Down to the Dirt (7 page)

—Pass the puck, b’ys. Pass the puck!

I said that for badness. Not like Keith gets ahold of the puck often enough to hog it. I’m after watchin’ him play a lot of hockey over the years and one strange thing about his game is that no matter how much practice he puts in, he’s guaranteed to panic soon as the puck touches his stick. He gets rid of it quick as he can. He got no concept of settin’ up the play. If he sees the net, he’ll shoot at it. If one of his teammates is closer,
he’ll pass the puck. Or he’ll just bang it off the boards, not givin’ a shit where it goes. I have to laugh at him sometimes.

Three minutes left. Tied up at four. Goddamned if I’m stuck in this box! Shane makes his way up the ice with the puck, passes it over to the wing. The whistle blows. What the fuck is that for?

A crowd is gathered around our bench. Must be a time-out.

—Let ’im up!

—Get off ’im, ya big lummox!

The game grinds to a standstill. I climbs out of the box, makes my way over to the bench. Both teams are gathered around. I elbows my way through the gaggle. Big Frank has Rolly pinned down in the corner of the bench, punchin’ him over and over. His fist is covered with blood. Steam is risin’ from Rolly’s bloody mouth and nose. Little Frank’s got his arms wrapped around his father’s knees. Big Frank spits down at Rolly. He speaks through his teeth.

—You’re always ridin’ him, always on his case. It’s minor fuckin’ hockey, not the, the, the fuckin’ NHL! Equal time on the ice. My b’y’s not no goddamn benchwarmer. You’re always ridin’ him, always on his case…

Little Frank lets go of his father’s legs and nimbly catapults himself back onto the ice. I’ve never seen him so agile. Head down, he skates off towards the gates. Halfway there he stops, raises his stick over his head with both hands and brings it down across his knee. It don’t break. He tries again. He can’t break it. One final time he raises the stick up over his head. He holds it there a moment before lettin’ it drop to the ice with a clatter. Someone opens the gates for him and he steps off without lookin’ back.

Big Frank Lowe climbs over the glass behind the bench and jumps into the bleachers. He boots an empty can out of his way. It rattles and clanks, echoin’ angrily around the rink. He disappears into the dressing room behind his son. All is quiet for the first time since we’ve hit the ice tonight. No one moves. My heart is poundin’. Then the clack, clack, clack of twenty-odd sticks against the ice, off the boards, the trompin’ of a hundred winter boots on wooden bleachers. Hands clap-pin’ and mouths whistlin’. Rolly back on his feet, arm raised high, timidly wavin’ away the applause. Someone hands him a towel and he holds it to his gushin’ nose. A first aid kit arrives but he pushes it aside. He calls the referee over to the bench. The coach from the other team joins them in a clumsy, awkward huddle.

Two short blasts of the whistle gets the game back underway. I sits up on the boards and waits out the ten seconds left to my penalty, then I’m back on the ice. My legs are shakin’, my mind racin’. The puck bounces off my kneepad and drops right in front of me, but I’m all froze up. It slides through my legs. I feels my body spinnin’ around as the so-called enemy shoulders his way past. He’s takin’ the puck on up the ice. For the life of me I can’t think of one good reason to try and stop him. I glances over at Rolly. He’s still nursin’ his face with the towel. He bawls out at me.

—C’mon, Andy. Snap out of it! It’s not over yet.

It’s not over yet. It’s not over yet. It’s not over yet. I forces the game back into focus and scrambles after the puck. Number 12 is closin’ in over the blue line. He’s all alone. He crosses the line. Our goalie hunkers down, ready for anything. Number 12 picks his target, pulls back his stick and takes his…from out of nowhere Keith comes in with a good clean
hit. Number 12 goes down like a ton of bricks. Good thing Keith got no size to him. He passes the puck back up to me but I’m too far away from it. It glides along the boards into the other end and is picked up by the defenceman. He passes it out to the centre but I intercepts it. Keith moves into position on my left. Fuck this though. I’m gonna have my shot. Probably my last shot for the year. Maybe ever. I don’t know. I glances at the clock. Fifty-one seconds to go. I crosses the blue line. Kieran Maher makes a swipe at the puck and cracks me across the ankle. Pain shoots up my leg but I tries my best to ignore it. I pulls around him and loses the goddamn puck in the process. He doubles back, scoops it up and tries to pass it out to his wing. His brother intercepts and passes back to me.

—Have your shot. Have your shot…

Twenty-eight seconds. I’m on my own, closin’ in fast. I blasts a shot on net but before the puck even leaves my stick I knows I should have waited, should have gotten a bit closer. The goalie blocks it with ease. It trickles into the corner behind the net. The goalie slams it off the boards and, to what I can only assume to be his utter horror, it’s comin’ right back to me.

