Hope Burned

by Brent LaPorte

  Copyright © Brent LaPorte, 2010

  Published by ECW Press

  2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2

  416.694.3348 / info@ecwpress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  LaPorte, Brent

  Hope burned / Brent LaPorte.

  “A misFit book”

  ISBN 978-1-55490-810-3

  Also issued as: ISBN 978-1-55022-963-9

  I. Title.

  PS8623.A7368H66 2010 C813’.6 C2010-901260-7

  Cover Photo and Design: Bill Douglas at The Bang

  Text Design: Melissa Kaita

  Typesetting: Mary Bowness

  Editor: Michael Holmes / a misFit book

  The publication of Hope Burned has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, by the Ontario Arts Council, by the Government of Ontario through Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit, by the OMDC Book Fund, an initiative of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and by the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  for Suzie, with love

  . . . there’s nothin’ strange about an axe with bloodstains in the barn

  There’s always some killin’ you got to do around the farm

  —Tom Waits

  I’M NOT REALLY MUCH of a letter writer, but I felt it was important to explain to you exactly why, today, I killed both my father and grandfather.

  Not exactly your typical “How are things?” is it?

  For that, I apologize.

  For the killings I do not.

  I suppose, like any good story, I should begin at the start, or start at the beginning, whichever you choose. I’m honestly not sure just how it all began, how old I am or even who I am. I do know, however, exactly where I came from, where I am now and how I got here.

  This is what I will try to explain to you.

  If you want to understand where I’m from simply Google “scary desolate farm property.” A picture of the family house will pop up immediately. I say house and not home intentionally. A house is a place where a person lives. A home is a place where a person is alive. There is a difference.

  While I lived in this house, I was never truly alive. Being alive means you’re capable of making a choice and have some sort of effect on your surroundings—you can appreciate the wind, the trees, the grass. . . . Any of God’s gifts are present every time you open your eyes. When you’re alive you choose to take deep breaths on your own. Simply existing means being able to breathe only because someone else has allowed you to take a breath.

  Alive can be defined as a form of awakening: becoming aware of your surroundings for the first time and being able to appreciate all their benefits. When you’re alive you can choose to order cheese on the burger. Fries? Yes or no? Living means you eat whatever slop is thrown at you. Being alive means that you can choose to lower the shades to darken a room so you can sleep late; living is counting the minutes until someone opens the trapdoor to let a small sliver of light into your dungeon so you can see what’s been crawling over you all night.

  You may not want to know, but you need to. If for no other reason than to make your nightmares complete.

  Yes, my young man, there is a difference between living and being alive. Fortunately, you will never have to experience this. From the moment you were born, you were alive—awakened, aware and, yes, even aroused within your surroundings. I suppose it is because of the depravation I suffered that I appreciate the difference.

  This house? It is a very desolate place, not likely to welcome others for very many years. Well off the main highways, hidden by the forests: out of sight, out of mind.

  My grandfather owned all of the property around here: roads, forests, the lake and yes, for a period of time, even me. Everything was hidden, kept from the outside world.

  How he came to own this property I still do not know, although I suspect it was left to him by a more ambitious ancestor.

  It is a typical farmhouse of an era long past, when it was not unusual for a family to exceed ten in numbers. This table that I am now sitting at for the first time, writing this letter, seats fourteen. In all likelihood it was constructed of the ancestors of the forest that have kept this place hidden all of these years. If only they knew what they would become, maybe they would have chosen to submit to the forest floor instead of shooting skywards.

  As I write this I look around the large country kitchen and try to imagine the room full of the type of warmth that only a country family could provide. I try to wipe the horror of earlier from my mind with visions of children laughing, men playing fiddle and ladies dancing. But it doesn’t work. The kitchen is too dark, the smoke-stained walls too constricting, the tobacco-stained floor too dirty.

  I am gazing at a photo of my great-grandparents. The oval-shaped frame houses a dark-eyed, lifeless-looking man. His gaze bores right through the unfortunate photographer. His thin lips show not even a hint of a smile. His skin, cured by the sun, is beginning to sag under his chin. He appears tall and thin, like most men of his day. Men beaten down by the very thing they loved: farming.

  The woman next to him has dark-centered eyes, but they’re light-rimmed, green or hazel. While his eyes look through the photographer, hers are looking into him, to his core, his soul. Knowing his every thought, his every want, his every fear. I feel vulnerable still.

  She does not appear to be an overly large woman, nor does she appear to be small. I suppose the term to use would be stout. Very capable of handling her chores on what had been a working farm. No doubt she could bake a pie one minute and birth a calf the next. Her silver hair is pulled back into a no-nonsense type of bun, exposing oversized ears and a full neck and face. Her mouth is closed to a point, giving the impression that she could fire arrows through it, striking a man through the heart should he step out of line. From all appearances, she likely did.

