BECAUSE
A LYRIC MEMOIR
Joshua Mensch
FOR MY PARENTS AND MY SISTERS
CONTENTS
I. DON
II. BECAUSE THE ROOM WAS MANY
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1996
1997
1999
III. JERICHO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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BECAUSE
If I had a thousand tongues,
I could tell a thousand different stories
and all of them would be true;
I
DON
1.
Were it not for a cabin
on Cape Breton Island
with only mist
to break the tree-lined
horizon; were it not
for the two of us:
I was twelve
and together we read
Homer’s Iliad (not The Odyssey) —
though mostly Don
read aloud to me;
his gorgeous voice,
his bathrobe slipping off
his stiff, shiny shins,
his legs like white
radish stalks speckled
with long wiry hairs,
while outside snow
hugged the forest
and a deep fog rose
around the top of the hills,
the snow thick and wet,
ideal for throwing,
and every once in a while
the deep silence
would be interrupted
by a crack like gunfire
as another spruce
snapped under its weight,
bark shrapnel and rolling
sound ricocheting
up the narrow valley
till it reached our meadow,
an eight-sided cabin
with a black stove
that wrapped us in heat
and made our knees itch,
flame-pulsed logs
lighting our limbs with
nail-width lines of blood;
2.
At night he’d read to me
from The Tracker,
a chapter at a time,
then tell stories
about his childhood
in Kansas, the endless
fields and grinding
oil wells, floods
that washed away
low-lying houses
and poor people
with them,
his father
whom everyone loved
but him,
his fat mother,
his unhappy sisters;
he’d read to me
and tell me
about my parents
whom he knew
at school in Toronto,
about a woman
named Carmen
and the man
she thought
was the devil,
about his wife, Lorna,
and her head
full of brains, about
the small college
in New Mexico
where the fun
ended when
evil Dean Neidorf
blew a tumor
and had everyone fired,
then sent poison-
pen letters after them:
Don, Lorna,
even my dad, anyone
who wouldn’t give
him a blow job;
3.
He’d show me
dirty movies
to inspire me
to try harder
with my body,
for it was truly
impressive
how a guy could shoot
his wad that far —
it didn’t matter that
I didn’t have a wad
yet but sometimes
a small pearl
of clear lube
appeared at the tip
and he licked
it off, because that
was my accomplishment,
and even though
it wasn’t ready yet
he was proud of me;
I knew the names
of animals,
the silhouettes of birds
and the sounds
an engine makes
when climbing up
a hill; I could tell
what gear and how
far away his truck was
and had memorised
the avionic controls
of the fighter jets
that patrolled the coast;
he showed me how
to fashion a battery
from a potato,
how to flood an engine;
I told him
the speed of a bullet
under water,
the speed of the earth
around the sun;
he told me that
floating in space
in orbit
was nothing more
than endless falling;
II
BECAUSE THE ROOM WAS MANY
Reston, 1989 – Summer
Because the room is bright,
sky-lit, painted white
with a mirrored wall
and a queen-sized bed;
because it is July,
hot, and I am half-
undressed already;
because I let him
undress me the rest of the way, look
when he tells me to look,
says look at yourself,
aren’t you beautiful?;
because I am disgusted
by the word beautiful,
a word for babies and girls,
a word for sisters,
for my mother;
because I dive deep
into the bed and let it swallow me,
and then pull him down
so that it swallows him, too;
Times Square, 1991 – Fall
Because the room is small, damp
cold clinging to our skin
like the dew on the TV,
every surface wet
from the AC; because outside
the city is cooking
and we have to keep the television loud
to drown out
the air conditioner’s rattle,
which won’t stop (we won’t stop it)
and wait for night to fall
so we can finally go out —
Times Square lit up, a glittering
current of bodies
and glass, where three feet
in any direction
gets you lost, so he wants
to hold my hand,
which is embarrassing;
because he uses the word
kidnapped when I won’t let him
and says, You don’t know
what some people are capable of —
and it’s true, I don’t,
with Don the night is always
half-awake, when we sleep
he wakes me in my dreams;
North Grant, 1992 – Spring
Because the room is spare,
in an annex to the house
where no one discovers us,
where no one can hear me
hold my breath then let it go
— like a river, like a flood;
Meat Cove, 1992 – Summer
Because the room is not a room
but a tent near the edge
of a cliff; because the wind won’t stop;
because we wake up
/>
in a pile at the bottom of the tent,
the stakes nearly out,
the lines taut; because in the dream
I am having I fail to resist,
or my resistance turns
into something else;
because it’s daybreak, and the birds
are starting up; because
the other boys are awake and want
to go whale watching;
because breakfasts need to be made
and someone calls
his name, so his hand quickens;
because I come quick
as his hand, which is a hammer;
San Cristóbal, 1993 – Spring
Because the room is high-ceilinged,
airy and loose, cracked
paint flaking from high, white-
washed walls, crumbling
brick underneath, in one corner
a pocket of blood-hued
baby spiders; because I smear
the wall with their tiny
bodies and it looks like I cut
my hand; because the house
isn’t a house but an old colonial
hotel in San Cristóbal,
a single fan rocking gently
from the centre of the ceiling,
he lets me sleep, but my fever
is deep, hallucinatory,
and before long a doctor is called;
1989
Reston, 1989 – Summer
Because the room is the room
on the top floor of a house
in Virginia where we live
for a year until we move;
because a guest is there,
and it’s not my smelly aunt
but my father’s best friend;
because I am ten
and I have no friends;
because he says
he wants to be my friend;
because he invites me
to come to his camp
and my parents say yes;
because we are moving again
so it’s really convenient
for everybody;
because when I talk
he actually listens
