OTTO BOND, EVEN though he’d been up late the night before, rose early on the morning of the championship game. The twittering of the birds woke him up. Twittering, that was the only word for it. They didn’t call out or sing or moan like pigeons, they made their own little racket, but he didn’t mind. The sun was shining and there was a nice breeze already coming up from the harbour, and the white curtains in the window, the common kind, the kind you could buy anywhere, swayed back and forth in such a pleasant way that he thought, languorous, that’s it, that’s the way those curtains move. They brushed back and forth on the windowsill and on the radiator and on the books he had piled there. Jeez, Otto Bond thought, this is the kind of day that everybody should be alive on, forever.
“Hey doggy-oh,” he said to the little white dog who lay stretched out on the bed, “let’s go.”
Right away the dog jumped down onto the floor and Otto Bond opened up the door of the bedroom and the two of them walked out. Everybody else was eating breakfast already. Shawn Blagdon, the goaltender for the team, had his green soccer uniform on already because he was the type that had to get psyched up early. It was twelve hours before they blew the whistle and the game started.
“Hey there, Otto Bond,” said Justin Peach.
“Hey,” said Otto Bond. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He got the dog leash down from beside the door and the others heard him whistling as he walked down the stairs, and the door closed. They lived across from a park.
“What time did he get in?” said Shawn Blagdon. “Three a.m.’s my guess.”
“So much for the curfew,” said Justin Peach.
“Bridie, the pizza girl, she’s the problem,” said Barry Rose.
“Give me that problem,” said Johnny Drake.
Otto let the dog go from the leash and he got up on a park bench and balanced on one foot on the back.
“Gyroscopic,” he said, and he spun around.
It was one of those solid benches they sank in concrete. That way, nobody could come by late at night, tip it over, throw it in the river, burn it up in a bonfire with liquor running through their crazy heads, out of control. He’d seen that done a few times, as an observer.
Then he jumped down and he and the little dog went back inside.
“Great day,” he said.
“Three in the morning, Otto Bond,” said Shawn Blagdon.
“All-Halifax,” said Otto Bond, “that’s us tonight, the champions, the best.”
“We need you, that’s for sure. You’re the man,” said Justin Peach.
“A recipe for disaster,” said Shawn Blagdon, “you get whacked out by the pizza girl on the night before the game. Three a.m. That’s why the curfew we made.”
“Please pass the Special K,” said Otto Bond.
He picked up a magazine that was there on the table, and as he ate he flipped through the pages. Then he laughed out loud.
“Listen to this you guys.” he said, “In 1955, after the suspension of the superstar Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, fans in Montreal rioted and destroyed dozens of businesses along Ste. Catherine Street. A policeman who was injured in the riot said, I don’t know, they’ve all gone ape-shit.”
Otto Bond laughed again.
“What’s ape-shit?” he said.
No one knew, they’d never heard of that.
“It must mean wild, crazy, that sort of thing,” said Justin Peach.
“I don’t know,” said Otto Bond, “I think it must mean wild, sure, but maybe wild and free, uncontrolled. Could even be happy. I like that, ape-shit.”
Two blocks away, Bridie had already changed the baby’s diaper twice that morning.
“Oh my darling,” she said to her baby who laid on his back, kicking his arms and legs, “what’s up with all this mess? Eat something bad? Oh, that babysitter! I should have known. That’s the last time for her, I promise you that.”
It was her own mother who was the babysitter. There was no way that her own mother would slip up, not in a thousand years. All she had to do, which was all that Bridie had to do, was give Liam the bottle of formula after she heated it up.
“Hi there,” Otto Bond said to Bridie, the first time they met.
He’d walked into the store and just leaned on the counter with both elbows. It was three weeks ago, early on in her shift, and there were no other customers there at all.
“Hi,” Bridie said back to him.
He looked right at her. His eyes didn’t shift away and he didn’t jiggle from foot to foot.
“Pepperoni, if that’s on the menu,” he said.
Also, he smiled. There was nothing about that smile that made her feel uncertain. It was just there, his smile.
“Small, medium, or large?” she said.
She’d had a dream that, someday, someone like Otto Bond would walk into the shop, but it had never happened.
“Small pizza, that’s for me, I like the small kind. The flavour stays better.”
“It does?”
“Might be the small size of the box. Traps the aroma inside.”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
She punched a few random numbers on the cash register so the drawer flew open. The internal bells rang cheerfully and then she pushed it closed.
