Ollie thought his former principal sounded like the crusty retired woman who worked as a volunteer in the school library. Whenever he visited the library, the woman hassled him, tolerating not the slightest transgression, giving him no breaks on overdue books, books damp from rainfall or stained from accidents, coffee or hot chocolate spills, rejecting his requests for books through interlibrary loans. She did little to conceal her revulsion with his lisp and stutter, and guttural voice, and permitted absolutely no noise or sounds from him. Whenever she saw him signing in American Sign Language, she cracked down on him mercilessly, saying he was distracting other students, expelling him from the library, hoarsely shouting at him to shut up, ordering him to sit elsewhere, or at a study carrel near the back or emergency exits or even sending him to the principal’s office. The only word in American Sign Language she knew: NO, which she made whilst shaking her head, clasping two fingers and her thumb together. Ollie loomed over Ambrose Vermilion on the staircase to the third floor. Breathing hoarsely, he reeled backwards as the bayonet blade approached his throat. He feared Ollie would plunge the knife deeper into the loose flesh of his neck.
“So, Mister Vermilion, what have you been doing these past few years?”
Vermilion stumbled backwards, collapsed on the stairway in sheer exhaustion and resignation, and started sobbing. He cried while he brought up his arms and flung them backwards. The image of his former principal breaking down reminded him of World War Two photographs from the lavishly illustrated history books series Ollie loved to read in the school library, showing the aftermath of an intense, fiery, destructive battle. He specifically remembered a picture showing a Russian mother, flailing her arms upwards, grieving the loss of her soldier son during the siege of Stalingrad.
To avoid any meetings or confrontations with the principal, Ollie sometimes headed for the library, even though the principal usually knew exactly where to find him. In the school library, he spent plenty of time perusing oversized photojournalism books and history volumes, particularly on World War Two, The Korean War, and Vietnam War, instead of working on his school assignments. He leaned against the wall and watched with curiosity— stroking his chin, which had grown peach fuzz and pimply from starchy foods— he guessed—at the detention facility,the outpouring of emotion from his usually cold and reserved principal with privileged upbringing. He remembered him for his calm, reserved demeanour and painstakingly correct speech. Yes, his principal always showed a veneer of civility and gentility, even when he abused Ollie. This outburst of emotion Ollie would have expected from his mother or father than from this sham paragon of Victorian morals and virtue.
“I’ve paid the price!” Vermilion cried repeatedly. “My life is still in ruins. It’s over. It’s over.”
“Your life is in ruins?” Barely able to mouth the words, Ollie stammered he wasn’t able to finish school and wasn’t able to love anyone because of him.
“That’s because you’re still young. Give it up. Give it time, boy.”
“I—I h-h-haven’t b-been a-able to—to trust any-b-b-body.”
“But is that my fault?” Vermilion bellowed.
“Y-y-yes, it—it i-is,” Ollie spat. He realized with his former principal words were like weapons. He stepped towards him, ready to strike him with my fists. “Y-y-you’ve s-screwed up—up—up m-my l-life t-t-totally.” He revealed he had been in a facility for young offenders.
“You’re merely using me as an excuse for your failures and shortcomings.”
Ollie swung his open hand, slapping him on his drooping cheek, and Vermilion started sobbing again. Wiping away his tears and blowing his nose, he managed to find some coherence to speak again.
“Your life has been ruined? Well, my career was destroyed.”
Ollie looked around the hallway at the comfort and luxury of the home, the ornate decor, the plush carpets, the rich, densely woven tapestries. He was fascinated by the high quality reproductions of classic paintings, renaissance depictions of boys and young men, with names like Holy Family, Ganymede Rolling a Hoop, and Prince Carlos, fancy carved frames, stuffed deer heads and moose heads, mounted walleye, northern pike, rainbow trout, other species of Ontario freshwater fishes, and aged photographs of hunters and anglers; yet they seemed tacky and out of place to him, and reminded him of his hometown. It looked as if the old man had done well enough for himself.Certainly, he did not appear to have financial worries.
