The Carpenter (27 page)

He’d taken to studying the tabletop again. After a moment, he went on: I’d been on a real tear for a few days, way out on Indian River. Me, Speedy Simmons, Jimmy Robichaud, a couple others. It was maybe September. I came back to the boarding house at night. I wasn’t supposed to be living there any more—I was in my
twenties—but I couldn’t hold a job down for real long, and I’d been evicted from the place I was living. I remember that night because it was late, eleven o’clock. I had Jimmy Robichaud’s dad’s Buick, which we all just kind of used when we needed to. Anyways there I was near the house and that fucking T-Bird is going the other way real fast, and I thought, there’s the Gradys cruising again. But when I got to the house, your mom, she was just sitting outside on the porch. She … she had no shoes on. She was barefoot. Her legs were all scratched up.

Lee peeled the label off his beer bottle. Pete’s mouth was bone dry.

—I never figured out why those two guys thought she’d just keep her mouth shut, said Lee. I thought about it a long time. But you know? They were right. She did. Far as I know I’m the only person she ever told it to, and I think it was on account of I saw their car and I saw her sitting there on the porch. The only time she said a word of it was to me that night. How she was walking home from the grocery store where she worked. How they came by and saw her and picked her up, she said, and this was maybe nine o’clock at night in the fall, so it was full dark, and then they didn’t drive her straight home. She didn’t talk a lot more about what happened after that. Not to me. Not even when she got called up as a witness for the defence, and I was sitting there with those charges laid on me. She just looked at the floor when the lawyer asked her. Did you know Charles or Simon Grady? She said, no, sir. Not at all, sir. I guess they all knew a lot more about shame than I ever did, which is why they knew she wouldn’t say anything. I don’t know what Chuck and Simon did when they went back into town, and after that night Simon was never able to talk clearly anyway. He couldn’t even be called as a witness. See, I don’t know where they went after they left her. I only know I got to their house before they did. When they got home it was around midnight and I was there already.

Pete started to get up from the table. He felt queasy.

—Sit down, said Lee.

—I have to go.

—Sit your ass down, Peter. You wanted me to start talking about this, well, I am. The Crown wanted to hang me for it. You can’t duck out now.

Pete sank into the chair.

—Jimmy’s dad was a framer on a building crew, said Lee. He had a framing hammer in the trunk of the car. It was twenty-two ounces. I didn’t say nothing to Chuck or Simon and they never got any words out themselves. The whole thing was done and over in less than a minute and I drove away. I threw the hammer down a creek. But the thing is, Simon Grady was still alive. That’s something I didn’t think of at the time. When I left them, they both had their heads pretty messed up. I … I know I used the claw a couple of times, anyway. But I was also young and pissed off and drunk. Stupid. Simon Grady was still alive, but he was all messed up. He never got right again.

—I feel like I’m going to throw up.

—They gave me twenty years. They talked about some of the chicken-shit stuff I’d been picked up for before, and they called a few witnesses who said I had prior history with the Gradys. And me, us, whatever you want to call it, I just told the court I didn’t like them bothering my sister. If she couldn’t talk about what they’d done to her, I couldn’t speak for her. Mom knew, and I think some people in town might of had the idea, but it never come out in the newspaper. Just how the local hockey hero got murdered in cold blood. They called it envy. The first chaplain, when I was inside, he called it covetousness, and he showed me in the Bible what that was.

Pete stood up again. He was unsteady and feeling sick to his stomach. He said: I don’t understand at all why you … why you’d come back here. Why you’d do that to us.

—To us, said Lee. Is that right? You’re the man of the family now? You’re the big man?

—I’ve got to go.

—Well, one more thing, big man. I’m sorry you had to find out from me, like this. I’m sorry your mother won’t say nothing, specially when I think of all the time I sat in jail. I’m sorry for all that wasted time. I’m sorry for what’s gone down since I got out, like Bud, for example. I’m sorry that Simon Grady is a halfwit because I didn’t have the sense to make sure I finished it. But I’m not sorry for what I did. I never will be. I can see that. Clear as anything.

—What gave you the idea you could decide that?

