by Darren Greer
“That’s a good question,” said my uncle. “I suppose it depends on your perspective.”
I didn’t understand this very well, mostly because I didn’t understand the concept of perspective. Very few eleven-year-olds do, because when it comes right down to it we don’t have any. At that age, everything is filtered through the self.
As usual when I didn’t understand something, I reverted to numbers. “Henry has memorized 482 facts about the world,” I said. “And if he memorized every leap year too, and you count that as a fact, then he’s memorized 602. That’s a lot of information.”
My uncle smiled. “You like numbers, don’t you,” he said.
“I guess,” I said. “The square root of pi is 1.77245385091 and so on.”
My uncle’s smile broadened. “You got me there. I can count to a hundred and that’s pretty much it.”
“Will you take me to meet Henry sometime?”
His smile disappeared. Not rapidly, but quizzically. “What for?” he said.
I shrugged. “I just want to.”
I couldn’t tell my uncle that I was interested in Henry because he was black, and because he seemed to me to be the most enigmatic, serene person I had ever seen. I couldn’t even explain these things to myself. I just wanted to meet him.
“I’ll ask him,” said my uncle. “And we’ll see what he says. How about that?”
“Okay.”
As soon as my uncle left my room, I convinced myself I didn’t like him again. But I was excited about possibly meeting Henry.
▪ ▪ ▪
my uncle’s full name was David Owen Angus William McNeil. It was a mouthful. He was the only member of our family besides my great grandfather to have more than one middle name. This is because, said my mother, he was the first born, and male, and my grandfather wanted to fulfill the Scottish custom of naming his son after every ancestor he could think of. The Owen in my uncle’s name was my great grandfather’s. The Angus was for a famous great uncle, and the William for William Wallace, the great Scotsman, from whom my grandfather claimed our family was directly descended. I didn’t know until later this is a common claim among the Scots, and we were most likely no more related to the great William Wallace than a flower is to a tree.
It was my uncle’s first name that was the most unusual choice. My grandmother, after having named half of Scotland in the middle, wanted it to be something from the Bible. John and Paul were “too Anglo” according to my grandfather, and Matthew and Mark “too soft.” No one wanted a baby named Ezekiel or Zebedee. So they settled on David.
David was then, and still is, a common name for boys. There is one in my office in Toronto, who is a decade younger than my uncle would have been today, had he lived.
The biblical David was a hero — a giant-killer, the King of Judea. But my grandmother would remind her oldest son, when she was angry with him, that David was also the murderer of Bathsheba, and a census taker. According to her, the name had its baggage.
My mother told me once that Uncle David hated his excess of names, and when he got older had them shortened on his birth certificate to David Owen McNeil. My grandmother was incensed. “You don’t go changing your name just because you feel like it,” she said to him. “It’s not yours to change. We put a lot of thought in that!”
My grandfather calmed her down. “That name is a handful,” he said. “The boy is only trying to make his life more manageable. Besides, he still has them. Just not officially.”
Where my uncle was concerned, said my mother, my grandfather was always permissive. Always understanding. And he kept my grandmother in line — until, of course, he died, and David was banished from the house.
Years later, when I asked my mother why Grandnan had let him come home in 1984 after all that time she had no answer. “Maybe he caught her in a weak moment. It had been years since they quarreled. Perhaps she figured it was time.”
Whatever the reason, my grandmother did not want to keep my uncle for long.
In the latter part of the first week, he came down with a cold. He slept a lot. He went to bed early, got up late, and looked sweaty and flushed when he came downstairs for breakfast. My mother was convinced he had a fever, and she insisted he go see Dr. Willis, our family doctor who we most often called Dr. Fred.
“It’s not serious,” my uncle said. “I’ll be fine.”
Everyone except my grandmother worried about him.
“I don’t see why the two of you are making such a fuss,” she said. “You don’t get half as concerned when I come down with a head cold.”
“Do you have a head cold?” asked Aunt Jeanette.
“Of course I don’t,” said my grandmother sharply. “You know as well as I do I’m as fit as a fiddle.”
“Well if you do,” said Jeanette, “we’ll take care to worry after you, too.”
My grandmother harrumphed.
I was in school most days. My uncle, because he was a teacher, was interested in my school work. He asked what I was learning and from whom, and I told him enough to get him off my back. He often asked me about math, and what I liked about it. To that I shrugged. I didn’t know. The neatness of it. The resolution of equation into answer. The fact it was impossible to equivocate with numbers. I couldn’t put any of this into words, nor did I want to. I just liked it.
He was making an attempt to get to know me. Twice he came into my room while I was reading and sat on the edge of my bed and talked to me. I was hostile to his advances. I answered him in monosyllables and wouldn’t look him in the eye.
This didn’t seem to bother him. He talked anyway, and told me stories about my mother and him when they were children.
