Savage (9 page)

I had my head inside the refrigerator, unscrewed a jar of kosher dill pickles, snagged one, let it drip out all wriggling wet, grabbed a cheese slice, unwrapped it, slapped it onto a bagel, prodded at a gooey slice of ham all rubbery from its plastic garrison while Dad's thin voice said, "Good day," and the receiver returned to the cradle.
Throat clearing and the hmmph and sigh and the pivoting of his heel
.

"Hello," Dad said.

I looked down at the colourful shock of ingredients balanced in between my fingers (mustard, mayo, pickle, tomato, ham) as I squeezed the sandwich together. Mustard painted my hand.

"Having a snack?" Dad asked, walking slowly towards me.

I nodded and looked at the half-chewed green pickle, the kind Dad had given us in our stockings just four months ago; the brand's logo could have been sewn onto our family crest, if we had one. The pickle was our thing; a product that united us, with cheese and cracker dust falling across our pajamas.

"That was my headhunter. So we'll see what he comes up with."

My stomach tingled in uneasy waves. My sinuses still battling toxins, I dropped the bread and ham collision on a small plate. The pickle bite was lodged in my dry throat and my eyes were watering again.

I swallowed hard, turned my neck towards Dad.

"That sounds good," I said.

What would happen? Our whole life, my room, the backyard, Holly's stuff, my stuff, our bikes, where would we live, would we have to move, put things into storage, live in the woods? I had, on a few occasions, ventured out on long walks in the snow, sat in the dark, even once with Holly when we were pissed off, tired of the yelling, and fantasized, for a millisecond at least, of living out the rest of our days in the icy blue nothing.
That was years ago
.

I looked down at my hands...black bits of paint illuminated by the margarine in a strange shellac.
All those years ago
.

"How was school?"

"S'OK."

"I'm going out for a while," Dad said, snorting as he passed me. He shuffled in the hallway with his coat and hat, taking a cigarette from his pocket and putting it in his mouth, anticipating nicotine. The creak from the front hall closet was jingle-like in its familiarity. "I started to defrost the spaghetti sauce," he said. "It's on the counter."

"OK."

"See you soon," Dad said, a minor winter howl sneaking inside for a second, only to be snipped off by the door closing.

I stepped towards the front door to see Dad smoking and backing out; our weird two-tone grey second-hand Oldsmobile had trails of exhaust billowing a temporary cloud onto the street. Mom would be home from Community Care East York, where she worked Mondays in a basement office, mostly filing and faxing and calling the elderly and their immediate families.

I fished around in my corduroy pockets, remembering the clipping I had cut out from a newspaper at the school library. Last night was Wrestlemania VII, and the results were published in Monday's paper. I pulled it out and read as I chewed my creation.

Hulk Wins 3rd WWF Title! Plus, Warrior Ends Randy's Career! More on S15.

Despite delivering five big top-rope elbow drops on the Warrior, Macho King is no more, as The Ultimate Warrior bested Randy Savage in their career-ending confrontation at Wrestlemania VII last night in Los Angeles. In other big matches, The Hart Foundation (Bret "Hitman" Hart and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart) lost the WWF tag-team belts to The Nasty Boys, managed by Jimmy Hart, and Hulk Hogan became a three-time WWF Champion when he defeated Sergeant Slaughter (with his advisor Colonel Mustafa, an Iraqi military personality who was rumoured to be a close confidant of Saddam Hussein) in a bloody encounter in which Slaughter got a hefty dose of justice at the hands of Hogan...

*

It was Friday evening. After some miserable meatloaf, boiled green beans and a soft-core salad (iceberg lettuce, choke-cut carrots, frayed celery and dressing-drenched raisins), I was in my bedroom watching Holly do laundry. She was back from university in Kingston for the weekend. When she came to the pantry in the basement stairwell to sneak beers, I poked my head out.

"I didn't know you were coming back this weekend." I said.

"Yeah, last-minute thing," Holly said, blowing her bangs from her eyes, putting the beers into her laundry basket.

"I have to do a multimedia thing tomorrow for English. Like film it with some guys from class. On the play
Death of a Sales Guy
."

"Man," Holly said, dragging her still-warm laundry into my room.

"Yeah, Man. These guys from class are coming over."

"Andrew?"
¹¹

11. We had quarreled in January while watching Madonna's
Justify My Love
video, which Andrew had taped. This full version he had taped was a hot property, and he wanted me to see it because it was banned in late 1990 when it was released. He kept putting it on PAUSE/STILL as Madonna undulated in black lace panties. Andrew shut the door to his den and began to prod and poke at my semi-erect penis with one hand as his high-powered VCR slow-motion scanned the shot of Madonna's lace covered behind writhing in black and white. I got up to leave, feeling a strange reluctance to participate. I got up off the couch and stormed out, with Andrew's condescending tone reverberating down the stairs, something about never talking to me again. I walked home feeling angry and somehow relieved. We had just started speaking again weeks later in early March, the incident erased.

"No, he's not in my class."

"Don't tell Dad," she said, putting a bottle of beer into the laundry basket. "What time are they coming?"

"Noon."

Holly was balling socks. "This laundry is a futile abyss."

"Maybe you could be in it, like the video we gotta do, help us out?"

"No way. Going shopping; can't."

*

"I'm going to punch that little bitch in the tits next time I see her!" Holly shouted on the phone. I shook my head and torpedoed down the stairs to my room. I had no time to spare; those idiots from school would be over in less than two hours to work on our English assignment.

I shifted my custodial activities to the basement, attempting to normalize it. Mom chimed in, with her usual mauve sweater, and exhausted, dowel-eyed glare. I was halfway down the stairs.

"Better clean your room!"

To which I retorted, "Those jerks aren't going anywhere near my room!" Then I laughed maniacally. "They will never see my laboratory, my master plans, my secret hidden..."

