Fireball (8 page)

Chris lasted about five months at Seycove.

He wasn't the greatest student ever. He didn't do his homework, or his classwork. Now that I think about it, he didn't really do any work – except in tech class. That was the only course he liked. He spent a whole month building a miniature boat almost exactly like his dad's. It had a furnace that worked and everything. You could stuff weed in the boiler, light up, and inhale through the smokestack. It was awesome. He got the highest mark in the class for that boat. The rest of us could barely hammer a nail into a wall and Chris could build a whole boat without even trying. I still have it, actually. I went and stole it from his house after he died. I would have asked his mom, but she was asleep at the time. I doubt she'll miss it, anyways.

Tech class was kind of an exception, though. Chris couldn't handle history or English or science or geography. He had a tendency to wander in and out of classrooms whenever he felt like it. Not because he was stupid or anything. He just hated people telling him what to do. When you think about it, high school is nothing but people telling you what to do. So obviously there were going to be problems. During the first few months of grade eight, I did my best to help him. I let him copy my homework, and cheat off me during tests. My dad helped, too. He gave us those clarinets, and paid for us both to go on that shitty camp trip. He told me it would be good if Chris ‘got involved'. For a while it worked, too. He didn't exactly make the honour roll or anything, but he scraped by.

That was before Kevin showed up.

Kevin was this two hundred pound roid monkey who spent most of his time pumping weights. He thought he was pretty hot shit because he came from East Van and was two years older than the other kids in our grade. He'd been kicked out of every school in his district, and so he had to come to ours. As soon as I saw him in the halls, swaggering around and glaring like a psychopath, I knew that Chris would have to fight him. Everybody else knew it, too. They wanted it to happen. A bunch of clowns latched onto Kevin, so he had his own shitty little entourage. I'm pretty sure they were the ones who started all the rumours. Within a week everybody was talking about it. Kevin wanted to fight Chris. Chris was saying shit about Kevin. Total bullshit. Chris didn't give a fuck about his reputation, or what anybody said. He just wanted to do his own thing, like always. But that was too much to ask.

Finally, Kevin worked himself into a frenzy.

‘What the fuck is up, punk?'

He'd come over to Chris's locker, wearing huge shitcatchers, a Raiders Jersey, and a cross on a silver chain. Totally thugged out. Totally butt. He had his entourage with him.

Chris didn't even bother looking at him. ‘Not much, there funky bunch.'

‘You're supposed to be pretty tough, huh?'

Kevin wasn't super smart or anything. He had a hard time picking a fight.

Chris said, ‘I like a bit of the old rough and tumble, all right.'

‘So maybe I'm tougher.'

‘So maybe you are.'

That stopped him. He wasn't really prepared for that.

‘Well – I'm going to fucking fight you.'

‘Okay. When?'

‘After school, bitch. Lacrosse box. You and me.'

It didn't bother Chris at all. He took the whole thing pretty casually. He took it so casually that he completely forgot about the fight. We smoked a bowl during lunch and cut class to go biking. It was only later, when we were watching a movie, that he remembered.

‘Shit – I was supposed to fight Kevin today.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah.'

Stuff like that kept happening. Kevin would arrange a time and a place for them to fight, but Chris never bothered to go. I mean, for him, a fight wasn't like a date that could be planned out ahead of time. It was just something that happened. Of course, because of this, everybody started assuming Chris had turned into a pussy. They thought he'd lost his edge. He'd been tough in elementary school, but high school was a different story. Julian decided that it was a big deal. This was back when he was still a little runt and even more insecure than he is now. His mom always gave him two lunches, trying to bulk him up. I think she might have been the one who got him started on the protein powder, actually.

‘They're saying you're a pussy, man.'

It's always the pussies who worry about being called a pussy.

‘That's too bad,' Chris said.

‘Are you just going to take it?'

‘I don't know. I'll fight him sometime.'

It might have gone on like that forever, if some dickhead hadn't told Kevin about Chris's dad. I never found out who it was. Most of the kids from our elementary school knew because Chris had taken a month off school, so it could have been anyone. Looking back, I guess it doesn't really matter who told him. Somebody told him. Me and Chris were sitting in the library when Kevin stormed in, all riled up and ready to play his wild card.

‘Hey bitch,' he said. ‘What kind of faggot catches himself in his own crab trap?'

That got Chris going, all right.

High school kids are worse than reporters when it comes to talking shit. There were tons of witnesses to the fight – pretty much everybody who was in the library – but none of them could agree on anything, not even who'd won. Some said it was Kevin, because he'd thrown Chris into a bookshelf. Others said it was Chris, because he'd gotten in the most punches. The only thing they could agree on was that it was the biggest fight anybody had ever seen. It was, too. I saw it all. They fought up and down the aisles, knocking over desks and chairs and scattering books everywhere. A whole row of shelves fell down, like dominoes, and nearly killed this one girl who'd been sitting there reading. It took three teachers and the principal to pull them apart. In the end, whatever anybody else claimed, it was pretty much a draw. That's what I thought and that's what Chris said, too. If it had happened a year or two later, he would have destroyed Kevin. But back in grade eight Chris didn't have much muscle mass. He was fast, and tough, but still scrawny. Kevin was practically full-grown. So it was a draw. They were both pretty messed up, and they both got expelled. The other kids talked about that fight for the rest of the year. Like so much else involving Chris, it became sort of an urban legend. The day Chris fought Kevin.

Those shitheads are probably still talking about it.

