by Tyler Keevil
Then some kayakers found his boat – anchored near Ucluelet.
Apparently there’d been some sort of accident. He’d been putting out his crab traps, got tangled in the lines, and fallen overboard. The weights had held him under, and there wasn’t much left when the coastguard hauled him back up. Chris didn’t like to read the articles so I read them for him. They all said the same thing. The investigators had found a bunch of empties in the boat and ruled it an ‘accident due to negligence’. The articles were always accompanied by statistics about alcohol and water-related deaths.
The day Chris heard, I was on my way over to his house.
‘How’s it going, man?’ I said, totally oblivious.
‘Not so good. They found my dad’s boat. He’s dead.’
Neither of us knew what to say for a bit. We just stood there, fidgeting.
‘Do you want to be alone?’
‘No. But don’t treat me any different, okay?’
‘Yeah. Okay.’
We got out our bikes and went for a little ride. It was a clear, spring morning and his dad’s death didn’t seem real. It was more like something I’d heard about on the radio.
Halfway to Cates, Chris said, ‘It wasn’t like I knew him super well, anyways.’
That was it. He never mentioned it again, and I didn’t either. He lived with us for a while, and after a few months it was like his dad had never existed. I mean, we were pretty young at the time and I just didn’t have any reason to think about it. But now, after all the shit that’s happened, I’ve been thinking about it more and more. There’s been a hell of a lot of drowning going on lately, and I figure you could do worse than going out that way. It would be the same as taking a long drink. Nice and cool and thirst-quenching.
Not that I’d like to try it or anything.
9
You could see everything from up there. The ground dropped straight down in front of us, as if we were standing at the top of the longest slide I’d ever seen. Except the slide was covered with trees and rocks and patches of dirt. And at the bottom, instead of a playground, there was an entire city smothered by layers of smoke and smog and heat.
‘What does it remind you of?’ Karen asked.
We stood and stared. Totally seared.
‘Paradise,’ Julian said. ‘A city in the clouds.’
In a way, he was right. The haze and the light were almost magical.
‘No,’ Chris said. ‘It looks like ruins. Like a bomb wiped everything out.’
I could see that, too. Not much was left in the vapour – only a husk of a city. I kept looking, trying to decide who was right. But the longer I stared, the less certain I became. I could see skyscrapers and warehouses and bridges and cranes, but they seemed to shimmer and shift in the heat. None of it was real. I didn’t even know what I was looking at any more.
‘It’s one of those things dying people see in the desert,’ I said finally. ‘A mirage. It’s a fucking mirage for sure. As soon as you get too close, it vanishes.’
‘All at once?’
‘All at once.’
Chris’s dad had told him about this cabin – a little emergency shelter hidden in the mountains behind Seymour. Hardly anybody knew about it. The cabin was on a lake, and there was only one way to get to the lake. You followed a secret trail that kept going higher and higher. Then, when you couldn’t go any higher, you stopped to burn a fat one. That’s what we did, at least, and I can’t imagine doing it any other way. It was probably the best time the four of us spent together – except maybe for when we all went swimming and pretended to be starfish. At that point, she hadn’t chosen Chris, yet. It was like we were standing on a four-way seesaw. Perfectly balanced.
‘You’re all wrong,’ Karen said. ‘It’s a cocoon, can’t you see?’ She cupped her hands in front of her, tracing the cocoon’s shape. ‘One day it’ll split open.’
I squinted my eyes. Then I saw it. I saw that the layers of smog were really layers of silk, and that the buildings buried within were actually part of a single, massive creature.
‘But what’s inside?’ I asked. ‘What’s going to come out?’
She smiled at me – this very knowing smile. ‘Something better.’
I’ll never understand girls.
We kept climbing. We passed the first ridge and wound our way into the coolness of the next valley. The air down there was rich and earthy. With each step the ridge we’d crossed rose higher behind us, blocking out the city. After that there was nothing but shaggy pines, jagged rocks, and cliffs that loomed at wonky angles, like big grey waves about to crash over us. Every so often we stopped to smoke a bowl or hack a dart. That was when we talked. We had these super deep conversations, just like the one we’d had on the ridge, about everything and nothing at all.
