7

THE REAL WORLD

WHEN MY FATHER had some time off from the station he’d take me downtown. St. John’s claims to be the oldest city in North America, and Dad seemed to know the story behind every brick. And with Mike Critch being a household name in the city, we couldn’t go two feet without someone stopping him to say hello or give him a news tip.

Everyone from a bum on the street to the mayor of the city seemed to owe Dad some kind of favour that never had to be repaid. He made his way down Water Street like a mafia don in Little Italy. My favourite part of these walks came when we reached an alley that ran from Water Street (originally known as the Lower Path) to Duckworth Street (originally known as the Upper Path). The old man called this Monster Alley. Between two ancient brick buildings ran a set of crumbling concrete stairs. Dad swore that this was where the boogeyman lived. It was home to a group of monsters, but it was also the only way up out of downtown and we had to cross it to get home. If we didn’t do it fast enough the monsters would surely grab us, taking us to be eaten by the boogeyman. We’d hold hands and run into the darkness, screaming, climbing the stairs as if the devil himself were on our tail.

I treasured moments like that because the old man was always working. Every morning, rain, shine, or blizzard, he’d make his way up the red steps and over the small bank to the VOCM parking lot. Sometimes I’d get to bring him a lunch. I took the job very seriously. I’d walk to the newsroom window and tap on the one-way glass. The window would slide open just enough for a sandwich to be passed in and a large cloud of smoke to billow out. Sometimes I’d be invited in, and those days were glorious. The news room was like an aquarium, with white men in their fifties the fish and cigarette smoke the water. One wall was all windows facing onto the road and the other was a big window facing into the hallway where passersby could observe the busy reporters. The far wall was filled with reel-to-reel machines that whirred liked a 1950s sci-fi movie robot.

Men leaned into rotary dial phones trying to convince a source to talk. “Come on, man, you gotta give me something better than that.” Another reporter might be trying to worm his way out of trouble for a news item that had upset someone in power. “I don’t know how that got on. No idea where the story came from. I’ll make sure it never airs again. I’m terribly sorry.” Dad always had the best sources. He was honest and fair. He wasn’t out to ruin anyone; he just wanted to be the one to break the news. Police officers would always call him first with a scoop. The house would often be woken up by a late-night phone call—a tip for Dad. “Now, Mike,” the cop would warn, “you can’t report it until I give you a call tomorrow, but something just happened that you should know about…” He earned his nickname “Mr. Crime.”

Even at night, Dad would watch the TV news to see what the rivals were covering before heading off to the bedroom. He’d get the day’s newspaper and lie back on his bed. When he came across an article that he thought was worth saving he’d take the scissors and clip it out, carefully placing it in one of the overflowing folders in a trunk at the foot of his bed. It was his version of “the cloud.” Then he’d listen to the late-night news broadcast to see if anything new had broken, and then finally go to bed. He never stopped thinking about the news from the moment he woke up until he went to sleep.

The pressure caused stress, which led to smoking and ulcers. The old man always had ulcers. When I was in grade one he started to undergo a series of operations for them, each one more complicated than the last. I could feel the weight of change pressing down on my family. There was a heaviness in the house I’d never experienced before. Mom stopped bringing me to the hospital with her, and I spent more and more time at home alone or with my brother. Mike was a teenager then. The last thing he wanted around was me. He’d disappear into his room, listening to blues music loud enough that it could be heard out in the hallway despite his foam headphones. I’d leave him to his cultural appropriation and retire to the kitchen to watch TV and play with my GI Joes.

One day, sitting alone in the house, I found myself unbelievably bored. I lounged in the big orange chair with my feet slung over the arm, wondering what to do. Finally I wandered into my parents’ bedroom and spied Dad’s clippings scissors. I dug out the Sears catalogue and started to make clippings of my own. These were things that interested me: the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, the GI Joe aircraft carrier, a Dukes of Hazzard car. The snip, snip, snip of the scissors was addictive. I wondered what it would sound like if I cut just a small piece on my cords. Snip. It sounded satisfying. Hmm, maybe just a little more—snip. My pants were beginning to look like what the Hulk wore on TV. Mom wouldn’t notice. She didn’t watch The Incredible Hulk.

What sound would the orange chair make when cut? I lay on my stomach, looking for an edge of the fabric flap along the bottom of the seat that would go unnoticed. The material was thick and coarse and I had great difficulty cutting through it, but with grit and determination I was able to make the incision. It didn’t make much of a sound at all, and the payoff wasn’t worth the aggravation. Perhaps the curtains would be more satisfying.

Soon, the only things left unwounded in that room were the cat and me, and that was about to change. Misty hid under the protective bulk of Dad’s stereo, staring at me while I took the scissors to my hair. I pulled one of my curly locks down into sight and trimmed off about a quarter of an inch. Sssst went the seductive sound of the silver scissors. Misty sat down protectively on her tail. There was something relaxing about the sound of a haircut. As I snipped I completely zoned out, imagining a barber’s life.

I’d open the shop early. Maybe sit in the chair and have a cup of coffee as I gazed out the window onto the street and watched the city wake up. “Morning, Joe,” I’d say to the first of my customers as he walked in to the sound of the familiar jingle-jangle of the bell on the door. “What’ll it be?” I would ask, although I knew what Joe wanted. He wanted it tight over the ear and short in the back. A salesman had to look honest and reliable. This wasn’t Shaun Cassidy’s hair I was cutting. Maybe I’d offer Joe a belt from the bottle I kept hidden in the drawer under the mirror. “Or would you prefer a shot of that?” I’d joke, gesturing toward the combs soaking in a jar of blue Barbicide. We’d both laugh, even though I made that joke every time he came in. “How’s the wife?” I always asked, though I’d never met her. It was only polite.

“She left me,” he would answer, too tired of lying, of making up a new banality for yet another nosy acquaintance. I’d open the drawer unprompted and take out the bottle of Jack Daniels.

“They all do sooner or later,” I’d say, and Joe would nod. I’d snip away in silence then. After all, a barber is part bartender and part priest. He was there to listen.

I was jolted out of my reverie by the sound of a car door slamming. Mom was home. The screen door squeaked open and I could see the taxi edging its way out past a dump truck onto the highway. The cat ran out of the room, thankful to still have her fur, as I rushed to brush my pile of clippings under the chair.

My mother stood in the doorway, her silence rendering her unrecognizable. I shoved the scissors under the chair with my foot, toes sticking out from where there had once been a full sock. “Oh, hi Mom,” I said casually. “Back so soon? I didn’t even hear the cab. That car is really running smooth. The driver should be commended.”

“OhMyGodMarkWhatAreYaAfterDoingToYourHair?” How could she know? Did the cat say something? I glanced down at my pants. I looked like a cartoon character that had been left holding an ACME bomb. At least she hadn’t mentioned my jigsaw-puzzle trousers, but tufts of curly brown hair clung to the little corduroy that was left. Busted. Caught red-handed. There was only one thing left to do: deny, deny, deny.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never cut my hair,” I said, immediately realizing that she hadn’t accused me of cutting it. For a moment I considered blaming my brother, telling Mom that Mike had held me down and cut my hair because he’d always been jealous of my beautiful curls. But that would be wrong. “It’s Mike’s fault,” I said half-truthfully. “He wasn’t watching me. He’s been in his room listening to music with the door closed.”

“Miiiiiike!” Mom bellowed, banging on his bedroom door. The problem with having a child who’s always wearing headphones is that he can’t hear you when you’re banging on his door to tell him to take off his headphones. But Mom was part banshee and could easily out-howl Howlin’ Wolf. My brother opened the door unfazed, headphones still covering his ears. He looked at Mom and then shifted his gaze to me, shook his head, and rolled his eyes so far up into his skull that I was sure we’d have to take him to the children’s hospital to have them surgically brought back down. Then he disappeared back into the Mississippi Delta bliss of his bedroom like a disgruntled groundhog that refused to look at his own shadow.

Mike was going through a moody phase. In winter months, when annoyed by the rest of us, he would declare he couldn’t stand it here anymore, brooding like James Dean. He’d leave the house, but having nowhere to go and no way to get there, he’d take out his frustration on the elements, shovelling away his teen angst in the driveway. This was an unfulfilling act of rebellion, however, as it was extremely useful to his parents. We had the best-shovelled driveway for miles. In the summer months he’d mow the lawn with such emo-fired fury that the owner of the radio station next door noticed his efforts. He fired his landscaper and hired my brother to tend the grounds of the VOCM compound. Mike would mow from morning to night, aggravating his allergies and setting off his asthma, making him even more miserable. He loved it.

Mike closed the door to his lair, leaving my mother to deal with me. “Told ya,” I said, hoping to bring Mom back to my side. She pulled me into the bathroom so that I could get a look in the mirror. The haircut I’d had given myself did not at all resemble the one I’d imagined. I’d envisioned a collegiate coif like the one John F. Kennedy had worn. Instead, it looked like Mia Farrow’s famous pixie cut in Rosemary’s Baby. This would not go ever well on the playground.

My mother marched to the telephone table and called another cab. Soon I found myself hurtling down Kenmount Road in a hair ambulance. Mom hurried me to the mall’s Central Barbershop, led me to an empty chair, and told the man to “FixThatForTheLoveOfGawd.” He sized me up cautiously, then offered me a booster seat.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, climbing up to adulthood. “How’s business?” I was hoping to avoid any embarrassing questions.

“What the heck happened?” he asked. “Did your mother do this to you?”

“Why, yes.” I was seeing a perfect way out. “Yes, she did. You know how it is with mothers. Always trying to save a few bucks. I tried to tell her that a barber has skills. You can’t just pick up a pair of scissors and go. It takes years to master. But you know women!”

“Well, you got that right, young fella,” he said, smiling. Here was someone who really got him. “There’s a lot to it.” Clearly, this man liked to be appreciated. I took an inventory of his stock and trade and noticed that everyone in the shop had the same haircut. There didn’t seem to be much to it, but I enjoyed the banter.