—What gave you the idea I couldn’t?

He drove the streets. He hadn’t eaten all day. He clenched the wheel until his hands hurt. The flame in his gut had turned into a fire, and it was spreading through every part of him. Every thought in his head was a wordless, desperate scream. In the late evening he pulled up a few doors down from Nancy’s house. He could see the cars in the driveway, the station wagon among them, and all the lights in the windows, and people moving about on the porch. He got out of his car and crossed the yard.

Pete went into Nancy’s living room. There had to be fifty people there and it was hot and cloudy with smoke. Nancy must have seen him as soon as he came in, because she appeared almost immediately.

—What are you doing here?

—I’m looking for somebody.

—Emily’s not here.

—I’m not looking for her. I won’t be long.

—Hey, said Nancy. Look …

He brushed past her. She grasped his arm and he pulled away. He walked through the kitchen and the dining room. Nancy fell into step behind him.

He found Roger in the den at the back, the same place he’d been when they first exchanged words. He was with a few of his friends and some girls. They were playing quarters on the coffee table.

Roger’s head turned. He looked drunk.

Pete kicked the chair out from under him. Roger went down and Pete jumped on top of him. He pinned him down with his knees. Roger had his arms raised to fend the blows as they came. Around them, voices cried out. Pete felt a hand grasp a mittful of his collar and he half turned and punched somebody in the testicles. He was punched hard in the side of the forehead. The world spun. He was hauled backwards. He could see Roger crawling away on his elbows, crablike. Roger’s nose was bleeding onto his shirt.

Pete was on his knees and he was up and down and up again. He held his own. In the end, he was dragged out of the house. He staggered off through the front yard and paused under a street light. Roger came out and stood on the porch, crying out that he would kill Pete. There were neighbours peering out their windows and doors. Pete didn’t say anything. He walked back to his car and got in and turned the key in the ignition.

Streets rolled out in front of him. He drove along the lakeshore. He drove up the hill, drove past Galilee Tabernacle, drove out to the CIL factory, to the shopping mall, drove back down the hill, sped along River Street. He saw the place where Emily had told him he’d better kiss her. He kept going, but there was only so far you could drive before you were covering the same streets again. He was shaking coldly, seeing the red and green lights around windows, the store signboards saying M
ERRY
C
HRISTMAS
, the wooden crèches out front of the churches. Everything seemed cheap and cruel. He hadn’t balanced any account, and he couldn’t possibly go home.

O
nce more, Lee went to look at the boarding house. When he got there, he stood with his fists pocketed. Then he went up the driveway and around to the back of the house, watching the windows all the while. The back porch was still there but it had been bolstered with pressure-treated lumber and repainted. He went around the porch and followed the steps down to the basement door. The steps and the door were exactly as he remembered them.

He was reaching for the knob when he heard the porch door open and close above. He looked up, blinking against the sky, and could see the side of somebody’s head, could see gloved fingers moving along the deck rail. There were two of them. One asked the other where they should go for lunch and the other said downtown.

Lee didn’t move. He was in plain sight if the men above looked down. But a moment later they were gone in a car. Lee waited a little longer. Water dripped from an icicle overhead. He tried the basement door and found it locked. He tried it again. He pushed the door with his shoulder. It did not budge. That was that.

He went back up the steps and around the side of the house and back to the street.

In those days long past, if he had happened to glimpse the crippled caretaker outside in the yard, he was not afraid of the man at all. He wondered what had become of him.

You know, I’ve seen the old boarding house a few times. You ever go back there?

—Not so’s I remember.

—You remember that day when Dad died?

—Would you change the channel?

Lee went to the television. He changed one soap opera for another until Irene nodded and said: I like this program.

—Down the basement of that house they had a big coal furnace. I saw it the day Dad died.

—Mrs. Pound didn’t want any kids down there.

—I remember. I went down there anyways. I never liked anybody telling me what I couldn’t do.

She lifted a finger from the bedrail and poked the side of his hand with it. Her skin was tight across her skull. She breathed. Her eyes flashed in their dark hollows. Her voice rasped at him: That was a long time ago, Leland.

