Julian

by William Bell

  TWO

  AIDAN LOOKED UP AND DOWN the street but didn’t see the girl anywhere. Disappointed, he walked into Chinatown and came to a busy avenue with streetcar tracks up the centre under a web of electrical wires. Snow continued to hang in the damp air, touching his face as he strode along, hands deep in his jacket pockets. Across the way a restaurant with a wide porch flanked by massive stone dragons dominated the corner, out of place in a neighbourhood of grocery stores, fruit stands spilling onto the sidewalk, and import-export shops peddling everything from cotton shoes to incense.

  Delicious aromas wafted from noodle restaurants. Aidan’s stomach growled. He peered at the menu taped to the steam-covered window of a small diner. He checked his wallet, shook his head and moved on.

  He had had no plan in mind when he left the gallery. His note to Sayers said only that he would find his own way back home. She’d be surprised. Aidan had never been a problem student, but he’d catch a load of trouble for breaking the school’s field trip policy. He might get back home in time for supper, but it didn’t matter as long as he made the game that evening. If he had to, he would go straight to the arena. Henry would bring Aidan’s gear to the rink.

  He headed north, then turned left where the avenue split to encircle a complex of old buildings. He turned corners randomly and soon realized he was lost. Good. Content to wander through the snow, he passed through an old neighbourhood of houses standing shoulder to shoulder with tiny shops.

  After a while he found himself on a residential street flanked with maples, their branches black and wet against the sombre sky—a northern sky, not the brilliant blue upturned bowl of Van Gogh’s paintings. He was enjoying the time on his own—a rare thing for him, free from schoolwork, practice, games. The boredom of swampy locker rooms, the mindless banter and pranks. The endless bus rides to and from arenas that all looked the same. Aidan usually passed the time reading. His teammates had harassed him at first and jeered at him, but they lost interest after a while. Over the years he’d burrowed through lots of detective stories—by Hammett, James Lee Burke, Chandler, Parker, Bruen and more. He liked detective tales because, at the end, things were put back together. Order was restored. A few months ago he had discovered a historical action series about Captain Alatriste, and he had put away two of the series already.

  Thoughts of thrilling stories pulled the girl-thief to the front of his mind. It was one of the things about her that had attracted him as he watched her in the gallery earlier: she seemed adventurous. Fearless. Free.

  It had stopped snowing. Aidan was alone on the quiet street. Up ahead he noticed a school, in front of it a break in the files of parked cars lining both sides of the road, leaving a safe pickup and drop-off area. A little kid emerged from the building, skipped down the steps and bustled along in Aidan’s direction on the opposite side of the street. In addition to his backpack he was toting some kind of music case. A clarinet, maybe, or a flute. The kid was Asian, small, maybe in grade five or six, probably rushing to his music lesson.

  Far behind the boy a compact SUV slipped out of the line of vehicles at the curb and drove slowly down the street. A cold, prickly sensation flowed up Aidan’s spine and into his arms and hands. He stood watching the scene unfold. The dark vehicle drew to a stop about thirty metres behind the kid. Two young men scrambled out and began to shadow the boy. The SUV pulled forward, the image of overhead branches sliding across the hood and up the windshield, and drove past the boy. Abruptly it nosed into the curb, the hood dipping sharply as it jerked to a stop, and two more men jumped out, leaving the rear doors open.

  Aidan realized immediately what was happening. It wasn’t hockey, but the principles were the same. The kid was boxed by the four men. The two followers quickened their pace. But the kid had already caught on. In one motion he dropped the instrument case, shrugged off his backpack and dashed across the road. He cut between two cars and pelted down the sidewalk directly toward Aidan. Calling out to each other, the four men took up the chase.

  Aidan felt a familiar jolt of adrenaline, his body’s instinctive call to action. The kid flashed by. Aidan walked toward the men casually, as if he had no idea what was happening. One had already outstripped his partners and thundered toward Aidan, arms pumping, eyes focused on the boy. Aidan was suddenly glad he was taller and heavier than most teens his age. As the man brushed past, Aidan threw a hip check, launching the stranger over his back and into the street, where he crashed to the pavement, let out an explosive grunt and lay still.

