Kicking The Sky Part 17

The flush of the toilet was all it took for me to make my way downstairs. My father was coming out of the bathroom, dressed and freshly shaved.

"Why you up so early?" he said. "You feeling okay?" He raised his hand to my forehead, but I dodged it.

"I can't sleep."

"Go back to bed," he said as he brushed past me toward the front vestibule. He tied his construction boots and tucked the laces into them. He rammed his Thermos under his arm like a football player. "Is too early for school," he said, so quietly I could barely hear him.

"There's no school today."

"Another one?" It was one of his favourite things to do, complain about how many days the teachers took off.

"Can I come with you?" I asked. Before he could answer I added, "I'll be just a minute," and bolted up the stairs, three at a time.

When I went outside the street was quiet, and the world still. I sat in the pa.s.senger seat, my hands tucked under my b.u.m. It would take a while before the truck warmed up and the vinyl seats softened.

"Why you want to come with me?" I could tell he really didn't want an answer. After what happened with the lapa and the silent treatment I was giving him, he was happy to have me share in his work. I rolled down the window. I liked to drive with the windows open, even in winter.

"You like driving a truck?" I chose a question that I thought he'd take a long time to answer.

"I like being my own bossa. I no take orders from other guys. I decide. I am the captain. You see James? He no come to work yesterday."

I said nothing.

"He call and say he no come to work for the next Sat.u.r.day. This is a problema."

"You still need him."

"I have lots of business."

"I heard he found another job." It was a good lie because I said it without skipping a beat.

My father didn't say much after that. Maybe he was waiting for me to say what kind of job or that I knew the reason James wasn't telling him flat out.

I was relieved when my father stopped talking. He pointed his chin in the direction of the plaid Thermos. I unscrewed the cup and poured some coffee. I offered it to him, but he motioned for me to drink first. Pursing my lips, I blew over the rim and sipped-double-double. I looked back through the long rectangular window, unable to see inside the bed of the dump truck, only its steel sh.e.l.l. I noticed movement underneath a pile of blankets my father usually kept neatly folded in the sleeper cab behind the front seats. I forced myself to look back, and that's when I saw Ricky, his eyes peeking out from under the wool blanket. My father looked into his rear-view mirror and saw him too.

"Ricardo?" The shock on my father's face quickly transformed to tenderness.

"Sorry, Senhor Manuel," Ricky said as he pulled the blanket off his head.

"What you doing here?"

"I couldn't," Ricky began, but looking at my father, he mustered some sense. "I couldn't get in my house. Must have lost my keys. I kept knocking but my father didn't hear me. Then I stopped because I didn't want to wake him up."

"He no work the night shift, filho?" my father asked, before it all made sense to him. Ricky's father's drinking was the kind of thing adults knew about but never discussed when we were around.

"Why you not come inside our house? You stay all night by yourself? You not cold?"

Ricky shook his head. His soft brown eyes could convince anyone of anything. "I didn't want to make him mad, Senhor Manuel."

"You no worry. I fix things." My father raised his hands off the steering wheel and then slammed them down, hard enough that the truck swerved a bit. He rolled down his window to spit outside. There was a shine in his eyes I hadn't seen in a long time. It made me love him. He lit a cigarette. The cab of the truck filled with smoke. I could see my childhood drifting away from me, those moments when my father hoisted me atop his shoulders so I could look over a crowd.

I turned to Ricky and forced a smile. He smiled back. I was glad Ricky was with me. We would see things to the end together. He jumped up front and sat next to me on the pa.s.senger seat, his arm tucked behind my back, and mine over his shoulders.

We rattled east along Lakesh.o.r.e Boulevard, underneath the Gardiner Expressway.

"We go to Leslie Street," my father said. The city was building a spit out of construction debris that extended out into Lake Ontario. At the foot of Leslie Street, we came to what looked like a toll booth. A man sat in a chair, all bundled up with a coat and fingerless gloves, the kind Adam wore. He slid the gla.s.s window open and without looking at my dad shouted, "What ya got?" The man's matted beard and thick neck made his whole head look like it was stuck onto his body like Plasticine.

"Clean fill," my father said. Please don't check. Please don't check. Ricky's breath whistled in his nostrils. After a long pause the man simply nodded and slid the gla.s.s window shut.

My father drove onto a narrow dirt road that ran down the middle of the man-made peninsula. A light wind riffled across the surface of Lake Ontario. We were the only ones there. This was what the surface of the moon must look like, I thought, with hills and craters all covered in white dust. Ice had formed along the lip of the sh.o.r.e. It was peaceful. My father drove the truck right out to the long finger of land, then reversed it until it backed onto the sh.o.r.e.

