Hold Fast (4 page)

That made him slack up a bit. “I told ya before what it was going to be like. And buddy, you better start in getting use to it. Sure you got Aunt Flo. And Poppy is there. What more do ya want? She's goin to be takin good care of ya.”

“It won't be the same.”

“Now, it's no good startin that. I didn't want for us to have to split up. You knows that. But right now it's sposed to be the best thing. And I guess we just got to go along with it. But I knows one thing — if you behaves yourself and tries to get along with Aunt Flo all ya can, then that's going to be a whole lot better for all of us. But if you stays like you are here now, with a mouth on ya all screwed up,
then that's going to make it ten times worse for everybody.”

He didn't say anything.

“Now you just remember what I said. And don't let me hear tell of anything from Aunt Flo about you being a nuisance to her.”

“Ah, keep quiet!”

“I'll keep quiet, but you just remember that.”

“You shut up and worry about yourself!”

The bus hauled into the garage and I had to leave him. I was the only one getting on and I knew the bus would be stopping only just long enough for that. The driver took the suitcases and box I had and stowed them away with the rest of the luggage.

I let Aunt Flo have her little peck on my cheek. I figured that wasn't much on my part. But, before I knew it, she had her arms wrapped around me and nearly had my chest caved in. Now
she
was the one half on the bawl.

I shook Grandfather's hand and said good-bye to him.

“Michael, take care of yourself.” I was going to miss him an awful lot.

And Brent. I didn't know really what to do. Trying to shake his hand or something would a seemed too stupid.

“See ya, buddy,” I said, and sorta just smiled at him.

“Yeah, see ya.” His eyes red and watery.

Then Aunt Flo piped up, just as I turned to go aboard the bus. “Put on plenty o' clothes now. Keep yourself warm.” All the people with the windows open and looking out at us.

Cripes, she went and done it again. Leave it to a woman to make a fellow feel like a fool in front of
strangers. I took off up the steps. The driver punched my ticket and then I walked straight back without turning the head one way or the other. I planked myself down in the first vacant seat I came to.

I might as well lay this fair and square on the line. Then maybe you'll understand what caused all the racket on the stupid bus.

How old you are is a big deal when you're growing up. That's almost the first bloody thing anybody'll ask about when they meets you, right — how old are you? Well, like I said, I'm fourteen. I turned fourteen not long ago, in May. But I'm still no fantastic size. It's only now that I'm starting to shoot up like a weed and getting hair all over the place. Some fellows my age got into that a good while back and are a nice bit taller than me already. But I don't really care. So what difference do it make?

Well, the darn big difference that it makes is when you starts talking about adults. And the way a good many of them have got of treating you. A lot of adults looks at someone fourteen and right away all they figures is you're out to cause trouble. Now, I'll grant you, some I can think of ain't much better than that. But lots of people thinks they can lump us all together and stick the same label on the whole works of us. And that's bull. Pure bull.

Now, for all the trouble I got into on the bus, it was only because I told him to shut up. All I done was tell this lousy drunk to keep his mouth closed. And don't say he wasn't asking for it, the state he was in.

The seat I sat myself down into was the first empty one I came across. I wasn't particular about where I sat. All I
wanted was to get away from Aunt Flo and her preaching about me having to keep warm. After the bus started up I realized then just where I had planked myself — right next to some guy who was plastered drunk. Not hard to see why the seat was empty. Cripes, if I'd a stopped for half a second before I sat down I would've had a big enough whiff of booze to drive me away from it. As it was, when they did get to me, I just about conked out with the fumes. I could see too how the stupid jerk had got himself polluted. In the overnight bag he had stuffed down by his feet was three of those screw-top drink bottles and only one of them had anything left in it. And for sure it wasn't just Coke.

I mightn't a said anything to him atall, if he had kept quiet and gone to sleep or something. I might a stayed where I was and put up with the smell if he hadn't opened his mouth so quick.

