Fruit
Page 22
Mr. Bernard was smiling at Uncle Ed in a way I hadn’t seen him smile before. It was weird. It seemed like they knew each other.
Then there’s the other thing. For some reason I thought of what my mom had said when I asked her why Uncle Ed never married.
“What thing?” I’d asked her.
I noticed the way Uncle Ed was leaning into the counter towards Mr. Bernard, the same way Phil the Burger King Banger leaned towards Daniela in the restaurant.
What thing?
Mr. Bernard laughed at something Uncle Ed said.
Somewhere, a car horn honked. I turned around and walked home as fast as I could.
I finally found a way to exercise that didn’t make me feel retarded. I was snooping through Nancy’s room the other day, looking to see if Nancy had used up all her birth control pills, when I came across her Jane Fonda workout album. I looked at the picture of Jane on the cover. Her hair was pulled back and she was wearing a grey leotard. She was smiling right at me, as if to say, “I’ve been waiting for you, Peter Paddington.” And it was the strangest thing, but the more I looked at Jane, the more I realized how much she looked like the Virgin Mary in my closet door. It was almost as if God had made me go snooping in Nancy’s room to find Jane.
“Ave Maria,” I whispered and crossed myself.
Now, Jane and I are best friends. Every night, I go downstairs and spend an hour with her. We stretch, we jog, we do sit-ups, and we firm up our buns. Every time that Jane says, “You can do it!” I know she’s talking directly to me.
Sometimes, I pretend to be Jane and I mouth the words she’s saying. I make believe that Entertainment Tonight is filming me for an upcoming television special called “Behind the Scenes with Hollywood’s Biggest Stars.” The ratings for the show will be very high.
“You can do it, America!” I smile at the camera and squeeze my buttocks high in the air.
Jane has taught me to take things slow. I’m still on the Beginners side. I don’t think that I’m ready for the Advanced just yet. But with Jane’s help, I’ll get there.
“You can do it!” she says.
I always make sure I keep the basement curtains closed.
The other day, while Jane and I were doing our buttock squeezes, I made a list in my head of all the things I’d changed about myself since the beginning of the year. The first is that I had actually started a diet and lasted more than three days. I think I’ve lost a couple of pounds because my finger doesn’t go into my belly button quite as far. The second thing is that I’d given up my paper route. I started training Daniela the other day. It’s going pretty well for the most part, but she scares some of the older people on my route. The other day, Daniela whipped the paper at Mrs. Guutweister’s door and nearly broke the glass. Mrs. Guutweister came running out, as if a bomb had just gone off.
“You’ll have to be patient,” I whispered to Mrs. Guutweister. “God isn’t finished with her yet.”
The third thing is that I saved Daniela’s virginity all by myself. A fourth thing is that I hardly ever think of Billy Archer anymore, except when I’m in the shower. A fifth thing is that I plan to take football lessons this summer so I can join the high school team in the fall. And the sixth thing is that I’m on my way to becoming someone new; someone I always knew I was, but no one could see.
I guess the only thing that hasn’t changed are my cherry nipples. They’re still there, puffy and red. Every morning, I wrap them up and every night, I set them free. In some ways, I’m starting to get used to them. I wonder if they’ll ever go away. I ask them, but they never talk to me anymore. Sometimes, I think they’re silent because they’re angry at me. And other times, I wonder if they ever talked in the first place. It’s weird how your mind can make you believe things that aren’t really true. Especially when it comes to yourself.
BEDTIME MOVIE #6
I’m walking down a crowded high school hallway. I hear lockers opening and closing. A bell rings and a girl laughs. But I know she’s not laughing at me. No one laughs at me anymore.
I’m thin and muscular and wearing a white T-shirt tucked into a pair of blue jeans. I’m also wearing deck shoes. My hair is long and hangs down over my forehead. It covers my eyes so that no one ever knows who or what I’m looking at. That’s part of my mystery.
