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  knucklehead & other stories

  Knucklehead &

  Other Stories

  W. Mark Giles

  ANVIL PRESS | VANCOUVER

  Knucklehead & Other Stories

  Copyright © 2003 by W. Mark Giles

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief passages in reviews. Any request for photocopying or other reprographic copying of any part of this book must be directed in writing to Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5.

  National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Giles, W. Mark

  Knucklehead, and other stories / W. Mark Giles.

  ISBN 1-895636-50-7

  I. Title.

  PS8563.I4763K58 2003 C813'.6 C2003-910173-8

  PR9199.4.G54K58 2003

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Cover by Rayola Graphic Design

  Typesetting by HeimatHouse

  Represented in Canada by the Literary Press Group

  Distributed by the University of Toronto Press

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the B.C. Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for their support of our publishing program.

  Anvil Press

  6 West 17th Avenue

  Vancouver, B.C. V5Y 1Z4 CANADA

  www.anvilpress.com

  For Secord

  Acknowledgements

  I offer my deepest gratitude to my partner Donna Sharpe, who anchors me to the world. And to my daughter Lucy Piper, who teaches me something new every day about how we shape the world with language and story. I love you (both) madly.

  I am forever grateful to Fred Stenson of the Banff Centre’s Wired Writing Program and Aritha van Herk at the University of Calgary: their expert, incisive, and unfailingly accurate guidance made these stories into a book. I owe many thanks to my English 598 peers at the University of Calgary for their readings, insight, and support. Reverend Aurelian Giles gave me counsel that allowed me to seek permission from myself not to write for some years; Edna Alford at two different times gave me the encouragement to continue. Thanks too to Carol Holmes and the staff at the Banff Centre Writing and Publishing Program for their dedication to nurturing a space for creative work.

  I have benefited from those in writing groups who have been my patient first readers – thank you especially to Belle Auld, Ross Deegan, and Pat Hastings. For his unflagging belief in my writing, I thank Ameen Merchant. For affirming my faith that people read, I thank my book discussion group: Bob Banks, Tim Breitkreutz, Debbie Brooks, and Annette De Jong.

  Many thanks to Brian Kaufman and Jenn Farrell at Anvil Press, whose unflagging work, attention to detail, and passion for publishing have transformed the imaginary into the material book you hold in your hands.

  Versions of some of these stories have appeared previously: “K,” “Tears of the Waiter Soup,” and excerpts from “Fugue for Solo Cello and Barking Dogs” in subTerrain; “Remission” in The Antigonish Review; “Cigarettes” and “Al’s Book of the Dead” in Canadian Fiction Magazine; “Industrial Accidents,” “The Man in the CAT Hat,” and “Towards a Semiosis of Two-headed Dog” in The New Quarterly; “The Day the Buffalo Came” in NeWest Review; “Sweetwater” in The Malahat Review; “Thanksgiving” in blue buffalo; “Wrestlemania” in Grain.

  CONTENTS

  K

  Remission

  Cigarettes

  Industrial Accidents

  Noises

  Al’s Book of the Dead

  Misdirection

  Ledge

  The Day the Buffalo Came

  Sweetwater

  The Man in the CAT Hat

  Knucklehead

  Thanksgiving

  Tears of the Waiter Soup

  Fugue for Solo Cello and Barking Dogs

  Wrestlemania

  Towards a Semiosis of Two-headed Dog

  K

  The boy in the field. Is he tow-headed? Carrot-topped? Freckled? Olive-skinned? Cow-eyed? Wall-eyed? One-eyed? Is the boy white? A possibility: the boy lies on his back in a fallow field beyond the edge of town. Perhaps he chews kernels of raw wheat into prairie gum. Scudding clouds hypothesize representational shapes. On a distant ridge, a question-mark of smoke smudges the sky with the lingering threat of a grass fire. The sun may burn, yellow-eyed, edging towards one horizon or another. Imagine the boy’s pockets full of potash.

