Theories of Relativity

by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  “What’s the matter?” Jenna asks.

  “I’m hungry,” I lie.

  “Let’s get off then and have something to eat.”

  I thread my arms through my pack’s straps and follow her rounded ass down the bus aisle and feel better.

  We find a café smelling of yeast and coffee beans. If I worked there, I could breathe that air and the scent alone would fill me up. I wrap my hands around the cup and take a long pull of hot liquid. It warms me to my toes and gives my brain a jolt. “Why use blood for transfusions?” I joke to Jenna. “Just feed coffee into my veins.” I want her to think I’m the funniest guy alive.

  She stares at me. “You say the oddest things.”

  Why do I even open my mouth? I stuff my muffin into it, working on the theory that if it’s busy, it can’t say anything lame.

  “So what were you really thinking about on the bus?” she asks.

  Jenna’s certainly not dumb—quite perceptive, in fact. Which makes her staying with Vulture all the more bizarre.

  “My brothers,” I tell her shortly.

  As I cram the second half of the muffin in my mouth, I remember my brothers and me grossing each other out with chewed food. I swallow rapidly, afraid of grossing out Jenna.

  “You told me about Jordan,” she says. “You have another brother?”

  “Yeah, Micha. He’s six.”

  “Is Micha’s dad your third father?” Jenna asks.

  “Yeah. Harley. He was from Jamaica. A good guy.” Anyone who doesn’t use his fists to make conversation is a good guy in my books. “Pretty laid back.” All that dope he smoked, he couldn’t be anything but laid back, but he seemed to like us boys.

  “He stayed about two years.” The most peaceful time in my life outside of those short stretches I’d spent at my grandparents’ farm. “Then welfare threatened to cut off our assistance because he lived with us, so my mother kicked him out.” That’s how she deals with problems. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Jenna gets up to refill our coffee cups. I study the people in the shop. Some read newspapers; others stare into space, but not like the crazies at the library. These people have places, and people, and jobs to think about. I want to be one of them. I want to order a coffee, pay for it with money I didn’t bum, open a newspaper, and worry about my job or the government raising my taxes.

  “So you don’t have a father at the moment.” Jenna sits and places a cup in front of me.

  “I might by now,” I say. “There was this new guy she was interested in. Dan.” I’d only seen him a couple of times through the window when he’d come to pick her up for a date. She didn’t let him come into the house. Knew we’d scare him off. “So he might be living there, I don’t know.”

  But he probably is. In my house. That was Mom’s plan. She’d attracted a man who had a steady job. On and on she went about how respectable he was, which means he’s probably a creep. Finally, she decided he should meet us kids. On my sixteenth birthday. Not that there was cake or balloons or presents.

  “You’re to tell him you all had the same father,” she said to us boys.

  I pointed at Micha, who is the colour of milk chocolate. “How are you going to explain him?”

  She looked surprised, as if she’d just noticed that Micha’s skin was much darker than ours. “We’ll tell him there’s Italian blood in the family.”

  I howled with laughter. “Italian blood! Micha’s black, Mom. Like this guy’s going to believe Micha’s Italian.”

  Next thing I knew, Mom was shoving me toward the door and screaming, “Get out!”

  I pushed back into the house, not believing she was serious, but she grabbed my backpack and began shoving my clothes into it.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” I asked, grabbing the pack from her and cramming in a toothbrush, CDs, anything I could lay a hand on as she pushed me out of the bedroom.

  “I don’t care. You’re old enough to get a job. I was living on my own at your age. Expecting you,” she spat.

  “Don’t blame me for your lousy life,” I shouted back. And next thing I know, I’m on the sidewalk, the door locked behind me, Micha’s tearful face pressed to the window. Happy Birthday.

  Chapter 5

  I swagger down the school corridor. It’s first lunch period and the halls swarm with kids. The guys are admiring Jenna, and she’s with me, so I’m swaggering.

  “They’re not very friendly,” Jenna says. “No one has said hello to you.”

  My swagger falters. “I was new here. No one knows me.”

