Stolen Life

by Rudy Wiebe

  In that tiny square they slam and rebound heads, body edges, feet against the fridge, the two doors, and suddenly the basement door bursts back off its breaking latch, opening like a gigantic maw, steep steps slanting down into blackness. And inexplicable to Yvonne, she is still at the bottom of the pile and can see nothing, as they struggle to untangle themselves from each other, even as they seem about to break apart, it is Chuck who is on the lip of the top step of the basement. Who topples over, and falls. Disappears into the ominous thuds of his falling.

  Three men beating each other always make a lot of noise, but contained in a short, narrow basement it is even louder. Ernie has charged down after Chuck, yelling to Dwa, who has followed. But Yvonne wants no part of this, she wants it gone; maybe it will vanish if she pulls the basement door shut. So she does that.

  Shirley Anne is shadow-boxing around the kitchen, punching air hard each time a heavy slam or grunt sounds through the floor. “Yeah! Hit the fucker.”

  But sometimes there is silence below, an ominous space of … nothing … and Yvonne is afraid. It seems more likely that Chuck is giving it to Dwa and Ernie; she has no faith in either as fighters. Out of such a sudden silence Chuck may suddenly jerk the basement door open, loom up into the kitchen.

  Shirley Anne sees her and stops her silly boxing; she disappears into the living room and returns holding the rifle across her chest like a movie soldier.

  “That’s useless,” Yvonne says. Shirley Anne looks at her without comprehension.

  “It’s a gun, eh?” As if, if she holds it, it must be power.

  Chantal appears behind Shirley Anne, frightened. Yvonne goes quickly to her. “Don’t come out now. Watch your brother and sister but don’t ask questions now. Go, sweetheart.”

  And she goes, quickly obedient as always, back into the bedroom. There may be heavy thuds and shouts and crashes in the basement, but that small room with most of its floor covered by mattresses for sleep or play must hold only quiet breath. The block letters of the alphabets they pasted to the wall begin just above the middle mattress, Chantal’s, and rise like a mountain to the brightness of the T lit by the streetlight shining through the frilly curtains, and turn the corner of the room on U to Z by the window. Straight across, the ABCs begin again, slant down until M disappears into the closet doors folded open. The three children asleep.

  There is no sound from below, nothing. With a jolt Yvonne cannot remember since when there has been no sound, and she is deeply afraid. Silently—her feet are bare—she walks past Shirley Anne by the sink, listening too, open-mouthed, and leans towards the basement door. The door catch has been torn out. There is a slight creak, and slowly she pushes against the door. Inch by inch the steep steps appear beneath her, empty.

  And then Chuck’s sudden face is below her. Surging up out of nothing, hard, fast, raw, a face and wide shoulders enraged and already eye-level with her bare feet and in a second he will be nose to nose with her again, will tower over her, and she jerks the door back, he has beaten down Dwa and Ernie and now he will do whatever he pleases, but his big hand out of nowhere grabs the bottom of the door and she jerks harder, she cannot break his grip, she has no space in her terrified mind except, no, no, not up into the house, knock him loose, knock him back down. There is only their desperately silent struggle, both the boys must be out cold and there is no one left but she has to keep him away from the bedroom. She cannot break his grip on the door rim and his other arm is going high, reaching for the knob, and without a thought she slams the door back on him. Stay out of my house! And the edge of the door hits his face, blood wells as the skin of his forehead dents and bursts.

  She has drawn blood. A fight to the blood is very bad.

  Chuck’s face may be bleeding but he is too strong for Yvonne. With one hand he keeps the door open and with the other he grabs her ankle and jerks. She slips off the floor onto the top step, loses her frantic balance and falls forward, headlong into the stairwell. Her desperate hands hook onto the small cupboard she built onto the wall opposite, above the stairs, and she catches herself there, hanging with her full body length stretched out above the bloody, enraged man. He roars to pull her loose, dragging down on her left arm, but she has the strength of terror. If he can throw her aside he will certainly climb up and do whatever he wants in the house. She contorts herself to anchor her right leg on the concrete ledge of the foundation and he clamps onto her hips with both hands and pulls down with all his strength, all his weight. Shirley Anne is kicking at him from the top stair; Yvonne is gasping for help, she knows her backbone will snap. And then at last both Dwa and Ernie are coming at Chuck from below. Cursing, they haul at him, stupidly they add their weight to his on her bending back!

