Do You Think This Is Strange? (25 page)

Somewhere, a voice on a radio.

It was 4:32.

I opened my eyes
and I was seven years old, screaming as loud as I could. I opened my eyes only briefly, then closed them again. With my hands pressed to my ears I lay on the rug, knees to my chest. The sound of my own scream was at the same time comforting and unnerving. Not sure which was winning the tug of war, I screamed louder to see if I could clarify things.

Outside, it was raining, and thunder trembled the sky.

Inside, by the fireplace, Mom yelled at Dad. Dad yelled back at her and they tried to be louder than each other.

I tried silence, but it didn't work. Then I tried slapping my palms on my thighs. But they kept yelling.

“He needs to
be
somewhere!” Mom shouted at Dad.

“He needs to be right
here
!” Dad shouted at Mom.

“When are you going to open your eyes!”

“When?
When?
When are you going to grow up and realize you can't do anything about him?”

Everything was making noise. Everyone was making noise. Everything was competing for the attention of everything else. But if I screamed, I could compete for my own attention.

And I started. I howled, dropped to the floor, and began to kick at the couch.

That did it. The music turned off. My parents stopped yelling. Even the trolls heard me and stopped arguing.

What the devil is that noise
, they asked each other.

Then my mother was kneeling beside me, picking me up and squeezing me against her.

“That's not helping,” my father said. “Let him go.”

I screamed louder.

“I'm not just going to let him scream,” she said. “I can't.”

“Did you ever think that maybe you have to?”

“No,” she said firmly. “Not once.”

I began kicking, squirming, struggling, and she tried to hold me tighter. Her arms around me felt good, and as she squeezed tighter, things felt better. So I kept kicking, kept screaming, because it was working.

“Dammit, Betty,” he said to her and tried to pull her arms apart. “Let him go. He needs to go to his room and calm down.”

He pulled me away from her arms. Now things were no longer working. So I doubled my efforts.

“Freddy,” he said sternly. “Look at me.
Look
at me.”

My eyes remained clenched shut. I screamed louder as my mom and dad struggled: her, to hold me; him, to break us apart. He was stronger, and finally pulled her away. Now she began screaming, too. I opened my eyes and saw him dragging her back, as she kicked and struggled. Rage filled me. I leapt to my feet and charged him, arms swinging, a guttural howl escaping my lips. I threw myself against him, striking at every angle, slapping, thumping, kicking, trying to bite.

“Freddy!” he pushed me away, and I charged him again. This time he pushed me away and I fell to the floor.

“Go to your room!” he roared at me.

I ignored him and leapt back to my feet, attacking again. One wild swing caught him square on the jaw and he winced. I saw his eyes darken, then a sweeping hand, out of nowhere, and my world exploded in stars, knocking me off my feet to the floor.

“Freddy!” Mom shrieked and ran to me, but I rolled away, stood up, and ran, screaming, crying. I swiped at pictures on the wall, knocked over a lamp, and bolted to my room. Bursting in, I ran to Gordon's cage. He was running on his wheel, paying me no attention, oblivious to my distress, unaware of the apocalyptic day I was now having.

I pushed his cage as hard as I could and it flew from my desk and tumbled across the floor.

Downstairs, the trolls were in my house, yelling at each other.

I opened my eyes
and I was seventeen, staring at Jim Worley's bookcase. I was alone in his office. When I arrived, the door was ajar, so I walked in and stood in the middle of the room.

A few minutes passed, as I stared at
The Twentieth Century in Review
, on the top shelf. Finally, I took it down and sat in the duck sauce sofa chair, turning the pages. But they offered nothing of value. Today, they were only pages. Just historical facts of no interest to me. Even the texture of the paper seemed different, of no use, of no special feeling, and my hands were tired even before they began turning the pages.

I let the book lay open on my lap and stared down at it.

4:32. 4:33. 4:34.

At 4:37, Jim Worley came into the office and, seeing me, stopped.

I continued to stare at the book, one hand still holding a page, but not turning it.

Oh the humanity!
the caption cried, and the Hindenburg burst into black-and-white flame on the page before me.

Jim Worley placed his hand on my arm. “You know you can't be here, Frederick,” he said calmly, but I could see that he was nervous. Just a little.

“But I'm getting to the best part,” I said, and he closed the book. I didn't resist, nor did I stop him from making me stand.

“It's time to go home,” he said.

“I have to get notes from my chemistry partner,” I told him, and he shepherded me out of his office.

“You don't need them.” He glanced around. “You should be more concerned with how it looks that you're on school grounds. You've been
suspended
. You might not be expelled, but coming around here isn't going to help you.”

“I don't want to be expelled,” I said.

“It may be too late for that.”

I became frightened. I started to breathe rapidly.

“Look at me, Frederick,” Jim Worley said, but I continued to hyperventilate.

He said again, “
Look
at me.”

I looked at him. He sighed and put both hands on my shoulders.

“Go home, Freddy.”

“A lot of people have told me that,” I said.

He nodded. “Maybe because it's good advice.”

“But I don't want to be expelled.”

“I know,” he said sadly. “I know. Go home, Freddy.”

But I didn't go home. I went somewhere else.

I do not skulk. There's no logic in it.

Skulking is crouching in the shadows of life. Waiting on chances, but hiding only to come out when the opportunity is clear and unambiguous.

Someone who skulks is someone not entirely clear on their purpose. If they were clear, there would be no need to skulk. People who are clear on their purpose
stride
. But I don't skulk or stride. Neither serves a purpose for me.

It was strange, then, that I was skulking beside a hedge at the corner of Pipeline and Paddock.

There were so many strange things about it that I could make a list:

1. The day was cold and wet. I should have had the good sense to sneak about on a day that was at least cloudy with sunny breaks.
   
