A Boy at the Edge of the World Read online

  A BOY AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  Guernica Editions Inc. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario.

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.

  A BOY AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  DAVID KINGSTON YEH

  Copyright © 2018, David Kingston Yeh and Guernica Editions Inc.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Michael Mirolla, general editor

  Julie Roorda, editor

  David Moratto, interior and cover design

  Guernica Editions Inc.

  1569 Heritage Way, Oakville, (ON), Canada L6M 2Z7 2250

  Military Road, Tonawanda, N.Y. 14150-6000 U.S.A.

  www.guernicaeditions.com

  Distributors:

  University of Toronto Press Distribution,

  5201 Dufferin Street, Toronto (ON), Canada M3H 5T8

  Gazelle Book Services, White Cross Mills

  High Town, Lancaster LA1 4XS U.K.

  First edition.

  Printed in Canada.

  Legal Deposit—First Quarter

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2017960390

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Yeh, David K. (David Kingston), 1966-, author

  A boy at the edge of the world / David Kingston Yeh.

  (Essential prose series ; 146)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77183-248-9 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77183-249-6 (EPUB).

  --ISBN 978-1-77183-250-2 (Kindle)

  I. Title. II. Series: Essential prose series ; 146

  PS8647.E47B69 2018 C813’.6 C2017-907288-9 C2017-907289-7

  for all the Daniels of the world

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Hockey Song

  CHAPTER TWO

  Working for the Weekend

  CHAPTER THREE

  Constant Craving

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Underwhelmed

  CHAPTER FIVE

  High For This

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lost Together

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  All the Things I Wasn’t

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brother Down

  CHAPTER NINE

  Wake Up to the Sun

  CHAPTER TEN

  Your Ex-Lover is Dead

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Five Days in May

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  This Could Be Anywhere in the World

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sudbury Saturday Night

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  We’re Here for a Good Time

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Rockin’ in the Free World

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We’re All In This Together

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A BOY AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Hockey Song

  Karen Fobister was the first person I ever came out to. I could remember that moment as easily as turning a page in a photo album. We’d agreed to be each other’s dates to our high school senior Formal. Karen sat on her bed painting her nails, or trying to. It wasn’t something she was terribly good at, but on this occasion she thought she’d give it a whirl. Her dress hung shimmering on the closet door. Her adoptive mom Mrs. Milton had made it herself. It really was beautiful.

  “So, Daniel, my aunt says you’re agokwe, two-spirited. Are you?”

  I was nursing two black eyes. Just days earlier, I’d gotten myself kicked out of Midget AA. Grandpa was furious but I’d begged him not to talk to Kadlubek. Kadlubek was the head coach who’d suspended his own son Gary six games for smoking pot behind the rink. I heard rumours that he’d beaten Gary later at home with a belt. I didn’t want anyone else to get in trouble, especially not Stephan.

  Stephan Tondeur had moved to Sudbury that spring, and just started volunteering with the league. He was a real estate agent with a beautiful wife and a brand new baby girl. It was all my fault. For months, I’d been sneaking away to meet Stephan. It was no secret I was being groomed for team captain come fall. But the other players began to suspect something more. Rumours started to go around. During a practice game, when things got ugly, my gloves finally hit the ice.

  Stephan Tondeur and the first assistant coach escorted me out of the arena. I could never forget the look on Kadlubek’s face watching me go. I could never forget the look on Stephan’s face in the parking lot.

  Now it was over. I told myself it was for the best. I remembered when they tacked the photo of his daughter up outside the shower room, along with a bunch of pink helium balloons and a giant card signed by the whole team. That baby was as beautiful as her dad.

  I stood in front of Karen’s dresser mirror. The rental shop had taken in too much around the waist of my tux. I could barely breathe. “What?”

  Karen rolled over and sat up, blowing on her fingers. She was wearing only her bra and underwear, and the Thunderbird crest tattoo showed clearly on the back of her shoulder. Carefully, she plucked the cotton balls from between her toes. “Agokwe,” she said.

  “I’m white,” I said. “I can’t be two-spirited.”

  “You know what she means,” said Karen.

  She was serious. She wasn’t teasing me. She brushed aside her blue-black bangs and sipped from our mickey of Crown Royale. On the stereo, Alanis Morissette belted out her undying gratitude to the world.

  The first time Stephan met me in his office, he told me his nickname had been Rocket Man, given how he’d always been the biggest Ysebaert fan. He showed me a photo of himself when he was captain of his own AA team, not so long ago. Impulsively, I asked if I could have it. Up until that point in time, I’d never kissed another guy. He hesitated in surprise, searching my face, then took the photo out of its frame. I said thanks. He said keep it safe. Then the day came when he drove me home late one night. I gave him the wrong directions and we ended up lost out on Tilton Lake Road. After that, everything changed. I took to helping Stephan lock up after each practice. To this day, the smell of change rooms and sweaty hockey equipment still gives me an instant hard-on.

  “Daniel?” Karen held out the mickey to me.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m gay.”

  “Well, you always had really bad fashion sense. So I was never sure. You want a drink or not?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t joke.”

