Neighbourhood Watch by Rhonda Mullins (best feel good books txt) 📗

the living room smoking, staring into space. He doesn’t answer. In the kitchen, Kevin empties the jar of relish on his hot dog.

‘Aren’t you gonna get ready?’

He yells over the voices. Steve doesn’t hear him. Kevin takes a bite.

‘Dad, aren’t you gonna get ready?’

On the sofa, Steve rouses from his stupor. ‘Mmm.’

Takes a drag of his cigarette. A long one to impress his kid. It burns halfway down.

‘Whoa!’ Kevin says, feigning admiration.

Steve blows smoke in his face, smiling from the corner of his mouth. ‘Wipe your face. You got relish everywhere.’

Kevin wipes his chin on his sleeve.

‘Jesus, Kevin! Use a dishcloth, for chrissake. You’re not a threeyear-old.’

Kevin is surprised by his father’s tone.

Looks at him a moment, frozen. Then heads to the kitchen to grab a dishcloth.

* * *

On the other side of the wall, the little brothers are watching Black Vampire. They’ve already seen it three times, but they never get tired of being scared. Mélissa plopped them in front of the screen after playing mother. What she can remember of it. Someone who is there at home, and who appears when you need something. Like when you’re hungry or you’re smelly and it’s bath time. She poured bowls of cereal with banana slices. She even put chocolate syrup on top to make her little brothers happy. So they’d like it. But the chocolate sank to the bottom, and they didn’t even see it. Didn’t taste it. It’s not easy being a mother. Maybe that’s partly why hers left. Because Mélissa couldn’t taste her effort.

Now Mélissa is tired. Inside, it’s all tired. Doesn’t want to do anything else.

Her mother’s bedroom is too big with no one in it. The window looks out over the alley.

It’s snowing outside. Around the street light, it’s like a puddle of light stuck to the sky. There’s a squirrel balancing on a wire, and a few sparrows waiting. Behind them, the sluggish river, ice its shield.

Mélissa smacks the window. The squirrel doesn’t fall, and the sparrows are still there. She smacks it again, harder. Still nothing. Nothing is moving; it’s like she doesn’t exist.

Mélissa turns out the light and slips into the big bed. It smells like her mother’s hair. She falls asleep.

* * *

Steve has closed the bedroom door, but not completely. As usual, there’s a crack the light comes through. He gets undressed, sighs.

Kevin, in pyjamas in the hall, approaches on tiptoe.

Steve opens his closet. Takes out the large pouch. It’s like it holds a secret. The zzzzzzz of the zipper; then, underneath, the red of the costume. Steve puts on the gold pants first. Pulls on the hems so they fall properly. Bare-chested in his winner’s pants. Glances in the mirror. Behind the door, Kevin watches the metamorphosis. His father slowly becomes a superhero. Steve pulls the form-fitting jersey over his head. He looks strong, with his round shoulders and his broad back under the shiny fabric. Just one thing missing. The thing.

Kevin squirms, impatient, trips in the doorway. Holds his breath. Steve turns. Silence. Kevin, like a statue, stops moving.

Steve roots around in the large pouch and pulls out the last thing. He holds it at arm’s length in front of him. It catches the light from the street, it catches the whole world; for an instant everything exists through the piece of red fabric that Steve, in a movement that’s perfection, slips over his shoulders.

The transformation is complete. Big, head held high, with his cape on his straight back: he is the strongest man in the world.

Steve, his fingers blackened from his last day at the garage, clumsily tries to tie the cape. His fingers won’t do what he wants. He gets impatient. Fuck. The thin tie breaks. Steve looks at himself in the mirror, squeezed into a cheap costume, a bit of string between his fingers. Closes his eyes, holds back tears.

Kevin tiptoes back to his bedroom. Heroes don’t cry. He slams the door.

• • •

Louise jumps.‘Goddamn paper-thin walls,’ she mutters. She falls right back asleep on the sofa, with the stale remains of sex with end-of-day lovers: a porno film drools its light on her. In her room, Roxane is in pyjamas standing in front of the mirror. She delicately holds in her hands the picture of Anastasia, torn from the red book. Her eyes travel from the Russian face to her reflection. She explores all the contours: the roundness of the cheeks, the slight swell of the lip, the curl of the eyelashes. In front of the mirror, a long time, like that.

* * *

Kevin in pyjamas, in front of the giant TV in the living room, is plugged into his machine and is shooting little men who run in vain to the four corners of the screen.

Steve roots around at the back of a drawer, irritated, his cape balled up on the counter.

Kevin looks at him out of the corner of his eye. Pauses the massacre. A little man is frozen, arms outstretched, exploding, the blood on pause, pooled in the middle of the screen. Kevin approaches his father.

‘What are you looking for?’

Steve growls, his head in the drawer. Kevin takes the cape in his little hands. Steve snatches it back.

‘Leave that alone. It’s bad enough as it is.’

‘What are you looking for, Dad?’

Steve dumps the contents of the drawer on the floor, kneels, searching.

* * *

8:48. The time blinks on the microwave. Steve is kneeling in the middle of the kitchen. Kevin is standing behind him in the dark. The little man is still exploding in a frozen pool of blood, the still screen the only source of light. Kevin’s little fingers, with absolute precision, slide a safety pin through the red cape. Kevin is focused.

‘Lift your chin.’

Steve obeys without flinching.

‘Okay, I’m going to use another one just to be sure.’

‘Mmm.’

Steve keeps his chin up while Kevin, concentrating, slips a final pin through the red fabric.

‘Okay, done.’

Steve stands up. The cape around his shoulders. Tugs on it. A jab