Major David mentioned that Clare’s children are abnormally sticky one evening at dinner.
Or suggested perhaps their own children had been especially clean. It was rather embarrassing walking downtown with greasy smears across your backside. He was attempting to communicate this to the woman he had met at an amusement park forty-three years ago. He needed her to understand his frustration with the sticky hands that weren’t just sticky hands but a catalysis for his increasing triviality.
I can’t go around with a dirty backside at my age, he moaned, they’ll have me carted off to the mental.
The lefties were forever searching for signs of his dementia.
But Diane started to quietly weep into her plate. He was so taken aback that he thought better of mentioning it so instead just watched the tears fall into her food, until she finally said that she was very tired. That it was easier when she was younger and that now she was not very young. Diane said she was too old for more children.
And then Clare’s eldest flew into the dining room yet again throwing a hairy fit because he had shoved a bit of baby carrot so far up his nostril that it could not be sussed out.
Children have no appreciation for food.
Major David had refused to eat with them after Clare’s youngest spent nearly an hour raging out in his highchair. It had scared him. He felt certain his grandson was intentionally trying to hurt himself. His flailing was violent like nothing Major David had ever seen. The girls had not behaved like this when they were growing up. He would surely remember Clare trying to asphyxiate herself using nothing but sheer child rage and the belt of her highchair.
But Diane says yes indeed, the girls had sometimes behaved like this, though perhaps not as often in the presence of their father for fear of repercussions. So Major David had made threats to repercussion his grandson. This was not the right move. Clare was suddenly beyond herself at the table and Major David thought maybe these hysterics had indeed come from their side of the family rather than Clare’s good for nothing ex-husband.
Apparently, apparently, Major David was not meant to speak to the children like that because they were being raised in a violence-free environment. Never mind this violence-free environment happened to be his very same environment. Clare was still ranting about adult relationships built on boundaries and respect as Major David rubbed his chin and stared at his wife. Surely Diane must see the hypocrisy in Clare’s statements. Boundaries and respect could not exist within this framework whereby Clare lived within their boundaries without respect.
His adult daughter chose her adult moments.
Moments that did not include her being an adult revolved around any and all cooking and cleaning, which fell squarely to her mother while Clare grieved her failed marriage. Grieve was her word. Not Major David’s. His words would be very different words indeed. Shirk. Shirk was a word that sprang readily to mind when he thought about Clare’s failed marriage.
Regardless, he banned them all from the dining room during real dinner after the infuriating conversation about parenting. So when the tiniest terror ran in with a piece of produce jammed up his nose, Major David knew he was on his way to the Janeway yet again. And Diane’s tears rang true as he sat in the waiting area surrounded by sick children and their ill-advised parents. They were too old for this.
Poppys aren’t Daddys.
Not that he had flourished as a Daddy the first time. Clare claims she was raised in a household shrouded in fear. Yes. Shrouded.
You wouldn’t know but Pine Bud Avenue was the Gaza Strip the way Clare talks.
Shrouded.
Like she was forced to every day cover her face or be met with lashings. Major David never did anything of the sort. And heaven knows Diane didn’t. She lacks any knack for discipline. The couple times she attempted to do so very early on, perhaps while the girls were still in diapers, were absolute failures. To Major David’s knowledge, she had not attempted to do so again thereafter, not even when he offered to teach her how. He had been very generous with his time early in their child-rearing, he had offered to demonstrate how to manage the girls. Obviously, he could not expect Diane to know, she’d little experience with children, while Major David’s education had prepared him for every eventuality. But Diane had not been interested. Had said she would just leave that to him. Said that he could handle that since she had to handle everything else.
So Major David had been made the bad guy in the household. The girls called him Father when they wanted to put further distance between them. And he didn’t exactly despise it. No. It was more that he couldn’t place something else in it. A tinge of something in need of punishment.
Major David couldn’t wait to be Poppy.
They would all love Poppy. Poppy would get it right. But Poppy was getting it wrong.
The casino would change that.
Big George thinks so too, even if young George has reservations. Big George has warned him that young George’s politics don’t run as easy as his own, and Major David understood well enough. The next generation is always contrary. But all the Georges can be brought around onside. They’re old money and old money is always in need of an influx of new money.
Casinos are brim full with new money.
Major David has been promised a hand in it for dealing with the crimson-coloured tape ringing the harbour. Big George had been impressed.
Dave, you’ve really impressed me. If ever you need advice, Big George had said on the telephone.
So when the house backing onto their lot was put on the market, Major David called Big George for his advice. In the slowest, most clearly coded voice he could manage, he asked if he should go ahead and buy that house. Big George had said fuck yes so Major David has gone headlong to the bank and bought the fuck out of that back lot house.
