Fireball (33 page)

So we kept it secret, for obvious reasons.

The three of us were playing road hockey one night, a few years back. I think it was the summer between grade seven and eight, between elementary school and high school – a little while after Chris's dad died. We weren't quite teenagers but we weren't really kids any more, either. That was an important summer. We'd only just started drinking and smoking weed. Julian hadn't eaten any protein powder and Chris hadn't been kicked out of any schools, yet. Basically, we were still pretty young.

‘Over here, Razor – to the point!'

‘Take a shot, man.'

We played in the lacrosse box near my house, down in Myrtle Park. Chris and I didn't have any equipment. Jules did. He had his own net and this full goalie outfit that looked like it had been sent to him through an eighties time warp. The pads were purple and yellow, and the facemask was marked up with these fake stitches – just like the ones that old goalie from Boston had on his mask. Totally butt. We loved peppering Jules with shots. We didn't even care about scoring goals. We just wanted to knock that stupid mask off his face.

‘Time-out! Time-out!'

Julian was always calling time-outs. He had this little water bottle he kept on top of the net. He'd call time-out and prop his mask up on his forehead, as if he thought he was a real goalie. Then he'd squirt water all over his face and in his mouth and spit it out.

‘Okay – game on.'

During the summer, we usually played until about eight or nine o'clock. That night we played a little later than usual. They had floodlights installed above the lacrosse box, so you could still see even after it got dark. Just as we finished, at about ten o'clock, these three older guys showed up with a few shitty wooden sticks and two cases of beer. They challenged us to a game. If we played, they said they'd give us some beer.

‘Come on – us against you. Three on three.'

‘Okay. But just for a while.'

We only fell for it because we happened to know one of them. His name was Rick Larkin. He was this pretty harsh kid who'd gone to our elementary school for a year or two. Chris had always been down with him, so we didn't think anything would happen. We'd never met the two other guys before. One of them was a fat Chinese kid named Kimchee – like the noodles. The other was a monster they called Punch-out. Looking back, it was pretty obvious that these guys were trouble. But like I said, at the time we were still kind of young.

Not to mention naïve.

‘We'll play first to five. Crossbars and goalposts.'

‘Okay,' Jules said. ‘Who's taking the face-off?'

‘There's no face-off. Give us the puck, shithead.'

They were older than us and bigger than us, but they couldn't play hockey worth shit. I mean, Kimchee was okay. He at least looked like he'd stick-handled once or twice in his life. But Rick was pathetic, and Punch-out couldn't even shoot properly. He lumbered up and down the court, hacking at the puck like some kind of brain-dead zombie.

‘I think that was high-sticking, dude.'

‘No it fucking wasn't.'

They had to cheat super bad to even up the odds. Near the end they started body-checking us and running us into the boards, but we still managed to beat them. At least, we were ahead when the game ended. It didn't end because we'd scored five goals, though. It ended because Kimchee decided to pull out that knife.

‘All right, fuckers,' Punch-out said, ‘get in the penalty box.'

At first, I thought it was a joke. Then, when I realised it wasn't, I nearly pissed my pants. It wasn't a big knife or anything – but it was a knife and in the Cove you don't see that kind of shit very often. I think it was a butterfly knife, actually. Kimchee flicked it around in front of our faces. He was pretty good with it, too. Not super good, but pretty good.

Chris said, ‘Rick – what's going on, man?'

‘You heard what he said.'

They herded us over to the penalty box, out of the light and into the shadows. Myrtle Park usually isn't so deserted, but that night there was nobody around, and nobody to hear if we'd called for help. Not that I had the guts to do that, anyways.

Punch-out said, ‘Give us your money.'

Kimchee flicked the knife for emphasis. It was weird. He had the knife, but Punch-out did all the talking. They made a pretty intimidating combination. We didn't even think about arguing. We just emptied our pockets and gave them all the money we had, which was only about ten bucks, mostly in loose change. They didn't find Julian's cellphone – he kept it on top of the net with his water bottle – so all they got was the cash.

‘That's it? Ten fucking bucks?'

‘Sorry, man,' I said, ‘we don't have any more.'

‘Shut the fuck up.' Punch-out grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me against the boards. Then he started pacing back and forth in front of us. He had harsh bad body odour, actually. Kind of like rotten cabbage. ‘All right. Take off your fucking clothes, then.'

‘Our clothes?'

‘What are you, deaf or something? Fucking take them off!'

Me and Jules obeyed. We stepped out of our shoes, and pulled off our socks. Then came our shirts and shorts.

‘What's this kid's problem?'

I looked over. Chris was standing there. Not moving.

‘Come on, Rick,' he said. ‘This is bullshit.'

‘Do what he says, Chris.'

‘Fuck that. I'm not taking off my clothes.'

Everybody froze. Punch-out didn't expect that at all. The four of us looked from him, to Chris, and back to him. Even his own guys didn't know what he would do. Slowly, he reached out and took the knife from Kimchee's hand. Then he went over to Chris. Punch-out towered over him by a good five or six inches. To stare him down, Chris had to look almost straight up. He did it, though. They stood facing each other like two rams squaring off. Then Punch-out grabbed him and shoved the knife right up against his throat.

‘Strip, bitch,' he said.

Julian started to cry. I was too freaked out to cry. I thought he was going to kill Chris. Maybe he would have, too. You never know how far a guy that stupid will go.

‘Fuck it, Chris,' I said. ‘It's just clothes, man.'

Chris glanced over at me, still weighing his options, and nodded. Punch-out released him, then stood there holding the knife as Chris stripped down to his underwear.

‘And your boxers. Take off your fucking boxers.'

