Imperfections (33 page)

The wheels raise little trails of dust. Esteban pulls me like he does every morning and this one, this bright blue morning, is no different. He struggles to pull my wagon up a rutted and potholed hill. His feet kick dust from the dry stubble grass, which causes me to cough.

We do this in the mornings, find a hill to climb and look down over the carnival. If the terrain is flat, we just wheel out until the tents are small on the horizon and we watch from the distance. We sit and talk. Some days, when a newspaper can be found, Esteban reads to me. He swats flies from my torso. Lately, my left leg stump has been attracting more flies and smelling a bit like blue cheese.

Today, the wagon rattles to a stop under a scraggly tree at the top of the hill. Its branches click together in the breeze. The tents sit like pimples below, in a valley at the edge of some small Mexican village. To the horizon, whaleback hills make for a soft, scrubby, rolling vista.

“Where are we?” I ask.

Esteban flops down beside me, puffing, his fur matted with sweat. He hasn't complained once about the effort of hauling my torso around. He smells pungent, like a wet dog.

“This town is called La Concepción. In Guanajuato,” he says. “Not much happens here.”
 

We sit for a span. Esteban's breathing calms.

“I've been wondering,” I say. “What do you think they did with my arms and legs?”

“Don't even worry yourself with it,” Esteban says. “When the médico made me, the months of transplants and hormones, man, I don't even want to know whose hair this is or how she got it.” He smoothed out his fur with a hand. “When she made the fat man? She must have saved the fat from hundreds of rich folks getting it sucked out, then injected it into him. And you don't even want to talk to the Mighty Mite about it. They had him bound like a mummy, wrapped up tight for years to keep him small. He was…”—Esteban made a scissor sign with his fingers—“…so he wouldn't get big. They starved him and gave him some kind of injections. Took his whole youth—years—you don't want to even know.”
 

Esteban shakes his head and squints at the valley. “Somethings, once they're done, they can't be undone. Sometimes, you have to accept things the way they are.”

I nod a bit and look out over the rolling, sunburnt land.

Dr. Bella had said, “If the body can't be corrected, the mind remains tormented.”
 

As we sit on the hill, a gentle morning breeze caresses us and my wolf-man buddy scratches my leg stump. The branches tick overhead and the peace I feel makes me wonder if Dr. Bella was right. Or was she just close? Should she have said, if the mind can't be corrected, the body remains tormented? The soul is the tangible intersection of the body and the mind and the world. It is the harmony of these parts, not simply our physical parts, that creates beauty. When I stopped taking the three apart and started putting them back together, I felt whole again and I could see beauty.

Dr. Bella could treat her patients' unhappiness but, in creating their new bodies, she only created the need for more. She created addicts. With each procedure, she made everyone look more the same. The need to stay young and fabulous creates the need for a more extreme vision of beauty just to stand out. It creates a whole new disorder of pretty ugliness.

Chester taught me about blind sight, where the eyes don't see reality, they see the fantasy of what the brain wants to see. But, from what I can tell, the line between this reality and fantasy doesn't exist. The mind makes its own reality.

“You okay, Richard?”

“Yeah, Esteban,” I say. “I'm fine. I was just thinking, looking at the tents.”

“Thinking about what?” Esteban shoos a fly away from my leg stump.

“Someone once told me that if everyone looked the same then no one would be beautiful or ugly. No judgments would exist. No one would stare.”

“Yeah, but we'd all be the same, nobody different. Man, I don't know about beautiful. I don't know about judgments. I never had a chance.” Esteban smiles. “But I like you and the other guys. I like the Mighty Mite. Fat man's my buddy. The people here make me a home.”

“I know. You've figured out what I wanted my whole life, not through the quest for perfection but by the acceptance of imperfection. You've subverted the pretty war.”

“I don't know nothing about no war. This place, these people, is what I know.” Esteban plucks the newspaper from my wagon. He shuffles the papers and starts reading to himself with a sigh.

I squint at the valley. The sun blazing overhead works to wash out all colours save for a few brave shades of yellow and brown. My stump itches.

I thought hard over the past while and I should have known all this would happen. Looking back, I can see the flow of events that brought me to this. Mind you, even now, I can't see what's to come. Leonard's the one who could see all the connections, not me.
 

Leonard. It was like a lifetime ago.

Paige. I don't even remember how long.

I won't die. It's all a matter of perspective really. The world will just cease to exist to me. It's about the anatomy of any given moment. Without a witness to life, the other building blocks of the moment don't matter. I witness time push seasons from one to the next and each day slip from one into the other, all heading toward an end that becomes clearer to me.

Esteban chuckles. “Someone bought an eleven-year-old grilled cheese sandwich on eBay for almost $30,000. It had the Virgin Mary's face cooked on it. This lady, Duyser, said it brought her years of good luck at bingo.”

I grunt. “Can you scratch my left leg stump? It's itchy like crazy.”

Esteban reaches over and rubs the stump. His eyes stay fixed on the paper.

“Thanks,” I say.

A trail of dust rises between two hills in the distance. It hangs like lazy laundry drying on a clothesline. The air is quiet, the valley below is silent. Esteban reads the paper while I watch the plume migrate closer to the camp below.

Esteban looks up as the Monte Carlo comes into the clearing on the south side of camp. The distant engine noise stops and it takes a moment for the sound of a car door slamming to travel up the hill to our ears. For some reason, the disconnect makes me frown.

