Read Online Imperfections by Bradley Somer - Free Book Online Page A

Amadeus,” adding to the seizure-inducing quality of light and noise. Falco’s lyrics were lost on us.
    Occasionally, a comet of a waiter or waitress would fly through and drop off soda pop and food. Invariably, the server was a teenager with a face like the moon’s — waxy, pale and cratered.
    Father was putting on a brave show of enjoying himself so I followed along, pretending like none of this bothered me. If he could put in the effort, so could I.
    All the tables faced an animatronics Rocky and Bullwinkle show that played every half hour. Boris and Natasha joined the bull moose and flying squirrel halfway through the ten-minute show. The few kids paying attention would boo at the villains. The lights were kept dark even between shows, save for the roaming spotlights. The only thing on the menu was pizza, but there were thirty different kinds of it.  
    Mother was notably missing. Father thought it best if he smiled a lot in her absence and pretended like she had never been there, anywhere, in the first place.  
    â€œShe’s gone off to fix her Tanqueray smile,” Father had said the first day she was gone. “She’ll be back in a month.”  
    At the time, I figured it was something like a tan. It sounded exotic, like she was lying on a beach somewhere next to the ocean with a dentist or something. I just wished she would have said bye before she left.
    Father had mumbled something about her never being able to stand the sight of a full glass.  
    Now, I realize, the grown-ups stopped drinking beer when they hung out, about a week before Mother disappeared. Nobody drank after she returned either, even though Mother often prompted them, following her encouragement with the disclaimer “I’m fine,” in which she dragged out the i sound in the word “fine.”
    â€œHere’s the pizza,” squeaked our adolescent waiter in his violet-coloured hat and shirt. He plunked it onto the table before wiping his hands on the seat of his pants.
    It had taken two shows to get here. Two rounds of jerky mouths opening and closing out of sync with the voices on the loud speakers, two recitations of the same jokes. The machines went through the same dialogues, same script, and the same awkward motions, as they would twenty-four times today, working away in the dark.
    â€œDig in boys.” Father smiled at me and Leonard.
    â€œThanks, Father,” I replied, smiling hollowly as well. I grabbed a piece of pizza. It was cold but good.
    Leonard watched me for a minute before grabbing a slice. We sat there chewing, looking at each other. He was getting too old for this; he was too cool for this. Everything about him said that he didn’t want to be there.
    â€œHappy Birthday, Richard,” Auntie Maggie glowed. She always seemed to glow.
    â€œYeah, here you go buddy.” Uncle Tony leaned across the table holding a present he had pulled from the seat beside him. “This is from Auntie Maggie, me and Leonard.”
    I put the box on the table and tore apart the wrapping paper, saying thank-yous before even seeing what it was. I was so grateful they were there; otherwise, it would have been just me and Father and the overhanging accusations of being a loser because nobody showed up at my birthday party. I had one friend close to my age and I was related to him.
    â€œHey, Rocky.” The spotlights flared up on the stage and the animatronics Bullwinkle ground into action. “Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.”
    I looked at the box. It was a picture of a kid standing on something that looked like a plastic Saturn but the rings were so tight it squeezed the planet enough to make it bulge on either side of its equator.
    A girlie squawk came from the floppy flying squirrel. “But that trick never works.”
    â€œIt’s a Pogo Ball,” Auntie Maggie said excitedly. “You inflate it, stand on the platform, pinch the top part of the ball