Fouling Out (3 page)

I go up to my room to mope. The moping gets interrupted when I fall asleep. I wake up and it's afternoon. Study time is over. I decide to spend the rest of the day playing the new Space Explorers computer game in my dad's office, but the doorbell rings before I'm even halfway to Jupiter. Dad's off running an errand before flying to Calgary on business, Mom's out setting up for an evening benefit for one of her causes—kids with leukemia or an endangered owl habitat—and my sister is working on a school project at a friend's house. That leaves me to get up and get rid of whoever's interrupting my space mission.

Tom. We haven't been hanging out as much since I saw his dad beat him up. The time apart hasn't been such a bad thing. I get in an extra run during the week and I've been messing around on the computer whenever I put off or finish the heaps of homework Miss Chang assigns. Really, there hasn't been much time for friends.

“Hurry up and close the door,” Tom says as he lets himself in. “Look what I got.” He fishes around in his backpack and pulls out a gun and points it straight at me, his eyes bugged out and his mouth twisted into a demonic grin.

“What the hell? Don't point that at me.”

“Scared ya, eh?” Tom laughs and shoves the gun back in his pack. “I ain't gonna waste a bullet on you, so relax, man. We're goin' huntin'!”

I'd feel safer going with Elmer Fudd. “Forget it. You're crazy. I'm busy.”

“Ah, come on. I just want to kill a squirrel and cut it open. Check out its guts. See if I can cut fast enough to catch the last couple heartbeats. It'll be fun!”

“I'm playing a computer game,” I say. “I'm in the middle of a mission that'll get me beyond our galaxy if I'm successful.” I head back upstairs, but Tom follows me. I wish there was a way of transporting myself for real.

“Don't be such a geek. Computer game? Space? Are you nuts? It's Saturday, man. Let's shoot some squirrels.”

Are you nuts?
He actually asked if I was nuts. Wow. I may enjoy pretending I'm an astronaut, but he's the one who needs the reality check. I stare at the computer screen and hope he'll get bored really fast and take off. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him toss the backpack on the floor by my Dad's bookcase. He flings himself sideways into the leather armchair.

“How long's your stupid mission gonna take? It gets dark at, like, four nowadays.”

“Could take all afternoon. It's a pretty sophisticated program.” As I try to focus on the screen, Tom lets out heavy sighs at a steady rate of three per minute. At one point he burps and then spends a couple of minutes laughing.

“You could play too,” I say, figuring his fascination with his own belches will wane and he'll want to talk about hunting season again.

“It's Saturday. I don't do computers on weekends. Quit being a nerd.”

“It's really pretty cool. Just give it a try.”

“Do you get to kill anything?”

“No.”

“What's the scariest monster in it?”

“It doesn't have monsters. It teaches you about—”

Shows, explains, demonstrates. There had to be fifty words I could have used other than
teaches
. He pounces all over it and won't let up. “Teaches?! Nobody's teaching me nothing on my time off.” Half an hour later, we're heading to the park on a hunting expedition.

“Let's just play some basketball. Nobody'll be at the court at school.”

“Gotta be honest with you, Craig. I'm kinda bored shooting hoops with you. Even your layup is lame. You got no skills. For a while, it was amusing, but now it's not even worth making fun of.”

Sure, he could be more tactful, but I couldn't argue. Basketball is okay, but it's not my thing. Back when it was Bump and
21
, I could play along all right. My dribbling was fine, my passing competent, but I just never managed to put everything together. I only brought up the sport to distract him from the hunt, but Tom wasn't taking the bait. Pretty amazing since his brain is at least ninety-five percent basketball. In his own mind, he's been in training to go pro since midway through grade two. On top of that, the guy can name every player in the
NBA
, spout off up-to-date stats for the season and give a solid analysis to explain any team's loss or win. Over the years, I've grown skilled at avoiding any buzz words—swish, Magic, foul—that might trigger a longwinded b-ball lecture. If Tom could dribble the ball in class, he might absorb a bit of school stuff too. The rest of us wouldn't learn, but that's the thing. There's Tom and then there's everybody else.

“Look, I can tell you're freaked out over this gun thing. We'll kill one squirrel and that'll be it. We don't have much time before my dad's shift is done anyway.” Tom tosses the backpack on the ground just as we get to the woods. Not much of a woods really. Just a clump of trees between a bunch of houses and the high school field.

