Kicking The Sky Part 21

"You need to crawl back to bed, buddy. You look like s.h.i.t. I gotta go." Manny gave me a quick wave before he snuck under the garage door and closed it behind him.

Manny was right, even though it was his phone call that had dragged me out of bed: it was too soon for me to be wandering around the neighbourhood. I needed to build up some strength first.

Two blasts from the horn and I recognized Eugene's Trans Am. The car door slammed.

"Manny, you in there?" I jumped back. "Open up!" I hoisted the garage door halfway, up to Eugene's waist, before ducking underneath. "Antonio, hey. Have you seen my brother?" His eyes were all bugged out and red.

"He's at school, no?" I said, trying to sound surprised. I wanted to lean on his car, the energy draining from my body.

"I just checked. He signed out, said he wasn't feeling well." Eugene kept looking over his shoulder, scanning the laneway as if he was expecting someone. Then Lygia came around the corner, running in her Cougar boots and shearling coat.

"If you see him tell him I need to speak to him. It's important," Eugene said. He jumped back into the car and spun out. He skidded to a stop next to Lygia and almost clipped her on her side. She was crying. She fumbled with the handle and got in. The smell of rubber and the buzz of peeling tires was all that remained.

Back in the garage I reached up to the shelf where James kept the crock filled with crumpled five-dollar bills. It was empty, except for a dead moth, powdery white, on its back, its legs pointing up. I tried to beat down the image of Baby Mary in my head. The guilt made the back of my ears ring. I needed to lie down.

I banged my knee against Agnes's cot. I didn't think she had ever slept in it. I lay down. Not long, just an hour or so. I fought hard to keep my eyelids from closing. I tried to imagine where Agnes could be hiding-if she was hiding at all or had she taken off. Could she have left with James? I imagined James coming in, the way he always did, strong and handsome. He would ask Agnes for forgiveness. But he wouldn't mean it. It felt like someone was pulling a blanket over me. Ricky was in a better place. James could argue it was part of his plan all along. He'd set Agnes up in a nice apartment somewhere close by, trying to get back on track. Manny would be fine, he always was. Confession. I would tell my mother I had stepped out of the house to go to confession.

"James!" I breathed out. The air was hazy. He sat next to me on the cot. I reached up to touch his sleeve, make sure he was really there and not just a mirage bubbling up from my tired brain. James winced. His lower lip was split open and swollen. I could tell he was having a hard time holding up his head and keeping his eyes open. His head hovered over my face, bobbing like a drunk's. He tried to say something but it just came out as gurgling noise.

"Antonio," he whispered. He rested his face on my shoulder and breathed in deep. His hot breath smelled of booze. "You came back." His words swam in my head like little fishes. I smelled his dirty hair when he curled himself into me. He was warm. His arm moved over me and he drew me closer to him. My mouth went gummy. "Hey, little man," he mumbled, opening up his one eye and looking at me as if for the first time. "I knew you'd be back."

"Antonio!" I could hear the faint call from behind the garage door. At first I thought it was my mother. My fingers inched their way along the sheets until they touched James's arm. I sat up on the cot. The garage door raised and Edite took shape through the veil of snow. "Antonio, we've been worried sick!" I blinked my eyes. I looked down at my lap, too embarra.s.sed to face Edite.

"What time is it?" I could tell it was dark out. They'd all be looking for me.

"You stay the f.u.c.k away from him, you hear me!" Edite's face trembled.

James stirred.

"You okay?" she asked, all the while looking at James beside me. She gripped my arm and yanked me away, not enough to get me on my feet. The pillow was blotting the blood from James's lip. I forced a smile, tried to show her that nothing had happened, nothing was wrong, that I was the same guy I was the last time I saw her.

"Nothing happened," I said.

"Did he touch you?" Her voice shook. James began to rouse from his sleep. "Did he do anything?" she said through her clenched teeth. Edite grabbed hold of my shoulders. "Tell me!"

