by William Bell
Once we were headed north on the 400 the traffic thinned out. We cruised past Barrie and, at Waubaushene, picked up Highway 69, a two-lane that snakes its way north through rock cuts, forests and swamps. It was a sunny morning and the scenery in cottage country was sort of comforting—the blue of the lakes, the fresh greens of the leaves, the lighter blue of the cloudless sky. I began to relax a little.
And I have to admit it, the old man was an okay driver. My mother drives like there’s a high-tension wire connecting her to the battery. She grips the wheel, hunches forward and makes all her moves in an erratic jerky manner. Going places with her puts heavy strain on the underarm deodorant. Not the old man. He sat back in the bucket seat, one hand on the wheel (which was covered with one of those fuzzy covers), the other holding his pipe, nodding his head to the music on the radio, or mumbling comments when the news was on. I gathered that he wasn’t too happy with the way the Conservatives were running the country, or how the Toronto Argos’ management was running the team. The van putted along, getting passed regularly because it wasn’t too happy if it was asked to move faster than ninety klicks.
We didn’t talk much. I guess the old man got the message from the day before that I didn’t have much to say to him. I didn’t know what to say to him. I wanted to get to know him, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I still held a lot of negative feelings toward him. And I still wanted to confront him about that day he disappeared from my life. Back when I was little, he was my favourite person, my hero. I didn’t know what he meant to me now, but one thing I did know: he was no hero.
Early in the afternoon, a few miles north of Parry Sound, the old man pulled onto a side road that took us to Killbear Provincial Park. After paying the camping fee at the office, he got back into the van and said, “Look for site number fifty-eight.” Then he drove slowly along a dirt road that wound through the bush.
“There it is,” I said.
Our campsite was in a band of thick forest between the road and Georgian Bay. A picnic table sat in the shadow of a large silver birch beside a fireplace made of rocks cemented together. A well-worn path led through the trees to the water.
I climbed out on stiff legs and looked around, breathing in the fresh pine-scented air. The old man popped the top of the van, then popped open a beer. He got out through the sliding door and attached our permit to a clip on a post at the edge of the road.
“Nice spot, eh,” he said.
“Yeah, looks good.”
I walked through the trees to the lake and stood on a rock shelf that jutted out over the water. It looked cool, clear and inviting, deep enough to dive into. A small fish cruised by, its shadow following it along the sand bottom. The water stretched away from me for a long distance to a couple of small islands to the west. The place looked almost wild, except for the boat in the distance pulling a skier.
I returned to the camper-van to change into my swim suit. The old man was making a tee-pee out of twigs in the fireplace.
“Feel like some hot coffee or anythin?”
“No thanks, I’m going to take a swim,” I said, rummaging inside my gym bag for my swim suit.
“Good idea.”
“How about you?” I offered, although I would rather have swum alone.
“Maybe later. What’s that painted on the side of your bag?” he added. “I can’t make it out from here.”
“Nothing much. Just a nickname.”
REPLAY
It was the first day after Labour Day and the yard of 20th Street School was packed with a moving sea of bodies. Cars slipped in through the gate in the chain-link fence and kids got out reluctantly, feeling a hundred pairs of eyes burn into their backs as they turned and reached into the cars for new back-packs. Other kids filtered in on foot.
Little kids hung back, checking out the big kids to see how they themselves should act. New kids stood off by themselves like rabbits caught in a car’s headlights on a dark country road. The grade eights formed their own exclusive groups, far from the school doors, ignoring the lesser beings in the school yard. They didn’t talk to anyone below grade seven, would only share their attention with teachers, and then only a select few of them. They pretended to be bored but excitement buzzed in their conversation. They greeted kids they had talked to half an hour ago on the phone like they hadn’t seen them all summer.
