The Fortunate Brother (23 page)

“Jaysus, they had me convinced I knifed Clar. Went to the cops and confessed and the cops kicked me out. Not kidding,” he said, glancing at Hooker. “They kicked me out. Knife fell out of my arse pocket when we were pouring cement. The little bastards were spying up in the woods, and Darth Vader nailed me for murder.” He guffawed, his words easy, his nervousness barely perceptible beneath the jiggling of his foot.

“String 'em up, little bastards,” said Lyman.

“That's right, bud,” Skeemo hooted, “string the little bastards up,” and he clinked his glass against Lyman's and then Ben's. “Welcome home, man. Good to have you back.”

“What went down with Clar?” asked Ben. “Mother's after curdling me short hairs.”

“He was upping his game for sure,” said Skeemo.

“Got worse after Bonnie left him,” said Sup.

“That right, now, brother, and just how the frig can bad get badder?” asked Hooker.

“Spraying her down with oven cleaner, old man. Never done nothing that sick before.”

“Not that we knows. Nobody knows now what she put up with.”

“I say he got worse,” said Pug, “else she wouldn't have moved out.”

“She was always moving out, numbnuts,” said Skeemo.

“And always moving back in,” said Sup. “She never this time, though. He was getting worse over time, I seen it in his face. Starting to feel sorry for the bastard.”

“That right, now,” said Kyle. “And was that before or after he sprayed his wife with chemicals?”

“Not bawling here now,” said Sup. “Had a few talks with him, that's all. He had that nice way about him sometimes.”

“Yeah, he did. Agrees with you there,” said Skeemo. “Way he smiled.”

“Last thing I seen before he suckered me,” said Kyle. “Didn't look that nice.”

“Hey, man, not picking up for the guy, all right? He was one sick fuck!”

“Father says Bonnie drove him nuts,” said Lyman.

“
Father says.
Ha ha,” said Ben. “Crazy fucking Jake. Still blaming Kitty Wells for killing Hank.”

“Perhaps she did. Drove him to drink.”

“Drove him to yodel. Ha! And we thought he was singing.”

“Seriously, man, who came up with yodelling?” asked Skeemo.

“Someone with their balls nipped on a cracked toilet seat,” said Sup. The boys hooted and Sup leaned forward. “Perhaps that's what done it. Bonnie started humming a Hank song, and he got jealous.”

“He was fucked before she met him,” said Pug.

“He wasn't treated right, man. He was crucified growing up.”

“So was Jesus. He didn't roll aside the stone and go trawling for fights, after.”

“No b'y, he left that for his Old Man to do,” said Skeemo.

“Ha ha, while he snivelled in the desert for forty days and nights,” said Pug.

“And his Old Man's been cursing us ever since.”

“Cursing who, jingle balls. Clar was fed with a silver spoon,” said Hooker.

“Money don't get you everything.”

“He could've walked. Starts growing hair in your armpits, you don't need your mother packing your bags.”

“Had his noggin kicked too many times.”

“He wasn't kicked, where you get that? Old Man Gillard just had to look and Clar shrivelled up. Everybody did. Never had the evil eye, did he, that old fucker.”

“That's who he should've tied up and hosed down with cleaner,” said Skeemo. “Our father was no effing picnic, but me and Sup, we got bigger than him and frightened the shit outta him one night with a baseball bat. Behaving ever since. Bawled last Christmas when we give him a present.”

“What did you give him, black pepper?”

“Pepper you, dickhead! Stick that up your arse, that'll get you hopping.”

“Jaysus, there's a thought. I wonder—”

“You knows what thought done now—ha ha, hey b'y?”

“Listen to the philosophers over there.” It was Rose and her cousin, Tina. They'd come in quietly and already had beers in their hands, heading for the pool table.

“Got it all figured out, do ye?” asked Rose. “Knows who killed Clar?”

“Heard it was your mother,” said Skeemo.

“Heard you're next,” said Rose, and Hooker laughed too hard and Rose tossed him a haughty look and started racking the balls. Hooker made to rise and Kyle kicked his leg.

