by Brian Doyle
Or, at least, she used to be, before my father died. She is also very determined.
Or, at least, she used to be before my father died. One time she wanted to move our fold-out couch that unfolds into a bed to the other room so instead of waiting for my father and me to get home to help her she did it herself. The couch is really a bed and is full of metal and weighs at least a ton. When we got home we couldn’t believe she moved it by herself.
“Remember how I always say I’m part Irish and part a whole lot of other things?” she explained that day. “Well, I forgot to mention it but I am, among other things, part dung beetle!”
My father and I laughed for about a half an hour. We all knew what dung beetles were. We used to watch them when we went hiking. A dung beetle can carry a lump of doo about ten times the size of itself. That’s all the dung beetle seems to do. Carry lumps of doo doo around the size of houses.
My mother is thin and very strong. She is also very beautiful. She could be a model but she says she’s a bit too short.
And she can hold you with her eyes.
Brown eyes with green flecks.
Specially when she tilts her head to one side.
Or, at least she used to, before my father died.
Right now, she’s not at home.
She’s probably across the street and down a bit, at the Village Inn. She likes it over there because people over there knew my dad, and she feels good when they say his name or even if they don’t.
They all know what a good trombone player he was. They all love how he played on the record, “Hanging Gardens.” Over at the Village Inn, they have that record in the old-fashioned juke box. My mom drinks rye and ginger ale over there.
My mom feels awful. Ever since my father died. She never laughs anymore. She sits over there in the Village Inn at the same table. There’s always that empty seat beside her. She sits over there beside the empty chair, where my father’s ghost sits. He said some mean things to her before he died. The doctor said he didn’t know what he was saying, because of the cancer in his brain.
She sits beside his ghost over there every day.
Is she waiting for the ghost to say he’s sorry?
And she never looks at me anymore the way she used to. With her eyes holding you. And her head tilted. And the little smile.
I put on my bathing suit under my pants, race down the crooked back steps and take out my bike from the old shed.
I sail down Somerset Street hill on my bike to Corso Italia (Preston Street). I swing right on Preston, ride hard to Scott Street, take a fast left on Scott to Parkdale, cut right on Parkdale through Tunney’s Pasture and all the government buildings to the Ottawa River Parkway. I take the grass instead of the ramp and head west on the Parkway to Kitchissippi Lookout.
I vault off my bike at the top of the sandy bank near the change houses. Now I can see Connie Pan getting together her group on Westboro Beach.
It’s a group of people of many sizes and colors and shapes.
And the beach is crowded with beach freaks.
V
Sometimes Westboro Beach is closed because of pollution. But this week it’s not closed and today everybody’s having fun.
And Connie Pan is organized.
We’re going to play E.S.L. volleyball.
First, Connie Pan gets me to make a pile of sand high enough so that when she stands on it she’s as tall as I am. It’s fun piling up some sand and getting her to stand up on it every two minutes to see if it’s high enough yet. At last it’s high enough and her cute little nose is right level with my handsome big nose.
Connie Pan’s mother says all of us in Canada have big noses. That’s why we all look the same.
The pile of sand is for Connie to stand on while she referees the E.S.L. volleyball game.
I will stand six paces across from Connie Pan with one arm up in the air and my hand held out flat. That is how high the net will be. Standing on her pile of sand, Connie Pan also has her arm up and her hand out flat. That will be the other end of the net. In between Connie Pan and me is empty space. It’s empty space because we have no net. When you play E.S.L. volleyball with Connie Pan, you just pretend you have a net.
Connie Pan has a whistle, though. And whenever one of the players touches the net that isn’t here, Connie Pan blows her whistle.
There’s one other rule about E.S.L. volleyball that’s different from ordinary volleyball. In E.S.L. volleyball there’s no ball, either.
You just pretend you have a ball.
And Connie Pan is very organized.
Around each player’s waist is tied a neat white cloth sign, like a little apron, with the player’s name and the player’s country printed in magic marker. The printing is neat and perfect. Printing done by the hands of Connie Pan.
