Fauna (15 page)

He would find out later about the damage he’d done—a shattered elbow, several chipped teeth, countless abraded hands and arms—but at the time he knew only the vicious intimacy of the fight. He raged on for a minute or more, until one of the boyfriends got his bearings. Stephen felt his head hit concrete and bounce. From the depths of the ensuing darkness came stars. Then Ruby, bursting out of the carnage and sprinting for the school’s back door.

Kline let him sweat. Left him alone in the office marked
Vice-Principal
to nurse his sore head and think about what he’d done.

“I had to close the store,” Ariel told him when she finally showed. “You know Mica’s leading a workshop today.”

“Mrs. Carnsew.” Kline stepped in behind her, closing the door.

“Ariel.”

“Sorry?”

“Ariel. I don’t use my last name.”

“Ariel, then.”

But Stephen could remember a time when her name was Mom, even Mommy—back when she and his father were still Amy and Mike. They’d wanted to hear their new names as often as possible, so they’d told Stephen to start using them too.
You can change yours if you want
, Mica said, but Stephen decided to stick with Stephen. It felt safer if one of them stayed the same.

“Stephen,” Ariel said, still standing, “you know how Mica and I feel about violence.”

It was hard to look directly at her—the clear blue eyes, the brown hair loose and natural, like a girl’s. He stared at his skinned knuckles instead. “I know, but they were hurting her.”

“Hurting who?”

“Ruby.”

“Ruby who? Who’s Ruby?”

Kline cleared his throat. “Your son was protecting a friend of his. A girl who doesn’t … well, who doesn’t fit in.”

“Is this true, Stephen?”

Stephen nodded.

“Unfortunately,” Kline went on, “things got a little out of hand. Well, a lot out of hand, actually. Several students had to be taken to the walk-in clinic.”

“Stephen.” She said his name quietly, almost gently. “You know how to deal with negative feelings.”

“It wasn’t a feeling.”

“Pardon me?”

He looked up. “It wasn’t a feeling, it was a situation. It was an emergency.”

“Okay.” She took a breath, closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “Try and come into the now, Stephen.”

“I am in the now. Jesus, I just—”

“I don’t think this environment is helping.” She reached for the door handle.

“Mrs. Carn—Ariel,” Kline said, “I’m not sure you understand. This incident is far from over. I’ll have to speak to the other students, as well as their parents, before I decide on the appropriate course of action.”

Stephen saw his mother’s eyes close again. Her breath slowed and became even. He could almost hear the litany of restorative thought.

She said little on the drive downtown.

“Why can’t I just go home on my own like usual?” he asked after several silent blocks.

“Because we need to process this.”

“Process what? I saved a girl from getting the shit kicked out of her.” He’d never spoken to her like this, his voice hard, almost ugly. He took a breath. “It’s just, Ruby, she’s this weird, sweet girl. She wouldn’t hurt a—”

“Stephen, breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

“You know what I mean. Focus on your breath, follow it inward.”

Stephen tried. He followed a breath until it bumped up against his struggling heart, and held it there for as long as he could. By the time they pulled up in front of the store, he’d gone quiet inside. Quiet and dark.

The sign caught him off guard. He came close to laughing, though he’d never found the name funny before.
Sage
. It was perfect—part spiritual quest, part soothing interior design.
It fit the place—fit his parents, for that matter—like an Andean alpaca wool glove.

Ariel unlocked the door and held it open for him. Fairy bells and a face full of sandalwood. She brushed past him on her way to the CD player. Strains of airy flute came floating, making his head hurt all over again.

He looked down into the brassy shallows of a Tibetan prayer bowl. “Two hundred bucks.” He felt giddy. “That’s some markup, Mom.”

She turned to look at him. “Why don’t you go spend a little time in the meditation room.”

“Go centre yourself,” he muttered.

“Mica should be back soon,” she added.

“Just wait until your father gets home.” He headed for the back of the store.

