Canary

ASHES

IN 1976, WHEN I WAS TWELVE YEARS OLD and my father was still desperate to please my mom, we moved into a brand new house on Wasilow Road. Our part of town was called The Mission, named by Father Pandosy, an Oblate priest who established the first white settlement in the Okanagan Valley in 1859. Wasilow Road was lined with identical three-bedroom bi-level homes. Each house had a dining room, which led to an elevated sundeck that served dual purpose as a carport, under which my father parked his 1972 Chevy Nomad station wagon. Our car was beige and embarrassing.

We didn’t live on the kind of street where people were fond of their neighbours and shared summer cookouts and winter hockey tournaments. For instance, we didn’t talk to the German family who ate the rabbits they kept in the backyard, and we barely smiled—although we weren’t openly hostile—at the RCMP constable who lived next door.

What a racket, my mother said at breakfast shortly after we moved in. I heard them going half the night. I’m telling you, Eddie, he hit her. More than once.

Do you want me to go talk to him? Dad asked.

For God’s sake, no! My mother pressed her forehead into her fingers, The man has a gun!

Dad gave mom a long-suffering look, Elaine, I don’t know why you told me this story.

Because Ed, I have a goddamn headache. And you could sleep through the second coming of Christ.

After we had been in the house for three years my older brother escaped my parent’s distaste for one another by finding work on an oil rig near Slave Lake. Six months later he returned the protégé of a fanatical Pentecostal minister who had chosen a sixteen-year old bride for him. He was eighteen years old. David didn’t even meet his bride until two weeks before the nuptials, to which none of us were invited. One year later, in the spring of 1980, David, and his six-months pregnant wife, Charity, moved to a Christian commune near Lumby.

I give up on the men in this family, my mother said. She lit a smoke and poured a shot of Kaluha into her coffee. What on earth is he thinking?

I shrugged. My brother had never been strong on thinking. David failed grade two and shortly after our move to Wasilow Road he was tagging along with Clinton Pelletier, a deranged product of the foster care system who was a year older than David and brimming with venom.

Clint liked to grab me and stick his tongue in my mouth or push me down on to the floor and grind his crotch into mine saying How do you like that, baby? You want some more? David would turn into a mute idiot and just stand there watching. The guy had no will. I knew that, but my mother had her own way of seeing things.

My mother was frantically trying to come up with some alternative names for grandma, like we’d actually venture out to the sticks to see David and Charity, who wouldn’t eat at the same table with us because they believed we were going to hell. How about Ellie? She said during the six o’clock news. We were watching the channel from Spokane, waiting to hear, along with the rest of the Pacific Northwest, what was going on with Mount St. Helen’s.

Crazy old bastard, my father said. Ever since the Governor of Washington had declared a state of emergency my dad had obsessed over the growing activity around the volcano. And he was fixated on Harry Truman, the old man who refused to leave the mountain.

Ed! Are you even listening to me?

What’s that? he asked.

Mom shook her head, I might just as well be talking to a wall.

Make your folks a couple of bourbon and coke, would you, Jeannie? My dad had recently purchased a twenty-sixer of bourbon in honour of old Mr. Truman, who wasn’t just famous for refusing to leave the volcano, but also for his love of bourbon and cats.

Not for me. My mother’s lips were a thin line. Lisa and I are going to ceramics. There was one neighbour we liked, a nurse named Lisa. On Monday nights she and mom went to a basement on Raymer Road and painted mother-of-pearl Madonnas and speckled frogs with open mouths to hold pot scrubbers. On Mondays, Lisa’s son slept at his dad’s apartment, so after their ceramics class mom and Lisa would sit in Lisa’s living room smoking cigarettes and drinking five-dollar bottles of wine. On Tuesday mornings, my dad and I tiptoed around the kitchen and made our way quickly out of the house.

Well then, my dad winked at mom, make mine a double. He was a well-liked guy, my dad. He made a point of sounding happy, which is probably what made him a successful salesman. For the past two years he’d been selling time on the local radio station and he’d found his niche among flamboyant radio personalities with their laissez-faire approach to boozing and extramarital sex. Not that my dad was a philanderer, but it was easy enough for him to ignore the sexual revolution with all the good drinking that could be done among those fellows.

My mother snorted and left the room. Dad, who was prone on the couch, turned back toward the television. Now that’s what I call love. He raised himself up on his elbows. He says he’d die if he weren’t on that mountain. His wife is buried there. Now who wouldn’t want to feel like that about someone?

