EPILOGUE
I finished high school in Palliser. In grade ten I was still in such a turmoil that I refused to go out for football, but eventually I decided it was pointless punishing myself, and I played my last two years, cornerback on a pretty good team, a team that made it to the southern finals in my grade twelve year. After high school, I worked a year pumping gas at the Palliser Co-Op, living at home and saving as much money as I could, then went off to the University of Saskatchewan to study commerce.
It was during Frosh Week, at a campus rally in the bowl, that I first saw the girl I thought someday I might want to marry. Everybody was talking about a series of red “E”s that had appeared overnight on the windows of the Arts Building’s upper floor. I remember an artsman commandeered the microphone, went on and on about what imbeciles the engineers always were. “Not much danger in a prank like that,” he said. “They might fall from the top of the building, but there’d be no harm done as long as they managed to land on their heads.”
A slim brunette was striding to the podium, streaks of red dyed in her hair and flaming under the noonday sun. There was something vaguely familiar about the way she walked, or, perhaps, the way she held her head. She went straight for the speaker, stepping over the legs of couples seated on the grass. The speaker saw her coming, liked what he saw, dipped his head in a preposterous bow and waved her toward the microphone.
She paused an instant before she spoke, and I noted her eyes, even from a distance, they seemed to be flashing with emotion.
“On this campus,” she said, “artsmen and engineers have been exchanging insults for generations. Now, let me tell you, your average engineer isn’t a bad sort. Just because he likes his beer and reads The Red Eye, don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s a redneck. He’s too busy — stuck in class for thirty, forty hours a week. Your average artsman’s not a bad sort either. The problem is the odd one who seldom goes to class. Hey, man, he’s got his reading list, eh? Yes, and he flies through Jonathan Swift, head nodding all the way, but never a thought that he might be a yahoo too. Our problem here is the artsman whose brain is smaller than his mouth.”
Cheers and boos from all across the bowl, and I was hooked already, knew I had to meet her, wanted to ask her out. Then I heard a guy behind me say, “That Saunders, she’s got more guts than a slaughterhouse.”
I wheeled around, saw two guys standing together, their Engineering jackets bright red in the sunlight.
“Who’d you say she is?”
“Amber Saunders.”
“She’s an Engineer?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“Uh-huh, a chemical.” Wow, I thought, this is really something.
“You don’t think women should be engineers?”
I hadn’t noticed her before, a dark-haired girl standing beside the engineers, her tan sweatshirt eclipsed by their red jackets. She’d taken a step toward me, and even with her brow furrowed, her jaw thrust forward, she was just about the cutest girl I’d ever seen. “Well,” she said, “what about it?”
“Hey, women should be anything they want.”
“You’re sure of that, are you?” Her eyes were bright as sunlight on newly fallen snow.
“I was just surprised about Amber Saunders. I used to know her.” And only a minute ago I’d had some goofy thought about wanting to take her out. Not Amber Saunders. Too many complications there.
“So women engineers are okay?”
The two in the red jackets were shaking their heads, laughing at her. “Come on, Owens,” one of them said, “give the guy a break.”
“Yeah, Owens,” I said. “About the only thing better than women engineers is women who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.”
She was grinning at me now.
“So,” I said, “you could really give this guy a break and let him take you out for coffee.”
She was even cuter when she laughed.
We went for coffee. It turned out her name was Holly Owens and she was feisty all right, a chemical engineer herself, in second year, but within a month we were going steady.
The day I saw Amber Saunders walk through the campus crowd, I thought for an instant that there was something familiar about her, but eventually I realized I hadn’t got it quite right. If the way she held herself struck me as vaguely familiar, it must have been because of how she walked, head up, shoulders back, her stride full of purpose. I’d seen that look before — Anna Big Sky swinging into action, going right for Jordan Phelps.
When I think of Anna now, I try not to dwell on the way she died, although it’s never easy to get my mind beyond that trampled patch of snow. I like to remember how she’d pass me in the hall at school, my name on her lips, that sudden smile following as sure as the wine succeeds the wafer in my father’s church, but what I like best is one time she did stop to talk. She said a few words only, but I keep them like souvenirs, love to take them out and polish them whenever I’m feeling low.
