Wild Awake (15 page)

“Good ear,” says Skunk. He hands me the tool. “Go for it.”

We slowly work our way around the wheel, spinning and adjusting and spinning again. It’s oddly addictive once you get started, like working the knots out of your hair when it’s really tangly. Every time we push the wheel it spins straighter, until eventually it passes through the brake pads without scraping them at any point during its revolution. When we’re finished with the back wheel, we flip the bike around and do the front. Every time Skunk moves, I catch that scent again, peeling paint and citrus. He smells like an old ladder left out in the sun.

When both wheels are done, Skunk lifts the bike down from the workbench and checks it over. He reaches out a tattooed arm and squeezes the brake levers one more time. I feel a surge of my initial defensiveness rising up just in case, but Skunk doesn’t say anything. As he runs his fingers along the titanium posts, I suddenly feel acutely conscious of the coolness of the air against my skin. For some reason, I think about Lukas, who never wrote back to the texts I sent him trying to make light of the sex-dome incident last night. I gaze around the little shed, searching for something to distract myself. I straighten up with a jolt when I notice the shiny green electric bass that’s leaning in the corner with a greasy rag hanging off its neck.

“What’s that doing in the shed?”

Skunk’s face is tipped down and I can’t see his eyes, just his hands moving carefully around my bicycle. “I think your shifters need some WD-40.”

He reaches for the blue can on the bench and gives the gears a one-second spray. I peer at the bass. It’s beautiful. Sleek. Curvy. Like an exotic fruit. I want to eat a slice of it.

“Skunk?”

“Hm?”

He picks up a screwdriver and twiddles with a screw. He takes it out, wipes it off, and starts screwing it back in.

“Please explain to me why am I seeing a vintage Fender Mustang bass on the floor of this shed.”

He looks to where I’m looking and his brown eyes widen slightly, as if he never noticed the seven-hundred-dollar instrument that just happens to be lurking under his grease-rag collection.

“Oh. Yeah. I’m trying to sell it. I was going to put it on craigslist.”

“You’re putting a vintage Fender on
craigslist
?”

Skunk spins the screwdriver around in his hand.

“Is that illegal or something?”

“It should be.”

“Why are you selling it?”

“I’m not in a band anymore.”

“So start another one.”

He shakes his head. “I’m more into bikes right now.”

“They’re not exactly mutually exclusive.”

“There’s only so much time in the day.”

“Are you expecting me to believe you just woke up one morning and decided you’d rather spend all day lurking in some crusty shed than playing that fabulous instrument?”

“Pretty much.”

I chew on this while Skunk raises my bike seat by another half inch and clamps the lever down.

“I find this answer highly dubious.”

Skunk gives me a look.

“I find this bicycle highly dubious.”

“Promise me you will not sell that gorgeous instrument.”

“Do you play? I’ll give it to you.”

The offer is so tantalizing, my blood momentarily freezes over with greed. I grip the edge of the workbench.

“I play keys. Not bass.”

“You could learn.”

“Keep it. You’re going to play it again.”

Skunk shakes his head. I keep at him. “Yes, you will. I know you will. At least put it in the house. If you leave it out here, it’ll get warped when the temperature changes.”

Sigh. Now I’m the one being all fussy about someone else’s stuff. But I can’t help it: Nobody owns a bass like that unless they’re either rich as balls or they really mean it. Even if he doesn’t think so now, I’m pretty sure Skunk really means it. Or used to mean it, anyway. I eye the bass again.

“Make you a deal. You bring that bass back inside and I’ll consider fixing my brake pads.”

Skunk cocks his head, wrench in hand. “What kind of a deal is that?”

“What do you mean, what kind of a deal is that? You indulge my ridiculous neurosis and I’ll indulge yours. It’s perfectly fair.”

Skunk smiles, and when he does he looks less like a meaty thug and more like a big, shaggy bison.

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

I’m sitting at the piano, listening
to the metronome tick. But tonight, for some reason, I just can’t make myself practice. The piano sounds too bright, like a voice in a commercial. Instead of melting into its embrace, I chafe at it, like a hug from a relative you secretly hate.

