Free Year of Lesser by David Bergen Page B

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 hisbrain. 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 Cool, 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?”
    Johnny lights a cigarette and lifts his shoulders. “Okay. Forty hours of community service. Here in Lesser.”
    “That’s all?”
    “What did you want,