What I need, Deke says, looking around his house, is somebody who can work detail, with wood. I’m good with the wiring and the drywall and all that, but I’d like to peel off the laminate, get some real sharp work done. No more of this low–rent shit. No wonder nobody gives me any money, kid. No wonder. How old are you?
Ten, Deke. I’m ten. And a half.
Ten and a half, Deke says. He pulls a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. His fingers shake. Ten and a half.
Deke puts the cigarette in his mouth but doesn’t light it. He closes his eyes. I sit and watch him, with his eyes closed, till his chest starts moving real slow-like. He sniffles. Hey, Deke, I say. He doesn’t say anything. Hey, Deke, I think I ought to go home now. Unless it’s all right if I stay here? Deke’s chest rises and falls. He snorts.
I turn on Deke’s TV. At home I’d have to be in bed by now, but I figure since I’m staying with a grown-up, it’ll be all right if I stay up awhile. Besides, if I go to bed now, I’ll just be lying there, wide awake. It’s no good, lying there not sleeping, feeling itchy and twitchy, twisting all around, your mind all busy and worrying. It’s the worst feeling. It’s better to just stay up. Sure, I’ll be tired tomorrow, but I’m pretty used to being tired.
On TV there’s a Western. A cowboy, beat up, hunched over the saddle of his horse. The cowboy rides into town and everybody hides. The priest locks the door to the church. Kids hide under the planks in the sidewalk. The cowboy gets down off his horse, woozy-like, you can see how he’s all beat up. Draws his gun and stands there, in the middle of the town. Waiting.
At school today I’m pretty lucky that I’m invisible, ’cause the Dead Kids have got all frozen, like snowmen. They wobble back and forth, holding their lunch pails with their scraggly stick arms, the carrots on their faces drip. They can’t talk, the frozen Dead Kids at school today, on account of their frozen mouths I guess. They all yowl and howl, and lurch around. Good thing I’m invisible today, so they leave me alone. At recess I sit under the stairwell and read some comic books.
Not very often, but sometimes, I spend the whole day under the stairwell. I’ll bring some comic books in my bag, or draw. Giant octopuses maybe, they’re always good for a laugh, or I also like to draw flying saucers wrecking cities with their death rays. I like to draw rockets, fat in the middle, with fins. Sometimes I like to sit under the stairwell and bounce my tennis ball, real quiet–like, ’cause they always come looking for me when I’m not in class. It’s pretty hard to pick the right stairwell where you won’t get caught right away.
Mr. Weissman draws shapes on the chalkboard. Stops now and then to push his heavy glasses back up his nose. A quadrilateral has four sides. A square is a kind of quadrilateral. A polygon has more than two sides. Is a quadrilateral a polygon? I know he told us, but I can remember only so much math.
Mr. Weissman draws and talks, shapes and numbers, his back to us. I think he forgets we’re here. At first I thought geometry would be fun, with the drawing, with the rulers and compasses, but it turns out it’s just another trick to make you do math.
Dwayne Klatz pulls the point out of a ballpoint pen. Taps the hollow plastic tube on his desk. He tears a page corner out of his science book. Rolls it between his fingers.
And this shape? asks Mr. Weissman. A polygon, somebody says. A trapezoid, says somebody else.
Dwayne Klatz may not be such a Dead Kid. He fidgets in class. Taps the side of his desk. Drums his fingers. Dwayne Klatz always wears overalls, he’s always pulling stuff out of the big pocket in the front: red Monopoly hotels, hockey cards, elastic bands. He chews the paper in his mouth. Works his jaw, chews and chews. Looks over at Mullen sitting in front of me. Grins and shows the paper between his teeth.
Mullen looks around the classroom. Points to the front row, where all the front-row girls sit, writing in their coiled notebooks with their long, sharp pencils. Girls always have long pencils with sharp points. Never short little stubs with flat lead. They never chew the ends or bite off the erasers.
Dwayne puts the pen tube in his mouth. Turns his head from side to side, the tube sticking straight out like a cigar. Takes a deep breath and poot, the spitball flies across the room. Sticks to the back of Jill Johnson’s chair. Some kids snicker.
