Fruit (2 page)

“Peter, what are you doing?” my mom called out from the living room. She always thinks I’m up to something.

“I’m getting a drink,” I said.

“It better not be pop. No pop after nine. You know that.”

I put two ice cubes in a Kleenex and tucked them into my hand. Then I made my way back to my room, shut the door, and stuck my desk chair under the door handle, like I always do when I need top security. Then I unbuttoned my top and rubbed little ice cube circles on my nipples. Sure enough, they crinkled right up, like flowers blooming in reverse. So for a few minutes, I thought I might have cured myself. But it wasn’t long before they got warm and swelled up again. Cherries on top of two scoops of vanilla ice cream. Thinking that gave me a craving so I went back out to the kitchen and scooped two balls of Heavenly Hash into a bowl and hurried back to my room before my mom noticed.

After putting the chair back under the door handle, I sat down on the floor with my ice cream and leaned back against my bed. I was scared about the future. Grade 8 had just started. How was I ever going to make it through the year with deformed nipples? How was I going to make it without anyone finding out my terrible secret? I was so worried that I almost didn’t finish the ice cream.

“Why are you acting this way?” I asked my nipples, but they didn’t answer.

My sister Nancy noticed my nipples the other day. I just know she’s going to say something to Christine. They’re always bugging me, calling me a Momma’s Boy and that I’ll end up like Uncle Ed, which isn’t true at all because I
know how to work a washing machine and the only reason I’m nice to my mom is because she’s going through The Change and needs a lot of sympathy.

I could call them names back and say things like “Does Mom know you have a copy of
Playgirl
in your drawer, Nancy?” but I don’t because that wouldn’t be Christian and if Jesus had sisters who got on his case all the time, he’d still turn the other cheek and pray for their dirty souls. Plus, I’m afraid of my sisters. They’re both older than me and once you get on their bad sides, you don’t have much of a chance. Like a few weeks ago when Christine caught me in her room. I wasn’t snooping. I was only looking for a pen. But she got pretty hot under the collar, calling me a “snoop” and saying “who keeps pens in their underwear drawer so don’t even try that with me.” The next night, I was in the bathroom, waiting for the tub to fill up. I was naked and bent over, checking the water temperature when I heard a click and then a scream. Nancy and Christine had picked the bathroom door lock with a hairpin and I turned around to see them standing in the doorway, pointing at my dink and screaming their heads off. I started screaming back at them and grabbed the only thing I could — my mom’s hand mirror — to cover my dink. Then they raced down the hall and I slammed the door so hard, it cracked down the middle and my dad had to replace it.

“Not so funny now, is it?” he said as he screwed the new door into place.

“Dad, I’m not laughing, am I?”

“Are you sure your mother wasn’t behind this? She’s
been on my back about a new bathroom door for weeks.”

If my mother had her way, she’d make my father replace everything in our house. She wants to change the shag carpeting to low-pile, she wants sheers for the living room window instead of curtains, and she wants new cupboard doors for the kitchen.

“We’ve had these since the early seventies, Henry,” she always says.

“So? They still open and close, don’t they?”

If my father had
his
way, he’d want everything to stay the same until it either broke or the world blew up. He doesn’t even change his washcloth. It hangs off the curtain rod like a sad flag. Every now and then, I’ll get a whiff of it. My mom keeps telling him he should wash it, but he says he washes it every time he’s having a bath, which is once a week.

“That’s not washing it, Henry,” my mom says. “You’re not washing anything if you’re cleaning your arse with it.”

Anyways, I know that Nancy noticed my nipples, even though she didn’t say anything. We were sitting in the living room. I was watching
TV
and eating Cheezies. Nancy was eating a row of Fudgee-Os, waiting for her boyfriend. André was half an hour late and Nancy was freaking out.

“Are you sure he didn’t call?” she yelled. Her teeth were brown with Fudgee-O icing. But no one answered her because André is always late picking up Nancy.

Nancy and I were sitting there and I dropped a Cheezie. So I bent down to pick it up and as I grabbed the Cheezie, I looked up and caught Nancy looking down my top. She did it really quickly, but I’m pretty sure of it. It
takes a lot to pull the wool over my eyes. I was wearing one of my old sweatshirts with a loose neck so she could’ve seen my nipples very easily. I sat back up and pressed one of the couch pillows against my chest. Nancy coughed, looked at the living room clock, and started working on a new row of Fudgee-Os. She wasn’t going to admit to seeing my nipples, so I sent her a mental telepathy message.

