Skates, a Stick, and a Dream

by Bob Leroux

  “Yeah, sure,” the boys answered, looking up at him with open mouths, like two babes in a bird nest.

  “You’ll have to become the best midgets in the league,” he told them, “and win me a cup.” He grinned and stuck his hand out. “Deal?”

  They shook on it, and by the end of March the boys had made good on their half of the deal. Whether it was his own strategy, or the extra muscle he picked up in the co-op, Billy started to break away from the pack once more and dominate the play. Stanton decided not to worry about where the extra step of speed came from — they were winning. The team went all the way in the playoffs, and Billy set up the overtime goal that won them the league championship. It was the Lancaster Lions Club who hosted the bean supper that year, but it was the boys from Munro Mills who went home with the hardware. Brian was voted the best defenceman, and Billy won the scoring title. Tony Stanton toasted them with a warning to stay in shape over the summer, and a promise of greater glories to come.

  And that left them with the summer to plan. Brian got busy right away, trying to convince Billy they should start cashing in on their growing fame. Billy had just gotten off work at the co-op, and they were sitting in their favourite booth in Shirley’s Restaurant when Brian proposed their first big move. He slid gently into the subject. “You finish catching up on all the work you missed during the playoffs?”

  “Huh?” Billy was sitting by the window, staring out at the familiar scene along Main Street — cars moving through town, people, most of whom he knew, going about their business on a Friday evening, taking advantage of a long day in June. Billy stirred himself to answer, “Yeah, just about.”

  “So, can you go out again?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “Just wondering.” Brian bent to slurp some Coke, and then asked over the top of the glass, “You going to the dance next week?”

  “Dance?” Billy puzzled.

  “It’s the last one this year.” He put the glass down.

  “So?”

  “A lotta guys from the team will be there. Why don’t we go?”

  “You know I can’t dance.”

  “You don’t have to dance. We’ll go stag.”

  “Stag? What about the girls?” Billy asked. “Won’t they mind?”

  “What girls?”

  “The girls we take to the dance, you big maroon!”

  Brian knew that meant he was a moron, but chose to ignore the slur. “Who said anything about girls?”

  “But I thought . . . what about Susan and Elaine?”

  “Jeez, Campbell, keep your voice down.” Brian was getting nervous. Talk like this in a small-town restaurant could get them in trouble. “You can’t take girls to a dance and not dance with them.”

  “But you said all’s we had to do was hang around.”

  “I know, I know, but you can’t just hang around with the girls. They’ll wanna dance.”

  “Tell me again why we’re going.” Billy wasn’t convinced that Brian had gotten this dance business straight.

  “I told you already: we’ll go stag and just hang around with the guys, and check out the girls. You know, play it cool.”

  Billy slumped back against the padded bench. “Okay, I’ll go if you want, but it doesn’t sound coo-ool to me. Sounds more like dumb.”

  Then, as if he had been challenged to go one better, Brian added, “Of course we’ll have to make sure we let Elaine and Susan know that we’re going.”

  Billy sighed. “Whatever you say, Weir-d. Anything for a friend who’s lost his marbles.” He was sure Brian had things backwards, but decided it was best to keep his reservations about the subject of girls to himself. He still liked them, but it seemed to him he was falling behind somehow; that the girls he knew had become more mysterious and less attainable. Maybe they were growing up faster than he was, he thought.

  He still liked Elaine. He admired the neatness of her trim figure, the way she looked — so soft and feminine, whether she was wearing a starched cotton dress to Sunday Mass, or hanging around her front porch in blue jeans and a blouse. He liked that crisp cleanness she had about her, that smell of freshness that made her nice to be near. Her features were fine and balanced, like a doll’s, he used to think. Her mother was a war bride from Holland, and Elaine had inherited her light-blue eyes and fair complexion, something that made her stand out among the darker Scots and French Canadians of Munro Mills. She liked to laugh a lot, too, and Billy enjoyed that. Most of the time.

