The Virgin (illustrated)

The Virgin

The Virgin

“I wasn’t going to throw myself in!” Rose laughed as she fell into his arms from the edge of the breakwater.

“You might have slipped,” Michael responded, his heart racing as Rose slipped too easily out of his grasp.

Rose giggled as she tossed her long black hair carelessly in the wind. She danced over and sat on a nearby bench. Michael watched her move, his own body itching to be released from the urge to hold her in his arms. Michael sat down beside Rose, lazily slouched on the bench staring across the river at the warehouses of Detroit. Some seagulls strolled up to them.

“Seagulls remind me of my aunts at a sale,” Rose laughed. “Rude, abrasive and always talking.”

Michael threw some peanuts from the bag he was carrying. The birds went into a frenzy.

“They’re hungry!” he grinned.

“You know you’re just encouraging them,” Rose laughed.

Michael could not look at her smile without wanting to kiss her.

“I wish I knew more about sex,” Rose said after several minutes of silence.

Michael swallowed deeply and Rose laughed.

“I wasn’t asking for volunteers.”

“Shit!”  Michael swore and smiled coyly.

Rose punched him playfully on the shoulder.

“You make me laugh, Michael. It’s so good to be around you.”

Michael smiled uncomfortably.

“Did I say something wrong?” Rose asked.

Rose squeezed Michael’s arm and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“I never aspired to he a professional virgin. My purity was a product of circumstance ­not choice. If my parents could read my thoughts, they’d disown me. They’re trying to match me up with a boy from our church, a nice Italian boy who works at the Chrysler plant. He drives this pink fifty-seven Chevy with a raccoon tail hanging from his rear view mirror. It is the tackiest thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Where’s the rest of the animal?” Michael asked, feeling Rose’s head on his shoulder, taking in the sweet smell of her hair.

Rose shook with laughter. “Maybe its in the trunk with the rest of his family.”

The seagulls began to laugh as they circled the bench. Michael threw a handful of peanuts off to one side. The seagulls departed.

“I hate those birds,” Rose cursed sitting up once again.

Michael regretted throwing the peanuts once Rose had moved away from him.

“You’re crazy about Freddy,” Michael blurted out.

Rose blushed. “Is it so obvious?”

Michael took out a package of cigarettes. All was lost, he thought to himself. He offered a cigarette to Rose who accepted it.

“He is so funny,” Rose continued. “You can hear his laughter across the campus. God, he makes me feel alive.”

Michael’s lips pressed nervously around a cigarette. His eyes dropped.

“The first time I saw Freddy I thought of my grandfather. Grandfather was tall and thin with legs that seemed to start from just below his shoulders. He had thinning blond hair with a rusty golden heard and an arrogant aristocratic posture just like Freddy They both have that same stern fearsome look that breaks into a boyish charm when they smile. And like grandfather, Freddy has that offbeat slant on life. Not despair hut whimsy. Life is a series of pratfalls like a Laurel and Hardy film. The human condition is slapstick. Freddy reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of Russian aristocrats just before they were due to be assassinated. They have that stunned look deer have when they are caught in a car’s headlights, stupidity passing itself off as courage. That doesn’t sound very flattering, does it? But I didn’t mean it that away. Freddy is just so sweet.”

A muddied rusted out barge drifted down the river. From the shore it did not appear to be manned except for the crew of seagulls that stood like a chorus line alone its rails. A small swell left the rusted hull and found its way to the shore, slapping against the cement wall and stirring a large water rat out of its lethargy. Michael stood up and leaned against the rail that ran along the breakwater and stared across the water at the warehouses and abandoned building of Detroit. He turned back to Rose. He didn’t want to hear how crazy she was about Freddy, but he couldn’t stop staring at Rose’s Roman profile, her high cheek bones, her smooth pale skin, her flashing hazel eyes, the long brown hair that tossed in the wind.

“You’re sweet too, Michael. Tell me what I’m going to do about Freddy. My sister is crazy about him. My cousin Maria has been drooling since I introduced them at the market. Everyone says he’s perfect for me.”

“And what do you think, Rose?”

Rose blushed.

“I’m so new at this, Michael. I haven’t had much experience. I think I’m falling in love with Freddy, but I don’t know when to take him seriously. Is he interested in me or am I just a laugh track for his monologues? What should I do?”

“Fall in love with me;” Michael smiled.

Rose laughed. Michael turned and flicked his cigarette into the river. A seagull dived for it. Rose stepped over to the railing.

“Since I was a girl I have been coming down to this river. Everything else in life is chaotic but the river, it never changes. Moving but never changing. The same currents; the same polluted water: the same stench; the same barges moving up and down the river. I think even the gulls are the same.”

“Why Freddy?” Michael asked.

Rose shrugged.  “I meet Freddy everyday at the library. I try and keep my mind on my studies but I can’t seem to bear being there without him. It is the most terrible and the most delicious feeling. And when he walks in with his tall lanky form and that broad grin in his beard, my knees get weak. I’m trembling. And when he puts his big hands on mine and drags me out of the library to the coffee shop, it feels like spring. We talk and laugh, smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and before I know it the afternoon has passed and I am home for dinner. And I can’t stop thinking about him. You don’t want to hear this.”

Michael lit up another cigarette.

“No. Go on.”

Rose sighed. “I want him to walk me home, to hold me in his arms. I want him to touch me.”

Irene giggled. “If my mother heard this, she’d kill me.”

“I’m sure,” Michael nodded.

Rose continued. “I’m so frightened of my feelings, their strength, their demands. Freddy and I talk of so many things, books, movies, music. It is as if there were no end of conversations between us. We could talk forever. He makes me smile so much that I can feel my face ravished with cramps when I fall asleep.”

“What do your parent’s think?” Michael asked.

“Freddy charmed the pants off my mother when I brought him home for dinner. He ate this huge plate of pasta that mama put in front of him and then flattered her ad nausea about how good the food was. He even managed to speak a few words of Italian. I don’t know what my father will think.”

