Son of a Critch

by Mark Critch

  That night the entire family sat around the TV to watch the local news. Wally was the top story. They led with him walking into the courthouse, waving and smiling at the cameras, laughing his trademark laugh. “Oh, no, Wally,” the old man said to no one in particular. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?” I asked. He seemed to be handling it well. He certainly looked like the lovable celebrity we all knew.

  “He’s smiling at the newsmen,” Dad said, waving a cigarette at the screen. “Behind the cameras are people he’s worked with all his life. His friends. He’s smiling at them. But the people watching don’t know that. He looks like he doesn’t care at all.”

  “What if he isn’t guilty?” I asked, basically inventing victim blaming right there and then.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dad told me. “He’ll always be known for this now. He’s done.”

  Wally was convicted and did his time. And the old man was right: he never worked again. Years later, I saw him in the mall. He’d been given a job shredding cheques at a bank until a customer spotted him and complained to the manager and he was fired. Even at his lowest, there was nowhere to go but down.

  Every day at school someone would make some comment about the scandal. There were knock-knock jokes and rhymes. Once I’d been very proud of my father. Now, guilty by association in the court of playground justice, I never mentioned his name or where he worked. But everyone knew.

  Every recess went the same way. Someone would say something about Dad that wasn’t true and I’d get into some sort of a scuffle until eventually I grew tired of it all and stopped caring. Children making child molester jokes became a normal part of life. Little did we know that this was just a taste of something much bigger to come in a few years. That cataclysmic event would make Wally’s crime seem tame in comparison and make us question everything and everyone we knew.

  I too fell into a bit of a funk in those days. Someone I thought was very good had done something very bad. And I’d been punished harshly for doing something I had nothing to do with. In the real world, right and wrong weren’t as clear-cut as in Saturday morning cartoons. Cracks were appearing in my childhood, and the real world was starting to dribble in from the corners.

  * * *

  —

  As the next year went by, I found myself looking less at the blackboard and more out the window. My neck muscles were in danger of growing so strong on one side that I’d be stuck in a permanent sideways gaze, like someone perpetually driving past an accident. I’d skip school whenever I had the chance, and when I was in class I’d daydream. I doodled in my scribblers and added to the years of graffiti on my desk.

  The top of a wooden school desk is an archaeological treasure trove. Your average bored student could use a pen or geometry-set compass to create hieroglyphs rivalling those of any ancient Egyptian. Some future historian will find a wooden desktop and make such culturally important discoveries as “AC/DC rules” and “ABBA SUX.” Just as archaeologists have studied forty-thousand-year-old cave paintings to learn about extinct animals and life in the Paleolithic era, future historians will glean from early 1980s desk art that students of the period viewed Brother Kavanagh as a “Bell Head” and Mr. Armstrong as a “DICK.” Mating rituals of the time will also be examined. Through carbon dating, students of late-twentieth-century romance will decipher deep-grooved desk carvings to learn that early in September “Tammy + Johnny” and as late as November “Johnny + Tammy = True Love Always.” However, by December a mysterious disruption occurred, similar in impact to the mass extinction of the Cretaceous-Paleogene event some sixty-six million years before. It is at this date that the earliest impressions of “Johnny Loves Paula” are found. These markings will show a surprising change in behaviour that led to hostilities between the humans of the period. The later discovery of the “Johnny is a prick” and “Tammy is a slut” drawings on a stall door during the excavation of the girls’ bathroom will support this bold new theory.

  One day near the start of grade three I was sitting at my desk, trying to change the F-word into “Buck Rogers” with a Sharpie, when the music nun appeared in the doorway of my classroom. The music nun was the sister in charge of orchestra. She had her own classroom, and students would be sent there to feebly scratch and hack their way through “Peter and the Wolf.” But St. Teresa’s had nowhere near the number of interested kids to fill out an orchestra, so the nuns had turned to conscription. Now I could see my teacher and the nun chatting and looking in my direction. I began to fear I’d been drafted.

