‘Hell of a place to be hitchhiking. All kinds of men out this time of night,’ he said.
All kinds of men, and some in trucks. You were not the kind to take rides with men, but perhaps the child, the boy, reassured you, because he was a child. Men with children are less likely to do things that might shame them in the eyes of a child. I wrote that once, naively. But no, the concern would have been secondary; you were prepared for anything, ready to meet any threat, to go out fighting.
1989
The boy woke before Bernard that morning because the phone was ringing but this was nothing new because he was always awake before Bernard who was still passed out from the night before, next to the sink. Sometimes Bernard slept there by the sink and sometimes on the floor of the lounge by the couch, keeping the boy awake with talk in his sleep. One morning the boy found him with his head resting on the toilet, vomit sheeting the bathroom. He’d had chicken for dinner, and peas, and then something sweet. The boy could count the peas: thirty-seven whole ones and parts of others.
He answered the phone. It was the man with the funny voice again.
Listen kid is Bernard there?
He’s asleep.
Fuck wake him up man.
The boy jabbed at Bernard’s ribs with his bare foot. Bernard. Bernard. There’s a phone call. But the man didn’t move.
He won’t wake up.
Fuck throw some water on him man this is important business.
He’ll hit me.
He’ll kill you if he hears he missed this call.
So the boy poured some water in a glass and splashed it in Bernard’s flushed grey face, but the first glass didn’t do anything and the boy had to do it again, but this didn’t do anything either so he got a beer from the refrigerator, popped the lid, and poured it in Bernard’s eyes and then the man snapped upright and wrapped one of those hard hands around the boy’s throat and the other around the hand the boy was holding the beer can with and he looked like he would snap the boy’s head off and eat it. But the boy put out his other hand, the one holding the phone, and said, He told me to wake you up. Bernard kept holding on to the boy’s neck and his chest was going up and down but he took the phone and the boy dropped the beer can on the floor and the two of them were looking at each other for a long time.
No man. Give me half an hour rather. I’m in no fit state for public consumption. Can’t be that urgent. They’re already dead, hey?
Bernard hung up the phone and shook his head and stared again at the boy for a long time and had a funny look in his eyes. Don’t ever do that again or I’ll open you up from your mouth to your arsehole.
He jumped from the floor like he’d been awake all morning and picked the boy up in the air in his thin arms and shook the child. Don’t ever do that again! Then he put the boy down and punched him in the nose so there was blood all over the lino floor, and the blood went in with the beer and water and Bernard shook his head and said, You clean that up we don’t have time for your bullshit this morning.
So the boy cleaned up the floor with some kitchen towel and it took a long time because the blood kept coming in gobs from his nose.
And then Bernard showered. And then he said the boy should shower and the boy showered and then got dressed in khaki pants because he liked them best and the blue checked shirt because his father had given him that for his last birthday so he liked that shirt best and the red shoes because they were the only shoes he had anyway.
The boy was hungry but they didn’t eat. I’m too rough for eating this morning rather make me some strong coffee, quickly hey. So the boy put on the coffee maker and they both drank a cup but it tasted like cigarettes and Bernard spat his out on the floor and said for him to clean it up and the boy reached for the kitchen towel and as he was bending over the blood started to come again.
He ate an old banana that had been sitting in the kitchen for a week. He hadn’t been living with his uncle, his mother’s half-brother, for very long, a few months only, since the winter, and there was never enough for more than one person to eat.
They drove in Bernard’s truck to a police station downtown and Bernard stopped at the entrance to the forecourt and said something to the guard, and the man opened the gate and let them pass and inside it smelled thick like toilets, and there was a black plastic mound. Bernard got out of the truck and looked at the mound and shook his head and lifted a corner of the black plastic, and then the boy could see what was underneath and didn’t even look away because he had seen that sort of thing before but each time he forgot and looking didn’t make much difference any more. Bernard and the man from the phone pulled the plastic all the way back and looked and laughed like they’d never seen anything so funny.
So Bernard drove them home and swapped the pickup for the big truck and then drove all the way back across town to the police station. He had to back the truck into the forecourt and it scraped against the top of the gateway. The boy thought maybe Bernard would just let him stay in the truck while he loaded but he said, Come on man you gotta earn your keep and he dragged the boy out of the front seat. The man from the phone with the funny voice said, Isn’t the boy too young for this? and Bernard said, You know what I was doing at his age?, laughing and pulling at his nephew’s shirt. They put on plastic jumpsuits and rubber gloves and masks and there were two policemen who were already wearing the same outfits and they started loading the bodies into the back of the truck but the man from the phone didn’t help because he was too important and he went into his office that had a window looking down on the forecourt and watched from there. Once he brought them tea for a break but the boy didn’t want to put his hands near his face and Bernard said, Suit yourself man, you take what you can get.
The boy took the arms and his uncle took the feet and they would swing them and throw them into the truck and when it got overloaded at the back Bernard climbed in and moved the bodies around and then the boy had to prop the bodies left outside up against the truck and with one of the other policemen Bernard would drag them by their hands into the back. The boy didn’t get the chance to see his mother and father dead. The police said there was nothing left of them.
Bernard and the two policemen were laughing because they were so close to being sick from the smell and then they were done and Bernard was still laughing when he closed the doors of the truck and bolted them and the policemen folded up the tarpaulin and began to hose down the forecourt, washing everything left into the drains. The smell didn’t bother the boy so much. He had smelled it before and this was just another thing that smelled and looked like things he had tried to forget. Bernard went to the bathroom and was there for a long time and when he came back he looked greyer than he usually did and his teeth were yellower and he didn’t even hit the boy, he just mumbled something and told him to get in the cab because it was time to go and they had a long trip ahead of them.
They drove out of the city across the flats and past the airport, turning east and going up and over the pass and then through the orchards where the lights on barns were orange against the dark and insects flamed in little explosions of fire when they hit the electric fencing. Bernard had forgotten to pack anything to eat and when the boy said he was hungry Bernard just said, We’ll stop in the morning, hey.