WRITING ON THE INSIDE OF MY EYELIDS
Stories
Calico Jones
Patrick wrote this spoof as a distraction from writing his Master’s thesis for York University. He was fed up with academic writing and wanted to have a bit of fun. Later he sent the story as a Christmas gift to his brother Robert. Family members teased him about characters possibly inspired from his own family of origin.
The Author’s Disclaimer
Anything that is written suffers the peril of being taken as a veiled comment upon the relationship between the author and the reader. When the writing concerned is in the form of a story, this danger looms even larger. The questions which abound in the reader’s mind quickly come to overshadow any pleasure derived from the story. Is the author trying to tell the reader something? Do the situations in the story represent those of real life? Even worse, are the characters in the story someone the reader knows? Could one of them even be a parody of the, reader herself?
Kurt Vonnegut once said that the purpose of any story was to delight and amuse. The intention of this story is to meet both those criteria. It is up to the reader to decide whether it does so.
As to the relationship between this story and reality, this story is a work of complete fiction. In legalese, all of the above can be summed up in the phrase:
The following is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is coincidental.
Calico Jones
The story of Calico Jones, like any other story, took place within a context. In Calico’s case, that context was comprised of any number of discrete elements, but only some of them are important to the telling of her tale. That the physical location of the story was a small prairie town about forty five minutes drive outside a larger urban area is interesting, but not of immediate importance. That the temporal position of the story was the recent past is likewise interesting, but not particularly important. Nor are these facts relevant because, as will be seen, the story of Calico Jones deals with the panoply of human relations and the human condition is a force almost entirely divorced from time and space.
In order to understand the story of Calico Jones properly, we must begin with an examination of that most relevant of contexts, the family. Calico Jones’s family may have been no more strange and idiosyncratic than the average Canadian family, but given the peculiarities of the average Canadian family, her family may have been very strange and idiosyncratic indeed.
Certainly they were an unusual group by virtue of their diverse ethnic and linguistic origins. Calico’s mother was French Canadian, and before marriage had born the weighty name of Elouise LaPierre. She had moved to Western Canada from Quebec in her early twenties, in search of an existence devoted to hard work, frugality, and unhappiness. She was resolute in the belief that this was life as God had meant it. She had been somewhat disconcerted by the fact that she had met, fallen in love with, and married, a quietly happy transplanted New Yorker who took great pleasure in her company and the three children that she had borne.
Henry Jones, Calico’s father, was one of a large clan of boys who had been raised in Brooklyn. Their family had been distinguished by the fact that there had been no girls, and that they were the only family on their side of the block who were not Jewish. (They were the most waspish of wasps). While still in his youth, Henry Jones had resolved to see the world and had traveled west from New York to the Grand Canyon then north to the Canadian prairie and decided he’d seen enough. As he would say in later years he’d seen the ugliest of the American desert, and the biggest of the American holes in the ground, and when he got to the flattest and most golden of places he’d ever seen, there didn’t seem much point in going on.
The early years of Elouise and Henry Jones’ marriage were marked by an unspoken but spirited competition around inducing members of their respective immediate families to relocate and take up residence near them in western Canada. Whether this competition was motivated by a desire to garner emotional support during periods of marital discord, or whether out of communal feeling unencumbered by ulterior motives was never completely resolved, but a competition of relentless pressure definitely took place. Elouise and Henry were both the eldest children of their families and, as such, were able to exert a form of moral suasion known only to the eldest children of close-knit families. The velvet glove covering this mailed fist was promises of beautiful landscape, career opportunities aplenty and a lifestyle known previously only to Egyptian kings and queens.
Of the two, Henry Jones was much the more successful in convincing family members to relocate. It was not so much that Henry was a better liar, but that his father had steeped the boys in the lore of the ever-present business opportunity. When their elder brother began singing the siren song of the mermaids, the Jones boys all started swimming like crazy. The two middle brothers, Louie and Bennie, reluctantly accepted grubstakes from their parents with wide-open palms. With these funds as starting capital Louie opened a small retail store in town which sold suitcases, briefcases, and men’s leather goods. Bennie wisely took advantage of the existence of a nearby detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and ensured his economic security by opening a donut shop. Sadly, when it came time for the youngest brother, Jacob, to receive his parental grubstake, the family hardware business was on the brink of bankruptcy. The death of the brothers’ parents soon after in a freakish recreational mishap left Jacob with little interest in remaining in Brooklyn and, after the burial of their parents, Jacob joined his brothers on the Canadian prairies.