“You know,” I say, “we could look on the Internet and find a demo of a pig dissection or something.” Tom is examining the gun close up, turning it from side to side, waving the firing end every which way. I don't know where to stand.

“Nice try,” Tom mutters after a few seconds. “You're not getting me back in front of a computer. We already did your thing. It's my turn now.” Tom gets up and walks farther into the trees. “Let's go. Keep quiet and let me know when you see one. This place is loaded with 'em.”

Loaded.

“What are you doing back there?” Tom asks as he looks at me over his shoulder. “Are you doing some
Run
away, little squirrel
dance?”

“That's an idea—”

“Quiet. There's one up in that tree on the left. Don't move.” Tom holds the gun in the air and points it at the squirrel, which is now motionless on a branch, willing us away. Poor thing has a patch of fur missing near its rear. For some reason, that gets to me.

Before Tom pulls the trigger, I jump on his shoulders and knock him down. In mid-tackle the gun goes off. The distinct sound of broken glass follows.

We both swear at the same time, out of pure shock. Where was the glass? What broke? Did someone scream? Is anyone hurt?

Tom spits a couple times as he shoves me off and gets to his feet. “What the hell'd you do that for? Are you stupid?” Okay, tackling Tom as he was about to fire a gun was stupid, but I'm not about to admit that to Tom. He started the stupidity—by bringing along a gun and wanting to shoot it; I just expanded it. Tom scans the dirt in search of the gun, which he must've dropped during the scuffle.

“What'd you hit? Did you hear glass breaking?” I ask.

“What did
I
hit? Obviously not a freakin' squirrel. You messed it up.” He spots the gun a few feet away and hurriedly puts it in his backpack as he looks around to see if anyone has shown up to investigate the noise. His crazed hunting smile has vanished, and I can tell he's as close to total panic as I am. We both crouch down and hide behind a couple of trees and peek at the closest house, which is just beyond the nearby fence.

The bullet has cracked an upper window. I swear under my breath as I slide against the tree and sit down hard on the ground. Tom keeps staring at the point of impact. I keep swearing as cold sweat floods my forehead and underarms.

“Hey!” Tom whispers. Is that excitement in his voice? Is he a psychopath? A psychopath with a gun? “Isn't that Robert Montgomery's house? Yeah, I'm sure it is!”

I get up and take another peek, still keeping my body hidden by the tree. Tom's right. I'd been to Robert's a couple of times. The dormers and the orange trim are pretty distinctive.

“Don't you get it? We're cool! The house is empty. Robert moved months ago,” Tom says.

“There was a moving van there a week ago. They were moving a bunch of stuff in,” I reply. My voice shakes as I start to comprehend what has happened. “Oh, God! What if you killed someone?!”

“Me? You did it. You knocked me down. I only wanted a squirrel. It's all your fault.”

“I told you all along to forget about the gun, but you—”

“Never mind. Let's get out of here and get the gun back in my dad's closet.” He shoves his face about three inches from mine. “No one's gonna find out about this,” he hisses. “Right?”

Six

A
s I'm waiting in Tom's backyard for him to ditch the gun, every scene from every cop show I've ever watched flashes before my eyes: slamming the criminal against the side of the squad car and handcuffing him, shining bright lights in the guy's face down at the police station, screaming at him until he confesses, tossing him into solitary, escorting him down the corridor in Death Row to the electric chair…Clearly, we're toast.

Where's Tom? How long can it take? What if he's taken off out the front door and left me to face the swarm of cop cars all alone?

Finally, he comes back out and sits on the back steps. I walk over to join him. For once, he looks scared. Archie sits beside Tom and licks his face. Tom seems to be hugging the dog more than petting him.

I wait for Tom to speak. “You don't think we killed someone, do you?”

“I don't know.” What else can I say? We'd run from the scene—a crushing piece of evidence when the jury decides between life imprisonment and The Chair.

“Even if the bullet hit somebody, it probably wouldn't kill them. A shot to the arm isn't too serious.”

“No,” I agree, not wanting to argue the point.

“Unless we hit a baby.”

