No Quarter

by John Jantunen

  It had once been his favourite. He’d play for god knows how many hours when he was a kid, dialling the clock down every time he’d managed to get all the pieces into place before the board popped. His best time was twenty-five seconds, a full ten seconds quicker than Jean. It was a record he’d taken great pride in since it was about the only board game he’d ever beat her at.

  Sitting on the white leather couch in front of the table, he opened the storage compartment in the back and dumped the pieces out. He pushed down the rack in the middle and set the timer at twenty-five, rubbing his fingers together like he always did to get them warmed up before pressing the start button. He’d barely got half the pieces into place before he was startled by the inset popping up, launching the pieces into the air like a toaster in some old cartoon and René shaking his head that he could have been so rattled by a child’s play thing.

  He cleared the board and reset the time for forty. And he would have made it too, had the door not opened. When he glanced up, Amy was standing there holding his son’s hand. He couldn’t have been looking away for more than a second, but when he looked back down, trying to find the space for the crescent moon, the board popped, startling him all over again. His hand jerked and the moon dislodged from his fingers, bouncing across the table top and pitching to the floor. He bent to pick it up and when his head crested back over the table top, Amy was smiling in his direction.

  She was wearing a white blouse that fit her a little snug as did her black slacks, the tension in both lending the impression that she’d recently gained a few, or twenty, pounds. She had dark circles under her eyes, so René also knew she was having trouble sleeping. Strands of hair stuck out at odd angles from where it was pulled back into a loose braid and her cherry-red lipstick was a little lopsided, which René further took to mean that she and the mirror hadn’t been getting along too well of late. But she had a kind smile, if a little nervous, and Tawyne seemed to like her just fine. When René rose from the couch, his son hid behind her leg, peering through his drape of shoulder-length brown hair, shading to black, and casting skittish glances at the man he’d been told was his father.

  It had been his hair that had inspired René to call him Tawyne. He’d been born with a slick wash of it and between that and his button nose he’d looked to René just like an otter. And so he’d always called him Tawyne—Iroquoian for the same—though his real name was Kiefer, which his mother had taken off one of the actors in The Lost Boys, her all-time favourite movie.

  René’s own hair was the same shade and longer even than the boy’s. He usually kept it loose but that morning, after he’d showered, he’d tied his hair back in a ponytail, wanting to look, as his grandmother might have said, at least halfways respectable. He’d bought a button-down shirt—navy blue—for the occasion. It was extra large so the cuffs hung almost to his fingernails, all the better to hide the ink on his hands. He wore it with the collar pulled up to also hide the two wolves howling up his neck, lest they might frighten the boy. He had on a pair of blue jeans, also new, and in the pocket of those he had the jackknife that his grandfather had given to him for his eleventh birthday, because he hadn’t wanted to come empty-handed.

  When he’d gone to the Walmart in Tildon to buy the jeans and shirt, he’d perused the toy aisles, finding nothing but overpriced junk, and that’s when he’d remembered the knife. He thought he’d lost it years ago but, later that day, when he’d asked his grandfather about it he’d told him it was in his tool cabinet in the garage.

  “I found it lying around, years ago,” he said. “I put it in there for safekeeping then I guess I plumb forgot about it. Whadya want it for?”

  “I was thinking of giving it to Tawyne.”

  “That right?”

  The old man looked at him through keen eyes, the words coming out in a whisper as if he’d suddenly lost his breath, both telling René that nothing could have pleased him more.

  The knife’s haft was made of antler and the blade four inches of stainless steel. It had been well used, sharpening sticks into makeshift spears and once a bow he’d carved out of a length of rock maple he’d cut down himself with his grandfather’s bow saw. After he’d fetched the knife from the garage, he’d used a stone to mill its edge into a razor and proved that by splitting a piece of grass lengthwise down the middle, all the while recalling the joy he’d felt when his grandfather had given it to him and hoping maybe he could pass a little of that onto his son.

  But standing in this brightly coloured room full of plastic toys and cardboard-boxed games—the fingers in his pocket groping for the knife as he watched Amy bending to Tawyne, saying, “Don’t you want to say hello to your father?” and seeing in the look of stark fear crimping the boy’s face that there wasn’t anything he’d rather do less—he thought of how one of the conditions of his parole was that he wasn’t allowed to carry. And here he was bringing a knife to his son, not even batting an eye as he walked past the sign on the building’s front door that clearly read: You Are Entering a Secure Facility. Absolutely No Firearms, Knives, or Weapons of Any Kind.

  Goddamn, what an idiot, he thought, wrenching his hand from his pocket. You should have just bought him a Lego set or a remote-­controlled car. A damned knife. What the hell were you thinking?

  Amy then was turning towards him and smiling.

  “He’s just shy,” she said. “He’ll come around.”

  René nodded and then Tawyne was craning his head up at Amy, whispering something too quiet for René to hear.

  “You’ll see her in a little while,” Amy answered him. “She’s waiting for you outside. Just a few more minutes, okay?”

  René knew that the she in question was his sister, Jean, and also that she wasn’t outside, she was behind the mirrored window. No doubt she would be shaking her head and if her husband, Carl, was there, scoffing, “See, he’s terrified. I knew this was a bad idea.”

