Savage (5 page)

"Then what?"

I took Andrew through the Moment, demonstrating with acuity everyone's role.

"Then he'll ask you what size it is. And you say, ‘
I don't know; where does it say the size?
' OK?" I explained.

"OK."

"Then I'll snatch the mag when he's helping you, you pay for the milk, I wait beside you, we leave and bang—"

In the crusty convenience store, it all went down just how I planned: Andrew walked to the back of the store, opening the milk fridge. The clerk moved his attention to Andrew, who proceeded in asking the price a couple of times. "How much?"

I moved rapidly with the magazine, placing it halfway down my pants, heart beating large in my chest. I turned around and sidled up to Andrew, who was now buying the milk.

The experiment was a success. We left the store with the pornography and milk and headed home.

"See you in a bit. Don't forget your swimming suit."

"Yup," I said, touching the contours of the pocket-size copy of Variations I had under my shirt, down my pants.

I was excited at the thought I'd be away for the weekend.

*

Andrew sat shotgun. Me in the backseat. Andrew's older brother Philip (age nineteen) drove. Also in the car, Sandra, a short blonde phys-ed kind of girl Philip was dating (also nineteen). We drove the 131.5 kilometres, for two hours, with a planned arrival just after six in the evening with pit stops.

"Turn on the radio or something," Andrew said, looking at his brother.

"Shut up," Philip said, putting a mix tape into the car stereo. "Don't give me no lip, boy!" he said in his best slave-trader voice.

The tape contained the infamous "Monkey" remix, a joke Andrew had played on me months earlier, when he had fooled me into thinking he and Philip had remixed George Michael's summer hit song "Monkey." To me, the remix was incredible; it sounded totally different from the LP version, with added beats, repetition of words and a ton of realistic monkey noises.

"
You guys should send it to the radio
," Philip said, glancing back, imitating me while I fidgeted in the backseat. "DUH! Can't believe you thought we did that!"

Andrew was squealing with laughter. The drive was smooth and restful. I had been up there before over the summer.

"What radio?" Sandra asked.

"Oh, genius over here thought we made the remix of "Monkey" and said we should send it to the radio!" Philip howled. Andrew joined him in the howling.

Sandra sniggered a bit, but threw me a look that teetered on sympathy or what I hoped was slight intrigue. "He fell for it, that's for sure," Phillip said.

After the first rest stop, which, for me, consisted of peeing and buying a can of Sprite, I leaned in from the backseat and put a cassette into the car stereo.

"What is it?" Andrew asked, glaring into the backseat.

"That tape we made two years ago," I confessed, red in the face.

"Oh God."

The tape began with Andrew's near-teen voice announcing a match between me and another boy named Eric.

"Our main event has turned into something not suitable for children, ladies and gentlemen...Oh my God, Eric is in the ring waiting for Nate, who I think might have gone backstage to receive medical attention...wait, what's this...he has come back with OH MY GOD! I can't believe this, he's got a saw blade
⁴
...Nate is juggling with a saw blade...and he's gone again...so while we wait for him to return, let's go talk to the man who has taken several blows NO! They're back at it! They seem to be calling wrestlers in from all over the world to try and stop this...they say they'll be here tomorrow morning?! What the heck, where are these people?"

4. The saw blade was from Dad's workshop. I admired Andrew's ability to do play-byplay on the fly. At one point, I got overheated and announced that I needed some water, and the match stopped. I checked to see if my electric heater was on. It was, and I immediately turned it down and left my room for a glass of water. Listening to the tape, I heard Eric say to Andrew, “It's your turn.” “No way,” Andrew said, in what I can clearly state was the only Moment of physical fear I ever witnessed, even though I was in the other room, probably looking for a chainsaw. “He'll beat me.” Eric, gasping for air, insisted, “Well, you're going in anyway.”

"Ding ding ding!" I screamed on the tape.

"What ‘ding ding ding'?" Andrew injected, "This is like four hours later, all the wrestlers have gone home..." Eric and I laugh hysterically, more exhausted giggles on the tape ensue.

"That was funny." I laughed, back in real time, in 1988, the backseat, watching Andrew's arm move towards the car stereo. Sandra was falling asleep.

"It's so dumb." Andrew said, hitting eject.

The familiar road sign in cold blue letters came into plush focus:
WELCOME TO BALM BEACH
.

"You sleeping in the cabin or the cottage?" Philip asked Andrew, neither turning their heads as they spoke.

"Haven't decided yet," Andrew said. "Depends."

Phillip changed lanes. "What are you homos going to do all weekend anyways?"

We arrived at the cottage just after six and had a bit of running around to do before the sun expired completely—checking the cabins and bedrooms for proper linen as well as putting away the groceries.

We goofed around in the early evening air, lighting the odd firecracker. I tossed a sparkler into the lake and got scolded by Philip for my environmental infringement.

The sun was barely lit now. Down at the beach, Andrew talked about Sandra's body when his brother was out of earshot.

"Did you see her tits?"

Aside from our recent haul at Laird Convenience and abstract pornographic opportunities via Andrew's father's collection, Sandra was the only real-life girl we'd seen all year up close wearing next-to-nothing. Sometimes Andrew would show me her underwear in the laundry hamper, so we could imagine the extra flesh the magazines never offered. Sometimes he told me to steal Holly's underwear, which pushed me into an anxious frenzy, always having to come up with an excuse as to why I couldn't get them.

I took several eyefuls of Sandra's ripe skin. She took the towel from around her waist, revealing hips and legs, sopping wet. I was careless with my glances.

"You can look but you can't touch," Philip said, catching my obvious stare. "I see you staring at my girlfriend."

I felt my dick shrink.

"Yeah, what are you looking at, fag?" added Sandra, her blonde bangs covering her eyes.