Vermilion felt he owed him an explanation: “This was my grandfather’s house, he owned the gold mine near Beaverbrook, You are too young to remember, because it closed before you were born. It’s part of an inheritance, my legacy, from which I have derived my income.” He narrated additional family history, but Ollie thought the elderly man pretentious and conceited. His white robber baron ancestors had owned and operated the bushes, mines and forests around his hometown. Then, distracted, Ollie asked himself what he was doing in this man’s house and felt his misery knew no end. This old man, a figure who exercised authority and control over him in what seemed like an entirely different life altogether, was provoking him in ways neither understood. If he was smart, he would walk away before his mood and impulses, ugly and vengeful, turned into even more awful actions, because he was acting on sheer, raw emotion. Neither of them, he realized afterwards, was behaving intelligently and rationally. Ollie raised his steel-toed work boot, which he wore harvesting vegetable crops, mainly potatoes, onions, and beets, growing on the grounds of the minimum-security detention facility, thinking he could slam the heel against the old man’s skull. Instead, he lightly pressed the grooved soles of the heavy-duty boots against the side of his face. He even gestured, as if about to strike him with his fist, but he just scowled and pushed him at the shoulder with his boot. He left Vermilion cowering on the stairs and went downstairs.
Ollie wandered around the first floor restlessly, taking an impromptu tour of the home. He snacked on some cheese and overripe grapes in the kitchen and made himself comfortable in the old man’s study, by looking at some fine books, leather-bound classics. Eventually, he noticed his high-fidelity stereo system and searched through the music collection. He found a Mozart compact disk and slipped the symphony recording into the CD player. Then he returned to the kitchen, where he made himself a sandwich, using the leftover salmon salad Ambrose Vermilion purchased earlier at a midtown deli. With a sandwich in one hand, he sat down in a comfortable chair. After he found a pen and paper on the coffee table, he bit into the whole wheat bread, and, more out of instinct, started writing notes about his experiences in the correctional facility for young offenders. Meanwhile, Vermilion sat slumped at the bottom of the stairwell, and, assuming they shared a love of classical music, thought hope still existed.
Later that evening, after being forced to cook supper, Vermilion tried to leave the house. He intended to escape in his luxury convertible sedan, which he planned to race across the city to his sister’s house. Wiping the sweat from his brow and the crumbs and rich icing from the corners of his mouth with a silk napkin, Ollie looked up from devouring a thick slice of chocolate cake, creamy with icing, which had gone crusty and stale, which Vermilion picked up earlier in the week at an Eglinton Avenue bakery. He spotted Vermilion stumbling across his front lawn in his soiled, smelly, ill-fitting socks. Ollie burst from the house through the balcony and chased him across the landscaped grounds. He dragged Vermilion, yelling and cursing, spitting and dribbling salvia down the corner of his mouth, back into the house.
“Get out of my house!” Vermillion protested. “Leave me alone!”
“You never left me alone. Why should I?”
“What do you want? Look, if it’s money, I’ll give it to you.”
Breathing hard, Vermilion trotted over to a desk in his study and opened a drawer, pulling out a chequebook from a fine leather-bound wallet. Vermillion started to write out a cheque, muttering, “Pay to the order of Oliver Eagleton,” writing his name on the recipient line, saying, “Just name an amount, and I’ll give you your compensation, fair and square.”
