by Tim McGregor
He gave her hand a squeeze. Emma’s face was lit up so big he almost didn’t recognize her. He must have had a smile like hers too, the way his jaw muscles were stretching. They almost blushed together but looked away, Jim pointing out some other distraction to break the spell. He wished he hadn’t. When was the last time he’d seen that smile? Her eyes lit up like that in… what? Joy.
They walked on, palms sweaty but neither letting go, keeping some small part of the spell intact. When had they become so serious, so dour? He had fallen in love with Emma in high school and it was that smile that had sealed the deal. The way her eyes fired up and maybe it was a cliché or he just wasn’t smart enough to put it some other way but Emma beamed. So bright and warm it could guide lost ships back to shore.
“Travis!”
The boy zipped past on his bike, flashing between the tents and then disappearing again. Jim’s bark was involuntary, a parental instinct to holler at his kid, and he immediately regretted it. It snapped the mood and the light in his wife’s eyes dialled back to a dull glow of motherly responsibility.
“Where did he go?” Emma watched the shooting gallery tent, where she expected Travis to scoot out from. No one appeared. “He was just there.”
“We’ll find him..” He squeezed her hand, pumping oxygen back into their little magic but the moment was cold. They had all night, he told himself. They’d get it back.
Emma chewed her bottom lip. “Maybe we should have gotten him that cell he’s always asking for.”
“No thirteen-year old needs a phone.”
She fanned her face. “Wanna get something cold to drink?”
“Let’s go on a ride.” He pulled her hand to the Ferris Wheel. Three people waiting in line. She craned her neck up at all those twinkling lights going round and round. “God. When was the last time we were on one of these?”
“Lord knows. Come on, I bet the view’s great.”
The wheel slowed and they paid, climbed aboard. The tattooed operator clicked the bar over their laps, his hands grimed with grease. The wheel lurched up and their stomachs dropped and they looked out over the tree tops. The lights of town across the creek.
Emma squealed and when she looked at him, the beaming smile was back. “Ninety-four!” she shouted over the clanking gears.
“Ninety-four what?”
“The last time we were on a Ferris Wheel,” she said. “Spring of ninety-four, at that midway in Sarnia. Kurt Cobain had just died. Remember?”
Whammo. It all rushed back with a bang. Their third or fourth date. A little drunk, giggling on a rattletrap Ferris that clanked and moaned like it would snap from its moorings and roll away through the cornfield. Emma wore glasses back then. Not real ones, just thick-rimmed falsies she thought framed her face well. The brainy look contrasted with the band T-shirts she always wore. She had a hundred of them. Sebadoh, Pixies, P.J. Harvey.
“Mazzy Star,” he said.
“What?”
“The t-shirt you were wearing. That hypno-druggie band you used to like.”
Emma laughed, the detail shaking loose a few memories of that night. She slid closer to him as the bucket tilted backwards on the down run.
~
“You want some?”
Brenna stood backlit in the shaft of light of a tent, a bag of tiny donuts in her hand. The paper translucent with grease. She popped another one in her mouth and licked her fingers clean.
Travis took one, wolfed it down. “Cinnamon. The best.”
He had ridden through the fair grounds a bazillion times, wondering if she’d show. And when she did, she had a bag of greasy treats. Relieved and grateful. Not only had she’d shown, but the donuts provided conversation. Most times, he felt tongue-tied and stupid around her.
Brenna wasn’t his girlfriend. That was just a lie he told sometimes. Most days she barely seemed to know he existed. In a way, it was almost easier. The few times he managed to be around her, Travis felt his brain go blank and stutter for something, anything, to say. But here they were, just the two of them standing in the wattage between tents.
Cinnamon sugar speckled her lips. It was distracting. “You go on any rides yet?”
“All of them.” She slapped his hand when he reached for another. “Easy piggo.”
A shrug. “This stuff’s like crack.” He didn’t know where to put his eyes. Everything sort of fell out of his brain if he looked at her eyes too long but then his gaze drifted down to her bare shoulders in that little tank top. Her legs were bare and a thin wedge of belly showed where her top rode up. He turned away until his brain cooled.
“Looking for somebody?” She followed his gaze.
“Nah.”
