Going Down Swinging (16 page)

“Oops. Scuse me,” she said, and stopped to look at a shelf near the front of the bus.

Gabrielle watched after her and whispered, “That girl’s mean, I saw her fighting with a grade 3er before. A boy. She’s in grade 5, you know.”

“Well, I’m telling if she does it again,” I told her, and Gabrielle chewed the inside of her cheeks. “I forgot what I was gonna say.” The grade 5 girl passed and elbowed me again, and pushed me into the shelf this time. I said, “Hey, quit it,” at her back and she stopped beside her friend, who was littler with freckles and red hair. The friend giggled. The bigger one made fun of my “quit it.”

“That’s it. I’m telling.” I ran and told the librarian that two kids were pushing me. Her mouth went up like I just returned a book. I waited.

“Well, just try to ignore them and they’ll go away,” and she nodded at me.

I went back to Gabrielle. I was kind of scared of kids I didn’t know, kind of like how some people are about dogs. I didn’t know what they’d do. I thought they’d do anything. The grade 5 girl was coming back, I could feel her moving down the bus. This time she kicked her foot into the back of my knee so my leg folded and I fell on the floor. Gabrielle made a choky noise. There were giggles behind me. Gabrielle mumbled, “We should go,” through her hand as if her teeth might fall out.

I yelled at the grade 5 girl, “Leave me alone or I’m telling.” I wished I could sound more tough.

“Leeme alone or I’m telling,”
she imitated me all squeaky.

I looked down the bus, my face was burning and I wished I had powers like the girl in this movie, where she blasts the place on fire with her mind. When I got my voice back, it was the same one they used to imitate me. “That’s it, I’m telling my mum and you’re in trouble.” I left Gabrielle there and tripped down the steps, grabbing the door to catch myself.

By the time I got to our door I was shaking and out of breath. It was locked and I ripped the key string out of my shirt and shook so much I couldn’t get the key in. Charlie was still laughing inside. “I think my poor retarded sister is having trouble with the door,” she called, and slapped her bare feet toward me. She flung open the door. “Hey bookworm, find anything dirty?” I cried at the sight of her. “Hey, hey! What happened? What’s going on?” She hugged my head and led me to the living room. I looked at Mum and her eyes and her mouth went hard. “What happened?” they said together.

I told them I hated it here, hated The Projects and the kids and the whole place, then about what happened on the bus. My sister pulled me into her side. I looked down at her hands around my ribs, the carved leather bands on her wrists. She had changed into shorts and the feel of her bare legs against my hands made me cry harder. Mum stood up and paced around the floor, said, “That’s it! … goddamn neighbourhood,” and went into the kitchen. She came back with the top half of the broom handle that’d broken off the day before. “Come on, let’s go.”

My sister and I looked up. “What?”

“Let’s go! We’ll just see about this.”

Charlie squeezed and let go. “Yeah, come on, Grace-face, we should go have a talk with these brats.”

Mum put her shoes on and stood waiting with the broom handle. I looked at my sister’s leg. The shorts showed off another tattoo: a green lizard, the same size as the peach, on her thigh. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I followed after them and felt slippy green tails between my ribs. The three of us walked in a row across the sidewalk, me running now and then to keep up. Mum looked like a killer.

When we got to the bookmobile, we all stood at the bottom of the steps. Mum’s voice got a tough cocky sound like the girl on the bus but meaner, and she slapped the broom handle against her palm. “OK, Grace, just point her out when you see her.”

The sun was going down and orange light hit low on the stucco buildings around us.

“Maybe they already went. They prob’ly already left.” I’d wanted this so bad and now I couldn’t stand it—not knowing what they’d do, Mum with her stick and Charlie with her lizard. They could do anything.

“I doubt it,” Charlie said. She stood on one leg, sticking her hip out. How could I not see a green lizard in three weeks of sleeping in the same bed together?

The last kids were coming off the bus. Mum checked my face every time. “Maybe we should go.” I said it quiet so they wouldn’t know if they heard it or thought it.

Mum heard me, though, and said, “Uh-uh. I’ve had enough of this crap. Nobody touches my kid. Right, Charlie?” My sister grinned at her with rosy cheeks.

After a few minutes, I figured the reason we were there was already gone. I was getting unscared and it was starting to be a letdown. I looked at my feet and down came our reason. I almost lost my voice again when I said, “That’s her.”

