The Journey Prize Stories 22 (8 page)

“I'm going to the park,” said Leo, refusing to look back over his shoulder.

“It's gonna rain,” said Ramon.

Leo tried to shrug to show he didn't care, but the croquet set weighed him down so he couldn't lift his shoulders. He kept walking, and didn't even turn to look when he heard the car door open.

“Slow down,” Ramon called out, but it wasn't until Leo felt the hand upon his shoulder that he stopped and turned to face him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Ramon get out of his car. Ramon was much taller than he remembered, almost a whole foot taller than Leo, and his long black T-shirt and baggy jeans hung loosely on his limbs.

“You got that money?” said Ramon.

“What money?” said Leo.

“What you packing in that case?” said Ramon, and Leo did not reply.

“Show me,” said Ramon. Ramon reached for the croquet set then, and Leo pulled away, though he knew it was pointless to resist. Ramon placed his hand upon Leo's wrist and wrenched the handle from him while Leo forced himself not to cry out in pain. Then Ramon knelt down on the sidewalk, held the case against his bent leg, and opened the latches. “What the fuck,” he said, as he looked inside, and then he turned the case upside down, dumping its contents onto the sidewalk. The mallet heads and the shafts and wickets and balls all fell onto the cement and the balls started to roll away. He took off his ball cap and held it in his hand and ran his fingers through his short, slick hair and stood there, surveying the pile at his feet. Then he put his hat back on and reached down and picked up one of the shafts and the green ball. He threw the ball up in the air and swung at it like it was a baseball. He missed and the ball rolled into the gutter and Leo chased after it. He heard a cracking sound behind him and when he turned he saw Ramon holding half of a broken shaft in each hand, his right knee still raised in the air.

“We had a deal,” said Ramon.

“We never had a deal,” said Leo. He felt anger well within him, his cheeks growing red and hot with a deep hatred, as much for his uncle as for Ramon. He reached down and picked up the green ball then, felt the cold, heavy roundness of it in his hand, and he threw it at Ramon with all his force. The ball hit the tarmac fifteen feet from its target, rolled off
the street and came to rest in a curb-side storm drain. Ramon stood there and smiled, just as he had done earlier that afternoon. He looked down again at the wickets and shafts and mallet heads on the sidewalk before him, nudged the pile of equipment with the toe of his sneaker. He crouched down and picked up another shaft and a mallet head and examined them closely.

“I see how this shit goes together,” he said, and he twisted the mallet head onto the end of the shaft. Then he lifted the mallet high in the air, as if to pound a stake into the ground, and when he brought it down upon the lid of the case Leo heard something snap.

“Fuck off,” Leo screamed.

“I'll take whatever you got on you,” said Ramon, “and we'll call it even.” Leo's chest constricted and he felt the hotness of tears running down his cheeks. He reached into his pocket for his puffer, but it wasn't there. Instead he felt the crispness of the two twenty dollar bills and he didn't know what else to do so he went up to Ramon and handed them to him. Ramon took the bills and slid them into his pocket without looking at them, and then he dropped the mallet on the ground. Leo watched him for a moment, and struggled to breathe deeply and slowly. Ramon looked back at him, impassive, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It occurred to Leo that he had not been given anything in exchange for his $40 and it was clear to him then that Ramon had never intended to sell him anything. He knew his mother would ask him how he'd spent the money, and he did not know what he'd say.

Gradually, his panic receded and he bent down and turned over the case and started to pick up the scattered wickets and
he tried to forget about his anger and his shame so that he could focus on the task at hand. He was conscious of Ramon standing over him, watching him, and he wondered how his actions could be of any interest to Ramon, now that Ramon had taken what he wanted. He looked up at Ramon then, as if daring him to speak, knowing that whatever Ramon could possibly say would only cause greater humiliation. Ramon said nothing. Instead he turned from Leo and went over to the storm drain and stooped to pick up the green ball and came back and handed it to him. Then Ramon went over to the edge of the sidewalk and picked up two shafts that had rolled away, returned and knelt beside Leo, and placed the shafts in their slots in the case and the two of them worked together until the case was almost full. One of the case's hinges was broken and so was the handle, and when Leo stood up he had to hold it in his arms to keep it shut. Ramon stood facing him, arms crossed. His sudden kindness only embarrassed Leo and when Ramon nodded towards his Camaro ss and said, “I'll give you a ride to the park,” Leo did not know at first how he should respond.