“It’s science,” he said, “it’s simple, the small box retains the heat and the molecules of cheese and pepperoni and crust that float around inside. There’s less dissipation. No room for the flavours to vanish into the larger atmosphere.”
“That’s crazy. If everybody thought that, that’s all we’d sell, the small ones. And the opposite is true.”
Then she turned around to the back of the store and she raised her voice.
“Hey Jules, a small pepperoni.”
“You got one of those out there already,” said a voice from the back.
“We need a fresh one. This one’s been here a while.”
“Just heat it up.”
The face of Jules then appeared in the opening from the back. He looked at Otto Bond.
“Since yesterday morning, Jules,” she said.
“Heat it up, heat it up, it’s fine. That’s what the microwave is for.”
And then Otto Bond said to Bridie, “That’s okay, sure, just heat it up, I’m easy.”
Bridie shrugged and heated up the day-old pizza and then she boxed it up and handed it over the counter.
“How tall are you, if I may ask a personal question?” said Otto Bond.
“Me? Five-two, plus these shoes.”
“A small package too.”
Bridie smiled.
“I get it,” she said, “aren’t you the clever one. There’s not much you can do with these old pizzas, when they’re not fresh. Sorry. It’s Jules, that’s the way it is around here.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll see you around, Bridie.”
For once she was happy that she had the name tag on.
He walked out of the pizza shop and though she didn’t have a clue, he was saying to himself enchanting, enchanted, how I love the name, Bridie.
The re-heated snack was no good though. He ate two bites of it before he threw into a trash basket down the street.
Two days later she was walking through the park. The sun was going down and she had the baby in the stroller. There was a bunch of boys playing soccer.
“Let’s have a look, Liam, those are boys, they’re playing soccer. You can do that someday.”
She and the baby didn’t get too far when suddenly the soccer ball bounced their way. One of the players broke away from the others and came over to get it. It was like fate, the way the soccer ball rolled right into the front of the stroller and stopped. The soccer player came over and stood there, but the sun was behind him and she couldn’t see his face.
“Bridie,” he said.
She shielded her eyes and she saw who it was.
“Oh, hi,” she said.
She felt her legs go out from under her a bit, they wobbled at the knees.
“Fancy this,” he said, “here you are.”
“Hey Otto Bond, the ball!” said voices from the field.
That was the first time she ever heard his name. He turned away for a moment and with a real easy motion kicked the ball high in the sky. She had to block her eyes against the sun to see it rise in a black circle, get smaller and then fall in the distance.
“Who’s this?” he said.
He nodded at the stroller.
“This is Liam,” she said.
“Out with someone’s baby? You’re a babysitter too, as well as a pizza girl?”
He was smiling the same as he did in the store but he was covered with sweat this time.
“Oh, the baby’s mine, this baby’s mine.”
“Oh Jeez,” he said, “I never would have thought. Yours.”
“We love the baby,” she said.
Then she realized what she had said.
“Mother and me, we’re the only ones. We love the baby.”
“No father?” said Otto Bond. “For Liam?”
“He got run over by a train,” she said.
That was a lie she told to everybody. It was automatic to her, by now. Sometimes she told that lie so often that she came to believe it, and she came to believe that she was the driver of the train, with her hand on the throttle full-blast.
“Jeez, that’s too bad.”
“It’s okay. We got a nice life going on, for us.”
“I can see that. My name’s Otto Bond.”
He held out his hand to her. She shook his hand and held onto it without any effort at all.
“I know,” she said, “they’re calling you. You better go, Otto Bond.”
Those were the words she said, but it was the last thing she meant. He could have stood there till the sun went down, the world flipped over and China appeared in the sky. She was still holding his hand so she let go.
“That was a great piece of pizza you gave me. Never had better, at least the re-heated kind,” he said.
So now they both told lies.
“That Jules, he’s a bit of a loser,” she said.
“I’ll come back for more,” he said.
He bent down and rubbed the top of the baby’s head for a second. Then he turned and ran back to the field where there was a large circle of players all dressed the same, kicking balls around, bouncing them on the knees, hitting them on their foreheads. Soccer, that was their game.
All their jerseys said Falcons. Obviously, they were a team.
That’s how their relationship started, with a piece of pepperoni pizza and a couple of small lies. That’s why Bridie lined up for a ticket outside the stadium on the night of the championship game.