Michael smiled uncomfortably.

“Something else is bothering you?”

Rose nodded.

“How can you tell?”

“I can see it in your eyes,” Michael said. “You look frightened.”

“This is kind of embarrassing.”

“Shoot!”

“Well, one afternoon Freddy invited me to share a drink in his room. As usual we talked and laughed and got pretty drunk. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“I can take it,” Michael smiled, biting down on his cigarette.

“We started kissing. Michael took off my blouse and bra. I had never done this with a boy before. I mean nothing. I wanted to stop but I didn’t want to stop. Freddy was grabbing my breasts and sucking. I shouldn’t have let it go on. I know that now. He put his hand between my legs. I let him. Freddy pushed his trousers down and climbed on top of me. Suddenly, Freddy bolted from the bedroom toward the washroom. I could hear him vomiting. I got dressed and quickly left. I know I should have stayed. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to make love so much but I was afraid. And when I felt him between my legs, I knew it was wrong. I’ve made such a fool of myself. You’ve heard this story before?”

Michael nodded.

“Freddy told you?”

“Yes,” Michael responded.

“What did he say?”

“You don’t want to hear it.”

Rose grabbed Michael by the jacket and made him look at her.

“Please, Michael.’

Michael took a deep sigh.

“We were at a resident part given by the United Church. Freddy showed up already drunk. We socialized for about an hour then Freddy grabbed my arm, whispered in my ear that he’d stolen a couple of bottles of wine and we ducked out. We went down to the river. We talked about a few things but the conversation soon turned to you. Freddy told me that he was never going to see you again.”

“I see,” Rose said, biting down on her lip. “Was that all?”

“We had an argument.”

“About me?”

Michael nodded.

“Tell me about it.”

“Everything?”

Rose nodded.

“I told Freddy that you couldn’t let someone fall in love with you and then walk away.”

Freddy staggered to a lamppost and leaned against it. He took the bottle in his hand and chugged it down.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he spat and uncorked the second bottle.

“She’s in love with you,” I said. “When someone is in love with you, you owe them something,”

Freddy fell to the ground. I staggered over and sat down beside him.

“Ah, what do you know about love, Michael?” Freddy cried, passing me the bottle.

“I know that someone’s heart is broken,” I said.

“Did I tell you what happened?” Freddy shook with laughter.

I shook my head.

“I took her to my room one afternoon. We started drinking. We got pretty loaded. It was a struggle to get her clothes off. But then, you should have heard her moan. Squirming like one of those broads in a stag film. She asked me for it. She was so polite about it that I thought I was going to die laughing. I practically had to bite the tip off my tongue.”

Rose gasped. “He didn’t!”

Michael nodded.

“I took a swing at him, sending him down the hill toward the river. I staggered after him to hit him again. He didn’t even try and defend himself. I hit him until my knuckles ached. His face was a bloody mess.”

“I fucked her for you,” Freddy taunted me.

“What?” Rose cried, tears running down her cheeks.

Michael stepped back and walked slowly away. Rose ran after him and grabbed his arm, turning Michael around to face her.

“What are you trying to tell me?” Rose asked, her face bathed in tears.

Michael shrugged Rose’s hand off his sleeve.

“Michael!”

“Freddy is a faggot!” Michael said choking back his emotions. “He’s in love with me, not you!”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Rose responded shaking her head. “I don’t understand. What happened between you two?”

Michael wiped some tears from his cheek.

“I didn’t know what to do?” he said, the words choking his breath. “We were drunk. There was blood all over his face. I couldn’t believe I had hit him. He was my best friend. I let him…”

“Let him what?” Rose demanded.

“Do I have to spell it out for you, Rose?”

Michael turned and walked away. Rose stood like a statue for a few minutes trying to absorb everything she had heard. Then she started to laugh.

“You’re a liar, Michael!” she cried as Michael made his way up the hill and away from the river.

“You’re in love with me!” she yelled. “That’s what this is all about!”

Michael turned and looked down the hill, at the barges moving slowly down the river, at the water lapping up against the breakwater, at Rose leaning over the rail weeping, at the seagulls gathering around her like family at a funeral.

Two Cheryls (illustration)

Two Cheryls

Two Cheryls

No one believes that there are two of us. I don’t know how it is possible myself, but I can’t remember when it wasn’t so. We go everywhere together, but I am apparently the only one who sees her. To everyone else she is my invisible friend. She is not invisible.

And she is not my friend. I think she is some kind of child apparition that got stuck to me, a by-product of some post-traumatic experience. I do not speak to my parents about her. They get too upset. One of us is invisible and its you! By the way, who are we talking to?

My audience. The audience that awaits me in my stories.

That sickeningly sentimental slop you pour onto those lily-white sheets. Another author from small town Canada. Just what the country needs. I cannot imagine where you get your ideas. Actually I can imagine. From all those teenage magazines and Harlequin Romances you read. Get real, girl.

I cannot remember when things were normal, when I was completely alone, when there was only one of us. Most of my young life I thought that this was the norm. Didn’t everyone have a friend, a guardian angel? But mine was different. She is so real. Discussing her like this makes it sound as if there is a possibility that she really is a fantasy. I checked out the medical records. I was hoping for twins. Perhaps one had died and fled into the body of the other. But there was only one birth.

You were the afterbirth, stupid! They forgot to throw it away. People have felt sorry for you ever since. You’re such a wimp. I don’t know how you can go through life so spineless.

And you’re so cruel. Why do you find it necessary to hurt me all the time?

Because you’re there.

When I get into trouble, I know who is to blame. If only…

…you weren’t such a coward.

I can fly, can’t I. That’s something you can’t do.

In your imagination, stupid.

But I can. I learned to fly right after our birth out of sheer joy. The world was so beautiful. It was winter when we were born. Snow covered the fields and snowflakes were piled up on the wire fences like acrobats. Tree trunks and branches were painted white so that against the clouded sky it looked like parts of the trees had been eaten away by daylight. Thin layers of ice crinkled beneath feet and the cattle in the fields bawled as they unwrapped the grass with their hooves. My heart was so gay, so swollen with delight that I rose up and flew out of the open window and over the fields.

