Imperfections (5 page)

A splash sounded in the distance.

My skin tingled. Something mysterious was going to happen; I could feel it.

Leonard smiled when he saw that I was sensing something out of the ordinary.

“What?” I asked his grin, looking at him out of the corner of my eye.

Another splash from somewhere beyond the fence. It sounded closer than the last one. “Wanna see a naked girl?”

The breeze that had been blowing high above the ground seemed to suddenly drop into the backyard and give a passing, floating touch to any patch of exposed skin.

Before I could answer, Leonard rocketed off the deck and across the backyard. I followed, more out of habit than anything else. Leonard and I scrambled through the bramble until we came to the slats of the fence. For the most part they were too close together to spy through, but it seemed that Leonard had found a way—experience led him directly to a gap. A vertical band of light played on his face as he peered through. His iris dilated.
 

I eased down next to him, squatting on my heels and knowing all too well that the dry leaves and twigs shed by the bushes made for a difficult covert operation.

Leonard watched for a while and then sighed.

“Check it out,” he whispered.

Leonard shifted out of the way and gestured at the space between slats.

I was torn. At that age, I didn't really want to see a naked girl so I wanted to say no. There was a passing curiosity, though, to see what all the fuss was about and, for some reason, the splashing coming from the other side of the fence was intriguing so I wanted to say yes. On the other hand, there was a squirming feeling about watching someone without their knowing it so I wanted to say no. But then there was the pressure of Leonard urging me with a hushed whisper and a head tilted toward the gap in the slats. That sealed the deal. I had to say yes.

I duck-walked a few small steps to the left, took a deep breath and leaned forward to look through the gap. Framed by the splintering wood, the neighbour's yard opened before me like a studio-lit still life. The sun shone directly into the backyard. The grass was a vibrant green and was weed-free. At the far side, I saw the house with its sliding glass doors to the living room. The glass doors reflected an image of the patio, which was made from concrete slabs. There was white patio furniture made from metal frames with a plastic mesh stretched and woven over them. A beach towel, striped with the colours of the rainbow, was draped across a lounge chair and the twinkling water of the swimming pool reflecting the sunlight.

“What do you see?” Leonard hissed close to my ear.

“Shut up a minute,” I whispered back.

I focused on some movement, something under the water. A shape rippled and slid, causing a slight liquid ridge above it. Then the shape broke the surface. A woman erupted from the water and hoisted herself up onto the edge of the pool.
 

I gasped.

“What is it?” Leonard hissed again. “Let me see.” He pushed gently but I resisted, hoping Leonard would know that the fence wasn't soundproof and would lay off so we wouldn't get caught.

The woman spun so her back was to me and sat on the edge of the pool. Water flowed down her skin leaving sinuous, dewy lines.

“She's not naked,” I whispered, noticing with some degree of relief mixed with a dirty dash of disappointment, that she was wearing a flesh-coloured, two-piece bikini. Regardless, there was something powerful going on that I did not yet understand. It was there in front of me, the tantalizing look of long, glossy wet hair between her shoulder blades, the slight plumping of her buttocks where they met the concrete, and the smooth curves of her skin.
 

She was no girl, I thought. She could be as old as Mrs. Brennan, my math teacher, but she was still beautiful.

Leonard slapped the back of my head, causing my forehead to bounce off the fence slats with a thud. I peeked through the gap again to see the woman spin around, looking for the source of the noise.

“Go,” I spat.

The two of us scrambled, Leonard stifling his giggling with a hand. We crab-walked out of the bramble into the backyard with less care for noise than we had shown going in.

“Run,” Leonard said and merged onto the trail leading to the back lane. We stopped briefly to fling the gate open and then we sprinted up the alley, gravel rolling under our sneakers.

My panicked mind could do nothing but tell my legs to follow. I hoped the woman didn't hear us but I was sure she did. I hoped she wouldn't go to Auntie Maggie's and Uncle Tony's to tell but I was sure she would.

Ahead, near the end of the alley, Leonard stopped running. He laughed, seemingly unconcerned. I was terrified.

“She wasn't naked,” I said, hoping my face wouldn't betray my calm words.

“One time she was. It was radical.” Leonard puffed a little from the run.

“She wasn't this time, though,” I said. She was pretty, I thought.

Leonard and I wasted time in the alley, kicking rocks and talking about the woman until Auntie Maggie called. Then we raced back to the yard. Leonard won.

“There you are,” Auntie Maggie said from the patio door.
 

Uncle Tony was fiddling with the propane tank under the barbeque. Mother sat at the picnic table on the deck. She wore bug-eye sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat that shaded all the way out to her shoulders. Her glass sat beside the fashion magazine she was flipping through. It was empty save for one waning ice cube and a fingernail depth of tawny coloured booze.

She looked over at me and smiled. “Come sit with your mom.” She patted her knee and slurred, “You handsome fellow.”

I joined her. Uncle Tony's mutterings of “fuckin' thing” and “bitch-whore of a thing” subsided and shortly there was the smell of cooking meat in the air. Mother and I looked at her magazine.

“Look at this,” she pointed with a free finger, the rest wrapped around her glass. “This is how the year 2000 will look, and it's happening now. Isn't that amazing?”

I didn't say anything but looked as pages flipped by. Space-age materials hugged galactic heroes and space vixens as they strutted down glowing runways. It was amazing. The designer names passing by were as exotic as the models: Thierry Mugler, Azzedine Alaïa…

“Oh, here. Look at this,” Mother said breathily. “Yohji Yamamoto.”

Sharp shoulders, round hips, Lycra and Viscose, two-foot-long spikes of hair and dark racoon-eye makeup. Material that made me think of the woman in the pool. All of this was wrapped in the heady faint chemical smells coming from the ink on the glossy pages and from between Mother's lips.

