Cheeseburger Subversive (6 page)

Dogs That Lick and Dogs That Bite

(Grade eight)

I
once read that the personalities of dogs tend to reflect those of their owners and vice versa, and I suppose this is true of me and my dog, Smiley. Smiley never bites, growls, or barks unnecessarily, and neither do I. He is the kind of dog who can't catch or even find a ball that is thrown to him, and I, unfortunately, am that kind of boy. All of my report cards say that I am an “earnest, polite student,” and I get As in everything except physical education; if they issued report cards for dogs, Smiley's probably would look a lot like mine.

I think my father has been hoping for something a little different. After watching several old
Lassie
re-runs on TV, Dad concluded that I needed a dog, one that was noble, loyal, brave, and adventurous, in the hope that some of these traits would rub off on me. Despite the assurances of the pet store owner that Smiley would eventually grow out of his awkward, stumbling puppy gait, and would become a good guard dog and hunter with time, Smiley remains clumsy, skinny, relatively passive, and uninterested in hunting or guarding of any kind, which are traits I already have in abundance. At least both of my ears are more or less the same, whereas Smiley always has one ear sticking up and one ear lying down.

Dad knew for sure he had hit another roadblock on his journey to make a man of me when I named my new dog. Dad suggested some “good, old-fashioned dog names” like “Rex,” “Rover,” and “Buster,” but I decided to name my fluffy new puppy Smiley, because he always looked happy. When Zoe Perry came over to see my new puppy, and declared that Smiley was an “adorable” name, Dad gave up the fight and retreated to his den to watch war movies on TV (which is probably why I got a pellet gun — which I didn't ask for — for Christmas this year). Nevertheless, since dogs prefer to pee on trees and the wheels of neighbours' cars, I, at least, have to go outdoors more often, which has convinced Dad that his mission has not been a total failure.

Despite our relative passivity as a boy-and-dog team, Smiley and I manage to have a pretty good time together. Smiley splashes in the ravine across the street while I skip stones across the shallow water. Smiley gleefully rolls around on whatever dead thing he manages to sniff out, and I usually lose my balance on a stepping-stone and end up falling into the stagnant water. That we bring the stench of the ravine home with us on a regular basis drives Mom nuts, but it makes Dad happy to see me covered in guck like a “normal” boy.

Today is a hot, kiln-fire dry summer afternoon. The ravine is dried up, so I can't skip stones, and there is nothing moist and stinky for Smiley to roll around in, so today we decide to venture past the ravine to a barren, undeveloped region that both the kids and adults in our subdivision call The Badlands. On a bright day like this one, you can stand at the edge of The Badlands and watch the heat-distorted air twist above the parched ground, and you can squint, grit your teeth, and pretend that you're Clint Eastwood in
The Good, The Bad, and the
Ugly
.

The adults call it The Badlands because this hilly patch of land is unfarmed, uninhabited, and undeveloped, due to its uneven terrain, its cracked, unyielding clay ground, and the unsightliness of its scraggly weeds and mounds of industrial waste containers and windblown garbage. The neighbourhood kids call it The Badlands because it is where the notorious Bad Boys hang out.

The Bad Boys are mostly in grade nine or ten, only a couple of years older than me, but their reputations are bigger than age or size alone. Cliff Boswink, the bully of bullies at our middle school, is merely a little toadie in this gang of thugs. The Bad Boys have claimed The Badlands as their turf. It is the place where they roar around on their noisy, mufflerless dirt bikes, then stop to swear, spit, and smoke cigarettes stolen from the local convenience store. Mr. Cheung, the store's owner, has started turning a blind eye to their petty thefts. Last time he apprehended the Bad Boys, his store got spray-painted with terms like “faggot chink” and “bumfucker store.”

Smiley and I peer into The Badlands from atop a hill, my elbows and knees rest against the hard ground, and Smiley sprawls on his belly like a reconnaissance agent. What we see makes my heart race with excitement.

Half a dozen dirt bikes buzz around the landscape of The Badlands like angry wasps around their hive, kicking up plumes of dust behind their spinning tires. The riders spin in cyclone circles, sound roaring into the air. The speed! The noise! The excitement! I've got to get one of these machines!

