Cluck

by Lenore Rowntree

  LENORE ROWNTREE

  ©Lenore Rowntree, 2016

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Thistledown Press Ltd.

  410 2nd Avenue North

  Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7K 2C3

  www.thistledownpress.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Rowntree, Lenore Ruth, author

  Cluck / Lenore Rowntree.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77187-108-2 (paperback). – ISBN 978-1-77187-109-9 (html). – ISBN 978-1-77187-110-5 (pdf)

  I. Title.

  PS8635.O887C56 2016 C813'.6 C2016-905248-6

  C2016-905249-4

  Cover and book design by Jackie Forrie

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Thistledown Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Government of Canada for its publishing program.

  For Cortes Community Radio

  CKTZ 89.5 FM,

  the spirit of independent radio

  Contents

  One

  1970 Uncool

  Two

  High School Radio Junkie

  Three

  Snake Eyes

  Four

  Longer Nails

  Five

  New Occupants

  Six

  Turkeys and Chickens

  Seven

  Kluk Transmission

  Eight

  Radio Noise

  Nine

  Show of Feathers

  Ten

  Cry Fowl

  Eleven

  Bear Growls

  Twelve

  Tisket a Tasket

  Thirteen

  Mink Patrol

  Fourteen

  Constellation Room

  Fifteen

  Brooding Machine

  Sixteen

  Dirty Annie’s

  Seventeen

  On Fire

  Henry

  Eventually

  Acknowledgments

  ONE

  1970 Uncool

  ONLY HENRY AND HIS FRIEND Tom from next door sit in the front room of the house by the white plastic fencing that snakes around ten miniature cows. Henry admires the finely coordinated movement of Tom’s hand when he tips a thimble-sized bucket just to the edge of a small brown cow’s mouth. He hopes with all his heart things will remain calm until it’s time for Tom to go home for supper. He wants to beg Tom to stay with him, to be his friend no matter what happens. But he’s frozen in position, his hand clamped on the seat of the rubber tractor from his Farm Folk set.

  What are you staring at? Tom asks.

  Nothing. Henry smiles.

  He bends so Tom won’t see the smile and rushes the tractor through the golden carpet, making furrows in the wheat field that stretches across the room and down the hall to the front door that leads to forever.

  Brmmm. Brmmm. Brmmm.

  The night Henry’s mother turned this room into a bedroom for him, she said, The light’s good in here, nice and cheery for my Little Ducky. Henry, tucked between a feather pillow and down quilt on his mother’s bed, couldn’t understand why he had to change rooms right then. But he knows now that’s just the way it is with her. And most of all, he knows it’s best to do as she says and always to fake being happy. Even when happiness is cracked.

  He swoops the tractor around by the foot of his bed, and speeds it up as he heads back toward the barnyard where he crashes through the fencing and into the cows grazing on the carpet.

  Watch it, Tom shouts. You almost killed Daisy.

  Tom and Henry laugh. This is their routine. Tom rights all the cows while Henry zooms around once more before screeching to a stop beside the barn. He picks up a small black and white collie and drags her through the carpet. Lead the cows home, girl, he shouts. His thumb rests on a speck of yellow paint at the collie’s neck, left from the time he tried to change her colour so she’d look more like the real Lassie. He uses his other hand to pull bunches of protesting cows through the carpet.

  Moo. Moo. Moo.

  Sooie, sooie, Tom yodels to round up the hogs.

  It’s noisy and soon enough Henry’s mother bursts into the room. She’s out of breath, and has a curious mix of annoyance and emergency on her face. As if she’s run in to put out a fire.

  You boys are getting too old for this kind of play, she says.

  Only ten, Tom answers back.

  Still — too old to be making such a racket, she says.

  Not that noisy, Henry says. Busy scattering popcorn kernels among the chickens, he barely looks up.

  His mother puts her foot in the middle of the fenced circle, right on top of one of the cows that hasn’t been herded into the barn.

