by Kyp Harness
“So,” he said with the air of one determined to turn the page to happier themes, “we goin’ to the fair?” He looked down at us kids and then over to Mom who was still looking at her magazine, and me and my brother looked over to her too, hoping against hope there was a possibility, since Dad’s story held in it his excuse for being out all night, and maybe that would cool the fire of her anger, make it alright for all of us to go to the fair together as a family, and after a moment she put down her magazine and getting up, she said, “The kids and I are going. You can come if you want,” and she walked off to the bathroom to get ready.
My brother and I were happy and excited, smiling at each other but we knew not to act too excited in the sombre mood Mom was laying down, and we all went out to the car, and we were surprised when Dad got into the back seat with us instead of sitting in the front passenger seat beside Mom, for though Mom usually did drive as Dad didn’t like to drive, he usually sat up beside her, but I figured this was his way to acknowledge that they weren’t okay with each other and maybe even too, a way to be contrite and shamefaced, though my brother asked him, “Why aren’t ya sittin’ in the front, Dad?” and he said, “Well a guy likes to have a change every so often, right, partner?” and then he said to Jason, “Why don’t you sit up front today?” and we pulled out into the early Sunday afternoon, motoring out into the countryside to the fair, and nobody talked much, and my dad smoked a cigarette looking out the window at the farms and fields passing by, and since my mom and dad weren’t talking to each other my brother and I didn’t talk much either, as much not to jinx the outing as anything else, and finally we were at Birdtown, and our car crawled over the soft earth of a field serving as the parking lot for the fair, and we walked in past the livestock all waiting to be judged, and through the buildings with the produce, the plump grapes around which the bees and wasps jiggled, the pumpkins and the watermelon and the honeycomb, the small midway with its gambling and games and Conklin Entertainment rides, the families and the kids so easy to bump into and smear their ice cream, and as my brother and I were treated to some rides and games we still looked over to our mom and dad to see if they were talking all the while, and were heartened when, at a display of aluminum siding, they exchanged some words on the practicality of the product.
But mostly my dad stayed back with me and my brother, even as we got into the car, my dad again climbing into the back seat with me, and we pulled out of the field and headed on the road home, except for one turnoff which would’ve led us to our house, my mom without explanation took the other way, and my brother and I looked at each other questioningly, and it soon became apparent we were on our way to our grandfather’s house, my mom’s father, a visit to whom was usually met with complaining and resistance by my dad, but now, since he was in trouble, could only be meekly assented to by him as he rode in the back seat, and we turned down the old gravel road to where my grandfather’s farm was, the stones biting and clicking against the car’s undercarriage, and we crept down his laneway, and entering by his back door where my grandfather’s wife greeted us with, “Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise!” and my grandfather said, “Come in! Come in!” and we were offered food as we were every time we visited, and suddenly, somehow there was supper, and all was well except for the moment my grandfather asked Dad if he’d been out playing golf that weekend and my brother piped up, “No—he was out all night playin’ poker!” and my grandfather who’d never wanted Mom to marry Dad in the first place simply stared at Dad and slowly shook his head from side to side.
Getting into the car and heading home, my dad now sat beside my mom in the passenger seat and after a while we could hear their soft talking in the twilight as we motored through the darkened countryside and I noticed my dad stretching his arm along the back of the seat and tentatively touching Mom’s shoulder as she drove, and looking around I saw my brother now sleeping beside me in the back seat, and we got home and went in the house. Going to the washroom before I went to bed, I looked through the window beside the toilet into the backyard and saw the reflection of the moon in the water that flooded there from the subdivision being built at a higher level than our yard, and I realized that tomorrow I would have to go to school again and my parents would have to go to work, and though now they had started talking to each other and it would still be a day or so before Mom could laugh at Dad’s jokes so that things would be normal again between them, and after that it would only be a matter of time before things—meaning Dad—would go off the rails again, until it exhausted itself and Mom forgave him again, and so on, and in between there was us going to school and them going to work so that we never got to the bottom of anything, so that there was never a real moment, or a place you could sit and know and see and feel why or how you were doing anything.
