I pointed at two stone lions flanking our TV. “And that’s all you wanted to keep?”
“Yep. I think they’re badass. I grew up with them. Oh yeah, and him.”
The glass-framed print of Michelangelo’s David leaned against the wall by the front door. “Where,” I asked, “are you planning to put him?”
“We’ll find some place.”
If Grandpa were to ever sell the Garneau family home in Sudbury, I wasn’t sure what I’d feel. Probably panic. Maybe Liam could inherit the property when the time came. This was a discussion the family had yet to have. I squeezed David’s thigh. “How is all of this for you?”
“I’m okay with it.” David opened his hands. “I wasn’t expecting this, but hey. Life moves on, right? I’m supposed to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the yard upside down.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When you’re selling a house, apparently that’s what you do, for good luck. Ma says I should bury it by the rose bed in the front.”
“You’re actually going to do this?”
“Daniel, never mess with Sicilian superstitions. Always look people in the eye when toasting and take your first sip before you set your glass down on the table. Otherwise, it’s seven years bad sex.”
“Whoa. Harsh.”
“Recognize this?” David slipped from under his T-shirt a small amulet on a chain, a twisted, horn-shaped piece of gold.
“Sure, you brought that back last summer.”
“My nonno gave it to me. But do you know what it is?” I shook my head. “It’s called a cornicello. In Italy, it’s a symbol of virility and strength. It’s a talisman to guard against the evil eye. Specifically, it’s meant to protect my junk.”
“How’s that work?”
“You ever wonder why an Italian man grabs his crotch? It’s to protect against bad luck. The next time you see a hearse drive by, or if any bad omen comes up, watch who grabs their balls. It’s the Italians. It all has to do with protecting our most valuable asset: the future fruit of our loins. Family’s everything in Italy. You can’t be too careful with the Malocchio.”
“What,” I asked, “are you talking about?”
David lowered his voice. “The evil eye. Look, you know I’m not religious. I’m not even really superstitious. Except we Sicilians, we don’t mess with the Malocchio.” He arched one eyebrow and grabbed his crotch.
“Seriously?”
“Okay. like I said, I don’t really buy into that stuff. Still.” He examined the cornicello. “There’s all sorts of phallic amulets and effigies dating back to Roman times. Sexual symbols are supposed to distract the person trying to cast the evil eye. Ever see someone do this?” He thrust out his fist with his thumb pinched between the index and second fingers.
“Isn’t that kind of like a ‘screw you’?”
“Sometimes. Lots of cultures use this one. But in Italy, again, it’s a sign to ward off evil. It represents you-know-what.”
“What?”
“C’mon.’ He wiggled his thumb. “Take a guess.”
I made a face. “Really? That?”
“Bingo.”
“Good to know.”
“Daniel, Italians might be obsessed with sex, but we’re not the only ones. The Greeks the Japanese the Bhutanese, people all over the world attribute supernatural powers to the penis.”
“The Bhutanese?”
“In the mountainous Kingdom of Bhutan, the symbol of an erect penis is seen as good luck, driving away evil forces and spirits. Go to Bhutan, my young Padawan, and you shall see paintings and statues of hard-ons everywhere.”
“Pray tell, and how do you know this?”
“Because I used to run D&D campaigns, and you come across this stuff in your research. You wanna know about the Kanamara Matsuri?”
“No, I don’t. Oh my god, you are such a nerd. And you and your whole family are obsessed with penises.”
David lay back with his head in my lap and crossed his legs. “Would you love me if I wasn’t?”
“Maybe,” I said, “we should mount the Cherry-Scented Vibro-Dong over our front doorway to ward off negative energies. After all, this is your one and only home now.”
“That,” David said, “is a fantastic idea. Hook it up to our downstairs buzzer. Anytime someone rings, the Vibro-Dong goes off.”
“Better than garlic or a horseshoe. Do you think we can get Rick to jerry-rig that?”
“Rick can jerry-rig anything.”
