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Four days out of five, Cutter and Lennox skip shop class to go hang out in the quarry and get stoned. Neil doesn't smoke - he's morbid enough without pot - but he goes along anyway, just to hang out. Sometimes Amy goes, and once in a great while, Eddie gets the balls to sneak out of math, but most of the time it's just the three of them: Cutter and Neil sprawled out on their favorite rocks, Lennox pacing in circles.
Right now, Neil and Cutter are cloud watching while Lennox works through his latest variation on All-Time Grudge Matches of North America, the apparent theme of the week. Lennox is a two-toke philosopher, and he likes to go off on tears about meaningless hypothetical shit like what if we're all just exhibits in some alien's zoo? And is God more of a skipper or a lead rock? Sometimes he goes through phases where he gets stuck on one, and then Neil will hear about hypothetical curling greats for a week running.
"I'm just saying, you know, if John A. MacDonald and George Washington got into a fight," Lennox says, passing the joint back to Cutter as he completes another circuit of the rocks.
Cutter laughs, sounding relaxed to a degree he only ever hits when he's high. "If MacDonald and Washington--"
"Got in a fight, yes, if they got in a fight, no holds barred--" Lennox stops short and squints at nothing in particular, probably envisioning the brawl. "Who wins?"
Cutter considers that for a moment. "Wasn't MacDonald an alcoholic?"
"Washington was probably an alcoholic, too. They were all probably alcoholics. No one gave a shit back then." Lennox retrieves the joint from Cutter and takes a long drag, smoke curling out of his mouth as he speaks. "But, hey, the point--"
"They were, like, a hundred years apart," Neil objects, sitting up a little on his rock. He doesn't know why he even bothers, except that it's more entertaining to listen to Lennox than it is to pretend to care about art class. "What is MacDonald going to fight, Washington's corpse?"
"If is the operative word, my freakishly long-legged friend." Lennox makes a few vague gestures that Neil can't make heads or tails of. "If they were, you know, con - contompimaries--"
"Contemporaries," Cutter helpfully chimes in.
Lennox stabs a finger at Cutter. "Right, that."
"We should get back to class," Cutter says, and laughs again, like that was a joke.
Lennox laughs, too. "Yeah. Right. Eddie should be out of math by now. We're going to the rink."
"Yeah, because no one will catch us there," Cutter says, his long-suffering expression audible in his words.
"Did we or did we not just crush Moosejaw?" Lennox bashes his fist into his palm repeatedly, like they crushed Moosejaw a bunch of times, and not just the once. "No one in this town is going to care if we skip off to go to the rink."
That's probably true, and anyway, Neil has biology next; he'll definitely take throwing a few rocks over having to touch a dead frog. Dead things creep him out, and the formaldehyde stink makes him a little nauseous.
"Come on, Chris," he says, kicking a small spray of pebbles at Cutter. "You got something better to do today?"
Cutter sits up, runs a hand through his hair to fluff it back up, and shrugs. "I guess not."
"Good." Lennox pauses a minute, smiling a little in a devious sort of way that makes the back of Neil's head itch, right where he knows his mom is going to smack him before the day is through. "Hey, someone has to go back to get Eddie. Not it!"
"Not it," Neil echoes.
"Not - oh, fuck." Cutter scowls at them both. "Fine. Fine. But if I'm going back, I'm bringing some girls, too."
Lennox and Cutter have a minor disagreement over bringing girls to the rink, one that ends with Lennox digging pebbles out of his ears and nose; but when Cutter and Eddie show up, the only person they have in tow is Amy Foley.
"I thought he said he was bringing girls," Lennox whispers to Neil, watching the three of them approach.
"Maybe they all said no," Neil says, and shrugs.
__________Cutter and Lennox ditch Long Bay for some crappy no-name college in western Ontario, and for a couple years there, it's just Neil and Eddie.
For a while, Eddie is a pretty awesome best friend. He skips college altogether in favor of working a pair of jobs at Kelsey's and the True Value, and his cash goes toward an apartment off Main that he keeps stocked with beer, pizza, and Nintendo. For a couple months in 1987, Neil pretty much lives out of Eddie's apartment; every couple weeks he picks up the pizza tab in lieu of rent, and once in a while he brings in a six and doesn't complain when Eddie drinks every last can.
The glory days of '87 come to a crashing halt on a snowy morning in mid-March, when Eddie comes home and shouts, "Neil, I just met the hottest--"
Her name is Lily. She's sweet, but kind of spacey, and a little on the hyperactive side; the more she hangs out at Eddie's place, the more Neil feels like he's living with two Eddies, and one of them just happens to be female.