  My teacher instructed me to go with Sister Elizabeth, which I did. I had no other choice, save eternal damnation. We walked down the long corridor to the music room without saying a word. Sister Elizabeth was a fairly quiet, older nun. She wore round granny glasses and the full nun get-up. In the music room I did a quick survey of the instruments. Membership in the orchestra was guaranteed to get me beaten up, but there was a chance I’d make it out of elementary school alive if I could select the least offensive one.

  The violin? I’d only seen it played by girls, so that went straight into the Con column. However, gangsters in old movies often carried their guns in violin cases, so it would add a certain film-noir flair to my look. Pro column it was. The flute? I immediately thought of The Spirit of ’76, the painting in which a white-haired old man and a young boy playing drums march alongside a noble fifer, Old Glory waving behind them. Pro! But the flute also seemed to be young women’s favoured instrument for the talent portion of the Miss America pageant: Con.

  Percussion seemed the obvious choice; maybe I could play drums? That would be cool. Drummers beat things. There was no way people would beat up a drummer. My favourites were Ringo Starr, followed by Animal from the Muppets. Both were well loved despite their unconventional looks. Still, practically speaking, it would be next to impossible to cart a drum set on the bus out to the city limits and back. The drums left me with one check in the Pro column, one in the Con. Making a decision was proving tougher than expected.

  I spied a clarinet by the window and was reminded of the many clarinet players among the stack of Dad’s 78s. Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Glen Miller—the clarinet was the electric guitar of its day. Back during the war years, the clarinet player was front and centre. I pictured myself standing before the orchestra with a marquee reading “The Mark Critch Big Band” and noodling through a solo during “In the Mood.” Nothing was cooler than the clarinet!

  “I want to play the clarinet,” I shouted, forgetting that I was the only one selecting a musical instrument in the Wheel of Fortune prize turntable of my mind. Sister Elizabeth looked me over from head to toe as if I were a tomato she was mentally squeezing to see if it was ripe.

  “I am the one who selects your instrument,” she said finally. My dreams of a USO tour dissipated. “You will play the cello.” Sister Elizabeth slowly walked over to the instrument, standing it up straight by the neck. The thing was enormous. It was easily as tall as I was, and twice as wide. It looked to me like a coffin, except this coffin would have the dead person on the outside once Fox and his brothers got hold of me.

  “What about the drums, Sister?” I was grasping at straws.

  “There will be no drums for you.” That left no room for debate. “You have been selected for cello.” Clearly, the cello was an important instrument—she’d obviously been looking for someone who could deliver the right sound. My hands, though delicate, did show a remarkable dexterity when playing Atari. Perhaps she’d noticed how deftly I carved my name onto my desktop and fancied hearing the hands responsible play Bach?

  “I picked you for your size,” she said, ruining the moment. If this was their seduction technique, no wonder all these nuns were single. “The cello is a big instrument and you are the biggest boy in your class.” I was certainly the tallest boy, and it was true that I’d been putting on a little weight. I hadn’t been chosen because of my hands at all. I’d been chosen for my waist. “
A big boy like you should be able to carry the cello, no problem at all.” Okay, easy, Sister. No need to rub it in.

  “We will rehearse three times a week after school,” she said. Three times a week? And after school!? Not on your life. Luckily, I had a built-in kill switch for any and all extracurricular activities.

  “Can’t, Sister,” I said, getting up to leave. “I have to get the bus. I live out by VOCM.” Being a hermit came in handy from time to time. Up till now it meant not having to go to birthday parties of people I didn’t like. But this time it saved me from missing after-school TV time. I was beginning to like the country life.

  “The school bus doesn’t go all the way out there,” she said incredulously. I assured her that it did. I began to turn, making my apologies, but I did have to get back to class. There’d been some talk of a slide show for health class and I didn’t want to miss it.

  “Then you’ll just have to be excused from class to take your lessons.” Man, she wasn’t backing down. Wait: did she say “excused from class”? Sister, I am your Yo-Yo Ma-n. Three times a week, I was to be excused from the third period. For me, this was math class. I was terrible at math. Missing math was the worst thing that could happen to me academically and the best thing personally.

