Down the Road to Eternity Read online

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FOREWORD

  SICK PIGEON

  SICK PIGEON

  ROB’S GUNS & AMMO

  THE LONELIEST SOUND YOU’LL EVER HEAR

  ALL THE GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL FORCES

  MACARONI AND CHEESE

  RAW MATERIAL

  RAW MATERIAL

  THE BRIGHT GYMNASIUM OF FUN

  FISH

  STUDIES SHOW / EXPERTS SAY

  THE COMMA THREAT

  THE LOCAL WOMEN ARE PERFORMING A TRADITIONAL DANCE

  SCORE

  THE CHILDREN DO NOT YET KNOW

  ALTERED STATEMENTS

  THUNDER SHOWERS IN BANGKOK

  ALICE & STEIN

  KRISTMAS KRAFT

  ON HOLIDAY WITH GIANTS

  GREEN PLASTIC BUDDHA

  VACATION TIME

  THERE IS A COMPETITION FOR THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE PEOPLE

  WORD OF MOUTH

  REFUSAL

  WHAT’S TRUE, DARLING

  DOROTHY PARKER’S DOG

  CLOSING TIME AT BARBIE’S BOUTIQUE

  JIGSAW

  HALLOWE’EN SO FAR AWAY

  BLAGUE MOUNTAIN

  THE PARTY

  ALL CHICKENS ARE SUCKS: NOTES FROM THE LITSHOW

  DARWIN ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE

  GIFTS

  DOWN THE ROAD TO ETERNITY

  POINT TEN

  THE HEARTSPEAK WELLNESS RETREAT

  BRAVE NEW DESIRES

  DARWIN ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE

  THE WHITE SATIRE

  CHEERLEADING

  THE AIR IS THICK WITH METAPHORS

  THE BREAKDOWN SO FAR

  NOW IS THE TIME

  THE BREAKDOWN SO FAR

  THE COMPASSIONATE SIDE OF NATURE

  BUDGIE SUICIDE

  FUNERAL

  MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

  JESUS LOVES ME BUT HE CAN’T STAND YOU*

  BECAUSE OF RUSSELL EDSON

  SIXTY DEGREES

  POOF

  A LITTLE SOMETHING

  SPRING IN NORTH AMERICA

  FRIDGE MAGNET PEOPLE

  PERPETUAL CODA

  BREAKDOWN OF THE MONTH CALENDAR

  BAD BOY

  THE NORTH POLE

  THE NORTH POLE

  ADVICE OLD AND NEW

  ARDENT SPIRIT

  THE GNATS THAT BLUR OUR VISION

  THE ACT IN ETERNITY

  ANSWERING THE CHILDREN

  THE GOD OF BANALITY

  PLAY BUTTON

  THE SECRET PILLARS OF THE UNIVERSE

  EQUIPMENT FOR THE ENDURANCE OF LOVE

  WHAT WE NEED

  PULSE*

  THE MENTOR

  TO THE AUTHOR

  TO BE CONTINUED

  BURNING HER BRIDGES

  MONUMENT

  AUTHOR INTERVIEW

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Selections are from the following books:

  Sick Pigeon (1991), Thistledown Press

  Raw Material (1993), Arsenal Pulp Press

  Altered Statements (1995), Arsenal Pulp Press

  Word of Mouth (1996), Thistledown Press

  What’s True, Darling (1997), Polestar Press/Raincoast Publishing

  Darwin Alone in the Universe (2003), Talonbooks

  The Breakdown So Far (2007), Talonbooks

  The quote used on page 264 is from “Essay on Gaming,” Harper’s Magazine, July 2008.

  Cover painting, Snow Owl Parking Meter, by Gertrude Pacific of Sechelt, B.C., used with permission and thanks.

  Special thanks to Karl Siegler for his help in choosing the selections, and for his thoughtful editorial advice.

  In memory of my father,

  Capt. W.D. (Billy) Gibson,

  and for Terry

  FOREWORD

  OFF SHORE NAVIGATION

  Night and the order is given. You take your place at the wheel and pull away from the dock. How well you steer the ship around obstacles, knowing just where to manoeuvre past the dim shapes ahead and beside us!

  Standing sure on the bridge, feet apart, hands on the wheel, you’re staring straight ahead. Your manner calm, but your head awash with definitions: Meridian, Rhumb Line, the Great Circle, the Equivalency of Time. And you’re in command, you’re at the controls. Guiding this cumbersome vessel, huge as an office building, unwieldy as a blimp.

