Imperfections (10 page)

There was a pop and a bright light came on, illuminating everything.

I closed my eyes, easing them open as they adjusted, not wanting to see but feeling the need to for self-preservation.

I looked over at Leonard. He sat next to me in the photo booth with the red-and-white-striped backdrop. He didn't return my gaze though his face was tight. I was happy to be safe in that curtained capsule with my best friend.

“That's it.” Auntie Maggie pulled the curtains back and we both climbed out.

The three of us stood in the electronic beeps and flashing lights of the video games. Children ran, screaming from one machine to another, from one group of laughing friends to the next.

Auntie Maggie grinned at us, her head swivelling from Leonard to me and back again. We avoided her beaming face. Two minutes passed.

The photo machine whirred and ticked before spitting out four tiny photographs. Auntie Maggie took them out of the metal tray and looked at them. She frowned.

“You boys aren't too cool to smile occasionally you know,” she said as she tore the photo strip across the middle. She handed two photos to Leonard and two to me.

I looked at my two pictures. It showed us, the both of us, looking lost and haunted. I was wide-eyed, on the verge of tears, terrified. I looked terrified. I was terrified. Scared of the freaks in the spotlights two years earlier, the leering eyes circled around them, the snide comments, my inability not to watch them, what happened with the Razor and his Blades of Doom. Scared of my need to be looked at, my need to have more than only my cousin turn up for my birthday, my need for my mother to be here, my father to be here.
 

Sitting next to me in the photo, Leonard's eyes were blank and his mouth taut. There was a slight crease in his forehead, as if he was concentrating on something or trying hard to forget something. His face was a mask, hollow and papier mâché.

Would he look back on this photo and laugh?

I wouldn't.

The sun set as we wandered into the parking lot. Father carried a box of leftover pizza. The sky was a palette from blue to black, blue on the horizon where the sun had just disappeared and black on the opposite end of the land. It was huge, so much bigger than the parking lot where Father and I said
goodbye
and
thank you
and
see you
to Auntie Maggie, Uncle Tony and Leonard. The evening sky, endless in depth, spotted with billions of stars, was so much bigger than the space inside the Pacer. Even opening the window to let the cool air in did nothing to quell the feeling of claustrophobia.

Now, looking back on that night, my tenth birthday, one decade old, I can't believe I felt that way. As we drove out of the parking lot, we passed Margaret Koshushner's 1982 Monte Carlo parked in front of a medical clinic opposite the restaurant. Margaret was the last patient of the day. She sat on a cold examination table, wearing a blue paper gown. Her doctor was telling her that she had pancreatic cancer and would be dead within five years.

Funny. What a small world it is.
 

CHAPTER 6

Do You Know Why You're Here?

“Do you know why you're here?”

“Mother made me come. She made all of us come.”

“And why's that, Richard?”

“I don't know. Maybe it's because she thinks we're crazy.”

“That's not a nice word. We won't use that word. It's a judgment word.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Only ignorant and uninformed people use words like that. People who don't understand that we're all different and equally unique.”

“I won't use that word anymore.”

“Thank you. Do you think you're crazy?”

“No.”

“Then why would your mother? Can you think of another reason, the real reason your mother would want you to come here?”

“Maybe it's because we're always fighting. That's what she says. That we are fighting all the time and…”

“Why are you fighting?”

“…sometimes I set things on fire…”

“You're fighting because you set things on fire?”

“No. You didn't let me finish. We're fighting all the time and sometimes I set things on fire.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, I think we're here because we're always fighting and sometimes I set things on fire.”

“Is there anything else, Richard?”

“No. That's all Mother told me to say.”

“She told you to tell me that?”

“Yes. Well, that's what she told me to say if we saw anyone she knows here or when I was asked. But I wasn't supposed to tell you she told me.”

“So why did you tell me?”

“I don't know, because you asked I guess.”

“How old are you, Richard? Ten? Eleven?”

“I'm thirteen.”

“I see. Let me run this by you. I think you told me because there's some other reason you're here, one that even your mother doesn't know about. You don't necessarily agree with your mother that that's the reason you're here. Richard, do you sometimes not do what your mother tells you to? Do you sometimes disobey her?”

“Sometimes, I guess.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“She tells me not to light stuff on fire. Sometimes I do.”

“Can you remember when you started lighting fires?”

“Yes.”

“Will you share that with me, please?”

“What are you writing down?”

“I'm taking some notes to help me remember what we talked about.”

“Are you going to show them to Mother and Father?”

“No. I won't. It's just to help us out in these talks. The notes are for nobody else. You won't get in trouble here. I won't tell your parents anything and I won't show them these notes. The notes are just for the two of us.”

“Can I see them?”

“No. Now, tell me about when you started lighting fires.”