  Karen put the bottle down. She got up and stood next to me. I stared at her in the dresser mirror, framed by photos of family and friends. We’d been neighbours ten years. That was a lot of birthday cakes. “Do you think my tits are too small?” she asked.

  “No, I think they’re perfect.”

  Half my face was purple. I looked like a raccoon. “Daniel,” Karen said, “you look like a raccoon.”

  “I know.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed as hard as she could. She held me this way for a long time. Part of me wanted her to stop, but she wouldn’t stop. Another part of me wanted her to never let go. After a while, I started to cry: silent, angry, gulping sobs. I couldn’t help it.

  I would’ve made a great team captain.

  After high school, my brother Pat quit his garage band Krypton, and went backpacking overseas. Karen and I headed off to U of T. Only
my brother Liam stayed in Sudbury. Karen and I were roommates our first three years in Toronto. The first time I walked into a gay bar was during the Halloween party on Church Street. I’d been in the city two months and was just learning how to navigate the Robarts Library stacks. I couldn’t resist checking out the washroom up on the thirteenth floor where I’d heard a lot of cruising went down. I lasted a whole twenty minutes outside, pretending to read my textbook, watching faculty and students come and go.

  It was Karen’s idea to dress up as zombie hockey players. We planned it over Thanksgiving with the Miltons. Grandma only agreed to leave the nursing home after Grandpa showed her his ID. Thanksgiving with the Miltons had been our tradition since we were ten, but for the first time not everyone was there. A coffee-stained postcard of London’s Big Ben had arrived bearing Pat’s well-wishes. As usual, we set out a spirit plate for Mom and Dad.

  The Miltons were college teachers who’d never had kids of their own. Pat was secretly convinced Mr. Milton had smoked too much pot back in the Sixties and killed off all his sperm. As usual, Mr. Milton carved the turkey and Grandpa served up his famous sugar pie. Mrs. Milton said grace, thanking the Great Spirit, Mother Earth and God. Karen’s little sister Anne had turned fifteen earlier that fall. Her hair was cut spiky short, and she wore a tight black T-shirt over her boyish frame that said FIFTH COLUMN. She left the house right after dessert, saying she had friends to meet. It was in the silence that followed that Karen blurted out: “Zombies.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Milton said.

  “There’s this big Halloween street party downtown in Toronto every year, and Daniel and I are going to be zombies.”

  “Weren’t you zombies last year, dear?”

  “Yeah, well, we were zombie Boy Scouts last year, and the year before that we were zombie Jehovah’s Witnesses. But this time we’re going to be zombie hockey players.”

  Then a big debate arose over whether we’d wear Maple Leafs or Habs jerseys. Even Liam got involved. Later that evening, Karen tried to convince him to come visit us in Toronto. I heard them arguing about it out on the front stoop. Karen and Liam went for a long walk after that, and I was left entertaining Grandma, fending off her flirtatious gropes and making sure she didn’t hide mashed potato and gravy in her purse. I poured both of us some white wine when no one was looking, and let her eat all the cranberry sauce with a coffee spoon. She wasn’t supposed to be drinking on her meds, but what the hell. It was Thanksgiving.

  Of course, the party on Church Street was in the middle of Toronto’s Gay Village. Halloween, I found out soon enough, was the gay version of Christmas. The street was cordoned off to traffic and the surging crowd was shoulder-to-shoulder at some points. With Grandpa’s help, I’d fixed an old skate to make it look like it was stuck in my helmet, and Karen did an amazing job with our dollar-store make-up. People kept stopping us to take our pictures. We met the Queen of Hearts and her entire entourage, angels in eighteen-inch heels and leather harnesses, body-painted superheroes, and drag queens in full demonic, blood-soaked regalia. It was absolutely fantastical and awesome. After we emptied both our flasks, I wanted another drink, so we waited in line to get into a bar called Crews & Tango’s. The line-up went half-way down the block and, by the time we got past the butch dyke bouncer, I was almost ready to pee my pants. I was at the urinal breathing the hugest sigh of relief when I noticed the guy next to me looking over. I don’t know why it took me so off guard. It was what I’d fantasied would happen if I’d ever gotten up the courage to actually walk into the washroom in Robarts Library. He was wearing a football helmet, shoulder-pads, cleats and a jockstrap. That was it. He was also stroking himself. I was shocked and mortified and totally turned on. Before I knew it, I had a boner and could barely finish my business. Then he grinned and winked at me.

  Football Guy was blowing me in the bathroom stall when I answered Karen’s phone call. I’d been gone a long time. She wanted to know if I was having sex in a crowded public washroom and I said I was. She congratulated me and told me she was at the bar fending off lesbian vampires with our hockey sticks, and told me to take my sweet time. I was still trying to figure out whether she was being sarcastic or not when I felt myself start to climax. When I came, shuddering and spread-eagled, I almost dropped my phone in the toilet. He was deep-throating me and swallowed it all, which was something Stephan Tondeur had never done. After that, I barely managed to pull up my pants. Football Guy was putting his helmet back on and cinching his chin strap. Then I introduced myself, asked him his name and made to shake his hand. He gave me a look I’ll never forget, shook his head, and turned and walked out without a backward glance. I still had my hand out when Freddy Krueger stuck his head in and demanded to know whether I was knitting a toque or if I was done with the stall.