  Lately, though, Elaine and her friends kind of put him off, the way they were always huddled together, whispering and giggling about the weirdest things. He couldn’t understand why they were always talking about movie stars and singers, or some especially handsome older boy from Lancaster or Alexandria. One day Elaine told him her new kitten’s name was Elvis, and then got mad when he told her it was a dumb name for a boy — even one who jumped around like he had ants in his pants.

  So, against his better judgment he went to the dance, and was pleasantly surprised. He knew most of the kids there and enjoyed the yack session with the guys. Elaine was there, too, in a blue, satin gown that matched her eyes. Billy was taken aback. The dress made her look two years older — and made him feel two years younger. After one stilted conversation with her, he retreated to the sidelines, seeking safety in the small knot of younger boys on the fringe of the darkened gym, making sure they had ready access to the well-lit hallway.

  More spectators than participants, they tried their best to look serious as they bunched up just inside the main entrance to the gym, talking about sports and cars, and teachers who looked funny dancing. Or they conducted a running commentary on the girls, especially the ones without boyfriends. Their dress ranged from three-piece suits to grey slacks with white shirts, and each one had to run the gauntlet of teasing it inspired. Whether it was cracks about white socks and black oxfords, too-short pants and flood warnings, or ill-fitting blazers borrowed from their fathers’ closets, they accepted it all in good humour, safe in the knowledge that the next guy who showed up with a clip-on tie would get his yanked off, too. After all, it was tough acting grown up for a whole evening, and they could be forgiven for pulling the occasional chair out from under someone, or messing up a ducktail or two.

  The most fun came from harassing those boys who were brave enough to make forays across the floor — those long, sweaty marches into the jaws of rejection — to ask one of those unattached girls to dance. It was even more fun when they returned to the pack emptyhanded. Billy and Brian weren’t so amused when it was Susan and Elaine who were being courted, but they were proud of how well they concealed their interest in what went on. As planned, they were cool.

  Billy almost broke rank, though, when he heard the band start up a slow song to end the dance portion of the evening. He figured even he could dance to that, given that some couples just stood in one spot and shrugged every once in a while. He wasn’t sure if it was relief or regret he felt when he saw someone else ask Elaine to dance. He didn’t worry about it for long. He could see Mrs. Austen and her helpers were setting up the tables for the lunch, and he nudged Brian to move into the hall where they could get first crack at the good stuff. They had those fancy sandwiches, with the crusts cut off, and all those cakes and cookies that made it so hard to choose. It was all a guy could do to avoid making a pig of himself, as they piled pyramids of food on tipsy paper plates. And as Billy informed Brian, it sure beat the heck out of dancing. Of course, neither one of them had any real dancing experience to compare it to.

  The other good thing about the food was that the girls had to eat, too. That gave the boys who were there stag a chance to mingle without being too obvious. Pretty soon Billy and Brian were right back where they had started, trying to have a picnic with Elaine and Susan. It was wonderful the way things worked out. They got so carried away with themselves that they volunteered to walk the girls home — before they remembered it was a good mile from the high school to Susan’s place, in the
opposite direction from their end of town.

  The first part was fun. After a few blocks, Billy made a clumsy effort to hold Elaine’s hand. When she calmly turned her hand to correct his technique, he realized he’d had a date for the dance after all. His heart beat faster as he began looking forward to the next one. They dropped the girls off at Susan’s house. Billy hung back at the gate but Brian walked Susan to the door, stealing a good night kiss before the two girls disappeared inside. The muffled shriek they heard as the door closed put a smile on their faces.

  The walk back home was less impressive. They were underdressed for the cool spring night, and their teeth were rattling before they were halfway home. Billy teased, “Is this what you meant by playing it cool?”

  “Aw, get stuffed, Campbell,” Brian muttered, as he jammed his hands deeper in his pockets. “It was your idea to walk them home.”

  “Hah, like you didn’t want to.”

  That long walk down Main Street made them realize there was a new priority in life — something almost as important as hockey. Before they reached home, they came to a conclusion. “This is nuts,” Billy declared. “We should’ve taken our bicycles.”

