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  17) I was eighteen, and Clarke was nineteen, when John Molson killed our parents, so we were allowed to stay in the house. Clarke was studying to become an electrician at CONA. He did his apprenticeship at South East Electrical in Bay Bulls. They mostly did electrical work on long liners. It was a weird niche, but they were always busy. When he finished his apprenticeship, he went ahead and got his journeyman. I worked at the bakery during this time period.

  Clarke sat me down at the kitchen table one evening and told me he was moving to Alberta to make some real money. I told him I understood, but honestly, it does make me pretty mad when I think about it even now. Here was my brother, my best friend in the entire world, sitting at the same place at the table John Molson sat, telling me he was leaving.

  When he went to bed that night, I crossed the street to the farm. I looked at the road between the farm and our house, my house now, and then I looked up at the fledging subdivision in Missus Evens’ former potato garden, and I felt so incredibly frustrated I wanted to hit something. I punched the ground. Then I stood up and stomped on the ground. Then I shouted at our house, “How could you leave me stuck here?”

  I don’t know if Clarke heard me that night. It’s never come up.

  18) I can’t go in anyone’s house nowadays without getting assaulted by the smell of Febreze.

  19) Thinking about last winter makes me pretty angry. I was sitting in the kitchen, this was around mid-January, and the whole house shook. I mean, things fell off the counter and everything. My first thought was an earthquake at sea or something like that. I heard someone cursing downstairs. I went down there, and this big yellow salt truck with the plow on the front had driven into the side of the house, tearing out an entire downstairs wall. The driver was pacing back and forth, swearing. He said there wasn’t enough salt on the road and his truck skidded on the ice.

  20) This is related: I’m mad as hell I had to sell the farm. The town refused to pay for the damage to my house, and the insurance company wouldn’t help me rebuild. They both cited town bylaw 32(a): “No home shall be located within fifteen feet of a public roadway.” They said this absolved them of all blame. If I had been following town bylaws, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t take it to court. I was too tired. I called my brother in Alberta and we sold the house and the farm to a developer and I bought a two-bedroom condo in St. John’s with my share.

  21) People should not let their cats outside. Cats that are kept indoors tend to live longer and have a decreased chance of contracting feline AIDS. They are also harmful to the local ecosystem.

  22) There is an overpass between St. John’s and Pork Chop Hill, or Heaven’s Acres or whatever the hell it is now. In early March, I stood up there with a big cinder block, and I waited. The town depot is near the overpass, so all the snow clearing equipment drives under it at the end of the shift.

  I waited for Salt Truck 004, the salt truck that ran into my house. When it drove under the overpass, I threw the cinderblock through the windshield. Salt Truck 004 swerved to the side and ran head-on into the overpass. The driver I met in my basement got all busted up. The whole thing was satisfying, like when you crack your knuckles.

  They gave me probation and sentenced me to anger management at the Waterford once a week until I was deemed fit to stop. I think I’m fit to stop now, so I’m pretty mad at getting forced to waste my time.

  23) I started drinking and got all uninhibited on account of my latest rejection. I sent the latest version of “Island” into a short-story contest the government was holding. The judge’s biggest complaint was about the ending.

  See, in “Island” the water in the Pacific Ocean is so acidic it starts to dissolve the island everyone is living on. The island gets smaller and smaller, and one by one, everyone falls in and dies until the main character is left standing on a rock in the Pacific all by himself. We don’t know what happens, it’s meant to be open-ended.

  The judge thought the protagonist should just surrender and let himself fall into the ocean. He is the last person alive, what’s left for him to live for? Everything he’s ever known and loved has ceased to exist.

  Benched

  Susan Sinnott

  THE CROWD WAS lifting off its feet, shouting. The horn gave a blast and the organ played one of those special hockey tunes—sounds you only hear in rinks. Da da da daa, da daaaa. The P.A. announced the goal, “And an assist by Gus Sheppard.”

  And all the Sheppards went crazy, cheering fit to burst and Hutch was jumping up and down with them, fizzing with energy, giving off sparks. One of their own was down there on the ice and people were yelling his name. The roar bounced off the walls and circled and crashed over them like breakers.