  I’ve been to so many schools, I’ve lost count. Every eight to ten months, about the same amount of time it took a landlord to figure out we weren’t paying rent, we moved.

  I told Mom it wasn’t good for Jordan or Micha to be the new kid all the time. Jordan “acted out,” as one principal put it, and Micha had his nightmares. She told me to shut up. Couldn’t I see she was making a new start and it would be different this time? She’d get a job, there would be food on the table, clothes on our backs. Ten months later, we’d move again.

  I’m suddenly struck with an urgency to go to my brothers’ school and see that they are okay. If they haven’t moved. That thought hits so hard, I stop dead in my tracks.

  Jenna has gone ahead, but now she turns and looks back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Mental block. Couldn’t remember where my locker was. It’s here.” I nod down the corridor that leads past the computer lab.

  I like the computer lab. The computer geeks are so wrapped up in their hardware and software, they either ignore you or beg you to admire their latest programming feat. Any audience will do, even the new kid.

  “Well, Dylan.” Mr. Crowe, the computer teacher, comes out of the lab as we pass. He is short with dark brown hair that curls against his collar. I’ve never seen him in anything other than the clothes he wears now: a brown corduroy sports coat and tan baggy-kneed trousers. Clothes that make him appear more sparrow than crow.

  “I called your home when you’d been absent a week, but the line’s been disconnected,” he says. He rocks on the balls of his feet, smiling broadly.

  A spurt of fear knots my stomach, but then I remember Mom has never paid a telephone bill in her life. No doubt the service is cut off. I took care of the bills, promising payments to the gas, water, electricity, and phone companies that were never sent.

  “I might have put down the wrong number.” The words are barely out of my mouth when I realize my mistake. The phone number was on the form the parent was supposed to complete. “I mean, my mother did,” I amend hastily.

  Bright sparrow eyes stare at me steadily, showing he isn’t fooled for a moment.

  I take a couple steps to my locker and see the padlock is gone. I pull open the metal door to find it empty. “Do you know where my stuff is?” I ask.

  “In the office.”

  Mr. Crowe beside me, and Jenna trailing behind, we walk to the office. I’m not sure whether or not to introduce her. Probably not. She won’t want to be singled out.

  “Do you need help?” Mr. Crowe suddenly asks. “What’s with the backpack and sleeping bag?”

  “We’re moving. I just brought my pack with me so it wouldn’t get mixed up with my brothers’ stuff. You know how a house gets turned upside down when you move.” That sounds lame even to my own ears, but I look right at him as I say it.

  “It takes you four weeks to pack?” Mr. Crowe stops at the office door.

  “It’s a big job,” I say.

  Jenna and I file into the office. Mr. Crowe stands at the entrance, blocking my escape. At least, that’s how I see it. My leg muscles tense, ready to run.

  “There are people who can help with situations like yours,” he says.

  I breathe in great angry gulps. What could he possibly know about my situation? I almost blurt that out, but that is exactly what he wants me to do. He is more the sly, black-feathered bird than I thought.

  I struggle to keep my voice even.
“I don’t know what you mean. We’re moving. I came to get my stuff.”

  Mr. Crowe leaves the door and comes around the counter, slaps a paper on its surface. “We’ll need your new school’s name and address so we can send them your records.”

  “I’m not registered yet. We’re moving out west. Right across the country.” That last bit is truly inspired. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out the school I’ll be going to.” He knows I’m lying, but too bad. There’s nothing he can do. I’m sixteen. The law says a kid has to go to school until he’s sixteen, though the truth is, once you turn fourteen, no one much cares if you go to school or not.

  He reaches under the counter and brings up a box. It’s my stuff. As he pushes it across to me, he turns to Jenna. “And what school do you go to?”

  “Uh . . . I’m moving, too,” she says.

  “She’s my cousin,” I quickly add. “She’s coming with us out . . .” and I can’t remember if I said west or east, “. . . across the country.”

  Mr. Crowe raises his eyebrows, but I ignore him and rapidly sort through the contents: books, pencils, a pen, an ancient cereal bar and a towel that’s more holes than cloth. It, the pen, and the cereal bar, go into my coat pocket. I shove the box and the rest of its contents back across the counter.

