You Can Expect A Beautiful Summer
by Joe Davies
"And so I said to her, I said: ‘First I shall
say something outrageous, perhaps even offensive, and then I shall
willingly lay myself open to you. I shall be wide bare, a model of
vulnerability. And from there,’ I said, ‘You must feel free to scold me
as you please. I swear I won’t defend myself in the slightest. I’ll
look wide-eyed and hurt, yet still somehow stoic. And then, after you've
raked me over the coals for a little while you'll see a certain
something about my eyes. You'll see it and suddenly you'll feel sorry
for me. You'll feel so sorry that you'll have to jump my bones and bonk
me silly.' And then she squawked, 'Bonk? What do mean by bonk?' And she
shot me an evil look, which of course meant she knew exactly what I was
saying. And I leaned forward and said, 'See what I mean? You can take
the piss out of me now if you like.'"
At this Angus stops and stares at me to be sure I'm
following. He needs prompting to finish, but I hate it when he thinks
I'm interested. He never shuts up then.
"Come on and serve, you bloody fool," I say.
"But it didn't work. She turned all sour and
wouldn't look at me for the rest of the night." Angus brings his
badminton racket in front of his face like a child pretending to hide.
"I was kind of drunk, anyway."
"Oh, come on," I say again, beckoning,
trying to get another volley going. This is one of his tricks. If he has
something you want he teases you with it, he holds you captive. And me?
Well it's sad really, but I figure I'm lucky enough to have a room-mate
who'll do the dishes once in a while, even if he never brings home the
dish soap.
But this is a big day. The first day of Angus' new
job. For some reason some interviewer figured Angus MacPherson was the
one. Today he gets to boldly push a tea trolley out to the fleshy gents
of the John-Bull club. Now, today, he begins his mighty ascent out of
the land of the unemployed and perhaps (I dream) he'll even make it home
one day with toilet paper and garbage bags in hand, perhaps a little
rent. The landlady's not a bastard about it, but I hate slinking in and
out to avoid the liability in her gaze.
"How's your head?" I ask, changing the
subject. It works sometimes.
"Huh?"
"Your head? Okay?"
"Oh god, we're really gonna have to do something
about that beam. Every goddamn day. I can't believe it." Angus
raises the hand which holds the bird, sweeps it backhand over his
forehead. Angus, who is six feet tall, was never meant to live in a
basement apartment. Every morning he thumps his head on the beam just
outside the washroom door. He barks and cusses up a storm so loud that I
have to turn away, sometimes just so I can hide my evil, heartless
laughter.
Suddenly the shuttle-cock is flying at me. Angus has
served. I dash to make a return. We play with one dollar, second-hand
rackets from the Sally-Anne and without a net. Even though we play
often, we play badly. I miss the bird, and pick it up. Now I control.
***
"Shirley?"
"Shirley."
Not very far from us some rowdy rot is scrambling all
over the chains of the jungle gym yelling the same word over and over.
"Gully-gully-gully-gully."
"Shirley?"
"Yes. Her name is Shirley. Something wrong?"
"No," I say, "Just sounds like one of
those names you make up when you need to make up a name."
Angus stares back at me a complete blank.
"Forget it," I say.
"Her name is Shirley. She's bright. She has a
job. She's almost as tall as me. I was drunk. She hates me. Okay?"
"Okay." I throw up my hands. "Shirley.
Sounds good."
"No. Go on. Make the most of it. My pockets are
empty. My heart's broken. Does that make you happy?"
"How's your head?"
"Just serve, all right?"
"All right." And I hit the bird over to
Angus in a gentle arc that's almost impossible to miss.
He slams it straight back at me. I jerk up my racket,
thinking mostly of self-preservation, but I wind up deflecting the bird
almost directly back to Angus, who, for some reason can't resist
slamming it again, only this time so hard the rubber nose shoots off
like a bullet and sails into the bushes behind me while the plastic
feathers float to the ground at my feet.
***
"Watch out for the dog shit," I say.
"Where?"
"There," I say, and point to a small and
oily looking black coil.
"Are we going to find this?"
"I don't know."
"Do we have another bird?"
"I don't think so. Try looking over there."
***
I walk over to him.
"We aren't going to find it, you know."
