A Year of Lesser

by Bergen, David

  Johnny lights a cigarette and lifts his shoulders. “Okay. Forty hours of community service. Here in Lesser.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What did you want, prison?”

  “In a way, yes. I’m happy, really. But he’ll never learn.”

  “I asked the judge if I could use him at the centre. No problem.”

  “Ah, Johnny. He’ll never do it. He’ll shirk.”

  “He’ll do it. We have to report back. It’s good, I’ve got this bathroom I want redone. He can do the bull work.” Johnny reaches up and touches Loraine’s face. “Your skin is perfect, tighter.”

  Loraine doesn’t move, just lets him touch. “Do you want some supper? It’s made.”

  “No. Chris is sick of me. I shouldn’t.” He kisses her then, on the cheek, as if she were his daughter and not the mother of his baby. Loraine is toying with this vision of domestic bliss, of Johnny joining the family and them all sitting down to an evening meal and Johnny reaching out to cup Loraine’s belly. She wants him, reaches down and puts a hand at his crotch. She’s wearing gloves so the effect is comically surgical. Johnny doesn’t seem to notice.

  His voice low, he asks, “How’s the baby?”

  “Good,” Loraine says. She stoops and lays her mouth on Johnny’s neck. “I’ve stopped puking and she’s moving.”

  “I think about you,” Johnny says.

  “Good.” And then Loraine, imagining Chris watching from the house, pulls out of the car. Her waist is cold where her parka lifted. “How ’bout Melody?”

  “Ten hours.”

  “And Roger?”

  “His was moved back. Next month. That boy’s clearly bad. Chris should stay away from him.”

  “He will.”

  After, when Johnny is driving away, Loraine watches his car and thinks how considerate he is these days, unusually kind and fair, as if his life were brimming with hope and happiness and he was doling out the excess to people surrounding him. When Johnny’s like this Loraine doesn’t mind as much him going back to Charlene. She just has to wait. It’s a nasty fact, but Loraine knows that when it comes to Johnny choosing, he’ll pick her over Charlene. He will.

  On Friday night Loraine drives Chris and Melody to Winnipeg and drops them off at DJ’S Roller City. Melody sits in front with Loraine and Chris is in back. Melody wears braces and when she talks her s’s slide around. It’s dark in the car and Loraine can smell the girl beside her, it’s as if she’s sprinkled baby powder on her shoulders. Loraine carries the conversation, asking about the Christmas concert, the school teams, the teachers. Melody likes to talk, Chris is silent. At one point he leans into the front, his head close to Loraine’s shoulder, and he runs a hand along the back of Melody’s hair. Loraine pretends not to notice and turns on the radio. She only has AM so must do with country or classic rock.

  “That’s lousy,” Chris says.

  Loraine turns the radio off. She says, turning to Melody, “Did Chris tell you I’m pregnant?”

  “Aw, Mom, give it a break,” Chris’s voice complains out of the darkness.

  Loraine continues, ignoring her son, “I don’t know about you but I think it’s better to talk than to pretend or go ’round with your eyes closed. I’m pregnant. It’s a fact. Maybe it’s not a great situation, but there it is.”

  “Hey, I think it’s neat, Mrs. Wallace. When are you due?” Melody’s voice cajoles, slippery, full of saliva. An undertow there. Things are deeper than they seem.

  “In five months,” Loraine answers. “The baby’s about this big.” And she holds up a thumb and forefinger showing the size of the fetus. “Like a good-sized frog.”

  Melody laughs. Chris groans.

  “Tell her what your mom said, Melody,” Chris says.

  “Chris. Don’t.” Melody turns in her seat and glares.

  “Oh, it’s okay,” Loraine says. “People talk. But I don’t worry. It’s my baby.” She pats her stomach instinctively and looks across at Melody who has her boots off and is resting her feet on the dash. Melody smiles; a flash of metal. Loraine feels affection for her.

  She leaves Chris and Melody at the door to DJ’S and drives to The Bay and shops till nine o’clock. Then she eats something at a nearby restaurant. She risks a glass of wine. It’s been so long since she’s pampered herself. The dining room is almost empty but Loraine doesn’t mind. She sits and looks out the window onto Portage Avenue. It’s a busy intersection so there’s lots of foot and vehicle traffic. After the farm it’s like a movie. People are just so fine here, everything in place, slick. Loraine feels frumpy.

