1979

by Ray Robertson

  It was a supposed-to-be-scary scene in the movie—the skulking monster could see the smooching couple parked in the moonlit convertible but they couldn’t see it—so it was quiet and I heard Julie and Angie come up the stairs.

  “You mean you’ve never heard the expression ‘Laughing at children’?” Angie asked.

  “I think that’s ‘The laughter of children,’ Julie said. “‘Everyone loves the laughter of children.’”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Wow. That’s not how I remember it.”

  Julie stuck her head into the living room. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  “Dad burning the midnight oil with William?”

  William was our nickname for the new building because it was on William Street.

  “I guess so. He left here with two new paint brushes, anyway.”

  Angie walked into the middle of the room and stood there, looked at the TV with her arms hanging at her sides. Both of them still had their coats on. Angie wasn’t wearing a hat and her long hair—red this week—was still specked with melting snow flakes.

  “What’s this?” she said.

  “The Hoofing,” I said.

  We all watched the monster creep closer to the unsuspecting couple.

  “Is it going to attack them?” Angie said.

  I knew better than to answer. Obviously she was setting me up.

  “Is it going to hoof them?” she said.

  Is it going to hoof them? I looked at Julie. She just rolled her eyes. Maybe she’s drunk, I thought—they had been at a high-school dance. But drunk people slurred and stumbled and shouted, and Angie wasn’t doing any of those things.

  “C’mon, Ang,” Julie said. “Let’s make grilled cheese.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, holding up a single finger. “I want to see how this turns out.”

  We all watched the monster—obviously a tall thin man in a crappy-looking lizard costume—wave his arms in the air and make a lot of groaning sounds and chase the couple into the woods. Then The Ghoul came on with a bag of apples in one hand and a bunch of firecrackers in the other. “Hiya, gang. Hiya, hiya, hiya.”

  “Ang, c’mon,” Julie said.

  Eyes still stuck on the TV, finger in the air again, “Hold on,” Angie said. “Who’s this guy? Is he with the hoofer?”

  Obviously, she was either making fun of me or the cold had frozen her brain and it hadn’t defrosted yet. Either way, I didn’t want to risk saying anything. Julie stepped into the room and touched Angie’s arm—barely enough for her to feel it, but enough that she’d know she was there.

  “Let’s make grilled cheese, Ang,” she said.

  Lifting her finger and pointing at the television, “He’s going to light those firecrackers.”

  “He blows up stuff all the time,” I said.

  “He blows things up? He blows things up all the time?” Angie put her face in her hands and slowly shook her head back and forth, softly moaning like the monster in the movie. The snow in her hair had all melted now; it looked like her hair was crying.

  “It’s just The Ghoul,” I said.

  Angie removed her hands from her face and stared at me; looked like I’d just told her that the hoofer was in the other room.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Julie said and snapped off the TV. The picture faded to a single silver point then disappeared. This time she put her arm around Angie’s shoulder and gently but firmly guided her out of the room. “I’m taking Angie home,” Julie said. “Before Dad gets back.”

  I was going to say something like Bundle up, but that would have sounded lame, like something Mom would have said to us when we were kids. “Okay,” I said, waiting until I heard the door slam downstairs before turning the TV back on. The Ghoul’s set was littered with blown-up apples, but he was yelling at Froggy for making such a mess, so I knew there’d be at least one more explosion later. And I still had half a bag of barbeque chips left and the Hoofer was still on the loose.

  Dale got another girlfriend so I had no choice but to try and kiss Allison. Joanne Scott was nothing special—average everything with the added irritation of laughing at anything anybody said that she thought was supposed to be funny, whether it actually was or not—but Dale had dropped me for a girl again. We weren’t the same friends we’d been before he’d started going out with Sarah, but since they’d broken up he was at least someone to go to the movies with, stand around with at recess, make fun of the teachers with. Now he and Joanne ate lunch by themselves, held hands at recess, passed notes back and forth during class. It wasn’t like I really wanted to do any of those things—not with Allison or with anybody else—but no one wants to get left behind like Charlie Willard, who had to repeat grade seven.

