by Chuck Crabbe
On the way home Ezra had withered under the calm and understanding tone of Elsie's questions. He leaned against the car door as if trying to burrow himself into the small space between it and the seat. The car moved slowly past the country landscape and his eyes searched the firs that lined the roadside as if he were desperately looking for something to hide behind. His face burned under the light of the knowledge she now had of him, and he turned it away. He had been discovered. Surely, he thought, some punishment lurked around the corner for what he had done.
As fall eases the slow fire of its reds and oranges into the face of the Dominion of Canada, from sea to sea boys and men across the country take to her fields, universities, parking lots, schools, and stadiums and take up a game and a struggle grown great through the blood of great men. This is football, as it is played north of the 49th parallel. It was here, as Canada still lay under the colonial banner of the British Empire, that the first game was played at the University of Toronto. And then in 1879, almost two decades later, the dreamy long-sleeved young men of that rowing club named after Jason and his mighty Argonauts opened the ivy wrapped gates of their University to a team from Hamilton, a team formed out of the same spirit as the hardened steel that the men forge under her mighty smoke stacks. There, as athletes made contact with each other, as the ball moved for the first time in the hands of some wild young man, one of the greatest rivalries in sports was born. Do not believe in the lies and gloss sold through that great rotting vehicle of the American media monopoly. Do not allow your television screen, whose polluting gaze we have all grown so comfortable under, to anaesthetize you to the living heart that beats in Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Hamilton, Toronto, and the other great Canadian cities where only three downs are counted. For here you will not find millions, nor luxury cars, nor four hour pre-game shows grown fat on advertising dollars, nor players grown corrupt and green eyed through the purchase of a lie constructed of their own bloated image. Here you will find men who live and die through the air. Throw on first down! They do not play to be loved, but for love. Here you will find men who work side by side with their brothers in the stands, and fans that know the players as men, not neon images.
And from time to time when it is asked: 'Will the league go bankrupt?' and 'Is the game lost?' know that those of us who have discovered it, who have lived by or through its honor and majesty, will not allow it to go under. No, we have seen, and we will not. We have seen Russ Jackson, Warren Moon, Ron Lancaster, and Doug Flutie move through the northern storms of November as great composers and generals. We have seen George Reed running between the tackles, under the prairie sky, and asked ourselves: Can he get up again? How does a man survive that? And time after time we watched as his will focused its strength on his own resurrection, and from under the hatred of opposing defenses, and the deep mud of Saskatchewan, he picked himself up. We shook our heads at his strength. We have seen Brian Kelly and Allen Pitts move in concert with the hidden rhythm of the open field and the bodies in motion across it. Their eyes have widened and their hands have opened as they left their feet in impossible crowds, and yet, and yet, there, there in the deep corners of the end zone, we have seen them make a claim: That, that there, screaming and twisting towards us in the air, is mine! We have learned that the ball has always belonged to them, that its deep possession took place in their mind long before it ever touched their hands.
Twelve men stand as gate keepers and sentinels, and the significance of the number twelve cannot be doubted, for who was the thirteenth? Willie Pless, James "Quick" Parker, Harvie Wylie, Bobby Jurasin, Paul Bennett, and Mike O'Shea stand as a unified mighty bulwark against the churning legs and mighty Spartan phalanx of Ellison Kelly, Roger Aldag, Dan Ferrone, Uzooma Okeke, Dan Comiskey, Chris Walby, Al Wilson, Rod Connop and Pierre Vercheval. A phalanx? But where are their shields? And we who have seen will tell you that their shields beat in their chests, and that this is where the true impact is delivered from when great men make contact. Out of this great collision of opposing forces a third thing is born and rises up in an invisible mist above the playing field; it cannot be seen by either the players or the fans, but it is felt by both. It is the spirit of the Canadian game.
"Ezra, either go down hurt or stop your crying!" Paul Willins yelled through his muddy facemask. Ezra was crying, but not because he was hurt. He was crying because he was afraid, afraid of the eyes upon him, afraid of failure, and afraid of his own power.
"Okay, it's okay!" Mike Loft, a thirteen-year-old quarterback who already had the composure of a much more experienced athlete, put his hands on Ezra's shoulders in the huddle and looked at him steadily. "Convert attempt, on one. Convert attempt, on one. Got it?" He looked at the other boys. The cloud of his breath hovered in front of them.
It was Ezra's second year of football. The year before, they had thought of putting him at fullback but he had not understood the plays well enough. He spent the year playing guard and outside linebacker and by the third game of the season he had hit his stride. He was tall for his age, and though he was thin he had an instinctual feel for contact that cannot be taught, a combination of momentum, leverage and acceleration that a player either has or does not have. During this first season his uncle Gord was one of the assistant coaches and the defensive coordinator. "When we're at football I'm not your uncle anymore, I'm your coach and you'll be treated just like the other players. If anything, I'll be harder on you than the others. And don't call me Uncle Gord either!" "What should I call you then?" Ezra had asked. "Coach Joses, the same as the other kids." Joses was Gord's last name, the name Elsie had opted not to take when they got married. The head coach was a psychology professor at the University of Guelph and also a part time expert witness in some of the highest profile criminal cases in the country. The following year he moved up an age group and Gord took over as the head coach of Ezra's team.
