The Bay of Love and Sorrows (13 page)

“Look, I’ve got some money,” he said, laying it on the table. But Everette, in agitated conversation, only looked at him and looked away.

“Hello,” Michael said to Daryll But the man said nothing. It was a terrible moment, for the moment said this:
Pick the money back up, put it in your pocket, and leave-prove to them who you are.
But he could not do it. This was the conversation in which Everette convinced Daryll to wait a while longer for his money by telling him how they could rely upon Michael Skid, on his sailboat — and that they could do three or four runs that year. He also convinced Daryll to put in five hundred dollars himself. With this windfall he had collected almost all the money needed for the initial buy, and had himself given exactly the one twenty-dollar bill he always kept in his wallet.

A week went by. Michael went to visit his parents again. Just before he left, his mother mentioned the money.

“Did you see any money on the ironing board?” she asked. “I was sure I put it there.”

“Money — why would I take your money?!” Michael yelled. His mother flinched and smiled timidly. “If you think that I steal — well, I’ll never come back.”

“I didn’t say you stole, dear. I would never say that.”

And the same feeling he had from the time he was a child, that he could have his mother do his bidding, overcame him. He looked furiously put-out, and, turning at the door, said he would go downriver and stay there, if this was how he was going to be looked upon at home.

“No, dear — come back — please,” his mother said, holding the patio door open. But he didn’t go back.

Downriver he could see only his mother’s timid smile, and tears came to his eyes.

Everette asked them over that night. And things were again the way they had been in May. That is, Everette seemed once again happy to see Michael, who had always felt warm in this man’s presence, was glad of this turn. What he didn’t know was that this turn had come because Daryll said he would give Everette another month.

“Michael,” he said, “come in — please. Gail, get Michael a drink — how are you boys? Close the door get out of the rain — cold tonight.” And he smiled at Madonna and shook his head.

They sat and drank for quite some time, while Gail’s child sat in the corner near the door, yawning continually, and having the perplexed, bored look he often had when Everette spoke.

“My father had to walk twelve miles to work,” Everette said. This came after he’d been speaking for a long time about hardship, callously mentioned names of adversaries long dead, speaking about being turned away from school, about trying to take care of his sisters and brothers, with his father working and his mother ill, about eleven kids living in an upstairs apartment overlooking the wharf.

“When the eleven of us got running back and forth on the floor the old lady who lived below us said it was like a herd of rats over her head,” he laughed. “She was a kind old lady to me but she died when I was still a kid. I always thought — didn’t I, Gail? — if she hadn’t died I might have got on the right track about things.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Michael blurted tenderly, and looked about, his eyes shining.

There was a pause. Everette looked like a man who had just demonstrated his internal fortitude, and he nodded and drank. Yet, in every way possible, in every way that counted, the men he spoke about — the biker from Quebec who would bring the drugs across the border to him, Daryll, who had just gotten out of jail, and others — were violent, untrustworthy, and dangerous.

Everette then told them that the sailboat was the key He wanted it for one night, to take the drugs across the strait to REX, where certain people were to wait for him on a patch of dune, miles from any police or any spying eyes. They could make a fourfold profit on the east side of P.EI., where a lot of back-to-the-landers were. And of course in Charlottetown also. He couldn’t see selling the drugs in New Brunswick, because he was being watched, and trusted no one. Here his eyes glittered. Nor could he travel to P.E.I. by car and ferry, because of the rcmp. He was afraid they had a tap on his line in Chatham and were tailing him whenever he went anywhere.

There was a pause. The trees outside blew, and far away they could hear the cawing of a crow.

Michael said it wasn’t his sailboat — it belonged to his father, and his father was a judge. “I’m sorry — I can’t risk it,” he said, and smiled naively

“I can’t take
The Renegade?”
Everette asked.

“I’m sorry,” Michael said, still smiling.

“You’ve been talking about this deal all winter — you’ve come and gone as you pleased, this is your side of the bargain,” Everette said, astonished, and he looked about quickly at the others to see which way they were leaning.

Michael had not remembered talking about anything. Everette was silent a long time. The crow kept cawing.

“Who’s been talking about this deal more than anybody else,” Everette said, looking up suddenly, “if it wasn’t Michael?”

Both Madonna and Silver looked sheepishly about and shrugged. It was the moment for them to unite in force against him. But they could not. Not after Everette had talked about hardship, not after he spoke about living in an apartment overlooking the wharf.

“All of this money is ours —
ours,”
Everette said. Suddenly his hands seemed to shake just slightly.

“How much is in the deal?” Silver asked, in a voice that sounded as if this were the main question, the answer to which would allow them to decide whether or not the sailboat could be used. Yet even this question was answered enigmatically.

Everette looked at Silver with a pleading expression. “It’s something I can’t disclose,” he said, and he looked quickly at Michael again.

Michael was furious with Silver for asking this, as if Silver could make any decision about
his
father’s sailboat. He suddenly saw his position and felt sickened. The last thing he would have thought was that he would do something for money.

Finally he said: “I’ll do it — once — and that’s it — but I’ll only sail it — you have to do all the other stuff.”

“Only sail it — well, that’s better than nothin,” Everette said, laughing. They all began laughing.

But when Michael, whose mind kept racing, wanted to know certain details about the plan and why Daryll had looked at him so coldly, Everette became impatient and said: “We can’t have a moment to party without him talking business.” And everyone laughed again.

It was June 21.