“At least she didn’t get out the bowl.” That got me a commiserating laugh. “I hope you can help me out here,” I confided. “I’ve got my confirmation coming up.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, the rhythmic snipping scoring his speech. “There’s not much I can do, but I’ll do my best.” He trimmed away my hair until it looked less pointy and haphazard and more like the hairline you’d see painted on a marionette. I now looked more like Davey from the Christian stop-motion animation show Davey and Goliath, but I could live with that. Mom returned from her latest loop around the mall to collect me.

She was delighted with the results. “OhMyGodThat’sBetter. ComeOnNowMarkWeHasToGoBackToTheHospitalToSeeYourFatherNow. IDidn’tWantToTakeYouLookingLikeThat.” Mom paid the barber and I gave him a knowing wink, which he returned. We now shared the sacred bond of the barber’s chair confession and it felt good to be a man.

“Oh, and missus,” he called after my mother, “next time, remember it’s not worth trying to save a couple of bucks by doing it at home.” So much for the sanctity of the confessional, ya arsehole.

“Don’t mind him, Mom,” I said. “I think he’s after dipping into the Barbicide.” Mom continued down the mall, happy to believe for gossip purposes later on that anyone she met was “half-cracked.” We made our way to a card shop to pick up a card for Dad. Mom brought me to the stuffed animal shelf and told me I could pick out anything I wanted. This seemed strange to me. Something was up. She’d been unusually quiet all day and surprisingly calm when she’d discovered me with the scissors. She didn’t even notice that her curtains now looked more like the strips of material you passed through at the end of a car wash.

“GetSomethingThat’llCheerYouUp,” she said. Cheer me up? But I wasn’t down. Was I going to be? What did she know that I didn’t? I chose a big stuffed Bugs Bunny wearing a yellow T-shirt that read “What’s Up Doc?” I figured the old man would get a laugh at that since there would undoubtedly be a doctor there. We got a cab to St. Clare’s, which surprised me. Normally we’d get the Route 2 bus. I wondered what the rush was, but I didn’t want to ask. Mom seemed lost in her thoughts, and maybe I wouldn’t want to know the answer.

We got out of the cab and walked toward the white monolith that was the hospital. The closer you get to a hospital these days, the more smokers you see along its edges. There’s no more Canadian a sight than that of an old man shivering in a bathrobe as he struggles to have a smoke in a snowbank. He lights a match off his oxygen tank, lifts his mask to take a drag, and exhales before rattling out a good cough. Then he lowers the mask again to fill his lungs in preparation for another butt. You didn’t see that in 1981. Back then smoking was done inside the hospital. Patients could smoke right in their bed. Visitors would smoke in a smoking lounge where a blue haze hid the TV screen. Doctors would smoke while they told you that maybe you should quit smoking. Surgeons would actually put out cigarettes on your old lung during a lung transplant.

Mom pulled me through the smoke-filled waiting room and into the smoke-filled elevator where we rose to the smoke-filled hallway of the fourth floor. Dad had been moved to a “special room” where children weren’t allowed. A nice old nun, all dressed in white, took me by the hand and knelt down to my level. Her kind eyes had the comforting glow of a light in the window on a snowy winter night, and I felt the fear leave my belly.

“Now, Mark,” she said in a whisper of a voice, “your father is very sick. We’ve moved him into a room with other people who are just as sick. Everyone in this room has to be very quiet, and for that reason children are not allowed. But if you come with me and you promise to be very quiet, then you can come in for just a minute. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded and she gently took my hand and pushed open the big doors that led into a ward for lost cases. The room was very dark except for small amber lights right above the patients’ heads. Some people behind closed curtains hacked up something from deep inside themselves. Others lay in total silence, comforted only by the steady beeping of some machine that reminded them that, despite appearances, they were still alive. Dad’s bed was in the far corner, and I recognized his pyjamas before I recognized him. He’d suffered an infection that had required an emergency surgery, and he’d lost a lot of blood. They weren’t sure whether he’d make it. I wasn’t much older than he’d been when his own father passed—nearly six—and looking back, I can see that realization in his eyes.

“Mike, your son is here,” the old nun whispered in his ear. He looked down to see me, giving me his trademark wink. There were tubes and wires everywhere and I followed each line with my eyes. His IV stand held two bags, one containing blood and the other a clear saline solution.

“On the ketchup and vinegar, are ya, Father?” I joked and he chuckled. The nun held a finger up to her lips to shush me. I hadn’t been aware of any other vertical people in the room until I spotted my dad’s close friend Brother Angel in the corner. Brother Larry Angel had grown up with my father, and the two remained close friends even though Brother Angel had been dispatched to Rome. He’d given me and Mike sets of rosary beads blessed by the Pope and a pen with an image of Venice on one side. When you tipped the pen a gondola would glide from one end of the city to the other. That pen was the most exotic thing in the house, and tangible proof of the existence of a world beyond Signal Hill.

“Hello, Mark,” he said in his flat, droning Church voice. “We were about to say the rosary. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine here visiting from Rome.” Out of the shadows stepped the first black man I’d ever seen. He was also a priest, and was dressed in long dark robes and a black hat. His ebony skin was as dark as night and his bright eyes grinned at me.

“The boogeyman!” I shouted. I am not proud of that. But at the time I’d never been as sure of anything in my life. This man had to be the boogeyman. Of course, I knew black people existed. My brother was a blues fan. I thought Sammy Davis Jr. was the most underrated member of the Rat Pack. My father was a boxing fanatic, and once when we were watching a Muhammad Ali fight he turned around in his chair and decided to impart some wisdom.

“If you ever meet one, never say negro or coloured,” Dad told me very seriously. “They prefer to be called black. You got that?” I nodded, although I’d never heard of the two alternatives until that very moment. There was no racial divide in Newfoundland because the entire population was basically made up of a snowbank in pants.

I’d seen lots of Chinese people in person. And I’d met a few Indian families who lived in the city as well. But at this time in my young life I had yet to see a black person. I’m sure I would have acted sensibly if I’d met a black man in church or at the mall. But after a day of self-induced hair trauma, an afternoon of wondering what sad fate allowed me to get a stuffed toy, and having seen my father in some kind of palliative care ward, I was a little on edge, to say the least. I did not see a kind priest from another country, dutifully saying the rosary next to my father’s hospital bed. I did not see a person upon whom I should leave the best possible impression of my homeland. I saw the boogeyman, and if he wasn’t there for me, then surely he’d come to take my weakened father to Monster Alley.

I dove under the hospital bed, clutching my bunny in a grip that would have impressed Lennie from Of Mice and Men. In what I’m sure was meant to be a helpful move, the visiting priest got down on his knees and reached out his long arms to try to scoop me out.

“Little boy, little boy,” he repeated in a thick accent. “Come to me, now. Come. Come. Smile. Little boy. Smile.” This was also the first time I’d heard a Nigerian accent. His good intentions were like a match to gasoline and soon the whole room went up in the flames of cultural exchange. He kept saying “little boy” and I kept screaming “boogeyman!” as the nun and Brother Angel, on their own knees now, struggled to pull us apart. Buzzers sounded, invalids moaned their disapproval, codes were spoken over PA systems, doctors were called. Mom, oblivious, flipped through the pages of a Chatelaine magazine in the hallway.

Finally, my father, who’d just been at death’s door, sat up in bed and threw his legs over the side. He looked down at me. “Mark!” he shouted. “Get up from under this bed!” Forced to choose between the threat of damnation from the boogeyman and certain death by my father, I settled on the devil I knew and crawled reluctantly from my hiding spot.

The visiting priest no longer seemed so scary now that he was standing next to the light over my father’s bed. He laughed a hearty laugh that immediately made me like him. Now I felt as though he was the only person keeping me alive at that moment.

Dad feared priests. Even though he had many as close friends, he revered them. They could do no wrong in his eyes, and so whenever they were around he’d be on his best behaviour. A year before, Brother Angel had come for dinner and we were sitting in the dining room around one of Mom’s well-cooked turkeys. I was all set to dig in when the old man started to say a prayer. “Dear God in heaven, thank you for these gifts, which we are about to receive through your merciful bounty. Amen.” I was shocked. We never said grace in our house. I wanted to say something, but immediately thought better of it. Then the devil on my shoulder made me think of the American sitcoms I so loved. What would Jack Tripper do in this situation? He’d probably point out that we never prayed before meals and then Mr. Roper would get mad and threaten to kick him out of the apartment and the studio audience would roar and they’d be forced to break for a commercial. I went for it.

“Why do we only say prayers when there’s a priest over?” I waited for the gales of laughter. Surely Mom would say, “Oh, that Mark!” Dad would chime in, “Mary, can I see you in the k-i-t-c-h-e-n?” and Brother Angel would do a spit take, water spraying all over Mom’s turkey, which was in desperate need of hydration anyway. None of that happened. Instead, Dad stood up and yelled, “Mark! Get out!” This had never happened before. I sat there, stunned. I was terrified and had no idea what to do. I desperately wanted to take the words back. I would have given anything to never have said them. I felt myself fly from the chair as Dad’s strong arm grabbed my wrist and pulled me up. He sat me on the back step. Soon I could hear him making excuses for me in the other room. I felt my bottom lip trembling, then my chest started to heave and I let loose a bucketful of sorrowful tears. Misty the cat rubbed herself against my back to try to calm me. Even the cat could tell I regretted it.

I could hear Brother Angel telling the old man that it was okay. Saying grace wasn’t that big a deal, and now, at least, God would be in our thoughts in an authentic way when we sat down to dinner. Dispassionately reciting some learned lines by rote was no different from saying no prayer at all, he added, and it brought you no closer to God. He argued that my joke had actually reminded him to thank God for his meal in a more meaningful manner, and he asked Dad to go easy on me.

My father returned and sat next to me on the back step. He told me he was sorry, and that I hadn’t said anything dishonest. I hugged him and apologized. Then we all sat down and Brother Angel gave a truly lovely blessing. We had a great meal. And the second he left, the old man told me that if I ever pulled another stunt like that with a priest in the house he’d kill me.

And now I’d embarrassed him in front of another priest, but this was a hospital, not our house, so I had him on a technicality. Dad, fuelled by anger and a burning desire to get out of the hospital to spank me, made a full recovery. He got back to work just in time for the biggest scandal to ever hit the island—and it exploded right at his desk. It was a thousand ulcers in one headline. The biggest story of his career, and he was helpless to report it.

