The Monkeyface Chronicles

by Richard Scarsbrook

  I stride past The Goode Faith Gift Shoppe, The Tea Cozy, and Lynette’s Little Edibles, the “olde-fashioned” shops occupying the three most painstakingly-restored storefronts in Faireville. The three shops are owned by Faith Green, Lynette Lavender, and Mary Ellen Black, inseparable friends who were in the same school year as my mother. These “Bestest Friends Forever” (a yearbook quote) were known collectively during their school days as “The Colour Girls,” and they all kept their own last names after marriage, not as any kind of bold feminist statement, but so they could carry their Colour Girls moniker to the grave.

  The Colour Girls have gone so far as to paint their respective storefronts green, lavender, and black (with stars and planets, in the latter case), and they are each other’s best customers. Lynette Lavender’s shop is festooned with expensive, fragile dust-collectors from Faith Green’s gift shop, and Faith serves imported chocolates and exquisite marmalades in tiny little jars from Lynette’s. Twice a day, Lynette and Faith step next door into Mary Ellen Black’s tea room, so the three of them can be served exotic teas in antique china cups by the single mother Mary Ellen employs part-time for minimum wage.

  Maybe it was over tea one day that the three Bestest Friends simultaneously felt the Call of Motherhood, for each gave birth to a perfect baby girl. Lara, Carrie and Caitlin were born in the same month of the same year Michael and I were born, and are known as The Little Colour Girls. Ah, small town tradition.

  I hesitate for a moment in front of Lynette’s Little Edibles when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the shop window. My lips are fattened and lopsided, rimmed with purple. My left eye is swollen nearly shut, surrounded by a misshapen mass of blue and brown. My cheeks are covered in cobwebs of dried blood. If my face is merely ugly on an ordinary day, it is horrifying in its current state.

  Shit! Lynette Lavender is right there on the other side of the glass, sitting on a vintage soda-fountain stool behind an antique cash register. If she sees me, she’ll call my parents for sure. She’ll call my parents, then the school, then the police, then Faith and Mary Ellen. I’d better run.

  Maybe Lynette is too engrossed in listening to the police scanner beside the cash register to pay any attention to me. Lynette Lavender is an Old Weller, so she’s got enough old money in her bank account that her business doesn’t have to be profitable. “Old Weller” is the local nickname for descendents of the lucky speculators who got rich by rushing to claim the land under which Faireville’s natural gas pocket was discovered. Lynette Lavender and Faith Green are both Old Wellers, but Mary Ellen Black moved to town when she was five years old, so she can’t technically be one. She was smart enough to marry an Old Weller, though, so at least her daughter Caitlin can claim the title. Mary Ellen also insisted that her daughter would go by her last name rather than her husband’s, so Caitlin could be a Little Colour Girl, too. I guess Mary Ellen’s husband got tired of all of this, for he left town shortly after Caitlin was born.

  Although my dad was born and raised in Faireville, he isn’t an Old Weller. “Our ancestors worked for a living,” is how my father put it. Those people in Faireville without the advantage of inherited old gas money — Newbies, mostly — refer to the Old Wellers as “Old Gassers” or “Old Flamers,” but usually not to their faces. Newbies don’t tend to succeed here in Faireville, nor do they often stay for long. My mother’s an exception; she’s a newbie who stayed.

  I plod onward. So long, Old Wellers! Adieu, Colour Girls!

  The row of Millennium streetlights abruptly ends right beside The Incredible Bulk. I’m hungry now, and I’m tempted to stop in for a handful of trail mix, but I’m pretty sure that Mr. Bundy would take one look at my face and call my parents, too. Mr. Bundy is the punch line of many jokes in Faireville, and not just because he shares the same name as a notorious serial killer.

