Once You Break a Knuckle (9 page)

—You need to help me hang the punching bag.

—What time is it?

—If you go back to bed I'll wake you with ice water.

I said I locked my door. He crossed his arms and shrugged in a
you think that'll stop me?
way.

In the rec room downstairs, my old man kept a set of free weights and a treadmill and a Total Gym exercise machine. I preferred the free weights but he refused to let me use them without a spotter, threatened to bust out his taser if he ever caught me doing so. The punching bag leaned on the wall and the workout bench was cocked at an angle toward one side of the room. He'd tried to balance the bag on the bench while securing it to the hook, and though it was an admirable strategy in theory, there was no way for him to lift the bag, balance it, and climb up alongside.

I told him I wished I'd seen him try that.

The two of us squatted to heft the bag, arms low and knuckles against the floor like apes. Our fingers dug into the underside of the canvas. He counted to three and we heaved and he yelled for me to use my legs and I yelled for him to lift straight and after the bag fell sideways a second time my old man pushed me away and told me to just wait on the bench.

Once he stopped heckling me and held the bag still, it didn't take long to mount. The damned thing was older than me and yellower than sweat and I have no idea what it'd been filled with. My old man practised a few jabs, a quick succession of right, left-right, right. He wore leather workout gloves that made your hands smell like old dollar bills. The bag shuddered with each impact. He
fell into a rhythm and struck it only on its downswing, hard enough to jerk it backward with unsettling human-like recoil.

—You want in on this? he said.

We used to train together, one of us on each side of the bag, alternate our punches, like tetherball. His hits always landed an elbow's height above mine so the bag hourglassed between us. It was a game: try and back the other guy up, force him to circle. I often had to circle.

—You sure you're good to be doing this?

He was already a little red cheeked. With every hit he loosed a sharp breath.

—Scared? he said.

I strapped on the extra pair of gloves. Nylon, shitty.

He'd taught me to throw my punches on that bag, in third grade when it became clear I'd need to know how to defend myself. —Some people don't like police, he'd told me as I mimicked the placement of his fist, the flex of his biceps, the precise curl of his knuckles. —They'll tell their kids to pick on you. Only fight if you have to. You'll probably have to.

Before he threw a punch he'd draw his elbow to his hip, hold it tensed, and then he'd lash out and his body would half twist and his wrist would turn one-eighty in the air. With each strike his neck muscles corded and I saw his jaw clench, his teeth grind. His fists
whump
ed the canvas. The bag juddered, buckled on its chain, and I met it with all the momentum I could muster, over and over, until sweat shone on our arms and faces and my knuckles ached and
my old man's breath wheezed in short gulps like a man sucking air through a straw.

THE PHONE RANG FOR
most of the day but he only answered twice: his sister in Winnipeg who wanted a day-by-day account, and who refused to hang up until my old man promised to make a photograph slideshow, and Darren Berninger, who was throwing a party as a way to welcome my old man home and as a way to get smashing drunk. Every off-duty RCMP member would be there.

Shortly before dinner I drove my old man downtown so he could reinsure the Bonneville and procure a flat of Kokanee from the liquor store. Our truck was an '89 Ranger with a bench seat so filthy he nearly refused to sit on it, because he had standards and because he was no savage. But he could still fight like a savage, he warned, so don't try anything. I told him real men sleep on beds of earth and only shower when it rains. He said if I wanted to lay my face in the dirt he could help speed the process, and then he tapped his fists together, twice. Outside, the sky had already darkened with December twilight – gone sheetmetal grey – and he asked if I'd seen any decent movies lately. His T-shirt read:
Cops Only Have One Hand – the Upper Hand
.

In the evening we hiked it to the Coopers' house rather than drive, even though the journey would take a good twenty minutes, because my old man didn't want to risk having his car ratbagged by the hicks. He'd decided to advise the boys at the office about Larry's vandalism
problem, and I asked if that would help, and he told me they'd get what they deserved.

—Maybe Mitch and I should just hunt them down.

—I'm thinking this prey isn't worth the bullets.

—It only takes one, I said.

