Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World (34 page)

I heard the closet doors behind us sliding open and the hangers jangling. Then Fred Dowd was beside my mother, stuffed into
his winter coat.

‘Listen, Stephen, you’re obviously not comfortable here. Why don’t
we all go somewhere together? Your house in Riverside? Or is there another place?’

I grinned at him. ‘Jeez, Fred, you’re so nice!’

He put a hand on his glasses. ‘Oh, well …’

‘You are,’ my mother said, and she reached over and traced the edge of Fred’s ear. I looked away. He was smiling at her shyly,
like a boy.

‘Guys,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna go now. By myself. Okay? Just want to be alone. No big deal.’

Fred stood with his arm around my mother. ‘Now, I’m sure we can all …’

But she was nodding bravely. ‘Okay, sweetheart. Okay.’ She threw her arms around me. ‘Oh, God, I—’

‘I know. I love you too, Maryna.’ I kissed her, just under her eye.

‘So much,’ she said.

I kissed the other side of her face. Then I unwound myself, stumbled out the door past piles of Dowd boots drooling old snow
on a mat. I hugged my mother again, shook hands with Fred, told them I’d be back soon. I wouldn’t.

The cold hit me as soon as I opened the door. A few white flakes were starting to fall, twisting and looping in the wind.
Behind me my mother and Fred stood framed in the doorway, a plastic wreath behind their heads, all the windows of the house
lit up with orange electric candles. Mom and Fred waved as I drove away and I watched their figures get smaller and then disappear.

The roads were quiet. Houses were glowing with colour on the still, white fields. Soft blue and green, crazy whorehouse red,
flashing lights, twinkling lights, lights blinking from under a cover of snow.

Our own house was dark, and very cold. We’d left the heat on just high enough so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. I liked it that
way. I read until
I fell asleep in my own bed. My dreams were so vivid, there were times I was sure I was awake.

A funny mix-up of the daydream about the banquet with all the people you’d slept with, or wanted to, and that vision I’d had
of Lana and me feeding a room full of people. It was the same kitchen with wooden tables. Lana was there, and a man who loved
her. Mom was at a table with Fred and Sheila and my two sisters, Becky and Sarah. They were college age in this dream, beautiful
women. Stanley was there too. And the underwear guys. The girls from the rec room at Tracey’s party sharing a table with Janine
and Christopher and Adam. Everybody talking, passing plates. The people kept coming and the tables kept multiplying, but nobody
was crowded and there was enough for everyone.

Where was I in this dream? Standing at the stove. I was old, maybe thirty. A little girl was perched on a high stool beside
me. I was shadowing her hands with mine because I didn’t want her to burn herself, but she didn’t need me. She wasn’t going
to make the same mistakes I did.

‘I can do it myself, Daddy,’ she said.

When I woke up I was almost laughing and it wasn’t Christmas anymore.

It was quiet and cold. There’d been a snowfall during the night and the town had that stillness over it – like a new planet.
I wanted to get out there. I made myself a coffee and took it with me. Tree branches were outlined in feathery white. The
only tracks were mine. I walked to the riverbank behind the elementary school and had a smoke, making sure I pushed the ashes
deep into the snow. I didn’t want to spoil anything.

The dream was still with me, like an extra layer of warmth. Who was the little girl’s mother? Lana? Or was the kid some kind
of metaphor? I closed my eyes and tried to get the sense of it back – the room, the tables, the people. It was a good sign,
having a dream like that.

The river was crusted over with a slushy layer of ice. I had another cigarette. My coffee was cold, but I pretended it wasn’t.

I decided to take a walk around town, maybe go bother the Kovalenkos later. Turned for a sentimental look back at the river
and the mountain. There was somebody on the sidewalk about a block
away. Ruining it. Big winter coat, tractor boots, hands shoved into his pockets. He never remembered to bring gloves.

Mark.

I froze. ‘If I see you again, I’m gonna fucking kill you.’ That’s what he’d said.