  As a young man, quiet, rotund Mr. Bundy inherited the building that had housed the local Co-Op farm supply store, which his late father had run for over forty years. Seeing no future in the farm equipment business, he converted the building into a shop that sold collectible superhero comic books, which happened to be Mr. Bundy’s personal obsession. He spent the entire modest monetary portion of his inheritance on display shelves, a life-sized plastic Superman, and a huge, hand-painted sign he commissioned from a real comicbook artist. Soon, a towering image of the giant green-skinned superhero, The Incredible Hulk, towered over the west end of Faireville Street. Since the store was not technically within the jurisdiction of the Faireville Downtown Business District Historical Committee, nobody could do anything about the sign except cringe or laugh.

  Of course, in a town with our population, it’s difficult to sell enough rare comic books to make a living. Being also rather passionate about trail mix, banana chips, and chocolate-covered raisins, Ted Bundy decided to cut his losses and open a store with more potential for profit: a bulk food outlet. He would have to change the sign, though, so he placed a tall wooden ladder up against the building, and, with a can of paint in hand, he climbed up to the top rung, which snapped under his considerable weight. Several months later, after all of his broken bones had healed, he climbed up there again (this time on some rented steel scaffolding), changed the “H” on the sign to a “B,” and The Incredible Bulk Food Emporium was born.

  Of course, every time someone climbs a ladder in Faireville, a joke is made at Mr. Bundy’s expense. Whenever a Newbie comes to town to open a new business, the Old Wellers shake their heads and mutter, “Another Incredible Hulk.” People openly address Mr. Bundy as The Incredible Bulk, and if he reminds anyone that his name is Ted Bundy, the response is usually something like, “Whoa! Don’t murder me, Ted Bundy!” The less charitable kids at school not only tease his son Cecil about his n’er-do-well father, but they also call him Baby Bulk and make nasty comments about his ill-fitting second-hand clothes. It’s no wonder Cecil stutters and lisps when he talks.

  Goodbye, Incredible Bulk. I’ll miss that trail mix. Goodbye, Cecil. You should get the hell out of Faireville, too.

  I’ve made it all the way to the West End now. Almost home, now. Almost gone.

  Here’s the other town sign.

  Come on back to

  FAIREVILLE

  “Where you’re only a stranger once!”

  Even though it hurts my battered face, I have to laugh at that. I’ve lived in Faireville for my whole life, and I’m still a stranger. I will leave as a stranger. The town council is going to have to pass a motion to change the population on the front of the sign from 2849 to 2848, because I do not plan to ever “come on back.”

  From here I can see the tallest turret of our house sticking out through the trees at the top of the hill. Yes, our house has turrets. It was built in the style of a medieval castle by an eccentric gas speculator during the boom days. It had been unoccupied for decades when Dad and Mom bought it, and it took them another decade to renovate the interior to look like any other modern home. Since we rarely have guests other than my grandfather and my father’s scientific associates, all anyone sees is the exterior of our house; living in a miniature stone castle at the top of a secluded hill doesn’t subtract much from the local perception that my father is a “Mad Scientist.”

  I can tell it’s getting colder by the way the snow crunches and squeaks under my feet. Where our gravel driveway meets the road stands the newest and plainest building in Faireville: the windowless, spireless, poured-concrete monolith that is the Tabernacle of God’s Will. Members of the congregation simply call it The Tabernacle; non-members have other names for it.

  God’s Will, according to the Tabernacle “Elders” (none of whom are particularly elderly), is that only sworn members of the Tabernacle congregation will avoid spending the rest of eternity after death sizzling on the charcoal broiler of Hell. The congregation is encouraged to help save everyone else from this grisly fate. They pay uninvited recruiting visits to the homes of the “unsaved” at dinner time. They stand outside the entran
ce doors of the King George Theatre and the Faireville Memorial Arena handing out colourful pamphlets with helpful titles like Music, Movies and Sports — The DEVIL’S DISTRACTIONS! They gather around the condom display at Anderson’s Hometown Apothecary and chant, “Sex for pleasure equals HELL for ETERNITY!”

