Private Property
Before leaving for vacation, we’d gone to play hide-and-go-seek in the new subdivision of half-built houses, and construction workers had chased us away. As grizzled and manly as they were, they weren’t the quickest with their heavy boots and big bellies, and we escaped without being caught. So when Ally and I came back from Sauble Beach, we waited until the construction workers had gone home, rounded up our neighbourhood friends, and headed over there.
There were seven of us: Johnny, Pearl, and I were the oldest at thirteen, and then Ricky, Steven, Jen, all twelve, and Ally, the youngest, at ten. As a group we snuck past the Private Property sign and onto Emperor Drive, where the houses were in various stages of construction. Some were empty concrete caverns of would-be basements, others just wooden frames that grew out of the ground like two-by-four skeletons, and then there were those that had been bricked and shingled but their insides were still bare. They were all massive, some bigger than our entire row of town homes.
“The one with the double garage is gonna be mine one day,” Johnny said. “I’ll need the space for both my Ferraris when I’m a millionaire.”
“I’ll live in the one beside it,” I said. “We can combine our backyards and make a soccer field.”
“Ally, we can take the ones across the street,” Pearl said. “And put a big pool in the backyard.”
“Will we still play hide-and-go-seek?” Ally asked.
“Of course we will,” Pearl said.
There were so many hiding spots that we had to set a boundary. “Let’s keep it to these six houses,” I said, indicating a block.
Everyone put their hands in a circle, and Ricky counted off each of our hands to see who was It. “Inky pinky ponky, Daddy bought a donkey…” I got out first. “Ibble ubble black bubble, ibble ubble out.” Then Ally, then Pearl, and everyone else, until Johnny was left with his eyes closed counting to one hundred while we all ran away to hide.
We ran past the houses that were just piles of brick, tile, shingle, and pipe. And past the house where Johnny had once found a Playboy magazine. That had been the first time I’d seen between a woman’s legs; it looked dark and hairy and mysterious. I felt like we shouldn’t be looking at the magazine, but I didn’t stop Johnny from bringing it home that day. He hid it underneath a slab of patio stone at the side of his house, and we went to look at it every day for three days straight. Pearl caught Ricky and me on the third day but promised not to tell on us. She seemed curious as well and kept glancing at me while we flipped through the pages. Our eyes met once, but I got nervous and looked down at the naked woman stretched out on the deck of a boat. The magazine disappeared a couple of days later. Ricky and Johnny accused each other of stealing it and stopped talking until two days later, when we all went swimming at the public pool.
Once we were past the Playboy house, the six of us stopped to catch our breath before we split up to hide. I asked Ally if she was coming with me.
“No, I can find my own spot,” she said, and took off in between two houses.
I watched her go, feeling anxious. The summer before, Johnny had stepped on a nail. He blamed the workers, saying it was “shoddy workmanship” to leave a nail sticking out like that, a phrase he stole from his dad. But I didn’t think Johnny should have climbed into an attic without light. Either way, he had to get a tetanus shot, and our parents forbade us from coming to play here—which made it more exciting.
“I’ll come with you,” said Pearl, her smile dimpled.
We ran into the last house inside the boundary, climbed a spiral staircase with no handrail, and went into what would one day be the master bedroom. It smelled like wood chips. There was a skylight cut into the slanted ceiling that let in the evening light. We sat behind a stack of drywall in the middle of the otherwise empty room. The walls were still naked, with pink cotton-candy insulation tucked into the rectangular frames. We leaned back against the drywall, out of breath and sweat beading on our foreheads.
Then we heard Johnny’s distant voice. “Ready or not, here I come!”
Pearl looked at me and started to giggle. I tried to keep quiet but soon joined her.
“Shhhh, we’ll get caught for sure,” I said, but kept laughing.
“It was so boring here last week when you and Ally were gone,” said Pearl, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear.
“I know. I wish we could all have gone away together,” I said. “It’s going to suck when you’re on vacation.”
Her family was going camping the next day. Every year our vacations never lined up with Pearl and Johnny’s. I thought it would be cool to be twins like them—when they were younger they dressed the same, and they still had one giant birthday party for both of them. Pearl said she would have preferred her own.
Johnny was six minutes older than Pearl, and my best friend, but I thought Pearl got the better name. Mom had told Ally and me about the pearl divers back home who dove deep into the sea, and that a pearl was formed from a speck of sand that gets inside the shell. It irritates the soft flesh until it gets coated with the same material as the inside of the shell. It seemed amazing that such beauty could come from something so accidental.
A playful cry came from someone being found in the house next door; someone would soon come for us, too.
Pearl was looking at me. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I wanted to tell you before: I was the one who stole that dirty magazine.”
“You did? Why?”
Pearl took a breath and said, “I didn’t want you looking at it.”
“You didn’t want me looking at it?”
Pearl shook her head silently. Then she stood and, as if she’d been planning it, undid the top button of her jean shorts.
She pulled the zipper down so slowly, I felt I could hear each tooth separate. Still staring at me, she pulled her shorts and underwear down in one motion. Pearl’s privates had just a few strands of hair. Looking at her felt different from looking at the magazine, like she was sharing a secret she hadn’t told anyone else.
