truth, pith, train, trip, mirth, ruin, truant
NOW THAT THE weather was getting nicer and the days longer, the Economopouloses started doing a lot more barbecuing. I would wander into the backyard whenever I smelled meat cooking, and they’d always invite me to join them. I never said no.
One night, Amanda came over. She and Cosmo were taking it slow, but she’d agreed to his invitation for dinner and to meet his family. She arrived at the door wearing a moss green sweater that was made of the softest wool in the world. I know because I got to touch it when she gave me a hug hello.
Cosmo blushed as he brought her into the living room and introduced her. ‘Ma, Pop, this is Amanda Svecova. She’s …’ He searched for the right word. ‘… a friend.’
Mr and Mrs E were very polite, but they spoke a lot in Greek to Cosmo. Finally Cosmo laughed and said in English, ‘You’re right, she isn’t Greek.’
Mrs E punched Cosmo in the arm, embarrassed that he’d translated, but Amanda just smiled. ‘I’m half Czech, half Irish from way back when, but mostly I’m Canadian.’
After that, things settled down and Amanda scored bonus points with Mr E when she told him that The Mercer Report was one of her favorite shows on TV, because it was one of Mr E’s favorites, too.
‘That Rick, he should run for prime minister,’ Mr E said, in remarkably good English. ‘Him or the Brent Butt from Corner Gas.’
She scored points with Mrs E, too, when she asked for seconds. ‘I like that,’ Mrs E whispered to me. ‘A girl who’s not afraid to eat.’
I wanted to help Cosmo and Amanda in any way I could, so I said, ‘You’re right. She eats like a pig.’
After supper, Amanda insisted on helping Mrs E with the dishes. Cosmo, Mr E, and I settled into our seats in the living room and turned on a soccer game on TV. But a minute later, Amanda marched back in and said, ‘Cosmo? Ambrose? Did I mention you’re drying?’
We groaned, but we got up and helped. Cosmo kept flicking his dish towel at Amanda and Mrs E. They yelled at him to stop, but they were laughing too.
When we were done, Amanda went to her car. She came back with her Scrabble board and set it up on the dining room table. ‘OK, Ambrose,’ she said. ‘You’re going to play a game against me.’
She stopped a lot as we played. ‘See how I just laid tiles on a triple word score? You could have prevented me from doing that,’ she said, and she showed me how. She also showed me how to keep track of what tiles were left in the bag, so I could roughly guess what letters my opponent had and how I could make multiple words in just one turn. Cosmo watched, and even Mr and Mrs E wandered in and out to see how we were doing.
Then she tried to teach me some relaxation techniques. ‘In case you ever start to panic,’ she said. ‘It happens to the best of us.’
She taught me how to take a deep breath in, then a deep breath out, to calm my nerves. ‘Then there’s positive imaging,’ she said. ‘If you get into a tight spot, imagine something that makes you really calm and content. Go on, try it.’
So I did. I had a hard time coming up with something at first. Then I thought of my dad. His image made me feel calm and content, but it also made me sad and lonely. I’d have to work on the positive imaging.
I thought about telling Cosmo about my visit from Silvio, but there was never a good time, and I just didn’t see the point. I knew he was working on paying Silvio back, and I knew he didn’t want to borrow money from his parents, so why stress him out even more? It wasn’t like there was much else he could do about it. Nothing legal, anyway.
The weeks passed and suddenly it was the night before the tournament. My mind was full of words and my stomach was doing somersaults (maestros, masseurs, molasses, amulets, armless, assumes, ass). It was impossible to sleep. Finally, after tossing and turning till about three o’clock in the morning, I got up to grab a glass of water. My mom was sitting on the couch.
‘Mom?’
‘What are you doing up?’
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
‘Me, neither.’
I sat beside her. She was looking through our favorite photo album, the one with all the pictures of Dad. She’d taken almost all of them herself.
‘I don’t think I should go to the cooking class,’ she said.
My heart sank. ‘Why?’
‘I think I’ll call Bob and cancel.’
