Agassiz Stories

by Sandra Birdsell

  Those men coming around to drink at all times of the day were a kind of fraternity forming around your Dad once the word got out that I was leaving him. They were consoling him. Even the fat dog drank. Where was my support? You’d fled. The counsellor down at the Women’s Bureau said in essence, kick him in the balls, he’ll respect you more for it. I went to see a minister. He said he felt God was in the business of saving people, not marriages. I think he meant that I had better get out for my own good. I didn’t expose my kernel of fear, that it could prove to be your Dad’s salvation. I went home and added more things to your Dad’s boxes, dishes, towels, sheets, things which he now says just clutter up his life.

  Now that all the pressure is off I don’t seem to be as strong as I was. I’m fading, breaking out in disgusting pimples on my chin and forehead. I have a constant dull ache in the breastbone. I have begun to smoke a cigarette now and then. I wake up in the middle of the night and think about where I’ll be at age sixty-five. And so when your Dad began coming around in the night, knocking on windows, I let him in, not because he was cold and drunk and tired. I let him crawl into bed with me and I warmed him and held him because it made me feel like a saint. I was flipping through the Book of Proverbs today and came across this nugget: “Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.”

  I’m afraid Dee has had a bad start at school, many absences because of illness. I have trouble getting her up in the morning. Stomach aches and not much energy. She plays her guitar every day and rushes home with words to new songs which she writes down and puts to music and plays over and over until (thank God) the lady upstairs bangs on the ceiling. Which offends Dee mightily but spares me her wrath. We aren’t used to this. I may have to move the piano to the basement as well so that when you come home at Christmas, you can sing Kate Bush and Ricki Lee Jones songs to your heart’s content and no one will bang unless it’s me, of course. That’s why I gave Dee my workroom downstairs. I don’t like her being so far away from me, but at least she can play the guitar and listen to her records without offending anyone. But in the meantime, I can only bring myself to use the skill saw while the lady upstairs is out. If I’m desperate, I use the hand saw, but it’s so time-consuming.

  How are your courses going? I hope you’re settling in well and that you and Bev are hitting it off as you’d hoped. I plan to bundle up some blankets and the things you asked for and put them on the train. No word from Student Aid yet? Here’s hoping.

  Cheers,

  Love you, Mom.

  ATTENTION!!

  Dear Mom,

  Before you go to sleep please read this with an open mind. If there is anything you want to say after you read this, please write it down. It will keep us from yelling at each other.

  Love, Dee xxxxoooo

  Dear Mom,

  It is so utterly ridiculous.

  The demands that were put upon me in the past year were so intense that I had to grow up fast. I had no one to lean on because Andy was in Quebec, Jamie, where is Jamie may I ask? And you: sure as___!! not you! I was busy watching you. You were always depressed, irritable and feeling sorry for yourself. I had no one to lean on. All my friends did not want to be dragged into anything that had to do with someone else’s personal life. I am stuck in a school that I hate. The expectations, that I had no choice in responding to, would have been impossible for any other thirteen-year-old. Any other person my age would have complained and done just what Dad, Larry does, drink. You think it’s impossible for a teenager to drown their problems in drinking, but it’s not. I kept the secure mind that I was blessed with instead and I grew up. Sorry if it’s inconvenient for you. But I had no choice.

  Now I’m expected to be 13 again. Sorry, but it’s impossible. The mental level I am set on is solid, here to stay, never to be 13 again. It has to be that way. There are still tons of obstacles to come. I must be, and am, ready for them with no interference whatsoever from anyone. Because the Lord in heaven knows that you aren’t mentally stable for anything else that anyone throws at you. I am what you could call an angel sent from heaven to be your protector.