"No!" I said. Edite tried to hug me. I shook her off and swung my legs to the side of the cot. I got up and thought I would fall back again.

"Go home, Antonio."

I staggered to the garage door.

"Go home now!" she yelled.

- 3*

THREE DAYS LATER I went over to Edite's. The ceramic tea animals she had been collecting no longer lined her windowsill in their neat rows. Edite's mountains of books had been placed in boxes that were piled up into a high wobbly tower in the kitchen corner. A few books remained, pushed up against the kitchen wall in neat smaller towers.

"Where are you going?"

She answered from her bedroom. "Nowhere."

The paper was on the seat of a chair, neatly folded open to the Jaques trial. According to the story, Gary Keith, a waiter at a Howard Johnson's restaurant at Yonge and Dundas Streets, said Saul Betesh came in with a boy that day. The boy was between eleven and thirteen, he thought. He was very polite. He said, "Yes, sir." He ordered a dinner from the children's menu but Betesh just had a dessert.

We had to kill him, Saul Betesh allegedly told a police officer. We knew we couldn't let him go. We knew that all along ... no, that's not right. We never intended to kill him. We had to. Valdemira, Emanuel's seventeen-year-old sister, who had been appointed by the family to attend the trial, was escorted out of the courtroom. The newspaper described her as "ashen," which I thought could only mean white and grey, like ashes. Betesh was described as blond, long-lashed, and expressionless. But I didn't need the paper to describe him to me. His face was etched into my brain. All their faces were. Emanuel wasn't the first kid they had done this stuff to, either. There had been others that had gotten away or that they had let go. Why had things gotten out of control with Emanuel? Why him? I caught myself asking the questions out loud.

"What?" Edite stumbled into the kitchen. It looked like she had cut her own hair with scissors. Her short bangs were uneven and it made her look like she was tilted.

"Do you know where Agnes went?" I asked.

"Agnes is in the garage with James. Poor thing hasn't been the same since she lost that baby." She sat down in a kitchen chair.

"She didn't leave?" Edite shook her head. So why did Manny say she was gone?

Edite shrugged. She lifted her foot and her toes clutched at the table's rim. A bottle of red nail polish appeared from her robe pocket. She unscrewed the bottle, then began to paint her toes. The baby toe looked like a pomegranate seed. The smell of nail polish wafted up my nose.

"He'll be gone soon," she said.

"Where's he going?"

"Far away."

"Is Agnes going with him?"

"Probably. She's got nothing left here."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't decide if I was more happy that James was leaving or more jealous that he was taking Agnes with him.

"That's it? Do you want to know how James is doing? You can ask, you know."

"You freaked out when you saw me there. I don't get it. You told me I could trust him."

"I know. I was frightened and worried and I wasn't sure." Edite fisted her temples. "James will be fine. I got him all wrapped up in bandages. There isn't much you can do for broken ribs. I heated up some Campbell's beef barley, not the homemade stuff he says you guys feed him." Edite lifted her other foot and continued to work on her toes. Her hands were shaking. "He told me not to come back. Said he didn't want any of you around, either. He said he'd manage." She sipped from her cup. "Antonio, sit down for a sec." She patted the kitchen chair next to her.

"I've got things to do."

"Okay, I'll just come right out and say it, then. I need you to know it's okay to have feelings for James."

My head flushed hot. "What did he tell you? He doesn't know s.h.i.t!"

"It's normal. I know it's probably confusing and it's hard to hold on to a secret, but-"

"Stop!" I turned to face the kitchen window. "Nothing happened!" My voice was hoa.r.s.e.

"You can't choose who you love, Antonio." Edite got up from her chair.

"Leave me alone!" I said as she got close. She had lied about so much. I could see her reflection in her kitchen window, her face floating above the snow-covered rooftops. She looked much smaller to me. She reached for her pack of cigarettes and tapped out a smoke.

