A Boy at the Edge of the World

by David Kingston Yeh

“Yes sir.”

  “Yesiree.”

  The window over the sink rattled. A draft was moving through the house again. Jackson padded into the kitchen and looked from one of us to the other. He whined and rested his chin in Liam’s lap.

  “Look, guys,” Pat said. “Anyone want a drink?”

  “Definitely,” we said in unison, “for sure.” Chairs scraped, tea cups were cleared, a bottle of Canadian Club was cracked open and four glasses appeared.

  “Hey guys,” Karen said, checking her phone while I poured. “It’s Anne. She wants to know if she can join us.”

  We stared at each other. When we were little, the five of us used to always hang out. I remembered rescuing Anne’s stuffed giraffe after Gary Kadlubek threw it onto the train tracks. But by the time we got into high school, she was doing her own thing. “Yeah,” we said. “Sure.” I tucked my shirt into my pants. “Of course.”

  When Anne arrived, she was wearing an Avril Lavigne T-shirt and cargos. Her hair was dyed blue and one side was shaved. She kicked off her combat boots, strolled through the living room and peered out the back door before settling in the kitchen. “Nice tree,” she said. She handed me a Tupperware of shortbread tied with a ribbon. “Here. My mom baked these for you guys.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You want a drink?”

  “Sure. What do you have?”

  “Well, we’re having whiskey. Here.” I handed her a glass with a shot in it.

  “What? No milk and cookies?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Some party. Cheers.” She threw back her shot before I could ask if she wanted any Diet Coke or ginger ale to go with it. She handed back the glass and wiped her mouth on the edge of her wrist.

  “Hey, look, Annie,” Pat said. “Thanks for coming out this morning. It meant a lot to us.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well, thanks for having me over.”

  Pat poured everyone another round. “Remember when the five of us used to play hide-and-seek?”

  “Yeah.” Anne smiled shyly. “That closet in your bedroom had that squeaky floorboard. It was always a dead giveaway.”

  “Shit. I remember that.”

  “I remember,” Anne said, “your grandpa used to clean and sharpen his lawnmower blades right at this table. The first time I saw that, it scared the hell out of me.”

  “No kidding,” Pat said laughing, “that’s right. You started bawling your eyes out.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Grandpa? He’s doing okay.”

  “He’s a survivor,” Liam said.

  Anne poked at the fridge magnets. “So when’s the funeral?”

  “In two days.”

  “You’re going to the funeral?” Karen said.

  “Of course, I’m going to the funeral.”

  Karen nodded, her lips compressed into a thin line. I looked back and forth between the two. “What’s up?”

  “Oh,” Karen said, shrugging. “It’s just that she wouldn’t go to her own father’s funeral. That’s all.”

  “Would you rather I didn’t go?” Anne said.

  “That’s not the point, is it?”

  The room had gotten colder. I wondered if the furnace was acting up again, but I didn’t think so.

  Liam drew himself to his feet. He looked haggard and his eyes were bloodshot. His beard needed trimming. I had a vision of him hauling traps and trudging across the wilderness through a blizzard in furs and snow shoes. “Guys, I’m pretty tired. I think I’m going to hit the sack. Karen, if you want to stay up, go ahead.”

  “Whoa whoa whoa!” Pat said. “Hold on, it’s not even midnight yet. We all gotta stay up until midnight.”

  “Who said that?”

  “We always stay up until midnight. It’s our tradition. C’mon, guys, it’s Christmas Eve. It’s our tradition.”

  “Except last year,” I said. “Pat, you weren’t even planning to come home for Christmas.”

  “But I did come home,” Pat said. “I came home, asshole. I came the fucking home! Look, I haven’t missed a single Christmas in this house in my entire life, so fuck off! You’re always on my fucking back.” Tears were running down his face. “I’m here, aren’t I? We’re all here.”

  We were all taken aback.

  “Liam,” Karen said.

