Reparations

by Stephen Kimber

  It literally was a dump, with huge mounds of trash—restaurant scraps, household leavings, car wrecks, car parts, construction debris, office papers, broken furniture, even bags filled with oozing hospital waste—dumped helter-skelter on top of one another to create a desolate landscape of smouldering garbage mountains. There were trucks everywhere, dump trucks, flatbeds, half-tons, delivery vans, all shapes and sizes of them, zipping in and around, heedless of the other vehicles or even the many pedestrians, mostly black but some white too, picking through the trash for treasures. The truckers would quickly disgorge their loads, then scurry back out through the gates and away from Africville as fast as the dusty, potholed road would allow.

  Ray pointed to a big, blue five-ton truck at the top of one of the heaps. “Watch this,” he said as the driver, the front of his truck pointing skyward at a forty-five degree angle, revved his engine. “There’s no dump on his truck so he has to shunt everything off. Watch. This is amazing.” The truck lurched, then picked up speed as it began hurtling backwards down the mountain. Suddenly, the driver slammed on his brake and the front of the cab reared up into the air like a wild horse, its cargo of trash flying out the back of the truck bed. For a moment, the truck remained suspended in place, its cab in the air, and then the weight of the engine brought the front end crashing back down to earth, spewing showers of dust and dirt into the air around it.

  “Wow. That was amazing,” Ward agreed. More amazing was that no one else seemed even to notice. There were dozens of people scattered all over the hillside, carefully picking through the garbage, looking for anything worth salvaging, focused only on the job at hand and ignoring the truck driver’s inventive unloading method.

  That changed as soon as someone spotted a big, orange Ben’s Bread van driving in through the dump gate. There were shouts then, and most of the scavengers raced to the truck, descending like locusts on the driver, who seemed to know most of them by name. He laughed and joked with them as he walked around to the back of the van, opened the truck’s doors and stepped back.

  “My father won’t let me,” Ray explained as they stood on a hill-side watching the scene below. “Says he won’t take white bread handouts from white folks.”

  Ward smiled uneasily. He’d never heard Ray talk about white folks before.

  “Come on,” Ray said finally, “let’s go fishing.” But they didn’t. At least not right away. Ray led the way to a small clump of trees beside the dirt road that hid them from view of the passing trucks. “Here,” Ray said, handing Ward a handful of gravel. “Get ready.” Just then, the big blue truck they’d watched unloading at the dump came round the corner and into view. “Now,” Ray yelled, jumping out to the edge of the roadway just as the truck passed. He tossed his handful of gravel at the side of the truck. It pinged against the metal doors like a shower of hail. Ward didn’t stop to consider what he was doing. He simply did as his friend had done. But his aim was not as practised, and some of the pieces of gravel he threw went right in through the open window of the cab.

  The driver hit the brakes.

  “Run!” Ray screamed. “Run!” And he turned on his heel and took off back into the woods. Ward followed as fast as he could. Behind him, he could hear the truck door open and then slam shut, the driver yelling after them: “Yeah, you’d better run, you little nigger bastards! I catch you, I’ll tan your hides good.”

  Though the driver didn’t seem to be following them, Ray kept running as fast as he could until they reached the shore. “Did you see that guy?” Ray asked between gulps of air. Ward had been too frightened to even look back. Ray laughed. “Was he pissed off or what?” He stopped then, waited until his breathing returned to normal. “But next time watch where you’re aiming, okay? You’re supposed to aim at the truck, not the driver.” How was Ward supposed to know? “Did you hear what he called us? Nigger bastards.” Ray raised his right arm above his head, brought it down gently on Ward’s shoulder. “I dub thee Sir White Nigger Bastard.”

  Ward laughed. What would his father think of that?

  When they got back to Tibby’s Pond, there was a girl, a few years younger than them, playing by herself in the shallow water. Ray looked surprised. “What you doin’ still here? I thought you moved.”

  “Did,” the girl answered. “But I didn’t like it, so Daddy asked Aunt Annie if I could stay with her till school.”

