Kicking The Sky Part 2

"The ladies at the church are saying this," Aunt Zelia, who was married to my uncle David, said. "Emanuel was trying to save money to buy a ticket for his mother to go visit family back home."

"That's gossip. People say what they want to hear," Aunt Luisa said. "How about the story where he wanted money to feed a new puppy? There are other stories too, you know, about what boys s.h.i.+ning shoes do for ... extra money."

"Antonio," my mother said, "go home and lie down in the bas.e.m.e.nt where it's cool. I'll bring over a bowl of sopa de estrelinha soon."

She blew hard into a tissue before she returned to the smoky kitchen.

I made my way to my uncle's front door and onto my bike, which someone had pulled onto the veranda. I took hungry gulps of air to clear my nose of the smell of pig.

Across the street, I could see Manny's sponge-like hair above the railing as he carried lawn chairs from his porch into the house.

"Hey!" I shouted.

He ran up to meet me at the gate.

"Let's go!" I said.

"Can't."

His mother stood at the front door. "Manelinho, bring the last chair inside!" She sounded anxious.

"Why are you clearing off the porch?"

"They found Emanuel. On the roof of Charlie's Angels s.e.x parlour. He was under some boards, drowned." Then he whispered, "He's dead."

"Manelinho!" his mother wailed.

Manny jumped up all five steps of his veranda. He grabbed a lawn chair and pulled it inside, the screen door slamming behind him.

I walked my bike home quickly. My throat had tightened, and the tightness drilled painfully right down into my chest. I wanted to cry but I couldn't. My fingers found the front-door handle. Making my way down the stairs into the bas.e.m.e.nt, I breathed in the familiar smell of old paper and worms. The floor was painted concrete-battles.h.i.+p grey-and some of the walls were covered halfway up with wood panelling. At the far end of the open s.p.a.ce was a bathroom with a large shower, which my father used when he got home from a dirty day of digging, and where Terri and I showered after we came home from the beach and needed to rinse off the sand. It was next to the laundry area and across from the stove-every self-respecting Portuguese family had a second kitchen in the bas.e.m.e.nt they used daily. The kitchen upstairs was just for show and it was rarely used. There was an old back seat of a Chevy my father had brought home one day with a console television, which stood next to the doorway to our adega, where fat-bellied oak barrels rested on large wooden blocks. An old hospital sheet, St. Michael's Hospital branded on its side, hid the wine. I was relieved to see that everything looked the same.

I sat down and flicked on the TV. The backs of my legs stuck to the vinyl car seat. My tube socks had been held up all day long by elastic bands taken from a Baggie that my mother kept in a drawer. Now I rolled down the socks and scratched the itchy red rings that had been carved around my calves.

We didn't have cable, so we could only watch one station on the main dial and, depending on the weather, tuned the channel with the second dial. And remember, breakfast without orange juice is like a day without suns.h.i.+ne. Anita Bryant, the former Miss America, strolled through an orange grove in her s.h.i.+ny white dress, her hair perfect. She looked so different from the woman who had been in the newspapers for leading the Save Our Children campaign.

"She should have stuck to selling oranges," Terri said. I could feel her presence behind the seat, the smell of soap moving with her. I hadn't heard her come downstairs.

"He's dead," I said.

My sister plopped down next to me. She sat closer to me than she normally would. Tucking her legs under her b.u.m, she leaned against me, her arm pressing against my side. I didn't s.h.i.+ft over. We listened carefully to the TV reporter.

"This is the street corner where Emanuel Jaques was last seen. Four days ago he was s.h.i.+ning shoes, like so many other boys here, and then disappeared into what many consider the cesspool of the city, Yonge Street." The reporter spoke slowly, and his voice was level. "Reports suggest that he and his brother and friend were approached by a man ..."

Terri nibbled on some strands of her hair. I poked my chin into my T-s.h.i.+rt and lifted the ribbed collar into my mouth. I sucked on the cotton.

"Emanuel's older brother said a man had approached the boys for some help. He allegedly offered the boys thirty-five dollars to move camera equipment. Emanuel's older brother and a friend ran to the nearest pay phone to call home to ask their mother's permission. Upon their return, Emanuel was gone. He had vanished." A picture of the large-eyed boy appeared on the screen. "Again, the search is over. The body of a twelve-year-old boy police have identified as Emanuel Jaques has been found on a Toronto rooftop."

"Ouch!"

My sister pinched my thigh-the teeny kind of pinch that hurt. "Don't ever go with anyone. Got it?" She got up to turn off the television, but stopped when she heard the cries of family from behind the interviewer's questions. There were TV cameras in the Jaques' living room, doilies on the tables and a big wooden cross in the corner of the room. Mrs. Jaques spoke in Portuguese between her sobs. She sat in an armchair with her eyes barely open, covering her mouth with a handkerchief. Her four other children stood frozen around their mother. Emanuel's father was in the bedroom, too stricken with grief to come out and be interviewed.

