Featherless Bipeds Read online

  Tristan rolls his eyes.

  “Dak, if you were living in the 1950s, and somebody had just publicly accused you of being a Communist sympathizer, would you just strut right into the McCarthy hearings?”

  I consider this for a moment. When did Tristan become so insightful? Has he actually started reading his history textbooks, instead of just using them as coasters for beer bottles?

  “Not a great time to walk back into a room where someone has just accused you of racial bias,” Tristan adds, “especially when they’re all upset about that Skinhead recruitment concert downtown.”

  “But I hate those pricks as much as anyone does. “ “Well, then, you see my point.”

  I shrug. Yes, I get his point.

  Tristan heads back into the party.

  “Veronica and I will try to explain what was really going on. In the meantime, Dak, you had better just scram for now.”

  What else can I do? I scram.

  I head back home to our dorm, kicking at sidewalk debris as I walk. Zoe is no longer in my room. The only evidence of her recent presence is the slight impression in the middle of my single bed, and that the bed is made at all. I hope that she has just wandered down to the common room to get a drink or something, so she can wrap herself around me and make me feel better about what just happened. Hey, it could happen.

  Then I notice that her book bag and jacket are gone as well. I call her apartment, but I only get the answering machine. She must be halfway between my place and hers.

  When I get to Zoe’s building, I stand outside for some time, the index finger of my left hand on the buzzer, the fingers of my right hand drumming a solo on the brick wall. Maybe she’s gone out for a bite to eat. She’s probably gone to Jafo’s, the diner on the east end that serves hamburgers with patties the size of hockey pucks. I decide that I will find her there.

  Then, something occurs to me that causes a shiver to ripple through me: the old band shell is directly between Zoe’s place and Jafo’s. What if she’s caught in the middle of that skinhead rally?

  I start running.

  I skid around the corner of an abandoned building on the far end of the street where the old bandshell stands. A scattered group of teenagers surge towards me, screaming like warriors on the attack. As they get closer, I realize that their screams are not of rage, but of fear. A boy of maybe sixteen runs past me, blood streaming from his nostrils to his ears. Several other teens streak by, some bleeding, some hobbling, many yelling at me to turn around, they’re coming, run, run!

  And I do run. I will keep running straight ahead until I find Zoe.

  I can hear the distorted rumble of badly played heavy metal music, the howl of hateful lyrics. Zoe would be sick if she heard the lyrics, bastardized from one of her favourite old songs:

  “THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR STOMPIN’

  YEAH, Y’KNOW IT’S TRUE

  THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR STOMPIN’

  ON NIGGERS AND ON JEWS!”

  Another wave of cold flows though my body. From around the band shell, I can hear voices chanting along.

  Ahead of me, a dozen more teenagers jump over the wrought-iron fence around the band shell grounds, running in my direction, their boots thumping against the sidewalk. In the flickering streetlight, I can see that they all wear the same uniforms of hate: shaved heads, swastikas, black jackets, black jeans, black boots. I keep my head up and continue running.

  A hoarse voice crackles through a loudspeaker:

  “YES, BROTHERS AND SISTERS! STAND TOGETHER! FIGHT ALL THOSE WHO WOULD TAINT THE PURITY OF THE ONE TRUE RACE! UNITY! UNITY!”

  My eyes jump from face to face as the skinhead teens come charging towards me. I see no “unity” in the expressions on their faces. Some look enraged and vengeful. Some look excited, like kids at a football pep rally. A couple even look a little frightened by what they find themselves involved in.

  I hold my head up as they rush towards me, and wince as they stomp past, their boots echoing off the pavement behind me. Saved by my white skin, I guess. This does not comfort me.

  My running abruptly slows, as if the air has thickened to the consistency of syrup, and both my feet anchor on the sidewalk as if they are made of iron and the concrete has become magnetic. With my breath stuck inside me, I hang there in the humid air, suspended like a mosquito trapped in amber, my eyes frozen on the space between two crumbling brick buildings. There, three figures in skinhead uniforms are standing around a green plastic garbage can. Two are standing back, clapping and laughing, while the third appears to be kicking at a garbage bag hidden behind the can.

