Punishment

by Linden MacIntyre

  He arrived in a rental SUV. When he knocked on the front door I led him through to the kitchen. She had put a pot of coffee on to brew before she left and I felt my spirits lift a little.

  “Caddy Gillis,” he said. “If she’s the one I’m thinking of, everybody had a crush on her. Remember how we’d say somebody had the ‘notion’ for somebody or other. We’d call it the naw-shun. Every so often the old expressions come back like that.” He shook his head, drifting back through memory. “The old Gaelic people would say that if you were sweet on somebody. We all had the naw-shun for Caddy, if I recall.”

  There was a long silence as each of us attempted to find a place to start, one of the free ends of a tangled piece of rope.

  “I don’t suppose you had much Gaelic yourself, growing up,” he said at last.

  “No, it was pretty well gone by then.”

  “Sad,” he said. “Those old people were solid, man. Built this place to last. Integrity was what they had, I guess it’s what they left for us. Gave us their example. I suppose we can forgive them for taking the language with them when they went.” He sipped his coffee, studied the ceiling for a while.

  “I heard plenty of it as a kid,” he said. “Hung on to a few fragments but that’s about all. Their gumption though, the ability to make something out of nothing. That stayed with me.”

  “Yes,” I said, boredom creeping in around the apprehension.

  “Life, eh. Looking back on it I guess that’s how it’ll seem at the end—a bunch of fragments.” He chuckled. Another long silence.

  “Anyway,” Jimmy said, sitting straighter, taking a sip of coffee. “I’m not here to rake over what happened up at the old place. I’ve heard enough to get the picture.”

  I made a dismissive gesture with my pink and scabby hands, but said nothing. Just listen, I thought.

  “I talked to Neil Archie. Jesus, he hasn’t changed a bit.” He laughed. “Neil was telling me how you tried to save poor Dwayne, how you almost ended up … yourself.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t remember much.”

  “I understand … but I just wanted you to know, I appreciate what you tried to do that night and before that.”

  He tilted back, studying his cup. His hands were large and seemed permanently stained by work. “Dwayne used to tell me back when he was doing time that you were one of the few people in the system who took an interest in him as something more than a number. I thought to myself, I hope someday I’ll get a chance to express my appreciation, never expecting the circumstances, of course.”

  I nodded, studying the floor. I glanced over his head at the kitchen wall clock. It said 2:20. “Dwayne,” I said finally, “was in many ways his own worst enemy.” And I felt an instant flutter of relief at the sound of truth.

  “Oh man,” MacInnis said enthusiastically. “Truer words were never spoken.”

  And I realized then that he hadn’t come with perilous, unanswerable questions, but to seek some form of absolution.

  “I can’t begin to tally up the sleepless nights, the pages and pages I wrote to Dwayne, trying, I suppose, to be his dad. No criticism intended, but my brother was old school. Hands-off to a fault, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I mean, we all let him down, one way or another, and we have to live with that. But at the end of the day, everybody, including poor Dwayne, has to face up to the consequences of his own actions. And boy, poor Dwayne had plenty to face.”

  I stood. “Let me get you some fresh.”

  “Appreciate it,” he said.

  And then for a while we relaxed into a comparison of memories of how we left the place, little more than boys. The chat was smooth and easy. How I ended up in prisons, how he, like so many young men from here, found his way to northern Ontario, used a connection from home to get work in hard-rock mining. “It was up to yourself then, boy. Some old contractor or mine captain would look you up and down, his face saying, ‘If you weren’t from home I wouldn’t give you the fuckin time of day.’ You had one chance and that was all I asked for.”

  He started as underground labourer, then became a timber man in shaft development. He gradually learned to handle all the complex new machinery for driving drifts and raises, excavating caverns called stopes, but all the time watching and learning bigger things—geology and engineering, leadership. Eventually he won a subcontract from someone else from home, someone big in the specialized work of sinking mine shafts. That was the break he needed and it came at the exact right time.

  “I could be as wild as anybody, but right around then I was settling down. Which is what we all do, sooner or later. Right?” Afterwards he continued the tradition, making it his policy to share his good fortune. “It was just good sense, anyway—guys from here are the best miners in the country. By far. So I was really doing myself the favour, taking on the young fellows from here who’d be showing up like I did with the arse out of their pants. Any more of that coffee?”

  I stood.

  “I don’t know how often I begged Dwayne to come on up, even after the penitentiary, I was ready to give him a chance. He’d have been good at it I know, strong and smart, no lack of initiative there. Brains to burn. But like I always say, a fella can be too smart for his own good. Poor Dwayne. It seemed he was always looking for the shortcut to where guys like you and me got taking the long way around.”

  The clock now said three o’clock. “Christ,” he said. “Look at the time. Let me get to the point of why I came here.”

  He told me he’d spent a lot of time thinking since Dwayne’s death and had concluded that what the place needed more than anything else was a facility that the young people could consider theirs, a community youth centre.