  A hired man takes a break from the toil of twisting an auger to dig a hole for a gate post. He pulls his hat from his head, wipes his brow with a forearm. He walks and fetches the canteen full of water, covered in wet burlap and hung on the outside rearview mirror of his truck. After drinking three long draughts, he soaks his hat. He settles the canteen into the crook of his neck, and rests his cheek against it.

  At night, under the patchwork frenzy quilted by grandmother’s arthritic fingers, the boy curls around a pillow. Transistor radio held tight to his ear, he listens to hillbilly music from a station in North Carolina. In an abandoned farmhouse in the fallow field, hundreds, thousands of bluebottle flies lie dead on the floor. He catches a garter snake, keeps it in a mason jar covered with a burlap remnant until it escapes. At the shore of the lake—more slough than lake—every flat rock is potentially an arrowhead. The boy turns each one in his hands, then skips it across the water. What does potash look like?

  The hired man takes a cigarette from a tin box he keeps in his pocket. He dangles it from the corner of his mouth, where a cigarette always dangles, so that his left eye has a permanent squint from closing against the smoke. He cups his hand around the Zippo and flicks the flint wheel. Squatting in the scant shade of the truck, he takes deep inhalations of tobacco smoke. He thinks about his children: “Just stepping out for a deck of smokes.” How old would the boy be now?

  Rodeo bulls bursting through the gate, smashing fences, stampeding the crowd. The boy buys Coca-Cola in a six-ounce bottle. He tucks the green glass into the crook between cheek and shoulder, the way his dad used to do with stubby brown bottles of Bohemian Maid.

  The hired man hauls himself to his feet and plucks the cigarette from his mouth. He flicks it aside and the wind carries the glowing butt into the tall grass. He grips the handles of the auger and bends his back to the dig.

  Father has gone to Saskatoon to work in the potash mine. Standing between rows of ripening corn, the boy stares down between his feet into the dark earth, a mile down through topsoil, the clay mantle, granite bedrock, through underground rivers teeming with blind pale fish, through layers of rock flowing in the push of earth lifting the fossilized dinosaurs in their tide, he stares down into the earth, searching, searching, searching for potash.

  Remission

  —I like it here, she said to her lemon tree. In the bright light of the morning sun, in the cosy kitchen away from the outside cold, the lemon tree seemed happy to agree: I’m glad you like it here. Joanne cupped a palm under each leaf and cleaned it with a damp cloth. The lemon tree flourished, it sprouted deep green, luxuriant, shiny leaves. Joanne didn’t wash the new ones.

  A lazy winter fly circled overhead, then gained altitude in a looping spiral.

  —Why are you here? Joanne said. She retrieved the flyswatter from its hook beneath the sink. It had an old-fashioned wire handle, twisted like a doctor’s two snakes, with a rubber striking pad not quite the same colour as the walls. Scrub green, Joanne called it, like a hospital gown.

  She swiped at the fly as it circled the light fixture.
The fly accelerated. Joanne waited. If flies have all those eyes, why can’t they see where they’re going? Imagine running full speed in a room with many angles, bumping surfaces again and again, just like the fly was doing. It stopped suddenly, a couple of inches below the ceiling in the corner where two walls met.

  —You don’t belong here, Joanne said to the fly. She pulled over the stool with the folding step that she used to reach high cupboards. Even standing on the stool, it was a long reach. The fly waited. Slowly she brought the head of the swatter to a position four or five inches from the fly. She flicked her wrist and struck.

  The tip of the swatter deflected off the ceiling. The fly swerved through the kitchen and stopped above the telephone nook. Joanne repositioned the stool to its usual place, where she sat when she talked long-distance to her mother. She stepped up quickly and swung. Missed. The fly buzzed slowly around the room.

  —Well come on, you stupid fly, Joanne said. The fly buzzed back at her. She lost sight of it momentarily as she tried to track its course. It came to rest over the sink, lower on the wall. Completely still. She swung with a full arm movement and killed it.

  —About time, she said. The fly stuck to the wall. She used a tissue to remove it, then wiped the spot clean.

