Debris by Kevin Hardcastle Page A

They were pulled clear and emptied and slid back until the tow trailers were half-sunk to the ground. Before we let out, Dougie got back under the store with a pair of two-by-fours and set the flooring again, bolted it in. He shovelled the insulation back into the gap and wedged the sawed base panel back before shimmying away.
    The next four liquor trailers went staggered, two local stores with a few weeks between them. Then two stores at a three-hour ride to the northeast and three-hour ride back, and those robberies done but three days apart. We had to lug fuel so that we wouldn’t have to stop. The cold near crippled us and some of the sleds struggled over the length. We did both of those jobs with Doug on the torch and when we got back from the second job he sat bone-chilled by our wood fire with his hands burnt and bruised. He had good whiskey and water in a tall glass and drank through a straw.
    â€œWhy in fuck did we do those two like that again?” he said.
    Dad got out of his armchair and knelt by the fire. Took up his brother’s hands in his own and kneaded the joint muscles, careful by the little stump.
    â€œTwo jobs in a row with that kind of gear to haul makes it look local.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLocal to there, Dougie.”
    On the next job me and Ronnie went through the roadside windows of a store in the next county with a sledge and fire-axe. Made a godawful mess of the place. Ronnie cleared the framing with the axe and boosted me in, handed up the sledge. The alarms squealed loud enough to blow your eardrums. I carried the hammer to the front door and swung near the knob. Blew the hasp clear out from the jamb and let the door swing and come back. Ronnie came in and split the alarm siren with the axe and it warbled low and quit. We worked double-quick to load the booze and fire up the sleds. Tore through the bush to our home county but a half-hour away.
    Constable Francis came by the house the next afternoon. He carried his girth around back to where my Pa shovelled a blackened slush heap into a wheelbarrow for me to haul. We could see the big man coming by his gait but he wore only jeans and flannel, a ball cap on his huge head. Pa stared at him for a second and then kept on shovelling.
    â€œI can’t remember when I last seen you outta your blues, Francis,” Pa said.
    â€œSometimes I change outta them. For church and the like.”
    â€œIt ain’t Sunday.”
    â€œI hear Jesus saves any day of the goddamned week now.”
    Pa smiled. He planted the shovelhead in the muck.
    â€œWhat the fuck’s he doin’?” I said.
    â€œShut up,” said Pa.
    Francis studied me calmly from across the yard.
    â€œHeard you got a job at the FoodTown?” he said to me.
    â€œI did.”
    â€œYou ain’t got work today?”
    â€œI quit.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œHe’s helping me round the shop,” Pa said.
    Francis nodded.
    â€œWhat is it you want exactly?” Pa said.
    â€œI need to talk to ya, Rick.”
    â€œAs a cop or as a regular person?”
    Francis stood up tall as he could get and eyeballed my dad.
    â€œDon’t be a fool,” he said.
    Pa stared at Francis a long time. Then he handed me the shovel and said he’d be back. They left out together in Francis’ car and they were gone for hours.
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    By nightfall the old man was back and full of whiskey, stink of bar-room sweat in his clothes. He sat heavy at the kitchen table and fumbled with the radio. Those massive fingers gently turning the dials. He had not uttered more than a grunt.
    â€œHe knows, don’t he?” I said.
    Pa grumbled, took a drink.
    â€œThe cops got nothin’. ‘Bewildered’ is how he put it. But they’re ready to start casting out in any direction just out of pure fuckin’ embarrassment.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean?”
    â€œYou see any cars parked in the road of a night, you let me