Kicking The Sky Part 12

I turned to see a flickering of light over the hands of a man. The flame rose to his face. "Might as well sit down." He tilted his head, cupped the flame, and lit a cigarette.

"Peter?" I said his name out loud without trying to.

He wouldn't look at me. "You need to wait it out," he said, his voice new and strange.

I stood there without making a sound. Outside the sun was bright, but Peter's garage was shadowy and cool. I heard the scratchy nails of squirrels racing across the garage's rooftop. Peter moved around quietly, lit some candles he kept in punched tin cans. From what I could make out, the inside of the garage was decorated in plywood and tarpaper. Though the garage was dark, he didn't trip over anything, as if he knew every inch of the place. The candles lit up hundreds of books on shelves, piled high or their spines packed tightly. Paperbacks and old faded hardcovers, all of them brought there in his bundle buggy, I figured.

"You can talk?" I whispered, smacking my tongue in my dry mouth, trying to whip up some spit.

Peter nodded.

I felt lucky, like I was the first one to hear him. But then I thought of all the nasty things that had been done to him, things he suffered without once complaining or fighting back. I thought of all the names we had called him.

He turned to reach for something and I could see the lump on the side of his head, pus.h.i.+ng his ear out like in a child's drawing. My dreams had been wrong. He held a Coca-Cola bottle, popped off the cap with a flick of his thumb and offered it to me. He raised his hand and rubbed the lump a bit. He caught me staring and dropped his hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"No," he said.

"Is it filled with pus?"

He shook his head, rubbed the frosted stubble on his neck.

"You can drain it. I once had a blister. I popped it with a pin. I disinfected the pin with a match. My blister wasn't that big but-"

"It's my ticking clock. Close to my ear so I'm sure of when it's time."

"For what?"

"For that which is inevitable."

I liked the sound of the words coming out of his mouth.

"How come you never talked before?"

"No one asked me anything."

As Peter manoeuvred his way through the room, my eyes followed: hot plate, cot, red scarf draped over the handle of his bundle buggy, an old washbasin and jug, like my grandmother's, sat in a wired holder beneath a narrow mirror, and a small record player-the portable kind. The basics.

Peter brushed his fingers across the spines of his books the same way I rattled a stick along the spindles of a wrought-iron fence. He stopped and tilted a book toward him far enough that it dropped into his hand.

He held the book out to me. "Go ahead," he urged with his chin. "It's a gift." I reached up and held the cloth-bound book with both hands. The Little Prince.

Again, he lifted his hand behind his ear as if to scratch, then stopped. "You share the same name," he said. "Antoine ... Antoine de Saint-Exupery."

I tried to calm myself by running my fingers across the raised letters of the author's name. He knew my name?

"What's it about?"

"It's about a boy like you." Peter held his breath. "I worked in a library." He raised his meaty hands in the air, palms open, as if he was supporting their weight. "They were weeded from stacks or left in boxes on garbage day."

"Have you read all of these?"

Peter nodded. He stepped closer to them, his nose almost touching them, to take in their smell, as if it was a drug that made him calm and happy.

"I don't know why they come to see me," I said, unsure why I was confessing to him. "I don't have any special powers."

"They come because they need someone or something to explain the world to them. What they expect to feel when they kneel in front of you is what they want to feel, nothing more. You don't need to be frightened by it."

"How do you know?"

"Most of them are looking for a miracle. They're desperate because they've tried everything else and they have nothing to lose."

"They believe I can make their fingers grow back or make their cancer go away."

"Believing feels good."

"You want me to try it on you?"

"I don't believe. It's all lost. Gone."

"What? What's gone, Peter?"

His eyes welled up. "My name is Adam." He reached for his red scarf, slowly wound it around his neck. "And you should go now," he said.

- 6*

ACOUPLE OF DAYS LATER, right after the final bell rang, I took a different route over to James's. Everything was about staying alive, mixing things up, avoiding the laneways where Amilcar might be hiding. He had changed schools. After he failed last year his parents switched him to Charles G. Fraser, which wasn't a catholic school. Manny told me he hardly ever saw him; he had a job in Kensington Market, stocking shelves at Melo's Grocery Store.

Agnes told me I would find James at the park. She looked shabby. "Every morning I make sure I've got all the things he likes all ready for him. His coffee, the newspaper, toast with b.u.t.ter and jam. He likes apricot." She sounded tired, the way she went through the things she did for him, the things he liked. "But he's been coming home mad because they're not giving him as much work. He says he's getting too old for his kind of work." I wondered if she knew exactly what it was James did downtown, and if she did I wasn't really sure she'd tell me. "Thank G.o.d your dad gave him that job. It helps." She stopped to look up at the TV. "People are staying away. Even from the new mall. They're afraid. James says he sees gangs of boys, some of them from our neighbourhood, gathering down there and beating the c.r.a.p out of other guys, the ones they think are queers."

