Architects Are Here

by Michael Winter

  The procession had taken the slow road underneath Crow Hill. And I realized that it might not be a good thing, our being here. Or me especially. Perhaps, I said, we should just stay in the car. And watch. I was nervous about the Hurleys.

  Well I’m going to pay my respects, my father said.

  My father, unafraid, crossed the road. He dug his hands in his pockets, and waited beside some raspberry bushes. Then he saw someone he knew.

  He strolled towards them. A Hurley. My father had an in with the Hurleys. They had arrived with the varnished coffin. Sins travel down the line but not up. The sins of the son are not bestowed upon the father. The graveyard looked wet, as though the sun couldnt do work in there. We stayed in the front seats and wiped the window of condensation. Then Nell took my hand. We were new adults, Nell said, when I had Anthony. Now we have another chance to be adults.

  That’s what it means, I said, to be in your thirties.

  We had the windows up and the doors locked and we were breathing in and out our own air.

  I feel a lot of things, she said. And some of the things I feel are that I havent earned the right to feel the way I’m feeling. What was he like, she said.

  Anthony. He was smart. He was handsome and game and he worked hard and he was generous.

  I want to visit, Nell said, in a couple of days. Can we come back in a couple of days?

  WE DROPPED MY FATHER OFF and then I drove Nell back to the Mamateek Motor Inn. She wept in the car, and then she got angry and then she calmed down. We had a soft drink in the windows that overlooked the city we had both, in different ways, grown up in. Her eyes dried and she would not look at me. She was depleted. She gave me the other side of herself, that side she only now was aware of, now that it was gone from her. I can’t see David, she said. I can’t believe it was an accident, I mean my various organs dont believe it.

  I still loved her. My body hammered that message home. I did not want a complicated event to break us. That would be easy. I would never be in an uncomplicated relationship again. The truth is, if you dont marry and stay faithful to someone young, then the complications are bound to occur.

  THE POLICE KEPT DAVID for nineteen hours and then his mother was allowed to come pick him up. Randy Jacobs told me the car was to be impounded for at least a week. The gun too. The gun I would never get back. There were tests.

  David: I’m not that safe anywhere on this island.

  Gerard Hurley had connections. Even if Dave could get a flight, the airport was easy. If they didnt get him on the way to the airport they’d have a man on the Queensway run his taxi off the road and then scurry down the grade and put a bullet in his head. It would be that man from Moosonee in a new fox coat and the man from Moosonee would love that. The ferry was obvious. He would try a private boat, he said. A Russian trawler. He’d been talking to Randy Jacobs. We both knew that Randy played the sides. He was a police officer but he was friendly with the brown shadows of the law. He had recently been embarrassed by police surveillance. It was a camera in a mall washroom. They were trying to catch men performing sex acts. And on the tape in the trial Randy Jacobs, unaware of the sting operation, arrives to wash his hands. He looks around. He is alone. And he stands back from the mirrors and draws his gun. He shoots the mirror quietly. Then he puts his gun back in its holster. He postures himself and draws again. Laughter in the courtroom.

  Randy asked if I could drive David down.

  I dont have a car, I said.

  Borrow your father’s car.

  David was to sneak aboard and get off somewhere in the St Lawrence. He had US dollars for when they found him. To leave illegally was the safest way.

  Who’s the contact on board.

  Jason Linegar, Randy said.

  And I recalled that name. Gwen Hurley had been married to him.

  Gwen is the good in Hurleys, Randy said. You can trust Jason Linegar.

  I didnt know any more who I should be helping or who to trust. Gwen, I would say, probably hated Dave’s guts now. I half hated him myself. But I drove him down that night. I used my father’s car. We rolled into a coffee shop for a doughnut and coffee and the cashier recognized us. Where’s the dog, the cashier said. She was reaching out with a nugget for the dog.

  The dog, I said, stays with the other car.

  We pulled into the Curling marina. Randy Jacobs in a green hunting jacket standing next to a waste disposal bin, a bin the Hurleys owned the contract on for dumping. Randy had a life jacket and a set of varnished oars in his hands. There’s a Russian trawler quietly moored in the bay.