Ollie seized the cheque he drafted and the pad of blank cheques out of his hands and ripped and tore the bank note into shreds. Although he had little money, he decided the passion that drove his vengeance would be spoiled and his integrity would be damaged if he accepted money. His integrity would not be harmed if he kept the leather wallet, he decided. He had little money and his own wallet, assuming he could find it, was worn out and torn he needed a new one. As the Friday turned into Saturday and the morning turned into afternoon, Ollie continued to refuse to allow Ambrose Vermilion to leave the house on any errands. He did not even allow him to shop for groceries, fresh fruit or vegetables, or refill his prescriptions for high blood pressure medication and sleeping pills at the drugstore. He would not even permit him a walk to the corner for a newspaper from the vending machine. Reminding him they had a few scores to settle, he insisted they stay at home. He sat in a chair at the kitchen table, rolling his own cigarettes from papers and a small pouch of tobacco. He had picked up the terrible habit of smoking in the detention facility. Like other young offenders, he rolled his own cigarettes to save money.
Ollie looked worried, troubled, preoccupied, lost in thought. Sometimes he made notes in a wad of three-hole ruled paper he folded and stored in the pocket of his plaid shirt. After staying awake without even a nap for over a day, he fell asleep in his chair, reading a book. Vermilion hurried to his bedroom, but, when he desperately checked, listening intently through the telephone extension with faint hope, he discovered the phone still dead. Gasping and grunting, he reached underneath his bed and grabbed a .303 Lee Enfield rifle, a souvenir, an heirloom in the family since the end of the Second World War. He relied on the rifle for a greater sense of security. He earlier loaded the vintage British army rifle with brand new .303 cartridges and kept the gun nearby, hiding it underneath his bed. He went downstairs and confronted Ollie, previously awake for countless hours on end, now asleep in the chair at the kitchen table. He poked Ollie’s shoulder with the iron sights of the muzzle. When that did not rouse him, he tapped his forearm with the barrel. Ollie stirred and woke, blinking his bloodshot eyes open.
The sight of Vermilion aiming point-blank the barrel of this antique rifle—the same rifle with which his uncle had bayoneted a German—startled him at first when he awakened, but he merely smiled. Then he blanched, wondering if Vermilion realized that the knife he brandished was actually a bayonet for the rifle. In fact, if he attached the bayonet to the rifle the fit would have been snug, perfect.
“Get out of my house or I’ll have to shoot you,” Vermilion warned.
Ollie dared: “Shoot me, kill me; you’d only be putting me out of my misery. My life has been nothing but wretchedness since y-y-you d-did w-w-what you d-d-did t-to—to m-me.”
“Leave! Leave now!”
Ambrose Vermilion had a look of disgust and contempt on his face. “You—you—you—” He pointed his finger accusatively and thrust it repeatedly “I have a word for people like you. You’re a professional victim.”
“You’re a coward. You don’t even have the courage to shoot me.”
Ambrose Vermilion moved his finger over the trigger and applied light pressure to the groove. Ollie could see his finger on the trigger—the distance between them was no more than a body length—he shrugged and forced laughter. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger. S-s-shoot m-me.”
Seemingly ready to fire the gun and send himself into oblivion, Vermilion swung the barrel around and inserted the muzzle into his own mouth. Ollie feared a boom and blood and grey matter splatter, but he expected Vermilion to behave rationally and forced a laughter. But in his grim state of mind, his own attempt at a gesture of mirth was half-hearted, barely credible and, indeed, his voice sounded sinister. He tugged at the scratched, dented stock and wrenched the vintage military rifle from Vermilion’s hands. He accused him of being a coward and said he did not even have the courage to kill himself.
The rest of the weekend passed in uneventful periods, which alternated with a peculiar tension. Ollie tuned Ambrose Vermilion’s expensive stereo receiver into his favourite FM radio station which played loud hard rock and heavy metal music. To make Vermilion feel the vibrations, Ollie cranked up the volume of sound on powerful amplifiers to a level intolerable— far too loud— for Ambrose Vermilion and pressed his head against the large speakers. The unbearable noise drove the elder Vermilion into a fury and a vale of frustrated tears. Oblivious to his turmoil, Ollie occasionally made notes into his folded bundle of ruled paper, writing passages he wished to incorporate into the memoir/novel he was writing on-again, off-again for the past several months, since he was an inmate.
