“Doesn’t make it right.”
“It’s not like that out there. There’s no right or wrong. Ricky knows that too. Believe me.”
— 10 —
IWOKE UP MONDAY to find my mother had rifled through drawers again. I had nothing to hide but I figured it had something to do with smoking. She must have smelled it on my clothes and thought I was stashing smokes in my room. I had booby-trapped my stuff with some thread, crisscrossed it in front of my drawers. I had also put a postcard I had received from some distant relative in Portugal—a close-up of the statue of Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres, blood streaming down the statue’s face, the crown of thorns digging in—wedged between a pair of socks and a belt. I thought she’d feel guilty for snooping and it would stop her in her tracks. It hadn’t.
I left my room and went downstairs to the kitchen to confront her, but she was nowhere to be found. I grabbed my school bag. I was just about to thunder down the basement stairs when I heard the water running from the basement tap. From the top of the stairs I could see my mother bent over the laundry tub. She had dropped her bra in the sink and dipped her head under the tap. Her breasts were large and they swayed with her every movement. I had grown up getting washed in the basement before going to bed. Soaking my feet in a square shallow pail of warm water, I often looked up to see my mother bathing herself over the laundry tubs, her robe flipped over and dropping down from her waist. My mother had called it a sponge bath, even though she used a face cloth. I watched her now, as her drenched hair flowed with the water. She blindly felt for the shampoo bottle on the ledge, her fingers squirming like worms. I was ready to run down and hand her the bottle of shampoo. If she let me, I could run my fingers through her thick hair until it was poufy with suds, the way I used to when I was smaller. I’d swirl my fingers through her hair and dig into her scalp. I would make horns with her hair and she’d purr or groan.
I was twelve now; I wasn’t a little kid who helped his mommy wash her hair anymore. I was turning to leave when my father approached her from behind. He must have been in the bathroom and I thought he was going to shave, like he sometimes did, over the laundry tubs. Instead, he began to rub my mother’s shoulders and back. He mashed his groin against her bum. He cupped her shoulder and then slid his hands down her arms and under her to grab hold of her breasts.
My mother didn’t stop him. I wanted to get out of there. I slowed my breathing and tried to step away from the landing without making it creak. My mother raked her fingers through her hair while my father rubbed his hands farther down her back and around her bum. She kept washing her hair as if he wasn’t there. His mouth and chin were pressed to her ear. My father’s hand disappeared under my mother’s skirt. She jolted a bit, as if she had been pinched, but kept washing her hair.
“Manuel? Não …” but her voice drifted off.
He undid his belt. His pants and boxers fell to his ankles. He lifted up her skirt and pressed himself against my mother. She wiggled her bum. I closed my eyes for what seemed forever, and when I opened them again I saw my father rocking on the balls of his feet, bumping up against my mother’s behind, his mouth open. His hands travelled up her waist, to her breasts. He held on to her hanging breasts, adjusted his footing a bit before thrusting a little faster. I could feel a sourness travelling up my throat. She continued to work the shampoo into her hair, running it under the faucet. Then she grabbed on to the sides of the laundry tub. My father rocked faster. He made the same sound the men did on Baby Blue Movies on channel 79. She turned the taps so the water rushed out stronger, loud enough that I could step away without being heard. I threw on my coat and ran outside. The cold air cut into my lungs. It hurt and it felt good at the same time.
I ran up the stairs to Edite’s apartment. “Where were you?” I said.
Edite spun around to face me. Her hair looked matted. She had deep wrinkles around her eyes.
“Hey,” she said, in a long, drawn-out voice like she was calling to me from outer space. Her spoon tinkled against the rim of her coffee mug.
“Did you find Johnny? Are you even looking?”
“What’s bothering you?” she said. “Did something happen? Sit down and catch your breath. Seems like every time you come over you’re in some kind of huff.”
“I saw you. In your room.”
As she moved from the counter to the table I could hear her slippers sticking to the spot where yesterday I had dropped the can of soda. She sat down and crossed her legs, adjusting her satiny robe to cover her knees. Her foot began to tap against the table’s leg.