Chris took the lead. He picked his way along the path, casual and comfortable as a cat. He’d worn his beige cargos and carried a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He loved the woods. Not because he was a nature fanatic, but because nobody lived there. He would have loved the city just as much if it was empty. His favourite movie was this low-budget science fiction flick where everybody in the world dies at once. Or maybe they get sucked away to another planet or something. I can’t really remember. But basically, three get left behind. Most of the movie is about these two guys and this one girl, hanging out together in abandoned cities. Chris loved that. He wanted to be one of those people. He told me so.
‘Man, what a great day!’
Julian kept saying stuff like that. He’d worn his favourite hiking outfit: shorts and sandals, with a white tank top and this huge, ten-gallon cowboy hat. I don’t know what he thought about the woods. I doubt he thought about them at all, actually. Knowing Jules, he was probably thinking about her, walking right behind him. Keeping his back straight and his chest puffed out, he swaggered along like a pimp hopped up on goofballs. Every so often he’d stop to stretch his arms, flexing all the muscles and taking these deep, dramatic breaths.
‘Don’t you just love this?’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she’d say.
She was always polite like that. She had great manners. She was rich, too. Later on she admitted it, but I suspected right from the start. She just smelled rich. Rich people smell different. They smell newer and cleaner, somehow. But it’s a fake smell, like apple air freshener in a dirty car. Come to think of it, Julian smelled like that, too.
‘Listen.’
We stopped and listened. When Chris told you to do something, you did it. I could hear our ragged breathing, and the soft zip of flies, and birds chattering in the trees. Behind it all was this gentle breeze, nuzzling the pine needles and whispering in my ear like a ghost.
Chris said, ‘That’s the sound of forever.’
Stuff like that makes perfect sense when you’re baked.
In the next valley, the trees gave way to piles of rocks and boulders. There’d been a landslide. Half the mountain had crumbled away, pouring into the basin like cereal into a bowl. It took some acrobatics to hike over the rubble. Being at the back was agonising. Not because it was any harder, but because Karen had taken her shirt off for the hike. She scrambled along in front of me, stretching and leaping in nothing but a bikini top and these scruffy jean shorts. I didn’t know where to look. I mean, it was impossible not to stare at her, but I didn’t want to act all sleazy. So I stared at her backpack. She’d brought along one of those little kid backpacks, just big enough to hold a sleeping bag and a twixer of vodka. She wore it pretty low, hanging down near her waist. There was a tiny white flower stitched into the canvas, along with the words: York House Academy. Super classy. Karen went to this all-girls private school across town. It’s the kind of school where a year’s tuition costs more than a new car. No joke. It’s like twelve or fifteen grand or something.
Julian asked, ‘How much further to the lake, man?’
‘About three hours.’
I had to stare at that shitty backpack for three h
ours. I’ll admit I didn’t stare at it all the time, just most of the time. Once in a while, I couldn’t help peeking at other parts of her. And I don’t mean her ass, either. What I mean is her pointy little ears, or the spot between her shoulder blades where all the sweat gathered, or the curve of her hip just below the waist. That’s the problem with staring at a girl’s ass. You miss everything else. There’s about six hundred body parts that are way hotter than a girl’s ass. Like eyebrows, or elbows. Elbows are so hot it’s insane. Some elbows, anyways. Like hers.
At the lake, there was a lot of flirting going on.
Julian was an expert. I don’t know how he did it. He’d pinch her arms, or poke her belly, and once he had her giggling he’d tickle her until she screamed. She seemed to like it, too. That was the weirdest part. If I tried something like that, it wouldn’t go over so well. I’m not loud enough, I guess. With Jules, acting loud was part of the routine. It made him seem harmless, like an overgrown kid. Come to think of it, he was pretty harmless.
‘Look at these chicken wings.’
