Funny thing, for all the tromping and tumbling and walking Johnny done through them woods back there, by the time he made it back out to the highway first thing he sees is a tow truck hauling the Rasta boy’s busted Ford Explorer up outta the ditch. Came outta the woods hardly twenty feet from the crash site. Fucken hell. Couple of runs a while back. A half hour here, an hour there. The stink of Gavin’s weed rising up outta the bag and Johnny coulda sworn the driver of the last ride, this righteous young fella who was supposedly gettin bloody well married to a gal on New Year’s Eve in fucken New York, Johnny coulda sworn buddy could smell the weed and was right on the verge of calling Johnny out. Johnny had a story all worked out, about how he’d borrowed his brother’s jacket and his brother had a prescription for the medicinal stuff because where he was a paramedic and suffered from PTSD because of all the burnt-out shit he’d seen out there, car accidents and gunshot wounds and suicides and shit like that. But he never even got to spin his lies because the righteous fucker decided he just wanted done with Johnny and so dropped him at a gas station long before where he said he was headed. Just as well to be rid of cunts like that, full of judgment, hey Johnny? Never know, never know.
Johnny’s feet barely touches the ground though when a big white van that just finished gassing up at the station pulls up alongside of him and in Johnny jumps. This ride was short-lived too. Some oily bastard with thick Coke bottle glasses who kept rubbing his nuts while he went on about the long hours on the road and how he feels so distant from the wife and family. Johnny didnt even have the energy to pop him one. And when he put on his signal light and made like he was gonna pull down this gravel road leading into the woods Johnny just laughed at him. You might as well drop me off right here now, motherfucker. Buddy was all apologies then, and Johnny told him not to worry about it, not to bother, just that he wasnt like that. To each their own, yeah. Tons of fellers like that on the inside, strutting around straight as whips, tough as nails, but this look underneath it all, this desperate plea in the eyes. To each their fucken own. Loneliness, mostly. That time Johnny gave it a go when he was in on remand on a possession charge that never went nowhere. And here’s this young punk from down in Placentia somewhere goes right to town on Johnny, sucking for all he’s worth. Johnny with his head laid against the mouldy brick, keeping watch out across the unit, tryna picture that new young blond guard on her knees in front of him instead. That one who always looked so scared and saucy all the one time, what was her name? But he couldnt hold her there, in his head, couldnt get out of the moment, couldnt get past the fact that it was some young punk from Placentia Bay down there, doing that. No good, no good. Young punk lookin up at Johnny with this half-crazed purpose in his eyes, like to say, Oh no, oh no, I dont care which way you leans, I’m not stopping till the job is done. Johnny felt bad then, and let the poor scrap finish. Dark times Johnny, dark times.
Christ.
Spose there’s no need to be bringing that up now is there?
Not like there’s any question when it comes to our Johnny. Been a goddamn ladies’ man since he was twelve years old. Lizzy what’s-her-face, O’Neill. Down by the beach in an old twine shed. Fucken twelve I was, so, you know . . .
Johnny scuffing along the roadside. Scuffing along. Cars blowing past. How many days is it now, since court? Since the funeral? Christ. Madonna. Since he done the job on Shiner’s pad? Three, four? Five days almost? Is it? A full day crossing the Island. All night on the ferry. Old Saul. All day on the road as far as Joanna and that whirlpool business. Fucken hell. Not with a bang, no, not at all. Woke up with the hoof of a fucken moose barely inches from your face Johnny! Lost a bit of time wandering through them woods afterwards. Cant quite figure if it was hours or days or what. Fuck it. What odds? Johnny scuffing along, scuffing along, tryna figure how much money he can make on the weed if he sold it in one go or sold it in bits and pieces. Out with his thumb for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time this hour. Some sorta midsize SUV pulls up. Finally. Scrawny, friendly-lookin old feller at the wheel. Jesus, you know, where’s the lonesome wayward travelling gal from the movies who’s taken to the open road in an old convertible, hair blowin out behind her, lookin to take a gamble on an old road dog like Johnny? Pick him up and tease him into a frenzy and pour cold beer down his throat and fuck his lazy brains out in a gravel pit somewhere? She is not out here. And if she is she’s not stopping for the likes of Johnny. That ship sailed when you dumped that load of shit in the Jacuzzi back there. Joanna. Stop, stop!