  It rains. There’s wind. Soon a swelling sea. We ride the trough between the swells and each time we surface the engine shudders. It’s good to nestle beneath the command of one so sure of his direction; I’m proud to be standing beside you as your witness.

  One by one the crew gets sick, fleeing below decks to lie down groaning, useless. But not us. Unaffected by the sea’s rough course, we remain on the bridge, true sailors, riding out the storm.

  Hours and hours you stand there steering. Glancing at the compass, peering through the rain-splattered window. You’re pulling the ship along the imaginary path you worked out earlier, when the sun and moon showed which angles to use. You said there were times as a sailor when you served in four-hour shifts: four hours at the wheel, four hours in your cabin asleep. But there are no shifts now. Only hours and hours. Your hands gripping the wooden wheel. Your shoulder muscles knotting from the strain.

  Each ship, you said, was like a live thing beneath your hands, a power so large, so prone to outside forces, that you could only revere it.

  We ride the sea like confident breaststrokers, plunging into the waves, resurfacing for air. The long, long anchorage behind us. Our destination, to me, unclear. But the ship, she leaps! And I wouldn’t leave you for worlds.

  From “Navigation,” Word of Mouth, 1996

  SICK PIGEON

  1991

  SICK PIGEON

  So I found this pigeon, eh? Lying beside the sandbox in the park. Whimpering. Trying to flap its wings. Looked like it’d been hit with a rock or maybe a dog got it. And all kinds of people around too. Everyone walking around it like it was a turd or something. Didn’t want nothing to do with it. I couldn’t figure it out. I mean there shoulda been a crowd around that bird all deciding what to do. I mean there’s this poor sick pigeon in front of them probably going to die and nobody’s doing a thing. What’s happening is a big fat zero. What’s happening is worse than nothing. I mean what’s happening is a crime. The way nobody cares. Just like them mice in cages and them poor, helpless bunnies. Doing experiments on them like some weird horror movie. The way nobody cares about them either. Killing for no good reason.

  So yeah, yeah Sybilla, it’s a rotten world. Full to overflowing with crazies. So what’s new?

  But Jesus, I’m thinking, leaving a bird like that to die. In broad daylight. I mean people. They make me sick.

  I started to cry when Christian first showed me it. Then he starts to cry so now there’s two of us crouched over that bird bawling our eyes out. Mommy, is it going to die? He says and I says, no way ho-zay, not if I can help it. That kid has a heart like mine, can’t stand to see a thing suffer.

  So we brought it home, eh? Then all those jerks in the park started staring at us. Where before we coulda been dirt. I’m wrapping the pigeon in the baby’s blanket and I’m putting it on the baby’s lap in the stroller and everyone’s giving us these disgusted looks like we was packing home a live rat or something. Moving away from us like we had the plague. Looking down on us. As usual. That’s nothing new. Everyone’s always looking down on us. Excepting maybe that worker Tony from when I was thirteen at the treatment centre. He never thumbed his nose at me, but then after a while he went away, never did hear from him again.

  So what Sybilla? Tell us another one. You got some idea that shit an
d heartache ain’t the price of admission?

  Enough already, I says to myself, and pushes that bird out of the park, dragging Christian behind me. So there I am, eh? Slaving away with this buggy and not one of its wheels working right. And trying to shush the baby. She’s got some bright idea that limp pigeon on her lap is a toy for playing with and all the way home she’s banging at it with her bottle of Kool-Aid and screaming at me when I tell her to stop. End result is red Kool-Aid all over everything, ass to tea kettle, the baby, the pigeon, the blanket.

  Then the sun comes out so suddenly it’s a heat wave and we’re three blocks from home and me, I’m sweating buckets and cursing myself, why’d I have to go leather today? Why couldn’t I worn shorts and thongs like all them other mothers in the park, those ritzy bitches who wouldn’t even give me the time of day even if I went begging for it.

  You’re up the creek without a paddle, Sybilla. Like always. You ain’t running on a full tank.

  So now I’m thinking, I hope this pigeon is grateful, what we’re going through to save its life. It can thank its stars the day Sybilla found it and brought it home. And made it live. I make everything I find live. One way or another. Usually.

  Live, you sucker. That’s what I tell them, all the poor sick things. Take Gimp, for instance. Found her by the side of the road. Left for dead.

  Ain’t they all, you idiot. Ain’t they all left for dead sometime? What about your own mother? Left for dead in a motel room. Drunk again. Choking on her own vomit.