  That, my son, is all I have for your family tree. Other than my father and grandfather, of course.

  The photos that hang in this kitchen are all I knew of other humans for most of my stay at the farm. I say most because on one occasion I did catch a glimpse of life outside.

  I had just finished in the potato field for the day and was making my way back to the house for bed when I heard the sound of my grandfather’s old truck rumbling down the dirt road. Now, I will tell you that I was never before, nor again, left outside when my father knew Grandpa was returning from his monthly trip to town.

  It was one of those mid-summer days when even grasshoppers and ants are lazy. Nothing was moving particularly fast, especially not my father. I had just rounded the house when my grandfather parked his faded red pickup just outside the mill by the lake. I kind of half-hid at the side of the house while he got out of the driver’s door and hurried to the passenger side. I didn’t know why I was hiding; I just was. At that point I knew I didn’t want to be seen. I watched as my grandpa flung the door open and pulled out a young girl, likely twelve or thirteen. He had her firmly by the arm, even though she was not resisting.

  Keep in mind I had never seen
, to my recollection, a living human being other than my father and grandfather at this point in my life. A wave of emotion shook through me. I thought, My God, there are others out there. I was shaken by the beauty of the creature my grandfather was leading towards the mill.

  She had the most beautiful long blond hair, and skin that appeared smoother than anything I had ever seen or touched. She was wearing a brown flowered sundress; one of the straps was broken and lying loosely over her shoulder. The dress swayed in the summer breeze. In any other setting it would have been the picture of a beautiful girl about to enjoy a perfect summer day down by the lake with family. Unfortunately, this was not any other setting. She was not going for a picnic of fried chicken and salad, topped off with ice-cold lemonade. This girl was about to see the sun for the last time. She would never feel the wind caress her skin, blowing her hair about her face, again.

  The dry August leaves were rustling and the swaying branches were groaning for water when she looked up over the shoulder with the broken strap and spotted me. To this day I do not know how she knew I was standing there, but she looked over and straight into my heart. Her dark eyes did not plead for help, nor were they angry, but they were not empty or lifeless. They were dark pools of resignation—shimmering with despair. My grandpa led her a few steps farther and then noticed her staring at me.

  He glared at me with his own large dark eyes. There was no other emotion but anger and hatred. He said nothing, just grabbed the girl by the arm, almost yanking it out of its socket. He led her like that to the mill, and outside of my dreams I never saw her again.

  That night my grandfather came into the farmhouse as I was preparing dinner. He was covered in sweat, hair tangled, with fresh scratches on his face and arms. She did not give up as easily as he would have liked. He had his pound of flesh, no doubt, but she also had hers. He walked into the kitchen with his shirt torn open; his studded leather belt was in one hand, and he held his pants up with the other. If I didn’t know what was coming, I would have found it comical. The studs of the belt would leave huge welts on my back and buttocks. He never said a word; his eyes did all of the talking. The first swat caught me just below my right ear and cut my throat enough to scare but not kill me. As I hit the floor, lash after lash fell on my back. He had never hit me with such ferocity before. Normally my back would go numb about halfway through such a beating, but this time the last strike hurt every bit as much as the first. My blood pooled. I could not even crawl away; the floor was too greasy from the blood. All I could do was lie there and take more. I remember thinking this might be the time that I did not make it. Now, most kids my age would have been terrified at the sight of so much of their own blood. Hell, most kids are terrified at a nosebleed. Not me. I would guess there isn’t an inch of floor in this old house that doesn’t have traces of my blood on it.

  The interval between the strikes became longer as the old man’s strength ebbed. I just lay there because if I showed any resistance, or tried to move away, he would have been reinvigorated. Finally he exhausted himself and left me, sobbing and hoping to die. It was then that my father, who was likely waiting for the beating to end, came into the house. He paused, looked at the old man, then grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my crawlspace. He’d done this many times before, but the lubricated floor made the task easier. He threw me down the stairs and I didn’t have the strength to break the fall with my hands. I hit every step on the way down and my face was cut wide open. Every inch of my body ached; it hurt to even open my eyes. Somehow I was able to crawl to my bed, and then I collapsed. I had to sleep on my stomach for many days after this. I did not understand, then, that I was being punished for the sins of my family.

  NOW, AS ODD AS THIS may sound, my life in this place was relatively typical. Days started out the same, each and every one of them. I would wake to my father’s footsteps on the floor above. He would make his way to the door of the crawlspace pretty much as any father might wake his child for school. The difference, of course, was his tone, and the language he used to rouse me. I never got a gentle rub of the forehead, a tousle of my hair or a whispered, “It’s time to get up.”

  If I wasn’t already awake I heard, “Get your god-damned lazy ass up here and start that fire.”

  He would then shuffle off to relieve himself—a luxury I would have to wait for until after the fire was lit.

