Smoke (9 page)

“But didn't,” Buster corrects. “Cry me a river.”

Donny is silent. What defence can he offer? Each morning after learning of Buster's accident he'd told himself
that
was the day. That was the day he'd force himself to pass by McFiddie's and try not to gawk at Buster's freakish mug or ask stupid questions, but he'd always find a million excuses to be anywhere else. Thing was, and he knows it in the cowardly marrow of his bones as sure as he's Donny Bryson, it isn't Buster's mangled face he's been avoiding. He wishes to dispose of that night in the root cellar, fix it, make it disappear. He regrets ever going along with Ivan, urging Buster to drink more. Sorry has gradually spread through him, head to toe, like thick syrup he is now stuck in. But he isn't going to stand around and let Buster rub it in. “Nothing personal,” he says. “I've been busy is all.” Of course there's nothing more personal to Buster than his friend's betrayal and they both know it.

Donny feels genuine regret, sure he does. He feels the muddied embarrassment of one who hasn't tried hard enough. But who can blame him for getting on with things? Deep down, he's pretty sure Buster would've done the same. They've outgrown each other, that's all. Or the accident sparked a meanness between them that neither knew existed before, and now as Donny looks across at Buster on the stairs with an expression that shouts How dare you change everything, Buster looks back with something close to hate. The fire was a test. A test in how much one fellow can change before he can't see himself in the other any more.

“You're nothing but a two-faced traitor,” says Buster. “And traitors should be shot.”

“You want to be like this, go ahead.” Donny is visibly shaken. “Don't say I didn't try.” He turns back towards Ivan, though he knows better than to think this will be the last of it. Buster is stubborn but no true friendship ever ends. It simply cracks open like a gull's egg on a rock face and the worst part, the things that are never meant to be spoken out loud and shouldn't be, fly from lips like premature birds flung out of their nests. “Goof,” Donny hisses over his shoulder.

“Told you,” Ivan says, dropping the remainder of his lit butt on the grass when Donny returns. “He's bad news now. Just like his dad. Mr. McFiddie's robbing the village blind with this new marketing board, you know.”

“What?” Donny is distracted.

“The tobacco marketing board.”

“Oh.” He never pays any real attention to adult debates. Now he tries to remember what he overheard his own father say. “Maybe regulation is a good thing.”

“So you're for it then?”

“For it. Huh? I'm just saying.” Donny turns to face Ivan. “If they dump the barn-buying and the favours that go along with it, things could be fair.”

“Well, my dad won't be able to make ends meet at an anonymous auction.” Ivan spits on the ground. “What are you now, a Commie?”

“Yeah right Ivan,” Donny says, whipping his comic book out from his back pocket and swatting Ivan with it. “I'm a Commie, and you're the Crypt Keeper.”

The only thing Donny knows for certain from hanging around tobacco farms over the years is that growing and priming is about as hard a thing as can be done and Buster's dad is one of the best. Donny also knows that men who want work, or need it, find it on the McFiddie farm, no questions asked. Even his own sauced-up father has stumbled into those fields for pay from time to time. He isn't going to run down Mr. McFiddie no matter how he and Buster are getting along.

“My dad says the board's been in the works for years.”

“Your dad couldn't find real work if it fell on him.” Ivan punches Donny in the shoulder.

“Shut your pie hole.” Donny punches him back. At least his father doesn't put on airs the way Ivan's does. At least Bob Bryson is a waste of skin who knows it.

Donny also holds a soft spot for Buster's ma. She's always been kind to him, kinder than kind. Once, when he spent the night, she stayed up talking with him in the basement. Told him her memories of London. He remembers it well because after she'd leaned over on the pull-out and brushed his bangs away from his face, she'd kissed him goodnight as she always did with her own boys and her robe gaped, exposing her breasts. Donny hasn't been able to hear mention of England since that night without pining for Isabel McFiddie. He sneaks peeks at her sideways, as if he alone is seeing her shadow dance, as if in some private way she belongs to him or with one glance could evoke belonging. He searches his clothes after they've run into one another, hoping to spot a renegade strand of her hair. He keeps the red curls until they form a bunch in his pants pocket or until they vanish after one good churn in his mother's wringer washer.

