“Mom's heart failed because it had to be big enough to do the job of your heart too, old man. And you'd figure that would leave you with a lot of time to make some decent choices. I mean, what the fuck did you think the township was gonna do with that road? Everyone knew that factory was coming. Everyone knew that major changes were on the way. Man, you sit down at that greasy restaurant often enough with that blind buzzard Gus and that fat loser postman, gossiping like old women. No scuttlebutt ever reached your ears, old man? Or did you just have your head up your ass as per usual?”
I followed him outside. Travis yelled from the top of the stairs, told me to back off, just let him go. But no one talks to me like that, insults my friends and takes the piss out of my hard work. I reached Russ's truck before he could pull the door closed. I wedged my arm in there and got in his face.
“Get off the truck, old man.”
“You come out here and apologize for what you said.”
He shoved me and I fell backwards into some deep onion grass. The back of my head hit the dirt pretty hard and I got a lung full of his exhaust as he accelerated down the drive. So I sat up and coughed, eventually stood and brushed off my damp overalls. Travis came out in his slippers. He stood stock still when he saw me. He cleared his throat. I could hear the fear in his voice.
“Did he hit you?”
“Naw, he just shoved me. I wasn't ready for it and lost my balance, that's all.”
We went back inside and Travis flopped down on the couch. He sat with his head stretched way back and his forearm across his eyes, like he was exhausted. I sat on the arm of the couch. We just stayed there without saying a word. Eventually, Travis broke the silence by sitting forward and staring at the booze.
“Jimmy Piller's father quit by going to AA over in St. Catharines, you know,” he said.
I was taken back by this. I put the top back on the bottle, which only had a couple of ounces left in it.
“Art Piller was a hopeless drunk who kept losing jobs and failing his family. He had no choice. I quit without going to any meetings,” I said.
Travis shifted around and said, “Can I tell you something, Dad?”
“Sure, you can tell me anything.”
“Well, Rusty says that when he was way younger, like when I was three or four and he was a boy, you used to drink and yell and carry on. He said you were scary, says he remembers it.”
“I used to hit the drink pretty hard at times, yeah.”
“He says that Mom always worried that you'd slip up, go back to it.”
I didn't like where things were going. Rusty had a way of twisting things to suit his needs. And by the sounds of it he'd been filling Travis's head.
“You know, Travis, your big brother tended to suck up to your mom, build her attachment to him, and then use her trust and loyalty to get away with things. I remember one time when he was just sixteen he'd spent the day with her crushing tomatoes for her homemade sauce. That night he took off in a Mustang that I was reconditioning over at the garage. He only had a learner's permit at that time. He only took it for ten minutes, went racing down towards the sixth concession. When he came home I let him have it. A careless thing to do and everyone knew it. But your mom stepped in and told me to cool off, that nobody got hurt, the car was fine, Russ had been helping her all day, and blah, blah, blah. And I remember he stood off to one side while she spoke. I can remember the exact spot in the kitchen where he stood because he had this wicked grin on his face. He loved the way he could manipulate things.”
Travis chuckled nervously at the story. And then he apologized for bringing up the past, but I could see his young eyes were brimming with questions. And I could just about hear the sort of shit Rusty had been feeding him. I sat on the coffee table directly across from him and said, “I've done some things, said some things I'm not too proud of, Travis, but I never hit your mom. A man that hits a woman is the lowest of the low. Let me ask you something, is that what Rusty told you, that I hit your mother?”
Travis wouldn't look at me. He pulled his shoulders back and did some neck rolls, sighed and said, “No, not exactly, but he kind of hints around it. I think that he wants me to believe that.”
I could hear the refrigerator motor running in the kitchen. The clock on the mantle seemed louder than ever as it snapped away the seconds. My mind was quiet except for the doubt, which sat in there like lead. I wondered where I'd gone so wrong that my eldest boy had started what seemed like a campaign against me, telling Travis shit like that, leading him on. I also had to wonder if I had ever slapped Wanda, wound up and clobbered her in the middle of a drunken rage. We'd had family talks long ago, and those days were supposed to be water under the bridge. Yeah, I used to go off now and then, under the pressure of running a business, making ends meet. But I don't remember raising a hand to Wanda. When I'd eventually quit the booze, I even asked her directly. I wanted to know if during a drunken binge I'd ever hurt her. She'd said it didn't matter now. She smiled faintly and said that I'd usually been too drunk to hurt a mouse. She wanted to move on and was happy with my commitment to turn over a new leaf.
I got up and took the whisky from the coffee table. I asked Travis to follow me to the kitchen. I stood at the counter and uncorked the bottle.
“I don't need this stuff. Since your mom died I've had a nip here and there, but I don't need it. I want you to play Junior B. And if this is on your mind, well then, I want to put your mind at ease.”
I held the bottle up nice and high and poured what little remained down the sink. Travis beamed at me. He watched the whisky fall in a thin amber stream and just kept on nodding his head.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for my church family, for their love and support, their kindness to me, a kindness that is helping me to heal. I look forward to seeing them this evening.
Lord, I hold up Grant to you, ask you to walk with him, strengthen him as he starts back to work. Father, you know the dangers and difficulties that he and the others face, and I ask that you protect him, protect all of them. I pray that you will allow Grant to feel your Holy Spirit, to know in his heart of hearts that you are working in him, calling him to you. He needs you, Lord. He needs to know that you love him and that you'll welcome him when he's ready to give his life over to you.
Help Grant to conquer his fears, to overcome the hate that resides in him. Help me to be all that he needs. Help me to bring him to you. He's hiding, Lord. He's hiding the same way that I did before you found me. Let him see your Son. Let your Son's pain become his peace. In His name I pray. Amen.
Grant McRae
Grant McRae had been fighting nerves in his belly. He'd decided to keep his mind and hands busy in the garage, cleaning up, rearranging his tool bench, sweeping the floor, and hanging the snow shovels on some giant hooks he'd installed so they'd be out of the way until winter. He knocked a dustpan against the huge rubber garbage bin, dumping a handful of dust and grit he'd swept from the concrete floor. The phone was ringing inside the house, and he walked over to the garage wall and listened. It was his line downstairs in the study, so he dropped what he was doing and hightailed it into the house and down the stairs two at a time. He snatched up the phone and confirmed his hunch, smiled wide as Danny Cook's voice came loud and clear from the other end.
“You busy?” asked Danny.
“No, I was just passing time.”
“Butterflies in the gut, I bet.”
“Yeah, sure, a little.”
“Why don't you swing by for a beer? I've got six Heineken in the cooler with our names on them.”
He signed