Crosshairs

by Catherine Hernandez

  Even in the darkness, Beck could see Stewart’s jawline tense. When Stewart turned his head to face Beck, what little light shone from the field lamp made a perfect halo around his puppy-cut hair. Stewart’s silhouette stared back at Beck and said nothing, like he was letting the crickets’ and grasshoppers’ nighttime song do the talking for him. Stewart threw his cigarette on the grass, shut the door to the main house and walked past Beck with a slight limp.

  Beck found his way to the tent with his flashlight. When he unzipped it, he found Finnegan sitting inside with his arms crossed like a petulant child, stifling his tears with coughs.

  “I thought you had left.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because my family is weird. It happens all the time. I don’t even know where my dad and Francesca went. Well, I don’t know, but I know.” The dike that kept his sobs at bay broke, and he wiped at his face with the bottom of his pyjama shirt.

  Beck didn’t know what to say, so he put his hand on Finnegan’s shoulder like he had seen his father do to his Uncle Rodney at Grandpa’s funeral. But instead of the wooden tap he once witnessed, his hand melted onto Finnegan’s bony neck. It melted so warmly that Finnegan responded by snuggling down into his sleeping bag like a small child being coaxed into slumber with a bedtime story. When they woke, they were tightly spooning, watching the shadow of dew run off the tent’s surface. Beck turned around and traced Finnegan’s freckles. Finnegan took Beck’s hands and inspected them.

  “You bite your fingernails.” Finnegan kissed each of Beck’s stubby digits, then held his hand close to his heart. They both fell asleep until Mrs. Waters called them in for a breakfast of watery oatmeal and burned toast.

  The boys grew older. Gary Tulle ended up in adult jail. Coach Trent graduated them from being pussies to being his star players, with Beck playing left defence and Finnegan as goalie. McGregor’s Bend was still McGregor’s Bend.

  They never spooned again. The memory seemed so distant that Beck willed himself to believe it had never actually happened. The only touch they shared was in a fleeting hug or a manly tap on the back.

  “A toast to this ugly son of a bitch right here.” Beck roped his arm around Coach Trent, now smaller than him, frailer than him. “Happy retirement, you punk!” Everyone raised their Molson’s beer around the old man, and for the briefest of moments the only sound you could hear was the sizzle of the Costco burgers on the barbecue grill nearby.

  Coach Trent managed to release himself from Beck’s hold and raised his own beer. “I’d like to say a few things,” he said, to which everyone responded, “Speech! Speech!”

  “Oh god, no! I don’t wanna give a speech, you assholes. I wanted to congratulate Finnegan here too.” Another brief moment of silence, this time a bit longer. All the players paused and shifted their focus to Finnegan, wiping his mouth of ketchup and waving his hand in faux humility. “Unlike you losers who will most likely be covered in chicken shit come the fall, this one here actually made something of himself. This one here is heading to university, and I’m proud of you. We’re proud of you. So go, and please don’t come back here to this shithole of a town.” Everyone cheered. Finnegan’s hair was tousled by his mates. Beck braced himself on the rattan patio chair and looked straight at him. Finnegan toasted Beck and awkwardly headed inside. Beck followed.

  “You never told me you were heading out.”

  “Well . . . I graduated high school, Beck. That’s what you do. You graduate, then you go to university. Where the hell is the bathroom here?” Finnegan searched Coach Trent’s empty house. The endless hallway of shag carpet and textured wallpaper had door after door of bedrooms and storage closets but no bathroom. The sound of guests outside echoed along the textured wallpaper. Beck followed.

  “Where? Where will you go?”

  “U of T.”

  “Toronto?”

  “Yes, Beck. That’s the T in U of T. I’m going to Toronto.” Finnegan finally found the door to the bathroom and stood facing Beck.

  “Why? Why are you going so far away?” Beck surprised himself with the crack of his own voice. He suddenly remembered Finnegan’s changing voice when they first met. Finnegan in his heavy hockey equipment, barely large enough to stand up. Finnegan crying in the tent. Spooning.

