“You’re not a murderer.”
“A manslaughterer, then. I did whiplash BS to his death.”
“No deal. You don’t get to play this both ways. If Jasper and his friends are real, as you claim they are, the walrus clan did the deed.” The smile between us is sweet as a kiss.
“Aaron West, are you ready to let that animal of yours out?”
“Is it an octopus?”
“Why would you think that?”
“You always say my hands are overfull.”
“Connect with the ethereal, the metaphysical you, not the logical, man.” I sing a clue, “You’d like to be under the sea, but an octopus is definitely not thee.”
Mikey circles back with a little less burden. “Can we make a fire?”
“Can do.”
“You have a dry log in that jeep, don’t you.”
Aaron winks. “And a pot, water, and dehydrated mac and cheese.”
“Okay, practically speaking you might be an octoeagle, like I’m a lioneagle, but that’s quite different than what your mind-bending animal is.”
“You are delightfully odd, Ari Lioneagle.”
“Thank you.”
At the drop back into hell, I take in his good face. “Thanks for helping us navigate this day.” It’s rare, I think, for eyes to connect and remain held by the other. I know a dolphin and seahorse don’t belong together but there’s no denying the love that tangles us and the deepening of it.
Aaron breaks the spell. “Um, you think you might want to play some volleyball?”
“Every night I dream of smashing O’Toole’s head. Why?”
“Someone in my class plays with a community league. They’re short a full roster.”
“Where?”
“Wednesdays at the Benson Building.”
“Don’t think I could swing it with Mikey.”
“She has two kids who tag along with her. I’ll send the details with Mikey on Tuesday.”
* * *
Escape from crapdom on poker night to play volleyball is better than Christmas. Mikey and I scheme up a plan to make the Dick think it’s his idea. We slap together baloney sandwiches while Todd goes to buy a case of beer. Mum sits on the wobbly chair waiting for me to fluff up her split ends, eating mayonnaise. She spoons up another dollop. “For Christ’s sake, Mum, eat a sandwich.”
“I like pudding.”
As much as the Dick is inflating with his new “acting detective” status, Mum is deflating. I wait in hopeful anticipation for simultaneous explosion and implosion. When the Dick molders in, refreshments are piled and Mum is propped up with hairspray and amphetamines. He yanks up Mikey’s chin. “What happened to your eye?”
“Got hit by a ball.”
The Dick would be proud if he’d been in a scrap. He snaps Mikey’s head away. “Pathetic.”
Mikey backs away as planned and I say, “His teacher says he needs practice with hand-eye coordination.”
“Baseball, that’s what he needs. Or bowling.”
“She recommended a program for kids over at the university. He’d have to try out though.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Take him.”
“Can’t. I have homework.”
It’s been a solid year since the Dick has risked bruising me, but he yanks on my hair without thought or mercy. “You can do it there. Get.”
Mikey has a Hardy Boys book. I have jitters and my new track suit as we hurry to the Women’s Athletic Building at U of T. “I’m going to make a fool of myself.”
Mikey swipes the black makeup off his eye. “You’re the best player at Jarvis.”
I wipe off the remaining smudge. “This is the big leagues.”
I wander in and a woman, tall as a mast, smiles. “Ari?” I nod. “I’m Giselle. This must be Mikey. My Erika will be chuffed at having a friend to help with the ankle-biters.” She points across the gym. “There’re two bucks in it if you can keep that lot happy and off our court.” Mikey rises to the challenge and Giselle sizes me up. “You play?”
“Just my school team.”
“What we need most right now is a body or we’ll have to forfeit.”
For two whole hours, my history is absent. I just play, with abandon. After a thin win, at my serve, we drink banana-raspberry smoothies and talk. I hold my own with books read, listen in rapt wonderment to stories about careers and travel, and they ask me about making pots.
Mikey and I accept a ride to Wellesley and Jarvis, then meander home. “That was the most fun ever. Here fun, I mean.”
“Yeah. It was.”
“Erika asked if I wanted to come over and play sometime. Her dad’s a geologist and has fossil rocks.”
“Cool.”
“I told her if she came to Pleasant Cove, we’d find fern fossils in the rock slide.”
“Giselle said the kids have never been so good.”
“I’m going to be a foster dad like Huey when I grow up.”
“Don’t let the Dick hear you say that.”
“Kira’s almost as good as Jasper at making up stories.”
“Does she have one for why you need to come with me this summer?”
“Yep, I need to train as a sea cadet so I can be a marine cop.”
“Excellent tact. I heard O’Toole say the new police chief is training a whole unit because of drugs going across the lake.”
“Is the new chief going to protect us?”
“I tell you, Mikey, I can’t sort the protectors from the predators.”
The craphouse is so thick with smoke I can see it through the front window, like dense maritime fog. By now, O’Toole will be plastered enough to think I want to play poke-her. The Dick will be either in-the-hole pissed or winning-big bragging, and Mum will be puking in the sink. Mikey appraises the unidentified hulks planted on the veranda. “Who are those new guys?”
“Associates. Let’s sneak in.”
