1998 short list:
Buying on Time
by Antanas Sileika
published by The Porcupine's Quill
Excerpt from the chapter entitled "The Man Who Read Voltaire"
Published with permission from the author. This excerpt is copyright protected.
My aunt's dresses were on hangers, and I lay down on the mat deep in the trunk, and pulled the dresses over me in case someone opened the trunk before they left. It took a long time for the car to start. They had to be wondering why I wasn't standing next to the car to say goodbye. I imagined my father's rage at this impoliteness, but then I would never have to worry about his rage any more. I did not want to think about my mother.
The engine finally started, and the car jerked away from the side of the road. I pulled off the dresses, and looked carefully in the darkness for pinpoints of light in the floor of the trunk, just to make sure that there was no way the exhaust from a leaky tail-pipe could get inside. There were no lights, but I kept sniffing for the tell-tale gas, and wondered if my aunt and uncle would hear me if I rapped on the inside of the trunk. I sniffed, and I could smell many things; it was difficult to tell what might be poisonous. There were gasoline and oil in the background, the smell of the clothes under me, and my aunt's perfume in them. Sometimes I thought I could smell something burning, and hoped it was only the Parliaments that my aunt and uncle smoked.
I had prepared myself for the thirst and the heat that I soon came to feel, but I had forgotten to go to the bathroom before we left. Not that I had to go yet, but the knowledge of it was worrisome to me. The car started and stopped often, in those days before highways, and the rocking motion and the heat that began to fill the trunk made me dozy. I half slept and then dreamed, and awoke to wonder if I had died from poisonous gas, and then I slept again. I finally came fully awake when the pressure in my bladder grew unbearable, and then I rocked myself back and forth to ease the need to urinate. I thought that if I let out just a little - not enough to be noticeable, the pressure would go away, but when I began to urinate in my pants, I could no longer stop, and for a moment the relief was too delicious for words. Then I thought of my girl cousins greeting me, and there I would be with my pants all wet, like an infant. They would hate me then, and my uncle would turn away in his shame.
I had no watch, and I could not have seen it in any case, but it seemed we would go on forever. Twice, the car stopped, and each time I thought the trunk would open and we would be in front of my uncle's house in Detroit. When finally the trunk did open, all I could see in the brightness of the late afternoon sun was the outline of a military hat.
'It's Dave,' I heard my aunt say.
'So you do know the boy,' the man in the hat said.
'Of course I know him. He's my nephew.'
'Most of the time, people claim it's some kid they've never seen before in their lives. You'd better come along with me.'
It had never occurred to me that trunks were sometimes opened when people re-entered their country, especially the trunks of men with accents. The American customs officers took us into a long row of offices.
My father met me at the bus station in downtown Toronto late that night. I got off the bus with the wet pants in a paper bag, and a new pair of pants that someone in the customs office had found. They were adult pants, and looked ridiculous with the cuffs rolled up to fit my legs.
In silence, we rode back to Weston on the last bus. My mother did not look up at me as I walked through the door. She was knitting something, and she stared resolutely at the knitting needles just above her lap. Gerry was already in bed. My father directed me straight down to the basement. I could hear him working to get his belt undone as we went down the stairs.