  Aunt Annie wasn’t really the girl’s aunt. She wasn’t Ray’s aunt either, even though that’s what he called her, too. Her name was Annie Cole. She’d been a widow for at least as long as Ray had been alive. She ran the candy store in Up the Road and looked after the kids whenever their parents weren’t around, often even when they were. Everyone, even the adults, called her Aunt Annie. She’d invited Ray, his father and “your school friend” to have supper at her place that night. “Nothing fancy,” she’d said. “Just something to fill the hole.”

  “Rosa, this is my friend Ward,” Ray announced. “He’s sleeping over tonight. Ward, this is Rosa. Rosa used to live here but she moved.”

  Rosa smiled, Ward smiled back. The pleasantries over, Ray turned his attention to choosing a boat. “This one belongs to the Skinners.” He pointed to a green, flat-bottomed, plywood vessel tethered to shore by a large rock and climbed in over its side. “But they won’t mind if we take it out for a while. Get the rope, will ya?”

  And that’s when it hit Ward. The familiar, sharp, saltwater smell of the rope hanging from the dory’s bow filled his nostrils. When Ward was a little boy and his father would take him out in their rowboat, Ward would sit in the bow as it bounced up and down in the waves, sucking on the end of the rope like a Popsicle, savouring its comforting, salty wetness. The smell made him wish he were back there now. Perhaps that was why, after Ray had dropped anchor at a spot about a hundred feet off the shore where he claimed the fishing would be best, Ward looked back toward the shoreline and was able to imagine, just for a moment, he really was back in Eisners Head.

  If you looked in a certain direction and squinted into the afternoon sun just a bit, you couldn’t see the rest of the city in the distance. All you could see was a jumble of small, multicoloured clapboard houses plopped, willy-nilly, among scrub trees and bushes, and connected to each other by foot-worn paths climbing up the hillside. Lines filled with laundry flapped in the breeze, only accentuating the greens and blues and browns of the houses. It was just like Eisners Head. His father, who hadn’t seemed very happy since they’d moved to Halifax, would have felt at home here too. At home, except—

  Ray jerked his arm suddenly. “Got one!” he shouted, pulling on the handline. Ward watched transfixed, his own line still hanging in the water, as Ray fought with whatever it was at the end of his fishing line. Ward’s father would have been angry at Ray for not rewinding the line back on to its wooden core as he hauled in the fish. “Otherwise you just have a tangled mess at the end,” his father had admonished Ward more than once.

  “Oh shit,” Ray said as the struggling, squirming, silver-bellied fish finally broke the surface. “An eel! I hate eels. They’re so slimy.” The eel flopped madly about on the floor of the dory. Ray seemed reluctant to touch it, so Ward grabbed it expertly by the neck with one hand and plucked the hook out of its mouth.

  “Toss it?” he asked Ray.

  “Toss it,” Ray said, with a look of admiration for how easily his friend had handled the slippery eel.

  By the time the fish had stopped biting and the flies had started in, they’d caught half a dozen cod and a few haddock, too. “We’ll give them to Aunt Annie,” Ray declared, adding, “Just as long as she doesn’t make us eat them.”

  She didn’t. Aunt Annie served plates filled with steaming servings of corned beef and cabbage, which also reminded Ward of Eisners Head. Before the strike, his mother had always served fish on Fridays, baked beans Saturdays and corned beef and cabbage—which she called Jiggs Dinner—on Sund
ays. During the strike, they ate mostly whatever his father could catch. After they’d moved to Halifax, his mother discovered the frozen TV dinners they sold at the Dominion Store. Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes was her latest favourite. Ward wouldn’t have thought it possible after so many years of Sunday suppers, but he was glad to have a feed of corned beef and cabbage again.

  “What are you hearing about the Deacon, Aunt Annie?” Ray’s father asked, always curious about his rival. “He happy in his new place?”

  “Oh, he’s happy all right,” she answered. “Braggin’ to me about their fancy new bathroom. Says he can see the whole harbour right from his bathroom window. He’s on the eighth floor of that high-rise. I told him living up that high’s unnatural but he says it’s the future. But he’s the only one happy. Rosa”—Aunt Annie nodded at the little girl who was moving her corned beef and cabbage around on the plate, hoping no one would notice she wasn’t eating any—“she called up cryin’ and tellin’ me, ‘Aunt Annie, I want to come home.’ Her daddy told me she misses all her friends.” Annie shook her head.

