To Me You Seem Giant

by Greg Rhyno

  “So, I hear you’ve got a big show opening for Jesse Maracle on Saturday.” She says his name with the same fake reverence she used on mine.

  “You’re not a fan?”

  “Oh, he’s good. Don’t get me wrong. He’s just so middle of the road now. I heard him on 94FM the other day. Blah. And what’s with him blowing off his hometown for, like, ten years? I know Thunder Bay sucks, but seriously ...”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, are we supposed to kiss his ass like the prodigal son because he’s finally graced us with his presence? Oooh, Jesse Maracle. Big fucking deal.”

  Diplomatically, I continue to drink.

  “I guess it’s cool you’ll get to play in front of so many people,” she adds as an afterthought. “Nervous?”

  “Terrified.” I drain the glass. “Are you coming to the show?”

  “Nah. I’ve got to work. I’m technically part time, but Pat has me here almost full time under the table. You want another?”

  “I think I’m good.” It’s then that my cell phone plays a song I’ve never heard before. I take it out of my pocket. “That’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?”

  “That sound. My phone’s never made that sound before. That little melody.”

  “You probably got a text.”

  “I don’t think my phone does that.”

  “Of course it does. Here.” She grabs it out of my hand and navigates easily through a few screens. I feel obsolete when she hands it back to me. “See? You’ve got a message. ‘Up top. Twenty minutes.’ Very cryptic.”

  Who’s sending me a text? My first guess is Deacon, but I don’t recognize the number. And then there’s that second, impossible possibility. Up top. Either way, I can’t help but be a little curious.

  “I should get going,” I say.

  She makes an adorable sad face that almost convinces me to stay, but instead, I reach into my jacket and take out my wallet. She waves her hand at me like she’s performing a Jedi Mind Trick.

  “This one’s on me.”

  The trick works and I put my wallet back into my pocket. As I do, my fingers brush against a folded piece of printer paper.

  I had almost forgotten I’d been carrying this thing around with me. It was kind of dumb, I know, to keep something so valuable and so dangerous in my jacket. I was going to take my lighter to it, or throw it out in some anonymous public trash bin, but I guess I never got around to it. I pull it out of my pocket now and unfold it on the bar.

  “What’s that?”

  I hesitate for a moment, just to fully appreciate the stupidity of what I’m about to do, then do it anyway.

  “This is the Lakehead District School Board Final Examination for Grade Twelve Ancient Civilizations.”

  “Hmm. Isn’t that supposed to be some kind of big secret?”

  I nod.

  “My dad said if those exams got out, it would totally fuck up the whole standard practices thing they’ve been pushing this year.”

  I nod again.

  “So why do you have it?”

  “Listen,” I tell her, “I’m probably not the best person to be giving you advice, but one of the few things I’ve managed to learn is this: don’t screw up your own life just to spite someone else. It never pays off.”

  Her mouth twists into a question mark.

  “What if I told you that you could graduate and piss off your dad at the same time? Would you do it?”

  It’s her turn to nod.

  “Well, then, this one—” I push the paper across the bar to her “—is on me.”

  It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to scale William Lyon Mackenzie King. Almost ten years, in fact. Standing at the base looking up, I remember just how tall the building actually is. Climbing the school never seemed like a particularly good idea, even when I was seventeen and immortal. Now I’m twenty-eight, with a pin in my left knee from a toboggan mishap, and the lung capacity of an overweight tween. Never mind the fact that what I’m about to do is probably a violation of my teaching contract and is definitely not covered under worker’s comp.

  When I see they’ve moved the dumpster, I almost give up and go home, but then I notice a new air conditioning unit around the corner by the teachers’ parking lot. It takes my weight and gives me just enough height to finger-grip the top of the first-floor addition so I can pull myself up. I climb over onto the air register, which booms with old menace and nearly convinces me that I’m either going to die or get fired or both.

