Traplines

by Eden Robinson

  There weren’t any other kids from the village there. Only townies. Kids that Dad says will never dirty their pink hands. They were split into little groups. They talked and ate and laughed and I wandered around alone, feeling like a dork. I was going to go downstairs to Tony and Craig when Mrs. Smythe came up to me, carrying a hot dog. I never noticed her smile until then. Her blue sundress swayed as she walked.

  “You weren’t in class yesterday,” she said.

  “Stomachache.”

  “I was going to tell you how much I liked your essay. You must have done a lot of work on it.”

  “Yeah.” I tried to remember what I had written.

  “Which part was the hardest?” she said.

  I cleared my throat. “Starting it.”

  “I walked right into that one,” she said, laughing. I smiled.

  A tall man came up and hugged her. She kissed him. “Sam,” she said. “This is the student I was telling you about.”

  “Well, hello,” Mr. Smythe said. “Great paper.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Is it William or Will?” Mr. Smythe said.

  “Will,” I said. He held out his hand and shook mine.

  “That big, huh?” he said.

  Oh no, I thought, remembering what I’d written. Dad, Eric, Grandpa, and I had gone out halibut fishing once and caught a huge one. It took forever to get it in the boat and we all took turns clubbing it. But it wouldn’t die, so Dad shot it. In the essay I said it was seven hundred pounds, but Mrs. Smythe had pointed out to the whole class that halibut didn’t get much bigger than five hundred. Tony and Craig bugged me about that.

  “Karen tells me you’ve written a lot about fishing,” Mr. Smythe said, sounding really cheerful.

  “Excuse me,” Mrs. Smythe said. “That’s my cue to leave. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same. Once you get Sam going with his stupid fish stories you can’t get a word—”

  Mr. Smythe goosed her. She poked him with her hot dog and left quickly. Mr. Smythe put his arm around my shoulder, shaking his head. We sat out on the patio and he told me about the time he caught a marlin and about scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. He went down in a shark cage once to try to film a great white eating. I told him about Uncle Bernie’s gillnetter. He wanted to know if Uncle Bernie would take him out, and what gear he was going to need. We ended up in the kitchen, me using a flounder to show him how to clean a halibut.

  I finally looked at the clock around eleven. Dad had said he would pick me and Tony and Craig up around eight. I didn’t even know where Tony and Craig were anymore. I couldn’t believe it had gotten so late without my noticing. Mrs. Smythe had gone to bed. Mr. Smythe said he would drive me home. I said that was okay, I’d hitch.

  He snorted. “Karen would kill me. No, I’ll drive you. Let’s phone your parents and tell them you’re coming home.”

  No one answered the phone. I said they were probably asleep. He dialed again. Still no answer.

  “Looks like you’ve got the spare bedroom tonight,” he said.

  “Let me try,” I said, picking up the phone. There was no answer, but after six rings I pretended Dad was on the other end. I didn’t want to spend the night at my English teacher’s house. Tony and Craig would never shut up about it.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said. “How come? I see. Car trouble. No problem. Mr. Smythe is going to drive me home. What? Sure, I—”

  “Let me talk to him,” Mr. Smythe said, snatching the phone. “Hello! Mr. Tate! How are you? My, my, my. Your son is a lousy liar, isn’t he?” He hung up. “It’s amazing how much your father sounds like a dial tone.”

  I picked up the phone again. “They’re sleeping, that’s all.” Mr. Smythe watched me as I dialed. There wasn’t any answer.

  “Why’d you lie?” he said quietly.

  We were alone in the kitchen. I swallowed. He was a lot bigger than me. When he reached over, I put my hands up and covered my face. He stopped, then took the phone out of my hands.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. It’s okay.”

  I put my hands down. He looked sad. That annoyed me. I shrugged, backing away. “I’ll hitch,” I said.

  Mr. Smythe shook his head. “No, really, Karen would kill me, then she’d go after you. Come on. We’ll be safer if you sleep in the spare room.”

  In the morning Mr. Smythe was up before I could sneak out. He was making bacon and pancakes. He asked if I’d ever done any freshwater fishing. I said no. He started talking about fishing in the Black Sea and I listened to him. He’s a good cook.

