The Second Son (22 page)

I had my own picture in mind that morning, the one where the three of them were standing at the railing of some big ship and I was alone on this little raft, floating steadily away from them. Down deep I wanted them to call me back, to throw me a lifeline, but I was getting too good at playing the loner by that time. I just pretended not to care, even when Sister Anthony kept asking me if I was going to pull up my socks next year and come first in my class, like Andrew.

Then, when I thought it couldn’t get worse, the girls talked Sister Anthony into having a dance on the last afternoon of school. That sure surprised me. I thought Sister Anthony was a dried-up old prune who didn’t know dancing even existed. The only time I ever saw her smile was when everybody in class told her they’d been to Benediction the night before. It only struck me years later that she must have known at least one of us was lying. Anyway, she let them have their party.

The girls brought in some records — Gail brought in that fancy portable record player with the stereo speakers her father had gotten her for her birthday — and they did all that other stuff girls like to do, decorating, making refreshments, and organizing everybody. They got the boys to push all the desks to one side of the music room, then started bugging them to dance with them. When they couldn’t get enough boys, they danced with each other, which us guys thought was really stupid.

Well, most of us. There were a few older boys in Grade 8 who thought the whole thing was a great idea. Of course it gave Andrew a chance to show off. He’d been going over to Gail’s every week to listen to some new record she’d bought with that big allowance her father always gave her. Andrew even got my mother to teach him to dance, so he could keep getting Gail to himself. I went over a few times, like on Friday nights when there was no hockey on the TV. They said they’d teach me to dance, only there was no way I was getting that close to Gail. I didn’t like the way it made me feel. So I sat in the corner that afternoon of the party, pretending to read. Gail and some of the girls complained to Sister Anthony that I shouldn’t be allowed to hide out like that. She told them to leave me alone. I wasn’t sure why. I had noticed her treating me differently the last few months, after that trouble I had gotten into.

We had been in the cloakroom one morning in March, hanging our coats up, when I saw Gail’s binder on the floor near her boots, along with her new Elvis record. I picked old Elvis up and slid him behind the big cupboard on the opposite wall. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just know that a human being always figures he has sunk to the deepest low he could possibly go, then finds out that life has one more shitty surprise in store. Grandma Landry had an expression, “Shit on a stick, five cents a lick.” That morning in March I learned what she meant.

When Gail saw her record was missing she got into a panic and went running to Sister Anthony. She figured it was stolen. Gail, I mean. I don’t know why. That kind of stuff didn’t happen in Alexandria when I was a kid. You could leave your wallet out on your desk all day and nobody would touch it. Maybe rich people have so much that it’s only natural they start thinking everyone will want to take it from them.

I should have admitted hiding it right away, but I didn’t. I thought I’d just slip it back in plain sight when we went out for recess, and all would be forgotten. I didn’t count on Sister Anthony’s stubbornness. When nobody owned up she decided to send us all back to the cloakroom to look for it. Salvation, I thought. I simply pretended to find it behind the cupboard and held it up for all to see, prepared to reap my rewards — praise from Sister Anthony and gratitude from Gail.

No such luck. Sister Anthony had a holy fit about us just having gone to confession yesterday afternoon, and how could something like this happen in a Catholic school? It was obvious to her that someone hid it there with intentions of stealing it later. She even went across the hall and grilled the Grade 5 and 6 kids who used the same cloakroom. Of course there was no answer to be had from anyone but me, the hero who had just found it. So there I stood, mouth shut, determined to wait her out and keep the world from learning I was stuck on Gail MacDonald.

The trouble was, Sister Anthony got more and more agitated. She was a small woman who always seemed a lot bigger when she was angry. Like most nuns, she took her religion very seriously. She often bragged that you didn’t have to lock things up in her class, like the mission money she kept on the corner of her desk. She hated the idea that one of her students would be lying and stealing, all over some “silly rock and roll record.” She wanted to know who did it so badly she kept both classes in during morning recess, and afternoon recess, and after school. The torture went on and on, as we all sat there like statues, up straight with hands behind our backs, no slouching. It didn’t help that Andrew had ragged me all during lunch hour, claiming to know who did it and threatening to tell. After all, he couldn’t afford a detention. He had to go to work after school.

