Poplar Lake

by Ron Thompson

  Clinton pretended not to care about anything—he was phlegmatic by nature, cool and self-contained—but I could tell he was excited about the opportunity he’d been given and the faith the coach had shown in him. It boosted his confidence, and at just the right time, for we were both now small fish in a verylarge pond. The student body at Poplar Lake Regional High was huge compared to that at Violet Abernethy—more than three times its size. There were new routines, new classes, new teachers, and with so many new peers, new pecking orders.

  This was a particular challenge for me, with my lifelong people issues, my inability to connect. Every day was a challenge, if not torture, as I struggled to understand, to cope and adapt. And if that were not enough, wouldn’t you know that First Love chose that autumn to find me. Or, more precisely, I found it, forI tumbled head-over-heels for a girl named Tammy Sheptytski, a fact whereof she was wholly unaware.

  * * *

  Tammy’s background was Ukrainian, which usually meant fair features; but there must have been a touch of the Khan in the Sheptytskis, for her hair was black and lustrous, her skin golden, and her eyes the shape of almonds, although they were as blue as the sky over the Galician steppe. At the turn of the century, her great-grandfolk had homesteaded six miles from Poplar Lake, where Tammy’s father still worked their original farm—along with the land of eight long-departed neighbours.

  I first noticed Tammy in my math and English classes. She also took Phys Ed at the same time as me, but our classes were segregated, the big gym divided into two by a sliding wall. The two classes came together only a few times every year, one of which was for dance lessons. The provincial curriculum required that every student learn the box step.

  So there I was on a Monday morning in late September, in the gym in my T-shirt and shorts, which I had forgotten to take home on the weekend for washing. “Okay, fellas,” Mr Blucher shouted, “line up.”

  “Girls,” said Miss Elstow, “over here.” Boys and girls lined up opposite each other, with the two teachers in the centre. They played music and demonstrated the box step, with Mr Blucher narrating. He took Miss Elstow in his arms and guided her lightly around centre court. He was surprisingly sure-footed for a big man. “Oh, yeah, he’s doing her,” Reggie Lafleur whispered from a few places down the line. The guys within earshot laughed.

  “Mister Lafleur. Do you have something to say?”

  “Ah, no, Coach.” On the football team, Mr Blucher was just Coach.

  “Then kindly come demonstrate the box step with Miss Elstow.”

  It did not go well, and everyone laughed at Reggie’s expense. “Okay, Reggie, thank you, get back in line. And no more practicing without your helmet. This is not a joke, gentlemen. Pay attention. You will appreciate this should you ever choose to join the human race. One more time . . .”

  The teachers demonstrated the step once more then Coach told us to file around to pair off with a girl. When the line stopped, I stood in front of Tammy Sheptytski, who was so pretty she scared me. I had never spoken to her in either of the classes we shared. She gave me a vague smile.

  “Okay, gents. You will need to step towards the young lady. Do not worry, you are not the first of your species to face thispredicament. Take her right hand in your left, and place your right on her waist. Her waist, Mister Lafleur . . .”

  Tammy’s hand was cool and dry. And her waist—I felt the curve of flesh above her hip. I stared over her right shoulder and snuck furtive peaks at her. Her eyes were fixed on the wall beyond my shoulder. As soon as the music began I stepped on her foot. “Sorry! Sorry!” We dropped each other’s hands and took them up again. One step, two step . . . whoops. Again. One step, two step, three step, four. We moved ploddingly, but at least I wasn’t crushing her toes. My hand was on her hip, that curve of flesh. She smelled nice. “I forgot to wash my shirt,” I blurted apologetically. Then I stepped on her foot. “Oh! Sorry!”

  At the end of the class I felt humiliated and drained, but she smiled nicely at me. “Thank you,” she said, like in the movies, as if I had asked her to dance.

  “Sorry about your, uhm, toes.”

  “I have lots of toes.”

