Living with the hawk

by Robert Currie

  When I stood up, Coach Ramsey was beside me. “Way to go,” he said, but his voice wasn’t right. “You’re offside, the guy you should have covered scores the touchdown, you wrack up our only decent quarterback, you’re a bloody jerkoff.”

  Coach Conley was kneeling by my brother, Blake still on the ground, gasping, carrying on like a jackfish hauled out of Buffalo Lake. A little wind knocked out of him, that was all. I turned away. A hand grabbed my shoulder, wrenched me around, a finger jabbing my chest. Coach Ramsey.

  “I’m talking to you. Don’t you ever turn away when I’m talking to you.”

  “Send him over here, Drew.” Coach Conley was still crouched beside my brother, but he was watching us. Blake was sitting up now, breathing deeply, glaring at me. I walked towards them.

  “You try that again,” said Blake, “I’ll break your effing arm.”

  “You and what army?” I know it was a dumb thing to say. My brother could cream me any time he felt like it.

  Coach took my brother’s arm and helped him to his feet. “You going to be okay, Blake?”

  “Sure. This little pussy couldn’t hurt me if he tried.”

  There was laughter behind me, Jordan Phelps and Todd Branton grinning like fools, Coach Ramsey scowling still.

  “Pussy ,” said Coach Conley, “is a not a term I’m fond of. Smacks of misogyny.” And immediately I thought, man, this is no ordinary coach, he never forgets he’s a teacher. He glared at Blake. “You want to play on our team, you won’t use it again.”

  Blake opened his mouth as if to say something, to argue, maybe, but he closed his mouth and kept silent. Jordan and Todd were no longer smiling. Apes. Probably didn’t know what misogyny was, but they knew when Coach was angry. He wasn’t finished either.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but you better settle it somewhere else. Doesn’t belong on the football field.” He stepped away from my brother, put his arm around my shoulder and steered me toward the sideline. “From where I was standing, Blair, that looked a lot like dirty football. Matter of fact, looked like you wanted to hurt your brother.”

  I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, but when he said it I had to admit that he was right. Smashing Blake to the ground felt plain good. “He had it coming.”

  Coach lifted the peak of his baseball cap, wiped the back of his hand slowly across his forehead, a damp smudge spreading above his left eye. When he lowered his arm, he seemed for a moment to be studying the sweat on his hand, waiting for it to dry. “Nobody deserves a dirty hit,” he said at last. “You ought to know that by now. Thought you did. Well, it’ll give you something to think about while you’re running. Four laps! Right now. Maybe you’ll smarten up by the time you’re done.”

  I headed for the track that ran around the field, but I was thinking of something I’d once heard my father tell my mother, “Even the disciples were far from perfect. Take St. Peter; when it comes right down to it, he was a bit of a misogynist.” When they were finished in the den, I’d looked up the word in the big dictionary that always lay open on a stand beside my father’s desk.

  Was Blake a woman-hater, I wondered, was that what Saturday night was all about? He was far from perfect, oh man, yes, and I had some evidence that Coach would never know.

  Still, pussy was Jordan’s term, his way of nailing anyone who wasn’t doing exactly what he thought they should. He used the term a lot, but never when Coach Conley was anywhere around. He was way too smart for that.

  Later in the week, I passed the girl from Saturday night hurrying down the hall at school. No red sweater on her like a flare this time, but a grey shirt, pale and subdued, her head down, the expression on her face subdued too. I don’t think she noticed me. Probably wouldn’t recognize me anyway. I watched her all the way down the hall until she disappeared into her home room. Another grade nine room. She was no older than I was.

  An elbow in my ribs. “Got your eye on someone hot, eh?” Evan Morgan was right beside me, leering.

  “Not exactly. But I’d kind of like to know who that is?”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you would. Boobs on her like a porn star.”

  I wondered what Evan was going on about. She was pretty all right, but her boobs were nothing special. I decided to keep it light. “More like a Disney star, I’d say. You don’t know her name, eh?”

  “Sure. Amber Saunders.” He leaned against me, grinning, gave me another jab in the ribs. “I hear she goes for football players.”

