A Quality of Light (6 page)

“I hate baseball,” John said. “It’s dumb.”

“Yeah. Kind of a waste of good farmland,” I said and we laughed again.

“Hey, the girls have got the giggles!” Ralphie said, giving Lenny a nudge in the ribs. “Dress like retards, play like retards,” he said with a hiss and disappeared into the school. Lenny looked over his shoulder at us with a look that was equal parts pity and relief. Then he shrugged and followed Ralphie into the building.

“Dipshits,” John said, shaking his head.

“Huh?”

He laughed, and the blue eyes sparkled for the first time. “Kane,” he said, punching me lightly on the shoulder, “we got a long way to go with you. A
lo-o-ong
way!”

I
have always loved the spring. The farmer in me thrills to the knowledge that growth becomes possible again, that life returns in all its various forms, that my hand can guide and direct a portion of it, and the romantic in me picks that one spring out of the forty I’ve lived to nurture, re-enter and relive. I’ve become a seasonal prodigal, returning to it as full of expectation, comfort and release as my biblical namesake. Springtime will always be the birthplace of magic and light, though it wasn’t at first that spring of ’65. With the coming of baseball, school became a burden for the first time. Ralphie and the boys were relentless in their pursuit of a higher level of play and of ridicule. John Gebhardt and I were thrown together like prisoners. For that, I suppose, I owe a world of thanks to the smirking bulk of Ralphie Wendt. Still, my inability to come to terms with a seemingly simple game wore on me.

But frustration, like so many things in life, has an alter ego. Mine was the budding friendship I was discovering with John. We helped each other in lessons and I found that he shared a love of learning and a hunger for a deeper understanding of the things around him. He was quick and he was funny, and he hated Ralphie about as much as we both began to hate baseball.

“Josh,” he whispered one lunch hour, leaning forward in his desk, “you can really tell that Ralphie belongs on a farm.”

“Really?” I asked. “How?”

“Look at how he eats.” Ralphie had this head-down, elbows-up feeding position. “He doesn’t dine … he grazes!”

I smirked and covered my mouth with my hand, horrified at the put-down as well as the pleasure I found in it.

“It’s okay, Kane, it’s okay,” John said. “Yuk it up. It’s good for you.”

“No wonder he’s good at baseball then,” I blurted.

“Why’s that?” Johnny asked.

“He’s more at home in a field!” I said, wide-eyed with excitement.

He laughed. “Good one. Good one. There’s hope for you yet, Josh.”

We began to spend every moment of our school days together. Naturally, this drew the predictable response from Ralphie and his buddies about birds of a feather, wieners in the same package and shit sticking together. John bristled at the slurs but I shrugged them off, as I’d been taught to do.

“One of these days you’re gonna run out of cheeks!” Johnny said to me.

I’d turn in my seat and catch him looking at me every now and again, but he’d always slide into that shy lopsided grin I came to know, look back at his books, out the window or across the room to the blackboard. We came together as easily as the confluence of streams, no turmoil, no roiling backwater, merely a curlicued blending, a sifting together of the textures of the countries between us, an elegant intertwining.

W
e groaned.

“So the tournament will take place the third week of June, followed by the biggest picnic you can imagine, with presentations to the winners and those judged Most Valuable to their teams,” Alvin Giles was saying. He’d succeeded in setting up a small baseball tournament between our Grade Five class and the ones in Teeswater and Wingham. “This is a chance to show the kind of athletes we raise in Mildmay! Everyone will play, except those excused for medical reasons.”

The rest of the class bubbled with excitement. Johnny and I looked at each other hopelessly. It was bad enough to be forced to play in phys-ed classes in front of our classmates, but now we were to be put on display for three whole communities. We’d taken to walking the perimeter of the schoolyard at recess and lunches, gabbing about anything and everything. The taunting had died down as our lack of interest grew, and we found ourselves looking forward to the privacy of our friendship rather than the acceptance of our peers. For me, baseball was extraneous effort I’d have sooner applied to my studies, and for John, it was neolithic goonery.

“Neo what?” I’d asked.

“Neolithic,” he said, his eyes blazing the way they did when he was chasing down an idea. “Neolithic. The age when man invented simple tools and crude weapons. Like bats.”

“When was that?”

“Long time ago. Maybe not so long in Ralphie’s case.”

“Neolithic. I like that word. Sounds soft and fuzzy.”

“Soft and fuzzy? Kane! It was the Stone Age! The only thing soft and fuzzy about the Stone Age was our brains. That’s why we were goons. Brutes. Louts. Barbarians!” he said, arms flapping up and down in excitement.

“Baseball players?” I asked timidly.

“Baseball players!” he echoed thunderously, one fist pumping
at the air. “Yes! Baseball players!”

So the news of the tournament was traumatic. “We’re gonna stink!” was Johnny’s prediction. “We’re gonna stink bad!”

That’s why when our phone rang one Friday evening and a frantic Johnny was on the other end, it suprised me.

“Josh, I got it! I got it!” he was saying wildly.

“Got what?”

“The answer!”

“What answer?”

“To baseball!”

“You got the answer to baseball?”

“Yes! Yes! The answer to baseball! I got it
right here!”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you over the
phone!
You gotta see it to believe it! I mean,
really!
Wow!”

“Can you bring it to school?”

“Are you
kidding?
I’ll pedal out to your place tomorrow and we’ll go over it. Bring it to
school?
Josh, we can’t share this with
anybody!”