The school bell rings and the boys watch the last bus pull up and some of the girls funnel towards the entrance. Ivan, fuelled by his conversation with Donny, starts up taunting as soon as he reaches the top. “Well well, look what's here.” He brushes against Buster forcefully, knocking him out of the way. “It moves,” he says, shaking spasmodically. “It's alive.”

“Cool it,” says Donny. “Why do you always have to stir trouble?”

Buster rests his attentive gaze on Ivan, cracks his white knuckles without taking his eyes off the boy. “Got a problem?”

“I'm looking at you aren't I?”

“Rumble!” someone yells as the bell falls silent and a chant breaks out, rippling backwards into the crowd. Other kids come running from across the yard. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Ivan whips off his leather jacket, passes it to his twin sister for safekeeping, and rolls up his sleeves. He isn't thinking any more than he ever does. He is impulse without control or conscience.

“Don't do it,” whispers Donny.

“Eat my shorts,” says Ivan, already working himself into a lather. “He thinks he's too good for us now. If you aren't going to fix him I will.”

Buster stands taller, sees Jelly Bean push her way through the crowd, chewing on her thumbnail and climbing to the top of the stairs. “Leave him alone,” her voice squeaks. “Leave him alone, Ivan Rombout!”

Ivan grabs Jelly Bean by both arms and pushes her sharply in Buster's direction. “I dare you to kiss him then. Go on. Kiss your new boyfriend.”

Jelly Bean blushes and fights back tears. She loses her balance but regains it at the last instant. Several of the other girls titter nervously but Susan looks away. Her brother picks on those who are weaker. No one knows it more intimately than she.

“Look,” says Ivan, pointing. “He's got a girl defending him.”

Buster steps back against the wall humiliated. His hands are shaking and his mouth is dry. Then as if realizing he has options, he reaches deeply into the waist of his blue jeans and retrieves the sleek, shiny .38 Special. He could be the laughingstock or he could be in charge again. He holds the gun out in front of himself, pointed directly into the crowd. Everybody gasps. Ivan looks at Donny and squints. “You never said he was cracked.” Ivan retreats down the stairs, causing the other kids to trip backwards. “The accident's made him crazy.”

Buster ignores the comment, thinks of the characters in Doc John's stories. What would Raymond Bernstein do? He twirls the gun with his pointer finger. He recognizes that Ivan is afraid of him and he enjoys this. “I think you chumps owe the lady an apology,” he says loudly enough that everyone can hear. “Now, who wants to go first?” He approaches Donny, who instinctively covers his face with his hands and ducks when the barrel of the gun is pointed at his temples. “Okay then.” Buster sounds agreeable yet sinister. “Okay, guess I'll just have to help you along.” He cocks his head to one side, swaggers closer to Donny and leans in.

“But I didn't do anyth—”

“Say it!”

“Sorry,” Donny whimpers. “Sorry, Buster.”

“Not me you moron. Apologize to
her
.” He gestures to Jelly Bean.

“I'm sssorry Judy. I tttake it bbback.”

“Your goose is cooked Donny Bryson!” snaps Jelly Bean. “You too, Ivan. Wait till I tell my dad.” She is sure her insides are glowing hot pink. No one has ever defended her in public before.

Ivan takes the opportunity to bolt, pushing through the crowd and running into the nearest patch of brush like a newly branded steer. So that's what he looks like defeated, Susan thinks. Donny, gripped by the sense that he is unable to prevent this turn of events, freezes in place, paler than usual. Jelly Bean stares with wide-open eyes, unable to believe what she is seeing.

Buster jumps on the ledge at the top of the stairs and stands before them all. He is shocked by his own behaviour. It's as if someone else has taken over. He didn't know, until pushed, what kind of violence he is capable of. This new knowledge frightens him. And gives him a charge. He stuffs the gun back under his belt and fastens his jean jacket one cool button at a time. You've got to fight to be somebody in this cruddy place, he thinks, with a satisfied air of reclamation. Maybe ugly is my fate, but the rest is up to me. “Allow me to introduce myself!” he shouts, as the others huddle together like a frightened flock. Then he simply reassembles his clothing and without another word, walks away.