Dad’s friend Wally was a radio god in Newfoundland and Labrador. He was one of the stars of the VOCM morning show, and the brightest star in the sky of local celebrity. In the church of public opinion, Wally was practically sainted: he’d collect donations of toys and deliver giant boxes of them to the children’s hospital every year, and was a volunteer fireman known to run into burning buildings if it meant he might save a life. He was even voted citizen of the year for his volunteer work.

Everyone on the island listened to Wally’s traffic reports. He’d describe the latest snarl in his “On the Spot” hits, often from the station’s parking lot. I’d look out our kitchen window and see him talking live from inside the parked vehicle. “Wally here in my Chevy Blazer with an On the Spot traffic report from the Boulevard. There’s a two-car smash-up blocking the inbound lane and I can see the ambulance just pulling in here now. Yes, the fire department is using the Jaws of Life to free the lone occupant remaining. Ladies and gentlemen, the sound of twisting metal is unsettling. I don’t know if you can hear it now, but I certainly can. And, ladies and gentleman, they have the driver free! The ambulance workers are taking her on a stretcher now and I’m glad to report that all hands are alive! This is Wally with an On the Spot traffic report.” He was so good that if I wasn’t watching him with my own eyes I’d never believe he was sitting in the parking lot. He’d describe how fast traffic was moving in his imaginary lane even as Misty lazily criss-crossed between the tires of his truck, scratching herself.

Wally was known for his big booming laugh. He drove the yellow VOCM Chevy, which was outfitted with two orange lights and could be seen at every major event in the city. Wally would broadcast from each grand opening, sports game, and charity event. When Mom’s water broke she called the station to inform Dad, and he sent Wally to pick her up and drive her to the hospital. Dad was on air, after all, and wouldn’t dare leave. The Chevy Blazer sped her down Kenmount Road with lights flashing. The station’s slogan in those days was “Drive safely, arrive alive. VOCM cares.” I arrived very alive, eight pounds, nine ounces. Poor Mom.

The world turned upside down when news broke that Wally had been charged with molesting a child. I was doubly shocked—I’d never heard anything bad about Wally, and I’d never heard of molestation. It wasn’t something that came up in small-town news. The allegations ripped through the province like an earthquake. In our house it was as though an atom bomb had dropped. The most trusted citizen in town had been charged with something so horrid that the general population couldn’t even imagine it. But when that man is the guy who drove your pregnant wife to the hospital, it shakes you to the core.

VOCM’s Open Line program took the daily pulse of the province. The premier would call. Other politicians, too. But more importantly, the people would call. They’d call to complain about the government. They’d call to throw a verbal bouquet of roses to a deserving soul. Sometimes they’d call just because they had no one else to listen to them. I’d heard that “VOCM” stood for the “Voice Of the Common Man,” and Open Line was the reason why. But where they once called in to rail against the bigwigs that made life hard for everyday citizens, they now called to rail against their one-time hero, Wally. Every radio in the province was tuned to the station to see how it would deal with the crisis.

HOST: Good morning, Line Five. You’re live in Newfoundland and Labrador and to all the ships at sea. What’s on your mind today?

LINE FIVE: You’re a dirty child molester, ya bastard! Why don’t you go fu—CLICK!

HOST: We seem to have lost you, caller. Line Two! What’s on your mind today?

LINE TWO: You dirty buggers! Try that with my youngsters and I’ll grab you by the pecker and turn you inside out, ya dirty—CLICK!

HOST: Technical difficulties here today. We seem to have lost another call. I’d like to take this moment to remind everyone listening who might have a phone in their hand that today’s topic is “What vegetable grows best in a Newfoundland garden?” Line Three, you’re on the air.

LINE THREE: Yes, I’m calling from Nagle’s Hill in St. John’s.

HOST: Yes, yes. Go ahead, caller.

LINE THREE: I was just calling to say that I had a wonderful strong year for cabbage in my garden.

HOST: Cabbage, you say? You hear that, ladies and gentleman? This gentleman is calling in to say that he had a grand year for cabbage! And that’s all he has to say. So, tell me, sir. What would you say is the secret to growing such wonderful cabbage as you have grown in a Newfoundland garden this year?

LINE THREE: Well, now, to tell you the truth, I have a radio plugged in by an extension cord and I used to play your radio station to my cabbage plants as they grew.

HOST: Is that so? You don’t say! Do you hear that, ladies and gentleman? Line Three says that the secret to growing great cabbage in Newfoundland and Labrador is to play them this very radio station as they grow. Isn’t that amazing?

LINE THREE: Yes. It’s true. In fact, I was trying to remember your slogan. What is it again? “Drive slow and get where you go?” Or is it “Easy in the car and you will go far”?

HOST: No, caller. It’s “Drive safely, arrive alive.”

LINE THREE: Watch out for Wally if you’re under five—CLICK!

The old man fell into quite the funk as the whole station went into damage control. I couldn’t accept it was true and waited for someone to tell me that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, but that day never came. Everyone at school knew my father was on the radio. So when I arrived the next day, I found I’d become a bit of a celebrity myself.

“I heard your fadder touches youngsters, spaz.” Fox’s older brother, Middle Fox, was waiting for me when I got off the bus. His younger brother shoved me into his chest by the book bag attached to my back. “Oooh, gross. Little fella is trying to kiss me,” the older Fox lied.

“Frig off,” I said, making for the school, only to find my path blocked by Fox’s oldest brother, Silver Fox. I still couldn’t tell if he actually went to our school or if he just hung out there a lot because he had nowhere else to be. I’d never seen him inside the building and he didn’t ever appear to be carrying any books. It wasn’t hard to be the biggest kid on an elementary school playground if you were supposed to be in high school.

“Ya know what VOCM stands for?” he asked me. “Voice Of the Child Molester.” I pushed past him, begrudgingly admitting to myself that he’d come up with a pretty decent burn. I was about to step into the school when I found myself face to face with yet another of them. The kid who blocked my way was in the same grade as Middle Fox, but a year or two older. Synthetic Fox folded his arms and said, “I heard your father touches youngsters, spaz.”

“Your dumb brother already said that, idiot.” I tried to shove my way past this knockoff-brand bully.

“What was I supposed to say again?” he shouted back to the other Foxes.

“Stop him,” Silver Fox shouted, and my shoulders jerked back as the older boy yanked me backward by the book bag and onto the pavement, knocking the wind out of me. My lungs were as empty as an upturned hot water bottle as I lay on my back, gasping. The eldest Fox hopped onto my chest and slapped me backhanded across the cheek.

“Not so tough now, are ya?” he hissed an inch from my face. His foul breath made me thankful I couldn’t yet inhale. It must have been one of the other brothers’ turns to use the toothbrush that morning. “Fox, c’mere,” he barked as all his brothers stepped forward. “Not ye, you,” he said, pointing to my arch-nemesis. “I’ll hold him while you get your revenge smacks in.” They were terrible at being bullies. I was a weird little kid who’d never played with other children before I met my torturer. Now his entire band of brothers had to join forces to defeat one nerd. Fox knelt down to hit me with two firm jabs to the stomach. Then they released me back into the wild like a tranquilized and tagged polar bear.

The rest of my day consisted of dirty looks from every kid I encountered. Some shook their heads to show their pitying disapproval. Others came up to tell me that everyone who worked at my father’s station was a pervert. I was the human embodiment of their disappointment. Those who were angry could take that anger out on me. Those who wanted to feel superior had someone to “tut, tut” at. I could feel their eyes on me and I could think of nothing else. The lessons floated from my teacher’s mouth and into the thick fog that surrounded my head. Nothing was getting through. I went home in a daze, wondering if this fresh hell would ever pass.

That night the entire family sat around the TV to watch the local news. Wally was the top story. They led with him walking into the courthouse, waving and smiling at the cameras, laughing his trademark laugh. “Oh, no, Wally,” the old man said to no one in particular. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” I asked. He seemed to be handling it well. He certainly looked like the lovable celebrity we all knew.

“He’s smiling at the newsmen,” Dad said, waving a cigarette at the screen. “Behind the cameras are people he’s worked with all his life. His friends. He’s smiling at them. But the people watching don’t know that. He looks like he doesn’t care at all.”

“What if he isn’t guilty?” I asked, basically inventing victim blaming right there and then.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dad told me. “He’ll always be known for this now. He’s done.”

Wally was convicted and did his time. And the old man was right: he never worked again. Years later, I saw him in the mall. He’d been given a job shredding cheques at a bank until a customer spotted him and complained to the manager and he was fired. Even at his lowest, there was nowhere to go but down.

Every day at school someone would make some comment about the scandal. There were knock-knock jokes and rhymes. Once I’d been very proud of my father. Now, guilty by association in the court of playground justice, I never mentioned his name or where he worked. But everyone knew.

Every recess went the same way. Someone would say something about Dad that wasn’t true and I’d get into some sort of a scuffle until eventually I grew tired of it all and stopped caring. Children making child molester jokes became a normal part of life. Little did we know that this was just a taste of something much bigger to come in a few years. That cataclysmic event would make Wally’s crime seem tame in comparison and make us question everything and everyone we knew.

I too fell into a bit of a funk in those days. Someone I thought was very good had done something very bad. And I’d been punished harshly for doing something I had nothing to do with. In the real world, right and wrong weren’t as clear-cut as in Saturday morning cartoons. Cracks were appearing in my childhood, and the real world was starting to dribble in from the corners.

As the next year went by, I found myself looking less at the blackboard and more out the window. My neck muscles were in danger of growing so strong on one side that I’d be stuck in a permanent sideways gaze, like someone perpetually driving past an accident. I’d skip school whenever I had the chance, and when I was in class I’d daydream. I doodled in my scribblers and added to the years of graffiti on my desk.

