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I am leaving tomorrow.
Brought my ID and stuff to the O.P.P. office.
Got my ticket for the train. I’m going to Toronto and transferring to Montreal, then transferring to Moncton. Then I get a cab to Blacks Harbour. I take the boat to Grand Manan, stay overnight at our place in North Head, then get a ride to Ingalls Head to take the boat to White Head.
I am suddenly nervous; I shouldn’t have agreed to this. But, on the upside I will get out of this place and away from my dad…how much worse can it get?
*
I picked one rock. I now have a pile of rocks under my bed. I tried to let my brain pick the right rock. Make sure I have a rock that can carry the energy I need to last a couple of months for my teeth rituals. I panicked that I might pick the wrong rock but convinced myself I could put my energy into the rock if I kept it in my pocket all the time.
I packed all my stuff into an army surplus bag I found at a thrift shop at the circle.
I rolled five spliffs with what is left of my hash oil. One for when I’m on the train. One for when I stay in the house at Grand Manan before White Head. Two for White Head. One for when I’m back in Grand Manan.
I’m all set, sort of, I’m still nervous.
When I get really nervous about stuff, I try to remember that I’m an alien. I’m just here to observe. That way I’m detached enough to not care about what most people think.
*
For a while in grade 8, I was into super 8 film.
I love film, controlling time, controlling how things should be. When I found out I could look through a lens, press a button, and weeks later I could see a version of what I saw, I was excited. I could alter what I saw with a little snip and glue. It is easier for me to see my life as a movie. A movie that puts me at the center all the time, with people around me, following me, pausing for lighting check, sound check, costume check. Everyone staring, wondering what I will say. Only I know, I wrote the script.
No one else was into the super 8 thing, not until they saw me doing it. I borrowed the school’s camera and strapped it to my bike. I filmed people randomly. I wanted short bits of people and places. Originally, I had planned an actual story line but everyone who said they would help me backed out. No one wanted anything to do with it, so I created a series of images. Later my teacher helped me film a short skit I wrote called The After Eight News, it was filmed on video. It was a news show about how nothing happens in a small town. I thought it was funny, I still think it’s funny. Susan and Laurie were the other announcers.
I also did a super 8 on hockey violence. It was basically a bunch of hockey players beating the shit out of each other. I got my brother to help with that, there was a lot of blood, ketchup blood.
One day they had a viewing in the gym for the whole school. No one wanted to sit near me because they didn’t want anyone to think they were a part of my film. One of the classrooms did a short story about a kidnapping. It was funny, sort of. You can do whole scripts when the teachers are helping you.
It is decided who is smart and who is not, before you even get to school.
You are marked before you are born.
*
(click) (Jutta’s tape)
What did I do for fun as a child...nothing. Fun was for the weak. Everything was a chore, everything was work. The slightest chuckle could lead everyone to ruin, if you take your eyes off the road, even for a second, you crash. There was always tension in the air, worry about what was around the corner, what was ahead. You had to see the enemy before they saw you. Of course, I was a kid, I never understood what they were looking for, what they were afraid of, but I did, eventually. The enemy can be anyone, your government, your friends, your neighbor. It was not a life; it was barely living. So, childhood fun somehow escaped me. But I did learn how to laugh, relax, a bit. It is hard, it still is. You have to work at it, it doesn’t come naturally.
(Click)
*
When I close my eyes, I feel like I am inside a dryer. The constant clicking sound of zippers and buttons hitting the inside walls. A soft tumble. I know it’s the steel wheels banging on the track and pushing everything right or left.
My ticket included a berth.
During the day they are seats, and at night someone comes and changes them all into bunk beds.
It feels like I’m on an adventure right now, but that could be because I smoked up in the washroom and my brain is turning the ordinary into interesting.
They put curtains in front of my bunk, it feels like my own special fort.
I didn’t drink any liquid since I boarded so I won’t have to go to the washroom constantly.
I’m thirsty.
*
My dreams were intense. It was the kind of dream I am awake in. I could feel the colours. Everything was super clear and intense, but not overwhelming or threatening. It was just me near running water, a creek. The water was clear, and butterflies flew everywhere. I didn’t speak because there was no one to speak to. I was floating more than walking, like I was part of the atmosphere. When I woke up, I saw a green plant growing backward into itself. I reached up to touch it and it slowly faded away. It took me a few minutes to figure out where I was. Those minutes are scary. I have those minutes even at home, like I’m adjusting to a foreign land.
*
I have a four hour stop in Toronto before re-boarding for Montreal. I can get out and walk around.
There are so many people, I can be anyone. Everyone is running around going somewhere. I want to live here and be someone with somewhere to go.
*
The stop in Montreal was quick. The language barrier scares me. I remember in grade 7 my French teacher told me to come to the head of the class and count to ten. He knew I couldn’t do it and wanted to embarrass me…he hated my dumb English ass. After about five he yelled at me to sit down and kicked me in the butt on the way to my seat. It kind of freaked me out.
*
I got off the train in Moncton and took a taxi to Blacks harbour. I stuck my army surplus bag in the trunk and felt like a world traveler. Like I was older, on my own.
When I arrived in Blacks Harbour, I could smell the tar. I think they put tar on the poles they use to build the harbour, so they don’t rot. When we arrived the tide was low, exposing all the mystery underneath. It looks creepy. Shiny wet seaweed with weird tentacles that have these strange bubbles inside. it’s a different world here. If I play my cards right no one will know me long enough to hate me.
*
I walk a small plank to get on board the boat and think about how scary it would be to fall between the boat and the dock. The water below doesn’t feel very friendly. These thoughts make my legs tingle.
You only pay if you have a car.
