Kicking the Sky

by Anthony De Sa

  “I’ll drop off the letter if you Windex the windows,” I said.

  “Here’s what you can do,” Terri said. “Drop off the letter and lug the hampers down to the basement.”

  “What’ll you do off my list?”

  “Nothing.” She looked smug, like she knew perfectly well the reason I had offered the trade.

  I had planned on ringing the doorbell and delivering the letter to Agnes by hand but at the last minute lost my nerve. As I lifted Senhora Gloria’s mail slot, the door swung open. Senhora Gloria looked like a nun in her brown habit—the costume she wore whenever she went out to collect money for the church. After examining the letter, she reached into her small patent leather purse, never taking her eyes off me. “Come with me. I have something for you,” she said as she walked into the darkened hallway.

  I thought of politely turning round and running off the porch. Instead, I followed her into the hall and then down the narrow stairs into the basement. Running my hand along the railing, I thought about Agnes’s hands and fingers touching each spot a few times throughout the day.

  Agnes was lying on the couch in the basement, belly down. She wore striped socks, each toe a different colour. She clicked her feet in the air, watching Gilligan’s Island and ignoring me.

  “Agnes, go get some money from my room.” Senhora Gloria cupped my chin and rubbed her thumb across my cheek.

  Agnes sat up but took her time getting off the couch.

  “Go! What are you waiting for?”

  “That’s okay, Senhora Gloria.” I forced a smile, tried not to notice Agnes’s embarrassment.

  Alone in the basement with Senhora Gloria, I could hear the steady hum of the large box freezer. I looked at the starched white band that cut across her forehead. “It’s so tight. Doesn’t it hurt, Senhora Gloria?” I said, pointing to the band. It sounded like something a little kid would ask, and I couldn’t believe the question had come out of my mouth. A couple of the older nuns at St. Mary’s elementary school still wore habits, but I could never ask them—they were mean and didn’t hesitate to use the strap. Senhora Gloria smoothed her hands over her breasts and patted down the front of her long dress.

  “Not so much. But this one—” She looked over her shoulder, then lifted her skirt to reveal the brown woollen socks held up by metal clasps. Lumps of bluish fat covered her thighs, and veins that looked like purple spiders stretched across her bumpy white skin. With eyes widened she lifted the silver clasp of her garter to reveal the dimple that had cut into her inner thigh, above the knee. “This one hurts! Just like Jesus on the cross.” She smiled before whispering, “You can touch it. Go ahead. It’s like Jesus’s cut.” She caressed my hand, bunched my fingers for me so that only my index finger pointed, and drew it over her knee toward her thigh. The ball of my fingertip felt the warmth from the small dent in her skin. The heat travelled up my finger, to my wrist and arm. She made a sound like she was sinking into a hot bath, and threw her head back, her face lit up by the fluorescent bulbs, and I could see shiny bits of metal in her teeth.

  I almost knocked Agnes over as I ran up the basement steps, and I didn’t stop until I heard slapping flesh. I paused to listen, to see if Agnes would cry, but I heard nothing. I bit my lower lip so hard that I knew I had made teeth marks. The storm door slammed behind me.

  Although the rest of my mother’s to-do list was waiting for me, I couldn’t go home. Not yet. I roamed the laneway until I found myself at Mr. Serjeant’s garage. Ricky was sitting on a bench with a rag pressed to his right cheek and eye.

  “Ricky,” I said.

  His eyes opened. He lowered the rag.

  “Whoa, what happened to you.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “James has gone to get ice.” The ice factory was just a couple of blocks away, and we sometimes hung around to grab the frozen chunks left behind after the trucks pulled out.

  The pieces of Ricky’s shattered clacker—Ricky could get the two glass balls to clack together so fast they looked like hummingbird wings—remained on the bench beside him, his middle finger still curled like a comma in its plastic tab.

  “Keep pressing,” I said as I lifted the rag back to his face. Mr. Serjeant’s garage faced the laneway, like all our garages did, but his had a second-floor loft at the top of a ladder. The boards creaked above me.

