The City Still Breathing (9 page)

A tuneless whistling slices through the cold air, and the figure comes clear as it draws closer. A man. A young man. Peach fuzz. Can't be much older than nineteen. T-shirt, even in this cold. Some tough case. And as the kid passes him, Gordon catches the shine of gold at the wrist. A watch.

The kid's crossing into their zone and he angles up along the boards, sneaking up on the right side. The kid's skating fast, but his head's still down. He cuts in on him, coming up hard, and lays in with the shoulder.
Wham!
– and they both get tangled and hit the ice.

They're on the slag and the kid thrashes, catching Gordon with the familiar sensation of a right hook, and he loses his hold, the kid leaping to his feet and rushing for the opposite bank. Gordon drags his ass off the ground, kicks off the remaining slipper and gives chase.

The kid scampers cat-like up the bank – loosing an avalanche of slag down on him. The kid clambers to the top and stands on the crest of the ridge, turning to look down at him. A kick from above, a cloud of dust and rock, and Gordon sees it. The network of the diamondback pattern on the kid's feet. A glimpse and he's out of sight over the ridge.

The furnace in his gut propels Gordon to the top of the bank. Behind him, he can see the steady snowfall peppering the lake of slag and beyond, all the lights in the mining town winking on. Turning back, he can see the dark shapes of the shacks huddling on the side of the bank below. Only one light, the flicker of a lantern, in a window. Door slam – the light goes out.

Gordon, with his eyes focused on this shack – eyes on the puck – descends. His feet leaving a trail of blood on the snow and slag in his wake.

Gordon moves between the cindered and rotting wood of the buildings. The smell of decay reaching past the paper still lodged in his nostrils. He finds the shack, camouflaged by the rest, but through the window he can see the shape of a mattress and a lantern, ember still fading, hanging on a nail. No one in sight.

Gordon circles the structure, settling in front of the only door. He raises a foot to kick, but spotting the mess attached to his ankle, he lays in with his shoulder instead. The lock splinters and Gordon pours into the dark interior.

Another fist connects with his jaw. And the kid is up and skating away, carrying the puck deep into their zone. He sees the number on the back of the kid's sweater – #18. Draft pick with the North Stars. Hotshot. Twenty seconds left. If he scores now, it's done. He pulls himself to his feet and gives chase. The kid's fast, but Gordon wants it more. Fifteen seconds. No one else around. All on him. Send it to overtime. Give them one last chance. The kid shifts the puck to his left side. He's gonna go backhand. A flash move. He can see it happening, down low under the pads. The playoffs over just like that. Everything over. Ten seconds. The white noise of the crowd. Scouts watching.
Crash
– people pounding the glass shouting.
Crash
– you're gonna be big – the next one!
Crash
– hit em, hit em, Python!
Crash
– Hit em, Killer! The puck is cocked, he's not gonna reach him. Five seconds. He drops his stick, reaches out with his left, grabbing the back of the kid's jersey, pulls him in.
Crash
– kill em! Kill em, Gordo!
Crash
– his fist hits the back of the kid's skull.
Crash
. The kid hits the ice, head bouncing.
Crash
. The arena is silent. He doesn't see the puck. He doesn't see anything. Everything crashes down.

Gordon feels nothing again. No fire, no cold, just nothing.

He tosses the kid on the mattress and stands over him. The kid doesn't move.

A slow glow fills the cabin, orange fire, revealing everything in stark detail. Corncob-yellow paint has disguised the rotting wood, fading photographs smiling from behind tacks, a small collection of tinned food, and at the heart of it all – snake scales and a gold watch. He glances out the window. The carts have pulled up on the embankment across from the shack, puking up a stream of molten slag, glowing in the night.

He looks down at this kid, maybe not even nineteen. Still not moving. The body on the television. The body on the ice. This body here. His body on his bed in his empty apartment. His snake laid out in her terrarium. They all look the same.

The kid groans. ‘Please. Don't kill me.'

Gordon feels all his breath go out and he sinks to his knees, weak – so weak. He leans over the kid and reaches out to brush his hair, wipe off some of the blood, but the kid rolls away. Looking at the small body on this mattress, he can see some kind of vice already closing in, and he thinks about his own place, his one-room bachelor above the newsstand. And he wants to tell him, I won't hurt you. There's more in this world than all this shit, this slag. He wants to save him. Just kick the puck away.

But instead he reaches out again and drags the boots off the kid's feet. He pulls them on, his own feet sticky with blood, catching the vapour of warmth inside. He stands again, leather creaking, the sensation flooding back – his first day wearing them, two weeks ago. Walking back from the Donovan, feeling the warmth, the comfort of having something he cared for so close. Taking the edge off everything so cold creeping in at all corners. And he imagines he can feel, at the left ankle, the place where he scratched the name. Five letters and a number.

