Kingdom of the Stevedore by Antony Adler

The wind swept up the snow that flew over and around, enveloping the foul weather gear of a man struggling through an early Newfoundland June blizzard. Alden leaned forward, the snow breaking in white fury over his barrel chest. Other longshoremen hurried by on their way to the towering cranes and forklifts that lined the dock. The ASL Sanderling had just arrived from Halifax with containers of building supplies and a sad assortment of vegetable produce reassembled from the remainders after the shipments bound for Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal had taken all the best.

The machinery rumbled to life as the powerful spotlights cleft through the snow dimmed dawn light. Pulling his hood tight around his ears, Alden watched the bow of the Sanderling swing wide like a gaping Moloch. The forklifts rumbled to life and drove into the opened container doors one by one, as though some ancient deity of the sea had come to shore to be fed.

Earlier that morning, Alden opened his eyes to the darkness of his room. He could hear the soft breathing of his wife Jane beside him though he couldn’t see her. He found her in the darkness and kissed her on the forehead then slid out of bed and glanced out the window. The snow was starting to fall, though it remained obscured except within the interspersed beams of the street lamps. The Doctor had told him yesterday that his chances weren’t good now that the cancer had spread to his lungs. A body that had withstood the winds of Cape Horn and the frozen and treacherous ice pans of the seal hunt was crumbling from within and the goliath would fall, his gentle tattooed arms would at last lose the strength with which they were endowed, it seemed impossible, even to him.

Jane hadn’t cried when he told her the news. She was a tough woman and they’d been through tough times, but he could tell by the slight quiver of her lower lip and the look of fear in her eyes that she was as scared as he was. As Jane always said: “you can never know why the old man made life so hard but that there must be a reason”. Alden had never been much of a religious man, though Jane had always disapproved of him for it, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to reconcile himself with the old man while he still had time. Alden was scared and he wasn’t a man who scared easily.

One wouldn’t know looking at the man from the outside that his body was failing. His eyes contained the calm but stern look of a silenced volcano, but just below the surface the burden of sorrow was nearly unbearable. Finding himself standing on the doorstep of the abyss to darkness he wondered what had it all been for? How many years now had he endured this routine of poor pay in poorer weather. The life of a stevedore was a hard one, scorched by the sun in the summer, buffeted by rain in the fall then blinded by snow in the winter; the routine went on, governed by the unending arrival and the departure of the Oceanex shipments. Throughout that existence his body had upheld the weight of that world. His father had always said “all ya needs is a strong back and some wits about ya b’y and ya gots it made”. For Longshoremen strength meant respect, something Alden had.

Alden gave Murphey the grey-muzzled black lab a nudge with his boot. The old dog straightened shakily onto his hind legs and groaned in discontent at having to leave his space in front of the door. Old house, old dog, old body, it was all crumbling now. He tried to tell himself that in the spring of the year it would all be different, he’d paint the house, Murphey would run around outside, Jane would sit outside in the sun and gossip with the neighbors. Or was that just what used to be? Home. He paused in the doorway listening to the sound of the foghorn muffled in falling snow. This was home and encapsulated in the small vinyl-sided walls of that house was the shielded beauty of all he held dear in the world. He muttered a curse as the wind wiped the snow into his eyes as he headed out towards his truck. It was always so damn cold in the winter.

“Alden!” He turned to see Jane silhouetted in the doorway, her large girth emphasized by the doorway’s contrasting light.

“Alden are you alright me love?”

Alden realized then that he no longer could hold back all the fear and remorse. He walked back over to the house and took Jane in his arms. He let tears flow freely down his cheeks retracing ancient creases that had been dry for decades. Like a blizzard the emotions rushed out until they gradually ebbed away to a trickle and finally ceased. Alden and Jane remained in silence holding each other tight. Alden raised his head and looked into Jane’s face. She was crying but she tried to muster a faint smile.

“Spring’s almost come… we’re going to be ok”

“Course we will”

Alden gave her a final squeeze and stepped back to look at her.

“See you after work”

“You knows I loves you”

The last words seem to hang in the air and even now as he stood on the dock in the snow, repeated like a broken record through his mind. The house, his wife and his dog, the vinyl-sheltered gem warmed him in the freezing wind. The house conjured memories of the sun shining on his deck, sitting with his high school buddies, downing some beers. Talking with his son when he wasn’t out on the boats. He thought of moose hunting with his son, the son who had graduated from the university and had a degree! The same boy he had once held in one hand, balanced along his tattooed arm. And then there was Jane, beautiful Jane, who had always been there for him, and had loved him even when he had failed her. It had all been worth it. The work was hard, the life was rough but this is what it came down to in the end. And it was almost as if he could still feel Jane’s hand in his on that spring day in high school when he had asked her to marry him. She had smiled and he had known at that moment how much he really loved her.

Was this really the end? Like an injured Sampson, Alden’s strength may have been gone but there was still enough left for one last effort. Up above, the sky opened and the first rays of the sun pierced through the clouds and fell on the illuminated whiteness of the fallen snow. Alden stepped into the crane lift elevator and ascended upwards. Seated on his throne in the crane cockpit he could see all across the bay that now the sun rays had fully uncovered. Spring was almost here.