We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night

by Joel Thomas Hynes

  This fella Johnny heard about, fella named Nuts, a couple of years ago he got sent down for seven years for manslaughter, or criminal negligence causing death if you wants to get specific. He’s dead now, Nuts. Caught a cold, as they says. He got smashed, lasted three months inside. He was after taking up with this young one, a one-night stand that lasted all weekend or something, and come Sunday morning she saw his motorcycle out in the backyard. This was early in the year too, he never even had the bike out for a good run yet that year, no insurance or registration or nothing. Anyhow, she starts in asking Nuts for a ride, and he dont really want to cause he’s all hungover and strung out and wanting to take her back to bed, but she keeps it up and keeps it up, how she’s never been on a bike before, pestering him until suddenly they’re out on the arterial doing something like a hundred and seventy and Nuts is thinkin Well she wont bloody well torment me the next time cause she’ll be too fucken shitbaked. That bike could go, too, Suzuki 850 or some such beast. Only thing, when he stopped at the lights going into Kilbride and shifted himself back in the seat, well she wasnt on the bike no more. That’s that. I mean, Christ it’s awful when you thinks about it, she was barely outta high school. Nuts freaked the fuck out, like ya would. But to his credit, he went straight to the cops to say what happened. He had no clue where he lost her to, so going back and combing through the bushes on the side of the road woulda been pointless. Cops found her though, way the fuck down on the other end of the arterial. Musta been when he hit a bump, or the wind took her or something. Little thing, she was.

  Imagine though, he went the whole length of Pitts Memorial not knowing she wasnt on the bike no more. She died instantly, they said, she wasnt mangled or nothing, so that was good for her, and prolly the best-case scenario for whoever she was belonged to. Of course it turned out the girl came from a bit of money, slumming it for the weekend to be knocking about with Nuts. And she was just after turning eighteen, her whole life ahead of her and that sorta tear-jerking stuff the media goes in for. Not sayin it wasnt fucken awful, like I said, but you knows now what that newspaper crowd are like. And it was said that booze mighta been a factor. Not definitely, but maybe. And Nuts didnt even have a licence or nothing. And he was married then, separated, but still married. This all came out in the news and such. It was a right circus for a while. Christ, he had it all stacked against him. Anyhow, Nuts still held his head high cause as far as he was concerned it was all an accident, that he done the right thing by going straight to the cops, how he coulda easily drove on and no one’d be the wiser. He wasnt going playing the sorry sap with plans to mend his ways just cause of the way the cops and the news crowd made it look. He told the papers that yes, what happened was tragic and unfortunate and he wished it never hadda happened, but it did. And that’s all he said. No apologies.

  Course then he went up away, doing federal time and all, and got on like he was different from everyone else, like he was better, like he didnt belong there. Not that he was innocent, that’s different, but that he was above it all and not there to do the same kind of time as the other lads. And he strutted that attitude. And he got smashed for it. Dead and dead. Money talks, yeah. No one ever did get the rights to how it went down, but you can gather it was none too pleasant for old Nuts either way. But there you have it, such is the way. So no, you wont catch Johnny running his mouth off and lording around. He’s not that stunned. But not to say he’s gonna let some fucker tromp him into the floor neither. Fuck that.

  Shiner comes back up the stairs and takes his seat.

  Business, he says, business.

  He dont look too pissed off. Kinda looks in good spirits. Musta given Rodney a smack. He roots out a pack of papers.

  Three to five hey Johnny, he goes, three to five. Yup . . .

  Might go two-years-less though, it’s possible, at least then . . .

  Nah, fuck that Johnny. Better off up away my son. Better off.

  I dont know . . .

