Black Rabbit and Other Stories Read online

  It smelled like ass in the truck, and to avoid this unpleasantness Presley breathed through his mouth. Bad smells disturbed him. He used to go off in the detention centre when the other youth smelled bad. He had punched out a score of them for farting in his presence or failing to shower after recreation time. Presley was doing time for beating up this dude who owed him money. He’d accused Presley of selling him bad blow and refused to pay, maybe betting that he’d do nothing about it, that he’d forget about it—after all, he was a fucking fourteen-year-old. But Presley caught up to him one day outside his garage; took a tire iron to his head, mucked him pretty good. That it was over blow never came up in court. The dude said that Presley robbed him and when Presley stuttered and giggled through his testimony, it sounded like the truth. The judge scolded him for being a thug and lacking remorse—like these were bad things—and sentenced him to a year in the Peninsula Youth Centre, out in the boondocks. Despite all the barbed wire and triple locks, the place was soft. Presley lifted weights, worked on the heavy bag, and ate like an athlete. He did the time standing on his head.

  He had been out for two months and was having trouble adjusting to life on the outside. Inside there were rules, there was structure. Outside was a different story. There were rules, but structure was lacking. Outside, your biggest enemy sometimes was your very freedom. He was big for a fifteen-year-old, thick-wristed, and strong as a mule. He could throw a football fifty yards. The high school coach said if he wasn’t such a hoodlum he could be an all-city quarterback. He liked fighting; it gave him a rush. And he could take a punch. A month ago he ran into these Fort Erie dudes at the Welland skateboard park who thought they were wizards, but they rolled like a clown posse. After he showed off some moves they called him over, and while one distracted him by asking stupid questions about his skateboard, another ran up and sucker-punched him in the temple. He saw stars but didn’t go down. Then he knocked the motherfucker out with a straight right. His father had taught him to throw straight punches like that. The others watched bug-eyed, yaps gaping. No one said a word. Yeah. He could handle himself. He glanced at Bert. Even adults didn’t intimidate him.

  Ever since Presley’s mom left two years ago and his dad hit the road again with the rigs, he had spent a lot of time alone. His probation orders forbade him from consorting with his old crew, and his friend Jasmine was so fucked up on crack these days he couldn’t talk to her. He had known Jasmine since they were toddlers. Too bad he couldn’t help her. That wasn’t in the cards. Truth was, he had turned her onto crack. Best high in town, he convinced her. She was only thirteen then, already a little pothead, so she took to the pipe like a natural. Presley found it funny how fast she got hooked. She robbed people to support the habit, her neighbours, her mother, and her grandparents, to mention a few. Presley supplied her for the longest time, then when he got busted, she started buying from anyone who sold it. She even turned tricks for crack. Anyway, she had her own problems now, nothing he could help her with, that’s the way it was. If you were flimsy enough to get flushed down the toilet like that there was no helping you, you were fucked, plain and simple.

  Clair, a family friend from Newfoundland kept house and cooked meals for Presley and his father, but she drank all day and ran up crazy phone bills calling home. Presley didn’t trust her. She came on to him once, last summer. He’d been playing hoops in the school-yard. He got home all sweaty and went upstairs to shower. Clair had just vacated it, a towel covering her breasts, her hair dripping wet. A few years younger than his mom, she wasn’t as pretty—his friends thought his mother was hot, something he found disgusting, something he had biffed guys for sharing with him. Imagine them talking about his mother like that. Clair approached him, reeking of herbal shampoo and gin, and started saying stuff, like how she loved his blonde hair and his blonde eyelashes and his blue eyes and how tall he was and strong. She stressed that word. Then she dropped the towel.

