by Terry Griggs
“More bills today, Hero.” She arrayed a stack of them on the counter, regretfully, as if having dealt out a particularly ruinous poker hand.
Bills, bills, bills. No matter, we had a special place for those at home. It’s called a garbage can.
“Anything else, Mrs. Percy?” I swept up the bills and filed them in various pockets.
“Postcard from your Aunt Faith. Picture of kittens on the front. Heavens, I didn’t know there was such a thing as an ugly kitten, but my these ones are real humdingers. Your aunt’s away, is she?”
“She’s not.” Aunt Faith lived within spitting distance of us, stuck to her house like wallpaper. Although we did spot her yesterday coming up the drive, at which point we all hit the dirt—not necessarily a figurative expression at our place. “What’s it say?”
Mrs. Percy made a show of turning the card over, but naturally she’d already read it. No point in working for the post office if you didn’t keep your eye on community concerns. “A fool’s mouth is his destruction. Proverbs 18:9.”
Here we go again! Geez. “Can you send it back? You know, like in the song… ‘Return to senderrrr, address unknooown—’”
“‘No such numberrrr, no such zooone’… Sure can. Your parents on the move again, dear?”
“No, no. A good spot, we’re pretty settled. I love my room.” The less said, the better. To resort to an old chestnut.
“There’s no place like home.”
I’m afraid this particular chestnut can be interpreted less positively, but I smiled and nodded, fashioning an agreeable expression that would also serve to hide my disappointment about the Learn to Draw Set. Jon Gnagy seemed like a very nice man and I had confidence that he wouldn’t bilk my parents of their as yet unknown investment. Fair enough, no big deal, there’s always tomorrow and tomorrow for the execution of those cubes and cones, their smudgy shadows falling every which way, defying the laws of art and nature. But then—
“Hero, wait!” I heard from the back of the P.O. where the sorting happens. Bertie, Mrs. Percy’s assistant ran up to the front with a delivery in hand. “Found this in the bottom of the mailbag. Gosh, don’t know how long it’s been there.” They both knew I’d been waiting for a special dispatch, although I hadn’t specified what, wanting to keep my project under wraps and the town’s mockery to a bearable minimum. Not that either Mrs. Percy or Bertie would indulge, but word gets out.
Bertie handed it to me and we three gazed at it with…??? As Mark Twain once said, “A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes.” Mr. Twain, old pal, you can say that again.
Not long ago I’d received an equally perplexing missive from Nile. Another postcard, but unlike his mother’s this one depicted a night view of Sudbury’s slag heaps, and on the back contained no message whatsoever.
“Why didn’t he write anything?” Mrs. Percy had asked. Clearly, this was an offense to someone who’d dedicated her life to putting correspondence into people’s hands. “Why bother?”
“Yeah, waste of space.”
“The strong silent type, is he?”
More the pungent illiterate type. He did get my name right, more or less, and while pleased to hear from him, felt somewhat troubled about the molten gushing slag, however scenic, in case this represented some sort of sly commentary on me. (At least he hadn’t written, “Wish you were here.”)
So I greeted this new oddball communication warily. I didn’t recognize the hand, the script wobbly and faint, as if it had received a fright. But then, I don’t suppose it’s easy to write on birchbark, which is what the envelope was made of. The bark was brownish like the kind used for those overpriced, ersatz birchbark canoes and tipis for sale at Pock’s, plump as a French pastry, and, presumably, packed with some sort of communicative filling. I could tell that both Bertie and Mrs. Percy were dying for me to open it, but, in case it was someone’s idea of a practical joke, and not requiring a homeopathic dose of humiliation at the moment, said airily, “Ahh, finally.” Clutching the thing with enough force to make it crack, I then sauntered out of the P.O. as nonchalantly as possible.
Retreating with my ‘treasure’ to the town docks, I settled on a bench much scored and scarred with lovers’ initials. Kind of like sitting on a wooden quilt. I couldn’t help but notice Douggie’s name gouged here and there, often accompanied with primitive and surprisingly rude pictographs.