‘You can’t do that!’ I must’ve said it a bit too loud because she looked at me funny. But then I figured it out. She couldn’t sleep. She was staring at photos of Dad. ‘Mom, Dad wouldn’t mind.’
She just turned the page.
‘He’s been dead almost thirteen years. And everything you’ve ever told me about him … he was a great guy.’
‘He really was, Ambrose.’
‘Then he’d want you to move on.’
‘I’m hardly “moving on”. It’s just a cooking class.’
‘Exactly. It’s just a cooking class. Besides, you can’t cancel now. Mr Acheson would never find someone else.’
She sighed. ‘You’re right. I’ll go. As long as you promise me you’re truly OK with it.’
‘Mom. I am truly OK with it.’
Which was mostly true.
Mom was supposed to leave by eight o’clock in the morning. Cosmo and I were going to meet in his driveway as soon as she’d left. At 8:05 she stepped out of her bedroom, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. I tried not to look anxious as she pulled on her brown suede jacket.
‘How do I look?’ she asked. Her brow was furrowed as she checked herself out in the full-length mirror that hung by our apartment entrance.
‘You look great,’ I said. ‘Casual, but great.’
She nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s too casual.’
‘That’s not what I meant—’
But she was already back in her bedroom, changing. I paced the living room, staring at the clock. At 8:13 she emerged again, this time in a black skirt, gray blouse, and high heels.
‘Well?’
‘Perfect. Beautiful. Elegant,’ I said hastily. ‘Now get going, or you’re going to be late.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s too elegant.’
Oh, man. She disappeared back into her room.
This time I took the opportunity to dash outside to the driveway, where Cosmo stood waiting. ‘What’s taking you so long?’ he demanded.
‘My mom,’ I replied. ‘She’s having a fashion crisis. Don’t leave without me.’
‘Hurry!’ he shouted after me, as I raced back into our apartment, just in time to see Mom emerge from her bedroom, this time in a blue skirt and a white blouse.
‘Perfect!’ I declared. ‘As Goldilocks would say, it’s “just right.”’
This was the correct thing to say, I guess, because her face relaxed into a smile. ‘Would you look at the time,’ she said. I wanted to shout that I was looking at the time, that I knew all too well that it was now 8:28. She grabbed her purse.
‘OK, bye, have fun,’ I said.
‘You have Bob’s cell phone number?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can check in with me anytime.’
‘I know.’
‘If you go out, stick to the neighborhood.’
‘Yes.’
‘And don’t cross any busy roads.’
‘Mom! I know. We’ve been through all of this.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘The class goes till six. I’ll see you by six-thirty or seven.’
And then, at 8:33 precisely, she left.
I waited till she was safely out of sight, then I ran to the driveway. Cosmo and I raced to the Kitsilano Community Centre, which was where the tournament was being held because the West Side United Church was too small to fit everyone.
‘What have I told you about the purple pants?’ Cosmo asked, eyeing my clothes as we drove through the side streets.
‘They’re my lucky pants,’ I said. I was wearing a bright red-hooded sweatshirt on top that said I’M FEELING LUCKY on the front, another primo garage-sale find. On my feet were my Ikes. I thought I looked pretty good.
‘Well, you certainly are colorful, I’ll give you that,’ he said.
‘You’re letting your tattoo show,’ I replied, looking at his short-sleeved T-shirt.
‘I’m hoping it’ll intimidate some of my opponents. I need all the help I can get.’
When we parked on a tree-lined street near the center, he hauled a big basket out of the trunk.
‘What’s that?’
‘A picnic lunch. I made it,’ he said proudly. ‘I’m hoping Amanda will join us.’
We started walking to the community center, which, between its buildings and its grounds, took up two full city blocks. It was a gorgeous, warm, sunny May day, and the adjoining sports fields were full of teams playing soccer and baseball.
The place was just as busy inside, and I realized most of the people were heading into the gym Amanda had rented for the tournament.
‘How many people are here?’ I asked Amanda, when we saw her at the door.
‘At last count, we had close to a hundred entries,’ she replied. ‘But enough chitchat, you’d better get a move on. Your first game starts in five minutes.’
I ran to the bathroom and had a diarrhea poo.
