Anecdotes by Kathryn Mockler

Author:Kathryn Mockler [Mockler, Kathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book*hug Press
Published: 2023-08-02T01:48:28+00:00

SKIPPING

You believe you are ugly. You have been ugly all your life. You wear sunglasses whenever you can so no one sees your face. You were born with a lazy eye and the surgeries opened it but made you disfigured. They made your eye not quite close all the way and peak like a triangle. The kids in elementary school called you Popeye. Clever actually. By the time your mother found a good doctor, the specialist, there was nothing that could be done.

Ever since you could remember, adults had asked your parents about your eye, and kids at school found new ways each year to let you know just how disgusting they thought you were. So you tried to look normal by wearing your hair over your eye. You realized that you would rather have people wonder why your hair was over your eye than actually see your eye. You try to imagine what it would be like to walk around in life and not be ashamed of your face.

You know that feeling when you decide to skip school and meet your boyfriend, your relatively new boyfriend, downtown at the mall. It’s March and you’ve been dating since February. And he’s really cute. He’s bad for you, but you won’t realize this for four years. So right now there’s this cute boy waiting for you at the Galleria, and you’re going record shopping.

You get off the 6 Richmond bus and walk down Dundas toward the mall. It’s before 9:00 a.m. and the sky is bright and hopeful and the air is cool. You can see your breath. You didn’t bring mittens or a scarf. You never wear a hat. Your pea coat is open and the air makes you shiver. All you can think about is having a cigarette, so you go into the variety store and buy a pack and light one up and look around at the empty streets. Some people are going to work, but most of the stores haven’t even opened yet.

Everything feels quiet and settled. You don’t know it right in this moment, but you’re going to skip school for the next two weeks because your mother will go on a bender and you’ll want to get back at her the only way you know how. You will be suspended for another two weeks by the guidance counsellor who had contracted polio as a child. One of his arms is smaller than the other. You won’t feel sorry for him because he’s mean, and he reminds you of yourself more than you care to admit. But right now this feeling of freedom is addictive. You want it to last the same way you want your cigarette to last.

You make your way to the mall, where your boyfriend is waiting for you. He has headphones on and is probably listening to his favourite band, which is now your favourite band. He wears a leather motorcycle jacket, and as you walk toward him you can’t believe that someone who looks like him wants to be with someone who looks like you.

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