by Stephen Law
Only when the baby crowned did Shaz jump up. She saw the head emerge. The ugly head.
Everyone was happy and relieved but Shaz felt nauseous. The cord was cut, the baby was whisked away to be checked and scrubbed. Dishevelled and tired, her mom smiled when they brought him back and put him in her arms.
Shaz took a look at her new brother and tried to readjust what it might mean to have a boy in her life. Would he still want to play with the toys she had set aside? It occurred to her that her dad might be happier with a boy than with a girl.
“Honey, can you think of a name, what we might call your little brother?” A girl on their street had a dog named Winston. It was the only boy name she could think of. There would be no Aaliyah, Brandy, or Mary J.
Thankfully, her nana intervened. “How about Desmond? After my grandfather.”
Her mom held the little baby and peered into his eyes. “Are you a Desmond?”
He just opened and closed his mouth without a sound, cawing like a hungry bird while Nana kept talking.
“He was your great-grandfather, and you share a name with him and a great leader in South Africa. So little fella, what kind of man are you going to be?”
***
AND THEN JUST AS Shaz flipped around trying to absorb that memory, another piled up on top of it.
Large gatherings always mixed plenty of food with fellowship. Summertime, when cousins and neighbours, family and friends congregated after worship, was the best. There were always dozens and dozens of kids playing in the huge field up behind the church.
At fourteen Shaz lost interest in the word of the Lord and the picnic gatherings as well, but Nana and her mom insisted she attend. She accompanied them until she was sixteen when their threats finally lost their power to control.
One large gathering one summer day in full bloom. The sun was high and hot and the grass that led off to the woods was green and tall. Minding Desmond. That’s what she was supposed to be doing. At two, he was able to wobble and teeter his way around. But instead of watching him she was back behind the wood pile with Georgie Beals and Simpson Grant, trading puffs from the butt end of cigarettes swiped from the ashtray of their uncle’s Jeep Cherokee.
They put down the cigarette stubs when they heard adults calling for them. Georgie had them rub Right Guard over their clothes to mask the smell. Giving Simpson a shove when he offered to wipe her chest, she hurried back to the gathering.
Desmond was gone. Nana had come to collect him from the pack, to make sure he’d had something to drink, but he was nowhere to be found.
“I don’t know where he is!” Shaz shouted. It hadn’t felt fair in the first place. “Why should I have to watch out for him anyways?”
A look from Nana sent her out with the others. Soon people were yelling his name and tramping through the tall grass.
It didn’t take long for Shaz to starting worrying for real. She ran the perimeter of the field, calling out to him. Possible scenarios exploded in her mind: pedophile, coyote, a viper trying to swallow him whole.
But he was fine. Someone found him under a table, hidden by the tablecloth that draped to the ground, no doubt drawn by cake and cookies. They’d found him tormenting a family of beetles and giggling as the critters crawled around on his knee.
Her mother scolded her all the way home. The deodorant hadn’t masked a thing.
Sliding out of bed, Shaz pilfered a couple of Ambien from the bathroom. Enough of the memories, this was not a road she was prepared to go down.
Shaz popped one, then another. Come on, sleep.
9
HIP
infinity heart
“GRADUATING. AFTER ALL THIS time.” Nana patted her mom on the back as she hustled about tidying the kitchen.
Shaz had arrived too late for lunch.
“You take note. Your mom over there had perfect attendance.” Nan fussed over Desmond’s suit as he slouched on the chair, waiting to leave.
Sporting a grin, he gave Nan’s hands a squeeze. “It’s marks that matter.”
Her mom graduated top of her class. She’d been studying for years, putting in late nights after her day job whenever she had a chance. First her GED, then a BA and now, her mom, a chartered professional accountant. Shaz couldn’t have been prouder.
Her last examination had been in June, but they’d decided to wait till the ceremony at the Harbourview Hotel to celebrate properly.
There’d been no way of getting around not going. So here they were: her mom and Nana, beaming and skipping light as they moved around getting ready, and Desmond.
Shaz wasn’t sure if there’d be a graduation ceremony for her brother. How often did he make it to class? And what were his marks like? Shaz couldn’t look him in the eye, nor did she join him at the table. Feeling it best to try and keep her mouth closed, she kept her back to the counter. She still hadn’t decided what to do about him. It was what he’d done. Was it who he was?
“And you’ll be graduating next. I can’t believe it.” Her mom shook Desmond’s head playfully.
Shaz felt sick. If he did break and enters and swarmings and god knows what else while he was in school, who knew what he was going to do once he got out? Shaz began to pace. She couldn’t sit down and wait and she couldn’t just stand there either. She shouldn’t have come. She should have met them at the hotel.
“Do you recall their first days of school?” Nana patted Desmond’s head as though he were a little boy, bringing forward some memory that made her smile.
Her own first day of school, Shaz couldn’t recall at all, but his first day she remembered clearly. His new school clothes, him bouncing up and down all the way to the bus stop, so excited to follow in her footsteps. It was easy to remember him at that age. When he was born and she thought of him growing up, she always pictured him somewhere between four and twelve, not old enough to shave but not young enough to still need diapers.
