Read Online Blackstrap Hawco by Kenneth J. Harvey - Free Book Online

not wear. Shows she had seen on television. About AIDS. Infant killing. Sexual abuse. Fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. It was sick. Ugly. Insane. She wanted more. And less. More of it. In her head. To be gone.
    The noise of the rumbling muffler. Walt Coombs’ van draws Karen’s mind back to the calm. Sunday night. She shuts the front door. Sits in the green velour chair. Sits. Still. The smell of new carpet. Sits. Still. Plain in her nostrils. Everything freshly painted. Her face. Make-up. Fix her make-up. The smell of newness. Almost too strong. She sits still. Glances around. The sparse clean room. Not a stain on anything. Not a smudge. Not a speck of dust. And she is pleased. A little okay. Allows a little. Pleased with Blackstrap. He built the bungalow just like the one her mother owns. Back in St. John’s. They even have the latest universal remote control. It works for their television. Twenty-four channels. And their video machine. She rents movies at least a few times a week. From the convenience store and take-out down in Brigus.
    Leaning forward, she picks up the remote. From the glass-topped brass coffee table. Switches on television. Watches the opening sequence of a show. A helicopter shot of a city. And its building towers. Streets. Bold handsome people in suits and expensive evening gowns. She flicks the channel to a dog food commercial. Watches that. Food. A dish. A leather collar with studs. Head in a bowl. Eating. Eat, you bitch, eat. Then flicks the television off. She thinks of the dishes. They should be washed. Head in a bowl. And the phone calls she could make back toSt. John’s. To talk with friends. She misses them. Nothing to do out here. Blackstrap gone most of the time. Working jobs. Hobbles, he calls them. With his backhoe. Or building cabins. Day and night. Putting up walls. Tearing things down. Or gone up in the country. To his own shack in Horsechops. Why the country? Why the woods? Don’t they already live in the woods? Why deeper into the woods? Nothing but trees and animals and a pond with a boat. She misses her friends who would joke about this. Make fun of it. The way they live. Out here. The women all around here. All thinking alike. Always gossiping about stupid little things of no interest to her. Always displeased. And finding fault in everything. Blaming everyone for everything that goes wrong. In their lives. Everyone at fault. The schools. The mail. The telephone company. The council. The government. All to blame.
    On clear moonbright nights like this. She often misses the city. Misses downtown. The lights. The cars. The memories flow into her head, effortlessly sweeping her up in the comfort of recollection. Easy and lovely and fluid to remember. The clubs with the men who used to buy her drinks and fall all over her. She misses that shy edge of control she had down to a science. She was always the quiet one in the group of girls, certain to get plenty of attention. The boys trying to get to her, teasing her. Not overweight like now. Maybe a little plump. Voluptuous in a way that was attractive. The boys thinking she was a virgin because virgins behaved that way. That’s how she met Blackstrap. In the Sundance Saloon on George Street. He was standing there alone, leaning against a wooden post on the edge of the dance floor. Boldly watching women moving in beat to the pounding music. Then staring right at her. He’d watched her dancing with her girlfriends for half the night. Then bought her a beer. Delivered it to her, handed it over with an unsure nod. She had thanked him, and he had asked her name. He had asked so many things about her, so interested in what she had done, where she had come from, where she grew up.
    Then he was leaving the bar. He wanted her to come along. She was reluctant to abandon her friends but he tempted her away, stepping off, staring back at her with dark challenging eyes. There was something dangerous about him.