On one team is the Pham family from Vietnam: Minh Dang Pham, Minh Duong Pham, Tan Phong Pham and Toan Anh-Ngoc Pham. Also on that team is Ahmed H. Elhagghassan from Lebanon.
It’s not fair to have the Pham family all on the same team because they’re too good. The way they go around when the ball is up in the air, the way they talk to each other in Vietnamese as it goes higher and higher, and the way they all shade their eyes from the sun at the same time when they see that the ball is starting to come down, and the way they get more and more excited as the ball comes down closer and closer, and then the way they start to argue and shove each other out of the way, each one trying to be the one who gets to hit it. And then the way, at the last minute, they decide by flipping a coin and letting it fall in the sand, which Pham of the Pham family is going to hit the imaginary ball up to Ahmed H. Elhagghassan who will then spike it over the net. They are too good for the other team. They are too good at pretending that there’s actually a ball there.
When the Pham family is playing E.S.L. volleyball, most of the Canadians on Westboro Beach think there is a ball up there and there really is a net to hit it over!
On the other team: Claudia N. Mejia Escobar from Argentina; Somasundarum Selvakumaram from Sri Lanka; Mussie Waldegeberael from Ethiopia; Chittavong Saravong from Cambodia; the player with the most names, Abdi-Hakum T. Haji-Aden from Somalia; and the player with the shortest name, Ha Ng from Hong Kong.
Ha, the captain of that team, serves first.
Connie Pan blows her whistle.
The ball has touched the net. Ha Ng has to serve it over again. All her team are telling her to serve it higher. The Pham family on the other side of the net are all laughing. She’ll never get it over the net, they are saying.
Ha serves again. This one is a high one. The Pham family are staggering backwards, backwards, backwards. Look at it go! They all fall backwards right into the Ottawa River! Out of bounds! Ha’s team loses the serve.
For the other team, Ahmed H. Elhagghassan serves. As the ball goes up, the Pham family each points in a different direction. Where is the ball? The Pham family is acting like the ball is in four different places! But wait, Claudia N. Mejia Escobar is under it, she sets it for Somasundarum Selvakumaram who spikes it down the Pham family’s throat!
Change of serve.
For Ha’s team we have Abdi-Hakum T. Haji-Aden serving. Abdi points high in the air. He will serve a very, very high one. He serves it. Up it goes. The Pham family are silent. They follow the ball up into the sun, shading their eyes. Up it goes further, further, until the Pham family’s necks get sore looking up. To rest their necks, they lie on the sand and watch, lying on their backs in the sand, watching the ball go further up into the sky.
But, look!
It’s starting to come down. The Pham family is up. Now they are running around in a circle, shouting stuff in Vietnamese. Faster, faster they run in the circle as the ball gets closer and closer. All of a sudden they stop running. They each shake hands with Toan Anh-Ngoc Pham, who is the captain. They step back and bow to him. He gets set, his knees bent, his fingers ready. Here it is! He’s under the ball perfectly, lifting it just right so that Ahmed H. Elhag
ghassan can spike it over the net. Score! Everybody on Ha’s team falls down. What a play!
The Pham family serves again.
The ball is returned by Chittavong Saravong. Another very, very high one. The Pham family watches it sail up. They flip a pretend coin to see who will get it. Tan Phong Pham wins. He will be the one. But wait. Tan has to go to the toilet. He’s wiggling and writhing and touching himself. Well, hurry up, they say. Go! Tan runs up the hill to the change house and disappears in the toilet.
Everybody on Westboro Beach is waiting.
Now the Pham family is starting to yell up to the toilet and they’re also looking at their pretend watches and saying to the crowd on Westboro Beach, where is he? Why is he taking so long? Now they’re yelling harder, because the ball is on its way down. Hurry, Tan, hurry! The Pham family is going crazy now, they can hardly stand it. Please Tan, get out here! This ball is almost here!
