The Sign on My Father's House

by Tom Moore

  “Your supper is ready,” she said.

  We ate hash silently until she asked, “What did you nail to the front of the house?”

  “A sign.”

  “What kind of sign?”

  “A political sign.”

  “What does it say?”

  Father looked up from his corned beef hash and laid down his fork. “It says ‘God dam Smallwood.’”

  Father looked unmoved, though he must have seen her wince, too.

  “How long will you be leaving it on the house?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ll have a serious problem if you tell me to take it down.”

  “Will you take it down if I tell you to?” she asked.

  Father was stumped. He looked down and searched for the answer in his hash.

  “Why would you tell me to do that?”

  “Because it will affect everyone who lives in this house. It will affect me and Felix at school. The premier is a very powerful man.”

  “Powerful? This is Canada, Shirley, not Russia. We are all free here. We have free speech. I can say what I want, can’t I?”

  “You can say it, but we’ll all pay for it. We’ll get it from the neighbours. You know they all voted Liberal in the last election.”

  “Sure! When they saw what a government member could get for them. But they were all Conservatives in 1949.”

  “That doesn’t matter. They all claim to be Liberal now, and they won’t tolerate an insult like that to Premier Smallwood.”

  I watched him settle into stubbornness. I’d seen it before. Father was one of those people they put on a rack in the Middle Ages and stretched till he broke into two. But he would never give in, even if the argument was only about the time of day.

  “I’ll have trouble getting a teaching job this fall. One phone call to the school superintendent and my application gets ignored,” she said.

  Father was quiet now.

  “And what about Felix? He has to walk out from under that sign and go to school every morning. The other kids will ridicule him. This is not Alberta, Walter. People don’t put up signs like that in a Newfoundland outport. There are three of us in this house, and you don’t make a majority.”

  Father looked over at me. “What do you say, Felix?”

  I looked up at my father, who was no longer chewing his hash. His whole plan was waiting for my answer. Our old tin clock ticked away behind me.

  He laid his fork down on the table. “Up or down?” he asked very clearly.

  Usually, I ducked this sort of question or waited until someone else started talking. I looked at him, looked at her, and finally said: “I kind of like it.”

  Father turned his best poker face to Shirley. “There!”

  “Would you have taken it down?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and continued eating his hash.

  I believed him.

  “I am the minority, as usual,” she said. Father and I ate our hash quietly. She got up to steep tea. “I hope we’re all ready to pay the price for it.” Shirley had more sense than the two of us, but she was not my real mother, so I always sided with him. Unfair as that might be.

  The next day the school bus did a strange thing. Instead of stopping down the road, it stopped right in front of our house. Sam, the driver, had the window down, and I could see him looking up at the sign, mouthing it over and over. Then the penny dropped in his head and a long whistle came out of him. I looked up and saw everyone crowded onto our side of the bus, which brought her down on her starboard springs. After a few titters, a guffaw, and a stifled chortle or two, the whole bus erupted into shouts and laughter. It rocked, and I thought it might tip over.

  When I got on, I could smell the beer on Sam’s breath, even at eight o’clock in the morning. “Hey, Felix! The election ain’t for another two years,” he teased.

  Two or three older girls sitting up front kept laughing, but I was not ashamed. I was almost famous, and I was proud of Father, even if he was a nut from Canada.

  At school, the news of our sign mingled and merged with the other big stories of the morning: Billy Walters had found a condom behind the school. Joyce Dithers was pregnant, again. Freddy Jones’s dad had tried to kidnap him, again.

  “Dad mustn’t know our Freddy very well,” Tammy Fagan said to a laughing crowd. Biggest news of all was that Dipsky was traded to the Leafs. “Year of the Leafs! Year of the Leafs,” chanted Monk, alone. No one would join Monk if he chanted, Free chips and Coke.

  Later, at recess, I went into the library, passing under Victoria’s sign, We are Smallwood and We Shall Not Be Beat. Monk was sitting alone, in his white shirt and tie; you never needed an appointment to see Monk.

  “Hey, Felix! I heard you’ve gone into politics,” he whispered.

  I said nothing, but sat beside him and opened a book.

  “Lot of Liberals around here, you know,” he added.

  “It’s my father.”

  “I figured that. He sounds as weird as mine. I think it’s a mainland thing.”

  “That’s the part that really kills me. He’s not even a Newfoundlander, so why does he care about Smallwood?”

  Monk thought for a moment, and then said, “It’s called overcompensation. He feels he has to be even more of a Newfoundlander than the locals.”

  I could only shake my head.

  “The kids won’t hassle you for a while. Then their parents will start talking it up around the kitchen tables. Soon you’ll be up to your ass in trouble. When that happens, I don’t know you!”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Felix, you’re lucky to be getting along with those kids at all. You’re bookish and odd, like me. On top of that, your father is a mainlander. It’s a wonder anyone speaks to you.”

  A lock of thick hair fell over his glasses. His lips were fat, but well-formed. Four fat fingers and a thumb brushed back the fine hair.