  “I love that concept—community,” he said. “It takes in everything we’ve been talking about. The continuity of quality, the gifts the old-timers left us with, all preserved in the community. People getting by, sharing and helping one another. Every chance I’ve had I’ve tried to put something back into the community.”

  Now, he felt, it was time to put some serious money into a community centre for the young people. Maybe save one or two from turning out like Dwayne. He said he’d want extensive local participation because he’d learned that top-down charity never works. People need to feel they have a stake in something. And there’s also the practical reality that building something is the easy part. The challenge is the long-term operation, the maintenance, the continuity.

  “What do you think?”

  I fought the skepticism. I really did. “I think it’s a very generous thought.”

  “Maybe name the place after Dwayne. I was thinking how that would look to people driving through—the Dwayne Strickland Community Centre.” His voice broke slightly as he said it.

  Mercifully it was nearly over. I could imagine Caddy’s response—and heard it shortly after: that plan has about as much chance as a fart in a windstorm. But for the moment, Jimmy Joe MacInnis and I were united in some kind of plan to keep Dwayne’s rehabilitated memory alive.

  “He was really determined to turn his life around this time,” Jimmy said, standing in the middle of the kitchen, ready to leave. “I’ve learned to read guys, to recognize the bullshit when I hear it. He was serious this time. When I was talking to him, just before he died, he’d decided to move up to Sudbury, take a job there, fresh start. He was genuine. You could see it in his eyes. The eyes don’t lie, man.”

  “You were here just before he died?”

  “No, he was up.”

  “Up?”

  “Up to Sudbury, a flying trip to check the place out.”

  “Do you remember when?”

  “I think it was March 19 he arrived. I remember all the talk was about the Iraq business. Dwayne had some interesting theories about that. Yes. It was on the twentieth, him and me and a couple of other guys were in the Nickel Range having a few beers, watching all that go-ahead on television. Next day, March 21, he came back. N
ever knowing, eh.”

  “Strickland didn’t kill my dog!”

  Mary was studying me from behind the counter with an expression of confusion and alarm. “I could have told you that,” she said.

  “How did you know? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It didn’t cross my mind that you’d have blamed him.”

  “Jesus, Mary.”

  “I thought you knew. He wasn’t even here. He was gone somewhere. He didn’t tell me where he was going but he came over and asked me to keep an eye on his place. I know he was worried about people breaking in. He’d mentioned that there were people always snooping around. Then after that business with the drugs, he was really paranoid.”

  “I was sure he did it.”

  “No, Tony,” Mary said. “Dwayne loved dogs.”

  Caddy was back from town when I returned from the store and suddenly I dreaded seeing her, telling her what I had learned—and then the story of what really happened, the nauseating truth: how I’d become an accessory to a crime that will haunt me until I die.

  I quietly backed my truck out of her driveway and drove down to the Shore Road. My little house had the abandoned look of the many summer places that dot the coastline now. The kitchen door was stuck again. I shouldered through, swearing quietly, resentful of the chill, the dampness, the unimaginative utility of the place. I stood in the middle of the kitchen assessing the haphazard collection of cast-offs that passed for furnishing. The new television screen loomed in the living room, an alien intrusion of modern design and purpose. Old Charlie would have been perfectly at home with all the rest. I sat. I couldn’t stay much longer at Caddy’s place but living here alone was little more than survival. The worst bachelor dive I’d lived in during my days before Anna had been models of contemporary style and comfort compared to this.

  Outside I surveyed the once-lovely vista, now compromised by the accusing pile of stone down where the meadow drops off into the sea. I wandered through the field and as I stood before the little monument I could no longer avoid confronting the awful realization that now screamed for my full attention.

  Three people knew the full particulars of the confrontation in Neil’s driveway—Neil, Strickland, me. Whoever was with Strickland when he arrived that night had already prudently retreated. Three people knew that Strickland had called me a pig. One of us wrote the note that was under the windshield wiper blade when I found the dog dead on the front seat of my truck. Strangled with a piece of fine wire, the kind we used as boys for rabbit snares. One of us killed the dog and it wasn’t me and now I knew it wasn’t Strickland.

  From her youngest days, Caddy seemed to have the gift of concealing reactions that betrayed emotion. She could absorb shock and surprise with hardly any outward sign. I swear that we could be walking through a fancy room and if I said to Caddy, “Jeez, Caddy, you’ve got two different shoes on!” she’d walk three more paces before she’d even look down, and then just carry on with a shrug.

  “I think it was Neil who killed the little dog.”

  She was at the sink draining water off potatoes, steam swirling around her face.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “It could only have been him.”

  Long silence as she shook the pot, replaced the cover. “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “Not a hundred percent.”

  “So why speculate?”

  “I think Neil set me up, to involve me in a plan to get rid of Strickland.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have badgered you into getting that television set. You’ve been watching cop shows.”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  She nodded, came close to me, suggested that we have a drink before dinner. And as she poured, she declared, “Well, it would be like something he would do.”

  “So you wouldn’t rule it out.”

  “Anything is possible.”

  “Caddy. We murdered Strickland, Neil and me. I was part of it because of that dog.”

