by Chuck Crabbe
His grandfather's boxing gloves on, Ezra stood across the floor from Nectario. He raised his hands up doubtfully. Nectario moved around him slowly and threw his jab out at a speed that allowed Ezra to see it coming.
"The first thing to understand," Harold said from close behind him, "is that you have to keep your hands active." He moved Ezra to the side and took his place for a moment. "Boxing is a thinking man's sport, like chess. Look now, every time I stand across from him with dead hands I'm not forcing him to think or worry about what I'm going to do, so he sees that as an opportunity. Step back in front now and keep your jab hand active, even if you're not moving it to hit." Ezra took his place again and did as his grandfather had told him. He threw his jab out and Nectario knocked it away. "Good, now keep it going. You see, now you're giving him something to deal with. Keep your elbow down and punch straight; don't be worried about power. That's it! Now throw your cross in there too."
Nectario moved easily and allowed Ezra to feel out what he was doing. Every now and then he would step in quickly and tap Ezra on the face. Harold laughed when this happened and Ezra realized that it was the first time he'd heard the old man laugh all summer.
After Ezra was accustomed to the routine, Nectario picked up the pace a little. When he came over between rounds to get a drink, Harold would stand in front of him and give him advice about how to continue. Boxing was much more tiring than Ezra had imagined, and he had a hard time focusing on what his grandfather was saying. What he did notice, though, was that the old man spoke with a level of animation that Ezra had not seen in him before.
By the last two rounds he realized that he had to do a better job of pacing himself for the entire three minutes, as opposed to getting in there and swinging for the fences during the first minute, and then dying for the last two. A couple of times he lunged in hard and tagged Nectario, but that ended very quickly. The young athlete and scholar saw that Ezra was over-committing himself and started counterpunching either by slipping Ezra's lead and coming up with a hook, or parrying, side-stepping, and hitting him with his cross. By the end of the final round he was exhausted. Nectario smiled at him and tapped his gloves.
"I think he has some of the old master in him," Nectario said to Harold.
"The old master, eh?"
"I mean you, of course, Gallo."
"I know what you mean, smart ass."
"Come on, Gallo; don't be so cranky. Rest your arm and we'll go again on Sunday."
"I don't know; maybe it's best I left it to you young people."
"You see, Ezra! Your grandfather says we Mexicans are sneaky, and now he is using psychological warfare on me."
Nectario and Harold left the cellar and disappeared up the steps at the end of the long hallway. Ezra went over to the weights and started his workout, but his thoughts kept returning to the boxing he had just done. Between his sets of dumbbell shoulder presses he stood as he had, with his hands up, when he had been fighting with Nectario. A complex, engaging problem had been placed before him. It seemed as if Nectario had done everything effortlessly, while for him it had been a struggle. It didn't make sense. He was in better shape than Nectario, and four or five inches taller. Moving slowly, his arms now extended, now drawn back in his guard, Ezra tried to solve the riddle.
And that was how the remaining four weeks of the summer were spent; running harder and harder along the road lined with vines, a moving collage of his fall hopes playing out in his mind, lifting weights and boxing four or five rounds with Nectario while his grandfather coached him; and two or three nights a week drinking to intoxication with the Mexicans, and speaking lines or ideas from Demian to himself as he stumbled through the vineyard toward the porch light at the house. During the days he worked hard in the fields, trimming back the canvas, checking grapes, doing rough chores, and preparing for the approaching vintage. Harvest time was coming soon.
The year before, the one he had spent as a destroyer of idols and a thief of tithes, a liar and a shadow, still haunted him, but his body and his book gathered strength against it and gave him a sense of courage. Then, one evening toward the end of August, as he was finishing work and the sun sat low in the sky, the giants came.
Most of the vineyards in Canada are equipped with windmills. They are tall and white and equipped with a wide, single blade. Early spring and late fall have nights that bring a frost that kills grapes. As the frost comes the windmills are turned on to push the warmer air down and lift the colder air above the vines. In this way they are protectors. But on this late August evening, Ezra did not experience protection under their wide arms, he came under attack.