He isn't trying to freak me out. He's serious. He is pale and it looks like he might cry. He hugs Archie tightly, and the dog licks his hand. What happened is starting to sink in. I try to think of something sane, something reassuring to say, but my brain has shut down while my body is going crazy: my feet tap frantically and streams of sweat drizzle from my forehead, upper lip and underarms. It's all I can do not to whimper or bawl. Sitting around isn't helping. “We need to go over there and see if everything's all right.”

Tom nods his head repeatedly. I half expect him to call me an idiot and tell me it's a crazy idea, but he just keeps nodding. Finally, he speaks. “Here's what we do. We walk over there from Thompson Road. I'll carry my basketball, so it'll look like we're gonna shoot some hoops at the high school. If there's no car in the driveway, then chances are everything's okay. We'll watch the news tonight. They always report shootings, so if anything bad happened, we'll know for sure.”

Tom gets up and grabs his basketball from under the steps. He doesn't look at me to see what I think of the plan, and I have no intention of raising any what-ifs.

We don't say anything as we walk. I keep imagining police scenes while Tom bounces the basketball. It isn't his normal dribbling. It's more like a trance sort of thing.

As we turn off Thompson Road, I see exactly what I don't want to see. Not only is there a car in the driveway, but there's also a police cruiser parked in the street; small groups of people stand on the sidewalk and on nearby lawns.

Tom stops bouncing the ball. I start seeing television and movie scenes again. The cops throw me facedown onto the pavement while the mob chants “Killer, killer!” and tosses whatever trash they can find—empty soda cans, used Kleenexes—at me. Okay, I've
definitely
watched too many police shows. I make a pledge to myself to stick to sitcoms and cartoons from now on. I want to run, but my legs keep dragging me toward the crime scene. Still, our pace has slowed considerably.

“We have to stay calm,” Tom whispers. “Just stay calm.”

We are now four houses away. There are no police officers outside the house. They're probably inside, investigating the scene, tracing the corpse with chalk. After that, they'll photograph the bloodstains on the walls and pull some carpet fibers. Funny, there isn't any yellow tape surrounding the property yet. I spot Gwen Ledder, one of my sister's friends, on the sidewalk across the street. I tell Tom she can fill us in.

We try to look casual as we cross the road. From out of nowhere, Tom passes me the ball. Of course, it hits my shoulder and drops to the ground. Tom and I glare at each other as I pick up the ball and pass it back.

“What's going on, Gwen?” I ask as we approach her.

For a moment, she doesn't seem to recognize me. Then it registers and she says, “Someone took a shot at the new family's house. A bullet went right through a back window.”

“You're kidding!” I respond, trying to earn my Oscar. “Are they okay?”

“Oh, yeah. It just broke a window. No one was in the room. They're pretty shaken up though. The woman was screaming and crying on the front lawn until the police arrived. My mom went over and tried to comfort her.”

“Did they catch who did it?” Tom interjects.

“No. They think it's a hate crime. The family's Chinese, and someone spray-painted their garage door last week too. It said something like
Float Home
. Pretty sick, eh? My dad helped them paint over it the day it happened.”

“Yeah. Really stupid,” I say, almost forgetting my involvement in today's incident.

“I hope they catch the guy and lock him up for years. It's really scary wondering what will happen next.”

“It's probably just—”

“C'mon,” Tom interrupts. “Are we gonna play basketball or not?”

I quickly say good-bye to Gwen, and we head through the woods to the courts.

Away from the scene, I exhale loudly. I want to drop to the ground and kiss the dirt. I, Craig Trilosky, am not a killer after all.

Seven

T
he incident makes the Saturday night news, of course. “Racism in Richmond!” The television reporter is practically frothing at the mouth. Instead of having to cover a boat show or a park opening, he's live at the scene of violence, mystery and racial tension mixed in with a healthy dose of hysteria. The latest incident is being linked to six prior reports of vandalism in the area in the past three weeks. Cars, houses and businesses belonging to Asians had been defaced with racist graffiti. And now the racist's or racists' actions have escalated! Attempted murder! What will the culprits do next? There's some juicy footage of the damaged window in an extreme close-up, an interview with a neighbor who particularly likes the word
shocking
and a sombre statement that no members of the targeted family will speak on camera since they fear for their lives. The news anchor thanks the reporter and holds a grave expression for a split second before introducing the next story about a dispute between a woman who feeds wild birds and her neighbors, who don't appreciate Canada geese frequenting their lawns.