Record One: Peep Show

RECORD ONE: PEEP SHOW

  Copyright © 2013 by Allthing Publications

  With stories by Trevor Abes, Carine Abouseif, Amir Ahmed, Beth Carroll, Jodelle Faye DeJesus, Larissa Ho, Katherine Lucynski, Olivia Matthias, Luke Sawczak

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  The nine authors in this collection retain and hold their individual respective rights to their stories. Opinions and stories presented in this publication are exclusively of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors, or of Allthing Publications. Additionally, Allthing Publications and the editors take no responsibility for accuracy of facts, names, or events represented in this publication.

  The cover for this book uses an eye icon drawn by Ayesha Rana of the Noun Project. It is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY 3.0.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Beard Diary by Amir Ahmed

  Homicidal Stranger by Larissa Ho

  Minor Benefactors by Luke Sawczak

  The Tobacco Defenestration by Trevor Abes

  One of Those Days by Katherine Lucynzki

  Peak and Valley by Jodelle Faye DeJesus

  Insomnia and the Working Girl by Olivia Matthias

  Eman by Carine Abouseif

  Yellow Butterflies by Elizabeth Carroll

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  I am so bad at titles.

  It’s my Achilles Heel, my Death Star Exhaust Port, my most open and unabashedly alarming weakness.

  That’s why, even though I wanted to compile stories of people’s lives from 2012–2013, I held off for months because I didn’t know what to call the damn thing. Everything I came up with was either pretentious enough to make me gag on my own thoughts (Neoblastic—meaning “new growth”) or strange enough that no one would ever read it (Amir’s Cavalcade of Whimsy and Delight).

  It’s the day before we publish, and I still don’t have a name. So, as long as you and I have this little space to talk, let’s just call it was it really is: a peep show. A peep show featuring nine people, living in the same place at the same time.

  For these nine people, a lot has happened in the short time they’ve been alive. The Berlin Wall fell. Hip-hop became a thing. Twitter happened. Protestors in Tahrir Square threw down an autocrat. There was a civil war in Libya. The iPhone 5 came out.

  We saw a lot of big stories. If you want big stories, you don’t need to look here. You can turn on the news and see drone strikes in Pakistan, nuclear threats from North Korea, and a garbage island the size of Texas churning in the Pacific. Heck, I heard the guy with no legs who climbed Mount Killimanjaro has a book out. If big lives and big stories are your thing, you can go read that book; it’s probably great.

  Or maybe, you’d like to hear some little stories.

  Amid the big news, big things, and big people that happened in the past few years, there was a lot of other stuff going on. Some of it was bad. Parents got divorced. Relationships didn’t work out. Our beards never grew in. But there was good stuff too: we remembered our loved ones after they left. We got enough sleep. We quit smoking.

  That’s what this collection is for. Little stories, little people, and little things. We didn’t necessarily make headlines, climb mountains, or even pay our rent on time, but we were here, and I think that counts for something.

  Amir Ahmed

  April 2013, Mississauga

  Beard Diary

  Amir Ahmed

  Day 1: Peach fuzz

  Six-thirty at the GO station. Overhead, the train rumbles over the bridge. The rails shudder. The wheels scream with mounting velocity. We feel the rush of air on our cheeks.

  Then, the train is gone. An orange sun sinks below the trees, and throws long shadows over the world.

  Carine and I descend the narrow aluminum staircase leading down from the station. It’s a warm summer evening. The air smells of grass and chalk dust.

  I’m wearing work clothes I hate: rough khakis, a billowy dress shirt, and a stiff trench coat I got from H&M that makes my butt look big. Carine is dressed much nicer: jeans and a soft purple hoodie. She’s still a student. She has enough freedom to wear what she wants, and enough free time to see her boyfriend home from work.

  Somehow, we get to talking about beards.

  “I saw Sergei yesterday,” I tell Carine. “He has a beard.”

  “I see,” Carine says.

