by Ron Thompson
“Anyone want a beer?” I asked. Victor and Simon did; Genny and Tammy declined. “So how did you meet Victor?” I asked Tammy. The opening credits were rolling. Genny glanced back, surprised.
Her firm was acting for a client with development interests. They were investigating a local property. Victor’s firm was representing the seller.
“Right this minute we’re negotiating,” Victor said, putting an arm comfortably around her shoulder. We were crowded in towards the centre gap to see the screen, and his hand was in reach of me.
A minute later he made a motion on my shoulder, like he was wiping a booger.
A minute after that, he stuck his finger in my ear. “Victor, please,” Tammy said.
“I can’t resist. He’s my bro. I love this guy.” He reached across and ruffled my hair with his other hand, pushing Tammy into me as he did, and for a moment I imagined the scent of cherry ChapStick.
“Sure,” I said, “who can you give wedgies to when I’m not here?” Then I remembered he was here with Tammy and shuddered at the thought.
* * *
Later that night, as we got ready for bed, Genny was in a chatty mood. “That was kind of fun. The drive-in . . .”
“Yeah.”
“It was nice that Victor found us.”
“Uh hmm.”
“Tammy seems very nice.”
“Do you want to run in the morning?”
“Yes. After Simon goes. Was she your girlfriend?”
“Tammy? No.”
“She’s very pretty.”
I feigned consideration of the possibility. “You think so? I suppose . . .”
“Is she nice?”
“I liked her.”
“You liked her?”
“I mean she’s sweet.”
“Sweet?”
“Yeah, sweet. She went out with a friend of mine.”
“Oh.” That seemed to satisfy her. “She seemed a bit remote.”
“Remote?”
“Cool. Distant. Do you think she’s Victor’s type?”
“No, I don’t think so. She’s too nice.”
“Sometimes nice girls like bad boys.”
“Do you think Victor’s a bad boy?”
“Oh come on.”
“Do you think I am?”
“Oh, double come on, in the other direction.” I turned away from her and pretended to look for something in my suitcase. “If only you knew who you were dealing with.”
She laughed at that, and I thought: don’t.
CHAPTER 16
We got up early to see Simon off. He ate a bowl of cereal and had a coffee while Mom made him sandwiches and fluttered around. More juice? Toast? You stayed out so late!You’re going to be tired today. Have some more coffee. Why didn’t you come home earlier?
“Mom, I could do this drive in my sleep. In fact, after Swift Current I’ll put it on cruise and crawl in the back for a nap.”
“Bah! You wouldn’t!”
“No, you’re right. I sleep better when I just recline the seat.” It was departure day, and this was their game, a ritual to keep it light.
“Just drive careful,” Dad said when Simon was ready to leave. Simon met my eye. Whenever Dad drove, we measured time in “Stan-years.”
Dad shook his hand, clapped him on the back, and advised him again to drive careful. We shook and clapped backs next, then Genny gave him a hug, and they whispered and chuckled over something, and he gave me thumbs up over her shoulder. Finally it was Mom’s turn. She held onto him and choked up.
It was six thirty when he drove away. The birds were out, and there was a breeze moving the poplars, rustling their leaves like distant applause. An early freight rumbled through the downtown core, its whistle blaring from somewhere out on the prairie. Before our run, Genny and I stretched on the grass, and she began to do crunches.
“Can’t we just run?” I asked, rueing the coffee I’d had with Simon. My abdomen still ached from our last workout.
“Sit ups,” she said. “Work off that beer belly.”
“You know, I liked you better when you kinda had love handles. You were nicer then.”
After we showered, we had breakfast alone. Dad had gone golfing. He would do eighteen holes then have a coffee at the clubhouse. Mom had gone to meet her coffee klatch, a group of women she met now and then but always on the day one of her sons left. It was part of her departure day ritual. “What do you want to do?” I asked Genny.
She gave me a smile. “We have the house to ourselves.”
I locked eyes on her. “For a couple of hours at least.”
In the distance, another train blared as it approached town. Poplar Lake, rail nexus of the prairies. “Then I know what I want to do.” Yes!
It was intimidating, being with her in the home I’d grown up in. We were together in the same room, the same bed—with my parents just down the hall. Everything in that old house creaked and squeaked and moaned. And now, for the moment, we were alone. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said, my voice a little throaty.
“No. Here. The couch.”
“Oh, good choice . . .”
* * *
“This isn’t what I had in mind.”
“Don’t be filthy.” She snuggled into me and opened my Grade Ten yearbook. “Show me your picture.”
I reached across and flipped to the Grade Ten section. “That’s me.”
“No! You look like you’re twelve.”
“Being in a relationship, it’s aged me.” She made a face and went bah! “Hello, baby,” she cooed to my picture, stroking my photo hair with her finger. “What other pictures are there of you?” She flipped a page and studied a rowof photos. “Oh look, here’s Tammy. Tammy Sheptytski. Isn’t she pretty!”
It was a good picture. Tammy’s smile, just as it had shone from across the room in English. I tapped a picture three along from hers. “That’s my friend Clinton Sturgis. He lived down the street. We played football together.”
