Zack (2 page)

“I got it for you, Dad.”

Silence. Jenkins and O’Neil stared intently at my father, probably imagining him to be an aging skinhead who had recruited his son to his evil doings.

“I thought as much,” Dad said. He turned to me, a why-did-you-get-me-into-this-mess look on his face. “You shouldn’t have done it, Zack. I appreciate it; you know that. But now you’re going to lose your privileges here.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” O’Neil cut in, fire in her eyes and ice in her voice. “Your son has acquired fascist hate literature on your behalf and it’s okay with you? A load of anti-Semitic—”

“I’m a Jew, Ms. O’Neil,” Dad said.

For the second time, silence fell, and so did O’Neil’s jaw. Jenkins looked as if he was in the grip of a tremendous gas pain. He took another tour of his knuckles.

“But,” the principal spluttered, and she almost said it. I could practically see the words on her lips—You don’t look Jewish. Her blush showed through the make-up.

Dad’s diplomatic smile made a rare appearance. “Ms. O’Neil, I’m an instructor at the university. My specialty is contemporary social history—a sort of
oxymoron, I know. Zack was just hoping to bring home material he thought I might be interested in. I can assure you he is just as offended by it as you.”

“Um, I see …”

“If you’ll forgive me for saying so,” he went on, “I think that if someone had simply asked Zack what he was up to, this misunderstanding could have been avoided.”

“Well.” O’Neil shot a withering glance at Jenkins, who was now fiddling with his tie. “You’re quite right. I’m sorry we’ve troubled you.” She straightened up in her chair and cleared her throat. “Considering the circumstances, we’ll overlook Zack’s transgression and reinstate his login.”

My father rose from his chair. “That won’t be necessary. Zack broke the rules, so he should be treated like anyone else.”

Dad shook hands with the principal and Jenkins again and left the office. I followed him out and he said a quick goodbye and headed for the parking lot.

Throughout that ridiculous little one-act play I had felt like a piece of furniture. But I was used to it—being on the outside of things. It was nothing new.

M
y mother loved any kind of growing thing — except me, I sometimes felt—and my father loved my mother. By some kind of weird equation these two facts, when added, equalled me with a shovel in my hand and a job to do. The former owner’s dog’s gifts to the ecosystem had been collected and buried a few days before—by me, naturally—so I marched dutifully to the spot Mom had picked on the left side of the yard next to the wooden fence, where the land began its gentle slope to the river, and began to dig holes for three lilac bushes. Mom had given me very specific instructions on how deep and how far apart these excavations should be.

“You get the ground ready,” she had told me, “I’ll plant the lilacs, one white one, two purple.”

“Then can I use the truck?”

“When your dad and I get home.”

When lunchtime came I had dug one hole, collected a wheelbarrow full of various-sized stones, raised a blister on my left palm and stabbed myself twice in the foot with the spade. Time for a break. I stretched
the kinks out of my back and plodded towards the house, my eyes peeled for wayward piles of digested dog food, and went into the kitchen. I popped open a can of iced tea and built a monster sandwich of sliced beef, cheese, pepperoni, mayonnaise and mustard on rye. Perched on a stool at the counter, I gazed out the kitchen window as I ate, admiring the results of my labour. Over the fast-flowing Grand River the sky was clear and a light breeze stirred the cedars.

By mid-afternoon I had excavated a second hole and shoved another wheelbarrow full of stones down the river bank, scaring up a pair of ducks that had been floating peacefully in the current. The third and last hole was easy going for the first fifty centimetres or so, then the spade clanged against a rock. I dug around the obstruction, hauled it out and tossed it into the wheelbarrow. Unlike the others, it was black with carbon and soot and crusted with damp, powdery mortar. So were the next half dozen. Someone must have made a fire pit here, I thought, cursing whoever it was for their lack of consideration. I cleared the loose dirt from the hole and decided to go down another fifteen centimetres or so, widen the cavity and call it quits. I stabbed the spade into the soil, stepped on the flange, jounced my full weight on it, and heard the edge of the spade grind against something hard. Another rock, I thought. It clanked against the side of the wheelbarrow when I threw it in, but it wasn’t a stone.