Inside, I feel very powerful. Everyone wants something from me. People want me to join their clubs at school. They want me to sit at their table in the cafeteria. They invite me over to their houses on the weekend. They ask me to help them with their homework, even though they don’t really need it.
I don’t really mind, even though sometimes, I get annoyed. But I can’t really blame them, either. It’s like there’s something magical about me that no one can really describe.
Andrew Sinclair is up ahead, waiting by his locker. He sees me coming and thinks, “I should have called him. I should have asked him to the movies while I still had the chance.”
“Poor Andrew,” I think. He hates his life.
I pass the drama classroom. Debbie Andover is there, rehearsing for her next musical. I smile to myself. One of my new boy friends says that Debbie likes me.
“You should ask her out,” he tells me. “Every guy in this school would kill for the chance to date Debbie.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
I turn the corner and see Christine standing at her locker. She’s wearing her “I’m Peter Paddington’s sister” T-shirt.
“I thought we talked about this,” I sigh. “That T-shirt is embarrassing.”
“Is it a crime to be proud of you?” she asks me.
Nancy walks over to us.
“Mrs. Hanlan was arrested for murdering another aerobics instructor yesterday,” she says. “They say she’s gonna get the death penalty for sure.”
I shake my head. “I’ll have to give Dan a call tonight to see how he’s doing.” I turn the corner and head down the hallway towards the shop classes. That’s where all the Bangers hang out. Most students are afraid to walk by them. They’re afraid the Bangers will beat them up. But I’m not.
“Hey Peter.”
It’s Billy Archer. He’s standing outside his locker with a bunch of thugs. They all nod at me. Billy’s wearing his parachute pants. I feel a little sexy, but I don’t let Billy know that.
“Hey Billy,” I say. “Take your pills today?”
The other Bangers laugh. Billy tells me to screw off. But he’s not angry. He’s laughing when he says it. We have that kind of relationship.
After school, I have a very important championship football game.
“We’re all counting on you, Paddington,” Mr. Nunzio says.
“Back off, man!” I say and flip my hair. I’m very temperamental, but that’s to be expected. As captain of the football team, I’m under a lot of pressure. “I’ll do what I got to do.”
Out on the field, my team and I warm up. “This is it, people,” I say. “You can stand on the sidelines or you can get in the game.”
Craig Brown nods, but he’s secretly jealous of my popularity and good looks.
A whistle blows. The game is about to begin! I look over towards the stands and see familiar faces. My mom is there, misty-eyed. My dad is sitting beside her. He’s yelling, “Shake it off, Petey!” in a very loud voice. I’ve never heard him yell like that before. On the field in front of them, Daniela is shaking a pair of pom-poms. I made sure she got onto the cheerleading team.
“Go team!” she yells and shakes her pom-poms. “Go fuckin’ go!”
Suddenly, something catches my eye. It’s the football. This time, I know what to do. I grab the ball and start running in the right direction. If I score this touchdown, I’ll break the high school record. The crowd is on their feet. I can hear their screams and clapping.
I keep running, passing all the players from the other team. They all look like Brian Cinder.
“Eat dust!” I yell as I race by.
Then I start to get the feel
ing that I’m not running to something, but running from something. It’s true that the other players are close behind me, but there’s something else. It’s bigger, faster, and darker and it’s something that I know already, something that I try not to think about too often. It’s been following me for a long time now. And if I stop for one second to look behind me, it will trip me and ruin everything. So I don’t look behind and I don’t stop running.
My heart is crashing into my rib cage and I’m scared that the masking tape around my chest will break and then my cherry nipples will come popping out and then they’ll know.
Everyone will see the fruit I’m trying to hide.
I look up to see how far I have left to run and spot someone in the distance, standing between the goal posts.
“What’s in the news?” he asks.
Then I fall asleep.
Brian Francis was born in Sarnia, Ontario, and currently lives in Toronto.
In 2000, he received the Writers’ Union of Canada Emerging Author Award.
FRUIT is his first book.
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