Black Rabbit and Other Stories (10 page)

Presley Banyan climbed into the black pickup truck and nodded to the driver, a heavy, bearded man with gold hoops in his ears and tattooed forearms. He said nothing to Presley, didn't gesture, didn't even blink. He adjusted his rearview mirror, put the truck in gear, and roared out of the parking lot. They were on their way to score a sizeable quantity of hydroponic marijuana at a local grow house. Presley's old man had made the arrangements, but he was on the road with his rig, probably in California by now, or some place like that, so he wanted Presley to handle the introductions. He didn't mind doing things for his old man. He saw him so rarely these days it offered a way of maintaining a connection with him, of gaining his approval. Besides, if everything went well there was a hundred bucks in it for Presley.

The driver of the pickup truck, an old biker buddy of his dad's, planned to buy the weed off the Dacunhas, three Portuguese brothers who owned a farm just outside of town. They too had biker connections, but different ones. Presley's old man used to run weed south for them before crossing the border got too hairy. The money for the weed must have been stuffed in the bulging manila envelope resting between Presley and the driver. His name was Bart or Bert, Presley wasn't sure, and he wanted to say something to him, just to be sociable, but held his tongue. He had learned long ago to keep his mouth shut around these biker dudes unless they asked you a question, and then you answered with the fewest words possible.

Stars glinted in the asphalt-black sky like specks of pelletized glass, and the moon resembled a huge white dinner plate. Trees flanked the road, spectral and black, their lost leaves swirling in the headlamps. The pumpkin fields lay bare and black except for grotesque swollen stragglers, rotting remnants of an overabundant harvest, abandoned to crows, voles, and whatever else could stomach their foul, stringy flesh. Winter loomed; Presley dreaded it. He hated the cold. He wished he could join his mother in Jamaica. She wintered there these days with her boyfriend, Trevor, a dreadlocked Rastafarian. But she laughed when Presley suggested it. Said she didn't want him smoking all that evil Jamaican weed and fucking up his brain. Like it wasn't fucked up already.

It smelled like ass in the truck, and to avoid this unpleasantness Presley breathed through his mouth. Bad smells disturbed him. He used to go off in the detention centre when the other youth smelled bad. He had punched out a score of them for farting in his presence or failing to shower after recreation time. Presley was doing time for beating up this dude who owed him money. He'd accused Presley of selling him bad blow and refused to pay, maybe betting that he'd do nothing about it, that he'd forget about it—after all, he was a fucking fourteen-year-old. But Presley caught up to him one day outside his garage; took a tire iron to his head, mucked him pretty good. That it was over blow never came up in court. The dude said that Presley robbed him and when Presley stuttered and giggled through his testimony, it sounded like the truth. The judge scolded him for being a thug and lacking remorse—like these were bad things—and sentenced him to a year in the Peninsula Youth Centre, out in the boondocks. Despite all the barbed wire and triple locks, the place was soft. Presley lifted weights, worked on the heavy bag, and ate like an athlete. He did the time standing on his head.

He had been out for two months and was having trouble adjusting to life on the outside. Inside there were rules, there was structure. Outside was a different story. There were rules, but structure was lacking. Outside, your biggest enemy sometimes was your very freedom. He was big for a fifteen-year-old, thick-wristed, and strong as a
mule. He could throw a football fifty yards. The high school coach said if he wasn't such a hoodlum he could be an all-city quarterback. He liked fighting; it gave him a rush. And he could take a punch. A month ago he ran into these Fort Erie dudes at the Welland skateboard park who thought they were wizards, but they rolled like a clown posse. After he showed off some moves they called him over, and while one distracted him by asking stupid questions about his skateboard, another ran up and sucker-punched him in the temple. He saw stars but didn't go down. Then he knocked the motherfucker out with a straight right. His father had taught him to throw straight punches like that. The others watched bug-eyed, yaps gaping. No one said a word. Yeah. He could handle himself. He glanced at Bert. Even adults didn't intimidate him.

