“Your mother’s absolutely right. I can’t always be imparting those kinds of ... values. It’s a big world, with lots of good in it — if you show some patience and don’t make assumptions. I guess what I’m saying is, not everyone out there is an asshole.”
Eric continued looking up, his eyes wide. Probably still scared (I know I was), wired from his brush with violence, his aura seemed receptive; at this point I felt as though I were in the middle of one of those father/son moments, a moment when I should pass on something long-lasting, something of value. A truly valid point. But what?
“It’s probably more like a seventy-five/twenty-five split,” I said at last. “With twenty-five percent being decent, thoughtful human beings most of the time.”
Still leaning, his arms crossed, and his lower lip thrust out slightly, Eric remained motionless for a beat, imagining what? His classroom? The schoolyard? Friends? Bullies? People and places I knew nothing about? Finally he nodded. “Yeah, that’s about right, I’d guess.”
Just at that moment, a woman approached. Probably in her early thirties, she favoured the big look, sporting oversized sunglasses, huge hoop earrings, and large, shiny hair; no deus ex machina placed here to supply a punchline to our small talk, she lugged a National Sport bag, undoubtedly filled with boxercize and jazzercize apparel. In her other hand she gripped both a cellphone and an unopened pack of Kools. She pressed both to her ear.
“That’s right. Mr. Limpdick’s three days late with the child support already.” She paused for a moment, then: “You bet I’ve phoned my attorney ... can you hold for a second, Becky?”
She took her phone and cigarettes from her ear as she passed us and began struggling with the pack’s cellophane wrapper, helping her cause with an emphatic “Son of a fuckin’ bitch.” Well past us now, she finally managed to rip off the wrapper, and the scrap of plastic fell in her wake, caught the breeze, and scuttled across the pavement in our direction.
I turned to Eric. His eyes were riveted to the Louis Vuitton jeans papered to her hips, and he kept staring as nature’s perfect billboard shifted and swayed into the distance. He didn’t even look down when her cigarette wrapper caught the tip of his running shoe, stuck, and fluttered, pinned by the wind; and there we stood for a moment, in our own little microcosm.
Seventy-five/twenty-five? I’d been generous. No. I’d lied. My true feelings on the subject were this: ninety percent of the people walking the face of this planet were capable of truly stupid behaviour and much worse, whether dishing it out, receiving it, or having it tied onto them like straightjackets. Iraq, Rwanda, Mogadishu, Croatia, Ireland, the projects in any North American city, Muslim women, Native people, the caste system in India, the treatment of gays, wife abuse; I could go on and on about human behaviour in any segment of any society at any time. Even as scientists crack the genetic code, slaughter, oppression, and bigotry remain commonplace, and it seems unlikely, even with all our marvellous technological advances, that the identification and eradication of the asshole gene will ever occur.Three thousand years from now when humans attired in flowing robes and bearing expanded craniums à la Star Trek roam this earth, they won’t be bent on discovering a theorem for peace, love, and understanding.Their huge heads will be busy inventing better weapons — and at closer quarters will be much better targets for each other’s puny fists.
But hey, for the sake of Eric’s development as a human being, I was willing to concede seventy-five/twenty-five. And I assumed that Maddy would congratulate me for my flexibility if word of it ever got back to her. Go figure.
Regardless of life’s complications, of stubbornness gained and flexibility lost, I knew from the start that I’d love Maddy forever.
I understood this the day she moved into Adam’s house. I’d just finished an eleven-hour shift, a shift so hot and exhausting that by well before morning break it had wrung the Vince-induced hangover from me like foul water from an old, wet sock. And now, aching, streaked with sweat and crushed rock, and with the steel caps of my work boots broiling my toes, I limped into the house and poked my head through the kitchen doorway — just to catch a glimpse of the owner of the new, lilting voice coming from within before I took my shower and collapsed into bed.
Of course, the siren’s song was hers. She sat across the kitchen table from Katie; a glass of white wine sat in front of each of them and a single enormous suitcase rested by Maddy’s side. I’d never seen a woman like her before — a woman who could look so incredible with no apparent effort. She glanced at me, with her auburn hair, straight and clean, falling over the shoulders of her plain white T-shirt and touching the waistband of her faded Levis. Her flawless skin, with no hint of makeup, and her face, with its perfect symmetry, mesmerized me instantly. Beauty without fanfare: was she even aware of it?
Looking back, I realize I was seeing everything through a burst floodgate of hormones; I think Katie had picked up on this, or, more likely, anticipated it. She laughed loud and said, “You’re pathetic, Jimmy boy. No, check that — you’re just a man and all men are pathetic.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Look at you. Flexing in the doorway for the new broad.” She turned and looked to Maddy. “No offence, Maddy. Just making a point.”
“None taken,” Maddy replied, smiling, making herself even more beautiful.
I took stock, and yes indeed, there I stood, in my strap T-shirt, both hands up, not so nonchalantly gripping each side of the door frame as I peered into the kitchen. Perhaps I should have called out “Stella!” But really, it wasn’t my fault.The fabricated stance, honed and evolved over the millennia, genetically encoded, stated that I could, in fact, offer protection from the saber-tooth and the mammoth. And in my defence, my body was new, improved, and although still not in the babe-magnet category, held fifty percent more attracting power than I was used to wielding. If I’d struck a pose like that six months earlier, I’d have been laughed out of the room.
But I’d been unmasked now, so I dropped my arms. “Well, don’t just stand there looking bug-eyed,” Katie said. “Come on in.There’s beer in the fridge.”
Our kitchen at that house was vast, the floor a sea of twoby-six planks painted navy grey, uncluttered except for a yellow and black scarred Formica table surrounded by a ring of rickety, non-matching wooden chairs.A fridge and stove set, circa 1963, completed the decor, but we didn’t use either very much. Mostly, we used the fridge for a cooler, the coffee-maker for nourishment, and the table as a meeting place.
I opened the fridge door. A six-pack of Amstel Light sat chilling along with the wine. I’d noticed, too, that the women had been eating what looked like endive salads, courtesy of La Petit Gourmet, a pretentious takeout place around the corner.A normal Saturday night meant pizza, wings, or Chinese food, with a minimum of twenty-four beers sitting in the fridge. Things just didn’t add up. But confused, and more than a little nervous in Maddy’s presence, I held my tongue.
“So anyhow,” Katie said, “Madeleine Moffatt — or Maddy, as she likes to be called — meet Jim Kearns and vice versa.”
I nodded from the fridge.“Hi, Maddy,” escaped my dry lips like a croak.
She smiled and said hello back.
Then Katie said,“Y’know what? Despite Jimmy here being a total goof, I think you guys are going to really get along.” I don’t know if you could call it shameless, but obviously she was instigating something.
I walked to the counter drawer, looking straight ahead, and started sifting through it for a bottle opener. I could feel the back of my neck flushing. I liked Katie a lot, and she liked me, too, but I’d always felt we’d existed under the unspoken decree that we shouldn’t act on our feelings