The Wives of Bath (15 page)

Lewis said I didn’t need the real McCoy, though; my orthopedic shoes were heavy enough. Their sound pleased me.
Boom-boom
—I sounded like the Virgin in her gunboats. I was worried my hump would show through the jacket, but Lewis built up my other shoulder with extra padding. In Willy’s jacket I looked bulky, not deformed. He was strict with me about how I moved: I had to stand upright, with my shoulders back and my head up. And I had to lock my knees so that I seemed to swagger. I also had to pull in my chin and, above all, never lower my eyes. I could keep my teeth clenched if I liked, but I had to make sure my jaw was tight. And pull down my lips when somebody asked me a question I didn’t know how to answer. I couldn’t smile much, although it was okay to open my eyes as wide as I could and bare my teeth, so that the other person couldn’t tell if I liked or hated them. This confusion was threatening in itself, Lewis said.

That was the man part.

The Greek part was my doing. It was simple decoration—an accessory, like a shoulder bag. I hadn’t realized I’d watched Nick so much, but I guess I always watch men, the way you watch the weather. From out of nowhere, I found I had Nick’s gestures. The waggly tongue; the constantly moving hands, either swinging a little doodad or hovering protectively over the belt (as if he were about to do something primitive, like rub his balls). Sal had given
me a rabbit’s foot, and I’d practised swinging it constantly and staring the way Nick did, as if his eyes could suck up girls’ bodies like a vacuum cleaner. Lewis thought it best if I didn’t say much. I only knew one or two Greek phrases, anyway—thanks to Nick.
F. Harry Stowe
for thank you, and
endaxy
for everything else. It meant “okay.”

The less I said, the less chance there was of my getting mixed up, Paulie said. The most important thing was never to look as if I’d made a mistake. I told Lewis that Nick the Greek always thought he was right, because his mother spoiled him. That’s why mothers are such a problem: they can make or break you. If we had had Nick the Greek’s mother, we’d be set for life, too.

Just before noon, we set off for the ravine path, which ran between the school and the nearby suburb of Wilbury Hollow. I was too nervous to speak, so I kept my hands busy with the rabbit’s foot, swinging it back and forth at the level of my crotch. Far away, near the grove of camperdown elms, we could see the Virgin planting bulbs with Sergeant. She couldn’t see us because we were hidden by the ravine trees. We climbed through a new hole in the fence Lewis had found, and I heard my heavy orthopedic shoes hit the paved path.
Boom-boom, boom-boom
. I was a boy. My clothes said so. My arms and legs swam through the light autumn air as we strolled whistling past the small stucco houses where normal people lived. Their little old-fashioned gardens with plots of pink cosmos and fragrant nicotiana made me homesick for Madoc’s Landing. We walked by a group of kids throwing a basketball into a hoop over the garage door, and one of the boys waved at us. I waved back, and Lewis grinned.

“You see, Bradford? It’s as easy as pie. Either you believe in yourself or you don’t.”

“Yes,” I said, and laughed out loud, startling myself. “You’re either a man or a mouse.”

As we turned once again down the path that circled through the
ravine, the warm sunshine of Indian summer on our shoulders, Lewis said he had things to say to me. About girls, mainly. About the way you had to treat them if you were a man.

You have to fool them, Lewis said. Bully them. They like it when you take charge. And you have a task to do for Kong, he reminded me. You have to feel up a girl above the waist. You don’t have to touch her Down There; it’s just important to get at the breasts. That’s what Kong likes. Tell her that if she loved you, she’d let you do it. Guilt usually does the trick. Guilt lets you get anywhere you want to go.

We were deep into the ravine now, among fallen logs and ferns and the half-baked woods people in the city mistake for a real forest.

“But maybe girls want their breasts touched?” I said.

“They do and they don’t—that’s the trouble. You have to initiate everything. They don’t like the responsibility.”

“What girl am I going to try this on, Paulie?”

“Lewis,” he said. “It’s Nick and Lewis from here on in. Have you got that, Nick?”

“Yes, Lewis,” I said.

“And remember Kong’s words: ‘A man stands alone. A man stands by his friends. A man speaks his mind and is afraid of no one.’ ” Lewis spat an impressive spit ball over the railing, and I busied myself again with my rabbit’s foot and asked no more questions.