“Carnie's home,” Esteban says.

“Yep.”

“Brought that new attraction he was talking about, I bet,” Esteban says.

“I bet so.”

Bodies of every shape, size and colour emerge from the tents and migrate to the car. Their differences are muted by the distance from which we view the scene.

“You want to go see?” Esteban asks. “It's the spider man in the trunk. Carnie says he has four arms and four legs.”

 
“No. I don't need to see.” I shake my head.

I watch the figures gather around the trunk. Fascinated eyes they have. This is a human zoo. We're all watched. It's why we're here.
 

After a while, they pull someone from the trunk and carry him into a nearby tent.

“Can you scratch my leg stump again?”

Esteban complies. “Your stump don't smell too good.” He waves away some flies and peers at it. “It's turning black.” He sniffs his fingers and then wipes his hand in the dirt.

Esteban goes back to the paper.

There are many moments in life that conspire toward making you the person you turn out to be on your deathbed. All of the events, the people you meet, the places you go, the things you do and have done to you, everything foreshadows the person you are in the end. Final hindsight is like the cover of the puzzle box: it shows you the big picture but during life all you get are the pieces.

“Weird,” Esteban says, tracing the text with a furry finger. “It says here the guys who gave their voices to Tigger and Piglet died on the exact same day.”

“Paul Winchell and John Fiedler,” I say.

“You know them?”

“I feel like I do. I feel like I have known them forever,” I say. “How old is that paper?”

Esteban scans the page. “It's a week and a half old.”

I'd been ready to die several times in my life and had made peace with the fact. Maybe I'd even looked forward to it. I could stop fumbling, stop trying. I didn't want to give up but I was unsure how to keep going.
 

I'm happy with how it all went though. Everything I've done in my life matters. Even if it only matters for a short while and only to a few people, it's more than enough.

If Leonard's predictions come true, well, I guess I'll know soon.
 

But then again, Leonard has been wrong before.
 

I can't wait to see what happens next.

______________________________

On June 24, 2005, we mourned the untimely passing of Richard Trench. A dear childhood friend of mine and a beloved member of the fashion industry, Richard will be remembered fondly by his mother Debbie, his friends, family and fellow industry members.

Richard was often described as beautiful, stylish, compassionate, and approachable by fans and fashionistas. I personally know these traits applied as truly to the deeper levels of his being as they did on the surface. The words written here, read by you, can't plumb the drive and depth of a man I am proud to have called my best friend.

Like in the 1998 “Heavenly Show,” Richard has been promoted to the position of Angel. He now dons an Ozone™ halo and looks upon us all from a higher catwalk.

Twenty-nine years is too short a time for someone like Richard to walk among us. You are missed. You are remembered.

–Leonard Fenton
Obituary from the
Times
 

June 24, 2005

Gary Jan Fairway passed peacefully on the evening of June 24, 2005 at the age of 73. Gary, 6'3" and 245 lbs., is described by Sophie Fairway, his loving wife, as a man who had as much caring to give as space to take up.

His brothers at the #713 Fire Hall knew Gary to be a heroic member of the force and, in retirement, he was an active volunteer at all the #713's fundraising activities. During his career, Gary fought fires bravely and saved countless lives. He lives on in the people he saved as well as through his son and three grandchildren.

Memorial services are open to the public and will be held at the Alliance Church on Plainview.

–Leonard Fenton
Obituary from the
Times
 

June 24, 2005

Mr. Gary Jan Fairway has called to ensure me that he is very much alive. He thanks me for the kind words written in yesterday's edition. Mr. Fairway also thanks his friends, family, and his brothers at the 713 Fire Hall, for all the lovely flowers and phone calls of condolence.
 

Mr. Fairway says it fills him with such pride and comfort to know that he will be well remembered when his time finally comes.
 

He says, “We should all live our lives to be so loved.”

This writer and his editor, on behalf of this newspaper, apologize for any undue anguish or confusion caused by this regrettable mix-up.

–Leonard Fenton
Obituary from the
Times
 

June 25, 2005

Acknowledgements

This book could not have become what it is without the trust, caring, help and love of a gaggle of people.

First off, I'd like to thank my husband, Nenad, for being the kind of person I strive to be every day and for giving me quiet mornings to scratch away at the paper or peck away at the keyboard.

Hats off to the folks who have slaved and toiled and struggled with me through the early drafts of
Imperfections.
This includes the constructive direction from the ladies of the polycognomenal critique group I attend: Elena Aitken (any continuity errors are entirely my own), Nancy Hayes (apologies for all of the foul language in the book), Susan Lorimar (thanks to you, I now know what a nonrestrictive participle phrase is), Trish Loye Elliott (for bitchin' direction on hand to hand combat … shit, sorry Nancy, I swore again) and Leanne Shirtliffe (for calling offside when I went too far)! A big thanks to my good friend Amanda Dow who has read and edited pretty much every word I have written so far. Also, good thoughts on derek beaulieu for the always stimulating conversations on writing, publishing and the sound that one hand clapping makes. To you all, my deepest appreciation.

A huge hug and a kiss to Nightwood Editions. To Silas White for seeing the potential in
Imperfections
and for bringing my first novel to print. I recognize the risk in the work you do, the time and effort you put in and I thank you for accepting that role. To Lizette Fischer for keeping me in line, on time and under control.