Imperfections

by Bradley Somer

  How could it be that I had never seen it before, this unintroduced little stranger on my own body?

  Without an intimate knowledge of my anus, I couldn’t tell if it was any different after Paige’s intrusion.

  Was it supposed to look like that?

  How could I not know every inch of my body after living in it for twenty years?

  If I didn’t know this about myself, what else didn’t I know?

  My butt hole was something on the outside, something that I could have seen if I had only looked. Yet there it was, a total surprise. Its presence led me to think, if I was such a stranger on the outside, did I truly know anything about myself? If I didn’t know every inch of my own skin, where did I stand on bigger issues like how did I feel about the recent IRA action in Manchester? Was I a conspiracy theorist because I believed the crash of TWA Flight 800 was the result of an American missile attack? Where did I stand on fur in fashion?

  Someone cleared their throat.

  I bolted upright, immediately flushed with embarrassment, thrusting my hands in front of my creeping jimber in a hopeless bid for modesty.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was Paige, in a housecoat with the hotel monogram embroidered on it.

  “Um, I’m looking for Aspirin.”

  “Probably won’t find any in there.” Paige laughed, crossed the room and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Richard, you’re amazing. We are so lucky we found each other, in this life I mean.” Then she said in an even, unwavering tone. “I knew one day we’d be together. I used to watch you with the others backstage. The world seemed to just move as static around a crystal clear you. Once, I even hid behind a rack of evening gowns so I could watch you uninterrupted. I’d watch you onstage, my eyes getting dry because I didn’t even want to blink. I couldn’t take my mind off you, even in my sleep. I knew you’d find your way to me and we’d be together again. Forever.”

  What was she talking about?

  “You should move in to my place,” she said. “I have space in my closet for your clothes.”

  What happened last night?

  “It only makes sense,” she said. “You have a roommate and I don’t. I’ll call movers when we get back to the city. I don’t see any reason to wait.”

  I glanced at my finger. No wedding band.

  “You can go get a key cut and… what’s wrong?” Paige asked.

  “Aspirin, I don’t see any.”

  I brushed a hand clumsily through the medicine cabinet, knocking some bottles over. One clattered into the sink. Another fell to the floor, popped open and sent a hail of candy-red pills bouncing across the tile.

  “I’m going to step out to the store to get some,” I said.

  “Okay, sexy. When you come back, we can go for breakfast and talk some more and…” she beamed, “…I love you, too.”

  I wasn’t aware I said anything to elicit such a declaration.

  “I didn’t want to say it back last night because if you didn’t mean it I would have, I mean, I don’t deal well with hurt, not at all. I didn’t want to scare you because when I feel this way, when I say those words, it’s intense.” She shuddered. “Now, get out. I have to pee.”

  “Right,” I said. She puckered, I dodged her lips and aimed a kiss at her cheek. It missed when she quickly realigned her lips and wound up being a clumsy peck on the side of her nose.

  I tore through the room. In less time than it took Paige to roust the others out of the bathroom, I was standing in the elevator wearing the only pair of pants I found, ones that were too short and legs ending in constricting rings at my calves, a billowy orange blouse, and one shoe that was a size too small. I pretended to be absorbed in the numbers counting down above the door in an attempt to ignore the stares of my elevator-mates. I hobbled through the lobby and stopped dead when the concierge addressed me.

  “Good morning Mr. Trench. I trust you’re enjoying your stay. Is the room to your liking?”

  I smiled politely and thought about how to get those people out of my hotel room.

  When Donna came back from Miami, I didn’t mention a thing. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had told her about the whole drug-induced orgy adventure because she wouldn’t have heard. She complained for a week about feeling like she was walking around with a pillow between her legs.

  All that was several months before taking Donna to dinner to meet Mother and Father. Donna had become used to her new labia and her face had regained some expression. Her forehead was still lifeless and one side of her mouth drew higher than the other when she smiled, leaving the expression more of a sinister sneer.

  The driver cursed and swerved.