It had been a hot, sunny day but, as was usually the case, a cool breeze could be felt coming off of Lake Erie. He had been drunk the night before and Maria had kissed him. During the day his head had hurt and he felt tired as he worked. The sun was well into its descent and Ezra was using a pair of shears to trim back the canvas. He was daydreaming and humming to himself. A flock of Canadian Geese flew overhead, and their moving shadow, appearing like a quick dark river on the ground, drew his eyes upward. Across the wide field of vines, where there had once been windmills, now stood a mismatched family of giants.
Across the fields they stared at him. They were of different sizes and wore clothes that belonged to the end of the sixteenth century. Ezra looked toward his grandfather's house expecting that the entire landscape had undergone a similar metamorphoses. It had not; everything stood as it had.
He scanned the tops of the vines, preparing to yell to the Mexicans and warn them of the menace that now loomed over them all. None of them were there though, and he looked around to see where they had gone. Then he heard the Spanish guitars coming from inside the living quarters. He saw the walls lit from within, heard the voices calling out merrily to one another, and felt the stir of dance and drink inside as if it had been the moon, and not the sun, that was circling overhead. Around all of it there was a sense of impending danger, of threat, of hungry destruction, under the fist and foot of the giants.
It often happens that, in dreams, we find ourselves in a situation where we are the guardians of some secret that we must keep in order for some very delicate or perhaps even deadly situation not to end in blood and tragedy. It is also true that in such dreams we are for some reason very bad at concealing what needs to be concealed. Our anxiety is impossible to hide, and the personified threats daylight protects us from are very quick to pick up on our fears, and we know it.
Ezra knew that the giants had not noticed the living quarters, though the shacks stood in plain sight, but knew also that as soon as they saw the building, and heard everyone inside, they would set out to destroy it. The sounds coming from the guitar strings grew louder and he looked to the giants to see if they had heard it. Their huge heads turned slowly, searching for the sound, but could not seem to locate it. He had to get there before they did and warn Ruiz and Nectario and the others. Ezra set off through the forest of vines and tried to hurry. But, it seemed, at every step he tried to take there was a twig underfoot that he had not seen and that cracked loudly, or he ran into a branch he could not negotiate and that made some unnatural and alarming noise. Always the giants' heads moved back and forth, searching for that which was right before their eyes but somehow remained hidden from their sight. Ezra was getting closer, but just as he passed under the last monstrous shadow they saw him and, finally, the Maison Saltimbanques. He had given it away. The noise he had made, his panic, had drawn their attention to it. The ground shook as each of the towering brothers rushed across the field, crushing the vines and trellises in their path. He knew he was responsible and the shame and consequences of his incompetence flooded his limbs and made them slow and heavy. As the soil under his feet shook he felt their last thundering steps right behind him, and he was finally thrown to the ground. He buried his face in his arms expecting to be trampled, and when he was not, looked up from the dirt expecting to see his friends crushed beneath the giants' huge b
oots. But the music didn't stop, the lights did not go out, and the hum of dance and drink continued. Instead the massive, unnatural men stopped and formed lines, lines that looked like some medieval military formation. Ezra stood still for a moment and listened to the music coming from inside and watched the light pulse between the huge, menacing figures. In front of the humble hut of his liberation the giants stood, gnashing their teeth at him, and barring his way.
He heard something move in the vines behind him. Turning to see what it was, the most pathetic looking horse he had ever seen emerged from the rows of grapes. It was tall and thin, its legs bony, and it might have been sick. At its side was a lance that had been tied in with a leather strap, and a sort of helmet hung from its saddle. Ezra mounted this poor beast, suddenly believing it to be, for the moment, as great a steed as Alexander's Buccephalus, put on the helmet and took up the lance, which he now saw was somewhat crooked. The helmet was no better, some poorly constructed combination of metal and cardboard, and looked like it had been put together by some well-intentioned mother for Halloween. Tilting his crooked spear, and in spite of the awful fear that the windmills turned giants struck in his heart, Ezra charged them.