  We dragged the rowboat down to the wharf where the Wayward Wind was tied up. The last letter was rubbed off and there seemed something prophetic in the Win that was left. We settled into the dory. The seats were from a pew. This dory is a sacred place, Randy said. Like a wigwam. Any place you pray in, they can’t tear it down.

  And then the three of us stopped what we were doing, and Randy said a little prayer. It was a private prayer that I can’t write here. But it was touching and David was pleased that we could all be sincere. It was to wish him safe passage.

  We rowed out to the trawler. It was in port trading Bulgarian shoes for barrels of herring. Hauling aboard fresh supplies.

  Jason Linegar is aboard that, David said.

  Randy: No, but this one will get you to that one.

  The shoes were Italian knock-offs and Randy Jacobs was part of the system that allowed that trade. That’s what I mean about brown shadows. It’s not that terrible a crime. He peeled us close to the side and David threw a looped rope over the portside railing. He had a knapsack with him: water and sandwiches. I’ll see you on the mainland, he said.

  We rowed away and I held my eyes on David. Until he became a part of the bow. Even with the Wayward Wind and the prayer I had a bad feeling about his prospects. But David is affable and ruthless, he could rebound and survive. A large ship crossing the bay. There’s the Corner Brook, Randy said. Leaving with a load of pulp. That doesnt come up, Randy said, where it’s all wood.

  Me:What do you mean it doesnt come up.

  Randy: On the radar screen.

  As we pulled into shore Randy began to cough. We didnt want to be noticed so I took over the oars to let Randy cover his cough. It’s bronchial, he said. It’s not the lungs, lungs are fine. It’s the tubes.

  The coughing, I said. Is how you’ll go.

  You never know, Randy said, what is going to carry you off.

  TWELVE

  THEY FOUND DAVID on the second day. He was thirsty and had been caught in the wash facility by a Canadian fisheries observer.

  Youre not crew, he said.

  I stowed away.

  Youre Canadian.

  I’m American.

  He was reported to the captain and the captain was furious.

  David:You can just let me off in Quebec.

  They werent going to Quebec. They would be at sea another six weeks.

  All the meat was either wieners or liver.

  The captain didnt lay eyes on him for a week. That was when he ran out of vodka, and then he wanted to see the stowaway. He wanted to blame his troubles on that one. The captain was crooked for ten days, and the crew put up with him being crooked. By then they’d weaned the captain over to moonshine and he had gotten used to it.

  The fisheries observer was named Rolly Junger. We hate the captain now, Rolly said, but when we get off this boat I’ll cry to say goodbye to him.

  He followed Rolly on his rounds. He tried to help him but there was not much an observer needed to do.

  It’s hard, Rolly said, to watch other people doing physical work when youre not. Observing is self-conscious work. So I often end up gutting fish instead.

  They did gut fish and David got good at it. It was true what they say about sharp knives.

  They caught fish no one had seen before. The crew gathered around Rolly Junger, who had a large book to identify fish. He photographed the fish and put it in the ledger
. Then jumped into the hold on deck where they dumped the net, and poked with his knees through the catch looking for oddities. There was an angler fish that has an extension of its body that hangs out in front of its mouth. It’s a kind of fishing lure, Rolly said. A lot of the fish from down that deep are all black.

  They were on a large factory freezer trawler. David followed Rolly Junger along the winding path to the meal plant. At the end of all the paraphernalia was a man filling one bag after another with warm sweet meal.

  After ten days the captain said they were to unite with a provision boat and be gone another six weeks. David was to transfer over. Some of the crew transferred over, and new crew came aboard. And then Jason Linegar came aboard and talked to the captain. That’s how David transferred over to the provision boat operated by Russians. Jason Linegar was a cook aboard the boat. Youre to bunk with me, he said. They had been at sea for six months, Jason Linegar said. People had plants in their cabins. The captain had a radish garden on the roof of his cabin and tomatoes inside. There was a little dog. There was a chess tournament. Moonshine made in a corner cupboard. Back scrubbers were knotted and looped out of disassembled onion bags. People engaged in a lot of crafts and a game like backgammon. Lots of tea drinking. Tchai. You heard the word constantly. The only other word heard as often was fish. Ribka.