“I don't know. It was a while ago.”

“I see. Richard, do you ever feel lonely?”

“No.”

“Do you ever lie to please people, possibly to avoid getting in trouble?”

“No.”

“Are you lying to me now?”

“Yes.”

“Did you lie when you answered my last two questions?”

“Maybe.”

“Richard, if we're going to continue, you have to be honest with me. That's the only way I'm going to be able to help you. We have to trust one another and explore these things together. Can we trust each other?”

“Yes.”

“Please don't roll your eyes.”

“Sorry.”

“It's okay. Now, let's start again. Clean slate. Do you ever feel lonely, lie to please people or lie to avoid getting in trouble?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“Sometimes, I feel lonely.”

“When?”

“Since Mother started home-schooling me. I didn't like going to school but sometimes I feel lonely when I don't see anybody my age for weeks.”

“When did your Mother start home-schooling you?”

“A few months ago. She saw an article in the paper about that guy who drove around in his car asking kids if they needed a ride or telling them their parents asked him to pick them up. Then one got in the car and the guy took the kid away. Mother read it twice and decided to home-school me.”

“Do you like being home-schooled?”

“It's okay, I guess. Some stuff that I didn't understand in class, I get now.”

“But you miss your friends.”

“I didn't have a lot of friends but I feel lonely because there's nobody around who is my age.”

“Okay. This is a good start. I'm encouraged by our sharing. Thank you for sharing that with me, Richard.”

“What did you just write?”

“I'm here to listen. I hope you're learning that you can be open with me. Already, I feel you're getting more adept at sharing your feelings and articulating them into words. It's a tough thing. Many grown-ups can't do it. This kind of communication is the only way to trust and learn from one another. You're doing really well… Now, let's talk about telling lies.”

“…”

“Can you tell me a bit about that?”

“Oh, that was the question?”

“Yes.”

“I sometimes have to lie…”

“Sorry to interrupt but, you
have
to lie?”

“Sometimes I have to, especially when Mother or Father is mad.”

“Why do you lie?”

“Sometimes it's easier, you know, to fib. Sometimes, if I tell a lie, things turn out better than if I had told the truth.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Father wants me to lift weights and run for an hour a day, during school days. He wants me to get bigger. Most of the time I don't feel like it, so I lie and say I do, when I don't. What are you writing?”

“You aren't scared you'll get caught?”

“Father is at work all day. Mother usually has a nap in the afternoon when I'm supposed to be running or lifting weights. She doesn't pay any attention anyway; she takes her sleeping pills and has a nap.”

“I see.”

“Sorry, was that a question?”

“No. No, I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Oh, a hamster. Do you understand?”

“No. Not really.”

“Okay. Richard, please don't roll your eyes at me. It's disrespectful.”

“Sorry. What don't I understand about the hamster?”

“I would like you to think about that and explain it to me. You don't have to answer right now but I want you to realize that all of these answers are in you. You just don't know how to order the questions to make sense of it all. It's okay, you're eleven years old…”

“I'm thirteen.”

“…the answers and questions to all of these problems will come in time. You just have to trust in that. This is a confusing time for you. You're at the point when things you took for granted as fact come into question, things you thought were solid and true become grey and murky. It's scary because you don't know where these cracks in your foundation will stop. You're just starting to realize that your parents are human and prone to fault…”

“Just starting?”

“…like everyone else. This is when you learn that Santa isn't real…”

“He's not?”

“What?”

“Santa's not real?”

“Um. It's a metaphor.”

“What are you writing?”

“Do you know what a metaphor is, Richard?”

“I think so.”

“It's something that stands for something else.”

“Like what? I don't get it.”

“Like when someone calls working life a rat race. Do you understand?”

“Like when people say they're so hungry they could eat a horse?”

“No, that's hyperbole.”

“Oh. A metaphor is a kind of a lie though. You're calling one thing something else. The people in the race aren't rats, are they?”

“No, Richard, it's not a lie. It's a different way of describing the truth, a different way of looking at a thing. Sometimes you have to look at something in a different way to get deeper into it, to understand it on a deeper level. Some would say a metaphor is really a more truthful way of communicating.”

“I get it. It's like the hamster. The hamster is a metaphor.”

“Exactly, like the hamster. Have you ever had thoughts of attempting suicide, Richard?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you ought…”

“Perhaps I ought to lie?”

“No, Richard. Perhaps you ought to think about attempting suicide.”

“Do you mean metaphorically?”

“No. For real. Literally.”

“Why would I do that? I don't want to kill myself.”

“No. No, good God, no. Richard, no. That is not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you should commit suicide. What I am saying is attempting to commit suicide.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. It's a very different thing that you were thinking of. My goodness, Richard. Very different.”