Everything Is So Political
Page 4
You slip your hand and double check the weight. You can tell it’s still loaded.
“But that wasn’t your gun, was it?” you ask, and with a gentle touch start to lead him towards the back door.
“No, who cares.”
You can see Conlon reach for the phone, he knows what is coming next. You nod to him.
“Well, I think The Lads will care that you’ve used one of our guns.”
Ricky looks at you and you watch his face as he slowly susses his situation out.
You’ve got one hand around his wrist now, ready to dig into a pressure point before twisting his arm up behind his back, but you can see from the way he slumps he’s already defeated.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
What to do? Conor Campbell. There’s another name you’ll never forget. Eejit, just did it for the craic, that’s what you told the Provo Police. You tried, you really did. Just having a laugh. Won’t ever touch a rifle again. He’d promised. Your fault for not hiding the AKs well enough. Tariff? Punishment beating, you suggested, maybe “put out,” told never to return? RUC and Brit attention, they said. Stolen IRA arms. “Yer man won’t ever touch anything again, ever.” How that line goes around your head nights when you can’t sleep. Yer man Conor. Fourteen-year-old Conor.
It was Conor’s first offense, too. Stubborn. We never show any weakness. We never admit when we’re wrong. You can use that though. You do this, that’ll be the end of it. We never admit when we’re wrong. But what will it cost you? And if you do, will he ever understand? Or just hate you forever?
“What do you think?” you say, as you guide him slow but firm toward the back door. “You’ve got to man up, Ricky. You’re not a boy anymore. You’ve got to take responsibility for your actions. And in the past few hours you’ve been engaged in very anti-social behaviour, some of which I’ve witnessed with my own eyes. You realize that these actions have consequences, right?” How many times have you given this sickly speech? A dozen? You could count if you wanted to. You still know all the names. You always were really good at names.
He’s shaking and crying now. You stop at the card display, put a foot on the base, and reach in with your right hand to what you judge is the middle of the central metal pole. Then you heft it out of the support and turn it upside down. Cards and the little black racks holding them tumble down like an upside down Christmas tree, leaving you with just the black metal pole. It’s heavier than it looks, but still far lighter for the upcoming job than you would like. He looks at you, not understanding, but he will. He’ll understand this.
Yes, what he won’t ever understand is how you’re about to save his life. And how this will generate a world of grief for yourself. And it will cost you. Oh yes, this is going to cost you.
You go right into the back, past the jacks, and push the emergency exit door open, leading him into the alley. He’s sussed out what’s coming next and starts to roll up his trouser leg without even asking. You’re thankful he’s not the begging kind. Well, he is, you suppose, but not right now.
The ambulance Conlon rang for pulls into the alley. You tell Ethan and Daniel you’ve not started yet, and Ethan offers to circle around the block and be back in a jiff. You wait until they pull away.
Then you reach into your pocket and wrap your hand around the Browning. You double check to make sure the safety is on. Last thing in the world you want is an accidental discharge while you’re jumping about. There is a cease-fire on, after all. Then you heft the pole back with both hands like a cricket bat and start. Taking your first swing at Ricky’s knee.
Lost-wax Casting
Michelle Butler Hallett
St. John’s, Republic of Newfoundland and Labrador, October 2011
Bored with the old documentary on the vote for responsible government winning over the vote for confederation with Canada in 1949, and irritated by the doc’s title, The Boat Not Taken, Gabriel Furey flicked off the television and turned down the heat. One of his paintings hung near the thermostat. Oil furnace and hot water rads: despite the appalling amount on the oil bills, he almost knelt. Sweet, blessed heat. Too many winters of working outdoors, or at sea, or not working, or homeless, left him prone to chills. Even as a youngster at St. Raphael’s Home for Boys, he’d rarely felt warm enough, October to May being one long exercise in endurance: dampness, draughts, and other invasions. Now in his early sixties, and newly married to Dorinda Masterson, the woman who owned the house with its gorgeous hot water rads, the house where he’d lived in the basement apartment for six years, some nights he felt warm enough.
He got into bed next to Dorinda, careful not to jostle her too much. He’d not shared a bed with anyone for over thirty years.
Warm enough. Safe, too.
