by Sarah Ellis
“Maybe so.”
“It’s nice of you to mow the lawn.”
“Might as well make myself useful while I’m here. I’m going out today to look for work. One of the guys where I was crashing before? He gave me a lead.”
“But nobody’s going to be in their office today. It’s Easter Monday.”
“Easter Monday? Is that a holiday?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Not in Texas. Easter’s just Easter, on Sunday. It didn’t tell me about that in the booklet.”
“The booklet?”
“Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada. I’ve read it three times. I’m going to become a real Canadian. I know about the French thing and the House of Commons and how Alberta’s like Texas, but I didn’t know about Easter Monday. So, no job-hunting today.” He leaned back against the trunk of the tree.
“Charlotte: question. Are all Canadian families like yours?”
She thought of the dinner conversation, from bombs to squirrels. “You mean weird?”
“No, I mean kind.”
“Um. I don’t know. Are we that different from your family?”
“Man alive! You have no idea. You know how your daddy and mother ask your opinion on issues? They seem to actually want to know what you think. If my daddy asks us a question he’s checking to make sure that we know the right answer. He’s trying to get at us. Randy, the little guy? He’s still kind of cute so he speaks up a bit, but that’s going to be over real soon. I feel bad that I’m not there. Not that JJ was able to protect me. Daddy’s always trying to make sure that he’s in control. Over everything. Over Mother, too. Jimilene escaped, finally. Her husband seems like a decent guy. I don’t think he’s going to beat her up.”
“Did your dad beat you up?”
“Well, he whipped me some.”
“Whipped?”
“Yeah, with a belt.”
Charlotte’s stomach headed toward the treehouse floor. She knew there were families who were different from hers. She knew there were dads who were yellers, and mothers who got drunk and passed out. The Landry kids had a dad in jail. Sometimes at Dawn’s house she could feel the air go gluey with the tension between Mr. and Mrs. Novak.
But … a belt? She didn’t know anyone who got hit with a belt.
“Did he hit you all?”
Tom Ed shifted and the treehouse creaked. A few pink blossoms floated down.
“Well, JJ got a pass. JJ was the son Daddy wanted. Just like a ditto copy of himself. Tough-talking, football-playing, patriotic. He didn’t argue. He didn’t run away. He went there. He went to Nam.”
“He was a soldier?”
“Yes. Couldn’t wait. Wanted to go over there and save the world from the evils of Communism.”
“I don’t get the Communism thing. It just sounds like sharing to me, and being fair. Why is it evil?”
Tom Ed shook his head. “I wonder that, too. It’s all about Russians and spies and I don’t know what-all. But JJ believed it all and he was hell-bent on going over to fight the guerrillas. When I first heard that I thought he was going over to fight gorillas, like the big apes. Well, it kind of made sense, jungle and all. And I was going to go, too. I always wanted to do what JJ did. I wanted to be just like him so that Dad would respect me. You know those stories with the older brother who does everything right? Slays the dragon, solves the riddle, wins the fortune —”
“Marries the princess?”
Tom Ed snorted. “Yeah, all that. Quarterback. Then there’s the younger brother who messes up? That was me.”
“Like the prodigal son?”
“Yeah. ’Cept Daddy’s not going to be killing any fatted calf for me. Not that I’m going home anyway. Even if I wanted to.”
“But you get to go home when the war ends, right?”
“Nope. The U.S. has never granted amnesty to draft evaders. I’m gone for good.”
Tom Ed paused. Charlotte reached up and broke off a twig of blossoms.
To never go home? What if that was her? She wanted to go all over the world and see the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower and kangaroos, but she would always want to come back to Vancouver.
Tom Ed hadn’t just crossed the border. He had left his whole life behind forever.
Tom Ed was still back in Texas in his story. “I swear, sometimes I think Daddy forgot what my name was. Anyway, then JJ went to Nam. He came back missing a leg. He lost it rescuing a guy from a swamp. Got shot on the way out. He came back a hero. At least the government said he was a hero but he wasn’t the same person. He was like one of those dogs you see tied up with an old piece of rope, drinking from a puddle, all nervous and then you feel sorry for them and you go to pet them and they snarl and bite you.
“Of course I was going to go. In his place. I was going to get revenge on those gorillas, I was going to be a hero, too. But then one night, he’d been home — oh, I don’t know — six weeks? Woke up to the smell of cigarettes. I looked out my window and there was JJ, sitting at the picnic table in the backyard paring his nails with a penknife, ashtray full of butts. I went out there.
“First thing he said to me? ‘Fifteen.’
“I asked what he was talking about and he said, ‘Fifteen nails. Think how much time I’ll save over the rest of my so-called life because I only have to cut fifteen nails. Twenty-five percent saving in personal grooming time.’
“Then he stabbed the table with the knife. Left it there, trembling. ‘You fixing to go over there?’
“I said, ‘Of course.’
“Then he grabbed my arm. Vice-grip hard. Crunching hard.
“Do not go. Don’t register when you turn eighteen. Move around so the paperwork never catches up with you. Screw it. Go to your medical and tell them that you’re a bed-wetter or a faggot. Do it or I’m going to hurt you so bad that they won’t want you.’
