Seeing Red (16 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Doc helps me to my feet and tells me he's driving to the family cottage in Kincardine to visit his oldest sister Karen, her husband Charlie and their three-year-old son Jacob. He invites me to come along—says a ride through the countryside and a decent meal might help with the hangover. I reluctantly accept. It's not like I have anything else to do today. And it'll be nice to get out of the city for a change. It's been almost a year since I last got out.

The Widowmaker is parked on the lot next to the pier and the headlights are still on. When I open the door, I remember the passenger side window is broken and I can't help but feel partially responsible. Doc turns the key in the ignition and we start driving; there are a few early morning joggers and the occasional taxi, but aside from that the city is calm. Doc must be groggy—he probably didn't get a wink of sleep—but he assures me he's okay to drive and I'm in no position to argue. We move north on Jarvis Street up to Mount Pleasant Road and a few minutes later we're parked outside my apartment. “I'll wait here,” he says. “Get everything you need. And take as long as you want, I don't care.”

I enter the lobby and ride the elevator and unlock the door to my apartment. The air inside feels stale, as if the windows haven't been opened for days, and the daylight is barely visible between the gaps in the blinds. Normally, I'd be huddled in bed right now, completely immobilized, but today is different. I have a second wind. I open my closet door and snatch a change of clothes and a pair of sunglasses and stuff them into an old backpack. Then I go into the bathroom and grab my toothbrush, a comb, a stick of deodorant and a towel. As I'm walking out, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror for the first time since last night and I'm horrified to see the large pink circle surrounding my left eye. It looks like it's turning purple, and there's a deep, rounded cut underneath. He must have been wearing a ring, maybe two rings, because there's another long cut above my eyebrow. The wound is throbbing and I need a painkiller; almost instinctively, I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the bottle of codeine. I hold it there in my hand, studying the label for a moment, and then I think about what Walton said to me a year ago and I realize I don't want to have anything to do with this stuff anymore. I'm tired of it. All of it. I toss the codeine into the trash and then open the medicine cabinet and drop more bottles, one by one, into the same bin. By the end of it, the shelves are nearly empty, save for a few vitamin supplements and some ibuprofen. I take two ibuprofen—the recommended dosage—and swallow.

Before leaving, I decide to pick up some of the dirty clothes on the floor and throw them into the laundry basket. Then I stack the pizza boxes, organize the liquor bottles, make the bed and scrub a few of the dishes in the sink. What a difference it makes. I also make sure to grab an ice pack from the freezer and wrap it up in a paper towel. Everything is organized and ready to go, but I can't find my camera. I check my desk before rummaging through the hallway closet where I eventually locate it on one of the shelves. On the shelf below I notice an old photo album with three individual books I haven't looked at in a very long time. I open the first book to the first page and there are random shots of me taken by my father when I was about eight years old. I'm at a public playground and I'm going down slides, hanging upside-down on monkey bars and throwing a little yellow football around. My hair is blonde and bright and my adult teeth are coming in crooked. I seem happy. I was a completely different person back then. Looking at that kid makes me smile.

Wedged between two of the books is an old postcard dated from when I was fourteen. It's from Rachael. There's a picture of a wildlife zoo and a polar bear on the front. I can't believe I've held onto it for all these years. The postcard reads:
Ethan! Where are you? Why are you not at home? I mean, it's nice to visit your family and all, but wouldn't you rather talk to me? I'm joking, of course. Hope you're having a great time. I have lots of stories to tell you when you get back. Rachael
.

For a moment I consider throwing the postcard and all of the photos into the trash and starting over. There are some things in life I don't want to remember. While the thought is temporarily comforting, I can't bring myself to let them go. I leave the pictures where they are, safely stored on the closet shelf, and put the postcard in my backpack and leave through the apartment door. Downstairs, Doc is waiting for me in the driver's seat sleeping with his face pressed against the window. I knock on the glass to wake him up before getting into the car and tossing my bag into the backseat. I realize a night in the countryside probably won't be enough—I want to stay for a couple days, maybe weeks, and clear my mind.

TWENTY-NINE

Following a brief stop at a gas station where we buy sports drinks, potato chips, meat sticks and a few other necessities, we're soon on the road heading west. Doc brought his iPod for the trip and he fumbles with it while driving, eventually settling on “Blueprint” by Fugazi. My chair is reclined and my right foot is resting on the open window as I slide the ice pack underneath my sunglasses to relieve the swelling. Our clothes are dirty and my eye still hurts, but with the sun now fully awake and rising in the eastern sky, its light gently warming my face, I'm starting to feel a little better. The cool morning air blows against us and renews our senses and the memory of last night begins to stray from the forefront of my mind. Most of the traffic is moving eastbound—probably returning to the city after a weekend in cottage county—but we're swimming against the current. Doc keeps the car moving a little over a hundred kilometres per hour, coasting behind a big SUV in the right lane. He's too tired to drive aggressively or even carry on a conversation. So am I.

