The Dells

by Michael Blair

  “I’m curious, Janey. It’s in my nature.”

  “Yeah, well, go be curious somewhere else, all right?”

  “I’m sorry, Janey. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Forget it. Look, let me sort out a couple of details with the band, then we can go have a drink or two and talk about old times. Who knows,” she added archly, “maybe we’ll do more than talk.”

  “Maybe some other time,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said blithely. “I’ll be around. Just whistle.” She gave him a sultry look. “You remember how to whistle, don’t you, Shoe?”

  chapter eighteen

  Shoe was sitting in a lawn chair in the blue-tinted shade of the welcome tent when Tim Dutton sat down beside him. Dutton was drinking beer from a can, but instead of hiding it in a brown paper bag, he was using a cotton gardening glove. Shoe had a bottle of water.

  “I saw you talking to Janey,” Dutton said. “She’s looking pretty damned good, isn’t she? Better ’n she did as a kid, I’d say. She’s still the same old Janey, though; when she’s got an itch … ” He shrugged.

  Shoe chose not to respond to Dutton’s innuendo.

  “She doesn’t look half as good as Miss Hahn, though,” Dutton went on. He whistled through his teeth. “Man, can you believe she’s, what, sixty? I remember how she used to stand behind her desk, with the back of the chair pressed against her crotch. Drove me nuts. Spent most of my time in her class with a fucking woody.” He drank from his gardening glove, belched softly, and dabbed at his mouth with the thumb of the glove. “There was a story in the news a while back about this teacher out west who got fired for screwing one of her students. He was fifteen and she was, like, thirty. We should’ve been so lucky, eh?”

  “Tim,” Rachel said as she came out of the kitchen shelter. “Don’t be a bigger jerk than you have to be.”

  “Get fucked, Rae,” Dutton said good-naturedly over his shoulder. “It’ll do you good. If you can’t find any takers, I’m always ready to help out a friend.”

  “Asshole,” Rachel muttered, and headed in the direction of the row of blue portable privies set up at the back of the park.

  “Rae needs to get out more,” Dutton said.

  “And you need to show a little more respect,” Shoe said.

  “Yeah, well,” he said with a shrug. “Regular sex will do wonders for her disposition. Maybe she should get married again, not that that’s any guarantee of regular sex. How many husbands has she been through? Two? Might as well go for the hat trick,” he added, and took another swallow of beer.

  “Do you remember if Janey knew Marvin Cartwright?” Shoe asked.

  “Did she?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “I dunno if she did or didn’t. Maybe she was fucking him. She was fucking everyone else in the neighbourhood. Right?”

  “Tim.”

  “What?”

  Shoe sighed. “Never mind.”

  “I know. Show more respect.”

  “At least try.”

  “Sure, okay. The only person I know for sure Janey was fucking was you. For sure she wasn’t fucking me. Hell, no one was fucking me. At any rate, maybe Cartwright was the Black Creek Rapist and maybe he wasn’t, but Janey was, what, thirteen when you and her started doing it? That’s young, particularly for those days. She had to learn it from someone. Marty and Rae claim Cartwright wasn’t a kiddy diddler, but maybe he just hadn’t gotten around to them yet. Liked ’em older. Either way, Janey was a pretty screwed-up kid, right?”

  Shoe had never thought of Janey as particularly screwed up. Temperamental, a little wilder and more unpredictable than most, himself included, but also tougher, smarter, and more imaginative than most, himself included again.

  “You know that for last couple of years she’s been living in the apartment in the basement of her parents’ old house, eh?” Dutton said. “Dougie lives upstairs. You should see the place. Janey keeps her part of the property pretty neat, but Dougie lives like a goddamned pig. The front yard’s a dump. Worse than it ever was when his old man was alive. It’s worth a few bucks, though. Janey would like to sell, use the money to get back on her feet, but Dougie isn’t interested in selling and won’t agree to buy her out.”

  “Get back on her feet how?”

  “She had her own advertising agency a few years back, but I heard she tried to fuck over her business partner, and got her ass sued off. Had to declare bankruptcy and move into her folks’ old house with her brother.”

  “Stepbrother,” Shoe corrected. “Yeah, right.” Dutton was silent for a moment, then said, “Hey, did Marty tell you that Joey Noseworthy is staying at her place? Man, now there’s a pair and a half.”