He is going to build a gate between the yards so the children can come and go as they please. Diane is going to be so delighted when he tells her. And Clare can get on with it. Maybe she will meet someone new, maybe she won’t. But it won’t matter either way, they will want for nothing. She can raise the kids in their own house handy but not right on top of them. Everyone can go back to loving Poppy again.
And Poppy can’t wait for that cause Poppy’s tired, too.
He’s not sure how much he’ll get for his part in it because these are delicate matters, George has assured him. There can be no real contract or paper trail because that’s how they get you. They can’t access information that doesn’t exist. So the handshake is how the bigwigs do it. Very old school. Very gentlemanly.
He can hardly wait for George to arrive. He wrings his hands in anticipation.
* * *
Roger don’t know what Calv is thinking anymore.
Calv is thinking their server looks crazy familiar.
Calv never knew what Roger was thinking.
Roger is thinking misses would be hot with a bit of lipstick.
These two aren’t even looking in the same directions at the same humans looking in other directions at the other humans, so could any of them know what feelings were being felt unless words were used to express them?
Roger and Calv were taught not to express and then taught that to women they dated. Now they find themselves frustrated daily not knowing how to make up the miles between what they are seeing and what they are saying.
Roger and Calv misses a lot in this grey area.
They can’t find each other in the everlasting fog and mutual insecurity.
There last fall Roger thought they was done being friends. Calv and Donna was doing real good and Ca
lv had stopped coming around. My god, Roger wanted Calv to break up with her some bad. So when Calv called cause Donna was going to Fogo for a girls’ weekend, Roger was overjoyed. They went to a dive Roger liked especially. He said it had the coldest, cheapest beer downtown but Calv knew they went cause it was handy to a strip club with a steady gear supply.
Donna thinks I got Justin Trudeau money.
The weekend will probably cost you thousands of dollars, b’y.
Six. Six thousand dollars.
Jesus, you could go down south and drink your face off for that kind of money!
What do she want to go to Fogo Island for anyway?
You got to set her fucking straight before you ends up in the poorhouse.
She’s always hating on the dirty bay but wants to go to Joe Batt’s fucking Arm.
Polished turd is all that is.
Threw my pillows in the garbage, wants the same jesus cushions now!
Donna’s crazy.
Mine was for free made by me own grandmother but that was no good to Donna.
Donna’s cracked.
Said Nan wasn’t an artisan. Jesus on the cross, who’s an artisan?
I thought it was someone who made fancy bread . . .
She’s gone off with me credit card now.
You’re crazy to give that to her.
I gets right sick to me stomach thinking about it.
You needs to tell her she got to knock off spending and start earning.
Or what?
Or you’ll get another woman.
Another woman.
Yes, b’y, there’s lots around sure look.
Calv looked around cause communication between him and Roger was not good and he was loaded on $3.75 triple Appletons and Coke. He remembers the cooler light washing over the new bartender making it seem like she was glowing in the dark. Calv had been thinking she looked nice when Roger caught hold of his eye’s direction.
She’s cute.
Yeah, I suppose.
What’s her name?
Don’t know.
Hey misses, what’s your name anyhow?
What’s it to you?
In that moment, Calv had searched the little bartender’s face trying desperately to place her before Roger broke up his thoughts.
You Chinese or something?
She had laughed and said, or something.
And that was Olive.
Later, in the same bar Roger would witness Calv handing Olive a stack of bills. She no longer stood erect on the boss side of the bar but sat sullen and worn on their same sad side.
What, are you giving her money now too?
It’s a just a loan.
You’re a sucker for punishment my man.
She’ll pay me back.
I bet she will.
Oh, she will.
Really?
Sure, why not.
Go on, you dog.
You think what you wants to think.
I thinks you’re worse than me sure.
I never said nothing.
Calv didn’t have to say anything. Implication is near defence enough to save himself from Roger’s forthcoming taunts about being pussy-whipped by every pussy handy to him. This was easier for Calv. Or so he thought. In the short term it was easier and that is the only term length Calv minds.
His full time-lapse is paycheque to paycheque and the space spent in between.
In this very moment, Calv is searching the skinny guy’s face trying desperately to place him.
Who was he?
Calv knows he has marked this face out in his mind before and he is tracing back slowly through the muck, but it’s tricky because he’s been stressed about all of the things lately. But he can’t stop looking at buddy who is right ashen in the face, like someone who smokes too much and doesn’t drink enough water.
Calv worries that he is attracted to him due to his inability to break free of this gaze.
He tries to sneak glances but needs to fully turn and look. Perhaps he’s after going queer. He’ll probably have to march in parades now waving a rainbow flag, vote NDP and sing show tunes. Amanda would love that. Everything would be forgiven. She would explain away all of his transgressions and her grievances with a closet diagnosis. Her theatre friends would nod in recognition and make idle comments about being true to yourself and following your heart and dreams and shit. Because they believed everyone could follow their gorgeous dreams mapped out on delicate Japanese paper, half of them with theatre parents, the other half rich.
