by Arden, Jann
I left his office feeling puffed up and victorious. The class of 1980 never pressed charges. A few of the kids even expressed happiness that I’d gone to the funeral. I knew the whole school would have been there for her had she passed away in Springbank. Marilyn would have been smiling from tip to toe knowing what I’d done, I knew that for sure.
Dying didn’t seem so far away from me now. Losing Marilyn to that giant, unknown void was a huge awakening for me. I lay in bed for weeks afterwards, worrying about dying. It was parked at my front door, right beside my blown-up Ford Pinto. Marilyn’s death was a wee glimpse into what it was going to be like to be a grown-up person. Grown-up people had their hands full of hurt most days, or at least that’s what it looked like to me. Perhaps the universe was going to test my ability to fail with grace. Whatever it was that was coming, it felt ominous.
I still hadn’t started college. I had to wait and enrol in the second semester because I had missed the fall deadlines, so I had some more time to kill (or waste, more like it). I was pretty much wandering around, watching the world go by on the back of a truck. I watched TV and thought too much. I wondered why God would choose to call someone like Marilyn, of all people, home? Why in the world wasn’t it one of those bastard bullies at school? Why wasn’t it me? I thought about the ever-expanding universe my dad had told me about. What was my universe expanding into? Never mind.
All my friends were off and running, attending classes at university, becoming something, and I was still in my parents’ basement, strumming the guitar and writing songs that no one would ever hear (except one or two people who listened to the CBC, which was better than nothing).
My parents weren’t sure what to do with me. They kept hoping I’d make up my mind about my future and at least start down a path to somewhere. They didn’t discourage me from pursuing music as a career, but they also didn’t want to see me have my heart busted into a million pieces. My parents were very practical: they knew as well as I did that people like me didn’t dare imagine a life in show business. I knew they were right. It didn’t bother me all that much, to tell you the truth. I wasn’t a dreamer by any stretch of the imagination. But I wasn’t realistic, either.
Duray had dropped out before he finished high school, so they were more or less counting on me to make something of myself. I felt a constant pressure to get it right for them. Duray had moved into a whole new league of bad behaviour: getting charged with impaired driving and assault and vandalism. He was in and out of court and it was costing my folks a small fortune in lawyers and fines. Drugs and alcohol had moved into his body and taken over his life. It was like watching a house on fire and having no way to put it out. I was pretty sure that there wasn’t enough water in the world to put my brother’s burning house out. He was far too busy drinking gasoline.
My mom told me that if I wasn’t going to be going to school that fall, I would absolutely have to get a real job. I was too old to be washing golf clubs and picking up balls from the local driving range and needed something that would pay more than four bucks an hour. My dad, thank God, got me a job as a flag girl through one of his connections at work. He told me not to screw it up because it would reflect badly on him. I told him I would try not to but I couldn’t actually guarantee anything.
It certainly wasn’t my dream to work on a road crew, but I considered myself lucky to be working at all. I hated getting up at 5:30 in the morning. There couldn’t possibly be anything worse on the planet than getting oneself up before the sun had even made an appearance. I had been going to bed at 5:30 in the morning, but those days were coming to an abrupt end.
My friend Patti got a job working on the road crew as well and so there we were, standing in the middle of a dusty construction site, directing cars back and forth all day long. We wore yellow hard hats and white jumpsuits that made us look like we were on some kind of a weird chain gang. We had signs that said “Stop” on one side, and “Slow” on the other. I am surprised both of us survived unscathed. I was almost run over a half-dozen times by graters and dump trucks. One woman actually ran over my foot one day in her Toyota Corolla. She just kept going, even after she heard me holler. Who would have thought that steel-toed boots actually served a purpose? Fashionable? No. Safe? Indeed!
It was a filthy existence. I came home with dirt in my belly button and gravel in my ears. It took me half an hour to shower the debris off my body. But none of that bothered me when I started getting my paycheques. For a minute or so, I pondered being a flag girl for the rest of my life. I was earning $900 every two weeks! I had never seen that much money in my life. My excitement wore off after about two months of standing on the side of that road, waiting for the hours to creep by. The weather was starting to get crappy as well. It was getting colder and raining a lot. It was fine standing out there when the sun was shining, but when it was cold and damp it was miserable. I couldn’t wait much longer to figure out my life. I still had a few hurdles to jump over—and keep in mind, I was really short.
I went to a party in the city one Saturday night at my friend Cindy’s house. (I didn’t work Sundays at the construction site, so I could stay out a bit late.) I knew a lot of people there, some from school and some not. For the most part it was all the usual suspects, with the usual things going on. I can describe the scene with my eyes closed: there are bodies gathered around a kitchen table, shoving chips into their heads and guzzling beer. Music blasts from speakers that have long since seen their glory days. Lights flicker dimly or are off completely, depending on how late it’s getting, and cigarette smoke billows into the air like small gathering storms. There are loud conversations in every corner of every room, and high-pitched drunken-girl laughs echo off the walls. Piles of shoes are kicked off at the front door, coats and scarves are strewn over chairs and couches, bottles and empty plastic cups litter every square foot of the carpeted floor. All the parties looked the same. Cindy’s house was no different—it was a mess. Her parents weren’t home, which was why these parties happened in the first place. Boys and girls visited the bedrooms upstairs and then came back downstairs twenty minutes later with huge grins on their faces.
