by Sheree Fitch
Dirt digging was not the reason for my so-called overnight transformation.
Skye Derucci was the reason.
If Shep and my dad had put two and two together, they might have seen I was acting like I was over the moon about a girl. Dad must have forgotten, it was so long ago, and I’m not sure Shep ever has been in love. She’s never married and some say she is gay (sorry, Shep, no offence) but they always say that if people don’t marry. (And I don’t care, one way or the other.) After all, Shep volunteered to be my first “victim.”
“In summer I mow, in winter I shovel,” I’d explained when I’d gone door to door trying to drum up business. “A little landscaping business, you could say.”
“You’re hired,” Shep said, without hesitation. “Much as I hate to admit it, the garden’s getting too much for me by myself.” With that first yes, my “legit” business was launched. (I’d sold beer back in the day for a while until I was caught. I’d still like to know who the rat was. Brett Manderson’s my guess.)
“So what’s your plan, then, son?” my father said, and brought me back to reality with a thud.
“Sure. Yeah. Plan? Um,” I said, “um, I don’t have one. That’s why I came. To ask for your help.” He nodded, his eyes widening when I told him about the rumours of abortion.
“Okay, I’m listening,” he said. “I’m all ears. And, and, well, you know, I’m real glad you knew you could come see me. Even with this news.”
y
As dad and me discussed the situation, Florena Ferriweather, the interfering witch, was looking out the window. I learned later she watched my dad reach out and hug me in.
She said her eyes misted over at the scene below, how tightly I clung to my dad. (It was only for a few seconds.) She said she ignored the ringing phone, watched then because it looked like we were arguing. We were. I wanted some money and my father said we’d talk further when he got home and I said I wanted it right then and there. My father kept my bank card. This was an arrangement we had so I could control my impulse to spend my money. Having to ask him for my card made me take time to consider where the money was going instead of burning a hole in my pocket. I’d been trying to save up for a car. Normally I was a-okay with the arrangement, but as things turned out, I wasn’t as keen in a time of emergency. So the real damning thing Florena said was that I looked violent because I shook my fist, picked up my knapsack and ran off along the tracks behind the brewery, in the opposite direction of Poplar Hills’ town centre. Furthermore, she said—and I quote:
“I had a clear view of Timothy Upshore as he sat down at the picnic table. He buried his head in his hands, and his shoulders shook up and down, like the man was having a sudden coughing fit. I realized he was crying and so…well, I made a decision. I picked up the phone and dialled a friend, I did yes I did, just someone who might know something about what was going on.” She sniffed proudly. “Just trying to be a good citizen.”
Florena Ferriweather babbled all this on the news. “Only trying to help,” my arse. Her “friend” was none other than a-hole Brett Manderson. It was help I could have done without. Yep, Florena Ferriweather got her ugly mug and two cents’ worth on the five o’clock news two days later. Guess it was her few fleeting seconds of fame. Okay, even if her intentions were good it’s like my dad always told me, you can have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg. This was only one of the many expressions he’d printed on the chalkboard in our kitchen over the years, a philosophy lesson and a strategy to help me with my reading all rolled into one. I got the hard-boiled-egg reference. Hard-boiled. Egghead. That’d be me. Translate: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Florena Ferriweathers of the world damn us all. If Dolly Parton had an evil twin sister, her name would be Florena Fuggin’ Ferriweather.
x
Now seems as good a time as any to take a breather. Remembering back to those days is hard work. Writing it down, even harder. Time for a confession: I’ve always had a nose for trouble. Actually, my nose is my trouble. Seriously. All my life, I’ve been afflicted by olfactory hallucinations. At least, I’ve been told that’s the correct term for this particular weirdness of mine. Apparently, some kind of condition, perhaps in childbirth, caused this hypersensitive smelling problem. “Call it whatever,” I said once. “Maybe I’m just a smelly guy, get it?” None of the shrinks ever laughed and none could say what sort of condition I actually have, just that “it appears intense emotions can cause imaginary smells just as smells can likewise trigger emotions.” Real emotions. Memory, as well. This is quite common. “It’s rare to smell the same smell when in an agitated state,” said one of the shrinks, “though not unheard of.” “Quite common,” said another. “But why burnt hair? How do you know what burnt hair smells like?” This was a question to which I responded in my usual dead-ahead honest if not slightly Jake-ass way. I plucked strands of hair from my head, lit a match, set the hairs afire until they curled and melted up to my fingertips. “Like that.” I smiled. “Want a sniff?” The doctor lost his usual composure and yelled like a raving lunatic. “Don’t be lighting fires in my office ever again. Understand?” The man looked ready to run from the room and began squeezing the bridge of his nose, his fingers like clothespins, his left eyelid and brow twitching. “Un-derstand?” the doctor asked again, breathing hard. “Sure, I understand. Are you all right, Doc? You look a little…crazy.” I spiralled my finger around my ear. “Cuckoo.”
