Down to the Dirt Page 7
—Shoulda passed the puck, Andy. You knew Keith was in the clear.
I can only shrug and then take my place in the line up at centre ice; both teams set to congratulate each other on a game well played.
6. Show Me Your Friends
I don’t remember much about Nan Healy. She died when I was little. Accordin’ to my father, one of her favourite expressions was Show me your friends and I’ll show you what you’re like. Not the most open-minded turn of phrase if you asks me. But, Dad rarely finds himself short of an occasion to quote her on it. Like the first time I brought Keith to the house.
—Dad, you knows Keith don’t you?
He took one good look at Keith’s black nail polish and tore-up maggoty jeans, realized I was introducin’ him as my new boyfriend, grunted and walked away. Steady racket in the house for the next two weeks.
—Don’t fuckin’ well bring him here no more, I’m tellin’ ya!
—But why? At least give me a reason—
—Because it’s my goddamn house and I don’t want him here. That’s reason enough!
No amount of pleadin’ and bawlin’ could change his mind. Then, to my shock, my mother came to Keith’s defence. She’d worked with his mom at the post office a few years back and I s’pose she remembered a different Keith than the one Dad kept hearin’ about around town. She gave Dad the old spiel about how there’s nothing for the young crowd to do, how they’re bound to get in a bit of trouble every now and then, that Keith is no worse than he was at that age. I was impressed. Sure, Mom hardly acknowledged my existence anymore. But, whatever her reasons for stickin’ up for me when she did, Dad backed down and at least made the attempt to tolerate Keith’s presence when he came to the house.
I mean, I knows Keith’s no angel, but he’s not near as bad as some people makes him out to be. Then again, Nan Healy would have rolled over in her grave the day he discovered the vibrator in back of the filing cabinet in the master bedroom and insisted that I hunt down some batteries.
—Put that thing down, Keith. Put it back right now!
That’s exactly what I said to him. Honest to God. I wanted nothing to do with it. Its very existence shocked me. I didn’t want to think about where it had been, what late night role it’d been playin’ in my parents’ bedroom.
Keith raised it to his nose and sniffed it. He scrunched up his face. I made a grab at it but he took off into the bathroom and ran it under the taps for a while. I took the batteries out of Becky’s headset. Next thing I knew we were downstairs in my room and Keith was slabbin’ the KY Jelly on me. KY is okay at first, but it gets sticky and gross after a while. I likes lotion better, but sometimes it burns or makes me break out. Keith wanted to use Crisco one time when there was nothing else around.
He slicked the tip of the vibrator with extra Jelly and slid it in me. It was alright. Tickly. A bit cold. I lay there and let him get his kicks. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what all the fuss was about, it was nowhere near as good as the real thing. Then he turned a knob at the end and it buzzed to life. Humming little quivers of bliss shot up through me and I felt my thighs squeezin’ shut almost right away.
Anyway, we did the deed, and, even though I knows Keith’d slaughter me if he found out, I can’t resist tellin’ on him for havin’ his turn at it too. That’s right. That was my condition, that if he wanted to shove some battery-packed plastic cock up in me, well he’d have to take the plunge too. But it’s not like he put up much of a protest. Matter of fact, I think he liked it a whole lot more than I did. Most fellas are like that sure. Just so long as they’re gettin’ what they wants from a female, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing gay about it. What they don’t seem to realize is that they have this convenient little button called their prostate that makes things feel a whole lot better than it does for us girls. I tried the back-door business a few times with Keith and it felt like I was bein’ ripped in half. Where’s the fun in that? Deny him of it then and I’m being a prude.
—I’ll go slow, ’Tash, I promise.
Well if he can promise to go slow through one door, what’s wrong with taking it a bit easier when he’s in through the other one? Give me a chance to enjoy myself. I shouldn’t have to be finishing the job on my own all the time.
By the time we finished with the vibrator we were all in. Keith propped himself up on his elbow to recite the first half of the latest suicide note he’d written. A poem really. But always about death and turmoil and shit like that. I worries about him sometimes. It’s nice though, when he puts himself out there like that, when we’re feelin’ close. When we’re not at each other’s throats, which is more often than not. I mean, I loves him and all, but I’m hardly gonna be spendin’ the rest of my life with him.
