Kicking the Sky

by Anthony De Sa

  “Antonio?” Manny called, the metal clang of the garage echoing.

  I didn’t answer right away. I listened to hear if he was alone or if James was with him. There was some rattling around, and then Manny was climbing the ladder. His hair was the first thing that appeared. A great big smile greeted me.

  “What are you doing up here?” Manny said.

  “You alone?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why aren’t you at school?”

  “I faked a sore gut and got sent home.”

  Manny climbed up to the top and sat at the lip of the loft entrance. He stuck the corner of his coat collar in his mouth and sucked, dangled and swung his legs into the garage below like a kid on a swing.

  “What’s up with you?” I asked him. I wasn’t used to Manny being happy.

  Manny’s legs kicked wildly. “They’ve sold their house.”

  “Who?”

  “Amilcar’s dad.” His grin was eating at his face as he climbed down the ladder.

  “Your brother’s going to freak.”

  “She’ll be far away in Portugal. She wasn’t his first and I’m sure he won’t be crying too much before he’s banging another one.”

  “You told me he had made plans. You said after they got married and got a place of their own you’d go over and hang out. You said—” I could tell I was spoiling Manny’s moment, so I stopped.

  “James said he’d leave me a couple of drop-off addresses around someplace. It’s a pigsty in here,” Manny said.

  I lay on my stomach and watched him scrounging through the piles of old rags and empty paint cans.

  “I guess we didn’t realize how much Ricky used to do around this place, keeping things tidy,” Manny said. “My mom says he’ll be happy back in São Miguel, back with his mom.”

  “You think that’s for real?”

  He found a cluster of brown paper bags, the kind we would fill with candy at Mr. Jay’s, and swiped them up in a fist. “What do you mean?”

  “You think they’re lying about Ricky?”

  “I don’t know. They kind of lie about everything.” Manny stuffed the paper bags in his pocket. “I gotta go.”

  “I miss Ricky,” I said. I wanted Manny to hear me, but when he didn’t respond, I shouted down, “Hey, I need to speak to James.”

  “What for?”

  “He needs to stay away from us.”

  Manny lifted the garage door. “Agnes was bad news. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Can’t help you. He told me he’d be here by early afternoon. Come to think of it, that was yesterday. Hell, doesn’t look like he’s been here for a couple of days.” Manny returned to the table and started shoving a note into his sock. “I almost forgot,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You’ve been stuck in the land of zees the last couple of days. I bet you don’t even know that I’ve been dropping off your homework. It was like you were drugged or something. It was a good time to be knocked out, though. Guys have been going around bashing homos.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “I’m going to check on Agnes.”

  “I just told you. Agnes is gone,” Manny said. He lit a cigarette and squinted his eye from the smoke. “Disappeared right after Ricky got shipped home.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  “Poof!” Smoke billowed from his mouth as he waved his fingers in the cloud like a magician.

  “Something’s not right,” I said under my breath, hoping the answer would click. I started to climb down the ladder. “Does James know?”

  “I thought you didn’t give a shit about James.”

  I pretended I didn’t hear him.

  “You need to crawl back to bed, buddy. You look like shit. I gotta go.” Manny gave me a quick wave before he snuck under the garage door and closed it behind him.

  Manny was right, even though it was his phone call that had dragged me out of bed: it was too soon for me to be wandering around the neighbourhood. I needed to build up some strength first.

  Two blasts from the horn and I recognized Eugene’s Trans Am. The car door slammed.

  “Manny, you in there?” I jumped back. “Open up!” I hoisted the garage door halfway, up to Eugene’s waist, before ducking underneath. “Antonio, hey. Have you seen my brother?” His eyes were all bugged out and red.

  “He’s at school, no?” I said, trying to sound surprised. I wanted to lean on his car, the energy draining from my body.

  “I just checked. He signed out, said he wasn’t feeling well.” Eugene kept looking over his shoulder, scanning the laneway as if he was expecting someone. Then Lygia came around the corner, running in her Cougar boots and shearling coat.

