The Carpenter by Matt Lennox Page B

Lee told the cabbie where his place was. Helen pulled him into the back of the car and sat as close to him as she could. He could feel her nails on his thigh through his jeans. He put his arm around her and touched the big shape of her hair. She bit his ear and grinned.
    When they got out at the variety store she came right out and asked him. He laughed.
    —You don’t ask anybody what they did, said Lee. You just ask them how long they’re in for.
    —Why is that?
    —Because. It’s just how it is. Most guys didn’t do it, right? Like, they’ll run their mouths about a lot of other things they did, or things they could do, but whatever they’re in for, they didn’t do that.
    —So how long were you in for?
    —Twenty years was what I was supposed to do. I got out conditional after seventeen.
    —And? Did you not do whatever they said you did?
    —No, said Lee. I did exactly what they said I did. But that was a long time ago.
    Upstairs in his apartment, he told her he didn’t have a drink to offer her.
    —That’s fine. I’m going to powder my nose.
    —Say what?
    —I’m going to use your washroom, Brown Eyes.
    She was in there for a minute and she came out smelling strongly of perfume and she was on him quickly. She pushed him down and lowered herself onto his lap. The short skirt was bunched up and he had his hands on her big thighs and on the elastic of her underpants. She pushed her tongue into his ear.
    —Let’s see. Let’s see just how strong you are.
    He tore at the blouse she was wearing and then turned her against the couch and took her.
    Afterwards, they lay together on the pullout. She lifted one leg up and flexed the toes.
    —Oh my oh my.
    He considered what he could see of the ceiling. He lit two cigarettes, gave her one.
    —In the city you lived downtown, said Helen.
    —I did, yeah.
    He wasn’t accustomed to talking about himself. What he was used to, for the most part, was the way people talked around what they wanted to know. But he told her what he had the words for. When he’d been conditionally paroled, he was movedinto a halfway house on Sherbourne Street. From the outside you wouldn’t be able to tell anything about it. It was a big house. It had a board fence around it, and there was an intercom at the front, and the gate locked electronically. There were twelve beds in six rooms. It was run by the St. Leonard’s Society. The St. Leonard’s people got Lee fixed up with a job at a shop that made office furniture. Lee did the woodworking. The man that ran the place was also an ex-con, twelve years out. Clean and sober. He had given a lot of jobs to people like Lee and he’d seen more than a few of them fuck everything up.
    Helen was quiet. Then she said, slowly: Do you like what you do?
    —Yeah. That’s what I’m proud of. I make things. I see them come together.
    A moment or two later, Helen was asleep. Her hand was on her chest and the cigarette she’d been smoking was burning down between her fingers. Lee took it carefully and dropped both hers and his into an empty cola bottle on the floor beside the couch.
    He’d never been sure what he was going to do after his conditional release. He didn’t care for the city all that much but he’d been told he could stay on at the furniture shop if he kept straight. He’d figured that was about as good as it was going to get, but then in July Barry came down to the city to visit. He’d never actually met Barry until then, he’d just known him from the letters they’d written back and forth. Those last few years it was Barry who had written the most and in early July it was Barry who came down to the city to tell Lee that his mother was dying.
    The St. Leonard’s people put in a recommendation to the parole board. The man who ran the furniture shop put in a good word. Barry found Lee work with Clifton Murray. And by Labour Day, Lee was on the bus going north. Homeward.
    Lee felt good at the job site the next day. Just before