It was like a week earlier when I got up and said to my mom and dad that I didn’t want to go to school anymore because it was boring and we just did the same thing every day and Dad said, “Well geez, don’t you think work is boring? Do you think I like to get up and go to work every day? Don’t you think it’s the same old thing for me every day?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but at least you have different customers coming in every day.”
“Yeah, but it’s the same old thing!” and Mom said, “What do you think you’re gonna do when you grow up and have to get a job? Do you think that’s not boring? That’s the way it is!” and I wondered why we all had to do that, go to school and go to work; it wasn’t like we’d all sat down and agreed this was the best way to live life, or some wise person had come up with this great master plan, it was just something that happened, something that came about that nobody had anything to do with, that just gathered and collected and came together, and Dad said, “Geez, well, what’re you gonna do, you can’t change the world, that’s just the way it is—you need money to live, so you gotta work,” and looking out the window at the moon on the water, feeling the movement of Monday coming and my mom and dad going to bed with the sense they’d have to get up for work in the morning, I saw that we’d never get it, the cycle would just keep going, there would never be the time to say an honest word, and there would never be a restaurant we opened in the living room of our house, and things would keep on in the direction they were going.
1. Ran Hutchison
Tim walked in bright morning light that was almost blinding as it shone off huge drifts of bluish snow. Cars moved at a cautious pace, timidly crunching through the deep whiteness still prevailing against the pavement. He had a difficult time moving, the depth of the snow making him have to lift each foot up to knee-level in order to progress—some of the snow always finding its way into his boot, into the space between his foot and his sock.
It was a twenty-minute walk to his high school. There was a bus service, but since the beginning of his high school days, Tim had preferred to walk or to ride his bike. This was initially because he’d feared being picked on by some of the kids who rode the bus. There was one in particular he’d encountered in the summer before his first year of high school, on the street, who had pointed at Tim and said to his friend, “You see that guy? He’s gonna get the shit kicked out of him in high school.”
It had been enough to make Tim scared all summer long. He had always been afraid of bullies and it was only in his last year in elementary school that he had finally begun feeling at ease. He was thin, and didn’t act in a recognizable male manner, and so he was called the worst and most shameful name any boy could be called: fag. He was called this long before he or the hurler of the name had any idea what fags were or what they did. He only knew, as did his accuser, that a fag was unmanly, disgraceful, contemptible and the worst thing that anyone could possibly be.
Tim cut through an empty lot of a housing development near the high school, crunching up the street toward the back gate of the running track. Beyond that and across the parking lot, the crowd of kids stood in black and grey and blue coats, clotted around school doors in a
wispy haze of cigarette smoke. Bypassing the mob, he entered through another door, the bells going off as he did so, the halls suddenly filling with teenagers, a blur and murmur of conversation.
He moved through the halls feeling self-conscious. He walked behind others who were popular and were greeted on a regular basis by those who strode toward them. The only people who ever waved to Tim were two girls who had a reputation around the school for being nice, and were known for going to church. He figured they waved out of a sense of pity for him, motivated by their spiritual beliefs.
He entered his English classroom and sat down at his desk. The class was studying A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It was a book he had begun reading before school started, over the Labour Day weekend when the Jerry Lewis telethon was on. He had read it while Jerry Lewis brought the numbers up, and he waited for the boy in the book to pick up his brush and start painting. He thought that the word artist only ever meant drawing and painting. The idea that someone could be an artist in any field, or by simply having an artistic sensibility, was new to him.
“An artist doesn’t care about money,” the teacher was saying, after he’d read aloud a section in which Stephen wakes up, puts on a stained shirt, drinks out of a dirty tea cup and cadges some change before he goes out. “Stephen doesn’t care that his clothes are dirty. He doesn’t care that the dishes aren’t washed. He doesn’t care that he’s broke. He doesn’t care about any of that stuff. An artist only ever thinks about art. He doesn’t care what you think about him as he’s walking down the street in his rags. He’s not interested in buying the newest model of car or following the stock market. An artist is concerned with what’s in here,” the teacher said, tapping his head.