  It was a week before I saw her again. Noon hour on a nice day, warm September sun beaming down, most of the kids outside on the lawn, sucking back on Slurpies and Big Gulps, when I headed for my locker to get some homework I should’ve finished the night before. I came booting down the stairs, opened the basement door, and stopped.

  At the bank of grade nine lockers part way down the hall, I saw Jordan Phelps leaning against a locker, a girl pinned between his arms. He must have just come in from outside, because he still wore his football jacket, the lightning crest on its leather sleeve just visible in the shadows of the hallway. When the girl tried to squirm free, ducking her head beneath his arm, I saw it was Amber Saunders. He was too quick for her, grabbing her shoulder, pushing her back against the locker. He lowered his head then, and whispered in her ear. A stage whisper — I could just make out what he was saying. “Come on, babe, you know you liked it lying there on the grass. Looking up — and all that fresh meat just for you.” He laughed, shoving himself against her, rubbing his crotch on her stomach.

  The bastard, I thought, and took a step towards them, but just then, from behind the row of lockers, another girl appeared, a native, the one I’d seen playing volleyball. She paused, watching them for an instant, her body rigid, skin tight over high cheek bones, front teeth digging at her lower lip. She took a deep breath and strode toward them.

  “Asshole,” she said.

  I don’t think Jordan knew she was there until he heard her speak. As he turned to see who it was, she hit him in the shoulder with her fist, hard, spinning him around — he must’ve been too surprised to react because before he made another move she was between him and Amber, her knee flying up, catching him right in the groin, and he was falling backwards, the metal locker clanking behind him. She grabbed Amber by the arm, yanking her away from him, the two of them starting toward the stairs, breaking into a run.

  “Damned wagon-burner!” Jordan slumped against a locker, both hands pressed to his groin.

  They ran past me and up the stairs. Man, I thought, she is something else, tying into him like that — and she’s beautiful.

  Jordan must have seen me then. He dropped his hands, straightening his back, sliding up the locker till he was upright. His face was dark with shame or anger — yeah, anger would be right. “Bitch,” he said, “she’s just asking for a good banging.” His right hand dangled at his side, knuckles rapping the locker.

  If I got my books now, I’d have to go right by him.

  Okay, I could do that. Besides, he couldn’t know how much I’d seen. I started past him.

  “You smile just once,” he said, “I’ll knock your stupid head off.”

  And she’d kneed him in the balls, a dark fire in her eyes, blazing still when she came by me.

  “You know something?” I kept walking towards my locker.

  “She had it right — you are an asshole.”

  The second before I slammed into my locker, I felt his hands flat on my back, driving me forward. I managed to turn my head before I hit, taking the blow on my chest, the locker rigid against me, my cry lost in the collision of body and metal. I swung around, and he was coming at me, both fists ready, and I was going to get it now, but there, behind him, was my math teacher, Mr. Ambrose, turning toward us, Mr. Ambrose on noon duty, yelling, “Hey! What’s going on here?” He marched right up to us, his eyes darting from me to Jordan and back again. “No fighting, you understand?”

  Jordan grinned at him — he actually gri
nned. “Sorry, sir” he said. “We weren’t mad — just horsing around is all. Guess, maybe, we got carried away.”

  “Sounded like someone busting lockers.” Mr. Ambrose didn’t look convinced. “I catch you two fooling around down here again, it’s detention next time. Now clear out.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Ambrose.” Jordan gave him a little nod as he went by him.

  “You heard me.” Mr. Ambrose was glaring at me.

  “I need into my locker. For my homework.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, “leave it till the last minute, do we?”

  He stood there, watching while I opened my locker and dug out my books. I wondered if he’d noticed my fingers shaking as I turned the dial of my combination lock.

  FOUR

  My brother asked me what the hell I was doing, trying to cream him like that at practice, the snap barely in his hands when I hit him.

  “You don’t like getting hit,” I said, “maybe they’ll take you on the chess team.”

  “Up yours. You were a mile offside. Besides, you hit like a cream puff.”

