The Island Walkers

by John Bemrose

  7

  JAMIE WATCHED ANDY WILSON slide his bike into the stands and walk away through the crowded Boys’ Yard, throwing back his orange mop of hair with a jerk of his head. Moving in closer, Jamie touched the racing tires thin as snakes, the cherry-red frame, not a scratch. Andy Wilson lived in the North End. Snob Hill, some of the boys called it, not the boys who lived there, but the boys who lived lower in the town, where the rivers were, the brown and misty rivers that smelled of mud and rotting things. His mother had bawled him out when he’d said Snob Hill. She said she was sure people up there wouldn’t like it. She said they were no more or less snobby, no better or no worse, than anybody else. Maybe. But they were different. When the Grade Three boys from the North End played tag, they didn’t ask anybody else to play with them. They ran back and forth between the fences of the Boys’ Yard, shouting each other’s nicknames, Pud and Clumbs and Schooner and Drums. It was like a private party, a party where everyone pretended to have a good time, even if he wasn’t. There was a lot of pretending about the boys from the Hill, he felt. They were always together, talking loud, getting something organized.

  His own bike — he didn’t ride it to school — had once been Joe’s, a CCM with a banged-up maroon frame and no fenders, which meant you got sprayed when you rode through a puddle. Andy Wilson’s bike was different altogether, with its silver handbrakes and the swept-under handlebars that reminded him of the horns of the mountain sheep in Animals of the World. Looking at the racer made him happy, like looking in the windows of Eaton’s that time his family had gone to Toronto, all the little elves working away in Santa’s shop, and the electric train chugging through the tunnels in the mountains, a happiness for looking only, you couldn’t touch.

  He drifted away from the stands and through the yard, lingering for a while to watch several Grade Six boys play conkers. A chestnut flew down and struck another chestnut, hanging on a string. There was a loud crack and a cry from the boys as the struck nut swung crazily in an arc. When it settled, they saw that a bit of its shell had come off, revealing the yellowish meat inside. “Mick’s gonna have a ten-kinger,” a boy said.

  Jamie went over to the chainlink fence that surrounded the yard and stood with his back to it, hooking his fingers in the wire and leaning out. Behind him, on the other side of the fence, an enormous elm tree rose, its great branches drooping over the yard “like a giant umbrella,” his new teacher, Miss Wayne, had said. She had showed the class the leaves of the elm, pointed like spearheads. He gazed around the milling yard, where boys ran or gathered in groups. Some were trading or flipping cards, or rough-housing, or talking in bragging, shouting voices. A few stood alone, like him, but these boys were too old, or too young, to be friends. Last year, in Grade Two, Johnny Simms had been his friend. But Johnny’s dad had been laid off at the mill, and in August the whole family had driven away, Johnny’s mother and sister in the car, and Johnny and his dad in the cab of the truck with all their furniture, and Johnny’s face had looked down at him, Jamie, from the high cab, and Jamie’s heart had gone No no no under his T-shirt because he’d heard his dad say that they, the Walkers, would probably never see the Simmses again.

  He looked up into the elm arching like a vaulted roof over a third of the yard, and remembered what Joe had said about not believing in God. When he’d said that, Jamie had sensed something leave with extraordinary speed, woosh, like the wings of the ducks that time on the river. Everything looked the same as before — the backyard, the picnic table, his daddy’s face — but something had emptied, as if his own insides had poured out. I believe in God, the voice said.

  Jamie looked around, half-expecting to see somebody. He never did, though. Whoever spoke in that voice — that voice that was so close to him, it seemed to have slipped into his own head — was gone. Gone or invisible, like the Invisible Man.