Five minutes later I hurried into the gymnasium. It was full of row upon row of tables and chairs. Close to a hundred Scrabble players from across North America were settling into the chairs, and many of them were setting up their own special Scrabble boards. Some were custom-made and some, Amanda told me later, were even homemade. I saw a few people wearing earplugs to block out extra noise. One guy had a sock monkey propped up beside him on the table, which I guessed was his good luck charm, sort of like my purple pants.
I checked the play lists and found my seat across from a little old lady with blue-white hair. Her name was Betsy and she wore a dress with butterflies all over it. She looked a bit like Nana Ruth. Amanda had told me that since I wasn’t ranked yet, I’d play with other unranked players for the first two games. After that, the computer would decide who I’d play with in my division, trying to match me to people with similar scores.
I asked Betsy where she was from.
‘Comox,’ was all she said, then it was time to choose our tiles. Betsy drew an ‘A’, so she started. She looked like a kitchen player, and I relaxed a little, knowing I would have an easy opponent my first game of the day.
But when her first word was ‘ANTHEMS’, for a double word score, a double letter score, and a bingo of an extra fifty points for using all her letters, I knew that I was in trouble.
‘Seventy-six points,’ she said, hitting her clock. Then she cackled loudly. ‘Try beating that, midget.’
OK. She was nothing like Nana Ruth.
I looked at my tiles, and that’s when I started to panic: ‘EIOIXKM’. All I could come up with were dinky words, like ‘HEM’ from her ‘H’, or ‘MIME’ from her ‘M’. My clock was ticking. I knew there must be other words, but I couldn’t see them. Across from me, Betsy was clicking her false teeth and making funny noises with her throat, and I was pretty sure she was doing it on purpose. I could feel my stomach lurch again and I felt like I needed another poo and this was only one minute into the first game.
Then I remembered what Amanda had taught me, about breathing and positive imaging. I figured it was worth a shot. I started breathing in slowly and exhaling slowly. In my mind I pictured a babbling brook, but that was too hokey, so I tried to picture Amanda without her top on, which I know was kind of sinful (especially since Cosmo liked her), but it made me feel much better and kind of warm all over, and I didn’t even hear Betsy’s teeth anymore. After what felt like three minutes, but was really only thirty seconds, I opened my eyes and looked at my letters. The answer was right there in front of me. Calmly I picked up my ‘E’ and my ‘X’ and placed them in front of ‘ANTHEMS’, with the ‘E’ on the triple word score to create ‘EXANTHEMS’.
‘Sixty-three,’ I said, and hit the button on the clock.
She snorted. ‘I challenge.’
So we walked over to the nearest ‘Word Judge’ computer and she punched in the word. I was feeling pretty pleased because I knew it was good, and it was. It was the plural for ‘a skin eruption.’
Betsy lost her turn, and boy, was she miffed. She was miffed when, later in the game, I got the ‘Q’ tile and played ‘QUIT’ and ‘QI’ in one turn, getting the points for the ‘Q’ on a double letter score twice. She was miffed when I played ‘ORACH’ and she challenged again and lost another turn. Meanwhile, she placed a lot of good words, too: bingoing again with ‘OPOSSUMS’ and ‘URETHANE’ and building ‘AA’ and ‘SH’ when she laid down ‘POTASH.’
But I won – 348 to 322.
Betsy wasn’t happy. I reached across the table to shake her hand, but she ignored that and said, ‘Since when do they let smartass kids into these tournaments anyway?’ Then she stormed away as fast as her walker would let her, which wasn’t very fast.
Across the room, Cosmo, who’d just finished his first game, gave me an inquiring look. I gave him the thumbs-up. He gave me the thumbs-down, but as usual, he didn’t seem upset that he’d lost his first game. I noticed that a lot of the players spent any time left over after a game to analyze it, discussing words they’d played and words they should have played. Aside from the odd person like Betsy, it was a pretty friendly atmosphere.