  She is breaking, she cannot hold. She manages to scrape one leg free, to get her foot against his chest and shove, hard. And he flies down the stairs against the men to crash into the washer and dryer; even as she falls after them.

  Within seconds Shirley Anne is down there with them. All five are now in the tight concrete basement; scrambling to their feet on its concrete floor. From above the kitchen light gleams on Chuck’s bloody head.

  10

  If I Gave You a Gun, Would You Shoot Me?

  In this case you are exposed to people who are obviously very different from you and me. That’s reality. It would be nice if all the Crown witnesses to a murder were bank managers and accountants, but the cold hard truth is that Chuck [Skwarok] and Yvonne Johnson and Ernie Jensen don’t hang out with those people. They hang out with Shirley [Anne] Salmon and Lyle Schmidt, people who drink wine at 11 o’clock in the morning. The point of all that is not whether they are people who do things like that, it’s whether you accept what they told you about what happened.

  –Crown Prosecutor J. Barry Hill, Address to the Jury, Wetaskiwin, 18 March 1991

  STREETS LEAD AWAY from Yvonne’s house in three directions. The south is a dead end blocked by Parkside School. The door clicks behind her, the autumn air innocent as the corner streetlight, not a sound or motion. Her Dodge van stands in the drive where it belongs; she can walk around it and open the door and get in and twist the key and back onto the street easily and she’ll be facing away, every road leading away.

  The engine roars as the cold pedal hits her bare foot. Move, move. The van swings back, left, and leaps forward. For an instant as she runs under the streetlight at the corner, her eyes draw left, she can’t stop them, and Chuck’s dark Hornet hatchback sits there beside the sidewalk under the trees of her lot. Her thoughts rip like the flash of the streetlight across the back of her mind.

  Maybe nothing happened maybe he was just out cold and limp when we wrapped him in the tarp so limp when we shoved him in the hatchback and slammed maybe he’ll wake up and kick off the tarp and drive to the hospital maybe he’ll drive and get his two big cousins and come back and beat us all up maybe nothing happened maybe

  She thrusts a tape into the player, concentrating on play! And George Thorogood’s Destroyers’ guitars clang, then Thorogood wails, “I come in last night … wouldn’t let me in, move it on over …” and she flicks that up to blare, her head rocking into beat. The van drives, turns by itself.

  At the Wayside Inn there’s a big bus with blocked-out windows in the parking lot, which means Ladies’ Night, no women allowed except strippers. Music so loud you can’t think. Yvonne just wants a case of beer from Off Sales and she’ll be gone, away, and the bouncer says, Okay, ya gotta wait for intermission. She stands in the space between the two padded doors of the bar, slumps, and hits the pay-phone. The kids—someone will have to take care of the kids now. But Mom has no phone at Red Pheasant; this time of night there’s only Dad in Butte.

  The stripper music crashes to a stop as she’s dialling and the bouncer sticks his head between the doors, Okay, quick. Yvonne approaches the Off Sales desk. One case. Her hand comes out of her jean pocket not with the twenty Dwa just gave her but bills, bills—the cheque she cashed earlier—so s
he says, “Three, no four cases, four.”

  Someone comes up behind her, some huge lunk, talking loud like he owns the world. “Hey, Bud, you can’t serve her, she’s barefoot!”

  But both she and the bartender ignore the bossy bugger; she hoists the four cases of beer to her chest and is out of there. The kids. She stacks the beer on the entrance floor beside her cold feet.

  “Dad,” she says fast, “Dad!” interrupting the long-distance collect operator saying her name and will you accept—into his muttered waking-up.

  “Vonnie?”

  The door from the bar swings ajar; someone, a man, peers out at her, stands there, trying to listen? And she twists sideways, the receiver jammed into her ear. She’s in Butte, Montana, the little crammed house.

