A Year of Lesser

by Bergen, David

  “I was at your first one.”

  “You were baptized once,” Johnny says. “Weren’t you?”

  “Of course, everyone was,” Carol says. “I was twelve.”

  “Huh. Anyways.”

  “You should see Charlene,” Carol says. “She’s gonna kill herself out there alone. Walk outside drunk. Fall over and freeze or something.”

  “I will,” Johnny says. “Right after supper.”

  But, he doesn’t. Instead, he goes back to the centre. Allison is there, sweeping the floor. She has her own key and often lets herself in. She’s playing music. It’s too loud.

  “Turn it down,” Johnny shouts.

  Allison doesn’t hear him. She’s holding the broom, her back to him, and her head’s bowed and moving slowly. Johnny tramps over to the stereo and turns down the volume. Allison swivels and smiles. “Thought I’d clean up a bit,” she says, pushing a hand out at the room.

  Johnny lifts an eye. “Nothing better to do?”

  “Not really.”

  Johnny goes to his back room and phones his house. Charlene surprises him and answers.

  “I’m just wondering,” Johnny says, “if you want me at home there? You decide, okay? I’ll do what you want.”

  Charlene’s voice is calm. “I’m strong enough,” she says.

  “You wouldn’t do anything stupid?” Johnny asks. Charlene laughs and then stops. Johnny listens to her quick light breaths and then says, “You’ll call me, if you need anything?”

  “Sure.”

  After he hangs up he sits for a long time, his eyes closed, and listens to Allison’s music. She shouldn’t be here, he thinks. It doesn’t look right. Not these days. He puts on his coat, tells Allison he’s going out, and drives down to the river and over the bridge to Glenlea. He could stop by St. Adolphe for a drink but he doesn’t want to, not really. He turns up the 75 and drives towards Morris. The inside of a car at night is a wonderful thing. There is a glow, a low hum; it’s his own egg. Johnny goes fast. His car is big and new and creaks faintly on the small bumps. Later Johnny pulls over and watches the traffic pass by. He talks to himself. “I am not a good man,” he says.

  When he gets back to the centre, Allison has left. Johnny brushes his teeth and climbs into bed. He stares up at the ceiling and thinks how believing in God makes him feel special. It gives him another side. He is not just one more philandering unbeliever, a descendant of an ape who, after spilling out his lonely life, returns to dust. In the darkness Johnny presses his fingers to his forehead, squeezes his eyes shut, cries a little, and whispers a need for forgiveness.

  On Sunday, before the baptism, Johnny calls up Phil Barkman and says, “I don’t think this is right. My life is not exactly on solid ground these days. Charlene and I are not doing well. Loraine Wallace is going to have my baby. I drive down the highway and big trucks bear down on me and I think I’m not ready to die, to be baptized. You see?”

  Phil doesn’t seem shocked or upset by Johnny’s revelations. Johnny can hear kids playing in the background. Phil says, “You think there’ll be a better time? I mean, you have to be sure. I can’t decide for you. This one’s all yours; not your wife’s, not Loraine’s, nor should it have much to do with this sense of imminent death you seem to have. Of course you want to be sure things are right with everyone in your life. Have you made your peace? But most of all you want to listen to the Holy Spirit. What does the Spirit want you to do?”

  Johnny hangs up, still confused. He tries to read the Bible but nods off. He sleeps too long and wakes with a feeling of both panic and anticipation. There are three cars in the church parking lot when he arrives. Inside he finds Melissa Emery, Phil, and one other man whom Phil introduces as his brother-in-law, Brian.

  “Are you ready?” Phil asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Turnout’s low tonight,” Phil says. He shakes his head.

  “No problem,” Johnny says. He finds himself amused.