  “Oh, yeah. That would have been real cool.”

  Billy smiled. “We should have asked for a ride, then.”

  “Yeah, well, I asked my dad for the car,” Brian responded, “and he told me I could use Shank’s mare.”

  “What the heck is that?”

  “I dunno; some old farmer’s expression for walking, or something.”

  “Oh, yeah. I heard my father say that. They think they’re funny, you know. That’s what really gets me.”

  “Yeah, they’re all like that.”

  “My dad says that’s why we live in a small town, so we can walk places. But he takes the car everywhere he goes.”

  “Exactly,” Brian nodded. “That’s why we need our own car.”

  “I’m still hoping,” Billy responded. “I’ll be sixteen in three weeks, and Dave’s been looking at new cars. Maybe he’ll give me his old one.”

  Brian laughed. “Yeah, Campbell, I’ve heard that story before.”

  Chapter 14

  Campbell and Sons

  “Slow down, man! I’m too young to die.”

  Billy and Brian were roaring down a straight stretch of the sixth concession, taking the ’49 Ford Billy had just inherited from Dave on its trial run. With the gas pedal flat to the floor and the speedometer bouncing like a bee in a bottle, Billy held tight to the wheel, pushing the car to its limits over the rough gravel road, leaving a cloud of yellow dust for half a mile behind. As the old Ford ate up the landscape, Brian twisted and turned in his seat, pulled back and forth from the scene of wild dust clouds behind him to the bouncing speedometer needle on the dash.

  “Slow down, you maniac!”

  Billy yelled back at him. “Quit jumping around, Weir. I gotta concentrate.” He knew he was taking a chance — his father had warned him that the car’s tires were ready for the junkyard. To avoid the worst potholes, he kept his wheels on the thick gravel at the centre and the side of the road. It made for a smoother ride, even if Brian was getting more nervous every time he looked out his window.

  “Jeez Louise, Campbell, do you have to drive so close to the ditch? I can’t see the road.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I can feel it.”

  “Feel it? One day with a licence and you’re a race-car driver?”

  Billy wasn’t listening. He was high on adrenalin, his heart pounding in his ears. This was it. He had his own wheels, finally. He couldn’t believe how different he felt, a driver now instead of a passenger. He eased up on the gas so he could relax a little and enjoy the sensation. Even at fifty miles an hour, it felt like he was in a rocket, hurtling down the road they used to ride on bicycles, covering in minutes the same distance that once took an hour of hard pedalling. Landmarks went swooshing by: log fences where they’d stopped for lunch, wild orchards where they’d eaten sour apples, laneways where they’d gone begging for dippers of ice-cold well water. Those days were just a blur now, passed by in the rush to be his own man.

  The old car and its tires held up all that summer as it travelled the side roads, up and down the Glens in search of nothing more than a reason to keep driving. Gas was cheap and Billy had a discount. The only time the car got him in trouble was when he decided it needed a sharp new colour, just like the newer cars were showing up with. He figured a bright, red roof would go great with the original grey. He bought a can of cherry red and borrowed his father’s compressor and spray gun. Angus wasn’t around to advise him, but Billy was sure his father would like the paint he had picked.

  Angus might have, if Billy had known how to prepare the base and operate the spray gun properly. It took a week to clean up the mess. By the time he was finished, he understood why his father said that owning something didn’t give you the right to ruin it. One good thing came of it, though. Angus stopped teasing him about carburetor kits. Now it was, “Painted any cars, lately?”

  It was another adult, Elaine’s mother, who was responsible for Billy’s biggest disappointment of the summer. Coming from the old country, as people in town still described her, Mrs. Gravelle was determined her daughter would never give the neighbours anything to gossip about. And she knew darn well why that drive-in theatre in Cornwall was so popular with the young crowd. That’s why riding in cars with boys was not on Elaine’s list of privileges, not until she was eighteen and more responsible. If Billy wanted to take her to the movies, he would have to leave the Ford at home. And it would be the early show they’d be attending.

