearby to smack you and sometimes you had a smart mouth when you never even knew. She smiled at Addy Shadd though, and couldn’t help it.
Addy Shadd had pulled her hair back in pins like she always wore it in daytime. Her head looked smooth and her ears stuck out like they ought to have faces of their own. She was wearing a starchy yellow plaid housedress and short baby blue socks with nurse-looking white shoes. She was silent as she neared the sofa bed and Sharla flinched, wondering if she could smell the cookies. Addy Shadd sat on the sofa bed and reached out gently to touch the goose egg on her head. “Mmm-hmm. Guess you’re gonna live.”
Sharla let her touch and didn’t care it hurt.
“Suppose we should have iced it.”
Sharla just looked at her.
“What’s wrong, Child?”