“No strollers in the stands,” the guard said to her. “Leave it here.”
She picked up the baby in the shawl.
The guard said to her then, “Don’t worry, Miss, we’ll have it here. Pick it up at the end of the game, I’ll keep my eye out for you.”
There were thousands of fans and by the time the game started, the stands were full and the lights were on as bright as could be, the sky dark above, and there was Otto Bond front and centre in his green uniform.
Shawn Blagdon had black gloves on, the ones he always wore, but he looked a bit nervous. He’d been throwing up in the locker room for the last half hour.
“Gentlemen,” said the referee.
“You guys are a long way from home, just to lose,” said the captain of the Raiders to Otto Bond.
“Well,” said Otto Bond, “home’s where the heart is, buddy, and this is where we are tonight. Good luck to you.”
The captain of the Raiders stood over him by at least a foot.
They shook hands and the game was on and for the first while, it didn’t look too good. The evil Raiders came down into the Falcons’ end of the field and they stayed there for ten minutes and if it hadn’t been for Shawn Blagdon, the game could have been lost right off the bat. Four times, he flew through the air and deflected shots over the top of the crossbar. It was like a dream for him, like he’d seen all the shots before and he knew where to go before the kick was even made. The hometown fans groaned with disappointment as the Raiders missed one chance, then another. At the same time though, those fans were laughing. It looked like a cakewalk to them, if this kept up. It was just a matter of time. They were the Raiders, undefeated all year, heavy favourites to walk off with the trophy. Bridie knew nothing about soccer but she could see that her team, the Falcons, were back on their heels.
She held onto her baby while the stadium rocked around her and she said to him, “Oh my, Liam, this does not look good.”
Then all of a sudden Johnny Drake lifted a long curling pass down through midfield where Otto Bond picked it off the top of the grass at full speed. He made about three quick moves with his head and his feet and then he exploded the other way and he danced past the last two Raiders. They looked foolish, those defenders, like they were little boys. The crowd sucked in their breath. There was Otto Bond with just the goaltender now in the way and Otto Bond leaned one way, the ball fired straight the other, and it was 1-0 for the boys so far from home. For the Falcons.
Bridie jumped up and down but she was the only one in the whole crowd, anywhere near her, who was happy. She held onto the baby needless to say.
“Look at that!” she said.
All the Falcons piled onto Otto Bond and then he looked up at Bridie in the stands.
“Yes,” he said to himself.
He waved to her.
“There, see?” Bridie said to Liam, “he sees us.”
She waved her hand and the baby’s hand too.
“Sit down, sit down,” someone said to her, “get out of the way.”
She sat down the rest of the time till the game was half-over and it was half-time, a break in the action, still 1-0 for her team, for Otto Bond’s.
“This can’t be happening,” all the fans around her said.
“Hey,” Bridie said, turning to them, “this is happening! Look at the score!”
They all laughed and they said, “You wait, there’s lots of time left for the slaughter. Want a beer, darling?”
“No,” she said, “I’m the designated driver.”
She showed them the baby and they laughed.
“You breastfeeding?” they said.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Go right ahead, you want to, we’re not shy.”
“Let the baby drive home,” someone said.
“Maybe I will,” said Bridie.
Someone gave her an open beer and she drank it. Soccer was okay, her first game ever. She could do this lots of times.
Then the second half started and those damn Raiders came on strong again and even though Shawn Blagdon dove to the left and to the right, and even though Otto Bond struck here and there like lightning, now the Raiders were all over him like glue, two or three players at a time. The writing was on the wall. In the fiftieth minute, the Raiders finally broke through with a low shot to the corner and the crowd went wild.
Now it was 1-1.
Shawn Blagdon hung his head. He hadn’t seen that one coming. But the other Falcons patted him on the back and Bridie could tell they were saying, don’t worry, don’t worry.
Five minutes to go in the championship game.
“There you go, sweetheart,” the crowd said to her, “welcome to the real world. Prepare to lose.”
Half of them were howling with the pleasure of it. More beer was passed around. “One for the baby?” they said.
“Okay,” Bridie said, “but I better drink it for him. He’s underage.”
“Drink it fast,” they said, “there’s not much time left.”
“Oh no, what now?” Bridie said to the baby, under her breath, into the baby’s ear.
