Me, Myself and Ike Read online

  ME,

  MySELf

  and

  iKE

  ME,

  MySELf

  and

  iKE

  K. L. DENMAN

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Text copyright © 2009 K.L. Denman

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Denman, K. L., 1957-

  Me, myself and Ike / written by K.L. Denman.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-086-2

  1. Schizophrenia in adolescence--Juvenile fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS8607.E64M4 2009 jC813’.6 C2009-902805-0

  First published in the United States, 2009

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009928211

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Kit is paranoid, confused and alone, but neither he nor his family and friends understand what is happening to him.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover artwork by Getty Images

  Author photo by Hannah Denman

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, STN. B

  VICTORIA, BC CANADA

  V8R 6S4

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 468

  CUSTER, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper

  12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1

  For the moon and the meadow, with love.

  I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  CONTENTS

  FIVE THOUSAND YEARS AGO…

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FIVE THOUSAND YEARS AGO…

  The men are weary. The light is fading. By now they should have arrived at their destination and delivered the copper ax. It’s clear they’ve gone astray, perhaps into enemy territory.

  They make camp for the night, huddled in the lee of an overhanging rock. Their fire, which wards off both the mountain cold and the possibility of animal attack, is a calculated risk. Should hostile eyes happen to sweep over them, the smoke will betray their presence, but surely the blowing snow that has obscured the landmarks all day will conceal one small thread of rising smoke. Surely.

  They eat quickly, sharing deer meat, flat bread and fruit, and then they notice that the rock above them, its silhouette stark against a star-strewn sky, resembles a fearsome beast. A bad omen. And yes, the treacherous snow has elected to depart, exposing their fire. They argue about dousing it, weigh again their conflicting needs. In the end, a small fire blazes on. Neither of them sleeps.

  At first light they set out, plodding steadily on their snowshoes, heading for their home village. Delivery of the ax will have to wait. The stars have at least given them direction, the sun too in its rising. They keep their weapons in hand.

  The attack, when it comes, is hardly a surprise. Their enemies are clumsy and overconfident as they attempt to encircle the pair. So noisy, so foolish. The travelers’ first arrows find their marks. So do the next. Perhaps they will escape? Hope flares, hot as breath, as they forge on, eyes darting among the trees for a glimpse of further threat. Have they won? Is it possible?

  It is not. The air parts, hissing, and they are hit, one in the shoulder and the other in the arm. They do not fall. They let fly swift replies and now…Now it is done. Incredible. The adrenaline rush of victory allows them to retrieve precious arrowheads, to nod admiration, one for the other. But when that rush has run its course, their wounds begin to speak of pain, of loss, of death.

  No, not death. The one most sorely wounded still stands, and the other too. They lean together, share support and go on. How long they struggle forward, neither of them can say. Sweat runs from their brows, but it is as nothing compared to the running of blood.

  They sink into the snow, and now they can see that the arrow to the arm was little more than a graze, a flesh wound, easily bound. But that one still lodged in the other’s shoulder…It is not good.

  “Hold steady now, and I will remove it. Lie down,” says the one with the grazed arm.

  The other lies down, bites hard on the flap of his bearskin hat. He does not cry out as the arrowhead grinds against bone, but a low groan escapes when he hears the shaft splinter free.

  “The arrowhead refuses to leave you. It is deep. There is much blood.”

  The man on the ground nods. After a moment, he says, “You must go.”

  His companion shakes his head. “No.”

  “You must. No need for our tribe to lose two metal masters.”

  “I will get help. We will come back for you.”

  “It will be too late. Take the ax.”

  “No. It is a token of my word that I will return. I leave it with you for safekeeping; its weight would burden me.”

  “It is too valuable to leave behind. Take it.”

  But his companion does not.

  The man on the ground reflects on his life. He doesn’t believe he’ll see his tribe again. He would like a proper burial, a ritual to secure his return. All of life returns, does it not? He feels his strength seeping away in steady throbs. He looks about and decides that this unfamiliar place will not do. He stands. Takes one step. Two. More. How many? It doesn’t matter. He must find the proper resting place.

  His gaze sweeps from side to side, and he sways, falls backward, feels only dimly the crunch of his skull on rock. Vision fades for a time but when it returns, so too does his compulsion, driving him upright once more. There is blood on the snow, and a shudder takes him; he must distance himself from that. He must. He staggers on, forcing step after step from his broken body, going until he can go no farther. His time has come. He looks about, salutes the holy earth, left hand to heart, and collapses, pitching forward. There is no more pain, no awareness of the avalanche that comes snarling to cover him in white so deep its marrow is black.