  We let it go at that. He didn’t ask again why I wanted to hit him, and I wasn’t going to tell him. If he had half a brain, he probably knew why. Neither of us spoke of what had happened that Saturday night on Fosters’ back lawn. In fact, we seldom talked anymore — except, of course, at meals. We both thought it politic to strive for something like normal conversation in the presence of our parents, but at supper that night, I wanted to talk.

  As soon as our father had asked the blessing, I said, “Guess what? There’s a native girl at school.”

  My mother was passing around the bowl of potatoes. She paused, a little gob of potato stuck on her thumb. She set the bowl down in front of me, wiped off the potato with her serviette. “Only one?” she asked. “I understand in Regina some of the inner city schools have more natives than whites.”

  “She’s the only one I’ve seen. Don’t know who she is, but I saw her in the hall again today at noon. She’s . . . kind of pretty.”

  “Anna Big Sky,” said my brother.

  “You know her?”

  “Sure. She’s in my history class.” He cast a quick glance at my father, and for some reason I thought of a swimmer standing at the edge of a pool, stretching out his toe to test the water. “The guys,” he said, “some of them, call her Anna Big Boobs.”

  “Blake!” It was my mother who spoke first. My father finished chewing something, swallowed, set down his fork. “Listen now,” he said, glaring at Blake. “That’s no way to talk. Not at this table — and not at school either.”

  “I don’t call her that,” said Blake. He looked as if he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “I’m just saying what the guys say. Some of them.”

  “Some of them need to smarten up,” my father said, “and not be putting women down. Natives either.”

  “Natives,” Blake said, “they don’t pay taxes, you know.” He looked angry, but surprised too. I wondered if he was trying to get a rise out of our father, if he’d said more than he intended to say.

  “Enough!” said my father. “Now pay attention, both of you. Living in Palliser, there isn’t a reserve within a hundred kilometres. Result is: people don’t have much experience of aboriginals. You don’t know — ”

  “I know Anna,” said Blake. “She’s sharp as anyone in class. Got guts too.”

  He was backtracking now, making up for his last comment, sure, but he already knew her, and I didn’t. I felt a rush of heat somewhere inside, a flash of jealousy, perhaps, but that was crazy. Why would I be jealous? Besides, she was three years older than me. I wouldn’t have a hope with her.

  “What I was going to say,” — my father fixed Blake with a cold eye — “is this: you don’t know what it was like. All those native kids carted off to residential schools — parents crying, kids crying, government saying this is how it’s going to be, and we Anglicans, we went along with it, ran some of the schools, tried to make a home for them, but it didn’t work. It should’ve, maybe, but it didn’t. Some of those kids would get up at night, look out the dormitory window, see the smoke drifting from the chimneys of their own homes. Sometimes their homes were that close. They knew their parents were sitting around the fire, but they couldn’t go there. Huh, might as well have been in prison.” My father leaned towards Blake, his supper forgotten. I could tell he was warming to his subject. “On no, the bloody government wouldn’t allow anything like that. Got to knock their culture out of them, teach them the white man’s way. Those residential schools — ”

  “We know,” said Blake. “Mr. Helsel’s got all kinds of clippings from the papers. He has us read them every time you turn around.” Blake looked at our father and decided to back off, to keep quiet.

  “Whole generations of aboriginals cut off from their parents,” said my father. “Never had a chance at family life, no chance to see how it is that parents go about raising kids. No wonder some of them have problems.”

  “A lot of them have problems,” my mother said. She nodded her head towards my father’s plate, his cooling food.

  “You talking about Fort Qu’Appelle again?” But he scooped up a forkful of potatoes — he was finished speaking at us. Sometimes I wonder if other ministers are like that, so used to sermonizing they sometimes can’t resist dropping in a sermon when it isn’t Sunday morning.

  She nodded her head. “Our house was too close to the Fort Hotel. Growing up, I saw a lot of things I’d just as soon forget about. Saturday nights and the beer parlour. Like I said, a lot of them have problems.”

  “Yes,” said my father, “I suppose you’re right. Doesn’t say much for the way we handle problems, does it?”