"You can talk to me about anything," Edite said. She lit the cigarette and blew smoke up to the ceiling.

"You want to talk? Let's talk about Johnny. He's dead, isn't he?" I turned around. My words had punched Edite in the face, the way I wanted them to. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you lie?"

Edite staggered to the kitchen counter. She leaned in to face the backsplash of rooster tiles.

"You talk about secrets and I've got some of my own, you know. Stuff you didn't know was going on. Like Ricky and the things he did. James pimped him out. He sent him over to Red's and ... and that's how Ricky got hurt. Red raped him. I don't know what story James told you but-"

"Stop!" she said, frozen. I waited for her to say something more. I wanted her to say she didn't know, that she was sorry, or that she didn't think things would get so crazy, just something to make me feel like everything was a big mistake. But she said nothing. Edite brushed up against the fridge on her way into the hallway. I heard her bedroom door close. I couldn't take it back and I didn't want to. I needed to hear it for myself-that James was taking off. I needed to be sure.

I stepped outside, onto Edite's fire escape, and breathed out. The vapour was misty white. I ran down, my boots ringing on the metal steps.

The heat in James's garage had made the window sweat. I expected the garage to be empty. Instead, James lay in the same cot I had fallen asleep in a few days before. He must have heard me close the door because he raised his arm and motioned for me to come close. I sat on the edge of the cot and he rolled toward me. The skin around his eye was dirty green and grey. His front tooth was missing and his busted lip had a black line of dried blood through it. If he smiled I was certain it would crack open.

"Does Edite know you're here?" he lisped. His eyes got watery and his Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed. "You shouldn't be here."

"What happened to you?"

"A bunch of guys thought they'd have a bit of fun bashing the s.h.i.t out of me."

"Looks like they had a blast."

I turned away from him and caught Agnes's bare feet on the rungs. She looked skinnier than I'd ever seen her, and her eyes bulged out a bit. She wore jeans underneath a spring dress, topped everything off with a sweater.

"Agnes sleeps in the trunk," he said, and smiled. He clutched his chest. It must have hurt for him to laugh. "She lies in there and writes notes," he whispered. "I hear the scratching."

The blue trunk stood where it always had. It was open and its lid was leaning against the garage wall. I could see the hemmed frill of the baby blanket peeking above the rim.

"She's good to me. I don't know what I'd do without her." James fought with his throat to release more words jammed there. "Come with us," he whispered.

"Are you crazy?"

"Why'd you come, then?"

"I came to make sure you're really leaving."

"You should go now, Antonio. You shouldn't be here," Agnes said. She brushed past me. The effect she used to have on me each time she touched me-the ripples running through me, the tingling-had gone.

I had come in from the cold, my cheeks feeling like pin cushions. Senhor Daniel stood in our front hallway. His hair was like Manny's but cut shorter, parted and combed down with grease.

"Antonio, where is Manelinho? He no come home last night."

"I don't know," I replied. My father's gentle tap on my shoulder urged me to go on. "But I'll go look for him."

My father said some encouraging words, the kind fathers share between each other. Eugene and Lygia had taken off and now Manny was missing. My father patted Senhor Daniel's back, led him toward the kitchen for a shot of something strong.

If my mother had been home, she would never have allowed me to go off on my own to look for Manny. I walked through all the laneways until finally, almost home and ready to give up, I saw Manny in the Patch, his hair sticking up behind a refrigerator door and an old box spring topped with a blue tarpaulin. When I peeked inside his little house, I felt my whole body relax. I sat down beside him.

"Your dad's looking for you," I said. "I've been looking for you. Your brother-"

He crawled over me and burst out into the Patch. The cardboard roof came flying off.

"You ever see a plane kick into the sky?" Manny said. His voice sounded funny. "It's like pumping a swing so high before you jump off, or like chasing across rooftops."

"You okay?"