“Make her come to you, b'y. Jaysus.”

Hooker gave him a sour look and got up anyway. “Partner up?” he asked, sauntering to the pool table and Rose.

“Sure, b'y, I'll bust your balls for you,” said Rose, chalking her cue.

The boys guffawed and Skeemo rose with a pained look. “Sounds like an invite to me.”

Ben looked around in awe. “Look at the boys, look at 'em. Few girls walks in and they're all up and gone.” He cuffed Kyle's chin. “What about you, bud? Got a girlfriend? Speaking of…” He got up, peering out the window. “That's the rental. Sylvie's here.”

“Sylvie?” Kyle took a gulp from his drink. He wiped his mouth, held his hands on the armrests for a second, then rose from his chair. “Back in a minute,” he said to Ben and headed for the door.

“Hold up, buddy.” Ben hurried after him. “Chance for a few words?”

“Later. Need to talk to Sylvie before she comes in.”

“Hold on.” Ben stood between him and the door. “What's going on?”

“What's not, old man. We'll talk later. Look,” he said as Ben backed up against the door, “I've got to talk to Sis. Hey, I didn't do it, all right?”

“Do what? Ben looked stricken. “Knife Clar? Jesus, who's thinking that?” He looked to the boys. “No-o-o, is that what they're thinking? Jesus Christ, what's going on, brother?”

“I gotta talk to Sis, I'll be back in a minute, all right? Look, I need to catch her before she comes in.”

Ben drew aside, his hands falling helplessly at the distance separating them. “I'm with you, bud. Whatever the hell is going on. And Sylvie, look, she don't know nothing about you and—and the police.”

“Let's keep it that way for a bit. All right, buddy? That's all I can say now. Okay?”

“Thanks.” Kyle opened the door and went outside, surprising himself with his assured step.

S
ylvie was parking the car, her face in profile showing their mother's defiant chin. Fine dark hair brushing her shoulders. She looked up, seeing him. Brown eyes with their mother's clarity that saw straight through to his heart. He slipped inside the car, leaving the door ajar for air. Tried to look at her but couldn't.

She laid her hand atop the back of his and it felt warm. She gripped his fingers and he gripped back, letting her lead him as she'd done those times when they were youngsters and he trod too close to the water's edge and the overhangs and the falls that churned too madly.

“I've missed you, Ky.”

He winced.

She put her arm around his neck and rested her cool forehead against his hot cheek.

“I'm so sorry, Sis. I've not been thinking straight.”

“You loved him. It was coming from a good place.”

“You loved him, too.”

“My thinking was no different. We were all screwed up.”

“You're just saying that.”

“No. No, I wish I were. I liked being blamed. It was my punishment. When I wasn't looking for punishment, I was blaming, too. I blamed Trapp.”

He pulled back, looking at her. “Was it his fault?”

She shook her head. “No. It was not.”

“They says he fucked up.”

“He was good at his job. Things just happen, Ky.”

“You tried to tell me before, and I wouldn't listen. Can you tell me now?”

Sylvie sat back. She closed her eyes, pressing her palm against her forehead, still seeing it, still feeling it, and he was incensed at his selfishness.

“I'm stuck, Sis. It's with me all the time. I've sealed him off somewhere. It's like he's fighting to get out and I'm fucked with it, I'm so fucked with it.”

“Hey, I know it. I know it, okay?”

“Something always feels foul about the whole thing—you coming home without Ben, him coming three months later with Trapp and the bad feeling around them. And Trapp sneaking around. I just never had the courage to hear about it. Can you talk about it?”

She nodded. “It's when you're alone with it, in your head. That's when I get in trouble.”

She wrung her hands and he took one, circling her thin wrist, massaging it with the pad of his thumb.

“It might hurt you,” she said quietly. “Some little detail, something new you haven't figured—like pulling the scab of an old cut. It starts hurting all over agin.”

He shrugged. “Hurts all the time anyway. Trapp had something to do with it, didn't he?”

