Once You Break a Knuckle (4 page)

THE NEXT DAY
, as he pulled up to the fourplex, there was a brown van parked in one of the driveways. The side of it read
Excentuate Painting
.

Three years ago he'd found that same van, or at least one like it, at the mountain resort he'd been contracted to renovate. His company, Straightline Electric, had to refurbish the condos; the job was to swap minor things like yellowed faceplates and broken light fixtures, work nobody wants to do even though it pays well. He'd been on his way home when he saw an Excentuate van parked at one of the places he'd renovated. Excentuate Painting had been, and still was, owned by a guy named Caine – not the smartest or the nicest, but the kind of guy who knew when and where to buy the beers. Tracey had worked for him but quit when he hired a team of highschool kids to blast through the houses as fast as they could – a kind of fuck-it-we'll-fix-it-later type approach.

Then, at that resort three years ago, Tracey had come out of one of the condos. She saw him in his truck as he rolled by. She waved. He'd pulled over. Caine came out the same condo a second later.

—Afternoon, Ray. How are things?

Tracey sidled up to the truck and opened the door. She hopped in as though he'd come to give her a lift, as though everything were hunky-dory.

—I might go work for him again. He fired the highschoolers.

After that Ray started asking around. It turned out Tracey spent a lot of time with Caine, and everybody knew it, so one day Ray pretended to go to work and instead sat outside his house in Mud's Dodge. Caine picked her up in that same van and Tracey welcomed him inside. Ray timed
it and could conclude nothing. They came out with coffee mugs. Tracey insisted they were making coffee. Business, she said, always business. Then, on a Friday evening, while Ray drank beers on his porch and watched his dog play, Mud came tear-assing down the driveway, chewing gravel in that Dodge. He stepped down, decked out in his Carhartts and steeltoes, all tans and browns, looking like a man with a secret to tell.

And now, that memory still fresh, Ray couldn't go inside the fourplex. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. There had to be a way for him to escape without freaking the hell out of Kelly and Paul. But he couldn't leave them alone, either, or that'd be Mud's ass.

—You alright, Ray?

—Need a second. Twenty-six-ounce flu, you know.

He didn't think she bought it, but she gave a nod and stepped out of the truck and started unloading. Paul asked what was going on and Kelly shrugged. The kid lingered for a second; Ray could see him in the rearview. He wanted to bark at him to get to work but he didn't need to. They unloaded everything and began without instructions. The painters were in the first condo. They'd be warm and doped out of their heads and wouldn't wander out to the cold or into the unfinished basements. If he stuck to the ground and to the open air he'd avoid them. He couldn't see Tracey today. He wasn't ready for that.

Kelly appeared at the window, but before she said anything, Ray opened the door. He grabbed a spool of
wire and his tool belt and trudged into the basement of the last condo, as far away as he could get. Kelly carried two electric drills and a fifty-foot extension cord.

—We starting on this one?

—I am. Finish up over there.

—It's not pulled yet.

—Pull it. If you get in trouble ask me. If Paul finishes the feeds, show him how to tie in.

He set up his wire spool and plugged in a drill and bored holes through studs and the floor joists overhead. The way the bit curled into wood satisfied him, always had – that hint of heated spruce in the sawdust and at the tip of the metal. He never minded wood chips in his hair and never wore a ballcap to keep them out. Ray'd use sawdust-scented shampoo if such a thing existed. At lunch, Kelly brought him coffee from her thermos while Paul waited in the Bullet. She wore pink mittens over her work gloves that she kept hidden in her lunch kit next to her thermos. Half a sandwich dangled in her hand. She turned the wire spool on its side and sat down. Ray sipped the coffee. It was nearly white from all the milk and way too sugary.

—You need any help over here?

—I'm doing okay.

She bit her sandwich and shoved the food to one cheek as she spoke. —You wanna come for beers tonight?

—Floyd Flannerly's Christmas party is next weekend. We can have beers then. And they'll be free.

—I can never take that guy serious.

—Because he's a plumber?

