Quickening Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Suddenly

  India

  Patronage

  Man with the Axe

  Unfinished

  Oral History

  Casting Off

  Her Toes

  Quickening

  Visitation

  Two Bastards

  Public Mischief

  Bride with Blue Curls

  A Bird Story - for Don McKay and Nancy McLeod

  A Laughing Woman

  Cutting the Devil’s Throat

  Tag

  Copyright Page

  BIBLIOASIS RENDITIONS:

  Cape Breton is the Thought-Control Centre of Canada

  by Ray Smith

  A Night at the Opera

  by Ray Smith

  Going Down Slow

  by John Metcalf

  Century

  by Ray Smith

  Quickening

  by Terry Griggs

  “Islands are also secret places, where the unconscious grows conscious, where possibilities mushroom, where imagination never rests.”

  —John Fowles

  For David and Sandy Galen

  Foreword

  HAVING BEEN AFFORDED this indulgence, this luxury, of republication, I thought I might as well add an extra two cents worth of explanation as to why. Quickening was first published in 1990 and contains a gathering of stories that I’d been working on for some time, which I suppose makes this introduction more a backward than a forward, although I’ll try for enough headlong encouragement to propel you into the text.

  So, what are these stories; what do they have to offer; are they worth the trouble? Times have changed since they first sidled into the world. Spare, no-nonsense prose continues to be much lauded, while what falls into the “poetic” category is much less so. Too much work, too flowery – artiness cluttering up the story or disguising its deficiencies. Nothing herein will make your teeth ache, I don’t think, but I do like language. Adverbs, adjectives, syllable-encrusted gems plucked from the word-hoard, tricky turns of phrase – bring ’em on. A writer needn’t turn purple in the effort, but frankly, works of miserly, verbal monogamy have never given me much pleasure. One can be spendthrift and still be precise – a more all-embracing precision. If, as the masterful William Trevor says, “stories, far more than novels, cast spells,” then surely one’s requirements would include a range of wordly wizardry. And true enough, making an entrancing word-woven thing is of great interest to me. Style, life in the line, entertainment of a kind that strikes more than just a glancing blow to the head or heart.

  Okay then, suffice to say that the stories in this collection were not written by the Elements of Style rule book. I see them as being fairly straightforward, although the writing can be somewhat textured or layered, what a friend once described as a “thicket.” If the gist of any particular effort here seems overly elusive, a reader might need to venture in like a beater and drive out the game.

  Another friend has described these stories as “wide tales” as opposed to tall ones, and that nicely covers the stretch in them. I’ve always been a bit of a fantasist, wanting to let in what lurks on the edges of vision, just beyond view. The droning realism of the everyday? Meh.

  Let’s let language be an instrument of expansion, of seeing farther and more and deeper.

  I’d write some of these stories differently now (or not at all), but I’ve left them unmolested, and laziness not the only reason. They are what they are; they deal with matters that absorbed me at the time, including some exploratory ways of approaching narrative. Some zig and zag, others host other stories in their innards, and a few are packed like a bulging suitcase, ready to pop open into a longer form. What scant autobiographical detail there is generally morphs into metaphor; here and there germinal fact sprouts into fiction. The imagination has done its work. If nothing else, Quickening represents the start of a writing life that does seem to determinedly persist. As a bonus – or booby prize, depending on one’s view – I’ve also added a story called “Tag” that was written shortly after the collection came out and was first published in What! magazine.

  The dog out front with the nick in her ear and the patiently enquiring expression is called Fable.

  William Trevor again: “The modern short story may be defined as the distillation of an essence.”

  Ah yes, so welcome to my distillery, feel free to sample the brew. Old stuff, well aged, but not, I trust, gone skunky quite yet.

  Suddenly

  AWAY WE GO.

  Went, I mean.

  Snowflakes streaking past our eyes, stars jiggling up there in the sky.

  Foop, into the snowbank.