Cut out the descriptive shit! You can’t fly! Wake up girl, no one can fly! That’s why people line up for hours at airports. You’ve forgotten to take your medication, haven’t you? Dr. Baxter warned you about that. If it weren’t for me, you’d be in a straight jacket.

I like to write stories. Had one published in our high school yearbook. Another one was published in A.I.M., a magazine out of Chicago. Stories come to me out of the blue. I catch them in my imagination. I feel like a radio that just needs to be turned on and tuned to the right station. Someday I’d like to be…

… a journalist. So lets talk about our first week of college. We had no friends and our room in the girl’s residence, Electa Hall, started to feel like a prison. We went for a walk along the river toward Windsor’s downtown ending up in a parking lot where all the tourists were taking pictures of Detroit’s skyline.

I remember! There was a trapeze artist walking on a tightrope from Cleary Auditorium to a hotel room. The hotel was to burn down the next week. What an extraordinary stroke of good luck. A week later and he’d have been walking right into…

… the fire. There were all these people below the tightrope, their cameras pointing at him, waiting for him to fall. I couldn’t stand the tension.

We moved on. Walked up Ouellette. Some colored folks from Michigan approached us. They wanted to know where the tunnel to Detroit was. We didn’t know. They swore at us. Thought we were putting them on. Colored people are so paranoid. They think everything is about race, even ignorance.

I don’t think you should talk about people like that. You know what the book says about walking in another man’s shoes.

I think I’m going to puke.

Our parents moved from Nova Scotia to a farm near Leamington, a small town outside Windsor. Work was always scarce in the Maritimes and so father struck out for Ontario and purchased a small piece of land. His first year, he had a bumper crop of onions and onion prices soared.

Back to the topic at hand, please!

Most of the first few days at college were spent alone in our room, listening to Gordon Lightfoot. Something about Lightfoot’s grainy voice was comforting. I’d heard that he’d once been a dancer on Country Hoedown. Our parents were big fans of Country Hoedown. They used to kill…

…themselves laughing at Cousin Clem. There was always a running argument in the family about who was the better country singer, Tommy Commons or Tommy Hunter. None of us could ever remember seeing Lightfoot on the show. Years later Tommy Commons killed himself. It was awful. Mama was so upset about it that she sat us down to discuss suicide.

I wish you’d consider the possibility.

I would not. It’s against the rules of the Church. You can’t be buried on holy grounds if you kill yourself.

Who said anything about a funeral? I’d still have your body and some peace of mind.

Our parents were Catholic though father was not religious. I’m not sure he even believed in God. But he was attached to the Church. Believed in the community of the faithful. He was a church usher and for years the assistant scout master.

Always the assistant, never the master.

I’ll ignore that remark. Mother was very religious. She was always humming hymns. Every evening there was a bedtime prayer and during lent we all knelt around the living room saying the rosary.

Mother could not sing…

…but nevertheless she joined the choir. During Mass the whole family kept their eyes on the floor while the choir sang. None of us wanted to…

…break out laughing. Father was very interested in politics, especially American politics. Many evenings I would see him come in from the fields and sit and listen to the radio. When the first civil rights movements started in the south, father made us all aware of what was going on. Some evenings I would see him transfixed, listening to the radio.

…his huge hands wiping the tears…

…of rage from his cheeks.

Most of the first week in Windsor it rained. A soft warm rain. Sometimes I went up on the roof of our residence, Electa Hall, and let the rain wash down my face. I rose up on my toes and slowly drifted off into the sky, flying over the Tudor homes in the neighborhood, looking down into their living rooms, watched fathers reading the newspapers, kids running through the halls and up and down the stairs, mothers preparing meals, listening to the radio, dancing in front of the boiling potatoes, the dog sleeping under the kitchen table.

After dinner one evening before we were to leave for college, father took us to the back lot of the farm where it was peaceful.

“Cheryl, you’re a woman now. Going off to college. Great opportunities. Terrible dangers. I don’t know how to prepare you for what you’re going to meet in life. The farm has kept you hidden from the ugliness of the world outside. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t have protected you. How is a person to know? There is so much hate out there. It can tear you apart. Be true to yourself and know that you are loved.”

I made friends.

Misfits.

There was Carla, my roommate. She was shy, rather bright with a slight weight…

…a slob. Weighed over two hundred pounds.

And Jackie, Carla’s best friend. Jackie walked with a slight limp. She had polio when she was…

…a cripple. She walked with a cane and a brace on her right leg.

And there was Marjorie, Jackie’s roommate, who was so painfully shy that she seldom spoke even in her own room. The four of us went everywhere together: library, class, cafeteria, Mass, social events. After a while I found myself sneaking off. It felt too much like the four of us were friends out of necessity. That’s how I met the red headed boy.

Oh, God! Another one of your fantasies. Let’s set the scene. The red headed boy stood…

…at the riverside tossing his long red hair to one side. I watched as a blond girl lay on the ground, sipping a coke, watching him. The red headed boy stepped over to her, hands in his back pockets, leaning to one side. The girl laughed. He looked down at her, his sunglasses cool and metallic. A pan flute began to play. She put down her coke. He reached for her, the tips of his fingers raising her to her feet and into his arms. Slowly they rose, floating above the ground, and he kissed her.

And made me puke! Back in the real world I volunteered our services to the newspaper offices. Even though all I did was type it was great being around people who were doing something. There was so much energy. I got to like Harvey. He had an acid sense of humor and spared no one in his observation of the human condition.

There was a freshman dance. Carla and I debated whether to go or not. Jackie said that she hated dancing. Marjorie listened. Carla asked if I had seen the boy in the long red hair.

“I could never date a boy with long hair like that,” Carla said.

“He must be strange,” Jackie added.

“I like him,” Marjorie sighed.

We all turned and looked at her then broke out laughing.