We head around back, nimble foot onto the porch roof and dive through Devil Girl’s window. Mikey checks the hall, signals “all clear,” and I dart into the boys’ room.
“Go brush your teeth.” I leave on my stinky volleyball gear and pretzel into the closet.
Through the paper-thin wall, I hear Mikey meet up with O’Toole. “Hey, ass wipe, Hariet in there?”
“No, she brought me home, then went to the library.”
“Fuckin’ liar. Library’s closed.”
“At the university it’s open ’til midnight.”
“She with that Aaron creep?”
“Her friend Giselle. She has a card she lets Ari use.”
He’s a good story-weaver, eh, Ari.
Epic.
I snug down with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, feeling still disassembled but hopeful that something resembling life can be pieced together.
Twenty-Eight
Monday, June 1st at three fifty-five, I approach the Shell Tower. Mr. Koshkin is sitting on the bench out front. He motions for me to sit. “This meeting must seem a strange request.”
“What isn’t off-kilter this year?”
“It’s nine months since we were to meet Natasha here.”
“I can’t imagine the terror you’ve felt from that moment on.”
“And now I must learn to meet life without her. For the boys, and for Katia. For my Natasha, also.”
“She said you were brave.”
“Tell me other things you remember of her.”
“Um . . . She could say the alphabet backwards faster than anyone. We’d race. She’d be at A before I was halfway through.”
His fisted hand steadies his lip quiver.
“She gave a Valentine to every single person in the school so no one would feel left out.”
“I rem
ember. She had me bring home two cartons of toffees.”
“She welcomed me with a toffee. I was so unhappy being pulled from my old school, she saw that. She was the first person to talk to me, invite me to lunch, help me find my way to classes.”
He’s bent forward, studying his empty hands as I tell him all the sweet things I remember. His sigh is ragged. “We are moving from here, Ari.”
“Sabina told me you’re going to Guelph.”
“Yes. A new job. Agricultural research will be a change, a necessary change.”
“Candy to dirt. There’s a poem in that.”
“I need for you to hear me say this. There is mercy for me in his death. I don’t care what difficulties he faced. I could not have tolerated excuses made in his defence at a trial. If he had a life, any life, no matter it be in a cage, I’d be consumed by bitterness. And if Katia were to offer him sympathy or worse, forgiveness, and knowing her she would, it would break us.” His veined hand pats my arm. “Live your life knowing my load, the weight on our family is less burdened.”
“I’ll let the walrus clan know they helped.”
“All your clans helped.”
“The Cove’s a good place, eh.”
“A hallowed place.”
“True, eh? All I want from life is to get Mikey there and live out my days with Jake.”
“It’s a fine hope, but take it from me, your dreams cannot be dependent on another’s presence in that life. Each morning now, I open my eyes, and an old dog, right in here”—he taps his chest—“says, ‘Joseph, get up and retrieve what you can for Katia and the boys.’”
“There’s been a spirited dog poking at me, too.” I check the tower clock. “Can you come to the school?”
“Who’s there at this time?”
“Just Mina, Wendy, and Ellis, but all Nat’s friends helped make something from her buttons.”
Near as I can describe Mr. Koshkin’s face when he sees it is a golden retriever waiting for a ball to be thrown. Not a smile but anticipation, longing mixed with a little hope. “You did this with that bucket of buttons?”
“When something needs to be done and you ask Wendy to do it, it’s like the loaves and fishes miracle. Half a bucket became trash-cans full.” Natasha’s bike is encrusted with buttons, spokes, frames, wheels, seat, basket to pedals. The form riding it is as real as it is abstract. There’s no mistaking, from the flip of hair to flower-power sneakers, it’s Nat. “We wired them together following the ones Nat started. Then used a resin to fill in the spaces.”
Mina says, “When the sun catches it, it fills with light. We’re going to coat it a few more times so it can handle the weather.”
Mr. Koshkin asks, “Where will it go?”
Wendy says, “We’re doing a fundraiser for a gazebo and benches.”
He looks to Ellis. “Will you go and bring Katia and the boys? Please.”
I duck out with Ellis. “What a lovely tribute, Ari.”
“Mina’s the mastermind and renderer. I swear Nat looked like a chicken before she fashioned it.”
“That pup in the carrier is yours to the last button. His laughing mouth makes me smile.”
Twenty-Nine
Third Sunday in June, I watch Aaron stride toward me. Odd how I’m getting older and he isn’t. We are tethered, a soul from too much order and a soul from utter chaos, finding equilibrium in the other. “So, Aaron West, you look in need of a long ocean soak.”
“Lima is right on the ocean.”
“Are you going to climb Machu Picchu?”
“Uncle Pete’s coming in August and we might. That earthquake in Chimbote was devastating. We’ll meet up with the Red Cross and see what help we can be before doing anything else.”
“And July?”
“Course work. If you can believe it, I’ll be getting paid to gather data on literacy.” He peruses the wry smile on my face. “What?”
“It’s nice to see you swimming in the right direction.”
He digs one of Sabina’s pastries out of the bag. “Did you know Linda’s getting married?”
“I heard. You won’t always be alone, you know. Jasper’s never wrong.”