to what I say;
because he invites me
up to his room
to sit with him
on the queen-sized bed
with its light pink spread;
because the bed
contains the four of us,
the two that are here
and the two in the mirror;
because we watch ourselves
being watched by each other
and he makes it seem
hilarious; because I tell him
about the girl I like
and for once no one laughs;
because he asks me
if I want to know
what a vagina feels like,
and I suddenly really do;
because he offers
to show me, but only
if I promise not to tell,
and so I promise, which is easy
since what he’s offering
is what I want, or at least
what I think will be amazing;
because when it happens
I am literally amazed;
because his hand moves faster
than any hand should move
it’s like I’m leaving the earth,
like the earth is not
a real thing anymore;
because it’s over
as soon as it starts,
and when it burns,
he tells me this pain is the sharpest
part of pleasure;
because you glimpse yourself
in the mirror,
sprawled across the lap
of a bearded man
whose hands grace your neck,
your legs, your chest;
because where there was skin
now there is rupture,
and no one can see it but you,
so your promise
must be the glue
that binds this new body
to the rest of you;
because dinner is ready
and it’s time to move;
because your mother
is calling you; because your
father is calling you;
because it’s time to move;
Air Atlantic, 1989 – Summer
Because the room is the cabin
of a plane that carries
me to him, clouds falling up
like rain in reverse
as the plane descends; because
the room is an island
where Don is waiting; because
the fog is heavy and
the ground arrives with a bump,
trees materialising
out of the mist and the slick
runway screaming back
as its engines grind to a halt
in Sydney, Cape Breton
Island, a three-hour drive
from the Margaree Valley
where Don’s camp nests
deep in the hills that ring
the valley floor, a place called
Forest Glen, far away
from electricity and cars, parents
and their rules, where
boys can run naked and play
Indian; because for months
this was all I looked forward to,
and the fifteen minutes
it takes the plane to come to a stop
on the tarmac, the extra five
to grab my backpack
and file down the narrow
aisle to the door, descend the steps
to the wet asphalt
and walk the remaining yards
to the terminal where
Don waits on an orange seat
studying a map of the island,
half a dozen boys slouched
about him like restless
dogs, ends in a moment of silence;
because arrival is always
accompanied by silence; because
I am new to this camp
and the others clearly aren’t;
because still more
are coming, which means more
waiting, more staring
at my feet, more hands to shake;
Fishing Cove, 1989 – Summer
Because the room is the tent that
I built three times
to get it right, twisting each pole
through its proper hoop;
because I had to carry this
tent and my own food and
my own water and my own wet
clothes twelve kilometres
through a damp jungle of ferns,
grass and fiddleheads,
sinking into the soft moss between
thickets of black spruce;
because I actually crapped myself
along the way and now
there’s a picture of me holding
my stained underwear
on a stick, with G. and M. grinning
beside me; because this
is the kind of accident Don finds
unbearably cute (of course
I tried to hide it under a bush,
and of course G. ratted
me out — whatever you pack in
you have to pack out);
because Fishing Cove is gorgeous
and remote, truly unspoiled;
because the first thing fifteen boys
do in an unspoiled place
is try to spoil it, so we play tag
loudly and pee in the river
and bury our trash when Don is
not looking; because
I’m finally making friends
and I want to be the baddest
of them all, so I throw
my shitty underwear
into the fire, where it stinks like a
smokey fart; because
Don wants me to stay with him
but G. and M. and K.
and R. want to be with him, too,
so in the end we pile up
together; because we find bear prints
in the mud around our
campsite the next morning and beg
Don to let us track it;
because for the last two weeks
we’ve been hard at work
building bows and arrows
and believe we have
what it takes to catch a bear;
because we’re all secretly
relieved when Don forbids us
from doing anything
that could get him sued;
because this is camp life,
loud and rowdy and gross,
and for once, we are free
to pretend we are not afraid
of the dark — out here,
where the stars spread their milk
across the sky,
every shadow is a predator,
but Don always keeps us
safe by his side;
Forest Glen, 1989 – Summer
Because the room is made of wood,
whole logs stripped and stacked
and joined to form an octagon;
because it is an hour’s hike
from the nearest house; because it’s
so dark at night my eyes
can’t adjust no matter how hard
I try; because we aren’t
alone — maybe half a dozen boys,
some my age, most a bit
older, are passed out on the floor
in their sleeping bags,
black lumps to be felt with a foot,
verified by a snore;
because the air is thick
and my heart jumps
until all I hear is blood;
because we’ve been playing
this game for weeks, the game
in which we play uncovered,
right in front of everyone,
but have to be quiet;
1990
St. Andrews JHS, 1990 – Fall
Because the room is not a room
but a bathroom stall where
your enemies have installed you
(or, rather, re-installed
you) for the fifth day in a row;
because your stupid nose
is bleeding like an open faucet
(it does this randomly)
and you’ve already clogged the toilet
with an entire roll
of toilet paper; because the bowl
is overflowing now
and soon there’ll be shrieks
from the girls doing their
own hiding in neighbouring stalls;
because this is the school
you go to, where you eat lunch
in the library, where it’s quiet,
discreetly stuffing down the sandwich
your father made for you;
because you can’t stay here forever —
when the bell rings
there is still the long hallway,
its endless rows of lockers;
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