Old Man Scratch Read online

  The cancer started in her stomach—gastric adenocarcinoma, if you want to be fancy—but before it was diagnosed, it had metastasized to her esophagus and lymph nodes. It would eventually spread to her pancreas, liver, and lungs, and kill her in less than six weeks.

  Treatment was not an option; the cancer was too advanced for surgery, and she was too weak for chemo. We decided that Melinda’s final days would be better spent at home, surrounded by her comforts, and by the things she had collected or created in the years of her life. One afternoon she spent two hours looking at a picture she had bought at a restaurant in Toronto when she was twenty-three. I only went in for a sandwich, she told me. The tears fell from her eyes and splashed on the glass in the frame. They ran across the landscape like rain. But I saw this picture on the wall and just had to have it. The curios of a lifetime—even something as seemingly innocuous as a pencil or a paperback novel—can be powerful. When held at the right moment, magic can occur. They become windows in time. Portals.

  That’s what I did for Melinda. I surrounded her with magic.

  But then there was Scratch.

  I hadn’t spoken to him since the incident with the O.P.P., and that suited me fine. However, I wanted—needed—Melinda to be comfortable, and to sleep when she could. I hoped that if I went to Scratch and told him how it was, and how Melinda needed her rest, he just might have enough heart to run his mower at a more considerate hour. So I hit The Beer Store and bought a case of Blue (always good tender at the Clayton homestead), and lugged it next door, almost giving myself a hernia in the process.

  “What’s the occasion, pencil-neck?” he growled, seeing the two-four on the porch. His eyes were wide and thirsty. He didn’t look at me at all.

  “Truce,” I said, and held out my hand. His mean eyes flicked toward it, then went back to the beer. He didn’t want to shake hands, which also suited me fine. Scratch was what an old friend of mine used to call an alpha-shaker; when he shook hands he would try to break every bone, just to ascertain that you were dealing with one tough cookie. I’ve never trusted an alpha-shaker. I find most of them lack something in the brains department, and Scratch was no exception.

  “Beer,” he grunted. He stepped onto the porch, ripped open the box, and popped a bottle. “Why don’t you just drop to your knees and put your tongue up my ass?”

  A repulsive thought.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  He guzzled beer, not looking at me. Foamy lines drizzled down his chin. I grabbed a bottle for myself, twisted the cap, and took a seat on his porch. I looked at his garden—his perfect lawn—and waited for him to join me.

  He finished the first beer with a resounding belch, grabbed another, and dropped into the Adirondack chair beside the one I occupied.

  “My wife is dying,” I said. I kept my voice even, but saying the words—hearing them out loud—made everything inside me buckle and clench. My tone of voice carried no more emotion than if I’d told Scratch I expected rain. To this day I have no idea how I managed that. All I know is that I wanted to appear strong. I wanted Scratch to see that, despite what he thought, there was strength inside. Real strength.

  “That so?” He wiped his chin and examined the bottle, as if he were seeing the Blue label for the first time.

  “She doesn’t have very long, Scratch,” I continued. I sipped my beer. It tasted unusually bitter. A rattling wind carried across the porch. Scratch’s screen door banged. The timber creaked. “As we sit here drinking our beers, she’s lying in bed, suffering terribly. Of course, the morphine is keeping the pain at bay. But there’s another kind of pain, buried inside, that no medication can touch. I can’t explain it, but I see it in her eyes. She knows she’s dying, Scratch, and she’s awful scared.”

  “Big C?” he asked, scratching the back of his hand.

  I nodded. “Yeah … cancer. A nasty hit, too.” The first tremor betrayed my voice and I bit my lower lip, closed my eyes. The wind seemed louder. It should have been you, Scratch, I thought, listening to him slurp and guzzle. It should have been you, you mean bastard.

  But it wasn’t Scratch, the veteran, the alpha-shaker. Scratch was just as right as rain.