After our cigarette we passed out in a sticky heap in each other’s arms. Some time later the sound of Dad’s signature stomp down over the basement steps woke me up. He kept a lot of gear in the furnace room so I had no reason to be alarmed. Then he almost put his fist through my bedroom door.
—Natasha? I knows you’re in there, now open up.
The only time he sounded that vicious was when he was drinkin’. But I knew a thing or two about how to handle him then.
—Dad, go on upstairs and lie down now. I’m tryin’ to do some homework. You go sleep it off.
—Sleep it off? That’s your solution for everything. Sleep your goddamn life away. You open this fuckin’ door, Natasha. I’ll count to three. One…
Alright, so he wasn’t drunk. He can’t count up to three when he’s drinkin’. I went over in my head what I might’ve done. I hadn’t raided his wallet in over a week and I’d rolled a whole pack of cigarettes for him that very morning. He was in good spirits then sure. I prayed to Christ it wasn’t about the vibrator. Myself and Keith were both stark naked, half asleep, and the room stank of sex and sweat. We scrambled into our clothes as quick as we could while Dad kept poundin’ away.
—Two…Open this bloody door or I’ll knock it in onto the fuckin’ floor, Natasha.
—What? What’s going on, Daddy?
I don’t know where the Daddy came from. I hadn’t called him that in years.
—You knows full well what’s goin’ on, girlie. Someone was rootin’ around in my bedroom. Kavanagh? You in there?
That’s another thing, in this real dismissive tone, he’s always called Keith by his last name. It’s his way of sayin’ that Keith is not a real person, not an individual, but rather an extension of the Kavanagh clan and what they’ve always stood for. Which isn’t much as far as Dad’s concerned.
—He’s trouble, Natasha. His crowd were always trouble. Show me your friends…That’s what your grandmother always said.
Dad kept hammerin’ on the door. My kindergarten picture fell off the wall. Keith looked at me and shrugged. He had his clothes on by then, sittin’ innocently in the corner armchair, a book in his lap. The hammerin’ came harder.
—Daddy, please. You’re scarin’ me! I’m not lettin’ you in until you tells me what’s wrong.
—Two and a half…Open this door, so help me Christ.
—Alright. Alright. Hang on a second—
—Three!
I just managed to hide the vibrator under the blankets when my bedroom door, moulding and hinges—the whole works—came bashin’ in on the floor. That was a first. I was good and scared. Keith too I s’pose, seeing how a piece of moulding struck him across the face. Dad walked in over the trodden door, frothin’ and droolin’, red as a beet and smellin’ like the twelve days of Christmas. But his breath was a bit sour, more like a hangover than a fresh drunk, so that was a plus.
—What are ye two at locked in the bedroom this hour in the day? Spendin’ an awful lot of time down here.
He had an apple in his hand, hardly a bite gone out of it. He pointed at Keith
. —Kavanagh, get your boots on and get the fuck out of my house.
Keith didn’t argue, delighted to be let off w
ithout a scene. He scurried out through the doorway without so much as a backward glance in my direction. You can hardly blame him though. Not two weeks before, the two of them were after havin’ words over something or other. Well, a little more than words. Keith had gone upstairs to roll a few smokes. He wasn’t gone five minutes when I heard Dad roarin’ something at him. Then I heard, or felt rather, a thump that seemed to shake the whole house. Keith didn’t answer when I asked what it was so I ran upstairs to see for myself. There they were, Dad in his drawers, his big belly jigglin’, his hand gripped around Keith’s throat. Keith’s toes were barely touchin’ the floor. There was a dent in the wall behind his head and I guessed that to be the source of the big thump I’d heard. His face looked like it could burst under the pressure of Dad’s beefy hand. He squirmed and wriggled and did all he could to loosen the grip, but his efforts were useless. Dad’s a big man. Plus he had a seriously psychotic look in his eye, a vacancy, like he didn’t know where he was or who it was he was tryin’ to kill. I didn’t care what it was all about, but I didn’t want Keith dead and I’m sure no one wanted the scandal of Dad going off to jail. I jumped on his arm, the one attached to Keith’s throat, and started bouncin’ up and down, screamin’. But the more weight I put on his arm the harder he seemed to clamp onto Keith’s neck. At the sight of Keith’s eyes rollin’ back in his head, I panicked and dug my thumbs into Dad’s eyes. He grunted like a Sasquatch and started swingin’. He caught me full in the chest and the force of it sent me sailin’ across the kitchen floor. I started to cry. He seemed to come back to his senses for a second. He let Keith slump to the floor and he turned towards me. He never spoke a word. He reached down to help me up and must have only then realized he was standin’ there in his drawers. He put his hand over the outline of his dick and trudged off towards his bedroom. Keith had bad bruises on his neck for a few days, but he flat out refused to tell me what the racket was about. I picked and poked and prodded at him constantly, but he wouldn’t give an inch. I should have let Dad choke him to death.
