Split (11 page)

Jake didn’t wait for my reply. He simply grabbed his jacket off the rack and punched the code in. “Coming?”

I turned my computer off and tossed the noodles in the bin.

We walked up Crescent Street.

“Ever been here?” Jake asked.

We stood in front of O’Hurley’s.

“No.”

“And you’re Irish?”

I nodded.

Jake opened the door and invited me in. “I thought all Irish boys celebrated their eighteenth birthday here. Thought it was some kind of rite of passage.”

I smiled.

Inside, the party was going strong. The place was packed, as if Monday had skipped this place on its way to Friday.

Jake pointed to the bar. “Let’s sit down over there,” he shouted into my ear, over the thunderous melodies of the Irish folk music blasting through the stereos. “Closer to the action.”

I looked over at the bar.

A woman, all curves, sat on the last stool, sipping on a glass of mineral water. The fact that she kept staring at the door, then down to her watch should have clued Jake in. But straight men survive the singles scene on two things: booze and denial.

We slipped into our seats. Jake leaned in and I caught a gust of his cologne. Strong, but not overpowering.

“What’s your pleasure?” His almond-shaped eyes were on the impatient brunette at his side.

“Whiskey sour,” I returned.

“Good choice. I’ll join you.” He slapped the bar counter. “Two whiskey sours.”

No pretty please or anything. Just a direct order.

I cringed a little. To Jake, manners are for the meek.

The barman raised a brow and tossed his chin up.

Obviously, the man was going to be taking his sweet time with our drinks.

“So,” asked Jake, flicking a peanut shell around. “You gay?”

When men ask me that question, I never know if they’re offering or judging.

Either way, I end up being screwed.

“Why?” I figured I would play it safe.

Jake laughed. His teeth are pretty. “Just making conversation. Don’t get defensive.”

“Are you?” I quickly replied.

“Yes, I am.”

“You are?”

His face tensed. “Wait. I mean, yes, I’m making conversation.” He chuckled. “Oh man, you thought—” He winked. “Yeah, right. You wish.”

I smiled. I wish? No way.

Well. Maybe a little.

“I’m straight, but I did let a guy blow me once. At a bachelor party, or maybe it was my birthday—”

“I see.”

Jake’s smile broadened. “Too much information, huh?”

The barman, who was a cross between James Dean and Colin Farrell, set our drinks down. He slapped the counter. “That’ll be eighteen dollars.”

Jake scowled. “For two ounces of cheap whiskey and lemon water? You gotta be kiddin’ me.” He pulled a twenty out of his wallet. “Here, you bloodsucking vampire. And I want my change back.”

The barman’s caramel eyes shifted to my poker face. “Your friend here has a major attitude problem.”

I’ve noticed.

Jake scoffed. “Whatever.” He took a long swill of his drink. “Let’s get loaded.”

I came home at two a.m. Drunk out of my mind. I woke up late, with my tie wrapped around my neck and the Sahara Desert sitting on my tongue.

“Who knew?” Jake kept saying last night, his eyes glossy from the whiskey. “Always thought you were an aristocrat.”

I’ve been thinking about that. The expensive shoes Nate insists on buying for me. The suits. The ties. The bike. Everything.

What do people think of me?

What have I become?

But above all,
who
have I become?

Dear Bump,

Me and Aunt Frannie visited Mom today. We rode the bus, and then the metro.

We got off somewhere in the middle of the city.

I saw a man sleeping inside a plastic bag. His toenails were so long, they folded over. His hair was like dirty cotton candy. Aunt Frannie kept pointing to things. “See, that’s the Mount Royal. We have a mountain in the middle of our island.”

Montreal is an island. Same as Hawaii. I don’t think I knew that.

“Look, Red, that’s the Chinese district.”

Everyone there looked just like Jesse Chao, and it smelled like roasted peanuts or something. They have a statue of angry lions guarding the street. They have purple vegetables and big green fruits sitting in cardboard boxes all along the sidewalk. Half of the food, I’d never seen before. They have red restaurants packed with people, and everyone eats their soup with sticks.

“You wanna taste something special, Red?”

Aunt Frannie took me deep into the district. My eyes kept shooting from side to side, and I tripped twice, on account of my curious nature, you know. We walked up to a store that was no bigger than my closet. A man with silky black hair and thin brown eyes stood behind a counter. His face was young, but his hands looked old. He wasn’t smiling with his mouth. Just his eyes. He rolled something on a stick. It looked like the stuff that hangs down from the classroom ceiling when a tile is missing. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to taste it anymore.

I crinkled my nose.

“Try it, hon,” whispered Aunt Frannie through her pressed lips.

I chewed on my lip, avoiding her insistent gaze.

