by William Bell
I was relieved in a way, thinking, is this all it is? Hawk is ashamed he’s human like the rest of us? I began to feel a little better, as if the universe was heading toward normal. I remembered how Hawk would never join the locker room sex talk, the bragging about girls, the constant trading of insults that the other guys kept up, calling each other fag every few seconds. I also remembered that I was always in on it, telling lies and acting big. “You talk about women as if they were meat,” Hawk had said many times, so many that the guys thought he was some kind of sour-faced puritan.
I brushed some of the paper bits from his shoulder. “Relax, Hawk. Lots of the guys have pictures. Every guy I know likes pictures of naked women. It’s natural. It’s no big deal.”
“They were pictures,” came a voice so choked with sobbing that I could barely make it out, “of guys.”
“What? I thought you said guys.” This was really getting crazy.
He took his arms away from his face, but he still wouldn’t look up. “They were pictures of men.”
“Let me get this straight, You’re telling me that you had some sex pictures of men.”
He nodded.
“So …” My mind began to race over strange ground, the way it does when you’re in unknown territory and you’re trying to find a landmark to get your bearings. “So they said … so they razzed you and said ‘Hawk’s a fag,’ right? Is that why you’re so upset?”
At last he raised his head and looked at me, straight into my eyes, his own eyes so full of fear they seemed to vibrate with energy. I had never seen his face like that—terrified, wounded, beaten.
“Wick,” he said thickly, “I am gay.”
It was like a full-out punch to my solar plexus. I couldn’t breathe. A sick burning fear rushed in where my breath had been. I slowly rose from the bench.
“Yeah, right. Very funny, Hawk. You’re a panic.”
But it wasn’t funny. The tears streaming from his eyes and the sobs wracking his body told me more than his words could do.
I stepped back.
“Wick, please, please!”
Blindly I moved away from him, grabbed my gym bag, tore my clothes from the hook on the wall, backing away as if he was a leper and if I touched him or even breathed the same air I’d be contaminated. I turned and ran.
The wail of pain chased me through the locker room, slamming off the walls, echoing inside my skull. “Wick!” he screamed. “Wick, please!”
SIXTEEN
THE ECHO BECAME THE ROAR of wind punctuated by a low uneven booming, like the irregular heartbeat of a huge beast. I jerked upright, suddenly awake.
Rain pounded on the roof of the van. The canvas sides of the pop top boomed as they flexed and snapped with each powerful gust of the wind.
I climbed down from the bed and knuckled the sleep from my eyes. It was still dark outside. I looked at my watch. Two a.m.
The old man wasn’t there. His bed wasn’t pulled out.
I drew on my clothes and rummaged around for a flashlight, finding one under the driver’s seat. When I yanked open the side door the wind gushed in, bringing rain. I jumped out and quickly pulled the door closed. Within seconds I was soaked to the skin. I swept the campsite with the light, saw the two overturned lawn chairs, the dead wet ashes of the fire, the hatchet stuck in a log.
The weak yellow light-beam bounced ahead of me as I made my way through the tossing evergreens down to the water. Whipped by the rainy wind, I played the light back and forth along the shore until the faint yellow circle found him. He was lying half under the boughs of an evergreen on the edge of the bush, legs drawn up to his chest, arms crossed, one hand clutching the almost empty bottle. Tears of rain coursed in tiny rivulets across his face. I pulled the bottle out of his grip and tossed it aside.
“Hey, wake up.”
He groaned as I dragged him to a sitting position. Great, I thought. I managed to haul him to his feet and picked him up in a fireman’s carry and slowly worked my way back along the path to the van. He wasn’t very heavy.
Inside, I lowered the old man to the floor. I set up his bed, then lifted him under the arms and turned him so he could sit on the edge. He fell backwards, sprawled on the bed. I hauled him upright again. His eyes opened as I tried to pull his sopping bush shirt off.
“Whozat?” he mumbled.
