“Well?”
You’d think I would have figured out what I was going to say. I’d tried, running things over in my mind, looking for ways of coming at the problem indirectly, of getting my father’s advice without his ever knowing what it was I had to ask him about, but nothing seemed to make any sense. I was going to have to launch into something and see where it took us.
“There’s this kid at school,” I said.
He was leaning forward in his chair, his hands on his knees. “Yes?”
“He’s got this problem, and he doesn’t know what to do.”
My father sat back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. “But he’s got a problem and he wants you to help him with it?”
“Uh-huh, he came to me.” What could I say that wasn’t going to sound stupid? “I guess he knew I was a preacher’s kid. Thought I might be the one to tell him what to do.”
“Well, son, you might suggest he get down on his knees and try a prayer.” Sheesh! That was going to be a big help. For just an instant though I thought I saw a flash of merriment in his eyes, but I must have been mistaken, for he had more to say. “When I’m in a quandary about something, whenever I feel lost and don’t know what to do, when there’s a problem I just can’t get a handle on, well, that’s the time I go into a quiet room and take it to the Lord. It doesn’t always help, you know, but sometimes it does.”
I grabbed The Book of Alternative Services from the stack on his desk, its cover a rich, dark green, the feel like leather. I ruffled its pages with my thumb. “The thing is, this kid, I don’t think he’s religious.”
“I see.” My father studied me, his right hand rising to his ear, his index finger stretching out to touch it. He had a habit of tracing the outline of his ear with his finger whenever he was lost in thought, and I knew he was thinking now. “There was that girl from your school whose body they found.” He almost caught me with that, but I was sure I hadn’t flinched. “The native girl we talked about. Would this have anything to do with her?”
“No, of course not.” Was I protesting too much? “At least, I don’t think so.”
He was still fingering his ear. “Did this kid say what his problem was?”
“Not exactly.” I knew I was floundering.
“Yet he expects you to help him solve it?”
“I guess so. Yeah.”
My father leaned forward in his chair, the swivel creaking beneath him. He reached out and patted my knee. “He makes it difficult, not giving us anything to work with. What exactly did he say?”
I never pray at bedtime anymore, but I prayed then. Oh, Lord, please, find some way to get me through this conversation.
“He said he had a friend, and this friend had done something pretty stupid, something they both knew was wrong. Only his friend didn’t know he knew. But he knew all right — the first kid — and he had to decide what to do. Whether to tell him — or turn him in.” I sucked in a breath of air. “He couldn’t very well just keep quiet. It wouldn’t be right.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t.”
My father stared at me, and I stared back at him. Way down in the basement I heard the furnace come on, felt the pipes vibrate, the air begin to stir around us.
“Look, Blair,” my father said, “this kid must have told you something more. Something specific. What exactly did he say?”
“Nothing, really. He just seemed . . . well, troubled.”
“Come on, son. You’ve got to talk to me. What’s going on here?”
“That’s it. That’s all I know.”
“Uh-huh.” Two syllables, and I knew he was angry. I had to say something.
“The thing is . . . he thought that you — that I — might tell him what to do.”
“Well, Blair,” he said, his voice calmer now, “I suppose he could try talking to his friend. Maybe they can work things out between them.” For a second he looked as if he might swing around in his chair, go back to work on his computer, but he was only shifting in his seat. “From the little bit you’ve told me, I’d have to say this kid at school has a pretty good idea of right and wrong. I think he already knows what to do. Maybe he just needs somebody to tell him to go ahead and do it.”
“I guess so, yeah, you’re probably right.” I stood up, took a step towards the door, remembered the vestry minutes on the floor, scooped them up and set them back on the chair. When I was almost out the door, my father spoke again.
“Be strong,” he said, “and let your heart take courage.”
“What’s that?” I hesitated, but I didn’t turn around.
