Defender

by Graham McNamee

  “Can’t get the screams out of my head,” the man said. “He took a long time dying.”

  Investigators are going over the wreckage to determine the cause of the fire. But I don’t know how they’re going to find out anything. It looks like a bomb exploded. Jake had customized the engine of his muscle car, built it himself, so who knows what fatal mistake he made in the design.

  But I’m not buying that it’s an accident.

  It’s just too convenient. Too coincidental that some kind of brutal justice would fall on Jake after his crimes were revealed.

  Because the universe doesn’t work that way. There is no karma, no cosmic payback to punish the guilty. People get away with horrible things all the time. Bad guys win.

  So, what am I thinking? I’m thinking, Vega.

  I saw the scary cold look in her eyes at the hospital. I knew right then that this wasn’t the end of it for her.

  Vega, the ghetto rat. The razor blade. The mechanic.

  When Stick was getting bullied she said, Don’t be the hunted, be the hunter. She can take an engine apart blindfolded. And she’d had her eye on Jake’s red Mustang before, when he came to see us at the Zoo.

  The “accident” was perfect. Even if they somehow managed to pull something suspicious out of the wreckage, they’d never look at Vega. Jake and Vega were strangers. No link. No motive. Nobody would ever guess.

  After the burial, we head back to Jake’s house in Richmond Hill.

  It’s a cold, crisp day, with gray skies. Smells like snow on the way. Winter came late, but now it’s got us in its teeth.

  I watch as Squirrel rolls around on the ground with the dogs, their breath clouding in the air.

  “Can I go on the trampoline?” he asks, grass-stained and breathless.

  “Not today,” I say.

  There’s a small gathering inside the house. So many people, and none of them knew what Jake really was.

  But Vicki did. She lived with his temper and drunken rages, a prisoner in her own home. Branded like Lucy. His possession.

  Should I be more shocked and horrified by Jake’s gruesome death? Before this nightmare started, he was my loud, crazy, joking uncle.

  Was it all a lie? Was he a total faker, a psycho without a soul? I remember Lucy’s friend from school saying how she was showing signs of abuse, bruised and battered, before she disappeared. Was Jake hurting her? Who knows? All I feel is relief. He’s gone. We’re safe, and he’s buried along with his crimes and secrets. Like what he did with Lucy’s body. Wherever she is now, I hope he left her wrapped in my old blanket with the sunflowers. Something warm.

  When I was talking with Stick before the funeral, he just shook his head at the whole thing.

  “What was the moral of this story?” he asked me.

  “If you’re looking for morals, you came to the wrong place,” I told him. “All I know is his story is done.”

  Dad walks up, bringing a juice box and a sandwich for Squirrel, and some dog treats for the German shepherds.

  “Let me feed them,” Squirrel says. “I want to do Uncle Jake’s trick.”

  He gets the dogs to sit while he places a biscuit on top of each one’s nose. “Stay,” he tells them. “Stay. And—go!” At the clap of his hands, the dogs snap their treats out of the air.

  “There’s lots of food inside,” Dad says to me. “If you’re hungry.”

  I nod. He doesn’t seem to have any suspicions about how Jake died. For him it’s just a strange, sudden shock.

  “How’s Gran taking it?” I ask.

  Dad looks off to where she’s standing, alone in her bare winter garden on the hill in the huge backyard.

  “Hard to tell. She keeps it all inside.”

  Sounds familiar. Everything locked away, hidden and secret. Unspoken, but unforgotten.

  I go to her now.

  The garden is sleeping through the deep freeze. I find Gran crouched by a freshly dug hole. She’s dressed in all gray, charcoal funeral dress and heavy coat against the wind chill, her silver hair pulled back in a knot.

  She glances up. “Look at this. Those damn dogs are at it again, making a mess. Chewing up my tulip bulbs. They dig holes everywhere and bury things—toys, balls, the birds they kill. Never liked them. They’re here to guard us, Jake said. But they never make me feel safe, with their hungry eyes watching. We should get rid of them now. Don’t trust those dogs without Jake around to control them.”

  Gran reaches out a hand for me to help her up. She shakes her head at her tulip bed.

  “Never liked that car either.” She brushes dirt from her fingers. “Too fast and flashy. But that’s how he was. Teddy was always more like me. Gentle.”

  She should have seen him in the salvage yard that night. Blind with rage. She wouldn’t have recognized him.

  “But you’re something else, Tyne. Not like us, something new. I’ve seen the way you play, nothing gentle there. Nobody pushes you around. You don’t give in, don’t back down.”

  “I can’t. If I do, they win. That’s how the game’s played.”

  “It’s more than the game. It’s how you are.” She takes my arm and leads me down the path. “Let me show you something else that’s new. My creepers.”

  Gran brings me to the gardening shed. She opens the door, letting out warm air from the mini greenhouse inside. Following her in, I stretch like a cat in the heat of the sunlamps that turn this shack into a summer oasis.

  Her escape from winter. I fill my lungs with a glorious blend of scents.

