TimTwoFace
07-31-2004, 03:49 AM
The following story features pretty much anything that would entail an "R" rating, so just be forwarned. I wrote it a little under three years ago as my first story for my final year in university, and introduced a character of mine that I intend to flesh out in more stories as time goes on.
This story was inspired by an ex of mine who, at the time, was my "film partner", and we got the idea of this story from a short-film contest that needed to use kissing as a common theme for all entrants. The film never happened, but the short story rose out of the ashes.
Comments and critiques are most appreciated by any of you fine folks that take the time to read this. Thanks in advance for any views or reviews! :)
PS - Sorry about the awkward formatting...MS WORD and the TZ Forums don't seem to like to mix unless I'm ready to totally resize everything word for word. *SIGH*
* * * * * * * * *
Tim Leighton
CRWR 408
September 10, 2001
Never Been Kithed
It was mind-numbing work, being a janitor – or “Parks and Recreation Maintenance Worker”, as his official title proudly declared. But janitor suited Larry better; he felt like **** all the time, so he might as well make a living dealing with it.
Larry would have certainly killed himself umpteen times over by now if this job were not for its…perks. What more could a young man of thirty want than fresh air on a beautiful mid-summer night’s eve? The opportunity to lose himself to the melody of his choice – and do so without conflicting with his superiors – provided just the right amount of freedom he needed to still feel in control of his life. Hell, time flies when you listen to Kiss From a Rose fifteen times straight. However, if any one thing made this otherwise terrible job worthwhile, it would have to be the sights.
Larry surveyed the asphalt expanse that was his domain and stared into the westerly breeze, flashed the most dapper smile he could manage to his invisible audience, and imagined a cape billowing behind him. Superman, eat your heart out. “You may thave the world,” Larry gushed in his superiority over this American icon, “but that alwayth endth with a thity getting’ blown up or thomething. I clean up your meth! Ha!” If only he could tell that to the big blue boy scout face to face. The first encounter wasn’t nearly as sweet as it should have been.
* * *
Little Larry Lypshitz eagerly walked down the semi-crowded corridor, panting madly while smiling from ear to ear. He couldn’t help it - this was the most momentous occasion in his life since he met Chewbacca at the mall the previous summer! “Come on, Mom! Dad! I don’t wanna mith thith!” He was always amazed that he picked up speaking so well so quickly.
Bruce King and Talia McQueen, or simply Bruce and Talia, as the world knew them, paced through the mall. They begrudgingly followed behind their rambunctious son, leaving a good five metre buffer zone between they and he.
Larry bounded forward, catching a glimpse of the media circus up ahead. He spun around, shouting urgently, “He’th right there! Hurry! Hurry!” He darted ahead.
“Lawrence!” Talia commanded in a foreign accent; she couldn’t let anyone recognize her. Not here. Not with him. Larry froze in his tracks and shyly turned around. He knew that when his mother addressed him formally, she meant business. She spoke again, instantly regretting herself as the words came from her mouth. “Come here.” Larry did as he was told. His mother hissed quietly. “Don’t you dare make a scene today, or you don’t get dinner for a month. We can’t let anyone know who we are, not until after your surgery, OK?” She sighed and combed a slender hand through her perfect hair. “Jesus, I bet we’ve already been spotted.”
Larry’s head drooped; his parents could only see the portions of his face from the nose above this way. “That’s better,” Bruce smiled. “Don’t look him in the face now, that would be rude. Keep your head down. And put your sunglasses back on. Your mom and I know what’s best.”
Larry sighed, and admitted defeat. “Yeth thir.”
“Attaboy,” his father said, with a glimpse of humanity sparkling through. Larry snaked through the thousand pillars of people, inching closer and closer to his goal. There it was. Behind a velvet rope forcefield stood a table at which Christopher Reeve sat! He smiled gaily and cast an understated royal wave to the onslaught of fans trying to budge into his fortress of solitude.
“No pushing, one at a time, please!” commanded his drones for bodyguards. Larry dutifully got into the line-up and waited. His parents stood well out of the sight of the cameras and nearly out of his. They weren’t even looking at him!
“OK, next!” The line-up moved up one pace.
“Excuse me,” one blonde middle-aged woman queried, leaning in Talia’s direction, “I don’t happen to know you, do I? You look awfully familiar.”
Talia tried not to blush or look stupid – she had not contacted her make-up artist and was not ready for public appearances! The tabloids would eat her alive. She parted her perfect pouty lips and murmured. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”
“Come on, remember me? Jill MacDougall, class of ’62! You’re Selina…no, Diana…no, geez, what was your name!?”
Bruce’s ear twisted and perked up. He couldn’t have his cover blown, and his wife desperately needed help. Stepping in, he spoke up with a fake middle-eastern accent. “I’m sorry miss, you must be mistaken. My wife and I have just moved here from Saudi Arabia. We have only been in Canada for three months now.” The final words were spoken with a tone of distaste; he didn’t want this conversation developing any further.
“Oh sorry, my mistake. Terribly sorry.”
Bruce and Talia looked away simultaneously and released a sigh of relief ever so slowly. Their heart rates quickened once again when they both noticed Larry was now at the front of the line-up. Bruce gulped and took his wife’s hand, patting her bony fingers and rubbing her thin skin firmly. “Pray that he doesn’t make a fool out of us.”
“Next!” Larry stared blankly in awe at the superhero sitting behind the table. “Come on kid, it’s your turn,” insisted the queue guardian. Larry realized the man was talking to him, snapped out of his daze, and sprinted up to the table, his rubber soles squeaking loudly against the pristine mall floor.
“Thuperman! It’th me, your biggetht fan!”
Christopher Reeve turned his head to the side, muttered something to one of his aides, laughed, and turned back to face the masses. Larry was already assaulting the table, his bony arm thrown in Reeve’s direction. “Here! Thake my hand!” He was barely taller than the table; only his messy hair and sunglasses rose above table level.
“Well hello there,” Reeve said, taking the boy’s hand. “Quite a grip you have there. And what is your name, little boy?” A smile sneaked across his face. These public appearances could be absolutely brutal, but it was always a pleasure to brighten a child’s day.
“My name ith Larry Lypthitth and I’m theven yearth old and that’th my mom and dad over there!” He waved in their general direction; Bruce and Talia both coughed simultaneously, bent at the waist, and ducked out of sight. It was amazing they hadn’t attracted any stares already.
Reeve was just about to speak when Larry cut him off. “It wath tho cool how you flew all over the plathe, Thuperman. You alwayth beat the bad guy. It wath like…” and Larry imitated the flying motions and made aircraft noises as he did so. After a few moments, and getting a chuckle out of his hero, Larry froze in his tracks. “Oopth! You’re in dithguithe right now, huh? Thorry, I thould’a called you Clark.”
“It’s OK.”
“Move it along Chris, we have hundreds of more kids waiting,” the guardian of the line droned. Reeve nodded.
“OK, just a sec.” He hunched over the table and spoke softly to Larry; Larry bowed his head to raise his ear past the level of the table to hear the mild-mannered man speak. “You’re going to have to let the other boys and girls have their turn, Larry. But before you go, I have a little present for you.”
Larry snapped around and grinned the biggest grin he could muster, still below table level. “Really!?”
Reeve nodded and scrambled to find a red ballpoint pen on the table top. Taking Larry’s hand, he warned him to be still, and began crudely drawing a Superman logo on the underside of Larry’s arm, just above the wrist. Larry continued to grin with glee – he’d be the envy of all the kids in the neighbourhood! Reeve began to darken in the lines, gently, so as not to hurt the boy…
“Yo, Chris! Get a move on!”
Reeve spasmed as the bark blared into his ears. His hand jolted and the tip of the pen was driven into the skin and stabbed the artery in Larry’s wrist. Reeve immediately pulled the pen out of Larry’s arm and pressed his hands down on the wound to keep it shut. “Oh God, kid, I’m so sorry!” Reeve scowled at the bodyguard out of the corner of his eye. “It’ll be alright son, don’t cry! Be tough, like Superman.”
“No, you’re mean! You hurt me with your thuper-thtrength!” Larry tore his arm out of Reeve’s grasp and wailed before the crowd. His cries grew even more desperate as he saw the blood trickling down his arm, past his elbow. “Thuperman hurt me!” Cameras flashed and other cameras rolled, catching Reeves’ shocked look of innocence and storing it away for tomorrow’s headlines. The crowd gasped awkwardly as Larry spun around, knocking his sunglasses to the ground.
“What happened to that poor kid? Look at his…”
“…face, omigod, that is so…”
“…disgusting! Film it! We have to get this!”
Reeve firmly murmured, “Get his parents.”
As Larry’s cries of horror escalated and reverberated off of the corridor walls, so did Christopher Reeve’s commandeering aide. “Will the parents of this boy please come up here?”
Bruce and Talia hung their heads and shuffled through the frenzied crowd, hoping they didn’t act too quickly. They couldn’t be recognized in front of the masses as the parents of that child! Once they reached the rim of the crowd, they motioned for Larry to run over to them. “Once he sees you, back into the crowd. There are cameras everywhere,” Bruce warned. “I’ll grab him, cover his mouth, then we get the hell outa here.” Talia nodded in silence, her heart racing. About one minute had passed.
Mall security had taken control over the three-ring media circus by that point. The wailing boy rattled on-lookers, further escalating the volumes of their discontent. “Would the parents of this little boy please come up here?” now rung the loudspeakers.
Then he finally saw a familiar face. “Mommy!” Larry hollered, sucking back the saliva, dribbling over the ridge above his cracked mouth. He darted in her direction, arms outspread. The sea of people parted to give Larry space. A number of journalists and their assisting cameramen pursued, just in time to see the boy latch his arms tightly around the middle of her hourglass, the force of collision knocking the sunglasses off of her face. A communal gasp rose from the crowd, and then quiet pointing and muttering.