“A line from the Psalms. Many people find some comfort there.” I heard a slight sound behind me, like someone in the audience at a tense drama quietly clearing his throat. “But then,” he continued, “I guess you said this kid wasn’t religious, didn’t you?”
“That’s right, yeah.” I hurried down the hall toward my own room.
I lay awake for hours, thinking about my brother and the way he’d changed until I hardly knew him anymore, his strange behaviour Sunday morning, and before that his certainty that she’d go out with him, eventually she would, and now she was dead and he was off somewhere with Vaughn Foster, the two of them going over everything that had happened, and not just the two of them either, Jordan Phelps, he was the one who said she needed a good banging. And Phelps had called her bitch. Anna Big Sky, who’d found him with Amber Saunders pinned against the lockers and she hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t worried about herself, stepping in where she was needed, setting Amber free, doing what she knew she had to do, then walking by me, eyes on fire, you could see them burn, and she was right, she was, doing what she did.
Anna walking down the hall, other times, head up, high cheekbones, the severe line of her mouth, walking toward me, “Blair,” she’d say, “Blair,” her mouth relaxing into that sudden smile that made her beautiful, and I could hardly breathe.
Anna striding down the hall, teachers nodding at her, Mr. Helsel smiling because she was someone special, Anna marching out the door, tramping through the snow, and there they were, a line of guys, in the shadow of the broken trees, and Mr. Helsel was laughing now, but it wasn’t Mr. Helsel, it was just a skull, fractured teeth laughing, and Jordan Phelps was there, Jordan and my brother, groping for their flies, but she was past them now, reaching for a door, she was going to get away, but it wasn’t a door, it was a lid, a coffin lid, she was lying in a coffin, and the lid was falling shut.
Quick, shallow breaths, and I knew that they were mine. The red glow like a warning from my clock radio. Nearly one o’clock in the morning.
I’d fallen asleep after all.
I flung my covers off and headed to the bathroom for a drink, but when I switched on the bathroom light I saw that the door to my parents’ room was open. I tiptoed to the head of the stairs, taking care to skirt the squeaky board. I wondered if my father was down there telling my mother about the strange conversation he’d had with me that evening.
The floor below was dark, but I could see a faint light down the hall by the kitchen, where they often sat over hot chocolates, discussing the events of the day before they went to bed. They seldom stayed up late.
With my hand on the banister, I stood poised and listening.
Steady purring from the furnace, curtains whispering at my parents’ open window, occasional creaking as pipes expanded, the house shifting in the cool night air. Nothing audible from the kitchen.
I considered creeping down the stairs, but there were six noisy steps in a row, and I was sure that they would hear me. I got my glass of water and went back to bed.
I knew my brother would be in the student lounge at noon. Its tables were reserved at lunch hour for students in grades eleven and twelve; the nines and tens were assigned to the basement where two separate classrooms were designated lunchrooms.
Eating lunch in room 110 was different now. Normally, there’d be someone at the door keeping an eye out for the teacher on noon duty, and
six or eight kids tossing crumpled lunch bags back and forth, maybe a game developing, two sides forming, everybody trying to lob a bag against the wall where no one from the other side could catch it. I sat in the desk beside Evan Morgan who looked as glum as I felt. “School’s crawling with counsellors,” he said. “They’re talking to all the grade twelves.”
“Yeah, grief counsellors, I know.” But I didn’t want to think about it. As soon as I finished my lunch, I said, “Got an errand to run. I’ll see you in class.”
I walked up the stairs and past the school entrance to where the hallway opened into the lounge. Most of the chairs were full of kids, nobody laughing or joking around today, most of them talking quietly or just sitting, staring out the windows, a table tennis game going on over by the coke machine, but you could tell nobody cared who won. There was a girl in the corner yapping on a cell phone, but when she noticed me staring at her, she looked embarrassed and dropped her voice. No sign of my brother. Some of the football players were leaning on the sill beneath the windows, but he wasn’t with them. Then I saw him sitting on a metal chair beside the glass trophy case that separated the lounge from the hall. I waved at him, but he didn’t see me. If I went into the lounge at this time of day, I knew that someone was bound to tell me that it was off-limits, that snot-nosed freshies should get back where they belonged, into the basement.