  We dismount the steps and come to the sidewalk on Dundas. To the east, the street rolls up to the strip malls, power centres, and, eventually, the city core. West, it dips to the park, the river, and small, clustered suburbs.

  We head west. Beside us, cars inch forward on the road. I hitch my bag over my other shoulder. My fingers work apart the cuffs of my dress shirt.

  “A good beard,” I add. “It’s so full and thick and—bristly.”

  “You felt his beard?” Carine asks.

  I don’t have to answer that.

  We clear the underpass of the bridge. A pigeon bursts out of the eaves and flutters to the ground. A red Civic swerves in front of a black Jeep. The Jeep wails its horn. I rub the spot beneath my eyebrow.

  “You okay?” Carine asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Just tired.”

  I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with my commute: ninety minutes to get to work, and another ninety just to get home every day. All to work for free on a magazine I’ve learned is built on advertorials and ads for big business. There is no journalism.

  The sidewalk dips. The cars huff and puff beside us.

  We pass two black iron gates. They’re open. A dirt path leads off the sidewalk and between the gates. The path leads into Riverwood—the forest by the station.

  “Let’s take a detour,” Carine says.

  We turn onto the path, away from Dundas. A gust shakes the treetops, and the gates give a slow creak. Gravel skitters beneath our feet.

  The gust dies, and the noise of traffic fades as we enter the forest. This path cuts straight through a thick swatch of brush. Branches press up against the path. Leaves block the sky.

  Carine and I walk side by side. After a while, we hold hands. The air smells sweet. With my free hand, I stroke my chin.

  Carine leans on me. Her head barely makes it to my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her.

  “Miro?” she asks.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re always talking about beards. Why haven’t you ever grown one?”

  I smile, sadly, and shake my head.

  If only she knew…

  Day 7: Scruff

  I can’t grow a beard.

  “You’re wrong, Amir.”

  My facial hair just isn’t thick enough.

  My face is a pale slip of sharp angles. Icepick nose, narrow chin, high, pointed cheeks. It’s like the mountains in Tibet—and, like the mountains, things don’t grow up there.

  Down my cheeks, hair sprouts in long, thin stripes. Above the dip of my upper lip, it’s better: a crescent of bristles thick, and black. But, not thick enough. My chin is a stronghold: a patch of fertile growth, but it fades as it climbs further up my jaw.

  Beards.

  “Amir. Listen to me.”

  My grandfather had a beard. His father had a beard. Why did the line of hirsute Ahmed men stop there? Why had the genetics that trickled down to me give me scruff and wisps of black?

  Socrates wore a full beard. Lincoln cultivated a chin
strap. Shakespeare managed to pull off that sissy Van Dyke look.

  Carine doesn’t understand the importance of beards. I don’t think any woman does. Men know. Men know the joy of manly raiment, the awe of full-bodied, powerful facial hair.

  “Amir. Yo. I’m right here.”

  “Jon?” I ask. “When did you get here?”

  “I got here twenty minutes ago.” Jon checks his watch. “And we’ve been talking about beards for like, ten minutes.”

  I look around. Jon and I are standing outside the black glass front of Lemongrass, the restaurant Sergei wanted to go to for his birthday.

  Jon and I became friends in the ninth grade. Back then, I’d toed ahead of him in the facial hair race: I was rocking a peach-fuzz moustache when he was a skinny, high-voiced kid.

  I toed ahead of everyone back then. I studied harder. I won writing contests. I gave my life to extracurriculars. When we graduated, I carried five awards off the stage with my diploma. Now, the tables have turned: I am the hairless, jobless doughboy. Jon studied phys ed, and has a promising future of a master’s in physiotherapy, and also muttonchops.

  “Huh,” I say. “I said all that stuff aloud?”

  “Yeah, man,” Jon sniffs. “Got sorta fruity at the end.”

  A line of people has formed behind us. Jon and I step aside to let them through. As we do, I catch our reflection in the glass. I see my face: dotted with stubble.

  “Huh,” I say. “So, what’s this about beards?”

  Jon smirks. “Any man can grow a beard.”

  “Bullshit.”

  My cell vibrates. I take it out and flip it open. It’s a message from Sergei: Carolyn’s running late, and he has to pick her up.

  “You only think that because you shave too fast. You have to commit to it,” Jon continues. “Let it grow out completely, let it just become a jungle, for about two to three weeks. Then, when it’s thick and grown in, you shave it into the shape you want, and just let it fill in some more.”

  Jon makes it sound so simple. I shake my head and give a weary sigh.

  I show Jon the message from Sergei. We leave the restaurant and walk around the mall. There are lots of kids: teenage girls with way too much makeup, and boys with hoodies way too big for them. I pass a chubby kid who can’t be more than twelve. He wears plaid shorts, an oversized white t-shirt, and a black fedora.

  “In your entire life, how long have you ever gone without shaving?” Jon asks me.

  I don’t answer. Instead, I inspect a booth selling wigs.

  “Amir,” Jon repeats. “How long?”

  “Two weeks,” I guess. “Maybe three.”

  “That’s your problem. You need to take it to the next level. Go a month without shaving, and your face will fill in. It’s impossible not to. It’s science.”

  I get another message from Sergei. He’s here. We head back to the restaurant.

  I think Jon’s full of shit. After all this time, all that staring into a mirror, willing the follicles to come together, and Jon is saying all I need to do is wait longer?

  And yet, what if it was true? What if I could have the beard of my dreams?

  We arrive back at the restaurant. Sergei is there with Carolyn. Kevin leans against the wall behind them, playing with his Blackberry.

  “How long has it been since you last shaved?” Jon asks.

  “Five days?” I venture. “No—a week, I think.”

  “Grow it,” Jon insists.

  We’re getting closer to the group. I purse my lips. What do I have to lose? One last stand against facial baldness. I’ll go further than I ever have before. I’ll grow a beard.

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  “Nice,” Jon says. “Sergei! Happy birthday, man! So, what’s good here? I’m thinking something low-carb…”

  Day 18: Goatee

  I see Sifu through the school’s windows. He stands on his toes, rearranging tiny glass bottles of herbal medicine on a shelf. I push open the door. The bell rings. He turns around.

  “Hello, Sifu.” I bow. I straighten back up.

  “Sifu” is a title, the Chinese equivalent of sensei. My Sifu’s real name is Lee: a tall, muscular fifty-year old Chinese man from Hong Kong. He’s a classic kung fu master: he studied Chinese medicine and his family’s kung fu style under his grandfather, and then learned Shaolin kung fu from other masters.

  Sifu’s face is habitually blank. I interpret the blankness differently week, usually projecting some new fear onto it: Sifu must be mad at me for kicking the stand off the plum blossom dummy. Sifu must think I’m not working hard enough after taking a two-year sabbatical from kung fu. Sifu must have forgotten my name.

  “Hello,” Sifu says. His face is blank.

  Sifu must think my beard is stupid.

  Sifu turns back to the bottles. I head through the inner door, and enter the training hall of my kung fu school.

  The school is a converted warehouse: a bare, concrete hall with red weapon racks lining the walls and multicoloured Chinese lion heads looking down from the ceiling.

  I toss my gym bag in the changing room and head over to the stretch bar. I plonk one foot on the bar, put my hands on the bar, and bend forward.

  I catch a glimpse of my face in the reflection of my watch. Today I shaved off all the scruff to concentrate on growing out the chin area into a sort of half-goatee. There’s some definite shading going on there.

  The bell rings at the front of the school.

  “Hello, Sifu.”

  “Hello, hello.”

  I bend deeper into the stretch. I feel a pat on my back.

  “Hey there, buddy.”

  I come up. It’s Dale.

