She took her rage

My mother’s true teenagehood came when she was 45 and learned about my father’s mistress. She took her rage and dragged me, a bespectacled 17-year-old, to a St. Janvier cowboy bar. Was I supposed to enjoy watching her pick up all those Jean Pierres? Was I to study her technique as she necked with a trucker named Denis? How did she do it? I never could. Sure guys asked me to dance, switching from French before I said anything, as if “Anglais” was written on my forehead. But nothing else happened. I was too busy being the adult.

Do you have anything in a black, down-filled puffer jacket?

She had a dog that looked like mine.
     “Where did your dog come from?” It sprang from my mouth before I sussed that she was a nutter.
     “Turtle Island, like us all,” she replied. And fixing a crazy gimlet on me for a once-over added, “I've always admired the wisdom of your people . . .”
     I was confused. My people? My people came from a trailer park. And then it dawned on me . . . Big green parka . . . two huskies . . . long black braid. I was her idea of Tantoo Cardinal. It was time to cracker-up my winter look before my real ’Nish friends got wind of this.

Photo of Grey Owl, 1931. Copyright © Parks Canada.

Duck!

This whole mating-for-life thing is for the birds—literally.
     Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty happy with the actual mating part, it’s those long months in between when I’m still all lovey-dovey, and the missus keeps putting me off.
     Not tonight, dear. I’m brooding.
So, one more season I’ve resigned myself to stick around through all that nesting, migrating, and moulting. But here’s the thing that really puts a crimp in my cloaca: If us mallards are forced to be just as monogamous as anyone else, why is it the so-called Love Birds get all the adulation?
     Lucky ducks.

Photo by mikeyskatie on Flickr.

Love birds no more

We met during the great snowy owl irruption of ’08. It was the length of his spotting scope that first attracted me. He said I had a great pair of binoculars. Heart aflutter, I blushed like a roseate spoonbill. His sexy loon call, soft pishing and ability to tell a pewee from a flycatcher drove me wild. I dreamed he asked me to merge our life lists. He drove me to the dump to count the vultures. I leaned forward expectantly. Our Tilley hats touched. Then that yellow-bellied sapsucker said: “It’s been fun, Chickadee, but I fly south tomorrow.”

A Christmas Eve Tragedy

The grey-blue smoke rose in twin channels from her nostrils, like that of a dragon. True Love? Je ne crois pas pour un instant! Marion sniffed and butted out her Chesterfield into one of the square glass ashtrays. Really, dating a 24-year old boy when she was…what was she? Forty-two! Sallup! And waltzing in on his willowy arm at a Knights of Columbus Christmas party of all places. Oh, mais elle manges la bravo, this divorcée, drinking her highball and leaving her hat on during dinner. This May-September circus act would not end well, and she would see to that.

Image from the G. F. Leclair Estate.

Two Days, One Night, No Kidding

For the 95 minutes of Two Days, One Night, it’s impossible to believe that Marion Cotillard is a member of the struggling Belgian precariat. Not with that opening shot of her slumped despondent on a outsized cushion whose hue so consumately matches her eyeshadow, and whose nubbly weave goes with a 100+ Euro price tag. There’s no need for her to go around begging her coworkers to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her solar panel factory job instead of falling through the cracks in the social contract. The solution is plain. Sell off the cushions, Marion.

Image: Marion-Cotillard.Org

Two Boys Missing

Artie told me he’d never even heard of the ghosts at the bottom of Grenadier Pond. You know, all those soldiers who went marching through Howard’s Park on their way to fight the Americans, and that they broke through the ice, and they drowned? He said it was bunk, that the battle was in April and the ice today would be a foot thick if it was an inch, and that he didn’t care anyway, because he and Roy were skipping the rest of the day to go skating, and that I couldn’t come.
     That’s all I know, sir.
     Honest.

Based on this front page story from the late edition of The Toronto Daily Star. January 9, 1908. Image based on this one by Dawn Hudson.