“Please, Antonio, it hasn’t been a good week.” Edite’s fingers trembled as she tried to light her cigarette. “No riddles today.” She went through three matches before she threw the matchbox against the wall, then stretched across the kitchen table to snatch her lighter. I noticed the black gunk under her fingernails.
“You told me my friends and I could count on James,” I said. “But I don’t think you even know him.”
“What do you want to know?” Edite looked pale and she hadn’t washed her makeup off properly the night before: you could see it faintly on her face like a mistake that you erase but the smear is still there.
“Everything,” I said.
“James and I meet downtown for drinks. You know that? The St. Charles Tavern. It’s a gay bar, but I like it there because it’s dark and it’s filled with a lot of lonely characters. Their stories are so fascinating.” She blew smoke through her nose.
“So he’s helping you write about queers?”
“Antonio, don’t get mean. It doesn’t suit you.” Edite bit her thumbnail, tried to peel some of it off. “You know, William wants me to leave. He wants me to come home with him.” Edite said the words so matter of fact, but her pink toe started twitching.
“Who’s William?” I said.
“My husband.”
“He’s dead.” I had overheard my father say that Edite was uma louca. Things were worse than I thought.
“That’s what your father told you.” Her shoulders dropped. “William divorced me. Before Johnny went to Vietnam. Said he needed—what we needed—was a change, that things weren’t working out for him.” Edite mocked the words.
“Where is he?” I asked. I placed my hand on her shoulder and suddenly felt older, more mature. She caught my hand with her cheek, locked it down to her shoulder.
“He’s here, visiting.” She took a drag, but her cigarette had gone out. “William is black, Antonio. I married a black man.”
It was beginning to sink in. Lies had been told all because Edite’s husband, Johnny’s father, was black. My mother must have known too, but she had kept it a secret.
“William was so good to me—we were good to each other—but they disowned me, my own parents.”
Edite had lied to me for a whole year. Did she think I was as Portuguese as my father or my mother? I yanked my hand back.
“I gotta get to school.” I wanted to run over the rooftops, soar above the gullies and feel the wind push me forward.
“Antonio.”
I stopped at the door but refused to turn back. The steam had frosted the window in the door. I lifted my hand and wrote LIES! in block letters.
“I’m not leaving yet. I’m here for you!” she shouted just before the door slammed behind me.
Things were moving lightning fast. I wasn’t able to focus all day at school. I couldn’t keep track and I couldn’t do anything about it. The secrets and the lies adults told kept tumbling in my head all the way home, walking up Markham and into our laneway. Until I heard the words, “Fire! Fire!”
The call travelled up the laneway, growing louder as I reached my garage. A small crowd had gathered at the top of the laneway and I ran to join them. The yells became screams and soon men and women were emerging from their garages and into our alley. Ants forced out of their ant holes. They ran up the alley, holding kerchiefs to their mouths and hollering for help.
I saw Adam b
reak through the crowd, alone and without his cart, a fish swimming against the current. I thought how strange it was to see him with nothing to hold on to.
“Adam? Adam?” I said, stepping right in front of him. His eyes were glazed over, looking at nothing in particular, no direction. He walked right past me, brushed against my arm, and the hairs on my neck got electric. “Adam!” I shouted. “What’s going on?”
He stopped. He looked up into the sky that had turned the colour of blue ink. He kept mumbling, “It’s time, oh yes, it’s time.” I reached up and touched the tumour behind his ear. It was hard and felt hot. I don’t know why I did it—to heal him, maybe. If I did have any power, this was the time to show it. Adam smiled.
“Don’t ever close your eyes, Antonio,” he said, his fingers poking out from his cut-off gloves raised to touch his eyes.
“Where are you going?”
Adam strolled down the laneway like it was just another beautiful night and he was going for a walk.
“Adam!”
