and somehow he got away with it. On the surface, of course, everyone predicted dire things for Croft — he was the kind of guy a decent, God-fearing little town like ours was desperate to dismiss. Croft was insolent, criminal and rebellious. Surely he would come to no good. But in our secret outlaw dreams, I think, we rooted for him.
Croft was eighteen when he was expelled for kicking Mr. Fancy in the ass but only in Grade 10 because he’d been held back a couple years. So instead of sliding into some menial production-line gig at SeaFare like any self-respecting dropout, he moved into a two-bedroom apartment above the woeful Chinese restaurant on Howe Street and set up his drug-dispensary in earnest.
How do I know? Because I went there every couple of months. Croft was the man to see, like it or not. He was to my hometown what Wade was to the student body back in our beloved college days.
I was fifteen but about twice the size of Croft, and for all intents and purposes a man. It’s weird to think back to it now. I was always big, as I think I might’ve mentioned, but at fourteen I kind of exploded into manhood. I shot up an extra foot, putting me at 6 ' 4 ", I sprouted hair overnight like a werewolf — except the hair didn’t disappear after the full moon, but sallied forth from the ground zero of my crotch to obliterate my entire torso. My voice — already deep — plummeted into Darth Vader Luke-I-am-your-father territory and I had to shave practically twice a day to keep from looking like a prospector. You’d think that would be weird, and it was weird, but I’ll tell you what was weirder: other people — the way they changed, behaviourally, in response to what had happened to me physically. Almost overnight I went from being alternately marvelled at and teased for being the big lumpy kid I was, to being deferred to and even respected as a grown man.
Imagine one day the neighbourhood mothers are gleefully feeding you hot dogs to see how many you can down in one sitting, tousling your hair, exclaiming over your “big, hungry boy!” status as they pour you another glass of milk, and the next day those same ladies, who thought nothing of shouting at you to take your shoes off at the back door and wipe your pee off the seat next time, are blinking up at you respectfully and asking if you think they should replace their furnace now or give it another winter. Lady, I’m fourteen! Gimme another hot dog. But no more hot dog marathons for this strapping young man, suddenly they’re setting the table and frying me steaks and having to stop themselves from pouring us both a couple of fingers of scotch and plunking their mom-arses down onto my lap, practically.
I’m exaggerating to make my point, but you get it, right? And the problem with being a boy in a man’s body is that, basically, in this world, it isn’t a problem. It’s commonplace. There are lots of boys in men’s bodies walking around — I work with a few of them. Some of them are my age, trembling on the precipice of the big four-oh, and some are even older. What I’m saying is, a lot of boys don’t bother growing into men, because they don’t have to — their bodies have already done it and it turns out that’s all anybody requires.
Which is to say, Adam, that when you are fourteen and you walk around looking like you are twenty-two, you rapidly figure out a few things about the human condition. First, being a grown man gives you this instant, irrational power. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t graduated from junior high yet, it doesn’t matter if you spend most your evenings picking your nose in front of Family Ties, and it doesn’t matter if you have done precisely nothing in your life worthy of your fellow man’s respect. Doesn’t matter — you have it. Everyone figures you can fix their cars, that you know what kind of aluminum siding they should buy, that you can file a tax return. And they turn to you, this is what’s astounding — they turn to you, these ladies with the bashed-up furnaces — in all your assumed expertise and aptitude.
Meanwhile you just want to eat hot dogs and pick your nose. And you do.