by William Bell
Teachers are really funny sometimes. Just because they think something is a big issue they figure you feel that way too. If they think you’ve committed some major crime like skipping school for a few days, they think you should be sorry. You’re supposed to look contrite—we learned that word in vocab study before we started Romeo and Juliet—and you’re supposed to feel guilty. The thing was, I didn’t feel guilty at all. I was glad I’d gone to Quebec City, even though I went all that way for nothing, so why should I pretend otherwise?
But let’s face it. I was an athlete and I knew a game when I saw one. I also knew how to play it. You didn’t have to be a genius.
“I admit I skipped, and I’m ready to take the punishment,” I said. “I had to go somewhere important, but I’m not going to talk about it.” I gave her what I hoped was a hurt, I-need-understanding-not-discipline look. I had seen Hawk use that look a dozen times. He was a master at it. “It’s … it’s not something I can talk about.”
Davis picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on her desk blotter. Her voice softened a little. “You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you? Drugs, maybe?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “It’s something personal.” Then I tried a line that always seemed to work on TV. “Please try to understand.”
She tapped her pencil some more. “Okay, Steve. I’ll go easy on you this time. One day’s suspension.”
The system made me laugh sometimes. I mean, Davis was sitting there at her desk with two framed university degrees hanging on the wall behind her, telling me that, as punishment for missing a couple of days of school, I was going to have to miss a day of school. Figure that one out. That’s like saying the penalty for stealing a car was to go and steal another car.
But what the hell. I had a creative writing assignment due in two days, so now I’d have lots of time to work on it I’d have to explain things to Coach Leonard, though. He was training me hard for a big invitational tournament in Thunder Bay in July and he didn’t like me to miss practice.
REPLAY
After the postcards stopped coming I gradually got used to things the way they were. That’s what little kids have to do—get used to things. They can’t change anything. They can’t control things or make things happen. Most of the time nobody asks them what they think or feel or want. Parents, teachers, others, but especially parents, do things, and the little kid’s job is to adapt, to fit himself into a world somebody else made for him.
EIGHT
IT WAS A WARM SUNNY SPRING AFTERNOON. AS soon as I came into the house my mother started shrieking. I was late. I had forgotten, hadn’t I? Where had I been, anyway? I never thought of anyone but myself.
Well, I had forgotten that we were supposed to go to my grandparents’ for Sunday dinner, but it wasn’t like I’d been down at Sick Kids’ Hospital selling crack to the patients. I had been over at Sara’s working on a science report, which meant her doing all the work and me listening to tapes and talking to her. I dumped my books on my bed and headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later I was ready to go.
“You’re not going in that, are you?”
I was wearing jeans, a Rush T-shirt and unlaced high-tops. My mother had on a dark blue pant-suit over a white silk blouse with a red scarf at the throat. We didn’t match too well. I didn’t feel like an argument so I went back upstairs and threw on an old corduroy sports jacket.
When I came down again she was already out in the car with the engine running, smoking a cigarette. As she backed out of the driveway I turned on the radio. My mother immediately switched it off. “You know I can’t concentrate on the road with that thing blasting,” she complained, carefully putting the BMW into Drive. I slipped a Bruce Cockburn tape into my Walkman.
I knew my mother was nervous about going to her parents’ place. She always seemed uncomfortable around them, as if she was still a kid trying to measure up. To tell the truth, I felt kind of sorry for her—when she wasn’t driving me batty with her passion for making money and doing the right thing. She smoked heavily, chewed Rolaids as if they were candy, and went through a bottle of powdered organic laxative every two weeks. She hardly ever laughed. She was good-looking and dressed sharp, but never had time to date. She was skilled at her job—she was a partner in her accounting firm—but didn’t know how to relax when she got home from the office. Her briefcase was always stuffed with extra work. She constantly worried about what other people thought—her colleagues, the neighbours, my teachers. When it came time for the cleaning lady to come, my mother would fly into a panic and tidy up the house so Mrs. Nadimi wouldn’t think we were slobs. Who cleans up for the cleaning lady? What kind of logic is that?
We rode along through the Sunday traffic, me listening to my tunes, my mother gripping the steering wheel and glaring ahead as if there were terrorists out there aiming rocket-launchers at the car. Just once, I thought, I’d like to see her relax, loosen up a little, have some fun.
My grandparents lived in one of those neighbourhoods where the tree-lined streets never go in a straight line and are never called streets. They’re all “lanes” or “paths” or “courts”. The houses are big and dark, with leaded windows and perfect landscaping done by foreign guys in old pick-up trucks with their names hand-painted on the sides.
My grandparents came out onto the porch to greet us. Grandma kissed me drily on the cheek and led us into the living room, which was as big as a tennis court and stuffed with furniture you were afraid to sit on in case you got it dirty. Mom and Grandma had sherry, which Granddad poured from a heavy cut-glass decanter. He was working on something amber with a lot of ice in it.
The thing was, us sitting around like that, it wasn’t like a family. You’d have thought my mother and I was business associates of my grandfather’s or some art gallery boardmembers my grandmother had dragged home. Nobody told a joke or laughed or kidded. We all sat up straight and nodded politely and listened to our ice cubes clink in our glasses.
