The Fortunate Brother (22 page)

“Grunt all you wants now,” said Manny. “You had your honour. That's what you did, then. You had your honour. Right? Right, my son?”

“Right,” said Sylvanus gloomily. “Nice hat she was till a gull shat on it. Lot of good it done me after that.”

“Hear him?” Manny asked Kyle. “Hear the like of him? Cripes, you can say what you wants now, but they didn't have you jumping through the hoops like they done us. You seen it coming before we all did. We let ourselves be mollycoddled. Took the big pay stubs. By Jesus, you might've fought through hard times sometimes, but you always had your worth about you—and you deserves that. You didn't barter that like we done. Now we all knows. Too late to do anything. It might've took the heart out of you, working in them woods the way you done. But there's them who think you're the stronger one for taking that stand.”

“What good is that now, if you can't do for your family?”

“Not just spuds you feeds a family with.” Manny punched Kyle's shoulder. “He didn't get his smarts from sucking turnip greens. You done good, damn good. Not your fault God poked around in your life. That's about the one thing now, that's not predictable—the hand of God. You can't go getting down and blaming yourself for stuff you got no control over. And you can't lose hope, either. You got to trust some things. And that goes for you too, young feller, you never loses hope.”

“Hope.” Kyle gulped down the word with a mouthful of beer. “That's the word for the day, is it?”

“The hell with hope, then. Take heart from what you already got. You got your boy here,” he said to Sylvanus. “And he still got you. And he's gawd-damned fortunate to have you. Not going to take that from him too, are you?”

The sun shuddered through the clouds. Sylvanus turned from its light and stood, kicking his thermos aside. “Get in the truck, Manny. Drive me down Corner Brook.”

“Cripes, yes. Get the Jesus outta here. Sitting and bawling when Addie's most likely packing to come home. Where's them young fellers with me truck? Jesus, they got the bottom beat out of her, most likely.”

“We'll take mine,” said Sylvanus. “Kyle can drive yours till we gets back this evening.”

“No gawd-damn rough riding either,” Manny said to Kyle. “The wheels could fall off her any minute. Here, come here.” He wrapped short strong arms around Kyle and cut off his breath with the strength of his hug. “You remember what I says. You're the fortunate one. You still gets to be with us for a bit longer. The other one—well, he's watching on, somewhere. But we gets to live the riddle a bit longer. Hey, b'y? That's good, isn't it?”

“That's good, Uncle Manny.” Kyle stood back and his father came before him, his big arms engulfing him in another hug. He grasped tight to Sylvanus, feeling that warm good heart pumping against his, pumping hard, pumping love, and then he was roughly pushed aside and he stood there, wrapping his arms around himself as though he were cold as his father walked away. He and Manny got into the truck. Kyle kept hugging onto himself, his face wet from a swollen heart as he watched them drive up the road and out of sight around a bend.

He walked around the site, looking about, then walked back to the beach and sat, having no mind for work. He got back up and walked down the shore. A brook cut down through the scraggy underbrush and onto the beach, its flow to the sea encumbered by a kelp-encrusted rock. He watched the brook backing onto itself before rippling over the blockage and felt himself to be that encrusted rock. He scrunched it aside with the heel of his boot and watched the brook flow into the sea, unhindered by thoughts of its own drowning, its immersion a homecoming. He thought of Bonnie Gillard entombed in her red car, screaming with fright as the river rose to greet her. He wondered if Clar Gillard had been frightened going into death. And Chris. His stomach lurched. He shielded his eyes to keep from seeing and then opened them. He needed to know. He needed to know right now.

He got to his feet and walked back up the shore. He walked past the work site, the weathered houses of the Beaches. Curious eyes followed him from behind shifting curtains. Others stared boldly through bare windows, the odd youngster scrambling behind a woodpile or shed at the sight of him. He walked with purpose, passing wet black cliffs sponged with green sods on his left, on his right the one long wave unfurling to his step.

Around a rocky bend his cousins were driving towards him in Manny's truck. Wade lowered his window and called out.

“Just talking to Ben,” he said as the truck rolled to a stop. “He's heading to the bar with some of the boys. I told him we'd meet him for a beer.”

