The locker room was more quiet than usual after the game, players slumped on the benches like sacks of dirty jerseys, nobody saying a thing. Yeah, and it wasn’t just the loss that we were thinking of, with Anna dead and four of our teammates in jail. When Coach Ramsey came in, he stomped through the room, kicked a locker and slammed himself onto the bench without a word. I felt the bench shudder beneath me. Coach Conley was right behind him. He walked a little circle in front of us, his eyes resting an instant on each of us before he spoke.
“Well, guys,” he said, “it was a tough way to end the season. But it was a good season, and I don’t want you to forget that. You won every game but this one, and this afternoon you had a lot going against you.” He paused and looked around the room again, maybe wondering if he should get specific or simply leave it unsaid. “To tell you the truth, I think I’m more proud of you right now than I’ve been all year. You all knew you were up against it today, but you never quit trying. Maybe the score was a little one-sided, but I’ll tell you something: right now, that other team is every bit as tired and bruised as you are. They had a tough game, and they know it. Sure, they had more talent today, but you guys kept going at them all afternoon. You hit them, and you hit them, and then you got up and hit them again. I just want you to know I feel like it’s an honour to be your coach.”
I can’t say that anyone around the room was smiling or looking proud, but at least nobody resembled a sack of laundry anymore.
“Well, it’s been a long afternoon,” said the coach. “Right now, you all look as if you could use a nice hot shower. Go ahead, guys, and don’t worry about your lockers. You can clean them out Monday after school.” He grinned at us, or tried to grin perhaps, then stepped into his office, and I thought how calm he seemed. We’d just lost the biggest game of the year, and already he had it in perspective.
Most of the players looked as if they’d come back to life. They started hauling their jerseys off, getting out of their equipment, bits of conversation starting up here and there throughout the room, some of the guys drifting off to the shower room. Coach Ramsey was still sitting on the bench. When the guy between us headed for the showers, Ramsey slid toward me. “You little shit,” he said, his voice surprisingly quiet. “Don’t think I didn’t see you going at your brother the other day at practice. The day he took off. When I ask him what’s going on, you know what he says? He says, ‘My stupid brother told.’ I didn’t know what he meant. Not then.”
Ramsey wasn’t even looking at me, and I didn’t respond. He rose suddenly and stepped in front of me.
“Right away he’s in jail — him and the other three. And who turned them in? Not too hard to figure out, is it? Wasn’t for you, they’d of been out there where they should of been. Playing.”
Damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me. I kept gazing straight ahead, my eyes focused on his midriff, where his Lightning jacket was pushed out by the roll of flab that hung over his belt.
“You listening to me? If there was even half a brain in that ugly head of yours, we’d of had all our best players going today. That Diefenbaker bunch wouldn’t of touched us.”
I knew he wanted to shake me, but I never raised my eyes. A gold button wavered in front of me, some of the paint peeled away, a dull brass beneath it. The cloth was pulled tight around the button.
“Half a brain and you would of waited till the game was over before you did something stupid.”
I wondered if he could see me shiver. Any minute now, and he was going to slug me. Yeah, if I didn’t hit him first.
“They all could of played—every one of them. You get what I’m saying, shithead? All you had to do was wait.”
I was leaning back as far as I could without falling off the bench, but he was pressing toward me, his bulky stomach so close the button almost touched my nose.
“I’m talking to you, you little bugger!”
The button shifted, jumped suddenly.
“Whoa! Enough of this.”
Coach Conley had Ramsey by the shoulder, hauled him around, jerked him almost off his feet. Coach Conley was yelling at him, and suddenly I thought, that’s funny, he never yells at us. “Leave it alone. Just leave it alone.”
“Yeah, but — ”
“Shut the hell up. Right now.”