  “You should see the tits on this one!” Manny cried. “Her nipples are the size of Frisbees.”

  “Are you crazy?” I yelled back.

  “Yeah, crazy in love. You gotta see this.”

  “What the hell are you doing up there? Get down!”

  Manny’s face popped into view from the opening up to the loft. “What’s your problem? James saw the clacker smash in Ricky’s face. He told us to make ourselves comfortable. He’s nice, he wants to help.”

  I looked up and down the alley, checking for the stranger Manny and Ricky now called a friend, and instead saw Agnes coming our way. I cupped my hand in front of my mouth, blew and smelled. The mouthwash I had swooshed before delivering the mail was still working. The wheels of her bundle buggy squeaked. It was filled to the brim with what looked like laundry. She stopped, but she did not look at me. The left side of her face was red and swollen. I should have stayed at Senhora Gloria’s. I should have known she would blame Agnes for stopping whatever it was she stopped. I should have protected Agnes, but instead I ran like a frightened little boy.

  “Is your washing machine broken?” I asked.

  Agnes swept past me as if I was invisible. She bent over Ricky so that her lips were right beside his cheek. I imagined her breath tickling his skin. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “Keep pressing.”

  I stood a few feet away from Agnes. “He’ll be fine,” she said, to no one, then resumed her trek up the laneway, her thick braid tapered at the end, swinging from side to side.

  “You guys gotta see this place!” Manny yelled down.

  I climbed up the ladder and peered over the edge of the floor. The place had been cleared out except for a mattress. Manny was on his knees tracing the figure of a centrefold that had been stapled to the joists. One slanted wall of the pitched roof was covered with nude pictures, like a giant quilt. A gooseneck nightlight had been placed on top of a thick book.

  “I don’t think we should be up here,” I said, lowering myself back down the ladder.

  Manny climbed down after me. “This guy’s cool. He’s got more pin-ups than Corrado’s barbershop. He said when he’s not around we can use his place, like a clubhouse.”

  On one side of the garage a long workbench ran the length of the wall. Hoops of rope and wire hung on nails. The one window had been covered with a garbage bag and sealed tight with duct tape. A shiny blue chest with gold hinges and lock was directly under the window. In the corner of the garage James had placed a shower curtain that ran on a track like those in a hospital room. Rubber ducks swam around the hem of the curtain. I couldn’t see what was behind until Manny swept the curtain aside to reveal two full-length mirrors on the walls and a bike frame that twirled from a meat hook. Beside the curtained area was a hot plate, some propane tanks, and a wooden table with two mismatched chairs. The far wall was empty of any decoration, except for a red Videosphere. The TV, looking like a space helmet with its smoky visor, was Mr. Serjeant’s. It was the exact one I dreamed of having in my bedroom. A box with a mirrored disco ball sat on the shag rug, which practically covered the entire concrete floor. Large pillows littered the space. Manny pulled one to the centre of the room and sat, cross-legged. “Look up!” he said.

  A piece of heavy cloth had been stretched across the aluminum garage door. A border of duct tape held it down. Splashes of colour and dribbles of paint covered the canvas. Very little white space remained. Instead, the strokes moved from thick, bold stripes to thin lines that swerved and curled like my sister’s hair when the tub was drained.

  “He’s an artist,” Manny said.

  “He’s twenty-one,” Ricky mumbled thr
ough the rag.

  Manny lay back on the rug with his fingers laced behind his head. “Magic carpet, take me on a ride!” he said as he grabbed one side of the rug and curled it over his legs.

  Ricky giggled.

  Suddenly, Amilcar came into the garage. He lived on Palmerston, but his laneway was shared with Euclid, one block over. Amilcar was nine when he came to Canada. His family had come from mainland Portugal, as he never failed to remind us dirty Azoreans. My mother told us that he was only a boy and that he didn’t really know what he was saying, that he was only repeating what he heard from his parents. I knew he said it because he was an asshole. Even though he was fourteen now, he was in our class. He had been held back a year when he first arrived and then he failed the following year. He was much taller than the rest of us. In the changing room after gym class he liked to gyrate his hips until his dick, much larger than any of ours, twirled like a helicopter blade in front of his bush.