  Well lookit, say you got two-years-less right? And you hadda go down by the lake doing provincial time right? Well youre fucked altogether then cause you knows what kinda hellhole that place is. No fancy programs or school, drugs are the shits, no gym, no fucken conjugals, the place literally crumbling down around you. Right? Cant get to see a doctor. No jobs, unless you licks enough arse to get a spot in the kitchen. The food is nothing but grease and slop you wouldnt feed to a dog. That’s HMP. Grey filth and dirt and scum, banged up with all sorts, fellas who by rights should be in the Mental. Squat in with the stink of shit and piss and sweat. It’s a pigsty and it’s not gonna change and everybody knows it. And it’s even worse down there now since all the talk about a new jail being built, cause now they really dont give a fuck, now there’s nothing being done. And, worse than that, more than likely you’ll do your whole bit, right? Cause you’ll be drove cracked with the way things are run down there. It’s fucken burnt out. Soon as you gets onto a routine or whatnot they fucken switches everything around on ya. Takes forever to get to see someone or talk to someone or get into a program. You’ll be drove mental Johnny my son. You’ll crack right up. You’ll get the fever and you’ll start fighting everybody on everything and you’ll end up doing your whole bit. But see, you goes up away and so long as you keeps your mouth shut and all that, well you got lots of programs, if youre into that. I mean, you might as well if’n youre lookin to get out early, you might as well do a few programs right? So say you gets three years right? Well sure you’ll be out in one, or less. Even if you gets five years you’ll prolly do less time than you would if it went provincial. And the drugs are fucken A-1. A-fucken-1.

  Shiner takes a big haul on a fat freezie he’s twisted up, hands it across the table to Johnny. Johnny feels like running off into the corner with it.

  Thought there was the big crackdown on dope nowadays?

  Oh yeah sure, the pills and stuff. They dont like that. They dont like the hard stuff, the oxy and the blow and stuff. The E. Cause it throws everyone out of whack when they cant get none, drives the lads fucken mental during the dry spells. And they’re even worse about booze, homebrew and stuff. You knows all that. If youre caught with a brew on youre fucked, straight to the hole. But they turns the blind eye to the hash and weed, see, in the federal joints, that’s the thing. So you can smoke as much of that as you like. The bulls figures it keeps everyone settled and peaceful. So you knows now, the weed up there, and the hash, well it’s fucken laced with everything right? Cause the boys knows they can get away with having it. So it’s specially cut. I remember a block of fucken hash as big as your head and when you sliced into it you could see these squiggly white lines running through it. Fucken laced with opium. Twelve hours out of a blast. Man, never see it like that no more. Gym, they got a fucken wicked gym on the go. Soccer teams and hockey teams. Newfs on the one team, darkies on their own team, Capers on their own team. Christ man the Capers are a fine bunch. Newfoundlanders with their brains kicked in, that’s all the Capers are. I mind of the time . . .

  How long of a bit did you do anyhow Shiner?

  Me? Well lets see, I done what? See I had a few scuffles. Cause that’s the other thing, you dont wanna go up there lookin like the goody-two-shoes neither Johnny my son. Doing fucken programs and talkin to the chaplains and taking a job and shit. Not right away. Cause they’ll think youre soft if you goes about it that way.

  Yeah . . . I mean no . . . yeah I wasnt going in for none of that, not right away.

  Ya gotta be mindful Johnny, too, what sorta jobs ya do go in for. Dont take just anything. Stay clear of the fucken library. They think you thinks youre a smart fucker then. Stay clear of the laundry too, if you gets offered. They’ll think you pulled a few strings, if you hears me right. Or they’ll think you got the bucks. Better off mopping a floor and minding your own business. Dont let no one see you reading a book or nothing, not right away anyhow. But here . . .

  Shiner holds up his glass.

  Stop lookin so whipped young fel
ler. You never knows Johnny my son. The gods might take pity on you yet. Maybe she dont even show her face b’y. Maybe she gets struck down by a bus on her way to the courthouse and you’ll be off with it. Never know do ya? Never know.

  Johnny raises his own glass but he already drained it half an hour ago. Juice though, didnt trust himself with what Shiner’s havin. A glance at the clock says he’s got ten minutes left. Rain is starting up now, supposed to fucken piss down they says. It all feels so set up somehow, hey Johnny? Lets turn on a bit of rain for Johnny’s sake. Let’s send him off with a good drowning. Fuck ya. Johnny pulls on his jacket to go. He’s got one sleeve in and Shiner’s bell goes off again. One long, three short. Shiner darts over to the window. He turns back and gives Johnny a look that tells him to stay right where he’s to.