“It’s what’s in his head that counts, what he feels. He’s not concerned with impressing you, living up to your expectations, succeeding on your terms. He’s thinking about beauty. Everybody’s running around, trying to make money, trying to become secure. An artist couldn’t care less. He’s always broke. He knows there’s no real security anyway. Or maybe the security he wants is the kind money can’t buy. He drifts out into the day like a dream—daydreaming—that’s what the artist is doing. He is immersed in his dreams of beauty—so immersed that he doesn’t see his own poverty. He is above it all. He is an artist. Quite a commitment to make.
“How would that be, if I were simply to say one day, ‘I’m an artist, and what I’m going to do is to say screw everything, walk out on my family, and go to Paris and write?’ Would that be acceptable, would that be right, simply because I’ve decided I’m an artist?” he asked. “Now then,” the teacher observed, “who can tell me why Stephen sorts through the pawn tickets before going out the door?”
Around Tim, several eager arms reached into the air as he gazed out the window and saw a TV repair truck idling at a stoplight, voluminous clouds of pale white exhaust rising like steam behind it, a light snow sifting down in the still mid-morning air.
At the end of the period, borne along by the crowd around him, Tim saw the slight, long-haired figure of Ran Hutchison coming through the clusters of teenagers. As the older boy approached, Tim felt his insides tighten, his heartbeat pounding. The tiny-eyed Ran Hutchison came abreast of him, and as he always did, whispered fiercely: “Fuckin’ faggot!”
The summer that began with Tim overhearing he was going to get the shit beat out of him in high school was the summer he had met Ran Hutchison. Somehow, the warning had only made Tim more interested in pushing boundaries, and when he walked into parks that summer with his brother and his cousin, he would often yell insults at the other kids, trying to bait them into fights, and then run off. He often antagonized boys in the neighbourhood into wanting to beat him up, then lived in nauseous fear that they would carry it out.
One day, Tim and his brother and cousin walked past the field behind his father’s barbershop where Ran Hutchison was playing baseball with a group of boys and Tim yelled some jeering insults through the fence at them. The baseball players looked over but didn’t give chase. When their baseball game finished, the boys leisurely surrounded Tim and his brother and his cousin where they sat on the swings. Most of the boys were older and bigger, but they shoved forth the smaller, skinnier Ran Hutchison.
“Hey, Ran’s the same size as that little fag!” one of the boys said.
“He can fight ’im!” said another.
As the larger boys cried, “Come on, Ran, you can take him!” Ran began to affect a wild bravado, and they pushed the two boys close, commanding them to fight. Ran Hutchison began flailing with his fists against Tim’s face, the blows coming like white cold blasts. Tim threw his fists into the other boy’s face with terrible exhilaration. They fell to the ground grappling, twisted into quick, furious combat as the boys around them cheered and shouted with laughter. Tim’s brother Jason ran to their dad’s barbershop. “A bunch of kids are beatin’ Tim up in the park!” he cried.
Dirk ran with Jason back to the park, jogging across the expanse of field in his wine-coloured barber’s uniform, his name sewn in cursive blue letters into the breast pocket. “Hey!” Tim’s father shouted, and the crowd of boys parted.
The fight was separated, and Tim was crying. To his horror he looked down and saw his glasses lying on the grass, one of the lenses cracked. His father asked what was going on, and the boys’ voices rose as they claimed that Tim had been mouthing off to them. Dirk saw the glasses lying on the grass and bent down to pick them up. “Who’s gonna pay for these broken glasses?” he shouted. “Somebody’s gonna pay for these broken glasses. Do you know that it’s against the law to hit a guy who’s wearing glasses?” One of the kids started laughing. “Hey! Don’t laugh!” Dirk exclaimed, turning to the boy. “Don’t laugh! It’s a fact! It’s against the law! You can get charged for that!”
