Kicking the Sky (7 page)

“You guys gotta see this place!” Manny yelled down.

I climbed up the ladder and peered over the edge of the floor. The place had been cleared out except for a mattress. Manny was on his knees tracing the figure of a centrefold that had been stapled to the joists. One slanted wall of the pitched roof was covered with nude pictures, like a giant quilt. A gooseneck nightlight had been placed on top of a thick book.

“I don’t think we should be up here,” I said, lowering myself back down the ladder.

Manny climbed down after me. “This guy’s cool. He’s got more pin-ups than Corrado’s barbershop. He said when he’s not around we can use his place, like a clubhouse.”

On one side of the garage a long workbench ran the length of the wall. Hoops of rope and wire hung on nails. The one window had been covered with a garbage bag and sealed tight with duct tape. A shiny blue chest with gold hinges and lock was directly under the window. In the corner of the garage James had placed a shower curtain that ran on a track like those in a hospital room. Rubber ducks swam around the hem
of the curtain. I couldn’t see what was behind until Manny swept the curtain aside to reveal two full-length mirrors on the walls and a bike frame that twirled from a meat hook. Beside the curtained area was a hot plate, some propane tanks, and a wooden table with two mismatched chairs. The far wall was empty of any decoration, except for a red Videosphere. The TV, looking like a space helmet with its smoky visor, was Mr. Serjeant’s. It was the exact one I dreamed of having in my bedroom. A box with a mirrored disco ball sat on the shag rug, which practically covered the entire concrete floor. Large pillows littered the space. Manny pulled one to the centre of the room and sat, cross-legged. “Look up!” he said.

A piece of heavy cloth had been stretched across the aluminum garage door. A border of duct tape held it down. Splashes of colour and dribbles of paint covered the canvas. Very little white space remained. Instead, the strokes moved from thick, bold stripes to thin lines that swerved and curled like my sister’s hair when the tub was drained.

“He’s an artist,” Manny said.

“He’s twenty-one,” Ricky mumbled through the rag.

Manny lay back on the rug with his fingers laced behind his head. “Magic carpet, take me on a ride!” he said as he grabbed one side of the rug and curled it over his legs.

Ricky giggled.

Suddenly, Amilcar came into the garage. He lived on Palmerston, but his laneway was shared with Euclid, one block over. Amilcar was nine when he came to Canada. His family had come from mainland Portugal, as he never failed to remind us dirty Azoreans. My mother told us that he was only a boy and that he didn’t really know what he was saying, that he was only
repeating what he heard from his parents. I knew he said it because he was an asshole. Even though he was fourteen now, he was in our class. He had been held back a year when he first arrived and then he failed the following year. He was much taller than the rest of us. In the changing room after gym class he liked to gyrate his hips until his dick, much larger than any of ours, twirled like a helicopter blade in front of his bush.

“What’s up, Ricky? One of your customers poke you in the eye?”

“Shut up,” I said, sitting up.

“Who’s gonna make me, you little shit?” Amilcar said.

Manny stood and took two steps toward Amilcar, but the older boy pushed by him and came into the garage.

“Where’s the English man?” Amilcar asked, looking around. He brushed aside the shower curtain to reveal the suspended bike frame. “You better not be cutting into my business.” Amilcar made money by stealing bikes and selling them off to Big John, who lived in the Project, a public housing complex. Manny knew Big John too; just a couple of weeks back he had flaunted the two twenty-dollar bills he got through his dealings with him. But even Manny would agree that his operation was small-scale compared to Amilcar’s take.

Manny stepped in Amilcar’s way, arms crossed in front of his chest, just before Amilcar turned to climb the ladder.

“Get out of my way.” Amilcar stared Manny down but Manny stood firm.

“Hey, you guys.” My sister rode by the garage opening on my bike.

Terri’s ten-speed had been stolen earlier in the summer, forcing her to lace up her roller skates whenever she went out.
Manny had denied stealing it, even offered to find her another, more expensive one. He said he wasn’t kidding; he’d do it if I gave him a pair of her panties. I told him he was a pig. Amilcar was the more likely thief anyway. We stepped out into the laneway to see her reach the end of the alley. She turned around and pedalled back toward us. As she got closer, Amilcar cupped his dick and balls with one hand and made sucking noises with his tongue. “Hey, baby, come and get it.”

