Monkey Beach (44 page)

“Of course, silly,” I said. “We know you pulled some strings. How else could Jimmy get on with your uncle?”

Instead of answering, she turned around and walked away.

The morning Jimmy left, he gave me a hug and said he’d call Adelaine later. We went down to have breakfast. Mom had gone all out. She’d made two stacks of pancakes, a plate of bacon, another plate of scrambled eggs, muffins and toast. Jimmy whistled.

“Wow,” I said. “We’re going to have to roll you to the docks.”

Josh honked his horn to collect Jimmy. He gave me a quick hug and whispered, “Tell her I love her.”

“Tell her yourself,” I said.

Dad carried Jimmy’s gear. Mom had her arm around my waist. Jimmy didn’t want us to see him off at the docks. It would make him look like a baby, he said.

The sky was light grey, no stars. We stood around the porch for about five minutes. Mom and Dad
hugged him again, and I wished I was in bed. He got in the car and Mom started to cry. She kissed Jimmy like she was never going to see him again. He looked embarrassed but pleased. Jimmy and Dad shook hands, then Dad slapped his shoulder.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Jimmy said.

Dad nodded. “I know. Good luck.”

Jimmy looked at me. “Be good.”

“Don’t fall overboard,” I said.

“Jimmy …” Mom said.

As the car drove away, Jimmy rolled down his window and waved. We all waved back. The crows hopped and cawed.

I saw Karaoke in the hallway at school. I went up to her and told her Jimmy was going to call her. She shrugged. The lunchtime buzzer rang. A bunch of girls were standing by their lockers, laughing and joking. Karaoke pulled her fist back and smashed it into the nearest girl’s face. Her front teeth cracked. She screamed, holding her mouth as blood spurted from her split lips. Her friends jumped in and twisted Karaoke’s arms behind her back and held her while another girl started whacking Karaoke’s face. She grinned as if she didn’t even feel it.

“Chick fight! Chick fight!” a guy yelled, and a crowd gathered to watch. I started to push my way to the front, but the kids around us cheered enthusiastically. Karaoke went down, kicked and pummeled by the girls until two teachers pulled them off her and took her to the hospital. I tried to catch a ride to the hospital and talk with her, but by the time I arrived, she had already been released.

I knew he’d never forgive himself if he screwed this up, so I went into his room and started hunting for the promise ring. I was going to show it to her and say he did leave her, but he didn’t dump her—he was saving up for their wedding. I knew if she saw the ring, she’d forgive him.

In the pocket of Jimmy’s brown leather jacket, I found an old photograph and a folded-up card. The picture was black-and-white. Josh’s head was pasted over a priest’s head and Karaoke’s was pasted over a little boy’s. I turned it over:
Dear Joshua
, it read.
I remember every day we spent together. How are you? I miss you terribly. Please write. Your friend in Christ, Archibald
.

I asked Karaoke about it later, and she uncomfortably said it was meant as a joke, Jimmy was never supposed to find it. But she wouldn’t look at me, and she left a few minutes later. Jimmy’d picked it up the same way I had. The folded-up note card was a birth announcement. On the front, a stork carried a baby across a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
It’s a boy!
was on the bottom of the card. Inside, in neat, careful handwriting it said, “Dear, dear Joshua. It was yours so I killed it.”

The cut I make in my left hand is not deep. The skin separates and the blood wells up and spills down my palm. For a moment, there is no pain, and I wonder if I’m dreaming this, then the cut begins to burn, to
sear. I hold my hand up to the trees and the blood runs under my sleeve and down my forearm. I turn around in circles, offering this to the things in the trees, waiting. When I’m about to give up and go back to my speedboat, I hear a stealthy slither.

Remove yourself from the next sound you hear, the breathing that isn’t your own. It glides beneath the bushes like someone’s shadow, a creature with no bones, no arms or legs, a rolling, shifting worm-shaped thing that hugs the darkness. It wraps its pale body around yours and feeds. Push yourself away when your vision dims. Ignore the confused, painful contractions in your chest as your heart trip-hammers to life, struggles to pump blood. Ignore the tingling sensations and weakness in your arms and legs, which make you want to lie down and never get up.

The Land of
the Dead

We were a half-hour’s snowshoe tramp from the logging road when Mick found the ugliest pine tree in creation. Snowflakes, airy and dry, hissed across the crusted, frozen ground. The tree was bent over like a hunchback, brown for the top foot or so, and dripping needles before even he touched it.

“I like it,” Mick said.

“Son,” Ba-ba-oo said, slapping a friendly hand on Mick’s shoulder, “I wouldn’t even use it for kindling.”

“What do you think?” Mick said to me.

“Why didn’t you visit me?” I said. “Why did you stay away?”

He kissed the top of my head. “I’m here now. And we have a tree to pick. I think this one is just dandy.” He chopped it down and threw it over his shoulder. Ba-ba-oo held my hand as we walked through the nippy air back to the truck. He sang:

“Dad,” Mick said, wincing. “Enough, please. There’s a lady present.”

“This from the man who taught you ‘Fuck the Oppressors’ ” Ba-ba-oo said to me, rolling his eyes.

I laughed as Mick and Ba-ba-oo mock-wrestled, squashing the tree as they tried to pin each other to the ground. We had to start the Christmas-tree hunt all over again, but none of us minded. The sun glinted off the snow, the wind rubbed our faces red and, somewhere out there, was a tree hideous enough for Mick to bring home.

I wake. The moss is soft and wet against my back. There is a dull, aching pain in my hand. I lift it, and the cut is raw, but has stopped bleeding, and all the blood has been licked away. Its tongue was scratchy, like a cat’s.

“You said you would help me!” I yell, but my voice cracks, and I don’t know if they heard me, so I yell it again.

They snigger.

I push myself up with my right hand, cradling my left hand against my chest. The bushes rustle.

“More,” a voice says from the shadows.

I stand. “You tell me where Jimmy is first.”

The waves have washed the blood from the oar tip but he can see the dents in the wood where he hit Josh—first on the hand as Josh gripped the side and screamed, trying to put one leg in the seiner as Jimmy kicked him and hit him. For what he did to Karaoke, he knew that Josh deserved to die. But he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more until the boat tilted, and finally Jimmy brought the oar down on his head. It hit Josh’s left temple and his head snapped back and God, he killed him, he hoped he killed him because the waves let Jimmy see him for the longest time as the man he’d sworn to kill drifted away, held up by his floater jacket, a bright yellow dot against the white-tipped blackness of the waves.