“I know them!”
“It’s Bruce and Talia, from the magazine!”
“Oh my God, they have an ugly adopted child…?”
Bruce stared onward in horror. “I wath tho thcared, mommy! I wath tho thcared…” Larry’s tiny voice trailed off into a plea of pathetic sobs.
The left corner of Talia’s mouth sunk towards her chin as she tried to do anything but look directly into the dozen lens’ tauntingly glaring back at her. Bruce nudged her shoulder from behind with his own. “Hug him, God damn it.”
Talia cautiously put her hands high on her son’s back, wincing as she pressed his snotty, bloodied body into hers. Bruce placed a supporting hand on her shoulder, looking onimously in the background.
The continuous flashing of photography froze time just long enough for the two parents to picture their destroyed lives the following morning. Larry etched this moment into his memory – he had not been hugged by anyone for months now, since the accident.
The following morning, Larry stumbled down two flights of spiral staircases. He wandered into the gleaming kitchen, the pads of his bunny slippers making quiet skiffing sounds with each gliding step. His parents sat, curled together in a tight embrace, muffled sobs creeping through the holes between their arms.
“Mom? Dad? What’th wrong?” Larry scratched the thin layer of mousy brown hair on his head.
Bruce perked up from their weeping huddle and coldly looked down his Roman nose at his disfigured son. Clenching his chiseled jaw, he threw an array of newspapers at Larry’s feet. Larry looked downward at the splattered newsprint, then returned a confused glance back to his father. His cheekbones rose and his jawbone began to quiver.
As if Bruce didn’t even notice his son on the brink of tears, he delivered the final blow, exaggerating and imitating his lisp.
“You did thith to uth, thon. Our liveth are ruined.”
The headlines for August 7th, 1978, proclaimed:
TORONTO SUN: “Supermodel couple sighted tending to ailing, wailing child.”
NEW YORK TIMES: “Disfigured boy embarrassed Superman in public.”
THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER: “Hideous supermodel love-child costs Bruce and Talia blockbuster lingerie advertisement deal.”
Larry silently left the room and ambled back upstairs, his tummy still rumbling. Lying face down in the fluffy pillow at the foot of his bed, he softly cried himself back to sleep.
* * *
Larry shook the memory out of his head, nearly losing hold of his bags of trash in the process. He methodically dumped three of the four full bags into a nearby trash can; the fourth would come in handy later.
A soft panting sound arose behind him. Cautiously, he turned around and was confronted by a stray Siberian husky, his nose high in the air, trying to catch a whiff of the glorious smell of garbage. “Hi boy,” Larry gave the dog a gentle little noogie, “are you lotht? Aww, you’re thuch a pretty doggy…” He smiled, and the dog smiled and panted an odour of raw fish back into Larry’s face. Larry chuckled to himself and continued grinning. Animals never discriminated against him – they never understood his facial disfigurement as being abnormal. “You know,” Larry continued, “I onthe had a puppy that kinda looked jutht like you. That ithn’t you, is it?” He continued to pat the dog, listening to the tags on his collar jingle. “Nah, it can’t be, that wath over twenty yearth ago.”
He leaned in closer and murmured. “Can you give me a kith, boy? I would for you but I haven’t learned how jutht yet.” Without warning, the husky lunged at him and licked him from the bottom of his chin, up across his teeth and over his nostrils. “Aw you’re thuch a good kither! Yeth you are!” Larry hugged the dog and laughed to himself.
“Hey!” Larry looked up. Through a chasm between two cars, he could see a woman jogging in place on the opposite side. She squeezed between them towards the dog; Larry shyly backed away. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Stuttering, Larry tried not to look the woman in the face. “Thorry ma’am, I wath jutht playing with thith dog I found -”
“This is my dog and don’t you dare touch him again! Giving him kisses? Christ, you’re a sick **** – I bet he smells like a dumpster now!” She took the happy husky by the collar and tugged him past the fallen janitor.
“I’m thorry mith, I didn’t do anything to hurt him.”
“Psht!” she steamed. “I better not see you ever again, get me?” Larry stayed still.
“Look up here when I’m talking to you!” He timidly looked up at her with drooping eyes and a silly stretched grin on his face. “Why the hell are you smiling?”
“I’m not thmiling, I’m…”
“Oh God!” the jogger gasped as her eyesight adjusted to the unnatural shadows playing off of the distorted cracks and crevices on his face. “You’re…god! Diseased or something! Just…stay the hell away from me!” She violently tugged on her dog’s collar and practically threw him into the park; she made hot pursuit, muttering, “I’m so glad you’ve gotten your rabies shots, boy…”
Larry tried to close his mouth and watched the two jog deeper and deeper into the open expanse of the park until they disappeared into the old growth forest a few hundred metres away.
His mind wandered as the sun set even lower, images of the husky dominating his mind. Oh, it was just so long ago…
* * *
“Whoa! Lookit this! Lookit what I found, Caeley!” Larry surged his arms forward into the thorny bush and clutched onto the gleaming piece of metal.
“What is it?” Caeley whined, standing not far off, loosely holding onto a dog leash; Larry’s pet husky puppy lazily sat in the ankle-high grass, basking in the California sun.
“Come see! It’s so cool!”
Caeley threw her head back and sighed. “Nomie, stay.” The dog continued to pant happily in the warm heat of spring. Caeley dropped the leash and met Larry in the bushes.
“See? Isn’t it awesome?” Larry’s voice cracked.
“What is it?”
“Grab that metal bar and pull!” Caeley followed orders and tugged as hard as she could. The chunk of metal jolted and thrust itself out of the bushes, knocking both seven-year-olds flat on their backs in the grass.
“Whoa! It’s a…a…”
“SHOPPING CART!!!” Larry exclaimed. “This is so cool! It’s like buried treasure or something!” He beamed with pride. “Look at it, Nomie! Do you like it?”
Caeley circled around the gleaming vehicle, scrutinizing over the rightful property of Albertson’s supermarket. Nomie stood up on all fours, stretched, and trotted over to their new toy. After a brief sniff, she licked a few of the bars on the side of the carriage. “Ew…there’s some gum on it and your dog’s eating it.”
“No!” Larry commanded. His dog backed up and quickly changed gears; he began to lick himself.
“Anyway, isn’t it keen?” Larry’s enthusiasm was growing tedious.
“Sure, I guess we could give rides in it or something.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Larry’s lips just kept on flapping. “Wouldn’t that be great, Nomie? Wanna go for a ride? Wanna go for a riiiiiiiiiide?” His ears perked up; Larry awkwardly picked up the puppy and carefully placed him in the thick wire basin, making sure to tie the leash up to the bars nice and tight. He danced around to the handle and roughly pushed the cart through the grass towards the asphalt pathway a few yards away. “Cool huh?”
“Super dee duper,” Caeley mumbled unenthusiastically.
For the next fifteen minutes, Larry and Caeley pushed each other and Nomie around the sights of Mercer Lake Park. Larry began to drag his blistered feet as they rounded a bend not far from one corner of the lake. “This is getting boring.”
“You’re telling me.” Caeley then perked up as a flash of inspiration hit her; she grinned. “But I have an even better idea now!” Her eyes scrunched up into little slits of glee.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Climb in and I’ll show you.”
Larry gave Caeley a wary eye, left his post at the handlebars, and cautiously climbed into the cart, making sure not to flatten Nomie with his feet.
“Ready?”
“Ready for what?”
SLAM! Caeley charged into the shopping cart, sending it forward on its squeaky wheels down the pathway; she quickly jumped aboard at the back and came along for the ride. Larry yelped in surprise at first and grabbed Nomie, fearing injury, but after he opened his eyes to see Caeley screaming “weeeeee!” behind him, he soon joined in with a similar exhilarating cry.
“That was awesome!” Caeley shrieked, planting her feet once again on solid terra firma. “Let’s try it on a hill this time!”
Larry’s smile dissipated. “Oh, I don’t know – a hill? That’s pretty dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be such a baby! It’s not like we’re going to do it in traffic,” Caeley growled. “I’ll…” she dropped her voice an octave to sound even more enticing, “…give you a kiss if you do it.”
A kiss? From a girl? Larry sunk his head into his chest and blushed. He couldn’t remember the last time he got a kiss from anyone, never mind a girl as pretty and spunky as Caeley. A rash of goose bumps sprouted up across his body and he shivered in delight. “Uh, OK…” he puckered up, “I’m probably not very good, even my mom doesn’t let me do this…”
Caeley lightly smacked his cheek with her hand, swiveling his face back away from her. “Not yet, stupid. I don’t want you chickening out on me.” She braced the handle with her sweaty palms and tensed her body. “OK…get ready…and hold on!”
Sounds of squeaky wheels and the pitter-patter of Caeley’s feet signaled the motor’s ignition. After an even longer acceleration than before, Caeley jumped on board and closed her eyes as the rickety cart shot down the gentle incline towards a small, empty parking area. Both children howled in excitement; Nomie peeked his head over the edge of the cart and let his long tongue dangle in the breeze. Thoughts of that forthcoming kiss continued to surge through Larry’s mind.
About thirty seconds later, when the cart sped by the parking meter at the end of the row of parking stalls, Larry’s eyes opened, desperately seeking orientation. He gasped and grabbed Caeley’s hands. “Caeley, open your eyes!”
Caeley innocently opened her eyes and spat. “Oh, no.” She hadn’t realized her own strength; the cart had rolled well past where she expected it to, and was barreling towards the park gate, on the other side of which was a busy thoroughfare. She snorted, clenched her jaw, braced her hands, and dropped her feet to the speeding concrete below her. She ran with the buggy trying to slow it down gradually. Nomie continued to pant, blissfully enjoying the cool, relaxing breeze.
