As the old folks would say Page 7

  He reached for the serviette a second time, then just as mysteriously refrained from touching it, continuing in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

  “My second cousin, who was my manager of sorts, would scout out the place a day or two before, determine whether anybody was interested, who could be talked into a betting fight, set up the odds, that sort of thing. He had spent a few years on the streets in New York and he knew the ropes on the street-fighting routine, if you don’t mind the pun.”

  He stopped, somewhat abashed at having drawn attention to his play on words. Nobody else had noticed. The assistant editor and the secretary were listening attentively. Only the editor-in-chief seemed uncomfortable. He had become visibly more unnerved. The young writer gave him a passing glance as he continued.

  “So he would line everything up, and I would turn up a day or two later, do the fights, collect the winnings, and we’d both be on our way to the next job site.”

  “Collect the winnings! You! Win!” The editor-in-chief snorted again.

  “How could you win? Like I said, you look like a cream puff. And these ironworkers are as hard as the steel they put up.”

  He was using the same snorting tone, but it sounded vapid and empty, and his composure seemed shaken.

  The Newfoundlander accepted the reprobation gracefully. Only his eyes showed any response to the harshness of the tone. They had become as hard as steel. He picked up the folded serviette, examining it carefully before tucking it under the edge of a saucer. He leaned closer to the group as he spoke, his voice becoming matter-of-fact.

  “What you’re saying is that I look like I can’t fight my way out of a wet paper bag. That’s how they’d say it back home,” he added, nodding his head in agreement with the editor-in-chief. “. . . And you’re absolutely right. That’s exactly how I look.”

  The wineglass was again in his hand, and for the first time he took a long, slow sip of red wine, his eyes never leaving the form of the editor-in-chief as he leaned back, carefully resting the wineglass on the table. He pronounced the next sentence with a half-smile, the look on his face one of quiet satisfaction. He seemed to be savouring the memories of triumph and victory.

  “That’s exactly how I won all the money.”

  He stressed “exactly.” Then he leaned forward again, as if to speak in confidence, adopting a seriously questioning tone.

  “Would you bet on me? I mean, one look at me and the guys on the job would split their sides laughing.”

  He leaned back, satisfied that his question had achieved its intent.

  “That’s how I made my money. Nobody ever bet on me—nobody. And I can tell you”—here he leaned forward again, his hand held high over the table—“the odds were always this high.”

  The editor-in-chief’s eyes narrowed. He was swallowing hard and the tightness was increasing in his stomach.

  “What kind of a fighter were you?” the assistant editor queried, his eyes still portraying doubt. “Did you do any of that karate stuff . . . judo, boxing?”

  The young writer eased back, relaxed in his response.

  “No, I wasn’t polished like that. That’s what we’d call ‘fancy’ fighting back home. You must remember I grew up in an outport in Newfoundland, and there was no way to learn anything like that in a Newfoundland outport. The good fighters were natural-born fighters. You couldn’t learn that, and I never did.”

  The assistant editor continued in a mildly curious tone.

  “But you must have learned how to fight somewhere . . . in order to win like you did. . . . You weren’t a natural-born fighter. You weren’t trained . . .”

  The secretary had been trying to interject for some time. The young writer met her eyes again. His voice was factual.

  “Well, actually, I was trained. . . . Not in karate or anything like that. . . . But I was trained . . . and trained very well.”

  Here the young writer again toyed with the serviette as he waited for the words to take effect.”

  “Trained? How? You said you didn’t . . .”

  The secretary seemed on the point of complete exasperation. The young writer picked up the serviette and tossed it toward the centre of the table with a dramatic motion, his eyes surveying the group.

  “The military. The Airborne Division. . . . In it for three years. And let me tell you, them fellas train you. . . . It’s not fancy or anything like that, but there’s not much left of the other fella when you’re finished with him. . . . I can tell you that. . . . Yes sir, they turn you into one hell of a killer . . .”

  The words were relaxed in tone, tossed out nonchalantly, but it made the editor-in-chief start. The writer continued, still casually narrating.

  “You must have heard about the British commandos . . . Second World War. You know how hard they were trained. Well, my son, the Airborne makes them look like pussycats. And as far as street-fighting is concerned, the Airborne makes that stuff look like fun . . . compared to the stuff we learned . . .”

  He paused before looking straight at the editor-in-chief.

  “‘Get them any way you can’ was our motto. Kill or be killed, exactly as if you were on the front lines. Yes sir, kill or be killed.”

  He reached for his wineglass as he calmly surveyed the looks of horror that greeted his last statement. He continued into the stunned silence as he again looked directly at the editor-in-chief.

  “I was a pussycat before I joined the Airborne, but I tell you I had no trouble after I finished. I didn’t want to stay with the military. There really wasn’t anything else I wanted to do except go to university, so I got into using my training to make a dollar, as they say. Well, actually, it was my cousin who came up with the idea, after he saw me work over that guy in the bar, and sort of became my manager . . . for a cut, naturally.”