The guys were gathered in bunches, acting tough, swearing, punching each other, laughing in cynical bursts as their eyes scouted possible victims for derision. A few of the ones with confidence were putting the move on girls with hard clever talk, standing with their hands in their pockets. The girls, pleased with the attention, either laughed at everything the boys said or rolled their eyes, feigning boredom.
Other girls in chattering flocks pretended to admire each other’s new clothes or aimed sharp cruel remarks at the outsiders who wore clothes from the discount department stores along Lakeshore Boulevard.
I was a grade eight too, but not with the right crowd. Not with any crowd. I was a wall-crawler. I leaned against the rough red brick of the school, stiff with anxiety, looking around, hoping no none would notice me. I had on new deck shoes, jeans and the right kind of shirt, but none of that was enough to get me into the inner circle. I couldn’t make quick jokes. I was way above average height but way below average weight, skinny and lanky, like a collection of sticks held loosely together with string. I had limp black hair and a rash of acne that flared and reddened when I was embarrassed. I seemed always to be embarrassed.
When the bell rang the little kids surged toward the door, forming a noisy unruly line-up. We hung back, trying not to look eager, but the truth was we were bored with summer and we wanted to take up our role as kings and queens of the school. At least, those who could pull it off.
In the line-up at the school door I noticed a short kid I hadn’t seen before. A new back-pack was slung over his shoulder. Probably jammed full of new notebooks and throwaway ballpoint pens, felt-tip markers, maybe a set of coloured pencils. Just like my pack. He stood quiet and calm, but his eyes flitted from face to face.
We filed down the noisy hall and into our classroom, first kids in taking up the desks at the back. Smell of chalk and new paint and paste and that unidentifiable school smell that hung like invisible smoke in every room. The teacher was Mrs. Roper. She had been my teacher once before and she looked like she was wearing the same flower print dress she had on when school let out last June. Same hair-do, long and turned up at the ends, same thick-soled shoes. Everything about her was thick too, her neck, her arms, her waist, her legs. She taught social studies and phys ed, and she was to be our home-room teacher.
She welcomed us back and started reading off the roll, smiling at each kid as they acknowledged their names. There were three new ones, two girls and the short guy, who was sitting in front of me. When Mrs. Roper finished taking attendance she told us we would have the first lesson. History, she said. Our own history, she said.
“Most people don’t realize,” she began, “that our names—at least in English—come from places, occupations, or objects.” Roper talked to kids as if they were imbeciles or about six months old. She smiled and looked around as if a blinding light was supposed to shine in our skulls at this wonderful revelation. “For example, Eileen Ford.”
A girl across from me—one of the new ones—turned red as her eyes widened.
“Your surname,” Roper went on, “is taken from a place in a river where it’s easy to cross. A ford. That’s a place. Can anyone think of another surname that comes from a place?” She looked around.
This was the time for the eager types. Every class had a few and they always tried to stake out their ground on the first day so the teacher could find out right away that they were good students. Most of them were girls.
“Lake?” one of them offered. “Rivers?” said another. “Stone!” asserted a third.
“Good,” Roper beamed, “very good. And some names come from occupati
ons. Like yours, Amy. You all know what a blacksmith is. Well, Amy’s last name, Smith, comes from that occupation. Who can think of another?”
The eager types chimed in again. “Carver,” said one. Then a voice boomed from the back row. “Yeah, I guess Ramjit’s family used to be rock stars.”
The room was quiet for a second. Roper stared at Tony Tattaglia, mystified.
“Singh, get it?” Tony added.
Laughter. Ramjit’s large brown eyes widened and he turned on an embarrassed smile. Roper’s face clouded as she glared at Tony. He had been in my class every year since grade two and he got in more trouble each year. He was always shouting out his jokes in a loud deep voice that made it sound as if he talked in capital letters. Mostly we liked his disturbances because he was pretty funny, and even when he wasn’t he got into trouble and that was even more entertaining than his funnies.
Roper ignored him. She looked at me. “One of the most interesting cases is yours, Steve.”