  The Tabernacle Elders have parked a huge white semitrailer next to the Tabernacle, with the artfully painted slogan, “TAKE BACK THE RAINBOW!” in primary colours. Underneath are the words: Homosexuality is an AFFRONT to GOD’s NATURAL LAWS! Sign this trailer to show your support for the REPEAL of all laws that allow this ABOMINATION to continue! The elders plan to tow the trailer to Ottawa and park it in front of the Parliament Buildings, just as soon as they can wrangle up a truck. At last count, over five hundred people had signed the trailer, which is about five times the number of actual Tabernacle congregants. As I turn the corner into our laneway, I read the trailer’s real message, at least as I see it: Don’t be different in Faireville. Difference is not welcome here.

  Goodbye and God Bless, Tabernacle of God’s Will. I hope you are all rewarded in the afterlife for your pains, because it will be an eternal bummer if you get to Heaven and discover that the people who were different from you were allowed in anyway.

  Do I believe in Heaven or Hell? Do I believe in God? Right now I honestly don’t know. Every evening when Michael and I were little, while Mom stood in our bedroom doorway and listened, we would kneel beside our beds and close our eyes and list everything we were supposed to feel thankful for: each other, our house, our toys, the food we ate, the air we breathed, and so on. Then one evening, our father strode into our room in the middle of our prayers and told us we didn’t have to do it anymore. So we stopped.

  In my father’s own words, he is “a man of science, a man of rational thought,” which I suppose means that he doesn’t believe in God or Heaven or Hell or anything else that can’t be proven with a calculation or experiment.

  My mother, on the other hand, walks into town every Sunday to the Church of St. Thaddeus, on the Catholic corner of Church Square. Michael and I used to go to Sunday school there until dad told us we didn’t have to.

  My grandfather, as the former mayor of Faireville, makes regular appearances inside all three houses of worship at Church Square, delivering eulogies at funerals, giving readings at weddings, attending Christenings and First Communions and so on. Yet, I don’t have any idea what he thinks about God.

  It would be nice to know for sure that, if I don’t complain or hurt others, if I try to be polite and kind, maybe I’ll get to go to Heaven at the end of all of this. It would be nice to know that God is watching over my shoulder, keeping me safe as I escape Faireville to begin again. It would be nice to know for sure.

  Stainless Steel

  I’ve reached the top of the long laneway that leads to our house when Mom comes running through the front door and out into the snow, still wearing her house slippers. “Oh, Philip, sweetie! I was so worried!”

  She holds me tightly, as if my body is sublimating into gas and she’s trying to hold my molecules together.

  So much for my escape plan.

  “The school called,” she says. “Nobody knew where you were.”

  Of course the school called. Why didn’t I think of that! I thought I had considered my escape plan from every angle. I guess I wouldn’t make a very good fugitive.

  Mom steps back from me. Her fingers jump up to her open lips. “Philip, Philip, what have they done to you?”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I say. “It’s no big deal.”

  Her lips tighten and quiver, and tears spill out over her cheeks. She pulls me so close that some of the congealed blood from my face rubs off onto the white collar of her blouse.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I repeat. “It looks worse than it is.”

  This just makes her cry harder, and she hugs me tighter.

  “This isn’t your fault, Philip,” she says, “this isn’t your fault.”

  I hear the unmistakable sound of my grandfather’s car rumbling up the graveled laneway toward us. My grandfather’s car is unique in Faireville, a black 1940 Ford Deluxe sedan. He bought it brand new the year it was built. It is one of the few cars in which a man of six-foot-four can sit up straight and tall, so my grandfather has never replaced it. Instead, he pays regularly and dearly for its complicated maintenance.

  “When I saw you coming up the lane,” Mom says to me, “I called your grandfather right away. We are going to talk to Mr. Packer, the vice-principal now. Enough is enough.”

  The car rolls up beside us, its flathead V-8 engine gurgling reassuringly, its black paint and chrome shimmering despite the grey sky. My grandfather cranks down the small rounded window of the driver’s side door. “June,” he says, “go inside and get your shoes and coat on.”

  Mom finally lets go of me, sniffles, smoothes the front of her blouse, then rushes into the house.

  “Philip,” my grandfather says evenly, his rumbling voice sounding much like the old V-8 idling, “get in the car. I’m driving you and your mother to the school to get this straightened out.”

