Talking at the Woodpile (26 page)

Lulu shot her sisters a glance that stopped their joke in its tracks. “I'm really worried. This is serious.”

Winch argued so much that she made him sleep in the barn. Lulu was afraid he might get into a punchout with other members of the family, and she knew that would be disastrous. “Don't argue with him. It will only make him worse,” she advised everyone.

Winch continued his bullying ways. Members of the family stopped talking to him and left the kitchen when he sat down.

“I can't enjoy my food while hearing about when King Rehoboam went to Shechem, and feeling someone thinks he's better than me,” Uncle Zak complained. He took his plate and joined the others eating on the front porch.

On some weekends I would stay over at the Halloos; my mom always loaned me her Rambler. I got along well with Lulu and her sisters, who made me feel at home. They were the sisters I never had, and I enjoyed their company immensely. It also gave me an opportunity to interview family members, especially Uncle Zak, who'd been in the secret service and had interesting war stories to tell.

“Tobias, you're welcome here anytime. You're the only guest who makes his own bed and helps with the dishes,” Lulu told me as I was leaving one time.

“Now if we could just get him to cook and do laundry,” Missy said, washing vegetables for dinner in the sink.

Early one Monday morning, I was eating breakfast before heading into town. People were grabbing coffee and toast to eat on their drive in to their jobs or to take the children to school. Winch strolled in wearing his work overalls and took his place at the head of the long plank table. Resting one elbow, he pointed a finger at the children and said, “Say grace before putting one more scrap of food in your mouth.”

Lulu scoffed, and the adults started to clear the room. A child choked and started to cry. I lost my appetite and pushed my plate away but hung around to see what happened next.

Stella's twelve-year-old daughter started to protest, “But Uncle Winch—”

Winch cut her off sharply and launched into a tirade on obedience. When he got to “spare the rod and spoil the child,” Lulu decided she'd had enough. She walked around the table and hovered over him. Winch sank in his chair and tucked his head between his shoulders.

I slid down the bench to the other end, thinking that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stick around.

Lulu stuck her index finger in his face and growled, “Don't upset the kids!” When he didn't answer, she roared, “Stop it!” so forcefully that spittle left her lips.

Winch began to stutter, but a hard slap on the back of his head silenced him. He raised his beefy, tattooed arms in defence. Lulu drew her face closer, so that her chin almost touched his nose, “If you so much as criticize one of these children again, you'll be sorry for the rest of your life … I swear,” she snarled.

Stella and Olive walked into the room and stood with their backs to the wall and their arms folded, glaring at Winch. Stella tapped her foot rapidly.

Lulu straightened slowly and walked around the table, maintaining eye contact, but Winch glanced away and muttered under his breath, “Yeah, yeah … right.”

It was a grave mistake. Lulu heard him and instantly boiled over. She scanned the table for something to throw and spotted a large wooden spoon sticking out of a bowl of steaming porridge. She grabbed the spoon and swung it at his head, missing completely, but a great glob of porridge came loose and struck him squarely in the right eye. Winch cursed and clawed at his burning face.

I got up and stood in the doorway, ready to run if I had to. Stella and Olive stayed where they were against the wall.

“Stupid religious idiot! Freak! You made more sense as an alien!” Lulu screamed.

The small children cried and hollered. Their mothers rushed in to lift them from their chairs and ran out to avoid the battle. Winch was still cursing.

“Stop swearing, you brainless twit!” Lulu ran around the table and beat Winch's head until the spoon snapped in two.

Winch scrambled under the table. Unable to see through his watering eyes and barely able to fit under the table, he raised it on his back and dragged it toward the door. The tablecloth caught, and plates of food and pitchers of milk crashed to the floor. Avoiding the broken glass, he scooped up the cold milk and splashed it on his face. Crawling closer, he reached up, opened the door and threw himself out onto the porch. A sleeping dog woke suddenly and turned to growl at him. Scrambling to his feet, Winch sprinted across the yard with his head tucked into his shoulders as if expecting something to hit him at any time. He jumped into his truck, and with the door half open, sped off in a cloud of dust, grinding the gears all the way. Lulu and her sisters stood on the porch, shaking their fists at the departing truck.