  She put the flyswatter away, rinsed the cloth, then lingered at the sink, gazing out the window. Her two boys — aged five and four, just eleven months apart — frolicked in the trampled snow of the yard. Bundled in their banana-yellow and tangerine snow-suits, the children looked alien in the white landscape.

  —And my children, Joanne said. The spider plant swung in its macramé hanger, the azalea on the fridge fluttered slightly from a blast of furnace air, all the house plants seemed to nod their understanding.

  She couldn’t hear their shouts and cries, saw only their breath burst from their mouths and hang frozen in the air. Benjamin hopped on his one leg, steadying himself with a hand on the pole of the swing set. He waved one of his aluminum crutches in the other hand, fending off his brother. Jason knocked aside the crutch and pushed Benjamin down, then sat astride him. He dropped a handful of snow on his younger brother’s face. Sam the Samoyed ran to and fro.

  —And my dog, Joanne said. She wiped the windowsill, lifting the three-inch pots of African violets and nasturtiums, checking for water marks.

  An hour later, Benjamin was teasing his older brother, mimicking his every move. He drank his stove-warmed Nestlé Quik, matching the way Jason licked his lips, imitating the satisfied Aah! after every sip. Joanne looked away and concentrated on the piece of black hashish she was crumbling on the trivet. Beautiful hashish.

  She scorched the hashish with her Cricket lighter, just to the point where it smouldered, then mulched it finely with her thumbnail and forefinger. Green really, not black, greener on the inside where the air couldn’t darken it. Sticky with resin. Somebody told her that they made some kinds of hash by running naked through fields of marijuana, allowing the resin to cling to their bodies, then rubbing it off and rolling it into balls, Joanne raised her fingers to her face and inhaled the pungent scent of hemp. All the way from Afghanistan or Kathmandu or Tibet or Timbuktu. Clean, sharp, vegetable smell. Strong. She and Dale had smoked a joint at six that morning, before he went to work. She rocked back and forth in time to the Peter Tosh anthem unspiralling from the record player in the living room. Legalize it, yeah, yeah, yeah. She would smoke some more.

  —Hey Mom, are we going to the mall today? asked Jason.

  —Hey Mom, are we going to the mall today?

  —Cut it out. [elbow]

  —Cut it out. [elbow-elbow]

  —Both of you cut it out, Joanne said without looking up. She mixed the pile of hashish with tobacco from the half-cigarette Dale had left for her.

  —Yes, we’re going to the mall. She pulled a rolling paper from the package of blue Zig-Zags and spread some of the mixture into the crease of the thin leaf. The mall is where we always go. Enough for two joints. Two mind-blowing joints.

  It was a downer to smoke dope alone. She wished Dale would somehow come home and surprise her. But he’s gone to Keephills today, to work on some boiler or something. She wished he would feel her need and drive home and be here and they would smoke a joint together, they would make wild love right after, set the kids up with Bugs Bunny on the new Betamax, and retreat to their waterbed to find the rhythm of their bodies, rising together to an amazing hashish orgasm. Then smoke the other joint and do it all again.

  —The mall with the rides, Mom? I wanna go on the train, Jason said.

  —The mall with the rides —

  Benjamin cut short the mimicking with a cry. Jason pounded his arm three times.

  —Stop [smack] copying [smack] me [smack].

  A balled cloth sailed across the kitchen and knocked over a mug. Not-so-hot chocolate splattered over the table, over Jason, mostly over Benjamin. Benjamin’s crocodile tears faltered for an instant, followed by genuine ones. Jason looked agape at his mother.

  —You threw the rag, Mom.

  —Yes I did, Joanne said. She brushed the last of her hash-tobacco mixture into a second fold of paper, rolled it quickly between her fingers, and flicked her tongue across the glued edge. Benjamin bawled. He held his hands up, his face turned red.

  —Jason, wipe the table. Hurry, it’s dripping on the floor. Joanne walked over to the boys and fussed over Benjamin. Jason pushed the spilled drink into the middle of the table, corralling it with the cloth. Nestlé Quik flecked the leaves of the coleus. I must clean that before I go out, Joanne thought.