All of a sudden, Tan is at the door of the toilet. He’s backing out, pulling on his bathing suit. The crowd on Westboro Beach is roaring and shouting for him to hurry. Never mind your bathing suit! Tan is running now, pulling his bathing suit up under his apron with his name and his country printed on it by Connie Pan’s careful hands.
Hurry! Hurry!
The Pham family lets out a long terrifying wail. Will it be too late? Tan dives in, just in time, his bathing suit half off, and lifts the ball perfectly to Ahmed H. Elhagghassan. Ahmed spikes it down so hard that the other team doesn’t even see it.
The Pham family goes nuts.
After about an hour of this, Connie Pan blows the whistle and everybody goes swimming.
It is the best volleyball game ever! Everybody on Westboro Beach is laughing and the kids are all trying to imitate the Pham family, specially the part where they run around bumping into each other while they’re looking up into the air, shading their eyes, trying to see the ball up there, waiting for the ball to start to come down. But the kids aren’t as good as the Phams, of course, because there’s always one kid who gets impatient and who hits the ball too soon and then they all start hitting the ball and arguing and wrestling and falling down. And then there’s no ball at all.
And over on another part of Westboro Beach a kid’s mother is making an apron out of string and cardboard and helping her kid put his name on it and the country he’s from, and helping him tie it around his waist. The sign says, “Jim Smith, Canada.”
I help unpile the sand that Connie Pan was standing on and we make the beach even again. Then she makes me help her fold up the invisible net, very neatly, until I have it folded across my arms. I’m very embarrassed doing this because I feel silly and because I’m not a very good actor and there’s a bunch of little kids standing around watching with their mouths hanging open.
Then Connie Pan takes the invisible net off my arms and folds it into a smaller piece and then into a smaller piece and then into her hands and then tiny enough to go into one hand, and then she opens up her hand over her head like she’s letting go a little bird and she blows on her hand. And the net is gone.
What a volleyball game!
What happened to the ball?
The Pham family decided that it never came down!
That’s why the game was over.
Later, Connie Pan and I are up to our chins in the water. Connie Pan is standing on the bottom and I’m kneeling on the bottom.
We’re watching the beach. Watching the Canadians and the new Canadians fooling around and lying around the sand. I notice that every few minutes Mussie Waldegeberael, from Ethiopia, is looking up at the sky.
“He waits and hopes for the ball to fall down,” says Connie Pan, a little bit of sadness in her voice.
Then Connie Pan and I start talking about her parents and how they don’t like me and how, since I got kicked out of Ottawa Tech, they don’t like me even worse. And Connie Pan is saying how her parents don’t like the “round-eyes” and stuff like that, which is making me feel sad. Now Connie Pan is telling me that she liked me the day I chased the guys away from bugging the Muslim on his rug that time and that makes me feel good again. But now I’m sort of not listening to what she’s saying anymore because something is grabbing my mind away.
What is it?
What is wrong with me?
It’s the water. It’s that smell on the top of the water. There it is again!
It can’t be, but it is!
I smell potato chips!
I smell rancid potato chips here in the water of the Ottawa River at Westboro Beach!
How can that be?
Is it grease up my nose from working in the chipwagon too long? Feel the water. It feels greasy!
Grease in the water at wonderful Westboro Beach!
Disgusting!
VI
Dink the Thinker is fidgeting around my wagon. His foxy face is all over the place. He’s moving the trash pail, picking up the salt and putting it down, dropping a drop of vinegar on his finger and licking it, staring at my customers while they wait for their orders to come out, sighing when they can’t find their money, rolling his eyes when another customer shows up, counting the funny-looking vegetables in the boxes lined along Somerset Street in front of the Mekong Grocery, kicking the tires of my truck.
I know what’s wrong with Dink the Thinker. He’s got something important to tell me. He can hardly wait. And I know what he’s going to do. He’s going to make me guess what it is that he can’t wait to tell me.
He takes my picture with his imaginary camera.