  “So what do you want from me?” he asked. “A second opinion?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, digging deep for composure. “I want you to give her the peace she deserves. And she does deserve it, Scratch. There’s nothing in her heart but love and goodness. For her final few mornings in this life, all I want is for her not to have to wake to the sound of your lawnmower.”

  The wind dropped as I finished speaking. We were met with a half-second of stillness, during which Scratch slurped his beer and scratched himself and looked out over his garden. I thought I saw him glance toward our bedroom window, as if reflecting on the sickly woman lying in bed behind the curtains. At the time, during that instant of pensive silence, I thought I saw a shadow of understanding move across his worn features, like the shadow of a cloud passing over a craggy bluff.

  I was wrong.

  “Sorry about your luck,” he said. He shook his empty at me and gestured toward the box on the porch. “Hand me a brew, city boy.”

  I grabbed a bottle, twisted the cap, and held it out to him. As he went to take it, I pulled back, keeping it beyond reach. He scratched his neck and narrowed his eyes.

  “You won’t let me down will you, Scratch? You won’t let Melinda down?”

  “Let me think about it,” he rumbled, and flicked a crooked finger at the bottle in my hand. “Let me think about it while I drink that beer.”

  I was happy to pass him the bottle; I fought to keep the trembling out of my hand, and didn’t want him to see how scared I was—how everything inside me was pulled tight, like a guitar string that’s a half-turn from snapping. I got to my feet and shuffled to the edge of the porch.

  “Have a good afternoon, neighbour.” I was close to crying, so hurried down the porch steps. I had managed to keep my tears from Melinda, and was damn sure going to keep them from Scratch.

  “That I will, Johnny.” Slurp and scratch. “That I will.”

  I cut across his lawn to get to my property, and had walked no more than ten yards before the tears came. My vision blurred but I did not stagger. I blinked the tears away and walked in a determined line, but collapsed as soon as I stepped through my front door. Nothing could hold me up. I fell against the hallway wall and slid to my knees, creaking and hurting. I covered my mouth with one hand, trying to keep the sound of my sobbing from waking Melinda.

  Most of the daylight had dropped from the sky by the time my tears had stopped. I lay on my side, my upper body curled, my legs bent at the knees. I needed the support of the wall to find my feet. I could hear—feel—Melinda calling out to me, her weakened voice, breaking my heart. And I went to her, showing strength I did not have. And I held her.

  I didn’t sleep that night. I lay next to Melinda, my arms wrapped around the familiar curve of her body. I felt every tiny move she made, every vibration in her soul. I drew succour from this closeness, let it radiate inside me, and I willed it back into her as health and peace and sweet thoughts.

  I got out of bed at around four-thirty, brewed a pot of coffee, and sat in the silence of my kitchen as a vein of red light edged the horizon to the east. I looked toward Scratch’s house, its outline pressed against the stained light of morning, and waited for it to come to life. I didn’t have to wait long; his bedroom light flicked on before I finished my first cup, and ten minutes later the mean old bastard was standing on his porch, scratching his head, looking at his lawn as if it were the most unruly, unholy abomination known to man.

  I glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall: five twenty-six.

  “Don’t do it, Scratch,” I said.

  He went back inside and returned a minute or two later with a tape measure. He must’ve known I was watching because he made an elaborate show of extending the tape, dropping to his hands and knees, and measuring several blades of
grass. He scratched his chest, his neck, his upper arm, shook his head most disapprovingly, and then jumped on his John Deere.

  “You evil man,” I whispered. “You awful, evil man.”

  I slumped upstairs as the rattling of Scratch’s mower destroyed the peace of the morning. Melinda was awake, pushing herself up onto her pillows, blinking her sleepy eyes. She had already lost three or four pounds and it showed in her face. Her thin, milky skin had collapsed into the hollows of her cheeks, accentuating her jaw line and the ridges of bone around her eyes.

  “Johnny …?”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

  “What’s that noise, Johnny?” The medication had addled her brain, and I found I was actually grateful.

  “It’s nothing, honey. Just rest. Can I get you anything?”

