Savage (2 page)

"She'd be about nineteen now," Holly said, blowing her long hair from her face; taking me away from Elizabeth's sunburn. Arms stretched out to the heavens, Holly balanced her bicycle with no hands. She just pivoted the frame with her hips, keeping it steady.

"Now he likes Danielle, a girl in his French Immersion class," Holly said.

"Do not."

Holly began to turn her bike in the direction of our house, then added, "You kept a note from her. You said you smelled it!" We pumped our pedals and breezed down Glenvale; the cicadas harmonized, and the sun, half-asleep now with a threat of rain somewhere beyond the house tops, made the sky wobble in and out of all-blue to tones of white and silver.

*

The three of us had spent the last two hours in salvation at the pool near Yonge and Eglinton. The wet splashing frenzy was still visceral and glistening and clung to my senses.

"Come on, Nate!" Elizabeth said, with a succession of splashing gestures, her one-piece slick black suit shining bright in the sun. I remember pacing myself, my heart racing, taking a scan of the pool, my eyes like a fin across the chlorinated ocean, its wet blue skin hovering over two tranquil black stripes which stretched from the shallow to the deep end. I was fastened to the deck, which was giving off the smell of oiled skin, the sun heating my bare feet starting at the toenail.

"Come on, get in the water. We're bored in here!"

I stood up, felt dizzy and dramatically flopped into the pool's deep end. Heckles from the lifeguards ensued.

"Let's see who can hold their breath the longest!" Holly said.

"OK," I said. "I am undefeated in these parts."

Elizabeth's teeth, her lips parting, water going in and out.

"OK, ready?" she said, mouth burbling in the water.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

At thirty-three seconds, Elizabeth and Holly surfaced. Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six. I adjusted my position underwater as the girls attempted to distract me with tickles to throw me off my game or something. I was fighting off a boner. Gone was the wash of cricket noises from the telephone wires. Fifty-nine, one minute, one-oh-one, one-oh-two...

I broke through the water at the one-oh-seven mark. The overcast clouds tightened in the sky. A big fat horsefly circled our little wet camp. My tight grey swim trunks with single blue and yellow stripes seemed invisible. Hands fell over my eyes from behind: Elizabeth's hot breath on my neck, a kiss on the cheek.

Elizabeth spewed a spurt of used pool water on Holly's head.

*

I was half a block behind the girls now, all of us edging towards Hanna Road, when I noticed that the sunlight gave the lower numbered houses a different sheen, and I couldn't fathom how my house was on this same street—how somehow, up here, in the early numbers, life looked completely different.

The sun was a deep orange, filmed in 8 millimetre, played back without sound. I was breathing in slow motion, feeling my lungs burning, my hair now a bit crunchy, in my mouth a faded piece of gumball lodged in my molar, my tongue playing with it. Soon we'd be back to sucking on the homemade popsicles that were on heavy rotation, watching a movie, eating crackers and cheese and dill pickles and maybe we'd order a pizza. We had left the little leeches of leathery Kraft Dinner noodles stuck to the pot from lunch.

The idyllic thought of a tall glass of ice water suddenly flatlined as a chorus of honks interrupted the speedy finish home. A dented grey pickup truck slowed down as we came to Sutherland Avenue's stop sign.

"Well, well, well!" a thick voice said, plucking along with a slow mischievous groan-and-laugh combo. The truck honked twice.

"Lame," Holly muttered, looking at me. "Get lost, Jake."

Jake Cavers, nineteen, red-eyed and bleached blond and freckled, kept catcalling. My stomach knotted up. I looked up and down my street, imagining the infinite statistics attributed to my interactions on this stretch of pavement: the number of times, for example, that I tore my paper-route collection tabs prematurely. Eighteen times? Forty-three? Fifty-two?

Now Jake had a truck. Last summer he was still chasing me bike to bike, trying to kick my legs as I pedalled faster. Andrew had told me that his cousins were close with Jake, and he was totally crazy. I didn't dare say his name. I wanted to bike home fast to our white house that sat like a lone aspirin in a hot stomach.

I stared haplessly into the truck, which had two giant viper decals along the hood. To me, Jake had huge pale arms with bulky biceps, a thick neck, red eyes to match his hair, yellow teeth with a bloody tongue and knuckles full of scabs from constantly pounding on people. From all the speed biking and windy tears, I had no sense of what he even looked like up close; just his horror of a voice yelling, "You're dead, kid!"

I looked to the ground; my heart was beating fast like a crazed clock. The plastic bag with my wet bathing suit inside was wrapped around my handlebar; it hung still, a twisted plastic wasp nest.

"Later, Liz," Jake said and peeled off in a blaze of exhaust and laughter.

"Stupid trash," Elizabeth added, pulling her pedal back with her shoe, adjusting her weight, shifting the handlebars back and forth.

"I think it's gonna rain," I said, looking at our house a half block away. It resembled a toy, the white sidings especially.

"Shall we continue?" Elizabeth suggested, aligning her pedals to a more comfortable starting position.

"Let's," Holly said. "Let's race!"

Soon we'd be inside our house with all the Band-Aids, batteries, condiments and folded denim that lay on exhibition.

"Go!" Elizabeth charged. The girls and I peeled down the street for the short ride to our house as the sun began to set into the concrete's far-off pocket.

I remained dazed for a millisecond before I pushed off and glided my BMX to my driveway past a patch of pink cosmopolitans outstretched along the side of our neighbour's front lawn.

I felt a comfort once I came to a full stop inside the garage and walked towards the side door.

