dying.
The St. Leonard’s people put in a recommendation to the parole board. The man who ran the furniture shop put in a good word. Barry found Lee work with Clifton Murray. And by Labour Day, Lee was on the bus going north. Homeward.
Lee felt good at the job site the next day. Just before noontime, Clifton called him over to his truck and gave him an envelope.
— There you go.
— What’s this? said Lee.
— It’s not a birthday card, Leland. It’s your paycheque.
— Oh.
He opened it and took it out and looked at it. There was the cheque itself and a balance sheet of statutory deductions. He studied the numbers.
— Were you thinking I’d pay under the table? said Clifton. Because I won’t. It’s just not worth the headache.
— Like in the Bible, right? You have to give to Caesar what’s his too.
— Well. It’s just not worth the headache to muck around.
— Good with me, Mr. Murray. Everything above-board. That kind of thing keeps my parole officer happy.
— Yes, well.
— I’ll get back to it, said Lee.
It rained that evening. Pete drove to the pizza joint over by the hospital. His work clothes were stuffed in a backpack in the trunk of his car beside a case of beer. He’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt and a jacket.
— There’s my main man, said Billy.
Billy and Emily had a booth inside the restaurant. With them was a girl Emily introduced as Nancy. Nancy did not have the same poise as Emily, but she had an appealing nature. She laughed a lot. She and Billy did most of the talking.
They had pizza and frosted glasses of root beer. Conversation at the table threaded frenetically with Billy and Emily on one side and Pete and Nancy sitting across from them. Nancy talked with her hands almost as much as she laughed. Pete caught Emily’s eye and she made a face at him. Billy’s arm hovered over her shoulders.
— Billy said you quit school, said Nancy.
— Yeah, said Pete. Last May.
— The system doesn’t trust guys like Pete, said Billy.
Nancy shook her head. She said how wild that was, Pete quitting school. Pete happened to catch Emily’s eye. Her expression was mild and neutral, but all the same he reached up and scratched the back of his neck. He said: I was thinking I might go to community college at some point. I don’t know.
He didn’t say anything about his plans to head out west.
They had the rest of the pizza and sent for the bill. Nancy’s folks were away for the weekend and she was having friends over to her house that night. She and Emily got up to go to the washroom and Billy winked at Pete as soon as they were alone.
— She’s nice, said Pete.
— Sure she is. You bet.
The bill came and Billy burrowed about for his wallet until Pete put the cash down. The girls returned. Nancy came back and slipped into the booth beside Pete.
— Are you going to come to my house? I think you should.
— She thinks you should, Pete, said Emily.
Pete might have guessed there’d be trouble if he and Billy went to Nancy’s house, school loyalty being what it was. By eleven o’clock, there were twenty people at the party, all of them from Heron Heights. Shortly after eleven a small group of guys arrived. They were all solidly built athletes. The biggest of them was six feet tall, and it wasn’t so much that he was good-looking-he just had presence in the room. When he took off his jacket, he was wearing a Heron Heights varsity lacrosse T-shirt underneath. The air got tense.
Until that point it wasn’t a bad scene. The house was nice-much bigger than the house where Pete lived-and there was lots to drink. He didn’t know any of these people, except for Billy and Nancy and Emily, and he was grateful just to take it all in. He spent a lot more time in Nancy’s company than he’d predicted he would, given how it usually seemed to go for him when it came to girls. He’d noticed a picture of her on the wall: an ice rink, a figure-skating pose for the camera, a glittery outfit, thick stage makeup. He asked her about the picture and saw how she lit up. They sat on a couch in the living room and she told him how she volunteered as a coach when she wasn’t training, how she’d gone to the nationals, was going again this spring. As she talked, Pete looked around. There were no crosses on the wall, and there was none of the medical equipment needed to keep an old woman alive. Nancy touched his leg. She asked him if he wanted another drink.
After a few more beers, Billy sat on the living room carpet with Nancy’s father’s Yamaha acoustic. He took requests. People sang. They opened the window and a joint made its way around. Emily sat beside Billy. She wasn’t singing but she was watching Billy, smiling.
That was when the lacrosse player and his boys arrived. They came into the house bearing a couple cases of beer.
— Oh, said Nancy. I didn’t know if you guys were coming.
— We got back from the tournament and heard you were having people over.
— Come in, then.
The athlete and his boys stood between the front door and the kitchen.
— Hey, Emily, said the lacrosse player.
Emily looked up at him. The guy smiled.
Pete guessed that the latecomers would put themselves in the living room, but they didn’t. They disappeared elsewhere in the house a few minutes after they’d come in. A short while later Billy took a break from the guitar. He stood up and helped Emily to her feet. He weaved over and whacked Pete’s arm.
— I’ve got to piss.
— No sense keeping it all bottled up, said Pete.
Billy went on his way. Emily approached.
— Are you having a good time, Pete?
— Sure, your friends are fun.
— Don’t pay any attention to those guys who just got here. The big guy, his name is Roger. I think he’s finding it hard to move on from certain things.
— It’s okay.
Then Emily was gone. Her perfume hung behind her. Pete went to the washroom. When he was coming out he happened to look down the hallway. He saw Emily leaning against the wall, Billy in front of her. Laughing, both of them, her with her hand to her mouth.
Pete went down the hallway away from them. Then someone hailed him from a small den. It was the lacrosse player and his boys and a couple of girls. They were sitting around drinking, shoes propped up on a coffee table. Pete stepped into the den. They looked at him.
— So who are you, anyways?
— I’m Pete. I’m a friend of Nancy’s.
The athlete put out his lower lip. He said: Pete, Pete. Pete Pete Pete. Okay.
Just then Pete heard the guitar strike up in the living room again. He heard voices starting to sing along.
— I’m going to have to talk to Emily, said the lacrosse player.
— I know you, said one of the others. You work at the gas station on the bypass.
The boys in the den laughed.
— I’m going to get a beer, said Pete.
He was trying to think of something to say, some sharp retort, but he couldn’t think of anything. He was sweating under his shirt. As he turned away from the doorway into the den, he heard the lacrosse player saying:
