by Lisa Hannett
There’s tea and coffee at the fifty yard line, Jo-Beth from the school canteen said, pointing a chubby arm halfway up the east stands. A trestle had been set up on the concourse there, supporting a couple of them big metal urns, Styrofoam cups stacked in the drizzle beside ’em. Help yerselves.
But the boys?
Jo-Beth sniffed, wiped the steam from her oversize glasses. Talk to Adeline yonder--yeah, Cooper’s mama. The blonde with the poncho there. She’s keeping track on who’s gone, updating the list, taking details on folks’ movements. Chatting with Sheriff and them scuba folk, letting ’em know where and when the guys was last seen. Liaising she calls it. Triangulating a position.
Reckon Miss Adeline’s watched one too many cop shows, we said, but went to give her Zeb’s details nonetheless.
As we sloshed through the rain, we weathered a downpour of cold glances. Nice of y’all to show up, the townsfolk said with side-eyes and sneers. Y’all hiding something? Where’s your Zeb been? Our boys’d follow yers anywhere, wouldn’t they just. Where’s he led them now? We kept our heads down, stepped careful onto the concrete stairs. Didn’t dignify their accusations with answers.
Nothing like an emergency to bring out folks’ meanest knee-jerks.
As captain, our Zeb ain’t never led them Reapers nowhere but to the championship. He sure as hell led them boys true on the field, didn’t he just, but off it? Well, he weren’t no ringleader. At the worst of times, we knew, our lad became a sheep.
So when Miss Adeline asked after Zeb, we told her only what she needed to know and not a whit more. Three days gone, that’s right. He took old Angus--our best ox--over to clear the corn-mile without so much as a feedbag on his back. Seen hide nor hair of either of ’em since. Nope, weren’t none of the Reapers with ’em. She jotted a few notes, ticked a few boxes on sheets she’d printed up herself. Squinted at our faces overlong, then waved us over to the last semi-dry benches.
There, hunkered under a good-for-nothing awning, we ate our sandwiches. Sipped cold coffee from our thermos lids. Passed on the orange wedges someone rustled up from the locker rooms. Blocked our ears against the hooting and hollering of young girlfriends; the histrionics of young mammas, wailing about trauma and victims and suing for damages. The attention-grabbing farce of it all.
As if their boys was the only ones missing.
As if this disaster were all about them.
Forcing our food down, we fixed our gazes on the snorkelers. Kept ourselves to ourselves. We wouldn’t entertain no talk of victims, we decided there and then. Not ’til Coach brung up some bodies.
* * *
Only corpse the swim team found was two tons heavier than any of our lads, and a sight worse for its time in the water. Bloated and crow-pecked, old Angus looked like he’d been bobbing in the flood-stream for a month, though we knew it couldn’t of been more’n four days.
What’re we supposed to do with him, we asked when Coach floated the poor ox to our pickup, parked close as we could get it to the school grounds. Why not leave him for the birds?
Well, didn’t Reverend go and cross himself at that, muttering nonsense about tending all God’s creatures, as if this sack of rot and gas was anything He’d want stinking up His kingdom. Adeline rolled her black-lined eyes. Ushering folk toward their cars, she steered ’em this way and that, anywhere but in our vicinity. As if suddenly we’d soaked up some of old Angus’ stench. As if, no more’n a few weeks ago, Miss Adeline herself hadn’t been pining for our attention. As if the whole grinning lot of ’em hadn’t been sidling up to our Zeb at the butcher’s or Betty’s Diner or the gas station, shaking his game-winning hands, hoping some of his good luck on the field would somehow rub off on their own kids. As if they didn’t wish their sons was even half so golden as our boy.
In dire times, folk always seek out effigies to burn. Scapegoats to draw the devil’s own wrath. Tributes to appease fickle gods.
We got it.
Meanwhile, Coach peeled off his diving suit and mask. Leave no man behind, he said, the red suction ring on his face accentuating the glare he shot our way. Parade-ground stiff, he scowled then shook his head. As if we was the queer ones for not seeing humanity in this here dead cow. As if we’d killed it ourselves.
Thanks for your trouble, sir, we said. Them back-to-back tours Coach’d done in the desert had left him raw in unexpected places, so we didn’t say nothing snide. If anyone could of brung our boys home, we know it would of been you.
