How Loveta Got Her Baby

by Nicholas Ruddock

  Aaron said he was detached, emotionally, but he knew how the dog must have felt.

  “Lucky loved them, every single one,” he said.

  He’d named the dog Lucky himself, later on.

  “I think we might’ve been buddies with Otto Bond, Henry, but we never had the chance. None of them knew a damn thing about botulism.”

  “Botulism?”

  All of a sudden, Aaron Stoodley was the leading world expert on all the poisons you could get, cooked into food. He told Henry how he saw it in his scenario, how he saw it clear as day.

  Johnny Drake was the first to go because he had most of the beer. He had a head start on the rest of them, he felt weak on his legs. He’d never felt his lips go numb like that, and never before saw double. Now he saw two of the little dogs, so he lay down, tried to orient his eyes, lay back so he was part-way in the bean-bag chair, part-way on the floor, his legs stretched out, and he breathed real shallow for a couple of hours.

  “Could have laid a feather on his lips,” said Aaron, “but he never woke up. Last thing he saw was a loon on the water. It opened up its mouth, voiceless.”

  Then the botulism that was hidden in the sauce caught up to Terry Snook. He was out on the wharf with his sister when she ran home for lunch and left him there. He heard a low sound, like a make-and-break engine miles away, a choking off and on.

  Shawn Blagdon? He went out for a walk, out when the tide was low and when he looked back there was nothing behind him but water. Couldn’t swim a bit, gave up easy. Barry Rose walked up Iron Skull, he liked to do that, it took all day to climb the mountain that looked over the sea, and when he got to the top the wind died real mysteriously. He couldn’t see half-way to English Harbour.

  Aaron Stoodley was too upset at Justin Peach to figure out just what went on, what it was that Justin Peach saw when he died.

  “That fool Justin Peach,” said Aaron, “he’d cooked up that sauce way back when, he’d mixed it in a pan like it was just beans for dinner. Never thought of the pressure cooker, didn’t know a damn thing about fixing up preserves. Once, maybe twice, he put up jam.”

  Aaron Stoodley would have given back the nine thousand dollars just to have those boys alive, have them wake up, but they never did.

  Of course the last one to go on that night was the soccer star himself, Otto Bond. He lay back and his blonde hair, what there was of it, cut real short, was bent up against the arm of the couch from the weight of his head. He felt his mouth go dry. He saw Bridie from the pizza place. Then he saw the winning goal go in again, curled off his foot up high, smack up under the crossbar.

  He saw the little baby in her arms.

  Then he felt the dog jump on his lap and that was the last thing he knew, and the dog was still there when the police came and broke down the door, and by that time Otto Bond was cold. He felt like he was made out of porcelain, when they touched him.

  Aaron didn’t have to make up any scenarios after that. It was all in the newspapers in Halifax. Public knowledge, how the boys from the soccer team died overnight. The terrier had his picture in the paper, ONLY SURVIVOR it said underneath in capital letters, and off he went to the SPCA. He was still there six months later when in came Aaron Stoodley, re-named him Lucky and brought him home to stay. That’s how long it took, six months no less, for the lawyers from Halifax to track down Aaron. They gave him all the money the boys had, what there was of it. It didn’t amount to much, especially after the lawyers, but Aaron was the closest living relative they had left on the earth, so he was the one to get it.

  Still, Aaron Stoodley couldn’t sleep at night. The nine thousand dollars, the dog named Lucky, the rag-rug, he had them all, but when he looked in the mirror, he saw his face was worn, his arms and legs got all sagged out like he was a hundred years old.

  “Total insomnia, I’ve got it bad,” he said to Henry Fiander.

  Henry watched him fall apart for a month or two and then, after talking to Eunice Cluett, he gave him some considered advice.

  “Snap out of it, Aaron Stoodley, smarten up, you got your whole life to think of.”

  It couldn’t have been that simple admonition that did it, but the next day Aaron looked a lot better.

  “What happened to you?” Henry asked.

  “I had another scenario, and I fell asleep.”