  “If you see him tell him I need to speak to him. It’s important,” Eugene said. He jumped back into the car and spun out. He skidded to a stop next to Lygia and almost clipped her on her side. She was crying. She fumbled with the handle and got in. The smell of rubber and the buzz of peeling tires was all that remained.

  Back in the garage I reached up to the shelf where James kept the crock filled with crumpled five-dollar bills. It was empty, except for a dead moth, powdery white, on its back, its legs pointing up. I tried to beat down the image of Baby Mary in my head. The guilt made the back of my ears ring. I needed to lie down.

  I banged my knee against Agnes’s cot. I didn’t think she had ever slept in it. I lay down. Not long, just an hour or so. I fought hard to keep my eyelids from closing. I tried to imagine where Agnes could be hiding—if she was hiding at all or had she taken off. Could she have left with James? I imagined James coming in, the way he always did, strong and handsome. He would ask Agnes for forgiveness. But he wouldn’t mean it. It felt like someone was pulling a blanket over me. Ricky was in a better place. James could argue it was part of his plan all along. He’d set Agnes up in a nice apartment somewhere close by, trying to get back on track. Manny would be fine, he always was. Confession. I would tell my mother I had stepped out of the house to go to confession.

  “James!” I breathed out. The air was hazy. He sat next to me on the cot. I reached up to touch his sleeve, make sure he was really there and not just a mirage bubbling up from my tired brain. James winced. His lower lip was split open and swollen. I could tell he was having a hard time holding up his head and keeping his eyes open. His head hovered over my face, bobbing like a drunk’s. He tried to say something but it just came out as gurgling noise.

  “Antonio,” he whispered. He rested his face on my shoulder and breathed in deep. His hot breath smelled of booze. “You came back.” His words swam in my head like little fishes. I smelled his dirty hair when he curled himself into me. He was warm. His arm moved over me and he drew me closer to him. My mouth went gummy. “Hey, little man,” he mumbled, opening up his one eye and looking at me as if for the first time. “I knew you’d be back.”

  “Antonio!” I could hear the faint call from behind the garage door. At first I thought it was my mother. My fingers inched their way along the sheets until they touched James’s arm. I sat up on the cot. The garage door raised and Edite took shape through the veil of snow. “Antonio, we’ve been worried sick!” I blinked my eyes. I looked down at my lap, too embarrassed to face Edite.

  “What time is it?” I could tell it was dark out. They’d all be looking for me.

  “You stay the fuck away from him, you hear me!” Edite’s face trembled.

  James stirred.

  “You okay?” she asked, all the while looking at James beside me. She gripped my arm and yanked me away, not enough to get me on my feet. The pillow was blotting the blood from James’s lip. I forced a smile, tried to show her that nothing had happened, nothing was wrong, that I was the same guy I was the last time I saw her.

  “Nothing happened,” I said.

  “Did he touch you?” Her voice shook. James began to rouse from his sleep. “
Did he do anything?” she said through her clenched teeth. Edite grabbed hold of my shoulders. “Tell me!”

  “No!” I said. Edite tried to hug me. I shook her off and swung my legs to the side of the cot. I got up and thought I would fall back again.

  “Go home, Antonio.”

  I staggered to the garage door.

  “Go home now!” she yelled.

  — 3 —

  THREE DAYS LATER I went over to Edite’s. The ceramic tea animals she had been collecting no longer lined her windowsill in their neat rows. Edite’s mountains of books had been placed in boxes that were piled up into a high wobbly tower in the kitchen corner. A few books remained, pushed up against the kitchen wall in neat smaller towers.

  “Where are you going?”

  She answered from her bedroom. “Nowhere.”

  The paper was on the seat of a chair, neatly folded open to the Jaques trial. According to the story, Gary Keith, a waiter at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant at Yonge and Dundas Streets, said Saul Betesh came in with a boy that day. The boy was between eleven and thirteen, he thought. He was very polite. He said, “Yes, sir.” He ordered a dinner from the children’s menu but Betesh just had a dessert.

