Doc tiptoes toward the utility room door and fiddles with the metal handle. When the knob turns, he smiles at me in disbelief and opens it slowly. The room is filled to capacity with colourful sporting equipment: soccer balls, baseball bats, hula hoops, jumping ropes, plastic scoops, red dodge balls, little wooden scooters—everything we used to play with as kids. Doc rubs his hands together in excitement and then finds a plastic hockey stick with an orange blade on the wall and tosses it to me.
“I’ll go in net,” he says.
He puts on a white goalie mask and a baseball glove and then we set up a hockey net below the stage. I fold a curve into the blade of the stick and use it to move a tennis ball around on the floor. When Doc is ready, I try to shoot it past him. Every time he makes a save, he calls out in triumph; anytime I score, he screams profanity. Like with basketball, our skills are rusty, but over the course of ten minutes our ability steadily returns and I remember how to shoot and stickhandle and fire a wrist shot.
Doc challenges me to a best-of-five shootout: five penalty shots where the stake of the game is hypothetical world domination. I miss wide on the first chance, but score through his legs on the next two. He curses at me and dares me to try it again; I ignore him and shoot it toward the top corner on his glove side instead. He does the splits and catches the ball, spinning his arm around like a windmill.
“Ha! Patrick Roy, motherfucker!” he shouts at me.
The pressure is on for the fifth and final shot. We’re tied at two points each. The world is at stake. I deke the tennis ball to my right, to my backhand, and then to my right again. He crouches and prepares to make the save. I fake the shot, he flinches, and so I roll the ball softly between his feet and into the mesh at the back of the net.
“Goddammit!” he yells. Then he throws his stick to the floor in disgust and says, regrettably, “The world is yours.”
“Sweet.”
“Go again?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Suddenly we hear footsteps reverberating through an adjacent hallway. A tall man wearing a white baseball cap, a white shirt, red shorts and a pair of clean running shoes marches into the gymnasium. Like a stereotypical gym teacher, he has a whistle hanging from his neck and a wooden clipboard in his hand. I expect animosity, but his face is smiling and amicable.
“Hey guys!” he announces. “You here for the summer camp?”
Doc shuffles nervously. I know he’s about to spill the beans and tell the coach that we trespassed in here just to use and perhaps steal his sporting equipment, but my first instinct is to lie. Fortunately, I beat him to it.
“Yes. Yes, we are,” I say confidently.
“You’re a bit early. I don’t think the kids are due for another two hours,” he explains. “You brought a change of clothes, right? You’re not really dressed the part.” I glance down and realize I’m still wearing grey jeans and brown shoes.
“Yeah, we brought shorts,” I say.
“So, which one of us hired you guys?” he asks.
“Uh . . ,” I mumble in an attempt to stall for time. I look over at Doc and he stares back at me with widened eyes. I try to think of a common male name. “Mike?”
“Mike? Are you sure?”
“Something like that. Started with an M.”
“Hmm. I don’t know a Mike. What’d he look like?”
“Uh . . . brown hair? He had sort of a . . . round face . . . with very, uh, robust features.”
“Really? That doesn’t sound like anybody I know.”
“Well, to be honest, his face wasn’t that robust.”
“Hmm. What did you say your names were again?”
Doc and I both turn to each other with the same startled expression. His body language is leaning toward the back door and I silently concur. “Abort!” I yell, and we drop our sticks and start sprinting toward the exit, running as fast as we can through the doorway and into the parking lot. Doc scrambles to unlock the car.
“Come on, man!” I shout.
“I’m trying!” he replies, fiddling with the keys while still wearing the baseball glove on his hand. He discards the glove and opens the door and we quickly start the car and fishtail out of the parking lot. The coach comes outside just in time to see us speeding off in a trail of dust and smoke. He looks baffled and confused.
“Woo!” I holler as we drive away. “That was awesome.”
“Man, that was hilarious! I thought he was gonna kill us.”
“Same. Sorry I’m not a better liar.”
“Uh . . . Mike?” he imitates mockingly. “Nice try though.”
Once the adrenaline abates, I say, “Thanks for taking me there, by the way.”
“No problem. I haven’t played ball hockey in forever. We’ve gotta do that more often.”
