by Pasha Malla
Karel stood, wavering. He reached out to put a hand on Sujata's shoulder. Ewing hissed. "Jesus," said Karel, but Sujata just stood and carried the chimp past him into the playroom.
The kids showed up and flocked to the snake. Karel was left alone out in the pen with the goats, a golden retriever named Laika who was visiting for the day, and, eventually, Ewing, whom Sujata had ushered outside. He sat by the door with his arms folded, glaring at Karel.
"Oh, fuck you," Karel told him. Then, whispering, "We had sex, you know. Me and her."
Ewing buried his head in his chest.
"Stupid fucking monkey."
Karel sat down on one of the tree stumps, figuring a fiveminute nap was all he needed; then he'd be fresh for the rest of the day. He looked inside, through the playroom window. Sujata had opened the terrarium. The kids were crowding around, more intrigued than ever.
Karel closed his eyes. Soon he found himself tumbling down the dark tunnel of sleep. At its end a dream greeted him, something vague and palely lit. There were dim shapes crowding around what seemed some sort of waiting room, bumping into him as he tried to make his way up to the reception desk. There was no warmth to the bodies; the contact was like brushing up against things made of ice. From somewhere came the mournful sound of something crying.
Karel shuddered and the dream was gone. But the crying remained, now accompanied by frantic, desperate shrieks. He jumped to his feet and looked up to see Sujata hollering and smacking with a broom at something black and quivering. Underneath the black thing - Ewing! - was a bleating goat, legs buckling. Children spilled out of the door, gawking but silent.
Karel scrambled over to help Sujata. Together they tackled Ewing to the ground. The violated goat wobbled off to the corner of the pen, where its comrades huddled around in solidarity. The sobbing waned.
Sujata glared at Karel. "Get Ewing out of here."
Directing the bonobo's erection away from his body, Karel carried Ewing under one arm into the playroom and dumped him on the floor. Back outside, Karel stood by the door watching Sujata pace around the pen. She stopped beside the offended goat and put her hand on its head. The children sat expectantly on the stumps, startled but rapt. Above, the clouds hung heavy and grey with rain.
Sujata stroked the goat's face. Her tenderness, Karel realized, completely belied what had consumed her the night before: bent over on Wayne's waterbed, gasping, the flicker of something primal and hungry in her eyes as she watched Karel go to it over her shoulder. Afterwards she knelt on the floor draining into a T-shirt between her legs, the waterbed sloshing around as Karel stood to pull up his shorts. "Stay," he told her.
"I need to go," Sujata said, already dressing. "Give me a lift?"
The ride home had been silent.
Something wet splashed on Karel's hand. A single droplet of rain trickled along his thumb. Sujata was speaking. "Do you think we can forgive him?" she asked, and the children nodded, murmuring.
Something surged inside Karel. Then it was gone - they were talking about Ewing.
Sujata continued, her voice calm. The children listened in silence. Standing on the periphery, Karel felt himself fading from the scene, like smoke waved out through a kitchen window. Another drop of rain struck him on the face and dribbled down his cheek.
He slid quietly inside the playroom. He figured Ewing knew what he'd done wrong and should be waiting in his cage; it'd just be a matter of heading out back and locking the door. But his little metal cell was empty, the white blanket crumpled in the corner with no bonobo in sight.
Back in the playroom there was no sign of Ewing either, but Karel could sense - what? Something. His eyes took inventory of the room, processing it image by image. The mobiles, twirling in some imaginary wind. The birdcage where Jiva perched silent and still. Children's drawings abandoned on the floor. A scattering of paints and markers and crayons.
Then: the terrarium's wire lid, discarded nearby. The terrarium itself, open, winking with flashes of light. Inside it, Sally, brown and thick and suddenly very much alive, pulling and twisting behind the glass. The swish of her scales, the hiss of rain, and somewhere beneath it all the buzz of fluorescent lights. Karel stood, transfixed, watching. As Sally turned over, from within that scaly knot appeared the grey fingers of something almost human scratching against the inside of the glass.
