Fireball (4 page)

Julian had a few issues, I guess.

‘Looks like we got a couple of high rollers, here.'

Me and Chris were on our way out of the Avalon – this raunchy bar right on the border of North and West Van – when some treat said that to us.

‘Don't worry about it, man,' Chris told him. ‘It's casual.'

‘What's casual?'

‘Your turtleneck. It's totally fucking casual.'

When I said Chris never started fights, what I meant was that he hardly ever started fights. He might have started a fight if, say, somebody made the mistake of lipping him off. Especially if the guy was wearing a turtleneck that threatened to swallow his head.

‘Oh, a tough guy, huh?'

We'd already walked ten yards past him. Chris stopped and turned around.

‘Yeah, I'm a fucking tough guy, buddy.'

He went back to meet him. The guy had a fake tan and dark, well-oiled hair that matched his stupid shirt. Chris grabbed him by his turtleneck and shouted in his face.

‘You want to go? Huh? You and your fucking turtleneck?'

The guy started shoving him back, but he had three friends with him who stepped in. They held the turtleneck while I grabbed Chris. One of them was a monster. He had huge pipes and those weird shoulder muscles you only see on roid monkeys. He stood between Chris and the turtleneck and spread out his palms, playing up his role as this big pacifier.

‘Take it easy, pal, or I'll have to pop you one.'

He thought he had the right to say that, since he outweighed Chris by at least fifty pounds. In his mind, it wasn't even a contest. That's because he didn't know Chris. I had an arm over his shoulder, but he was tearing at it like a horse against a harness.

‘Take it easy? Fuck you, man. Fuck you. Your buddy's wearing a fucking turtleneck and I'm going to fucking kill you.'

It was such a bizarre thing to say that they didn't know what to do. The four of them started blinking at the same time, like a herd of deer about to get ploughed by a truck. I think they'd realised he was ready to take them all on together. He would have, too, if I hadn't been there to hold him back. He was still ranting as the guys got into their car.

‘I bet that's the last time you wear a fucking turtleneck, buddy!'

There wasn't much they could say to that – for obvious reasons.

After the crash, the press interviewed all these people – all these nobodies – and every single one seemed to have some idiotic story to tell about Chris getting in a fight. Half of them weren't even true, but that didn't matter. They printed them anyways and tried to convince everybody that he was super volatile. That's the word they used: volatile. Fuck that. I mean, sure, he had a bit of an issue with turtlenecks, but that's not the same as being volatile. It was just another one of their stupid assumptions. Like they assumed his temper had to do with what happened to his dad. Maybe it did, too. But none of them understood how much the whole thing with Mrs Reever had messed him up. She was the old lady we saved. I would have explained all that to the press, if anybody had bothered to listen. They didn't, though.

They never listened.

‘I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry.'

We were on the bus, heading home from the Avalon that night. Usually we made Julian drive us around, but I think he was at tennis practice, or maybe a family dinner. I can't really remember. Either way, we had to take the bus. For most of the ride, Chris sat hunched forward, staring at the floor, with his hair hanging in his eyes. He had brown hair – sort of sandy – that he didn't really bother to comb or cut properly.

‘It was nothing,' I told him. I meant it, too. I was used to his fights. What I wasn't used to was him getting all distraught like this. ‘Those guys were clowns, anyway.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said again, as if he hadn't even heard me. Chris hardly ever apologised for anything. ‘I just can't stop thinking about it. It's fucked.'

‘I know.'

‘I see her face, sometimes.'

I waited.

‘I dream about it, too.'

‘What kind of dreams?'

‘Weird dreams.' He looked up, finally. ‘It trips me out, you know?'

I knew. He'd always been kind of angry and shit, but after she died it kept getting worse. It was like there was an elastic band inside him, winding itself tighter and tighter and tighter.

8

They went on and on about his home life. Since he beat up a cop they just assumed his house was filled with gas-huffing junkies. That's not the truth at all. Nobody huffed gas in Chris's house. There was a shitload of drinking, and some funny business that one time, but no gas huffing. And no abuse, either. His dad never laid a hand on him. Neither did his mom. That didn't stop the reporters, though. They ran lame little headlines like:
Violent Teen's Troubled Background
. They used that term all the time. Troubled. Don't ask me why. As far as I can tell, ‘troubled' is just another one of those words – those meaningless words – that people throw around to explain things they don't understand. It's like ‘volatile'. Chris was volatile and his home life was troubled. So what? He didn't care about that shit so I don't see why anybody else should, either.

‘Give me another,' Chris said.

‘That's it. We're bone-dry.'

‘Dry as a couple of boners, huh?'

‘Drier than Sonny Bono.'

We'd polished off an eight-pack of Wildcat, just the two of us. It was a Friday night, I think. Or maybe a Saturday. I don't really know. This was a few years ago, back when we'd first started drinking. We were in the Cove – the row of tourist shops and food joints by the marina. During the day, it can get pretty annoying down there. People come from all over the place to eat ice cream and go kayaking and act like complete idiots. There's always tons of super ignorant American tourists, too. You know – like entire families that think Canada is just another state. But at night all the idiots go home. That's when it became ours again. The only thing that stays open late is the pizza place. The guys who work there are pretty awesome, actually. They don't mind if you hang around, so long as you buy a piece of pizza. Sometimes you don't even have to buy it – you can just trade them a joint or a pinch of weed and they'll hook you up with any slice you want.

But basically, we were in the Cove. Also, we were out of beer.

‘Shit,' Chris said. ‘I guess we'll have to hit up my house.'

