We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night

by Joel Thomas Hynes

  Ahhh fuck em.

  I opens a bottle of Tylenol and dry swallows half a dozen, hoping maybe that’ll level me off. Drop the bottle into the pants pocket. I got the bag of hospital dope with the IV out in the van, but I’ve been kinda wary of it, using it. I’m tempted to pop it into me leg but where I’m not quite sure what’s in it . . . well some dope dont work through the muscles and you can get in an awful mess, big old blisters and shit, paralyze the nerves. I mean, I wants to kill the pain and maybe get a little buzz, but I hardly wants to fucken paralyze meself, not unless I got a good safe place to lie down for a while. And then of course I’m drivin and trying not to attract attention to meself on the road, so if I pops it in a vein I’m not sure how it’ll hit me, or how much to take, and I dont wanna get way too bombed, too bombed to talk me way out of some situation or make a break for it if I have to. I figure when I gets clear of the rig I’ll hook meself up with a good blast of whatever the hell is in that IV.

  Here’s a bottle of rubbing alcohol. There’s no way of opening these fucken things without puttin meself through some fresh torture. Like the Tylenol, it was vile, opening that. I tucks the bottle of alcohol in under me right armpit and twists at it with me left hand, holding the bottle in place with my shattered ribs. But that’s it, I only got the one hand. Such is the state of affairs for our fucken hero. The cap pops off the bottle and alcohol goes spewing onto the shelves spatterin across the therapeutic insoles and foot powders. I look around to see if I’m being looked at, but there’s no one about, no security at least. I dumps half the bottle onto my fucked hand. Feeling the blaze, watchin the pus and dried blood bubble and pop and fizz. It occurs to me that I should be screaming. I twists the cap back on the bottle and drops it into the poncho. I cleaned that out too, the pouch where the urn was smashed. I hauled in on the side of the road and carefully emptied the last of the ashes into a Tim Hortons donut bag. Shockin, that is. Picked out the bits and chunks of porcelain. There was more there than I thought too, maybe four ounces, even. Enough to make it all nice and symbolic at least. Cause that’s all I got now aint it? If not for Madonna now I’d be fucked off down in the gutter somewhere, supping out of a paper bag with some fucken street trash. That’s the honest to God’s truth. I’d be on the hustle for good dope and I’d be banging back way too much of it. On purpose. That’s how I feels right about now, like I’m good and ready to slip off the edge. But for Madonna, but for laying her ashes down on that beach out west. I’ve no other reason for holding it together right about now. She always went on about it, this one summer when she was a kid. A kite she was right taken with, loved it, elaborate neon kite with all the solar system printed on it. Her face, it always lit up when she mentioned it. I at least wants to do that one thing, for her, for Johnny. And it’s not just the pain I’m in, or the hobbled state of me, that’s giving me the gloomy thoughts about checkin out, it’s not just that. Of course it’s not. But I dont need to get into it all either, the old ghosts, the fucken new ones. But you gets thinkin. No radio in the van and so the miles and miles of droning quiet, and you gets listening to yourself, after a while. Imagine all the shit spewed outta this mouth. Across the years. All the hate and the bitching and moaning. And you tell these stories, these burnt-out stories that gets crazier and cockier and more brutal and more detailed all the time, maybe to give yourself a boost or something. You run off at the mouth, tellin about these feats. And they all ends, all these stories, they all ends off with someone else being a prick or gettin fucked over. Always about how it’s someone else’s fault or someone gettin what they supposedly deserve. Shit man. And how much of it is true even? After a while? Sure I’m after tellin that many lies I dont know my own self what’s true and what’s not. Stories, you know, to arm yourself, to look after yourself. But the worst are the lies you tells yourself. You go on about how the likes of Stevie Puddester is innocent, how he was screwed over by the cops, the courts. Wasnt even in the same part of town. He had a witness! Confessed to an armed robbery! Fuck off. I mean, I mighta done some bad shit, right, but I aint never cut no girl’s throat and bashed her skull in off a radiator. That’s what they found. This girl, about twenty-four, twenty-five. She was heavy into the speedballs, hooking too, of course. They found her in some grungy hotel room way out on Topsail Road. She was fucken destroyed. They needed her dental records. It was that bad. Bled right out, teeth found on the other side of the room. And who done it? Not Stevie Puddester, no way. He wasnt in that part of town. He’s innocent. Lawyer fucked him. Cops framed him. His record made him a scapegoat. This is the shit you fills your head up with. Even though your guts turns every time you mentions his name. And then, one glance at him, one look into them evil little dead weasel eyes and it’s all right there. And hey, even if he didnt do it, just a glance and you can spot him for the type anyhow, the type that belongs behind bars. But that’s not me now is it? That’s hardly our John-John, fucken hero. I mean, we might share the blood thing, but we’re not the same. I mighta swiped a few cars and shook me nuts around and I mighta lit a few fires and blackened a few eyes, but I done what I done when I had to, not because I ever wanted to hurt nobody. Lots of times it was just a case of me all fucked up on something, lookin to kill meself off, kill the old ghosts. That’s all. But lotsa times too, lotsa times I could tell about how when things were alright, when I was nice and easy and laid back and not swinging out at the world, not bulling my way through people. Lotsa times things were kinda normal too. I think. Like when me and Madonna took up, moved in together. Johnny Keough, moving in with a real live woman. Tellin her he loved her every time he left the room, giving foot rubs and watchin movies and making coffee and cooking fish stew. Fucken right. Normal. Not wanting something more from around the corner. Yeah there’s all that stuff too, but it’s hard to talk about, I guess. It’s not . . . well what? It’s not slick enough I spose, not cool. You dont go on about how much you loves some gal, you goes on about how often you were screwing her, how hard. What she will or wont do in the sack. Cause that’s what we’re supposed to talk about aint it? No one wants to hear what’s going on in some jailbird’s heart now do they? Fuck. And you gets trapped into thinkin a certain way. Long after the time is come and gone when you shoulda moved on from all that childhood shit. I mean, that time I got let out of Whitbourne after that McGregor cunt filled me in on the true details of my family tree and I laid Pius flat on the kitchen floor and busted his face open? Well, that shoulda been it then. That shoulda been enough. There was my vengeance. That was me, taking it all back. Why wasnt that good enough for me? But it’s never good enough. You drag it on and on, lug it with you down through the years until it breaks your fucken back and it’s no wonder youre kicked off in jail eating slimy eggs and burnt toast and soggy bacon and gagging on the stink of farts and man-sweat, watchin over your shoulder every day of your goddamn life. No wonder.