Johnny slips in beside the old feller. Well, not really an old feller, fifties maybe, or late forties. Yeah friendly enough. Pleasant, warm kinda sad-lookin pale eyes. Brand new Blue Jays cap and one of them blue zip-up cotton blazers. Neither wedding ring. Inside of the rig clean as a whistle, that thick heady new-car smell. Right away before Johnny’s even settled into his seat he holds out his hand and introduces himself as Jerome something-or-other, from Timmins, wherever the fuck that is Johnny wont pretend to know. He dont ask Johnny nothing about the state of his clothes or his face. If there’s a smell he dont seem to notice that neither. He eases back onto the highway and turns on some old George Jones album. Pius’s faithful drinking buddy, Jones. Jerome lets Johnny get comfortable and they drives along for a good half hour before he asks Johnny how old he is. And Johnny tells him. Jerome cocks his chin and nods thoughtfully, opens his mouth to say something more and then doesnt. He taps his breast pocket, roots around for a bit and then pulls out one of them nicotine inhalers. Chews on that. Turns the radio down low and Johnny knows something’s coming but he cant for the life of him sort out the vibe. Another few minutes and Jerome, staring straight ahead at the car in front, clears his throat and tells Johnny how his own son would have been just turning Johnny’s age next month. His voice sorta cracks a bit on the word month, so it comes out right high-pitched and ragged. He dont elaborate though and Johnny’s thankful for that but still feels kinda set up to ask the question, backed into a corner. He lets a long minute pass and still Jerome dont offer up no further info so Johnny asks the question he’s supposed to ask.
What do you mean would have been? Is he dead?
Oh yes, he’s gone. He’s gone now. Would have been your age next month.
What ahhh . . . what hap . . .
He drowned. It’s all in the past. Around this time of year though, I tend to have to work it out a little, all over again. It’s not something you ever quite get over, you know.
Jerome stops himself there and pats his pocket again, only to realize he’s already got the inhaler in his mouth. He plucks it out from his teeth with a little snap and rolls his window down an inch or so and lets the little plastic bat fly into the wind like you would the butt end of a cigarette. Johnny sits soaking up the warmth from the heater.
I was still drinking, those days. My boy was ten. Myself and the boy’s mother had called it quits. So, he was shuffling back and forth between the two of us. He was fine with it. I think things were better, from where he was standing. No more shouting matches. This was back in . . . we were living in Cape Breton then, that’s where my ex-wife is from. Glace Bay. I dont know if you know it? Well anyway, the drinking, my drinking, tore the marriage apart. But of course I was too . . . well . . . too drunk I suppose, to see it at the time. Everything was always someone else’s fault. And so when we finally called the marriage off and I didnt have to go sneaking around with the bottle anymore, I suppose I got myself in a bad way. This particular weekend, when it happened, well she knew I’d been up to no good all week long and she didnt want to send him with me. She was not having it, kicked up a hell of a fuss. And I knew the truth in what she was concerned about, but like I said I was too stubborn and too stupid, always in a fog. I fought with her for a good hour until she relented. I’d spent the better part of the summer fixing up an old camper and I had a campsite reserved in the park. This was the middle of August. Really hot summer that year. And the plan I had in my head, roast a few marshmallows, a fe
w wieners. Let the boy do what he pleased. Let him have a good weekend roaming around the woods, sw-swimming. While I got myself good and plastered. That was the plan and I stuck to it. The first night was perfect. We had our fire and he did funny dances while I plucked at a guitar. After a while I was too drunk to play and we crawled into the camper. The next morning I was sick as sin. Horrible headache. I burnt his eggs and then I snarled at him for not eating them. He went off with some youngsters from another campsite while I nursed a beer. Later on that morning he wants to go swimming. I’d bought him one of those rubber dinghy boats. But I was in no mood for it, in no mood for going down to the pond. I was desperate to go back to the bunk for another nap. I tried to convince him that it rained overnight, that the water wouldnt be warm enough until later on, but he wouldnt listen. So I’m grumpy and huffy as hell driving across the park to the pond. He was talking gibberish and making these silly noises and it was grating on my nerves and I was telling him to stay quiet and when he wouldnt I got to shouting at him. I think about that sometimes, more than other things. His little voice and the foolish way he had about him. And me talking to him like that. Like his personality was some sort of inconvenience to me. His little voice. So, I’m sitting up in the truck with my cap down in my eyes, half watching him wade out into the water. I told him not to go past the rope. There was no one around, no other kids. I could tell he wouldnt be in long anyway because when he got in up to his shorts the way his little shoulders hunched together. I knew the water was freezing. But he takes the rubber dinghy boat and launches that and the wind takes it right away. The dinghy brings up on the rope about five feet away from him, but he wont budge to go get it, he’s standing there huddled up looking back at me hoping I’ll run down and strip off and swim out after it. Sure enough then the wind blows the dinghy over the rope and it starts sailing away across the pond. And he stands there watching it, looking up towards the truck at me. Sometimes I can get all messed up about that part, this time of year. Around his birthday.
