Break Away Read online

  Besides all the scrap metal stacked on big rusty shelves under a tarp, there were parts for repairing boats : transmissions, diesel engines, and so on. Michel was a handyman and a compulsive tinkerer, but he actually made his living repairing fishing boat engines.

  On the ground, next to my Suzuki lay a huge bronze propeller.

  We both looked at it. The name of the boat that it had previously belonged to, Marie-Belle, was engraved on it. It had come into Mike’s hands after he had done some work on the boat. The fishing boat’s owner, short on cash, had given it to him as payment for his work.

  “Is it worth a lot ?” I asked.

  “You bet. But it needs some work. It’s unbalanced. I’m going to try to heat it up and whack it into shape with a hammer. If that doesn’t work, too bad. I’ll hang it over the door the way some folks hang up moose antlers.”

  While Mike opened the gate, I hung my crutches on the back of the quad and turned the key. The engine started up like a charm. I turned around at the back of the yard before heading out when my headlight flashed on something strange.

  There was a curious machine parked behind Michel’s garage. Squeezing out a little gas I rolled forward slowly, then I cut the engine and coasted until the quad came to a stop in the mud, in front of the machine. My headlight, still on, lit up the strange contraption. It looked like a cross between a skidoo and a pickle.

  “Not bad, eh ?” Mike said proudly, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “What is this baby ?”

  “A 1970 Skiroule SX-440.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Made in Quebec, at Wickham. A Ski-Doo competitor. A collector’s item, hard to find. I had to go all the way to Northern Ontario to find it. A guy from Témiscamingue told me that his father had one that had been sitting out on his land for years.”

  It must have been there for that long. The metal was rusted through and big swatches of green paint were peeling off all over. The headlight was smashed in. The leather seat was torn and mice had gotten into the foam that had spilled out. Steel rods, bent every which way, stuck out from the vehicle’s track, which was cut in half and stuffed with hay. Even though it was dark and I couldn’t see very well, I was pretty sure I could make out a bird’s nest in the carburetor.

  “Gilles Villeneuve raced in one of these.”

  “One of these ?”

  “Actually, he used an RTX, not this model. They’re not as fast as what’s around today, but damn close.”

  “I don’t see myself running around in a rig like that.”

  “Wait ’til I’m done getting it in shape… You’ll be jealous.”

  I shook his hand, wished him good luck with his project, and left. It felt good to be back on my quad, and the time I had spent with Michel had helped me chase away the blues. I rolled down to the port, looking at a fishing boat. In a few days, it would be heading for dry dock in Sept-Îles for the winter.

  It was low tide and I took the boat launch ramp down to the beach. I drove slowly, taking in the salty air. Off to one side was the dark mass of the sea. On the other, the lights to the town. I cranked the gas and cruised down the damp packed sand as far as Brown’s Road, and took it back to my place. A fine mist came slanting in, driven by the autumn wind. I was cold and soaking wet, my pant cuffs full of sand and mud. The sock that protected my injured foot was drenched. I parked the quad in the garage and hopped up the stairs to the porch, crutches under my arm. Sylvie was waiting for me at the door, wrapped in her bathrobe.

  She heaved a sigh as she went into the house. She didn’t say a word, but I’m sure she wanted to tell me that I shouldn’t be riding the quad, that I was hurt, but… The only person who could have stopped me was my father, who had gone back to his hunting cabin. I hoped he’d never get him, the moose I mean.

  When I got out of the shower, I went in to Sylvie’s room and sat down at the foot of her bed. She was wearing her glasses on the tip of her nose, reading a novel. After a minute, she put down her book and looked up at me.

  “How come you broke up with Mike ?” I said.

  “He’s not my type.”

  “But he’s a good guy.”

  “Yeah, but you need to be more than a good guy to get somewhere in life. Me and Michel, it never worked and it never will.”

  “Never ?”

  “What am I supposed to do with a guy who’s always either fixing a machine, talking about machines or smelling like machines ? That’s all he knows ; that’s all he can do. It can get as boring as hell.”

  “But that’s the way he is. That’s him.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a limit. He’s getting kind of old for that stuff. You know, his dog’s named Nuliaq.”

  “So ? That’s a nice name.”

  “Look, that’s the Inuit word for ‘wife’. So fine, let him stay with his dog. I’ve got other fish to fry.”

  I smiled. She asked me why but I didn’t feel like saying. She grabbed the pillow from behind her head and hit me with it. I left the room laughing while Sylvie, on all fours on the bed, kept asking me what was so funny. I closed the door just in the nick of time. The pillow she tossed at me hit it instead.

  I can’t figure out why they’re not together. But I’ve got to admit I get a kick out of seeing my aunt come unglued every time I bring up Michel.

  I love the sound of skates on the ice, slap shots, the puck ricocheting off the boards. I swung slowly on my crutches down the corridor the players take to get to the ice. I moved as quietly as I could, as if I were in a museum or a library. As if I didn’t want anyone to hear me or to even know I was there.

  It was seven in the morning. I swung my crutches along the rubber mat that protected the players’ skates. Just as I thought I was in the clear, I heard a door open behind me.