Mullen pulls the bin of his desk open, quiet-like. Some kids keep all their stuff in stacks in their desks: one stack for brown-papered textbooks, one for glossy workbooks, one for paper folders. Mullen doesn’t have stacks. Mullen has a pile. Clumps of loose-leaf poke out the sides of his lined scribblers, duotangs stuffed into his science text. Mullen doesn’t have a pencil case, just pencils, short pencil crayons, pencil shavings, sticking out all over. Pulls out a sheet of white binder paper, points to his mouth.
No, foolscap, whispers Dwayne Klatz. The few of us paying attention narrow our mouths. Mullen looks at Klatz for a while, then slides a pile of paper out from the bottom. Foolscap with blue lines.
The three kinds of triangles. Remember? What did we call them?
Mullen crumples a long sheet of foolscap into a ball, slow enough to stay quiet. I rattle my desk a bit. Mullen squishes the ball as much as he can, which isn’t really so small. Opens his mouth, pops the whole ball of paper in.
Isophocles, says Pete Leakie. Mr. Weissman’s shoulders slump a bit.
Mullen chews and chews. Keeps his eyes on Dwayne Klatz, who keeps nodding, a little smile on his face. Klatz has a big black mole on the side of his cheek, right in the middle. Looks like it might crawl away at any moment, down his long, narrow head. Mullen chews and chews. Opens his mouth – the paper’s all soft, the blue and pink ink runny and soggy. Dwayne Klatz points to the front row, but Mullen shakes his head. Takes another sheet of foolscap. Crumples it, slow again. More kids watch now, a few slow to catch on, a few leaning right in. Mullen opens his mouth even wider, puts the second ball in with the soppy pulp already inside. Chews slow-like. Works his mouth around all the crumpled edges. Breathes heavy through his nose.
Mr. Weissman draws the angles between the sides of his triangles. Mullen chews and chews, crumples up more foolscap. Dwayne Klatz stands up and waves his arms, then sits back down quick when some of the Dead Kids near the front turn in their seats. Mr. Weissman turns around. Mullen sinks down in his seat, cheeks full, pulp around his lips.
Which is the longest side of a triangle? One of the front-row girls puts up her hand. The hypotenuse! Mr. Weissman nods and turns back around. A kid starts to laugh and Dwayne Klatz drags his index finger across his throat, like in the movies. Mullen chews and chews. Crumples up another sheet of foolscap. Has to spread his lips apart with his fingers to fit it in. He can’t really chew anymore, can’t close his mouth.
How many? mouths Dwayne Klatz.
Mullen looks off to the side, thinking. Then he holds up four fingers.
Mr. Weissman, says Randy Schloz, his hand up.
Now, what do you think happens when we add up all the angles inside a triangle? What do you think the sum will be?
Mr. Weissman?
Yes, Randy?
Mr. Weissman, Mullen is eating paper.
Mullen, don’t eat paper, says Mr. Weissman. He doesn’t turn around. Draws a triangle on the board, careful to make the lines straight. Draws little arcs inside the corners. Draws a question mark in the middle.
Mullen gets out of his desk, walks over to Randy Schloz’s desk. Randy sticks his hand as far up as it will go. Mullen reaches down and pulls open the desk bin. Neat piles inside, a stack for workbooks, another for paper. Some pulpy spit drips out of his open mouth into the desk.
Mr. Weissman, says Randy.
Now, this is a right-angle triangle. So we already know how many degrees in the corner, right?
Mullen opens his mouth as wide as he can. The paper lump is too big to come out. He sticks a finger into the side of a cheek. His eyes bulge out and you can see his stomach heave. He bends forward. Dwayne Klatz gets out of his desk, comes over and wraps his arms around Mullen’s stomach. Rand
y Schloz tries to slam his desk bin shut and Dwayne Klatz squeezes Mullen around the middle. He gags and retches out a four-foolscap mess of soggy paper goo all over the inside of the bin. Kids yell and gag and Randy Scholz starts shouting, Mr. Weissman! Mr. Weissman! Mullen threw up in my desk! Dwayne Klatz lets go of Mullen and they both stand there while Mr. Weissman sets down his chalk, walks up the aisle between the desks. Looks over top of his glasses into Randy’s desk.
He threw up in my desk, see? He did it on purpose.
Good thing Dwayne was here to save me, says Mullen. I could have choked. Thanks a lot, Dwayne.
Anytime, Mullen, says Dwayne Klatz.
Mr. Weissman takes Mullen’s hand and leads him out the door, down the hall. Dwayne Klatz and I glare at Randy Schloz.
