The Man from Glengarry

                     I am the tourist. I am the prodigal who hates the foreigner.

                               Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family

1.

He asks himself: to be from somewhere, does that mean you are also of that same place? And what is the difference? Perhaps these are the incorrect questions.

There are those of the county that consider the county a Celtic creation, but tend not to give any thought to the Mohawk, displaced from the land before the establishment of European boundaries. Dismissed by the British with no more than a word that erases their agency: “acquired.” Do you even know where they went, where they ended up? Without explanation, or further context. Instead, we speak of brawny Scottish pioneers who tamed the tress and rapids and the roughness of bush, intemperate and desolate and snow-thick. The swamps they’d cross to drain, and drain to cross.

The land is sacred, their descendants trill, without a speck of irony. I mean, what matters?

2.

During every teenhood summer, the drinking deaths involving speeding cars that met with trains or met with trees or met with other cars. The year one car flipped, four bodies linking arms from across the provincial border, returning home from a village bar out of sight but not out of reach. A year to the day later, a train struck another, as metal and adolescence lay dead on the tracks. By 11pm, most of the farm kids long in bed, buffered from such summer danger: bored teens driving roughshod, cross-stitch over blacktop, watching mailboxes, driveways, fields of sleepy Holsteins, trees and trees and forests for the trees and desperately searching for how to leave this place but unable to cross that final boundary. Car radios or cassette-decks blasting pj harvey blasting Depeche Mode or blasting what else into that combustion of county silence and oblivion, driving out or into what they could not see to escape, what they could not hope to contain.

They say its raining on Lake Michigan. In which direction is that?

3.

1881: an upside down year. The year William Henry McCarty, Jr., also known as William H. Bonney, “Billy the Kid,” was shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The year the fictional Dr. John H. Watson was introduced to Sherlock Holmes, opening “A Study in Scarlet.” The same year the Canadian Pacific Railroad was incorporated, and Lakota Sioux Chief Sitting Bull surrendered to US federal troops. Over the space of this same year, US President James Garfield was inaugurated, shot and soon died, replaced by Chester A. Arthur. The census found 4,324,810 people living in Canada, and the borders of Manitoba stretched further north, west and east, causing Ontario, of course, to complain.

This was also the year the rail line scratched to meet the earth of county, delineating a single east-west line, around which a hamlet begin to eddy, swirl. A station that begat a hamlet, then a village, draining out surrounding hamlets, some down to but a single homestead. A pool that grew enough to village but no more, they say, for the lack of an accompanying body of water. Still. From the gravity well of trestle, the promise of passenger and freight, a billow-belch of Victorian smoke enough to parallel the treeline, sky.

A linage, a path, along a delta of farmland, the layered blues of Prescott and Russell along the northern boundary. And here, just south, from this line down through two centuries of familial activity, stretch of trees and seasonal pine and pick of stone to line the fence, the underbrush.

4.

From the isolation, and a blend of Scottish, Irish and French, an Ottawa Valley lilt, or twang: the kind that adds an “h,” shifting “room” to the phonetic “rhoom,” amusing any number of listeners from beyond the borders of Ottawa Valley. Our history-rich parcel of Eastern Ontario: the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield, still known as unceded territory, traditionally that of the Algonquin First Nation.

The sound of chainsaws, rolling logs and sawdust trails. Domtar cleans away the underbrush, a managed forest signed along the mess of muddy ditch, of spring.

They say it is raining on the Ottawa River. The storm rides the river, galloping west. We see no evidence from here.

5.

My father’s annual cow that bleeds out in the shed, front end loader, chained-up legs of the carcass over cement floor, as gravity leans a line into a dark red pool. A cat carcass asleep in the haymow, pitchfork assailing it out through the window and down into muddy barnyard.

At the top of the laneway, aside the mailbox, he waits for his morning school bus, amid the redwinged blackbird’s trills. Birdsong permeates the clear spring air, the combined sweet scent of mud, dead grass and melting snow.

They say its raining on the St. Lawrence River, where boats would roam for pleasure. The occasional nighttime run for cigarettes. Along the coastline, bullet-holes adorn the outer walls. They greyscale, shadow. Much like this rain.

6.

A tether, neither anchor nor umbilical. What else to call it. Look, he says, to his trio of daughters. This geography as much a part of my body as you. He waves his hand. They roll their eyes.

Christmas music

If it is true that the history of music has come to an end, what is left of music? Silence?

                        Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

1.

Since realizing pregnancy, Moira declares: I am no longer interested in fictional characters.

I want only what I can see, taste and touch, she says. Moira has become increasingly tactile. Needles and pins.

At seven weeks, morning sickness less a crest and fall than a permanent wave. She feels nauseous, nauseated, most of the time. At least to throw up would be a relief.

It never comes.

2.

The minimum length of time before public announcements is twelve weeks. At eight weeks, our midwife presents baby’s heartbeat. Twelve weeks, just short of the differentiation of sex. Moira can’t yet distinguish a boy or a girl vibe.

