Read Online Provider's Son by Lee Stringer - Free Book Online Page B

on, by, turn around while we still got a chance!”
    â€œTheyll see us, man. Its pointless. Im not losing my job over this.”
    â€œSeriously. This is no joke bys. Jesus Christ, I got a lot of bills back home. I cant lose this job. Turn around the fuckin truck, now!”
    â€œIts not my fault you snort your paycheques up your goddamn nose!” the foreman shouted, but he was a big enough man that he could get away with it. Only the sound of the truck engine followed, and the tires rolling over the gravel.
    When they stepped out and headed for the clinic Levi sidled up to Patrick. “Is it that much drugs floating around here?”
    â€œYou know how many come out of this place, working here for years on end, making a hundred thousand a year, and not have two cents to rub together?”
    â€œThe young crowd on the go now havent got a clue by. All they wants is good times.”
    â€œYeah. Seems like every generation is more spoiled than the last. I spoiled mine too. Couldnt seem to help myself. As a father I always wanted to give better than I got.”
    They all did their urine tests and just as the Newfoundland scaffolder had predicted, he failed. High traces of benzoylmethylecgonine, or cocaine, was found in his bloodstream. But much to said scaffolders delight, the foreman failed as well. The test had picked up a certain chemical, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, in his bloodstream. A chemical found in marijuana. His position was terminated. The foreman and the scaffolder were both immediately sent back to their rooms to pack, and on to Edmonton, not on a plane, but on a bus ride that would take at least six hours. The scaffolder with the prosthetic penis still sitting in his lunchbox passed.
    After the urine tests a safety officer, and later, two police officers, took statements from everyone.
    The bus ride back to camp was filled with the quiet chatter of the respectfully thrilled. The rumour now was that the scaffolder was paralyzed. Some said from the waist down and others said from the neck down. Everyone felt pity for the boy’s father. Especially other fathers. But there was an undeniable air of excitement as well. The boy’s accident was a change from the routine. Some shook their heads and told stories of other accidents they had witnessed. Some wondered aloud if the boy had been wearing his harness. And there were two or three on the bus who did nothing but stare out the window. Perhaps they, like the boy’s father, were of the few that knew the cruel truth, Levi thought. Everyone else protected themselves with ignorance, some even believing in a secret part of their mind that horrible things only happened to those who did something to deserve it. They didn’t realize that at any time, for no reason other than bad luck, the world could take away everything that mattered.
    Levi couldn’t get the sound out of his mind, the thick thud of the boy’s body hitting the concrete. What he needed now was the grain of wood against his fingertips. But he wasn’t going home, he was going to camp. There would be no workshop waiting for him there, no hard oak or birch. His latest chair was sitting alone in the shed right now, surrounded in darkness and silence, waiting for his hands. Here he was surrounded by vinyl, rubber, plastic, and metal. If he was home he would have his supper and then go straight to the workshop, where the stress of the day would be released through his hands. But there was no workshop at Camp Wisti, only a small room and a hall full of strangers.
    When he got back to his room he turned on the television and watched the Newfoundland news program, Here and Now . There was nothing good in the news, but of course there never was. A man in St. John’s had robbed a convenience store at gunpoint, the third in a month. When would these men start shooting? It was only a matter of time. Every one Levi knew in St. John’s had either their car, house, or