  Ray’s father slowly chewed a bite of dinner, considered. “Guess it’s too late now. Half the people gone and the other half just haggling over how much.”

  “Not me,” said Aunt Annie. “They gonna have to carry me out of here.” She looked accusingly at Ray’s father. “Don’t tell me you sayin’ yes too?”

  “Not me,” Lawrence Carter replied. “I’m not going anywhere. They’ll have to carry me out too.”

  Aunt Annie shook her head. “Well, I guess it’ll just be me and you.” She glanced over at Rosa. “You eat what’s on your plate, girl. Or no treat for you.”

  As soon as dinner was over and the licorice was handed out—Rosa, Ward noticed, got her string of red licorice too, even though she never did finish her dinner—Ray excused them. “I’m gonna show Ward the train,” he explained.

  “I’m coming with you,” Rosa declared. Ray looked unhappy but said nothing.

  The train was as spectacular as Ray said it would be. They stood as close as they could to the tracks as the nine o’clock CNR train to Montreal roared through Africville without slowing down. The noise was deafening, the wind a hurricane as the cars hurtled past them. Ward could see the passengers in the lighted cars. Some waved as the train passed. Ward tried to wave back but he could barely raise his arm. Was it the force of the blast of warm air the train stirred up, or just fear from being so close to a fast-moving train?

  After, Ray told Rosa that he and Ward were going to go to sleep now. “See you tomorrow,” he said as he led the way back to his father’s place. Rosa looked like she wanted to follow but thought better of it.

  Inside the shed, Ward began to unroll his sleeping bag. “We’re not really going to sleep now,” Ray announced. “I was just saying that so Rosa wouldn’t keep hanging around. Come on. We’re gonna have some fun. Follow me.”

  Under the cover of enveloping darkness, they crawled to the Deacon’s house next door and climbed in through an opening in a boarded-up window. The house had been emptied of all its furniture and was lit now only by the moonlight that leaked in through the cracks. “This was Rosa’s room,” Ray said as he moved like a cat from room to room while Ward followed tentatively in his wake. Ray wanted to stay and tell ghost stories, but Ward said he didn’t want to. He didn’t confess he was scared of the dark.

  “I know what we can do,” Ray said. “Let’s sneak up by Aunt Lottie’s. See who’s there tonight.” Lottie was one of Africville’s best-known bootleggers. Her house on Barrington Street just beyond the end of the pavement was a favourite nighttime gathering place for Africville musicians, who’d stop by before and after their gigs downtown to do a little jamming and drink a little of what everyone called “niggershine,” which was Lottie’s special concoction. Ray and Ward took up a position in some bushes with an unobstructed view of the window of Lottie’s place. They’d have to duck down behind the bushes whenever a taxi pulled into the driveway to pick up another bottle for delivery, but they could still hear the music—a saxophone, a piano, a bass—and the raucous laughter.

  At one point, a police car stopped outside the door. Two white policemen got out and walked inside as if they owned the place. Ward expected the music to stop then and the policemen to begin arresting people, but the music continued as if nothing had happened. Through the window, Ward could see Lottie hand one of the policemen a glass. He toasted her and downed the contents in a gulp.

  Ward wasn’t sure how long they’d been watching; he only knew he was falling asleep.

  “Can we go back?” he said finally. “I’m tired.”

  He didn’t remember much about the walk back. Or anything else, in fact, until the morning, when the roaring monster woke him with a start from his peaceful sleep.

  Ward remained frozen in place while Ray crawled tentatively over to the door and pressed his eye against a knothole in the wood.

  “Shit!” he said, reaching for the hook and pulling open the door.

  The sound they heard was not a monster, Ward realized when his eyes adjusted to the morning light. It was a truck—bigger even than the one they’d seen at the dump yesterday. This truck, which had the City of Halifax emblem on the driver’s door, had a plow attached to the front that it was using to batter at the walls of the Deacon’s empty house. The roof at the front of the house was sagging now, most of the wall that had held it up gone already. The remains of the wall—shattered posts, splintered clapboard siding, broken glass, smashed plaster—lay all around the truck, clouds of plaster dust rising into the air. The truck reversed then, repositioned itself in front of the far corner of the house—Rosa’s bedroom? Ward tried to remember where it was—and rammed hard into it. Ward heard the crack of breaking wood and then the rumble as the roof collapsed totally, pieces bouncing off the hood of the truck and on to the ground.

