by Tyler Keevil
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Looking for us, probably.’
Instead of going up the stairs to the shops we took the long way around, following the water. We’d learned it was better just to avoid Bates, whenever possible. Chris and I found a stone and started kicking it back and forth along the path. Then he booted it, super hard.
‘One of these days he’s going to arrest us.’
At the time, I didn’t think he actually meant it. The idea of Bates arresting us was just too far-fetched. Not any more, obviously. Considering all the other shit we went through, it almost seems sort of tame.
52
I got out somewhere between Cypress Bowl and Horseshoe Bay. There was nothing to do but walk back along the highway. The vicious heat of the day caught up to me. With Chris at the wheel we’d been able to outrun it, but now I was alone among whining motors and sickening exhaust and thrashing rays of sun. I trudged for about three miles without looking up once. What I needed was one of those cone-shaped collars that a dog wears on its head when it’s got stitches – the kind that stops it from eating itself. That way I wouldn’t have been able to see or hear anything. I could have blotted it all out.
I turned off the highway at the next exit. It didn’t make any difference. There was nowhere I could go that wasn’t just as hot, just as bright, just as noisy, just as nauseating. Somehow I found my way to Marine Drive, then caught a bus that went past Park Royal and the Avalon. It got me to Lonsdale Quay. From there I followed the low road next to the railway yards. On my right, rotting shacks and sagging warehouses leaned against each other for support, looking dry and brittle in the heat. It wouldn’t take much to start a blaze down there. A single match would do it. Even the sun could do it. Pretty soon the fire would spread to Lonsdale, and eventually an inferno would engulf the entire city. Everything would be consumed, nothing would be spared. I imagined the earth becoming a great ball of fire and when the fire died out only a desert was left. I wandered alone through the desert, leaving footprints in the sand. Sweat stung my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. My neck and arms slowly seared to a bright, lobster pink. There was nothing in the desert. Nothing but sand and heat and time and a hungry wind blowing from somewhere up ahead.
I thought I heard Chris calling my name.
It took me four hours to get home.
I stumbled through the back door, panting and trembling like a brain-fried junkie. A slick layer of grime coated my face and arms. The sun had fried my retinas and I could hardly see. I wandered through the murk of our basement, blinking back spots and trying to get my bearings. Nothing felt familiar. Actually, nothing even felt real. All the furniture looked flimsy and artificial, as if our whole house was one gigantic stage set. At any moment the show would end and that would be it.
‘Pops?’
I followed the murmur of the television upstairs, to our den. My dad was sprawled on the couch, watching one of his nature shows and drinking beer. He didn’t say anything when I sat down, but I think he sort of grunted. You know – just to acknowledge me or whatever. Other than that I don’t remember much except staring at the TV for about twenty minutes. It showed some dirty boat in the middle of the ocean, with all these bearded guys standing on deck. They were hunting a whale with a harpoon the size of a rocket. I don’t know what kind of whale, but you could see it playing in the water on the horizon. Then, bam, they speared it right in the head. Afterwards they hauled it onboard and made a big deal of standing beside the carcass, taking photos of each other. The whale was still breathing.
They were grinning their stupid faces off, too.
‘I’d like to kill those fuckers.’
My dad sat up straight, like I’d poked him with a pin. ‘What?’
‘How’d they like to get harpooned in the head? The shitfucks.’
‘Hey – are you okay?’
I didn’t say anything. Before I could, somebody rang our doorbell.
‘You better get it,’ I said.
Normally my dad would have made me answer it, but he didn’t argue. I guess he saw something in my face.
‘All right.’
He heaved himself off the sofa and walked to the front hall. I heard the click of the lock being turned and then I heard him say, ‘Yes? Is there a problem?’ I went to the window and looked out. There was a cop on the porch. A short cop, holding her hat in her hands. My dad stepped outside and half-shut the door behind him. I could hear their voices but not what they were saying – not until the end, when my dad said, ‘No, I’d prefer to tell him myself.’ I moved away from the window. A few seconds later my dad came back.