“You and football! Okay. Are there any pictures of you play ing football?”
I flipped to the athletics section. There I was, in uniform, on the sidelines next to Coach Blucher. The camera was behind us, we were looking out at the field. “That’s me. Number ten.”
“Nice ass.”
“Everyone’s ass is nice in football.” She glanced at me, one eyebrow raised.
“I mean, it’s the equipment. Everyone’s behind looks good. They say.”
* * *
In Grade Ten, I made the Lakers, after Mr Hardcastle sent me up from the Bisons, but I pretty much rode the bench. Coach Blucher did not seem to need a two way player after all, as the injuries to his starters turned out to be minor. “Mr Hardcastle says you’re ready and I should bring you up,” he told me. “But we’ve got guys in Eleven and Twelve who are trained up and hungry to play. So bide your time. Be a team player. And listen, Gipper: eat something, will you? Try to bulk up. I’ve seen more meat on a fork. Look, you’re a rook, and there’s a lot for you to learn here. Keep practicing hard, and I’ll get you in where I can. Meanwhile, though . . . I heard in the lunchroom that you’re good at math. How’d you like to keep our stats?”
So I practiced, and during games I stood with a clipboard next to Coach Blucher, keeping track of every carry, pass, and catch to calculate team and individual statistics. He kept his word and substituted me in on specialty teams and at safety on the last few plays of games that didn’t matter. I often thought Clinton would have been a better call up, even just as a receiver, because he was better than a couple of the older guys on the Lakers. But he stayed with the Bisons and proved himself the best quarterback in the junior league. His anger at me for going up to the Lakers subsided, but he never showed the enthusiasm I would have expected at being the starter on a contender. He remained de
tached, the perpetual outsider. Ironically, his air of remote cool drew others to him.
We rode home together on the nights neither of us had practice, and we hung out in his empty house, doing homework, listening to music, reading—me books, him his graphic novels. His mother was on the road again that fall, so he often had supper with us. Andrew and Simon were away at university, and Victor was working full time in real estate and seldom around for meals. That left plenty of room at the table, and my mother was used to cooking for a hungry family. Clinton, she said, was like family.
“This is wonderful, Mrs—”
“Call me Edie, Clinton. I said you’re like family. Please, I insist.”
“Can I call you Edie, Edie?” I asked. “I’m family too.” She smiled sourly and I did not press the case.
Towards the end of football season, Clinton had to beg off supper some nights to work on the playbook. He would go to Mr Hardcastle’s office to work one on one. “He’s helping me with reading too,” he admitted one night at supper. “I’ve always had trouble with it.” It turned out he was mildly dyslexic, which explained his reading preferences and English marks.
“That’s very good of him,” Mom said. “They say he’s a nice man. Generous with his time and patient with his players.”
“He seems to go the extra mile,” Dad agreed.
“I could help you with your reading,” I told Clinton after supper when we were back at his place.
“Naw, it’d be too hard with a buddy. We’d start to punch it up.”
“You wouldn’t last a minute.”
“No you wouldn’t last a minute.”
“You wouldn’t last a second.”
“No, you wouldn’t last a second.”
So we wrestled, both of us trying to give each other a noogie. “Let’s get a drink,” Clinton said when we were sweating and exhausted. “The old lady keeps her hooch under the sink.”
* * *
“Is Clinton around?”
Mrs Sturgis wrapped her arms around herself against the late October chill. “No, he stayed after practice to work with Mr Hardcastle.”
“Oh.” I turned to go.
“He just phoned, though. He’ll be home in a few minutes.” She opened her door wider. “Come in and wait for him.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll go home.”
“Come in, honey. It’s cold out. Really, he’ll be here any sec. I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
Confronted with a direct summons I could see no way to avoid coming in. I squeezed past her and down the hall to the kitchen. “Have a seat,” she said. “Would you like something to drink? Milk?”
“Maybe an orange juice?” I knew she bought the best brand. Clinton and I used it to make screwdrivers when she was away. She poured me juice and a glass of wine for herself and sat down opposite me at the table. “How are you finding school?” she asked. “Do you like the Regional?”
“It’s okay.”
Her eyes stayed on me as she lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it. I hid behind a sip of juice. She was beautiful, put together as always, impeccable even this late in the day in jeans and a cashmere sweater, a simple pendant around her neck, a bit of lipstick. Her hair was neatly combed. She turned her head slightly to exhale. “You’re a lot like Clinton,” she said. “You don’t say much.”
“I guess.”
“He says you’re good at school. Especially at math.”
“I suppose.”
“High school is different, isn’t it?”
“I reckon.” I realized as soon as that word was out that it made me sound like a hick. “I mean, yes, it is a substantially different experience from the preceding year.”
Her expression had not changed at “I reckon” but she smiled at my follow up. We both drank from our glasses. The rim of hers was marked by the impression of her lips. She touched the pendant at her neck. “Does Clinton have many friends?”
I considered the question for a moment. “Well, I’m his friend.”
“Of course, honey. You’re his best friend. But does he have other friends?”
“Well, there’s lots of guys on the football team . . .”
“Are there any girls?”
