The Antagonist

9


07/01/09, 10:57 a.m.


WHAT YOU CAN'T ACCOUNT for, when you punch a person in the head, is how they are going to land. You can be as careful as you like. You can account for the fact that the man in front of you is a small man and you are a large man. You can pull your punches, always keeping in mind, however, that the small man is known to enjoy knives so it would be best for all concerned if you laid him out quickly and more or less completely. Also keeping an eye on the surrounding skeezer cohort, any one of whom may hurl themselves at you in wounded outrage the moment their beloved Mickster loses steam. So a single, decisive shot to the head is what’s required here. We want the Mickster down and out. We don’t want him reaching into his back pocket, signalling to one of his generals. We don’t want to prolong this process long enough, say, for Collie Chaisson to dash over to use the payphone at the Legion, give Mick’s friend Jeeves a call for example. We don’t want reinforcements, please god. The wrath of bikers, raining down on Icy Dream.

So we get this over with. And we don’t, we absolutely do not, give the little man bouncing around behind the glass his fun. We give him as little fun as possible — that is our eternal goal. Ditto the alky losers on the other side of the parking lot, hanging off one another in the doorway of the Legion, brandishing beers and smokes like cheerleaders’ pompoms.

The story of how we got to this point is stupid and — this is funny to say considering the freight-load of consequence it produced — inconsequential. That is to say, it doesn’t really matter how we got to this point. The point itself is what matters, the point of fist into face followed hard upon by head into pavement. The story leading up to that point is a story that could’ve lead up to nothing, or anything. It could’ve led up to me saying, “Croft, dude, buddy, seriously. Don’t pass around a hash pipe in our parking lot.” And Croft’s blue eyes lighting up with friendship and understanding. “Dude! For you? Anything.” And he and the boys restuff themselves into Croft’s toylike Ford Escort and away they trundle off to the drug den on Howe Street there to smoke and drink, crank the amps and play “Smoke on the Water” ’til their fingers tear open. That could just as easily have happened. I was a preferred customer after all. But no. Why? Guess why. Right.

Gord.

Yes, it has to be admitted, Croft threw down the gauntlet. He was a provocative little shit as I think I’ve already established, and a hair-trigger reactionary like my father was as catnip to him. There’s no question in my mind Croft wheeled his Escort into our parking lot that night looking for more than soft-serve and a place to smoke hash. This was a recreation for Croft and company — a field trip. This was like going to the park to play Frisbee.

It was a Friday night around eight o’clock when Chaisson wandered in. Not a bad opening gambit on Croft’s part, because Chaisson himself hadn’t done anything to explicitly offend my father except for chortle in Croft’s wake from time to time. He was Mick’s keychain — pure nonentity when he moved outside the outlaw circle. There was something dully universal about Chaisson in his ball cap, soft teenage waist spilling over his belt, face so obliterated by freckles you wondered how he could see through them all. He could’ve been any local doofus from any small town anywhere, stopping into the Icy Dream for a dollar sundae. Which is what he ordered when I moved to the till to intercept him.

Gord was in back washing trays, but not so far back he couldn’t have taken Chaisson in with the slightest turn of his head. I just had to hope that nonentity quality of Chaisson’s overwhelmed any association with Croft in my old man’s memory.

“Hey man,” said Chaisson, scratching his gut in a great show of nonchalance. Which caused me to glance immediately out the window and into the parking lot.

To see, of course, Croft leaning against his Escort, reaching over to hand a customer’s pipe back to him.

“Hot fudge sundae?” said Chaisson.

I turned back to him. “That it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna need you guys to take off out of the parking lot as soon as you get your food,” I told him.

Chaisson parted his freckled eyelids a little wider than usual and I got a glimpse of his weird burnt-orange irises, identical in colour to his hair. “Who?” he said, peering out the window. “I’m not even with those guys, man.” He had nowhere near the finesse of Croft when it came to this kind of bullshitting — didn’t come anywhere close to achieving the same sarcastic, fake-innocent flourish that Croft had long ago perfected. Chaisson just reached up under his T-shirt to scratch his belly more aggressively.

“Chaisson,” I said, leaning forward and speaking low. “F*ck off, okay? We ask once and then we call the cops. New policy.”

Before he could protest, I turned my back and went to make his sundae. The unfortunate thing about a fast-food franchise is that food prep happens in view of the counter. So you can’t secretly gob on a random a*shole’s sundae, for example, just before adding the hot fudge, should the spirit move you to do so.