  We had to kill him, Saul Betesh allegedly told a police officer. We knew we couldn’t let him go. We knew that all along … no, that’s not right. We never intended to kill him. We had to. Valdemira, Emanuel’s seventeen-year-old sister, who had been appointed by the family to attend the trial, was escorted out of the courtroom. The newspaper described her as “ashen,” which I thought could only mean white and grey, like ashes. Betesh was described as blond, long-lashed, and expressionless. But I didn’t need the paper to describe him to me. His face was etched into my brain. All their faces were. Emanuel wasn’t the first kid they had done this stuff to, either. There had been others that had gotten away or that they had let go. Why had things gotten out of control with Emanuel? Why him? I caught myself asking the questions out loud.

  “What?” Edite stumbled into the kitchen. It looked like she had cut her own hair with scissors. Her short bangs were uneven and it made her look like she was tilted.

  “Do you know where Agnes went?” I asked.

  “Agnes is in the garage with James. Poor thing hasn’t been the same since she lost that baby.” She sat down in a kitchen chair.

  “She didn’t leave?” Edite shook her head. So why did Manny say she was gone?

  Edite shrugged. She lifted her foot and her toes clutched at the table’s rim. A bottle of red nail polish appeared from her robe pocket. She unscrewed the bottle, then began to paint her toes. The baby toe looked like a pomegranate seed. The smell of nail polish wafted up my nose.

  “He’ll be gone soon,” she said.

  “Where’s he going?”

  “Far away.”

  “Is Agnes going with him?”

  “Probably. She’s got nothing left here.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t decide if I was more happy that James was leaving or more jealous that he was taking Agnes with him.

  “That’s it? Do you want to know how James is doing? You can ask, you know.”

  “You freaked out when you saw me there. I don’t get it. You told me I could trust him.”

  “I know. I was frightened and worried and I wasn’t sure.” Edite fisted her temples. “James will be fine. I got him all wrapped up in bandages. There isn’t much you can do for broken ribs. I heated up some Campbell’s beef barley, not the homemade stuff he says you guys feed him.” Edite lifted her other foot and continued to work on her toes. Her hands were shaking. “He told me not to come back. Said he didn’t want any of you around, either. He said he’d manage.” She sipped from her cup. “Antonio, sit down for a sec.” She patted the kitchen chair next to her.

  “I’ve got things to do.”

  “Okay, I’ll just come right out and say it, then. I need you to know it’s okay to have feelings for James.”

  My head flushed hot. “What did he tell you? He doesn’t know shit!”

  “It’s normal. I know it’s probably confusing and it’s hard to hold on to a secret, but—”

  “Stop!” I turned to face the kitchen window. “Nothing happened!” My voice was hoarse.

  “You can’t choose who you love, Antonio.” Edite got up from her chair.

  “Leave me alone!” I said as she got close. She had lied about so much. I could see her reflection in her kitchen window, her face floating above the snow-covered rooftops. She looked much smaller to me. She reached for her pack of cigarettes and tapped out a smoke.

  “You can talk to me about anything,” Edite said. She lit the cigarette and blew smoke up to the ceiling.

  “You want to talk? Let’s talk about Johnny. He’s dead, isn’t he?” I turned around. My words had punched Edite in the face, the way I wanted them to. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie?”

  Edite staggered to the kitchen counter. She leaned in to face the backsplash of rooster tiles.

  “You talk about secrets and I’ve got some of my own, you know. Stuff you didn’t know was going on. Like Ricky and the things he did. James pimped him out. He sent him over to Red’s and … and that’s how Ricky got hurt. Red raped him. I don’t know what story James told you but—”

  “Stop!” she said, frozen. I waited for her to say something more. I wanted her to say she didn’t know, that she was sorry, or that she didn’t think things would get so crazy, just something to make me feel like everything was a big mistake. But she said nothing. Edite brushed up against the fridge on her way into the hallway. I heard her bedroom door close. I couldn’t take it back and I didn’t want to. I needed to hear it for myself—that James was taking off. I needed to be sure.

