Without warning the boat leaped off the ice and landed hard a dozen yards later.
“What the heck was that?” I asked.
Tommy shrugged. “Pressure crack. The wind and the currents cause the ice to shift. They cause a ridge to form and they’re hard to see at night. No worry unless the winds open the ice and we fall through a hole.”
“Can you swim?” Ed asked me.
“Yes.”
“Too bad,” Ed said. “That water’s so cold that if we fell in we’d be dead in less than a minute, anyway.” Both he and Tommy laughed.
Yes, I thought, crazy was definitely a good thing to be on this contraption.
The easternmost island, Ward’s, suddenly loomed very close. That meant we had crossed half a mile of ice in a matter of seconds. Tommy turned the tiller bar hard, and the boat swung with a spray of ice and creaking wood. The thick wooden beam that ran along the bottom of the sail swung straight at us like a huge baseball bat. It stopped just inches from my face. Tommy and Ed ducked without even appearing to think about it and began pulling ropes and readjusting the sail. In a few more seconds we were heading back toward the city.
“Switch sides, Bertie,” Ed said. “You’re slowing us down.”
Carefully, I ducked under the beam and sat on the opposite side of the boat.
“Where do you live?” Tommy asked.
“Over by the old fort. But the wind’s going the wrong way. We’ll never get there.”
“Not a problem,” Tommy said as he turned the craft west. Now the wind was almost against us.
The boat appeared to be moving even faster. We hit a few more pressure ridges, only this time we seemed to barely feel them. We just sailed over the gaps. The wind was hitting our sail from the left, making the left forward runner occasionally lift off the ice.
“Hang on and c’mon up,” Ed said as he stood and started moving forward on the boat.
“What?” I asked.
“C’mon. Let’s see what the old girl will do tonight.”
Following Ed’s lead, I stood. Just two feet below, the ice continued to roll past faster than a horse could run. Ed was already halfway up the boat. Looking from above, an iceboat was constructed like a cross. At the bottom of the cross was the small platform where Tommy, Ed, and I had been sitting. Where the platform ended, all there was to stand on was a wooden beam about ten inches wide. It led to the front where an even thinner crossbeam went out about ten feet on either side. That was where the mast also rose. The sail billowed out to the right. Clinging to a skinny rope, I inched forward one baby step at a time until I reached the crossbeam. Ed was already out on the left crossbeam, holding on to another skinny rope that ran from the boat’s left blade to the top of the mast. I felt as if I were the bravest guy in the world just getting as far forward as the mast.
Bang! We hit another pressure crack. My head bumped hard against the mast. I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see an empty space where Ed had been standing, but he was still there, leaning back with his legs flexed.
“C’mon, Bertie!” Ed called “Best ride in the country!”
I glanced down.
“Don’t look down,” Ed immediately said.
“Just grab the rope and step out!” Tommy called from behind.
My legs felt like jelly. As skinny as that main beam was, it seemed like a boardwalk compared to the crossbeam. But if Ed could do it, so could I. With my left hand I reached up and grabbed the rope that ran from the mast to the runner. With my left foot I groped about until I felt the side beam underneath me. Gingerly, I shifted my weight from my right leg to my left, then extended my right hand and grabbed the rope.
“That’s the way!” Ed said. “You’re a natural!” He nudged me in the ribs with his elbow “What a view, eh?”
“Yeah!” I said. From where Ed was standing he couldn’t see that both my eyes were closed.
“Nothing to it,” Ed murmured.
Until I stepped out, the left crossbeam had been bucking like an irritable bronco. Now the Marinion was running smoothly along the ice, and I could finally force myself to open my eyes. I saw that we were now about fifty yards from shore, running neck and neck with a westbound express train. I could see people in the passenger cars reading newspapers and talking while we overtook them and pulled ahead.
“Hang on!” Tommy yelled as the wind suddenly increased and the left runner hiked up again.
As the blade left the ice, Ed and I leaned back to keep the craft from tipping. It was the most terrifying experience of my life — and I never felt so happy. Memories of the Kellys, the cops, the whole rotten last year of my life seemed to peel away one layer at a time.
The light at the end of Queen’s Wharf seemed to race right at us. Tommy adjusted the sail, and the boat instantly slowed down. Twenty yards from shore he let the sail drop altogether, and we coasted gently to a stop.
“My legs feel wobbly,” I said as I stepped down onto the ice.
“Does that mean you don’t want to race then?” Ed asked.
“Heck, no!” I said. “I mean, yes! I want to race.”
“Then come to the foot of York Street on Boxing Day,” Tommy said. “We’ll be racing with my father, but he’s almost finished his new boat, the King Edward. As soon as he’s done, the Marinion will be mine and I’ll need my own crew.”
“I’ll see you on Boxing Day,” I promised.
“We’ll be looking for you,” Tommy said as he and Ed picked up the tail of the Marinion and turned the boat to face the lake again. They climbed aboard and dropped the sail. “Race starts at noon!” Tommy shouted as they faded into the darkness. “Come early and we’ll give you a sailing lesson.”
The ground felt suddenly strange under my feet as I walked up the wharf toward Bathurst Street. I turned left at Niagara Street and continued northwest along the silent roads. My neighbourhood was a jumble of failing businesses and dilapidated little houses full of overworked people. From a stockyard nearby I heard the sad lowing of doomed cattle. My home was a tiny red-and-yellow-brick cottage on Defoe Street that looked as if at one time it had been a farmhouse all on its own in the country, but now it was sandwiched between a Chinese laundry and a stable belonging to a knacker named Hacker who collected and disposed of dead livestock.
Because it was Christmas Eve, both the laundry and dead animal smells were absent for once as I trudged around the last corner. A light snow had fallen. No lights were visible from inside the house as I swept our three sagging wooden steps with a nearly bald broom. Then I took a minute to enjoy the rare fresh air and study the few stars that could penetrate the tangle of naked tree branches overhead. It was hard to believe that this was the same sky I once looked up at from the grand porch of our “good” house over in Parkdale.
After a last deep breath, I opened the front door and was nearly knocked over by the smell of something burning. Either the horsehair couch in the parlour was on fire or my mom was cooking again. The former was definitely preferable. Father sometimes let his pipe ashes fall onto the furniture, and my mom was probably the worst cook in Toronto, if not Canada. I had to step carefully. The hallway was dark and so crammed with oversize furniture that it was like crawling through a cavern without a torch. Groping with my hands, I finally found my way into the parlour.
“Evening, Bertie,” said a muffled voice from the corner. I could smell pipe tobacco. No other fire was visible, so I figured Mom must be destroying dinner.
If a visitor ever had to describe our front parlour, he would be hard-pressed to say whether the room was painted or papered, since every inch of wall space was covered by makeshift