by Steve Berman
If there’s one thing the three of us never spoke about, it was anything related to sex. Maybe that made us atypical eleventh graders, but for each of us the topic was a sore spot. Rickie was a loner who only had male friends. Her and Preet hung out and played basketball together. “Rick’s just one of the guys,” Preet had explained once. “I basically treat her 100 percent like a bro—the only thing we don’t do alike is use the same washroom.” I’d never seen her use a bathroom at all, in fact.
I had been friends with Preet since grade eight, when his family moved to Canada. Mrs McDowell, my homeroom teacher, asked me to befriend him when he first arrived and spoke only Punjabi. Over time, he became well liked—Preet was smart, friendly, great at sports, and very handsome. He was able to run in the popular circles at school, with friends on both the football team and student council. He was nice to all the teen leaders, but he kept most of those people at arm’s length. He maintained a close friendship with me even as the others christened me “queer of the year.”
I’d known Rickie even longer. One day when I was in grade five, she started following me home and threatening to beat the shit out of me for calling her adopted brother a chink. She’d gotten bad information. Her brother was a tough little kid—there was no way I’d have provoked him, even though he was two years younger than me. And of course I’d have never said that word; I pinched myself again just thinking it. It wasn’t the first time someone chased me home or beat me up, and it certainly hadn’t been the last. But I had both Preet and Rickie to watch my back, which was a relief. Would I ever stand up for myself? Yes, I thought. Tonight.
A screech of tires a block away tore me from my thoughts. A sleek black car gunned up Armory Street like a drag racer, though there was not another vehicle in sight to compete with. Instinctively I drew closer to the fence. As the car passed, I heard a guy on the passenger side laugh as he tossed a crumpled Coke can out the window at me. The car skidded to a halt at Victoria Avenue, then quickly pulled around the corner and out of sight, a chorus of yelping neighborhood dogs barking in its wake. Soon all was quiet again.
Blocks away, tourist trap Clifton Hill was loaded with noisy idiots: loud American visitors buying cotton candy for kids up well past their normal bedtimes. Drunks from around the world stumbling down the street in search of a greasy burger. Honeymooners destined for heart-shaped hot tubs. A few late-night sightseers at the foot of the hill arguing about which Niagara waterfall was the best. What a bunch of losers. I yawned just thinking about it.
“Hey, Dean.” Her low, gravelly voice came out of nowhere. I jumped, and actually shrieked a little. Rickie had walked through the schoolyard instead of up the street, surprising me from behind.
“Thank God you’re here. You scared me!” I put my hand on my chest and shook nervously.
Towering over me by three inches, she put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. With her short, dark near-crewcut and bulky build, Rickie looked like a football player. In my imagination, the high school football team set the bar in terms of masculinity—and I always fell short. Never wearing makeup and with a strong, self-assured demeanor, Rickie had it down without even trying. But while just thinking about those guys filled me with nervous anxiety, Rickie’s presence had a calming effect.
I turned to her and smiled. “How was work?”
“The usual.”
“Anyone barf?”
“Nope, believe it or not.”
“Anyone jump?” Rickie operated the giant Ferris wheel at the Maple Leaf Village amusement park. It was two hundred feet tall. Someone tried to jump once this summer. Rickie hadn’t been working that day, though. I don’t know why she was acting so sensitive. The guy didn’t actually die.
“Hey, that’s not funny, kid…” She grabbed me half playfully by the scruff of the neck. She was always calling me “kid” even though we were both sixteen. Her father used the same expression all the time. A single dad, he was a mechanic at Niagara Falls Auto.
I paused before my next question. “Did you see Brenda?”
Rickie’s eyes locked with mine. “She’s still there.” Her voice cut like glass. In three short, sharp shards, you could hear exactly how Rickie felt about Brenda.
I had no idea why Brenda Foxworthy even had a job. Her father was an alderman and her mother was a real-estate agent. Still, she worked at the Village like the rest of us Niagara teens. She sold fudge to tourists in a booth where she dressed in a uniform with a short white skirt. What a princess. What a bitch. I didn’t bother to pinch myself for swearing anymore. Brenda was still at work. Good. Everything was going according to plan. Now if only Preet would get here—time being our great enemy at the moment.