  —Hey Mom, can I ride on the train? Jason asked. Joanne tried to pick up Benjamin. He had quieted, but as she worked her arms behind his knee and under his arms, he went limp.

  —C’mon, you’ve got to help your mommy. You’re too big for mommy to carry without help. Please Benjy, I’ll clean you all up.

  He lifted his arms around his mother’s neck, and shifted his weight to fold into her. Joanne unbent her back to lift him from the chair. She took him in her arms towards the bathroom.

  —Can I ride the train? asked Benjamin.

  Wrapped into one of Dale’s old parkas, Joanne trudged down the road, pushing Benjamin in the stroller. She had left his prosthesis at home. Benjamin didn’t like his new leg. It was bigger and heavier than the one he had outgrown, harder to work the knee, and he complained it hurt, especially in the cold. It was a hassle to strap on. He had long outgrown the stroller, but it made the winter walk go faster. He was too slow on the crutches. They walked in the centre of the street, where the grader had cleared a path.

  A small snow lump sailed past to Joanne’s left. She saw it, but didn’t turn. Jason dawdled behind, sulking, throwing snow. Joanne had eighteen one-dollar bills in her purse, maybe three or four more dollars in change. Dale would get a cheque in three days, he would give her some money. There were Christmas bills, payments on the stereo and the furniture, but he should give her a hundred at least. Then they could take the bus—even a taxi—to the big mall, and Jason could have his ride on the train. But for now it was her Woolco card and the budget mall within walking distance. Another snow lump skittered by. If he hits me, Joanne thought.

  She had smoked one of the joints before leaving home (the other one was tucked away with rolling papers and lighter in an old lozenge tin in her purse). The stone was heavy. She was aware of her body, the sting of winter in her cheeks, the heaviness of each arm, each leg, as she pushed Benjamin along, the screech of frozen wheels bearing too much weight. She melded into the day, into the scrunch-scrunch of boots and snow that measured each step, the flex of muscle to bring each foot forward. Eyes half-closed against the needling wind and the glare of sunlight, she forgot the bills, the bickering with Dale, the oven that needed cleaning. She forgot her dreams of a cabin in the woods, tropical suns, her fantasies of desire, she forgot the name of the disease that claimed Benjamin’s leg, that waited in the bone to be renamed with every visit to the doctor, she forgot her
conversations with house plants, the long minutes spent at the kitchen window feeling a weight in her gut, watching her children and dog in the yard. There was only the cold and snow and the sound of steps and the squealing wheels and the motion of her limbs and the warm molasses bath that was slow and sweet in her brain.

  Jason tossed another lump of snow that hit Joanne square on the back of the head.

  At the mall, Joanne unbundled the boys, stowed the snowsuits and her jacket in a neat package on the seat of the stroller. Jason dashed off to peek through the doors of a hobby shop. Benjamin complained that his missing leg hurt. He sat on a bench and rubbed the end of his stump through his pants. She knew not to ask questions: phantom pain confused him. He might start to cry. The doctor said confusion was normal. How can it hurt when it’s not there? She said:

  —Let’s check you out. She took a quick look around. Tuesday, no big sales at the mall, thirty below outside, 10 a.m. Not a soul in sight. She tucked her fingers into Benjamin’s waistband and pulled his drawers down.

  —Mom, don’t, Benjamin said, grabbing at his pants.

  —Don’t worry, Benjy. No one can see us. She unwound the elastic bandage that wrapped his thigh. She rolled the stump-sock down, and vigorously massaged his flesh.

  —Ow. Mommy, that’s too hard, Benjamin said. Joanne felt his cold skin. She had probably wrapped the bandage too tightly. Dale was always saying she wrapped it too tightly or too loosely. His leg was always cold or swollen. It was never just right.

  —It’s not hard. That’s better isn’t it? she said. She watched the circulation returning, as the surface of the skin turned red from her rubbing. The thigh tapered to a blunt point. She caressed the nub, and leaned close to cast her warm breath into the cup of her hands.