The two of them jaw to jaw in the middle of the room, my teammates backing away from them as if someone had lit a fuse there in the locker room, and they didn’t want to be caught in the blast. All you could hear was breathing, harsh and quick, from the two men, I guess, and maybe from the players watching them. Then Coach Conley stepped away from Ramsey and nodded toward his office. “Maybe, we should go in there and have a chat,” he said to Ramsey, his voice as composed as it was in health class.
When Ramsey wheeled around, he gave me a dirty look and said, “The least you could of done was sit tight. One bloody week — that was all we needed.”
Coach Conley didn’t wait for him to leave the room before he came to me. “Don’t concern yourself about this,” he said, laying his hand on my shoulder. “Nothing here was your fault. Coach Ramsey likes to win — puts a lot of work into winning, you understand. Sometimes he loses track of other things.” He was looking down at me, his grey eyes mild as a summer shower. He glanced at the other players, paused. I guess he wanted to say something reassuring for all of us.
“Eight years ago,” he said, “we had a terrific running game. Tank Tinsley was our fullback, big and fast too, best runner I ever coached. Kid could run through a locked door. We went to the provincial final that year, up in North Battleford. Would have won it too, but the night before the game Tank decided the curfew didn’t apply to him. Oh no, he had to try the hotel bar and see if maybe in a strange town he could pull some beer. Head coach back then was Coach Grenier. He’d told everybody on the team exactly what I told the bunch of you — that anybody breaking curfew was going to get himself benched. He benched Tinsley and we lost. If Mr. Ramsey had been coaching with us then, I don’t suppose he would’ve approved, but I have to say I admired Coach Grenier. The man had guts.” He looked around the room again. “You do what you have to do — that’s the way it is. The way it has to be.”
His hand was on my shoulder all the time he spoke. When he finished, he gave my shoulder a squeeze and started to follow Ramsey into his office, but he stopped and turned back to us.
“Pulling beer is one thing,” he said, “but it doesn’t get anybody killed. I don’t know what’s going on with those four boys, but the police figure they know something, and you can bet it’s serious. You guys best hit the showers and get on home.” No one moved until he’d disappeared into his office and the door was closed. Then everyone began to talk.
I thought they might want to kill me, but they just wanted to know, was I the one who turned them in.
“Not my brother, no,” I told them, “but the other guys — they’re guilty as hell.”
When Morris Ackerman said Coach Ramsey was right, I should’ve had brains enough to wait, Ivan Buchko told him to shut his face, there were more important things than winning.
That night at supper we had TV dinners, thin slices of turkey, mushy potatoes, mixed vegetables, a gob of cherry pudding, all in separate compartments on what looked like cardboard plates — my mother said she wasn’t much interested in cooking. Nor in the game either when my father brought it up. What she was interested in, what she wanted to talk about was the lawyer. How could they be sure Wanda McKinnel was the right one to hire? Had they perhaps made a mistake not getting a man? No, my father said, she’s got a good reputation. Yes, but in these circumstances —
“Jim Hammond swears by her,” my father said. “Besides, I liked her when I talked to her. She made sense.” He turned to me. “Which reminds me, we need to have a little talk.”
“Now?”
“When supper’s done.”
It was suddenly like eating leather, but I got it all down, a
nd when I was finished, he led me up to the den, waved me toward the chair beside his desk, and closed the door. He sat down and leaned across the desk toward me.
“Listen now: there’s something I need to get absolutely straight. That night you came wanting advice for your friend, you weren’t asking for a friend, were you?”
“I guess not.”
“Your mom and I weren’t jumping to conclusions?”
I shook my head.
He studied me a minute, his eyes not blinking once. “It was Blake you were worried about.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why in the world would you think Blake would be involved in . . . in the death of Anna Big Sky?” He had hesitated, but he finished in a rush. When I didn’t answer, he continued, “Why did you think Blake was guilty?”
I couldn’t tell him what they’d done to Amber — what he’d done. “It wasn’t just him,” I said. “It was Jordan Phelps and — ”
“But you think Blake is guilty.”
“I guess so — yeah.”
He shook his head. “You have any reason for thinking this way?” I could tell he was trying to keep his voice down.