  I gotta go Shine, I only got a few minutes left.

  You sit there now Johnny. I wont be a second.

  Johnny stays where he’s to. Not going crossing Shiner tonight. Shine takes his goodies down the stairs, right enough too, cause Johnny wouldnt trust himself with all them in front of him now. You can only get so fried on the perks though, then you gets sick. But Johnny dont mind that, kinda likes it, heaving his guts up. Good for you once in a while. Lots of water you needs.

  Between the gusts of wind and rain on the window, Johnny can catch little snippets of Shiner’s talk down there. Cant make out no words, just his manner, right soft and cooing and musical. Must be a looker down there. Shiner gets all sorts these days, wont be long before he’s hot on Johnny’s heels for the clink too. Never know who’s who coming to your door. The rain and the wind drops off again, and fucked if Johnny’s spine dont about crawl out through his neck when he hears that laugh, that sharp little giggle that flips in on itself and comes back up as a full-throated lusty roar. It’s her, Madonna. Make no mistake. Johnny hears Shiner shushin her, tellin her to keep it down. Then there’s nothing, the wind. Johnny digs his fingernails into the underside of his chair to keep from lunging at the door and bolting down over the stairs and . . . just to see her. Talk. Talk this out. And not just all this shit with the courts and this legal shit neither. Just . . . me and her, you know. Johnny and Madonna. Talk this shit out man. Never even gave ourselves a chance to see what mighta become of us. Things were tight, they were solid. Right before they stopped being that way. Before the streets were awash with all that dirty crystal. Once in a blue moon do a little hit of molly and stay up all night laughing and chasing each other around the kitchen and flopping down into the bed and not fucken sleeping for hours. Let’s talk this shit out, come on. The very gal, Madonna, who can make or break the course of Johnny’s coming years, with only a matter of hours to go before court, right down there now at the bottom of Shiner’s . . .

  But wait now Johnny, wait now. What the fuck is she doing here now at Shiner’s? Sounding so buddy-buddy. Cause Johnny might not be able to make out no words, but there’s that familiar tone perched in the air, that ease, that intimate leaning that lets the spurned know, in his gut, that another man’s hand has been up under his woman’s skirt. No matter that there’s court in the works, no matter about no fucken teapot and no backward glances, no matter. She’s still, for now, in Johnny’s head at least, Johnny’s girl. And he’s belched and roared and snotted it all up here at Shiner’s table since the whole thing went south how many weeks ago? What the fuck? What the fuck?

  Johnny digs into the underside of his chair and pulls up, up, up until he can feel the screws in the chrome legs buckle under the pressure and the plywood seat starts to splinter and crackle and a staple that keeps the plastic coating in place digs into the tip of his finger and slips and gouges deep into his fingernail and the blood comes quick and drips in mute scarlet splendour to the cheap linoleum tiles and there’s that laugh again, that shrill little half snigger that never quite plays itself out before morphing into something you might hear out on the barrens some foggy night when youve been wandering in circles for years, and Johnny knows, Johnny knows, knows that there’s no man focused enough, no man hard enough, no man sturdy enough. He fucken knows where Shiner’s been. And so much of it makes sense all of a sudden that none of it does, and for a moment Johnny feels an ecstasy and a white-hot blinding surge of righteousness that sees him reaching across the table for a crusty metal fork left over from Shiner’s plate of Ches’s that he didnt even bother to offer Johnny a fucken chip from. And Johnny takes this fork and watches the whole scenario play out in his head—Shiner monkeying up the stairs with all his plans, his own greedy waiting game almost played out. Waiting for Johnny to get sent down so he can have an easier crack at Madonna. And Shiner might try to nod, might try to smile, might try to muscle his way past when he finds Johnny waiting at the top of the stairs. But who are these blowhards, hey Johnny? Who the fuck are these types with their mouths and their little blue bags and their steady supply and their phantom connections? Who are they when they’re truly and utterly called out on what they really are? They’re fuck all Johnny. Even Shiner, who knew your mother, who claims to know things no one could know. Even Shiner, who swung at Big Jackie with a pry bar that night over in the Circle parking lot after Jackie had Johnny down and shithauled, and one more smack woulda rattled your brain Johnny, and you woulda never been the same again. Even Shiner.

