Books in Canada

The Writers' Union of Canada holds an annual Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers to encourage emerging writers of fiction and non-fiction. This year's judges -- George Elliott Clarke, Matt Cohen, and Myrna Kostash -- awarded the first-place prize of $2,500 to "The Line," a short-fiction piece by Dana P. Tierney. Books in Canada is pleased to publish the winning entry.

IT WAS NOVEMBER THE SEA WAS COAL black and it tossed and rolled in restless white-flecked contortions like a patient gripped by a fever sleep.

Gordon stood on his doorstep and stared at the Atlantic. His eyes narrowed and he exhaled slowly, struggling to control his shivering while the chill of the ocean air prevailed over the traces of wan-nth that had lingered under his coat.

To his left, down the hill, were the houses: hunched and small and old, they marched from the base of the hill in rows of identical weatherbeaten roofs like soldiers trekking endlessly, submissive, unprotesting, to the base of the tall wooden structure that marked the entrance to No. 9.

And from where Gordon stood he could see the fires, seven or eight of them, drawn in a long thin line across the entrance. Between the fires stirred the silhouettes of the men: black shadows, featureless, carrying torches. And the light from the fires skipped and jumped in a flickering taunt against the face of the structure, which loomed tall and still like a winter hawk on a leafless branch, grey-feathered, silent, watching.

Gordon shivered, shrugged his shoulders, turned his collar high around his chin and mouth, drove his hands deep into his pockets, and started down the slope to the hard dirt road.

As he walked he could see oil lamps burning in the windows of the small square homes and he knew most of the dwellers were sitting down to their dinner. He could smell the boiled potatoes and it turned his stomach over in a sour roll, sickening him.

He stepped quickly. He could feel the air cut through the holes in the knees of his underwear and as he passed the company store he wondered how much a spool of black thread would cost and whether the needle that Kate had shown him, broken as it was at its end, could be heated up and hammered into a point so that his socks and underwear could be darned. And he thought of the meat and flour and supplies that sat locked in that store, barred and guarded, for days on end, and the cold that embraced his ribs was replaced by the slow bum of his anger and frustration.

When he arrived at his grandmother's house he went to grab the door handle but his hand stopped and he turned away and paced for a few moments on the path, breathing deeply and looking down at his feet. It was quiet and the earth and small stones scraped under his heavy boots. The air was thick and damp. It hung like a great curtain, stirred ever so lightly by the wisps of wind that betrayed the presence of the storm, hiding behind the mist like a terrible intruder, waiting for the moment when it could spring forth to inflict its violence. Gordon broke from his pacing and went into the house.

The door to the house, like all the other company homes, opened straight into the kitchen, which was long and narrow with a small table butted against the wall across from the open fireplace.

Gordon's grandmother sat in a rocker at the end of the kitchen, a blanket over her knees. His father sat at the table, back against the wall, chair angled towards the fire, left hand and elbow resting on the table. There was tea in a pot on the table and a mug in his right hand. His face was wide and heavily lined and he wheezed a little from too many years in the hole.

The grandmother and father looked up, registering no surprise, when Gordon swept through the door and stood wringing his hands nervously.

"Come in, bye, and shut the goddamn door. I'll hasten ya to say hello to your grandmother, she's not many years left and with winter coming through that door with ya I'll suggest you take the chance while it's here."

"Yes, of course, hello, Grandmother, Dad. I just was thinking and I had to say ... well, ya see, Dad...."

"That's fine, bye, slow down first and we'll sit here by the fire for a spot."

Gordon hung his coat on a peg by the door and stomped his boots to kick the earth off them. He was tall with a black shock of thick curls and white skin splashed red across the cheeks. His eyes were dark and his mouth set firm and thin

across his troubled face. His hands went deep into his pants pockets as he sat at the table, chair angled at the flames. Both men looked at the fire as his father spoke.

"Now, lad, your grandmother and me were just thinking about when you was a boy, aye, your mother's favourite. You always had your own mind about you and certainly your mother's temper, bless her soul. And I gots to thinking here, with your grandmother of course, 'bout when we'd go up for the speckles at MacMurrough's brook, to the upper pool by the long path so's we'd be alone."

"I remember it, Dad."

"You were mighty small, bye, and not the patience for the fish. Yes sir, your brother and me would laugh at ya, bye, for you'd walk ahead with your black curly top hardly higher than the mushrooms, cursin' us for being too slow, and then sure as the night your line'd hardly be wet afore you'd stomp yer feet and fashion a spear to try and stick the sons a bitches .... and bye, ya hardly caught a one that way, didn't ya?"

"It's true, Dad."

Gordon spoke in a near whisper, paused and put his hand to his cheek.

"I kin remember it clear like it was yesterday."

The kitchen was warm and in the void between their quiet slow exchanges could be heard the crack and whistle of the fire and the creaking cadence of the wooden rocking chair. Gordon sat stiffly, staring at the fire.

"Remember, Gordon, the big brown that spit the hook at me. Ever lovin' Jesus I fought that fish, I coaxed him and pulled, he run for the falls and I brung 'im back, slow like, and I thought he was dead and sure enough he starts agin and he's jumpin' out of the water and throwin' his head and I'm heavin' on the rod and smack, just like that the hook's outta his and into mine, yessir, right in my lip."

A smile teased the comers of Gordon's mouth. "You were awful mad, Dad. I never seen you tie a fly on a line and get it back in the water so fast in all my life. And you wouldn't let us go home till after the sun started droppin', you were bent on bringin 'im in, and there's yer lip, stickin' out fat with the damn hook in it, and you not sayin' nothin'."