  Most of the time, I only saw Allison at school. But because we both lived downtown, sometimes we’d run into each other and I knew that because of basketball practice she took the city bus home on Tuesday and Thursday nights, the last bus of the night pulling into the terminal not too long after I wrapped up my paper route. It was cold and already getting dark even though it was just a little after six p.m. I’d timed it perfectly; my surprise at seeing Allison just as she was leaving the station was convincing.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  I’d rehearsed what I was going to say, but the words stayed stuck in my mouth. Allison noticed the empty newspaper bag sagging from my shoulder.

  “I thought you finished up your route over by CCI,” she said.

  I’d prepared for this. “I’ve got a bunch of new customers over near the Fifth Street Bridge. They’re not supposed to be on my route, but what the hell are you going to do about it?” I’d thought the inclusion of hell was a nice touch, would add an element of pissed-off authenticity.

  “Okay, well, see you,” Allison said. She flipped her Adidas bag over her shoulder and walked away.

  “Hey, I forgot,” I said. “I’ve got the key to our new building. My Dad wants me to check something we’ve been working on. Want to come with me?”

  I had the key because I knew Dad wouldn’t notice—business had gotten so slow, he’d taken to keeping William Street Tattoos open until eight p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays—and the closest I’d come to helping him was being there when he’d bought the sandpaper and mop and polyurethane.

  “Now?” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s dinner time. My parents will freak out if I’m late.”

  I swung my paper bag from one shoulder to the other; looked down at the ground as I spoke: “Right—family dinner. Since Dad started putting in extra time at the shop we haven’t had too many of those.” I kicked a piece of ice skidding down the sidewalk. The final bus had come and gone; the depot was empty.

  “Where is it again?” she said.

  “It’s on the way to your house. It’s near the Granite Club, right across the street from Tecumseh Park.”

  “Right, you told me. I guess I do go right past there on my way home.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Just for a minute though, I’ve got to get home for supper.”

  “Yeah, just for a minute.”

  On our way over I learned that Sarah was also going out with someone new, resulting in Allison being dropped again too. “It’s gross,” Allison said. “They’re not even in high school yet and they both think they’re such hot shit.”

  Allison rarely swore, so I knew she was upset. Allison was rarely upset, so I knew Sarah dumping her was a big deal—bigger than Dale blowing me off to be with Joanne.

  “Just wait until next year,” I said. “There’ll be more people—better people—to hang out with.” I knew she was going to CCI too.

  “I wasn’t talking about new people
. I was talking about Sarah.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Is that your building?” she said.

  It was, and there we were, but as I pulled the key from my pocket I wished I’d given it a test drive. I hoped it would fit in the lock and the handle turned on the first try. It did, and we were inside and part one of my plan was complete. I remembered where one of the first-floor light switches was and flicked it on, revealing a large empty room with particle-board walls and shiny, freshly polyurethaned floors and an empty bucket and mop. Also, thankfully, Dad’s portable eight-track player, obviously left over from his last floor-restoration session. I’d never had a girlfriend, but I’d watched enough movies to know that seduction usually included music.

  “I guess this’ll be your Dad’s new shop,” Allison said.

  “Yeah. And we’re going to live upstairs.”

  “Just like you do now.”

  “No. Right now we rent. When we’re living upstairs here it’ll be our house. And there’s a backyard. That’ll be ours too.”

  “Neat,” Allison said. “What are you supposed to be checking? I should get going.”

  “Just a sec,” I said, pushing the eight-track into the player, “Bad Moon Rising” in mid-song jumping out of the tiny, single speaker. I wished it was something a little more… make-out friendly, but I was glad it was Creedence. It was Dad’s favourite tape, and I liked them and Julie liked them and even Angie, who ordinarily didn’t approve of any music not made by somebody with a safety pin stuck through some part of their body, liked them. Creedence Clearwater Revival was like french fries: anybody who didn’t like them was either lying or a jerk.

