Creeps

by Darren Hynes

  Wayne gets to his feet and notices that Marjorie is already near the double doors. He goes to catch up, but the teacher’s voice stops him.

  “Your tray.”

  Wayne grabs it and throws out the food and stacks the tray with the others. Makes his way across the floor.

  “Pick up the pace,” Mrs. Gambol says. “The world’s not going to wait, you know.”

  EIGHT

  Here’s the rest of Wayne’s day: en route to geography from biology, an unknown assailant knocks his books from his hand. Then, while sitting in chemistry, Jeff Hibbs lets one go and blames him. Everyone, including Julie, covers their noses while Mr. Bolan asks if anyone can name the primary gas released in Wayne’s fart and Jeffsays: gay gas and Mr. Bolan says: no, nitrogen. In English, a drawing is passed to Wayne depicting a dwarfish stick man being decapitated by a muscular man (Pete). The caption, grammatically incorrect and in bold letters, reads: YOUR DEAD PUMPHREY!!! And finally, standing in front of his locker at the end of the day, Bobby comes and pins him up against it and warns him to watch out for Pete The Meat and then threatens to yank out one of Wayne’s teeth to make up for the one Bobby lost. Then Bobby walks down the corridor towards the double doors and, before pushing them open, gives Wayne the finger.

  For the longest time Wayne just stands there while the rest of the students turn combination locks and put on coats and throw books into knapsacks and tear off into what’s left of the day like finally freed prisoners. That’s when he notices Corey Parrot, six lockers down, fiddling with his lock that never wants to open.

  Wayne watches for a while, then says, “Want me to try?”

  Without so much as a glance, Corey shakes his head. Tries the combination again. Nothing.

  “It’s twice around clockwise then—”

  “Buzz off,” Corey says. He tries again. Still won’t open.

  The hall’s deserted now, so Wayne walks down to where Corey is, but Corey sticks out his palm as if to say, Stay where you are, so Wayne does.

  “Suppose I know how to open my own lock.” Corey turns the dial slowly, pauses, then yanks. Nothing. He curses.

  “Let me,” Wayne says.

  “No!” Corey looks up and down the corridor, then back at Wayne. “Didn’t I tell you to buzz off?”

  Wayne doesn’t say anything.

  Again Corey scans the hallway, then takes a step in Wayne’s direction. “And stop calling my house.” He’s whispering now. “Can’t you take a hint?”

  Wayne stays quiet.

  “I don’t want to be a jerk, but you leave me no choice— What? Stop staring at me like that—like you don’t know what’s what. Pete said if I hung out with you he’d rip out my braces, okay? Make me hump the snow too, and my dad’s foreman so what do you think he’d say?”

  Silence.

  “You’d do the same thing, Wayne … if you were me.” Corey pauses, then points at his own mouth. “Plus I’m getting these off soon and Monica said I might not be too bad looking and she’d consider being my girlfriend, so you see the position I’m in. Why should we both suffer?”

  Somewhere a phone rings.

  Corey’s finally able to open his lock. “See, told you I knew how.”

  Wayne walks back to his own locker and gathers his things and Corey says,

  “I’m sorry but I can’t change it, can I?”

  Wayne gets into his jacket. Grabs his toque and is about to put it on but remembers what Marjorie said, so he stuffs it in his pocket instead.

  “If he ever lets up on you,” Corey says, “we can be friends again. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Corey’s receding footsteps and the doors being pushed open and then slamming shut and the silence afterwards like spreading pain.

  Wayne closes his locker and walks down the hall and is just about to leave when suddenly he hears clicking shoes and a voice that’s Mr. Rollie’s saying, “One moment, Mr. Pumphrey! One moment!”

  Wayne turns around and waits for his drama teacher to catch up.

  “So glad I caught you,” Mr. Rollie says, putting his hands on his hips like he’s out of breath. He takes a moment and then says, “Guess you saw the cast list, huh?”

  Wayne nods.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown was a bad choice.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It’s more that you look so young. And you’re quite a bit smaller than everyone else. I needed blocky actors who could look like miners.”

  “Like Paul Stool?”