  Mom, you say that I have to spend time with him (ugh, Dad) because you can’t bring me up on your own. I think it is about time you realized why you can’t. It’s because I’m too advanced for you and if you are (which you most definitely are) fifty times more advanced than that devil of a “father,” just think how cramped I am with him. I, Mother dear, have been bringing myself along, quite efficiently I might add, for one to two years. I don’t need any help now. Okay, I do admit I need some help in a few departments, but not as many as you submit yourself to. I do realize that growing up is caring for others and I promise I will absolutely start treating you more like a human being (which you are). But stop seeing Dad!! You don’t know him like I do. Devil is mild. He is using you!! You can’t make me spend time with him. Start yelling now.

  Love, Dee xxxxoooo

  ps/this is not a joke.

  Hi Momsie!

  Curses! I come home with a whole afternoon stretched ahead to study and what happens? I get two really good letters. So of course I have to take time out to write. I can never wait. I always have to pick up a pen right away.

  What is this? Not rushing into anything with Dad? What is there to rush into? I thought you were getting yourself together at last. You were sounding better and better. I think you’ve always had lower expectations for yourself than I could see for you. I still see for you. Once you get yourself out of that mindset, I think it should be clear sailing. Well, on the track anyway. I do think you should have some regular counselling. You do have a lot of reinforcement of traditional ideas to overcome, twice as much as me, ideas/ideals that were drilled in from day one. Even I (having been born 20 years later than you) find myself slipping occasionally into the “once I have a nice man to take care of me … everything will be just perfect. …” Keep busy. Glad to hear that you will be having a booth at the craft show. How’s the work going? You must send me a photograph of your craft display. It sounds to me that despite everything, you’re beginning to enjoy your new place.

  Tonight Bev and I are off to our first symphony. She has discovered several other Anglophones living in this block and we’re going to take them along. Lately, I have been listening to classical music as I can study to it. Saturday night, I went to a fabulous “spectiacle,” a new Quebecois singer named Claude Dubois. There were over 16,000 people in a huge arena. He put on a great show, but he is the “Americanité” of the Quebecois, a lot of love songs and totally non-political. A big difference from Gilles Vigneault, patron of separatism, who is also loved here. I have to do a 15-minute oral presentation and I’m going to do it on the difference between the two artists and the attitudes they represent as reflected in their audience. I sure do miss singing, gulp. It hurts when I think about it. This is the first time in years that I haven’t been in a choir.

  I’m comfortable here at Laval. I can walk into the cafeteria and have a choice of people to sit with. It’s very relaxed. I’m doing a lot of reading, all in French, of course, and am literally amazed at the fact that I can sit and read French fluently without picking up the dictionary every two minutes. Now it’s every 15 minutes, which isn’t bad. En tous cas (entica) (anyways) I think I have got the idea across to you that everything is all right here.

  I have heard from Student Aid and I will have enough money for the year. So don’t worry. I’m going to look into the possibility of a job with Parks Canada at Ft. Louisbourg this summer in Cape Breton. It’s the oldest fort in Canada. I’d have to speak fluent French, dress in period costume and live the same lifestyle as the first settlers did. What an experience when you think of it. You’ll be relieved, I’m sure. It’ll be much tamer than the year I spent up north and feathers in my hair and all that. I feel so at home here that maybe I have discovered my true ancestors at last.

  Had a great letter from Dee. Tell her thanks. She’s such a sweeti
e. I miss her. Tell her I’ll write soon and send photographs of my apartment. Hope you keep well, Mom. By the way, have you heard anything from that brother of mine?

  Love, Andrea.

  Hi!

  C’est Moi. Your talented, highly intelligent, one of a kind sister (not kidding). What does a Rubik’s cube and a guy have in common?? Answer:

  THE MORE YOU PLAY WITH IT THE HARDER IT GETS! (TEE HEE).