“Your turn,” she said.
I was shy and excited and embarrassed all at once, and more than anything I didn’t want Pearl to be standing there alone. I stood up and pulled my shorts down as well. We stood there for I’m not sure how long and explored each other with our eyes. The last of the sun streamed in from the skylight and specks of sawdust floated in the light. It felt like we were floating as well.
“Olly olly oxen free!” came a voice from the street.
We yanked up our underwear and shorts. Mine got caught on my knees, and I pulled them up too high and gave myself a wedgie. The call came again. But we just stood still. Pearl reached out and touched my hand. My whole body tingled. I leaned in and kissed her. The kiss was short. Our lips barely touched. The second and third time were the same, but during the fourth, I opened my mouth, and so did she. We stopped just as Johnny entered the room.
“Whoa, what are you guys doing?”
“Nothing,” we said, jumping away from each other. How hadn’t we heard him come up the stairs?
Johnny looked confused. “You two can’t kiss.”
“It was me who kissed him,” Pearl said.
Johnny came over and grabbed her arm. “We’re going home!”
“But we just started the game.” I put my hands in my pockets, and took them out again. “Who got out first, Johnny?”
“Didn’t you hear us calling?” Johnny asked. “Ally got stuck in a basement.”
“What! Is she still in there?”
“She’s fine. We threw some bales of straw down so she could climb out.”
“Okay, good. Those basements, remember when we both got stuck once, Johnny?”
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Johnny had the same look in his eyes as when
he’d stepped on the nail. He turned to Pearl, still holding her arm. “Come on!”
But Pearl broke free. “You’re not the boss of me,” she said. She stormed past him through the doorway and went stomping down the stairs. Johnny followed her.
I stayed in the room a few moments longer, staring at wood floor, the stack of drywall, the insulation. It had all happened so fast. But then I remembered Ally and rushed to find her.
“I almost got out on my own,” Ally said when she saw me. “I would’ve if I wore my running shoes.”
I didn’t ask her if she was okay, instead saying, “I warned you about open basements.”
“But it was just such a great hiding spot.”
“Still, you could have gotten hurt.”
I started walking home and she followed, and asked, “You were hiding with Pearl?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure if she sensed something. Johnny and Pearl had gone home ahead of everyone else.
The sun was setting and the day was ending. As we walked, I worried Johnny might tell his parents. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d come into the room earlier. He used to tease Pearl and me about liking each other when we were younger. We always denied it, and meant it, but things were changing. I couldn’t help also being excited by what Pearl and I had shared.
Looking back at the half-built houses, I thought how the future owners wouldn’t know how much fun had already happened in them. That the first kiss in their new bedroom wasn’t their own. We may not have owned the houses, but during that summer they were ours.
1998
Learn to Care
Vito was the biggest kid in my seventh-grade class. Parker was the smallest. They fought on a spring day after confession. The priest used to come to our school, but he was getting old, so we’d started going to the church instead. Last time, our whole school went for mass and I walked with Ally, but this time only my class went. Between that last time and this time, I wasn’t so sure about God anymore.
The air was still damp from a steady morning rain. It had come down hard for a few hours, but nothing like the storm we had last week. I tried not to step on the earthworms that had been forced from their flooded homes and littered the sidewalk. I’d heard that if a worm gets cut in half, both pieces survive and each becomes a whole new worm. Having squashed five worms, Vito picked one up with his bare fingers, ran up behind Parker, and placed it on the shoulder of his yellow raincoat. Then Vito shoved him from behind onto someone’s soggy lawn.
“I needed something to confess today,” Vito said, and a few boys laughed.
“I’m sure you have plenty already.” Parker got up and tried to wipe the mud off his coat with his sleeve, but it just smeared down the front.
“Not as much as you, faggot.” Vito had caught Parker with Sarah’s bobby pins in his hair last week and had been taunting him ever since.
Miss Allen was swinging up from the back of the line to see what was happening, and Vito quickly slid back into place. Parker stayed on the lawn.
“What happened, Parker?” asked Miss Allen.
“Nothing. I tripped.”
“You’ve gotten your nice coat dirty.”
I thought about telling Miss Allen, but I was the second-smallest kid and didn’t want Vito picking on me. Our real teacher, Mrs. May, would have found out what had happened and disciplined Vito, but she was off having a baby. Miss Allen was covering for the rest of the year. She believed almost anything we told her. Vito once said he hadn’t finished a project because he was out with his mom fundraising for cancer—everyone knew Vito didn’t have a mother.
Parker stuck beside Miss Allen for the rest of the walk to the church, where I noticed that the large wooden cross at the front was tilted, hung like an X with one long leg. The storm must have loosened a few bolts. My mom had hung crucifixes outside of Ally’s and my bedroom doors. Occasionally, if we slammed the doors, the crucifixes came crashing down. Mom always put them back. Although, last week after we all returned home from the hospital, Dad told us not to do anything to upset her for the next little while, so we closed our doors quietly, pulling them neatly shut.
