Born Weird Read online

  It was a perfect one-night solution. However, Kent showed no signs of venturing out, and so his siblings spent the next five days roughing it in the grassless backyard of Palmerston Boulevard. Taking shifts, one of them guarded the front door while another watched the back. This was done twenty-four hours a day. Those not standing guard were free to do as they pleased. Which turned into sitting around the picnic table in the backyard, drinking wine and playing cards. Except for the fact that their father was dead, their mother was institutionalized and their youngest brother occasionally threw objects at them from above, they were finally having the camping experience that Besnard had always envisioned.

  But four nights spent sleeping on an air mattress was all Angie’s pregnant body could take. On April 16, four days before Grandmother Weird’s birthday, she commandeered the coach house and sent Paul to IKEA to buy a bed. Just after 3:00 p.m., as afternoon sunlight flooded into the coach house, she sat on the floor and watched Paul as he struggled to assemble a white Leirvik bedframe.

  “Jesus fuck! Goddamn it!” he yelled as he tried to interpret the pictograms.

  Angie watched him for a while and then she lay down on the floor, but her view of the ceiling only encouraged her nostalgia. When she and her sisters were teenagers, making curfew had been extremely important to their father. Dates were to be concluded, promptly, at 11:00 p.m. on the front steps. Besnard was extremely inflexible on this, which was why, twenty to forty minutes before eleven o’clock, depending on the skills of whom they were dating, they’d sneak into the coach house. This way, no matter how hot and heavy things got they’d still be home on time—the coach house’s proximity to the front door turned it into a sort of teenage love motel. It was where each of the three Weird daughters had lost her virginity.

  “Jesus! What the fuck do they … Christ! It makes no sense! Wait. Damn it!” Paul said. Angie watched him take off his shirt. His back was sweaty. His profanities were ludicrously similar to the ones Zach had uttered to her during foreplay. She waited until he’d finished assembling the bed. Then she stood and ran across the room as quickly as she could. Colliding, they fell backwards. The bed sagged but it held.

  “I love you,” Angie said. She started unbuttoning things. “What about the baby?”

  “She loves you too. I think you’ll have to take me from behind.”

  “I can do that.”

  Afterwards they lay on their backs, smiling, relaxed and believing in life. “Listen, I gotta tell you something,” Paul said. “I got a call last week. From the Hendersons?”

  “No. Don’t do this.”

  “So you did contact them?”

  “We’re having such a beautiful moment.”

  “They said you were talking to them about adoption? Is that right?”

  “Let’s just have this. Let’s just be in the moment. This moment. Please?”

  “They seemed to believe that you were pretty keen about it. In fact they were surprised to hear that I didn’t know,” Paul said. He raised his eyebrows. She knew that he was waiting, patiently but not without a limit, for her to explain herself.

  “Listen. I had coffee with them. That’s it. That’s all. I didn’t agree to anything. If they thought I had, well that’s just them being overeager.”

  “Wait. So without me, you met with … this is … that is too far!”

  “Paul, it’s just such a big commitment for me. For us! Are you really ready?”

  “Yes! Yes I am! I’m so ready for this. Aren’t you?”

  Angie did not have an answer to this. At least not one she wanted to speak aloud. Paul believed her reluctance to commit was due to a lack of love. But the opposite was true. The amount of love she felt for both him and their unborn daughter terrified her. She feared that raising this child, with him, would generate so much love that it would simply sweep her away. Just like her mom had been swept away.

  Angie closed her eyes. When she opened them again Paul was still staring at her. His teeth remained set. He turned his head slightly to the left and he kept on looking at her. This is why Angie was filled with relief when the door burst open and her siblings rushed in.

  “He’s rounding third!”

  “Don’t be stupid. He’s obviously already earned a run!”

  “Eight and half months ago …”

  “Nice girth.”

  “We’re gonna talk about this later,” Paul said. Ignoring them he continued to stare at Angie.

  “But really Paul, an anchor tattoo? Isn’t that a little too clichéd? Even as irony?”

  “Thank God we weren’t twenty minutes earlier.”

  “More like ten.”

  “Five!”

  “Angie, I’m serious. We’re gonna talk about this later.”

  “I’ve always wondered if keeping the cap is worth the maintenance.”

  “Here,” Abba said. She tossed the white cotton sheet that they hadn’t had a chance to use. Paul had just covered them as Lucy, Abba and Richard climbed onto the bed.

  “Careful,” Paul said, “it’s IKEA.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Richard says it’s time.”

  “It’s time,” Richard said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know,” Richard said. “It’s safe. Or at least as safe as it’s ever going to be.”

  THEY STOOD ON THE PORCH and no one moved, or spoke, not even Abba.

  “Why do I get the feeling that this is a bad idea?” Richard finally asked.

  “We’ll all be fine,” Abba answered.

  “Do you know for certain that we’ll be fine or are you just hoping that we’ll be fine?”

  “It’s just Kent!” Abba said. Her voice was queenly. She opened the door and held it open. A pause, and then, “Don’t be assholes!”