The friend-girl’s face went frozen. The shover-girl’s foot hardly touched the ground when my mum caught her by the arm. Mum shook her. “Yeah, you better look scared, you mangy little brat—were you bothering her? Huh? Were you bothering my daughter?” Shover-girl swallowed and stared at Mum’s throat. Charlie stepped in closer and folded her arms. She bounced her eyebrows at the girl as if she didn’t really want to kill her but what else could she do? I looked at the green lizard; its tail rolled when my sister moved her weight to that leg. Shover-girl’s eyes flicked on the lizard. Mum jerked the girl’s shoulder up closer to her ear. “Hey, smartass, look at me.” She raised her broomstick. “If I ever
… ever
… hear that you laid another hand on my kid—
ever—”
she shook her hard on the last
ever
—“again, they’ll find you black and blue in a ditch somewhere.” The air went out of me. A tremble went down the girl’s cheek and neck. She smirked. My sister tilted her head and tucked her chin, smiling snake-eyed at her. “Understand me?” Mum said. Shover-girl’s mouth pressed together and she nodded. Mum shook her again. “What?!” The girl said a small yes and my mother spat air off her teeth then let her go with a little shove. The friend-girl tugged Shover-girl’s sleeve and they walked away fast.

Mum bit her top lip, like she was holding a laugh, and nodded. Charlie said, “Christ, I thought she was gonna pee herself,” and the three of us snickered our heads off. We stayed beside the bookmobile a few more seconds and I looked around to see who saw. The green doors closed and the engine grumbled awake.

Eilleen Five
JUNE 1974

Y
OU’RE PUTTING
your face on, getting ready to go out with a guy you met at an
AA
coffee house downtown. Lining your lids; make it perfect … shit—damn hands always shaking. Should take a Librium to calm your nerves. There. That’s pretty good. Not bad for an old broad, for a
grandmother. Granny
. Hate even saying it—grandma, nanna. Christ. Old. Old-old-old. And you rub lipstick into the apples of your cheeks—barely forty-two. Just feels like more people to hide—been telling people, well, men, that you only have one daughter, one eight-year-old or, well, you don’t exactly say she’s all you have, but she’s all you mention—at any rate, now you’ve got a grandkid born in the same decade. How are you supposed to pull off being thirty-five after you’ve divulged that. Seems like your entire existence is secret sometimes. Grace was irked before the baby was born, but she’s handling it better than you are, now that she’s an aunt—some perceived power out of the whole mess. Except she’s mad at Charlie, mostly for leaving her again.

Charlies boyfriend tracked her down through friends. He conned her, asking if he could come talk and she didn’t have the guts to tell you until ten minutes before he was due. Suddenly there was his voice crackling up the intercom. Charlie buzzed him in. Grace got twitchy. And you stood up, folded your arms, fisted your hands, put them on your hips, folded your arms again, threw your chin out—you could take care of some pool hall punk. Could hear his feet scuffing up the carpeted stairs and you secured the phones location in your brain. Charlie waddled to the door, pregnant out to here, and Grace followed. She hardly had the door open when the son of a bitch slammed it wide and kicked her in the stomach.
There, you fuckin whore, fuck you!
Grace screamed and Charlie fell on the floor. Ian backed down the hallway. You raced to the door.
I’m calling the police, I mean it, I’m calling them now
. And off he went downstairs, piggy blue eyes squinting, barking over his shoulder with those colourless lips like liver that’d washed up on the beach,
bitch
this and
cunt
that. Neighbours were opening their doors up and down the hallway while you locked yours. Charlie curled on the floor crying while Grace stuffed her head in between her sister’s chest and belly, rubbing and saying her name over and over. Jesus-jesus-jesus. The more things change the more they stay the same.

You went to the living room and looked down on Main Street to make sure he was gone and there he was on the front lawn staring up at the window screaming for Charlie. He wasn’t leaving until he talked to her. You brought the phone over to the window to show him—See this and I’m not afraid to use it. He just kept yelling and you kept yelling back,
I’m calling the police, I’m calling them right now
. And Charlie and Grace made their way to the couch behind you and you glared down at Ian and picked up the receiver. Charlie told you to put the phone down, she was going to talk to him. And you popped your eyes.
Are you out of your cotton-pickin mind?
and she said just to wait, just let her talk to him. Grace pleaded with her, but she left and the next thing you knew the two of them were out there arguing on the lawn. He took a swing at her and missed and you called the cops anyway. After a few minutes Ian swiped the air as if Charlie’s words were gadflies and stormed off before the police showed up. Charlie was back inside crying when they asked if she wanted to press charges, one of them looking at her all moony like some kind of fish-eyed lover, telling her his name twice in case anything should happen and she needed to be in touch. The other was a sullen by-the-book-er; he knew full well she wouldn’t press charges and not only that, she’d likely go back to the son of a bitch.