Then my grandfather stood. “Steven, come into the den with me. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
I followed him into what I always thought of as the brass, leather and walnut room—one of those really manly dens like you see in the movies. He showed me to one of a pair of leather wing chairs and we sat before a dead fireplace.
My grandfather is one of those guys who intimidates you without saying anything. I don’t know what it is. He’s tall—I inherited his height—but that’s not it. He’s rich, but that isn’t it either. He just seems so confident about everything he does. I liked him a lot, though. Underneath, he was a kind man, and sometimes showed his sense of humour.
He’d been retired for a couple of years from a big insurance company where he had been a top exec. He was very conservative about everything—I could see him eyeing my jeans and T-shirt, and my earring drove him nuts—and, I hate to say it, a bit of a snob. He really believed that the rich and well educated—and white, naturally—were better than other people. “More substantial,” he told me once. Yeah, right, Granddad.
I sat there, listening to the leather creak when I moved, and waited. I figured I was going to get a Talking To about something, and I didn’t have long to wait.
“I understand you took a little trip, Steven.”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Your mother was quite worried.”
“Well, I left her a note.”
He frowned and took a sip of the amber stuff.
“You took your mother’s car.” A strain of anger crept into his voice. “May I ask you what you were trying to prove with that little stunt?”
Why do adults always think you’re trying to prove something? As if you couldn’t just do something. I kept quiet for a moment, swirled my Coke around in my glass, looked into the cold fireplace. Tell the truth? I asked myself. Well, why not tell the truth? I had felt a little silly on the way back, going all the way to Quebec City and not finding anything, but I wasn’t ashamed of what I had done.
“I went to look for my old man,” I said.
My grandfather scowled. He knew that already. My mother would have told him.
“But why, Steven? That’s what I was wondering.”
“I just wanted to find him.”
Granddad crossed his legs and, with his thumb and index finger, sharpened the crease in his pants. “You know, Steven, I hate to put it this way, but to all intents and purposes you don’t have a father.”
I shot out of my chair, spilling ice cubes and Coke on the rug. “Yes, I do!” I had never yelled at my grandfather before.
“Sit down!” he commanded in his boardroom voice. “Go on, sit!”
I did as he said, fuming.
“What I meant was, your father abandoned you a long time ago. What possessed you to try to find him? He clearly—I’m sorry to be so blunt, Steven—he clearly has no thought for you. What can you possibly hope to gain by opening things up again?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Actually, I did know, but I couldn’t explain it. I knew he had never liked the old man, and had opposed the marriage.
“You ought to think things through a little. You worried your mother and you got into trouble—again—at school. You’re a young man, now, Steven, you’re not a child. It’s time to start acting like a man. And a man acts responsibly.”
Yeah, right, I thought. Tell me I’m a man right after you’ve tried to butt into something private, right after you’ve ordered me to sit down. How come when adults want you to do something they tell you you’re an adult, but when they don’t want you to do something you’re suddenly not mature enough?
I let my grandfather talk. He was almost finished his lecture when there was a knock on the door and Grandma put her head in. “Dinner’s ready, boys,” she said, ducking out again.
We went into the dining room and sat at the long oak table. My grandfather said grace and began to carve a leg of lamb while Grandma spooned vegetables onto the plates and passed them down to him. All this spooning and carving and passing of plates went on in silence.
Once we had our food, Grandma tried to start up a conversation. The three adults talked about the weather and other fascinating stuff while I pushed my food around on my plate, pretending to eat. My mother told them about what was going on in the office and my grandfather gave her a lot of advice she probably didn’t need or want. Then they all talked about the economy and my grandfather explained at length how the idiots in Ottawa were screwing it all up. I passed on the dessert, asked to be excused and went to the TV room to see what was on the tube.
My mother drove home carefully in the dark. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“He said I didn’t have a father,” I said. “He had no right.”
“You misunderstood him.”
“You weren’t there.”
“He was only trying to help.”
“That’s no excuse.”
That’s how the conversation went. I was glad when we got home.
NINE
I WAS STRETCHED OUT ON THE COT beside our dinky little swimming pool one Saturday in June, catching some rays and dozing, trying to think up another excuse for not studying for my final French exam. I could hear the breeze from Lake Ontario stirring in the big maples along the foot of the yard, some little kids playing pick-up soccer out on the road, and the automatic vacuum going kalunk! kalunk! as it crept around inside the pool. I could smell the early summer odour of leaves, flowers, freshly mowed grass—somebody else’s, not ours—and my coconut suntan oil. I had no intention of moving from that cot for at least a century.
My doze was interrupted by the klop-klop of sandals down the wooden stairs from our back porch and the clap-clap of the same sandals on the cement pool deck. Oh-oh, I thought. I kept my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep.
“Steve.”
I ignored my mother, hoping that she’d go away. I wondered what she was doing home. Usually it was past six before she got back from work.
“Steve,” she said again.
I turned and opened my eyes, squinting up at her. She looked formal and businesslike in a green dress pulled tight to her waist with a white leather belt. But her face was flushed, and she twisted her long thin hands together.