  The main auditorium is vast and bright. Johnny changes downstairs; he wears underwear, purple briefs, beneath a white gown. He keeps on his socks. His hands shake; he is cold. Phil is already standing in the water when Johnny walks up to the edge of the baptistry tank. He steps down into the water, grateful for its warmth. Through the short panel of glass, against which the water laps, he can see Melissa’s red lips and Brian’s bald head. Then, Phil has him by the shoulders, clasps his hands, and speaks into Johnny’s ear. Asks him all those things that are necessary, things about Jesus and sins and the Holy Spirit, and Johnny says yes to all of them. Finally, he’s submerged and then he rises again, water dripping off his ears. Later, he and Phil change into dry clothes in a Sunday school room in the basement. They rub towels against goose-pimply skin. Their shared nakedness keeps them silent and thoughtful. Johnny turns his body slightly so Phil can’t see his privates; though he does manage to sneak a look at Phil’s and what he sees is nothing to brag about. Johnny slips his bare feet into brown shoes. His hair is tousled, his back still wet. Phil, dressed now, asks if he feels okay.

  “Yes,” Johnny says, and Phil hugs him. While they are holding each other Johnny thinks about how Phil looks when he’s naked. He shakes his head and tries to recall Melissa Emery’s red mouth. He hopes she will still be up there in that large vestibule, waiting to shake hands and wish him well. Then he remembers the voice he heard just before he went under the water. It was a groan or a chant, and he still isn’t sure if it was Melissa Emery babbling with delight or his own voice crying out at the high varnished rafters of the empty building.

  THE MIND OF CHRIS

  Loraine is losing her son. For some time now he’s been chafing. But as fall slides away and the world is at the edge of winter, Chris decides to take his hatred for this meagre life and throw it back at his mother. It’s like Loraine is standing at the edge of a river and Chris is walking out into the middle where the ice is thin and dangerous. She calls out to him but he ignores her. There’s nothing Loraine can do but watch. Some mornings, at breakfast, she watches him drop his chin near a bowl and spoon up cereal, and she thinks that all is okay, that Chris is still her little boy, that whatever ugliness she saw in him yesterday was exceptional and is dead today. But then he opens his mouth and Loraine must brave a barrage, a storm. He wallops away at his mother, at himself.

  Like this morning, he is buttering his toast and Loraine is by the kitchen window watching for the school bus. She turns to ask him if he has his bag, his lunch.

  “Why don’t you go puke,” he says.

  Loraine’s hands grip the countertop, the small of her back presses its edge. There is a hardness in her throat. “I’m finished with morning sickness. The first three months are the worst.”

  “Oh, the worst. Now we’re waiting for the best. I’m so excited.” He flaps his hands, mocking her.

  “Your bus is here.” Loraine can see it standing at the edge of the drive way. It’s like a big bright yellow box on a black background. A painting. She calls out goodbye but Chris doesn’t respond. She watches him run, his laces loose, his jacket flapping. Then he’s swallowed by the doors; a mouth of a bird.

  Loraine washes the dishes, then puts on a heavy coat—it was her husband’s—and goes out to the barn to gather eggs. She’s in the refrigerator room when the phone rings. She picks it up and talks but there’s no response. She says hello again and then there’s a quiet giggle and a voice breathy and loose that says, “Bitch,” and then a click. Loraine holds her breath. The baby’s fluttering and giving her goose bumps.

  This baby. She wonders why she wanted it. She knows who phoned and she feels sorry for the woman. Johnny sometimes talks about Charlene, not in a bad way, just little details, like her habits, and bodily things. Loraine will ask, point-blank, about Charlene: how often does she shave, does Johnny like hairy armpits, does Charlene have nice breasts, whose are nicer, what about weight, is Charlene heavy, and does Johnny like lots to hang on to. Johnny doesn’t seem to mind answering these q
uestions. Often they’re in bed talking like this and Johnny will touch Loraine all over. “I like you,” he’ll say.

  But Johnny hasn’t been around lately. And Loraine thinks maybe he won’t be. When he gets into this baptism and Bible stuff he becomes more faithful and stays close to Charlene. That’s all right, good for Charlene but, still, Loraine misses Johnny. She tries to understand how Chris might perceive all this. That’s what frightens Loraine. Obviously, she’s in the wrong; she has stolen another woman’s husband and, according to Chris, the man wasn’t worth stealing. But, it’s more than that; Chris is just discovering his own sexuality and it must be troubling for him to know his mother sleeps with Johnny.

