Matt Lennox - The Carpenter

It was a house league night but there were a few lanes open for the public. They switched their boots for the rental footwear. They bought colas and hot dogs and went to their lane and bowled badly. The house league teams were drunk, shouting at the balls thundering down the hardwood. Pete and Emily were objects of some amusement in the clothes they were wearing, but nobody bothered them.

Pete sat in one of the plastic chairs at the head of their lane. Emily took up a ball and launched it with unnecessary force. It curved into the gutter. She turned back around, laughing. Pete watched her with complete wonder. The sight of her in that moment was taking hold of him. Her eyes were big and clear, her skin was pale, and her mouth, usually set cool to match the way she carried herself, was pulled open in a wide smile. Through the times to come, whenever he thought of her, this was how she would appear.

By midnight, Pete’s car was parked close alongside a snowy meadow north of Echo Point. Lights passed infrequently along the highway. The back door of the car opened and Pete emerged, wrapped in a wool blanket, and jogged over the snow in his work boots. He went out twenty feet and opened the blanket only wide enough to pull off the condom he was wearing. He flung it away and urinated into the snow and jogged back to the car.

The car engine idled and the heater blasted away. Emily was sitting in the back with her legs up on the seat. Pete turned the engine off and got into the back seat with her and draped the blanket around them both. For some time they were quiet. The windows were foggy. Emily traced her initials.

— My grandpa’s place is close to here.

— Yeah?

— It’s the house on Echo Point. Right where … that boat crash happened. Your uncle.

— Where my uncle’s friend got killed.

— Yes. Grandpa’s lived there a long time. The house was in his family before that. He wants my folks to take it from him. My mom was an only child.

— How long ago did your grandma die?

— Two years ago. It was in the spring. She had a stroke and she died right in her garden.

— Jesus. That’s terrible.

— I think it’s kind of nice in a way, said Emily.

— Nice?

— She loved her garden. It was a beautiful morning. I remember because they called me into the office at school and I was looking out the window when I took the phone. Here’s my dad telling me, and I’m looking outside and thinking what a beautiful day it is. I didn’t get upset at all. Not until I got to the hospital and saw Grandpa. She was gardening when it happened, which was her favourite thing to do, and she just lay down right there. We should all be so lucky.

— My grandma is dying of lung cancer. She’s been sick since the summer. She smoked a pack a day for her whole life and finally she quit, maybe two years ago. But she was too late. She’s got a tumour in her lungs. They can’t do anything for that at her age. You know what I’ll remember best? Go get Granny her menthols, Pete. I grew up hating the smell of cigarettes. I hate them now.

The cold was creeping into the car. Emily moved closer against him. There was nothing to see outside the car, nothing of their surroundings.

— Was your granddad always a cop? said Pete.

— Yes, forever. He was sixty-two when he retired. I think he had to at that point, legally and all, but it was hard for him. But when he was really young, twenty or so, he was a boxer. Grandma used to tell me about it. They had these old newspaper pictures. This handsome boy wearing funny trunks, with a funny haircut. A moustache. Got his dukes up. I couldn’t recognize him at all except for the eyes. It’s hard for me to imagine that time in his life.

— Was he a cop here in town?

— Always. Here’s something. The last guy they executed here? Grandpa arrested him. The man had killed another cop. They executed him, out behind where they have the library now. Grandpa never talks about it. I only know because my mom knew. She told me about it once when we were visiting her aunt. We took the train down to the city to visit, and on the way back Mom told me a lot of things I never knew. It’s funny what happens when you grow up. How you learn about things in the lives of the people you love. The big things, the bad things. They happened before you even existed.

— You find out and it changes things.

— I guess.

— You don’t think so?

— Well, I think with the people you love, unless you find out they’re murderers or something, you still love them. It’s just you find out they’re actually people. They’re not giants any more.

— My uncle is a murderer, said Pete.

— What?

— I can’t say for sure. There aren’t many things other than murder that you do that long in jail for. But I can’t say for sure because nobody in my family talks about anything except Jesus. My grandmother is dying and nobody talks about that. My real dad ran off somewhere before I was born and nobody talks about that. My uncle was in jail for seventeen years and definitely nobody talks about that. Half of what I make at the gas station goes to Saint Barry for rent-he counts it every time- and you don’t hear anybody talking about that. I don’t even talk about it. If it weren’t for Jesus I would live in one quiet house. Are you cold?

— Yes, a little.

He reached into the front and started the car for the heater to blast again.

— You know what they told me about sex? said Pete. They left a booklet on my bed. I was twelve. It was called The Christian Path to Growing Up , and it was a booklet full of reasons why if you beat off or if you neck with a girl you’re going to hell.

— My mom told me everything, said Emily. I could have done with just an explanation. I didn’t need her to talk about techniques.

— That’s better than a booklet about the evils of necking, believe me.

— Tell me how evil necking is, said Emily.

She moved against him, shifting out of the blanket. Her pale body moved fluidly in the dim light. She kissed him with her tongue inside his mouth and her fingers tracing along his cheek.

There was nothing to compare this feeling with.

He wanted her to be vulnerable, wanted her to need him as much as he felt he was beginning to need her. He was even willing to believe that it was so, that she did need him as badly. She moved on top of him and slid her hand down his stomach.

— Do you want to go again?

— Yes, said Pete. Anything for you.

— Good. After that, you’ll have to take me home so I can go to bed like a good girl.

A few nights later, Pete picked up Lee and Helen after work to take them to Donna and Barry’s house for supper. Lee had dressed in what he had for a formal occasion, jeans and a collared shirt and his Carhartt coat. Helen wore big hoop earrings and a leather jacket over a tight-fitting dress. Lee held the door for her and she got into the passenger seat. He got into the back.

Pete had assembled a picture of Helen from what Lee had told him, and in person she was not far removed from what he’d imagined.

— Haven’t I heard a lot about you, said Helen.

— Hi, said Pete. Hey, Uncle Lee.

— Hey, Pete.

They drove out to the house.

— This is a nice-looking joint, said Helen. Why don’t you move out here, Brown Eyes?

— It’s filled up with people out here is why, said Lee.

They were halfway up the walk when Donna opened the front door and stood there thinly against the backlight, wearing grey slacks and a cardigan. Lee went up first. He and his sister embraced stiffly and he went to kiss her on the cheek but she had already turned her head. Helen came up the steps and took both of Donna’s hands. Pete could see his mother’s shoulders climbing in defence.