Children in the Morning (19 page)

Jenny and I were scared but we didn’t want him to know, so we smiled and went into the house with him.

“Hey, Axe, what the fuck?” This other guy was looking at us. He was sprawled on a couch in front of the television. It was loud. He had all his hair shaved off and had a devilish-looking beard on his chin. “You said you were running a couple new girls, but we didn’t think you meant
this
new. Tap into a whole new market with these two! Hey, kids, what’s your names? Lemme guess. You’re Misty, and this here’s” — the guy turned and looked at the television, and there were two girls dancing and they hardly had any clothes on! —

“Candy! That’s it, Misty and Candy! Just like the two, uh, exotic dancers in this movie! Would you like to dance like that, girls?”

We didn’t know what to say. But the guy who brought us in, Axe, told the guy: “Turn that off, asshole. There’s kids in the house.”

“But I was just getting into it, you know what I mean?”

“I said
turn it off
.”

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“I just rented it, and I’m dubbing a copy. If I turn it off, I’ll have to . . .”

Then I couldn’t believe what happened. Axe walked over to the television and lifted up his foot, and drove it right through the tv screen. The glass smashed and there was a big noise, and that was the end of the tv! “Next time I tell you to turn something off, Pratt, you turn it off. Understand?”

“Okay, Axe, okay, chill out, man!”

Two other guys came in then, with one girl. She was tough-looking.

She said: “Hey, Axe, some of your long-lost kids are finally turning up to cash in, eh?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“So, kiddies, would you like a brownie?” the girl asked.

“Sure!” Jenny said.

But Axe said: “Don’t give them any, you dipshit.”

“I wasn’t going to!”

I wanted to say we’d like to have a brownie, but it’s rude to ask for food at other people’s houses.

“Smoke a little weed, girls, help you relax?” That was the guy on the couch.

“We don’t smoke,” I said, “but thanks anyways.”

“So what can we do for you, girls?” That was Axe.

I figured I’d better think of a way to ask them about Mrs. Delaney, without really asking whether they killed her or hung around outside their house. So I made something up.

“Somebody lost a wallet with some money in it, outside her house.” I pointed at Jenny.

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s mine!” one of the guys said. “Hand it over!”

“We don’t have it with us.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because we were scared someone would steal it from us.

Someone who didn’t really own it.”

“You’re not saying we’re thieves, are you, ladies?” Axe said.

“No! We meant anybody, not you guys!”

“So why did you think one of us lost a wallet?”

“Uh, because it had a picture of a big motorcycle in the photo 112

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holder. And because . . .”

“Because my mum said your name before she died!” That was Jenny, obviously. We weren’t supposed to sound like we thought they were around when she died, but Jenny blurted it out anyway.

“Let me get this straight. Your mother died, and you’re here because you think we had something to do with it?”

“No, no, not really,” I said. “It’s just that her mum said the words

‘Hells Angels’ before she died, but we know you weren’t there at the time because, well, there was nobody there . . .” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Sounds to me like there was somebody there. Sounds to me like maybe her old man should be sat down with a strong light shining in his face and questioned about this death himself, and not bringing our name into it!” Axe again.

“Oh, my dad didn’t do it!” Jenny said then.

“If you say so.”

“It’s true.”

“Back to this wallet,” another guy said.

I answered: “Yeah, like I was saying, somebody lost a wallet with a bike picture in it, outside the house, so we were just wondering.

That’s all.”

“And this wallet got picked up right around the time of this death, is that it?”

“Yeah.”

Axe looked at all the Hells Angels in the clubhouse, and said:

“Any body here lose their wallet when they were killing somebody lately?”

“It wasn’t lately; it was a long time ago,” I explained.

“Long time ago? Anybody?”

One guy said: “I can’t remember all the people I knocked off, but I’d sure as hell remember if I lost my wallet.”

They all made jokes like that. Of course it was a dumb idea for me to say the wallet was at Jenny’s; they wouldn’t confess that they were there, even if there really was a wallet with money in it. It didn’t make any sense. But that’s all I could think of. I had never tried to do anything like this before. Being a sleuth looked a lot easier in the Nancy Drew books.

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Then Axe said to Jenny: “This is bullshit about your mother dying, right, kid?”

“No! She really died.”

He looked as if he felt bad for making a joke about it. But he didn’t say he was sorry. Then I wondered: Now what?

“So, is anybody coming to pick you girls up? Or should we set two more places for supper?”

I realized we couldn’t call Daddy and get him to pick us up at the Hells Angels’ house. He’d kill us. And besides, I was still mad at him and Mum, so it served them right if their daughter was hiding out with a biker gang! And we sure couldn’t tell Jenny’s dad about this.

So we didn’t know what to do.

“What do you girls want to do? Watch a movie?”

“Yeah, that would be great!” I said.

Pratt twisted around on the couch and gawked at Axe. “You’re lettin’ them stay here? You got a death wish or somethin’?”

“Nah. Should be fun to see who turns up to get them, after they get bored and call home. It will be worth it to see Daddy’s face when he comes to the door. So put a movie on for them, Pratt. How about
Hansel and Gretel
? Or
Easy Rider
. Oh, that’s right. We don’t have a tv!”

“You had a little accident with the tv, Axe.”

“Right. So go get them another one.”

“What?”

“Get off your ass and get a tv for them.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“You’re trying out for membership in this club, aren’t you, Pratt?

So make your bones! Hoist a tv set somewhere, and get back here.

I’ll give you half an hour.”

“What the fuck?”

“Get moving. Now!”

Then Axe got on the phone. “It’s me. Bring the kids over. Yeah, I know it’s not
my day
. Bring them over on your day, and I’ll let you have them on my day. Is that rocket science? Okay, good.” And he hung up. He said to us: “I got kids around your age. They’re coming over. Now we’ve got some business to take care of in the back room, some product we gotta move, so make yourselves at home. There’s pizza in the fridge. Phone’s there if you need it.”

