Читать книгу Down Sterling Road - Adrian Michael Kelly - Страница 10

When school’s back in, word gets round fast. Jacob McKnight? Tried the Wall? Bulldog Quinn brings over his pack of Little Bastards at recess, spits and says You got guts, man. And Gimpy-Gail McBride even wants to see it.

What?

Your bone.

Jacob hooks his thumb in his sweater, pulls.

Gross. Hurt?

Not much.

Liar.

Gail would know. She’s had a gimpy leg ever since she was born. People say it was the way she was in the womb plus the doctor was bombed and just gave her a yank. She had an operation, but can’t have another one till she’s done growing. Used to get teased. Still does, but now it’s because of her boobs. It’s like God said Sorry, Gail, for the bum leg, and boom gave her huge big boobs in one summer. Bulldog and the Little Bastards pull her bra strap, cop feels. Gail gives them hell, but can’t chase them. And Jacob can’t think of anything to say when Gail keeps standing there, blinking behind her glasses and giving him – Jacob swallows – a look of double entendre.

Well, she says, bye. And limpy-gimps off.

Jacob has a quick look at her bum. It’s like two hams, Gail’s bum. Plus he would like to kiss her Mound of Venus. But knows he’s chicken. So tonight it’s pulling-the-goalie time, with the wrong hand. That’s what Spielman calls it, pulling the goalie, except Spielman says he doesn’t need to anymore, he gets real hand jobs from girls like Melissa Fowler who smoke and pay Jacob no attention at all. But you can tell Spielman is still a bit jealous over all the attention Jacob is getting. And still a little sorry, too – Jacob could have broken his back, not his collarbone. Another reason that Dad’s still acting Payne’s Grey. In class Jacob tries to pay attention but especially in math he drifts like a cloud and remembers the snap– could have been your neck, you daft shit – and pictures Dad in his Black Watch kilt again, whisky splashing out his glass when he says It’s not proper, a father outlive his lad, fucksakes.

When Miss Richardson first sees the sling, she shakes her head and her shiny earrings wobble, but she can’t stop her orbicularis oculi and her zygomaticus major from activating. Smiles like dawn. How’s the arm, Captain Marvel?

Fractured my clavicle, Miss R. Can’t draw.

Can’t do a lot of things, I imagine.

That smirk of hers. A real whiplasher. You can never tell if Miss Richardson is doing the old double entendre either. Jacob wonders if she knows that he pulls the goalie imagining her sometimes. Miss R’s a scorcher. But even though Jacob shares jokes with Spielman and Cracker about her honkers and Mr. Kazinski feeding her the big one in the back of his ranch wagon, Jacob doesn’t like to, and his face heats like an element whenever Miss R smirks like that and makes ambiguous statements. Or maybe, Jacob thinks, I just hear double entendres and I am daft and horny. Best play it cool. So when Miss R asks, Jacob tells her that he has no Special Needs. I’m tickety-boo, Miss R, hunky-dory.

Sure?

Yeah, look. Jacob shows her how he can still write with his arm in the sling. He folds a sheet of paper in half, and, pinching the bottom corner with his other hand, tugs it bit by bit as he prints.

Jacob, that’s ridiculous. I can make arrange–

No. It’s okay.

Their eyes lock.

Really, says Jacob, it’s no big whoop.

Honey, you must be in pain.

Jacob nods, but says I’m on analgesics. They can cause drowsiness, but overall they do not impede –

Okay, okay, suit yourself.

Back to fractions, Jacob says, pointing tallyho with his left arm, then wincing. The pills don’t always work that well.

Miss Richardson’s voice is like jelly rolls and custard and can make even fractions feel good, but math is still crap. Universal language, my butt, Jacob says to himself. Spielman is actually pretty good at it, and could probably get just as good marks as the girls in the class if he applied himself. Jacob wishes he would. Then Spielman wouldn’t feel so dumb in other classes and have to play the hard man in the playground. Everybody should be good in at least one subject. One real subject. Spielman’s good just in gym. Jacob’s pretty good at just about anything except for math. Dad crumpled up his last report card and threw it against the wall and said How in fuck are you going to be a doctor with arithmetic grades like that? He stomped and he paced but couldn’t stay steamed for long. He’s shit at math, too. Still counts on his fingers. But knows sort of what’s needed for a good life, so you don’t have to up and leave your home, fucksakes, sloggin it out in mines till you’re on your own two feet.

Jacob tries to contract his brain like a muscle, focus, but Miss R starts to speak like it’s a foreign language, and his head bobs, nods, bounces. Nods, bobs, bounces. Miss R gives homework. Says You’d all better get started on it now, and sits down at her desk.

Jacob stares at the page. Blinks. Stares. Then Dean whispers his name. Jacob looks over and Dean hides his mouth with his hand, says You can copy mine if you want.

As the days wear on, Jacob does everything he can just to stay awake in class, never mind take notes. Nights, flat on his back, he breathes deep and with each breath imagines a brush loaded with gold or silver paint – over and back, over and back it goes in long smooth strokes, painting the ends of the fracture together. But sometimes it gives him a boner, too. He tries to give it a pull – O Gail, you have become so lovely – but with his right hand it doesn’t feel half as good. Why does one half of your body not do what you tell it? Imagine if you could write with both hands, and write about different things, too. Math with one hand, English with the other. Or you could do homework and have a pull at the same time.

