Kicking The Sky Part 19

I left the soup on the end table to cool off. "What are you watching?" She rocked in her chair. "Padre Costa told us the story of St. Agnes on Sunday." She kept her eyes locked on the television. "She's the patron saint of young girls. They pray to her and do certain things-rituals-so that their future husbands will come to them."

I didn't tell Agnes all the gory details about how her namesake saint suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve or thirteen, or how they dragged her through the streets to a brothel before they killed her.

"St. Agnes prayed, her hair grew and covered her body to protect her. They tied her to a stake, but the bundle of wood would not burn."

It was stupid of me to think that the magic of the story would snap her mind back to reality. We were all doing it, though; trying not to talk, because that made things easier. There was no way that Ricky had told Agnes anything about the baby or what we did to it. He knew she couldn't handle it.

"I still pray, you know. It helps. And you don't have to pray out loud. You can do it in your head." I squatted in front of her and placed my hands on her lap. "Like this." I closed my eyes and said a quick Hail Mary. I opened my eyes. I wanted to see her smile, but everything was coming out wrong.

"I pray for my friends," I continued, "even for James. Adam too. And every day I pray for Baby Mary." Agnes blinked. It gave me the courage to go further. "We took good care of her. We made sure she was warm, and you need to know Ricky baptized her before-" Agnes leaned in and looked at me as if for the first time. Her lip quivered. I felt her finger hooking mine. "Your baby went to heaven."

After dinner, Manny and I were going skating at Alexandra Park on Bathurst Street. Our parents only let us go in groups, and they knew there was a rink guard there keeping an eye on us. With our skates knotted together and slung over our shoulders, we had just turned the corner when we heard the faint sound of a siren whirring in the distance. The sirens grew louder: the sound was coming in our direction. We slowed down to watch. Police cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance, the three melted into one, and grew louder until they stopped in unison.

We ran through the laneway and out onto Markham Street. I flung my skates into Mr. Serjeant's front yard so I could run faster. The light on top of the ambulance spun against the brick houses. The police cars and fire engines had gathered halfway up Markham Street, blocking traffic close to where Edite and Ricky lived.

Edite stood inside her front-yard fence. She'd pulled a leather maxi-coat over her silk robe. Her slippers sank into the snow. She held a coffee mug, her shoulders scrunched up as she bounced a bit in the cold. Her eyes were dark, and makeup ran down her cheeks. She looked toward Ricky's veranda and didn't even notice me coming. Ricky's front door was open and boot tracks had made their way up his walkway and into his house. My stomach ached as if my insides would spill out onto the snow.

Manny tapped my shoulder. I felt relieved he had followed. I looked back and saw Ricky come outside onto his veranda. He raised his arm to shield his face from the glare of the flashing lights. He was wrapped in a thick blanket and his pup was cradled in his arms. A police officer directed him to the old sofa that was on the porch. Manny scissor-kicked over the fence and ran up the steps, with me close behind. The policeman put out his hands to stop us, but then must have realized we were friends there to comfort Ricky.

We sat down on the couch with a crunch. Ricky shivered. He looked out across the road, his eyes fixed above the roofline. His teeth chattered and his lips had gone blue. With his limp wrist he slowly stroked his puppy, from the base of its ear to the tip of its tail.

"He found out," Ricky said, looking straight ahead above the crowd that had gathered. His words paralyzed me. They had found the dead baby in the lake and were here to arrest Ricky and then me. How could I save myself? What would happen to Agnes? Would they torture me to name names? They wouldn't have to. A bit of pee already warmed the inside of my leg. I'd be more than happy to blame James.

A gurney was pushed out the front doorway and rattled over the porch floor. Ricky didn't look at the figure draped in a white sheet and blanket and cinched down with belts.

"He was so drunk. And angry."

I kept thinking, you never say anything until there's a lawyer.

"He told me he got into a fight. Some man owed him money and wouldn't pay up. Told him he kinda helped him out by throwing his son a few dollars every so often." Clear snot dripped from Ricky's nose.

And then with a swell of relief it all clicked: it wasn't the baby. I sometimes wondered if the men at the billiards hall talked about who was on the other side of the fence. Did they even care? Did my father have any clue?

I stared at the gurney rolling down the walkway. A crowd had gathered, shoulder-to-shoulder to keep warm. Their breath steamed out of their noses and mouths.

"When he got home, I was at the top of the stairs. He began crawling up on his hands and knees. When he got to the top, he fell against the banister and started yelling. He couldn't stand." Ricky looked straight ahead the whole time. "He was soaked. I tried to help him out of his coat and then he swung his arm and pinned me to the wall by the neck. I couldn't breathe. 'You're a little f.a.ggot,' he said. 'A good-for-nothing little f.a.ggot. They're all laughing at me because you're a good-for-nothing little-' " Ricky licked the snot above his lip. "I thought I had closed my bedroom door, but Snoopy came out of my room and-" He looked at me for the first time.

"It's okay, Ricky. He can't hurt you anymore." Manny rubbed Ricky's back.

"I just wanted to put him to bed so he could sleep it off, but he wouldn't let me. He picked up Snoopy by the neck and held him over the banister."

"I'm sorry, Ricky," I said. Ricky stroked his pup, jiggled his knees every so often to rouse it from sleep.

"Smashed him down onto the ground floor."

"It was an accident," I said. "He was drunk."

"He didn't care. He never cared." Ricky's big eyes looked straight at me as he leaned in. "I pushed him," he whispered. "I pushed him down."

I looked to Manny.

"He fell all the way down ... down ... down."

"Son, you're coming with us." A Chinese policeman placed his hand on Ricky's shoulder.