  Well, you’d think—it’s not as if his father was boning her or anything. She was just a friend from back home. The old man paid her two hundred bucks a month to take care of the house and to cook Presley a few meals. That was it. Presley could have fucked her, maybe he should have. But she had these banana-shaped breasts and a horny horse-face he found more humorous than attractive. It’s not that she was ugly, but she made him laugh. She would have been a funny comedienne, he figured, with that face and that smile. Anyway, when he refused her advances, she told his father that he had come on to her. His father lost it. He punched Presley in the forehead so hard he cracked his skull. He still suffered migraines from that. He split for a week after the incident, breaching his probation and risking another year in detention. He stayed with this eighteen-year-old skank he met in a crackhouse. She was useless but liked to fuck and always had money. She didn’t hook so he didn’t know where she got it from. He figured she had a sugar daddy or something else going on, he didn’t care. He wound up taking a vicious beating from her toothless meth-head ex-boyfriend who showed up unannounced one day. The fucking guy tried to cut his throat with a straight-razor. Lucky he turned his attention to the girl. He used his fists on her, did a number. Presley just missed getting killed. It was funny how easily it could have happened. You just never knew when you were going to escape a bad situation with your life. You just never knew. One day a counsellor at the detention centre gave him a lecture on something called karma. He said Presley had bad karma. Presley scoffed at this when he understood what the guy was talking about. He felt there was no such thing as karma. Shit just happened. I could kill you right now and all your karma would mean squat, he told the guy. But the counsellor wasn’t amused and Presley wound up getting restrained by the guards that day for uttering threats.

  The pickup truck jerked to a stop, startling Presley from his thoughts. They had come to a red light. Bert turned his head toward him and for a moment looked like he wanted to say something; instead his mouth fell open as a police car cruised by, manned by silhouettes. These bikers always got weird when they saw cops. Presley heard a grunt and then what could have been a laugh, but Bert assumed a rigid posture and when the light turned green the pickup truck surged forward and stopped again, throwing Presley into the dash.

  Put on your seatbelt, Bert told him. His voice sounded dry as an ashtray. He gestured with his thick hand and Presley secured his seatbelt with a snap. A hint of a smile edging Bert’s profile irritated Presley. Maybe this ex-biker thought he was heavy duty but he didn’t scare Presley a bit. The only things that frightened him were skunks, and the dark. He still slept with a nightlight, this green plastic frog his mom gave him. He glanced at the fat manilla envelope. His old man never said how much weed Bert planned to score and Presley didn’t give a fuck, except that now he wondered how much money the manilla envelope held. It looked like a lot. What the fuck are you looking at? Bert said without turning to him.

  The question, and the hostility underpinning it, took Presley by surprise. He sat up and stared straight ahead. What a fucking joke. These adults were so paranoid about everything. Like what did Bert think, that he was going to jack him for the cash? Fucking moron. So this guy, this so-called friend of his father, was a moron. He’d met quite a few of them when he was locked up, inmates and guards alike. People liked to jump to conclusions, they thought they knew what the fucking score was when in fact they didn’t have a clue.

  Bert wiped his nose with the back of his fat hand. His ugly beard could have used a trim. His ears looked like flaps, the lobes distended from years of bearing earrings. What kind of man was he? Had he ever done time? Had he ever killed anybody? Most bikers he had met were scumbags. He didn’t admire them. They had bullied his father in the past—he had witnessed them roughing him up on more than one occasion—and had ripped him off a few times. His father said it was the price of doing business with them, but Presley found that lame. Bert turned into a drive-through donut shop. Presley looked at him. What a fucking goof, stopping right now. The Dacunhas would be
pissed if they were late. Bert leaned to the metal box on a post and ordered a large hot chocolate. Who the fuck drinks a large hot chocolate? Presley thought with scorn. He didn’t think Bert was going to order anything for him but at the last moment he asked him what he wanted. Presley requested a large triple-triple coffee, hoping to irritate him. But he didn’t react. The sallow girl serving them looked familiar to Presley; he figured he had probably sold her weed or crack before.

  The coffee was a good one. Presley drank it while it was nice and hot. Bert blew on his hot chocolate and sipped it carefully. He steered with one hand and gripped the paper cup with the other. Presley wished he would put on some music, but didn’t want to ask in case the guy got touchy. He figured if Bert wanted to hear music he would have put it on already. What a fucking stiff not to put on some music. People were funny. They liked to demonstrate power any time they had a chance. They liked to control things whenever they could. This guy Bert struck Presley as a control freak. Look how clean the truck is, he thought, admiring the polished black dash and leather seats—a pristine interior, except for the ass smell. Presley noticed a gold coin ring on Bert’s pinkie, a nice touch. He wanted a ring like that. It was cool.