"I did say somethin', bye. I told yer brother to smarten up, do ya remember that, you were mighty young."

"I do, Dad, but I never knowed why, cause he wasn't sayin' nothin'."

"It wasn't what he was sayin'. I'm mad as the blazes and my lip's out to here and I'm not wantin to look at nobody and after a bit I think, my lord that's just not like that boy to not be smart assin' me over this one; and sure as the sun's gonna rise I look over at 'im and the son of a bitch is standin' there, line in the water, hand on hip just like me, with his goddamn lip stickin' out ... and he's been doin' it the whole time waitin' for me to look at 'im, patient as a cat chasin' a bird.

"I wouldn't admit it to ya then, but I'm tellin' ya the truth here, bye, if I slept a wink that week I's be surprised 'cause yer mother and me laughed so hard thinkin' about it I thought the shingles were gonna come down."

They were silent for a while, absorbed by their thoughts. The wind had started and the sleet and rain tapped in a quiet cadence against the window. From where the grandmother sat she could see the fires and the torches flickering at the bottom of the hill, but the silhouettes were blurred by the storm. The father leaned forward to stoke the logs, then sat back. They were quiet for a moment longer before they spoke.

"The men'll be cold out there tonight, bye, nothin' in most a their stomachs except some tea and biscuits maybe."

"Dad, I gots to tell you somethin', that's why I come here to the house."

"I know what you come for, bye."

"I gots to cross it, Dad. The kids are hungry, we ain't had nothin' but potatoes. Boiled blue friggin' potatoes, bake 'em or fry 'em and maybe a biscuit fer two weeks now, and maybe I kin do it but it's the kids, it ain't right. Look at you now, Dad, skippin' a meal a day, drinkin' tea and eatin' biscuits to fill it, then standin' outside by the fires, in the wind, and at your age ... well, it's no good and I'm crossin' the line."

Gordon had turned squarely towards his father and his voice had risen as he spoke, to the point where he was nearly shouting, overpowering the sounds of the fire and rocker and rain.

His hands were on the table and they trembled noticeably. He pulled them down into his lap and paused for a moment to bring himself under control.

"It's like this now, Dad. The company's come down from Montreal and I met with 'em today and it's $50 a man for to cross over and go under No. 9 tomorrow. There's men comin' down from Sydney Mines to join in, and there's goin' to be company police mounted to lead us through. They'll break us anyway so I'm goin' and I'm askin' ya not to be there."

The father rubbed his hand over his chin and the back of his neck, then leaned his head back to stretch his neck before settling back in his chair. He was quiet for a long time, seemingly absorbed by the heat and dance of the fire. When he spoke it was very quietly, calmly.

"It's funny what goes through a mind when things are tough. Now your grandmother and me had just been thinkin', before you come over, about when there was the bump. And I was tellin' her, yes, I was sayin' to her about when I went down for your brother, how I kept thinkin' he'd make it, that we'd get to 'im alive. Even after five days, pullin' coal with our hands so's not to spark the gas I just knew he was alive, that they was all alive, ya know, in a pocket maybe. And every time we'd be close to breakin' a wall I'd make sure to be at the front cause I wanted to see his face, for I just kept seein' his face, in my mind sort of, the whole time we were diggin' I kept thinkin' of that fishin' hole, and I just knew we'd break through and he'd be just sittin' there grinnin' at me with his damn lip stickin' out.

"And your grandmother was reminding me, before you come to sit with us, 'bout how you were just a little fella, and she was so proud of ya, standing at the top from sunrise waitin' for your big brother. And how you was so brave, keppin' yer mother strong ... seven days ....

"And I got to tellin' yer grandmother 'bout when the bump first happened, how there wasn't a man who didn't offer to go down for them. Not a man. They lined up for it. And those that we chose, that went under, they went the limit, bye, and didn't come up till we broke through, all seven days and nights, bent and dark, gas, rock falls, no sir, there wasn't a man that didn't go the limit to bring those byes back to their loved ones.

"And when we brought your brother out you was there, you know, to help Jay him out. And he looked so fine, bye, so damn fine. And when we laid them to rest, when we buried your brother, there wasn't a man that didn't come to show their respects."

Gordon spoke quietly, and as he spoke he looked at the window where the sleet was smearing the pane. "I'm sorry, Dad. I gots ta cross. It's the kids, see, they're hungry. It ain't right."

He stood and walked to the door, pulling on his heavy overcoat, and without turning he opened the door and stepped into the rain and sleet, which drove hard across the yard, and as he stepped away from the porch his father opened the door and spoke, his words shouted, yet still muted by the wind, struggled to gain his son's ear.

"They didn't pay them, bye!"

Gordon stopped, black hair blowing he turned his face against the storm and the sleet stung his cheek. He looked at his father. "Pay who?"

"The men. The company don't pay miners for bringing up corpses."

"I'm sorry, Dad."

When he had gone, when he could no longer be seen through the storm and the darkness, the father turned and entered the kitchen, closing the door behind him. The grandmother was up and at the stove, wiping its top and moving pots for the morning. They were silent for a moment, the father standing at the door watching the grandmother.

"We'll sleep soon, Mom."

"That's right, son."

"And in the morning, Mom, can you make some extra 'fore I go down to the line, there'll be some hungry lads, it'll be a long night for them."

"That's right, son. That's right."