I left him and ran to the top of the laneway. Adam’s garage was being gobbled up by fire. People in heavy coats ran around filling buckets and aiming hoses from neighbouring backyards. It was useless. Adam’s books had been the perfect fuel. The sirens could be heard coming our way. I looked back, and as he turned the corner out of the laneway I saw the last bit of Adam’s red scarf.
A pinprick of light came from the other side of the lane. At first I thought the fire had leapt to other roofs. But when I crept closer, I saw Amilcar. He squatted on the rooftop across from Adam’s garage. He looked my way, struck a match, and lifted it to his lips. He blew it out like a birthday candle and smiled down at me. He took another match and did the same thing. Then another.
— 11 —
WINTER HAD OFFICIALLY begun when I looked out my bedroom window and saw that a storm had covered our laneway in ice, changing the world into something glittery and beautiful. Trees, telephone lines, awnings, the rooftops and gutters—everything that was black and dirty and broken was sealed in solid glass.
Almost a week past since the fire. Despite the winter wonderland outside my window, I couldn’t erase the image of Amilcar perched on the rooftop, the flickering flame appearing from his thumb, and the dark shadow of Adam turning the corner of our laneway. Where would he go? Did he have a place to stay? Did he have any friends?
My mother had called to let us know she had taken a Sunday shift and would be going to five o’clock Mass straight from work. My sister was to meet her there. I was allowed to skip it. No one was looking forward to my seeing Padre Costa for the first time since my father shut our garage operation down. For his part, my father had headed off to someone’s house to tell them how much it would cost to dig out their basement. Bored and alone, I found myself dressing to go outside, and headed out the back door to the garage.
The minute I stepped into the laneway dusted in snow, I slipped on a patch of ice. Not a smudge or a crack in it. It was perfect. I cleared away the layer of snow with my boots and saw my reflection. I crouched down, and then my heart jumped in my throat. I thought I saw the lapa. I jabbed at the ice with my heel, looked closely, and saw only a chunk of bark. Relieved, I made my way up the lane, through the snow untouched by car tires. I snapped an icicle from one of the eavestroughs and sucked on it, quickening my step to pass James’s garage, then past Edite’s backyard and fire escape, until I had made it to Adam’s garage, or what was left of it.
Little of the storm’s snow had settled inside, even though there was no roof. The walls were burned down to struts and supports. All the bookshelves had disappeared. A cobweb of black two-by-fours lay scattered like a game of pick-up-sticks. The garage opening was crisscrossed with yellow tape that barely shuddered in the calm. I looked down our long laneway. Everything frozen, caught in time.
On the way back I passed James’s garage again, with no intention of stopping. But a high-pitched scream from inside stopped me in my tracks. A quick clang; someone was kicking the garage door. I let the idea of moving on and running home flitter in my mind. It would be so simple to do. Instead, I opened the garage door. My fists were tight, ready to punch. I searched for anything that could be used to hurt him: the shovel leaning against the wall or the coil of wire hanging from a nail. Agnes arched her back in the rocking chair, sliding to the front of the seat, the hem of her skirt slipped up to her knees, pinkish-wet and clingy. Ricky knelt beside her, a bucket in front of him, urging Agnes to hold on. My eyes darted across the room, looking for James. I saw Manny slouched against the blue chest. He had been the one kicking at the door. Agnes threw her head back and yelled. All the veins in her neck popped out.
“James?” Manny said. A spray paint can was next to him and the plastic bag he had filled with it was trapped under the garage door. He was stoned. He sat against the blue chest and puffed on a smoke. “Do something,” Manny muttered, his eyes heavy and half-closed.
Agnes’s face was red and sweaty, her hair glued to her temples. Ricky’s voice was crackly; he kept rubbing her knees, urging her to hold on. She was quiet for a moment before she let out a sound that rose like a wave until it became a high-pitched squeal, the kind that only dogs could hear. As quickly as it came it went away. She let her head fall to her shoulder.
“The baby’s coming early,” Ricky said to me. “ ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are …’ ”
“That you, James?” Manny had managed to stand up. Slitty-eyed, he staggered, before sliding back down into a crouch.