  The second-floor lintel is, as it always was, the worst part. It’s probably only three inches wide and once I get on top, I have to stretch out my entire body length to the rooftop. That’s a hard thing to do and not lose your balance. I’m not sure that a two-storey drop onto asphalt would actually kill me, but it would definitely break parts of me I don’t want broken. This is the moment when a very calm and rational voice tells me that I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I have a good job and a nice life, and whatever might be at the top isn’t worth the risk. It’s also the moment when I do it anyway.

  Dragging myself onto the roof is a humbling experience. By the time I roll onto my back, panting and safe, I’m sure I’ve shown half of Thunder Bay my ass. I’ve also incurred the traditional price-of-admission wounds: three scratches on my abdomen, each adorned with tiny feathers of torn skin.

  Soda doesn’t turn around when I find him. He’s sitting where he always did, legs dangling over the edge, veins racing with his fearless blood. He opens another bottle of beer and puts it beside him when he hears me approach.

  For a moment, I want to kick it like a field goal into the student parking lot and scream obscenities in his face. Instead, I sit down a foot away from the edge.

  “Sodapop,” I say, reaching for the bottle.

  “Ponyboy.”

  I take a drink.

  “How come your nickname caught on and mine didn’t?” I ask. “That always pissed me off.”

  He turns around and looks at me. He’s got his hood up, and his hair comes out in bunches around his face. “I don’t know. I guess you’re more of a Pete.”

  It’s weird seeing him in person. I look away before he does.

  “Sorry to hear about Mauri.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sit and drink our beer for a little while longer. Stoically. I know guys are supposed to be bad at this stuff, but Soda is the worst.

  “Well,” I finally say. “If you invited me up here for the view, I’ve seen it.” I always hated how he made me go first.

  “I heard you work here now. How’d that happen?”

  “The original plan to become a rock star didn’t exactly pan out. How’s it going for you?”

  He finishes off his beer. “There’s no way I’m not the bad guy here, is there?”

  “Nope.”

  Soda lets one of his Mortality Reminders fall to the pavement below. Some poor kid’ll probably cut his foot on it tomorrow.

  “What do you want me to say, Pete? I’m sorry? Because I’m not. And yeah, things worked out pretty well.”

  “For you.”

  “For both of us. Come on. Were you really going to stick it out playing shitty clubs for five years? Your parents would have convinced you to pack it in after three.”

  He’s giving me a little too much credit. I quit Filthy Witness after two.

  “Still doesn’t explain why you dumped us for Thaler and those guys. We were your friends. They were just fucking burnouts.”

  He shrugs and doesn’t look at me. There’s something a little defensive in his body language.

  “You’re right. They were burnouts. I mean, yeah, they went to university for a while because their parents had a little bit of money, but they never studied, never went to class. I don’t think Thaler even bothered showing up to write his finals. They were all total fucking losers, and that band was the only good thing they had going on. So I knew there was no way they’d leave it.”<
br />
  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Look—you and Deacon—you’ve got parents who give a shit, and you always did okay in school. If the whole music thing didn’t work out, you had a Plan B. You were going to be a lawyer, and Deacon was going to work for NASA or something, I don’t know ....”

  For a moment there’s just the sound of liquid moving in glass.

  “The point is, eventually, you guys would’ve left me behind. One way or another. So, I guess I just left you first.”

  I want to tell him he had no right to make major life decisions for me. I want to tell him how I hate my job, hate my crappy basement apartment, and hate Thunder Bay. I want him to understand how good his life is, and what a steaming pile of bullshit mine has become.

  But I don’t. What would be the point? There’s nothing I could say that would change the last ten years.

  “Well, it’s a school night,” I tell him. It’s one of those meaningless excuses that fills the air long enough to get me on my feet. “Thanks for the beer. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

  He looks up at me. A strand of hair divides his face in two. “Hey, wait—hold on a sec.”

