The following Saturday, eating supper, Chris says he’s got a ride to town later—Brian’s dad is going to a hockey game—so he’s going to go hang out at the centre. “Okay?” he says.
Loraine nods and studies her son. He wears his hair long in back, not like the other skaters who walk around like skinheads. “I want you home by eleven,” she says. She notices he has a second earring, something they haven’t discussed. “You’ll do the eggs with me tomorrow?” she asks.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“It was our deal,” Loraine says. She tries to keep her voice light. “You would help me on the weekends, Saturday and Sunday.”
“Okay, okay. Johnny asked about you yesterday.”
Loraine finds it strange to hear Chris talking about Johnny. She pauses and waits.
“He’s weird, Mom. Not a bad guy, but weird.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“I don’t know. Kinda like he’s in this time warp. You know, like you have those bell-bottoms in your closet but you wouldn’t dream of wearing them. Well, Johnny’d wear his.”
“Does he do religious stuff?” Loraine asks. She wants to keep Chris talking.
“Some. Not really. He’s big into guilt. Says salvation is like doing drugs.”
“You guys talk about drugs?”
“Some. Sometimes. He has this big speech. About how he used to get stoned and wasted but how now he’s straight, and then he gets really excited and talks about angel dust and acid. Half the time we don’t know what he’s blabbing about.”
“You like it there, at the centre?”
“No, not really. It’s okay.”
Loraine’s mouth is hurting. She has a cold sore. She pores some salt into her palm, licks a finger and dips it. The salt, when eased between her gum and lip, inflates the pain. She hisses, licks her finger and studies her nails. “What’s this Krahn girl like?” she asks. “Melody. Right?”
“Oh, all right. She’s nice.” That’s all. No more is offered and Loraine won’t push. Chris seems so childlike, so immature, she can’t imagine any danger lurking. She wants to believe that. For Chris at this age, girls are dreams.
After her son has left, Loraine fills the tub and slides in. She touches her body, experimenting, believing in this, cupping her breasts and remembering Chris as an infant and milk dripping from her nipples. Johnny pulls her from the tub to the phone. She stands in the upstairs hall, dripping onto the carpet, a small towel covering her, and listens to him exclaim, “Loraine, I was just thinking, God, it’s wonderful. Really. I closed my eyes and you were there, big-bellied, thick-legged. I wonder if your belly button will do that little trunk thingy the way my sister’s did. I’d like to slip it in my nostril, I would. When do you feel the moving?”
“Not yet,” she says. Loraine’s pleased that Johnny’s thrilled but there’s too much excitement, as if he were playing house.
“What were you doing?” he asks.
Loraine considers. “Watching TV.”
“Oh.”
“You at the centre?” Loraine asks.
“Yeah.”
“Is Chris there yet?”
“No, it’s slow tonight. I haven’t seen him.”
“That’s odd, he said he’d be there with Brian and Melody.”
“Nothing,” Johnny says. “He’ll show. I’ve been thinking, Loraine. I’m gonna tell Charlene. Make some arrangements and then we can get together.”
“Hold it, Johnny. I’m not sure about anything. You think I’m just going to lie down, don’t you? I’m gonna say, ‘Here I am, Johnny.’”
“I’m not pushing you,” he says.
“Good. I like my life. I didn’t do this to lure you into my nest.”
“No?”
“I’ve got this boy who’s fourteen. First I have to tell him I’m pregnant. Then you want me to say, ‘Johnny’s going to live with us.’ The poor kid.”
“You think Chris is pretty innocent, don’t you?” Johnny says.
Loraine dislikes Johnny’s tone, as if he were calling her names.
“Not at all,” she says. “It’s just, why dump all this shit on a kid whose main concern is his board?”
“Anyway,” Johnny says, leaping away from Chris, “I keep thinking about you. I climb into my car and remember your bare ankle resting on the dash. That was fun.”
“Of course,” Loraine answers. She’s cold standing on the landing, water rolling off her hair and down her back. Still, Johnny’s remembering this makes Loraine want to rub up against something. She leans against the wall.
“Actually,” Loraine says, “I’m naked. You got me out of the bath.”
