by Rae Spoon
When my brother Jack died, they were his pallbearers. They carried his coffin without crying from the church to the hearse. I looked up at them when they passed by me and hoped to be strong like them. When my schizophrenic father would fly off the handle, at least one of them would always show up to protect us. My father was scared of them and would take off as soon as one of them showed up in a truck. They made him look like a tiny guy in a white shirt and thick tie because they were real cowboys. I needed to see that there were people who were unafraid of him in order to get over my own fear.
Sometimes in daydreams I pictured myself as one of them, out in the middle of the prairies driving alone in my truck, blowing smoke out the window, and sleeping in hotels and temporary trailers. I would listen to Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson, and Randy Travis. My hands would be dirty with crude oil. I wanted to be a cowboy so that I could hold back my tears and protect my family.
I used to smoke and drink, but then I quit both. I never learned how to drive, work the oil rigs, or ride a horse, but I did write songs about it. I was not a cowboy in reality, but my heart always felt lonely enough to sing about it with conviction. When I’m scared, I stand tall and saunter around like my uncles. I make wry jokes out of the side of my mouth to protect myself. I have learned things that they don’t tell you on the prairies, like that crying is a good thing, but I will always fall back on the kind toughness that I learned from my uncles whenever I feel completely alone.
Knives and Baseball Bats
ONE DAY WHEN I WAS thirteen, I jumped off the city bus and walked the two blocks home with my trumpet in its case banging against my legs. The thumping sound made the paring knife in my pocket start to feel hot. This knife had been in the kitchen drawer of every house I’d ever lived in. My mother used it to cut apples for us to eat. Fascinated by not being allowed to touch it, I would watch her slice the apples in half and then quarters, then again into eighths. I ate bowls of these apple slices many times a week. Now I had turned the knife against a girl from my softball team. When I arrived home, I walked into the garage and slid it behind the bricks that were piled against the wall.
That spring I had started my second year of softball. I liked the focus of anticipating where the batter might hit the ball, crouching down with my mitt close to the ground. It cleared my mind. I was proud of my blue uniform and felt like a boy in it. The other girls on my team didn’t look like boys. Their hairsprayed bangs were crushed down by their hats, but their ponytails hung out the backs and bobbed as they ran from base to base. They would sit on the bench and gossip while I dug my cleats into the red dirt and listened. I would often not speak more than five words during an entire game.
The head coach was a policeman whose daughter was on the team. He wanted her to be a good pitcher, but sometimes she would walk ten people in a row and he’d have to pull her. The parents of the other girls would drive us to games and dot our side of the field with their chairs, cheering loudest for their daughters. Before I would go up to bat, I would try not to look at any of them. My own parents never came to any games. My father was sick and my mother was too busy.
If we won, we would all go to 7-Eleven to get Slurpees before I got dropped back off at my house. My mother would be watching television with my brother John in her arms and my father would still be fast asleep on the couch. By this time, he’d been sleeping most of the days away ever since doctors had put him on another medication in addition to his anti-psychotics, the result of being diagnosed as bipolar. This happened when he was in the hospital and had gone into the stairwell to sing church hymns at the top of his lungs. Even the people in the morgue heard him. When my mother asked him why he had done it, he said that God had sent him a message that He was going to deliver him and he was so overjoyed that he needed to sing.
Some of the girls on my softball team went to my junior high, but they were a year younger. We didn’t really talk to each other at school because I had a mushroom haircut, and they were popular and had long hair. I would pass by them in the hall holding my binder to my chest and staring at the ground. I didn’t want what they had. I could have styled my hair like theirs and worn the same clothes, but I wanted something that I couldn’t name. I had studied these girls, trying to understand them, and I was certain that I wasn’t the same.
One of the pitchers was also in concert band with me. Her name was Nadia. She had a surprisingly fast pitch that would thump loudly in the catcher’s glove. I liked her more than the other girls on the team because she went out of her way to talk to me. I didn’t feel the same cold reserve from her that I felt from the others, especially when my complete lack of pop culture knowledge became obvious, like the time I went to a barbecue and everyone found out that I hadn’t seen the video for “Thriller.” After the roar of laughter had died down, I spent the rest of the time hanging out on the corner of a couch by myself.
The concert band practiced on Mondays after school once a week, in addition to our regular band classes. Nadia played the clarinet and sat in the row in front of me and my trumpet. For an hour and a half each week, the band would practice stiff-sounding versions of pop songs complete with the squeaks of the first-year saxophone players.
After practice, it took me two city buses to get home. Most of the students took the bus to Brentwood station and then split off according to where they lived. Nadia and some other girls who also lived near me often travelled on the same bus. Most of the time we would have to stand, sometimes for as long as half an hour. Usually I stayed quiet during the ride and listened to the other girls talk. Sometimes Nadia paid attention to me; on those days, I could feel my face glow as I walked home.
And then one time on the way home, one of the other girls made a comment about how I looked like a boy, and Nadia looked at me and laughed. I felt a darkness rise within me. I’ll show them, I thought. They won’t be laughing next time.
