Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  "What about Peter? Can't he help?"

  "He lives too far away. And she thinks he's a bore, anyway. She says I make her laugh."

  Auntie Jessie laid her hands around my face, drew me in, stared into my eyes as if she was trying to hypnotise me.

  "See? See what you bring people? You are a delight, Stevie, don't forget it. What would your father say about all of this?"

  I tried to picture Dad, but it was Mum's face I saw. Smiling at me, loving me.

  "What would Mum say?"

  Auntie Jessie got some cigarettes. We liked to smoke together. It bridged the generation gap.

  "One of the saddest things is loneliness," she said. "I should know. And it's not your fault; I'm not lonely when you're here. But it's just something missing. People are lonely for good reason, usually, even if they don't know what it is. There's something about people like me nobody likes."

  "You're crazy," I said. If people didn't like Auntie Jessie, what did they think of me?

  I don't think anyone at the office even knew I'd been gone. They were all distracted, and every client who booked in for a course, it seemed, had heard the news. Peter and Maria were getting married. It was like two perfect worlds meeting and creating a great veil of glory which rested on everybody.

  I couldn't believe how excited they all were. They kept saying, "So sad his mother isn't here to see it," never mentioning our father. And there were Maria's parents, of course. Much as I don't mind them, the few times I've met them, could they be a bit less obsessed by the whole thing?

  Maria came to me and said, "Stevie, I know you had in your mind you might be a bridesmaid. But I've got my sisters and the three girlfriends and they'd all be devastated if I didn't ask them." Her three brothers had picked girlfriends who might as well be triplets. Honestly. Pretty little idiots who giggled and loved wearing pink. Her sisters were big lumpy things who'd look foul no matter what they wore.

  "To be honest, if I had to stand next to those women I'd be dry retching the whole time, then no one would hear your wonderful vows," I said. Maria blinked at me. Still struggling with what I consider a joke.

  So on their wedding day, I showed up late and no one noticed. That was good. I sat on the groom's side, along with Peter's mates, Auntie Ruth, Auntie Jessie and even Uncle Dom, sitting up the back in baggy trousers, plucking at his pants as if… I don't know as if what.

  I took a book to read and kept my head down the whole time. I hope people thought I was praying, but I doubt it. Afterwards, I didn't bother pushing through the throng to congratulate them. Who cared? Peter gave me a wink, but I thought, that's it? A wink? That's my part of your wedding?

  The reception was fun, though. I drank the red wine; it was good stuff. One of Peter's more successful clients shouted it for them and it was very good. Easy to drink, didn't stain my teeth. Excellent. I danced around with the brothers, particularly Adrian, who, if he steps away from his family, can be shockingly rude and nasty. I like him.

  When no one was looking, he pulled me outside for a smoke. We stood close, hiding around a corner, pressed up against the wall behind a bush. I could smell his aftershave, and his hair. I could smell his skin, warm and sexy, and I could see the little pulse in his neck.

  I gently put my finger on it. He turned to me, bent his neck, and kissed me.

  I usually hate being kissed. Hate the feeling of the tongue in my mouth. But this was different.

  "Dump her," I said. "Get rid of her."

  He screwed up his face. Fiddled with his fingers. It came to me then that his girlfriend had an engagement ring on.

  "You're fuckin' kidding," I said. "Dump her!"

  "I can't. Her parents are going to give us a house."

  I pushed him away. "I've got a house already." I didn't get invited to his wedding.

  at twenty-three

  In my backyard, I found a cheap pig-skin wallet, a tie pin, a squash ball, a ball of foil and a rotted black ribbon.

  The sort of people who attend Peter's courses…I bet they answer a personal ad or two. Losers. If they can't see through Peter, they'd never see through a fake personal ad.

  Peter used his childhood experience with our see-saw as an analogy, a motivational tool for stirring people to action. He honed it over the years, though he never mentioned me. I don't know who people pictured on the other side of the see-saw. A best friend, uncle, cousin, a different kind of sibling perhaps. I think his analogy failed there; he should have talked about balance, how good comes with bad, work comes with rest, and these things occur because there is another person on the other side of the see-saw.

  He said, on the rostrum, "I like to go up, not so much to go down. But even going down is good, because it is the push which helps us reach the top."

  I'd do things so differently. I'd tell people they need to deal with history; make it real, or change it. He didn't agree. In his courses, The Searle Talks, he called them, he told people to let go of the past. His clients disgusted me. They were weak, cowardly people running away from the things which made them the way they are.

  Peter liked to have locked room sessions. They added an air of mystery and made the people feel brave: We are not afraid. The doors were never actually locked because of fire-safety regulations, and who was Peter to break those sorts of rules? He told me once that no one ever tried the doors. They all believed and trusted him absolutely.

  Maria had asked me not to attend the courses any more. She thought I was a distraction, that I upset people unnecessarily, but I said, "Maria, have you seen these people? They get upset if the bus comes three minutes late."