Five seconds left with an open fuckin’ net. The puck only ten feet away and slowin’ down to a slither. I tries to skate towards it but can’t put any pressure on my ankle. The puck stops. I sort of limps, sort of hops towards it, usin’ my stick for balance. Five feet away. I can almost reach it. Three seconds left. Almost…there. Two seconds. I hears someone skatin’ up behind me and I braces myself for the hit. That’d be perfect. Just fuckin’ perfect. At the last second, literally, Keith comes roarin’ past me, and taps the puck into the open net.

The buzzer sounds.

Game over.

We’ve won the championship.

I falls to the ice, more from the pain in my ankle than from any sense of relief or pride or happiness. The stadium whoops and claps and hoots and boos. Mostly boos.

I struggles to my feet to go congratulate Keith. If he’ll let me. Amidst all the commotion I spots him doin’ a little dance for the crowd on the other team’s side of the arena. He raises his stick in the air. They hisses and boos at him. He skates over to the other side of the bleachers and does the same. The crowd cheers. Holdin’ his stick at both ends, just like Little Frank, he brings it down across his knee. It don’t break. The crowd laughs. He glides over to the open net and slams the shaft of the stick down on the crossbar. It still won’t break, so he hammers it off the ice over and over until the shaft splinters up the middle. He takes it in both hands and twists it back and forth around his knee and finally fires it into the corner, still in one piece. It’s not fuckin’ easy to break off a hockey stick.

Rolly comes out onto the ice, dabbin’ at his face with the bloodied towel. His nose is a bit crooked but the bleedin’ is stopped. I skates over alongside of him. He looks me up and down with his one good eye.

—Shoulda passed the puck, Andy. You knew Keith was in the clear.

I can only shrug and then take my place in the line up at centre ice; both teams set to congratulate each other on a game well played.

I don’t remember much about Nan Healy. She died when I was little. Accordin’ to my father, one of her favourite expressions was
Show me your friends and I’ll show you what you’re like.
Not the most open-minded turn of phrase if you asks me. But, Dad rarely finds himself short of an occasion to quote her on it. Like the first time I brought Keith to the house.

—Dad, you knows Keith don’t you?

He took one good look at Keith’s black nail polish and tore-up maggoty jeans, realized I was introducin’ him as my new boyfriend, grunted and walked away. Steady racket in the house for the next two weeks.

—Don’t fuckin’ well bring him here no more, I’m tellin’ ya!

—But why? At least give me a reason—

—Because it’s my goddamn house and I don’t want him here. That’s reason enough!

No amount of pleadin’ and bawlin’ could change his mind. Then, to my shock, my mother came to Keith’s defence. She’d worked with his mom at the post office a few years back and I s’pose she remembered a different Keith than the one
Dad kept hearin’ about around town. She gave Dad the old spiel about how there’s nothing for the young crowd to do, how they’re bound to get in a bit of trouble every now and then, that Keith is no worse than
he
was at that age. I was impressed. Sure, Mom hardly acknowledged my existence anymore. But, whatever her reasons for stickin’ up for me when she did, Dad backed down and at least made the attempt to tolerate Keith’s presence when he came to the house.

I mean, I knows Keith’s no angel, but he’s not near as bad as some people makes him out to be. Then again, Nan Healy would have rolled over in her grave the day he discovered the vibrator in back of the filing cabinet in the master bedroom and insisted that I hunt down some batteries.

—Put that thing down, Keith. Put it back right now!

That’s exactly what I said to him. Honest to God. I wanted nothing to do with it. Its very existence shocked me. I didn’t want to think about where it had been, what late night role it’d been playin’ in my parents’ bedroom.

Keith raised it to his nose and sniffed it. He scrunched up his face. I made a grab at it but he took off into the bathroom and ran it under the taps for a while. I took the batteries out of Becky’s headset. Next thing I knew we were downstairs in my room and Keith was slabbin’ the KY Jelly on me. KY is okay at first, but it gets sticky and gross after a while. I likes lotion better, but sometimes it burns or makes me break out. Keith wanted to use Crisco one time when there was nothing else around.

He slicked the tip of the vibrator with extra Jelly and slid it in me. It was alright. Tickly. A bit cold. I lay there and let him get his kicks. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what all the fuss was about, it was nowhere near as good as the real thing.
Then he turned a knob at the end and it buzzed to life. Humming little quivers of bliss shot up through me and I felt my thighs squeezin’ shut almost right away.

Anyway, we did the deed, and, even though I knows Keith’d slaughter me if he found out, I can’t resist tellin’ on him for havin’ his turn at it too. That’s right. That was my condition, that if he wanted to shove some battery-packed plastic cock up in me, well he’d have to take the plunge too. But it’s not like he put up much of a protest. Matter of fact, I think he liked it a whole lot more than I did. Most fellas are like that sure. Just so long as they’re gettin’ what they wants from a female, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing
gay
about it. What they don’t seem to realize is that they have this convenient little button called their prostate that makes things feel a whole lot better than it does for us girls. I tried the back-door business a few times with Keith and it felt like I was bein’ ripped in half. Where’s the fun in that? Deny him of it then and I’m being a prude.