That was what he called her arms. Don’t ask me why.
‘They’re so delicious.’
He took her bicep into his mouth, biting it like a dog.
‘Julian!’
It went on and on and on. It started to harsh piss me off, actually. I would have given anything to flirt with her like that. Not Chris. He had his own methods, which were even better. He flirted with her by completely ignoring her. Julian fawned all over her, and Chris treated her like an unwanted dog that had tagged along.
‘What are you guys doing?’ she asked him.
‘Blowing up the dinghy.’
‘Can I help?’
‘No.’
She made a face – this pouty face – and went back to Julian. Chris didn’t even notice. Once we’d finished inflating the raft, me and him paddled out into the middle of the lake. It was cramped and cosy in there. Our legs were all folded up and sort of entangled, like Siamese twins. After a while, we let the paddles rest and spiralled in slow circles. Just chilling. Near the valley rim, the smouldering sun looked impossibly large, like a giant tangerine. It squirted orange and red light across the water, staining the surface. We floated like that for maybe ten minutes among the oozing streams of colour.
Karen and Julian’s voices reached us clearly over the water.
‘Now you’re asking for it.’
‘No – Julian!’
She started squealing and giggling at the same time. Totally immature. I looked towards shore. I saw the reeds in the shallows, the pebbled beach, and the rickety A-frame emergency hut. Julian had picked her up and was carrying her over his shoulder in a fireman lift. She kicked her legs and beat on his back with her fists, still laughing.
Chris caught me staring.
‘You want a piece of that, Razor?’
I shrugged. ‘She’s definitely a bit of a fox.’
‘A petit renard, huh?’
I sat back, closing my eyes. ‘She’s not really my type, though.’
I was lying, of course. Me and Chris never lied to each other, but sometimes if a girl’s involved you have to make an exception. It’s like when you’re little, and you both want to play with the same toy. One of you has to let go or there’ll be trouble. So I lied to him. Up until then, they hadn’t done anything. He would have told me if they had, but he’d been holding back on account of me. Now I’d given him the green light.
I didn’t have much chance with her, anyways.
‘Come on – get in here you little tramp.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you want to.’
She laughed and came over. Like I said, she loved it when he talked tough. She took my place in the dinghy and they paddled out. Me and Jules sat on the porch, watching them float away, both of us wishing we were the one with her. The sun had set, leaving the lake cool and still as a slab of stone. We could hear the murmur of their voices but it was impossible to make out what they were saying. Jules passed me the mickey of Canadian Club he’d been drinking with her.
He asked, ‘Do you think she likes me?’
‘I don’t know, man.’
Neither of us spoke for a bit. I could feel the whiskey heating up my belly.
Then he said, ‘Remember when Pat Shaw beat you up?’
Of course I remembered. It had only happened in October.
He scuffed his heel on the dirt. ‘Sorry I ran off like that.’
‘It’s okay, man. I don’t blame you.’
That made him feel better.
‘You want to cook some of that food?’
‘Sure.’
I ducked into the cabin. It was more of a hut, really – with a single room where we’d laid out our sleeping bags. I carried all our supplies onto the porch, and we cooked Pot Noodle on my camp stove while getting absolutely hammered. My stove harsh sucks. It runs on canned heat and takes about three hours just to boil a cup of water. By the time Chris and Karen paddled in, the whiskey was gone and we could barely stand up, but the noodles still weren’t ready. Chris broke out a twixer of his mom’s vodka, and the four of us huddled around the stove, waiting for those shitty noodles to soften. Julian loved it. He kept stirring the water with his spoon. Every so often he’d scoop out a noodle and take a little bite. Then he’d say something super optimistic, something like, ‘Only a few more minutes, guys.’ That harsh cracked me up. Jules wasn’t such a bad guy, really. Just a little confused.
10
Last Halloween, I hit this guy in the eye with a bottle rocket. No joke. Right in the eye. It was a total fluke. I could have shot six hundred more bottle rockets, aiming for his eye, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it again. I wasn’t even trying to hit him in the first place, let alone in the eye. I was just sort of shooting in his general direction.