  It was the same thing René was thinking himself so maybe it was only his imagination running wild. Could be she really was outside pacing up and down the sidewalk like he had not a half hour ago, or in the waiting room leafing through one of the parenting magazines, their covers emblazoned with smiling happy faces and laughing children, most of them the colour of a pig’s skin so he knew they’d be about as useful to him as the stack of Swank magazines Dinko kept secreted under his mattress. Either way, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at his reflection in the mirrored window, seeing in his slumped shoulders and the cowed expression on his face a man he barely recognized as himself.

  “Your dad’s playing Perfection,” Amy was saying. “Have you ever played Perfection?”

  René turned back to them in time to see Tawyne shaking his head.

  “It’s fun,” Amy said. “I used to play it all the time. Why don’t you go over and let your dad show you how to play.”

  Tawyne shook his head again but Amy wasn’t taking no for answer. Holding him by the hand, she led him to the table. René dropped the moon piece onto the pile and gave the pieces a swish with his fingers, a rule that Jean had always insisted on.

  Not wanting to look the fool in front of his son, he set the timer for sixty. He finished the game in just under forty. It was hardly a record and he could see by the mild indifference on Tawyne’s face that he wasn’t too impressed either.

  “See, it’s easy,” Amy said while René was dumping the pieces back out. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

  Tawyne looked up at Amy, the look in his eyes spelling out a resolute No.

  She prompted, “Go on,” and he looked down at the pile of pieces.

  René had set the timer again and his finger was hovering over the start button.

  Tawyne looked over at Amy. She touched him on the shoulder and he turned back to the table.

  “Just tell me when you’re ready,” René said.

  Tawyne scanned over the board, ma
ybe memorizing where all the pieces went, which René took as a good sign.

  After a moment, the boy took a deep breath, still stalling for time.

  “Go!” René barked, his voice as urgent as a starter’s gun.

  Tawyne jumped right to it, his hands working in a whirl, his eyes, it seemed, shooting laser beams, they were so focused on the task at hand. As the timer passed thirty, René looked up at Amy. She was backing out of the room, giving him two thumbs up, and René went back to watching his son, knowing he wasn’t going to make it and waiting in anxious anticipation of what he knew to come next. And when it did, his son jumped at the pop of the board, startling back and breathing heavy, his hand pressed to his heart as if he was afraid it might have stopped.

  “You almost got it,” René said. “And your first time too. You’re a natural. You want to try again?”

  Tawyne stared at the board a few seconds then shook his head.

  “Do you mind if I have another go then?”

  Tawyne shook his head again and René pressed the board in then dialled the timer down to twenty-five. When he looked back up at Tawyne, there was a dubious look in his eyes.

  “What?” René asked. “You don’t think I can make it?”

  Tawyne’s mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but no words came out and he closed it again.

  “Well, I guess we’re going to find out,” René said, wetting the tips of his forefingers and thumbs on his tongue. “You going to press the button for me?”

  Tawyne motioned to reach for it.

  “Just give me a second, now.”

  René scrutinized the board and then gave the pile of pieces a good looking over too.

  “Okay.”

  Tawyne paused ever so slightly before hitting the button and barking, “Go!”

  He went at it hard, never in his life concentrating on anything more than getting those little plastic pieces home. Still, he had four pieces left when the timer passed into the red. He knew he wasn’t going to make it and pressed the stop button with one tick to spare.

  “Hey!” Tawyne blurted. “That’s cheating.”

  “I know,” René answered, “but it scares the hell out of me when it goes pop.”

  The boy was looking at him like he couldn’t believe anything could scare the man sitting in front of him.

  Then, after a moment, he smiled, shy and demure, almost like a girl.

  “It scares the hell out of me too.”

  * * *

  They’d played Monopoly until the hour was up and afterwards Amy led René back to her office.

  She told him that Jean had agreed to let him see Tawyne for two hours on the first and third Saturday of every month and that she’d suggested they meet at the Tim Hortons in town.

  René answered that that was fine by him but three days before he was to see his son again they’d got a big dump of snow and the idea had occurred to him that maybe Tawyne would prefer to go sledding. He called Jean’s cell phone. She answered with a perfunctory, “Yes,” and René asked her if it’d be okay if they met at the field behind the high school, which was at the bottom of the biggest hill in town (and only a block from the Tim Hortons to boot).

  “I’ll ask Keef,” she replied.

  She was gone for less than a minute and when she came back on she said, “That’s fine by him.”

  “Great,” René said. “Now does he have his own sled or—”

  “I’m sure we can find something,” she interrupted, her voice impatient and weary.

  “Great. See you on—”

  The phone clicked before he’d finished and he felt a sudden surge of anger, for being talked to like that and then hung up on. His hands clenched into fists, grabbing those wolves by the tail and searching out the image of his son to lend him its calm.

  But it wasn’t Tawyne that sprung into his mind, it was the memory of what Amy had said after she’d led René into her office following his first visit.

  “Well, that went well,” he told himself and was surprised that it seemed to help.

