Burrard Inlet E-Book

Tyler Keevil

• Herausgeber: Parthian Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 342

Beschreibung

Winner of the Writers' Trust of Canada Journey Prize Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award Longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize Burrard Inlet is the body of water that divides Vancouver's North Shore from the rest of the Lower Mainland. In this collection of award-winning stories, Tyler Keevil uses that rugged landscape as a backdrop for characters who are struggling against the elements, each other, and themselves. A search-and-rescue volunteer looks for a missing snowboarder on Christmas Eve; two brothers retreat to the woods to shoot a film in memory of their dead friend; a reclusive forestry worker picks up a hitcher on his way down Mount Seymour; a young man finds a temporary haven on the ice barge where he works. Written in a lean, muscular style, these are stories awash in blood and brine, and steeped in images of freedom and confinement. Within that narrative framework, Burrard Inlet becomes more than a geographical location: it is a liminal space, a boundary and a barrier, a threshold to be crossed.

Leseprobe

Burrard Inlet

Tyler Keevil

Snares

As usual, Roger’s up before me – looking for his ducks.When I cross the breezeway from the bunkhouse to the cabin, I find him standing at the window with his back straight and his legs apart, like a sentry on duty. He’s even got a pair of binoculars trained on the stretch of water between our barge and the shore. The morning sun has already hit the inlet, setting off crescent-shaped flickers. I know what he’s doing, but I also know he doesn’t like me to directly mention the ducks, so instead I ask, ‘See anything out there?’

He grunts. ‘No – not yet.’

I walk over to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder. I’m six-one and he’s still got an inch on me. He’s got the weight, too – all top heavy like an old bulldog. Muscled arms and thick, scarred fingers. Nine of them. He lost the other one in a net, during his days on the seine boats.

‘Here, you have a look. You got younger eyes than me.’

I accept the binoculars, which are heavier than I expect, and peer into the eyepieces. It takes me a moment to find the place to look – among the rocks and kelp beds and murky water swirling beneath our dock. There’s no movement, though. No ducks. I study it awhile longer, listening to Roger breathe beside me, before I give up.

‘Nothing doing,’ I say.

‘Ah, well – it’s still early, yet.’

He means in the year, not in the day. The truth is, though, we usually see the ducks by mid-April, and it’s getting close to May, now. He takes the binoculars back from me and fiddles with the focus wheel, as if he’s hoping they might be broken or faulty in some way.

‘Better get some starter fluid in you, greenhorn,’ he says.

I head into the galley, where the coffee pot is warbling steam, and pour myself half a mug. Roger makes it strong and bitter as crude oil, and I always top mine up with milk to mellow it out. I’m in the process of putting the milk away when Doreen breezes into the galley, her brown dressing gown flapping about her like the wings of a bat. A grey nightie underneath. Pink curlers in her hair. Varicose veins bulging on the backs of her calves.

‘You boys sit down,’ she says, yanking open cupboards. ‘I’ll fix you some grub.’

‘Get some clothes on, woman!’ Roger says. ‘You can’t go wandering around like that. You’re likely to scare this poor boy half to death.’

He always says this, and Doreen always gives the same answer: ‘Oh – Alex is family, now.’

During the herring season, she would never have appeared in the galley half-dressed. Her cook’s uniform of jeans and blouse and apron was as standard and consistent as my deckhand’s coveralls. But it’s different now that the others are gone, and it’s just the three of us. The curlers and nightie are simply part of the routine – the same as the ducks, the coffee. The same as the scrambled eggs Doreen whips up for us. We sit down at the table together, Roger and Doreen on either end and me in the middle. I only take a spoonful of egg, and smear it across one piece of toast. This early in the morning I never have much of an appetite, which is something Roger doesn’t understand.

‘Better eat more than that,’ he tells me. ‘We got work to do.’

Roger makes sure that there’s always work to do on the barge, even at the end of season: swabbing the decks or scrubbing the walls or cleaning the engine or replacing pipes in the ice-making machines. Today the two of us will be shovelling out the ice bins. It’s a job I don’t like, because of the ice rakes – but I’ve never told Roger this and I never will.

‘Don’t push Alex too hard, now,’ Doreen says, ‘or he might not come back next year.’ She’s smiling as she says it, and I chuckle politely, as if the idea of me not coming back is crazy, absurd. Totally ridiculous. ‘By the way, do you think you boys could finish by two o’clock today?’