  I prayed for a horrible accident in which Donna would be shredded through a windshield cheese grater and I would be pulped in a car-wreck juicer. That was how I felt as we were driven from the airport to Father’s house for dinner. For the first time since she walked out, Mother would be there. And she was bringing her boyfriend. Father told me her boyfriend was bringing his daughter who was in town visiting.

  I had invited Leonard and Rachel to meet us at Father’s because I wanted to see them too—that and I needed people in my corner of the ring. I could think of less stressful ways to introduce my fiancée to the family.

  “Fuckin’ drive much?” Donna shrieked as she was jolted about in her seat and grabbed at her seat belt, which hung pendulous and unbuckled.

  I thought she was venting at the ’89 Monte Carlo that cut us off but she was shouting at our driver.

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  The driver of the Monte Carlo actually didn’t drive much. He was sixteen, fresh licence in his wallet and he had just bought the car for two thousand dollars from Mary Koshushner. He loved the car. It was his first.

  “Easy, baby,” I said to Donna. My heart was near exploding and I didn’t know if it could take a Donna rant.

  “Excuse me?” she asked, though I know she heard me.

  I said nothing. I stared out the window. We turned onto the street I grew up on. It seemed older in subtle ways. The trees were taller, their trunks thicker. The pastel-coloured vinyl siding, flashing by the window, seemed out of date now. The pavement had a few more cracks and the lights in the evening dusk seemed a dimmer, more tired variety of orange than I remembered.

  “Did you just tell me easy?”

  She knew I did, she needed to repeat it to make sure I knew why she was about to emasculate me.

  “This pecker damn near kills me,” she jabbed a finger at the driver. I could tell she wished it was a knife. “I hit my head and you tell me easy? That fucker probably gave me a third-degree concrushion and you easy, baby me?”

  The driver glanced at us in the rear-view mirror.

  “It’s concussion,” I said. “And can we just get along tonight? I haven’t seen my parents in years and I’m a little scared.”

  “Excuse me?” Donna looked at me as if I slapped her. Her mouth hung open, slightly crooked from the lingering Botox. “Did you just tell me to just get along?”

  She knew I did. She needed to repeat it to make sure I knew why she was going to do the opposite. Before she could, I tapped the driver gently on the shoulder and pointed at a house.

  “That one, please,” I said.

  He nodded and I felt the ounce of camaraderie I so desired. He pulled to the curb and we all got out. We stood there awkwardly, Donna fuming, me fishing in my wallet for a tip and the driver wondering why I was giving him two hundred dollars when there was no luggage to carry.

  The Town Car pulled away and I watched the brake lights glow at the end of the block before disappearing around the corner. The smell of the evening air, mown grass and barbecue took me back to nights in the yard as a kid. I hadn't heard a night so quiet in years. A breeze rustled through the trees. I shivered, though the air wasn’t cold. Donna didn’t speak or unclasp her arms, but she let me place a hand on the small of her back and walk beside her to the front porch. The muscles
underneath her gown were tight and I could almost feel a chill air cascade from her skin.

  I rang the doorbell and said, “Can we just…”

  “What?” She snapped.

  Pretend to like each other, I thought, but before I could dig a deeper hole the door opened and we were awash in the chunky guitar and Moog synth of ABBA’s “Hey, Hey Helen” mixed with the inviting sound of cutlery and dishes and conversation from within the house.

  Without a word, Father lunged from the warm orange light of the house into the cool blue of the porch. He enveloped me in a hug. He smelled like a cigarette and his body was solid. He had been working out in the three years since I had seen him.

  He held me out at arm’s length and smiled. “You’re small,” he said. “Good to see you, Son.”

  His hair had become salty and the corners of his eyes had wrinkles that I didn’t remember. For some reason, I felt like crying.

  “Father,” I stuttered, my voice weak with emotion, “this is my fiancée, Donna.”

  Sometimes I really hate her. What do I do?

  “Welcome.” Father gave Donna a smothering hug and then stepped back, holding her out to admire her.

  Donna smiled, her hands resting like feathers on his biceps. The chill that had been there a moment ago had thawed.