  Finnegan was a man now. Standing in the doorway of a dark bathroom. “That way I can be who I am.” Silence between them, save for the boisterous laughter of people outside. Beck suddenly understood. It was who he was too. Beck took a chance and traced Finnegan’s freckles. Finnegan closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at Beck’s hands.

  “You still bite your fingernails.”

  The kiss they shared was brief. Much too brief. It was just long enough of a memory for Beck to form in his palm and place in his pocket like a treasured rock to admire in the future. But it was long enough for Coach Trent to walk in on them. He turned the light on to confirm what he was seeing.

  “Get out of my house.”

  “Coach—”

  “GET OUT!”

  A countdown began in Beck’s mind: How long until Coach Trent would tell everyone on the team? How long until his father would find out? How long until Finnegan would leave town?

  The next day, Beck’s plan was to drive back to Coach Trent’s house to explain that it was Finnegan who initiated the kiss, that he wasn’t a faggot. He had no idea what was happening. He wasn’t responsible, and what a faggot Finnegan was. How awful it was to have a faggot on our team the entire time. Maybe check with others to see if Finnegan was harassing anyone else. Right, Coach Trent? That would make things right.

  The sentences were running through his head while he filled up on gas at the Spector Crossing strip plaza. As the numbers scrolled on the gas pump, Beck looked around, searching for signs that people in town knew. Two teen boys on skateboards were practising their ollies in the parking lot of the plaza. Across the street at McGregor United Church, Pastor James was replacing the letters on the street sign that had been stolen last week. A mother and her small child exited the convenience store with a stash of lottery tickets and a box of smokes and headed towards her minivan. It would be only a matter of time before everyone knew.

  Beck watched a blonde, middle-aged woman in duty uniform exit her sedan. The army officer saw Beck looking at her and nodded in his direction. A nice, tight, efficient nod with her nice, tight, efficient chignon, perfectly timed with the ding of the scrolling numbers at Beck’s gas pump. He tapped the nozzle twice and watched her enter the station’s store. Beck followed her. He followed her into the lineup, watching her buy a pack of gum. He followed her as she drove to his high school, parked her car and got out, a pop-up banner under one arm, the other pulling a wheelie case of brochures.

  “Can I help you with that?” Beck asked.

  The officer smiled. “That would be lovely.” Beck took the banner into his own arms and began walking with her into the school. She propped the front door open and looked at him. “I saw you at the gas station.”

  “Oh yeah. Yeah. I saw you too. What are you doing here at Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate?”

  “Career day.”

  “I’ve enlisted,” Beck said as he entered the family living room. Peter and Hanna were on the couch, ready to confirm the news around town regarding Finnegan Waters and their only son. Peter said nothing. Hanna said nothing. Beck had managed to avoid a speech about bringing shame upon his family by offering service to his country.

  Six weeks later, Beck was in basic training at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. He left McGregor’s Bend without any fanfare. No toast goodbye from Coach Trent. While his body bulked up, his mind widened to believe in the collective power of his infantry, in the collective importance of the team. They were one animal now, in step with one another. He was not one man now. He was of many men. And in this collective, he remembered nothing of himself. Through constant drills, he successfully removed the treasured rock of memory from his pocket—a memory of two boys in
a tent, a memory of two men found together in a small town—and tossed it like a troublesome pebble found in his shoe.

  Time passed. Years passed.

  They collectively watched the inauguration footage of a new American president named Colin Pryce, who used words like “animals” to describe illegal migrants and “pussies” to describe women. Medium close-up of his hand to his heart. Wide shots of mass protests. Clips caught on people’s phones of protesters being run over by trucks. People screaming and running in every direction. News reports of mass raids. Photos of a migrant bent over a car, being searched by law enforcement while her small child cries before being taken away. Photos of migrants crowded into an outdoor chain-link cage, looking at the camera. Hot sun on their faces. Families lying on mats along the concrete ground, waiting for deportation.

