Peta-Gaye Stuart

From the corner of my eye I watch the mother push the stroller across the empty schoolyard. The sun beats down relentlessly on the swings and the sandbox, and the wind whips up particles of dirt and sand into the air. It is a hot and humid summer day, but in the distance the sky is getting darker and there is the distant sound of thunder. Two young girls traipse behind their mother, the older one looking back at her sister who keeps stopping to examine some bug or leaf on the ground. I know that the older one is Daniella and the younger one, the one I like, is Michelle. It's not that the older one repulses me. She's tall and lithe and her knees are bony. She wears her hair how I like it, in a ponytail. But it's the younger one I have my eye on. Her hair is the colour of wheat and she wears it out most of the time. It's messy and she tosses her head like a young colt. When I'm alone in my room and think of her, I shiver with anticipation when I imagine the silky feel of her hair between my fingers. She's not tall, and she has a bit of baby fat, being at that age where the baby fat has begun to turn sinewy, and her stubby limbs will soon get long and her fat knees bony.

I know their names. I've been coming to this park every day for months, playing basketball on the court with some of the teenage boys, or just shooting hoops myself. The mother calls out constantly, 'Michelle, don't do that. Michelle, be careful. Daniella, watch your sister, please.' The mother waddles down to the park at the same time every day, an hour after school lets out, but now, in the summer, every afternoon at around two. She watches her girls play for an hour while her baby sleeps in the stroller. I make sure to be at the schoolyard before they arrive and to have worked up enough of a sweat to appear like I've been there all afternoon. Then she gathers her children up like a mother hen and walks back to the apartment building down the street. Sometimes after they leave, I leave too, and follow at a safe distance. I focus on their retreating shapes and see in the mother's fat calves the slender shape of Michelle's. It makes me think of ageing and of how the mother once probably had small, perfect calves like her daughter's. The mother, of course, repulses me, with her shapeless body and dried-up fried hair. Once she passed by me close enough and I smelled an unpleasant peachy smell as she walked by. It was if I'd opened a can of peaches in juice mingled with an underlying whiff of something unpleasant and sour. Body odour, perhaps, masked by peachy perfume. Or maybe it is just how her body smells. Women are always trying out this product or that, to hide something or enhance something else. It never works, of course. They always stay the same. But I swallow my distaste. The way to Michelle is through her mother.

After following them part way, I usually turn into my own apartment building and, aroused by the sight and smell of Michelle, I surf the net. It's amazing that all you have to do is Google the word 'child' and so much eventually comes up. The images arouse me so much that I try my luck by going to a kids' chat room. Sometimes I try to set up a meeting. I don't expect anything to come of this. It's like buying the lotto. You don't really expect to win, but if you do, it would be incredible. Anyway, kids today are too smart to go meeting strangers. It's easier and safer to go through the mother.

Michelle's smell is fresh and natural like the morning garden, dewy and barely sunlit; like worked over soil with the compost already added after a light rain; like the smell of the asphalt on a hot summer day; like chalk from the school's blackboard with a whiff of rose and lilac bush added to all that.

Michelle's smell is briny like a summer afternoon by a cottage near the sea. All that is my imagination, of course, but I'll know soon enough. She will ask her mother to play basketball with me. I already see her interest. She has glanced over at me several times, watching the ball fall from the hoop and bounce on the court. Her mother has also glanced over several times. It's only a matter of time before we exchange polite pleasantries. Only a matter of time before we are speaking familiarly. The thought makes my heart race. I have to force the energy that rises from my groin into jumping with the ball and tossing it into the hoop. I barely feel my feet as they land on the ground. I feel strong and weak at the same time.

