Slights

by Kaaron Warren

  "What do you see? Talk to me!" I held his eyes open; my knees pressed into the bathroom tiles and they were damp. I couldn't tell if was from his piss or overflow from the bath. His arms flapped; I gently placed them back in the water. I stared into his eyes, hoping for a movie there.

  The thing is I can defend this. I don't do it because I want to kill them. I do it because I want to talk to them afterwards. But it's so hard to time. I get caught up – I don't want to bring them back too soon. I want them to spend time in the room so they can tell me.

  Den began to pant, and the blood flow seemed weaker. His lips moved. I considered bandaging his arms, stopping the flow, but he hadn't been there yet. He hadn't seen it. Just a few more moments, he needed to be closer.

  I could see the dark room approaching in his eyes. I stared harder, stared until my eyes stung. I allowed myself to be slighted by him, to see what happens when the person dies. There was a momentary shiver, was all, as that snippet ends up in the cold room with the dead person. So those shivers we all get, and we say someone's walking over my grave, but the truth is someone we were slighted by has died. It felt an itch, like a lost limb. A small piece shaved away. I shivered, goosestep on grave.

  He shook his head from my grasp, widened his eyes and said, clearly, "Dark." I was elated. He had seen the room, then, the dark, the razor teeth, smelt the shit. I smelt it too, but it was him, the bath a mess of blood, oil, shit.

  Then he sank away from me. His pupils were wide and black. I could see my own staring monkey face. Slowly, a thin cloud filmed over his eyes, and his eyeballs seemed to flatten. His face was grey, flat, toneless. He seemed to shrink; he was half the man he had been when we set out.

  "Talk to me," I said. "Is it golden? Is there someone there? What do you see?"

  When I was cleaning the bathroom later I saw, at the end of the bath, staring with glass eyes, my rubber ducky. Duck. Not dark. Duck.

  I buried him in the backyard.

  The phone rang as I was finishing in the garden. Peter said, "God, took you long enough."

  "I was digging in the garden."

  "Hmph. I thought you'd finished with all that. Look, I just wanted to tell you about Kelly's birthday. She's ten, you know. We're just having a party at home."

  I said, "I thought you hated those. We always went somewhere for your birthdays."

  Silence.

  Peter said, "Yes, but we had to."

  I said, "What do you mean? Mum and Dad loved kids."

  Peter said, "Come on, Steve. You know what I'm talking about."

  I said, "You tell me, Peter."

  Peter said, "I don't want to discuss it."

  I said, "Peter, if you say the words it'll be okay. My counsellor said so."

  Peter said, "It was Dad, Steve. I was ashamed of him. I thought he might lose it."

  I said, "You're kidding. What are you on about? Just because he liked me better than you doesn't mean you should lie about him. I wouldn't be seen dead at your ugly child's fucken party." I hung up.

  It was amazing they kept asking me back to these things. Just weeks later it was Maria's birthday; her parents threw her a party like she was a child. I didn't want to go; she never comes to any of mine. I told Auntie Ruth and she harumphed as I knew she would. "Who does that family think they are? Do they think they're your family? You've got family of your own, Steve. You just come right over here if you want company. I've made some special soup and we'll watch TV together. I've made a lovely banana cake…always use bananas which are almost black, Stevie, and you won't go wrong."

  That night was medical drama night; three of them in a row, and Auntie Ruth imagining she belonged in a hospital. I could never be sure if she preferred the idea of being a patient or a doctor. She told anyone who'd listen the commercial stations were best because you had time to go to the toilet during the ads.

  I could taste the soup just hearing about it. Auntie Ruth was a frugal person. If things were going off in her fridge she turned them into soup, anything. Yoghurt, mashed potato, tomatoes, meat, chicken, sausages, pumpkin, Brussels sprouts, anything went in, all vitamised to a texture and served with a sprig of wilting parsley. She called them her "vitamin soups". I called them vitamin goo.

  So I went to Maria's birthday. Half of them weren't there; sick politics in that family. We were served oysters and everyone nudged Peter, rude bastards, as if they knew something.

  I said, "I wouldn't eat it, Peter. Maria prefers them limp and in the other bed, doesn't she?" Peter was the only one who laughed. I looked into the faces of each of them, smiling.

  "What are you doing, Steve?" her sister Elise asked me.

  "Just being careful," I said. These people were my family, and Peter's, and I didn't want to slight them. It's so hard to be aware. You have to listen and respond to everything, watch where you walk, and when you get to the room they're waiting, anyway.

  I have never felt more of a pariah than I did that day. I felt like opening up my wounds and bleeding right there in front of them, just to make them pay attention. Say something. Not one mentioned the fact that I wanted to die. No one even asked me how I was. They might start, saying, "How…." But they don't want to know the answer. So they'd say, "How famous is Peter, now?" or they'd ask me if I'd tried the Mexican dip. Fuck that dip.

  Do they think suicide is catching?

  at thirty

  Peter rang out of the blue. "I want to let you know of a decision we've made. It's about my future."