  They collectively watched the new Canadian prime minister, Alan Dunphy, come into power. The pretty boy won by a landslide, partly because of his charisma and good looks, partly because his election campaign used the word “vermin” to describe refugees and “cockroaches” to describe the Disabled on social assistance.

  “We need to derail this gravy train and derail it fast!” Dunphy exclaimed over and over again on the campaign trail. “If the Disabled can wheel themselves to the welfare line, they can wheel themselves to a job.”

  In the aftermath of the floods, his predecessor, Marshall Pollack, had been too soft to use such words. But Alan Dunphy was no snake in the grass. One of his first actions in office was to establish a Zero Tolerance hotline to report terrorist and suspicious immigration activity. Within days, the hotline was saturated with messages from people snitching on their neighbours: too many Muslims convening in mosques, Black people hosting too many barbecues, Trans folks deceiving everyone around them with their gender identity. While white Canadians rejoiced in righteous indignation, Dunphy enjoyed photo ops near the shores of swollen bodies of water. He filled sandbags while cameras clicked, his handsome grin wide. More photo ops near the charred remains of a home, devastated by yet another wildfire, shaking hands with first responders.

  They collectively watched broadcast footage of a newly formed militia in Toronto patrolling flooded city streets in their helmets and leather uniforms. Extreme close-ups of the militia using their steel-toe boots to kick down doors in search of illegal immigrants syphoning resources. Those same resources being distributed among “True Canadians,” who smile and give a thumbs-up to the news cameras. The militia strong-arming protesters demanding equal access to shelter, food and water; the establishing of checkpoints at major intersections. Anchors referring to the militia as “the Boots.” Politicians and pundits referring to the Boots’ actions as “the Renovation” and the populations they seek to correct and control as “the Others.” Boots invading tent cities and evacuating the displaced and homeless. Wide shots of classrooms filled with Others reciting the creed of the Renovation. A photo of one of the children sitting in the lap of a Boot while being read to. Video footage of the leagues of Boots marching in a parade towards City Hall. Cheers. Tiny white children clapping hands, sitting on the shoulders of their parents. Adults holding flags and pointing.

  In the wave of this political change, Beck was sent to the rural town of Suffield, Alberta. Until recently, the region’s part-time patrol group had been mostly manned by Indigenous officers, who facilitated evacuations from wildfires. Those soldiers were quietly dismissed in favour of people like Beck who would not question the disciplinary actions against a local First Nation that was protesting the construction of yet another oil pipeline through their reservation.

  Beck found himself part of the newly formed full-time Suffield Infantry, which was responsible for guarding the construction site and controlling large groups of protesters—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—who gathered from across the country and from around the world to try to block the pipeline. Still, in the cool of the spring thaw, the rolling landscape became dense with tents and trucks. Independent media crews dotted the perimeter. The instructions were to stand ground at the site of the new construction. Some days passed with Beck and his fellow officers in full riot gear while the protesters sang and prayed in their faces. Some days erupted in rubber bullets and tear gas. Some days were spent cutting off clean-water supply and electricity and deactivating telecommunications towers. Still, the protesters refused to back down. Months passed. Media attention dwindled to a few select units. When the media released videos of protesters being beaten, being hosed down, the world watched and did nothing. By the time the heat of the summer approached, Beck wondered if the wildfire evacuations would become priority once again and his unit would finally be free of this place.

  In his collective thinking, this one-animal thinking, which honoured and protected his infantry at all times, he was suddenly struck by the individuality of the protesters. He was like a lion confronting a pack of zebras, confused as to whether he was viewing one large mess of stripes or a series of beasts trying to fool him. To the hum of cicadas in the nearby brush, Beck would waver, closing one eye and then the other, seeing them all as a united power in his right eye, then as individual voices in his left.

