As a Thief in the Night

by Chuck Crabbe

  They finished the season 0-9, zero wins, nine losses. Gord was a good coach and knew the game well, but could not make chicken soup out of chicken shit.

  They returned to Walpurgis for the vintage. Things were almost exactly as they had left them. Perhaps, Elsie thought a little grudgingly, even better. Olyvia had done excellent work. The vines were strong and healthy and the grapes had come along well. House and vineyard looked well ordered and beautiful. Olyvia and Ted had made a few small changes to the house to suit their tastes but none of them were permanent ones. Ted had framed and hung up some of the more accomplished costumes that Olyvia had created for various productions at the theatre. They seemed to be getting along very well. Ted had just accepted a new position as one of six directors at Stratford and would begin in the New Year. The production he would begin with would be one of Euripedes' tragedies, they had not yet told him which one. Olyvia was of course very envious of this and would have died to sink her teeth into work of that nature. Stratford was not very far and he would be able to commute.

  Ezra called up his old friend K.J. Kalafati who came and slept over the first weekend they were there. He was glad to see his friend and lied to him about the new friends he had made in Belle River. K.J. told Ezra about all the trouble his old classmates were getting into. He told him who had been doing drugs, who had been in fights, who had had sex with whom. They stayed up late watching movies, and Ezra felt comfortable and easy again. He asked K.J. if he would like to stay the next night too, but he could not because his father was taking him and his older brother camping for the weekend.

  In the mornings Ezra and Layne helped their aunts with the vintage work. Elsie had always picked the grapes late and had in some years, for the sake of experimentation, waited for noble rot to set in. Because the land the grapes grew on was a relatively small area, the women had always taken the time to pick bunches of grapes separate from one another, each at the correct moment of ripeness. This requires several passes through the vineyard, and all three aunts instructed their husbands and the children in this. Ezra and Layne were also given the job of spreading the left over debris from the final pressing of grapes back over the soil as fertilizer.

  One morning, at the base of one of the vines, the boys found a small nest of snake eggs. Layne had always been deathly afraid of snakes, so Ezra very carefully picked up the nest and moved it away from the vines and under some trees to the side of the property. Saving them seemed like the reasonable thing to do. Elsie, Sarah, and Olyvia stepped into the lagar together and did the hard work of crushing the grapes for the first few bottles of wine by foot and lent the heat of their bodies to the beginning of the fermentation process. In the days when this was how grapes were crushed, European vineyard owners would pay high wages to accordion players who played for the entire night. But here, in Walpurgis, Ontario, old speakers are placed in the old schoolhouse's windows, and on this particular year John Coltrane and Miles Davis records were played as the grapes were tread.

  One afternoon, while everyone was napping or reading, Ezra sat on the end of the long porch and worked on the small project he had begun. He had found two sticks and carved them with the Swiss Army Knife Gord had given him for his birthday until they were smooth and white. His idea was to make a cross with his mother's name carved into it. When he got home he would hang it on his bedroom wall. He carefully dug her name into the piece of wood that would be the vertical part of the cross. When he was done he found some dark green yarn to tie the two pieces together. But each time he tried to tie it the pieces ended up on top of one another, or crooked. Too preoccupied to notice, he struggled with it as Olyvia came up behind him.

  "Hi," he said, still focused on what he was doing.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. "What is it that you've been working so hard on?"

  He held the two pieces of pale wood together with his fingers and showed her. "It's supposed to be a cross."

  "Oh, a cross..." She saw the little letters carved into the wood. "Can I see it?" She held out her hand. Her long fingers had purple wine stains on them. Ezra passed her both pieces and she carefully looked them over. "Is this for your mom?"

  "Yeah. But I can't get the string tied around the two pieces. It keeps coming apart."

  Olyvia stood quietly beside him staring at the crooked letters. Then she sat down on the end of the porch beside him. "You know," she said, "I'm pretty good with string and thread. I use them all the time for my job."

  "I know, you make costumes," he answered slowly. " Maybe you can help me."

  "I think I might be able to. Let me see the string you have there."

  He gave it to her and she held the two sticks together for him to look at. "Is this the way you want it?"

  "Yeah."

  She took the yarn and wrapped it slowly around the cross. Then she brought it across the front and back again making neat, tight Xs on both sides. "Would you like me to tie it, or would you like to burn the string together?"

  "Um...maybe burn it."

  "I'll get some matches and a candle."

  Olyvia brought them, lit the wick, and pulled the yarn tight. Then she tilted the candle, poured some of the wax on the back of the cross, set the loose end of the yarn into it, and let it cool and harden. Satisfied, she held it out to him. "There you go."

  "Thanks, Olyvia."

  "You're welcome."

  She was quiet for a second. Then, as if she had just remembered something, she looked back at the front door. "Hey, are you and Layne going to help us with the bottling later?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good," she said, patting him lightly on the knee. "Everyone will be up soon."

  She got up, walked out to the side of the front lawn and sat down on one of the swings with her back to him. Looking at the ground in front of her, her long black hair fell loosely on either side of her face, as if she were trying to hide it. Ezra watched her and thought about how hiding underneath long hair must be like hiding behind a waterfall. Pleased, he held up the cross to examine it. There were spots of grape juice on it from the stains on Olyvia's hands. He brought the blade of his knife up to the wood to carve them off. No, he reconsidered, his mother would not mind.