In the distance, the top of the Coopers' house appeared over my old man's shoulder. He planted himself and turned toward me and his lips bowed at the corners – a slow grimace – and I wondered if his chest ached, if he could feel the hole where the lead pierced in. And then I regretted saying anything at all.

—Seriously, Will, he said, and seemed to look past me. He favoured his left side, even just standing. Dark lines circled his eyes and bled to wrinkles. The welt on his cheek widened like a grin. He could've been anyone's dad right then, one more overworked guy who hadn't slept in days. He didn't have to be Corporal John Crease.

The Coopers' doorbell played an eight-note tune, like an organ in a church. Larry opened the door, dressed in faded jeans and a soil-coloured Parks Canada T-shirt. He was shorter than my old man and softer but they both wore those tintable glasses that grow dark beneath the light of day.

—John, he said.

—Hey, Larry.

They shook hands and Larry ushered us inside. Mitch and his brother, Paul, sat at the table. Paul was a year and a half younger than Mitch but otherwise the same. He had a rounder face, stood inches shorter, smiled perpetually.
Throughout our childhood, Larry would host hotdog cookouts, and in those brittle summers a prepubescent Paul chased neighbourhood girls with grasshoppers and grubs and earthworms he'd dangle like a set of keys. My old man figured he and Paul were equally suave with women.

Larry's wife, Karen, darted around the kitchen multi-tasking like no one I had ever seen. She wore a denim skirt and a knitted beige sweater with the sleeves rolled up. Flour coated her arms to the elbows. When she saw my old man she gave him a big hug that dusted him with white, but her smile said she didn't care one bit. —Oh goodness John it's good to see you.

The house smelled like steak and potatoes. Karen mixed a punch of cranberry juice and ginger ale, and between peeking into the oven and peeking into the barbecue and wiping her hands on a dish towel, she managed to fill six glasses and not burn a thing. My old man offered to help and was told to sit right down. One of Mitch's sisters, Ash, joined us – a redhead one year our junior who I sort of had a crush on. She sat across from me, greeted my old man, and pressed her lips to what could've been a smile.

—Hey Ash, I said.

—William Crease, she said, and I watched her freckles and Mitch watched me with his knowing brotherly eyes.

Before we ate, Larry cupped his hands for grace. —Thank you Lord for the food on the table and the company we share it with, and thank you for bringing John back safely, he's as much a part of this family as anyone seated here today.

The whole dinner, my old man regaled us with stories, mostly about his landlady, a grandmotherly type. They couldn't communicate easily, but she would visit him in the basement with a tray of tea and say —
Chai? Chai?
and he would bring her potato chips from Camp Bondsteel because she loved potato chips. He told us about the times he would come off cadet training so stiff even his heartbeat made him ache. At work, he taught Kosovo police recruits how to fight and how to win; that made him a peacekeeper but not the gunslinging type. His roommate was a Dutchman named Lou who had eight daughters and three ex-wives. The two of them warmed Chef Boyardee in tins and shared candlelight dinners and some nights my old man would find Lou at the table with his food untouched and say, —You waited for me, and Lou would say, —For you, Johnny, I'd wait forever.

Halfway through the meal, cheek full of potato, Larry levelled his fork at my old man and said, —So, how long until you can work again?

—A lesser man would take six months' leave, my old man said.

Larry slurped his punch and mumbled
yup
into the glass.

—Heard you're having trouble with the locals, my old man said.

—Some of the neighbours.

—They egged my truck, Paul said.

—And the upper windows too, Karen said. She laid
her palms flat on the table, thumbs overlapped. —Larry's getting too old to climb out there, especially in winter.

—Might find you elbows-first in the snowbank, eh Lar? my old man said, and Larry loosed a belly laugh and Karen clapped his forearm. My old man gulped a mouthful of punch, considered the tumbler in his big hand, swirled the maroon dregs at the glass's base. —I'll talk to the boys at the office.