  “Charity. Hold Mama’s hand, please,” a mother said to her toddler one day as they moved about the encampment. The mother held a white lump in one hand, most likely a dirty diaper. Charity delighted in the fresh change of clothes and danced about to a song only she could hear. When the mother sensed Beck was looking in her direction, she scooped up her daughter and quickly entered their tent.

  A group of teens took turns standing at the front line screaming their spoken-word poetry to the soldiers. An Indigenous teen stepped forward. He adjusted his dusty ball cap and began.

  “MIC CHECK!”

  The protesters within twenty feet repeated after him. “MIC CHECK!” The phrase was repeated farther and farther away among the crowd.

  “THIS IS A HUMAN MICROPHONE!” Again, the phrase travelled in ripples along the protesters. “WE AMPLIFY EACH OTHER’S VOICES! SO THAT WE CAN HEAR ONE ANOTHER! SO THAT THESE SOLDIERS CAN HEAR US!” Waves of sound as the protesters repeated his phrases all the way to the horizon of the massive assembly. He continued, with pauses in between to allow the human microphone to share his words.

  He flattened the pages of his leather-bound notebook and read his poem.

  We have been occupied

  Papered

  Carded

  Listed

  Interned

  Torn

  Ripped

  Shorn

  Walked

  Blanketed

  We have been occupied

  Internalized

  Assimilated

  Bordered

  Fenced

  Reserved

  Unrecognized

  Colonized

  Halved

  Quartered

  We have been occupied

  Policed

  Stripped

  Searched

  Patted down

  Spotlighted

  Assassinated

  Imprisoned

  Sentenced

  Executed

  We have been occupied

  Whitewashed

  Dyed

  Bleached

  Shaved

  Starved

  Sterilized

  Stolen

  Sold

  Discarded

  We have been occupied

  Indebted

  Unforgiven

  Schemed

  Played

  Traded

  Exported

  Imported

  Outsourced

  Foreclosed

  These are names they gave us

  These are the ways they took from us

  These are the ways they tried

  But we are like the waters on this land

  Slicing mountains in half

  We have our own names

  We did not lose everything

  We survived them

  We are
more powerful than what hurt us

  We will remember our ancestors

  We will drum

  We will sing

  We will feed each other truth

  We will look out for each other

  We will come together

  We will protect mother earth

  We will speak for those who cannot

  We will make way for our elders

  We will listen to our youth

  We will remember

  We are memory

  We will decolonize

  There was no applause. Some snapped in agreement. Some nodded solemnly. Without any pomp or circumstance, other poets stepped up, one at a time, to recite their work, the human microphone amplifying their words.

  Beck easily tuned out the protesters’ songs and chants. But the poets stirred something in a place so deep within his body he could not locate it, so elusive he could not name it. One poet compared the image of the pipeline to her own tongue cut in half after losing her language. One poet spoke of wading knee-deep in the blood of his ancestors, trying to follow the current back to his own heart. Another poet spoke of building false bridges made of bones arching over water filled with mercury, and the bodies of missing women acting as chevrons along the highway. No matter how hard Beck tried to hum or talk to himself, he was helplessly immersed in images of cut tongues, blood rivers and bone bridges. He shook his head and coughed so hard he had to spit the bile gathered in the back of his throat. Then their names, their many names, began seeping into the spaces between his teeth, beyond the reach of his eager tongue to dislodge them. They would call out to each other during conversations that did not include him. Vera. Hope. Ronnie. Wayne. Then their faces, their many faces, bored holes into the hollows of his tear ducts. Jayme, the one who adjusts her glasses. Peter, the one with the cut on his lip. Tanja, the one with the starfish tattoo on her neck. He could not escape their faces.

  When the media released videos of protesters and their poetic resistance, the world watched and did nothing.

  Another day, Beck met eyes with a middle-aged Indigenous war veteran who served bottles of water to a row of elders sitting in camping chairs. The group began to break down into smaller recognizable molecules that Beck could not digest, could not swallow.