Mean Boy (21 page)

“Claude’s been all over,” Todd reminds me. “He’s been to Paris, like Jim. He saw the Black Mountain poets read in New York City. He knows about all the different movements.”

Movements
. It reminds me of the way Gramma Campbell used to discuss her bowels after every meal. I don’t want there to be
movements
when it comes to poetry. It’s hard enough trying to figure out Hucksterism versus the Real Thing, just trying to write a line that’s any good.

“Since when are you interested in the kind of stuff Claude does, anyway?”

Todd shrugs some more. “We both experiment with form.” At some point in the past few months, it would seem
Todd has traded in his pissed-off energy for an obnoxious faux-apathy.

Please! I want to spit at Todd. Your poems all rhymed because you never read one that didn’t before you got here. But we’re interrupted by a groaning noise from somewhere beneath us. It’s the staircase, suffering under some massive weight, followed by the heavy thunk of footsteps. I clench guiltily, thinking it must be Schofield, until I see Chuck Slaughter’s bristled, bullet-like head appear, accompanied by the dual hams of his shoulders. I’m not exactly relieved.

“There you two fuckwits are,” Slaughter greets, pretending to punch Smiley in the gut. When Todd instinctively caves in at the gesture, Slaughter takes the opportunity to seize him around the neck in a headlock.

“How do you like that?” he inquires of Todd, who flails. “Not much with the reflexes, are we, Smiley?”

“How you doing, Chuck?” I say, backing up a little.

He releases Todd and shoves him lightly away. “I’m going to nail that Mitten one,” Slaughter imparts. “I’m going to pound the mittens right off her.”

He looks glazedly cheerful at this admission. I am terrified for Sherrie.

“Oh yeah?” croaks Todd, holding his neck.

“Just coming up here to make my intentions known to Campbell.”

“To me?” I repeat.

“Well, I seen you two hanging out sometimes.”

“Not really,” I say, jackrabbit fast. “We talk about—books, poetry. You know … Susanna Moodie.”

Slaughter nods, “You’re after one of her friends?”

Todd snorts.

“No,” I say stupidly. “Susanna … Moodie.” Stop talking, stop talking. Because I can feel myself gearing up to explain to Chuck how Susanna Moodie is a Canadian literary figure,
but
The Journals of Susanna Moodie
isn’t actually the journals of Susanna Moodie but is a book of poetry written by one of the Margarets
purporting
to be … I will be drop-kicked down the stairs before I can utter the second
Susanna
.

Fortunately, Slaughter cuts to the chase. “So you don’t wanna do her?”

I recognize the question to be a snare. If I say I don’t want Sherrie, I’m a fruit. If I say I do, I’m potentially a blotch on Ruth Dekker’s upstairs rug. I have to think fast. I don’t think fast enough.

“You know,” I say, trying for casual, slouching hard against Todd’s wall, “it’s never even occurred to me, really.”

Chuck opens his mouth and Todd cocks his head, both sets of hands settling on both sets of hips. They are big and little versions of each other.

Slaughter drawls, “It’s never even
occurred
to you?”

“Of course it’s occurred to me,” I correct. “I just—she’s not my type.”

“Oh yeah? Blonde, and a fox? So what would be your type, Campbell?”

I give up talking and thrust both hands in the air. Slaughter is smiling, non-violently, and I am surprised to realize he knows exactly what he’s been putting me through.

“Be my guest, that’s all I’m saying,” I tell him. In the next instant, I’m seized, immobilized, and hoisted into the air. Slaughter suspends me above his head like a barbell, holding me against the ceiling, pinned and fluttering like a moth. But before the terror and vertigo can register, he swings me back onto my feet, pulling me into a pig-iron embrace.

“Ooh, I just love you, Campbell,” Slaughter murmurs into my hair. “You’re just the
duckiest.”
And then I’m shoved into Todd, who shoves me away.

“Christ,” I say, pulling my sweater down.

“Hawg, hawg, hawg,”
guffaws Chuck. “Oh, my good men, my fuckwitted friends, I am so high right now.”

Todd and I gape. Me because the blood hasn’t rushed from my head yet, and Todd because he’s from Sheet Harbour and thinks only hippies and Satanists get high.