“Time’s up for today,” said the shrink, dismissing me. “Wahoo,” I said, “it’s been a slice of pepperoni pizza, just like always. Maybe it’s time for your meds, eh? Ciao, Doc.”
“Maybe I’m closer aligned with the animal kingdom than the strange world of Homo sapiens,” I told my father once. He didn’t disagree.
w
Backseat Backaways.
“Like maybe I was a warthog in another life,” I teased Skye. We were in the back seat of Teddy’s car. Alone. At last. For two whole hours.
“Do you believe in that?” she asked, her eyebrows rising like she was impressed.
“What? That I’m an animal? Gobblegobblegobbleyumyum,” I said and tried to eat her neck and earlobe.
“Stop it! I mean reincarnation?” she said, her palm on my chest, pushing me away.
“Oh, so you want to talk about dying? Now?” I was trying to unfasten her bra strap with one hand. She wiggled away from me and swatted me again.
“I want to know what you believe in,” she said.
“Hell,” I said and stopped fiddling.
“Jake, I’m asking if you believe in spirits, life after death, if we come round again.” She’d cupped my chin in her hands and was trying to make me look into her eyes. So I did.
“I think. I saw. My mother. Once. In my room,” I said.
“You did? Really?” She moved closer to me. I liked that. Her breast was within hand-cupping distance. Fit well there, too, and whenever I got the rare and unexpected privilege of experiencing this, I always thought of the expression “Anything more than a handful’s a waste.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Really.”
“No!” She giggled nervously.
“Yeah, really.” All of a sudden, it wasn’t funny to me and I was the one who pulled away, remembering. I rested my head against the window.
“Like a ghost?” She leaned forward, those violet blue eyes like ocean pools on a summer’s day. I wanted to dive in, go swimming in them forever. Her mouth formed into a kissable little o. So I had no choice but to do that. Kiss her for a bit. Her lips. Her throat. Her earlobe. Then the other side. Her lips. Her throat. Her earlobe. Her neck.
“Put on the brake, Jake. Break time,” she said, coming up for air. “You were saying you saw your mother? Kind of like a ghost?”
“No, like my mother. Just like I remember her,” I said, and didn’t I start to choke right up. Invisible fingers squeezed my Adam’s apple. Swallowing was difficult. Talk about em-bare-assing.
“How do you r
emember her?” Skye said in a small, soft voice, placing her hand over my heart. She traced a feathery circle with her finger and then rubbed my chest with her open palm.
“Never mind,” I snapped and turned away. And then, jeez, yeah, there was this real hurt look on her face. So I tickled her. Tickled and tickled until she begged me to stop and she hopped over to the front seat. So did I and honked the horn. We steamed up the windows, and let me say for the record that even though it was November and damn harsh and grey and cold outside the climate inside that car was tropical. New word: Equatorial. Translate: A kind of heat that makes you think you are living at the centre of the earth, near the equator, or maybe even underground, at that hot and burning centre. Ssst.
What I didn’t want to tell Skye was the first time I saw my mother after she died was the first time I smelled the burning-hair smell. This makes no sense, as my mother did not die in a fire. So what I need to say here, too, is, well, I used to talk to my mother a fair amount. She visited a lot when I was younger, mostly in my dreams. But they weren’t dreams. She visited, okay?
