Kicking the Sky (28 page)

They helped Ricky to the cruiser. Before he got in, he looked up at his house, dropped his eyes to meet mine and Manny’s, and then he was gone.

Of Monster
^s
and Men

“
It’ll be nice, you know. I’ll be looking at the stars, too. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out water for me to drink …
”

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

“Y
OU HAD ANOTHER
nightmare last night,” Terri said as she straddled my chest.

“Just hurry!” I lay flat on the living-room carpet.

“What’s screwing with your head that you can’t sleep?”

“None of your business.” I squirmed to adjust the way she sat on me.

“It is my business when you keep me awake all night.”

I tried to get up on my elbows, but her weight held me down. “We had a deal, so just let me do this.” She held her mascara wand above my eyes.

Saturday Night Fever
spun on the turntable and was set to repeat. Terri dipped the wand in the tube, then brought it to my eye and rolled it up and through. She bit her tongue at the corner of her mouth.

“Get off of me!”

“You want me to make that call to school? Telling them you’re not well?”

I had planned to play hooky and head over to Old City Hall for the beginning of the Emanuel Jaques murder trial. But everything had changed, and now I was going downtown to find Ricky at the courthouses. I didn’t expect Terri to be home studying for her high school exams. The school secretary might call home or try to catch my mother at work, and if she did call my mother at work, my mother would call
me at home and I’d have to lie and tell her I was in bed because I wasn’t feeling well. My mother might come home and that’s why it was better to let my sister call the school and nip it in the bud.

“Just hurry!” I said, finding it more difficult to breathe from the pressure as she leaned in to swoop at my other eyelashes.

“Such a pretty boy. You need to accentuate your long lashes.”

This wasn’t the first time she had done this to me, but it had been a while and I was getting too old for it. She had me by the balls, though; I needed her help.

I looked into her face. It was round, like my father’s, and you could barely make out her light eyebrows and eyelashes, and no matter what she did to her hair—home perms, washing it with eggs, molasses, or beer—it always looked limp and fine.

“Ricky won’t be there,” she said, reading my mind. “They don’t put kids in the slammer with adults.”

“I need to know if he’s okay.”

“It’s called patricide, you know. When a kid kills his father. I’m studying for my English exam. It’s what Zeus did to his father, Cronus.”

“I don’t care what it’s called. It’s not his fault.”

“It’s what lots of kids think of doing but you never tell anyone or they’ll lock you up in the mental hospital.”

“Enough! I gotta go.”

Every time she leaned in for another pass at my eyelashes, the pressure on my chest increased.

“Zeus wanted power and control so he killed his father. It’s what men do when they have no power. I know, I know, Ricky didn’t want power. He’s not like you and your pal Manny.”

“You’re nuts!”

“If I tell you something, you promise not to tell?” She didn’t wait for a yes. “I’m going to get away from here. Soon. I wasn’t meant to live in a box. Edite says so. I’m going to New York. I’m going to be a dancer.” She had a fire in her eyes that made me believe her.

“Dad’ll kill you.” I squirmed into a better position to throw her off me.

“You ask me, I think Ricky’s dad had it coming to him. I saw her, you know,” she added. My sister smiled as if the information was delicious.

“Who?”

“Agnes. Late one night, crossing the street from her house and going into the lane.”

“So?”

“Where’s the baby?”

I tried to look relaxed. I knew the question would come up sooner or later, and I had practised what I would say when it did. But I stammered and then thought it was best just to shut up.

“She had the baby, didn’t she?”

I had been holding on to the secret for so long I thought I was going to burst. I puffed out my cheeks to pop my ears.

“Did she give it away for adoption?” I could tell the tears were building.

“Ask Agnes,” I blurted.

“I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”

“Or why don’t you ask Edite. She tells you everything.”

“Edite’s been a bit weird lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“For starters she looks like crap,” Terri said.

“Once she finds Johnny—”

“There is no Johnny, stupid. Now hold still.” Terri gripped my jaw while taking another swipe at my eyelashes. “Long and thick.”

“What do you mean about Johnny?” I said.

“You don’t know?”

“Get off me!”

“I thought you knew. He’s dead. He was killed in Vietnam. I heard Mãe and Edite talking about him ages ago. Around the time Emanuel was murdered.”

“That’s bullshit.” My heart pounded and the blood swooshed between my ears. Another lie. I was so stupid.

“I got to tell you, brother, you may have gotten the eyelashes but thank God I got the brains.”

“Are we done?”

“Maycomb had nothing to fear but fear itself.”

“What the hell—”

“
To Kill a Mockingbird.
”

Terri took three or four pumps of the tube before she dropped the gooey brush on my eyelashes. They were so heavy with goop, they almost stuck together.

“Edite snooped around, called some of her contacts at 52 Division, and word is they’re not going to charge Ricky. It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, you know.”

“Where is he, then?” I stopped moving. Why didn’t Edite tell me where they were holding him? He was
my
friend.

“They found his mom back in São Miguel. He’s going to live with her.”

“When?”

Terri sat back, admiring her work.

I scrambled to stand up, knocking Terri onto the carpet.
She twisted to a sitting position, placed the wand back into the tube, and screwed it tight. “I’ll call the school,” she said. “You’d better go.”