Wind rattled the only window in the garage. The baseboard heaters hissed and spat.
“Help, Antonio!” Ricky said, never letting his eyes leave Agnes.
“I think I know where James is,” I said.
On Markham Street the street lights shone on the snow banks, the snow drifted down and the salt crystals sparkled on the sidewalk. It made everything look warmer than it was. I had removed the plastic sheet from my bike, unchained it from my garage. I knew this would be the fastest way to get to James. I didn’t know how long it would take for a baby to be born, but from the sounds that came out of Agnes I knew I didn’t have a lot of time.
I took a couple of wipeouts before I turned the corner onto College Street and rode up Elizabeth. I thought I was going to explode with relief when I saw James standing near the corner with a few young guys, drinking from a Styrofoam cup, puffing clouds into the falling snow. He saw me and right away knew something wasn’t right. He yelled “Move!” and I slid back on my Chopper’s seat. He slammed his cup to the sidewalk and hopped on. With his ass in the air he pounded the pedals furiously. I held on tight to his waist.
Drifts had begun to form and it was difficult for James to read the curb. I closed my eyes and turned my face from the wind, wobbling on the back as the bike’s tires battled sewer grates and streetcar tracks. There were few cars on the road. The city grader had done its first plow-through and now the salting trucks were coming round, their blue lights flashing. The last traces of street lights had been blotted out. My fingers were frozen. James hopped onto the sidewalk just as a salting truck turned the corner. The salt ripped across my ankles, rattled and clanged across the bike’s frame and wheels. It didn’t matter. James didn’t slow down.
We burst into the garage. Ricky stood off to Agnes’s side, cradling the baby. He had wrapped it in the yellow blanket, which hung down to his knees. Agnes wasn’t crying. She sat in the chair wearing the same cotton dress, now drenched and pulled up on her thighs. Her naked legs were white against the bloody towel stuck between them. Her sneakers had been kicked off. The stones had become dislodged from underneath the runners and she rocked slowly in her chair, humming the same song my mother had sung to me when I was a child, põe, põe a galinha põe, põe. Manny was up now, pacing around the garage, trying to shake it off.
“She won’t hold the baby,” Ricky whispered, taking a few steps toward us. He held the tiny bundle up to James. “It’s not breathing.”
The blanket made the baby look bigger than it was. The way Ricky held the baby up so gently made me want to cry. He had done it all by himself. James walked past him, took off his jacket and covered Agnes’s lap. He bent over, plunged his hand into her hair, and matched Agnes’s slow rocking, to kiss her forehead.
I had caught a glimpse of the baby’s grey face, all scrunched up. Its head was bald and pointed, no bigger than an orange. The room swirled. The Christmas lights twinkled colours onto the baby’s skin.
“It’s dead,” Manny said. James turned and looked to the garage door and his painting, squinted against the wind that howled outside.
“Get rid of it,” he said, his hair dripping wet, his neck and cheeks red from cold.
Ricky tucked the baby back under his chin. He pinched its nose and breathed soft puffs into its mouth. He nuzzled his lips to the baby’s ear and whispered something. I looked past Ricky’s shoulder. James had placed a chair next to Agnes’s rocker. His lips touched her ear, her eyes half-opened staring at the ceiling, as she hummed and rocked in the garage’s heat.
Early the next morning, I stood at my bedroom window looking down on my father’s dump truck, filled with clumps of hardened cement mixed with mud and dirt. In the bed of the truck, I could see the slab of concrete we had unearthed. Under it, I knew, was the baby in a tiny dirt hole. Ricky had insisted the baby be wrapped. He had found a dirty apron in the garage. It was one of those touristy ones with the nine islands of the Azores on it. He had swaddled the baby and tied the apron strings around tightly so that it looked like a colourful cocoon. “She won’t be cold now,” he had said. I wondered if the baby could feel the cold. Manny wouldn’t help us; he had slipped away when none of us was looking. Ricky and I did it all by ourselves.
Kicking the Sky Page 18