Matt Lennox - The Carpenter

Lee gathered the blanket around himself. He couldn’t seem to think straight, couldn’t set his mind to the events of the last hour. He liked Bud, Bud was okay. Now Bud was gone, but how could that be? He’d never been so confused in his life.

— Here’s something I want to know, said Lee.

— Yes?

— If everything I ever done, if this is what it brought me to, is it maybe that I never had a choice in it?

— I don’t know, said Stan. Do you think so?

— No. I don’t think so. No matter how I try, I can’t see how that would be so.

After Emily finished with the piano she went out of the front room and through the hallway. The door to the kitchen was closed. She used the washroom on the ground floor and when she was in there she could hear Grandpa talking to somebody in the kitchen. Their voices were pitched low. She couldn’t make out the words.

The washroom had a small window looking down through the trees to the little beach below the point. She was drying her hands when she noticed the barge out on the sand.

She came out of the washroom and almost went into the kitchen. Then, as she thought again of the barge, curiosity got the better of her. She got a blue afghan off the couch in the living room and wrapped it around herself and put on her shoes and slipped out the front door. She followed the path down through the trees. The snowfall was slowing down and the twilight was strange. The dark water against the beach was calm but out past the point she could see the whitecaps. In the grey sand was a confusing mix of tracks. Something looked to have been dragged. She went and looked in the barge. She looked at the water in the bottom. She saw how the toppled-over cement mixer had been moved aside. Snow collected on her hair and eyelashes.

— I remember you, said Stan.

— Do you.

— Yes. In truth I do. I was a cop for many years.

Lee didn’t say anything. Stan had given him a leftover grilled-cheese sandwich to eat and he’d managed a few bites of it.

— I’d heard that you’d come back, said Stan. I don’t know if you remember or not, but I was the man who drove you down to the provincial jail. You weren’t all that old-

— I was twenty-two.

— Yes. Well. I was old then but you weren’t. I thought about that at the time.

— I was old enough.

— How long has it been?

— You mean how long did I do? Seventeen years.

— It’s a long time, said Stan.

— The Crown wanted to hang me.

They were quiet for a full minute. Stan at the table, Lee as close to the woodstove as he could get. Just then the mud-room door opened and Cassius stood up. Emily came in from outside, wrapped in the afghan, with snow in her hair.

— Emily, said Stan.

— Grandpa. There’s a man down by the basement door. He’s under a tarp and he’s-I think he’s deceased, Grandpa.

She was so factual about it. Deceased , she’d said. She was concerned but not panicking. She looked like it was out of the range of what she could figure out. Cassius went over to her and she knelt down and embraced him.

— There was a bad accident, said Stan.

The man in the rocking chair, this man she did not recognize, who was wearing a toque and was draped in a blanket, whose posture and absurd appearance was telling her what Grandpa was not, this hard-looking man, she could see his hands shaking.

— Goddammit it, said Lee. I just can’t get warm. Not at all.

The weather cleared by late evening. Pete went in through the emergency doors of the hospital. He was hungover, still wearing the work clothes he’d slept in. The emergency room was sparsely filled. A woman was holding a towel against a cut on her forehead. She looked annoyed more than anything else. A boy with his father was coughing steadily. Pete went up to an orderly at a desk.

— Can I help you.

— I got a call from my mom.

— You got a call from your mom.

— My uncle was in some kind of a work accident. They brought him here. Leland King is his name.

— Yes, said the orderly. Wait here, please.

The orderly made a call. Pete sat down. The woman with the cut sighed loudly. Then a cop came into the emergency room and spoke to the orderly. The orderly gestured at Pete. The cop came over and Pete stood up.

— To confirm, said the cop. This is your uncle you’re here about.

— Yes, Officer.

There was something unreadable on the cop’s face. He said: Your uncle. Leland King. He was in a work-related accident this afternoon. He’s banged up. Has mild hypothermia. They’re going to keep him here overnight.

— Jesus, said Pete. Can I see him?

— You want to see him?

— Why wouldn’t I?

The cop shrugged.

— Well, you can’t see him, said the cop. The doctor said he’s resting now. He’s okay, your uncle. But the other guy …

— The other guy. Bud?

— What a situation they got themselves into. Of course, Leland King is the one to turn out okay. Funny how that goes.

The cop was almost grinning. He turned around and went back into the interior of the hospital. Pete watched him go. Then he went over to the orderly.

— Listen, can you tell me anything?

— I can’t let out any information other than to say they just want to keep him here under observation.

— Is there a phone I can use?

— Pete?

He turned from the orderly’s booth and Emily was standing there. He tried to make sense of her.

— Emily.

— I had no idea he’s your uncle. I just heard your name from one of the constables. It happened near my grandfather’s place. Oh my God, Pete. Your uncle’s friend died.

— Jesus Christ. This keeps getting worse.

Emily laced her fingers together and looked at the floor. When she looked at him she smiled wearily, said: My grandfather took care of most of it. I’m just tired at this point. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired. The only thing I can think about is going to bed. Is that pretty terrible?

— No. I don’t think so.

— It’s good to see you, Pete.

— You too. Under the circumstances and all. I haven’t seen you in awhile.

A white-haired man, broad-shouldered despite his age, came into the emergency room. He was carrying a wool jacket. Emily introduced Pete to Stan. Stan nodded.

— Your uncle’s going to be fine. You don’t need to worry.

— So I hear.

Stan put his arm around Emily’s shoulders. She folded against him and yawned.

— I’ll take you home, said Stan. And you, Pete? Do you need a lift anywhere?

— No, I have a car here. I was going to see my uncle but they said to come back tomorrow.

— He’ll be alright.

Stan told Emily he would be in the truck and he shook Peter’s hand again and left. Emily hung back a moment.

— I have to go, Pete.

— I know.

— It would be nice to see you again soon.

Emily went out and Pete watched her go. Then the woman with the cut on her forehead called out that at some point she was going to need some goddamn assistance. Nobody was listening.

NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 1980

The accident on Lake Kissinaw was big news for the remainder of November. There was a police investigation and then a Ministry of Labour inquest. Stan’s and Lee’s names were kept out of the paper but for a few days all you would see were pictures of Bud and his despairing widow. He was not buried. He was cremated and his ashes were spread at a campground he’d gone to every May long weekend for the last ten years.

Lee did not go to the memorial. He’d been very fond of Bud, but the thought of people, almost all of whom would be strangers, standing together, looking at him, whispering his name, knowing that it was he who’d been with Bud at the last moment, was too much to bear. He went up to the poolroom instead, and had a few drinks and shot a few games, and then went home and watched the hockey game on his TV.