  “Thanks.”

  I push Jenna out of the office, anxious to leave. “School,” I say as we walk down the hall. “Who needs it?”

  She looks wistfully at the kids in the cafeteria. “I didn’t mind school so much,” she says.

  And suddenly I’m afraid she’ll go back home. I’d miss her like hell. I’ve become used to seeing her face in front of Holy Rosary Cathedral. “You liked all that studying? Teachers telling you what to do?” I try to discourage her.

  “It wasn’t the teachers who were always telling me what to do.” She pulls a face. “It was my parents. My father.”

  We leave the school and find ourselves in the smoking pit, the ground littered with cigarette butts and candy wrappers. Clouds cover the sun and a cold wind has sprung up. Knots of kids surround us, shivering, as they suck in smoke. A bell rings and butts are thrown away as students push past us and go into the school. The acrid scent of smoke lingers in the air. Mom smoked. She filled the house with blue clouds that clung to furniture and curtains and my clothes and hair. I couldn’t escape the stink. It put me off so much, I’ve never even tried a cigarette.

  “My dad is this complete control freak. He writes up rules for everyone in the house to follow,” Jenna says. “And Mom just does whatever he says. She’s so useless. I don’t think she ever had an original thought in her life.”

  Abruptly, I’m tired. Jenna, face pinched with cold, looks worn out. The field trip is over.

  “I better get back,” she says. “Brendan will be looking for me.”

  “Does he have rules for you, too?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Do you have enough money for the bus?”

  She nods.

  “I’m going to go over to my brothers’ school. I want to check that they’re okay.”

  “Guess I’ll see you around, then.” She begins to walk away.

  “Jenna,” I call. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  She immediately comes back. “A sister. Why?” She sounds defensive, angry.

  “No reason. Sorry.” Now it’s me breaking the privacy rule.

  She punches me gently on the arm. “That’s okay. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. My sister’s twelve.” With a final wave, she leaves. She’s mad at someone, but not me. I would have preferred a kiss to the jab on the shoulder.

  It’s a half-hour walk to Jordan and Micha’s school. I gnaw on my thumbnail, playing different scenarios in my head. I will arrive at the school, but Jordan and Micha won’t be there. I’ll ask the school and they won’t know where they’ve gone. My thumb is bleeding now. I whip it into my pocket and I tell myself to stop being a stupid drama queen. The school would know where. Wouldn’t they?

  I stop at a variety store and spend my bus fare on candy for Jordan and Micha. It’ll be a long walk back downtown, but it’s not like anyone’s expecting me at a certain time. As I cram small bags of caramels and jelly beans in my pockets, I grin, picturing their faces when they see this haul. Micha will be on a sugar high for the rest of the day. My smile widens as I imagine Mom’s face when she peels him off the ceiling.

  I’m a few minutes early for the afternoon recess, so I sit on the climber. A blue car pulls up to the school door and a woman with a briefcase climbs out. Hair cropped tight against her skull, dressed in a dumpy coat. I recognize the type immediately—a social worker. We’ve had them at our house before.

  Worry knots my insides. Is she there for Jordan or Micha? I have a theory about social workers. They’re needy. They need to think they’re bettering mankind. But they’re really trying to make themselves feel good.

  I was in a foster home for a bit, after Pete left, and Mom couldn’t cope with me and a baby. Ever since I was returned to her, Children’s Services have checked up on us. An appointment would be set up with Mom, and I’d kick out whichever father or uncle was living with us. The beer bottles would go after them. I’d hide the dirty dishes inside the oven, make the beds, and hold Micha and Jordan under water until the top layer of dirt came off. Then I’d hit the grocery store and buy—or, if the welfare cheque hadn’t stretched to the end of the month, steal—a loaf of bread, and when the doorbell rang, I’d thrust Jordan and Micha into chairs at the kitchen table with plates of buttered bread. I’d open my textbooks and plop myself down in front of them. I was the director of a play called Regular Family.