We came to the end of the path, and I told Lewis I had to rest my legs. Below us lay the river, the colour of agate beneath the overhanging branches. Bubbles floated like spit on its surface next to pieces of Styrofoam and dead leaves. We climbed across some old boards that somebody had placed over a swampy patch and stood by the funny small sandy shore. An overturned cement mixer lay in the grass nearby. Lewis said it belonged to Sergeant. His kiln for making firebrick for the furnace was up in the woods.

Safe from sight, we got out our fags, and I cupped my hand around Paulie’s lighter flame with an ease that amazed me. Then I saw them—a whole pack. Coming toward us along the narrow beach—some pushing bicycles, some walking. A group of Kings College boys. The name of their school was not yet visible on the embossed gold crest on their navy jackets, but I knew it anyway. They were laughing and yelling as they moved toward us, pretending not to notice we were even there.

I waited anxiously for them to see through me. Sure as anything, they’d be able to tell by my face that I wasn’t used to real sunlight—that I’d crawled out of a cave of old forgotten women into the real world. Lewis whispered, “It’s the first punch that counts.” I shrank away from him—scared to death. Lewis looked disgusted and walked over and planted himself in front of them, his legs set wide apart.

“This is private property,” Lewis said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Lewis looked shorter suddenly, standing in front of the boys. The hunting cap was pulled low over his eyes, and his sleeves were rolled up so the boys would notice his muscles, as round and hard under his skin as a pair of Adam’s apples.

A fair boy with a brush cut put down his bicycle. He hung over Lewis, twice his size. I recognized him from Tory’s photograph. It was her brother, Rick. “Get out of our way, asshole.” He spat at Lewis—not an impressive ball, like the ones I’d seen Lewis make, but a fuzzy spew of saliva that landed on his shoulder. One of the other boys laughed. Then Lewis yelled, “Nick,” and now the boys turned to look at me. Oh, no, don’t hurt me, I thought. You’ve got it wrong. I’m a girl. Can’t you see? You know what we’re like—we faint and preen and do all that dumb girl stuff. And I have a hunched back, too. I looked down quickly at my torqued shoulder, hoping they’d see Alice and feel sorry for me. And then Rick lunged at Lewis, and Lewis head-butted him, and Rick swore and grabbed Lewis by the neck, and the two of them toppled
backwards onto the sand. Immediately, one of the other boys grabbed Lewis’s arms so that Tory’s brother could straddle his stomach. He laughed and spat in Lewis’s face. “Bulls-eye!” Rick shouted.

All of a sudden, my stupid old Mouse heart started to thud, and I felt my neck swell, like the Celtic warrior women in the history book who puff up with rage and gnash their teeth and yell like men. The old Bradford genes must have been coming into play. And somebody I didn’t know shrieked at him to leave Lewis alone, and I lurched over and jumped on Rick’s back. Who did he think he was! Going to Kings College didn’t mean he could treat Lewis like shit! I wanted to smash his snobby mouth—split those thin, snobby Kings College lips until I saw them bleed.

And the big idiot bucked backwards then, slamming his elbows into my face. My nose throbbed, stung. I dropped my hands and rolled off him, my arms up to protect my face. Pant legs surrounded me. I rolled to my knees just as a black high-top sneaker made a windy rush to my ear. I ducked, and then I heard a shout, and the foot went calmly to the ground. Sneakered feet and pant legs moved closer.

“Will you look at this! It’s not a boy we’re fighting. It’s a frigging girl!” My cap had fallen off, and my hair straggled down my shoulders.

“She’s got boobs under there!” he shouted, and yanked at my shirt, under Willy’s jacket, ripping off my button. Lewis was still pinned under Rick. I was on my knees and afraid to look down in case I’d see the two dumb little pimples growing where I didn’t want them to grow. I didn’t know how Lewis had managed to keep his cap on. The chin strap, I guess.

