by Diana Wieler
I’ll just go in and warm up, A.J. thought. If he’s there, okay. If not, I’ll forget the whole thing and go home.
When he pushed open the door, the warmth and light made his eyes gloss over, the way people’s eyeglasses fogged. He took off his biking gloves and flexed his fingers, standing in the doorway. But he didn’t want it to seem like he was looking for somebody, so he walked to the coffee bar and settled onto one of the swivel seats. Behind him he could hear the sharp crack, crack of pool balls, and the sound of young men kidding each other. The waitress wandered over.
“Hot chocolate,” A.J. said. “No … uh, coffee.” He’d been trying to drink more coffee lately. It seemed older.
As soon as the waitress was gone, he twisted sideways and turned his attention to the pool table area. He was very casual. If he did find Tully, he wanted it to look like an accident.
A.J. glanced around, trying not to stare. It looked like most pool rooms — dim, perhaps cleaner than most. There were six of the big green tables and racks of cues. There were cheap wooden chairs, tin ashtrays and, of course, guys playing pool. Most of them were young, maybe his age, maybe older. And there were a few punkers. A.J. instantly recognized the high spiked hair and black clothes, like a uniform. He relaxed.
It seemed okay, not a biker hangout or a hotbed of organized crime. If Tully came down to this neighbourhood to shoot a little pool by himself or whatever, so what?
He heard his coffee being set on the counter behind him and turned back to it. Taking a sip, he looked at the other end of the counter and noticed for the first time he wasn’t alone. There were two guys sitting together. They were so close that their shoulders touched, in the familiar way of people who knew each other, very well.
They’re queer, A.J. thought suddenly. As the information registered in his brain, a pulse of electricity ran through his body, bursting painfully in his fingertips. Slowly, he eased his chair around and looked back at the pool room.
The room was the same, but his vision had changed. It seemed to him that the atmosphere was different from other pool rooms he’d been in. There wasn’t the standoffishness, the usual coolness of a group of men. The pool players seemed to kid each other more, touch each other more. And against the far wall in a darkened corner, he could make out two figures, pressed tightly together.
A.J. whirled back to his coffee, his fists clenched. I’m in a freaking queer joint — me! — in a queer joint! Anybody comes over, I’ll deck him, A.J. thought savagely, even though no one had moved towards him or really looked his way. He stood up abruptly and pulled a crumpled bill out of his front jeans pocket. His eyes were so glazed he didn’t know if it was a one or a five. He tossed the money onto the counter beside the almost-full cup of coffee, and headed for the door.
In three strides he was at the entrance way, and pushed his way out onto the sidewalk. He almost slammed into Tully, who’d been reaching for the door. Number 19 was with him, his arm resting across Tully’s shoulders, his hand draped casually against Tully’s neck.
A.J. stood for a moment, staring stupidly. His eyes seemed to focus on Tully’s neck, on the hand that touched the bare skin so carelessly. There were no words connected to the picture he saw. He felt as distant as a dream.
The colour had drained from Tully’s face, and his eyes flashed suddenly emerald under the false light of the streetlamps.
“A.J.,” he whispered. A.J. felt the word like a knee. A curdling sensation spread outwards from his gut. He turned and lurched down the street, not looking behind him, not even once. At his bike, he struggled with the lock. There seemed to be no sensation in his fingers.
“Come on, come on!” he hissed at himself. Terror was rising in the back of his throat, terror that he would hear footsteps on the pavement behind him. The moment the bike was free, he was up on it, wheeling down the street. But he couldn’t seem to get his balance. He swayed and swerved as if he were drunk.
The wind screamed past his ears and tore at his chest. He’d left his jacket open and had forgotten the biking gloves on the counter of the coffee bar. He was vaguely aware that he was freezing, but he didn’t care. His arms were like pieces of wood that attached him to the bike, and his legs pedalled numbly, desperately.
