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Writer's pictureWellington Lambert

South of Moosonee 17



-10F/-22F


Mom thought she was dying. It was last Christmas and she found lumps near her stomach. She didn’t go to the doctor till after Christmas. It turned out to be a Hernia. I try to imagine what it would be like to watch everyone around you and think it will be the last Christmas you will spend with them. Are you trying to soak in every moment? Then I thought, if you have decided to kill yourself, do you look for some good moments to leave with? If you think you are going to get away from all the sadness and struggle, does if feel good?

*

Gord is in my English class. He is in a wheelchair. At the end of class Mr. Jewel assigns two guys to help him move from one class to another. He has to be lifted down a small set of stairs on his way to the next class. Mr. Jewel told me and this other kid to do it. After doing this once, Gord asked the teacher to replace me. He thought I would drop him. I don’t blame him. He has a condition that would destroy his body if he fell. I can’t imagine what that fear would feel like. Mike told me later that when he was in the cafeteria, they were talking about me and how Gord asked for someone else. He said everyone at the table started talking about how strong I was. They were talking about how I lifted a ton of weight over my head at this house when I was getting stoned with a bunch of other guys. I sort of remember that. It kind of made me feel good. I also felt good that Mike told me this, knowing it would make me feel good. That’s a sign of friendship.

*

When I was in grade four, I was walking home from school and saw a bunch of kids playing down by the creek. I didn’t know them well, but they were in my grade, and I thought I should try and know them. As I approached them, two of them, known as the Crow twins, started to chase me away. I thought that was weird. I didn’t do anything wrong. Just like years ago older kids would chase me and throw snowballs at me till they hit me in the face and made me cry. As soon as I cried, they would stop and run away. I learned to fake cry quickly.

The Crow twins look more like Penguins.

Mean Penguins.

*

(click)- Jutta tape.

I’m just talking, not answering a question. This machine gives me someone to talk to. I never really felt the loneliness until I started talking. Well, lets see, I have so much to say, but when I put this machine on my mind goes blank. (pause) give me a minute. (Longer pause) Oh…Mr. Taraka came for his hair cut today. I cut almost everyones’ hair in the building. I do it for free, I enjoy the company and it helps me create a sense of community in the building. He talks to me the internment camp his family was sent to. I guess, in some ways, just like the others who were promised a new life here, it turned into a worse life. (pause) His hair is so straight, with one white streak down the back. His skin is so perfect and soft, it is hard to believe he is ninety. Its amazing how many people from all over the world are here, in such a small, isolated place. We follow our hearts and lose our minds, but we keep our soul. (Knock on the door, pause.)

(click)


I found out what the secret plans are.

My parents want me to go live with my aunt this summer.

She lives on an island called White Head.

It is off another island called Grand Manan.

It is in New Brunswick in the Bay of Fundy, where my dad grew up.

All my uncles are fisherman.

I am excited about leaving.

I think my parents were surprised that I wanted to go.

They have no idea how badly I want to get out of here.

It’s already a movie in my head...White Head Adventure, first scene, Parents telling Alien boy he must visit human relatives…take one…action. I will label this an action thriller/drama…and as always, science fiction.

*

I decided to create some rituals to take the pressure off my teeth thing at night. See if I can get more sleep. I will walk around the square on the way to school and back, not through it. I will also walk near the sidewalk around the square, not on the sidewalk. If I do this, it will be a back up if I screw up my teeth routine. So, if I mess up the teeth routine, I won’t redo it if I have done my daytime ritual.

*

I used to spend time having a Hippy Hang out with Sandra and Debbie. I was brother Peace, Sandra was sister Groovy, and Debbie was sister Love. Not sure when we started this or how it started, but it was fun. We had a Hippy Hang out in Debbies basement once. We drank southern comfort with pineapple and ginger ale. I remember laughing a lot, then it stopped.

*

Last night Mike invited me with him to get stoned before going to the Youth group at St. Pats. We smoked up at this guys’ place. I didn’t know him, he was from the French high school. After, when we were walking to St. Pats, he told me he smoked me up for free, but next time I have to pay. I think he thinks I have money. He creeped me out.

*

Geography

I’m basically location retarded. I don’t know where anything is. My homeroom teacher in grade nine, Mr. Dodds, is also the geography teacher. He is tall, thin, and crazy looking. He always has a tiny bit of whitish spit on his lower lip that attaches to his upper lip when he talks, it is distracting. He teaches us in the same boring way our history teacher teaches us. I hear the world is big place, I’m sure something interesting must have happened, I’m sure there are interesting places to talk about.