From about age four to eighteen, Gabriel had lived at St. Raphael’s. Dorinda the friend and wife could name and list the bare facts, the physical, psychological, and sexual abuse; Dorinda the English and Women’s Studies professor could parse the facts as a bitter narrative of postcolonialism. Priests and Christian Brothers stood trial, died off. The Church struggled beneath the burdens of paying compensation. The St. Raphael’s property, buildings demolished, got sold to a supermarket, one where Gabriel quietly refused to shop, despite it being the closest to the house.
Gabriel never did come forward with his own story. He gave scant details, quietly, to three people: Dorinda, his late daughter Claire, and Claire’s friend – now his – Nichole Wright. Claire, painting a triptych about St. Raphael’s in 2005 and calling it Archangel’s Fury, had certainly guessed a few things. So had that young fellah Nichole had introduced him to, the writer Claire was reading at the hospital, Seth Seabright. Nichole understood – felt, lived, understood – Yes, yes, a nice family like mine. Gabriel cried if he thought about Nichole too much. He’d liked her the first time he met her, across Claire’s hospital bed. Nichole knew Gabriel had abandoned Claire, yet all Nichole said was Nice to meet you, sounding like she meant it. Claire cried when Gabriel told her he liked her painting but found it hard to study. Until that quiet confession, Claire knew only her own anger at the twisted arrival of her terminal cancer and the sudden return of a father who’d abandoned her. Last going off, Gabriel smoothing her hair back and softly kissing her forehead (Her skin’s gone, right gone, like hot paper, Jesus), she’d said: —I always loved you, Dad. I wish you’d never left. I’m starting to see why…
Gabriel had run away from Claire and her mother when Claire was eight, because he found himself studying Claire’s body the way his tormentor once studied his. Drunk and disconnected, but looking at his daughter with that gaze – awareness of gaze – no. No. He loved Claire, with a bitter ferocity, so, to keep her safe from his taint, he ran.
I’m starting to see why, Dad, but you were never that kind of monster.
The moon had barely moved when he woke from a nightmare.
The first time he woke from a visit to hell and memory in Dorinda’s bed, back in June, he cried out and sat upright. She touched his shoulder, and he jerked away so violently that he fell out of the bed, arse-first onto the hardwood floor. He muttered something only half-sensible: —The knit of my skin.
Dorinda flicked on the lamp, but the sudden light created shadows. Gabriel had drawn his knees to his chest and rocked a little, bowing his head; Dorinda laid her hand on his sweaty hair.
—Don’t! Don’t touch me – Jesus.
Dorinda wanted to sigh, but she didn’t. She shoved away her angry memory of clumsy sex earlier in the night, the fumbling followed by murmured reassurances that she loved him, had loved him since 1970 but backed off because he had a girlfriend, not to mention a baby on the way. Instead, Dorinda slipped off Gabriel’s side of the bed, plucked her wool throw from the rocking chair, and laid it over his shoulders.
Gabriel got back in bed but did not lie down. His rounded back did not touch the headboard.
Dorinda smoothed his hair. —Someone chasing you?
—No. The one where I’m runnin away, the first time. Except in the dream I know I’m after abandonin Claire a dozen times already, and I know I got to get up to Ottawa.
—Why Ottawa?
—My mother was Canadian.
—I thought you never knew your mother.
—No more did I. But that’s where I ended up, the fuckin capital of Canada. I left Newfoundland in 79, nowhere to go, and by 1981 I was after gettin a Canada Council grant. I had this missus who was sweet on me, she helped me with the forms, and I started the whole citizenship fuss.
—How’d you get a Canadian arts grant if you weren’t a Canadian citizen?
—Come on, now, Dory. I lied. I lied my face off. I also got a commission for the same project, this NDP fellah wanted to buy it. Had it all lined up, even the foundry. Christ, I loved it – I just knew how – did two bronze sculptures that year. One’s still on Sparks Street. Haven’t touched bronze since.
Dorinda gently massaged Gabriel’s left hand, her fingertips telling her about the ragged cuticles and nails chewed to the quick, the soft and heavily lined skin between forefinger and thumb. —You need to do more sculpture.
—It’s not as easy as pickin up pencils and a few sketchpads.
