A Rock Fell on the Moon

by Alicia Priest

  “A great opportunity for you girls to learn Spanish,” he adds.

  All go nowhere. The truth—unspoken but looming large—is that after four years in Vancouver, we are adjusting and don’t relish the thought of being uprooted again. But, of course, a fresh start is exactly what Dad wants, and I know part of Mom, the part that views her marriage as a job, agrees.

  Equally iron-willed and increasingly sharp-tongued, Vona clashes with Dad in short ugly eruptions. In prison Dad wrote that he’d have “a good long talk with Vona and straighten her out a bit” but now he threatens to send her “on a free trip to the moon” or feed her “a knuckle sandwich.” Meanwhile Mom’s attempts to play the intermediary, disciplinarian or peacemaker are dismissed by both. The more brave and brash Vona becomes, the more mouse-like I am. Unable to hold my own in our increasingly hostile home, I withdraw into schoolwork and teen illusions about pursuing a career as a naturalist, an actress or an astronaut.

  In March, Dad suddenly packs up his camping gear as if bush-bound and drives north. He tells Mom he’s off to explore employment options in Williams Lake. In her notebook, she writes “Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!” Two weeks later he flies to Calgary and again she writes “Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!” The following month, she records this cryptic passage: “It was one of my unhappiest days ever about Gerry and Vona! Gerry asked me point blank about taking Vona the previous night and I said No!”

  Taking Vona where? Back to some small town in the bush? To live with his parents? It didn’t make sense if he so wanted to keep our family together.

  Forgiving to a fault, Mom’s faith in Dad quickly resurfaces a few days later when he secures a job as an assayer with Columbia River Mines Ltd. The job is in Golden, in southeastern BC, nestled in his beloved Rockies and close to the Alberta border. Dad explains that it isn’t a permanent job but will tide us over until he finds something in a bigger town. But first he and Mom go used-car shopping and after parting with $1,000 they come home with a silver Citroën that looks like a squatting duck. A new-to-us car raises my parents’ spirits for a short while, as it has in the past. But two days later Dad leaves for Golden.

  Abandoned again, Mom puts on her bright and brave mask and tries to keep house, home, daughters and dogs in some semblance of contentment. She finally had her driver’s license and when I win a C-FUN radio contest for two tickets to see the pop group The Monkees in Seattle, Mom drives us 120 miles south for the show. (I had a killer crush on Davy Jones.) She sleeps in the car while I squeal along with hundreds of others. Vona is mortified by my behaviour and lets me know. Of course, we have no money for a motel so when the hullabaloo is over Mom drives us the 120 miles back. I know she misses Dad but I, at least, am warming to his absence. “I guess the house is a lot more cheerful now with the grumpy old bear gone back to the bush where he belongs,” Dad writes.

  In late August—the week of Dad’s and my birthday—he plans to come home for a visit and we prepare for a party, complete with a special dinner and a cake. When he doesn’t show, Mom, who is almost allergic to anger, jots a letter so uncharacteristically outspoken that she doesn’t have the guts to mail it.

  What gives? Do I still have a husband? You don’t turn up and don’t even write or phone! This kind of marriage—I don’t like! I protest. No really, that is not right. I don’t like it when you are mad at me—it’s so degrading. So, you think you can make it home next time? You better!

  Mom’s feelings toward Dad are seriously conflicted. Justifiably furious, and not for the first or last time, she addresses him in the same letter as “Liebchen” and signs off with “Love, hugs and kisses.” Thoughts of leaving him cross her mind. But for what? And with what? She’s trapped and determined to bring out the best in her man.

  Dad’s job lasts six months, during which there are several family developments: his parents move again (this time to the tiny community of Haney, since swallowed up by the sprawl known as Maple Ridge), and I pass to grade nine, get elected to student council and make the honour roll. Things change for Vona too. At their wits’ end with their rebellious and underachieving first-born, Mom and Dad transfer her to York House, a private girls’ school in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood. How they pay for it, I don’t know. I suspect Omi is in on it. But the move does nothing to quell Vona’s mutinous adventures. If anything, her after-dark forays and her arguments with Mom escalate.