  Then, Monk looked toward the door, and Ellen Monteau floated into the library. She wore a pink cashmere sweater, and her hair was held up in the back by a pink ribbon. Indifferent to the glances of boys and the whispers of girls, she came directly to our table. I got up to leave, thinking she was there to consult Monk.

  “Felix,” said the voice from Tara. “Do you have a sign on your house damning Mr. Smallwood?”

  “Yes,” a strange voice croaked.

  “That took courage. Your family must be ready to endure a lot to put up such a sign.”

  “Thank you, Ellen.” I beamed and extended myself to my full five feet two inches.

  “My mother and I have always been Conservatives,” she added quietly, glanced briefly at Monk, then turned and floated over to the card catalogue.

  Conservatives, I thought. She was a Conservative. Then I wanted to be a Conservative, supposing it meant circumcision and blood sacrifice. The old Tory party had changed in my mind from dusty grey to royal blue, the blue of robins’ eggs, summer skies, and babies’ eyes.

  Monk’s voice brought me back to reality. “I can see the way your mind is working, Felix, and I have to say calm down.”

  Three girls came and sat at the table in front of us. “There she is.” Grace Rodden poked Victoria. “Over by herself at the card catalogue.”

  “Thinks she’s a queen or something big,” said Tammy Fagan.

  “I love her sweater,” Victoria said.

  “She wears it every day, for God’s sake,” Grace said.

  “Probably the only one she’s got,” Fagan said.

  “Let’s find out,” Grace said, and took apart her ballpoint pen with a few quick twists. She tapped out the refill and broke off the nib against the table. Then she put it back into the pen before it leaked too much. She went to the card catalogue and stood beside Elle
n. She opened the card drawer with one hand, and with the other, she touched the leaking pen against Ellen’s pink sleeve.

  Monk and I watched as the blue line spread through the delicate cashmere of Ellen’s left sleeve. She looked up and Grace said, “Sorry, my pen must have leaked.”

  Ellen looked down at her sweater. She lifted the afflicted arm as if she had been wounded. Her books slid to the floor as she fled the library.

  “Tap water won’t get that out. We’ll see what she wears tomorrow,” Grace said. She turned to glare at me. I looked away.

  The next day, Ellen was absent from school. When she did attend the day after, she wore a plain white blouse with a small black ribbon around her neck, like a little tie. It was simple and tasteful, but she no longer walked like the lady from Tara.

  I saw her in the hall waiting for class, and I did something very unusual for me. I made a decision. I walked up to her. She looked at me, but I was not frightened this time.

  “Methyl alcohol takes out printer’s ink,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Her hand reached out to my arm for a second.

  “My father told me. He used to be a printer.”

  “It’s my mother’s only . . . I mean her best . . . sweater.”

  “Dab it on with a cloth and then just wash it out.”

  “Thanks, Felix,” she said. I walked away with a slight swagger, just like I’d seen Roy Rogers do on TV.

  The big game was set to start at eight o’clock, ending with a dance for both schools. The early buses arrived at seven o’clock, and most of us arrived with them. We said we wanted to get good seats, but once inside, we didn’t sit. Rather, we milled around the gym in large concentric circles, like schools of sardines, sharing the excitement with our friends. We were keen when the Argentia buses arrived with their kids and their basketball team, last year’s champs.

  Our girls waited excitedly to see the Argentia boys, and our boys waited to see the Argentia girls. The place reeked of juvenile hormones.

  But we grade nines were there for the game! We itched to see the Argentia basketball team and the three new guys from the American naval base. I had never seen an American before.

  We rushed out to the parking lot when their buses arrived. The team got off last, and among them were three tall fellows with drawling American accents.

  “Hi!” one of them said politely enough to a bunch of our girls, who embarrassed us by cooing and squeaking. Their whole team laughed.

  I was standing by the left doorpost leading into the gym, and Monk was leaning against the right one. Inside we could hear the sound of laughing and chattering, and heads pressed together in furtive whispers. The beautiful people—mostly high school girls—sauntered around the gym, ignoring everyone else and greeting one another.

  No one talked to Monk or me. We wouldn’t even speak to each other if we could help it. At Smallwood, we were rated below the janitors and barely above teachers. We stood like two statues representing the social outcasts a school was not supposed to produce.

  The Americans were good, but one guy on their team, a physical genius, half boy, half gazelle, and half hummingbird, outdid them all. He could jump into the air and float. Everyone else seemed to fall back to the yellowed hardwood as he stayed aloft, neatly lobbing the ball into our basket. Time and again, it left his hand and sailed over a forest of waving arms in a perfect arc to the swooshing basket. Smallwood slipped further and further behind.

  I turned to Monk. His fingers laced, his hands resting on his large belly as he leaned back against the doorpost. “What’s his name?”

  “Dean Ringley.”

  “He’s some friggin’ good, eh?”

  “He’s the best,” said Monk.

  Our team was outclassed, except for Jeff Williams. He got his thirty points, and he never appeared daunted. Most of his teammates did, especially after the first half, with the score sixty to thirty-nine. A few of our guys became chippy, and one gave Dean Ringley an elbow across the teeth. One of their big guys laid a hand on the offender’s jersey and said something we couldn’t hear. No one touched Ringley for the rest of the game.