  “Like I said before, it was only a dog. And Strickland is no big loss to the place. Good riddance, I say.”

  “Caddy, I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.”

  “It’s always been your downfall, Tony, taking too much on yourself. At the end of the day …”

  “Stop saying that. I hate that fucking expression.” My vehemence shocked me, and even Caddy showed surprise.

  “Whatever,” she said eventually. “We’re all in this together. Remember that. You, me, Neil, the whole village. It will pass.”

  “You? What the fuck did you have to do with it?”

  “There are things you don’t know, Tony. And it’s best left that way.”

  We ate in silence and I went to bed in the guest room. Early the next morning I gathered my possessions and moved back to my own miserable house.

  Driving away I reminded myself that more than thirty years before she had shocked me into a state of grief that never really went away. I was always able to find some comfort in the knowledge, when I was in my twenties, that time would save me from despair. Time was on my side back then. In time I’d forget her, outgrow grief and vulnerability. But I never did and now time was my enemy.

  Looking back, my decision to place a call to Anna that day stands as one of my more rational impulses. On the other hand it was possibly nothing more than a desire to hear a human voice—even if it might be hostile.

  She picked up on the second ring. She sounded friendly, even happy. For an instant I regretted calling, felt sorry for the effect that what I had to say would have on her. Whatever wounded resentment I might have held after what she and Strickland did had long since been expiated. I told her anyway.

  “Anna. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but I thought you’d want to know. Dwayne Strickland is dead.”

  There was a long unsurprising silence and I used it to think through the rest of what I wanted her to know. She said nothing. I realized that she had nothing to say.

  “He died in a house fire.”

  Still no response.

  “It looks like an accident. He was trying to light a fire with kerosene.”

  “I’m glad you told me,” she said. I realized that she had been listening for evidence of an agenda. “You’re okay?”

  I hesitated. “Sure,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine, but I’ll take you at your word. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the old place. It’s peaceful here.” Wondering why I added that.

  “You cared about him, Tony. You did your best for him. Don’t forget that.”

  And whatever sordid impulse might have compelled me to say what I could have said, disappeared, words never to be uttered—words conveying empty, irrelevant, stupid knowledge that would one day mercifully die with us.

  “Thanks for the thought,” I said.

  “Tony, while I’ve got you—maybe this is a bad time, but it’s something you can think about in the next little while. The dog.”

  “What?”

  “The dog. Jack Daniels—surely you remember your little pal in Kingston?”

  “Oh.”

  “It doesn’t really work for me anymore, Tony, having a dog around. There’s a breeder interested in taking him but I thought of you, living alone out in the country. It’s a perfect place for a dog. I think it would be great for both of you. What do you think?”

  I was afraid to speak, unnerved by a sudden congestion in my chest making it difficult for me to breathe.

  As simply as I could I ended the conversation. “Give me a little time to think about it. Goodbye, Anna.”

  ——

  It became dark outside. I was on my third drink, clear-headed once again. I put the bottle away.

  Neil seemed surprised to see me, but motioned me inside. I could hear the rattle and clash of pots in the kitchen as we walked past the doorway, then straight through the comfortable living room to a little room in a back corner of the house. It was, by the
look of it, his private space. There was a wall full of citations and awards and photographs. Young Neil the soldier, young Neil the cop, middle-aged Neil the cop, pictures of Neil the host, posing with the guests—identical smile in every shot, the poise of one accustomed to photographers.

  He sat in a swivel chair, twisted side to side, hands clasped in front of him, twirling his thumbs. “Can I get you anything?”

  The tone was wary, but unafraid.

  “I don’t know why you had to kill the dog, Neil.”

  He stood abruptly, towering over me, face flushed. “Jesus H. Christ.” Turned away indignantly, then back.

  “So you’re blaming me for that, now,” he said. “Where’s this coming from? Guilt, is it? You’re feeling all guilty because some slimeball meets the end that was—and listen carefully to this, Tony—meets the end that was in the cards for him for a long, long time. Long before either one of us had anything to do with him.”

  “The dog,” I said. “Why did you do that?”

  “Oh fuck off with the dog,” he said. “A human being—and I’ll give Strickland that much—a human being I can understand. But snivelling over a fucking dog? Gimme a break.”

  I stood. “I’m going to tell the whole story.”

  “Are you now? And who are you going to tell? The media?” He leaned back in the chair and laughed loudly.

  “I’m going to file a separate report with the police. I’ll leave it with them.”

  “I see.” He hauled his chair up close to the desk and sat, elbows on the desktop, chin in his hands, like a schoolboy. “And what’ll you tell them?”

  “Exactly what happened. And don’t worry. I’ll not minimize my own involvement.”

  “No. I expect you won’t minimize anything. That seems to be your trademark, Tony. Tell the truth. Let the chips fall where they may, knowing that the chips always fall away from the fella with the axe.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Chicken-shit whistleblowers, is what. You’re all alike.”

  I turned toward the door.

  “It’ll be your word against mine,” he said.