Karel drifted forward until he was right at the terrarium, looking in. Later, he would realize that his thoughts weren't of heroism - what could he have done, anyway? Instead he was thinking of how it would feel to be caught in the grip of the snake. He watched as Sally curled one last time around Ewing, the length of her rippling forward, crushing his body and pulling the hand away, and thought how it seemed somehow comforting to die like that, embraced.
THE PAST COMPOSED
IN THE END, all the ruckus seems to be about a boy up Judy's tree. I stand there at the bottom, his backpack in my hand, looking up through leaves just starting to bleed the reds and browns of autumn. He's right near the top, this boy - a dark silhouette against the late afternoon sunlight, perched on a branch, shaking, terrified. Inside the house Judy's dogs are still going crazy.
"Hey there," I say, squinting.
"A squirrel chased me up here. I think it had rabies."
"Was it frothing at the mouth?"
"Frothing?"
"Yeah, like with foam coming out of its mouth."
The boy says nothing. The dogs have stopped barking, and the only sound is the dull, faraway hiss and hum of the city.
"You want to come down? I don't see any squirrels around."
He considers for a moment, evaluating the situation - or me, maybe. Then he swings down effortlessly, monkey-like, and lands with a dull thump on the lawn. His clothes seem to belong to someone years older: a Lacoste golf shirt and beige safari shorts, with a pair of blue socks pulled tightly up to his knees.
"All right?" I ask, and hand him his backpack. He's a funny little man, maybe eight or nine. There's something familiar, and vaguely cunning, about his face.
The boy stands there, scanning the front lawn, nervous. I look around too, then up at Judy's house, where I notice, wedged between a pink triangle and a MIDWIVES DELIVER! sticker, the Block Parent sign in the window.
"Oh," I say. "I'm Les. Do you want to come in?"
The boy eyes me, then the house. Eventually he nods and replies, "Okay."
I lead him inside, where the dogs greet us with an inquisitive sniff before letting us through to the kitchen. The boy edges by them, saying, "Good dogs," a gleam of terror in his eyes. I pour him a glass of milk and we both sit down at Judy's tiny kitchen table.
"Next time you get a squirrel after you," I say, "probably best not to go up a tree."
"I came to the door first, but there was no answer."
His glass of milk sits untouched on the chipped Formica tabletop. "You got a name?"
"Pico," he tells me, kicking at the chair with his heels. "Are you even a Block Parent?"
"No, no. That's the lady who owns the house. My sister, Judy."
"So who are you?"
"I live back there." I point out through the kitchen window at the shed in the backyard.
"What?" Pico snorts. "In that thing?"
I tap his glass with my fingernail. "Drink your milk, Pico."
BY THE TIME Judy gets home I am making dinner and Pico has left. He thanked me for the milk, then headed off down the street.
Judy appears in the kitchen, the dogs snuffling eagerly behind her. She slings her purse onto the table and sits down. "Fuck," she sighs. The dogs settle at her feet.
"I've got ratatouille happening here, Jude, and there's tabbouleh salad in the fridge."
"No meat? Pas de viande?" Judy, bless her, is trying to learn French.
"Sorry."
"Christ, Les," she huffs. "You're starting to make me feel like one of those crazy vegan dykes - living on nuts and fruits and berries like a goddamn squirrel."
I laugh
and tell her about Pico.
"Pico? What is he, a Brazilian soccer player?"
"No," I say, stirring the ratatouille, recalling the boy's face. "He looks more like a mini-Richard Nixon."
Judy points at the classified ads I've left on the table.
"Any luck?" she asks.
"Nothing yet."
"Not that I want you gone. I mean, you're welcome here as long as you need to stay."
"I know, Jude," I tell her, sprinkling some salt into the pot. "Thanks a lot."
After dinner I head out into the backyard and work until dusk. The table I'm redoing right now is some cheap pine thing I picked up for forty dollars at a garage sale. But with the right stain, corners rounded off, and a good number of chips whittled out of the legs, it'll go for close to a grand in one of the antique stores uptown. I can just imagine some family huddled around it for supper - Mom in her apron doling out fat slices of meatloaf, Dad asking the kids about school, and this sturdy old table anchoring it all like the centrepiece to a Norman Rockwell painting.
