TWINS 

Gordy and Gary went everywhere together. One would come into a room, the other one never far behind. First Gary, small as a sparrow and worried. Then Gordy, with his ten-year old chest puffed out. Taking no shit from anyone. Just like when they were born. Gary noiselessly slipping into this world like a shadow. Then a little while later Gordy, painfully emerging from his mother, fists first, elbows already positioned to knock out some teeth. Prepared to find whatever beasts already were scrounging around out here for something easy to eat. Any quick one-biter like poor scrawny Gary, already in need of his twin to come out and wrestle the wolves of this world to the ground if he was going to have any chance at all. 

“No more, please no more”, their mother said upon their arrival. The eleventh and twelfth children she had birthed in thirteen years. “No more babies. No more” 

But no one was listening. Especially their father.

"Yum”, he said as he looked down at the smallest of his two new sons laying in front of him.  

And so ever since, Gordy and Gary went everywhere together. Standing outside their home doing nothing, side by side. Looking down the road at houses and cars they hated. Kicking rocks down the asphalt. Hitting their neighbours with sticks if they dared to come out to look at them. And then when they finally got called inside for dinner, they would hungrily grab at their mother’s homemade fries together. A big plate piled high with them. Enough for twelve children, boiled in lard and steaming hot, and the two of them wanting as much as they could get and burning their hands at exactly the same time. But only Gary crying out in pain. Gordy quickly turning on his brother and hitting him in the mouth for being weak. Telling him not to show it. That their father was watching. 

Old Tennis-Ball Head, as they called him. Who liked the ones who cried but who would keep his distance, as long as Gordy was around. And so everyone always thankful about how the two of them were inseparable. 

But it wasn’t true. This was just something you say when you’ve got twins. How cute it was how they followed each other around, room to room, never out of each others sight. Like one person in two different bodies. Only those who were always watching could possibly have known otherwise. 

And someone was always watching. 

MALT VINEGAR 

Hold your fork like a weapon, Norma. And no need to check those other plates at the table. You already know they’ve got more. You’re the one who always gets the smallest piece. It’s your destiny. All you can do is wait for it to happen yet again as your husband returns home with dinner all wrapped up in newsprint. Whistling as he comes into the kitchen, like a completely innocent man about to get the biggest fish of all. About to sit in the comfiest chair. About to begin eating before anyone else, until suddenly he notices you’ve pulled the bottle he’s been looking for closest to where you are seated, and how that won’t do at all. 

But you say nothing as he asks why you've done this. Why you’ve taken the good vinegar all for yourself. Just wait for him to reach for it. Put his hands within striking distance. 

LICORICE ROOT 

I told him he might as well have been a little girl. In their eyes it was only girls who had his kind of blonde curls. The boys over here wouldn’t like them on him. Also wouldn’t like how he hadn’t gotten rid of his British accent like I had. That the way he talked made him sound like some Little Lord Fauntleroy. How he needed to stop saying how he was famished when he was hungry, and asking if he could use the toilet when he needed to pee. That's why he’d need me to look after him on the schoolyard. Needed his sister to protect him and I warned him not to leave my sight unless he was looking for trouble. How it was up to me to keep the boys away. That I could fight. That I wouldn’t back down from anyone. 

“You know, everyone’s practically lining up to slap those spectacles clean off your face”, I explained to him. “And I can’t really blame them. Just look at you. No wonder everyone gives you trouble walking around with that face of yours” 

I told him not even the girls were going to be nice to him. How they all made jokes about kissing him. That this was the worst thing they could think of happening to them and how this was the punishment they wished upon the girls they didn’t like. Then I told him how I bet they could beat him up too. That he looked like someone who could even get beat up by girls. 

“But if I can take care of the boys for you, I’m sure I can take care of the girls too”, I assured. 

Oh boy, Bill sure is lucky he's my brother. He sure is lucky he’s my best friend and for all the things I do for him. Not that he ever appreciates it. Not the way he acts.  

I can tell he doesn't care about me every weekend when our mother pays us our allowance. How she gives all of it to Bill and then how he doesn’t even look at me when he puts it in his pocket. Stops me from ever telling him what I think it’s best we spend it on. What I like and what I don’t like. Ignores me when I begin to plead, please, anything but licorice root. How that’s the main thing I don’t want. How I can’t even be in the same room with that stuff. This thing Bill loves most. That he just keeps reminding me is his favorite. 