  Dale is one of the older students, a jowly, wiry man, with a bald, bullet head. Dale specializes in Xing Yi kung fu, and talks at length about relaxation and inner peace while kicking punching bags into the stratosphere.

  Dale squints. “You’ve got something on your face.”

  I rub my cheek, but realize he’s referring to the goatee.

  “Just something my friends put me up to,” I say.

  He eyes my chin and shakes his head. “Get better friends.”

  Just a few more weeks.

  Day 30: Luscious

  I pull my car into an empty space. Me and the Drive Test Guy jerk as the vehicle stops. I crank up the parking break, and kill the engine.

  Silence.

  Out the corner of my eye, I peek at the instructor. He’s a short Egyptian man with close-cropped hair, a goatee, and a British accent. A pair of big black sunglasses block most of his face from me. He takes out a pen, clicks it, and scribbles on his clipboard.

  A bead of sweat rolls down my chin. It gets caught in my beard. I scratch it.

  “Congratulations,” the instructor says. “You meet ministry standards.”

  He passes me a sheet of thin yellow paper. “Show this to the desk, and you’ll get your new license in four to six weeks.”

  A cool, comfortable feeling rises in my chest. I realize I’m breathing again.

  I’m at the DriveTest Centre in Oakville, and I’ve just passed my G2 for the second time. I shouldn’t be happy, but I am. I feel like I’m walking on clouds.

  My last G2 expired before I could pass the full G test. I’ve spent the last month without a car, taking the bus like a high school kid.

  It was humiliating.

  My mom, my dad, my little brother had to drive me everywhere. And when they weren’t around, I could either stay home or take Mississauga’s underfunded, eternally incompetent transit system.

  I couldn’t drive Carine anywhere. Once, at home, we got into a fight. I walked her to the bus stop when she wanted to leave, but as we left my mom came by in her car—oblivious to the awkward moment—and dropped her off at her place.

  No more. I’m a driving man from now on, all the way until I fail my next G test.

  I follow the DriveTest guy inside. I suppress a smile when my dad looks up at me from the lobby chair
s, and I give him a firm thumbs-up. I pull out my yellow flimsy, and head over to the counter, and hand it over to the lady at a computer.

  “Thanks,” the lady behind the counter says. “Now, we need to take a picture. Just stand back…”

  I take my place at the centre of a white screen. I notice a camera—one of those industrial-strength ones that bureaucrats get—on the counter.

  “Can I smile?” I ask.

  “No smiling please.”

  The camera whirs. No flash. The lady looks up from her screen and nods me over.

  “You’ll get your full license in four to six weeks in the mail. In the meantime, I’ll give you this one.”

  The lady hands me a piece of paper. It has my information on it, with the Province of Ontario logo in the top left of the page.

  “That’ll be $120 for the processing fee,” she adds.

  I come forward with my card. As I’m paying, I sneak a look at her computer. My face is blown up on the screen.

  Black and white. My face without glasses is thin. The cheeks, sallow. My hair flat and damp from sweat. My eyes unfocused. Beneath my lips is a scraggly half-goatee.

  I look like a delinquent.

  A delinquent with pubes on his chin.

  Day 40: Itchy

  My phone buzzes. I put down my coffee, swivel in my chair, and push off the wall. I roll to the end of my desk and snap it up.

  It’s a message from Jon.

  Hey man, just saw your beard pics on FB. Looks good!

  I toss the phone on my bed and return to the computer.

  Jon was right: my beard has filled in. I now own a proud goatee. I even trimmed it three days ago.

  Life is good. I’ve got my license, I passed a kung fu test, and the contract for my horrible job expires in one month. I’m also putting the final touches on a self-published novel. It’s not exactly where I wanted to be at this age, but it’s something.

  I swoop back to the computer, back to the rough draft of a manuscript, and scratch my chin. It’s been itching non-stop for the past three days. In fact, something about my beard feels off.

  “Hmm.”

  I decide to investigate.