The Sign on My Father's House

by Tom Moore

  “How long is she gone?”

  “Ten years. It started when my brother came home from Toronto and moved in here with us. He had the upstairs room where you are. He was a furniture salesman with the department stores. Woolworth was opening up a big store here, and he was sure of a job. He had been with them in Toronto for years. He needed a place to live till he got straightened away here in St. John’s.

  “I was up and gone to work in the mornings without a worry in the world. I remember telling the boys how I had it made. I relied on that woman. I relied . . .” He turned to his Dominion.

  Then the door opened, and Gib walked in.

  Winter came, and the city roads filled with snow. Sidewalks were unplowed, and we usually walked to class, arriving soaked and cold. Then, deep winter struck, and the little ponds in the city froze over. My mind went back to Weavers Pond and Healeys Pond and skating on Joneys Gully. The miserable walking made me look with envy at the guys living in the residences. Built on campus, they were linked by underground tunnels to all other university buildings. The large heating pipes had to go underground, and some brilliant person suggested the diggers widen and deepen the tunnels so students could walk to class out of the weather. That person was Joey Smallwood.

  Victoria and the new Tammy already lived in the girls’ residence at Burke House, and I resolved to move into one of the boys’ residences next year. This would be my first and last winter slogging through the slush and mush of St. John’s.

  One Friday night, there was a dance at the Thompson Student Centre and we all went. Gib was an hour gussying himself up and appraising himself in the large mirror on his dresser. “How’s this?” he asked seriously.

  “How’s what?”

  “How’s the sweater? Too much white with the white pants?”

  The only thing on him that was not white was the big capital letter G on the left side of his sweater. He looked like an orderly at the General Hospital.

  “You look great,” I said, and his pearly whites flashed happily to complete the tone.

  We met Tammy and Victoria at the entrance and checked our winter jackets at the coat check near the steps where we perched each day. Tammy was wearing lots of makeup, heels, and a kind of red lace shawl around her shoulders. It had tassels on the ends and reminded me of a crocheted tablecloth I had seen at my grandmother’s house. She was looking around, no doubt for a bigger fish.

  Victoria wore tight black slacks and a pink mohair top with three or four little lime-green hearts on the front. Beside her, Gib, very white, was inordinately pleased with himself.

  Tammy said, “Let’s go in.” We could hear the music blaring from speakers bigger than some houses in Curlew. We went in, and the conversation was effectively over for the rest of the night. We had heard that a group called Lukey’s Boat was playing, and I had imagined they’d be a rustic band playing lots of jigs and reels, a few two-steps, and a couple of waltzes. Not!

  Their lead singer was Laverne Squires, and she, like Gib, was dressed in white. She was belting out a frenzied number that jarred me to a stop. That girl had the pipes! She could hit the high notes square on the head and skim right on to the next ones. Tammy pulled me to the front of the mob of cavorters doing a dance I had never seen. She wanted to see the band, and, of course, she wanted to be seen, which was fine with me, for I wanted to see Laverne Squires.

  Long dark hair parted in the middle. Black eyes that moved from the wild passions of the songs to quiet softness when she stooped to hear a request from a young admirer. Always male. Her white outfit was a one-piece jumpsuit that went from her neck to her ankles. Around her waist ran a loose gold chain with large loops. She was illuminated crazily by a kind of wandering light that changed her white outfit to fluorescence so that she glowed like a beacon of wild, musical sensuality.

  At the end of a song, she bent down on one knee to hear a request, then rose and waited for the haunting introductory chords of “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.

  My eyes opened wide. What was this all about? My middle ear popped and swooped to cadences and pitches I had never heard before. My bones began to move so gently to the music and Laverne’s voice.

  “Let’s go find Gib and Victoria,” Tammy said.

  “No, I want to hear this song.”

  “They can hear that racket in Curlew,” she complained, but stayed.

  I had chased a few rabbits in the woods around Curlew, but nothing like this. And what was that part about a smoking caterpillar? Will Patey’s Caterpillar tractor blew an oil seal one time and smoked quite a bit, but again, this was different. I couldn’t picture Laverne on Will Patey’s tractor. But I wanted to.

  I tried to relate the words to eating mushrooms gathered from the woods, but the analogy could carry me only so far. I wanted to move slow with Laverne, or was it low? Either one, please. Mind and body!

  This was not a foreign language to me, for the words were familiar in a way I did not yet understand. It was poetry, alive and evocative. I loved the images and symbols because it was just the way my own foolish mind worked. The song was over too soon, but requested and played again several times during the night.

  “Come on.” Tammy tugged at my hand.

  “Okay.”

  Not hard to find Gib. He was in the middle of the gymnasium dancing with Victoria. His white outfit was lit up by the overhead black lights, just like Laverne’s, and he was loving it. He and Victoria seemed to be getting into this new music, hopping around and pretending to ignore each other.

  “Let’s leave them alone,” I said to Tammy. “I’ll get you a Coke.”