The reporter asked Emanuel's mother, "If you were speaking to the members of city council, what would she tell them to do about the Yonge Street strip?"

The oldest daughter bent down to translate into her mother's ear.

"Give me my son back" was the reply.

I skidded on my bike into my uncle's garage. I didn't want to come off as some stupid kid, I wanted to handle the news like a man.

It was clear from the way they were carrying on that the men didn't know yet, which meant my mother and aunts in the bas.e.m.e.nt were just as ignorant. There was no TV or radio in the garage, and the women were too busy chopping up pig parts. There wasn't much left of the pig by now, just the hind legs dangling from the wooden rafters. Presunto or bacon, I thought. My uncle Clemente caught me around the waist and shoved the pig's tail in my mouth. The men cheered him on as I squirmed in his hold. Part of the tail curled around my tongue and the rest lodged against the roof of my mouth. They all laughed as I gagged and tried to spit it out. I had to hook my finger to pull it out. I hunched over, and saliva filled my mouth to coat the taste. They patted me on the back while I looked to my father.

"You is a man now," he whispered, his stubble sc.r.a.ping against my cheek.

I reached for my father's warm wine and threw it hard against the back of my throat. This led to another wave of "Forca!" and further bouts of approval with "Um homem. A man now."

I licked my hand clean.

They truly had no idea Emanuel had been murdered, and I wouldn't tell them.

I jumped on my bike and sped away, riding east along Queen Street, past the vacant storefronts, past all the drunks, past the broad thoroughfare known as Spadina Avenue, past City Hall that looked like a building out of The Jetsons. I kept going, racing with the fluffy clouds that ran along above the trees. The breeze dried my tears, rushed up my nose and filled my lungs.

I turned up Yonge Street and stopped in the shadow of the Eaton Centre, across the street from Charlie's Angels. Above the door some products were being advertised in plastic letters: Movies, s.e.x Toys, Magazines, Books. The store's window promised s.e.xY GIRLS. Some men were boarding up the door and windows with plywood, but they hadn't covered everything: the painted figure of a half-naked woman and the words Your happiness may depend on it were still exposed. It was a tall building, five storeys high, and it looked like all the others that lined Yonge Street. The building had been blocked off with yellow tape. I stood there straddling my bike, leaning over my handlebars. My head felt fuzzy, but I hoped I'd see Emanuel's body. If I got close to him, I could pray in Portuguese, the way my grandmother taught me. Prayers are heard faster if you pray in Portuguese, she'd say. The news teams, reporters, and everyone else who gathered were all waiting for something to happen.

It was getting dark. I was pedalling up Palmerston Avenue so slowly I was barely moving, just fighting to keep my balance. Where was everyone? I pa.s.sed one empty porch after another. I had never seen our street so dark. Curtains were drawn. Porch lights were switched off.

I turned across Robinson Street to go through the laneway. My uncle's garage door was closed. I made my way up toward the patch of light that beamed into the laneway from Mr. Serjeant's garage. I stopped. The man was painting the inside of the garage, whitewas.h.i.+ng everything. His back was to me. I could see his blond curly hair poking out under his cycling cap. His tank top was drenched, glued to his skin.

"Terrible, isn't it?" He continued to paint, to my relief. He stood on a stool. I saw his ankles and thought his feet must be tanned too. It was the last thing I thought of before I realized he could see my reflection in a window.

"I'm James," he said. He twisted around to face me.

"I know," I managed, before I felt my tongue getting fat. My chest ached. James was in the middle of saying something when I turned away from him and pressed down hard on the pedals. I didn't let up until I came out onto Palmerston Avenue, where I saw my mother leaning over our front gate. Across the road, the worm-picker bus revved its engine and slowly rolled away toward Queen Street.

"Where did you go? Get in that house now!" She smelled of blood sausages, onions, and paprika. She had been crying.

I walked my bike through our gate and dropped it on the front lawn. The back wheel spun in the air.

It wasn't cold, but she drew her sweater tightly across her chest, tucked her hands under her armpits. I caught her looking out through the storm door before sliding the latch to Lock. Then she shut the front door and secured the deadbolt.

The sound of my mother's slippers slapping against her heels chased me up to the bathroom. I stood beside the tub and wiggled my fingers in the water. It was cold now. My mother stood in the doorway. With my back to her, I quickly undressed, wrapped a towel around my waist. I just stood there.

"What are you waiting for?" she said. "Get in the water before it gets any colder."

"I need privacy."

"You got to be careful, Antonio. It's not safe anymore," she said before leaving.