The truck stopped with a grind of metal. Seagulls hovered above. Some landed around small mounds of garbage, rummaging through the heaps. Ricky got all jittery when he saw this and I thought of the baby too. My father pressed the Lift b.u.t.ton. The dumper slowly inched its way up. Ricky bowed his head so low it almost touched the heat vent that blasted from the dash. His hands were woven in prayer.

Just then the truck bounced and the dumper stalled.

"What's that?" I heard myself say the words in fear, even though I hadn't meant to.

"Is nothing. Something get stuck. I go see. Antonio, when I say go, you press the b.u.t.ton. Okay?"

My father hopped down onto a mound of snow and I slid over to the driver's side, careful not to knock the stick shift into another gear. My father's seat was warm.

Ricky remained quiet, his eyes shut tight.

I looked out the driver's mirror. The truck's rear wheels had cracked a slab of ice on the sh.o.r.e. The rubble would go directly into the lake. I waited quietly, hoping to hear the cry of a baby from underneath the dirt. Her last chance.

"What if she floats?" Ricky whispered.

"Okay ... Okay!" My father had taken some kind of rake that was tucked under the belly of the truck, and he was pulling things from under the dumper lid, attempting to dislodge what looked like the large stone we had buried the baby under. I thought I'd p.i.s.s my pants.

"Okay!" he shouted. "Stop!"

Instead, I pressed the b.u.t.ton and the hydraulic tilted the dumper higher. I grabbed hold of the chain above my head and pulled. The horn sounded, deep and rolling across the water. Again I tugged.

"What are you doing?" Ricky pleaded.

In the mirror I could see my father walking back to the driver's seat, determination in his short stride and anger flashing across his face.

I mumbled an apology as he climbed back into his seat. He looked unimpressed, but the diversion had made him look away from making sure everything tumbled into the frigid lake. It had also sent the seagulls back up into the sky.

I scooched back over to the pa.s.senger side and looked in the mirror as the load emptied: red clay and sand mixed with rocks and brick and cut pieces of rebar.

"You see anything?" Ricky barely whispered.

I shook my head, too nervous to even speak.

There were bubbles of air and weeds and sand and cold water. The clouds were drifting and I could see beautiful strips of light hitting the water. I spotted a chunk of concrete steps, partially submerged in the water. On a summer's day, I thought, swimmers could use the stairs to walk into the lake water.

"p.r.o.nto! We go home now and I make breakfast."

The truck lurched forward, the slap of the dumper lid sending its metallic clap across the lake. The cold rippled through my body. I couldn't stop shivering until Ricky's small hand slipped into my pocket and he pressed his thumb to mine.

- 12*

Baby Mary-Ricky had given her a name; he felt it was the right thing to do-rolled in the water's current. I could see her curled up, the umbilical cord tugging at her belly, the other end anch.o.r.ed somewhere below, where the lake turned dark. I wanted to reach in and pluck her out of the water, warm the little body in a towel. But every time I tried my fingers rammed into the icy surface of the lake. The baby swayed in the water, kept to the rhythm of the lake's tide. I leaned over. The baby's eyelids flashed open to reveal nothing but black holes. The ice cracked and the cold stabbed me, a million needles covering my skin like a blanket.

"Filho!" My mother held me, crunched my body in her arms and smothered my face in her smell. The swallow charm had been threaded back onto her chain. She rocked me, whispered words into my ears that I didn't quite understand, pecking my cheeks with her lips. My sister stood at my bedroom door, looking worried and sucking on her pyjama sleeve. "Filho, this has been going on a few nights now." She brushed my hair away from my forehead. "What is it? You haven't slept in days." she said, her eyes and mouth all squished to her nose. I buried my face in my mother's chest and sobbed.

"We put it in my father's truck, under some dirt, and then we drove it to a landfill and dumped everything into the lake."

Edite let her paper bag of groceries slip a bit. She leaned against the door of a boarded-up store. A streetcar rattled past.

"You saw the baby get buried, then."

I nodded.

"Good." A puff of breath covered her face, fading the red tip of her nose.

"That's it? 'Good'?"

"You did the right thing, Antonio."

"How can you say that?"

