Thorn-Field

by James Trettwer

  Moving forward at idling speed, the car makes its way to the exit at the highway. He says simply, “Which way?”

  “Left,” Lourdes replies levelly. “Left again at your first intersection. Follow the road to the far side of town. Turn left again past the grain elevator at the T-intersection.” She folds her arms and looks out her window. The plume is a stark white in the bright sky. “Can you follow all that?”

  “Of course,” Lee says, with his annoyingly calm voice. He follows her directions exactly without further comment.

  At the typical small-town intersection of Main Street and Railway Avenue, Lourdes looks at the Steak House which, in the light of day, seems benign enough. It is housed in another typical small-town landmark — an old, brown-brick, former hotel. The second storey has been converted to an upper deck for the bar on the main floor. The third storey has rooms for rent, generally by the hour.

  She stares at this social nexus of Liverwood. When rallies aren’t happening at the Liverwood Sports Complex, absorbing all interest, the masses congregate here, usually after these rallies. How many locals have dug through their daily lives at this place? How many lives are buried here, under a mineshaft flood of booze and drugs?

  Lee gradually accelerates down Railway Avenue and proceeds past the former Pool Elevator, its faded orange dull in the sunshine. A new inland terminal is out of sight, located on the highway near the mine and railway spur. Turning left at the T-intersection, they leave the town limits where the asphalt road turns to gravel past the railway tracks.

  Lourdes glances at Lee. He focuses on driving. She says, “Follow the road until you see the church.”

  “Okay.” He replies without averting his eyes.

  The road curves southeast after a kilometre of gravel and descends into a low rocky vale. The vale, not suitable for agriculture, is overgrown with prairie grasses, thick with Canadian thistle. Here, the thistles’ purple flowers reach skyward toward real sunshine. They don’t need the surrogate light of the mine’s plume the way they seem to in the hollow.

  Liverwood United Church and graveyard sit on a slight rise in the middle of the vale, which is pressed on all sides by the unbounded growth of prairie grasses and weeds. Lee drives into the dusty parking lot and stops by two low cement cairns that mark the entrance to the graveyard.

  Lourdes exits and slams the door. She’s not going to dally while Lee fiddles with his seatbelt or mirrors or whatever he feels compelled to do in his post-drive debriefing. She stomps past the cairns and Lee is suddenly and quietly one pace behind her, asking, “Who maintains Mary’s grave?”

  She doesn’t slow down. “The Treadwells. And they don’t drag me out here because they know I have no issues to get over.”

  Continuing down the path between graves, she says without turning, “Not only do I know where the graveyard is, contrary to your snarky insistence, I know exactly where my baby’s grave lies.” She again hears crows caw-caw-caw distantly. And with this she can’t resist. Now, she will fly with them in their green and blue and purple-sheen glory. She lifts off on her crow wings, leaving her physical self to deal with Lee.

  She feels a head-rush from the acceleration. She flies high. The wind rushes through her hair — billowing it behind her.

  She sees herself march with purpose to the far boundary of the graveyard. At the last row, she turns off the path and moves toward the farthest grave markers. She stops at the second last grave in the corner and looks down at the square, simple, flat fiberglass marker that resembles pink granite.

  Lourdes’ father does not lie beside his granddaughter. His was cremated and the urn containing his ashes was lost in the trailer fire. But from up here in the ether, she is aware of the mine’s plume in the distance. Its source is the last place her father stood. Did he think of me when he died? He must have because his words echo in my ears — You’ll do what you need to do to make yourself all better.

  She plummets from on high and crashes into her body just as she falls to her knees. She is in the hospital. What she thinks is a bloody lump the size of a grapefruit is actually a fully formed little girl. Mary lets out one small croaking cry. Then Mary is silent. Then Mary is gone.

  Gone to this place. Buried just within reach but Lourdes still can’t hold her baby. Slowly, she falls forward on her hands in the fine, thin natural grass and the fern-shaped weeds spouting up here and there. She touches the delicate leaf fibres of the liver weed. Liver weed is found only in grassy areas, only in this part of the prairies. Mary is buried in a cardboard coffin under a thriving patch of the little weeds. Is she bringing new life to these delicate plants?