  “What do you mean?” Shoe asked.

  “Well, you know … ”

  “No, Tim, I don’t.”

  “If it wasn’t Cartwright that diddled her in the woods when she was a little kid, I’d put my money on Noseworthy. She let everyone think it was Cartwright, or whoever the Black Creek Rapist was, but I figure it was Joey that molested Marty.”

  “Based on what?” Shoe asked.

  “I know he was your friend and all, but even you have to admit he was a pretty weird kid. Remember how he used to dress, like it was always Halloween? His socks never matched and one time he even came to school in a fucking cape.”

  “It was a Tyrolean cloak his aunt sent him from Austria for Christmas when he was eleven or twelve,” Shoe said. “He wore it only once, but you and some of the other kids” — including Janey, he thought — “made so much fun of him, he threw it away and told his parents someone had stolen it. I don’t remember anything about his socks not matching.”

  “Marty says it wasn’t Cartwright that diddled her,” Dutton insisted.

  “That doesn’t automatically mean it was Joey,” Shoe said.

  “I remember she used to tease him all the time,” Dutton said, “on account he was a sissy and not a lot bigger that she was. Maybe he just got pissed off at her one day.”

  “I seem to recall that you were always after Marty and my sister to play doctor with you,” Shoe said. “Maybe you got tired of them saying no.”

  “Hey,” Dutton protested. “I was just kidding around. Geez, what do you take me for?”

  Shoe was saved from having to answer by the arrival of a massive, barrel-bodied man carrying a large blue and white thermal lunch box.

  “Oh, Christ,” Dutton moaned loudly. “Lock up your wife and daughters and bring in the cat.”

  “Up yours, Dutton,” Dougie Hallam said.

  “Good repartee, Dougie.”

  “Repartee yourself, limp dick,” Hallam said. “How you doin’, Shoe? I heard you were back. Lotta beer through the bladder since the last time we went a round, eh?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Shoe said as he stood up. He was a hand taller than Hallam, but Hallam more than made up for it in girth. He carried himself well, however.

  “Still living out there on the coast?” Hallam said. “I was out there couple years ago. Too many queers for my taste, but they’re everywhere these days, aren’t they?” He opened the big lunch box. “Wanna beer?”

  “No, thanks,” Shoe said.

  Hallam took a can of Molson Export out of the lunch pail. He popped the tab and guzzled noisily, wiping his mouth with the palm of his hand. He slapped his huge gut. It sounded as if he were slapping a concrete wall. “Gotta keep up the old Molson muscle, eh? Wanna take a shot? Go ahead. I won’t feel a thing.”

  “Some other time,” Shoe said.

  “Let me get my truck,” Tim Dutton said.

  Hallam ignored him. “You look like you’re in pretty good shape. What do you press? I’m up to 425.”

  “Is that all?” Dutton said.

  “Fuck off, Dutton. You couldn’t bench press my dick.”

  “Nor would I want to,” Dutton said. “No telling where it’s been.”

  “Places yours’ll never be.”

  “I can believ
e that.”

  “Like your wife’s ass.”

  “In your dreams, Dougie,” Dutton said with a laugh. “I gotta get back to the store. See you later, Shoe.”

  When Dutton had gone Hallam said, “We oughta get together while you’re in town. Maybe go a couple of rounds. You still box?”

  “I never did.”

  “No? I thought you boxed. Anyway, you should try it. It’s great exercise and keeps your reflexes sharp. A man’s sport. The sport of kings, right? Not like kung fu or karate, eh? That stuff’s for faggots.”

  “The sport of kings is horse racing, Dougie, not boxing.”

  “What? Really? You sure? Oh, well. Learn something every day, I say. So, what say? Might be fun.”

  For whom? Shoe wondered. “No thanks, Dougie. I don’t fight for fun.”

  “Fighting’s always fun. Or are you chicken? Buck buck b-buck,” he crowed.

  “That must be it,” Shoe said.

  Rachel came round the kitchen tent on her way back from the line of portable privies. When she saw Hallam, she did an abrupt about-face. Too late …

  “Hey, Rae,” Hallam called out. “Great job. Let’s get together. Have a few. You can sit on my face, how’s that sound?” He stuck out his tongue and waggled it obscenely.

