Moody Food Paperback - 2003

Excerpt

One

Chicken-legged Thomas Graham, all white flesh and thirteen years old, in the huddle, on one knee, giving out the signals, in charge.

Mid-signal call, Thomas puts his mouth to the earhole of the helmet next to him, helmet belonging to Gary “Fat Man” Jones, Thomas’s best friend and sure-handed fullback. Whispers:

“Hear that? Hear the cheerleaders?”

“Jesus, Thomas, everybody’s looking, finish calling the play.”

“Listen. That’s three-part harmony. They’re doing three-part harmony.”

“Thomas–”

“Forget the words, don’t even listen to the words. Just listen to the harmony. Just listen to the music.”

“Hey, Graham, what’s the fucking play?”

“Thomas . . .”

“Uh, right . . . 48 flanker split left, halfback off tackle right.”

“On what, asshole?”

“Two. On two.”

“Break.”

And on two the halfback plunges left just like he’s supposed to behind a tackle blowing spit and exploding left and a pulling guard chomping down hard on his mouthpiece pulling hard left just like he’s supposed to do too. Doesn’t much matter, though. The quarterback forgot to give the halfback the ball.

And Thomas Graham, football tucked underneath his arm, runs the other way, runs alone right, runs for his life, runs right into a wall of half of Jackson Central High’s opposition that afternoon, the All-Mississippi high-school runners-up of the year before, the Oxford Panthers.

Hit high, hit low, hit hard, loudly hit, the ball pops loose at first point of pounding contact and sputters uselessly out of bounds, Thomas’s collarbone snapping in two in the process as easy as someone keeping time to a catchy tune snapping happy his fingers.

On his back, arms and legs splayed, the bars of his helmet stuffed full of home-field turf and with a mouth full of blood and broken teeth like Chicklets floating in warm red syrup: “Oh, that’s pretty,” Thomas says, the cheerleaders on the sideline hitting all the high notes now, really cheering their boys on.

“That is just so pretty,” he says.


1.
I met Thomas Graham in a bank. He was withdrawing, I was depositing.

Fall hadn’t managed to elbow out of its way yet all the humidity and baking haze of September lingering summer, but I’d decided to brave heatstroke anyway and broken out my buckskin jacket and slid into the friendly snug of my favourite pair of Levis. Impossible, I’ve always maintained, to be the best you can be when you’re not wearing pants. Maybe this is northern prejudice, or maybe I’m just unnaturally sensitive about my legs. Anyway, there I was in my jacket and jeans.

And there was Thomas. In white cowboy boots and a red silk shirt with a little silver cross peeking out underneath, all topped off with a white jacket covered with a green sequined pot plant, a couple of sparkling acid cubes, and a pair of woman’s breasts. The jacket glowed, I swear, and I’d had nothing stronger that morning than a cup of coffee. He was also the only other guy in the bank in blue jeans and with hair hanging down past his collar.

They’d given him some kind of form to get started on while he waited in line, and he was squinting and grinning at the thing like it was written in a language he couldn’t quite understand but for some reason was getting quite a kick out of anyway. Probably high, I thought. He looked up at me from the piece of paper and blew a few brown strands of hair out of his eyes.

“Now that, sir, is one fine article of clothing,” he said, lifting a long thin finger, pointing at my fringed jacket.

It took me a second to recover from the jolt of his southern accent. “There’s a place over near Kensington Market,” I said. “Good stuff. Cheap, too.”

“Much obliged,” he said. Using the pen he’d been given by the bank, he scribbled down what I’d just told him on the back of his hand. Information recorded, “Thomas Graham,” he said, offering his hand.

“Bill Hansen.”

“Pleased to meet you, Bill.”

A blue-haired teller signalled that it was Thomas’s turn at the counter. Thomas gave me a wink and loped right up. “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said.

Later, after counting out my $23.50 monthy loan payment and signing my receipt, I noticed Thomas with the teller and some obviously important higher-up at the bank–he had to be important: he was balding and wearing an expensive suit–joking and laughing like old friends. At one point the man in the suit actually clasped Thomas by the shoulder to give him a paternal squeeze. My own teller sourly tore off her part of the carbon receipt and didn’t thank me for being part of the Royal Bank family.

I had to walk right past him to escape the bank’s partitioned maze, and Thomas turned away from the two behind the counter and put a hand on my arm. “Hey, Buckskin Bill,” he said, “Uncle Owsley says thanks for the tip.” He stuck out his hand. “See you around?”

“Sure,” I said.

I smiled, shook his hand, and didn’t open my fist until I was well down Avenue Road.

When I did: two tabs of Owsley acid. Everyone who prided himself on being in the know knew about Owsley Stanley, the mad chemist of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. But here I was actually holding a couple of his legendary powder kegs.

Won’t Christine be blown away? I thought. And wait until I tell her about the guy who gave them to me.


From the Hardcover edition.

Media reviews

“Robertson has been called ‘word drunk.’ That’s good ... his prose is undoubtedly major-league. There’s wit and wisdom in abundance, delivered in clever, punchy style.” -- The Globe and Mail

“Ray Robertson generates delight in the state of living. He’s infused Moody Food with that same delight-what an eager, rich and meticulously funny rocket of a book! Read Ray Robertson and Moody Food.” -- Michael Winter, author of This All Happened