To my UBC classmates:
Jennifer Coloyeras, Sue Fast,
and Laura Trunkey — and the amazing mentor/leader/
friend — Glen Huser.
All of you made this so much more.
And to my family —
my mom, my wife Barb, Murray, Kim, Dillan, and
Chloe; Amy, Dan, Brennan, Kyle, and Gabriella;
Brad, Nicole, and Gracie —
your love lifts me higher.
Table of Contents
Bidwell
September
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
October
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
November
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
December
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
September
Epilogue
Bidwell
MARCH 8, 1949
The Bidwell Gas Plant blew up at 5:43 p.m. on March 8, 1949, the result of what investigators discovered was a leaky gas valve. It was a Monday — a cold, not-winter-not-yet-spring prairie day with a bitter wind blowing hard out of the north. The wind made fighting the fire that followed the explosion a dangerous and nearly impossible task. Four people died that day: two fire fighters, one plant worker, and a fourth person whose identity was never known, the body burned beyond recognition and no identification found at the scene. Speculation was that this final fatality was a travelling hobo who had been sleeping inside the plant — the papers called it a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A fifth person, a twenty-four-year-old janitor’s assistant, was rescued by a young secretary who had been working late in the office. She had managed to escape the inferno, but came back when she heard the man’s terrified screams. The assistant’s leg had been badly shattered in the initial explosion and he would have perished had the young woman not gone back into the plant. Though small, the secretary managed to half-drag/half-carry the injured man away from the building. Once outside, the pair received help from passers-by who had stopped to watch the fire.
For weeks the story of the Bidwell Gas Plant explosion was front-page news across the country. People read the Bidwell accounts even before they turned to the stories on the situation in Korea; an international conflict that some were predicting would become a major war. The young secretary, who was hailed as a heroine for rescuing the injured man, became a household name. The Happy Gang, Canada’s most popular radio program, spent five entire minutes talking about the heroics of Julia Meyer.
But eventually, as with all stories like it, the Bidwell explosion was replaced by other news, other stories. The Happy Gang went back to jokes and songs, and Canada went to war in Korea. No one talked about the explosion anymore, and Julia Meyer passed into history.
Today, no plaque marks the spot where the plant once stood and most people have either never heard of that March day more than sixty years ago or have long forgotten it.
Most people. But not all.
September
One
One year ago, almost to the day …
Forty-five seconds left.
Sweat, energy, and thinking: The three ingredients for a wrestler’s success. Our coach, Mr. Findlay, must have said that maybe fifty times a practice. “Sweat, energy, and thinking, Crockett,” he’d yell. “Give me those three things, I’ll give you a win.”
I looked at the other kid and I could see it in his eyes. I had him. We both knew it. Sweat, energy, and thinking. I wondered what my opponent’s coach said to him. What if he said the same thing as Mr. Findlay? What if he said, “Give me those three things and I’ll give you a win.” One of those coaches would be lying.
Forty seconds. I was ahead on points. All I had to do was stay out of trouble and it was mine. He was mine. I moved in on him. I knew I didn’t have to — I already had it in the bag — but the guy was done. I could see that. There was another point or two there for the taking, and I decided to take them.
Thinking, Crockett … thinking, Crockett … thinking, Crockett.
Then it happened. I still don’t know how. I swear to this day the kid wasn’t that good. I went in low for a single-leg takedown. I’d done it so many times. It had worked so many times. It had worked in this match. I’d taken him down with that move in the first minute and it was there again, I was sure of it. I go in low, wrap that leg, bring it up, he goes down, and I’ve got him.
It couldn’t fail.
Could not fail.
But it did. The guy made a countermove. I’m not sure exactly what he did.
But he pinned me and that was that.
Sometimes I think it might have been different if I’d won that semifinal match at regionals. I might have been noticed by kids who weren’t in The Six. Maybe even liked by a few. You can’t be sure about something like that, but it always seems like the guys who are good at sports and who actually win are really popular.
But maybe I’m imagining the whole thing. I mean, maybe most of the school would have ignored me no matter what happened in that match. And maybe Mr. Retzlaff would’ve started the unit on the Holocaust the very next Monday even if I had won. And even if the kid who beat me hadn’t been named Julius Epstein.
Which is a Jewish name. At least the Epstein part. I don’t know about Julius. The only other Julius I’ve heard about got stabbed by a bunch of pissed off Romans in a Shakespeare play. I think there might be a few athletes named Julius, but I’m not even sure about that.
All I know is that Julius Epstein beat me. In the regionals. And my life changed after that day.
Two
The Six.
No mystery to the name. There were six of them.
There was Hennie, who broke a kid’s nose for making a joke about his name; Jen, who made out with at least half the guys in tenth grade; Lou, the total klepto who stole money out of his mother’s wallet even when he didn’t want to buy anything; Big Nose Kate, whose nose wasn’t big and whose name wasn’t Kate — it was Sarah; T-Ho, who was the toughest of The Six and the leader and hated everybody who wasn’t exactly like him; and Rebel, who wore the same black toque every day of his life and spoke about five words a month.