In the contest of the families, Elouise was handicapped by neither having as many siblings as Henry, nor as compelling arguments to attract them westward. She did her best, adding linguistic affinity to the Métis to her promises of landscape, jobs, and lifestyle. There were only her widowed mother, and younger sister and brother to convince, but they initially remained steadfast in their refusals. It took the admission of homosexual preference on the part of her younger brother Michael to send Elouise’s sister Marie, and their mother Mere LaPierre, scurrying westward under the misapprehension that homosexuality was contagious.
While the LaPierre women were numerically outnumbered by the Jones men, they made up for this deficit through unwavering determination and an unshakable sense of purpose.
Mere LaPierre particularly endeared herself to the Jones men both for her concern over their welfare and a resemblance to their own dear departed mother. As they married, and began raising children, Mere Lapierre’s position within the family ranks grew. There was never a child’s ailment for which she did not know a cure, or a parental problem which could not be assuaged through the poultice of her kind words. By the time the children were in their teens, she was properly ensconced as the family matriarch, and by the time the children were beginning their excursions into the real world of full time employment, she was considered indispensable and immortal.
It was something of a rude shock, therefore, when the family discovered that she was not the latter and thus could no longer be the former. One morning Elouise checked on the old woman, because she had not responded to the regular summons to breakfast, and found her lying in her bed very still and very cold and very dead. The funeral of Ellen LaPierre was a simple and somber event and well attended by family members. The proceedings were only slightly marred by the local priest’s looking at the small granite headstone and quipping that seldom had a person been so aptly named. The family later agreed, however, that this oversight had been more than adequately rebutted by the drunken cousin who offered to punch the curate in the nose.
The major consequence of the death of Mere LaPierre was a distinct power vacuum within the family ranks. Not only was there no one to placate parental fears about the misadventures of the younger generation, but there was also no one to direct and coordinate family action when such a response was needed. Mere LaPierre’s firm guidance had resulted in a lack of such skills developing in other family members and a successor to her throne had neither been selected nor trained. The story of Calico Jones was played out within this context and is as much a chronicle of the intricacies of family power relations as it is a narrative of the complexities of youth.
One of the main methods of enforcing family discipline during the reign of Mere LaPierre were communal Sunday night suppers held at the homes of the LaPierre - Jones clan households on a rotating basis. The younger family members were brought along but were excused during the after supper conversations which informally but dictatorially addressed family business.
The elder children of the family were granted a place at the table during these sessions once it had been generally agreed that they had reached some indefinable point of maturity. So it was that Suzanne and Martin Jones, eldest children of Elouise and Henry Jones, were at the table when their mother made her bid for power. Elouise had waited two weeks after the death of her mother, and prepared her opening gambit carefully. it was couched in the question of what was to be done about Calico?
"What’d’ya mean?." grunted Bennie. "She’s a good kid." "Of course she’s a good girl," exclaimed Elouise. "How do you think I raise my daughters, eh? That’s not the point."
Elouise looked at Martin and Suzanne and said, "You two, I don’t want your sister to hear nothing of this. I don’t want her feelings hurt."
"Hey, it’s alright, Elouise, nobody will say nothing," reassured Louie. "Where is she tonight, anyways?"
"I said that she don’t have to come, so she went off to be with some friends," replied Elouise. "But I don’t know what I am going to do. I am so worried about her."
Martin and Suzanne glanced at each other.
"Maman," said Suzanne. "She is just depressed because she didn’t have a date for the prom. It’s not that important."
"Oh, it’s not important to you, eh? Well, it was important to her," Elouise retorted. "You don’t care about your little sister, you."
"I don’t know what’s wrong with those boys," contributed Elouise’s sister, Marie. "Calico is so pretty."
"Look, she’s too old for the guys she graduated with. All of those guys are two years younger than her," explained Martin. "It would also help if she wasn’t such a space cadet."
"You don’t say rude things about your sister." ordered his mother. "She can’t help it that she was held back in school." "Elouise, you’re right. Martin listen to your mother." Came from Henry, who was acting the role of the calm voice of reason. "We all know that Calico is a bit different. But she’s just a bit more special because of that, alright?"
"Alright, I didn’t mean anything," said Martin and lapsed back sullenly. Past experience had shown to all present that Calico was her father’s favorite and that Henry Jones would suffer no criticism of her.
"So what’s bugging you about Calico?" Bennie asked. "It can’t just be that prom thing. It’s over and done with - life goes on."
"Non, non, I don’t care about that much," Elouise said. "It’s not that for her. It is what we do with her now? She’s finished school, she won’t go to anything else, so what does she do now?"