  Buck was laughing to split a gut, and he said, “Marsha, you’re a kook,” and I suppose he was right, considering. “Exhilarator! Haw, haw.” He was smacking his hand on the dashboard. Did I say that? I expect I did. You know, words zip out of my mouth assbackwards half the time. Like then, when I hit the, excuse me, accelerator instead of the brakes and couldn’t even get the swearing right. Probably because I was trying to pray at the same time, “Holy Shitface Mother of Bob, not the fender, please not the headlights.” What we’re talking about here is Daddy’s brand new Comet GT with the Luxury Decor Option – cut-pile carpeting, colour-keyed vinyl roof and wheel covers, reclining contoured bucket seats – all the spiffy features Daddy couldn’t stop jawing about that I’d just parked in a huge fucking snowbank.

  “Shut up, Buck!” Though I shouldn’t have said that, either. Way to impress a guy, eh?

  I’d been working on it, too. “It” being Buck and me, somewhere alone. Not in a snowbank, I’ll admit. That wasn’t exactly what I was after. Getting my mitts on Daddy’s car hadn’t been easy. Getting Buck in it hadn’t been easy. He’s had his mind, such as it is, on other things lately. Two things, Trudy’s, and they keep changing sizes, that’s the joke. I nearly had to run him over. “Hey, Buckaroo, wanna go for a ride?”

  What I wanted from Buck was simple. I wanted his undying love, his thrashing gushing heart in my hand (no matter it was likely cold and blue as a ball of ice), and I wanted to sing in his band, the Tomcats, New Year’s Eve at the Lantern. I wanted this pretty bad. Feature me down on my knees every night: Listen up, Bob, you gotta do this for me. I’ll wear my black dress, the one I bought in Reitman’s in Sudbury with the ruffles around the hem tickling my kneecaps. Hot stuff, or what? I promise I’ll be buried in it. You set me up and I’ll do the rest.

  Trudy’s not the only one, I’ve got two big things as well. One of them’s my nose, you can forget about that. The other’s my voice. I may not be able to talk straight, but I can sing like a siren. I could turn your ears inside out given half a chance.

  Buck wasn’t saying too much by then, except for, “Shove over, will ya. I’ll gun it, you get out and push.”

  IN MEDIAS RES. (Hey, I’ve studied Latin.) Even the long death of high school has its moments, and here was one: Biology, we’re doing cows, if you can believe it. Some farm kid’s brought one into class divvied up in about four or five green garbage bags. I think I’m going to be sick. I’ve got the lyrics of “Johnny Angel” running non-stop through my head like a purring engine to keep me from keeling over. Buck is sitting behind Trudy, as per usual, fanaticizing (you got it) about her swivelly hips, her ample tailpiece smothering the lab stool that with luck could be his face, I know he’s thinking. His hand darts out and sinks into pink angora. He hooks a finger around her bra at the back and pulls it out like a sling shot. Lets it go and snap! Funny? Everybody turns to smirk at Trudy and even Mr. Dandy, who floats at the front of the room like he’s pickled in formaldehyde, seems to wake
up. You bet I was thrilled to see how embarrassed she was. No sympathy here. She got all red and hot looking and her scalp – under that teased bottle-blonde hair, a French’s mustard colour – kind of lit up like a lamp.

  “What was that noise, Miss Vinney?” Dandy asks, stunned, like he’s got a mouth full of acorns, and the whole class breaks up. Then damned if he doesn’t steal the show himself by getting all flustered and blowing his nose on his tie.

  JUST LIKE that. Gone. What a weird winter. Ever since I rammed into that bank, it never stopped snowing, like I ripped something open. Buckets of the stuff on the roof of the Comet by the time the tow truck got there. Thought Daddy was gonna have my hands and feet cut off, but he got over it. Frigging cold walk into town too, Buck whining and bellyaching the whole way. Think that asshole would give me a little squeeze to keep me warm? So cold, mercury dropped clean out of sight, and Grampy went with it. Down into shadowland. Hope the devils are taking care of him. Hope they hold his hand when he’s scared like I never did. No cloud elevator up to heaven for him, he was tied to the bed. Nurses caught him sneaking down the stairs. One time, hiding in the laundry room, looking for the chute out. He was scrappy, desperate, trying to escape with his life. But that was against the rules. They tied him to the bed, and you know, death came into that room like a doctor to take his mind apart piece by piece. Crazy as a louse, is what he said, memories unstuck and rattling free in his head, but he knew me. “Sing to me, sweetie, sing that one about the girl wants to get laid.” Ha, my theme song. And then, “Look there!” He meant the spiders and scorpions crawling all over the walls. Then, “On the floor, see! A twenty-dollar bill! Quick, pick it up!” And I stooped to snatch it up, even if it was nothing but dust. And I slipped it into my pocket. I’m saving it for shadowland. I’ll spend it when I get there. I’ll buy Grampy a pitchfork.

