From the Chrysalis (34 page)

“But we’d have to leave before Thanksgiving. In early October, when the monarchs fly. Or earlier. The end of August would be best or I’ll miss first term in a new place. That gives us three months at most,” she blabbed on, excitement building.

“Whoa, now. Not so fast. I still have a couple of things to do here.”

“Like what?” She frowned, waiting, but he just smiled. Her temper flared. “You don’t want to tell me, do you? You think it’s none of my business.”

“Well, little darling, it’s not,” he said softly. “But I can tell you the stuff I’ve got to do won’t take long.”

Oh, no, she thought, her stomach turning over. Reason, she cautioned herself, she had to reason. “Is Rick Lowery involved too? And what about Steve? You told me he was only seventeen.”

Dace jerked back his hand. “Christ, Liza. No, they aren’t. They’re both still in prison. Actually, I’m a little worried about Steve. Both him and Rick should be out by now. I don’t know why they’re not. There’s no telling what those lying cock—Sorry, what the
authorities
will do. Rick has been moved to a medium security prison, though. When he gets out he’ll probably shack up with some girl on the south side of town.”

“A girl? Who?”

“Baby, forget about him. I know it would be easier if I worked for my old man, but I can’t. I’m twenty-four years old now. It’s high time I had something of my own. Aw Jesus, Liza. Stop looking so damn serious. I’ll die before I go back Inside.”

Well, that was true. He would. But what about purpose? Belonging? Everybody knew that’s what an ex-con needed so they could live, not just survive. Especially her, with her half-Irish outsider’s heart. But how was Dace supposed to get these things when he had to visit some parole officer? He couldn’t just pick up, leave, start over. Oh God. Why had she been so greedy? If he’d served all his time, he wouldn’t even be on parole.

He might be able to do something with motorcycles, though. He’d ridden his Harley-Davidson into Maitland today; he rode it all over the place. What kind was it? Damn, she’d forgotten again. She didn’t care what he did as long as he didn’t go back to prison. Anybody could see how he loved that bike, his mastery over the machine, the heft of the leather seat between his thighs, the way the scenery blurred in his eyes when he went fast.
 

His bike was like another girl. “Your only competition, little Liza,” he joked, laughing at her narrowed eyes.

As they’d walked into the A&W, he’d seen another motorcycle and stopped in his tracks, staring. Just hearing the sound of one evoked a similar reaction. Bikes were everywhere in Maitland now that spring had come. Until now, she’d hardly noticed them. It was like they’d come home with Dace: clusters of gleaming, silver-chromed Harleys with shiny black leather seats, bringing temporary life to a long dead town.

Chapter 24

Freedom

At last the
Spectator
had a fresh story. All that spring and summer, long, detailed articles appeared in the editorial section about outlaw bikers. They said when bikes roared down Main Street, Maitlanders shook with fear. The real problem was drugs, especially crystal meth: ice, jibs, shard, speed. The drugs were instantaneous, energizing, bad for the heart, but great for weight loss and perfect for people with stuff they wanted to forget. Outlaw motorcycle gangs might have been marginalized hives of deviant activities before, even if they had designated themselves only one per centers, but much more was at stake now that they had ties to organized crime.
 

The articles were unsigned but Liza suspected her nemesis, that frustrated investigative reporter Joe. He was the first person to report the Wolfhounds moving into Maitland. He swore they were at war with the Angels, which was really scary if it were true. His article appeared on May 12, shortly after he saw Liza and her cousin together down by the lake. To her it felt like a personal attack.
 

“That’s how I feel every time I read about myself in the paper,” Dace said and shrugged.
 

They spent almost all their free time together now, although she worked weekdays at the local Y.M.C.A. camp, shepherding nine-year-old boys back and forth from the community pool. Caught between infancy and adolescence, her youthful charges knew no fear. They darted into traffic, teased stray dogs, contested each other on the slippery floors of the pungent changing room, and jumped into the deep end of the pool, though only a couple could actually swim. They frustrated her sometimes, until they flashed their adult teeth at her, large in their smooth little peach faces. Then she was lost.

They were nine years old, she reminded herself. The same age Dace had been.
 

She pushed the thought aside. The boys were still young enough to be co-operative if she asked them to be careful, but both the necessity for constant vigilance and the routine bored her to tears. After the first few weeks all she wanted to do was sleep.

Dace, on the other hand, never ran out of steam. He smiled when she yawned and acted as if he couldn’t get enough of her face. “My little pussycat,” he teased, his hands keeping her awake. And if he wondered what had happened to her need for excitement—because he couldn’t get enough—he never asked.
 

At her request, he taught her to ride a motorbike. He sat shotgun behind her, his hands covering hers on the controls, his voice urging her to open her eyes and fly. Her hands were slippery with sweat on the handlebars, and she marvelled at how his stayed cool and dry. From what she’d always been told, she had been slow to walk, slow to skate, and slow to ride a bicycle, so she wasn’t surprised when it took her a while to catch onto this new thing.
 

“I can’t,” she said, tears of frustration coming into her eyes. Her thighs shook as if she stood on the edge of a cliff.

“Yes, you can,” he insisted, kissing the back of her neck. “And you will. You already know how to lean into turns.”

“But I’m just following you,” she objected, lips quivering. “Dace, I’m scared. You know I’m not coordinated.”

“That’s what you said the first time I asked you to dance. Then after a couple of drinks … bingo!” he said, his fingers steadying her lips. “Jeez, Liza. What the hell have you been doing for the past five years? It looks like I learned more in the Joint than you did on the street. Look, darling, just ease off the clutch and give it a little gas,” he repeated, until one day she was almost riding on her own, the wind whipping her hair into his face although they were only going a couple of miles an hour, driving across a flat, forgiving field on Uncle Norm’s farm.
 