“How's ya getting on, young fella.” He mumbled out the words. His stinking breath blowed across my face, the same time as his hand was bouncing off the top of my knee. He looked at me, his head cocked to one side, with a foolish grin on the face. I shoved his hand away. He straightened up a bit.

“Keep them hands to yourself,” I told him. I wasn't going to have the likes of that pawing all over me.

He tried to straighten up more.

“I was only sayin hello to ya, kid. Whas da matter wit ya?”

“Frig off.” He might a been queer for all I knew.

He stared at me like I had two heads.

“Jesus, yer some touchy.”

“Just keep to yourself.”

Another whiff of rum and it all came back to me even worse about the accident. That was the kind of drunken no-goods who got people killed. Get some liquor into them and they thinks they can do like they please. They let the likes of that stay on the bus then and bother other people. It made me sick to my stomach.

“How ol are ya?” Louder, like I had to be deaf or something.

“If it was any of your business I'd tell ya,” I said in his face. It was then I started to get up outa the seat.

He could see that I was moving. And all of a sudden it got to be a big insult. Just as if he was the best company anyone ever had.

“Whas ya too good to sit by me, are ya? Then, get lost, ya little bastard.”

He said the last of it under his breath, but I heard what he said good enough. That was all I was about to take coming from something like that.

“You shut up your lousy mouth! Who the frig do you think you are, anyway? You should be kicked off this bus. You're the one who should be movin, not me.”

When I said that all the people in the seats around whipped their heads up and glued their eyes to us to see what was going on. It shocked a good many of them up off their rear ends. I heard one old crab go “tut-tut-tut.” Well, let her tut-tut all she wanted.

“The language! Where do they get it from? Sure he's only a youngster.”

That got me all the more spitey. “He's drunk,” I told them all. “He's drunk. He can hardly see outa hes two eyes. He stinks o' rum.”

They had me figured for someone half crazy, the way I was yelling like that. And only a youngster! That's what they had in their minds.

“Com'on and see for yourself. You wanta sit by en?”

Then this fellow from two seats behind gets up and comes over to me. I spose he figured he was the world's number-one peacemaker or something. Like some big ox, he puts his arm around my shoulders and tries to lead me down to another seat. The jerk.

I broke away from him. “Let go! You don't believe me, do ya? Just look at him. You think that should be allowed on the bus?”

“It's okay. Just leave him alone. He's quiet enough. He's not doing any harm,” the ox says. “Come back here, now. There's an empty seat back here.” And he tries to lead me away to it.

“Let go, you!”

Not him or any one of them on the stupid bus could a cared less about whether or not what I said was true. All them dummies was interested in was getting me to keep quiet.

Sure I got riled up. But I had a darn good right to get riled up, didn't I?

I'm not that stupid you know. Any fellow fourteen knows what he's talking about when it comes to liquor. I've been around people drinking enough times for that. And I've had plenty myself.

Sure as long as I can remember, Dad would let me have some of whatever it was he was drinking, anytime he ever had it in the house. No big lot, but enough to get a darn good taste of it for sure. And the bunch that I hung
around with, every so often we'd get a hold of a half dozen ourselves and share them out. Maybe if it was around Christmas or something and it was easy to get. But we never went at it like some fellows. My son, I've seen fellows a lot younger than me right clean off the head with booze. So don't think I don't know what I'm talking about.

It's like everything else now. Some is sensible about it and some won't stop until they goes right off the deep end. Just like that stupid fellow on the bus.

Pretty soon all that racket was making the bus driver fidgety. He geared the bus down, brought her off the road, and stopped her. He got up out of his seat and marched back to us.

“Now what's all the trouble about?” he asked. Loud, too, after he got a good look at how big I was.

“This drunk here should be kicked off the bus,” I said. “Look at him, he can't even keep hes head up straight.”

The dummy whipped up his head when I said that. He started to mumble. “I wasn't doin a thing until this young punk …”

“Look, look, plastered right out of hes mind.”