“It’s me. Hold still.” I got the bush shirt and T-shirt off and started working on his boots.
“She stole him off me,” he mumbled.
When I had done with his boots and socks I stood up. He was crying.
“She took my little boy. My little Stevie. I hadda leave or she’d tell everybody.”
I lowered him to his back. His bare wet chest heaved as I pulled off his soaking wet jeans and underwear. With a dish towel I dried him as well as I could, then pulled his sleeping bag onto him like a giant sock.
I stripped off my own clothes, letting them fall to the floor and leaving them as I wiped myself off with the towel. I snapped off the light above the sink and climbed up into my bed.
What had he meant when he said she’d tell everybody? The “she” was probably my mother. Had she kicked him out because he was a drinker? Had my father done something that made her force him to leave? Why would she do that to me?
I heard him whimpering in his sleep while deep in the cellar of my memory the laser jumped frantically from postcard to postcard, sending powerful messages surging along the cable and flashing like lighting into my mind.
I lay awake for hours, the old man moaning in his sleep beneath me while the wind cried around us.
SEVENTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, as the grey light of dawn leaked into the wet world outside the van, I put the coffee on and dressed in dry clothes. I was tired and raw and depressed—and it was only Wednesday. I’d been with the old man since Sunday, but it seemed more like three weeks than three days.
I stepped outside and headed to the washroom down the road. The wind had lessened but it was still there, pushing grey clouds across a sullen sky. The bush was water-logged and quiet and the mosquitoes were out in force. I got back into the van and turned off the stove, then woke the old man up. When he looked like he could sit up without help I poured out a coffee and handed it to him.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his sleeping bag gathered around his lower body, noisily sipping, saying nothing. He looked pale, his eyes bloodshot, his hair spiky, his stubble dark against his skin.
“Think you could drive this thing?” he said finally. His hand shook as he raised the cup of steaming coffee to his mouth.
“I’ve never driven a standard, but I could try, I guess.”
“Try,” he urged. “I’m in no shape to drive. When you get out to the highway, that’s Highway 17, turn right. You’ll get to the outskirts of the Soo in a couple of hours. Wake me up then and I’ll drive us into town to Sharon’s.”
I didn’t ask who Sharon was. He put the empty cup down, slumped back on the bed and curled up, gathering the bag around him. He was asleep in an instant.
I put the wet lawn chairs in the back, gathered up the hatchet and the supper dishes, and pulled down the pop top, clicking the latches into place. The key was in the ignition. I started the van and fiddled with the knobs on the dash to get some heat going to drive away the dampness.
I stalled half a dozen times just backing out of the campsite, jerking the van back and forth like a demented rocking horse. Luckily the old man was dead to the world or I’d have rattled his brains permanently.
Once out on the road, I cranked the wheel, shoved down hard on the clutch pedal and tried to find first gear. The van shuddered and bucked but it moved in the right direction. I jammed it into second gear and left it there, steering carefully, not bothering to stop at the park gate for fear I’d look like an idiot trying to get going again. I had to come to a halt when I reached Highway 17, though. I waited until there wasn’t another vehicle in sight before I jerked and sputtered my way onto the pav
ement, crawling along like a bug as I slowly worked my way through the gears.
After a little while I began to relax. I turned on the radio and classical music boomed out of the speakers. After a couple of shots at the seek button I found a rock station and settled back for the drive.
The highway turned and dipped, coiled around hills and climbed over the ones it couldn’t avoid. It crossed rivers, went through small towns and Indian reserves. I began to enjoy the drive, and as I rolled along I did a little planning.
I figured I’d take the old man at his word and take the bus the rest of the way to Thunder Bay. No matter how I looked at it, this trip wasn’t working out. At all.
