Rust and Bone

by Craig Davidson

  Passing beneath a patch of perfectly clear, glasslike ice, I caught his face through the scalloped sheet. Lips and nostrils robin’s egg blue, the rest a creamy shade of gray. Cheek flattened to the ice, the buoyancy of flesh pushing him up. Eyes so blue, luminously blue, pearlescent air bubbles clinging to the dark lashes. A sinuous white flash below, silky curve of a trout’s belly.

  My right hand was badly broken: knuckles split and flesh peeled to the wrist, a lot of blood, some bones. I slammed my left hand down. The ice fractured in a radiating spiderweb. Water shot up through the fissures. My hand shattered like a china plate. Didn’t feel a thing at the time. Jake stopped clawing, stopped thumping. His eyes open but rolled to the whites beneath the fine network of cracks. I hammered my left hand down once more, breaking into the icy shock of the lake. I snagged his hood but the hole was too small so I clawed with my free hand, breaking off chunks, razored edges gashing my fingers to the bone.

  Finally the hole was wide enough for me to pull him through. A long swipe of mud on Jake’s forehead, hair stuck up in rapidly freezing corkscrews. His nose broken and me who’d done it, smashing ice into his face. I gathered him in my arms and stumbled uphill to the house. “Please,” I remember saying, over and over, a breathy whisper. “Please.”

  Ernie Munger, a flyweight mending a broken rib, had spent a few summers as a lifeguard. He administered CPR while the cook rang for help. Munger’s thick hands pumped the brackish water from Jake’s lungs, pumped life back into him. Jake was breathing by the time the paramedics arrived. They snaked a rubber tube down his throat. Afterwards I stood by a large bay window overlooking the lake. The hole, the size of a dime from that distant vantage, was freezing over in the evening chill; tiny red pinpricks represented my bloody hand prints on the ice. The splintered bones pulsed: I’d broken forty-five of fifty-four.

  I push off the floor and lean against a sawhorse, waiting for the teeth to align and the gears to mesh again. Nicodemus circles somewhere to the left, dancing side to side, weaving through blue shafts of shadow like animate liquid. Some bastard kicks me in the spine, “Get up and fight, you pitiful son of a bitch.” Standing, I wonder how long was I down. Eight seconds? No ref, so nobody’s counting. A pair of hands clutch my shoulders, shoving, the same voice saying, “Get out there, chickenshit.” I strike back with an elbow, impacting something fleshy and forgiving. A muted crack. Those hands fall away.

  Nicodemus advances and hits me in the face. He grabs a handful of hair and bends me over the sawhorse, pummeling with his lead hand. The skin above my eyes comes apart, soft meat tearing away from the deeply seamed scar tissue. Blood sprays in a fine mist. I blink away red and smack him in the kidneys. He pulls back, nursing his side. Knuckling the blood out of my eyes, I move in throwing jabs. Nicodemus’s skull is oddly planed, a tank turret, deflecting my punches. His fists are bunched in front of his mouth, arms spread in an invert funnel leading to the point of his chin: a perfect opening, but not yet. Reaching blindly, he entangles my arms, pulling me to his chest. He rubs his hand wraps across my eyes and I wince at the turpentine sting. I snap an uppercut, thumping him under the heart.

  The hospital room walls were glossy tile, windows inlaid with wire mesh. Jake lay in an elevated hospital bed, shirtless, chest stuck with EKG discs. Outside a heavy mist fell, making a nimbus around the moon and stars. Teddy’d visited the emergency ward earlier, taking one look at my hands and saying I’d never box again. I was on Dilaudid for pain, Haldol for hysteria. My mind was stark and bewildered. A machine helped Jake breathe. His father sat beside the bed, gripping his hand.

  “Is he—will he be all right?”

  “He’s alive, Ed.”

  Steve’d never called me that before. Always Eddie.

  “Is he … will he wake up soon?”

  “Nobody can say. There was … damage. Parts shutting down. I don’t know, exactly.”

  “We were … holding hands. He broke away. He’d never done that before. It was so strange. We were holding hands, then he didn’t want to do that anymore. It’s only human. I let him go. It was okay. I thought, He’s growing up, and that’s okay.”

  Steve smoothed the white sheets over Jake’s legs. “The golden hour. It’s … a period of time. Three minutes, three-and-a-half. The amount of time the brain can survive without oxygen. Only a few minutes, but the doctor called it the golden hour. So … stupid.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Steve didn’t look at me. His hands smoothed the sheets.