But enough remembering and reflecting and confessing for now. This writing shit down has a way of making me admit way too many private things. No wonder I hate it so much. Like taking a crowbar to my heart and digging it out of my chest.
v
Racing home from Black Beer Brewery that Wednesday, the old burning-hair smell and something like diesel fuel filtered into my nostrils. The fumes were so strong I thought I’d hurl. The stronger the smell got, the louder the voice inside me shouted. GO GO GO.
Is it possible a heart can yell instructions? GO go go go go! Find find find me.
GO go go go go. Go to her. Find find find me!
I tell you I heard Skye calling to me as clear as if she were down the road a bit, and despite the note saying not to follow—she was saying, “Follow me!”
Yes, I answered back.
“Skye!” I shouted into the wind and the empty street. “Skye! Can you hear me? Skye!”
I turned the corner and charged through a few pedestrians like a muttering crazy person, and I can see how, if I were them, this might look a little suspicious.
Especially when I got laughing. Yep. Threw my head back. I did. And howled like a human coyote. See, right then, all of a sudden, I’d made up my mind.
I’m coming! I texted. To Halifax.
No matter what, I’d find Skye.
No matter what she said in that note, I was going after her. Well, what kind of a jackass doesn’t stand by his girl? What sort would I be if I wasn’t brave enough to face her and talk? I wasn’t old enough to father a baby, was I? A baby. Our baby. At least I had the right to something to say in the matter. Didn’t I?
u
My mind was a minefield. Mind field. That’s how I pictured my brain at the best of times anyhow. When you live like you’re ready to explode around every next corner, it’s not that much of a stretch. A good metaphor. Thoughts sparking off in all directions. Right then, I pictured a page of my biology book, an ultrasound chalked outline of a baby. Only I added scuba-diving gear. There it was, this teeny-weeny little ear-shaped creature in formation. A kidney bean of a baby. Hooked up to a life machine. Where, I wondered, was the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus that could help a body like me swim through all this?
Breathing tubes. Umbilical cords. Scuba gear.
S-C-U-B-A. Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. I repeated those words a few times, maybe in hopes one would somehow materialize.
S-K-Y-E.
She kills young embryos. Could she? Look, it wasn’t a religious thing with me, okay, and I did know it was Skye’s body ergo her choice etceteraetcetera, but I just wanted to weigh in, okay?
Soon kiddo you’ll explain. Would she?
Sweet, kind, yummy, energetic. There, that was a better thought. Land mine detonated.
I imagined a happy look on Skye’s face when I found her, a look that said she was glad I’d listened to my heart and acted and followed her.
If only I’d had a crystal ball. New word: Clairvoyant. Translate: Someone with the ability to see the future. Not me. Not then.
Replay
White light blinds me.
A sulphur smell’s burning inside my nostrils.
I feel the blood on my hands like some kind of thick, warm syrup. Molasses? And over and over again: the click. The trigger sound. My finger on the trigger. Click. The shot. Did you know, up that close, it makes you deaf for a bit? If only it made me blind, too. But I saw. Pumpkin, I told myself. Just like a pumpkin exploding. Water balloons smashing, dropped from a balcony. Rubber pieces everywhere. Turkey cutlets raining from the air, then swirling down in a river of rainwater, skinbits, swirling towards a drain.
That’s when I wake up. Put the pillow over my head. And start yelling, yelling, yelling until I’m hoarse and then, when I cry, no sound comes out.
take two
a
I figure I broke the Guinness record for the four-minute mile speeding home that Wednesday morning. Taking the shortcut, I crossed the creek behind our house and discovered halfway across that it wasn’t exactly what you’d call frozen solid. I swear the whole freakin’ creek cracked behind me. (Hey. ALLITERATION. Figure of speech. Five points, right?) I was damn near running on water by the time I reached the bank on the other side.
Our house was cold when I stepped inside and I was freezing too, but like I did every day after school I grabbed my axe and split some wood. It felt good to hit something over and over and over like that—I admit it. Chop Chop Chop Chop Bam Bam Wham Fuck Bam Chop Split Shit Hit Shout Yell Whaaaah!
