Creeps (2 page)

Kenny's not six feet away, kicking at the ice to find some traction and chewing the inside of his cheek and furrowing his brow and squeezing the snowball in his hands, while Pete stands there like an umpire ready to either fly off the handle or pat a bottom. “Don't flinch, Pumphrey,” he says, “this'll only take a second.”

The school bell and then a skidoo's engine. Somewhere a barking dog.

Kenny lines up his shot. Gives Pete a look.

Pete nods.

Kenny draws in a big breath and lowers his chin into his chest.

Wayne imagines a broken nose or a black eye or, even worse, a concussion. He too draws in a breath and holds it, readying himself for impact. That's when he sees her walking towards them: jacket too small and wearing sneakers despite the icy street and no hat or mittens and her hair's messy and her cheeks are red.

Kenny draws back. Follows through—

She screams—

Kenny releases the snowball too soon, not enough torque, its trajectory slightly off course.

Wayne forces himself to stay still, to heed The Meat's warning, but then there's a cry beside him and Bobby drops and blood's staining the street.

THREE

Bobby's on all fours searching for his tooth. “You don't suppose I swallowed it, do ya, Pete?” he says, his voice breaking.

Pete's too busy staring at Marjorie to answer. Marjorie with the dead father and who eats alone in the cafeteria and who, according to rumour, inserted a whole package of frozen Maple Leaf wieners up inside herself. A half-moon scar on her left cheek that they say she did
herself
to commemorate the cycle the moon was in when her father died.

Bobby's voice again. Steadier. “Found it!” He holds up the bloodied, rotted tooth. “Can they put her back in, Pete?”

Pete, his eyes still on Marjorie, says, “Once she's out she's out, dickwad.”

Bobby stares at his tooth for ages, then puts
it in his pocket. Grabs a chunk of ice and presses it against his top lip. He glares at Kenny. “You're fuckin' cockeyed!”

“I got distracted.” Kenny points at Marjorie and says, “Blame Maple Leaf.”

Pete The Meat shoots Wayne a look. “Girlfriend showed up just in time, Pumphrey. Must be your lucky day, eh?” He tries in vain to stifle a laugh. “Not so lucky for Bobby though … he's just lost one of the
three
teeth he's got left.”

Bobby takes the ice away from his mouth. His lip looks like a snake after it's swallowed a mouse. “It's not funny!”

“You're right, Bobby, it's not,” Pete says.

Harvey can't stop smiling. “It
is
a little.”

“Pete!”

“Easy, Bobby, Harvey's just foolin' with ya.”

“Tell him to stop.”

“Give it up, Harvey,” Pete says. “How would you feel if you didn't have enough teeth to chew your food?”

Kenny says, “A custard diet soon enough.”

Everyone laughs save for Bobby.

“Fuckers,” Bobby says. He spits a glob of blood onto the street.

Another bus drives by.

Another school bell, too.

Everyone looks at Marjorie. She's long outgrown
her jacket, Wayne thinks. Why else would it cling to her like that? Doesn't even reach her waist.

Pete says, “How long you two been goin' out, Maple Leaf?”

Marjorie doesn't say anything.

The Meat steps closer. “Figured you'd try the real thing, eh?”

“Thank God,” says Kenny. “My folks were getting sick and tired of going to Dominion and finding all the wieners gone.”

Pete laughs. “Good one, Kenny.”

She speaks then. “Leave Wayne Pumphrey alone.”

Pete says, “Listen, boys,
IT
speaks.”

Marjorie slips her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Can't find someone your own size to pick on?”

“How 'bout I pick on you?”

Wayne says, “Leave her alone,” but when no one acknowledges he's said anything, it occurs to him he'd only mouthed the words.

“Big man, eh, Pete?” Marjorie says.

“That's right.”

“You think you're something special, dontcha?”

“Mind your mouth, Maple Leaf.”

“You're no different than the rest of us.”

“No? I don't need the meat department at Dominion to get
laid,
do I? And I'm not a midget faggot like Pumphrey over there.”

“A midget faggot,”
Bobby repeats.