  “McKenzie !” called a voice that I knew only too well. It was my coach, Larry. His real name is Laurent. But everybody calls him Larry. He’s a decent guy, but we don’t hit it off, him and me. For one thing, he’s too loud. And for another, he must have bionic ears, ’cause every time I walk past his office, he hears me. I thought he would have been out on the ice with my teammates.

  “Salut,” I said, feigning innocence.

  “What happened to our big ‘star’ ?”

  “I had an accident. You know that.”

  “That’s what I heard. But I would have rather you called me and told me yourself. I’m your coach, Alex, and I’ve got a right to know. I’ve got a workout to plan. We have a game tomorrow night.”

  One thing I’ve known since I was a kid is how it works around here : in less than twelve hours, everybody knows what you were up to the day before ; who you were with, what you did, why. There was no doubt in my mind that Larry knew what had happened to me. It wouldn’t even have surprised me if he brought up the grilled-cheese sandwiches.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “We’re a team, McKenzie. Are you aware of that ? We live together and we die together. When a soldier falls in battle, the commander has to know so he can reorganize his troops. Otherwise everyone’s going down, down to defeat. You’re not on your own, McKenzie. Get it ?”

  I nodded without saying anything. I never have anything to say to Larry. He’s pretty uptight, and the fact that I’m the team’s best player drives him wild. A long time ago, he was the best player on his team. He was a local star who played in Major Junior hockey with the Cataractes of Shawinigan. He was drafted 228th in I don’t know what year. Then he did a couple of training camps with the Philadelphia Flyers before crashing and burning in the American League, unable to make the big leagues. Regional disappointment.

  He joined the Army and became a blue beret in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But he came back completely off the wall. He went into coaching with big dreams for the future. But he never became anything more than an uptight guy whose idea of coaching was to push his players to the limit to get them to perform. The problem with me is that he knows that I don’t really give much of a damn. Every time he
jaws at me in the locker room and I shrug my shoulders, I get the feeling that he’s going to pick up a stick and break it over my head. But I’m his best player, so he can’t do it. But whenever he gets a chance to take me down a few notches, like at the present moment, he’ll jump at the chance.

  He especially likes to give the impression that he has cracked the secret of my success : luck. He gets all worked up at the thought of it. In my own humble opinion I’m no better than anyone else. I’m an average skater. I’ve got an average slap shot, a pretty good wrist shot. What they say about me is that I’m always in the right place at the right time, that my stick’s where it should be, that even my prayer shots end up buried in the back of the net, that opposing defencemen put their turnovers right on my stick, sending me off on breakaways that bring the crowd to its feet. Which is surely what Larry will say one day, when to his delight he can tell everybody what a rotten no-show I really am. Him, he’d known it all along ; he’d never gone for the head fake. And that soon, any day now, it would all turn bad for me, like it did for him, back when.

  “Hey, McKenzie !” he said. “I’m talking to you. Where’s your head at, anyway ?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and I swear I could see smoke coming out of his ears. He went back into his office slamming the door behind him.

  I slid slowly along the boards on my crutches, trying not to slip on the cement floor, when a puck ricocheted violently off the glass above my head. The impact was deafening. I just about had a heart attack. I dropped a crutch and, awkwardly hopping on one leg, leaned over to pick it up. When I raised my head, I saw Tommy and the others : Samuel, J.-F. and Félix, goofing off, walking with their hockey sticks as if they were cripples. I flipped them my middle finger and they started skating in my direction ready to shoot more pucks at me. Just then a shrill whistle blast echoed through the arena. It was Larry, making his entrance. He started chewing my friends out, which really cracked me up. After giving them a mouthful, he started skating like crazy, circling the ice dipsy-doodling just to show everyone who was the best. After his little song and dance, he made the team work up a sweat, doing stop-and-go’s.

  I sat in the stands and watched them work out, glad I wasn’t out there, and daydreaming about riding my quad into the bush up the trail to Flat Top Mountain. There’s a sweet little river up there and a path that’ll get you to the top if you use the spruce growing in the rocks as handgrips. From high up, the view of the St. Lawrence is awesome. Autumn is great. It’s cool and there’re no bugs. The birch are all yellow and orange. I love it. It’d be cool if they made hockey players get in shape by climbing mountains.

  A blast from the whistle pulled me back to the present. Larry stood at centre ice, surrounded by the team. You could tell the guys were beat. He started talking loudly, his voice audible anywhere in the building.

  “Okay guys, listen up. McKenzie won’t be suiting up for a while. But that doesn’t change a thing. If we stick to the plan, we’ll win our share of games.”

  Finally it happened. Just what I was most afraid of. And why I’d been so hard on my father. At school, Jessie wouldn’t speak to me. She was so embarrassed she wouldn’t even look me in the eye. But to tell the truth, it was me who was dying of shame.

  It turned out that my father never actually hit Mr. Pinchault, but he gave him hell in front of his own children, who had to watch their father break down in tears and apologize. What a mess ! Totally off the wall.