He offered her the coffee and she washed her food down.

—No. Because he actually wears flannel shirts, she said. She stood, brushed herself off, and saluted. —Too cold. Going back to the Bullet.

He watched her pick her way across the cluttered floor. Her boot caught his extension cord and she had to kick it free. She saw him looking and stopped, her foot three inches above the plywood ground, one hand wrapped around a stud for balance. She looked like the girls on the front of tool magazines, brand-name drills held upright at their shoulders like guns. Except Kelly had a sandwich and not a drill, and heavy grey overalls instead of skimpy shorts.

Tracey used to wear a massive winter coat, open so she could reach the tools in her chest pockets. She preferred wool gloves that left her fingertips exposed, with flaps in case it got too cold to bear. Her hair was blond and ear-length; she had pucker marks from years of smoking, a few wrinkles around her eyes – nothing unattractive. She had been raucous on-site. In the winter she packed a halogen work lamp wherever she went, for warmth rather than light. She was known for being terrible in finished houses, would carry things twice her size and mar the walls, damage the ceilings. It was the way she thundered around the job site that drew him, the way she moved antithesis to everyone else. She would stomp over a pile of debris rather than skirt it.

Kelly shook herself free. She flashed a grin, bit into her sandwich. He dipped his head in a nod and she turned and disappeared.

LATER THAT DAY HE
damn near drilled a hole in his leg. Paul gave him a lift home because Kelly didn't have a licence, and Ray couldn't operate the clutch. The kid drove with the speedometer not wavering from one hundred, as though Ray would give him shit for going too fast. When they got to his place, Paul stood awkwardly at the passenger door, his arms half-extended.

Ray limped out of the vehicle, turned and faced him.

—You want a hug or something?

—Was thinking a kiss, actually.

Ray grinned. The kid knew how to throw shit after all.

Inside, he opened a Kokanee and sat on the couch. It was times like this when he wished he had money for cable, but he barely had enough for shitty beer. He raised the can and drank half. It tasted like the stuff he used to drink in the States –
real
manly,
real
light – and it reminded him of raised trucks and shotguns, a twenty-year-old drywaller named Burt with a backward hat and a stomach that drooped over the edge of his tool belt. They hunted coyotes along gravel roads, so drunk they could barely see. Then Burt shot one and it didn't die. Ray wanted to finish it but they left it with its final howls rattling in its throat.

He pulled his pant leg over his calf. The drill had only glanced along the meat without boring into him, but it had winched the fabric so tight the muscle was bruised and bloodshot. He flexed it and it ached. Not the worst injury he'd ever taken; in fact he'd be able to work tomorrow, dammit. It was only eleven. So much for the four-day weekend.

Someone knocked on the door. He yelled that he'd be a second, and started to work himself to a stance, but his calf seized and he fell onto the couch.

—Fuck it. The door's unlocked.

Alex opened the door and peeked through. Her hair was up, but a few strands hung down the side of her head. She had a bag of ice tucked under her shoulder and a small black film canister in her hand.

—I got a call from Mud. How bad are you?

—Not bad enough.

—I've got ice and our secret stash of T-3s.

—I'll take the ice.

Her hands lingered on the edge of the door before she closed it. She wore track pants and a windbreaker, had probably been out running – one of those fitness women with legs like nautical rope. A film of sweat shone on her forehead and she placed the back of her wrist to it, let her eyelids drop. Her shoulders rose, fell. Then she stalked across the room and extended the ice.

Ray took it, careful not to let their fingers brush, and wedged it under his calf. Alex hesitated near the coffee table, arm's-length from the couch. Ray set his beer down.

—Where's Madison?

—With my folks.

She toyed with the zipper on her jacket and didn't look at him. He'd known her longer than he'd known Mud – she waitressed at a restaurant he frequented during his apprenticeship, too young to be taken seriously, labelled an up-and-comer by the sleazebags he worked alongside.
Then, when he took Mud under his wing, she always came with him to the parties and gatherings, this crazy, mysterious blonde you could tease but never touch.