Four days later, Charlie disappeared for two. Another fight. You and her. Another screaming, name-calling, neighbours-opening-their-doors to the tune of
you slut, you tramp, you whore
. Funny how your insults for each other are so similar. Identical. Could be arguing about anything: the way you dress, the way you raised them; the outcome is the same.

Charlie showed up two days later with a ring on her finger. She was glassy-eyed and sugar-tongued and told you that Ian was sorry and he really did mean well—he wanted to marry her and take care of the baby whether it was his or not. Grace wouldn’t speak to her. Charlie moved out with Ian a couple days later and now they’re living in some basement apartment. Turned out it wasn’t his—baby was brown. Suntan brown and stone black eyes. You give it six months. Not even. Wouldn’t surprise you if she called in a couple weeks to say that she and the baby were buggering off before he killed them both. Can’t think about it—she’s going to do what she’s going to do.

Face on. Now hair. It’s up in rollers now. Never mind hair. Figure out what you’re going to wear. Your long dresses are too dressy, don’t really have a casual long dress. A long casual dress would’ve worked, like Mary Tyler Moore wears now—dinner and a movie. Should wear a skirt, though, show a little something—who was it that said you had well-turned ankles? funny expression. Or maybe slacks and a turtleneck, nice earrings, casual but sharp. Christ, he probably won’t even notice. He runs an
AA
club on Pender Street; all he sees are drunks and ex-drunks, not known for their elegant sense of style. Then again men don’t have to be; so long as they’re not wearing a toe tag they’re fair game.

George.

His name’s George. Originally from Prince Edward Island. He’s a fisherman and he looks the part; kind of portly. Sideburns, not too long. Heavy wool tartan coat, a black cap. They all love him downtown. He chairs the
meetin’s
there and keeps the men swimming in coffee and the women in compliments. You’ve been going there a couple months now but he still calls you the new kid. Rumour’s going around that George has a crush on the new kid. He thought it was pretty interesting that you were a teacher, said he used to teach, himself, years ago. You found that a little hard to believe, his grammar was so atrocious, but he says it was a one-room schoolhouse in the interior and he mainly taught math. S’pose one doesn’t have to know when to use
whom
to teach times tables and long division. You told him how much you wanted to go back to teaching, how you’d started volunteering with the young ones at the elementary school across the road and everything fell apart when the teachers’ strike started; people hollering insults at you when you crossed the picket line, waving their placards, calling you scab—and you were a volunteer, weren’t even getting paid. What a hideous thing to call someone,
scab
. Scabious. Scabies. Couldn’t take it, felt too personal, made you feel ugly and crusty and contagious. Guess it was supposed to. And it wasn’t going to be an
in
with the Vancouver School Board anyway, so you threw in the towel. Volunteer work—
At least I don’t give it away
.

Time check: seven-fifteen. You got fifteen minutes, kiddo. New kid-do. Till Prince George arrives. Slacks or skirt, skirt or slacks? Wish Grace were here, she’s full of opinions, but she’s downstairs with Josh. Maybe you could go grab her for a second. No, that’s stupid, his mother’ll think you’re a nitwit. At least she’s got another new friend, been hanging around with the boy downstairs. He’s a year older than she is and he’s sweet and well-spoken. She spends too much time with Sadie and Eddy and they’re monsters, they wreak havoc on her self-esteem, calling her accident-prone and a lost cause and anything else that comes into their mean little lunkheads. Gabrielle was a nice change, but she’s always got some family thing going on. That boy downstairs has hamsters named Rhoda and Carly—he’s got crushes on Valerie Harper and Carly Simon, of all people. He sits with Grace, paper mâché-ing and making crazy gremlins out of clay instead of throwing rocks at people’s windows and playing nicky-nicky nine doors. Unlike that wretched whining Eddy, who’s grounded now (that’ll last about two hot seconds) and owes Ray and Alice fifty bucks (allowance for the next ten years that they’ll still give him anyway) for the window he smashed across the road. Josh, on the other hand—well, he doesn’t say
ain’t
And he sings “You’ve Got a Friend.” And he doesn’t call every kid he sees a freak-in-nature—don’t think goofy Sadie and Eddy even know what they’re saying, running around screaming
Outa my way, you friggin nature, y’ homo
. Now Grace has all their little gutter remarks as part of her own repertoire. And you know she has no clue what the hell she’s talking about when she calls Charlie’s boyfriend a stupid lez.