girls.
The first person to speak is the wiener. “Thank you,” he says, rubbing his body where the thug’s pipelike fingers had dug into him.
Kyle turns a look of scorn onto the thug. “He just fucking thanked you, Rank.”
Who in the universe but Kyle could make a normally unrepentant thug feel so very repentant — when all he was doing was acting the way any self-respecting thug was expected and encouraged to act? Jeez. The thug in question understands what has to happen next.
He turns and addresses the wiener.
“Sorry, man. Just getting a little exercise.”
The glasses shift toward him, flicker light into the thug’s eyes. “No problem.”
“Now shake hands,” says Kyle.
Rank winces. “Kyle, fuck’s sake man.”
“This is my house. This is the Temple. It is a Temple of friendship, and it is a Temple of love.”
Only Kyle Jarvis can get away with saying this sort of thing.
So the two young men roll eyes and shake hands.
“Come with me,” insists Kyle, and ushers the two new acquaintances over to the kitchen. Together the three of them stand solemnly before the fridge like it is an altar. Kyle opens it with a somehow ceremonial yank, pulls out a couple of beer, and cracks them for each of his guests before handing them over.
“Now,” he instructs. “You two stand here with your beer and get to know each other. Don’t come out of the kitchen until you’re best friends. I’m serious.”
With that, he leaves them.
They regard each other. Rank pushes out his breath, making his lips flap a little. It isn’t an encouraging sound, but the wiener doesn’t flinch, doesn’t make the first appeasing move. Also, he seems to know precisely the right angle to point his glasses in order to make them reflect light into the eyes of the person in front of him. Safe behind his glasses, he gives nothing away. He just waits.
After a moment, Rank speaks.
“Can I say something here, Adam?”
“Certainly, Rank.”
“I know we haven’t known each other long. But, here it is. You are — bar none — the greatest guy I’ve ever met.”
The glasses shift then, pointing downward at the blackened kitchen linoleum. A silent, sombre nod, followed by a slightly choked-up throat-clearing. “That means . . . so much to me Rank. You have no idea.”
Rank begins to choke a bit himself. “And I . . . I just wanna say . . .”
“Just say it, Rank. It’s okay. I’m here.”
“I’d really like to offer you a hand job.”
Adam can’t keep it up and ends up spraying beer across the kitchen.
So the ritual was a success. Chalk up another for the magic man.
07/28/09, 12:03 a.m.
I’m sorry but I just have to stop and remark upon what a total trip down memory lane it is, being here, for me. I didn’t quite realize it until Owen Findlay came by for a beer the other night. He brought over a bunch of copies of those pics from my hockey days that Father Waugh had mentioned on the phone — one set for me and one for Gord. Neither of us had seen them before. It’s weird to see pictures of yourself as a kid that you’ve never seen before — it’s as if there’s a version of you, a double, that you didn’t even know existed, hanging around somewhere in the past.
So doesn’t Gord promptly haul out his own photo album (by which I mean hollers at me to haul it from the top shelf of the bookcase for him), preparing to set sail into Rankin family history.
The moment Gord opens the album, photos cascade from its pages and into his lap because after Sylvie died he couldn’t be bothered to maintain it properly. He likes to take the snapshots out of the book to show people and then just shoves them back in the album without bothering to reaffix any of them. I am pretty sure this is not just because he’s lazy. It’s because he doesn’t know how to do it — he’s never bothered to figure it out. Keeping albums was my mother’s job.
So there’s Gord with a crotchful of photos and he makes poor Owen sit there listening to extended narratives about every last one. Here’s the boy playing street hockey with his friends — already an enforcer, looka the size a the, etc. Here he hulks in his Icy Dream uniform on his first day of work, all of fourteen years old. Here he is with his lame certificate stating that he has graduated