“Slow down slow down slow down!” Larry spasmed, pulling his dog to his chest.
“I’m trying!” Caeley bellowed furiously. She slammed her heels to the ground; the cart dragged her body along the pavement, finally losing speed.
The cart shot through the park gate, immediately greeted by the loud, low nasal wail and screeching brakes of a commercial truck. Larry screamed and ducked as the cart bounced across the bumpy grooves in the sidewalk and smashed into the fender of the truck. The force of the collision rattled Caeley free of the cart; her body flew forward, cheekbone first, into the giant rigid hubcap of the truck with a loud thunk. The truck now stood at a halt.
The force of the collision altered the course of the cart by ninety degrees; Larry fearfully looked behind him to see Caeley lying face down in a red puddle on the sidewalk, her hair splayed out in all directions. He couldn’t decide if it were to his horror or to his relief, but her still body soon disappeared from sight as the cart once again picked up speed, now shooting down the hilly streets of San Francisco.
Cars swerved about and side-swiped others, both mobile and parked. Pedestrians pointed and hollered from the sidewalks; some of the braver souls ran out into the street, trying to grab the cart, but always found themselves only inches off the mark. Larry sat in the bottom of the cart, paralyzed with fear; as block after block zoomed by, the cart’s speed rose higher and higher.
Three blocks ahead, he could see that the street intersected an even busier street. The traffic light turned yellow. “No…” Larry whispered. Momentarily shaking off his fear, he stood up, trying to stay balanced. He had to jump.
Two blocks ahead, the yellow cautionary light died and the solid red appeared. Larry bent at the knees and hunched over the side, preparing to flop out; his body shuddered in disbelief as the surging adrenaline urged him to take action. Then Nomie whinnied. Larry shot a glance and nearly cried. He couldn’t leave his best friend behind, even if it was going to kill him. Larry frantically tried to undo the horrendous knot that tied Nomie to the skeleton of the racing cart.
One block ahead, out of the corner of his eye, Larry saw a trolley cross the street. The traffic light was still red, but the “Don’t Walk” signs began to flash. Maybe, just maybe. By now sirens blared across the cityscape; they must have been attending to Caeley already. Nomie huddled awkwardly against Larry, still whinnying and whimpering as the cart insisted on rattling their bones and its own. “Don’t worry, Nomie,” Larry cried, smacking the knotted leash in frustration, twisting his ring finger as he did so. His voice cracked and desperate tears crept out from his eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Larry curled up into a protective ball around his shuddering puppy, praying. Just as the cart entered the intersection, the light turned green, and the traffic had cleared. However, one of the unbalanced wheels on the carriage twisted as it wedged itself into the grooves of the trolley tracks. The shopping cart flipped and flailed in mid-air, hitting the hood of an unsuspecting station wagon starting to make its way uphill. Through all the thrashing, Larry lost his grip on his dog; he whimpered and fell out of the cart. Still in mid-air, Larry lunged forward, shouting, and grabbed his dog around its middle. Larry smiled briefly, still sobbing.
The cart fell over on its side; sparks flew as the polished metal scraped the grooved concrete. Still unbalanced, Larry lurched forward, his upper body falling out of the cart. His hands still holding onto Nomie, Larry didn’t even have time to react before his face broke his fall to the rushing pavement with a loud crack.
Screams of horror erupted from the sidewalks as they saw the carriage topple over. They couldn’t see the boy as he sped by, but the scattered trail of red and hobbling shredded bits of pink told them all they needed to know.
The metal continued to shriek and squeal until, two blocks later, the cart came to a halt in the middle of the street in front of the “Caution: Children at Play” toy store. One passer-by ran out to the cart, screaming, “Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance!” over and over. He squatted over Larry and pried the terrified but otherwise unscathed puppy from his clutches. He set him down next to the boy and spoke; Nomie stepped over and licked Larry’s ear appreciatively.
“Son, are you OK? Speak to me!” The older man took Larry’s shoulders and raised his body from the cruel concrete. Larry’s head snapped forward and through the gash of cracked bone and torn flesh cascaded a flood of blood. The man gasped and rolled the boy onto his back and felt his wrist for a pulse.
Larry coughed and spat, deliriously trying to speak; the man could see a tongue trying to curl and form words within the broken cage of his teeth but the sounds were barely audible. It looked as if all the skin from his nostrils to his chin had been shredded off of his face.
“Kleethe tell nee that ny tutty ith OK, nithter.”
* * *
Larry side-stepped around the trash cans and peered down at a handful of the parking meters in the vicinity. Nearly all of the parking times had long since expired – not unusual for a beautiful Friday night, which is why he could not understand how the towing companies had yet to catch on. They could make a killing!
This was the high point – and most intellectually stimulating – part of Larry’s week. He swung the three empty neon orange sacks around so they could rest on his back, and brought the fourth around to his right side. He reached inside; just as the harmonious sounds of unsnapping buckles and the peeling of velcro calmed and enticed his hopeful soul, Larry set foot on the pathway leading into the park.
“Hey, watch where you’re walking, idiot!”
Geez, not that woman again. Larry looked up and focused his glazed eyes on a large scruffy man in black. God, he needs to get his ears checked.
“I’m…I…thorry thir, I wathn’t looking where I wath go –“
“Don’t smile at me! What, you think this is funny?” The man spat, his body leaning in his direction to frighten him.
“I’m not thmiling,” Larry explained, trying to face the man, but never able to raise his eyes above his yellow teeth and flaring hairy nostrils. “You thee, it’th impothible to clothe my mouth becauthe –“
The man’s face, checkered with scars, dropped. “Jesus!” she gasped, staring at the gaping hole in Larry’s face, barely hiding his gums from the outside world. “Get out of my way, freak!” He pushed past him, his voice raised an octave. “And never cross me again.”
The man briskly walked into the park, the thighs of his black jeans swishing together. Larry looked on, watching him scratch his back and pick his ear before disappearing into the woods.
Larry paused for a moment and ran his fingertips over the rim of the asymmetrical cavern that was once his mouth. No one could ever get past his face and keep their lunch down. He knew the stares all too well. The eyes would bulge out a little, the cheeks would hollow, the nose would flare, and even though the jaw would drop halfway down their throats, their brows would somehow restrain stretching with the rest of the face and furrow on their own. Even more popular would be a mutter of God’s name in vain, followed by the back of their head, quickly disappearing from view.
All because of one childhood mishap.
All because of the fear of imperfection.
* * *
“…consider it very lucky for him to be alive,” Doctor Martin consoled. “The girl he was with, we fear, won’t be so lucky. She’s lapsed into a coma.” Bruce and Talia stood abreast, each bearing a rigid visage. They turned to look at each other and heaved a selfish sigh. Dr. Martin caught on. “Everyone at Golden Gate Hospital is aware of your ‘status’, and for the sake of all involved, we’re doing our best to keep the media out of this.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Bruce said. What a relief.
“You may visit your son now, if you like.” Bruce looked over at Talia; she gave a minute shrug and nodded, as if against her will. “OK, I just have to finish this report and I’ll be right back in five minutes.”
Talia patted his arm and smiled weakly, trying to say something – anything. “Thank-you, doctor.” Dr. Martin hurriedly walked down the glimmering pastel corridor.
Bruce took Talia’s hand and slowly turned the knob, stepping into the forbidden room. A heart monitor beeped. An I.V. glugged. And, if they were not mistaken, they smelled a faint aroma of cheese – or mold – or both.
Talia wiped her eyes when she saw her son, strapped down to an upright bed, two sizes too small. “Bruce, honey, I don’t know if I can do this.”
“No,” Bruce said firmly, but with a slight waver in his voice, “this is the only way we’ll ever know.” He looked down at Larry focusing on the thick square of gauze covering his mouth. Without even greeting his son, he placed his fingers at the edge of the gauze patch, and gently began to pull, trying not to get any goo on his perfect fingers.
“Please don’t, sweetie, you’re gonna hurt him!”
“We have to do this. We have to know.” The tape peeled away from the scathed skin and the gauze tore away from the blood and pus of the wound with quiet snaps and crackles.
“Oh my God,” Bruce stammered; Talia doubled over and already broke into tears. “He has no mouth!”
“WHAT!??” Talia croaked.
"Nothing! Look! No lips, no mouth, hell, half of his cheeks have been torn in two!”
Bruce continued to rant; his excitement was the only thing that he could do to hold back his tears. Real men didn’t cry.
Talia took two steps closer, and peered through her slender quivering fingers. She shrieked and ran back to the door; Bruce slammed his body against the door and grabbed her shoulders.
“…nonn?…dad…?” Larry mumbled groggily.
“Omigod omigod OMIGOD! This can’t happen! He’s hideous! We cannot have an ugly child, we simply can NOT!”
“Honey, listen to me.”
“No, Bruce! We’re SU-PER-MO-DELS! Can you imagine what the papers will say if they see we have an imperfect son??” Bruce grabbed her; she smacked his face and shook her head, trying to rid her brain of the image. “I can’t do this, not now, with the lingerie account I’m trying to get…”
“Listen to me,” Bruce said calmly, though he was feeling just as much calamity, “we have the money to get him the plastic surgery he needs…”
“And the press won’t hear of that?? Jesus!” She sobbed, choking on the words as they bubbled out of her throat. “At least if one half of his face was torn off he’d look like that guy in those godforsaken comic books he’s always reading…”
“…at least he had your looks, not mine…” Bruce spat.
“…if only it happened to that girl or the dog instead – at least we could put it down and forget about it…”
Bruce violently shook his wife to soothe her, knocking her head against the door repeatedly. “Listen to me!”
She sniffed. “You messed my hair.”