Just as Terri sped by, Amilcar’s arm darted out. He grabbed her boob but couldn’t get her tube top down.

“You’re a prick” was all I could muster.

Terri skidded. The bike swung around.

“Is that why she’s back for more?” Amilcar said.

I recognized the look on my sister’s face—the flashing of teeth, the concentration that caused ripples right between her eyes. She pumped my pedals until her fine hair whipped in the wind. She expected Amilcar’s hand to reach for her, and just as it did, her arm struck out in the air to grab his face.

The bike continued on its path. I ran to it before it wobbled and crashed to the ground. When I turned back, Terri had pinned Amilcar to the ground with her body, pushing hard on his face with her hand, banging the back of his head into the concrete. Amilcar flopped around like a fish out of a water.

James appeared out of nowhere and popped Terri off of Amilcar like a cork. Amilcar held both hands against his blood-smeared face. Manny and Ricky stood, open-mouthed. Everything had gone silent, except for Amilcar’s whimpers and my sister’s heaves.

“Go home, you little shit,” Terri said, catching her breath. “Tell your parents what the Açoreana did to their rude son.”

“Puta!” He dropped his hands, and we could see the five little half moons that formed on his face, one on one side from her thumbnail, the other four on his left cheek. “Puta!” he repeated. Blood oozed from all the cuts except one.

James’s shadow touched Amilcar. He offered his hand to help Amilcar up. Once Amilcar was on his feet, James grabbed his collarbone and pinched hard. Amilcar’s body contorted. James put his lips close to his ear. “That wasn’t nice,” he said, and he wagged his finger like a scolding mother.

“Who the hell are you?” Amilcar said.

“I’m the guy who lives here, and these are my friends. Now get your ugly ass outta here, before I do something I ain’t gonna regret.”

Amilcar gave James a hard look, then ambled up the laneway.

I saw James up close now: his eyes were an unnatural blue, his nose was crooked like a hockey player’s, and his teeth were slightly crowded. He had a cleft in his stubbly chin, and his Adam’s apple stuck out like a Ping-Pong ball. A smooth pink scar ran along his jawline. It made him look dangerous.

Ricky offered his rag to Terri, and she wrapped it around her hand like a prizefighter.

“You okay?” James asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Must hurt.”

“It’ll hurt later, but that’s okay.” She looked up the laneway to where Amilcar had disappeared. “It was worth it.”

James smiled, scanned my sister’s face and body. It wasn’t like he was being a pig or anything, more like he was photocopying her into his brain.

“I don’t need a knight to ride up on a horse and save me,” she said. “Especially one that carries a bag of ice, not a sword.”

James looked around. “I don’t see a horse.” When he failed to get a laugh he added, “You got a bit of a bite.”

Terri bent down and picked up a few chunks of ice from the burst bag that lay on the ground. She buried one piece into her bandaged hand and put the smaller piece into her mouth, crunched it between her teeth. Her eyes never left his. “Come home!” she said to me. “Mom will be back soon.”

Later that evening, my mother took another shift at the hospital, and my father went to clean the bank downtown. Edite came over with some Avon catalogues. According to my sister, they were going to do
girl things
. I snuck into the hallway and held my breath outside the living-room door.

“Looks like you lost a big chunk of your nail.”

“It’ll grow back.”

“No boy is worth it, Terri.”

“What do you think of James?”

“He’s a bit too old for you.”

“He’s got gorgeous eyes.”

“I’ll give you that.”

They both giggled.

“Antonio. You can come in, you know,” Edite said. I could hear Terri slapping the roof of her mouth with her tongue. “I can see your reflection on the TV screen.”

I stepped inside.

“How long have you been standing there?” Terri asked.

“I just got here,” I said.

Edite laughed. “Do you want to join us?”

Terri’s eyebrows told me what my answer should be.

“I was just wondering if I could … if I could maybe … go play with my friends in the laneway. The street lights aren’t on yet …”

“You’ll stay close? You’ll stay together? And you promise to come home the minute the street lights come on?”

I nodded three times to make sure I covered all her terms.

“Okay.”

The second I walked from my garage into the laneway I saw James’s garage door open. It’s what I’d hoped I’d find. My next hope was to see Manny and Ricky in there with him. I heard their voices as I got closer and quickened my pace.

