The Journey Prize Stories 22

by Various

  “Any sign of coke,” she said, “or any of that shit and you’re out. And you can’t smoke around Leo.”

  “No problem,” said Oscar. “I can handle that.” Then he stood his guitar against the fridge and sat down next to Leo on the cat-hair covered chair where Mr. Tibbs would sit when no one else was in the room. Uncle Oscar’s eyes were red and he hadn’t shaved in a while. His hands shook as he ate and he kept dropping goulash on his Sepultura T-shirt. He hardly ate anything at all, even though it looked like it had been a while since he’d had a meal. He gave off a sweet smell like brown bananas, and Leo didn’t eat very much either. As soon as Uncle Oscar finished, he picked up his guitar and went downstairs.

  “What about Mr. Tibbs?” Leo asked his mom. “How’s he going to use the bathroom?”

  “We’ll have to bring the kitty litter upstairs for a while.”

  “How’s Uncle Oscar supposed to use the bathroom?”

  “There’s the laundry sink. He can use that,” his mother said. Then she told Leo that before he was allowed to play croquet he had to go upstairs and get a spare set of sheets and bring them down to his uncle, and then bring the kitty litter up to the kitchen.

  “But what if there’s a fire?” said Leo. “And I’m at school and you’re at work? How will Uncle Oscar get out?”

  “He can climb out through the basement window any time he wants,” she said. “He’s not really trapped down there.”

  “Oh,” said Leo.

  When Leo went downstairs his uncle was slouched on the couch with his feet on an upside-down milk crate. He was watching Wheel of Fortune on the old TV set and smoking a cigarette. He’d taken off his workboots and left them beside the milk crate, their tops flopped over. His wool socks were worn through at the heel. As soon as he saw Leo, he stubbed his cigarette out in an empty flower pot. “Thanks, kiddo,” he said.

  Leo put the sheets down beside him and tried not to cough. “How long you going to stay?” he said.

  “Not long.”

  Leo went over to get the kitty litter and when he passed the laundry sink it smelled like barf. He looked inside and the stainless steel was clean and wet.

  “Where’s your Harley?” he asked.

  “Sold it.”

  “What’d you get for it?”

  “A grand.”

  “ls that more than the money you owe?”

  “No.”

  Leo thought about that for a moment. He wondered how much coke someone would have to do in order to owe someone that much money and decided it would have to be a lot. In the drawer of Leo’s bedside table there were two brand new twenty dollar bills that his mother had just given him for his birthday. Like he was just trying to make conversation, he said, “How much does coke usually cost?” But his uncle kept watching Wheel of Fortune like he hadn’t heard the question.

  Leo looked at the tiny window on the far wall, just below the ceiling. Beneath the window was a wheelbarrow full of gardening tools that his mother hadn’t used in years. He thought that if he turned the wheelbarrow over and stood on it, he could reach the window and squeeze through. He thought his uncle probably could fit through too, but he wasn’t sure.

  When Leo came back upstairs his mother was washing the supper dishes, her back turned to him.

  “Close the door,” she said. “Lock the deadbolt.” There was a plate with three peanut butter cookies on the kitchen table and Leo sat down. His mother told him she didn’t want him spending any more time with his uncle than he had to. She told Leo they had to be extra careful to keep the front door locked from now on, and that he had to keep the basement door locked whenever they weren’t home. Then she rinsed the dish soap off her hands and dried them with a tea towel. She turned from the sink to face Leo, placed a hand on each of his shoulders, and looked him in the eye.

  “Your uncle,” she said, “cannot be trusted. But I know I can trust you. Promise me you won’t tell anyone he’s staying here.”

  “No problem,” Leo said. “I can handle that.”