As a kid he’d dreamed of being a firefighter. She’d helped him make a sit-in fire engine from a big box they found in the basement. They painted it red and drew wheels and doors onto the side.
Glancing over at him in the kitchen chair, she had to admit he looked smart in his suit and jacket. It was hard to picture him as a gangster. But the red tie irritated her; maybe it reminded her of the red fire engine and different man that boy had become. A man who kept a catalogue of the crimes he’d committed against people. Real people.
Snatching the cloth from her mom, she began to scour the counter. Her mom moved over to the sink to finish up the dishes. She liked coming home to a house that was neat and tidy.
“That tree was so small when the kids were wee. Just look at it now!” Nan looked out onto the yard as she joined in to dry the plates. The maple bordering the neighbour’s yard had been there as long as Shaz could remember.
“If we took that tree down, it would make it a lot easier to spy on Grandma Oliver,” Desmond said.
Nan and Mom tsked Desmond. Mrs. Oliver sunbathed in the nude — everyone in the neighbourhood knew it. He leaned back in his chair, his legs almost too big to fit under the table. It had been close to a decade since Shaz had even thought about the Olivers.
She threw the cloth onto the counter and stole up behind her brother. “What are you going to do, Desmond, when you graduate?” She tried to keep her jaw from clenching.
“I don’t know, be a spy maybe, make binoculars. The world is my oyster!” He flung his arms out, forcing Shaz to jump back, out of the way.
Frank, busted up in the hospital. The catalogue of victims in Desmond’s basement bedroom. All the tension in her body rushed to her head and she felt her mind starting to boil as she tried to hold it all in.
“And what are you going to do for money, beat people up?” She couldn’t stop herself.
Desmond’s smile slid off his face. He glanced towards Nan an
d their mom to see if Shaz’s comment had registered. Then he swivelled his head towards Shaz and laughed, as though what she said was ridiculous. Nan and her mom began to smile and laugh, too.
Shaz struggled to stop herself from chopping him across the face. One big whack to knock him and his jocularity to the floor.
Nana turned toward them, and caught the look on Shaz’s face. Her smile froze as she looked to Desmond then back again to Shaz.
Cocking her head towards her brother, Shaz raised her brow. He was too young to bluff.
Before either one of them knew what was happening, Nan was at Desmond’s side, pinching his arm with a force that had nothing of playfulness. Desmond’s eyes bulged but he made no effort to pull away. Their mom was still washing dishes at the counter, oblivious to what was going on.
Shaz watched the movie playing out in front of her: the family decked out in their Sunday best, the scene about to explode. These weren’t just some poor decisions her brother was making: not eating his vegetables, neglecting his teeth, or failing out in class. He was a banger, a criminal. The air in the room was electric, everything held in suspension, as though a missile had been released and was cutting through the air. You could hear it. The greater the pitch, the closer the blast.
She’d told herself she wouldn’t do this on her mom’s graduation day. This was a day for her mom, a day for her nan. For all of them. School hadn’t meant much to Shaz, but it sure meant a lot to them.
Smiling, shaking her head as though she had been teasing, she turned to Desmond. “No really, what are you going to do when you’re done school?”
She was his big sister and was supposed to look out for him. Somewhere along the line she hadn’t done her job. Not that she was about to let him get away with anything, but suddenly she could see her own fault in what he’d become. She retreated. Her comment had put him on notice. That would have to be enough for now.
“Uh, maybe university. I don’t know. It might be cultural studies or engineering or something.” Shaz watched him glance around, gathering confidence. “But I want to work for a year, get some money and uh, really decide what I want to do.” He stared at Shaz, who gave him a nod, releasing him from the trap.
He turned towards Nan, “Do you mind easing up on the arm?” She looked at her grandchildren, unsure. Desmond smiled, while Shaz shrugged. Her nan pulled her fingers away.
“That’s some grip you have.” He massaged his arm.
“And don’t you forget it!” she snapped.
“There would probably be something over at Burnside.” Her mom turned to join them. Shaz wasn’t sure if she was oblivious to what had happened, or if she was trying to change the subject. “Until you decide what it is you want to do. I worked at Moirs for fifteen years while I figured out my plan. But forget all that now. Let’s go get me graduated.” She grabbed her purse, donned her sunglasses, and pushed them all out the door.
Desmond walked with her in front, while Nan trailed behind with Shaz.
“Everything okay?” Nan said, just quietly enough that the others couldn’t hear.
“Yeah. It’s fine. It’s fine.” Shaz felt alive and less afraid than she had in a long, long time. “Let’s go watch mom graduate.”
***
A SINGLE PLANT, A cactus, sat on her desk, off to the side. A big green thumb with spikes coming out of the earth. It was beautiful, in its way. Spartan, yet strong. It didn’t require much care, and was as oblivious to the new warmth of spring as it was to the darkness of winter. It grew little, but once a month required water. Not a soaking where the soil could be squeezed like a roll of damp paper towels — just enough to discolour the dirt. Just enough to prove she cared.