“The first dose kicked in right in the middle of that old lady’s diatribe. All of a sudden her voice just sounded fucking insane to me. She sounded like a spring peeper. I don’t even know what that is, but her voice, it sounded like
peep peep peep
to me and I thought, she sounds like a spring peeper. But
mean
. And then I thought, she’s a big, mean spring peeper. And then I got this picture of a bird like fucking Big Bird or something but
mean
, right, like an evil Big Bird. And then I just fucking lost it.”

I’m smiling through my confusion and rapid heart rate. This is the most I’ve heard Slaughter say since the night of Rory’s flag.

Todd laughs a little mechanically. “What are you on, man?”

“Mushrooms,” Chuck replies. “We’re standing in the mushroom capital of the world, here, you fuckwits didn’t know that?”

“Wow,” says Todd, sounding impressed, trying to be cool. Todd, of course, has never taken a mind-altering substance in his life. Drugs are for Beatnik poets, whom he deplores for their depravity and self-mythologizing—for their popularity, basically.

“Here,” says Slaughter, digging around in his pockets. “Eat some.”

“Oh,” says Todd, doing some fast thinking of his own. “No thanks, man. Not tonight.”

“Why not?” I goad. “Tonight’s as good a night as any.”

“Listen to Campbell,” advises Chuck. “He’s not as big a pussy as he comes across.” Slaughter seizes my hand, turns it
over, and sprinkles what looks like a few shrivelled bird turds into my palm.

I am a poet experimenting with drugs!
I think, bounding down the stairs.
Blake! Rimbaud! Ginsberg! Derangement of the senses!

We decide to head over to the Mariner. It’s that kind of night. I picture us all traipsing down to the Mariner together, maybe stopping at Scarsdale Holdings to yank down another flag—we already have three stashed in Slaughter’s dorm—and the bunch of us getting mystically, majestically fucked up like merry pranksters on electric Kool-Aid, far into the morning hours.

But as we arrive downstairs I see Schofield on the landing shaking hands with Ruth and Dekker. This is not how it’s supposed to go.

“You’re going?” I interrupt.

He turns to me. Fatigue seems to emanate from the man like heat, or a smell. “Larry,” he says. “I wanted to thank you again for everything.”

“But we’re all heading downtown for a beer,” I protest. “You’ve got to come.”

“There, now!” says Jim, appearing from the living room. “I told him it was too early!”

“It
is
too early,” I complain, and Jim flings an arm around me.

“Listen to this lad,” he tells Schofield, pulling me close, heat radiating into my shoulder from his armpit. “Wise beyond his years. We’re all expecting great things from Larry—aren’t we, Bryant.”

I had forgotten about Dekker and Ruth standing there waiting to conclude their evening. Dekker is smiling like a genial host, but Ruth is sucking in her cheeks in an intentional sort of way, as if to make her expression unreadable.

“You should come too, Professor Dekker.”

Dekker grins and glances at his wife. “Ah, Lawrence, it’s a bit late for us old guys, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, listen to him!” yelps Jim. “You’ll give us all a bad name, Bryant.”

Dekker shakes his head. “We’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

Since I’m not quite as interested in prolonging my evening with Dekker as I am with Schofield, I lean over to continue working on the latter.

“How are you going to get back to the inn?” I ask over the noise of Dekker’s excuses. “Come out for one beer and I can walk you back.”

“I have a cab coming, Larry, but thank you.”

“A cab! That’s crazy, it’s only a five-minute walk!” I declare. “We’ll just duck into the Mariner for a quick beer and duck back out again and you’ll be home.”

Hearing myself wheedle, I realize that this is a technique I’ve learned from Jim. To just keep denying what the other person says until you get the answer you want. Make your alternative sound like the most natural one, whereas the other person’s alternative should be depicted as mild lunacy.

But Schofield is smiling and shaking his head.

“I’m exhausted, Larry.” His face changes as something occurs to him. “By the way—is it Larry or Lawrence?”

“Um,” I say, not sure what I want it to be for Schofield. “Larry’s fine.”

“Larry. I thought I heard people calling you Lawrence earlier.”

“They do, sometimes,” I say, moronic.

“Well, then,” says Schofield, reverting his features back into the pained, apologetic smile of a second ago. “As I was saying, Larry. It was good to meet you, and I’d love it if you’d
write to me sometime—send me some poems. I edit the student journal at Ralston and we’re always looking for new work. And now, I’m sorry, but it’s been an exhausting day.”

Although thrilling, I don’t let the invitation to send him my poems throw me off course, as it was clearly intended to do. “Beer’ll perk you right up!” I insist, having heard Jim use this line to great effect on countless occasions.