It was still a moody overcast day when I saw the signs saying we were almost to Sauk Ste. Marie, or the Soo as everybody calls it. I was driving along flat land, farms on my right stretching away to the mountains, the blue waters of Georgian Bay on my left. When the road widened to four lanes, signs promising junk-food joints appeared and I knew we were close. I pulled off at a picnic spot. I forgot to put in the clutch and when the van was almost stopped it bucked a few times before it shuddered to a halt. The engine died. I turned off the ignition and got out.
I visited the outdoor toilet, then woke up the old man. It was like trying to push King Kong back up to the top of the Empire State Building. He groaned and rolled out of my reach, promised to get up, then flopped back and closed his eyes. Finally I turned the radio on and cranked up the volume. A Rush tune boomed out of the speakers loud enough to rip the top off the van. That did it.
Once he was up, the old man was quiet and sheepish. He got himself dressed and slid behind the wheel.
We drove into the Soo, passing shopping malls and motels on Wellington Street, then the old man wended his way through a residential neighbourhood. He pulled into a gravel drive in front of a small frame bungalow and parked beside a rusted-out Honda Civic.
I got out and looked around. The house reminded me of our old bunaglow on 23rd Street—the one I grew up in. It was white, trimmed in dark green, with shrubs along the front under the windows on either side of the door. From out back came the wail of country-western music. I followed the old man around the side of the house.
There was a shed there, with stove wood piled high along one side. A woman raised an axe high above her and brought it down on the birch log that stood atop a splitting block. Whack! The log split neatly in two and the halves wobbled briefly before toppling to the ground.
“You never were any good at that,” the old man said.
The woman turned and her face lit up. “Jack!” she exclaimed. “You’re here!”
She leaned the axe against the chopping block, shut off a beat-up portable radio at her feet and walked quickly toward us. She and the old man wrapped themselves up in a big hug, kissed, and both talked at once for a second.
She finally seemed to notice me. “You must be Steve,” she said, smiling. “Welcome to the Soo.”
I had to hand it to the old man. She was pretty good-looking, with long black hair caught behind with an elastic band, big dark eyes and a great bod. She wore faded jeans, running shoes split along the soles and a checkered bush shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing tanned forearms.
“Hi,” I managed as we shook hands. Her hands were strong and rough.
Sharon turned back to the old man. “You look a little the worse for wear,” she commented, and the old man gave her a guilty look. “How about some tea?”
“Sounds great.”
She led us through the back door into a small kitchen. The old man and I sat down at a painted wooden table while Sharon put the kettle on and got the tea ready.
“You like tea, Steve?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Call me Wick, please. Yeah, tea’s fine.”
She turned. “What did you—”
“It’s his nickname,” the old man explained. “He likes it better than his real name.”
Sharon smiled, melting away my resentment at the old man for speaking for me. “Well, sometime you’ll have to tell me where you picked up a handle like that. Anyway,” she said to the old man, “I’ve missed you.”
“Me too.”
I got the impression that if I hadn’t been there they’d have been in the sack instead of going on about how long it had been since they’d seen each other. Luckily, the whistling kettle interrupted this fascinating conversation.
Sharon brought the cups, tea pot, milk and sugar to the table and sat down beside the old man.
“Your show—” she began.
The old man held up his hand. “Sorry, Sharon, can we talk about that later?”
“Sure. Yeah.” She sipped her tea, frowning.
“What show?” I asked Sharon.
The old man frowned. “Nothin.”
We made small talk while we sipped our tea, then the old man asked if anybody minded if he had a snooze. Nobody minded—as if we were going to say anything—so he left the kitchen.
“What’s happening, Sharon? What’s this about a show?”
“You any good at chopping wood, Wick?” Sharon asked.
I knew she didn’t want to say anything more. “Oh, I guess I could manage.” Which was a lie. I had never chopped wood in my life. We didn’t have too much call for chopping in a condo in Etobicoke.
