Creeps (24 page)

He makes a right at Balsam Street and picks up the pace and stumbles but rights himself, then runs even harder to escape the loneliness and imagines her hands and crossed ankles and too-short jeans and jacket, and he thinks about the sirens and could they possibly have been for her?
You know what you are? Hmm? A black hole sucking everyone into your misery.

Boots against the pavement and the wind and his clenched fists and he can't get his head around being here one minute and then not the next.

A vehicle whips past. Then two boys are running beside him and he knows they're brothers and that they go to the other school because they're Jehovah's Witnesses and their mother dresses like
Laura Ingalls and rings people's doorbells and hands out pamphlets.

And it isn't long before Wayne notices other people running and cars and trucks either parked or parking along the curb; some of the bigger vehicles have their wheels half on the sidewalk.

He's afraid to ask, so he doesn't, just follows the brothers to the end of Gower Street, then down the hill to Burgess Lake, which is where everyone swims for the one week in late August. The brothers keep going, but Wayne slows down, then stops altogether. And his sister was right: those sirens weren't a dream, because how can an ambulance and a bunch of police cars and a fire truck all parked at the lip of the lake be a dream?

Now he's looking out and there are boats and people in them looking over the sides into the icy water as if at their own reflections. A man holds a megaphone and someone in scuba gear falls backwards into the lake and so does another one in another boat. And the wind is tossing everything and rippling the water and the people inside the boats have to hold on tight.

The shore is loaded with people, everyone in Canning it looks like. They're staring at the water and the man holding the megaphone. Save for blowing hair and flapping open jackets, they're still, even the children—most of whom are hugging their
dad's legs or burying their faces into their mother's hips.

Wayne's chest hurts or maybe it's his heart inside it that hurts, and his ears are ringing and he wants to turn around and run back up the hill but he can't. So he walks forward, slowly, like someone out of options.

He finds a spot at the back and listens to the mumblings being lifted and carried on the wind. He hears “Body in the water,” and “Only a youngster,” and “Awful isn't it, drowning?” and “Poor thing,” and some child says: “Are they in heaven now?,” and another, older-sounding one says: “Not if it was suicide,” to which a woman's voice goes: “Hush, you two—”

And he imagines her beneath the grimy water with its pop cans and beer bottles and chip bags and old tires and her eyes are open and he wonders why he'd picture them that way, or why he has her smiling too, as if to say:
Stick a wiener in this!

Suddenly there's a commotion in one of the boats that has nothing to do with the wind and the man with the megaphone is shouting to the other boat to come on over because a scuba diver has resurfaced and is waving his arms like a drowning person.

And a hush falls over the crowd and some palms go to mouths and some arms are draped across backs and some fingers are intertwined and some
heads bury themselves into chests and shoulders and armpits and somewhere there's crying or maybe it's just the wind.

The other boat goes over and the second scuba diver comes to the surface and has something in his arms and it looks to Wayne like a head and neck and some torso but he's too far away to be sure.

A gasp.

Someone has to be lowered onto their bum because they're almost fainting.

A child laughs and is told to quiet down, then laughs again, and Wayne can't move. Can't look away either, although he'd like to. And the wind picks up and the sky's spitting despite the weather guy having said that the wet snow wouldn't come until this evening.

The body is lifted from the water and is laid beside the megaphone guy and someone near the stern pulls the motor cord and steers the boat towards land but it's hard going with all the ice.

Maybe it's Wayne's imagination, but everyone on shore seems to take a communal step backward as if uneasy with death's approach. Uneasy, yet at the same time longing to look because we're all going to be a body in a boat.

He forces his eyes away and, in the distance, sees the blowing red hair that's like fire and the glasses and the hand with the pinky ring over a
mouth and it's Mr. Rollie and Wayne wants to run over and stand beside him just to stand beside him, but he stays where he is and wonders instead if his drama teacher is thinking what he himself is: that Marjorie's in that boat, Marjorie with the thin fingers and the calling and the acting that's better than the Hollywood crowd and now she'll be with her father and it shouldn't be much longer before her mother decides to join them, too.

Mr. Rollie looks away because the boats are there and two police officers are wet up to the waist trying to drag them ashore.

