Fireball

by Tyler Keevil

  Of course, all this just made Bates hate us even more.

  22

  One drug I wouldn’t suggest trying is acid.

  None of us knew what the hell to expect, but it was worse than they say. Way worse. In school they’re always telling you: ‘Don’t do drugs.’ That’s bullshit. Some drugs are okay. Weed, for instance. And nutmeg. But acid? I’d rather break a bottle on my head than do acid again. I mean, it didn’t even get us high. It just completely screwed our brains up.

  ‘Jesus it’s hot out tonight.’

  Karen wouldn’t stop saying that, even though it wasn’t hot at all. It was just a regular night. We were sitting on the cliff at Greyrocks – this tiny island down in the Cove – and the air felt cool and fresh and clean. To me, at least. Not to Karen. She looked like she’d been locked in a sauna for about three weeks. Her face had gone all blotchy, like a rotten plum, and her hair was this mess of sweaty, tangled strands. At one point, she peeled off her shirt and sat there in her jeans and bra and nothing else. Then she screamed. Don’t ask me why. I wasn’t paying much attention to Karen or her screaming.

  I had problems of my own.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘What the hell?’

  On my forearm, right above my wrist, I have these two moles. Normally they’re just regular moles: small and brown and harmless. But the acid changed them completely. They started pulsating as if they were alive. Then they turned into the heads of little worms, burrowing out of my skin. I swatted at them, trying to catch them. It was pretty fucked.

  Jules had it even worse. He was huddled up by himself, crying.

  ‘I’m so weak,’ he sobbed. ‘I hate it.’

  Julian had been a runt up until grade nine: skinny and frail and almost anaemic. Then one summer he grew about a foot and started eating protein powder and taking tennis lessons. After that he wasn’t such a weakling. The problem was, he’d been a runt for those important years of his life, the years when everything matters, and the acid brought it all back to him.

  Somebody shook me by the shoulder. Chris.

  ‘Are you feeling it?’ he asked.

  He was sitting on an old tree stump, with his legs crossed beneath him. His face was half-covered in shadows that looked almost like fur. As I watched, the fur spread over his cheeks and chin, and seemed to rise in a mane around his shoulders. He grimaced, showing teeth that were white and sharp and wet. He’d turned into some sort of wolf man.

  The wolf man said, ‘I don’t feel anything.’

  I tried to answer him, but I couldn’t. I was just too messed up.

  ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  The wolf man hopped down from his stump and prowled off without glancing back. I followed him. That island isn’t very big. There’s the cliff, some trees, and a little beach. You’d have to be a total marzipan to get lost, but as soon as we stepped into those woods, that’s exactly what happened. I felt as if I’d stumbled into a shadowy maze filled with all kinds of bizarre booby traps. Branches poked at my eyes, twigs clawed at my hair, and little thorns stuck in my arms like fishhooks. I kept falling over stumps and roots and shit like that. It was a living nightmare. Every so often, I’d catch a glimpse of this hairy silhouette, but the wolf man always vanished before I could catch up. I must have staggered around in there for about six hours. At one point I even started snivelling, like a lost little orphan from a fairy tale – a fairy tale about how children shouldn’t drop acid because it’s the worst drug ever invented. Then, just when I’d given up all hope, I found the beach.

  The wolf man had got there first.

  He was padding back and forth along the shore and making this strange sound – this whimpering sound. It reminded me of the noise a dog makes when it’s standing at the edge of a swimming pool, and it wants to jump in because it can see people splashing around and having fun. Except, in this case, there weren’t any people. There was just this stretch of water, black and still as oil. When I stepped onto the sand, he stopped pacing and turned around. The hair covering his face had disappeared. So had the mane and teeth. It was Chris again. I crossed over to him. He watched me approach as if he didn’t quite recognise me.

  ‘Did you see her?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’

  He pointed at a spot about twenty yards from shore.

  ‘Out there.’

  I peered into the watery murk. All I could see was the opposite shore and the public dock and the lights of the houses, but I didn’t want to admit that to Chris.