  “Vonnie, I can’t hardly hear you, I——”

  “Dad, I’m in bad trouble. Can you get hold of Mom, to come get the kids. Something really bad——”

  “Where are you? I can’t hear, just noise …”

  “I’m between the doors in a bar, I …”

  “Where? You in Alberta? Vonnie?”

  “Yes! Yes!” she shouts. On the phone she trusts him. He’ll tell her what to do and she’ll do it. “In Wetaskiwin, the house’s okay but something really bad—Dad, a guy keeps peeking out at me. I’ll phone right back, some other place; I’ll phone right back!”

  She hangs up, and the man is there again; he must have been listening. “Yvonne?”

  It’s the loudmouth at the Off Sales, and she’s seen him before, plenty, always hanging around, she can’t stand him. “What’s wrong? Hey, you’re soaking wet.”

  “Nothing!” She’s got two cases under her left arm, grabs the third by the handle, and tries for the fourth but she can’t hold it, it drops to the ground, so she leaves it and swings around to knock the outside door open but it jerks away and she almost falls against two RCMP officers coming in. They back up a step, staring at her.

  The biggest one says, “Hello, how’s it going … Yvonne.”

  He’s grey-haired and smiling slightly. The cruel cop game of smile and arrest, maybe they’ve already got the guys. She can do nothing, just play the game as long as it plays.

  “How do you guys know my name?”

  He laughs, points, so friendly he’ll be the worst. “Right there, on your jacket.” And of course it is, her old Butte, Montana, sports jacket; her mom made it. The shorter cop is staring at Loudmouth.

  He says, holding the dropped beer, “Yvonne here forgot one.”

  “I can’t …,” Yvonne says, “carry it all. I’ll get it, okay?”

  “That’s a lotta beer,” says the shorter cop. “Big party?”

  Yvonne’s fear cuts deeper. She steels herself to be normal. “Yeah, home party, just two blocks to go,” and slips past them. She cannot let them smell her breath; any second they’ll yell, “Stop!” But she hears nothing. The hardest thing is to walk normally. She’s across the lot—their cruiser is parked right in front of her van—she’s got her door open, she climbs in with her cartons. The ominous cruiser with its bar of flashers is shoved up wide against her radiator. She stacks the beer beside the seat; she is bent down as low as possible. Go, go.

  The passenger door opens—Loudmouth. Past him, under the hotel-door light, the two cops stand, still looking at her. She can’t start and drive away because they’ll see she has only one headlight, they’ll be after her in a second, and then they’ll smell her and haul her in for impaired too. The guy hoists up the beer carton and leans into the van.

  “I brought your beer. Hey, something wrong? Your old man beat you up, who were you calling there? Look, there’s blood on your pants … you get raped?”

  “I got in a fight, I gotta go.”

  He laughs, one foot inside the van now. “You look fucken great,” he says. “What does the other guy look like?”

  She doesn’t know his name but he’s always hanging around town, always staring at women.

  “If it’s rape,” his voice lifts, drawls the word like it feels good in his mouth, “tell it to them cops. They’ll get the bastard.”

  This is worse than a nightmare. Her van is her safest place on earth; in it she is surrounded by all the familiar steel which can move her away, away from anything—and now she cannot move it an inch on the busted pavement of the Wayside Inn! This snoop is hooked over her passenger seat and those two cops are staring at her—

  “I’m going.” The motor starts with a touch. “Get out!”

  But he doesn’t get out; he’s scrambling in and her mind flips over, “Okay,” she tells him, “you brought the beer, you can have it. I’ll drop you anywhere you want to go.”

  He’s yapping, yapping, but she swings the van back from the cruiser and around before she switches on the single light and she’s driving slowly, carefully towards the street. No flashing lights behind her. She cranks up George Thorogood,

  The sky is crying, look at the tears roll down the street …

  Loudmouth leaning towards her, yapping because he senses something’s the matter. Something bad.

  She’s looking for her smokes; he finds them and passes her one. And she sees the booth by the dark Shell station.

  “I gotta make a call.”

  “Who you gonna call, eh?”

  Yapping on, trying to find out. She corners in quick, leaves the Destroyers wailing even louder.

