take the shove, turn around, sit back down at the table with the girls, drink more, and wait for his friend to cool down.
Before any of this can happen, Kyle goes flying into the abruptly shrieking crowd. And Ivor is standing in his place, one massive bulge of a human being — eyes, veins, belly, muscles — hoarse voice sounding trumpet-clear above the shouts and music, shouting at Kyle as he skids across the floor: DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM? YOU GOT A FUCKING PROBLEM YOU FUCKING FUCKWAD YEAH?
Rank is in front of him going Ivor! Ivor! Ivor! And Ivor can’t even focus on him, his baby’s face entirely red and slicked as if with oil. Suddenly they are standing in an empty circle, as if the crowd has moved aside for them to breakdance. At the edges of the circle, Kyle wobbles to his feet, dripping in other people’s beer, and Rank moves to block him from Ivor’s view — the same way he’d positioned himself to block Adam from Kyle’s only moments before.
Rank hears faintly a “Jesus!” from Wade. A “holy shit,” from someone else. An “Oh my god,” from Emily.
I WILL FUCKING TEAR YOU APART, says Ivor, somehow managing to look directly through Rank to Kyle. No matter how deep Rank sticks his face into Ivor’s, Ivor seems incapable of focusing on him. Ivor’s eyes are enormous and both stupefied and hyper-aware like a stunned animal’s, a dying moose. Rank puts his hands out then and makes the mistake of glancing over to see if Kyle has done the wise thing and skedaddled for an exit. But apparently this is just what Kyle is in the process of doing when Ivor shoves Rank aside and launches himself across the circle.
The crowd makes a tidal sort of noise as Kyle tears his way through, women’s shrieks sounding above it like the cries of gulls. Rank plunges into the scattering human mass behind Ivor.
“Rank,” says Adam from somewhere. “Rank. His gun.”
Oh that’s right, thinks Rank from some distant place in his mind. It’s familiar, this distant place. He hasn’t been there for quite some time, not since looking over at his mother in the driver’s seat and thinking: Oh that’s not good. I don’t think that can be good.
Ivor does carry a gun, doesn’t he, thinks Rank from his distant place. Yes that’s right isn’t it; that’s what Wade told us.
There’s no time, then, to develop strategy or think about what he’s doing or try to holler some kind of sanity into Ivor. Rank simply pursues Ivor’s black expanse of Motörhead T-shirt into the fluttering crowd and throws himself upon it. Ivor is a creature of flab but only the same way a bear is. That is, bears are fat, as Ivor is fat. But underneath, still bears.
What Rank must do is kneel on him; pin his arms.
The crowd is in his ears. Ivor’s body is heaving and boiling against him.
Ivor has a fever, thinks Rank in his distant place — he is maybe a little insane in his distant place. He remembers looking at what happened to Sylvie’s head and thinking: Oh — you know what? That’s not too bad, actually. The doctors will be able to fix that.
Poor Ivor, thinks Rank. Flu season. Not enough vitamin C.
“Rank get off of me, you’re heavy, guy,” moans Ivor beneath him. And suddenly he bucks.
“Ivor, stay down.”
“LET THE FUCK GO OF MY ARMS YOU PIECE OF SHIT I AM LOOKING OUT FOR YOU.”
Rank braces his legs and rides him thinking gun. Gun. Gun.
“WE DO NOT TOLERATE SHIT IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT. RICHARD WILL HAVE NO SHIT IN HIS PLACE. RICHARD IS FUCKING SICK OF YOU FUCKING UNIVERSITY KIDS — OH RANK,” Ivor interrupts himself abruptly and starts to shudder.
“Calm down Ivor, please,” Rank says into the gulf of Ivor’s sweltering shoulder blades.
“Ow,” says Ivor. “Ow, ow.”
Then Kyle is with him in the circle. “Rank you need help man?”
But Rank needs no help at all anymore. He climbs off Ivor, the front of Rank’s body going cool where the two of them have sweat through each other’s clothes. He stands for a minute beside Kyle, then kneels down again and even though he is very much in his distant place now, he is very much where he was the day his mother drove him out to serve his time at the Youth Centre, having insisted Gord stay home, so she could talk to him mother to son, so she could cry herself