As Dad, Holly and I got off the escalator, deep inside Maple Leaf Gardens' aging belly, I prodded them for the answers. "What section?"

"Red twenty-six."

"Straight that way," the usher said, after examining our stubs through his Coke-bottle glasses. He wore a big fat smile along with a short-sleeved shirt and tie.

"Enjoy the show," the usher said.

As I passed him, I could read his fat face:
You paid for this crap? Grow up, kid. Dragging your father to this shit...

It was July 28th, and I had been twelve years old for nearly two weeks. As I sauntered behind Holly and Dad, I saw a bevy of teens and dads chattering on escalators and lining up for sugary treats, ready for two hours of feeding on the acidic residue like sweet-sick ants. As we passed a merchandise table, a man handed me a single black-and-white sheet with the rundown of matches.

"What's that?" Holly asked.

"Like a thing for what the matches are."

At home, Dad always exuded a ghastly predisposition, wearing the thin, polyester-cotton-blend tea-coloured pajamas with black socks, fogging his way through the grim early morning routine. It was strange to see him surrounded by extras and wrestling fans in Maple Leaf Gardens. Every morning I saw him, Dad appeared only half-lit; on mute, a stale, predawn musk tricking from his mouth, a mouth full of grown-man realities: failed mouthwash, under-brushed teeth, overlooked food particles. His senses honed in on the substantial, a fresh veneer, hoping coffee would place him elsewhere—if only mentally. This was our Dad; always, first thing, first light, with the rising morning air and the house yawning alive and his first cigarette to set the mood. But I forget about all those tiny corporeal details of my then forty-five-year-old father David, because all I cared about was that those tickets he bought meant we'd be at Maple Leaf Gardens, Red Section, West Gate, by eight o'clock. Each ticket costing $14.00 ($12.73 + RST $1.27 = $14.00), plus snacks and TTC costs. On the way up, I noticed the prices for seats: we had the second-best tickets available next to gold! WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling Live!

Overhead, a crackled voice unspooled from the Gardens' dirty quadrants; a booming, invisible bull roar charged through the building's ghastly innards: "
Welcome, everyone, to Maple Leaf Wrestling, presented by the World Wrestling Federation.
"

The voice was tinny; it continued: "
Ladies and gentlemen, souvenir programs and other WWF merchandise are available at the concession stands. Don't forget to pick up the latest merchandise from all your favourite WWF wrestling stars.
"

In our cold seats, Dad cleared his throat and peered out into the crowd that slowly filled the Gardens. He asked Holly if she was cold, if she wanted a hot dog, and "ask your brother..."

I fidgeted with my shoelaces; my legs were cold. I stared at the empty wrestling ring, how the colour of the canvas was lighter than my own homemade ring, the ring that had been through so many battles already—real
¹
and fake.

1. In June, the ring had to be reinforced after an incident with Dad where he hit his foot on my homemade wrestling ring, then in his usual spooling rage, snapped and crashed his size 9 black-sock foot through the meek tangerine box, the wood as flimsy as skin. The toy blew up like a fake prop coming undone at the perfect Moment. After the attack, I had to reinforce the ring's floor with pieces of wood about two inches thick, until the material could be stretched over it again. Bringing the ring back to the living room, I said loudly, “Now it's foot proof.”

"Is there a program?" Dad asked. I showed my father the single page. Dad nodded as Holly took the page from me.

"Just like church, right?" Holly joked, passing Dad the fight card I had let drop onto my knee. I heard what Holly said and looked at my sister. Dad seemed to like the joke and had a smirk on his face until it returned to his standard stiff offering. Still, the mention of church freaked me out because of the whole Jesus thing
²
.

2. One night a few weeks earlier in the month, Dad woke up in the middle of the night and ran down two flights of stairs to wake me up and yell at me for not apologizing for messing up his workshop. Mom screamed behind him in her pink-and-white nightgown, and I peed a little in my pants. That weekend I took the large crucifix he had given me and hammered a nail into Jesus's heart and threw it from the basement doorway onto the kitchen floor at my Dad's feet. He said, “You're not hurting me when you do that,” like Jesus was now in real agony.

"That was funny," I whispered.

Holly's hair tampered with the Garden's dark mystery. She put her hair in a ponytail and tried to hide a yawn. The garden howled with gusts of cold-air reverb.

I had goosebumps. I looked at my sister's legs as she rubbed them, her pale limbs poking through the denim curtain of her fraying jean shorts.

Holly was talking to Dad. She looked down at my month-old blue Converse canvas shoes dangling, not quite hitting the ground, then at the creased program in my lap.

Dad sat dumfounded, his face void of erratic enthusiasm or query. When he did stand, it was at around 5' 9" in total; his greying beard with hints of red in it surrounded his roundish face. He was thin but sometimes bloated in the summer from his usual 170 pounds, depending on his diet and activity. Mom was 5' 2", with a body type that lacked definition. She got perms twice a year which would grow out and resemble a bit of an afro. I called her hairstyle "meatball" for some reason. Her large nose and coal eyes dominated her face. Mom spoke with a high, metallic twang which made some of our friends ask Holly and I if we were from the South.

Dad muttered something to Holly and got up, blowing his nose loudly as he rose. As he blew his nose in the familiar four-burst chime, Holly and I moved our heads to the beat. He disappeared into the cavernous static.

Holly kicked my foot.

"So, you want Ricky Steamboat to win 'cause of your newt? You know, your lizard, your dragon you have in your room? Didn't you call him Ricky? Is that—"