I stuck my head through the doorway. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Olive walked past me into the house. “I'm sorry you had to see that kind of family business, Tobias.”

Soon after that Brian told me, “OP and Clutch paid a visit to our house. They were really polite this time. They knocked on the door and waited to be invited in. Then they stood with their hats in their hands and begged me to take their brother back and talk sense into him. They said, ‘Please help us, Brian. This is ten times worse than anything alien. We are in a heap of trouble.'”

OP and Clutch needn't have bothered. Winch had made up his own mind. He'd decided he was living among the ignorant and had to leave before they influenced him totally. He stayed away for two weeks, then went home to pick up his belongings. I caught a ride out with him, and for once he was silent all the way. His face still bore a red teardrop around the right eye.

When we walked into the kitchen, a three-year-old in a high chair with food covering his face said brightly, “Uncle Winch looks like a clown, Mom!” To make his point even more clearly, he told Winch, “Your eye looks like a clown eye!”

This deflated Winch's dramatic moment of announcing his departure, but he still made his speech standing in the middle of the kitchen. It sounded rehearsed. “I'm going up Hunker Creek for the winter. Don't try to stop me and don't come looking for me. I intend to spend the winter alone,” he shouted into the house for all to hear.

Zak yelled back from a distant hallway what everyone wanted to say. “Go! And when you're alone and freezing your ass off, think of us. We'll be warm and cozy here in our nice, peaceful, happy house!”

Winch could see he wasn't going to get one ounce of sympathy, so he threw his duffel bag into the truck along with tools from the barn and food supplies. “I had an epiphany too,” he yelled one last time before driving off.

Lulu was heartsick. Winch had never treated her like this before and had never been so mean to so many people. “A man alone on Hunker Creek will either come to his senses or drop off the deep end of reality,” she told her sisters.

Olive and Stella tried to comfort her, but everyone was worried.

“What will he do all alone … all winter?” Missy sounded worried. Winch had always been her favourite uncle.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Lulu said with a sigh, “but I can tell you he's in for a hard time.”

Over the next weeks, things settled down around the house. Uncle Zak and OP wanted to go up and get Winch, but Clutch disagreed. He'd recognized that with Winch gone his place in the family hierarchy had moved up a notch. “Maybe this really is what he needs, some time alone. Leave him where he is.”

Shortly after that, winter set in, and Hunker Creek Road became impassable, ending all discussion about bringing back Winch.

Looking out in the direction of the hills and the falling snow, Lulu wiped her hands on her apron and said, “Well, Tobias, that's that. What spring will bring no one knows.”

Life returned to normal in the Halloo house. Things calmed down and were more pleasant. No one said a word about the improvement, I noticed on my next visit, but a few made a point of offering their support and condolences to Lulu. She appreciated that but hardly needed it—she was strong—and never skipped a beat in caring for the household and the children. I was surprised how quickly life went on without Winch. It seems people aren't as important as they think.

Winch spent the winter up on Hunker Creek and came home a changed man. For one thing, he had fewer toes on one foot. He wouldn't talk about it, but I never let up asking him.

“Winch,” I said, “I know you're holding back on my story.”

“Your story?” he huffed. “When did it become your story? I'm the one who was up there.”

“You know what I mean. You lost your toes, and I want to hear how you did it.”

I also wanted to hear what had changed him. He had gone up the mountain angry and closed-minded and had come back a humbled new man. I was curious as hell.

“If you can figure it out, Tobias, I would like to hear it too,” Lulu said.

After a week of my pestering, he finally told me what happened.

“I appreciate you wanting to record people's history, Tobias, but the main reason I don't talk about it is that every time I do, my foot hurts. The doc tells me it's all in my head, but I ask him, ‘How can it be in my head when it's my foot that hurts?'”