  Lourdes falls on her side and curls into a ball. Her forearms rest on the fine grasses and weeds. Her hands touch the grave-marker, forefinger traces the single word: MARY.

  She moans only once. The little patch of liver weed is wet. She lets her strength ebb with the flow while an exquisite agony washes over her. Washes out of her.

  She becomes aware of Lee beside her. His hands gently stroke her hair exactly where her purple-sheen crow brushed it. She lays her head on the marker. Eyes closed, she is aware of only the marker against her forehead.

  There is peace now. Comfort in this utter exhaustion. She kisses the marker and whispers, “Goodbye, Mary.”

  Lee helps her stand up. He supports her, his strong arms wrapped around her waist, holding her up. Holding her close. She puts one arm across his shoulder, manoeuvres the last few steps to the edge of the graveyard. Leaning against him for a few moments, her eyes close, and she feels only the sun warming her face.

  When she opens her eyes, she sees the vale’s wild growth and the Canadian thistles with their purple blooms stretching — reaching skyward.

  “Lourdes,” Lee says, his voice low, near cracking, “I’m so, so sorry. How can you ever forgive me?”

  “It’s okay, Lee. I know now. I was only out here once. I didn’t allow . . . ”

  Lee holds her tight. He doesn’t reply. Confused, she gently takes his arms from around her and steps back a pace.

  Lee’s staring at his feet, thumb rubbing his curled index finger incessantly.

  Her heart ripples and she says, “Lee, everything’s all right now.”

  He shakes his head, still looks down. “I don’t think so.” He pauses and takes a long breath. “I didn’t believe your Mary story, Lourdes. I thought you didn’t want any children with me and were making it up because you didn’t want to commit to me and my plans.”

  This hurts. God this hurts.

  But the pain re-energizes her. She says, “You didn’t believe me?”

  He doesn’t respond. He touches his cellphone holder on his belt.

  Lourdes plainly sees and says, “Maybe your friend Deirdre from the help desk can give you the support you need.”

  Lee looks up quickly, sharply. “She actually works in accounting, but it’s not what you think. We’re just friends. She’s been with too many men just like I’ve been through too many women. She’s desperate for a stable, monogamous relationship and wants a family. We have that in common.”

  “Why don’t you marry her, then? It sounds like she wants a million of your babies.”

  “It’s not like that,” Lee repeats, his voice shrill. “With Deirdre, that’s all there is. You and I — we can always adopt if you really can’t have babies. Maybe a surrogate would . . . ”

  Lourdes turns away and no longer listens. She gazes over the purple thistles, the vibrant field growing wild. Maybe he’s right, perhaps Engineering is the way to go but I will try it my own way first.

  She turns her face into the prevailing wind that blows the plume away from Liverwood and blows her hair behind her. She will once again lift herself on her purple-sheen crow wings. But she will no longer look down on herself. Nor will she merely drift with the breeze. Her wings will carry all of her where she chooses. She will pump her wings and fly in that prevailing wind, fly past and away from the plume.

  Lew LeBelle Loo
gin in the Land of the Looginaires

  Loogin: derogatory slang for someone with any sort of mental health issue; or old prison slang meaning mentally ill prisoner

  There’s standing room only in the chaple of the Liverwood Funeral Home. Potash production at the mine is stopped for the duration of the memorial service. Lewis LeBelle is comforted that Ang is right beside him. She leans her head on his shoulder and her hair brushes his cheek. Arms intertwined and pressed together, they hold hands, hers warm and calming in his.

  From a side room, the funeral director leads four people to the front row. A tiny woman with pocked cheeks and thin hair shambles beside the director and falls into her seat. Following behind them are a tall, bald man and short woman with pudgy arms. They each hold a hand of a red-haired girl, about ten years old, who walks with tentative steps between them.

