Son of a Critch

by Mark Critch

  Eli: Look at the eagle, Father!

  I was off and running. Every word, every movement came from deep inside of me; the world onstage felt far more real than the one occupied by the people in the seats. I admired Christopher. I fell in love with Virginia. I came to despise Brother John.

  I exited stage left and made my way down the steps to the orchestra pit, shedding my clothes as I ran to make my entrance on stage right. Brian Downey, the respected veteran actor playing Christopher, was in place waiting for me. He was totally naked. I stopped in my tracks. I was no longer in an outport community in 1940s Newfoundland. I was in the wings of the Arts and Culture Centre in my underwear, about to walk out, stark naked, in front of a twelve hundred people.

  The scene was to start with us dashing onstage together from the wings as if we’d just been skinny dipping and were running back to shore. Then we’d slowly dry ourselves off and dress as we chatted.

  Christopher and Eli are seen coming out of the water after a swim. They dry themselves with towels. Christopher stretches his arms to the sky and howls.

  Christopher: Yaaooo! Here we are, Lord…the flesh heathens. Strike us down in all our naked beauty!

  Brian bounded onto the stage, his private parts flapping around like a rubber glove filled with water and tossed down a flight of stairs. From the wings, I could hear a gasp. Brian stopped and turned back toward me, wondering why I was late. The stage manager waved me on. But movement was impossible. I wanted to pull the red curtain down from the rafters and wear it around me like a cape. The room was alive with sounds of hissed conversation, old ladies tut, tut, tutting, and giggles that slowly grew into guffaws.

  I felt my bare left foot make contact with the painted stage. I shuffled slowly out into the spotlight, my hands shielding my Stephen Harper from the room. Once again, a sharp intake of breath came from the audience. I could swear that for a split second I could feel my body tugged in their direction, filling the vacuum. I faced upstage and did my best to walk sideways so that I’d be facing away from the seats no matter where Brian happened to be standing. I could see my little pile of clothing on the floor and longed to crawl under it.

  Eli doesn’t share in the revelry.

  Eli: Stop it…someone will hear us. I think we should get dressed.

  Christopher playfully whips Eli with his towel.

  There was a loud disruption in the audience. I strained my neck to look over my shoulder and see what was going on as I reached blindly for my boxer shorts. A small group of people in the back of the theatre was arguing with the row behind them, and the ushers had descended upon them with flashlights to remove both sides. We had started a small riot. People were passionately reacting to the play. This was no boring remount of The Odd Couple. This was living and breathing art. It made people feel something. It was visceral. Life is a series of experiences, good and bad, and the few moments in life that truly make us feel something are the ones that stay with us. People would remember this play.

  I put my shoulders back. I turned to face the crowd. I delivered my line. The people in the back of the theatre started yelling. I had become an artist.

  The rest of the show went well, and I prepared myself for the final scene. At the end of it I stood naked, arms outstretched, daring God to strike me down and vowing to walk to the end of the earth alone. The audience erupted yet again, but this time with applause. I got dressed and went backstage, where there was much celebrating. The director took me aside and asked whether I’d considered the National Theatre School. He knew people there and felt it was the next natural step. “Why would I go there to learn when I could stay here and learn by doing?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to sound cocky. It’s just that I already knew my passion was telling stories about Newfoundland and Labrador and our people. I wanted to write and perform my own work as well. I was ready to take that chance, and God could strike me down too if he wanted.

  I made my way to the lobby and found my brother standing there alone. Where had Mom and Dad gone?

  “How the hell did you miss that?” he asked.

  “Miss what?”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t see them flipping out?”

  Mike proceeded to tell me that my parents had been sitting there, happily watching the show, when much to their surprise their son walked out stark naked. Mom, never one to see something happening and not comment, started shouting as if she’d been stationed in the crow’s nest of the Titanic. My father, never one to make a scene, started shouting at her to be quiet. At that moment someone sitting behind them said, “Look at buddy. Every fella downtown is gonna want to have a squeeze of his arse tonight.” My mother stood and turned to face him. “And​That​They’re​Not! And​That​They’re​Not! Nobody​Is​Going​To​Go​Anywhere​Near​His​Arse! Now​You​Take​That​Back!” And on it went until all hands were removed by the ushers.

  I thought I’d broken new theatrical ground in my hometown, but all I’d done was upset my parents. I felt terrible about it. I could have just told them beforehand what to expect, but I’d had no idea how to bring it up. I can’t imagine the shock they must have felt. But in all the time after, they never said a cross word about it. They were willing to accept me as I was and to support me in my chosen profession no matter what happened. I was very lucky to have them.

  * * *

  —

  While I struggled to become a struggling artist, I continued with my sketch troupe as well. One day we got a call asking if we’d do a show at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary for the prisoners there. We would perform alongside a new folk-rock group by the name of Great Big Sea. Of course, they would go on to become platinum-selling, award-winning artists, but at this point they were just like me, young Newfoundlanders with stars in their eyes.

  We were taken through security, guitar cases were checked, and then we were brought up to an observation room overlooking the gym. Arranged in tidy rows before us was the province’s prison population.

