It started with a man who was eight years older than his new wife. They drank a few beers for courage, and met naked in bed in the month of May of 1970. He put his clothes back on, took his car, and drove around Canada until she was nine months pregnant. When her water was about to break, the neighbour called the motel where he was lodging, and suggested it was time to come back home, and greet his first child. The woman borrowed the neighbour’s car, and drove herself to the hospital—it was the first time she found herself behind the steering wheel. On the Québec bridge, she stopped the car. The blizzard was blinding, and the pain in her belly was unbearable. A car stopped, and a man smoking a cigarette walked towards her: “I’ll take you to the hospital”. She pushed for twelve consecutive hours by herself, and at 9:54 a.m. on January 27, the baby boy cried for the first time. Eventually, the man arrived and appeased the baby. Two years later, they moved back to Montreal.
In grade two, the boy showed his penis to a girl in a classroom. The girl cried and told the teacher. The teacher was appalled, and told his parents. His parents were ashamed, and told the priest. The boy met the priest, confessed his sin, and cried. In grade five, the boy showed his penis to the boy next door. No one cried—he would show the boy his penis again. In grade six, the boy developed an obsession for The Beatles. One night, he stood with his sister on his bed, and they pretended to be flowers over A Day in the Life. They went to the movies together, and watched A Hard Days Night, and The Empire Strikes Back, 24 times he recalls.
In high school, the teenager met a girl, met some friends, discovered Simple Minds through The Breakfast Club, and the word “fuck you” through John Bender. In grade twelve, the boy’s father insisted he only reads French and Catholic books. The teenager told him to go John Bender himself, and became a man. The same year, a Danish girl moved in the same building he was living in. He didn’t mind the hair of her armpits, and they lost their virginity to one another in his parents’ waterbed. On the last day of high school, he took the city bus home, while David Bowie‘s Heroes played in his Sony Sports Walkman Cassette player. The young man was happy and cried. He would make a habit of crying.
In college, the young man read a great deal, and enjoyed being loud about the fact that he read a great deal. He was handsome, he was popular, he was head of the student newspaper, he had his radio show, and he had lots and lots of girlfriends. Like his old man, he believed that Québec should split up from the rest of Canada. He was bilingual, most of his friends were English-native speakers, and he ended up dating a young woman from Ontario. The Quebecker separatist formed his own exclusive country with an English Canadian. Sovereignty lost its flavour, and the young man lost the respect of his father when he defined himself as a French Canadian. But the old man’s anger was a fleeting phase, as he would soon take his own life, and the young French Canadian man would cry for sixteen long years.
The French Canadian adman wasted away, between beer bottles and long work hours. He was successful and drunk and stoned and getting laid all of the time. He was handsome, he was popular, he was head of his own decline, and he had lots and lots of nights he would never be able to remember again. He married a woman who was pregnant with his child. They lived apart in the same house and in silence for five long years, until the divorce. When the French Canadian man moved into his new place, surrounded by brand new boxed IKEA furniture and a set of Allen keys, he cried a huge sigh of a relief.
She appeared in his life when he was 37—she was 6 years younger than him. The French Canadian man fell head over heels for a WASP from Ontario. She moved in, and they formed their own universe. In the month of May of 2009, they drank a few beers for courage, and met naked in bed. The most perfect Canadian girl took a staggering 38 years to make. And her father has been crying with happiness ever since.
Of course, the most perfect Canadian girl needed an English Canadian mother to be whole, but that is another story…
A fucking magnificent read, Le Clown. Probably your most magnificent yet. Even if a perfect South African has to say so. Happy Canada Day!
Nadia,
Thank you my expat South African. It appeases my mind for having left the funsies out of the post…
Le Clown
Lovely. Just…lovely. 🙂
(Tiny Geek is looking more beautiful, and happy, and evil-er by the minute, isn’t she? Great job, my friend.)
HiNaD,
Thank you.. And of course I agree with you. Because I fear her.
Le Clown
Unexpectedly deep for this blog but a winner all around. Not sure I could follow these instructions though 😉
Sandra,
And this post wasn’t supposed to be, either. Le Clown wrote, and he was going for funny, and it ended up being introspective, minus the funsies. That’s funny in itself…
Le Clown
Le Clown,
You make me proud to be a Canuck, buddy. Nicely done.
The Hook.
The Hook,
Happy belated Canada Day to you. I hope did get to enjoy some of the festivities.
Le Clown
I celebrated with the best damn Canadian family out there in the Great Canadian wilderness – next to yours, of course!
You’re pretty John Bendering good.
Bill,
[Insert random Breakfast Club quote as thank you].
Le Clown
I would have accepted, “Chicks cannot hold their smoke, that’s what it is.”
Awesome post! I got a little creeped out by the penis showing and the Beatles obsession because that is creepily close to what I was doing at those ages as well.
What a gripping and concise telling of your story, and many chapters still yet to come!
Rohan.
Rohan,
Little know facts: we are the same person. I shit you not. And stop picking your nose.
Le Clown
You stop picking my nose! Split personalities can be confusing sometimes…
Rohan.
Just when I think you can’t possibly get more awesome, you do.
Art,
If you would be in front of me, I would pinch your cheeks and tell you how swell I think you are.
Aren’t you happy you are nowhere near to me?
Le Clown
I could go either way on that one to tell you truth. How hard do you pinch? And which cheeks are we talking about?
Le sigh.
Geeky Book Snob,
It’s been a long time! Un gros merci!
Le Clown
This is the most fucking beautiful thing I have read in like… ages.
Goddammit. I love you.
Whit
Whit,
BFF4FKNEVS™, fo’sho.
Le Clown
Beautiful…
Andrea,
Thank you.
Le Clown
Le Clown,
I honestly don’t think I could love this more.
Amanda,
Could you try?
Le Clown
Ha! I will for you!
Wow. Le Clown, you’ve done it again, you’ve bowled us over with your Magnificence™.
Tiny Geek is just perfect.
Faith xx
Faith,
We have a bias when it comes to Tiny Geek, but we will agree with you nonetheless, Le Clown is magnificent™.
Le Clown
Le Clown,
I forgot to say. Evil does come in perfect too.
Faith
All I can think is, ain’t life grand.
Jennie,
I envy that you can think… It’s 100 million degree +1 today in Montreal, and my thinking faculties have evaporated, and cover Montreal’s skyline in a brown smog.
Le Clown
Beyond wonderful. Not sure what that word is, but way beyond it. xo
Dawn,
I like the xo part.
Le Clown
I don’t just give them out to everyone…
Canadian perfection painfully obtained and beautifully celebrated in this post.
Paul,
Merci.
Le Clown
Le Clown
C’est magnifique. That is all.
L’Artsi
Amazing, I need to focus to keep my mouth closed.
Pieter,
Keeping my mouth shut: I might never achieve this godly state.
Le Clown
I understand, but there’s nothing funny about seeing a guy in front of a computer, mouth open, drooling over something he is seeing on the screen.
It looked like I was watching porn…Or at least I think that’s how I looked reading your post.