A heartbeat, hummingbird, under her own. I have a person inside me, she smiles.

Roots run, deep as the water-table. Strawberry plants, a system of underground tendrils that burrow for miles.

Kilometre: when writing, I balk at the word. The metric system might have entered Canada before I was born, but we measured distance in miles; my mother her yardstick, and so on. The word sounds too distant. My childhood mapped out a world I have resistance updating.

I tap into black notebook: kilometres to go before we sleep. Once the baby arrives, kilometres to go before we ever sleep again.

3.

Something random and completely terrible happens. Another school shooting in one of the eastern states. Almost immediately, we attempt to ascribe meaning and depth. We attempt to make sense of it. Is this simply a question of faith, of a belief in a higher being, perhaps God? Faith declares that everything happens for a reason. Without that certainty of faith, some might fall apart, dissolve. Aimless. It can be frightening to have no ground upon which to stand.

The entire idea of faith is in believing in something that can’t be proven.

I catch a glimpse of the motorcade for the Prime Minister, a row of black cars driving through New Edinburgh, into Rockcliffe. I can’t help but wonder: if the Prime Minister looks and acts like a duck. He moves like a dictator. The perception of fear, deliberately stitched between him and the populace. Bulletproof glass, in a country with sparse histories of political violence.

The October Crisis. Paul Chartier. The Siege of Montreal, and the burning of York.

Idle No More, and a frustration building to boil.

Years earlier, I met another Prime Minister while walking down Wellington Street, close enough to have done almost anything. But who was the last person who even did anything?

I can’t even remember.

4.

How to write of what is completely natural: the baby grows, sixteen weeks. We discuss names, don’t yet having come to any agreement. Not yet having decided if we will request to know the gender.

            At our next scan: what does it matter? It might facilitate naming, focus our attention on a single short-list, instead of two. The corners where our disagreements hold might be irrelevant. Think of the time we’d save, I suggest.

And waiting to be surprised: won’t we be surprised either way?

Dandelion fluff. Hundreds of seedlings, following the ebbs and gullies of air current over the trees. The air was thick.

            A flock of white, intent with purpose, direction. Each one floating aimless, until a sweep of wind stream corrals and direct.

5.

From a newspaper photograph, Bobby Orr leaps sideways into the air, soars over the ice, celebrating an infamous goal. Recalculating.

When she selected a kitten from their local Humane Society, he already had digestive issues. The regular kitten food quickly replaced with more expensive bags of medicated kibble.

He can see right through you, she says. I find that difficult to swallow.

She says, I asked you to prepare dinner, not invent it.

6.

Twenty weeks: offered the option of discovering gender, we accept. If baby decides to cooperate.

Everyone guesses: boy. How baby appears to rest, in the belly. We know the difference.

My father, his two slices of white bread, and bowl of maple syrup. One wipe.

In the beginning, there weren’t even words.

7.

I can say it now: I hate Christmas music.

Veterans complain, suggest stores restrain further than the boundary of Hallowe’en, to the end of Remembrance Day. The feeling their day washed away in an annual yuletide commercial flood.

The trudge from mall entrance to the edge of the parking lot.

December snow: a mist. Coats the seams in the sidewalk, across car hoods, and catches in corners.

One must stand for something.

8.

Moira posts a photo to twitter, via instagram. She and her favourite aunt a weekend in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to prepare for what comes.

            The southern heat applies pressure upon her chest. She has to remember to breathe. It does not come natural. Air conditioning saves her. That, and virgin daiquiris.

We model our love on the unread book. There will always be more. It can’t be enough. Our love is endless, boundless, held up in boxes, on shelves, on stacks on the floor.

We are held to our Canadian-ness, even if we don’t follow the stereotypes. Hockey, maple syrup, Tim Hortons. I am indifferent to both hockey and winter, a child who preferred to remain indoors and survey the landscape from the safety of window.

            Still: a dull grey sun over sparkling snow is still beautiful.

9.

Moira sleeps, unadorned. The cat wanders in. I navigate around, a wide berth.

News reports on the oil sands. If they could, they would monetize the air itself. What did the newspaper say?

The front of our car, absorbed into the snowbank. A light rain, coating all with a chill, and a layer of ice.

            By dusk, it had learned how to sparkle. Reflecting the moon.

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Moira’s skin, always cold to the touch. Mine radiates heat. Sleepy, she reaches out.

Things I am still frightened of : a new short story,

I've a new short story, "Things I am still frightened of," over at Half a Grapefruit magazine. Thanks much! And, as always, I've links to other short stories of mine publishing online, here.

The telltale heart : a new short story up at Entropy,

I've a new short story, "The telltale heart," now up at Entropy magazine. Thanks so much! 

For links to further of my short stories, check out my author page.

The names of things, (X-Ray Literary Magazine,

My short story, "The names of things," is now online at X-Ray Literary Magazine. Thanks so much! For further of my short stories, check out the links on my author page, here.