I carried that anger with me over the weekend until Monday, the next time we had concert band practice. That morning I went to the kitchen before anyone in my house was awake, got the paring knife from the drawer, and shoved it into the bottom of my backpack. All day long at school, I was nervous about it being there. I spent more time thinking about getting caught with it than what my plans for it were.
After practice, I caught the same bus as Nadia and the other girls to Brentwood station. I didn’t say a word to any of them. When we were at the bus stop at Brentwood, one of the girls started in on me again. It was then that I pulled the knife out of my backpack and waved it at Nadia coldly. “You better fuck off,” I growled between my teeth.
There was a look of shock on her face before she turned to run. I watched her and the other girls bolt up the stairs and across the overpass. When my bus came, I stashed the knife and got aboard. That night, I tried my best to keep quiet about what happened as we ate dinner.
The next morning I didn’t see Nadia or any of the girls from the bus stop. I went to first period without incident, but during second period science class, the intercom rang on the wall. “They want you in the office,” the teacher said to me. As I walked down the empty hall toward the principal’s office, I could feel prickling on the back of my neck. The secretary took my name and I sat down and waited. Soon, the principal called me into his office. “Nadia’s mom called this morning and told us that you chased her and some other girls with a knife,” he said. “I should expel you. Now, there are only two reasons why you would do that. Either you’re a bad kid or you’re a sick kid.”
I had never been in trouble like this before. I thought fast. If I was a bad kid, I would be expelled. If I was a sick kid, they would send me to the hospital. I broke down crying, unsure if I was faking it.
“I’m not a bad kid,” I wailed. “I didn’t mean to do it. I wasn’t going to hurt them.”
The principal then sent me to see the guidance counselor, who took a softer tone with me.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
I told him why I had chased t
hem, that I just wanted to scare them, and where I had hidden the knife. I told him about how my dad was sick and how he kept going off of his pills and yelling at me. When I said that I wanted to kill myself, he seemed to understand what I needed.
“I think you might need to go to the hospital for a while,” he said.
“Can I take my guitar?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said gently. I felt relieved.
He told me to go wait in another room. As I sat there under the fluorescent lights, I pictured myself in a hospital room away from my family. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about my father trying to take us all away again.
I heard a knock at the door. It was my parents. My heart immediately started racing. What are they doing there? I told him I needed to get away from them. The counselor followed them into the room and said, “I’ve spoken to your parents and we feel that it’s best if you go home with them. They’ve assured me that your father is getting treatment and doing much better. You need to understand that he was sick, but he’s recovered now. The best place for you to learn that is with your family.”
In the car, we rode home in silence. I looked for the knife in the garage, but it was gone. It seemed from then on, the narrative of our family suddenly changed. I had done something to confirm that I was messed up. It wasn’t all in my father’s head.
The next day, news about what I did went around the school. Students alternately stared or grinned at me in the hall. One girl came up to me and called me “Little knifer girl,” which became my nickname for the rest of junior high. It was meant to make me feel bad, but actually it made me feel tougher. Maybe I am a bad kid, I thought. At least then others would think twice about making fun of me.
Bible Camp
MY MOTHER USED TO tell me stories about swimming in the lakes near Bowden, Alberta where she grew up. They were a bit deeper than the sloughs we splashed through in boots on my Uncle Carl’s property, but not too different. My mother would say, “After swimming we would emerge from the water with leeches on our legs, but that never discouraged us. We would just put salt on the leeches, or Uncle Carl would hold a match to them until they fell off.”
As for me, I’ve hated water since my father threw me into a pool to teach me how to swim when I was four. I would make an exception for the clear waters of Okanagan lakes, but murky prairie ones were out of the question.
When I was fourteen, during the summer between junior and senior high, my parents drove me out to Spruce Lake to spend a week at Bible camp. Spruce Lake was very close to Bowden. Pressing my face against the car window during the drive into camp, I was certain it would turn out to be one of the fabled lakes of torment from my mother’s stories.
At camp, I stayed in the girls’ dorm. I had an easier time with Christian girls than non-Christian ones. They had to be nice to me, even if I looked like a boy, because we were sisters in Christ. My hair was long, black, and parted in the middle. It hung in front of my eyes. I looked like an escapee from a grunge video compared to all of the proper Christian girls in their oversized T-shirts and denim shorts. I couldn’t bring myself to giggle with them about things like makeup or boys. As a result, I couldn’t manage to make friends with any of them. I felt like I was a dark cloud hovering in my bunk bed above them.
I was never baptized because of my combined fear of speaking in front of crowds and being submerged in water. When the entire camp went swimming in the lake for the afternoon, I refused to go. As the upbeat masses of teens thinned out and eventually disappeared, I could see that there was one other camper who felt the same way as I did: a boy with stringy bleached hair who was playing a guitar on the deck outside of the cafeteria. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed him earlier. I went back to my room and dragged my guitar in its heavy case across the camp.