He realized then that Ramon did not have anything against him, that Ramon was obligated to steal from him because he was weak, just as his Uncle Oscar was bound to hurt him and his mother because they had been foolish enough to care. Leo wondered if his uncle had ever bought drugs from Ramon, wondered if Ramon had seen his uncle pass by that afternoon. He thought about his uncle selling his custom Harley, wondered if the bike had meant anything to whoever had bought it, if that person felt anything like what his uncle had felt on the day the picture had been taken. It occurred to Leo that
just as easily as he'd given away his birthday money he might reach into his left pocket and take out the photo of his uncle and show it to Ramon. Ramon might recognize his uncle. Leo thought that when his mom found out where Uncle Oscar had gone he could tell Ramon, and if Ramon did not care about where his uncle had gone, he would know someone who did. Then Leo thought he might like to play croquet with Ramon, if only to defeat him, that Ramon might even agree to play croquet against him if he asked him now, but Leo knew this was something else that he would never do.

“No thanks,” said Leo, and as soon as he said this he knew it would have been better if he'd said nothing at all. Ramon shrugged and turned and went and got inside his car. Leo started back down the street towards the park and he heard the engine turn over behind him and then Ramon drove by slowly and grinned and waved at him as he turned the corner and Leo did not wave back.

He was almost at the parkette when he heard the first rumble of thunder. He watched for lightning, but there wasn't any. The parkette was deserted except for an old man wearing a brown suit and an old-fashioned black hat with a brim. The man sat on the park bench with his hands on his knees and watched Leo set up the wickets, but as soon as the rain started the man got up and opened his umbrella and slowly walked away. The parkette was just a slide and a swing set that Leo used to play on when he was younger. There were two fir trees, and some flowers, and a good patch of grass there too, and it was flat. Leo set the wickets up far apart and at odd angles to make the shots as difficult as he could. The rain came down hard and fast, and he was soaked to the skin before
he even started the game. His feet felt swollen and heavy and squished inside his sneakers. The rain made him need to piss, but he forced himself to ignore the tension in his bladder. He imagined that the raindrops were thousands of tiny wet fists, all pelting him with blows, trying to keep him from playing the game, and that he did not care about them because they could not really hurt him. He decided to use the green ball and he set it down next to the starting stake. He aimed for the first wicket and came up short. He didn't make it through until the third stroke. It wasn't easy to make the ball go where he wanted because it was wet and so was the grass, and it was hard for him to see, but he was determined to complete the course before he packed up and went home. He wondered if it was raining in Mississauga too. He thought the soccer game would be called for sure and he knew the team would be disappointed, because they liked playing in the rain. He wondered where Francesco was, if he was with Isabel, and what they were doing. Leo was shivering by the time he made it through the seventh wicket and lined up to hit the turning stake. He nailed the shot and the ball bounced off and rolled back towards the seventh wicket, as if he'd planned it that way.

The second half of the game went by much faster. He'd stopped shivering and nothing bothered him at all. Someone could be watching, he thought, a stranger, or his mother or his Uncle Oscar or Ramon even, and he wouldn't even notice. When he made it back through the second wicket, he realized that at some point he had stopped keeping track of his strokes. But when he hit the first stake again and ended the game, he knew he'd done pretty well, that he'd played some of the best croquet he'd ever played. The rain had almost
stopped completely. He looked up at the sky and it was still grey, but not as dark as before, though it was almost evening. As he packed the wickets in the case he thought he should probably towel them off when he got home, so they wouldn't rust, and dry his mallet so it wouldn't warp, and he was glad that he had thought of this before it was too late.