Game Two I played against a tall wiry guy with bad skin, whose name was Kamal. A fedora was perched on his head. He played really well, but he took a long time, so even though his score was higher than mine at the end, he had forty points taken off for going four minutes over. I won by six points. Game Three I played against a friendly, chatty lady about my mom’s age, with beautiful dark skin and thick black hair. She laughed a lot and banged her forehead with the palm of her hand whenever she made a bad play, which was kind of often. I beat her easily, 318 to 251. Game Four I played against a shy man who couldn’t even make eye contact, and, to be honest, he had really bad breath. He was from Seattle, Washington, and he wore a faded, rumpled two-piece gray suit. He crushed me 357 to 275.
Still, it had been a great morning. I’d won three out of my four games. When Cosmo heard the news, he thumped me so hard on the back, I almost fell over. He’d won one of his four, but he didn’t seem to care. In fact, he was in a great mood because Amanda had agreed to have lunch with us.
It was a beautiful day. Cosmo had packed us a big picnic lunch – cold fried chicken, dolmades (that he confessed his mom had made), a baguette, cheese, and some huge homemade cookies (also made by Mrs E). A lot of players had questions for Amanda, so I took the picnic basket from Cosmo, who was waiting patiently for her.
‘I’ll find us a spot in the shade,’ I said. Because I burn easily, I put up the hood on my red sweatshirt as I walked away. On the playing fields, games were breaking up and new teams were arriving.
I found us a perfect spot under a big maple tree. Just as I was about to put the basket down, I heard, ‘Look, it’s Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Granny’s house.’
I knew that voice. And that voice made me freeze.
Sure enough, when I mustered up the courage to unfreeze and turn around, I saw Troy jogging toward me. Mike and Josh weren’t far behind. They were all in their soccer uniforms and, from the large sweat stains on their shirts, I knew they’d just finished a game.
‘Guys. Long time no see.’
‘Look at him,’ said Troy, talking about me in the third person. ‘He’s still a total fag, prancing around with a picnic basket.’
‘It’s almost as bad as his hot pink fanny pack,’ Mike added.
‘It’s not my picnic basket. It’s a friend’s.’
‘Ooh, a friend’s. Is he another homo like you?’ Josh said, and they all cracked up.
‘I’m not gay. Although I have nothing against people who are—’
This time, Josh shoved me first.
‘OK, listen,’ I said, trying to reason with them. ‘I never should have pretended you guys were my friends. It was stupid. But you did try to kill me, so why don’t we say we’re even and call it quits—’
Mike shoved me next and I almost fell over the picnic basket.
‘Don’t,’ I said.
‘Hey, Josh, open the picnic basket,’ said Troy. ‘Let’s see what Hambrose and his faggot friend are having for lunch.’
‘Yeah, I’m starving,’ Mike said.
Josh made a grab for the picnic basket, and suddenly one of the moves Cosmo taught me flashed before my eyes. I blocked Josh’s arm with my own.
‘Leave it alone,’ I said. ‘My friend put a lot of work into that.’
‘Screw you,’ Josh said, and he tried to grab the basket with his other hand, but I blocked that one, too.
Then Mike and Troy made a move for the basket. I blocked it with my body and went into what I hoped looked like some kind of karate pose. I tried to make a convincing sound effect to go with it, like ‘Heee-yaaaa!’ Then I picked up the closest weapon I could find, which was the baguette.
Troy made a grab for the bread, but I just started swinging it like I was some kind of ninja, complete with a whole pile of sounds, like ‘Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’, and ‘Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.’ They covered their heads and I jabbed them with the loaf. The most amazing part of it was, I wasn’t scared. Cosmo’s self-defense lessons had actually helped. I just had to believe in myself.
Then Troy shouted, ‘You’re crazy,’ and he grabbed the baguette out of my hand and snapped it neatly in two. He threw the bread onto the ground and then he punched me in the stomach, hard.
OK, so believing in myself isn’t enough, I thought, as he came at me again. But this time another one of Cosmo’s moves popped into my head and before Troy could punch me, I brought my arm back, just like Cosmo had taught me. With all the force and energy I could muster, I swung my fist forward.
And my fist connected.
With Troy’s nose.
It made quite a satisfying sound.
