Depressed, he thought about how he came to be here, at the midpoint of his life, taking the optimistic view, or perhaps near the end of his life, taking the pessimistic view, staring at shredders in Staples. The theft of his identity had brought home to him that he seemed to have no identity worth mentioning.
He had no idea what he wanted. He had no idea who he was. He’d always treated life as something to be avoided, rather than embraced. Maybe that was why he felt so empty. This, for Harold, was an epiphany, a potentially life-changing moment, but his thoughts were interrupted.
“Can I help you?” asked a young girl who obviously worked there.
“I don’t think so,” Harold said glumly.
But she was persistent, and kind. “If it’s a shredder you want, I can tell you what the best deal is.”
He allowed himself to be helped to the most expensive shredder they sold—a heavy-duty model that would chew through just about anything. Feeling better now that he’d accomplished something, Harold carried the box up to the cash, admiring how well this teenager did her job. Maybe he’d been wrong not to insist that John get a part-time job. Maybe that was what he needed—to teach him some responsibility. And when Dylan turned sixteen, maybe he should work too. He and Audrey had both had part-time jobs in high school, and they’d turned out all right. But Audrey had been too concerned about their marks—it’s so much harder for kids today, she’d said—and what was the result? Neither one of them was going into rocket science.
“I can take you over here,” the girl said, opening up an empty cash register when she saw the lineups at the others. Harold read the name on the girl’s name tag and asked her, as she rang up his purchase, “Nula—if you don’t mind my asking—how are your marks in school?”
“Straight As,” she said matter-of-factly.
Harold had to wonder if he and Audrey had done anything right raising their kids.
• • •
EVER SINCE HE’D been grounded, John’s waking hours were spent falling behind on his homework, catching up on his TV programs, and thinking about Nicole. And now all he could think about was how he was going to sneak out of the house to meet her.
One thing he knew, he’d have to bribe Dylan to keep quiet. That wouldn’t be much of a problem because Dylan—John knew this from experience—was totally willing to be bribed. John would simply have to meet his price. So it was imperative that Dylan not see how important this was to him.
John slouched into his brother’s bedroom after school, where Dylan was lying on the bed with his hand in a bag of potato chips, reading a movie magazine. “I need a favour,” John said, leaning against Dylan’s desk, which had nothing on it but a basketball. Dylan didn’t do homework.
“What kind of a favour?”
“I need to go out tonight.” Dylan didn’t need to be reminded that John was grounded; he’d been making the most of it all week.
“What for?”
“Got a date.”
“Who with?”
“Someone hot, you don’t know her.”
“How’re you going to pull that off?” Dylan was eating his chips and leafing through his movie magazine, pretending he wasn’t interested.
“Like you don’t know.”
Dylan’s room had the only window on the second floor that you could climb out of to make the break for freedom. If it weren’t for this little detail, and if his parents didn’t usually sit in the living room as if guarding the front door every night till eleven—if he didn’t have to pay what amounted to a heavy toll to pass through Dylan’s room and out his window—John could actually have a life. His mother had probably thought she was doing him a favour by giving him, the eldest, the bigger room, but both boys knew which room was the prime real estate.
“Fifty,” Dylan stipulated at last.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” John scoffed. Dylan said nothing. “I don’t have that kind of money,” John insisted.
“You have your birthday money,” Dylan said.
“I spent it,” John lied.
“No you didn’t.”
How did Dylan know he hadn’t spent his birthday money? Why did Dylan always know everything? John weighed things in his mind very carefully and finally gave in, just as Dylan probably knew he would. “Just don’t ever ask me for anything,” he said with heat.
John left, returned and tossed two twenties and a ten on the bed, and went off in a huff.
Dylan threw himself back on his bed, his hands locked behind his head, and pondered his situation. He couldn’t understand why his parents were so against him being an actor. Their reasons seemed stupid to him. They wanted him to get an education—for what? So he could sweat in an office for thirty years like his dad? His mother was the real problem—all of her ideas about actors obviously came from the front pages of the tabloids at the checkout counter in the grocery store.
He’d be so good at it! He was so talented! Why couldn’t they see that? He’d already been approached by a talent agency—a scout just walked up to him, near the Eaton Centre, and told him he had the right look to make it in the acting business. But he needed to have a portfolio done, and it was expensive. After that, all he’d need was an agent, and maybe some acting classes. Other kids his age were making thousands in TV commercials, TV shows, even movies! He was way cooler than Aeden Cooper, who was in his class at school, and who had already made two commercials. If only he had Aeden Cooper’s parents.
Dylan had big plans. When he got his licence, he didn’t want to be asking his mom and dad if he could borrow the car, like John. He wanted his own car, the sportier the better.
The problem was that he was fifteen. If only he were older, nothing would hold him back. But any reputable agent required his parents’ consent to represent him, and they absolutely refused. They wouldn’t even discuss it anymore.
Still, that left the disreputable agents.
• • •
HAROLD WALKED IN the front door that night after work carrying a large box that contained a shredder, complete with wastebasket. Audrey had considered buying Harold a shredder for his forty-ninth birthday but thought that might be a little insensitive, considering. Still, they needed one, and she didn’t think he’d actually go out and get it himself. So she was pleasantly surprised when he arrived home with the new shredder. Well, she thought, that’s one less thing to do.