We spent the afternoon together sitting on the patio of the mess hall exchanging Nirvana covers. Between songs he told me that he was from Edmonton and that his father had taught him how to busk on Whyte Avenue. He made Edmonton sound way better than Calgary. I envied his freedom and pictured myself singing to crowds of people in the street while they threw quarters into my guitar case. “What are you doing here, then?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be back there making money?”
“My dad didn’t have time to watch me and I kept getting in trouble, so he sent me here,” he replied.
“So, you’re not a Christian?” I blurted out.
“Nah. These people are crazy. I wish I could go home to my electric guitar. Are you?”
Forgetting to impress him, I told him the truth. “I don’t know.”
The other teens returned from the lake that afternoon, sunburned and exhausted. Dinner in the cafeteria got really quiet when they all bowed their heads and one of the camp leaders prayed over the meal. I stared at the black nail polish I had chipped off my fingers while I played guitar. I was thinking about the boy who didn’t believe in any of this.
Every night we had a service in the main chapel attended by the entire camp. On that particular night, the air outside still felt warm. The setting sun was hanging low in the sky as we filed in. The inside of the church looked more like a cabin. Huge wooden beams held up the roof and anchored the walls. There was a screen on the stage where the lyrics of songs were displayed with an overhead projector. The night began with a sermon by the camp pastor about how faith was the only thing separating humans from hell. I slouched low in the pew with my hands in my pockets. It felt like the words were directed right at me. I was desperate to recover from my uncertainty. I wanted to believe. It was the only option I was being given. At the end of the sermon, the camp pastor made a plea for anyone who needed help from Jesus to come to the front. I rose and nervously made my way up. With each step I begged that God would give me a sign. I joined a small group at the front as everyone started praying. Lifting my hands up, I concentrated as hard as I could: One sign and I’ll believe in you forever, I swear, I whispered.
The boy standing next to me started to speak in tongues.
“Shaklaka lakkwakateeheeoh.”
The pastor heard him and came over to where he was standing. He put his hand on the boy’s forehead and started to pray out loud: “Lord Jesus, you have brought this young man before us to speak your holy language. Let the holy spirit bring him peace as he obeys your will.” The boy swayed back and forth violently and then shot backwards, falling toward the floor. The people behind him caught him and lowered him gently. I looked at him out of the corner of my half-closed eye. He was laying on his back with a serene look on his face and tears rolling down his cheeks.
I had never spoken in tongues, which I took to be another sign that I was not willing enough to be faithful. I felt intensely jealous of the boy on the floor. I want to be chosen by Jesus. The pastor then moved on to me. I prayed hard as he put his hand on my forehead. “Sweet Lord. We have a girl here who needs your help to be faithful. Please show your presence in this room and reveal to her your limitless love. Amen.” I was waiting for a feeling, but before anything happened I felt the pastor’s hand push hard against my head. I fell backwards and people caught me. “Praise Jesus,” he said and moved on to the next person.
I lay on my back on the floor, numb, my eyes closed. I was certain that it was the pastor who had pushed me. I hadn’t even the tiniest sense of God being in the room. I decided to just lay there rather than stand up, lest he push me back down again. I stayed in that position for what felt like forever. When I finally opened my eyes, there were other people laying on the floor and everyone else had formed a conga line that was making its way around the church. I realized then that even if there was a God, He wasn’t going to speak to or through me.
At the end of the week, my parents picked me up. As we drove home, I stared at the rows of trees that farmers had planted to keep the wind from blowing the soil on their land around.
“They’re always the same height,” I said, pointing them out to my mother.
“Uncle Carl used t
o tell me that they’re like that because the farmers would trim them with an upside down helicopter,” she said, chuckling. “For a long time, because he was my hero, I believed him.”
Hide and Seek
WHEN I WAS A CHILD, the eight-hour drive through the Rocky Mountains to British Columbia seemed like it took a week. The mountains always started out high and grey. I would put my head back and imagine that they were sleeping giants, and I would look for upturned faces and resting limbs in the rocks. High waterfalls would spray tears out of the giants’ hidden eyes. After the summit they would disintegrate into the low scrubby mountains of the Okanagan, and then I would know that we were close to my grandparents’ house.
Once there, I would often turn my mind to the cherry tree that grew in the yard of my grandparents’ neighbours. Its branches hung down low enough that we could reach them and pick our own fruit. At home I would try the crabapples from our tree, but when I bit them in half I had to spit them out onto our lawn; they were too sour to eat. But the cherries were delicious. We would fill our hats with them, staining our faces and hands purple when we ate them.
One time after we arrived following the long drive, I was eager to show our grandfather that I knew how to turn a TV on. I was so caught up in my excitement that I didn’t hear him yell at me as I ran toward it: “Don’t touch my TV!”
I pulled the knob, but as soon as the signal clicked on I felt myself being lifted up into the air. He shook me and yelled in my face. “I told you not to touch my TV!”
The next time we went back to visit, it was because our grandfather was in the hospital with lung cancer. I’d never seen him smoke, but he did until he was too sick to go outside. On this visit he couldn’t even raise his head to acknowledge us, a ventilator pumping oxygen into his failing lungs. He was now weaker than I was.