Fruit

by Brian Francis

  I know that Andrew needs me to help him. He wants me to be the Voice of Reason.

  “We have to call the police,” I tell him. “We have to report your stepfather.”

  “No!” Andrew says. “You don’t know how powerful my stepfather is. He has the police force by the balls. If we call them, we’re dead men.”

  “Well, what do you think we should do?”

  Andrew stares at me for a good, long time. “We have to run away,” he says. “Pack your bags. We’re catching the first train to the city. We can find jobs and get an apartment and go shopping together and stay up all night, talking about our dreams.”

  “I can’t up and leave,” I tell Andrew. “Too many people here depend on me. I’ve got papers to deliver tomorrow.”

  Andrew nods slowly. We both know what the other must do, even though it’s tearing us apart.

  “Crime doesn’t pay, Peter,” Andrew says softly. He wipes his eyes.

  “Hey there,” I say, “don’t let them beat you.”

  I go over to the phone. “I’ll book your ticket and pay for it,” I tell him.

  “No, please don’t,” Andrew says, “you’ve already done so much.”

  “It’s something I want to do,” I tell him. “We’re friends, remember?”

  “Best friends,” Andrew says. Then he looks down. I can tell he’s embarrassed and wants to say something else.

  “What is it?” I ask him.

  “Before I go, could I have a hug? I mean, I can understand if you don’t want to, but it’s just that whenever I’m around you, I feel protected and safe.”

  “Of course you can,” I smile. Andrew starts walking over to me. I can hear his heart beating loudly and I notice the tiny blond hairs on his chest. All of a sudden, there’s a big flash of lightning that cuts the power in the house. The lights go out and then Andrew and I are standing in the dark.

  Although I can’t see him, Andrew is so close to me that I can smell the orange pop on his breath. I want to ask him, “Do you condition your hair?” but I can’t. The words get frozen in my mouth. The rain gets louder.

  Then I fall asleep.

  five

  I’ll never be able to leave the house again, thanks to Uncle Ed.

  Michelle Appleby’s older sister, Janice, works at the Donut Delite on Huron Street. Michelle told me that Janice told her that Uncle Ed came in there last week. He ordered two dozen donuts and a Diet Coke.

  When Uncle Ed found out where Janice went to school, he pulled a picture of me out of his wallet and asked her if she recognized me. When I first heard the story, I wasn’t thinking about Uncle Ed. I was too excited by the fact that Janice recognized me. She was very popular, mainly because she let guys finger her at recess. I never said two words to her, but she must’ve thought highly of me.

  “What did Janice say?” I asked Michelle. Maybe Janice had a secret crush on me.

  “She said she kind of remembered you, that you were in my grade and fat, right?”

  “Oh.”

  “So your uncle said, ‘Yep, that’s the one all right. He’s my sister’s kid.’ Janice says he comes in there every Tuesday and orders a couple dozen donuts. She said he always makes up some story that they’re not all for him, but everyone knows he’s full of shit.”

  I was so embarrassed and angry. Now everyone in Sarnia would know that I was related to Uncle Ed.

  “Why did you give him a picture?” I asked my mom. “I asked you not to. I knew he’d do this.”

  “Well, he asked me for a picture and what was I supposed to say?” my mom asked. “He’s proud of you, that’s all.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “He’s just trying to embarrass me. He’s going around to everyone in Sarnia, telling them things about me. Private things.”

  My mom crossed her arms against her chest. “Now what would Uncle Ed possibly know about you that would be so private?”

  “Plenty,” I said, even though I couldn’t really think of anything. But that wasn’t the point. Just knowing that Uncle Ed had my stupid grade 8 picture crammed in his wallet was enough to freak me out. I told my mom to tell him to take it out.

  “He’s highly sensitive at this age,” I heard her say to him on the phone. “Remember how you were at thirteen, Ed?”

  I don’t think Uncle Ed could remember that far back. He told my mom he wouldn’t show my picture anymore, but didn’t understand why he had to keep me a secret. Uncle Ed doesn’t realize that I’m the one trying to keep him a secret.