Sometimes my dad went on about the weirdest things. Do you really want a double? I asked.

May as well. Your mother won’t be home anyway.

When I brought him the drink, he said, How about we go for a lesson after the news? A few weeks earlier, on April 16—sixteen on the sixteenth!—I qualified for my learners and my dad was teaching me how to drive.

DAD RELAXED INTO THE PASSENGER SEAT and popped the cap off his beer bottle with a Bic lighter. Do up your seat belt, he said, although he made no move to fasten his own. I drove carefully out toward the east side of town, through the winding hills populated by apple orchards and vineyards. Atta girl. My dad had a habit of offering commentary when none was necessary.

The sun was close to setting; tall spruce trees cast long shadows across the windshield. The world was lit in a pink glow, making the trees, grass and gravel shoulders seem antique. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to turn on the headlights, he said, just so they know you’re coming, not going. I don’t think your mother would appreciate a car accident on her ceramics night.

It didn’t seem like a statement that required a response and I was focused on the Bronco heading toward us on the narrow road. What d’ya say, Jean? Is ceramics class worth all the planning?

I don’t know.

I had been to one ceramics class with my mom and Lisa, but it was embarrassing. The ladies sat around painting planters and talking about their kids, who each seemed to have a marvellous talent. Finally my mother piped up, sounding so chipper you would have thought she was doing a laundry detergent commercial. Well I’m perfectly happy with my thoroughly average daughter. Aren’t I, Jeannie?

I guess so, I said. My mother couldn’t believe it when I said I didn’t want to go back the next week.

Your guess is as good as mine, I heard her say to my dad when she told him I wasn’t going to ceramics any more.

Well, your mother remains a mystery to me. Hang a right here. He tapped on his window. Of course, mystery is what keeps a marriage fresh. He stifled a small burp. Let’s get in some parking practice before we lose the light.

We were on a street of front driveways that safely stored cars for the night; only one turquoise sedan remained on the road in front of a faded yellow and white ranch-style house. Just pull up beside it and park.

When I stopped the car he took the last swig of his beer and stepped out of the car. Hang on. He took several giant steps away from the car then set his beer bottle down on the shoulder. He placed a big rock beside the bottle then ran back to the car. For a second I saw what kind of a kid my dad had been.

When dad climbed back into the car he was old again. He grabbed another beer from under the seat and popped the cap. Now, I’m going to get you to do like you’re parallel parking, only instead of another car is a beer bottle.

It’s kind of hard to see in this light.

Welcome to my world, sweetheart. He swallowed the beer in large gulps. "What you really want to do is to get a feel for backing into a spot. And you have to move slowly. Don’t let other cars get you all excited. Parallel parking is an art. It demands assurance and attention, like most things worth doing.

Now, when you pull up beside the car you’re parking behind you want to give it a little space. If you get too close there’s bound to be a collision, if you’re too far away you’re just going to lose the whole damn thing. You know what I mean?

I nodded.

So you line up your steering wheel with the car beside you—just pull up a little. And you want to be about three feet away.

I aligned the car.

Good. Now back up. Slowly. And crank it.

I started to turn the wheel.

But not too soon. Wait until you can see her bumper through the passenger window. And then you want to get about a forty-five degree angle to work your way in. She’s all about how you approach her. Nice and easy does it.

I worked my way into the imaginary space cut off by the empty bottle of Pilsner. I straightened the wheels and backed into the curb, which was also imaginary, the properties on the east side separated from the road by gravel and shallow ditches. I heard glass crackling and stopped the car. Dad scratched his ear. Well, that can’t be good.

He stepped out to assess the damage. Pull forward, he called. I inched the car ahead. Through the rear-view mirror I saw him bend over then stand up again and kick at the gravel sending the pieces of brown glass into the ditch. Then he turned the bottle he was drinking from upside down, letting the last few sips dribble onto the road. He dropped the empty bottle into the ditch, opened the door and slid back into his seat. It doesn’t look like there’s any damage to the tire but lets get a move on, I don’t suppose the folks around here are going to appreciate us littering on their turf.

I drove back down toward the centre of town while dad nursed his third beer. He didn’t like to bring mixed drinks into the car; they spilled too easily. I cranked up the radio but he didn’t complain. I guess he had nothing to say. The sun had set and the sky was darkening, I saw my father’s face reflected in the glass, I was trying to picture him as a teenager combing Brylcreem through his hair and chasing after my mom. It was kind of creepy actually, to think of my parents as young teenyboppers, before she was cranky and