The top of a wooden school desk is an archaeological treasure trove. Your average bored student could use a pen or geometry-set compass to create hieroglyphs rivalling those of any ancient Egyptian. Some future historian will find a wooden desktop and make such culturally important discoveries as “AC/DC rules” and “ABBA SUX.” Just as archaeologists have studied forty-thousand-year-old cave paintings to learn about extinct animals and life in the Paleolithic era, future historians will glean from early 1980s desk art that students of the period viewed Brother Kavanagh as a “Bell Head” and Mr. Armstrong as a “DICK.” Mating rituals of the time will also be examined. Through carbon dating, students of late-twentieth-century romance will decipher deep-grooved desk carvings to learn that early in September “Tammy + Johnny” and as late as November “Johnny + Tammy = True Love Always.” However, by December a mysterious disruption occurred, similar in impact to the mass extinction of the Cretaceous-Paleogene event some sixty-six million years before. It is at this date that the earliest impressions of “Johnny Loves Paula” are found. These markings will show a surprising change in behaviour that led to hostilities between the humans of the period. The later discovery of the “Johnny is a prick” and “Tammy is a slut” drawings on a stall door during the excavation of the girls’ bathroom will support this bold new theory.

One day near the start of grade three I was sitting at my desk, trying to change the F-word into “Buck Rogers” with a Sharpie, when the music nun appeared in the doorway of my classroom. The music nun was the sister in charge of orchestra. She had her own classroom, and students would be sent there to feebly scratch and hack their way through “Peter and the Wolf.” But St. Teresa’s had nowhere near the number of interested kids to fill out an orchestra, so the nuns had turned to conscription. Now I could see my teacher and the nun chatting and looking in my direction. I began to fear I’d been drafted.

My teacher instructed me to go with Sister Elizabeth, which I did. I had no other choice, save eternal damnation. We walked down the long corridor to the music room without saying a word. Sister Elizabeth was a fairly quiet, older nun. She wore round granny glasses and the full nun get-up. In the music room I did a quick survey of the instruments. Membership in the orchestra was guaranteed to get me beaten up, but there was a chance I’d make it out of elementary school alive if I could select the least offensive one.

The violin? I’d only seen it played by girls, so that went straight into the Con column. However, gangsters in old movies often carried their guns in violin cases, so it would add a certain film-noir flair to my look. Pro column it was. The flute? I immediately thought of The Spirit of ’76, the painting in which a white-haired old man and a young boy playing drums march alongside a noble fifer, Old Glory waving behind them. Pro! But the flute also seemed to be young women’s favoured instrument for the talent portion of the Miss America pageant: Con.

Percussion seemed the obvious choice; maybe I could play drums? That would be cool. Drummers beat things. There was no way people would beat up a drummer. My favourites were Ringo Starr, followed by Animal from the Muppets. Both were well loved despite their unconventional looks. Still, practically speaking, it would be next to impossible to cart a drum set on the bus out to the city limits and back. The drums left me with one check in the Pro column, one in the Con. Making a decision was proving tougher than expected.

I spied a clarinet by the window and was reminded of the many clarinet players among the stack of Dad’s 78s. Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Glen Miller—the clarinet was the electric guitar of its day. Back during the war years, the clarinet player was front and centre. I pictured myself standing before the orchestra with a marquee reading “The Mark Critch Big Band” and noodling through a solo during “In the Mood.” Nothing was cooler than the clarinet!

“I want to play the clarinet,” I shouted, forgetting that I was the only one selecting a musical instrument in the Wheel of Fortune prize turntable of my mind. Sister Elizabeth looked me over from head to toe as if I were a tomato she was mentally squeezing to see if it was ripe.

“I am the one who selects your instrument,” she said finally. My dreams of a USO tour dissipated. “You will play the cello.” Sister Elizabeth slowly walked over to the instrument, standing it up straight by the neck. The thing was enormous. It was easily as tall as I was, and twice as wide. It looked to me like a coffin, except this coffin would have the dead person on the outside once Fox and his brothers got hold of me.

“What about the drums, Sister?” I was grasping at straws.

“There will be no drums for you.” That left no room for debate. “You have been selected for cello.” Clearly, the cello was an important instrument—she’d obviously been looking for someone who could deliver the right sound. My hands, though delicate, did show a remarkable dexterity when playing Atari. Perhaps she’d noticed how deftly I carved my name onto my desktop and fancied hearing the hands responsible play Bach?

“I picked you for your size,” she said, ruining the moment. If this was their seduction technique, no wonder all these nuns were single. “The cello is a big instrument and you are the biggest boy in your class.” I was certainly the tallest boy, and it was true that I’d been putting on a little weight. I hadn’t been chosen because of my hands at all. I’d been chosen for my waist. “A big boy like you should be able to carry the cello, no problem at all.” Okay, easy, Sister. No need to rub it in.

“We will rehearse three times a week after school,” she said. Three times a week? And after school!? Not on your life. Luckily, I had a built-in kill switch for any and all extracurricular activities.

“Can’t, Sister,” I said, getting up to leave. “I have to get the bus. I live out by VOCM.” Being a hermit came in handy from time to time. Up till now it meant not having to go to birthday parties of people I didn’t like. But this time it saved me from missing after-school TV time. I was beginning to like the country life.

“The school bus doesn’t go all the way out there,” she said incredulously. I assured her that it did. I began to turn, making my apologies, but I did have to get back to class. There’d been some talk of a slide show for health class and I didn’t want to miss it.

“Then you’ll just have to be excused from class to take your lessons.” Man, she wasn’t backing down. Wait: did she say “excused from class”? Sister, I am your Yo-Yo Ma-n. Three times a week, I was to be excused from the third period. For me, this was math class. I was terrible at math. Missing math was the worst thing that could happen to me academically and the best thing personally.

The next morning when all the other students reached into their desks to pull out their math books, my teacher reminded me of my lesson. I walked out the door feeling like a convict accidentally sprung from jail on the morning of his execution. I proceeded down the hall and into the stairway that led to the music room. Obi-Wan would begin my training and I would single-handedly bring the classical music world a new hope, wielding my bow like a light saber. But like all heroes, I was about to encounter my nemesis.

When I got to the music room, I was surprised to find another boy sitting behind a cello. “Who are you?” I asked, feeling scammed. Sister Elizabeth didn’t need a cellist that badly. She already had one.

He introduced himself as Kevin. His dark hair was parted right down the middle of his head like a divided hairway. His puffy cheeks were dotted with freckles and he had a certain fragility about him, as if his bones might be made of cartilage. “I’ve been playing cello for two years,” he couldn’t wait to announce. This kid must have been older than me, but he could have easily passed for younger. I couldn’t imagine him carrying a cello around; he clearly disproved the whole “size matters” argument. Sometimes it’s not how big you are, it’s the way you move your bow.

“Where’s Sister Elizabeth?”

“She said she’d check on us later,” he told me. “I’m going to teach you until she gets back.” Not only was I being forced to learn an instrument I didn’t want to play, but the woman forcing me couldn’t even be bothered to show up. She’d farmed me out to a fetus. “I bet you don’t even know how to hold the bow, do you?” Kevin scoffed. He half-inhaled, half-snorted the kind of laugh that makes people leave rooms. It was like the sucking wet sound that a faucet makes when the water comes back on after being shut off awhile. I grabbed my bow, desperate to prove him wrong.

“There. I’m holding it.” I held the bow like you’d grip a bicycle handle. Kevin’s amusement shot in through his nostrils, back out under his uvula, and rippled against his gelatinous cheeks, finally expressing itself in a guffaw that sounded like a noise a walrus would make if her mate accidentally stuck it in the wrong hole.

“Um, so that’s wrong,” he snorted. “Number two on the hair, number three on the silver, pinky on the frog, and number one is right here,” he said, moving my fingers around on the bow.

“What’s a frog?” This sent him sideways in his chair as if I’d asked him the most obvious question in the world, such as “How the hell is a guy like you still alive in a school like this, Kevin?”

“The frog, dummy,” he began (as I felt my fingers tighten on the bow), “is the black part at the bottom of the bow. Duh!” That made no sense. There was nothing froglike about it. It wasn’t even green. I wondered if I was holding the bow well enough to stick the whole thing up his arse without breaking it. “Now, try again. Make sure your thumb and finger number two are across from each other.” He reached over and spread my fingers apart. I’d never had a child for a teacher before and I was getting annoyed. “Bend your thumb!” It was already bent. Surely to God there couldn’t be this much to just holding the bloody thing. “The first finger needs to bend around the bow a little.” Whatever. “Not too much!” Fine. “No, that’s not enough.” Make up your mind! “Like me, see? My thumb is pointing toward the tip. Bend your wrist.” I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Want to play a game?” I asked the young man in training to become Canada’s first male nun.

“We can’t,” he said, shocked at the notion. “I have to show you how to hold the bow.”

I could tell that not too many people had ever asked Kevin to play a game. He was even further on the edges of our school’s solar system than I was. And nerds, like strange dogs, can smell fear in others. If played this right, I’d be able to use that to my advantage. “It’ll only take a minute,” I said. “You’re so good with your hands. You’ll be great at it. Ever play knuckles?”

“What’s that?” he asked, nibbling at my hook.

“Knuckles is easy,” I explained. “First you make two fists.” I made two myself to demonstrate. Kevin balled his squishy hands into limp fists and held out the uncooked meatballs, awaiting further instruction. “Now, you try to hit my knuckles with your fist. I try to pull away. But if I flinch and you don’t try to hit me, then you get a free smack. Easy!”

“But why would we do that?”

“It’s just something friends do to pass the time,” I offered.

“I guess we can play for a minute.” He’d bitten down hard enough to snap the hook from my line but then jumped into the boat anyway. Our fists touched and I let Kevin go first. He flinched before he moved, even though his fists were the ones doing the hitting, and I sluggishly pulled back my own. He came down on my knuckles like a glob of half-melted butter.

“Ouch,” I feigned. “You’re fast! Must be from playing cello so much.” The scene repeated twice more and I enjoyed the gentle massage. I pulled away before he could get a fourth smack in, giving Kevin a free turn. He couldn’t believe his luck, his celebratory laugh sounding like a wild boar vomiting. “Now it’s my turn,” I announced. I could see some colour drain from Kevin’s face.

“Oh. Okay,” he said as we lined our fists up again. I barely turned my wrist and Kevin’s two hands flew behind his back. “Ahhh,” he exclaimed for no reason.