  Years later I will learn of something else that happened during 1967. Dad comes clean to Mom. He tells her the truth about his ore theft. At least he offers a version of the story in which he admits to some guilt. At the same time, he confides that he can never tell his parents, who believe him to be an innocent and gravely wronged man. He makes Mom vow that she will never tell them, and so in their presence live a lie. It is a promise she will always regret.

  Home once more, Dad does temporary stints as a mining chemist while awaiting an offer of a permanent job. Mom’s notebook around this time becomes increasingly sketchy. Pages are ripped out and the remainder filled with pseudo-philosophical scraps such as: “The past is a dream, The present a strife, The future a mystery, And such is life!”

  In late September, Dad and I have a rare run-in—one that gets a rise out of me to this day. Our school choir is hosting another choir from Washington state for a few days and our choir members are billeting our American friends in their homes. We have no spare room and even if we did I wouldn’t dare risk exposing anyone to our family dynamics. Nonetheless, we are expected to play host and show our guests the city. I meet a boy one year older than me who asks if I would be willing to go downtown with him. David is soft-spoken, terribly polite and cute in a fair-haired, blue-eyed and freckled way. The best part though is his offhand sense of humour. He makes me laugh. It is a sunny Saturday afternoon and with my parents’ permission we take the bus downtown to Stanley Park. It isn’t a date… but it is. We wander through the green and exchange stories and opinions and rent paddleboats on Lost Lagoon and splash each other and giggle and catch a bite to eat and oh who ever knew life could be so rich? Then he suggests we catch an early movie on Granville. He’ll have me home before nine p.m. Why not? I want the day to last forever. We see To Sir, with Love and I sniffle when Lulu sings that song, and then David takes my hand in his. He holds it all the way home on the bus. We walk from the bus stop to our doorstep where David is about to knock when an ashen-faced Dad flings open the door.

  “How dare you keep my daughter out this late? Who do you think you are?“

  “I’m sorry sir, but we…” David begins, but Dad cuts him off.

  “How do I know what your intentions are?”

  “My what?” David asks.

  “Don’t be an ass. All you need to know is that you will never see my daughter again! Get it? Now, get going. You’re trespassing!”

  Humiliated and speechless, I can’t meet David’s eyes but I cast Dad one hate-filled glare before racing to my room. The next morning Dad tries to tease me about “my first date” but I’m not biting. For days, I don’t speak to him unless I absolutely have to, and vow that David was the first and last boy I’ll ever bring home.

  In early December, Dad finds a good permanent job in Calgary with Core Laboratories. Come January, he states firmly, we’re all moving there. We’ll have a good house, near the foothills, and eventually we’ll have horses and resurrect the family we once were. I beg him to let me finish grade nine at Jayo. My pleas provoke him. Escaping to the bathroom, I turn on the taps and fill the tub with the hottest water I can stand.

  Dad leaves for Calgary soon after, then returns for Christmas and on January 2 heads back to Calgary, taking Vona with him. For now, Mom, the dogs and I stay put. Mom writes in her notebook: “Our dear Vona left her own family… the family is now broken up—once a nice respectable family.” But that upset is a raindrop compared to the hurricane that lies ahead.

  I focus on school, wrapping myself
in self-absorbed denial of the fact that I will be forced once again to leave a place that feels right. I know Dad’s choice of housing in Calgary will be cheap and dirty. I also suspect Vona won’t be riding horses every weekend and acing grade ten. By then we lead vastly disparate lives, and despite being a solid letter-writing family, we never correspond. Years later Vona tells me their Calgary home was a hovel, a clapboard ground level basement apartment she was ashamed to live in let alone show to friends. She tries to go out at every opportunity and if she returns even five minutes past her curfew, Dad hits her. We’ve been raised with the threat of corporal punishment as the ultimate form of discipline, as were most children of our time. However, Dad seldom raises his hand, preferring to raise his voice. I recall only one spanking when I was five or six and Vona and I couldn’t stop giggling when we should have been sleeping. But fifteen-year-olds aren’t spanked. They’re beaten.