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“We won’t,” I said.

“Have it your way.”

So they all went into another room and shut the door. Jenny and I sat down, then got up and looked around, but there wasn’t much to see. There were some posters on the walls with pictures of motorcycles, and there was a really old leather jacket with the Hells Angels sign, hanging up with some guy’s picture underneath it. There was also an old-fashioned picture in the brown colours the cameras used to do. It showed a bunch of men sitting on top of an old airplane with Hells Angels written on it. There were words on the picture that said: “The Original Hells Angels: 303rd Bombardment Group of World War II.”

I couldn’t believe they let the Hells Angels fight in the war. But maybe they were really good at it, so they put them in to fight the Nazis.

That was all I saw. The bad stuff must have been in the other room.

They said we could have pizza, so we got it out of the fridge, along with a couple of cans of pop, and we sat down to eat. Pratt came in and, sure enough, he had a tv. The wires were hanging down from it, as if he just yanked it out of a wall some place and brought it to the clubhouse.

He hooked it up, and didn’t talk to us the whole time. He knocked on the door to the other room, and they let him in.

Then we heard people coming in from outside. A woman shooed two kids into the house, told them to call for a lift later, and left. One was a boy about grade-three age, with short hair and kind of a skinny tail of hair at the back of his neck; the other one was a girl older than us. She had long, wild, curly brown hair. They sat down and had some pizza and didn’t talk to us.

Jenny and I went to the couch and clicked through a whole bunch of tv channels. The boy said “Gimme that,” and tried to grab the clicker, but his sister whacked him on the side of the head, and he fell over. He got up, went across the room to a table, and opened up a drawer; he pulled out some kind of game that looked like a small computer. He sat in the corner and played it by himself. The girl went to the phone and called her friend. She started talking to her and ignored us.

So we went back to switching tv channels. We saw a choir singing on the cable channel. The concert! Then I felt really bad. Mum and Dad would be at the concert wondering where I was. And I hadn’t 115

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gone home for supper. They would be really worried. I wanted them to worry, to pay them back for thinking I was crazy. But now I didn’t feel so good about it. We watched as the choir finished their song. It was another school and they weren’t very good, especially their diction. And they went flat a couple of times. The guy in charge of the show thanked them and asked people to call in with donations for the poor. Then he introduced the next performer: Father Brennan Burke, director of the Schola Cantorum Sancta Bernadetta, and music director of St. Bernadette’s Choir School. The man thanked Father Burke for having the show at the choir school; then Father came on to sing. He was in his priest collar and black suit, and he looked nervous. Which he never is. No, he looked as if something was bothering him. Was he worrying about
me
, or mad at me for missing the concert? I would be in so much trouble! Then he was singing
La Rondine
, all about someone who flew away like a little bird, and wouldn’t fly over the mountains and the sea to come back.

It seemed like he was talking and looking right at me. He probably wasn’t, but it seemed like it. And I started to cry. Jenny started too.

So I got up and hammered at the door to the next room. It took a few minutes, but Axe opened it.

“Can we go home?” I begged.

“We’re not keeping you here, girls. I thought you didn’t want to go home.”

“We do now. Can you call a taxi and we’ll pay you back . . . some day? My dad will kill us if he has to . . . come here to get us.”

“No shit!” He was laughing. I just waited. What else could I do?

“So, you want a taxi, or you want a ride home on a big Harley hog?”

“Is that a motorcycle?”

“Is that a motorcycle, she asks me! Is anything else a motorcycle?

Let’s roll.”

“Really?”

“Up to you.”

“Are you fuckin’ nuts, Axe?” Pratt called out from the room.

“Anybody sees you with these little pieces of jailbait, we’ll end up behind bars with a bunch of kiddie diddlers!”

“Watch your mouth, fuckhead! Show some respect!”

“Well, what do you think their old man’s gonna do when two of 116

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us pull up with these little fender bunnies on the back of our bikes?”

“They won’t say anything bad about us, will you, girls?”

“No! Because you didn’t do anything bad. Not that you would, I mean . . .”

“Right. You were just here watching tv with my kids. Pratt, get them a couple helmets. Me and Arnason are going to take ’em home in style.”

It was unbelievable. It was really fun! They gave us helmets to put on. And I got on the back of Axe’s motorcycle, and Jenny got on with the other guy, and we hung on to them, and roared away down the street. We were just flying when we got into the real part of Halifax, and people gawked at us as we went by. I hoped I would be out of trouble with Mum and Dad by the time I got to be sixteen or whatever the age is, when you can get your own motorcycle. Because that’s the only thing I wanted in the whole world.

We stopped at a red light, and Axe turned around to ask me what my address was. I realized the concert was still going on, so I said:

“Saint Bernadette’s Choir School,” and told him where it was. He said: “Choir school! Whoo-ooo, twilight zone!” And just shook his head, but he drove there.

It was great when we got there, because Father Burke was out on the steps of the choir school with Daddy. They looked like they were arguing, and were going to hit each other. You could tell by the way they were standing, and talking into each other’s faces. Then they heard the bike motors and turned around together, and gawked as if they couldn’t believe their eyes. Father Burke always has the same expression on his face even if something weird or awful happens. But this time his mouth dropped open and his eyes were huge. And Daddy grabbed the railing and looked as if he was going to faint.

Axe and the other guy turned the bikes around and skidded to a stop. They took the helmets off us, and peeled away on their motorcycles before Daddy and Father Burke could even get down the stairs.

(Monty)

The less said about Normie’s disappearance from the school and the concert, and the anguish and recriminations that resulted, the better.