“I should never have contacted you.”
“But you did, knowing full well that I’d fight you. Which means you don’t really want to die. You want someone to stop you, and here I am.”
He looked so happy, like he actually believed what he was saying. Like I should believe what he was saying. Proving once again that there is no saving some people from themselves.
I patted his hands and gently removed them from my shoulders. Turned away and was relieved that I did indeed recognize my clients when I saw them.
“See those two women coming toward us?” I said to him. “The one on the left is Betty Jane Parker and the other is her daughter Chloe. I’ve been doing Betty’s hair every Friday for thirty years. She likes lots of back-combing and lots of hairspray. I’m the only one who can do her hair the way she likes it, only she doesn’t know that anymore because she has Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t know who I am or where she is or why she’s here. See how she’s clinging to her daughter’s arm? See how her daughter is talking to her, showing her the flowers and the birdies and the cat that has come out to greet them? She wasn’t always like this. Betty was a teacher with a wicked sense of humor, the kind that comes from insight and wisdom and cuts straight to the core of the matter. She’s traveled extensively and was passionate about children and learning. It was a privilege to know her. And now her daughter points out the birdies to her.”
“Looks to me like she’s enjoying them.”
“Enjoying them? Mark, she’s not even seeing them because she’s not there anymore. Her body is just a shell going through the motions, and that is what I am determined to avoid. I do not want anyone to take me for a walk and show me the flowers, the cats, or the goddamn birdies. I just want to go while I’m still me. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Suicide is a sin, Ruby.”
“So is inflicting suffering and torture.”
Betty and Chloe continued toward us. Chloe waved and pointed, but Betty kept her eyes on the ground, her feet shuffling forward, no idea where she was going or why. An hour from now her hair would be shampooed and back-combed, and she’d be on her way home for another week. And my heart broke for her.
“I won’t give up,” Mark said softly. “I’m determined to change your mind.”
“Then you’re going to need a miracle,” I said, and stepped forward to greet my 9:00 A.M.
LIZ
It was a familiar sight—my mother and her cronies lined up along a patch of grass across from the airport ferry terminal, banging a drum and waving signs at passing cars and taxis.
Close the Island Airport
People Not Planes
And my all time favorite,
Honk If You’re With Us!
Watching Ruby give the finger to a driver who clearly wasn’t, I knew I was in for a treat. Just a few more steps and I’d have a front-row seat for this afternoon’s performance of Close the Island Airport, the city’s longest-running protest, brought to you by Ruby and the Diehards—those fun-loving rascals who still believe they can stop the planes, make a difference, even change the world if they just keep on picketing.
Maybe one day, someone will tell them that the war has been over for a while. But until then you can catch all the action every Friday right here at the foot of Bathurst Street, where the land meets the lake and the airport ferry leaves every fifteen minutes. Admission is free, so bring the kids, the dog, the whole fam damily! It’s tons of fun for everyone!
I hadn’t intended to be here today. But when I finally rolled out of bed at noon, my room was already hot and stuffy with the weatherman promising more heat as the afternoon wore on—the kind of day Great-Grandma Lucy would have called a bloody scorcher. My bumping head and sour stomach insisted on fresh air—or at least air that smelled better—so I went for walk.
It’s always cooler by the water and that’s where I ended up, heading west on Queen’s Quay. When I hit Bathurst Street I thought, what the heck. Why not have a look? It would be good for a laugh if nothing else. Now, creeping closer through the trees, staying out of sight, I was glad I’d made the stop and more than pleased with my seating choice. I knew from experience how hot it would be on that sorry patch of grass across the road. But here among the poplars and the scratchy scrubby bushes, it was shady and cool and only a little buggy.
Swatting a mosquito out of the way, I hunkered down with my backpack and parted the branches. Other than the protesters there wasn’t much to see. Just a warehouse, the terminal, and a long line of taxis waiting for the next flight to arrive. Behind me, a baseball game was getting under way in Little Norway Park—red shirts versus blue. If you didn’t know, you’d never guess that this quiet, unassuming area housed the approach to an international airport.