  Aidan steadied himself, then lined up on the second pursuer. The guy had seen what Aidan had done to his partner so he would be on guard. He’d probably try a head-fake. Training his eyes on his opponent’s chest as the man barrelled toward him, Aidan took a step forward. The man feinted to the left but his shoulders tilted to the right, giving away his intention. Aidan dipped his knees, jammed his shoulder into the man’s chest, heaved and, using the man’s momentum against him, redirected his body off his feet and into the air. The man pivoted and tumbled with a crash into a row of trash cans, strewing garbage across the sidewalk.

  Aidan snatched a glance over his shoulder in time to see the kid bolting between two houses, then turned back to the two remaining men quickly closing on him. They split up, like forwards rushing the net. As the first reached him, Aidan held up his hands, as if surrendering, and faked a smile, bringing a look of confusion to the pursuer’s face. Still grinning, Aidan head-butted him. Aidan felt the blow in his forehead, heard the crack of bone, then a howl. Groaning, the man cupped his hands over his broken nose as blood dribbled off his chin.

  Three down. By now the element of surprise had evaporated. Aidan scurried backwards to give himself room. The last attacker reached into his jacket as he rushed forward. Aidan heard a click, saw the blade, threw up his hands in desperation as the man lunged and slashed at his face. He felt a bee sting on his palm, then a burning pain. The attacker stumbled, thrown off-balance by his charge. Aidan stepped in and buried his fist in the man’s stomach. As he grunted and folded, Aidan turned and ran.

  He flew along the street and threw himself down the driveway where the kid had gone. Ahead, he saw the boy vaulting a fence. He must have watched the action from hiding before taking off when Aidan began his sprint. Trailing blood he hardly noticed, Aidan caught up to the boy on the road, loping toward a café on Dundas Street. Smart little guy, heading to a place with lots of people.

  “Hold up!” Aidan called, pulling a hanky from his hip pocket and wrapping it around his hand. “They’re gone.”

  The boy walked on without turning around. A few minutes later Aidan and he were sitting in a booth at the back of the crowded doughnut and coffee shop, the kid with his jacket over his knees to hide a wet spot Aidan had noticed but ignored.

  “Who were those guys? Why were they after you?” he asked.

  “You got a phone?”

  “No, don’t you?”

  “It was in my backpack. I’m supposed to keep it in my pocket.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  The kid looked around, then got up, holding his jacket at his waist.

  “Wait a minute,” Aidan snapped. “Don’t you realize you were almost kidnapped?”

  “I’ll use the pay phone,” the boy said, and he walked away, picking his way among the tables to a phone near the washroom door.

  Aidan followed. “You’re not going to call the cops, are you?”

  “No way.”

  While the kid used the phone, Aidan washed his bloody hand at the washroom sink, not quite believing that he had taken on four guys and left them on the ground. He was relieved that the boy wasn’t going to involve the police, who would make life complicated for both of them. Dark red blood oozed steadily from the gash in the edge of his palm, opposite the thumb. He dried his hand as best he could, then rewrapped it in the bloody handkerchief.

  The kid had been petrified by the ordeal, Aidan realized—so scared he’d wet h
is pants—but had shown no surprise. Most kids his age would have been babbling their heads off once they had their fear under control, wondering who the men had been and speculating as to why they had come after him. Not once had he suggested calling the cops or asking anyone for help. Aidan remembered thinking the kid had street smarts. As soon as the SUV had veered to the curb he realized he was in trouble, and he had known what to do.

  Aidan found the boy standing beside the phone, his call completed. “You don’t have to hang around,” the kid said.

  “Well, as long as everything is alright with you. What’s your name, anyway?”

  The boy replied by walking out of the restaurant. Aidan followed.