"She’ll just have to be like the rest of the world. She’ll just have to go out there and get a job," replied Bennie’s wife Tina. It’ll be hard for her, but it was for all of us. She’ll find something she can do. We all did."
The family ranks greeted this suggestion with a long suffering silence. Mere LaPierre had welcomed Tina into the family fold with something akin to the kiss of death, and Tina had only partially ingratiated herself in the old woman’s eyes by dedicating her life to the creation and raising of eight grandchildren. The matriarch’s dislikes were so embedded in family relations, however, that Tina’s comments were usually accorded a special place of prominence on the far side of the moon.
"You know it can’t be like that, Tina," explained her husband. "You remember what happened the summer she worked for US. It takes a while for her to figure out what’s what, and even then you can’t expect her to handle something new. She’s better when she knows what’s going on."
The maternal instinct rose in Elouise.
"She is not stupid, my Calico," Elouise asserted. "She’s the only one of my children who learned to speak French. She remembers from when she was two, and I did not ever have to worry because she never got lost. She takes good care of everybody’s kids when she baby-sits, she sings to them like a bird, eh? So now I want some help with her. She helped out all of you a lot."
Nods and murmurs of agreement filled the room as Elouise glanced from face to face, defying dissension. They had all benefited from Calico’s willingness to help out and baby-sit whenever called on (particularly because Calico refused payment).
"Elouise," chided Jacob’s wife, Wendy. She made a stab at mollifying the older woman. "We all know Calico’s good qualities, and she has lots of them. But Henry is right, too. Calico is special, she is sort of ... well, one of life’s innocents."
"Innocent?" sputtered Elouise. "That’s not good enough. She is an angel, is Calico."
"It would help if she’d just come down to earth," was Suzanne’s aside to Martin. "So Maman, what is it that you want for her? What are we supposed to do?"
"She can’t mope around the house all summer," interrupted Henry. "She has to have something to keep her occupied." "Bennie, she can work in the donut shop for the summer. She worked for you before," added Elouise.
"Oh, that’s not such a good idea," was Tina’s quick response. "We are going to put our two eldest in there starting summer vacation and you know how business is slow in the summer months."
"I gotta agree with Tina," said Bennie apologetically. "I don’t think Calico is cut out for the donut business. Look what happened that last time."
"That wasn’t her fault," broke in Louie. "If the cops hadn’t joined in and that reporter hadn’t been there, nobody would have ever known a thing."
Jacob smiled. "I thought Calico looked great in the newspaper, though. Standing on the counter and trying to stop that food fight between those cops and her friends. She was sure getting plastered. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the national paper hadn’t picked up that picture for its cover. Then those cops wouldn’t have got in so much trouble, either."
"Yeah, but it happened," Bennie said. "Now I don’t think Calico even likes my place. She didn’t come in for a whole year after that."
"Okay, so we’re not going to try and make Calico do anything that she doesn’t want to. But if she isn’t going to go to work for Bennie, we gotta find something else for her," Henry summed up.
"You got any clients that she can go to work for?" Louie asked Henry hopefully.
"Nope," he replied. "Farmers don’t want somebody like Calico driving a combine. They all want guys to work for them. And I’ve got nothing for her to do around the office. The one time I tried to show her an account’s books, she asked me why they didn’t just let the bank keep track of everything. I told her that if they did that her Père would be out of a job. It was kinda funny, but I don’t think she got the point."
"Oh, come on now," Louie said exasperatedly. "Why’s everybody looking at me? There’s got to be lots better places for Calico to work than with me. I like her lots but I already got Angelina up front. We don’t need two women in the store."
Words were not exchanged, but family disapproval was nevertheless voiced at Louie’s mention of the woman who had been at the center of his marital breakup. Elouise’s face was a textbook example illustrating the muscular contortions needed for a scowl, Tina and Marie had averted their eyes and Henry and Bennie looked embarrassed. Disregarding those of the younger generation, only Jacob and Wendy seemed to understand that divorce was a part of the modern world and something from which no couple was immune.
Elouise had watched Mere LaPierre’s familial manipulations long enough to know when the opportune moment had come. She had played at being frustrated, and shown a trace of real anger, but now it was time for her trump card, which was shame.
"So that’s it, eh? After what the family did always for you, and what Calico did for you, too? Never a bad word from that one about you. Always she says how we must help her Uncle Louie out. How Uncle Louie can’t be talked about. How we should understand that it is very hard for him," she drawled, and buried him slowly and inexorably in remorse. The coup de grace was deliberate, caustic and merciless. "You should be ashamed."
"But, but, what about the library and Marie, or maybe there’s something over at the school that Jake could get her," but Louie was spluttering and his defenses were down.