I remember my first-ever piano lesson with Dr. Scaliteri, a month after Sukey died. She stared at me for a long time, perched on her silver ball, and asked me a question that drove a wedge between that moment and everything that came before it: “Great art requires great discipline, Kiri. Are you ready to be disciplined?”

She had me play nothing but scales that day, up and down the piano in every key, making me do them again and again if I fumbled a single note. My despair at getting them right was a strange sort of rescue from the larger despair clawing at my life, like wrestling with a difficult crossword puzzle when you’re alone in the wilderness with two broken legs and no hope of making it out alive.

Great art requires great discipline
.

I lift my hands back onto the keys and grudgingly start on a scale. But tonight, it’s not discipline I need. I remember the time I asked Sukey where she went at night when she snuck out. It was the summer before Mom and Dad kicked her out, back when you could still hear music pounding behind her door anytime you walked by. I was sitting on her bed, watching her paint, her black brush flicking over a rectangular canvas, her hair pulled back in one of my fuzzy pink hair elastics because she was always losing her own.

“I go to Kits Beach and watch the ships,” said Sukey.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Because they’re beautiful.”

“That’s really all you do?”

I’d been expecting boyfriends, drinking, all the usual things Sukey got in trouble for. But somehow this felt more luminously dangerous, more thrilling, like swallowing fire.

She dabbed her brush in violet and touched it to a spot of green. The lizard Sukey was painting seemed to come alive and wriggle, as if her touch was all it took to make it real. She smiled.

“That’s really all I do.”

The memory kills me. I pull my hands off the keys and stand up. I’ll go for a bike ride. Just a little one. A starter adventure. I’ll go out and explore and find some ships of my own.

At first, I stick to familiar streets, making a wide circle around the neighborhood. The leaves in the treetops form a starry tunnel overhead, bathed now and then in orange lamplight. I turn left when I get to Arbutus, then right and then left again. Pretty soon I’m in a neighborhood I’ve never been to before, with brick houses and flower beds so perfect it looks like they were unpacked, fully grown, from a cardboard box. I roll past a park where people are playing late-night tennis under spotlights and a short strip of restaurants where the smell of frying onions is sharp in the air.

Each street I turn down is a revelation. With every push of my pedals, I can feel the map getting bigger, new squares and lines and landmarks appearing like new levels in a video game. When midnight rolls around, I’m way down in East Van, cruising down Commercial Drive. I roll down the street, eyeing the record stores and hippie clothing shops and dimly lit bars. Up ahead on my left, I can see a small crowd of people gathered in a playground, all of them on bicycles—fixies and road bikes and one recumbent covered in yellow reflectors. With their blinking lights and shiny helmets, they look like a flock of fireflies. I swoop closer to get a better look. There’s maybe twenty people, mostly college kids, with some people my age and a few older-looking riders thrown in for good measure. Some of them are holding beers or flasks, and there’s a couple joints going around.

I’m so pumped from my bike ride I don’t feel shy at all. I ride my bike up to the edge of the crowd and nose in next to a girl in a cute leather jacket and sparkly tights.

“Hey. Whatcha guys doing?”

She adjusts the strap on her black helmet.

“Midnight Mass. We go for a ride twice a month.”

“Where you going?”

“I don’t know yet. We kind of make it up as we go along.”

I look around at the rest of the group. My eyes wander over girls in furry-eared hats and guys with pink and silver tassels hanging off their handlebars. Everyone’s talking, laughing, drinking, oddly glamorous on their tricked-out bikes. They remind me of the people at Sukey’s art opening. Alive. Happy. Free.

Then I spot him.

Skunk.

He’s standing at the other edge of the crowd almost exactly opposite to me, his huge body balanced over the slender angles of a black Schwinn bike.

I stand up on my tiptoes and wave.

“Skunk!”

He doesn’t hear me. He’s peering down at his handlebars while he feels the brake wire with his fingers, no doubt planning some completely unnecessary repair.

I back up my bike and ride around the edge of the crowd.

“Skunk! Hey.”

His face registers a brief moment of surprise and confusion.

I roll my bike right up alongside his.

“I can’t believe you’re here! Do you do this every month?”

There’s a joint coming our way. I can smell it, but can’t place it with my eyes.

Skunk fiddles with his brake wires. “Sometimes.”

“I’ve already been out riding for three hours. My bike’s riding totally straight now, thanks to you.”

