Born Weird

by Andrew Kaufman

  “You still do this?”

  “I would have liked a newer model,” Angie said as she came back around to the back passenger door.

  “Not in this town.”

  “Really?”

  “ ‘Fraid so.”

  “Okay, let’s take it,” Angie said. She slid into the back seat. “To the airport,” she told the driver.

  “But first,” Lucy said as she got into the back seat and closed the door, “the Golden Sunsets Retirement Community, 170 Lipton Street.”

  “I didn’t think you meant right away,” Angie said.

  “Well, when did you think I meant?”

  “I don’t know. Soonish? You know. In the near future.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. Six minutes later the cab stopped in front of 170 Lipton Street. The exterior of the Golden Sunsets Retirement Community was concrete and depressing. It was worse inside. Decades of wheelchairs had worn twin tracks into the thin grey carpet. The grandfather clock in the lobby leaned to the left. It smelled like medicine and the walls were painted a yellow that was much too optimistic.

  “Is this really the best we can afford?” Angie asked.

  “This is more than we can afford.”

  They walked down the corridor. Angie tried not to look into the rooms. She failed. Some of the residents met her eyes. Others just stared through her. But most disturbing to Angie were their haircuts—zigzag patterns and asymmetrical bobs and parts that started just above the ear. Every single resident there sported a hairdo that looked suspiciously like Lucy’s.

  “What’s with the hair?” Angie asked.

  “You’ll see,” Lucy said, and she pressed the down button. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. Neither spoke. When the doors opened for B2, Lucy pointed to a handwritten cardboard sign masking-taped directly across the hall. The sign read:

  IT’S ABOUT TIME HAIR CUTTING SALOON

  Angie stepped out of the elevator. The doors began to close. “I’d go with you but I’ve just had mine done,” Lucy said.

  “This is for real?” Angie asked her.

  “Don’t worry,” Lucy said. She held out her hand. The doors jumped back open. “She won’t even recognize you.”

  Lucy removed her hand. The elevator closed. Angie took three steps forwards. She stood in front of the door that the sign was taped to. The handle was long and metal. Angie held it for several seconds. Then she pushed it down and went inside.

  The room was obviously a disused janitor’s closet. It was small and lit by a single floor lamp. A shelf made of two-by-fours and plywood covered the back wall. There was a sink in the corner. Several mops hung to the right of it. Across from the sink was a wooden kitchen chair on which her mother slept.

  Angie watched her sleep. She counted to sixty in her head. She gave the door a good shove, and Nicola woke up.

  “Can I help you?”

  “It’s me. Angie,” she said. She watched Nicola carefully. For a fraction of a second Angie was sure that her mother recognized her. But the look quickly disappeared and, once again, Angie couldn’t be sure if she’d caught her or imagined something that wasn’t there.

  “You’re here for a haircut?”

  “It’s me. Your fourth born. Angie.”

  “You’re in luck. Mr. Weston cancelled.”

  “I’m about to have a baby …”

  “I guess I should say he was cancelled.”

  “Really? Nothing?”

  “God rest his soul,” Nicola said. She picked up the chair, turned it around and set it backwards in front of the sink. She patted it and Angie sat down. Her mother tied a peach-coloured beach towel around her neck. She touched Angie’s forehead, gently encouraging her to tilt back her head. Nicola washed Angie’s hair. The water was warm. The shampoo smelled like goat’s milk soap, which made Angie remember bathtubs full of siblings in their house on Palmerston Boulevard. She drifted off to sleep. She woke up with wet hair.

  “You must be tired.”

  “I didn’t feel that tired.”

  “Something about this room just makes people wanna sleep,” Nicola said. She pulled a white towel from the far wall, revealing a mirror. “Nothing worse than staring at yourself all day,” she said.

  Angie stood and Nicola moved the chair in front of the mirror. Angie sat down. She looked at her mother’s reflection. Nicola gathered Angie’s wet hair and let it fall over her shoulders.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “A trim?”

  “I think it needs more than that.”

  “No. Oh no. You know? Just a trim.”

  “Why don’t you let me try something?”

  “A trim is all I need. Really.”

  Nicola nodded in agreement. She reached for her scissors, took a five-inch length of her daughter’s hair between her fingers and with a firm unhesitating motion, cut. A length of black hair dropped to the floor. Angie stared at it. A second clump, even longer, fell beside it. In the mirror she saw a third length between the jaws of her mother’s scissors and as they started to close, Angie shut her eyes.

  “How far along are you?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I know you’re not supposed to ask, but I don’t know who wouldn’t know there’s a baby in there.”

  “Thirty-five weeks. Ish?”

  “A girl?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I thought so. You’re carrying pretty low for it to be a boy.”

  “If she’d been a boy I was going to name her Besnard.”

  “You’re going it alone?”

  “After my father. Besnard. Besnard Richard Weird?” Angie said. She opened her eyes. Nicola continued cutting.

  “Sorry,” she said. “No ring, that’s all. Am I prying?”

  “No. You’re not. There isn’t one.”