I looked over my shoulder at her and smiled. She wrapped an arm around my belly and gave me a limp squeeze.

“Aren't they gorgeous?” she whispered.

I could only nod.

Then she scowled.

“How did you get a splinter in your forehead?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer she spun me into a more accessible position on her lap and pinched at my forehead. She tweezed the end of the splinter between two fingernails and slid it slowly out of the sheath of my skin.

“Come here, Rich.” Father's voice boomed from near the barbeque.

I looked over and was blinded. The sun was setting and hovered just above the fence. I squinted and saw Father holding a football. He faked a throw and I flinched. I couldn't tell if he was laughing. I slid off Mother's lap and wandered down onto the grass.

“Catch the ball,” Father said.
 

With the sun behind him and no further prompting, he threw the football. A flitting shadow blipped across the sun and then there was a quick pain in my shoulder before I spun around and landed face-first in the grass.

“Jesus, Jack. Be careful,” Mother said.

“You gotta get behind it and cradle the catch,” Father called to me and mimicked the move.

I heard a loud squeak from Leonard laughing on the patio. The noise was silenced by a slap to the back of his head from Auntie Maggie.

“Burgers are ready,” called Uncle Tony.

I pushed up and brushed off my knees and the front of my shirt. My shoulder throbbed deep under the skin. I couldn't cry anymore today. I wouldn't, especially in front of Father.

We all made our way to the picnic table. The sun dipped below the fence-line and my mind drifted from my hamburger to the deep pain in my shoulder to the woman in the skin-coloured bikini who had been just on the other side of that fence.

The evening cooled and we gathered around the firepit where Uncle Tony built a fire. The adults drank scotch and chatted against the crackle of burning wood. Uncle Tony got up and opened the patio door.

“Come look at this,” he said to Father. “You too, boys.”

We went into the living room. Uncle Tony took out a small silver disc and put it into a machine.

“Wow,” Father said, “a CD player.”

Uncle Tony, always with the latest gadgets, smiled.

“We just got these in. A Sony CDP-101,” he said. “Two channels. Sixteen-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kilohertz sample ratio per channel.”

Father let out a low whistle and ran a finger along the top of the machine. Leonard and I looked at each other. I wondered what Uncle Tony meant and looked to see if Father had understood.

Father let out another low whistle when Uncle Tony held up the case for ABBA's
The Visitors
. Uncle Tony turned up the volume and we listened for a minute before heading back outside. Uncle Tony was the last out and he left the door open so we could hear the music.

With every second the future was bearing down on each of us. As we watched the embers from the fire rise into the warm summer night air, all of us in our own stupor, we kids worn out from a long day, Mother floating on Valium, Father and the Auntie Maggie and Uncle Tony floating on scotch, none of us there thought about it. Time would prove
The Visitors
to be ABBA's last studio album. Time would push each day from one to the next and the seasons would slip from one to another, all leading toward some end that was yet unclear but already in motion.
 

In the #713 Fire Hall on the other side of the city, unknown to us, a fireman named Gary Fairway stirred a pot of chili and laughed with some of his co-workers. The shift was just starting and would end quietly. There would be no fires or accidents to attend, the alarm would not sound. In the morning hours, Gary would drive home through the long daybreak shadows. He would chat with his wife before she went to work and he went to bed.

Far away, Margaret Koshushner washed a thin, porcelain teacup with none of the sinister foreboding that she should have. She did not know the role she would play in the eventual death of the six year old who was drifting into a heavy-lidded sleep, lying in the grass surrounded by the smell of earth and wood smoke and the sounds of “One of Us” coming through the patio door and into the night.

Her new car arrived two weeks later.

CHAPTER 4

The Little Miss Beef Cattle Pageant

An organic smell hung in the air. It was a palpable mist, a sticky mixture of dusty hay, fresh mud, and large mammal feces. The air in the big tent was warm and the temperature climbed a little more every minute. It was humid. I felt it on my skin. The red and white canvas walls worked to keep any outside breeze from stirring the stagnant air inside. “Fresh as a cow's ass,” Father grunted before heading across the hay-covered dirt floor toward the metal bleachers opposite the stage. He blended into the crowd as he climbed into the murmuring herd of spectators.

It was true: the smell and feeling must have been the experience sought by a fly hovering a millimetre over a fresh, steamy cow patty.

After seeing Father off to the bleachers, Mother ushered me toward the long curtains making up the backdrop for the plywood stage. We passed a sign displaying the day's schedule of events:
 

11 am – Wal-Mart Little Mister and Little Miss Beef Cattle Pageant

12 pm – Esther Keen Memorial Chili Cook-off and Pickled Goods Competition

2 pm – Wal-Mart Mister and Miss Pre-Teen Beef Cattle Pageant

3 pm – Wal-Mart Miss Teen Beef Cattle and Miss Beef Cattle Pageants

5 pm – The Kentucky Fried Chicken Fry-off and Baked Goods Competition

6 pm – Beef Cattle Judging

7 pm – Steer Judging

8 pm – Beer Garden (Feat. Giddy Up Tiger and the Come Quicklies)

We pushed through the loose weave fabric curtains. A matronly volunteer directed Little Misters to the left and Little Misses to the right.
 

There were a few screened-off areas in the open cathedral of the corrals behind the beef cattle show floor. The staging area bustled with yelling kids, running here and there along the wood-lined chutes and maze-like fences. The occasional lowing from the beef cattle could be heard from outside, on the other side of the canvas wall. Their show was later in the evening. Large, metal pot-lights hung pendulously from bare power lines that traversed the air ten feet above the chaos of the corrals.