"Nothing," I muttered.

Andrew paddled frantically in a canoe, slicing through the lake, his dog Brandy swimming near him. The early evening was being sliced in all directions, and I felt invisible, scrawny, digging in the dirt. Sandra toweled around in the water and on land, glancing coldly at me every once in a while, but I just stared straight ahead to Andrew in the canoe. The sun was wrinkling mute in the overcast sky. Sandra took Philip's hand and walked past me, up the sandy hill back to the cottage. I played with the foamy wrapper of a short bottle of black cherry seltzer, the remnants of its metallic taste still bubbling on my tongue.

I never spoke of girls to Andrew in a candid way. I did, however, start a journal of lists and meticulous scenarios involving some of the girls in my grade nine class, including Selene, Jennifer and Melissa. Sometimes I showed Andrew these entries on my computer.

I allowed Andrew to conjure up fantasy girls for the both of us, more scenarios or options. These activities played into our recreation so stealthily it seemed natural.

We returned to the cold cabin and its dark musty contours. Once the door was shut, curtains drawn, we became like soap in each other's hands.

Soft and strange time together, in public, time alone, together, unchained and scented. I couldn't help but memorize the contours of Andrew's growth.

Now there were no borders.

Andrew was inside the main cottage. It was past midnight, and I was wandering around outside by myself, forty feet from the cottage, when Philip and Sandra practically cornered me in the dark. They'd been down by the beach. I noticed the beer bottles in their hands. Sandra looked at me and asked me if I wanted one.

"No," I said quietly. She took a sip and let out a laugh, "So you're just going to sit out here alone?"

Andrew said he had a few beers with Philip sometimes, but I didn't believe him. I guess I was wrong. "Andrew's having one, come on," Sandra said. Philip took a sip from his beer. "Forget him; come on," he said, luring Sandra back into the house with a mischievous expression.

The porno stashed. The chocolate milk circulating, we went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Andrew spoke into the darkness, "Shut the window," in a startling dark slur. "Raining out...coming in."

I crept along the cold carpet, shut the window tightly and returned to bed.

Go-karting
⁵
in the morning would take us away from each other's erections. The drive to the track was short and full of waffling sunlight; wimpy grey clouds had formed on the horizon, and pleasant raindrops tickled the dash, only to be sopped up by the perennial sunshine.

5. “Half a mile of smooth asphalt track, 25 fast, safe karts that really move ... half a mile from the Bay west of Perkinsfield. Balm Beach Go Karts has been a part of summer activities in Balm Beach on beautiful Georgian Bay for years.”

"Pick you up in a bit," Philip said, and drove away, leaving us near the ticket gate.

"Ready to lose, boy?" Andrew let out a loud bolt of laughter, making actions with his hands like he held the ruckus of lightning and thunder in a holster beside his long legs.

"I'll destroy you out there," I said. "It is my destiny."

Now on the race course, we were all chin straps, gas pedals, sharp turns and breaks. Andrew was chewing on a plastic straw. He punctured the top of his plastic soda lid.

I had never go-karted before, but felt it was important to dramatically declare my superiority.

We gunned our engines and whipped out of the start position. I pulled ahead for a while, trying my best to outdrive Andrew.

"Just like Beggar's Canyon back home," I screamed.

"You're goin' down, boy!" Andrew shouted, now tailgating, riding me hard.

On the third lap I could feel Andrew on my back tire. "Stop it!" I screamed backwards. Andrew cackled madly. I felt Andrew's tires on my back, took the turn but poured on the gas, winding up on a hill.

"Fuck!" I shouted. My car's engine wouldn't stop; there was no reverse. "Asshole!"

I climbed out of my car and embarrassingly walked back to the starting point. The attendant looked perplexed as I emerged from the track in my helmet.

"Something happened to my car," I bashfully told the man who had sold me the laps. "It went up the hill."

Andrew finished his laps alone and approached me while I was nervously pacing around the ticket counter. "What happened?"

"Whatyamean what happened? You clipped me from behind, and I went up the goddamn hill!"

"Did not. You're just a terrible driver," Andrew scoffed, all tough.

"You're a fucking asshole."

Andrew bought another four laps. I was black flagged, not allowed back on the track. I watched Andrew whip around the track from beside a set of vending machines, just out of the sun's glare, grinning like a big dumb clown the whole time.

*

Before dinner, we messed around by the unlit beach, whipping rocks while candy and cola rotted our stomachs. Clouds covered the sky, used like swabs for the eventual mess. In a dip in the sand, Andrew told me to jump. I did, and dozens of birds, nesting in a series of holes, flew from the holes. He howled his reserved-for-special-pranks "Hee-Hee-Hee-Hoo!" laugh. The birds' sudden ascent from nowhere terrified me.

We headed back to the main cottage, dripping from spastic dashes into the cold water. I paced in the living room, watching Andrew's brother unload groceries in the kitchen.

"You wanna go?" Andrew said, flexing his muscles, putting down a stale life jacket and a set of paddles in the mudroom. He glared at me through the screen door, pointing and gesturing with conviction. "Sure!" I shouted back. "You're in the danger zone now!"

Andrew stepped into the living room, where I was sitting on the couch.

"Hold on," I said, "I have to put on the song."

"What song?" Philip asked, walking into the living room from the kitchen. "You need a song to fight?"

"Hulk Hogan's song, ‘Real American'," I said.

"You think it'll make you stronger or something?" Philip laughed.

"He does," Andrew said, shaking his head.

Andrew began to fall on me, putting all his weight over my back; we landed in a loud heap on the living room floor. The music blared, and I began to shake my arms. "Give up, you can't beat me."

"Gaylords," Philip said, staring at the spectacle. Sandra was in the shower. Philip shook a large glass container of pasta in the air. "You want spaghetti for dinner?"