One Saturday, after my mother and Jeanette had just gone to work, he caught me playing with my Easy-Bake Oven. I wasn’t baking any cakes — I had run out of mixes — but I was cleaning the burnt cake mix off a pan with a toothpick and running the oven to clean it. My bed was unmade, but my uncle — still wearing his housecoat — sat on it anyway and watched me on the floor. I was mildly embarrassed he caught me playing with girls’ toys, but he told me not to worry about it, that he himself had a few dolls when he was a kid. “They were paper and you put cut-out clothes on them. I used to play with them all the time.”
I knew, though didn’t say, this was likely the same doll set that sat in my closet. I said, derisively, “I thought those belonged to my mother.”
My uncle looked thoughtful. “They probably did. But I think I played with them when I was around your age.”
“Grandnan says that I shouldn’t play with girls’ toys or I’ll turn out like you.”
It was bold, but I didn’t like my uncle, and I wanted him to know it. I watched him carefully for reaction to my pronouncement.
He only smiled, slightly, and said, “Turn out like me how?”
“Like a girl or something,” I said. “A homosexual.”
My uncle looked surprised. “You know that word?” he said.
I shrugged. “Mom told me before you came. She never said what it meant though. But Grandnan says if I play with girls’ toys I’ll turn out like you. And now you’re here and Mom and Jeanette hardly talk to me anymore and Grandnan is in a bad mood. We’re all wondering when you’re going to leave.” This was the most I’d said to my uncle since he’d arrived.
I had lied to him. Only my grandmother and I were wondering when he was going to leave. My mother and Aunt Jeanette were hoping he would stay forever. But I wanted to be mean to him. I wanted him to know there was substantial resistance to his presence, and it didn’t just come from my grandmother. I had never considered myself a mean boy. I didn’t pick fights. I never taunted or provoked. But I took a small pleasure in lashing out at my uncle.
He only smiled at me, and didn’t seem at all offended. His smile was vaguely sad.
Eventually I gave him my very limited definition of the word homosexual, culminating in my belief that he was so offensive to grandmother because he wouldn�
��t get married.
My uncle laughed, though I honestly did not see what was so funny. When he saw I was offended he stopped. But he couldn’t remove the smile from his face. “Me not getting married,” he said, “is the least of your grandmother’s worries.”
“Then what are her worries?”
“I’ll tell you,” my uncle said. “I know your mother wouldn’t mind, because we’ve already discussed it, but I wouldn’t mention this to your grandmother if I were you. Sparks might fly.”
Sparks always flew when it came to my grandmother, but I promised my uncle I wouldn’t.
He launched into an explanation. It wasn’t harsh, like my grandmother’s elucidation of things would often be, and it wasn’t vague, like my mother’s. My uncle had his own style. Measured, calm, and assured. He was revealing great secrets, but he did so with the confidence of a seasoned teacher. I listened to him in fascination as he spoke the truth.
▪ ▪ ▪
when my mother came home on a ten o’clock break to get her watch, she found my uncle and me in my bedroom talking.
“You two seem to be getting along,” she said from the doorway.
“Uncle David likes boys,” I pronounced. “Grandnan thinks it’s because he played with dolls when he was my age.”
My mother raised her eyebrows and looked at her brother. He nodded, and my mother looked back at me. I was sitting beside Uncle David on my bed by this time, the Easy-Bake Oven forgotten. “What do you think of that?” she said.
I shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I don’t see what the big secret was.” I knew what a fag was. I’d heard the word on school grounds frequently and had often been called one myself. I had no idea anyone could actually be one, however. I really believed it was a figure of speech. Just an insult.
“It’s a big deal to some people,” said my uncle. “To your grandmother it’s a big deal.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s contrary to what she believes is written in the Bible.”
“What’s written in the Bible?” I asked.
“A bunch of trash,” said my mother.
My grandmother would’ve been horrified. But I was feeling okay. My sexual education was becoming complete. I was being taught eternal truths, forbidden fruit of the grown-up world. I finally knew what was wrong with my Uncle David, and it wasn’t so bad. Other kids might have been turned off or been sickened by that truth, but I was not. I didn’t care who my uncle had sex with, and just knowing the truth about him made me warm up to him more.
It still did not entirely explain to my satisfaction why my grandmother had not wanted to see him for fifteen years. As abhorrent as his homosexuality must have been to her, it still seemed, somehow, out of proportion to her response. But I had a young and logical mind.
After my mother left, Uncle David asked if I wanted to join him for lunch and then a game of Snakes and Ladders. Snakes and Ladders, my mother must have told him, was my favourite game. I liked it for its unpredictability. You never knew who was going to win.
3
uncle david had been home over a week without making any noises about leaving. My grandmother said a day was an imposition, a week was taking advantage, and two weeks were a species of outrage. She suggested to my mother, twice, that she better ask my uncle what he was up to. Was he broke? Was he in some kind of trouble? Did he plan on staying forever? But my mother refused. So my grandmother did it herself. She asked him for a receipt from his bank account, to make sure he wasn’t “pounding on the poorhouse door.”
He showed it to her, over Jeanette’s and my mother’s protests. That settled her mind on that subject. “Money’s not the problem,” she confided in me, simply because there was no one other than me to talk to. “So it must be something else. But I’ll be darned if I can find out. It’s my house. You’d think the three of them were my mortal enemies, they’re so close-lipped around me.”