  ‘Sure, man. I think so.’

  He knew I was lying, though. It was like being with somebody when they spot a shooting star and you don’t. It’s not your fault, but you still feel like you’ve let them down.

  23

  ‘You’ve put in me a tricky predicament, young man.’

  ‘I know, Mr Green. Sorry about that.’

  I kept apologising, over and over. I didn’t know what else to do. It would have been different if I’d hated our principal. But other than Mrs Oldham he was the only staff member at Seycove I actually liked. He had a square jaw, sort of like a comic book character, and this deep baritone voice. Back before Chris got expelled, Mr Green busted us both for smoking up in the woods behind the school. Don’t ask me how. Some loser must have ratted us out. Chris got called to his office first, and after lunch it was my turn.

  There was no use arguing with Mr Green. He was pretty savvy.

  ‘I know you weren’t smoking cigarettes out there. I can smell it on you.’

  I opened my mouth, but he held out a palm to stop me.

  ‘Don’t say anything. Don’t admit to it. I don’t want to hear it.’

  He got up and went to stand at the window, clasping his hands behind his back.

  ‘I had a chat with your friend Chris, earlier.’

  He knew Chris and I were tight. We’d been in his office together a bunch of times.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ I said, trying to sound positive.

  ‘He was stoned, too. What’s worse, you were both smoking it on school property.’

  He came to stand over me, and I sort of wilted back into my chair.

  ‘Do you know how long I’ve been doing this?’

  ‘No, sir. I don’t.’

  ‘Twenty-two years. Twelve as a teacher. Ten as a principal.’ He stroked his jaw, getting super thoughtful. ‘If you’ve done something as long as I have, certain patterns start to emerge. Certain things repeat themselves. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Like your friend, Chris. He must seem like a pretty hip guy to you.’ One thing that cracks me up is when a teacher uses some word that’s about forty years old. ‘But I’ve seen kids like him before. Kids with his attitude. His problem with authority.’ He sat back down. It was weird. If he’d been lecturing me, it would have pissed me off a lot more. But he actually looked pretty sad about the whole thing. ‘Back in my day we all wanted to act like James Dean. We all wanted to have the leather jacket and be the rebel without a cause. But that’s a limited philosophy, son. A one-way street. Right now, Chris is heading down it. And as far as I can see, you’re content to go along with him. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Sure. I guess so.’

  ‘Well, you can only be a follower for so long. You can’t be a sheep your whole life. Chris has to make his choices. You have to make yours. Understand?’

  I nodded. I was still seared and found his whole speech pretty confusing.

  ‘I sent Chris home,’ he said, ‘and I’m going to do the same to you. You look a little under the weather, understand? You’re feeling sick, and need the rest of the day off. And you’re not going to come back until you’re feeling better. Are we absolutely clear on that?’

  ‘Yes sir. One hundred per cent.’

  I practically ran out of there. He didn’t even phone my dad. It was fucking rad. Me and Chris had the whole day off. When I got home, he was already waiting in the basement.

  ‘Hey stoner,’ he said.

&nb
sp; ‘What’s up, boner?’

  ‘Mr Green busted me and sent me home.’

  ‘Me, too.’ I grabbed him in a headlock and we started shoving each other around. ‘He gave me a huge speech about you.’

  ‘What’d he say?’

  ‘I can’t really remember. I was blitzed. But he said you look like James Dean.’

  ‘That’s awesome.’

  We smoked another bowl and biked up to the movie store. When we asked the lady if she had any James Dean movies, she told us to try the library. It was right next door. We found one, too. Rebel Without a Cause. It was harsh old-school, and some of the other actors were pretty shitty, but James Dean was awesome. He didn’t really look like Chris, but he acted like him. We hadn’t made one of our movies for ages – we kind of gave up all that stuff when we hit high school – but after watching Rebel we busted out my camera and threw together a few scenes. Mostly it was just the two of us standing around in my dad’s blazers, smoking our faces off. The annoying part was that I felt too much like the little sidekick. You know – the scrawny kid who acts kind of gay and doesn’t get the girl.