  Guess what? I was in Mary Scorer Books yesterday and found some poetry by Jim Morrison. I couldn’t help it, I screamed and everyone thought I was crazy. Jim Morrison, Andy, he’s so intelligent. Did you know that he isn’t really dead? Everyone thinks so. But he isn’t. He escaped from a life he didn’t like. I just love his poem about we all live in the city. It makes me think of the zoo and the animals in cages. I think the city molds us. It binds us as one but there is no individuality. I can understand why Dad wants to build a house in the country. Andy, I think part of his problem is that he hates the city and likes to be able to have his freedom without people telling him what to do all the time. I told Mom this. She said I was right. That when she and Dad first moved into the city, he drove the truck up onto the boulevard and the police came by and gave him hell. That night, he lit a fire in the back lane to burn the packing boxes and someone called the fire department. Mom said he never forgot that. Maybe if he gets his place in the country he’ll be my Dad again. But I don’t know.

  Andy, I love Dad. I remember when I was little and he put Jamie on his shoulders and then lifted me up onto Jamie’s shoulders and we played basketball like that and I got to put the ball into the basket. Mom said we only did that once, so she could take a picture of the three of us pretending to be happy. I know she is wrong. She thinks she knows everything. Perfect memory. Jamie, Dad and I always played like that.

  Guess what? Jamie phoned from Calgary. I was home alone and when the operator said it was him calling, I almost fainted. He’s quit the rigs. He said he almost lost an arm. He sounded lonely and I felt like crying but I didn’t want to make him feel worse. He thinks he might come home for Christmas. He said it would be nice for the whole family to be together again. And I know how he feels. I’m glad Dad is back.

  But that is why I’m writing. I’m worried. I’m glad Mom and Dad are back together again but I’m not sure. When Mom’s away at a show, Dad goes out. He says he’s going out just for a few minutes and then he’s gone for five or six hours. Sometimes when he comes home I think I can smell you-know-what on his breath. Also. Here goes. I think Dad is going out with other women!! I saw him. He was coming out of the Plaza with a bottle and when he saw me, he looked guilty. He said he was picking it up for a friend who was sitting in the car waiting for him. A woman. When I asked who she was, he introduced her as “this is Debbie who is just a friend.” But the woman looked surprised when he said I was his daughter and guilty, too. I said, “Does Mom know?” and he said, “There’s no point in causing trouble. You know your mother.”

  I think I know what’s going to happen. Mom and Dad are going to split again, very soon. Even if Dad is going out with other women, I love him. And I forgive him. But, what about Mom? She’ll never be able to get a boyfriend. But why should I worry? As far as she’s concerned, I might as well not be here. She doesn’t pay attention to me anymore. It’s just, Dee go to bed, Dee turn down the stereo, do your homework. She only wants to talk to him. She doesn’t trust me. Everytime I go out I have to fill in a questionnaire. I think she’s afraid I might get into drugs or lose my big “V.”

  School is the same. Terrible. The Home Ec. teacher hates me. I broke a needle on the sewing machine and she got mad. I don’t know how to thread it and I’m afraid to ask and then I do it wrong and it sews fanny and she gets mad again. She thinks I’m making a mess of sewing to get on her nerves but I just can’t do it. I hate sewing. I want to take electronics but they won’t let me. I would rather take cooking. At least you get to eat your abortions.

  The only thing I’ve got these days is Rick Savage. He says he can hardly wait until I’m finished school, although he doesn’t like me going because when I’m at school, I’m thinking about the kids I’m with, the dances coming up, my work and I’m not thinking about him. I have promised him I definitely will not find a boyfriend. But he says that it’s okay because he’s dating girls in the meantime until I can get to England. I have just got to find a way to get there!! Mom says I should do some babysitting. But I hate kids! I will never in this life have kids. As soon as I can, I’m going to have a hysterectomy. Or stand in front of a microwave oven. I don’t know what I’ll do with Mom when I go to England. I’ll have to take her with me.

  I hope you’re having a good time in Quebec. At least somebody is having a good time!