  Outside it was cold, but the boy still held his coat at his waist, hiding the pee stain. Aidan knew the kid was probably acting like a jerk because he had been humiliated, hunted and terrified, chased through people’s yards. With a high school guy right there, witnessing his shame. Aidan was familiar with the feeling.

  “I said you don’t have to wait with me,” the kid repeated. “I can take care of myself.”

  At that moment a dark blue car swept into the parking lot and screeched to a stop. The back door flew open and an Asian in a dark topcoat got out. Aidan tensed and reached for the boy, but the man was holding the car door open and beckoning to the kid, who scrambled inside without a backward glance. The man slid in beside him. The car tore away as soon as the door closed, leaving Aidan alone in the snow.

  Aidan made his way down to Queen Street and took the streetcar to the west end. As the vehicle trundled along the rails, he sat back and watched the crowded, rundown neighbourhoods scroll by the window. So much for an afternoon to himself. His escape from the art field trip to wander where his feet took him, to be alone for a while, had gone up in smoke, leaving only the weakness in his limbs from ebbing adrenaline. He had thought he had taken control, if only for an afternoon; then he had been blindsided by events set in motion by strangers, with nothing to show for it but a bleeding hand. He let out a bitter laugh. He had read somewhere that destiny didn’t make house calls, that you had to go out and make your own fate. Whoever wrote that was full of it.

  Or was he? Maybe destiny wasn’t one thing or another. Maybe he was looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Yes, the attempted kidnapping had come out of the blue and Aidan had been caught up in it, but he had done something about it, hadn’t he? Aidan reminded himself that he had saved the kid from being snatched—maybe killed. Maybe his thoughts when he was in the gallery mulling over Van Gogh and his art had been legitimate after all.

  Be the painter, not the canvas, he had decided. He talked a good game, but could he follow through? How could he manage a change in his life? Waiting for someone or something to alter his direction meant he was the canvas, didn’t it? He had to take some kind of action.

  He had tried it once. A foster kid like him had two choices: he could rebel and run away, or try to go along, to be accepted. He had tried the first strategy back when he was taken in by the Foster-McCallums. Aidan had run off and won exactly four hours of freedom, then the cops had picked him up at the nearest mall and marched him to their cruiser under the noses of curious shoppers. He still remembered the sting of humiliation. After this short-lived rebellious period, when he realized that nothing of benefit ever had or would result from rushing into conflicts or win-lose dust-ups where a happy ending was not on the program, he had changed course.

  Charging a brick wall with his head down hadn’t helped, so he had tried to make his foster families like him. He had learned to go along, to agree, to harmonize, to please.

  He held no resentment toward his fosters. He knew they got paid by CAS for letting him live with them, but he didn’t think they did it for the money. They all tried to give him a home and make him part of their families. But he never was, never could be. He was a boarder. He now lived with Henry, Beryl and the twins, April and May. They were the Boyds. Aidan wasn’t a Boyd. He was “… and this is …” as in “Hello, I’m Henry. This is my wife, Beryl, these are my daughters and this is Aidan.”

  If he took off now, where would he go? How would he support himself? He was “in care” until he was of age—eighteen. He could get free sooner, when he was sixteen, if he wanted. But he’d still have the practical problems: nowhere to go, no way to earn money. Living on the street wasn’t an option.

  Until today, he had accepted that he was helpless, with no choices.

  Sitting in the stuffy streetcar surrounded by strangers, peering though fogged windows at a blurry world, Aidan recognized that he had a lot to think about, a lot to figure out. But he knew that when you cleared away the deep thoughts and fine words, you came down to one basic truth: you’re not what you say, you’re what you do.

  THREE

  THE NEARER HE CAME to the house where he had lived for almost two years, the more worry gnawed on Aidan’s nerves. He had dreamed up a fictional explanation for the throbbing knife wound in his hand, but he planned to tell the truth about slipping away from the art field trip. As was his habit, he composed his facial expression, got his feelings under control, prepared to play the role he had adopted so often in his life. He became The Pleaser. He did not see this attitude as dishonest or hypocritical; he was not acting. Rather, he had trained himself to push down his anger, frustration and rejection—no matter how hard it was—and to sail toward smoother water.