  “Hey, garbage!” he yelps, “betcha like gettin’ fucked by niggers, don’tcha!”

  He lands a kick on the garbage bag. It squeaks.

  “Betcha like suckin’ off Jews, don’tcha!”

  Another thump as his boot connects with the bag.

  “Should be sharin’ yer body with yer own kind, bitch!” he hollers, kicking again.

  I can just barely hear the words “go to hell” trickle out from behind the garbage can.

  Oh God. I thought it was a garbage bag, but he’s kicking a girl!

  The forces holding me in place dissolve. I run across the street at what must be the speed of sound, because I don’t even hear the lion roar blasting free from my own lungs until my hands are gripping the collar of the punk doing the kicking. I throw the skinny little prick against the wall so hard that some of the crumbling bricks come loose.

  His compatriots immediately run away.

  I slam him against the wall again, probably breaking my knuckles in the process. I glare into his eyes, which are filling with tears.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he says.

  I hold him against the wall. He does not struggle. He is at least a foot shorter than me, and he can’t be more than a hundred pounds. His fresh-off-the-shelf black boots and chain-festooned jacket weigh more than all his vital organs combined. He is no more than fourteen. As much as I long to kick the shit out of a skinhead, beating up this one will make me no better that the jerks who are reeling him in with free music and food.

  “Not so tough without your cement-head buddies, are you, kid?”

  When I turn to look at the girl behind the garbage can, he wriggles free and runs away.

  She is a mess, curled up in a ball, breathing rapidly, her head sandwiched between her elbows. There are dirty footprints all over the back of her jacket. Bruises are already forming on her legs. They have dumped garbage all over her. There are coffee grounds and bits of kleenex and egg yolk in her red hair. The wooden handle of a protest sign is wedged between her knees. The hand-painted slogan on the placard says “Love for ALL humanity”.

  “Do you think you can walk?” I ask her as she slowly unfolds her legs and rolls over.

  She nods yes, but she stumbles when she tries. I catch her and hold her under the arms. If you change her green eyes to blue and her red hair to brown, she resembles my younger sister Charlotte. She’s about the same age, too.

  I should have killed that little punk when I had the chance.

  “I think my ankle’s sprained,” she says, her lower lip quivering. “Or broken.”

  “I’ll help you get an ambulance.”

  “At least they didn’t get a chance to rape me,” she says, and she crumbles against me, sobbing. Her resemblance to my sister makes my insides twitch.

  Of course, no telephone company would put a pay phone in such a burned-out, boarded-up area as this, so I will have to walk her at least as far as the nearest restaurant or convenience store before I can resume my search for Zoe.

  As we limp along, the street now strangely quiet, she tells me her name is Bernie — short for Bernice. She is in grade eleven at one of the high schools in the suburbs. She and her friends have just finished learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. in history class, and they decided to take seriously his mantra, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”.

  “Yo
u’re a brave girl, Bernie,” I tell her.

  Several police cars come roaring up the street, sirens wailing. I jump out and start waving my arms. A cruiser screeches to a halt in front of me.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” the officer barks at me as we move around to the open driver’s-side window.

  “I found this girl — she was beaten up by some skinheads. Can you get her to a hospital?”

  “We’re on our way to break up a riot they started at the waterfront. Sorry. You’ll have to wait until our backup shows up.”

  With that, the cruiser races away.

  “Maybe you could take me to the McDonald’s a couple of blocks from here,” Bernice says between bloody coughs. “My friends said we should meet there if we got separated.”

  Since there doesn’t seem to be anywhere closer that might have a phone, I take her to the McDonald’s. Thankfully, her friends are waiting there for her, uninjured.

  “Let’s get in the car and hunt down the bastards who did this!” one of the boys shouts, after the hugs and tears and explanations are finished.

  “Yeah, let’s make ’em pay!” adds one of the girls, “There’s seven of us, and only three of them!”