I hold it under his nose.
He stops snooping in the bushes. "Oh," he
says, sort of brightening, "Goody."
"You should go get changed. Don't want to be late
for your first day."
Angus holds out his hand and I give him the nose. He
tucks his racket under his arm, pulls the phoney feathers from his shirt
pocket and squashes the bird back together.
"One more volley," he says. "A good
one. We have to get to twenty, okay?"
I shrug my shoulders as if to say 'okay'.
Behind us the kid tumbles off the jungle gym. Summer
in the city. Children hollering at the top of their lungs.
***
At first I think it's just bad luck. Every time we get
near twenty one of us misses, mostly Angus. Then I begin to realize it
is deliberate.
"Oh, crap," I say, trying to return a wild
volley from Angus after having gone back and forth about fifteen times.
"Sorry," Angus says. "Come on, we can
do it. I'm not going till we hit twenty."
"It's getting late Angus. You should go."
"Come on. Serve."
"Angus."
"What?"
"You should go."
"There's still time. I won't need a shower."
I serve. Back and forth. Eight, nine, ten, gentle
little swats, Angus, me, Angus, me, fourteen, fifteen, a good save by
me, a harder hit by Angus, a gentle return, seventeen, eighteen, then
Angus slams the bird so hard the nose comes shooting off all over again.
It whizzes past my cheek. I see the feathers floating to the ground, I
dive and manage to tip them with the wood of my racket.
"Twenty!" I shout.
"Doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Has to come back to me."
"Does not. I just had to hit it."
"But you didn't. You missed it."
"I tipped it with the wood."
"That's not a hit."
"Sure it is. It counts," I groan.
"Let's look for the tip."
"Angus..."
"What?
"Angus, you should go," I say a little
louder than I intend.
He is about to say something but stops. I see his
whole body surrender. He nods.
"Oh, well. Yup," he sighs, "Guess
so."
"I'll look for it. Why don't you go and get
ready."
Angus turns and leaves and for some stupid reason I
start feeling guilty.
***
It takes me two minutes to find the tip of the
shuttle-cock. I cross the street and head back to our apartment, hoping
the landlady is out shopping or something. I open the front door and as
I start to climb down the steps I hear the radio, a talk show, and then
find Angus sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette. I look at
my watch.
"You'll be late...," I begin to say.
"I'm not going. I don't want the stinking job. It
sounded good at first, just the idea of having a job, just getting one,
you know? It was like this great pat on the back. But look at it. Think
about it. What is it? What's it going to be? Sliding a bunch of pompous
old farts a bit of strawberries and cream and saying, 'Will there be
anything else, sir?' or 'Can I have your signature on that please....'"
I wait for a second then ask, "So, what'll you
do?"
"I don't know, steal bikes, mug old ladies. Why
should I bother being so well-behaved? There's no prize for being a good
little bugger. Nothing happens when you're good. Not a thing. You become
one with the fungus in some basement apartment you can't even afford. I
hardly need to tell you."
Since I can't think of anything else to say I tell him
that he should go anyway. I admit I am selfish, thinking of the rent, of
not having to look for a new room-mate or a cheaper basement, nothing
higher.
Angus shakes his head. "God, why is it...?"
Angus stops, drags on his cigarette. "Why is it...?" And Angus
pauses again. "I'm not even sure what I'm thinking any more. All I
know is something's got to be wrong when you're always thinking
something's wrong, even if nothing is."
I think about that for a moment, then say,
"You'll be late."
Angus sits a moment longer, finishes his cigarette,
then expels a final cloud of smoke. He stands up, shoulders hunched and
refuses to look at me. He shuffles to the washroom, ducks as he enters.
I hear him turn on the taps and start to scrub his face. I notice I have
been squeezing the head of the shuttle-cock in my hand and put it on the
table. A man on the radio says: "You can expect a beautiful
summer." Another man on the radio says: "That's so good to
hear." Angus slams the bathroom door so hard I almost felt sorry
for the
hinges.
Joe Davies is a stay at home dad and
part-time catering chef. His work has appeared in Pottersfield
Portfolio, Filling Station, the Wascana Review and the
New Quarterly. When he was a kid it was his face on the box of
Pablum. |
