When Shane and I first got together, I couldn’t trust him, man, legit—but I loved his cock and the way he fucked me, and his heart—I told him he had hard, cold eyes that were too close together—which was true, and I told him other mean things and lies and some other things that were true too.
And I told him some nice things.
The first time I saw him, he was wearing a red tracksuit with white racing stripes down the arms and legs. Bright white sneakers. The sidewalk around him was kissed with dead leaves and litter—the exhaust from a nearby bus made the air black, toxic, and totally magical. I smelled the burnt fumes coming up to me like a song or an offering or some shit like that.
He’d come around looking for Leo, calling up to our balcony on the second floor and I came out and looked down at him—he wasn’t just another waster—a cigarette behind his ear—gold rings, gold chain—and seeing him, down there, I couldn’t breathe—he was sexy, man, totally—there was something sad and menacing about him.
He was like, Yo, Rapunzel, Leo around?—and I frowned and felt my pussy tingle and shook my head, No, he ain’t, and went back inside and sat on the couch and was like, Fuck, like, who is that?
He really gave off this vibe, man, for real—like, second time—it was at this pharma party off Roncesvalles—an apartment above some Portuguese chicken place—I noticed he had this slight lisp that he tried hard to cover up—his voice was kinda soft and whispery and there was something about it that made you feel like he might snap a chair or some shit—like legit—seriously tense.
He was real into me—it was easy to tell. He had his shirt off—he always took it off when I was around—and Leo was super pissed, man, because Leo was sort of chubby or whatever and then here was this like super delicious eight pack in my face—he told me he was gluten free, and I was like, Shit, so that’s it, huh, cool.
So I let him know. I just kinda put my fingers on his forearm real gentle like and it was electricity, man, seriously.
We were sitting in a corner of one of the rooms alone—talking shit—and I just wanted to say, like, You’re beautiful, you’re so beautiful, but I didn’t say that—I just said something dumb and sort of trembled or whatever, and anyway he already knew what I was thinking and likewise I knew what he was thinking too—but we pretended we didn’t know and just pretended we were friends but we weren’t friends at all—we were already something else.
I leaned over and touched his forearm and asked for a light, and when he lit my cigarette, we locked eyes, and anyway, that night Leo must have taken some heavy downer with Viagra or some shit because he slouched in the La-Z-Boy with drool down his chin and a hard on you wouldn’t believe pitching a tent while the party went on and everyone was laughing.
Those were the days, man, for sure.
But I couldn’t trust Shane at all. I hated that scene but just kinda went along with it for a while—all these little skanks hanging around—and they hated me because I was like the queen of it for real—all the boys wanted me and I could take my pick—and my pick was Shane.
And here I am in bed with Carter snuggled into me—it’s totally dark but somehow I know his eyes are open—it’s like I can feel them moving around the room, right?—like I said, he’s super intuitive, man—and I hear Brit get up from her bed—two single beds for guests in this room, and a window through which you can see the limbs of trees, just, like, swaying in the wind—that storm Shane talked about is beginning to brew.
Back in the day—we were at some other party, me and Shane and a bunch of others—it was some big old house like this one up in the country—all high ceilings and stone floors and one giant-ass fireplace and weird creepy portraits on the walls and all kinds of junky shit everywhere—it was when really all the trouble started with me and Shane.
It was like the summer house of one of Shane’s dad’s old business partners I think. All these rich kids with the, like, old-school hip hop on bust all night, and I remember feeling freaked out by them—like, I remember thinking: If you kids wanna seem legit you should be listening to the fucking blues.
Everyone was sitting around in the big living room with a fire raging—beautiful, man—the light on everyone’s faces—white masks smiling—everyone getting bombed, man, legit—and a thunderstorm came out of nowhere—and the house went black—like power outage sudden as fuck.
The house shook. The windows filled with lightning. Rain pounding down. A thrill went through each of us—the air was alive, man, seriously.
And someone had the idea for everyone to go upstairs to the bedroom that had this big-ass balcony for a better look at the storm—it sounded like the end of the world out there.
So up we all go and out we all go—BOOM—like, we’re all going to die—and then the sky lights up and we’re all looking out at the trees in the like serious flashes of lightning—it’s like a strobe effect—the thunder so big you could feel your bones trembling—and Shane’s beside me—his smiling face in a flash of light—and he’s holding my hand and we’re getting soaked—it feels so good, like money, and everyone screams and beneath the smell of the rain and the air, I can smell Shane’s body—when he’s scared or nervous he smells like an animal, man, legit—and in the blood darkness between lightning strikes—my eyes burning—he moves in close—like slow motion, man—it’s like he’s moving through water—he moves in and I feel him kiss my cheek like so sweetly—and I grip his hand—and later, after everyone else has gone to bed and the storm has moved off down the valley, he leads me again by the hand out into the little town that surrounds that big house and to the very door of the primary school—the flags of the North American Zone whipping in the wild wind on the lawn out front of it—and he presses up against me and puts his hand around my throat and kisses me and pulls my hair and pulls my skirt up and it’s the hottest shit that had ever happened to me.
But right now, it’s a dream, man, legit—Brit in her nightgown—I’m watching her in that nightgown she picked out from the closet—it ain’t real, or it don’t seem very real to me just then—she’s just some little wisp or whatever moving across the room and her bare feet like kinda whisper across the floorboards, man, it’s creepy and beautiful, know what I mean?
And I watch her light the oil lamp there on the bedside table—her face suddenly lit up in the wavering light of the flame—her enormous shadow on the wall and up onto the ceiling as she takes the lamp and makes for the door, and I’m like, What the fuck is Brit doing, man, seriously?
And just a few moments later, that’s when the world really does come to an end, like legit.
Boots on the floorboards.
A boom, a hiss.
The fire is hot and bright.
My heart.
Before I know it—Shane and his dad are here.
Shane’s dad with the Bug in his hand.
Heat at my back. Light on their faces.
I lead with a left feint. Then a right cross.
Left hook.
The Painting Game, right?
Shane’s dad takes a step back more from shock, I think.
My fists sting like fuck. There’s blood.
He drops the Bug—I’ve seen that shit in videos Shane showed me.
How this world will end.
Shane backs up—his boots scuff the floor.
That sweet horse face—he’s petrified—I think I love him.
I snatch up the Bug.
It’s heavier than I thought and it glows.
One button I push—Game Over.
I’m up the steps and out, screaming to Nina.
Smoke, man, seriously—it’s everywhere.
Out the front door and into the night.
The dark and the woods—thorns tear my head—my feet on sharp rock.
One button, one button, game over, game over.
An animal dash through branches—it’s quiet for a minute and I hear the bolt action of a rifle flick over—Nina’s crying out to me and then there’s a gunshot—you must hate me so much,
baby—there’s just one gunshot—it’s unreal, man, and too fucked up to think about too much.
The sound echoes off the trees.
I climb up—there’s blood and green stems—the smell of dirt and sap and sweetness—my hand grabbing for something—sharp hard leaves—I hear their boots below me snapping branches and look down from the tree—they haven’t seen me yet.
I’m sitting here—the thing in my hands.
It’s bright and warm as a heart.
I love you, baby.
It’s okay, okay?
It’s okay.
It’s okay.
It’s okay.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to ArtsNL, The City of St. John’s, and The Lemon Tree House for providing financial assistance during the completion of this project.
To Rebecca, James, and Rhonda at Breakwater Books.
To Lauren Hodder, Milan Parab, Mark Callanan, Chad Pelley, Ellen Squires, and Jo Rees.
And to my family.
CRAIG FRANCIS POWER is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Blood Relatives (2010), which was shortlisted for the BMO Winterset Award and won the ReLit Award for fiction, and The. Hope (2016). He lives in St. John’s.
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