All the Broken Things (22 page)

S
OME STILLNESS
, a vacancy, woke him early. He would go pee, he decided, and then fall back to sleep, but when he made his way to the bathroom, he could sense the not-breathing space of the house. He began turning on the lights, and in the brightness he discovered that they were gone. His mother had gone and his sister was not asleep in her room, and, save for the reiterative scraping from the backyard, which must be Bear, he was alone.

Bo went in his underwear to unchain Bear. He brought her in the house and sat in the kitchen with her for some time, Bear poking at his leg a few times and then, realizing Bo wasn’t going to play, curling up under the table to sleep. The note in front of Bo read:
This is for the best. Call Gerry. We’ve arranged it. Love, Mum
. But Bo did not want to go to Gerry, and he sat there until it was too late to go to school. When the phone rang, he didn’t answer it, figuring it was the school asking after his whereabouts. He sat beyond the sightlines of the window in the front door, so Emily couldn’t see him when she came knocking after school. He fed the bear in between times, and by her moan, knew she had to go out—but he ignored her, until the house took on a smell and he knew Bear had done her business inside.

He couldn’t cry. He didn’t move. The phone rang, and he answered it this time, out of reflex.

“Bo Jangles,” Gerry said, and Bo could not deny the sound of his voice comforted him. “How you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Bo imagined Grimsby, the sad truck, Loralei circumnavigating a corroded peg, an ugly peeling bungalow, and Gerry, standing in the doorway, scratching his belly. He whispered, “I’m fine.”

“I’ve been calling and calling,” said Gerry. “The plan is I come get you and you stay with me until the Ex. We work out the kinks in your act, get that bear in working
order. Max agrees we should rest the animals until then. Forget the little fairs this summer; we have our sights on the big-time. So, you’ll come here and you’ll keep training Bear. I got all you need right here.”

Gerry’s optimism, and the fact of a plan, might have pleased Bo. But the letter sprang to mind:

We’ve arranged it
. Meaning Max had arranged it.

Bo felt his throat close. “No,” he managed to say into the accumulating silence. Bo could hear his own breath, his heartbeat, and already in his mind, he was running. “How long have you known?”

“Kid,” said Gerry. “I’m really sorry. This can’t be nice for you.”

Bo tried latching onto just one thought. “Gerry,” he said, “where did Max go with Orange? Where did he take her?”

“I’m not at liberty, kiddo.”

“Say.”

“Well, the fact is—” Bo could hear Gerry drawing greedily on a cigarette.

“The truth is I honestly don’t know. All I can say is they came by here to sort out some paperwork. The kid and your mum were in Max’s trailer, and the lot of them were happy.”

“Orange—?”

“She was smiling, Bo Jangles. I won’t lie to you.”

Again Bo was quiet, only breathing.

“Max wouldn’t say which direction they were headed.”
Bo heard the pop of Gerry’s jaw, and imagined a series of elegant smoke rings dancing within one another. It was a party trick of his. “You’ll be happy here,” he said. “Bear’ll love it too. It’s for the best, kid.”

The peg, and there was Loralei sitting, and the scritch-scratch of her habitual rubbing. Bo imagined a doughnut of bare earth around the peg where Loralei had trod a path, bored, insanely bored.

“I’m staying here,” said Bo, blood fleeing from his extremities. He might faint, he thought.

“Kid.”

“I’m not coming.” Bear sat in the hallway, her eyes lit and lively, watching. They could stay in the house until the end of July, he thought, despite how ludicrous he immediately realized this would be. Bo said, “
We’re
not coming.” And in his mind this new plan took some loose shape—he’d train Bear, not only to perform but also to protect him, and together they’d busk wherever they could. They’d rove the fairs until the Ex. Fuck Max. Fuck him.

“She’s my bear, Bo Jangles,” Gerry said, a warning entering his tone. “That’s my fucking investment.”

No, Bo thought, she’s mine. And as he hung up, Bo could hear Gerry saying, “I’m on my way, Bo. You better be there for me, or I swear I’ll find you. Jesus, kid. Don’t do this—”

Bo stuffed into a rucksack an assortment of clothing, the tin from the fridge that now held only fifty dollars,
his journal and the photographs he had taken of Orange those months ago. He looked around at the yellowed walls, the cracked, dirty linoleum, the ragged, dingy carpet running the length of the hall. Leaving this felt good. He’d finish training Bear and then he would find Orange, save her, and—then what? He felt so unequal to this task. What if he could not find her?

He stood at the window, paralyzed by all these thoughts pressing in, and watched Teacher come up the front steps. She saw him before he could duck. He opened the door and stepped outside so that she wouldn’t see Bear, or smell her.

“Hi,” he said, as if things were normal. His voice quivered at the lie of it.

“Hi, Bo.” There were furrows between her eyebrows and he tried to assess whether she was worried or angry.

“I’m sorry I missed school,” he said. “I overslept and then—”

“You weren’t the only one,” she interrupted, “but why didn’t your mum call? Is she here? I’d like to speak with her.”

“She’s not home.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “She’s known about this makeup doctor’s appointment for weeks.” Teacher checked her wristwatch, looked back up at him. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

He shook his head fast.

“What is it, Bo?”

“She went with someone. They took Orange.”

“Oh,” said Teacher. She made an odd face, like she couldn’t take in this information. And then he realized it was more that she didn’t want to meddle. “She’ll have to make another appointment, as soon as possible, herself. It’s very important. Do you understand, Bo?”