  “What’s up, Ricky? One of your customers poke you in the eye?”

  “Shut up,” I said, sitting up.

  “Who’s gonna make me, you little shit?” Amilcar said.

  Manny stood and took two steps toward Amilcar, but the older boy pushed by him and came into the garage.

  “Where’s the English man?” Amilcar asked, looking around. He brushed aside the shower curtain to reveal the suspended bike frame. “You better not be cutting into my business.” Amilcar made money by stealing bikes and selling them off to Big John, who lived in the Project, a public housing complex. Manny knew Big John too; just a couple of weeks back he had flaunted the two twenty-dollar bills he got through his dealings with him. But even Manny would agree that his operation was small-scale compared to Amilcar’s take.

  Manny stepped in Amilcar’s way, arms crossed in front of his chest, just before Amilcar turned to climb the ladder.

  “Get out of my way.” Amilcar stared Manny down but Manny stood firm.

  “Hey, you guys.” My sister rode by the garage opening on my bike.

  Terri’s ten-speed had been stolen earlier in the summer, forcing her to lace up her roller skates whenever she went out. Manny had denied stealing it, even offered to find her another, more expensive one. He said he wasn’t kidding; he’d do it if I gave him a pair of her panties. I told him he was a pig. Amilcar was the more likely thief anyway. We stepped out into the laneway to see her reach the end of the alley. She turned around and pedalled back toward us. As she got closer, Amilcar cupped his dick and balls with one hand and made sucking noises with his tongue. “Hey, baby, come and get it.”

  Just as Terri sped by, Amilcar’s arm darted out. He grabbed her boob but couldn’t get her tube top down.

  “You’re a prick” was all I could muster.

  Terri skidded. The bike swung around.

  “Is that why she’s back for more?” Amilcar said.

  I recognized the look on my sister’s face—the flashing of teeth, the concentration that caused ripples right between her eyes. She pumped my pedals until her fine hair whipped in the wind. She expected Amilcar’s hand to reach for her, and just as it did, her arm struck out in the air to grab his face.

  The bike continued on its path. I ran to it before it wobbled and crashed to the ground. When I turned back, Terri had pinned Amilcar to the ground with her body, pushing hard on his face with her hand, banging the back of his head into the concrete. Amilcar flopped around like a fish out of a water.

  James appeared out of nowhere and popped Terri off of Amilcar like a cork. Amilcar held both hands against his blood-smeared face. Manny and Ricky stood, open-mouthed. Everything had gone silent, except for Amilcar’s whimpers and my sister’s heaves.

  “Go home, you little shit,” Terri said, catching her breath. “Tell your parents what the Açoreana did to their rude son.”

  “Puta!” He dropped his hands, and we could see the five little half moons that formed on his face, one on one side from her thumbnail, the other four on his left cheek. “Puta!” he repeated. Blood oozed from all the cuts except one.

  James’s shadow touched Amilcar. He offered his hand to help Amilcar up. Once Amilcar was on his feet, James grabbed his collarbone and pinched hard. Amilcar’s body contorted. James put his lips close to his ear. “That wasn’t nice,” he said, and he wagged his finger like a scolding mother.

  “Who the hell are you?” Amilcar said.

  “I’m the guy who lives here, and these are my friends. Now get your ugly ass outta here, before I do something I ain’t gonna regret.”

  Amilcar gave James a hard look, then ambled up the laneway.

  I saw James up close now: his eyes were an unnatural blue, his nose was crooked like a hockey player’s, and his teeth were slightly crowded. He had a cleft in his stubbly chin, and his Adam’s apple stuck out like a Ping-Pong ball. A smooth pink scar ran along his jawline. It made him look dangerous.

  Ricky offered his rag to Terri, and she wrapped it around her hand like a prizefighter.

  “You okay?” James asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Must hurt.”

