Hold Fast (10 page)

I was left standing there in front of Aunt Ellen, and Curtis lying in bed, and now Marie in the doorway. They was all staring at me there with hardly any clothes on.

“Go back to bed, Michael,” she said. She went over to the door, pushed Marie out, and closed it. I flicked off the light and crawled in under the covers again.

I hadn't been out for revenge. I was out to show him that he just couldn't go pushing me around for no reason.

I didn't know what Curtis thought of it all. We never said anything to each other even though we was both lying there in bed awake. I wasn't in any mood to talk about it. I was just hoping that it stuck in his mind what his old man had said about if it had been him and not me.

All the next week I was thinking about home, my real home. Especially after I got the letter from Grandfather. That made me want to go back so bad I could feel it eating away at my guts. Grandfather mentioned about how the squid was in and how him and Brent was going out to jig some. He never tried to make it sound like a big deal. And I knew for why, too — because he figured the more he said about it, the more I would be longing to come back. But just the mention of it was enough for me. I knows if it had been up to Grandfather I would never a left Marten in the first place.

Since I'd come to St. Albert, I'd gotten two letters from him. And there was a part on the end of each one that Brent had put there — big-size letters, with a few sentences filling up half a page. The letter I sent back to them this time was the longest one I ever wrote.

I never was so hot when it came to writing letters. The most I ever done was in school, like when you had to write to some fake cousin way the dyins over in Saskatchewan somewhere, thanking him for this Christmas present and asking him why didn't he come over and pay you a visit
during the summer holidays. That kinda stuff. Or a few times I wrote for something out of a magazine.

This letter was long, but once I got it going there was no trouble getting the words down. I wrote it like it came straight out of my mouth. The only thing was, I had to be careful what I said because I knew that more than likely Aunt Flo would be reading it too. After I finished, I took it and read it over and I seen that it came out pretty strong about how bad I missed the place. I must a asked a million questions about what everybody was doing. I had questions down about practically every person I ever use to hang around with. And I'd told Brent that he was the one who had to learn to stick it out. Some bluff I was.

“Stick it out” was the words for it all right. After the little incident in the bedroom, the old man and me hardly spent two seconds in the same room together, except for mealtimes. And even when we was forced to sit down to the same table to eat, we hardly so much as looked at each other. That was some way to have to live with anybody, now wasn't it.

I had to have something to take my mind off it. Brenda was what done that for me. After the Saturday night of the long talk, Brenda and me was right into it, thick and heavy. I had my mind made up that it was okay for me to be hanging around with just one girl all the time. Actually, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be so caught up with only one female. Getting together between classes, notes to each other, the whole bit. Cripes, it started to look like I'd been at it all my life, the way I was playing the real love nut.

I figured I had to be careful, though. You gotta watch yourself in these things. After a while, if you're not on your guard, it could get so that they thinks they owns you. I seen that happen to a friend of mine once. He's sixteen. He broke up with this one named Linda and she had the biggest kinda bawl over it. She kept phoning him up all the time even though he told her to get lost. See, girls can take things too serious. I bet you a darn that some of them even after the first date starts thinking about what it would be like to be married to you and all kinds of crap like that.

I figured that if Brenda ever did get too wound up over me, then I'd just maybe have to cut it off for a while. Get myself a little room to breathe. I'd be careful, though, to see that she wouldn't take it too hard.

All this was some of what was going on in my head. The problem was, I liked the girl. I really did like the girl. For frig's sake, I thought, maybe I'm in love with her. And when you're in love with someone you don't give too much of a darn about whether or not she's too wound up with you. Now do you? Shit, see how mixed up I was.

One thing I did know for sure — I wasn't too fussy about some of the things girls'll do if they likes you. Some girls have this stupid way of showing other people they're hooked up with somebody. They'll mark their school books all up. That's a sure sign of something — every square inch of white space inside their books filled in. So-and-so loves so-and-so. Inside hearts, around in circles, up one side of the page, down the other. No such thing as being secret about it. I believe they must change books when they changes boyfriends. I don't get off on that atall.
It's like they've captured you and got their branding iron put to work.

In St. Albert, another thing was the song dedications on the radio. The big event to look forward to on Friday nights was eleven o'clock to one when the radio station would play requests and announce who phoned in to have them dedicated and to who. Sometimes I'd listen to part of it in bed with the transistor radio I had. I'd rig it up with the earphone. I wore out more batteries that way — falling asleep with the radio still on.

The Friday after me and Brenda went to the movie I was lying there half-asleep when I just about had a heart attack right there in the bed. “Going out especially to Michael from Brenda Lambert,” the fellow said. “‘I Only Want to Be With You.'” I just about keeled right over, that's the god's truth.

Cripes, that kinda thing can really shake a fellow up when he's not expecting it. I couldn't get a wink of sleep for the next two hours. It wasn't the idea of it so much that got to me. I mean, it was pretty nice of her and all to be thinking about it. And words like that said a lot about how much she thought of me. Too bloody much, maybe. What really got me was the fact that she had to broadcast it all over the globe. Every girl in the school and half the fellows had their ears bolted onto that program. Sure she might just as well have rented a loudspeaker and paraded all day long around the school blasting it out.

Maybe she didn't mean it like that. Maybe she picked out that song because she liked the music. Perhaps the words wasn't the main thing atall. But it was the words that was ringing through my head the whole blessed
night. It could be I was making a big deal out of it for nothing. It could just a been one bit of that craziness girls figures they got to do. Whether it was or not, I sure had a label now. Just the same as having B-R-E-N-D-A stamped in fifty-foot letters across my forehead.

