Blood Sports

by Eden Robinson

  Bedtime for Mel: bath, brush teeth, change into a nightshirt, change into fresh diaper, read two books, and kiss good night. One stopperful of Tempra if she was teething.

  The phone rang. Glock Man and Muscle Shirt exchanged glances. They let the answering machine pick up, Paulie’s voice saying, “We’re busy. Leave short messages, people.”

  “Pau-lina,” Jazz sang out. “Where are you? Missed you this morning. I’ll bring the book tomorrow. Again. Phone me back or I’ll kick your butt. Buh-bye.”

  Tom’s neck had a crick from the angle he’d been sleeping. His hands and feet and ass felt numb. He kept drifting, jerking awake when the commercials came on. Muscle Shirt sipped a Pepsi – the snap of the tab, the sigh of pressure being released, cold pop can in a hand, throat-aching Pepsi going down. Glock Man leaned forward to watch a tornado smash through a military base.

  “Sarge?” a guy’s tentative voice, off-camera. “Maybe we should go down to the basement now?”

  “In a minute, in a minute. Whoa! Do you see the power of that thing?”

  A baby’s shriek woke him. Then he heard tiny, quick footsteps. Under the doorway, fast-moving shadows dimmed the light coming from the hallway and then passed. He knew he was back in the old apartment he’d shared with his mother, the old Woodcourt Apartments.

  “Hello?” Tom said. “Is anyone there?”

  The footsteps stopped. He heard a high giggle, like a naughty little kid chuckling over something. Another giggle joined it, and another. The baby cried.

  He sat up, disoriented. Across from him was the cot where Jeremy had slept those first few months he’d lived with them when he moved to Vancouver. Tom pushed aside the blankets and swung his legs over the bed. The linoleum was chilly against his bare feet.

  “Hello?” Tom said.

  He couldn’t tell which room the baby was in. He started looking in his mother’s room. It was overturned, as if she’d been hunting frantically for something, probably clothes or keys, before she left. He heard the shower running, so checked the bathroom. When he slid the shower curtain aside, the tub was filled. Something crashed, and the footsteps ran.

  “Damn it,” Tom said.

  He poked his head out of the door, saw nothing. The baby’s squall became staccato as it started hyperventilating.

  In the kitchen, he opened all the cupboards but there were only sluggishly moving cockroaches inside. The fridge was empty. The oven held a shrivelled piece of burnt meat that had white things growing on it. A man was passed out under the table, but it wasn’t anyone he recognized. He knew he was going to have to wake him up and kick him out, but he wanted to find the kids first before they wrecked anything else or hurt the baby.

  The phone rang. As he walked down the hallway, the phone kept ringing and the answering machine didn’t pick up. He ignored it. The storage room had a sliding door. When he pushed it open, cold air ran out. A tiny man, barely coming up to his knees, skittered past him.

  Paulina shakily reached out and grabbed his forearm. She was wearing the skin-tight jeans and the white leather jacket with fringe she used to wear in high school. Her hair was strawberry blond again, the way he used to love it, fluffed high in sharp crimps, except for a fist-sized spot above her right ear where it was matted with blood. She pulled him in the storage room and slid the door shut behind them. Her mascara was clumped under her eyes and tracked along her nose as if she’d been crying. She put her index finger to her cotton-candy pink lips and said, “Shh.”

  As suddenly as the baby had started screaming, it stopped. The footsteps made their way down the hall to the storage room. The door rattled. Paulina let go of him so that she could hold it shut.

  “Shh,” she said.

  “Okay, listen up, kiddies. Once upon a time, this cunt had a magic goose that shit golden eggs. She was rich and happy until her daddy ripped the bird a new ass to see if he could get all the gold. Goose died, gold died, cunt and daddy died poor in the fucking gutter. Got it?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Muscle Shirt said.

  “Loud and clear,” Glock Man said.

  A hand grabbed Tom’s chin, turned his head. He blinked slowly, trying to focus. Blurry man in front of him, buzz cut, khaki shirt, large, square face. The man was someone he knew. He had a name that slipped and slithered around his brain as Tom struggled to keep his head up.

  “Anything?”

  “Nada,” Muscle Shirt said.

  “Clean as a whistle,” Glock Man said.