“Now I get a free smack,” I reminded him with a smile. I could see my catch wanting to jump back out of the boat, but he’d already been gutted and filleted, his head long since thrown to the gulls. I looked Kevin in the eyes and smiled a smile that sat on the fence between reassuring and sinister. My right hand turned half a hair and once again Kevin’s hands flew back, this time as high as his shoulders. “Calm down,” I said, “we’re friends. I’m not going to hurt you.” Kevin grunted a waking snore and his tensed shoulders dropped. That’s when I unleashed two downward-diving fists atop his powdery knuckles.

“Ow! That hurts!” he howled, eyes tearing. His glasses fogged up and I lost visual contact.

“Are you okay?” I feigned concern from every fibre of my being. “I don’t know what happened. I thought you were farther away than that. I won’t hit you so hard next time.”

“What next time?” Kevin rubbed his sore hand with his other hand, which was also his sore hand.

“You flinched twice,” I reminded him. “That’s the rules,” I added apologetically. There was nothing I could do. After all, Kevin himself had taken advantage of the free-smack rule. He looked back to the door, hoping Sister Elizabeth would grant him a last-minute reprieve, but there was never a nun around when you needed one. “Put out your hands.” I could hear a tinge of vice-principal in my voice and wondered if they got the same rush of power when they doled out the strap. Kevin’s knuckles throbbed, pulsing red like the clock on the old man’s VCR. His hands trembled slightly, bending at the wrists. “You’re not holding them right,” I said.

“What?”

“Your hands,” I instructed, “they need to be straight.” He begrudgingly held his fists level, the red splotches under his skin wobbling about like the globs of goo in a lava lamp. “No. No. No. Not like that,” I continued. “You’re holding them all wrong.” I held his hand at the wrist, tipping it up slightly. “There,” I said, admiring my work. “Much better. Now, your thumb has to be on the outside. It should be pointing toward your pinky.” Kevin did as he was told, the sting beginning to leave his hands, relaxing him slightly. “Perfect,” I encouraged him. “You got it now. You’re a fast learner.”

Bam! I came down on his hands like a teenager swinging the mallet at a carnival strongman game to impress the prettiest girl in school. A crack could be heard and I was proud to be the first medical researcher to have found something solid inside of Kevin. He shook his hands, fanning them back and forth. He blew on them as if they were a pie fresh out of the oven and he a starving man. Finally he chose to sit on them, the soft crush of corduroy cushioning adding to the cottony softness of his doughy backside to make a velvety mitten of comfort.

It was at this moment that I saw the doorknob turn. I picked my bow up off the floor, number two on the hair and my pinky on the frog. “I’m glad to see you’re practising, Mark,” Sister Elizabeth said, adjudicating my fingers. “But that’s not quite right.”

“Sorry, Sister. Kevin has been showing me, but I think I need to see it again,” I said, dumping a salt truck onto the wound.

“Kevin, show Mark down-bow technique, please.” He shot me a dirty look, or at least I imagine he did because his glasses had fogged again. As he picked up his bow the nun’s eyes followed his movements, his joints seeming to have rusted out like the Tin Man’s after a rainstorm.

“That’s not right at all, Kevin,” she sputtered. “Space your fingers equally. You’re not gripping it. Keep your wrist flexible. Here…” When she started to place his fingers he pulled his hand away.

“Free smack,” I mouthed at him.

Sister Elizabeth forced his seized-up claw into whatever he was supposed to be doing to his frog and then made him do drills. At the same time, she gave me a crash course in the finer points of my violin-with-a-thyroid-problem. I tried to make the sounds she wanted, but it was evident that I’d never be a great cellist. At the end of my lesson, Sister Elizabeth and I looked at my cello like homicide detectives: we were both happiest when the case was closed.

Over the next few weeks I actually started to enjoy my lessons. I had a new-found admiration for the cello, and having been such a big music lover, it was exciting to be able to make music myself. My father was sure I was on the path to Carnegie Hall. He pronounced it “Car-knee-gee” in the old townie accent that also changed “Chicago” to “Chi-car-go” for some reason. Mom was less excited.

“MyGawdMarkYouCan’tGoLiftingAGreatBigCelloLikeThatAroundWithYourHernia. You’llEndUpInHospital!”

My brother was as supportive as ever. “You’re going to get killed,” he scoffed. “They’re going to tie you to the fence and throw rocks at your nuts when they see you with a cello. Everybody’s gonna laugh at you.” He was right. I’d let myself get caught up in the artistry of it all, and now Mike was pulling me back down to the ground by the testicles. I’m sure Kevin had once had a chance at a normal childhood. But having gone deep with the cello, he’d sealed his fate. No one I talked to knew who Kevin was. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen him around school before; I may very well have. I just hadn’t noticed him. He was a wraith, roaming the halls like the Phantom of the Music Room. Was I, too, doomed to walk the halls in chains? A spectre invisible even to those who wanted to pants me?

The more my brother teased me the more anxious I got, until I started to cry. I was weeping for myself. I had chosen the road not taken and now I regretted it. I wanted the other, more travelled road, the one with sidewalks and a McDonald’s. I threw myself on the couch and buried my head in the pillow as dramatically as one would expect. “God, you’re weird,” Mike said, retreating to the whirr of the lawn mower drowned out by the roar of his Sony Walkman. He wrapped his ears in bands of noise the way Canadians dressed in layers to stay warm tobogganing.

My father appeared in a puff of tobacco smoke. “What the hell is wrong with that one?” he asked no one in particular.

I spilled my guts as I lay back on the couch. This was the closest thing to therapy I ever got. “Sister Elizabeth made me play the cello and now everyone is going to beat me up and I don’t want to learn how or where to touch the frog. I never want to see that dumb frog again!”

Dad sat down at the telephone table and calmly wrote a note on a steel-ringed pad. He tore out the sheet and passed it to me the way a psychiatrist would hand his patient a prescription for Valium. “Here,” he said, giving me his one-word analysis. He lit another Rothman’s and disappeared into a carcinogenic fog. I unfolded the note. It read: “Sister Elizabeth. Please excuse Mark from playing cello. He is not up to it. Please also excuse him from whatever experiments you are doing with frogs in science class. The boy is a bit soft, but I hope he will grow out of it. Regards, Mike Critch.”

The old man had reserved judgment to my face but was perfectly willing to give me a mental autopsy in a note. I respected that. Later, at supper, I caught myself practising bow technique with my fork and immediately stopped myself. My orchestral life was behind me now. I slept better that night than I had since starting school. A detour sign now blocked off the road not taken and I could follow my brother’s well-mowed path of least resistance.

There was no cello scheduled for the next day and so I sat in math class with the uncultured masses. My father’s note of reprieve burned a hole in my pocket. By this point I’d missed a lot of math and had fallen far behind the other students. I felt like a mathematical Rip Van Winkle, waking up to an unfamiliar world of long division and remainders. The other kids carried numbers over and stacked them like blocks to come up with new numbers. They seemed to speak a whole new language. “Have you been doing your catch-up work, Mark?” my teacher asked. I had not. After every missed math class, she’d written down a list of pages from our textbook for review so that I could keep up. I had ignored them all. I was a classical musician. What use had I for math?

Did Beethoven study math? Could Mozart explain what a quotient was? How many angles could Bach name? I couldn’t tell you because I wasn’t a very good musical history student either. I’d like to know, though. Even as I write this, I could very easily type “Was Beethoven good at math” into a search engine and ease a lifetime’s curiosity, but I won’t. Again. When I tried, the second I typed “Beethoven” and “numbers” into Google, it suggested the series of movies starring Charles Grodin and a St. Bernard dog, which reminded me of how funny Grodin was on the Letterman show, and that led me down a YouTube hole to episodes of his issues-oriented CNBC talk show—and I lost a whole day of writing. So, no, I did not do my catch-up math homework, for much the same reason.

My teacher used my rare presence as a good opportunity for the class to recap what they’d been doing. Not only were the ideas flying over my head, but the very numbers seemed to disappear as soon as the teacher wrote them on the blackboard. I leaned into my friend Mickey and whispered, “Is she really writing numbers on the board?” He assured me that she was and showed his scribbler to prove he was getting it. I had to move up to an empty desk and, though faint, I could see the numbers now, too. My teacher saw me squinting and told me she was putting me on the list to get my eyes checked. Great. First a cello and now glasses: God did not intend for me to ever kiss a girl.

The harder I struggled with math, the more intriguing the cello seemed. I was not a good math student to begin with. Now I found myself in a class where only ¹/25 of people had trouble with fractions. I’d have to deal with my problems with math problems. But why rush it? Maybe I was giving up on the cello too soon. After all, only Sister Elizabeth and Kevin had ever seen me play. And it wasn’t like the school bullies would line up to catch the next orchestra recital.

That night at the dinner table, Dad asked what the nun had said when I gave her his note. “Oh, she was very understanding,” I lied. “And she said you had lovely penmanship.” Mike shot me a quizzical look from across the table, then turned up the dial on his Walkman until I could hear Keith Richards’s guitar almost as clearly as the old man chewing.

The next day, my feet felt like lead as I walked toward the music room. I rubbed the “get out of jail free” card in my pocket. To hand it over meant social renaissance. On the other hand, I’d have to face the life of mathematical illiteracy I’d been building for myself. As I neared the door, I could hear the strains of Kevin’s jellyfish fingers filling the room with elevator music. I took my place alongside him and listened to the end of his piece, expecting a door to open to reveal a sign that read “Housewares.”

“Excellent, Kevin,” Sister Elizabeth said, causing his light-bulb-shaped head to swell even more. “Now, Mark. Your turn.” I fumbled the cello out of its case. I knew about as much about my instrument as I did about math and was beginning to realize that I’d been choosing between two things I hated. I hemmed and hawed as I went through the motions of rosining up my bow. Stroking it as if I were buttering a slice of bread, I sized up the nun. How would she react if I gave her the note? Would she be angry or relieved? Surely there was someone else she could use as the cello’s leaning post.

“That’s enough rosin,” Sister Elizabeth said. “You’re not painting a fence.” Kevin waited anxiously to hear me play. Even I was curious to see what sounds would come out. I was having no more luck with music than math. For two such vastly different subjects, they actually had a lot in common.

