I couldn’t believe what I’d done. For one who tries to live by the scientific method, I had fallen horribly short. The beauty of scientific thinking is that it can be applied to events not related to science. Therefore, if I would have simply and impartially observed all of the data, I would not have been so startled when the truth became clear.
This much was obvious: Curly Bennett’s father was back to drinking and, judging from my observations, he was drinking hard.
He was neither raging in town nor urinating in or otherwise fouling the wells of those with whom he had some type of disagreement, but the signs were there just the same: Curly’s mother’s seamstress shop had been closed since Wednesday, Curly had missed nearly a week of school, and when I went to their cabin, he answered my knock but wouldn’t open the screen door. In addition to this, he was wearing his hat inside the house.
“Hey, Red.”
“Hey, Curly.”
Most times, Curly would step out on the porch and exchange a few words with me, but he kept himself in shadows behind the closed screen door.
We looked at each other before I finally said, “So how are you doing?”
“I’m fair to middling.”
“Are you coming to school at all this week?”
“I ain’t sure.”
“A few of the lads and I are going fishing later this evening and were wondering if you wanted to join us?”
“Naw, I’m just … Who’s going?”
“Hickman, the Baylis boys, and me.”
“What ’bout Petey?”
“I’m not sure; no one has asked him.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no reason. I suppose I could.”
“Well, if all the people you said and Petey Demers are going fishing, walk by here and whistle and I’ll go too.”
Curly was known for peculiar behaviour, so this didn’t strike me as strange.
“All right, if Petey comes, I shall whistle from the woods behind your house. Make sure you dig up some night crawlers.”
“You make sure Petey’s there.” He closed the screen door, then pushed it back open a crack. “Don’t let Pa see none of you.”
Everybody knew the fewer dealings one had with Curly’s pa, the better.
“I’m not stupid.”
I could make out a smile on Curly’s face through the screen.
“I know, you just look that way.”
I shook my head and walked toward the road.
* * *
That evening, Bucky and Buster Baylis, Hickman Holmely, and Petey Demers waited on the road while I walked the path to Curly’s shack. They refused to come with me; they took the sign that read ALL TREZPASERS WILL GET SHOT very seriously.
There were no lamps lit at the Bennett cabin. No one was sitting in the chairs out front, so I stayed in the woods and sneaked around to the back. I brought my fingers to my lips.
Before I could whistle one note, a thick arm wrapped around my neck from behind, blocking any attempt to breathe and causing my feet to dangle off the ground.
My heart stopped!
A voice growled, “What you doing sneaking ’round my house, boy?”
Curly set me back on my feet and laughed softly.
“What is wrong with you? I nearly died of fright! I thought your father had captured me!”
When he set me down, the hat he was wearing was knocked askew, and I could see that his right eye was swollen shut and his lip was puffy and appeared overly ripe.
Curly quickly pulled the hat over his face again.
He said, “Did Petey come?”
“Yes; why are you showing all of this interest in Petey so suddenly?”
“Who said I was interested in Petey?”
“Well, you never …”
He punched my arm. “So, we going fishing or we gonna sit and chat like this is afternoon tea, Your Honour?”
Curly called me that whenever he wanted to put me in my place. Since Father is a judge, he probably thinks it’s an insult.
He picked up a tin can that I assumed held night crawlers and headed toward the road.
There were so many questions that needed asking, but my breathing had not yet returned to normal from the scare I’d taken. I rubbed my throat and quietly followed.
The lads were still at the side of the road. As soon as they saw us, they stood and started pelting Curly with the same questions I wanted to ask.
“Hey, Curly, we ain’t seen you at school; what’s the matter?”
“Why you got that hat pulled so low?”
“How come your ma’s got her shop shut up?”
“Sharon said you’re about to move; is that true?”
“Why haven’t you been hunting with your brother?”
Curly brushed their questions aside and said, “By the time I answer all your prattles and nonsense, the fish will quit biting.”
He looked directly at Petey. “Ain’t you got no questions to ask, Petey?”
Petey shrugged. “I figure if you got something to say, you’ll say it.”
Curly edged up to Petey.
“Matter of fact, I do got something to say. I got a couple questions for you.”
Petey just looked at him, wondering like the rest of us what this was all about.
Curly said, “You’re pretty tall, ain’t you?”
Petey looked down into Curly’s eyes in such a way that any answer would be redundant.
Curly said, “Just how tall are you?”
Petey said, “Six feet, three inches. Why?”