Suddenly a car horn blasted beside him, and he veered sharply. The bike jack-knifed and he tumbled, his hands skidding over the asphalt.
The car’s brakes screeched and a man leapt out. “Oh, my God, oh, my God! Are you all right?”
A.J. sat up blankly.
“You were all over the road,” the man moaned, reaching to help the boy up. “What’s the matter with you? Are you on drugs or something, kid?”
Now the pain registered, gouging him. He wrenched himself out of the man’s grasp.
“Screw you,” he spat, holding his hands away from him as if they were clubs. The man stepped back, frightened.
“It was an accident, kid. You were all over the road, for cryin’ out loud. Maybe we should get you to the hospital.”
“Screw you!” A.J. screamed, and the water that sprang to his eyes burned him, blinded him. The man scrambled back into his car, but stuck his head out of the window as he revved the engine.
“You’re sick, kid. You should get to the hospital!” A.J. leapt at the car and kicked the door with the heel of his boot. Hard. He felt the metal dent. The car roared away, tires squealing.
For a minute A.J. just stood by the side of the road, shaking. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket, fighting the urge to break down and sob. His hands were on fire.
“Get home,” he muttered to himself. “Just get home.” He brushed the loose stones from his hands and managed to get up on his bike. He leaned forward on the handlebars, resting on the edge of his palms. A picture burned in the very back of his brain, but he wouldn’t look at it.
SIX
TULLY stood in the doorway of Chicco’s like a mannequin. His power of movement had been yanked away on the sidewalk, when the first thunderbolt of shock had driven up from his stomach to his throat.
I knew this was coming, he thought, watching the back of A.J.’s jacket until it disappeared. Goddamn it, I knew. But knowing never made you ready. There were some things you couldn’t rehearse.
Derek finally steered him through the doors and over to the coffee counter, just a few seats from A.J.’s full cup. Tully saw the black and yellow biking gloves and picked them up, imagining what had happened. He could almost feel the aftershock still rolling outwards from the chair.
Tully ordered a Coke and sat, watching the bubbles rise to the surface. Derek ordered a chocolate float and drank the whole thing, noisily, with a straw. After a few minutes, he took hold of the back of Tully’s jean jacket and tugged, just once.
“I think the big bad defense just had his perspective widened,” Derek said. “Think he’ll recover?”
His voice was icy with practised disregard. Tully, who was usually intrigued by that mean streak, wasn’t. Right now he hated it.
“Could you take a crash course in being human?” Tully said, staring at the counter. “That was my friend.”
“Oh, right. Your friend.” Derek put an ugly slant on the word. Tully fought the urge to hit him.
A.J. had been a raw spot between them from the start. Derek was sarcastic about how much time A.J. spent in the Mustang, and the weight set in Tully’s basement.
“How cosy,” he’d smirked.
Tully had tried to explain, and gave up. Derek had lovers and acquaintances and enemies. He certainly had no one like A.J.
Now maybe I don’t, either, Tully thought. He felt sick.
Derek sighed irritably. “I don’t understand what you’re so worried about,” he said. “Did you see his face? The kid’s not capable of telling anyone. And if he could, who would he tell? The Yearbook Committee? Junior Hockey News?”
I’m worried about what he thinks, not what he says, Tully thought. But it was useless to tell Derek. The blond boy stood up abruptly.
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br /> “I have to go,” he said.
Derek swiveled around, alarmed, but he caught himself and shrugged.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
“No,” Tully blurted out, his voice rising so sharply that a few people looked over. He hesitated, wringing the soft leather biking gloves. “I’ll call you.”
“When?”
When it’s better, Tully thought. When I don’t feel so bad I want to puke. When I’ve talked to him and smoothed it out and got it to where he understands, a little.
“When I’m good and ready,” Tully said.
Derek shrugged and reached for Tully’s untouched glass of Coke. He slid it smoothly across the counter and began to drink it. But when Tully had turned, Derek set down the glass and watched him go, his grey eyes as alert as a lynx’s.
