Nights Below Station Street (13 page)

What the other men tried to do was separate them from one another and take them on one at a time. And the trailer itself, though small, became sectioned off into war camps. Joe and Hector would look out from behind their clothes they had put up to dry for the night, while the other men had mattresses or boxes shoved up in front of them. Then suddenly a boot would fly across the room, or a pan of some kind, and war would erupt again.

There was a general truce during supper hour or a card game, or when someone was injured, like when Willie, who stood five foot four, tried to swing a stick at Joe and broke his own nose doing it.

And in spite of this, the work went on each and every day.

Nor did Joe tell Dr. Hennessey he was working in the woods, because he knew all hell would break loose. Hennessey had told him he could never work in the woods again, and if he ever found out he was doing it, he would get him fired.

One evening, though, it was Joe’s turn to get water down at the brook, and he went along with his aluminum buckets. It was before supper and the woods were still, with the smell of ash and tree trunks rising up out of circular spools of snow, while everything grew darker along the footpath where he walked. It was up a slippery incline, and carrying two buckets filled with water, where he was attacked; he didn’t have time to put down his buckets, nor to use them as a weapon. When they grappled him by the legs he couldn’t hold his ground, and dropping his buckets, he went backwards, tumbling and sliding toward the brook.

When he stopped sliding he knew he’d hurt his back again. The men tried to lift him to his feet, but he couldn’t stand, and they had to rig up a stretcher and carry him
back to the trailer. It was the end of their war, but it was also the end of Joe’s job. He went home, and spent a week in bed.

When he got back on his feet again, Joe would sometimes go to the curling club to watch Rita curl. Vye and Myhrra curled as well. Vye once upon a time had promised Joe a job at the mill where he worked. Joe liked Vye and had always liked people who were friendly to him. Vye always cursed and carried on unless women were present. As soon as a woman was present, Vye would look stone-faced at anyone who cursed.

Now Myhrra and he were inseparable. He was always friendly to Joe and always asked him how the hunting and fishing were going, things which he did not do himself. So every time he saw him Joe would wait in the background until Vye finished doing something. Often Vye would be frowning, but the moment he saw Joe he would brighten up and exclaim something – about things which both he and Myhrra had decided Joe must have an interest in. Or he would ask Joe how he was.

“Good, good,” Joe would say, smiling, looking down at the man wearing a big yellow tie, and then he’d start to stutter. Vye would listen to him, with friendly impatience as Joe explained how he was waiting for word from his applications. He never mentioned the mill. Vye would nod, and laugh at some joke Joe made. Then he would look out at the ice.

Joe would stand there, lumbering over him, and smile, nod, not only to Vye, but to others around him when they came in, with a tear in his left boot and his woollen sock
sticking out. Then he would clomp outdoors again, walking carefully along in the cold and go down to the rink to watch some intermediate hockey.

Vye, like everyone else, knew about Rita. She was from down river. She had been at first year teacher’s college, and had had a boyfriend, but then for some reason ended up marrying Joe. And all of this seemed to him to be exactly the way things would be with her. He knew her family, and how she used to take care of her relatives, cooking for them from the time she was ten.

“Hi, Rita, how are you right now!” he would shout when he saw her on the street the early part of that winter. Rita would have a scarf around her face, tied at the back of her neck in a knot, as the sun shone on the shovelsful of sand covering the ice, hauling two sleds of children along the sidewalk – so that all you saw were heads bobbing and puffs of breath coming.

“I’m fine,” she would say. Then she would rush back and pin Doreen’s mitts on, or make sure Tammy’s hat was straight, or rush back to pick up a toy that one of the kids had dropped, her legs sturdy and tears in her eyes from the wind.

Once Vye had asked Joe about the old mill Allain Garret owned at one time, and if Joe knew who he bought it off, or whatever became of the equipment. But after he asked this question he forgot about asking it, and didn’t think Joe would go about the river talking to people to get the information, and then come back one night when he was sitting at the curling club. Nor did Joe know until he did all this, that it would embarrass him. And sometimes when he went there Rita looked embarrassed as well. Rita was embarrassed with Joe at this time because she did not want Joe to embarrass himself. So she was always interrupting him when he spoke.

When people told Joe they would get him a job, Joe never thought that they were just talking – he always assumed that they would.

When Joe saw Vye he would often think of how busy he was, and how important, and he would try not to bother him. And Vye would look busy at just that instant, without even wanting to, perhaps, and later on he would point his finger, and say: “How’s everything, Joe?” And Joe would nod and smile.

One night, however, when he thought Joe had left the building, because the outside door had slammed, Vye turned to Myhrra. “Good job – I told you to tell me if you see him coming. I don’t need to put up with Joe Walsh.”