  The next morning when all the other students reached into their desks to pull out their math books, my teacher reminded me of my lesson. I walked out the door feeling like a convict accidentally sprung from jail on the morning of his execution. I proceeded down the hall and into the stairway that led to the music room. Obi-Wan would begin my training and I would single-handedly bring the classical music world a new hope, wielding my bow like a light saber. But like all heroes, I was about to encounter my nemesis.

  When I got to the music room, I was surprised to find another boy sitting behind a cello. “Who are you?” I asked, feeling scammed. Sister Elizabeth didn’t need a cellist that badly. She already had one.

  He introduced himself as Kevin. His dark hair was parted right down the middle of his head like a divided hairway. His puffy cheeks were dotted with freckles and he had a certain fragility about him, as if his bones might be made of cartilage. “I’ve been playing cello for two years,” he couldn’t wait to announce. This kid must have been older than me, but he could have easily passed for younger. I couldn’t imagine him carrying a cello around; he clearly disproved the whole “size matters” argument. Sometimes it’s not how big you are, it’s the way you move your bow.

  “Where’s Sister Elizabeth?”

  “She said she’d check on us later,” he told me. “I’m going to teach you until she gets back.” Not only was I being forced to learn an instrument I didn’t want to play, but the woman forcing me couldn’t even be bothered to show up. She’d farmed me out to a fetus. “I bet you don’t even know how to hold the bow, do you?” Kevin scoffed. He half-inhaled, half-snorted the kind of laugh that makes people leave rooms. It was like the sucking wet sound that a faucet makes when the water comes back on after being shut off awhile. I grabbed my bow, desperate to prove him wrong.

  “There. I’m holding it.” I held the bow like you’d grip a bicycle handle. Kevin’s amusement shot in through his nostrils, back out under his uvula, and rippled against his gelatinous cheeks, finally expressing itself in a guffaw that sounded like a noise a walrus would make if her mate accidentally stuck it in the wrong hole.

  “Um, so that’s wrong,” he snorted. “Number two on the hair, number three on the silver, pinky on the frog, and number one is right here,” he said, moving my fingers around on the bow.

  “What’s a frog?” This sent him sideways in his chair as if I’d asked him the most obvious question in the world, such as “How the hell is a guy like you still alive in a school like this, Kevin?”

  “The frog, dummy,” he began (as I felt my fingers tighten on the bow), “is the black part at the bottom of the bow. Duh!” That made no sense. There was nothing froglike about it. It wasn’t even green. I wondered if I was holding the bow well enough to stick the whole thing up his arse without breaking it. “Now, try again. Make sure your thumb and finger number two are across from each other.” He reached over and spread my fingers apart. I’d never had a child for a teacher before and I was getting annoyed. “Bend your thumb!” It was already bent. Surely to God there couldn’t be this much to just holding the bloody thing. “The first finger needs to bend around the bow a little.” Whatever. “Not too much!” Fine. “No, that’s not enough.” Make up your mind! “Like me, see? My thumb is pointing toward the tip. Bend your wrist.” I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Want to play a game?” I asked the young man in training to become Canada’s first male nun.

  “We can’t,” he said, shocked at the notion. “I have to show you how to hold the bow.”

  I could tell that not too many people had ever asked Kevin to play a game. He was even further on the edges of our school’s solar system than I was. And nerds, like strange dogs, can smell fear in others. If played this right, I’d be able to use that to my advantage. “It’ll only take a minute,” I said. “You’re so good with your hands. You’ll be great at it. Ever play knuckles?”

  “What’s that?” he asked, nibbling at my hook.

  “Knuckles is easy,” I explained. “First you make two fists.” I made two myself to demonstrate. Kevin balled his squishy hands into limp fists and held out the uncooked meatballs, awaiting further instruction. “Now, you try to hit my knuckles with your fist. I try to pull away. But if I flinch and you don’t try to hit me, then you get a free smack. Easy!”

  “But why would we do that?”