  Back at DJ’S it’s fairly dark inside, only a big glass ball turning in the middle of the rink, so her frumpiness doesn’t really matter. She stands at the edge of the rink and stares out into the centre looking for Chris and Melody. They’re at the far end, coming around slowly, holding hands. Chris is talking. Melody smiles and punches at him, her thin arms flashing out and then back. Loraine sees that the girl is both exciting and dangerous; she’s not that innocent. Her body is a piano wire being stretched. Loraine knows the feeling. She doesn’t know though if her son can handle all this. She thinks that Chris is about to get hurt.

  There are a lot of native girls skating. They all seem to be wearing red pants and white T-shirts and their hair is black and wavy as if they’d all gotten perms at the same place. Most are thin but there’s a chubby one who can’t quite keep up. Chris and Melody drift by again, this time Chris is skating backwards and his tongue hangs out. Loraine can see a flash of gold, then his mouth claps shut. Finally, Melody spots Loraine and pulls Chris over. Melody jabbers while Chris lingers behind her.

  “Wanna skate, Mrs. Wallace? It’s easy.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Up close like this, leaning into Melody, Loraine is aware that the girl is stoned. Her eyes, even in this dim light, are swimming. She’s too happy; holds on to Loraine’s hands. Chris, Loraine supposes, is in the same state. Not knowing if she wants to deal with this, she lets them keep skating and seats herself at a small table and drinks coffee. She thinks about a girl like Melody, her father the pastor of a Mennonite church, and how likely she is, how necessary her actions seem. Johnny, more familiar with the underbelly of a stringent religion, has told Loraine that pastors’ kids inevitably go wild. They are programmed to either kill themselves or do heavy damage. Johnny speaks from personal experience; though his father wasn’t a pastor, he was a strict, fanatical man, eventually driving Johnny to his own extremes.

  At one point Loraine sees this couple holding each other for the longest time by the far wall. Later, when they part, she recognizes Chris and Melody. In fact, driving home later, they sit in the back seat while Loraine plays the chauffeur. They whisper and push at each other. It’s harmless, Loraine wants to believe. Then, remembering that letter, she almost asks Melody if she has protection; Loraine doesn’t want the girl hurt, she likes her spunk. She remembers what it’s like to be faced with the prospect of sex at this age, all excitement and clumsiness and mishap. Like sticking your nose into a gopher hole and being bitten.

  She plays some music softly and, pulling into Lesser, thinks the two children in back must be sleeping, it’s so quiet. She sneaks a look in the rear-view mirror and in the light of a street lamp sees her son entangled in Melody’s arms, his head pressed against her chest. Lights flash from a passing car and Melody’s face flares and disappears. For a moment Loraine sees how perfectly happy she is and this, for some reason, makes Loraine sad.

  In the morning Chris has a low-grade fever.

  “My tongue hurts,” he says. He touches his mouth. His speech is thicker today as if he were fighting words past a rag.

  Loraine feels his forehead and offers him juice and toast. She goes out to work in the barn and when she returns to the house at noon Chris’s fever has gone up. His lips are dry, his tongue fatter.

  Loraine says, “Your tongue’s infected.”

  The boy just stares, he doesn’t speak.r />
  “You put that in yourself? That hole?”

  Chris nods.

  “Was the needle, or punch, or whatever, clean?”

  “Yeah. I think so. Melody used it but I washed it.”

  “Boiled it?”

  “No, washed it. It was just Melody, it’s not like it was this bum.”

  “Well, there you go. Just curious. What did she pierce?”

  “Her nipple.” Chris says this and winces. His tongue is growing. The fever has made him yielding and honest. He’s telling Loraine stuff he normally wouldn’t. Loraine shakes her head and wonders if she should call Mrs. Krahn and have her check out Melody’s breasts, just to show her what’s happening—the woman’s naive.