  “Really? More than ten?”

  “No . . . just . . . ten.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re in my English class.”

  “I know.”

  She was silent for a moment. “I better go . . .” “Okay.”

  “See you . . .”

  “Okay.”

  She smiled at me later in English and math, and once in the hall. I was terrified. My heart pounded in my ears. Could others hear? I nodded and looked away, feeling myself turn crimson. The next Phys Ed class, everyone lined up as before, milling chaotically in the process, some probably trying to avoid undesirable partners. I stood woodenly, resigned to fate. This time the girls filed around to stop in front of the boys. There was more jostling and bumping, clearly some switching going on, and so I could not believe my luck when I found myself partnered again with Tammy. This time, I was wearing clean gym clothes and was slathered in Brut. Once again, staring over Tammy’s shoulder, my hand on her hip, I shuffled through the lesson. We were slightly better this time, but could she hear that thudding? The music was loud, but we were only inches apart, close enough that I could feel her body’s warmth. Again, she smelled nice—really nice. Our conversation was purely technical: Sorry! Did that hurt? My mistake. She insisted she was fine. Once, when things were going well, she inadvertently stepped toward me and her chest bumped mine. I stumbled backwards but we picked up the step as if nothing had happened. A few minutes later she bumped into me again. This time I didn’t stumble but held my ground. After a few seconds she must have realized she was too close because she pulled back a little.

  That was our last co-ed dance lesson. After just two sessions, the Province of Saskatchewan considered its responsibilities fulfilled and its youth competent in the art of social dance.

  Tammy continued to say “hi” to me in the hallway and to smile across our shared classrooms, but our paths did not again cross. Not until one afternoon in December, when she sat down next to me in the library, where I was reading the Encyclopedia Britannica. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.” I closed the volume and pushed it away, as though I had merely found it on the table.

  “Hi,” she said again, needlessly, but I had the sense not to make a thing of it. There was some colour in her cheeks. “Hi.” “How are you?”

  “Good. You?”

  “I’m fine. How are you doing?”

  “I’m good.”

  She paused to consider her next conversational gambit. “I was wondering—”

  My heart was thudding in my ears. She was impossibly pretty. She looked embarrassed, and she was beating around the bush. Maybe she was short of lunch money. Then, it hit me. She was asking me out.

  “—I was wondering . . . Well, I know . . .” She stammered to a stop and looked down at the table. “Could . . . could I—would you—” She met my eye—yes, she was blushing! Where would we go? What would we do? Her lips were full. She smelled of cherry ChapStick. “I, um.” She took a deep breath to calm herself and tapped her chest repeatedly. “You’re good at math, right? And I just don’t get that latest unit on quadratic equations. Would, would, would you mind helping me maybe, j-j-just a bit?”

  My stomach fell. I felt betrayed, not by her, but by my own wild thoughts. She was beautiful, and I was a goof, unable to string two thoughts together in her presence. Why would she ask me out? I was good at math, and that was all she saw.

  “Sure,” I said. I was blushing now as much as she. How could I have been so deluded? I admired her gumption, though. It took a lot of courage to ask a fellow student for help.

  For the rest of the semester I met Tammy twice a week at lunch hour. We would sit together in the library reading room, which was deser
ted at noon. She would pull her chair close so we could whisper without being shushed by the librarian. She was not a natural with math, but she was smart, and once she understood a concept she mastered it quickly. Her eyes shone with gratitude at the end of every session. She pulled in even closer and murmured thanks, her lips close to my ear. Her eyes would shyly drop to the table then meet mine. The bell would ring for the next class and she would gather her books. “Are you coming?” she’d ask. “I just have a thing to do,” I’d say, and watch her go. At the door she turned and waved, her palm at the level of her cheek, fingers waggling just perceptibly. If this was love why did it hurt? It was delicious and intoxicating, yet I ached with longing. Tammy, oh Tammy. Her smile took my breath away. The scent of cherry ChapStick lingered in the air. I was in love, but she wanted a tutor. Still sitting at the table, I would force the idea of Tammy Sheptytski from my thoughts and think about something repulsive like the Elephant Man, or Rene Levesque, until it was safe for me to walk down the hall again without attracting attention. She got eighty-three in the final at the end of semester. The day she got her mark she bounded up to me in the hall and gave me a hug right out of the blue. She looked so happy, so lovely; then embarrassed, as she realized what she had done. She drew close and breathed “thank you” into my ear, like all those times in the library.