  One morning—I suppose it must have been in the fall because there were no leaves on the trees and it was damp and cold, even outside of the crawlspace—the firewood was green, and it was a struggle to light the stove. Black smoke billowed as I tried to fan flames to life.

  My father sat on a chair in the corner glaring at me as my grandfather made his way to the kitchen. The sound of his boots on the wood floor announced both his arrival and his displeasure with the smoke and the lack of the means to cook his breakfast. I knew I was in for another beating.

  Even as the sound neared I dared not look to see his approach. I kept fanning that reluctant wood, trying to will it to ignite so I could escape the consequences of displeasing them. I never felt the blow to the back of my head. When I awoke I could tell that a fire poker had been used to strike because it was lying on the floor near me with my hair and dried blood still on it.

  I tried to stand but fell back down almost immediately. Neither my father nor my grandfather offered assistance. My vision was blurred but I could see my grandfather seated in the chair once occupied by my father and my father now standing at the stove.

  I remained motionless for a moment and tried to get my bearings, watching as my father took some of the sizzling bacon from the pan and placed it on a plate. God, it smelled good. The bacon smell filled my nostrils, electrifying my taste buds, awakening me to the point that all but my pain sensors were functioning.

  I don’t know if it was the blow to the head or simply the temptation of the bacon, but for the first time in memory I asked my father for something.

  “Pa, that sure smells so good. Do you think I could have some?”

  To anyone else in the world I would have been one sorry-looking kid: lying there in dirty overalls, skinny, pale, with blood coming from the back of my head. But to these two?

  My father looked at me, then at my grandfather, and said, “It sure does smell good, boy. You want some?” He shifted his look from his pa to me, then back to his pa. “What do you say, Pa, maybe we been a little hard on him? How ’bout we give him . . . just a little?”

  I never really caught on to the wickedness of his grin; I was just lying there, hoping that he would finally give me some food that wasn’t half-eaten and cold.

  My grandfather looked up, spat tobacco on the floor and nodded his head.

  My father, the man who made me, looked at the pan, three-quarters full of sizzling bacon, and said, “Okay, boy, you want some; here it is.” And then he dumped the contents of the pan, grease and all, all over me. Mercifully I was able to duck. Most of the liquid fire rolled down my back to leave a trail of burnt flesh in its wake. I suppose the most pathetic aspect of this is that even with my own flesh bubbling from the bacon lava, I still tried to shove as much in my mouth as I could.

  Son, it tasted even better than it smelled.

  It took at least a week for the boils in my mouth to heal, probably a week more for my back. The mental scars took much longer—though I’m not sure they ever really have.

  My nights were spent in the crawlspace. As I’ve said, I never ate with them; they let me feed off their scraps when they were done with meals. Once in a while, I would gnaw on a raw potato, carrot or whatever other vegetable might be in season. I did have to be careful, however; if they caught me, I would be taught another lesson.

  When they weren’t watching over me in the fields, they were in the old mill. They still beat me at the end of most days, regardless. It got to the point that I wasn’t scared of getting caught sneaking food because I was going to suffer anyway. I would stuff all the dirty vegetables I could into
my mouth; it didn’t make a difference.

  Originally my bed was the same dirt that kept the vegetables cool and supported the foundation. After my many childhood illnesses they realized I needed something more suitable to a human being. If, in fact, that’s what I was. I was no good to them when I was sick. It was only when I was physically incapable of moving that I was relieved of my duties.

  This was not without its own degradation.

  “Oh look, Pa, poor boy’s limping. He can’t start the stove. Says his ribs are sore, can’t hardly breathe. Poor soulless sonofabitch.”

  Talk like that usually led to another kick to the ribs or groin—or my head, if I happened to be on my knees.

  As I’ve told you with this letter, I was a slave to my father and his father. What I haven’t told you is my father was also a slave to his father.

  It is both difficult and easy to explain the power a father has over his own son. At five you may defy me, but you will never cease to believe me—or believe in me. You don’t bat an eye when I talk about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. In fact you want me to go further with those stories; you want to believe. Hell, you should—you should want to believe. You should want to believe your father.

  I never believed in mine.

  Unfortunately, like you, he believed in his.

  I suppose that the main difference between him and me is that I could never understand how he could sit there and let his own father beat his son.

  My grandfather used to go to town every five or six weeks to sell vegetables. I used to help them pack that pickup with all the potatoes, cabbage, red beets, lettuce and whatever else it would hold. He would drive down that old road—a road I was forbidden to walk upon—and disappear for four or five days. I wouldn’t see him and for that I was glad, for I have never in my life met a more selfish, despicable, evil man. And yes, I should add, I have met some pretty bad men in my adult life.

  Contrary to what a sane person might expect, once my grandfather left, my father’s temperament actually grew worse.