going home 65k
Requiem D Minor
“Listen to that. It’s called a Compact Disc Player, it’s state of the art turn it up, listen to that sound… Crystal clear! That’s the laser, don’t cover it!”
Lacrimosa rises from the ashes to be judged, Lacrimosa rises from the ashes to be judged…
Black Beans
“Is something burning dad?”
“Yeah I burnt the goddam beans, open the window. Listen!! Rico likes it, he’s a good boy! Come here Rico, I’m not gonna hurt you. Listen to the music!”
Frozen
“Get dressed, get your coats on. I love that FUCKIN’ bird. RICO-RICO!”
Rico freed himself, out of our third floor apartment window during a Canadian snow storm.
We walked through the neighbourhood following a dart of macaw-green, squinting through the slanting-sleet and bald trees until he vanished. Dad cried and he shouted at the streets, at the sleet, he shouted at the sky.
And after that the Mullins boys would walk behind us shouting with their crusty,
egg-stained mouths teasing, calling Rico’s name in the streets.
Grief
“ALEXANDER, ALEXANDER!!!”
He cried for Nipper who got ripped apart by a pack of wolves, he cried for Magus who got hit by a car on a country road Up North, he cried for Rico who I think eventually flew back to Mexico…
But mostly he cried for you, he named you Alexander Ironwood McBurnie.
He met your mum when he was a singer and she was a dancer - she wore a glass eye after a car accident. He said sometimes she would replace it with a ruby and dance like a snake.
He had one photo of you, an old black and white one which he kept on his bedside table, propped up against the lamp until it buckled. I think it buckled so that Silva and I could take turns rocking you back and forth in your white knitted bonnet and matching blanket.
“Shhhht, GO TO SLEEP!”
Snivel
“What are you doing dad? It’s 1am.”
“I’m hungry.. You want a hotdog? Here, have a hotdog.”
Silva recalls one night when Virginia slept over, they were up late giggling in bed. He came home from the pub, got the hibachi going on the fire escape, chucked on some Chicago 58’s, stuffed them into some challah buns topped with feta and a plop of Grey Poupon. Apparently they were delicious!
He had a knack for hustling fine-dining when times were tight. I didn’t always appreciate his culinary skills, he once made me a cows’ tongue sandwich for my school lunch.
Up North was forever a reference to any place outside of Toronto. When we lived Up North we would go hunting. One of my earliest memories is venturing into the deep snow, dad tracking up front in his parka, Silva and me lagging behind carefully sinking our feet into his deep rutted, portal-like foot prints. (I seem to recall we were wearing snow-shoes because later on we would re enact the scene by tying tennis rackets to our feet and walking in slow motion.)
Dad took his riffle, he spotted a Jack rabbit ahead. A shot rang out, cracking open the earth and the sky. I remember it well because my spirit rose out of my body for a moment, to gaze down at the three of us standing at the edge of a vast white crack, then a somersault back to dad running with a holler of victorious joy.
Back home, I remember him skinning the soft fur over a bucket, the sound of flesh peeling away, the smell of warm blood mixed with the salty taste of tears. Bunny stew bubbled on the stove.
He often cooked with a huge amount of love in his heart.
“Quit yer snivelling, that’ll put hairs on yer chest!”
A staple was something he called Snivel, similar to bubble-and-squeak, concocted with whatever remnants were left in the fridge. He called this dish Snivel because inevitably we would be whinging for something to eat in what seemed to be a barren kitchen, mostly dishes piled like a fortified city, greasy cast-iron pans and sometimes a party of racoons eating what was left of the cat food.
Souped Up
“Get in the back, gonna burn some rubber!”
He had a thing for old cars, the list is extensive, a Packard, lots of Lincolns, a 1969 Mustang, the cherry red Jeep.. He even bought a black London cab, when he separated from the band and your mother, unknowing that you were already gestating by that time. He left Toronto and went back to England, bought a cab and drove it to the Port of Gibraltar, a ferry ride into Tangier where he continued all the way to Afghanistan. It was during the end of that trip that he met our mother, back in London..
For now though, his bald head will be tucked under the hood of a car, smelling like grease and gasoline, getting off on an engine rev.
Rent-A-Wreck magazines piled beside our toilet, circled listings for mufflers, clutches and various other parts for sale, usually from Up North.. We would spend a lot of time in the back seat, driving long distances to collect parts. One time he didn’t get the parts and instead came home with two rescued ducklings which we kept in the bathtub amongst floating leaves of lettuce.
When he brought home the Jeep he was impatient to take us for a ride. We hopped in the back all set and ready to go. He took off down the street so fast that the entire back seat fell out with Silva and me still sitting in it, our knees and toes pointing up to the sky, still in a seated position.