  That harsh depressed me, actually.

  24

  He hit the ground like a sack of cement. Wham. I’d seen Chris give it to a lot of guys, but none got it as bad as Bates. Chris put everything into those punches: all the hate and rage and frustration that had been twisting his insides for weeks.

  The elastic had finally snapped.

  Bates lay there, half-conscious, making these little groans. There was blood everywhere. It streamed from his nose and mouth and cuts on his cheek and forehead. His face was a red, pulpy mass – like a squashed tomato. Chris started kicking the tomato. He kicked it across the jaw, and two or three times in the gut. After the first kick Bates went still. After the fourth kick, or maybe the fifth, I grabbed Chris in a half-nelson.

  ‘That’s it, man. That’s it.’

  He fought against me, still kicking. I didn’t let go until he stopped resisting and tapped me on the forearm to let me know he was calm.

  We stood over Bates, panting like dogs.

  ‘Shit. Did you kill him?’

  At that point, the whole situation felt fairly surreal. Only fifty yards away, hidden by trees, dozens of people were enjoying a regular day at the beach. I couldn’t see them but I could hear them, shouting and laughing and splashing. Overhead, all these seagulls circled around and around, like scraps of paper caught in a whirlwind.

  ‘You coming?’ Chris asked.

  He was sitting in the squad car, his face half-hidden by shade, and I was standing by the driver’s side door. The sun slapped down on my scalp and the back of my neck. I glanced over at Bates. He lay completely still, like a fat blue slug squashed in the sand. Beyond him I could see the flicker and flare of sunlight off water. Then there was the beach, with its coal-hot sand and constantly breaking surf. That was the world, as far as I could tell: just an unbearable mix of heat and noise and light.

  I couldn’t let him go alone.

  I walked around the front of the car and slipped into the passenger’s seat. Chris popped the handbrake, backed up, and shifted into drive. We cruised past the boat ramp and through the Cates parking lot. There were people all over the place: lounging on the grass, unpacking beach gear, waiting for parking spots. None of them noticed us. When a cop drives past, people don’t pay much attention to the driver – they only see the car. It’s a lot like a hearse in that way. Chris turned his hearse onto Dollarton Highway and accelerated. He hadn’t driven much but the squad car was an automatic, which made it easy. Things began to feel more normal. It was a beautiful day and here we were, driving along. I rolled down my window and rested my elbow on the door, mimicking Chris.

  ‘Check it out,’ he said.

  He pointed at a pack of smokes on the dashboard. I lit one for both of us and started fiddling with the radio. I don’t know if it was broken or what, but I couldn’t find any FM. Eventually I just gave up and left it tuned in to this Chinese radio station. All the music and ads were in Chinese. Even the DJ spoke Chinese. Mandarin, I guess. It was pretty awesome, actually.

  ‘Sweet, man. Turn it up.’

  I did. This funky rift filled the cab, trilling along our spines, and a lady started singing at the top of her lungs. It was like we were in the opening sequence of a movie – one of those gritty Hong Kong action movies where everybody’s always sweating and smoking and driving super fast, and nobody gives a shit whether they live or die.

  25

  They invited us to the funeral. Don’t ask me why. We were a little surprised to receive the invitations. I guess they thought we had a right to be there. Maybe they assumed we wanted to pay our last respects to this lady we’d never even met, whose life we had almost saved.

  But basically, we decided to go.

  Jules drove us to this church across town. It was the first time I’d been to a funeral, except for my mom’s and that doesn’t really count because I was still a baby. I won’t ever go to another one, either. I’d rather drop acid again than go to another funeral. We parked on the street across from the church – a tiny building covered in white stucco.

  ‘Ready to roll?’

  ‘Roll out the red carpet.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jules said. He never really got our jokes. ‘Ready or not, here we roll.’