—You want a beer?

She shook her head. He scratched his stubble. Fifteen years, maybe more.

—Well. You alright, Alex?

—Can I sit?

He shifted his leg off the edge of the couch, moved over, and shoved the ice up along his calf. It stung his damaged skin. She sat on the lip, far opposite him, and stared forward. He reached for his beer but it was too far away, so she grabbed it by the rim and slid it to his palm. He felt like an idiot and drank the rest and Alex looked at her watch and then set her hands on the flat of her thighs.

—You've known Mud as long as I have.

He could sleep with her, right now, if he wanted to. That's what she was going to tell him – that it'd been a long time since Mud touched her. He'd seen it before, hundreds of times; guys get so infatuated with the new business that they neglect their wives and then their wives go and sleep with fucking painters who get doped each day before work.

—Mud's good shit.

She drummed her fingers on her knee.

—You ever get tired, Ray?

—All the time.

She turned her palms upward and stared at them, one then the other. They were small and soft, hands that could
easily button up a shirt, hands that didn't grapple power tools. When he did the same, Ray saw only twenty years of scrapes and cuts and decades gone to waste. But Alex read something in her own, or read something in his. Or, more likely, she simply saw right through him. He had no idea what she wanted.

Her eyes fixed on him, those raven lashes, those irises as bright as sparks.

—Sure you don't want the T-3s?

—Save them for when I drill
through
my leg.

—The suite looks good.

—Bedroom's the nicest so far.

She scrunched her nose as though recoiling from a bad smell.

—Do you ever get tired of, you know, this?

—All this?

—I don't know.

She crossed one leg over her knee and leaned her chin on her wrist. She was such a good-looking woman.

—It's hard not to. It always seems like everything's the same until the moment when you
need
everything to be the same. Then you find out it's been different the whole time.

Alex bobbed her head. She drew a strand of hair from her face with her pinky. The nail was groomed, curved perfectly around the fingertip. Ray smelled cinnamon, assumed it came from her; the scent of a clean body. She rolled one eye toward him, her face turned only a degree in his direction.

—I knew about Tracey and Caine, before you found out.

—Everybody did.

—I'm sorry I didn't tell you.

Ray shrugged. —Nobody did.

Alex went to the door.

—Are you going to Flannerly's party this weekend?

—I promised Kelly and Paul that I would.

—Paul looks up to you.

—Only because I don't rail on him like everyone else.

—It's more than that.

Ray shrugged again. Alex cocked her head and the tie on her hair loosed, dropped that mane all the way to her biceps.

—You regret coming back?

—Not one bit. Other things, yeah. Part of being human.

—Man from beast.

—You regret me coming back?

That got her out the door. Before she closed it, she peeked her head in.

—What if Tracey's there?

He'd been mulling that over since he'd agreed to go. Worse than Tracey, he feared she'd be there with Caine and that he'd say something dumb and get in a fight. Caine was ten years younger and he went to the gym every second day. Ray couldn't afford to get the shit kicked out of him. He'd lose everything, again. And he couldn't blame
everything
on the two of them.

—Hopefully I'll be too drunk to realize it.

—Have a gooder, Ray.

She shut the door. He struggled to his feet and fished another beer from the fridge and nursed it on the couch, counted the hours. Ray'd mulled over other stuff, too: where to go when Mud eventually gave him the boot, how long he had until his body at last failed him, whether Kelly was
actually
giving him the eye. It wouldn't be a stretch to say a certain kind of woman caught his attention, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that scared him cold. Kelly did things the way Tracey used to, a no-bullshit approach that he admired and made a show of admiring. But she had rough edges, too – he'd seen the way she scowled at Philippe – and a past Ray would one day have to ask after. He didn't know her story but he bet he understood how she felt: everyone who falls off a roof usually lands the same way. And if she
was
attracted to him – if he didn't, for instance, need someone to pull his head from the clouds – then Ray knew why: broken people are drawn to broken people. That's the love life he had to look forward to with Kelly: a three-legged race.