Mind you, we’re not talking about a major transportation hub here. On the contrary, the focus of Ruby’s protest is nothing more than three short runways on the western tip of Hanlan’s Point, a mere 397 feet from the mainland. There are no jumbo jets, no flights after 11:00 P.M., and no bridge between here and there. Just a fleet of turboprop planes and a dedicated ferry trundling passengers back and forth across the Western Gap.
For all I know, it might be nothing but armed guards and sniffer dogs on the other side of that gap. But things have always been more casual here at the end of Bathurst, and no one minds a few protesters banging a drum within pitching distance of those runways. I love that about this city. But it still surprises me that no one has insisted on removing the copse of trees that shields the baseball diamond from the rest of the street, given that it makes a perfect hiding spot for someone like myself. Someone who wants to watch all the action without being seen.
“Close the airport,” Ruby hollered, and the Diehards took up the chant. “Close. The. Airport.” Drumbeat.
Their staging was the same as I remembered—a table with a banner, a petition, and a box full of flyers—as were the dozen or so marchers. Islanders all, people I’ve known my whole life, plus the two Bobs from Mississauga, friends of the family since the bathhouse protests of 1981.
Faithful Mary Anne was there too, occupying the spot on Ruby’s right now that Grace didn’t come anymore. Benny was on her left, where I used to be, the three of us competing to see who could get the most taxis to honk. Grace usually won, which wasn’t surprising. She was like a little kid out there, pressing an imaginary horn, begging the drivers to please, please press theirs. There was nothing political about it for Grace. She was just having fun. And the delight on that girl’s face whenever one of them honked was always enough to make another join in, just to see it again. And if it meant more attention for the cause, then Ruby was happy.
Watching her bang that drum, I tried to think of a time when we hadn’t been protesting something. A birthday party that hadn’t included an antipoverty petition. A Christmas when we weren’t kicked out of Eaton’s for handing out child-labor flyers in the toy department. But no matter how far back I went, I kept coming up empty. As far as I knew, the Donaldsons had always been rabblerousers. Great-Grandma Lucy marching for women’s rights when Ruby was little. The two of them marching to stop the Spadina Expressway when Ruby was grown. And finally Grace and me marching arm in arm with Ruby and Mark to stop police brutality or save the manatees or ban the ban against altar girls.
There have never been manatees in Toronto, and since my mother never took us to church, I didn’t understand the problem with the altar girls. But as Ruby always said, having a social conscience meant seeing the larger picture, looking beyond our own front door.
“It’s our responsibility, our duty, to act for social change,” she’d say. “To hold those in power accountable. To always question authority.” Unless it was her authority. That was to be honored at all times because who knew what you needed better than your own mother? No one, that’s who.
“Lizzie, you need to listen carefully,” she said when I was five years old. “What we’re learning here is called civil disobedience, and it’s exactly
what we need if we want to hold on to our homes. The time for polite conversation is over. Do you understand?”
I was a little kid, for chrissakes. What did I understand about civil disobedience? All I knew was that some man with a beard and hunchy shoulders was going to help us put together an elite group of freedom fighters. And all I saw was my pregnant mother’s hand shoot up in the air, waving and begging pick me, pick me, when that same man asked if anyone was willing to go to jail for the cause. “Don’t be silly,” Ruby said when I objected. “Everything will be fine. Now go sit with the other kids. The grown-ups have things to discuss.”
Long after the other kids grew bored and went in search of something more exciting, I was still there, a fixture at every meeting. Sitting on the floor, breathing in the language, the mood, the very pulse of the struggle. I was still too young to grasp much of anything that was going on, but still I wrote Save Our Homes on everything I touched. Surrounding the words with flowers and smiley faces while the adults said things like passive resistance and police brutality. Finally understanding that the baby and I were the reason my mother was there, the reason she wanted to get arrested, because we were the future of the Island.