‘Hey.' The kid, now sitting up, holds something out to him – the gold watch. ‘Take it. My old man gave it to me. It's all I got.'

Gordon feels something stick in his throat. Just boots. Just a snake. Just a name. Nothing's just anything. Dead inside and out, they all look the same. They're all the same. And they all have the same name. Katie #18.

He pushes the kid's hand back and tries to smile, but it hurts. He turns and heads back out, trying not to look at the kid – the blood from his nose matching Gordon's own. He shuts the door as softly as he can and walks off, the cooling slag closing the night in around him. You can't save anyone. Not even yourself.

It's only when he climbs the stairs to his room, key in lock, that he remembers the wallet he forgot, the five maybe ten dollars inside.

Hell, let him have something. Pushing through to the roar of the empty space beyond.

10

N
ormando is sinking into the flowered chesterfield, sucking on a bowl of stewed prunes, the television strobe lighting up the room. Randolph Scott is coming through a canyon, white cowboy hat pushed back as he speeches at Joel McCrea about poor men. McCrea's cradling a rifle like a baby and he looks off into the great blue yonder and Normando pulls himself out of the swamp of the chesterfield, dialling the volume up until the speakers rattle so he can hear this. Hear him say it. Almost chokes on a prune straining to hear it.

‘All I want is to enter my house justified.'

Pat steps in front of the set.

‘Norm – Norm, can you turn that down? Turn it down, Norm.' She doesn't wait, yanking the plug out. ‘Need you to come look at my pee, Norm – it's got a funny colour. Can you come look at my pee, Norm?'

Normando struggles out of the chesterfield, making the move to plug the set back in.

‘You've already seen that one, Norm. Can you just take a blue minute here and look at my pee?'

‘Pat, I don't need to see yer goddamned pee.'

‘Well, you just go ahead and write that on my gravestone, Norm.' Pat turning away, turning back. ‘What're you doing moping about in here with the lights out?'

‘Lights weren't out – watching the
TV
.'

‘Always moping about, you. You just haven't been the same, Norm. No sir.' She lets the words hang, incomplete, her face all pinched up as she walks out of the room.
Not since you retired
– but she doesn't say it, and her not saying it lets the words become something else. Something that reaches back farther. Not since the mine. Not since the boy. Not since ever.

She chirps up again from the other room. ‘You hear bout that boy they found out on the highway?'

‘Yep.'

‘What d'you think about that then?'

And he doesn't answer, because you don't talk about the damned dead. They're gone and that's that. Let em have their peace.

‘This came for you today – first one.' Scurrying back in, she shoves an envelope into his hand – plastic crinkle of a government window and his name typed in. ‘You're an old man now.'

She leaves him alone to fumble with the plug, to curse, to sit back and be silent in the dark of the living room.

11

E
milia first mentions something about a body after they crawl under the wooden fort. The
thump thump
of the other kids running around above them, laughing like a bunch of dorks. Emilia Zanetti and Elwy Zott side by side down here in the dark with their plastic ninjas and the last of the earwigs.

‘And my dad said they don't even know his
name
, isn't that nuts?' Emilia always asking her questions twice. ‘Isn't it?' But she never really needs an answer, so Elwy doesn't say anything. Instead he tries to whistle. Because he's nervous. And he can make great whistling faces but he can't make great whistling sounds. Or any whistling sounds. It's what Emilia calls his ghost whistle. Under the fort, Elwy purses his lips and makes strange breathing noises.

‘Quit ghost whistling, El, this is serious.'

Elwy stops making strange breathing noises and concentrates on not being nervous. It's hard because thinking about dead bodies is the number one thing that makes him nervous. That and having to write on the board in class.

‘And my dad said it was definitely murder.'

Elwy shuts his eyes tight so that murder can't get into them. Emilia's dad is an expert of everything. Because he reads the paper every morning and watches
TV
every night and you aren't allowed to talk to him when he does these things because they are more important.

Emilia and Elwy side by side in class, both raising their hands in succession, Zanetti and then Zott, the same way it's been since Grade 3 when Elwy's dad had his heart exploded and he and his mom moved into that brownstone across the street from the school. There was that bit in Grade 5 when Andrew Zimmerman split them up, but nobody talked to him because he wore jogging pants and anyway he got held back a year. Not for wearing jogging pants but for being dumb.

Mr. Bedard and his big shiny head are up at the board, trying to teach them something boring about music theory. Elwy's book is open on his desk, him doodling in the margins.

‘And my dad said there was blood everywhere, all over the back of the van, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Everywhere.'

Doug Degault with his big eavesdropping ears one seat up and to the left. ‘Emilia, your dad cleans the fuckin urinals.'

‘Kiss my grapefruit, celery lips.' Emilia leans in closer to Elwy, whispering so Doug can't hear. ‘And you know what else my dad said this morning? Know what else?'