‘Who the fuck did that?’ he shouted.
We were down at Myrtle Park, this park by my house where we went every Halloween to have bottle rocket wars. Kids come from all over the North Shore, carrying bags loaded up with Roman candles, bottle rockets, sonic booms – whatever. You never know who you’ll meet down there. That’s what makes it so awesome.
‘Did what?’
‘Shot me in the fucking eye!’
There were two of them. One pointed in my direction.
‘That kid. It was that kid.’
I don’t know how the hell he knew it was me. I mean, it was like a war zone down there. Firecrackers were going off all over the place: hissing and whining and spitting and popping. Flashes of light and streaks of flame and the stench of sulphur smoke filled the air. Somehow, in the middle of all that chaos, this guy had spotted me. I was alone, too. Well, almost alone. Julian was with me, but that’s even worse than being alone.
‘What are we going to do?’ he asked.
‘Act real casual,’ I said.
I was drunk and feeling cocky, or else I would have taken off. Instead I just stood there, in this really lame Spiderman costume that was way too tight and made me look about six years old. The two guys trudged across the battleground towards us. The first was short and fat and mean-looking, like a bulldog. I didn’t recognise him. The other guy – the one I’d hit – had thin, bony cheeks, a crooked nose, and teeth that looked too tiny, like a ferret’s.
It was Pat Shaw.
‘You nearly took my eye out, bitch.’
‘Sorry, man. It was an accident.’
My voice sounded all high and squeaky, like I’d inhaled helium. Julian didn’t say anything. We both knew about Pat Shaw. He’d gone to jail for taking a baseball bat to the back of this guy’s head. The guy had looked at him wrong or something.
‘I don’t give a fuck,’ he said.
‘Listen, Pat,’ Julian said, lifting up his mask. He was wearing a Jason hockey mask. Don’t ask me why. Horror movies scared the shit out of him. ‘It wasn’t me, okay? I didn’t shoot it. I know you have a beef with this guy. But I’m not part of it. Right
?’
I couldn’t believe it. I’d known him for ten years and suddenly I’d become ‘this guy’. Unfortunately for Jules, Pat wasn’t buying it.
‘You’re both dead,’ he said.
Then he grabbed me and punched me two or three times – super fast. Right in the stomach. I doubled over, clutching my gut and gagging for breath. He must have hit me again, or kicked me, because I ended up on the ground. I remember seeing Julian sprinting away through the haze, but my vision was all screwy – like in a movie when the camera’s tilted at a weird angle. I heard him shrieking, ‘It’s Pat Shaw. Pat Shaw!’ He was in a real panic. That caused all the other guys to panic. They started running with him.
‘You like that, huh?’ Pat shouted down at me. ‘You want some more?’
After that it gets harder to remember. Something cracked against my temple. Then I felt these blows on my lower back – right in the spine and kidneys. That was when I did something pretty embarrassing. I screamed. I screamed and covered my head with both arms, curling up into a ball like a baby porcupine.
Then someone said: ‘Leave him alone.’
It was Chris. While everybody else had been running away, he’d been running towards me. There was the hot, salty taste of blood in my mouth and my ears were ringing as if a tuning fork had been struck against my skull. I still couldn’t breathe, but somehow I managed to roll over. Pat was standing right there, ready to kick me again.
He said, ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Just leave him alone.’
Chris was dressed as a zombie – a fairly old-school zombie. He’d slashed up his jeans and hoody and painted his face green. I’d helped him put fake blood all over his cheeks and forehead. He looked pretty nuts. I wouldn’t have wanted to mess with him, anyway.
Pat said, ‘Fat fucking chance.’
He turned on Chris, took a step, and followed through with the biggest haymaker I’ve ever seen. It smashed into Chris’s jaw, knocking him backwards and down, right down to the ground. One punch. Pat had one-punched him. I’d never seen anybody do that to Chris.