  I stalk Nicodemus, keeping left, outside his range. His eyes shot with streaks of red, their wavering gaze fixated on the darkness beyond me. I stab forward, placing weight on my lead foot and twisting sharply at the hip, left hand rising towards the point of his chin.

  When I was a kid, a rancher with a lizard problem paid a dime for every one I killed. I stuffed geckos in a sack and smashed the squirming burlap with a rock.

  When my fist hits Nicodemus it sounds an awful lot like those geckos.

  The punch forces his jawbone into his neck, spiking a big bundle of nerves. My hand shatters on impact, bones breaking down their old fault lines. Nicodemus’s eyes flutter uncontrollably as he falls backward. He falls in defiance of gravity, body hanging on a horizontal plane, arms at his sides, palms upraised. There’s a strange look on his face. Not a smile, not exactly, but close. A peaceful expression.

  Jake’s twenty years old now. Comatose fifteen years. Were it not for a certain slackness of features he’d be a handsome young man. He grows a wispy beard, which his mother shaves with an electric razor. I’ve visited a few times over the years. I sat beside the bed holding his hand, so much larger than the one I held all those years ago. He smiled at the sound of my voice and laughed at one of our shared jokes. Maybe just nerves and old memories. Every penny I make goes to him. Gail and Steve take it because they can use it, and because they know I need to give it.

  There are other ways. I know that. You think I don’t know that?

  This is the only way that feels right.

  Nicodemus rises to one knee. He looks like something risen from its crypt, shattered jaw hanging lopsidedly, bloodshot eyes albino-red. Pain sings in my broken hand and I vaguely remember a song my mother used to sing when I was very young, sitting on her lap as she rocked me to sleep, beautiful foreign words sung softly into my hair.

  He makes his way across the ring and I dutifully step forward to meet him. We stand facing each other, swaying slightly. My eyes swelled to slits and he moves in a womb of mellow amber light.

  And I see this:

  A pair of young-old eyes opening, the clear blue of them. A hand breaking up from sucking black water, fist smashed through the ice sheet and a body dragging itself to the surface. A boy lying on the ice in the ashy evening light, lungs drawing clean winter air, eyes oriented on a sky where even the palest stars burn intensely after such lasting darkness. I see a man walking across the lake from the west, body casting a lean shadow. He offers his hand: twisted and rheumatoid, a talon. The boy’s face smooth and unlined, preserved beneath the ice; the man’s face a roadmap of knots and scar tissue and poorly knitted bones. For a long moment, the boy does not move. Then he reaches up, takes that hand. The man clasps tightly; the boy gasps at the fierceness of his grip. I see them walking towards a distant house. Squares of light burning in odd windows, a crackling fire, blankets, hot chocolate. The man leans down and whispers something. The boy laughs— a beautiful, snorting laugh, fine droplets of water spraying from his nose. They walk together. Neither leads or follows. I see this happening. I still hold a belief in this possibility.

  We circle in a dimming ring of light, feet spread, fists balled, knees flexed. The crowd recedes, as do the noises they are making. The only sound is a distant subterranean pound, the beat of a giant’s heart. Shivering silver mist falls through the holes in the roof and that coldness feels good on my skin.

  Nicodemus steps forward on his lead foot, left hand sweeping in a tight dow
nwards orbit, flecks of blood flying off his brow as his head snaps with the punch. I come forward on my right foot, stepping inside his lead and angling my head away from his fist but not fast enough, tensing for it while my right hand splits his guard, barely passing through the narrowing gap and I’m torquing my shoulder, throwing everything I’ve got into it, kitchen-sinking the bastard, and, for a brilliant split second in the center of that darkening ring, we meet.

  THE RIFLEMAN

  LET ME TELL YOU, the pure shooter’s a dying breed. We’re talking pretty much extinct: think snow leopard, Komodo dragon, manatee. The dunk shot more or less killed the pure shooter: nowadays everyone wants to be a rim-rocker, shatter the backboard to make the nightly highlight reel. You got kids with pogo-stick legs leaping clear out the gym but these same kids cannot hit a jumpshot to save their life. Blame Dominique Wilkens, Michael Jordan, Dr. J. A few shooters still haunt the league, scrawny white riflemen hefting daggers from beyond the three-point arc; most Euros have a deft touch, skills honed in some backwater -vakia or -garia with no ESPN on the dial. A damn shame, because few things in life are as sweet as the sound a basketball makes passing through an iron hoop: we’re talking dead through the heart of the net, no rim, no glass. Called a swish, that sound, but truly it exists somewhere beyond human description—if heaven has a soundtrack, man, that is it.