  Back in Vancouver, Mom and I struggle with an aging and ailing Caesar. Nearing ten, he’s slowed down and is losing control of his bladder. Mom says it’s because of all those Yukon winters he lay outside on ice and snow. In February, he collapses after a slow, short walk. Mom and I manage to coax him into the kitchen where he lies down on a thick blanket. That night I toss like a salad until I rise and snuggle down beside him. In the morning Mom phones Dad and asks what she should do.

  “Take Caesar to the vet and have him put down.”

  “I can’t do that, I can’t. He’s your dog—come and deal with him.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. He’s old. Have him put down and send me the bill.”

  I help Mom get Caesar into the back seat of the Citroën but don’t have the guts to get in the car. For years, Mom has nightmares about that day. Her face is the last thing Caesar sees.

  The inevitable draws near and, in late May, Mom flies to Calgary for a visit. Appalled at the filthy and derelict home, she immediately looks for a better house and finds a three-bedroom duplex at 207A Forty-second Avenue SW, near the Elbow River and traffic-heavy Macleod Trail. While she is away, I blithely try out for next year’s cheerleading squad—the epitome of female high school popularity—and am accepted. Surely, they won’t make me move now!

  In early July, Mom and I say goodbye to Omi and Grandpa, pack the Citroën, grab Pierre and drive east. Mom rents out our little blue house, which remains in Omi’s name. As with our move from the Yukon, I don’t tell a soul, preferring to disappear into thin air. It is a miserable, hot and aborted trip. We limp as far as Kamloops before the fully loaded Citroën dies. We sit under a tree in a public park waiting for our car to be fixed only to learn the repair will cost more than the car is worth. Again, Mom phones Dad, and is told to get a motel for the night and he will collect us in the morning. By then Dad has acquired a weird little German car called a DKW 900—a Dampf-Kraft-Wagen. The two-door, snub-nosed black and tan putt-putt has a three-cylinder engine, front wheel drive and a three-speed manual transmission. It gets us to Calgary but our belongings are shipped by train.

  We start anew, with a fresh beginning in our fifth home and third locale in five years. Before school starts, Vona turns sixteen and I fifteen. Vona attends Western Canada High School, where she is a cheerleader, fails all her courses and has a few good friends. I go to Henry Wise Wood where I am a mediocre student and have no friends, until late in the year when I hook up with a freckled and funny girl named Jane Moxon. A preppy school with fraternities and sororities and country club families who ski at Sunshine Village every winter weekend, Wise Wood is a far cry from working-class Jayo, where basketball reigns and drinking in the park comes a close second.

  Dad is his misanthropic self, only worse, at times irritated with Mom for her household mismanagement, such as spending too much on groceries when all you need to make a good stew is an onion and a pack of chicken backs and necks. Most often though he is miffed at Vona—for doing poorly at school, for putting on too much makeup, for rolling up the waistband of her skirts, for talking back or a hundred other reasons. He spends a lot of time tinkering with his car, mending his outdoor gear or oiling his guns in the basement. Mom gets a part-time job in the ladies’ sportswear section of the Woodward’s department store to earn some house money but quits after she faints while fitting a customer with the perfect pantsuit. I walk Pierre or stay in my room, where I pick at my guitar, listen to melancholy Simon and Garfunkel tunes or read. Somehow, the days roll by. Until one day they don’t.

  It is a cool May evening, a Saturday, and Vona is going out to a cheerleader practice.

  “Your curfew is eleven p.m., young lady.”

  “Okay.”

  “And when I say eleven, this is what that looks like. At precisely eleven o’clock, I will rise from my chair and lock all the doors. Then I will go to bed. Understand?”

  “All right, already.”

