The Ravine (3 page)

“Okay,” Ted said, staring at the three of us huddled together like tremulous sheep. Terry had acquired, almost magically, a stick perfectly shaped to serve as a truncheon, its only imperfection being a set of sharp nodes that increased its potency for rendering pain. He had not yet used this to strike any of us, but he let us know he was eager to, swinging the thing near us with such force that the air whistled.

“Okay,” said Ted, “here’s what’s going to happen. Philly Four-Eyes is going to tie up Jay to that tree right there.”

We stood in a small circular clearing, surrounded by trees. Ted had chosen one at random, but its selection seemed to please him. He went over and caressed the bark almost lovingly. “
This
tree.”

Terry poked me in the stomach with his club. “Go, Four-Eyes.”

“Our father is up there waiting for us,” I lied desperately.

“That’s not how it goes,” said Ted. “It goes,
Our father who art in heaven.
Now, tie Jay to that tree or so help me I’ll—”

“Norman,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I’ll tie Norman to that tree.”

Ted considered this briefly. “Okay.”

“No, tie me to the tree,” said Jay, but no one seemed to hear him. Terry was already shepherding Norman to the chosen tree, digging the stick into the small of his back. Ted looked on with a half-smile upon his pale lips.

Norman immediately embraced the tree, an act that looked like cowardice and made both Ted and Terry snicker cruelly.

“No,” said Ted, “move the Piggy around to the other side.” Terry prodded Norman unnecessarily, as he was moving willingly, hugging the tree as though it were a lover, or mother. “Okay, Philly Four-Eyes, tie him up.”

I took the length of rope and wrapped it around Norman’s wrists. I looked at Norman with significance, and I remember noticing—with far more clarity than I remember anything else about the scene—that although his cheeks were red, his eyes were rimmed with tears and snot poured out of his nose, his beautiful golden hair was unaffected by the ordeal. “I’m going to tie an Irish Sheepshank,” I said quietly. Because I’d already done so, I trusted that Ted and Terry would think that announcing the name of the knot was an intrinsic part of the process.

Norman Kitchen looked at me sadly. “I didn’t get my badge yet,” he whispered.

“An Irish Sheepshank,” I repeated, and I executed the knot, throwing in a series of slipknots for the sake of appearance.

“Good,” judged Ted. “Now Jay.”

“No,” I said, but Ted ignored me. He selected another tree. “There.”

Terry lifted his cudgel to strike Jay and I said, “Okay, okay.”

Jay put his arms around the tree, and I tied his hands together, and when Jay whispered, “What kind of knot?” I gave no answer.

“What kind of knot?” he whispered again. “Is it an Irish Sheepshank?”

“Hey, Terry,” shouted Ted when I was done. “We better check that knot. Philly Four-Eyes is a tricky little bastard.”

Terry took hold of the ropes and tugged at them with such force that Jay’s wrists reddened and the skin ripped a little. “Seems good,” he judged.

“Now what we want to do is tie Philly up to that tree there,” announced Ted. His selection was based on triangulation. As Terry wrapped rope around my hand, and fortuitously managed a sound connection, I saw that if I moved my head to the right (the tree’s bark tearing skin off that cheek) I could see Norman’s tree; if I moved my head to the left, I could see Jay’s.

Ted was breathing quietly but heavily, each inhalation ballooning his bony chest. “Okay. Let’s see who’s got the cutest bum.”

Terry threw away his cudgel with evident irritation.

“Try Philly Four-Eyes first,” Ted said, perhaps because of the alliterative quality of the sentence, perhaps because he knew I wouldn’t have. I think Ted knew right from the get-go who had the cutest bum, but he wasn’t about to let either me or my brother off the hook.

Terry came up behind me and yanked down my Cub shorts and my underwear in one motion. This was because I was a stocky lad, and my shorts were too tight, and when they popped away from my belly, my gotchies got caught by the suction. Terry caressed one of my cheeks, fleetingly, and said, “Philly Four-Eyes has an ugly butt.”