Just a side note about all these assholes I'm writing about, I had no idea my aunt and uncle attended Robert Gordon's wedding, and I'm no great Robert Gordon fan, but I've looked at this picture a long time trying to wonder why the guy looked familiar and suddenly it clicked: "That guy was a musical guest on SCTV!"



No I don't think such a minor celebrity as this guy counts as important news, but it has been a source of very mild amusement tonight. Maybe it's the Drambuie talking (awful shit)

GRANDMA DRIFT 

I’m her favorite but she’s leaving me anyways. Assures me it was nothing to worry about, that it would happen so slowly I’d hardly notice. Has been planning this for awhile by the sound of it. This escape from my bedroom. No longer has the patience to lay there by my side until I’m asleep. Tired of hearing about my nightmares, I suppose. Has started bringing a chair with her into my room to sit on. A new place to read my bedtime stories from. That on the first night of her plan would at least still be close enough for me to reach out and find her knee once I closed my eyes. Once the lights were turned out. But by the second night had already drifted down towards the foot of my bed. And every night after this, wherever this chair went, my grandmother drifting along with it. Further and further. Eventually all the way out into the hallway. For a little while still in place I could see her framed by the rectangle of yellow light that came in through my bedroom doorway. Looking towards her familiar shape to see if she was looking back and watching over me. But by the end of the week the chair continuing even further down the hall where I could no longer be sure if she was even out there anymore. If I should still trust her assurances that this was for the best. If the noises I could hear out there were being made by her, or if I was already asleep, and it was just the sound of my bad dreams returning.  

“Shush, go to sleep”, I hear it say as I call out her name. 

I know this is what the nightmares want but it’s her voice I’m hearing and so is impossible to tell which of them is coming for me. And so I start growing louder and louder. Yelling out to whoever was in the hallway, telling them how I can’t stand to be alone anymore. That I’m frightened and it should identify itself immediately. 

“Silly boy, Silly boy”, it murmurs as it slides into the covers next to me. Says something about how monsters don’t exist and waits for me to fall asleep.  

“Just relax”, it says. “Relax” 

HE’S GOOD, YOU KNOW 

Norma definitely thought the boy could be cleaner, but what an improvement. He didn’t have that smell about him anymore. Had also become considerably less grey-skinned now that he was always playing out in her backyard. No longer looking like something she had dug out of her garden dirt with a trowel, then inexplicably brought into the house. Had been just about the color of a grub when she had taken him from his mother’s apartment, that place where the windows were nearly always curtainless, but could still never let in nearly enough sun for a growing boy.

Of course she took him.

“At least he won’t get rickets now that he's here”, she said to his father. “He’s practically outside every day until the sun goes down. Regular meals too. Proper food, finally” 

Norma and her son sat in her kitchen. No one eating anything. Only sometimes talking. 

“No, maybe no rickets, mom, but you might have got cockroaches”. Bruce laughs. “I sure hope you didn’t pack his stuff in any bags you found there. That building is notorious” 

She wanted him to know how she didn’t think what he said was funny and got angrily out of her kitchen chair and began to do the dishes. Assured him that his son had not given her cockroaches. Reminded him how she knew more about that place than he did as she blasted plates and coffee cups with the faucet. That was why she’d made sure to bring a small suitcase with her to pack all the boy’s clothes in. Wasn’t taking any chances. Wasn’t some idiot. She’d even thrown everything into the washing machine as soon as she had got the boy home, just in case.  

“You don’t think I know the risk of what you got me into? You think I’m getting in line to take anything more from this stupid girl you got pregnant than I absolutely need to? Cockroaches now? You think I haven’t done enough already?” 

Bruce waved his hands at her and began looking for his jacket as she made it clear how there was nothing here. That she hadn’t brought  anything else into her house other than his son. Wasn't even slightly worried about it. That she knew what she had gotten herself into.  

"You’ve got some nerve”, she hissed, “But just keep talking like you know something I don’t” 

Norma turned the faucet off and stopped washing dishes. Was pretty sure she was okay. Refused to show she was even thinking about it. Stood at the sink, trying to catch her breath.  

No cockroaches. 

Pretty sure, at least.

Opened the front door for her son and watched him leave.