When they started practice drills with make-believe policemen taking people to make-believe jail, Ruby would put an arm around me and whisper, “Whatever happens, remember that I love you very much,” scaring the shit out of me even as my skin prickled with pride.
That summer, Ruby’s pregnancy and the fight to Save the Island Homes came down to the wire. The Islanders were ready, Ruby was ready, and I knew exactly where I would be the day the sheriff finally came—at the front of the pack with the other kids, blocking the way.
On Monday morning July 29, 1980, as soon as everyone who worked in the city had left for the day, the siren on top of the clubhouse went off, the phone chain started up, and the calls went out all over the Island and across the water into the city.
The sheriff is on his way. Eviction day is here. Come stand with us.
I remember watching the first boats come across the bay. The dinghies and the water taxis, the canoes and the motorboats, and of course the old barge that was the flagship of the Island navy. All of them speeding toward us, bringing the believers, the curious, and more important, the press, to witness the standoff we had promised.
We gathered by the hundreds at the foot of Algonquin bridge that day, our banner pleading SAVE Us BILL DAVIS while television and newspaper cameras stood ready. It had come down to this—the last of the Islanders waiting in the rain for the final showdown. Sure enough, out of the gloom came two cars. Eviction on wheels.
My mother went into labor right there, falling heavily against Mark. He picked her up and started carrying her away. “Keep Liz with you,” she called to Mary Anne. Then she blew me a kiss. “Do me proud, Lizzie. Do me proud.”
Ruby and Mark disappeared from sight, but I stayed behind with Mary Anne. Pushed my way to the front of the pack with the other kids and stood my ground. When a girl younger than me started to cry, I took her hand, told her to stop being a baby and sing, just sing with everyone else. “Like a tree standing by the water, we shall not be moved.”
But inside, just to myself so no one else could hear, I prayed that the real sheriff and the real evictors were coming another way. That they would hammer their notices on our doors and everything would be over before we knew it, and my mother and the baby would not go to jail the way she wanted to so badly.
As it turned out, no one went to jail that day. Mark took my mother to a hospital in the city, the sheriff agreed to delay the evictions, and the Islanders declared a victory. Two days later, we won the right to appeal the city’s decision to get rid of us. At long last, the tide had turned.
When my mother came home with Grace, she put the baby in my arms and Mark took pictures of the three of us. I never told anyone about my secret prayer. I just wanted to forget all about civil disobedience with its threat of police and jail and let everything go back to the way it used to be. I was too young to recognize the change in my mother, to understand the difference between a mere rabblerouser and an activist, but I’ve always been a quick learner. By the time we hit the streets for the bathhouse protests in 1981, I was six years old and making my mother proud as her own little agent for change.
“Stop those planes!” Ruby yelled.
“We have to make a living,” one of the taxi drivers called.
“And we have to bird,” she yelled, and we both froze. A simple slip of the tongue or had Alzheimer’s dropped by to say hello? She moistened her lips. Tried again. “We have to breathe,” she yelled, and the taxi driver shook his head and rolled up his window.
“Nice save, Mom,” I whispered while she laughed it off with the Diehards. “Nice fucking save.”
It’s funny, but I always thought Ruby was invincible, that she’d live forever just to piss me off. Even now, even knowing the truth, it was hard to imagine her without words or opinions. The shit disturber silenced, no longer rallying the troops and fighting for the underdog. Incapable of doing the one thing she’d always been good at. The one thing I’d liked about her, the one thing we’d had in common until she turned her back on Grace. Refused to join the very fight that should have been instinctive, unquestioned, a natural for any mother whose child is falsely accused. Any mother except our own.
“Save the birds,” she yelled.