Now that he was finished playing he became aware again of how badly he needed to piss. He always needed to piss when he'd been out in the rain for a while, especially when he wasn't wearing his raincoat and his clothes got wet. It was as if the rain seeped right through his skin and filled him up until it felt like he would burst. He knew he wouldn't make it home before he pissed himself. He looked around the park and up and down the street and there was still no one around. He went over and stood between the two fir trees, which were only slightly taller than he was, their branches heavy and drooping with rain. When he unzipped his pants his underwear was soaking wet, and his dick was shrivelled from the damp and the cold. The piss felt warm as it flowed out of him and steam rose up from the wet grass. It felt like he was standing there pissing for a very long time, like it would never end.

H
ere she comes. She's barely a woman and could be mistaken for one of the tennis stars on my flight, what with the tracksuit and long blonde ponytail and running shoes that look like UFOs. But the eyes are a giveaway. She has the eyes of a handler. Already.

“I'm Lana. Good to meet you!” She smiles with her mouth but doesn't commit the eyes.

“Hello, Lana. Thanks for coming.” Probably didn't have a choice, poor girl. After what's happened, they might have sent someone older.

“The car's right out front,” she says, going for my bag, which I give up too easily. She leads the way, generating a current that smells of soap. “How was the flight?”

“Turbulent.” My body still feels poised to leap from its skin.

“Sorry.” As if she could have done anything about it.

Her car resembles a large shiny bike helmet. It's an effort to climb up and in.

“Go,” she says, and the vehicle starts moving without making a sound.

“Welcome back,” says a voice from the dashboard, sounding slightly wistful.

The highway looks brand new, with partially finished off-ramps leading nowhere. I'm desperate to see the mountains, but huge electronic billboards line the route, hawking resorts, casinos, water parks – all branded The One & Only.

“I haven't been back here since 1985.”

“Then you'll notice a lot of changes!”

At least the mountains will still be there, trailing off into the water. Those giant green blobs that appear when I conjure up my old life with Sarah, at the beginning.

“Sorry about that
E-Life
piece last night. We didn't see it coming.”

“Neither did I.” I should have seen it coming the moment I laid eyes on Sibby running on tiptoes into the Sulu Sea. I should have had the guts to look away, to take the first flight home to Sarah, hang up this whole sordid writing thing once and for all.

“The publisher and your agent have been trying to reach you.”

“I lost my phone,” I lie. I tossed it in the Chicago River after my lawyer emailed me the tabloid show's incriminating spot: the grainy security footage of Sibby and me entering my hotel together, halfway round the world, and the book critic calling my new novel a “pallid imitation of
Lolita
.” All timed to broadcast around the globe and just in time for Publicity.

“The interview requests doubled overnight. They want to set you up with a
PR
coach.”

“That won't be necessary.” I don't have the stamina or the patience to practise for the onslaught.

“It's almost over. Two more sleeps.” She gives me a conspiratorial we're-in-this-thing-together grin. But then, handlers are paid to be onside. How did she fall into this damn
PR
game anyway?

The city rears up and I want to gasp at the sheer volume of skyscrapers. Publicity: Population 7,846,801 and growing by the nanosecond. Even the mountains are jam-packed right to the top with housing, save for the jagged peaks.

“What have they done to the mountains?” The hysteria in my tone startles the onboard computer.

“Do you need assistance, Lana?” asks the voice.

“No. Sleep,” she says to the dashboard, then to me, “It happened so fast, starting with the 2/13 terrorist attacks in
LA
and New York during the Olympics. We were supposed to get hit too, but the city was crawling with security.”

“I remember the news clips of cruise ships full of rent-a-cops.”

“Yeah, they're still here.”

“The ships or the cops?”

“Both. Together. A lot of people stayed on after the airports and borders reopened, and more have been pouring in ever since the Saudi-American war started. We needed somewhere to put everyone, including all those actors and athletes that refuse to work anywhere else. It's never too hot here, and other than the odd flash flood, it doesn't rain much anymore.”