"Calico’s not one for reading books," Marie pointed out. "Yeah," said Jacob. "And I can just see her over at the high school, helping out cleaning up the guys showers. I don’t think that’s anyplace we want her working, Louie."
"Geez, I can’t believe that this all comes down to me," Louie capitulated. "I don’t know how I’m gonna explain this." The mopping up operation took the next half hour, but all of Louie’s protestations had been already effectively rebuffed. The only matters to be worked out were where Calico was to report for work and when.
Perhaps the most interesting exchange of the evening took place later in the kitchen between Suzanne and Martin and their younger cousin Tommy. Tommy was Wendy and Jacob’s only child, and had missed the festivities (as the others were describing them) because of a prior commitment of the romantic persuasion.
"I am so glad I didn’t get involved in that," Martin was saying. "If they want Calico to go to work for Uncle Louie, that’s fine, but I Just don’t want to be part of it."
"I know what you mean," agreed Suzanne. This is not against Calico, but every time the family starts meddling everything gets screwed up. I’ve seen it too often before and I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of it."
"You might be surprised," said Tommy. "Calico is the one person who always seems to do alright, even when she doesn’t know what’s going on."
"Probably because she doesn’t know what’s going on," said Martin dryly. "Sometimes it really ticks me off."
"Oh, give her a break. I like Calico," replied Tommy. "Hey did you really buy that bike?"
"Keep your voice down," whispered Martin. "If Maman finds out, she’ll start in like it was the plains of Abraham again." "Yeah, but did you get it?" asked Suzanne.
"Papa and I went down and picked it up yesterday. It’s in the garage. I got Papa to countersign the loan. You should’ve seen him drool when he looked at it," Martin told them.
"Aren’t you scared she’ll find it?" Tommy asked.
"Fat chance," Suzanne said. "She thinks garages are part of some strange male mystery like wet dreams. She hasn’t been in ours in years."
"I put it between the car an the back wall. It’s got a tarp over it so it’s alright," Martin assured them. "Insurance and payments are going to kill me, but I’ll just leave it in there ’til my raise comes through next month and I just won’t drive it or insure it ’til then."
At this point the evening began breaking up, so the conversation about the new motorcycle was discontinued. For our purposes here, nothing of importance happened next until the following Wednesday, which was Calico’s third and final day of employment under her Uncle Louie’s tutelage. The events immediately preceding and following her quitting were reconstructed and later embellished in a series of phone conversations between various family members. The first took place about one o’clock Wednesday afternoon between Elouise and Henry.
"Henry, hello, it’s me," said Elouise. "Go over to Louie’s store and help Calico. Those people have gone completement fou. Calico phoned me and said that Louie jumped off the balcony and that woman pushed a bunch of suitcases on him through the window. Non, I don’t think she was mixed up, I think she saw that happen. Well, she said the window is broken and the police are there and Louie has to go to the hospital and she doesn’t know what to tell them. Non, non, she said she was all right. But she needs some help I think. Okay I am going to call the store so you go over there."
Several phone conversations then followed. Elouise talked to Henry at the store, which was dissatisfying and interfered with the clean up process. Elouise phoned again to talk to Calico which was dissatisfying and interfered with Calico’s understanding of what had transpired. Henry phoned the local hospital, which was dissatisfying because Louie was there but was having X - rays done and couldn’t come to the phone. Henry phoned Angelina, which was dissatisfying because he had to-Listen to her answering machine before recording, "What did you do to my brother?" and "I’ll have the law on you!" and "What the hell is going on, anyway?"
Elouise phoned Wendy at work because she had always liked the yokinger woman and thought Wendy knew how to deal with crazy people because Wendy was a social worker. Wendy was relieved to hear that Calico was not hurt and phoned Jacob to tell him to go over to the hospital and see Louie. Jacob went to the hospital and found Louie being released with nothing but minor scrapes and bruises. Jacob phoned Elouise, Henry, and Wendy, while Louie convinced two inquisitive R.C.M.P. officers that the whole thing had been a complete misunderstanding and a ridiculous accident to boot.
The afternoon’s strange circumstances must now be seen as they were viewed from two very different perspectives. The first was Louie’s, and was explained to Jacob over beer in Louie’s kitchen.
"I dunno what happened," said Louie. "The day was completely shot, no customers at all and the whole week has been like that. So I went up to sit on the balcony, it pulls people over to talk for sure when the weather is good. They look in the store window, they see something, and maybe they buy. So, I’m sitting up there with my feet over the edge, and Angelina comes up behind me and starts swearing in Italian. You can really tell when somebody is swearing in Italian. And she was really loud.
