Seven
Gage didn’t want to go home.
He didn’t want his mom or dad trying to comfort him. He could guess the kinds of things they’d say.
We’re here for you.
Let it out.
It’s okay to cry.
We know how much your grandfather meant to you.
He didn’t want to hear it. They were always trying to make things better, or telling you that all the shit in your life wasn’t
as big a deal as you thought it was, that they knew high school was tough, but this too shall pass. Like, if people were texting
crap about you, you were supposed to just let that go, that there’d always be people who made themselves feel better by putting
other people down. How in the long run, this stuff didn’t matter.
Gage thinking, he should try that on his dad.
Sure, WorldWide canned you, but hey, walk it off, you’ll find another newswriting gig any day now.
Yeah, right, they tried to dismiss his concerns, but flunk a test, well, that was a whole different thing. Fail a course,
you’ll have to go to summer school, you’ll never get accepted into a university and if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get into
a community college, but more likely you’ll be stocking shelves at Walmart your entire miserable life.
Not that he hated his parents or anything.
They were okay. It was just that there were things he couldn’t talk about with them.
But he could always talk about stuff with his grandfather.
Brent Chartwell was pretty cool for an old guy.
He’d seen it all, done it all, and it wasn’t like he’d rat Gage out if he told him stuff he couldn’t bring himself to tell his parents.
“We all make mistakes,” his grandfather would say. “God knows I’ve made plenty.”
While his grandfather didn’t go into details, Gage had an inkling of what some of those mistakes were. There was his uncle
Holden, of course, who was a constant concern, and his grandfather had given hints that he felt some responsibility there.
But Gage liked his uncle Holden. When he wasn’t going through one of his rough patches, spending time at that Sharnwood place
getting his head screwed back on straight, he was cool to hang out with, often without his parents’ knowledge. Watching movies,
playing video games, but also really talking about things. How corporate self-interest controlled the flow of information. How critical thinking was a thing of the past,
and if you repeated a lie often enough, people believed it. When he wasn’t high, Holden was a thinker, and in that way, a
role model for Gage.
He also told Gage not to make the same mistakes he’d made. If Gage asked to take one small drag off a joint, Holden would
say no and give him shit for asking.
Drugs were kind of a family cross to bear. Gage knew his grandfather had worked in Big Pharma at one time, and it was a period
he’d not been proud of. Lots of people got hooked on some pain pill and a whole lot of them died. His grandfather’d actually
talked to him about it a few times, almost like confessing. One of his biggest mistakes, he’d said, working for that company.
And although he never said it outright, Gage got the idea one of his others might have been marrying his grandmother.
Gage’s mother sometimes referred to Catherine Chartwell as a “cold fish.” Gage thought that was a nice way of calling someone
a bitch, and his grandmother could be one on occasion. Bit of a control freak. Wanting everything just so. He got on okay
with her, but when he went over to their house it was his grandfather he wanted to hang with.
Two years ago, when Gage was twelve, a couple of his dumbass friends dared him to steal some shit from a 7-Eleven.
They’d create a distraction—pretend to get into a heated argument over some girl while over by the cold drinks aisle—and give Gage the opportunity to walk out with a couple of bags of Doritos under his jacket.
He didn’t want to do it, but when they accused him of being a pussy, he caved.
But the shopkeeper was no dummy. He’d seen kids run games like this before and was wise to them, and he grabbed Gage by the arm as he was walking out the door.
Called the cops.
Gage’s so-called friends bailed, leaving him there to face his fate alone. A Yorkton Hill officer showed up, put Gage in the
back of his cruiser—at least he wasn’t handcuffed—and let him sweat it out there for a while. The doors wouldn’t open from
the inside and he couldn’t put down the windows, which was too bad because there was what looked like dried vomit on the floor
by his feet and his own stomach was starting to heave. The cop left him there for about twenty minutes while he was in talking
to the shopkeeper. When he came out, he said his parents would be called, that they’d have to come down to the station for
a chat.
The cop let Gage make the call himself, and instead of calling his mother or father, he called Grampa.
He explained tearily what he’d done, that he’d been caught. “On my way,” Brent said.
“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad,” Gage said.
“We’ll see.”