“Thing was, I knew that he meant it.
“The other thing was — that night? For that few minutes he was there. Next day he was gone again.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah. He’d be sitting there but there was nobody inside his body. Nobody behind his eyes. Whatever that is? The self? The soul?”
Tom Ed looked up and gave Charlotte a sad smile. “The part of you that is you even if you have different teeth? JJ lost that in some jungle. A few weeks later he gave me a roll of money and said, ‘Go to Canada.’”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Don’t know. He was supposed to go to college. He called it the cripple scholarship. But he flunked out. His girlfriend from before? She left him.”
“Because of the leg?”
“No, ’cause he was acting like a total asshole. Oh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m not Miss Biscuit.”
Tom Ed gave his head a shake. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”
They sat in silence for a while. But the world was never really silent.
“Hey, Tom Ed. What can you hear right now?”
“Leaves. You?”
“Traffic. You?”
“Some radio somewhere. Listen. Raindrops keep falling on my head. Dumbest song ever. Your turn.”
“There’s some kind of hum.”
“I’m getting clouds scraping against the sky.”
“The grass growing.”
“The tree growing.”
“My bones growing.”
Seven
Tuesday morning Charlotte woke to the sound of rain blowing against the window. She turned over and went back to sleep. When she finally wandered down to the kitchen, Uncle Claude already had a batch of chicken pies in the oven and was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. He pushed aside the scattered newspaper to make room for her cereal bowl.
Charlotte dug around for her favorite part of the paper
, Ann Landers. Ann advised a mother who had been lending her grown-up son too much money that she should wake up and smell the coffee.
Charlotte topped up her milk. Family problems and Rice Krispies made a good combination.
She was just moving on to the funnies when Tom Ed came through the kitchen door.
“Got me a job. Car jockey.”
“Frost my socks,” said Uncle Claude. “That was quick work. No grass growing under your feet. You Americans are like that. In the bush, too. Go-getters.”
Car jockey? Charlotte was trying to make sense of small men in bright silk outfits straddling race cars.
“Like in races?”
“No. I just move cars from lot to lot. It’s a big car dealership. It’s a three-to-nine shift. And I could pick up something else for mornings.”
“Well done,” said Claude.
“I don’t start till tomorrow,” said Tom Ed. “So today I’m going to work on becoming a Canadian.”
Uncle Claude poured a mug of tea and handed it to Tom Ed. “What’s your approach to that?”
Tom Ed pulled out his dodger booklet.
“Look, it says right here: ‘Six books to describe a country.’ Professor W. D. Godfrey, University of Toronto. Is there a library around here?”
“That’s Charlotte’s department,” said Uncle Claude. “She’s the reader.”
Charlotte picked up the booklet. “Looks like Main Library stuff to me. Do you have time?”
“Sure. Can you point me in the right direction?”
“Well, you’ll need a library card and for that you need proof of address. You could use my card but they might wonder if your name is really Charlotte.”
“There’s always a boy named Sue,” said Uncle Claude.
“Johnny Cash!” said Tom Ed.
“Hang on, I can just take you and then I’ll borrow the books on my card.”
“Well, thank you!”
Charlotte left them singing some crazy song about a mean dad and went to get dressed.
* * *
“I feel funny carrying an umbrella. Like I’m being some show-off English lord or something.” Tom Ed did look awkward as he dodged the other umbrellas on the sidewalk on their way to the bus stop.
“Sorry about the sunflowers. There was a black umbrella there the other day but it’s disappeared. I think they just run away from home in the night. Don’t you have umbrellas in Texas?”
“There’s not really a need.”
“Well, some boys think it’s not cool. They’d rather get wet. It’s one of those dumb boy rules. Oh, good, here’s the bus. Shake out your umbrella before you get on or you’ll drip on people’s feet.”
Charlotte smiled as Tom Ed tried to get the umbrella down while still holding it over his head. Who knew that using an umbrella was a learned skill?
The back seat on the bus was empty.
“Best seat,” said Charlotte. “You can see everything that’s going on.”
“Like?”
“Well, like faces. Have you ever thought how weird it is that everybody’s face has the same basic bits — two eyes, one nose and a mouth — but there’s millions of combinations and mostly, except for identical twins, and even then if you’ve ever known identical twins like I knew Ricky and Mark Russo in grade three you can tell them apart?”
“Yeah, I have thought about that. The faces thing. Mom says I look like Daddy but I can’t see it.”
“You probably don’t want to look like him.”
Tom Ed looked startled and Charlotte gulped. She hadn’t planned on saying something so personal. Was that rude? Maybe Tom Ed didn’t want to be reminded of their conversation yesterday about his father and the belt and all that.
“Sorry. That was kind of … you know … not my business.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re likely right.” Tom Ed turned to stare out the window for a second, then seemed to wake up. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirteen.”
“Hmmmm. You don’t exactly seem like a teenager.”
“You mean young?”
“No. Not young. Not old either. Just … not a teenager.”