  With exaggerated gestures and many admiring looks and pauses, Father led us to the dining room. We were the last to arrive. Leonard and Rachel sat beside each other at the table and smiled as we entered. Mother stood and rushed over to us.

  “Honey,” she said, tears welling up, chin trembling, arms outstretched. “Oh my Spirit Warrior, it has been so long. And Donna,” she paused, “welcome to our family. We are so lucky to have such beauty in our souls. Richard, honey, you remember Mike Sloane?” She gestured to the man sitting across from Leonard and Rachel.

  I swallowed, my mind reeling to the Sharing Circle and my abandonment by the universal flow. The deep feeling of loneliness I had felt at that time came back and I wanted to leap across the table and stick my fist through Dr. Sloane’s teeth.

  Instead I said, “Yes, I do.” I nodded. “Dr. Sloane.”

  “Please,” he smiled, “call me Mike. I’m you’re stepdad after all.”

  I looked to Father, who was grinning stupidly and emptying a wine bottle into Dr. Sloane’s wineglass, seemingly unfazed by the cascading madness. It seemed each word took my life one more step into lunacy. Father twisted the drop and left for the kitchen.

  “Stepfather?” I had been gone for too long. “You’re married. Married and moved to New York?”

  “Yes, honey.” Mother rubbed my arm. “I know you meant to join us at the ceremony but…”

  I tried to remember if I knew about this. There was that voicemail a year or so ago from Father. I was in a bar in Tokyo. It had been loud, the reception was poor and I think Father was drunk. As I remembered, it went something like, “Your Mother’s gone. It’s all over. Come to New York on Friday. Call me.”

  I just figured she had died and the funeral was Friday, not that Mother and Father had divorced and Mother was getting remarried. I didn’t call back because the next day I proposed, Donna left for her labiaplasty, I took drugs and… then there was the message the next morning from Mother. I checked it as I stood at the hotel door, being stared at by the doorman, wearing that orange blouse and someone else’s shoe.

  “Honey… it’s Mother. Richard, dear, I know we haven’t talked in a while…”

  I had dropped the phone and it broke on the sidewalk. I had not heard from her in years and then, to my drug-addled mind, I was receiving a voicemail from my dead mother.

  Here she now stood, a hand on my shoulder, introducing my stepsister Abigail.

  “Abigail Spencer, not Sloane,” Abigail said. “Dad’s a chronic monogamist. My mom was two wives ago. You join a large clan, Richard.”

  Rachel looked uncomfortable and Leonard grinned, as if revelling in my family’s madness, as if he’d missed being a spectator to it.

  Mother clapped her hands and beamed from Abigail to Donna to me. “I wonder what your father has made us for supper,” she said and we took our seats.

  From the smells and curses coming from the kitchen, I guessed he was going to serve us a three-course meal of failure. The ruckus reached a crescendo and ended with a punctuated crash. Father came in wiping his hands on a tea towel, his biceps rolling massifs under his skin. Donna’s functional eyebrow raised and she sneered.

  “How’s Chinese takeout for everyone?” he called on his way to the phone.

  There was a mumbled agreement and the order was placed. Donna excused herself and went into the backyard for a cigarette. I followed. Leonard followed. Rachel and Abigail huddled conspiratorially.

  By the time the patio door slid closed behind Leonard, Donna was halfway through a cigarette. She surveyed the backyard, her arm cocked at the elbow, her elbow locked to her hip and the cigarette held elegantly above her shoulder. Her eyes travelled from the dying orange tree, across the scorched grass, to the tendrils of weeds reaching up from the flower bed along the fence. She grunted.

  “Donna,” Leonard said. “So good to see you again. Congratulations on the engagement.”

  “Thank you,” Donna sneered at Leonard. “Richard, why don’t you introduce me to your friend.”

  “Donna,” I said. “You’ve met Leonard. At Dewar’s show last year in Vegas.”