"It's not your fault." She placed the bag of groceries at her feet, straddled it so her legs kept it from tipping over. I wanted to kick the bag over and take off. She reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. The pack was empty. She crumpled it into a ball and tossed it on the ground. "James came to get me. He carried Agnes over to her parents' house. We thought she'd rest better in her own bed. She wouldn't let us take her upstairs. I guess there were too many ghosts. I stayed to help clean her-gave her a warm bath. The bleeding had stopped."

"And James did nothing," I said, my voice raised.

"James didn't leave her side. Agnes slept on the bas.e.m.e.nt couch and he lay on the ceramic floor beside her."

"Right, and left Ricky and me to do all the dirty work." I spat on the ground, just missing Edite's boot.

Sat.u.r.day afternoon I walked by Mr. Serjeant's veranda. I wanted to get to the garage from the front of the house-better not to lift the garage door and expose everyone to the laneway. I hoped James wasn't there. A week had pa.s.sed since Baby Mary's birth and it was Agnes I wanted to see. I saw a box addressed to Manny. Underneath his name was a large sticker with the words Baby? And Star Santa Claus Fund. Manny must have written a letter to the newspaper asking for one of the gift boxes they handed out to poor families in the city. I hugged the box and walked along the side of the house into the backyard. I couldn't let Agnes see it. The last thing she needed was to be reminded. In the backyard I found an empty garbage can. I dropped the box inside. It wouldn't make sense to open it now.

Snow melted within five feet of the garage's perimeter. Inside the garage, baseboard heaters had been connected to beat-up extension cords we called the Octopus. They sizzled all night and day to keep Agnes warm.

I found James standing away from the garage door, looking at his painting. He was almost naked, a pair of white briefs, and a cycling cap turned backwards on his head. He looked like he had lost weight. He held the paintbrush in one hand and a roach clip in the other, the tip of his joint burning. It smelled of beer and p.i.s.s. The heat made the stink worse.

I felt a pinch on my calf. I jumped, thinking it was a rat. A small puppy was trying to climb up my leg. It was tiny, too small to have left its litter. I picked up the ball of black fur, nuzzled the pup under my chin.

"I got it for Agnes," James said, "thought it could snap her out of it." He splashed the canvas with a muddy green paint, short flicks with his brush or with his hand that he scooped paint into from the tin. "It's been a week. She doesn't talk anymore. Think the pup will cheer her when Christmas comes?" He refused to face me. His voice was a bit shaky. "Thought she'd need something to take care of."

James drew the rag he used to dry his paintbrush across his face and around his neck. The sweat glistened over his body. I forced my eyes to look away. The pup licked under my chin. I placed it in a box James had set up against the wall, between some heaters.

"So she's still there?"

James lifted a beer from the counter and took a swig.

"This is her home," he said. "Manny and I took her rocking chair across the street, set it in front of the TV. I go over there and she just rocks in her chair."

"I'll go see her."

"I sent Ricky over to see if he could get her to eat something."

"She lost her baby."

He took a long drink. His Adam's apple beat like a heart.

"You should have taken care of it yourself," I said.

"f.u.c.k you!"

"It wasn't fair-making me and Ricky get rid of the baby."

James whipped the bottle against the wall, where it smashed. I didn't flinch. The foam trailed down the wall. He raised his joint to his lips, tilted his head up to the ceiling, and blew out.

"You say you're here for us, that you'll protect us. But that's a lie."

"I wanted to be sure she was okay. I needed to stay with her. She was out of it, didn't know what was happening."

"Ricky and I had to watch the baby get dumped like garbage into freezing water while you did nothing."

James looked up to the rafters and opened his mouth into a big O, all the muscles in his neck becoming sharp like knife blades. He was screaming but hardly a sound came out. He closed his eyes, and almost in a whisper said, "Agnes likes to touch my hands, you know."

"You didn't even look at the baby," I said, softly.

James walked past me, reached for a rung, and slowly climbed up to his loft.

I was coming home from the last day of school before Christmas break. Now was my chance to sneak out with the gifts I had for my friends. I had used the forty dollars my father had given me from the collection can after the lapa disappeared. I felt too guilty to use it to buy myself something. I had a kite for Ricky, the kind you had to a.s.semble, and a blue hair pick for Manny. I had found the perfect scarf for Agnes, red wool, just like Adam's. I had scored everything from Woolworth's going-out-of-business sale, and Terri had helped with her employee discount. I was tempted to buy James a gift-a leather wallet-but I didn't. The whole time I had the gifts stored under my bed, I thought of Ricky running down the laneway in his bare feet, his hand raised straight in the air as the kite kicked and looped in the wind. I'd be chasing its tail, flying across the rooftops in huge bounds. I thought of the pick I'd bought for Manny and how it would flash against his Afro, Manny plucking away till he looked like one of the kids from the Jackson 5, maybe Michael. The blue against his black hair and dark skin was sure to make him smile.