Marjorie pauses. “Is it true what I heard?”

The Meat smooths his almost-a-moustache again. “I don't know, Maple Leaf; what did you hear?”

Marjorie looks over at Wayne and then back at Pete. “That your real dad's not the one you live with.”

Someone gasps: Harvey—no, Kenny, it's Kenny.

Bobby says, “You're in for it now, Maple Leaf.”

The Meat stops blinking and his jaw goes slack and he licks his lips and swallows and looks right at Marjorie and says, “What did you say?”

Before Marjorie can repeat it, Kenny suggests that maybe it's best they go, but Pete tells everyone to stay put. “No, I want her to say it again. Come on, Maple Leaf, go ahead, or have you lost your nerve now?”

“Let's
go,
Pete—”

“
Shut up,
Kenny—”

“Your real dad's not the one you live with, I said.”

So quiet.

“That, and you had a tough start.”

Pete goes right up to Marjorie (close enough to kiss her if he puckered) and stares right into her eyes.

Wayne notices the thick fingers of Pete's right hand curling into a fist, so he moves towards him, then stops, and realizes he hasn't moved at all.

“You gonna strike a girl, Pete?” Kenny says.

“Don't know. Maybe.”

Marjorie doesn't move.

Pete speaks again. “What about
your
real dad, eh Maple Leaf? Where's he? Oh right: rotting in some box.”

It's like everything stops, or rather moves in quarter speed. The only way to process the words.
Rotting in some box,
that's exactly what The Meat said.

Marjorie stares at Pete with her sky-blue eyes that are the colour of Wayne's comforter. They're a commander's eyes after trudging through a field of slaughtered soldiers.

A gust of wind.

Snowflakes as big as peaches.

Kenny goes over and puts a hand on The Meat's shoulder. “Forget it, Pete. She's nothing.”

No one says anything.

Pete slowly unfurls his fist and nods, and a sly grin lifts the corner of his mouth. “You're right, Kenny: she's nothing.” Then to Marjorie, “How does it feel, Maple Leaf? To be no one? You're practically not even here.” He laughs and the others laugh too, so he holds out his palm and Kenny slaps it and says, “Fuckin' rights.”

“All right, boys, let's go,” Pete says.

Bobby won't move.

“What's the matter?” Pete asks him.

“It's not fair: here I am with no tooth and what did Pumphrey lose?”

The Meat pauses, then says, “Oh, don't you worry about him, Bobby, he'll lose plenty. And more than a rotted tooth, too.”

This seems to satisfy Bobby because he tries to smile, but it's too painful with his swollen lip, so he walks over and joins the others instead.

Pete looks at Wayne and says, “I'd watch my back if I were you,” to which Bobby replies, “Thank God you're not, eh, Pete?”

“What?”

“Like Pumphrey.”

Pete The Meat pauses for a moment. “Yeah, Bobby … thank
God
.”

FOUR

Wayne's practically jogging to keep up with Marjorie. “Can't you slow down?” he says.

She doesn't answer, just keeps up her Olympic pace, chin tucked into her jacket collar, hands in her pockets, overly long strides as if there were endless potholes in her path she's trying to step over.

“I just wanted to thank you,” says Wayne. “I appreciate what you did.”

Suddenly she's down on her bum, legs splayed out like a fallen youngster on her first pair of skates. He rushes over and holds out his hand, but she won't take it.

“I'm not handicapped,” she says, getting back to her feet and dusting away the snow on the back of her pants.

“Don't you have boots?” Wayne says.

“Does it look like it? You think I'd wear these if I didn't have to?”

Wayne doesn't say anything.

“Not all of us have rich dads working at the mine, Wayne Pumphrey.”

Marjorie starts walking again and Wayne wonders how someone who always looks like he's just getting out of bed and who lives in a ratty coat with nicotine stains on the sleeves and who's forever in boots with untied laces could be rich. The rattling change in his father's pockets and his parents sometimes going into overdraft on their chequing account, so what's rich about that?

Wayne holds out his hands. “Would you like to borrow my mittens?”

She shakes her head.

“My toque? What's funny?”