  Time to clean up this mess, she says. Now!

  He doesn’t like that she’s upset by the noise, but he’s glad Tom’s ruckus has distracted her from the popcorn. Last time he wasted corn, she made him wash the inside of the cupboards in the kitchen, and the next day he had to skip school to help her perm her hair. He stood at the kitchen sink all afternoon running warm water over her head, the smell of perm solution sticking in his throat. Then when she was finally satisfied with her own hair, she tried to use the leftover mixture on him. He had to run into the backyard and hide behind the laurel bush. He couldn’t have his hair corkscrewing out like the curly-tailed mice in the grade-five science book. The teacher had told the class those mice were mutants.

  Henry’s mother reaches her hand down toward him. He shrinks back, unsure where the invitation is leading, but she grabs him anyway and pulls him onto his feet.

  Let’s dance, she says. Her face suddenly alight.

  No, Mom.

  Come on baby, it’ll be fun. Tom, turn the record player on.

  Tom switches the knob and carefully sets the needle down onto the record sitting on the turntable. Henry can’t remember what record he left there and holds his body rigid praying it won’t be “Wooly Bully”. He found the album in an alley on the other side of Fourth Avenue where the wealthy people live in Kitsilano. The people who have views of the ocean and enough money to throw away a practically new record, one that’s not even scratched. He keeps it hidden under his mattress and pulls it out at night to read. The back cover says it was recorded in 1965, and the front is a thrilling scary picture of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. He knows his mother won’t like them, especially if she finds out he dances to their music in his underpants when she’s at work over at the drugstore . . . He’s relieved when the record begins and it’s the children’s choir singing.

  When the red red robin comes bob-bob-bobbin’ along — along.

  Henry’s mother begins to bounce and tries to make him bob on his feet. She tugs at his hands, moving his arms up and down, then pretends they are jiving and scrunches down to swing around under his arm.

  Isn’t this fun? she says.

  No, Mom, it isn’t.

  He shrinks back, wishes he could hide in his Farm Folk set. She ignores him and reaches under his armpits, trying to lift him up into some sort of overhead loop. Perhaps because he’s heavier than she expects, she falters for a moment and he escapes. But instead of stopping she begins to jump up and down by herself, frantically, like a small child.

  She points at Tom. You’re afraid of me, aren’t
you?

  Henry looks over. Tom doesn’t look scared, he’s rolling and laughing on the floor. While Henry’s head is turned, his mother grabs him again and pulls him back in under her bouncing tah-tahs. Her breath is heavy on his neck, and he hates being in so close. He can hear her dress scratching against the lace of her nylon slip. He tries not to breathe in the smell of her, all hot and pungent, a smell he can’t quite put a finger on except to name it eggy.

  He leans into the dance routine for a second, hoping it will hold off one of her rants about how she used to dance at the Cave nightclub, men lining up to partner with her before her figure got ruined from childbirth. How one man in particular, a talent promoter from Toronto, still might come back and help her get into show business. It’s excruciatingly embarrassing to have this happening in front of Tom.

  He can’t help himself. He takes in a big gulp of air and wails, Mom this isn’t fun.

  He thinks his voice is lost in the muffle of tah-tahs and music, but Tom hears him.

  It is pretty funny, Tom says, still rolling on the carpet.

  Henry feels his face burning as his mother wiggles him around the room in that jerky way she has sometimes. The song screams in his ears.

  No more sobbin’ when he starts throbbin’.

  Tom kicks his feet up in the air laughing.

  The harder Henry pushes, the more his mother pulls him in. Soon his face is wet with sweat and snot. For a moment he thinks his world may come apart. Bits of himself may fly off his body as his mother jiggles him across the room. When he begins to believe he really might suffocate, he gives her a mighty shove and she falls back against the window, her hand striking the glass.

  Get up, get out of bed. Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red.