  I left the arena as soon as practice was over, not stopping to say goodbye to the guys in the locker room. I knew that Larry was ticked off at me and that he would get back in my face the next time he saw me. But I was really hoping to get to school early, just in case she might already be there. The kids that take the bus often get there early, sometimes as much as half an hour before school starts. At the risk of seeming like someone who didn’t care about his team, I snuck out the emergency exit. I started up the quad, turning the key slowly as if that would make the engine run more quietly, then took the path behind the arena that led to the school.

  I went in the main entrance, waved to the secretary in her glass cubicle, and headed towards the cafeteria. The rubber tip of my crutches squeaked on the linoleum like fresh cheese. When I got there I gave a quick look around. Two people I barely knew came over to me to see how the injury was doing and when I’d be back on the ice. What a bummer, they said ; I was their favourite player. But I wasn’t exactly what you would call friendly, barely looking at them, eyes darting to and fro in search of Jessie, who was nowhere to be found. I was worried that people might think badly about her family. That they might blame her and her brother, Stéphane. I argued as hard as I could that it was nobody’s fault, there had been a moose on the road.

  I had barely taken two steps when two guys on the basketball team came up to me giving me high fives. I repeated my story once again, carefully choosing each word, telling how Robert Pinchault had been super friendly and how it had been a stupid accident.

  “So why did your father go to bust him in the chops ?” asked the six-foot-four blond-haired guy with the thick glasses.

  “Maybe you’d like me to bust you in the chops ?” I answered back.

  They started backpedalling, hands held out, making like it was nothing, calming me down. But I was already over it. Some girls were laughing behind me. I headed over to them and finally spotted her, sitting in a corner of the café, studying with the boys and girls in Sauvé’s gang. I started to walk in circles on my crutches, not sure what I should do.

  Jonathan Sauvé is a tall junior who’s into gangsta rap. He wears long baggy pants and a baseball hat turned backwards. Despite a certain awkwardness, he’s smart, calm, collected, and softspoken. But he’s a dealer and has the reputation of flying off the handle and getting involved in some pretty uncool things. In a word, a small time boss man.

  I wasn’t up to facing up to the whole gang just so I could talk with Jessie. There I stood, with all these considerations running through my head, not moving, looking at them, for just a tick too long. I must have looked like a real idiot with my crutches, and my foot all wrapped up in a sock. Suddenly, they all stopped talking and laughing among themselves to look at me in wonderment ; everyone except her that is ; she’d turned away and was staring at the wall.

  Jonathan Sauvé, acting in his capacity as leader of the gang, questioned me with his eyes. Then, making one of his a bit-too-laid-back hip-hop moves, said to me :

  “Hey, hockey man. Why don’t you come sit with us ?”

  … as if he was inviting me to go to church with his family.

  I turned him down. From the way Jessie reacted, I could tell she was hurting over her father’s humiliation. I swung my weight onto my crutches and left without saying a word, head down, realizing that any effort to approach her, the person who had occupied my every waking thought since the moment I had met her, would probably accomplish nothing or make things worse.

  That day, I got tossed out of class for talking back to the teacher. The principal sent me to the library, where I was to stay until school was out. A little before 3 :30 he came to ask me what was going on. I started to defend myself by saying that the teacher had been looking for trouble, but it was useless trying to talk about it and my rudeness was inexcusable in any case. He said that I shouldn’t worry, that what I was going through was tough, that my ankle would heal quicker than I thought. Intrigued as much as discouraged, I wondered as he left the library : Is that all anybody cares about is hockey ?

  The rest of the week, I stayed in the yard slap-shooting rubber balls, tennis balls, practice pucks — anything I could find — at targets hung on the net, like I wanted to destroy them. Aunt Sylvie came out to tell me that it was 10 o’clock and I should call it a night and hit the sack. But I was like a man possessed, shooting and shooting by the light of the streetlight. Friday, at dinnertime, my father came back from hunting. He hadn’t killed his bull moose this year and should have been in a bad mood. But seein
g me practice like that, with such intensity, made him happy and he smiled. He came over to me and said hello. I shrugged, not saying anything, and I made a move like in the Kovalev video, juggling the puck on my blade and flicking it up to the back of my neck while leaning forward. I let it roll down my back and turned, ready to strike before it hit the ground. My father broke out laughing, shaking his head from left to right as if he didn’t believe it. He reached out to tousle my hair, but I sidestepped him, shooting a couple of balls at the targets on the goal.

  As he went up the stairs, I shot a puck that thwacked against the metal wall of the garage. Louis turned to look at me for a long moment without a word. His look was more interrogative than severe. I looked down. He went in the house while I kept juggling pucks on my stick.

  I was tired. But I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t been able to get Jessie off my mind all week. I had to find a way to see her alone to explain how everything had been a terrible mistake : the car accident, my father’s anger, everything. There had to be some way to make sense out of it all. I was sure of it. And I was determined beyond measure to find that way, up to and including making myself look ridiculous.

  My ankle had completely healed after a couple of weeks, to my great pleasure, and to the surprise of my doctor who hadn’t believed it would mend so quickly. He cautioned me to hold off a bit all the same. But I felt good. So good that I started skating a week before he gave me the go-ahead. My father and Sylvie were against it. They said it was a bad idea ; I should wait, otherwise there was a danger of making it worse.