  She talks to him one night. “You know, what Johnny and I are doing isn’t wrong. It’s terrible that Charlene gets hurt but if I love Johnny and he loves me, it’s not wrong for us to be having sex.”

  “Did I say it was?” Chris says. “I mean, just because you’re a slut doesn’t make it wrong. Right? Everybody says that, ‘Your mom’s a slut.’”

  “They do not.”

  “They think it.”

  “No, Chris. You think it. Look at me. Am I a slut? A whore?”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “No, not whatever. I was wrong, okay. I shouldn’t be pregnant. But I am. What do you want? An abortion?”

  No answer. Glum face and angry ears.

  “You have no idea,” Loraine says.

  “You talk too much,” Chris throws back. They are in his bedroom, Chris lying in bed, Loraine on a stool beside him. Her neck is hot and red; she stops talking. She gets up and walks out on him, softly shutting the door, wanting to slam it. She creeps back in later when he is sleeping and stands looking at him. Lingers over him, bends to listen to him breathe. His bare legs are outside the blanket. They are getting hairy. She touches him lightly: hair, eyes, elbow, knee, mouth, hand, thumb, lips. She kisses him and smells his cheek, a mixture of Vaseline and soap. He has tiny scrapes on his arms as if someone has poked at him with a sharp object. His nails are bitten, his hair long, eyelashes thick. He mumbles and stirs. Loraine backs from the room.

  One morning Johnny calls and tells Loraine that Chris punched a hole into his tongue. Johnny does not mean to say this, it is not the purpose of the call, but it slips out.

  “A hole? What do you mean?” Loraine asks.

  “Pierced. He pierced his tongue. You know, kids are into noses, navels, and so on. Well, Chris did his tongue.”

  “Like a hole right through?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “He was showing some other kid at the centre. And there it was, a stud, right through the middle.”

  Loraine laughs. She doesn’t want to, but she does. “Unbelievable.”

  “Don’t tell him I told you,” Johnny says.

  “Sure, no problem, you’ll just stay out of my life. Why’d you tell me? Do you think I want to know these things?”

  “Yes. In the end, you do.”

  Loraine has to sit down.

  “Actually, I’m calling about his trial,” Johnny says. “Are you going?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’ll take him if you like.”

  “He’d let you?”

  “He said so.”

  Loraine can’t believe this, how her son has latched on to Johnny, a man he doesn’t really care for. All his hatred is aimed at her. “Well,” she says, “if he’d rather go with you, fine.”

  “Hey, it was his idea. I’m not stealing him from you.”

  “No?” It’s quiet, and then Loraine says, “Haven’t seen you, Johnny.”

  Johnny is slow to respond. He coughs softly and says that Charlene needs him. He’s torn, but he’s got to make some decisions. “It’s a moral thing,” he says.

  “A what?”

  “Moral. You know, duty.”

  “Oh, I see. I get it.”

  That evening, at supper, Loraine watches Chris eat. She looks for flashes from his mouth but there’s no sign of gold. He eats quietly. Loraine attempts to engage him. “You going into town tonight?”

  “Uh huh,” he says.

  “How?”

  “With Walker.”

  “Seeing someone?”

  “Some kids.”

  “You still see Melody?”

  “Yup.”

  “Does she hang out at the centre?”

  “Some.”

  “Johnny called. He asked about your court appearance. The thing is, do you want me to go or Johnny?”

  “Johnny.”

  Loraine’s poking at some cauliflower on her plate. It crumbles and falls away. She can see that Chris is embarrassed. He doesn’t want his mother to see him in court. She accepts this and says, “Is Melody going the same day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Roger?”

  “A different time.”

  “Do you still see Roger?”

  “Not much. He’s a jerk. What is this?” Chris pushes back from the table.

  Loraine watches the tendons move on his hands. She remembers when he was two, she’d circle his wrist with her fingers and feel his narrow bone there and marvel at how frail he was. She hates the sound of her voice now, whiny, wheedling, as she says, “Before you leave you’ve got eggs to gather.”

  Chris turns and looks at his mother, distaste for this life forcing his mouth open and revealing his tongue, almost oversized, Loraine thinks, and she sees for an instant the tiny red spot at the centre of that fleshy organ, and then the mouth shuts and Chris is gone.