  They turned onto a country road near the canal and drove a good distance in pitch darkness, the headlights beaming into nothingness. Bert leaned forward and squinted. Fucking dark, he muttered. Presley nodded. He drained the rest of his coffee, rolled down the window and tossed out the cup. Bert jerked his head around and glared at him. What the fuck was that? he barked. Presley didn’t know what to say. Well? Bert said, flexing his jaw muscles. I threw out the cup, Presley said. Bert slammed on the brakes and the truck fish-tailed to a screeching stop, its carriage creaking. Go get the fucking cup, Bert said. Presley thought he was joking for a second, but he looked serious. Go get the fucking cup, he repeated in a low voice. Presley climbed out of the truck, walked back in the darkness for a hundred metres and couldn’t find the cup. He continued backtracking, swinging his head left and right. In the distance the pickup truck’s brake lights glowed like a pair of red eyes.

  After five minutes, Presley abandoned the search. It was too dark out there. He heard rustling in the surrounding brush, and prayed it wasn’t a skunk, sniffing to make sure. Then he saw oncoming headlights and moved to the side of the road where his shoes crunched over glinting glass shards. As he bent down to inspect, a white van passed by, slowing as it approached the pickup truck, then swerving around it. The debris consisted of shattered cocktail glasses and two bottles, one in pieces, one intact and half-filled with an amber fluid. Someone had been partying. Presley glanced at the label, the letters indecipherable to him. He didn’t know how to read. After going to school his whole life and sitting through countless classes with dozens of teachers and tutors, he could barely read his own name. He screwed off the cap and took a whiff; it smelled like whisky. He gulped from the bottle and fire filled his chest. He took another big gulp, and another. It was good stuff. Bert tooted his horn. Presley drank again. He saw something else among the glass shards: an icepick, the tip gleaming.

  The handle looked to be fashioned from ivory; the pick itself shone like silver and came to a needle-like point. It was beautiful. All kinds of weird things got dumped on country roads. He returned to the pickup truck with his booty. When he climbed back in, Bert didn’t look at him. He put the truck in gear and pushed ahead. After they had traveled a kilometre down the road, Presley uncapped the whisky bottle and drank. Bert eased up on the gas. What the fuck you got there? he asked. Whisky, Presley said. That’s not whisky, Bert said. That’s bourbon. Knob Creek. Where’d you find it? On the side of the road? Are you fucked up or something? He stopped the pickup truck and snatched the bottle from Presley. That’s not whisky, okay, Bert said, flashing him the label. That’s bourbon. Can’t you read? Are you fucking stupid? Your old man didn’t tell me you were stupid. He rolled down his window and chucked the bottle.

  They drove in silence, the landscape a work in charcoals and flaked quartz. The effects of the whisky and the humming engine made Presley drowsy, his eyes half-shutting, his head lolling. Then a beast with yellow eyes sprang from the side of the road. Presley watched in horror as it lunged across the path of the oncoming pickup truck. He heard an ugly thunk and then nothing but the hum of the engine. Whatever it was got smoked on impact. Presley felt sick. Bert didn’t so much as slow down. Presley wondered if it was maybe just a rabbit—but it sounded bigger, maybe a fawn or a raccoon. Aren’t you going to stop? Presley asked. Bert didn’t respond; he just kept driving. Hey, Presley said, sitting upright, I’m fucking talking to you. But Bert continued driving, a smile curling his lips.

  A minute later Presley said, You just passed the farm. Bert glared at him and pulled over to the soft shoulder. You fucking goof, he said, but before he could say or do anything else Presley stuck the icepick into his right eye. Once it pricked the cornea it slid in so far his knuckle hit Bert’s occipital bone. Bert’s mouth opened wide and a strange sound came out of it. Then, with his eye gushing blood, he made a grab for Presley, who jabbed the icepick again, this time piercing his throat. That took the fight out of Bert.

