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over the last years though you know, cause I gets in a way and after the wife took off sure they were all thinking I was this big fool anyhow. Or at least that’s what you get thinking that they thinks and you spins it into something it’s probably not. So I never was around much. I works outta Town anyhow. Not like we docks down in St. Mary’s now is it? And where I lost the license so often, you know. Well it’s a tangle isnt it, coming and going. What am I gonna do with a week on shore? Go down to St. Mary’s and put a face on and pretend I’m someone I’m not? Or stay in Town and get good and drunk and good and fucked? No contest really. But a funeral now, that’s different. Your old man’s funeral, that’s different. Not that I had no feelings around none of it or nothing like that, just, you gotta make an appearance for them sorts of things. Put on your suit and get yourself liquored up.
Went and met the brother at the airport in Town and we hired a Gulliver’s, or whatever they’re called nowadays, worked our way out the highway to the turnoff, two of us in the back and the driver not saying nothing cause of the circumstances. And the brother, I could tell it wasnt sitting too well with him, that he was wanting to talk and get sentimental about the way things were or the way things turns out. Having a laugh about stuff the old fella used to do and say. I just let him patter on, you know, cause he was so worked up and that. He’s laughing but it sounds right mean. And just from the way he’d mention his wife’s name, the way the corners of his mouth dipped down and the brow scrunched the way it does, well I knew he hated her these days too and that he had all kinds of stuff going on. Plus I bloody well flew him down didnt I? So there’s the money business. Says his funds are all tied up. All that means to me is that he’s busted. I dont mind. I got a few dollars tucked away and like I said I got no expenses, just the beer and that. Little apartment dont cost fuck all. Heat and light included and I got one of them pay to play mobile phones, so. Anyhow the brother, he passes me this medallion from out of his pocket, one of them heavy AA medallions for being ten years off the juice. Presses it hard into my palm, looks at me. Not bad, not bad, I says. Meanwhile I’m there supping on a 26er of Lambs. Wouldnt last too long if I hadda share it with him anyhow. Ten years off the juice? I says to myself, what I wouldnt say to him, sure no wonder you’re all high strung. No wonder.
Everything goes all quiet for a while, like it does, out on the highway. Then the brother, he gets talking again, minding of the time we were young fellers and the old man saw us off to town with all our capelin money and we were going buying a new trap skiff and didn’t we show up home in the harbour three days later in a God-awful state driving a fuckin brand spanking new Trans Am. What a car alright. Shiny black with the big chrome wheels and tinted windows. All muscle. We christened her the Death Wish, that car. No contest. Anyhow we pulls up the lane and there’s the old man up on a ladder painting the trim of the house and stops to watch the two of us tumble out onto the driveway, not wanting to look at him. And he says, he says, Well b’ys that the funniest looking skiff ever I laid eyes on! And that’s it, never another comment about it. All the money gone. Car was wrote off down around St. Joseph’s not a month later. I forgets who was driving. But still not a word outta the old fella. The brother is telling all this and I’m sitting in the back of the taxi taking it all in and laughing where I’m supposed to, but what’s running through my head to say is that, Yeah, the old fella mellowed a fair bit once he sussed out that he couldnt kick us around no more, once we filled out and learned how to give back. I keeps that to myself though cause I knows full well the brother got it a whole lot worse than ever I did. But just cause some feller is after up and dying and he lived past ninety, dont mean by default he was some sort of fuckin angel.