Interference

by Michelle Berry

  Praise for Interference

  Michelle Berry’s Interference is an immaculately constructed page-turner that is also, miraculously, a redemptive meditation on loneliness and community. Read it for the beautiful writing, the cast of unique characters, and for a certain tender brutality that infuses the telling — by turns moving, darkly funny, and ultimately warm and illuminating.

  — Carrie Snyder, author of Girl Runner

  Michelle Berry’s Interference is a literary hockey game, the lines of meaning on the fresh arena ice criss-crossing and accumulating as her characters deke out one another in their forward momentum. An unexpected kiss, the gift of an ugly hat, a grade-school assembly on sexual predation, a facially deformed handyman, the loss of a child — Berry’s novel, told in her signature crystalline prose, asks us to pay attention to the moments that force us to recalibrate our game, in order to play fully awake.

  — Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of All the Broken Things

  Interference is a suspenseful, compassionate, awesomely creepy, wise, and ultimately hopeful novel. To read it is to appreciate its deftly interwoven plot lines and perceptively drawn characterizations, and to be spurred to “only connect.”

  — Kim Moritsugu, author of The Oakdale Dinner Club

  Michelle Berry

  a novel

  a misFit book

  ECW PRESS

  For Heidi den Hartog

  and especially for Stuart Baird.

  IF GIRLS HOCKEY WAS EASY . . .

  THEY’D LET THE BOYS PLAY WITH US

  Slogan on the shirts for the

  Peterborough Ice Kats Hockey League

  fall

  * * *

  Dear Parents and Guardians,

  This morning we became aware of an incident that occurred at another school earlier this week. We are forwarding this information to you, because we know you need to be aware of what is going on and we need to have an open dialogue between staff and parents. We have found that if we don’t have this kind of discussion some of our parents get very upset. Last year’s incident with the ice cream and the hermit crabs was just such an example of this.

  Local police indicate that a man approached a twelve-year-old girl in front of our sister school, Markwell Elementary, on Lee Boulevard. Somehow avoiding the mother-monitors, this man was lingering around when the bell rang for dismissal. The student swears that she does not know the man, and when he asked her if she wanted a ride home she said no. He walked away and left the girl alone. He didn’t seem to be in possession of a vehicle.

  The man is described as “old” by the girl. We assume that means that he is somewhere between the ages of twenty and sixty. The girl also stated that he was a few inches taller than her — this would put him at around five feet, five inches tall. She said he had a small build and short, brown hair, balding on the top. He was wearing a dark green trench coat over a brown suit. He had a nervous manner about him and kept repeating himself. Police are continuing their investigation into this matter. They ask if any of you have information to please call Crime Stoppers.

  We must all congratulate this anonymous twelve-year-old for her forward and rational thinking. Not only did she say no to the man when he asked her if she wanted a ride, but she also was aware enough to get a good look at him and report him to the police.

  Safety among our students is always our top priority. Our staff will keep their eyes open in the schoolyard. They will be vigilant. We have ordered new walkie-talkies in order to communicate with the office if the teachers see anything out of order. Triple AAA batteries would be appreciated if you have any to donate. Please review all the safety rules you can think of with your children. This includes walking with another child and telling an adult immediately if someone makes them feel uncomfortable. Consider deciding on a secret word that only you and your child know in case someone says that you sent them to pick up the child.

  Please feel free to call me with any questions or concerns.