  The following semester we were in different classes. For the next two years I looked for her face at the start of every term, but we never again shared a class. Perhaps if we had, she would eventually have seen beyond the quadratic equation and seen me, the person, imperfect yet adoring; but it was not to be. She was kind to me and always said “hi” in the hall; and sometimes she appeared at my locker to see what I was doing. Once in a while she asked me about math or something else, and we would have a session in the library. Then, in the second half of Grade Eleven, Reggie Lafleur asked her out. I knew because she came by my locker to tell me. “What do you think I should do?” she asked, her almond eyes round and questioning.

  I felt faint, like my heart had ceased to beat. My feelings were unrequited, and it would always be thus. She was asking me for advice, treating me like a friend. It knew it was not good when a girl treated you like a friend. She probably thought I was homosexual.

  No—not that. I wasn’t a good enough dancer. She had seen that for herself.

  “Well . . . Reggie’s a good guy,” I gasped, a bit breathless. He was not really a good guy, but he was on the football team, and Coach Blucher said you always supported a teammate.

  She studied my face. “Okay.” Her eyes were moist, her cheeks flushed as they had been in the library when she first approached me about quadratic equations. She gripped my arm for a moment. “Well, I should go . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “See you?”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  She let my arm go. It no longer felt a part of me, but of something dead, something distant; unlike my heart, which had been ripped from my chest and sundered, yet still ached unbearably where it lay in the gutter.

  * * *

  Back to the start of Grade Ten. Back to football, which is at the core of all my memories of that time. One night, three weeks after our return to the Bisons, I was running patterns for Clinton after the main practice while the Hardass and his assistant worked with the specialty teams. Hardass blew his whistle. “Showers, ladies. See you Saturday. Don’t be late. Buttcrack! Over here. I need to talk to you.” In the last game, I had bobbled a punt but recovered quickly. (I’d been thinking about Tammy, with whom I had danced in Gym earlier that day.) I expected he was going to ream me for it. Clinton must have, too. As he headed for the change room, he cast a look at me over his shoulder. But instead of chewing me out, the Hardass put his arm around my shoulder pads. “Listen, kid. Coach Blucher’s got injuries. He needs a utility man, someone who can go both ways. Safety, punt returns, backup receiver. Real chance for you. This doesn’t happen very often. So what do you think? You want to play for the Lakers this year?”

  I was elated. Victor had made the Lakers in Grade Ten. Finally I was following in his giant footsteps. I told Clinton in the locker room and he hardly reacted. We were almost home when he finally did. “You’re going to leave me behind,” he said. “With the B team. With the Hardass and the kids.”

  The bitterness in his voice surprised me. “I’ll probably sit on the bench up there. But here, you’re the starting quarterback. And you’re going to get a year of personal coaching. That’ll position you for the Lakers next year.”

  “I don’t want to stay. Not now. I don’t even like the Hardass. He’s a total prick. And I don’t know the other guys on the team.”

  “You are the team.”

  “You’re bailing on me. I always knew you would. Everyone does in the end.”

  “What do you mean, you knew I would? That’s BS.” I cajoled and kidded him but I could not get him out of his mood. He grew madder and madder at me. That night, although his mother was away on a sales trip, he refused to come for supper at my house, preferring a Swanson’s to my mother’s pork chops and mashed potatoes.

