The Rural Voice, 1987-08, Page 45NOTEBOOK ED'S CONCRETE
is
in his pockets. There were hundreds of
birds eating the grain. It was a useful
game, he said.
There was the jeep, the dog, and
Dad. In summer we would get up early,
load the jeep with newspapers, milk,
bread, cigarettes, maybe some sweet
buns or tarts, and go down the cottage
roads through the cedars, the branches
scraping the sides of the jeep. The
gravel roads to the lakefront were nar-
row and tunnel -like as we descended to
those fairy-tale houses, the cottages.
Our house had four bedrooms up-
stairs and two down. My parents slept
downstairs and I was allowed to sleep in
whatever room I wished. Some rooms
were more comforting than others and I
think now it was the wallpaper. The rose
room was too grown up. The blue plaid
room scared me, my brother's kilt the
only item hanging in the closet, the
sporan waving, swaying as I walked by.
At night, around 10:30, the store
wou Id close down and I wou Id be glad to
see nay parents come in for the nightly
ritual of the papers, toast and tea. Maybe
a game of crib.
It seemed like a very good life to me.
Who could ever want to change it? And
yet. I did sense that temporary feel of
things. That the peace of this life, the
routine of it, was too smooth somehow,
too pleasurable. Underneath, never
stated, was the fact that my father
worked too hard. You go in and lie
down, Bill, my mother would say when
his breath was short, quickened.
Sometimes, when I could not find
him, having gone first to the store, then
to the basement, the barn, the woodshed,
all the places where he worked, was
most likely to be because he always
worked at something, after I'd searched
all these places and not found him, I
would go into the unlit house. He would
be Tying asleep, snoozing, snoring with
the paper a tent over his head or fallen to
the floor, his arm limp, the fingers barely
touching the floor. I would stand on the
heat register opposite the couch where
he slept and look at him. His hair very
thick and white and tears would come
into my eyes for no reason at all. I would
suddenly feel very strange, as if I were
growing to understand something I
could not quite understand. And I would
watch him until he woke.0
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BAYFIELD ROAD 482-3409
AUGUST 1987 43