  “Really. I see,” she said. She waved her cigarette at the yard. “I am going for a walk around the gardens.” She stepped off the deck and, within seconds, was at the back fence. She stopped, looked over her shoulder at us and, in five more seconds, was at the flower bed near the house. She continued this way while Leonard and I talked.

  “Congrats, Richard,” Leonard said. “How are things with you?”

  “Great. Designers can’t seem to get enough of me. I’ve been in ten countries in so many weeks. Tomorrow, I’m going to Milan. According to Chester, I’m top twenty in the industry, moving into the top ten by the end of the year.”

  “That’s great,” Leonard said, his eyes following Donna ricocheting around the yard, contemplating dead undergrowth. “I meant, how are things with you and Donna?”

  “Oh, it’s amazing. I hardly see her she’s so busy. She’ll be Kate Moss kind of legendary in a few years.”

  “That’s great,” Leonard said. “I meant between the two of you, outside of work.”

  “Oh, good. How are you and Rachel?”

  “Really good. We’re off for a break soon. I can’t wait to just chill on the beach with her. Chat. You know?”

  My look must have said that I didn’t know. Leonard’s face fell. We watched Donna for a moment.

  “I’m going to run something by you, Richard. Don’t get freaked out,” Leonard lowered his voice. “I’ve stumbled onto something huge at work, something people would kill for, something almost as amazing as a fountain of youth but kind of the opposite. I’m still working out the details and it’s not 100 percent perfect yet, but if I can iron out the wrinkles, this could change the world.”

  “You discovered something that could change the world… writing obituaries?”

  “Don’t freak out, okay? But I’ve come across deaths, two people, three people, more, everyone all linked together.”

  I failed to see the source of wonder.

  “I’m talking more than just two married people dying in a car wreck,” Leonard continued. “More than a bus full of geeks plunging off a cliff on the way to a computer convention. I’m talking about far-reaching, seemingly abstract, seemingly coincidental deaths. I think I can prove that there are no coincidences in death.”

  “Great,” I exclaimed, not sure what was being demanded of me other than not to “freak out,” which I thought I was managing quite admirably.

  Donna’s orbit around the yard took her in a precariously close swing by us. Leonard waited until she passed.

  He sighed. “Don’t you see?” his voice hu
shed. “Death is predictable. There are connections between us all and our deaths are laid out before us, if we can only figure out how it works. There’s a pattern, a huge web that connects us all.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Oscar Wilde became legally entangled in a lawsuit over relations with the Marquess of Queensberry’s son. Wilde went to prison, two years hard labour. Both Wilde and the Marquess died in 1900. Ten months apart. They were ten years apart in age.”

  “Wow,” I said to the silence Leonard had let linger. I hadn’t meant it to sound sarcastic.

  “I was doing some research and… you know about the day that music died, right? So that morning, the band wants to get on a plane but it only seats three. Buddy Holly is on board, of course, the band can’t go on without him. The Big Bopper has the flu, so his buddy Waylon Jennings gives up his seat. Ritchie Valens flips a coin for the last seat with his bandmate Tommy Allsup, who loses. They take off and later the plane crashes and Buddy, the Big Bopper and Ritchie all die.”

  “You said there was more to this than geeks plunging off a cliff. It’s not some mystical connection they all died at the same time. Musicians dying in plane crashes, happens all the time.”

  “Hear me out. Know who else died that same day? Far away, in New York, a fellow by the name of Vincent Astor has a heart attack and dies. He was the son of John Jacob Astor the fourth, the fellow who, before dying on the Titanic, helped design the turbine engine on the plane that the Big Bopper went down in.”

  I glanced at Leonard. “It’s not an exact science you’re onto is it?”

  “No,” Leonard agreed. “Not yet. I’ve just started to figure it out. The part you don’t seem to get, the world-changing part is, from this I may well be able to predict when people die.”

  There was a moment of silence when Donna swung by again as she roamed the gardens. What Leonard was talking about started to sink in. If you knew when you would die, you could live for that day. Retirement savings would be an exact goal. People could say goodbye to loved ones, write up their will the day before they expired, live life to the fullest, assuming they knew when they would check out.