“SPACE!” the megaphone guy shouts. “For God's sake, give us
SPACE
!” but no one moves because how are you supposed to when nothing makes sense?

Now the officers and the scuba divers and the paramedics are gathered around the boat with the body and someone says to take the head and another says to take the legs and another says to take it easy, but a bunch disagree, saying that this
isn't
the time to take it easy.

Wayne pushes his way through the crowd and some step aside and others don't, and some say that it's rude of him to want to get to the front just so he can gawk, but it's not about gawking so much as it's about needing to see his only friend that's dead and lying there and only last night the lights had been
shining on them both and her eyes were alive and glistening so how could they not be
now
?

He gets to the front, but officers are there with outstretched arms and they're keeping everyone back, so Wayne looks past them and sees the paramedics on their knees and one's breathing into Marjorie's mouth and the other is pumping her chest and counting and a fireman holds his helmet next to his chest and wipes his eyes because he's probably thinking of his own little girl and then the wet snow comes hard and fast but no one moves because wet snow means nothing compared to this. And then there's a voice in the distance and he turns around and it's Marjorie's mother running down the hill towards the lake and she's still in her robe.

Wayne focuses back on the paramedics who are now looking at each other, bowing their heads, wiping the wet from their faces or is it tears and getting to their feet and walking away and the body is there for everyone to see and Wayne loses his breath and nearly falls because it's not Marjorie.

TEN

Dear God or whoever,

How can our lungs be drawing breath and our hearts pumping blood and our brains thinking thoughts and then have it all stop like a wound-down toy and if it's really you or whoever that's in charge then you're either stupid or else you didn't think things through when you started everything!

It didn't look real, more like plastic or rubber or something and I can't believe that's what we look like when the life's gone. They carried the body right by me and I looked away and covered my mouth as if it was contagious but then it dawned on me that I have it already so what's the point?

Why all the wet snow? Were you meaning to wash it away?

What a waste some lady said and when I looked she was shaking her head and looking into her purse
and pulling out a stick of gum and unwrapping it and then putting it back without chewing it and someone laughed and a fight broke out and the cops had to hold a man down and then some kid pulled down his pants and just started peeing and I wonder if that's what they call shock?

And there I was thinking that it was sort of what I wanted but not REALLY so am I partway responsible?

I thought it was her, so I imagined walking into the water my own self 'cause what did you think I would do without my fellow creep? But it wasn't, it was someone else.

Will they cancel school tomorrow? What about the drama festival? It's the last thing I should be thinking about, I know, but I'd rather think of that than what I saw today.

Can you bring the life back? Probably not, eh. I mean, if you don't do it for little babies you certainly won't for a fifteen-year-old.

Your friend who knows you can't bring the life back,

Wayne Pumphrey

ELEVEN

All the pews are full, so people have to stand near the back. Some are holding babies, while others fan themselves with their programs because it's warm with everyone jammed in. It smells of perfume and old wood, and hardly a moment goes by without a child's whining or a blown nose or a cough or a sneeze.

Wayne sits in the centre right aisle, Wanda and his mother on one side of him and his father on the other. Wearing his good trousers and hardly worn shoes and his tie's a clip-on and his shirt's too big around the neck. Hair gelled and parted to the side and he's splashed on some of his dad's aftershave.

The casket is just in front of the altar, yellow-flower bouquets on either side, a framed photograph resting on a mahogany table: Pete in track pants and holding dumbbells and there's sweat on his forehead
and he's looking right at the camera and his face seems to be saying
No pain, no gain,
and behind him, on the wall, is a UFC poster of welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.

What was that the priest just said … something about being taken before your time but having left an impression anyway?
I'd say,
Wayne thinks.

Pete's mom wails and Pete's second dad goes to hold her but she pushes him away, so he tries again and this time she lets him, burying her face in his chest.

The priest adjusts the mike and moves his mouth closer and tells everyone that God will bear the grief, but Wayne doesn't think that's likely. That's when he sees her, two rows ahead, on the left side. Hair done up and wearing a dress, and her mother's beside her. Out from behind the curtains at last. Marjorie must sense him staring because she looks back and their eyes meet and he tries to smile or lift his brows in acknowledgment but he's frozen, so she turns back around.