What Shaz liked more than the cactus was the brass watering can. She liked the way the thin neck reached out, almost past the physics of what should be possible. She only used it on the plant. It claimed its place beside the cactus, as a kind of symbiotic union, the cactus received the water and the can practised its purpose.
It had been her mother’s and her nan’s before that.
Shaz remembered playing with it as a child. Not one for tea sets, she loved the watering can. She used it to fill tuna tins and empty flower pots when she set the table for her dolls, imagining herself a Nubian queen serving tea in a gold gift from an admirer.
When Shaz moved out on her own, her mom and Nan asked if there was anything she wanted to take with her. The watering can was the only thing.
Five high school girls appeared in the studio while she stood over the cactus, testing the points of their spines. Startled out her reverie, she poked a finger — not enough to draw blood but enough to sting.
Rubbing the spot, she turned to the girls in their matching blue and white school uniforms.
“We’d like to get tattoos. All of us.” A survey of the faces indicated they were in accord.
The King’s Edgehill crest on their jackets gave them away as not local: they’d come to Halifax from the private school in Windsor. The uniforms made them the same.
“We want an infinity heart, each of us.”
Same tattoo, too.
“On the lip, like under, so you can’t see it.” Drawing her lip out and over, one girl exposed the shiny pink flesh underside.
Were they some kind of team or club? Maybe they were just drawn together as friends.
The girls waited in anticipation, resolute. Not one of them looked away for an escape route or a way out. Not one of them showed any hesitation.
“Have any of you done this before?”
They shook their heads no — a five-headed pack.
“The lip will hurt pretty bad. And it may not last. How about just under the bikini line, at the hip?” Pulling down the waist of her pants, Shaz showed them the spot she meant.
A discussion ensued, with three in favour of changing, one indifferent, and one, the girl who had probably steeled herself the most, opposed.
“If you’re okay with the hip, we can always do the lip at another time.” That helped settle it for them. Doing it together, that was the point. The details didn’t matter.
A few hours later, when Shaz was finished, they stood in a ring — a gorgeous coven — proudly displaying their ink. Proud of themselves for going through with it.
Needles and pinpricks. The pain you went through to get something you wanted, something beautiful. You had to be bold. If these girls could do it, she could too.
***
CANADA 411 PROVIDED BOTH a number and an address.
Frank had William. She had no one.
Her phones GPS led her to an apartment building that peeked down over the navy shipyard. Though it offered a view of the harbour, the apartments on the industrial shoreline were more affordable than waterside condos.
She’d gone up past the casino, under the MacKay Bridge, along the base. On her way, she had passed two guys in navy pants with pup tent hats, looking probably much like her father had in his day. Decked out in their uniforms, bodies ramrod straight, they looked serious and ready for duty, as if a war could break out of the shadows at any moment. They smiled in greeting, giving way as she passed.
Up the hill, she was distracted from her enjoyment of sunshine on leaves by two little kids who burst out of the lobby of the apartment building up ahead. They were five and seven, maybe. The older one a girl.
Hair brushed and clothes neat and new, they were heading somewhere special, likely. They weren’t heading to church, unless they were Seventh Day Adventists. Probably going to a celebration, maybe a birthday. Shaz imagined their mom inside, gathering keys and purse, about to follow them out. The girl wore a meadow green dress and a bow in her hair. The boy sported a little man suit with black dress pants and ironed shirt. On instinct, Shaz drew her hand to her head recalling how her nan wielded a brush, tearing at her tangles so she would appear pristine to the world. A
t one point Shaz hacked off a piece to avoid the punishment. Nan, in turn, snipped off the other side, aligning the cut and then fixed a hat on her head from the closet. Problem solved.
Not able to make out what the little boy was yelling, she saw him race back into the building and then emerge again, leading a man by the hand. A man she knew.
“Fuck.”
He had kids? That’s why he’d torn out of the studio.
She stopped in her tracks. Why hadn’t he mentioned them?
Ducking behind a parked car on the street, she spied on them through the rear window as the boy, girl, and Rashid were joined by another young man and an older woman. They all began to walk down the hill, towards the water, on a course that would lead them right past the car. Mother, the wife, was probably bringing up the rear, or maybe she had moved on ahead of the pack, like Nan used to do to get things ready before a service.
Like an idiot, she was trapped. Using the window as a spyglass she tracked their progress. “The fucker …” she mumbled to herself. It would serve him right if she jumped out from behind the car and confronted him in front of his family.
But what would she say? That their eyes had locked? That they had bristled with sexual tension? That their auras had fucked? Clearly, he was married. It was foolish and she was a fool.
She could just begin to make out what the kids were saying to each other as she scooted from the back of the car, to the side along the street, keeping the vehicle between them.
“I’m older so I get to go first.” Shaz distinguished the voice of the girl.
A glance in the girl’s direction and they would all spot her trying to hide. It was too late to turn back and make a dash towards the base. The group closed in. With the harbour below her, the apartment and family to the side, and the open expanse of the street to her left, her options were limited. With a quick check in both directions, she squatted low and rolled under the vehicle.
“My favourite, favourite, above all else, most favouritist is chocolate.” She could hear the little boy from her spot under the engine. A street mechanic, bereft of both tools and dignity.