  “Mm-hm. And Shane Brody and Jason Buckle.”

  “What about Les? He’s not blocky.”

  “No, but he is the best actor in the school. Although Miss Pope might give him a run for it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an audition so authentic.” Then, “Do you know her?”

  “She lives up the street from me, but not really.”

  “Well, with her and Les I think we have a real shot at making the provincials in St. John’s.”

  “That’s great.”

  Quiet for a moment.

  Wayne zips up his jacket. “Well, I better get home.”

  “Hang on, Mr. Pumphrey.”

  Wayne stays where he is.

  Mr. Rollie lays a hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “I was thinking maybe you could help me direct.”

  Wayne doesn’t say anything.

  “That means you and I will discuss the scenes and then tell the cast how to go about making them work. It’ll be up to us where they stand and where they walk and what lighting will work best. We’ll have a say about the set, too, and the music. Will we have the school band play live or have everything pre-recorded, for instance? The whole production will be you and me, Mr. Pumphrey.” He pauses. “How does that sound?”

  Wayne looks down at Mr. Rollie’s pointy shoes, then back up. “Does anyone see the director?”

  Mr. Rollie uses his pinky to push up his glasses. “Well, no, but the whole thing is the product of the director’s imagination. Name your favourite movie.”

  Wayne thinks for a moment. “I don’t know, Avatar—no, The Lord of the Rings. No, wait, The Hangover.”

  “Really?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Okay. Well Wayne, behind that film was a director who made it all happen. They’re the leaders, the train conductors, pilots of the 747s, sergeants of the battalions, Bill and Melinda Gates, Steve Jobs, Sidney Crosby. That’s why I chose you: because you’re a leader. You have that creative mind, Mr. Pumphrey. That imagination. If you’re brave, one day you’ll discover it’s your greatest gift.”

  Wayne breathes in. Sees himself sitting behind that long table with Mr. Rollie telling Julie where best to stand; Marjorie how best to deliver that line; the drummer, Jim Butt, the best time at which to strike the cymbal.

  “Well, Mr. Pumphrey?”

  Wayne looks up and nods. “All right.”

  Mr. Rollie claps his hands. “Wonderful. We’ll make a fine team, you and I.” He holds out his hand.

  Wayne shakes it.

  “Tomorrow we’ll begin.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll have twelve weeks of rehearsal, so there’ll be no time to waste if we want to make the provincials.”

  “Okay.”

  They let go hands.

  Wayne turns to leave.

  “Mr. Pumphrey?”

  Wayne stops. “Yes, sir?”

  The drama teacher reaches into his pocket and takes out a piece of paper and unfolds it and hands it to Wayne and Wayne looks at it for ages.

  “Well?” Mr. Rollie says at last.

  “Well what?”

  “Does it look like me?”

  Wayne shrugs. “A little. Around the eyes.”

  “You think so? Hmm. I’d never wear a sequined dress, though, or get my nose pierced. And I certainly wouldn’t say that awful thing they have me saying.”

  Wayne pauses. “Who did it?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”
r />   Silence.

  “I don’t know.”

  Mr. Rollie takes the drawing back. “Flattering though, isn’t it? Someone going to all that trouble to draw a likeness of me.” He puts the picture back in his pocket. “High school won’t last forever, Mr. Pumphrey.”

  Wayne nods. Walks out into the cold dark.

  Dear Mr. Rollie,

  Are you sure you meant to call ME a leader?

  Only ’cause I don’t much feel like one. I mean, Barack Obama is a leader and Bill and Hillary Clinton and Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper and Nelson Mandela and Oprah Winfrey and Sidney Crosby and Georges St-Pierre, but ME? How can someone who eats alone and walks alone and writes these letters alone be a leader? Leaders ought to be fearless and charming and good-looking (Okay, scratch Stephen Harper) and snappy dressers, but me … I’m fearful and awkward and far from a catch and my style won’t be in any magazine.

  Shouldn’t leaders have a look in their eye and be able to sway a crowd and get people talking and erase the deficeit deficient deficiet deficit and pin their opponents and score the winning goals and take good pictures? Have you ever seen my grade nine photo? Not pretty.