  As if people finding out that I’m related to Uncle Ed wasn’t bad enough, my dad told me that he’d made an appointment for me to see Dr. Luka.

  “Why?” I asked. I felt my nipples twitch beneath my sweatshirt.

  “Because you haven’t gone in a long time,” he said, “and it’s important for you to have a checkup.”

  I don’t like Dr. Luka very much, even though he’s never been mean to me or anything. He’s just very, very old — old enough to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Oldest Living Doctor. He has cold hands, too. I think he’s German because he can’t pronounce w’s. He says them like v’s. So does his wife, Mrs. Luka. She’s old, too. She’s the receptionist and sits at a desk in the living room. When she’s not on the phone yakking to one of her friends, she makes sock monkeys. I don’t know if she sells them or gives them away to poor kids or what. All I know is that whenever I come to an appointment, there are monkey arms and monkey legs and monkey heads all over the place. I think she’s almost blind because she holds everything really close to her face. The few times I noticed, I thought she was sniffing the monkeys, which disturbed me a bit. Then I realized she couldn’t see where she was sticking the needle. I’d be careful if I were her.

  There was no way I was going to see Dr. Luka. For sure he’d discover my deformed nipples and tell my parents and he’d probably even call some photographers to take pictures to include in one of those “Freaks of the 20th Century” books.

  “The nurse at Clarkedale does physical exams on all the students,” I told my dad. “She’s pretty good and even checks for lice using toothpicks. So I don’t think I need to see Dr. Luka.”

  “Well that may be, but I still think it’s important for you to see a regular doctor.”

  My mother walked into the living room. “A doctor? Is something the matter?”

  “No, Beth,” my dad sighed. “I was just telling Peter I made an appointment for a checkup. But he doesn’t seem to want to go.”

  “Is there a reason you don’t want to go?” my mother frowned.

  I felt like a bug about to be squashed. Both of my parents were looking at me. I knew that if they started to get suspicious, they’d tell Dr. Luka to examine me extra carefully.

  “Cover every square inch,” my dad would say.

  “He’s hiding something!” my mother would whisper/scream to Mrs. Luka in the waiting room. “We’ll find out what it is soon enough!”

  “No, I don’t mind going,” I said and tried to smile. “I just have a lot of tests coming up that I need to study for. Maybe I can go see Dr. Luka in a couple of months. Or next year, even.”

  “I’ve made the appointment for next Tuesday,” my dad said.

  “Oh.”

  The next day was Sunday, which meant Uncle Ed was coming for dinner.

  When he opened the back door, he yelled, “What’s in the news?” Then he threw a garbage bag full of dirty laundry down the stairs. “Look out below!”

  My mom washes his towels, shirts, and pants. She never washes his underwear, though.

  “He says he washes them on his own,” she said once. “But all he has is mother’s old wringer-washer and I’d be surprised if he knew how to work it. More than likely, he washes his shorts in the sink and I don’t know how hygienic that is. Of course, he never was the cleanest person.”

  She never washes his bed sheets, either. The last time she did was in 1976. She said they went into the washing machine grey
and came out white. “I haven’t seen them since and that was eight years ago. Lord only knows what colour they are now.”

  I heard my mom say, “Hello Ed,” in a voice that was between angry and tired. “Did you remember to pick up the rolls?”

  “Beth, you know I don’t drive.”

  “Don’t be smart,” my mom said. “You know what kind of rolls I’m talking about. You forgot to get them, didn’t you?”

  “Guilty,” Uncle Ed said.

  “Oh for god’s sake, Ed. I ask you to pick up one thing for me. Well, we just won’t have rolls tonight. And if anyone asks why, I’ll look at you and you can do the explaining.”

  “I’ll take the heat,” Uncle Ed said. “Fair enough.”

  “But you better start tying a string around your finger or something, Ed. I mean it.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  Nancy and I were sitting in the living room. “Oh god,” she whispered.

  “In the living room, watching TV.”

