Living with the hawk (2 page)

“Now, Paul — ”

“Oh, they don't come right out and say it, but they think it all right, some of them, you can bet on that.”

In the kitchen, washing down the last of my toast with milk, I began to think I was listening to something I shouldn't be hearing, but I wanted to know where this was leading.

“Once in a while,” said my father, “I have to remind them I'm not just the fellow who offers them the host on Sunday mornings.”

“They know that, Paul.”

“They do, eh? You weren't there at the start of practice. Roger Phelps comes up to me, wants to know who's going to coach the kids. I tell him I figure I'll give it a try, and you know what he says? You sure you can handle this? As if I haven't played ball all my life.”

“Roger Phelps is a jerk,” said my mother. “Everybody knows that. The other men wouldn't think like him.”

“Oh no? Couple of the fathers came early to pick up their boys. Looked mighty surprised when they saw me hitting flies.”

I got up then to get a fresh carton of milk from the fridge, but my mother heard me. “Blake?” she called. “Blair? It's time for bed.”

“It's me,” I said. “Just having a shot of milk.” Blake wasn't even home yet. My mother named both of us, of course. I guess she thought similar names sounded cute or something. Perfect names for preacher's kids maybe. It's lucky we weren't twins. I'd hate to think what she would have called us then. Louie and Dewey, say, or Timmy and Tommy — something sure to get us creamed at school.

I poured myself half a glass of milk and took a swig. The living room was quiet for a moment; then I heard my father's voice, gruff and louder than usual. “I was just grumping, Blair. You forget anything we said about Mr. Phelps.”

“Okay.” I belted down the rest of the milk and put the carton back in the fridge. After I switched off the kitchen light, I stood there in the dark, the fridge humming beside me, the sound like a truck at night on a distant highway, but they were through talking. I went up the stairs to bed.

That August before I went into grade nine, I was thinking a lot about high school, wondering what it would be like in a three storey building with six hundred students, most of whom I didn't know. Blake was going into grade twelve, being groomed to quarterback the football team, already a B. M. O. C. according to my father — Big Man On Campus was what he meant — although every time he said it, I thought there was a touch of irony in his voice. He wanted his boys involved in manly sports all right, but he didn't want us showing any signs of swelled heads. “Christ,” he once said, “could walk on water, but you never heard him boast about it.” I don't think he understood Blake at all. If Blake was ever swelled up with himself, it was a case of being puffed up with excitement because, after two years of spot duty, coming in late in games that were already won or lost, he'd be playing first string. He wouldn't be just a preacher's kid — a PK — but a quarterback, somebody who didn't have to prove he was one of the guys. My father should have known that.

Then again, maybe my father did know it. He was probably concerned about keeping Blake on track, worried about the balancing act that he would have to perform, being one of the guys without ever forgetting that he was a PK too — and ought to live like one.

A balancing act was what it was, no doubt about it. I remember Blake telling me about his first high school dance, the freshie dance when he was in grade nine. The grade twelve student who'd complained all week about being his partner for freshie activities had snuck a bottle into the dance, then in the middle of the crowd back in the darkest corner of the gym he'd brought it out, offering Blake a drink of gin. Blake had stood there, shaking his head, uncertain what to say, the older boy thrusting the bottle at him, telling him it was just a girlie drink, even a preacher's kid could handle it. When Blake said he didn't drink, he'd never had a drink in his life, the boy grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulled him so close, Blake said you could smell his breath, it was sickly sweet, like he'd been drinking some fancy French cologne.

“You're gonna have a shot of this, right now,” he told Blake, “or I am going to pound you in the face. That's your only choice, preacher's boy.” Then a malicious laugh. “Either that, or you can ask God to rescue you.”

That's when someone spoke up from the middle of the crowd around them. “No need for God. He's got friends.”

While the older boy was turning to see who had spoken, it was Jordan Phelps who darted in, Jordan who had spoken, Jordan just a freshie himself who now grabbed for the bottle in the boy's hand and at the same time hacked him on the wrist with a rabbit punch that broke his grip. With gin slopping around him, Jordan bent down and sent the bottle spinning across the dance floor, aiming it towards the far wall where one of the teachers on dance duty was standing. The older boy took a couple of steps after the bottle, thought better of it, turned around, scowling, ready to lash out with his fists, but by then the kids were dispersing, melting into the shadows, all of them getting as far from him and the bottle as they could. The preacher's boy had gotten away, and Jordan too.

Football practice started the week before school, but Blake had spent much of August dragging me down Thirteenth Avenue to the green-space where there was room to throw the long bomb. I was expected to run under his passes and get my hands on them even if I seldom caught them. Once, when I was running flat out, stretching so far I was almost tripping, the ball hit me in the hands and I somehow managed to pull it into my chest without falling. I trotted back to Blake and tossed him the ball.

“That was quite a show,” he said. “You should come out for the team.” He seemed to mean it too.

“Come on. You're the guy who says I've got hands like bricks.”

He laughed. “You're good at knocking the ball out of the air, all right. You could maybe play defence.” There was no danger of getting a swelled head with Blake around, but he went on. “It helps to be on a team, to know some guys. Keeps people off your case. Besides, you make the team, Dad'll be impressed.”