But he should have. Brenna stepped back, eyes sharp to something behind him. “Watch out,” she said. Just as he turned, something smacked the back of his head, hard and sharp. Clocked by an elbow.
Brant flew past on his bike. “Faggot!”
Travis ground his teeth together, anger so hot and fast he felt his eyes tear up in humiliation. Brenna standing right there.
“Are you okay?” She reached out to touch his hair.
If he spoke, he’d blubber. He grabbed his bike and shot after the asshole. He heard Brenna call his name but didn’t look back.
Brant had stopped near the bandstand. Straddling his bike, elbows leaning on the handlebars. Talking to some girl over the sound of the band sawing out a tune onstage. Brant was bigger than he was, stronger too. Travis didn’t care anymore. He dropped his bike, reached into his pocket and came up behind the bastard. His footsteps masked under the drum beat, letting him get close.
The girl glanced at him then Brant swung his stupid head around and Travis gave him everything he had. The brass smashed his nose with a crack. Brant pitched over, feet caught in the bike, and keeled to the grass.
Travis landed hard on the asshole’s chest, pinning his arms. Twisting a handful of hair with his left hand, Travis went to town with his fist. Cracking that stupid fucking face with the brass again and again.
The girl was screeching and then everyone was yelling. The band stopped playing. Hands slammed onto him, yanking him up by the collar. Travis was thrown to the ground and someone dropped their knees to his chest. He didn’t care. Craning his neck, he clocked Brant still under the bike. He wasn’t moving. Travis looked at his hand, fingers swelling in the rings. The brass slick with blood.
21
A GIDDY WARMTH carried them through the fair grounds. Tapping their feet to the musicians at the bandstand, sneaking a kiss behind the war monument. Jim trying to show off at the shooting gallery. In the movie version, he would have won a big teddy bear but as it was he was a lousy shot and blew in five dollars hitting nothing but backdrop. They elbowed into the beer garden, got a drink and squeezed to the fence where they could watch the Ferris wheel turn.
Emma touched her plastic cup to his. “This is nice. Like a date”
He slipped a hand around her waist. “Been a while.”
“Keep this up and I might just take advantage of you.”
A schoolboy’s grin. One part blush, two parts anticipation. When was the last time they got friendly anyway? Ragged busy during business hours, near exhausted by nightfall. Whole days ripping down with little to distinguish them. “Aren’t you supposed to buy me dinner first?”
An elbow jostled her, spilling her cup. The tent filling up fast. “I don’t want to be stuck in here.” Emma dodged another tippler who’d lost his sea legs. “Drink up.”
“Let’s take ‘em with us.” Jim ducked under the railing, held it up for her.
She laughed and limboed under. “Now we’re just being bad.”
They strolled past the bandstand again, the shooting gallery, looking for Travis. Jim shrugged. “Maybe somebody adopted him.”
“That’s not even funny.”
They walked on, nodding at the few people who said hello. There was still a chill, ignored by some and no more than a nod of recognition from others.
/> “What’s that?” Emma pointed to a crowd clustered under a chestnut tree just outside the main run of the fair. Away from the ambient patio lanterns, people backlit from two tall tiki torches.
“Wasn’t there before,” he said. “Must of just popped up.”
They came up behind the crowd, leaning over shoulders to see what the fuss was about. Emma squeezed his arm. “Oh my God.”
A body hung from a chestnut limb, twisting on a lynch rope.
Swaying in the humid breeze, its legs swinging crazily. Jim blinked until he realized it wasn’t real. A straw man on a noose, dried stalks stuffed into a mechanics coveralls. A head of packed burlap. A cardboard sign hung from a string around its neck. Emma squinted at the words.
Who killed the Corrigans?
“Oh Christ.” About all that Jim had to say.
Beneath the swinging man were two card tables, lit up under the flicker of the tiki lamps. Photographs lay on one tabletop, reprints of photos taken a century ago. Two young men in waistcoats and caps, one serious and the other flashing a sly grin. A tintype of a family, stiff posed and grim faced. Another of a familiar looking house from a bygone era.
