Searching for Terry Punchout by Tyler Hellard

Author:Tyler Hellard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: novel, hockey, sports illustrated, coming of age, nova scotia, small town, Canada
Publisher: Invisible Publishing
Published: 2018-09-10T19:05:53+00:00

I leave my truck parked on the cemetery road and take a walk. It’s Monday morning, a couple hours after most people have gone to work, deep enough into November that the leaves have long fallen from the trees and now linger in clumps like trampled garbage in the empty streets. There aren’t many sidewalks along Pennington’s residential streets, just road and grass, usually with about a foot of worn dirt separating them. Most front yards dip into shallow ditches that are connected by culverts running under each driveway, warping the pavement after a few years. A good culvert bump guarantees that kids on bikes and skateboards will use your driveway for jumps. A few of the houses here have been painted and others look odd, though I can’t place why. They’re the same, but different.

The cemetery is only two blocks from the elementary school, so I follow the route Dave and I used to take every day, heading toward our old apartment building. One year for Christmas, our mothers got us each a hockey net, which we set up in a cul-de-sac about half a block away. All the nearby kids would come and we’d lose whole days and weekends and summers playing. Back then, to get from the cul-de-sac to home, I’d cut through a couple yards and go in the back of the building. Today, I stay on the road and stop directly in front of it. Twenty-six Jasper Street is an eight-unit building that’s perfectly symmetrical in the front, except for the things people keep on their small balconies—barbecues, chairs, one bike. The balcony on the top right—the one that belongs to the apartment where I lived with my mother—has a small table and chair, and even from street level I can make out an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts.

After a few minutes, I realize standing in the street staring at a building is a creepy thing to be doing. I start to go and when I look up the street I see Carol walking toward me, a small punter of a dog pulling at the leash in her left hand, a long cigarette in her right.

“I thought that was you,” she says, smiling as she approaches, her voice rough from years of smoking. “Even from far I could tell.” She tosses her cigarette to the ground, not bothering to stamp it out, and comes in close for a hug. She’s shorter than I remember and I need to lean into her tight squeeze. The smell of menthol clings to her hair in the cold and her little dog scratches excitedly at my shin.

“Come in, come in, come in,” she says.

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