  Leaders can talk to anyone and they shake thousands of hands (I’ve hardly shaken any) and they have their own production companies and magazines and they run the White House and Parliament and what have I run other than away?

  I’m sorry, Mr. Rollie, but I think you made a mistake. I’m no leader. And I think the only reason you made me co-director was because you felt bad, but I’ll take the job anyway because it’s good to have somewhere to go and something to do and someone other than the wall to look at and say stuff to.

  Thanks for showing me the drawing someone did of you. It never occurred to me to look at it as flattering, so thanks for helping me see things in a different light.

  You’re gay, aren’t you? My sister says you are because you wear pointy shoes and have a pinky ring, but what odds if you are? Sure there’s this big lesbo chick in Wanda’s grade twelve class who has a girlfriend and they hold hands and kiss in public and everything.

  Is that man who sometimes waits for you in the parking lot after school your boyfriend? Will you get married? Are you considering adopting? If there were a parade in Canning would you guys march in it?

  Your co-director who’s far from a leader,

  Wayne Pumphrey

  NINE

  It’s almost suppertime. Wayne’s supposed to be shovelling the driveway like his father asked, but instead he’s leaning on the shovel, staring up the road at the police car and the ambulance parked in Marjorie’s driveway. Swirling lights, running engines, clouds of exhaust like doughboys. Across the street, he notices the Galbraiths gawking through their living room window. Mr. Galbraith is shirtless, his gut hanging over the waist of his track pants as he holds a tub of what looks to be ice cream, which his wife and youngest daughter are digging into with long spoons. Their oldest, Natalie, is talking into a cell phone, giving the play-by-play to some girlfriend she’ll probably meet tomorrow by the water fountain, Wayne thinks, just before spreading the news to the whole school. Two houses down on Wayne’s side of the street stands Miss Flynn, twice divorced, and not long back from St. John’s with her new teeth and flatter tummy and less pointy chin. A parka over her flannel pyjamas and a cigarette jammed between Botoxed lips. She shakes her head at Wayne and, without taking out her smoke, says, “What in God’s name is goin’ on up there?”

  Wayne doesn’t know, so he stays quiet and turns back to Marjorie’s. Miss Flynn’s voice behind him then, saying, “There’s an ambulance, so it’s probably not good. Hope it’s not the young one.”

  Marjorie’s front door swings open revealing two paramedics and they’re pushing a gurney and someone’s on it. Marjorie? He moves closer. Stops. No, her mother. Strapped down. Why?

  “Who is it?” Miss Flynn wants to know. “The girl?”

  Marjorie’s mother starts shouting and cursing and trying to break free from her restraints.

  “Thank God,” Miss Flynn says, “I thought it was the young one.”

  The paramedics wheel Marjorie’s mom to the rear of the ambulance. The shorter and balder one shouts, “On the count of three,” so they count and lift and then hoist Marjorie’s mother into the back like an old refrigerator. Then the one who’d suggested counting hops in the back with her, while his partner goes and gets in the driver’s side.

  “What’s wrong with her, do you think?” Miss Flynn says.

  Commotion from the Galbraiths’ place, Wayne notices. Mr. Galbraith has dropped the ice cream and is getting an earful from his wife. Their youngest is crying and their oldest is shouting something while pointing to her phone.

  Then Marjorie’s in the doorway and she steps out onto the porch and she’s got her hand over her mouth. A woman cop’s beside her, hat in one hand and a little notebook in the other, k.d. lang haircut and fit looking. The officer puts her hat back on and closes her notebook and says something, which makes Marjorie run back inside.

  “First her father, now this,” Miss Flynn says.

  The cop waits on the porch and stares at the sky and her breath is like steam from a kettle.

  Everyone’s pressed against the window at the Galbraiths’ now and it’s a wonder they haven’t burst through the glass. Flattened faces and palms and Mr. Galbraith’s belly button and stomach and nipples and someone should really tell him to put on a shirt.