  In the afternoon Loraine drives Chris to Emergency in Steinbach. They sit side by side surrounded by a worried mother holding a hot baby, a middle-aged man reading the paper, and a Holdemann couple with six children. Four girls, two boys. The girls are wearing these polka-dot kerchiefs. Loraine stares and watches the eldest daughter, who is close to Chris’s age, tend her baby brother. She’s a big patient girl with thick calves. The little boy toddles past Loraine, grabs a magazine, and gurgles. The Holdemann girl hovers, hands ready. Loraine, so close, sights the pale skin at her nape. Unblemished. She wonders if Chris has noticed this girl. How pleasing. Loraine wants to touch the hem of her dress. She thinks that if she were to be given another life she would choose to be this girl. Walk a path where doubt does not exist, where the rituals consist of dressing and eating and praying and having babies and standing in a large kitchen with several other women, bending before a yeasty dun-coloured bowl, laughing at some tidy joke, flour on the cheek. Nothing dirty there. No fear.

  The little one cries. The girl scoops him up. Her dress sticks between her legs and she pulls it free. Loraine turns to her son, whose head lolls. Later the doctor shakes her head, prescribes penicillin, and says to Loraine, “Watch him. Something like this shouldn’t be ignored. You especially have to monitor his breathing, swollen tongue and all.”

  That night Loraine dreams she is swallowing an eel and choking on it. She wakes, her fists clenched, and goes to check on Chris. His breathing is light and fast. His forehead is hot, his lips dry. Loraine sits by his side and when he stirs, offers him water. He drinks quickly, still groggy. Before he lies down again he kisses Loraine on the cheek. His eyes are on fire; he is mad. Loraine kisses him back quickly, feeling as if she is taking advantage of her boy.

  Chris’s mouth moves. He garbles a sentence and says, “Oops!” Then he says, clearly, in whispers as if confessing a private sin, “Melody doesn’t believe.” He slides back onto the pillow and sleeps.

  Loraine watches him; the hall light falls across his face. She would like to trade places with her son. She could so easily take his pain, his confusion and say, “There, you are healed. Go now.”

  She strokes his cheek. His mouth is big, like Jim’s was; stretched now, pulled by the weight of sleep, it is grotesque. Beautifully so. Ugly is beautiful sometimes. Loraine knows that and this is what attracts her to Johnny. He can be so ugly. Inside too, but there’s also a purity there; he’s raw and furious, and this makes him less elusive, more honest. She would like to hold him now. Just that. She lies down beside her hot son and holds him instead.

  Though the fever subsides a little by the evening of the next day, Chris remains dull and listless and his forehead and chest are blotchy. He is weak, too weak to eat properly. He drinks ice water and lets the cubes rest on his tongue. In this state he forgets who Loraine is and allows her entrance to his body. She helps him walk to the washroom, his legs wobbly and unfamiliar, and she holds his hips from behind as he stands and pees into the bowl.

  “I’m not looking,” she says. She runs a bath for him and helps him undress, guides him into the tub. He makes a half-hearted attempt to cover himself but once prone in the water simply sighs and closes his eyes. Loraine splashes water across his chest and watches his penis float. It’s shaped like Jim’s; remembering Jim like this loosens a shard into her throat and the quick pain makes her eyes water, as if that innocuous little muscle were a tunnel to her past, to a time before Johnny. Johnny’s penis, when limp, is long and thin and when Loraine talks to it she mocks it. Then she puts her mouth on Johnny’s chest and says, “You’re teeny, teeny.” He doesn’t like that.

  “You can go now,” Chris says. His eyes are open and he’s watching Loraine stare at him. He draws a cloth over his crotch.

  Loraine reddens. “Okay, if you need help, call me.”

  Later, they watch TV together and though Chris’s eyes are still grey and wet and weak, he seems revived. He eats some soup that Loraine makes—and he talks.

  “You know this stuff Johnny talks about? About being saved?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I’m thinking it makes sense, somehow. You know, like we’re all lost in a way.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “I see.” Loraine pauses, then says, “Johnny’s a little hysterical at times.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He goes overboard.”

  “‘You think you’re better than him?” Chris asks. Loraine can sense that the testiness and resentment still exist in the dark corners of his mouth. But she doesn’t answer, knowing he’s frail and unable to damage her.