“As soon as he can leave here we’ll leave the country and live out of the public eye for a while. Our place outside of Toronto should suffice – no one down here would ever think twice about us lowering our standards to live in Canada.”
“…nonn? Dad…?” Larry gurgled; he stirred once he thought he heard familiar voices.
“But what about the lingerie account? We can’t afford to lose it!” Talia shuddered as images of her living in a split-level house behind a picket fence in the centre of suburbia haunted her mind. “We’ll be nobodies if –“
Bruce grunted, but suppressed his frustration. “Our agents will handle everything, alright? Don’t worry, darling.” Talia chewed on her inch-long nails but had no rebuttal. Bruce sighed; his reasoning must have sufficed. “We’ll have to change his name, though – can’t be connected to this in any way. I always thought naming him Larry King was kind of stupid, anyways. How about your maiden name?”
“ALGHUL? Are you serious?” Talia stomped her stiletto heel hard on the tiled floor with a loud crack. “Use your real name, oh hubby o’ mine!” She snarled. “Lypshitz!”
Bruce rolled his eyes, shaking his head, his lower lip hanging down under its own weight. He wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist and walked her to the door.
“…nonn…daddd…” sputtered Larry, his drugged voice muffled by the pack of gauze. He knew, even with his eyes closed and fluid draining from his ear, that he had heard his parents.
“…Nonn! DAD!” he pleaded through the cavern in his face.
They had disappeared; Larry’s eyes opened just in time to see the door silently and slowly shut with a soft click.
Nothing.
Not a hold of the hand.
No hug, either.
Or even a kiss on his torn cheek.
* * *
Looking back at the painful memory, Larry was amazed at how well he had coped with his imperfection. He could now make all the verbal sounds in the English language with the exception of the letter “S”. In fact, he now felt perfectly content in everything he desired.
Well, except one thing.
In the fourth bag, Larry flipped a switch and pressed a button, and was rewarded with a quiet ping and a lazy whir. His tiny video camera shyly awakened. With everything in check, Larry marched into the park, using his poker as a walking stick.
Every Friday was a new lesson. Sometimes he spotted them from afar, where he could only study their most outlandish movements. Sometimes he shed his reflective vest and managed to creep through the thick bushes to catch a close-up view. He learned some bear far more skin than others; some loud, some quiet. Some preferred to moan and talk; others just talked about themselves. Tongues and piercings were ever-present, but never obscured the goal. And be very, very careful if the two of you have braces.
Larry spent hours of his time studying, glorifying, and scrutinizing his tapes in his spare time. It was his passion to watch others enthralled in theirs, to make up for what he lacked. He thought he had seen it all; all he wanted now was to try a little kissing himself.
Taking a step down the pathway, he heard a loud incessant bark erupt from within the looming forest. Kissing or not, he had to check it out.
* * *
“Get your ****ing hands off me!” the woman screamed as an oily, grubbing hand lunged into her glittery spandex shorts.
Another hand arced over her body and clamped down over her mouth.
“Shhh, shhh…” the man calmed, his pursed lips protruding through his ski mask. “Shut up and you’ll be safe after I get what I want.” His hand slithered across her sweaty skin and crept around her front; she continued to writhe and flounder about, occasionally managing to shake his foul-tasting hand away from her mouth.
“You know you’re going to get caught,” she spat; her husky companion ensued his relentless northern wail. “That parking lot was packed with cars, people are going to hear me!” She screamed for help but the scream died in the deaf woods, as if no sound was made at all.
“Mmm…” the man purred, his hand running out of her shorts and into her sports bra, “…don’t you know that there are murders committed in Stanley Park every year, and they never get caught. Just a reminder.” His fat fingers pawed past her breasts and sank into her cleavage; the woman bucked and tried to kick backwards at the burly attacker, but he was just too strong. “Mmm…” he licked the back of her neck right up to her hairline, his hands still rummaging within her bra’s confines. His eyes perked up when a fingertip was scratched by the edge of a piece of paper. “Baby, what do we have here?”
He yanked his hands back, pushed the jogger into the moist dirt, and placed his booted foot on the small of her bare back to keep her still.
The yellow of his teeth blared through the ski mask, chattering together as he let out a wheezy cackle. He opened his hand; two crumpled pieces of paper quivered in his palm.
“What!?” he burped. “All that, and for only ten bucks??” He jammed his foot into the ground; he could have sworn he heard his victim snort a snide laugh. “Not so fast, girlie,” he growled from within his belly, slipping the two bills into his jeans’ pocket, “my favourite part is just coming up.”
The woman bucked her hips back up at him and hit him square on the jaw; the man grabbed them, tore at her bra, and undid his zipper with a gentle jingle. The dog continued to bark.
“SHUT UP!” he screamed. The dog sat down, cocked his head, and actually started to wag his tail. The man grunted and clucked his tongue as he panted, clutching her in his hands, just about to…
THWACK!
The man flailed backwards as the thin bar of wood cracked against his skull. He choked on some phlegm and looked up through his spinning eyes. “What the…”
As his dizzy eyes widened, he could see a shady figure in neon orange stand before him, silhouetted by the crescent moon behind him. “You? The smiling freak? You’re dead!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Larry could see the woman crawl over to her dog and shake herself off. The man lunged at him; his jeans, fallen around his ankles, bound his feet together and he fell forward. Larry slashed the spiked end of the poker across the man’s chest; he screamed and swiped his hands out, knocking the poker out of Larry’s hand. It spun into the branches of the trees, lost to the darkness.
“****ing retard,” the man wheezed, clutching at the wound across his chest with one hand, tugging at his pants with the other. “I’ll bust out your teeth and make you **** ‘em out your ass.”
Larry backed up to block the woman from the brawny man, fists clenched. His gleaming teeth shone in the low light, blending with the terrified paleness in his face. The man continued to stumble in advance, grunting from his hunched position. Larry pushed his camera to his side and continued to tread backwards.
“Whatcha gonna do now, tough guy?”
The man faked leaping forward, stumbled, and then pounced. Larry winced, nearly shedding a tear, his muscles so tight, and swung the camera through the night air. The block of fine metal and plastic crashed against the attacker’s right cheek, just as his jaw dropped to let out a roar. A spew of blood sent a tooth out of the opposite corner of his mouth, racing towards the shaken earth mixed with shattered pieces of metal, glass, and plastic. Still in mid-air, the man collided into Larry’s mid-section and knocked him backwards to the ground.
The man lay still atop Larry’s body, now wracked with childish sobs. Larry held up his hand and looked at the disintegrated, tangled, bloodied mess of a camera that was once his only escape from the world, closed his eyes, and moaned in sorrow.
The dog trotted over to him and licked a swelling wound on the small bump that was once Larry’s cheek. The woman shakily picked herself up from the ground, spat, and swore, kicking the man in the face in triplicate to roll him off of her saviour’s body. Larry continued to moan.
“Oh thank God – thank you, thank you, thank you,” the woman said, still trembling with adrenaline. She helped Larry up from the ground. “Oh God, I’ve never been so scared in all my life…”
“It’th fine,” Larry mewed, shyly looking in her general direction. He couldn’t help but stare at her partially uncovered body even though he knew it was very impolite. “Here, take thith.” He shed his reflective orange vest and handed it to her; she blushed and slipped into its loose confines. By that point Larry had already begun to walk away.
“Hey!” the woman yelled, still delirious from the devastating attack. She and her dog ran through the bushes to catch up. “I owe you my life, mister…”
A modest pause. “Larry.”
“Larry…please, let me repay you – I can’t believe what just happened, this is so unreal…”
“Nothing,” Larry sighed. He handed her the broken camera and kept walking through the brush towards where he figured the parking lot would be. “I taped everything. Jutht take thith to the polithe…”
The woman looked at the dilapidated device in her hands and cocked an eyebrow. Combing some loose dirty strands of hair out of her face, she continued apologizing. “I’m so sorry for yelling at you earlier – I…just don’t know what to say…” As soon as they stepped out of the dense woodlands, the woman leaned over to peck a kiss on Larry’s cheek; she lost aim and accidentally nicked the rim of his mouth.
Larry froze in his tracks, goose bumps emerging all over his body. The woman looked back at him tiredly but Larry could see a sweet twinkle in her eye – just like the ones he’d seen in his videos.
“You’re my hero,” she praised, matter-of-factly.
Larry’s heart was racing; his temples were going to explode. He ran his index finger around the corner of his gaping mouth where her lips touched what should have been his. He shook and heaved out a dry wheeze, staring at the woman. She still returned the gaze. This was his chance. He had to do it. He had to try.
He leaned in towards the woman, enveloping her within his lanky arms. “Oh Caeley, I love you tho tho much, all thith time…”
“What?” the woman snorted.
“I alwayth hoped we would meet again, I mithed you all thethe yearth,” he articulated as best he could, little bubbly trails of saliva seeping from the corners of his mouth.
“Sir, uh…” the woman twisted away from him.
“Larry. My name’th Larry. Thilly forgetful Caeley,” he purred at her, watching her messy blonde hair flow in the slight breeze. It had to be her, after all these years.
“Yes, Larry, I’m sorry, but –“
“-and now I finally get to give you the kith I wanted to give twenty-three thummerth ago.” Larry leaned in and tried to press his gaping, wounded mouth against hers. She shoved him away; he squealed in surprise.
“NO. Larry, you have me mistaken with someone else.” Larry cleared his throat to speak but the woman verbally intercepted him. “Thank you for your help, but –“ she shivered under the darkening night sky, trying to avert eye contact, “but good-bye.”
The woman patted her thigh twice, whistled to grab her dog’s attention, and hurried down the lit pathway past Larry towards the parking lot.
Larry watched in longing as the silhouette of the woman and the glowing outline of the husky disappeared into the city lights. He clenched his teeth and wiped the saliva from his mouth in with his runny nose and shamefully set course for the parking lot.