It was just after five o'clock when I entered the laneway with my gifts tucked under my arms. I hadn't gone far when I heard a whimpering, whistle-like, coming from somewhere in the laneway. I walked toward it, thought it might be an injured cat or dog. I peered around the edge of a garage. Ricky was crumpled up, drowning in his bomber jacket, leaning up in the corner of two garages.

"Ricky?" I rushed to him. His eyes were heavy and dark. He was burning up. "What are you doing here?" His head was heavy and flopped down onto his shoulder. He said something-bed or dead. He breathed as if through a straw sucking up pop at the bottom of the bottle. I dropped the Christmas gifts in the snow and scooped him under my arms. "You need to get to bed." I lifted him like a forklift. He was light, feather-light. His b.u.t.t was wet from sitting in the snow. I turned back to make sure he hadn't peed. His spot was blotted like a cherry snow cone. I broke into a sweat. I saw his mukluk footprints trailing from Red's gate. Red! With Ricky in my arms, I trudged along the laneway, keeping close to the garages, the untouched snow dotted with what I knew to be specks of Ricky's blood. I stopped in front of James's garage and kicked the aluminum door hard with my boot.

The garage door rolled up and over. James, his red eyes barely open, looked at Ricky's limp body in my arms. "He was at Red's," I said, sidestepping him. "But you knew that." As I went past, James's hand shot out to touch Ricky. I whipped Ricky away from him, wouldn't let him lay a finger on him, and carried Ricky over to a cot James had set up for Agnes. He had positioned it near the blue chest, close to what would have been her baby's crib. I let Ricky roll from my arms onto the mattress, and I carefully unzipped his jacket. I caught James, still in his pyjamas, pulling on his jeans. He was a stoned slug, slipping his coat over his bare shoulders. I gingerly took off Ricky's coat. From the corner of my eye I could see James teetering, trying to balance himself as he slipped his long white feet into a pair of rubber boots. I struggled to take Ricky's mukluks off his feet. Ricky wouldn't let me take off his pants, his limp hand trying to push my hands away. Drowsy, he let his head fall back onto the pillow. I let him just lie there, breathing for a while, before pulling his boots off. I tugged the blanket out from under him and drew it over his chest. I unplugged a few of the heaters and threw open the window with its painted panes. In my search for a rag to wet and cool Ricky's head, I realized James had taken off.

I warmed up a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup over the hot plate, but Ricky continued to sleep. "Ricky," I whispered. It felt weird to speak to him when I knew he couldn't hear me. "You're going to feel better soon and no one's ever gonna hurt you again." I leaned in closer. His breathing still sounded as though he was sucking through a straw. The baseboard heaters were humming full blast. I pulled back the blanket from Ricky's chin. "Ricky. Remember the time we fell into the dumpster at the toy factory? The toys were up to our waist. We could hardly move. It was like being stuck in quicksand. They were all defects but we didn't care. You found that doll with the squashed head, remember? And I found that Smash-Up Derby set? Oh, and the Evel Knievel figure with the missing leg? Then the security guard yelled at us to get out and chased us off the property. I still remember looking back and saw you running with that Evel Knievel doll stuffed down the front of your pants and I couldn't stop laughing." I caught the faintest curl of a smile turning up his lips. I realized I was crying.

James's canvas was a wash of s.p.a.ckle and paint that had been flung across it or splattered and dripped with turpentine to wash areas out. It was his bad mood on that canvas. The garage door whipped up with a clang. James walked in and slammed the door down behind him. Ricky had not moved; he slept and breathed small puffs between his cracked lips. James carried a large silver box under his arm. It was an eight-track tape recorder trailed by a frayed electrical cord and wires. He slammed the thing on the kitchen table and tossed a whole bunch of bills into the air.

"What happened this afternoon wasn't part of the deal I had with Red." Now sober, he ripped off his jacket and threw it across the room. "Two hundred bucks was all I could pound outta him." He took the backyard hose he had fed through a hole in the window and ran his bloodied knuckles under the stream of water. "You can go now. I'll take care of Ricky."

"f.u.c.k you!" I said. I tried to suck in my lower lip, stop the trembling. James hung his head, and then slowly turned the tap to shut the water. "f.u.c.k you," I said again.