  Beryl’s car stood alone in the driveway. Good. At least he could deal with the Foster-Boyds one at a time. He went into the house, shucked his backpack, hung his coat in the hall closet and ducked into the ground-floor bathroom. He unwound the blood-soaked hanky from his hand and dropped it into the toilet. He flushed, then held his hand under the faucet, working the dried blood from the skin. Wincing, he examined the wound closely for the first time. The blade had slit the thick edge of his palm, revealing red muscle beneath a layer of yellow fatty tissue. He searched the cabinet above the sink, finding a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a box of Band-Aids. The h-p stung when he poured it onto the bloody gash, making a pink foam that dripped into the sink. He covered the wound with a couple of stick-on bandages.

  Aidan headed for the kitchen, breathing in the aroma of beef stew. Beryl stood at the stove, a big wooden spoon in her hand. The twins, April and May, were busy at their homework, the table strewn with coloured pencils and books. The eight-year-olds had been born in the middle of the night on the last day of the month, April a few minutes before midnight, May a few minutes after. They took after their mother, inheriting her slight build and blue eyes and personality that sparkled like tinsel.

  April looked up from colouring a zebra in green and pink stripes, a gleeful glint in her eye. “You’re in for it,” she said.

  “Yeah, Mom’s mad at you,” May chimed in. “Aren’t you, Mom?”

  Aidan liked the girls; they were cute and funny, and most of the time they hid their resentment that they had to share their parents with him.

  Beryl whacked the spoon on the edge of the pot and laid it on the stove-top. She turned and crossed her arms on her chest.

  “Well, well, look what came in on the wind,” she said, then demanded to know where Aidan had been, insisting on a detailed report, and why he had bailed out of the field trip, and did he realize the school had called her on her cell at work in the middle of giving poor Mrs. Quigley her bath, and did he have any idea how worried she had been?

  “The art gallery was a colossal bore,” he replied. “I decided to leave.”

  “And do what?”

  “I just walked around. I kind of lost track of the time.”

  “That’s not like you. Who were you with?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Alone the whole time?”

  “Totally.”

  Beryl’s eyebrows rose skeptically; the corner of her mouth puckered slightly—an involuntary signal that she was weighing his statement. “You’re going to catch trouble at school tomorrow.”

  �
�Yeah, you’re in for it,” April repeated.

  “I can talk Sayers around,” Aidan assured Beryl. “She’s—”

  “No you can’t. Your absence counts as a skip. There’ll be consequences. Detentions, probably.”

  May nodded wisely. “Consepences. Dimensions.”

  “Mom, he’s got bandages on his hand,” April accused, pointing.

  “What happened?” Beryl asked, uncrossing her arms. “C’mere. Let me see it.”

  “I fell and landed on a piece of glass.”

  She cradled his hand in her own and peeled back the bandages, her professional manner taking over.

  “May, honey, bring me my bag,” she said, leading Aidan to the table. She examined the wound. “It’s clean but it’s deep—and it’ll need stitches.” She looked into his eyes. “A broken glass wound, eh?”

  Aidan remained silent as Beryl removed the materials from her bag and bandaged his hand properly.

  “We’ll have to have it seen to after supper. Henry should be home soon. You have a game tonight. I hope you’ll be able to play.”

  “The playoffs,” April said, her coloured pencil in motion.

  “He’s not going to be happy,” Beryl said ominously.

  “You’re in for it,” May added.

  Beryl was right.

  Henry had worked later than usual. He burst into the noisy dressing room, stuffing his gloves into his overcoat pockets, eyes scanning the room as he counted heads. He went to Aidan, shedding his coat and murmuring quiet replies to boys who tossed him a “Hi, Coach,” as he passed.

  “How’s your hand? Can you play? What did the doctor say?” Henry snapped.

  Aidan was awkwardly double-knotting his skate lace. “She told me I’d know for sure when the freezing wears off.” He didn’t add that strenuous activity might open the wound and delay healing.