The boys watched him pull it out of the box and put it together in the living room while she got supper on the table. Harold plugged it in and Audrey came out of the kitchen to see. Harold was feeding through a piece of scrap paper. The machine made a loud, whirring, grinding sound, like a garbage disposal. Harold took the top off the wastebasket and they all peered inside at the nest of tiny, unreadable shreds of paper.
This could come in handy, Audrey thought.
“It’s like taking the weed whacker to a piece of paper,” Harold said, admiring the neat job the machine had done.
Later that evening, after supper, Harold was resting in his chair in the living room—head back and feet up on the footrest—while Audrey cleaned up in the kitchen and the boys played basketball in the driveway.
“I didn’t want to bother you at work,” his mother said, somewhere to his left. Harold went rigid in his reclining chair.
Damn. He should have insisted on helping Audrey in the kitchen.
Harold did not want to hear what his mother had to say to him. He wasn’t curious. He only wanted her to go away. He was determined to ignore her. If Harold had a totem, it would be the ostrich.
He clutched the arms of his chair and mentally stopped up his ears and took deep breaths and pretended she wasn’t there. But he was uneasy about ignoring the dead; that was usually when things went flying. He hoped desperately that dishes wouldn’t start smashing all over the house, because he didn’t think Audrey would take it in stride. However, his mum hadn’t been one to waste a scrap of waxed paper, much less a plate, and he didn’t think she could have changed
that much.
Harold was afraid of the dead. They were unpredictable, for one thing.
Fortunately, Audrey walked in from the kitchen holding the yellow ticket for John’s careless driving charge. “What are we going to do about this?” she said. “It can’t wait forever.”
Harold had noticed that his mother seemed to leave him alone whenever anyone else was around. So he eagerly motioned Audrey over and grabbed the ticket, peering at the faint writing. “I’ll call first thing tomorrow,” he said. As Audrey turned to go, he said, “You want to play cards?”
Audrey paused, surprised. “Okay.” Audrey loved to play cards.
Harold climbed out of his La-Z-Boy and padded over to the dining room table. Audrey got the cards out of the drawer of the sideboard. They sat down and Harold dealt. He was still nervous about his mother, but Audrey played cards with such intensity that with any luck she wouldn’t notice. Harold’s plan—although it wasn’t a formulated plan, it was more of an instinct or habit—was to ignore his mother for long enough that she’d simply give up and go away.
After a while Dylan and John came in from outside. John gave a wide, false yawn and said he thought he’d shower and go to bed early. Audrey and Harold, absorbed in their game, barely noticed; Dylan smirked and went downstairs to watch TV.
• • •
JOHN HAD USED this escape route before. He got grounded fairly regularly, usually for not meeting expectations in school or in other areas of his life, rather than for anything actively bad. Never for something as serious as smashing the car and getting drunk. Somehow he knew that if he was caught sneaking out now, it would be worse for him than it would have been if he’d been grounded for something less significant. So he was more nervous than usual as he stepped from the bathroom at the end of the hall and into Dylan’s room and lifted open the window, as quietly as he could. His own room was dark; he’d pulled shut the curtains and stuffed clothes under the blankets to simulate his sleeping body. He knew it wasn’t his mother’s habit to look in on them once they’d closed their doors for the night, or he would probably never have taken the chance, but it was best to be prepared.
He swung his leg out over the sill and ducked down underneath the window and pulled his other leg after him. He twisted his body and lowered the window behind him, leaving it open just an inch. He would have to come back this way—if his parents heard him coming from the direction of Dylan’s room they would assume he was using the bathroom. He could never sneak in the front door—his mother had the ears of a bat.
It was easy to grab the branch of the old maple tree—it was right there, no trouble at all. He worked his way down toward the fence, and from there dropped softly to the ground. He stood still for a moment, listening, then rubbed his hands on his jeans. He walked down the lane toward the front yard, cutting off to the side so his parents wouldn’t see him through the living room window.
He headed for the subway, Chester station, walking fast. Now when he tried to summon up Nicole’s face, he didn’t seem to be able to—maybe because he was nervous. He reminded himself not to talk too much. He was going to be cool and uncommunicative, and make her work at drawing him out—a girl like her would probably like that. He was wearing jeans, a sweater, and his leather jacket, and he had cash and condoms in his wallet. He hoped she’d take the lead, the way she had when they’d met—he remembered how she’d hiked up her skirt in the car and blown him a kiss, how she’d keyed herself into his cell phone—and told himself again that probably all he’d have to do was look cool and be sufficiently uncommunicative and she’d take care of the rest. Because if she didn’t, he didn’t know what the hell he’d do with a girl like her.
It wasn’t that he was inexperienced; he’d just never experienced anyone quite like her before. He knew this instinctively, even though he scarcely knew her at all.