  When I returned, she was crying. She couldn’t hear me because of the noise. With a Coke in each hand, I touched her shoulder with the back of my fingers so she’d see me. She looked up through raccoon eyes of ruined mascara.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She sobbed, but reached for a Coke. I gave her my handkerchief. She wiped her eyes into a dark smudge. She sobbed, “I was talking to this cute guy, and I thought we were having a good time, and you know what he said?”

  I knew.

  “No, what did he say?”

  “We were just chatting, and then he said he wanted to . . .” She broke down and wobbled on one of her heels.

  “That’s no big deal. It’s just talk. All the boys want to do that, and some are ignorant enough to say it.”

  She looked at me as she took a long swig on her Coke. “Do you want to, Felix?”

  I took a swig on mine and said nothing. A large swath of mascara now ribboned around her eyes in a wild Laverne Squires kind of way. Her red lips were parted and panting from her sobs. She had a new vulnerability that was a far cry from the loud and vulgar Fagan of yesterday. She had come to Memorial University as a frightened stranger like me, and she had tried to adapt, to survive, and even thrive there. She had taken a great risk in her new persona and had just paid a bitter price for it. She had truly become Tammy, and I felt my heart warm toward her.

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  She put her Coke behind my back, and I put my Coke behind hers, and we held each other for a moment. The music blared around us as frenzied dancing couples ignored one another coolly. Not far away, Gib grooved like a white, dancing lighthouse. The bleaching lights glared, the house-high speakers blared, no doubt rattling dishes in the china cabinets of Mount Pearl, and perhaps in China itself.

  Tammy was taller than me on her heels, and her ear rubbed against the top of my head. Soon our bodies were moving to the fast music, and she said, “Wish I could dance that.”

  “Me, too. Let’s try.”

  “But I can’t dance with these on.” She pointed to her heels.

  I led her to the chairs along the side of the gym. She sat, and I bent down and took off one shoe. I gave it to her, and I took off the oth
er one. Then, I stood up and put her left shoe in one of my pants pockets and the right in the other. They bulged out, but in this light, only two people would know they were there. In fact, I could be carrying two alligators and nobody would have noticed. In St. John’s, you could drop dead on the floor with a heart attack and no one would ever notice. They would step over you all night long, and the cleanup crew would call the cops the next morning. That’s how I felt that night, so long ago.

  She had no shoes, and I had four. I led her out onto the floor, and we did our best to dance to the music like the others. It soon became easier. But isn’t that life? Ah, life!

  7

  Country Mouse in Residence

  My final term brought my averages up, and I finished my first year on the dean’s List. I won a scholarship that was touted in the local paper, and everyone at home was proud. I received several letters of congratulations from family and friends, and one came on cream paper with a watermark and a printed heading: “Wayne White, General Dealer, Curlew, Newfoundland.”

  Your academic achievement has made everyone in Curlew proud, and it has also assured your future success both socially and financially.

  Best wishes and congratulations.

  Clara White

  PS When you get your summer holidays I want to see you.

  Clara’s wishes were not to be denied, so one day in July 1969, I found myself on the steps of White’s store and walking across the linoleum I had so often swept clean. There was Ellen behind the counter serving a customer. I longed to talk to her, but she said, “Clara’s out in the yard, Felix,” and she pointed to the back door. Sigh!

  Clara was sitting in an old Adirondack chair up by the flour store.

  “Felix!” She was wearing a dark blue dress down to her ankles and a brighter blue apron to show she was still at work. When she saw me, she struggled out of the chair and motioned me to follow. It was a short walk to the flour store and the timeless Coca-Cola blonde on the sign. I reached out and pushed the heavy door open, and she stepped onto the plank floor, supporting herself with a hand on the doorpost.

  The flour store smelled of confined summer heat. Relics of life from the past half-century were everywhere: hemp bags of oats, cloth sacks of flour, sacks of chicken feed stacked on pallets, and rakes, prongs, and scythe handles lodged between the eves above.

  “How old are you now, Felix?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen. And doing well at university. Working hard. Good.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She looked around. “This place was built in 1917 by a young man named Wayne White. He wasn’t much older than you, Felix, but he was such a good-looking man.” She added, “Like you’ll be some day.”

  I was thinking to myself, Why am I here? Why waste a summer afternoon with a batty old lady from my past?

  “Your parents must be proud.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We only had one child because . . . I had medical problems.” She swallowed hard.

  “Wayne built this place almost by himself. We didn’t always have money, you know. We got all this the hard way.” She waved her arm around at the dusty beams and ancient floors.

  I studied the grinning blonde on the Coca-Cola sign.

  “Now I want to see Dick’s dolls,” she said.

  “But the steps?” I pointed to the steep ascent through the top-floor hatch.

  “Never mind that. You just go up ahead of me.”

  I did and soon saw the old grey head emerge through the hatch, her foot lifted on steps built by her husband’s hand. She stood on the second floor and turned from the handrail with a few downward brushes at her apron and dress. Then a token hand gesture smoothed her hair.

  She stopped at the door to Dick’s workshop and said, “I’ve come up here before, you know.”

  “With Ellen?” My mind was wandering.