And then he flicked the spectacles away from my face. Because they were held on by idiot hooks (curved half-bracelets of wire that wrapped around the back of the ear) this hurt quite a bit, and I hardly noticed as Ted came forward to do his own inspection.

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Ted. “That’s a fucking ugly butt. Try the little guy.”

Without my glasses, the world washed together. It looked like the mess in the big kindergarten sink after a spirited session of fingerpainting. I can only imagine: Jay’s shorts fell to his ankles with just a slight tug from Terry; his underwear remained clinging to his waist the way a mountaineer clings to a rock face; and with another slight tug it joined the pile around his feet. I could hear Ted and Terry speak, mostly because they spoke loudly enough to ensure that I could.

“This one’s not bad,” said Ted.

“Not too bad.”

“A little too bony, maybe.”

“Yeah, yeah. A little too bony.”

“Let’s try Norman.”

I can’t imagine them pulling Norman’s pants down. I mean, I’m incapable of it. I’ve used my imagination to fill in all the blank spots in the narrative so far, the holes in my memory drilled by time or corroded by alcohol. But this one is as black as pitch, although sometimes, late at night, I can hear Norman softly wailing.

Then Ted and Terry disappeared, wordlessly.

I listened as Norman’s whimpering died away.

“Norman? Are you all right?”

He didn’t answer, not until I’d called out his name two more times.

“What?”

“You can push your hands together, Norman. Push your hands together and grab the ropes. You can pull them off.”

“Hey!” Norman shouted. “That’s a good knot!” Then, very quietly, he said again: “I didn’t get my badge yet.”

“Hello?”

“Is this Norman Kitchen?”

“Yes?”

“Norman Kitchen?”

“Is this, um, Philip?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s Phil. Philly Four-Eyes! How the fuck are you?”

“Well, I’m fine. I get the impression I’m decidedly better than you, Philip. You seem to be intoxicated. I am merely sleep-muzzied, because I was sleeping.”

“I am not intoxicated. I have been working. Working on my novel.”

“Mmm.”

“But I need to know, I need to know, Norman, what did they
do
to you?”

“Yes. I know that’s what you need to know, Philip. And I really wish I could help. You are not at peace.”

“Well, fuck. I got a lot of problems, man. Ronnie, that’s my wife, has thrown me out of the house, and I miss my kids, although I’m getting them tomorrow for the next three days, which will be great… Where was I?”

“Enumerating your problems.”

“Right. And you probably heard about Edward Milligan, the star of
Padre.”

“I read about it in the newspapers.”

“I was the executive producer of that show. I wrote that episode, that was my script …”

“It is a great loss. He was a very attractive man.”

“I’m not saying you can save my life, I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you, Norm, but it would really help me—I’m pretty sure it would help me—if I just knew what the hell they did to you.”

“I understand. But, Philip, we’ve been through this. I do not know.”

“Like, your memory is a blank? You blacked out, kind of thing?”

“No. That is not what I mean. What I mean is—and I’d ask you kindly to remember this in future—I am not
that
Norman Kitchen.”

“What?”

“You should make an annotation in your telephone directory. ‘Not the right Norman.’ Something along those lines.”

“You mean, your name is Norman Kitchen, but you’re not really Norman Kitchen?”

“That is exactly what I mean.”

“Are you
related to
Norman Kitchen?”

“Look, Philip. It’s three-thirty in the morning. You told me that your children are coming to stay with you tomorrow. Wouldn’t it be wise to get a little sleep?”

“It sure would be, Norman. I have to pick them up at seven-thirty.”

“So then.”

“Okay. You’re probably right.”

“Probably.”

“You … you’re a nice guy, Norman Kitchen.”

“So you say. Every time you telephone.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Philip. Sweet dreams.”