Ever since Presley's mom left two years ago and his dad hit the road again with the rigs, he had spent a lot of time alone. His probation orders forbade him from consorting with his old crew, and his friend Jasmine was so fucked up on crack these days he couldn't talk to her. He had known Jasmine since they were toddlers. Too bad he couldn't help her. That wasn't in the cards. Truth was, he had turned her onto crack. Best high in town, he convinced her. She was only thirteen then, already a little pothead, so she took to the pipe like a natural. Presley found it funny how fast she got hooked. She robbed people to support the habit, her neighbours, her mother, and her grandparents, to mention a few. Presley supplied her for the longest time, then when he got busted, she started buying from anyone who sold it. She even turned tricks for crack. Anyway, she had her own problems now, nothing he could help her with, that's the way it was. If you were flimsy enough to get flushed down the toilet like that there was no helping you, you were fucked, plain and simple.

Clair, a family friend from Newfoundland kept house and cooked meals for Presley and his father, but she drank all day and ran up crazy phone bills calling home. Presley didn't trust her. She came on to him once, last summer. He'd been playing hoops in the school-yard. He got home all sweaty and went upstairs to shower. Clair had just vacated it, a towel covering her breasts, her hair dripping wet. A
few years younger than his mom, she wasn't as pretty—his friends thought his mother was hot, something he found disgusting, something he had biffed guys for sharing with him. Imagine them talking about his mother like that. Clair approached him, reeking of herbal shampoo and gin, and started saying stuff, like how she loved his blonde hair and his blonde eyelashes and his blue eyes and how tall he was and strong. She stressed that word. Then she dropped the towel.

Well, you'd think—it's not as if his father was boning her or anything. She was just a friend from back home. The old man paid her two hundred bucks a month to take care of the house and to cook Presley a few meals. That was it. Presley could have fucked her, maybe he should have. But she had these banana-shaped breasts and a horny horse-face he found more humorous than attractive. It's not that she was ugly, but she made him laugh. She would have been a funny comedienne, he figured, with that face and that smile. Anyway, when he refused her advances, she told his father that
he
had come on to her. His father lost it. He punched Presley in the forehead so hard he cracked his skull. He still suffered migraines from that. He split for a week after the incident, breaching his probation and risking another year in detention. He stayed with this eighteen-year-old skank he met in a crackhouse. She was useless but liked to fuck and always had money. She didn't hook so he didn't know where she got it from. He figured she had a sugar daddy or something else going on, he didn't care. He wound up taking a vicious beating from her toothless meth-head ex-boyfriend who showed up unannounced one day. The fucking guy tried to cut his throat with a straight-razor. Lucky he turned his attention to the girl. He used his fists on her, did a number. Presley just missed getting killed. It was funny how easily it could have happened. You just never knew when you were going to escape a bad situation with your life. You just never knew. One day a counsellor at the detention centre gave him a lecture on something called karma. He said Presley had bad karma. Presley scoffed at this when he understood what the guy was talking about. He felt there was no such thing as karma. Shit just happened. I could kill you right now
and all your karma would mean squat, he told the guy. But the counsellor wasn't amused and Presley wound up getting restrained by the guards that day for uttering threats.

The pickup truck jerked to a stop, startling Presley from his thoughts. They had come to a red light. Bert turned his head toward him and for a moment looked like he wanted to say something; instead his mouth fell open as a police car cruised by, manned by silhouettes. These bikers always got weird when they saw cops. Presley heard a grunt and then what could have been a laugh, but Bert assumed a rigid posture and when the light turned green the pickup truck surged forward and stopped again, throwing Presley into the dash.

Put on your seatbelt, Bert told him. His voice sounded dry as an ashtray. He gestured with his thick hand and Presley secured his seatbelt with a snap. A hint of a smile edging Bert's profile irritated Presley. Maybe this ex-biker thought he was heavy duty but he didn't scare Presley a bit. The only things that frightened him were skunks, and the dark. He still slept with a nightlight, this green plastic frog his mom gave him. He glanced at the fat manilla envelope. His old man never said how much weed Bert planned to score and Presley didn't give a fuck, except that now he wondered how much money the manilla envelope held. It looked like a lot. What the fuck are you looking at? Bert said without turning to him.

The question, and the hostility underpinning it, took Presley by surprise. He sat up and stared straight ahead. What a fucking joke. These adults were so paranoid about everything. Like what did Bert think, that he was going to jack him for the cash? Fucking moron. So this guy, this so-called friend of his father, was a moron. He'd met quite a few of them when he was locked up, inmates and guards alike. People liked to jump to conclusions, they thought they knew what the fucking score was when in fact they didn't have a clue.