“I’m not so much lonely for Linda as I am for myself and I’m not at the place where I can go and meet me, if that makes any sense.”
“Everyone is held by something. Where my history is dung and I get mired in the shit, you’re caught in a cage of spun gold. Yours is a harder escape, I think.” My boot nudges his sneaker. “We’re kind of at the same place. Theoretically we could just fly away, anywhere we please.”
“So, what keeps us stuck?”
“The gravity of the question my old friend Chase posed last summer: What’s the one regret you wish you could change when you’re ninety? That’s an okay stickiness to be in, don’t you think?”
“Feels like ninety years have passed since then.”
“The physics of trouble time.”
“Speaking of trouble, how’s your mum?”
“Yellow as a duck.”
“What’s going to happen to Mikey if—”
“Mum dies?”
“Sorry, I just . . . What will happen?”
“Reality is, if the Dick doesn’t blow up his life, Mikey stays with him. Dick married Mum because he thinks it makes me—ergo, Len’s money—his property. He’s gathering evidence to have me committed on my eighteenth birthday.”
“Could he?”
“Definitely possible. If anyone asks, you’ve only ever heard me talking to Jesus.” I shrug. “I can help the kid while Mum’s breathing and Len’s money is in play, but after, I won’t have a road in.”
Aaron asks, “Is the Dick still being decent?”
“Halfway. O’Toole’s got him jammed up with a lot of sketchy hombres, but he has a fresh murder to make him happy.”
“What happened?”
“A ninety-year-old was strangled and stuffed in a closet. Earthquakes and all this other shit never end, do they?”
“Knowing that makes this peaceful moment pretty spectacular, eh?” He unearths a paper bag from his satchel. “Happy belated seventeenth.”
Inside is a silky book of Japanese pottery. “Oh, this is so perfect. Where’d you find it?”
“Giselle tracked it down. Have to be honest, it was her idea.”
“Ready for some serendipity?” I rummage through my pack to a carefully padded gift. “This is my first one. I wanted you to have it.” A pot mended with spidery gold sits on his open palm. “Didn’t know how else to tell you how connecting me to Giselle has been the only time I’ve felt close to normal this year.” We shouldn’t lock eyes, not when I love Jake, but sometimes eyes disobey hearts. “Are you coming to the final game?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
* * *
Stands have been rolled onto the side of the gym where the kids usually play. My supporters cheer as we own the last game of a round robin. I’m not the best player, but I’m the angriest and that alone racks up the points.
Post-game, Giselle gives out directions to her house. “Go on ahead. Door’s open.”
Aaron says, “Come on, Todd. Ride with us.”
Todd straightens. “Me? Really? I’m invited?”
“Couldn’t celebrate without you, bro,” I say before heading to the changeroom.
I’m dabbing my scraped knees with Mecca, thinking about warmed brie and cold watermelon, when a card is flicked in my face. “Have you thought about where you’re going?”
“Um, Giselle’s party?”
“I mean, which university.” A woman I don’t know but have seen watching us play now and then says, “You could have a full ride to any school.”
Jennah’s minidress slips over my head. “I’m just going into grade twelve.”
“Grade thirteen
’s an easy workaround. Other provinces and schools in the U.S. don’t require it.” She stands too close; there’s a tiny blister on her lip. “I’d like to see you in training this summer.”
I look at her card. “Sorry, Miss Strazda? I have a job in Nova Scotia. I leave on Friday for the summer and when I do go to university, it’ll be there.”
“No. McGill, maybe.”
I so seldom feel clarity in my life. Right now, what I want, and what I’ll do, is make my hair look pretty for tonight and go to Nova Scotia on Friday.
On the way to the car, Giselle says, “Keep that card, Ari. Strazda’s pulling together a Canadian team to compete on an international level.”
“Why me? Everyone on the team’s better than me.”
“In sports years, we’re geriatric. You’re young, you go all in and play your guts out. It’s a great way to pay for school.”
I stuff the card in my bag, knowing I’m not getting into any university based on my marks.
Giselle’s home is big and moneyed, but not decorator-perfect like Jennah’s. There’s a weird pool, inside a solarium. Long and skinny. Mikey and Erika have their feet a-dangle and Giselle says they can go in if they can find a lifeguard in the crowd. Neither Aaron or I are lifeguards but we’re content to sit, soak our feet, and watch them start at opposite ends and race toward us in the middle. Aaron leans into my ear. “You moved like water and smashed like a wave on that court.” For a dolphin spirit, that’s close to saying I love you.
Getting his toes in the water is risky, perilous even. “I liked hearing you cheer.” Our naked forearms touch as we splash in the other’s eyes. His hair brushes my cheek as I look away. Mina’s swapping travel stories with Sonja. Ellis is pummelling our best player at ping-pong. Todd is holding court with several people around a rattan table. I ask, “Do you know who Todd’s talking to?”
“Apparently, there’re plans in the works to bring a zoo to Toronto. They’re picking Todd’s brain.”
“He looks so happy.” My baby finger touches Aaron’s. “After this awful year, I can’t really settle into this calm.”
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