  “Back here, Tyne.”

  Gran stands over a nasty black bush with twisted vines and thorns, like a tangle of barbed wire, now showing its first flowers. Her creeper roses have finally opened, revealing their color. The naturally ragged petals are a dark purple, almost black near the core.

  “Every time I watched them wilt before they bloomed was like getting robbed of a present. I tried everything on them and nothing worked. But Jake gave me something that did the trick.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A special fertilizer, with a blend of ash, bonemeal and other nutrients. I spread it around here, and like magic my beautiful monsters finally opened their buds. I showed Jake how they bloomed. He said we should name it. I told him it wasn’t a new flower variety, just a rare and difficult one. But Jake named it anyway.”

  “Named it what?”

  She bends to smell one. “He called it Lucy.”

  THIS IS MY last chance.

  The late combine, where the basketball scouts and university reps show up to see what you’ve got. A combination of workouts, drills and tests. All the girls who still haven’t been signed or committed yet are here to show their stuff and get interviewed by recruiters for scholarships.

  They take my measurements—height, weight, handspan, wingspan, feet, shoulder width and everything in between. There are the speed drills. Even when I hustle I’m one of the slowest in the sprints up and down the court. My reach is impressive, and the way I can palm the ball with my wide hands, but my vertical jump isn’t wowing them.

  And when it comes to the agility tests, my footwork can be clumsy. But nobody beats me in the strength tests, weight lifting, doing benches and squats. In the shootaround I do okay. But I don’t pretend to be a shooter.

  Mom roams the sidelines like an agent, talking me up to the scouts, bragging about my measurements and defensive game stats. She gets in an argument with one rep who says I’m more size than sizzle.

  I have to tell her to chill. “Don’t scrap with the scouts.”

  By the time the day is done I’ve had sweaty interviews with colleges across Canada and even some from the States.

  Standing tall and looking fierce. Making sure nobody forgets Tiny.

  MOM DOES MY bargaining. We want a full scholarship, guaranteed. Who knows how long my knee will last, so I need the insurance—of course we don’t tell the schools that. But then I can graduate, and leave college with more than a limp.


  Stick is in on my final push. He put together a video package of my high school highlights, cut together from footage shot by him and Dad over the past two seasons. We made a “top ten” of my best plays—blocks, rebounds and defensive battles that show off my skills. Me and Mom sent it to the reps.

  Back on the court I’m a demon, muscling girls out of my way. Still waiting to hear from the colleges, I take out all my anger and frustration on the court. It feels good to be playing with the team again. But at the games something’s missing. There’s that empty seat where Dad used to sit.

  When Stick was making my greatest-hits video, he found the footage from when I got hurt. My slam-dunk disaster. I’ve been watching it over and over, not to see what I did wrong, and not to torture myself. I watch it for what came after.

  Stick shot me going airborne to make the dunk. When I come back down, I land ugly. My knee gives out and I hit the floor hard. I lie there, twisted in agony, holding my leg. The girls crowd around. Then a tall figure rushes onto the court and pushes through to my side. The camera is on us as Dad crouches next to me. I freeze the frame and I can see it all on his face. My pain mirrored there. His lips are moving, but the words are lost to me now. What matters most is the way his eyes hold mine, steady and firm, keeping me from being blinded by panic. He holds me together with the love in his look. Dad’s the only one strong enough to pick me up and carry me off the court. Me and him, we know what it’s like. To be big, to get hurt and get back up.

  Me without him—I can’t live with that.

  So now I’m home after a game, and we’re having dinner. I’m feasting on a tray of lasagna while everybody else shares a pizza. Mom’s replaying the action for Dad, showing some highlights she shot on her tablet. I had a monster defensive double-double with nineteen rebounds and ten blocks.

  Glancing up, I see him focused on the tablet in his hand. He’s been keeping track of my game stats since the start, and I know he’ll be adding tonight’s to his file.

  When dinner is done, Mom’s cleaning up while Dad does dishes.

  Now, while he’s got his back to me at the kitchen sink, I force myself to speak.

  “I missed you at the game tonight, Dad.”

  That stops him in rinsing off the plates. Mom looks over from the fridge, back and forth from me to him. There’s just the sound of the water running till Dad clears his throat.

  “Didn’t know if you’d want me there,” he says.

  For a long moment it’s like we’re all holding our breath.

  “I’m always going to want you there.”

  He glances over his shoulder at me, and it’s all there on his face. He tries to speak, but there’s so much that words can’t say.

  WHERE AM I going?

  When you’re trying to escape, all you think about is breaking out. Getting away. Once you make it out, what then?

  When the offers came in I was stunned. Maybe I never really thought my plan would work, but I got callbacks from five colleges. Mom did the talking for me, looking for the best deal. Only two places were willing to give me a full scholarship. The others were spooked by my bad knee.

  One university was on the West Coast, a world away, far from everything I’ve ever known. The other was the University of Toronto—just a subway ride from here.