  The day of the court appearance, Johnny picks up Chris at nine in the morning and Loraine manages to kiss her son on the cheek before he leaves. Johnny stands in the doorway, his head bent a little, hands sticking into the pockets of his jacket. Chris is already in the car. Loraine keeps her distance and lays her hands across her belly. “Thanks,” she says.

  “For what?” Johnny says.

  “For doing this.”

  “Achhh.” He waves his hand and dismisses her.

  “He’s so angry,” Loraine says. Her body’s twitching being so close to Johnny. This happens when he’s around, excitement rises from her stomach up to her throat and then trickles around in her back. She lifts her nose. When he’s gone, raising a hand, obviously wanting to kiss her but knowing she won’t let him, Loraine folds laundry and thinks that she’s lonely. She has no one she could call a friend. Except maybe Helen but Helen hangs out with the book club group and it’s a collection of women Loraine doesn’t feel comfortable with. They’re sassy, she thinks. They all live in town; they either work at good jobs or don’t have to work. Charlene wouldn’t have to work at her job. Johnny’s got lots of money. All those women read too and Loraine doesn’t have time to read. She takes care of chickens. That’s what she does. Sometimes she dreams she’s at the bottom of a large tube and chicken feathers are floating down the tube and landing on her. At first it’s soft and cozy but the tube is high and the feathers keep coming and finally the load becomes unbearable and Loraine wakes up gasping for air.

  She’d like to move. Sell the farm and go to Winnipeg, get a job there, but she doesn’t know what she’d do. She never finished university; Jim plucked her out of school and moved her onto this farm and then died and she was left with an eight-year-old and twenty thousand birds.

  Loraine finds herself in Chris’s room, on his bed. She clutches his folded socks and thinks about how good it would be to take her son by his cheeks and hold him, face him, and talk, talk, talk. She wants to crack open his head, lick the ugliness out of the cracks and crevices of his brain. She wants him to be excited for this baby, to come with her and select a crib, to help name the baby.

  Smother, smother.

  Then she lies back on his bed and does something dark; opens his drawing book and pages through it. Inside are sketches and caricatures and little bits of writing. There’s a note to someone, Melody maybe, that never got finished, but it begins: Dear M, Huh-Huh Co
ol, was hoping to do some with you, ruby lips that kicked ass. It ruled. It ruled. Beneath this is the word Nirvana in scrolled handwriting. Loraine sits up and puts a tape in Chris’s player. She listens and dawdles. She tries to dance to one song but can’t feel the beat.

  She turns off the music and picks up the book again. She feels nervous and excited, like having Johnny on a Sunday afternoon, expecting Chris to bang through the door at any moment. Chris has drawn a picture of her. She recognizes her own arms and legs. She’s standing in the garden, leaning on a hoe, and she’s looking off somewhere as if something important were taking place far far away. For some reason Loraine is pleased looking at this drawing. It is flattering, even though it was done last summer, before Chris became angry and ridiculous.

  On the last page there is a letter to Melody. Dear Melody, Hey was thinking be nice to unzip you, or you me, and we could put our fingers where we shouldn’t. Maybe fuck, too. Sure, fuck. I like the way your tongue feels, cool little bumps that match my bumps. You can do what you want. You want? There is more and Loraine reads the whole thing and wishes she hadn’t. Then she reads it again. Loraine finds herself turning red because the language is both childish and daring. The only thing that relieves Loraine is the sense she has that the letter was never meant to be sent. Or read. She is amused at one point, though. It’s a quote from a TV show. She reads it.

  Come to Butt-head,

  Come a little closer.

  I just want to feel every part

  of me, touching every part of

  you. Especially the thingys.

  She laughs.

  Loraine cooks pasta and salad for supper and she makes fresh bread, planning to invite Johnny to stay. When Johnny and Chris return, around four-thirty, Loraine is walking from the house to the barn. Chris looks so small beyond the windshield; the glass warps him, he’s out of proportion, not her son at all. The car stops and Chris flies towards the house, not acknowledging his mother. Loraine leans into the car, rests her arms on the door and says, “So?”