  Mrs. Smythe came into the kitchen dressed in some sweats and a T-shirt. She ate without saying anything and didn’t look awake until she finished her coffee. Mr. Smythe phoned my house but no one answered. He asked if I wanted to go up to Old Timer’s Lake with them. He had a new Sona reel he wanted to try out. I didn’t have anything better to do.

  The Smythes have a twenty-foot speedboat. They let me drive it around the lake a few times while Mrs. Smythe baked in the sun and Mr. Smythe put the rod together. We lazed around the beach in the afternoon, watching the people go by. Sipping their beers, the Smythes argued about who was going to drive back. We rode around the lake some more and roasted hot dogs for dinner.

  Their porch light is on. I go up the walk and ring the bell. Mrs. Smythe said just come in, don’t bother knocking, but I can’t do that. It doesn’t feel right. She opens the door, smiling when she sees me. She is wearing a fluffy pink sweater. “Hi, Will. Sam was hoping you’d drop by. He says he’s looking forward to beating you.”

  “Dream on,” I say.

  She laughs. “Go right in.” She heads down the hall to the washroom.

  I go into the living room. Mr. Smythe isn’t there. The TV is on, some documentary about whales.

  He’s in the kitchen, scrunched over a game of solitaire. His new glasses are sliding off his nose and he looks more like a teacher than Mrs. Smythe. He scratches the beard he’s trying to grow.

  “Come on in,” he says, patting the chair beside him.

  I take a seat and watch him finish the game. He pushes his glasses up. “What’s your pleasure?” he says.

  “Pool,” I say.

  “Feeling lucky, huh?” We go down to the poolroom. “How about a little extra this week?” he says, not looking at me.

  I shrug. “Sure. Dishes?”

  He shakes his head. “Bigger.”

  “I’m not shoveling the walk,” I say.

  He shakes his head again. “Bigger.”

  “Money?”

  “Bigger.”

  “What?”

  He racks up the balls. Sets the cue ball. Wipes his hands on his jeans.

  “What?” I say again.

  Mr. Smythe takes out a quarter. “Heads or tails?” he says, tossing it.

  “Heads,” I say.

  He slaps the quarter on the back of his hand. “I break.”

  “Where? Let me see that,” I say, laughing. He holds it up. The quarter is tails.

  He breaks. “How’d you like to stay with us?” he says, very quietly.

  “Sure,” I say. “But I got to go back on Tuesday. We got to check the traplines again.”

  He is quiet. The balls make thunking sounds as they bounce around the table. “Do you like it here?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Enough to live here?”

  I’m not sure I heard him right. Maybe he’s asking a different question from the one I think he’s asking. I open my mouth. I don’t know what to say. I say nothing.

  “Those are the stakes, then,” he says. “I win, you stay. You win, you stay.”

  He’s joking. I laugh. He doesn’t laugh. “You serious?” I ask.

  He stands up straight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more serious.”

  The room is suddenly very small.

  “Your turn,” he says. “Stripes.”

  I scratch, missing the ball by a mile. He takes his turn.

  �
��We don’t want to push you,” he says. He leans over the table, squints at a ball. “We just think that you’d be safer here. Hell, you practically live with us already.” I watch my sneakers. He keeps playing. “We aren’t rich. We aren’t perfect. We …” He looks at me. “We thought maybe you’d like to try it for a couple of weeks first.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t have to decide right now,” he says. “Think about it. Take a few days.”

  It’s my turn again but I don’t feel like playing anymore. Mr. Smythe is waiting, though. I pick a ball. Aim, shoot, miss.

  The game goes on in silence. Mr. Smythe wins easily. He smiles. “Well, I win. You stay.”

  If I wanted to get out of the room, there is only one door and Mr. Smythe is blocking it. He watches me. “Let’s go upstairs,” he says.

  Mrs. Smythe has shut off the TV. She stands up when we come into the living room. “Will—”

  “I asked him already,” Mr. Smythe says.

  Her head snaps around. “You what?”

  “I asked him.”

  Her hands clench at her sides. “We were supposed to do it together, Sam.” Her voice is flat. She turns to me. “You said no.”

