Living with the hawk (5 page)

I knew what it must be like. A few hours before I'd watched the girl in the red sweater throwing up in Fosters' back yard, my hand on her back, patting her, trying to comfort her. My hand wet with urine.

After everyone had disappeared into the house, I'd squatted down beside her, seen that the grass around her face was already stained with vomit. She must've been throwing up before she passed out. I reached for her, touched her shoulder.

“Are you — okay?” Stupid question. She was anything but okay.

No answer. I gave her shoulder a little squeeze, felt her begin to stir. Then she hunched up beneath my hand, a long moan, and she was throwing up again, her body wrung with what I could only call convulsions. I had to do something here.

“What the hell is this?”

When I looked up, I recognized the dark hulk of Ivan Buchko on the back porch. He jumped down and strode toward us, his step quick and purposeful, and I thought, he isn't drunk, maybe he can help me.

“She's awful sick,” I said. “We need to get her home.”

“Man, she pissed herself.”

I hesitated. “Yeah, I guess so.” I couldn't tell him — heck, I could hardly believe it myself. “You got a car?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I'm not taking her like that.”

She had quit throwing up now, but she started to cry, sobs and hiccups mixed together, her body shaking on the grass.

“We can't just leave her here.”

Ivan crouched beside us. She was still crying, but she had her hands up by her shoulders now, trying to lift her head from the vomit. “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe we could wrap her up in something.”

“I got an idea. Stay with her. I'll be right back.” I ran for the house.

It took a while pushing through the drunks to find Joan, but she showed me where to look, the second shelf on the landing, and then I was running back across the lawn, my fingers digging at the bag, getting it open, the orange garbage bag flaring out, filling with air as I ran. “We can get her into this,” I said. “She won't mess up your car then.”

“Okay, yeah.”

I knelt at her feet, started to work the bag up her legs, over her wet jeans.

“Wait.” He reached down, got his arms under hers, heaved her to her feet, lifted her into the air. “Shit,” he said, “she's wet all over. Soaked.” But it was easy now. I pulled the bag up and around her, right up to her arm pits.

“I can help you carry her.”

“No. Just steady her.” He lowered her till the bag hit the ground, me grabbing her shoulders, holding her upright; then with one arm still beneath her armpit, he got the other arm behind her knees and lifted her, stepped away.

“You sure you can manage?”

“Hell yes. Get the gate, will you?”

I started toward the side of the house.

“The back gate, car's in the alley.” He began walking, his legs wide apart, her head flopping over his arm. When we got to the car —it was an old Ford, his own car, I guess — he laid her against the trunk, held her there with one hand while he dug in his pocket with the other, fished out the keys. He handed them to me and I opened the back door. Then he lifted her again, turned her around and set her feet on the ground beside the door. As soon as he had her bum on the seat, he dropped her, and she fell backwards, her head bouncing once, something like a snort or a belch erupting from her open mouth as she landed. I lifted her feet into the car and swung the door shut. Handed Ivan the keys. He strode around to the driver's side, opened the front door, turned back to me.

“You get in there with her,” he said. “We ain't going nowhere till you shove her head out the window.”

I ran around the car, slid in beside her, forced my hands under her, lifting, and pushed her against the window. Held her there and reached across her to get the window open, but Ivan had hit a button, the window purring down. I turned her shoulders, leaned against her, got her head out the window. Ivan drove slowly down the alley. “Where we going?” he said.

“Jeez, I don't know.” I didn't even know her name.

“For Christ's sakes, ask her where she lives.”

I gave her a shake. “Where do you live?”

A snort that turned into a moan. She was too far gone to answer.

“Come on. What's your address.?”

No response.

“Shit! What am I s'posed to do?” He glared at me in the rearview mirror.

“Maybe if we keep going, cold air on her face, that might do it.”

“Fat chance.”

I got my arm around her, my hand under her chin, turned her face into the wind as the car bounced out of the alley, picking up speed on the pavement. I felt her chin move in my hand.

“Chew doin'?”

“Where do you live?”