Neil gets a job at Kelsey's and saves up until he can afford his own apartment and his own Nintendo, and then he's out of there, leaving Eddie and Lily to their frighteningly vocal domestic bliss.
__________Lennox walks into Kelsey's on a warm summer day in 1989, reeking of booze and pot and wearing a weird-looking hat that reminds Neil a little of his grandpa.
"Neil Jason Bucyk," Lennox says, grabbing a dirty broom out of the corner and doing a little dance with it across the length and breadth of the store. "Let's hit the rink, baby."
"It's good to see you too, Lennox," Neil says, and goes right on ringing up a handful of nails for the little old lady at the counter. "You just get back?"
"Yeah, yeah, just back, but the rink, man." Lennox strums the broom like it's an electric guitar, wagging his eyebrows at the old lady. Maybe he's on more than pot. "I haven't been to old Memorial in fucking ages, did you know that?"
"Yeah." Neil hands the old lady her bag, fervently hoping she'll leave before Lennox says anything that'll get him fired. Instead, she stands there checking her receipt line by line, just in case he overcharged her for a nail. "You haven't been back in three years, Jim, so yeah, I knew that."
"I missed you too, man," Lennox says, and slips behind the counter to wrap a companionable arm around Neil's shoulders. Close up, he smells a little like women's perfume, too; either Lennox has been one busy guy since he got back, or debauched is something they sell by the bottle now. "So we going, or what?"
Neil hesitates for a moment, thinking it over. He wants to - he really, really does - but Mr. Kelsey would kill him, and he might lose his job; he's not sure which would be worse.
"You go on ahead, Lennox." He grabs his broom back, just in case Lennox decides to take it to the ice. "Eddie should be off - you know where his apartment is?"
"Eddie is already at the rink." Neil is pretty sure this is exactly what the proverbial nagging fishwife sounds like; maybe that's something Lennox picked up from Cutter. "But, whatever, man, I'll leave you to your job."
After Lennox swaggers out, the store smells like nothing more than pine and grease, and the whole place is so quiet that Neil can hear the building settling one floorboard at a time.
He rips off his apron and rushes out of the store, the broom still clutched in one hand. "Jim, wait--"
Eddie and Lennox are standing just out of sight of the front windows, giggling like a pair of girls.
"What, like I'd really give up that easy?" Lennox pats Neil on the back, and gives him a shove in the general direction of his car. "Shotgun."
__________Cutter returns a year later, toting a big fancy degree in something or other. He gets snapped up by the mine almost immediately, into some managerial kind of position, like fourtysomething miners are really going to listen to a kid.
It can't suck all that bad, though, because Cutter's apartment is a hell of a lot nicer than Neil's. So nice, as it turns out, that Cutter can't actually afford it on his own; a few months after Cutter's return, Neil moves into the second bedroom, and the place becomes a certified bachelor pad.
It's a little bit like high school all over again: Cutter and Lennox lying around getting stoned, Neil along for the ride. Eddie hangs out when he can be pried away from Lily, and Amy comes over more nights than not, usually toting a six pack of Moosehead or a bottle of vodka.
One night when it's just the two of them sprawled out on the floor in various shades of inebriation, Neil asks Cutter: "Why did you ask me to live here, and not Lennox?"
Cutter laughs that perfectly mellow, high-flying laugh of his. "I love Jim, but he's kind of a fuckup, you know?"
Neil cranes his neck to get a better look at Cutter. "Does that mean I'm not a fuckup?"
Cutter stretches out an arm to pat Neil on the shoulder. "Rest assured, Neil - you're a fuckup. You just haven't figured out how you're fucked up yet, that's all."
"I'll work on that," Neil promises.
Cutter laughs again, sounding a tiny bit more sober this time. "Don't work too hard at it. I still need your rent money."
By the time it occurs to Neil to ask Cutter if he's a fuckup, Cutter is sound asleep. Neil makes a mental note to ask Cutter in the morning, rolls over, and promptly forgets the question for another two years.
__________The day after the Golden Broom, Amy lets herself into the apartment with Cutter's key and grabs two of the Copernicus stones out of the closet where Cutter keeps them.
Neil figures her dad must need them, so he walks up behind her, grabs one of the rocks from her, and says, "Here, let me help you with that."
She whips around so fast she almost nails him with the other rock, her eyes wide. "I'm not doing anything!"