  Marjorie comes back out and she’s got her jacket and she zips it up and closes the door and follows the cop to the back of the ambulance and the shorter and balder paramedic offers his hand and helps her inside. The cop closes the door and walks back to her cruiser and gets in and Wayne notices her talking into a handheld radio.

  The ambulance backs out of the driveway and takes off up the street, its lights going but no sound, and then the police car is pulling out and following it and soon they’ve rounded the corner and are gone and it’s suddenly so quiet that Wayne thinks he might be all alone in the world, but then Miss Flynn reminds him he isn’t by saying, “Not all there, that woman.”

  Wayne turns around.

  “Ever since her husband died.” Miss Flynn’s cigarette is nearly burned down to the butt, so she flicks it into the snow and says, “Some people never get over things.”

  No one in the window of the Galbraiths’ now, save for handprints and the outline of Mr. Galbraith’s gut.

  “Divorce is like death, they say,” goes Miss Flynn. Then, “Not for me. I was relieved.”

  Now he’s shovelling without any memory of having started and he’s thinking about what Miss Flynn said about some people never getting over things. After some time he hears her say,

  “Got a bone to pick with you.”

  He stops and looks at her.

  “Do you know what this cost?”

  “Oh, sorry. You look good, Miss Flynn.”

  “Well, the swelling hasn’t completely gone down yet, but it’s nice of you to say all the same. Foolishness I’m sure, at my age, but what odds. It makes me feel better, doesn’t it?”

  Wayne looks back up the street towards Marjorie’s place, at the drawn curtains and all the lights out, and wonders if anyone ever lived there at all. When he turns back around, Miss Flynn is gone, as is the light on her porch. Then there’s a voice and it’s his father’s saying, “That’s all you’ve done?” And, “Should have done it myself.” The door slamming and that silence again and this time Wayne’s sure of it: he is alone in the world.

  Dear Marjorie,

  Is your mom going to live? I hope so or you’ll be an orphan. Do you have relatives you can stay with till you’re eighteen?

  Did you see me gawking? Dad said it’s nobody’s business but Mom said, What, we’re supposed to pretend the woman wasn’t taken away in front of the whole street?

  Here’s me wanting to be taller and braver and more popular and I bet all you want is for your mom to be okay— Oh, hold on a sec someone’
s knocking on my door—

  “Still awake?” his mother says.

  “Yeah.”

  The door opens and his mother pokes her head in. “You asked me to let you know if they came back and they have.”

  “You sure?”

  “Arm in arm up the porch steps, although I think it was more the young one making sure her mother didn’t fall.” His mom pauses. “Since when did you care about them up the road?”

  Wayne looks away. “I’m helping Mr. Rollie direct and Marjorie’s one of our lead actors, so what would we do without her?”

  “I see. Well, they’re back, so no need to worry.”

  “Okay.”

  Quiet.

  “What were you writing?”

  Wayne lays his palm over the page. “Nothing.”

  “Okay. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  His mother leaves and Wayne listens to her fading-away footsteps and her opening another door and then the silence. He takes his hand away from the page and writes:

  Mom just told me that your mom’s all right and I can’t tell you how relieved I am! Probably not as relieved as you though, eh? What happened anyway? She’s not sick, is she? Hope it’s not cancer or anything because Mom says that cancer is everywhere and even the young ones are dropping like flies. Anyway I’m glad she’s back and that you can go on living up the street.

  Oh, by the way, I was meaning to say that Mr. Rollie asked me to be assistant director. He says I can tell people how to say their lines if they’re not saying them right and I can help him with the script and things. Not too sure what I think about it ’cause I only wanted a part and what do I know about directing? But Mr. Rollie seems to think I can do it. He says I’m a leader only I don’t know it yet (ha ha ha)!!! Don’t know about that! I said I’d do it because it might be nice to be a part of something. Is that why you’re doing it?

  You might find this weird but I write these letters to say to people what I don’t have the courage to say in real life. I’ve been doing it for a long while now and I’ve filled tons of notebooks. I suppose if anyone ever read what I’ve written I’d have to leave town.

  I should go to bed now but I’ll just say that sometimes I feel like there’s no sense in anything. Do you?