“What, break into schools?”
“Yeah.”
“Agreed.”
THIRTY
It’s midday and we’re relaxing on patio chairs overlooking a beach on Lake Huron. Neither Karen nor Charlie ask me about my swollen eye upon meeting me. Maybe they think it’s a birthmark. Charlie barbecues hamburgers and hotdogs on the deck and offers me a beer, but I decline, opting for water instead. Doc happily takes the beer. We also snack on a bag of cheese curds we bought from a farm and they’re so fresh they squeak against my teeth. Charlie asks us about our drive to the cottage and we make small talk about how great the weather is and how the Blue Jays have been playing this season; Karen tells us their son Jacob is napping, but he’ll soon wake up and come say hello.
Charlie is older than I thought he would be. Karen looks mature, even though she’s only thirty years old, but he must be on the other side of forty. His hair is long and beginning to grey and his face appears tired and worn. When he speaks, his voice is calm and assured, but there’s a listlessness in his eyes, like a light that’s been extinguished. Still, he’s friendly and talkative and seems fairly well-read. He helps us unload the car and bring our bags into the guest rooms and the inside of the cottage is larger than I imagined. There are hardwood floors and big windows and the smell of old wood and nature permeate the place. In the living room, several pieces of dusty furniture are situated around a neglected television and a few bookshelves, one of which is stacked with board games. The three of us sit at a table outside and play a game of cribbage with an antique pegboard and I manage to squeak out a victory in the first round, but Charlie wins the second round handedly. Frustrated, Doc knocks over all the pegs and refuses to partake in a rubber match. Then, in an act of defiance, he breaks the board over his knee and tosses it into the lake.
Later, while Doc is napping in his room, Charlie and I have a smoke outside on the deck while staring at the scattered waves. He’s got a bottle of beer in one hand and a perfectly rolled joint in the other and he asks me if I want to partake with him.
“Thanks, but I’m alright,” I say. “I’m still recovering from last night.”
He lights the joint with a match and inhales before asking, “So, how’d you get that shiner?”
“Got punched in the face. But you should see the other guy!”
“Yeah?”
“He looks great.”
Charlie laughs. “You didn’t get him back, huh?”
“No. I had him by the collar, but for some reason I held back.”
“Hmm. Probably for the best. It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Yeah, it should heal pretty quick, maybe in a week or two.”
A few moments pass and then Charlie, perhaps in an enlightened state of mind due to the cannabis, says, “If I asked you about a midlife crisis—what do you think that is?”
Initially, I’m staggered by the question, but I can see in his eyes that he’s earnest for an honest conversation. People rarely try to initiate a real dialogue with me, so I’m pleased whenever it happens. “I guess
it’s about regretting the decisions you’ve made.”
“Karen . . . she complains I’m not the same guy she married. The guy she met six years ago.”
I can’t think of anything to say, so I just nod and listen.
“Let me prepare you for the midlife crisis,” he says calmly, exhaling smoke. “When you’re twenty, you really don’t know what you’re doing. You go out, you try to have fun, you meet people, but it’s all pretty aimless until you reach thirty. Then it hits you, and you start to figure it all out—who you are, what you want, where you should be. But you only really know for sure around the time you turn forty. The sad reality is, by that time, you’re too old to act, to take advantage of what you’ve learned. You’re kinda . . . at the mercy of the life you’ve already created for yourself. And that’s where the frustration comes from. You finally know what you want, but you’re no longer in a position to get it. So, do I regret the decisions I made in my twenties? No, not really. Because the truth is . . . I never really made any.”
At that moment, Karen walks through the sliding doors holding three-year-old Jacob by the hand. “Somebody wants to say hello,” she says as Jacob runs at us and leaps onto his father’s lap. Charlie quickly snuffs out the joint into a nearby ashtray and cradles his son in his arms.
“Did you meet Ethan yet?”
I smile and wave at Jacob. He gawks at me.
“What happened to your eye?” he asks inquisitively.
“I got hit with a baseball.”
He points at my eyebrow.
“You’re cut!”
“It was a sharp baseball.”
He grins and hops onto the grass and starts running around.