Okay, that's a little weird, but - hell, maybe she's drunk; it's a little early, but for Amy, early wouldn't be all that unusual. She looks pretty sober, but he's only half-awake, so it's hard to tell.
"Hey, hey, easy," he says, holding out a hand for the other rock. "I just meant I'd help you carry them to your car, that's all."
"Oh." She chews on her lip for a moment, and then hands over the second rock, going back into the closet for two more. "Thanks, Neil. I'm sorry, I just - I'm just a little tired."
"Don't worry about it." He follows her down to her car in his bare feet, his toes curling away from the cold cement. "Hey, have you seen Chris? He never came back last night."
She leans into her car to put the rocks on her back seat, and doesn't answer him until she straightens up again.
"No," she says, giving him a small, odd-looking smile. "Haven't seen him."
That figures. Cutter is probably off sulking somewhere, like he lost the Broom, and not all four of them; he tends to take losses way too fucking personally.
Neil helps Amy get the rest of the rocks to her car, and waits until she's strapped in to lean down to the window. "Hey, if you see him, tell him we're meeting at Nug's at five to, um, drown our sorrows. You should come."
Amy gives him that odd smile again. "Sure. I'll be there."
She doesn't show up. Neither does Cutter, but a couple days go by before Neil links the two.
__________Three years after Cutter goes AWOL, Lennox packs up his stuff into boxes marked Neil and Eddie and takes off, leaving the boxes behind as parting gifts.
Neil brings his box home and thunks it down on the kitchen table, digging through it a piece at a time. A handful of pictures of the four of them. A couple nails stamped Kelsey's on the side. A chipped beer stein that says LBHS Prom - 1986. A crumpled napkin with a familiar-looking beaver drawn on one side and the words fucking exactly like this scrawled in Cutter's neat, even hand.
Linda steps into the dining room, fussing a little with her too-perfect hair. "Why are all of those dirty things on the table? Jesus, Neil, some of that dust is older than our son."
"I know," he says, stuffing everything back into the box. He takes a little more care with the napkin, rolling it up into the mug for safekeeping. "I'm sorry."
She smiles at him, but it's one of those creepy smiles she's getting way too good at, the kind that are warm on the surface and frosty underneath. "Don't be sorry, honey, just put it somewhere else."
He doesn't have anything to say to that - he's running out of things to say to her, at all - so he just tucks the box under his arm and heads upstairs, looking for a place to stash it.
He winds up sticking it on a high shelf in his closet, right next to his high school yearbooks and a box of games for a Nintendo he hasn't owned in years.
"I expect I'll get a discount," Foley announces, apropos of nothing.
Neil looks up from where he's idly sketching beavers onto his placemat, and tries to remember what either of them might've said that would shed some light on that statement. "Sir?"
"When I die, son." Foley calmly sips his coffee, like he didn't just make Neil's heart skip a beat. "I expect I'll get a discount from you."
Neil's mind is spinning: does Amy know? Does Julie? Jesus, does Eva? He should call Lennox, and maybe Lennox will know how to get in touch with Chris--
"Relax," Foley says, patting Neil's hand. "I'm not dying tomorrow. I've got to wait out Cutter yet, anyway."
It takes Neil a moment to realize that Foley means Chris's dad. "I thought you and Mr. Cutter were friends, sir."
"We are," Foley says, and laughs. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to take some pleasure out of outliving the bastard."
__________Six months later, Amy dumps the last of Foley's ashes into Trout Lake, and the rocks follow, one by one.
Afterward, they sprawl out on the dock, lying flat in the sun while Lennox unsuccessfully tries to light a joint as soaking wet as he is.
"So," Chris says, trying a little too hard to sound casual. "Are we going to do this again next year?"
There's silence for a moment, and then Lennox coughs a mouthful of smoke up into the sky. "Fuck next year," he says, stretching a leg across both of Neil's to kick Chris in the shin. "I've got a match lined up for us on Friday."
"Not the old guys again," Eddie says, from somewhere further on down the line.
"It's a matter of goddamned dignity now, Eddie," Lennox insists. Chris starts laughing, and doesn't stop when Lennox kicks him again, accidentally kicking Neil in the process. "It's a matter of pride."
Eddie's voice rises again; Lennox immediately starts trying to drown him out, and underneath it all, Chris and Amy are laughing, warm and easy.
Neil missed this. Jesus, he missed this.
He closes his eyes, and soaks it in with the sunlight.