I dont know why I’m telling you all this. Maybe because I dont know you. Maybe it’s selfish of me. But I know there’s no point keeping quiet about it, not talking about it. That doesnt do anything. Every once in a while it helps me to talk about it, that’s all. I hope you dont mind. It’s a hard thing to even mention around people youre close with. Youre supposed to just . . . well you learn how to shoulder it. Drive yourself nuts if you dont learn. You start remembering things differently, workin it through as if there’s going to be some other outcome, this time. You go back, you go back and see yourself sitting there in the truck and tossing the bottle aside and running down and wading out and grabbing up that little dinghy. Having a splash and a dip and mucking off back to the campsite when he had his fill. God in his heaven, you know. And all the years ahead then . . . But, like I said, you can drive yourself bonkers thinking like that. You have to learn to give over. Took me a long time to accept what I did. Or didnt do. I even tried to kill myself that next winter, after it happened. I had a two-year-old Ford Ranger, decent truck, never a spot of trouble with her. I jammed a potato into the exhaust and shut the garage door, got behind the wheel, locked the doors, just in case. I lit up a cigarette, turned the key and she wouldnt start! Brand-new battery, full tank of gas, never a problem with the truck before. She just didnt want to help me out that day. Not for that. Spooky, when I think back on it. But I took it for a sign, you know. I couldnt accept that it was just a coincidence. And I got sober. Not right away and not without a lot of stopping and starting. But I eventually got sober. And here I am. Here we are. Who knows why the truck didnt start that day. Maybe so I could come along and pick you up out here. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. Maybe it’s all about you, about your story, your journey. Who knows how things work and why. Or maybe there is no design. Some people find that to be the easier version to contend with. Most folks shy away from looking too close at that sort of business. I guess you can drive yourself mad that way too. You need to balance it out. Anyhow, all I know is that, for some reason, something or someone wanted me to stick around for another while and that same . . . being or force or what have you . . . God, maybe, that same force decided my boy’s time was up when he was hardly ten years old. Because if I believe one thing I have to believe the other. Make sense?
What happened?
What’s that?
Your boy, you never finished. What ahhh . . . how did he . . .
Yeah, I danced around it with my high notions, didnt I? I have that tendency, to be full of shit when I need to be anything but! Look he drowned, you know. And it was my . . . it’s my responsibility.
Were you charged?
No. Never any criminal charges, no, no. But there should have been. I would have welcomed something like that, a jail sentence. At least then you can have some kind of closure or something, put a time frame on your . . . penance. Sit with it. There was an investigation, but it was an accident, I guess, or that’s how it was written up. My wife, my ex, for some reason she never . . . she just wanted it to go away. I mean, I was hungover a bit but I wasnt drunk . . . there was no booze or nothing in the truck by the time, you know . . .
What happened to your boy Jerome?
Ahhh shit . . . shit. I dont . . . well . . . I settled back in my seat, you know. Hauled the cap down in my eyes. Just under the brim I could see that dinghy boat drifting across the pond. He came running up out of the water and making his way up the beach where it looked like the boat was going to land. As far as I knew he was out of the water and just running along. I remember fiddling with the radio. Then I looked up and I couldnt see him. Lost sight of him behind some trees. I guess he had to climb over a few rocks and around some bushes and that. Those old snarly junipers that grow along the edge of ponds. I could see the dinghy where it came to rest up against the far shore. And I sat there and I waited for him to come around the bend. Sitting there waiting for him to come out from behind those trees. But he never did. He never did. I got out of the truck and started calling out to him, all annoyed and put out. Hands cupped over my mouth, calling his name . . .