On Monday morning, when I went inside the school door, the first thing I caught sight of was a crowd of girls all bunched into one corner having their gossip hour. The one that stuck out was Juanita Hickey, mainly because she had the biggest mouth. If there was ever a girl that was a pure pain, it was Juanita Hickey. Her name alone was enough to give you the creeps. Sounded like something you'd want to build a barbwire fence around. Juanita, the big tongue, comes right up to me the first thing and says, “How's Brenda, Michael,” and laughs and giggles in a way that made me want to sock her a good one right between the eyes.

Not a damn word could I get out. Cripes, I should at least a been able to get out something. But no sir, not a word. If I had my time back I would a told her to go stuff her face with rotten eggs or some other brilliant thing like that. But no, all I done was walk by like an idiot and turn red. Red, for frig's sake, me turning red on account of Juanita Hickey. Cripes, her! Sure she had a face on her like a turbot. She was that much of a pain that if you fired her into a barrel of pickle she'd make it boil over.

It didn't stop there, either. The whole morning I was getting all kinds of these stupid comments. Some of them only said it once, for a joke. I didn't mind that. I'm not someone who can't take a joke. But if there's one thing I can't stand, it's for someone to be teasing and then be
keeping it up and keeping it up. That drives me, that does.

Brenda, Brenda, Brenda. All the time it was one person or another. I couldn't even concentrate on the work I was sposed to be doing. After recess it got worse. The whole lousy two periods we had before dinner I could hear her name trailing up from the back of the classroom. I had a darn good idea who it was even before I caught him at it. The first few times I looked back he managed to cover it up and I couldn't say for sure who it might be. But the fourth time when I turned my head around, I caught him with his big mouth open — Kentson. It looked like he hadn't learned much from the first lesson I tried to teach him.

That was the only trouble I had since the time I belted him the second day of school. He'd stayed away from me like I had the plague. Then that morning there he was with the face going again. I spose he figured that since everyone else was having something to say, then he could join in too and I wouldn't notice it. Not too friggin likely.

Now let me get this straight once and for all. I don't get into fights because I wants to be at it. I don't go beating up on people for no reason. Maybe I do have a bit of a temper sometimes, but I was hardly ever into a fight when I lived home, except for a few scraps when I was younger, and everyone gets into them. I don't get no thrills out of it. But there sure as hell comes a time when a fellow can only take so much.

Kentson was getting to me with that foolishness. He was the only one at it anymore. A couple of times between
periods I told him to cut it out. Then the other fellows started getting on my back because it was like I really must a had something going with Brenda. And that made Kentson do it all the more.

Maybe I wouldn't a minded if it had been anybody but him. As soon as the bell rang for dinner and the teacher went through the door, I gave him fair warning.

“Kentson,” I said, getting up from my seat, “you keep your tongue quiet if you knows what's good for you.”

Him and his two stupid friends was still in the back of the classroom. Right away they started to laugh.

“I
knows
what's good for me,” he said.

I couldn't be positive that he was making fun or not.

“Yeah,” I said, “well, you just better do it.”

He had to see that I was getting mad. I would a been satisfied to let what he said go by. And I'm sure that he wouldn't a said anything else, except that his jerky friends was there with him.

“Or what?” said one of them.

I started to walk down between the seats. “Or I'll pound him like I done before.”

Kentson had one of two choices. Either he'd let it pass and look chicken in front of the others. Or he'd say something back.

“Yeah!” he said, like he was something tough.

“Yeah!” I said, even louder.

“Take more than a stupid baywop like you to do it.”

The other jerks snickered.

I stood there and glared at him. When I didn't say anything to him right away, then he got it into his head that he just might be able to get away with a little more.

“You and that dumb broad of yours are a good pair all right.”

Lord holy dyin! You thinks I didn't lay my fist into him nar bit fast! One smack was all it took. I sent him sailing back over the seats with one ram of my fist. Cripes, you think I was going to put up with that? The stupid fool was asking for it. My fist took him in the mouth. His head jerked back, he stumbled on his feet and went flying backwards over the seats.

But the bloody thing was, Kentson never got up. He never moved once after his head hit the floor.

Lord dyin, you think I meant for that to happen! I never thought I hit him that hard. I really didn't. I was only out to teach him a lesson. I was really mad all right when I done it. I lost my temper. But I had a right to. How was I to know he was going to bang his stupid head on the floor.

I damn near killed him is what I done.

I stood up there like a fool. Kentson out cold on the floor. His two friends trying to see what the hell was wrong with him. And then they started shouting and yelling when he wouldn't come to. Someone took off running out the door to get the school nurse.

“What in the hell did you hit him for?”

“You heard what he said.”

“He was only jokin.”

“It wasn't any joke.”

“Who in the frig do you think you are? Don't think the cops won't get you for this.”

“He's not really hurt. He only knocked hesself out when he hit the floor.”

“A lot you know! He might be dead for all you care!”

“It was an accident.”

“It wasn't any accident! You wanted to see him hurt, didn't you? Didn't you?”

“No, it was just a stupid accident.”

“Accident! You wouldn't know an accident if you saw one. You're too friggin dumb!”

I couldn't take any more. I don't care. Call me chicken. Call me whatever the hell you wants, I don't care. I just couldn't take any more.

I ran outa the room, and so fast as I could down the corridors. I almost knocked into the school nurse when she came running out of her office. I ran right down to the exit doors, and banged them open. I took off down over the steps and out into the street.

I had to get away from them. I ran and ran until my guts was aching and my breath came in and out so hard that I had to stop. Where I got to was a park or something. I hardly knew what it was. I searched and searched and the only place I could find where there wasn't any people was down in one corner. In back of the tennis courts.

I sat down there between two maple trees and a damn big wall.