One afternoon I found myself across the table from a senior student named Kevin. He talked for two hours about campus politics.

The red headed boy stopped by the table to speak to Kevin. His name was Michael. I could not take my eyes off his hair. So long and wavy, like a woman’s hair. He looked from Kevin to me through the long hair dangling over his eyes. Our eyes locked. His were so blue. I looked away, embarrassed. When I looked back…

…he was gone. There was no red headed boy. All in your imagination. Kevin and I were alone. Tell your audience about Dolores.

It was in the residence. I was in the shower, staring up at the water rushing down over my face.

It felt so good, I kept my eyes open. The shower in the next stall turned on. A moment

later someone tapped me on the shoulder. I tried to cover myself. It embarrassed me to stand naked in front of another woman. I felt so fat. I recognized the girl. She was living on the same floor as us but on the opposite wall.

“Your skin is so soft,” Dolores said. “Can I touch it again?”

She said no such thing. She just asked if she could borrow your shampoo.

She asked to borrow my shampoo and then she asked if I wanted her to wash my hack.

She said no such thing. She asked if she could borrow your shampoo, you handed it to her, then you ran back to your room. You wanted Dolores to touch you; that was it. You’re afraid that loneliness might drive you to lesbianism. How could you face father as a dike? How could you face the family? And weren’t you attracted to our cousin John? Didn’t you want him to touch you too? How many times have you touched yourself? I was there. I know. And now you’ve made up this little romance with the red headed boy. Face up to the world, girl. I’m not afraid of it. Of men. Of anything. Nothing is going to stop me.

Stop it! Please!

I began to spend more of my free time working on the school newspaper, The Lance. Harvey was there a lot. Sometimes we would sneak into the darkroom and fool around. Petting. Necking. Harvey told me that he had a medical condition called the Permanent Hard-on. I never laughed so hard in my life. He said it was no party. No matter how long he would have sex with a girl, he would never have an orgasm. Harvey asked me to the Presidential rally in Detroit. We would be covering it for The Lance.

I wanted to say no.

I said yes. It was incredible. We were in the balcony of the hall with a bunch of other kids, mostly from Wayne State. This flat top gave a very mean spirited speech, sending most of his venom our way, promising that after he was elected there would be places for people like us. Everyone knew what that meant. You could tell that he was playing to his audience. And they soaked it up. Really believed him. Faith is the suicide of reason. Harvey pointed out a University of Windsor jacket amongst the fascist supporters.

I recognized him right away. It was the red headed boy. He looked very meek, uncomfortable. Somebody from the balcony threw a chair down at the crowd below. A gang of the fascist supporters began to scale the walls, climbing up toward us. Some of them had spray cans. Maybe they had guns too.

“This is going to get ugly,” Harvey said.

I was caught up in the spirit of the event. I wanted to stay and find out what would happen. I knew if things blew up we were going to make the national news. Not just in Canada, but in the States as well. Father would like that, to see one of his own fighting back.

I agreed with Harvey and we departed and fled back to Canada, reporting the riot that later broke out from the safety of a Windsor tavern where we watched it on late night television.

“That’s America’s nightmare,” Harvey laughed…

…with his hand sliding up my thigh. I grabbed Harvey’s hand.

“You’ve had enough excitement for one evening, young man,” I said.

Harvey laughed. We went back to The Lance office and wrote up our story. I shared

Harvey’s byline.

I thought about the red headed boy and wondered if he was all right. What was he doing amongst the fascist supporters? Was he a racist? Had I fallen in love with one of them?

I asked my cousin John to take me to the freshman dance. In the back of my mind I cherished the hope that I might meet the red headed boy. Racist or not, I couldn’t let him go. We weren’t at the dance long when John turned to me.

“I feel uncomfortable,” he said. “We’re the only blacks here.”

We left early. When I returned to residence the other three girls gathered in my room.

“Did you see him?” Marjorie stuttered.

“See who?”

“Oh, we know all about your crush on that red headed boy.”

I protested. The other girls laughed. Jackie fell onto my bed and sighed.

“I think your cousin John is awfully nice.”

Forget the red headed boy. You have no relationship with him. It’s all in your imagination.

I met the red headed boy a second time. It was a chilly day in November outside Dillon Hall and I was crossing the campus from class to the University Centre. The red headed boy was sitting on the brick wall across from the Centre. I stopped and leaned against the wall, pretending that I was waiting for someone. The red headed boy glanced my way but said nothing. I waited. No words were exchanged. My fingers were growing numb with cold. I dropped my books. When I picked them up he was gone.

He was never there. There was no one there except us. There is no red headed boy. And you can’t fly. End of story.

He does exist. Why can’t you see him? You see everyone else. And there was a third time. The four of us girls got drunk from a bottle of Canada Club that Clara had brought over from Detroit. Jackie passed out. Marjorie suggested that we go over to the dance at the University Centre. We all laughed and then made our way out of the residence, dancing across the darkening campus grounds when suddenly Marjorie pointed him out.

“It’s the red headed boy,” she shouted.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Clara laughed, “It’s him.”

I don’t know what overcame me but I ran up to him and gave him a kiss.

“Please don’t forget me,” I said.

The other girls began to laugh. I looked at the girls and then back at the boy whom I had just kissed. It wasn’t the red headed boy.

You were so quiet during the Christmas break. Our parents were worried, but could get nothing out of you. I thought it might have been the embarrassment of the mistaken kiss or perhaps you finally realized that the red headed boy was only a figment of your imagination. When we returned to school you remained holed up in a depression. I liked it. I didn’t have to put up with your insipid sentimentality. Harvey and I got close. Another disappointment. He couldn’t keep it up for hours. Couldn’t get it up at all. That was embarrassing. I felt so dirty. I wanted to bury myself. And then you were back again, and so cheerful as if a great weight had been lifted off your shoulders. A week later the worst storm of the winter hit Windsor. It was wonderful. I went for a long walk down by the river. You could not see Detroit. It was as if a great curtain of snow had been drawn between the two cities. When I returned to Electa Hall, I saw you up on the roof.