  SWITCHING GEARS. Rnnnnnnnn, RNNNNNNNNNNN! My brother Robbie drives a kitchen chair at the supper table, making us press our fists into our temples and wish (oh please) that we belonged to some other family, even the Horelys down the street, not known for their brainpower. It’s hard to say, but from the sounds of it, Robbie’s chair has a souped-up V8 engine, four-on-the-floor, buns in the back and no muffler. He lays rubber on the checkerboard linoleum, and Mom says, “Don’t let your supper get cold, dear,” her wispy voice gobbled up by the sound of screeching brakes. I’ve got the sneaking suspicion he’s going to hit a snowbank soon. Likes to remind Daddy about that, and to tell the truth, Daddy doesn’t need reminding. He’s still pissed off, though the Comet came through it, tow truck and all, without a scratch. A wonder, I’d say. And do I get thanks? Daddy dangles the car keys in front of my eyes like a silver lure then snatches them away. (Jerk.) Robbie parks by his plate, sticks a baked potato in his mouth, and says (we think), “Deer eat birds, ya know. No guff, me and Billy were down by the banding station, and like there’s these deer munching on some chickadees caught in the banding nets. And the game warden’s hopping up and down flapping his arms trying to make them stop, and they don’t seem scared or nothing. He says one starts and the rest of them get the idea, eh. Like some of the birds are covered in spit cause they lick ’em first, and alls that’s left of some’s just legs and guts and stuff. Neat, eh?”

  Daddy and me stare at Robbie like he’s got antlers growing out of his head, and Mom says, “Not at the supper table, dear.” So Robbie backs up his chair, puts it in gear, and drives away.

  A LANGUAGE LANDSLIDE. An avalanche, out the words tumble slam bang and razzle dazzle. Now, a song’ll come out in a nice flowing stream, but my sentences hit bottom like they’ve been dumped out of a truck. “A pig’s breakfast,” Grampy said, but he didn’t care, he loved me anyway. Likely his fault, mind you, teaching me all those cuss words when I was a baby just learning to speak, and Daddy would give me a little slap on the lips every time I said one. Didn’t hurt much, but I think it made the words kind of flip out of shape. Like they had to put on disguises before sneaking out of my mouth to try the air. I remember this one time I invited a boy to a wedding conception, when what I meant to say was reception of course, and d’you think I’ve been able to live that one down? So okay, my talk’s pocked and pitted but I try to fill in the blanks as best I can. I don’t know, I used to have a rough time in catechism class. Nuns, cripes, they got muscles like stevedores under those black habits, and they’re always after you.

  “Who made the world?” they’d want to know.

  “Bob made the world.”

  “Who?”

  “Bob. You know, big guy in the sky, he did it.”

  Their eyes would go small and hard as dimes. “Don’t get smart with us, girl.”

  BUCK. “Oooooooo, baby.” This is his favourite saying, according to the legend under his picture in the high-school yearbook. We’re wondering what’s happened to those other favourites of his, “Tough titty,” and “Chuck you, Farles.” His ambition, we discover, is to be an “electronic technician for female robots.” His pet peeve: “Girls who drive.” Very funny. His hobbies and interests are listed as hockey, hunting, playing with his band, and a “certain blonde in grade eleven-five.” Also very funny. We’re dying of amusement, my better, smarter self and I.

  “How’s Turdy?” I ask Buck when I see him downtown.

  “Name’s Trudy, Dingbat.”

  “Name’s Marsha, Dipstick.”

  “So, been drivin’ much lately, huh? ‘(Snicker, snicker.)’ Got yer snow tires on yet?”

  I laugh.

  Like the Queen, I might add. Far above it all.