  “What’s in the news?” Uncle Ed asked when he walked in. He was wearing a Detroit Red Wings baseball cap and a red Hawaiian shirt.

  “Not much,” Nancy said.

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Where’s Christine?” Uncle Ed plopped down in the brown velour chair with a grunt.

  “In her room.”

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “What are you watching?”

  “Some movie.”

  “Wonder what that football score is now.”

  “Do you want to check?”

  “Maybe just for a minute.”

  It’s the same every Sunday. Uncle Ed always manages to get the television turned to whatever sports game is on that afternoon. And it never is “just a minute” because a half hour will go by and then my mother will call “Supper!” and he’ll look up, kind of surprised and say, “Is it dinnertime already?” But no one really minds if he gets the TV because it means he talks less.

  I was a bit nervous that he was going to bring up Janice Appleby, but he didn’t say anything to me. Sometimes, I feel bad about being embarrassed by Uncle Ed. I mean, it’s not his fault he’s the way he is.

  “You can’t get a leopard to change his spots,” my mom said once. We were all waiting for Uncle Ed to show up for dinner. He was forty-five minutes late and the chicken in the oven had shrunk to the size of a chickadee. “If only Ed wasn’t Ed, things might have turned out all right for him.”

  She always says that if Uncle Ed lost weight, he could find someone else to do his laundry.

  “Not just cooking and cleaning and things like that,” she said. “But someone to take care of him, too. Emotionally, I mean. Someone to say ‘Ed, you put down that fork,’ or ‘Ed, are you having sugar with your coffee or coffee with your sugar?’ God knows I’m tired of doing it. And I shouldn’t have to do it in the first place.”

  “Why didn’t Uncle Ed ever get married?” I asked her once.

  “Mother smothered him,” she sighed. “The sun just rose and set on Eddy, there was no doubt about that. Now look how he’s turned out. Can’t cook for himself. Can’t clean. Can’t even wash a towel. And not a wife in sight for miles. And then, of course, there’s the other thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  My mom looked at me hard. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m just talking nonsense. But just promise me you’ll never let yourself become like him, Peter. I mean it.”

  I kept trying to think of ways to get out of my appointment with Dr. Luka, but it was a dead end. There was no way of getting out of it unless I died and I didn’t really see that happening any time soon.

  The night before my appointment, I decided I had no choice but to go with untaped nipples and keep my fingers crossed. Considering Dr. Luka was so old, it might not be too hard to confuse him, anyway.

  “Take my sweatshirt off? Dr. Luka, I just put it back on!”

  My appointment was at 4:30 p.m. so I had just enough time to come home, peel off the masking tape, and rub some of my mother’s skin lotion on my nipples.

  “You can’t shut us up this easily,” they said.

  “Take a hike,” I said.

  My mother ended up coming with us because she wanted to go to Zellers. You can only get to Zellers by making a left-hand turn, so she doesn’t get there too often.

  “I have to get a dozen glass ashtrays,” she said. “We’re making candle holders at the next U.C.W. meeting. I don’t know how you get a candle holder out of an ashtray, let alone twelve of them. However.”

  Having her with us made me more nervous, but she promised she wasn’t going to interfere.

  “You won’t even know I’m there,” she said.

  Mrs. Luka was on the telephone when we arrived. She waved a monkey arm at us and mouthed “Come in!”

  The office was hot and smelled like old people. It wouldn’t kill either of the Lukas to crack open a window once in a while.

  “Vell, how are you today?” Mrs. Luka said when she hung up the phone. “Little Peter, I have not seen you in a very long time. Vhat grade are you in now? Five?”

  “Eight,” I said.

  “Oh yes. Vhy don’t I go and tell the doctor you are here?”

  When Dr. Luka came out to get me, I thought about a movie I saw once about an Egyptian mummy who comes back from the dead.

  “Valk this vay, young man,” Dr. Luka said. He turned to my parents. “You can vait out here. There are some magazines on the table if you like.”

  Once I got into Dr. Luka’s office and sat down on the examining table, I started to get a little nervous. What if he asked me to take off my jacket?