“No, not on the football team.” She snorted then caught herself.
“I mean, yeah, there’s girls at school, hah ha. There’s plenty of girls . . .
“Do you think there’s anyone . . . special? Do you think he . . . likes someone?”
I stammered something to the effect that, “I don’t think so but, you know, there could be, we don’t have all our classes together, and he’s keeps his own counsel.”
She smiled, drew on her cigarette, and tilted her chin to exhale. “You’re a loyal friend. Not going to tell his old mother anything. But I worry about him. It’s my job to worry about him.” She stubbed out the cigarette. “I’m quitting,” she explained to the ashtray then looked back at me. “What about you. Do you have a girlfriend? Someone special?”
“Uhm. Not really.”
Her eyes bore into mine. “Is there someone you like? Someone you can’t get out of your head?”
How did she know? Could she read my mind? I felt myself blush.
She reached across and patted my hand. “You should tell her, honey. Life’s too short.”
But I knew I could never profess what I felt. It was too painful to think of what was sure to follow. I burned with humiliation at the thought. Luckily, before she could pursue the subject, I heard the back door open.
* * *
That year the Bisons won the league championship with Clinton at quarterback. It was particularly sweet, for the final gamewas a reprise of the previous year’s final against the Altarboys, coached by Father Agricola. This time the Bisons thumped them badly. I watched the game and Clinton was brilliant.
A week later, Mr Hardcastle held a team celebration at his office. Clinton said I should come but I said no.
“Why not?”
“I’m not part of it.”
“You were with us.”
“Not when it counted. It’s your championship.” Frankly, I felt completely removed from the Bisons and barely a member of the Lakers. I was as disconnected as I had ever been, with no sense of belonging anywhere. Detachment and isolation were my condition.
“Come anyway,” Clinton said, but I was firm.
We still came home together and hung out, although now he had a part time job. Mr Hardcastle had him working at his office once or twice a week, doing filing and odd jobs, even cleaning. “He doesn’t want me to get in trouble,” Clinton explained with a shrug, “so he throws me some work. He helps me with reading and drills me on the playbook. I’ve got to memorize all of it now.”
“What? Why? The season’s over.”
“Well, he told everyone at the party,” Clinton said. “If you’d been there you’d know. He’s not coaching the Bisons next year. He’s going to help Coach Blucher with the Lakers. He’s going to work with the offense.”
A few weeks later, Clinton got invited to a party with the Ice Dogs, the junior hockey team that Mr Hardcastle sponsored and coached. He had gotten to know some of the players at Hardcastle’s office, where they came for after-school tutoring. Previously he had been disdainful of jocks and other high school celebrities; together we had mocked their sense of entitlement. Yet now, though he made light of it, I could tell he was flattered.“They’re not all bad guys when you get to know them,” he said. “Hey, why don’t you come? Meet them on their own turf.”
Not being a joiner, in fact being what Victor called an antisocial retard, I resisted.
“What’s there to join? It’s a friggin’ party.” He wheedled and cajoled and finally challenged me to a bitch slap, a game the Ice Dogs played to condition their reflexes. I agreed to a best ofseven. If I lost I’d go to the pa
rty. If he lost he’d pay me ten bucks.
Down in his basement we circled, lunging and feinting with open hands. The slap had to strike a cheek with the right slapping sound; a simple graze wouldn’t do.
It went to seven.
“So what?” I said when it was over. “I let you win. I wanted to go to your stupid party. You prick, that last one stung.” I rubbed my cheek, pleased to see both of his were red.
“Friggin’ sissy. There’ll be girls there, man,” he said. “Don’t be a fag on Saturday night.”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”
* * *
Saturday night was bitterly cold. Poplar Lake was in the grip of an early winter. We stood across the street from the party place and guzzled beer, feeling a deep bass throb from inside the house. The lights were out in front but through the picture window we saw a mass of bodies in the living room, a glow of light from deeper inside.
Our breath steamed in the frigid air. Clinton explained that one of the Ice Dog rookies was billeted at the house. His billet family had gone out of town for the weekend, and the other Dogs had decided to have a party. The rookie had not had any say in their decision.
We finished another beer and went around to the back of the house. On the steps, smokers stood stiffly, arms wrapped around themselves for warmth. In the air, the sweet scent of dope. “Outside, guys,” someone said from the house, and two smokers stumbled down and past us into the yard. We worked our way up to the open door where one of the Ice Dogs blocked our way. He glared at us for a moment then grinned. “Sturgis. Hey.” He slapped Clinton on the back and nodded critically at me. Clinton and I exchanged looks, his expression neutral save for one eye narrowed in an almost-wink. I was shaking from the cold and the prospect of a house full of strangers.
We squeezed past the Dog and threw our coats in a closet. The kitchen was brightly lit and crowded with teenagers jostling and laughing, shouting to be heard. Bags of chips and nuts, spilled popcorn, ice trays, empties, and beer cases littered the sticky counters. We plunked down the case we had brought, grabbed a bottle each, and pushed through the hall towards the thump of music. The living room was jammed with people I didn’t know. We stood on the margins and drank then pushed back into the kitchen.