  “It’ll hurt later, but that’s okay.” She looked up the laneway to where Amilcar had disappeared. “It was worth it.”

  James smiled, scanned my sister’s face and body. It wasn’t like he was being a pig or anything, more like he was photocopying her into his brain.

  “I don’t need a knight to ride up on a horse and save me,” she said. “Especially one that carries a bag of ice, not a sword.”

  James looked around. “I don’t see a horse.” When he failed to get a laugh he added, “You got a bit of a bite.”

  Terri bent down and picked up a few chunks of ice from the burst bag that lay on the ground. She buried one piece into her bandaged hand and put the smaller piece into her mouth, crunched it between her teeth. Her eyes never left his. “Come home!” she said to me. “Mom will be back soon.”

  Later that evening, my mother took another shift at the hospital, and my father went to clean the bank downtown. Edite came over with some Avon catalogues. According to my sister, they were going to do girl things. I snuck into the hallway and held my breath outside the living-room door.

  “Looks like you lost a big chunk of your nail.”

  “It’ll grow back.”

  “No boy is worth it, Terri.”

  “What do you think of James?”

  “He’s a bit too old for you.”

  “He’s got gorgeous eyes.”

  “I’ll give you that.”

  They both giggled.

  “Antonio. You can come in, you know,” Edite said. I could hear Terri slapping the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “I can see your reflection on the TV screen.”

  I stepped inside.

  “How long have you been standing there?” Terri asked.

  “I just got here,” I said.

  Edite laughed. “Do you want to join us?”

  Terri’s eyebrows told me what my answer should be.

  “I was just wondering if I could … if I could maybe … go play with my friends in the laneway. The street lights aren’t on yet …”

  “You’ll stay close? You’ll stay together? And you promise to come home the minute the street lights come on?”

  I nodded three times to make sure I covered all her terms.

  “Okay.”

  The second I walked from my garage into the laneway I saw James’s garage door open. It’s what I’d hoped I’d find. My next hope was to see Manny and Ricky in there with him. I heard their voices as I got closer and quickened my pace.

  Set atop a wooden crate, Ricky sat in a chair. His head was the only thing that poked through the cut-out in a garbage bag. A shiner was beginning to take shape around his eye. He smiled when he saw me. Above his head, the hungry moths that had been drawn into James’s garage spiralled around the bare light bulb like kamikazes. Manny was lying on the shag rug, a pile of Playboy and Hustler magazines next to him. I closed the garage do
or, in case anyone passed by and decided to snitch to our parents, and sat cross-legged on the rug. Manny threw a couple of magazines into my lap.

  “Where’s James?” I asked. And as if on cue, he appeared from behind Ricky. He had been crouched behind him, mixing some soap and water in a bowl.

  “Let’s get this started,” he said, winking at me. Then he turned to Ricky. “If you’re going to hang around here, you need to be presentable. And I’m sorry but that sad-ass haircut you got yourself isn’t good enough.”

  We all laughed, even Ricky.

  James tilted the bowl over Ricky’s head. The sudsy water ran right off his bangs and across his nose. Ricky squeezed his eyes shut and blew some air out of his mouth like a wet fart.

  James began to work Ricky’s hair with his fingers, while humming “The Barber of Seville” from Bugs Bunny. We all joined in, our voices growing louder in unison.

  James rinsed Ricky’s hair, then dried it with a towel, finishing off by wiping inside Ricky’s ears with his towel-covered finger. Then he circled Ricky, assessing. As James passed by me, I was aware of myself smelling him.

  “How long’s it been, Ricky?” Manny said. James combed Ricky’s hair and flicked the comb against the wall.

  “Too long,” James joked. He flipped the bowl and placed it over Ricky’s head. He pressed the bowl against his forehead and cut straight across, evened out all the jagged points. Hair fell onto Ricky’s nose and cheeks. He sneezed. “Ta-da!” Then James made his way around the rest of Ricky’s head, trimming to the edge of the bowl. Finally, he lifted away the bowl, cracked the damp towel in the air, and took a long bow.