  Angie’s mother made a clucking sound with her tongue.

  “You disapprove?” Angie asked.

  “If a woman wants a child there’s nothing worse than not having one. It’s just very hard to do it on your own.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “No, no. Well, almost.”

  “What happened?”

  “I lost my husband.”

  “How?”

  “A storm.”

  “A storm?”

  “The Great Storm of 2001. He was lost at sea. Do you remember it? That storm?” she asked. The scissors stopped. They looked at each other in the mirror.

  “Of course.”

  “Were you in it?”

  “Sometimes I feel like I still am.”

  “Did you lose someone too?”

  “I did,” Angie said. Nicola nodded. She resumed cutting Angie’s hair. She made six more slices at the back. Then three quick stabs to the top. She held up a length from the right side of Angie’s head and cut at what seemed to be a randomly chosen point. She did the same on the left side. Exchanging her scissors for the hair dryer, Nicola flicked it to the highest setting and only then did Angie let herself cry.

  Nicola turned off the hair dryer and stepped away. Angie looked in the mirror. Her hair seemed even more chaotic than Lucy’s. Some sections on the right side seemed untouched, while all the hair on the left was cut quite short. Her bangs had been sliced into a zigzag pattern. Four tufts stuck up from the top.

  “So?” Nicola asked. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it, Mom,” Angie said. “It’s perfect.”

  Lucy was waiting by the elevator. The expression on her face remained neutral. She pressed the up button but the elevator doors did not open and then she started to laugh.

  “We could be twins!” Lucy said. She ran her hands all over Angie’s head.

  “It is really that bad?”

  “I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it.”

  “I still think she’s faking.”

  “She’s not faking.”

  “I saw a look. A look of recognition. Just for a moment,” Angie said.

  Lucy stopped. S
he took Angie’s hands. She held them tightly and she did not loosen her grip. “She fakes that,” Lucy said. “That she does fake, no doubt.”

  “She fakes what?”

  “She pretends, just at first, just for a moment, that she recognizes you. Just to see if she’s supposed to. Then it goes away. It always goes away.”

  There was a ping and the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside.

  “I didn’t think of that,” Angie said.

  “It always goes away.”

  “Still. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Stop playing with it.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “We have to get to the airport. Our plane leaves at 11:15.”

  “I really appreciate this …”

  “It’s no big deal. Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not … crying.”

  “It’s okay. Calm down. It’ll all be all right.”

  “Everything’s … so … e … motional … right … now.”

  “I know. I know it is,” Lucy said, “as it always has been.”

  The elevator doors opened. They followed the wheelchair tracks to the lobby. The taxi was still waiting for them.

  WHEN RICHARD WEIRD WOKE UP and looked at the clock beside his bed it was 11:56. He studied the pillow beside him. It did not appear to have been slept on and he knew that she was gone.

  Richard lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. It had just been painted cloud white. His wife’s absence provoked the same emotional response as the ceiling did. This made him feel shallow and flawed but also relieved. It made him feel safe.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed Richard pushed his toes into the blue shag carpet. He took his cigarettes from the bedside table. He lit one. He inhaled deeply. It was halfway done when he stood up. The inch-long ash fell to the floor. Richard walked across the room and opened the top drawer of his dresser. Underneath his socks he found the purple bag with the yellow drawstring. He opened it and turned it upside down. Two wedding rings, and nothing else, fell out.

  One of the rings was silver. It had been given to him by his first wife, Nancy Kensington. They were married in March of 2003, less than two years after the death of his father. Their union had lasted seventeen months. It ended primarily because he met Debra Campbell.

  Debra gave Richard the other ring, which was gold, during a service conducted on August 5, 2005. This was the day his divorce from Nancy was finalized. From the moment they ran out of city hall and onto Queen Street, Richard felt himself drifting away. They stuck it out another ten months. Debra claimed that his emotional distance was a conscious decision and Richard had been unable to disagree.

  He then, determinedly, stayed single for another three years. He married Sarah English, the woman who’d given him the ring that was still on his finger, on September 20, 2009. He married her believing that their love was forever. And every day Richard woke up beside his wife, he found himself a little more in love with her. This meant that every day he felt just a little more vulnerable to her. It was merely a consequence of time before, feeling increasingly unsafe, Richard began to pull away.

  This had happened in all three of his marriages. It had happened with every woman he’d ever fallen in love with.

  Richard switched the cigarette from his left hand to his right and put the knuckle of his ring finger in his mouth. Wetting the skin, he slid the ring off. He put it inside the purple bag. He put the two other rings back inside it as well. Then he drew the yellow drawstring and placed the bag underneath his socks. As he closed the drawer more ash fell to the carpet.

  He was in the bathroom, midstream, when he noticed that something had been written in soap on the bathroom mirror. He flushed the toilet. He washed his hands. Then he read the message.

  Richard:

  I’m sorry but I’m leaving you.

  I think you want it this way. I

  think you still love me (OVER)

  “Over?” Richard asked.