“Fuck the birds. And fuck you too,” I muttered, and got to my feet, suddenly hot and itchy, unable to breathe among those goddamn prickly bushes. I snatched up my backpack, pushed through the branches, and went straight to the drinking fountain. Splashed water on my face, my neck, the visible pulse at my wrists. But it wasn’t enough to cool my skin, or slow my heart, or let me catch a breath. What I needed was a drink. And it had to be happy hour somewhere.
On the baseball diamond, the red team was up to bat. A woman with huge boobs swung the bat, hitting a pop fly into the air above the pitcher. But all eyes were on those boobs as she ran to first base, giving me enough time to pull a vodka cooler out of my backpack unseen. I don’t like coolers much, but they were on special—six for six dollars—and I never could resist a sale. It’s a weakness in my character.
The pitcher fumbled the catch and the boobs headed for second. The guys on the blue team had to be giving her this one, which meant all heads were still turned that way, which suited me just fine. With my back to the game, I unscrewed the lid and took a long swallow. Nearly gagged on the sweet, fizzy shit. Should have spat it out then and there. Drank water instead. But who could get happy on water?
So I soldiered on for the cause. Polished off the rest and dropped the empty into my backpack. Pulled out a second and was getting ready to enjoy another refreshing beverage when a muffled voice behind me said, “I told you she was drinking beer.”
I jerked around. Two little boys with matching freckles and Blue Jays hats stood watching me with wide, brown eyes.
“What’s that on her face?” the younger one whispered.
“It think it’s the mark of the devil,” the older one replied.
More the mark of a liar. A scabby half-moon in the middle of my forehead, a reminder of the dangers of canned iced tea and the lie I’d told my sister to save my own ass—to keep her from following up with a handful of macaroni salad.
Ruby has cancer, I’d said. Nothing serious. Just a basal cell. Came off with a laser. Making up the story as I went along. Knowing Grace would believe whatever I told her, wishing I had the courage to tell her the truth.
I’d forgotten about the scab but recognized an opportunity when I saw it. “What nice little boys,” I said, walking slowly toward them. “Would you like some candy?” I held up my backpack. “I have lots and lots of candy.”
The older one grabbed the younger one’s hand and backed him up a step.
I hunched my shoulders and crooked my finger, beckoning them closer. “Don’t be afraid. I like little boys. I like them a lot.”
“Aaron, run!” the older one shouted, and took off in the other direction, hauling the whimpering little one behind him.
“See you later, boys,” I called, and headed back into the trees while the boobs ran for home.
The bottle was empty before I reached my spot, so I opened a third, chugged it, belched twice, and then leaned back against a tree, watching Ruby, red-faced and sweating, still beating that stupid drum. “Stop. Those. Planes.”
“Crazy bitch,” I muttered. “Go ahead and off yourself. Who gives a shit anyway?”
The fourth cooler didn’t go down as well as the other three—chugging will do that sometimes—and I was thinking about taking a break, maybe going for walk, until Mark’s black SUV pulled into the curb across the road and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I whispered, dropping the empty into the bag and giving the fifth bottle a pass for the moment.
He stepped out of the van and went around to open the back hatch while a young man moved over into the driver’s seat. “I come bearing gifts for a great cause,” Mark called to the Diehards. “But I’ll need some help getting them out.”
They were on him in seconds, hugging him, slapping his back, welcoming him back into the fold. If they ever found out he’d been catching flights out of that airport for years, there would be nowhere for that man to hide. The only one holding back was Ruby. “Stop. Those. Planes.” Drumbeat.
“What is wrong with you?” I said. “The man has gifts, for chrissakes.”
He called her name, but she only beat that drum louder. She was obviously ignoring him, but why? What had he done to her? Surely she didn’t blame him because I wouldn’t go into Fran’s?
“Stupid cow,” I hollered, then ducked and lowered my voice. “It’s not his fault.”
“What are you doing in there?” a woman demanded.
Island Girl Page 7
