“I was late for class.” It was okay now. I knew my father, knew exactly what question was coming next.
“And why were you late for class?”
“I got talking to Anna Big Sky.” I had to hand it to my brother. He never moved the paper, never turned his head, but I saw the tension in the line of his jaw. He was listening all right. “Time flies when you're having fun, eh? Talking to her, you know, I didn't notice what time it was. She's really neat.” Looking at Blake, you'd swear he was cut from a block of marble. No sign that he was breathing. Let's see what I could do about that. “I think she kind of likes me.” Not even a tremor. “But man, I saw the time and took off running. I almost made it.” That was for my father.
“Seems to me,” he said, “being late isn't something you should be feeling proud about.”
My brother was still hidden behind his paper, but now he turned his head and glowered at me. “You got that right,” he said.
I might have thought he was responsible if the crap had started the next day, but it didn't begin till later in the week. By then, I'd managed to see Anna Big Sky three more times in the halls at school. She always kept moving, except on one occasion never stopped to talk, but she always spoke. “Blair,” she said, just that, never “Hello,” or “Good to see you,” but with a smile every time, the kind of smile that would melt the ice off the creek the coldest day in January.
I wanted to see her every chance I could â which is why, when we had a short practice that afternoon, I grabbed a quick shower, pulled on my clothes when I was hardly finished dripping, and rushed into the gym. The volleyball games were still going on, her team defending the far court. I trotted across the gym and climbed onto the bleachers. The girls playing in the back row were so close, you could almost reach out and touch them. Anna, though, was in the front row, blocking shots, slamming the ball down at the floor. Man, she knew how to get elevation, her hands rising way above the net while somehow she hung in the air, smashing the ball past another leaping girl.
She'd just scored a point when I saw the far door open. Vaughn Foster sauntered into the gym, strolled slowly along between the stage and the court, then reached out with those powerful arms, hoisted himself onto the stage right beside the net. Bugger, I thought, what's he doing here?
A minute later, Anna was in the back line, taking over the serve. Most of the girls served underhand, but Anna raised the ball above her head, slammed it across the net. It would have gone out-of-bounds, but one of the Vanier players tried to block it, had it ricochet off her hands. Another point and our girls would win.
When Anna got the ball back, she cradled it for a second in both hands, then turned slowly around. Turned around and winked at me. “I need some luck, Blair,” she said and shoved the ball toward me.
For a second I didn't know what to do, but then I reached out and tapped the ball with my fist.
“That'll work,” she said. She tossed the ball above her head, but this time she leapt to meet it, catching it at its apex, smashing it so hard that it was already coming down as it crossed the net, an instant later hitting the floor, no one even close to it. Anna turned to me again, grinning, her right hand raised, and I slapped my hand on hers â no hesitation now. Man, it was almost as if I'd won the game for them.
The girls clustered together for a cheer, then trotted off the court, all of them passing right in front of the stage where Vaughn Foster sat, slouched there, his elbows on his knees, looking as cool as Brad Pitt would ever look. When Anna was almost beside him, he casually lifted one hand, that handsome smile of his spreading across his face, and she gave him a high five as she headed for the showers. Shit, I thought, why did he have to show up?
I was in the Seven-Eleven at noon hour when it began. Some kid I'd never seen before walking by me in the line-up, muttering, under his breath it seemed, but just loud enough so I'd be sure to hear him, “Injun lover,” like that, the kind of thing you might hear in some old clunker of a cowboy movie on the late show, one you'd be too embarrassed to watch if anybody was in the room with you. It sounded so stupid I almost laughed.
I was in the locker room, pulling my practice jersey over my head when it started there.
“You hear about the football player couldn't get himself a girl?” I knew the voice at once â Jordan Phelps. “Had to settle for red meat, eh? Pretty soon he don't want nothing else.”
Better ignore him, I thought. And then I thought about his grammar, which was usually good, but this was weird, now he was dumbing it down, playing the part of the folksy redneck. I tugged at my jersey, got it twisted on my shoulder pads. Jordan was sitting on the bench, leaning against his locker, lounging with his feet crossed before him, Todd Branton crouched beside him like a toad. Branton grinned at me. “What the hell kind of guy,” he said, “chases after squaws?”