I stare out at the roads and the concrete as we drive past strip malls and industrial parks on our way through the suburbs. Eventually the highway narrows to six lanes and the buildings and noise barriers are gradually replaced by rolling hills and trees and farmland. We're finally out. I close my eyes and manage to catch up on some sleep as we coast alongside Milton and Campbellville. By the time my eyes open again, we're already in Guelph turning left on Woodlawn Road. I see a few stores and fast-food restaurants and car dealerships and a big movie theatre before Doc takes a right onto Highway
86
toward Elmira. He asks me if I need to stop for a bathroom break and I tell him “No” and he says “Good.”

There's barely any traffic for miles in either direction. We pass a few solitary houses in the countryside and I think about how different it must be to live in the middle of nowhere, miles away from your nearest neighbour. I can see the appeal. Later, we speed past a traditional horse-and-carriage trotting on the shoulder and Doc tells me, “We're now entering Mennonite country.” I ask him about the Mennonites and he explains how they shun automobiles and electricity and make their own clothing. “They fixed my uncle's roof for free one time,” he says. “He woke up and they were already working on it. Nice people.” As I'm quietly reflecting on their pastoral lifestyle, I'm suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of horseshit wafting into the car and, sadly, we can't roll up the window.

A blue sign tells us we're approaching a small town called Dorking and I throw a piece of gum at it as we pass. Rural Ontario is full of these tiny farming communities; most of them only have one intersection with an old brick church and maybe a general store. The road is straight as an arrow and Doc barely has to touch the steering wheel. I notice he hasn't spoken for several minutes and I imagine the nostalgia is beginning to set in for him; his family has been coming up to Kincardine every summer since he was born, so he's probably driven this road more times than he can remember. As we're approaching Listowel, my eyelids begin to feel heavy again and I slowly drift off to sleep.

Sometime later I feel the car come to a stop and the engine turn off. I hear Doc open the door. When I open my eyes I'm surprised to see an elementary school with an outdoor basketball court. The court itself is cracked and fractured, the painted lines having long since faded, and neither hoop has any mesh on the rim. Doc stands outside the car and says to me, “Hey! Wake up! Come out here for a sec.” Then he moves around to the back of the car and pops open the trunk and retrieves a basketball. I watch as he casually shoots the ball at the nearest hoop and it hits the right side of the rim and bounces away.

“Come on!” he calls out to me.

Reluctantly I get out of the car. My knees are stiff from having been cramped inside for so long. I stroll over to the court and he passes me the ball and I catch it in my chest.

“This is stupid, Jeff.”

“No it isn't. C'mon! Take a shot.”

“I'm too hungover for this—”

“Shoot the fuckin' ball, Reid!”

Doc glares at me, waiting impatiently, so I grudgingly hold the ball in my right palm and steady it with my fingertips as I squint my eyes and line up the shot. My knees bend and release like a coiled spring as I hop an inch off the ground and toss the ball into the air on a perfect arc. It misses the backboard entirely and rolls off onto the grass. Doc retrieves the ball and passes it back to me.

“Okay, let's try that again,” he says.

I look at him skeptically before repeating the process. This time the ball hits the lower part of the rim and quickly bounces right back into my hands. I pass it over to him.

“Your turn.”

Doc misses wide again and catches his own rebound. Then, in frustration, he launches the ball overhand and it hits the top of the backboard and flies several metres away from the court.

“Man, we suck!” he notes.

“Nah. We're just out of practice.”

He pauses. “This'll be really embarrassing if I ever have a kid.”

I laugh. “You should never have a kid.”

“No, I shouldn't,” he admits.

As time goes on, we gradually improve to the point where we can score on roughly a third of our shots. I remember how to do a right-handed lay-up and begin to put them in consistently; I'm taller and stronger than I was in elementary school, though, so my brain has to adjust to the size difference, using less energy than it did years ago.

Ten to twenty minutes pass, and then we pick up the ball and start walking back to the car. Suddenly, Doc taps me on the upper arm and points to the school. Apparently somebody left the back door wide open. I follow behind him as he peers through the doorway to reveal an empty gymnasium with hardwood floors, clean basketball nets and a big stage. We cautiously wander inside and our footsteps echo. There's no one else around.