“He started it by mouthin’ off,” said one of the boys, pointing at Tim.
Dirk gave a swift glance at his son. “Well, someone’s gonna pay for these glasses. I know your father!” he said, pointing to the boy Tim had fought with. “You’re Vic Hutchison’s boy, right? He goes by my shop all the time—I’m gonna talk to him about this!”
“C’mon,” he said to his son. Dirk’s cheeks reddened as he did so, because of all the boys gathered in a crescent around him in the later afternoon sun, he realized Tim was the only one crying. “I want you guys to come back with us to the barbershop,” Dirk said to the other boys. “I want to figure out who’s gonna pay for these glasses.”
They all walked back to the shop. Dirk set to work cutting his customer’s hair as the boys bickered about the fight. “You guys started it!” Tim’s brother charged.
“You lie like a fish!” another boy retorted. Ran Hutchison looked around the shop, his eyes flashing. A short, compact man in a T-shirt walked by outside the window of the shop, smiling serenely. The kids recognized him as Vic Hutchison, Ran’s father. The barber was obliged to step to the door and beckon him in. Returning to his customer, Dirk noted, “Our kids had a bit of a fight, Vic—and my boy’s glasses got broke.”
“Hm!” Vic Hutchison observed, looking sharply at his son. “Well, now, Dirk,” he smiled at Tim’s father, “what are we supposed to do about that?”
“He started it!” Jason cried, pointing at Ran.
“Bull!” another boy yelled.
“Kids,” Tim’s father chuckled, smiling at his customer and shrugging as he clipped his sideburns.
“That kid was shootin’ his mouth off!” a boy shouted, pointing at Tim.
“I told ’em, Vic, I told ’em that it’s against the law to hit a guy with glasses,” Dirk said, gesturing with his comb. “One of ’em gave me a little snicker, but I told ’em—it’s against the law.”
“Come on, Ran,” Vic Hutchison said, opening the door to exit the shop. “Don’t see why we should be payin’ for glasses somebody broke themselves.” As Ran walked along
side his father outside the large window at the front, the other boys following behind, he turned and grinned scornfully at Tim.
“Do you know how much it’s gonna cost to get new glasses?” Dirk asked Tim, looking over at him darkly, his scissors clipping softly. This was the beginning of Ran Hutchison.
Tim walked from school at the end of the day, amidst the mass of teenagers. The girls talked among themselves and the boys moved in groups and shouted at each other. There was a barely contained restlessness, the warm Thermos-like halls smelled of breath and sandwiches, and in the parking lot the cars revved up, the yellow school buses forming their regular lineup in the slush, white exhaust foaming in the cold.
Like a large piece of lead slowly lifted from the back of one who has struggled to bear it for too long, a palpable weight lifted from Tim’s heart as he approached the battered brown metal swinging doors opening from the school to the white freedom beyond. Released, his heart rejoiced over the sounds of the crackling ice splintering like glass beneath his boots as he walked.
“Do you do art?” a voice asked suddenly at his side. Tim turned. It was the girl who sat in the next row and up a bit in English class. She was new in the school that year, one of a large number of kids who had begun attending Tim’s high school since their school had been closed the year before. She shared an allegiance with her fellow students of the old school, and as a group they tended to remain aloof from their schoolmates. She was tiny, with long brown hair falling down her back. Her face was heart-shaped, with high cheekbones. Her nose was small and upturned. She was smiling at him earnestly as she came abreast of him.
“Yeah… I draw,” he murmured.
“I thought so,” she said. “I saw the way you wrote the title on the front of the essay we handed in last week, and I thought you might do art…” she said trailing off, her voice fading away with a vague hand gesture. He tried to catch her words as they dissipated to a pale whisper, since her voice, like herself, was small, and forced him to bend lower to her to hear it.