We did. All three of us. We stood there as they gathered up our clothes. Me and Chris clasped our hands over our dicks. Julian cupped one hand on his dick, and the other across his birthmark – almost like he was more embarrassed by that than his dick. He'd stopped crying. All the tears had dried on his face and he just stared at a point in front of him on the ground. It was weird – like he'd completely zoned out.

‘Look at these little bitches, huh? These naked little bitches.'

Punch-out said a bunch of stuff like that, but you could tell he didn't really know what else to do with us. For about five or ten minutes, the three of them hit us and shoved us around and taunted us with the knife. Also, they made fun of our dicks and kept trying to pull our hands away and poke us there with the hockey sticks. It was pretty fucked up, actually. When they finally got bored, they put our clothes in a pile and pissed all over them – except for Julian's belt, which they kept. Then they left. To them, it was nothing. They probably talked about it and joked about it for a few days, and then totally forgot about it.

I think they broke our hockey sticks, too.

My house was the closest. Our shirts and shorts were soaked in piss, so I stuffed them in the wash and got out some fresh clothes for the three of us. Then we sat around the basement, not saying anything. I felt as if we were still naked. In a lot of ways, it was kind of like being raped – only not quite as bad, obviously.

‘Let's not tell anybody, okay?'

It was Chris's idea, but me and Jules felt exactly the same way. We didn't make a pact or anything, but we all agreed. After that, Chris got up and went to the bathroom. Julian just sat there, looking miserable. Miserable and feeble. Within a week or two, he'd started buying protein powder and going to the gym. I guess he figured that if he got big enough, nobody would ever mug him and strip him naked again. It wasn't as stupid as it sounds, actually. I mean, at least he didn't decide to join kung fu and try to become a ninja.

That was how I reacted.

‘What a bunch of shitheads,' Jules muttered.

‘They were cocksuckers, all right.'

Neither of us sounded really angry. We were still too scared to be angry.

‘What if people find out?'

‘They won't,' I said. ‘Those guys won't tell.'

A second later, something smashed in the bathroom.

Me and Jules looked at each other, then sprang up and rushed over. I pulled open the bathroom door. The first thing I noticed was the vanity mirror above our sink. It was gone. Shattered. Chris stood in front of the empty frame, surrounded by glass shards. I could see tiny versions of him reflected in all the fragments, almost like in a kaleidoscope. He held up his fist and inspected the knuckles. They were cut to the bone. Blood drizzled down his wrist and forearm and dripped off his elbow in a steady stream, pattering onto the floor. As we stood there, staring, he turned on the tap and ran cold water over the wound.

‘Are you okay, man?'

He didn't look at me. Every muscle in his body seemed to be taut and trembling, like wires stretched to the breaking point. It was the first time I remember him looking that way.

He said, ‘Nobody's ever going to do that to me again.'

That was it. From then on, he didn't take shit from anybody, whether they had a knife or a nightstick or a badge or a gun. It was like the part in a comic book where the hero first discovers his super power. Obviously, Chris had other powers – like shotgunning beer and an extra-hard skull – but this was his most important power. He couldn't be scared or intimidated or bullied or beaten. He never backed down, and he never gave up.

57

After I got out of the car, the road started winding. It wound its way between ridges and along cliffs and up hills and down slopes. At one point it even seemed to wind back in on itself, like a snake biting its own tail. That's the Sea to Sky Highway, for you. It's a pretty bizarre name for a highway but, on the other hand, it's also a pretty bizarre highway. People die on that stretch of road all the time. Usually teenagers. They crash their cars into oncoming traffic or spin out into ditches or drop right off the sides of cliffs. More kids kill themselves on that road than in Lynn Canyon and Seymour River combined. But basically, that's the road Chris took – and somehow they found out.

The cops from Squamish and Whistler put up a roadblock, just like something out of a bad TV movie. They parked two squad cars sideways across the highway and laid down a few wooden sawhorses – those yellow and black sawhorses they use for roadworks. At that point they didn't really know what they were dealing with. I mean, the cops up there aren't exactly world class. They'd heard a squad car had been stolen, so they set up a roadblock.

At the time, it wasn't such a big deal. There weren't even any reporters around. There were just a few bystanders who pulled over after being waved through – to see what was going on. A roadblock isn't a big deal if it works. It only became a big deal because it didn't work at all. To begin with, they'd chosen about the worst place for a roadblock you can imagine – right in front of a cliff overlooking Howe Sound. Secondly, none of them knew what I knew about Chris.

Once he got going, it was nearly impossible to stop him.

The press only showed up afterwards – like a flock of vultures.

There were all these shitty reporters and photographers and cameramen fluttering around outside the police cordon. Even the CBC decided it was newsworthy. I mean, this was big time. The RCMP had to bring in investigators, and a bunch of weird specialists to piece together what the hell had actually happened. Plus, they had to get the squad car out of the ocean, somehow. The only person who didn't bother coming was Lieutenant Moustache. He was probably off by himself someplace, wearing his Canucks hat and hacking a dart. To him, the whole thing would have seemed like an even bigger gong show than our toga party.

The CBC must have had a news helicopter, because a lot of the footage was shot from overhead. It showed this long stretch of road, streaked with tyre marks and strewn with pieces of metal and glass and all kinds of debris. It was like a spaceship had crash-landed in the middle of the highway. Some of the brush at the roadside had caught fire and in places it was still smouldering. Also, the guardrail on the corner was broken and twisted. I've never seen so many cops and reporters and cameras in one place. I bet the West Van police wanted to kill themselves when they saw what they'd missed out on. The only thing they like more than shooting kids is getting tons of publicity. Bates will fit in perfectly with them. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those jokers drove up there after the fact. You know – just so they could claim that they'd been in on it. Of course, by the time everybody got their shit together and realised something completely insane had happened, it was already over, finished, done. Chris was dead. The end.