There are whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes. A whole note lasts throughout the whole measure, while a quarter note lasts a quarter of a measure. A quarter note with a dot after it would be held for three-eighths of a measure, since that’s midway between a quarter note and a half note. This was not comforting to a young fella who’s trying to escape fractions. There was just as much math in music class as there was in math class, and with only two students your teacher was far more likely to pick up on the fact that you had no idea what you were doing. I was sure to get in trouble in both classrooms, and I couldn’t even plead the Fifth because I didn’t understand fractions. I knew only enough to know that I was only half interested in either subject.

I began to play. It sounded more like hard work than music. Anyone passing by would be looking for the cat that had been hit by a truck. “It’ll have to be put down,” they would say. “Listen to it. The poor thing must have been dragged for miles.” A critic might pronounce that a bad cellist sounds scratchy. I sounded like I’d eaten a salad made of poison ivy.

“Stop right there.” Sister put us all out of our misery. “Kevin, can you tell us what Mark is doing wrong?” Something told me Kevin would be up to the task. I didn’t want to give him the pleasure.

“But, Sister,” I began, reaching into my pocket for the detonator that would blow my musical career to pieces. I had my father’s note halfway out when she cut me off, using the deeper nun voice that forewarned impending doom to all those who did not shut it immediately.

“Go ahead, Kevin,” she said, twisting the knife in a little deeper.

“Well…” He was relishing the moment. “For starters he’s pressing too hard with his thumb. He is bowing at the wrong angle. He’s holding it wrong. He is using too much rosin. He’s not reading the right rhythms. And he needs to trim his nails.” Music narc.

“That is all true,” she agreed, delighting Kevin. Something about his smug smile made me shove the note deep into my pocket. I would not give him the satisfaction. I’d hand in my note when he wasn’t around.

“But those are the symptoms,” Sister Elizabeth added, “not the cure. Mark is doing all those things because of what he’s not doing. Practising. Mark, I want you to take your cello home with you tonight.”

Home? Was she crazy? How the hell was I going to get that crate on the school bus? I’d have to get the driver to open up the emergency door at the back. And what would Dad say when I walked in the house lugging a cello? I’d already told him I’d given in the note. I needed to stand up and be a man. I had to tell her that I’d never wanted to play the dumb cello in the first place. She needed to know that you can’t force people to play an instrument. You had to inspire them to do so. And picking me because I was the biggest kid in class wasn’t inspiring. It was body-shaming! “Yes, Sister,” I said.

When the school bell rang I went to the music room to collect my cross. I struggled to lift it. Leaning it on my shoulder, I strained against its weight the way Our Lord did with his crucifix on his long walk to Golgotha. The crowds in the hallway parted to watch me pass. I shifted it so that the top was leaning over my shoulder and my arms were hugging its sides. It was as if we were slow-dancing to “Stairway to Heaven” and getting a little fresh.

I tugged and pulled at the case to get it through the door. Somehow I manoeuvred it so that it came out bottom first. I struggled with the breech birth delivery, finally freeing it and dragging it onto the playground. A line of children had already formed at my bus, so I decided to wait until they were all seated and the aisle was free before I brought home my bundle of joy.

“What’s in the box, fruit?” Silver Fox asked with an honest curiosity. In fact, the sight of me wrestling with the cello case had sparked the curiosity of the entire pack of Foxes. I dreaded telling them the truth: not only would I have to explain what a cello was but what an orchestra was as well, and I was getting pressed for time. The line to the bus was growing shorter as kids packed into their seats in straggly rows. The first bus was already breaking formation and leaving the parking lot. I didn’t have time to listen to Fox and his brothers mocking me. I had to get mocked on the bus so that I could get home for my brother to mock me.

“It’s probably his mother,” Fox said, ramping up the satire. I didn’t think jamming one’s mother into a cello case showed weakness. If I’d done that I probably would have killed her. Murdering my mother and dragging her corpse around would have made me the toughest kid in school.

“Yup. It’s my mom,” I concurred, pulling the case on the pavement and scuffing it. “Come on, Mom,” I said, lips pressed to the lid. “We have to catch the bus or we’ll be late for supper. We’re having Mozartrella cheese on Bach-choy.” That caused a moment of confusion; I took the opportunity to push through the wall of human befuddlement. I would have been home free if not for one devastating mistake: trailing the large round bum of my instrument behind me. Two of the Foxes grabbed it, jerking it away; I lost hold of the neck and it came crashing down onto the asphalt. A muffled blast sounded in protest, alerting the boys to the presence of something inside the case.

“It’s a cat,” Middle Fox said. I crossed him off my list of donors should I ever join the local symphony.

“Open the suitcase,” Silver Fox ordered. I could hear the hiss of the bus’s air brakes. Still though, I had some time: kids were shuffling around inside, and there was always a lot of arguing over the back seat. We called it the bump seat, since you’d get a good lift when we hit a pothole. The kids would encourage the driver to hit as many bumps as possible. “Hit a bump, Bus Driver!” we’d yell. If he hit one big enough you could actually be sent flying from your seat, and in a perfect world you’d hit your head on the top of the bus. It was a simpler time.

Kids were jamming the edge of hardcover schoolbooks into the tabs on the windows to get them open. The windows had seized up over time and only a grade six or higher could manage to get them down. It was crucial to do so or else an entire city’s worth of pedestrians would pass without being able to properly give them the finger.

All this excitement was slipping away now because Fox and his brothers had taken an interest in classical music. They enveloped the case and pawed at its latches, kneeling down beside it and finally opening the lid. Fox pulled the bow from its housing and started hitting his brothers with it. It made a thwip! thwip! thwip! sound as it cut through the air, making it seem a deadlier weapon than it was.

“Look at the size of that fiddle!” one of them shouted. The boys lifted up my cello and began to strum it like a guitar. They jostled for it, delighted to be holding something so comically oversized. Then two of his brothers grabbed Fox and shoved him into the case, closing the lid on him.

“Let me out!” he screamed as the other boys started to kick the sides of the case with their sneaker boots. I had lost control of the situation.

“Give me back my cello!” I shouted. Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! The brothers started to hit me on the backside with my own bow. “Give it up! You’ll break it,” I yelled, unsure if I meant the bow or my arse. “It’s not mine. Sister gave it to me.” I hoped invoking the name of the great hand smackers would scare some sense into them. Breaking a cello would surely earn them a strapping severe enough to guarantee they’d never again have fingerprints. This crowd would probably consider that a good thing, though.

“If it’s Sister’s, then how come you’re taking it on the bus, spaz?” Silver Fox asked.

“Because I have to practise,” I said, my voice rising into the high-pitched whine of a kid who sees his bus starting to pull away.

“Yeah, well, so do we,” he decided. “We’re taking this home tonight.” They were cello-jacking me. Sister Elizabeth had come to my classroom door and forced me to become a cellist, I’d been worried that bullies would tease me for playing it, and now four of them were stealing the instrument from me because they loved it so. I had not seen this coming.

I looked at the four brothers and then back at my bus. The door closed with the hiss that indicated I was about to be stranded. A momentary concern for Fox flashed into my mind as I wondered how much air was in a case. The bus lurched forward. “To hell with the cello,” I thought, “to hell with Fox, and to hell with his brothers.” I ran to my bus and banged on its side. The brakes hissed and the door slid open. I found a seat facing the school and watched the brothers as they sat on the case, hitting each other with my bow. Substitute the bow for a bone and they could be the prehistoric apes at the start of 2001. I leaned out the window as far as I could and shouted, “This is your bus too, ya nimrods!” A flash of recognition crossed their faces as they realized they had a long walk home with a heavy cello. They went back to hitting each other. “Which of us is more screwed?” I wondered.

On the bus the next morning Fox told me that his oldest brother had stashed the cello near the school and that if I wanted it back I’d have to go see him. Their parents had split and their father had a new house closer to school and he’d been none too happy when the brood he thought he’d escaped showed up at his door with a classical instrument. I’d never heard of anyone’s parents breaking up before. That just didn’t happen at Catholic school. You got pregnant, you got married, and whatever parent outlived the other won. That was how the game was played. I knew divorce was about as high up a sin as you could get, and felt truly bad for him.

“Sorry ’bout that,” I said, and Fox hit me hard in the shoulder.

“Shut up,” he replied, turning his face to the window. I knew what the scratch in his voice meant and I didn’t want to say anything else in case it would make him cry. Besides, his parents were going to burn in hell for all eternity. That was punishment enough as far as I could figure.

I sat in math class more confused than ever. We were covering our times tables. When I was last there, I had loved times tables. This math made sense to me. There was a pattern. One times zero equalled zero. Two times zero equalled zero. Three times zero equalled zero. Okay. One times one equalled one. Two times one equalled two. Three times one equalled three. I was down with that. Two times two was four. Three times two was six. Double the number and you have your answer. There was nothing to it. Three and four went a little rogue but nothing I couldn’t handle. The five times tables all ended in either a zero or a five. I’d missed six and seven and returned to math class in time for eight. Eight times six is forty-eight? What the hell? Shouldn’t it be eighty-six or something? Eight times eight is sixty-four? It should be eighty-eight or at the very least sixteen. This was anarchy. I needed my cello back.

Fox’s older brother skipped school the next couple of days, so I avoided cello lessons. I also avoided math class. When my teacher told me that it was time for cello I’d put away my books and leave the room. Then I’d go down the stairs to the first floor where Sister Elizabeth’s classroom was. Instead of going in to my cello lesson, I’d hide under the staircase until there was movement in the hall above me. I didn’t have a watch, so the only way to know when forty minutes had passed was by listening for the grade sevens. Once I heard a group shuffling their way to the gym or a science lab, I decided the time was right and I went back to class.

Now I wasn’t only missing math. I was missing cello and math. I’d taken a bad situation and doubled down, making it far worse and gaining nothing. This went on for weeks, and I started to wonder if the teachers at my school ever talked. Surely one would say, “How is Mark coming along on the cello?” Eventually Sister Elizabeth would have to say, “I noticed Mark hasn’t come for cello practice in two months. I was wondering: did he die?” But nothing ever happened. The other shoe did not drop. I’d sit alone with my thoughts under the stairwell for forty minutes, getting stupider.