Some people said I was the seventh kid, and I guess I was. Of course, being the seventh member of a group called The Six isn’t a real big deal. And every once in a while The Six, especially T-Ho, would make sure I knew I wasn’t a jen-yoo-wine (that’s how he said it) member of the group.
My name’s Andy Crockett, but at our school not many people get called by their real names. Since my last name’s Crockett, my nickname is Alamo, which only makes sense if you know some Old West history. I guess Jen is up on her Old West history because when I moved to this school halfway through grade nine and people found out my name, she decided I was Alamo. (Davy Crockett, the Alamo — freaking brilliant, isn’t it?) At least Alamo is a better name than Big Nose Kate, which was another one of Jen’s creations. She came up with that after reading some Old West magazine. The real Kate was a prosititute and the girlfriend of Doc Holliday. I never did figure out the connection. When I asked Jen about it, all she said was, “Think about it, Alamo, think about it.” So I thought about it … and I still don’t get it. I figure Jen’s just weird. Horny and weird.
Seven of us. Or six plus one. We weren’t really a gang, just people who liked being with each other better than with anybody else in the school. We weren’t goths or even big-time druggies.
Not really. Mostly we just couldn’t stand the rest of them. We didn’t fit in with the jocks (even though I was on the wrestling team), we weren’t down with the skaters, and our grades made damn sure we didn’t hang with the brains.
So it was sort of a process of elimination. And it had been that way since junior high, which is apparently when The Six sort of came together. Even though I came later, they let me hang out with them, mostly because I could get my dad’s car once in a while, if T-Ho’s Crap Wagon wasn’t running. I had my learner’s and T-Ho had his license but even so, Dad only let me take the car a few times. Actually I was never even sure that any of The Six liked me, or that I liked them. But when you’re in a new school you want to hang out with somebody, and The Six were about the only people who talked to me at first.
Actually it was dog shit that did it. My first day in a new school and I somehow managed to step in a large fresh mound between where my dad dropped me off and the side door of Parkerville Comprehensive High School. Sweet.
Well, actually not so sweet. I scraped it off as best I could but there I was in my first class — math — and I smelled like — well, dog shit.
There was one kid, one of the brains — Kevin Rayburn — who was sitting in the next row. He made a big deal out of getting up out of his desk and moving to a desk on the other side of the classroom. The teacher looked at him and Rayburn (I found out his name later) said, “I can’t see the board, there’s a reflection or something.”
Every kid in the class knew what was going on and a few of them laughed. That pissed me off.
So I gathered up my books, got up out of my desk, sauntered across the room, and sat right behind reflection boy. I stretched my feet out beside my desk and as far forward as I could. When the teacher looked at me, I said, “He’s right, sir, that reflection is a killer over there. This is way better.”
And that was it. When I walked out of the classroom, two guys and a girl were waiting for me. Turns out it was T-Ho, Rebel, and Jen. T-Ho punched me on the arm and said, “That was pretty good. Come on out to the parking lot after school. We’re going to the DQ. You can catch a ride.”
Then the three of them turned and headed off to their next class without waiting for me to answer. And that was it. I was the seventh kid in The Six.
You’d probably think The Six would all look alike, dress alike, have the same jewellery attached to the same parts of their bodies — that kind of stuff. You’d be wrong. Hennie’s black and the best guy at a party — the man’s hilarious. Lou’s the tallest, over six feet, but he maybe weighs as much as me and I wrestle in the 145-pound weight class. He’s got acne pretty bad, too. Jen would be gorgeous if she tried harder. She’s tall, has a better than decent body, and great skin. If she smiled once in a while she’d get even more guys into the sack than she does without smiling. And she has blond hair, which is a weakness of mine. Except you know how some people have dirty blond hair? Well, Jen has blond hair that’s dirty. That’s what I mean about trying harder.
Big Nose Kate isn’t gorgeous, even though she tries really hard. What I like about her is that she dresses like she’s from another time period — or maybe another planet — and doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anybody thinks about it.
T-Ho’s big and tough — a redneck and a farm boy all the way. And Rebel … he’s hard to describe. Thing is, he looks too old for high school. He’s about the same size as me but old-looking, and he always has his head partway down, like it’s too heavy to hold up or something. Which means that when he looks at you or talks to you he’s sort of looking up through his eyebrows, if you know what I mean. But of course he doesn’t talk to you very often, because he’s Rebel.
That leaves me. Not as tall as I’d like to be, not as buff as I’d like to be, but what body I’ve got is in decent shape. I’m not pretty, but I’m not totally gross either … I don’t think. I mean, girls don’t fall over when I walk down the halls but they don’t run and hide. (Except for dog shit day, of course.) Brown hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones, a wide mouth — too wide if you ask me. That’s about it.
