The Tournament

by Angelo Kontos

  Isaac did not like his chances of fighting off three teenagers while protecting his guitar in the process, so he clutched his baby and ran for the street without his skateboard. But before he could get very far two of the three boys were nipping at his heels. One of them kicked repeatedly at his feet, and on the third kick Isaac finally tripped and fell.

  As he tumbled to the ground, he was unable to keep holding the guitar. One of the two boys picked it up and they both ran away laughing. As Isaac tried to scramble back to his feet, the third one caught up and kicked him as hard as he could in the midsection. Isaac grunted and had the wind knocked out of him as he hit the ground again. The third boy kept running and yelling for his friends to wait up. Isaac’s skateboard was tucked under the boy’s arm.

  After a few minutes of trying to regain his breath, Isaac put a hand over his ribs and stood up slowly. There was no way he could catch those boys, so he slowly walked back home. He swallowed two aspirin from an expired bottle in his medicine cabinet and lay down gently on his bed. He would not be terribly upset if the expired medicine ended up killing him.

  15.

  It was all getting to be too much. Diana wasn’t sure how much more she could take. She stood at the register of a 24-hour convenience store and paid for a few items. It was past 11:00 p.m. and she’d just finished another late shift at the hospital. She doubted Alex would even be home. Over the past few weeks, he was averaging three out of every four nights or so at his mother’s house. Even though his mother was in bed sleeping a lot now, Alex felt as though he couldn’t leave her alone in case she needed him in the middle of the night.

  What his mother really needed was palliative care, but Alex would not hear of it.

  The young male clerk working behind the register gave Diana her change and smiled at her shyly. Diana gave a tired smile back and left the store to embark on the short walk to her building. She could see the balcony of their apartment in the distance. There was no light on, and the sliding glass door appeared to be closed. It looked like Alex was not at home again.

  Diana knew that his mother’s condition was rolling downhill at a fast clip. The latest ultrasound showed the cancer spreading throughout her abdomen, and the tumour counts were higher. She was becoming more jaundiced by the day, a clear sign that her liver was failing. In the last few days, she’d complained of stomach pain (severe, if she was complaining about it) and she was constipated. Her mental faculties were also starting to deteriorate. Diana wasn’t sure if Alex had noticed that yet, but if not, he would soon.

  A very logical and patient man by nature, Alex abandoned every reasonable aspect of his personality when it came to his mother’s illness, instead becoming incredibly stubborn and argumentative.

  Tumour counts?

  “This guy in Russia…his were much higher,” Alex responded. “He’s still alive. And a woman in Spain, her counts were almost twice as high.”

  Stomach pain?

  “They have to give her more painkillers. It’ll get better when her tumours shrink.”

  Constipation?

  “She needs a stronger laxative.”

  Doctor’s recommendation to stop chemotherapy?

  “It’s not his mother.”

  Quality of life vs. quantity of life?

  “Jesus, Dee. There’s no quality of life if there’s no life. She has to keep fighting. We’re going to beat this.”

  As Diana walked home, she thought about how Alex always used to buy groceries. When they first moved into the apartment, Alex explained that he loved supermarkets and shopping – and he ironed his own shirts. At the time, Diana thought she’d won the lottery. However, it all changed once his mother’s illness was discovered. Now their fridge could be empty for days and Alex would not even notice…or care.

  So, it was up to her to stop by convenience stores after working late to make sure they didn’t run out of milk or coffee, or so they would at the very least have some fruit and yogurt in the fridge. She couldn’t remember the last time they sat down to eat a proper meal together.

  The street was quiet except for the odd car going by. Diana thought she heard footsteps behind her, but she did not immediately feel the need to turn around. As the footsteps grew louder and appeared to be getting closer, she tensed up a little but kept going.

  “Hey, miss!”

  She was almost at her building.

  “Miss! Hey, pretty lady!”

  Diana glanced over her shoulder. Once she saw who it was, she slowed down and stopped.