  Sincerely,

  Marge Tanner

  Principal, Oak Park Elementary School

  1

  Tom and Maria are busy raking the leaves. Tom is by the side of their front porch. Maria is out near the sidewalk. Their daughter, Becky, is playing across the street with her friend Rachel and the sky is full of white billowy clouds. The new woman who recently moved into the empty place beside Rachel’s house pulls her car into her driveway, unbuckles her baby from the back and walks into her house. Tom stops raking to admire her blond hair, California-blond, bleached-out but still healthy looking, which is ironic. But isn’t everything from California ironic, Tom thinks. Tom knows he’d never have noticed the hair, or at least the health of it, the blond of it, the irony of it, if Maria hadn’t commented on it. They haven’t introduced themselves to this new neighbour yet, but Tom and Maria watch her and Tom assumes, because of this, that they know a lot about her. The other neighbours have said things. Rachel’s mother, Trish, has mentioned her. They know her name is Dayton. Dayton from California living now in Canada. The baby is Carrie, which reminds Tom of the Stephen King movie, of pig’s blood and periods, of a hand coming out of a grave. That movie made Tom uncomfortable. Who would name their child Carrie? Someone named Dayton, he supposes. Tom sighs. Although that’s such an old movie now, Dayton might not even know about it. She looks young. Early thirties? Late twenties? Or maybe it’s just the hair. The name. Maybe she’s older than Tom and Maria. Tom scratches his head and continues raking. There is a dog barking somewhere, but Tom isn’t sure where. There are many dogs in the neighbourhood and they are often barking. This includes Tom’s dog.

  The swoosh and scrape of Tom’s rake in the leaves, the smell of fresh dirt, the crisp chill air — all of this works to make him satisfied and still. After the week he had at the office, new clients, proposals to send out, the computers down for two hours on Thursday, raking up the golds and yellows and oranges, collecting all this colour, makes Tom take notice. Life might be better if he didn’t have to work.

  “Around the side,” Maria says. He hears her out front. She has been raking the sidewalk and the sound has stopped, the grating sound the plastic makes when in contact with the concrete has ceased. Maria is talking to someone.

  Tom moves to look around the side of the large front porch, dragging behind him a half-filled paper bag of leaves, carrying his rake in one hand. As he peers towards the street, the sound of Maria raking starts up again. Scratching at the near leaf-less sidewalk. He smiles to himself, thinking about how picky she is, always trying to get up every last leaf, every bit of soil, crumble, twig. She’s like this in the house too, always bending to collect dog fur, dust clumps, stray fuzz and lint. No wonder she complains about lower back problems, all that bending. She says she does it for Becky, who loves a clean house, but Tom is sure Maria does it for herself too. Maria won’t admit it, but Tom remembers that before Becky was born Maria would vacuum the house every day. She would mop the kitchen floor three times a week. It’s funny, but the fact that Maria won’t admit it makes it not true. Tom questions his memories whenever they aren’t the same as Maria’s. Married for fifteen years, Tom remembers things from his past through Maria’s eyes, as if he’s in there, staring out. Like in the movie Being John Malkovich, Tom is in his own movie, Being Maria Shutter. Sometimes Tom closes his eyes and concentrates hard and tries to see his life a year, two years ago, but all he sees is what Maria has told him about his past. Even though he was there. She has erased all his mind. Tom’s mother and father did this too. And Tom’s brother. Everyone has always reinvented Tom. Tom would say, “Remember when I had that blue bike?” and his mother would say, “It was yellow, dear,�
� and even though Tom knew, for sure, that the yellow bike belonged to his brother, Ted, and his bike was blue, and no matter how much Tom would fight it, she would insist that his bike was yellow, yellow, yellow, until, one day, Tom would remember his bike was yellow.

  “Hello.”

  The word startles Tom. This happens all the time. Tom fading out, losing touch with reality. Thinking. A man is coming towards him, over the grass, around the corner of his house. Straight at him as he stands there, rake in hand, bag in other hand, staring at nothing.

  Becky squeals with delight from across the street. She is twelve and everything makes her exclaim in high, loud screeches. Tom focuses quickly back to the present.

  “Hello,” Tom says, looking carefully at the man. Tom is imme­diately struck by the scar running down his face and he can’t help but cringe. As if this man’s face has been split in two by an axe, a thick, white scar from the centre of his hairline, directly below his widow’s peak, straight through the centre of his nose, which is widened and lumpy, and down through his lip and stubbly chin. A wide scar, rough and jagged. A scar that is blatant in its violence. The scar doesn’t move when the man says hello so that it looks as if each side of his face is portraying a separate, singular emotion. Like a clown’s mouth, the two sides of his mouth turn up independently of each other.