  It was the Bird Man who came on the wings of spring and saved Ezra from his isolation, set his fate on its course, and spoke in strange tongues. Everyone called Michael Mulligan the Bird Man because of his huge nose and stork-like, lanky walk. Pimples covered his face and he was skinny and awkward. The name suited him and he didn't seem to mind it. He was neither popular nor athletic, but the other students accepted and even admired him, for one very important reason: Michael Mulligan was perhaps the best young illustrator in the province of Ontario.

  Each afternoon their bus stopped at the public high school and waited for a group of French Immersion students to transfer. Ezra, Mulligan, and ten or eleven other students from St. Anne's would wait on the nearly empty bus and talk amongst themselves, and this was how Ezra first met the Bird Man. Comics were something he knew about. They talked about Marvel team- ups, the Secret Wars series, and about new super hero movies and television shows rumored to be in production. One afternoon towards the end of November the Bird Man asked Ezra if he would like to walk home instead of taking the bus. Mulligan slapped Ezra on the shoulder after they had started walking and asked, "You ever watch the Bad Boys play?"

  "Who?"

  "The Pistons."

  "Yeah, sometimes. My uncle and I watch."

  "Who's your favorite player?"

  Ezra thought for a moment. "I don't know. I guess I don't watch enough to have one. I play football, so I watch that a lot more."

  "My favorite player is Isaiah Thomas!" The Bird Man stepped ahead, placed one foot beside the other, looked off into some imaginary distance, and took a horrible looking jump shot. Ezra smiled. He liked the Bird Man and felt comfortable around him.

  "Hey, do you play basketball?"

  "I played guard for my eighth grade team."


  "Were you good?"

  "I won 'Athlete of the Year'."

  "Really?" Mulligan flayed his lanky arms around as he was in the habit of doing when he got excited. "You should come out and play with my church group on Friday nights."

  Ezra was a little surprised. "I'll come. Where do you guys play?"

  "Just down the road from here, at the grade school." He pointed down the roughly paved street. "We play basketball and games and stuff and then go to the Charcoal Pit for fries afterward."

  There was something in the Bird Man's voice that made Ezra suspicious. "And it's your church group? You mean you don't have to go to your church to go?"

  "Nah. Anyone can come."

  "So you just play basketball, and that's it?"

  "Yeah, that's it. You'd probably like it; there's some really good players there."

  "Alright, I'll ask my parents."

  The Bird Man pumped his fist, "Cool. Hey, do you know who Isaiah Thomas said the most intimidating player he ever played against was?"

  "No, who?"

  "Larry Bird. The Bird Man! Get it? Isaiah said that when he played against him in his first year Bird yapped in his ear the whole game. He said that Bird would tell him what he was going to do to him and then he would go down the court and do exactly what he said he was going to do!"

  "Huh..." Ezra admired the idea in silence for a minute and thought about doing the same thing to his opponents on the football field. His confidence moved in extremes that at one moment could accommodate this kind of arrogant passion for his use, and at others made him the victim of its merciless condemnation and judgments.

  "Hey," Bird Man said breaking the silence and reverie, "you said Moon Knight was your favorite comic, right?"

  "Yeah. I haven't read it for maybe a year or so though. I'm pretty far behind on what's going on."

  The Bird Man slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. "Well, last night I was going through my collection and found a few old issues."

  "Which ones?"

  "Old ones. Anyway, I did this drawing from one of them for you." The Bird Man stopped, slipped his backpack off, and pulled a drawing out of his sketch pad. He had copied, in pencil with shading, the entire first page from one of the comics, complete with narration. Its clarity and depiction of depth improved upon the original.

  "You drew this?" Ezra asked, astonished.

  "Yeah, last night."

  "For me?"

  "Sure," Mulligan said, raising his arms as if ownership was beside the point. Closer to home the two of them parted and headed in different directions. Ezra could always smell the lake from down the street as he approached his house. It smelled different in autumn than it had that summer. When the Bird Man was out of sight Ezra pulled the drawing out of his bag and looked it over more closely. Moon Knight was standing on the edge of the ocean with one arm across his body bracing the elbow of the other, his downcast face rested in his hand. The moon, not yet full but approaching it, lit up the water. In the sea below, broken by its ripples, sat the reflection of each one of his three identities, his three faces and masks. There was no dialogue and only a single large narration box that ran across the top of the page. Inside it were the words:

  The fortune of us that are the moon's men

  Doth ebb and flow like the sea,

  Being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.

  Ezra looked over the drawing as he walked. When he got home he stuck it to the mirror in his bedroom with scotch tape and asked Elsie about going on Friday night to the Bird Man's church group to play basketball. As long as he found out the name of the church, she told him, he had her approval.

  The Bird Man showed up at the house that Friday night, and with something of a gentleman's tone, introduced himself to Gord. Elsie heard them talking and stepped out of the back room and into the kitchen.

  "Hi, Michael."