The kid on the tallest bike brings his ride to a halt in the center of a bowl-shaped indentation between the hills. He stays on top of his bike, allowing the dust to clear before he kills the machine-gun sputtering of his bike's idling motor. He tugs off his helmet, tosses it on the ground beside him, and flips the mane of sweaty hair from his face. It is Devin Orff, the undisputed leader of the Bad Boys, sitting atop his stone-dented, mud-splattered Suzuki RM 250, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled up past his shoulders to reveal wiry muscles, which he manages to flex through the simple action of inhaling from a cigarette.

One by one, the other Bad Boys park their dirt bikes in a circle around him. They ride Hondas, Yamahas, and Suzukis with 125 cc engines. I suppose Devin gets to be the leader because his bike is a little bigger and a little faster than the others. The two huge Dobermans, which nip and snarl at each other at Devin's feet, probably also help to reinforce his position of leadership. Devin kicks one of the dogs, sending it yelping around to the other side of his bike.

“Knock it off, ya damn idiots!” Devin grunts at the dogs.

“Yeah, ya stupid mutts!” adds one of Devin's toadies, who kicks at the second dog.

Devin slowly levers his long right leg over the gas tank of his dirt bike, then takes two quick strides over to the kid who has just taken a boot at the second Doberman. He stares at him for a moment, then kicks the kid's bike over on top of him. The kid jumps to his feet, brushes the dirt off his hands, inspects the scrapes on his elbows, and struggles to pull his bike up off the ground.

“What the hell did you do that for?” the toadie whines, his voice cracking like someone who wants to cry, but knows he can't.

“Chopper ‘n' Slash are
my
dogs, dickwad. Only
I
get to discipline ‘em. They'd better be chewin' yer
balls
off before you ever touch ‘em. Get it?”

The kid looks down at his feet in the dust and says nothing.

“I asked you a question!” Devin rasps.

“Yeah, I got it,” the toadie mumbles.

One of the Dobermans lifts its nose in the air, toward the spot where Smiley and I are hiding behind the hill and begins barking furiously. The second dog joins in. Smiley scampers quickly down the hill into the shelter of the ravine.

“Hey, Devin! There's somebody spyin' on us!” calls a toady.

Following my little dog's wise example, I beat it down the hill. My heart is thumping in my throat as we hastily retreat home, but it isn't just because we nearly got caught spying on the Bad Boys. The sound, speed, and motion of those motorcycles ripping around The Badlands has touched something deep inside of me, a feeling of desire unlike anything I have ever felt before. It has created inside me a need for speed, power, and motion. I want one of those dirt bikes. I
need
one.

It is night, and I am listening from the top of the stairs as Mom and Dad argue furiously over whether or not I can spend my allowance money, which I have been saving since the third grade, on a dirt bike. Dad sees his boy suddenly wanting to do something “manly” without being forced into it, while Mom envisions me being smashed into a million pieces and scattered over The Badlands.

“He'll kill himself!” Mom wails. “Motorcycles are too dangerous for boys!”

“It will teach him to be responsible and cautious,” Dad counters. “Dozens of the other neighbourhood boys have got them.”

“He'll get into trouble!” Mom argues.

“It'll keep him
out
of trouble,” Dad reasons. “It's good, wholesome fun. He'll make new friends with the other boys who ride.”

“He'll knock his teeth out or break his arm!”

“It'll be good for him. He'll improve his hand-eye coordination. He'll get more fresh air.”

“He'll get hurt!”

“If he's careful, he won't.”

“Yes he will!”

“No, he won't. He'll learn to respect limits.”

“No, he won't. If that Evil Kneivel guy, who was a professional motorcycle rider, could break every bone in his body in a crash, Dak will break every bone in his body twice!”

“No, he won't.”

“Yes, he will!”

“No, he won't.”

Mom's voice shifts down a tone, the way it does when she is about to win an argument with some unassailable fact.

“Arthur, Dak can't walk across the yard without tripping. He couldn't
mow the lawn
without destroying the lawn tractor. And now you want to let him spend his
entire life's savings
on something that's almost as heavy as the lawn mower, but only has two wheels and goes
a
hundred times faster
?”

Intentionally missing Mom's point, Dad replies:

“He doesn't have to spend his life savings on it. I
want
him to have it.
I'll
buy it for him.”