  Maria peers around the house at Tom, bends out into the open to catch Tom’s sightline. Her eyes are wide and Tom remembers quickly what he loves about her. Even if she steals his past and cleans the house too often, she’s still got that expressive, wild face. In one small moment he can read everything she wants to say in her arched eyebrows, those beady brown eyes, that full mouth. Tom collects himself and tries to smile at the man.

  The scar-faced man is wearing coveralls, light blue, speckled with red and brown paint. His hair is straw blond. Thick. It’s a shame, Tom thinks, the man might just be considered handsome except for the line that divides his face. The man is taller than Tom, and the muscles in his neck and forearms are prominent. Looking at him, Tom remembers something he hasn’t thought of in years. His own memory. Not his mother’s. Not Maria’s. But his. Tom remembers finding a photo album high up on the shelf in his grandparents’ basement. The album was full of postcards, placed within the plastic sleeves where photos should go. Each postcard was from a circus, and there were pictures on the postcards of the freaks from the circus: the half-man-half-woman, the fat woman, the bearded woman, the snake-boy, the gorilla-man, the sword swallower, the Siamese twins, the ugliest woman in the world. He remembers spending hours staring at those postcards — his grandfather collected them from flea markets, along with old photographs of farms and windmills and lighthouses and thimbles and spoons. Tom remembers being fascinated by the distorted faces and bodies. He would look at the pictures and then look away, ashamed at having caught himself staring. This is a sudden memory that is Tom’s own. It belongs solely to him.

  “Sorry,” Tom says to the scar-faced man. “We had the house painted last year.” He points to the man’s coveralls. “I was told it would last a couple years. It’s chipping up a bit on the porch, but I can do that next summer.”

  “Paint?” the man says. “Sorry?”

  “He’s here about raking,” Maria calls out and then turns and heads back down to the street, dragging her rake behind her. It is obvious from her demeanour that she wants Tom to deal with this, that she wants nothing to do with this man in his coveralls standing in front of their house. She will have something to say later, Tom is sure, something to say about the way he handled the situation but, for now, she disappears into the distance.

  “Raking?”

  “Yes, raking. Can you use some help?”

  “I can always use some help,” Tom says even though he doesn’t want any help. Even if he did want help, he knows he has nothing in his wallet to pay the guy. “But, sorry,” Tom says quickly, regretting his words immediately. “I’m broke right now.” He leans the rake on his hip and holds up his hands as if to show the man he has nothing in them. Not a cent. He flicks them. Waves them. Some small part of him wants to pull out his pockets, dangle the inside white lining, show the emptiness of them. Pull the lint out from the seams. A Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton move. Shrug a bit, hands in the air. Shuffle.

  “I can help anyway,” the man says. “Do you have an extra rake?”

  “No, really. I don’t have any cash.”

  The man smiles — half his face smiles, the other half is stiffer. It’s disconcerting. Tom can hear his daughter across the street, bouncing a basketball on the neighbour’s driveway. He can hear her shrill giggle. He hears her say, “Rachel, you’re such a turd,” and then they both bust up laughing so hard that Rachel has to sit down. She shouts, “Stop, I’ll pee.”

  “You can owe me,” the man says. “You can pay me another time.” He begins to walk towards Tom and Tom uneasily steps back. Maria comes up from the sidewalk and around the side of the house.

  “We need more bags,” she says. “We are out of bags.” She stops quickly when she sees the man still there. She looks curiously at Tom. He shrugs. “I can run to the store, I can get more bags,” Maria says.

  “I’ll use your rake,” the man says. “That settles it.” He takes Maria’s rake out of her hand and begins to work at the ground as if he’s never done anything in his entire life but rake leaves. He is thorough and methodical. Tom watches him for a while and then lifts his face up to Maria again. She scowls at him. She looks frightened and angry — Tom should have handled this situation — but she scurries off towards the street and her car.