The thing is, I’m not my brother. If that sounds a little whiny and like I’m feeling sorry for myself, I guess I am. Tim is five years older than me. He’s a better athlete, better looking — normal cheekbones and a normal-sized mouth and a smile that makes women go all stupid. He could give smiling lessons to Jen. Plus my brother’s smarter and he knows more about cars. I’m catching up to him on that last one, but only because he’s also a good teacher.
The rest of my family’s just, like, you get used to them because they’re your family, you know? My dad’s an engineer with the power company, reads a ton of books, and is the eternal jokester. Once in a while he’s pretty funny; the rest of the time we all get practice rolling our eyes. My mom works in a pharmacy (and rolls her eyes more than any of us at Dad’s attempts at humour). If I was looking for a word to describe my mom it would be “nice,” which every English teacher I’ve ever had has told me is a very boring descriptive word. Apparently it doesn’t “paint a word picture.” But screw it, she’s nice.
And then there’s Uncle Herm, the family embarrassment. He moved in with us just about the time I started grade ten. He got drunk the second day after he arrived and forgot to sober up. Dad told me that Herm, who is his younger brother by a couple of years, moves from one member of the family to another, stays for several months (or sometimes a year or two), then moves on. I guess it was our turn then. It could have been worse though. It’s not like he was a mean drunk; he was just never sober. He’d have dinner with us most nights, then disappear either downtown to a bar or into the basement or out to our barn if the weather was okay. A bottle of rum later — off to sleep. It was the downtown nights that made him the family embarrassment because Dad would have to go get him. Uncle Herm was a big boy and Dad always needed help loading him into the pickup to get him home. It’s funny how people with problems are pretty famous in small towns. Even people who had never met Uncle Herm knew who he was.
Actually, I lied about him being drunk all the time. There were a couple of times when we got into arguments about stuff; stuff I didn’t think he knew anything about. I think he was more or less sober then.
We didn’t do much — The Six — not at first. We hung out and listened to rap and hip-hop and, once in a while, a cool blues/rock group — somebody like the Black Keys — or maybe reggae, old Marley stuff or Bedouin Soundclash. That was Hennie’s influence. He’s from Jamaica. Moved here when he was nine and even though he’s been here seven or eight years he likes people to know he’s Jamaican — and different. Still has the accent which, if you ask me, he exaggerates most of the time; got the dreadlocks, a different hat every day — none of ’em ballcaps. Hennie’s not your typical small-town kid. But I guess none of The Six could be called typical.
We went to movies once in a while, too. The only one who smoked (cigarettes) was Lou. We all liked beer and Big Nose Kate was into tequila but it wasn’t like we came to school drunk or stoned or got stupid every weekend. We just hung out. The others in The Six were together pretty well all the time. I had wrestling part of the year, so I wasn’t with them quite as much.
One thing everyone at Parkerville Comprehensive pretty much agreed on when it came to The Six: We weren’t what you’d call well-liked. Not The Six. And not me.
Three
About the third week of grade ten, we had to write an essay describing our school. The title of my essay was “Average.”
That’s because Parkerville Comp is average (notice I didn’t say nice). It was average then and it’s still average. We have okay basketball and football teams, an okay school band, and okay-looking girls. About what you’d expect for a small-town high school. We never win at the drama festival or the science fair, but we don’t suck either.
Even the Parkerville building is, like, right down the middle. Low, flat, one storey, mostly brick, classrooms in two wings — one for niners and tens, the other for eleve
ns and twelves. Walls painted beige. Art from the art kids on some of the walls. A big mural of a farm family stacking small, square hay bales takes up one whole wall down by the gym. That mural has been there for five or six years and the kid who painted it is like some major graphics guy in New York City. He’s Parkerville’s superstar grad. Which I don’t figure counts for much. It’s not like the guy is Sidney Crosby or Brad Pitt or something.
The school has its own smell. It’s like when you’re in a basement that’s had water in it. Not a totally make-you-puke gross smell, just kind of old and musty, I guess. But it’s no big deal. Forty-five seconds after you walk into the building in the morning, you pretty well forget about it.
Average school on an average street in an average town. Like I said, nothing exceptional about Parkerville Comprehensive. Except for Mr. Retzlaff.
Four
Except for Mr. Retzlaff.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that Mr. Retzlaff was the coolest thing about Parkerville. Not cool as in flashy dresser, like some of the teachers, but not a sweat pants slob either.
First name Martin. All the kids called him Mr. R. It was his idea.
I’d say he was in his forties. Tall and fairly muscular, but not an athlete. He didn’t coach any of the teams, but he came to more of our games than all the other teachers put together. Didn’t matter what sport, you could look up in the bleachers or over at the sidelines and there was Mr. R.
He taught social studies and science. I didn’t have him until grade ten, but I’d heard all about him from other kids. Everybody knew Mr. Retzlaff, and one of the things that made him cool was that he knew every kid in the school. You’d see him in the hall and even if you’d never met the guy he’d still say hi and call you by name. I never figured out how he did that. Parkerville isn’t the biggest school around, but it isn’t puny either. I bet there are five hundred students. Maybe Mr. R didn’t know every name, but it sure seemed like he did.
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