Another missed opportunity.
At least he finally got kissed this time.
If only he had learned how to give one back.
This story was inspired by an ex of mine who, at the time, was my "film partner", and we got the idea of this story from a short-film contest that needed to use kissing as a common theme for all entrants. The film never happened, but the short story rose out of the ashes.
Comments and critiques are most appreciated by any of you fine folks that take the time to read this. Thanks in advance for any views or reviews! :)
PS - Sorry about the awkward formatting...MS WORD and the TZ Forums don't seem to like to mix unless I'm ready to totally resize everything word for word. *SIGH*
* * * * * * * * *
Tim Leighton
CRWR 408
September 10, 2001
Never Been Kithed
It was mind-numbing work, being a janitor – or “Parks and Recreation Maintenance Worker”, as his official title proudly declared. But janitor suited Larry better; he felt like **** all the time, so he might as well make a living dealing with it.
Larry would have certainly killed himself umpteen times over by now if this job were not for its…perks. What more could a young man of thirty want than fresh air on a beautiful mid-summer night’s eve? The opportunity to lose himself to the melody of his choice – and do so without conflicting with his superiors – provided just the right amount of freedom he needed to still feel in control of his life. Hell, time flies when you listen to Kiss From a Rose fifteen times straight. However, if any one thing made this otherwise terrible job worthwhile, it would have to be the sights.
Larry surveyed the asphalt expanse that was his domain and stared into the westerly breeze, flashed the most dapper smile he could manage to his invisible audience, and imagined a cape billowing behind him. Superman, eat your heart out. “You may thave the world,” Larry gushed in his superiority over this American icon, “but that alwayth endth with a thity getting’ blown up or thomething. I clean up your meth! Ha!” If only he could tell that to the big blue boy scout face to face. The first encounter wasn’t nearly as sweet as it should have been.
* * *
Little Larry Lypshitz eagerly walked down the semi-crowded corridor, panting madly while smiling from ear to ear. He couldn’t help it - this was the most momentous occasion in his life since he met Chewbacca at the mall the previous summer! “Come on, Mom! Dad! I don’t wanna mith thith!” He was always amazed that he picked up speaking so well so quickly.
Bruce King and Talia McQueen, or simply Bruce and Talia, as the world knew them, paced through the mall. They begrudgingly followed behind their rambunctious son, leaving a good five metre buffer zone between they and he.
Larry bounded forward, catching a glimpse of the media circus up ahead. He spun around, shouting urgently, “He’th right there! Hurry! Hurry!” He darted ahead.
“Lawrence!” Talia commanded in a foreign accent; she couldn’t let anyone recognize her. Not here. Not with him. Larry froze in his tracks and shyly turned around. He knew that when his mother addressed him formally, she meant business. She spoke again, instantly regretting herself as the words came from her mouth. “Come here.” Larry did as he was told. His mother hissed quietly. “Don’t you dare make a scene today, or you don’t get dinner for a month. We can’t let anyone know who we are, not until after your surgery, OK?” She sighed and combed a slender hand through her perfect hair. “Jesus, I bet we’ve already been spotted.”
Larry’s head drooped; his parents could only see the portions of his face from the nose above this way. “That’s better,” Bruce smiled. “Don’t look him in the face now, that would be rude. Keep your head down. And put your sunglasses back on. Your mom and I know what’s best.”
Larry sighed, and admitted defeat. “Yeth thir.”
“Attaboy,” his father said, with a glimpse of humanity sparkling through. Larry snaked through the thousand pillars of people, inching closer and closer to his goal. There it was. Behind a velvet rope forcefield stood a table at which Christopher Reeve sat! He smiled gaily and cast an understated royal wave to the onslaught of fans trying to budge into his fortress of solitude.
“No pushing, one at a time, please!” commanded his drones for bodyguards. Larry dutifully got into the line-up and waited. His parents stood well out of the sight of the cameras and nearly out of his. They weren’t even looking at him!
“OK, next!” The line-up moved up one pace.
“Excuse me,” one blonde middle-aged woman queried, leaning in Talia’s direction, “I don’t happen to know you, do I? You look awfully familiar.”
Talia tried not to blush or look stupid – she had not contacted her make-up artist and was not ready for public appearances! The tabloids would eat her alive. She parted her perfect pouty lips and murmured. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”
“Come on, remember me? Jill MacDougall, class of ’62! You’re Selina…no, Diana…no, geez, what was your name!?”
Bruce’s ear twisted and perked up. He couldn’t have his cover blown, and his wife desperately needed help. Stepping in, he spoke up with a fake middle-eastern accent. “I’m sorry miss, you must be mistaken. My wife and I have just moved here from Saudi Arabia. We have only been in Canada for three months now.” The final words were spoken with a tone of distaste; he didn’t want this conversation developing any further.
“Oh sorry, my mistake. Terribly sorry.”
Bruce and Talia looked away simultaneously and released a sigh of relief ever so slowly. Their heart rates quickened once again when they both noticed Larry was now at the front of the line-up. Bruce gulped and took his wife’s hand, patting her bony fingers and rubbing her thin skin firmly. “Pray that he doesn’t make a fool out of us.”
“Next!” Larry stared blankly in awe at the superhero sitting behind the table. “Come on kid, it’s your turn,” insisted the queue guardian. Larry realized the man was talking to him, snapped out of his daze, and sprinted up to the table, his rubber soles squeaking loudly against the pristine mall floor.
“Thuperman! It’th me, your biggetht fan!”
Christopher Reeve turned his head to the side, muttered something to one of his aides, laughed, and turned back to face the masses. Larry was already assaulting the table, his bony arm thrown in Reeve’s direction. “Here! Thake my hand!” He was barely taller than the table; only his messy hair and sunglasses rose above table level.
“Well hello there,” Reeve said, taking the boy’s hand. “Quite a grip you have there. And what is your name, little boy?” A smile sneaked across his face. These public appearances could be absolutely brutal, but it was always a pleasure to brighten a child’s day.
“My name ith Larry Lypthitth and I’m theven yearth old and that’th my mom and dad over there!” He waved in their general direction; Bruce and Talia both coughed simultaneously, bent at the waist, and ducked out of sight. It was amazing they hadn’t attracted any stares already.
Reeve was just about to speak when Larry cut him off. “It wath tho cool how you flew all over the plathe, Thuperman. You alwayth beat the bad guy. It wath like…” and Larry imitated the flying motions and made aircraft noises as he did so. After a few moments, and getting a chuckle out of his hero, Larry froze in his tracks. “Oopth! You’re in dithguithe right now, huh? Thorry, I thould’a called you Clark.”
“It’s OK.”
“Move it along Chris, we have hundreds of more kids waiting,” the guardian of the line droned. Reeve nodded.
“OK, just a sec.” He hunched over the table and spoke softly to Larry; Larry bowed his head to raise his ear past the level of the table to hear the mild-mannered man speak. “You’re going to have to let the other boys and girls have their turn, Larry. But before you go, I have a little present for you.”
Larry snapped around and grinned the biggest grin he could muster, still below table level. “Really!?”
Reeve nodded and scrambled to find a red ballpoint pen on the table top. Taking Larry’s hand, he warned him to be still, and began crudely drawing a Superman logo on the underside of Larry’s arm, just above the wrist. Larry continued to grin with glee – he’d be the envy of all the kids in the neighbourhood! Reeve began to darken in the lines, gently, so as not to hurt the boy…
“Yo, Chris! Get a move on!”
Reeve spasmed as the bark blared into his ears. His hand jolted and the tip of the pen was driven into the skin and stabbed the artery in Larry’s wrist. Reeve immediately pulled the pen out of Larry’s arm and pressed his hands down on the wound to keep it shut. “Oh God, kid, I’m so sorry!” Reeve scowled at the bodyguard out of the corner of his eye. “It’ll be alright son, don’t cry! Be tough, like Superman.”
“No, you’re mean! You hurt me with your thuper-thtrength!” Larry tore his arm out of Reeve’s grasp and wailed before the crowd. His cries grew even more desperate as he saw the blood trickling down his arm, past his elbow. “Thuperman hurt me!” Cameras flashed and other cameras rolled, catching Reeves’ shocked look of innocence and storing it away for tomorrow’s headlines. The crowd gasped awkwardly as Larry spun around, knocking his sunglasses to the ground.
“What happened to that poor kid? Look at his…”
“…face, omigod, that is so…”
“…disgusting! Film it! We have to get this!”
Reeve firmly murmured, “Get his parents.”
As Larry’s cries of horror escalated and reverberated off of the corridor walls, so did Christopher Reeve’s commandeering aide. “Will the parents of this boy please come up here?”
Bruce and Talia hung their heads and shuffled through the frenzied crowd, hoping they didn’t act too quickly. They couldn’t be recognized in front of the masses as the parents of that child! Once they reached the rim of the crowd, they motioned for Larry to run over to them. “Once he sees you, back into the crowd. There are cameras everywhere,” Bruce warned. “I’ll grab him, cover his mouth, then we get the hell outa here.” Talia nodded in silence, her heart racing. About one minute had passed.
Mall security had taken control over the three-ring media circus by that point. The wailing boy rattled on-lookers, further escalating the volumes of their discontent. “Would the parents of this little boy please come up here?” now rung the loudspeakers.
Then he finally saw a familiar face. “Mommy!” Larry hollered, sucking back the saliva, dribbling over the ridge above his cracked mouth. He darted in her direction, arms outspread. The sea of people parted to give Larry space. A number of journalists and their assisting cameramen pursued, just in time to see the boy latch his arms tightly around the middle of her hourglass, the force of collision knocking the sunglasses off of her face. A communal gasp rose from the crowd, and then quiet pointing and muttering.
“I know them!”
