Read Imperfections for Free Online Page B

Tony meant and looked to see if Father had understood.
    Father let out another low whistle when Uncle Tony held up the case for ABBA’s The Visitors . Uncle Tony turned up the volume and we listened for a minute before heading back outside. Uncle Tony was the last out and he left the door open so we could hear the music.
    With every second the future was bearing down on each of us. As we watched the embers from the fire rise into the warm summer night air, all of us in our own stupor, we kids worn out from a long day, Mother floating on Valium, Father and the Auntie Maggie and Uncle Tony floating on scotch, none of us there thought about it. Time would prove The Visitors to be ABBA’s last studio album. Time would push each day from one to the next and the seasons would slip from one to another, all leading toward some end that was yet unclear but already in motion.  
    In the #713 Fire Hall on the other side of the city, unknown to us, a fireman named Gary Fairway stirred a pot of chili and laughed with some of his co-workers. The shift was just starting and would end quietly. There would be no fires or accidents to attend, the alarm would not sound. In the morning hours, Gary would drive home through the long daybreak shadows. He would chat with his wife before she went to work and he went to bed.
    Far away, Margaret Koshushner washed a thin, porcelain teacup with none of the sinister foreboding that she should have. She did not know the role she would play in the eventual death of the six year old who was drifting into a heavy-lidded sleep, lying in the grass surrounded by the smell of earth and wood smoke and the sounds of “One of Us” coming through the patio door and into the night.
    Her new car arrived two weeks later.

CHAPTER 4

    Â 
    The Little Miss Beef Cattle Pageant
    Â 

    Â 
    An organic smell hung in the air. It was a palpable mist, a sticky mixture of dusty hay, fresh mud, and large mammal feces. The air in the big tent was warm and the temperature climbed a little more every minute. It was humid. I felt it on my skin. The red and white canvas walls worked to keep any outside breeze from stirring the stagnant air inside. “Fresh as a cow’s ass,” Father grunted before heading across the hay-covered dirt floor toward the metal bleachers opposite the stage. He blended into the crowd as he climbed into the murmuring herd of spectators.
    It was true: the smell and feeling must have been the experience sought by a fly hovering a millimetre over a fresh, steamy cow patty.
    After seeing Father off to the bleachers, Mother ushered me toward the long curtains making up the backdrop for the plywood stage. We passed a sign displaying the day’s schedule of events:  

11 am – Wal-Mart Little Mister and Little Miss Beef Cattle Pageant
12 pm – Esther Keen Memorial Chili Cook-off and Pickled Goods Competition
2 pm – Wal-Mart Mister and Miss Pre-Teen Beef Cattle Pageant
3 pm – Wal-Mart Miss Teen Beef Cattle and Miss Beef Cattle Pageants
5 pm – The Kentucky Fried Chicken Fry-off and Baked Goods Competition
6 pm – Beef Cattle Judging
7 pm – Steer Judging
8 pm – Beer Garden (Feat. Giddy Up Tiger and the Come Quicklies)
    Â 
    We pushed through the loose weave fabric curtains. A matronly volunteer directed Little Misters to the left and Little Misses to the right.  
    There were a few screened-off areas in the open cathedral of the corrals behind the beef cattle show floor. The staging area bustled with yelling kids, running here and there along the wood-lined chutes and maze-like fences. The occasional lowing from the beef cattle could be heard from outside, on the other side of the canvas wall. Their show was later in the evening. Large, metal pot-lights hung pendulously from bare power lines that traversed the air ten feet above the chaos of the corrals.
    Mother led me across the corrals, took me behind a screen, stripped me and then started to