The caked dirt fell away easily under the pressure of my fingers. I carried the heavy object to the side of the house and washed it under the hose. The remaining soil dissolved away from an axe head, caked with rust, the handle long since rotted from the slot, the edge dull and rounded. I hadn’t seen many axe heads in my city-boy life, but I knew from the unusual shape that this one was very, very old. I turned it over in my hands a few times, then dropped it by the kitchen door on my way back to the hole. The day wasn’t a total loss, but it was close.

My next spade-thrust brought a hollow
thump
. Now what? I got to my knees and picked up a triangle-shaped splinter of wood, bright on one side. I scooped dirt away with my hand, uncovering the corner of a box of some kind.

A half hour of painstaking soil removal passed, during which my interest perked with every handful of dirt I removed, before I was able to lift the box from the hole—carefully, because the wood was so soft with rot it almost fell apart in my hands. About the size of a shoe box, it had mortised corners and a lid that resisted my careful attempts to pry it off. I jogged to the house and returned with a kitchen knife, the ache in my back forgotten. I ran the blade along the dirt-clogged space between the lid and the sides of the box, working the soil loose, and finally the top broke free.

My heart quickened when I looked inside. Two
rolls of what was once white leather but was now stained and faded lay in the mouldy bottom of the box. I tried to unroll one but the leather began to crack and break apart. I laid the two objects on the grass.

Wrapped in ancient oily material I thought at first was cloth but turned out to be greasy leather were two Cs of rusted iron about half an inch thick. One end of each C was bent back on itself to form a small circle that loosely linked it to the other piece. The free end of each C had an elongated box-shaped loop on it. Held together, the two half-rings made a circle about twenty centimetres in diameter. I had no idea what I was holding in my hands.

In a corner of the box lay a small skin pouch, pulled tight with a rawhide drawstring. The material tore like wet paper when I pulled it open, and a nugget the size of my pinkie finger end plopped down into the hole. I picked it up and bounced it in the palm of my hand. It was bronze in colour, heavy and hard—some kind of metal, forged into a small ball.

I wonder if it’s—Then I laughed at myself. What a loser I was, getting mildly excited by a useless old wooden box with strange junk in it, so bored living in that dull village that I’d grasp at anything for a little thrill.

It was then that I heard our truck pull into the driveway. The engine raced and died. A door opened and slammed shut, followed by another. I dropped the nugget into the box, replaced the straps and iron,
picked up the box and walked quickly to the kitchen. As I was gingerly pulling a plastic supermarket bag over my “buried treasure” I heard the front door open. I sprinted upstairs, dashed into my room and shoved the bag under my bed.

Dad met me at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hi, Zack. How’s the farming?”

“Very exciting, Dad. I found an old axe head.”

Mom put two fat bags with “Fergus Nursery” printed on the sides down on the kitchen table. “My son the anthropologist,” she said.

“Archeologist, Mom.”

“Whatever.”

P
robably because he felt guilty that I’d gotten into trouble at school on his behalf the week before, Dad let me use the truck after supper one night without the usual intensive begging on my part and the lame excuses on his. It was a three-year-old Toyota five-speed, small, gutless and in every sense a base model. Once I was away from the house I threw an old PUBB tape (the Practically Unknown Blues Band) into the deck, cranked it up and headed for town with music booming out of the speakers and warm spring air flowing in the windows. I pulled down the visor against the slanting rays of the sun and rolled down the main street of Fergus. There were a few kids hanging around outside the Rhett Butler Restaurant and sitting on the front steps of the old stone library, smoking and getting in people’s way.

In the blink of an eye I passed through town and continued west on a two-lane named City Road 18, solid proof that the founders of the town, who according to the sign were all Scots, had exhausted their imaginations once they had used up the names of princes, kings, queens and saints. I was soon in Elora, where, if it was possible, even less was happening than in
Fergus, and followed the signs to Elora Gorge Park.

Picnic tables were stacked under bare trees and chained together; rusted barbecues waited empty and cold for warmer weather to bring the families out. I drove through the park along narrow gravel roadways until I spotted two cars pulled up beside a stand of evergreens. Five kids stood around a fire, three guys and two girls with their backs to me. A couple of them I recognized from Jenkins’s geography class.