  Face flaming, Rachel snapped, “Stick your dick in a meat grinder, Dougie. I’m sure we can find someone to turn the handle.” She ducked into the kitchen shelter.

  Hallam laughed. “Your sister’s as juicy as ever. I like ’em small. Nice and tight. Too bad she never learned to keep a civil tongue in her head. Like I say, though, they can’t talk with their mouths full.”

  Shoe stepped close to Dougie Hallam, invading his personal space. “Don’t you ever talk to my sister like that again,” he said, with quiet intensity.

  Involuntarily, Hallam backed away a step, then stood his ground. “Yeah, or what?”

  “Or I’ll have to teach you to mind your manners. Again.” He stepped back. “Have a nice day, Dougie,” he said, and walked away.

  chapter nineteen

  On a frigid Saturday night in the middle of January, shortly after his sixteenth birthday and a month before her fourteenth, Shoe and Janey had gone ice skating on the outdoor rink in the park across the road from his parents’ house. At ten o’clock they left the little unheated shack by the rink, ice skates slung over their shoulders. Janey’s stepbrother and two other boys were waiting outside the shack.

  “Go home,” Hallam said to Janey. “We got some personal business with Cochise here.”

  “Leave us alone, Dougie,” Janey said.

  Her stepbrother punched her in the chest and knocked her to the frozen ground.

  Hallam hadn’t learned anything from his previous engagement with Shoe. Almost before Janey hit the ground, Shoe had broken Hallam’s nose again and knocked out another tooth. On his knees, Hallam coughed and spit blood, black on the moonlit snow. The other two boys backed off, then turned and ran as Shoe took a step toward them, brandishing his skate blades.

  “Look out!” Janey cried.

  Pain exploded across Shoe’s back. He twisted sideways, staggering, slipped on the icy ground, and fell onto his back. He felt a rush of air as the end of a three-foot length of two-by-four slashed by his face.

  “Okay, tough guy,” Hallam said. “Let’s see how tough you really are.” He swung the makeshift club again.

  Shoe blocked the two-by-four with a skate, the blade slicing deep into the wood. Hallam’s friends, emboldened by his recovery, came back. The three of them circled Shoe like wolves, as Shoe tried to get to his feet. Hallam swung the two-by-four, slamming it into Shoe’s shoulder, knocking him onto his back again. One of the other boys darted in, kicked him in the side, and jumped back. Not quickly enough. Shoe slashed his shin to the bone with the blade of his skate. He fell, shrieking and writhing and holding his leg as blood spattered onto the snow.

  Hallam, with a bloody grin, swung the two-by-four at Shoe’s head. Shoe parried with his skate again. He grabbed the board. Something stabbed through his glove into the palm of his hand. Hallam wrenched the board out of Shoe’s grasp, swung again, batting the skates aside. Shoe scrabbled backwards, away from Hallam and the board. He’d forgotten about the third boy.

  “Look out!” Janey shouted again.

  Too late. Something smashed hard into Shoe’s back, just above his kidneys. The pain was excruciating, but it propelled him to his feet. Janey threw herself at the boy who’d kicked him, clawing at his eyes. He tossed her aside. She fell and Shoe went after him. He ran. Shoe heard a grunt of exertion behind him, reflexively ducked and hunched his shoulders as he turned. The two-by-four struck his shoulder and glanced off the side of his head. He fell again, head ringing.

  “Hey, you boys,” a man bawled from the back of one of the houses bordering the park.

  Hallam swung the two-by-four. Shoe raised his arms to protect his head. The wide edge of the board smacked into his left forearm, otherwise his arm surely would have been broken. It hurt nonetheless, but Shoe grabbed the board with his right hand and yanked it out of Hallam’s grasp. Hallam backed off. Using the two-by-four as a support, Shoe struggled to his feet.

  “You boys,” the man shouted again. “I’ve called the police.”

  Disarmed, Hallam’s grinning bravado had disappeared. “Fight fair, Cochise. Get rid of the board.”

  “You’ve got a funny idea of fair,” Shoe said. “I think I’ll keep it.”

  “Go home,” Hallam said to Janey. “This is between me and him.”

  Janey stepped to Shoe’s side. “Leave us alone, Dougie.”