It's difficult to pinpoint why I choose Michelle. I don't have a type. It's a quality she exudes. Something I can't see, only sense. You'd think I'd pick the shy ones. The ones who are too insecure to tell. The ones who feel unloved, like they have nobody. Sometimes. But you have to get a feel for the kid. There's no formula for it. Sometimes the shy ones are the ones to go running and telling, even after I warn them, saying, 'This is our little secret; if you go telling your mama and your papa, I'll kill them and you'll be all alone in the world.' Like that unpleasant business in British Columbia. Kid ratted on me after our second encounter. Took me by surprise. I didn't say a word when the police came to my door early that fall morning. I opened the door and the cool air came rushing by me. I was in an undershirt and felt that cool air on my chest and face. I didn't see the faces of the officers. Only heard them say, 'Good morning, sir. Are you Conrad Howard?' I focused on the trees behind them, turning beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow. I kept thinking, She couldn't have told, she couldn't have told. But she had. She told her older sister, who told her mother, who told her father, and the damn thing went all the way to trial. But it turned out real well. I do this thing. It's like a tic almost and it's pretty much become habit. I tell 'em that when I do this - shrugging my shoulders slightly twice while turning my neck to one side - it means they've done something real bad and I'll be coming for them. I'll be coming to do them and their family some real bad damage. So while that shy one was sitting up there on the witness stand on her high horse, I looked straight into her eyes and shrugged my shoulder twice. It got to her. She winced, hesitated and stopped speaking. Then she said she made the whole thing up. I wanted to jump up and down with glee. I could barely keep the smile off my face. She wouldn't say any more, no matter what. It worked like a charm. They threw the case out of court. I was a free man. Free to go back to life as usual. But it felt better to move away. I didn't like the look of her father, like he was thinking he was going to come after me. One of the officers noticed it, too, because I saw her speaking to him, warning him to calm down. He looked angry. No, I didn't like it at all.

Besides, getting work was difficult. So I moved to Toronto.

Sometimes the ones who don't tell are the seemingly confident ones, the precocious ones who like things, those whose mothers aren't too rich. Buy 'em some clothes or CDs or a cellphone and they won't go blabbing. Not if they want more stuff; and they usually do.

You could see it with this Michelle. She was the precocious one, wearing tight pants and tops that showed her belly. She walked with a saunter that one. A saunter and a wiggle. She tossed her hair and complained to her mother if she didn't get what she wanted.

I know eventually that I'll have to approach the mother. It's better that way. I can tell she's single just by observing her. I just know it, like a sailor knows the sea. She looks more tired. It's in the wearied way she walks, with her shoulders hunched, as if she's saying, I can't shoulder this load, I've had enough, help me, save me. It's the way she's always alone in the park with those children. Never a mention of, 'Come on, dad will be home soon.' She says, 'Come on. Hurry. I have to make dinner.'

You can see she's trying to look good in shabby clothes, fashion that doesn't look right on her because she's too big around the middle. It's in her eyes. When a man walks by, you can see she's trying to check him out without anyone noticing. I can tell she's on the market. That's where I'm good. That's where technique comes in. I act like I'm not too interested at all. I'm too busy and important, on my cell, absorbed in my work. Then when she takes the bait, I'm there for her every need. I tell her what her children need. 'The boy needs soccer,' I'll say. When she says she can't afford it and she has no time to take him for lessons, that's where I step in. I end up taking the kid to soccer and paying for the lessons. Of course, he doesn't ever want to stop. So I say, 'If you tell, that will be the end of soccer.' Kid doesn't want to give it up. Then I'm there all the time. I end up babysitting while she works late. I cook the dinners. I take the kids to McDonald's. Suddenly, she feels I'm indispensable, that I've always been there and I'll always be there. One morning, she wakes up at dawn with my sleeping form beside her and thinks, 'I can't do without him. He's a father for my children. He helps with the rent. With the groceries. With the bills. I can't do without him.' She observes me. She takes in the grey hair, the slight paunch in my belly, and how I look much younger when I'm sleeping. If she senses her kids are different, if she has an unexplainable feeling of disquiet, she ignores it, shoves it deep down inside her and silences the voice in her head. The kids see she's happy and they don't want to ruin it for her. They notice that she is not so stressed. That she laughs more. Plus they're afraid of me. They love me. They are afraid of me. That's how it will begin again.

The mother, Michelle's mother, sees me and gives a half-smile. I glance at her and glance down, making her think I'm shy. When she looks at me again, I smile. She walks over. It's a good sign. It means she doesn't think I'm old. And I'm really not, but you know how these women want a young buck. She smiles again. 'You play basketball every day?' It's more a statement than a question. I nod and say, 'I play to keep fit.' I ask politely about the baby, whether it's a boy or a girl. Then I ask, 'Want to shoot some hoops?' I glance at her children so she knows I'm including them. Soon we're all laughing and Michelle is trying to get the ball from me. I let her have it, purposely, then try to get it back.

She is dribbling the ball. I'm directly behind her. I'm close to her, so close it's unbearable.

Her mother and older sister are laughing. 'Pass the ball to me, Michelle, pass the ball to me,' the older one, Daniella, shouts.

-Peta-Gaye Stuart