  Presley sat there listening to Bert gurgle and gasp. It went on for a minute, then he fell silent. His blood greased the manila envelope. One of his gold hoops had come off his ear and lay on the seat. Presley stroked his finger across the blood then jumped out of the pickup truck and started sprinting down the road. Man it was dark. He couldn’t see his own hand in front of him. He felt fucked up. He started giggling. He couldn’t help it. What the fuck did he just do? He stopped running. He was out of breath. He looked around him. He was standing nowhere.

  Reckoning

  He saw himself tented, with a little plastic window. Inside there, looking out. He saw the talking globe of the world and talked back to it under his breath. The skeleton hanging by the blackboard knew him, shook slightly when he stared at it. And the hamster Rafael knew him. He fed Rafael his pellets first thing. Then the little guy pooped or slept. It was his life. One day he would free him. One day. Then inside the tent and silence.

  When the other students stomped into the classroom, Bradley was already there. They saw him and nudged each other. One of them said good morning but he said nothing. He was always that way. They could only bear so much. Daniel wanted to hang him—he crayoned pictures. Jesse said she would burn down his house. Ryan threatened to break his legs. He could do it. He was a giant. He wore red shirts to school because Jesse hated red. She once took a yardstick and jabbed it in Ryan’s stomach. He collapsed on the floor screaming in pain, but no one moved a muscle to help him. Jesse struck Bradley between the eyes one time and it felt like walking into a wall in the dark. He saw sparks. Jesse, the only girl in the Section 20 class, hated everyone. Hatred oozed from her pores. She liked to pull things apart, lay them bare, make them as ugly and loathsome as she could.

  Winter was Bradley’s favourite season. He could sleep through most of it. He had wanted to sleep that morning, but his father wouldn’t let him. He pulled him out of bed by his feet, threw him in the frozen red pick-up truck. When he dozed off in the truck his father cuffed him. Now he tried to sleep in the tent but the other students wouldn’t let him.

  “Hey, fuckhead, no manners?”

  “He was born in a barn.”

  “He was born on a raft.”

  “Hey, Gypsy.”

  This was the song he heard every day and he didn’t mind it. He’d been called worse things. They wanted him to come out of the tent and show his face but he wouldn’t do it. They’d get too close to him. Jesse might touch him. He didn’t want her touching him. She hurt. He would stay put for now. Nothing they could say or do would get him out of there. They continued taunting him for a time. Then their voices fell silent.

  It was nice. A soft green inside the tent. He curled up tight, tried thinking of nothing. That was hard but he could do it now. Think of nothing. Then Daniel started braying like
a donkey. He had silky blonde hair and flat blue eyes and often touched himself under the desk, turning pink, drooling ribbons. Mr. Chiasson let Daniel do his thing most of the time, but when he humped the desk or yanked his bob out of his trunks, he took him to another room to sit and write in a green notebook with a Happy Face sticker on it. This time Mr. Chiasson pulled Daniel out of class by the ear. Bradley wondered what Daniel wrote in that notebook. He was surprised he could write at all. Daniel’s favourite thing was staring off into space. He saw something there. Sometimes he laughed at it.

  Ryan talked too much, in his red tops. They said it was his sickness. He took powerful drugs for it. He scared Bradley sometimes, just from talking. That he was a giant didn’t matter as much as the talking sickness. “My cousin . . .” and he always started with the cousin and some mischief they’d been up to. Then he talked about his life and his world. He talked about the cars he would buy when he was old enough to drive, and he talked about food, like what he had eaten for breakfast or what he had eaten for dinner the evening before, or what he would like to eat when he got home, or what he and his cousin had eaten at some wedding months ago. He talked about things he had done with girls and things he wanted to do, and he talked about songs. He knew the words to many and tried singing them, but his voice came out too high or too low, never right. Ryan’s mother plugged his ears with cotton against infections and the noise factor. Noise made Ryan unfriendly unless he was making it. When it got too loud in the classroom his neck did this thing, then his head snapped to the left, and his mouth and eyes gaped. Daniel imitated it better than Jesse. He had the head part down.