Tully drove around until almost midnight. He turned up the heat in the Mustang, but he kept having chills — tremors that made his scalp crawl as they ran over him. It felt like the flu.
He found himself driving the streets dangerously close to A.J.’s house. He knew he had a legitimate excuse — the biking gloves that lay on the passenger seat — but it was late. He was ashamed by his desire to fix it now.
A.J. frustrated the hell out of him sometimes. He was stubborn and single-minded and self-absorbed. He was also one of the sanest people Tully knew. A.J. never played mind games. Tully knew he could just be with A.J. and not worry about what he was saying, or how he was acting. It was such a relief. These last couple of years, with his dad and everything, A.J. had leaned on him. But Tully knew he had been leaning, too.
When the boy finally pulled into his own driveway, the house was dark and silent. He went straight into the family room and fumbled through his cartoon video cassettes. Tully loved cartoons, and he was hungry for something that would make him stop thinking. He plunked in a whole tape of Huckleberry Hound and slumped onto the couch. He didn’t turn on the lights; he didn’t take off his jacket.
Summer came in in her housecoat. “You’re late,” she said. “You’re going to get grounded. Mom and Dad say go to bed.”
“No,” he said, the strain pulling the word apart. He winced.
Summer paused and took a step closer. “Tully … is something wrong?”
He shook his head roughly.
She took another step. “I won’t tell Dad,” she said softly.
Don’t touch me, he prayed. Don’t put your hand on my shoulder, don’t put your hand on my hair. He was so close to the brink that all it would take was that one gesture, the touch of family, to send him sliding.
His face was turned away from her, but Summer felt the warning, and something leapt inside her. For a moment she just watched the lights from the television flicker on her brother’s hair.
She was wondering about A.J., where he’d gone that night, what he’d seen.
SEVEN
A.J. awoke in the dark, before the alarm. He felt like a stone at the bottom of a deep pool. When his eyes focused on the familiar shapes of his bureau and desk, relief swelled under his ribs.
He glanced at the clock. The luminous green numbers read 4:28. He knew it would ring at any moment; he had hockey practice this morning, before school. Reluctantly he pulled his arm out from under the warm quilt and clapped down on the button.
The pain almost made him cry out. For a moment he just lay curled up on his side, gasping. But he had to see.
He staggered out of bed and pushed up the light switch with his forearm. Just looking made him wince.
The asphalt had turned his palms to bloody burlap, and his fingers were swollen and stiff.
He lifted his head then and caught his reflection in the small mirror that hung beside the bureau. He had to look twice. He didn’t know that face, the colour of an old sheet, blue hollows under the eyes. His right shoulder ached — he was sure something had stretched — and the pounding in his head was worse than any hangover. He felt like he’d been on the losing end of a drunken brawl.
He leaned back, the wall cold against his naked shoulders. The picture was burning a hole in his head, and the word came speeding at him, vicious, whiplike. But he caught it before contact.
It’s a joke, A.J., a joke. Come on. Where’s your sense of humour? You know him. You know him like yourself. God, he’s such a goof. Crazy Tul.
And beneath the words in his head, like the unseen tug of the tide, was the feeling. It isn’t because it can’t be.
A.J. pushed himself away from the wall and began looking for his clothes.
By five o’clock he was on his way down the stairs. When he heard the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, it made him pause. Of course his father was up — he had to be at the dairy by six — but it had slipped the boy’s mind somehow. A.J. didn’t want to see anyone; he didn’t want to have to talk. And underneath his determined exterior was the small, irrational fear that the night still showed on him, like a bruise.
In the kitchen he turned abruptly towards the counter.
“Hi, Dad,” he mumbled. He poured steaming coffee into a mug, trying to use only his fingertips, which hurt the least.
Decco Brandiosa was leaning against the other counter, right in front of the sink. Mornings were kind to him. Sleep had smoothed away some of the creases, and he looked younger, trimmer, in his lawn-green uniform.