YOU KNOW, THE MEMORY IS A FUNNY THING. I KNOW THAT’S A FAIRLY
glib statement, but it’s four o’clock in the morning, and if one can’t be glib in the dead of night, when exactly can one? So I’ll persist in my ruminations re the memory and its funniness. Here’s how funny it is: I didn’t really remember the incident down in the ravine until I was in my mid-twenties.

One night away back when, my brother and I met for a drink. Jay was having trouble with his first wife, Leora. (He has had two since.) The trouble he was having was that he suspected her of infidelity, even though she was to my mind incapable of such a thing. (Jay had the same problem with his subsequent wives, although they were both more capable.) Leora was utterly devoted to Jay and greeted even my most innocent, imbecilic grins as unwanted advances. I know what you’re thinking, maybe she found other men more attractive, but I will tell you exactly what I told Jay…

“You’re nuts. You’re fucking
nuts.”

“But she goes out of the house all the time.”

“Jay, Leora is a professional cellist, remember?”

Jay surrounded a beer glass with his hand and lifted it to his mouth. He made the beer disappear. Then he lit a cigarette, and blasted a simoon of smoke into my face.

“And you are a pianist.” At this point, Jay still had thoughts of a career in concert and recital halls. “You both have to practise. Now, it is easier for Leora to move her cello than for you to move your piano.
Ergo
, she leaves the house.”

“Ergo
fuck yourself.”

I should touch on the subject of failure here, as it is near to my heart.

Jay still had thoughts of a career in concert and recital halls
, although, at the same time, he was as intent on scuppering that career as Captain Ahab was on nailing the great white fucker. Jay was either late or a total no-show at the smaller venues—church basements and school auditoria—leaving scores of blue-haired women pissed off. (I imagine these dowagers owing to a remark he once made. As a lad of seventeen, he won a competition playing Edward Elgar’s own transcription of his
Enigma Variations.
The prize was a trip to London, England, to perform before the Elgar Society. Jay actually appeared, in that instance, although from all reports he was shit-faced. Anyway, upon his return, he said, “There are two kinds of women who belong to the Elgar Society. Women who knew Sir Edward, and women who look like him.”) When he did get slightly bigger chances—performing the Ravel piano concerto with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, say—he showed up, and even comported himself well. He may have had a drink or three too many before stepping onto the stage, and once he stumbled and lurched into the concertmaster, knocking the toupée from that man’s head. Remarkably, Jay still managed to achieve a level of success and was offered both a recording contract and the opportunity to play at Roy Thomson Hall with the Toronto Symphony. Again, the piece was to be the Ravel, which I often hear as the soundtrack to our sorry lives. I hear the frantic third movement as I imagine bicycling
down the decline into the ravine. Anyway, before any of that could happen, Jay got drunk and—once more damning Leora for her infidelity—smashed his fist into a wall, breaking his right ring finger in the process.

After that, it was piano bars.

“But Leora, she just wouldn’t, there’s no way on god’s green earth …,” I said.

“The thing with you, Phil, is you just can’t see how
bad
people are.”

“I know they’re bad but, geez, when you consider some of things
I
do …”

“But think about it. Think about those two guys down in the ravine.”

You don’t need to open the door all the way to know you don’t want to see what’s lurking inside the closet. So I slammed it shut and demanded, “Proof? Do you have any physical evidence?”

“If I had physical evidence, I wouldn’t be sitting here getting drunk with you.”

Oh, I thought, this is going to work. He’s going to forget he ever mentioned any two fucking guys down in any fucking ravine.

“You can’t just accuse a lovely, caring—”

“Their names,” said Jay, “were Ted and Terry.”

“Their names were Tom and Tony.”

And the monster ripped out from behind the curtain and shook its ass in my face.

Jay and I spent the rest of that night piecing the story together. The rendition I gave above is more his than mine. My contributions were, for the most part, odd details. I remembered, vividly, how Norman’s hair, his lovely blond curls, remained unaltered during the ordeal.

Some of the story my brother and I decided might never be known.