Roger stares at her like she’s asked him to scuttle the barge. ‘We got a full day to put in.’

Doreen purses her lips. ‘Well, I’m only asking because Beverly’s stopping by with little Josh, and I thought it might be nice for us all to have coffee and cake together.’

She says this carefully, letting the significance of the words sink in. Roger considers her proposal while lathering butter on a piece of toast. ‘Suppose we could skip lunch, grab a sandwich on the go instead.’ He glances over at me. ‘That sound okay to you, Alex?’

‘Sure. Sounds fine.’ Beverly is their granddaughter – the one I haven’t met. The oldest, I think. ‘We should be able to get the first bin done by then.’

Roger nods, having decided, and bites into his toast. He likes it almost black, and as he chews I can hear it crunching between his teeth.

We put on gloves, take two snow shovels from the breezeway,and clomp out onto the back deck. Our barge, the Arctic King, is as big as the ferries that chug to and from Horseshoe Bay, except instead of cars and passengers it carries ice, which we deliver to the seine boats during herring season. When the fishery ends we moor up here, at a sheltered dock near the Westco shipyards in Burrard Inlet. Out on the water I can see a floatplane coming in to land, its fat pontoons skimming the waves, and in the distance the thin arc of the Second Narrows Bridge hums like a superconductor. Roger leads me down the steel stairway to the lower deck, moving heavily, getting slow in his old age. As we descend, he can’t help but glance to his right, towards shore. But there’s still no sign of his ducks.

At the bottom of the stairs, he asks me, ‘Port or starboard?’

‘Maybe starboard – we’re listing that way so it’ll level us out.’

Our barge was built to house the ice bins. There’s two of them, about the size of tennis courts, running bow to stern. Each has its own freezer-style door, accessible from the back deck. A sign on the starboard door shows this diagram of a helpless stick man, all bent and mangled, caught up in the bars of the rakes. The warning reads, Do Not Enter Ice Bins Without First Raising Rakes And Shutting Off Power. I’m sure Roger’s done this – he’s very particular about safety – but that doesn’t make me feel any better about stepping inside.

Our boots crunch on the leftover ice resting at the bottom of the bin. It’s dense and compressed, about six inches thick. Roger tests it once with his shovel, to make sure it has thawed enough, before going to fetch the wheelbarrow. I’m left alone in the frosty darkness, alone with the rakes. I can see them glittering overhead – long girders fitted with talon-like steel hooks. During herring season, they rest atop the ice that fills this bin. When we service a boat, the rakes sweep the ice into an auger, which pumps it out our delivery hose. The rasp of rakes across flaked ice is a constant background noise to our weeks at sea. The noise doesn’t bother me, but the nightmares do. Night terrors, almost. This recurring dream of being caught in the rakes and dragged towards the auger. It always starts like this – with me standing alone in the bins. Then the door slams shut, and the rakes lurch into motion. As they descend, I batter on the door, scream over the rumble of the generator. There is nothing I can do, except wake in a tangle of sheets and lie there sweating, heaving, waiting for dawn.

‘Give me a hand here, will you Alex?’

The wheelbarrow is stuck on the lip of the freezer door. I go over and help Roger lift it clear. We lay down a piece of plywood to make crossing the threshold easier. Then we run an extension cord in from outside, plug in a work lamp, and hang it on one of the rakes.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘this ice ain’t going to walk out of here.’

He grips his shovel with both hands and drives it straight down. The steel blade crunches into the ice. Levering a chunk free, he dumps it into the wheelbarrow. I walk around to the other side, so we each have room to work. We fall into a steady rhythm of shovelling, lifting, and dumping, like clockwork men keeping time together. When the wheelbarrow gets full, Roger seizes it by the handles and trundles it out on deck. I stand in the doorway to watch him tip it off the starboard side. The ice slides out and hits the water with a satisfying splash.

As he wheels it back he says, ‘Best to dump away from shore.’

I nod. The next time the wheelbarrow fills up, it’s my turn to empty it, then Roger’s, then mine. As we work we pause every so often to lean on our shovels, exhaling clouds of frost. We talk about the season just past, which was bad for herring roe, and we talk about our plans for the summer. Roger’s going up to his family cabin in Sicamous, to hunt and fish. I’ll be working as a landscaper – cutting lawns and pruning trees and laying paving slabs.