“Blair,” she said, smiling as she always did, but this time she paused beside me. “You’re number thirty-one, aren’t you?”
I was so surprised that she would know my jersey number I could only nod my head.
“I saw you practising after school the other day.” She laid her hand on my biceps, gave a quick squeeze. “I liked the way you stuck to that receiver. Kind of like Crazy Glue.”
Before I could think of any response that wouldn’t leave me sounding like a goof, she was on her way, heading for another class.
That’s the memory I go back to again and again. Anna striding down the hall, me turned to watch her go, the other kids streaming by, no one shoving, no one bumping me because abruptly I’m transformed into a rock, substantial, solid, the water parting, flowing past, and nothing pushes me aside.
The guy at Mosaic Stadium must have been ten rows in front of me, but as soon as he stood up to harangue the Lions I felt apprehensive. Which was strange because he didn’t look like anyone I knew.
The guy was big — must’ve been well over six-feet tall — with a lean torso and arms like a weight-lifter, and he moved with the agility of an athlete, hopping onto his seat between plays, both arms in the air, middle fingers raised for all to see, his hands swinging down a minute later, jabbing at number thirty-six who’d made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder, distracted, I suppose, by the shouts behind him. Before every play the fan hopped nimbly down and took his seat, but the second the play was finished he was up again, yelling at the one Lion who’d noticed him.
Though I couldn’t hear him with all the crowd noise, I felt a tightening in the muscles of my neck. I tried to watch the action on the field, but my eyes were always coming back to him. There was something about the easy way he moved.
When play stopped at the three-minute mark, he pushed his way out to the aisle, ran down the steps to the rail and leaned toward the Lion bench. He hollered something I couldn’t hear, and number thirty-six laughed and pointed to the scoreboard. The guy in the stands looked as if he’d been slapped. The Riders were down by ten points, but that didn’t seem to mean a thing to him. He flung himself against the rail, shaking his fist, waving with his other hand for the player to come on up and fight. Before long, half a dozen other guys in the front row were joining in, backing him up, all of them behaving like jerks, challenging the Lions to fight.
I suppose that’s when I should have known.
He stayed at the rail for the game’s final minutes, squatting down during the action so he wouldn’t block someone’s view and attract a security guard, hurling himself against the rail between plays, leaning as far out and over as he could, both hands outstretched, palms up, fingers beckoning. Four of the Lions were turned toward him now, yapping back up at him, making the same kind of beckoning motions, urging him to come down and fight.
There was a sudden break in the noise and I heard him yell, “Pussies! You’re all a bunch of pussies!”
I sat down. Jammed my hands between my knees
. The Riders completed a long pass on the next play, but I didn’t care.
No matter how hard I clamped my knees together, I couldn’t stop the shaking. I felt the tremors spread, my elbows started to shake. I recognized the voice as soon as I heard it, but I should have known at once, and I guess maybe in a strange way I did know. Jordan Phelps, out of jail already, the murdering bastard, he might look older now, but he was just the same. Hanging over the rail, hurling curses at the Lions, somehow getting half a dozen fans to join in his tirade.
When the shock had worn off and I had control of my limbs again, I thought, before this game is over — right now — I’m going to run down those stairs, time it so he’s leaning over the rail, catch him by the ankles, drop him onto the field. Let the Lions kick the shit out of him. Tear him limb from limb.
The stairs were filling up by the time I got to the end of the aisle, but I could see that Jordan Phelps was still slinging curses from the rail. The Rider drive must’ve petered out because there were more and more people filing out, flowing down the stairs, and I let them carry me along until I stepped onto the landing at the bottom, squeezing between two men and close to the rail.
Directly behind Jordan Phelps.
Four of the Lions were standing right beneath him now, shouting back at him, and he was leaning so far over the rail all I had to do was give him a bump and he was gone. Let the Lions beat the snot out of him.
