Blood Sports (29 page)

Under the fluorescent gas-station lighting, Paulie glowed in tiny cut-offs and a sloppy tank with an old grease stain above the left boob. Tom kissed the hollow of her collarbone, an unexpected sweet spot that she liked touched. She smelled musky with sweat and talcum-y with melting perfumed deodorant, something flowery and old-fashioned, tea roses. She pushed his head away.

“Focus,” she said.

Tom unfolded the black and yellow rubber dinghy they’d found in a second-hand store. The connector was worn so Tom had to hold the air hose to it. The dinghy inflated resentfully, the bow drooped and the sides sagged. A few feet away, a pasty man in Bermuda shorts tapped his fingers on the flat inner tube he was holding. Bermuda Man glared at them like they were the cause of all his miseries.

Paulie carried two mismatched oars. Tom flipped the dinghy up and wore it like a hat, balancing it on his head and holding the frayed ropes that lined its sides. The people streaming to the beach flowed around them. All of the good viewing spots had been staked out earlier that day. Twilight brought out the mosquitoes, and Tom wished he’d brought repellent. He followed Paulie, who carefully picked her way through the people sitting on the sand. All the radios were tuned to the same station.

“Sit down!” someone yelled at them.

“Bite me,” Paulie said.

“We’re just passing through!” Tom yelled back. “Just passing through! Sorry, passing through.”

Paulie gasped when she dipped her toes in the water. “Holy fuck, that’s cold.”

Tom waded into the ocean, gritting his teeth against the shock of brain-freeze cold shooting through his skin and making him shiver. He let the dinghy drop. It hit the water with a smack and bobbed in the waves. Tom held it steady. “Hop in.”

Paulie slogged through the surge and threw the oars in the dinghy. Her thighs squeaked against the rubber as she straddled the side. Tom snapped a mental picture, knowing that someday he was going to masturbate to this. Paulie fell in the dinghy and scrambled up, indignant. She held on to the ropes along the sides. Tom pushed off, tried to hop in, and missed, belly-flopping. Paulie laughed so hard she snorted. He dog-paddled to the dinghy, hung on to the rope, and stuck one leg over the side, but couldn’t manage to pull himself in. Paulie stopped laughing long enough to grab him by the knapsack and haul him up.

Paulie sat sideways as Tom struggled with the oars. One was longer than the other, and they listed to the left, going in a wide circle until Tom figured out how to compensate. Paulie leaned
back and lay across the dinghy with her legs over the side. The bottom filled with water. Tom lifted his oars and put them inside. He took off his knapsack and pulled out a glow stick. He snapped it and then shook it until it glowed pink. He leaned over and lifted Paulie’s hair. She watched him skeptically as he snapped it in place around her neck.

“So that the other boats will see us,” Tom explained. “So we don’t get run over.”

“Ah,” Paulie said.

Tom took out a green glow stick and Paulie helped him snap it in place.

“Just so you know,” Paulie said dryly. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

Tom lay beside her. She stuck her hand under his armpit, wiggled it. Her fingers were icy. He pulled out an aluminum emergency blanket. She unfolded it and spread it over them. He took out a bottle of Pepsi and twisted it open before he handed it to Paulie. Police helicopters circled across the bay. A flotilla of boats in the distance blasted their horns and then went silent.

Classical music rang out from the radios on the shore. Everyone turned expectantly in the same direction, toward English Bay. The first fireworks were gold comets streaking up with glittering tails. They burst open, thousands of tiny green streamers, a forest of neon weeping willows. The fireworks reflected off the blanket, lighting up Paulie’s face.

“Oh,” Paulie said, with mock awe as each firecracker went off. “Ah.”

3. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Tom and Paulie took a long, slow walk along the Stanley Park seawall promenade. They reached Third Beach, a small stretch of sand past Siwash Rock. The wind made the trees sway like belligerent drunks. They walked down the sand. Tom slipped off his windbreaker and gave it to Paulie to sit on. Rain slid down his neck, soaked his shorts and shoes, chilling him. Paulie leaned against him. He wished she would say something.

The waves rolled up the beach in leaden humps and then flattened before slinking backward. Anchored in the Burrard Inlet, three tankers pointed in different directions as if they’d just had a fight and were refusing to look at each other. The peaks of the North Shore Mountains crawled with fat, white slugs of mist. A German shepherd bounded past. Its owner, a man wearing a yellow raincoat, swung a red leash. Seagulls shot upward out of the sand, squalling as the dog barked at them.

Paulie frowned. “Do you know where the bones are?”

Tom nodded.

“We should move them. That’ll be one less thing for Jer to hold over your head,” Paulie said. She frowned. “How much have you told your mother?”

