Fight Night(20)

We played football for a long time. Our team was called the Zombies. We could never die. We tried to get more rips in our clothes. Gretchen was the quarterback and every time we huddled she said it’s Scrambled Eggs, or sometimes it was Whoot Whoot which were the names of her two plays. Me or Geoffrey would hut the ball to her and then run super fast in a straight line down the field and then turn hard to the left, which was Whoot Whoot, or if it was Scrambled Eggs we’d just run around like crazy all over the place, wherever we felt like going, waiting for her to throw the ball. After football we sat on the monkey bars and talked. This lady came up to us and said the city was closing the park soon to build a remand centre. She said now that the world is ending people are replacing having children with becoming criminals which is why we need more remand centres and fewer parks. We sat on the top bars and looked at her and nodded. She said, Can I ask you something? We said sure. Do I look P-A-L-E? We said no! Do I look ill? We said no, you look great! Do I look P-A-L-E? Nope! Do I look friendly? Yes! Do I look friendly and kindly? Yes! Do I look P-A-L-E? Nope! I look friendly and kindly? Yes. Do I look ill? No!

The lady went over to the garbage bin and looked inside it. She wrapped a giant scarf around and around her head and then she took it off again and wrapped it around her waist. She did jumping jacks. We whispered to each other. We didn’t know if she was great or not great. She walked away to where the streetcar stops and told us to have ourselves a fantastic day and God bless us.

We went back to my place. Gretchen screamed when she saw Grandma sleeping in her chair. I think she’s dead, she said. No, I said. That’s how she looks. Geoffrey and Gretchen never see old people. I put my head on Grandma’s chest. It went up and down.

Gotcha! Grandma yelled. She grabbed me and we all screamed.

Let’s eat! said Grandma. She talked to Geoffrey and Gretchen about stuff while I set the table with the blue glass candleholders from Auntie Momo and the yellow cloth napkins. I told Geoffrey and Gretchen they had to yell at Grandma for her to hear them. They were too shy at first, but finally everyone was yelling like usual.



When Mom came home after rehearsal she went to her room and cried. Geoffrey and Gretchen went home. Mom turned her humidifier up high so I wouldn’t hear her crying but I heard her anyway. I lay down beside her and she smiled and blew her nose four hundred times. She said sorry, sorry, sorry, god I’m just so exhausted, Swiv, don’t worry.

Worry about what? I said. Because I wasn’t worried until she told me not to worry. What shouldn’t I worry about? I asked her.

Anything, she said. Just don’t worry about a thing.

I felt my whole body freeze up. I couldn’t move it. As if Mom had tucked me into a blanket of worry that was the world’s heaviest blanket in the Guinness Book of World Records. Do you have your letter? I asked her.

What letter? she said.

Your assignment, I told her. Of the letter. Grandma already handed hers in and they’re due.

Mom said oh god, right, yeah, I think so, maybe, let me check my bag, or maybe it’s on my computer, hang on, I think I’ve got it, or maybe I’m not done, actually I don’t think I’ve …

I lay beside Mom while she said all those things and more. The truth was there was no letter. I didn’t say anything for a long time. Mom rubbed my back as if a massage could be a substitute for a letter. I’m disappointed, I said. Mom said she knew, she was sorry, she knew a deadline is not a suggestion but—

It’s just that you’re so exhausted, I said. Mom was quiet and we breathed together quietly. We could hear the Raptors game blaring away on Grandma’s TV. You know what Swiv, she said, I’m gonna finish tonight. May I please have a one-hour extension? I tapped my chin and squinted at Mom. You’re treading on thin ice, my friend, I said. Mom nodded, she knew, she knew. I managed to get out from under the cement blanket of worry and stood up next to the bed. One hour! I said.

I stomped downstairs to watch the Raptors and set the timer on the stove. Grandma asked me what I was timing. Mom, I said. Was it nice seeing your friends? Grandma asked, and I said yeah. Did you have fun? she said. Does it make you want to go back to school? I was getting a rhetorical vibe from her questions. I can’t go back to school! I said. I’ve been suspended! I know, said Grandma, but after your suspension. I don’t know, I said. Grandma wanted to talk about it more, but I didn’t. We stared at the TV.

The Raptors weren’t playing hard. Grandma was mad. She told them, C’mon you guys, wake up and smell the coffee. She said that’s a terrible, terrible way to lose, by not trying and not fighting. You play hard to the end, Swiv. To the buzzer. There is no alternative. Do they all have the flu? Then she said she was so disgusted that she couldn’t watch anymore and she switched the TV to Jeopardy!



One hour was almost up. Just as I was about to go upstairs to tell Mom, I heard her coming down the stairs. She came into the living room pretending to be all nervous and curtsied to me and Grandma and then handed me her pages. She kept her head down and her eyes on the carpet as she handed them to me. My lady, she said. As you requested. I’m grateful to you for the mercy shown. Forgive me. Then she crawled backwards out of the room with Gord hanging down from her stomach and almost scraping the rug. The timer went off. Fun and games! said Grandma. I hid my smile with Mom’s pages.

I gave Grandma her seven thousand evening pills. In two days I’d have to get some of her prescriptions renewed at the drugstore. I went into her room and put a thin-rimmed glass of water by her bed and moved her nitro spray closer on the bedside table—but not too close, so she wouldn’t knock it off in her sleep. I put her cellphone with my number taped on it beside the bed and made sure it was charged. I went back into the living room to say goodnight to Grandma. I put her nitro patch on the fattest part of her arm to really soak up that TNT. I asked her to drink a glass of water before bed even though I know she wouldn’t. She says she gets her water from coffee. I asked her to floss her teeth because it helps prevent heart attacks. She laughed. She said that’s rich. She wanted to hug me for a long time. Embrace your humanity, Grandma, I said. I whispered it into her fat. I told her the next day I’d help her shower and we could use Mom’s expensive Italian shower gel. Mom wouldn’t notice because she was too preoccupied with going insane. Grandma told me she loved me very much.