  A small group of them sat off to themselves, separate from the rest. “Who’s in the VIP section?” I asked one of the guards.

  “Those are the sex offenders,” he told me nonchalantly. “We can’t keep them with the rest of the prisoners or else fights break out.” Sometimes, in some venues, people would say, “It’s a small house. Sorry.” Or, “Quiet room tonight. Lots of blue hairs.” This was the first time anyone had ever pointed out where the sex offenders sat in the room. At least we had a captive audience.

  Great Big Sea were used to audiences going mad for them in the pubs of St. John’s. As a young man, I spent many an hour jumping up and down in one spot as pints of cheap beer were spilled down my back by the fans behind me as we all sang along to “Paddy Murphy.” The boys were a high-energy act, known for their party-kindling ability almost as much as for their music.

  They took the prison stage with gusto. Alan Doyle whipped his trademark mane into a frenzy. He looked like a Pantene commercial in fast-forward. Séan McCann beat his bodhrán as if it had tried to shank him in a prison brawl. Darell Power hopped from foot to foot as he made the best of every note available to an Irish-trad bass player. Bob Hallett played fiddle, accordion, and whistle, too damn busy to care where he was.

  The audience just sat there, arms folded, staring ahead. I don’t know what we’d expected, but this wasn’t it. I’d never seen a group fold their arms and stare at Great Big Sea. The boys started feeling it, too, and where once there’d been four lads hopping about like popcorn in a microwave, there now stood four sombre men doing their best to get through a ballad about sealers dying on the ice.

  The boys rushed off the stage to polite applause and a standing O from the sex offender section. “Tough room,” Alan warned me with a wink and a nod as he exited the stage and the building in one swift movement.

  I peeked out at the crowd as the prison guard introduced us. They looked as if they’d been told they were being released, but first had to sit through the show. I started to wond
er how I’d gotten myself into this. It would be impossible to make these people laugh. Johnny Cash could entertain prisoners. He was The Man in Black. Many of his songs were about prison. He’d shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

  Not me. I was going to perform some sketches and musical parody songs. I had a bag of costumes. I briefly considered flirting with the sex offenders from the stage, as if I were Raquel Welch in Vietnam with Bob Hope and they were our fightin’ boys.

  “All right, now, remember,” our emcee began. “I don’t want any trouble here today. If you make any noise or shout anything, or if you move from your seats, then that’s it! You’ll all be removed. I’m not kidding. Now here with some comedy to try to make you laugh is Cat Fud!”

  My troupe and I walked onstage to absolute silence—little wonder after that crowd-warming introduction. I stepped up to the mic to begin a sketch parodying hockey play-by-play announcers. Real edgy stuff that hardened criminals could relate to. I could not have been more nervous. That’s when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Critch,” it half-whispered. “Mark, b’y. It’s me! Fox!”

  I looked down into the audience and saw my old friend right in the third row. I waved at him and all fear left my body. He turned behind him and said to another prisoner, “See? I told ya!” Then I heard two more familiar voices.

  “Hey, it is, too,” said one.

  “I knows him,” said another. It was the Fitz twins, two guys I knew from school and hadn’t seen in ages. Apparently there were a number of guys from school who’d ended up in jail. One had accidentally killed a guy in a bar fight. Another was wrongfully convicted of killing his mother and later released. A few more were in for petty crimes. None were in the VIP (Very Identifiable Perverts) section.

  Fox nudged the people around him and they nudged the people around them as word that I was a “decent fella” spread throughout the incarcerated. Fox began to applaud, then the twins, then the other alumni scattered among the prison population until we had a big, warm welcome. We were off to the races. Every time I looked down at Fox he gave me a big thumbs up. He had a huge smile on his face, and I felt like I was back at school playing the colour yellow again. It felt like home.

  EPILOGUE

  THE OLD MAN DIED on January 25, 2015, at the age of ninety-three, surrounded by his family. The Globe and Mail, the CBC, and all the media in the province reported the passing of “Mr. Crime” with love and admiration. Several colleagues described him as a “friend to all,” and I thought that was as nice a thing as you could say about anyone.

  After the service we all went back to my brother’s house: Mom, my two sons, Jacob and Will, Mike’s wonderful wife, Kathy, and their daughter, Lucy. For the first time in days there was just family, and for the first time Dad’s absence seemed real.

  My brother broke the silence. “Want to play a record, brudder?”

  “We should play one for the old man,” I said as we started to shuffle through a box of his records.

  “It has to be a 78 then,” Mike suggested, rightfully. “Jolson or John McCormack.” We carefully flipped through stacks of the brittle discs to find something appropriate. My eyes spied the familiar black and gold label of a Jolson disc and I pulled it from the box, dusting it off.

  “I win,” I said, passing the record to my brother to play.

  Mike paused for a moment, studying it. “I don’t know about this one,” he said, reading the label. “When I Leave The World Behind.” Neither of us had ever heard of it. That was rare for us. The chances of pulling that song out of the stack were a million to one.

  “We picked it,” I said, curious to hear it and knowing what I might be unleashing. “Them’s the rules.”