Mr. Dodds has an eerie calm about him. He is ticking time bomb. He can be funny and sometimes interesting, but there is a definite line you can’t cross. To some kids this line is a warning, to others it is an invitation, a way to turn on his crazy, then sit back and watch the show. One time when this kid crossed the line, Mr. Dodds went crazy and told him his parents should have had an abortion. This didn’t go over well with his parents and Mr. Dodds had to apologize.

I thought that was unfair. He shouldn’t have to apologize for being tortured by a student. The kid probably deserved it.

I can think of a lot of people who should have been abortions.

*

My new rituals are working. I screwed up my teeth thing last night. Normally I would do it again and stay up till 1am, but I remembered that I had walked around the park and not through it and that was enough to stop me from doing it again.

*

The Flamingos lived across the street. I always thought that was a weird name, Flamingo, it seems too elegant for a person, too beautiful.

Mrs. Flamingo would come over to our place and sit in our garage with my mom. Our attached garage was like an extra room in the summer. We would park the car outside and put furniture in the garage, like a living room. Everyone tries to make the most of what little bit of summer we have. There is excitement and a bit of panic in the air, everyone trying to fit as much warm weather activity in before the cold comes back.

Last summer I heard Mrs. Flamingo talking to my mom. She is talking about moving. Her husband is dead, and her daughter died last year in a car accident near the circle. Some one told me her daughter jabbed her stomach into the glove compartment door when the car hit a telephone pole head on. I see it in my head and now I can’t unsee it. She was across the street, now she doesn’t exist, it doesn’t make sense.

My mother listens, she has an opinion, but she doesn’t have an opinion she tells anyone.

*

(Click)- Jutta tape.

Have I ever seen someone killed?

That is a question for the uninitiated. People who experience that kind of horror rarely want to talk about it. The world borrows the aggression of men to protect them, then throws them away.

(pause)

I know someone in this building who has killed. I won’t say who it is… (she whispers) Ellen in apartment 4. (She laughs) I don’t know if she is lying or not, but I have heard of women getting rid of their husbands by poisoning them. She told me he was an abusive drunk…so she poisoned him slowly day by day with potato fertilizer. He would get sicker and sicker, and she made sure to wait long enough before calling the doctor, so there was no chance of recovery. That was out east, New Brunswick somewhere, Acadia, I think. (pause) She moved here because her sister had moved here ten years earlier. Her sister married a man who cut trees and got a job here at the mill. When he died, she moved into the building and they lived together in the apartment for twenty years till her sister died, of natural causes (laughter) I think. They used to fight like cats and dogs, loudly, in French, so I could never really figure out what they were saying. (Pause, cup banging against saucer). Outside the apartment they acted like they were best of friends. I don’t think they realized everyone could hear them fighting inside their apartment. The two of them would come over and have tea with me. They looked like two book ends, sitting at each end of the table. They would always dress up to come out of their apartment, they always looked perfect and smelt like lilac. If the smell changed, they would agree upon the new scent, so they carried the same smell and didn’t clash.

After she told me about her husband, I never wanted to drink anything she made, so I made sure we only had our conversations at my place. They would gossip about everyone in the town. They would slip in and out of French and English so often I began to understand some of their French. I enjoyed their visits, but after her sister died. She stopped coming, I miss her.

(Click)

*

Marcel got us a gig playing at the St. Patricks’ church youth group. Marcel is good at getting stuff done. He knows how to arrange shit, and he knows how to talk to other people and get them to like him. It’s a talent I don’t have.

I miss doing music with Mark so this will be fun. Mikes’ sister is going to sing with us. She has a voice just like Stevie Nicks. Crystal will be able to play some of those Fleetwood Mac songs she loves. Mikes’ brother, my sisters’ ex-boyfriend, is going to play with us.

I’m starting the set list.

*

Penny

Penny was my friend in grade 2. She reminded me of a gypsy. I have never met a gypsy, but she was thin and had a crazy energy that made me think of someone who might live in a van. We would walk home together, and no one would bother me if we were together. She lived right around the corner from my house, but I never went to her place. She had an older brother and sister, but they seemed to be made up since I never saw them. One day she decided to steal another students markers, and for some reason I wanted her to put them back. We argued on the way home, and she threw the markers at me. I put them in tin foil and gave them to the teacher. Our friendship was over, and kids started to chase me again on the way home. My mom said I did the right thing, but I know I didn’t. I needed her friendship more than those markers.

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