Monday, December 19, 2005

RUPERT'S little SISTER


Jersey Milks and Civil War Boots
(Dec 19/05)
I knew this kid named Rupert who ate chocolate bar sandwiches. His all-time favorite was a Jersey Milk sandwiched between spongy white Pom Bakery bread. In Montreal at the time, the Pom Bakery had trucks, green trucks, that delivered breads, small cream-filled cakes, May West’s and other baked goods directly to your door. We used to wait behind a neighbors car or a way too high snow bank, and when the Pom truck came round the corner, which it always did, without fail, we’d dart out from wherever it was we were hiding and bumper ride the back of the truck. The best boots for skitching, as we called it, were those plastic cowboy boots with the fake fur lining and shiny, un-variegated soles. One of my friends, a half Native half Japanese kid with Japanese parents and a full-blooded Japanese sister, he’d been adopted from gods know where, had these Civil War boots with a belt and cool buckle around the ankle. He could run, as they say, like the wind, and hang on by one mitt as the truck careened round corners, down straight aways and through heavy traffic. It wasn’t uncommon to see a green Pom Truck racing down the street with a collection of mismatched woolen mittens stuck to its bumper. One of my hands was always freezing cold, generally the one I smoked with, so it wasn’t such a big deal.
Rupert lived in a dark row house near Fisher Park with his parents and little sister. One day I came over to get Rupert, to ask for money or a cigarette, or maybe just because I had nothing better to do, and he had me wait for him on the carpet in the front porch. Wet boots were murderous to mothers, or maybe just his mother, I never did figure that out. I was standing there shifting my weight from one foot to the other, something I did when I had nothing better to do, when I saw this little figure standing down the hallway half in the light, and half out of it. It was Rupert’s little sister, standing there staring blankly at me, or at least I thought it was me, chewing an elastic band. Her mouth and teeth were working the elastic band furiously, like it was her last meal or something, and her eyes, those blank, crossed-up eyes, just stared right through me, past the front door and out into who knows where. Rupert told me his sister had this thing called Downs Syndrome, and couldn’t be left alone in the house. I asked him how come she chewed elastic bands, why not candies or licorice? He said, looking down at his Civil War boots, ‘I dunno, that’s just the way it is, I guess’.

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