2. I had never skulked before, and there was no way to tell if I was doing it correctly.
   
3. I was waiting for Chad Kennedy.
   

—

A fourth thing that made it strange: I didn't know why I was skulking Chad Kennedy. I never do anything without a reason. Yet I was here. On a cold wet day. Skulking Chad Kennedy.

It wasn't a difficult thing to do. I went to school with Chad for nine years. I knew where he lived, just like he knew where I lived. We weren't friends, but we were aware of each other. Everyone in our class was aware of everyone else in our class. We grew up with each other. Our families attended the same concerts every year. When you go to school with the same people for nine years, you start to know where they live.

Which makes it easier to stalk.

—

From a distance, I saw Chad, walking up the sidewalk. I stepped out from behind the hedge and faced him.

At first he didn't recognize me. Then realization came over his face like a passing cloud. He stopped.

He wore his school colours over a blue shirt with a red tie. His left hand clutched the strap of his backpack. His right hand held the hand of his nine-year-old little sister.

I had no idea what to say, because I had no idea why I was there.

We stared at each other silently. The little girl's eyes flicked between the two of us. I didn't move.

Chad spoke first. “Hey, Freddy,” he said.

“Hey, Chad,” I said, because that was how you reply to people.

I looked at his sister. “What's your name?” I asked.

She looked up at Chad, and he nodded to her. “Tanya,” she said.

I nodded at her. “How do you do,” I said, but she didn't reply. I felt this conversation was going well.

Sticking to the script.

I regarded Chad. His hair was shorter.

“Do you still have a concussion?” I asked him, after a few seconds.

He shook his head. “I had headaches for a couple of weeks. They still won't let me do any sports.”

“It was a stochastic event, hitting your head,” I said. “It was unpredictable that it would happen exactly then, but statistically, there was a defined certainty of it happening over a number of samples.”

Nodding slowly, he said, “I guess so.”

“But that's just the way it goes. Some things will never change.”

“What do you want, Freddy?”

I stared at him. His sister looked up at him, uncertain.

“Okay,” he said. “We're just gonna turn around and go back. Okay?” He put his hand on Tanya's back and nudged her.

“I'm sorry,” I said quickly.

He stopped. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm sorry I hit you.”

He turned back to me. A slight wind began blowing from the hill. “Really?” he asked me.

I nodded. “It was wrong. I didn't understand the situation and reacted incorrectly. I hurt you as a result. I'm sorry.”

He looked around. “It is what it is, right? I know I've been a dick to you for years.” He smiled and rubbed his jaw. “Where'd you learn to hit like that?”

I shrugged. “My boxing coach said I have natural ability.”

“True that,” he muttered.

We stood, looking at each other.

“Goodbye, Chad,” I said. “I'll see you later.”

He nodded back. He walked by me. “See ya, Freddy.”

I said to him, “Be nicer to Oscar Tolstoy.”

He laughed.

Listen
: I am the person I have become because of my mother. Because that is what she would have wanted.

She was the one person interested in my welfare solely because I was
me
. She never got angry. She never swore at me. She never yelled at me. She only wanted to see me become
better
. Better at whatever I did, whether it was crawling, walking, reading, or just setting the table. She wanted me to succeed.

She told me this as she pruned white orchids in the living room. They were expensive; she argued sometimes with my father about them, and the arguments always ended the way they began: he said they were frivolous, she said they were the only thing she indulged herself in.

“It's my one extravagance,” she said. “It costs a lot less than your beer.”

“Beer rehydrates me.”

“So does
not
beer.”

He never stopped her from buying the orchids. I liked watching her trim them.

“You're just like an orchid,” she told me. “Unique and beautiful.”

“I'm not like an orchid,” I said.

“In some ways, you are,” she disagreed. “I love you both. You're both growing and changing into beautiful new things.”

“I don't have petals.”

“No,” she agreed, “but you have the same goodness in you that an orchid has in it. You both light up my soul.”

“I'm good like an orchid?”

“You are good simply because you try to be good, Freddy.”

My mother always believed that I could be something, be someone, reach any level. But she was convinced that it was more important that I be good.

Other people were not so unconditionally committed to me. Even my father, who certainly loved me, and raised me to the best of his abilities, even he was not as committed, for he was often angry. Being so, his judgment was suspect. The things my father wished me to become were suspect as a result.

But the things my mother wanted me to be were not suspect, because
she
was not suspect. My mother fit the criteria of a good person. It stood to reason, therefore, that the things she wanted me to become were good things.

—

Here is what happened the day I went to Excalibur House, after my mother left.

On that day, my father came to get me, and I said goodbye to Saskia Stiles for the last time.

We drove home in silence, and I was happy. I liked to count buses as they went by, and bin them into blue buses, which are powered by natural gas, white buses, which are powered by diesel, and grey buses, also powered by diesel, but much older.

My father liked to talk on drives, but I liked to be silent and watch the roads for buses. As we drove, I stayed as still as I could in the back seat, hoping that my father would forget I was there and wouldn't try to talk.

There was no dinner that night. I went straight to my room and stood in the centre, not moving, waiting for my father to call me down to the kitchen. The call never came. I was surprised; usually, he made me sit at the kitchen table and work on my printing for ten minutes, then draw pictures for ten minutes, then colour within the lines for ten minutes. After that, dinner would be served, after which I would have a bath. I would change into my pyjamas and brush my teeth. Then I could go to my room and be by myself, which is what I wanted most of all. But that day, I got to be by myself immediately.

I waited for fifteen more minutes, but he didn't call me down to the kitchen, so I took off my clothes and got dressed in my pyjamas. Then I sat on my bed and flipped through my book.

The minutes passed. The hours passed. I flipped the pages quickly, first forward, then backward. The words and pictures washed over me like a warm current. I didn't read. I absorbed.