Black Rabbit and Other Stories (26 page)

“Need help?” I asked.

“No, I can manage, it's not far.”

The lantern cast an emerald sphere of light around the boat as it rolled through solid black. I heard clanging from the docks and dogs barking. In garish whiteface, a mocking moon gaped down at us, its reflection shimmering in the water like pooled milk. The little man rowed with sharp grunts and heaves and shortly pulled up to a dock. He got out of the rowboat and helped me out. Then he tied the rowboat and seized the lantern. As he turned, his hat flew off his head and fell into the water. Without hesitation he handed me the lantern, removed his shoes, and leaped into the water. He went in without a splash. I couldn't see him. I waited.

After some minutes he still did not appear. I peered at the dark water but saw nothing. Where could he have gone? It had started snowing. At first a few big fat flakes whirled around like lackadaisical moths, then more and more fell, more and more until the air became a swirling mass of white. It fell so thickly I could no longer see the water. In moments snow blanketed the dock. Teeth chattering, I hugged myself to keep warm. I felt concern for the little man, but not so much that I would jump into the cold water after him, not with the sudden onset of a blizzard. That would have served no purpose. Not knowing what else to do, I staggered through the blinding snow toward what looked like an entrance in a large wall of corrugated steel down the dock. As I drew closer, a rubber-coated handle came into view: a door of some sort, I conjectured. I pulled the handle, and a section in the plate wall swung away from the structure, slipping from its stanchions and slamming to the dock with a great metal slap.

I entered the building and found myself standing in a concrete entranceway with a caged blue lamp shining from the ceiling. Blue
sticky puddles gleamed on the floor and I stepped over them. Christmas music murmured from deep inside the building, Frank Sinatra's
White Christmas—scratchy
and quavery as if being spun on an old-fashioned hand-cranked phonograph. I walked down a dim hall that reeked of fish entrails. At the end of this hall shone a pale yellow light. I heard strange sounds, like wood being chopped.

“Who's there?” a thin voice cried.

“I'm looking for Tommy.”

“Is that Charlie?”

“That's me.”

“Come in so I can see you.”

I followed the music to a chilly cinder-block chamber aglow with strings of red and white Christmas lights and flickering votive candles. A concrete slab sat in the middle of the chamber with a sluice-channel running under it. A mahogany handkerchief table flanked the slab; on top of it rested a small phonograph with the turntable spinning a record:

May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white
.

On the concrete slab sprawled an enormous beheaded fish, a marlin, or a tuna. Tommy stood behind it in a gore-splattered leather apron and rubber gloves, holding a blood-greased cleaver. A veil of fine black mesh covered his face, and on his head he wore a brass helmet of sorts. Tommy has his vanities, I thought, as he yanked a stretch of viscera taut.

“Tonight is my gutting night and normally I take no visitors.” He reached his hand into the cavity of the great fish and pulled out intestines. They writhed and wriggled like skinned snakes. He tossed them into a barrel and reached into the fish again.

“You're a hard man to get a hold of.”

“Apparently not.” He yanked. “So, tell me, Charlie. What brings you here?”

“I think you know why I'm here, Tommy.”

He slammed the cleaver down with a clang, wiped his gloved
hands on his apron, and nodded. “I know why you're here, Charlie. I know. Did you have to come tonight, with Christmas just around the corner?”

“What can I say, Tommy? Nothing personal on my part.” Tommy waved his hand. “I know, I know. This has nothing to do with you, Charlie. Nothing at all. Listen, I have a small, a very small favour to ask.”

“Go ahead, Tommy.”

“Can we play the song one more time? Just one more time.”

I thought it wouldn't hurt to let him hear the song. “Go ahead.”

“I've loved this song ever since I was a kid,” he said, going around to the phonograph to restart the record. “Doesn't feel like Christmas without it.”

I couldn't disagree. “It's snowing outside, Tommy.”

“Well, how about that. And look who's here to join us. Come right in, Bruno.”

The little man stood in the entranceway sopping wet and trembling, clutching his crumpled, dripping fedora.

“Little accident, Bruno? Too bad. You'll have to get out of those wet clothes later, eh. Charlie, you don't mind if I sing along, do you? You're welcome to join in. Bruno, you too.”

“That's okay, Tommy. Let's just get this over with.”

He lowered the needle and the music started up:

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas . . .
Just like the ones I used to know . . .

Tommy sang along with a high sweet voice. He wasn't half-bad. The little man, Bruno, surprised me, crooning in a rich baritone. They sang their hearts out. It was a beautiful thing, touching. But it gave me no Christmas feeling whatsoever, it did not move my spirit. I had become too cynical perhaps, too hardened. To think that not so long ago Christmas had filled me with joy. Yes, I used to be quite a softy when it came to Christmas. What happened? What happens to everything. It gets old.

SALVATORE DIFALCO
was born and raised in Hamilton Ontario, the son of Italian immigrants. He attended the University of Toronto, and won a Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship, completing an M.A. in English. He continued on with PhD studies in Modern Irish Literature and is the author of one volume of poetry and one chapbook of stories,
Outside
. Mr. Difalco has had numerous stories published in journals and literary magazines in both Canada and the U.S. He currently lives in Niagara Falls.