Red Plaid Shirt

by Diane Schoemperlen

  The Indian graveyard was at the north end of the cemetery. The grass there had never been mowed and most of it had gone to seed. It looked like wheat. There were no headstones in the Indian graveyard, only the occasional white wooden cross heaved out of place by the frost. In some places, where the grass was thin, you could see that the ground had sunk down two or three inches where the bodies were.

  Nobody tended the Indian graveyard and nobody ever came around. They knew that none of their dead kin would get away. They didn’t have to keep making that weekly bed-check like we did, coming back for reassurance. There were no flowers on the Indian graves. I kept wanting to lie down there in the long grass where I imagined I would be hidden and ignored, sweet-smelling.

  This Town (1979)

  GENERAL INFORMATION:

  A lot of the people in this town have come here from other places. There is always someone new in town, there is always someone just arriving (see population).

  When you meet a new person in this town, the first questions are always the same:

  “Where are you from?”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Some people will become friends on the basis of the answers to these and other questions.

  Some people will say they were just passing through on their summer holidays and they had such a good time in this town that they just never left.

  “That was two years ago last summer.”

  Because these people didn’t come to this town on purpose, they never lose that sense of just passing through and so they are always talking about leaving.

  Some of these people were on their way to the coast and now they are always talking about going there for the next long weekend. Some other people were on their way to California and now they always go there for their two-week vacation in the summer. They come back with furious suntans and colour slides of the ocean.

  In this town someone is always talking about leaving. Some of them do leave, but some of them don’t. Most of those who do, come back in two months. Sometimes it is only when these people come back that the other people in this town notice they’ve been gone.

  CLIMATE:

  The standard saying in this town is: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, it’ll change.” Living in this town means never knowing what to wear when you get up in the morning and then having to change your clothes four times a day anyway. This generates a lot of washing (see LAUNDROMAT). It is considered overly optimistic to go out without a jacket in July.

  POPULATION:

  There is room in this town for everyone. Someone is always arriving (coming to this town is easier than leaving it) but this town never gets any bigger and it never gets any smaller either.

  Every other year they put a new number on the green sign on the highway. No one can ever remember what the last number was so no one ever knows if this town is gaining or losing ground.

  Lorraine said, “We don’t need to know anyway. Those signs are for tourists. They like to know these things” (see TOURISM).

  PUBLIC HEALTH:

  In this town someone always has or is just getting over a twenty-four-hour bug. All such recurring afflictions are credited to the water, which is regularly infested by some kind of parasite that comes down off the mountains with the spring runoff.

  All other afflictions are credited to the altitude and the thin mountain air.

  Kevin said, “We are all suffering from chronic lack of oxygen.”

  This can be used to explain or excuse a number of things, including the milder forms of insanity and unhappiness.

  Someone in this town always has a cold (see climate) or a virus.

  ACCOMMODATION:

  Most of the people in this town live in rented apartments or houses. These are very hard to come by. Everybody is always complaining that their rent is too high and so they are always moving to a smaller, cheaper place. Someone is always saying, “If you hear of anything coming up for rent, let me know.” A lot of people, even families with children, keep renting because they are planning to leave in the spring (see general information).

  Some couples buy a lot in the new subdivision, which is the only part of town where the streets are paved. They like to build their own houses. This keeps them very busy. They are always working hard to make the mortgage payments which are usually higher than they bargained on. They are always planning patios, babies, and vegetable gardens.

  The power of a nice new $100,000 house is never underestimated. Andy and Mary said together, “Once we move in, we’ll be so happy.”

  TOURISM:

  In this town it is standard summer practice to go out for a walk on Sunday afternoon with or without the dog which you may or may not own (see pets). You will be stopped on the average of five times and asked for directions.

  Most of these tourists will want to know how to get back to the highway. Before beginning your walk, it is important to know how to get to: the golf course, the liquor store, a fast food place (there isn’t one), a bathroom, a campground with hookups (it’s full).

  One Sunday a man in sunglasses in a big blue Buick said to Barb: “This is such a quaint little town. But what do all you people do here?”

  ENTERTAINMENT:

  In this town all roads lead to the bar. There might also be one road which leads to the pool hall. The pool hall is a recreational distraction. The bar, on the other hand, is a serious place where serious business occurs.

  Connie said, “We were in the bar when Kevin told me he was leaving town and moving to the coast (see general information).I was crying but nobody noticed and the beer kept coming. Pretty soon the whole table was covered with empty bottles. Leon kept lying them down on their sides and calling them ‘dead soldiers'. He was comforting me” (see love).

  In this town there is a dance once every two months. Most of the people in this town love to dance so everybody goes and nobody ever dances with the person they came with. This is important because of course everybody needs to feel free. The small-town version of freedom means flirting with your best friend’s husband or lover or both. It is likely that you will end up at the same table with three old lovers and one or two new lovers. Most of the people in this town are very civilized.