  After they are all seated, the director makes his way to the podium beside a stand with a bouquet of lilies and a plain porcelain urn.

  Lew thinks of the first time he met Ted. It was at his initial orientation session after he was hired at the Liverwood Potash Corporation mine. Minutes into introductions at that session, he finds he’s saddled with the nickname “Lulubelle.”

  He says, “I prefer Lew, thank you very much.”

  His response earns him immediate jeers and guffaws. Someone yells, “Won’t work. Can’t call you lewd names.”

  Ted says to him, “Lulubelle it is.”

  Lew is on a mentoring team with three other men: another Helper Trainee named Ashley, and two Senior Miners, Ted and Hal. He studies the miners and repeats their names to himself so he won’t forget them.

  Ted stands four inches over Lew’s six feet. Weighing at least 250 pounds and without an ounce of flab, Ted has thick forearms that are heavily freckled and have a thin covering of reddish hair. The red hair on his head and face is trimmed to a uniform stubble. The man reminds Lew of a wrestler but Ted’s grin immediately puts him at ease.

  Hal is also over six feet but he is a beanpole of a man and seems to be built entirely of muscle and cartilage. His thinning black hair is combed straight back. His grey-blue eyes seem to penetrate to the back of Lew’s optic nerve; his stare is intense, just like a shark’s.

  Lew maintains eye contact only briefly.

  Ted slaps him heartily on the back and says, “You’ll soon enough get used to Lulubelle and hard work. Let’s check this place out.”

  The backslap stings, even through overalls. However, he does not stagger forward but twists his own sinewy frame, deflecting most of the impact of the blow.

  This earns him the slightest double nod from Hal.

  Ted leads them to the entrance of the service elevator. Other mentoring teams are already mustering; they are all to see underground operations for the first time. While waiting for the elevator to come to the surface, Ted and Hal focus their attention on Ashley.

  During a break in testing for potential employees the week before, Lew learned Ashley also grew up in Saskatoon and went to the University of Saskatchewan, enrolled in drama. Ashley attached himself to Lew over the dozen or so other university students seeking summer and temporary mine employment. They were both in arts, Lew being an English major, but they had never met each other on campus. Lew was the only one who listened to Ashley complain about how every single U of S Education program “sucked and blew,” which is why he had changed his major to drama. They were physically similar: twenty years old, tall, slender, both sporting dark, spiky hair, and both with a total inability to grow any sort of facial hair other than a bad cheesestache. All the other students hoping for work were built like CFL linebackers.

  Lew found he had himself a twin or a shadow, who was now assigned to his mentoring group.

  Under Ted and Hal’s scrutiny Ashley hunches his shoulders. Shuffling his feet, he moves back slightly and stares at Ted’s freckled arms.

  Hal says to him, “We’ll come up with a nickname for you soon enough.”

  Ashley shuffles his feet again.

  The service elevator door opens and the miners coming off shift stream out. The shift production supervisor joins the orientation teams and barks out that hardhats and safety goggles are to be put on immediately.

  With hardhats and goggles in place, overall sleeves are rolled completely down and zippers zipped completely up. The supervisor slides into a litany of safety protocols, bellowing them out like a war movie drill instructor.

  The senior miners don’t need safety gear prompting and Lew gets that the safety protocols are for the benefit of the new workers. Which is too bad, because even though the supervisor yells, he can’t hear everything he says through all the back talk, fart jokes, and actual farting.

  He thinks, well what do you expect with a bunch of men working together? First, they come up with that stupid Lulubelle moniker and then they all try to be comedians. Why did I take this job, again? Oh, yeah, money to finance my post-secondary education.

  As a general arts student, he had taken two geology courses to fill his degree’s science requirement. Mid-semester, during a class in the second course, mine recruiters came in search of summer and temporary employees. New contracts with Asia meant substantial production increases and serious staffing shortages. He applied for a summer job right at the end of that particular class.

  He wrote on the application under general information that he was considering a degree in Geology. He then passed all of the preliminary testing and now he finds himself among a legion of miners.

