by Tyler Keevil
When Chris finished he stuck the bottle in the fire. It cracked and started to melt. We sat and watched the glass as it heated up, glowing orange like blobs of lava.
I went back there last week, to camp by myself. It wasn’t the same, though. To start with, somebody had cut down all the bushes and turned Julian’s Birthmark into a bike track. Then, almost as soon as I set up my tent, this fucking guy appeared with a big black dog and told me he’d bought the land and that I had to leave.
‘You can’t just buy the woods, dickhead. Nobody owns the woods.’
‘Do you want to see my deed, kid?’
‘No I don’t want to see your fucking deed!’
I freaked out a little. I think I even threatened to kill his dog. I wouldn’t have done it, obviously. I’d never kill a dog – unless it attacked me first. But this one seemed okay. It started rolling around in the dirt, trying to cool off, panting and grinning at us.
The owner took my threat the wrong way, though.
‘I’m gonna report you,’ he said. ‘You mountain bikers are all the same!’
‘I’m not a fucking mountain biker!’
We shouted at each other like that until eventually we established that I’d never ridden a mountain bike in my entire life. I only owned a BMX. After that the guy seemed to calm down, and I did, too.
‘It’s the mountain bikers that are the problem,’ the guy said. ‘They come up here and destroy the woods and shit in my stream.’
‘They shit in your stream?’
‘Uh-huh. It’s my only water supply, too. They shit in it because they hate me. I think they’re trying to give me cholera.’
‘That sucks, man.’
He bitched about the mountain bikers for a little longer, but I wasn’t really listening. I’d come up there to be alone, and remember Chris, not to hang out with this joker. Eventually he got the hint. Then he walked in a circle around the campsite, inspecting everything – like he thought maybe I’d hidden a mountain bike in my tent, or behind a log.
‘Well, I guess if you’re just camping you can stay the night.’
‘Thanks a lot, man.’
I said it pretty sarcastically, though. Then, because the whole situation was starting to piss me off – especially him thinking he could tell me whether it was okay to camp at our campsite, the one me and Chris had found way before this fucking guy had bought the woods – I stood up and started taking down my tent. And the whole time, I kept thanking him and telling him how great a guy he was. He stood and watched, getting more and more confused.
Eventually he asked, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Thanks for your support. You’re super generous, you know that?’
I packed up my stove and my beer, too, and stuffed it all in my pack.
‘I thought you wanted to camp here.’
‘For sure, dude. It’s going to be awesome.’
I was still saying shit like that as I walked away.
28
‘Try this one, man.’
‘Not bad. It needs more booze, though.’
At the party in West Van, after we got that Linda chick baked, me and Chris went hunting for some liquor. It took us a super long time to find the bar, which was hidden in the basement. But it was worth it. We were expecting a little table with the usual selection of twixers, and maybe a few cases of beer. It turned out to be ten times better than that. They had an actual bar, with barstools and brass taps and every kind of booze imaginable: Grey Goose vodka, Drambuie, Grand Marnier, Glenfiddich, and a bunch of other shit neither of us had ever heard of before. They had all that, and there wasn’t even a bartender to look after it.
‘How about now?’ I asked.
‘That’s perfect.’ Chris took another sip. ‘What did you add?’
‘Grand Marnier and some of this Czech shit. Becherovka.’
‘Sweet. What should we call it?’
‘How about Monkey Balls?’
We took turns making the most expensive shit mixes imaginable. Behind the bar we found all these cocktail shakers and measuring shots, along with a huge tub of ice. Chris’s mom would have been in heaven. It was all hardbar, and it went straight to our heads pretty quick. We didn’t screw around or anything, though. We were pretty careful about that. Whenever somebody stopped by for a drink, we acted like bar staff and offered to serve them.
‘What can I get for you, miss?’
I said that, super professionally, to the next mannequin who came up – this pretty hot brunette in a strapless black dress.
‘Uh… a cocktail, please. Can you make Sex on the Beach?’
‘I could, but I’d suggest you try some of this. We call it Monkey Balls.’