  Be quiet, I says to myself. I’ll get to that. Right now it’s animals I’m talking of. I’m talking of Gimp and how she’d been run over, her back all mangled. Can you picture what it’s like to be run over?

  S’cuse me while I throw up.

  Yet there’s cats all over the world regularly dragging themselves out from under cars, panting and gasping for air, looking for some kind person to save them. Lucky for Gimp she got me and not some creep who’d kick her in a ditch, not caring one small bit about her, probably getting a thrill out of watching her die. Lucky old Gimp. Took nearly all my welfare cheque for the vet bills and we had to eat canned soup for a week but I pulled her through. So now she can drag herself around pretty good. Even had three litters which explains all the cats I got around my place right now. Seventeen of them. Not including Gimp. Plus a couple of strays. I got a way with animals. They gravitate to me like shit to a blanket. They know I’ll look after them, one way or another. They all know Sybilla’s here when they need her.

  But anywho, back to the pigeon. Time we get home this pigeon’s not looking too good, got red Kool-Aid all over his body and breathing funny. I was getting real worried. I don’t like to lose them. So we gave it a bath, eh? Figuring that might help. And Christian who’s a gentle kid for being only three years old held it in a towel and patted it dry. The baby I threw in the tub.

  We was just getting ready to find a bed for the bird, somewheres the cats couldn’t get at it, and maybe try to give it some water, when I looks out the kitchen window and catch sight of Miss Hope, the Public Health Nurse, hustling her buns up the front path. Come for a visit, eh? Oh shit, I’m thinking, here comes trouble. So I says to Christian, quick Christian, take this bird and hide it somewheres in the bedroom away from the cats, we don’t want Miss Hope finding it and causing a stink. She sees a sick pigeon in the house she won’t shut up until Christmas. Next thing Miss Hope’s rat-a-tatting on the kitchen door.

  Are you crazy, Sybilla? Have you lost your marbles? There’s garbage everywheres. Miss Hope takes one look in here she’ll be yapping about disease and germs like always.

  Jesus, I’m thinking, looking around the kitchen, what a holy mess. But that’s the piss-off. These Miss Hopes and their like and every social worker I ever had the bad luck to know, they all figure when you’re on welfare they can drop in on you any old time. They’re like those surprise bombers in the TV war movies. Come out of nowhere. Can’t wait to drop their bombs on you.

  Bang, bang, you’re dead, Sybilla.

  No letting a person know. And they really got it in for single mothers. At least I coulda gotten rid of the cat dishes, maybe cleaned off the counter, made the place look decent. But not such luck. It’s like they want to catch you with your pants down, always checking up on you to see if you’re beating your kids yet. That’s the one thing they live for, grabbing your kids. Like what happened to me. Grabbed from my mother when I was only eight years old. Just because she drank. They got no respect, all these do-good workers. I get about as much respect from them as a flea would get. Maybe less. How about that? Maybe they figure Sybilla’s not even as good as a goddamned flea.

  Stop it. You’re breaking my heart.

  So rat-a-tat goes this Miss Hope on the door, eh? And I’m stalling and calling, just a minute lady, and grabbing the baby outa the tub and making sure Christian’s hid the bird good enough and find he’s stashed it under the pillows on the bedroom floor.

  Then again this Miss Hope’s rapping on my door, only this time it’s louder and she’s hollering, Sybilla open the door please, I know you’re in there.

  Of course I’m in here, you dumb broad, I’m thinking, you figure this is a bank robbery, you’re the cops got the place surrounded? You figure I’m holed up inside? Like when I was at the treatment centre, they way I used to barricade myself in the girl’s dorm. All those workers making me do stuff like I was a slave or something. Wash the floors. Clean the toilets.

  So I just get enough time to grab the bird and shove it under the kitchen sink and while I’m racing with it I’m noticing it’s stopped breathing and I’m thinking, oh shit, I think it’s dead. And this is really upsetting me, this is really twisting my socks. I mean I hardly get a chance to work on it and already it’s croaking?

  And this damned banging on the door, it ain’t quitting. So then I finally open the door, got the baby hanging off my hip, still wearing my leathers, never did get time to change. And what does this Miss Hope lay on me but, I’ve come about your animals, Sybilla, we’ve been getting complaints again.