  “Soda, I’ve got to go. I spent ten years thinking about what I’d say to you when I finally saw you again—and now that you’re here, there’s nothing really to say. It’s like when I run into Kim Kivela at the mall. I’m fine. She’s fine. Everybody’s fine. That’s all anyone needs to know.”

  “I’m not your ex-fucking-girlfriend, Pete.”

  I laugh a little hollow laugh.

  “I don’t know what you are, Soda. You’re not even a person anymore. You’re just a voice that comes on the radio once in a while to remind me that things don’t always work out the way you want them to.”

  He twists the cap off another bottle.

  “Well, I had this whole speech planned out,” Soda says, standing up. “It was pretty good, too, but—fuck it. Do you want to come make a record with me this summer?”

  “Do I want to what?” It comes out irritable, even though I don’t really mean it to. All the old feelings cling to my words like cobwebs.

  “I’m going to make a record with Daniel Lanois this summer. In L.A. Preproduction starts in a few weeks. I thought maybe you and Deacon would like to be the band.”

  “Daniel Lanois? Wait—don’t you have, like, a bunch of session guys on speed dial or something?”

  “Yeah. There’s other people I could work with, but I want this to be raw—like, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere raw. I want the energy we used to have.”

  “Have you talked to Deacon?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. Plus, you were always better at talking to Deacon than I was.”

  “What about Bunsen Honeydew? You guys are having the big reunion this weekend. Why not ask them?”

  “I think I’ve gone about as far as I can with those guys. We’re pretty much sick of each other. They’ve all got these side projects now.” His brow crumples. “Thaler’s really gotten into jazz.”

  “Oh.”

  “You could come on tour in the fall if you could get the time off work. Couple weeks in Canada. A month in the States. We might go to Europe in the winter if album sales are good.”

  All of a sudden, I feel like everything I’ve had to complain about in the last ten years has been kicked out from under me. I don’t have an angry leg to stand on. I should be fucking ecstatic, but all I feel is this tidal wave of tired. I rub the back of my head with my hand and look past Soda at the city.

  “It’s a lot to think about,” is all I can muster.

  “Of course, man. Look, I’ve got a pretty heavy schedule tomorrow—local interviews and some big phone meeting with my label. Why don’t you and Deacon come by my hotel room after sound check? I’m at the Prince Arthur. Seven o’clock okay?”

  “Yeah. Sounds good.” I take a couple steps back and stop. “Hey, are you under Koskinen or Maracle?”

  “Neither.” A broad grin stretches across his face. “I’m under Barry Hawkes.”

  “What the hell is Facebook?” Ruth asks, staring irritably at her computer screen. She’s been in a bad mood since I told Deacon about seeing Soda.

  “This is the third one of these emails I’ve got this week. ‘Hi Ruth. I’ve requested to add you as a friend on Facebook. You can use Facebook to see the profiles of the people around you, share photos, and connect with friends.’”

  “How is that any different from MySpace?” I ask. Filthy Witness had a MySpace page.

  “I don’t know. I can’t keep up with all this website-of-the-week bullshit. The last thing we need is another Friendster.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  Ruth looks at me sideways. “Molly Pearson.”

  “You get email from Molly Pearson?” I try to disguise the envy in my voice as polite interest. “So what’s Molly up to these days?”

  “Maybe you’ll have to join Facebook and find out ...”

  Suddenly the room explodes in shrill noise. Ruth and I look at each other for a second. The phone barely ever rings in here, and when it does, it’s usually because someone dialed the wrong extension. Most of our phone conversations entail explaining that this is not, in fact, the Math Office and that Mr. Kaukinen is not, in fact, available.

  “Can you get that?” Ruth asks, accepting the terms and conditions of Facebook without reading them. “I’m all tied up over here.”

  I sigh and pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Ringo?”

  “Hi, Ken.”

  “You’re a hard man to find, you know. Gail said you might be hiding out in that little storage closet there. Anyhoo—I got a call from Jamie Greene up at the board office. Do you think you could swing by and see him after school?”