  “The guy in the bar?” The secretary’s face was frozen in horror.

  The young writer never deviated from his casual tone. He could have been telling them how he rowed boats back and forth across the harbour.

  “Yeah. Called me a stupid so-and-so of a Newf. Sir, by the time I was finished with him, he couldn’t say too many words. Jaw stomped to pieces, teeth all over the floor. . . . Smashed ribs, punctured spleen . . . from the boots, you know . . . you couldn’t see his face. By the time they hauled me off, he wasn’t very pretty. . . . Don’t know if he ever got out of hospital . . .”

  The young writer took a large sip of wine and set the glass gently on the table, as if he were finished with the conversation.

  The assistant editor caught the look of horror on the secretary’s face and seemed anxious to change the tone of conversation. The editor-in-chief sat motionless, his eyes never leaving the young writer.

  “So nobody would bet on you. I can see that,” agreed the assistant editor. “Your cousin was pretty shrewd to play it that way.”

  “Yep, he would set it all up; scout the job sites looking for whoever wanted to go for the money; collect bets . . . odds . . . that sort of thing—you know how it works—and the pot would go to the winner . . . and I always got the full pot.”

  “But, if these ironworkers are as tough as Mr. Mackenzie says they are . . .”

  The secretary was completely puzzled.

  “I know exactly what you’re going to say. ‘How could I possibly win?’ You know, that was the most interesting part of the whole business. I never had to fight a really good fighter.”

  “What?” queried the astonished assistant editor. “How did you manage that?”

  “Well, for one thing, these fellows—the really good fighters—have a code of their own. They’re perfectly confident they can take care of themselves when necessary and don’t have to prove a thing, so I guess they just couldn’t be bothered.

  “They knew they could take anybody, and nobody could take th
em. It was like all this stuff I was getting on with was beneath them. Like it was showing off or something. I think they looked upon my business as a big joke. I remember seeing a couple of them watching one particular fight and they were laughing their heads off.”

  The assistant editor seemed to understand.

  “So, if the really good ones didn’t fight, and the run-of-the-mill worker didn’t want to—for whatever reason—who would your cousin get for an opponent?”

  The writer paused before setting the wineglass down again. When he spoke, he spoke with emphasis, his eyes again resting on the form of the editor-in-chief.

  “The bluffs. You know, the guys who thought they were good. The guys who put on this big show of toughness. Going around bullying, shoving people around. Usually people they figured were weaker than they were: what we in Newfoundland call the ‘big blows.’”

  He was looking directly at the editor-in-chief, but the big man was avoiding his glance. The young writer then resumed his casual tone, glancing alternately to the left and right of his remaining audience.

  “My cousin was a genius for sizing up people, and he always managed to find a bluff that lots of people feared but everybody secretly wanted trimmed. . . . That’s a Newfoundland word.”

  He added, almost apologetically.

  “They would all show up to watch and bet their money, but when they looked at me you could see their faces drop. Figuring I didn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell—and to make sure they didn’t lose their money—they felt they had no choice but to bet on the bluff . . . and that’s how I made my money.”

  The editor-in-chief was sitting back, listening intently, alternately salivating and swallowing.

  “Now, as everybody knows,” the Newfoundlander continued, “guys that bully and bluff are usually useless fighters. That’s why they bully and bluff in the first place. Oh, they’d always come out swaggering and crowing, but it wouldn’t be too long before they were rolling on the ground, as they say back home, ‘not a gig in ’im.’ That last guy I pounded must have been in the hospital for five or six weeks. Surgery. . . . Never did walk right after . . .”

  He stopped abruptly as the secretary’s eyes again opened wide in horror.

  “I’m sorry, I got carried away . . .”

  The editor-in-chief had begun to perspire profusely as the young writer continued. The latter took another long sip of red wine, holding the glass for just a moment longer to his lips as he again looked straight at the editor-in-chief.

  “No, he never did walk again. . . . I was really sorry for what I did to him . . .”

  But the editor-in-chief couldn’t return the stare. Something was happening that he couldn’t explain, that had never happened before. He was experiencing fear—deep, corrosive fear—and he was falling apart. He had caught again the look of hard flint, and he felt the terror course through his veins. He could not fight the panic; he had to leave, he had to extricate himself.

  He stood up abruptly, so abruptly that he startled his two co-workers. His voice was hurried in parting, the short, disconnected bursts of speech tumbling upon one another incoherently, making no sense.

  “The meeting . . . I had almost forgot. . . . Yes, the meeting. . . . It was moved ahead to seven o’clock. . . . I suddenly remembered. . . . I have to leave immediately . . . already late. . . . Look after this young man here . . .”

  In his attempt to free himself from the constraint of the table edge, a cup and saucer smashed on the floor, but he took no notice.