I didn’t rip into my own arboreal billet-doux right away, if that’s what I had in hand, wanting to sniff it out first. Entirely possible that I had an admirer and I took a moment to consider the candidates: Wes, who sat behind me in Science class (your basic anthropoid); Norm, who worked at the gas station (Spam with teeth and hair); Ned, the minister’s son (sex appeal of a lamp); Gord, farmer’s progeny (the original green man); Atholl, preening tiddlywinks champion (name sums him up). Would any of these prospective suitors sheath their desires, however tepid, in birchbark? To be sure, none of the Ojibway guys I knew would be caught dead making something as uncool and cornball as this.
Studying the handwriting on the envelope, it occurred to me that my correspondent might be quite young—given the calligraphy, about nine years old. How long had the letter been stuck in the bottom of the mailbag? This thought I found moderately disturbing, for as a recent exile from childhood myself, I was simply too young to be a pedophile. While aware of everyone in town over a certain age, I didn’t keep track of all of the younger kids, who tended to travel in an undifferentiated swarm. Unbeknownst to me, some sweet boy might be swooning, heart beating wildly, every time we crossed paths. If I discovered his identity, perhaps I could raise him—you know, like livestock—for enjoyment when mature.
Time to delve deeper.
Fingers spidering as sensitively as a safecracker over the fiercely glued back flap, I managed to jimmy open the envelope without entirely destroying it. After winkling out a thick wodge of lined three-ring paper, I set the envelope aside and immersed myself in a chronicle sent to me from an unidentified ‘Camp.’ At this point in my life, I did not know that such places existed, nor that children were sent to these woodsy venues in the summer to engage in all manner of ridiculously fun things: hiking, canoeing, swimming, archery, eating s’mores and practising mouth to mouth resuscitation (not necessarily in that order), and making crafts. Evidently, I was in possession of one such craft, plus a charmingly uncrafty letter, which, introduced by the simple salutation, “Hi!”, went into considerable detail about the above activities, while radiating so much innocence the paper appeared to be lit by some internal source.
The margins of the letter were as richly illustrated as the Book of Kells, and while technically challenged (not a great advert for Jon Gnagy if he’d been involved), I admired their documentary nature nonetheless. Here was something I could relate to: a skunk the size of a moose gassing fellow campers, swimmers fleeing from bloody shark-infested northern waters, and a camp counsellor flat-out with a bottle of poisoned hooch in hand. Uncertain as to whether this was intended as comedy or a cry for help, I decided to settle on the former. The letter drew to a close with, “Luv, Em,” and the drawing of a half-eaten hotdog with legs.
A girl-crush, then. Emma? Emily? Some astute, unknown miss who idealized me to the degree that I’d become her imaginary friend? I didn’t half-mind the thought of being imaginary. It made me feel light and sort of tingly. As I looked out across the water, letting Lips, a fellow-imaginary being, twiddle delicately with my hair (Lips, wind god, southwest) (note: the wind is not called Mariah), I thought about this young girl at Camp Wapawopawipiskwat (just a guess), who might easily have been a younger me (if the parents had ever gotten it together): gut-wrenchingly homesick and lonely, sure, but living on the feral and liberated side of weird.
Deciding to give the letter pride of place in my room, between the snow globe and the dried worm on my dresser, I wedged it back into the envelope
, wondering what ingenious object Em might manufacture with my two leftover popsicle sticks, and carried it home, rough and warm in my hand. The feeling of lightness stuck with me, and perhaps for that reason I began to fantasize about that half-eaten hotdog, an annoyingly mobile snack.
No car in the driveway, so either it had been reclaimed, or the folks were at Neath’s bar, healing their rift with some liquid first aid. Good, another loan might be in order, especially if the cupboards were bare. I’d have to be quick, though. Guaranteed they’d be back soon—they were like cats, out, in, out, in, never having gotten the hang of what a home is for.