I ignored my grandmother, though I too was still unhappy my uncle was staying so long. But if there were alignments to be made, I chose with those against my grandmother, out of habit.
On Saturday, July 7, my uncle told us he was staying in Advocate “for good.” I remember the day specifically because my grandmother had allowed us to eat brunch in the sunroom overlooking the backyard. She didn’t do this often. It was carpeted in white, and if we spilled something she would have “the devil and witch of a time getting it up.” But that morning she relented. We set ourselves up at the white wicker table, overlooking the beds of peonies and petunias in the backyard.
For days, because of his cold, my uncle had worn nothing but pyjamas and a robe. This morning, however, he had dressed. Though he still looked pale, he was smiling. He had filled his plate up to heaping with eggs, bacon, bread, and a healthy dollop of my grandmother’s crabapple jelly. He made sure everyone had begun eating when, with a clearing of his throat, he announced he had something to say.
Everyone looked at him. You could tell, whatever it was, it was important. At that moment my uncle reminded me of my grand-father, even though I had never met him. Perhaps it was because he was now the only male member of the family. Perhaps it was because, despite appearing weak and tired, he sat there holding the attention of everyone at the table. Whatever the reason, I saw my uncle differently for the first time that day — as he might have been, perhaps, in front of a classroom.
He said, “I have decided I’d like to move from Toronto and live here in Advocate. If it’s okay with you.”
In all the arguments, discussions, cajoling, tantrums, and speeches that followed, my uncle did not repeat his request. I suppose, in my business, we would call it a very healthy approach to the situation. Perhaps it was because he knew it wasn’t necessary. For the next while, his request would be stated and restated over and over for him.
Like with most major announcements, and one so unexpected, the initial reaction seemed mild. My mother and Aunt Jeanette professed to be delighted. My grandmother said she was surprised and wondered about his job.
“I’ve quit it,” said David.
“Quit!” parroted my grandmother.
“Retired, then,” he said. “Money is not a problem, as you know, and I just didn’t feel like working anymore.”
“No one feels like it,” said my grandmother. “It’s a duty, and a responsibility!”
“Mother,” said my mother, though I could see she was concerned too. “Are you sure this is what you want, David?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I want to start a new life. Here. With you.”
“But where will you stay?” asked my grandmother nervously.
“Why here of course!” said Jeannette. “In his old room.”
My grandmother opened her mouth to counter this, when my uncle said, “No. I’d like to get an apartment in town. Like I said, money is not an issue. And I might pick up some substitution work if I get bored.”
To this my grandmother could say nothing, though it was obvious she was disturbed. “But why?” she said. “After all this time? There’s nothing here in Advocate for you, is there David?”
“My family is here,” David said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“It wasn’t enough for the last fifteen years,” said my grandmother. “I don’t see why it should be now.”
My mother could see what was coming: an argument. They were as obvious, with my grandmother, as a fire truck racing towards a brick wall. She suggested we just all enjoy brunch and talk the whole thing over later. My uncle had lost that magical authoritative stature he had drawn in my mind a few minutes ago. He looked tired. He hadn’t touched a thing on his plate.
Once brunch was finished, my mother, Uncle David, and I stayed at the white wicker table. We could hear my grandmother talking to Jeanette in the kitchen. My mother asked him if everything was really all right — if he hadn’t, as my grandmother suggested, got himself in some kind of trouble in Ontario.
He told her he was fine.
“I just need to r
est,” he said. “And I’d rather do it here than anywhere.”
“Even with her around?” my mother asked.
“Yes,” said my uncle. “Even with her. I’d put up with her as long as I can be around the two of you. And Jacob.”
“Okay,” said my mother. “Don’t worry. We’ll work on her. I’m sure you’ll be able to stay in the house if you want.”
“I don’t,” David said. “I’m serious about the apartment. I don’t think I could live with her.”
“We’ll find something,” soothed my mother. “I’m just glad you’re coming home.”
“We’ll have to make arrangements for my things,” said my uncle. “They’re all in storage in Toronto.”
“In storage?”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew you were moving home all the time?” My mother left it at that, and David went back upstairs to his room. She went out to the kitchen to take some of the heat off Jeanette. The two of them argued quietly with my grandmother about my uncle’s announcement.
“He’s in trouble,” my grandmother said. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“It’s as plain as nothing,” said my mother. “David’s finally moving home after all these years. I’d think you’d be glad.”
“Glad? I’d be glad to get to the bottom of all this. That’s what I’d be glad of.”
“You’re impossible, mother. I hope you know that.”
“Me?” said my grandmother. “I’m not the one turning everything upside down here. Rump over kettle. A man just doesn’t up and quit a perfectly good job, money in the bank or no, and turn around and move back to a town he’s seen neither hide nor hair of for fifteen years, expecting us to all take it lying down like we were rugs under his feet. There’s something wrong here, I tell you. Seriously amiss, and if you two don’t have the gumption to find out what he’s up to, I do.”