Black and Green
Northern Gothic from the Northern Gospel. Conceptualized, written and published by Kerr Martin, 5/25/26.
“You thinking of visiting Ma’ since you’re in town?”
“Not this time.”
“Mmhm.”
“What do you mean, mmhm?”
“Nothing. Just drink your coffee so we can get out of here.”
“Look, after last Christmas I decided I wasn’t going back there.”
“And you haven’t. Doesn’t stop her from missing you.”
“Geordie, I’m a rigger. I’m not going to stop.”
“Even after…”
“Geordie. It’s what I do.”
“Still, she doesn’t have to like it.”
“Mmhm.”
“I don’t much like it either, Toddy.”
“Could be worse.”
“Could it?”
“Probably.”
We drove around to all the old haunts. Kerry’s bar, the Hockey Hut, the old college, then we headed to St. Isaac’s cemetery to pay our respects. The last time we were there it was thick with the winter’s snow. Pristine. Unmoving. Seeing it in the summer, lush with life and surrounded by blooming flowers and leafy trees, it was beautiful. I hated it.
“We going to see Dingo?”
“Fuckin’ eh we’re going to see Dingo.”
“Good, I brought a Forty tucked in my jacket. It’s a bit warm but he’s not going to care.”
“Man, I wish I could smoke a fatty right now.”
“You’re a rigger. It’s what you do.”
“Don’t get snippy with me, dick.”
“I’m just saying, you could make my Ma’ happy and smoke all the bud you want, bud.”
“And lose out on five grand a month? Yeah right.”
“Dingo lived in a dump and he was happy, what do you need five grand a month for?”
“Dingo was a grief stricken maniac, a gent, but a maniac.”
“Yeah…yeah.”
“We can’t all be over thirty and still getting high and playing Nintendo in the basement bro.”
“No?”
“No. Adults have jobs.”
That night I picked dad up from the Legion. It was 2am and he was drunk as fuck, the same way he always was when he was off work. I used to love drinking with dad and shooting the shit but tonight I wasn’t in the mood. Everything about him disgusted me, the way everyone in the place patted him on the shoulder and waved goodbye as he left, the cheeky smirk on his face, the sly wink he gave me through the window before he opened the back door and slumped down into the seat. It was so typical. He was so charming and everyone loved him. What a prick.
“Toddy boy!”
“Dad…”
“You shoulda seen me in there tonight son, the Gretzky of darts.”
“Phil Taylor.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Gretzky of darts, Phil “The Power” Taylor. Man’s a legend.”
“Whoever he is, he ain’t no goddamn Wayne Gretzky.”
“Mmhm.”
“Have you been to see your mother yet, boy?”
“No…”
“And what did I tell you the last time I saw you?”
“Don’t let anything come between us boys and our mother.”
“And what else?”
“That family comes before anything…”
“Before food, before pussy, before goddamn death!”
“Dad…”
“That’s right.”
“You want something on the radio?”
“You made her cry at Christmas, you know?”
“Fuck, I’m not the only one in this car who’s made her cry.”
“Now that’s low.”
“Low? It was your idea for me to come with you out onto the rigs and away from this shithole.”
“It was.”
“And now I’m supposed to just quit, throw it all away, because you…”
“Because I what, kid?”
“Forget it…”
“Come on tough guy, just fucking say it!”
“Because you fucking died!”
“There we go. Now we’re at the heart of the matter.”
I pulled the car up outside the house.
“You took me out there onto those God forsaken rigs, away from my friends, away from my home, made me feel like I had found my calling and then just when life here was far enough in the rearview? Just when everyone had moved along and forgot about Toddy? You go and fucking die on me. And what now? I give it all up to come back here and live in the shadows of the past? Fuck that man, fuck you.”
There was no reply.
I killed the engine and sat there in silence staring down the empty street. It was quiet apart from the distant hum of the highway and Missus Simmon’s dog barking. That dog must have been as old as I was and it had been unhinged just as long. Summer in the neighbourhood always smelled faintly of chicken fingers and ganja. Like everyone had just stepped inside after a weed fuelled cookout. Back when I had anything to say about it that was exactly what had just happened.
The curtain twitched, it was Ma’ sitting at the front window. She was watching the dark. Just…looking out into it. The way she did when I visited at Christmas, the way I’m sure she had every single night since the funeral. She said she thought if she stared long enough that dad might come shambling back up the driveway laughing about some misunderstanding at the Legion or singing about his big winnings on the VLTs.
I lit a cigarette and watched the ember glow in the windshield reflection. The basement light was on out back, of course it was. Warm yellow and bleeding out across the yard. Geordie was down there as usual. Shirt off. Cross-legged. Face too close to the television. Ashtray overflowing with roaches beside him. SNES humming softly while some old hockey game menu music looped forever into the night as he smoked himself to sleep. I could picture it perfectly.
The boyhood bunker.
The basement suite.
I got out of the car, locked the door, and made my way across the lawn. I could feel Ma’ watching me every step of the way but I didn’t turn or look. I kept my eyes focused on the steps down to the basement. I took a quick glance at the firepit on my way past, sodden and unloved, filled with the remnants of stick and ash that could have lay there since I was seventeen. There was a scorched can of Moosehead that probably had. I hopped down the stairs and slowly opened the door and stepped into a room that was lit with just the faint glow of the TV. There was Geordie passed out on the couch with an open tallboy gripped tight in his fist. I sat down on the beanbag chair that had been there since 2005, picked up his half-smoked joint from the ashtray, lit it and grabbed the SNES remote.
NHL ‘94, greatest game ever made.
Fuckin’ eh, somebody has to keep the dream alive.
Black and Green is the third and perhaps final installment in my Northern Gospel series. Read Swiss Chalet for Dingo, a short story collaboration with Theodore Douglas Schurr, and Basement Suite Blue, a poem based on that story at the links below.
As an American-washed urban Canadian, I approve of this appropriation of rural Canada’s culture. Northern Gothic is here to stay.