Only, that weren’t entirely true.
There were still as good a chance as any the Reapers’d come rolling home tomorrow, we thought, with mud behind their ears and grins smudged on their goofball faces. Still a chance they’d left of their own volition, still a chance that’s how they’d return.
It was premature to talk funerals, we reckoned, no matter what Adeline’s clipboard had scheduled. Our boys were fighting-fit, they were athletes--goddammit, they were champions--but that didn’t mean they weren’t young. Sometimes irresponsible. Often stupid. Weren’t a single one of ’em who hadn’t gone AWOL when the pressure was on, wasting exam days at the honkytonk, glugging lunchtime pints when they needed to blow off steam.
Whether it were sooner or later, whenever the lads finally showed up we knew our anger--and sweet Jesus, we was angry--would tatter like last year’s grandstand banners, and simply drift away.
We hoped it’d be sooner.
We feared for later.
It’s too much, we said, a full week after our Zeb disappeared. What with the yearlings to break, veal to slaughter, drainage holes to bore in the home-fields--not to mention the roof wanting new shingles, the shed’s hinges wanting repairs, the chain on the grain elevator wanting an upgrade--what with the damp already settling into our lad’s room, the dank smell of blue-mould overpowering all traces of his aftershave, that clamminess replacing his warmth. It’s all too much, we said, spitting into the foul waters what stole him.
We spilled extra salt onto our supper that evening. Stooped over our taters and beans, we indulged and just let despair flow. Once the plates had been cleared, the oats set to soak overnight, we went out to the porch swing. Uncorked a bottle of Jo-Beth’s smoothest brandy. Sipped and wept and gazed out on our drowned patch of dirt ’til the world hazed before us. Heads and hearts wilting, we slept where we sat, blanketed in booze and woe.
* * *
Our Zeb shook us awake.
Come in from the rain, he said, the edges of his body blue-blurred in the wan sunrise. Grip gentle, his fingers snagged our arms like loose strands of riverweed. His hair was grubby, dangling in soaked rattails. Longer’n it were before, the tips grazed his shoulders, once-beautiful brown locks now replaced by manky green. A cheap dye-job, we thought, what with the colour bleeding down his forehead like that, sliming his temples and jaw. Algae pooled in the dips of his collarbones.
Where’s yer jersey, boy?
Hardly a day passed when Zeb weren’t wearing some version of his winning six-six, showing off that ‘C’ sewn above his heart. A cotton T- or a sweatshirt for ploughing. Tank top for gym sessions. Long-sleeve mesh for pep rallies and the real deal when he were out on field. Crimson for away games. White for home.
But now his jeans were no better’n rags, frayed and short as Daisy Dukes, and on the rest of him not a single stitch was left hanging. Mottled blue-white, his skin was cold as a trout when we hugged him close. Gone rubbery in the rain, it absorbed the thwack of our palms as we patted his back. As we knocked him upside the head.
Where you been, boy? Where the hell you been?
Our Zeb weren’t never one for shrugging. Silent, he blinked at us.
Did y’all have fun while we was here worrying ourselves sick?
You could say that, he said. What little focus he’d had now slipped from his gaze, and a flush rose in his cheeks. He half-turned away, watched gouts of water spilling over the eaves. A smile played on his lips, both wistful and proud--an expression we’d seen time and
time and time again, after he’d tumbled some local gal, popped some cheerleader’s cherry.
Is that what this is? Y’all were out getting laid?
Took a while, this time, for him to answer. Not that he were ashamed--we could see, by the uplift in his chin, the hands-on-hips pose he struck, it weren’t that. More like he were lingering awhiles in the memory. Keeping it to hisself just that much longer before sharing it. Pondering the right words to explain what he’d done. Or what had been done to him.
The moment stretched, unbearable. In the yard, a pair of mallards paddled above the flowerbed, the drake’s glossy head vibrant against the grey sky, the hen speckled and drab as the weather. Clouds darkened the heavens from here to the horizon, but still we looked for brighter edges overhead. We looked for cracks of light. Any sign the storm would soon break.
Did you get one of them sea-lasses in trouble, son?