  So Monk and I stood at our pillories under the red exit sign. The sign could have read Condemned or Damn Felix and Monk, like Father’s.

  Tammy Fagan whispered in my ear, “I love Joey Smallwood, and I want to have his baby.” I could smell her bubble gum, which she blew and popped in my face before swaggering out of the gym. A pimple-faced guy held her hand, looking back at me and smirking.

  Later, I walked outside and left Monk to hold up the lintel alone. Smokers clumped behind the buses, and young lovers nestled against the brick walls behind the school. Other more worldly couples wandered into the deep grass beyond.

  I was not part of that world, either. I went back inside the gym in time to see Victoria Spaulding leading the cheerleaders in a frantic, last-ditch attempt to rally our sagging team. Game over!

  The dance soon followed. Most of the lovers, who had not already reached the high grass, came back in to dance the slow numbers. Some of the Argentia team came refreshed from the showers and found girls. They were in a strange school, high on victory, and indifferent to our critical looks.

  Before long, they were asking the girls to dance the jive, the twist, and the waltzes, too. We watched like jealous crows in a grove of eagles.

  Monk and I dutifully served as doorposts. When his father walked by, Monk pretended not to see him. I was also relieved he didn’t stop to talk, but he proceeded to chat with the suck-ups.

  Tammy and Pimples sauntered back in. Both ignored me. Pimples had a large hickey on his scrawny neck, a badge of honour. Eventually, I wandered back out to the parking lot, trying to make sense of the bad news: our loss to Argentia, their stars dancing with our girls, and my spending the evening as a door jamb. My poor father and his doomed sign was in the back of my mind.

  As I passed the Argentia bus, I heard low whispers followed by giggles. I put my ear to the emergency door at the back.

  Silence.

  “So, why are we here?” a male voice asked. Then came a rustle of clothes and a scrabble of feet heading to the front of the bus. I bobbed my head to the side windows to see, but it was too dark and I was too short. The bus door swung open, and a blonde head emerged. From the road behind me, car lights illuminated her for a moment. Her hair was dishevelled, and she blinked into the light like a rock star at Heathrow. Carrying her shoes, she hurried across the parking lot to the school door.

  With a shock, I recognized Ellen Monteau.

  More steps led to the front of the bus, and a tall figure emerged and shut the bus door. He paused to arrange his hair in the side mirror. I sucked in a deep breath and strolled up to him. The figure turned to me, startled. As I walked past, I faked my best boyish grin. “Great game! You were terrific!”

  “Thanks, kid,” said Dean Ringley.

  2

  Summer

  Soon it was summer holidays. Ellen Monteau graduated to Memorial University, but Curlew was to be my world for another two years. Summer was a world filled with birds, sun, hayfields, woods, secret paths, and teenage conspiracies. We all swam in the ponds and met on the soft evenings by White’s shop and sometimes by the Kissing Rock. We followed wood paths through scented spruce forests en route to swimming spots, fishing holes, and secret places. Home for supper and then back out again until the jewelled sky domed over our heads.

  I traced the two stars on the outside rim of the Big Dipper up to Polaris, the North Star, which would guide you home if you were ever lost. I traced the belt of Perseus, Zeus’s own son, who vanquished the Gorgon, Medusa. My favourite of all was Cassiopeia, the eternal queen upon her throne of dazzling silver against the backdrop of black eternity. She was easy to spot because she looked like the letter W lying on its side.

 
Years before, my mother had told me we were all made from stardust. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, sulphur, and chlorine—the elements that make up the human body ever since God created us from the dust of the earth. We are all made from stardust, she said. So, for me, God had no white beard. He was no Charlton Heston telling us to slay the Amalakites. He was more like my mother—loving and wonderful, capable of making the eternal stars. Capable of making Ellen Monteau.

  Father’s sign stayed on the house. Some mornings he would wipe eggs or cow manure off it, but he did so with a happy heart—a small price to pay for his apostasy.

  One day, I came home from swimming with a swollen black eye.

  Father was walking from the house to the stable when I came through the gate, and he stopped in mid-stride. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Why do you care so friggin’ much about Joey Smallwood?” I asked.

  We stood in the middle of our yard, under his sign, suddenly equals. “I don’t care about Joey Smallwood. I care about our life here in Newfoundland.”

  The sign shouted over our heads, but we stood silent for another long moment. “When I came here from Alberta, I was tired of life. Tired of the rat race that drove my father into the ground. He was a printer who drank himself to death. And I was a printer repeating his story. So, I took a trip. I was looking for something. I met your mother at Marty’s restaurant on Water Street my first day in Newfoundland, and everything changed for me. She was a stranger there, too, at Memorial College. She knew things, she had answers.”

  I knew that was true.

  “I fell in love. For me, she was Newfoundland—my new-found chance at life.”

  “So, she took you out here?”

  “Yes, to Delight, where her parents lived.”

  “Then you should be able to get along with the people here in Curlew! And I shouldn’t have this black eye!”

  He looked into the distance. “Not necessarily. They’ll destroy Newfoundland unless we fight back. Your mother would have fought back.”