  “How about instead you get Bernice to a hospital,” I suggest.

  They agree to do this. One of the boys shakes my hand. “Thanks, man, thanks for bringing Bernie back to us.”

  “All in a day’s work,” I say.

  Then I walk out of the McDonald’s and empty the contents of my stomach behind a shrub.

  The entire walk to Jafo’s is eerily quiet. The streets are deserted. I guess all the chaos has moved to the waterfront.

  I pray to God, I actually pray, that Zoe will be safe.

  Then my head jerks back violently, my feet are kicked out from under me, and I feel my arms being twisted behind my back for the second time tonight. It is the same guys who had cornered Bernice in the alley. The pair that ran away first take hold of one of my arms back as the skinny one circles around in front of me.

  “So, did she have a red pussy, buddy?” the one holding my right arm says, “We were just about to find out when you came runnin’ up!”

  “Wasn’t nice to steal Hank’s girlfriend like that,” the one on my left giggles.

  “Nice giggle, tough guy,” I say.

  The giggler belts me across the back of the head with something large and solid. When I am able to re-focus my eyes, the little weasel I should have erased earlier reaches into the pocket of his black jacket and snaps open a switchblade.

  “Guess you must be a fuckin’ kike if that bitch liked ya,” he says. “You know what we do to kikes?”

  My mind is racing as fast as my heart. I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than any one of them individually, but the three of them together could make a mess out of me in a fight, especially since they’ve all got weapons. In my running shoes and loose pants, though, I could easily outrun them in their tight black jeans and clunky boots.

  “How about we settle this one-on-one, like real men, Hank,” I say, hoping an appeal to his misdirected testosterone might result in me getting free from his two pals.

  “Nope,” he says, “we of the pure race have got to stick together.”

  “That’s right, brother!” says the stooge on my left, slamming me on the back of the head again.

  My vision blurs and my chin drops to my chest, only to snap back up again a second later.

  “Do it, Hank!” the guy on my right cries, “Do this mother-fucker!”

  The scrawny boy dances around uneasily for a moment, waving the blade in front of me.

  “Do him!” both my captors holler.

  “White Power!” the skinny one shrieks as he sticks the knife in my belly.

  Then my head bounces off the concrete, and everything disappears.

  I guess I’m in Heaven now, or on my way there. Maybe they’re prepping me for the afterlife. It’s like watching a film about how nice the rest of my life would have been if I hadn’t got myself killed. Something isn’t working quite right, though, because I can’t see anything. I can only hear the soundtrack, and it’s muffled, like I’m listening through a pillow.

  I can hear Zoe’s voice, but I’m not sure what she’s saying. Tristan and Veronica are here, and I think I can hear my parents’ voices, too.

  I’m starting to receive the picture, now, but it’s only a blurry whiteness. Maybe this is a scene of what our wedding would have been like. Weddings are white. Me marrying Zoe. I would have liked that.

  But now I think I can hear Lola’s voice, too. What is she doing at our wedding? When I tell the story about the ordeal of confessing to Zoe’s dad about backing his Lincoln into Sammy’s Souvlaki Hut, will Lola throw wedding rice in my eyes, kick me in the groin, and throw me out of my own wedding reception?

  “Vital signs have stabilized,” I hear a voice say.

  Mom?

  “The cops got ’em,” says another. “He can I.D. ’em when he comes to.”

  Dad?

  Strange things to say on my wedding day!

  The visual portion of the show is getting clearer now, the edges of the room coming into focus. White walls. Acoustic tile ceiling. The dark shadows circling around me are smoothing out into definite shapes: sky-blue curtains, people in pastel clothing rushing back and forth, a television-like thing beside me, my own feet poking out from beneath a blanket. Two doctors — one male, one female — who I thought a moment ago were my Mom and Dad, are walking away from my bed. Heaven is beginning to look a lot like a hospital Emergency Room.