  * * *

  On Saturday, he was just pulling the GT Super Pro Racer he’d bought at the Canadian Tire in Tildon out of the passenger seat in his grandfather’s tow truck when he saw a late model RAV 4 pulling up behind. Tawyne stepped out of its passenger seat, looking every bit as shy as he had the last time they’d met.

  “Come on and see what I bought,” René prompted.

  Tawyne took a couple of steps forward, enough for him to get a view of the sled. It was white with a black frame, its imitation gas tank and nose cone lending it the appearance of a snowmobile. When René had first seen it on the shelf he’d thought it was a pretty slick ride, and from the look on Tawyne’s face he seemed to think so too.

  “Is that for me?” he asked.

  “It’s Christmas coming up, ain’t it?” René answered.

  Footsteps crunched on snow and Jean came around the side of the truck.

  God, hasn’t she gained weight, René thought, staring at a woman he hardly recognized as his sister. He could already feel his lips curling into a sneer and that filled him with shame, knowing all that she’d done for his son.

  She had three children of her own before she took in Tawyne, he reminded himself, so maybe you ought to cut her a little slack.

  She was pulling an old plastic sled. Compared to the Super Pro it wasn’t much better than the black garbage bags he’d used as a kid before his grandmother had given him his own GT for Christmas when he was eight. She was frowning, so René could tell she wasn’t nearly as impressed as Tawyne. He nodded at her and she shook her head, as if it had meant a world of trouble getting the sled though likely it belonged to one of her own kids and hadn’t required more than a trip out to the garage.

  René picked up the GT’s string and as he turned towards the hill, he called over his shoulder, “You coming or not?”

  The hill was empty but there were a dozen or so runs carved into its two feet of snow. The single lane of asphalt that cut at a diagonal up the slope on its way to the high school’s parking lot hadn’t yet been ploughed and about halfway up someone had fashioned a five-foot-high ramp of hard-packed snow. Giving a quick check back to make sure Tawyne was following him—he was—René cut off the road, taking a direct line up the side of the hill. Tawyne hadn’t made it more than five steps behind when he slipped and fell. He stood up, dusting the snow off his wool mitts on his pants and looking up towards the summit, some eighty feet above.

  “Get on,” René said, motioning towards the sled. “I’ll give you a lift.”

  Tawyne’s face flashed doubt that René would be able to manage such a thing but he sat on the seat anyway. He leaned forward and clutched the steering wheel tight to keep himself from sliding off. It took damn near every ounce of René’s strength to pull him all the way to the top. When he’d finally got there he was breathing hard and had a strong desire to sit down, rest awhile. But Tawyne was looking at him with something like amaze and that was enough to keep him on his feet.

  “You want to try the ramp first?” René asked when he’d finally caught his breath.

  Tawyne shook his head and René pulled him to a spot in the middle of the hill where there was a run of untouched snow all the way to the bottom.

  “How about here?”

  Tawyne peered down the slope, biting his lip and shaking his head again.

  “If you’re scared . . .”

  “I’m not scared,” he said matter of fact, though when he turned back to René his eyes told a different story.

  “Go on, then.”

  “Why don’t you go first?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Tawyne slipped off the seat and René pulled the sled to the head of the run leading to the jump. Straddling the seat, he crouched low. He wrapped the cord around the
steering wheel so it wouldn’t get hung up and then took the wheel in both hands.

  “Watch this,” he said, kicking off.

  He couldn’t have been going more than twenty kilometres an hour when he hit the ramp, though the chill wind whipping at his cheeks made it feel double that. The Super Pro bucked when it hit the jump’s hard-packed snow. It seemed like he was about to lose control then it caught a line and straightened out. The instant before it was to become airborne, he pushed off with both feet and leapt skyward, jerking his feet up over his head and executing a back flip in midair. He felt his boots touch down and tried to get them moving fast enough to catch up with his speed, but the moment they hit the ground his feet slipped out from under him. He landed on his back hard enough to knock the wind from his chest, the shock of that immediately eclipsed by the icy blast of snow shooting up under his jacket.

  He slid to a stop and lay there catching his breath, thinking how if he didn’t get up he couldn’t possibly do anything else so damn-fool stupid.

  He could hear the crunch of footsteps hurrying down the hill. A moment later Tawyne’s face appeared beaming at him against the cloud-greyed sky, his expression full of wonder and awe.

  Seeing that, René grinned wide, and a moment later, Tawyne was grinning wide right back.

  * * *

  He spent the next three months chasing that look.

  They hit every hill in town and then a few on the outskirts as well. After she’d nearly froze her toes off the first time, Jean opted to keep warm at the Tim Hortons, and if they weren’t back in time, she called his cell phone the exact second his two hours were up. They finished the season by hiking the back way into Medley’s, a sandpit just off Highway 11. They followed a snowmobile trail along the hydro line that formed its western perimeter and that led them through a hole the skidooers had cut in the fence in open defiance of the No Trespassing signs spaced along it at intervals.

  “Auntie Jean would have a fit she knew we were trespassing,” Tawyne said, hurrying to keep up with his father, pulling the Super Pro along the path, winding through a forest of perfectly spaced Jack pines.