Free Knucklehead & Other Stories by W. Mark Giles

school.
    Mrs. Agostini : Mrs. Agostini burned herself up. It was Christmastime and I was visiting the folks. The couch she set on fire with her cigarette was left out in the front yard for a couple of days.
    I never knew Mr. Agostini. He never came around. When Mrs. A died she was living alone in the house. Somebody tore it down and built a house like a big cottage on the lot.
    Ricardo Agostini : I heard from Sheila R. that Rick died in a mining accident in Ontario. Rick was older by four or five years. We all figured Rick would turn out to be some big success.
    Roberto Agostini (“Pee Wee”) : Bobby died last year. He had arthritis or diabetes or something.
    Bobby was a grade ahead, but was always really scrawny. He was a pretty good soccer player though. We used to get him to go tapping at the liquor store he was so pathetic looking. One time there was a bunch of us tripping on acid and Bobby couldn’t remember how to tie his shoelaces and he freaked out and ran home in the snow without shoes. We went to call on him, ten or twelve of us wired out of our minds, and Mrs. A came to the door and told us Bobby didn’t feel good and to go away. That kind of worried us so later Stan W. and Stevie Q. snuck back and talked him down through his bedroom window. He hated it when we called him Pee Wee, which was his nickname.
    IV. Theme
    This is how Al’s book got started. He was in a Victoria nightclub called The Anvil, drinking with some clients. Low ceiling, loud music. Twenty-five years ago, he lived for nights in bars like this, pounding back double paralyzers, scarfing drugs by the handful, chasing after high school girls with fake ID .
    The band in the club was doing a tribute set to Deep Purple, and halfway through the prolonged solo in “Highway Star,” Al recognized the guitarist. It was Larry Murphy. Murph and Al had gone to Sunday school together, played on the same soccer team, had even shared a paper route for a while. Murph had been playing in bands since about grade eight. Al hadn’t seen him in years.
    During a break, Al bought Murph a drink. Sitting at a tiny table they made a peculiar pair. Murph was tall, skinny, all hair and pale skin and tattoos and bony shoulders sticking out of his black sleeveless shirt. Al was short, stocky, intense, with a golf-course tan; he was still in his suit and white shirt, his tie loosened. They talked for twenty minutes, telling tales about the old neighbourhood, catching each other up on their lives.
    â€œHey, you ever bump into Diane?” Murph asked at one point.
    â€œDied,” Al said.
    â€œWow. She’s good people. She get sick or something?”
    â€œ OD .”
    â€œBummer. That’s just fucked. She was a cool chick.” Murph lit a smoke and had a swallow of beer. Al noticed he still held his bottle in that weird way of his, gripping the long neck around his fingers like it was a cigar and tipping it up with his knuckles. “You hear about Shopsy?” Murph asked.
    â€œNo.”
    Murph made his finger into a gun and pointed it at his head.
    â€œFuck. When was this.”
    â€œI dunno. Last year. The year before. After Eddie. You knew about Eddie, right?”
    â€œI was at his funeral.”
    â€œHey, I was there. I don’t remember connecting with you there, man.”
    â€œI didn’t stay long,” Al said.
    That night, before he slept, Al wrote a list of names on the Strand Hotel stationery. It was his outline.
    Many months later, in Winnipeg, Al had lunch with a client who specialized in heavy-duty sound equipment for concerts. He was a mutual friend of Murph and Al.
    Larry Murphy
Murph caught double pneumonia. Phil T. from Winnipeg thinks it was AIDS . I only saw Larry once in the last ten or twelve years, just a little while ago. I remember he didn’t look so good. Skinnier than ever. He was probably sick then, knew he was a goner. Maybe that’s why he kept talking about all those