“Hey, Jacob, show Ethan your exercise program,” says Charlie.
Jacob looks at me with a stern expression on his face while puffing out his cheeks and extending his arms as far as they’ll go. Then he starts spinning around in a circle like a top. After three seconds he gets dizzy and goes completely limp and collapses face-up on the ground. He lies there motionless a moment and then begins to giggle and we all laugh.
“Very nice,” says Charlie as he casually applauds. “He’s a great kid.”
Jacob stands up and runs over to me, jumping onto my stomach and nearly knocking the wind out of me. Then he puts his arms around my neck and gives me a big hug. I don’t know how to act around children; they typically make me uncomfortable because you can’t swear or smoke around them and they’re always noisy and shitting everywhere, but this kid seems alright. He has a nice personality and great parents and a decent chance of turning into a normal, well-adjusted human being. With his arms still gripping my neck, I give him a pat on the back and say, “Thanks, buddy. You’re alright.”
He smiles and hops off my chair and runs inside.
“He’s a real great kid,” Charlie repeats. “Tons of energy. Happy and smiling all the time. Never whines. The people at the daycare just love him.”
“Yeah. He’s gonna do fine.”
THIRTY-ONE
I’m crouching at the edge of the guest room bed, rummaging through my backpack in search of my phone. When I find it, I’m dismayed to see the battery is nearly empty and I forgot to bring the charger. I decide to scroll through the contact list and scribble a few numbers into a notebook in case I need them later. Then I come across a new entry from last night: Sofia. I stare at it a moment and wonder who the hell Sofia is before the clouded image of her face reappears in my mind. While the memory is obscured, I can barely recall the colour of her hair and the sound of her voice and standing in front of her building as we parted ways in the early hours of the morning.
I turn off my phone and walk into Doc’s room and ask him if there’s a landline I can use.
“Only if it’s a local call,” he answers. “I don’t want my parents getting any long distance charges. They’ll blame me and that’s the one thing I stand against. Is it a local call?”
“No.”
“Fuck!” he says. “Alright.”
He shows me to an old rotary phone on a nightstand in the corner before leaving the room and closing the door behind him. I push my finger into the metal circle and turn the dial and let it roll all the way back into place and then repeat the process for ten more digits. The phone rings. Adrenaline kicks in and I’m scratching at the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Sofia? This is Ethan. I know it’s kind of a weird time to call, but—”
“I’m sorry, who?”
“Ethan. From last night?”
Her voice sounds tired and desiccated, as if she’s still lying in bed half-asleep. “Oh, right. Ethan.”
My initial enthusiasm begins to shrivel. “We met at that after-hours bar, I think? Then I walked you home.”
The line is silent for a moment. “Oh, yeah. I drank so much. I’m sick now. It’s hard to know what I was doing.”
Well this is ironic. She barely remembers me. I guess it would be hypocritical of me to get upset. I never should have called. We’d never work in the real world anyway.
“It’s cool,” I mumble nonchalantly. “Happens to me all the time. You should, uh, drink some water and sleep it off. Hopefully you’ll feel better soon.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. Call me again some other time, okay?”
“Will do.”
I slowly hang up the phone. When I walk outside to the back of the cottage I find Doc sitting on the beach by himself. He’s squinting at the lake and casually sipping a bottle of beer while occasionally skipping stones across the water. Heavy clouds have temporarily blocked out the sun and it looks like it might rain. I light a cigarette and take a seat on the sand beside him.
“Hey.”
“Yo. Who’d you have to call?”
“That girl from last night.”
“Oh yeah? How’d it go?”
“She’s still asleep.”
“Shit, I don’t blame her. We were out pretty late.”
We fall silent a moment. Doc keeps skipping stones, and they bounce once or twice along the surface of the water before getting lost in the waves. I hunch forward so that my arms are resting on my knees and say, “I was thinking about what we talked about earlier. You know, about high school.”
“What about it?”