  Leo managed to not tell anyone about Uncle Oscar for a whole week. But then on Monday after school he told his friend Francesco that his uncle had a seven-string Ibanez electric guitar, and that he used to have a custom Harley, but that he didn’t have his bike anymore because he was a dope fiend and was living in the basement. He said he stayed down there all day, watching TV and smoking and pissing in the laundry sink, and that he was strung out when he first came to stay with them, but now he seemed like he was clean. He told Francesco that he didn’t like having another man around the house, and that he hated the kitty litter stink in the kitchen. Then Francesco looked at him like he wasn’t listening, so Leo said, “You want to play croquet with me in the parkette right now? I’ve got money so we can go to the store after.”

  “Fuck that shit,” said Francesco. “I got a game in Mississauga.” Francesco was the sweeper for the Saint Erbin Academy boys’ soccer team. He also knew how to play four songs on the guitar and he had a girlfriend named Isabel, who wasn’t bad looking.

  “Probably be rained out,” said Leo.

  “So how you gonna play croquet?”

  “See you tomorrow,” said Leo. Then he left and went and got on the southbound bus. The bus was crowded with kids in Saint Erbin uniforms: grey polyester old-man pants and black running shoes. Most of them wore sweatshirts to cover up their maroon Saint Erbin golf shirts, even though it was too humid for long sleeves. The bus stank of deodorant and Leo found it hard to breathe. He took his puffer from his front pocket and inhaled and thought about what he hadn’t told Francesco. On Saturday afternoon Leo’s mother had told him to bring two tuna sandwiches down to the basement. When he’d opened the door, Mr. Tibbs ran down ahead of him and then Leo came down and found his uncle on the couch with his fly open, pumping his dick in his hand. His uncle put it away and started to do up his fly and Leo’d said, “Sorry,” because he didn’t know what else to say. “Don’t worry about it,” his uncle said and then took the sandwiches from him like it wasn’t a big deal. Leo went upstairs to his room and punched his mattress three times as hard as he could. Then he locked the door and pulled down his pants and held his own dick in his hand. He tried to think about Francesco’s girlfriend, Isabel, but he couldn’t do anything because he kept picturing his uncle trying to jerk off, so he went to play croquet in the backyard instead.

  When Leo got off the bus and walked up to the corner just before his street, the Camaro ss was parked there like always, with Ramon behind the wheel. The Camaro ss was black with white racing stripes. It had twin air vents on the hood and silver rims and was low to the ground and reminded Leo of a snake. Ramon had flat cheeks with little scars on them and he wore a black Blue Jays ball cap with a gold sticker on its brim, and black wraparound sunglasses even though the sky was dark and grey. His seat was reclined and he was leaning back. Leo knew he was nineteen years old, because his mother used to babysit Ramon when he was seven and Leo was one. His mother would talk about Ramon sometimes, about when she would stay at home looking after the two of them, before Leo’s father left and she took the job at DivaMax. Leo had been too young to remember, but he could tell by the way Ramon looked at him that he knew who he was. Francesco had told Leo that Ramon sold weed and coke. Instead of crossing the street like he usually did, Leo walked up to Ramon’s window and said, “How much is it for some coke?”

  Ramon looked at him for a second and then looked away and Leo couldn’t tell what kind of expression was on his face because his glasses hid his eyes.

  “Get out of here,” said Ramon. But Leo just stood there. Ramon looked at him again and his face scrunched up like he was laughing, but he didn’t make any sound. Then he took his sunglasses off and started to polish the lenses on his T-shirt. Leo thought that Ramon looked friendlier without his sunglasses on, and he figured that was why he wore them all the time.

  “How much are we talking about?” said Ramon.

  “You know,” said Leo. “Enough.”


  “Fifty,” said Ramon.

  Leo thought that might be a fair price, but he said, “That’s too much. You’re charging too much for that shit,” so Ramon wouldn’t think he actually wanted to buy some. Ramon put his sunglasses back on and smiled and raised his eyebrows, as if Leo had said something funny. Leo turned then, and kept walking home, and he thought he heard Ramon say something about his mom, but he didn’t turn around.