  So there’s this Miss Hope standing on my front porch, eh? Wearing this pink pantsuit, looking very shit hot, got about a ton of makeup on her wrinkles and red blush on her face about as red as a Valentine card. And moaning at me about having complaints again. And I’m going, Jesus, which one of these assholes around her finked on me this time?

  I told them down at welfare last year when they first got me this dump, I told them then: I shouldn’t be living in this prissy neighbourhood, you should have gotten me a joint in that new housing project where all the poor people live. Not shoving me in with all these high-class snots, always breathing down my neck, telling me how to live. I should be where all the real people are, in the housing project. They understand about saving sick animals and all the real problems of life.

  But oh no, the social worker strung me some line about how this shitbox was all that was available and I was lucky I didn’t have to live in some sleaze-bag motel. Yeah, great, I go, the only shitbox for miles around, stuck in the middle of a class act subdivision and I got to get it. A left-over shitbox at that. What they call an eyesore. Walls like paper, the roof leaking and none of the locks on the doors work right. Last winter it was so cold in here black mould started growing on the walls.

  Poor old Sybilla. They figure that’s all you’re good for.

  So I says to this Miss Hope, like who for instance ratted on me this time? I know for a fact who did it last time, that bitch down the road got shit for brains. Can’t even control her own kids, always giving me the finger every time I go by. Talk about emotionally disturbed. And they said I was emotionally disturbed! Eight years old and thrown in a treatment centre for five years. Who wouldn’t be disturbed?

  Anywho, this Miss Hope says she can’t tell me who complained, it’s confidential information. Confidential information! She says she’s just come to tell me the SPCA inspectors are coming around any minute now to make an investigation, ther
e’s been complaints, they say, of a large number of dead or dying cats lying in my front yard. She says. She says. Gimme a break.

  So I slam the door in her face, eh? Get out of here you douche-bag, I’m screaming, my cats are all in beautiful shape, you got the wrong house, the only thing not in great shape in here is me and that’s because bitches like you won’t get off my back.

  That fixed her. She took off then, got in her car slamming the door and drove off.

  You tell her Sybilla. What does she know? Thinks she’s so great in her pink pantsuit. You tell her where to get off. You tell them all where to get off.

  I will, I’m thinking, pissed right out of my tree. I mean, no one’s telling me how to live.

  So what happens next, eh? But the baby starts howling and pretty soon there’s Christian hanging off my leg and starting to cry. And that’s all I’m needing. I start bawling too. Me and Christian and the baby, we’re sitting on the kitchen floor, leaning against the cupboards and we’re bawling our eyes out. It just ain’t fair. Why can’t they leave us alone? Just because I’m a single mother. Just because I’m only nineteen. Just because the kids got different fathers, I don’t even want to think about those jerks. Just because I’ve got a kind heart.

  Poor Sybilla. Got an “m” on your forehead the size of a billboard light. Poor, poor girl.

  And then the cats start coming round us, there on the floor, frantic like, some of them purring, some of them hissing at each other. I know they’re hungry, they finished the last bag of crunchies a couple of days back and my cheque’s not due till Thursday. But I never have enough money, it all goes on these animals. Someone’s got to look after them. All the SPCA does is kill them, right? Someone’s got to care.

  So then I’m remembering about that pigeon, eh? And I’m feeling bad thinking it’s dead. I take it out from under the sink and have a look at it. Got to keep pushing the cats away, they’re thinking it’s something to eat. But the bird is so pretty, kind of a silvery grey colour with blue flecks in it. The sun’s shining on it through the window and it’s almost sparkling, like it was covered with tiny blue lights. So I start patting and stroking its back. This makes Christian and the baby get real quiet and stop their bawling. So there we are on the kitchen floor, all looking at the bird on my lap. The cats cruising around, still trying to get at the poor harmless thing. And I’m thinking, we’ll have to bury it, have a little ceremony. Christian likes having a ceremony. He always puts one of his toys in the grave, a Hot Wheels car or something he’s made out of Lego. So then I start thinking how everything’s so sad. I mean, there’s my poor dead Mom, never did get to see her again after they took me away. There’s those guys who knocked me up then buggered off. You know, I’m thinking of all the miserable junk that passes for some kind of life when all of a sudden the pigeon gives a shudder and starts flapping its wings, trying to stand up. And now I’m so happy, I’m going, it’s a miracle. This pigeon is alive after all, he’s going to live. And I say to Christian, Christian we got to get him some water, it looks like this pigeon is going to make it. Maybe it had passed out or something before, maybe it was only sleeping.