  Then I thought of Anna Big Sky; if she had problems, I bet she’d know how to handle them. Maybe the next time I saw her in the halls I’d speak to her. Tell her how brave I thought she was, taking on Jordan Phelps the way she had, how beautiful she was. Yeah, fat chance of that. Get close to her, I’d be sputtering away, someone might just as well bind my tongue into a reef knot.

  “That native girl,” said my mother, “it mustn’t be easy for her at school. By herself, I mean.”

  “It isn’t,” said Blake. “Some people give her a rough time because she isn’t white — but man, she’s got a temper, tells them where to stick it. Doesn’t hold back either. Anybody else she treats . . . well, the same way everybody does.” There was a warmth in my brother’s voice. For some reason, he made me think of Mr. Salter at church, whose wife had died, who liked to visit with my father, who was so lonely he always steered the conversation in the same direction so he could talk about his wife. “I’ll tell you something though; nobody gives her a rough time in Mr. Helsel’s class. Anybody did, he’d slap them in detention the rest of the year. He figures natives get a raw deal in this country, he sure isn’t going to let that happen in his class.”

  “You mean he favours her?” My mother looked thoughtful.

  “Oh no. History class, everybody’s got to work their butts off — her included, but you can tell he kind of likes her.”

  “I don’t blame him,” I said.

  Blake gave me a sarcastic look. “What do you know about it? You’ve never even met her.” He jerked his head toward me so violently that I flinched and immediately felt foolish. “I don’t think she’s got much background in Canadian history, but she works hard and she catches on real quick. Sits right at the front where she won’t miss a thing.” He turned to me again. “Right next to me,” he said, and I knew he was rubbing it in.

  “Oh ho,” said our father, “and I thought you liked to hang out with the boys in the back row.”

  “Not in history class. Fool around there, you end up dead in the water.”

  “You fool around anywhere,” my father said, “your marks are going to suffer.” My father glanced at Blake, and then at me, nodding his head. He could never resist the chance to make a point he thought would be good for his sons to hear. Yes, and my mar
ks weren’t as high as Blake’s. With both of us grounded though, we’d have lots of time for schoolwork.

  “The thing about Anna,” my brother said, the same warmth in his voice as before, “is she sat at the back the first day she transferred in. Todd Branton leans across the aisle and whispers something to her — I don’t know what it was, he can be a real jerk — and you know what? She slaps him on the mouth. At the start of class. Then she marches up to the front and takes a seat there. Now here’s the good part. Mr. Helsel was right there at the front of the room, saw the whole thing. You know what he says? ‘Todd,’ he says, ‘I think we’ll have a little chat after school.’ Cool as anything. You’ve got to hand it to him.”

  “And to her,” said my mother. “It’s nice to know she’s not going to put up with things like that.”

  “She won’t take any crap.” My brother grinned. “That tends to make most people kind of reluctant about dishing out the crap.”

  “Guff,” said my mother. “Crap is not a term we need to hear at the dinner table.”

  After supper, when our parents had gone to the front room and we were stacking dishes in the washer and cleaning off the counter, I spoke to Blake, keeping my voice low, so it wouldn’t carry to the other room. “You’ve got a crush on her.”

  He turned toward me, a pot in his hand. I got the feeling he would have liked to bounce it off my skull. “She’s aboriginal,” he said, but there was a glint in his eye, a darkness. I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Besides,” he added, “I think maybe you’re the one with the crush.” He pulled out the washer’s bottom tray and moved a bowl so he could fit the pot into the corner. When he spoke again his voice was cold. “Say, smart guy, how’d you like practice today?”

  Coming into the locker room after school that afternoon, I’d taken care to keep my distance from Jordan Phelps. When I arrived, he was sitting on the bench before his locker, pants and shoulder harness on, but he made no move to pull on a jersey. He seemed content to sit and watch Vaughn Foster hunched beside him on the bench, doing bicep curls with a barbell he kept in his locker. Jordan didn’t even glance in my direction, but I got the feeling he knew I was there.