Curly said, “I was just wondering how high they could pile crap before it would tip over.”
Those intemperate words made every one of us on the road that night freeze. Petey could be played with, but only up to a point. I was sure Curly had reached that point and gone far beyond.
I tried changing the subject. “You get many night crawlers, Curly?”
An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and the same can be said of many an argument. Curly was determined to start something and wasn’t waylaid by any of my distractions. He swung and hit Petey in the chest. It wasn’t a light punch like he’d given me; he put all of his weight behind it.
Petey staggered a little, then looked hard at Curly.
Hickman said, “Ha-ha, what are you doing, Curly? That’s Petey.”
It wasn’t clear if Hickman intended that to mean this was Petey our friend or this was Petey who, at only sixteen years old, was the second-most brutal brawler in all of Chatham, but either way, the meaning was obvious: Curly was treading a dangerous path.
Petey and Curly were the only two of us who’d ever spent any time inside of the jail. Father told me he’d put Curly behind bars to put the fear of God in him and try to stop what seemed inevitable, and all of Chatham knew Petey had been jailed for beating two grown men near to death. At the same time!
I didn’t know which was more shocking, when Petey began walking back toward Chatham without doing anything or when Curly started after him.
To stop this before it became tragic, Hickman and the Baylis boys grabbed Curly.
Hickman said, “Curly, what is wrong with you? Go apologize.”
Curly breathed heavily from his mouth and slapped their hands away.
I said, “Curly …”
He ran toward Petey and swung as hard as he could at the back of Petey’s head.
I immediately wished I’d warned Petey.
What followed was the sickening sound of bone crashing into bone.
Petey stumbled forward and fell.
Buster Baylis said, “Oh, dear! That proves it; Curly Bennett has lost his mind!”
The time it took Petey to sit up and wipe the dirt from his face was when I finally put it all together and reached the only sensible conclusion: Curly had not lost his mind at all; this made perfect sense. He knew if he showed up at school again bruised and beaten by his drunken father, Miss Jacobs would notify the constable.
It was indisputable; the variables were all there. The hat, the not coming out on the porch, the not being in school, his mother’s shop shuttered, his wanting to make sure Petey came fishing, his need to be certain there were witnesses to what he wanted to happen. All led to the same conclusion: His father must have beaten Curly and his mother so severely that the only way Curly could show his battered face without getting his father tossed in jail was if he very publicly lost a fight to someone tougher than he.
If he had asked me, I would have pointed out that there were many less painful ways to do this than taking a thumping from Petey Demers. But he had thought it out carefully; fighting Petey guaranteed both a loss and a badly battered face and body.
“Curly!” Hickman yelled. “This is madness!”
Curly stood over Petey with his hands balled and his chest heaving.
Petey slowly pulled himself up. Curly raised his fists and squatted into a defensive posture.
Petey spit blood from his mouth, and then, in a beautifully righteous turning of the other cheek, started back down the road to Chatham.
“What?” Curly yelled at Petey. “You ain’t gonna do nothing? You’re just a yellow-bellied coward!”
Hickman grabbed Curly again to try to bring this nonsense to an end.
Curly yelled, “You’re as worthless as your ma! She didn’t even have the decency to stick with her own kind! She couldn’t even get a white man to marry her!”
Petey’s father was Cree and his mother was Irish. This was a constant source of problems for him. He had beaten those two men so ferociously because they had made rude, unflattering comments about his mother.
I found it hard to imagine their remarks were anywhere near as rude as this!
Hickman turned Curly loose as if he had metamorphosed into a ball of fire and said, “Ooh! You’re on your own, chum.”
Curly’s words caused Petey to freeze in his tracks.
No one breathed.
But instead of coming back and beating Curly to within an inch of his life, Petey continued walking toward Chatham.
Hickman said, “I’d leave town if I were you; once he realizes what you said, he’ll be back. I don’t think this is over yet.”
Curly turned on him. “You think I give a care what a low-down black fool like you has to say? You’re the one who needs to leave town and go back to Africa or America, slave boy. Who wants your kind here in Canada anyway?”
Whatever sense of forgiveness had prevented Petey from attacking Curly did not extend to Hickman. His fists flew fast and accurately, and the wounds Curly’s father had given him were soon reopened and fresh.
They fought long and hard, battling until they were tired enough that neither resisted when we pulled them apart.
Thus ended the strangest night of fishing I ever hope to be involved with. If I wasn’t such a student of science, I would’ve blamed the shenanigans on the full moon.