  As soon as he got in the front door he could hear the TV on in the basement. He ran up to his room and took off his uniform and put on jeans and his New England Patriots T-shirt. He went to his bedside table and took out the two twenty dollar bills and slid them into the front pocket of his jeans. Then he picked up his croquet set and opened it up on the bed and looked at it for a minute. The wooden case was pitted and missing the yellow ball, but everything else was in good condition. He’d found the set in the basement last summer, looked up the rules in the World Book Encyclopaedia, and taught himself to play. He’d asked his mother where the set came from and she said his father must have gotten it somewhere, but that she couldn’t remember him ever playing. Leo thought his father had probably played croquet a lot, and that his mother had just forgotten. He almost always played croquet by himself, but he knew it was more fun playing against someone else, even if they weren’t very good. One time he’d played against Francesco in the backyard, and another time against his mom, and he’d beat them both pretty easily. He decided he’d ask his uncle to play a game in the backyard, even though he knew what he would say. He brought the croquet set downstairs and set it by the fridge, poured himself a glass of chocolate milk, and got four peanut butter cookies out of the bag in the cupboard. He unlocked the deadbolt on the basement door and stood at the top of the stairs and called out, “Uncle Oscar, it’s me Leo.”

  “Leo,” said his uncle, “come on down, my man.” Mr. Tibbs flitted past Leo as soon as he started down the stairs. His uncle was slouched on the couch, watching a soap opera, and Mr. Tibbs ran over and sat on his stomach and curled up in a ball. Uncle Oscar had started shaving again and his hands had stopped shaking a while ago. He wore the same clothes he’d been wearing the day he showed up, except now over his Sepultura T-shirt he had on a ratty red and black button-down shirt that Leo’s mom used to wear when she worked in the garden.

  “You want a peanut butter cookie?” Leo asked.

  “Too healthy.”

  “Is that a good show you’re watching?”

  “Nope.”

  “Uncle Oscar.”

  “Leo.” Uncle Oscar picked up the remote from the cushion beside him and turned down the volume.

  “How long were you a dope fiend for?”

  Oscar laughed. His belly shook and Mr. Tibbs raised his head and glared at Leo and then set his head back down.

  “On and off for three years.”

  Leo took a sip of chocolate milk. “What’s going to happen if you don’t pay back that money?”

  Oscar closed his eyes and sank back in the couch.

  “I’m going to pay it back.”

  Leo finished his cookies and set his milk glass down on the floor. He reached over and picked up his uncle’s Ibanez guitar and held it in his lap. Uncle Oscar opened his eyes and looked at him for a second and then turned back towards the TV. Leo tried to play an E chord, but two of the strings were broken. He tried to write a song by plucking one string at a time, but he couldn’t think of a tune that he liked. He thought his uncle might offer to show him how to play something, but Uncle Oscar just kept watching TV. Leo put the guitar back down and turned towards the screen. There was an old woman lying in a hospital bed and another woman in a fancy purple dress who was shouting at her, but the volume was turned down so low it was impossible to hear what they were saying.

  “You going to move out of here?” asked Leo.

  “Soon.” Oscar nodded. “Very soon.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “I can’t stay down here forever.”

  “You want to play croquet in the parkette with me before you go?”

  Oscar looked towards the basement window. “How’d you ever start playing a game like that?” he said.

  “I have asthma.”

  “I know that, Leo.”

  “You remember when I was a baby and you were visiting and you’d just got your custom Harley? You put your helmet on me and held me up next to the bike in the driveway and Mom took a picture, or maybe it was my dad.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “It’s in the picture album upstairs. Are you going to get another bike when you get money again?”

  Oscar stretched his legs and stroked Mr. Tibbs behind the ears and Mr. Tibbs flicked his tail. “I think maybe I’ll get a car,” said Oscar.

  “What’s faster, a motorbike or a car?”

  “It depends on the bike and it depends on the car, but most of the time I’d say a bike’s faster.”