  I can’t look at her. I look at the walls, at the floor, at her slippers. I shouldn’t have come tonight. I should have waited for Eric to leave. She stands in front of me, trying to smile. Her hands are warm on my face. “Look at me,” she says. “Will? Look at me.” She is trying to smile. “Hungry?” she says.

  I nod. She makes a motion with her head for Mr. Smythe to follow her into the kitchen. When they’re gone I sit down. It should be easy. It should be easy. I watch TV without seeing it. I wonder what they’re saying about me in the kitchen.

  It’s now almost seven and my ribs hurt. Mostly, I can ignore it, but Eric hit me pretty hard and they’re bruised. Eric got hit pretty hard by Dad, so we’re even, I guess. I’m counting the days until Eric moves out. The rate he’s going, he’ll be busted soon anyway. Tony says the police are starting to ask questions.

  It’s a strange night. We all pretend that nothing has happened and Mrs. Smythe fixes some nachos. Mr. Smythe gets out a pack of Uno cards and we play a few rounds and watch the Discovery Channel. We go to bed.

  I lie awake. My room. This could be my room. I already have most of my books here. It’s hard to study with Eric around. I still have a headache. I couldn’t get away from them long enough to sneak into the kitchen for an aspirin. I pull my T-shirt up and take a look. There’s a long bruise under my ribs and five smaller ones above it. I think Eric was trying to hit my stomach but he was so wasted he kept missing. It isn’t too bad. Tony’s dad broke three of his ribs once. Billy got a concussion a couple of weeks ago. My dad is pretty easy. It’s only Eric who really bothers me.

  The Smythes keep the aspirin by the spices. I grab six, three for now and three for the morning. I’m swallowing the last one when Mr. Smythe grabs my hand. I didn’t even hear him come in. I must be sleepy.

  “Where’d they hit you this time?” he says.

  “I got a headache,” I say. “A bad one.”

  He pries open the hand with the aspirins in it. “How many do you plan on taking?”

  “These are for later.”

  He sighs. I get ready for a lecture. “Go back to bed” is all he says. “It’ll be okay.” He sounds very tired.

  “Sure,” I say.

  I get up around five. I leave a note saying I have things to do at home. I catch a ride with some guys coming off the graveyard shift.

  No one is home. Eric had a party last night. I’m glad I wasn’t around. They’ve wrecked the coffee table and the rug smells like stale beer and cigarettes. Our bedroom is even worse. Someone puked all over Eric’s bed and there are two used condoms on mine. At least none of the windows were broken this time. I start to clean my side of the room, then stop. I sit on my bed.

  Mr. Smythe will be getting up soon. It’s Sunday, so there’ll be waffles or french toast. He’ll fix a plate of bacon and eat it before Mrs. Smythe comes downstairs. He thinks she doesn’t know that he does this. She’ll get up around ten or eleven and won’t talk to anyone until she’s had about three coffees. She starts to wake up around one or two. They’ll argue about something. Whose turn to take out the garbage or do the laundry. They’ll read the paper.

  I crawl into bed. The aspirin isn’t working. I try to sleep but it really reeks in here. I have a biology test tomorrow. I forgot to bring the book back from their place. I lie there awake until our truck pulls into the driveway. Mom and Dad are fighting. They sound plastered. Mom is bitching about something. Dad is not saying anything. Doors slam.

  Mom comes in first and goes straight to bed. She doesn’t seem to notice the house is a mess. Dad comes in a lot slower.

  “What the—Eric!” he yells. “Eric!”

  I pretend to sleep. The door bangs open.

  “Eric, you little bastard,” Dad says, looking around. He shakes me. “Where the fuck is Eric?”

  His breath is lethal. You can tell he likes his rye straight.

  “How should I know?”

  He rips Eric’s amplifiers off the walls. He throws them down and gives them a good kick. He tips Eric’s bed over. Eric is smart. He won’t come home for a while. Dad will have cooled off by then and Eric can give him some money without Dad’s getting pissed off. I don’t move. I wait until he’s out of the room before I put on a sweater. I can hear him down in the basement chopping wood. It should be around eight by now. The RinkyDink will be open in an hour.

