Cape Breton Road Read Online Free PDF

rolled a thin joint, then held his baggie of pot up to the light: had to go easy on this. Some floating around in town probably, in The Mines, in Sydney for sure, but he couldn’tafford to get busted, he had to pick his risks carefully. Ned Mohney, the crazy bastard, had brazenly mailed this weed to him from Boston, two cleaned and tightly-compressed ounces from the last kilo they had scored to deal over in Cambridge, and it got here through customs, despite the wrong box number packed in a big bag of M&Ms, a note inside: Something for the munchies, pal. Keep your energy up. Keeping anything else up? Sure, Ned, I’ve never seen so many women. He hadn’t heard from Ned since. Why would he? Innis was banished, gone from the conversation of the few friends they’d had back there in Watertown. He’d been a topic for a while, did you hear what they’re doing to Innis, they’re deporting the guy to Canada, can you believe that? For what, dope? No, that Porsche he stole. His mother had called at Christmas, just small talk, she seemed nervous and the line was bad. How could you have a private conversation anyway on that old wooden crank phone on the kitchen wall with another dozen people up and down the road bending their ears to it? Alexander Graham Bell lived a few miles from here, Starr said, up at Red Head, and we’re still using the phone he invented, we’re getting dial next year, but that’s no excuse for not calling your mother. We’ve said all we have to say, Innis told him.
    Starr might come home tonight, and he might not. Unsure still if his uncle knew the smell of grass, he lit up and stepped outside the back door, huddling against the jamb. He drew deeply, held it until his eyes welled and the smoke blended with his breath. Even so, Starr didn’t miss much, and he kept a lot of things to himself. On the radio one night they heard about a pot bust on the mainland, and Starr said, Marijuana, hell, they used to grow it for rope, and nowthey hang you with it. Folk doctors concocted it for nerve medicine and perking up appetites, not just for food but sex, eh? If you think country people didn’t know much, there you are. Your Granny, she knew the wild plants and herbs, she was a healer, a midwife, many a night she was called out in terrible weather.
    The telephone rang and Innis counted reflexively, three longs, three shorts, not ours, a shaky hand at the crank, it sounded like. People had styles of cranking out rings—some bold, urgent, loud, others hesitant, tripping along. Innis was getting so he hardly listened at all, the phone simply trilled out a few times and went silent. No one was phoning for him anyway, he’d fielded enough calls for Starr, from women even, one in particular who seemed put out that he was never available lately, though when he had been he’d sweettalked her in low tones, as charming as he could be in code, on a party line. But this new woman with the hat and snow on her hand, she had Starr jumping, avoiding the shop some days, often gone in the evenings. Innis himself felt older now, beyond teenage girls, what he saw of them on his few visits to The Mines seemed just that to him, girls who would not understand what had happened to him or why. Why should they. And what could he offer the older ones, floating in space the way he was? Starr had told him, Look, you don’t have a license anymore and I’m damn sure not going to take you somewhere looking for a date, better you stay out here for a while, you’ve had enough problems out on the town, you don’t need women, have a drink instead. He’d pushed the rum bottle across the table,
Dìreach boinneag
, but Innis said no, that stuff’s poison to me, I don’t touch it anymore.
    In Watertown he and Ned had loved beer, not just in bars but at home because pot made them thirsty and they could glide nicely on a sixpack or two. But later on when Innis was facing his final INS hearing, they thought hard liquor was maybe the way to go,