  “Tom.” Someone slapped his face. “Did you give him anything?”

  “Firebug, man, relax,” Muscle Shirt said. “We wouldn’t start the party without you.”

  “Fuck,” Firebug said. A slap, nothing hard. “Tommy-boy. Wakey, wakey. You morons. Get me some water. Now, kiddies, before our goose bites it.”

  Firebug’s arm held him up, helping him through the parking lot to the Ramada Inn near the highway.

  “I don’t think Mel has enough diapers,” Tom told the clerk. “She’s eating lots and she needs lots of diapers. And wipes. Does she have any snacks? Did you pack her any snacks?”

  “My friend’s had a bit too much,” Firebug said.

  The clerk handed back Firebug’s credit card, not amused. “Enjoy your stay.”

  “Thanks.”

  The elevator was mirrored, and Tom watched himself sway. He did look like he’d pulled an all-nighter, a real humdinger of a binge.

  “Is Paulie here?” Tom said, starting to slide down. “Paulie? Paulie?”

  Firebug hefted Tom up. “For fuck’s sake, shut up.”

  Tom tried to stand by himself and fell into a mirror, the glass cool against his cheek. “Does Mel have enough diapers?”

  “I’m giving you some slack now, Tom, because you’re out of it. But I’m going to come down on you hard if you keep bugging me about Mel. Clear?”

  “Mel’s teething.”

  “Yeah? That’s great. That’s just fucking peachy.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Firebug said, grabbing his arm. “I told you to stay in the room.”

  “Firebug?” Tom said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on a fucking convention. Come on.”

  Firebug took him by the elbow and led him back to the open door of the hotel room. Firebug sat him on the chair at the desk and opened a ginger ale. He put two white caplets in Tom’s hand and the can of pop in the other.

  Firebug leaned in close as if he saw something tiny on Tom’s face and wanted to get a good look at it. “You are one sneaky little shit, Tom Bauer. Are you awake?”

  “I think we left Mel in the car seat.”

  “Or are you faking it?”

  “She’s not here. I checked. We have to go get Mel.”

  Firebug gripped Tom’s arms and gave him a shake. The ginger ale sloshed onto their pants. “Mel’s not in the car seat. There is no car seat. Stop talking about the fucking car seat.”

  Tom cocked his head. “Can you hear her crying? I can hear her crying. Paulie must be asleep. We have to go back to the car. I think we left Mel in the car seat.”

  Firebug sucked in a deep breath. “Up. Get up.”

  Tom followed Firebug into the bathroom. He blanked for a moment, and when he came to, Firebug sat him on the toilet.

  Tom stared at his clothes. Firebug folded them and put them in the trash can. Firebug left the bathroom and came back with a dry-cleaning bag and pair of clippers. He draped the white plastic bag around Tom shoulders.

  “Hold this,” Firebug said.

  Tom held the bag in place as Firebug sheared his head. His hair fell in clumps, looking lank and greasy, coiled into half-moons on the bleached-white floor tiles. The buzz from the clippers rattled his skull.

  “All pretty for your big scene tomorrow.”

  Firebug took the bag and put it in the trash. He used his hand to scoop the hair on the floor into piles and then he trashed that too.

  “Something’s wrong,” Tom said.

  “Get up,”
Firebug said. “Good Tom. Very good. In the shower.”

  In the mirror over the bathroom sink, he watched Firebug turning the shower on. The water that hit him was lukewarm. He tried to step away from it, but Firebug held his left wrist, took a white bar of soap and lifted Tom’s arm. Firebug scrubbed one pit then the other.

  “I know something’s wrong.”

  “Figured that out all by yourself, did you?” Firebug soaped his chest and stomach. “Yeah, you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

  Daylight crowned the hills in the distance, but the vault of the sky was blue-black with a wispy ring of pearl-white light at its centre. In the false night of the total eclipse, the birds stopped singing, the bees stopped droning, and the cows in the field lined up and headed back to the barn. His cousins ran screaming through the front yard, bug-eyed with dark goggles as Uncle Lowell chased them. Aunt Faith and his mother stood on the porch, laughing. Tom put his hand in Jeremy’s because Jeremy was smiling down at him. He felt safe.