  My brother placed the disc on the player and it started to revolve. I heard the familiar scratching sound of a needle on vinyl and the distant whirr of an orchestra recorded long ago coming through the speaker. Then I heard a voice singing that was as familiar to me as my father’s…

  I know a millionaire who’s burdened down with care

  A load is on his mind

  He’s thinking of the day

  When he must pass away

  And leave his wealth behind

  I haven’t any gold to leave when I grow old

  Somehow it passed me by

  I’m very poor but still

  I leave a precious will

  When I must say goodbye

  I leave the sunshine to the flowers

  I leave the springtime to the trees

  And to the old folks I leave the memories

  Of a baby on their knees

  I leave the nighttime to the dreamers

  I leave the songbirds to the blind

  I leave the moon above to those in love

  When I leave the world behind

  When I leave the world behind

  I looked at Mike. Mike looked at me. We both looked at Mom. And then we all cried. We cried together for the first time ever. We didn’t just cry. We bawled. Things we didn’t even know were inside of us came out, along with tears and mucus and God knows what else. We held each other and cried and I knew we were going to be okay. Families change and grow and shrink and evolve, but they remain families. The little house on Kenmount Road was long gone, but we were still together.

  * * *

  —

  Mom lived on her own for a few years after Dad died. She was always on the go, and she moved like a bolt of lightning. For a decade or more she’d been slowed down by my father as the pace of his walk slid from a slow stroll to an eternal shuffle. She was a good bit younger than he was, and now the energy that had been pent up exploded like a sprinter at the bang of a starter’s pistol.

  But as the years passed, and more and more days lived alone were crossed off on the calendar, she began to slow down, too. Suddenly I’d find her feeling anxious and confused, two sides to her that I hadn’t witnessed before. I’d never met anyone as full of life as my mother, but now it seemed as if she was ready to let that life slip away.

  Things progressed to a point where she couldn’t live on her own anymore. She came to stay with me for a short spell, then stayed with my brother as I left town to shoot 22 Minutes. Mom spent some time in hospital, and when she was released she moved into an assisted living facility. By the time Christmas 2017 came, my mother, a force as bright as the sun and as explosive as the big bang, began to fade into night.

  In the space of time it took me to write this book, she grew too sick to carry on. It felt as though she was slipping away a little more with each chapter I wrote. I’d hoped that my mother would be the first person to read this book, but I didn’t write fast enough.

  On the day before she died, I took my mother to get her hair done. There was a Christmas party at the seniors’ complex she’d recently moved into, and she had to look her best. I sat next to her that night and held her hand as the residents sang “Silent Night.”

  When I came back to her building to see her the next day, I found two police officers waiting for me. The last thing Mom had done was tell the lady at the desk that she was going to meet me for breakfast. Then she left the building, walked along the freshly fallen snow of the trail, and died. The medical examiner told me he was stumped. “It wasn’t any one thing,” he said. “Her clock just stopped ticking.” My mother had a laugh that you could wrap around yourself like a blanket, and I would never hear that beautiful sound or feel the comforting warmth of its embrace again.

  I asked them if they would walk with me and show me the spot where she fell. The cop advised against it but said that, if it was her, she’d want to do the same. I walked the path on which she died, following my mother’s tiny footprints in the freshly fallen snow. I realized that this was the last time I would ever follow my mother anywhere. The most natural thing in the world for any animal is to follow its mother. Ducks, bears, wobbly footed baby deer—they all follow along behind their mothers. It’s our earliest survival instinct. Mothers lead the way to saf
ety. I walked slower with each impression, knowing that soon those tiny steps would disappear and I’d have to find my own way. I got to the edge of a frozen pond and then they were gone, like the tracks of a bird that had suddenly taken flight. I was alone.

  My father had been worried that there wouldn’t be room for his mother in the family plot. Years later, my brother and I had been worried that there wouldn’t be room for my father. Now, at her burial, I found myself wondering if there would be room for my mother. Of course, I needn’t have worried. There was just enough room for her next to my father in the top right corner. She slid in like the missing piece of a puzzle. And as she did, I looked at my brother and realized that we were orphans. I was forty-three and he was fifty. But at that moment I felt as orphaned as if our parents had died when I was five years old, still up in that little house next to the radio station on Kenmount Road.

  This was the first bad thing to happen to me when one of them wasn’t there to help me through. We didn’t have our parents, but we did have our children. I had my sons, Jacob and Will, and Mike had his daughter, Lucy. And we had each other. Our parents weren’t there to help us through this, but we were there to help our children. I looked at Mike. For the first time, I could really see my father in his face. I looked at Lucy as she happily twirled around in my brother’s kitchen. I could hear the slight lilt of my mother’s laugh in her voice. I looked at my two sons. I could see the promise in them of all the wonderful things yet to come.

  I was home.

  We managed to have fun. Here I am playing as the All-alone Ranger, trick or treating as C-3PO (everyone knew it was me as there were no other kids), and at the beach with mom right before I nearly drowned. Good memories.

  Mom was always full of spirit. She must have been a hilarious kid. Here she is modelling in the St. John’s Daily News, and I guess she never got sick of posing for the camera later in life, either.