I tried to convince myself that I was having fun, but it did cross my mind that I was bored and more or less on the outside looking in at something I didn’t fit into. Part of me knew better than to be standing in the middle of a kitchen with a bunch of people I didn’t care about and who didn’t care about me. I had a funny weird feeling lingering in my chest. What was I doing there? Nothing, that’s what.
My mom had dropped me off about 7:30, and it was almost 12:45 when it dawned on me to look at a clock. I was supposed to be home by 1 a.m. I had arranged a ride with a friend, but my ride was drunk and had been gnawing on a big, greasy piece of pizza and was now throwing it up into Cindy’s mom’s kitchen garbage can. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be getting into a car with her. Cindy told me I could sleep over, but I didn’t want my dad killing me before I found my true calling so I looked around for other options. I asked if anybody was driving anywhere near Springbank—well, I yelled it, actually. One guy in the living room said he was going out that way. I was saved. I sort of knew him, which made it even better.
Conrad lived in Calgary but I’d seen him at basketball games out at the high school, and I’d run into him at a little bar Theresa and I used to go to. I had talked to him at least half a dozen times, so he wasn’t a stranger. He was always very nice to me. He called me at my parents’ house a few times, inviting me to movies or to go bowling; it just never seemed to work out that I could go.
That night Conrad was going to drop off another girl, whom I also knew, before me, so I felt comfortable going with them. We dropped her off at her parents’ house, she waved goodbye as she walked up her driveway, and then we headed out of town to Springbank. I asked him if he was sure it wasn’t too far for him to go, and he insisted that it wasn’t. I told him that I could call my parents to come and get me from the Co-op. I knew my mom w
ould pick me up from there if I needed her to. Conrad told me not to be silly, that it was right on his way. I guess I believed him—I didn’t know where he lived, so I couldn’t be sure if I was on his way or not. I was feeling uneasy, but what could I do? I was in the car and it was late and my options were very limited. There was no way I could walk home. It was miles. I was worried about the time. I didn’t have a watch on, but I knew it was a lot later than one in the morning.
We chatted a little bit about the party and where he was going to go to school. It was just small talk to make the time go by. Everything seemed normal. When we were getting close to my house, Conrad made a sudden turn down an old gravel road. I felt sick to my stomach immediately. I knew whatever he was doing was not good. I told him that that wasn’t my road and he said, “I know, I thought we could just park for a minute. It’s all okay, I’ll get you home.”
I told him I was going to be in trouble if I was late, that my parents were expecting me.
“Come on, they won’t mind,” he said. “It’ll just be a few minutes.” He leaned into me and tried to kiss my mouth. His tongue jabbed at my lips like an eel. I pushed him back, or tried to. I was shocked; he was insistent. He just kept trying to kiss me and grab my breasts through my jacket. He started pulling at the buttons and trying to get himself up on top of me. I felt cramped and claustrophobic in his small car. I had nowhere to go.
I begged him to get off me. That was met with, “Aw, come on, let’s fool around a bit, I really like you.” If you really like me, I thought to myself, don’t do this. As soon as he got around my jacket he began pulling at the clasps on my baby-blue overalls. Yes, I was wearing overalls, which you’d think would be boy-proof, but they weren’t. Conrad grabbed the top clasps and ripped them off and in a split second had jammed his left hand down inside my pants. I started screaming and struggling to get him off. It was like he didn’t hear me at all. Our bodies were tangled up and I didn’t know where he began and I ended. I kept trying to force him back. I did fight, I did holler, I told him to stop stop stop! and then all at once I felt the most incredible piercing pain shoot through my stomach. He had somehow managed to shove his fingers into my vagina with such force that I felt like I was going to faint. It hurt so badly—as if he had torn me in two. I must have really screamed bloody murder because he stopped immediately. Just like that, he pulled his arm back and leapt to his side of the car.
He seemed surprised that he had really hurt me. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face. It was so dark out. I managed to get my overalls back on and began looking for the missing clasp. I couldn’t figure out what had just happened. I tried pulling on the door handle, but he’d started the car back up and turned on the headlights. We were beginning to roll back over the gravel towards the main road. I just cried and cried and begged him to take me home. We were about three miles from my house at this point.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “I was just fooling around.” I was sobbing and I could feel blood trickling between my legs. I had so much snot coming out of my nose that I couldn’t breathe. It was the kind of crying where you just suck gasps of air into your lungs like you’re drowning. I could hardly speak.
“Are you a virgin?” he said. What an idiot.
I didn’t answer him. I just cried. It was all I could do.
I was a virgin, I thought to myself. I’m pretty sure I’m not now.
“Please … just … take … me … me … me … home,” I quietly murmured, snot pouring down my face.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to … I didn’t mean to.” He kept repeating that as we drove the agonizing remaining miles to my house.
“Are you going to tell your parents?” he said to me.