  “It’s just something friends do to pass the time,” I offered.

  “I guess we can play for a minute.” He’d bitten down hard enough to snap the hook from my line but then jumped into the boat anyway. Our fists touched and I let Kevin go first. He flinched before he moved, even though his fists were the ones doing the hitting, and I sluggishly pulled back my own. He came down on my knuckles like a glob of half-melted butter.

  “Ouch,” I feigned. “You’re fast! Must be from playing cello so much.” The scene repeated twice more and I enjoyed the gentle massage. I pulled away before he could get a fourth smack in, giving Kevin a free turn. He couldn’t believe his luck, his celebratory laugh sounding like a wild boar vomiting. “Now it’s my turn,” I announced. I could see some colour drain from Kevin’s face.

  “Oh. Okay,” he said as we lined our fists up again. I barely turned my wrist and Kevin’s two hands flew behind his back. “Ahhh,” he exclaimed for no reason.

  “Now I get a free smack,” I reminded him with a smile. I could see my catch wanting to jump back out of the boat, but he’d already been gutted and filleted, his head long since thrown to the gulls. I looked Kevin in the eyes and smiled a smile that sat on the fence between reassuring and sinister. My right hand turned half a hair and once again Kevin’s hands flew back, this time as high as his shoulders. “Calm down,” I said, “we’re friends. I’m not going to hurt you.” Kevin grunted a waking snore and his tensed shoulders dropped. That’s when I unleashed two downward-diving fists atop his powdery knuckles.

  “Ow! That hurts!” he howled, eyes tearing. His glasses fogged up and I lost visual contact.

  “Are you okay?” I feigned concern from every fibre of my being. “I don’t know what happened. I thought you were farther away than that. I won’t hit you so hard next time.”

  “What next time?” Kevin rubbed his sore hand with his other hand, which was also his sore hand.

  “You flinched twice,” I reminded him. “That’s the rules,” I added apologetically. There was nothing I could do. After all, Kevin himself had taken advantage of the free-smack rule. He looked back to the door, hoping Sister Elizabeth would grant him a last-minute reprieve, but there was never a nun around when you needed one. “Put out your hands.” I could hear a tinge of vice-principal in my voice and wondered if they got the same rush of power when they doled
out the strap. Kevin’s knuckles throbbed, pulsing red like the clock on the old man’s VCR. His hands trembled slightly, bending at the wrists. “You’re not holding them right,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Your hands,” I instructed, “they need to be straight.” He begrudgingly held his fists level, the red splotches under his skin wobbling about like the globs of goo in a lava lamp. “No. No. No. Not like that,” I continued. “You’re holding them all wrong.” I held his hand at the wrist, tipping it up slightly. “There,” I said, admiring my work. “Much better. Now, your thumb has to be on the outside. It should be pointing toward your pinky.” Kevin did as he was told, the sting beginning to leave his hands, relaxing him slightly. “Perfect,” I encouraged him. “You got it now. You’re a fast learner.”

  Bam! I came down on his hands like a teenager swinging the mallet at a carnival strongman game to impress the prettiest girl in school. A crack could be heard and I was proud to be the first medical researcher to have found something solid inside of Kevin. He shook his hands, fanning them back and forth. He blew on them as if they were a pie fresh out of the oven and he a starving man. Finally he chose to sit on them, the soft crush of corduroy cushioning adding to the cottony softness of his doughy backside to make a velvety mitten of comfort.

  It was at this moment that I saw the doorknob turn. I picked my bow up off the floor, number two on the hair and my pinky on the frog. “I’m glad to see you’re practising, Mark,” Sister Elizabeth said, adjudicating my fingers. “But that’s not quite right.”

  “Sorry, Sister. Kevin has been showing me, but I think I need to see it again,” I said, dumping a salt truck onto the wound.

  “Kevin, show Mark down-bow technique, please.” He shot me a dirty look, or at least I imagine he did because his glasses had fogged again. As he picked up his bow the nun’s eyes followed his movements, his joints seeming to have rusted out like the Tin Man’s after a rainstorm.