The Amazing Absorbing Boy (21 page)

“With my father.”

He became quiet again and I wondered if he was trying to remember my father but then he asked me, “You could take in b-boarders?”

I was a little surprised at his stammering because he had talked normally during the entire conversation. I told him, “I think my father fed up of even me living there.”

“Yes, yes. That is how it goes sometimes.” He didn’t sound too disappointed. “Why you don’t le-leave?”

“To go where?”

“That is always the question, pardnah.”

While I was walking to the exit, I glanced back and saw him pushing the remaining bit of bun into his briefcase.

In the night, I told my father, “I think Sporty is a refugee.”

I would not have spoken to him but he was sitting before the blank television. As he did not reply immediately I prepared myself for some sarcastic comment. However, he remained quiet. A few minutes later while I was microwaving a bowl of Kraft Dinner I heard him ask something about a letter. I removed the bowl and walked to the kitchen. Did he discover about the money sent by Uncle Boysie? I decided to pretend I had not heard him but now he asked instead about the house in Mayaro. “Boysie mentioned anything about it?”

I shook my head and for the entire five minutes that I sat by the kitchen table he stared at the blank screen. Maybe my mention of refugees had finally made him understand the seriousness of my situation. The next day I was in a better mood than the entire month, and on my way to Union I detoured to the library where I printed out an entire set of application forms for the Alternative Centre. Sporty was at his usual spot with his head bent over some pages set on the top of his briefcase. I decided to buy two buns but when I offered him one, he told me in a busy voice, “Leave it on the bench.”

I glanced at the form he was filling out. There were many crosses and scratches as if he couldn’t decide on the information. When he paused for a while and tapped his pencil against his leg, I asked him, “What you doing there?”

“I am working on a proposal.”

“I have some forms too. They are for classes that will fast track me to college.”

He glanced at the rolled-up sheets in my hand. “Mine is important. A very weighty project.”

“What it is about?”

“That is a good question. A better question would be ‘What it’s not about’? You understand? What I am saying, is that it is about everything. A complete history of the last six hundred years. From 1492 to the present date, to be precise.”

“That will take a real long time to finish.”

“Three months, at least.”

“Only that?”

“Pruning is a real art. You have to know what to leave out.” He took the bun and held it before him, turning and examining it carefully. “Take a man life, for example. He born, he go to school, he dropout. He move from place to place trying to inspire others. Then he die.” He bit into the bun. “End of his history.”

“You think anybody will want to read this sort of project?”

“If they are smart, they will lap it up.”

I told him, “I mentioned you to my father.” He seemed a little worried until I mentioned my father’s name.

“Danny. Yes, yes. Left the village a few years before me. Always wondered what happened to him. Smart man.” I wanted to tell Sporty he didn’t have to
mamaguy
me just because I bought him a bun when he added, “Was developing a special method for making teeth.”

“Really?”

“From plastic. Common household items. Cups and such. Melted them in a big ball. Brilliant.” He mentioned all of this in little snaps as he crossed out words in his form. I wanted him to talk more of my father but he opened a flap
on his briefcase, fiddled around a bit and brought out a jar of whiteout. First, he blanked out a few words then he moved across the form rapidly, until in about a minute or so the entire form was white. “It seems as if I will have to start over. Perhaps I can borrow yours.”

“These are for school.”

“Of course. It wouldn’t work. What course are you taking? May I suggest a course on insects? It was the most interesting programme I taught at Ryerson. Do you know there are ten million species? My favourite was the slinky fly.”

“I never heard of them.”

“Not surprising. Very hard to track. Other insects wait until the slinky flies build their nest before they chase them away. Always on the move.” He pointed his nose in the air and added, “My second favourite is the damsel bug.” I was wondering if he might be able to help me with my admission forms when he said, “Sadly I was let go after discussing just fifty-five species. Terrible business. I had more than nine million left.” When I left, he was making calculations on his sheet, perhaps checking the exact number of insects remaining in his course.