  The church was hot and cramped as a kiln. Not many people came – maybe thirty or forty – but there wasn’t even enough room for everybody to sit. The late arrivals had to stand against the walls. We got the last three seats in the back. I was dressed in a cheap suit that my dad had bought me for my cousin’s Christening. When I was twelve it might have fit me. Not any more. I felt like I’d squeezed myself into a straitjacket. The sleeves were way too short, and every time I moved I expected the shoulders to rip apart. That was bad enough, but I was also sweating my balls off. Streaks of morning sun smashed through the plate glass windows, setting the church ablaze with orange and red and yellow light. Outside you could see waves of heat squiggling in the air, and the whole place stunk of perfume, cologne and body odour. At one point it got so bad I covered my face with my shirt and started breathing through my mouth. It was nuts.

  Things began to happen.

  A minister waddled up to the altar. Behind him hung this wooden cross with a life-size Jesus stretched out on it. Even Jesus looked hot. His sad old eyes stared straight down, towards the coffin at his feet. The casket was open but from where we sat I couldn’t see inside. After mumbling a few words of welcome, the minister started preaching. I felt awful for him. He was wearing these huge robes that looked thick and heavy as blankets. A glaze of sweat glistened on his face, and he kept having to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief. I don’t remember much of what he said. It was impossible to concentrate in all that heat, and the minister didn’t have the stamina to speak with conviction. He started strong but by the end his words were coming out in short, wheezy phrases – like an asthmatic.

  Finally, he gasped, ‘Let us pray.’

  One by one all the heads in front of us dropped down. Jules did the same – lacing his hands together before his face. He went to church every Sunday so he knew exactly what to do. Chris didn’t. Neither did I. I’ve never said a prayer in my life. It seemed kind of stupid to start for no reason, so I kept my head up and my eyes open. All I could see was row after row of sweaty scalps, as if the whole congregation had ducked down to hide. The minister mumbled a few words about Mrs Reever being up in heaven and at peace.

  Then he said, ‘Amen.’

  And everybody else said, ‘Amen.’

  Speeches came next – too many speeches to count. First the family gave speeches. Her husband was dead so he didn’t give one but her daughter did, and both her sons, and even a bunch of her grandchildren. Then came her friends from the apartment block. All of them had something nice to say about her. She loved cats. She enjoyed playing bridge. She drank single malt whiskey. She had a collection of silent
films. She baked cherry tarts. Meanwhile noon was approaching. The temperature rose about a hundred degrees and I started getting dizzy. Each heartbeat sounded like a gong going off in my head. It got harder and harder to see. The people up at the altar became these colourless, blurry shapes. I could hear them talking but none of them actually said anything. The meaning of the words evaporated in the heat. Between speeches, I imagined standing up and putting an end to it.

  I wanted to shout, ‘She’s dead, okay? Let’s leave it at that.’

  I didn’t have the guts, though. Plus, what was the point? They needed their little speeches, to connect with her in some way. And part of me understood why they were trying so hard. On the other hand, she was dead and we were alive. Where’s the connection in that? The only thing we had in common with her was that, one day, we’d all be just as dead.

  Some of us sooner than others.

  At the end the minister asked us to rise. That was the weirdest part of all. We stood up and formed a line and passed in front of the casket one by one. It was time to say goodbye to Mrs Reever. By that point it must have been mid-afternoon. The heat kept up its slow torture. Sweat had soaked through the back of my shirt and my collar felt tight as a choker. The air was too thick and cloying to breathe. You had to drink it in big gulps, like perfumed water. The stench caught in my throat, and I was terrified I’d puke. I’d puke on the flower display or down the front of somebody’s suit or all over the glistening coffin. It wasn’t just the smell that made me nauseous. It was the thought of seeing her again.

  But she looked different than I expected.

  The line moved forward, smooth and steady as a conveyer belt, and when our turn came the three of us stood side by side, looking down. Her face wasn’t all grey and pasty like I remembered. They’d dusted her cheeks with rouge and lined her mouth with dark lipstick. Silver hair curled around her head in an old-fashioned perm. In a lot of ways, she looked more alive than she had on the day we’d saved her.