Calamity and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

he was sparring with his Doberman and didn’t notice.
    “One day that man’s dog is going to die and he’ll have no one left to play with,” Valerie said once when we were sitting in the dark expanse of the theater, waiting out a technical failure. “He’ll be stuck in this place all alone.” She put a handful of popcorn in her mouth and munched. “I bet that’s what the thousand bucks is for. I bet there’s a condition if you win it: you have to promise to be that man’s friend when his dog dies, to hang out here with him and wear that leather collar with the studs. Only then do you get the money.”
    I don’t remember what I said back, because I was preoccupied with the sudden realization that I smelled. I had only recently begun to wash my underarms, and sometimes I forgot to put on deodorant. This was the first time I’d noticed just how powerfully my own body’s secretions could make themselves known to the world at large. I sat there wondering if Valerie could smell me, or if she was trying to ignore it. This just made me sweat even more. My mistake seemed enormous, unforgivable. I had not yet considered the subtle grades of difference between embarrassment, shame, and guilt.
    On the way back from the movies, we would spy on Arno’s Live Bait. It was my idea: now that I had no reason to see them, I sought them out. Valerie would oblige me halfheartedly while I went up to the bushes behind the rowhouse, right up to the kitchen window, to watch what was going on there. The one big sister, older than the rest, was usually taking money from customers and passing them grubby plastic containers from the giant refrigerator. This big girl was pale, fat, and slow-moving, always in bare feet, shorts, and a stained T-shirt, gently scolding one or another of her younger siblings, and watching whichever soap opera was on television. One day, as I watched her haul herself out of a chair to help a customer, I realized that she was pregnant. Her protruding belly was not just fat—it was full of another life altogether. I found this fact horrifying and immediately suggested we leave. Valerie, as always, seemed relieved; when it came to the Arnos, the only thing she showed much enthusiasm for was throwing mini-firecrackers at their house—those little ones that make a “bang” sound when they hit. She took some from her pocket and, as we went on our way, aimed them against the side wall.
    Part of the reason I was so disgusted by the pregnant girl was the thought of what was occurring to her body, and part of it had to do with the day, a week or so earlier, that I’d come home to hear my father having sex with Shirley. I had said goodbye to Valerie after returning from town, and when I got back to our little cottage, Dad and Shirley were not on the veranda like normal. When I went inside I heard moaning sounds I recognized from movies (not the ones we saw at the Ascott). I quickly went back out to the dock, where I sat and thought of my mother. This same thing had gone on between him and her, too—my mother, who had in the past year cried more tears than I thought it possible to even possess. Everything seemed utterly wrong. What if Shirley got pregnant, like the Arno sister? In school the previous year, we had been shown film strips emphasizing that all upcoming changes in a girl’s body were for the ultimate purpose of pregnancy and childbirth. These were fuzzy recordings meant to debunk sexual myths and provide necessary factual information, and for months afterward Mack and I had repeated, inexhaustibly, some of our favorite lines: “In some primitive cultures, the menstruating female is thought to turn milk sour.” “As each egg matures, it BURSTS from the ovary.” “Fat is deposited on the hips, and nipples stand out.” These phrases never failed to make us collapse in laughter. Now, though, I just felt queasy. Valerie’s wispy shape would change soon, too, I found myself thinking. We had been shown the