While I was walking home, I knew I couldn’t ask my father once more to sign the form so I decided I would leave it in a spot where he couldn’t miss it. I considered the fridge door and the kitchen table before I settled on the television where it would not get lost in the shuffle of free newspapers I sometimes brought to the apartment. Each night when I got home, I checked for a signature, waiting till my father went
into the washroom or his bedroom. Though he did not quarrel as before—mostly staring at the blank screen—the form remained unsigned.

I wished I could ask Sporty for some advice or get him talking of my father but he always seemed too busy. One night, about a month after our first meeting, he was in a real bad mood. “They rejected my project,” he told me. “They didn’t approve the gr-grant.” He got up, pushed the bun into his briefcase and walked up the step. Just like that!

I believe this rejection must have hit him hard because he seemed real frazzled for the next week or so. He walked up the stairs with his buns after just a couple minute and I wondered whether this was all he had been waiting for. Then one night I saw him busy once more, scribbling into his form.

“A new project?”

“This world does not wait for those who don’t get in line. They are left behind, as a rule.” He smiled. “If you pay attention, you will see that every disappointment comes equipped with a loophole. The trick is finding the loophole.” He was right about these loopholes: although I needed my father’s signature on the college forms, if I was just a couple months older I would have been on my own. I wanted to tell Sporty of the benefits of being a minor but he was busily crossing out lines on his own form. “The loophole could be anywhere,” he was saying. “In this particular case, it came in the form of a dream.” He looked up, his head held now in its normal position. “Vision would be a better word, actually. Yes, yes, vision.” He seemed to be studying some of the bars on the
ceiling. “I had this vision of people, plenty people moving. You know what a caravan is?”

“A sorta van or carriage.”

“Well, there were thousands of family packed in these caravans. Moving and moving.”

“Just like in Union?’

He fetched out a pen from his briefcase and scribbled Union before he continued, “These people were all running away. To somewhere better where they could start over and watch their grandchildren running through the fields collecting damsel bugs and slinky flies.” I was about to tell him this project seemed more promising than the previous, when he added, “This journey began thousands of years ago. It started in a jungle and that was the easiest part because these travellers bounced up deserts and plains and mountains and oceans and junks of ice bigger than Canada.”

I just had to ask him, “How long this project going to take?’

“This is the problem. You see, this project involve all sort of regions and languages. It not as straightforward as the last one.” He glanced down at the form on his briefcase and scratched out some number. “I would say three months, at the very least.”

Two weeks later, he took the bun I had bought and told me his outline had been rejected because he could not fulfil some requirement. He was in a real sour mood but by the time he had finished the bun he began to talk once more of his loopholes. Soon he hit on another project. A compilation of
all the unknown plants and animals on earth. He mentioned the slinky fly and a couple beetles. “Ignored species, suffering in silence.”

Once again, his outline was rejected. This was the pattern for the entire month and although he seemed to recover with each new project, I felt that every rejection had damaged him in some small way. His stammering, though not as bad as before, returned. I tried to help him. “What about refugees?”

He looked at me suspiciously before he began to calculate on a sheet. “There are exactly three hundred and forty-six species of refugees on this planet.” He glanced around at the benches opposite and adjusted his figures. “Three hundred and forty-nine.”

The next night he said he had to abandon the project as it was too dangerous. He snapped and unsnapped his briefcase’s clasps before he asked, “Would you be in-interested in a loan? Just a sm-small sum. I will pay you back as soon as possible.”

I thought of his previous scam as I reached into my pocket. “All I have is a ten.”

He took the bill and folded it into a tiny nugget. “You may not believe it, but this ten dollars might have sa-saved my life.”

He shook his head sorrowfully. I felt a little ashamed for not trusting him. I remembered his question about boarders. “So where you living?”

“Wherever I am when night falls.”

“You don’t have a regular place?”

“This station isn’t that bad. I have all the heat and water and lights that I need.” He cheered up. “And in the nights,
when it’s very quiet, I tap into my visions. The only problem is the men toilets. Filthy. The ladies’ is much better. I have learned to pee sitting down. An art in itself.”