‘You take to that work?’ Roger asks.

‘Not like being at sea. But I need the money.’ I pump the handle of my shovel back and forth, prying loose a piece of ice. ‘I got to save up if I want to see my girlfriend again. Out in Wales.’

Roger makes a sound in his throat. I know he doesn’t understand it, this situation I’ve got myself involved in with a Welsh girl. It’s not like in his day, when people stayed close to home, settled down young, got married. There was no such thing as a long-distance relationship. When I used that term around him, he looked at me as if it was an oxymoron.

‘I’d take you out for salmon,’ Roger says, ‘but you know how it is.’

I nod. He only gets one deckhand for salmon season, and the union would raise hell if he picked me over some of the other guys who have more seniority.

‘But next year herring should be good,’ he says. ‘Make up for the mess they made of it this time around.’

‘You’ll be going out?’

Roger’s sixty-seven, two years past retirement age. He’s talked about quitting since my first day on the barge, but each year the company lures him and Doreen back with a one-off contract. ‘Don’t rightly know,’ he says. ‘Man’s gotta retire sometime, but I sure ain’t gonna let this girl fall into the wrong hands. Besides, we have fun out there, don’t we?’

I know I’ve got to tell him. Tell him there’s a chance I might not be back next year. A chance I’ll be moving to Wales, to be with her, if I get this work visa sorted out. I’ve been meaning to tell him and Doreen all season, but haven’t found a way to bring it up.

So instead I say, ‘Sure, Roger. You know it.’

And I listen to him go on about next season, about how it’s going to be a big catch since the company didn’t make their quota this year. He says he’ll bring out his lobster pots for us to fix up and use. He’s got a new lathe and scroll saw, too – so we can do woodwork during the lulls. And that’s how we while away the morning, one wheelbarrow at a time. Our shovels shearing back the layers of ice, revealing the fibreglass floor beneath.

Just before noon, Doreen brings us down sandwiches and pop. She’s dressed, now – in her trademark jeans and blouse, her grey hair carefully curled and her face grainy with make-up. I go to fetch the tatty lawn chairs from the storage compartment on the back deck. During our nights on watch, we’d sit in these, wearing our parkas and rain slickers, waiting for a fishing boat to materialise out of the dark. Today we set up the chairs in the sun, facing the shore. This is so we can keep an eye out for the ducks – though of course we don’t say that.

Roger and I take off our gloves and unzip the top half of our coveralls, letting them drape down the backs of our chairs like discarded skin. The sun immediately starts steaming sweat from our undershirts. Doreen has made pastrami, pickle and mustard – her staple – and for a time we sit and chew in silence, listening to waves slap against the side of the barge.

Then Doreen says, ‘Stanley called. Wanted to know when payday is.’

Roger chuckles. Stanley’s one of the other deckhands. Fortyish. Big and blubbery. Likes sleeping in and drinking beer. Even though Roger keeps a dry boat, Stanley always hides bottles of Molson beneath his bunk, to suck back in secret after dinner.

‘He’ll be lucky if he ever gets paid,’ Roger says, shifting around in his chair. ‘The amount of work he done for us.’

Doreen says, ‘We should give his cheque to Alex.’

‘That would be fair.’

I crack open my can of cola and say, ‘I sure could use it.’

We all laugh, enjoying our bit of mischief. Roger’s no dummy. He sussed out Stanley the moment he set foot on the barge. He told me, ‘That fat old hound is sniffing around after my job.’ If he’d had a choice, Roger wouldn’t have taken him on. But the barge belongs to the company, and they dropped Stanley on us like a hunk of ballast at the start of last season.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Roger says now, gazing off the port side, ‘if I’m going to let him take over this girl. They’ll have to crane me off in a coffin, first.’

‘Oh, Roger,’ Doreen says.

There’s some splashing in the river, which makes us all lean forward. Roger even half-rises out of his chair – that’s how excited it makes him. Near the rocks, I spot the bird: it’s got a dirty white body, grey wings, and a hooked yellow beak.

‘Damn,’ Roger says. ‘Just a herring gull.’

