Glass Boys
GLASS BOYS
NICOLE LUNDRIGAN
GLASS
     Â
BOYS
a novel
Douglas & McIntyre
D&M PUBLISHERS INC.
Toronto/Vancouver/Berkeley
Copyright © 2011 by Nicole Lundrigan
First U.S. edition 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit
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Douglas & McIntyre
An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver BC Canada
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www.douglas-mcintyre.com
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55365-797-2 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-55365-798-9 (ebook)
Editing by Barbara Berson
Cover design by Jessica Sullivan
Cover photographs by Peter Beavis/Stone+/Getty Images (top) and Chev Wilkinson/Stone/Getty Images (bottom)
Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
For my husband, Zoltán Deák
Contents
NO ONE IS chasing him, but the Glass boy's heart still pounds as he runs through the woods, soles of his canvas sneakers slapping the soft earth. When he reaches the other side of the forest he stops abruptly, removes his sneakers, steps onto a blanket of bright green grass. For a moment, he crouches to catch his breath, watches as a pair of pale cabbage moths flutter up from a dead stump. He hears a bird chirping, the branches moaning as they lift and fall in the breeze. The sun overhead is hot, and he closes his eyes, pulls a lungful of sweet air in through his nostrils.
Heaven,
he thinks.
This sliver of land just before the
water is my private heaven.
Using his hands to shade his eyes, he scans the woods, the visible length of the stream. He is alone, and he scampers to the edge, lays down on his stomach. Slides his arm over the grassy lip, and as his fingers wiggle through drowning roots, a handful of waiting tadpoles skitter and hide. He feels around. And for a moment, when he finds nothing, his heart strikes so loudly in his ears the sounds of the stream and bird and creaking trees sink. But then his hand knocks it. Hard and slippery. It's there. Grunting, he pulls the pickle jar from the water, heavy with the rock weighting it down. He notes it is intact, no rust on the lid, no evidence of water damage to the treasure inside. No sign that someone else has touched it.
After he dries the jar on his T-shirt, he looks around once again. Yes, yes. He is alone. Then he sits cross-legged on the grass, pinches the jar between his bare thighs, twists the lid with both hands. Even though he had washed the jar in hot suds, the faintest smell of vinegar still tweaks his nose. His breath is shallow as he reaches in, removes his tiny treasure. So valuable, but bought for only a handful of change.
He hauls a handkerchief from his pocket, blankets the rotting stump beside him, and examines each item before laying it down. Too much, now, to see everything at once. To have it all exposed, recklessly, where a gust could arrive without warning, pilfer a piece of his perfect puzzle, carry it off to someone who might destroy it. Hands shaking, he scoops them up, clutches them to his chest. Imagines, for a moment, they hear his blood moving through his veins.
Time folds, an hour dissolves, and the boy wonders if he might be missed. If the man might question his absence. He places the items in the jar, seals it. One last glimpse, his eyes, wide open, pressed to the heavy glass.
He is dizzy when he stands, and he nearly drops the jar on a flat rock. Even though he is still holding it close to his breastbone, he cannot help but see it smashed, a spray of glass, his collection scattered. The very thought makes his legs weak, and he does not trust them. Scrawny legs, even though he eats like a gannet. He shuffles, carefully, places the jar back into the stream, underneath the overhang of unkempt grass. The tadpoles are there again, grazing his knuckles with their quivering tails. Wanting him to stay and play. But he stands, whispers, “Not now, not now.”
He searches the woods for blinking eyes, listens for foot steps or hollering. He stares at the sky, expecting to see the man's shocked face pressing down through the clouds. He knows the man is everywhere. An almost God. With the swoop of an axe, he has witnessed the man choosing between life and death. Witnessed it more than once. Head of a piglet flying in one direction, pink body in the other. Tiny hooves on stick legs twitching, still trying to run away.
But there is nothing. Nothing, yet. And he coils his excitement and guilt, like a greasy spring, presses it down, locks the trapdoor inside his mind. He stuffs his feet into his sneakers, stiff fabric heel flattened, and for a good distance he walks backwards through the woods. Gazing at the spot where his secret is guarded. And he tells himself, as he watches the rippling water, that no one will ever know. No one will ever find it. No one will ever get hurt. Then he turns, runs towards home. Towards the farm. Towards his life with the man.
AS SOON AS the cloud of mud settles to the bottom, the tadpoles push through the water, and tap the glass. They are children still, barely limbs to stand on. Eyes like black beads, they see what's inside the pickle jar, and don't know to look away.
SOMETHING WAS STUCK down there, something decaying, and the sour smell sat in the sink, billowed up whenever Lewis turned the tap. Shining his flashlight into the hole, he saw a slick black lump just before the pipe curved, like an eyeball, blinking every time water dripped over it. He had poured a half quart of bleach into the drain, rinsed with hot water, but once the stench from that dispelled, the rot crept back. This was his brother's fault, he knew. Rather than scraping a plate, Roy would press the bits of fish and brewis, corner of bread down through the opening. Lewis had seen him do it. More than once. And now, he was going to have to take the pipes apart.