  The school doors open and spill screaming kids into the yard. I push through waist-high crowds and find Micha. Relief stretches a grin across my face, which becomes wider when Micha rushes up to me and jumps into my arms.

  “Dylan,” he yells. “When are you coming back to the house?”

  None of us ever says home. You have to live somewhere more than a few months to make it feel like home.

  “I miss you,” he says accusingly. He climbs down from my arms. “Why don’t you come back?”

  “Ask Mom that,” I say.

  “Are you having a good time?” He grabs my sleeping bag. “Are you camping?”

  A good time? I’m filthy, cold, and hungry. I disentangle his fingers from the sleeping bag. “Get your grimy paws off that,” I say.

  “Can I come camping with you?”

  “Maybe in the summer,” I tell him. “Are you being good in school?”

  “Very good,” he says, but his eyes slide away from mine.

  I give him the once-over. His hair is long, falling into his eyes, but he doesn’t appear any dirtier than the other kids. That makes me suspicious.

  “Do we have a new dad?” I ask.

  Micha shakes his head. “Not yet. After he marries Mom, Dan says he’ll be my dad.”

  Marries? That would explain why Micha looks halfway decent. To impress Dan. Shit, he must have bought the Italian blood story. She won’t want me back, then. Not if Dan is there.

  “Hey, Dylan.” Jordan comes up, a small gang of boys trailing behind him.

  “Hey, yourself,” I say. I look hard at the boys and don’t like what I see. These are the kids you find in the principal’s office, in the “time-out” room, in trouble.

  I grab Jordan’s collar and take Micha’s hand and pull them to the side of the playground. I reach into my pocket and take out a package of jelly beans and hand it to Micha. He crows his delight and tears into it. I pull another package out and hold it toward Jordan. As his hand reaches for it, I grab his wrist. “I have people watching you,” I say. “All the time. You smoke, steal, mouth off at a teacher, and you’ll have to answer to me.”

  He twists his arm from my hand and grabs the candy packet. “No you don’t,” he says. But his eyes are uncertain and I know he’ll watch his step. For now.

  Micha fis
hes in my pocket and brings out a handful of caramels.

  “You aren’t allowed on school property.” A woman stands in front of me, a small kid dangling from each hand. “I’m a teacher here. What are you giving those children?”

  I’m dying to tell her “Crack,” but that’ll just get me into trouble.

  “I’m their brother,” I say. “It’s candy.”

  “Did you check in with the office first?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “You’ll have to do that or leave school property.” Stupid rule.

  “I have to go, guys,” I say.

  Micha grabs my arm. “Stay,” he pleads.

  “I’ll be back,” I assure him. “You be good.” I turn to Jordan. “Remember, I know what you’re doing all the time.”

  I walk across the yard.

  “Dylan!”

  Micha’s wail follows me as I go through the school gate, but I don’t look back.

  Chapter 6

  I put my pack at my feet, loop the strap around my ankle, and settle into a chair in the reading lounge at the library. There is a small bubble of excitement in my stomach. This morning, I saw a sign in the window of a coffee shop asking for part-time help. I went in and the waitress told me to come back in the afternoon at two o’clock, when the manager would be there. This is the closest I’ve ever been to getting a job.

  Last night was pretty much the worst I’ve spent since I’ve been on the streets. Huddled in a doorway, I kept hearing Micha cry my name over and over. But this morning, I turned around and there was the Help Wanted sign. Right over my head! With a job, I could get my own place, and Micha and Jordan could visit me. As I sit there spinning fantasies, I flip over the book I picked up on my way to the lounge, and my mouth drops open. It’s the Einstein book. I study his picture. How did he ever get a job with hair like that?

  I leave the book open on my lap and run over my plans. I’ll sit here until one o’clock, then I’ll go to the washroom and have a good wash, particularly under the arms. I’ve run out of deodorant and I’m fairly ripe, but if I don’t get too close to the manager, he might not notice. Maybe he’ll be at a desk and I’ll sit across from him. I picture myself at a real job interview with a desk. It would help hide my frayed pant legs and the scuffs on my boots.