The three of us settle back into our chairs, frowning.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Doreen says. ‘Your Mallards will turn up.’

It’s the first time any of us have mentioned the ducks, and Roger actually winces, like he does when his arthritis is acting up.

‘It’s not safe out here for them,’ he says.

‘They’re okay. They’re survivors.’

‘A lot of idiots in motorboats, these days. Not paying attention.’

‘Ducks are fast, honey. They can fly.’

‘Not the ducklings.’

‘No, not the ducklings.’

‘Then there’s the Chinamen,’ Roger says, ‘with their snares.’

I take a big slug of cola. Roger’s convinced that chefs from restaurants in Chinatown set snares in the grass along the shore, to catch ducks to serve on their menus. Saltwater duck is a delicacy, he says. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m anxious about the ducks all the same. Doreen is, too. At first we only worried because Roger worried. Now, though, it’s gone way beyond that. They’ve been a part of our routine each year, and we’ve never had to wait this long for them. It’s like those oddballs in the States who wait for the groundhog to appear – and if he doesn’t, it feels like spring might never come.

After lunch the pastrami is sitting in my belly, weighing heavy, slowing down the motion of my shovel. We’re like two prisoners on a chain gang, Roger and I, digging and lifting with sluggish resignation. I can feel the ache in my lower back from stooping, and the burn in my biceps from all this lifting. I don’t complain about it, though. I never complain around Roger. I figure I don’t have the right, really – with him being nearly three times my age.

As we work, I ask him about this girl we’ll be meeting later. His granddaughter.

‘How old is Beverly, again?’

‘About your age. She’s Jim’s daughter.’

Jim is Roger’s youngest. A portly guy with a bristle-brush moustache. He visited us on the barge at the start of last season. He had a habit of fiddling with things: the tools in our gear locker, the dials in our engine room. He kept that up until Roger yelled at him about it, in front of the crew. Nobody gets preferential treatment on Roger’s barge. Not even family.

‘And Josh is her son?’

‘That’s right,’ Roger says, sticking his shovel in.

For a second neither of us says anything. Roger is struggling with this chunk of ice, more solid than the others, that won’t come free. He leans his weight on the shovel, using it like a crowbar, and finally the ice cracks loose.

Then he says, ‘She’s not married. Had the baby out of wedlock.’ He says it all at once, quiet and defiant, as if he’s confessing something. ‘This fellow got her in a family way, and then refused to stand by her. Turned yellow-belly and took off some place.’

I didn’t know people still said things like ‘in a family way’ until I met Roger. And I can tell he’s worried I might think less of this girl – maybe even of their whole family – just because she’s a single mother. Keeping my head down, I scrape up another scoop of ice.

‘That must have been tough,’ I say.

‘Sure was. But you know what the kicker is?’ He’s scowling now, shovelling faster. Like he needs to get this off his chest. ‘After Josh was born, this fellow all of a sudden reappears. He’s decided he wants to be ‘part of the baby’s life.’ That’s what he said. Can you believe it? This is since months since the birth, mind you. God knows where he’s been in that time. Living down in Mexico, apparently. Smoking dope with his hippy friends.’

‘Had a change of heart, eh?’

Roger grunts and brings his shovel down hard, as if he’s imagining splitting this hippy’s head in half. ‘Don’t your worry,’ he says. ‘Me and Jim went down to his place and told him what we thought of that little plan. No way I’m letting my grandson grow up in a dope-house.’ Roger smiles mischievously. ‘Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since.’

Imagining the confrontation, I can’t help but smile, too. ‘Well, it sounds like she’s better off without a guy like that.’

‘Damn straight. Better off by a mile. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s a man who shirks his responsibilities.’ He breathes out hard, making his lips flap like a horse. ‘I just don’t know, Alex. I don’t know what’s going on these days. Everybody seems to be gallivanting around the place. All airy-fairy. Not sure what they want or what they’ve got.’

I grunt in agreement. I’m thinking of my girlfriend, and this relationship I have. A voice on the phone. Sporadic emails. Letters postmarked from Britain. Vague and fading memories. Like I’m in love with some kind of ghost. Then I heft my shovel and say, ‘It’s a different world, I guess.’

‘You can say that again.’

So I do say it again – just to rib the old guy. He gets a kick out of that.