Soon it's too dark to see much of anything, so I head inside my little cabin. Before I moved in at the end of the summer, Judy did a nice job fixing it up for me; she put down rugs and painted the wallpaper a quiet beige colour, even brought her fish tank out and set it up in the corner. It's an A-frame, this thing. Like a tent. At first it seemed claustrophobic, but it's turned out pretty cozy.
The fish are good to watch. There are three of them, all the same species, although what that would be, I have no idea. But there's something soothing about them, these shimmering, fluttering things, all silver glitter in the light of the tank.
We always talked about getting a cat, Rachel and me. But we figured we'd try fish first, and if they didn't die right away we'd chance it with a cat. But less than two months after we moved in together, before we'd even had a chance to go fish shopping, Rachel got pregnant.
At first having a baby seemed too big, too adult, too far removed from the safe little niche we'd carved for ourselves. But once we got talking to Judy, started considering her as our midwife, things began to take shape and make sense. At night, in bed together, Rachel and I would lie with our hands on her belly, talking about the future, how one day we'd look back on our apprehension and laugh. But I guess everyone constructs, at some point, these perfect versions of how things are going to be.
A WEEK OR so later I'm in the backyard, down on my knees sanding the table legs, and Pico appears at the gate.
"Hola, Pico," I holler. "Come on in."
Pico reaches over the fence, flips the latch, and moves across the yard toward me, plucking an old seed dandelion from the grass on his way. Today is chillier; he's in a mauve turtleneck and a pair of pleated jeans. Pico leans up against the table, twirling the dandelion in his fingers. He lifts it to his mouth, sucks in a great mouthful of breath, and blows. The grey fluff catches a breeze and lifts scattering into the sky.
"Nice one," I say.
"How come dandelions aren't flowers?" Pico twirls the decapitated plant between his thumb and forefinger, then flicks it at the ground.
"Because they're weeds, Pico."
"But they look like flowers. When they're yellow."
"Well, that's their trick."
"Yeah?"
"Sure. They pretend to be flowers so you keep them around. But they're weeds."
"They look like flowers to me," says Pico, as if this settles it.
He starts walking around the table, running his fingers along the wood. Before I can warn him about splinters, he yelps and springs back like something's bitten him, his hand to his lips. Right away, I'm up, beside him. "You've got to watch that, Pico."
"Ouch," he says, wincing.
I guide him into the shed, where he sits down on the bed. I find some tweezers, and Pico puts his hand out, palm up, quivering.
I smile, the tweezers poised. "Trust me?"
Pico nods. I raise his hand up to the light, and there it is - a black grain of wood lodged into the skin. I slide the tweezers up to it, clamp down, and pull the splinter free. Pico bucks and yanks his hand away. But after a moment, he examines his finger and looks up at me in awe.
"Nothing to it," I tell him. But Pico has already turned his attention to my fish, the splinter apparently forgotten. He sits on my bed, regarding them with vague interest.
"Cool, huh?"
"Great," says Pico.
I struggle to think of some interesting fish fact, something remarkable and fascinating.
Pico beats me to it: "Did you know fish only have memories for five seconds?"
"Huh. I had no idea."
"They forget their whole lives every five seconds - then it's like they're new fish again."
"Or they think they are."
Pico gives me a funny look. "How come you're the only Block Parent on this street?"
"I'm not - really?"
"Yep. I went around looking for signs, and you're the only one."
"It's because we're the nicest."
"Can I feed your fish?" Pico asks, standing up.
"Sure." We trade places, and I settle into the groove he's left in my bedcovers. "The food's just there. But don't give them too much -"
Pico glances at me over his shoulder, already sprinkling the coloured flakes into the aquarium. "I know what I'm doing, Les."
On my bedside table is a deck of playing cards. I pick them up and try making a house, but the cards keep slipping off one another. Pico comes over, shaking his head.
"You've got to make triangles." He sits down beside me, takes two cards, and leans them against one another. He succeeds in building a few levels before the whole thing collapses.