A
S HE WAITS
to wash up outside the upstairs bathroom later that evening, Tom comes charging down the hall. “That was Len Rombout on the phone. You been threatening Ivan with a gun?” Tom whips off his hat in a flourish, tosses it on a small table. His brown hair is sun-bleached and his nose peeling. There are dark moons seducing his tired eyes. Judging by his tone of voice he isn't really asking a question.

“Whoa, he can't even shoot,” says Hank, emerging with vestiges of dried toothpaste stuck in the corners of his mouth.

“Wanna try me?”

“All right, everybody. Calm down.” Isabel appears in her dressing gown, belting her robe around her protruding belly. “Where in the world did you get hold of a gun, Buster?” She waddles towards him.

“I told you they'd laugh. I told you they'd think I was a freak. They did too.” He lowers his voice. “At least now they'll keep it to themselves.”

“Jesus Christ. How many times have you heard me say it? Never point a rifle at a human being!” Tom's face is flushed.

“It wasn't loaded, Dad.” And it wasn't a rifle, he thinks.

“I don't care. What in hell's the matter with you?”

“What's the matter with me? What's the matter?” Buster's voice rises until it's a harsh explosion in his father's face. “I'm a crip, that's what! Your son is an ugly crip! Admit it!”

Tom wants to hit Buster, knock that tone and that expression of disrespect from here to Kingdom Come but he can't will himself to maintain eye contact, can't stand the sight of his own flesh and blood—his boy—destroyed in an accident he should have somehow prevented. “Len doesn't need another excuse to ride my tail these days,” he shouts instead. “And I don't want to hear any more about guns at school! You hear me?”

“Jeez,” says Hank. “You mean you
did
try and shoot Ivan?”

Isabel moves to place an arm around Buster. “Of course he didn't. He just wanted to be left alone, isn't that right?” Buster smells cigarette smoke on her clothing, shakes her off. God! His mother mauling him at his age! Raymond Bernstein would never have put up with this kind of treatment.

“Let's see it,” Tom demands.

“What?”

“The gun. Hand it over.” Tom turns towards Buster's room. Hank and Isabel follow closely. “Where did you get it? It better not be one of mine.”

“Wait. Okay I'll show you.” Buster charges in ahead of them, shutting and locking the door. He is once more surprised by the distinctive charcoal scent hiding in the walls. His mother applied a fresh coat of paint after the accident but it's made little difference. “Give me a minute,” he calls out.

He opens and closes his dresser drawers, making noises to suggest that he is retrieving the weapon from a secret location. Then he pulls down his pyjama bottoms, scrunches his face to look even more prune-like, bites his flimsy slit of a lip to hold the screams in and rips the .38 Special from his left thigh where it's been fastened with his father's electrical tape since he changed clothes after school. He catches the pain in his throat halfway up and swallows it, pulls up his pyjama bottoms and throws the crumpled, hairy tape across the room. It sticks to the floor on the other side of his bed, out of sight. When he opens the door and hands the gun to his father, handle first, his head is already beginning to pound.

“Well I'll be,” Tom says. “I haven't seen one of these for at least twenty years.” He opens the chamber to confirm there are no bullets. “Where in hell did you get it?”

“Um, Doc—”

“Wow,”
Hank interrupts. “You actually tried to murder Ivan Rombout with that.”

“Stop it you two. He did not.” Isabel grabs the gun away from Tom before Hank has a chance. “He wanted to make himself understood.” She exchanges a wordless conversation with her husband. “We
all
understand now, don't we?”

“Too bad he didn't go after Len,” Tom mumbles, and when Isabel pinches him he adds, “No guns at school Buster. I mean it. Keep it in the basement with my hunting rifles or I'll confiscate it.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now where did you say you got it?”

Buster averts his eyes. He doesn't want to get Doc John in trouble. Besides, what right does his father have to interrogate him when he's barely spoken a complete sentence to him since the accident? “That's my business.”

“
Your
business? Anything that goes on under my roof is my business, mister.”

“It happened at school, Dad,” says Hank.

Buster smirks and Tom grabs him by the collar of his pyjama top.