By quarter to two we’ve finished the starboard bin. Rather than tackle the port side, Roger calls it a day. We head upstairs to wash up before our company arrives. There’s a decent bathroom in the bunkhouse, with a full shower and toilet and sink. Roger likes to lather his hands in soap and rub them over and over, cupping one inside the other. He can never get them quite clean – the creases in his palms are stained black by years of dirt and engine oil.

‘I think I might put on a shirt,’ he says, stepping aside to dry his hands. ‘Tidy myself up a little. It’s not every day we have guests, eh?’

I can tell he’s suggesting I do the same, so when he goes back across the breezeway I shuck off my coveralls and dig around beneath my bunk. I don’t have many fancy clothes, but I’ve got this one pair of jeans and a collared shirt that I save for when we have shore leave. I hop into that outfit, slap on some deodorant, and run a comb through my hair. Then I check myself in the mirror. There’s a long crack in the glass, running slantwise across my reflection, so it looks like I’m split in two. Roger’s going to replace it during the off-season.

When I cross the breezeway, the galley is empty. The counters are dusted with flour and the air smells fragrant as a bakery. I hear voices coming from the lounge, so I head that way. Roger and Doreen are sitting on the couch beside the window that overlooks the shore – our duck-watching window. Opposite them, on the smaller couch, is this girl in a red dress. Her dark hair is pulled back behind her ears and pinned in place with barrettes. A baby boy is standing on the floor in front of her. He’s not old enough stay up on his own, so she’s holding him by the hands to keep him balanced.

The three adults look my way as I come in.

‘My,’ Doreen says, ‘don’t you look like a catch.’

I laugh at that, because I’m expected to. Beverly and I don’t get formally introduced. We just skip that part. The only seat is the one next to her on the couch. She shifts down to make room for me but it’s still a tight fit. Our knees keep touching, and it’s hard to get comfortable. The couch has a dip in the middle that eases us towards each other.

Doreen says, ‘Isn’t little Josh the sweetest thing?’

‘He sure is.’

The four of us stare at the baby, because it’s easier than looking at each other. He’s wearing these blue overalls and underneath them I can see the puffy shape of his diaper. His mother is still holding him by the hands. When she lets go, he totters on his own for a second or two before sinking to the carpet. He gazes up at me from down there, uncertain.

‘Hey, big guy,’ I say, and prod him in the belly. ‘How you doing?’

He giggles and makes a grab for my finger. I pull it away.

‘Oh – you like that, do you?’

He likes it. They all do. The two of us play like that for awhile, making everybody laugh. When the game gets old, Beverly picks him up and rests him on her knee. He sucks on his hand, still staring at me, his chin glossy with drool.

‘And how did it go today?’ Doreen asks.

It’s hard to tell whether she’s asking me or Roger, because she’s still gazing at the baby. We all are, as if we’re afraid he might disappear the moment we look away.

‘Oh, pretty good,’ I say. ‘We finished the starboard bin.’

‘What were you doing?’ Beverly asks.

I tell her about shovelling the ice, about how the rakes can’t empty the last six inches and so we have to do it by hand. As I explain I glance at her every so often, but my eyes keep sliding away, not knowing where to rest. Her dress has these wide straps that meet behind her neck in a little bow. I can see a sprinkling of freckles on her bare shoulders.

‘What about you?’ I ask. ‘What are you up to these days?’

I say it as if we’ve met before, but nobody seems to notice.

Doreen says, ‘Beverly is going back to school. Isn’t that right, darling?’

Beverly nods and wipes the drool from Josh’s chin. ‘I’m training to be a nurse.’

We nod and listen as she tells us about her course, which she’s taking out at Langara College. The whole time, Josh is sort of waving and pawing at my shoulder, struggling against his mother’s grip. Eventually he breaks free and squirms right into my lap.

‘Oh, isn’t that the most darling thing?’ Doreen says. ‘We should get a photo.’

She disappears into their bedroom, and comes back with a camera – an old film camera with the kind of flash that takes about two minutes to charge up.

‘Okay, smile you two.’

Beverly leans in towards me, and I make sure Josh is facing the camera. The flash goes off, catching us clean. Doreen takes a few more photos, and the whole time Roger just sits there, smiling and content, his fingers laced together over his belly like Santa Claus.