This did not cause any sleepless nights. You’d think I’d be terrified of being caught. I was not. I was perfectly happy to not have my cake and not eat it, too. But I was basically living out an After School Special, and like all such characters, there would be trouble for me after the first commercial break.

The Mormons had some pretty good commercials when I was a kid. There’d be some life lesson told with Madison Avenue slickness and with the tagline “A message from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormons!” I never knew what a Latter-day Saint or a Mormon was. Nobody at school ever mentioned the other faiths. So I didn’t know what they were selling, but I liked how they sold it.

I could imagine what a commercial for Catholicism would be like.

Priest: Have you sinned? Swearing? Lying? Adultery? MURDER? Wish you could start over? Well, now you can! For just three easy instalments of three Hail Marys, four Our Fathers, and two Acts of Contrition, you can have your guilt history wiped clean! Offer valid until Sunday. Offer not available to Jews and the divorced. A message from the Catholics.

The Mormons sold their religion as though prayers were hamburgers. One such ad was an anti-lying commercial. It featured a kid who was thinking about lying to his parents so that he could go see a movie. He turns a corner into a dark hallway where a gang of jazz-hands-waving song-and-dance men are waiting to ambush him with a song. They’d sing:

When you tell one lie, it leads to another

So you tell two lies to cover each other

Then you tell three lies and oh brother

You’re in trouble up to your ears

It ended with the kid running in tears to confess a lie he hadn’t even told yet. The voiceover claimed, “There’s no such thing as a good lie.” That, I thought, was a lie. I’d had two big problems—failing math and being forced to play cello—and now both had gone away, plus I enjoyed a free period. Lying made me feel like dancing!

When you tell one lie, you can trick your brother

So you tell two lies, to fool your mother

Then you tell three lies and soon you discover

Your troubles all disappear

I danced up the staircase, stopping to slide partway down the banister, and eventually made it to my classroom. Several kids were lined up at the blackboard. Something unusual was happening. The air was thick with tension and the smell of prepubescent perspiration.

“Mark, you’re just in time for the Mathletics,” my teacher said, as if she’d read my mind and plucked out the worst possible scenario for me to walk into.

“What’s that, miss?” My knees were getting weak.

“Our class is competing against the others in our grade. The principal is going to judge. The class that knows their times tables the best will win a pizza party.”

The other kids all howled their excitement, even though I was the only one getting the info for the first time. I felt like vomiting. Math class had been extended past cello time. The kids leaning against the blackboard looked to me as if they were facing a firing line. I wondered if I could ask the nun for a blindfold and a cigarette.

The panic filled me with a shot of adrenalin, so I leaned over to Fox to whisper a threat. “If you don’t give me back my cello today I’ll tell the principal when she comes in,” I lied through clenched teeth.

“I don’t know where it is,” he smirked. “My brother hid it by my dad’s.”

“Miss!” I shouted, raising my hand. I had no idea what I was going to say when she called on me, but I knew I was hitting rock bottom. If this wasn’t my come-to-Jesus moment, it was definitely my come-to-Miss moment.

“Yes, Mark?” she answered without looking up. She was busy writing out math problems on index cards for the principal to ask the Mathletes.

“Fine,” Fox hissed. “But you’ll have to come get it after school.”

It would mean missing my bus, but I had no other choice.

“Nothing, miss,” I answered my teacher. “I thought I had to go to the washroom, but then realized I didn’t.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, lost in her red-ink world of monotony. I flipped an E.T. eraser over and started to write out the seven, eight, and nine times tables in a flurry. The other class from across the hall entered our room in silence. Everyone was always on their best behaviour when a principal was on deck. Six of theirs lined up at the front of the room alongside six of ours as we prepared to let loose the dogs of war.

The principal arrived and we all stood at our desks in salute. She took her place at our teacher’s desk and shuffled through the question cards.

“Good afternoon, boys and girls,” she began. “Today we will see just who has been studying their times tables and who has not.” Man, she had no idea. She began with a couple of eight times right out of the gate. I respected her take-no-prisoners attitude. But it didn’t faze any of the nerds who’d volunteered to go first; they deflected her assaults like a row of Terry Sawchuks. The first round was a draw. The next crew of reinforcements lined up at the board and the principal peppered them with a blast of seven times, a couple of nine times, and few one times to keep ’em guessing.

By now I’d almost completed my cheat sheet, with E.T. covered in numbers from his heart light to halfway up his long bony neck. I’d even managed to cross out the ones that had already been asked so I wouldn’t waste any valuable cheating time.

“Mark, Gary, Fox, Bernadette, Tina, Bobbie Jo.” My number had been called. I clutched the eraser as securely as if I were Moses holding one of the tablets chiselled by God. As I took my place in the line I thought to myself, “If I don’t know the answer, it’s probably fifty-six. Fifty-six sounds like the answer to a math question.”

“Mark.” The principal had picked me right away. Caught off guard, I almost blurted out “fifty-six” before she’d even asked the question. “What is eleven times eleven?”

It struck me only then how difficult it would be to look up the answer on E.T. in front of two classes, my teacher, and the principal without looking suspicious. I was forced to think my way out of it. “Go with what you know,” I told myself. Eleven times ten is one hundred and ten so eleven times eleven is one hundred and ten plus eleven so that would be one hundred and twenty-one. “One hundred and twenty-one, Sister,” I answered triumphantly.

“Very good, Mark,” she said. I was beginning to see the value in going straight. I had nothing to fear. Maybe it was time to come in out of the cold. I was tired of living a double life. I’d come to math class. I’d learn my times tables. I’d find my cello, return it to Sister Elizabeth, and hand in my note. I would be a fugitive no more.

“Mark.” The principal’s voice shook me from my retirement plans. Was it my turn again already? “What is eight times eight?”

I remembered this one. This was one of the ones that made no sense. It wasn’t eighty-eight. And it wasn’t sixteen. For some reason I thought it might be sixty-four, but that didn’t sound right at all.

“Fifty-six,” I said, feeling more confident than I’d ever been about anything in my entire life.

“Incorrect,” she said. I shook it off, telling myself I’d get the next one. I didn’t. Nor did I get the one after that, or the one following. Fox and I were the two least mathletic students in our grade. The other class returned to their room for their party and we sat in our seats, pizza-less. I had embarrassed myself in front of the entire class and cost my friends a party they had no doubt earned, but at least the worst was behind me.

“Mark and Fox, will you stand up by the blackboard, please?” the principal asked, even though we all knew that nobody was being given a chance here. “St. Teresa’s students are good students. St. Teresa’s students do their homework. St. Teresa’s students know their times tables. Are you St. Teresa’s students?”

“Yes, Sister?”

“Well, you’re not acting like St. Teresa’s students, are you?” She paced in front of us like a lion waiting to be fed. “All these other boys and girls spent a long time studying. They know their times tables. They deserve a pizza party. You deserve a pizza party, don’t you, boys and girls?” The children all agreed that they deserved a pizza party. She was really reading the room. Fox looked at me with big, wide eyes. Normally he’d just walk around and threaten to hit every kid in class until they shut up. Now he was powerless. But there was something more to the panicky look on his face. Bullies didn’t care about math. He was more unnerved than he should be.

“I think the children deserve an explanation. Why don’t you know your times tables?” The nun was about an inch from Fox’s face now, and if I hadn’t seen it myself I’d never have believed it. He melted like a dropped ice cream on a playground in August. “Mom won’t help me cuz she’s asleep all the time or gone out. Dad don’t live home no more and he doesn’t want us around cuz he got a new girlfriend. I never sees him. My brothers are always hitting me and the house is never quiet. There’s too much of a racket to study. Nobody cares anyway! I hates it all.”

Fox huffed all this out between sobs and the principal patted him on the shoulder, half to comfort him and half to shut him up. She’d gone down this road looking to humiliate a couple of grade-schoolers and maybe give them a nightmare. Now Fox had opened up to the class in a stunning behind-the-scenes look at the mind of a bully. Half the kids felt sorry for him. The other half shrugged, thinking, “So? Sounds pretty normal to me.”

Sister turned to me. “And you, Mark? What have you got to say for yourself?” That was it? She was going to reduce Fox to tears and then leave him leaning against a blackboard with chalk dust on his back? It seemed she was, and that gave me an out.

“Mom’s never home, Sister.” I could hear the shadowy song-and-dance men in my head. So you tell four lies to try to protect you. “And Dad is always at work, so I’m always home alone.” Then you tell five lies so folks won’t suspect you. These may have been the biggest lies I’d ever told. My mother was always home. The last time she went anywhere other than the mall or church was to the hospital to see my father. It was true that Dad was often working, but he worked nine to five, came home for lunch, and worked close enough to the house that he could see into the kitchen from his desk.

“That surprises me to hear, Mark,” she said, looking back at Fox. He’d turned to face the blackboard now. His cheeks, wet with tears, were covered in damp chalk dust—a prepubescent Pagliacci.

She knew my parents. Normally, she would have called me out for lying. But now that Fox’s emotional testimony had swung the jury, she was careful not to poke her next witness too hard. “If your mother is never home, then where does she go?”

This was a tricky one. I had no idea where adults went. I thought of the time Mom crashed the car trying to go pick up my brother. “She’s always out driving around,” I blurted. Even I was disappointed in my answer.

“Driving around?” There was something sinister about the way she said it—as though my mother were a drug dealer, or perhaps a prostitute. The principal decided to leave it there, and the prosecution rested. “Just…learn the times tables,” she said in conclusion and left the room. I happily returned to my seat and looked over at Fox. He’d buried his face in his folded arms on his desk. His chalkboard kabuki makeup was going to ruin his good school shirt, but I thought it best not to bring that up. I’d be upsetting him enough after school: I needed my cello and we were going to his father’s house whether he wanted us there or not.

The bell rang and I grabbed my coat. I collected Fox, which was easier than I thought. His face was still covered in chalk, but the wet dust had dried on his cheeks and forehead, making him look like an albino panda. He barely spoke a word as we went looking for his brother. Silver Fox didn’t really go to our school; he went “up around” our school. The world was his classroom now. We found him by the side of the building trying to toss a balled-up skipping rope onto the top of a school bus. The two little girls who’d been using it stood by watching in tears. I felt bad interrupting him at work, but I was on a mission.