“Screw you.” I gave my jersey a yank, heard it tear. It was still caught on my pads, but I walked by them, jerking at it to get it down. Practice jerseys, they were always ripping.
On the bench beside the door I noticed Morris Ackerman and Neil Tucker getting into their equipment. Morris was bent over his shoes, looking glum, concentrating on his shoelaces as if he thought they might somehow tie themselves in knots if his attention lapsed for even a second. Neil just looked disgusted, but neither of them spoke.
On the way out I almost bumped my brother coming in. He was flushed and in a hurry. I kept going.
Things were okay at practice, no one hassling me; I even laid a hit on Todd Branton, nailing him just as the ball touched his fingers, the ball bouncing in the air, him knocked to the ground. It felt good to hit someone. I thought Branton might try another smart crack, but Coach Conley was there. When Branton got up, he jogged back to the huddle without a word, never even looked at me.
I guess he was saving it for the shower room.
Half a dozen guys around me, I was massaging shampoo into my hair when he started. “Stinks in here,” Branton said. “Like somebody's been rubbing up against a piece of smoked meat.”
I groped for a shower, found the button, pushed it, eyes stinging with soap. Bumped someone.
“Quit shoving.” Neil Tucker, right beside me.
“Yeah,” said Branton, “somebody in here's been screwing Indians.”
I tilted my face toward the shower head, washed the soap out of my eyes. Turned toward Branton just in time to see a naked Ivan Buchko stepping forward, like a giant emerging from a swamp, fog all around him. “Hey!” he said. “Enough. My turn for a shower.” He nudged Branton with a massive hip, bumped him aside like someone knocking off a bug.
“Take it easy,” said Branton. He glared at Ivan, uncertain what to think, then turned back at me. I could almost see him making up his mind. In the haze of steam behind him I noticed my brother come into the room, a bottle of shampoo balanced on his fingertip like a baton.
“No doubt about it,” said Branton, “somebody around here's nothing but a squaw humper.”
Blake grabbed him even before the shampoo hit the floor. Spun him around, drove him back, his head bouncing off the wall, Blake slamming him under the chin with a forearm, pinning him there. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut your face â or I'll slap it shut.” I was every bit as stunned as Branton, who couldn't have looked more surprised if he'd been sucker-punched by a priest in the middle of a prayer. All the guys who'd peeled away when Blake went for him were staring at them now. The only sound was water bouncing off the floor, spinning down the drain. I don't think Branton dared breathe with Blake still leaning into him, arm planted on his neck. Finally, Ivan Buchko stepped over, tapping Blake on the shoulder.
“You don't get in here pretty quick,” he said, “hot water's gonna be all gone.”
Ivan gave us both a ride home that night. When he pulled up in front of our house, he said to Blake, “If I was you, I wouldn't be calling any quarterback sneaks around the left end for a while. Don't think Branton'll be out there blocking for you.” He laughed. “Man, he was shaking like a leaf. You hadn't had him pinned, he would've slid down the wall, disappeared right down the drain.”
Blake snorted. It sounded like a cross between a laugh and a grunt. “He needs to watch his mouth.”
We got out of the car, started around the side of the house, heading for the back door.
“You sure shut him up,” I said. “Thanks.” The sidewalk was narrow between the house and the fence, and Blake had stepped ahead of me, but as I spoke I reached out and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. It was the first time we'd touched in ages.
He stopped walking, turned toward me, a puzzled look on his face. “What do you mean?”
I must have looked just as puzzled. “The way you handled him, I appreciate that. Bugger'd been giving me a rough time all afternoon.”
“Shit,” said Blake. “I thought he was riding me.” He spun around, walked right by the backdoor and out to the picnic table under our crab apple tree. Sat down, his chin cradled in his hands. I glanced past him at the maple tree, the bird-feeder hanging crooked, but almost full, not a bird in sight. Surely, that damned hawk wasn't still around.