—I’ll go slow, ’Tash, I promise.

Well if he can promise to go slow through one door, what’s wrong with taking it a bit easier when he’s in through the other one? Give me a chance to enjoy myself. I shouldn’t have to be finishing the job on my own all the time.

By the time we finished with the vibrator we were all in. Keith propped himself up on his elbow to recite the first half of the latest suicide note he’d written. A poem really. But always about death and turmoil and shit like that. I worries about him sometimes. It’s nice though, when he puts himself out there like that, when we’re feelin’ close. When we’re not at each
other’s throats, which is more often than not. I mean, I loves him and all, but I’m hardly gonna be spendin’ the rest of my life with him.

After our cigarette we passed out in a sticky heap in each other’s arms. Some time later the sound of Dad’s signature stomp down over the basement steps woke me up. He kept a lot of gear in the furnace room so I had no reason to be alarmed. Then he almost put his fist through my bedroom door.

—Natasha? I knows you’re in there, now open up.

The only time he sounded that vicious was when he was drinkin’. But I knew a thing or two about how to handle him then.

—Dad, go on upstairs and lie down now. I’m tryin’ to do some homework. You go sleep it off.

—Sleep it off? That’s your solution for everything. Sleep your goddamn life away. You open this fuckin’ door, Natasha. I’ll count to three. One…

Alright, so he wasn’t drunk. He can’t count up to three when he’s drinkin’. I went over in my head what I might’ve done. I hadn’t raided his wallet in over a week and I’d rolled a whole pack of cigarettes for him that very morning. He was in good spirits then sure. I prayed to Christ it wasn’t about the vibrator. Myself and Keith were both stark naked, half asleep, and the room stank of sex and sweat. We scrambled into our clothes as quick as we could while Dad kept poundin’ away.

—Two…Open this bloody door or I’ll knock it in onto the fuckin’ floor, Natasha.

—What? What’s going on, Daddy?

I don’t know where the
Daddy
came from. I hadn’t called him that in years.

—You knows full well what’s goin’ on, girlie. Someone was rootin’ around in my bedroom. Kavanagh? You in there?

That’s another thing, in this real dismissive tone, he’s always called Keith by his last name. It’s his way of sayin’ that Keith is not a real person, not an individual, but rather an extension of the Kavanagh clan and what they’ve always stood for. Which isn’t much as far as Dad’s concerned.

—He’s trouble, Natasha. His crowd were always trouble. Show me your friends…That’s what your grandmother always said.

Dad kept hammerin’ on the door. My kindergarten picture fell off the wall. Keith looked at me and shrugged. He had his clothes on by then, sittin’ innocently in the corner armchair, a book in his lap. The hammerin’ came harder.

—Daddy, please. You’re scarin’ me! I’m not lettin’ you in until you tells me what’s wrong.

—Two and a half…Open this door, so help me Christ.

—Alright. Alright. Hang on a second—

—Three!

I just managed to hide the vibrator under the blankets when my bedroom door, moulding and hinges—the whole works—came bashin’ in on the floor. That was a first. I was good and scared. Keith too I s’pose, seeing how a piece of moulding struck him across the face. Dad walked in over the trodden door, frothin’ and droolin’, red as a beet and smellin’ like the twelve days of Christmas. But his breath was a bit sour, more like a hangover than a fresh drunk, so that was a plus.

—What are ye two at locked in the bedroom this hour in the day? Spendin’ an awful lot of time down here.

He had an apple in his hand, hardly a bite gone out of it. He pointed at Keith

—Kavanagh, get your boots on and get the fuck out of my house.