Saturday morning news

I saw them leave my sister’s party: two lean and graceful boys spinning out the back door. I tried to disappear, but they caught me with a snowball. Without a thought or a helmet, they jumped on the Skidoo and into the blizzard. Saturday morning the phone rings. My sister is pulled from sleep. I could picture it: darkness; snow in eddies and swirls; the mass of the Skidoo and occupants plus speed plus trajectory; the larger mass of the snow-hidden parked car; the boys, momentarily gravity free, shooting through cold space, pulled back down. She dropped the phone.

The Pike Creek Trumpet

Dean Bergeron had a newsy nose and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He and his Sears Solid State tape recorder were always first on the scene when the newsworthy struck Webbwood Estates. His range surpassed that of any other twelve-year old muckraker. One day he’d pen a frothy piece on Susie Campeau’s birthday soiree, or tug at heartstrings with a cautionary tale involving a dare, a pussy willow and Jimmy Blais’ ear canal. But when his instamatic captured Mrs. Gouin leaving the Knights of Columbus with Mr. Jobin, things got a little hard-boiled.

Image from the cover of Encyclopedia Brown and the Disgusting Sneakers.

Poor Nam

In Grade 11, The Poor Nam’s Almanac managed to publish three whole issues before the authorities started clamping down. The teacher behind our school’s official newspaper didn’t think we should be using school resources to mock the Red Knight Rider, and the vice-principal, Mr. Putnam, probably didn’t appreciate our homage to him in the masthead. And yet, to our credit, we simply rebranded issue four as the no-nam generic newsletter. 
     We were ever so cheeky back then: making fun of computer geeks, making fun of the stage crew. We even made fun of the swim team.
     But football? No way.

H-two-Osium Subtractum (left)
by Roy Schulze. April, 1978.

For God Sake Find Another Chorus

“Allahu akbar.” God is great. I’m pretty sure that’s true, if He exists. But really, does He want to hear it every time some whacko kills a cartoonist or kidnaps a schoolgirl or blows a flock of human lambs to tiny shredded bits? I think it must annoy Him, for God must be a deep thinker, given He thought up absolutely everything. It must be galling to have some crazed misguided fool invoke your name as justification for whatever hateful task he’s set himself. In this, no one’s hands are clean. I’m looking at you, holy fundamentalist of any stripe.

Image: Charlie Hebdo

The Meaning of Christmas

“Do you know what Christmas means?” the nice church lady asked.
     “It’s when Santa brings toys,” Kaitlin answered brightly. Only three, and already one with the zeitgeist.
     The woman’s eyes narrowed. “But why does Santa bring toys? Why does he come at all?”
     Kaitlin pondered the question. Understanding dawned. “Because it’s a special day,” she said. “It’s the birthday of the little baby—” (they exchanged anticipatory smiles) “—JESUS FUG-DIN CHRIST!”
     Rictus grins all round. I recognized her intonation, and the adjective. Yes—both mine. Just that morning I’d nailed up some Christmas decorations and, well, I’m no carpenter.

Image: Dremel Europe

Oh TTC!

Oh TTC, Oh TTC,
Your service level’s falling.
Although the streetcar’s fully packed,
The supervisor sends it back.
Oh TTC, Oh TTC,
These short-turns are appalling.

Oh TTC, Oh TTC,
Your fares keep going higher
These tickets bought a year ago
Now need another nickel, so
Oh TTC, Oh TTC
I’ll try to sneak it by you.

Oh TTC, Oh TTC
Your subway’s overcrowded.
The people packed at Yonge and Bloor
Have not been home in days, I’m sure
Oh TTC, Oh TTC
Weren’t you once applauded?

If you can stand to, sing this to the tune of O Tannenbaum.

Bump and (Petty) Crime

So my son’s band was the opening act for a Christmas fête at a local burlesque bar. I was okay with the venue and all its near-naked festooning. Blending music with unorthodox activities is something of a Leclair tradition. Pépe David fiddled between grave digging, Pépe Tootes played spoons while distilling his potatoes, and my dear father yodelled over the waterways of Lake St. Clair, running his booze to Abars. But we also had our classy side: My great grandméme Léticia, with her ability to balance on a champagne glass and simultaneously sing La Pitoune, was the toast of Cyrville.