For weeks the rumours had been spreading that Manny's brother, Eugene, and Amilcar had been involved in some of the beatings. Most Portuguese in the neighbourhood were just glad h.o.m.os.e.xuals were being scared off. I had even heard my parents say as much.

"Does James scare you?" I asked.

Agnes placed a candy in her mouth. "He makes me feel safe." She turned and looked straight at me. "He touches me so gently, it makes me want to cry." She drew her hands to her belly. "I didn't want to keep it, you know, but James said we'd make a perfect family. He said he'd take care of things." I caught a whiff of her minty breath. "He'll take care of us all." She tried to twirl her hair in her finger. It would have worked if she still had her long hair. "You better go. Alexandra Park. He's there with Manny. They've been together all day."

"Do you want to come?"

Agnes shook her head, then grabbed a rung on the ladder and climbed up.

I made it to the park in record time: one minute, twenty-seven seconds. The faster I rode my bike, the slimmer the chance that Amilcar could ambush me from some nook or hideout along the way. I took in the rattle of dry leaves, the way they crunched under my tires, and thought of my mother and how she scoured our walkway and sidewalk with bleach trying to scrub away the rusty stains left by the rotting sh.e.l.ls of horse chestnuts. Last fall I had suggested we try cooking them. I was certain the thought had crossed her mind too. We gathered a few handfuls and my mother roasted them in the oven for a couple of hours. Their sh.e.l.ls blistered and cracked. But the insides stayed green and bitter.

Manny's hair was the first thing I saw. I pedalled harder and found James slouched beside him on a park bench, a brown paper bag in his hand. At Manny's feet was a bottle of aguardente-Portuguese moons.h.i.+ne. They both held joints pinched between their fingers.

"What's wrong with you guys? A whole lot of help you'll be if Amilcar comes after me."

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"I'm outta here!" Anger burned my face. They were too stoned or drunk to notice.

"No, no, no, no," James said. "We've got to talk, little brother. Let's just talk this through."

"What are we going to do? I'm a walking target and so is he." I pointed to Manny, who fluffed it all off like he didn't care. "It's been a week since you stole the bike. Amilcar's waiting to pounce, I know it."

Manny spat over his shoulder. The bike had been sold; he'd given half of it over to James and pocketed the rest. Not a penny for me.

"Remember, protection, baby." James smiled, his eyes blistery red.

Adam appeared in the distance. He walked across the park's baseball diamond. I hadn't told anyone his real name. Even when Manny pressed me on how I managed to get away from Amilcar, I hadn't mentioned being in Adam's garage. It felt good to keep something from them. The only thing I told them was what Amilcar had done to the cat. Manny still wasn't as freaked out as I thought he should be. As I was.

Adam veered close to the other side of the path when he saw us, his red scarf trailing behind him. He looked straight ahead, made sure he didn't look our way.

James caught me looking and followed my gaze. Suddenly, he was on his feet and crossing the path to the other side, purpose in his step. "Hey, bud, what you got in there?"

Adam moved onto the gra.s.s.

I shot a glance at Manny, who just grinned.

"Let me take a look," James said.

"Don't!" I said, running after James, but he ignored me.

Adam tried to walk faster to avoid James, but James shadowed him. If Adam turned, James blocked him. Every time Adam tried to sidestep, James pursued him.

"Check what's inside!" Manny shouted.

Adam's stubbly face glistened with sweat.

James flicked at his ears with his fingers, snapped Adam's scarf against his face. Adam didn't flinch.

"Stop!" I yelled.

"Holy s.h.i.+t, man. What's that thing behind your ear?"

"Let him go!" I wanted Adam to walk away but he was just standing there, looking like he didn't have a care in the world.

James laughed. "You should keep that thing covered up," he said. He grabbed the red scarf and wound it around Adam's head like a turban. Then he whipped the red scarf off Adam's head. Adam spun like a wooden top. He wobbled a bit before he banged into his bundle buggy and fell over it. The cart tipped and books, newspapers, and magazines spilled from the garbage bag lining. They lay scattered on the path and in the dry leaves.

James fell to the ground, lying down on the carpet of books.

"Books? All he's got are books!" he yelled back to Manny.