“You were late last night,” he said.
A.J. swallowed and kept moving. Gingerly he pulled bread out of the bag and dropped two slices into the toaster.
“I know,” he said.
“I wanted you to help me move the couch back.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” A.J. said shortly. “We’ll do it tonight.”
“Tonight is too late. I needed you last night.”
“Well, let’s move the bloody thing now, then!” A.J. jerked around irritably.
Decco stared, unmoving, but his eyes narrowed.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
The question gave the boy an uncomfortable start, but then he realized his father was talking about his hands. A.J. turned back to the counter.
“I fell off my bike.”
“Were you hit?”
“No …”
“Were you drinking?”
“Jesus Christ!” A.J. slammed the butter knife down on the counter. “Is that all you ever think about? I was sideswiped, okay? By a car, okay? I’m sorry — I didn’t get his phone number so you could call and check it out. I will next time, okay?!”
A.J. caught himself. Oh, God, what was he yelling for? He almost never yelled, almost never raised his voice, not here in the house. He held his breath.
But his father just stared at him intently, and said, “There’s Mercurochrome in the medicine cabinet. And gauze.”
A.J. heard the click of the toaster, and it gave him an excuse to turn away. For a moment the only sound was the scraping of his knife over the bread.
“It’s okay,” he said at last. “I used some already.” And then, “I’m sorry.”
His father didn’t reply but the silence wasn’t angry, it was expectant. He’s waiting for me to tell him, the boy realized. The courtesy was as unexpected as a hug. A.J. sat at the table, forcing down the toast and thinking again how different this last month had been. He was wondering if maybe sometime they really could talk.
Decco had his coat on now and was collecting his lunch from the fridge. He stopped and looked out the window.
“Tully’s here,” he said, “with the car.”
A.J.’s stomach lurched. He wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t have it all planned out in his head yet, what to say and how to act.
“Better hustle,” Decco said. “He’s on his way up the walk.”
That did it. A.J. leapt out of his chair and grabbed his jacket. He was suddenly frightened of letting Tully into the house. He couldn’t meet his eyes, not here in the kitchen in front of his father.
A.J. scooped up his hockey equipment, grimacing as he slung his skates over the hurt
shoulder.
“I won’t be home for supper,” Decco said. “Get something for yourself, okay?”
“See you later,” A.J. murmured, and then he was through the door, pushing past Tully who was just coming up the steps.
“Hi, thanks for the ride, let’s go,” A.J. said, the words all rushing together. He didn’t look up.
By the time Tully crawled in behind the steering wheel, A.J. was already slouched in the passenger seat, half-hidden by the duffle bag on his knees. The blond boy snapped the Mustang into first gear, spraying loose gravel.
At first there was no sound except the engine and the radio. A.J. concentrated on staring out his side window, unconsciously clutching his skates and bag, as if he expected someone to grab for them. At a stoplight, Tully let go of the steering wheel and reached behind his seat.
“Here,” he said, dropping the biking gloves on top of A.J.’s bag. “You left them at Chicco’s.”
A.J. felt a small puncture at the mention of the pool hall but he was grateful for some kind of words to fill the silence.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, looking at his palms, “better late than never.”
Tully stared. “Holy mother, what happened to you?” he asked, leaning closer for a better look. A.J. flinched, a reflex, but so obvious that he could have kicked himself.
“Can you believe it?” he laughed nervously. “Evel Knievel got sides wiped on his bike.”
“You’ve gotta stop racing those eighteen wheelers,” Tully said, grinning half-heartedly. “They’re sore losers.”
Conversation sat like a boulder in front of them, but they tried to push it along. They talked about biking and hockey and the game that night, grasping for anything safe. When A.J. listened to himself, it was like listening to a stranger. He was distant and formal, and so polite. He barely knew what he was saying because his mind was racing ahead, planning what to say next.