  “Jamie Greene our superintendent? Why would he want to see me?”

  I hear myself ask the question, even though I already know a number of possible answers. Drinking with a student, distributing confidential board documents, and fucking his wife come to mind.

  “Couldn’t tell you, Mister Starkey, but he’s in his office until about five thirty, so if I were you, I’d try to get over there before then.”

  After Murdock hangs up I look at Ruth. “I think I’m going to need some backup.”

  She looks at me, one eyebrow raised.

  “And a ride,” I add.

  When Ruth pulls into the visitor parking lot at the Board Office, she takes the keys out of the ignition, leans her seat back, and shuts her eyes.

  “You’re on your own from here,” she says.

  “Any words of advice?”

  “Yeah.” She keeps her eyes shut. “Don’t fuck your boss’s wife.”

  When I finally find it, the superintendent’s office isn’t quite as impressive as I thought it would be. I guess I was expecting to find him surrounded by mahogany and leather, spinning around in a high-backed chair, possibly petting a cat on his lap. Instead, his room was furnished with the kind of laminated chipboard stuff you get at Staples. Stacks of worn-out binders line the bookshelves. A framed poster of the 1986 Montreal Canadiens proclaims them Stanley Cup Champions!

  “Hi, Peter,” he says from behind his desk. “Grab a seat. I just have to fire off this email.”

  He’s younger than I expected and good looking in a cheerful kind of way. I had seen pictures of him in his own house, but he was older now, and middle age had taken away any of the meanness I imagined in his face. For some reason, I don’t feel scared. I just feel like a terrible person.

  He taps the final keystrokes with a kind of flourish and then clicks his mouse.

  “Sorry about that. It never ends around here.”

  “No problem.” I smile as though I have even some basic understanding of what he actually does.

  “Thanks for coming to see me. I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a little while, but I’ve been completely swamped.”

  “No problem,” I repeat mindlessly.

 
; “So,” he says, clasping his hands in front of him, “how are things going at Mackenzie King?”

  “Good,” I say. “Fine.”

  “Wayne Trimble’s been good to you?”

  “For sure.”

  “And how about Murdock? He can be a little, I don’t know, let’s say, eccentric.”

  “He’s cool,” I lie. “We go way back.”

  “Right. So,” he pauses and looks me square in the eye, “my ... wife has had a lot of great things to say about you.”

  For a minute, my heart stops, and I lose a little dribble of pee in my underwear. An idiotic smile freezes on my lips and I watch his face carefully for any signs of innuendo. I grip the arms of my chair and prepare myself that he might, at any moment, pounce on me with red-faced, spittley rage.

  “She says that you love history, and you’ve got a knack for working with challenging kids. I think the word she used to describe you was passionate.”

  I stifle a sophomoric snort. I feel relieved and guilty. I’m a terrible, terrible person.

  “So, Peter, based on her recommendation, and of course, your great work at Mackenzie King this semester, I’d like to offer you first dibs on leading the Time Travel Program next year.”

  “Sorry, the what?”

  “It’s the new off-site program for at-risk students.”

  “The one at the Old Fort?” It was the job I figured Murdock would never let me have.

  “You’d be working in coordination with Old Fort William staff, mostly teaching History, but also helping kids learn a few practical skills. It gets them out of the school for half a day.”

  “Sounds pretty great.”

  Pretty great, but no Los Angeles.

  “Tell you what,” he says. “Take the weekend to think about it and then call me on Monday.” He powers down his computer. “Hey, are you going to the Jesse Maracle concert tomorrow?”

  When I get out to the car, Ruth is no longer feigning sleep. Instead, she’s staring at the speedometer like there’s something it can tell her.

  “You know we’re not actually moving yet,” I say as I slam the door. She doesn’t say anything. She just turns the key and backs out of the parking spot. We’re halfway home before she starts talking.