  It was the clerk from the convenience store, and he was waving something at her. Diana squinted her tired eyes to focus. Her keys. He was holding her keys. She must have forgotten them on the counter in the store while she was rummaging through her purse for money.

  “Miss,” he said, out of breath.

  The clerk walked right up to her and as he held out the keys, Diana heard someone running up from behind her. Before she could even turn around to see who it was, Alex blew by and body-checked the clerk right off his feet. The young man was propelled through the air. He did an involuntary back somersault and landed on his face. Diana’s keys hit the ground and slid about ten feet away.

  “Alex!” Diana screamed.

  When the clerk tried to get back up to his knees, Alex grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and threw him into a pile of garbage cans.

  “Alex! Stop!” Diana grabbed Alex’s arm, but Alex pulled free and kept advancing on the clerk, who was moaning and trying to regain his senses. Alex walked up to him and the young man meekly put a hand up. Alex grabbed the clerk by the throat and brought him to his feet.

  “Why the fuck are you chasing women on the street?” Alex asked through gritted teeth.

  The clerk grunted and was trying desperately to breathe. Alex kept squeezing, and the clerk’s gaze became distant as he began to lose consciousness.

  Diana ran up and inserted herself between them.

  “Alex, stop! I forgot my keys!”

  “You forgot your what?”

  “My keys! At the store – he was just returning them!” Diana pulled and pulled on Alex’s arms. “Let GO of him!”

  Alex waited another few seconds, and then finally released his grip. The clerk crumpled to the sidewalk and gasped for air. Diana bent down and tended to him while Alex just looked on.

  Diana loosened the clerk’s tie and unbuttoned his collar. He coughed and gasped. After a few minutes, his breathing returned to normal, and Diana helped him back to his feet. As soon as he could stand, he pushed her away and began to retreat up the street.

  “You f-f-f-ucking psycho,” he managed to sputter at Alex while rubbing his throat. “You’re crazy.”

  The clerk staggered up the street as fast as he could. Once he turned the corner and disappeared, Diana faced Alex.

  “What is happening to you?” she cried.

  Alex did not respond.

  “What if he presses charges?” Diana kept on. “You were one second away from putting him in the hospital or worse!”

  “I thought he was going to attack you,” Alex replied before starting to walk back to their building. “Let him press charges.”

  Diana stepped in front of him and forced him to stop.

  “Alex,” she said gently. “Ever since your mother got sick, everything’s changed.”

  “Well, of course it has,” Alex replied bitterly. “She wasn’t dying before.”

  “You’re never home. You’re not sleeping or eating properly. You act like someone is trying to kill us all the time,” she said.

  Alex pushed past her and kept walking.

  “Alex,” she called out. “We can’t go on like this.”

  The man Diana loved was gentle and protective, not wild and reckless. She could barely recognize him. He had become so explosive.

  She looked down at her hands. They were shaking.

  After an impossibly long few moments, Alex called back.

  “Do what you have to do.”

&
nbsp; He went into their apartment building and Diana followed about fifteen minutes later. Alex had already claimed the couch and was pretending to sleep when she walked in.

  Before turning in for the night, Diana went to the bathroom and took more pills. She needed to calm down.

  16.

  After a few hours of sleeping in his wife’s embrace, Mike opened his eyes and carefully slipped out of bed.

  On his feet now without having woken Becky up, Mike decided to take a quick drive before returning to prepare his family a monster breakfast, which he had not done since going off to play in this awful tournament. Going home following that ugly defeat had been a good idea. He needed to reset.

  Mike was a man on a mission and knew exactly where he had to go. Becky would probably not agree, but he felt it was finally time to do this. He drove his car back down the gravel road in front of his house and was soon on the main streets of his community near the reserve.