  For several moments Richard looked at his reflection. The word sorry appeared to be written on his forehead. Then he opened the medicine cabinet. The writing, still in soap, continued on the inside of the door. The back of the medicine cabinet was white and so was the soap. Richard opened and closed the door until he found an angle that allowed him to read it.

  If you do, prove it. I am flying

  home. My plane leaves at 5:15.

  We have something worth

  keeping. Don’t be afraid of me.

  Sarah

  Richard shut the door of the medicine cabinet. The sun broke through the clouds, filling the bathroom with light. Richard ran to the bedroom and took his camera from the bedside table. He returned to the bathroom. The light was still perfect. He took many pictures from many angles of the medicine cabinet and the note that was written on the mirror. Only when the light faded did he lower his camera. Then he went back to the bedroom, dressed, took his wedding ring out of the bag and put it back on his finger. He packed a suitcase and called for an airport limo.

  When the limo arrived Richard inspected it and found it met his approval.

  Richard arrived at the Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport just before four. A ticket for American Airlines flight AA487 to Washington, D.C. was easily purchased. He checked his bag. He stood in the line to enter security screening. It was 4:25. The security guard held out his hand for Richard’s boarding pass. Richard reached into his pocket. He touched it. But the paper felt cold. He did not feel that it would keep him safe. Richard took his hand out of his pocket, leaving the boarding pass inside.

  “Est-ce que je peux vous aider?” the guard asked.

  “No, I don’t think you can,” Richard replied. He picked up his suitcase, stepped out of line and walked away. He was almost out of the airport, so close to the automatic doors that they’d rumbled open, when he saw them. He reached out and touched them. Angie and Lucy turned around and Richard, who had already raised his camera, took a picture.

  WHEN NICOLA WENT INTO LABOUR with Richard, she was not surprised that her husband put her into the back of a taxi, or that he got behind the wheel, but that he started the meter. It was March 16, 1982. Nicola sat in the back seat. She gripped the door handle as another contraction went through her. When she looked back up the amount owing on the meter equalled the number of months she’d been married—$3.00.

  In those three months Nicola had been unable to determine whether she loved Besnard, or just the chaos that he brought into her life. But as their unplanned pregnancy continued on schedule, there had been less and less time to worry about this. And now that the baby was almost here, the question was irrelevant: if she loved him, fantastic; if she only loved the chaos, there seemed to be no shortage of it.

  Besnard raced south on University. He sped past cars, aiming for pockets of space that hadn’t yet opened up. Nicola held the door handle tighter. She found this thrilling. It was the first time she’d seen him behind the wheel. Besnard had been driving a cab for four months, learning the ropes of his father’s business, the Grace Taxi Service, which he was set to inherit. As they approached College Street, Nicola felt another contraction starting and the car went faster.

  The traffic light was yellow. The taxi increased its speed, again—Nicola tightened her grip. The light turned red. She closed her eyes. They sped forwards. She heard a metallic crunch and the back end of the taxi jumped to the left. But they didn’t stop.

  Nicola opened her eyes and saw Besnard correcting the skid. He slowed down. He looked in the rear-view mirror. Once he’d seen that the damage to the red Ford Falcon was minimal, he sped up again. Thirty seconds later he stopped in front of Mount Sinai Hospital. He turned off the meter.

  “Seven dollars and twenty-five cents!” he said, “Unheard of!”

  “You could have killed us!”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “That’s true,” Nicola said. She wanted to be angry but what she really felt was protected. That he would bre
ak so many laws to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible boded well, she felt. The delivery, although stunningly painful, was without complications and Besnard Richard Weird Jr. came into the world six hours later.

  The following morning, Grandmother Weird arrived at 9:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before visiting hours began. She was about to turn fifty-four. Her son was only twenty-two. His bride a mere nineteen. As she took the infant into her arms, a sense of maternal responsibility swelled up inside her such as she had never felt before—not even with Besnard. It was at this exact moment that the child’s parents began to relate the details of their adventurous trip to the hospital.

  “And then he just kept going!” Nicola said.

  “It wasn’t really that big. Not even a crash. A literal fender-bender. But still …” Besnard said.

  “He went right to the hospital! He didn’t even stop!”

  “Seven dollars and twenty-five cents on the meter. A record!”

  As Grandmother Weird listened, her heart began beating faster. She held her grandson tighter. She wanted to cover his ears. She could not believe that his parents were mythologizing a moment of such irresponsibility and recklessness. She felt in her heart, her giant oversized heart, that this precious new Weird needed to be protected. She did not believe that his parents could do it. She knew that she wouldn’t be around forever. Grandmother Weird concluded that this task would have to fall to him. Her desire for her grandchild to possess this power, the ability to keep safe, was so strong that it took shape within her. And then it tumbled out of her, and into him.

  All of the Weird children had inklings that Richard possessed this ability. They suspected that in some significant way they fell under the umbrella of it as well. But they had no definitive proof until December 26, 1993, shortly before 4 p.m. The house on Palmerston Boulevard was filled with relatives, and after getting underfoot one time too many, the five of them were shoved into snowsuits and ski jackets, and into the backyard.