That year Ezra was ready. He played fullback and middle linebacker and played well, though the other boys, in that marked and exaggerated sense of their own victimization children often indulge in, suspected nepotism and said as much amongst themselves, but within an earshot of Ezra. The first time he carried the ball that year had been a dive play right up the middle. The field had split open before him like the Red Sea. He turned out huge gains all year and moved from sideline to sideline on defense, quick enough to avoid being blocked, and physical enough to punish opponents. But alongside this success an unspecific fear began to clutch at him, and slowly this fear bound itself to his sense of self worth.
It was the fourth quarter of a semi-final game in November. It had rained heavily earlier in the day. Under the stadium's cold lights the boys walked through the mud and took their places for the convert attempt. Ezra was the team's long snapper. He looked through his legs at the sure, outstretched hands of Mike Loft, and his own shook. He felt the eyes on him and his own closed tightly and then slowly opened again. Great players, he had been told, loved to be in these situations. But he did not. He had played well, but it would not matter, none of it would matter if he failed now. His fear became the future. The ball hit the mud two yards in front of Loft and rolled awkwardly to his side. By the time the young quarterback was able to get off the ground he was hit by two defenders and driven to the ground. The other team scored once more in the last two minutes. Final Score: 21-13: a loss for his team and also to his sense of self-worth. He walked alone off the field aching, mud covered, and defeated.
They had lost and he was responsible. The shadow side of success, the side that tells you that what you are and who you are is dependent upon that success, and that if you do not have it, then you are nothing, whispered in his ear as he walked off the field. They all knew it, too. The other players, his coaches, the parents that had been watching, would all define him by his failure. His anxiety guessed at the words they would speak about him under their breaths.
Elsie brought a cup of tea to him in bed and stroked his hair. Gord came in too and sat on the edge of
the bed with her. He patted Ezra's knee through his blankets and looked at him evenly. "You hold your head up high now. Everyone that was there today knows you were one of the best players on the field."
"It was my fault!" Ezra's voice cracked as he tried to fight off his tears.
"No, Ezra, it wasn't." Gord lifted Ezra's chin so his eyes might meet his own. "That was one play of probably a hundred and twenty today. Dozens of other things happened that decided that game. That particular play just happened to be at the end of it."
"When it mattered," Ezra responded quietly and cast his eyes down again.
"Listen boy, in that game it all matters. There's no other twelve-year-old in this world that I would rather have had out there with me today." A tear came slowly down Ezra's cheek. A little embarrassed, he smiled to himself. His uncle hugged him. "I'm proud of you. Get some rest now."
Ezra looked up at him shyly. "Okay."
Elsie remained and spoke quietly with him in the low light of his bedroom. A few minutes later Sarah snuck in to check on him and say goodnight before she left for home. As she backed out of the driveway, her headlights had shone through his window. Both she and Olyvia usually went to Ezra's games, though Olyvia's attendance was somewhat more erratic. At the game today she had brought wine in a thermos. She'd slowly become drunk then passed out on Elsie's couch as soon as they'd gotten home. Gord sighed and shook his head at her on his way to the kitchen. But then he stopped, took a few steps backwards, and looked down at Olyvia lying there. Her black hair covered the pillow her head rested upon, and her skin looked even softer than usual. The smell of wine escaped from her lips, and under the spell of her vulnerability, a longing rose up in him. He sighed and stepped away just as Elsie came out of the bedroom.
"Ready for bed?" he asked as he moved to turn off the lights.
"Should we leave her there?" Elsie asked motioning towards Olyvia.
"Yeah, just leave her."
Ezra Mignon was dreaming of his mother. Far away, he traced her profile as it moved through her father's vineyard. A ghost of her womb, his hidden eye followed her steps and the easy sway of her arms and torso. She was wearing a long, thin dress, purple and white, that a summer breeze drew slightly behind her as she walked between the rows of vines. Her hair was worn down; tangled in places it conveyed an air of freedom and beauty to her demeanor, as it sometimes can for women who are not overly conscious of their appearance. The brown leather straps of her sandals were wrapped round her ankles and tied at the bottoms of her calves; silver bracelets played loosely around her wrists. She was alone and it was dusk; the August sunlight was soft and did not threaten her eyes. He watched as she ran her hands along the vines in places, stopped, smelled then tasted the grapes, and smiled faintly to herself. She hummed a song he did not recognize as she began to daydream, looking off into the distance without really seeing, or perhaps seeing something no one else saw. Her face abruptly took on an expression that no longer spoke of summer contentment, or a place someone knew as home. Her eyes seemed to steal the last rays of intensity from the dying sun behind her; her grip fastened, her arm tightened. The grapes she had plucked and held in her hand bled violet streams from between her fingers. She looked around, frightened, towards the horizon, back to the house, and then to the grape juice running down her arm. Turning, she walked purposefully back between the rows of vines toward the house.