“Completely?” Johnny asks.
“Sure,” Loraine lies.
“Thought so, I could hear the water dripping.”
“Ah, fuck off.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Johnny.”
“Yeah, bye.” These last two words are whispered and they produce a warmth at the base of Loraine’s spine. She holds the phone a while and listens to the silence and then hangs up.
She climbs back into the tub and tries to forget Johnny but he keeps coming back; that mouth, the thickness in the stomach. And his smell. He’s got body odour, not too bad, but it’s there when he walks by or stoops to pick up a shoe; it flows from his shirt. The smell is strongest when he’s dressed. Naked, there is only the slightest hint of sour sweat but it’s not bad and anyway Loraine rather likes it, likes to push her nose and mouth into Johnny’s armpit. Rest there. Like a dog.
The police bring Chris home at one in the morning. Loraine is frantic with worry and wants to hit her son when she finally sees him in the grasp of a cop. Constable Boucler. Loraine hears the name and then the officer says, “Your son stole a vehicle, Ma’am. He and a few other kids.”
Loraine shivers. The wind is cold. Chris’s face is dull, no emotion. He shakes himself loose and disappears. “Come in,” Loraine says. “Coffee?” The man before her declines the offer. He’s all uniform. The leather of his holster creaks when he shifts his weight. Loraine can see the black handle of his gun. “Whose car?” she asks.
“A half-ton,” Boucler says. “Farmer from St. Pierre.”
“St. Pierre?” Loraine says. “Way out there?”
“Yeah, the kids hit the ditch. The driver was shook up. Your boy trouble?”
“No, he isn’t. Really, not.” Loraine looks at the officer. He has a mole on his jaw and there are little black hairs growing out of it. She wonders why he doesn’t shave it, if it’s good luck or something. She wants to touch it. “Chris doesn’t know how to steal cars,” she says. “It would have been someone else’s idea. He’s a skateboarder, can’t stand cars.”
“He’ll have to go to court.”
“I see,” Loraine says. They talk a bit more and then she watches the police car’s tail-lights disappear down the driveway. She shuts the door.
Chris cries that night. Loraine sits at the edge of his bed and talks about prison. “It’s a shit-hole,” she says. “And you’re going to end up there. In prison you just sit and stare at the wall or you worry about guys bigger than you, or you walk outside in the prison yard and there aren’t any skateboards there, no music, no girls, nothing. A fine choice, son.”
“I didn’t do it. Roger Emery wanted to. He stole the car.”
Loraine shakes her head. “Oh, Chris, it won’t work. You were in the car. You’re guilty.”
That’s when he cries. He lays his head on her lap and he weeps. She strokes his hair and after, when he’s wiping at his face, he talks about how stupid the Emery boy is, and how Melody was there and how scared she was.
“I know,” Loraine says. Pulling at Chris’s hot ear she tells him she’s going to have a baby, Johnny Fehr is the father, and, “Don’t see me as bad,” she says, “not bad at all, it’s just something that happens.”
Chris is confused, then excited. Later, he turns over to digest this news and he falls asleep. Loraine lies beside her so
n for a long time, listening to him breathe. There is a smell of alcohol emanating from his pores. Not too strong, but it’s there. The world is a dangerous place.
Johnny doesn’t come by for a week. He doesn’t call either. Loraine begins to believe that she’s all alone in the world and she’ll live with it, when Johnny pulls up outside her barn on Friday afternoon. They sit in the usual spot, the kitchen, and drink Seven-Up and talk.
“I’m gonna be baptized,” Johnny announces.
“Oh?” Loraine says. She’s seen one baptism, at the Mennonite Brethren Church, when they pushed a friend of hers under the water. The friend was wearing a choir gown over her brand-new dress. “What do you want me to say?” she asks.
Johnny folds his hands. “It’s just I’m working things through,” he says. “It’s all about Charlene and me and you. Charlene wants to have one last go.” He pauses. His top lip is dry. He wets it with his tongue and says, “She doesn’t know about the baby.”
“So,” Loraine says, “baptism’s going to make you love her?”