  Shielding her voice around the plastic phone: “Dad, I think … maybe … somebody’s dead. I’m in a phone booth, but the kids——”

  “Vonnie listen, listen, you go back to the house, make sure the kids——”

  “They’re fine, they don’t know, they——”

  “Listen! Go back to the house, make sure they’re okay, now!”

  “Dad, what will I do?”

  “Okay … okay then, then phone me back, right away, from the house and——”

  “Okay …”

  “And you gotta tell somebody. If somebody’s hurt bad or—you better tell somebody. You’ve got to. You hear me, Vonnie?”

  Yvonne sits in the driver’s chair, bent over the wheel, arms clutched tight around her stomach, rocking back and forth. Gasping at odd intervals, as if she is exhausted, or crying. Her untouched cigarette is smoking itself away and Lyle—he’s told her his name, that he’s the cab driver who used to pick her up before she had a car—Lyle butts it into the crammed ashtray. She rocks back and forth, her body swaying on the chair’s swivel but never leaning closer to him. He’s keeping things rolling, prying at her.

  “If your old man did this, leave him. You deserve better. You need a place to hide out?”

  “Leave,” she tells him dully. “It’s my problem … I gotta see if the guy I fought is okay. Go see if he’s gone.”

  “Okay then,” Lyle says, “I’ll help you, we’ll go get your kids, I’ll take care of you, no worry.”

  He’s carrying on his own conversation. Suddenly her arms unlock from around herself and she reaches over for the key, starts the motor, and the van jerks forward.

  “I was in a fight, and I think, maybe, someone got hurt, bad,” she says. “I don’t know but maybe. And you can do shit. Now anywhere you want to go, I’ll drop you off.”

  She steers with one hand, trees, stop signs, houses, streetlights blazing and gone, everything is blurred and fluorescent; shadows bulge and shift but her solid van blasts through anything.

  I tell this asshole he’s out and runs to the cops I go back say goodbye to the kids and kill myself if they get me I say I did it alone nobody else just me Dwa’s a good dad I can kill myself in jail

  She’s roaring straight down the avenue heading back to the house.

  “I don’t know how bad he’s hurt—pretty bad—I think I killed someone.”

  But Lyle is rocking in his chair, cranked higher than flying on sheer adrenaline; his eyes gleam at her like she’s a miracle. She swerves the van to the curb.

  “Get out!”

  “Yvonne, I’ll
help you! It’s your old man’s fault. You’d never hurt nobody, I know that. I’ll …”

  She can’t get rid of him. She drives, rockers pounding; she’s reeling and can barely aim herself between the rows of parked cars. Where is her house? She knows every street. Where? She stops. The middle of a street; she is blind in flashes; the world twisted into streaks, lights like bare branches leaning down, her head hits the steering wheel; she is so wrung out and she sees Lyle’s face inches from her face, talking.

  “Please,” she pleads. “If you want to help, get the fuck out!”

  Staring at her. Never look directly into a man’s eyes, it’s too dangerous; never, unless you know there’s nothing left but to fight.

  Go home drive let Dwa and Ernie scare him off

  The van is moving again, it seems to be alongside a park—the park; there’s her house on the corner and she has to look and instantly sees Chuck’s car is gone. The van rolls, stops.

  “We put him in the back of his car.” She hears herself saying that aloud. “And now the car is gone!”

  “What? Where?” Lyle is staring around, wildly.

  The car is gone maybe Ernie drove it away or Chuck woke up and went for his cousins to beat us up or Dwa burned it or Ernie drove it into a swamp or Dwa drove it to the hospital

  “Where?” Lyle has grabbed her, is shaking her, and with one last jolt of what’s left of her strength she steps on the gas. The van heaves forward under the streetlight across the intersection; she is aiming for her driveway in sheer panic, her children have to be in that dark house and Dwa has to be protecting them. Let him get rid of this asshole!

  But he’s screaming, “No! Go, go, go, go!” and lunges over, grabs the wheel, twists it back, knocking her aside as he slams his booted foot on her bare one on the gas, guns the van past the house and down the street. For an instant Yvonne freezes. My house gone my children my children. The van shudders to a stop past the next corner with his foot on the brake and she shudders too, crumples, crying hopelessly.