His face brightens. “Good.”

“I’ve been thinking about fixing those brake pads. Pending you taking care of that Fender, of course.”

Skunk doesn’t answer. We stand there in silence, scuffing the grass with our feet. I wonder if Skunk wants me to leave. Maybe I’m ruining his quiet night out with my chatter. Maybe this is the kind of thing that drove Lukas away from me: Kiri Byrd, professional motormouth.

When the joint gets to us, Skunk passes. I waver, then pass too so he doesn’t think I’m a druggie. When a fifth of Captain Morgan comes around, Skunk passes again. I’m starting to worry that he’s a Mormon or a straight-edge punk like this kid Alex at my school, who wears a Mohawk and safety pins but won’t touch a beer. I lean over and catch his eye.

“Intoxicants not your thing?”

“I choose my poisons.”

“Does that mean we’re robo-tripping later?”

He smiles.

“Wait and see.”

I’m starting to realize that talking to Skunk is like digging for clams on the beach. You see bubbles in the sand and start digging, but he’s digging too, and nine times out of ten that sucker’s faster than you. I cock my head.

“You straight-edge or something?”

Skunk hesitates, and for a second I wonder if I’m digging too hard. He squeezes his brake levers.

“Not exactly.”

“You’re very evasive, you know.”

Skunk’s about to say something when a tall, skinny guy on a red BMX shouts, “Listen up!” and everyone shuffles into a bicycle huddle to decide on a route for the night. Somehow Skunk and I get shuffled apart. When I spot him again from across the circle, he’s lighting a cigarette. He sucks on it nervously and lets out a long, smoky exhale.
There’s one of his poisons, anyway
.

Red BMX lays out some route options. I vote for northward. So does Skunk. Stanley Park at night sounds like fun. I’ve only ever been there during the day, whenever Auntie Moana and Uncle Ed come to visit. The bike path is always so clogged with little kids on training wheels and their beaming parents that there’s no point in even trying to ride around them.

Red BMX pushes off and starts pedaling down Commercial Drive. For a moment all you can hear are gears cranking and tires bumping down over the curb. I can see Skunk up ahead of me, not too far behind Red BMX and his girlfriend, Purple Mongoose. For someone who loves fixing bikes, Skunk’s doesn’t look like much. The taping on the handles is scruffy, and orange foam peeks out from the cracks in the saddle. You’d think someone Skunk’s size would look funny on a spindly road bike, but Skunk and his bicycle fit together perfectly. When he pedals, I can see the flash of muscles in his calves.

We turn down East 7th Avenue, cutting through a warehouse district I’ve never been to before—blocks and blocks of buildings like monoliths or ancient tombs, so quiet that speaking feels forbidden even though it isn’t; even though it can’t be. I bike on the left side of the street, ready to swoop back over the line if a car comes, but none do.
How silly to have a line there at all
, I think, delighted, pedaling faster and faster. The city at night is a playground, and we are a pack of kids riding its swings upside down.

As the warehouses give way to residential streets, I cut through the fleet of cyclists to the front of the pack. Red BMX and Purple Mongoose and I keep pace with one another, our bikes humming beneath us like generators. I’ve lost track of Skunk again, but it hardly matters. At this speed, there’s no way we could talk, no way to do anything but watch the houses and trees and bus stops flash past like frames in a stop-motion movie. The Granville Street Bridge is a roller-coaster. We fly over it in a blur of metal and blinking lights and veer left as a single body.

Guys in tight jeans wave and whoop for us as we thunder down the hill toward English Bay. Music pounds inside the nightclubs on Davie Street, and the smell of beer and salt water makes even the air seem drunk. On the water, I can see Sukey’s ships, dark cities of their own. They are objects I will never touch, places I will never stand, sleeping giants that would not be disturbed even if all the shimmering lights and pretty buildings on land crumbled and fell down. Maybe we all need ships to hold our dreams, to be bigger and steadier than we ever could be, and to guard the mystery when we cannot, to keep it safe even when we have lost everything.

I keep my eyes on them as long as I can, falling behind the others as we cruise along the sea wall to the dark, forested path that borders Stanley Park. I startle when Skunk rides up beside me. I’d fallen so deep in thought I’d practically forgotten he was here.