“It’s Bruce and Talia, from the magazine!”
“Oh my God, they have an ugly adopted child…?”
Bruce stared onward in horror. “I wath tho thcared, mommy! I wath tho thcared…” Larry’s tiny voice trailed off into a plea of pathetic sobs.
The left corner of Talia’s mouth sunk towards her chin as she tried to do anything but look directly into the dozen lens’ tauntingly glaring back at her. Bruce nudged her shoulder from behind with his own. “Hug him, God damn it.”
Talia cautiously put her hands high on her son’s back, wincing as she pressed his snotty, bloodied body into hers. Bruce placed a supporting hand on her shoulder, looking onimously in the background.
The continuous flashing of photography froze time just long enough for the two parents to picture their destroyed lives the following morning. Larry etched this moment into his memory – he had not been hugged by anyone for months now, since the accident.
The following morning, Larry stumbled down two flights of spiral staircases. He wandered into the gleaming kitchen, the pads of his bunny slippers making quiet skiffing sounds with each gliding step. His parents sat, curled together in a tight embrace, muffled sobs creeping through the holes between their arms.
“Mom? Dad? What’th wrong?” Larry scratched the thin layer of mousy brown hair on his head.
Bruce perked up from their weeping huddle and coldly looked down his Roman nose at his disfigured son. Clenching his chiseled jaw, he threw an array of newspapers at Larry’s feet. Larry looked downward at the splattered newsprint, then returned a confused glance back to his father. His cheekbones rose and his jawbone began to quiver.
As if Bruce didn’t even notice his son on the brink of tears, he delivered the final blow, exaggerating and imitating his lisp.
“You did thith to uth, thon. Our liveth are ruined.”
The headlines for August 7th, 1978, proclaimed:
TORONTO SUN: “Supermodel couple sighted tending to ailing, wailing child.”
NEW YORK TIMES: “Disfigured boy embarrassed Superman in public.”
THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER: “Hideous supermodel love-child costs Bruce and Talia blockbuster lingerie advertisement deal.”
Larry silently left the room and ambled back upstairs, his tummy still rumbling. Lying face down in the fluffy pillow at the foot of his bed, he softly cried himself back to sleep.
* * *
Larry shook the memory out of his head, nearly losing hold of his bags of trash in the process. He methodically dumped three of the four full bags into a nearby trash can; the fourth would come in handy later.
A soft panting sound arose behind him. Cautiously, he turned around and was confronted by a stray Siberian husky, his nose high in the air, trying to catch a whiff of the glorious smell of garbage. “Hi boy,” Larry gave the dog a gentle little noogie, “are you lotht? Aww, you’re thuch a pretty doggy…” He smiled, and the dog smiled and panted an odour of raw fish back into Larry’s face. Larry chuckled to himself and continued grinning. Animals never discriminated against him – they never understood his facial disfigurement as being abnormal. “You know,” Larry continued, “I onthe had a puppy that kinda looked jutht like you. That ithn’t you, is it?” He continued to pat the dog, listening to the tags on his collar jingle. “Nah, it can’t be, that wath over twenty yearth ago.”
He leaned in closer and murmured. “Can you give me a kith, boy? I would for you but I haven’t learned how jutht yet.” Without warning, the husky lunged at him and licked him from the bottom of his chin, up across his teeth and over his nostrils. “Aw you’re thuch a good kither! Yeth you are!” Larry hugged the dog and laughed to himself.
“Hey!” Larry looked up. Through a chasm between two cars, he could see a woman jogging in place on the opposite side. She squeezed between them towards the dog; Larry shyly backed away. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Stuttering, Larry tried not to look the woman in the face. “Thorry ma’am, I wath jutht playing with thith dog I found -”
“This is my dog and don’t you dare touch him again! Giving him kisses? Christ, you’re a sick **** – I bet he smells like a dumpster now!” She took the happy husky by the collar and tugged him past the fallen janitor.
“I’m thorry mith, I didn’t do anything to hurt him.”
“Psht!” she steamed. “I better not see you ever again, get me?” Larry stayed still.
“Look up here when I’m talking to you!” He timidly looked up at her with drooping eyes and a silly stretched grin on his face. “Why the hell are you smiling?”
“I’m not thmiling, I’m…”
“Oh God!” the jogger gasped as her eyesight adjusted to the unnatural shadows playing off of the distorted cracks and crevices on his face. “You’re…god! Diseased or something! Just…stay the hell away from me!” She violently tugged on her dog’s collar and practically threw him into the park; she made hot pursuit, muttering, “I’m so glad you’ve gotten your rabies shots, boy…”
Larry tried to close his mouth and watched the two jog deeper and deeper into the open expanse of the park until they disappeared into the old growth forest a few hundred metres away.
His mind wandered as the sun set even lower, images of the husky dominating his mind. Oh, it was just so long ago…
* * *
“Whoa! Lookit this! Lookit what I found, Caeley!” Larry surged his arms forward into the thorny bush and clutched onto the gleaming piece of metal.
“What is it?” Caeley whined, standing not far off, loosely holding onto a dog leash; Larry’s pet husky puppy lazily sat in the ankle-high grass, basking in the California sun.
“Come see! It’s so cool!”
Caeley threw her head back and sighed. “Nomie, stay.” The dog continued to pant happily in the warm heat of spring. Caeley dropped the leash and met Larry in the bushes.
“See? Isn’t it awesome?” Larry’s voice cracked.
“What is it?”
“Grab that metal bar and pull!” Caeley followed orders and tugged as hard as she could. The chunk of metal jolted and thrust itself out of the bushes, knocking both seven-year-olds flat on their backs in the grass.
“Whoa! It’s a…a…”
“SHOPPING CART!!!” Larry exclaimed. “This is so cool! It’s like buried treasure or something!” He beamed with pride. “Look at it, Nomie! Do you like it?”
Caeley circled around the gleaming vehicle, scrutinizing over the rightful property of Albertson’s supermarket. Nomie stood up on all fours, stretched, and trotted over to their new toy. After a brief sniff, she licked a few of the bars on the side of the carriage. “Ew…there’s some gum on it and your dog’s eating it.”
“No!” Larry commanded. His dog backed up and quickly changed gears; he began to lick himself.
“Anyway, isn’t it keen?” Larry’s enthusiasm was growing tedious.
“Sure, I guess we could give rides in it or something.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Larry’s lips just kept on flapping. “Wouldn’t that be great, Nomie? Wanna go for a ride? Wanna go for a riiiiiiiiiide?” His ears perked up; Larry awkwardly picked up the puppy and carefully placed him in the thick wire basin, making sure to tie the leash up to the bars nice and tight. He danced around to the handle and roughly pushed the cart through the grass towards the asphalt pathway a few yards away. “Cool huh?”
“Super dee duper,” Caeley mumbled unenthusiastically.
For the next fifteen minutes, Larry and Caeley pushed each other and Nomie around the sights of Mercer Lake Park. Larry began to drag his blistered feet as they rounded a bend not far from one corner of the lake. “This is getting boring.”
“You’re telling me.” Caeley then perked up as a flash of inspiration hit her; she grinned. “But I have an even better idea now!” Her eyes scrunched up into little slits of glee.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Climb in and I’ll show you.”
Larry gave Caeley a wary eye, left his post at the handlebars, and cautiously climbed into the cart, making sure not to flatten Nomie with his feet.
“Ready?”
“Ready for what?”
SLAM! Caeley charged into the shopping cart, sending it forward on its squeaky wheels down the pathway; she quickly jumped aboard at the back and came along for the ride. Larry yelped in surprise at first and grabbed Nomie, fearing injury, but after he opened his eyes to see Caeley screaming “weeeeee!” behind him, he soon joined in with a similar exhilarating cry.
“That was awesome!” Caeley shrieked, planting her feet once again on solid terra firma. “Let’s try it on a hill this time!”
Larry’s smile dissipated. “Oh, I don’t know – a hill? That’s pretty dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be such a baby! It’s not like we’re going to do it in traffic,” Caeley growled. “I’ll…” she dropped her voice an octave to sound even more enticing, “…give you a kiss if you do it.”
A kiss? From a girl? Larry sunk his head into his chest and blushed. He couldn’t remember the last time he got a kiss from anyone, never mind a girl as pretty and spunky as Caeley. A rash of goose bumps sprouted up across his body and he shivered in delight. “Uh, OK…” he puckered up, “I’m probably not very good, even my mom doesn’t let me do this…”
Caeley lightly smacked his cheek with her hand, swiveling his face back away from her. “Not yet, stupid. I don’t want you chickening out on me.” She braced the handle with her sweaty palms and tensed her body. “OK…get ready…and hold on!”
Sounds of squeaky wheels and the pitter-patter of Caeley’s feet signaled the motor’s ignition. After an even longer acceleration than before, Caeley jumped on board and closed her eyes as the rickety cart shot down the gentle incline towards a small, empty parking area. Both children howled in excitement; Nomie peeked his head over the edge of the cart and let his long tongue dangle in the breeze. Thoughts of that forthcoming kiss continued to surge through Larry’s mind.
About thirty seconds later, when the cart sped by the parking meter at the end of the row of parking stalls, Larry’s eyes opened, desperately seeking orientation. He gasped and grabbed Caeley’s hands. “Caeley, open your eyes!”
Caeley innocently opened her eyes and spat. “Oh, no.” She hadn’t realized her own strength; the cart had rolled well past where she expected it to, and was barreling towards the park gate, on the other side of which was a busy thoroughfare. She snorted, clenched her jaw, braced her hands, and dropped her feet to the speeding concrete below her. She ran with the buggy trying to slow it down gradually. Nomie continued to pant, blissfully enjoying the cool, relaxing breeze.
“Slow down slow down slow down!” Larry spasmed, pulling his dog to his chest.