“If you speak, speak clearly, Stephen. Own your words.”

“Ohm,” he chanted loudly over his shoulder. “Ohhhhh-mmm!”

Slamming the door to the little white room felt right. He threw his backpack down and stood motionless, his fists clenched. When that got old, he sat down, centring his ass on the yin and yang rug.

Yang—that was the warrior energy, wasn’t it? So what was so terrible about accessing your inner yang when the yinnest person you knew was about to get her kidneys kicked in? He already knew what Mica would have to say on the subject, some tai chi nugget about inner discipline triumphing over external force. Which was fine when you were waving hands like clouds, but not much use in the face of a bloodthirsty mob.

Stephen didn’t know how such thoughts had leaked into
his mind. Maybe the fight behind the school had changed him. Maybe now was the time to pick a new name—Rocko, or Spike. His head felt a little better. He closed his eyes and lay back on the black and white rug.

Mica woke him by nudging the door in against the soles of his sneakers.

“You asleep?”

Stephen sat up, blinking. His head made an internal whimpering sound.

His father’s gaze was mild. “Ariel told me what happened.”

“Yeah? How would she know?”

“I don’t follow.”

“She never asked me anything about it.”

Mica nodded. “You know, Stephen, everyone has their own path.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you may believe you can alter another person’s experience in this life, but that experience is something he or she has created. This girl today—”

“Ruby.” Stephen stared at his father’s knees, baggy in white cotton pants.

“Okay, Ruby.” He said it as though they were agreeing between themselves to call her that. As though it wasn’t really her name. “The point is, only Ruby can change the path she’s on. Only Ruby can alter the energy she puts out into the world, the energy she attracts.”

“You mean she asked for it.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yes it is. You think she asked for it. Like she’s some kind of fucking freak who wanted to get wailed on. Like she hoped
those assholes would be waiting for her when she went to unlock her bike.”

“Stephen, that’s your stuff, not mine.” Mica glanced over his shoulder at the tinkle of the front-door bells.

“Don’t let me keep you.”

Mica looked at him then, one of his probing, reflective looks that only went one way. “There’s a lot of anger in this room, Stephen.”

“You don’t say.” Stephen stood up, the whimper in his skull spiking to a howl. He steadied himself before stooping for his pack. “I’m going home.”

He was only fifteen, but when he straightened, he met his father face to face. It was like looking at a snapshot of himself a couple of decades down the road, still tall and handsome, but hollowed out somehow, his gentle face bearded, lashes blinkering his eyes. When Mica stepped aside to let him pass, it was as though the photograph flipped over, showing the blank on its other side.

Stephen walked slowly up Fort Street that afternoon, each step echoing in his tender head. Those blocks were familiar to him—known by heart—and yet they had a strange, almost enchanted feel. Had there always been that many homeless hunkering in doorways? That many hanging baskets dripping blooms? Not long after crossing Blanshard, he noticed something else that had eluded him before. In among the antique shops and the happy little cafés, one storefront stood out. Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre.

Several posters hung in the window, but Stephen saw only one: the soldier in filthy fatigues, an even filthier child in his arms. He knew he was too young to do anything without
his parents’ permission. Still, it couldn’t hurt to go in and ask a few questions. Maybe even pick up a brochure.

It’s hard to pass by Bill’s Lobsters without stopping to look in. The window tank is crammed with sluggish creatures, their claws clamped shut with white rubber bands. It’s a slow struggle, the brutes rising to the top while the ones on the bottom gradually give up. As always, Billy whimpers at the sight.

“It’s
Bill’s
Lobsters,” Lily tells him. “Not Billy’s. Besides, they’re gross.”

He has less interest in the supermarkets—Fu Yao and Trinity and Cai Yuan—but Lily likes the outdoor mounds of scaly, nameless roots, the bags of sweating green beans long as licorice whips. Who knew there were so many kinds of oranges? Leaves, bruised and slippery, litter the ground. A massive, knobby squash has a wedge chopped out to showcase its bright insides.