Mom is silent. She is probably as shocked as I am. Normally, Mom practically has to hold a bazooka to Dad's head just to get him to buy himself a new pair of socks. If he is willing to fork out his own cash for my dirt bike, it's pretty clear just how much he wants me to have one.

My heart palpitates for the next two weeks as I await the delivery of my new ride. I bought some motorcycle magazines, and have begun to replace the
Star Wars
posters on my bedroom walls with pictures of dirt bikes. The anticipation is nearly killing me, but I can't ask my dad about it because I'm sure that he wants to surprise me. I wonder if he's going to buy me a Suzuki, or a Yamaha, or a Honda. I wonder if he's going to get me a 125, or a bigger 250, which I could “grow into.”

I eagerly do every chore Dad asks me to do, from trimming the hedges to sweeping the driveway to carrying dozens of heavy boxes of old
National Geographic
magazines from the basement to the attic, and then back again when Dad changes his mind. I know he's testing me, to see if I am truly worthy of a new dirt bike, and I am not going to falter. I wonder what colour my new motorcycle will be, and if he'll get me a full-out motocross racer, or an off-road/on-road enduro model.

Finally, after about a couple of weeks of raking, shovelling, carrying, and cleaning, the big moment arrives.

“C'mere, Dak,” Dad calls out from inside the garage, “there's something I want to show you.”

I drop the rake I've been working with and race across the yard with Smiley bouncing along behind me.

“What is it, Dad?”

“Well, Dak, you're getting older now, and it's time you had some additional things to be responsible for. You've been taking good care of your dog, and you've been doing your chores like a real soldier.”

I nod along, knowing from the introduction that this is going to be a bike that will shame even Devin Orff's enormous RM 250.

“Follow me, m'boy,” Dad says, and he leads me around behind the garage. With lots of ceremony, Dad pulls the tarpaulin off what I thought was a little stack of firewood, and there it is.

My jaw drops.

In front of me, at just above knee level, stands a battered old mini-bike about the right size for a six-year-old. It is a “Moto-Pup 33” — the “33” meaning that it has a thirty-three cc engine, which is less than one-seventh the size of the engine on Devin Orff's monstrous machine, much smaller than even his least worthy toadie's bike. It looks like a chainsaw with a girls' bicycle seat and two shopping cart wheels. Riding it around in The Badlands will be like trying to fight a squadron of F-16s with a Sopwith Pup biplane. The Bad Boys will run right over me, and over me, and over me again, until my bones and my tiny mini-bike are smashed into particles and ground into the earth.

“So, Sport,” Dad beams, “what do you think?”

“Wow, Dad, thanks!” I cry out, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “It's . . . unbelievable!”

“Well, then,” he says, “put on the helmet and let's see you take ‘er for a spin!”

The helmet. Oh, the helmet. It is covered in a leopard skin print with cartoony green animal eyes painted above the front visor, but the worst part is this: on either side of the helmet, in iridescent purple lettering, are the words ANIMAL WARRIOR. The Bad Boys will not just chase me out of The Badlands; they will kill me and put my skull on a stick as a warning to others who invade their turf.

“Come on, Dak,” he urges me, “go try it out!”

So I strap on the ridiculous helmet and sit down on the tiny bike that is so undersized my knees are practically in my armpits. I boot away at the surprisingly tight kick-starter, but the engine will not start. Dad tries to remain patient as he explains that the starter switch has to be in the “on” position before the engine will start, and sure enough, the little motor buzzes to life on the next kick. After stalling the engine a few times, I get the hang of easing the clutch out, and the little bike starts moving, buzzing along like an adrenalized snail.

I discover that the brakes aren't too good as I round the top of the first hill into The Badlands, and sail down the hill at some speed, gravity being more responsible for the mini-bike's velocity than its motor. For the first time since leaving our yard, Smiley had to break from a trot to a run to keep up with me. Since the little engine has so far struggled to pull itself over even the smallest hill, I avoid the steep ones that the Bad Boys had jumped their bikes over with such reckless abandon. Still, it's fun to be moving like this, and Smiley seems to be having a good time running along beside me. I start to laugh, and a bug flies into my mouth and buzzes against my larynx.