Our whole class went for confession one by one in the little booth with the soft red curtains. It took forever. I stood in line waiting, wanting to cut myself in two like a worm and be the half that got to wiggle away. I never knew what to say after “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Father Baxter should have to confess his sins to me, too; then it would be fair. I told him I stole from my sister and lied to my father. I hadn’t stolen anything from Ally, or lied to my father either. With his raspy voice, Father Baxter on the other side of the grating assigned me three Hail Marys. I remember I used to feel good walking out of confession—I think everyone likes to be forgiven. But it felt fake this time—Father couldn’t even tell I’d made up my sins.
Father Baxter’s face looked tired as he led mass. I could hardly hear his voice when he read from a Letter to the Corinthians. Our class knelt in the two glossy wooden pews at the front. The rest of the church was empty. Two thick candles with crosses printed on them sat on top of the altar. I watched their flames flicker when Father Baxter coughed. It sounded like the type of cough that came with a bad flu, one that might cause something sticky and odd-coloured to be spat up. We waited for him to catch his breath.
Parker sat with his hands together at the end of the front row. He had his eyes closed. There was something about the way he prayed that I both admired and pitied. When we were younger, Ally and I used to pray like that. Goodnight, God. I’m going to bed with my sleepy head. Thank you for the work and play, thank you for this beautiful day. We spoke to God like He was in the room with us, and yet when we told Him about our day, we acted as if He hadn’t seen it Himself. It had been so much easier to believe then. I never questioned anything about religion—God was a given, and, as Ally used to say, we were “Cat-licks.”
When Mom lost her baby last week, my faith flickered like those candles. I couldn’t understand why God hadn’t done anything to save my second sister. Why He took such a small life before it had even lived. My aunt Audrey came over to our house after it happened and said God wanted the baby for Himself, but that didn’t make sense to me. It seemed selfish, considering how much it hurt everyone else. Mom chopped off her own long hair and stayed in bed for a week. I’d never seen her cry like that before. Ally and I joined her and hugged her. It was impossible not to cry, too. I hated the feeling that there was nothing we could do to make it better.
Father Baxter finished coughing and went back to blessing the bread and wine. He moved his hand in the air, making the sign of the cross like he always did, but the action felt silly to me now.
Vito was kneeling one student over from me, directly behind Parker. I watched as he pulled a Bible from the wooden slot. He held it by its spine, reached out, and poked the corners into Parker’s hunched back.
Parker’s posture straightened immediately, but he managed not to make a sound.
Vito said to the boy beside me, “I think he likes it,” and poked him again. Parker turned this time and whispered, “I’m going to tell Miss Allen.”
Through a thin smile, Vito mouthed, “I don’t care.”
I thought of my mother again. I don’t care was like a swear word in our house. Any time Ally or I said this, Mom immediately gave us a stern look and replied, “Learn to care.”
Vito’s jabs with the Bible continued. Parker slid to the right and leaned as far forward as he could.
I wanted Father Baxter to hurry up so we could go up for communion and Parker would be safe, but Father was taking his time wiping the inside of a gold chalice with a neatly folded white cloth.
Vito, annoyed that he was no longer getting a response, raised the book above Parker’s head and brought it down with force; it was a solid hit, making a loud and hollow knock. Parker let out an agonizing “Ahhh!�
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Vito quickly returned the Bible to its slot.
Miss Allen came over right away. “We’re in church,” she said to Parker. He was holding his head, but she didn’t take any notice.
I wanted to tell Miss Allen what had happened, but I knew if I did, Vito would say I was with Parker, and I’d get knocks to the head, too. I felt sorry for Parker but was afraid to help him.
Father Baxter didn’t notice anything either and finally shuffled to the top of the centre aisle with his shiny chalice.
My class stood and filed into a single line to receive communion. Parker’s row went first and he held his head where he’d been hit; I had an awful feeling in my chest for staying silent.
With hands folded in front of me, I took a half-step forward in the line every few seconds and stared up at the cross at the front of the church. The longer my eyes were on the cross, the angrier I became—angry at Vito, angry at Miss Allen for not knowing it was Vito, and at Father Baxter for not even noticing. Most of all, I was angry at God for not doing anything again.
I was surprised that I’d reached the front of the line so soon. Father Baxter was holding out the round host. I raised my hands, and he placed it into my palm. The light wafer melted on my tongue, tasteless as always.
When I returned to my seat I put my head down and prayed. I tried to pray from the same place I did when I was younger. After a few moments I knew it wouldn’t be the same. So instead, I just told God what I wanted. Stop Vito from hurting Parker. I knew we weren’t supposed to test God, but He tests us every day. I asked Him to stop it, and if He didn’t, I decided right there and then that I’d stop believing in Him. It was a thought that had never come to me before, a thought both satisfying and frightening. I had the power to kill God, by simply not believing.
When we got back to school, it was already lunch hour. As soon as Parker came back outside, Vito went after him. He chased Parker down and cornered him by the portable classrooms. It was like Vito had room in his head for only one idea at a time. Or maybe he was just encouraged by the fact that nothing had stopped him. Most of the other boys gathered around, wanting to see how far he would go. I joined them, wanting to see if God would do anything.
Coconut Dreams Page 14