Kicking the Sky by Anthony De Sa

Author:Anthony De Sa
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Young Adult
ISBN: 9781565129276
Publisher: Random House LLC
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

— 6 —

ACOUPLE OF DAYS LATER, right after the final bell rang, I took a different route over to James’s. Everything was about staying alive, mixing things up, avoiding the laneways where Amilcar might be hiding. He had changed schools. After he failed last year his parents switched him to Charles G. Fraser, which wasn’t a catholic school. Manny told me he hardly ever saw him; he had a job in Kensington Market, stocking shelves at Melo’s Grocery Store.

Agnes told me I would find James at the park. She looked shabby. “Every morning I make sure I’ve got all the things he likes all ready for him. His coffee, the newspaper, toast with butter and jam. He likes apricot.” She sounded tired, the way she went through the things she did for him, the things he liked. “But he’s been coming home mad because they’re not giving him as much work. He says he’s getting too old for his kind of work.” I wondered if she knew exactly what it was James did downtown, and if she did I wasn’t really sure she’d tell me. “Thank God your dad gave him that job. It helps.” She stopped to look up at the TV. “People are staying away. Even from the new mall. They’re afraid. James says he sees gangs of boys, some of them from our neighbourhood, gathering down there and beating the crap out of other guys, the ones they think are queers.”

For weeks the rumours had been spreading that Manny’s brother, Eugene, and Amilcar had been involved in some of the beatings. Most Portuguese in the neighbourhood were just glad homosexuals were being scared off. I had even heard my parents say as much.

“Does James scare you?” I asked.

Agnes placed a candy in her mouth. “He makes me feel safe.” She turned and looked straight at me. “He touches me so gently, it makes me want to cry.” She drew her hands to her belly. “I didn’t want to keep it, you know, but James said we’d make a perfect family. He said he’d take care of things.” I caught a whiff of her minty breath. “He’ll take care of us all.” She tried to twirl her hair in her finger. It would have worked if she still had her long hair. “You better go. Alexandra Park. He’s there with Manny. They’ve been together all day.”

“Do you want to come?”

Agnes shook her head, then grabbed a rung on the ladder and climbed up.

I made it to the park in record time: one minute, twenty-seven seconds. The faster I rode my bike, the slimmer the chance that Amilcar could ambush me from some nook or hideout along the way. I took in the rattle of dry leaves, the way they crunched under my tires, and thought of my mother and how she scoured our walkway and sidewalk with bleach trying to scrub away the rusty stains left by the rotting shells of horse chestnuts. Last fall I had suggested we try cooking them.

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