Keith didn’t argue, delighted to be let off without a scene. He scurried out through the doorway without so much as a backward glance in my direction. You can hardly blame him though. Not two weeks before, the two of them were after havin’ words over something or other. Well, a little more than words. Keith had gone upstairs to roll a few smokes. He wasn’t gone five minutes when I heard Dad roarin’ something at him. Then I heard, or
felt
rather, a thump that seemed to shake the whole house. Keith didn’t answer when I asked what it was so I ran upstairs to see for myself. There they were, Dad in his drawers, his big belly jigglin’, his hand gripped around Keith’s throat. Keith’s toes were barely touchin’ the floor. There was a dent in the wall behind his head and I guessed that to be the source of the big thump I’d heard. His face looked like it could burst under the pressure of Dad’s beefy hand. He squirmed and wriggled and did all he could to loosen the grip, but his efforts were useless. Dad’s a big man. Plus he had a seriously psychotic look in his eye, a vacancy, like he didn’t know where he was or who it was he was tryin’ to kill. I didn’t care what it was all about, but I didn’t want Keith dead and I’m sure no one wanted the scandal of Dad going off to jail. I jumped on his arm, the one attached to Keith’s throat, and started bouncin’ up and down, screamin’. But the more weight I put on his arm the harder he seemed to clamp onto Keith’s neck. At the sight of Keith’s eyes rollin’ back in his head, I panicked and dug my thumbs into Dad’s eyes. He grunted like a Sasquatch and started swingin’. He caught me full in the chest and the force of it sent me sailin’ across the kitchen floor. I started to cry. He seemed to come back to his
senses for a second. He let Keith slump to the floor and he turned towards me. He never spoke a word. He reached down to help me up and must have only then realized he was standin’ there in his drawers. He put his hand over the outline of his dick and trudged off towards his bedroom. Keith had bad bruises on his neck for a few days, but he flat out refused to tell me what the racket was about. I picked and poked and prodded at him constantly, but he wouldn’t give an inch. I should have let Dad choke him to death.

My room, as always, was in such a state that there was hardly a clear spot on the floor for Dad to stand up. He bent over to pick something up, but stopped himself. He walked over to my bureau and set his hand on the handle of the top drawer.

—If I opens this drawer will I find something belong to me?

That was enough proof right there that he was off his head ’cause he’d never dream about searchin’ my room. I don’t know whether it was some moral thing, some parental code, or if he just didn’t give a shit, but I figured I could stash dead bodies in my room and Dad wouldn’t even ask about the smell. As far as he was concerned, what was in my room was my business.

—Look, Dad, what’s goin’ on? Are you drunk? You come in here…you beat my door down, scare the shit out of me and Keith…

—Did Kavanagh put you up to this, Natasha?

—Put me up to what?

—Don’t play stupid with me. I had a toy, a skinny little party toy someone gave me up to Martin Sweeny’s birthday last year. I wants the truth.

—Daddy, please, I don’t know what you’re—

—Goddamn it, Natasha!

He smashed the apple off his forehead. Pulp and peel and seed splattered around the room. The ceiling, the mirror, it was everywhere. Juice went into my eye and I started to bawl. I figured it was safer to bawl. Either that or bust out laughing in his face. I reached under the blankets, pulled out the vibrator and hurled it at him. Apple drippin’ off his chin.

—Get out! Get out! You’re a pervert!

The embarrassed, shaken expression that came across his face had me regretting it right away. He seemed shocked, like he was realizing for the first time that this might look bad on him, that his own daughter might think him a sick beast of a man. He bent over and picked up the vibrator between his thumb and index finger, like he was afraid to touch it any more than he absolutely had to. He left the room with it danglin’ at arm’s length and I heard the distinct squeak of the furnace door opening, then closin’. All sheepish lookin’, he came back and sat down on the edge of my bed.

—Natasha, my trout, listen to me. That was something for adults. A toy for adults…

This was serious. He hadn’t called me his trout in a long, long time. I remembers one day, when I was really little, I came up behind him as he was goin’ up the steps to the house. I’d been playin’ in the frog pond for the better part of the day and I was filthy. He heard me behind him and without turnin’ around he said:

—How’s my little trout today?

Then he got a good look at me and he said:

—I guess that makes you my little mud trout.

A toy for adults? How thick did he think I was?

—I didn’t know what it was, Dad. I was just curious. I never used it or nothing.

He cringed at the image that must have jumped into his head. His little girl down in her bedroom with a vibrator.

—Did Kavanagh put you up to this, Natasha?

I could have laid it all on Keith right then and there. Should have. It was his bloody fault and he was already in the black books anyhow. But I figured Dad was too embarrassed by then and was gettin’ ready to drop it.

—No. Keith didn’t even know I had it. I’m sorry.

I put my head down and sobbed. He put his hand on the outline of my shin beneath the blankets, then pulled his hand away like the sheets were on fire. He stood up, dug a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to me. He picked up the door and leaned it against the wall, promising to have it fixed before I went to bed for the night. He couldn’t look me in the eye as he left the room. Halfway up the stairs he stopped and came back to the room. I sat there on the bed, poutin’ and teary-eyed, hopin’ he’d slip me another few bucks. But he didn’t. He fixed his eyes on the floor before he spoke once more.

—Sweetheart, please don’t mention this to your mother. Any of it. If she found this out she’d fuckin’ well divorce me.

This time, as he turned and walked out of my room, I noticed something stickin’ out from just above the waistline of his belt. Something long and skinny. There was a tiny damp spot where his tee-shirt clung to it. I listened to him upstairs in his bedroom, the drawer of his filing cabinet rollin’ open.

When I was sure it was safe, I got up, grabbed my boots and went out lookin’ for Keith.