My room, as always, was in such a state that there was hardly a clear spot on the floor for Dad to stand up. He bent over to pick something up, but stopped himself. He walked over to my bureau and set his hand on the handle of the top drawer.
—If I opens this drawer will I find something belong to me?
That was enough proof right there that he was off his head ’cause he’d never dream about searchin’ my room. I don’t know whether it was some moral thing, some parental code, or if he just didn’t give a shit, but I figured I could stash dead bodies in my room and Dad wouldn’t even ask about the smell. As far as he was concerned, what was in my room was my business.
—Look, Dad, what’s goin’ on? Are you drunk? You come in here…you beat my door down, scare the shit out of me and Keith…
—Did Kavanagh put you up to this, Natasha?
—Put me up to what?
—Don’t play stupid with me. I had a toy, a skinny little party toy someone gave me up to Martin Sweeny’s birthday last year. I wants the truth.
—Daddy, please, I don’t know what you’re—
—Goddamn it, Natasha!
He smashed the apple off his forehead. Pulp and peel and seed splattered around the room. The ceiling, the mirror, it was everywhere. Juice went into my eye and I started to bawl. I figured it was safer to bawl. Either that or bust out laughing in his face. I reached under the blankets, pulled out the vibrator and hurled it at him. Apple drippin’ off his chin.
—Get out! Get out! You’re a pervert!
The embarrassed, shaken expression that came across his face had me regretting it right away. He seemed shocked, like he was realizing for the first time that this might look bad on him, that his own daughter might think him a sick beast of a man. He bent over and picked up the vibrator between his thumb and index finger, like he was afraid to touch it any more than he absolutely had to. He left the room with it danglin’ at arm’s length and I heard the distinct squeak of the furnace door opening, then closin’. All sheepish lookin’, he came back and sat down on the edge of my bed.
—Natasha, my trout, listen to me. That was something for adults. A toy for adults…
This was serious. He hadn’t called me his trout in a long, long time. I remembers one day, when I was really little, I came up behind him as he was goin’ up the steps to the house. I’d been playin’ in the frog pond for the better part of the day and I was filthy. He heard me behind him and without turnin’ around he said:
—How’s my little trout today?
Then he got a good look at me and he said:
—I guess that makes you my little mud trout.
A toy for adults? How thick did he think I was?
—I didn’t know what it was, Dad. I was just curious. I never used it or nothing.
He cringed at the image that must have jumped into his head. His little girl down in her bedroom with a vibrator.
—Did Kavanagh put you up to this, Natasha?
I could have laid it all on Keith right then and there. Should have. It was his bloody fault and he was already in the black books anyhow. But I figured Dad was too embarrassed by then and was gettin’ ready to drop it.
—No. Keith didn’t even know I had it. I’m sorry.
I put my head down and sobbed. He put his hand on the outline of my shin beneath the blankets, then pulled his hand away like the sheets were on fire. He stood up, dug a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to me. He picked up the door and leaned it against the wall, promising to have it fixed before I went to bed for the night. He couldn’t look me in the eye as he left the room. Halfway up the stairs he stopped and came back to the room. I sat there on the bed, poutin’ and teary-eyed, hopin’ he’d slip me another few bucks. But he didn’t. He fixed his eyes on the floor before he spoke once more.
—Sweetheart, please don’t mention this to your mother. Any of it. If she found this out she’d fuckin’ well divorce me.