It’s lunchtime and Somerset Street is busy. My wagon is in front of the Mekong Grocery. Down Somerset Street there is Pacific Video, the Sunshine Coin Wash, Valentino’s Strip Club, Vietnamese Sub, Chinese Traditional Acupuncture and Hong Kong Computers.
Up Somerset Street there’s the Shahi Tandi Indian Cuisine, the Bangkok Grocery, the Noodle Express Restaurant, Mee Fung Pastry, the Chinese Fashion Corner. Then Bell Street and Arthur Street and the Hong Kong Beauty Salon where Connie Pan works part time.
Dink the Thinker can’t wait. Even though there’s two customers waiting. Dink can’t.
“Guess who I saw going into Valentino’s?” says Dink. Valentino’s is just down Somerset Street across from the Lao Thai Grocery and Fax store. In Valentino’s, while you’re eating your lunch or drinking beer, a woman will climb up on your table and take all her clothes off.
One time last summer, Dink and I ran in the front door of Valentino’s and out the back door while the waiters ran all around trying to catch us. We were in there just long enough for our eyes to get used to the dark.
It was just like I said.
Men sitting at tables drinking beer and women with no clothes on dancing on the tables.
Well, not exactly no clothes on, Dink the Thinker said; they had shoes on. And one of them had glasses on.
Dink always has to get everything exactly right. Like, if you said to him one day in November, “Look Dink, all the leaves are off the trees,” he’d probably say. “Well, not exactly. There’s one leaf hanging on to the top of that maple tree, see, over there?”
“Come on, guess,” says Dink. “Guess who I saw going into Valentino’s?”
“Dumper Stubbs,” I guess.
“Wrong,” says Dink. “Guess again.”
“Mr. Fryday,” I guess again.
“Wrong,” says Dink. “Guess again.”
The thing about Dink is that even though he can’t wait to tell you, he’ll make you guess all day long unless you force him to tell you or bribe him.
“Captain James T. Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise,” I say.
“Wrong. Guess again.”
“Control agent Maxwell Smart. I don’t know, Dink. Tell me. Who?”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“How would you like one order of Beethoven’s Classical Fries, on the house?”
“Sold. On the wagon, you mean.”
Picky picky. On the house. On the wagon. Sometimes Dink the Thinke
r can bug you.
“It was your favorite teacher, the famous hot shot, Mr. Boyle,” says Dink. “I took his picture. It was perfect. Imagine, if I had a real camera?”
I give him the fries and pretend to take his money because a customer is coming.
Funny how you’re always surprised when you hear of a teacher doing stuff like drinking beer and getting naked women to stand on his table. Or you hear of priests doing stuff. It can sort of make you sick.
All of a sudden something comes rushing into my head. I can see myself standing outside Valentino’s when Mr. Boyle comes out. And guess what I see myself, hear myself say to him? I say, “You do that at home all the time.” Sort of like on “Jeopardy!” The answer first. And then Boyle gives the question. “Do what at home?”
“Get women with no clothes on to stand on the table while you’re sitting there drinking beer.”
It’s one of those things that you have to imagine because it never happens. Who ever gets to pay back his teacher like that?
Who ever gets to catch the teacher, who got him kicked out of school, coming out of a place where women take off all their clothes except their shoes and stand on his table while he’s drinking beer?
I change the subject. I tell Dink all about yesterday’s E.S.L. volleyball game and how all the players liked Connie Pan the way she did everything. I don’t tell Dink all about how I liked Connie Pan the way she did everything magic with the net and the whistle and her printing on the aprons and the invisible ball and her little hands and her cute nose and my big nose that her mother said made all Canadians look the same.
Now, my regular customers start coming around; the waiter with the piece out of his ear from the Nha Hang Vietnam Restaurant just down the street and the owner of the Wah Shing Gifts and Pots Store across the street and another regular customer, the doctor from the Acupuncture Clinic who always wears the straw hat and the girl from Asia Video across the street and the guy who sets up the balls at the Vietnamese Pool Hall, who looks like his pants are going to fall down any minute now.