-10F/-30F
Our cat is still missing
Tinkerbell, kitty kitty kitty, puss puss puss, Tinkerbell, come here girl.
That’s how our mom calls the cat.
*
The latest Circus magazine just came out. It has David Bowie on the cover. It has all my favourite rock stars and bands in it. My rock fantasies are like my funeral fantasies. Filled with people wishing they had been nicer to me. My favourite part of the magazine is at the back where the personal letters are. Teenagers asking questions no one talks about. Like this one time this guy asked about being attracted to other guys. They told him everybody in their teenage years has mixed feelings and being attracted to other guys was just a brief part of it, it would pass. I felt relief with that answer, and nervous. How long does it take?
*
People who underestimate you say the stupidest things to you.
*
I needed to get to the airport. There is a small plane that flies back to Timmins every weeknight. They have to fly back so the plane ticket only cost ten bucks. Unfortunately, you can’t leave your car there, so I had to get a ride. My Dad wouldn’t give me one, so I called Mark and he gave me a ride to the airport. We got really stoned on the way there. When I sat down in the plane, a girl sat beside me and wouldn’t shut up all the way there. It kind of freaked me out so I just stared out the window. All I could see when I looked down were patches of white and dark. I thought about how screwed we would be if we crashed into that mess. Cold, injured and dying. Knowing my luck, the girl beside me would still be alive and she would just keep on talking, she would attract animals and get us all eaten alive. Then I went into my usual funeral fantasies and her voice faded.
*
When we landed, I got a taxi to my sister’s place. It’s actually my dads place and office while he works in Timmins. My sister works in Timmins as a secretary for an Architect firm. Once she was getting stoned at the apartment and my dad walked in on her and her friend. He didn’t tell her he was coming, and he just walked back out. They didn’t say anything about it to each other. I try to imagine that weird silence, how much easier it is for some people to just ignore stuff then deal with it. I find the silence harder.
My sister has a lot of friends there. She went to college in South Porcupine, a kind of suburb of Timmins. Timmins is a mining town and is really spread out. It’s flat and rocky and goes on forever. I try to imagine being a miner. The darkness and noise, the dirt, the dust. There are some jobs I just know I would starve to death before doing, that is one of them.
We went out with my sisters’ friends. I was able to have some fun drinking and getting stoned. It was nice to be far from home, or least far enough. Guys who are friends of my sister are nice to me because they like my sister. That’s ok, I’ll take it, even if it’s fake niceness. Once I went to visit my sister while she was in South Porcupine going to college. She dated this Guy who lived in the basement. I thought we got along fine, but when I left, she told me he thought I was soft…this kind of thing happened before with her other boyfriends, so, I became used to people being two faced.
The visit was too short.
I went back by bus.
I could feel my heart get heavier as I went home.
*
Picked up another tape from Jutta. We talked about her trip to Canada, the war. I listened to her tell me about the running, the fear. In my mind, it’s a movie, with a beginning and an end. War never ends, no one wins, she said to me. Then she told me about cutting hair and how her clients talk to her about things they would never say to anyone else. She says if I knew what went on in this town, it’s a real Peyton place. I laughed, but now I have to find out what Peyton Place is.
*
We found Tinkerbell.
My oldest sister came running up to me saying someone found her. She was yelling it in an excited way, like it was good new, but when she got closer, she told me Tinkerbell was dead. My sister has an odd fascination with bad news. She loves to deliver it, like it’s heavy and precious. Something valuable that she gets to hold and give to you, so for a moment, she’s special, needed.
*
There was this guy that went to our school. He was Indian, Cree, I think. He was a cross country star, a runner. He was my sisters’ age. I’m not sure where he lived but it was somewhere in town. When I saw him at school, he was always in a track suit, dressed for running. My sisters’ boyfriend was a friend of his. He told her that Henry was aging out of the foster system and had no where to go.
He killed himself last week. They found him hanging from a radio tower.
His nickname was Snowball.
*
Made the set list for the show Friday. Crystal wants Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac, but Mark doesn’t.
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