  "Oh, hello Mrs. Mignon."

  "Did you walk over?"

  "Yeah, I live just a few streets over."

  "So it's not too far," Elsie said as she looked Ezra up and down. Then, seeing something she was not content with, she stepped toward him, licked her thumb, and wiped something from the side of his face with it.

  "Elsie!" he complained, pushing her hand away.

  "I'm sorry," she said inspecting him again, nodding that things were now satisfactory. "So you guys are going to play basketball?"

  "Yup," the Bird Man nodded. "At Belle River Public School."

  "And it's with your church youth group?"

  "We do it every Friday night."

  "What church is it that you belong to, Michael?" Elsie asked. Ezra had not found out for her.

  "Calvary Pentecostal Assembly. It's over on the east side of town, on your way into St. Joachim."

  "Do your parents go there, too?"

  "No. Just me."

  "You go to church all by yourself? That's pretty impressive."

  "Yup," the Bird Man acknowledged, agreeing that it was, in fact, pretty impressive. He looked at Elsie and then at Gord. "How about the two of you? What are you guys doing tonight?" The two of them looked at each other and smiled.

  "Not much, Jason," Gord patronized him. "Probably just watching a movie and going to bed early. You know, old people stuff."

  "That's good too sometimes," Mulligan said seriously.

  Gord looked at Ezra. He could tell that he was glad to have something to do.

  "Just try to keep this guy away from the girls," Gord joked, smacking Ezra on the back.

  The Bird Man threw his head back, laughed, and clapped his hands together. "I'll try," he said, still laughing a little.

  The first boy that the Bird Man introduced Ezra to was walking out of the gym doors just as they were walking in. He was short, with close-cut black hair, and walked with a bounce in his step.

  "Alex," Mulligan said, stopping him, "this is Ezra."

  "Hi," the boy said, looking him directly in the eye and quickly extending his hand, "I'm Alex."

  Ezra shook his hand. "How's it going?"

  The boy continued into the hallway. "Are you a Christian?" he asked over his shoulder. He was a little short of breath from his efforts in the gym. He moved with confidence and his voice was full of energy.

  "Yes," Ezra answered, a little unsure.

  "Praise God," he said with a friendly smile and bounced down the hall to the water fountain. Ezra felt the familiar sting of conscience. He wondered if he had just lied. But he had not lied; the subtle pangs of guilt he felt came from a vague awareness that the boy had meant something different in his use of the word 'Christian' than the meaning Ezra attached to it.

  He met the others. They were as old as twenty-one and as young as ten. He joined a group of four or five of them with the Bird Man and started a game of basketball. All of them were awful players. Ezra scored easily and moved the ball wherever he wanted to and felt glad that he was establishing himself so quickly. When the game was over the Bird Man, who was probably the worst player, pulled him off to the side.

  "You're really good."

  "Thanks," Ezra said dribbling the ball between his legs. "I've been playing a bit more lately."

  "You should play against Alex; he's probably our best player." The Bird Man looked around the gym and saw Alex shooting by himself at one of the other baskets. "Alex, you should play against this guy; he's really good."

  Alex took a long jump shot and missed.

  "Sure, come on over."

  He was aggressive and very quick. Most of his longer shots bounced hard off the rim but he fought hard for the ball and beat Ezra to the rebounds. Ezra became frustrated and worked harder and harder. As he became more competitive he started to sweat and his breath grew ragged. Jumping high and reaching for a rebound, Ezra accidentally came down on Alex's head with his elbow. He was sure he had hurt him and called foul and offered him the ball. But the shorter boy turned down the ball and became more and more frantic in his efforts. Alex scored two more basket
s to tie the game. Both scrambled, missed shots, and swatted roughly at the ball on defense. Finally, his heart now pounding, Ezra threw up a fifteen-foot shot that he prayed would fall through the hoop because he was too exhausted to chase the rebound. The ball bounced around the rim and then through the basket. With a sense of relief he shook hands with his opponent, and turning toward the hallway to walk to the water fountain, gagged, and then threw up in his mouth. He ran through the front doors, puked in the shrubs just outside the front doors, came back inside, and took a long cool drink of water.

  When he came back inside the gym Alex was sitting on the stage with the rest of the group gathered on the floor in front of him. Ezra looked for the Bird Man and saw him seated expectantly at the front of the group. Seeing that he looked a little lost, a couple of the others ushered him to a spot on the floor. Everyone grew quiet and Alex began to speak.

  "I asked Pastor Mark if I could witness to the youth tonight because it's been almost two years since I accepted Christ into my heart as my personal savior." Voices, some loud and some barely audible, spoke out around Ezra: "Praise God" and "Amen" fell over the top of each other while Alex paused and smiled. Encouraged, he continued, "I'd like to speak tonight on being prepared for the coming of Christ."

  "For a long time, before I was saved, I did a lot of evil things. The devil found all kinds of ways to sneak into my life. Mostly, through the friends I hung around with. I was like all those blind people around Noah before the flood. They drank and had sex with different women and did not believe the day would come when they would be punished. It wasn't until they were sinking, their lungs full of God's holy waters, that they believed, and then it was too late."