The Western Alienation Merit Badge

Autumn 1982

Emergency Helper

Frances called home as soon as she got the letter, but Doris had been dead five weeks by the time she reached her dad. She could hear Bernadette in the background, all despair: Dad, you can’t just shake your head. Frankie can’t see your face. Use. Words. She sounded ready to blow.

Frances unfolded the letter, sent by her stepmother on July 19. It was written in Doris’s perfect script on both sides of a single page.

Dearest Frankie,

I’ll be brief. I’m afraid everything has taken a turn for the worse and the doctors haven’t given us much hope. I worry about your dad, how he’s going to cope after I’m gone. He’s very sensitive and he misses you terribly. He’s too proud to say so, but I know it to be true.

Bernadette has been a great help driving me to chemo when your dad has had to work, but believe me when I tell you that things have gone from bad to worse. Your dad was laid off. They gave him two weeks and a small package. To be honest, they’ve done the best they can and let your dad go so Brian, who still has three children living at home, can continue to work. Your dad and I both understand, so many people are losing their jobs, we’re lucky he was able to get what he did. He’ll have my pension, but it’s not much and he’ll still have to make mortgage payments. I suppose we should have thought about insurance but we just never did. We just didn’t expect something like this so soon.

I know that I’m asking so much of you and I know you just want to be out in the world. And you deserve to be out there being young and free, but I love your father and I think he’s going to need you when I’m gone. I wish you would consider coming home. I can’t make you return and I wouldn’t want to, but I am going to ask you to look into your heart and do what you feel is right.

When you consider what I am asking of you, think also of this: I don’t know what the Lord’s great plan is, but I believe He has a rationale for everything he puts in front of us. Remember, God doesn’t make mistakes. I trust in God’s will, and I trust you too, Frankie, to do the right thing.

I am so grateful to have had any time at all with your dad, and with you and Bernie. It’s been an absolute pleasure, Frankie, thank you. Don’t be afraid to pray for my soul, I’m sure I can use all the help I can get.

With much love and a willing heart,

Doris xo

As if Frances could stay away after that letter, let alone the bloody phone call with her dad all catatonic and Bernie so irate. The letter had taken nearly two months to reach her in Sagres. Working under the table, serving the endless stream of Brits that frolicked on the Portuguese shores had been fun. For once, she muttered.

What? Reena turned her head toward Frankie. She’d been staring listlessly out the window, a cigarette burning between her fingers. Reena refused to stay in Portugal without Frances, refused to let her make the trip back to Gatwick on her own, but had barely spoken to her since she’d made the decision to return to Calgary.

I’m not angry, Frannie, she’d said. Then she’d kissed Frances and pushed her onto their small bed. I’d just rather not talk. And so they spent their last night together fucking and drinking sangria. It was a splendid finish to the Algarve, before the long journey by bus, train and ferry back to Gatwick for Frances’s flight home. Except now Frances was hungover and ravenous; Reena was chain smoking and punishingly silent, but not angry.

Nothing, Frances said. Just talking to myself.

Reena took a drag from her cigarette then crushed it into the ashtray.

Shit got better when Doris came into the picture, Frances said.

Reena nodded and lit another cigarette.

Doris was into peace and no nukes; she loved Dorothy Day and liberation theology. She even got Frances to read The Long Loneliness, hoping, Frances guessed, that it would turn her back into some kind of good Catholic. But you quit the convent, Frances would argue. I quit the convent, not God, Doris would say. Then Frances would say, Well, I quit both. They had that circular argument more than a few times.

Well Doris was dead now and, according to Bernie, their dad was drinking himself into a nightly stupor and crying whenever Magnum P.I., or even an ad for Magnum P.I., came on because it had been their favourite.

You’re going to run out.

Reena shrugged.

The train lurched northward.

On the Channel crossing they sat on the outside deck and Reena started to cry.

Bugger it, she said.

I’m sorry, Frances said.

Well I’m not, Reena snapped.

They parted awkwardly at Victoria Station. Reena wrote down Frances’s Calgary address and barely promised to write. They hugged briefly and separated. Because what else could they do? Then Frances was taking off and then the 707 was taxiing toward the Calgary terminal.

Frances glanced out her window, dark construction cranes stood in front of the Calgary Tower, hooks dangling. Red Square her dad and his cronies called it. So she was back, whether she wanted to be or not. Safely landed in Calgary, with its newly bankrupt oil barons, out-of-work rig hands, jobless heavy-duty mechanics and unemployed secretaries. Yippee yi yo kayah.

Signaller

Nice army boots. Bernie’s first words to Frances. They go with the brush cut.

Thanks, Frances said sweetly.

Bernie wrapped a single arm around Frances, pulling her close. Sarcasm, sweetie. She ran her hand across Frances’s flattop. What were you thinking here?

Frances swung her backpack with her free arm and headed toward the doors.

Bernie fired up a smoke as soon as they got into the car. I’m trying to quit, she said.

Frances unrolled her window.

You’ll see why it’s so hard. Bernie took a long drag on her cigarette.

They drove in silence. Barlow Trail rolled past, the mountains, already dusted with snow, marking the western horizon. Then the Sheraton Hotel, the Husky truck stop, the endless repair and service shops housed in dull beige buildings and, after the impossibly tiny cars of Europe, trucks, all trucks, like the Jimmy they were driving, the brand name her dad couldn’t resist.

Poor daddy, Frances said.

Bernadette nodded. But I have to tell you, he’s not so easy to live with right now.

Frances bugged her eyes at Bernadette.