He looked about a hundred years old.
Under the right circumstances, my dad can talk and talk and talk. He can talk about the feeding habits of Australian wombats or how evolution happened or why Lennon was a musical genius. He can talk about anything, so long as it doesn’t really mean anything. But give him a tough topic – like having to explain how my best friend drove a squad car through a police barricade and off a cliff into Howe Sound – and he really clams up. You’d think somebody had stuck a spoon in his brain and stirred it around. He stood there holding his beer and fiddling with the pull-tab like a Chinese finger puzzle.
‘That was the police,’ he said.
That was as far as he got. Then he sobbed. I’d never really seen my dad cry before. I mean, I’d seen him get a little emotional at the end of sad movies – especially Casablanca – but this was something else entirely. The tears came next – big and fat and rolling down his cheeks. He dropped the can and gathered me in his arms. I don’t think he’d had a shower that morning, because he smelled like old sheets. He squeezed me and since he was crying I started crying, too. He kept trying to explain, but all he managed to say was, ‘I have some bad news…’ He never got past those five words. He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell me.
53
A media circus. That’s what my dad called it. I’d heard that term before but I never really understood it. I mean, by this point we’d been in the papers a bunch of times: first for saving Mrs Reever, and then when Chris slapped Crazy Dan around, and again after the toga party riot. All that was nothing compared to this. Chris got his fireworks, that’s for sure. Front page headlines, six o’clock news, editorials, whatever. Everybody was scrambling for a piece of the action. But I’m glad he wasn’t around to see it. Beneath the excitement it all came across as cheap and fake. They took his story and blew it way, way out of proportion, filling it up with all kinds of stupid assumptions, until even I wasn’t quite sure how or why it had happened. It reminded me of being at a party where everybody’s talking shit about the person who’s just left the room – but only because they know he can’t hear them.
They interviewed Bates on City-TV.
His big, fleshy face filled the screen, all bruised and bloody from the beating Chris had given him. He had two black eyes and a massive bandage across his nose – this super lame bandage that practically covered his entire face. Also, his lips were puffed out as if he’d overdosed on botox. You could tell he’d lost a fight, all right. He looked like a loser. That didn’t stop the media from turning him into a hero. They played him up as the victim, this totally innocent victim. According to them, Bates was just a poor cop trying to do his job – a real working class hero. That’s the main reason he got his promotion, I’m pretty sure. He’s a lieutenant over in West Van, now. Or maybe a sergeant. I don’t really know. But basically, thanks to those jerk-offs running the media, Bates doesn’t have to bother hassling kids any more. He can just shoot them whenever he wants like all the other West Van cops.
In return, he told the reporters exactly what they wanted to hear.
‘Let’s get one thing straight: this kid was dangerous. Unstable. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. I’m just glad he didn’t hurt anybody else.’
I bet that was a big relief to everybody. They can all sleep better at night, knowi
ng that ‘it was only a matter of time’. Chris was volatile, unstable, a lone wolf, a rotten apple, a bad seed. Parents love hearing phrases like that. It helps convince them that this kind of thing could never happen to their kid. Anybody who beats up a cop and steals a squad car has it coming to them.
They forgot to mention his fucking medal.
Not all the reporters were total marzipans. Some of them wanted to show how compassionate they were by telling Chris’s side of the story. They were the ones who wrote about his home life, about his dad’s accident and his mom hitting the bottle. You know – the ones who decided he was ‘troubled’. That wasn’t much better, though. Their version was still just as stupid and simple. That’s the problem with the news. You can’t cram somebody’s life into a shitty little article, or a two-minute broadcast. They can say whatever the fuck they want, but Chris wasn’t a nutcase and he wasn’t some dysfunctional loser. To me he was just Chris. It would be almost impossible to explain what he was actually like. That’s why I didn’t bother giving any interviews. Jules and Karen did, but not me. The shit they came up with was pretty nauseating, too. Their parents must have told them what to say ahead of time, because it all sounded harsh rehearsed. Karen’s was the worst. They made her pretend that she hardly knew him, that he was just some crazed stalker chasing after their little princess.