He bore down on them, hard and fast, his spear in rest, bracing for what would surely be a horrible impact and probably his death. The horse breathed heavily underneath him and its hooves pounded the earth. Ezra looked over the end of his lance and set his eye on the enemy he would impale first. But just before impact the horrible faces of the giants relaxed, their teeth stopped gnashing, and, as one, they stepped aside to allow Ezra to pass peacefully between them. His pale blue eyes opened wide in disbelief and wonder at the dissolution of his terror. But his horse was still in a panic. Instead of continuing on the path of safety he had been granted, it veered and charged headlong towards the huge boot of one of the giants. He pulled back hard on the reins, but it was no use, his crazy horse crashed full tilt into the giant's boot and flung Ezra, his lance still extended, into the door at the base of the windmill. The door smashed open, the hinges exploding with a clap like thunder, and he rolled headlong onto the concrete floor inside.
It was a dusty, empty room with the windmill's clockworks, gears and levers, and machines mounted on its walls and ceiling. He got up slowly, groaning at the pain he felt all over, walked over to the door he'd crashed through, and looked outside. Off in the distance he saw the baseball hats of a couple of the Mexicans just above the vines. They worked quietly and steadily at their task. All the other windmills stood still in the coming evening. Ezra looked around the inside of the room where he stood. He had always been fascinated by clocks and watches, done in silver or gold, that were built with windows or glass that revealed their inner workings. It was dirty, but much of what he saw inside the windmill reminded him of those timepieces.
And there were fresh footprints on the dusty floor, and he followed them to the corner of the room behind a machine, about the size of a wardrobe, with dials, plug-ins, and red and yellow lights. Behind it, on the floor, was a wooden door. Ezra pulled it up by the rope handle attached to it so that it rested at an angle against the wall. Concrete steps led to whatever was underneath. He went down slowly, with only the light filtering in from overhead by which to see. He squinted and tried to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark.
The ceiling was low so he stooped and felt around in front of him like a blind man. Finally, in what he thought must be the middle of the room, he came across what felt like several large wooden boxes. He opened one of the lids slowly and then pulled back the loose burlap bags that covered whatever was inside. The smell of steel and oil left no doubt as to what he had found. Ezra ran back to the stairs with it in his hands and held it up to the light. The shotgun had a double barrel and was black and heavy and new. Shaking with disbelief and fear, he held it under his arm like he was about to use it, then spun it round to look down the barrel. He could not tell if it was loaded. Setting it down on the stairs he walked back to the box, more confident now that he knew his way, and felt deeper inside. The box was filled with guns, he didn't know how many, that were identical to the one he had taken out. Ezra opened the next box and instead of guns found small, heavy cardboard boxes. He brought one to the light under the doorway and ripped it open. The points of several bullets shone up at him. What could his grandfather be doing with all this? What possible use could the old man have for so many guns? Ezra rushed back to the third box and pushed open the lid.
"You should not be here, Cabra."
Ezra jumped at the sharp voice behind him and spun around. Ruiz was sitting on the stairs. He was a few steps up from where Ezra had laid the shotgun. His friend's face was grave and he did not look like himself. "You should not be here, Cabra," he repeated.
"Ruiz, what is all this?"
"It does not concern you," said Ruiz angrily. "Now, I do not know what we will do about this."
"What do you mean?" Ezra asked, stepping under the light and facing him.
"I mean all of this..." He motioned toward the boxes. "This is very important for myself and the others."
"You mean this isn't Harold's?" Ezra asked, surprised he had used his grandfather's first name.
"No."
"Does he know about it?"
"No."
"Ruiz, what the hell is all this?" Ezra raised his voice nervously.
"These are our weapons, Cabra. The instruments of our cause."
"Cause? What cause?"
"Nectario and me and the others, we are all Zapatista. There is a war going on among the people of the sun, Ezra. We are its messengers, and its soldiers."