When the photo shoot is done, Doreen looks at him and says, ‘Now I think it’s about time I checked on that date cake, Roger.’ She slips around the corner into the galley. We listen to her puttering about in there, humming to herself, opening and closing the oven. ‘Oh, Roger,’ she says, a bit too loudly, ‘would you fetch me some cream from the downstairs fridge?’

I volunteer to get it, but Roger is already up. He motions for me to stay put.

‘You just have a sit, there. I need to stretch the old legs before I doze off.’

I hear the deck door slide open as Roger steps outside. Then it’s just Beverly and I, sitting thigh to thigh, with me cradling her baby on my lap. We’re both real quiet. Even the baby’s gone quiet. So I start talking. About anything. Mostly I ask her about herself: where she grew up and which high school she went to and what she does for fun on weekends. I tell her it must be hard, having to balance work and school and trying to be a mother at the same time.

‘What you end up missing is your personal life. You don’t go out with your friends, don’t get a chance to meet people. I haven’t really dated anyone since Josh’s dad.’ She lowers her eyes from me to him. ‘But I suppose Roger told you about that.’

‘Some. He told me some.’

‘What about you?’ she asks. ‘Are you involved or whatever?’

I don’t know how to explain my situation. My long-distance situation. It seems sort of airy-fairy, as Roger would say. Inappropriate, even. So instead I sit there and say, ‘Well.’ Just that, nothing more. Well. And while we’re sitting there with that word hanging between us, Josh starts squirming in my lap, stretching his hands out towards his mother.

She sighs. ‘Looks like somebody needs a feed.’

Taking him from me, she rests him on her knee. Then she angles her body away from me – but not really far enough to hide anything – and unfastens the tie at the back of her dress. The left side comes down, half-exposing her breast. She discreetly guides Josh’s little mouth to her nipple, which is dark and ripe with milk. He fastens onto it and starts to suckle. She turns back to me, smiling, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And maybe it is.

‘What about this summer?’ she asks. ‘Do you have a job lined up yet?’

I tell her about landscaping, as best I can. I tell her that, if the summer is dry and I can cut lawns quickly, I sometimes make a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollars a day. But I’m stuttering, talking too fast, feeling heat prickle my scalp. In the middle of that, Roger comes back with the cream, and Doreen finally brings in her coffee and cake. She places the tray on the table and hands out napkins. The date cake is cut into neat little squares, all stacked together to form a pyramid, and as she pours the coffee steam twists out of the spout like a genie.

‘Ah,’ Roger says, trying the cake. ‘That sure is tasty.’

I lean forward to take a piece for myself. I eat it slowly, sitting with my elbows on my knees, concentrating on each bite. I’m not looking at the baby, now. Nobody is. We look anywhere but at the baby, and that breast. Roger’s talking about next season, again, about how it could very well be his last year on the barge – no matter how much money the company offers him to come back. Then the phone rings, cutting him off.

I look over. ‘You want me to get that?’

He waves it away. ‘Probably Stanley calling again. Hankering for his money.’

Doreen sighs and makes a tut-tut sound with her tongue. When Beverly asks, the three of us explain about Stanley trying to nose in on Roger’s job when he retires.

‘If you want to retire anyway,’ she says, ‘then what’s the difference?’

Roger just stares at his hands for a minute. ‘It’s the principle of it,’ he says. ‘What I’d like is somebody I can trust, who I can train up to take the old girl over when I’m gone.’

Doreen is nodding and smiling. Looking right at me. And I know I should tell them. I’ve got to bring myself to tell them. But I just can’t, in front of their granddaughter, with all of us sitting here like this. And while I’m trying to figure it out, to figure it all out, my gaze wanders over to the window. I catch a glimpse of movement out there, on the water.

‘Roger,’ I say, not quite believing it. ‘Look.’

Roger springs up from his chair, followed by me and Doreen and Beverly, still cradling little Josh in her arms. We all gather at the window. About twenty yards away, a mother Mallard is paddling along near shore, trailing half a dozen ducklings behind her. Through the glass I can hear their muted quacking.

‘Well I’ll be damned,’ Roger says. ‘Who would have thought?’

‘Shhh,’ Doreen says.