  When I finally found Karen, she handed me a pint. I drained half of it and thanked her. “How was it?” she asked.

  “It was good.” I wiped my chin on the back of my arm, scanning the crowd in a daze. I think I was still in shock at what had just happened.

  “It was Mr. Quarterback, wasn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “It was that football guy, the one with his ass hanging out. It was him, right?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Daniel, you’ve had this jockstrap fetish thing going ever since you got it on with that hockey coach of yours. Seriously, it wasn’t a stretch. You could bounce a nickel off that tight end.”

  “I can’t believe I just did that.”

  “I can’t believe you asked him his name.” I stared at her dumbly before fumbling out my phone. “Maybe,” said Karen, taking the pint glass from my hand, “we should have sex one day, you and me, just to see what it’s like.” I hung up my phone and put it away. “What do you think?”

  “Karen, I’m like, really gay.”

  She searched my face. Gingerly, she plucked a piece of latex flesh dangling off my cheek. “Alright, I suppose this makes me a fag hag, doesn’t it? God how I hate that term.” She finished my beer, burped impressively and gave me back my hockey stick. “The next round’s on you. We’ll just eat Kraft Dinner for a week. Alright?”

  “Alright.”

  Pat came home for Christmas, thinner, but tanned and healthy enough. He’d cut his hair and wore it now in a short ponytail. For the first time, Grandma refused to leave the nursing home when we went to pick her up Christmas Eve. She was angry at our intrusion and wouldn’t calm down. She wanted to watch Baywatch. In the end, we settled ourselves in front of the big screen TV in the common room, and passed the time playing cards while David Hasselhoff cavorted in the surf. After Grandma dozed off, the head nurse Betty let us know nicely but firmly that it was time to go. Back home, Grandpa wished us well, patted each of us on the shoulder and retired early.

  “Goodnight, Grandpa,” I said.

  “’Night, Grandpa!” Pat shouted.

  “Bonne nuit, Pépère,” Liam said.

  After that, Pat insisted that Liam and I open his badly wrapped presents. As it turned out, he’d brought back scotch for everyone. I opened my bottle and Liam lit a joint which we smoked out back. After high school, Liam had gotten into construction full-time. Housing was booming and there was no shortage of work. Liam might’ve been just a kid, but he was Tom Garneau’s kid and that was good enough for most. Grandpa himself had worked as a contractor in Sudbury for pretty much his whole life. It was all cash under the table and Liam had no complaints.

  Close to midnight, Karen texted to let us know she was coming over. She tramped across the street and around the side of the house to meet us on the back deck. “Well, what do you know, it’s the Garneau boys reunited.” Liam handed her the scotch but she waved it away, pulling a bottle of Baby Duck out of her snow pants. “So when did you get back?”

  “A couple days ago,” Pat said. “It’s good to see you, Karen Fobister. You’re looking veritably rosy in the cheeks. Merry Christmas, Gitche Manitou and all that. How’
s your little sis?”

  Karen took a drag off the joint I handed her. “Anne, she’s fine. She just got her nose pierced.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. “How do your parents feel about that?”

  Karen shrugged, tilted her head back and exhaled. “My mom was the one who took her. You shouldn’t be smoking, Daniel. You get sick when you smoke pot.”

  “It’s alright. I just had one puff.”

  “Anyone want a super?”

  Pat threw up his arm. “Oh, yes, Miss Fobister, may I, please?”

  “Good boy, Patrick. Now stand still and stop fidgeting.” She held the joint backwards between her teeth and blew out while Pat craned his neck sucking back.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” Liam said.

  “I don’t think so,” Pat said, grimacing.

  “Look, you lost half the smoke. Give it to me. Daniel, come here.”

  “He’s going to get sick.”

  Liam patted me on the cheek and turned his bill cap around. “It’s just for medicinal purposes, Karen.” He rested one hand on my shoulder and we leaned into each other. I jerked back and held my breath, trying not to cough. Expertly, Liam flipped the joint back around with his tongue. The ember crackled. “And that,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, “is how it’s done.”

  Pat plucked the joint from between his lips. “Amateurs.” He sat up on the railing, took a nice hit into his mouth, and performed a perfect French Inhale.

  “Show off,” Karen said. Pat wiggled his eyebrows seductively. Karen poked me in the chest. “So, Daniel, did you tell them yet?” Ever since our Halloween outing in Toronto, she’d been pressuring me to come out to my brothers. In the end, I promised I would before Christmas. Tonight was the deadline. It was obvious from my expression that I hadn’t. She took out her phone and held it up. “You have three minutes.”

  “Three minutes?”

  “Three minutes to tell us what?”

  “And counting.”

  “Okay, guys.” There was no way this should be so difficult. I took another slug of scotch. “I have something to tell you.”