  He turned onto the street where his father’s store used to be and stopped his car in one of the many available spaces before killing the engine. As Mike looked out at the road, he knew that he was parked exactly in front of the spot where his father was run over. He opened the car door and unfastened his seatbelt, but did not immediately get out. Instead, he continued to stare at the empty street, which was now conveniently flooded with light from all the streetlamps, none of which were defective as one had been on that fateful night. The seatbelt alarm rang incessantly until Mike finally stepped out of the car and closed the door.

  His father’s old store sat empty. Once full of Ojibwe art and other culturally significant artefacts, it now had a large “Commercial Property for Rent” sign which had fallen to the bottom of the window and sat there on the ledge upside down.

  Following the forced closing of the business after his father’s passing, a local resident tried to operate a bubble tea shop there, which opened and then closed six weeks later. There were not many people in that community who wanted Ojibwe art for their home, but even fewer craved bubble tea.

  Since then, the store had been vacant, and Mike almost preferred it that way – either that or just light a match to the whole thing.

  He walked right into the middle of the street and stood there. Mike remembered his father calling home that night and saying he would be late because he was going to clean some racist graffiti off the store window. Mike had taken the call and was the last person to speak to him.

  He looked up at the closest streetlamp, which was the one that had not worked that night. Without the light he imagined the street would be noticeably darker, but could it really have been that dark?

  If it had been an elderly woman who hit his dad, or a remorseful young man with small children at home, or almost anyone else, Mike’s mind may not have ever wondered about a more sinister motive. However, the driver was, in fact, one branch on a family tree full of ignorant, obnoxious rednecks.

  Mike always struggled to believe that his father, a very alert man in all respects, would just leave himself wide open in the street at the exact moment a minivan was going by.

  After a few more minutes, Mike returned to his car and drove back home to prepare his famous breakfast for Becky and their boys.

  17.

  Outside the intensive care unit of Toronto General Hospital, Eddie tried not to pace too much, but he found sitting to be difficult. He got up and sat back down repeatedly. It was almost five in the morning.

  Upon learning that his friend Tommy had been rushed out of Bridgepoint to this hospital’s ICU, Eddie drove right over and had been waiting ever since. He’d been there for nearly three hours and still did not know anything about Tommy’s condition.

  Finally, a doctor appeared and came over to him. Eddie immediately stood up.

  “You’re here for Tommy?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes. What happened?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Eddie Mark.”

  “You a relative, Mr. Mark?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly.”

  The doctor looked at him and smiled politely.

  “Look, can you just tell me if he’s going to be alright?” Eddie asked impatiently.

  The doctor motioned for Eddie to sit in one of the chairs. The doctor sat beside him.

  “I can’t really say right now,” the doctor answered. “The nurses at Bridgepoint found him in distress, not breathing properly, so they gave him oxygen – and he was sent here after he experienced a series of relatively minor convulsions. We’re running more tests.”

  Eddie nodded quietly and looked down at his feet. The doctor stood up.

  “It’s obvious you care about him,” the doctor said. “You must already realize that his neurological condition is not good.”

  “Did his family put in a request for him not to be resuscitated?” Eddie asked.

  “Mr. Mark, even if I knew the answer…”

  “It’s okay. I already know.”

  18.

  If any of his teammates could see what Curtis did to the bathroom in the back of the restaurant, they might say it gave new meaning to his nickname of “Garbage Goal” Curtis. In fact, the garbage can was the first thing Curtis grabbed when he flew through the door, because it was closer than the toilet. He threw up in it before pivoting to the toilet and barely getting his pants down in time to unleash a tsunami of diarrhea. At that moment, it was hard to believe this was the same bathroom where he regularly enjoyed personal pleasure during his breaks.

  Curtis worried about any of the staff seeing him come out and realizing that he was responsible for the awful stench drifting through the air. There was no fan or window, but there was a half-full bottle of air freshener. When Curtis felt that he had finally finished and was well enough to stand and pull his pants back up, he sprayed the contents of the bottle until it was empty.