  I stepped outside, onto Edite’s fire escape, and breathed out. The vapour was misty white. I ran down, my boots ringing on the metal steps.

  The heat in James’s garage had made the window sweat. I expected the garage to be empty. Instead, James lay in the same cot I had fallen asleep in a few days before. He must have heard me close the door because he raised his arm and motioned for me to come close. I sat on the edge of the cot and he rolled toward me. The skin around his eye was dirty green and grey. His front tooth was missing and his busted lip had a black line of dried blood through it. If he smiled I was certain it would crack open.

  “Does Edite know you’re here?” he lisped. His eyes got watery and his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “A bunch of guys thought they’d have a bit of fun bashing the shit out of me.”

  “Looks like they had a blast.”

  I turned away from him and caught Agnes’s bare feet on the rungs. She looked skinnier than I’d ever seen her, and her eyes bulged out a bit. She wore jeans underneath a spring dress, topped everything off with a sweater.

  “Agnes sleeps in the trunk,” he said, and smiled. He clutched his chest. It must have hurt for him to laugh. “She lies in there and writes notes,” he whispered. “I hear the scratching.”

  The blue trunk stood where it always had. It was open and its lid was leaning against the garage wall. I could see the hemmed frill of the baby blanket peeking above the rim.

  “She’s good to me. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” James fought with his throat to release more words jammed there. “Come with us,” he whispered.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Why’d you come, then?”

  “I came to make sure you’re really leaving.”

  “You should go now, Antonio. You shouldn’t be here,” Agnes said. She brushed past me. The effect she used to have on me each time she touched me—the ripples running through me, the tingling—had gone.

  I had come in from the cold, my cheeks feeling like pin cushions. Senhor Daniel stood in our front hallway. His hair was like Manny’s but cut shorter, parted and combed down with grease.

  “Antonio, wher
e is Manelinho? He no come home last night.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. My father’s gentle tap on my shoulder urged me to go on. “But I’ll go look for him.”

  My father said some encouraging words, the kind fathers share between each other. Eugene and Lygia had taken off and now Manny was missing. My father patted Senhor Daniel’s back, led him toward the kitchen for a shot of something strong.

  If my mother had been home, she would never have allowed me to go off on my own to look for Manny. I walked through all the laneways until finally, almost home and ready to give up, I saw Manny in the Patch, his hair sticking up behind a refrigerator door and an old box spring topped with a blue tarpaulin. When I peeked inside his little house, I felt my whole body relax. I sat down beside him.

  “Your dad’s looking for you,” I said. “I’ve been looking for you. Your brother—”

  He crawled over me and burst out into the Patch. The cardboard roof came flying off.

  “You ever see a plane kick into the sky?” Manny said. His voice sounded funny. “It’s like pumping a swing so high before you jump off, or like chasing across rooftops.”

  “You okay?”

  Manny booted at the mounds of flattened yellow grass that poked through the snow. His running shoes were soaked. His twitching fingers managed to light a cigarette. He put it in his mouth and the smoke curled up around his Afro.

  “Manny?” I said. He didn’t look up. “It’s time to go home.” I followed him around the Patch, kicking at the nubs of grass.

  “I wanna race,” Manny said. “One last time,” still not looking at me.

  “It’s winter, Manny, we can’t.”

  Manny didn’t care. He took off up the laneway. I went after him.

  We neared the top of the lane, where Adam’s garage had once stood. Manny tore through the yellow tape and scrambled into the shell of it. The charred pieces of wood broke through the snow like the ribs of some prehistoric animal half buried in snow. Manny stood in the middle of it and looked back at me. He snorted back his snot. “Race you!” Before I could say anything he had climbed up the downspout of a neighbouring garage and steadied himself on the rooftop. He bounced on his heels, daring me to get up on the opposite row of rooftops to race.