“Sure.”
“Come on. Out with it.”
I had to tell him something, and when I started it came gushing out. “He’s just like the rest of them — doing whatever Jordan Phelps wants. And Jordan hated Anna — because she showed him up for the loser he is. I saw it happen — in the hall at school — and, man, he wanted to get her back. And Blake was mad at her because he took her out once and she didn’t want to go out again, but he said he knew he could get her to go with him, and he must’ve talked it over with Jordan and the other guys, and they got her out there in the country, and that’s where they did it.”
My father shook his head again. “That’s your evidence?”
I nodded.
“You’re wrong, you know? You need to talk to him. Wanda McKinnel says she’s almost positive Blake had nothing to do with that girl’s death. She thinks he was concerned about the other boys, trying to get them to do what was right, turn themselves in.”
“She doesn’t know him like I do.”
“Know him? I don’t think you know a bloody thing.” He was half out of his chair, his voice loud and angry, but he got his hands on the desk and pushed himself back into his chair. I felt sorry for him then. He wanted to make everything right for Blake, and he couldn’t do a thing. “What is it with you? You want your brother in jail?”
“No. Of course not.” But I was the one who’d phoned Crime Stoppers.
“Get out of here, will you? I need to think.”
I had fled to my room, but it was too quiet up there, the walls closing in around me, like it was me in a cell instead of Blake, and I’d come back down stairs. I thought about phoning Evan to come over, but he’d probably want to know what was going on with Blake, and I didn’t want to talk about it. I had the living room all to myself and turned on the television. My mother was in the bedroom, staying out of sight, I guess, that was about all that she was up to, that and crying; my father was still in the den, by now probably working on the next day’s sermon. It had to be done. Must have been hard for him to write a sermon when he was worried about Blake in jail and mad at me to boot. Still, if you didn’t know any better, you might think it wasn’t much different from any other Saturday night. At our house, Saturday nights were never a lively time. Usually, I’d be out somewhere with Evan, but if I was home I’d often hear my father going over his sermon, practising it out loud, working on his emphases and pauses, adding examples that he hoped would get through even to the people in the back pew. He liked to say that the ideas came from the Lord, but it was his job to keep the congregation from drifting off to sleep.
I lay down on the couch, hoping I could concentrate on the hockey game. The Leafs were leading Boston three to two, players slamming one another into the boards, ice chips flying, the glass shaking, and I thought, maybe I can do this, think about the game and nothing else, the puck dumped ahead, everybody chasing it, but my eyes were heavy and I kept sliding off, missing portions of the action. Time and time again a new line would be breaking in on goal, and I hadn’t seen them leave the bench. Then the score was tied, and I had missed the goal. Once the Leaf winger swooped behind the net, blond hair flying below his helmet, the puck on his stick as he cut around a player, one foot striking the back of the goal, catching, and he was off balance, already falling when the Bruin defenceman smashed him against the boards. His head struck the boards, snapped back, and he fell to the ice. Lay there without any sign of motion. Even the announcer was silent for a few seconds. Someone from the bench was bent over him, the trainer, I guess, examining his head. He seemed to be unconscious. When the trainer pulled his helmet off, his hair wasn’t blond anymore, but dark and curly, a gash across his cheekbone, his eyelids beginning to flutter, and when those eyes finally opened, my brother was looking up at me.
I sat up so fast my feet slammed onto the floor.
The trainer was bent over him once more, shielding him from view. Seemed to be whispering in his ear. Then he was moving one hand, the other hand, both his legs, and I was breathing again. Two players got his arms over their shoulders, lifted him. His legs splayed and dragging, they skated him toward the bench, the crowd applauding, and it was the Leaf winger they were clapping for, blond hair falling on his shoulders, not my brother after all.
I grabbed the remote and turned off the game. Sat hunched forward on the couch, staring at the empty screen, trying not to think, but my brother was in jail, and I had helped put him there.