  My son’s going to change all that. Jason’ll make it cool to be a pure shooter again; once he’s chewing up the NBA you’ll see kids practicing spot-up j’s instead of windmill dunks. I take credit for that silkysmooth jumper of his: feet set in a wide stance, knees bent and elbows cocked at eye level, smooth follow-through with the wrist. We drilled for hours on the driveway net until the mechanics imprinted themselves at a cellular level. Read in the newspaper he went off for thirty-seven against Laura Secord High; those numbers’ll attract scouts from Div I programs, believe-you-me. Jason’s a Prime Time Player—a PTP’er, Dick Vitale would say, ole Dicky V with his zany catchphrases and kisser like a pickled testicle. My boy can tickle the twine for two, baby!

  The Mikado’s the only bar open on Saturday mornings. The TRW skeleton crew usually heads down after the shift whistle blows to knock the foam off a few barley pops. While I’m not technically employed there anymore I still like to hit the Mik for a Saturday morning pick-me-up, shake off the cobwebs and start the weekend on a cheery note. This particular Saturday it’s about noon when they kick me out. I say “they” though in truth there’s but a single bartender, a joyless moonfaced hag named Lola. I say “kicked out” but in point of fact I’d run dry and Lola isn’t known to serve on the house. Once you reach a critical impasse like that, you’d best pack up shop.

  The day bright and warm in a courtyard hemmed by the office buildings of downtown St. Catharines, the squat trollish skyline aspiring to mediocrity and falling well short. A warm June breeze pushes greasy fast food wrappers and pigeon feathers over the cracked concrete of an empty pay-n-park lot between a tattoo parlor and a discount rug store. Sunlight reflects off office windows with such intensity I’m forced to squint. Got to assume I’m drunk: downed eight beers at the Mik and polished off twenty ounces of gin watching infomercials last night. Haven’t slept in days but in high spirits nonetheless, though I must admit somewhat alarmed by what appear to be tongues of green, gold, and magenta flickering off the tips of my spread fingers.

  A trash-strewn alleyway to my left empties onto King Street. Catching human movement and the echo of up-tempo music, I wander off in that direction.

  KING IS CLOSED OFF for a two-block stretch to host a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Ball courts staggered down the road, three-point arc and foul stripes etched in sidewalk chalk. Mammoth speakers pump out rap music: guttural growls and howls overlaid with occasional gunshots and the clinkety-clink sound slot machines make paying off. Players sit along the curb in knee-length shorts, sleeveless mesh tops, and space-age sneakers, checking out the competition or waiting to be subbed in. The staccato rhythm of ball chatter underlies all other sound: D-up! Get a hand in his face! My bad, my bad. You got that guy, man; you own him! Give you that shot—you can’t stick that shit! All day, son, all damn day. And one! And ONE!

  Weave through duffel bags and water bottles and teams talking strategy, stop at a long corkboard to scan the tournament brackets. No names, just teams: Hoopsters, Basket-Maulers, Santa’s Little Helpers, Highlight Reelers, Dunks Inc. If Jason was playing, he’d’ve given his old man a call, right? I went to every one of his high-school games, didn’t I? I say “went,” past tense, due to the incident occurring at a preseason game out in Beamsville. I say “incident,” but I suppose I might as well say “brawl,” that broke out when a few Beamsvilleians—and when I say “Beamsville-ian,” I mean, more accurately, “inbred hillpeople”—took offense at my distinctive style of encouragement. I guess some punches were thrown. Well, the whole truth of the matter is that punches were thrown, first by me, then at me. Let me tell you, those bumpkins pack a mean punch—even the bitches! Thankfully, when you’re three sheets to the wind you don’t feel a whole lot of anything. Coach Auerbach politely insisted I curtail my attendance.