‘Sure. Okay. Thanks.’
She didn’t know what the hell to make of us. Nobody did – but none of them had the guts to say anything. They just assumed we were meant to be there. It was pretty hilarious, actually. Monkey Balls was a huge hit. Within five or ten minutes other mannequins started coming up to ask for it specifically. I couldn’t really remember how I’d made it, though, and by the fourth or fifth batch we started running out of Grand Marnier.
‘Dude – we should probably get while the getting’s good.’
‘All right, you go-getter.’
We each poured half a twixer of Grey Goose into a pint glass and went to stand in the corner of the living room. We figured we could do the least amount of damage that way.
‘Just think,’ I said. I waved my hand in a big, sweeping gesture that took in the whole room – like a salesman presenting his goods. ‘One day, this could all be yours.’
We gazed together at the crystal chandelier, the hardwood floors, the monster fireplace, the widescreen TV. Chris didn’t say anything. He just shook his head.
‘What would you do if you had this much money?’ I asked.
‘Burn it all.’
‘Give it the old bonfire of the vanities, huh?’
‘Yep. The straight up bonhomme de feu.’
We sank down onto this recliner – one of us on either arm. All that classy booze was weighing pretty heavy in our brains. We’d sampled a lot of Monkey Balls ourselves.
‘You know what’s crazy?’ Chris said.
‘What?’
‘Say life is a game. Take a look around. These are the winners.’
I stared at all the mannequins in their super pricey outfits, chatting and smiling and drinking and going through the motions of having a good time. I tried to imagine being like that. I couldn’t. I just started laughing.
‘Shit,’ I said. ‘I’m glad I’m a bit of loser.’
Chris grinned. ‘You’re a bit of a boozer, all right.’
‘A real bulldoozer.’
Half an hour later Julian came looking for us. He had a huge frown on his face so I knew right away that something was up. I thought maybe somebody had ratted us out for drinking and shit-mixing all that expensive hardbar.
‘What’s up, guys?’ he said.
‘Not much, gigolo.’
Jules leaned closer, drawing us into a huddle and lowering his voice. ‘Tim’s house is a bit overcrowded. He’s asking people to leave.’ He shoulder-checked, getting all anxious. ‘Don’t worry. Just play it cool. If he comes up, let me do the talking.’
It was pretty funny. He kept telling us to play it cool when he was obviously shitting himself. We could see Tim across the room: this beefy, dark-haired guy, swaggering around and acting like a complete gearbox. He had his bouncer trailing along in his wake. All the girls smiled at him, and all the guys gave him a little nod. Totally smarmy. Every so often he’d stop and talk to somebody. If he laughed and joked around, it was all right. But if he acted super serious, you knew the person was about to be kicked out. When the killing blow came, they always looked heartbroken, but none of them put up a fight.
‘Okay,’ Julian whispered. ‘Here he comes.’
He spotted us from across the room. Me and Chris were hard to miss in our shitty shirts. I st
ood quietly, trying to look as sober and casual as possible. I don’t even know why. The last thing I wanted to do was spend another minute at that party. But sometimes, in the middle of things, you don’t really think straight, and I didn’t want to be one of the ones sent away. As Tim came up, Julian held out his hand and they shook.
‘Tim – how’s it going?’
‘Pretty good, Julian. Pretty good.’ He looked at me and Chris – this very significant look. ‘I don’t think I’ve met your friends, here.’
‘They’re my buddies from way back.’ Jules looped his arms around our necks to show how tight we all were. ‘Chris and Razor. Razor and Chris.’
I smiled. Chris just stared at him. Tim didn’t even break stride. He was all ready to launch into his little spiel. He started by holding up his hands in apology. Then he took a deep breath, as if he really didn’t want to say what he was about to say.
‘I’m sorry, boys. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. It’s getting a little crowded in here.’ He spoke in this pretty loud voice, so everybody around us could hear. ‘No hard feelings, okay? I just didn’t expect so many guests. I take it you can see yourselves out.’