‘You turd!’ Troy shouted, as he grabbed his nose in pain. I saw that it was bleeding.
I won’t lie. It felt pretty good – no, it felt awesome – to see him standing there with a bloody nose, after all the grief he’d caused me. But it only felt good for a moment because it was still three against one. I figured I was officially a dead man.
But I must’ve really messed up Troy, because the next thing I knew, he started backing away. Mike and Josh followed him. I couldn’t believe it. I’d single-handedly scared the Three Stooges into backing down. I couldn’t resist shouting after them, ‘And from now on, leave me the hell alone!’
I picked up the two baguette halves and brushed them off, then I started to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ I turned to see Cosmo, walking toward me.
‘You’ll never guess what happened,’ I said. ‘I scared off the Three Stooges with a baguette and a punch in the nose.’
Cosmo smiled. ‘Good for you, buddy. And three against one.’
‘Your self-defense lessons really worked, Cosmo. I blocked some of their moves, and my swing, when I hit him – I wish you could’ve seen it.’
Then Amanda joined us. I guess she could see I was walking on a cloud because she asked, ‘What’s all the excitement?’
‘Our lunch was in peril and I saved it,’ I told her, then I repeated the entire play-by-play action for them both. Amanda wasn’t happy that I’d punched a guy in the nose, but that was OK. I didn’t really expect a woman, especially a woman who didn’t know the Three Stooges, to understand.
But Cosmo understood, I could tell. He kept getting me to show him my swing during lunch.
Which was delicious. The mental exertion of the tournament, combined with the physical exertion of the fight, had made me ravenous. Four pieces of chicken, two cartons of milk, five pieces of bread with cheese, and three cookies later, I lay back on the grass and belched.
It wasn’t until we were heading back inside that it dawned on me why Troy and his friends had really run away.
They’d seen Cosmo coming. It was him they were afraid of, not me or my baguette or my right hook. I suddenly wondered if Cosmo had been watching the whole time, waiting to see if I needed him to step in and save me.
But even if he had been, it was OK. Because I’d stood up to the Three Stooges. I hadn’t been scared.
And best of all, I’d thrown a pretty good punch.
The afternoon went really well. I won my first two games, lost my third, and won my fourth (against Joan, but since we shared food issues, she didn’t seem to mind).
I’d won six out of eight games. Cosmo had won two out of eight, but he was grinning and laughing and having a ball. I felt absolutely wiped, like I would pass out right there and then on the cool gym floor. But we couldn’t leave yet; Amanda still had to give out the prizes.
There were four divisions. The top three players in each division won cash prizes. The biggest cash prize was five hundred dollars, given to the winner in division one – Freddy Wong, a Scrabble legend from San Francisco. Larry Schell, from our very own West Side Scrabble Club, wearing the same stained sweatpants and sandals without socks, came in second and won three hundred bucks.
Amanda also gave out some funny awards, like the ‘Hardest Day’ award to the player who’d lost the most, and the ‘Highest Scoring Non-Bingo Word’ award.
When I thought she was finished, I stood up to stretch my legs. But she wasn’t.
‘I also have a couple of special prizes to give out,’ she said. ‘The first one is for the “Most Promising Newcomer.” And I think everyone in the West Side Scrabble Club will agree when I say that this award goes most deservedly to Ambrose Bukowski, age twelve and three-quarters.’
The West Side Scrabble Club members all started to clap loudly. Me, I didn’t do anything; I stood frozen to the spot. Joan, who was sitting beside me, gave me a friendly nudge, and Cosmo whistled through his fingers from across the gym.
I barely remember the long walk up to Amanda at the front. It felt like I was trudging through molasses, or mud, and my legs were numb and there was a ringing in my ears. She handed me a trophy. It had a wooden base, on which sat a little silver cup. A brass plaque read MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER, VANCOUVER SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT, AMBROSE BUKOWSKI. The print was small so they could fit it all onto the plaque.
I had never won anything in my entire life. It felt like a great big rubber ball was rising up in my throat.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered. Then I ran from the gym, my legs working just fine again. I dashed into the men’s washroom and locked myself into a stall and burst into tears.