The other table held what appeared to be tools but a card laying below it read: murder weapons. A broad axe with a brittle haft. A shillelagh with a lethal looking business end and an antique pistol. Black gunmetal and a handgrip of burled walnut. The cylinder removed and placed upright showing six chambers bored for 44 calibres. The maker’s mark, Colt.
Straddling both card tables was a crate of rough milled cedar, lined with yellowed burlap. Resting atop this was a long sooty bone, its porous surface carbonized black. Without its sister bones for context, it could have been anything. A leg bone from a horse or cow. Anything.
Above it all was Corrigan. Arms folded across his chest. Contempt set into the line of his mouth and blooms of red in his eyes. Drunk, belligerent.
A man in the crowd pointed to the bone. Belly tipping over his belt, his accent screaming Yank. Michigan maybe. “You telling me that’s an actual bone from your murdered family? Come on…”
“The crime scene was walked through and picked over by half the town before the constable dragged his drunken hide to the site. The locals took souvenirs.” Corrigan lifted the blackened bone from its nest. “Now their descendants are searching their attics and cellars, digging out these trinkets of their guilty past and returning them to me.”
“That’s just some old cow bone.”
Corrigan offered it up to the man. “It’s a femur. The leg bone from one of the men. James, John or maybe Thomas. Go on, touch it. See if it’s real.”
The man backed off, as if the bone was diseased. Others grumbled, calling him a liar. Scolding Corrigan to put that nastiness away, there’s children about.
Jim pushed in, face to face with Corrigan. “Give it a rest already. No one wants to see this stuff.”
“They blocked our road, Jim. A desperate attempt to shut me down and keep people away.” Corrigan raised his hands in false surrender. “I had no choice but to bring the truth to town.”
“This is just gruesome,” Jim said. “And cheap.”
“It’s our heritage, Jim. Our town, where crimes are buried and murderers prosper.”
A woman shouted him down, calling his story fiction. The bellied man accused him of desecrating human remains and another said he should be arrested for wielding a firearm in public. Corrigan just grinned, poking the hornet’s nest.
A lighter flicked and the little flame was set to the frayed edges of the swinging effigy. The straw man went up fast, flames licking up the rope to the leaves. More hollering and cursing as the thing was pulled down and stomped. The smell of burnt cloth and August wildfires.
“Somebody call the cops,” brayed the fat man but the cops were already here.
Constable Bauer pushed through the crowd, calling out a name but not Corrigan’s. “Jim! Jim Hawkshaw!”
Jim and Emma flinched, like they were guilty of some unknown offence. The police officer waved at them to come forward. One hand clutching Travis by the shirt collar, as if the boy might bolt.
~
The injured boy was taken to a tent and given an ice-pack to hold against his cut cheek. Francie Whitman worked at St. Mary’s Hospital in Exford but had taken the weekend off to work the first aid station for the duration of the festival. The worst she expected to encounter were skinned knees and sunstroke. The boy moaning into the ice pack would have to go to the hospital. Francie wasn’t equipped to stitch cuts in her meagre station.
Brant asked for his mom and dad but the broken tooth and swelled lip garbled his speech to a babbling mewl. Unable to decipher any of that, the nurse rubbed his back and told him to be brave.
Travis stood outside the tent with his head bowed, caught between the OPP officer and his parents. As if there was some debate as to who was taking him away. Could the cop even do that, haul him away to the paddy cell with all the drunks and brawlers? Given the absolute shitstorm he was in for when he got home, maybe the paddy was the better fate.
Emma was apoplectic, Jim red-faced. Constable Bauer provided a few details but none of it made any sense. Travis just attacked the boy out of the blue, no provocation. Assault with a weapon.
“What weapon?” Jim asked.
The constable produced a wadded paper towel, seeped damp with blood and unfolded it. The brass knuckles glinted under the patio lights.
Emma covered her mouth. Jim snatched Travis by the collar. “You used this on that kid? Where the hell did you get this?” When the boy said nothing, Jim shook him. “Where did you get this!”
“I found it.”
“Bullshit! Who did you get it from?”
“Easy.” The constable put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Let’s not make this any worse.”
Emma rubbed her temple. “How could this get any worse?”
“This wasn’t just a schoolyard fight,” Constable Bauer said. “The Coogan boy is seriously hurt. I don’t know how his parents will react but they’d be within their rights to charge your son with assault.”
