The following is an excerpt from Say Nothing Saw Wood, the upcoming play by Joel Thomas Hynes set to premiere at the LSPU Hall in St. John's, Newfoundland, May 2007. Lost Cause – (excerpt)
Fourteen years old I was, first time I got a bit of skin. Whiskey had nothing to do with it either. Teresa Bennett. Me and Harold and another few b’ys were jiggin sea trout down off the breakwater when she come trudging across the beach. Sixteen, I s’pose she was. Heavy too. She used to call me the lost cause.
-- Here comes the little lost cause.
The big manly roars out of her then. It was a couple of years before I figured out she was just pokin fun at me name. And by that time she was dead. Killed. Loaded drunk and fell out the back of a truck near Bay Bulls somewhere. All of a sudden then everyone loved her.
That day on the beach she up and starts tossin rocks and chunks of driftwood out at our lines. Lookin to piss someone off. Askin for it. Harold called her an old slut and fired a rock at her. She slung one back, a big one, caught me right in the corner of the goddamn eye. An inch closer and I’da been the real hard ticket, right out of the movies, with the black eye-patch and the empty socket to show around at dances and shit. I never see it comin of course. I woulda got out of the goddamn way sure. But it knocked me down and the blood started streamin down me face. She laughed first. She did. Clear as day. But when she see the blood she got flustered a bit, started runnin towards me. I picked up a handful of rocks and let drift at her. She took off back up the beach and I took off after her. She was quick on her feet though, considering the size of her. But I s’pose she knew how cracked I was, split open and bleedin. I kept drillin rocks at her while I was runnin. She screamin back at me that she’s sorry, that it was an accident, pleadin with me to fuck off. Blood runnin into me eyes, blindin me, the world coated muddy red. Cracked I was.
Teresa lumbers up the bank at the end of the beach, busts into the Reddy’s old stage. No one’d used it in years, ‘cept for storin nets and gear. That’s all anyone used ‘em for since the plant opened up. Time I gets to the door she has it barred off. She’s all out of breath, I hears her tryna steady her lungs. I keeps heavin me shoulder into the door till I breaks one of the boards. I gives it one last go, exactly the same time she steps out of the way. I lands in on the floor then, and drives a fuck of a nail into me hand. That hurts worse than the rock in the face. She darts off to the other end of the stage but the backdoor’s boarded up. I got her cornered. She knows she’s in for it. Me there with me face all bust open and me hand gushin. She keeps on blubberin about how sorry she is and not to tell no one.
-- C’mon Jude, please…
And I realizes then and there that I’ve no clue what I’m plannin to do with her now that she’s caught. I was just chasin her ‘cause I was cracked. But now, when I sees her there like that with her big jugs heavin up and down and the sweat runnin off her forehead and her hair all plastered to it. And maybe the smell of the place too; fishy and damp and musty. And the dark of the room, little cracks of sunlight through the walls. I don’t know, it’s exciting. I picks up the handle of a gaff, holds it up to her face. She goes right quiet then. Just her breathin there. Dark patch of sweat on her chest. She makes a run, tries to get around me. I just shoves her down on top of the nets. I got a bit of height on her. One of her big jugs flops out of her bra. She looks back and forth from the gaff handle to me bloody head to the fresher blood drippin off me hand. She lies back, and don’t think I’m not quick about it either. I got me lad out and in her before she can say me name. I’ll give ya a lost cause missus.
She never made no fuss, just lay there lookin’ at the wall. I got blood all over the side of her face and neck but she never made a peep. I got up then and I let her go on. I wasn’t so cracked with her no more. Few days after I seen her walkin into her house and I went up and knocked on the door but she wouldn’t come out. I s’pose where she was a bit older she didn’t want no one getting the wrong idea. Fuck her anyhow. Say nothing, saw wood.
‘Bout a year after that I started knockin around with Margie Ryan. She was never with no one before me though. No. And of course I never let on about what Teresa Bennett went and done with me. Far as Margie was concerned, her first time was a first for me too. Still, I felt a bit cheated by the whole Teresa thing. And, to be honest, when she was tossed outta that truck down in Bay Bulls that time and cracked her neck and the whole Shore was getting on about what a lovely girl she was and how she never said boo to no one, well I’d just have a glance in the mirror and I’d see this little scar in the corner of me eye and I remembers thinking to meself, well everything comes back to haunt you. She got hers, just like everyone else.
Yeah, I remembers thinkin that way alright…
**************************************
This excerpt from Say Nothing Saw Wood also appeared in Lust for Life, an anthology published by Véhicule Press (2006). The photo of Joel Thomas Hynes reading in a Brooklyn Bar was taken by Scott Walden.
Joel Thomas Hynes is the author and principal narrator of Down to the Dirt (Rattling Books, 2006, six hours on an MP3 CD or as Digital Download from rattlingbooks.com
You can listen to an excerpt of Joel's reading of Down to the Dirt HERE.