  He was lamenting this sad state of affairs one Saturday after work, when his big brother decided to take Billy’s education in hand. Not that Dave was big on education, having left school the year before. All of Anna’s coaxing couldn’t change his mind about trying to get his senior matriculation. He was determined to apprentice with his father and work on his mechanic’s papers.

  At best, Angus was able to stay neutral during the discussion of Dave’s future. There was enough work at the garage, and Angus had to admit he liked the idea of his son being in business with him. Once he stopped this crazy running around and settled down, he’d make a fine mechanic. Besides, he knew the boy wouldn’t hesitate to go to work with the competition, if that’s what it would take to get what he wanted most in life.

  And that would be a ’57 Dodge Royal with a four-forty hemi engine and a custom-built four on the floor. A white convertible with genuine red leather seats, it had loads of chrome and a good-as-new soft top. The payments did cut down on his spending money for a while, but he was starting to catch up again by that last weekend in August when he decided it was time to introduce his little brother to one of the sacred pathways of Glengarry culture: the road to Dalhousie.

  “Go get cleaned up, kid. I’m taking you out tonight.”

  “Okay, but I’m driving.”

  “We’re not taking your old wreck. We’re going in style.” Then, as an afterthought, Dave added, “I might let you drive home, though.”

  “But I promised Brian we’d — ”

  “He can come, too. They got a great little rock ’n’ roll band down at Sammy’s place. Maybe we’ll find some sweet young thing to teach you to dance.” He shoved the rack of tires up against the wall and turned to wipe his dirty hands on Billy’s shirt. “You wanna learn to dance, don’t you?”

  Billy jumped back. “Watch it, you big ape; I’m not your wipe rag.” He beamed at his big brother. “Rock ’n’ roll, eh? I thought you went in for that cowboy music.”

  “Gotta move with the times, Billy boy. Hank Snow is out; Elvis is in.” He rolled down the service bay doors and pushed Billy ahead of him, into the office. “Besides,” he added, “the ladies are all going nuts for that rock ’n’ roll stuff.”

  “Aha, the ladies. That explains it.”

  “Yeah, the ladies, little boy. Something you know nothing about.”

&nb
sp; Billy thrust out a belligerent chin. “Says who?”

  “Says I.” Dave faked a couple of left jabs, and then danced around him to finish the closing-up chores. “Quit jawing and go get cleaned up. You know it always takes you an hour longer, picking those pimples.”

  “Take off, eh? I don’t have ’em anymore.”

  “And don’t use all the hot water.”

  “Just for that, I will.”

  Dave laughed. “Beat it; I wanna get out of here by eight-thirty.” He smiled at the prospect as he banged open the cash drawer and started counting the day’s receipts.

  They picked up Brian and were on the road at nine, doing eighty with the top down by the time they reached the edge of town. “You’re nuts,” Billy yelled against the roar of the wind. “You’re gonna get caught.”

  Dave turned and grinned at him. “Eh? Can’t hear you.” He leaned over with one hand cupped to his ear. “What’d you say?”

  “Never mind! Keep your eyes on the damn road.” Billy could hear Brian laughing from the back seat, glad to see Billy getting some of his own.

  Dave crossed highway thirty-four at the Brownhouse and took the back roads to Dalhousie through farm country, sliding around sharp curves and accelerating over narrow cement bridges, hooting and hollering as he kept them bouncing all the way to the Quebec border. It was with much relief that the two boys climbed out of the car in the parking lot of Sammy’s Hotel in Dalhousie, that small border town with three hotels where the drinking age was twenty — a year younger than Ontario.

  It was only nine-thirty but the parking lot was already full. The hotel doors were wedged open, and music from the band spilled out into the night air. Some of the crowd had come outside in search of a breeze and were leaning against fenders or sitting in cars with doors swung open, glorying in the brightness of the hot summer night. The boys worked their way toward the hotel, with Dave stopping every few feet to chat with people he knew.