  Most people in this town harbour a disproportionate fear of going home alone (see love). This fear becomes especially prevalent on Saturday night.

  Barb said, “I hate eating breakfast alone on Sunday. If a man is with me, I make bacon and eggs and biscuits. Sometimes, if it’s a special occasion or I think we might be in love, I make strawberry crepes. If I’m alone, I have three cups of coffee and five or six cigarettes. I know that’s unhealthy.”

  HOBBIES:

  A lot of people in this town are always having dinner parties. In the summer they are always having barbecues.

  Lorraine said, “I enjoy taking care of people. Everyone likes to eat, everyone tells me I’m a good cook. Maybe someday I’ll become a chef. I’m happy when I’m watching someone eat.”

  Marshall, who is Lorraine’s husband and also a realist, said, “You just like showing off. Life isn’t a dinner party, Lorraine.”

  Lorraine and Marshall are always talking about leaving this town (see GENERAL INFORMATION) or getting a divorce (see MARRIAGE).

  Most of the people in this town have, at one time or another, taken up macramé, weaving, baking bread, gardening, running, and photography. Some people still do some or all of these things. Everybody owns a 35 mm camera with multiple interchangeable lenses. Most of the people in this town do not collect stamps or coins or salt and pepper shakers. Some people collect postcards or comic books.

  PETS:

  Everyone in this town loves animals. If you have a dog, it will be a German shepherd, a Siberian husky, or an Alaskan malamute. If you don’t have a dog, it will be because your landlady doesn’t allow pets or because you are planning to leave town in the spring (see GENERAL INFORMATION) and you don’t want to get tied down (see LOVE).


  Some people have cats. Most people have more than one.

  Barb said, “I’d be lost without them.”

  Someone in this town is always giving away kittens or puppies.

  CHILDREN:

  This town is very fertile. Someone is always pregnant. There is always someone wanting to buy your old baby carriage and your bassinette. Everybody believes in cloth diapers and breast-feeding and making your own baby food in the blender.

  When the baby cries in a restaurant, the parents are embarrassed but they smile proudly.

  Everybody is thankful for the daycare centre which has just been established in town. The young mothers talk about how their children will grow up and be friends and go to school together.

  LAUNDROMAT:

  Almost none of the people in this town own a washer and dryer. Everybody goes to the laundromat, which is always full. Some of the washing machines are always breaking down. Most people go down the street to the bar while their clothes are drying (see ENTERTAINMENT).

  Mary said, “If Indians are supposed to be dirty, my mother always said they were dirty, then why do they spend so much time in the laundromat?”

  LOVE:

  Some of the people in this town are congenitally reluctant to form attachments because they don’t want to get tied down (see PETS).Most of these people have been hurt before in some other town and now they are afraid of meaningful relationships. These things, however, do not stop most people from devoting a lot of time to looking for love (see ENTERTAINMENT), even though they don’t seem to know what they will do with it when they find it. They just don’t like going home alone.

  A lot of people think that having sex with a person is the only way to get to know them and to decide whether love is likely or not. It is educational to drive around this town early on a Saturday morning and see whose car is parked in front of (or behind, depending on the complexities of the situation) whose house.

  Kevin said, “I call it the Lending Library.”

  When a couple breaks up, there is always some friend waiting to comfort the wounded party.

  Leon said, “There’s always some woman in the bar who needs to forget her troubles (see ENTERTAINMENT). I try not to miss these opportunities to be understanding.”

  When an unhealthy relationship finally ends, friends are relieved and they say, “I wanted to tell you before but I didn’t.”

  Sex, if not love, is easy to come by in this town. Barb slept with six different men in a month and a half. This was immediately after her breakup with Bill, a carpenter she’d loved fiercely for two years and four months.

  Barb’s friends were all worried about her and they said:

  “You’ll get a reputation.”

  “You’ll get a disease.”

  “You’ll get hurt.”

  “You’ll get pregnant.”

  “You’ll get bitter and cynical.”

  “It’s time to get serious.”

  MARRIAGE:

  Most of the married people in this town are unhappy. Some of these unhappily married people are still giving dinner parties (see HOBBIES) and pretending to be happy.

  At a dinner party at Lorraine and Marshall’s house, Lorraine asked Mary, “How are you?”

  Mary said, “I’m so happy it seems unnatural.” Lorraine said, “Have some more guacamole.” Some of these unhappily married people aren’t pretending anymore and they are always talking to anybody who will listen about their marital problems and the merits of a trial separation.

  At a dinner party at Andy and Mary’s house, Mary asked Lorraine, “How are you?”

  Lorraine said, “I’m miserable.”

  Marshall said, “I want a divorce.”

  Mary said, “Have some more guacamole.”

  There are wedding parties and sometimes there are divorce parties. Everybody always gets drunk at parties.

