Monday, May 07, 2012

A Death in the Outport.




You asked about Carrie's husband Jack? Well, it was awful. The kids came home from school and there he was in the bedroom, bloody bits stuck to everything, walls, ceiling, floor, bed. He blew his brains out. Thirty-seven years old. A gambler and a drunkard.

Carrie's husband Jack? You saw the grave? We had a card party and raised nearly $6,000 dollars, paid for all that black marble and the photos. Expensive. But it helped the widow. Only thirty five and three children to raise. But all the money went on the grave.

Jack, Carrie's husband? Yes, eight years ago now. Not much of a loss. He kept getting fired even from jobs that never fire you. Know what I mean? Drunk by breakfast every day.

Poor Carrie, trying to hold it all together working at the fish-plant when the kids were small while Jack spent every bit of it on booze and VLTs. Awful life.

Jack was tortured, poor fellow. What with Carrie carrying on with his brother Vinnie for the six months before Jack finally took his own life.

We still can't get over it. There was Jack, a ball of blood in the bedroom and all the neighbours had come into the house when they heard and there they were sitting in the kitchen as if it was some kind of party with all the bottles laid out like soldiers on the table. So the ambulance comes and they have to wait for the cops, can't touch anything as he is so dead that his face was gone off him. And the party got louder and louder. No respect. And then the cops when they got there sent everyone home.

The hard thing was, is that Carrie's story kept changing. From one day to the next. First she was with him in the kitchen when he went off to the bedroom with the gun. Next day that was changed to she was next door and heard the gunshot. And the following week she said she's been off over to her mother's at the other side of the bay when he did it. The cops said it was shock, but, who knows?

What I meant was, I think she put him up to it. No, no I can't see her shooting him in the face and they have tests for that kind of thing, right? But she made him. As God is my judge.

I remember seeing Carrie at the grave, her red hair flowing down her back, and looking like a movie star with her aunt's black hat on top of it. And I saw a bit of a smile on her. A small one, you'd hardly notice. And I thought to myself, she's enjoying this. She's enjoying the attention.

After all, how much attention does anyone get out here unless you create it for yourself?



16 comments:

  1. That's pretty powerful, WWW, and I know about this sort of thing from experience. The stories that go around...

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  2. Who knows what goes on inside a marriage when the door to the outside world is closed?

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  3. Wow WWW that story is one well told and also well true.

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  4. OOOoooh! That's a dark one WWW!
    Enjoyed it though.

    Am pleased to find, on catching up, that your troubles have melted away, and you at last have found good surfing weather on the internet. :-)

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  5. Irene:
    And all of it is true! You know what I'm talking about. Astonishing the multiple perspectives on one sad incident, yeah?
    XO
    WWW

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  6. GM:
    Oh the stories, don't be talkin'!
    XO
    WWW

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  7. GFB:
    There was more to it, more perspectives, but herewith the Reader's Digest version. I think I'm going to make a short story out of it. Or it lends itself to a novella maybe?
    XO
    WWW

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  8. T:
    Highspeed has me entranced. I'm keeping the good news to myself in the great fear that more users on this cellular hub will create the same old same old.
    XO
    WWW
    Are you back from the Big Land of Texas?

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  9. WOW! Story 'caused me to recall that of another who used a gun in a similar manner many years ago. I always had my own viewpoint on the matter as facts emerged. No alcohol in this story. An exceptional individual. Tragic.

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  10. A sad sad story. How easily a life collapses into anarchy and ruin. We seldom realise how lucky we are if our lives go well and we avoid such disintegration.

    $6000 squandered on a funeral and a grave? Idiotic.

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  11. Joared:
    There are always so many sides and what's put out for public consumption is often far from the truth!
    XO
    WWW

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  12. Nick:
    Here, as in many other places, image is everything even if your children are hungry. The RC church has a lot to do with this. Purchasing graves, endowing the priest, renting the church.
    XO
    WWW

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  13. What can I say? Our local news papers have similar stories, not of gun shot suicides, but murders and suicides for exactly the same reasons. We can also see the survivors mourning the passing away of a person, who has suddenly become a hero in death.

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  14. There are many deaths and many reasons, Ramana.
    We will never know the truth.
    XO
    WWW

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  15. Truth and alcohol do not mix. There are far too many stories like this.
    You tell this one well.

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  16. Powerful and chilling. I don't doubt the truth of it for a moment. A dearly beloved becoming such a pain in the ass, his wife dreams of a way to use his weaknesses against him.

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