Mark was walking with his head lowered, his shoulders hunched. Then he slowed down. He stopped. Two hundred feet of sidewalk
between us.

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Hey, Stephen!’ He broke into a jog.

I was about to get my head kicked in.
Run, you idiot. Move. Go now
.

I turned and started pounding down the street. Didn’t even know where I was going. I could hear him, behind me, gaining. Everything
was coated in snow – sometimes it stayed packed under my feet, at other times it seemed to want to make me slide. I jumped
over a snow bank, pelted up another block past quiet houses, holding the coffee mug close. Back at the elementary school again.
I’d done a loop. My breath was tearing at me, I had a pain in my side and I was sweating into my overcoat.
Keep running
. The playground, where I’d got beaten up as a kid so many times. Mark was yelling. I couldn’t make out words.
Go
. Past the old jungle gym. The swings.

One leg went sprawling out from under me as I skidded on a patch of ice. I fell, still clutching the mug, felt a splash of
cold coffee as the last drops hit my face. He was practically on top of me now. I crawled backwards like a crab.

‘It was an accident.’ I didn’t even know what I’d meant by that.

‘Fucking relax.’ He was breathing so hard it sounded like dry heaves. ‘I’m not gonna hurt you.’

I grabbed hold of one of the metal poles supporting the swing set and pulled myself upright. Mark was shaking with a smoker’s
hack,
the vapour of his breath hitting the cold morning air. He spat a wad of yellowish phlegm into the snow.

Then he paced around, taking deep drags off a cigarette. ‘Not allowed to do this in the house anymore,’ he said. ‘The baby’s
coming in a couple months. We don’t know what kind yet.’ He stopped for another round of coughing, then straightened up, swiping
at his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Oh. Stacey’s living with us now. At my place. With me and Mom and Krystal.’

‘Congratulations.’ I kept the bars of the metal frame that anchored the swing set between us. His face was fuller. What was
she feeding him, bacon grease? I probably looked like something skeletal and alien in my big, dark overcoat.

Mark was holding his pack of cigarettes towards me at arm’s length, shaking it. I stayed where I was. He shrugged and tossed
me the box. I took one and slid it back towards him over the snow. Beyond the playground, I could see rows of wooden and brick
houses lined up together, smoke unrolling from the chimneys. Then, the highway, the north mountain in the distance closing
us off.

Mark watched me light up. ‘So,’ he said.

I waited.

He clasped his reddened hands together. ‘My minister told me I should forgive you.’

I sputtered, gulped down cold air. ‘What? He …’ Mark was staring at me. He looked intent, serious. I started to laugh, but
it was like reeling from a punch. ‘He told you to
forgive
me. Oh, fuck. Oh, Jesus
Christ
.’

‘You think this is funny.’

‘No. No, I think it’s fucked up.’

‘So you don’t see anything wrong.’ His arms were folded now. ‘With what you did.’

‘I did … I did a lot that was
stupid
. But I’d started pacing as well, disoriented, too much energy. ‘I mean, did you hurt your foot on my ribcage or something?
Cause, yeah, I’m real sorry about that.’

‘Don’t forget who got you out of the fucking river.’

‘How did I get in there in the first place? You hit me with a tree!’

He looked at the ground, his face cloudy, ignoring me.

I risked a step towards him. ‘I was supposed to be starting a new life. You know, college. The city. A chance with people
who didn’t know me. I looked like some little victim …’

‘So I ruined your first day of school, huh.’ A quick jerk of his neck, as if he was spitting. ‘I ruined your class picture.’

‘Fuck you, McAllister.’

‘Sorry, man. Bet you wanted to look pretty. For all the other faggots.’

‘No, the arm was a total dick magnet. Man.’

We were walking around each other in circles now, stiff-legged, like dogs about to jump into a snarling fight. Our boot tracks
had beaten down the fresh snow and left brown smears of gravel from the road, trails of cigarette ash.