Maybe it was his worries about not having a regular place to stay or perhaps it was just all the disappointment but the following night Sporty told me, “The plug got pulled.” I thought at first that he had been evicted from the station, maybe for going to the ladies’ toilets. “The visions have dried up like an old cucumber vine.”

This comparison sounded sort of funny but Sporty was not laughing. “What about the loopholes?” I asked him.

“Traps! Nothing more than traps.” He patted his briefcase. “This bag have more traps than a crab-catcher van. Tonight when everybody sleeping I going to take it and pelt it ass down the Don-Don Valley.”

“What about your documents in there?”

“Traps. Traps!” He almost sounded like my father.

I told him, “I feel the same way too.”

“Then you are a fo-fool.” He glanced at my hands. “Where is my bun?”

“I ran out of money.”

He dusted his briefcase as if there were breadcrumbs there. “Yes, pardnah. That is the way li-life is.”

I felt sorry for him. “Maybe you could write something simpler.”

“This is the problem with the world today. Everybody want something simple and break down in small pieces. Bu-but I not design that way. That is not my route.” He seemed
so offended that I was not prepared for his question soon after. “What you have in mind?”

“Maybe something about these Indians that get killed in the round house.”

I didn’t expect him to take me seriously but he told me immediately, “I see what you getting at. A complete history of what happened to the Indians after the Spanish arrived. I could move from Mayaro to Cuba and Hispaniola.” By the end of that conversation, Sporty had extended his project to include Mexico and Venezuela and several other South American countries. And the next time I met him, he told me, “I don’t see why I have to limit myself with these jungle Indians. I could move across the plains of America too. Sitting Bull. Crazy Horse. Geronimo.” I was sure he got these names from his westerns but he added, “It had a lot of these fellas roaming about in Canada too, you know.”

During the next two weeks, he filled me in on the state of his project. “These Indians had a real tough life, you know. They get outsmarted time after time. Chased away from their homes just like the slinky flies. I believe I discover something important, Pardnah. Real important. These people had no idea of trickery. That wasn’t part of their package. They lived a straightforward life so when they bounce up anybody dishonest, they goose get cooked. Sitting Duck, not Sitting Bull.” As he talked, I felt he was describing his own life. “Now I going to do something honourable. Please, don’t protest.”

“I not protesting.”

He held up a hand as if I was putting up a big argument.
“I going to also put your name on the application. After all, it was you who put the idea in my head. When I get the grant, you will be entitled to half.”

“Is you who doing all the work.”

“Quite true but is still the right thing to do.”

“Is up to you,” I told him finally.

“So it’s settled then. As the co-applicant, you will have to split half of the hundred dollar application fee. Just fi-fifty dollars. A small sum for a big investment.”

“I really don’t—”

“Please. Is the le-least I could do. I know you thinking that I giving away this mm-money but I am a man like that. Honest and straightforward. Just like these Indians. In fact, I think I might have some Carib blood in me. Not much, mark you, but enough to make me a straightforward man.”

“I don’t have that much money on me.”

“How mu-much you have?”

“A little more than thirty.”

He crossed his legs and leaned forward with his elbows on his briefcase. I heard him mumbling, “One hundred divide by thirty one equal to …”

His calculations were talking a while so I told him once more, “You really don’t have to include me in any application, you know.”

He straightened. “You will get qu-quarter. That sound fair?”

I was sure he was scamming me and I couldn’t understand why he was putting up this big show. I was giving him
the money because I felt sorry for him, living in Union, waiting for the buns, working on all these proposals, getting turned down time after time. And also because he mentioned Mayaro every now and again. After I handed over the money, he told me, “The universe always ba-ba-balance itself. So far I have identified eight hundred and sixty-six ways.” He took out a form from his briefcase and wrote:
Co applicant
. “This is the nice thing about these forms. You don’t have to include everybody na-name.”