—No, I suppose not.
Gabriel waited for Dorinda to mention his destroyed Sea Sentry. He’d sculpted the semi-submersible oil rig in shockingly delicate clay for an exhibit called Peril on the Sea. An Assistant Deputy Minister for Tourism, Culture and Recreation, Chris Jackman, had knocked the sculpture over, quite deliberately – back of his hand – dashing the image out of his sight. Stone floor. Shattered clay. Jackman’s father had died when the rig sank in February 1981.
Dorinda kissed his hand. —Gabe, it’s not supposed to be easy.
Later in the morning, Gabriel joined Dorinda in the kitchen. She ate toast while reading news online, and Gabriel peeked over her shoulder. Print: meaning danced. Gabriel’s dyslexia maddened him sometimes; he never felt so stupid as when he could not read. —What’s on the go there?
—Canadian Minister of Defense is in hot water.
—Is he that dicksmack who moved their search and rescue choppers from Halifax up into Quebec?
—That’s him. Ocean-going helicopter fleet based in Shawinigan – brilliant. There’s another demonstration planned in Halifax today. He’s got a cottage in Ontario, a little ways from the Manitoba border, just outside Kenora. Isolated, no roads. He’s facing questions from the Opposition because he got one of those search and rescue helicopters to drop him off and then bring him back out. But wait, there’s more.
Dorinda pointed to a photograph of a large sculpture of a man, the face obscured by buffalo plaid flannel shirts, the head topped with fake moose antlers. Detritus of a boozy party littered the floor round the sculpture’s feet.
Gabriel gave his head a shake.
—That, Gabriel, my love, is a statue of Louis Riel being used as clotheshorse, discovered by a journalist called Jean Thibodeau, whom the minister invited to his cottage because he’s a friend’s brother-in-law. Deliciously, the minister did not know Thibodeau’s a reporter, and a Métis. What’s wrong?
—Just – just tryna read it.
The phone rang. Gabriel answered it while Dorinda closed the laptop. As he hung up, she brought him a cup of coffee. —Who was that?
He wanted to repeat a question Nichole had asked him a few times, fondly: How did I get tangled up with you? – Nichole Wright, worried about Seth. Seems he turned up on her doorstep around three this morning, face swollen like he’d been hit, dying to talk about a Bukowski poem. Her boyfriend’s pissed off, wanted to call the police.
—Did he relapse?
—I dunno. She didn’t say he was drunk, just asked me to keep an eye out for him.
—Oh, Seth.
Gabriel said nothing. He set two places at the table, cut some butter into the dish, lined up a loaf of bread for toasting, counted out half a dozen eggs, and put bacon in the pan.
Seth knocked on the back door as Gabriel was draining the bacon on paper towels. Dorinda let him in, glanced at his swollen face, glanced at Gabriel – both men about the same height, Gabriel’s eyes molasses brown, Seth’s icy blue – then jingled her keys. —Gotta go. I’ll bring home dinner.
Seth waited until Dorinda shut the door behind her. Then, neck stiff, head jutting forward, he sat at the table. A few years before, he’d been sleeping with Dorinda Masterson. In fact, they’d had frantic sex on this very kitchen table, a shaky experience of napkins and cutlery Seth did not recommend. Dorinda did not love him, and Seth did not love her. Well, not the way Gabriel and Dorinda loved each other. Seth had backed off. Joys of a small town masquerading as a city: Gabriel interfered with Seth’s suicide attempt, then sponsored him in AA.
Puzzling out the edges of platonic and erotic love, not always certain those edges existed, Seth handily distracted himself from the pain in his jaw.
Gabriel asked him how many eggs.
—I’m not stayin. I just dropped by.
—Bit of grease will settle ya.
—You fuckin think I’m hungover.
Trying not to grimace at Seth’s breath, Gabriel gave him a sharp look.
—What’s after happenin to your face?
Seth bolted food, chewing quickly on one side. —Got a toothache.
—Seabright, that’s abscessed.
—Yeah, it hurts a bit.
—A bit?