‘Tell your minister to go fuck himself, Mark. I had to take painkillers. I couldn’t sleep …’

He made a violent dismissive gesture. ‘I asked you to be my best man. You remember that? Then, like, an hour later you got
your faggot hands all over me.’

I glanced down at my hands reflexively. Wondered when Mark would get tired of his new word.

‘That’s not how it was.’

But then I realised I didn’t know how it was. Not for him. I felt a rush of heat to my face. That night, the way I must have
been talking
and acting – slow and drunk with sudden clumsy movements, slurring and pawing at him.

Mark threw his cigarette into the snow. He took a step towards me and I took a step back.

‘Touch me and it’s assault.’

He gave no sign that he’d heard. I shrank against the swing set and he kept coming closer.

Then he had the collar of my overcoat in his fists, half-choking me.

‘It’s assault. I’m serious, McAllister,’ I said, quick and breathless. ‘You’re too old for Juvie now. You’ll go to jail. Do
you get that?’ His eyes went very cold. My head was pressed against the swing-set’s beam. I wondered if he’d crack our skulls
together. I’d seen him do that once.

I kept talking, couldn’t stop. ‘You’ll be in jail when your fucking baby’s born. You redneck piece of shit. You should be
in jail now, for what you did to me. Only reason you’re not is cause—’

‘Yeah? Why?’ He gripped my collar tighter.

‘Cause it was bad enough the first time. Didn’t want to keep reliving it.’

Mark’s lip curled over his teeth in a snarl. When he spoke his voice was quiet and deliberate. ‘You were lying to me. For
years.’

I didn’t say anything. I was sweating.

‘Everybody knew,’ he said. ‘The whole town. The whole Valley. Oh, that McAllister, he’s so stupid. So. Unbelievably. Stupid.’
He knocked my head back against the swing set frame in time to his words. ‘Doesn’t even know his best friend’s an ass-fucking
faggot.’

Mark let go of my collar and I braced myself against the rail. He was still leaning into me.

‘I defended you so many times. I said you were just shy. I said you were weird. I said you had a girlfriend.’ He shook his
head. ‘Bet
they were all laughing at me, huh? Bet you were laughing worse than anybody.’

My hands went to my collar, my neck. ‘Laughing at you? Jesus …’

He took a step back. ‘Your friend the big, stupid moron. Takes care of bullies for you. Believes whatever you tell him. I
guess I was useful, huh?’

Mark pulled the sleeves of his coat down to cover his raw fingers. The same thing he used to do when he was a little kid.

‘Mark, you don’t really think that, do you?’

‘Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know what was going on here.’ He gestured from me to him and back again.

I told him I didn’t know either, but that I’d thought we were friends. He stared at me for a minute. Coldly, up and down.

‘Know what?’ Mark said. ‘When I was a kid. If I had to draw a picture of my family, or write a composition or something for
school, I’d always put you in there. Me, my mom and dad, Krystal, and my friend Stephen.’ Such contempt, the way he said my
name. His head dropped lower. ‘You used to lend me those books. I’d lie and say I read them. I didn’t. But I kept them perfect.
Not even fingerprints. Cause they were yours.’ He glanced up at me. ‘And now … I mean, what was all that about? Were you,
like, watching me? When I was changing and stuff? Were you just waiting for a chance to—?’

‘Aw, no, man. Don’t think that. Makes it sound so …’

Something was gripping me, across my chest. It hurt.

He scratched at the back of his neck. I watched Mark’s hands, the knuckles and finger joints white in this frigid air. He’d
never wear gloves. I’d seen him out clearing his driveway at twenty below, clutching the handle of the snow shovel with raw,
frost-bitten fingers. Then I remembered my mother’s story about the Riverside elves, and something clicked into place.

‘Mark? Have you been doing yard work? For my mother? And not telling her?’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugged. ‘Just wanted to make it up to her somehow. I went to your place to apologise and she wouldn’t let me
in the house.’

‘I don’t get it. You wanted to apologise to my mother? For what?’

‘What do you think, dummy?’ he said softly. ‘I nearly killed her son.’