Tom broke out a doobie and lit up, sheltering his lighter from the wind. “Nothing about Rusty.”

“Nothing? Then what’s she bent out of shape over?”

Tom exhaled. “It’s lame.”

“Lame?”

Tom hunched into himself.

Paulie nudged him. “We’re only as sick as our secrets.”

“What kind of name is Firebug?” Lilia said.

They stopped at a red light.

“I don’t mind him,” Lilia said, with a small twitch of her head she indicated the back seat where Tom was sitting. “But really, Jeremy. Firebug?”

“You’re a beautiful woman. He’s a sad, horny guy who just got divorced. Again.”

“He’s a repulsive bore,” Lilia said.

“He was trying to impress you.”

“We’re here.”

Jeremy pulled the Ferrari to the curb in front of Laurent’s in South Granville. The window display had a row of headless mannequins in tuxes. Jeremy reached over and opened the door for Lilia. “We’ll find parking and meet you.”

They kissed. Lilia stepped out and pushed her seat down so Tom could get out. Jeremy snapped it back up.

“Isn’t he coming?” Lilia said.

“We’re right behind you,” Jeremy said. Lilia closed the door. They drove to a nearby parkade. They parked on the lowest level, in a corner with no other cars around.

“What’s up?” Tom said.

Jeremy stepped out and flipped his seat down. “Don’t make a scene. We’re helping out a friend of Lil’s. He makes suits.”

Tom didn’t move.

Jeremy poked his head in, suspiciously cheerful. “I’m not going to force you.”

Tom waited for the rest.

Jeremy stroked his chin, miming deep thought. “Hmm. How long do you think it would take you to polish all the marble in the condo with a toothbrush?”

Tom calculated his chances of making it past Jeremy. No matter what he tried, it would end the same way, but going along with it now meant he could save himself some bruises and the humiliation of being dragged around like a stubborn toddler. Tom clambered out. Jeremy slammed the door shut and keyed the alarm.

“You’re an asshole,” Tom said.

“Relax,” Jeremy said. “You don’t have to wear any of this crap.”

His mom picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“Jer’s getting fitted for some suits at –” Tom said.

“You’re shopping!” Her voice a strangled squeak. “Shopping!”

“It was Jer’s idea, not mine.”

“I have the cake here! I spent all afternoon decorating! I already started dinner!”

“But it was Jer’s idea, Mom.”

“Why didn’t you stop him!”

Tom rubbed the gunk off his eyes.

His mother sighed. “I’m sorry. Sorry.”

“We’re coming home later. You can surprise him then.”

“But I won’t be here! I’ll be on the ferry!”

“He won’t die if he gets a party next weekend.”

Lengthy, offended silence. His mom lived in a world where everybody cared about spending their birthdays with family. Even twenty-four-year-old cokeheads should eat cake and hug and get teary-eyed over sappy cards and cheap gifts. She’d had it all planned, had phoned him for weeks with the details, had gotten a special day pass from Twelve Oaks to be with Jer on his big day and now everything was capital “R” Ruined. She had written a climactic Thank You speech, and in her world, Jeremy was going to be moved by it,
Touched by an Angel
by it, chest-thumping glad he’d been letting them leech off him for a year.

“Did you get him a card?” his mom said.

“Mom.”

“Damn it, I asked you to do one little thing, and you act like I want you to climb Everest! Did you get him a present?”

“No. Mom, God, he’s not –”

“People weren’t exactly lining up to help us, in case you didn’t notice. You could show a little gratitude now and then, Tommy. The least you can do is get him a card.”

“A card then,” Tom said, with no intention of following through.

The Thank You cards in the Hallmark store were either baby-animals saccharine or glad-handing businesslike. They didn’t have a series designed especially for thanking your drug-demented cousin for covering up your first homicide, so he settled for a blank card with a sailboat.

Tom sat in the mall’s food court with a notepad and a tub of New York Fries fries, trying to think of something appropriate to put in the card.
Thanks, bud. I’d be a pathetic virgin today if you hadn’t made your girlfriend sleep with me. By all means, keep the video, Tom
. Not quite the folksy tone he wanted.
I’m grateful you didn’t crack my skull open after I stole your Jag. No disrespect was intended. I thought it would get you out of my life, you big, fat fucking control freak
. Maybe a little too sour.

The card was dumb, but if he wanted to save himself grief, he had to give Jer something. Maybe his mom was right. Maybe he should give him a cake. A host gift, so to speak. A fuck-off forever cake, chocolate with booze and tranks and pot baked in to get everyone in a mellow mood when he announced he’d finished high school and wanted his own place.