  Now on top of being exhausted he was also dehydrated and felt weak. He wouldn’t call in sick to the warehouse, though. His job at the restaurant might be in jeopardy, but there was no way he could risk losing both jobs. A quick hour or so of rest on that little couch his warehouse supervisor let him crash on was all he needed to recover. His stomach would settle down.

  Curtis was finally ready to open the door. He prayed no one else would be in the back area at that moment, so he could duck out of there without being connected to the carnage that had occurred in the bathroom.

  As soon as he stepped out he saw Megan, his waitress friend, sitting at the small break table staring blankly at a bowl of soup.

  “Hey Meg,” Curtis said as he closed the bathroom door behind him.

  Megan looked up. “Oh, hey, Curtis. How’s my man?”

  Curtis was not her man, but he would be happy to give it a shot if she ever expressed interest. He was never consciously attracted to women like Megan, white girls with tattoos all over their body, but there was something about her.

  Many years ago, some wannabe aspiring comedian knocked Megan up and they had a son named Jimmy who was now in his teens. Curtis knew from his many conversations with Megan that she had worked single-handedly to keep the family afloat financially while her loser boyfriend drove around the country looking for fame and fortune. He had not been back in quite some time and seemed to be gone for good.

  Megan looked very sad as she sat there looking at her soup. Curtis wanted to leave the restaurant, but he felt compelled to stop and talk to her.

  “Something wrong, Meg?”

  “That’s my life,” she answered. “Always something wrong. I’m sure you have better things to do than hear about it.”

  “Try me,” Curtis replied.

  “The usual – money,” Megan sighed. “My son is supposed to go on a field trip tomorrow and my tables suck tonight. I just don’t have the cash.”

  “Why don’t you ask for an advance?”

  “Oh, come on, Curtis. Remember who we work for here.”

  “Good point.”

  They both laughed.

>   “How much do you need?” he asked.

  “Forget it,” she said. “There’s no way I’m taking money from you.”

  From time to time, Curtis would think about how he never really saw his own money. All his pay for both jobs was put into an account using direct deposit. His mother took nearly all of it after every pay cycle and said she was putting it away for them, investments and such. She left a small amount for Curtis to draw from for things like buying coffee and putting gas in his car.

  In effect, she was leaving him an allowance with his own money. He handed most of his cash tips over to her as well.

  Curtis pulled out his wallet, took out forty dollars and put it on the table in front of Megan.

  “Curtis, no,” Megan objected. “I’m not –”

  “Just take it,” Curtis said.

  “I’m not just taking it,” Megan replied firmly, pushing the two twenty-dollar bills away.

  “Look, you can pay me back.”

  Megan stood up and tightened her apron. Her soup remained untouched.

  “Look, you’re very sweet, but…”

  “Pay me back whenever, I don’t care,” Curtis said. “Or just go out with me for dinner or something.”

  Megan’s face contorted and she looked offended. “You want to give me money to go out with you? I’m not a fucking whore, Curtis.”

  “N-no, tha-that’s not what I meant,” Curtis stammered. “It’s just you told me the guy left – so I thought…I don’t know, is he coming back?”

  Curtis knew he was getting more nervous and could not stop himself from rambling on.

  “Look, just take the money, okay? Let your kid go on the trip.”

  The back of his neck felt hot. As he was about to exit, Curtis paused and pointed at the bathroom.

  “Maybe don’t go in there for a while.”

  19.

  Shortly after consuming Rachel’s cocaine supply, Matt pounced on her in bed again and based on how much Rachel yelled throughout he was pleased with his own performance.

  After it was over, Matt used the fingernail on his pinky finger to scoop up a tiny amount of coke left on the nearby table. He put it directly into his mouth, scrubbing it along his teeth and gum line, before plopping down in bed again beside Rachel. She lay there smiling but was otherwise barely coherent, and she eventually mumbled herself to sleep. Matt, on the other hand, felt alert and more awake than he had in several weeks. He wished that he could put his equipment on and play goalie right that second.