Bert wiped his nose with the back of his fat hand. His ugly beard could have used a trim. His ears looked like flaps, the lobes distended from years of bearing earrings. What kind of man was he? Had he ever done time? Had he ever killed anybody? Most bikers he had met were scumbags. He didn't admire them. They had bullied his father
in the past—he had witnessed them roughing him up on more than one occasion—and had ripped him off a few times. His father said it was the price of doing business with them, but Presley found that lame. Bert turned into a drive-through donut shop. Presley looked at him. What a fucking goof, stopping right now. The Dacunhas would be pissed if they were late. Bert leaned to the metal box on a post and ordered a large hot chocolate. Who the fuck drinks a large hot chocolate? Presley thought with scorn. He didn't think Bert was going to order anything for him but at the last moment he asked him what he wanted. Presley requested a large triple-triple coffee, hoping to irritate him. But he didn't react. The sallow girl serving them looked familiar to Presley; he figured he had probably sold her weed or crack before.

The coffee was a good one. Presley drank it while it was nice and hot. Bert blew on his hot chocolate and sipped it carefully. He steered with one hand and gripped the paper cup with the other. Presley wished he would put on some music, but didn't want to ask in case the guy got touchy. He figured if Bert wanted to hear music he would have put it on already. What a fucking stiff not to put on some music. People were funny. They liked to demonstrate power any time they had a chance. They liked to control things whenever they could. This guy Bert struck Presley as a control freak. Look how clean the truck is, he thought, admiring the polished black dash and leather seats—a pristine interior, except for the ass smell. Presley noticed a gold coin ring on Bert's pinkie, a nice touch. He wanted a ring like that. It was cool.

They turned onto a country road near the canal and drove a good distance in pitch darkness, the headlights beaming into nothingness. Bert leaned forward and squinted. Fucking dark, he muttered. Presley nodded. He drained the rest of his coffee, rolled down the window and tossed out the cup. Bert jerked his head around and glared at him. What the fuck was that? he barked. Presley didn't know what to say. Well? Bert said, flexing his jaw muscles. I threw out the cup, Presley said. Bert slammed on the brakes and the truck fish-tailed to a screeching stop, its carriage creaking. Go get the fucking cup, Bert said. Presley thought he was joking for a second, but he
looked serious. Go get the fucking cup, he repeated in a low voice. Presley climbed out of the truck, walked back in the darkness for a hundred metres and couldn't find the cup. He continued backtracking, swinging his head left and right. In the distance the pickup truck's brake lights glowed like a pair of red eyes.

After five minutes, Presley abandoned the search. It was too dark out there. He heard rustling in the surrounding brush, and prayed it wasn't a skunk, sniffing to make sure. Then he saw oncoming headlights and moved to the side of the road where his shoes crunched over glinting glass shards. As he bent down to inspect, a white van passed by, slowing as it approached the pickup truck, then swerving around it. The debris consisted of shattered cocktail glasses and two bottles, one in pieces, one intact and half-filled with an amber fluid. Someone had been partying. Presley glanced at the label, the letters indecipherable to him. He didn't know how to read. After going to school his whole life and sitting through countless classes with dozens of teachers and tutors, he could barely read his own name. He screwed off the cap and took a whiff; it smelled like whisky. He gulped from the bottle and fire filled his chest. He took another big gulp, and another. It was good stuff. Bert tooted his horn. Presley drank again. He saw something else among the glass shards: an icepick, the tip gleaming.

The handle looked to be fashioned from ivory; the pick itself shone like silver and came to a needle-like point. It was beautiful. All kinds of weird things got dumped on country roads. He returned to the pickup truck with his booty. When he climbed back in, Bert didn't look at him. He put the truck in gear and pushed ahead. After they had traveled a kilometre down the road, Presley uncapped the whisky bottle and drank. Bert eased up on the gas. What the fuck you got there? he asked. Whisky, Presley said. That's not whisky, Bert said. That's bourbon. Knob Creek. Where'd you find it? On the side of the road? Are you fucked up or something? He stopped the pickup truck and snatched the bottle from Presley. That's not whisky, okay, Bert said, flashing him the label. That's bourbon. Can't you read? Are you fucking stupid? Your old man didn't tell me you were stupid. He rolled down his window and chucked the bottle.