And of course everybody assumed it was true.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t get the chance to do interviews, either. After the cops released me, reporters were practically bashing down our door – especially when they found out I’d been in the car with him that day. Some of them even offered me cash to sell my story. I didn’t take it, though. I didn’t talk to a single one of them. I would have, if I thought they’d listen to me. But I knew they wouldn’t. Not really. I mean, the last thing they wanted to hear was the truth. I’d rather tell it my own way, including all the bizarre stuff that happened to us last summer. That’s what nobody understands – it all started that day at the water.
It ended at the water, too.
54
Chris pulled over into the shade on the shoulder of the highway. I opened my door. Falling from the trees were hundreds of those tiny helicopter seeds that twirl around and around and around. They landed on the hood and all over the windshield. One even spun right in the window and stuck to my arm. We sat there looking at each other. The Chinese radio station was playing this mournful acoustic song. Neither of us said anything. I mean, what was there to say? He just held up his hand, palm out, like an Indian Chief in an old Western movie saying hello. Except, in this case, he was saying goodbye. Then my feet found the pavement and I shut the door behind me. He put the car in gear, stomped the gas, and spun back onto the highway, tyres smoking and squealing like pigs being grilled alive. I stood and watched until I was alone, and then I knew that he was alone, too.
After I got out, he called Karen from Bates’s phone. He was lonely, I guess. Or maybe he just wanted resolution. It’s hard to say. But either way, he called her – which is how she got dragged into it. By then the police knew he’d stolen the car, and they’d started monitoring the line. They even recorded the conversation. When I first heard about that, I thought my dad might be able to get me a copy of the recording. You know – using one of those legal loopholes of his. He tried, too. But apparently those jokers didn’t have to reveal any of it.
So I asked Karen instead.
I hadn’t seen her interview on TV, yet – the one where she totally sold him out by pretending not to know him. If I had, I doubt I would have been able to bring myself to do it.
‘Karen?’
‘Razor!’
She sounded so relieved to hear from me. Relieved and surprised. I mean, I’d been hanging up on her whenever she called, and now I was phoning her for a change.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘Pretty shitty. What about you?’
‘Not so good. I can’t really eat.’
‘Yeah. Eating’s hard.’
At first it felt good to be talking to her. Then I felt guilty about feeling good, so I decided to keep things fairly formal.
‘I heard he called you. From the car.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She paused. ‘But I’m not really supposed to talk about that stuff.’
I could tell she was dying to fill me in, though. I knew her too well.
‘It’s me, Karen. Nobody else will know.’
She took a deep breath – as if it was an incredibly hard decision for her. ‘All right. But we didn’t talk long. And his voice was really crackly – so sometimes it was hard to hear.’
‘Yeah – but what did he say?’
‘Hold on.’ I heard some shuffling, and a sound like a door closing, before she started talking again. ‘Okay – first he told me he’d beaten up Jules. But I already knew that. Then he told me about Bates, and stealing the police car. That was when I realised things had gotten, like, totally out of hand.’
I could imagine the way he’d said it, too. Not bragging at all. Just kind of filling her in so she knew where they stood.
‘Then what?’ I asked.
‘I told him I wanted to see him, but he just laughed. I was worried he’d get mad at me and hang up, so I didn’t say anything for a bit. Neither did he. I don’t think so, anyway.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I can’t remember exactly.’
‘How can you not remember?’ I was trying super hard not to freak out at her. It wasn’t easy. ‘This is important, Karen. These are the last things he ever said. To anyone.’