  “Hey, look,” Liam said, “I’ll stay up. It’s no big deal.” He reached across the table, collected all our glasses, lined them up and started refilling them. Except he wasn’t being careful and was spilling all over the table. Karen had to kick me twice in the leg to get my attention.

  “What?”

  She gestured with her eyebrows. “Pat.” I drew a breath. “Pat, I’m sorry.” But Pat only knuckled away his tears and wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  Liam hesitated over Anne’s glass. “How old are you anyway?”

  “I’m fucking nineteen,” Anne said. “I’ve been drinking since I was twelve.”

  “Oh.” He poured her a double-shot. He set the halfempty bottle down and raised his glass. We all picked up our glasses. “Here’s to Grandma.”

  “To Grandma.”

  “To family,” I said. I put my arm around Pat’s shoulder. “To family.”

  “To us,” Karen said.

  “To us.”

  “Hey, it’s midnight. It’s Christmas. Merry Christmas everybody.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  Three days after the funeral, as I was loading up the car for the drive back to Toronto, Grandpa brought a cardboard box from the house.

  “Here, Daniel, I’ve been buying these in bulk for your mémère. It’d be a waste to throw them out.”

  He set the box down in the trunk, patted my shoulder, and walked away through the lightly falling snow. Puzzled, I opened the box which was neatly packed with slim white cartons. I pulled one out. They were fresh scent, vaginal cleansing douche kits. Pat and Liam emerged from the garage hauling our old dresser. I closed the box, threw my jacket over top of it and pushed it to the back of the trunk. I was still blushing as we wrapped the dresser in an old camping tarp and strapped it up on the roof of the car. That piece of furniture was older than we were, covered in faded hockey stickers and decals which we’d collected for years. Grandpa had insisted David and I could use it in our loft.

  “Just strip it down,” he said. “Give it a stain and it’ll be good as new.” But there was no way in hell I was going to strip it down. I was planning to keep the dresser exactly the way it was.

  When I got back to Toronto, I dropped Pat off at the Ferry Docks. Blonde Dawn was in Florida with her family, and Pat was spending New Year’s Eve again with his friends on the Island. When I thanked him for the loan of his car, he reminded me it was actually Blonde Dawn’s car, and to return it by the weekend.

  “Pat,” I said, leaning over the passenger’s seat. “Thanks. Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year,” he said, and closed the door.

  Back home, I keyed into the loft as quietly as I could. A huge pot of chili was simmering on the stove. I could smell it from down the hallway. The table was set with folded sheets of paper towel, a basket of focaccia and a bottle of red. Broken Social Scene was playing on the stereo. I could hear the shower running in the bathroom. I pulled off my snow boots, hung up my jacket, stripped naked and knocked on the door. David peered out from behind the curtain, soap suds in his hair and eyes.

  “I was wondering when you’d be home.” He squinted. “How was the funeral?”

  “It was good,” I said. “I missed you.”

  He glanced down at me. “Looks like it.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  I kissed him, gently at first, and then more passionately. I’d been gone almost two weeks. “You’d better not be jacking off in there.”

  “Hey, we both promised not to.”

  David drew back the curtain. I observed the water streaming down his torso,
hips and thighs. I’d kept my promise, and it looked like he had too. I reached out and cupped him in my palm, swollen and heavy.

  “See?” He smiled, biting his lower lip. “I am a man of my word. They’re about as blue as they get.” We both noticed the drop of pre-cum oozing from the tip of my own erection. He touched it appraisingly and licked his fingertip. “So, mister, are you coming in or what?”

  I stepped into the stall and closed the curtain. He wrapped his arms around my waist and swung me under the showerhead. The water was scalding hot. I almost came just from that embrace. I’d missed him so much. A few minutes later, when he had me in his mouth, I did come. Then I drew him to his feet and we kissed bruisingly as I took him in my fist, tasting my own sticky saltiness, until he shuddered and gasped out loud, almost grunting, again and again. Afterwards, he lay limply in my arms, but by then I was hard again. I turned David around, took up some soap and began to wash him. I groped for a condom in the medicine cabinet, tore it open and put it on. At that moment, the hot water gave out and the shower turned icy cold. As fast as we could, we clambered out, swearing and laughing at the top of our lungs.