“I don’t know. Phil Barkman thinks I need something to bring on the power of the Spirit. Maybe this.”
Loraine wishes she weren’t such a needy woman. She wishes she could slap Johnny’s face, once, twice, and tell him to leave. But, when it comes down to her and Johnny sitting in the same room together, she is weak and can only imagine the rawness of his tongue after it has touched her, giving her back her own taste, and his mouth, all that space; she can fit her fist into that mouth. Has done it many times. Let him gnaw on her knuckles. She hates Johnny.
“I’ve been reading some,” she says. “You know, that passage you told me about. The temptations. Well, they’re not just temptations like throwing yourself from a high building, or eating bread when you’re hungry. Jesus liked to talk in riddles.”
Johnny is confused. “What?”
“Riddles. I mean, temptations have to do with everyday stuff: lying, stealing, cheating, hatred, revenge. I keep thinking of this math riddle I heard in high school. It’s raining and you have to go from point A to point B in the rain. Will you get wetter if you run or walk?”
“I’d drive,” Johnny says.
Loraine ignores him. “There is an answer but you’re not sure what it is until you actually try it. And sex. Think about it. That was another temptation. I mean, was he ever tempted?”
Johnny’s shaking his head. “That’s good,” he says. “You reading that. You’re a smart girl, Loraine. You are.”
Loraine reaches out and sandwiches one of Johnny’s hands. Trips lightly over his fingernails. He must see her as simple, she thinks. As a farm girl who can’t see beyond eggs and chickens and feed. She is a feeble and flickering light that he keeps running towards.
“Do you want me?” she asks.
“Of course,” Johnny says. But, he doesn’t move.
“You always will,” Loraine says. “No matter where you are, or who you’re with, you’ll ache for me.”
“I know.”
Loraine says, “I’m going to get round and full. And one night, six months from now, you’ll be lying beside Charlene and I’ll be here by myself and I’ll lay my hands on my big belly and feel the blow of an elbow or a knee and I’ll be happy, Johnny. I’ll be happy.”
Johnny leans over the table and kisses Loraine. On the mouth. He’s lost. His eyes are sad and sorry. He lets her go and she says, “I told Chris. Last weekend. And I told him who the father was.”
“Aw,” Johnny’s big hand hits the table. “Why?”
“Well, what am I going to say? It was aliens?”
“There goes all my respect at the centre. The kids’ll laugh. Chris’ll spread the news.”
“No, he won’t. And anyway, what respect?”
“Who’s getting nasty?” Johnny says. He’s standing now over by the window, pulling on his jacket. His motions are jerky, he really doesn’t want to storm out.
“Sorry,” Loraine says.
“Baptism’s next Sunday,” Johnny says. He shrugs his shoulders, his face sheepish.
“You’re not bad, Johnny,” Loraine says. “You might think so, but you’re not. You just do what you have to do and sometimes you end up hurting people.”
“Really?” Johnny says. “God, you’re wonderful, Loraine.”
“No, I’m not,” she says, and she means it.
Later, after Johnny has left, Loraine goes out to gather eggs. She rolls out the cart, stacks the trays, and wheels up and down the aisles. The chickens cheer. She works slowly. She is clumsy today and drops an egg. Another. Most eggs are cool, some are warm. When she’s finished her chores, she steps outside and walks slowly back to the house. Gravel crunches beneath her rubber boots. The sky is clear and she feels like she is alone among the stars and planets and asteroids, all that stuff floating around in space. She thinks if she jumped high enough she could disappear.
AGAIN
Marijuana is making a comeback at Lesser Collegiate, so Mr. Isaacs, the high school principal, phones up Johnny Fehr and asks him if he won’t do a few information sessions during Drug Awareness Week at the school.
“Maybe this is too bold,” Mr. Isaacs says. “But I know you have a history and kids respect that.”
Johnny doesn’t really want to do it, mainly because he’s not against grass. Still, he has an image to maintain, what with the drop-in centre, so he says he’ll talk about drugs. His first session, on a Wednesday morning, is with a group of fourteen-year-olds. Johnny’s wearing a dark green suit with a slight sheen to it, and cowboy boots, and he stands in front of the class, buries his hands in his pockets, and talks about how drugs and alcohol almost ruined his life.