Silver Fox told me he’d tried to sell the cello but no one would buy it, so he’d dumped it in his father’s backyard. I could have it back if I wanted, but it would cost me two weeks’ worth of Pepsis. Fair trade. I’d just tell Mom I wanted juice packs for lunch. The Fox dynasty patriarch finally managed to get the jump rope onto the bus roof and laughed maniacally as he watched it pull away. I grabbed his brother by the arm, using the distraction to make an exit without getting pantsed.

“We can’t go to my father’s,” Fox protested. “I’m not allowed over there.” This made no sense. How could you not be allowed in your father’s house?

“Look,” I said, “we’re just going to get my cello and go, okay?” Fox dragged his heels the whole way, but we eventually made it to the house. I’d never been this far away from school grounds on foot before. A row of houses stood before me, attached on both sides. Every two houses shared a lawn. I’d never seen so many houses packed so tightly together. To me, having grown up with a radio station for a neighbour, it looked like heaven. These were “The Blocks”: an area of public housing for low-income families. The first public housing in St. John’s was built for war widows in 1947. Seventeen buildings provided sixty-eight apartments. The original buildings were made out of cinder blocks, hence the name. They were later torn down for newer family homes, but the name remained. There was a social stigma for some of the kids who lived there, but I envied Fox for living in a real neighbourhood and I couldn’t wait to have a look around.

“How do we get into the backyard?” The only way to the back, Fox explained, was through the house. I bounded up the stairs and he called after me to stop.

“Wait,” he said, clearly worried. “You can’t make any noise and we have to go straight through to the kitchen and out the back. I’m serious,” he continued seriously. “You can’t say anything.” Jeez, this guy was worse than the nuns during assemblies. He went on point and I followed behind, waiting for his signal. The house was darker inside during the day than mine was at night. The air was heavy with a strange smell that I now know as beer. I looked to my left into the living room. The curtains were drawn and a small television was playing a wrestling match with the sound down low. The flickering blue light from the screen was the only thing illuminating the sole occupant of the room. He appeared to be sleeping. His back was to us so I couldn’t see his face. Long brown hair touched bare shoulders as he slumped to one side. An ashtray atop a magazine was brimming with butts on his left side and a few empty half-cases of Blue Star beer criss-crossed the floor to his right. He looked pretty peaceful to me. I wanted to ask Fox if we could watch a bit of the wrestling, but he was already standing by the back door motioning for me to follow.

I snuck through the kitchen where several half-finished bowls of Chef Boyardee and takeout containers were piled high on the counter. Fox opened the door as slowly as he could, but that didn’t stop it from squealing. When he closed it carefully behind us it squeaked its thanks.

The backyard was a junkman’s dream. Car parts were littered here and there, even though Fox’s father didn’t own a car. Maybe he intended to knit one together one day. Stacks of empty beer bottles lined the back wall; the cardboard of the cases had long given way to the Newfoundland weather, and some of the bottles had spilled out the sides and broken on the grass below. An old mattress and an upturned baby pool added a drop of colour to the landscape. There, in the corner by the fence, was my cello. An orange tabby cat lay on top of it, sunning herself and guarding the case.

“Huss,” Fox hissed at the cat. She lazily meowed her disappointment over losing her perch. Then she wagged her tail and jumped down onto the mattress and off into the tall grass. I pointed out that her swaying tail meant she was angry, which was surprising because her matted fur didn’t look like it had been recently shampooed, but Fox was in no mood for pet pointers. “Here,” he said. “Take it. Go.” He gestured to another street behind the fence.

“If you think I’m going over that fence with this, you’re mad.” No way would I get the cello over that fence without breaking either it or myself. “I’ll have to go back through the house.”

“Fine.” Fox kicked the baby pool across the yard, earning another disapproving meow from the cat. He pulled the cello toward the back door, motioning for me to take an end. “We better make it quick.”

This was taking longer than I’d thought. I wondered what would happen when the bus showed up at our house without me. My mother would certainly call the school, and there’d be cops looking for me before the end of the day. “I need to phone home,” I said, emulating E.T. “My mom is going to be worried sick.”

“Are you nuts?” Fox shouted. “You can’t go in there and use the phone. You’ll wake my dad up.”

“You’ll wake my dad up” wasn’t something I was used to hearing at four p.m. “I’ll be quiet,” I bargained. “I’ll just be a second. All I have to do is say that I went to my friend’s house.”

“What friend?”

“You, ya idiot.” I wasn’t trying to manipulate the situation. At that moment, on our quest, I truly felt that Fox was my friend. The words hung in the air regardless, and I felt like a teenager on prom night who’d professed his love too soon.

“Whatever,” Fox said, punching me in the shoulder. “Come on. Just be quick.” We slowly pulled the door toward us, dragging out the screech of the hinge for twice as long than if we’d just opened the door normally. Fox motioned to the phone with a tilt of his head and then returned his gaze to his dad. Watching the man asleep in the armchair, I realized for the first time that here was the father of all of the various Foxes who’d been hitting me since my first day of school. This man had unleashed a progeny that had been responsible for more cuts and bruises at our school than hockey and soccer combined. He was the father of a dynasty of destructiveness that epitomized the “red-headed bastard,” but he himself had long brown hair. What must it be like to be the only non-redhead in that house? Did he feel out of place? Is that what drove him to drink? I had so many questions.

The phone was halfway up the kitchen wall, an olive green rotary model with a coiled cord that hung all the way to the floor after years of being stretched to the armchair to order pizzas. Fox looked at his father, then at me. He gave me the nod and I tried to dial the number in time to the wrestling referee’s call.

Ref: One…

I dialled the first three numbers.

Ref: Two…

Three more.

Ref: Three!

My index finger pulled the dial four more times, as fast as it would carry it. The TV crowd roared their approval as I tried to hear my parents’ phone ringing over my beating heart.

Booooooooooooop.

Mom: Helllooo?

I leaned into the phone, cupping my hand around the receiver. “Mom, it’s Mark,” I whispered. I was using my lowest possible phone voice.

“Hellooo? Hellooooo? Who’sThere?” After several years of shouting my mother had deafened herself slightly in her phone ear and she couldn’t hear me.

“It’s Mark,” I said, pushing it as far as I dared. Fox shushed me from the doorway. On TV, André the Giant raised his hands above his head in the ring and I tried to time my conversation around the cheers of his fans.

“DontCallBackHereNoMore,YouDirtyBugger,” my mother chastised. Calling someone and breathing heavily was the 80s version of a dick pic. And now my own mother was about to hang up on me.

“Mom, it’s Mark,” I said in a normal speaking voice. Poor Fox nearly passed out from worry, and I heard the subtle clink of a beer bottle being knocked over in the other room. “I’m at my friend’s house. I’ll get a bus to the mall and walk home. Bye.” I hung the phone back on the wall, victorious. When the Bakelite headset came down into the cradle the jangly echo of the bell reverberated through the kitchen. Fox gasped, inhaling enough air to have suffocated the cat if it had wandered into the room. The light from the living room changed, the TV’s blue glow momentarily eclipsed as Fox’s father stood. A Styrofoam plate of Yim Kee’s Chinese takeout slid down well-worn sweatpants onto the floor.

“Who’s that?” his father bellowed, his afternoon sleep interrupted. Fox disappeared from the doorway, his look of terror turning my legs to lead. “Who the f— is in this house?” I’d never heard an adult swear before, and the effect was terrifying. Fox’s father turned the corner and his eyes locked with mine. He could have been anywhere from thirty-five to sixty, depending on the effect that alcohol had had on his body. His long, scraggly hair and beard obscured his face, making it difficult to gauge his reaction. His left forearm was covered in a tattoo of an anchor. This was the first time I’d ever seen a real tattoo, and I stared at it until he was close enough for me to smell the alcohol on his breath. I backed away into the corner. “How did you get in here?” he demanded, his bare belly inches from my chin.

“He just came in to use the phone,” Fox said, jumping between his father and me. Fox’s old man smacked him straight across the cheek. I was completely frozen. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t even piss myself.

“Who the hell said he could do that?” Fox Senior turned toward me and I could feel my every muscle tense, waiting for my turn. “Coming in here, racking up my phone bill.”

Fox turned to me. “Just go,” he said. His eyes were wet with tears, but he wouldn’t let a drop fall while I was still in the house. I could tell he laid the blame on me for every bit of bad luck that had befallen him that day. I regretted pushing my way into his house, and I knew now why he’d been so resistant. I brushed past his old man, heaved the cello from the hallway, and walked out.

I could hear his father yelling at Fox as I struggled down the street. “Who said he could come here? Who said you could? You tell your mother that my house isn’t a f—in’ daycare.”

I made my way to a bus stop in silence. I rode the Route 2 all the way to the Avalon Mall and eventually, drenched in sweat and exhausted, back to my house. When my parents asked me what I was still doing with a cello, I told them sixty-five percent of the truth. My father said, “People often confuse the cello with the stand-up bass. But they’re different,” and buried himself back in his paper. I tried to make him feel my cold stare on the other side of an ad for a “Blowout Carpet Sale.” How could he not have some words of wisdom like the TV dads did? What would Mr. Drummond say to Arnold if he were in the same situation?

“Oh,” he suddenly added from behind his paper. “I’m never home, am I?” All thoughts of fatherly advice left me as I began to fear for my life. “Your principal called me at work. I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you, but it ends now, okay?” He turned a page without revealing his face.

“Yes. Yup. Okay,” I said. Fair deal. I wondered what would happen to Fox if the principal called his house. I shuddered at the thought, grateful to live where I did.

The next day at school, I finally gave Sister Elizabeth my father’s note. She gently let it slip into the garbage can, and I left the music room without a word spoken. Fox and I never talked about that day at his father’s house, but we never fought again either. Even his brothers left me alone for the most part. I felt as though I was finally starting to fit in. I got a forty-nine percent in math, but I was bumped ahead anyway. I couldn’t play cello and I sucked at math. The world was as it should be.