  Needs a bit of deodorant too, Johnny, not to forget. Cause you knows it’s pretty bad when you cant stand the smell of your own self. If not for the hassle of it all, taking the clothes off and on again, the boots, be nice to strip down somewhere and get a good hot shower or slip into a steaming bath some place. Or a hot tub, Johnny. Fuck off. He’s lookin for this stuff, Blade or Hatchet it’s called, something like that, this deodorant that Madonna used to get for him, that she liked the smell of. He roots through what’s there but cant find it. What’s all this vegan shit? Everybody waving this green flag? I mean, I knows what it is, vegan and all, where these nimrods dont eat meat or cheese or eggs and whatever. Imagine, bacon and eggs and burgers. Hot dogs. But what’s it got to do with aftershave and fucken pit-stick? A bit much, if you asks me, crowd saving up plastic bottles and separating their garbage and tryna navigate the roads with little battery-powered cars made outta recycled beer cans. A bit much. And all a bit late anyhow, they says. I opens up one stick of deodorant called Herban Cowboy and man I pretty much almost gags on it and I can feel a sneeze coming on right away so I have to stop breathi
ng to ward it off cause I dont think the ribs could handle it. There’s this stamp on the back of the deodorant, one of them red circles with a line down through the middle, and what’s crossed out are the words Animal Cruelty. Like a slap in the mouth, aint it? No matter which way you turns there’s always something or someone waiting to stick it to you, stir all that shit up. Yes I fucken killed Mikey’s hens! Alright? Jesus. Or I didnt kill em, not first-hand. But I killed em all the same. Yes it was my doing.