  Then he told Henry what he saw. First off, he realized—thank God, Henry—that what happened was that Otto Bond didn’t die after all. Sure, he was taken to the morgue in the same ambulance as Terry Snook. Aaron saw it, the ambulance had a red cross on its side, no siren, after all what’s the rush, so it pulled in slowly, carefully, under a stone arch by the hospital and it stopped and then the back doors opened up. A couple of men in white uniforms appeared and took out the stretchers. You couldn’t see the boys at all because they were covered up in sheets, like ghosts. Then the men in the uniforms wheeled the carts down a long hall and turned into a room.

  My, but it was cold in there.

  They lifted Terry Snook and they lifted Otto Bond and they placed them just as they were on a metal table. One metal table for each. All six of them then, all the friends, were there lined up in a row. Then the men left and turned off the light and it got colder and colder in the pitch-black dark.

  If it hadn’t been for the night cleaner, whose name was Moses Sealy, Otto Bond would have died again for sure, frozen to death. As it was, it took a couple of hours until Moses came in. He turned on the overhead light so he could see around. He swept up the floor with a broom. He had on a big pair of green rubber gloves, so he didn’t have to touch anything, and he didn’t seem at all worried by the boys being there. Then Moses Sealy finished up, flicked off the light, started to go out the door and then for some reason he turned back and turned the light on again.

  Hey that sheet’s moving, Moses thought to himself.

  Prickles ran up and down his spine. He looked again and sure enough there was a motion of breathing there. You could scarcely see it. He walked over, slipped off one of his gloves, pulled the white sheet down off Otto Bond’s head.

  This boy’s not so cold. Feel him.

  He took off his other glove, went to the wall phone, called 9-1-1, and he sat right down beside Otto Bond till they got there.

  After two weeks on the respirator in Intensive Care, after they heated him up with electric blankets, Otto Bond walked out as good as new. Except he had weak legs. First thing though, he went down to the pizza place. Bridie fainted when she saw him, and Jules picked her off the floor and told her to go home with Otto Bond. Then the two of them walked over to Bridie’s, got the baby into the stroller, met Bridie’s mother for the first time.

  “Pleased to meet you, Otto Bond,” is what she said.

  Her mother liked him right off, you could see it, the way she acted the whole time when he was there.

  Later she said to Bridie, “Oh my, I do likes him, Bridie, he seems like a fine boy.”

  Aaron Stoodley told Henry and Eunice it was then that he fell asleep, by a miracle. He figured it was about 2 a.m. that it happened. When he woke up, he felt rested; he had the little dog, Lucky, curled up half-way down his feet.

  fog

  IT WAS A busy day and a lucky one for them, the day they ran over Aaron Stoodley in the fog. They could have killed him but they didn’t, just by accident got involved in the event that turned his life around. It even gave them, Henry and Eunice, a leg up too, as it turned out.

  It was a Monday, so Queenie and Henry and Eunice had to get up early. Eunice had the job—she did the laundry down at the nursing home. There was a lot of drooling there, and worse, so Eunice went in part-time. Turn-around time on the sheets, the towels, the washcloths was critical, according to Mrs. Hann. She could lose her license. So even though the visibility outside was down to zero, off they had to go. The rain was hanging out there like a shroud. Little Queenie materialized out of the mist like a mummer, held her shiny black purse with the gold chain out in front of her. Y
ou wouldn’t know the ocean was anywhere, it was so quiet.

  They drove real slowly, to keep out of trouble. Henry could barely see the ornament on the hood, and all the wipers did was move the water off till it layered up again.

  As usual, it was Queenie’s job to spot the stop signs. Two years old, but she was smart, dependable. If she didn’t shout out “Stop Sign,” he’d drive right through like he was stunned. He had it all figured out, which made it perfectly safe. He stared straight ahead, looked out of the side of his eyes without moving them at all. All you got to do if you want to try it sometimes, is raise your eyebrows.

  They’d all laugh when he did that, it made the seventeen miles into town seem like nothing at all. There were only two of those stop signs before the yellow flasher downtown, and when Queenie shouted out “Stop Sign,” Henry would stop right off and say, “Oh my God thank you, Pasquena, if it hadn’t been for you we’d have gone through that stop sign.”

  And Eunice would say, “Good for you, Queenie.”