"Ruiz, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Calm down, Cabra. Sit with me for a moment," Ruiz said.
Reassured at the appearance of the friend he knew, Ezra sat down, his back against the wall, at the bottom of the stairs. He could see the black, oiled, shotgun barrels gleaming in the nearly dark room. Ruiz told him of the struggles of the Zapatista in Mexico, of the corruption of the Mexican government, and the aid and complicity of the Americans. It was difficult for them to get good weapons at home, so while they worked here they bought them, and then, through bribes and cunning, snuck them across the American/Mexican border into Chiapas. They were smugglers.
"And the other windmills?" Ezra asked.
Ruiz nodded silently.
"Where do you get the guns and amunition?"
"It comes by boat from a man who brings it from Columbus, Ohio."
"And how do you keep it a secret?"
"It comes late at night, in the dark. Of course your grandfather does not know. He is old, and leaves the upkeep of the windmills to me."
"I can't believe this." Ezra shook his head.
"You can never tell anyone about this, Cabra."
Ezra sat silently at the bottom of the steps.
"Cabra, you must never speak of this."
"And you'll use these guns to kill?" he asked, ignoring what Ruiz had said.
"If we must."
Ezra stood up quickly. "I can't be part of this." An image of himself being cuffed again flickered before his mind's eye. "Are there other things besides guns?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"It is best if you do not know. Put the gun back in the box, Cabra. It is time to go."
Ezra snatched the gun off the stairs, placed it back inside the box, covered it with the burlap bag, and shut the lid. The two men walked back through the vineyard without talking. Before Ezra headed off in the direction of his grandfather's house for dinner, Ruiz placed his hand on his shoulder, then let him go his way.
Two days later, after they were finished boxing, Nectario passed Ezra a small box without Harold seeing. Ezra waited until they were gone before he opened it. It was a bullet. It was heavy and bronze, like the ones he had seen hidden in the windmill foundation. Rough letters were carved onto its length. He held it up to his eyes to read it: "Bullets and books have their own destinies."
Tha
t night Ezra returned to the Maison Saltimbanques for the first time since he had discovered the secret his friends had been carefully keeping from him. Nectario was playing his guitar, lost in the song at the other end of the room. Ezra watched him. It took a while before the young man looked up, still playing his instrument, and smiled at him. Ezra smiled back. He would never say a word.
ARIADNE
Training camp did not go well. He was in great shape but had difficulty catching the football. Coach Walsh had him work at tight end and, although he surprised most of his opponents in contact drills, all the passes he dropped poisoned his confidence. It was not fear that prevented him from catching the football; the ball itself felt foreign to him when it hit his hands, and he could not explain why.
Alex DaLivre was in camp too, but Ezra did not speak to him. Although Alex showed flashes of the same acuity displayed during the previous season, he had clearly lost some of his fire. The drugs and drink had killed his hunger, and it showed in his stride and in the steps that defenders had gained on him. Ezra was not afraid or uncomfortable around him anymore.
Like Ezra, it was Nick Carraway's first season of senior football. He played back-up running back and he and Ezra walked home from practice together every night. Nick's parents still attended the Pentecostal Assembly but, taking the example of their lord and savior, they had apparently forgiven Ezra and still welcomed him into their house. They did not suspect that Ezra had begun to doubt that he needed forgiveness at all.
"Ezra Mignon! You're going to get only one chance to run that play tomorrow. One chance! If you can't do it, I'll find someone who bloody well can!" It was the fifth pass that Ezra had dropped during practice, and Coach Walsh stormed toward the back of the scrimmage. It was the day before the first game of the year, Belle River's annual exhibition game against London.
The next morning he sat at the front of the bus by himself. He was wearing his football pants but his helmet rested on the floor beside him. Gord and Elsie were driving to London to watch the game. Ezra had a football with him and he held it in his lap. But it was not football he was thinking about as they took the ramp and merged onto the highway bound for London, Ontario.