Rickie carried the rope in a brown paper bag. Preet was bringing the metal hook. In my knapsack, I had the long, sharp knife.
The three of us lived within blocks of one another, all worked on the same gaudy tourist strip, and we usually ended up in a lot of high school classes together. But right now, the main thing binding us was our intense hatred for Brenda. Rickie and I both turned when we heard the low rumble of an automobile engine. It was Preet, approaching slowly in his brother Vijay’s black Mercury.
The car pulled up and we got inside.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Preet called out over the car stereo as Rickie took the front seat and I got into the back. He shook hands with both of us. Preet usually did that; it was one of his macho behaviors that, to me, felt both alien and adorable at the same time. As we passed all the drunken yahoos outside the Caverly Tavern, Preet rolled up the windows and turned on the air-conditioning. “Shit, it’s a hot night.”
We made nervous small talk as we drove to our destination—Brenda’s expansive house in the city’s tony north end, Stamford Centre. I kept quiet—because Preet’s taste in music drove me crazy. I hated ZZ Top. Why did he always have to play the hard-rock station? In my bedroom by myself, I listen to new wave. Preet told us how they barely made it to the temple because both his brothers had come home drunk and started an argument with his father.
We all had our own reasons for what we were about to do. Why did I hate Brenda Foxworthy? Well, for years I’d disliked her as much as the other rich poseurs who made up the gifted program at our school. I was supposedly smarter than average, but I always felt like a fish out of water in that group—most of whom had been “gifted” since birth: gifted with violin lessons, showered with trips to Europe, granted anything they ever wanted.
I’d always been a wallflower in that program, until we got involved in the Board of Ed’s problem-solving competition last year. We were put into teams to strategize solutions to social issues like acid rain. I unexpectedly came to life in our preparatory sessions. It involved both creative thinking and stuff that I cared about. For once, I felt motivated in my otherwise unhappy high school career.
At least, I did until Brenda announced the morning of the Niagara South competition that she was dumping both me and Andrew Horsgill to join another team with some of her snobby friends. Each team needed a minimum of three members and we couldn’t get anyone else to hook up with us under such short notice. Brenda’s team won, and went on to win a North America–wide competition in Illinois a few months later. So Brenda Foxworthy was the 1986 problem-solving champion—accepting a trophy at a banquet in Chicago while I sat alone in my room feeling like a loser.
Preet had the inside scoop on Brenda’s house because he’d been there before. They had actually gone out for a month, culminating in a final date where they had sex on Brenda’s bed while her parents were at a Lion’s Club banquet. She dumped him the next day. That was three weeks ago. Preet looked like he was going to cry when he told me. Red-faced, he confessed she’d made a disparaging remark about his penis. “She’s got a gigantic stuffed animal sitting next to her bed. How was I supposed to keep my dick hard with that fucked-up thing right next to me?” Out of respect for Preet, I managed not to laugh. But I did try to picture him and her naked together. I’d never eve
n seen another guy’s cock—I had a shy bladder and preferred bathroom stalls to awkward rows of public urinals.
Preet’s erection malfunction wasn’t the only reason for the abrupt breakup, though. She told him she needed a boyfriend with a more wholesome image because of her parents’ standing in the community. Preet was one of the most clean-cut guys in our whole school. The only way he differed from Brenda’s other boyfriends was the color of his skin. Soon after, Brenda started dating Angelo Mancuso, a nineteen-year-old with a dumb gaze and a five o’clock shadow. I found it bizarre she’d dumped Preet, then started seeing Angelo. Her family and friends were such WASPs I was surprised they would even consider an Italian guy to be white. But his parents owned a construction company.