  At 11:07 p.m. Vona knocks on the front door. She bangs on the door. She yells to be let in. I bury my head under the pillows but can still hear her, and Mom and Dad arguing in the next room. Above their voices, the knocking stops. Vona has gone. She does not come back. Instead she moves in with a girlfriend’s family and later is fostered by another. She never comes home again.

  After that, life spirals into the surreal. I sleepwalk through the days but don’t want to wake up. Mom is quiet, worried and looks ill. Dad leaves for a Yukon “holiday” with his father in June. When he returns Mom confronts him with a spiteful letter she received from his mother, scolding her for not “standing by” her man, who is, after all, innocent. She begs him to tell them the truth.

  “They’re my parents and I’ll tell them whatever I want!”

  The next day she tells him about Vona. It is midday and they are in their bedroom with the door closed. I hear strange sounds coming from their room. I rush in to see Dad erupt in a spasm of shaking and shouting. His arms flail and his face shines with a terrible pink sheen. Mom’s face is white and her lips are pressed together. Dad grabs our sacred red leather-bound Yukon photo album, and starts ripping pictures of our family in half, spitting on them as he grinds them on the floor with his foot. Mom is motionless and mute. Her whole body shakes.

  “She’s not my child anymore!” he sputters. “And if you don’t make the right choice, you won’t be my wife! You choose—it’s either your husband or that… that… slut! It’s up to you! Choose! Now!”

  Suddenly they turn and realize I’m in the room. Mom moves to take my hand and put it in Dad’s. He turns, sees me and snaps out of his trance. His eyes down, he leads me to the living room where he sits and guides me onto his lap. His fingers knead his thumb furiously. Hot tears run down my face and drip onto his hands and mine but I can’t utter a sound. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a shag rug. We sit semi-frozen like this for what seems like an hour.

  “Have you nothing at all to say?” he asks abruptly.

  I choke out a croak: “What is happening?” I still his frantically moving hand with mine.

  “I love you and always will but you and your mother need to get out of this house. I cannot be responsible for my actions tonight.”

  In my mind I see his well-oiled rifles on a rack downstairs. Within the hour he phones Omi.

  “Come and collect your daughter.”

  September 1969. My family—once as tight, warm and sheltered as a well-chinked log cabin—shatters in three different directions: Dad to a job in Yellowknife; Mom, Pierre and I to Omi and Grandpa’s basement; and Vona to Calgary’s Sprucecliff Home for Unwed Mothers.

  Chapter 20

  A Small Measure of Revenge

  There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.

  At another time, things may have turned out very differently.

  In their day, the charges Dad and Poncho faced were highly unusual. If Section 337(1)(b) of the Criminal Code existed today, it wo
uld violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That’s because the 1963 charges placed the onus on the accused to prove their innocence—the reverse of the sacred legal tenet “innocent until proven guilty.”

  All that changed, however, in 1989, seven years after the Charter, when six men in the Timmins area of northern Ontario were charged with an offence virtually identical to Dad and Poncho’s. The case known as Regina v. Laba et al. (Andrew Isadore Laba being one of the accused) is part of Canadian legal history for triggering a small but significant change to the Criminal Code.

  Before Laba and crew’s story could be revealed, their lawyers challenged the charge, saying it violated Section 11 of the Charter, which deals with the presumption of innocence. The Ontario court agreed. When the Crown pushed back by arguing that the government had a right to such a law because the Charter allowed for “reasonable limits” to be placed on constitutionally protected rights and freedoms of individuals, the court was unmoved. Two appeals and five years later, the case went before the Supreme Court of Canada, where the charge was indeed deemed contrary to the Charter. But the Supreme Court did not categorically reject the idea. Instead, a new requirement was written into the Criminal Code, whereby people accused of such crimes were now expected to come up with evidence that raised a “reasonable doubt” about their guilt. It was a fine but important distinction. If it had existed in 1963, and if Dad and Poncho had not added the concentrates and precipitates to the ore shipment, they may well have walked. They had their experts after all, to testify that the ore came from the Moon.