  At wedding parties, some of the guests are talking about when their divorce date is coming up. At one wedding party, the bride said, “If we get divorced, I won’t ask for a thing.” Hugging her, the groom said, “That’s my girl.”

  At divorce parties, some people are always talking about how important it is to stay friends.

  DEATH:

  Susan said, “When I was a child, one day my father was in the basement trying to kill himself. Of course I was too young to understand how someone I loved could be that upset. After I unloaded the gun, I called the doctor. After the doctor left, my father went upstairs to his bedroom and rested. For five years my father didn’t speak to me. After five years, I asked my mother to tell me why. She said it was because he thought that I thought he was crazy.”

  Ed said, “Well, of course he was crazy.”

  Three years ago, Ed tried to kill himself with pills, not a gun. In this town one death has nothing to do with another.

  Frogs (1982)

  Val’s mother always told her, “You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.”

  In the hot summer, there were green frogs everywhere, looping around on people’s front lawns, hopping across the sidewalk, into the street, getting run over. Val’s mother chased them away from the front step with the broom, even though her grandmother, who was staying with them for the summer, said a frog coming into your house would bring you good luck.

  When Val finally caught one, a tiny one no bigger than her thumbnail, she carried it into the kitchen cupped in her hands, where it fluttered and thumped away like a heart. She called the little frog Bob after her dad, who would be killed the next winter in a car crash on Highway 6 North. But nobody knew that yet. He rummaged around in his pockets and found her an empty matchbox to keep it in.

  Her mother, who was at the stove just starting supper, said, “That’s not a frog, it’s a toad. You’ll get warts.” She didn’t though, and whatever it was, it didn’t last long in the matchbox.

  “What’s the difference between a frog and a toad?” is a very common question.

  Frogs live in or near water, are slender with smooth moist skin and long hind legs which make them excellent jumpers. Toads, on the other hand, are stocky with short legs, hop rather than jump, and have rough dry skin with warts. They live away from water, in the woods, the garden, sometimes even the cellar.

  After Simon moved out, Val’s mother was relieved and worried both at once—relieved because she’d never liked Simon anyway, even though she’d only met him once, but worried too because she couldn’t imagine what Val was going to do next.

  In a letter, Val’s mother writes, You’re thirty years old now, Val. You’d better get your act together. Val knows that what she really means to say is, Do what I want you to do.

  Val replies faithfully in that special tone she has created for her weekly letters home. Grammatical, stable, and complacent, this voice makes everything she tells her mother sound harmless, round, and slightly empty-headed. Val writes about the weather (which is just great), the gas bill (which is ridiculous), the cat (who is thriving), and the plants (which aren’t). She doesn’t mention Leonard, the man she has been seeing lately, because she knows her mother will like him already and there’s no sense getting her hopes up. Her mother has never demanded the truth anyway, only something digestible with the least amount of difficulty. This, Val assumes, is the natural state of families.

  When Val was promoted to Loans Officer at the bank, she got her own office, which is off in one corner, with glass walls on two sides. Whenever she feels claustrophobic, she opens the curtains so she can watch the tellers chatting with the customers over the sound of the computers, passing money endlessly from hand to hand. Val was a teller for five years before the promotion. Her new salary is substantial — they obviously want to hang onto her. She feels valuable and sometimes even important.

  On Friday afternoon, once the after-work payday lineups have started to subside, Val straightens up her desk and then goes into the washroom to comb her hair. She splashes cold water on her face and neck, dabs on a little perfume, and ad
mires her new haircut, which frames her face with fine blonde curls like feathers.

  It’s almost time to lock up. Val is going for a beer after work with some of the other women. They do this every Friday. It usually means no supper, some dancing, and a quick buzz. They are working, always working, these women, and they like to get out on the weekend.

  Annette Cosgrove is Val’s favourite person at the bank. Annette is the youngest woman there, maybe twenty-two, pretty in a pale red fox-like way, and very bright. She’s only been at the bank for four months but Val doesn’t expect she’ll stay long—the good ones never do.

  After work on Friday, Val and Annette walk down to the tavern together. They get a good table, close to the dance floor but not too close, and save some chairs for the other women who’ll be along shortly, once they get Marsha balanced. They order a jug of draft beer. Annette pays, Val will get the next one.

  The tavern is crowded, with men mostly, just having a casual after-work drink too. The men have pushed several tables together and their chairs are sticking out at all angles as more men come to join them, pulling up empty chairs from other tables and squeezing them in somehow.

  The phone up front keeps ringing and the bartender keeps calling out names over the microphone. It’s the women at home with the kids who are calling. Supper’s ready. The men dribble out one by one. The women on the phone must be angry but Val isn’t sure why.

  By the time the band starts at eight, the tavern is beginning to fill up again. Val and her friends are still wearing their clothes from work, vivid summer dresses, high-heeled sandals, no nylons. This makes them more noticeable than most of the other women in the tavern and different men keep coming to their table, one at a time, grinning.