  There were some musical instruments. David was in Jason Linegar’s cabin. The crew piled in, drinking tea, and a guitar entered. It went around the room and it was only when it came to David that there was someone who couldnt produce a song on it.

  They steamed north. The sound of loose ice hitting the bow, no one liked it. When are we going to go back to port, David said. Jason:We’re off to the Grand Banks.

  They were among a group of vessels that responded to a shrimp boat that sank from an ice puncture. When they arrived at the coordinates the crew had successfully been taken aboard another boat while three other shrimp boats floated there and watched a swirling mass of water where the sinking ship had been only moments before. Then odds and ends like life jackets started popping to the surface.

  David woke to breakfast on the Russian boat. He began to forget there was a life on solid ground. He ate a kind of rye bread that was baked on board, the dough mixed in a huge industrial mixer that was probably working overtime. Bread on a Russian boat was the staple food, Jason Linegar said. Bread with butter. This is significant because butter was only served at breakfast and teatime. The crew used the butter like cheese. Cutting off thick slabs of it.

  The longer I spend on Russian boats, Jason Linegar said, the more butter I put on my bread. Usually bread and butter and tea, that’s it. There’s no coffee served in the mess on Russian boats. Coffee is a scarce commodity.

  David: If I’d known I’d have brought some.

  Once in a while there’s some sweet bread made as a treat.

  THE LAST NORMAL THING David did was sit on his bunk and eat a can of peaches. He could taste the metal of the tin on the blade of his spoon. Then he read a book and fell asleep.

  It was something about the hinges on the door. On the dark seam between door and wall. An animal was pulsing through the seam. It was moving too fast to catch. The pelt was full of blur. David strained his eyes for more light. Then the floor slanted up to meet the hinge and sank away again, as though the animal was a mink and the floor some kind of den mouth. There was the animal again. The floor was where the floor was, and then it lifted up to the arching animal. Or the surface lifted. It wasnt the floor it was a varnish lifting from the floor, some kind of transparent linoleum. A material was being pulled through the gap in the bottom of the door now like a magician and a sleeve.

  David looked at the grey corner or was it blue. He put on his expensive glasses. An empty can floated in the air towards the blue. He recognized the can. It was the can of peaches. It was nudging itself in the corner. Then he saw the book he was reading, bloated and staggering about. He felt pulled towards the corner too. It was as if the metal of the walls had gone magnetic. Then the feeling hesitated and the can turned around and bumped into the novel and then floated over to the centre of the room. Its label was peeling off. There was a plastic bag with air in it, just there twirling about in the middle of the air, a well-used white bag. He heard a wind under his bunk. It felt like a cold wind for there was a sound to it. There was something weighty under the bed. The word slosh occurred to him. There was water in the room. A lot of water. Things on shelves were tiptoeing around the room. They were going for little swims. His blanket was heavy. It was sodden. The edges and now the bunk moved or lifted off a leg. They had yawed over. He could not shove himself from the side of the wall. Water crept up behind him and surprised his back. He tasted it. Sea water. Linegar’s small globe of the earth buoyed past his chest. He saw South America.

  He entered the water. He had to hold on to the bunk. He was up to his thighs and he was, technically, standing on the side of his bunk, such was his angle. Linegar was not in the room. So a side of the room was full of water. Maybe Linegar had turned into water. David made his way up to the door. But he could tell there was a lot of water on the other side of it. It was rushing quietly through the gap at the floor and now the one at the ceiling. The deadbolt was saving him. Then he heard a shout and a bullet of outrage zipped up his spine.

  He fell into the cold water and was thrown up against the door. His head hurt and he cleared the water. Now the water was on him. The ship had righted. If I can get the door open. But now the water was behind him and on the door. The door had to open in. He realized he had his head against the door. He turned the lever and pulled. It was a heavy metal door. He tugged against the sucking. He jammed himself into the opening. Then he popped through and hit the wall across from the door. The hall was emptying down of water. The water was a bowling ball. Bulbs in cages were lit in a dirty glow on the ceiling. Then Linegar. He saw Jason Linegar halfway down the hall. Linegar was perched, jumping-jack fashion, in the doorframe of an open room.