  She whimpered something and fell back against her pillows. I walked to the window and pulled open the curtains. The light from Melinda’s bedside would emphasize my silhouette. But that was okay; I wanted Scratch to see me. I wanted him to know that I was watching.

  Two days later, I found a dead woodchuck at the bottom of my driveway. I dragged it to the side of the road—the usual spot.

  The next morning, it was gone.

  Melinda died on a perfect September evening, with birdsong filling the air and the sky coloured with generous brushstrokes of pink and orange. She died in my arms, as precious and harmless as the day she was born. I kissed her forehead and lay her down, and sat with her, and let my tears fall.

  It’s a curious thing, but I spoke to her as the evening sloped into night, and was sure she could hear me. I reminisced about the moments we’d shared—so much magic, so much joy—and when I looked at her, I expected to see her sitting up in bed, attentive and glowing. I knew she was dead—of course I knew that—but when I looked at her and saw that she hadn’t moved at all, I couldn’t grasp it. I had never seen Melinda not moving, you see, and it didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem normal. I think I would have been less surprised to see her gazing back at me, beautiful eyes shining.

  Her final days may have been spoiled with the unnecessary rumbling of Scratch’s lawnmower, but her funeral was beautiful and peaceful. I could not have wished for more. The service was held at the Church of the Holy Cross in Toronto, where we were married in 1946, and where our three children were christened. My daddy’s axiom came to mind more than once: how you can measure the quality of a man—or in this case a woman—by the number of people that attend his or her funeral. Melinda had the church jammed with family, friends, and acquaintances … so many people, and my heart was cheered when I looked around from my place up front to see how they were all squeezed onto the pews and standing at the back. And still the doors kept opening, and still more people jostled in. That’s the kind of woman she was. But it was a hard, hard day. I kept looking at her coffin: a pine box that held my heart, my life. I could not believe that Melinda was inside that little box. I could not come to terms with the fact that the woman I had shared everything with—who was a part of me, and all of me—was about to be taken away forever, and that I could do nothing about it.

  I did a commendable job of being strong—of showing Melinda that I was being strong, at least—in the awful weeks preceding her death. This pretence ended at her funeral. I stood on trembling legs and wailed, and held my out hands to her coffin, as if I could pull her back into my arms. I collapsed on my knees as they took her away, and called her name until my throat burned.

  My angel. My sweet Melinda.

  I didn’t go home after the funeral. My daughter thought it best that I stay with her in the city for as long as I needed, and I happily took her up on the offer. She pampered me like her mother used to, which was sweet and sad at the same time. It was a relief to not have to think about anything, to be given time to mourn my partner. But my thoughts often turned to Scratch Clayton, and I found therapeutic benefit in imagining the different ways I could get back at him for spoiling Melinda’s peace. The thing is, I was not content with simply imagining. I wanted it to happen. I wanted him gone.

  I made the lonely drive to my lonely house one week after burying Melinda. Three dead animals greeted me at the bottom of my driveway, and Scratch was sitting on his porch with the sports pages of the Record. He hollered at me as I got out of my car, just as chipper as a baby bird. I ignored him—ignored his laughter … but the fact that he hadn’t cut his grass for a few days (it was longer than the regulation three inches, and there were a few raggedy weeds poking out from under the porch) didn’t escape my attention. I wanted to run at him there and then, brandishing hell and fury. I wanted to scream at him: You cut your fucking grass every goddamn day while my wife was dying, stealing her peace and quiet … and you only quit after she dies! You’re a real top guy, Scratch—a real credit to humanity! But I contained myself. I lowered my head and went into my house. I heard him laughing as I closed the front door.

  I stood in my empty hallway, in my empty home, and an unlikely smile touched the corners of my mouth.

  I had a feeling Scratch Clayton wouldn’t be laughing for long.

  There has been only one viewing of Scratch’s property in the two months it has been on the market: a middle-aged couple who walked with forced smiles and left with nonplussed expressions. Needless to say, they didn’t return for a second viewing. I’m not surprised. Scratch’s house needs work, and time. It’ll probably stand empty for a few months to come, and eventually sell to city money.