Then the priest leaves the pulpit and a member of the congregation walks up and takes his place and it's Mr. Avery and he fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper, but drops it and doesn't pick it up. Grips each end of the pulpit and goes to speak but nothing comes, so he lowers his head, then raises it and tries again. And it's all about Peter as
a boy. The way he'd sit in the middle of the kitchen and play trucks for hours and how he could never get enough of his mother's cod au gratin. How, when he was older, he made snow forts and skated on the homemade rink till the sun went down and it was freezing. Then came the two and a half hours of weightlifting every night and the raw eggs in a glass and the jogging and the skipping rope and the obsession with the UFC. Mr. Avery pauses to clear his throat and to wipe his forehead. Another deep breath and now it's about how Peter's real dad hadn't treated him right and how Peter had his challenges and wasn't a saint and got into trouble but was loved more than anything and Pete's second dad says that he was blessed to have had what time he did with his son.

Mr. Avery stops and looks at the casket for a long time, then he turns back and presses his lips against the mike and says, “Hug your kids tonight.” He steps away from the pulpit as the organ kicks in and the choir starts “Amazing Grace” and the rest of Pete's family filter up to say their goodbyes. Mr. Avery stumbles en route and Pete's mom bumps into the casket. Another man who looks a lot like Pete's second father drapes his arm across her back and steadies her. There are others too: a youngish woman with short hair and fat thighs, and two skinny teenage boys not much older than Wayne. They stand
in front of the casket for so long that the choir starts “Amazing Grace” again. Pete's mother is the first to walk away, but she doesn't seem to know where she's going and the man who looks like Mr. Avery goes over and takes her hand and shows her. Mr. Avery has gone pale and looks exhausted and seems to be sweating as he struggles to make the few steps back to his seat. The rest wait patiently behind him. After they're seated, others go up. One boy peers into the casket for so long the priest has to tell him to move on. Two girls who might be sisters walk up arm in arm, but neither can find the courage to look inside. Mr. Rollie goes up and Adrian's with him and he has long hair and a week's work of stubble on his chin. Then the principal's there and Mrs. Cooper and the geography teacher and Mr. Ricketts and his ancient-looking wife, Daphne, who's even more hunched over than her husband. Then more people. And more still. The organist has to stop to shake out her cramping fingers. She plays again. Then Bobby's there, and he places his palms on the casket and bends over, seemingly getting ready to crawl in himself—to join his friend in the afterlife so they can bully the angels—but his father is there to grip his shoulder and keep him in the land of the living. Harvey's next, walking up with his parents and his hair's all cut and he's wearing a nice suit and shoes and he looks like he's lost weight.

Wayne's father nudges him and whispers, “You don't have to,” but Wayne says he wants to. And when he looks towards the front again, Marjorie is just getting there. Her mother isn't with her and she waits for the person ahead of her and then goes up herself and looks at Pete for ages. Now his own mother's lips are against his ear. “Isn't that her?” she says. Wayne nods and then Wanda leans over and says, “It's a wonder
she's
here.” Wayne looks up and Marjorie's still there and people are waiting but she stays where she is. Now the priest's going over and he places a hand on her shoulder and says something in her ear and you can see Marjorie nodding but still she doesn't move. And the choir starts “Amazing Grace” for the third time and suddenly Wayne's on his feet and his father tells him it's not his turn yet but Wayne ignores him and pushes past the others in the pew and goes out into the centre aisle and starts walking. He slips past those in line, up to Marjorie and the priest and goes to speak but he's too taken aback by the look of Pete to get the words out: his almost-a-moustache shaved off and so white and looking nothing like himself, more wax than human, and Wayne wonders if it's all some joke and where's the real Pete? Then the priest's asking him if he belongs to Marjorie and Wayne pauses for a moment, then says that, yes, he does belong to her … in a way. So he takes her hand and tries to get
her to come, and she does, just like that. And they go back down the aisle, but instead of delivering her to her mother he walks right on past, and instead of sitting back with his own family he walks past them too, beyond those standing at the back and into the lobby and out through the heavy wooden doors into the morning. Down the church steps and then onto the street. Cars lined along the road, some with their wheels on the sidewalk. She slips her hand out of his and just stands there.