Manny sprang up, pushed himself between the officer and Ricky. "You can't take him. He didn't do anything."

"Relax, son. We're just going to get him cleaned up. We're going to try to get ahold of his mom. We understand she's in Portugal."

"He doesn't have anyone but us," I said.

The police officer lifted Ricky to his feet. "You can't bring the dog with you, son. He's dead."

Ricky began to cry.

"Look, Officer," Manny said, "what if I wrapped his dog ..." Manny took off his coat, pulled his sweatshirt over his head, static snapping through his hair, draped the sweatshirt over the pup, and tucked the sleeves and sides underneath its limp body. The officer nodded.

They helped Ricky to the cruiser. Before he got in, he looked up at his house, dropped his eyes to meet mine and Manny's, and then he was gone.

Of Monsters and Men.

"It'll be nice, you know. I'll be looking at the stars, too. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out water for me to drink ..."

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPeRY.

- 1*

"YOU HAD ANOTHER nightmare last night," Terri said as she straddled my chest.

"Just hurry!" I lay flat on the living-room carpet.

"What's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with your head that you can't sleep?"

"None of your business." I squirmed to adjust the way she sat on me.

"It is my business when you keep me awake all night."

I tried to get up on my elbows, but her weight held me down. "We had a deal, so just let me do this." She held her mascara wand above my eyes.

Sat.u.r.day Night Fever spun on the turntable and was set to repeat. Terri dipped the wand in the tube, then brought it to my eye and rolled it up and through. She bit her tongue at the corner of her mouth.

"Get off of me!"

"You want me to make that call to school? Telling them you're not well?"

I had planned to play hooky and head over to Old City Hall for the beginning of the Emanuel Jaques murder trial. But everything had changed, and now I was going downtown to find Ricky at the courthouses. I didn't expect Terri to be home studying for her high school exams. The school secretary might call home or try to catch my mother at work, and if she did call my mother at work, my mother would call me at home and I'd have to lie and tell her I was in bed because I wasn't feeling well. My mother might come home and that's why it was better to let my sister call the school and nip it in the bud.

"Just hurry!" I said, finding it more difficult to breathe from the pressure as she leaned in to swoop at my other eyelashes.

"Such a pretty boy. You need to accentuate your long lashes."

This wasn't the first time she had done this to me, but it had been a while and I was getting too old for it. She had me by the b.a.l.l.s, though; I needed her help.

I looked into her face. It was round, like my father's, and you could barely make out her light eyebrows and eyelashes, and no matter what she did to her hair-home perms, washing it with eggs, mola.s.ses, or beer-it always looked limp and fine.

"Ricky won't be there," she said, reading my mind. "They don't put kids in the slammer with adults."

"I need to know if he's okay."

"It's called patricide, you know. When a kid kills his father. I'm studying for my English exam. It's what Zeus did to his father, Cronus."

"I don't care what it's called. It's not his fault."

"It's what lots of kids think of doing but you never tell anyone or they'll lock you up in the mental hospital."

"Enough! I gotta go."

Every time she leaned in for another pa.s.s at my eyelashes, the pressure on my chest increased.

"Zeus wanted power and control so he killed his father. It's what men do when they have no power. I know, I know, Ricky didn't want power. He's not like you and your pal Manny."

"You're nuts!"

"If I tell you something, you promise not to tell?" She didn't wait for a yes. "I'm going to get away from here. Soon. I wasn't meant to live in a box. Edite says so. I'm going to New York. I'm going to be a dancer." She had a fire in her eyes that made me believe her.

"Dad'll kill you." I squirmed into a better position to throw her off me.

"You ask me, I think Ricky's dad had it coming to him. I saw her, you know," she added. My sister smiled as if the information was delicious.

"Who?"

"Agnes. Late one night, crossing the street from her house and going into the lane."

"So?"

"Where's the baby?"

I tried to look relaxed. I knew the question would come up sooner or later, and I had practised what I would say when it did. But I stammered and then thought it was best just to shut up.

"She had the baby, didn't she?"

I had been holding on to the secret for so long I thought I was going to burst. I puffed out my cheeks to pop my ears.

"Did she give it away for adoption?" I could tell the tears were building.

"Ask Agnes," I blurted.

"I wouldn't blame her if she did."

"Or why don't you ask Edite. She tells you everything."

"Edite's been a bit weird lately."

"What do you mean?"

"For starters she looks like c.r.a.p," Terri said.

"Once she finds Johnny-"

"There is no Johnny, stupid. Now hold still." Terri gripped my jaw while taking another swipe at my eyelashes. "Long and thick."

"What do you mean about Johnny?" I said.

"You don't know?"

"Get off me!"

"I thought you knew. He's dead. He was killed in Vietnam. I heard Me and Edite talking about him ages ago. Around the time Emanuel was murdered."

"That's bulls.h.i.t." My heart pounded and the blood swooshed between my ears. Another lie. I was so stupid.

"I got to tell you, brother, you may have gotten the eyelashes but thank G.o.d I got the brains."

"Are we done?"

"Maycomb had nothing to fear but fear itself."

"What the h.e.l.l-"

"To Kill a Mockingbird."

Terri took three or four pumps of the tube before she dropped the gooey brush on my eyelashes. They were so heavy with goop, they almost stuck together.

"Edite snooped around, called some of her contacts at 52 Division, and word is they're not going to charge Ricky. It's a sin to kill a mockingbird, you know."

"Where is he, then?" I stopped moving. Why didn't Edite tell me where they were holding him? He was my friend.

"They found his mom back in So Miguel. He's going to live with her."