—I couldn’t sleep. I’m after doin everythin I can think of, and then I drank a bit of coffee – coffee, now – because I read caffeine helps with pain, tried a few cans of those energy drinks, had the scattered cup of tea, took a puntload of aspirin and got wicked fuckin heartburn out of it, and the only thing distractin me was these Bukowski poems, and I found this one poem that made me think of somethin Nichole said once, so I had to tell her about it.
—At three in the mornin?
—Honest to Christ, I didn’t know what time it was. Her study light was on. Writin her third book this month I spose, I don’t know how she fuckin does it – and I am not jealous. So I’m out for a walk, fresh air, half-blind with the pain, runnin from myself, because I know if I keep still I’m gonna make tracks for the nearest convenience store beer cooler, but I don’t. I walk, end up by Nichole’s place, think I’ll tell her about the poem. I admit, it doesn’t sound very good, but this is not a relapse. A minor bit of fuckery, maybe, but not a relapse.
—And when did you sleep last?
Seth shrugged.
—Afraid of the dentist, are we?
—No, ya heartless fucker. I can’t find one who’s takin new patients.
—Get your jacket.
—Where we goin?
—Seabright, you got a sack of corrosive shit eatin at your jaw. How much longer, you think, before that reaches your bloodstream? Or your brain?
Pretending to be angry, Seth clinked his fork sharply against his plate. —So you’re just gonna force me to go to the hospital and get this seen to.
—Yes. And you’re gonna go quietly now, and like it.
Seth closed his eyes and smiled, as best he could. —Spose, b’y.
Feeling rumpled and guilty, as though he’d lied on another form, Gabriel studied the screen of Dorinda’s laptop. Seth got seen relatively quickly at the emergency department, dental patients no surprise with all the shortages and wait-lists. Admitted in short order, too, IV antibiotics and regular jabs of pain meds. Gabriel and Seth both had explained Seth’s alcoholism, his fear of relapse once he got a hit of opiate, but the doctor would have none of it.
—Just enou
gh to take the edge off. We’ll taper down as the antibiotics kick in – stop arguing with me. I will not have you suffering just because you’re in recovery. It’s called ‘mercy’. Look it up.
Seth remained unconvinced, but Gabriel told him to shut the fuck up and try to get some rest. Seth listened, happy enough, Gabriel thought, to submit to what sounded like a relatively kind male voice. Gabriel didn’t know much about Seth’s father, only two stories. Pete Seabright would tie his son by the wrists to a hanging net, a good ways off the ground, and leave him there. And Pete might preface sessions in the net by first calmly removing and then tossing aside whatever saint’s pin Seth’s grandmother had stuck to his jacket. The warp and woof of Seth’s suicide attempt two years before, Gabriel figured, lay threaded in that net.
The day’s AA meeting long since missed, Gabriel tried to read up on the Louis Riel statue and the Canadian cabinet minister. A second story had appeared, one focusing on the minister’s spending habits. After some tedious clicking on links, Gabriel found the article Dorinda had shown him, the one with the photo of the obscured statue.
Pleasure and fear shot from his hands to his crotch.
The trousers crammed into boots. The long coat, the big hands, the rounded shoulders. Bronze.
Gabriel had collided with the story of Louis Riel in the eighth grade, where he’d failed every subject except choir because print deceived him. Sometimes he could decipher words and meaning. More often, the strain of reading sickened him: nausea, headaches, guilt. No one bothered to look for a reason why. Brother Michael Stephens, who seemed to know young Furey best, assured the other teachers the boy was stupid and lazy. For many years, Gabriel believed that himself. The dreary day he heard of Riel, he sneaked back into the classroom well after dismissal. Songbirds fled the cold; gulls cried at the dusk; foghorns throbbed and moaned. The stench of supper, cabbage and ham, infested the place. Brother Michael Stephens was teaching about the settlement of Canada that week. Somewhere between the lesson’s harsh sounds of Macdonald, Dennis, Schultz, Dufferin, and Mackenzie shimmered that beautiful French name: Louis Riel. Gabriel looked up from sketching in his scribbler, a habit that often earned him a few cracks of the ruler across his hands. Brother Stephens spoke for several minutes on the seigneurial system before tossing out as a minor footnote that Riel was elected to the Canadian House of Commons, three times, but never took his seat. He did, however, stand a short trial.