  Anyway, my counsellor said I should go to the courses. To see the fruits of my labour, even though Maria can't accept I had anything to do with it.

  I was locked (not locked) in amongst people who were scared of their past. I laughed at them then. I was fearless. Now I dream of having just one of them as a friend.

  This is what should have happened:

  The person sitting next to me and I became firm friends.

  This is what did happen:

  Peter started out by saying quietly, "Is there anyone here who has painful memories of a past they can do little about?"

  One hand, then two, five, ten, then all of the fucking losers waved their arms.

  "Yeah!" they said. Solidarity. That's what they thought they had. That's what Peter had given them.

  He laughed. He was always good at faking a laugh.

  He said, "Perhaps I should rephrase the question. Who does not have painful memories of a past they can do little about?"

  Silence. No hands. The whole audience laughed, smiled at each other. I had been tempted to confess to only happy memories, but Peter knew the things of my life.

  He waited until they were quiet. He didn't shush them, raise his arms, anything.

  "The operative part of my question is, 'can do little about'. I think you know why."

  I was thinking, I didn't pay $500 to tell you your job.

  He said, "Because you can't do anything about the things you can't do anything about."

  There were a few laughs, but then a slide appeared with those very words.

  They chanted, led by Peter: "You can't do anything about the things you can't do anything about!"

  Their shoulders twitched; it was clear they wanted to dance.

  Peter's face reddened and sweat dripped from his forehead.

  They loved it, loved his passion. He raised his arms and the chanting faded.

  He said, "You can't change it, let's scream it out, LET IT GO!"

  They all screamed, howled, shouted. The thunder of it shook my bones.

  I screamed the loudest, and Peter finally noticed me. He looked shocked, as if he was expecting me to ruin something. He leaned over and muttered to Maria, who looked up from her book. She found his seminars boring; she had heard them a hundred times.

  She rose from her chair; I sat down to avoid her look.

  They shouted out their shit,
terrible stories. From behind me, a blackboard screech.

  "I was eight. I was fat. My mother said I was too fat. She said I was too fat to go to school. She made me stay home. She fed me dry toast for one week. I didn't get thin. She tried to cut some fat off but I only bled. I bled until I was sick."

  I tried to see the man talking. I guessed it was a man; it was hard to tell from the voice. They all had their mouths open, though. From the other side of the room, an orator's shout: "Can't say can't say can't say. Dark very dark bad smell can't say can't say don't tell broken nose no smell."

  Peter raised his hands. They stopped screaming. They all sat down so quickly I was left standing, I was seen. I sat down.

  "Look at the ceiling," he said. They looked. "Does it look darker to you? Dirty?"

  None of them had noticed it before, but still the voices said, "It is darker!"

  Peter said gently, "I think we've sent a lot of bad history away today."

  Then the doors were opened (and no one noticed they didn't need to be unlocked, I'm sure. They were too busy hyperventilating). I got out early and took a seat near the door to watch them come out. It was the satisfaction I couldn't understand. They came out, unselfconsciously beaming, unembarrassed about their shouting behaviour inside. And there I was, no longer incognito, caught by surprise.

  There were always people hanging around till the last minute, asking questions, wanting just a bit more for their money.

  These people who worship Peter think he's got some divine knowledge. They don't know the secrets I know. When he talks about "The Importance of Difference," he's not talking about race, colour, size, sex, though it works that way as well. He's talking about his odd feet. All those times a fuss was made, all that teasing.

  No one knows about his feet, apart from those of us close to him. He has shoes specially made, so his feet look perfect, just large enough so people think he's got a big dick. But take a look at his nose. Like a pretty little button.

  We had a special man to make his shoes. Sandy Boyle, the shoe man, who'd shown up at Mum's funeral, who cried at the mention of my name.

  I was eleven or twelve when we went with Mum shopping to buy school shoes and it must have been January. Hot, and I was bored, once I had my shoes. Peter always took longer because of having one foot bigger than the other.

  We ended up at a speciality shoe shop, where there were no interesting shoes but they swore to fit all sorts of feet.

  The shop was dark, its window filled with old shoes no one dusted and no one would buy. We had driven a long way to this shop, and Mum was determined Peter would not leave unshod.

  Sandy Boyle loved a challenge, and he and Mum talked non-stop and I was ignored, as he brought out shoe after shoe. I was already wearing my new ones; we found them at the discount shoe place. Every year was the same; my shoes, cheap, we found in the first shop, then Peter's shoes we'd find at about the hundredth shop. This was our first year at this special shop. An assistant in the department store we went to said she used to work there, that the shoes were good but the boss terrible.

  "I had to leave," she said, leaning close to Mum, "because he used to try things. He had ideas."