“I’ll ask him the next time I see him.”
“Better put it in writing, just to make sure. There’s a Maintenance & Repairs Request Form you can fill out.”
“I’m on it.”
“Liz might want one too. She’s convinced she sees dead people.”
“Like your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“She’ll need her own Vibro-Dong.”
“Maybe we should order one for every tenant in the building,” David said. “Get a discount rate.”
“That, Dr. Venkman, is a brilliant idea,” I said. “I’ll start a collection.”
“Just trying to be a civic-minded citizen. It’s the least we can do.”
“How very Bhutanese of you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Wondering Where the Lions Are
“You all packed?” David asked, frying up eggs, bacon and homemade hash browns.
“Pretty much.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“It’s just a weekend.” I sat at our kitchen table going over a list of items to bring. Extra socks, check. First-aid kit, check. Chlorine tablets, check.
“Are you going to have fun?”
I considered my answer. It’d been years since I’d gone camping with my brothers, and there was a reason why. For months, Pat had suggested ideas for how we’d commemorate our twenty-fifth birthday. Liam was mulish. He wasn’t coming into the city. He wasn’t going to Vegas or New York. And definitely, neither Liam nor I were interested in flying to South America to take ayahuasca in the Columbian jungle with Carolina Sanchez.
In the end, it was Karen who suggested the three of us go back to Killarney. Apart from the Good Medicine Cabin, Killarney was where we’d spent much of our childhood, backpacking La Cloche Silhouette Trail, canoeing and fishing. Back in the day, it was members of Canada’s Group of Seven who’d petitioned to preserve Killarney as a provincial park. The land’s white quartzite and pink granite cliffs, jack pine forests and sparkling lakes were memorialized in their artwork. After Mom and Dad died, I’d turned to hockey while Pat immersed himself in his music. But it was Killarney that saved Liam.
“Everyone thinks,” I said, “because we’re triplets we’re best friends. But we’re not. We were always too different.”
“Blonde Dawn,” David said, “says she’d heard about you guys long before she ever met Pat.”
“Oh. Sure. Those poor kids whose mom and dad got killed in a car crash.”
“No, it was more like those three brothers who grew up wild, who never quite fit in. You were all dark and athletic, and you had a rep. Nobody messed with the Garneau boys. You always had each other’s back.”
We did always have each other’s backs, despite our differences. “What do you mean ‘dark’?”
David shrugged and refilled my coffee cup. “Ask Blonde Dawn.”
The truth was, I already knew what Blonde Dawn meant.
“People,” I said, “think tragedy is romantic.”
“Tragedy,” David said, “is romantic.” He leaned over the stove seasoning the contents of his frying pans. “What if Thelma and Louise never drove off that cliff? What if Romeo and Juliet never offed themselves?” He threw me a knowing look. “What if Patroclus never died?”
I had no idea what he was talking about and it must’ve shown on my face.
“Look.” David turned off the stove. What if,” he said, “King Kong never got himself all shot up and swan dived off the Empire State Building.
Let’s say he was captured and taken back to Skull Island where he lived happily ever after. How would the story be then?”
I remembered watching the original black and white movie at the Starlite drive-in with Liam and Pat when we were just kids. I couldn’t believe how it ended. Our parents hadn’t warned us. Why hadn’t they warned us? I remembered bawling my eyes out afterwards. In that moment, I was inconsolable. Mom and Dad drove us to the Dairy Queen all the way out on the Kingsway just to make us feel better. It was the last movie we ever saw at the Starlite together. The drive-in closed the next year.
“That story,” David said, “wouldn’t be the same, would it? People love it when tragedy is thrown into the mix. That’s what makes for great romance.”
I thought of Bambi’s mom. I thought of Simba’s dad. I remembered being ushered out of our beds by Grandpa and gathered in the living room while uniformed officers waited outside. Mrs. Milton would watch over us while Mr. Milton and Grandpa went with the police. I didn’t understand what had happened. None of us did. It was true. That story wouldn’t have been the same at all.