The bus driver looked him over. When he seen the empty bottles in the bag by his feet, he took one up and smelled it.

“I was sittin down next to en and he started pesterin me.”

“What did he do?”

“Well, he started breathin alcohol down my throat the minute I sat down next to en. And he was talking, buggin me the whole time I was there.”

“Yeah, how?”

“He put hes hand on my leg.” Some jerk up front started to laugh. “Well, he might be queer! What difference do it make anyway what he done? He's drunk, idn't he? You're not sposed to have drunks on the bus, now are ya?”

“No.”

“Well, why don't you kick en off?”

“Listen, kid …

“Don't go callin me kid.”

“Listen, he's on here now and that's all I can do about it. I'm not going to kick him out on the highway in the middle of nowhere. Besides, he's not bothering anyone now. Just leave him alone and he'll go off to sleep.”

See what I mean. Now, if I'd been anybody older he would a up boots and flattened that drunk. All the stupid driver done was take his part.

“Now,” he said, “you'll have to find another seat. This is putting us behind schedule. He'll be off the bus in another hour, anyway. You come up front with me. You'll be far enough away from him then.”

That didn't satisfy me one bit. But I ended up going. I didn't have much choice. The driver asked one of the people in the front seat if he would move down to the back. On the way up to the front they was all looking at me like I was some kinda troublemaker. They still didn't believe that lousy drunk had started it. They was willing to put the whole blame on me. I spose they figured it was okay to be plastered right outa the mind on a public bus. That was okay. But let some young fellow try to stand up for his rights, that was another story.

I didn't hardly move after I sat down. But I was fuming up inside the whole time. The ones getting off the bus had a last look at me. One dumb clot even said, “I gotta go now for a beer,” just as he was walking past me. You knows darn well he said it for me to hear.

Then when it came time for the drunk to get off, the driver had to practically carry him down over the steps. He was too far gone even to notice who I was. Good thing too. Because if he had said anything to me I would a give him a damn good clop across the chops. Don't think I wouldn't've.

By the end of two weeks at Uncle Ted's place, I'd seen enough to know exactly what I thought of the family I was in with and of the whole lot they calls St. Albert. I arrived there on a Sunday night. By four o'clock on Monday they had me carted around to everything within five miles that they said was worth seeing. I was beat to a salve by the time they was through trying to make me feel welcome.

And it didn't impress me much what I seen. St. Albert is sposed to be a city — a small one, but they calls it a city just the same. Take a newsprint mill, an airport, shopping malls, two arenas, and together with the holy crowd of houses that are there, then you have a city. All that they figured was something to be proud of. It's okay for them to like it I spose, but to me it wasn't worth much when I thought of the other places I knew that got none of that and looks to me like better places to be living. I mean, things like a Dairy Queen and two Kentucky Fried Chicken joints don't mean shag all to me. The food was okay for a change but other than that it was nothing to kick up a fuss over. Sometimes they gave out
free plastic banks. Wow! More thrills than a boatload of rotten fish.

I should try to be fair about the whole thing, I spose. Some of the stuff I liked. The movie theaters. The places to go skating and the swimming pool. Drop these down in the middle of some community with five hundred people, a good harbor, and closed in around with a nice big stretch of woods, then I'd move there tomorrow. But the way it was with me then, I was far from raving about the fact of having to live in St. Albert. But I made a promise that I'd give it a try. And I wasn't about to go back on my word.

The first couple of days Uncle Ted and Aunt Ellen tried hard to make me feel welcome. I'll say that much for them. I'm not blaming them for picking a rotten place to live.

Now the part of the city where they lives couldn't be called half bad, if you're talking about the look of the houses and the size of the land they're on. Only thing is, you got a streetful of them all lined up next to each other. And once you're inside the place, well, if you likes modern houses, then Uncle Ted's would be right up your alley — carpet everywhere, even up one wall, fancy lights all over the place, a chesterfield set that sinks down a mile when you lays your rear end on it, and all kinds of other things that we never had home.