  CHAPTER 14

  The next morning at breakfast Simon announced that he and Genny would cook supper that night.

  “Don’t be silly, Simon,” Mom said. “I’ll—”

  “Really, Mom, no argument. It’s my last night before I head back to Calgary, and Genny and I talked about it. We decided. We’re doing it. It’s our treat.”

  Mom began to protest but Dad interrupted. “Edie, it’ll give you a nice rest. And I’m sure it will be a treat.”

  Mom’s lip curled like it was not a treat at all but a surprise, the kind a puppy might leave on the couch. “Why aren’t you golfing this morning?” she asked Dad, eyes narrowed.

  “Bill’s got a dental.”

  After breakfast, Simon and Genny huddled together then went off to buy what they needed. Mom fussed in the kitchen and no matter what Dad did, he seemed to be in the way. Finally she sent both of us to the living room, where Dad sat in his chair with a coffee reading Legion Magazine, a satisfied look on his face. But his mood sank when Mom decided it was time to vacuum. After much wheeling in and clanging of hardware she set to work. “Lift your feet, Stanley,” she called over the howl of the Hoover. He moved to another chair but in no time she was intent on the carpet in front of it. “Stanley, lift your big clodhoppers! For goodness sake!”

  But instead of lifting his big clodhoppers he stood on them. “Let’s take a drive,” he called to me over the noise. Mom had her back to him and was vigorously rubbing an attachment across a smudge on the rug. She was so intent on her task that she almost hit him in the stomach with her elbow.

  * * *

  Dad drove along a rutted trail to a padlocked gate signed NO TRESPASSING. “Lawyers,” he said. We took the .22 and ammo and a bag of cans from the back and climbed over the fence. Someone had peppered the sign with bullets. “Yahoos,” Dad said, this time curtly. He could countenance trespassing, but never vandalism.

  The trail descended between banks of clay and gravel and curved into a broad, steep-walled depression. Swallows flutteredfrom nests along the cliffs. We were thirty feet below the surrounding prairie, in an abandoned gravel pit, where Dad had taught all his sons the essentials of handling a firearm. “This is a lethal weapon,” he would say in the no-nonsense manner in which he himself had been instructed back in basic. “Treat it like it’s loaded. Keep your finger off the trigger and the safety on. Point it at the ground. Aim it only at your target, and know what lies beyond. And your target is never, ever a person. You never point this at a person.” He was glossing over his war years, but none of us ever challenged him on the point. We took turns, the one on the firing line never turning to see if the others werewatching. Muzzle to the target, at all times.

  He drilled fire discipline into us, along with respect for what we held in our hands. Only whe
n he was satisfied that we understood were we allowed to fire. And then, there were no potshots, no firing from the hip. Every round was carefully aimed.

  This day it was just him and me, and I realized there had been many such days, him watching and counseling as I drew a bead on a tin. “Clear your mind,” he would say. “Take your time.” He would talk me through a process that entailed focus and breathing and preparation and aim; and only when I was ready, and sure, the shot itself.

  I remembered the early times, when I pulled the trigger, eager to see the proof of my marksmanship. But the round just kicked up dust in the earthen bank behind the can.

  “You jerked it, Jake.”

  I would eject the casing, not turning my shoulders, barrel to the fore as he had taught. “Let’s do it again.”

  I would aim.

  “Look it in the eye,” Dad would say.

  I stared at the target, calm descending, body still.

  “Breathe slow. Stay still. Don’t just look at the can. See it.” I studied the label on the can. Campbell’s soup. The red, the white, the fancy script. “Tomato” in block letters.

  “When you’re ready.”

  Position—check. Aim—check. Breathing—in, out, in, half out. Check. I fired. A puff of dust in the bank, above and to the right.

  “You pulled it. Squeeze.”

  We would go through it again, him softly telling me now to listen to the can.

  I focused and repeated all his preparatory steps. This time, I listened to the can.