Blood Sports

by Eden Robinson

  Willy’s redecorating had extended to his room. Tom hated being here at night, when the spray-painted eyes on the walls, the ceiling, and the floor seemed to move with the flash of the headlights from passing cars. Willy said they were a comfort.

  Makes people think twice before fucking with you, Willy had said. People leave you alone if they think you’re more fucked up than they are.

  “Hey,” Willy said. His expression was flat, more from the side effects of his schizophrenia medication than from antisocial tendencies.

  “Hey,” Tom said.

  Willy shuffled back to his bed, sat down, and picked up a smoke burning in the ashtray. The window was open, but it didn’t make the room less stifling. Tom wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

  “Are you up for dinner?” Tom said.

  “Already ate,” Willy said.

  “Fair enough,” Tom said. He walked over to the window and stared down at the street. Deranged Jesus, a homeless man in blue shorts and red headband, dragged a twelve-foot plywood cross to the corner, and waited for the light to change. Tom turned his back to the window and leaned against the sill.

  “Working tonight?” Willy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh. Did you bring my meds?”

  “Yeah.” Tom rummaged around in his knapsack and pulled out a paper bag with the pharmacy’s logo bright and primary.

  “Thanks,” Willy said. “TV?”

  Tom nodded.

  Willy reached over and snapped on the black-and-white TV, tuned permanently to the CBC, the only free channel that had a decent reception in Willy’s room. Tom sat beside him on the bed. Willy chain-smoked through the evening news, the red and green dragon tattoo on his neck rippling when he inhaled or exhaled. Their visits often were nothing more than watching TV together, but Tom usually came once a week. Paulie thought it was guilt.

  “You’ve made amends,” Paulie had said many, many times. “Let him go, Tom.”

  When the time came to leave, he stood up and Willy followed him to the door and shut it behind him without saying goodbye. Tom started down the stairs, trying not to think about what he’d taken from the almost seventy thousand dollars in small, unmarked bills and the three keys of coke still hidden in the bathroom wall.

  He heard strange voices in the apartment, arguing. He realized it wasn’t his mother coming home. She would never bring home two men. He rolled off the bed, crouching down low. They were in the hallway, looking out the peephole at something or someone. They whispered to each other in furious tones: I saw someone, I saw someone – we’re being followed. Fuck, stop being paranoid. No one’s there. Check the apartment. Make sure no one’s home.

  “Shh,” Paulie said, “it’s okay. It’s okay, Tom.”

  She patted his head absently, barely awake. He felt Mel’s foot in his ribs, the sheets tangled in his legs. His breathing steadied. He got up and checked the apartment, every room, every closet, every window, every door. Even though he knew it was stupid, he couldn’t stop himself. He thought he was being quiet, but Paulie sat on the edge of the bed, hugging herself.

  “I don’t like it when you visit him,” Paulie said. “It brings back too much.”

  24 JUNE 1998

  “Did you get the laundry, Tom?” Paulie shouted from the bedroom.

  “No, I’m making the bottles.”

  “We’re late, we’re late, we’re late,” Paulie chanted as she hopped by on one foot, slipping a black cowboy boot on her other foot. She grabbed the laundry basket from beside the door and sprinted out.

  Mel scooted under her high chair. She dug around and picked up a linty hunk of teething biscuit and jammed it in her mouth, grinning, pleased with herself.

  “Gross, babe,” Tom said. He bent over and fished around her mouth.

  She clenched her jaw when he pulled the biscuit out.

  “No floor food. Look, fresh biscuit. Mmm. Nice and clean. See?”

  Voicing her displeasure at a decibel level equalled only by planes taking off, Mel threw the new biscuit down, pointed to the linty piece on the kitchen table, and kicked her feet, her face flushing. She kept screaming while Tom screwed the bottles shut and put them in the lunch box. In the beginning, they’d meticulously labelled everything, neat printing on masking tape. Diapers in one section with Zincofax, baby wipes, change pad. Clean clothes, sunscreen, and first-aid kit in another section. Now they threw everything in the bottom of the stroller, and they were getting out the door later each morning.

  He wanted Paulie to skip a meeting now and then. Maybe go in the afternoons. Ask her to try an evening meeting. Then they could spend the morning chilling. She liked the people in the morning meetings though, said they weren’t as intense as the evening ones. She didn’t go out much. This was her only Paulie-time.