“See you there,” said Kyle, without breaking stride. Going down Fox Point, he cut straightaway off the road, went down the embankment, and then leaped over the white picket fence into the cemetery. He looped around soggy mounds guarded by
upright slabs of granite. He came to Chris's,
Taken Too Soon
scripted beneath two clasped hands. He knelt and laid his hands on each side of the tombstone as though they were shoulders and he gripped them hard. He lowered his mouth to a piece of the cold granite, warming it with his breath.
“I'm coming, buddy, I'm coming,”
he whispered.

He heard Manny's truck gearing down to a halt on Fox Point. He got up and looped his way farther across the soggy green of the cemetery, taking a foot-path through the Rooms, the air smoked with hickory from the smokehouse. He walked steadily along the shoreline up to Hampden, his cousins keeping a distance behind. It felt good, their being there. He walked up through the centre of the community, the wind swiping salty across his lips and stirring laundry hanging heavy on the lines. A youngster's wails turned to squawks of laughter behind a closed blind. Farther on, a man's rough command and a sweet, lyrical voice rising in protest against it. Julia. Fighting with her father in the driveway while Rose stood mute beside the new car. The father stomped off towards the house, stopping to wag a thick hairy finger at his daughter, hollering
“…and if I gets wind of you driving my car once more, you're out on the road!”

“The hell with him,” Rose said to Julia after the house door slammed. “We'll take my mother's car, it's already a banged-up piece of shit.”

“Have a word, Julia?” Kyle had come up silently behind them. Both girls started, Julia's face kindling deeper with anger at the sight of him.

“Pick a number, arse,” said Rose.

“A private word, Julia?”

“Oh, he's all private now he don't have a room full of people listening. Don't listen to him, Jewels.”

Jewels. Kyle looked into Julia's blue moonstone eyes.

“Go see if we can get your mother's car,” Julia said to Rose. “See you later on this evening.”

Rose threw him a disgruntled look and went off.

“What's up?” asked Julia.

“I apologize.”

“You really thought I ratted you out?” Her eyes were dark with hurt and he kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot.

“Too much going on. Didn't get chance to think much.”

She stood, slender as a stalk of grass, hair streaming down her shoulders, and he felt like a freak, shoulders hunched, hands knotted. Hair knotted too, no doubt.

“Jewels,” he said. “That's nice. Jewels.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

“Fuck, no. Don't go hollering for her to come back.”

“Fine, then, you're sorry. What more do you want?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “There is something, actually. Not sure if this is the right place for it. Or time.” He gave an awkward laugh.

“Go ahead, ask.”

He nodded. Turned from her eyes, brittle with cold. “It's—aw, fuck. It sounds foolish now.”

“It's the
only
thing now. Ask it.” Her voice softened. “Sometimes the questions are tougher than the answers.”

He nodded his appreciation. Then he sucked in a lungful of air, glanced at her sideways, and spoke too fast. “The night before Chris flew off to Alberta. You came out behind him when he was leaving the bar. I saw you there. You'd been talking with him?”

“We talked.”

“Can I ask what you talked about—I mean, about Alberta. If he said how he felt about leaving?”

She was silent for so long he turned to her fully. Her eyes were softened now, like her tone. “I wasn't his girlfriend, if that's what you mean.”

“No. No, I didn't mean that.”

“We went to the graduation and hung out some, but nothing serious. The night before he left, well—I guess he was wanting something more. I didn't. Why you asking about that?”

“I—well, that's not what I was asking about. But it's nice to know.”

“You feel weird thinking Chris and I were a twosome?”

He shook his head. “I thought he looked scared when he left. Scared of going to Alberta.”

“Lord, no. He was proud as punch about that. Couldn't wait to leave. Is that what you thought? That he was scared of going to Alberta? He was scared of leaving me. He thought there might be a chance if he stayed, but that he'd lose it if he left. I did leave it a bit fuzzy with him. But I think he knew that…well, that I just couldn't come right out and say no to him. I think that was all right, don't you think that was all right? I've fretted about it.”