That was the only reason we ever went over to his place: to steal liquor. His mom had stockpiles of booze, crammed in cupboards and cabinets and closets and drawers. Mostly she drank vodka or wine, but she had tons of other stuff, too – whiskey, beer, rum, whatever. Their condo was like a giant liquor store without a cash register or security guard. We stole from her constantly – not that she ever noticed. She had so much booze lying around that she could barely keep track of what she drank, let alone what we drank.

When we got there, Chris asked, ‘What do you want?'

‘I don't know. White wine?'

‘White wine tastes like piss, man.'

‘I like the taste of piss.'

‘You little piss-pot.'

After he said that, we couldn't stop giggling. Stealing liquor usually made us a bit giddy. We'd done it so much we were practically professionals. Our plan was always the same. I'd run interference on his mom while Chris grabbed what we wanted.

‘Forget the piss,' he said. ‘I'll get the good stuff.'

‘Yeah. The good stuff sounds good.'

He opened the door. ‘Ready?'

‘Ready.'

Chris lived in this housing complex just off the Parkway. There were three floors, but each floor only had one or two tiny rooms. The basement, where you came in, was used for storage. A lot of his dad's things were still down there: old leg traps, a lobster cage, fishing nets, pieces of driftwood. His mom never cleared them out. Come to think of it, she didn't go down there much. Mostly she stayed on the second floor, in the kitchen. That was where we went to find her: sitting and sipping and smoking at their dinner table.

‘Hey Mom.'

‘Why, hello there.'

At one time, his mom had been hot. You could tell by the way she held herself. She sort of sprawled in her chair, slinky and sultry as a cat. A very drunk cat. One strap of her dress had fallen off her shoulder. She didn't bother to push it back up or anything, either.

‘How are my favourite boys?'

‘We're good, Mom,' Chris said. ‘We just came in to warm up for a minute.'

‘Is it cold out?'

‘Pretty cold, I guess.' Chris yawned. ‘Anyways, I got to take a leak.'

That was my cue. He left and I stayed with her in the kitchen. I walked across to the sink, then rested my elbows on the counter and leaned back. Totally casual. I was still pretty plastered from the Wildcat, which made me act all cocky. She watched me, smiling in this shrewd sort of way. When she smiled, she still looked half-decent. I guess that was because she had nice teeth – just like Chris. The booze had ruined her face but not her teeth.

‘So what are you boys up to this evening?' she asked.

‘Not much. Just hanging out.'

‘Sounds like trouble.'

I laughed, a little too loudly. I thought I could hear Chris opening the hall closet.

‘What about you?' I asked. ‘What are you doing tonight?'

She held up her glass. ‘Trying to relax.'

Tipping her head back, she downed the rest in one gulp. Afterwards she got up and oozed over to the fridge next to me, then yanked open the freezer door. That's where she kept her Smirnoff. As she poured herself a refill, a bit of vodka spilled onto the counter.

She asked, ‘What about girls? Any girls on the agenda for tonight?'

‘Uh, no. Not really.'

‘I don't know what I'm going to do with you two. Don't you like girls?'

‘Sure.' I edged away, because her face was hovering too close to mine. ‘Now that you mention it, we'll probably be seeing some girls later on. I think so, anyways.'

‘You can't avoid them forever. You've got to learn sometime.'

I laughed again. ‘Oh yeah?'

That was when it happened. She took my hand and held it against her tit – her left tit – then sort of made me squeeze. I stood there, frozen, with my hand on her tit and this stupid smile on my face, like one of those psychotic dummies that ventriloquists use.

‘I could teach you a thing or two,' she said.

I jerked my hand away as if I'd burned it. Then I sort of stammered and babbled and tried to laugh it off. I think I said something like, ‘Come on, now. That's enough of that.'

‘Relax, honey.' She patted my cheek, acting all motherly. ‘I was only joking.'

Maybe she was. How should I know? I just knew I didn't want her to make me feel her left tit again. A second later Chris came back, grinning. He gave me the thumbs up.

‘We better get going, man.'

‘You boys be good, now.'

He left. I rushed after him like the kitchen was on fire. Once we were outside I asked, ‘Did you get any?'

‘Yeah. I got some Wiser's.'

‘Give it here.'

I took the bottle and slammed it back. I couldn't shake the feeling of her tit beneath my hand. I was freaked out, but also a little turned on. I mean, his mom wasn't totally butt or anything. But she was still his mom, and that made me feel kind of ill – like when you're looking at porn on the internet and accidentally stumble across one of those messed up websites. You know – the kind that show people doing weird shit to each other.

‘What's up, man?' Chris asked.

I couldn't lie to him. I never lied to him.

‘Your mom made me touch her tit.'

We sort of looked at each other.

‘Which one?'

‘The left one. She said she was only joking, though.'

‘Oh.' He took the bottle and drank. ‘Don't mind her. She's just a drunk bitch.'

‘Sure man. It's casual.'

Neither of us knew how to react. I almost felt like apologising, even though I knew it didn't make any sense. But then, me touching his mom's tit didn't make much sense, either.

Anyways, we didn't see his mom very often.

We didn't see his dad very often, either.

He lived way out on the far coast of Vancouver Island. He didn't have a house or apartment or anything like that. He didn't even have a phone line. He just lived on this old fishing boat that he'd fixed up, and made money by selling salmon and crabs and geoduck to the local restaurants in Tofino. I don't know if he had a licence, but he got by all right. That's what Chris told me, anyways. His mom didn't think so. She used to say, ‘He lives like a wild animal over there.' She said it in a snide way, but he actually reminded me of an animal. He was big and shaggy as a bear and had these crushing paws for hands. A couple of times a year Chris took the ferry over to the Island and went fishing with him. Sometimes I got to tag along. At night we'd sleep below deck in the bunks, and each morning we'd chug out past the surf, with his dad at the wheel and me and Chris watching the rods in the stern.