Wrench in hand, he slid underneath the sink, started to tap and twist. Something kicked at his leg, and he craned his neck, saw a pair of loose jeans, fabric cross-hatched with guts and grime. A pair of worn boots, tongues hanging out. He eased his head around the sink, edged out onto the floor. And there was Roy, standing there, his youthful face grinning, cigarette clamped in his shiny teeth, cheeks and nose burnt a deep red from the morning spent out jigging fish. Nellie, his dog, stood behind him, her wet snout jammed into the crease of fabric just behind Roy's knee, sniffing.
“You got to be a plumber now, too?” Roy said, smoke flickering as his lips moved.
“Stick your nose down the sink. You tell me what I got to be.”
Roy laughed, took a step backwards. “That I won't, then. You can have it.”
“Well, it reeks to high heavens.”
“I'm sure you'll put it to rights. Now, get your arse off the floor and come and have a drop with me.”
Lewis came to his feet, let the wrench drop onto the countertop, gestured towards Roy's hands, the two paper bags, twisted at the opening. “Where'd you get that?”
“Morley.”
Arms folded.
“Now don't you go getting all uppity. Morley made me swear you'd leave well enough alone.”
“He did, did he?”
Roy laid both bags on the table, stuck his smoke in an overflowing dessert dish, then crunched down the paper to reveal two label-less bottles, crystal liquid. Plucking one up, he ran a slow hand down over the glass. “Christ, what magic he don't do with a bucket of potato peel.”
“What else did he say?”
Bottle opened, Roy reached into an already open cupboard, retrieved two tumblers. “He says you should be keeping an eye on those vagrants wandering 'round. There's got to be some of those you can dog.”
“We don't got no vagrants 'round here.”
“Well, you know, you can make sure those lassies don't be wearing their skirts too long. Can we make that a law, Lew? Skirts no longer than,” he held his hands a foot apart, top to bottom, “no longer than that?”
“I don't think so, Roy.”
“Worth a shot, Constable Trench.” He winked, filled the glasses with swift practiced pours. “But seriously now, Lew-Lew, I was talking to the fellers just the other day when we was fixing the cribbing up under Morley's stage. And they're not all that keyed up about some young fart bringing change.”
“I can't help that.” A squirt of anxiety darted through Lewâis's stomach. He knew, even before Roy opened his mouth, that once he returned home, everything would be different. That the faults beneath his feet would shift, and he would be standing on new ground. His role in Knife's Point was clearly laid out, but the tactics he should employ were cloudy. Hard-nosed and they would hate him, laid-back and they would spin circles, until he was out there alongside them, salting the very fish they stole from the sea.
“You knows how the crowd was when the Ranger'd pass through.”
“Yeah.”
“And now, you. Having gotten the nod from some paper sorter up along. Not really much sense.”
“What do that mean?”
“That's their words, not mine.” Roy sat, legs straddling the back of the chair, and Nellie followed, lumbered underneath the table, turned and turned, flumped, lay her jowls on Roy's boot. In one fell swoop, he grabbed his glass from the table, emptied it into his mouth. Visual shudder, slishing sound through lips pulled back over pink gums. Nellie stirred, opened a single eye, tucked her muzzle underneath her paw. “Christ. That'd rip the hair off the rabbit,” he hissed. Fingers dove in around his scalp, pulling black curls.
Lewis smirked, took the chair across from him, laid his palms on the table. “Or, the rabbit off the hare.”
“Even better.” Roy knocked a glass towards Lewis. “Now, go on with you.” When Lewis hesitated, Roy looked upwards, growled playfully, “Christ Almighty, Lewdy-Lew. Don't be telling me you can't do nothing illegal in your own home. I means, if a growed man can't be breaking the law under his own roof, then where can he?”
“Shut your trap.”
“But you got to see what they're saying. Most of them knowed us now since we was youngsters. Pissing in the grass.”
“You're still pissing in the grass, Roy.”
“Yeah, yeah. They just don't want you counting snares or following moose around or telling them what sort of stuff they can or can't cook up in their cellars. Rushing in with your guns blazing.” Roy laughed, emptied his glass again. “That sort of thing.”
“Ah.” Lewis sighed.
One more go,
he thought as he looked at the temptation near his fingertips.
One more go before I settles
in.
Then he lifted the glass, dumped the works down his wide throat. Audible gulp. In only moments, once the shock glided out through his flesh, he sensed that familiar tickling, a door creaking open, cavernous thirst hiding below. Deep and difficult to get in under it. He tapped his glass for a refill. “I don't know, Roy, my son. I don't know.”