“Look at you,” he said into her ear. He hopped off, encouraged by her recent success, and now jogged beside her. He let go of her waist, but the second he eased off she lost control. Looking back, she thought she might have given the clutch a little too much gas. The bike popped a wheelie, flopped onto its side and she flew straight into the air.
My head
, she thought fleetingly, but somehow fell slowly enough that her helmet didn’t even touch the soft ground.

“Liza!” he shouted, running to her side. He looked a little pale and when she followed his gaze she noticed the rock hidden in the grass, so close to her face. “You’re a natural. You even know how to fall. Don’t worry about the bike. It’s just a little Honda and it was all scratched up anyway.”

She stayed on her side, eyes tightly closed, too furious to speak. She desperately wanted to punish him. She’d felt all right up in the air, unafraid, but here on the cold earth she started to shake. My God. They would bury them both in the ground one day.
 

He ran his hand along her slender upper arm and thigh, checking for anything amiss. She wasn’t even bruised.
 

“Right. Yes, the bike is
fine,
” she finally said, although she still hadn’t opened her eyes. “There’s only one problem,” she said, rolling over and shouting into his face. “You … you big dummy! You didn’t teach me how to stop!”
 

Dace sat back on his heels, one hand on the ground. He looked angry for a moment—they were both quick to anger—then he laughed it off. “C’mon, what did I tell you? Your right hand controls the front brake, your right foot controls the back brake. You have to use both brakes at once if you really want to stop. Christ, a monkey could do that!” he said, getting back to his feet and holding out his hand.
 

She ignored his offering, smacking his hand away instead. Lips tight, she sprang up, elbowed him out of the way and righted the bike.
 

“Liza,” he said, watching her warily. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re just not a biker chick, that’s all.”
 

Yeah, right, she seethed. She mounted the bike, checked the brakes and tried to remember what he’d just said. Then she started off by herself, going about five miles an hour, gradually picking up speed until she roared around the field and out into the lane.
 

“Go!” she heard Dace shouting. “Go!” Uncle Norm stood watching from the back door of his house, but she didn’t dare take a hand off the handlebar to wave.
I can do this,
she kept telling herself.
I’m on the edge of a precipice, but it’s all right.
He told her afterwards that she looked like she was riding a roller coaster at the C.N.E. Ecstatic and afraid all at once.

“
Marie, Marie, hold on tight
,” she recited to herself every time she got on the bike after that, with or without him. “
And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free.”
 

When she pulled to a stop beside him, Dace was waiting, ready to fold her into his arms. “Good girl,” he said proudly, and held a half full mickey up to her lips. In her excitement, she’d forgotten how furious she was at him. She drank at least an ounce and became more talkative at once. He drank the rest and they both laughed.
 

Drinking always smoothed things over. It made them both happy, though it seemed to affect him more than it did her. He drank whiskey with his father at the farm but beer almost everywhere else. The amount he consumed would have put most people to sleep, but he was a person who was energized by drink. Dace loved to party. He put away a prodigious amount of beer in the local bars before they closed at 1:00 a.m. Sometimes she did, too.
 

“Wonderful,” she’d drawl, swallowing the cool golden liquid. “You’re corrupting me, too.” She knew by the third beer she wouldn’t want to get up in the morning for work, but she always managed.
 

The white crystalline powder bothered her, though. More than once an envelope fell out of Dace’s pocket when he was looking for spare change.
Meth,
she thought, but she didn’t want to ask. Asking would have somehow made it more real. Even if he smoked meth when he was alone, it couldn’t have been that often. He never acted high or intoxicated. He stopped talking, but this wouldn’t have been very noticeable to her or to anybody else who was mesmerized by his face.
 

But drinking was different, wasn’t it? Everybody drank. His father and his friends and everybody at school. Sure, some people drank too much, but he wasn’t working yet, so she didn’t care how much he drank. Sometimes she even thought it was a good idea. There had been thirty-six murders and fourteen suicides in Maitland Penitentiary during the time he’d been Inside. Best he forget the beatings, the knifings, the violence as summer stretched ahead, an endless chain of starlit evenings, a dream. He’d told her almost everything about himself in letters and he talked just enough now, his hands running through her hair, his eyes igniting as he pulled her into a dance at one of the few Maitland clubs.
 

For a while he got stronger and healthier, his upper arms rippling in the black T-shirts he favoured. If he sometimes said, “I used to be a bodybuilder,” a little regretfully, she never understood why. His hair grew long enough to tie back with a leather thong. Her own unbraided hair shone with highlights from the summer sun and her skin turned a light golden brown. She was developing muscles in her arms and legs from running after her day camp charges all day.

Within two weeks Dace was so bored with the Maitland clubs they started sneaking off to Toronto in between his scheduled visits to his probation officer, an overworked young woman apparently bewitched by his deep-set eyes. They visited their old neighbourhood, watched a baseball game in Christie Pits and walked along Yonge Street, hiking from Bloor Street to the waterfront and back again, pursued by panhandlers and Hari Krishnas. Dace had little use for people who deviated from his dead mother’s Catholic faith, but he gave most of his spare change to other beggars and Liza loved him all the more for it. Although he had borrowed enough money from his father to buy several custom-made suits during successive visits to a tailor, the only thing he convinced Liza to buy was a pair of black leather motorcycle boots with silver threads like his.