This time, as he turned and walked out of my room, I noticed something stickin’ out from just above the waistline of his belt. Something long and skinny. There was a tiny damp spot where his tee-shirt clung to it. I listened to him upstairs in his bedroom, the drawer of his filing cabinet rollin’ open.
When I was sure it was safe, I got up, grabbed my boots and went out lookin’ for Keith.
The crumpled twenty sweaty in my palm.
He’d be delighted.
Maybe we could pick up a case of beer or a draw.
I looked all over but couldn’t find him anywhere.
7. Joey Neill’s Lookout
Not much chance of anyone findin’ me up here. ’Cept herself, I s’pose. If she ever decides to grace me. Safe enough. Always felt like something watches over me up here. In the daylight anyhow. The Grotto. That’s all it’s called. One of three in all of Newfoundland. I’ve been comin’ here since way back. Sometimes though, sometimes if you comes through the Grotto in the nighttime, you’re likely to feel anything but welcome. There’s an old darkness here. I don’t come to the Grotto in the nighttime no more.
Rumour has it there was a time the Cove was mostly made up of dirty black Protestants and the handful of Catholics willin’ to risk practising their faith had to do so in secret, during the night. Representing this small band of rebellious practitioners was a young Irishman name Joseph Neill. No one knows for sure whether Joseph Neill was a real ordained priest or not, but it’s said that his sermons were so forceful that he even won over a few diehard Protestants in his day. Lookin’ out over his sleepy-eyed congregation, Father Joseph didn’t bark and roar and bawl with a blistering red face and streams of aimless saliva to hammer home the word, but whispered. Whispered because not a sermon was given before the stroke of midnight and discovery meant, so they says, public hanging. Joseph Neill did hang eventually, but not by Protestant hands.
The Grotto marks the general area where Joseph Neill held his midnight masses. It stretches up t
hrough the woods just up behind the church. The Catholic church. There was no Catholic church back in the days of midnight masses, but there’s not a single Protestant living in the Cove today.
Lengthways at the edges of the Grotto are the fourteen Stations of the Cross, massive white monstrosities, seven up and seven down. The Grotto is closed in by evergreens and a few crabapple trees and on one side the woods slopes upwards for a good distance until they peaks at what’s now called Joey Neill’s Lookout. From up on the Lookout you can see for miles in any direction. They says you can see half the lights on the Shore from up there in the nighttime. But no one in their right mind is gonna climb up there after dark. There’s an unmarked grave up there somewhere.
Myself and Natasha sort of claimed the Grotto for our own when we first got on the go. Even did the deed here a few times. Right on the ground. No one ever comes up here. No one seems to show much interest in anything church related since all that shit went on with them faggot priests. That was a shock to the Cove. A shock to the whole Island. Our parish priest was the very first to go down for fuck sakes. I was in grade six. First day back to school after Christmas and we were all called into the gym where the nuns told us the news. Of course everyone already knew the gory details but the nuns had their own version of events. We were warned about gossip and hearsay and some nonsense about a stone in the devil’s garden. Certainly we couldn’t forget the good things the man done for the community. And hadn’t we learned by now that a man is innocent until proven guilty? Didn’t we know that some people wouldn’t think twice about ruining a man’s life if they thought they could get something out of it themselves, how some people thrives on scandal?
I never listened to the fuckin’ nuns. I listened to my Gran. She gave me a new set of rosary beads every goddamn Easter and I can’t recall ever havin’ seen her without a set in her own hands, or at least dangling from her pocket. She went to church two and three times a week, every week. And she was always pinnin’ some medal, St. Jude or St. Christopher, to the inside of my jackets. But she was only one of countless devout Catholics up and down the Shore. She had it in her bones, force-fed the Psalms, Revelations, Job, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John since she was no more than a scrap. One time Grandfather sliced open his finger in the kitchen and muttered just a tiny little Jesus through gritted teeth. Well fuck, she gave him such a clout up the side of the head that he forgot all about his finger and wandered out into the yard in a daze without givin’ another thought to the half-gutted beast of a codfish in the sink. She gave him a clout for that too. But when all that shit came out about child abuse and drugs and pornography and homosexuality, her rosary beads vanished and she never set foot in the church again, not even for a wedding or a funeral. Neither did I, if only because no one forced me to go no more.