“Leave her alone!” Lewis screamed. “Leave her alone or you’ll be sorry!” The boys ignored Lewis. One of them pinned my arms behind my back. I couldn’t see who it was. Then the boy with black sneakers stuck his face right into mine and started to inspect
my neck and ears with his hot fingers. He acted like he was looking for cooties, inspecting me the way Miss Mullen inspected all the kids back in grade school in the Landing. I began to shake in the worst way when I felt his fingers creep under my shirt and walk plink-plink-plink in little fakey spider steps up to the nipple of my left breast. “Hey guys,” he said and pressed my nipple down hard, as if he were using one of Morley’s push-button windows. “Let’s get us some nooky!” I could feel the tears swarming under my lids. But the other boys standing near us were no longer watching, they were whispering and pointing at the ravine hill. Hurrying down the path with his strange, rolling gait rushed Sergeant with his corgi, Spruce. He was waving his short arms.

“Lewis! Lewis! Are you in a pinch? Hey, there! Get away from my worker, you ruffians!”

The boy behind me dropped my arms, and one of them called out something about being attacked by a girl. Sergeant only waved his arms even more excitedly.

“That’s no girl, you fool! That’s my grounds boy, Lewis. A bunch of hooligans, that’s all you are! Picking on boys smaller than yourselves!”

The Kings College boys stared at one another; then, one by one, they picked up their bicycles and began to walk off down the ravine.

“And we’re glad to see the back of you, that’s for certain,” Sergeant called out as I jumped to my feet and started to do up my shirt. Then I remembered my cap. I grabbed it up and tucked my hair out of sight and finally went back to my buttons, my fingers all shaky. I wondered what Morley would think of me if he could see me now.

“Who’s your friend, Lewis?” Sergeant asked. I stared at the river. The water smelled of old shoes and algae, not fresh like the bay at home. It wasn’t even a river, really—just a gush of sewer water that came out of giant culverts.

“Nick is a Greek. He only knows a few words of English.”

“A Greek, is he? Don’t know much about them. It’s the Frenchies I hate.”

“Uh—right.” Lewis nudged me. “Hey, Nick, we’ve got to be on our way. We’re late, and we’ve got friends to meet at the mill.”

“Don’t want to keep the girls waiting, do you?” Sergeant giggled. “I reckon they’d have a few words to say about that, wouldn’t they? Ah, well. Never mind, lads. That’s what it is to be a man—putting up with the shit women hand you.”

Sergeant tethered Spruce to a tree. Then he unzippered himself and stood with his legs apart, peeing into the river. The spray of his pee fell through the air golden and fine, like liquid coins.

“Come on, lads, no long faces now. Will you not play swordsies with old Sergeant?” He aimed higher, and I watched the spray that shot without dribbling from the overgrown pink mushroom that drooped from his fingers.

“I guess the Virgin wouldn’t know what to do with that,” Lewis said and whistled—a low, thrilling whistle as Sergeant shook himself so that the last drops fell to the ground. I looked off, embarrassed for him.

“Don’t talk like that about your superiors, lad,” Sergeant said.

“How about Miss Phillips, then?” Lewis asked. It was common knowledge that the matron hated Sergeant because he liked to play tricks on the boarding school.

“Ach, there’s nothing the matter with that woman that a good pair of brains wouldn’t cure.” Sergeant stopped and pointed at me. “Lewis! Your friend here—the poor lad—his mouth is bloody.”

I put my hand up to my face, and it came back sticky. I had a nosebleed—something I hated more than Morley’s needles. Then I was doubled over, throwing up into the green spears of the burdock (thanks to Mrs. Peddie, I knew the name of the weeds I was defiling). I watched myself from a distance, as if the skinny boy puking in the bushes had nothing to do with me. When I looked
up, Lewis was staring my way as if he’d never seen me before. Looking at me as if he was Kong. And sure enough, he held up eight fingers. Eight out of ten. Not bad for a Mouse. I’d passed Kong’s second category of tests: Mastery over Other Men. With flying colors.

My next test still lay ahead: Mastery over Women.

Lewis and I said good-bye to Sergeant and walked across the highway to the Old Mill. I’d never been inside a tavern before, but I’d seen the railroad hotel in Dollartown, outside the Landing. Morley sometimes stopped there to buy pipe tobacco, leaving Sal and me behind in Blinky to stare at the grubby men in dark plaid hunting shirts and peaked caps who staggered in and out of its Ladies and Escorts room. I wasn’t impressed. The Dollartown tavern didn’t even have swing doors like the saloons you see in old westerns.