“Oh God, she really thinks she can fly,” I said.

I watched from the ground as you spread your arms and jumped. It was so quiet that night that even the sound of our body hitting the ground was muffled by the snow. I was glad. Glad that you had jumped, glad that that part of me was dead and that I could now get on with my life. Glad that finally I would be allowed to deal with the world as it was and not as you imagined it. Finally we were separated. The next day crowds gathered to look at the imprint of our feet in the ground.

“I saw her jump,” a voice cried.

I turned around. It was him, the red headed boy.

“For a moment,” he added, “I could have sworn that she was actually flying.”

He shook his head and looked right through me as if I wasn’t even there.

The Voice of God (illustration)

The Voice of God

The Voice of God

When there was time during the day Sister Bernadette would walk down the long lawn that ran from the convent to the river. On the way were fruit trees, moles of evergreens and flowers and small brick stations of the Cross where the nuns could meditate or pray. Across the river from the convent was Babylon – Detroit, Michigan. Mother Theresa, Sister Bernadette’s superior, warned all the other nuns about the works of the devil: blasphemy, fornication, gambling, drunkenness. The only true work of God in Detroit was Tiger Stadium. The Sisters loved baseball.

Sister Bernadette was the youngest of the Sisters in the convent. Most of the other nuns were old enough to be her grandmother. There was no one there that she could talk to about the changing world around her, about the changes in her body, about love. Amidst the silence and the hours spent praying she hungered for conversation. It was the cross God had given her to bear for Sister Bernadette loved to talk.

The hardwood floors in the chapel where the nuns prayed were so cold their knees stuck to wood. The other nuns did not seem to notice the skirts of breath that slipped out of their mouths during Mass. Only Father O’Reilly hurled angry glances at the open windows of the chapel. It made Sister smile. Everything made the young nun smile. Her disposition was almost always perky and effervescent. Often during the spring she could be seen running through the garden, her arms extended as if she expected at any moment to start flying. She was enchanting.

“I love to listen to the Great Lakes steamers sounding their horns, and the screeching seagulls shadowing the wakes, and the trucks rumbling across the Ambassador Bridge, their wheels thundering on the ramps, and the bridge itself shuttering and groaning under the weight, and the river lapping against the monstrous trunks of the bridge’s legs. To me, it is all part of the celestial chorus, a wondrous symphony of the Divine.”

I laughed.

“What do you find so amusing?” she asked.

“Not amusing my dear,” I responded. “It always delights me to be in your company.”

Sister blushed.

“You haven’t told any of the other nuns about our little conversations, have you?”

Sister shook her head.

“Why can’t I tell them? They are holy nuns in your service. Surely they would not doubt that you can come down to talk to your creations.”

“It’s not me they would be doubting, my dear,” I smiled. Sister was so naïve, had no sense of how skeptical and cynical the world had become.

Sister Bernadette asked if I could keep a secret. There was something she saw that she had to tell someone and she daren’t tell her confessor or any of the other nuns. I already knew what she was going to tell me but bit my tongue.

“My lips are sealed,” I promised.

Sister looked around the garden to make sure no one was looking. When she was assured that we were not being overheard she began.

“One day in the late evening on my way through the gardens, I stumbled across two lovers. Students, I think, from the university. They were so caught up in their ecstasy that they did not notice me. I should have fled but I did not. Isn’t that terrible? I was overcome with curiosity. I watched the pink bare bum of the boy between the girls legs bouncing up and down like a beach ball in the waves of a lake. And the expression on the girl’s face was almost indescribable, a combination of pain and joy that seemed to speak of arrival, and home, and peace. It was quite lovely. And the sounds -  so beautiful and tender from her mouth, so urgent and fragile from his lips. When they finally collapsed into each other’s arms, it was as if they had fallen into heaven. While they were still drunk on their pleasure, I snuck quietly away.”

I chuckled.

“Why do you laugh? It was very charming.”

“I enjoy your reaction to things.”

“And why is that?”

“You seem so startled by the most fragile of life’s beauty.”

“Startled? How am I startled?”

“Forget I mentioned it,” I sighed. “I hope you have told no one about this experience?”

Sister Bernadette shook her head and I let out a sigh of relief.

Sister asked. “Do you think it is possible that the girl actually felt such bliss?”

I nodded.

“Excuse me!” Sister asked impatiently. “Was there an answer some where in that silence?”

I decided I needed to keep a closer eye on my little Bernadette. I didn’t want her to get into any trouble with the other nuns, and I found her life so charming. She almost always put a smile on my face. One day I spotted her struggling along Riverside Drive with some packages on her way toward the university. A young man on a motorcycle approached. I put an idea in his head. He  pulled over to the curb and took off his sunglasses.

“Having any difficulties, Sister?” he asked.

She smiled at the boy, put down her bag and sighed. She found him interesting. I had another look at the young man and could find nothing there of any interest. His long red hair was mangy and out of control. He jeans were too tight and would lead to early fertility difficulties if he wasn’t careful. He appeared to be without ambition. His mind was a complete blank as far as I could discern.

“Would you like a lift?” the boy laughed. That was my idea. I didn’t want my Bernadette coming down with a hernia.

She looked at the boy in silence for a moment. I could see her thoughts taking shape. She was afraid of the consequences should Mother Superior discover that she had been on the back of a motorcycle.

“I couldn’t! A motorcycle! What would the other Sisters think? Besides, I don’t even know you.”

“I’m in your philosophy class,” the boy grinned. Well the boy had a brain. I didn’t expect him to be in business but philosophy was more than I could have expected.

“Professor Brown’s class,” the boy added. “I’m the one who doesn’t show up. My name is Michael.”

“I’d love to take you up on your kind offer, Michael,” she responded. “But, I’m not sure it would be a good idea.”

Go ahead, I suggested, but she would have none of it. Stubborn little nun.