She took his hand in hers, held it like a puppy in her lap, stroking it. “Remember how Chris used to go off in his mind all the time, like he was sleeping? Remember once he was eating a crust of bread and he went off, the crust across his mouth like a soggy moustache?”

“His little trances, Mother called them.”

“That's where he was when it happened. Gone off somewhere. His magical place, I've always thought it, where his drawings came from. Those crazy magical drawings. The limb of a tree morphing into a bird's claw. Three moons into cabbages on an old woman's hand. Everything spooling from the one thing into everything else. Nothing's separate. And that's where we went wrong.”

Her eyes shadowed in the dimming light. “After the accident, we felt him severed from us. It's not so. He's still spooling somewhere. But we're not. We're the ones caught in death. All tangled up in our grief. Not fair to him that we should be all entangled like this. It's not fair.”

He nodded and she stroked his hand some more. “That's where he was when the well hole blew. In that place. That magic place. He was already gone.”

“What happened?”

“Ohhh, everything, Kylie.” She dropped her head back against the headrest, her words scarcely audible. “I don't really understand it. The pipes in the well hole were blown back up through. There were about twenty of them—I'm not sure—all vertical into the ground, one linked to the other. The top pipe had a chain linking it to the rig. Something like that. When the pipes were blown back out of the hole, skywards, the chain snapped. Snake-whipped around his chest. And he never felt nothing. It was so fast he never felt a thing. He was still in that place. It's how he would've drawn
it, that bigger thing enclosing him. And that's all there is, my love. That's all he knew.”

He closed his eyes. Felt her words eddying around him. Felt them flowing through his heart, pooling there. He opened his eyes onto hers, saw the sadness beneath their calm.

“And you saw it.”

“He was lying there when I found him.”

“You were the first one to see him.”

“I lay beside him.”

“You watched the light leave his eyes.”

“It felt so soft.”

He laid his head on her shoulder. “How did you survive it, Sis?”

“I'm still learning to do that, to look through a moment. Everything was leading up to that accident: Dad's heart attack, my being out West, Chris on that rig when the chain snapped. You can't pick it apart, Ky. Before Chris was even born, things were shaping themselves towards that moment—the fishery going down, Dad meeting our mother. Who can change any of that? Same with Trapp. He was good at his job, the one thing he was proud of. Then, something happened. He froze. Who knows why? Everything leading to that one moment. Just like the pipes coming up from under that ground. A hundred things coming together and Trapp couldn't hold it back. Couldn't hold back those things that froze him. Too many things coming together every moment and we can't hold it back. You see it, Ky? It's never the one thing. We're never the one responsible. And yet we all are. If there's forgiving to be done, it's ourselves we need to be forgiving, for being a part of it all. Clear enough, right?” She shrugged. “Chris knew it. A part of him knew it. It came through his drawings—everything flowing from one thing to the other. His gift to us.” She smiled, her words so filled with promise, his heart surging unexpectedly.

“I need to be there, Sis. Where you are with it.”

“Let it find you, then. Just…let it in. Mother always said we're sainted like Job when we can stand the pain and thrive in the end.”

Mother. He turned from her. How the Jesus was he going to tell her about that.

“You must miss him terribly, Ky.”

“No more than you.”

“I've tortured myself. Thinking about you, back when it first happened, walking home by yourself in the dark.

“Bears, Sis. I'm scared of bears, not the gawd-damn dark. Listen, we have to talk about something.”

“It was his fault, barring you in that haunted house.”

“What house?”

She grinned. “An old house we liked to think was haunted. He barred you in there—only for a minute. Half a minute—he was just being mischievous. You screeched your head off and near had a fit.”

“Sonofabitch. How come that was never talked about?”

“Thought it was. Only time I ever seen Mom mad at him.”

“Must be why he let me keep the lights on all those years. Sis, we really need to talk.”

“Thought we were. Hey!” Her attention shifted, something in the rearview catching her eye. She twisted sideways, looking through the back windshield. “That was Trapp. I just seen Trapp back there. He was on the highway by the restaurant when I drove out. Most likely he's heard Ben's home.”