“Pat,” I said, “would use it to pick up girls. Ever since we were teenagers, he’d ‘confide’ in them how our parents died, and then girls would want to sleep with him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because,” I said, “he told me. He used to practice in front of the mirror. I watched him do it once at a party, sitting on a couch looking all sad with all these girls draped over him, telling his fucking sob-story.”
“You were the angry one.”
“What?”
“Blonde Dawn said everyone thought of Pat as the happy one. Liam was the sad one. You were the angry one.”
“The angry one?” I was genuinely taken aback. “I was the only one who kept my head. I never ended up at the police station or the hospital psych ward.”
“You did your best.”
“You’re damn right I did my best. Why would people think I was the angry one?”
“Hey.” David piled his frying pans in the sink. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“From Blonde Dawn. Dawn Singer didn’t know us. She didn’t even go to our high school.” Bear banger, check. Emergency whistles, check.
“No, she went to a different school across town. But she’d still heard about the Garneau brothers.”
“Sudbury’s not that big. People talk. Why are we even talking about this?”
David set two plates on the table and sat down across from me. “Look, I just asked if you were going to have fun camping with Liam and Pat. We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”
I concentrated on scraping butter on my toast. I might not have been suicidal or on a first-name basis with the police, but I did manage to get myself kicked off my hockey team. I should’ve been team captain. Finally, I said: “I should talk about this though, shouldn’t I?”
“It’s up to you.”
“Maybe,” I said, “I was angry.”
“You had every right to be.”
“Sure.” Growing up with Pat and Liam had been an endless string of crises. It was putting out one small fire after another, sometimes literally. I was constantly vigilant, constantly in rescue mode. Grandpa already had his hands full taking care of Grandma.
“Daniel. Your family’s safe now. Everything’s okay. Pat and Liam are both doing good. You can relax and enjoy this trip. You deserve it.”
I stared at David. I had a million come-backs. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so badly my body ached. I felt like I’d spent my life hiking up a mountainside hauling my brothers after me and now I stood at the highest precipice, frost-bitten, breathless and dazzled, at the edge of the world. All I needed now was to take just one more step.
Maybe it was the truth, finally, after all these years. Pat still hadn’t paid me back the money I’d loaned him when he was stuck in New Mexico. I took a bite of toast, and dumped ketchup on my hash browns.
“Or,” David said, “suggest something else to them. No one’s forcing you to go on this trip.”
“I can’t cancel now. Pat’s picking me up tomorrow. Anyway, I want to go. We’re going camping. We agreed to this. Karen thinks it’s a great idea. She says it’ll give us a chance to reconnect.”
“Absolutely. Some long overdue brotherly bonding.”
“Right.”
David sipped from his coffee. “So are you gonna have a good time?”
“I am going to have,” I said, “a very good time.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I wanted to punch Pat in the face. “You did what?” I shouted, jumping up.
Pat scrambled to his feet, making sure to keep the campfire between us. “I put shrooms in the chili?”
“You’re saying that,” I said, “like it’s a question.”
He crouched and splayed his hands, Ta-daa! “I put shrooms in the chili.”
I pointed at Liam who was sitting cross-legged on a log still finishing his second helping. “He,” I said, “is on Zoloft. Did you ever think about that?”
Pat blinked. “I don’t think he minds.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Actually,” Liam said, licking his spork, “I’ve been off my meds since last fall.” He scraped at his empty bowl. “I thought something tasted funny.”
“It was just a little bit,” Pat said, “a couple caps. Maybe a few stems. You probably won’t even feel it at all. It’s all good. Right, Liam?”
Liam raised one eyebrow. “What’s done is done.”
A log crumbled, sending up a shower of orange sparks. Stars beyond the trees twinkled in the twilight sky. Pat was back on his feet, waiting for my next move. I actually considered sticking my finger down my throat, but what would be the point? So I could spend the rest of the evening watching my brothers get high while I sulked in my tent? A mosquito whined and I slapped the side of my head.
