Riiing. The phone was ringing, but Ownie was not in the mood for conversation. The caller was probably a client ordering a cake, or a telemarketer, or, God forbid, Tanner the promoter nagging him about LeBlanc and a fight that Ownie hoped would never happen. Riiing.
Right now, Girlie’s boy, Hansel, would take LeBlanc apart like a Lego village, piece by plastic piece. Hansel even had a new name, the Maroon Harpoon, and fresh duds, all in shades of crimson. Even without the threat of Hansel, Tanner was wearing thin for Ownie. Forty years of his crap was plenty, the trainer decided: that drugging story he’d made up, Louie’s ring disaster with Verne, and now Tanner saying he’s found out he’s adopted and expecting people to care.
“What difference does it make at your age?” Ownie had asked him. “Everyone connected to you is dead and you’ve got one foot in the grave yourself.”
“I’s got to know, you.”
“If you got to know, you got to know.”
Tanner headed back to Tancook Island like the Maroons drawn to Sierra Leone, looking for his roots in a compost of sauerkraut and schooners. “There’s only two-hundred people on the Island, half of them never been past Halifax,” Ownie noted, “so it shouldn’t take long.”
Riiing. Riiing.
Tanner started going door to door and they stonewalled him, the way those old fishermen do. “No, son, I can’t help you.” “No. Don’t try pullin’ my mouth.” The truth had been covered up, Tanner said, painted black as a rum-runner slipping through fog. Finally, he found an old woman who said she’d known his father. “He was a Portuguese sailor named Rui, a little fella with hair like a French poodle and one gold tooth. He had eyes like a husky dog: bright blue, which kinda put a spell on the women, with him being so dark. I remember him because I never seen them dog eyes before.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Ownie had asked Tanner.
“I’s got to live with it, that’s all. I got to live with the God’s truth.”
A week later, Tanner showed up with a guitar that resembled an oversized banjo.
“What do you have there?” Ownie asked.
“It’s Portuguese; I’m learning to sing a fado.”
“A what?”
“It’s a sad eerie ballad from the Old Country, you,” he explained. “It’s the song of Portuguese seamen missing their loved ones.”
“I suppose you’re the loved one.”
Tanner shrugged.
“Hello.” Ownie picked up the phone, worried that Hildred might miss a cake order and he would be blamed.
“Hiii, Ownie.”
“Who’s this?”
“You juss kiddin me.” The caller laughed as though Ownie was pulling his leg. “There no way you wudden know mah voice.”
Lord dyin’ Jesus, strike me dead! Ownie swore he’d never have this conversation, not after how he’d been betrayed, disappointed, and forced to deal with Hildred and her mutilated cake.
“Ah juss wahn to see how you doin, you and your wife.”
“After six months, you’re wondering how I’m doing?”
“How you like ta come down for a lit’l visit, get sum sun and relax? Ahll pay all your ’spenses, ahll take care of ebbyting. A mon your age should do a lit’l trav’lin.”
“I’ve done plenty of travelling.”
Turmoil laughed. “Ah bet you nevah even ben to Flor’da?”
“I’ve got no need for mobile trailers or Mickey Mouse.”
“Iss nice down here.” And then without a pause, without giving Ownie time to nurse his grudges or listen to reason, it was done. “Ahll have mah secretary send you a ticket. Dohn you worry ’bout nothin. We got a fight comin up, a big one. You’ll see. Iss big.”