The man behind the counter lifted a finger to my face. “You’re a snake.”

“Excuse me?” Aunt Frannie’s tone had a sharpness to it. “What did you just say?”

“Your son is a snake. 1977, no?”

Aunt Frannie let out a small gasp, and laughed. Her face lit up. “Oh, you mean his Chinese zodiac sign?”

The stuff had made its way to my lips and I was liking it. It kind of tasted like sugar and oil.

“Yes,” said the man. “A pure one.”

Pure?

I gathered the stuff with my tongue and let it sit in my mouth for a while.

I watched an old woman brush the snow off her doorstep with a broom.

“A wise soul. A seclusive heart. A philosopher.”

Aunt Frannie tousled my hair. “Hear that, Red?”

The stuff was melting on my tongue and the more I got of it, the better it tasted.

“What is your day of birth?”

My heart jumped a little. I’m not very good with strangers. Especially if I have to talk to them.

“July seventh, sir.”

His black eyes flickered on my face. “The mystic number.”

Aunt Frannie squeezed my fingers. “Is that good or bad?”

The stranger lolled his head, and his gaze wandered. He seemed to be watching the end of street.

I took another mouthful of the stuff.

The man then leaned over the counter, and I immediately flinched, but he smiled and handed Aunt Frannie her change. “Yes. Very good.” He winked at me. “He is the sorcerer. He is the enchanter.”

At the sound of those words, a shiver passed through me.

And before I knew it, a question flew out of my lips.

“What is 1972 plea-please?”

The man squinted, and smiled again. “Ah. The rat.”

I grimaced. Nick, a rat?

Don’t snakes eat rats?

“Stubborn. Pioneer. Stormy. The endless traveler. Dangerous.”

Dangerous.

That word again.

I threw my stick into the bin and followed Aunt Frannie. When we were out of the man’s earshot, she tugged on my sleeve. “Who’s 1972?”

Her eyes were steady on my face, and a warm liquid seem to fill my cheeks. “No-nobody.”

I watched her mumble to herself.

She was counting.

“Nobody,” I repeated.

“Sixteen,” she whispered. “Who’s sixteen?
Ah
. I see.”

My cheeks were so hot, they hurt. “It doesn’t mat-matter.”

She frowned. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? It matters a whole bunch. It matters more than anything else in the world. Hon, it’s who you are that makes it matter.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said again, louder this time, but my heart shrunk back another inch inside my chest. “And I don’t wa-wa-want to-to talk about it.”

Mom’s room is all yellow.

Everything except the ceiling.

“Yellow is a happy color,” Mom said as she busied herself with a box of lemon cookies. “Doctor says it helps.”

I looked around. She has a bed, a dresser, a bookshelf, and a TV.

“Come sit with me.”

I sat by her on the yellow bed.

I gave her the daisies.

“Tell me about things, Red.”

I opened my mouth, but only air came out.

“Are you angry with me?”

Her fingernails are yellow. Her breath smells like yellow.

“Derek, say somethin’.”

She doesn’t feel the same anymore.

“Just like your dad, Red. Gettin’ a word out of you is like pullin’ teeth.”

Aunt Frannie gave me a quarter and asked me to go get her a coffee in the hallway machine.

I didn’t get her one.

I rode the elevator up and down, and then sat in the washroom by Mom’s room. Aunt Frannie knocked on the door, but I didn’t answer her. I sat on the lid and stared at the wall.

“We’re leaving in five minutes. Come say good-bye to her at least.”

I shut my eyes.

When it was time to leave, Aunt Frannie knocked on the door again. “Come on, let’s go home. She’s sleeping. I’ll show you how to make pizza dough.”

We passed Mom’s yellow room.

The door was half-open, but I turned my eyes away.

At home, we made pizza pies for three hours.

Aunt Frannie played her Marvin Gaye records and showed me how to knead the dough. You have to make it smooth like a baby’s bottom, and slap it too. My favorite part was making the sauce. She let me season it. It came out real tasty.

“You have a thing for this,” she said, smiling real big, swaying her hips to the music. “Maybe you should think about that.”

I sprinkled some mozzarella cheese over the pepperoni, thinking of Nick. Thinking of the big book on his nightstand. “I wa-wanna be-be an accountant.”

She threw her head back and clapped her hands. “That sounds just about right.” Then, she wiped her hands on her white apron and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Look at you.” Her smile was gone. Her eyes twinkled. Tears sat on the edges. “I mean, look at you.”

I looked down at myself. I had flour on my socks.

She came around to me, and before I knew it, she was pulling me down the hall. She spun me around and made me face the mirror in the entrance. “Look at you.” Her fingers dug into my shoulders. Her voice quivered. “Make your eyes look. Make them see.”

