“That’s Trevor. He’s been around town maybe five years now? He’s kind of a slime. Works the boats in the summer, sleeps with anyone who’s willing in the winter.”
“I know first-hand how Dave responds to people saying mean things about his wife.” I lift my hat to reveal the bruise in my hairline, which has settled into a dark shade of blue and spread about a half inch onto my forehead.
“You know, I’ll never understand why boys think hitting each other is okay.”
“Hey—I’m with you. I absolutely prefer not getting punched.”
Jennifer looks skeptical and seems genuinely upset I was fighting, which feels unfair. “It’s not just that. It’s such a guy thing, grown men fighting, and then I have to try and explain to my son how people are supposed to behave.”
I can’t defend the indefensible. She’s right. I do get excited watching grown men fight. I stand and yell and cheer same as anyone, and I have never once considered this terrible behaviour. I decide it’s best to keep the focus on Dave and Stephanie, instead of my own questionable instincts.
“That’s all fair. I only brought it up because Dave doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’s going to be thrilled that guy is taking his wife or ex-wife or whatever she is out for a slice of pizza. He hit me because I called her a bitch, so maybe I had it coming a little, but I imagine he’d murder that guy for taking her out. What is it with them? I was with Dave’s mom today and she seemed so bummed out about it all.”
Jennifer doesn’t know who cheated on who first, but Dave and Stephanie have been in an escalating war of infidelity pretty much since they got married. It’s something the whole town is aware of and it’s continued even into their separation. Besides the emotional destruction to each other, it’s led to more than a few fights for Dave, and the breakup of at least two other marriages, but, according to Jennifer, they seem intent on continuing trying to wreck each other.
“That’s probably why she stopped to say hi. She’s hoping you’ll say something about it to Dave.”
“Me? She doesn’t even know who I am.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Stephanie is the most calculating person I’ve ever met.”
“So you’re saying she thinks saying hi to you is a way to get me to tell Dave about loverboy over there? That’s not calculated, that’s sociopathic.”
“Maybe. Or maybe Stephanie and Dave were just two beautiful people who fell in love and have never really figured out how to be together, so now they go out of their way to hurt each other. They make me sad.”
After dinner, I walk Jennifer to her car, carrying the leftover pizza for her to bring home to Elvis. It’s a cold night, but she’s wearing a thick coat and I’m prepared to stand and freeze for as long as she’s willing to talk to me.
“So how long until you run away again?” she asks.
Part of me decides here and now that I’d be willing to stay in Pennington forever. It’s not something I say out loud because it’s so clearly crazy and probably not even true. You can convince yourself of anything for a very short amount of time, and imagining spending time with Jennifer is easy.
“I don’t know. Still working it out.” I’m trying to decide if she likes me. I’m not sure I’m even likeable in my current state, but I figure I’ve at least got familiarity going for me. Sure, she’s lived an entire life since the very brief time we were a couple, but people look back at stuff like that fondly, don’t they? It’s how I think of her, at least.
“Well, if you’re around for a bit, don’t be a stranger. This was nice.” Then she gets into her car and drives away.
Alone in the parking lot, I am still unsure if this counts as a real date, but all I can think is, “You should have kissed her, chickenshit.”
CHAPTER SIX
Through most of high school I worked at Perry’s Drugs in the Pennington Mall. The uniform included stiff polyester pants and a white shirt with narrow red stripes that looked pink from farther than a few feet away, made of cotton so thin I needed an undershirt so my nipples and back acne weren’t visible. Perry’s paid a dollar above minimum wage, and working in the town’s only drugstore offered fantastic perks. I knew who was buying condoms and who was buying pregnancy tests and who was buying the special shampoo for crabs. I could sell cigarettes to my friends when no one was watching and got deodorant and shaving cream at cost.
Dave never had a job, but he was more than willing to sponge off my disposable income. I let him get away with it because everyone always let Dave get away with everything. There was a liquor store in the mall and I’d get older co-workers to pick us up pints of vodka. Most Friday nights I’d work until nine and he’d wander into the store about a half-hour before close to shoplift candy bars or harass me. His favourite game was to keep an eye on the feminine hygiene aisle for women buying tampons and maxi-pads. When he spotted one, he’d get to the cash register ahead of them and dare me not to laugh, just to put it in my head. Then, as I was ringing up the packages, he’d stand in the distance making faces. I’d have to say, “Sorry, I just thought of something funny,” and insert a manual coupon code into the register to give them the sorry-I’m-an-asshole discount.
Dave would meet me outside after I’d cashed out and changed my clothes, and we’d take our vodka to the Burger King parking lot. Depending on what else was happening that night, we’d head to a house party, a bonfire in the woods, or, if his uncle was out drinking, Mac’s garage. On nights I knew I’d be drunk, Dave and I stayed at my father’s.
One night we stumbled into his place looking to eat some Doritos and finish our pint of Troika. We found my father asleep in his chair and, not thinking much of it, grabbed spots on the couch and flipped the TV channel from sports to Letterman, waking him up.
“What are you doing?” he said, startled and confused.
“Nothing, Dad,” I replied. “Go up to bed.”