No, that wasn’t right. He was the one who knew Anna would go out with him, who’d driven to the old McAuley place, taken her there — I knew it as sure as if I’d been there myself to see him — and then everything had gone wrong and she was dead. They’d killed her, God, she was gone forever. He must have been crazy, yeah, drunk and crazy, but that was no excuse. He made his own choices.
Sure, I chickened out at the last second, couldn’t say his name, but he was just as guilty as the other guys. The buggers.
Was there any chance that I was wrong? No, the police were holding him — just like the rest of them — the police wouldn’t have it wrong.
I was so damned tired — too tired to think straight. I needed to get some sleep, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength to make it up the stairs to bed. I dug my fists into my eyes, tried to rub the sleep away, but my knuckles were wet when I looked down at them.
Some time later, I realized I was lying on the couch again. The light on the end table by the easy chair was still on, the one we always used while watching T.V., but the room seemed darker. Someone had turned the hall light off, yes, and pulled the afghan over me. I checked my watch. Twelve-thirty. I swung my legs onto the floor, the muscles stiff and aching, but I knew I could make it up to bed.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw that the light was off in the den, but passing the door, I felt my heart surge, my breath halt an instant, then come back in a rush. On the other side of the dark room, just visible in the pale light from the window, my father sat at his desk, his head bent, his shoulders slouched forward. He had to be lost in thought, his mind far away and troubled, or he would have heard me on the stairs, maybe even heard me gasp. When I noticed his hands clasped together before him, I knew that he was praying. For what seemed like many minutes, I remained at the door, standing awkwardly, half-turned toward the den, watching him, but he never shifted his position, and at last, when I felt one calf begin to cramp, I tiptoed off to bed.
NINE
Though the blind was drawn, sunshine bled all around it and filled the room with dusky light. The house beyond my room was absolutely quiet, no sound of traffic from the street outside. My parents must have slept in. But no, of course, they wouldn’t do that. Not on a Sunday morning. They’d left me in bed, decided, maybe, that I needed sleep as much as church, and gone quietly off together. Yeah, and I wondered wh
at they’d say afterwards, when someone down for coffee asked them where the boys were this morning. “Blair’s sacked out at home, and Blake’s sawing logs down in the city jail.” Not bloody likely.
Yes, but what could they say?
What must it be like for them, I wondered, with one son implicated in a killing and another who’d turned him in? Everybody in the congregation would have read the articles about the killing, seen the television news, the stubble field with its crust of snow, wind stirring, fresh snow beginning to drift over the fluorescent paint. They’d all know who Anna Big Sky was, but no other names had been released, of course, because at seventeen my brother and his friends were underage. Still, Palliser was a small city. Someone would know, and there’d be talk. The guys on the team would tell their friends. Eventually the names would get around. Eventually — hell, a lot of kids at school knew already. Some of their parents would too, and they’d be phoning each other.
I hoped none of them had phoned my father yet.
How was he going to stand up in the chancel and get through a sermon in front of them? How could my mother sit in the choir and raise her voice in praise as if this were just another Sunday? Would her voice crack on “The Lord’s Prayer,” or would it rise above all the others as they sang, “And forgive us our trespasses”? And what about my father, leading everyone in prayer, his deep intonations audible even as the voices of the congregation mixed with his? “To you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hidden.” For years on Sunday mornings I’d repeated the words along with everybody else, getting through them by rote, barely listening, but today they meant something new.
And what would it be like for my parents afterwards, leaving the empty church and coming home to the rectory when one of their sons was missing?
It was almost eleven-thirty. With any kind of crowd going up to take communion, the service would last at least another twenty minutes, and then people would wander downstairs for coffee, taking their time, some of them standing at the front to chat, others clustered in groups around the small tables, sipping their coffees, munching on cookies, Mrs. Sandeman getting up half a dozen times, strolling casually to the front as if no one would notice her grabbing another cookie. I had lots of time.
Living with the hawk Page 12