It took a moment for that to sink in. Maybe it hadn’t really occurred to her. ‘Well, I know he said something funny, like, “It’s over for us. But what the hell maybe you were just super drunk after all.” Something along those lines, anyways.’
I closed my eyes. For whatever reason, that made me ridiculously happy.
Karen said, ‘I guess he meant…’
‘Yeah. He was trying to forgive you.’
We were both quiet. I could hear her breathing. It sounded shaky.
She said, ‘I keep having dreams about him.’
‘Me, too.’
I wasn’t lying, either. I still have them. All the time. In most of my dreams, I don’t even know Chris is dead. We’re usually just chilling out – biking or swimming or whatever. It’s pretty awesome, actually. For a little while I’m okay again. Until I wake up.
‘What do you think it means?’ she asked.
‘That we miss him, I guess.’
It was a relief to be able to talk about it. The only person I’d discussed it with was my dad, and he gets a little awkward when it comes to emotional stuff.
Then Karen had to go and ruin it, of course.
‘You know what’s really weird?’ she said. She’d started whispering, as if we were conspiring together. ‘I’m pretty sure the call came after they said he was supposed to have crashed the car. Isn’t that creepy? It’s almost like he called me, you know…’
I frowned. What was I supposed to say to that?
‘I’ve heard that can happen,’ she said. ‘When somebody dies they’ll contact the person they love the most. Do you think it’s possible? That it was his ghost?’
‘No, Karen. I don’t think it was his ghost. At all.’
Partly I was mad because it sounded so stupid. But partly I was mad because I wished his ghost had called me instead. It must have known I wouldn’t have been home. I mean, I was still walking back along the highway at that point.
Karen sniffled. She might have been crying a little. It was hard to tell. ‘It’s nice talking to you again,’ she said. ‘We should hang out some time – if you ever want to.’
‘I don’t know, Karen. Maybe.’
We never did, though. The next day I saw that interview she gave. In a way, it was worse than what she’d done with Jules. To have been that close to Chris, then turn around and lie like that. I doubt she realised it, but that was the moment she reall
y betrayed him.
55
I’ve thought about it tons since that day. It’s all I think about, really. I’ve followed the route he took, too. A bunch of times. That’s where I crashed my dad’s Civic. Not a big crash. A shitty little crash, into the meridian. I was going too fast or something. I wanted to know what it would have been like for him, after I got out. And if you head west along that stretch of highway, in mid-afternoon, the glare of the sun catches you full-on. It was the hottest time of the day on the hottest day of the year – maybe the hottest day ever. In Vancouver, at least. And I’d left him all alone to die.
‘I’m sweating like a pig in here, Razor,’ he said.
I like to think he said that to me, even though I wasn’t there.
Me, too. Like the three little pigs.
I mean, I’d followed him for so long he must have felt a little lost without me. So he imagined us talking in his head – like on that night we’d played spin the bottle.
‘All three, eh?’
I’m harsh pigging out.
‘What’s your favourite fairy tale, little piggy?’
The Little Mermaid. Mostly because of Ariel.
‘Ariel’s pretty hot, all right. I wouldn’t mind tapping that tail.’
For a few seconds, he had trouble thinking of what I would have said next.
I’m sorry I sold you out, man.
‘You didn’t. You got out – that’s not the same as selling me out.’
It isn’t?
‘Not even, man. Don’t ever think that.’
I hope that’s what we said to each other, anyway.
Not all the dreams I have are good. Sometimes I dream about him behind the wheel, blazing down that stretch of highway. Except the landscape isn’t the same. The pine trees have gone totally grey and lost their needles, and the ground is parched to shit. The ditches are filled with all these rusty cars, like the shells of prehistoric insects, and you can tell that he’s been driving for years. The heatwave hasn’t ended – it’s just gone on and on and on. Chris is the last one left, still keeping it pretty real, racing alone through that wasteland. The engine is screaming and the doors are shuddering and the whole car looks ready to fly apart.