“Well then,” Michael suggested. “Why don’t we load your stuff on the back of my bike and I’ll walk you over to the campus?”

She agreed and piled her package up on the back of the bike, which the boy secured with several elastic straps.

“My name is Sister Bernadette,” she said.

On the way to the campus Michael talked about himself. What else do young men ever talk about? He was a graduate student in philosophy. Another surprise. He liked to drink Jack Daniels and smoke Camel cigarettes. It fit the left-bank intellectual image that he had created for himself. But mostly he liked to drive his Harley Davidson which he called Wings.

“Speed is God,” he said. I could feel idolatry slipping into the conversation.

“The faster you go, the closer you come to the Divine,” he added.

“Especially if you hit a tree,” Sister laughed.

The two became friends. That was fine with me as far as it went. But I was afraid for her. There was something in the look of this young man that I did not trust.  Occasionally after class they would retire to the student center and talk over coffee and a cigarette. Sister was always tempted by Michael’s invitation to try a smoke but shook her head as she laughed.

“Can you imagine the look on Mother Theresa’s face if she found me smoking a cigarette?”

As they discussed Plato, the problems of Northern Ireland, the environment, I could see that young Michael was becoming enchanted with my Sister Bernadette’s company. His interest in her had gone beyond mere friendship. This was not part of my plan.

He asked her why she had become a nun.

“It’s a long story,” she responded.

“I can miss my Hegel class,” Michael assured her.

My little Bernadette went into a long meandering story about her father. What did he have to do with her vocation? I was the one that had given it to her. It was quite a tale though, about her father being a military man like his father before him and so on for generations. The family had an addiction to uniforms. The gist of it was that Bernadette fell in love with the habit. There was not one mention of me.

“I thought that religious vocations were given by God,” Michael offered.

Exactly, I thought. The boy is right there. But, she didn’t agree.

“That’s the Hollywood version,” she smiled. “When I was twelve, father took us, mother and I, on a tour of Europe to show us all the important battlefields of history. There was the humiliation of Roman power in the annihilation of Varus by the Germans in the Teutoburger Forest in 9 A.D. In 1066 there was the Battle of Hastings where Harold was struck in the eye by an arrow and the English fell to the Normans. At the Battle of Crecy in 1346, knights got off their horses and fought beside the longbowmen. And then there was the rise of the common man to arms led by Peter de Koning in Bruges. And so it went for several weeks.”

“But how did this lead you into a nunnery?” Michael asked.

Good question. I’d like to know the answer to that myself.

Sister Bernadette laughed. “After we returned home from Europe, I announced my intentions to become a nun. I would be a soldier too, just like my father, but a soldier in God’s army.”

Who ever said that I had an army? Most ridiculous thing that I ever heard. But Michael fell for it. And judging by the expression on his face, he was impressed. This could not continue. I decided that I would have to separate Bernadette and Michael before things got completely out of hand. The next day, she received a telephone call at the convent. Her father was ill. Oh, it was nothing serious but I made the illness mysterious enough to warrant concern. She rushed back home to Kingston. I managed to keep the old man on his back for two weeks, but his natural healthy constitution reasserted itself and he was back on his feet. Perhaps two weeks would be enough. Young men’s attention spans were short so perhaps Michael had forgotten all about my little Sister.

Sister Bernadette returned to the convent and her duties. To my delight I discovered that  young Michael had once again become absent from Professor Brown’s classes. The school year was almost over and if I could hide my little nun for two more weeks, I was confident that the long summer would dampen any amorous feelings between the couple. And then one sunny Tuesday afternoon while she was walking along Riverside Drive, a bike pulled over to the curb in front of her. Without saying a word she climbed on back. They drove for hours, out of Windsor east along the 401, passing effortlessly through the countryside, turning south before London and then west again along Lake Erie. It was all I could do to keep up with them. She took her headdress off and let the wind wash over her face. Michael turned into a park by the lake and drove along the beach. It was getting late. Time to get back to the convent. That was the idea I put into her head. She ignored it. The sun had begun to sink. Michael stopped the bike and  laid it gently on the sand. When he turned around Sister Bernadette was stripping off her habit and running into the lake. She was laughing, a kind of mad laugh, too intense for joy. Michael followed her example, stripped off his clothes and raced after her. Up to their waist in water, naked, he embraced her. She climbed on top of him and he was inside her. I had to do something.

The smile slipped from his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s never happened to me before.”

Premature ejaculation. I knew it was beneath me but I was desperate. I couldn’t lose my little Sister Bernadette to this oversexed nicotine stained gladiator. But what happened next crushed me.

“That’s all right,” Sister smiled. “We’ve got all night.”

New Book of Poems

I have epublished a new book of poems, free to read. It is called Trash.

http://trashpoems.wordpress.com/

Growing Up In The Mob (illustration)

Growing Up In The Mob

This story grew out of a conversation I had at college with a young woman who told me that her relatives were involved in the Mafia. Our relationship was short lived.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Growing up in the Mob

My shrink says that I have a morbid fascination with death. Who wouldn’t? I can’t remember when I haven’t had nightmares about death. Some kids went to the cottage in the summer. My family went to funerals. We had a special wardrobe for funerals. And a special car. The black Cadillac that waited like a hearse in our garage. My mother kept an album of Mass cards for the bereaved. No doubt it would have been worth quite a bit of money by now. I burned it after my father’s death, like I burned everything that had anything to do with that time in my life.

The whole family were animals. At least the men were. My uncles ate with their mouths open like cannibals, snorting and belching. Hairs grew out of their noses and on top of their knuckles and sometimes you could spot bits of food stuck in the hairs. I used to have nightmares that I would grow up with hairs growing on my breasts. It was like living amongst the beasts of the jungle. Of all my uncles, Uncle Bert was my favorite. He was a bit of a kid himself always ready to play games. Uncle Bert was short one finger. This was quite a mystery to us kids. Later I learned that the lost finger had been payment for a loan he had reneged on. But that was not the story he told us kids. He told us kids that one evening after working all day in the fields he was so hungry he’d sliced his finger off and swallowed it before he realized it wasn’t a sausage.