“I’m trying!” Caeley bellowed furiously. She slammed her heels to the ground; the cart dragged her body along the pavement, finally losing speed.
The cart shot through the park gate, immediately greeted by the loud, low nasal wail and screeching brakes of a commercial truck. Larry screamed and ducked as the cart bounced across the bumpy grooves in the sidewalk and smashed into the fender of the truck. The force of the collision rattled Caeley free of the cart; her body flew forward, cheekbone first, into the giant rigid hubcap of the truck with a loud thunk. The truck now stood at a halt.
The force of the collision altered the course of the cart by ninety degrees; Larry fearfully looked behind him to see Caeley lying face down in a red puddle on the sidewalk, her hair splayed out in all directions. He couldn’t decide if it were to his horror or to his relief, but her still body soon disappeared from sight as the cart once again picked up speed, now shooting down the hilly streets of San Francisco.
Cars swerved about and side-swiped others, both mobile and parked. Pedestrians pointed and hollered from the sidewalks; some of the braver souls ran out into the street, trying to grab the cart, but always found themselves only inches off the mark. Larry sat in the bottom of the cart, paralyzed with fear; as block after block zoomed by, the cart’s speed rose higher and higher.
Three blocks ahead, he could see that the street intersected an even busier street. The traffic light turned yellow. “No…” Larry whispered. Momentarily shaking off his fear, he stood up, trying to stay balanced. He had to jump.
Two blocks ahead, the yellow cautionary light died and the solid red appeared. Larry bent at the knees and hunched over the side, preparing to flop out; his body shuddered in disbelief as the surging adrenaline urged him to take action. Then Nomie whinnied. Larry shot a glance and nearly cried. He couldn’t leave his best friend behind, even if it was going to kill him. Larry frantically tried to undo the horrendous knot that tied Nomie to the skeleton of the racing cart.
One block ahead, out of the corner of his eye, Larry saw a trolley cross the street. The traffic light was still red, but the “Don’t Walk” signs began to flash. Maybe, just maybe. By now sirens blared across the cityscape; they must have been attending to Caeley already. Nomie huddled awkwardly against Larry, still whinnying and whimpering as the cart insisted on rattling their bones and its own. “Don’t worry, Nomie,” Larry cried, smacking the knotted leash in frustration, twisting his ring finger as he did so. His voice cracked and desperate tears crept out from his eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Larry curled up into a protective ball around his shuddering puppy, praying. Just as the cart entered the intersection, the light turned green, and the traffic had cleared. However, one of the unbalanced wheels on the carriage twisted as it wedged itself into the grooves of the trolley tracks. The shopping cart flipped and flailed in mid-air, hitting the hood of an unsuspecting station wagon starting to make its way uphill. Through all the thrashing, Larry lost his grip on his dog; he whimpered and fell out of the cart. Still in mid-air, Larry lunged forward, shouting, and grabbed his dog around its middle. Larry smiled briefly, still sobbing.
The cart fell over on its side; sparks flew as the polished metal scraped the grooved concrete. Still unbalanced, Larry lurched forward, his upper body falling out of the cart. His hands still holding onto Nomie, Larry didn’t even have time to react before his face broke his fall to the rushing pavement with a loud crack.
Screams of horror erupted from the sidewalks as they saw the carriage topple over. They couldn’t see the boy as he sped by, but the scattered trail of red and hobbling shredded bits of pink told them all they needed to know.
The metal continued to shriek and squeal until, two blocks later, the cart came to a halt in the middle of the street in front of the “Caution: Children at Play” toy store. One passer-by ran out to the cart, screaming, “Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance!” over and over. He squatted over Larry and pried the terrified but otherwise unscathed puppy from his clutches. He set him down next to the boy and spoke; Nomie stepped over and licked Larry’s ear appreciatively.
“Son, are you OK? Speak to me!” The older man took Larry’s shoulders and raised his body from the cruel concrete. Larry’s head snapped forward and through the gash of cracked bone and torn flesh cascaded a flood of blood. The man gasped and rolled the boy onto his back and felt his wrist for a pulse.
Larry coughed and spat, deliriously trying to speak; the man could see a tongue trying to curl and form words within the broken cage of his teeth but the sounds were barely audible. It looked as if all the skin from his nostrils to his chin had been shredded off of his face.
“Kleethe tell nee that ny tutty ith OK, nithter.”
* * *
Larry side-stepped around the trash cans and peered down at a handful of the parking meters in the vicinity. Nearly all of the parking times had long since expired – not unusual for a beautiful Friday night, which is why he could not understand how the towing companies had yet to catch on. They could make a killing!
This was the high point – and most intellectually stimulating – part of Larry’s week. He swung the three empty neon orange sacks around so they could rest on his back, and brought the fourth around to his right side. He reached inside; just as the harmonious sounds of unsnapping buckles and the peeling of velcro calmed and enticed his hopeful soul, Larry set foot on the pathway leading into the park.
“Hey, watch where you’re walking, idiot!”
Geez, not that woman again. Larry looked up and focused his glazed eyes on a large scruffy man in black. God, he needs to get his ears checked.
“I’m…I…thorry thir, I wathn’t looking where I wath go –“
“Don’t smile at me! What, you think this is funny?” The man spat, his body leaning in his direction to frighten him.
“I’m not thmiling,” Larry explained, trying to face the man, but never able to raise his eyes above his yellow teeth and flaring hairy nostrils. “You thee, it’th impothible to clothe my mouth becauthe –“
The man’s face, checkered with scars, dropped. “Jesus!” she gasped, staring at the gaping hole in Larry’s face, barely hiding his gums from the outside world. “Get out of my way, freak!” He pushed past him, his voice raised an octave. “And never cross me again.”
The man briskly walked into the park, the thighs of his black jeans swishing together. Larry looked on, watching him scratch his back and pick his ear before disappearing into the woods.
Larry paused for a moment and ran his fingertips over the rim of the asymmetrical cavern that was once his mouth. No one could ever get past his face and keep their lunch down. He knew the stares all too well. The eyes would bulge out a little, the cheeks would hollow, the nose would flare, and even though the jaw would drop halfway down their throats, their brows would somehow restrain stretching with the rest of the face and furrow on their own. Even more popular would be a mutter of God’s name in vain, followed by the back of their head, quickly disappearing from view.
All because of one childhood mishap.
All because of the fear of imperfection.
* * *
“…consider it very lucky for him to be alive,” Doctor Martin consoled. “The girl he was with, we fear, won’t be so lucky. She’s lapsed into a coma.” Bruce and Talia stood abreast, each bearing a rigid visage. They turned to look at each other and heaved a selfish sigh. Dr. Martin caught on. “Everyone at Golden Gate Hospital is aware of your ‘status’, and for the sake of all involved, we’re doing our best to keep the media out of this.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Bruce said. What a relief.
“You may visit your son now, if you like.” Bruce looked over at Talia; she gave a minute shrug and nodded, as if against her will. “OK, I just have to finish this report and I’ll be right back in five minutes.”
Talia patted his arm and smiled weakly, trying to say something – anything. “Thank-you, doctor.” Dr. Martin hurriedly walked down the glimmering pastel corridor.
Bruce took Talia’s hand and slowly turned the knob, stepping into the forbidden room. A heart monitor beeped. An I.V. glugged. And, if they were not mistaken, they smelled a faint aroma of cheese – or mold – or both.
Talia wiped her eyes when she saw her son, strapped down to an upright bed, two sizes too small. “Bruce, honey, I don’t know if I can do this.”
“No,” Bruce said firmly, but with a slight waver in his voice, “this is the only way we’ll ever know.” He looked down at Larry focusing on the thick square of gauze covering his mouth. Without even greeting his son, he placed his fingers at the edge of the gauze patch, and gently began to pull, trying not to get any goo on his perfect fingers.
“Please don’t, sweetie, you’re gonna hurt him!”
“We have to do this. We have to know.” The tape peeled away from the scathed skin and the gauze tore away from the blood and pus of the wound with quiet snaps and crackles.
“Oh my God,” Bruce stammered; Talia doubled over and already broke into tears. “He has no mouth!”
“WHAT!??” Talia croaked.
"Nothing! Look! No lips, no mouth, hell, half of his cheeks have been torn in two!”
Bruce continued to rant; his excitement was the only thing that he could do to hold back his tears. Real men didn’t cry.
Talia took two steps closer, and peered through her slender quivering fingers. She shrieked and ran back to the door; Bruce slammed his body against the door and grabbed her shoulders.
“…nonn?…dad…?” Larry mumbled groggily.
“Omigod omigod OMIGOD! This can’t happen! He’s hideous! We cannot have an ugly child, we simply can NOT!”
“Honey, listen to me.”
“No, Bruce! We’re SU-PER-MO-DELS! Can you imagine what the papers will say if they see we have an imperfect son??” Bruce grabbed her; she smacked his face and shook her head, trying to rid her brain of the image. “I can’t do this, not now, with the lingerie account I’m trying to get…”
“Listen to me,” Bruce said calmly, though he was feeling just as much calamity, “we have the money to get him the plastic surgery he needs…”
“And the press won’t hear of that?? Jesus!” She sobbed, choking on the words as they bubbled out of her throat. “At least if one half of his face was torn off he’d look like that guy in those godforsaken comic books he’s always reading…”
“…at least he had your looks, not mine…” Bruce spat.
“…if only it happened to that girl or the dog instead – at least we could put it down and forget about it…”
Bruce violently shook his wife to soothe her, knocking her head against the door repeatedly. “Listen to me!”
She sniffed. “You messed my hair.”
“As soon as he can leave here we’ll leave the country and live out of the public eye for a while. Our place outside of Toronto should suffice – no one down here would ever think twice about us lowering our standards to live in Canada.”
