Imperfections Read Online Free PDF Page A

gathered crowd of kids. Leonard didn’t need an audience to be cool.
    â€œSeriously,” Leonard laughed. “Are you okay?”
    Leonard got down on one knee beside me, put a hand on my shoulder and curved his body into a C shape in order to line up his face with mine.
    I made a loud whaaaaap sound as I breathed in a gulp of air between sobs. A glob of snot dropped from my cheek, making a sugary puddle in the sand and pavement.
    â€œCome on, people are watching.” Leonard’s smile faded and it seemed the seriousness of scrambling my eggs sunk in. “You want me to go get the nurse?”
    â€œWhaaaaap,” I said and shook my head. My cheek brushed the sandy snot glob and it strung up from the ground.
    Someone in the crowd giggled.
    Another muttered, “Big baby.”
    Leonard spun around to see who it was. Everyone respected Leonard and the main ingredient for that respect was fear. This is something every six-year-old understands. The law of the jungle applies nowhere more than in the schoolyard at recess.  
    Leonard demanded respect. He had been held back a year and was still a grade ahead of me. He was eight, we were six and at that stage, age was not so much a number but a size. He was two years bigger than us. He could be mean, he could be unpredictable and more kids had him to thank for a bruise or a black eye than any other.
    Remember earlier when I said there were two endearing things about Leonard? I just thought of a third. He was on my side.
    I managed to sit up, one side of my face looking like a sugar doughnut and the other red from the Rhino Skin bitch slap. Both sides were wet with embarrassment. I forced myself to stop crying. I took a deep breath. I wiped my face on my shirt sleeve and got sand in my eye, which caused it to well up again. The snot from my cheek left a glaze on the fabric.
    Leonard was prowling around the crowd, looking kids in the eye as if he could intimidate them into the suicide of admitting they had slighted me. Kids were nervously trying to break from the group without being noticed but, like in the wild, there was safety in numbers. The larger the group, the less likely you were to get singled out. Common practice was to wait until Leonard had passed and then try to make your way to the back of the herd before slowly breaking for the school doors.
    Don’t make any fast moves, it attracts attention.
    Nice and slow.
    Leonard turned his attention back to me once the crowd had cleared sufficiently. He smiled and helped me up, draping one of my arms across his shoulders and snaking his arm around my waist. He walked me over to a nearby bench.
    I felt like limping, so I did. Anything else still hurt too much.
    â€œYou coming over after school?” Leonard asked after he settled next to me on the bench.
    â€œRad,” I wheezed. “I think my parents are coming over for supper anyway.” I clutched my nuts once again, it seemed like the thing to do as a bit of pressure eased the pain slightly.
    Auntie Maggie and Uncle Tony had a satellite dish. The previous night Leonard and I had watched MTV and wandered around dumbly for hours playing air guitars and making stupid guitar-player faces.
    â€œWe can play Zork or watch TV or something.” Leonard clapped me on the shoulder and I winced.
    The recess bell buzzed and Leonard popped off the bench.
    â€œYou still got snot on your face,” he said and ran to line up to get back in the school.
    Recess was over.
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    In 1982, I was not aware enough to think of the bigger world and the progression of time. I was a kid. As Leonard and I walked home after school, the year 2000 was the distant future and, if it were to have crossed our thoughts, it would only have been as an abstraction. In the back of our brains, the year 2000 was a static of teleportation, jet packs and flying cars. It was a fantasy of robot slaves and laser ray guns. As far as we could comprehend, the future happened