  “Why would you get a car then?”

  “Sometimes cars make more sense.”

  “Why?”

  Uncle Oscar said nothing for a minute and watched the TV screen and stroked Mr. Tibbs’s back. A man in a tuxedo had come into the hospital room, and he was trying to get the woman in the purple dress to leave. “Let’s say you got some friends across town,” said Uncle Oscar, finally, “and you want to get over there to play some croquet.”

  “In Mississauga,” said Leo.

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t know anyone who lives in Mississauga.”

  “We’re pretending.”

  “How many friends?”

  “How many of those hammers you got?”

  “What?”

  “Croquet sticks.”

  “Mallets you mean?”

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  “Let’s say you got four friends over in Mississauga who want to play, and a buddy from North York who wants to play. That makes six of you. They got the perfect field in Mississauga. Nice and flat. Green grass.”

  “That’s what the parkette is like,” said Leo. “We can go there right now.”

  “They got some pretty girls over in Mississauga,” Uncle Oscar continued, “who want to watch you play. How you gonna get you and your buddy over there, and all your gear without no car? What you need is a car.”

  “A Camaro ss.”

  “Good choice,” said Uncle Oscar.

  Leo imagined a field in Mississauga with wickets all set up and some girls there, who were cousins of Francesco’s girlfriend, Isabel, and they were all wearing bikinis because it was so hot out. He imagined he was on the highway driving over there on a Harley and he had his favourite croquet mallet strapped to his back with a leather strap that he had custom-made. Francesco and the other guys there had bikes too, but they were Hondas. No one had a Camaro.

  “How many girlfriends have you had?” asked Leo.

  “Too many.”

  Leo wondered how many that might be. Then Uncle Oscar picked Mr. Tibbs up with both hands and set him down on the floor. He turned off the TV and said, “Leo, I need to take a crap. I’m going to go upstairs and take a crap. Then after we can go to that parkette and play some croquet before it rains, mano-a-mano. You cool with that?”

  “I’m cool with that,” said Leo, “if you want to.” He tried to sound like he wasn’t too excited, and then he waited before his uncle had gone all the way upstairs before he followed. As soon as Leo heard his uncle close the bathroom door, he realized he had to take a crap, too. Drinking chocolate milk always did that to him. He went up to the bathroom door, pressed his ear against it, and tried to hear what was going on inside. The fan was on and he thought he could hear his uncle singing or talking to himself, but he couldn’t be sure. Leo stood there listening for a long time and eventually he wondered if his uncle was jerking off, or maybe getting high. He thought maybe there was a way to get high from shampoo or toothpaste that he didn’t know about.

  “Uncle Oscar,
” he yelled. “What are you doing in there?”

  “What do you think?” his uncle yelled back.

  “Are you going to be much longer?”

  “Almost done.”

  “Do you want to see that picture before we go?”

  “What picture?” said Uncle Oscar. Then he said, “Oh yeah. Sure.”

  Leo started to walk up and down the hall, and tried to think about playing croquet instead of thinking about using the bathroom. He wondered if he’d be able to beat his uncle too, and he figured that he probably would. Then he wondered if maybe there was some other place he could take a crap, like in a bucket, and then get rid of it later, but then he heard a flush and the door finally opened and his uncle came out.

  “The picture album’s on the shelf in the living room,” said Leo.

  “Sure,” said his uncle.

  It smelled terrible in the bathroom, but Leo went in and sat down on the toilet right away. The seat was warm and there were brown bits of Mr. Tibbs’ hair on the pink and white linoleum floor. Leo leaned forward and closed his eyes, his shoulders resting on his bare, skinny knees, and he tried to imagine what it would be like to do cocaine. He wondered if it was like playing a really good game of croquet, but then he thought it had to be even better than that. He thought it might feel like taking 500 dumps all at once while driving down the 401 on a Harley while a girl in a bikini was watching you. He decided he’d be willing to spend all of his birthday money to give that a try.