  “Now Peter, vhy don’t you take off your sweatshirt and your pants and lie back on the table?”

  I froze. Dr. Luka was shuffling around, looking for his stethoscope. “Why?” I asked. It was a stupid question, I know, but it was the only thing I could think of.

  Dr. Luka turned around to look at me. “So that I can examine you,” he said.

  “Oh. Can I keep my T-shirt on? I mean, it’s just a bit cold in here.”

  “Sure, sure,” Dr. Luka said. “Vhatever makes you happy.”

  I pulled off my sweatshirt, stepped out of my rugby pants, and laid back, resting my hands over my nipples.

  After tapping me on the knee a few times with his hammer and listening to my heartbeat, Dr. Luka told me to step onto his scales.

  “Pardon?” I asked. I was so worried about my nipples that I didn’t even think that Dr. Luka might want to weigh me. I couldn’t remember the last time I stepped on a scale, especially while there was another person in the room.

  “It vill only take a moment,” Dr. Luka said.

  I kept my eyes closed the whole time I was on.

  “Okay, Peter. Vhy don’t you put your clothes back on? I’m going to bring your parents in here for a minute.”

  When my mom and dad were sitting down in the room, Dr. Luka pulled out my file. “Peter is thirteen years old. And he veighs two hundred and four pounds. If you don’t change his eating habits, I guarantee you there vill be health problems in the future.”

  My mother laughed her fake laugh. “Dr. Luka, Peter is a teenager,” she said. “And you know how teenagers eat. I can’t monitor him at all hours of the day. Besides, it’s natural. Every other teenager I know eats French fries and fast food and hot dogs. Why should Peter be denied that? I don’t think it’s very fair to ask a teenage boy to live off yogurt and celery sticks, do you?”

  The more she went on, the higher her voice got. My dad sat there and said nothing. I wanted to disappear. Dr. Luka just kept looking at his papers.

  “Fatness runs on my side of the family,” my mom said. Her voice was hurting my ears. “Come to our family reunion, Dr. Luka! You’ll see!”

  Things got worse on the car ride home.

  “Why is everything my fault?” my mom asked my dad.

  “No one said it was anyone’s fault, Beth.”r />
  “The doctor didn’t have to. I could see it in his eyes. Blame the mother! Blame the mother! Why not? Everyone else always does. Look at how Nancy treats me now.”

  My mom said that because something’s different about Nancy. She broke up with André a few weeks after my mom’s birthday dinner at the Conch Shell and bought a Jane Fonda record. I watched the other day as she poured a packet of Sugar Twin into her tea.

  “Those chemicals aren’t good for you,” my mother had said.

  “Neither is obesity,” Nancy said and went back to her room.

  “It’s not my fault he doesn’t play sports,” my mom said to my dad. “You should take him golfing more often, Henry. That’s what a father does with his son.”

  I almost died when she said that. She turned to me in the back seat.

  “You just need to exercise more, dear,” she said. “That’s all. Less time in front of the TV and more time out playing with your friends.”

  “I’d have a boy friend right now if it wasn’t for you,” I felt like saying. But I didn’t want her to know about Andrew. She’d be on my case all the time, asking me if I called him. So I bit my tongue.

  “Beth, I don’t think the solution to this is golf,” my dad said.

  “Well what is the solution, Henry? Assuming there is some kind of problem to begin with. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Peter. He’s my little angel.”

  “There you go again,” my dad said as we pulled into the driveway.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Smothering him. Making excuses for him. Setting him up just like you know who.”

  “Who?” my mother asked. “Who?” She sounded like an owl.

  My father didn’t say anything. He just got out and left the two of us sitting in the car.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him, Peter,” my mother said, “he’s just grouchy from shift work. It happens. Oh no! I forgot about getting the ashtrays!”

  She ran into the house to get my father. I got out and went straight to my room, shut the door, and stuck my desk chair under the knob. I should’ve been happy that Dr. Luka didn’t discover my nipples, but I wasn’t. All I kept thinking about was what Dr. Luka had said when he stopped adjusting the scale.