  Paulie came back with the laundry, sat on the couch, and started folding.

  Tom laughed, carrying Mel to the stroller. “We won’t die if Mel’s undershirts are wrinkled.”

  “I dunno,” Paulie said.

  “Let’s just go. Okay?”

  The day was already a scorcher. Paulie’s hair was sleek and dripping down her back. Mel, skin shiny with sunscreen, clung to the snack tray, refusing to sit back. When she was hard to get down, they’d walk her to sleep in the stroller. She knew their tricks.

  “Easy on the O.J.,” Paulie said. “She’s got a red bum.”

  “Gotcha,” Tom said.

  They kissed. Mel made smacking sounds and Paulie grinned. “See you later, girl. Mwah! Oh, you’re tasty.”

  “Hee,” Mel said, hunching her shoulders in pleasure.

  Tom was going to miss these kinds of mornings when and if they ever moved. Paulie had ambitions to get them a house in a “nice” neighbourhood, but Tom loved East Vancouver. He’d grown up here, and yeah, it was a little rough around the edges, but they weren’t exactly pruning roses and taking high tea. East Van’s heart was Commercial Drive, a.k.a. The Drive, a coffee freak’s paradise. He didn’t care for the artsy stores popping up, but he rotated through a wide range of coffee houses that served everything from traditional joe to organic free-trade, shade-grown, bird-friendly beans.

  Tom stopped in Turks for his morning Americano. Tom liked laid-back Turks because it was directly across from Grandview Park. Paulie preferred Joe’s, because it had an attached pool hall, where she could rack up a few games with Jazz to unwind after her NA meetings. Tom thought Joe’s had really good coffee, but he didn’t want to crowd Paulie. She needed some space and, if he was forced to admit it, he needed not to be teased to death by her raunchy sobriety buddies.

  “Morning, Tom-tom. Usual?” Kate said. Today she was wearing an orange bikini top and a sarong skirt, showing lots of latte-creamy skin. Kate studied ethnobotany at UBC. She shared a nearby house with six other students. On slow mornings when Mel was asleep, Kate gave him free refills and talked his ear off.

  “Morning, Kate,” Tom said. “Yup. Same as always.”

  Mel hid her face against the stroller, then peeked out at two girls sitting near the counter.

  “Hel-lo, sweetie pie, hello,” the brunette with facial tattoos said. “Peek-a-boo, I see you.”

  Mel squealed.

  “I’m going to bite her,” the bald girl said. “What’s her name?”

  “Melody.” Tom rolled the stroller closer.

  “Hi there, Melody. Hi there.”

  “Mwah!” Melody said.

  “Hey, that’s a first,” Tom said.

  “Is it?” The bald girl seemed tickled by this.

  “Americano’s up, Tom-tom.”

  “Thanks, Kate. Wave bye-bye, Mel. Bye-bye.”

  “Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!”

  Mel blew kisses at the pedestrians and cars. When people ignored her, she stopped, sitting back. She braced her feet against the snack tray, wiggling her toes in her sandals. They rolled across the street. Grandview Park was on the side of a gently sloping hill, and from the top had a postcard view of downtown
and Grouse Mountain. Houses crept up the distant blue of the mountains on the North Shore. Unlike Toronto, which could sprawl in all directions on the relative flatness of Southern Ontario, Vancouver was hemmed in by the mountains and the ocean. With space so squashed, downtown Vancouver glittered with skyscrapers and mushroom-like clusters of condos. Grandview Park had a playground shaded by tall trees, a wide stretch of grass near the local high school that was currently occupied by some junior gang-bangers smoking up.

  Bongo Man was going at it under a tree near the corner, grooving to his own rhythm despite the obvious irritation of nearby backpackers. They were stretched out on their sleeping bags on the other side of the tree, giving Bongo Man nasty sideways glances, muttering among themselves. Bongo Man had waist-long blond dreads dyed an uneven shade of purple. His eyes were half-closed, and an unlit joint spit-stuck to the side of his mouth. Mel was not interested in Bongo Man. He was old news. The water park held her full attention, causing her to sit up and bounce in her stroller.