  He gets these hens, that summer his leg was in a cast. His father comes home one evening with about ten of these strange hens and gives em to Mikey to make up names for and to look after, rear up, all that. I mean, they’re fucken hens for Christ sakes, everybody’s got hens. But Mikey had to have these fancy ones. Fucken bizarre, weird-lookin hens with no feathers on their necks. Naked . . . somethings, they were called. And of course they were from somewhere over in Europe or Russia too. Fucken ugly things they were. And the rooster, that jeezly rooster, he musta came in at about twenty pounds. You could hear him all over the goddamn harbour in the mornings. No one needed a fucken alarm clock that summer. So Mikey gets these hens, right. One day he’s the poor scrap with the broken leg who cant ride his bike on the new pavement, and the next everybody’s over there hanging out on his porch and there’s folks coming from all up and down the Shore to look at these ugly fucken hens and to buy eggs. Mikey sat around at nothing, scattering a bit of feed once in a while, making money off these big dark speckled eggs that I heard never hardly had no taste off em. Enough to boil your blood. Next thing there’s games of ball starting up in Mikey’s meadow and Mikey’d be out pitching or whatever, just not able to run. But the big laughs. One evening I looks across the meadow and pretty much every young feller in the harbour musta been there playing ball. As far as meadows goes, even grown men, once the hay was made, came to play ball in Uncle Austin’s meadow. Huge and flat. Dandy evening too, nice and warm, enough of a breeze to keep the flies away and overcast enough so the sun wouldnt blind you when you took your turn at bat. Dandy evening. So I goes over anyhow, with me glove and bat, and I steps into the line while Mikey and Billy O’Byrne are picking teams. I’m stood there not ten fucken seconds, swear to Christ, when Uncle Austin comes out onto the back porch and starts bawling me out. Tells me to get the Christ off his land, outta the meadow.

  Go home I said! No one bloody well wants you here!

  This is weeks after Mikey broke his foot now, fucken weeks. Everybody gone dead quiet. I stands my ground anyhow. I kinda got me mind made up that if he comes at me I’m gonna take the bat to his face. I couldnt care less how big or how loud he is, he’s not so tough he can take a Louisville Slugger in the chops without buckling under. He stands there sipping his evening beer, belching, staring right back at me.

  Well b’ys, if young Johnny wants to stay he can stay by himself. You can all go home out of it.

  What can you do? Pretty much every young feller in the harbour dying to have a good game of ball, all staring at me, or not lookin at me atall, waiting for me to fuck off so’s they can get on with it. Mikey’s old man leaning on the porch railing with this self-satisfied grin on his face. What can you do? I turned and left. Maybe I shoved someone outta the way when I was going, but really I sorta put the head down, propped the bat up on me shoulder and walked on.

  Next morning it wasnt no cock-a-doodle-do that woke me up, more like the big horrified screeches outta Mikey, big rasping howls from across the meadow. I jumped out of bed and hightailed it across the meadow to see what was the matter. Uncle Austin running towards the henhouse with half his face covered in shaving cream. Mikey bawling. Turns out my Scrapper was after gettin into the henhouse sometime overnight and slaughtering every last one of Mikey’s ugly foreign hens. Ate a bunch of eggs too, the dog did. However he got in there, no one could figure out. I’m leaning on the fence gawkin over towards the henhouse, waiting for good old Austin to come out and make his accusations. But he never did. Poor old Scrapper took a good duff in the hole for his part in it all, yelping up across the meadow with bloody feathers dried into his beard and the belly all bloated with eggs. Austin never said a word to me. But the cops showed up that evening, with this youth counsellor from Family Services, askin me all kinds of questions about how Mikey broke his foot and about how I got turned away from the ballgame. How they thinks I opened the door to the henhouse and let the dog in. Pius was some fucken pissed. Likely he was hoping they’d take me away. I told the fuzz what I told Mikey and everyone else, that I was home in bed and never knew nothing. Tanya even said so cause she was up watchin TV when I turned in for the night. They never had nothing on me, no charges laid or nothing. But it stays on your file, that shit, when that Family Services crowd are in on it. Fuckers. Like Reeves had me youth record and brought up animal cruelty when there was never even any charges laid! Just a report, a file. But it hangs around and torments you. Funny how you can go up before the court as an adult and they can help send you down the line by dragging up shit you were suspected of doing when you were only a measly youngster.