But then Allie at the front is pointing outside and saying something to Mr. Bedard and then chairs are sliding back and everyone's moving to the windows. Everyone except Emilia, still chirping behind him as Elwy goes to press his face to the glass. ‘When they opened the doors there was all that blood and that was it.' Snowflakes coming down, hitting the brown grass. These first ones'll melt, sure, but it won't be long before they'll pile up and Elwy's already thinking about his black
GT
Racer in the basement, the hill down at the park, all the snowball fights, the skating rink down at Queen's, the icicles on the side of his house, the sound of the plough going by while you're lying in bed thinking about all that stuff.

Then Emilia's beside him, tugging at his sleeve. ‘You hear me? There was all that blood but no body. That dead guy just disappeared.' Elwy's breath on the glass, everything crusting over.

After the bell and everyone is gone, except Elwy sharpening all his pencils, three of them, like he does every day. The warm smell of pencil shavings in his hands as he walks to the front and drops them in the brown trash can. Mr. Bedard peering down at sheet music spread out on his desktop. ‘See you tomorrow, Elwy.'

Elwy nods and goes for the door and then comes back to stand at the edge of the desk, picking at the corner where the wood has splintered. Mr. Bedard looks up with droopy eyes over his droopy moustache. ‘Working on your whistle?'

Elwy shakes his head and peels a really nice flake of wood off the desk. ‘Mr. Bedard?'

‘Mm?'

‘Do some people live forever?'

‘What?'

‘Do some people, like some people, never die?'

‘Uh. Hm.' Shuffling his papers and touching his moustache. ‘Well, Elwy, some people can live a long, long time. But not forever, no.'

‘Oh.' Elwy starts to pick his nose and then remembers it's rude. ‘Even He-Man and Dracula?'

‘Everybody's got a time, Elwy.'

‘Oh.' Mr. Bedard goes back to his sheet music. Elwy plays with the hem of his shirt. ‘Mr. Bedard?'

‘Yes, Elwy?'

‘Can people, like some people, come back after they're dead? Like once in a while?'

Mr. Bedard leans back from his desk and stares very hard at Elwy. It's that look his mom gives him when he coughs funny and she thinks he's getting the epidemic. ‘You've got lots of time, Elwy. Lots and lots.' Mr. Bedard making a smile like he's trying to reassure one of them.

Elwy sliding through the slush on the roadside, his feet already soaked, feeling great. Emilia up on the sidewalk, carrying both their bags, not talking for the first time in hours, but thinking hard. Elwy knows this because she always looks angry when she thinks and right now Emilia looks really angry. The snow's still coming down and Elwy can feel the
pff pff
of the flakes as they land in his hair.

Elwy reaches the metal stairs at the end of Marion and waits for Emilia so they can race to the landing. Even though he lives across the street from the school, he walks Emilia partway home because she won't give him his bag until they reach the landing. And also because they're best friends and spending time with your best friend is the number one important thing to Elwy. That and getting up early on Saturday to watch cartoons.

Emilia gets to the bottom of the stairs and shoves Elwy's bag at him. ‘There's only one way a body can disappear. Somebody takes it. That's the only way.'

Elwy squirms into his backpack and shrugs. ‘What about magic?'

She thinks about this, looking angrier than ever. ‘Okay. Two ways.' She starts to climb the stairs, not even trying to race. ‘You're coming over to my house to play Commodore.'

In Emilia's bedroom with the rainbow carpet, Elwy plays thirty-two straight rounds of Pitfall. Thirty-two straight rounds without the mention of a body. Emilia lies on her bed the whole time with her enormous cat Brutus on her chest, and when Elwy falls into a crocodile's mouth on his thirty-third round she finally sits up, Brutus oozing off her and pooling on the floor in a mound of fat and orange fur.

‘We're going to find the body, El.'

This is a very bad idea, Elwy thinks, but he also knows Emilia won't care that he thinks this. He liked it better when they were playing Commodore and not talking about dead bodies. Talking about dead bodies makes him think about zombie movies which makes him think about zombies. Zombies being the number one thing that scares him.

‘Stop ghost whistling. Look, I'll make a thermos of hot chocolate and it'll be like an adventure.'

Elwy stops making strange breathing noises. ‘Mom'll have a hairy conniption if I miss dinner.'

‘So call and tell her you're sleeping over.'

‘What about your dad?'

‘He works tonight. Graveyard shift. He won't know. Or care.' Flicking her red hair in a way that says
big deal
but Elwy knows means something else.

‘Can I at least go home and get my snowpants, Em?'

Emilia digs in her closet, finally pulling out a pair of fluorescent pink snowpants and tossing them at Elwy. ‘We'll start downtown.'

Emilia struggles through the heavy doors of the police station, dragging Elwy behind her. ‘Em, this is where the bad people go. Mom says.'