Stress-relief strategy number two: go off by yourself, roar and hit something you can’t damage. A punching bag. A pillow with a tennis racket. Wood with an axe. OR go whack yourself off. That can help too and it’s a lot more fun maybe but it’s not always convenient, and besides, if jerking off was my only de-stressing strategy my dick’d fall off. I chopped more wood. A few minutes later I stoked kindling in the wood stove in the kitchen, peeled off my wet clothes and changed into dry ones. I made a list and packed up a knapsack. Still cold, I rubbed my hands together over the stove, soaking in the heat, thinking. All I knew was I had to act and act fast. Act smart.
Spreading the pages of Skye’s binder out on the floor by the wood stove, I paced back and forth as they dried out, hatching ideas and calculating times and distances. “Make a plan, man.” I told myself. Felt like a bank robber or something. The crackle and wheeze of burning wood calmed me down. I slurped hot chocolate, scalded my tongue and woofed down a ham sandwich. After I finally got the damn dial-up dinosaur computer connected I sent Skye an e-mail. For the next few minutes, I searched online and found some alternate routes into Halifax, then checked the bus schedules. Better yet, I thought, maybe Teddy would take me. Or loan me his car.
He’d called and left a voice message: “’Member, here if u need me, bro.”
The other text messages were getting insulting and downright extreme.
Stud-ley Upshore
Baby killer
I sent one back.
some friends u turned out 2 B
I called Teddy.
“Yo, bro,” he said.
“Teddy, I need some wheels.”
“Didn’t I tell you? My baby up and died,” he said. Baby. That’s what he called his old clunker. We both kind of paused at the choice of words. “Thanks,” I said. “Call you later,” I said. “No problem,” he said.
I went back to deciphering Skye’s diary and found a page I could read. It was a little easier with a ruler underneath each line. I read out loud.
Last night when Jake kissed me good night I wanted to cry. I want so bad to tell him what is going on. But he will freak out I am sure because he gets agitated so easily. I hate to admit it but I’m a little scared of him. Sometimes I ask myself what we have in common. He doesn’t ever seem to be interested in reading and I love books. He uses fug for a
n adjective. He hates school, I love it. He’s had a hard life and I’m seen as a little Pollyanna goody two-shoes in this town. He has a tattoo and I hate tattoos. He used to be a fall-down drunk and pothead and I’m an athlete. If I was doing a list of pros and cons there’d be more on the negative than positive side. It doesn’t matter, though, because I can’t even breathe when he gets close—and when he touches me. His kisses make me want to tell him—everything. Do…everything. I wonder if he thinks as much about me as I do about him when we aren’t together?
“Do I think about her? When don’t I think about her?” I asked Herc. He perked right up and stared at me with interest. “So she doesn’t like my vocabulary. My frictionary. Well, whatever,” I told Herc. “Skye’s a bit of a prude. And she’s kind of moody these days. Know what happened last week? See, it’s all making sense to me now. I saw her walking into the Cabin Diner and being way too friendly with everyone, and of course ignoring me. Like always. But she was really over the top that day. Laughing a little too loud. Spilled her drink when I walked by. ‘Whoah,’ I said, breaking the rule of not talking to her in public. I fell to my knees and mopped up the mess. ‘What a gentleman,’ she said to everyone, but it was a bit sarcastic if you ask me. A few folks laughed. Then she poked her head underneath the table, hissed at me. ‘I need to talk to you about something serious,’ she said. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Where?’ I said. Just then, Brett Manderson showed his puking face at the table. ‘This guy giving you a hard time, Skye?’ he said so everyone could hear him. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Such a pest,’ Brett said, and up and kneed me in the head, just like that, but no one saw. I was under the table. So I stood up and glared at the sneaky moron and smashed a glass on the floor and picked up a piece. ‘Jake!’ Skye said. ‘Please!’ She looked at me like she was scared, so I cursed and left and when I called her later she said she couldn’t remember what she had to tell me and hung up. Told me I was acting nuts, looking to everyone like I was ready to slit Manderson’s throat. That drove me frickin’ crazy. I’m not normal but I’m not nuts either and maybe I overreacted, too. But Skye’s been acting sketchy and, well, if you ask me we’re a good pair, two misfits, eh, and, well, she’s pretty hot.” I wet my finger and let it sizzle on the stove for a second. SSSt! it echoed. “And, um…I maybe…love her.”