“…nonn? Dad…?” Larry gurgled; he stirred once he thought he heard familiar voices.
“But what about the lingerie account? We can’t afford to lose it!” Talia shuddered as images of her living in a split-level house behind a picket fence in the centre of suburbia haunted her mind. “We’ll be nobodies if –“
Bruce grunted, but suppressed his frustration. “Our agents will handle everything, alright? Don’t worry, darling.” Talia chewed on her inch-long nails but had no rebuttal. Bruce sighed; his reasoning must have sufficed. “We’ll have to change his name, though – can’t be connected to this in any way. I always thought naming him Larry King was kind of stupid, anyways. How about your maiden name?”
“ALGHUL? Are you serious?” Talia stomped her stiletto heel hard on the tiled floor with a loud crack. “Use your real name, oh hubby o’ mine!” She snarled. “Lypshitz!”
Bruce rolled his eyes, shaking his head, his lower lip hanging down under its own weight. He wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist and walked her to the door.
“…nonn…daddd…” sputtered Larry, his drugged voice muffled by the pack of gauze. He knew, even with his eyes closed and fluid draining from his ear, that he had heard his parents.
“…Nonn! DAD!” he pleaded through the cavern in his face.
They had disappeared; Larry’s eyes opened just in time to see the door silently and slowly shut with a soft click.
Nothing.
Not a hold of the hand.
No hug, either.
Or even a kiss on his torn cheek.
* * *
Looking back at the painful memory, Larry was amazed at how well he had coped with his imperfection. He could now make all the verbal sounds in the English language with the exception of the letter “S”. In fact, he now felt perfectly content in everything he desired.
Well, except one thing.
In the fourth bag, Larry flipped a switch and pressed a button, and was rewarded with a quiet ping and a lazy whir. His tiny video camera shyly awakened. With everything in check, Larry marched into the park, using his poker as a walking stick.
Every Friday was a new lesson. Sometimes he spotted them from afar, where he could only study their most outlandish movements. Sometimes he shed his reflective vest and managed to creep through the thick bushes to catch a close-up view. He learned some bear far more skin than others; some loud, some quiet. Some preferred to moan and talk; others just talked about themselves. Tongues and piercings were ever-present, but never obscured the goal. And be very, very careful if the two of you have braces.
Larry spent hours of his time studying, glorifying, and scrutinizing his tapes in his spare time. It was his passion to watch others enthralled in theirs, to make up for what he lacked. He thought he had seen it all; all he wanted now was to try a little kissing himself.
Taking a step down the pathway, he heard a loud incessant bark erupt from within the looming forest. Kissing or not, he had to check it out.
* * *
“Get your ****ing hands off me!” the woman screamed as an oily, grubbing hand lunged into her glittery spandex shorts.
Another hand arced over her body and clamped down over her mouth.
“Shhh, shhh…” the man calmed, his pursed lips protruding through his ski mask. “Shut up and you’ll be safe after I get what I want.” His hand slithered across her sweaty skin and crept around her front; she continued to writhe and flounder about, occasionally managing to shake his foul-tasting hand away from her mouth.
“You know you’re going to get caught,” she spat; her husky companion ensued his relentless northern wail. “That parking lot was packed with cars, people are going to hear me!” She screamed for help but the scream died in the deaf woods, as if no sound was made at all.
“Mmm…” the man purred, his hand running out of her shorts and into her sports bra, “…don’t you know that there are murders committed in Stanley Park every year, and they never get caught. Just a reminder.” His fat fingers pawed past her breasts and sank into her cleavage; the woman bucked and tried to kick backwards at the burly attacker, but he was just too strong. “Mmm…” he licked the back of her neck right up to her hairline, his hands still rummaging within her bra’s confines. His eyes perked up when a fingertip was scratched by the edge of a piece of paper. “Baby, what do we have here?”
He yanked his hands back, pushed the jogger into the moist dirt, and placed his booted foot on the small of her bare back to keep her still.
The yellow of his teeth blared through the ski mask, chattering together as he let out a wheezy cackle. He opened his hand; two crumpled pieces of paper quivered in his palm.
“What!?” he burped. “All that, and for only ten bucks??” He jammed his foot into the ground; he could have sworn he heard his victim snort a snide laugh. “Not so fast, girlie,” he growled from within his belly, slipping the two bills into his jeans’ pocket, “my favourite part is just coming up.”
The woman bucked her hips back up at him and hit him square on the jaw; the man grabbed them, tore at her bra, and undid his zipper with a gentle jingle. The dog continued to bark.
“SHUT UP!” he screamed. The dog sat down, cocked his head, and actually started to wag his tail. The man grunted and clucked his tongue as he panted, clutching her in his hands, just about to…
THWACK!
The man flailed backwards as the thin bar of wood cracked against his skull. He choked on some phlegm and looked up through his spinning eyes. “What the…”
As his dizzy eyes widened, he could see a shady figure in neon orange stand before him, silhouetted by the crescent moon behind him. “You? The smiling freak? You’re dead!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Larry could see the woman crawl over to her dog and shake herself off. The man lunged at him; his jeans, fallen around his ankles, bound his feet together and he fell forward. Larry slashed the spiked end of the poker across the man’s chest; he screamed and swiped his hands out, knocking the poker out of Larry’s hand. It spun into the branches of the trees, lost to the darkness.
“****ing retard,” the man wheezed, clutching at the wound across his chest with one hand, tugging at his pants with the other. “I’ll bust out your teeth and make you **** ‘em out your ass.”
Larry backed up to block the woman from the brawny man, fists clenched. His gleaming teeth shone in the low light, blending with the terrified paleness in his face. The man continued to stumble in advance, grunting from his hunched position. Larry pushed his camera to his side and continued to tread backwards.
“Whatcha gonna do now, tough guy?”
The man faked leaping forward, stumbled, and then pounced. Larry winced, nearly shedding a tear, his muscles so tight, and swung the camera through the night air. The block of fine metal and plastic crashed against the attacker’s right cheek, just as his jaw dropped to let out a roar. A spew of blood sent a tooth out of the opposite corner of his mouth, racing towards the shaken earth mixed with shattered pieces of metal, glass, and plastic. Still in mid-air, the man collided into Larry’s mid-section and knocked him backwards to the ground.
The man lay still atop Larry’s body, now wracked with childish sobs. Larry held up his hand and looked at the disintegrated, tangled, bloodied mess of a camera that was once his only escape from the world, closed his eyes, and moaned in sorrow.
The dog trotted over to him and licked a swelling wound on the small bump that was once Larry’s cheek. The woman shakily picked herself up from the ground, spat, and swore, kicking the man in the face in triplicate to roll him off of her saviour’s body. Larry continued to moan.
“Oh thank God – thank you, thank you, thank you,” the woman said, still trembling with adrenaline. She helped Larry up from the ground. “Oh God, I’ve never been so scared in all my life…”
“It’th fine,” Larry mewed, shyly looking in her general direction. He couldn’t help but stare at her partially uncovered body even though he knew it was very impolite. “Here, take thith.” He shed his reflective orange vest and handed it to her; she blushed and slipped into its loose confines. By that point Larry had already begun to walk away.
“Hey!” the woman yelled, still delirious from the devastating attack. She and her dog ran through the bushes to catch up. “I owe you my life, mister…”
A modest pause. “Larry.”
“Larry…please, let me repay you – I can’t believe what just happened, this is so unreal…”
“Nothing,” Larry sighed. He handed her the broken camera and kept walking through the brush towards where he figured the parking lot would be. “I taped everything. Jutht take thith to the polithe…”
The woman looked at the dilapidated device in her hands and cocked an eyebrow. Combing some loose dirty strands of hair out of her face, she continued apologizing. “I’m so sorry for yelling at you earlier – I…just don’t know what to say…” As soon as they stepped out of the dense woodlands, the woman leaned over to peck a kiss on Larry’s cheek; she lost aim and accidentally nicked the rim of his mouth.
Larry froze in his tracks, goose bumps emerging all over his body. The woman looked back at him tiredly but Larry could see a sweet twinkle in her eye – just like the ones he’d seen in his videos.
“You’re my hero,” she praised, matter-of-factly.
Larry’s heart was racing; his temples were going to explode. He ran his index finger around the corner of his gaping mouth where her lips touched what should have been his. He shook and heaved out a dry wheeze, staring at the woman. She still returned the gaze. This was his chance. He had to do it. He had to try.
He leaned in towards the woman, enveloping her within his lanky arms. “Oh Caeley, I love you tho tho much, all thith time…”
“What?” the woman snorted.
“I alwayth hoped we would meet again, I mithed you all thethe yearth,” he articulated as best he could, little bubbly trails of saliva seeping from the corners of his mouth.
“Sir, uh…” the woman twisted away from him.
“Larry. My name’th Larry. Thilly forgetful Caeley,” he purred at her, watching her messy blonde hair flow in the slight breeze. It had to be her, after all these years.
“Yes, Larry, I’m sorry, but –“
“-and now I finally get to give you the kith I wanted to give twenty-three thummerth ago.” Larry leaned in and tried to press his gaping, wounded mouth against hers. She shoved him away; he squealed in surprise.
“NO. Larry, you have me mistaken with someone else.” Larry cleared his throat to speak but the woman verbally intercepted him. “Thank you for your help, but –“ she shivered under the darkening night sky, trying to avert eye contact, “but good-bye.”
The woman patted her thigh twice, whistled to grab her dog’s attention, and hurried down the lit pathway past Larry towards the parking lot.
Larry watched in longing as the silhouette of the woman and the glowing outline of the husky disappeared into the city lights. He clenched his teeth and wiped the saliva from his mouth in with his runny nose and shamefully set course for the parking lot.
Another missed opportunity.
At least he finally got kissed this time.
If only he had learned how to give one back.