Sharon took me out back and stood there watching while I fumbled around, pretending I knew what I was doing. After all, I thought, how hard can it be if she can do it? Well, it wasn’t hard, but there were a few tricks to make it easy, like using the splitting axe’s weight instead of driving it down with full force and burying the head in the chopping block and sending the pieces of wood rocketing away on either side like they were shot from a cannon. Like using a wedge on the logs that had big knot holes in them.
The thing was, Sharon explained it in a way that didn’t make me feel like a loser. She went back into the house and left me to the job.
I kept at it for quite a while. It felt good to use my muscles again after a few days doing nothing. It felt even better to be hitting something. I was hot and sweating and I felt loose, like I could go all day. But Sharon called me in for supper, thanked me for my help, and put a steaming plate of spaghetti in front of me.
The old man didn’t join us. We ate in silence, concentrating on the food while cowboy music moaned and complained from the radio on the windowsill. As we did the dishes Sharon told me she worked in the maintenance section of the steel plant in town. She had been laid off a week ago, temporarily, she hoped. Then she asked me about school and my wrestling and all that stuff. I told her about how I got my name, about the upcoming tournament. I liked being with her, to tell the truth. She was one attractive woman. Maybe the old man isn’t such a wimp after all, I thought.
We watched TV for a while and I went to bed early. Sharon made up the couch for me in the living room and I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
EIGHTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING I WOKE UP to the howl of opera music. Oh god, not her too, I thought. I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt and walked barefoot into the kitchen. Sharon was sitting at the table, spooning something that looked like oatmeal into her mouth. She was wearing a white dress and her hair was woven in a French braid.
“Okay if I have a shower?” I asked.
“Good morning. Sure, help yourself. I hope Jack left some dry towels.” When I turned toward the bathroom she added, “By the way, we’re going out after you eat. Jack wants me to take you somewhere.”
“Oh? Where?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Why not? What’s the big mystery?”
“Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise.” She smiled.
I just shrugged my shoulders and headed for the bathroom. About half an hour later we went out to her car. It was about ten o’clock and the sun blazed out of a hard blue sky. The Civic’s interior was like a torture chamber and the black plastic-covered seats fried us.
When Sharon fired up the car it sounded worse than the old man’s van. We wound down the windows—mine would only go halfway—and took off, me wishing we were in my mother’s BMW with its air conditioning.
Sharon drove down near the waterfront, bumped across some railroad tracks and parked in the lot of a huge mall beside an old building that looked like a train station. She pointed across the lot to a newer building that had a huge sign depicting a polar bear. “That’s where you can take the train to the Agawa Canyon,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, the old man mentioned he wanted to take me on that trip. He said the scenery was great.”
She looked at me sharply. “Why do you call him that?”
“What?”
“The old man.”
I felt my face flush. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“Come on, we can get in the back way. We don’t need a ticket.”
“A ticket for what?”
But she had already headed around the back of the building. She opened a narrow wooden door and led the way in. We went down a darkened hall into a large room flooded with sunlight from the north windows. The room was carpeted and dotted with pedestals of different heights, cut from peeled logs varnished to a dull gold. On top of each pedestal was an animal carved from wood—bears, squirrels, different kinds of birds, including a couple of wicked-looking hawks.
At the far end of the room was a large wooden desk. A woman sat behind it, a phone tucked between shoulder and neck. The old man was perched on the edge of the desk, talking to another man standing beside him, holding his unlit pipe in one hand, his thumb slowly moving back and forth on the bowl. The old man was dressed up—for him. He had on a crisp white short-sleeved shirt, clean narrow-wale cords and moccasins.
“Why don’t you take a look around,” Sharon said, her voice still a little frosty. “I’ll see what Jack’s up to.”
Art doesn’t really ring my chimes all that much, but even I could tell those sculptures were good. Really good. The animals were carved with careful detail, the wood glowed, the soft curves of the grain added life and energy. Especially the hawks. They were fierce, with sharp curved beaks, glaring eyes, aggressive talons reaching for their prey. But they were beautiful too, kind of noble.