At night, after dinner, she walked to the pens her father kept and fed the goats that wandered outside the barns. The only ones still alive were male. She playfully put soft pressure against the crowns of their heads with her palm and whispered to them. Yes, she liked to do this, he thought to himself. Steam rose from the cup of tea she held in her hand. The peace he had seen earlier had settled on her face again. He followed her inside. The wind had grown stronger.
She stepped across the creaking wooden floors towards her room. Lighting a match at her bedside, she protected the flame with her hand and brought it to two candles on her nightstand. Under the safety of her blankets she smoothed over her lap and picked up her book. There was a small circular window cut out of the wall above her head that had hinges along the side and opened out like a door into the yard. The glass on the outside was dirty from the goats kicking mud upon it and the only thing that could be seen from her room was that it was night outside. The wooden frame that surrounded the glass was covered with old green paint that was peeling off in places. It didn't fit properly into the space that had been cut for it so the wind rattled it against the surrounding walls. She continued to read, but occasionally looked up, seemed to think to herself, and then went back to the pages in front of her. He began to cry, or believe he was crying, though he could not see or recognize himself anywhere within the dream. Rather, it was as if he were watching from an opening in the ceiling above the bed. He knew her. Her hands had run through his hair and across his arms to comfort him after nightmares. She had made him feel safe, even in the dark. While he had played, and drawn, and practiced his letters, hers were the eyes that had proudly watched over him.
Her face changed again. Not as before, still with a hint of whatever intuition or thought had drawn her attention earlier. She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, placed her book on the nightstand, and blew out the candles beside her. There was movement outside the window. The goats were outside the barn in the enclosure again. They began their song and the noise drew itself out along a line of haunted air, rose to a pitch higher than anything he thought an animal could produce, and then fell to a soft trembling that he thought might just contain beauty, and possibly would have, had the sounds that came before not been so terrible. He looked down at her again. Her eyes, broken open by the phantom song, shone like two moons in the vacuum of cold starless space. The sound came again. The window rattled. And Ezra was suddenly stricken with the fear that his fractured memories of her were not real, but rather fantasies he had envisioned to fill the hole within himself that her loss had left.
THE ARMOR OF GOD
Ezra walked past the dead little boy every morning. Gord and Elsie's child had been stillborn just ten months before Ezra was born, and now, each morning on his way to the bus stop, and each day on his way home, he walked past the boy's gravestone. Looking through the arched entrance to the cemetery he imagined the boy sitting on top of the black marble slab. He did not remember when he had first seen him, but as the seasons changed around them, and as the years pulled on Ezra's young body, and as his boyish face began the slow tragedy of its change into the face of a young man, he imagined the boy changing and growing older with him. Most of the time he just sat there, a smiling phantom with eyes trapped in this land of breath and temporality, and waved at Ezra. Much more rarely, when something he had seen or remembered on his broken throne had hurt him, he pulled his legs up to his chest, hid his face, and wept. Ezra did what he could to comfort him in the odd purgatory that he seemed to be trapped within, but even when he was smiling he appeared to be sad. Not having a name seemed wrong, so Ezra, having dreamt up a resurrection, decided to give him one: he named him Balyn, after a knight in a story he had read about two brothers named Balyn and Balan.
His brother Layne was always late for the bus. There seemed to be only one pace at which he moved, his own, and any attempt to increase that pace invariably met with failure. Each morning he would come running down the road in his jogging pants, his blonde hair disheveled and sticking up in the one place his handful of gel had been applied as he bolted out the door with Elsie's voice chasing after him. Jogging pants were all he ever wore, mostly because they allowed him the convenience of wearing the same thing to school that he had slept in. This sort of happy, lazy practicality made perfect sense to Layne and characterized much of what he did. Static caused the jogging pants to stick to his legs in different places as he ran. One of his ankle elastics had crept halfway up his calf revealing his red striped sports sock. The other sock could not be seen, but it would be a safe bet to say it was probably a different
color.
Jenna Ricketts and Ezra watched him run down the side of the road towards them. She was a year ahead of Ezra and had just started high school. Layne and he had waited for the bus in front of her house ever since she had moved to Walpurgis with her mother, stepfather and little stepbrother and stepsister five years before. Ezra would turn thirteen soon and, being seen as trustworthy and responsible by Jenna's parents, had begun babysitting for them. Trustworthy and responsible were not words her parents would have used to describe her though. At fourteen she already smoked, dated older boys, and drank on weekends. The high school bus usually came a little earlier than his did, and more than once she had hinted to him that she had already had sex.
Ezra sat by himself on one of the back seats of the bus and rested his head against the window. Balyn waved goodbye to him as the bus pulled away. The bus moved past his house and he saw Elsie through the kitchen window cleaning up the breakfast dishes.
Then the bus drove past Melanie Rafalia's house. She had called him her boyfriend when he was only in grade one and she was in grade seven. She had kissed him on the cheek. He remembered where he had been standing in the schoolyard when she had laid her hands on his shoulders and spoke of her devotion. One day, through some gift of circumstance, they might meet again.
Ezra wiped the fog off the window as they approached the church. Just above the trees at the back of the churchyard he could see the rooftop and chimney of the house that he and Layne had lived in with their mother. He wondered what Layne still remembered about living with her. Just ahead he saw the Tree.