All of a sudden Michael had became an active participant in a scheme he had once thought was simply Silver’s talk, a scheme he thought he was superior to, just as he had always believed he was superior to people like Madonna and Silver, and to people like Tom and Vincent.

He had always believed he was superior to every one of them. That he would have some fun in the summer, and though he had never thought about his future, he always believed he would soon go up to town and once again see Laura McNair. He had already, in the back of his mind, chosen her as his wife. And this was partly because of the fatal heroics of her brother Lyle, whom Michael admired the more he thought of him, and partly because he knew she was in awe of him, and was pleased by his own impulsiveness.

There was a fine smoke from the dump, where the young rat with the slick black face spent the evening,

“Why didn’t you say something to protect me in the shack?” Michael said, when they were back at the farm later, “no — you
couldn’t,”
he said, “You leave everything up to me!“

“We should just go see Tommie,” Madonna said, “if we want out of this. Tom would bust his head if he thought we were in trouble, and he wouldn’t be afraid of no Daryll Hutch neither.“

“Don’t you think I can handle it?” Michael said. And to himself at that moment he suddenly sounded like a child. And he felt like a child.

“I used to think so,” Madonna answered. “Up until a month ago — Silver and I believed everything —
now”
she added with certainty, “just go to Tommie — just for us.”

Michael didn’t want to humiliate himself by doing this.

“No — I’ll do it for Everette once and get your money back for you and then we’re out of it. If you two get some money out of this I’ll have done my job — that’s what I figure.”

Madonna just puffed out her cheeks and crossed her beautiful legs.

“I don’t mind for me,” Madonna said. “But Silver’s nerves — are bad again and he’s sniffing my goddamn Cutex.”

“Tell Silver not to worry, I’ll take care of it — I will take care of you both, I promise,” he said goodheartedly.

“No money will come of this,” Madonna said, “Everette won’t give us a cent.”

In early July, Everette brought them into the shack and told them: “It’s comin. But you guys have to cap it — at your barn — that’s the safest place to do it. I tried to think of somewhere else — I can’t move or the cops will be on me — so — take it to the barn. No one bothers you down there — “

Then, in a rash moment, drinking wine, he admitted something. He stood and walked about the shack, shaking his head as if he were remorseful and needed an act of contrition. He admitted he had stolen from them all — not only five hundred dollars, but six hundred more, and the two cheques his sister had managed to get from welfare. That is, all of Silver’s money, all of Madonna’s, and most of Michael’s went towards paying for the mescaline.

“There was nothing I could do — I just had to act. Now everything will work out. If I left it up to you —” here he reached over and rubbed Michael’s head — “the money would’ve been all pissed away. Now we’ll make about four thousand each — and that’s just the first of it.”

Michael and Silver laughed, as if Everette had their interests at stake and could read them like a book. And for that second, all of the anxiety they’d felt over the last month was forgotten.

But at the moment when everything was going well once more, when the plan was going to take place, Everette went out celebrating and got drunk, lost control of his bike, the Harley Sportster he was so proud of.

Everette lay in the hospital in a coma, half the skin on his side torn away and his head cut open. They were worried about his brain swelling. The last rites were given.

His face was covered with bloody wrapping and gauze which left one eye and part of his forehead exposed. There was yellow fluid coming from his ear.

Whatever else the accident said to Michael it said that Everette had done nothing to prepare himself for
this.
That the drug deal they were talking about did not prepare him or anyone of them for this. That the way Everette held things over other people, bullied his sister, lived in self-torment, did not prepare him for this. Other things in life, all other things, were more important.

The morning of Everette’s accident was the last time Michael took any drugs.

But still Michael no longer thought of the fear he had of Hutch, but of how much he was obligated to him. And he thought, too, that if he did just one more thing to prove himself, with Everette now dying, he would show himself to be the friend Everette needed him to be,

Michael had, without knowing it, replaced Tom with Everette. This unseen fact had much to do with what happened over the next few days.

The group that gathered to keep the death vigil was monitored by Constable John Delano, who had been tracking drugs all spring long. Delano was looked upon in Michael’s group of new friends as a narc and a rat because, besides being an rcmp officer, he was their age. Michael felt this most of all because of John’s friendship with Laura McNair. He felt it because he was supposed to, and because he hadn’t taken time to think in any other way.

Delano watched Michael as if he were an unknown equation here. Michael noticed his glances and fumed.

“Who does he think I am?” Michael mumbled three or four times, within earshot of the constable.

Michael went to Delano and told him off. He assumed a particularly moral attitude when he spoke, and felt quite empowered. “The only thing you have is a uniform, nothing else, and you’re letting that suit puff you up.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Skid.”

“Well, I do feel that way — because — well, because that’s the way I feel,” Michael said. He put a coffee to his lips and tried to drink it, but his hand was shaking. The air smelled of antiseptic, linen, and urine. The hospital corridor was awash in darkness even though it was eleven in the morning.

Delano looked at Skid. He knew how much Laura McNair admired him,

“Michael,” he said. “Come on — how can you be fooled by
this?”
He waved his hand in a quick arc and smiled slightly, as if he were calling on Michael’s integrity. He was also calling on him to do something — and that was to give up his posture. This was just hinted at in his smile. And it was this smile that Michael reacted against.

“Who are
you
to take notice of who visits Everette?” Michael snapped. “Just because my family has a special position and I’ve been to private school doesn’t mean I don’t understand people like Everette Hutch —” He wanted to continue, to keep going, but Delano looked away, embarrassed by this extravagance, and then looked at him again. He stopped smiling.