  Johnny watches all this play out, the confused and flustered look of inverted betrayal in Shiner’s eyes when he knows the jig is up, when he feels the cold filthy cantankerous teeth of the fork plunging into his tight jugular and smells the hot blood spewing in thin streams across the walls and into Johnny’s hair and across the little glass end tables. And Shiner knows his time is up, that the credits are about to roll. He knows he’s breathed his last.

  Johnny sees all this as he takes the fork and buckles the two middle teeth down flush to the handle so that there’s just the outside teeth like a miniature pitchfork, and he has a flash of a sticky summer’s day in the lower meadow making hay with Pius, the man he called Dad for sixteen years. Young Johnny’s hands blistered numb and the sweet smell of slaughtered wildflowers, the constant stabbing itch from the dried dead root-ends of the hay sticking in under Johnny’s shirt, and that perpetual grimace on Pius’s sunken, miserly gob, that ceaseless sneer shattered by the pale rumour of a smile when a little calico kitten backflipped up out of a haystack and caught a butterfly in its jaws and clamped down, crunching the fluttering alien thing until it was gone, nothing but the shimmering yellow wing dust smeared about the kitten’s mouth. It was the only time Pius had set the prong down all morning. Johnny and Pius stood there watchin. And Johnny thought he saw Pius smile. And that was the one kitten from the whole litter that never met its end off the head of the government wharf.

  Johnny hears Shiner shoulder the heavy storm door shut, then buckles the teeth of the fork back in place and tosses it across the table. What good? What good now when the rain is pelting off the siding like salt shots and Madonna’s really only up to get her own kinda fix before the big day? And what’s it to Shiner but another day, another dollar? And if Johnny’s going down then aint it easier, in a sense, not to be wondering who she’s with and what she’s up to? If he knows, knows, that she’s just back home slumming around with Shiner for a scattered free bump, then dont that make it easier than wondering all the time? Wont that be the quicker pill to swallow come this time tomorrow when he’s on the bus for the mainland? Fuck it. And besides, hey Johnny, if even ten percent of Shiner’s bullshit is the truth then wouldnt you rather be going off to the Big House on good terms with him, rather than having to look over your shoulder waiting for some punk who owes Shiner a favour to slink up behind you and make good?

  Shiner lomps up the stairs and wheezes past Johnny to the bedroom.

  Business, Johnny my son, business.

  He huffs past Johnny again and back down the stairs, and Johnny looks at the crooked fork on the table and wonders at how softly and quickly we’re all here on this small ball of spinning dirt, and how
some of us has it all fall from the sky the moment they comes into existence and how the rest of us are sitting here, hands gripped to the lip of this greasy edge, waiting for the bottom to rise up to meet us.

  Johnny hears no more laughs and giggles from down on the street, fancies he feels a goodnight smooch on the wind, but he’s got a slow leak now and cant be bothered with it all. You come into the world freezing and fucked and alone and why should any of us expect to go out any different?

  Shiner comes back up to the kitchen and flicks off the dull orange porch light below that lets folks know it’s still not too late in the night to come a-knockin for a fix. He tosses Johnny a little blue bag with what feels to Johnny like half a dozen perks knotted in the corner. Shiner wont meet Johnny’s eye. Johnny knows anyhow that he cant hide what he knows to be true and that it’ll only make for an awkward scene if Shiner has to acknowledge what Johnny knows. It’ll all be said and done with tomorrow anyhow. Shiner tells Johnny to have a stiff upper lip, and Johnny nods gravely and agrees with Shiner’s wisdom as if he’d walked a thousand miles to receive the words, and there’s no eye contact between them because there would be no avoiding the admission that neither of them have any fundamental understanding of what this old cliché means. Have a stiff upper lip. Christ.