After that, Chris made a circuit of the North Van schools. He got kicked out of Windsor and Argyle and Sutherland and a couple of others, usually for fighting. He ended up at Keith Lynn, which is kind of a school and also kind of a prison. It's nearly impossible to get expelled from Keith Lynn. You're only allowed to attend if you've already been banned from every other school in the district. Basically all the craziest guys on the North Shore go there. When Chris told me, I just assumed there'd be a lot of trouble. In my mind, life at Keith Lynn was sort of like those real-life prison dramas you see on TV. You know – where everybody's shanking each other with weapons they've smuggled in past the guards.

‘What do you think, Razor?'

‘I don't know, man. It sounds pretty nuts.'

Chris had a plan. Rather than worry about who wanted to scrap him, or which guys were going to jump him after school, he decided to get all the trouble out of the way at once. It was the kind of plan only Chris could have come up with. On his first day, he borrowed my dad's old ghetto blaster. It was this huge paint-spattered steel box with massive black speakers. It didn't play CDs or MP3s or anything. Just tapes. Chris biked all the way up to Keith Lynn with that ghetto blaster strapped to his back. He was wearing flip flops and a tank top and huge fluorescent jams that hung past his knees. Nothing else. He pedalled right up to the front doors of Keith Lynn, got off his bike, and propped the ghetto blaster on his shoulder. He put in this tape – the only tape he had – and cranked the volume to the max. Then he walked through the halls, staring people down. If it had been any other tape – like rap or death metal or anything – I'm pretty sure he would have got in about a hundred fights. But it was his mom's tape, this collection of eighties classics. And the song that happened to be on was that one that goes:
I'm walking on sunshine, whoah-oh, I'm walking on sunshine...
It was nuts. It scared the shit out of all those thugs and posers and dealers and wannabes.

After that, for obvious reasons, nobody fucked with him.

I went a bit weird when he started going to Keith Lynn. I thought that he might make all these new friends – these super tough friends – and then he wouldn't need me any more. That's pretty weak, I know. But people were drawn to Chris – mostly losers and loners, like the junkies at Opium Park – and I was worried that the same thing would happen there.

‘Hey man – what's up?'

I always called him after school, just to check in with him. I had to wait until he got home since he didn't have a cellphone. He hated them. He hated the thought of people calling him all the time. I didn't have one, either. My dad bought me one for my birthday but I kept dropping it and breaking it and crap, and after a while the company refused to replace it. Me and Chris both kept it pretty real in that way. Pretty old-school.

‘Not much, Razor. Just got back.'

‘Oh,' I said. ‘What are you doing now?'

‘Hanging out with some guys. Want to come?'

‘No. I'm gonna chill. I'll catch you later.'

I hung up the phone and flopped down on the floor of my basement, totally depressed. I tried to imagine what my life would be like without him. I couldn't. It just seemed sort of pointless and lonely. I was still lying there when he showed up, about an hour later.

‘What's shaking, buddy?'

I sat up, trying not to look surprised. ‘Nothing much. Just baking.'

‘The old shake and bake, huh?'

‘You got it.'

He sprawled out beside me and put his hands behind his head.

‘What did you guys do?'

‘Not much. They wanted me to join their gang.'

‘Oh.' I thought about that for a bit. ‘Are you going to?'

He looked at me like I'd asked him what two plus two equals.

‘I'd rather go play ultimate frisbee.'

I started laughing – a little too loudly. I was just so relieved, you know?

‘Hey,' I said. ‘How long we been friends?'

‘Beats me. Since we were babies, I guess.'

I almost said something super lame, something like: ‘And we'll be friends until the day we die, right?' But I stopped myself just in time. Chris didn't need to hear that shit.

14

‘He's a pervert. All he wants to talk about is masturbation.'

I didn't believe Chris when he told me that. I thought he was messing with me. The three of us had to go see a police counsellor – this trauma counsellor – in the week leading up to Mrs Reever's funeral. We didn't have any say in the matter. I guess they just assumed her death would screw us up. Each of us got an appointment. Chris went first, then Julian. The next day it was my turn. I bussed over to the police station on Lonsdale, the same station they locked us up in after the riot. I'd never been there before. I was asked to wait in this office that smelled like old cheese. The counsellor didn't show up for a while. When he finally did arrive, he turned out to be a young guy with thick, wet lips and these massive man-breasts that jiggled around beneath his shirt like overfilled water balloons.

He also turned out to be a pervert – just like Chris had told me.

‘Have you tried masturbation?'

He said ‘masturbation' like it was some kind of new drug. As in, all I needed was a small dose of masturbation and I'd be fine.

‘Uh, no,' I told him.

‘That's unusual for a young man like yourself.'

‘Is it?'

It's not like I have anything against masturbation. I pull my goalie once in a while, like everybody else. But I didn't see what my masturbating had to do with some old lady's death. I doubt he knew, either. That's the thing about counsellors. They're not even real shrinks. Most of them are students or volunteers or wash-ups. I didn't find that out until I went to a real shrink and she told me.

It didn't surprise me, though.

‘Masturbation is very healthy, you know. It relieves tension.'

‘Oh?'

‘Our society has a strange view of self-love. We don't often talk about it, but everybody masturbates.' He leaned forward, deadly serious. ‘I masturbate.'

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I couldn't help imagining this fat guy with his hands down his pants, grunting and gasping like an overgrown ape. My face started going totally red, as if I was having an allergic reaction.

‘Your friend, Chris, told me that he masturbates.'

He was totally lying. I asked Chris later and he didn't say that. Not a chance.