  ONE

  I pace the crumbling sidewalk in front of the old concrete building twice before I glance down the alley and see a sign jutting out. The faded slab of wood hangs crookedly, but the flaking paint says I’ve found what I’m looking for: Tony’s Tattoos. I slip into the alley’s dank shade and adjust the hood on my black sweatshirt, turtling into its depths as I push open the door.

  I get a dim impression of clutter, stale cigarette smoke, ragged posters of tattoo designs papering the walls, but I don’t look at these things. I focus on the guy huddled over the spotlighted flesh of a woman’s bare thigh. He’s wielding a tattoo gun with squinting concentration. He doesn’t look up.

  He says, “Yeah?”

  The woman he’s working on remains motionless, but her eyes probe mine and she mutters, “Jeez. Do you
mind?”

  I hadn’t counted on there being any other customers in a crappy shop like this. I’d pictured myself walking in, demanding my tattoo, getting it and getting out, just like that. I look at the walls and say, “Maybe I’ll come back later.”

  The guy, probably Tony, says, “Almost done here. What’ve ya got in mind, kid?”

  Kid? I start to lie, tell him I’m no kid, I’m plenty old enough to do this, but he asked what I wanted, didn’t he? Maybe he won’t ask for ID.

  “I’ve got my design right here.” I pull a piece of paper out of my pocket.

  Briefly, Tony’s eyes squeeze shut. “Of course ya do. Doesn’t everyone these days? Sure you don’t want to take a look at my book? It’s right there, on the counter. I do a nice serpent. Pretty nice skull too.”

  “No thanks.”

  For the first time, he looks up. He’s still squinting when he asks, “Ya got cash? It’s one twenty an hour.”

  I nod.

  “Okay, take a seat. Be with you in a few.”

  “You’re being careful, aren’t you, Tony?” the woman whines. “You’re not hurrying, are you?”

  “Cupcake, I’m just like a granny on ice. Don’t worry. It’s gonna be amazing.”

  She allows herself a small smile, then winces as the needle moves close to the bone. “Good. This is for my latest guy, y’know.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Tony snorts. “Gotta tell ya, Penny, I hope he goes the same way as the last one.”

  “What?” she screeches.

  He chuckles. “Relax. You and your guys—you’re good for business.”

  “Tony!”

  “All right, all right. I hope you live happily ever after.”

  I tune them out. I pick up the book of designs and slump into a ratty chair in the corner. I start flipping through but barely register the roses, the ships, the hula girls, all the old-school stuff. Only one stands out: a white stag with intricate antlers crowning his head. The eyes of the stag are uncanny, almost life-like. It makes me pause. White stags are such powerful symbols of…something.

  My thoughts drift and settle on my conversation with Ike, the one that led to this. He had said, “The Ice Man had tattoos. You’re going to need some.”

  I said, “Right. Like my folks are going to sign off on that one. Forget it.”

  “You’re such a freakin’ pussy, Kit,” Ike said. “You try hard enough, you’ll find someone who’ll do it. Or you could do it yourself, though I doubt you’d have the balls for that.”

  “Do it myself? Get real.”

  “You think the Ice Man went to a tattoo parlor? Dudes have been doing their own tatts forever, man. Just like piercing. You don’t need a pro for any of that shit. Bet you could go on the Net and find out how to do it in ten seconds.”

  I thought about it. But if I was going to get a tattoo, it would have to be hidden someplace where my parents wouldn’t notice it. And if I was doing it to be like the Ice Man, then shouldn’t it be on my lower back or behind my knee? How was I supposed to do that myself?

  “So you take the bus to Nanaimo,” Ike said, “or even Victoria. Probably lots of places there. You find a joint that isn’t too bugged about rules and bam! — you’re done. Look at how many kids at school got tatts. There’s places that’ll do it.”

  There aren’t that many kids at my high school with tattoos, but there are a few. If they could figure it out, then I could too. And Ike was right; there were a few places to choose from in Nanaimo. I’d called them all, and I had a hunch Tony’s was a good bet. His directory ad was tiny, he didn’t have a website and when I spoke to him on the phone, he didn’t ask any questions.

  Tony interrupts me now. “Kid? Let’s take a look at what you’ve got.”

  I stare at him for a moment, uncomprehending, and he holds out his hand. “Your design? You said you brought it?”

  Wordlessly, I hand it over. He frowns as he studies it. “Just looks like a bunch of little lines and dots and a word. What’s this say? Awtzee?”

  “Close enough,” I tell him. The word is Ötzi.

  “What’s that?” Tony asks.

  “Not what. Who.”

  “Ha,” he grunts. “Funny name for a girl.” He looks over at Penny, who is pulling on a snug black jacket. “Hey, cupcake. We’ve got another romantic here.”

  Penny grins. “Good for you, kid. Hope she appreciates you.”

  I shrug. If they don’t know who Ötzi is, I’m not going to tell them. Penny heads out the door, and Tony motions me toward his table. He flexes his hands and takes a long swallow from a water bottle. “So you know where you want this tattoo?”