  The queen had vanished, leaving only their sister Abba. In the end, it was the latter who had more pull and so they followed her inside. Angie was the last one in and she let the screen door slam behind her, something she’d been doing since she was twelve.

  “Are you ever going to stop doing that?” Richard asked, loudly.

  “Jesus!” Lucy yelled. Abba, who had pressed her hands over her ears, nodded in agreement.

  “You weren’t raised in a fucking barn,” a voice screamed from the top of the staircase. This was a phrase often uttered by their father. Hearing it said in a voice so like his spooked them all.

  “Sorry,” Angie said.

  “You guys sure waited long enough,” Kent called down.

  “We didn’t know that throwing things was a formal invitation,” Lucy said.

  “How’s this? Come the fuck up. There’s something I want to show you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Upstairs!”

  “Upstairs or up-upstairs?”

  “Up-upstairs. And take your shoes off.”

  “Really?” Angie asked. She examined the floor. It seemed more threatening to her socks than her shoes were to it. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Take off your shoes!”

  “We’re doing it,” Abba said. She bent over and started unlacing. None of the rest of them moved.

  “What do you think he wants?” Angie whispered.

  “I don’t think he wants to do anything unforetold,” Abba said.

  “What are you? From the nineteenth century?” Lucy asked.

  “Who talks like that?”

  “I’m with Abba on this one,” Richard said. “I think he just wants us to go up and see him. I do think we should take our shoes off though.”

  “I want a special exemption,” Angie said.

  “No exemptions,” Richard said. “But sit down and I’ll help you.”

  Angie sat down on the third stair from the bottom. She held out her feet and caught Lucy’s eye. “See?” she told her. “That’s a sibling who cares.”

  When they were all shoeless Richard put his hand on the banister. He paused, briefly. Then he began climbing the stairs. They follo
wed him up. On the second floor landing Richard brushed his hand on his pants. He continued up to the third floor without putting it back on the railing. The window at the top of the stairs was covered with cardboard. It seemed that all of the windows were covered with something. They stood, close together, in complete darkness.

  “Angie, get the light,” Richard said.

  “No way,” she said. “Absolutely no way.”

  The light switch on the third floor had always been political. It wasn’t at the top of the stairs, but on the wall across from the top of the stairs. Turning it on required two steps in complete darkness and then groping blindly along the wall until the switch was located. It was a task that had always fallen to Angie.

  “Why should I do it?” Angie asked.

  “Because you always did it,” Lucy said.

  “But I’m pregnant.”

  “Not our fault.”

  “You gotta let that go.”

  “Already old.”

  “Vote,” Lucy suggested.

  “I can’t even see who’s voting.”

  “Angie, just do it.”

  “There’s probably no power anyway.”

  “This is so unfair.”

  “Truth isn’t fair.”

  “What does making me turn on a light switch have to do with truth?”

  “Just get the switch,” Richard said.

  Angie knew it was no use fighting them. She held the banister. She put her left foot directly against the post. She took two steps into the darkness. When she touched the wall Angie ran her hand up and down until she felt the switch.

  “Such a stupid place for a light switch,” Angie said. She flicked it. The hall light failed to come on but a flame burst in front of her face. The flame lit a candle and revealed the face of Kent. The full drifter-style beard made him almost unrecognizable and the candle lit him from underneath, giving his face a ghoulish quality.

  “Why do you have a phone number on your forearm?” he asked.

  “No hello? No good-to-see-you-after-eight-years? Or oh-my-God-you’re-pregnant?”

  “Those things are explainable.”

  “The Shark did it.”

  “See? Now I understand. Why did she … never mind. That can wait. How are they?” Kent said and he nodded towards the rest of his siblings who remained huddled at the top of the steps.

  “About the same.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Abba’s with us.”

  “I know.”

  “How are you? I mean, are you okay?”

  “Who’s the new guy?”

  “He’s the dad.”

  “Let’s hope he’ll be better than ours.”

  “He already is,” she said.

  “May I?” he asked. He pointed to her stomach. Angie nodded. Kent passed her the candle and then he put both of his palms on her belly. She had been waiting for one of them to do this.

  “Don’t cry.”

  “I’ … m … not.”

  Kent kept his hands on Angie’s stomach for several moments more. They were still there when Richard, Abba, Lucy and Paul moved behind her.

  “I’m glad it’s you that reproduced,” Kent said.

  “Well I haven’t done it yet,” she said. She knocked on the wooden door frame. Kent removed his hands and then took three giant backwards steps. He raised his arms over his head. With his left foot he kicked the door of what had been his bedroom. It swung open. A flickering yellow glow spilled out. Bowing low, Kent beckoned them inside.

  Only Abba accepted the invitation. They watched her disappear into his bedroom. Then she gasped so loudly that they rushed and struggled to get inside.

  COLLECTIVELY, AS A HERD OF Weirds, they ran towards Kent’s room. None of them knew for certain whether Abba’s gasp had been provoked by joy or fear. Kent had spent years living like a squatter, being homeless in his own home, and they had no idea what he was capable of—or what he’d created in there.

  Angie was last inside. Seeing it stopped her cold. Then she started to sob.

  “Crybaby,” Kent whispered.