Good Lord, what would we do with a muddied guppy like that? Put it in a tank and feed it bloodworms? Put it to work in the drowned fields? Would it have fins or feet? Lungs and legs or goggle-eyes and gills? Should we keep it, raise it as kin? Throw it back in the water like any other fish too small and frail for the plate?
Our Zeb weren’t cut out to be a daddy, that’s for certain.
Our QB1 had hisself a future.
Sorta, he said eventually. Was that a full grin now? There and gone in a flash, it made foreign the face we’d adored all these years. It slitted and smoked his baby blues. Curved and coyed his dimpled cheeks. Plumped and paled that strangely whiskerless mouth. Made the whole picture more girlish somehow. Coquettish, even.
I suppose, he admitted. But it ain’t what you think.
* * *
Half the team came home that same night. The rest returned in dribs and drabs, drenched surprises popping up across Athabaska over the course of a week. One and all, our beloved Reapers came back for pre-season training, ready to the very last man.
Only, they wasn’t really ready.
Nor really the same Reapers.
Nor men.
Not really.
Clad in his mesh jersey, once proud sixty-six, our Zeb now stood on the sidelines all through practice. Caring not a whit about the freshmen churning up the field, rookies fumbling every goddamn pass, dumb colts set to ruin the team’s pristine win-loss record. Ignoring Coach’s whistle and jeers from the players what hadn’t gone a-swimming that summer. Refusing to put on his cleats. Paddling his bare feet in the deepest puddles instead. Peeling down to his jocks so’s to better feel the rain. Letting it wrinkle all the touch from his expert hands.
Either yer in, Coach threatened our Zeb after three days of this nonsense, or yer out.
Weren’t much of a choice, really. Not with all the tough washing clean out of him. Not with the hard-pumped triangle of his torso and waist melting into an hourglass shape. The broader hips now offsetting a sudden new roundness in his chest. The sheer power of them pile-driver thighs draining into delicate, pointed toes. Not with the flip-flap of his now-dainty wrists. The round little suckers pocking the length of his slender fingers.
Might as well bench him for good, we reckoned. Our QB1 wouldn’t throw another spiral to save his life.
* * *
For a while, we expected Zeb’s piece of fishtail to come a-knocking on our door, knocked up. Sooner or later, we reckoned there’d be a splash on the lawn. A trail of telltale bubbles tracing the sea-gal’s passage from sluiceway to storm-gutter to stoop. Between canoe trips out to our swamped pastures, between repairs on the house, between failed attempts to get our lad to eat something, anything for Christ’s sake, we kept an eye on the stream what used to be the main drag into town. We watched shadows darting like minnows around our well, watched ’em slurp round the cedar hedges and the boundary fence. We waited to catch a glimpse of flippers and fins, tangleroot hair, scaled limbs slicing the floodwater’s surface. Sooner or later, we thought, Zeb’s sea-lass would slink up to our place, newborn guppy in tow. Sooner or later, we’d finally see her.
Face to face.
Reckon our lad believed the same, though lately he’d fallen quiet and empty as the water-shadows hisself. Hardly uttered a word since he got back, truth be told, except to request we set up a bathtub for him right there in the living room. Don’t look at me like that, he’d mumbled afterwards, long pretty lashes sweeping over sad eyes.
Never let it be said we ain’t always had our child’s best interests at heart. Never let it be said we couldn’t tell the difference between one of his stupid pranks, his goofball whims, and something other, something important. Never let it be said we didn’t know when our kid was pining for something more’n we ourselves could give.
Never let it be said any of this were his fault.
On the weekend we bought the last claw-foot in town, towed it home on a raft borrowed from Coach. After some grunting and a pulled hamstring, we managed to plunk and fill it right there on Nan’s hand-me-down carpet, angled so’s Zeb could look out the bay window over the lake of our yard. She’ll show, we said, dinner plates balanced on our laps, taking our supper on the couch so’s to be closer to our tub-ridden boy. After all, what kind of lass would take a man ’tween her legs, then just leave once he’d spilled his life into her? What kind of lass could even do such a thing--
Enough, Zeb said in a voice what echoed long and low, like muted trumpets, the sound of it felt more than heard. His skin now the colour of porridge left out all week on the counter. Ribs jutting under--we hated to admit it, but there they were anyhow--a pair of pert breasts. Belly caved something awful, and no sign of a tum-button. For our sake, he wore boxers when he weren’t submerged, but even these got shucked once his scales came. By now the bath he soaked in must of gone cold, but he weren’t shivering none, not even when he hoisted hisself half out the water. Palms and rump squeaking against the porcelain, he turned to give us a full-frontal view of his nakedness. The smooth greening of his body, the haired layers sloughing off, scumming the surface. The new sensuous hunch in his posture. The bulge of his nethers deflating, dripping like wax between his thighs, sealing them fast together.