What was his name?
. . . but ahhh . . . so I made my way over to where I last laid eyes on him, calling out to him the whole while. I thought maybe he was hiding on me, teasing me. And I remember shouting out about the trouble he was in for making me come looking for him. And I was thinking that too, you know, bitching at him under my breath for getting me out of the truck. But by the time I came round to where that patch of trees was, I guess I was thinking other things, hoping and praying he really was just hiding out, playing some game, making a fool of me.
What was his name Jerome?
. . . then I seen the little legs in the water. Little orange shorts with the yellow and white stripes down the side. That’s all he’d wear that whole summer, those shorts. He was face down. And I, you know I tried to do all the things youre supposed to do. But he was gone. He slipped and hit his head on a rock and fell into the water and that was that. Sometimes I work through that part a bit much, how he fell. The little twist in his hips, his arms reaching out, grabbing at the air. If he made a yelp I certainly didnt hear him. There was a gash on his forehead that was bleeding a little. So he still must have had a bit of a pulse. I tried, you know. But they said even if I had to have been standing right there . . . But you cant know that for sure. Ambulance. Police cars. Hospital. His mother . . . Jesus Christ. He would have been your age next month . . .
What was his name?
. . .
Jerome?
. . . Brian. His name was Brian. He would have been . . . would have been your age . . .
Johnny reaches out and lays his hand into Jerome’s. Jerome nods and wipes at his eyes and doesnt look at Johnny but gives a shot of gas and lets go of the steering wheel for an instant to slap his breast pocket once more. Jerome squeezes Johnny’s hand until Johnny feels the tips of his fingers go that tingling numb way, but he wont pull away, he wont pull away cause
it’s the closest he’s been to . . . something . . . in a long time. He wants to tell Jerome about Mikey. How Mikey woulda been the same age too, how things might be different if Mikey was around. But how fucked it all was and is. Voices. And Madonna here in a fucken urn. And all the shit that went down that led her there. He wants to tell Jerome everything, all of it, like . . . but . . . fuck, he knows it wouldnt come out right. It’d all come out sounding desperate and crazy and tangled up.
Jerome gives Johnny’s hand a hardy shake and smiles brightly through his red-rimmed eyes.
I’ve never really told that story. Thank you.
No man, thank you. I needed some cheering up. I mean, just look at me.
Ha! That’s what I thought when I saw you, I said to myself, there’s a man who could use some cheering up. So there. My good deed for the day!
Johnny and Jerome have the big laugh then, and it’s alright, it’s . . . it’s . . .
Something about Jerome’s story. Something eases up in me, in Johnny. I looks down at the urn shimmering in me hands. A jolt of . . . something . . . shoots up me arm and the cold shivers rip through me whole body.
Someone you loved?
Johnny looks up to see Jerome pointing at the urn, at Madonna.
Wh-what?
Well youre carrying an urn . . . I just thought . . . if you want to talk about it . . .
No, no I dont.
10
Fucken hell man, going around the country holding hands with old booze farts. Dead youngsters and haunted Ford Rangers. What next? Just as well youre back out on the hoof Johnny. Another stream of gawkers passing round the bend now, to slow and stare and then slam that pedal down once they gets a good look at our hero, wouldnt know but he might run and catch up and jump aboard if they hangs around the speed limit too long. There’s a headspace to this shit, this thumbing racket, a psychology to it. Cant take it personal. Once you starts taking it personal, that’s when you loses your steam for it, that’s you fucked. Big case of the why me’s, what’s wrong with me? If there’s a God gimme this one break. All that nonsense and you knows the jig is up. Soon enough youre laying down on the side of the road and not going nowhere. Gotta be prepared to hoof it the whole ways, wherever it is youre off to, even if it is the other side of the country. Cause what odds, really. What difference? But Johnny’s only an hour, hour and a half from Stevie now, so, a little stopover. Look the man in the face, the man himself, somehow. Maybe put a call in from a pay phone and see if you cant get him on the line, fill him in on the situation, enlighten him. He’s hardly gonna not wanna see you Johnny, flesh and blood. Curiosity at the very least. And he’ll get you in somehow. Stevie Puddester? Prolly give the nod to the guard and Johnny’ll breeze on in, no trouble atall.
We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night Page 17