“What're we doing?” I ask him.

“Shh!” he whispers. “Maybe it's unlocked. . . .”

Doc tiptoes toward the utility room door and fiddles with the metal handle. When the knob turns, he smiles at me in disbelief and opens it slowly. The room is filled to capacity with colourful sporting equipment: soccer balls, baseball bats, hula hoops, jumping ropes, plastic scoops, red dodge balls, little wooden scooters—everything we used to play with as kids. Doc rubs his hands together in excitement and then finds a plastic hockey stick with an orange blade on the wall and tosses it to me.

“I'll go in net,” he says.

He puts on a white goalie mask and a baseball glove and then we set up a hockey net below the stage. I fold a curve into the blade of the stick and use it to move a tennis ball around on the floor. When Doc is ready, I try to shoot it past him. Every time he makes a save, he calls out in triumph; anytime I score, he screams profanity. Like with basketball, our skills are rusty, but over the course of ten minutes our ability steadily returns and I remember how to shoot and stickhandle and fire a wrist shot.

Doc challenges me to a best-of-five shootout: five penalty shots where the stake of the game is hypothetical world domination. I miss wide on the first chance, but score through his legs on the next two. He curses at me and dares me to try it again; I ignore him and shoot it toward the top corner on his glove side instead. He does the splits and catches the ball, spinning his arm around like a windmill.

“Ha! Patrick Roy, motherfucker!” he shouts at me.

The pressure is on for the fifth and final shot. We're tied at two points each. The world is at stake. I deke the tennis ball to my right, to my backhand, and then to my right again. He crouches and prepares to make the save. I fake the shot, he flinches, and so I roll the ball softly between his feet and into the mesh at the back of the net.

“Goddammit!” he yells. Then he throws his stick to the floor in disgust and says, regrettably, “The world is yours.”

“Sweet.”

“Go again?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Suddenly we hear footsteps reverberating through an adjacent hallway. A tall man wearing a white baseball cap, a white shirt, red shorts and a pair of clean running shoes marches into the gymnasium. Like a stereotypical gym teacher, he has a whistle hanging from his neck and a wooden clipboard in his hand. I expect animosity, but his face is smiling and amicable.

“Hey guys!” he announces. “You here for the summer camp?”

Doc shuffles nervously. I know he's about to spill the beans and tell the coach that we trespassed in here just to use and perhaps steal his sporting equipment, but my first instinct is to lie. Fortunately, I beat him to it.

“Yes. Yes, we are,” I say confidently.

“You're a bit early. I don't think the kids are due for another two hours,” he explains. “You brought a change of clothes, right? You're not really dressed the part.” I glance down and realize I'm still wearing grey jeans and brown shoes.

“Yeah, we brought shorts,” I say.

“So, which one of us hired you guys?” he asks.

“Uh . . ,” I mumble in an attempt to stall for time. I look over at Doc and he stares back at me with widened eyes. I try to think of a common male name. “Mike?”

“Mike? Are you sure?”

“Something like that. Started with an M.”

“Hmm. I don't know a Mike. What'd he look like?”

“Uh . . . brown hair? He had sort of a . . . round face . . . with very, uh, robust features.”

“Really? That doesn't sound like anybody I know.”

“Well, to be honest, his face wasn't
that
robust.”

“Hmm. What did you say your names were again?”

Doc and I both turn to each other with the same startled expression. His body language is leaning toward the back door and I silently concur. “Abort!” I yell, and we drop our sticks and start sprinting toward the exit, running as fast as we can through the doorway and into the parking lot. Doc scrambles to unlock the car.

“Come on, man!” I shout.

“I'm trying!” he replies, fiddling with the keys while still wearing the baseball glove on his hand. He discards the glove and opens the door and we quickly start the car and fishtail out of the parking lot. The coach comes outside just in time to see us speeding off in a trail of dust and smoke. He looks baffled and confused.

“Woo!” I holler as we drive away. “That was awesome.”

“Man, that was hilarious! I thought he was gonna kill us.”

“Same. Sorry I'm not a better liar.”

“Uh . . . Mike?” he imitates mockingly. “Nice try though.”

Once the adrenaline abates, I say, “Thanks for taking me there, by the way.”

“No problem. I haven't played ball hockey in forever. We've gotta do that more often.”

“What, break into schools?”

“Yeah.”

“Agreed.”