  On the way there I asked Mum what ideas were, thinking they sounded interesting. She wouldn't tell me, and it wasn't until I was an adult I realised what that shop assistant had meant. Because I could remember her, very clearly. I thought she was the most sophisticated, mature woman I'd met, and I'd practise saying, "He had ideas," in the mirror for the day I could use it myself. Years later, flicking through a gossip mag I found in a box under an exhousemate's bed (sometimes they leave so quickly I inherit booty) I saw her face. She had married a lawyer, someone I'd heard of. I saw her face and stared for minutes, some internal scanner flicking, flicking. There she was; the girl who sent us to the place where Mum would meet the second man of her dreams.

  Sandy Boyle sold Mum some shoes, too. He was one of those ones who touch your feet when they put your shoes on. I thought he looked silly. His shoulders were stooped and he was very pale. I thought he must stay in the shop the whole time, never leave.

  Peter fell asleep, sitting up with his shoes on, while Mum and the shoe man began to talk about food or something.

  Both of them kept saying, "Oh, really, so do I." I touched everything in the shop. There were not many shoes on display; it was part of the speciality that they had to go behind and get your shoes.

  I took off my new school shoes, which Mum let me wear only inside the shops, and replaced them with a pair which looked like clown shoes, they were so big. I shuffled about the room.

  There was a small table with some grey sandals and a sign saying "SALE". The ink on the sign was pale, like invisible writing. I wrote "Poo," in the dust on the sign. There were shoe laces, long and short, brown and black. I swapped them all around so that the lines were all in a pattern. One long brown, one long black, one short brown, one short black. I opened some packs and tied lots of little bows in clumps of hair, to make myself look like a porcupine.

  It took ages, but Mum and the shoe man were still talking. She didn't like being at home as much as Dad used to.

  I had a look at all the different colours of the polish. I liked tan the best, because it made me feel like an American Indian when I striped it on my face.

  "Oh, well, we've taken up enough of your time," Mum said.

  "Oh, no, not at all. Part of the service." They laughed even though there was no joke.

  "Hardeharhar," I said. It was something I'd heard the older kids say and I knew it was very rude.

  Mum and the shoe man stared at me. His mouth was open; I stuck my tongue out at him. Mum said, "Right, let's go. Someone isn't mature enough to behave herself when she's out." She said to him, "I think she's having a problem becoming an adult. I'm hoping high school will snap her out of it." I started snapping my fingers in their faces. It angered me she couldn't tell I was acting, but that spoke good reviews about my ability.

  Peter was roused and he said, "What're you supposed to be? A fancy dress party?"

  "If I'm a fancy dress party, you must be little lunch," I said. The shoe man held the door open.

  "Out," Mum said. I slid along in my shoe boats, made it all the way to the car when the shoe man came running after.

  "I believe these are yours," he said, and Mum and he laughed again. He took away my big shoes and held my feet to put on my school shoes. Peter and I were strapped in and had to wait while Mum and Sandy Boyle talked even more.

  I knew just what to say to get out of trouble as Mum drove home.

  "He was a nice man, wasn't he, Mum?" I said. Peter snorted. Mum looked at me in the rear view mirror.

  "Yes, he was rather, wasn't he? Did you really like him?"

  "Oh, yes," I said. "He was lovely," and we stopped to buy pizza for tea.

  On Auntie Ruth's birthday, which is in June, the shoe man showed up at the restaurant.

  "This is Sandy Boyle, the one I've been telling you about," Mum said to Auntie Ruth. We had been staying at Auntie Ruth's more, lately. We didn't know about Sandy Boyle. I said, "That's the man who gets ideas." Peter snorted. "You're an idiot, Steve."

  "No, it's the man from the spastic shoe shop where you have to get your shoes." He thumped my thigh under the table, I thumped back, he pinched me and I said, "Mum, he pinched me."

  "Stop it, Peter," Mum said.

  "You own a shoe shop, I hear," said Auntie Ruth.

  "Oh, no, I just work there," he said. He turned to me, then. "You've got a good memory for faces, Steve."

  I said, "I always remember a face which looks like a bum." Only Peter heard, and he couldn't stop snorting the rest of the night. But it was a phrase I never forgot. A good memory for faces. If I saw someone standing at a street light, I could recognise them later at the supermarket. I saw lots of familiar faces and I could often pin them down: a kid from a younger class, someone at the pictures, a mother who picked her kid up, someone who nearly tripped. If I
saw them again I knew where I'd seen them first.

  My feet have never been as comfortable as they were the year Sandy Boyle was with us. He bought shoes from the shop for me as well as Peter, so we missed that dreadful shopping experience. If I were Mum, I would have been very bored with him.

  As the months closed, he began to think he was required to discipline us; he was a foolish man.

  I was making quicksand at the back step one afternoon. It was warm. I had taken my dress off, because it constricted my movement and because I knew Mum would be pleased if I didn't get it dirty.

  I squatted in my undies and singlet, digging, filling the hole with water and dirt, massaging the lot to make it dangerous. I thought the sun had gone behind a cloud, though the day was hot and cloudless. I tutted at the shadow, ignored it, then glanced at the sky when it didn't pass over.