He nodded and patted me on the shoulder. All done. He was so used to being obeyed that he’d already started walking away when Chris said, ‘What happens if we don’t?’
Tim froze. His big bouncer stepped up and crossed his arms.
‘You got no choice in the matter, buddy boy.’
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted Chris to clock a guy as badly as I did right then. Even more than Crazy Dan. He would have, too, if Karen hadn’t turned up all of a sudden.
‘Hey guys,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
That was when Chris remembered the promise he’d made about not getting in any fights. He’d almost forgotten. He never broke promises, but he did forget them occasionally. He looked from Karen, to Tim, and back to Karen. It was one of the hardest decisions he’d ever had to make in his life.
‘We’re going,’ he muttered.
‘Just you two,’ Tim said. ‘Her and Julian can stay.’
Chris looked at him. He could say a lot with a look. Somehow he managed to say, ‘You’re lucky she’s here or you would be so fucking dead right now.’ Then he took Karen by the arm and led her out. Me and Julian followed. At the door, as we were getting our shoes on, I saw that chick again. Linda. She waved from across the room to get my attention, then mouthed something to me across the room. I couldn’t really make it out, but I think it was something like, ‘Don’t leave me here on my own!’ Whatever it was, I laughed and waved back. She was pretty cool, actually. It must be weird for her, a normal girl living among all those mannequins. She’ll probably end up killing herself or drinking herself to death. Either that, or she’ll get tons of plastic surgery and become one of them.
Growing up in West Van, you don’t have a lot of options.
Outside, as we walked to the car, Jules kicked the bumper of this super expensive Landrover and set off the alarm. It was pretty sweet. Not like him at all.
‘That guy thinks he’s such a bigshot.’
‘Yeah,’ Karen said. ‘What a poser.’
Chris and I didn’t say anything.
‘Whatever.’ Jules spat on the ground. He was more pissed off than any of us. He’d obviously been looking forward to that party for a long time. ‘After the Crazy Dan show we’ll be famous. Then he’ll be begging us to come to his stupid parties.’
In a way, saving Mrs Reever had already made us famous. I didn’t bother pointing that out, though. I assumed he meant we’d be even more famous.
‘One day,’ Chris said, ‘I’m going to break that fucking guy’s jaw.’
The weird part is, both those things turned out to be true.
29
‘Kids these days. Let me tell you. They’re really something. They’re always doing the craziest things. I’m Crazy Dan Oswald and I’m not half as crazy as most kids I meet. I heard about these kids the other day who lit themselves on fire for a home video. Talk about crazy! Maybe they’re trying to put me out of a job!’
Everybody laughed like they thought he was hilarious.
The three of us had to wait backstage, where it was dark. If you stood a certain way you could see the studio audience: row after row of shadowy figures just past the lights. This guy dressed all in black kept an eye on us. He wore a fancy headset that had a built-in microphone so he could talk to all the other stagehands. He was supposed to tell us when to go on. We stood with him and listened to Crazy Dan make lame jokes that weren’t even lame enough to be funny. The only reason everybody reacted was because there was a sign above the stage – this stupid sign that lit up and told them when to laugh or applaud or whatever.
If we’d known his show would be so shitty, we would never have gone on it in the first place. The thing is, they’d asked us when Mrs Reever was still alive. Jules was the most stoked, obviously. Chris was fairly indifferent to the whole idea, but at the time I’ll admit I thought it might be pretty sweet to go on TV. So we agreed to do it.
Then she died, and by that point it was too late to back out.
The guy with headset turned to us. ‘You watch Crazy Dan’s show?’ he asked.
‘Uh, sometimes,’ Jules said.
‘You like it?’
‘He’s okay.’
‘He’s a real dickweed.’
That made us laugh. I hadn’t heard anybody say ‘dickweed’ for about ten years. This guy with the headphones seemed all right. He had a pot belly and kept blowing huge bubbles with his gum. The whole scene was pretty surreal, actually. The backstage area was dirty and dark and smelled like the stairwell of a parkade. I kept bumping into things: rickety pieces of scaffolding, sandbags, light stands – you name it. Out on stage it was clean and bright and slick for the cameras, but back there it was like a shantytown.