  Once, driving after supper in the country, he and his family had got lost. On both sides of the road, green water shone among trees. An old man on a horse had come by, sauntering along beside the car with a slow clop-clop. He wore a slouchy hat, bronzed like his face in the thickening light, and he drew to a halt as the car stopped and pointed back up the shadowy road to show where they should go. Sometimes, in the early morning, Jamie woke to a sound he did not understand: a faraway cooing that filled him both with sadness and a happiness that was even deeper than the sadness, like a lower note. Looking out the window, he could never see exactly where this sound was coming from — it seemed to come out of the hill and the trees and the river, and yet from none of these things. And once, looking for its source, he had seen the old man in his slouchy hat, standing under a tree across the river. He had nodded to Jamie, and Jamie had nodded back. Later he wondered if the old man had been God. Or perhaps he was an angel, and God was nearby.

  You can’t see God, the voice said. He’s shy.

  “Hey stupid, where’d’ya get those pants?”

  Tommy Leach, from the Flats. Tommy had a large face, from which his bony nose stuck out like a fin. He was in Grade Five, two grades above Jamie, a fleshy boy several inches taller than he was, with pale-white skin like the belly of a carp. Jamie followed Tommy’s sneering gaze to his pants, which had once belonged to Joe. On one pocket was stencilled the picture of a bear, rearing up on its hind legs, its big head roaring. On the other pocket was Davy Crockett in his buckskins and coonskin hat, aiming Old Betsy at the bear. Down the outsides of the legs ran a brown plastic fringe.

  It was the first time he’d worn them.

  “They’re not stupid.”

  “Sure they are. You look stupid in them. What’s that stuff sticking out?”

  Tommy’s upper lip had curled up, showing two big teeth. Jamie had noticed that Tommy was one of the boys in the yard who had no friends. He had watched him hang around other boys, but the boys ignored him. Lately, he’d taken to carrying a little horseshoe magnet. He’d stick it to the fence, then look up with a smirk to see if anyone was interested.

  Tommy reached out and began to pull at the fringe.

  “Hey don’t!”

  “Gimme a piece of your pants!” Tommy cackled.

  “No!”

  “Just a little piece!” Tommy was snorting with laughter. Little pearls of snot appeared under his nose.

  Jamie’s hand slapped at Tommy’s, where it was tugging at the fringe.

  “Hey, you hit me!” Tommy cried. His eyes had lit up, as if he thought this was a good thing, good and funny.

  “Just leave me alone,” Jamie told him. His heart was knocking.

  Tommy shoved him back into the fence and held him there with one hand while his other hand tore off bits of fringe, sprinkling them around like grass. “Look! His pants are coming apart!” he called over his shoulder to whomever would listen. No one was even looking.

  His nose. Grab his nose, the voice said.

  Startled, Jamie looked and saw Tommy’s big, thin nose. He seized it.

  “Hey!” Tommy shouted. Now he sounded like a duck.

  Tommy’s mouth was open, showing those big teeth, and he flailed at Jamie, striking his head, his shoulder, but Jamie hung on for dear life. He was in an odd state, almost calm, knowing only that he had to hang on to the slippery thing between his fingers. Tommy lashed out with his foot, in its high black running shoe. Jamie dodged it and kept tugging on his nose, this way and that, like the string of his kite when he made it dance. Tommy sank to the ground. And still Jamie wouldn’t let go, even though white stuff was seeping from the nose and Tommy was starting to sob with a hiccup sound. Others had gathered around, laughing and yelling, “He’s got him by the nose!” One boy got down and put his face right up to Tommy’s, as if to see if it was true.

  Tommy tried to get up, but Jamie put him down with another tug and sat on him. Finally a big boy from Grade Eight said, “I think you’ve beaten him, you better let him go.” When Jamie released his grip, Tommy lay blinking up at him. On his upper lip was a moustache of bloody white stuff. Jamie b
arely had time to look at him before the others had picked him up — lifted him right into the air. At first he thought he had to fight them too. But then he realized they were cheering. The big boys from Grade Seven and Eight were calling his name as they carried him around the yard, chanting, “Jamie Walker, Jamie Walker!” and other boys were running over to see. Soon there was a great gang moving through the yard, with Jamie perched awkwardly on their shoulders, holding on to someone’s head, worried he was putting Tommy’s bloody snot in his hair, feeling he was going to slip off at any minute. And it was then that he looked towards the corner by the bicycle stands and saw Billy. And even at that distance he knew Billy was looking right at him, following him with his black eyes around the yard. And fear went through him like cold water, because he knew what Billy was thinking: knew what he, Jamie, was going to have to do.

