“Only if we landed on our heads.” He thought he should suggest this to Gilbert.
“What if we only got brain damage and drooled all the time?”
“Here.” Four branches fanned from one side of the trunk forming a platform. Cyril lay on his back with his hands behind his head. Through the leaves he saw stars.
Connie positioned herself beside him and they lay a long time without speaking, the only sounds the far-off traffic and the applause of the leaves stirring in the warm wind.
TWO
AS THEY SLID into a booth at the Aristocratic, Connie found a copy of the Sun and began paging through it. Her eyes goggled. “Cyril…”
By the stricken look on her face he thought someone must have died. “What?”
“They shut down Lenny Bruce last night at Isy’s!” She threw herself back and seemed to have trouble breathing. Staring past the booth’s juke box, she nodded with slow deliberation as if at one more piece of evidence and stated, “This is why I gotta get out of here.”
Cyril had seen Lenny Bruce on the Steve Allen Show. Dirty comic. Sick comic. Drug addict. But he was funny. “Get out of here—when?” he asked as casually as possible.
“I don’t know.” She sat forward, elbows on the table, and as she reread the article she rubbed her temples as if in pain. “Soon.”
It was the first he’d heard of this plan.
She folded the paper and slid it aside. “What a two-bit back woods town.”
Cyril felt naive for never having had such a sophisticated thought. He was seated with his back to the door but he heard it open and saw Connie’s eyes shift.
She leaned closer and said in a low voice, “Look at them.”
Cyril turned and saw his brother with a girl a full head taller than him. When Paul spotted Cyril he winced as if at a sour smell and steered the girl to the farthest booth.
Connie asked, “What’s with him?”
Cyril said, “He kind of hates me because I didn’t have to eat leaves.”
“So your family used to be cows?”
“In the war. They had to eat dandelions. Or shoes. Or both. I don’t know. They boiled nails and drank the water for the iron. He thinks I pulled a fast one by not being born until after.”
“Is that why he’s a runt?”
Paul was five-foot-three, with bad teeth, brittle bones, and a pinched chin. “Maybe.”
“My dad says in China they eat grasshoppers.”
“Raw?”
She was indignant. “Baked. Or barbecued. With sauce.”
“Does he tell you a lot about China?”
“He doesn’t know anything about China except what he reads in Reader’s Digest.”
The discussion of Paul, China, and eating grasshoppers buried Connie’s declaration about leaving Vancouver. Cyril hoped it was a performance, like Gilbert’s suicide talk.
That evening at supper Paul said, “So who’s the chow mein Lily you were all kissy-kissy with?”
“Who was that guy you were holding hands with?”
Paul lunged across the table but Cyril was too fast.
“Interracial marriage is illegal in some places, you know. You could be put in jail.”
“So is homosexuality,” said Cyril. “But at least you’d be with guys.”
Paul sneered.
Cyril almost felt bad. It was awkward being bigger than his older brother. But Paul was always provoking him. So far there’d been no racial remarks at school, which was a relief because if there were Cyril knew he’d have to fight. But what a noble cause! Not that he and Connie made a big performance of kissing in the hallways or holding hands like some couples who liked turning their relationships into theatre. He went to the kitchen sink and began doing the dishes. He liked the hot water on his hands.
“Yeah, that’s about your level. Get used to it. You’ll be washing dishes the rest of your life.”
Cyril tried to sound charmed, as if Paul had complimented him. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
Yet he worried that Paul might be right. Art and Phys. Ed. were the only subjects he excelled in and Paul never let him forget it. “Dishwashing’s a fine art,” said Cyril. “You gotta have brains to be a dishwasher.”
“Is that a fact?” Paul went downstairs to his bedroom and returned with a book. “Okay, genius. Let’s find out how smart you are.” He slapped a book down on the counter. Test Your Own IQ.
“I know how smart I am.”
“Yeah, how smart? This smart?” Paul indicated an inch between his thumb and forefinger. “Or this smart?” Paul stretched his thumb and forefinger as wide as they’d go. Paul was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans and perfectly shaped sideburns. He was twenty-four and finishing up the cga program at ubc. Seven years younger, Cyril was five inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. “Everyone wants to know how smart they are.” Paul became soothing. “You’re right. You’re smart enough to be a dishwasher. You could probably be head dishwasher—if you worked hard,” he added. He held the book out. Cyril considered punching Paul—not in the face but in the chest—just hard enough to drop him on his ass and maybe knock the wind out of him. Paul however beat him to the action by whacking him across the chest with the book. “Go on. It’ll be fun.”
“My hands are wet,” said Cyril.
“I guess you haven’t learned about tea towels yet,” said Paul sympathetically. “That’ll come next semester. See.” He took one from the drawer and showed it to Cyril.
Cyril dried his hands.
“Go on,” said Paul in the fond and encouraging tone of a mentor. He set the book in Cyril’s hand. Cyril looked at it: light, small, seemingly innocent. He tossed the book into the soapy water, which splashed up onto the window and drooled down like saliva.
“Your honour,” said Paul in his best Perry Mason, “I rest my case.”
Cyril and Connie spent the summer at the movies, at the beach, and in the cemetery. It was hot and dry and the cemetery grass grew pale and crisp and the rare breeze coursing through made the leaves shimmer.
One afternoon on the way to her house they discussed The Hawaiian Eye. Cyril said Nancy Kwan would be better as Cricket than Connie Stevens. “But you’d be better than either of them,” he added. “You’ve got presence.”
“Presence?” She sounded sceptical yet attentive.
“Star quality.”
That was too much. “Oh fuck off you bullshitter you.” But she couldn’t contain her delight. How open and innocent and vulnerable her face looked.
“I’m serious.” He gazed frankly into her eyes.
She turned away. It was not often that Connie couldn’t meet his gaze. She seemed to be studying something in the distance, something she wanted, her eyes hopeful, her mouth slightly open. After a few moments she turned back to him and said, “Want to see my sword collection?”
It was the first time he’d been in her house. Would it be like a pagoda, with dragons and black lacquer furniture? From the outside it looked standard, an older place with wooden steps leading up to a deep porch with squared pillars and stained glass windows flanking the panelled door.
As soon as they entered the house they saw an elderly woman standing in the living room as though waiting for them. She looked nothing like the balding crones scuffing up and down the Chinatown sidewalks in baggy pants and matching coats lugging bags bulging with tumorous vegetables. She was slim and elegant and stood with her hands primly folded before her.
“Grandma, this is Cyril Androidchunk,” said Connie.
“Enchantee.” She held out a lily-like hand, pinky poised. It took Cyril a full half minute before he understood that he was supposed to kiss it. He did. It smelled of jasmine.