“Oh god.” The blood drained out of Emma’s already paling face. She felt dizzy.
Two people rushed past them to the nurse’s station. The injured boy’s parents.
Jim held his breath and pushed down the rage rumbling up his throat. He leaned down eye-level to Travis and said, “We need to fix this right now. Apologize to that boy.”
Travis didn’t move. Just take me to jail. Anything but apologize to that sack of shit. He felt his dad’s hand grip his shoulder, turn him around and march him to the tent.
The Coogan boy was a mess. Strings of red drool swung off his chin, snot running down his broken nose. Francie the nurse lifted away the ice-pack from the boy’s cheek. A deep cut, still welling up with blood. It didn’t seem real to Jim. How could his son have done that?
Jim cleared his throat, spoke up. “Mr. Coogan, my son would like to apologize…”
“Get that little bastard away from my son!” Mrs. Coogan lashed out with so much rage, Jim leaned back, thinking she was going to swing. Her teeth bared. “Look at what your son did! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
Mr. Coogan said nothing, just patted his son’s back. Emma stepped up, hoping to talk the mother down. “Liz, I’m sorry. I don’t understand how this—”
“What kind of people are you? Raising such a vicious child. Brant’s lost a tooth for God’s sakes!”
Francie stepped between them, defusing the whole thing. “Is your car close by? You need to take Brant to the hospital. He’ll need a few stitches for that cut.”
Mrs. Coogan wailed at the thought. Brant’s father helped his son up and walked him out of the tent. He looked at Jim and Emma and, in an icy tone, told them he was laying charges against their son.
Constable Bauer watched the boy limp away before turning back to Jim and Emma. “Take the boy home. If I see him back here or in town, I’ll drive him straight
to juvenile lockup. Understand?”
Escorting their son to the parking lot, Jim wondered if they could pack the boy off to his grandmother’s for the rest of the summer.
~
Nothing was said on the drive home, away from the twinkling lights and prom night haze. Back to the old farmhouse with its worn out floors and houseflies buzzing against the windows. Jim driving too fast, Emma unable to shake the image of the boy’s broken face. Travis withered between them like a spooked hermit crab.
When he got out, Travis ran for the house. Letting the screen door bang behind him, marching for the stairs. The haven of his room. Jim barked at him to stop, take a seat. Good or bad, it all came to a head around the kitchen table. Emma chewed her lip, the whole drive home debating how to deal with this. Calm and cool, detach her emotions and get the boy to talk. Draw it out of him. Yelling at Travis would only make him withdraw into a silent shell. She needed to pull Jim aside and tell him how to broach this but he didn’t give her a chance. Unloading on the boy, he’d already blown any chance at getting to the bottom of this. The rage of the father trumping the needs of the child.
Jim leaned against the counter and pinned the boy with a stare. Minutes ticked over and still Jim said nothing, just squaring Travis until a bead of sweat stung the boy’s eye. And then Jim laid into him. Why did he attack that boy? Sneaking up and sucker-punching him like a weasel. Where had he gotten the brass knuckles and had his brains completely fallen out of his fucking head for brutalizing someone like that?
Travis wilted. His eyes glassed over, mentally fleeing somewhere far, far away. The barking of his father melding into the white noise of crickets. Isn’t that how torture victims dealt with their torment?
Emma stepped in when her husband’s rage was spent. She knelt down eye-level with Travis and told him they need to understand what had happened. What had that boy done to him? How had Brant Coogan hurt him to provoke that kind of anger?
Travis gave up nothing. He wasn’t even in the room.
Jim watched his son sit there like a stump. He could taste the contempt in the back of his throat, the simmering rage fire back up. It sickened him the way she mollycoddled the little prince and in a crystal flash he saw how this was all her fault. She had prissied and babied the boy into this state, still wiping his ass and indulging his limitless egotism, his infantile tantrums. Jim thought of his own father and all the harsh lessons the old man had taught him. His body held testimony to those lessons. The bent index finger, broken after he’d backed the family car into a tree. The gap in his jaw where a fist had knocked a molar loose. The lip of scar tissue trailing up his back.