I dunked myself quickly, scrubbed my skin raw with the washcloth until a layer of grey sc.u.m covered the entire surface of the cold bathwater.

I wasn't sure how long I had been lying in my bed before John F. Kennedy's voice made its way up to my room and I knew my father was home. The recording of JFK was displayed on a bracket that once held a plate. My father played it over and over whenever he was sad or when he sensed things had changed, or were about to change. I heard my father's boots, the rhythm of his step climbing the stairs. Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country. There was his smell: Old Spice, Craven "A," the sweetness of homemade wine.

When he walked in I saw his forehead was covered in tiny beads of sweat.

He looked away for one moment and rocked forward as if he'd thought better of it and would leave. He cracked his knuckles.

He sat down and looked like he was about to say something. I could see the patches of silver stubble on his chin and upper lip. The veins in his neck pumped. He drew the heel of his palm across his forehead, then reached over and rubbed my earlobe with his thick fingers. His bottom lip trembled.

I didn't want him to cry.

"You not hurt?" He took another deep breath. I thought he was going to say something else, but he just got up. "Close you light," he said. Then he quietly shut the door behind him.

- 5*

MY NIGHTMARES BEGAN the night Emanuel's body was found. I was being chased, running barefoot through the laneway. The laneway looked different, like what it would have looked like a hundred years back, with barns in place of garages. There were open fields instead of fences. Small stones and shards of gla.s.s cut into my dirty feet. As I ran, my hands chopped the wind in front of me. I could hear pursuers puffing and blowing behind me, mocking you boy with the pretty hair. I got something I'd like to share. Little boy with the pretty hair.

I was still perspiring when I made my way down to the kitchen. I opened the window and cooled my head in the morning breeze. It was as if the discovery of Emanuel's body had cracked the heat wave.

I was shocked to see my mother sitting in the backyard, alone. She never missed work. A week after I was born, she was back on the job at the hospital. She told me she couldn't afford to stay at home. I felt s.h.i.+tty whenever she told me that story.

"Not going to work today, Me?"

"No, I need to stay home today." She took a sip from her teacup and placed it down. She spun the cup a little in its saucer.

"Me?"

She didn't look my way.

"You know the swallow makes a sound," she began, so quietly I could barely hear her. "Not really a sound, a kind of whisper. Back home in So Miguel swallows were the first sign that the cold days were over." She lifted the teacup to her lips.

"I thought it never got cold in So Miguel."

"Damp like worms."

"I don't think I've ever seen a real swallow," I said.

"I didn't want to come here. Canada seemed so far away. I wanted to move to Lisbon."

I'd never hear that before. "Why did you come, then?"

"Your father came to Canada a few years before me. He needed to get away, and he was happy here. He said Portugal was too sad."

Manny and Ricky should have been somewhere in the laneway. I walked up and down the lane before deciding I'd just wait for them in the Patch. Every little sound made me nervous. I had been there fifteen minutes and I thought I'd give my friends ten more minutes to show up before making my way over to Edite's. My mother only let me leave the house because I promised I'd head straight to Edite's to take her some homemade jam.

A monarch b.u.t.terfly landed on the ground, clapping its wings in the sun. I walked up to it. The trick was pinching its wings together, trying to not rub off any of the rusty powder so it could still fly. I reached down, my fingers ready to pinch. The air was jabbed by a m.u.f.fler backing up. The b.u.t.terfly took flight just as the jar under my arm smashed on the gravel.

The stairs leading up to Edite's apartment were narrow and dark. All her windows were open, and fans scanned the kitchen like giant periscopes. She had been living there for more than a year now and the place smelled of stale cigarettes. I pa.s.sed by her bedroom: a mattress on the floor with a ruffled bedspread, a big Chinese fan on her wall in place of a headboard, and a silk scarf draped over her lamp. Clothes, blankets, beaded jewellery, and newspapers were scattered over the floor and bed. It wasn't like any other Portuguese house I had ever been to. Edite said she liked to keep it that way; she could scoop all her belongings into a garbage bag at a moment's notice and drive away in her convertible.

I walked down the hall and stopped to make the sign of the cross at Johnny's picture. It was perched on top one of the towers of old newspapers she kept piled along the hall. Johnny had large dark eyes, and his face was framed with black curls, nothing like his mother's. Edite sat at her kitchen table, reading the newspaper. Her cigarette smouldered in the ashtray.

SHOEs.h.i.+NE BOY, 12, FOUND SLAIN. Underneath the headline was a grimy photo of the Charlie's Angels storefront.