  Later, over dinner, I told David about Grandpa. “Liam’s going to stay with him, at least for a few weeks.”

  “Those two really get along, don’t they?”

  “They’re two of a kind, alright.” I grated a block of hard Romano over both our bowls.

  “How’s your grandpa doing, anyway?”

  “He’s doing okay, as well as can be expected. You know, they were married fifty-nine years.”

  “No shit. That’s incredible. What was she like?”

  “Grandma? I just remember she was a lot of fun. She loved to laugh. I mean, we were still kids when she started getting the dementia, right? So it’s hard to say what she was really like. But in all the pictures of her when she was younger, she looked like a Hollywood starlet. Everyone says Dad got his good looks from Grandma. She was a glamorous gal. One thing’s for sure: she loved to be in nature, and she loved to go for walks. It got to be a problem. Grandpa and my parents would put up childproof locks and signs, but nothing worked. Once she disappeared for almost thirty-six hours. The police found her wandering along the highway, halfway to North Bay. Somebody must’ve given her a lift. She was really dehydrated, scraped up, and had no idea where she was.”

  “Whoa. That must’ve been scary.”

  “It was. Then after Mom and Dad died, it was just impossible to keep her safe. Three boys were a handful enough. She’d forget to turn off the gas stove. She’d wander off in the middle of the night. The whole neighbourhood and the police got to know her. She started getting erratic. Sometimes she’d get confused and ask where Mom and Dad were. Around that time, Liam started cutting himself, and Pat got caught lighting fires in the dumpsters behind the school. Then child welfare threatened to take us away. That was when Grandpa finally made the decision to put her in the nursing home.”

  “That must’ve been hard.”

  “Well, the home was only thirty minutes away, and we’d visit all the time. They loved her in the home. She’d read poetry to all the other residents. Grandpa likes to tell people they were high school sweethearts. Technically it’s true. They met when he was fifteen. What most people don’t know is she was actually his high school English teacher. He wasn’t the best student so she’d keep him after school to tutor him. Well, one thing led to another. When word got out, it was a small town and you can imagine what it was like back then. She got fired of course, and eventually had to move. She ended up in Toronto, cutting up rubber in a tire factory. But Grandpa, he followed her. After he graduated high school, he followed her and moved in with her. He was nineteen and she was thirty-two when they got married. Then when our dad was still just a baby, Grandpa got conscripted into the merchant navy. They didn’t see each other for two years.”

  “Wow. That’s awful.”

  “Well, everyone was part of the War effort back then. Everyone made sacrifices. Grandpa wrote her every day, usually from the East Coast, but sometimes from as far away as ports in Russia. She kept all his letters. When the dementia started getting really bad, he’d read them to her at the nursing home, and then she’d remember who he was. What? What is it?”

  “You know, you and I will be old one day.”

  “One day.”

  “We should write to each other.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We should write letters to each other, love letters, like your grandparents did.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if I just texted you?”

  “Daniel, I’ve never gotten a real letter before. I want to open the mailbox and find a letter with a stamp on it from my lover. I want to smell your cologne on the paper, and see your hand-writing. I want to get letters the way your grandma got letters. From Russia with love.”

  “Oh, James,” I said, laughing.

  “Promise we’ll send each other love letters.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Of course, I’m serious. Why are you always asking if I’m serious?”

  “I guess because I’m so used to Pat messing with me. He used to yank my chain all the time.”

  “Oh, I’ll yank your chain alright.” David’s stretched out his bare foot and pressed it up against my crotch. “But I’m serious about the letters. Look, I’ll write the first one.”

  “Alright.” I took his foot in my lap and began to massage his toes.

  “You know,” David said, “you never finished what you started.” He nodded towards the bathroom. “Maybe I should write a letter of complaint, for sexual non-harassment.”

