Michael Crummey - Sweetland

He made the head out of a brin bag, also stuffed with straw, and he drew on the eyes and mouth with the last dribs of the yellow oil paint. Hung the figure on a hook in the shed, stepped back to consider it. That’s what’s left of you, Mr. Fawkes, he thought, for all your scheming. A few rags stuffed with straw.

It was pouring rain and cold on the morning of the fifth and it was only the thought of disappointing Jesse that kept him from skipping the event altogether. The weather cleared some in the late afternoon and he walked up the path at dusk with a yogourt container of kerosene and the straw effigy under his arm. His pockets jangling with half a dozen bottles of homebrew. Four potatoes wrapped in tinfoil stuffed among the beers. His breath white in the chill, the air smelling like snow.

The mound of scrap wood and brush was Sweetland’s height, with the tractor tires thrown on top. He made a torch with a rag on a stick of driftwood and soaked the rag in kerosene. Then he walked around the mound, pushing the flame into the wet underbrush until the fire caught in half a dozen spots and took up through the centre. By the time the early dark had fallen, the mash was alight with the blaze, so hot Sweetland had to stand twenty feet clear, and still he could feel his face burning. The bonfire made the blackness beyond its circle seem complete, as if the houses below and the ocean beyond it had disappeared into the void.

He waited until the fire had burned back a little and tied the effigy to a pole he’d cut for the purpose, holding it over the height of flame and the dirty rags of smoke from the tires. It was a full minute before the pants ignited and the figure seemed almost to explode then. Sweetland shouting into the darkness above the bonfire as the clothes shrivelled and fell away in burning strips.

He dropped the pole onto the mound and crouched in close to the fire, shielding his face with one hand as he placed the potatoes into the coals nearest the edge. He stepped back to where he’d left the homebrew and stood there in the heat. Raised a bottle to the flames. “Now, Mr. Fawkes,” he said.

There were half a dozen fires this size along the mash when he was a youngster. People gathered in clusters, or wandering back and forth from one to another. The men half-loaded on whiskey or shine, women trying to keep track of the youngest children. The night crackling with voices. Every year someone’s outhouse was dragged up the path and thrown onto a burning pyre, the dark erupting with flankers. The crowd cheering. He and Duke would take a run at them after the initial inferno had burned back, coming down in the coals on the far side of the largest fires, sending up a shower of sparks, occasionally setting their pant cuffs alight.

The tradition had all but died out on the island before Jesse arrived. The last few years the boy had helped Sweetland collect scrap wood and spruce branches near the Mackerel Cliffs. They weren’t allowed to set the fire anywhere near Vatcher’s Meadow or to burn tires or any other “hazardous waste” according to the letter from Rita Verge. Municipal regulations, she said they were. It wasn’t much above a glorified campfire they put together, but Jesse counted down the days to Bonfire Night the same as he did for Christmases and birthdays. He scorched marshmallows and wieners on alder sticks while Sweetland described the fires they had one time, the days and weeks they spent building the pyres, the mash lit up like a carnival midway till the small hours of the night. Promising the boy next year they’d haul his old outhouse up the path and burn it. Or steal a few tires or stuff an old shirt with straw. Next year, he offered every November. Next year.

Sweetland fished the potatoes out of the coals and let them cool a few minutes at his feet. Opened the tinfoil gingerly, using his pocketknife to break the skin, steam snaking into the cold air. The roasted flesh dry and sweet and he ate three of the plain spuds, one after the other. He’d finished four bottles of the homebrew and he stepped away from the heat to piss into the blackness. The silence roaring out there beyond the fire’s chatter and he listened awhile after he was done, feeling the chill creep into his clothes. And something moved in the pitch, a scuffle near his feet that raised the hair at the back of his neck. The something slipped past him and Sweetland staggered to one side, turning in time to see the creature disappear around the bonfire. “Jesus fuck,” he said.

He crouched down and waited a few moments. Not quite able to credit what he’d seen. “Smut,” he said. He pursed his lips and kissed at the air.

The little dog appeared at the opposite side of the fire, peering at Sweetland warily. He called again but the animal lay down where it was, the head held high. He stood up straight and the dog got to its feet, backing away.

“All right,” Sweetland said. He retreated to the spot where the last potato lay on the ground, trying not to take his eyes from the tiny animal. He knelt and peeled the tinfoil away, cut a section of potato skin, tossed it toward the dog. He’d never known a dog to eat potato skin, but he guessed the creature was near to starved, wandering up on the mash alone all this time. It must have gotten loose before the last ferry and been left behind. A wonder it was alive at all.

The dog crept up to the food and sniffed a moment before eating it, then looked across at Sweetland. He tossed another section, a little nearer himself, and the dog crept that much closer. Sweetland talking softly all the while, asking the animal questions about how it had managed to miss leaving on the ferry and what it had done to keep itself alive and who was a good dog? Each bit of food he dropped closer to himself and the last morsel of potato he held in his outstretched hand. The dog considered it a long time before sneaking close enough to take it. Retreated a yard and ate the potato and then stared at Sweetland again. It was a ragged-looking thing, burrs and sticks caught in the overgrown black coat. The fur so long it was impossible to see the dog’s eyes behind the straggle. Sweetland raised his palms in the firelight. “That’s all I got,” he said. He wanted, more than anything he’d wanted in a long time, to touch the animal. But it moved away from him, closer to the heat of the fire. “You been living off my rabbit snares, I’m guessing,” Sweetland said. “Haven’t you, Mr. Fox.”

The word struck him then, the odd congruity. “Mr. Fawkes,” he said. “Mr. Fox.” He wished he’d brought up some sort of meat to offer the dog. But he didn’t move an inch for fear of scaring it off, even after it curled up and fell asleep.

The dog stayed close to Sweetland after Bonfire Night, following him at a discreet distance when he checked his rabbit slips up on the mash, coming by the house for food. The animal couldn’t be coaxed inside, though Sweetland stood at the open door with morsels of rabbit or salt beef. He dragged Diesel’s doghouse up from Pilgrim’s yard and set it in the lee of his own place, laying an old bath towel inside, and from the look of things the dog was making use of it. Before he doused the lamps at night he opened the door and called good-night. With no idea if it was within earshot.

There was a stretch of fine weather in the middle of November, mild and clear and calm, and Sweetland went out in the Love Boat to fish each day. The little dog chased him down to the wharf that first morning and stood at the concrete edge barking its fool head off as Sweetland rowed into the cove. He sat the oars a minute and watched the ridiculous creature running back and forth the length of the dock, yapping so fiercely it reared up on its hind legs.

“What in Christ is it you wants?” Sweetland shouted. He turned about, rowing toward the wharf, and when he was within six or eight feet the dog made a suicidal leap for it. Sweetland twisted in his seat to catch it and there were a few seconds of thrashing and cursing before the boat settled. And by then the dog was curled on a folded square of tarp in the stern. It lay there as Sweetland rowed out to Wester Shoals and didn’t move until he’d caught his fish and hauled back in and stepped onto the beach. Sweetland dragged the dory above the high-water mark and tied the painter to a chain he’d set around the base of a rock. The dog still hadn’t budged when he leaned in for his fish. “You coming?” Sweetland asked, and it jumped over the gunwale, shadowing him up the path.