I followed Blake, slid onto the bench across from him, brushing a couple of withered crab apples out of the way. Blake didn't look at me. He was staring at a branch above my head, as if waiting to see when the last leaf would fall.
“He's been on me like a badger,” I said. “What a prick.” Blake was still studying the tree. “Why would you think he was riding you?”
My brother dropped his hands from beneath his chin. Finally looked at me.
“I figured he'd probably seen me â or someone might've told him.”
“Told him what?”
“I took her out last night â Anna Big Sky.”
I felt something rising in my throat, anger maybe, a flash of jealousy, I don't know, a surge of fear or craziness, something I'll never be able to explain, but I'd like to think that accounts for what happened next. “Those friends of yours,” I said, “they get you all hot and bothered, going on about red meat?”
He hit me before I could move, a slap across the mouth, sudden pain, teeth jammed into my lip, the raw taste of blood. He grabbed me by the collar, twisting my shirt, yanking me toward him. “Don't! Don't ever say that.”
I was choking, yeah, choking with shame. I'd just been repeating what they'd said, sure, but what a hell of a thing to say.
He held me inches from his face. I could almost feel the fire in his eyes.
“S-sorry. I didn't mean that.”
I felt my collar loosening. He gave me a little push on the chest and released his grip.
I heaved a quick breath. Found myself straining for another. “Look, I apologize. Honest to God, I didn't mean that.”
“Bloody well ought to apologize,” he said, and I thought he sounded just like our father.
“I did. You heard me.”
Except for a few leaves above us rattling in the breeze, the only sound was his breathing, gasps like those of a swimmer bursting into the air after he'd been underwater longer than he ought to be. I waited until his breathing calmed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“What do you mean â what happened?”
“When you took her out.”
“Nothing happened.” His voice was loud again. “We went for cokes â that's all.”
He looked away, as if he had a secret he didn't want to share.
“Wait a minute. You're supposed to be grounded.”
“I said I was working on my history project â at the library. And I was too â for a while. Had to be in by nine-thirty.”
“Bet that impressed her.” I made my voice as sarcastic as I could, but I couldn't leave it there. “You ask her out again?”
A crab apple fell on the table between us, misshapen, the colour of rust. He picked it up and tossed it to the ground.
“She said she didn't think it was such a great idea.”
I was so filled with relief that I hardly noticed his voice sounding old and beaten, but then his expression darkened, his voice rising in volume: “She's interested though. You can always tell when they like you. I'm gonna try again.”
Bullshit, I thought, you tried to cop a feel or something, and for the second time that day I said more than I should have. “You really figure she'd go out with a guy who pisses on girls?”
For just a second it was as if I'd hit him with a two-by-four. He shrank away from me, sinking lower into the bench. You'd swear he was smaller now, a blow-up toy that some kid had punctured, the air seeping out, and I thought I had him. His face at first was crimson, but the colour was already fading.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I was there. I saw the whole thing.” He deserved to suffer. I'd make him suffer. “That poor girl, lying there unconscious. Could've choked on her own vomit â and died â for all you cared. And there you were, the bunch of you, lined up like you're standing over a bloody latrine.”
He got his hands on the table, pushed himself up, hovered there above me, his face suddenly red again. “You got it wrong,” he said, and he was yelling now. “I'm the guy who tried to stop them. They were all drunk out of their skulls â didn't know what they were doing â yeah, and I was drunk too, couldn't make them quit. But I wasn't pissing on her. That's the truth.” He was staring down at me, as if by the sheer power of his gaze he could compel me to believe him.
“Like hell it is.”
“Well, piss on you then,” he said, and turned to go inside.
W
e played the Weyburn Eagles that Saturday, a game we were expected to win. It had snowed on Friday night, five centimeters of snow followed by a few minutes of freezing rain. The field was coated with an icy crust. If we'd been playing in Regina at Mosaic Stadium there would have been a grounds crew to scrape it away, but we weren't the Roughriders so we played on snow and ice.