  “How about a letter to the building manager about that hot water tank?”

  “I love you.”

  I pressed my thumb deeper into his arch. I listened to faraway sirens and the faint, clattering rumble of a passing streetcar. Fifty-nine years was incomprehensible to me. It was more than twice as long as David or I had even been alive. If David moved to another city, would I follow him? Grandpa was only eighteen when he left everything he knew and followed after the woman he loved. Then when he was my age, he was already risking his life, fighting in a war across the ocean against the Nazis. What was I risking and what was I fighting for?

  David searched my face. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “I love you too.”

  David sipped from his wine glass.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know what, mister. Hey, you ready for dessert?”

  “You made dessert?”

  “No, but my ma did. It’s her cannoli.”

  “That reminds me. Grandpa had me bring back a couple of his sugar pies. He remembered you liked the last one I brought back from Thanksgiving.”

  “Pie and cannoli, then.” David got up and rummaged in the freezer. “There’s Rocky Road too. You ready for a sugar blast extravaganza?”

  “Alright,” I said. “But after.” I got up, closed the freezer door and took David by the hand.

  “Where are we going?”

  I led him to the bedroom where I pushed him down onto the mattress, and started unbuckling his belt. “Let’s just say,” I said, smiling, “I don’t want to get any letter of complaint.”

  Later that night, long after David had fallen asleep, I got up out of bed carefully so as not to awaken him. I put on my coat, climbed the stairwell to the rooftop and had a cigarette. The snow had stopped and the city for once seemed at peace. Christmas lights still twinkled here and there, in people’s windows and balconies. Tomorrow, I’d get David to help me bring the dresser up. I was just starting to build my life with him. For Christmas, Grandpa had given me a slim book of poetry entitled, Leaves of Grass.

  “It belonged to your mémère,” he said. “I want you to have it.”

  I was sure Grandpa already knew I was gay. It didn’t matter whether he’d figured it out on his own, or if Pat had told him. I wondered if it hurt Grandpa that I hadn’t come out to him yet. I promised
myself I would the next time I saw him. That sudden decision thrilled me in the most unexpected way. I was almost tempted to wake David up and let him know. Instead, I went back downstairs and had a drink of water. When I took off my clothes and crawled back into bed, David shivered and complained sleepily: “Oh Christ your hands are cold. Where’d you go?” I spooned him from behind and held him close. “No where,” I whispered in his ear. “Go back to sleep. I’m here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sudbury Saturday Night

  In January, I was in the U of T Bookstore, picking up textbooks for the new semester. From the outside entrance, overblown with snowdrifts, the building was austere and unremarkable except for its size. But inside, marble staircases led up into a Great Hall awash in warm sunlight, with an ochre and gold ceiling flanked by decorated stone arches. It was a room that recalled a Venetian palazzo or the innermost chambers of Hogwarts. This particular bookstore always seemed a little bit magical to me, and over the years, I’d never gotten tired of its monumental architecture and endless flow of students and academic types. I was standing among the medical textbooks, admiring the ceiling when someone behind me said: “It used to be the old Reference Library.”

  I turned. “Excuse me?”

  It was a girl on one knee, rearranging the shelf display, wearing a slim blue dress and horn-rimmed glasses. Her hair was stylishly coiffed and she had a beauty mark on one cheek.

  “This building,” she said, hefting a particularly thick textbook, “the Koffler Student Centre, it used to be the old Toronto Reference Library. It was built in 1909 in the Beaux Arts neoclassical style. The university acquired it in 1977.”

  “The ceiling,” I said, “it’s like cake frosting.”

  “Cake frosting?”

  “Oh, that’s an architectural term.”

  “Really?”

  “It is. It means: in-the-manner-of the-icing-of-a-cake, particularly in the Duncan-Hines style of the late twentieth century.”

  The girl took off her glasses, and pursed her lips. “Okay. I suppose I deserved that.”

  “Are you an architecture student?”

  “No. I just work here.” She stood and languidly smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress. “Are you?”