  Scrapper vanished a few days after the Russian Hen Massacre. No surprise. Me, Johnny, like the proper fool, calling out to him in the nighttime. Came across his puffed up, ragged little body amongst the alders in the lower meadow that spring. Blasted full of lead pellets, old rotted rope around his neck. Someone after tying him on to a tree so’s they could get a good shot at him. Shit. What you dont wanna be thinkin about. Poor Scrapper never knew no better. But I spose I did.

  Gives meself a good squirt with some sample cologne that’s not too bad, but I cant tell if it’s for men or women. There’s nothing on the bottle or the package that might give a hint and it dont really tip towards the girls or the boys in the aroma department neither. But it’s alright. Masks the stench of the old poncho. I got some wrapping for the hand, a drop of rubbing alcohol, some Tylenol. I settles for a regular Speed Stick, not that stinky hippie shit. Some bandages to cover me knuckles. Not that I bandages every little cut or scratch, I aint a fucken youngster, but the skin is ground right down to the bone, I mean come on, it’s awkward when youre driving, making turns and the like. Fucken hurts, you know. What else do I got here? Packet of Fisherman’s Friend, the cherry kind, not the dog’s arse kind. And a couple of bottles of that Boost shit, meal-replacement drink. Saul’s poison. Either that or I’ll starve. Wonder how Saul is gettin on out there on the road? Christ, I turned on him, didnt I? Yes you did Johnny. Shit man, I cant even remember what way I was thinkin, back then, even a week or two behind me. How long am I out here anyhow, on the road? Fucken hell. I dont feel the same. I feels, I dont know, less dead. Not as dead. But deader, all the same. It’s complicated. You gives yourself a bit of breathing room and . . . that security gal now, she spotted me, she got my number alright. You can always tell. Or I’m being paranoid. No, no, she’s lookin at someone else now. No. She gives the little chin nod in my direction. Now she’s smiling though. Fuck, she’s either really good or she’s not on to me atall. What do you do? Blow it all wide open for a few drugstore odds and ends, wind up in a backroom with some west coast cops. Likely the RCMP around these parts too, so you know they’ll find your warrants and your record and there’ll be no farther west this day, for Johnny, no big scattering of the ashes ceremony, not this lifetime. But youre not stealing until you leaves the shop, hey Madonna? Well what then Johnny, go back into the belly of the shop and empty your pockets and hope they dont make no further fuss? Sure, half what’s in your pockets is opened anyhow. She’s coming towards me now, walking all slow and steady like, so I tries to straighten up as best I can, sweat rollin down me face in buckets. She’s upon me, in my path, I tries to step around her but she dont move outta the way. I staggers a bit tryna keep from bumping into her and ends up twisting the broken toes and I cant help but cry out a little and next she’s reaching out for me and I can smell the lotion she must use for her hands, this deep floral smell like spiced roses or something. And I knows she
’s there in a uniform and I’m the bad guy and she’s supposed to be a fucker to me and that’s the way it works, but I cant help but let meself ease towards her so that her two arms comes up to me chest to steady me, to keep me from tumbling on top of her. Christ man, what I wouldnt give to disappear into a woman’s bedroom for a week or two. A nice-smelling woman.

  Are you alright sir?

  Wha . . . ?

  You are not well sir . . .

  I was . . . an accident . . . moose . . .

  Do you need to get to a hospital sir? Should I call an ambulance?

  She’s shouting it all at me too, like I must look like it takes an extra effort to get through to me. There’s mirrors behind her, on the shelves, next to the women’s foundation and eyeliner and lipstick and all that glop. I catches a look at some twisted version of my face, both cheeks bruised yellow and green and all scraped up, dirty stitches over me eye with blue fuzzies stuck all over em, one eyebrow twice the size of the other, front teeth gone, lip busted in the corner and the jaw . . . my jaw is . . . fucked. And that’s only what you can see in the mirror, that’s just my face. And here’s this gal in a uniform holding me up and tryna steady me, people stopped and gawkin down the aisle at us. Her uniform is softer than it looks, thin and soft. I have no idea if she’s twenty years old or fifty-fucken-seven. I have no clue. But she’s a soft-smelling gal in a uniform and I’ll stay here leant against her for as long as she bloody well lets me.

  Do you need an ambulance sir? Do you need to go to the hospital?