That was part of the reason I held out until quarter to five that afternoon. I was ready for the worst when I finally stood up to admit my guilt. Sister Anthony swung a mean strap and I feared I was due for a dose of her strongest medicine — five on each hand, at least. Like I said, she surprised me. I guess she figured the teasing I would get was worse than any punishment she could give me. She kind of gasped when I stood up. I was pretty sure she looked over at Gail, and then Andrew, before she spoke to me.

All she did was give me a big lecture and make me apologize to my classmates. Then she marched me into the classroom across the hall to apologize, “out loud in a clear voice” to the little kids in Grades 5 and 6. That was the worst part, those little kids looking up at me with big eyes while I said I was sorry. I’m sure she heard about all the fights I got into over the next week or so, trying to beat up everyone who accused me of being in love with Gail — every boy, that is. Not only did she ignore the fighting, there was the other thing, with the sleeves.

“Mike Landry,” she called out one Monday morning, “stand up.” I stood up, wondering what I was in trouble for this time. She came down to my desk. “What is wrong with those shirt sleeves,” she asked, “did you lose your buttons?”

“Uh, no,” I muttered, “I just like ’em that way.” I had bunched them up to my elbows, trying to imitate these cool guys I had seen in a rock and roll movie the week before.

“Well, then, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“Yes, ’stir.” Defeated, I started to roll them back down.

“No, no.” She surprised the hell out me and the whole class when she reached out and lifted my arm. “If you’re going to wear them like that you should do it right.” She undid my clumsy work, stretched the sleeve out, and made two quick, neat folds on my cuff. “You have to pull the fold tight on the cuff, so it keeps its shape, and hangs right. See?”

I stared at her with an open mouth. She shook her head and started to work on the other cuff. I glanced around at the other kids to see if they were laughing at me. They were just as stunned as I was. I managed a silly grin as she finished up the second cuff. “Thanks, ’stir.”

“It’s not a new style, Mike. I was doing this for my brothers twenty years ago.” I can still see myself, standing there in that white shirt with its neatly folded cuffs, looking back at that little nun in her black and white habit and realizing for the first time that she was a woman, just like my mother. She went back to her lesson without another word, leaving the class mystified and me wondering what it would be like to have someone doing stuff like that for me. And then I began to wonder if she really liked me. She must have, at least a little bit, because she told Gail to leave me in peace that last afternoon of school when the girls had their party. I’ve often wondered if she understood the real reason I didn’t want to dance with Gail.

Maybe Gail was wondering about that, too. For some reason she tried to be nice to me when school let out for the summer, inviting me to go swimming in her pool when the hot July weather hit town. By that time, my father trusted me enough to give me a job delivering groceries, but business was pretty slow. Most afternoons he sent me home early. Gail was allowed to have friends over, even when she was alone. As soon as her mother went out somewhere, Gail and her girlfriends would start puffing away like a bunch of old ladies at a bingo game. That’s why she was always after me to bring some cigarettes. I had been swiping them pretty regular over the last year, but I still had to sneak a smoke, so a pack lasted me most of a week. I was afraid to steal much more than that, sure my old man would notice more than one or two packs disappearing. I had to swipe menthols for the girls. They didn’t like my plain-tip Players. Me, I thought spitting out bits of tobacco was one of the best parts of smoking.

I soon tired of Gail’s little game, though. Other guys from school started showing up, even a couple of high school kids. She was pretty much Andrew’s girlfriend by that time, and I thought she should at least be loyal to him. Besides, I knew what those guys were after. They would sit around the pool telling dumb jokes, making fun of each other, trying to impress the girls, mostly Gail. She was really the only hot number there, and I knew what they were thinking about when they’d watch her showing off on the diving board. I also knew why they kept wrapping those towels around their waists.