  So, do I say goodbye to everyone and run to the coast? Mom and Dad would never see me play, never see me at all. And what about Stick? I can’t lose him, and I just got Dad back. But U of T is so close, would it be a real escape? How far is far enough?

  I took a tour of the campus. It felt weird, like I was trespassing and they were going to call the cops to throw me out. It might only be next door, but it’s a whole other universe.

  I can be new again there, reinvent myself.

  When I told everyone, I could feel how relieved they were.

  So—the future. Stick’s planning it out for me right now over at his place. We’re eating Paradise pizzas after school in his room. I’m eating, he’s ranting and raving.

  “We could do some underground publicity for you. Guerilla marketing. Generate some buzz. Later, endorsement deals—shoes, fast food, fragrances.”

  I snort a laugh. “Nobody wants to smell like me. Not after running up and down the court all game. Besides, I’m never gonna go pro. I’ll be lucky if my knee lasts a year. And you’re not allowed to make money off playing college ball anyway.”

  “You can’t make money off it. I can,” he says with his goofy dreamer grin.

  He pulls up a file on his laptop. “I even got a slogan for you, and a logo.”

  “Yeah, what’s my slogan?”

  Stick shows me the screen with a mock-up of a T-shirt that says TINY AIN’T TINY. Below that, there’s a silhouette sketch of a tall figure with arms outstretched, a basketball in each hand.

  “That’s brilliant, Stick. You’re my genius.”

  “Yeah. You could be a marketing monster.”

  I shake my head. Never going to happen, but I love seeing him all electric again, his blue eyes shining. He’s not back to his old self, but some new self he’s still figuring out. When he thinks about what happened to him he says it feels like a nightmare he can’t believe was real, till he sees the scars on his face.

  Stick’s been dreaming and scheming for himself too. He scored a small scholarship. And Miss Diaz hustled him some government money—since he’s a foster kid, a ward of the state, she got on them to help pay for his education.

  He’ll be taking courses at a community college in the fall—graphics and design.

  “So, you gonna be an adman?”

  “I can sell anything to anybody.” He scoops up a slice of pizza and fills his face. “I sold you on me.”

  Bending down, I get a tomato-sauce kiss from him. “Wasn’t a hard sell.”

  I finish off a bottle of Coke.

  “There’s more in the fridge,” he says. “Get me one, would you?”

  When I’m in the kitchen, the front door opens and Vega comes in. I’ve been so busy the past few weeks I haven’t really talked to her—just “hi” in passing. Don’t know what to say to her after what happened to Jake.

  “Hey, Stretch.”

  “Vega.”

  I can smell the oil and exhaust on her. She’s fresh from the garage in stained overalls, bandanna over her braids. She reaches under the sink for some hand-cleaner goop that gets oil and grease off better than soap.

  “So you’re gonna go to college?”

  “Yeah. I got in.”

  Vega rubs the goop on her hands. “You done good.”

  “Guess so. Stick’s doing good too, all healed up, back to his old self.”

  “Yeah, Miss Diaz babied him back. Gotta say, that boy can take a beating.”

  I don’t want to ask, but I need to know.

  “And my uncle—we don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  She nods, working the cleaner between her fingers and under her nails. “So I heard. Nasty accident. That’s some tough luck. But when you go supercharging those old classic cars, putting too much power under the hood, and you don’t know what you’re dealing with, it can turn into a death trap. All it takes is the smallest defect to help it happen.” Vega gives me a scary smile. “Screw around, and you’re playing with fire.”

  That’s as close to a confession as I’m going to get. Those icy eyes hold me still.

  Then I break away, going in the fridge for some Coke.

  “Yo, Stick,” she calls. “You checked the chore chart? Says you’re on laundry duty.”

  “Yeah, I know!” he shouts. “This afternoon.”

  “Get to it. You know Miss D runs a clean farm.”

  “I’m on it.”

  I head back to the bedroom. Stick’s screening video of me pounding down the court like Godzilla attacking Tokyo, sweaty and red-faced.

  “Look at me. What a beast.”

  “Yeah,” he says, not taking it as a bad thing. “But you’re beauty and the beast, all in o
ne.”

  “And you’re crazy.” I dig my fingers into his porcupine curls, kissing his neck. “My kind of crazy.”

  THE ZOO SLEEPS beneath me.

  I’m going to miss this view.

  Standing on the roof, deep in the night, I look out at the millions of city lights, the millions of souls.

  This is the place that made me.

  I wander over to Gran’s abandoned rooftop garden, bringing a ghost with me. When I was out to see her today she gave me a flower to take home. Lucy’s rose.

  I’m going to save it, dry the flower out to keep and remember. Not as another relic from a dead girl. I’ll keep the rose as kind of a promise, to try to help if I find some other lost girl who needs it. I’ll stand with her, and never back down.

  If you want to get past me, you’re going to have to move this giant.

  Because that’s what I do. It’s what I am.

  A defender.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  GRAHAM MCNAMEE won the Edgar Award for Acceleration. He also wrote the thrillers Bonechiller and Beyond. A creature of the night, he lives in the dark.

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