There was no explaining Amanda, though, who had neither. The token outsider they kept around for a bit of authenticity Calv figures. Why else would they keep talking to her? Sure, Amanda is a right pain in the ass. She was the only person he knew who seemed to actively want gay kids. Yes, the invitations would come furious in the mailbox if Calv were gay. My good grief, they’d want to be nice to him then. They would use him as an example of their worldliness. When accused of maintaining no rural friendships, they will quickly cite their bay twins. One is an artist, the other gay. Amanda’s friends would fucking die over it.
But Calv don’t feel any desire to get his dick out for the waiter.
It is more like his memory is saying there is a really real reason he should remember this reckless-looking homo. He had eaten at The Hazel with his sister half a dozen times at least. Amanda likes the Brussels sprouts here. She raves over the raw bar. Will eat anything that swims. Not feather or fur, Amanda says as she wilfully ignores the massive amounts of meat being consumed by everyone else in the dining room. Last time they were here, she frowned as Calv shredded her hypocrisy. He ordered onion rings battered in french fries and dipped in bacon coulis because it was a thing. Sausage-infused matzo sticks stacked atop a steak the size of a grown man’s palm. When she begged him to eat something green, he ordered the beer-battered broccoli and then double-dipped it fingers deep in hot chili mayo. Calv would put salt on salt to spite his sister even if it burned the tastebuds off his fucking tongue and seared the roof of his mouth until wells of water gathered in his eyes. He would talk endlessly about his carnivorous tendencies and proclaim himself a great lover of all the woollies. They’re delicious.
Calv would eat anything with eyes.
He knew this kind of talk bothered Amanda’s heart. That was why he talked it. This didn’t make him feel great. Not at all. But he couldn’t really help himself. When he thought on it too long, it seemed like the feeling was very close to anger. And he could not clarify that angry feeling either. But it was related to her never fucking listening to anything he said. Asking opinions but not really listening is just wasting everyone’s time.
I can’t wait to hear what you thought of my show! Come tell me in the car.
So he would tell her exactly what he thought while smoking in the back seat of her old two-door Pontiac Sunfire.
Amanda drives a four-door AWD with a roof rack now. She doesn’t ask for his opinions anymore. Probably asks Freddy.
Fuck Freddy’s opinions though, they’re just Amanda’s regurgitated.
Before Amanda had a boyfriend with opinions, she would ask her brother for his.
And so he would pay really close attention to whatever she was doing and saying on stage as if getting tested later. And he would tell her, when she kneeled down was when she should have stood up, when she walked toward the other actor was when she should have backed away. Sometimes he even went again to the last night, the closing one, cause they would have a party and Amanda would be in a nice mood to be around now that it was done. Their pare
nts would want them to all go for drinks or pizza to celebrate.
This was when Amanda still drank drinks and ate pizza. Still ate bread at all. Intolerant to bread now she says. Intolerant to a lot of things, Calv thinks, critical feedback and friendly advice included. There was never a time when she actually corrected her mistakes like he said. Amanda kneeled exactly when she wanted to kneel. If she didn’t want to, well, then she didn’t.
So why the fuck was he watching her show at all if she wasn’t going to listen to him?
Then Calv would feel right poorly. Like she didn’t think he was smart enough. Or understood it. And sometimes he would feel embarrassed that he had thought she cared about his opinions at all. He couldn’t tell her cause she would accuse him of making everything about himself.
My play is not about you, stop behaving like an asshole.
But it wouldn’t like that. Everything was always about her, about being nice to Amanda, watching her prance around, or listening to her every jesus thought on why fast food was not food and hydro projects was evil and oil was dirty and how everything and anything Calv was ever interested in or into was wrong, wrong, wrong. Amanda made Calv feel like he was destroying the fucking planet by his own self, but he was just doing what every other jesus human was doing. That’s what he said to her.
That’s not a good reason to do something, Calvin, Jesus!
So they kind of stopped talking about how Calv made money or what he fed himself when he was in charge of making money and feeding himself. He still went to see her act in stuff but he never said much afterward, and that hurt her feelings same as when he said too much. They agreed on a range of unmentionable topics to keep things congenial. Amanda claimed she just wanted to have a nice visit with her brother. Share a pleasant meal.
Somewhere they could both eat food in front of each other.
Though there was nowhere for them really to go or, at least, few places where there were actual options they would both agree to pay money for. The franchises Calv preferred on the harbourfront were non-starters. Amanda grumbled things about sending money Western Union to the richest men in America. Send them your little money fast, she would randomly blurt out after two cocktails she claimed not to like but drank in record time.
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club Page 16