He’d been out cold for a while and his drink was more melted ice than rum and Coke. Still, he picked it up and drank it all. That’s when he saw the bottle of vodka sitting on the floor. My dad wasn’t a hands-on father, but sometimes he would try to flex his parental muscle out of some sense of obligation.
“What’s that?”
Dave giggled and waited to see what I’d say.
“That,” I said, pointing at the bottle deliberately, “is liquor.”
“No shit, Sherlock. What’s it doing in my house?”
“Waiting for us to drink it. Did you want some?”
“No. And like hell you’re going to drink that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I said so.”
“What the fuck difference does it make?”
“I’m your father. This is my house. You’ll listen to me or else.”
“Or else what?” I said, forcing an exasperated laugh.
Dave gave my father the same expectant look he’d given me a few seconds before. He loved watching other people argue. I stood up and stepped close to my father, inviting him to make clear what “or else” meant. He didn’t say anything.
“This isn’t your house—you don’t own it. And you don’t get to play the role of responsible dad just because you feel like it right now. As for us drinking, I mean, come on. How many of those have you had today?” I pointed to the empty glass in his hand. “How many bottles you been through this week? Want me to go count them?”
My father bent over, picked up the vodka bottle, and left the room, muttering, “This is my goddamned house,” as he went.
I sat back down on the couch and took the chips from Dave’s hands.
“That was rad,” he said. “I thought he was gonna smack you.”
“Fuck him,” I replied.
“We’re still going to crash here, right? I’m pretty cut, no way I can sneak in without Mom hearing me.” He wasn’t wrong. Both of our mothers were always on high alert for signs we were drinki
ng, doing drugs, and causing trouble.
“Yeah, who cares. We’ll stay here. He’s probably already asleep, anyways.”
The next morning Dave and I snuck out early, before my father woke up. On the way out, I saw our vodka bottle lying empty in the sink next to an empty bottle of Captain Morgan.
•
Dinner with Jennifer was my first sober night since arriving in Pennington, which is fortunate because Paulie is banging on the door to my motel room at seven in the morning. We are, to my surprise, going fishing. He’d said something about fishing, but wasn’t specific about the day or time, so I didn’t think much of it. Who fishes on a Monday morning? These guys do it at least once a month. Mac takes the day off, Dave and Paulie don’t often work, and Shitty supposedly negotiated the time off as mental health days, after one of the kids at the school shit in a urinal seven times in one month (the culprit was never caught).
“Isn’t it a bit early?” I plead.
“Early worm gets the fish,” Paulie says.
“Isn’t it too cold?”
“Nah. That helps. Slows the fuckers down.”
“Is that true?”
“How should I know, I look like a marine biologist to you? Put these on.” He hands me some long johns, a thick hoodie, and a red flannel jacket that smells like campfire and mildew.
“I don’t have a fishing licence,” I say in a desperate effort to go back to bed.
“Fuck, man, neither do I.” So I get dressed.
Shitty is sitting in the front of Paulie’s car; I pour myself into the back. They scrounged up extra fishing gear for me, including a pole that jams me in the thigh as I slide around the seat when Paulie takes a hard right turn out of the Goode Night Inn’s parking lot.
Millicent Lake is about ten minutes outside town. There are trees around most of the water, with a small, rocky beach on the far side from the road—another ten minutes of walking through the woods—that serves as a perfect squat. When we get there, Mac and Dave are already set up and worming their hooks. Dave casts first and it carries about thirty metres into the middle of the lake, landing with a satisfying plop. By contrast, it takes me about twenty minutes just to get my rod assembled. I manage to get the worm to stay on my hook, but it feels like I’m trying to make the poor bastard suffer as much as possible in the process. My cast is dreadful, landing close enough to shore that I could wade out to get it without having to roll up my cuffs. But catching fish isn’t the point. This isn’t an intense outdoor experience and we are not communing with nature. There are lawn chairs—old and rusted and full of holes—and two flats of cheap canned beer. The beer, which tastes like pennies, keeps cold in the water at the edge of the lake.
Eventually we are all settled, lines in the water, butts in chairs, beers in hand, silence in the air. I don’t think there’s any fear of scaring the fish. It’s quiet for an hour—no one talks, no one catches a fish, and the only sound is the top popping on another beer. The experience is peaceful, almost meditative.
When the sun clears the top of the trees, bouncing light off the dark, still water, the air changes from bitterly cold to briskly chilled. It’s just after nine when Dave hauls the first trout of the day out of the water. Mac and Shitty each get one shortly after.
“So, your old man playing along?” Shitty asks, while Dave reels in his second fish.
“Playing along?” I respond.
“Yeah, playing along. With the interview stuff.”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t he?”
“He’s a strange cat,” Shitty says. “Yells a bunch or doesn’t say nothing.”
“I guess he does. We had a row the other day, actually.”
“He used to scream at us to get off the ice if we played shoot around after practice,” says Mac. “Loony fucker chased me with a shovel once.” He looks over at me, presumably to see if I care that he just called my father a loony fucker. It doesn’t bother me because I know he can be. It’s nice to get some validation that any conflict with my father is his fault. Everyone knows he’s a crazy old man.