Croft would’ve known I was full of shit about the cops, but I was hoping Chaisson wouldn’t. Croft had long ago intuited how much pleasure Gord derived from these encounters — that my father would never hand the fun off to the cops. That’s what kept Croft coming back — he’d found a new playground, complete with willing playmate.

I stuck a spoon into the bulge of ice cream and shoved the sundae across the counter at Chaisson.

“Go.”

“All right, man, Jesus,” said Chaisson, dipping his head to tongue the tip of his sundae like it was a nipple. His lips came up chocolated. He pawed a booklet of napkins out of the dispenser as I looked on in disgust.

Maybe I shouldn’t have made my disgust quite so manifest. Maybe that’s all it would’ve taken to defuse things.

As it stood, Chaisson shot me a look of resentment — a look of hurt feelings, almost — as he slouched out the door and into the parking lot, where Croft made a great show of having not seen him in ages. He spread his arms wide, welcoming his long-lost friend into his smoky circle.

I looked at the clock. 8:12. Forty-eight minutes ’til closing time. The restaurant was dead as it usually was at this hour and Gord had already begun cleanup. I could hear him wrestling with the inventory somewhere deep in the kitchen’s bowels. Good. I just had to make sure he stayed in back, away from the windows.

I was just about to turn and yell that I thought I’d get started mopping the floors out front when I noticed a blaze of ice-blue in my peripheral vision. I glanced out the window again and what do you know. Gord in his ID smock had appeared in the parking lot and was striding with great purpose toward Croft and his entourage.

He had taken the garbage out early, I suppose, and heard the voices, caught an acrid whiff of smoke. And what I should have done then was, I should have called Bill Hamm. He had left his card, and I had even made a point of scotch-taping it on the wall beside the phone. I should have proven Bill Hamm wrong, shown him what a good, law-abiding boy I was, proven once and for all exactly who the raving Rankin was in this establishment.

So why didn’t I?

Because I was only fifteen f*cking years old, Adam. I ran outside to help my father.

Things were already underway. The dicks out front at the Legion were silent and leaning toward us like pointer dogs on full-bodied alert. Chaisson was holding his sundae out before him, taking slow deliberate bites to demonstrate the unquestionability of his status as a food-buying patron of Icy Dream with therefore every right to be on the premises. Croft was smiling happily, leaning against the open door of his Escort and explaining to my father that he possessed every intention of going into the restaurant to place a food order, it was just that he had paused to speak with his good friend Collie Chaisson, who had recently emerged from doing same. Loitering, Sir? Wouldn’t think of it.

“And what about that goddamn smoke I’m smelling? What about illegal substances being consumed on my property?” demanded Gord — Gord who was pretty much one giant, pulsating tendon at that point.

“It must’ve been those guys who just left, Sir,” answered Croft, referring to the skids who had booked it at the sight of my father stalking toward them in his ice-blue smock and paper hat. Croft recently had switched to calling Gord “Sir,” when it became apparent the insincere use of the word drove him even crazier than “bud.”

“That’s not even the point,” I said as I jogged over to the group of them, taking my place in restraining-distance behind Gord. “The point is you’re banned, man. You’re not supposed to be here one way or another.”

“Dude!” appealed Croft. “I’m not still banned am I? Come on, I love this place. Best fries in town.”

“We’re within our rights to call the cops,” I said, before Gord could chime in. I wanted that information, that evocation, front and centre.

Croft spread his hands, smiling wider in mock disbelief. “For buying fries? You’re gonna call the cops because I wanna buy some fries?”

“Get your ass back in the restaurant, son,” said Gord to me, not taking his eyes off Croft. This directive, I knew, was pure showbiz. Gord had kicked off a routine, and I could only respond by rote.

“You go back in, Dad,” I said, “and call Constable Hamm.”

The first part of the sentence was dictated by our routine, the second of course was my own improvisation. He shot me an appreciative glance as if to say, Nice touch!

But he didn’t deviate from the script. “Get your ass back in there,” he repeated. “No one’s watching the till.”

“And someone’s gotta make my fries,” added Croft.

Cue Gord! Wrath mode! Uncontainable rage! He lunged, I restrained. It was downright boring at this point. Croft backed up, hands in the air, laughing, as I got my father’s swinging limbs under control.

“I will take that fryer and I will shove your pimply punk face in it,” Gord was saying, among other things. “Howya like your french fries then!”