But no, a revenge fantasy, that’s all it was. Satisfying in a way, but just a stupid fantasy.
Still, I had to do something.
Why not tap him casually on the shoulder, let him see I knew who he was, tell him exactly what I thought of him? Sure, tell him, “Well, Phelps, it looks to me like Anna had you pegged just right. You’re still an asshole.”
I had to tap him twice before he turned around.
“What the hell you want?” His eyes dark and hard, his mouth set in a frown, as if his expression had been glazed and fired in a kiln. He had no idea who I was.
“You’re Jordan Phelps,” I said. “Anna Big Sky had it right when she called — ”
He swung at me then, a roundhouse right, but I stepped back and his fist whistled past my chin. My heart was pounding, but I stood and faced him.
Jordan Phelps took a step toward me, paused, disgruntled fans stepping around us, between us, and down the stairs. For once in his life, he looked unsure.
“No,” he said, “no, you’re the real asshole.”
I had to smile at that — as soon as I mentioned Anna he knew what I was going to say. I could have called him something else, but what was the point of exchanging insults with someone like Jordan Phelps? I shook my head in disgust, with myself as much as with him, took a couple of deep breaths, and walked down the stairs. Left him standing there like an actor who’d forgotten all his lines.
Going near him was a mistake. What I should have done was stay in my seat, forget about stupid teen-age fantasies and play it like an adult.
Well, the game was over now, I’d follow the crowd out of Mosaic Place, meet the guys back at the car, and hope I never saw Jordan Phelps again. Hope he wasn’t going to occupy my thoughts for months this time around.
Lord knows, he’d already been there far too long.
And he’s there now. The football game over hours ago, I’m back in Saskatoon, in a turmoil once again, thinking about that horrible October. My father struggling to ease my suffering in any way he could, relying, naturally, on what had meant so much to him, the wisdom of the Bible, trying to pass it on to me, a boy who didn’t want to listen. No matter how many hours my father spent pouring over scripture, seeking passages that might speak to me, he wasn’t getting through. He knew it, and he wouldn’t quit. Somehow he needed to convince me that I mustn’t blame myself for what had happened to my brother.
I turn and turn in bed, stare at the ceiling, the walls, the dim light seeping from the edges of the curtain. My brother dead and Jordan Phelps alive, free to go wherever he wants, attend football games, heap curses on anyone he chooses. If there are answers to be found, they dwell far beyond me, awake or asleep.
I think of my father then, and suddenly I’m smiling. “Shit happens,” he once told me, the words so unlike any I had heard him utter, before or since. It must have been a battle for him to get them out.
Someday I’ll have to thank him for the effort.
No, not some day. Now. I pick up the phone and dial. “Hey, Dad, it’s me.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Dave Oswald Mitchell who, when he was in high school, wrote the poem that eventually inspired this novel. Special thanks to the members of my prose group (Byrna Barclay, Pat Krause, Dave Margoshes, and Brenda Niskala) for their chapter-by-chapter feedback over a period of many months, and especially to Dave who later gave me detailed comments on the whole works. Thanks also to Geoffrey Ursell, Barbara Sapergia and T. F. Rigelhof for their readings of the manuscript. I owe debts of gratitude to R. P. MacIntyre both for recommending my manuscript to the publisher and for his many editorial insights, and, of course, to the good folks at Thistledown for turning the manuscript into a book. Additional thanks to Karon Selzer and the staff of the Moose Jaw Public Library for their assistance and support. And finally a tip of the hat to the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, whose staff and members have helped sustain me through many years of writing.
Robert Currie is a poet and fiction writer who lives in Moose Jaw where he taught for thirty years at Central Collegiate, winning the Joseph Duffy Memorial Award for excellence in teaching language arts. He also taught creative writing for four summers at the Saskatchewan School of the Arts in Fort San and for three summers at the Sage Hill Writing Experience in Lumsden. He is the author of ten books, including the short story collections, Night Games and Things You Don’t Forget, and the novel, Teaching Mr Cutler.
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