‘I’ve told you about my son,’ Crazy Dan said. I could tell this joke was going to be the lamest of all. ‘He just turned twelve, and now he thinks he’s Crazy Dan Junior. Every time I talk about my next stunt, he just yawns. He says, “Dad – that’s so played out, man.” Doesn’t that kill you? Played out. I’m telling you.’
The sign lit up and everybody laughed again. Totally fake. What they really wanted to see was the stunt. At the end of every episode, Crazy Dan did a stunt. He’d started on late night doing stunts for other people’s shows, and when they gave him his own show he kept up the tradition. People loved it. They couldn’t get enough of those stunts, but I’d always been a little dubious about them. I mean, they weren’t even real. He just used a dummy dressed up like himself. He’d put the dummy in a cannon and blast it halfway across a cornfield. Or he’d drop the dummy from a plane without a proper parachute. Then he’d film it and put his voice overtop, pretending it was him. The dummy would hit the ground or blow up or get smashed by a boulder and then he’d say something incredibly lame, something like: ‘Oh, man – I need an aspirin. My head is killing me.’
I have no idea why people liked that stuff, but they did. His show was super popular. He had a thirty minute slot on primetime. Aside from his stunts, he filled the half hour with B-list celebrity interviews, variety acts, and these cheesy ‘local hero’ awards. That week, his celebrity was a soap opera actress and the variety act was this double-jointed gymnast.
We were the local heroes.
‘Yep. Kids are crazy. But tonight I’ve got a couple of great kids on the show. Crazy, maybe, but crazy in the best possible way. They stuck their necks out for somebody they didn’t even know….’
The guy with the headphones nodded at us and held up his hand.
‘That’s why, this week, they’re our local heroes!’
The guy blew a bubble and motioned us through this fake doorway that opened onto the stage. Jules went first, then Chris, then me. People were clapping, and when they saw us they clapped louder. After the darkness backstage, the glaring lights stabbed straight into my eyes.
I couldn’t see the audience. All I could see was the set. Crazy Dan had red leather couches out there, and a big oak desk. He rose from behind his desk and shook each of our hands in turn. His assistant had walked us through all of this ahead of time, so we knew exactly what to expect. We were supposed to sit on the couches and tell our story.
‘Crazy Dan doesn’t like surprises,’ she’d told us.
He shook my hand last. I had the impression of a thin guy with a freakishly large smile, like a cartoon shark. On set, he always wore his stunt jumpsuit – this white jumpsuit with blue stripes running down the sides and a Crazy Dan crest on the front. That day, he was also wearing his crash helmet. It looked like a dirtbike helmet with a flip-up visor.
‘Have a seat, boys. Have a seat.’
We sat on the couches, just like we’d rehearsed.
‘Welcome to the Crazy Dan Oswald Show!’
Once the applause died down, the interview started. Jules did most of the talking. He looked slick, like always. He’d worn a green polo shirt and gelled his hair up in neat little spikes, like a magazine model. Me and Chris just sat and nodded and added a few details. It was pretty intense. The audience actually wanted to listen. The only one who didn’t listen was Crazy Dan. He kept cutting Jules off, trying to make more of his lame jokes.
‘That sounds crazy! So who had to break the window?’
‘I did,’ Chris answered. ‘I cut up my hand.’
‘You’re lucky you didn’t end up in the hospital along with her!’
This time, the laughter sounded forced. The audience, at least, could tell we didn’t like him joking about it. The less they laughed, though, the more he tried. He just wouldn’t quit. It was only a matter of time before he stuck his foot in his big, fat, mouth.
‘Are you saying you had to resuscitate her?’
‘Chris did, yeah.’
‘You gave her mouth-to-mouth? Honestly?’
I looked at Chris. His face was blank and his eyes were half-closed, like the lids had grown heavy. That happened, sometimes – when he was on the verge of losing it.