—Yes.

Lee looked into the other half of the room. No one had come yet to occupy the other bed. His mother had gotten her own room after all.

—Barry thinks you’ve been drinking.

—He said that?

—He worries about you.

—He doesn’t need to worry so much.

—He worries about Donna. He worries about the little boys. Peter.

An unpleasant feeling went through Lee at the mention of Pete’s name. He’d been drunk when he told Pete the truth. He didn’t know if he would have told him otherwise, although it bothered him to think how the great shame remained a secret even now. It more than bothered him—it made him angry. He flexed his fist and pulled his eyes away from his mother’s and looked at the TV for a little while. He didn’t know if word had gotten out to the rest of the family yet that he’d told Pete the truth, and he didn’t know what it would be like for him to see Pete again. Maybe it would be easier not to see the kid at all any more.

And besides, nobody had said anything to him yet, about coming over on Christmas Day.

He leaned over and adjusted the blankets on Irene’s bed. He said: Well, Barry doesn’t need to worry about me.

She groped for his hand. She smiled: I know. I told him. He doesn’t need to worry about me neither. I’m close. Called up to Jesus. He doesn’t need to worry about me at all.

The Owl Café was turning a brisk trade. There was a hiss of frying in the kitchen. The cook sweated in his whites and turned plateloads of food onto the wicket. The radio played an endless list of Christmas songs. Voices were layered in conversation and there were boxes and bags full of gifts piled into booths. The waitresses moved about quickly. Nobody paid attention to the bell-chime as the front door opened.

Helen served a bowl of soup to an old deaf man at the counter. When she turned she saw that Lee was down at his usual place, sitting with his hands folded on the countertop. He was alone, as always.

She went down to him.

—Hello, Brown Eyes. Haven’t seen you in here in a little while.

—That’s true.

The cook spoke through the wicket: Helen, your fried chicken’s up.

—It’s real busy, Brown Eyes, said Helen. Maybe later on.

—I want a cup of coffee. Maybe I’ll order some lunch.

She brought Lee a mug of coffee. He emptied two sugars into it and stirred in some cream.

Helen took a plate of fried chicken from the wicket and delivered it to a woman down the other end of the counter. Lee watched her. The place was busier than he had ever seen it. Near Lee, a man was trying to flag Helen down to pay his bill. Helen came and took the bill and returned the man’s change. The man left her two quarters. She moved a strand of hair from her forehead and asked Lee if he was hungry.

—Am I hungry. Why not. I’ll have the BLT.

She wrote the order down and posted it on the wicket. Lee lifted his coffee. He watched her work. The old deaf man had finished his soup. Helen cleared away the bowl. The old man counted coins out of a leather change purse and laid them on the counter. He stood up from his stool and shuffled out of the diner.

The cook called to Helen that the BLT was up. She brought the plate to Lee and refilled his coffee. She had her other hand knuckles-down on the countertop. Lee closed his own hand over hers.

—Haven’t seen you.

—I’ve been busy.

She pulled her hand away. The people sitting around them were making an effort not to notice.

—I’ll check on you in a bit.

—Wait, said Lee. What time do you get done today?

—It’s real busy. I don’t know what time I’ll finish. I’ll check on you in a bit.

She moved back down the counter again. Lee raised his hand, called to her:

—Hey, miss. There’s a hair in my sandwich.

She returned to him. He was grinning.

—It’s real busy, Lee.

—Let’s just make some plans.

Helen pressed both hands down on either side of Lee’s plate and pitched her voice low and lethal: If you’ve got to know, Lee, you talked about all that serious shit. You and me, serious. You think that’s what I wanted to hear? You can’t even keep a goddamn job. Now why don’t you eat your sandwich and pay your bill and get back to whatever it is you were doing.

She went back down the counter, moving with her shoulders lifted. Not three seconds later there was the noise of crockery breaking. All conversation in the café came to a halt. Lee was standing when she turned. She could see the shards of his plate
and the mess of the food on the floor. He drove the coffee mug forward off the counter. The mug burst on the floor as the plate had.