  His eyes close and he sleeps. She stays, is tickled by the thought of him needing her. He is not himself. Soon, maybe tomorrow, he will lash out again, his voice resentful, his thin shoulders sharp with anger. However, at this moment, he is frail.

  He chants and rambles, drifts into sleep and then reports back to her. Loraine cannot be sure but she thinks he speaks of beauty and kisses, of the sweet tongue of Melody, of a pierced nipple which resembles a ring through the snout of a pig, of the first inkling of death, and of a baby roaring at its mother, mouth open.

  At one point he startles and says, “I like Melody, she’s funny.”

  “Funny?”

  “Yeah, like she doesn’t care. Nothing’s important.” A pause. “That’s her line.”

  Loraine nods and Chris slides back into a silent reverie. His mind is a weightless insect, a butterfly rising and tumbling, brushing up against a stone wall here, a tree there. The slightest commotion makes it jerk and falter. For the moment Loraine wants to capture that dizziness, cup it in her palms, and keep it safe.

  WINTER

  THIS DARKNESS

  Though she plans on going to work Friday morning, Charlene doesn’t even manage to get dressed. She sits naked on the toilet and groans into her hands. The room is cold. The furnace must have cut out during the night or the wood stove needed stoking. Her dress and stockings are laid out on the bed. She put them there last night, before opening the bottle and dipping into the heat that slid down her throat so easily. She stands, turns, and throws up into the bowl. Not much there.

  “God,” she says, wiping her mouth with a towel. On all fours now she studies the green growth at the base of the toilet. “Clean it,” she says. She bends her neck and confronts her breasts which hang and swing. She can see her crotch way down there, an intricate forest at the end of a passage. Lying down on the throw rug she pulls a bath towel on top of herself. She squeezes herself tightly. A memory comes to her of when she was young and sick and her mother served her lunch in bed, soup and crackers and ginger ale, but she threw it up. She had been afraid that she would choke on her own vomit. Her mother held her head and washed her face. Then together they lay in bed and both fell asleep. That was a happy moment. Rare.

  At ten o’clock Charlene manages to dial the Credit Union. The receptionist, Judy Penner, is curt and prissy. “Mr. Wohlgemut’s been asking about you,” she says. “Here, I’ll put you through.”

  Charlene’s head aches. Her mouth puckers and then she slides back into her boss’s life, bowing to him, telling him that her life has not been pretty lately.

  The man is terse, yet cloyingly
patient, as if informing her that she has erred but will now be forgiven. Charlene wants to hang up but instead she says, “My husband’s been seeing this other woman, you might know her, Loraine Wallace, and until I get this sorted out in my brain I’ll have to stay away from work.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Wohlgemut says. “Yes. Mrs. Wallace. I just loaned her money for a new generator. I’m sorry.”

  Charlene thinks about how when she is called into this man’s office, or she meets him by the vault, she pictures holding him like a child, and he lays his head on her breast and smiles up into her face.

  Charlene says, “Loraine’s going to have a baby.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wohlgemut. Forgive me. Will you take me back Monday morning?”

  Charlene can hear the man’s pencil tapping on the desk. She knows what he’s thinking. There’s all this sexual stuff twisted into her story and in some way he’s excited and wants to take care of her. “Yes, shh, listen,” he says. “Could one of the girls from here help you out? It’s slow today and Luisa could come.”

  “I’m fine. Thanks. That’s awfully sweet.”

  “Don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Yes.”

  After Charlene hangs up she stares at the ceiling and then gets up and takes three Tylenols. There is a half-full bottle of rye on her bedside table. She studies the bottle for a long time. Her teeth are chattering. Her whole jaw shakes. She hasn’t eaten for days. Johnny tried to serve her toast and coffee the other morning, Thursday it was, but Charlene just pushed it away.

  Finally, she sleeps.

  In the afternoon she wakes sweaty and confused and lies with her eyes closed until she has grasped who and where she is. There is a fly banging against the windowpane. Odd, she thinks, this time of year. It is windy; she can hear the trees creaking, the eaves whistling. She calls Loraine, listens to the hum of the phone and imagines Loraine walking, reaching out for the receiver; there is that second, just before the conversation, which cradles the unknown.