  They were used to fog, thick fog off the Grand Banks. It was a fact of life. Henry learned to drive long ago by the feel of the Goodyears; he wove his way back and forth ever so slightly from the blacktop to the shoulder, he felt the gravel kick up under the floorboards, turned back again to the pavement, snaked up and down the right side of the road. They kept the radio off so they could hear and feel the sound of the gravel kicking up.

  Ten miles an hour, tops.

  “Stop sign!”

  Sure enough there it was off the right fender. Queenie was quick, even after forty minutes of nothing. Seven more miles, that meant.

  Henry put on the brakes and came to a nice little stop.

  “Oh my God, thank you, Pasquena,” he said.

  “Queenie, good for you,” said Eunice.

  They started back up again.

  “Maybe, Eunice, ask for a raise? Seven dollars an hour, we’d at least pay for gas.”

  “I know. We got to go west, Henry, I think, the tar sands.”

  “Alberta? I don’t know about that, that means a ferry ride. Could make Queenie sick.”

  Henry had once been on the Fortune to St. Pierre ferry on a rough day. There’d been a lot of heavers on that trip, and to tell the truth, he got queasy himself. One guy by the rail had berry pie and carrots stuck in his beard. He should never have looked windward when he threw up his lunch. Sometimes it just happens though, it catches you unawares.

  “Stop sign!”

  No sign of let-up in the fog.

  “Queenie, you’re some sharp. Now watch for the turn-in.”

  One hundred yards now to the Fiddler’s Green Rest Home, best guess. Henry relaxed but kept the car at a crawl. It was a damn nice situation, the heater was kicked in, the three of them were happy, solid as could be. Still no sign of the yellow flasher though. All of a sudden Henry felt a thump somewhere near where Eunice sat, and then there was this bump, a kind of soft jar, they all felt it. It came up through the front right tire.

  “Jeez, what was that?”

  He stopped the car dead. The rear wheel hadn’t bumped up yet.

  “I saw nothing out there,” said Eunice.

  “A moose, a bear?” said Henry.

  “Something, that’s for sure.”

  They sat there and they listened.

  “Eunice, you hear something?”

  “Aaron Stoodley,” Queenie said.

  “No,” said Eunice, “quiet, don’t say anything. Listen.”

  There. Henry thought he could hear a moan. He wasn’t sure. There was still no sign of wind, nothing out there to make a sound like that.

  “Jeez,” he said, “I don’t know.”

  “Henry, get out of the car.”

  “Eunice, just open your window first, take a look down.”

  Henry knew a trucker who hit a bull moose on the Trans-Canada near Gander, got out to investigate and then bang, his friend got skewered through and through by the rack of the moose. Mind you, that animal was dead, his neck was snapped and broken on impact, but the nervous system was still alive, the antlers kicked and thrashed on their own. Struck poor Mr. John Fudge right through the heart and he bled to death right there. The Mounties had to close the highway, call in the clean-up crew. They had to use Industrial Dust-Bane, that’s what Henry heard.

  Eunice rolled her window down.

  “Can’t see a thing.”

  She was leaning half-way out of the car by then, her jeans lifted right off the vinyl.

  For sure a kind of low-pitched groaning sound came from what seemed to be just under the middle of the stalled car. It didn’t sound like a wild animal.

  “Eunice, Queenie, I’m getting out now.”

  It had to be done. For safekeeping, he popped out the keys and gave them to Eunice. He left the headlights on just in case, but he didn’t want to get blinded so he went around in the red glow of the back fender, feeling his way alongside the car, sidling through the fog like he was Sherlock Holmes. Carefully, he stepped up to the passenger side. Then his boots hit something soft and the softness moaned out.

  “Henry,” it said.

  “Oh Jeez, Aaron Stoodley. You’re no bloody moose.”

  He was lying there at right angles to the car, just under where Eunice sat. His skinny legs were half-under and in the backwash from the lights you could see the tire prints on his overalls, round about the knees. They’d run him over sure enough, but they’d missed his head, his vitals.

  Eunice opened up her door.

  “Hey Eunice,” Aaron Stoodley said, “help me.”

  Henry bent down. Aaron must have been outside for some time before they bumped over him. His woolen coat was sodden through.

  Eunice then stepped out her door, and, blinded by the mix of fog and lights, she brought her boot and her weight down by accident on Aaron’s lower stomach.