“It was all bullshit, wasn’t it? I wish I’d known. If only I could go back and tell myself, ‘Look, here’s how it is. As soon as you leave this place, you’ll never see any of these people ever again. They’ll forget about you and you’ll forget about them, so focus on what you want to do after school instead of wasting time worrying about girls or grades or any of that shit.’ They tried to make it seem so much more important than it really was, y’know? I mean, I remember when I used to watch TV shows about kids in high school—they were all played by actors in their twenties and they hung out in restaurants all day and there were never any scenes where they were actually in class ’cause that’d be boring. Nobody ever had braces or breakouts or looked awkward like they do in real life and then, on Sunday mornings, they’d play those teen movies from the eighties with the sappy soundtracks. And so, after years of watching all that, I remember when I actually got to high school, I expected it to be so much better than it really was. Instead, it was just fucking boring. I spent most of the time staring at the clock and waiting for the day to end, or sitting on the goddamn floor in the hallway between classes. Even on weekends we’d just drive around drinking beer and smoking cheap cigars in parking lots until one day, just like that, it was over. We graduated and we had the prom and it’s supposed to be some big deal, the most important night of our lives, but Rachael and I had an awful time and it was over and done with before I knew it. We all said we’d keep in touch, but everybody kinda forgot about each other as soon as we left. I bet most of them wouldn’t even remember me now. So now I’m thinking, ‘
Why the hell did I care so much in the first place?’ Later, I go to college, and I think, ‘Well, it’s gonna be like Animal House,’ y’know, with drunken toga parties and that song ‘Louie Louie’ and all that kinda shit, and I remember I showed up at the residence on the first night, and it’s a Friday night, and so I expect everybody to be getting drunk and being social, but when ten o’clock rolls around they’re all just sitting in their rooms talking to their friends back home on their computers. Shit, we weren’t even allowed to drink legally until we were nineteen, so I usually had to pay an older kid to buy me booze so I could chug two-dollar tall-boys of this disgusting ten-percent beer in my shitty dorm room, which was barely big enough to fit a mattress. So then I go looking for something better, and I move onto different cities and go to different schools, but the story is always the same, and I always end up drinking at a bar by myself. I finally get my degree only to find out it’s not worth the paper it’s written on because nobody gives a shit about a bachelor of arts anymore—you need a masters degree or a PhD and even then they might not care—they give away bachelor degrees to anyone who’s got the time and money and can answer a few multiple-choice questions. So then I try to go out and get a regular job, like normal people, but nobody will hire me because I don’t have any experience ’cause I just spent the last six years of my life in school trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do. I can’t even get a monkey’s job at the mall because, for some reason, the piece of shit manager doesn’t like the way I look, or the way I talk, or he would rather hire a pretty girl ’cause he’s never been laid and he figures he might get lucky if she works for him—and he won’t, by the way. Then, one day, the entire economy fucking tanks because some greedy assholes in the United States who I’ve never even met before decided to gamble with other people’s money and lost it all and caused a goddamn global recession. Yet those assholes get to keep their jobs and give themselves million-dollar bonuses while I can’t even get a job at the goddamn mall! Then the older generation looks at you, and they’re like, ‘What’s wrong with this kid?’ because back in their day the unemployment rate was three percent and there were opportunities everywhere and you could throw a dart out a window and hit a fucking job—there was no competition from China or India and you could support an entire family on a single assembly-line income. Now, the price of gas and food and rent and tuition is, like, four times higher than it was before, while wages have flatlined for decades and yet they can’t understand why we have such a hard time making it. All they care about is lowering their taxes so they can drive big SUVs and go on luxury cruises and live it up before they die. I mean, seriously, if they had just told us to get a degree in, like, human resource management or computer sciences or something like that, I would’ve fucking done it! Instead they coddled us, told us we were all special, and said ‘follow your dreams’ and ‘you can be anything you want to be’ so go out there and be a rock star or an actor or an astronaut and it was all fucking bullshit! I wish one person, just one, would’ve taken me aside and said, ‘This is how it is. The world’s different now.’ So no, I don’t give a shit about my ten-year reunion. I don’t need to know what my friends from high school are doing because I already know the answer. They’re doing nothing. They’re doing fuck-all. Nobody is. Everybody knows there’s a problem, everybody knows we’re heading off a goddamn cliff, but they do absolutely nothing about it. I mean, I keep waiting for something, anything, good to happen, but . . .”
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