Around the corner on Broadview, Billy grows hopeful again. The Sing Sing BBQ House makes him cow-eyed. Pork quarters hang like fatty, gathered curtains alongside orange mini-monsters with tentacled legs. Lacquered ducks dangle from the hooks wound through their necks, eyes like seed pods, beaks and leg nubs charred.

Five doors and an alleyway along, a pair of porcelain happy-cats wave from the window of the shop both Lily and her dog adore. Miao Ke Hong Bakery. If she has even a little change in her pocket—and today she has three loonies plus—she never passes the place without going in.

She chooses a coconut bun for herself and a ham-and-egg bun for Billy. Doesn’t spot the patrol car until she’s halfway out the door and both heads inside it are swivelling her way. Blood thunders in her ears. A moment’s frozen, light-headed panic, and then Billy shuffles close, looking up at her in hungry hope.

“Not yet, boy.” She stuffs the bag in her vest pocket. “Come on.”

They walk north, past plastic bins full of dried beans, dried sea creatures, dried mushrooms like scraps of suede—back into the condensing crowd. The cops follow, creeping along on the far side of the parked cars, now and then nudging their bumper into Lily’s peripheral view. She can just about hear the description they’ll be working from.

Thin. She’s terribly thin
.

You mean skinny. You’d hardly know she was a girl
.

And she has long black hair
.

Looks like shoe polish. Natural blonde and she goes and dyes it
.

She’s still pretty, though
.

Pretty stupid. Pretty goddamn selfish, putting her mother and me through this
.

Would they have a picture too? Not one with the pink hack job—she’d done that in the bathroom at the mall, sawing off hanks in the end stall before glopping on the goo, dragging her toque down over the stinky mess and going outside to sit with Billy while the colour burned. Of course, it’s Billy himself who’s the giveaway. Maybe she should’ve bleached his beautiful coat while she was at it. Turned him brassy, then rinsed him clean in the filthy Don.

Traffic backs up behind a streetcar, slowing, then halting,
the cops. Lily keeps to an even, unhurried pace. One hand twisted in Billy’s mane, she weaves through the dozen or so disembarking passengers, makes the corner and turns. The alley’s only a few doors down. She turns again when they reach it, and then, only then, she runs.

Billy lopes along easily beside her. If only he were a little bigger, she could jump up onto his back and be gone.

They take a hard left where the alley turns, hammering along behind the businesses that face Gerrard. They’ve walked this way maybe a dozen times, Lily lifting the lids of the green garbage bins in search of morsels Billy might like. She’s gotten used to her own hunger; it hurts her belly worse to think of him going without.

Running flat out, she spots a dark blue Dumpster and veers. There’s just enough room between the bin and the restaurant’s back wall. Lily sinks down, shoulder blades pressed to the Dumpster, knees drawn up against her chest. Billy squeezes in beside her and leans.

They hear the patrol car when it comes. Idling. Trolling. Idling again. Lily reaches for Billy’s forepaw and works her fingers in between his toes, feeling for the webbing there. He lets his tongue slip out and hang. She counts in her head, one hundred and fourteen before the cops move on. They could be squatting at either end of the alley, though. Better to wait.

She wouldn’t risk smoking even if she had some, but the thought of it makes her remember their treats. Billy makes a baby sound when she pulls the ham-and-egg bun out of the bag. He mouths it carefully from her fingers, tosses and snaps, swallowing it in one. Lily peels the coconut bun from its tinfoil circle. Nibbles a third before giving him that too.

He nuzzles her cheek.

“Ack, dog breath.”

He grins at her. Then suddenly, softly, he growls.

She hasn’t heard the back door of the restaurant swing open. The man standing on the cement stoop is short, wiry, old. A shock of snowy hair under a white peaked hat.