This strategy ran into a snag all too soon on my discovery that I didn’t have the place to myself. A woman sat lounging in my father’s ratty, hand-me-down La-Z-Boy, gazing into a hand mirror that looked suspiciously like my mother’s, while plucking her chin hairs with over-large tweezers, also familiar. This stranger was done up in a style that might best be described as parodic cleaning lady, a smidge too frumpy to be authentic.
“Hello, dear,” she said, not looking up.
“Excuse me, who—?”
“Gotcha!” She held up a wiry black hair for assessment before dropping it on the floor. Returning again to the mirror, she angled her chin, thick as an elbow, this way and that, inspecting the cosmetic work site.
I could almost feel my brain moving in my head like a disturbed animal, shifting and resettling, renegotiating its comfy spot. Was she some unknown relative, a member from the dark and distant reaches of the family? You never knew what sort of creature, long-entangled in our genetic coils, might tumble out and land at your feet. (As Auntie Viv says, “The trouble with family, eh, is that they’re not the kind of people you’d normally invite into your home.”)
“I’m your boarder.” Big smile.
Boarder? All the stuff from my room, including my comics and my useless hair dryer in its vinyl zip case and my dried worm, had been dumped in a corner of the living room. Here I’d assumed that an unprecedented round of housework had occurred in my absence, but no. My room had been rented out? Surely the parents weren’t that desperate! (This aggrieved plaint, despite the many bills bookmarking my person.)
Tightening my grip on the birchbark letter, my sole unsullied possession, I gave the encroacher, her with overgrown cuticles, my most searing look, a sort of indignation-radiation combo. (Works for Molly Colossus.)
“You must change your life,” she said.
What? Bullshit. But because I had been properly brought up, I didn’t say that. I said rather, as Molly herself would say, “That’s !@&!#%! bullshit.”
“Tsk.”
The woman studied me for a tick, then, tossing the mirror and tweezers aside, reached down to the floor and seized a chubby leather purse, black and knobbled as a diseased liver. Settling it on her lap, she unclasped it and began rummaging around inside. I got the impression that she was going to try pacifying me with some laughable token, a candy or a trinket. Or… a gun? Or worse, more unwanted advice. Another gem, say, involving my much maligned oral apparatus, facial feature of the day. (The closed mouth swallows no flies.)
And damned if she didn’t pluck out of her purse a fortune-cookie-sized slip of paper. After quickly and frowningly perusing it, however, she did not then intone, as you might expect, “Your dearest wish will come true.” Nor, “When hungry, order more Chinese food.”
Instead, she enquired, “This is Ballentine Street, isn’t it?”
“No.” Ballentine? You kidding?
“Hmn.” She hauled herself out of the chair and patted herself down, rearranging her brown dress, and, dipping her fingers into a pocket of her equally brown, muskrat-collared jacket, extracted a small silver key. “Here,” she said, handing it to me.
As you may imagine, I accepted this key in great surprise and with a surge of wonder. Was it? Could it really be? Did I finally have in my possession the instrument I needed to give me total access?
And yet… how fragile wonder is. Mine lasted only as long as it took for our unexpected guest to hustle out, heels clacking as she passed my parents on the stairs.
“Who was that?” Mother examined the surroundings, puzzled, as though she’d never seen the place before.
“Don’t know.” Downmarket fairy godmother?
“What did she want?”
“She gave me this.” I showed her the key.
“My God.” Mother snatched it out of my hand and roared into the folks’ bedroom, where she began to make a remarkable amount of racket shoving aside the chest of drawers and yanking up the floorboards.
“Behind every great man stands a large woman,” observed Father, proudly.
Molly C might have appreciated the intended compliment, but luckily mother was out of earshot. We, on the other hand, could hear her clearly.
“That bitch,” she howled. “Robbed! We’ve been robbed… ripped off.” A pause followed this assertion, broken shortly after by some accounting, “She stole three dollars. And, and… five cents! Five!”
Sounded about right, no further commentary required. After all, hadn’t silence been urged upon me all day?