“You want to be picked on less … stop wearing that hat, Wayne Pumphrey.”

“Really? What's wrong with it?”

“The ponies. The little piggies at the trough.”

Wayne takes off the toque and looks at it. “Mom knit this.”

“Exactly.”

Marjorie turns to go.

“Wait.”

“What now, Wayne Pumphrey?”

“Umm …” He puts his toque back on. “Nothing.”

“Just because I saved you doesn't mean we're going to be lifelong friends.”

“Okay.”

She starts to go again.

“Pete'll get you back for what you said. He hates anyone mentioning his real dad or his tough start and he struck a teacher once, I was told.”

“Shouldn't believe everything you hear, Wayne Pumphrey.” She stops and turns around. “Do you wear your sister's panties and listen to Rita MacNeil CDs?”

“What?”

“'Cause that's what
I've
been told.”

“Well, it's a lie! I'd
never
wear my sister's panties!” Wayne pauses. “And they're my
mom's
CDs. I can't very well tell her to shut them off now, can I?”

Marjorie shrugs.

“What about what they say about
you
?” Wayne says.

“What about it?”

A rush of warmth in Wayne's face makes him turn away.

“My body, isn't it, Wayne Pumphrey? What's it to the crowd around here what I do with it.”

Wayne doesn't speak.

“Let them talk. They're all so perfect, are they?”

A third school bell.

Then “Ode to Newfoundland.”

Wayne sees late slips and wagging forefingers and lectures about responsibility and detention and staring out the window and wishing he were somewhere else.

“I hate Canning,” Marjorie says. “At least if we lived on the island we could go to St. John's. Not everyone would know me. What? Why are you smiling?”

“‘God's country,' Mom says.”

“What,
Labrador
?”

“Yeah.”

“Too cold for God in Canning.”

“She says we have the best northern lights—”

“Pfft—”

“And that when the sky's blue and the sun's reflecting off the snow there's nowhere prettier.”

“Really? Well you tell her that I can think of a hundred places better. A thousand.”

“And the best of all, Mom says, is the quiet.”

“That's because no one's stupid enough to live here. Except us.”

Neither of them speaks for a long time. Then Wayne says, “Why does your mother always peek through the drapes?”

“I don't know, Wayne Pumphrey, why does your father always drive on the wrong side of the street?”

Because he knows there aren't always answers
for things, or at least ones that make sense, he stays quiet.

Then Marjorie says, “How long you gonna put up with it, Wayne Pumphrey?”

“Put up with what?”

“Whaddya think?”

He doesn't answer, listens instead to the faraway voices butchering the provincial anthem:

When blinding storm gusts fret thy shore
And wild waves lash thy strand

Thro' spindrift swirl and tempest roar
We love thee, windswept land

We love thee, we love thee,

We love thee, windswept land

Then he says, “Why'd you help?”

“Beats me.”

“You've never before.”

“Only so often you can walk past the same car wreck.”

Wayne nods.

She brushes away the snow on her head.

“Pete shouldn't have said that,” Wayne says. “About your dad.”

She breathes and slides her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“Do you miss him?”

Marjorie doesn't say.

“Sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought it up.”

She turns around. Disappears into the sea of falling snow.

FIVE

“You can take the paper bag off your head now, Mr. Pumphrey.”

Wayne does, folding it neatly and laying it on his lap.

Mr. Rollie takes off his glasses and massages his eyes, then puts them back on. Runs a hand through his tangle of red hair. “Come closer, Mr. Pumphrey.”

Wayne picks up his chair and goes over and positions it in front of the long table Mr. Rollie is sitting behind, then sits himself. He takes in the wall clock over the door with the stopped second hand and the whiteness of the room that's like a hospital or an insane asylum. The only colour is the orange of the plastic chairs and Mr. Rollie's hair and the brown food trays and the mural on the wall displaying the five basic food groups.

“You sure you wouldn't be happier in the band?” Mr. Rollie says.

“Tried, sir: the drums. Mrs. Cooper said I had no rhythm.”

“She did, eh?”

“Mm-hm.”