  “He’s awake!” Zoe cries, and her face appears above mine, smiling. Her long, black hair brushes my cheek and neck as she leans forward to kiss my dry lips. She stretches out her coffee-with-cream coloured fingers, and brushes my hair off my forehead. Her skin is the softest thing I’ve ever felt.

  Tristan and Veronica appear at the foot of my bed, looking both worried and relieved. Akim and Sung Li, the couple I had just met when Lola tossed me from her party, are here as well

  “Hi, Dak,” Veronica says. She kisses me, too. Sung Li does the same. I never would have guessed that getting stabbed would come with such benefits.

  “Does it hurt?” Tristan says.

  I do a quick scan of my body. My belly throbs with certain, searing pain. The back of my head, which absorbed blows from the big, heavy weapon, as well as hitting the sidewalk, pulses and burns. I guess they took a few kicks at me, too, because the dull pain of rising welts dot my body like leopard spots.

  “It’s not so bad,” I answer, and I discover that it hurts to smile.

  Lola tiptoes in between Veronica and Sung Li.

  “Jesus, Dak,” she says, “You didn’t have to go this far to prove me wrong.”

  “I was just looking for Zoe.”

  Lola looks at Zoe. “I get it now.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I probably shouldn’t have been mocking Zoe’s dad like that, since he might be my father-in-law some day.”

  Zoe rolls her eyes.

  I reach around Zoe and pat her behind with my bandaged hand, a move that is worth the pain it causes. I know she’s not my girlfriend anymore, I know that we are officially “just friends”, but I suspect in this particular circumstance she will let me get away with it.

  A nurse steps through the door, looks at the multi-coloured crew gathered around the bed. “Visitors are supposed to be family only,” she says. “I don’t think you are all related to this patient.”

  “We’re all adopted,” I say.

  The nurse does not laugh. Everyone but Zoe move towards the door.

  “You get better soon, eh, Dak?” Akim says. “You need to get back behind those drums, so we can get this band going.”

  “Damn right,” Lola says.

  Everyone says goodbye. Tristan winks at me as he pulls the privacy curtain closed.

  Zoe rests her head on my shoulder, touches two fingers to my lips, the only two places on my body that
aren’t pulsing with pain. I slide my hand onto her slender back.

  “I’m glad you’re going to be okay,” she sighs.

  “Glad enough to make you want to be my girlfriend again?”

  “Getting there,” she says.

  Maybe it’s the painkillers, but I feel strangely warm and happy inside. I am going to be in a rock band. I am going to get my girlfriend back. No pain can keep me from smiling now.

  Life is good.

  Paint

  Lyrics — D. Sifter, Music — A. Ganges, T. Low, D. Sifter

  (From the album Socrates Kicks Ass!, recorded by The Featherless Bipeds)

  This kind of paint

  has thirty-two colours

  and a thousand times more

  when you mix ’em together

  and maybe a million zillion when

  you add black or white (or grey shades)

  to the mix

  as they age, their tones begin to change

  no two are ever exactly the same

  some are innocent

  some cover guilt

  some are contained and can never be spilt

  some are green, like gardens and trees

  some are red, like bloodshot eyes and skinned knees

  some of the colours can’t be seen at all

  black moonless nights and white blinding snow

  Brotherly, Sisterly, Fatherly, Motherly

  Pure and Forgiving, Dirty and Ugly

  Platonic colours, like backrubs from friends

  More are like passions, explode on the sand

  This place is ours

  It belongs to we two

  It hasn’t been painted

  I’m waiting for you

  DEAF MAN’S GARAGE

  After the stabbing, Mom and Dad move in with me. Tristan gives up his half of our dorm room for them and stays at Veronica’s place — crafty Tristan! Mom cooks me delicious hot meals and cleans our apartment beyond recognition, while Dad repeatedly reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive and what a complete idiot I am to have put myself into such a dangerous situation. When the sting of Dad’s criticism begins to outweigh the benefits of Mom’s cooking and cleaning, I tell them I’m feeling good enough to take care of myself now, and they go back home to Faireville.