Set atop a wooden crate, Ricky sat in a chair. His head was the only thing that poked through the cut-out in a garbage bag. A shiner was beginning to take shape around his eye. He smiled when he saw me. Above his head, the hungry moths that had been drawn into James’s garage spiralled around the bare light bulb like kamikazes. Manny was lying on the shag rug, a pile of
Playboy
and
Hustler
magazines next to him. I closed the garage door, in case anyone passed by and decided to snitch to our parents, and sat cross-legged on the rug. Manny threw a couple of magazines into my lap.

“Where’s James?” I asked. And as if on cue, he appeared from behind Ricky. He had been crouched behind him, mixing some soap and water in a bowl.

“Let’s get this started,” he said, winking at me. Then he turned to Ricky. “If you’re going to hang around here, you need to be presentable. And I’m sorry but that sad-ass haircut you got yourself isn’t good enough.”

We all laughed, even Ricky.

James tilted the bowl over Ricky’s head. The sudsy water ran right off his bangs and across his nose. Ricky squeezed his eyes shut and blew some air out of his mouth like a wet fart.

James began to work Ricky’s hair with his fingers, while humming “The Barber of Seville” from
Bugs Bunny
. We all joined in, our voices growing louder in unison.

James rinsed Ricky’s hair, then dried it with a towel, finishing off by wiping inside Ricky’s ears with his towel-covered finger. Then he circled Ricky, assessing. As James passed by me, I was aware of myself smelling him.

“How long’s it been, Ricky?” Manny said. James combed Ricky’s hair and flicked the comb against the wall.

“Too long,” James joked. He flipped the bowl and placed it over Ricky’s head. He pressed the bowl against his forehead and cut straight across, evened out all the jagged points. Hair fell onto Ricky’s nose and cheeks. He sneezed. “Ta-da!” Then James made his way around the rest of Ricky’s head, trimming to the edge of the bowl. Finally, he lifted away the bowl, cracked the damp towel in the air, and took a long bow.

“Okay, look,” Manny said. “If you take this one’s titties and Miss January’s face, throw in the centrefold’s ass and the beaver on this one, you’ve got the perfect woman.”

James laughed, lowering Ricky back to the floor. “It’s not that easy, Dr. Frankenstein.”

“A guy can dream,” Manny said.

Ricky slipped the garbage bag over his head, grabbed the towel off the floor, and rubbed his damp hair. “How do I look?” He tilted his face upward to show us both profiles.

“Like Moe from the Three Stooges,” Manny said.

“Change the ‘i’ in Ricky to an ‘o’ and you look like Rocky,” I said. “All we need is a dead animal strung up in the garage for you to practise your left hook.” Ricky puffed up like a boxer.

“Okay, now that the crate and chair are here, who’s going to help me get this thing up?” James said, nudging with his foot the box that held the disco ball.

Ricky’s hand shot up as if he were desperate to answer a question in class, and I went to the box and picked up the ball. With almost no effort, James lifted Ricky onto the chair, then held the chair still as I handed Ricky the ball.

“See that eyehook there, Ricky, screwed into the rafter? Just attach it to that,” James told him. Ricky stretched up, then let go, and the ball wobbled a bit. James looped the cord through the space between the rafters, before letting the last length drop along the wall. “You guys ready? Countdown! Five, four, three, two, one.” He plugged it into the outlet and the ball began to spin.

“Pretty cool,” I said.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” James said. “Now, I got a surprise. Close your eyes.” Ricky covered his eyes with his hands. Manny didn’t close his, he just buried his face into a centrefold as if there was some scratch-and-sniff part to it. I half closed mine, but I could still see through my eyelashes. The moths in the garage were confused, chasing the specks of mirrored light that swept around the room.

“Open up!” he shouted. He carried a slab of supermarket cake, a few lit candles arranged on top.

“Whose birthday is it?” Ricky said.

“No one’s. I just thought it could be like a garage-warming cake.”

“How much are you paying for this place?” Manny said.

“Forty bucks a month,” James said, setting the cake in the middle of the rug. “A neighbour up the street, Red, is handling everything for Mr. Serjeant.”

“How’d you know we’d be here?” I asked.

“I just had a feeling,” James said, pulling on the lobe of his left ear and smiling.