The whole apartment smelled like yeast. I widened my eyes, staring at my reflection, hoping to calm her down. “I’m loo-looking, Aunt Frannie.”

Her grip loosened. “What do you see?”

I saw a boy.

A boy with a crazy woman standing behind him. “Me,” I said.

“And who is
me
exactly?”

I watched the boy in the mirror frown.

“Derek, look at your face. Your eyes. Your skin. Your hair. Don’t you see? You
are
the sorcerer. When are you gonna start working some of that magic of yours, huh?”

She let go of me and walked back to the kitchen.

My eyes are too pale. Like some kind of washed-out green, and it looks like I don’t have any eyelashes, on account of them being so light. My nose looks like a potato. My mouth looks like a girl’s mouth.

My hair is the color of coagulated blood. My skin is like skim milk. At least I don’t have freckles.

I walked away from the boy in the mirror.

Aunt Frannie can’t understand. That boy isn’t me.

And I’m not him.

*

Last night, after I slammed the phone down, ending Nathan’s and my one way conversation, I jumped into my jeans and stormed out the door, heading for the basement garage.

When I shot out atop my bike into the quiet street, my mouth was filled with an acidic taste, and my heart thundered with every roar of the motor. I clutched the handles, zooming down Doctor Penfield Boulevard with the wind slapping my jacket and thighs. I reached Rene-Lévesque, checked for incoming traffic, then gunned through the red light.

There was a fire burning deep inside my gut.

I kept hearing that crystalline laughter.

Bellboy, my ass.

Nathan is fucking around on me. Oh yes he is. Hadn’t we agreed to honesty? I’m emotionally castrated, butting my head against a barbed-wire fence, and he permits himself to be the stallion galloping the field?

Against the sound of my murderous thoughts, I rolled fast and steady, keeping left, heading East.

My back was stiff with anger as I mentally edited my adieu letter.

Then I heard sirens.

I flicked my gaze to the side mirror, and watched the red and blue flashes spin.

Bloody hell
.

I slowly released the gas, trying not to make it too obvious. Of course that would surely fool the cop who was now hot on my heels. I watched the side mirror, and caught him signaling me to pull over. For a reckless second, I had an inclination to accelerate. There was no way his
Impala could match my bike.

But I’ve seen too many
Cops
episodes to try anything like that.

I slowed down, then shot to the right lane to pull over.

I flipped the bike stand and sat back, watching the cop make his way to me.

Tall.

Blond.

Typical prick.

“Helmet.” His voice was cool.

Right.

I removed the helmet and set it on my lap.

“License and registration.”

Not very talkative.

I pulled the papers out of my wallet and handed them to him. I dared a glance his way. The asshole was still wearing his shades though it was way past sunset.

“You realize you burned a red light.”

I had forgotten about that one.

“Ye-yes sir.” How could I let myself stutter in a time like this? “I realize.”

“Wait right here.”

I tapped my fingers on the handle, getting more and more nervous by the minute.

He came back interminable minutes later. “Gonna have to take you in.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Don’t make me call for backup. Get off the bike. Now.”

My heart pumped adrenaline into my bloodstream, filling the creases of my palms with cold sweat. “Wha-what’s going on-on here?”

He slapped my shoulder. “Get off the fucking bike, you little shit!”

Every single nerve in my body flinched. Every muscle contracted. My jaw was so tight, I thought I would break a tooth. I hesitated, but finally climbed off my bike. “Sir? I don’t—”

“Shut up.” He began scribbling something on a notepad. “Turn around. Put your hands behind your head.”

“Wait a minu—”

“Put your hands behind your head. NOW.”

By this point, my breath was a little short. I hadn’t brought my inhaler, as I haven’t had an asthma attack in years.

I obeyed.

“Anything I should know about before I pat you down? Don’t wanna be pricking my finger on some fucking—”

“No sir.”

Before I turned around, I shot a nervous glance at his wide chest, hoping to catch his name, but there was a piece of paper tucked over his badge.

Like a Post-it of some kind.

Panic rippled through me. “Sir, I have ri—” But I stopped mid sentence.

On account of him groping my ass, getting a generous handful of it.

“Nice. Oh wow. Real nice.” His breath steamed my ear.

And there was something like a smile in his smooth voice.

His hand released my butt cheek. “Been working out, I see.”

That tone. That bloody tone. I remembered it like one remembers the sounds a lover makes. I slowly lowered my arms but didn’t turn around. “Boone? Boone Lund?”

“I told you. It’s
Maverick
, you little shit.”

I spun around.

Heated blood rushed though my every limb. “You asshole!” I shoved him hard with both hands. “I almost had an-an asthma attack!”