Adam was on his knees and with his bent arm he tried to scoop everything back into the upturned cart. James got up, allowed Adam to collect the books and magazines that had been underneath him. Adam was almost done, reaching for the last of the books on the ground, when James stepped on his hand, crus.h.i.+ng his fingers under his boot.

"I'm serious, Manny. You gotta check out the alien bubble on this dude's head."

"Leave him alone!" I shouted, punching James in the chest, then grabbing his overall straps and yanking him hard. It was enough to get his boot off Adam's hand. "You're an a.s.shole!"

James turned to face me, his eyelids no longer heavy.

"Let him go home," I said, calmer this time.

The d.i.c.kie Dee Ice Cream bike pa.s.sed. There was a transistor radio duct-taped to the handle, the antenna extended two feet out. In that moment the world froze. We all stopped to watch it pa.s.s us by. The d.i.c.kie Dee man smiled and waved, flicked the row of bells on his handlebars. It was late in the season to be selling ice cream. He had come from nowhere. The distraction allowed Adam to scramble to his feet. He was already on his way. The cart was missing a wheel and the axle carved a white line into the cement path. Adam was whistling the d.i.c.kie Dee tune, and he never looked back.

James held the red scarf taut between his white-knuckled fists.

"Give it to me," I said.

James's eyes would not meet mine. His hands relaxed. He unwound the scarf and placed it in my hands.

"It belongs to Adam," I said. "His name is Adam."

I knocked a few times on Adam's garage door, but no one answered. I managed to push the garage door open enough to s.h.i.+mmy the scarf in, piece by piece. I was almost done when the door gave. I stepped in and adjusted my eyes to the s.p.a.ce.

Adam returned to his chair and sat down.

"Thought you'd want this," I said.

He reached for the scarf, lifted it to his face. He took a whiff-long and deep-then slowly wrapped the scarf around his neck.

Adam had pulled his cot closer to the stove with its long tin stovepipe. The cot was neatly made, an extra blanket folded at the foot and a crisp pillow at its head.

"I gotta go," I said. I had to be home by five o'clock. I was nearly at the door when Adam started talking.

"Twenty-three years ago, last week. Hurricane Hazel." He looked up into the blackness of the ceiling. "This was my daughter's scarf. She was three." A smile stretched across his face. "With every jump she thought she could take hold of the clouds. There wasn't much time. There was no place to go. Things flashed in my head but-" He stopped to catch his breath. "The house got dark and the thunder cracked louder than anything I thought possible. Furniture s.h.i.+fted with the crash. I thought my wife and daughter would be safe under the kitchen table. Our windows blew out." He held his hands up to his throat, as if a cold wind was ramming down his throat. I inched closer to the door. "And then it stopped. Everything was quiet. I looked up to the sky where our roof once was. Half the house and the backyard had slipped into the river. They were gone."

I turned to go. I didn't want him to see my tears welling up. I wanted to take a step into the laneway, but instead, I placed my forehead against the wood, looking straight at the flaking paint. "How come you weren't afraid? James was going to beat the c.r.a.p out of you and it was like nothing, like you didn't care."

"I have nothing left to be afraid of," he said.

I kept my forehead pressed to the door as I took hold of the handle and turned it slightly.

"The moment you're afraid, you close your eyes," he said. "That's when the earth opens and swallows you up."

It was October sixteenth, the Feast of St. Luke; the clock in my room read 6:40 p.m. "Get over here!" I heard Terri yell, traced her voice back to the rear room on the second floor. "Look," she said, pointing out the window with its clear view of the laneway. "You're a star!" she laughed, "in New York and L.A...." I elbowed her lightly. There must have been hundreds of people, some holding lit candles, huddled outside our garage. Others lingered in a line that stretched halfway up the lane. Their black dresses, veils, and hats made my skin p.r.i.c.kly and hot. I imagined whiskered faces of men and women planting kisses on my knees, some tickling my toes with their lips. The room spun. I wanted to close my eyes and lie down-go to sleep until it was all over.

"Look!" Terri said, tapping the window. Ricky stood on the peaked roof of our garage like a funny gargoyle. He leaned into the sky, raised his hand and waved. His smile was kind. Everything's going to be okay, it said. Tomorrow, after school, we'll be riding our bikes through the laneway like we always did.

The house was hot because my father had turned on the furnace and my mother had roasted chicken and potatoes for dinner. I pa.s.sed through the kitchen; the walls were sweating-house tears, my mother called them.

I could hear my mother and Edite downstairs. From the landing I could only see their legs and laps as they folded laundry. Edite had a gla.s.s of wine at her feet. My mother never drank.