"You're here. What took you so long? Hold on, before you answer that let me call your mother." Edite picked up the phone and dialed. "You want some coffee?" she whispered, just as my mother's panicked voice came through. "Georgina, he's here. He's okay," Edite said, looping then unlooping the phone cord around her pointing finger. "No, it's okay. It's my fault. I forgot to call you when he arrived." I caught my mother's voice directing threats at me in Portuguese. Edite returned the receiver to its base. "In hot climates they drink hot drinks, you know. Supposed to cool you off." Before I could say no she was at the counter pouring me a cup from her percolator. I chipped away at the sugar until I got about four teaspoon-sized nuggets. I was used to having a milked-down version of coffee that my mother prepared for me, filled with crushed digestive biscuits to sop up all the liquid. "We're just a bit worried, Antonio." Edite poured herself a refill. She reached up to the cabinet and brought down a small bottle of something golden. I thought it was honey or maple syrup until she stirred her coffee and I smelled the booze.

The first time I met Edite, at Kensington Market, my eyes landed on her before my mother had even introduced us. She stood beside a barrel filled with pickled herring and plastic bins packed with dried beans, grains, and powdery spices. She was thin and beautiful. Her head was slightly tilted, and a cigarette was wedged in the corner of her mouth. She caught me staring and her coral lips stretched wide. I turned away to look at the rows of stacked cages filled with chickens, ducks, rabbits, and pigeons.

My mother's hand tightened around my wrist. She kissed the woman on both cheeks. "Antonio, meet your aunt Edite."

Aunt Edite wore makeup and painted her nails. She kept herself thin by cutting meat from her diet, drinking Tab whenever she wanted, and smoking Camels. She had also joined the Vic Tanny's fitness club on Richmond Street, something no Portuguese woman I knew ever did. There wasn't a hint of Portuguese in the way she spoke. She had moved to the States when she was fourteen, got married at sixteen, and was widowed at twenty. An industrial accident, my father told me. My mother had agreed to meet her in Kensington Market, amidst all the fruit stands and fishmongers, but then she practically had to drag her home with us. It was clear from the conversation on the way home that my father had no idea my mother knew Edite was in Toronto. Edite settled into her own apartment on Markham Street, a few houses up from where Ricky lived with his father. She said she needed to get away from America for a little while. She told my mother she had been offered a job here working for a newspaper, and she took it. She had worked at the Boston Herald before starting at the Toronto Star. Her hands were soft. Her fingers only knew typewriter keys, not harsh detergents and the chemicals used to disinfect toilets and strip floors.

A few nights later, I had overheard my father fighting with my mother. Edite was louca and uma tola, he said, which I knew meant she was nuts. A single woman living on her own would get people gossiping. He had an obligation to protect our family's reputation.

Sitting at the table, our coffees in hand, Edite began to read Tuesday's paper out loud: " 'Behind the sleazy facade of this body-rub parlour at 245 Yonge Street police found the body of twelve-year-old shoes.h.i.+ne boy Emanuel Jaques. They smashed gla.s.s panes in the front door at 6:30 a.m. to search, and found a body on the roof at the back. The boy had been missing four days. Four men are being held for questioning.' "

Edite lowered the paper and slid it over to me on the kitchen table. Emanuel's sister, through her sobs, told the reporter that he "very much liked to make money but he wasn't greedy. He didn't rush out and spend it; he knew it had to go into the bank."

The sound of a baby crying pealed across the asphalt. I wondered why Emanuel's cry hadn't sped between the dirty buildings with their neon signs.

"I'm not sure what's going to happen next, Antonio. But things are about to get a lot worse."

"But they caught the men, didn't they? It's over."

"It's just beginning. Now it turns into a blame game. The Portuguese blame the politicians and the police for not protecting the boy. They'll take matters into their own hands and they'll target the h.o.m.os.e.xuals simply because they hate and fear them. The police will crack down on all the illegal stuff they've been turning a blind eye to downtown, especially among the h.o.m.os.e.xuals, because they think it will deflect blame and responsibility from them. And the politicians just see votes-they'll make promises they don't even believe, only to keep their b.u.t.ts in office."

We build their houses. We clean their houses. We mind their children. For what? For this? For them to do this to one of our children? This is not why we came. I had heard these words coming out of Edite's radio.

"You know what it is to be afraid, right?"

I nodded.

"Your mother didn't go to work today because she's frightened." Edite stared at me through the cigarette smoke.

"She freaked me out this morning. The way she was just sitting in the backyard not doing anything. I thought she was going to cry."

"She's frightened for you. She's thinking it could have been you instead of Emanuel."

"That could never happen to me."

"Why?"

I couldn't tell her that I was safe because me, Ricky, and Manny were blood brothers and would protect each other.

"Your mom and dad have to work. There's no one at home to look after you guys. I know you're a good kid, and you're lucky to have your friends, but things are going to change."