“Leggo me.”

“What's your address?”

She mumbled something I couldn't hear, but at least she was talking.

“What?” I slid against her, trying to get my ear closer to her mouth.

I could make out most of it, the words slurred, running together.

“I think she said Avon Drive. Something like that. Twenty-two, for sure.”

“Must mean Avord Drive. We'll try that.” I was pitched back against her as he swung the car around, making a U-turn in the middle of the block.

“Ohhh! Off-a-me.”

“You keep her head out that bloody window.”

I was as gentle as I could be, but I held her head out the window till we turned onto Avord Drive, pulling up at a bungalow, the only house in the block with its front light still on. Sure enough, it was number twenty-two.

“Okay. Get her the hell out.”

She had her elbows on the doorframe now, her chin cupped in her hands. I went around to her side of the car, lifted her chin and pulled the door open.

“You think you can walk?”

“Feeter tiedup.”

“No, you're in a garbage bag.”

“Wha . . . ?”

I reached for her feet and lifted them out of the car, pulled her upright. She flopped back against the doorframe.

“Ivan, I think I need a hand.”

“No way!” He cranked his head around toward me, but he didn't open the door. “This was your idea, you get her up to the house.”

I grabbed the top of the garbage bag, pulled it down, the acid smell of urine stronger now than that of vomit. When she started to lean, sliding sideways toward the trunk, I ducked under her arm, pulled it over my shoulders, wrapped my other arm around her back, and stepped away from the car. She had no choice but to come with me. Her right foot caught in the garbage bag, and I had to force the bag down with my foot, at the same time jerking her away from it. I got her started up the sidewalk then — she wasn't as heavy as I thought she'd be, must've been carrying most of her own weight — and once we were moving, instinct took over, she began picking up her feet, shoving them ahead. Still, the porch light was a long way off.

It was crazy, but with her dragging along against me, I noticed the peonies beside the front porch, and I thought, if they were still in bloom, maybe that would be enough to mask the smell, but they were shrivelled, wasted, their blossoms blown away weeks ago. They looked like old men with shrunken heads, mummified sentinels from an ancient army, left on guard beside a door where there was nothing left to defend. I felt her arm begin to slip from my shoulder.

The door swung violently open, the peonies caught in the sudden breeze, leaning away from the door, as if something awful was coming, something they didn't want to see.

A big man filled the doorway, hair tousled, rumpled grey pyjama top, blue jeans, his mouth twisted in a frown. I stopped when I saw him, almost dropped the girl. He charged toward us, staring at his daughter, a low moan in the air, hers, I thought, but then I saw the way his mouth had fallen open and knew the moan was his.

He reached for her — no, a fist, I tried to back away, but I couldn't let her fall, it caught me high on the cheek, hard as a rock on the side of my face, sparks in my vision, but I managed to turn, swung her between us.

“Bastard!” The word like a cry wrenched from a pet struck by its master.

“Hey!” I heard a car door slam, saw Ivan, a dark hulk at the curb, wavering, my eye filled with tears. “For Christ's sakes, he's trying to help.”

A sudden hand on my arm, a claw, yanking me away from her. He held her with the other hand, steadied her against his hip, kicked out at me, but I jumped back, the blow just grazing my shin. When I looked down, I saw that he was wearing brown slippers, his pyjama cuffs sticking out from underneath his jeans.

“Get the hell out of here.” His voice fierce, but human now. “I ever see you again, I'll kill you.”

I backed away, turned and ran for the car.

Ivan jumped inside, leaned across the front seat and shoved the door open. “Shit,” he said, “I think you better get yourself a new girlfriend.”

“She's not my girlfriend.” My eye stinging. I couldn't tell if he was joking. “I never saw her before.”

He roared away from the curb, tires screaming. “Shit, man, I thought he was going to kill you.”

“Me too.” I put my hand on the side of my face, the whole side throbbing.

“Better take you home.”

I started to give him the address, then realized he'd often dropped my brother off, he knew exactly where to go. I sat there, my fingers just touching my cheek, wondering what it looked like. My eye hurt.