Dinner wound on. Larry donned his coonskin hat and when Karen noticed she threatened him with an upheld fork. My old man declined seconds, patted his well-earned paunch. Ash let their dog inside – a great golden retriever who padded to my old man and put its snout in his palm. Mitch snapped photographs with a disposable camera and Paul walloped him on the shoulder, and nobody batted an eye. Christ, an ape could have come swinging in on the chandelier and none of us would've cared – we'd known each other that long. It felt like a pocket of childhood, an evening we would all look back upon fondly. Then Larry suggested we head outside to their toboggan hill.

We piled out the entryway, the lot of us. Mitch tugged on a tuque and Ash stepped into snowpants and me and my old man shared a look that said, —Why the hell not? Larry wore his coonskin hat, like always, and hooked his thumbs in his belt and surveyed the flock. Karen was dressed in a puffy spaceman's coat, arms crossed and her eyebrows bent in a show of motherly say-so. On the way around the house, Mitch and Larry each grabbed
an oldschool toboggan. They were hand-built, heavy as lumber. Larry called them his snow canoes.

The far edge of their backyard dipped to the gully – the gateway to the wilderness that surrounds Invermere. The glow from the porch teased the outlines of felled trees, frozen chaff scattered along the descent, and clefts in the snow where the Coopers had tested the mettle of their sleds. Mitch planted his toboggan in one of those clefts, grabbed the reins, and looked around for someone to join him. Paul did so, and Larry too – climbed in behind his sons and cracked a joke about three men in a tub. And down they went, one or both of the boys, and maybe even Larry, hooting at the darkness.

—I am in no condition to attempt this, my old man said. The clamber of a crash landing thudded up the hill, the gonging laughter of boys.

—Only a lesser man would go chicken, I said.

—A lesser man would also beat that lippiness out of you.

—Anytime you're ready, old man.

—Just wait boy, he said. —Just you wait.

Ash and Karen boarded the second sled. —Not too fast, Karen said. —My foot is on the brake, Ash told her, and as they teetered on the verge of descent Karen grabbed her daughter at the waist, pressed her cheek to the space between Ash's shoulder blades. They plunged, and I traced their journey and my old man gave me a sudden, one-handed shove. —Women, he said, low enough so none of the Coopers would hear.

Mitch returned, Paul in tow. Snow dusted their cheeks and ice clung to the wool of their tuques. —You guys want a go?

My old man touched his chest. —Best not.

Ash emerged from the darkness. She barely stood to Mitch's shoulders, even though he'd sunk inches into the snow. She belted him a friendly kidney shot and he scowled down at her. Then she and Mitch and Paul boarded one sled while Larry and Karen boarded the other. —A race, Larry hollered, and shoved his kids sideways before speeding off.

The gully swallowed them. —One run, I said to my old man.

—I can't, son.

—You're chickening out.

—You heard what I said.

—Real men –

—Will
, he said, and my mouth clicked shut. Once, in my younger days, my old man popped both shoulders from their sockets, but even while injured he had not hesitated to wrestle me for control of the living room couch. Downslope, the Coopers took shape in the darkness, as if they were being formed as they ascended. Larry held Paul in a headlock. Mitch had come into possession of the coonskin hat. Ash kept pushing Karen to the snow. The whole time, their laughter rollicked uphill and I thought: here, this is a family.

When I turned to my old man I found him with one arm bent to his chest, clenching a wad of fabric about
level with his heart. For a terrifying moment I thought he was having a heart attack, but he must've realized this, because he let go and forced himself straight.

Larry beat me to it, even that far away: —You okay, John?

—It's nothing.

Larry released his son. —Let's head inside.

—It's nothing, my old man called down. Clouds of breath billowed before him. —An ache.

—Dad, I said.

He waved his hand at me, as if to shoo a fly. —Why don't you take a ride with one of them, he said. His voice had lost its roughness and he drawled, low and soft, like he was speaking to alleviate a great suffering. At the time I thought it had to be his injury, that he was in pain, but it's been years and there have been times when he's used that drawl without a wound to speak of. It's the voice he uses when he has to testify against a nephew charged with manslaughter, when he has to bury a sister, when, after decades, he still can't hold a relationship. It's his lonely voice. —Go with Mitchell, or Ashley, he said again. —I don't want you getting miserable on my behalf.