“Yes.” He wanted to ask why it was important but he didn’t. His mother didn’t go to doctors.

“Bo,” Teacher said. “You were very fine last night. I think you might be a born actor, you seemed so real up on the stage. I can’t tell you how happy I was for you.”

“Thank you,” he said. He wished she would leave so he could go. He could hear the faint click of Bear treading through the house.

“Bo, there is something else I need to tell you,” she said. She took a deep breath and held it for a beat, then sighed. She avoided his eyes, so that he wondered whether she would cry. “I’m leaving my job at the school, going back to my hometown. I won’t be back in the fall.” There was something more she wasn’t saying, he knew.

Bo said, “Oh,” and then, “Does my mother know that?” because he wondered whether she might come back if she knew no one would be there to try to get her to a doctor.

“She really needs to make that appointment,” Teacher repeated, biting her lip.

“I’ll tell her.”

“Thank you, Bo.”

When Teacher turned to go, he realized he would miss her, and wanted to say something about that, but instead he said just “Goodbye.”

B
O WENT BACK THROUGH
the house and stood in Orange’s room, looking for some piece of her to take with him. And he knew right away. He went to the kitchen and found the sharpest knife, brought it back and slid it under the wallpaper, cutting a sizable piece. A knight on a massive blue steed, in full gallop, a jousting pole readied, and beneath it, his own drawing of a soldier pointing his pistol at another man whose hands were held up in surrender, and below that a great toothy fish coming to swallow it all. A bedtime story he had drawn for Orange.

He folded it carefully and tucked it between the pages of his journal in his rucksack. He sat at the kitchen table, the bear at his side. “We’ll go, Bear,” he said, “and then we’ll come back every few days and check to see if they’ve come home.” He missed Orange. He felt this missing like a hot stone beneath his rib cage. Bear looked up at him and then flopped down, tucked her head under her paw.

It was night when Bo left, hoping the darkness would hide Bear—ten months old, she stood over three feet at her shoulders and could never be mistaken for a dog. They were not far from the house, cutting behind the school
toward Ravina Park, when Bo saw Father Bart, his black vestments crisply swinging, heading in the direction of Bo’s house. Bo thought the priest had not seen him, and was surprised when he stopped and turned toward the maple tree where Bo had tried to hide with Bear.

“Bo?” he called. There were three street lights broken on this stretch of road and it was dark.

Bo did not move.

“Bo,” the priest said. “What is that, son?” The priest’s voice was pitched up with the birds. He spoke as a man who imagines himself to have gone crazy. “My God, is that a bear with you?”

Bo emerged from hiding, and stood with Bear on the end of the leash. He said nothing, did not really know what he was doing, and when the priest gawked, his gown fluttering in the evening breeze, his shoes polished so carefully, Bo merely turned and walked away at half speed. Father Bart called out that he was sorry about how things had gone, but Bo kept walking—the priest’s calling meant nothing to him. He walked into the night, the park, that otherworld.

The way to the forest had never felt more strange. There were hard moments in the short journey from the house he had shared with his mother and sister, in which he considered what he was doing, so that the half hour or so it took him to get into the dimmest portion of the High Park woods, to the place he thought he might hide,
took a spiralling lifetime. He was gutted by the time he arrived, so emptied, so cried out, finally, over all that had happened—his mother and sister leaving, and his father dying, all compiled into one pitted loss. He was alone with it all, and it hollowed him.

I
N THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED
, Bo missed the fights with Ernie. He missed the shoving, hard-hitting anger of it. He took to baiting Bear, fighting her more than he should. He let it go too far, let her hurt him sometimes, so that he could feel the adrenaline surge and ebb.

Soldier Man found him in the bush, and disappeared, and found him again. Now he stood near the shelter Bo was building on an east-facing slope under the canopy of a young forest in the northeast corner of the park. Bo used deadfall and pine boughs he’d cut from trees farther south, decorated the lean-to with bits of cloth people had left or lost in the park.

“Make it with confidence, boy, and no one will see it. You try to hide, they’ll find you, I swear.” Soldier Man crouched down, trying to coax Bear with a treat.

“What happened to you?” Bo said.

“Shrapnel,” said Soldier Man. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” said Bo. And then he said, “Are you going to just hang around and watch me the whole time?”

“Maybe.”

So Bo decided to show this guy how dangerous Bear was. Bo whistled to Bear, and she yawned and rolled herself to standing. He signalled for her to lunge and growl, and when she did this Soldier Man just stood there as if nothing had happened.

“What else can she do?” he asked.

Bo tapped on Bear’s right front paw and then the other until she pranced. Then she stood on two legs—one front and one back—and bounced to the other two, an unwieldy ballerina, back and forth.

Soldier Man said, “Jeez.” He folded his arms and nodded. “You know what you need? You need to get that bear a bicycle.”

And the next night, he dragged up an old rusted stationary bike.

“Whoa!” said Bo.

“Well, you ain’t going nowhere. You might as well bike there.” Soldier Man had brought Bo a hot dog too—cold, a bit soggy, but still. Meat.

“Where’d you get this?” Bo said, eager to know where he might find more.

“People throw shit out at the concession stand all the time.”

“You got this out of the garbage can?”

“Sure.”

“Huh,” said Bo, his mouth full, “pretty good.”

Bo sat Bear on the grass and commanded her to stay. The animal waited, biding time, and Bo heaved himself up on the bike. He showed Bear how to do it, legs pumping hard. Bear cocked her head, learning, maybe, or perplexed, or wanting her turn, and so Bo dismounted.