Walk like a Man by Robert J. Wiersema Page B

commando unit, breaking into a dead run if we heard the ominous barking.
    I hated that dog.
    You see, I was born with a clubfoot, which meant, in addition to a number of surgeries and corrective procedures, that I was basically hobbled during my childhood. Oh, I could get around, but to say that I wasn’t athletic would be a grave understatement. It also contributed to the fact that I didn’t learn to ride a bike until very late, relatively speaking.
    Mom and Dad decided when I was nine or ten that it was high time I learned. We dedicated a weekend to the task. And after hours—days—of anguish, I had done it: I was in command of a vehicle, one complete with a banana seat and high handle bars. To mark the occasion, we decided to ride down to Gram’s place to show off.
    It wasn’t a big deal, in theory. The shoulders of the road were wide, Mom was riding behind me with Jon in the carrier seat, and it was a quiet time of day: everything should have been fine. And it was, until we hit the halfway point.
    They say dogs can smell fear. That yellow dog must have had a hell of a nose on it, because it tore out of its yard like its tail was on fire, barking furiously as it raced across two lanes of country highway. All I saw was a streak of yellow fur and teeth, with the sound of that barking, and then I felt a crunching as those jaws closed around my left arm. I was already precarious on my banana seat, shakily navigating the asphalt, and when that dog hit me, I went ass over teakettle into the ditch. I lost the bike, and I think the dog got tangled in it and was torn off me. The rest is just a blur. 3
    I hated that dog.
    I think I danced when I heard the news that it had been killed on the highway, years later. I hoped he was chasing a kid on a bike when it happened.
    But I digress.
    The end of the road, for us, was my grandmother’s place. It was our second home.
    My grandmother was, and is, a pillar of the community. Active in the United Church, she seemed to be friends with everyone in town. There were always cars in her driveway, tea in the pot, and a game on the go on the kitchen table (usually Scrabble or cribbage). Even now when I go back to Agassiz, I’m “Phyllis Eddy’s grandson.” It was a heavy weight to grow up under: I couldn’t get away with anything. Word of even the most innocent of childish trouble-making would work its way to my grandmother with an efficiency that would put Twitter to shame, and ultimately come back to my mother. And, inevitably, me.
    Case in point. I spent an afternoon hanging out with Marshall, a kid who lived nearby and was a couple of years older. We rambled through the neighborhood, exploring the ditches and the woods, poking around in forbidden yards. As part of our travels, there was a span of time, maybe two minutes in length—maybe—during which we threw sticks at some crows behind the old Kent Hotel.
    Sure enough, I arrived at home to my mother asking, “Were you throwing sticks at crows with Marshall?” I was dumbfounded: it had been two minutes, and those crows had been as safe, as my grandmother herself would say, as in the left hand of God. Throwing has never been in my skill set.
    Of course, I tried to lie my way out of it. And of course it didn’t work.
    It was a great time to grow up, and a great place. My brothers and I pretty much had free rein: we rode our bikes everywhere, disappeared into the woods for hours, built forts in the hayloft and the disused, crumbling chicken house. Those times came to an end, though.
    At first, the changes happened close to home.
    My grandfather died when I was seven. I don’t remember him very well, but two memories are crystal clear.
    The first is the afternoon that I went with him into Chilliwack 4 to pick up the suits my brother Dave and I were to wear to my aunt’s wedding. We had roles in the wedding party that called for matching powder-blue children’s