Ivan drove through silent streets, both hands on the wheel, no longer speeding, nothing more to say. When he pulled up in front of my house, he turned toward me, patted me once on the shoulder, but he did have another comment.

“That girl,” he said, “I don't think she peed herself.”

I was already out the door, starting toward the dark house — thank God, my parents were in bed — but I had to stop and speak to him. “Jeez, I don't know, don't know what was going on there.”

T
HREE

S
unday morning at the Russell house was not a time to sleep in. My mother liked to cook a big breakfast, pancakes and bacon usually, while my father went over his sermon one last time in the den. Of course, my brother and I were expected to be up and ready to leave for church when our parents left. That morning, I wondered if my brother would make it. They'd certainly know what happened — my father had heard him, in the bathroom, honking his guts out half the night. Sure, he might've gone in there thinking Blake was sick, but right away he had to know what was really wrong. Maybe, in all that uproar, they'd forget that I had missed my curfew too. I might just get lucky.

As soon as I got into the bathroom, I checked the mirror. Swelling above my cheekbone, the flesh around my left eye a collage of black and blue, a tinge of yellow running through the black, as if some crazy abstract artist had worked it over with a paintbrush. I laid my fingers against the skin. It was tender all right, but it didn't hurt unless I touched it. What was I going to do?

I stayed in the shower a long time, just standing there, the water washing over me, the heat working through me. Maybe it would help my eye, take the swelling down a bit, make the colour fade. Sure, and I used to believe in the tooth fairy too.

When I stepped out of the shower, the bathroom was filled with steam. I could hardly see the towel hanging on the rack. Even after I'd dried myself off, the mirror was fogged up. I wiped it down with the towel, but my face looked exactly the same.

I swung the mirror open, studied the shelves behind it. Toothpaste, shaving cream, after shave lotion, a bottle of perfume, four kinds of deodorant, rubbing alcohol, talcum powder — that might work. I hauled it out, twisted the cap, shook powder into the palm of my hand, ran my fingers through it, began to daub it on the skin around my eye. I turned my head, and leaned toward the mirror. The colours were still there, a lot paler now, kind of sickly looking, but at least they no longer shone.

It might work; it was worth a try.

I got dressed, slacks and a good shirt — I wasn't required to wear a tie — and went down to breakfast.

I sidled into the kitchen, my left side away from my mother who said, “Morning, Blair,” and bent to the oven where the pancakes would be warming. My father must still be in the den. I sat in Blake's chair, where the left side of my face would be hidden from my mother. Maybe, if I ate fast enough, I'd be finished before my father came down to eat. When my mother brought the pancakes, I tilted my head away from her while she slid them onto my plate. I could feel her looking at me.

“Stiff neck this morning?”

“What? Oh, yeah, must've slept crooked.” I slapped on the butter, poured the syrup.

“You were late getting in.”

“I guess I was.” Apologize — that was the best approach. “I'm sorry.”

“You know about Blake?” she asked.

Before I could answer, I heard footsteps, my father coming down the stairs, and I got my left hand up against my face, started to shovel in the food.

“What happened to you?”

I knew he didn't mean my mother. I looked up at him. He had stopped halfway to the table, a puzzled expression on his face. I was so stupid, so worried about covering up my shiner, I hadn't given a thought to what I ought to say. Didn't have a thing ready. And a fossil, frozen in a rock, could do a better job of improvising.

“I . . . I got hit.”

“Who hit you?”

“Some guy — I don't know his name.”

My mother almost ran around behind me, bending down to peer at my face. She reached to stroke it, but then her fingers wavered. “Oh, Blair,” she said, “does it hurt?”

I shook my head.

“You were in a fight.” My father too was shaking his head, as if this was somehow beyond his comprehension. I looked down at my breakfast, pancakes soaked and cooling in a slough of syrup, a gob of butter congealing at the edge of a limp pancake. What could I tell him — that Blake had pissed on a girl and I'd been hammered by her ol' man?