Manny booted at the mounds of flattened yellow gra.s.s that poked through the snow. His running shoes were soaked. His twitching fingers managed to light a cigarette. He put it in his mouth and the smoke curled up around his Afro.

"Manny?" I said. He didn't look up. "It's time to go home." I followed him around the Patch, kicking at the nubs of gra.s.s.

"I wanna race," Manny said. "One last time," still not looking at me.

"It's winter, Manny, we can't."

Manny didn't care. He took off up the laneway. I went after him.

We neared the top of the lane, where Adam's garage had once stood. Manny tore through the yellow tape and scrambled into the sh.e.l.l of it. The charred pieces of wood broke through the snow like the ribs of some prehistoric animal half buried in snow. Manny stood in the middle of it and looked back at me. He snorted back his snot. "Race you!" Before I could say anything he had climbed up the downspout of a neighbouring garage and steadied himself on the rooftop. He bounced on his heels, daring me to get up on the opposite row of rooftops to race.

"This is crazy," I said, but I found myself climbing up anyway. I looked along the line of rooftops in front of me. "There's still snow, Manny. And the ice ..."

But he was off. I knew I needed to follow. I'd run slowly, allow him to beat me. Manny wasn't holding back. He ran across the rooftops, laughing as though he had just stolen a bike and was getting away with it.

"Manny! Wait up!" A couple of times I slipped on icy shingles. Manny did too, once almost rolling over into a gully between garages. But he got up and kept running, leaping from one roof to the next. He was on fire with something I couldn't feel. I was six or seven garages behind him. He never looked back. As he got closer to the last garage, he showed no sign of slowing down.

"Manny!" I shouted.

He sprinted off that last garage. His arms and legs punched at the sky the way a long-jumper's do. It seemed as if he hung in the air for much longer than normal, before he disappeared from my sight.

I hand-dropped to the alley and ran, talking to G.o.d as I went. Please forgive me, I'll never do anything like that again-swear or steal-the lapa was a mistake, and Baby Mary ... I didn't know what else to do. Please, G.o.d. Forgive me.

I knelt down beside Manny on a nest of wet gra.s.s and frozen ground. He didn't move and his legs were off at a strange angle. His upper body swayed, his mouth open and silent. His eyelashes flickered, and then closed shut.

- 4*

MY FATHER DROPPED me off in front of Toronto General Hospital at eight at night and told me he'd pick me up at ten. And I wasn't to talk to any strangers. In the entrance, a man in a uniform held on to a big buffing machine. He made slow circular pa.s.ses down the hall. My mother said visiting hours would be over, but if I followed the green line to the West Wing elevators and went up to the sixth floor, room 603C, that's where I'd find Manny. Manny's father didn't want me near him, so my mother had called someone she knew who worked in housekeeping who said I could sneak in after hours. Her friend also gave us a report: Manny's broken legs had been set, one surgically with a plate. His spinal cord was okay, and he had a severely bruised coccyx, which normally would have made me laugh because of the way my mother said it. It was going to take a long time for him to get better.

The night before I had watched Senhor Daniel climb into the ambulance with him. He worked in construction and could piece together a few English phrases. Manny's mother had been a teacher in the Azores, but here she cleaned houses and didn't know much English. She stayed behind and fell to her knees in the slush. The women encircled her. They tried to lift her to her feet. The men smoked and huddled together in a corner of the laneway.

I stepped out on the sixth floor. The lights were dimmed. I was afraid to see Manny-I wasn't sure what he'd look like, if he'd be hooked up to machines. I managed to sneak by the nurses' desk and worked my way around the corner until I saw 603C above a door. A strange blue light flickered over the bed. Manny's head was wrapped in a turban of gauze. His legs and one arm were in casts. He was strung like a puppet, his thick white casts up in the air, suspended by pulleys. A tiny television glowed just above his night table, mounted on a big metal arm that was anch.o.r.ed in the corner. He was awake, but didn't look at me.