Somewhere in his heart a small chamber drew light. He looked at her with growing gratitude. “You have a kind heart. Thank you for telling me. Thank you so gawd-damn much.”

“If I'd known you thought…”

“No. Don't think anything more. It's good.”

“What's good about it?”

“Everything. Everything's good about it. I gotta go. You see Ben around?”

“They're at Hooker's. They're heading for the bar in a bit. Might be there yet.”

“All right, then. I'll catch you later. Hey, you like fishing?”

“No.”

“Take you tomorrow, if you want.”

“God. Baymen.”

“I'll show you my secret spots.”

“Already know them.”

“Catch me a fish and I'll teach you how to drive a standard.”

“Already knows that, too. It's a clutch thing.”

“Right. Right on that. Listen, call me if you wants to go fishing.” He went off, step notably lighter, no doubt, to the two cousins sitting in the truck, discreetly parked to the side of Fudge's store, watching. He took a shortcut behind the store and down a grassy hump and crossed a low-built bridge and scaled the hillside that led to the back of the bar. Inside, he sat near the window with his back to the room and waited. He bought a beer and let it sit there.
Unholy it is, drinking over the dead and getting maudlin with your own sorry self.
Words his mother flung at his drunken father once.

His cousins came inside, gave him a wary glance, and sat at the bar, ordering beers. Must've been fifteen, twenty minutes that he sat there, staring at his beer. He heard Ben coming from half a block away. His voice chipper, raunchy like a blue jay's. Bunch of the boys jousting alongside of him and cawing like crows. Always like that with Ben, fellows hanging around him as if he were the Second Coming, all of them talking over and under the other.

They entered the bar noisily, Ben ahead. Longish black curls, broad easy smile. It was how Kyle remembered him those days back on the wharf when he'd come visit Sylvie and Chris, and he, Kyle, was just a kid. Once Ben leaned over the edge of the wharf with him and helped him spear a flatfish with a gaff. Kyle pitched it flipping and flopping onto the wharf, his heart seizing with excitement. Ben gutted it, hands dripping with gurry, and Sylvie shrieking and Chris running for the frying pan. Later Addie fried
up the fish with pork scruncheons and Ben saluted Kyle sitting at the head of the table as Fish Killer Supreme.

“What're you at, bugger,” called Ben, coming towards him. “How's she goin'.” Ben took his hand tight and looked steady into his eyes and Kyle saw that Ben's eyes were clear. No longer shame-cast as when he'd first returned after Chris's accident.

“Good to see you, man, good to see you. Sorry about this morning. Near hit a moose, stuck on the road for an hour. Where's Sylvie?”

“She's coming in a minute. Your mother's getting out this evening, your father's waiting to drive her home. Good to see you, bugger. Look at that stubble. Not like his old man, is he?”

“The spit,” said Skeemo. He'd come up behind Ben. Sup, Pug, and Hooker, all of them crowding around Kyle's table, plunking down their beers and scraping back chairs, Wade and Lyman amongst them.
Welcome back, man, welcome back,
they chorused, raising their glasses to Ben. Their smiles fell away as they looked at Kyle, becoming unsure, looking back at each other with loud chatter should their puzzled expressions give them away. Except Hooker. He sat on the edge of his seat, staring at Kyle with the same tension as he might the climactic ending to his favourite TV show.

“Her fever's gone,” said Ben, edging his seat closer to Kyle. “She's sitting up, ordering everyone around and demanding to be sent home. Sorry, buddy.” Ben gripped his arm, looking into his eyes again. “Sorry you had to go through this.”

“Not all bad. Brought the old man around, he hasn't drunk since.”

“Go on, b'y, he must be dead. You checked his heartbeat?”

The boys laughed, and Kyle did too.

“What's all this about a knife? What's the scoop on Clar, haven't heard nothing but what Mother's saying. Christ, get strung up you repeats after Mother.” Ben laughed, the boys laughed, and Ben toasted them all. “That's the thing with Mother. Something don't
make sense, she shapes it till it does and then preaches it as the gospel. God love her, she would've done good at something. So what's the scoop, what's going on, bugger, the Beaches youngsters got one on you?”