“Alright, look,” I said. “I am not the angry one.”
“What?”
“I just wish you hadn’t done that without telling me. If you’d told me you wanted all three of us to take shrooms, then, then I would’ve considered it.”
Pat made a face. “Really?”
“Well, we’ll never know now,” I said, “will we?”
“I guess not. So, does that mean you’re cool?”
“I am always cool. Just talk to me, alright? I’m cool.” To prove the point, I sat back down. “Hey, I can be a fun guy.” Pat’s face twitched. “I’m down with this. We’re good. We can do this.”
“So,” Pat said.
“So, what?”
“So, are you going to finish that?” He pointed at the half-empty bowl of chili I was still holding. “Cuz if you’re not, man, I’ll finish it.”
“No,” I said. “It’s my chili.”
Pat sat down. “Okay, sure thing. Just asking. Just didn’t want it to go to waste.”
“It’s not going to go to waste.”
“You’re the boss.”
“I am not the boss.”
“Okay, boss. If you say so.”
Later, after we’d washed all our dishes and strung up our food packs, Pat took out his ukulele and he and I sat on the edge of a rock ledge overlooking Lumsden Lake. The moon was out, huge and luminous, and the water shone like it was made of silver and glass.
“Gumusservi,” Pat said, whispering.
“What?”
“That’s the Turkish word for ‘moonlight-on-water’.”
“It’s making love,” I said, “to the shoreline.” Everything seemed so peaceful, radiant and in sharp, glittering focus. Details stood out as if in broad daylight.
Pat strummed his ukulele. “Slow passionate love.”
Through my cargo shorts, I could feel the warmth of the stone, charged with the energy of the sun. And now that energy was moving, flowing up into me through my butt and spine. It was
like that with all living things; with shorelines, with words, with sex, with the accretion of memories. It was like that with all the relationships in our lives. Everything was connected, everything in flux, vibrating. I pressed my palm against the rock.
“Can you feel that?” I asked.
Pat splayed his hand next to mine. He locked eyes with me and nodded.
Liam stepped up between us. His blackened toes flexed, gripping the stone flecked with starlight. Scars covered his shins and thick knees. His legs were like ancient tree trunks.
“Dude,” Pat said.
“You’re naked.”
Liam was stark naked, smoking a roach. A dense tangle of pubic hair framed his pendulous genitals. Like Pat and me, he was uncut. Unlike Pat and me, his belly button was an outie. Grandma on his wide chest smiled down at us. From this angle, Liam was a giant towering over the ragged pines, his stance the perfect Mountain Pose, his brow brushing the heavens. He took one last long hit, swallowed the roach and exhaled, an intractable but benevolent forest god. “Yippee ki-yay,” he said. He stepped back, his muscles tensed. Then he surged forward, leaping high into the air.
“Motherfucker,” Pat said.
When Liam hit the lake five metres below, the sound was symphonic.
Within seconds, Pat and I were both on our feet, stripping off our clothing as fast as we could. We left the overhang simultaneously. The air against the inside of my legs was electrifying.
Growing up, we must’ve jumped off this ledge a thousand times. Liam knew all 585 square kilometres of Killarney like the back of his hand. This particular campsite was hardly more than an hour’s hike from the parking lot, but it was the first campsite we’d gotten to know as kids.
After a few more jumps, we decided we’d swim out to the middle of the lake. It wasn’t far and only took a couple minutes. We gazed around us, treading water, breathing heavily, full of strength and awe. Night had fallen, and overhead the Milky Way blazed like crushed diamonds. I tasted the subtle odours of loam, stone and algae in the clear water. I was reminded how salmon could find their way home, after years travelling in the deep ocean, through geomagnetic and chemical cues at the mouths of their native rivers and streams.
Tales from the Bottom of My Sole Page 22