  “I want the name on my lower back. And the short parallel lines and dots on the back of my left calf. And some around my right ankle. All in black.”

  Tony’s brows go up. “You sure about that? It’s usually the girls who want the lower-back thing.” He pauses and runs his glance over my skinny frame. “Well, could be Awtzee’s a guy too, eh? None of my business.”

  My face burns. I know what he’s thinking. I’m not gay, but it’s not like it would matter if I was. Especially now. I muster a firm voice. “On the lower back.”

  Tony shrugs. “No problem. Just don’t like to see anyone make a mistake and get a tattoo they end up hating.”

  “I’m not making a mistake.”

  “Okay then. You said you got cash, right? I figure this’ll be max two hours. Depends on how many lines and dots you want.”

  “I’ve got enough for two hours. Maybe just do what you can until the time’s up?”

  He laughs. “Sure. Let’s get started. Take off your shirt and lie face down on the table. The name in black ink too?”

  I nod and take off my hoodie. I leave my T-shirt on and just scrunch it up under my armpits before I lie down and take a deep breath. I feel Tony’s hands on my lower back, then the light touch of felt pen, and I try to feel the letters as he sketches. I have a sudden memory of me and my brother Fred tracing words with our fingers on each other’s backs and trying to guess what we’d written.

  “Old English-style lettering is okay with you, isn’t it?” Tony asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The style of the letters. Old English is the usual.”

  I hadn’t thought about letter styles so I just shrug.

  “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you, kid. You’ve gotta hold still.”

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “Okay, here we go,” Tony says. And just like that, the needle is into my skin. I tense, and Tony says, “Relax. This is as bad as it gets.”

  It isn’t so bad. More sting than pain. The tattoo machine buzzes, and I try to focus on that sound. It reminds me of something, and I’m trying to figure out what when Tony mutters, “Ötzi.”

  I wait for him to say more but he merely snorts, a sound that manages to dismiss me. I decide it’s a good thing he’s not curious about why I chose this tattoo, because I wouldn’t want to explain. I focus again on the drone of his machine, but whatever it reminded me of has dodged away. I don’t like it though. There’s something threatening in that sound, like the buzz of wasps, and my muscles tighten.

  “Gotta remember to relax, kid,” Tony says. “We’ve barely got started.”

  Relax, he says. How am I supposed to do that? Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since life seemed easy. Back when I was a kid, nothing was complicated. Like when I used to hang around with my best bud, Ben, and we’d do simple stuff like jump on his trampoline.

  Yeah, that was good. We flew high on that tramp, didn’t think about anything else when we were into that straight-up fun. Ben outweighed me by about twenty pounds, and sometimes his bounce sent me helter-skelter, way up into the sky. I loved that feeling of being airborne, that moment of suspension in space before gravity took me back to the quivering surface of the tramp. I’d splat down, and we’d laugh like maniacs.

  We did fake wwe moves on each other too. Ben could take my scrawny twelve
-year-old body down any time he wanted. Only he didn’t. Ben wasn’t like that, never felt like he had to prove anything to me. When we’d had enough, we’d lie back on the warm rubber, catch our breath and stare up at the sky.

  “Someday,” I told him, “I’ll go up, and I won’t come down for a long time.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ben scoffed. “You going to be wearing your Superman cape for that?”

  I laughed. “I was thinking about being a pilot, but if you know where I can get a cape, bring it on.”

  “A pilot? For real?”

  “Yeah. It would be so cool.” I did want to be a pilot. I’d look up at the sky and see a whole world of possibility opening out beyond the enclosed rectangle of the backyard. A plane could take me there.

  I asked Ben, “What do you want to do?”

  His shoulders moved uneasily. “No idea.”

  “None?”

  “None. Zip. Zero. Nada.”

  I told him he could be my copilot.

  “Yeah?” he said. “Well that might be cool. Are you serious, Kit? About being a pilot?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I could travel the world, see everything, be up there in the sky going faster than sound…It would be amazing.”

  But when I looked at Ben, he was looking the other way and his mouth was pulled sideways, his brow furrowed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I doubt I could ever do something like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause…I dunno. It just seems unreal, right? Like a fantasy. And I guess I sort of like knowing where I’m at.” That was Ben; he liked to watch crime or reality shows on TV, never did go in for fantasy.

  So I just told him, “You’re right. It’s good to know where you’re at.”

  Ben didn’t always know where he was at. I remember the first time I saw him, about five years ago. He was new in town, and he was alone in the park, orange hair and freckles making him a standout. A group of guys were there and they started to hassle him. It wasn’t anything too serious, mostly just cracks about his hair, but even from a distance Ben’s rigid posture told me he was looking for a way out.