Waiting for The Detours, at The Painted Lady by YJB Images

Crushed Angel

Under Mrs White’s direction, the Kindergarten nativity scene had been meritocratic enough to please Ayn Rand. Besides the hierarchy of the Holy Family, with Joseph as its also-ran, we’d been arrayed in satisfying ranks from angels to beasts to shepherds.
     But now in Grade 1, under Miss Meekin’s more Bolshie eye, we were each to contribute a letter and verse to a communal spelling of “MERRY CHRISTMAS”. There weren’t even costumes.
     “I is a icicle,” I practiced sullenly – I, who had led the Kindergarten archangels.
     “I is an icicle,” my mother corrected.
     “Miss Meekin says a icicle,” I said, crushed.

Image: Costume Craze.

My Christmas Miracle

Caracas, December, 1999. I’d just been hijacked and robbed. I sat in the back of a car, my assailants nattering in Spanish about what to do with me. I saw the dim lights of a smoky barrio high above. Not there, I thought. I don’t want to end up there. Or in a ditch. It was pissing down rain—I’d never be found. We entered the city. Why didn’t they stop? I saw a sign, bright, festive, incongruously familiar. “Feliz Navidad,” I read, thinking I was dead. They turned at the sound of my voice. “Navidad?” one asked, suddenly grinning.

Image: Levoniust

Carol at the Office Party

Come they told me,
     pa rum-pum pum pum
It is compulsory,
     pa rum-pum pum pum
And Secret Santa too,
     pa rum-pum pum pum
Will need a gift from you,
     pa rum-pum pum pum,
     rum-pum pum pum,
     rum-pum pum pum,

And so to keep my job,
     pa rum-pum pum pum,
I will come.


Indigestion,
     pa rum-pum pum pum
The drinks are watered down,
     pa rum-pum pum pum
And now they’re carolling!
     pa rum-pum pum pum
I cannot stand this thing,
     pa rum-pum pum pum,
     rum-pum pum pum,
     rum-pum pum pum,

Then she smiles at me,
     pa rum-pum pum pum,
I succumb.


Photo by Ron Sumners.

While Shepherds Watched (and stewed)

In a gobsmacking move of miscasting, Mr. Dugay chose Christine to be Mary for our grade eight Christmas play. Having always demurred at necking parties, I was patently more virginal, and with my goaty black hair and unibrow, fit the Zeffirelli Madonna ideal far more than she, with her long blonde tresses and grey eyes. Instead, I got the Rice-a-roni job of shepherd, me and the other Pike Creek kids. So I refused to join in with the communal “Blessed be the Baby Jesus”, opting instead to grind my teeth to the pa rum pum pum pum of righteous indignation.

Photo from OnlyTreasures on Etsy.

Little Lord Jesus No Crying Doth Make

My friend Mary’s baby won’t cry. His pediatrician got him a referral to this psychiatrist who says little LJ could be autistic, but they can’t tell till he’s three months old so for now he’s just “unresponsive”. Mary’s doctor sent her to a just regular psychologist who thinks little LJ won’t express his feelings because Mary won’t express hers. And it’s true, Mary has been kind of a mess after getting pregnant by another of her invisible narcissist exes, this one a real fruitcake who’d hold animal “sacrifices” on his patio, but she talks about him like he was God.

Image: timeanddate.com.

Christmas Pudding

Gorged on bird and carbs, the palate requires a light cleansing. Something healthy, fruity, with a hint of summer. Perhaps something with plums?
     I agreed enthusiastically. English future-Dad-in-law disappeared into the kitchen for what seemed like ages. There were curses. There was clanging. Others were called in for whispered consultations. My glass was filled repeatedly. Silly me—colonial me!—my mouth watered for pie. Finally the lights dimmed, a hush fell. Family members leaned forward expectantly. Then Paterfamilias reappeared, balancing a shimmering blue blob of glutinous suet.
     That night I joined their Christmas tradition. Years later, I still crave pie.

Image: Moel Faban Suppers