When Brent arrived, no one challenged him about whether he was the boy’s father. Sure, he looked a little old to be his dad,
but you never knew.
Gage and his grandfather and the arresting officer sat at a table in an interrogation room. Gage had not yet wet his pants,
but he was close. He was already wondering whether he would be sent to prison. Could you go to jail for stealing Doritos?
What would happen to a kid his age, locked behind bars with grown men? Gage had seen prison movies. He knew what could happen.
“There are a number of ways we can proceed,” said the officer, whose name was Glidden, like the paint. “Given that Gage here is only twelve, and has no previous record of getting into trouble, this would typically fall into the area of the Youth Criminal Justice Act of Ontario.”
Criminal, Gage thought. I am so dead.
The cop said a bunch of other words, like felony and misdemeanor and rehabilitation and how old a kid had to be to get sent
to jail and Gage wasn’t taking in any of it because all he could think about was what might happen in the prison shower, but
his grandfather was listening very closely, and being super-respectful and thanking the officer for his time, and asking whether
it would be appropriate to take Gage back to the 7-Eleven and apologize to the store manager.
When Gage walked out of the station with Brent, he’d never been happier to see the light of day. He wasn’t exactly sure what
had happened.
“You got off with a warning, and now we’re going to the 7-Eleven and you’re going to tell them how sorry you are. Honest to
god, nearly throwing your life away for a bag of Doritos.”
Gage didn’t think anything was to be gained by saying it was two bags of Doritos.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Brent asked.
“My friends dared me.”
“Oh well, now I understand,” he said as they got into his car. “Good thing your friends didn’t dare you to jump in front of
a bus. At least then all I’d have had to do was scrape you off the grille.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“You gonna tell my parents?”
His grandfather didn’t answer right away. “I should,” he said, starting the engine. “Let’s discuss it once you’ve made your
apology.”
Brent had driven to the station in his old Barracuda. Any excuse, Gage figured, to take it out for a spin, even getting your
grandson out of jail. They drove straight to the 7-Eleven. Brent accompanied him as they went inside. Listened while Gage
told the guy behind the cash register that he was sorry, that he would never steal from him again.
“No kidding,” the man said. “You’re banned from this store. I never want to see your sorry ass in here again.”
Gage nodded.
Something hanging on the wall behind the register had caught Brent’s eye. He said to his grandson, “Wait in the car. I’ll
be right out.”
Gage got in the Barracuda, watched as his grandfather made some purchases. He came out of the store, tossed a bag into the
back seat. Gage caught a glimpse, saw a new phone in a clear plastic clamshell container.
“This is your one get-out-of-jail-free card,” Brent said. “Literally. I won’t tell your mom or dad about this episode. But
pull a brain-dead stunt like this again, don’t call me. Call your folks. I won’t save your ass a second time over something
this stupid. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t be there for you if you get in trouble again. Sometimes things happen that aren’t our fault. This?
Today? That’s all on you. But there’s something you need to know. Your grandpa would give his life for you if he had to. I
love you. Just don’t grow up to be an idiot.”
“Okay.”
That was Grandpa.
If only that episode had scared him off ever doing anything stupid again. But sometimes, when you were Gage’s age, the first
lesson didn’t stick. Not the second or third either. God, as recently as the night before he’d nearly got caught being somewhere
he shouldn’t have been. Took off seconds before shit hit the fan.
Too bad his timing wasn’t always that good.
After the call from his mother, Gage rode his skateboard to the center of town, where Fifteen Mile Creek wandered through.
This was one of Gage’s favorite places. Hanging in the park by the creek, listening to the water flow past, watching the tiny ripples.
He picked up his skateboard, tucked it under his arm, and walked across the grass to a picnic table not far from the water’s edge.
He perched himself on the tabletop, his feet planted on the bench, and wondered what it would be like to be on a raft and ride the creek all the way down to the lake.
Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of that lake, the creek took you to some wonderous, magical place where there was no bullshit?
Where everyone was decent to each other, where they didn’t pretend to be something they weren’t, where the people who meant the most to you didn’t suddenly die and make you feel like you wanted to kill yourself?
Something to think about, as you put your head in your hands and bawled your eyes out until your chest hurt.