  Kent had rebuilt Rainytown. Their cardboard city stretched between all four walls of his old room. But he had done so much more than simply set up the houses and the buildings. Using clear tape he’d repaired every tear in every piece of cardboard. He’d reinforced the larger multi-storey buildings with popsicle sticks. For the interior of Abba’s castle he’d used chopsticks and duct tape.

  Every building had been repainted and not one of them was a shade away from its original colour, even the pink on Abba’s castle. The lettering on the signs had been darkened and redrawn but Kent had been able to keep the original handwriting. The sign above the Endoh World Laundry-Matt was still recognizably Abba’s. The Terminal Bus Terminal was still in Richard’s thirteen-year-old scrawl.

  He’d added things too. The most obvious was that he’d run electricity into town. Tiny proportionally sized lampposts ran down both sides of every street. The lights were on inside every building that would have been open after dark. So a yellow glow came out of The Stake House, the only restaurant in Rainytown catering to the vampire population. It was also on in The Hanging Garden, where at the end of every meal the customers were not served with a check, but a noose. Yet Dr. U. Vernt Goodenough’s Plastic Surgery Palace, The Cut Brakes Used Car Lot, and Styx and Stoners Used Musical Instruments were dark.

  “Is it perfect?” Kent asked.

  It took Angie a second to understand that he was talking to her. She was still noticing details, like the black pipe cleaners he’d used to twist their family name into the front gate of the Rainytown Bone Orchard. And how the paper flowers on their father’s grave were fresh.

  “Yes. It is,” Angie said.

  “It really is,” Richard said.

  “Better than before,” Abba said.

  “Much better,” Lucy said.

  “Good,” Kent said. He raised his hands above his head. He opened and closed his fingers as if they were claws. Then he took one big awkward Godzilla-like step towards Rainytown.

  “No! Kent! Don’t!” Angie yelled.

  At the very edge of Rainytown, his foot raised in the air, Kent stopped. He looked up at the ceiling. “Rwarrrrrrrr,” Kent screamed. The word he’d used was at best a pale imitation of a sound remembered from the monster movies they’d watched so long ago. Yet it conveyed so much pain and sadness and anger that none of them could imagine a better one. It said everything they were feeling. What none of them had ever figured out how to express. Kent stepped forwards and he stomped on the water tower, grinding it into the floor as if he were extinguishing a cigarette.

  Richard did not hesitate. He screamed and raised his hands over his head and took out most of Maimstreet with one sweeping kick. Abba went straight for the castle, pulling it down with her teeth and then spitting out its paper foundation. Lucy worked her way up Blood & Guts Boulevard, hopping on top of one building and then the next. Stopping his path of destruction Kent looked over his shoulder at Angie.

  “Rwarr?” he asked, tenderly.

  “Rwarr,” she repeated. Holding her stomach she stepped forwards and destroyed the cemetery with a single kick of her socked foot. They continued jumping and tearing and screaming.

  Within minutes, Rainytown lay in ruins.

  BOOK THREE:

  The Theory of Snakes and Sharks

  AS THE AUTOMATIC DOORS TO Lester B. Pearson International Airport slid open, the Weirds—plus Paul—had done what they could. They’d spent the day before packing and buying tickets and trying to get cleaned up. Kent’s hair and beard had been trimmed and they’d bought him new clothes. Lucy’s and Angie’s mom-made haircuts were tucked under woollen caps. Richard bought the tickets online with his platinum card and at the check-in counter he did all the talking. The six of them received their boarding passes and checked their luggage without incident.

  They passed through security without a frisk or an alarm. In the designated wait
ing area beside Gate 23 they waited for twenty-six minutes. Then flight AC808 from Toronto to Vancouver began to board.

  Their strategy was to put those they anticipated causing the most problems at the front. The hope was that the weight of suspicion wouldn’t accumulate until the sketchiest of them was already on board. Kent went first. He showed his boarding pass. The flight attendant didn’t notice that his driver’s licence was expired. He was waved ahead. At the back of the line Angie tried not to look too relieved.

  The flight attendant commented on how much she liked Lucy’s hat. She gave Abba a respectful nod, and she did not question her Uplifftian passport. Richard was sent forwards with a flirtatious smile. In Angie’s mind the worst was over. With Paul behind her, she stepped forwards and presented her boarding pass. The flight attendant looked her over. First her eyes rested on the phone number on her forearm. Then they lowered to her stomach.

  “Do you have a note?” the flight attendant asked. She chewed her gum. She blew a small pink bubble, which broke.

  “I have my boarding pass.”

  “From your doctor.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “How many weeks along are you?”

  “Let’s call it thirty-six. She’s a kicker.”

  “Sorry,” said the flight attendant. She obviously wasn’t. Seeing an opportunity to exercise the scant authority she’d been endowed with, she continued. “I can’t let you fly. We can’t let anyone beyond thirty-five weeks board.”

  “Oh. Sorry, then. I simply made a mistake. I’m only thirty-four weeks along.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Excuse me?” Angie asked the flight attendant. “I’ve boarded several flights just this week.”

  “The safety and security of all passengers on board is one of my chief responsibilities.”