  It was different watching a game on television with replays from every angle so you could see just who did what. Hutch saw Gus deking two players in a row and making a pass across the goal, but he couldn’t see the winger flick it in—just saw the puck hit the back of the net as the red light flashed. They put it all together afterwards, on the bus.

  Dad always said you saw more of the game on TV. He hadn’t come. But at the game itself you were right in it—felt the vibrations up through your bones, the noise exploding in your head. You smelled winter melting off people’s jackets, wet wool, dust from old concrete and hot dogs and aftershave. You were part of the crowd when it roared to its feet at that perfect moment.

  It had been a rush to get ready. Not that Hutch did much, outside of rooting about in cupboards looking for the old Newfoundland flag, until his mom growled about the mess. Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard did all the work: the block of tickets at the stadium in St. John’s, transport from Mariners Cove.There were too many people for one bus so they joined up with the crowd from over Gander way, which was where the Sheppard cousin came from, the one who was playing. He’d been called up from the East Coast League to play a game in the American League, with the Maple Leafs’ farm team.

  The youngest Sheppards got to make the banner: Jenny and Jack—Go Gus Go in blue letters on white. Looked great. Jenny was good at that stuff. And here they were, jumping up and down next to him, and Eugene and the rest bouncing on Hutch’s other side, and all that carroty Sheppard hair sticking out under blue Leafs caps, and Gus on the ice with his big orange beard.

  The first period was a bit slow but it picked up in the second with a goal each and a whole bunch of shots on net and a couple of nice little fights. Then Gus got that assist with three minutes to go and it was a big deal because they won three to two in overtime.

  They came out of the stadium around eleven into a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain.

  “St. John’s,” said Eugene.“Even the weather doesn’t know its ass from a hole in the ground.”

  No use griping about the weather. Ignore it. But if you’re on the eastern edge of everything with your face in the North Atlantic and a four hour drive after the game, you can never ignore the weather.

  The first bus was pulling out as Hutch wandered across the car park with the Sheppards. After they’d banged on the side of the bus a bit and shouted goodbye and caused a nice bit of havoc, they piled into the second one. They took over the back three rows.

  There were replays everywhere. Definitely high sticking. Should have… Did you see? Jack dug a bologna sandwich out of his back pack, a bit squashed. He gave Hutch half and they shared Hutch’s Cheesies. Hutch said Jack’s hands matched his hair and Jack yelled, “Redhead Joke,” and rubbed his cheesy hands into Hutch’s face. Eugene leaned over the top of the seat from behind and grabbed Hutch’s baseball cap, scrobbed his hair and rammed the cap back down on Hutch’s head, laughing that big boom of a laugh that set off everyone around. There were chuckles all down the aisle, people craning round to see, murmurs of, “Oh, Eugene,” and “There goes Eugene.” It was comfortable tucked away inside the bus, friendly. Black as your heart outside.

  After an hour or two there was a change of topic here and there, to local stuff and plans for next week. Fathe
rs leaned back and closed eyes. Mr. Sheppard was snoring in the row in front and Jack’s mom leaned across the aisle to chat to her sister. Eugene and the guys were singing some old Beatles songs in back with Jenny adding top notes in a jokey kind of soprano. Hutch joined in with “Love, love me do,” and turned round and grinned at her.

  Jack went up front for a minute. Hutch turned more into the corner, leaned his head against the window and shoved the hood of his jacket between him and the glass to cut down the chill. He stretched his legs out diagonally, feet under the seat in front on Jack’s side. They stretched a long way. He’d grown a nice bit this last year. He shifted about, trying to untangle his foot from the straps of Jack’s backpack, closed his eyes. Then he dropped. The bus dropped, tilted, went black.

  Twelve holes across. Twelve holes the other way. 144 holes each tile. Ten tiles over to the wall makes 1440. Seven tiles to the fluorescent light makes—eight, carry two—1, 008 holes. A woman was looking down at him, her face coming, going, coming. It steadied. Looked like Mom. No she didn’t but she had the same stop-messing-around-and-listen face.

  “Glad you’re awake, Hutch.”