  At recess, he went downstairs to the boys’ washroom. He was standing in front of the urinal, which was taller than he was, watching his pee spread over the cracked porcelain into the sick-smelling drain, when he heard someone walk up behind him. Zipping up, he turned. Billy’s black eyes fixed on Jamie’s nose.

  “So I guess you think you’re the best fighter now.”

  “No.”

  “I guess you’re gonna have to prove it.”

  “I don’t think I’m the best fighter. You’re the best fighter.” Jamie believed this. He’d once seen Billy fight a boy a foot taller than himself. He’d leapt on him, biting and scratching like a wildcat until the boy, Dickie Collins, had run bawling into the school.

  Billy’s eyes were still on his nose. Jamie wanted to hide his nose, put his hand over it. It was as if, because he’d twisted Tommy’s nose, his had to get twisted too. It was as if Billy really didn’t see him at all, only his nose, which suddenly felt as big as his face.

  “I don’t wanta fight you,” he said.

  In a cubicle, someone farted, a real good one. Jamie grinned, thinking he and Billy might share the joke, but Billy didn’t smile back.

  “After school,” he said.

  After recess on Friday afternoons, they always had art. It was Jamie’s favourite class: the smell of paints and glue, the rattle of the big sheets of paper, white as new snow, where you could do anything, anything you could think of: a happiness you could touch. The previous week, he’d started a picture of Indians attacking a covered wagon train. The wagons were racing along the prairie, and the Indians, mounted on their spotted ponies, were shooting flaming arrows. Their camp was up in the hills: lots of teepees (easy to draw) and a fire for dancing around, and lines going up and down like waves, for the hills. Ever since Joe had told him about Geronimo and Crazy Horse, he’d always been on the Indians’ side. When he took his bow up the river, he pretended he was Crazy Horse, spying on the people who’d built their homes on his land. He went secret ways, so no one could see him.

  But today, thinking of Billy, art wasn’t so much fun. He drew in a couple more Indians, on their horses, and looked out the window. The great, frowsy head of the elm was there, filling the sky. Once, he’d seen it in a storm, all grey and tossing and lit by lightning: a huge, living head, tossing its wild hair. Was that God? Silently, he said to the tree, “Please help me,” but the tree went on hanging, like a great, sad old umbrella with holes in it. Maybe it would rain and he wouldn’t have to fight. He’d never seen anybody fight in the rain. He thought Billy might, though.

  Billy was his age, but he was in the special class for slow learners, along with the retarded kids like Dougie French — Dougie with his big, slobbery lips and happy eyes. Billy wasn’t retarded, but the previous year he’d been in Jamie’s class and he was always in trouble. Once he’d got the strap for sassing Miss Bell. The dark leather strap, thicker than a belt, had smacked down on his hand four, five times and Billy had laughed a strange gurgling laugh while Miss Bell, her face getting redder, had hit him three times more. When Billy came back down the aisle to his desk, his cheeks were shiny with crying but he hadn’t made crying sounds: he was grinning, as if it were all a joke.

  When the bell went, Jamie stayed behind and asked Miss Wayne — he loved Miss Wayne, with her broad, happy face and kind voice — if he could help her clean up. But she said, No thank you dear, and smoothed down his hair a bit. He went out into the hall, with his rolled drawing in his hand. From the landing, he could see out the window above the door, see clear through the empty Boys’ Yard all the way to the gate and the park across the road. And Billy was there, sitting on the curb, poking a stick at something in the gutter as if, maybe, he was torturing an ant. Looking at him, Jamie felt alone, maybe more alone than he’d ever felt. Billy was alone too. The two of them were more alone, it seemed, than if there had been only one of them.

  Jamie went downstairs to the washroom and tried to pee. But there wasn’t any pee to come out, so he went to the fountain and let its clear water bubble up like little silver balls for a while before he drank. When he went back upstairs, Mr. Small, the janitor, walking with quick steps behind his wide broom, called out that he shouldn’t be there.