Rickie had her own reasons for hating Brenda, but she wouldn’t tell either of us. I only know because I saw what happened. It was at the end of football season, the day our team kicked Westlane High’s asses. The cool kids had spiked their 7-Eleven Slurpees with gin at the game and everyone was acting punchy. I was kinda surprised to see Rickie at the game. Then again, same with me, but for weeks it was all anyone talked about. It was more or less mandatory; afternoon classes had been cancelled so everyone could go to the game. I’d tried to hide in the school library, but they shut it down for the rest of the day. In a less-populated corner of the football field I saw Brenda beckon for Rickie to follow her behind the bleachers. This was weird; I sneaked closer to see. Brenda kissed Rickie full on the lips, and took Rickie’s hand and placed it on one of her breasts. After a few seconds she pulled away. Brenda stared at Rickie. From where I stood, I couldn’t see Rickie’s face. “There,” Brenda said. “At least you know you’re not a faggot, anyway.” She walked away. I was confused. What a weird thing to say. Rick wasn’t even a guy, right? It was some stupid prank.
I never mentioned it to Rickie because I wouldn’t know what to say.
Part of me wished I understood why Brenda liked to hurt people. The other part of me only wanted to hurt her back.
I might never have dared if not for Preet, though. The whole thing was his idea. Rickie had enthusiastically agreed. I was afraid—but liked the idea of getting revenge for the first time ever. If Rickie and Preet were in, I was in. After all, it was me who supplied the knife. Grow some balls, I reminded myself. That’s what my boss Ed had told me after I said uncle and he finally released my face from the aroma of his armpit. He’d looked disappointed in me, staring after me as I walked away.
Turning onto Stamford Green Drive, after about a half block we reached Brenda’s house. Her red Camaro was nowhere to be seen—but a brown Lincoln Continental, presumably her parents’, sat at the far end of the driveway. Some lights were on in the house, too.
Preet slowed down, pulled just past the Foxworthy residence, and parked in front of the next-door neighbors’ house—far enough not to be noticed, but close enough for a quick getaway. Despite the air-conditioning, I was clammy.
“Remember everything we talked about?” Preet asked quietly.
We both nodded. Preet handed me the heavy metal hook, and I put it into my knapsack.
“Any questions?”
We shook our heads.
“We have to be extremely quiet starting now. Got it?”
We nodded. Preet opened the door and got out, and we followed suit. Closing our doors as quietly as possible, we tiptoed through the far edge of the yard toward Brenda’s bedroom window, on the west side of the house—on the second floor.
Her light had been left on. As Preet had anticipated, Brenda’s window was open. And as he had already told us, the sill was made of painted wood. I unzipped my knapsack and handed the rope to Preet, followed by the heavy metal clasp. Preet had explained it was an extra-durable piton used by his older brothers when they went rock climbing. It hurt my arm when I pulled it out of the sack. I guess I needed to grow some biceps, too.
He secured the thick length of rope to the piton, angling it with the sharp talon facing forward. Preet launched it toward Brenda’s window, where it landed on the sill and sank into it with a muted thunk. Thank God for all his years of basketball—if it had been me, I’d have broken a downstairs window or missed the house altogether. I sucked at sports. I couldn’t throw or kick to save my life. Or who knew if I had any athletic talent or decent aim. I usually seized up with fear any time people even looked at me.
Preet turned and smiled. Rickie gave a thumbs-up. Preet walked over to where the rope hung down neatly along the side of the house and gave it three or four firm tugs. He started to climb up.
Once he reached the top and clambered inside, Preet gestured for Rickie to follow. I watched with amazement as the piton held in place, supporting her beefy frame as she scaled the side of the house. She pushed her way through the window frame; now it was my turn. If Preet hadn’t ordered me into silence earlier, this was just the moment I’d have started blubbering and babbling. I was terrified, but I grabbed the rope and started to hoist myself up. Trying to be rational, I told myself if it could support both Preet and Rickie, the rope could support a beanpole like me without breaking. So this was what it felt like to break and enter. As I found my footing, I actually started to feel a bit excited—and strangely honorable. I was like a cat burglar stealing back my own dignity.