He travelled west, then transferred and went north. He was early, which panicked him a little, but then he decided it was okay to be early; it showed a certain confidence. He slouched up against the wall outside the subway station, and when he saw her coming toward him he resisted the urge to stand up straight and go to meet her. Instead, he stayed there against the wall in the dark watching her, and made her come to him. And the way she did it—like she was entering into this game with him, like they were in some cool film noir—enthralled him. He was enthralled—with her, but also with himself. What he felt was power. He had the power to make this very attractive girl come to him. How was it possible? He was a kid; he had parents, teachers, homework. This girl, coming up to him in the dark, made him feel like someone else, and he knew already that he wouldn’t be able to get enough of her.
• • •
WHILE JOHN WAS out and his parents were playing cards, Dylan got on the computer in the basement to chat with his friends and noticed that the settings were a bit different; someone had been using it. He checked the drop down box at the top of the screen that showed him the most recently accessed websites, the word ecstasy leapt out at him, and he knew he’d been busted. He started to freak, and then he noticed all the paternity test sites. He went through them all, riveted to the screen, completely motionless except for his mouse hand.
Now that was really interesting.
• • •
IN THE DINING room, Audrey got up and went to the kitchen to make tea, leaving Harold alone shuffling the cards. He methodically shuffled and then cut the cards. He put them down neatly in the centre of the table and got up and went to help Audrey bring in the tea things. He heard a fluttering sound behind him and looked back and saw the cards tossing themselves in the air.
It was his mother, playing 52 Pick-up.
Harold turned back and tried to grab the cards out of the air as they fell. Then he was on his knees, snatching them up off the floor, when there was an unexpected knock at the front door. Harold’s head shot up. Audrey came out of the kitchen on her way to answer it and glanced at Harold kneeling on the floor surrounded by the cards as she walked by.
“Who could that be, at this hour?” she wondered out loud.
Anyone, at this hour—it was almost eleven—was a surprise, and most surprises, in Audrey and Harold’s books, were unwelcome. So it was with some trepidation that Audrey opened the front door. Seeing only Mrs. Kushner from across the street standing there was a relief.
“Mrs. Kushner,” Audrey said. “What can we do for you?”
Harold came up behind her looking like he’d seen a ghost. “It’s just Mrs. Kushner,” Audrey said to him over her shoulder.
Harold looked at his elderly neighbour hunched on the front porch, swathed in her black trench coat, her scrawny, birdlike legs above clumsy slip-on shoes, and thought of Poe’s raven. He looked at her less kindly and less indulgently than Audrey, remembering how she’d watched him haul John into the house in his underwear. Busybody, Harold thought.
Osteoporosis, Audrey thought, as she did every time she saw Mrs. Kushner.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the old woman said in her slow, unsteady voice.
“No bother,” Audrey said, wondering what was up. Was this going to be a quick favour, so they could get back to their cards, or should she offer tea? Since it was already made, and since Audrey believed in good manners (and because there was a long, awkward pause where Mrs. Kushner didn’t get to the point) Audrey said, “Would you like some tea? I’ve just made some. It’s decaffeinated.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Kushner looked doubtful. But she didn’t go home, so Harold took her coat and she proceeded in her peculiar, impeded gait, sat down on the living room couch, and looked up at them as if from under an overhang.
Audrey went off to get the tea. Harold stood there awkwardly for a minute and then fled to the kitchen to help Audrey.
“What the hell does she want?” he whispered.
“I have no idea,” Audrey whispered back. “Maybe she’s lonely.”
Dylan surfaced to see who was there, then retreated back downstairs to the ba
sement.
Audrey and Harold returned to the living room and Audrey set the tray down on the coffee table.
“This is probably none of my business,” Mrs. Kushner began. Audrey poured the tea, spilling some. Harold sat in his chair across from the couch, one eye on the old bird, and one eye on the deck of cards he’d put back on the dining room table beyond.
“What?” Audrey said.
“I know,” Mrs. Kushner said apologetically, “that there are challenges facing parents today that didn’t exist when I was raising my five sons—”
Here we go, thought Harold, she was probably in the temperance movement as a girl.
They waited for her to continue, but she seemed reluctant to go on.
“What?” Audrey repeated.
“—Well, I saw your oldest boy climb out the window and go down the street a little while ago,” Mrs. Kushner said.
Harold stood up.
“Maybe I shouldn’t interfere, but I—”
Harold charged up the stairs on his way to John’s room, leaving Audrey and the old crow staring after him. He flung open the door, saw the bulky shape beneath the covers and turned on the light, already knowing what he would find. He wrenched back the covers and saw the bundles of clothes where his oldest boy should have been.
How complicated the human heart, to feel equal measures of anger, love, and fear at the same time.
• • •
NOW AUDREY AND Harold were doing good cop, bad cop in the kitchen. Mrs. Kushner had been hastily thanked—politely, but not warmly, because she was the bearer of bad news—and hustled out the front door as fast as civility and her stoop would allow.
Dylan was in one of the kitchen chairs; his arms weren’t bound with duct tape or anything, but he was held in place by the wildness in his father’s eyes. Harold was interrogating him about John sneaking out the window—Dylan’s window. Audrey was fluttering in the background, as if she was afraid Harold would blow a gasket. Dylan was pretending he was playing a scene in a movie.