Planet Reese. Cordelia Strube
ass while his jaw flapped. Now, now she is rebutting his argument, with the help of Babb & Hodge, by implying a concern about molestation?! Without actually offering molestation as a direct objection to joint custody? Without accusing him, without so much as mentioning his name she is, by implication, branding him a child molester? This is madness.
“Get a grip, boyo.”
Reese tries to shake his head but it will move in neither direction. He tries to mouth words but is without voice.
Babb & Hodge have recommended that he have no further contact with the children until Clara is assessed by a child psychologist. They provide him with the name and number of the child psychologist should he have any questions directly related to the assessment. They advise him that they will proceed no further until they have received the psychologist’s report. Reese grabs the phone.
“No, you don’t,” Sterling says, covering the dial pad with his hand. “No angry calls, no cussing, she’ll record it, use it against you. You call Herman, tell him you’re a friend of mine.” He scrawls a number on a Post-it. “He ain’t cheap but you get what you pay for.”
Breathing in short gasps, Reese dials the number of the child psychologist. He leaves a message that he knows is too long, too afraid, too desperate.
“She’s got you right where she wants you, boyo. She’ll cut you off at the knees.”
He scurries off the bus and crouches behind a trash can. If he’s seen, he’ll be reported by the hostile mothers who will believe Roberta’s lies. It’s afternoon recess and the children appear to be playing, although he knows they’re rehearsing for adulthood; practising numbers on each other, abusing power, testing lies. Derek is ferociously playing soccer, jabbing his feet between players’ legs to get at the ball. Clara stands alone, waiting patiently for her turn on the monkey bars. The alpha kids ignore her. Reese sees no noticeable change in her. He longs to make himself visible, to see the shock of surprise as she runs towards him. Although would she run towards him? What has Roberta told her? What brainwashing has taken place? Better to stay behind the trash can than discover that his daughter is no longer overjoyed to see him.
He leaves another message from a phone booth. Although his body is vibrating, he manages to keep his voice even. He explains that he hasn’t witnessed Clara acting strangely, turning her dolls over and sticking things up their bottoms. If Roberta has, in fact, witnessed this behaviour, it can only mean that Clara’s school is not safe, nor the homes of her playmates. He suggests that there be no more sleepovers or play dates until the matter is cleared. Only at the end does he become pathetic. “Please, let’s talk about this. This makes no sense to me, I mean I ... I ... you’re killing me. Please, I mean, can’t we talk about this, us, can’t we talk ...?”
He loiters in the park. Soon Roberta will be dropping Clara off outside the church for Sparks. He must make a plan. Can’t think of a plan. A father is helping his small daughter fly a kite that is larger than she is. He pushes the kite into the wind and shouts, “Run away from it, Katie!” The kite, an exotic purple and red bird, surges upward as Katie runs. “Way to go!” her father shouts. “You got it, look how high it is!” Reese has flown kites with both of his children, enjoyed their wonder at their newly discovered power. He wants to fly kites with them again, when will he fly kites with them again? The purple and red bird falters. “Run away from it, Kate! Run!” She does, but the wind has died and the bird nose-dives to the ground. Katie watches, amazed. The father picks up the kite and jogs backwards, away from her, stretching the string, avoiding tangles. “You ready?” He pushes the bird into the wind again and Katie runs. It hurts to watch other people’s children. Reese watches anyway, in the same way he picks a scab. He will watch until he bleeds.
Two women with Starbucks cups in hand and two children each take over the bench beside him and discuss wine tours and weight-loss products while their children wander — too far in Reese’s opinion. “It’s a protein bar,” the one in capris says re something that resembles a chocolate bar, which she’s shoving into her mouth. “Rick and I are trimming. He’s got all these weights.” She discards the wrapper, allowing the wind to whisk it across the grass.
“I’ve got to start working out,” the other says, sucking on her Starbucks cup.
“Me too, once I get organized. We’re doing these mini meals all day long. He makes this protein shake in the morning and takes it to work with him.”
“I eat those power bars.”
Both women wear slip-on sandals, which they slap against their heels. They are in another world, galaxies away.
“You’ve got to make sure there’s fat in them as well as protein,” the one married to Rick advises. A piece of newspaper blows against Reese’s leg. He tries to shake it off but it clings to him. Pulling it loose, he’s halted by a photo of Pamela Anderson, the woman famous for her breasts, who refers to them as “props.” He reads that she contracted Hepatitis C from sharing a tattoo needle with her former husband who belted her outside their Malibu home. The husband pleaded no contest to a charge of spousal abuse and was sentenced to six months in jail and three years’ probation. Pamela Anderson has won full custody of their children because of the abuse. Full custody.
Reese fears he might belt Roberta if she persists with these lies. Or if he discovers her in the sack with the art student. He almost hit her once, when he couldn’t make himself understood and words were choking him. Then he remembered the pigeon, its slippery blood on his hands, the crack of its skull against the rock. He is not a violent man. He must communicate this to the child psychologist, explain that even though he has killed a man and a pigeon, he is in truth quite shy and docile. Maybe he won’t tell her about the pigeon.
Or the rat. Although Roberta was an accomplice in the rat murder, helped him corner it then squash it with the two-by-four. It took too long, they had to press harder and harder to make the squirming stop. They had pet rats that crawled over their children, eliciting giggles. But the black rat, the intruder, was brutally killed. Reese has never quite recovered from this, can still see the rat’s terror, its bulging eyes. He shovelled its remains into a garbage bag that he deposited in a waste receptacle belonging to the local McDonald’s. He presumed that dead rats were not uncommon there.
Below Pamela Anderson’s props Reese reads that a Ugandan woman bit off her husband’s penis and testicles after he slapped her. Another man in Uganda died after his wife, angered by his inability to provide for her and their two children, cut off his testicles. These acts of aggression are considered to be in response to an increase in domestic violence against women in Uganda. Interesting that, though abused, the women retain access to their husbands’ genitals. Soon a multi-national will be marketing Sleep-Eezy Ball-Guards.
The women drain their lattes and leave the cups, plastic lids intact, on the bench for the wind to toss into the grass. “More landfill!” a shrill voice in Reese’s head scolds. Startled, he can’t place the voice although it is unsettlingly familiar.
“It’s your brain that gets you through,” the mother who is married to Rick the weightlifter says.
“You’ve got to have smarts,” the other agrees. The coffee cups somersault into tulip beds.
“Go ’head,” the shrill voice snaps in Reese’s head. “Choke the planet with your trash!” Reese realizes that the voice belongs to his grade three teacher, Mrs. Ranty — a troll of a woman — who’d told him he was so stupid he’d have to piggyback her his entire life so she could tell him the times tables. She’s on his back now, digging the heels of her old lady shoes into his kidneys.
“Have you tried that new Thai place?” the mother married to Rick asks. “We keep wanting to go but, I mean, what are we supposed to do with the kids? Once you pay the babysitter you’re out a hundred bucks. I said to Rick, ‘On our anniversary, we’re splurging on a spa.’ No kids.”
“What bliss,” the other says. Reese has lost sight of their children.
When he sees the car