Manny wasn’t in James’s garage. I saw a hash pipe on the kitchen table, next to an ashtray. The sweet odour of tar was in the air. I waved my hand over the stubbed cigarette butts. They were still warm. I knew Manny was doing deliveries for James near Vanauley Walk and the Project area. Diversification, James called it, ever since bike season ended. I didn’t know what the hell he meant. All I knew was that Manny didn’t deal with any money, only with a list of addresses he would visit and drop little brown bags into mailboxes. James did the collecting.

I found myself at Senhora Gloria’s house, crouching outside Agnes’s basement window. Before I went to the courthouse, I wanted to be the one to tell Agnes about Ricky. Through the lace curtains I could see her, limp and rubbery in James’s arms. He wore an ESSO suit with a sweater that was too small. His roughed-up construction boots poked out from the hem of his pants. He was dancing with her. But he was the only one dancing. They were moving slowly in circles as Agnes’s toes dragged across the floor. He kissed her forehead. The strip of fluorescent light bulbs caught the scar that lined his jawbone. He was crying.

I slapped the window, the pain shooting up the heel of my hand. Agnes did not flinch. James turned and looked straight at me.

I took off through the lanes. I thought of going to see Edite first, but she had lied to me about Johnny. I knew I couldn’t
count on her anymore. No one paid attention to me as I ran. I ran hard and the snot began to freeze on my upper lip. I hopped onto the road because it was salted. Most of the cars swung wide around me but a few came close to sideswiping me, forcing me back onto the sidewalk.

I pushed through the large doors of Old City Hall and ran up the marble steps. I rubbed heat into my thighs.

I wasn’t sure where to begin. Who could tell me where Ricky was being held? I needed Manny. I could have used his no-nonsense questions, as if he was owed answers and they better give them to him.

“Could you help me, please?” I grabbed the sleeve of the first cop I saw coming down the stairs.

“You lost, son?” he said.

“I want to see my friend, Ricky Mendonça. Can you bring me to him?” I sounded like a helpless six-year-old.

“You a hustler, kid?” he said.

“No, sir.”

He squatted in front of me and raised his thumb to my cheek. I flinched back, wouldn’t let him touch me. “You usually wear mascara?” he said. A lump built up in my throat and it hurt when I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say or do.

He stood up. “Follow me.”

We walked down the wide corridors. There were people everywhere, walking or sitting on benches or being dragged through the hall; a girl being tugged by her mother whose arms were covered in cigarette burns like polka dots; tall men grew taller dressed as women with glitter platform heels and big hair, their skin smooth and nails long and painted; drunks flopped their heads down between their knees; small clubs of what
looked like Chinese store owners yelled at men in suits who were trying to explain things to them, their lawyers, I thought. People wearing thick boots slapped down the slush they had trailed in. The wet wasn’t allowed to stay on the floor for long—men were at work with their mops, swirling piney disinfectant. The janitors were all Portuguese, I could tell. It was more than their complexion or the way their jaws jutted out slightly. Their hands bore the five-dot tattoo. Those who served in the army in Africa, in Angola or Mozambique—the blood bath, my uncle Clemente called it—all sported the five blue dots tattooed on their hands, near the webbing between their thumbs and pointer fingers. Five dots for the five wounds inflicted upon Jesus during the crucifixion.

The cop led me up to a door with a window of frosted glass. It was like in the movies, the door that reads
Private Investigator
. I expected to see the silhouette of a man in a fedora on the other side, smoking. But the room was simply a lounge painted minty green.

“Sit down, son. I’ll get you some water.”

I heard the gurgle from the big water jug, and I allowed myself to fall back into the couch and close my eyes.

“Is Ricky Mendonça here? You brought him in yesterday.”

“You’re burning up, kid.” I was too weak to swipe his hand away from my forehead.

“He lives on Markham Street, his father fell down—”

“The Portuguese boy? He’s gone, son. They’re flying him home.”

I got up and reached the door. My chest felt like it was going to collapse. I could feel the tears pinching at my cheeks.

“Hold up there, buddy. I’m giving you a ride home.”

I opened the door.

“What school do you go to? Where do you live?”

I don’t know how I made my way out of Old City Hall, how I fought past all the people in the hallways, the shouting, large light fixtures that guided me out through the marble halls and past the fancy iron railing onto the front steps, out into the cold. I didn’t care about being seen crying; no one knew me. I crossed Bay Street and went over to the subway grates in front of Nathan Phillips Square. The last time I’d stood on the same spot was the afternoon of the rally in August. A blast of warm air filled my jacket, puffed me up like a balloon. If only I could lift off with a gust of wind from the subway vents, strong enough that I could latch on to a plane’s belly and fly all the way to the Azores where my mother said it was always warm and green and where I could be with Ricky.

I faced the new City Hall. On the other side of the skating rink, I caught the flash of a red scarf. I used my sleeve to swipe my tears and snot.

“Adam?” I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Adam!” He did not turn. I ran, pushed through all the people putting on skates or lining up for hot chocolate. This is where he once worked, City Hall library. It had to be Adam and he was alive. The speck of red reappeared every so often. It was like the movie they showed us at school,
The Red Balloon
, where the boy makes friends with a red balloon and then follows it on its journey. Adam let me call him by his first name. He’d help me make sense of everything.