Read Online Once You Break a Knuckle by W. D. Wilson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: W. D. Wilson
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welfare cheques on dope from the Native reserve, who think beefjerky and Coke constitutes a decent lunch to pack their kids. Their children are the type who shatter Kokanee bottles on semi-trailers, who pelt windshields with clumps of clay big as potatoes, who find genuine humour in the suffering of others.
It was recess, and a group of these cockroaches had trapped a grain-thin boy in the schoolâs red spiral slide, and they were taking turns battering into him boots-first. Well, my son walked by and my son stepped in. The hicks administered him a lesson in numbers. It marked the first time he reamed a blow off his forehead, the first time a nurse at the brick hospital had to sew him up. My wife removed the sutures three days later â Iâm a tad clumsy â with a delicacy I didnât know her tradeswoman fingers could muster. She braced her hand on his forehead, wrist across his cheek, and I knelt nearby for encouragement. She smelled like drywall and the hemp-oil salve that labourers knead into their palms. After she plucked the last stitch from his eyebrow, she swabbed iodine on her thumb and massaged it over the gash like mothers do in movies from the fifties. âThere, she said, grasping him at both shoulders. âYouâre fixed up.
We stayed up late that night, my wife and I. I had marking to do, and a new assignment to concoct, and together we soaked our worries. It felt as though weâd come out of a bath. You might call it a dark hour. Invermere, despite the blaring inadequacies, for a long time had been our haven, and I donât think either of us felt ready for the approaching weight of our sonâs adolescence. My dad usedto say they toss the manual out with the placenta, but I sense even that joke is a relic of time slipped by. Nowadays, youâd get a manual drawn in the multilingual cartoon way you see in aircraft safety leaflets. Iâm only half kidding: what good will the values my dad beat into me do against a generation unfazed when one of their own ODs on PCP, against kids who pawn their parentsâ electronics for coke money, against the advent of meth labs and pushers who market it as a good way to stay thin? These are the things that loiter on the horizon. You donât have to be a mathematician to put two and two together.
My wife sat beneath a hotel blanket. She had a rye and Coke on the bedside and she clutched at our ancient tortoiseshell tabby. I had a few Kokanees â comfort beer. My wife looked old. In the incandescent light her red hair was yellowed as though by cigarette smoke, and the creases at the corner of her eyes were deep and rigid. All the wrinkles around her mouth curl downward. She has, through no fault of my own, spent much of her life frowning. Like all of us, she has a past: when her dad died, she thumbed it, penniless, to the Prairies, and you can guess how she paid her way; her brother took the family car on a joyride to a logging camp in northern Manitoba and hasnât been heard from since; she has an ex-husband â a marriage that lasted sixteen days, one for each of her years. She only tells me these details when she drinks whiskey, and she only drinks whiskey on occasions like Christmas or a long weekend or the day that could have been her anniversary.
So that night, a week ago, I slurped beer suds and racked my brain for questions a grade ten kid could puzzle through. My wife sipped from a ceramic mug that had a picture of the two of us hoisting a trout. When she finished her drink, she rattled the meltwater ice cubes, and I shuffled to the kitchen to fix another. A good husband must do something kind and unique for his wife every day. Nothing else makes sense.
âEver wonder if we couldâve done better? she said when I came back.
âWeâve done okay, I said, and passed her the drink, which she took in both hands like an offering.
âI want him to stay like he is. A boy. I donât want him to be
It was recess, and a group of these cockroaches had trapped a grain-thin boy in the schoolâs red spiral slide, and they were taking turns battering into him boots-first. Well, my son walked by and my son stepped in. The hicks administered him a lesson in numbers. It marked the first time he reamed a blow off his forehead, the first time a nurse at the brick hospital had to sew him up. My wife removed the sutures three days later â Iâm a tad clumsy â with a delicacy I didnât know her tradeswoman fingers could muster. She braced her hand on his forehead, wrist across his cheek, and I knelt nearby for encouragement. She smelled like drywall and the hemp-oil salve that labourers knead into their palms. After she plucked the last stitch from his eyebrow, she swabbed iodine on her thumb and massaged it over the gash like mothers do in movies from the fifties. âThere, she said, grasping him at both shoulders. âYouâre fixed up.
We stayed up late that night, my wife and I. I had marking to do, and a new assignment to concoct, and together we soaked our worries. It felt as though weâd come out of a bath. You might call it a dark hour. Invermere, despite the blaring inadequacies, for a long time had been our haven, and I donât think either of us felt ready for the approaching weight of our sonâs adolescence. My dad usedto say they toss the manual out with the placenta, but I sense even that joke is a relic of time slipped by. Nowadays, youâd get a manual drawn in the multilingual cartoon way you see in aircraft safety leaflets. Iâm only half kidding: what good will the values my dad beat into me do against a generation unfazed when one of their own ODs on PCP, against kids who pawn their parentsâ electronics for coke money, against the advent of meth labs and pushers who market it as a good way to stay thin? These are the things that loiter on the horizon. You donât have to be a mathematician to put two and two together.
My wife sat beneath a hotel blanket. She had a rye and Coke on the bedside and she clutched at our ancient tortoiseshell tabby. I had a few Kokanees â comfort beer. My wife looked old. In the incandescent light her red hair was yellowed as though by cigarette smoke, and the creases at the corner of her eyes were deep and rigid. All the wrinkles around her mouth curl downward. She has, through no fault of my own, spent much of her life frowning. Like all of us, she has a past: when her dad died, she thumbed it, penniless, to the Prairies, and you can guess how she paid her way; her brother took the family car on a joyride to a logging camp in northern Manitoba and hasnât been heard from since; she has an ex-husband â a marriage that lasted sixteen days, one for each of her years. She only tells me these details when she drinks whiskey, and she only drinks whiskey on occasions like Christmas or a long weekend or the day that could have been her anniversary.
So that night, a week ago, I slurped beer suds and racked my brain for questions a grade ten kid could puzzle through. My wife sipped from a ceramic mug that had a picture of the two of us hoisting a trout. When she finished her drink, she rattled the meltwater ice cubes, and I shuffled to the kitchen to fix another. A good husband must do something kind and unique for his wife every day. Nothing else makes sense.
âEver wonder if we couldâve done better? she said when I came back.
âWeâve done okay, I said, and passed her the drink, which she took in both hands like an offering.
âI want him to stay like he is. A boy. I donât want him to be
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