The upshot of this inconvenient trespass? Another move, and this to a hovel about as far away from Ballentine Street as it’s possible to get. The starvation-diet reasoning that nourished our exodus? My stuff, positioned closer to the front door than to my room, the parents viewed as a kind of readiness-is-all portent. Plainly, greener pastures beckoned. Even those, as it turned out, splatted with cow pies. As Confusion say, “Home is the thing with legs.”
Actually, he didn’t say that, I did. And can you blame me?
Juno Pluvia
My cousin? Nile? Never mind, file him under women’s troubles and forget about him.
We have other coronary matters to consider. For instance, the unnamed man who washed up on the beach, and who provoked what is called an ‘equivocal death analysis.’ Of course, it was Nile who found him, no getting around that. With his verminous instincts, he managed to upstage the flies, which came tumbling after him in a busy buzzing mass. The lake coughed up the man and served him on a bed of dried marsh grass, an impromptu nest that would have crackled with his sodden weight, a sound that no one heard, no one human. Unless Nile, owl eared, had been listening with his usual predatory acuity.
This surprise stiff was very well preserved for someone who had been dead for five years, a statistic determined by the forensic analysis, I’m not making it up. The cold water had kept him relatively fresh. The guy didn’t look that much different than Aunt Faith, who, regrettably, was still alive. He’d been on an epic journey, an underwater Ulysses cruising like a wayward flesh torpedo along the lake bottom, sliding smoothly past schools of fish and over logs, shooting into the broken hull of a sunken schooner. A nightmare man months snagged in the tumbled rigging, then exploding out of a porthole.
He owned a cottage on Lake Michigan, a black Speedo bathing suit, and a gold chain. Early morning, a quick dip, that was the plan. Coffee, a healthy knob of butter glistening on a stack of pancakes (or flapjacks, this being the States), and a Lucky Strike cigarette—irony at its most gauche—smoked down to the filter and flicked into the crapper with a gratifying hissss. Simple pleasures for what may or may not have been a complicated man. Crossing a watery border into another country had not been on the day’s agenda. Somewhere along his circuitous trip to the morgue (and I have a very good idea where), he lost the gold chain. But not the Speedo. Nothing like a bit of bloat to firmly secure such a slinky scrap of cloth. How many people said, I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing… before realizing and choking it off with a laugh.
Our mystery man—underwater ambassador (of considerable puffery) and self-made raft borne in on a swift succession of bright waves—eventually acquired a scanty if disappointingly dull covering of detail. Who, how, where. But at first his whole provocatively intact body
gleamed with possibility. In his silence, he seemed to insist that we cobble our rural wits together in order to grant him an identity worth all the trouble taken on his incredible journey. Plus the cost of the fare.
Fine, fine. Honour the dead, however unwelcome, sing his praises, if unearned (anyone can drown—how hard can it be?), build him a cairn out of a disassembled fire pit. Go crazy. What I wanted to know, the sliver of truth to be plucked from this corporal hunk of driftwood, was the real reason for Nile’s opportune presence. By this time, you see, I’m afraid I’d taken an interest. In him, Nile, if you can believe it.
“Watch out for that cousin of yours, Hero,” Mother warned.
“Why?”
“Don’t get into his car.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask.”
Words. Like chipping away with a chisel. I sometimes think she returned from her own so-called travels simply to warn me about the exact things she continued to do herself. I was what, fifteen? (Practically, for all intents and purposes.) Nile twenty-five. Do the math. These numbers belonged together—a sequence orderly, beautiful, inevitable (if you can count past ten). Just dig the equation of this perfect pairing: him + me, cousin + cousin, smartass + smarty-pants = 1 hot unit.
Chemistry? We had that, too.
Honestly, I didn’t see the problem. Or, I should say, that was the problem: Keeping the slimy bastard—and not the one prone on the beach—in sight. He haunted the edge of everything. If you had twenty-twenty vision, he’d go twenty-one, a touch beyond seeing… and believing. My lying quarry, up to no good and not taking the least bit of trouble to deck it out in credible finery, as I might.