  “Mr. Mackenzie . . .” The secretary grasped his arm, trying to restrain him. “The meeting is tomorrow night . . .”

  “Yes, yes, tomorrow night. . . . I’ll be there . . . yes, yes . . . seven o’clock . . .”

  He seemed thoroughly frightened as he stumbled his way through the maze of tables and chairs, now rapidly filling for the evening meal. His secretary tried to call to him over the distance.

  “But what about the novel, Mr. MacKenzie? We were going to discuss the novel . . .”

  The editor-in-chief half-turned, beads of sweat prominent on his bulging forehead. He could barely speak above a whisper.

  “Discuss the novel? . . . Yes, of course the novel . . . an excellent novel. . . . Yes, we will publish the novel. . . . But the meeting. . . . I can’t be late. . . . Yes, yes, publish the novel . . .”

  Startled patrons were roughed aside as the editor-in-chief pushed his frantic way through, overcome by panic, driven by some invisible, pursuing force. The assistant editor and the secretary watched as he disappeared past the reception area, totally perplexed by their superior’s mystifying behaviour. They had never seen him in such an agitated state.

  The young writer’s eyes did not follow Mr. MacKenzie’s departing form. He seemed to have reverted to his former self: quiet, thoughtful, his sole preoccupation in the moment draining the last of the wine from a nearly empty glass. He then set it down with an air of confidence, simultaneously reaching for the bottle in the centre of the table. As he watched the redness of the liquid slowly rise to the brim, he smiled in the direction of his two companions.

  “Well, after all that, Mr. MacKenzie is going to publish my novel. Who would have believed it? He’s not such an ogre after all.”

  His two companions continued to look, stupefied, in the direction their superior had disappeared. The sound of the young writer’s voice roused them again to his presence, but they seemed unable to shake the disbelieving looks from their faces.

  The secretary was the first to speak.

  “My God, I’ve never seen Mr. MacKenzie so upset.”

  “No,” adjoined the assistant editor, looking directly at the young writer. “Me neither. All that talk you got on with about street-fighting and hospitals and beating up must have really frightened the blazes out of him. You really took him down, and you didn’t lift a finger.”

  The young writer held the full glass of wine at eye level, assuming a mildly dramatic air. He seemed to be examining it before setting it down again. He looked at each of them alternately before replying directly to the assistant editor, a mischievous smile forming on his face.

  “Self-defence, my dear fellow . . . the art of self-defence.”

  THOUGHTS ON RESETTLEMENT

  From where I stand I watch the houses slowly disappear

  Erasing from my memory all those joys of yesteryear

  But the world still turns and so I bid my world of dreams goodbye

  I slowly raise my hand to wipe the teardrop from my eye

  The towering cliffs are silent in the distance as I gaze

  They hold my thoughts, my memories, of warmer, softer days

  Of people busy making hay, or turning fish to dry

  Of children gathered on the beach to watch the boats go by

  The boat reluctant cleaves the send as if it shares with me

  The feelings that are in my heart, as if it knows my misery

  I bow my head to hear the restless ocean crash and heave

  And I try to understand the reasons why we have to leave

  They told us that we couldn’t stay, the future bids us on

  That we would find our hopes and dreams some rich place further on

  But they didn’t tell us how to leave or how we were to cope

  Or how we were to live our lives when we had lost all hope

  With money and fine words they said, they made it sound so real

  But money couldn’t pay us for the way it made us feel

  Gone are the days when you would know the names of all you’d greet

  We peer shyly now at faces of the strangers in the street

  The rays of sunlight come to rest upon a little hill

  Where those who cannot come with us will be remaining still

 
We leave them with their sorrows, and the happiness they knew

  Ah, you’d sometimes think they knew no joy, in the homes in which they grew

  Loneliness oft-times held sway, they felt the seasons sting

  But they knew joy, and happiness, and they could dance and sing

  And in those houses that now stand abandoned to decay

  The sounds of life were just as rich as any of today

  They too could look with loving eyes at a baby or a bride

  They too walked with careless step with a loved one by their side

  And if their laughter was so loud, so wrenching they could cry

  For they also wept, in silent pose, to see their children die

  And so I turn my face and look, to that which lies ahead

  A future that has promised much, but holds its share of dread

  I’ll live my life the way I must, but I’ll never understand

  The way things happened as they did, in those outports in our land

  THE GIRL ON THE VERANDA

  I saw her every morning as I stepped onto the veranda to begin my daily journey to the university.

  The bungalow where I stayed, like many of the houses on the north side of the Waterford Valley, sat on the slope of a hill, and they were all raised well above street level, having variations of steps and verandas to accommodate the incline of the land. The height provided an excellent view of the valley and the Southside Hills beyond, and I would always stand for a few moments to savour the richness of the morning before descending to the street and beginning my walk to the bus stop.