I felt the needle-points of all the eyes in the room and a hot flush crept up my neck and into my face. I felt conscious of every zit.
“Your name, Chandler, comes from candle-making. Candle-makers used to be called chandlers, not candlers, and before we had electricity that was a very important job, because candles were the only way people could provide light for their houses.” She smiled. “So you’re a candle-maker.”
Tony shouted, “ ‘He’s so skinny he ought to be called WICK!’
Laughter rolled through the room like a tidal wave and crashed around my head. I stared at my hands clenched on the desk.
“Wick!” “Wick!” Roper cut off the laughter and tried to regain control of the class. All around me the whispers hissed. “Wick!” “Wick!”
At lunch I left the school and crossed the yard as fast as I could, heading for the street. Behind me I heard, “Hey, Wick, better get your mother to feed you some more!”
“Yeah, Wick, go to Weight Watchers and do everything backwards!”
After that, nobody except teachers and my mother called me Steve. I guess some kids get used to nicknames, but every time someone called me Wick I cursed that bone-headed teacher and her equally bone-headed lesson about surnames.
Hated it until the short kid who sat in front of me became my friend.
Which was surprising, because he was Mr. Athlete, always in the centre of a cloud of dust thrown up by a fast-moving pack of guys kicking, hitting or tossing a ball around the school yard. Me, I was never anywhere near the dust. I’d be on my own, waiting for the bell. But in class he would often turn around and ask me questions about the work we were doing.
One time he called me Wick and I freaked at him so loud Roper had us both in at recess to tell us about good manners in class. When she finished her lecture and left he asked why I was so strung-out about my nickname.
“Because it’s stupid and I hate it,” I said.
“Relax,” he said, “it’s no big deal.”
“Not for you. You’re not skinny, and your nickname’s okay.” It was true. He was called Hawk. Nobody knew why.
“You hate the name or you hate being skinny?”
I hadn’t thought about it, but he had a point.
“Being skinny.”
“Nobody has to be skinny if they don’t want to. Meet me after school. I’ve got something to show you.”
After the bell went we tore out of the school yard and headed down 20th Street to the Lakeshore. Hawk took me way down near 35th Street to a health club called Alterations. It was part of a chain I saw advertised on TV all the time, with sleek-looking women in skintight body suits telling us if we came to the club a few times a week the universe would change direction. Or men in cut-offs and T-shirts with the arms ripped out, flexing and acting tough.
Turned out Hawk’s dad worked there afternoons. There was a big weight room with all kinds of free weights, benches and a mammoth Nautilus. There were electronic programmable stationary bicycles and rowing machines. And saunas and whirlpools, the whole works. Because afternoons were the slow time, Hawk’s dad let us work out there after school.
So I started weight training. Almost every day. Hawk showed me the routines and his dad told me what to eat. “You got to take in tons of protein when you weight train,” he said. And gradually, slowly, my skinniness went away. My chest was more than a bag of bones, my arms touched the cloth on the sleeves of my shirts, my legs didn’t look like paddle handles. By the time I made grade nine at Lakeshore Collegiate I was pretty well built, or at least well on the way.
And I didn’t mind being called Wick any more. In fact, I kind of liked it.
FOURTEEN
I SPENT THE AFTERNOON ON THE ROCK by the water, swimming and reading a thick novel called Shogun. The old man came down for a while and splashed around like a wounded duck. Seeing him in his bathing suit, I realized he wasn’t so thin after all. His muscles were small but knotty and wiry, like cables—the way a guy gets when he works but doesn’t do weights. He still looked pretty wimpy, though.
Later on in the afternoon, while the old man was cleaning the acne-van’s spark plugs, I put on my trainers and took a half-hour run along the dirt road that twists and turns through the park. I jogged along just fast enough to keep ahead of the mosquitoes and blackflies that hovered in the shady areas looking for tourist blood. It was a pretty big park, although there weren’t many campers—just a few families and a couple of RVs with old people sitting outside in lawn chairs reading the paper. When I got back to our campsite I took a last swim and dressed.