Shut your filthy …

That was Dad, at them again. The night hisses. Jacob’s heard them before, but never knew until lying awake half the night every night just how often they happen. Sometimes his heart pounds, hearing them – your filthy mouth, cunt – and it’s hard to breathe. Dad sounds like he could kill someone, but he never wakes up, and he just says You’re hearing things, when Jacob asks who he was talking to last night.

Then one morning near the end of January Jacob’s eyes blink open, and he remembers no night hisses. No sudden stabs or dull slow aches. And his arm is halfway out the sling.

Holy jumpin, I slept!

Over supper that night Jacob tells Dad maybe he’s ready to hit the road again. When I walk I don’t feel a thing, honest.

Without looking up as he chews his liver Dad says Since when is walking running?

Jacob shrugs his right shoulder and says See that?

You’ll still be healing yet, says Dad, be patient.

Been almost four weeks, Dad.

Rest, son. Rest.

But later that week Dad draws up a personalized rehabilitation program, writes the exercises and the number of repetitions to be done on the calendar. Begin with walking your hand up the wall. Followed by arm bends. Then weighted arm bends. Soup can at first, then the little sandbags Dad borrows from the physio lab. Build up to curls and extensions, three sets of each. Muscles around breaks have been traumatized and tend to atrophy. Need restrengthening. Except for serious tears or trauma, you can get a muscle right back up to one hundred per cent. The body, says Dad, is a remarkable thing. And the ends of his collarbone, Jacob can feel it, they clasp like a good strong handshake, and Jacob goes back to helping out with wee jobs, mostly one-armers. Cleaning the toilet and the washroom sink, taking out the garbage. He figures out how to spin the bag with his hand and foot, then get the twist tie on before it unravels.

See that, Dad?

Aren’t you a marvel.

Sometimes when Dad looks at the sling it’s like he’s forgotten all about it, but then he remembers and his face folds and furrows. Except for the night hisses, though, he’s getting on okay. Even makes the tea before M*A*S*H or Monday Night Football. Imitates Howard Cosell and gives Jacob anatomy quizzes during commercials. How many valves has the heart, and what are their names?

Jacob chews his ginger crisp and says Four: tricuspid, pulmonary, mitral and aortic.

Bang on, Doc.

Jacob reads a lot about the heart these days. Its beat is controlled by the sino-atrial node, which is a real pacemaker, not the fake ones they have to put in if your SA node is dysfunctional. Imagine, Jacob thinks, if you could invent a brain pacemaker. It would take a genius like Tony Stark to make something like that. People could have a good laugh, the best medicine, more often. Especially Dad, because he can turn on a dime. One night, just after laughing all through M*A*S*H, they’re watching a documentary on JFK and Jacob says How ’bout a quiz, Dad? and Dad slashes the air with his hand and says Shut it.

They’ve seen shows like this a lot, and Jacob has to sit there and listen to Dad’s theories. It was fucken CIA, boy, in cahoots with the Mob and Castro. This time is no different, Dad is glued to the screen. Taps it tink tink as they slow-mo the film so much that you can see JFK’s brains spill like Chunky Soup into his wife’s lap. There, says Dad, when the president’s head whiplashes, you’re telling me that shot’s comin from behind?

They say it’s recoil, Dad.

No fucken way, kid. I’ve fired a rifle, seen what it can do. Trust me, boyo. That shot is from straight on, look, look at the brains and blood and bits of bone that spray over the boot of the car? Jesus. Dad falls back on the sofa, sips his Golden. Dour. A shameful day that was, son. Shameful. Him and his brother both, the bastards got.

Jacob feels sorry sometimes for JFK and for Jackie O with the blood on her dress but why does Dad when he was living in Scotland the day JFK got shot? One time he spent ages looking at photos in a special Playboy about presidential assassinations, and he even made drawings on graph paper. Vectors. Angles of inflection. Came up with a Plan, and the masterminds. Jack Ruby was the patsy, he says. Bloody decoy. We’re talking about American agencies, son, kill their own leaders. Fucken hell.

It’s good, Jacob thinks, to be groan up in Canada. Scottish guys like Dad go on and on about Caribbean immigrants and Culloden and JFK and Marilyn Monroe. And they get sad so fast. Dad’s got enough to be sad about. A brain pacemaker would be one of the best inventions ever.

But the morning after the JFK documentary, Dad’s forgotten all about a second gunman and the CIA, and kneels in front of Jacob. Sling off, shirt off. Arm feels like it was stuck on in place of his real one, and he has to think about keeping it straight or else it folds like a wing over his chest. Crook of his elbow feels like it’s made of tire, and the upper arm is thinner than his right one. But no pain. Just a little lump like a robin’s egg where the break calcified.

Jacob closes his eyes as Dad’s big thick thumb palpates around the lump, brushes over it, then presses on it. Jacob winces, but it doesn’t hurt, it just feels soft, and new.

Dad’s halitosis is bad today, but he’s scrubbed his hands like a doctor and they smell like Ivory. Dr. Smythe said follow-up X-rays might be a good idea considering the nature of the break, but Dad says his hands know bone. He’ll tell ol’ Doc how it’s healed.

And his fingertips feel a little cold, but Dad’s hands are cradles. Dad’s hands have held babies wet with womby goo. Dad’s hands have brought hearts back. Dad’s hands tried so hard – One and two and – but Jacob blinks the bits away because Dad isn’t remembering that now. Look at him smile when he says Cat’s arse, kid, this has healed beautifully.

Really?

Boyo, believe me, you are ready to run.