Snow crystals caught the sunlight on the top ridge of the playground fence. Mark turned away. ‘I lied to you too, Stephen.’
His voice sounded distant in the quiet. ‘When I told you I only got you out of the river because of your mom. I mean, you
think I really had time to have a little debate with myself up there?’ He glanced back at me and twisted away again. ‘I didn’t
think at all. Just panicked. Saw you go into the water and … I would’ve done anything. And I got this idea maybe that meant
I was queer too. So I freaked out. I lost it.’

‘That’s your excuse?’

‘No. No, man. There’s no excuse.’

An engine muttered in the distance. On the street beyond, a snow plough was rolling along, leaving twin heaps of chewed-up
gravel and lumpy white shapes lined against the pavement.

‘Okay,’ Mark said. ‘Okay, here’s what’s really been bugging me. Here’s what I don’t get.’

I watched him. He’d backed away from the swings and was standing with the sky behind him, shuffling in place.

‘You were drunk off your ass. Saying all kinds of shit. I don’t know what to believe.’

‘What … What did I …?’

‘Stephen. This is serious. I mean … are you … do you really …’ Mark squeezed his eyes shut. Then he seemed to gain control
over himself. ‘Do you actually love me?’

Both of us sober. Morning in a playground, hazy sunshine on the snow. I swallowed, couldn’t find my voice for a second.

‘Do I? Yes.’

He ran his hands through his hair, staring into the trampled white ground. I clutched at the swing set frame again. Needed
to hold on to something.

‘See, I believe you.’ Mark was squirming into himself. ‘Stacey tells me that all the time. And I say it to her too. But I
don’t know. I get the feeling it’s because we think we’re supposed to. We’re together more than a year, and there’s this baby.
But you. I mean, who knows me better?’

He’d moved towards me, very close, brought his hand up, careful and hesitant. I thought for a second he was going to touch
my face, but instead Mark gave me a little punch on the arm, same as always. It barely connected.

‘What a joke.’ He sounded so lost. ‘What a joke on both of us, man.’

I just nodded. His hand had drifted down to my elbow and I felt the pressure of his fingers through my coat as he held on.

He closed his eyes, tightened his grasp.

‘It’s impossible. You know that, right? Makes me sick. Physically sick. To think of you … like that. Even for a second.’ Mark’s
head bobbed as if someone were pressing on it. ‘It’s not because of you,’ he added, talking fast. ‘It’s not you as, like,
a person. I mean, I do kind of … love you. In … in a way.’

‘I know.’

Mark leaned in close and rested his forehead against mine. Maybe it was so he wouldn’t have to look me in the eye.

‘There were times, past few months … I thought I could actually make myself do it. Force myself. It’d be the perfect punishment.’

‘Punishment? Jesus, Mark.’

‘But, I can’t. I just can’t.’

We were gripping each other’s arms now, shuffling like dancing bears.

‘Mark. Don’t worry. That’s not what I want. It wouldn’t work.’

He’d lifted his head from mine and was trying to force a smile. ‘It’s cause I like Bon Jovi, huh?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s because I don’t forgive you.’ Talking like I was in a trance. I didn’t know it was true until I’d said
it.

Mark nodded. He let his hands drop and moved back, away from me.

‘Do you think …?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Do you think you ever will? Forgive me? I mean, someday?’

‘I don’t know.’

He rocked on his heels, avoiding my eyes. ‘Hope you do. I want you to meet my kid. Think you’d be a good influence. All the
stuff you read.’ He seemed so shy. ‘Even thought maybe, if we ever got to be friends again, I could ask you to be godfather.’

I felt myself smiling into the snow. Buying books for Mark’s child, watching this person grow up. I was flattered. But I was
also pretty sure it was against the rules.

‘Don’t think that’ll work, Mark. I’m not exactly a Christian.’

The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘A fairy godfather, then.’

I leaned back, knocking my skull against the swing set railing.
Jeez
, man …’