“I was teetering,” he says, holding up a palm parallel to the floor and moving it like a see-saw. His fingers are thick. All his life he’s considered them long and fine-looking, but today he sees stubs. He’s gaining weight, the skin around his ring is bulging.
He talks some more about hard drugs, about killing brain cells, and losing friends. “What happens,” he says, “is people stop mattering. What counts is getting high. I used to dance all by myself. I’d roll myself a really large joint and lie in my room and imagine I was famous, or rich, or dead. School didn’t matter. Marks. What was cool was toking. I hear that it’s cool again. Am I right?” He waits for a response. A few heads nod.
Johnny looks at the tender lives in front of him and he feels tremendous love for humanity. People are wonderful. What he’s doing today is wonderful. It’s the right thing to do. He recognizes some of these kids. Sees them at the centre on Friday and Saturday nights. There’s Sherri over there, Allison beside her. Johnny likes Allison; she helps him with clean-up some nights and then he drives her home. She talks to him about her parents, about her urge to run away. Johnny tells her not to and Allison listens. One time she reached up and put her baseball cap on his head. It didn’t fit so Johnny gave it back.
Johnny can see Chris Wallace at the back of the class. Chris is looking at Johnny, staring right at him. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking.
A kid in the front raises a hand and asks, “About grass, I was wondering, is it a crime? Like, can you be arrested?”
“Not for possession if you only have a little,” Johnny says. “Just for trafficking. So, for example, if I was smoking with a buddy and handed him the joint, that’s trafficking. What I have to do is lay the joint down and then he can pick it up.” Johnny rubs his hands together and a perverse glee fills him. He stifles it.
“Nobody sells grass here,” someone else says. “There are no drugs in Lesser Collegiate.” The voice sounds disappointed.
“Are you sure?” Johnny asks. “Don’t kid yourself. It’s out there. One last question?”
A girl with really short hair lifts a hand to her chin; her fingers curl as if she were waving at someone. She says, “What happens if you don’t inhale? You know?”
“Nothing,” Johnny says. “Nothing happens.”
It’s a
Wednesday night and Johnny’s sitting and thinking. There was a girl he loved at sixteen. Sue Klassen. They were baptized the same day. She went first, slid under the water, hair floated briefly, and then she reappeared and the gown clung to her body and he could see her shape as she slogged up the steps. Perhaps he loved her shape: wide hips, thick waist. Same look as Charlene, his wife, who is slamming her way around the kitchen.
Farmer’s Almanac says no snow till December. They’re always right. He’s going to be baptized this Sunday. Again. Funny, wanting to do that, as if it can be perfected. He’s not ready, not in his heart, but there’s a desperation, a recklessness, and he’s out of options. Sue married a doctor and moved to England. Three children and afternoon tea. Bum, spreading from age, pressed on a wooden chair. The tinkle of china.
Women. Amazing creatures. It has little to do with beauty or class or money. Some people like mountain climbing, cycling, or spelunking. Johnny likes women. They are intricately layered and it is his job to peel back those layers. Sometimes he passes by a woman in a car and catches a glimpse of just her head and for a brief moment he marvels, and imagines that woman picking up a tomato in the supermarket and smelling it, or studying herself in the mirror, rubbing her front teeth with her finger, mouth slightly open. Johnny bites at his tongue then and shudders, picturing the delicacy of that first layer, the thinness, the transparency, the anticipation of what lies underneath.
Of course if it doesn’t snow, the farmers are going to cry. They bitch about everything. At Chuck’s, over coffee, all you hear are complaints about the damn Americans. And quotas. They’ll be gone soon. Loraine with all her layers seems the least worried. Johnny mentions this and Loraine shrugs her shoulders, and says, “So, what am I going to do? I’ll keep gathering eggs, is what. And two years from now when the Americans ship up their cheap shit and poison us all, I’ll say, ‘I told you so.’ Until then, I’ll gather my quota and I’ll sell it and I’ll have this baby and I’ll get by.”
A Year of Lesser Page 4