“You never played in grade nine.”

“No, but you could. You might enjoy it.” He wasn't looking at me but at the ball, which he held balanced in the palm of his hand. He gave it a spin with his fingers, watching it rotate till it began to topple and he grabbed it with both hands. “Go down fifteen yards,” he said, “and cut sharp to the right.”

The day that Arnie Winkler, Evan Morgan and I — grade nines all — signed out our football equipment for the first serious practice, we were excited and got there early. No, maybe it was more nerves than excitement, but we were the first ones in the equipment room. Shoulder harness, helmets, bucking pads, jerseys, pants, everything was provided by the school — except, of course, for jockstraps and cups, which we had bought ourselves. I remember sitting in the locker room, my jersey pulled over my shoulders, thinking I looked pretty good, too bad that cute girl who sat two seats behind me in English class couldn't see me with shoulders like this. Arnie and Evan were kind of horsing around, taking turns hammering each other on the pads, just to see how good it felt, my brother and some of his friends arriving with their equipment when Jordan Phelps walked in.

He didn't say anything at first. Just looked at Arnie and Evan, until they quit belting one another, their arms suddenly hanging awkward at their sides, both of them uncomfortable, shuffling, starting to blush.

“You guys,” he said, “what a pair of pussies. Gonna really knock someone down, aren't you? Long as it's just each other.”

I noticed Blake shoving equipment into his locker. He glanced in my direction, then sat down on the bench, his back toward us, and picked up his football pants, held them on his lap. He grabbed a bucking pad, began to work it into the pocket inside the pants where it would protect his quads.

“Rookies,” said Jordan Phelps, “are all big men. Till you get them on the field. Then they hug the bench and pray to God Coach doesn't want them in the game. Wouldn't dare make a tackle — it might hurt a bit.”

Blake had another bucking pad cradled in his hand, but he was just holding it, his pants draped over his knee.

“The guys who make this team,” said Jordan Phelps, “aren't afraid to take a pounding. They know you've got to be tough, got to wear the other team down, give as good as you get.” Although Jordan hadn't moved from where he stood in the centre of the room, Arnie and Evan had backed away, stopping only when they felt the bench at the side of the room behind their legs. They sat quickly down. When Evan glanced at me, I slid along the bench until I was next to them. They didn't seem to be breathing. “Rookies and sluts,” said Jordan, “they need to get knocked around some before they're worth a shit.”

When I looked for Blake, I saw his pants folded on the bench, a bucking pad on top of them, but he was gone. The sweater in his locker hung slack and crooked, the “C” on the sleeve just barely visible.

Way back when I was in grade four and my brother in grade seven, Rufus Nickerson was the toughest kid I'd ever seen. The biggest bully too. He lived in a ramshackle house down by the river, the house looking as if it had been nailed together with plywood salvaged from the dump. The backyard was always filled with stripped-down cars and trucks, most of them rusted-out hulks with their hoods open. His dad collected garbage for the city, but people said he could do more with a motor than any mechanic in town. Rufus was in grade eight and he ruled Lord Tennyson Elementary School. Later on, when I was in high school, I wondered if carting around a name like Rufus wasn't what made him so tough — and so quick to pick on smaller kids.

My problem was I didn't figure that out in grade four.

A bunch of us little kids had stayed after school to play in the snow. All afternoon, whenever Mrs. Booker was writing on the board, we'd gaze out the classroom windows, our attention held by the thick snow floating down, the houses on the other side of the schoolyard slowly vanishing in a drifting haze of white. As soon as the bell rang, we threw on our coats and boots, and rushed outside, stamping out a huge pie in the fresh snow of the schoolyard; we were running the circle, playing tag when Rufus walked by and body-checked my best friend, Evan Morgan, into the snow. “Rufus Doofus,” I said — under my breath.

Or so I thought.

“Shut your face, kid!” Although he sounded angry, he looked like a starving tramp who'd just been offered a free burger. He tackled me then, drove me backwards, flattened me, landing on top of me, all his weight bearing down. What I remember is gasoline fumes. His clothes smelled of gasoline, and I thought that I would choke. I tried to wiggle free, but he was too big for me. He heaved himself up, got his knees planted on my arms, swearing, leaned towards me, and hawked a gob at my face. I wrenched my head sideways, but it caught me on the ear. Then he laughed and began to slap me. I was squirming and howling, my arms pinned and useless, his gob on my ear, fumes around us like a gas station.

If I'd had a match I would've set him on fire.

And I couldn't even hit back. Worse, I was starting to cry. Like a baby — right there in the schoolyard where everybody'd see me. Both cheeks flaming, eyes stinging, I heard a loud whomp, saw through a blur of tears his head snap forward, a spray of snow and straw like a halo above him, his tuque knocked off, a string of snot swinging from his nose.

He rolled off me, and Blake was there, standing over him, a broom in his hands. A broom. It was at least another second before I realized he must've been at the outdoor rink, playing broomball.

“Don't move,” said Blake, his voice surprisingly calm. “You ever touch my brother again, the two of us'll kick the shit out of you. Then I'm gonna hold you down and he's gonna ram this whole broom up your ass. Till it comes out your mouth. Get the idea? Now take off.”