‘Magnum
PI
always goes in guns blazing, so that's what we do too.'

There's a man in uniform at the long, cracked wooden counter, reading a newspaper. Elwy tugs at Emilia's coat. ‘Aren't they gonna recognize you, Em?'

She swats him away. ‘He never brings me to work, you ­cornichon.'

He tugs at her coat again. ‘What if we get in trouble and they throw us in with all the murderers, Em. I don't wanna be murderered.'

‘Elwy Xander,' hissing in her most mom-like scolding voice, making him immediately shut up. He only ever hears his full name when he's done something really, really bad. Police stations feel like libraries. Emilia sticks him in one of the waiting chairs and goes to the counter, standing on her tiptoes and leaning with her elbows.

The police officer on the other side looks down his glasses at all that red frizzy hair and smiles. ‘Already bought a box of cookies this week, sweetie.'

‘I'd like to inquire about the circumstances surrounding the mysterious disappearance of a body.'

The officer's smile drips away and he pulls off his glasses. ‘What?'

‘The body that disappeared this morning from these very ­premises.'

‘Not another one. Listen, kid, I've had a long day, okay?'

‘Do you have any leads on the whereabouts of the corpse?'

The officer starts to come around the counter. ‘I have to lock you up or what?' He stops when he sees Elwy hiding behind Emilia. ‘Why's your friend breathing like that?'

‘He's whistling.'

In a booth at Nibblers, the diner just down the street, Elwy sips his chocolate milkshake, his number two favourite flavour since they didn't have strawberry, while Emilia taps her fingers on the tabletop, looking angry again.

‘So does that mean we can go home, Em?'

‘Not yet.'

‘But we didn't find anything out and we could still make it for dinner.'

‘Not me, I got to make my own.'

Elwy feels bad that Emilia's mom doesn't make her dinner anymore since she left Emilia's dad for the Other Man. ‘You could come over. Mom's making chicken fingers tonight. Chicken fingers're my favourite.'

Emilia watches the man hunched over at the counter, the only other customer. Red plaid jacket, lightning-blond beard, rubber boots dripping slush on the floor. Dipping a tea bag in and out of a cup. His eyes dart her way, locking on her, and she feels cold, right down to her toes.

Then he's back on the waitress with the big perm as she comes out of the kitchen. He leans over and says something to her as she passes. She gives him a long hard look and then says something back. The cold man's lip curls, like a dog when it smiles, and he stands. He hisses three words that Emilia can barely hear. ‘Where is he?'

The door opens with a jingle and two men walk in, stamping their feet to kick off the slush. One is skinny and dark, the other pale and short. The cold man looks their way, sharp, and then back at the waitress. Pulling a few coins out of his pocket and dumping them on the counter.

‘Can we order chicken fingers here at least?'

‘Hush up, El.'

The two men make their way across the diner and sit in the next booth. The cold man leaves, the waitress looking down at the money he left like it's dog poop. She pats at her curls, and Emilia can see her hands are shaking.

‘With plum sauce.'

‘Hush.'

Elwy watches the two men getting settled. Peering from behind his milkshake, he can see a piece of one face. Dark skin, twinkly eyes, big smile at the approaching waitress. She smiles back, but it's fake, plastic like one of his
MUSCLE
Men figurines. ‘The usual?'

‘Yeah, but I'll take a Northern, Martha. Been a long couple days.'

‘Sure thing, Fish.' Turning to the other man, then smiling, a real one. ‘Oh, hey – you came by.'

‘You know my partner?'

‘Yeah, we met. Dishwater?'

The short man laughs, wiggling all over with it. ‘Coffee, yeah.'

Elwy watches the waitress with the big perm walk back to the bar. He sucks up the last of his milkshake and keeps on sucking, rattling at the bottom of his glass. ‘So we can go home now, Em?'

‘No.'

‘But – '

‘Hush for the love of rhubarb.'

Elwy sulks, which he does by scrunching up his eyes and blowing air out his nostrils. Elwy sulks a lot. When people don't listen to him, when he gets the answer wrong in class, when his mom makes him stop reading and go to bed, when Emilia won't let him have his turn at Commodore, when –

‘I tell you, I'm fuckin exhausted.'

Elwy stops sulking to giggle. Emilia bites her lip and turns purple. She never swears. Her dad said her mom always swore like a sailor, and sailors use all the bad words, so instead of the bad words Emilia uses vegetables. Vegetables don't sound mean when you say them. Elwy wonders if the two men at the next booth are sailors.

‘I mean we been up all night freezin our asses off.' It's the twinkly-eye man talking. Elwy likes his twinkly eyes – they look happy even though he doesn't sound happy. ‘We drive all the way back here and then they keep us at the station all day so they can ask us the same damn question over and over again. I mean how the hell am I supposed to know where it went? I didn't even want to touch him in the first place. Maybe he got up and walked away.'