  Please check one: Yes No

  1. I think you should quit school and go to England now. ___ ___

  2. I think you should tell Mom about the Woman. ___ ___

  3. I think you should get someone to beat up the Home Ec. teacher. ___ ___

  4. I think if you ran away for two years it would really smarten Dad up. ___ ___

  ps/If you don’t have Def Leppard on your Xmas list don’t come home.

  My Dear Daughter of the Light-Brown Hair,

  Can you imagine, I awoke in the night to the sound of hundreds of low-flying geese migrating south. Hours and hours of geese passing overhead and I can still hear them. It gives me such a strange feeling, like the feeling I got when I stepped out of the car and walked across the piece of property that I think Dad and I will buy. It was a feeling of recognition, perhaps déja vu, of the sound meaning more than just a sign of winter. When I stood on that land it was like that, a spirit of recognition rolling across the fields and I had at the same time the impression of air swirling about the sun as in a Van Gogh painting. I’m not flipping out. I’m telling you that I met something, made a contact out there on the land. When you face west, there are miles and miles of fields and trees that are now just like an artist’s brush strokes against a watery looking sky. East is the river hidden behind bushes and trees, which Dad says we will clear away so I will have my view of the river, that I may look upon it and listen to its silent flowing, and he will have a place to dock his boat. I know, I know. I’m letting myself get carried away by this whole business. I can’t help it. I’m beginning to hope. We’ve even investigated various house plans. I prefer one that offers a solarium in the front hallway but I’m treading softly, holding my breath, not wanting to disturb or place even a flicker of dust before impetus. He wants to leave his job and build the house himself but I believe I have him convinced that it would be better in terms of security if he stayed at work and we subcontracted. Besides, I don’t want to wait ten years for a house!

  About the Christmas craft show. There have been a few problems, namely I haven’t been getting at the work. I don’t know. The few pieces I sold at the Folk Festival are one thing, but a whole booth! I think I’m getting cold feet. Since your Dad moved back in, the old budget has been strained and I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford all the materials.

  I did something impulsive today. I went to Carol Grass’s art exhibit and I bought two of her paintings. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to cry when I saw the show, it was such an emotional experience for me, the trapped wingless birds becoming women locked, caught inside tubes and uterus-shaped forms beneath the ground, but still dancing and balancing the moon in the palms of their hands. The colours are vivid, really don’t go well with the rest of the room and I’m gradually whittling down my savings. But. I’m not going to worry. I think your Dad needs this chance to get himself straightened around financially and I guess I feel guilty about having had the past five years to work on my heritage boxes. I only hope he’ll stay at his job and forget about starting up the garage again.

  In your last letter I got the impression that you’re having doubts about whether you should be studying languages or not. I thought you loved your courses. I thought you were excit
ed about discovering and linking up with your ancestry and all that. And now you’re contemplating music? Good grief. There’s no money in music. And you say you aren’t interested in teaching it, either. There will be so many opportunities for you if you stay with French. You could always do music on the side. Think about it. You shouldn’t be discouraged about your “B’s” and “C’s.” It’s still early in the year.

  One last word. Dee is a handful. Can you write to her? She can be such a shit and such a sweetheart. I feel sorry for your Dad right now as she treats him as though he were stupid, a necessary evil to be endured for my sake. We, poor aging parents, limp about like wounded birds supporting one another after one of her swooping attacks. Makes life interesting. As Maggie Muggins used to say (remember her?) I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

  Cheers, Mom.

  Dear Mom,

  Where were you? You forgot to phone me yesterday. Is everything okay? I waited all day. I guess/hope that you were just preoccupied with the way things are going. I’m glad to hear that Dad has quit drinking and that the two of you are finally going for counselling but I still worry when I don’t hear from you. How does Dee feel about everything? Knowing her, she’s probably telling you all the time.

  Thanks for your vote of confidence regarding the music. I can’t believe it. You’ve been an example to me of someone who has made sacrifices in order to do what you really want to do. If parents only knew the kinds of influence they have, how it makes us feel when they say those things, they might think twice. How much money do you make on your heritage boxes?