  “The mood is set,” Jeremy said. “Candles, soft music, a horny teenager, and his hot babe aaaaand action.”

  Tom sat on the grey suede sofa. Lilia sat beside him in a blue dress, the artfully tattered hem spread around her like ruffled tulip petals. Jeremy held up the camcorder and waved his hand. On the large-screen TV in front of the sofa, he could see duplicates of him and Lilia. Lilia’s manicured hand touched his hair. She was not his type – too sharp, all cheekbones and collarbones, and long arms and legs, and bored, hooded green eyes. Her mass of blue-black waves (one peek-a-boo wave over her right eye) was too retro, too cool for school, and he felt uncomfortable touching her, like he was fondling a really expensive vase that he’d have to pay for if he broke.

  “You’re sitting beside a beautiful woman who’s willing to pop your cherry,” Jeremy said. “So you should probably look a tad bit excited instead of like you’re swallowing a bug.”

  “I don’t want to do this,” Tom said. “I don’t think we should do this.”

  “Lil, give the boy some encouragement.”

  “I think the star has nerves.” Lilia sat back. “I’m feeling kind of antsy myself. Do you want to do some blow?”

  “Go for it.”

  “I’m serious, Jer.”

  “Once the star’s blown, you’ll get your blow.”

  Lilia scratched her face. “Come on, Jer. The teamsters demand a refreshment break. At least give Tom a hoot.”

  “No hoot for the star. Come on, we’re wasting precious time here.”

  “A couple of lines,” Lilia said. “That’s all. Come on, Jer. You want us to fly, don’t you? You want to watch us fly?”

  “Oh, all right. The director caves to the unreasonable demands of the union.”

  Lilia and Jeremy snorted lines off the glass coffee table. Jeremy reached over and wiped the fine white powder off Lilia’s left nostril.

  “How about Tommy-baby?” Lilia said, smiling wide. “Let’s get Tommy-baby on board.”

  “Tommy-baby can’t handle anything. You give him anything and he passes out.”

  “Do you want a hoot?” Lilia said to him.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t have any pot,” Jeremy said.

  “I’ve got some in my purse. Right back, don’t go anywhere.” With a flirty toss of her hair, she strode out of the room.

  “Jeremy,” Tom said. “Could you not tape it at least?”

  “You’ll thank me later when you want to watch it.”

  “But I won’t want to watch it. Jeremy. There’re some things you don’t record, you know?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this! You don’t videotape your … your … stuff. You don’t see people going to funerals with camcorders and sticking them in the caskets, do you? You don’t go around videotaping your dog taking a dump, do you? You don’t go showing people your colonoscopy, do you?”

  “Ugh. I think Lil’s right. You need a couple of hoots.”

  “Here we are! A baggie full of sunshine!” Lilia said.

  He smoked a joint while Lilia and Jeremy watched him. Jeremy went back to his director’s chair, and Lilia put her hands on Tom’s shoulders.

  “Lie back,” she said. “And think of England.”

  “You’re ruining the mood, people,” Jeremy yelled at them as they rolled around the sofa, laughing their asses off. “We had a mood going, and you’re ruining it.”

  8 JULY 1998

  Tom’s hands tingled. The pain dragged him out of sleep. He heard birds. Leaves shushed. He peeled his cheek off the plaid cover of the bench seat he was lying on. His handcuffs clanged against the exposed metal of the steering wheel as he sprang upright. He wasn’t sure if it was early morning or twilight. He couldn’t remember falling asleep or how he’d gotten into the truck.

  “Paulie!” he shouted. “Mel! Paulie!”

  The old Ford was parked on the shoulder of a narrow gravel road crowded with trees. The road wound up a hill and had a puffy line of browning grass marking the centre. Tom tugged at the cuffs that were threaded through the wheel. The cuffs were steel and double-hinged. The steering wheel’s rubber cover was attached to the metal core with duct tape.

  “Paulie! Mel! Paulie!”

  If he wanted to, he could honk the horn. He could kick the parking brake off. He could open the door. He was reasonably sure he could yank the steering column off. Instead, he leaned forward and rested his head on the wheel as his chest tightened and his breath came in shallow gasps. He could get them killed if he did something stupid. He could get them killed if he did nothing. He could sit here and be good and hope for the best. They might not even be here. Or they might be twenty feet away.