All our Sunday afternoons started in the kitchen with my aunts cooking and criticizing aunts who weren’t there. Once they had completed gang banging the absent aunts, it was time to eat. The tables were always filled with more food than anyone could ever imagine being eaten at one sitting, but each dish had to be finished off so that none of the aunts would have cause for insult regarding their contribution to the feast.

Once everyone had gorged themselves, the men would be sent off and the women would clear the tables and wash the dishes. Talk turned on the husbands. All my cousins, the girls, would sit around and listen. In Aunt Marge’s kitchen the talk centered on Uncle Peter’s insatiable sexual drive. At Aunt Bernice’s we all retired to the laundry room where Aunt Bernice complained that Uncle Joe never changed his underwear, which we had all suspected. Uncle Joe was getting something on the side and if Aunt Bernice found out who the slut was she would cut her tits off. At Aunt Rosa’s it was obligatory to kneel down in front of the chapel she created for the Blessed Virgin and say a prayer for her mother, her mother’s mother, down a long line of mothers. Death held no dominion over Aunt Rosa. No one ever mentioned Aunt Clara. She was English and had been Uncle Bill’s first wife. Apparently she had been caught with one of my uncle’s drivers. None of us kids knew what happened to Aunt Clara and the driver, but mother always blessed herself when we drove passed the new bus terminal.

As a shy rather unattractive girl I spent many of those days sitting in a chair, my hands neatly piled in my lap, listening to my aunts and uncles bartering for the airwaves with shouts and laughter. The boredom drove me into my own thoughts. I daydreamed. And what I dreamed about most often was death. One particular dream stalked my thoughts.

I am standing on a railroad trestle, staring down at the black curling water below. The poor little moon is spinning around in an eddy, fighting not to be sucked under. I’m thinking of throwing myself off the trestle onto the rocks in the creek below. I feel the railroad tie beneath my feet vibrating. I look up and stare down the tracks into the darkness. I see nothing but I can hear the faint sounds of a train coming closer and closer. And then I see the train headlight like a light at the end of a long dark tunnel. I scream, realizing that I don’t want to die. I begin to run, desperately trying to reach safety. I trip.

I was so happy when I got accepted at the University of Windsor. Finally I was away from them. I never expected to be so lonely, far from home, living on my own for the first time with  people who didn’t understand my background. And why should they? They’d all come from normal homes where courtesy and politeness and niceness were the rule. When I tried to explain what I had been through, when I told stories about my uncles, they’d sit there with their mouths open in disbelief. Word got around the campus and I was labeled a loony. Only my good friend, Mary O’Hara, believed me. But the loneliness drove me deep inside myself. I fantasized about new deaths.

I am in my room alone, as I usually was most evenings sitting at my desk by the window. I take the bottles of aspirin out of my school bag and set them up on my desk in front of the window. Turning the lights out in the room I look out at the cool evening sky. Windsor looks like a Christmas tree from the seventh floor of Electa Hall, the girl’s residence. Across the street out back of the married residence I can see someone throwing a frisbee. A dog is barking. I empty all the aspirins onto my desk and open a bottle of coke. Lighting up a cigarette, I consider a suicide note. Who would I write it to? My father? That son of a bitch! Mother? She’d feel guilty. I couldn’t stand that. O’Hara, my best friend? Too presumptuous. I’d only known her a few weeks. I wonder what the funeral would be like. That was always one of the great joys of considering suicide. Would my mother make all my cousins dress the same? Should I ask to be buried in the wedding dress mother was keeping for me? I felt as if my suicide would help fill out the family’s social calendar. I took a handful of aspirins and then reached for the coke. In the darkness I knocked the bottle of coke over. I began to choke. The aspirins became lodged in my throat. God, I didn’t want to choke to death! I stumbled across the room toward the door to call for help. In the darkness I couldn’t find the doorknob.

Most of my life at university was study. I had entered sociology; I wanted to become a social worker. Maybe I felt guilty for my family’s crimes and wanted to undo some of the harm they had committed. There were boys but nothing very serious. I got the impression that my reputation as a loony had preceded me; most of the boys I attracted were psychology majors more interested in getting into my head than into my pants. I tried to have sex with one boy but it was a disaster. He wet his pants than wiped his sticky fingers on my sweater. My aunts were right about sex. It wasn’t worth it.

In my senior year of college I was called home. Lumps had been found on mother’s breasts. My mother was a saint. She had taken the family’s sin upon herself and they were killing her. I spent most of the year running back and forth between school and home. Mother and I became very close, like girlfriends. She told me how she had met my father. It had been an arranged marriage. She had fallen in love with another boy from a neighboring village but her parents had forbidden any alliance with his family and forced her to marry my father, a boring and homily lad by her account. But she did not regret her choice reminding me that she had three lovely children. On her deathbed, mother smiled at me, told me her time was up and wished me well. Then mother closed her eyes and was gone. Mother was buried in May. It was so hot the day of the funeral. There were thousands of grasshoppers in the cemetery. Father cried all through the service and didn’t stop for days.

Now that mother was free, my father wanted me to come home and keep house for him. Fuck him! I thought. Let him hire a maid. I was going to graduate school. Father bought me a small car, a Toyota, so that I would come back to Toronto more often. He never bought my mother a car, never trusted her out of the house. I should never have accepted the Toyota. It was bought with blood money and I was to suffer for it with a new nightmare.