It took him a while to realise, screeching to a halt then into reverse and then slapping his thigh in a snort of laughter. He had a fantastically-wicked laugh!
Once again my spirit would soar.
Dingaling
“Hello, no she’s not here, who’s that? Fart? What, what you talkin’ ‘bout? Get the FUCK outta here…. FART”
Dad had a phone-voice which was designed to get him out of any perceived trouble, the cops, the pubs, the neighbours, work- any place where he might owe money or be reprimanded for bad behaviour. It was his sick-voice, a grizzly-hello followed by a deep phlegm-cough. He could be doing anything, painting, cooking, tuning his guitar, ranting to us to clean our room but as soon as the phone rang he would hork up his last audible words as a sort of plea, have sympathy for the dying and condemned.
This one particular evening rather late, the phone rang. Dad answered. The person on the other line asked to speak to Hilary. It was her good friend HART, from the Buddhist Community.
Trampoline
“Yeah, I’ll come down there, shave yer head and tattoo a dick on it, DICK-HEADS”
Bob moved into our building and with him came a communal trampoline. It was a professional extra large one that fit perfectly in the overgrown backyard. Once upon a time there was actually a swimming pool in the garden until apparently one of the tenants decided to jump from the roof into the pool, it (he) didn’t go down well. Hence the owner was forced to fill it in.
This perfectly rectangular fenced in patch would become our gathering-ground. Once the trampoline arrived so too did a possé of pubescence, jumping and shrilling late into the long-lit evenings, much to the neighbours dismay. Things got pretty heated in July, the male cats would spray the trampoline in their quest for summer love, this would in turn require a good dish soap and a hose down, which provided that extra slip making it impossible to jump so instead we would sudds up and lunge into head dives. That’s also where Adam M would propose to Joellen and divorce her subsequently after Jessica did a backflip, revealing to the ENTIRE WORLD her red V stained crotch, then Adam M would propose to Jessica.. At one point Silva and me even decided to start cashing in on the whole operation, so we set up a ticket booth in the driveway, charging an entrance fee into our newly famed, once shit-hole of a garden..
The trampoline was our feral space. It’s where Alex and me perfected the “swivel-hip” which consisted of three tall jumps, full of grace now smiling face, coming into a sit-down position, my worm-ridden bum bouncing down, then bursting back up into the gaping sky where we would reach our arms up and twist our hips in vertical flight to fall again seated in the opposite direction, still smiling-faced, her ponytail swinging, our fists full of stars. Tadaa!
There was also something called a “skyrocket” - where everyone would form a circle and jump together in synchronicity, then one lucky fellow (usually the smallest) would jump in the centre and get catapulted into orbit sometimes landing on the fence, which is what happened to poor Matthew. That must have been painful although Alex concluded that sliding down a fifty foot razor blade into a bowl of vinegar was by far the worse..
On one particular occasion when the noise levels were ramping up and dad was trying to take a nap after a jaunt to the Sticky Wicket (where he kept an open tab) he leant his head out of the bedroom window that overlooked the yard and hollered the strangest threat, the kids paused in midair, hair standing on end before they scampered away back home. He basically said that he would come down and shave their heads, whereby he would then tattoo penises on them because I guess in his mind we were all destined to be forever dick-heads? Proud with this threat he sauntered off back to bed laughing to himself, repeating the words with snort of triumph.
ELLEH
“Going to Elleh, Cal’s gonna come ‘round and shoot you a couple bucks while I’m gone”
I think a few days had passed. The budgies lay stiff in the bottom of the cage, their beaks caked with dried poo, evidently from too much cake.. We were growing a bit concerned.
Cal didn’t show up either. We latched the chain on the front door and ate dried lasagna sheets from the packet. But I think once the budgies died that was when we started wondering what was taking him so long. We got out his phonebook on his desk and went through each page, Silva running her little sausage finger through the alphabet ABCD, E-L-L-E-H, no luck. We did however discover who the “bumsmacker” was. Written in a bold pencil stroke, underlined twice. This was a number dad would call often, he could be on the phone for hours. Grunting-Laughing-Cussing. Silva in the background asking who-who to which dad would then ask her if she was an owl and tell her to mind her own business. Calling the bumsmacker was a kind of coy joke with us, especially when we were playing up. We would plead with him to tell us who it was, no seriously
for-real-daddy? This time we had no other option. What a relief when we heard Cal’s voice at the other end of the phone. We KNEW it all along. Proud, all smiles again. The next day dad came home from L.A. He wrapped the budgies in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer (I’m still not sure why) but now whenever a bird dies, I wrap it in a bag and place it in the freezer.