  I didn't speak. His life was boring.

  "It's just that I don't feel like the courses are going anywhere. We've reached the end with them."

  "Thank fuck for that!" I said. "So what're you gonna do?"

  "We were thinking of politics."

  "Maria thinks it's a good idea, does she?"

  "She thinks I could make a go of it."

  "So long as you promise to legalise homicide," I said.

  "Whatever you say, Steve."

  They had a Peter launch and I was invited. They wanted me to hand around the plates of food. I don't think so. There were men there with dark eyes, mirrors, and I was all prepared. I'd been back to family planning, to make things safe. They give you what you want there. Every doctor I've been to has refused to give me a hysterectomy. They say I don't need one, that the accident caused problems with reproduction, but those eggs make me bleed every month. I know they're waiting.

  Some sycophant said, "So, Peter, why join the world of governance? Seems to me you were doing well where you were."

  "Yes, but I had the call to politics."

  He worried about my stories; that I'd spill the family history. He knew the stories as well as I did; Mum liked to talk. But he chose to forget them. Whenever I spoke he'd laugh loudly, to cover up my words and send the message that I was a clown. That nothing I said was to be taken seriously.

  I don't even know why he invited me to his launch. Dougie Page was there, standing in the corner looking uncomfortable. He avoided me. I wanted him to lay off Dad, leave it alone. I knew that Dad's stuff would lead to me, and I wanted Dougie off me so I ignored him. Easy.

  A lot of people came to talk to me after Peter made his decision to get into politics. Journalists from the local paper, investigators who didn't say where they were from, all wanting to find out if Peter was who he seemed to be: perfect, unblemished, with no terrible secrets. As far as the world was concerned, Peter's adult life was without guilt or error. I would have hated the results if they had been about me. They needed to go back as far as his early teenage years to find trouble, and that kind of trouble was something to be proud of.

  He rang me the day after the launch. "Thanks for not telling tales, Steve," he said. "I owe you a trip to the zoo."

  "Oh, yeah. Saturday OK?" I said. It was a joke between us; we both hated the zoo, thought it was the dullest place to visit. "What did I ever do for you?" I said.

  "True," he said. "Apart from saying nice things to anyone who asked over the last
few months. I really appreciate it. I relied on you cos you're my only sensible relative."

  "Apart from Auntie Ruth and the Grannies. And Uncle Dom."

  "Yeah, miles apart." We chuckled.

  "No," he said. "It was good of you. Not that I've got any secrets, but I know what you're like."

  I laughed. "Thanks and insults and a trip to the zoo all in one breath."

  He did very well from the start. A lot of the sort of person who votes for a person because their name is familiar said they'd vote for him and he was soon experiencing the power Maria had dreamed of. No one saw the irony of a salesman becoming a politician.

  My Granny card hasn't arrived. I called them and there was no answer. I rang Peter to see if he had heard anything from them. Rang Ruth too.

  "Don't talk to me about your grandmother. She sent me a photo. She's going to be dead of skin cancer before too long."

  I rang the Grannies again, and this time they answered. They were fine. Grampa had been in a chess tournament and they had let things slip.

  "Thanks for calling, Diana," Granny Walker said. Bitch. I went outside to work on the car. People ask me about it in the street, sometimes, because it's so old and flash. They're impressed when I say I look after it myself.

  I didn't realise how much other kids loved their grannies until we were adults, when I saw the delight Peter's girls had in seeing Maria's Mum.

  They squealed, wriggled, chattered. Peter often shrugged at me, I don't know where they get it from. It struck me that this was how our Grannies dreamt we would be. Mum told me how much the Grannies had dreamt of grandkids, and then they get us, two kids more interested in the world outside. They got Ruth's sucky little losers, Diana and Cary, though, and Dad's brother Seb had Nate, the most pathetic thing, who never looked alive. The poor little mutant would cry if you stared at it; we lost all contact once we hit our teens. Nate was there in my dark room a couple of times; why, I don't know. The time I shaved a bald spot on his head: the time I farted in his face? I think he took Peter's course once, but we didn't talk to him.

  Ruth's two geniuses are both business heads living overseas. They never have time for her. They send her money and she spends it.

  Dougie Page called to tell me there were developments. He wanted to take me to dinner, discuss the news.

  I said I didn't need to eat that day.

  at thirty-one

  On the night of the local election, I ordered pizza, chilled two bottles of champagne in case Peter dropped by to celebrate, and filled a bucket with ice to hold my beers so I wouldn't have to move except to piss. My housemate Isaac sat up in his room and barely bothered me. He was only staying at my place because he was the son of one of the women dying at the hospice, and she'd asked me to look after him. He sat up in his room. He's a very depressed person. I've never seen him smile. He makes me feel light and fluffy. He thought I was a guy. He thought I was a gay guy. I loved it. He told me all sorts of guy stuff I bet he regrets.