“I need to talk with you,” she announced.
“I’m going to mow the lawn later, Mom, when it’s cooler,” I tried.
“It’s not about that, although now that you mention it I would have been more than a little surprised if I’d found the grass cut.”
“Aw, Mom, I just got comfortable. Can’t whatever it is wait?” How come mothers never disturb you for anything good?
She pulled up a lawn chair and sat down. “I talked to your father today. On the phone.”
I felt the shock wave right down in my bones. I sat up to face her, and said cautiously, “Oh?”
“It seems he … well … happens to be going out West soon.”
I waited. I knew if I was patient she’d get to the point. The trouble was, it was hard to be patient. My mother always walks around a subject two or three dozen times as if she’s hoping it will go away before she has to face it.
“He wants to take you to the wrestling tournament in Thunder Bay,” she said.
“He does? But how did he know … When did he phone?”
She twisted her hands faster and looked out over the brown waves of the lake. “Well, I called him, actually.”
“Really? You—”
“I got to thinking about what happened at Mom and Dad’s, and I … well, I made a few calls and tracked him down.” The rest came out in a rush, as if she wanted to get it out before she changed her mind. “I told him that you were going to Thunder Bay to compete and asked him if he was interested in going with you. He said he would, and so … if you want to go with him, it’s all right with me. I can get a refund on your plane ticket. If you don’t …” Her voice died off as she ran her fingers through her short chestnut hair. Then she added quietly, “Maybe it’s time you two got together again.”
I tried not to sound too enthusiastic. “Sure, Mom, that sounds good. That sounds fine.”
She rose from the chair. “Well, that’s settled, then. I have to get back to the office.” She headed for the stairs.
“Mom,” I called after her. “Wait a second.”
She turned.
“Why are you doing this?”
Her arms hung stiffly at her sides, her hands balled into fists. “I’ll see you at supper,” she said.
She fled up the stairs.
TEN
I WAS KILLING TIME AND TRYING to take my mind off things, doing wrist curls with my dumb-bells and watching a rock video by Steel Icicle, a new rock group from Vancouver. There was a half-dressed woman chained to a stake and a bare-chested guy was moving toward her, singing and thrusting the guitar in her direction. She looked like she was enjoying the whole thing and couldn’t wait till he got to her.
It was a hot morning, the first Sunday of July, and a weak breeze pushed through the window screens into my bedroom. My suitcase was packed, I had checked my gym bag a dozen times—two singlets, the tight nylon bathing suit I used for a jockstrap, an old pair of Asics wrestling shoes and a brand-new pair of the latest model Nikes my mother had brought me for good luck, socks, soap, towels, everything I would need for the tournament and a lot of stuff I probably wouldn’t.
I was wound up pretty tight, nervous about the tournament even though it was about a week away, but more nervous about meeting the old man. To tell the truth, I didn’t know how I felt about the trip coming up, now that it was about to start. As usual, any thought about the old man brought a bundle of emotions and Replays with it. It would be easy to say I was excited about seeing him and that we’d fall into each others arms when we met, just like Odysseus and his son in the Greek myth. But that was all a lot of crap as far as I was concerned. When people get hurt they feel guilty and mean and resentful.
Just as the next video came on I put down the dumb-bells
, switched off the TV and stood looking at the framed photograph from the Toronto Star that had hung on my wall for a year.
REPLAY
My opponent for the Ontario High School Championship gold medal was a Korean kid named Jason Park from a school downtown. I had never been in a gold medal bout before and he had, more than once, I’d heard. I took one look at him and thought, “Oh, oh.”
While I was getting ready Coach Leonard was yakking advice into my ear, but I didn’t hear a word he said. I walked out onto the mat. I tried to calm my mind, to force out the roar of the crowd as they called out their encouragement—all for him, it seemed.
By the middle of the first round we were both pretty sweaty and tired. He had been ahead almost from the start but in the last moments of the round I managed to get a tight ankle lock on him and bridge through twice for four points, tying the score.
At the beginning of the last round he took me down right away. I escaped, but he was ahead again, and I knew I’d better go for it soon. We pushed, shoved, separated, tied up again, probing for weaknesses. Three times in a row, as soon as we tied up, I stepped back and as he moved toward me I dove for his legs. The fourth time, I made the move I’d been setting him up for. As soon as we tied up, instead of stepping back I flashed in close, forced my right arm under his left, dropped a little at the knee for leverage, drove my hip and thigh in tight, arched my back, and summoning every drop of strength I had, took a quick step to the side and heaved upwards, uttering a super-high-volume ‘Aaaarrraaagh!’ As I hoisted him into the air I rotated, and I brought him down, nailing his back to the mat—a Supplé, the best I had ever done, so smooth it was like warm honey poured from a jar, so that he went down just like the books said he would have to. Wham! The air burst from his lungs when we landed, so I easily slipped into a head-and-arm, shoving his bicep over his mouth and nose. The ref was there, down on the mat beside us, right where he was supposed to be. His hand came up, he checked quickly with the mat judge on one side and mat chairman on the other, slammed his hand on the mat and blew his whistle. I jumped to my feet as the crowd roared.