She’s done her part, Zeb fluted at us, mournful-like. Hollow. She’s already spawned. Can’t y’all see that? There won’t be no other orphan left on yer doorstep, understand? There’s only me.
Outside, the rain eased.
We didn’t mean anything by it, son. We just want to help.
Weak sunlight trickled in through the window, playing on the ripples in our lad’s bath, brightening her delicate features.
Then stop talking, Zeb said, briefly turning her floodwater face away, letting her gaze drift back to the sunken yard. And help.
* * *
Between us, we wrangled our mer-lad out the tub, slid her onto the hammock of our outstretched arms, and carried her outside together. It took a few paces to get our steps timed right; Zeb weighed no more now than he did as a toddler, but the tail she was near-finished growing were big and unwieldy. The suckers spreading from her fingertips to armpits kept attaching theirselves to our necks and shoulders--a slimy, ticklish suction what didn’t hurt so much as throw us off-kilter. Even so, before either of us was quite ready, we was out on the porch. Down the warped steps. Belly-deep in the wash, twigs and plastic bottles and other garbage swirling round our legs underwater. Feet sunk in mud up past the ankle.
Now the rain was more haze than shower, the air so muggy it were right hard to breathe. Our eyes misted. Wetness mussed our wrinkled cheeks.
Go long, we said, swinging our Zeb as we hadn’t done since he were in kindergarten, tossing her out far as our poor arms could manage. No seventy yard bomb, that throw. An awkward freshman lob, a fumble and splash. God only knows where our quarterback had got his talent, his strength.
Go deep, we said.
And looking to the clouds, we begged the sun to hold its blaze in a while. For the floods to rise a while longer.
Please, we prayed to any gods bored en
ough to listen. Please, we whispered as our Zeb exhaled, submerged, and vanished under the slow-moving tide. Swim our boy swiftly, secretly back. Guide her safely home to her soft sisters.
The Coronation Bout
Mother was the seventh of nine born to my Nan, but the only one to survive infancy. “This chick’s a fighter,” the midwife had said, helping the town’s next Chanticleer latch onto the current one’s breast. And when Nan felt the newborn’s gums clamp round her nipple, when she heard strength in the little hen’s snuffling, she was compelled to agree. “A real fighter,” she’d said, so named the baby Claude--not after the girl’s father, Argent Attell, but after Claude “One-Shot” Kilbane, the man who KO’d Argent at the coronation bout, securing him the district’s featherweight title--and Nan’s respect--once and for all.
Claude Jr lived up to expectations. Her tongue was quicker than Pop-Pop hitting the canvas, her singing voice rich as the champion’s purse. She was lithe and feisty--a real pugilist child--and when it came time to take Nan’s place, she did it with her namesake’s surefooted grace. Claude governed with a loosely clenched fist, as liable to wallop a person as she was to chuck him under the chin. Her timing was down-pat: she knew when to act pretty, when to strong-arm, when to bed men into boxing for her causes. Wily thing also knew which situations called for all three.
Most seemed happy with Mother’s version of even-handedness. At least, any who weren’t hadn’t the stones for an open challenge. But whether they loved Claude or not, everyone played sad after the bloat took her last week. Her gut swelled so big, seemed she was starting a new round of life, not hearing the clang of its final bell. Ballooned as she’d been two decades earlier, when she’d brought me and Nettie into this world. What luck, all had agreed then, having two hens at once. What a feat. She’d pushed us out in the swelters of August--barely breaking a sweat--and was back tending her garden that same afternoon. She was a force, our Claude. Prevailing and permanent as the elements.