  Tom parked the stroller near an empty bench. On another bench nearby, a pale girl with kohl-rimmed eyes and flat-black spiky hair nodded at him as she breast-fed her baby girl. He nodded back. She was in his parenting group, but he could never remember her name, just her kids, Seraph and Truman. She shared the bench with an obese blond woman in black stirrup pants and a blue T-shirt, and a man in tight acid-wash jeans and a wife-beater who was sucking on his cigarette like he needed it to breathe.

  “Brendan, that’s enough. That’s enough. Let your brother have a turn. I mean it,” said Shirl, a petite woman in a tie-dyed sundress, a matching handkerchief holding her hair back. Paulie had met Shirl in a rehab years ago, and when they bumped into each other at a drop-in centre, they’d bonded over bad birthing stories. Shirl saw Tom and waved, walking toward the bench.

  “Hi, Shirl.” Tom swung Melody up.

  “Mwah!” Mel said, bouncing.

  “Oh, come here, kissy face,” Shirl said.

  “Where’s Jim?” Tom said.

  “Dental appointment.” She squinted. “Brendan, get off the swing! Brendan Nathanial Dodson, you get your ass off that swing right now!”

  “But Mo-om.”

  “Don’t make me come over there!” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to kill them if they don’t kill each other first.”

  “Gotcha covered.”

  Shirl stuck her nose in Mel’s hair. “I get an estrogen rush just holding her. Want to trade?”

  “Come by at three in the morning and we’ll talk.”

  Shirl laughed, moved Mel to her hip. Tom sat on the bench and sipped his Americano as he watched them walk toward the water park. Eric pumped his legs. Brendan swatted his brother when he swung near.

  “Higher!” Eric demanded.

  A group of singing Hare Krishnas danced up the sidewalk, giving Bongo Man a run for his money. A couple of women spread blankets near the sidewalk and put out books and clothes for sale.

  Because of its slightly seedy reputation, East Van was one of the last affordable places to live in Vancouver, so it attracted a mix of anarchists and activists, blue-collar families and immigrants. The hippies who couldn’t afford Kitsilano had also migrated east, bringing organic co-ops and hemp shops into the mix. There were mom-and-pop restaurants everywhere and you could find a Jamaican jerk shack beside an Ethiopian vegetarian café beside a hydroponics bong palace.

  Gentrification creep had started with a few condos, some spas and upscale junk stores, and a Starbucks, which had been bitterly petitioned against by the coffee shops on the same block. You could always tell the new condo owners, like the couple walking up the path – the slim woman wearing a chino pencil skirt and paisley blouse, the big guy wearing a chino suit and navy dress shirt. They stuck out like narcs at a boozecan.

  “Hey!” Tom said. “Stop punching Brendan! Eric! Did you hear me? I’m going to call your mom.”

  The twins stuck their tongues out at him and ran to the slides.

  Tom downed the rest of his Americano and walked over to the trash can.

  “Look who escaped from Fraggle Rock,” Chino Guy said.

  Tom ignored him and walked back to the playground but Chino Guy blocked his way, grinning down at him. Something about him – the reddish brown hair, the freckles, the pointy chin – rang a bell, but Tom couldn’t place him.

  “Do I know you?” Tom said doubtfully. He didn’t know that many human tanks.

  “I hear it’s good luck to spot one,” Chino Guy said.

  “Mike,” Chino Girl said.

  “McConnell?” Tom said. “Holy fuck.”

  “How the hell are you, Bauer?”

  “What the hell have you been eating, man?”

  “You haven’t changed at all, shrimpola. You should start working out.”

  “I think the steroids have given you brain damage.”

  Mike laughed, his ratcheting hee-haw bringing back memories of lunchtime in high school, when they used to hang out in the hallways or cut class together.

  “Just a sec,” Tom said. “Eric! What did I just tell you?”

  “He started it!”

  “Liar!”

  “You’re begging for a time out, guys.”

  The twins waggled their bums in his direction.

  “Yours?” Mike said.

  “Thank Christ, no. They’re my friend Shirl’s. She’s over there with my daughter.”

  Chino Girl cleared her throat. “I’m Greer, Mike’s partner.” She had a frank stare, unsettlingly light grey eyes, and a sculpted bob. She held out her hand, gave a firm, dry shake. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “You must be a very patient woman, Greer.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mike said, “you’re still a riot, Bauer.”