For a second, Joe smiled because he thought Vye knew he was still there, and was teasing him. But suddenly he realized that no one knew he was there. He was alone in the hallway. A storm was coming, there was a sound of a plough on the street, and all the buildings looked secretive and warm all of a sudden. Then he left the building and walked slowly off into the dark.

Rita said she wanted Joe to curl with her, and he said he would. Everything was fine yet when he went out onto the ice he felt uncomfortable. He found it hard to keep down in the hack for any length of time. Vye was his instructor, and he showed him how to hold a broom and how to differentiate between the turns. But for some reason, Joe felt he could not fit in with them.

Joe stood there watching, as Rita showed what she had learned. Then he picked up two stones and started to carry them about with him, lifting them over his shoulder, as if to
make fun not only of his strength but of his general ignorance of the game. He had dug out an old red sweater from his closet, which he thought Rita would want him to wear. But when he looked at her, he realized he must have worn the wrong one, and when he threw a stone it broke the ice, wobbled, and came to a sudden halt. Then they tried a make-up game and Joe got more and more embarrassed.

And suddenly it was settled, at forty-three everything was the way it should be, and there was nothing that shouldn’t be the way it was. And he felt that he had let her down in everything and this was just one more thing he would let her down with – because he felt he couldn’t and didn’t want to curl. He couldn’t curl because he felt Rita didn’t want him to. And yet if he told anyone, this is what he sensed, and it was the real reason he didn’t curl, not only wouldn’t they agree with him but they wouldn’t find any evidence that would support how he felt.

What made him feel guilty was the fact that Rita had ordered him curling shoes.

“You don’t understand,” she had said, “you have to curl.”

And yet still he felt that some part of her didn’t want him to. But worse was that Rita had an entertainment allowance, and she had ordered his shoes from this, and as always this simple act made him sorry for her – as if all her money and hopes, and envelopes in the kitchen drawer over the years, had come to nothing.

“What do you mean I have to curl? I don’t have to curl at all if I goddamn don’t want to, and no one can make me. Besides, all the teams are made up – and you have a team to play on, so go out and have a good time.”

Walking through the woods one night he thought of this. It was fine if she curled. Actually she should curl. It would be good if she did curl, and that settled it.

Joe also wanted Adele’s opinion on this. But Adele said
nothing. She just got angry at him for mixing her up when she was trying to do her new math – and she told him so. And quick as always to defend her anger, she said:

“All’s I know if you don’t smarten up and take some stock of yourself we’ll all be living alone before New Year’s, every last one of us – and I don’t mind – but Milly can’t stand it – her whole potential is being missed – and what if you have another kid.”

“I don’t think …”Joe began.

“But that’s the problem with you, Joe – you don’t think very well at all, it’s as if your brain had turned to plant food or something as bad as that, and you have to take care of Mom – you shouldn’t let her go out alone because I know
people
and
you
don’t. I know a heck of a lot more than you think. I had ulcers so I should know. She curls with those lads and I don’t like them. And they have
real
jobs and stuff like that there – how can you let her curl with them!” she said, enraged, and standing up with one shoe on and one shoe off. “You never think – you never do, and ruin my concentration!” she yelled. And then she went about banging her shoe against the bedroom wall, and throwing cushions about and talking about the past, where everything was wrong, and everything was wrong because it disagreed with her.

One night Joe was sitting alongside Rita in the living room. She knew his leg was bothering him, the way he was holding it. Then he got up and paced back and forth.

“How’s yer back?”

“Not too bad,” he said. “Pretty good – it’s okay.”

He looked out the window as he said this, as if this glance confirmed everything he had just said – when to Rita it proved just the opposite.

He turned about and looked at her.

“I’m sorry I can’t curl,” he said. “But I never know when I can get down in the hack.” He smiled.

“Goddamn back on you,” Rita said. They didn’t look at each other as they spoke.

Joe had been to a number of doctors but now he refused to go to any. He was very stubborn now about doctors. A look of mistrust came into his eyes when someone mentioned a new back cure they had read of in a magazine. Or a new mattress. Rita was always mentioning new mattresses – and one could tell how aggravated he got over this talk. It was as if a person was discussing with him a subject where from the very moment they began the discussion they missed the entire crux of the problem – which he alone knew – and he had to listen further to theories on treatments that were like the other treatments.

Joe had been to doctors and to therapy, and there was an operation he could have. Dr. Hennessey suggested he go to St John and have it when he decided to.

Rita asked him if he wanted her to rub his back.

“No no,” Joe said, “that’s Adele’s job.”

“I can do it,” Rita said.

“No no no,” Joe said.

And then, resting his hands against the wall, he slid down carefully, smiling at the pain.

“If you don’t get to the outpatients tomorrow, I’ll kill you,” Rita said.