He didn’t have to throw up in my desk, says Randy.
Deke and I go to the credit union on a Friday after school. We walk down the street so that Deke doesn’t have to drive the El Camino. Whatever its other merits, says Deke, combing his hair with a black comb, the El Camino carries with it a certain stigma. I’m not saying it’s justified, I’m just saying. Junior high school kids sit on their skateboards on the steps of the Elks’ Hall, smoking. They sit on their skateboards even though the sidewalks are all icy, the streets caked in ice from the rain.
Lou Ellis from Aldersyde stands in front of McClaghan’s hardware store, chewing some tobacco. McClaghan has the awning pulled down to keep the rain off. The two of them play with the dial on the radio, trying to get the news. He waves to Deke. Good day for a walk, eh Howitz? Sure thing, Deke says, sure thing.
McClaghan’s hardware store is right in the middle of town, so people like to stand around on his sidewalk and sound off. McClaghan will be sitting outside any time you walk by, smoking his Matinée Slims. If McClaghan’s inside the store, selling two-by-fours or saw blades, you can sit on his curb and watch the cars from up the hill drive by, looking for parking spaces. The Russians like to sit in front of McClaghan’s store and listen to his radio.
Howitz, you didn’t come to McGentry’s funeral, McClaghan says. He sits in one of the folding lawn chairs against the big picture window: shovels, rakes, a wheelbarrow. He coughs and spits in his jar.
Bert McGentry died? Deke asks.
Fell down the stairs at the Legion Hall, says McClaghan. He got bone fragments.
Bone fragments?
They roamed around internally, says McClaghan. Fucking with his vital organs. He spits in the jar.
Bert McGentry from Millarville?
Bert McGentry lived three blocks from here, says Lou Ellis, behind the public library.
Have a look, says McClaghan. New telephone. He holds up a phone receiver with no cord. Just a mouth and earpiece, and those touch-tone buttons, all one piece.
Deke whistles. How far away can you walk with that?
McClaghan shrugs. The main piece is back on the desk. Sometimes you have to put it back, to charge the battery.
And you can hear people talking all right? Deke asks.
Hear ’em fine.
Deke thinks for a second. Takes a deep breath. Well, he says, I’ve been thinking about the rent.
McClaghan’s face shrinks a notch. Thinking about the rent, he says.
Yeah, says Deke. Thinking, you know, what with the increase …
An increase reflecting a fair assessment of inflation.
Deke thinks some more. Well, he says, I’d been talking with Vaslav Kurskinov, a few doors down …
If you ask about the hot-water tank, I’ll evict you, says McClaghan. Your hot-water tank is fine.
Lou Ellis takes off his hat. Well goddamn, he says.
She comes up the sidewalk. A red scarf wrapped around her shoulder, hands in the pockets of her black pants. McClaghan spits in the jar. She walks up the sidewalk and stops in front of the hardware store. Reads the signs in the window: Fall Sale, and Authorized Dealer, the names of chainsaw companies and their logos. Lou Ellis scratches the top of his head.
I haven’t got any more primer, says McClaghan. Next week at the soonest. He spits in his jar. Black flecks stick here and there in the waxy yellow layers.
I need a thermostat, she says. The boiler is old and none of the wiring matches up.
McClaghan takes another Matinée Slim out of his pocket. Lights a match off the aluminum siding. A boiler? You haven’t got a boiler, he says. You’ve got a furnace.
I have a boiler, she says. Her voice is deep and careful, and the French in the h’s and e’s and o’s makes every word really stick with you. Heats water with a gas element, she says. Steam piped up around the building, to the radiators. A boiler.
McClaghan smokes. I haven’t got anything like that, he says.
Can you check? she asks. There’s a scratchy, throaty sound to the voice, like it’s coming over a radio.
I haven’t got any thermostats, he says.
She does up a button on the cuff of her jacket. What about the electrician? Morley Fleer? Fleer doesn’t do retail, says McClaghan. He spits in the jar. Deke and Lou Ellis both scratch their chins. McClaghan smokes.
I’ll be back next week for that primer, she says. Late next week, says McClaghan. She stares at him. Her lips are narrow and she breathes through her nose. Next week, she says. She turns around and walks back up the sidewalk.
Goddamn, says Lou Ellis.