  When I go into the kitchen, Mom is there. She sees me and makes a shushing motion with her hands. She pulls out a bottle from behind the stove and sits down at the kitchen table.

  “You’re a good boy,” she says, giggling. “You’re a good boy. Help your old mother back to bed, hey.”

  “Sure,” I say, putting an arm around her. She stands, holding onto the bottle with one hand and me with the other. “This way, my lady.”

  “You making fun of me?” she says, her eyes going small. “You laughing at me?” Then she laughs and we go to their room. She flops onto the bed. She takes a long drink. “You’re fucking laughing at me, aren’t you?”

  “Mom, you’re paranoid. I was making a joke.”

  “Yeah, you’re really funny. A laugh a minute,” she says, giggling again. “Real comedian.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  She throws the bottle at me. I duck. She rolls over and starts to cry. I cover her with the blanket and leave. The floor is sticky. Dad’s still chopping wood. They wouldn’t notice if I wasn’t here. Maybe people would talk for a week or two, but after a while they wouldn’t notice. The only people who would miss me are Tony and Craig and Billy and maybe Eric, when he got toked up and didn’t have anything for target practice.

  Billy is playing Mortal Kombat at the RinkyDink. He’s chain-smoking. As I walk up to him, he turns around quickly.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he says, going back to the game.

  “Hi to you too,” I say.

  “You seen Elaine?” he says.

  “Nope.”

  He crushes out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him. He plays for a while, loses a life, then shakes another cigarette out one-handed. He sticks it in his mouth, loses another man, then lights up. He sucks deep. “Relax,” I say. “Her majesty’s limo is probably stuck in traffic. She’ll come.”

  He glares at me. “Shut up.”

  I go play pool with Craig, who’s decided that he’s James Dean. He’s wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket that looks like his brother’s. His hair is blow-dried and a cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth.

  “What a loser,” he says.

  “Who you calling a loser?”

  “Billy. What a loser.” He struts to the other side of the pool table.

  “He’s okay.”

  “That babe,” he says. “What’s-her-face. Ellen? Irma?”

  �
�Elaine.”

  “Yeah, her. She’s going out with him ’cause she’s got a bet.”

  “What?”

  “She’s got to go out with him a month, and her friend will give her some coke.”

  “Billy’s already giving her coke.”

  “Yeah. He’s a loser.”

  I look over at Billy. He’s lighting another cigarette.

  “Can you imagine a townie wanting anything to do with him?” Craig says. “She’s just doing it as a joke. She’s going to dump him in a week. She’s going to put all his stupid poems in the paper.”

  I see it now. There’s a space around Billy. No one is going near him. He doesn’t notice. Same with me. I catch some guys I used to hang out with grinning at me. When they see me looking at them, they look away.

  Craig wins the game. I’m losing a lot this week.

  Elaine gets to the RinkyDink after lunch. She’s got some townie girlfriends with her who are tiptoeing around like they’re going to get jumped. Elaine leads them right up to Billy. Everyone’s watching. Billy gives her his latest poem. I wonder what he found to rhyme with “Elaine.”

  The girls leave. Billy holds the door open for Elaine. Her friends start to giggle. The guys standing around start to howl. They’re laughing so hard they’re crying. I feel sick. I think about telling Billy but I know he won’t listen.

  I leave the RinkyDink and go for a walk. I walk and walk and end up back in front of the RinkyDink. There’s nowhere else to go. I hang out with Craig, who hasn’t left the pool table.

  I spend the night on his floor. Craig’s parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses and preach at me before I go to bed. I sit and listen because I need a place to sleep. I’m not going home until tomorrow, when Mom and Dad are sober. Craig’s mom gets us up two hours before the bus that takes the village kids to school comes. They pray before we eat. Craig looks at me and rolls his eyes. People are always making fun of Craig because his parents stand on the corner downtown every Friday and hold up the Watchtower mags. When his parents start to bug him, he says he’ll take up devil worship or astrology if they don’t lay off. I think I’ll ask him if he wants to hang out with me on Christmas. His parents don’t believe in it.