  Hallam made a grab for her. He yowled as Shoe slashed him across the knuckles with the two-by-four. Shoe threw the board aside.

  “All right, Dougie. You want a fair fight, you got it.”

  Hallam hesitated. Then he lowered his head and charged. He might as well have sent Shoe a note. Shoe sidestepped and hit him on the side of the head. Hallam staggered a couple of steps and sank to his knees. As Hallam struggled to his feet and turned unsteadily toward him, Shoe stepped up and drove his fist straight into Hallam’s nose again. He felt cartilage split under his knuckles. Hallam grunted and fell onto his back, rolled over, but did not try to get up. Blood ran onto the snow. Janey tried to kick him, her face contorted with anger, but Shoe hauled her back. The anger in her face faded, to be replaced by fear.

  Shoe’s back hurt as he bent to pick up his and Janey’s skates. Holding his left arm to his chest, gritting his teeth against the pain, he slung both pairs of skates over his shoulder. He pulled off his right glove with his teeth. The knuckles of his right hand were starting to swell and there was a two-inch splinter of wood in his palm. He plucked it out with his teeth and closed his fist on the blood. He heard sirens.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Janey.

  She shook her head. “I gotta take him home.”

  “The police will take care of him. Won’t they, Dougie?” He nudged Hallam with the toe of his boot. Hallam moaned.

  “I gotta take him home,” Janey said again. She started to help her stepbrother up, but he lashed out at her, hitting her in the chest. She sat in the snow, wheezing for breath.

  “Leave him,” Shoe said, pulling her to her feet with his good arm.

  “Go home. Please,” she pleaded. “Let me take him home.” She pushed him toward the park exit. “Go. Go. Please.”

  Reluctantly, Shoe left her with her stepbrother.

  The following Monday, Janey wasn’t in school. She didn’t return until mid-week. She had a black eye, a bruised jaw, and a bandage on her right wrist. She’d fallen down the stairs, she told anyone who asked. Shoe knew better.

  “He did this to you, didn’t he?” The look on her face was answer enough. Shoe’s anger ran deep and hot. “I’ll kill him,” he said, through clenched teeth.

  “Please, Shoe, don’t do anything. It’ll only make things worse. He’ll only beat me up again.”

  “Not if he
knows what’s good for him he won’t.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “He’s not worth it. I’m not worth it.”

  “Don’t say that. You tell him, if he touches you again, he’ll be sorry.”

  “It won’t do any good. Stay away from him. Please. I had to beg Freddy not to come after you. You might be able to take Dougie, but you wouldn’t stand a chance against his old man. He’d kill you, believe me. Let it go. Please. For my sake, at least, but yours too.”

  It hadn’t been easy, but Shoe had let it go, hoping things would go back to the way they’d been. They hadn’t, of course.

  chapter twenty

  At a few minutes past four, as Shoe was leaving the park, a plain grey Sebring sedan pulled up to the curb. A Toronto Police Service scout car pulled up behind it. Detective Sergeant Hannah Lewis and Detective Constable Paul Timmons got out of the Sebring and two uniformed constables got out of the scout car. Hannah Lewis’s fox-like face was serious. Timmons had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. The uniformed constables looked wary.

  “Good day, Detective Sergeant,” Shoe said. “Detective Constable Timmons. Officers.”

  Timmons nodded curtly, lighting the cigarette.

  “Mr. Schumacher,” Lewis said, manner brusque and businesslike. “Have you seen Martine Elias?”

  “She’s in the park, talking with my sister.” Rachel and Marty had been sitting outside the welcome tent, catching up and reminiscing about Marvin Cartwright. Shoe, feeling like an eavesdropper, had left them to it.

  Lewis nodded to Timmons and the uniformed constables and proceeded into the park. Shoe fell in beside her. She glanced up at him.

  “Do you mind if I tag along?” he asked.

  “Just remember you’re a civilian,” she said.

  Shoe looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her face was too sharp and angular to be called pretty, but she was far from unattractive. And there was a keen intelligence behind those seemingly all-seeing violet eyes. There was a toughness, too, in the way she held herself, a sense that she would brook no nonsense. Like a lot of cops, it was a pose, a pretence one learned early and which eventually became habitual. Survival often depended on giving the right first impression.