“I’d watch it if I were you,” I said as loudly as I could in my head. “One word and I’ll tell Mom how long you and André were parked in the driveway the other night.”

Just then, André’s car pulled into our driveway and Nancy jumped up.

“Finally,” she said, grabbing her jacket from the hall chair. As I watched her and André drive away in his blue car, I got a mental telepathy message back from her.

“Everyone’s going to find out your secret sooner or later.”

Today after school, I walked to the Shop ’N’ Bag and bought some Scotch tape. The Shop ’N’ Bag is in the Westown Plaza, which is a five-minute walk from my house. I think of the Westown Plaza as my second home, the one I go to when things are bothering me or a place to go on a Saturday afternoon if there’s nothing on television. There’s a Big V, a butcher shop called “Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe,” a Bi-Way, two empty stores that have had “For Lease” signs in the windows for as long as I can remember, and “Papa Bertoli,” the restaurant that Daniela Bertoli’s dad owns. There’s also a pet store called “Kathy’s
Kritter Korner.” Daniela calls it “Kathy’s Killing Korner,” because she said that Kathy shoots the kittens and puppies she doesn’t sell, but I don’t think that’s true because Kathy wears a gold cross around her neck. And I’ve caught Daniela telling lies to me before, like when she told me her dad tried to strangle her mom.

“I had to hop on his fuckin’ back to get him off her,” she said. “You can still see the bruises on her neck.”

So I grabbed my binoculars and spied on the Bertoli’s house the next day and when Mrs. Bertoli came out, wearing her Blue Jays toque and a T-shirt, there was not a single bruise on her neck.

The Shop ’N’ Bag is at the very end of the strip. It’s a small variety store that sells candy and chips, as well as birthday cards, roach traps, canned vegetables, hair gel, shoelaces, clothing dye, and black velvet paintings of sombreros. The man who owns the Shop ’N’ Bag is Mr. Bernard. He has no hair but he’s always very nice to me. That’s because I’m a preferred customer. When the new 7-11 opened down the street, I made my mind up to keep shopping at Mr. Bernard’s store, even though the 7-11 was closer.

“You still have the best selection in town,” I told him one afternoon. He laughed and said “Thank you” and threw a Crispy Crunch into my bag, which already had a Sweet Marie and a chocolate milk in it. “Compliments of the house,” he said.

The next Saturday, I told Mr. Bernard I really liked his sombrero paintings. “They’re very high quality,” I said. “I’m going to tell everyone on my paper route about them.”

Mr. Bernard thanked me again, but didn’t put anything in my bag. That kind of cheesed me off, because I spend close to five dollars there every week.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Mr. Bernard,” I thought as I walked out.

Today, when I put my Scotch tape on the counter, along with two Mars bars, I told Mr. Bernard I was wrapping presents.

“It’s my best friend’s birthday,” I said. I had made up a whole story to cover my tracks.

“Oh, that sounds nice,” Mr. Bernard said. “Do you need any wrapping paper? We have a nice selection of birthday cards over there, as well.”

“No, I have all that at home.”

“Is your friend having a party?”

“Yes. A big one, actually. Everyone from school is going.”

“What did you get for your friend?” Mr. Bernard asked, putting the tape and the chocolate bars into a paper bag. He was asking too many questions, as far as I was concerned. I started to get suspicious.

“A bike.”

“A
bike?
Well, that’s quite an expensive gift, isn’t it?” Mr. Bernard leaned across the counter towards me. I noticed he had dry skin on his cheeks.

“My paper route pays pretty well,” I said and shrugged. I grabbed my bag and got out of there before Mr. Bernard could ask anything more.

When I got back home, I went straight to my room with my Scotch tape. I took off my sweatshirt and made
a Scotch tape “x” across each of my nipples. I put my shirt back on and stood in front of the fan. I thought it was very smart of me to fake wind.

The Scotch tape isn’t too bad, although it makes my skin crinkle under it. It looks like I have many-pointed nipples now. They’re stars, which are better than cherries any day.