  Or a legion of loogins, he thinks. Loogin, a common epithet for anyone who fumbled or made any kind of mistake in high school Phys Ed. Yep, I’m stuck with a bunch of looginaires.

  He misses most of the safety protocol lecture because of the ongoing back-talk but hears enough to realize that one of the reasons for three days of orientation before actual work is so the senior miners can get the new workers up to speed on safety.

  The off-shift miners have finally exited the elevator and the new shift crowds on board.

  When the elevator car moves, Lew feels an immediate rush. With a top speed of twenty feet per second, the garage-sized car descends silently, the flow of air whispers around him. On this first ride down, he ignores the crowd of miners and the clutter of equipment. He watches millennia of strata whiz by through the upper wire-mesh walls of the car.

  Ashley finds his way to a corner. Lew glances at him. Firmly ensconced in the perpendicular, solid lower walls, he is rigid and wide-eyed, with his arms tight at his sides. He grips his cooler and thermos jug, knuckles white.

  Other veteran miners nudge each other and cast nods in Ashley’s direction.

  Hal slithers to his side, leans over him, and says, “Scared?”

  Ashley answers too loudly and too quickly. “NO. It’s just, this isn’t exactly the summer job I wanted.”

  Lew thinks, wrong answer.

  Hal says, “Oh, I’m sorry Purrfesser. You were supposed to be in the corporate Info Department, yeah? But somebody made a mistake.”

  Ashley hangs his head. “I applied for an office job.”

  Rubbing his chin, Hal says, “But it’s below a Fine Arts student to hand out key rings and promo binders. So you abandoned head office and came to toil with us kobolds, yeah? What a grievous miscarriage. As shop steward, I’ll launch an immediate grievance on your behalf.”

  Ashley raises his head, expression suggesting he half believes Hal. The men in the car erupt in laughter. Ashley’s face turns crimson and he hangs his head once again, chin on his chest.

  Lew does not laugh.

  Hal then turns his head to face Lew, slowly, like some sort of indestructible reptilian monster targeting his next hapless human victim.

  Lew empathizes with Ashley; they are both poor misplaced arts students among engineers and tradesmen. He thinks, yep, I’m next, and immediately holds up his free hand. His other hand loosely holds the handles of his cooler and thermos jug.

  Open palm toward Hal, he says, “Hey.
I’m happy to be gainfully employed. And I just learned I seriously love riding this crazy fast elevator.”

  Lost in the rush of the elevator’s descent at that moment, Lew can’t help but gaze around again, a grin on his face.

  “That so?” Hal says, his eyebrows cocked.

  Lew no longer feels those grey-blue eyes boring into the back of his brain.

  “‘Gainfully employed,’ eh?” Hal continues. “Well, well, aren’t we all. Well spoken Monsewer English Major. Too bad your ultimate destination is the tailings heaps.”

  Ted laughs and says, “So don’t cream your jeans, Lulubelle. This trip underground is only for operations orientation. It’s the first and probably the very last time you get to ride this speed-demon.”

  Hal adds, “Yeah, and the most complex piece of machinery you newbs get to use this summer is a shovel.”

  The elevator decelerates and stops with a smooth whoosh.

  After finishing the morning-long orientation of underground operations, the mentoring teams return to the surface. Stowing their coolers and thermos jugs in a lunch area attached to the mill building, they enter the milling operations area proper.

  After everyone puts in industrial ear plugs, Ted has them wait a moment to acclimatize to the noise in the mill. He drapes one arm over Lew’s shoulders and the other over Ashley’s. With that huge grin on his face, he yells, “If you got a hard-on for the roar of big machines, this is the place you wanna be. ‘Coz this is where you’re gonna be. Like it or not.”

  Glancing behind him, Lew sees Hal staring directly at Ashley, who is grimacing and holding his hands up to his ears even though he wears plugs.

  At this, Hal hovers around Ashley, patiently yelling out the milling processes.

  Ted stays close to Lew, nudging him every now and then.