Sure that shit with Doris was brutal, I mean really, really terrible. But hey, I lost a good job too! Bernadette tossed her cigarette out the window, the better part of it not smoked. And the guy I used to work for just died of a massive heart attack. He lost everything. Every fucking thing. You have no idea.

Give me some credit, Bernie.

Bernadette raised her eyebrows and drove on, eyes on the road, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white.

Okay, you can roll your window up now, Bernie said.

Frances rolled her window up. The sisters drove in silence toward their father waiting at home.

Jimmy was standing in the window. When Frances stepped out of the truck, he held his hand up – more like a stop signal than a wave. Jesus, he did look crazy. Frances offered a careful wave in return. Jimmy smiled and raised his other hand. He was holding a Pil; he tipped the brightly illustrated green and red label toward her, a salute of sorts, raised the bottle to his mouth and took a long swallow. Then he bent toward the sofa and disappeared from view.

I know you thought I was exaggerating, Bernie said.

Citizen

Jimmy watched his girls retreat (at last!) into the kitchen. No he didn’t want tea, thank you very much. He was trying to watch the news while they nattered on about wherever the hell it was Frankie had been. A guy could hardly hear with that racket. He stood close to the TV and stared down into the set until they got the message. Then he cranked the volume and flopped back into his chair.

Though he had to wonder why he turned the news on day after day. Each report was as bad the last, and sometimes worse. Everybody foaming around the mouth about jobless rates. And now, Jesus H. Murphy, this here election. But maybe Kesler and those separatist kooks would give Lougheed a run for his money. Jimmy swatted at the air. Blah, blah, blah, he wasn’t voting anyway.

He didn’t give a fuck about any election, or whatever fat cat represented him in Edmonton. Once a guy was in government he did just what he wanted anyway – those jackasses in Ottawa fixing the price of oil against all of Alberta were proof enough of that. Jimmy snorted. Someone was getting rich, but it sure wasn’t him. Lord, he wished he could just feel bad about shitty job prospects. It would be a blessing right now to only have to worry about not having a job, and this unnecessary Alberta election, and those bastards in Ottawa. Instead, all he could think about was his dead wife; all he could think about was everything they were never going to have again.

He needed a nap.

He left the TV blaring and went into his room.

Cook

Later, her body clock scrambled, Frances paced the basement, jangly with fatigue. Her dad built her a bedroom and rumpus room right after they moved in, so he and Doris could have privacy. So they could get it on, which she didn’t ever like to think about – not then, not now. Jimmy also built himself a workroom that was so disused it was covered in grime. Inside the workroom was a table, and piled against the rear wall was an old tire, a space heater, some Christmas lights and a box of decorations. Frances drew a smiley face in the dust that covered her dad’s worktable.

The rumpus room was equipped with her old record player and, next to it, a fourteen-inch black-and-white Toshiba she won in with a raffle ticket purchased from some Rotary Club guy on Stephen Avenue. Now that was a rare bit of good luck. She thumbed through her LPs then placed the Pretenders on the turntable and lay down the length of the navy blue sofa that Jimmy and Doris had scavenged from an alley. A spring pushed into her ass. You get what you pay for – that’s what Jimmy would say when she complained about the sofa. On the windowsill sat a maniacal-looking papier-mâché gopher she’d made as a kid. Her stomach churned: meatloaf and the fucking strangeness of absolutely everything here.

Jimmy’s dinner plate was piled with meatloaf slathered in ketchup and baked potato smothered in butter and salt. He refused broccoli by spreading both hands, fingers splayed, above his plate.

No broccoli, Dad? Bernadette said, all fake chipper.

Jimmy shook his head.

More for us then! She tilted the bowl of broccoli over Frances’s plate and dropped a heaping mound next to the slice of meatloaf there. The veggies were limp and overcooked.

Ketchup? Bernie pushed the bottle toward Frances. I hope you don’t mind, Frankie, she said. But you’re going to see a lot of Dad in the basement. He’s going to take up woodworking.

Jimmy raised his head, blinked at Frankie and lifted his beer to his mouth.

Sounds good, Frances said.

He’s had that room set up for years. It’s just going to waste, which is the last thing Doris would have wanted. Doris never believed in waste. Did she, Dad?

Jimmy kept his head bowed over his plate.

Well, she didn’t, Bernie said. Doris believed waste was a sin.

Frances nodded.

Waste is a sin. Don’t you agree, Dad?

Jimmy cut slices of potato and meatloaf and stabbed them with his fork.

Bernie turned her attention to Frances. You don’t like ketchup?

Not really, Frances said.

You used to love ketchup!

When I was eleven.

There’s nothing wrong with ketchup.

I never said there was.

Jimmy speared another piece of potato, another piece of meatloaf.

There’s ketchup in your meatloaf, Bernadette said. I use Mom’s old recipe: ketchup, HP, milk, egg and bread crumbs.

It’s very good, Frances said. Right, Dad?

Jimmy nodded in agreement.

Good luck getting him to talk, Bernie said.

Thanks for making supper, Bernie.

Bernadette placed her hands on the table, reaching toward Jimmy and Frances as if in supplication. It is so good to be together again, she said. I think it will be a healing time for us. It should be a healing time for us.

Frances flipped onto her stomach, the wonky couch spring a punishing comfort. It was nice of her to try, but Bernadette was no Doris. Or it was weird of Bernie to try. Frances was undecided. Doris would definitely have said it was nice of Bernie. She would have said something like, Chin up, today is the first day of the rest of your life! You could always count on Doris to say something corny like that.

Frances would have liked to have said goodbye to her.

Be Prepared

Bernadette lay in