When I get on board, I always smell toast. I love that smell. I always get toast and put as much jam and peanut butter on it as I can. I always sit near the front so I can feel the up and down motion of the boat. Once someone told me that the waves were so rough, they had to lock the doors so no one would fall out. There was puke everywhere. The smell of puke makes you puke. It’s like the Faberge effect, and so on and so on…
*
When the boat arrives at Grand Manan we dock at Grand harbour in North Head. When we were kids, we would scream as soon as we could see the island. It was like arriving in a new world. From the land locked north, to an island in the Bay of Fundy. It felt exotic and wild.
When I got off the boat I walked to our house. It used to be my grandfather’s house. It was weird to think he was my father’s father. That my father had a father. I don’t remember them talking much when we visited. My grandfather would sit by the window and stare outside and listen to an old tube radio for boat messages, or something. I’m not sure what he was listening to. I think he enjoyed us when we were young, filling the house with laughter, now he is gone, and we are older and it’s dead quiet.
*
The house has a pharmacy on the main floor. The two stories above are where we stay. An abandon two story barn sits beside the building. When I go into the entrance on the side of the building I am faced with a large two-story staircase. I try to imagine my grandfather climbing these stairs everyday, every single day, till he died.
*
The idea of being in this house alone seemed cool, till it became dark.
Every corner feels like it is hiding something evil.
The odd shapes inside this building that are so cool during the day, give me the creeps at night. The walls are a wood panel that feels like the inside of an old ship, it creeks and moans with the wind. I can hear Franklin, the pharmacist downstairs, shuffling around, mixing…filling, whatever pharmacists do late at night. When we were young, we would go down to buy chocolate chunks from him. He would put them in tiny paper bags for us. There are a lot of memories hiding here, in every smell, in every sound. Everything seemed filled with excitement and possibility, like all I had to do was wait…what happened?
I don’t want to re-live anything; I just want to skip this part.
It feels like there are too many choices and still, no choices.
*
The next day I locked up and went next door to my Aunt Faiths place, she would give me a ride to Ingalls Head to catch the boat to White Head. My Aunt Faith is a breast cancer survivor, back when the odds of being a survivor weren’t that good. She makes homemade donuts and talks with a strong island accent. An accent that puts the word “some” near the end of their tilted sentences. The conversation is a mix of home spun wisdom and gossip. Their world feels like one big secret.
My uncle is a fisherman. He doesn’t talk too much and always seems tired when I see him. His home life feels like a pit stop to refuel then go back out fishing. When I was younger, he would grab my knee with his massive hand and squeeze. It always made me laugh and he would smile.
After my aunt drops me off at Ingalls Head, I wander around waiting for the boat. The tar smell has a hard time overpowering the smell of the rotting fish. There is a factory there for canning fish. They also buy fresh picked dulse. They pay for it, wet or dry. When we were younger the ferry was a fishing boat pulling a platform that the cars would go on. Now it is a real ferry boat, with a car platform and boat all in one. My cousins’ husband captains the boat, the ride is about 20 minutes long. What does he think about when he goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth?
When I walk on board I wave at my cousins’ husband, he doesn’t wave back. I don’t think he saw me. He is married to my cousin and his brother is married to the sister of my cousin. Two sisters, marrying two brothers.
I went into the seating area and sat down. I am going where I will be for two months. Eventually this harbour will feel like the mainland and the mainland will feel like another world.
*
I walked to my Aunt Norma’s house. Turn right off the boat, walk for about two minutes then turn left at the post office. Then up a small hill to her house. You can see over the post office from the house, all the way to the endless ocean, miles and miles of deep cold darkness.
I don’t knock, just walk in. The side porch has all my uncle’s plaid jackets hanging by the door. They have a smell I always remember, a sort of smoke meets fish smell, more smoke than fish. Some of his canes are stored near a bucket of blood. My aunt told me blood pudding is delicious, a vampire’s dessert…no thanks.
She was waiting for me at the kitchen table. We hugged and I could feel my stomach relax. My aunt is a female version of my dad. Talking to her lets me imagine what it would be like if my dad liked me. Our conversations are effortless.
There is a pot of tea in a thick glass container sitting on the wood burning stove that heats the kitchen. My aunt fills the stove with wood every morning and keeps it burning.
After my aunt shows me to my room we go back to the kitchen and talk. As I get into the rhythm of the conversation, I start to feel that maybe this will work out.
*
I hear him coming up the porch stairs. Clunk, click, clunk, click. He pulls his leg up the stair then locks his brace and pulls his other leg and clicks the brace. His legs are a mountain he has conquered. I was told he didn’t get the polio vaccine in time and his lower spine was affected. After he was paralyzed, he wouldn’t go into a wheelchair, he wouldn’t take government assistance and he wouldn’t stop fishing. He figured out how to manipulate his braces so he could stand straight up and work. He conquered the stairs with his bum and seems to smile more then most. I see him on his boat, knowing he is permanently attached to his own personal anchor. One wrong move and no one could save him.
I’m not sure if he wants me to be here, but he is still friendly, and we will rarely see each other. So, it should work. He liked my brother because they could joke about wrestlers, something about a wrestler named Vachon, I don’t know, all that shit bores me to death. I don’t understand wrestling, especially pretend wrestling.
*
My aunt sits down with me and suggests some stuff to do the next day. Different jobs I can do for work. This whole adventure starts to feel like it has a beginning and an end. A package I can look at and feel comfortable with. It should work, not that I have a choice.
*
This writing helps. It feels like I’m talking to the inside of my head. My best friend, my brain.
Oh, shit, I forgot to write this down, there’s a radio in my room!
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