  “Oh my,” Aaron said.

  His legs bent up all of a sudden till they were stopped by the bottom of the car.

  “Eunice, he’s moving those legs just fine!” said Henry.

  Things were beginning to look up.

  “Let’s pull him out from under now,” said Eunice. “Queenie, don’t you go too far away.”

  Queenie had gotten out of the car too. She was bent down playing in the grass, in the ditch grass, putting pebbles in her purse.

  Eunice and Henry took an armpit each and pulled Aaron Stoodley out from under the car. They were careful, like first-aiders. Then they bent him up ninety degrees at the waist and they watched him work his legs real slow, up and down, flexing his knees. There was no blood anywhere. They half-lifted him, half-pushed him and sat him up against the back door. His head was kind of lolling around like one of those rear-window travelling dogs.

  “Stand up, Aaron Stoodley!”

  That was Eunice. She’d had enough, and now she was late for work.

  “Put him in the back, Henry, sort of fold him up.”

  They bent him double and Eunice got the back door open and they slid him in.

  “Queenie! Get in the car, pronto,” said Eunice.

  Henry took the keys back from Eunice, revved her up and eased down gently on the accelerator and then it was finally through the yellow flasher and there they were at the Fiddler’s Green. Eunice got out with her ponytail, and though Henry couldn’t see it for the fog, he knew that Mrs. Hann would be right there to say hello. The first few times, when Eunice first went to work, Mrs. Hann waited by the frosted doors—the ones you couldn’t see through— and said, “Miss Cluett, it’s ten seconds to eight o’clock.”

  Now they were friends. She’d backed off watching like a hawk.

  So there they were, just Queenie and Henry and the run-over Aaron Stoodley. Aaron obviously needed to be warmed up so they went to the Trepassey Inn for a cup of tea. They opened early there because, for the owners, there was nothing better to do. A perfect place, really, for customers. Aaron was like a cripple up the steps but they landed him safe and sound at the f
irst table. Henry ordered green Jello for Queenie, which made her happy right off. They hung Aaron’s coat up on a hook beside the table, and they watched it drip, start puddles on the floor.

  “Aaron, that’s the first time ever that I ran someone over.”

  Aaron had a sip of his tea and shook his head.

  “Henry, I lost it all. Lost all of my money.”

  “Ran over your legs, though, that’s all. Slow and smooth, and it looks like it was pretty much painless.”

  “Nine thousand dollars, cash money. Oh my God.”

  Henry then added a squirt of extra Top Whip to Queenie’s Jello. It was good Jello, firm and well cooled. She picked up a lime-green cube of it in her fingers, turned it this way and that, held it up to the light and examined the surface striations.

  “The money was like a package, solid, wrapped in one of those fat elastic bands. I dropped it out there, somewhere.”

  “Had I driven, Aaron, I tell you, with less care or without the girls, I’d have flattened your head. We would not be having this conversation.”

  “I think I must have pulled it out by mistake. Got my gloves out of my pocket, that’s when it must have happened. Fell out. I patted my pocket where the money was. Where’s it gone? Fallen to the ground, that’s the only place. Nothing but darkness. Down I went on my hands and my knees, the whole night long, four, five hours and the fog, what, an inch away? Not even that. A blind man, hopeless. Finally, I’m played out, I lie down. Bang, sometime later you run me over.”

  Aaron Stoodley was making no sense. He never had anything like that kind of money.

  “A thousand dollars I’d give, as a reward, to get hold of that money again.”

  Talking to Aaron that morning was like squeezing the bottom of a tube of Pepsodent. There was toothpaste in there somewhere but it took a half hour to drag his story out in some kind of sequence.

  It seems that about three weeks ago Aaron got a letter with two names he never heard of at the top corner. Lawyers in Halifax, it turned out. They wanted to give Mr. Aaron Stoodley nine thousand dollars because some relatives of his had died over there, on the mainland, and somehow the money they left had come down to him. These distant relations had all died from botulism, sadly—they were young—all at one go, their food full of poison and down they went, all in a terrible heap. He asked his grandmother, Priscilla, “We’re related to these boys?” “Yes, yes it’s terrible, death visited upon them so cruelly. Such young men. Cousins, what a shame.”