She reaches for his hand. Beverly shifts Josh to her other hip, and I feel her shoulder brush mine. Then there is a settling, a stillness. The four of us gaze out together, framed by the windowsill like a family in a portrait, as the ducks drift slowly past.

Fishhook

My lure hit the water with a satisfying plop.I locked the reel and waited until the tip of my rod bent from the weight. Then I pulled back on the rod, eased up, and reeled in. You have to pull gently and not yank because yanking makes the lure look all wrong, and the fish can sense something fake in how it moves. To attract them the bacon fat should sort of flap in the water, fluttering along like a moth with busted wings, because that’s what bullheads want. Dale explained it to me one time. He said, ‘Bullies like to bite stuff that looks maimed and hurt. That’s the trick.’ I’ve never really understood why, but it works. I guess it’s instinct.

‘Nice cast,’ Dale said.

We were fishing where we always fish: on this old wharf near Port Moody, way the hell out at the end of Burrard Inlet. The water was still choppy, slopping at the pontoons, and the pilings of the dock creaked and groaned like an old man’s bones. Evening was coming on and a few crows shrieked from among the sycamores that lined the shore. The dock isn’t too far from the city, but it’s far enough that you still feel like you’re getting back to nature when you’re down there. No people, no cars, no bullshit. Just this primal sort of feeling. I figure that’s part of what makes fishing such a thrill.

On my first cast I didn’t catch anything, and neither did Dale. That was typical. The bullheads aren’t usually interested right away. You got to get their attention first. I reared back and leaned into the next cast. The lure sailed out a long way before I heard the slap of lead and bacon on water.

‘Beer up,’ Dale said.

I took the can of Lucky he offered me and began reeling in.

I got the first bite. I don’t know what it’s like to catch a big fish, but with bullheads sometimes you can’t tell they’re on the line. You feel the resistance and your rod bends like a bow. Maybe you’re hooked in weeds, or snagged on a rock – it’s hard to say. Then, when you give it a tug, the rod starts trembling and nipping up and down like a needle on one of those lie detectors.

‘Got one.’

I said it like it didn’t matter but it did.

When you’re reeling in, you got to keep the tension on the line or you’ll lose the fish. I never use a barbed hook on account it hurts them – gets stuck in their mouths too easy, and tears when you pull it out. I use plain hooks, but without a barb you need that tension or the fish can slip off if he’s cagey enough. Bullies aren’t very cagey, but once in a while you get one with some savvy. Dale doesn’t have to worry about that, because he uses barbed hooks.

‘Ain’t a goer,’ I said. ‘Fight’s gone out of him.’

I could see a white shaft sliding up through the water to meet me. Sometimes the littler ones do that – they go all limp and passive so it isn’t any fun. It’s like playing with yourself or something. Fishing is supposed to be a two-sided sort of exercise.

The fish cleared the water and got lighter without the drag.

‘Aww, man,’ I said. ‘Just a baby.’

‘Still a catch.’

‘It’s barely bigger than the bacon.’

Dale snickered. ‘Bit off more’n he can chew.’

We never keep the fish we catch, but even so I don’t like hooking the babies. I think it’s kind of unfair, seeing as how they’re so young and all. I mean, where’s the sport in that? Dale doesn’t care one way or the other. He always says, ‘Thrill’s just the same to me.’

Dale’s funny like that.

I scooped the fish up with my left hand. I hate that part most of all and wanted to get it done quick. The fish thrashed about and I had to tighten my grip so as not to lose him. I was working the hook out of the mouth when Dale’s rod dipped sharp towards the water.

‘Got one,’ he said.

After that things picked up. Usually we nab about half a dozen bullheads each by the time night drops her skirt and they stop biting. But the fish were acting crazy that day and we hooked at least that many in the first hour.

‘This is really weird,’ I kept saying. ‘Man, this is weird.’

And Dale would reply, ‘These fish are going loco, man.’

I think loco is Spanish for crazy. I took it up on my tongue, because it’s one of those words you like to roll around inside your mouth. ‘Yeah,’ I’d say, ‘these fish are loco, man.’

But mostly we didn’t have time to say anything except, ‘Got another.’ After the first one it was always, ‘Got another.’ We kept saying that until we didn’t even have to do much more than grunt and the other would understand.