  I went over there earlier today, hobbled around the property, and looked through darkened windows. The empty rooms of Scratch’s house are all the same colour: grey, coated with dust. I kept expecting him to appear, to come blundering and scratching into one of the rooms, spitting expletives. Or maybe I’d see him sitting in his favourite armchair, looking at me with a malign grin carved into his face—a grin that said, Thought you got rid of me, didn’t you, Johnny. Thought you’d seen the back of old Scratch.

  His house is empty. Horribly, wonderfully empty. I didn’t see him scratching his way from one room to the next, or sitting in his favourite armchair. Only emptiness. That was all.

  Scratch is gone. Horribly, wonderfully gone.

  Not that his ghost is confined to the dusty rooms of his house; I heard his voice on the wind as I made my way home, calling to me. It carried across the fenny land—the funny land—next to my property. The deepest chill moved through my bones and I pulled my collar tight to my throat.

  I’m still here, city boy, the wind said. I sneered at it, shaking my head. Thin tears rolled from the corners of my eyes as I looked at the patch of swampy ground that neighbours my property to the west.

  “You’re gone, Scratch,” I said, and the wind rose in a mindless shriek, dead leaves skipping and whirling around me with sudden, angry life.

  Still here …

  I turned my back to the voice and shuffled inside. I slammed my front door and for one second there was silence, then I heard the familiar creaks and groans of my house. I imagined huge, rough hands clasping it on either side, squeezing the framework, twisting the joists. I half expected the windows to buckle and smash and for the wind to come screaming in. I clapped my hands over my ears and closed my eyes, and stayed that way until my heart had slowed and the chill had gone from my body.

  There is no peace. There is no mercy. My dreams (and they should be dreams of Melinda) are ruined by images of Scratch. My waking moments are haunted by memories of the night I made him disappear.

  This is how it happened:

  “Hey there, neighbour. I want to show you something.”

  I had to lead him to my garage, but I knew he wouldn’t come if I asked nicely. Scratch would need to be tempted. Simply put, the son of a bitch would only follow if he thought there was something in it for him.

  “Not interested, Gregson.” His breath smelled of damp fabric. Two little blobs of ketchup had gathered in the corners of his mouth. “I just cracked a cold one, and Deal or No Deal is ab
out to start. I never miss Deal or No Deal.”

  “Television entertainment at its finest,” I agreed, but his head was too thick to absorb the sarcasm. “I wouldn’t want to drag you from your favourite TV show, Scratch. I’ll find someone else.”

  I started to walk away, but was stopped by Scratch’s hefty hand on my shoulder. The last two words I had spoken—“someone else”—had tickled his interest. They had made him think he would be missing out on something.

  “What have you got, Johnny? Spit it out.”

  “Forget about it, Scratch. Go watch your show.”

  He squeezed my shoulder. Don’t fuck with me, city boy, his expression said, and I knew that I had him. I knew he would follow.

  “I found something, Scratch. In my garage.” I spoke with a mixture of city slicker ignorance and childlike innocence, playing to Scratch’s ego, making him feel like the all-knowing King Shit.

  “What did you find?” he growled. His eyes glowed with curiosity.

  “I’m hoping you can answer that.” I took a deep breath and looked at my property. I’d left the garage light on, and it spilled through the open door with an eerie quality. “I’ve been cleaning up, you know, trying to get things in order after Melinda passed away. I finally got to the garage, and what a god-awful mess. Boxes and shit everywhere. Anyway, I emptied one old crate and pushed it off to the side, and that was when I noticed the trapdoor. I’ve never seen it before—probably because the crate was sitting square on top of it.”

  “You open her up?” Scratch asked. His eyes shone a little brighter.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “What else would you expect from a curious old goat like me?”

  “And?” He leaned forward, forcing me to take a step back. His breath was awful, and the gleam in his eyes was overpowering. Even his shadow felt heavy, like a wet blanket.