"All right, fine," Mom growled. "Help me unload the dishwasher!"

I knew finding material to add realism to the video project wouldn't be hard; props were in abundance; excess wood, metal and plastic objects were everywhere.
Mops, lumber, pipes
.

From where I stood, I could see that my bedroom door was ajar. I had moved my geeky sci-fi props from the main basement into my room (wooden guns painted grey and black, model space ships and other odd creations were covered with clothing). The thought of strangers from school sitting on my bed, asking me questions about my choice in décor or requesting an explanation after giving me a
what the hell is that
? twisted-teenaged face in regard to a
Star Wars
prop made me shudder with disgust and terror.

Mom shouted, "What time are they supposed to be here?"

"They're coming at noon, I told you already!" I shouted up the dirty stairwell.

"Do they want food?"

Mom had a thing about food and people coming over, no big deal but really, even the most minor snack getting plus-oned was enough to throw her into a fit; as if another hot dog or peanut-butter sandwich was the equivalent to fixing a rack of lamb followed by a deep-dish seven-cheese lasagna.

"I told them to eat their own food outside in the driveway before coming in."

"Oh, be quiet," Mom said. "Just
answer
the question."

"I don't know; think they probably will have eaten."

"Well, you should have
asked
them," Mom said, shaking her head and vanished in a wash of late-morning noise.

"I can't think of
everything
," I said, appearing with a half-full plastic bag. I shoved it into the kitchen garbage can. "But it's been a big learning experience for all of us."

The boys arrived just after twelve, refusing at first to really speak to or accept any offers of sustenance from Mom. She helped them put their coats away and repeated the offer of a hot drink or sandwich.

"I thought we'd start in the basement; there's way more room."

Politely repeating their refusals for sustenance, they swished their way down to the basement, wall-pawing in astonishment along the way.

"Just let me know if you get hungry," Mom said, with a shake of her head in all directions that at once amused and confused me. She mouthed something as I left the kitchen, but I couldn't decode it in time.

I carefully shepherded them past my bedroom door.

"Uh, is this your room?" Stephen asked.

"No, it's the basement."

"Where is your room?"

"Upstairs."

I lied.

Once the minuscule red REC button went on, the camera was capturing us in all our bad-acting glory, our
ums
and
uhs
, stutters, and
I dunno
's and
oh shits
.

"Uh, can we start over?" Stephen Chaing asked, his braces covered in shiny elastics, bits of dribble pooling along his lips.

"No, just keep going; we'll edit it out," I shouted.

"Where's the script?" Stephen asked.

In class, Stephen used mechanical pencils and chewed on his eraser. I also remember his very, very bad breath and how his braces kept his mouth constantly agape—a further public cruelty.

I moved the shoot into the next scene. "What act are we on now?"

"Still, ah, act one, I think."

For some reason we decided to narrate the scenes from the play in fake British accents, perhaps taking our cues from Stephen, who began speaking in this slant when we started to shoot news-desk commentary scenes.

"Jesus, if this guy owned a funeral parlor, nobody would die!" I shouted.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"That line?"

"From
Wall Street
."

Stephen had headgear and braces, and spat when he talked. He wore a tie and played three different roles. He was nervous, doubtful of my creative ideas, but for the most part, cooperative.

"It's cold down here," Jeremy
¹²
said.

12. Jeremy was a nice enough guy. I remember he wore a blue mock turtleneck. He wore Dad's bowler hat in one scene. I hated having them backstage in my real life. Still, we did a good job and got a pretty good mark, though our teacher, Ms. Fertuck, admonished us for being a bit too tongue-in-cheek and comedic.

I scanned the script.

"Hey, I just thought of something! For that scene with Willy and the hose, when he tries to kill himself, we can use the vacuum cleaner!" I beamed. "It's perfect. Those hose parts!"

"I guess," Stephen said. "Uh, you don't have a
normal
hose?"

"What's a normal hose?" I countered. "I don't have a box full of hoses to choose from."

We all paused at the sound of Mom's footsteps on the metal stairs. A pained smile and bright-eyed greeting, as if she were flexing her pupils, took over the basement. All this action previewed her inquisition.

"How's it going?" she asked as she entered the basement, carrying a tray of food and beverages. "Thought you guys could use a break," Mom said, setting the wooden tea tray down on a small table.

"Yum, radioactive pink water and egg-salad sandwiches," I said. I hated the strong egg smell, but thanked her.

"Let me know if you need anything else," Mom said, leaving the basement, returning to the surface.

The boys nodded, slurped on their drinks, took quiet bites from the soft oozing egg salad on brown bread. "Let's film the rest upstairs in the den. We have a piano; it might look good in the background," I suggested.

"Uh, who says that line again?"

"Which line?" I asked Stephen.

"Ah, the one that goes, ‘He's liked but he's not well liked.' I think it's Biff, right?"

"I'll check."

We moved the filming upstairs, taking the fireplace and piano as our backdrop.

Stephen was now playing Linda, Willy's wife. He wore an old hat of Mom's from the 1970s, a floppy felt black one with a thin pink ribbon that went all the way around. "Willy, darling, you are the most
handsomest
man in the world," Stephen said, putting his hand on Jeremy's shoulder.

"Thanks," he said. "Shit, that's not right," Jeremy said.

"Should I keep going or stop it?" Stephen asked, the camera humming along, recording everything.

"Just keep going," I said. "We'll fix it."

At my direction, Jeremy stood by the fireplace, walked over to the piano, paused, then looked off-camera. The camera followed. "Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally pay for it, and there is no one to even live in it," Jeremy said, trying his best to remember the line.

Stephen and I looked down at a scrap of paper where we had written in all capital letters: ATTENTION MUST BE PAID!