  He went out. Walking across the Boys’ Yard towards the gate, he thought of a plan: when he got to the gate, he’d run — tear away like blazes down the hill and hope he could make it home before Billy jumped him. But for some reason he didn’t run. He walked past the elm to the gate and looked across at Billy, who dropped his stick and stood up. Jamie had a strange feeling that all this had happened before, and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t feel afraid any more, just lonely, like that time when he was little and his mom had forgotten to pick him up at the babysitter’s.

  “Come over here,” Billy said.

  Jamie hesitated. Somewhere nearby, a whisper in the trees, the voice said, It’s all right.

  Clutching his drawing, Jamie crossed the road.

  “What’s that?” Billy said, scowling at the tube in his hand.

  “My drawing. Indians.”

  Billy looked at him. Not at his nose this time, but at him. There was something sleepy in his dark eyes, and bright too, as if he were peeping out of a fog.

  “Show it to me.”

  Jamie unrolled his drawing on the grass. Billy got down beside him, on his knees. There was a hotness coming off him, as if he’d been running.

  “These Indians are attacking the wagons,” Jamie said. “It’s because the white people are taking their land from them. This one with the red feather, that’s Crazy Horse.”

  “Crazy Horse,” Billy said. The name sounded hard and queer, stuck somehow in his throat.

  “He was the greatest Indian leader. He was a friend of Geronimo. They used to live around here, a long time ago.”

  For several seconds neither of them spoke as they looked at the picture.

  “I’m an Indian,” Billy said.

  Jamie went on staring at the picture, but he wasn’t seeing it any more. He was feeling the still, blank space where Billy’s words had gone, like a pebble when you dropped it off the bridge and it hits the water and disappears. But the rings are there, spreading out, and something else: a feeling in your body.

  “My mother’s Indian. She don’t like me to tell anybody.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  They looked at the picture.

  “This is a good drawing,” Billy said.

  “I’m gonna put more Indians in.”

  “Scalps?”

  “Yeah. I could show them scalping somebody.”

  Jamie rolled up the drawing and they got to their feet. He was looking right at Billy now, seeing the black hair that came down in a mop almost to his black eyes, and the skin that looked brown, tanned maybe, and maybe a bit dirty, and his heart was going again, under his T-shirt, but it wasn’t because he was afraid. It was because this was all new. He was somewhere he’d never been: he was with an Indian.

  8

  A TUESDAY: BURNT GRASS under a cloudless sky. The Grade Thirteen boys plucked lacrosse sticks from a cardboard drum and played a
game — shirts versus skins — between the towering white H’s guarding the ends of the football field. In the distance, across waves of goldenrod and the low darkness of a marsh, rose the faultless green — an Island Eden — of the golf course. Joe flung a long pass to Bobby Merchant and remembered he’d forgotten to study for his French test. Later, he skipped his shower and walked quickly through the crowded halls to Mr. Kay’s room. He’d bone up before the others arrived.

  Flooded with indirect sunlight, the first-floor classroom held thirty desks of blond wood. Along the walls hung framed posters depicting the Place Pigalle, the Eiffel Tower, and the ruins of the Roman theatre at Orange. At the front, Mr. Kay stood with his back to the blackboard, talking to someone sitting at the desk before him. The teacher was speaking French, pushing out the sounds with an exaggerated earnestness in a big, hollow voice. He wore a short-sleeved nylon shirt, a narrow wool tie, and black horn-rims whose bridge he kept nudging up his nose with the middle finger of his right hand.

  She sat in the first desk of the window row: a girl in a light-green sleeveless dress, her slender right arm lying on the desktop, motionless except for a small stroking movement of her fingers on the wood. As Joe flung his gym bag under his seat, the teacher offered a bland hello and the girl turned to glance at him. The shock hit him before he knew what the shock was for, as if his body had recognized her before he did, recognized the face whose details he had pretty much forgotten, under the thick bangs.