  “Want to see where my room’s going to be?” I said.

  “Is that where the thing you’ve got to check on is?”

  “Yeah.” Lying was like anything else: the more you did it, the easier it was.

  “Okay, but let’s make it quick.”

  “We’ll be quick, don’t worry.” If everything went according to plan, we would be quick: hand on her hip, my lips to her lips, and a kissing virgin no more. And Dad had said we could order a pizza from Mike’s tonight, extra-large with whatever toppings we wanted. I led Allison up the dark stairs to the second floor and what was going to be my bedroom.

  “What are you doing? What’s the matter with you?”

  I rubbed my shoulder where Allison pushed me; pushed me with the palm of her hand hard enough that I stumbled backward. I found her first question easier to answer. “Kiss you,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just so…”

  “Just so what?”

  “Just so… so I could say I’d done it.”

  Allison squinted at me and slowly shook her head like I’d seen her do only once before, when one of her teammates had passed the basketball to a player on the opposite team.

  “You know we’re not friends like that,” she said.

  “I know…”

  “And it’s not fair to make me have to hit you.”

  I came for a first kiss, I ended up hearing myself say that I was sorry I’d forced someone to hit me.

  “Let’s just go,” Allison said.

  “Okay.”

  “And Tom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you dare tell anyone what happened.”

  I wanted to say, Nothing happened, but, “Okay,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “And don’t ever mention this to Sarah.”

  “Why would I tell Sarah?” I said.

  “Just don’t.”

  “I already said. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Good.”

  “All right.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “Okay.”

  I didn’t tell anyone, and not just because Allison made me promise not to. Who goes around bragging about how a girl wouldn’t kiss him? Not that it mattered much, though, because Allison had told Sarah, who of course told Dale, because they were talking again, and who wasn’t ready to let my shameful present turn into my barely remembered past quite yet. Of course he wasn’t.

  “Was it like you actually kind of kissed and then she stopped you, or did she see it coming and shoot you down before you could even do it?”

  Since he already knew more or less what happened, I told the only lie I thought I could get away with that would make me look slightly less like a loser than I actually was. “We kissed,” I said. “She just freaked out. I just don’t think she’s ready for a boyfriend yet.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  I was delivering Tuesday’s newspaper and Dale was along for the walk. Sometimes he’d say how being a paperboy was easy, how he didn’t understand why I complained sometimes, but he could stop and go home any time he wanted, he didn’t have to deliver every last newspaper even if it was raining or snowing or boiling hot or you had a bad head cold or sometimes just didn’t feel like it. It was easy to have an opinion about something if you didn’t know anything about it.

  “Believe me,” I said, “if she wanted a boyfriend, it would probably be me. We’re pretty good friends, actually. I’m just saying.” I felt better because at least the friendship part was true.

  “Man, you don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “You really, really don’t know.” No one had ever looked happier about someone else not understanding what they were saying.

  “Whatever,” I said. Most houses, I could toss the paper onto the porch or front step without leaving the sidewalk, but Dr. McKay’s had a screened-in front porch like a fancy cottage so I put the newspaper in the mailbox. Dr. McKay was our family doctor and he was all right, but he’d delivered me fourteen years before, so I always felt funny about shaking his hand, his hands the hands that pulled me into the world. We started down the street toward the next house on my route and Dale looked left, looked right, looked like he was worried we were being followed.

  “She’s a dyke,” he said.

  “I told you, I don’t care.” I tossed another newspaper onto another porch. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know: lez be friends, lez go homo.”

  “Homo? You mean, like…”

  “I mean like she’s a homo—you know, a homo. She likes girls.”

  “Girls?”

  “Girls.”

  I tossed another paper. “It’s not true,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah? Why isn’t it true?”

  “Because it isn’t.”

  “Are you a girl?”

  “No, but she was my friend. She is my friend. I’d know.”