At one point I started thinking about how many bullheads were in the water. I always figured that after you hooked one and let it go, it would shoot off and go hide someplace. But we’d caught at least twenty, maybe thirty bullies so far that night. It seemed like too many.

‘You think these fish are all new ones?’

I could tell Dale hadn’t considered it because he didn’t answer straight away.

‘Reckon so. Wouldn’t make sense to come back for more, would it? Even bullies ain’t that stupid.’

‘Yeah. Reckon so.’

‘Seems like an awful lot of fish, though.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

We were both poised with our weight on one foot, ready to cast. But we didn’t.

Dale said, ‘Maybe we could find out.’

I looked at him. Even before he told me, I’d cottoned on to what he had in mind. It made a kind of sense. We’d been stapling posters all day – my uncle had paid us to put them up on notice boards and telephone poles around town, advertising his landscaping company. The big industrial stapler he’d lent us was still in my car, back at the parking lot.

I was the one who went to get it.

I would hold the fish and Dale would staple them. We figured the best place to do it was between the spines of the dorsal fin. There’s this thin skin between the spines, like the webbing on a frog’s feet, and when we clipped a staple there the bullies didn’t even seem to notice. Dale said it would be like the tags you see those scientists using to track whales or dolphins or whatever. This way, we’d be able to tell if we’d caught a fish before. It worked, too. We’d only tagged eight or nine fish before I caught one that already had a staple. I held my rod upright, so the fish dangled at eye level. He was as thick as a fist, and about ten or twelve inches long. That’s pretty sizeable for a bully.

‘I remember him,’ Dale said. ‘It’s that big mother I caught first.’

‘Looks like it.’

‘What a dimwit.’ Dale flicked its belly with his finger. ‘You stupid dimwit.’

‘Let’s double him up,’ I said.

Dale wrested the dimwit off the hook and turned him sideways so I could clip a second staple behind the first. Then Dale hucked him. He grabbed him by the tail and just threw him, high and far in the air. He splashed into the water on his back.

‘Last can of Lucky says he comes back for more.’

‘I don’t know, man,’ I said.

‘Come on.’

I didn’t care about the bet, or the beer. I would’ve given it to Dale if he’d asked. I just didn’t like how Dale said it – as if it meant something. But I knew how he could get.

‘Okay,’ I said.

We plunked our lures back into the water. Then we both stood silent, thinking.

‘Maybe they don’t have such hot memories,’ I said.

‘Why would that matter?’

‘My uncle told me goldfish only remember things for seven seconds. That’s why they never get bored swimming around in circles. Maybe bullies are the same.’

‘Maybe.’

Dale didn’t sound convinced.

‘What, then?’

He didn’t answer. His line jerked once and he had another. I stopped jigging and let my own rod go limp to watch him reel in. The fish came out, trembling and flicking its tail, and Dale waited for it to settle. This one was smaller, but its fin was already stapled, too.

‘Got me another gobbler,’ Dale said.

I tried to make some joke about these fish being really loco, but Dale wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t say much after that first big one came back, and even less after it came back a second time. There must have only been about twenty fish out there, all taking turns to chomp down on our lures. We stapled a dozen of them twice, and then a few others three or four times. Most of all we stapled the big one – the one Dale called Dimwit. With Dimwit we had to stop using the stapler after seven times, because there was no more room on his fin.

Dale always put the staple in. He wanted to. He said he liked it. I was the opposite, but I didn’t say anything as I held the fish for him. I just cupped them cold and slick in my hands and wondered what they wanted, these fish that kept coming back for more.

‘I know – these fish ain’t so dumb, after all. They’re pretty smart, right Dale? I mean, they know we throw them back, so they figure it’s okay to keep on being caught since they get a bit of bacon for all the trouble. Man, these fish ain’t loco. They’re real savvy, right?’

Dale wasn’t listening. He was crouched down, fiddling with his hook. The sun had slid behind the mountains, and the waves had settled, and the inlet had gone all dark and lonesome and still. Most of the fish had stopped biting. That wasn’t why I’d given up casting awhile back, though. I’d caught so many bullies I’d had a bellyful by then. I was beginning to feel as if I was the one who’d eaten all that bait, not them.

‘Gonna try it without any bacon,’ Dale said.

It took me a second to figure out what he meant.

‘That won’t work,’ I said. ‘Even a bullhead isn’t as stupid as that.’