  Meander down the sidewalk checking out the games. The majority are tactless, bulling affairs: guys heaving off-balance threes and clanging running one-handers off the front iron, banging bodies under the boards for ugly buckets. It’s really quite a painful ordeal for me: a classically trained pianist watching chimpanzees bash away on Steinway pianos. Stop to watch an old-schooler with Abdul-Jabbar eyegoggles and socks hiked to his knees sink crafty hook-shots over a guy half his age; the young guy’s taking heat from his teammates for the defensive lapses.

  The final court has drawn a huge crowd; can’t see more than flickering motion between the tight-packed spectators, but from what little I do it’s clear this is serious. A true student of the game can tell right off: something about those confident movements, that quickness, the conviction that lives in each and every gesture.

  Push through the crowd and there’s my son.

  He’s at the top of the three-point arc. Long black hair tied back with a blue rubber band, the kind greengrocers use to bind bunches of bananas. Apart from giving you the look of a pansy, long hair has a habit of getting in a shooter’s eyes. But the boy refuses to cut it so one time I chased him around the house with a pair of pinking shears, screaming, Swear to Christ I’m gonna cut that faggot hair off ! I was gassed at the time; you tend to do crazy things when you’re gassed. He locked himself in the bathroom. I told him I’d cut it off as he slept. He passed the night on the floor, those hippie locks fanned out over the pissy tiles.

  He takes the ball at the top of the key and bounces a pass to Al Cousy, a thick-bodied grinder on Jason’s high-school team. Al’s a bruiser with stone hands who’s going nowhere in the sport. Way I see it, the sooner he comes to grips with this, the sooner he can make an honest go at something more suitable: he’ll make a great pipefitter with those strong mitts. However it works out, years from now Al can say, hunched over beers or gutrot coffee at some union meeting, he’d once played ball alongside Jason Mikan—yeah, that Jason Mikan.

  Al pivots around his defender, gets blocked, shovels the ball out. Jason catches it a few feet beyond the three-point line, throws a head-fake to shake his defender, steps back and lofts a shot. The ball arcs through sparkling June air, a flawless parabola against a blue-sky backdrop, dropping through the center of the net.

  “Nice bucket!” I call out. “Thattaboy!”

  Jason looks over, spots me, glances away and claps his hands for the ball.

  Watching that shot, the unstudied perfection of it, I think back to all the time we spent practicing together. Every day in good weather we’d be out on the driveway hoop, shooting until the sun passed behind the house’s high peaked roof. Before Jason could quit he had to make fifteen foul shots in a row; he’d sink twelve or thirteen easy before getting the jitters. I even built a pair of defending dummies, vaguely human plywood
cutouts with outstretched arms. These I mistakenly destroyed: stumble home less than sober and spy two menacing shapes in your unlit garage—who wouldn’t kick them to splinters? One night I came back a little greased and dragged Jason out of bed. It was cold—had to knock a glaze of ice off the net—Jason there in his pj’s and I chucked him the ball. Every minute you’re not practicing is a minute some other kid is. You got to work, son—hard and every day. Now can that fucker! My neighbor Hal Lanier, beetle-legged and bucktoothed, sidled out onto his front stoop.

  “Hey,” he said. “You two mind calling it a night?”

  “What business is it of yours, bud?”

  Hal pulled a housecoat shut over a belly pale as a mackerel’s. “Trying to sleep, is my business. Got your boy out here in his fuggin’ jammies, screaming like a lunatic, is my business.”

  “Telling me how to raise my kid?”

  “Telling you I got kids of my own trying to sleep.”

  “Why not come say that to my face, ya fat prick ya.”

  I’ll admit to being a bit surprised when Hal took me up on this offer, crossing the frost-petaled lawn in his slippers to where I stood in my grease-smudged overalls, hitting me square in the face. Well! Down on the grass we go, rolling around chucking knuckles. Shoot that goddam ball! I kept screaming at Jason. Fifteen foul shots before you go back to sawing logs!

  Jason’s team is up 20-13 when he hits a fadeaway jumper from the elbow to win. The teams shake hands and head to the sideline, gathering duffels and water bottles. I trot over to Jason, who’s speaking to a guy with a clipboard. For a moment I’m struck dumb with terror at what appears—and I feel a distinct need to stress this—what appears to be a cone of ghostly flame dancing atop the man’s bald head. Whoa!

  “Hey,” I say a bit shakily, “great game there, kiddo.”

  “Yeah,” says Jason, “thanks.”