We talked out at Rock Creek on the front porch, where an occasional child ran in and out of the kitchen, making the maximum of distracting noise. Winch rubbed his knee as he talked, and when he stopped rubbing, the interview was over. It would take three meetings over three months to piece the story together.

Uncle Zak walked by just as we began and asked, “What are you fellows talking about?”

“Winch's lost toes.”

“I don't know what the hell is wrong with a man who leaves home and comes back without his toes. In my day we kept our toes, we didn't lose them!” Zak shuffled off into the kitchen.

Winch rolled his eyes and began his story on the day he left Rock Creek. “As soon as I drove out of the yard with my gear and supplies, I knew I was making a mistake. I hardly said goodbye to Lulu and the kids. But what could I do? I was angry, my pride was hurt and no one would listen to me. At the time I figured I was right.

“It was raining and snowing, so the road was slick. I drove like a madman from hell. I couldn't see, and I almost slid off into the Hunker Creek Valley more than once. My knuckles were bone white from clutching the steering wheel. I pounded the dash and dented it. I pushed my feet so hard on the floorboards that I lifted myself off the seat, bumping my head on the roof of the cab and hurting my neck. I yelled curses until my throat was sore.”

He laughed in embarrassment and shook his head, recalling his rage.

“My gut feeling told me I was wrong. I remembered what my mother taught us: ‘It's better to have a handful of patience than a bushel of brains.' I didn't want to spend the winter alone on Hunker Creek. I wished someone had stopped me.”

“They wanted to stop you, Winch, but no one knew how. No one dared to say no to you. I was there the day you left and I saw how upset everyone was. I would have tried, but you're a big guy. You intimidate people.”

Winch looked stricken. I realized he now understood how much trouble he'd caused.

“Do you know Lulu's final words to me as I left?”

“No,” I said.

“She said, ‘Some of the things you say are right, Winch, but you say them ugly.' It was true. I was right about some things but I was ugly about it. I argued too much, and it bought me a winter alone on Hunker Creek. How stupid is that? I really wanted no part of it. On the drive up I slapped the side of my head a couple of times, trying to knock some sense in, but all I got was a headache. Never let your pride or anger run away with your life, Tobias. If you do, you'll be sorry.”

I didn't fully understand what he meant. I never had a problem with anger, and what influence pride had on a person I knew only from the downfall of characters in Shakespeare's plays.

“I reached the cabin by late afternoon. It was on the crest of a hill overlooking Hunker Creek, which ran hundreds of yards below. It should still be there today, if you care to drive up and take a look.”

“I might someday,” I said.

“A more forlorn sight never greeted a man in all his life. You know that song by Hank Williams, ‘I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry'? That's how I felt, like crying. I stepped out of the truck and I imagined that the wind coming up the valley was saying, “Go home, go home.” But I ignored it. That's what anger and pride does to a fella, Tobias, shuts out the feelings of his heart.” Winch stopped rubbing; the knee of his pants was shiny. “That's all I have time for today. My damn foot hurts. Phone me later on, and we'll talk in a few days.”

I phoned a few days later from the pay phone in the Flora Dora, but Winch was busy repairing the barn. It would be a week before we sat down again.

I was enjoying the meat loaf special when Joshua walked in with the prettiest girl I'd ever seen, a brunette. He waved and walked over to my booth, and the girl followed. He let her slide in first. I'd forgotten to chew my mouthful of meat loaf, and I almost choked when Joshua introduced her as Flora.

I took a drink of coffee and shook her hand. They both ordered the special.

Flustered, I thought of something to say. “After the restaurant, no doubt.”

“What?” she said.

“Flora, like the Flora Dora.”

“Flora after my grandmother.” She cast me a look as though I was simple. “The first woman lawyer in Ontario.”

Great first impression I made
, I thought.

“Flora is dancing and acting in the Gaslight Follies at the Palace Grand this year,” Joshua said. “Tobias is a reporter heading off to the University of Victoria this fall to study English.”

“Great, I'll have to come and see you.”