  There was some big party at Peter's place, but he said they were all wankers and would stand around talking instead of watching the election on TV. Peter was running as an independent, figuring it was his best way; people often make protest votes at local level, putting independents in to make a point to the government, without actually causing the government to lose power. He had broadened his appeal, building on his popularity as a self-help guru. His line was, "I believe in the little picture. If you're happy, society is happy." I wrote his victory speech for him.

  That's what should have happened. This is what did happen:

  I rang his house as the night progressed and Peter's numbers rose. Each time an excited stranger answered; in the background I could clearly hear the TV and people being shushed. I rang at regular intervals, just to piss them off. Each stranger said Peter was engaged.

  "What is he, a fucken toilet?" I said.

  Peter won his seat; I rang to congratulate him but the phone was engaged. It was engaged for the rest of the night. He's such a weak man, but people seem to find weakness charming. The more charming they find him, the more confident he becomes, and the more charismatic he appears. He never has trouble. He smiles, talks, and people give him what he needs. Maria arranged for the kids to stay with friends. (And haven't their friends changed, now? Maria got them into some fancy school, and all the parents are lawyers, politicians, crap like that.)

  In the morning after the election Maria answered the phone, "Maria Searle." All efficient, suddenly. Hoping it was the Prime Minister, ringing his congratulations. She had aspirations; that was obvious. She only wore designer clothes, always looked impeccable. But what's peccable, anyway? Would I be considered peccable?

  She was so ecstatic she forgot to be mean to me.

  "Stevie, sweetie, you must rush over, it's all on here." She remembered herself. "Though I know how much you hate scenes."

  "Don't worry, Maria, I wouldn't spoil your celebration by showing up. I'm happy whooping it up here in my own home."

  "It really is Peter's home, but of course he wouldn't dream of putting you out. Not at a time like this."

  It was actually my home; Mum left it to me. She said in her will, "Because she is so like her father, and will follow in his footsteps." Then they upped the entrance level in the cop force and that blew that idea off.

  "You must be very pleased with yourself," I said.

  "Well, as I do like to say, I remember clearly the moment Peter finally agreed with me that politics was the next logical step for him. He had conquered his own small world and it was time to travel over the ocean."

  The idea of Peter as conqueror was very funny; he was such a whingeing sook.

  "So I said, Peter, it's time."

  "How original," I said.

  "And look at him now! Who knows where the next step will carry us."

  "To the Lodge, perhaps?" I said, sarcasm clear.

  "Oh, no, that's not for us," she said, but even a fat deaf dog wouldn't believe that one. I called her First Lady for months after that and she loved it until Peter overheard and said, "There's no need for sarcasm," and she realised I was joking.

  He was very busy, but not too busy to send me a patronage in the mail. A video camera for my birthday. He had recorded a message for me, had the sense not to let Maria show her face.

  "Hi, Sis. Sorry we can't be there for your birthday, but you know how it is."

  I knew. I'd known for years, now, that my birthday was no longer important to anyone but me. It was one of the things that made me a grown-up. I re-wound the tape and recorded over it immediately. I took a movie of the backyard and how nice it was. I rang Peter to thank him for the video, but no one was home. "I'm sorry, Mrs Searle, but the test results came back positive. You are a man," I said to the machine.

  Got my cousin Nate's Granny card by mistake. "NATE, NATE, YOU ARE GREAT," it said.

  It surprised me that no one tried to commit me. They thought counselling was enough. As if anyone can read anyone else's mind. Because those tries I made, so many tries, some people would think that was mad. At the hospital, I seemed to get put under a different name every time, depending on who brought me in. Stephanie, Steph, Steve. Steven.

  Isaac put me in as Steven.

  He was gone by the time I came home from hospital.

  I fixed the video camera so it was close up on my face. I planned to keep my eyes open for as long as possible, because I wanted to see the movie there. I read a couple of chapters of one of Auntie Jessie's. On page 157 of Erewhon, the imaginative piece by Samuel Butler, Auntie Jessie wrote:

  Egatnavda sekat dna mih rof sgnileef ym swonk eh. Wonk ot eno eht em ekam eh seod yhw? Llet I nac ohw. Em truh ylno nac ti. Egdelwonk siht tnaw t'nod I? Semirc sih fo llet eh tsum yhw.

  I sliced my wrists this time with a smooth, sharp knife. I wanted to see if the room was real; if it was true that those people waited for me. I wanted to see my kingdom again.

  I sat in the bath, locked the door so Isaac couldn't g
et in and he didn't realise I was in there, which is why I went to the room again, began to identify some of the faces. I saw a friend I had not seen since high school.

  I said, "Hey, mate," hoping he could tell me where I was, but he shrank from my voice. I did not have time to ask again. Housemates were there; every single last fucken one of them. It was a real shock to find they all disliked me and felt slighted by me; I thought they were my friends. I didn't see any of them after they moved out, but people have busy lives. I have a busy life.

  I heard a noise. The smell was there, the faces, waiting. I sat up and could see them leaning against the walls of the room. I glimpsed faces I had seen, angry faces in other cars, waving fists, impatient, frightened, all so very slighted they are here, sliced away, to eat me up.