When Mr. Mitchell assigned us our desks for the year, I kept my fingers crossed that wherever I ended up, I was a) as far as possible from Brian Cinder and b) as close to Andrew Sinclair as possible. Andrew is the most fashionable boy in grade 8 and I think we could be friends some day. But before I even think about asking him to be friends, I’ll have to lose a lot of weight, shave my legs, change my personality, and cure my nipples.

As it turned out, I got stuck beside Michelle Appleby, the leader of the Slut Group at Clarkedale, and Jackie Myner, the ugliest girl in the whole school. Jackie is obsessed with Adrian Zmed. He’s a Hollywood actor who plays a cop on a television show. She collects photographs of Adrian and pastes them into her “Adrian Zmed” scrap-book. She even wrote out his name in thick black marker on the cover, but she started her letters off too big and by the time she got to the “e” and “d” in “Zmed,” she’d run out of room. So the cover says “Adrian Zm” with the “ed” on the inside cover.

On the first day of school, Mr. Mitchell pulled out a copy of
Christian Tales for Modern Youth
and told us he’d
be reading us a story every morning.

“You may think that school is only about math and English and spelling,” he said, his eyes stopping on each of our faces. “But my job is also to equip you with the spiritual tools necessary to guide you throughout your lives. Think of this,” he said, rapping the cover of the book, “as God’s utility belt.”

Then he opened up the book and read us a story about a kid who keeps the largest piece of pie for himself and later gets a visit from the Devil.

My mom asked me what religion Mr. Mitchell is, but I don’t know.

“His wife and daughters can’t cut their hair,” I said, “or wear pants. I know that much.” I’ve seen them, waiting for him in the parking lot after school. They creep me out a bit because they all look like zombies.

My mom scrunched up her mouth. “Hmm,” she said, “Jehovahs aren’t hung up about hair, really.”

My mom is afraid of Jehovah’s Witnesses. When I was younger, the Jehovahs would come to our neighbourhood on Saturday mornings, knocking on all the doors. When my dad was working, my mom would sit by the window and watch for them. When she spotted the Jehovahs making their way down the street, she would whisper/scream “Jehovahs!”

Then she would close the drapes, turn the
TV
off, and make me and my sisters go into the kitchen and hide behind the counter.

“It’s not like they’re going to break in if they know we’re here,” Christine would say.

“
SSSHHH
!” my mom would whisper/scream.

It’s good to know that Mr. Mitchell isn’t a Jehovah. But my mom thinks that he belongs to a cult.

“There’s a group of them that meet out on Highway 7,” she said. “Under that big canopy tent. And I’d bet my bottom dollar there are snakes involved.”

This morning, after we said The Lord’s Prayer and mouthed the words to “O Canada,” Mr. Mitchell pulled out his
Christian Tales
book and read us a story about a rich girl who gives a poor girl a new pair of patent leather shoes.

“Who can tell me the message of this story?” he asked at the end. He looked at the Indian kids when he asked, like he was hoping they were listening. But the only answer he got was Eric Bird horking into a Kleenex.

“Anyone?”

Mr. Mitchell looked over at Margaret Stone. Her dad is the minister of St. Paul’s Church. I don’t think Margaret listens to the stories, either, but she must know them all by heart. Before she could say anything, Jackie Myner put up her hand. Mr. Mitchell pretended not to see her because Jackie stutters and it takes a very long time for her to say anything. But she kept waving her arm and twisting around in her seat and making these little grunting noises, so Mr. Mitchell didn’t have much of a choice.

“Yes, Jackie?”

“C-c-c-can I g-g-go to the bathroom? I th-think I’m g-g-g-going to throw up.”

Mr. Mitchell rolled his eyes and said yes, she could, but to hurry up. Jackie ran out of her seat and out the door.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I have deformed nipples because of my subconscious. I know about that because my sister Christine told me about it. The subconscious is a very tricky thing, Christine said. She told me that when bad things happen to people, it’s because their subconscious secretly wants the bad things to happen.

“Do you honestly think Mom fell off that porch by accident?” she asked me. A few months back, my mom got her first job selling Mary Kay cosmetics. She said it was her idea, but it was really my dad who got after her.

“If you’re bored, why don’t you get out of the house and find something to do, Beth?” He wasn’t angry, but he did sound very tired.

“Well I don’t know what to do, Henry. I’ve been raising three kids for the past eighteen years but I can’t put that on a resumé. Can I?”