I walked along the hallway, watching him through the trophy case. The double sheets of glass made him look distorted, but I could see that he was by himself, sitting off to the side, away from the tables which were all packed with eating kids. When I was abreast of him, I noticed the trophy in the case between us, a bronze football player, ball tucked beneath his arm, one leg in the air but looking rather awkward and not quite in sync with the other leg, which was attached to a rectangular wooden base with a plaque upon it. The George Reed Most Valuable Player Award. I knew without reading the names on the plaque that last year, for the first time ever, the award had gone to somebody in grade eleven, Jordan Phelps.
I stepped away from the trophy to get a better view of Blake. He was gnawing on a chocolate bar, a Coke can and a couple of empty cheesie bags on the table beside him. I guess Mrs. Foster hadn’t made him lunch.
I tapped on the glass. Gave it a good rap when he didn’t turn around. And another.
Finally, he heard the noise and slowly turned, no change of expression when he looked up and saw that it was me. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought he knew all along that I was there.
I motioned with my hand for him to follow me. “Come on,” I said, just mouthing the words. I pointed at myself and then at him. “I need you. Come on.”
He gave me a look that was void of expression, then bent over, hoisted his drink to his lips, finished it with three long pulls, slowly closed his hand, crushing the can, and pitched it into the recycle barrel. He bent down once more, picked up the empty bags, rolled them together into a ball with the wrapper from his bar, and, as he started walking by the trophy case, dropped his paper ball into the garbage can.
I walked beside him, holding myself back, strolling as he was strolling, the case like a wall between us till it ended near the gym. For some crazy reason, I thought of that poem I’d read in my brother’s English text, the one with the weird line: “Good fences make good neighbours.” And what would fences do for brothers, I wondered, but by then he was facing me.
“What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“So? Talk.”
“This isn’t a good place.”
“Seems good enough to me.” He was being difficult.
“At least come down the hall where no one’s going to hear.”
He pointed behind me, back the way that I had come. The entrance was full of kids, some of them pushing into the lounge, others congregating by the washrooms.
“I meant the other way,” I said. “By the gym.”
He turned without another word and walked down the gym hallway. It was empty and he went only part way toward the coaches’ office, stopping by the oak wall-hanging that someone had once made in woodwork class, the one that extolled the virtues of sportsmanship, the message scorched into the oak with a wood-burning kit.
“Okay, no one’s going to hear a thing. What do you want?”
Now that he was ready to listen, I didn’t know how to say it. His eyes were grey and cold, like dirty ice. I glanced at the wall-hanging over his shoulder. “Athletic ability,” it said, “and strength of character.” Was there any correlation left between them, I wondered. Had there ever been?
“Come on.” His words quick and impatient.
“Yeah, okay, but if it wasn’t you I wouldn’t say a thing. It’s just that . . . well, you’re my brother.” I took a deep breath. I had to get it out. “I know what happened.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I was out there — north of town — where she died. Ivan drove me out.”
“Ivan.” His voice was quiet, but I thought he looked surprised.
“Yeah, and I’m not just talking about that field where they found her. We took the dirt road into the McCauley place, back through the trees. Saw the patch of ground where they beat her.” I couldn’t make myself say, “Where you beat her,” but I could see that he was troubled now. He was barely breathing. “I know what happened to her.” Okay, spit it out. “I know who was there.”
He gave his head a violent shake. “You don’t know squat.”
“Listen, I’m trying to help you here. I’m — ”
“You keep your mouth shut. Understand?”