  The windows were open. Tom leaned out as a wave of nausea emptied his stomach down the side of the truck. Stringy bile sparkled against the dark blue rust-splotched paint. His head ached, a steady, heavy throb in his temples.

  Paulie would do something. Paulie would not sit obediently like a dumb dog. Paulie would take the truck apart to stay in the game.

  Tom pressed the horn but it didn’t make a sound. He pressed both sides of the horn, and then slammed his hands against the wheel again and again in a fit. This isn’t helpful, he told himself. Calm down.

  Bracing his feet against the dashboard, he grabbed the steering wheel and tried to pry it off. He’d seen it done somewhere, a movie, something with Arnie or Sylvester or Jean-Claude. Nothing happened, except his wrist bones were scraped raw. He paused, trying not to hyperventilate.

  He used his foot to pull off the parking brake. The truck didn’t move. Tom slammed himself forward and then back, forward and back. The truck rolled slowly backward until it rested against a fat-trunked tree that showered brown needles in the cab.

  A hiker could be nearby. Or a hunter. Tom opened his mouth, but couldn’t bring himself to yell for help. He didn’t know why it was embarrassing, even now when his life literally depended on it.

  “Fire!” he shouted. “Fire!”

  The truck smelled like old sweat, like a gym locker, funky like socks that could stand by themselves. The dashboard was faded where the sun hit and dark blue underneath. The floor was pebbled plastic, dusty blue with dirt and gravel. The bench seat was worn on the driver’s side so Tom tilted toward the door. His wrists were shredded from his attempts to pull off the steering wheel. He had managed to crack the plastic on the left side. He let his head fall back. The sun had cleared the tops of the trees. Tom wondered what time that meant.

  He’d left them at six. He’d checked in with Paulie during his coffee break at nine, and she’d sounded fine. Annoyed and tired, actually. Mel had been hard to put down. The TV had been loud in the background, Mary Hart’s polished chirp accompanied by the Entertainment Tonight theme song. Paulie had mumbled responses and finally’d said she needed to get to the dishes but Tom knew she really wanted to veg and wasn’t up to distracting him from work’s soul-crushing monotony. A full day and night had passed since they’d been snatched
.

  He caught his reflection in the rear-view mirror, startled again by his baldness. He remembered a motel, or a hotel, a clerk. A potential witness. Firebug could hardly be planning to kill them if he was dragging Tom in front of potential witnesses. Firebug wasn’t sloppy. Something, something, he couldn’t understand why his thoughts were so scattered, why everything was jumbled and jerky.

  Jazz would check in, would make sure that no backsliding was taking place on her watch. She had phoned, Tom remembered that. Jazz had left a message, something about a book. Shirl would miss them in the morning. She might not be alarmed enough to visit. Maybe after a few days, she’d wonder where they went, be annoyed that she had no recess from the twins. Stan would call tomorrow when he didn’t show for work, but wouldn’t be too concerned. People quit Lucky Lou’s all the time without giving notice.

  Paulie wouldn’t go down without a slugfest. Maybe one of the neighbours had seen or heard something. Maybe they’d already called the police. Maybe someone had gone to their apartment and seen the mess and put two and two together and there was an all-points bulletin out for them.

  But Paulie wouldn’t do anything that would get Mel hurt. If they got Mel first, Paulie would bide her time. The neighbours might have heard the commotion but assumed he and Paulie were still renovating. They’d banged around like crazy these last few days.

  It didn’t make sense. Muscle Shirt had called him a snitch, but Tom had kept his mouth shut. Paulie’d never go running to the cops, not with her record. They were such small fry, it wasn’t funny. It had to be a sick, stupid joke.

  But Firebug lacked a sense of ha-ha. Personality type A-B, All Business. Everything in its place. Firebug’s perfectly tidy writing, textbook cursive. A dot for every “i” and a cross for every “t.” Firebug wasn’t random. Doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t. Sense.

  He pounded on the steering wheel, willing it to break. He braced his feet again. He would run up the road to the top of the hill and see what he could see from there. He would circle the truck, expanding his search in widening circles in case Paulie and Mel were nearby. He would find them. They were alive. Firebug wasn’t random.