  “You think she’d tell you?”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “Wrong. She doesn’t want anybody to find out. Would you?”

  I didn’t have to, but I walked the paper to the next mailbox, lifted the lid and dropped it in; took my time doing it. We started walking again.

  “Anyway,” he said, “you can believe me or not, but I know. Sarah told me.”

  “If Allison doesn’t want anyone to know, why would she tell Sarah then?”

  Dale swivelled his head to make sure it was safe to talk. “Because that’s who she likes. Sarah is the one she wants to kiss her.”

  There were only a few more houses to go before my bag would be empty and I could go home.

  “Don’t say anything to anybody though, okay?” Dale said. “Sarah told Allison she didn’t feel that way, but they’re still friends. Promise me you won’t say anything, okay? Sarah would kill me if she found out I’d told you.”

  I tossed a newspaper that didn’t make it to the porch. I walked across the frozen grass and picked it up and placed it on the cement step.

  “Promise me, Tom.”

  �
�Okay.”

  “No, I want to hear you promise me. I’m serious, Sarah will kill me.”

  “Dale?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Long-Serving Physician Masters Human Anatomy, Struggles With Human Nature

  “It’s Bones and Guts and a Pump and, Maybe, Something Else”

  FEET. JUST THE number of feet alone he’d looked at in his life. Fractures, sprains, foot fungus, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, stone bruises, Metatarsalgia, Morton’s Neuroma, Sesamoiditis, hammer toe, claw toe, ingrown toenails, turf toe, bunions, corns, calluses, tendonitis. And then the phantom pains, the I-can’t-really-explain-it-but-it’s-there twinges and aches, the no-less-sincere if entirely physiologically baseless complaints of the hypochondriac or the just plain lonely (a doctor’s touch, after all, is still human contact). Start there and work your way up, from calf-muscle tears to quad strains to hernias to ulcers to bronchitis to throat nodes to sinus infections and you’ve seen it all—he’d seen it all—acres of broken human bones, miles of infected organs, gallons of polluted blood. Thirty-three years a doctor, and an old man’s bushy ear is a middle-aged woman’s vagina is just another piece of meat with hair on it. And people wondered why he wasn’t very good with names. He healed bodies, not people.

  And sometimes he didn’t do that. Inoperable. Terminal. Untreatable. Incurable. Irremediable. Buddy, you’re SOL. And surprising how few people actually break down in the office when they hear the final, fatal verdict; don’t wail in agony or spit and scream in anger or demand a different answer, this can’t be happening, there has to have been a mistake. The shock, certainly, but habit probably played a part, too—don’t make a scene, don’t embarrass yourself or others, don’t parade your emotions in public. Sometimes he even detected a whiff of shame, the embarrassment of the dying exposed before the living. And how often had he been thanked? “Thank you,” they’d almost invariably say upon leaving. He tried to remember to not answer back, “You’re welcome.”

  Only once had he been the stunned one. The Buzby boy, the one who’d disappeared down the sewer hole and was given up for dead but who came back and now delivered his Chatham Daily News: that one had made him… think. He knew the boy—knew the entire family, had been their GP since the mother was pregnant with the older sister—but that had never made any difference before; he’d watched other longtime patients die, not to mention more than one friend and even members of his own family. But that was the thing, that was the very thing: the boy didn’t die. The boy was supposed to die—everyone said so—but he didn’t. He didn’t know all the facts, only what he’d read in the newspaper and heard on the radio, but the boy was given up for dead, that much he knew. The sun came up today, the sun came up yesterday, the sun came up the day before that and the day before that, and of course it was going to come up tomorrow—his entire professional career, his whole philosophy of doctoring, was based on the knowledge that things happened because they had to happen. He couldn’t do his job—couldn’t do it as well as he did it, anyway—believing that maybe or possibly or if or perhaps were words one could live by. Bones and organs and blood and here’s how they work and this is why they don’t anymore and I’m very sorry, Mrs. X, please see the receptionist on your way out about making your next appointment.