I turned down my radio and stopped the truck.

“Hi, Colin,” I yelled.

He was a tall lanky blond guy with bad zits and, according to school legend, the best jump shot in the league. I didn’t know him very well.

“Hey, Zack,” he called back, “how’s it goin’?”

“Great.”

Somebody said something I couldn’t hear and a couple of them laughed. One of the girls turned around; it was Jen. She sat behind me in homeroom and had shown me around on the first day, and by the time she had left me to go to another class, I had practically fallen in love with her. She had a compact build and an open, friendly face framed with thick auburn hair. Her eyes were deep brown, direct and honest. Jen was a far cry from the usual simpering eye-batters or brash loudmouths who thought you had to talk—and sometimes dress—like a truck driver to be taken seriously. She seemed unconventional, her own person. I had hoped I’d find her there
because she had mentioned once that she and some of her friends hung out at the park.

The two guys with Colin I didn’t know, but I guessed from their blue numbered tank tops that they wore in spite of the chilling air that they were b-ball players, too.

“Hey, man, got any beer?” one of them yelled.

The second girl still hadn’t turned around, so I couldn’t tell if I knew her.

“No, but I can get some,” I said without thinking.

The two tank tops let out a cheer halfway between a whoop and a snarl. “All
right!”

“See you in a few minutes,” I said, and started the truck. I pulled out, spraying gravel and watching them in my rear-view mirror. Four of them turned back to their conversation. Jen watched me leave. An encouraging sign, I hoped.

I seemed to do that a lot—let my mouth get ahead of my brain. After the first flash of warmth that came with thinking they would let me join their party, I was stuck with backing up my brag. I didn’t even like beer. But my dad did, once in a while. I headed home, hoping he’d have some stored in the overflow fridge in the garage and that I’d be able to lift it without my parents hearing me come back.

Twenty minutes later I barrelled into the park, a twelve-pack of Molson’s beside me on the seat. The party had heated up. The doors of both cars had been thrown open, both radios tuned to the same medium
rock station, and five voices were locked in competition with the pounding music. The fire roared. I parked the truck and, beer under my arm, walked casually towards the group.

“Hey, an angel of mercy!” Colin crowed. “With the ticket of admission in his hands.”

I set the box on the hood of one of the cars. “Help yourself,” I invited.

Colin and one of the others, tall, bony and freckled, dug in, muttering, “Thanks, man.” They moved away some distance and began to toss a football back and forth after setting their beers down on the ground. I carried four cans to the fire.

The third guy wore a school jacket over his tank top, flannel warm-up shorts and unlaced high-tops. He was shorter and heavier than the other two, with black hair and a nose that had probably earned him a lot of cruel remarks when he was a kid. The girl wore a scowl on her pinched features and hunched her shoulders under her bulky sweater, as if she was freezing.

“Hi, Jen,” I said, passing beers around.

“Hi, Zack. Meet Dave.”

We shook hands. He had an iron grip and squeezed my hand as hard as he could, an immature guy thing that always made me laugh inside. I let my hand go limp and rolled my fingers together, a trick I learned a long time ago. Dave smirked.

“And this is my cousin Kirsten,” Jen continued.
“She’s from Detroit. She’s visiting us for a few days.”

Kirsten was taller than Jen, with ash-blond hair that almost looked unbleached, and lots of make-up. Her nose stud winked in the waning light.

I popped open my beer, releasing a cascade of foam that poured over my hand. Cool move, Zack, I thought.

“Hi, Kirsten,” I said. “How are things in Detroit?”

She looked me straight in the eye. “White,” she sneered, and glanced away.

My breath caught in my throat, as if she had punched me in the gut.

Dave gave out a derisive laugh. Jen clapped her hand to her mouth, vainly trying to trap a giggle as her eyes saucered in surprise.

I felt the rage begin to build and my limbs quivered with the rush of adrenalin. I swallowed as my heartbeat climbed. A white rope of foam burst upwards as my beer can hit the ground at my feet.

I turned, walked slowly to the truck, felt their eyes crawling on my back as I opened the door and got in. I started the engine, put the truck in gear, and drove away.