She had one arm around Liam and the other hand was on the beer she’d been given. Then someone shook up another beer bottle and sprayed it in the air and all the spray came down over her head and on the baby’s head in a fine mist. She wiped off the baby’s face with the side of her cheek. Liam never cried at all.
Then she said, “Hey! None of that! Watch out for the baby!”
“Sorry,” they said, laughing some more, and they turned and sprayed the other way.
Then the crowd rose to their feet because here came the Raiders again. They moved the ball down into the Falcons’ end. But they made a mistake. Justin Peach intercepted a pass. As soon as Justin Peach touched the ball, Bridie saw Otto Bond take off on the far side of the field. He was like one of those rockets that go into the sky on Victoria Day, even though he was still on the ground. Justin Peach was under pressure but he kicked the soccer ball over to Johnny Drake and then there it was, for the second time that day, the long arching pass with the tailwind, and Otto Bond was way downfield running it down. This time, determined, he shook off the three Raiders that were hounding him like they were gnats or bugs. He was knocked down in front of the net but he got up fast and with his right leg, he released the ball, and then fell backward to the grass.
That was it. The ball curved up and under the crossbar and the net bulged out. The goaltender lay on the ground like he was dead. Silence in the air. The referee waved his arms and he blew his whistle. The game was over. Bridie jumped back up to her feet.
“Get out of the view!” someone said.
“The view’s over,” she said. “Can’t you see that?”
She ran down the steps of the stadium with the baby in her arms and she ran across the track and out onto the field.
Be careful, she said to herself, you’ve had those two beers. She slowed a little. The baby was wrapped up tight in the shawl across her chest, safe as can be. Otto Bond saw her coming and he came over to her and even though the baby was in the way, she leaned up to him and she gave him a kiss. Beer does that, she figured but she didn’t care. He was covered with dirt and sweat.
“Hey watch out,” said Otto Bond, “you’ll squish the baby, he’ll smother.”
He put his arms around her and they circled in a little dance.
“I don’t think so,” said Bridie. “His head’s free.”
“Well okay, I can see that now,” said Otto Bond.
He leaned back into Bridie and gave her a kiss, a longer one. If he tasted the beer from her lips, he didn’t say anything.
“I’ll take you home, give me a minute,” he said.
Then he ran over and joined the other boys who were celebrating. All the Raiders had walked off and the Falcons had the field to themselves. Otto Bond took off his shirt and swung it around his head like a pinwheel and he ran in circles and he did a flip and he landed on his feet.
“Look,” said Shawn Blagdon to the others, “Otto’s gone ape-shit.”
While the Falcons danced around in the centre of the field, Bridie and the baby stood off to the side and watched. She felt a bit dizzy from the excitement. She was sure it wasn’t the beer. Three of the fans who’d been sitting near came up to her, all at different times.
“You need a ride home, honey?”
“No, I’m fixed up here. I got a ride thanks.”
Then the security man came over with the stroller.
“You okay? You need a lift anywhere, I got a car.”
“No, no I’m okay,” she said, “thanks.”
Otto Bond took her home. He didn’t have a car so they took the bus and they got off at a stop near her place and he walked her the rest of the way. He was still in his soccer outfit. People looked at him but it wasn’t that unusual, on the bus or on the street, in Halifax, to see someone dressed like that, in a soccer uniform.
“Thanks,” she said, when they got to her place, “I had a great time and so did the baby.”
“Seeing you there, that was the best, Bridie, that made it the best for me. It wasn’t the goals at all.”
“You mean that?”
“Cross my heart,” he said.
She believed him, as she should have believed him because he was telling the truth.
He left her there and he walked the rest of the way home, to his own place, where the others were already waiting. What a day it was, what a night. He had nothing to complain about. He was high in the air. As soon as he got home, without changing his clothes, he took the little dog out for a walk.
“I’ll be back,” he said to the others.
He went to the playground in the park, to the far end. He reached up for the monkey bars. As the dog ran around in circles beneath him, barking, even though it was pitch black, Otto Bond swung there. He swung back and forth, and he swung higher and higher like he was a child again, maybe even like an orangutan would do, or a chimpanzee far off in the jungle of Sumatra. Or someone gone ape-shit.
Then he flipped through the air in a somersault and came down feet together in the sand. He stretched his arms upwards into the Halifax night.
He called the dog and felt the leash pull against his hand.
“Bridie,” he whispered to himself.
Then they went back to the party, to the pizza party, to Justin Peach, to his homemade sauce.