Kyle looked back, searching the road and up by the woods. “Don't see no one. Why the fuck is he always sneaking around?”

“He never did like attention. He's gotten worse, especially around me. Most likely he seen me and turned back.”

“Why? What the hell is his problem?”

“Oh, Ky, we think we got problems.” She sat back, keeping an eye on the rearview. “If there's one of us with the clearest claim for guilt about Chris's accident, it's him. He was the one at the controls. He blames himself. He liked Chris. Aside from Ben, Chris was the only other person I've known him to like. He's been taking it pretty hard.”

“Yeah, well, guess we know what that's like.”

“Yeah. Shame and guilt. Two ugly sisters. And shame's the worst—it don't hear no logic, always too busy damning itself. I'll go tell Ben.” She reached for her door handle, then looked at him. “You going to be all right, Ky?”

He nodded. “Let's go in.”

“Oh, by the way, who's that Kate woman? She was in Mother's room.”

“When, today?”

“This morning. And Bonnie Gillard—what's that all about?”

“What were they talking about?”

“I don't know, I came into the room and they were hovering over Mom like flighty hens.”

“You heard nothing? What about Mother?”

“What about her?”

“What was she saying—or doing?”

“
Mothering
them is what it felt like.”

“You heard
nothing
they said?”

“Nothing, I told you. Clammed up soon as I come into the room. And she—Kate—near ran me off the road just now, driving out Hampden Road. Who is she?”

“Just a friend. Listen, Sis, I got to run home and wash up. Clothes sticking to me with cement.”

“But, Kyle…”

“No buts, I'll be back. Tell Ben to order me one.” He got out of the car, heading for Manny's truck. “Go on, I'll be back in a minute.” When he looked back she was still sitting there, staring after him. “Better get inside,” he said, gesturing to the bar. “Good-looking women hanging off Ben in there.” He laughed at her scowl and drove off, his face shedding itself of laughter as she faded from his rearview.

He drove down the rough, narrow road from the club and swung up Bottom Hill. Coming down the other side, he hit the brakes. Trapp stood by the bushes near the shortcut. Jesus, he was skinny. Pale, scruffy face. He swung around like a cat, hightailing out of sight through the brush. Kyle pulled over, shut off the engine, and leaped out of the truck. He came to the mouth of the path and stopped, listening. Wind showering through the trees. Faint drone of the sea riding against the rock face. He started down the path, one quiet step after another, looking from left to right. “Hey?” he called out. “Hey, man, what's up?”

The grating call of a crow. He went farther down the path, heard the creaking limb of the old sawmill and was soon upon it.

“Hey!” he called out again. “What's up, Trapp, man? Wanna go for a beer?”

Kyle crept past a sunken mound of petrifying sawdust and neared the charred remains of the platform. There was a gap between the foundation and the ground beneath where the creaking limb swayed. As if an animal might be burrowing there. A couple of dead branches lay to the side of the opening. No animal would do that. He went over and bent down, peering inside. A shaft of light from a back entrance tunnelled through,
showing a few bits of rags—and a coat. He saw a sleeping bag in there, too. A plastic bag sat to the side of the opening and he pulled it out. A chunk of mouldy cheese, dated from a month ago. Emptied juice packs. Two not opened. A couple of emptied sardine cans. He hunched down, thinking back to that morning when he'd felt something—someone!—skulking behind him in the dark. Trapp. Gawd-damn!

He peered into the burrow again and then stood, looking around. Wind stirred through the black spruce, carrying the nip of a coming evening chill. Lean, bare branches of aspen scratched the air. Sawdust still frozen into mounds and with hearts of ice. Some shelter from the wind perhaps, but little warmth. The limb creaked above, giving him the heebie-jeebies, and he cursed and climbed atop the platform and jumped up, grasping hold of the swinging, fire-blackened joist. It clung on and he wrenched harder till he felt it give and then stood aside as the fucking thing wrenched from its socket and fell at his feet. He brushed the dirt off his hands with satisfaction, wondering why the hell he hadn't laid that thing to rest the first time it spooked him.