“But that’s perfect! Dawn and me? We’ve got this deal. We’re not going to be teenagers just because we turned thirteen. We’re going to skip it. We’re going to be Unteens.”
“How do you figure on skipping it?”
“Okay. Here’s the plan. It’s like hopscotch. Do you have hopscotch in Texas?”
“Sure do.”
“Okay, so let’s say the teenage stage is like square number five in hopscotch. One is being a baby. Diapers, floppy neck, baby powder, formula.”
Tom Ed nodded. “And spitting up. Randy was a very barfy baby.”
“Hop on one foot and you’re on the second square, which is preschool — walking and talking, puzzles, macaroni, the swing set, eensy-weensy spider. You balance there for a bit then jump and land on two feet on three/four. That’s being a kid. Reading, back roll into pike, pizza, bikes, horses, well … horses in my dreams.”
“Collecting rats for Duane.”
“Yeah. All good, right? Then. Dum-di-dum-dum. Suddenly, there’s square number five. Teenager. According to movies, books and my own observation, square five is bad moods, zits, pretending to be dumber than you are (or maybe actually becoming dumber), and being stupid and fake on the subject of boys.”
Tom Ed snorted. “And football and getting beat up.”
“Then one jump and you’re back on two feet with six/seven. Grown-up life with money, your own car, your own apartment, ungreasy hair, freedom, university. I can’t wait till university. I’m going to take nothing that you can take in school. I looked through James’s calendar. I’m going to take philosophy, geophysics, sociology, theater and Russian. Then in the summer I’m going to backpack to see the Taj Mahal, and I’m just going to get ahead with the story and not be sucked down and teenagerized by, like, did Nancy tell Linda to tell Judy that Colleen likes Wayne.”
“I can see you’ve given this considerable thought. But …” Tom Ed hopscotched his fingers on his knee. “What about eight? There’s an eighth square, isn’t there? A single at the top?”
“Yeah, that’s canes and see-through hair but you can stay on six-seven for decades. So here’s the deal. Skip five and make a double-footed jump right into six/seven.”
Tom Ed nodded. “I know just what you’re talking about. Three/four you need a lifeguard. Six/seven you can be a lifeguard. What’s the point of five?”
Charlotte pictured the previous summer on the beach at English Bay. What had always been long days of swimming, paddleboards, seaweed wigs, burying your friends in sand and sharing an order of chips had turned into tans and who’s got a two-piece and whose towel was next to whose towel.
“Yeah, on five all you can do is flirt with the lifeguard.”
Tom Ed grinned. “My daddy says they are the best years of your life. I don’t know if they were for him or if he just has amnesia. But he doesn’t have any idea. You go ahead, Miz Charlotte. Jump to whatever square you want.”
* * *
Charlotte and Tom Ed tackled the big card catalog and found the call numbers for all the books to turn Tom Ed into a Canadian. Then they divided up the search.
“See you back here in half an hour,” said Charlotte.
Charlotte had good luck. The books practically jumped off the shelves into her hand. It looked as if not that many people were taking out books in the Canadian identity section. With time left over she made a quick visit to the Teen Scene section. Revolting name but there were some good books there.
Tom Ed appeared back at the catalog with an armload of books, records and magazines. They found a table.
“Records! This is great. We don’t have this kind of library at home.”
Ch
arlotte flipped through the records. On one cover there were four bearded guys in dresses. The Mothers of Invention. One was called Frank Zappa. They looked goofy.
“You like this band?”
“I’ve never heard them. They didn’t play them on the radio back home.”
“James would probably like it.”
“James? Why’s that?”
“See the title? ‘We’re Only in It for the Money.’ Since he went into Commerce he believes that only money makes the world go round, that money is behind everything.”
“He maybe has a point there.”
“Yeah, but it makes him so grumpy.”
Tom Ed ticked off his list. “Looks like I’ve got all the books to turn me into a Canadian. And I found one for you. I think it’s about Unteen.”
He pulled a book out of the pile. Coming of Age in Samoa.
Charlotte read the back cover. There was a photo of a woman, an anthropologist. Margaret Mead. She looked smart and kind and like she didn’t care about diets or crocheted beach cover-ups. She had gone to live with people in Samoa and study their ways.
“Where’s Samoa?”
“I’m not rightly sure. South Pacific somewhere.”
Charlotte flipped to the introduction and glanced down the page.
“Why did you think … Hey! They don’t have teenagers there! Girls just go from being kids to being adults. Listen to this. The ‘disturbances that vex our adolescents’ don’t happen there. Where did you find this?”
“I saw it on a display and then I remembered reading about Margaret Mead in Ladies’ Home Journal.”
“You read Ladies’ Home Journal?”
“Well, it was, you know, sitting around. Mother got it. There’s some interesting stuff in Ladies’ Home Journal. Long as Daddy didn’t catch me reading it.”
“They should have this in the teen section. They should have a dozen copies.”
Tom Ed nodded. “Thought you’d like it.”
Charlotte took another look at Margaret Mead. Was it possible that there was a whole society of girls on the other side of the world who didn’t have to do adolescence because they had never heard of it?