So far so good. Once I got up about eight feet, I could see into the Foxworthys’ kitchen; the window was a few feet over. It featured an island in the center of the room with a grey marbled counter top. The room was spotless, as if it had never been used. It was also empty, thank goodness. I kept moving, looking neither up nor down. After an eternity, I reached Brenda’s window. I used both hands to pull myself in and tried to still my adrenaline-fueled panting. Thankfully, the door to her bedroom was closed. I caught my breath and looked around.
Rickie stalked the room, her eyes narrowing as she took in the luxurious surroundings. Brenda’s four-poster bed was adorned with a sleek white satin spread. She had five pillows, whose cases had pretty floral designs. Next to the bed was a matching white dresser with a large built-in mirror. The glass had ornate etchings around the edges.
Sitting on the dresser was a thick copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Brenda had been the kid in kindergarten who got the 64-colour box of Crayolas when most of us had gotten the eight basic hues. I had to touch the dictionary just to determine if the spine had been cracked—to see if it had ever been opened. I walked over and picked it up—and saw something next to it that startled and surprised me. A little bound book with a chocolate-brown cover and a gold lock. With ornate letters, the cover read My Personal Diary. It went straight into my pants pocket. Here might be my answer to finding out why Brenda was such a sadist.
Preet stood in front of his prey, over in the corner of the bedroom closest to the window. He hissed at me: “Dean, give me the knife.” Pulling at one shoulder strap and then the other, I removed the compact orange knapsack from my back and tossed it to him. In it was the largest knife from the Ginsu set my dad ordered my mom off the TV for Christmas last year. Preet pulled it out. The blade was large and full of serrated teeth.
He stood in front of an extra-large stuffed teddy bear, which wore a yellow felt hat as big as my head. Plopped down next to Brenda’s bed, it was over three feet tall even seated. The bear’s plush fur was dark brown, with a lighter tan fur lining the inside of its ears, the pads of its feet, and a circle that surrounded its nose. A smile had been sewn into the tan fabric using thick black thread. I wondered if a teddy bear like that would have the power to take away my own erection like it had to Preet. I’d never had to perform sexually for another person, let alone in the presence of a Godzilla-sized Pooh bear.
Brenda had told Preet she’d had the stuffed animal since she was a little girl. When her parents first gave it to her, it was taller than her. Bits of fur were missing here and there, like the patchy bald spot on the back of my dad’s head we weren’t supposed to mention. Its eyes were two plastic hazel buttons. They looked strangely
sad.
“Fuck you, bitch,” Preet whispered. He stabbed the stuffed bear roughly below its throat, pulling the blade out and shoving it back in several times in a downward motion until he’d carved a jagged line that would have split the animal’s rib cage in two—had it possessed one. Though gutted, it still offered that same sad smile. Rickie and I watched in silence as he kicked the bear between its legs several times, causing the little white Styrofoam balls that comprised its innards to fly across the room.
Then Rickie walked over to Brenda’s dresser and took a tube of crimson lipstick from an open box full of jewelry and makeup. She applied it to the stuffed bear’s lips, giving it a surreal sneer like some kind of circus clown. She looked at Preet standing next to her, and put out her hand. Preet gave her the knife. Rickie used it to cut the bear’s head right off and dropped it on the ground in front of the ruined animal. I was startled by my friends’ violence, but I felt like a live wire myself. If I had a match I might have set the decapitated bear on fire.
That’s when I noticed the trophy. It sat on a small white table between the bedroom door and the closet door, next to a miniature clock encased in a glass dome. The trophy had a wooden base, upon which sat a pewter cup with handles on either side. The base had a small metal plate screwed to its front, engraved with Tomorrow’s Leaders Problem-Solving Contest, Chicago, Illinois, First Place. I stared at it blankly, unable to draw my eyes away.
Preet looked at me, then at the trophy. He walked to the dresser, grabbed the winning cup, and placed it on the floor in front of him. Then he unzipped his pants, reached into his underwear, pulled out his penis, and began to urinate into the trophy in a steaming waterfall.