  David:What the fuck is going on.

  Jason Linegar did not know what to do. At the end of the hall was a froth of water standing straight up to the ceiling. It was about to come back after him. Jason Linegar was going to run away from it, or close his door again.

  I was paid, Jason Linegar said, five thousand dollars to take care of you. And now I won’t get to spend it.

  That was the last he saw of Jason Linegar.

  The water carried David around three corners. It was lucky water. He caught nothing sharp. The water pushed him up a floor and he grabbed ahold of a mounting that used to carry a fire extinguisher. He held on as the dark water reflected back onto him. Then with the space empty he walked out onto the deck. Water was still slooshing out of his trousers. His legs felt heavy. The ship was tilted in a swelling sea. The sea was less than an inch below the starboard side, breaking over. The ship was like a raft. The wind was raw and he realized he was freezing. A lifeboat had its keel broken on the trawler winch. A piece of fibreglass from the flydeck was hooked in the rigging. He pulled it out. A sheet of fibreglass eight feet long. The wind caught it out of his hands and it sliced his hands open. It made the sound of a drum. It pitched into the water and it floated. A panel of white streaming away from the stern. He fell into the sea and grabbed the panel and climbed aboard. It was enough to hold him. He curled his hurt hands into his body.

  THIRTEEN

  DAVID WAS HOLDING ON to a dead man. The dead man was wearing a yellow life jacket. Half his face was gone. A floating Russian had saved his life. He was under the wide hull of the coast guard vessel Cape Roger. Two container ships were parked on the horizon, and they were waiting for him. They were too big for search and rescue.

  He had lost his pebble and his wallet and his shoes and trousers. Then he realized he was still wearing his glasses. The coast guard found him in just his shirt, and even the tails of his shirt and the sleeves of the shirt had been torn off. All the buttons. It must have been funny to see him like
that, pretty much naked, but wearing his glasses.

  It was a Norwegian-owned bulk carrier that spotted you, he heard a man say. A container ship did manage to rescue nine bodies from an overturned life raft. Corporal Al Spratt of the Halifax search and rescue centre said Cape Roger picked up one body.

  Was he the body. Perhaps a body doesnt mean dead.

  What David can recall is thinking about himself and who he must be. He thought of his friends gathered around a picnic and the friends popped into place as he remembered them. He wanted chicken and a glorious roasted chicken arrived but it was spackled with salt. He wanted the chicken rinsed in fresh water, wet chicken. Something from a childhood book: gingham sandwiches.

  Corporal Al Spratt was saying, We thought there could be survivors, as your ship sank in the Gulf Stream.

  Where was he. In some rescue vehicle. They had him folded into an emergency sleeping bag and Al Spratt was in there with him. The sleeping bag was too bright to be used all the time. It would keep you awake.

  Two planes and four civilian ships are still looking.

  He thought, they can stop looking.

  If you find a person in the sea that’s a lucky person, Al Spratt said. You find a body, that’s a lucky family to have the body. The sea can hide you in a lot of places.

  It was obvious Al Spratt was not by nature a talkative man. He was talking to keep David Twombly awake. He found he could not speak and that the drawings in his head kept multiplying.

  One man was pulled out of the water after eighteen hours, Al Spratt said. Clinging to a dead crew member. Taken aboard the Cape Roger. They tried to get your body temperature up. You were put into this here warming bag, then John McCarthy, he’s a good man, he got the first shift. Body heat will warm you. You got John McCarthy pretty cold so I’m taking over. John says you were in a lot of pain.

  He was stabilized and confused. Fifteen bodies had been recovered from his ship. Bodies meant they were dead. Filipinos, Lithuanians, Romanians, Montenegrins. David suddenly added them to the picnic. But he did not know them. He knew Linegar and where was he. And what did Linegar mean. Was he there to take care of him or to get rid of him. Was there a bounty on his head and maybe Jason Linegar had spread the word. A ship on its way to Montreal with a load of grain spotted him. It was Cypriot registered. Forty nautical miles off St Pierre. The wheelhouse blew off but the bow kept afloat by pockets of air. The only survivor this man here. The sea tore your clothes off. Were you the cook.