  A nurse. It took a while for the information to sink in—like a dry sponge that floats on the water for a bit before it starts getting wet. An accident. The bus…Bus? Gone off the road on a bend. Bad visibility. Ice build-up. Crashed rear end first down a bank. Holy shit. He tried to get his tongue to work, to ask questions.

  He had the worst of the injuries: both legs broken, some ribs. But a lot of folks had broken bones, concussions, soft tissue injuries—whatever they were—a punctured lung from a fractured rib, a small heart attack. Didn’t know they came in sizes.

  He started to remember more, singing and eating Cheesies, nothing about the crash. He asked where everyone was. Mom said folks hurt the least were taken to hospital in Gander and Clarenville, but they’d brought Hutch straight to town. What about Jack?

  “A minor concussion and a broken arm. Gone to Gander.”

  “And Jenny and Eugene?”

  Mom paused. “Not sure where they were taken,” she said. “Weren’t brought into St John’s.”

  His parents kept getting into a huddle with whatever nurse walked in the door, muttering so he couldn’t hear.“Just checking,” they said when he asked. “Just making sure everything’s being done.”

  There was a meeting.

  They wheeled his bed with all those tubes and stuff into this tiny space off the Intensive Care Unit and the walls swung round as the bed moved and kept on swinging when it stopped. They were slow and careful but something bumped and he felt the bump go all through him. Felt like he’d jumped down off a wall onto concrete. Tried to move a bit, to ease his legs, but it only made it worse.

  Mom and Dad came in. Smiled at him but their eyes were scary. There was a tall guy in a white coat with a hawk face and bushy old-man eyebrows, and a younger doc wearing a name tag, somebody MacPherson, and the nurse who was around all the time with the sing-song voice. Then a grey-head with brown folders under her arm and glasses that kept sliding down. Never seen her before. The nurse introduced everybody. Head nurse. Hawk Face was the orthopaedic guy and his name had ov and evsky in it like hockey names all run together. That nurse’s voice was nice but distracting—he kept listening to the voice not the words. Not from round here.Welsh, she told him afterwards. The other woman was a social worker.

  The Head Nurse looked at his mom and dad and him, each in turn, and talked about the accident and his injuries. Chatty. Said something about his rib cage, something thoracic crushed. Crushed didn’t sound good. He couldn’t get too excited though because it all sounded so far away, nothing to do with him. Stable spine. Discs, nerve roots…pressure. Inflammation. Swelling going down nicely. Wait and see. Lost a lot of blood, under control, lucky the paramedics got to him when they did. God.

  “And I’ll let Dr. …evsky explain about the legs.”

  He looked straight at Hutch. Nice he was talking to him but hard to be stared at like that. Just him. That guy standing and him stuck flat on his back. Made him feel like something in Science with a pin through it. What was he saying? The right leg had been sorted out but the left leg: “Bone fragments…tissue loss…vascular surgeon…” A whoosh of fear scorched through Hutch, white hot. “Limb salvage.” Like a frigging ship wreck. Holy crap.“Best we can hope for.” Not. Minimal. Unable. None. Eventually. “Best outcome, the most functional outcome, would be to remove the severely damaged leg below the knee and—”

  “No. No!” Hutch was yelling in spite of his stitches.“No way you’re cutting off my leg. Never.”

  Dad said My Boy, and Mom said Hutch, Hutch, and the doc kept on explaining and Hutch kept on yelling. Didn’t care about the risk and all the surgeries, didn’t care how good prosthetics were these days. He wanted his own leg. It was his fucking leg. He heard the doc saying, “Think about it and we’ll talk later.”

  But he wasn’t changing his mind. No way.

  They moved him into a general ward. There were people in the other beds but he couldn’t see them: a wall one side and screens on the other and him down flat. Dr. MacPherson was around a bit, the resident. Said he’d been to Mariners Cove once, paddled in with a group from university back when he was an undergrad.

  “In sea kayaks?” Hutch was interested then and told the doc maybe he was with the group Dad saw.“Dad had a good look at a bunch of kayaks that visited and took a paddle in one and then built one himself. Still have it. Called May after my mom.”