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  There is a large pile of leaves directly in front of Tom when the wind picks up. The leaves begin to scatter. The scar-faced man is in the backyard. Tom can hear him working away, he can hear the sound the rake makes as it snags his grass. He can hear his dog barking from inside the house — the dog down the street barking as well. In fact, it seems to Tom that all the dogs in the neighbourhood don’t like this man.

  Tom’s whole life he’s been surrounded by men and women who have no true physical deformities, nothing out of the ordinary — large noses, moles maybe, fat in the wrong places, but nothing horrible — and he thinks about how this is not normal. Much of the world lives daily with ugliness and suffering: amputated arms and legs, burns, disfigurement. Look at Sierra Leone. Or Rwanda. Or Syria. Iraq. But here, in his city, it’s rare to even see a wheelchair. What Tom sees most of these days is the baldness and loss of eyebrows from cancer treatments. There are women at work. There is a man who works in the grocery store. That fuzzy-headed shape, bandana, wig, eyebrows drawn on with make-up, toques. Tom sees a lot of that these days. In fact, Maria likes to point out, “If it’s not cancer, it’s affairs,” as everyone they know is going through one or the other. But in the past Tom knows his parents’ generation saw amputated limbs from wars, scars from shrapnel, burn victims, circus freaks on postcards.

  The wind picks up.

  Tom puts his full bag of leaves on top of his blowing pile and also places his rake across it, trying to hold everything together. He would lie on the pile and wait for Maria to get back with more bags if he wasn’t sure the leaves were littered with dog crap — he can smell it. Not his dog — Tom keeps close eye on where his dog shits — but the neighbour’s dog. Early in the morning, drinking his coffee by the front window, Tom sees his neighbour’s dog defecating on his front lawn. Every morning. In the same place. The neighbour never picks it up. Tom doesn’t say anything. Maria gets angry but she doesn’t say anything. Neither one of them wants to rock the boat. Neighbours are hard enough. Angry neighbours are even harder. That’s another thing that is different in his life. Picking up dog shit. Not many people in the world do that. It’s a luxury to own a pet, although, with a bag of dog crap dangling from his hand, it doesn’t feel like a luxury. Tom’s heard that in Paris no one picks up shit and
they have street cleaners who wash the sidewalks early every morning, but he’s never been to Paris and so he doesn’t know if this is true. Like the leaves whirling around in front of him, Tom’s mind is scattered. His concentration is off. Maria would say it always is. “Pay attention, Tom,” she would say, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

  It’s just that there is always so much to think about.

  “Dad.” Becky is coming up the driveway with her basketball. Long-legged, stomach still protruding slightly, baby fat, a twelve-year-old approaching thirty-six, Becky gives off the air of non­cha­lance. She ignores the sound of the scar-faced man in the backyard. She purposefully looks away from the back of the house and focuses only on the front and the side. She bounces her ball carelessly and Tom knows she will lose it and it will roll into the street. A car will come. Tom is sure of it. “Hey, Dad. Who’s that guy in the backyard?” Her voice quavers slightly.

  “He’s helping me rake.”

  Becky walks towards Tom. She places the ball against the house and stares at the pile of leaves.

  “Don’t jump in it,” Tom says. “Dog crap.”

  “Eww.” Becky studies her fingernails and then starts to bite them nervously. Tom knows that the thought of dog crap, of dirt, of anything unclean, unnerves Becky. Tom shouldn’t have said anything, because there is no way Becky would have tried to jump in the pile and now, by drawing attention to leaves with dog poop in them, he has created a rift in Becky’s mind. He can see her thinking and worrying. She wouldn’t jump in leaves like a normal kid. Becky is obsessed with cleanliness and germs and it’s only getting worse the older she gets. Tom worries about her constantly, but Maria says it’s a stage, she’ll grow out of it. Tom watches the loose basketball to see if it will roll down the driveway. Miraculously, it doesn’t. It finds a groove and settles in.