"Hey, want to see a trick?" I ask.
"A card trick?"
"Sure. Just pick a card and tell me what pile it's in."
This is the only card trick I know, and it's a simple one: after three times through the same routine, the person's card is always the eleventh out of the pile. But I choose it with a flourish, throwing the cards around the room, and then walking around as if confused before pulling the right one up off the floor.
Pico claps. "Again," he commands. "Again!"
"Nope. Magicians never do the same trick twice in a row."
"Oh, come on."
"Sorry. Maybe some other time, Pico."
Pico looks at me carefully. "The kids at school call me PeePee-Co, sometimes."
"That doesn't even make sense," I say. Here I am, sitting with this boy on my bed, this odd little fellow with the face of a diabolical American president. "You want to stay for dinner?"
Pico considers, tilting his head toward some indefinite place on the ceiling. "I'll have to call my nana," he says, nodding. "But I think it might be a good idea."
JUDY COMES HOME to Pico sitting on the floor of the kitchen, talking to the dogs. I've got a veggie moussaka in the oven, tomato and tarragon soup simmering on the stove, and a spinach salad tossed and ready for dressing on the counter.
"More bird food?" says Judy. She stoops down to greet Pico and his canine companions. "You must be Pico."
Pico looks up and grins. "I'm staying for dinner."
"Oh, you are now." Judy turns to me. "Did you check with his mom?"
"His nana," I tell her. But then I realize I haven't. I had stayed in the kitchen while Pico made the call from Judy's bedroom. Pico and I exchange a quick look, and then I turn to Judy. "I'm sure it's fine."
"She knows you're Block Parents," says Pico.
Judy shrugs, steps over Pico, and opens the fridge. "Don't we have any beer?"
"Beer?" I squeeze a wedge of lemon into a glass jar, add some olive oil, salt, pepper.
She slams the fridge door shut and then leans up against it. "What a day. I spend half my week wrist-deep in vaginas - you'd think I've got the best job in the world."
I frown and nod my head in the direction of Pico, but he seems oblivious, totally absorbed with trying to get the already prostrate dogs to lie down.<
br />
"Oh, shoot," she says, snorting. "Would you believe I've got another couple who are burying their placenta? Although at least these two aren't eating it. Man, these people. You'd think they'd just be happy if their kid comes out all right, it's not - "
She catches herself.
"Oh, fuck. Les - I'm sorry."
The room has changed. Even Pico is quiet. I shake up the jar of oil and lemon juice. I shake it, I keep shaking it, I stare out the window and I shake the jar, and all I can hear is the wet sound of the dressing sloshing around.
Judy is beside me. She has her hand on my arm. I stop.
"It's okay," I tell her.
"It's okay," she tells me.
We finish dinner by seven o'clock, so Judy and I ask Pico if he wants to come along while we take the dogs out for their evening walk. Before we ate, Judy had decided Pico needed to know I had a lisp when I was a kid, and he kept my sister in hysterics, calling me "Leth" and "Lethy" for the better part of the meal.
Everyone helps clear the table, and then we collect the dogs and head down to the creek behind Judy's house. We call it the creek, but it's basically dried up, just a gentle dribble through the ravine. The dogs love it, though; we let them off their leads and they go bounding and snarling into the woods.
The sun is just setting as the three of us make our way down along the path into the ravine. Judy's brought a flashlight, but she keeps it in her coat. "It's for when they poop," she tells Pico, and shows him the fistful of plastic bags in her pocket. His eyes widen.
Under the canopy of trees overhead, the light down here is dim - almost as if the ravine is hours ahead of the sunset. We unleash the dogs, who bolt, disappearing into the gloom. Judy and Pico follow them, but I move the other way, climbing over a mound of roots and earth, arriving in the dried-up creekbed. I kneel down, put my hand out, and I'm startled to feel water, icy and streaming urgently over my fingertips. But then I realize I can hear it, I probably could have all along - the happy, burbling sound of it barely above a whisper. I close my eyes, listening, my hand dangling in the thread of river.