  Although the window doesn’t break, his mother does have to hang onto the windowsill to steady herself before she’s able to reach down and fix her brassiere, which is threatening to unleash a breast.

  Oh, Mrs. Parkins, you look so funny doing that, Tom says.

  Doing what? she demands.

  I dunno. That . . . Putting your hand down your dress.

  You’re a bad boy, Tom Lawson.

  Sorry Mrs. Parkins. I . . . I . . .

  Quiet, you ungrateful little brat. And don’t call me Mrs. Parkins. I’m Alice.

  Tom’s eyes grow as wide as the cucumber slices she puts on her face at the end of a bad day. Henry knows this is getting serious, her eyes are turning black, and strangled sounds are starting to come out her mouth.

  Gggrrrooom. Gggrrrooom. Fffrigingggrrroom . . .

  He is powerless to stop any of it, things will only escalate if he tries. Instead he begins to laugh in his nervous way, laughing at things that aren’t funny but that need a little happy. It’s a habit he picked up to mask these weird interactions, of which there have been so many lately the laugh has grown into a startled grunt that comes out his nose in short puffs.

  Hmphf hmphf hmphf.

  His mother crosses the room and picks up the tractor from the farm set. She gets down on her hands and knees and runs the tractor through the carpet, revving it with her grumbling mouth. She rushes the tractor toward the bottom of Tom’s pant leg.

  Fffuddinggrrooomschidt!

  Henry puts his hand in the tractor’s path. This doesn’t stop her. She keeps the tractor moving right over his hand. By the time she gets to Tom’s sneaker, he’s caught on and tries to move away. But he traps himself against the window and she runs the tractor over his foot. Hard.

  Ow!

  Tom kicks but she holds his foot down with her free hand while she tears the tractor up his leg, narrowly missing his winky.

  Henry does not want to watch, but keeps staring because he owes this much to his friend. When his mother finally takes her hand off the tractor, she lets it fall to the carpet.

  Aaahhh! Tom doubles over on the floor beside the bed. He lies still, his mouth open.

  Henry thinks for a second that Tom might throw up; his lips pucker and the back of his hand goes to his mouth.

  His mother picks up the tractor and walks toward the bed holding it in the air like she’s going to do it all again. But as she gets to where Tom is lying, she turns and throws the tractor into the metal wastebasket. Thud.

  All finished playing for the day, she says.

  The record spins silently between songs until the cheerful band of children begins a new tune.

  Ee-i-ee-i-o. Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-i-ee-i-o. And on his farm he had a cow, ee-i-ee-i-o.

  Henry’s mother sings along, Ee-i-ee-i-o. And on his farm he had a duck.

  Neither Tom nor Henry sing.

  After a time of solo warbling, she rakes the needle from the record.

  SSSZIP.

  Then go home! Both of you, she wails, and stomps out of the bedroom.

  What did she mean? Tom asks.

  I don’t know. Sometimes she says that, tells me to leave.

  And do you?

  Course not. Where would I go?

  To my house?

  They look at each other. They both know Henry wouldn’t go to Tom’s house. Tom’s mother doesn’t like it when Henry comes over. And she’d be insistent Henry not come if she thought it was something his own mother wanted. She’d be angry even if she knew where Tom was that very moment. Tom has started lying to her, saying he’s going to play with other friends down the street.

  Okay, I gotta go, Tom says. See you around sometime.

  Sure, Henry says, watching the back of Tom’s head. He tries to smile, but Tom does not look at him. He just leaves the room.

  Henry sits on his bed waiting to hear the front door close. He worries Tom won’t come again. Only when the outside knocker rattles does he make his way to the wastebasket and his desk. On one of his mother’s happy days the two of them walked to the hardware store on Fourth Avenue to buy paint for the desk. By the cash register there’d been a set of stencils of the planets and stars. He told her about the constellations they’d studied at school — Pegasus the flying horse, Canis Major the big dog, and Bootes the herdsman — and she was proud of him for remembering so many and because of that she bought the stencils to make his desk fancy. They decorated it in the backyard, setting out newspapers to catch the drips.