  “Shit,” Ray said again. He’d just noticed Rosa standing near the truck, watching them demolish her family home. Ray and Ward could both see the tears in her eyes.

  Chapter 4

  1967

  “Well, merciful heavens, look who it isn’t!” Before Ray could stop her, Aunt Annie had covered the distance across the gymnasium floor to where she’d seen Ward standing awkwardly with his parents and another man. Ray and his father had had no choice but to follow in her wake.

  “Now let me look at you up close,” Aunt Annie said to Ward. Ward’s expression roller-coastered from surprise to pleasure to apprehension. “My, my, aren’t you all growed up? And so smart. That was a wonderful speech, young man. Wonderful, wasn’t it, Lawrence?”

  “It was. Wonderful. Congratulations.” Ray’s father sounded decidedly unenthusiastic.

  Aunt Annie didn’t seem to notice. She hadn’t had much opportunity to socialize since she’d moved into the apartment in Maynard Square, and she intended to make the most of it. “And you must be the proud parents.” Aunt Annie turned to Ward’s father and mother. “He’s the spitting image o’ both o’ you. You must be very proud.”

  Ray looked at Ward’s father. Shocked? Angry? Ray couldn’t tell for sure, only that he didn’t look happy.

  “Yes, very proud,” Ward’s mother replied. “We’re very proud.” Her eyes anxiously darted between Aunt Annie and her husband. Ray eyed Ward. Ward stared at the floor.

  “Been so long since I seen young Ward,” Aunt Annie continued, oblivious. “He used to come ’round all the time back when I still lived out home. He and Raymond. Just like two peas in a pod. Always together. Always gettin’ into mischief.” She paused, as if caught up in some private thought. “Course that was a time ago. Been how long now, Lawrence? Two year since I sold? Wish I was still there but, well, what can you do? Not everyone like Lawrence here. I don’t think he be leavin’ except in a pine box.” She laughed. “Right, Lawrence?”

  Ray’s father mumbled assent.

 
“Raymond?” Aunt Annie said. “You bring Ward round to see me, hear?” To Ward, “I don’t have no store no more, honey, but if you was to come by, I think I could probably find a licorice treat or two . . . if you aren’t too old for a little treat, that is.”

  Ward smiled, an embarrassed smile. “No, no, Aunt Annie. I’m not too old.” He looked as if he regretted his familiarity. “And I’d love to come visit sometime.” He kept his eyes on the floor.

  “Sometime,” Ray knew, meant never. It wasn’t that he and Ward didn’t get along any more. They just weren’t friends. Nothing had happened between them. Nothing except life.

  Sitting in the Queen Elizabeth High School auditorium that morning, listening to the principal drone on and on about how lucky they were to be graduating in 1967, Canada’s Centennial year, with the future stretching out golden in front of them and blah blah blah, Ray couldn’t help but feel a tinge of bitterness for his high school years. Bitterness mixed with a spicing of envy as the principal introduced “our valedictorian, our Head Boy, Ward Justice . . .”

  They were a long way from Africville now. Though the entrance to the Q.E. auditorium was only a few feet from the school’s north door, the entrance used by north-end students like Ward and Ray, the distance this morning seemed a million miles and a century or two from the sunny September morning in 1964 when he and Ward had arrived at the north door together to begin their first day of high school.

  “Nervous?” Ray had asked.

  “You?” Ward had answered the question with a question, as if he didn’t want to be the first to admit apprehension.

  “No . . . Sort of . . . Yeah, I guess.” They’d laughed then.

  “I’m scared shitless,” Ward had said.

  “Me too,” Ray had replied. And they’d laughed again.

  Although they’d sensed, even then, that their lives were about to change in ways neither could foresee, they’d assumed their friendship would remain constant. At least Ray had.