It’s hard to pinpoint when people turned on my dad, when he went from being town hero to the guy who chases kids with shovels. Probably around the same time he took the job at the rink. He didn’t tell me he was doing it. Dave spotted him first, driving the Zamboni between periods at a Royals game.
“Hey, isn’t that your dad?”
“Yeah,” I said. “They must be up to something.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time the town trotted out my father for a Royals promotion. I assumed it had to be part of a bigger gag and waited for a punchline, but it never came. My father drove the Zamboni in circles around the ice, leaving a wet trail in his wake. Then he came back with a shovel to clear the small pile of slush left near the Zamboni doors. When he was done, he closed them up, and the teams came back on the ice to continue the game. It happened again following the second period.
After that, my father was at the rink all the time, cleaning the ice, emptying garbage bins, replacing light bulbs, painting and fixing things. It seemed so beneath him, never mind how it affected me—I was mortified. I wanted to ask him why, but instead, I just avoided him. We never spoke about it.
You never really know what your friends’ fathers do for a living; you just assume they have boring dad jobs. My dad, for all his faults, had been the exception, which made him cool, and therefore made me cool. But there he was, driving the Zamboni, and everyone sure as shit knew about it. The entire town effectively gathered to watch him do it. Like most kids, I was sure everything my parents did—good or bad—was entirely about me. It took a few years for Terry Punchout to stop being a hero in the eyes of the town. For me, it happened the instant I saw him behind the wheel of that machine.
At midday, Mac fetches a cooler full of sandwiches from his truck. I’m starving and was wondering if we would turn the trout into lunch. This would have been a problem for a few reasons, not least among them the fact that I hadn’t caught one. I had a couple nibbles, but every time I yanked on the rod and reeled the line in, all I found was a wormless hook, plundered by fish who’d figured out I’m no real threat.
“Do you screw like you set a hook?” I’m not sure I even get the joke, but Paulie falls over with laughter after he says it.
The sandwiches—roast beef, ham and cheese, tuna salad—were prepared by Mrs. Coleman and are cut into small triangles. They remind me of the food people brought by after my mother died. We’ve made a sizeable dent in the beer and I should be half in the bag, but the cold air is sobering.
After lunch I wander into the trees to relieve myself. I’ve always been weird about pissing in the woods. I don’t even like urinating in a public washroom if there’s someone else in there with me. I look for the right spot to do it, which should be anywhere, but I want to be deep enough in the trees to be completely out of sight. Just as I’m about to go, I hear someone walking up behind me. It’s Dave, and he pulls up two trees away. His presence seizes up my entire urinary tract.
“I saw your mother yesterday,” I say to Dave, hoping some conversation might relax me. “She seems good. She hasn’t changed much, has she?”
Dave grunts in response.
Even when Dave and I were best friends, he didn’t say much. Some might think of him as the strong, silent type, but part of me wonders if maybe he just doesn’t have anything interesting to say. I want him to be a vapid dummy, because it would give me something to feel superior about. I’ve been breaking Dave down like this since the day my dad pulled him off my chest, considering every little flaw as a win for me. And now we’re pissing in the woods, his marriage is a mess, his good looks are fading, and all he can manage is a grunt for conversation. I know a moral high road when I see it.
“Look, Dave, about the other night,” I say. He looks up at me, which is unsettling when I can hear his piss splashing the ground. “I’m sorry about what I said.
About Stephanie. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.” I am an amazing and benevolent man.
Dave finishes pissing, zips up, and turns to leave. “It’s cool,” he says. “Don’t leave your dingus hanging out in this cold too long.”
It’s cool? Does he think that’s an apology for punching me? Is it an apology for punching me?
“Um, yeah,” I call behind me. “It’s cool.” I guess.
•
They shouldn’t have any hockey in Los Angeles. I truly believe that. It’s too goddamned hot and too goddamned fancy, if you ask me. Not sure how I managed to last there as long as I did. You know, I was there for almost three years and never once met a movie star? Not one. I once saw Burt Reynolds in New York and I met that funny guy from TV in Toronto while eating dinner one night, but not a single goddamned movie star in Hollywood. Some place.
…
The team wasn’t bad. They weren’t the Islanders, but they had the Triple Crown Line and those guys were really good hockey players. Marcel was great and the other two could keep up with him fine, but for whatever reason we were a bit of a mess on the ice. I suppose they’d call it bad team chemistry or some horseshit. It don’t matter what you call it, we just stunk.
…
Yeah, I got my record while I was there. Didn’t feel right doing it in that godawful purple jersey, but we don’t get to choose these things. There was sort of a small thing made about it, but nothing much. I mean, people talked, but we didn’t have a ceremony or anything. Nobody gave me a gold hockey stick. When guys get a thousand points or fifty goals or something like that, they always get to keep the puck. There’s nothing to keep for the penalty record. I suppose I should have asked for the referee to give me his whistle. Jimmy Fox joked I should get to take the whole penalty box home with me. The boys took me out for a drink, though, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little proud of it, even if things were a bit shit for me around then. I was hardly getting any playing time that last year, then I got hurt, and that was that.
Searching for Terry Punchout Page 11
