Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

"Oh," I say. "I'm Les. Do you want to come in?"

The boy eyes me, then the house. Eventually he nods and replies, "Okay."

I lead him inside, where the dogs greet us with an inquisitive sniff before letting us through to the kitchen. The boy edges by them, saying, "Good dogs," a gleam of terror in his eyes. I pour him a glass of milk and we both sit down at Judy's tiny kitchen table.

"Next time you get a squirrel after you," I say, "probably best not to go up a tree."

"I came to the door first, but there was no answer."

His glass of milk sits untouched on the chipped Formica tabletop. "You got a name?"

"Pico," he tells me, kicking at the chair with his heels. "Are you even a Block Parent?"

"No, no. That's the lady who owns the house. My sister, Judy."

"So who are you?"

"I live back there." I point out through the kitchen window at the shed in the backyard.

"What?" Pico snorts. "In that thing?"

I tap his glass with my fingernail. "Drink your milk, Pico."

BY THE TIME Judy gets home I am making dinner and Pico has left. He thanked me for the milk, then headed off down the street.

Judy appears in the kitchen, the dogs snuffling eagerly behind her. She slings her purse onto the table and sits down. "Fuck," she sighs. The dogs settle at her feet.

"I've got ratatouille happening here, Jude, and there's tabbouleh salad in the fridge."

"No meat? Pas de viande?" Judy, bless her, is trying to learn French.

"Sorry."

"Christ, Les," she huffs. "You're starting to make me feel like one of those crazy vegan dykes — living on nuts and fruits and berries like a goddamn squirrel."

I laugh and tell her about Pico.

"Pico? What is he, a Brazilian soccer player?"

"No," I say, stirring the ratatouille, recalling the boy's face. "He looks more like a mini-Richard Nixon."

Judy points at the classified ads I've left on the table.

"Any luck?" she asks.

"Nothing yet."

"Not that I want you gone. I mean, you're welcome here as long as you need to stay."

"I know, Jude," I tell her, sprinkling some salt into the pot. "Thanks a lot."

After dinner I head out into the backyard and work until dusk. The table I'm redoing right now is some cheap pine thing I picked up for forty dollars at a garage sale. But with the right stain, corners rounded off, and a good number of chips whittled out of the legs, it'll go for close to a grand in one of the antique stores uptown. I can just imagine some family huddled around it for supper — Mom in her apron doling out fat slices of meatloaf, Dad asking the kids about school, and this sturdy old table anchoring it all like the centrepiece to a Norman Rockwell painting.

Soon it's too dark to see much of anything, so I head inside my little cabin. Before I moved in at the end of the summer, Judy did a nice job fixing it up for me; she put down rugs and painted the wallpaper a quiet beige colour, even brought her fish tank out and set it up in the corner. It's an A-frame, this thing. Like a tent. At first it seemed claustrophobic, but it's turned out pretty cozy.

The fish are good to watch. There are three of them, all the same species, although what that would be, I have no idea. But there's something soothing about them, these shimmering, fluttering things, all silver glitter in the light of the tank.

We always talked about getting a cat, Rachel and me. But we figured we'd try fish first, and if they didn't die right away we'd chance it with a cat. But less than two months after we moved in together, before we'd even had a chance to go fish shopping, Rachel got pregnant.

At first having a baby seemed too big, too adult, too far removed from the safe little niche we'd carved for ourselves. But once we got talking to Judy, started considering her as our midwife, things began to take shape and make sense. At night, in bed together, Rachel and I would lie with our hands on her belly, talking about the future, how one day we'd look back on our apprehension and laugh. But I guess everyone constructs, at some point, these perfect versions of how things are going to be.

A WEEK OR so later I'm in the backyard, down on my knees sanding the table legs, and Pico appears at the gate.

"Hola, Pico," I holler. "Come on in."

Pico reaches over the fence, flips the latch, and moves across the yard toward me, plucking an old seed dandelion from the grass on his way. Today is chillier; he's in a mauve turtleneck and a pair of pleated jeans. Pico leans up against the table, twirling the dandelion in his fingers. He lifts it to his mouth, sucks in a great mouthful of breath, and blows. The grey fluff catches a breeze and lifts scattering into the sky.

"Nice one," I say.

"How come dandelions aren't flowers?" Pico twirls the decapitated plant between his thumb and forefinger, then flicks it at the ground.

"Because they're weeds, Pico."

"But they look like flowers. When they're yellow."

"Well, that's their trick."

"Yeah?"

"Sure. They pretend to be flowers so you keep them around. But they're weeds."

"They look like flowers to me," says Pico, as if this settles it.

He starts walking around the table, running his fingers along the wood. Before I can warn him about splinters, he yelps and springs back like something's bitten him, his hand to his lips. Right away, I'm up, beside him. "You've got to watch that, Pico."

"Ouch," he says, wincing.

I guide him into the shed, where he sits down on the bed. I find some tweezers, and Pico puts his hand out, palm up, quivering.

I smile, the tweezers poised. "Trust me?"

Pico nods. I raise his hand up to the light, and there it is — a black grain of wood lodged into the skin. I slide the tweezers up to it, clamp down, and pull the splinter free. Pico bucks and yanks his hand away. But after a moment, he examines his finger and looks up at me in awe.

"Nothing to it," I tell him. But Pico has already turned his attention to my fish, the splinter apparently forgotten. He sits on my bed, regarding them with vague interest.

"Cool, huh?"

"Great," says Pico.

I struggle to think of some interesting fish fact, something remarkable and fascinating.

Pico beats me to it: "Did you know fish only have memories for five seconds?"

"Huh. I had no idea."

"They forget their whole lives every five seconds — then it's like they're new fish again."

"Or they think they are."

Pico gives me a funny look. "How come you're the only Block Parent on this street?"

"I'm not — really?"

"Yep. I went around looking for signs, and you're the only one."

"It's because we're the nicest."

"Can I feed your fish?" Pico asks, standing up.

"Sure." We trade places, and I settle into the groove he's left in my bedcovers. "The food's just there. But don't give them too much — "

Pico glances at me over his shoulder, already sprinkling the coloured flakes into the aquarium. "I know what I'm doing, Les."

On my bedside table is a deck of playing cards. I pick them up and try making a house, but the cards keep slipping off one another. Pico comes over, shaking his head.

"You've got to make triangles." He sits down beside me, takes two cards, and leans them against one another. He succeeds in building a few levels before the whole thing collapses.

"Hey, want to see a trick?" I ask.

"A card trick?"

"Sure. Just pick a card and tell me what pile it's in."

This is the only card trick I know, and it's a simple one: after three times through the same routine, the person's card is always the eleventh out of the pile. But I choose it with a flourish, throwing the cards around the room, and then walking around as if confused before pulling the right one up off the floor.

Pico claps. "Again," he commands. "Again!"