“Anybody?”

“Well, maybe your parents, because, well, we’re kind of going to have to use your place to work this all out,” he said, calmer, conspiratorially. “But you can’t tell them right away! We gotta refine some things first. Where are you, anyway?”

“Come straight out Highway 9. Can’t miss it. It runs in front of your dad’s store. Ride out until you come over this long sloping hill with an old baler sitting by the fence near the road. The next crossroad is ours. Turn left. You’ll see our place at the top of the hill going west.”

“Got it. Long hill, baler, house on the hill. I’ll be there. And Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“This is all hush-hush.
Big
secret. Keep it under your hat.”

“What do I tell my folks?”

“Don’t tell ’em anything for now. Just say I’m coming to see your farm. Oh, yeah, got any paint?”

“Paint?”

“Yeah. Dig up some paint. See ya!”

“Who was that?” my dad asked over the top of his
Farmers’ Almanac.
He read lots in the evenings while my mother knitted, quilted or did the small watercolor paintings she gave to friends and relatives.

“Johnny,” I said, uncomfortable with the idea of keeping a secret from them.

“Oh. And how is John?” my mother asked from her chair at the window.

“He’s good,” I said. “He’s coming to visit tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“That’s great!” my dad said and winked at my mother. “What are you two going to do?”

“Probably look around the farm and stuff. You know.”

“Sure. Has John ever been to a farm?” my mother asked, her hand busy with a stitch.

“I don’t know. Probably not,” I said, wanting out of this conversation more than anything in my life at that moment.

“Well, that’s just fine. Will he stay for supper? Dad can drive him back into town in the evening.”

“Don’t know. I’ll ask when he gets here. Probably. Do we have any paint?”

“What kind of paint, son?” my dad asked.

“Don’t know. Any kind.”

“There’s some in the tool shed we used to redo the stalls last spring. It’s whitewash, really. Why do you need paint?”

“Well … I don’t. At least, not really. Just asking. Where in the shed?”

“Top shelf. Sure seem interested in that paint for someone who doesn’t
really
need it,” he said and winked at my mother again, who smiled.

“Yeah, well, big day tomorrow. Think I’ll turn in.”

“Turn in? It’s only eight o’clock. It’s Friday,” my mother said, arching her eyebrows in mock surprise.

“Yeah. Well, I’ll read or something till I fall asleep. G’night,” I said and moved to hug and kiss them before I headed up the stairs.

“Good night, son. Prayers, remember,” my mother said.

“Good night, Joshua,” my dad said, hugging me a little tighter and tousling my hair. “Painters need their rest, eh, son?”

“Yeah. Good night.”

I wasn’t that much more talkative the next morning and I caught my parents giving each other those “let’s pretend we’re not aware of anything” looks. I felt a little relieved about all of this, since I really didn’t know what I was keeping secret from them. The morning passed slowly and my dad whistled while he worked, not pressing me for small talk and letting me know by his easy manner that wherever I was that morning was okay with him.

Johnny was sweaty and out of breath when he finally coasted up to our back verandah with a white plastic bag in his carrier basket and a lumpy canvas packsack on his back.

“Hey,” he said, with a small wave.

“Hey.”

“Long ride.”

“Yeah. Is that
it?”
I asked, pointing to the plastic bag.

He glanced back at the house and then glared at me. “Josh! Keep it down, will you? Yes. Well, that and what I’ve got in my pack.”

“The answer to baseball comes in parts?”

“All answers come in parts. That’s what makes solving things so much fun. Only the smart ones can assemble the pieces. Like us!” He set the rusted Schwinn against the verandah railing. “Paint?”

“Yeah. In the shed.”

“Good. But first, where can we be alone?”

“You’re in the middle of three hundred and twenty acres. Take three steps and you’re alone!”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Kinda forgot about that. It’s nice out here. Where can we go?”

“Let’s go sit in the willow tree. I got a board nailed across big branches halfway up.”

“Cool.”

My mother appeared with a jug of lemonade and a plate of sandwiches. She beamed at John and set the plate and jug on the bench. “John. It’s nice to have you here. How’s your parents?”

“Good, ma’am. Thanks,” he said quickly, lowering his gaze once he’d shaken her hand.

“You be sure and say hello for us and tell them we’ll have to get together sometime soon and compare notes on the two of you characters,” she said and disappeared into the house. “Joshua, don’t forget to ask John about supper,” she called back through the screen door.

“Okay, Mom. I will. Let’s go!” I grabbed the plate and jug and led the way around the house.

Johnny swept his wide-eyed gaze all around. “Boy, I wish we had a farm. Sometimes I hate town. Hated Toronto, anyway.”

“Big, huh?” I said, beginning to climb the ladder rungs I’d nailed to the trunk of the willow.

“Big and ugly and fast and dirty and too many people,” he said, clambering up after me. “No trees like this. This is great!”

The willow sat in the middle of our yard. It was huge, with thick branches low to the ground that I’d discovered were great for climbing when I was about six. When the summer swung into high gear the leaves thickened on the branches and concealed you when you climbed it. It had become my tree fort a couple of summers before and I spent many a lazy afternoon in its shaded coolness, reading, or doing puzzles from a book. It was one of my favorite places, and it felt right taking my new friend up into it. My dad had been the only other human being allowed into its sanctum.

“So what is it?” I asked once we’d pulled the snacks up in a pail on a rope.