“No. I’m going to the cops. It’s the right thing to do.” He was glaring at me, and I felt my temper rising. “Nobody deserves to die like Anna did — beaten up till she can hardly walk, cold and scared and covered in piss. I don’t know how you could — ” I stopped, tried to get control. “This is how it’s got to be. After school tonight I’m going to tell the cops, but you can do it first. I want you to have a chance. If you come clean, maybe then — ”
“You want me to have a chance?” He leaned back against the wall and laughed, his laugh bitter as acid. He reached for me then, grabbed me by the shoulders and thrust me hard against the wall. Shoved his face into mine. “You haven’t got a clue how it happened,” he said. “Not a single clue. So you can forget about squealing to the cops. I’m the one who’s gonna work this out, and you can just shut the hell up.” He released his grip on my shoulders, looked as if he might say something more, but instead turned and walked away.
He’d had me rammed against the wall, his breath hot in my face, and now I realized his spittle was on my chin. I wiped it off with the back of my hand, almost expected to feel acid burns on my skin.
SEVEN
We were reading the one act play Summer Comes to the Diamond O in class that afternoon, a goofy cowboy comedy was what Miss Lambert said it was, something we could have some fun with. There were grief counsellors talking to the senior grades, sure, but they probably figured those of us in grade nine were so far removed from Anna Big Sky that carrying on like normal was the best thing for us to do. Of course, we were expected to volunteer for all the parts in the play, those with the main roles pulling their desks to the front of the room and turning them around so they could face the rest of us as they read. I didn’t volunteer for anything. I’m not exactly sure what the play was about, a bunch of cowhands coming in for dinner in a cookshack, something about a stranger who tells them fancy stories, but I kept drifting off to things that really mattered.
I wondered what I ought to do. If only my brother wasn’t involved — that complicated everything. It would’ve been easy to turn Jordan and the rest of them in, but my brother — that was different. Why the hell couldn’t he just this once have done what I asked him? But oh no, he wanted me to stay out of it. As if there was any way he could handle it himself. He didn’t give a damn about Anna, didn’t care about anybody but himself.
Never had.
No, that wasn’t fair.
He didn’t used to be like that.
The stranger going on about real old-fashioned baking powder biscuits, how nice and firm they were, and suddenly I was somewhere else, with my brother, out at Douglas Park, the two of us gazing across the beach at the grey waters of Diefenbaker Lake, white caps rolling into shore, kids on air mattresses laughing and hooting, riding the waves like cowboys, and neither one of us could swim. I was maybe four at the time. “Listen now,” my father said. “You two stay right here on this blanket. I just have to run up to the washroom. Be back in a minute.” As soon as he was out of sight around the corner of the washroom, I headed for the water.
“You’re s’posed to stay here,” said Blake.
“I’m just gonna wade a bit. Up to my ankles.”
The water wasn’t even cold. The bottom was all sand under my feet, not a rock anywhere, the sand in lines of little ridges where the waves washed it in. You could scratch them with your toes or stomp them with your heels, and the water got all fuzzy with sand.
There was a kid on a yellow sea-horse, a little kid, not much bigger than me, it was bucking in the waves and he kept falling off and grabbing it, climbing on to ride again, but I knew that it would get away from him, pretty soon it would, and then I’d have my chance, I’d grab it and show him how to ride. He was off again, a big wave lifting it, heaving it away, and now I was gonna show him, but my feet went down.
The bottom wasn’t there.
Somehow the water got on top of me.
I could just see that yellow sea-horse up above, rolling up above, but I couldn’t get to it, and I was rolling too. I tried to yell, but there was water in my mouth, I was coughing, spitting and coughing, more water coming in. Something underneath my arms, lifting, my mouth was in the air, coughing, choking, it was Blake had a hold of me, only he was going down, and so was I, but I had a mouth full of air, and he was right beside me, I could see him in a blur of water shaking, splashing, bubbles streaming from his nose, and I needed up again, I got my hands on his shoulders, tried to push myself up, if I could only get my head above the water. . .
Living with the hawk Page 9