I’m feeling confident and aggressive with Schofield, which is certainly not my usual demeanour, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe this is the effect of the mushrooms kicking in. Will I start
hawg-hawg-ing
soon? Before I’m able to squelch Schofield’s resolve?

There’s a honk outside, startling me, as it’s like a more nasal version of Slaughter’s
hawg
—and not much louder. No doubt it’s Friendly ready to grin and clack his dentures at Schofield, ferrying him through the snowdrifts across town to the Crowfeather. Dermot reaches to accept his parka from Ruth, who’s just stood there with it for the last five minutes as Jim and I, entwined as we are, applied the pressure to Schofield and her hubby. Now, handing over the coat, she’s glancing at Dekker and replying to a question it would seem he just asked. She’s saying, “It doesn’t matter, Bryant.”

“Are you sure?” says Dekker. “I won’t be more than an hour.”

“It doesn’t matter,” repeats Ruth.

“It doesn’t matter!” says Jim, trying to reform the words so that they sound a touch more lighthearted than they did coming out of Ruth. Shit! Jim should have been working on Schofield and me on Dekker this entire time—Jim is the expert, I the apprentice. Schofield is leaning into the living room, now, waving and saying his goodbyes to everyone, and I duck out from underneath Jim’s armpit to follow.

“Dermot,” I call as Schofield moves to the door. I realize my hand is extended only when Schofield grabs it.

“Thank you again, Larry,” he says. I can feel the warmth and dampness of his big mitt seeping into my skin. He’s going, I realize. There’s no calling him back. The fact of it is as solid and certain as his hand in mine.

“I didn’t even get to tell you how much I enjoyed your reading,” I say. “And all the stuff you said.”

Schofield nods rapidly in that way that tells me he doesn’t really want to hear it. He’s probably endured all the hedging, uneasy compliments he can stand.

“No
really
,“ I emphasize, trying to gain traction on the slippery, too-large mass in my grip. I feel like I can’t let him go until I’ve gotten something across. “You inspired me,” I add, suffering the insufficiency of the words the moment they’re out.

“Thank you Lar—” He’s looking away from me.

“No,”
I insist, yelling a little in my frustration. “I can’t explain it. I want to explain it but I can’t.”

Schofield meets my eye and moves a little closer. He puts his other hand on top of mine and leans forward. “Larry,” he says above the din of other guests now saying their goodbyes and rummaging around at our feet for their boots. “It’s impossible. It will
always
be impossible.”

He gives my hand a squeeze before pulling away. Friendly honks again from the street and I feel a blast of cold air. Schofield hollers a couple more quick goodbyes before seeming to slip through the merest crack in the door.

Somehow he made the words sound reassuring.

“
THAT ASSHOLE
,” Jim keeps repeating as he blazes a trail ahead of us through the drifts. “That lousy prick.”

The snow has let up, leaving these vast, wind-formed dunes for us to manoeuvre our way through. But the flakes
are dry and powdery, like dandruff. The dunes collapse the moment Jim sets foot in them.

“He was very tired,” I assure him for the eighth time. Jim thinks Dermot Schofield went out of his way not to say goodbye to him. A deliberate snub. “He was so tired he couldn’t see straight, Jim.”

“Didn’t even say
goodbye
to me,” marvels Jim for the ninth time.

“Jim,” says Dekker, closing in on his tenth time. “He did. I heard him. It just got lost in the hubbub. Everybody was hollering goodbye to everybody else.”

“That
prick
,“ repeats Jim, staring into an approaching dune. It’s annihilated under his boots as we continue on.

“He said goodbye,” insists Dekker.

“Everyone said goodbye,” complains Jim. “It’s easy to just fucking wave around the room and say goodbye. I thought we were friends. We sat in a corner talking Pound and Li Po all night. I go to all the trouble to bring him out here …” Jim puffs out a harsh sigh of disbelief and betrayal. Then shakes himself, tightening. “Well, to hell with him,” he says with finality. “I mean, I’ve had it with this guy.”

“Yeah, to hell with him!” calls Slaughter from a couple of paces behind us. “Let it go, man.”

Jim shakes his head, the air of desolation settling around him again. “It’s just one thing after another,” he says in a tone that alarms me. It’s a tone I’ve heard only once before. Over the phone. Cushions. Kleenex. “I don’t know why I put up with it. I just keep going back for more.”