By that time the old man had a small fire going in the fire pit beside the picnic table and there was a pot of stew and a coffee pot sitting on the rocks at the edge of the flames. I didn’t know why he cooked on a fire instead of the stove in the van and I didn’t ask.
After dinner, as it grew dark and cool enough to keep the bugs down, we sat beside the fire and the old man opened another beer and started asking me all kinds of questions about school and stuff like that—the kind of questions asked at Christmas time by aunts and uncles you haven’t seen for a year or so. I answered him as best I could without telling him anything personal. I tried to work up the nerve to ask him something about himself but I failed. The time didn’t seem right.
Then he started asking about Mom. He was fishing around with small talk but I knew what he was after. Finally he got to the point.
“Does she go out much?”
The truth was, she didn’t go out at all, unless it was some office party. As far as I knew she had dated twice, maybe three times while I was growing up, but the guys never showed up again.
When I got older I wondered about it. I mean, my mother wasn’t a beauty queen but she was pretty good-looking. And she always dressed well, never made a move without her make-up on. But no men in her life. I knew she must have been lonely. Just then I felt a twitch of guilt. Maybe it was me that was holding her back. Maybe she gave up men because, with me and her job, she didn’t have time.
“No, she’s pretty busy,” I said.
“Yeah, she’s done okay for herself.”
“She sure has. She’s the top accountant for the company. She also made some money on the stock market; she’s pretty smart that way. That’s when she bought the condo.”
“Nice car she drives, too.”
I caught a tone in his comment that I didn’t like. “Well, why not? She earned it,” I said.
“Course she did. But she never had no steady guy, eh?”
“Not really.”
“Too busy, like you said.”
“Yeah.”
The old man looked into the fire for a moment. Then he took another pull on the beer can and said, more to himself than to me, “Maybe nobody can meet her standards.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
“Nothin’. Forget it. I was just talkin’ to my—”
I stood up. “I’m going to bed.”
He gave me an apologetic lo
ok and nodded. “Okay. ’Night.”
I climbed into the top bed, took off my clothes and got into my sleeping bag. I wasn’t tired but no way was I going to sit there and listen to him talk about my mother like that. Maybe I had to travel with him but I didn’t have to take any crap from him.
He stayed at the fire for a long time.
REPLAY
Hawk and I called his house the United Nations because his dad was half-black, born in New York, his mom came over from Viet Nam when she was four, and Hawk was a short white kid from who-knows-where.
I liked it at Hawk’s house. His parents were low-key, easygoing types. They published a local weekly newspaper called Good News, which they started up when Hawk was little because they were sick and tired of all the gloom-and-doom, wars and disasters and dirty politics of the major papers. Hawk’s parents figured more good things happened in the world than bad things but we never get to hear about them. Good News contained only positive stories, like fund-raising campaigns for the Queensway General Hospital, scholarships won by local students, environmental stuff and a Citizen of the Week citation. I sort of agreed, but, to tell the truth, the paper was a little boring. Maybe that was why it didn’t bring in much advertising revenue and Mr. Richardson had to work at the health club. Mrs. Richardson, a small thin feisty lady, wrote most of the stories.
Hawk’s house was the opposite of ours. My mother and I got along okay most of the time, but our house always seemed to have an atmosphere of tension. I remember reading a story called “The Rockinghorse Winner” where this little kid named Paul thought he heard voices coming out of the walls saying, “There must be more money; there must be more money.” I’m not saying our place was that bad, but, like I’ve said before, my mother’s two big goals were making lots of money and keeping up appearances. Our new condo was carpeted everywhere and full of costly new furniture that didn’t look very inviting. In the downstairs bathroom were vases of dried flowers and baskets of little rose-shaped soap cakes on the back of the toilet beside the can of aerosal air-freshener. Is that pretentious, or what?