McClaghan squints. Once she’s far enough away down the sidewalk he picks up his new telephone, punches the numbers. Fleer, he says. Right, damn cold. Hey. What? No, at work. Listen, have you got thermostats? An old one, I guess. For a boiler. What? You know, hot water and steam, piped all around to radiators. Yeah, there’s a few different makes, I guess. I guess steam. They don’t build gravity boilers anymore. ’Cause they’re not safe. He holds the phone between his shoulder and cheek and smokes. Yeah? Just one? Look, put it under the counter. Don’t sell it to anyone. What? Sure, I’ll buy it eventually. But don’t sell it to anybody. I don’t know, it might be a while. Not to anybody. Right. What? Fleer, the RCMP can’t curl for shit. Keep your money. No, the Elks. The Nanton Elks will win that match. Don’t sell that thermostat. Right.
He pushes a button and sets the phone down in his lap. Glares at Deke. Tell that fat Russian he’s lucky not to live under a bridge, says McClaghan. Right, says Deke. A bridge.
At the credit union, the doors slide open automatically. We get in line in the roped aisles. People shift on their feet and pop their gum, some of them still soggy from the rain.
Now, you don’t need to talk, Deke says to me. Just look respectable. Give them those big eyes, like when you found out that all the fish had died. Sure thing, Deke, I say. Davis, Deke says, Davis Howe. Right, Davis Howe.
The man ahead of us wears a wide-brimmed straw hat. Flat, stringy hair pokes out from underneath. He holds a thick black leather book under his arm. When the teller waves he takes two long steps and sets the book down heavily on the counter. I need $4,400 in cash, he says. Withdrawn from my account. Also, I need twenty-seven envelopes. The teller plays with her pen. Sir, we aren’t authorized to give out that much. On the fourteenth of October, bellows the Hat Man, I stood in this line and watched you dispense $5,600 in cash to Glen Trottner from Black Diamond, a man whose credentials I could say a thing or two toward. I have the funds available in my account and I’m sure that the institution will remain solvent. He drums his fingers on the cover of the book. The teller backs up and whispers to another teller.
They bring him the envelopes and go off to whisper at a desk. The Hat Man takes a thick black marker out of his jacket, starts writing on the envelopes. I stand up on my tiptoes but can’t see. Hey, Deke, I whisper, what’s he writing? Davis, says Deke. What’s he writing, Davis? People’s names, says Deke. One name on each envelope.
Hello, I’d like to apply for a loan please, my name is Howe, Davis Howe. I’ve brought these forms. And here are some affidavits, and releases.
The teller scribbles on her white pad. How much do you nee
d a loan for?
I need $400,000.
She coughs. She scrunches up her eyebrows real tight, like she practices scrunching them. We can’t loan you $400,000.
This here, says Deke, is a signed testimonial to my credentials and character. Notice all the signatures.
We can’t lend anyone $400,000. We haven’t got the capital. We can’t cover the liability.
I have these forms.
You might try in Calgary, says the teller, with a larger institution. Someone with a broader investment base.
Deke leans on the counter. How much money can you lend me?
It depends, she says, on what you need it for. Are you starting a business? Deke picks up his papers, taps them on the counter to make the edges all even.
I need to buy a submarine.
A what?
A submarine. A surplus Soviet diesel submarine, from the Black Sea fleet. Built in 1971. Its warhead payload already decommissioned and removed, so that’s not an issue. I need $400,000, far below the actual value, to purchase it from a man in the USSR – I’ll have to buy him a few drinks. I’ll have to hire people for crew. I figure that won’t cost so much, given that a lot of people over there need work. Not everybody knows about submarines, though. I’ll have to pay a few people to turn their heads, in Turkey, and through the Suez. Avoid the proper authorities. I thought I might come back around the Horn. I thought that might be a good trip.
The grey in the teller’s hair stands sharp under the fluorescent lights. At the next wicket the Hat Man scribbles on his envelopes. The ceiling is high, with the ducts and pipes exposed, painted black. The scribbling echoes.
Why do you need a submarine?
Deke waves his hand. I think it’s fairly obvious why anyone might need a submarine. It’s about as useful a machine as a person could possibly own.
We’re very busy today, Mr. Howe, she says, And there are a lot of other customers with legitimate business to conduct here.
You’re saying my business isn’t legitimate?
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