“No, I’m not,” was all I managed to say. And I never did.
Conrad pulled into the dark driveway and I nearly leapt out onto the ground before he’d come to a full stop. I didn’t even close the door behind me, I just ran for the back door and never looked back. I watched his headlights go around the bend and then I stood by the washer and dryer and bawled. My overalls were destroyed. I had blood down the legs and my clasps were torn off. One of them was still in his car, I assumed, because I didn’t have it. I was in so much pain it was hard to walk. The force of his fingers inside of me had ripped something, because I was still bleeding. I got a wad of toilet paper from the bathroom and placed it carefully between my legs. I was going to have to throw the overalls away. They were ruined, and I definitely didn’t want my mom to see the blood or the torn fabric. I took them off and wrapped them into a ball and put them in a plastic bag. After I’d put my pyjamas on and got cleaned up, I went outside and put the whole works into the burning barrel, where we burned all our garbage. I picked up the shovel and covered the bag with ashes so no one would see it. The next day, it would just burn with everything else, and no one would ever know a thing about it.
I lay in bed that night, shaking and upset, and more or less whimpered until I finally fell asleep. I felt tears roll down the side of my face, most of them winding up in my eardrums. I went over the whole thing in my brain. Not one thing about it made any sense to me. He seemed like such a decent person. I knew him. What did he think he was doing? Why did he do it? What did I do to make him behave like that? I was so ashamed and so depressed. I was worried about my mom and dad finding out. I needed to take the whole night and put it away somewhere that nobody would be able to find it. Not even me.
chapter twelve
THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE
I was glad to finally be starting at Mount Royal College in the drama program. I had to do something with my life. My mom told me that if I didn’t like it I could just switch and take something else. She always put my mind at ease, even if she didn’t mean to.
The first few days were a bit daunting. I had never seen so many crazy hairdos and strange outfits in my life. Everyone looked like they were going out of their way to be different from everyone else, which kind of made everyone look the same. It wasn’t anything remotely like little old Springbank High School. The place was huge, and everybody rushed about with purpose and determination. I wondered where they were all going and why they were running to get there.
My classmates ranged from seventeen to forty-five years old. Clarice, who had two grown kids and a failed marriage, had decided to go back to school to become an actress. She spent all her time memorizing monologues and auditioning for plays. I was arriving mid-year and she had attended for a whole semester already, so she knew many important things, such as who I should and should not hang out with and where to eat lunch. We became friends right away, and I was grateful to have her showing me the ropes.
I hadn’t ever thought about being an actress, but that’s why Clarice and most of these people were taking drama. They wanted to act. I wanted to be a teacher. Oh well, I thought. I have to make the best of it because my dad paid for six months’ tuition and I can’t quit and take anything else until then or he’ll see it as one more of my flighty attempts to waste time.
I spent most of my days doing really bizarre things. Movement class basically entailed my donning tights and leg warmers and leaping around a large, mirrored room pretending to be a butterfly. The class was all about being in touch with your body and, therefore, the entire universe, or so said our instructor, Mrs. Grey. Part of me wanted to light myself on fire. Another of my classes had me learning how to speak properly for the theatre. I likened it to controlled, articulate yelling. Always concentrating on projection, diction and enunciation, we basically made a lot of motorboat sounds and those raspberries you blow on a baby’s bare stomach. I was really glad my dad wasn’t sitting in the back of any of my classes. He would have had me committed.
I don’t know if I was learning anything but I was certainly meeting some incredibly nutty people, many of whom I came to adore. One girl named Dallas came to school every day in dresses from the fifties. She had cat’s-eye glasses and a wonderfully flu
ffy hairdo. She must have gotten up at 5 a.m. to start combing it all into place. Sheri D. was an incredible poet and writer. Everyone listened when she spoke and heeded her every whim. She had a deep voice that made me think of John Wayne if he had had a sex change and was a lot prettier. Sheri showed me what confidence looked like.
I hadn’t really met any gay people before, and there seemed to be a heck of a lot of them in my college theatre course. The gay fellows were so flamboyant and vocal and bold. They let you know exactly who they were and what they were all about. They dressed in scarves and hats and tight jeans and leg warmers and headbands. A few of them wore mascara and lip gloss. I thought they were marvellous. I am sure we had a few gay kids at Springbank, but they were in the closet so deep no one knew who they were. I’d see the lads holding hands in the hallways at Mount Royal. They taunted the straight boys by blowing kisses and patting bums. Nobody seemed to mind, not even the straight boys whose bums they were swatting.
I loved being exposed to so much diversity, but drama wasn’t for me. I bought a guitar and brought it to school, playing it in the changing room whenever I could. I wrote a new song every day and made the best of my weird situation. At least I was learning about myself and how much was out there in the world. Springbank was looking smaller and smaller to me with every breath I took.
I was learning that college students drank a lot. On many occasions, seven or eight of us would stay after school to have a few drinks in one of the many lounges on campus. You could make an entire night out of drinking beer, chain-smoking and talking about nothing. Yes, I too was smoking now. It was hard at first but eventually you catch on and you’re buying your own cigarettes in no time. It was beyond stupid.