  We gaze (leer?) at Buck’s picture in the yearbook. Insolent, would you say? Greasy hood-black hair tossed into a wavy heap, the look on his handsome mug suggesting nothing but harm. We hate to admit it, but we have kissed this face – the Dobermann eyes, the loverboy lips – slobbered on it until the paper buckled. And even soggy, bloated, drowned in ardour and rescued with the hose of a hair dryer, this face makes us clutch our common crotch in agony. It makes us brood (breed?), especially our feistier, more intelligent side, fretting over what kind of life we’re going to have if we fall so easily for faces like this attached to pricks like him.

  “Oooooooo, baby,” we croon, helpless and doe-eyed, unable to stop looking at it, even though my favourite saying, according to the yearbook, is: “Get outa here, I didn’t say that, did I?”

  THE SKY opened up and out it came. Sleet, blizzards, high notes, sour notes. A regular opera of weather. Valkyries were striding along the streets knee-capping old biddies and butting them into walls. A chorus of wind was hustling people this way, that way, snow piled on their heads like wigs, vapour vines twisting like white hair out of their noses.

  There was this soprano wailing and moaning in our chimney. So Daddy cocks an ear, like he does when he hears a high-class singer on the radio, and says, “Whoa, that one’s gonna lay an egg soon,” culture and humour somehow inseparable in our family. Robbie thinks he’s Elmer Fudd, leaping off the couch singing, “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit,” and shooting things with his finger. Mom sits by the fire, knitting and humming, humming and knitting. Robbie blows a hole through her head, and she says, “Can’t you children find something to do?”

  Sometimes Robbie plays dead in his room, lying on his bed for hours, stiff as a board, eyes glazed, until Mom finally discovers him and comes screaming out. At the moment he’s pretending to be alive, his adolescent engine flooded with hormones. I ask him if he thinks Trudy Vinney is cute and he answers by letting his tongue unroll like a rug and flop onto his chin. I’m trying to figure out how I can sneak strychnine into her blood sausage at lunch. Her father’s a butcher, you know Vinney’s Meats. She’s a walking advertisement, as far as I’m concerned. Under those tight stretch pants of hers I’d swear she has an economy pack of pork chops strapped to each thigh. Robbie gets his tongue back into his mouth, and says, “Hey, did ya know Buck asked her to sing with the Tomcats on New Year’s?”

  Okay, that’s it for me, folks. Ma
dam Butterfly bites the dust. And here I thought I was in a comedy.

  HE’S BACK. Hissing in my ear. Buck don’t know dickall about singing, honey, he thinks scat is somethin’ you step in. “Oh, Grampy,” I sigh, “either it’s you, or I’m going nuts.” This more likely as I haven’t slept in days. Haven’t eaten. Been overdosing on what passes for drugs in this house – Vicks cough drops and baby aspirin. But I am sorely tempted to listen. It’s hard to keep a bad old man down, even in hell. Houdini, they nicknamed him in the hospital. One nurse there, her old man a sailor, used to tie him up in blood knots and monkey’s fists, and Grampy still got out of them. By the end, they had him battened down so tight it looked like he was made of rope.

  Steal the keys, he whispers, let’s go for a little joyride. You and me, like we used to. C’mon I wanna fly. Can’t get these Bobdamn wings they give me to work.

  “Shoot! That’s a dead giveaway Grampy. For a minute there I thought it really was you.”

  Three pairs of eyes, wide as wheels, are focused on me. Daddy drops one of Mom’s homemade buns in his plate of stew and it hits gravy like a bomb. Splatters everything. A carrot whizzes past Robbie’s ear like a piece of shrapnel. Mom frowns.

  “Smooth move, Exlax,” I say, just to let them know I’m not completely lost to them.

  TO RECAP. Grampy’s gone. Nature’s coming apart at the seams and all the stuffing’s flying out. Bambi’s true self has been exposed (disgusting carnivore). The Comet continues to give Daddy, though not me, “small car ease and handling, fuel economy and simplicity of maintenance and repair.” On the personal front, I have failed biology and do I care? I know where all the essential parts are and what to do with them. Not that I’ll be doing anything with mine. I’m thinking about switching religions, perhaps becoming an Altheist [sick]. I’m prepared to accept Buck’s invitation to sing at the Lantern, if he calls in time and begs my forgiveness.