In this new nightmare I am motoring along the Macdonald-Cartier Expressway, moving the Toyota into the passing lane and slowly passing a transport. The driver looks down from his cab into my car and throws me a kiss. I move abruptly into his lane forcing him to hit his brakes. I laugh, give him the finger then move briskly along leaving the truck far behind. I roll down the car window and relax. The sun smells like clover. In the sky white billowy clouds tumble over each other like kittens frolicking in a toilet paper commercial. I slip into that warm tub of dreaming that always comes over me on long drives. Reaching over, I turn on the radio. One of my favorite tunes is on and I hum along and grab a cigarette. When I reach over to push in the cigarette lighter, I spot a hornet resting on the knob. I swat at the insect, turning the steering wheel sharply. The car flips over and slides on its roof like a curling rock down the highway, the metal roof screeching, spitting out a volley of sparks. I freeze, hold my breath and begin to pray. Finally the car comes to a stop. Hanging upside down, I fumble with my seat belt. It is stuck. A truck’s horn calls out. I turn my head and see the big transport barreling down the road toward me, its brakes screaming, its gears grinding down.

I liked to pick up hitchhikers on my trips back and forth between Windsor and Toronto. I loved Michael the first time he stepped into my Toyota, his long red hair in tangles, his backpack thrown so thoughtlessly into the back seat. As we drove, Michael explained that he was a draft dodger, that he was in the country illegally, that every month he returned to Toronto to pick up money from a special account his parents had set up for him. His parents lived in Texas. His father was a well-known lawyer in Dallas and had worked on Lyndon Johnson’s Senate race. We pulled into a service center. While Michael went to use the washroom, I filled the gas tank then pulled into a parking space. I don’t know what came over me. I walked up to the washroom, knocked on the door, pushed Michael inside the room and began to undress him. The expression on his face still makes me smile.

Michael and I became lovers. I didn’t care what my aunts would think of me; Michael treated me like a princess. Some days we spent all day naked, making love, eating, laughing, smoking dope, making love. I loved everything about Michael, his wavy long hair, his rough strong hands, the curve of his back, his soft blue eyes, his ears that stuck out when I pulled his hair back, the curve of thick white cock, the sound of his breath by my ear when he was inside me.

Michael moved into my Windsor apartment over a 7-11 convenience store. While I worked on my Master’s thesis, Michael organized an anti-war group. Our apartment was a hub of activity. There was a constant flow of people sharing ideas and organizing protests. I reveled in my new life. In the midst of saturation bombing of North Vietnam and the secret war in Cambodia I had never felt more alive. Michael told me over and over again that I was beautiful. We even talked about getting married one day. My nightmares were gone.

Then it ended. One day when I returned from class Michael was packed and departed. I must have been crazy. I actually believed that when I left home I could make a place for myself in the world. My father must have had me watched. He didn’t approve of Michael, didn’t approve of someone who wouldn’t kill. Death had always been the acid test of manhood in our family. No one knew where Michael had gone. O’Hara said that the last time she saw him he looked like he’d been scared out of his mind. I raced back to Toronto and begged my father to let me have Michael. He said that he had nothing to do with Michael’s departure, denied knowing anything more about Michael than I had told him. But there were other boys, he said. He would find me one. I never saw Michael again.

There was a new nightmare. It is my wedding. I take my father’s arm and walk slowly down the church aisle. The packed crowd in the church turn their heads. A wave of smiles washed over the congregation. I glance at father. He smiles, pats my arm. Up ahead I see my husband to be, waiting nervously with my cousin Billy and Father O’Reilly.

“Your ­mother would he proud of you, Christiane,” father whispers as he releases my arm.

My fiance reaches out for me. I reach into the bouquet of flowers I am holding, pull out a revolver, put it to my father’s head, and pull the trigger.

Time passed. I threw myself into my work. Never saw any of my old friends. There were other men in my bed but all I could think of was Michael. Soon I gave up on men altogether and concentrated on my work. Except for special family occasions, father and I never exchanged a word.

Years later I showed my old school friend Mary O’Hara around my apartment in Toronto. She was very impressed. The tour ended on the balcony where the two of us sat down at a garden table. Around the table there was a jungle of plants and trees.

“This place is incredible,” O’Hara smiled.

“I’ve got a herb garden set up on the roof,” I smiled. “And look at the view you get of the city.”

O’Hara shook her head.

“You’ve done well, kid.”

“You want a drink?”

“Sure.”

“White wine okay?”

O’Hara nodded.

I stepped over to a small white table where a number of glasses and bottles of liquor were set up.

“How can you afford all this on a social workers salary?” Mary laughed.

“Father died, He was loaded.”

“I didn’t know about your father,” Mary sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Father was lucky though. He died of a stroke in his sleep. Got off Scot-free. I hope he burns in hell.”

“Christiane!” Mary gasped.

“Father used to say that you can’t leave your family. They’re the luggage you carry through life. I hated him.”

­“You hated your father?”

“I hate the whole family. They’re all monsters. I thought that when I saw him lying there in his casket that I would be rid of him. But now I’ve got all his money. It’s a curse.”

“You could give the money away.”

“Wouldn’t matter. I dream about him every night.”

O’Hara lit up a cigarette.

“When did you start smoking?” I laughed.

“After Michael left me,” Mary laughed. “I picked up a lot of bad habits after that louse ran off.”

“Michael?”

O’Hara smiled.

“Remember your old fling. Months after you left Windsor, Michael returned from Texas. His father had died and he had to sneak back into the States for the funeral. He was a wreck. God, I guess I felt sorry for him. He lost his father; you two had split up. He was suicidal. We ended up getting married. That was a mistake. It was like living with a stranger. Even after we had Sandra, he was distant. And then he disappeared. Without a word.”

After O’Hara left I gathered up the dirty dishes from dinner and piled them into the dishwasher. Feeling an attack of gas coming on I took a tablespoon of Maalox. Checking out the time and the television guide, I sat down on the couch and watched a rerun of a Barbara Streisand movie. About half way through the film I fell asleep and dreamed about a photograph of my cousin’s wedding. Sixteen flower girls. Four hundred guests. All my aunts and uncles were there. My cousin Billy stood beside his new wife smiling. Everyone in the picture was smiling. Father looked at me. He was laughing. When I awoke the television was snowy. I checked the time on the stove. It was three-thirty. In the distance I heard a dog howl. Stepping onto the balcony, I threw myself off.

He Started To Laugh (illustration)