  “I’m not going back there,” I tell him. “Just come sit in the front seat with me,” my grandfather says. “Let’s talk.”

  I feel every ache in my body as I walk around the tall black car and slide tentatively onto the bench seat beside him.

  “I’m not going back there,” I repeat.

  “Philip,” he says, placing his large hand firmly on my shoulder, “in difficult times like this, I always remember one of my favourite quotes from Winston Churchill: ‘When you’re going through Hell, keep going.’”

  That’s exactly what I want to do, keep going. I want to keep walking until Faireville is just a distant memory.

  “‘Do not fear the winds of adversity,’” he continues. “‘Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it.’ Hamilton Wright Mabie.”

  If Dennis were here, he would snort and call my grandfather Captain Quote, but I don’t say anything. I just sit here on the bench seat and stare at my knees.

  “Or, to quote Thomas Carlyle, ‘The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.’”

  “I liked it better when I was home schooled,” I say.

  “To paraphrase C.S. Lewis,” my grandfather says, “it’s difficult for an egg to turn into a bird, but it’s impossible to learn to fly while remaining an egg. While you were being schooled at home, you were merely an egg. But the time has come now when you must be hatched, or go rotten.” He clears his throat. “The jackknife I gave you this morning — do you have it with you?”

  I reach into my pocket and take it out. It’s still my thirteenth birthday. I had forgotten about that.

  “Do you remember what I told you when I gave it to you?”

  I remember. “You said that the tools we need are almost always within our reach, that a man is always equipped to handle what comes his way.”

  “Do you think I would have given you this gift if I didn’t believe those words to be true?”

  I’m not sure what to say to this.

  “Unfold the blade, Philip. What does it say?”

  “Stainless Steel.”

  “Yes. Stainless Steel. Not only can it not be stained, but it can’t be bent or broken, either. And neither can you. Do you know how I know this for certain?” He looks right into me with those fierce eyes of his. “Because my own Grandfather could not be bent or broken, and neither could my father. And, so far, nor can I. And you are made from the same material as the men who came before you.”

  I close the blade and slip the jackknife back into my pocket. My mother opens the back door of the car, and slides onto the back seat.

  “I am not a deeply religious man, Philip,” my grandfather says, “but there is one saying I learned back in Sunday school that has always stuck with me: God helps those who help themselves. Your situation will not change unless
you stand up and do something about it. Are you ready to stand up?”

  “Will you come to the school with Mom and me?” I ask him.

  “Yes. I will.”

  “Do you think they’ll punish Graham and Grant for what they did to me?”

  “There is no insurance in life, Philip. There are no guarantees. You can only do what you have to do, and hope that things go your way.”

  I turn and look through the oval windshield, past the glimmering chrome ornament on the nose of the car, down the lane where it meets with the road, and I draw a long breath. “Let’s go, then,” I say.

  My Grandfather pushes down on the clutch pedal, and we glide downhill, the engine of the old Ford throbbing reassuringly, snowflakes streaming over the car’s black hood like shooting stars.

  After escaping all the way home from the school in that bitter wind, the vice principal’s hardwood-paneled office feels like a steam-filled sauna. My pants are damp from melted snow, and my bruises have thawed also, reminding me of each punch and kick. I feel sore, hot and itchy. Not only am I stained, I am bent and broken, too.

  Mr. Packer is wearing his usual size-too-small beige tweed jacket with the brown elbow patches, slightly-too-short pants and a patterned tie that hangs three inches above his belt. When he’s standing behind the bench at the Faireville Memorial Arena wearing his coach’s leather jacket, Mr. Packer looks confident and proud, but inside his Vice Principal’s office he seems uncomfortable and out of place, a prisoner of his own suit.

  “Nice to see you again, June,” Mr. Packer says to my mother, smiling with chemically whitened teeth. “And hello, Former Mayor Skyler,” he says with less enthusiasm, not quite meeting my grandfather’s eyes. “Thank you for bringing June and Philip here, sir.”