For some reason the older guys started trying to put me down with remarks about my teeth, or digs about my old man and the Atlantic, stuff like that. When I finally lost my temper and whacked one of them in the mouth, Gail got all pissed off, calling me a brute and such. So I buggered off and didn’t go back. Like I said, my summer started out bad, and got worse.

The last week of July my dad came home drunk one night about ten o’clock and got my mother real upset. He came in the kitchen door and tripped over the rug. We were all in the back watching television and ran in to see what the racket was. When my mother saw him sprawled on the floor she sent us upstairs to bed. Andrew whispered at me to quit listening at the grate, but I figured, screw him. I had a right to know what was going on. I didn’t hear too much until it sounded like she had him upright at the table and was pouring the coffee into him.

“It’s all over, Lorna,” I heard him say.

“What do you mean, what happened?”

“Dory’s quittin’, tol’ me t’night. ’At’s it, I’m finish’.” It sounded pretty bad, the way he was slurring his words. Andrew was on the bed with his eyes closed. I could tell he knew it was bad, the way he was lying on his back, all stiff-like.

My mother tried to calm him. “You’ve lost people before. It’s not the end of the world.”

“You jus’ don’ understan’,” I think he muttered. Then he seemed to get ahold of himself and spoke up, louder and more clearly, like he wasn’t as drunk as he wanted to be. “She didn’t jus’ quit, Lorna. She’s taking a job with George McPhee. More money and better hours. Says she owes it to her kids. What about me, goddammit, what about
me
? One of the best jobs in town, for eight years. I paid her top dollar.”

I whispered the news to Andrew, “Dory quit. She’s going to Allied.”

“Shaddap,” he hissed. “Quit listening, it’s private.”

Bullshit, I thought, I’m not missing this.

My mother spoke next. “Can’t you replace her? I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” he almost yelled, then toned it down a bit. “She’s better with the customers than I am. Half of them will follow her over to Allied. It’s just the excuse they need. And don’t think goddamn George McPhee doesn’t know that.”

It was pretty much a one-sided conversation after that. I guess my mother couldn’t think of a thing to say to him. He kept going on about Dory-this and Dory-that, and how he’d begged her to stay, even offered her a raise. That must have been tough. I’d never heard of him begging anybody for anything. Eventually he got back to the idea of quitting, getting out of the business. “I’ll have to find something else. We’ll have to move to Montreal, or something. I can’t go on like this, going further into debt every week. Hell, all my stock is on credit now, haven’t even paid last year’s taxes. Jesus Christ, I’m going to lose it all. Just like my grandfather.”

“Now dear, it’s not that bad.” It sounded like she was trying to comfort him. “I’ll go back to work. We’ll find a way. Even if we have to take in boarders.”

It didn’t seem to help. He was almost yelling again. “No wife of mine is going to take in boarders. My name’s not Michel Landry. I’ll burn the goddamn place down before that happens. I’ll jack up the insurance and burn it down. The Jews do it all the time. Why can’t I?”

As usual she tried to stop that kind of talk but he was past listening. “I’ll burn it down — let them go looking for their money. See if I give a damn, sucking me dry with their interest. Goddamn big chains. A few years and there’ll be no one left. You’ll see. Goddamn greedy bastards. A man shouldn’t be allowed to accumulate more than a million dollars. What the hell’s he going to do with more than a million dollars? He can’t spend it.”

When he got to that million-dollar theory I knew the interesting stuff was over. I slid back to my bed and lay there in the summer heat with a sheet over me. I could hear Andrew breathing. We were both still young enough to believe our parents should be able to overcome all obstacles in life and keep us safe and happy — yet old enough to wonder why this crisis was lasting so long, why a smart man like our father was being beaten in business by mere mortals like George McPhee and Don MacDonald.

I can’t really say how much thought I gave to this matter over the next few days. I have had so much to rationalize in the years since, that the events of those next few days have gone very fuzzy at the edges. For example, I don’t know anymore if what happened next was an accident, or not. I think I knew at the time, knew exactly what I was doing, or not doing. Yet I can no longer recall it as a clear, single event. It happened a few days after Dory said she was quitting. It was a Saturday night.