When I lived in the UK, no one could tell what class I belonged to; where I came from, who my people used to be. I was a chameleon. Cultured when called for. Streetwise and unshockable when necessary. Both were true.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it my hometown, but I spent my teenage years in Red Deer, Alberta, in a bungalow under a water tower on the outskirts of town. You could walk to the drive-in movie theater, if you wanted to. Just down the road and over the field.
Some things I remember from those days:
A sun-melted cassette tape on a dusty dashboard.
The fast food shack on Highway 1 that makes a cheeseburger topped with ham cold cuts.
A parched playing field.
So many mosquitos on my dad’s sweaty t-shirt on a walk through the ravine.
A mickey of rye poured into a Big Gulp of Coke, passed around in the back of a van.
Tailgate parties; drunk guys running through bonfires of burning pallets scavenged from somebody’s warehouse job.
A case of beer stashed in a snowbank, shattered in the cold; yellow snow flecked with shards of brown glass.
Suburban garages full of teenagers getting stoned in the afternoon.
Heavy metal, heavy drinking, heavy machinery.
The smell of diesel.
House-wrecker parties; trailers with holes punched in the walls.
And the boys, with their petty crime and dirt bikes and scalding words. Casual racism and gleeful misogyny.
What does a virgin say after she gives you a blowjob?
*dribbles milk from his mouth* “I love you!”
Relax, it’s a fucking joke! What are you, on the rag or something?
I was so hellbent on losing my innocence. So determined to toughen up. Why?
What’s so great about being unflinching in the face of brutality? Ignorance? Cruelty to tenderness?
Can’t say I miss it.
Upward mobility
What
am I supposed to do with all this junk
These rough and ugly words?
The threadbare, the cracked, the stained?
They don’t even make this thing anymore, you’ll never find a spare part
Well. Not everything broken is gonna get fixed
Hey! Little miss rich bitch, put that back
You think you’re too good for broken?
Go fuck yourself and your fancy car
I know who you are
I know where you came from
We look after our own over here and I don’t owe you nothing
The asphalt globe spins slowly under my sneakers
Merciless blue sky
It’ll take me almost an hour to walk downtown
Nothing better to do
Maybe, one day, a split level duplex
a baby
a washing machine
a bike in the yard
a barbecue with the neighbors on the weekend
a game of cards on a plastic patio set
sprinklers on
creamsicle sunsets and wall to wall carpeting
The world in a chipped sugar bowl