  He said how the Parsons had always built their own boats for the inshore fishery but there was no market for them now, so Dad turned to kayaks instead. Sold about fifty. Hutch even told him about his own kayak that he’d built by himself, because he seemed an okay guy. But he went right on refusing an amputation. And everyone had a go at him: Dr. MacPherson, the family, the nurses—the frigging mail man was probably on his way.

  Dad said he was thinking with his gut not his head and Mom said, “They’re treating you like an adult, Hutch, giving you a choice.”

  “What choice? When I choose everyone yells at me, tells me I’m wrong.”

  Mom came nearer the bed, loomed over him.“Children your age usually go to the children’s hospital. You only ended up here because the ICU was full or something. But you’re still a child—”

  “I’m not a frigging child.” The roar made his ribs stab and he broke off. Dad shifted in his chair, told him to watch his tongue, and Mom glared at Dad for a change.

  “I know it’s hard, Hutch.” There were tears in her eyes. “But you have to look facts in the face. You will walk better, do everything better, look better, have less side effects, if you have an amputation.”

  Hutch clamped his teeth together to keep his thoughts in, to keep himself from shaking. His heart was pounding like he’d just run up a hill. As if. Mom put her hand on his, gave it a little squeeze, moved away before he had time to fling it off.“We’ll be back tomorrow. If you want us.”

  He tried to yell that he didn’t, but he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

  Dad stood up, chewing his lip.“We want what’s best for you,” he said after a bit. “You know that.” He nodded down at Hutch, head poked forwards. “If it was someone else in this spot what would you tell them?”Then they were gone.

  Hutch closed his eyes. Now he was alone, except for being picked at by some nurse or other, and corpse-man next to him with the beige screens round who he still hadn’t seen, and the beeps and buzzers, the smells, the trolleys rattling, the loudspeaker calling for Dr. Murphy for the thousandth time. He’d never minded being alone. Always plenty to do, places to go. This was different. Felt like he wanted to hide and someone had moved the trees.

  Everything was sliding away, out of control. Stuff was being done to him all the time, things he’d always done himself, taken for granted, even being washed, for God’s sake. He’d tried to grab the facecloth out of the aide’s hand, twisted his rib cage and given
himself a real jolt.

  Without the amputation he’d have one leg way shorter, might need more surgeries, might end up with the leg off anyway if things didn’t work, maybe in and out of hospital for years. With an amputation and a prosthesis he could be functional in months and look almost normal. Get on with life. Or so they said.

  But an amputation was so—forever.

  He’d miss a hunk of school either way. And this was grade twelve. It mattered this time. He asked Dr. MacPherson when he’d be able to play hockey and the guy didn’t look straight at him like he usually did and said something about early days. Well, doctors didn’t know everything. God, he and Jack had really been working at it. The coach put them on the ice together because they were a good combination, Jack for speed and Hutch for power.

  Power. He had no power now, over anything.Well, he could fill out that menu card and choose his breakfast. Yeah right. Prunes or grapefruit. The only real choice he had now was about the leg, and he wanted to tell them all to shove off. Functional much quicker. Get on with life.

  A nurse said how it was lucky he was so fit and muscular and Hutch checked out his arms, noticed how flabby his biceps had gone, how they’d shrunk. That nurse didn’t know what muscular was. His shoulders had gone away to nothing, his big kayaking shoulders. Plain vanished. Months to build them up and they were gone in a week. He couldn’t believe it, kept checking. Gone.

  Dr. MacPherson wanted to see that leg. Asked if Hutch had seen it yet. Said it was time. If he couldn’t see lying down they’d find a mirror. The nurse was ages coming up with a mirror. Don’t let her find one. Don’t let her. The doc opened up the splint or whatever that was and all that padding. “Look at it, Hutch.”

  Fuck. Holy fuck.

  The aide was bellowing in his ear.“Never ate your lunch, b’y.”

  Hutch looked at him, blank, and buddy lifted the cover off a plate near Hutch’s nose. “Liver,” he said. It looked like a piece of bark curled up at the edges with a mushy scoop of mashed potatoes and some dead carrots.