  “No, not with Ellen! She knows nothing!” She pushed open the door with a sigh and stepped in. The dolls were just as I had left them the previous September, when I had joined their happy village for a few minutes. Some I had entombed, while others stood standing as in life.

  She walked with purpose across the floor to Dick’s workbench, reached down, and found a doll that had been lying out of view under it. She lifted it from the floor into her arms and began to weep.

  “Did you see the face?” she asked.

  “No. I never noticed it under the bench.”

  “Look!”

  She turned the doll toward me. On it, Dick had carved his own face. Every other face in the village wore a jolly smile, but on his face the lips were turned down, the eyelids were closed, and a silver tear sat on the cheek. Clara cradled the doll in her skinny arms and moaned, “Wooo. Wooo. Wooo.”

  Eventually, she stopped crying and turned to me. “I want you to put him in the box now,” she said.

  I took the doll from her. It felt dry and light. I knelt down on the dusty floor and wrapped paper around him. Another “wooo” from Clara came softly over my shoulder. She’s crying more over Dick’s doll than she cried over Dick, I thought.

  I laid Dick in a box and closed the lid.

  “Do the others, too,” said Clara. “And don’t forget this one.” She grabbed the smiling Ellen doll from the top of the workbench. “She thinks we dreamed this store into existence. She has no idea of the work and the pain. She’ll never own this place!” she cried.

  “Who else can you leave it to?” I asked.

  “I want to leave it to you,” she said.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you!”

  That September, I moved into Doyle House residence to avoid the winter snow and sleet.

  I registered at student housing offices on the second floor of Hatcher House, the graduate students’ residence. With little fanfare, a short gentleman wearing a suit and tie duly processed me. The suit had probably fit him once, but that time was lost in the past or in the repast of good eating. It fit him so snugly that even the rolls of his love handles bulged clearly through. He handed me my key and explained the rules: No x, no y, no z, none of which bothered me, for I didn’t do x, y, or z.

  Seeking room 407, I dragged my father’s suitcase up to the fourth floor of Doyle House, straightened my clothes, and knocked on the door.

  Immediately, a deep voice answered, “Come in.”

  I entered a dimly lit room with the curtains drawn and only a desk light on. It was pivoted around to the adjacent bed, where a person sat wearing a shirt, vest, and plaid pants. It was difficult to see much more, for the light was focused down on the bed, where he was counting what looked like money—a lot of money.

  I said, “Hi, I’m Felix Ryan, and I guess we’re roommates.”

  He had a look of being taken off-guard. He got up, switched on the light, and held on his hand.

  “Hi, I’m John Malacat,” he said in a slow, deep voice. The light illuminated his unusual shape. He was over six feet tall and thin with short, curly black hair that came to a point in the centre of his forehead. His ears were also pointed and close to his head, which gave him the appearance of some kind of tall woodland dryad. He moved in the same languorous way that he spoke, almost in slow motion, and smiled in an awkward way that did not seem unfriendly.

  “Just countin’ some coin,” he explained, and returned to the bed. There was no coin there, just bills, and all small denominations. He scooped up the money, put it in a brown paper bag, and shoved it into the bottom drawer of his desk.

  “Do you lock that?” I asked.

  “Can’t I trust you? You got the only other key.” He brushed his curly hair in the mirror, making absolutely no impression on his head, and opened the door. “I’m goin’ over to the cafeteria in Hatcher House for dinner. You got a meal ticket?�
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  “No, I pick it up on Monday.”

  He put his hand into his pocket and whipped out a roll of bills. “You got any money for meals?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  “Well, if you get hungry, that’s where the food is.” Then he closed the door and was gone.

  The room was comfortable in a contemporary, minimalist way. On each side, starting from the door, was a closet with clothes bar, hangers and five drawers, a desk with a pivoting lamp and two large bookshelves, and a bed which abutted a radiator. A large window was at the far end of the room and a mirror on the back of the door. Every bit of space was utilized in a manner I liked very much. Over the closet was a space of a foot or two to throw suitcases or boxes.

  I sat on my bed. It was a lot firmer than the old ones I was used to at home or at Billy Crotty’s. I sat in my chair, pulled it in to the desk, and switched on my desk light. The bookshelves showed the markings of past students, like a guy named Greg with a talent for artistic design.

  The desktop was a clean, tan arborite. As I ran my hand over its smooth surface, I could imagine the white pages of a book open with the pivoting light above it. Studying would be a breeze. I was good at challenges that were clearly defined, like an academic degree program. I would triumph here, I thought. I emptied my things out on the bed and tossed the empty suitcase up on top of my closet. I hung my pants and shirts on the bar and put the rest in the drawers. Lots of room.

  In the top drawer of the desk I found a Gideon Bible.

  I was still reading it when the door opened and John Malacat re-entered. “Hi,” he said. “Reading the Bible, eh? We’ve got better than that.” He reached into his desk drawer and handed me a copy of Playboy. The young lady on the cover was enjoying her cowgirl role as she sat on a fence near a haystack. A cowboy hat and white leather boots completed her attire. Her smile was as big as Texas, and so were her . . .