“Inside,” I was saying. “Inside, back inside Gord, come on.”

But he just kept flailing and cursing and threatening, moving Croft and his cohort to new heights of merriment, and I knew he would keep it up until I returned to the script, until I delivered my big line. No improvisation would be broached at such a key moment.

“Dad,” I said. “Go back inside.” I felt Gord’s muscles slacken in anticipation — he could feel it coming.

“I’ll take care of this,” I said. Loud enough to be heard over the laughter, the cursing.

Everything stopped — the obligatory momentous pause. What a bunch of drama queens they all were. Gord went still, the perpetual skeezer laugh track warbled into silence, Croft’s wide, guffawing grin compressed itself into a soundless smile and he crossed his arms, waiting. Even though I was standing directly behind Gord, I could feel my father smiling back at Croft. Such fun the two of them were having. Gord shifted himself out of my grip, straightened his apron, adjusted his hat, and turned away without a word. Back into the restaurant where I knew he would station himself behind a window, nose practically against glass, and the phone would sit there on the wall behind the counter doing nothing.

Already the handful of drunks out front at the Legion had metastasized into an enthralled flock, beers moving toward mouths in slow motion.

At the last moment, I remembered to take off my hat.

“Let us go then, you and I,” said Mick Croft, pretty face beaming.



07/01/09, 11:12 p.m.

And where the hell did he get that?

I can assure you I almost crapped pants when I came across it five years later. Flipping through one of those massive, massively expensive intro readers they made us buy in undergrad English. Needless to say, it’s a line I’d never forgotten, being the last words I ever heard out of Mick Croft.

And there I am, Adam, there I am, jump ahead if you will to the time when we, when you and I, became acquainted with each other. I am alone and motherless and at university, I have drunk my own vomit in public, eaten posters off walls, inhaled raw frozen cow — what won’t I consume? — and very recently walked out of the locker room in the middle of a playoff game at the insincere behest of my coach who told me if I didn’t do what he wanted I could “walk away right now.” (I still relish the bug-eyed, juicy-veined full-facial flush it provoked when I stood up without even taking off my skates and did exactly that.) So I didn’t even have hockey — my one and only justification for being there — to ground me at that point. So there I am in the library, flipping through the anthology, having decided to “buckle down.” I knew I had it in me — I’d always been able to lock myself in a room for a couple of days, study like a madman and jack up a dwindling grade at the eleventh hour. I just had to lay off the purple Jesus for five minutes and crack a book. By Christ, I decided, if I couldn’t be a jock I would damn well prove myself a scholar — Tee hee! tinkled the celestial laughter.

And that’s when they hit me with it — the punch line to the elaborate practical joke the gods had set into motion that evening in the parking lot of Icy Dream. Do you remember that board game from the seventies, Mouse Trap? I got it for my birthday one year and it never worked, but in the realm of the metaphorical it functions as a pretty apt parallel for the course of my life from that moment in the parking lot to that moment in the library, bookended as it was by those seven words. The game features a series of random plastic doodads — a bathtub and a boot and a bucket, for example — all set up to interact with one another in frankly stupid and unlikely ways (the boot kicks the bucket, out of which falls the ball, which rolls down a ramp), and at the end of this rickety and dubious process, down comes the mouse trap.

So there they were glaring up from the page, Croft’s famous last words, emanating wave after wave of uncanny terror at me. Not to mention the creepshow pertinence of the lines that followed, as if someone — some malignant entity — had affixed a kind of psychic spigot directly into my past and let it drip, one word at a time, into the book. The patient etherized on the table, the night spread out against the sky, the tedious argument of insidious intent. The muttering retreats.

From your lips to God’s ear, Mickster.

It was like — well. You know what it was like, Adam? It was like a certain goose had walked over my grave.

That was the same day, by the way. That was the day I shoved my books into my bag, headed over to the house, announced my dismissal from the hockey team, ransacked Wade’s room for hash, dragged you out to the liquor store with me, came back with a great many beer and a few forties in tow, wondered where the hell Kyle had gotten to, drank and drank and drank, slowly began to peel from myself one bloody hank of flesh after another, carefully fed them to you like a mother bird feeding a chick, groaned like I was about to give birth to something, sweated and drank, watched your eyebrows rise and then descend, switched position, leaned forward, gave confession, found your hand against my head, went silent, lost words — rested.

“Let us go then, you and I,” said Croft.

I punched him in the head, and he went down.