  “Ah, shit. Just a sec. Put the rock down! Eric, you put that down,” Tom said.

  “So how have my monsters been?” Shirl said. Shirl and Mel were soaked. Mel reached for him.

  “Pretty quiet.” Tom lifted Mel. She yanked excitedly at his hair.

  “Their colds are slowing them down,” Shirl said.

  “Hey, Shirl, this is Mike and his girlfriend, Greer. Mike, Greer, this is Shirl, and this is my girl, Melody.”

  “Hi. Er-RIC! Put the rock down!” Shirl shouted. “See you tomorrow, Tom. Now, Eric. I mean it!”

  “Bye, Shirl.”

  Mike and Greer stood staring at him and Mel.

  “Are you hungry?” Tom said as Mel chewed on his sleeve. He reached in the stroller for a Ziploc bag full of Cheerios. They sat on the bench. Mel stuck her hands in the bag and grabbed fistfuls and threw them on the ground. Tom pulled the stroller closer and rummaged around for a bottle. Mel leaned against him while she drank.

  “She’s adorable,” Greer said, sitting beside him.

  “Takes after her mother.”

  “Is she around?” Greer said.

  “No, she’s at a meeting.”

  “Where do you guys live?” Mike asked.

  “We’ve got an apartment a few blocks from here. What are you guys doing in this neck of the woods?”

  “One of Greer’s friends has a show at Havana.”

  Ah, Tom thought. Havana was a popular Cuban-themed hipster restaurant. It had a small gallery exhibiting paintings and photographs of up-and-comers.

  “It’s Serena’s first exhibit,” Greer said. “She took Mike’s picture –”

  “All you can see are my knees.”

  “She’s working with some haunting juxtapositions, the perfect and the disfigured –”

  “She’s into scars.”

  Greer checked her watch. “Compelling, very moving. We should get going, hon.”

  “Are you in the book?” Mike said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Pleasure meeting you, Tom,” Greer said.

  “Likewise. Say bye-bye, Mel.”

  Mel popped the bottle out of her mouth. “Mwah!”

  “Well, that was a
blast from the past,” Tom said, watching them leave.

  Mel tugged on her ear, yawning. Tom changed her diaper, put her in fresh clothes, and brought her over to the swings. They swayed back and forth as the kids screamed through the park.

  Paulie had wanted Mel to listen to Mozart, but Mel wasn’t interested in the classics. She didn’t pay attention to the children’s tapes either, not a Barney fan, no Elmo. Paulie had played the radio one day around bedtime and discovered that Mel relaxed best to The Tragically Hip, Radiohead, and R.E.M.

  Mel and her moody boys, she had said.

  Tom sang a Hip song, low and slow, altering the lyrics to make them Mel-friendly. She knew the swing trick too and squirmed.

  “Melo-dy-ee! Honey, are you mad at your dad?”

  She found a comfortable spot, heaving a great put-upon sigh. Her eyes drooped.

  “Honey, are you mad at your dad?”

  An early afternoon breeze sent the leaves into a tizzy. Mel shut her eyes as the light on her face flashed gold and green, gold and green.

  1 JULY 1998

  “Either your feet are freakishly small,” Paulie said, lifting his left foot and pressing the sole of hers against it. “Or mine are freakishly big. Look, they’re the same size.”

  “I love your elephant feet,” Tom said.

  Paulie kicked his foot and he laughed. She reached for her shirt, but found his instead and pulled it on.

  “We should do something,” Paulie said.

  “Now?” Tom said.

  “Get up.”

  “You go,” Tom said.

  Paulie bounced on the mattress. “Come on. Up. Up.” She punched his leg.

  “Ow.”

  “Come on.”

  Tom pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Paulie, you’re killing the relaxing part.”

  “We’re wasting the day,” Paulie said.

  “Paulie,” Tom groaned. “I can’t stay awake. You go. Bring Mel in here. We’ll nap together.”

  She pulled on her jeans, leaning back to do the zipper up. She sat cross-legged beside him. His eyes slid shut.

  He heard a high whine, felt the bed shake. Paulie ran the vacuum cleaner by his head. He turned over and put a pillow over his ears. Eventually, he heard the vacuum cleaner move down the hallway.