  Henry pulls the chair, which has been painted to look like a rocket, out from under the desk. He squats in the cubbyhole where the chair had been. It’s the place he goes to get away from things. He knows his mother is crazy. And sometimes he wonders if he’s a bit off too. If only he could be more like Tom, smooth and assured. He decides he needs to watch Tom more carefully to see how it is to be him, but it’ll be tricky to do that if he doesn’t come over anymore.

  He reaches to pull the wastebasket in and fishes among the soiled tissues until his hand hits on something hard. He digs out the tractor and spins its wheels to make sure they still work. He sets the tractor on the rug and drives it in circles under the desk.

  Thurrrrr. Thurrrrr. Thurrrrr.

  The vibrating tongue on the roof of his mouth is calming. He huddles and drives. The tractor holds steady. Yes. Consistent. Confident. Yes. All is quiet, except for his whirring tongue. Maybe everything will be okay this time.

  A pot crashes. A small one. It could be a mistake. Then another. A bigger one. Not a mistake. Now the muttering. That’s the word Tom used when he first heard it. Your mother mutters, he said. Afterward Henry had to look the word up in the dictionary. The meaning seemed to fit. To murmur, grumble, say in secret.

  The muttering gets louder, loud enough for him to hear what she is saying.

  Daffy-Duck, Daffy-Duck, Daffy, Daffy, Daffy. Shut the duck up!

  By the time his mother is slamming cupboard doors and shouting about Cuban spies, Henry’s thurring tongue has lost all its power to soothe. He crawls out from under the desk and across the rug to close the French door to his room. He wedges the rocket chair under the doorknob. He doesn’t like that his mother can see through the windows on the door, but at least n
ow she can’t get in. He tests the setup, and once he’s certain it will hold, he begins to pack away the farm set. It’s a good collection and he needs to take care of it.

  There’s an order to packing. First, he takes the lid off the box and lines the edges with the plastic fencing. Next he dismantles the barn, unsnapping the joiners to nest the pieces one against the other. In the centre, he settles the cows on their sides with legs interlocking. The pigs lie beside the cows, and Lassie has her own corner with a cardboard partition crayoned to look like a doghouse. The white chickens and their eight baby chicks fit in beside Lassie’s house, and the rooster is housed on the other side so he can’t bother the chickens while they sleep.

  Henry saves the chocolate-brown chicken for last. There is only one brown hen, and he takes a fresh tissue and wraps it carefully around her. The comb is nearly torn off from too much roughhousing. He’s very sorry he let Tom play with her today. He doesn’t think he could bear it if there is ever any more damage done. He gives her a gentle pet before he makes a final fold on the tissue and tucks her in beside the other chickens. He scoops up the popcorn from the floor and puts it in beside the brown hen so she has something to eat if she gets hungry in the box.

  He’s reaching up to put the box back on the shelf when he realizes the house has gone quiet again. He can even smell supper cooking. Maybe it isn’t going to be one of those nights after all. He knows his mother is trying to be normal, and he has helped by staying out of the way. He takes the rocket chair out from under the doorknob and opens the door slowly. The room fills with the smell of spaghetti sauce, his favourite.

  He feels proud at supper when she tells him, You’re a pillar of strength.

  Henry is getting ready for bed when his mother calls from her bedroom. He walks to her door, and finds her sitting at her mirrored vanity table with its array of lipsticks and fancy coloured perfume bottles. The makeup lights are on. It’s like a movie star’s set-up, with as many light bulbs as outside the cinema. The glow from the bottles is mesmerizing — turquoise, lime, blueberry, cranberry, peach. His mother holds out a small round hand-mirror.

  Would you like this for your farm set? she asks. It could be a pond for the animals.