"I thought that maybe she was teasing me for loafing or something so I reached back to grab her and give her a kiss. She can get angry sometimes but she cool’s down pretty quick. Next thing I know she’s hit me in the head with some briefcase she has in her hand and I’m falling straight over the edge. I would have been dead for sure if the awning hadn’t been open and broken my fall."
Jacob looked at his brother skeptically. "What did you expect, sitting on that little ledge? That’s no balcony, no matter what you like calling it. It’s just a little ledge." "Alright, so I shouldn’t have been out there. Old argument," continued Louie. "But that’s not the strange bit. What’s so strange is that there I am, lying an the sidewalk, I’m hurting like mad and I see Angelina standing in the shop. She must have come down those stairs pretty quick! So I look up and see Angelina looking at me through the window. And when she sees me moving around, she shoves a pile of suitcases right through the window at me. If I’d been any closer, I’d have been cut by glass. As it was the ’cases landed all over me. By the time I know what’s going on, Calico is on top of me trying to help out, and the cops and the ambulance are coming and Angelina’s taken off. What I can’t figure out is what’s with Angelina. If she wanted to kill me or something, she was sure trying to do it in the right way."
The afternoon’s events must also be seen from Angelina’s perspective. This is necessary not so much for the sake of fairness as for the sake of clarity.
Angelina had watched the installation of Calico into the shop carefully. She had been told by Louie that the young girl with the slim figure and long hair would be working in the store for a while and had been asked "to be nice please, okay?" Having been kept at arm’s length from the family, Angelina didn’t know who the girl was or why she was working there suddenly. When she asked Louie about it he put her off, and when she asked him about it a second time, he put her off again, and this time he looked embarrassed.
Angelina considered herself nobody’s fool, and thought she knew the wiles of men very well indeed. Hadn’t she taken Louie from his foolish wife, and didn’t she know how to keep him, no matter what his family said to him about her? But this young woman was something different again. She and Louie looked cozy and friendly and once she’d seen Louie pat the girl on the bum and the girl had not complained. So by the time Louie refused to ‘drop by’ for their usual Tuesday night, Angelina thought that she had things figured out. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw Louie kiss the girl a quick peck on Wednesday afternoon, before he went upstairs.
Angelina was furiously jealous, but tempered the emotion with curiosity. Who could blame the girl? Any one could see that she was just a child and everybody knew that Louie was an old letch. She needed to know where Louie had met Calico, how long they had known each other, how close they were...
"You and Louie like each other a lot?" she probed. Oh yes, came the answer. He’s the best.
"You been in his new apartment?" Angelina asked. The girl didn’t like the decor, but enthused that the bedroom was wonderful!
"Have you been to the apartment much?" was Angelina’s last, infuriated question.
"Yes," answered the girl "but usually he comes over to the house."
Then Calico offered the secret Louie had requested of her. "Louie’s really my uncle," she said.
Now this is an innocuous enough sentence, if spoken to someone not already in the throes of jealous fury.
Unfortunately, Angelina was in the throes of jealous fury. Of the two possible conclusions which could have been drawn from Calico’s statements, Angelina drew the wrong one.
Angelina’s response was both immediate and startling. She stepped back, paled, and crossed herself. Then she swore in Italian, grabbed a briefcase and rushed upstairs. The rest of her actions were recounted by Louie to Jacob with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Angelina’s destination after leaving Louie’s shop can be deduced from the fact that, like Elouise, Angelina had been raised a staunch Catholic. In her hours of need, she invariably turned to the church. Her intent was to speak immediately to the priest on hand, but she was stymied by the fact that he wasn’t there. She was delayed because he was at the hospital ministering to a sick parishioner. By the time he returned to the parsonage, she had spent her time productively, alternatively praying and working herself into ever greater heights of emotional frenzy. From the torrent of half Italian, half English that she poured out upon the ‘good father’ he assumed the worst, and headed back toward the store. When he found it boarded up, he changed direction and drove toward the Jones family household. Remembering the volatile nature of some of his past relations with the Jones-Lapierre families, he detoured by way of the hospital where he knew the on - duty members of the local force would be trying to get dates with nurses and requested the officers’ assistance.
So it was that about the time Louie was describing the afternoon’s events to Jacob, the priest was knocking on Henry and Elouise’s door with two policemen in tow. By some mischance, a stray Airedale that had been hanging around the front door entered behind the police. They assumed that it belonged in the house, and Elouise assumed that it belonged to the police. In the few moments it took the priest to explain his errand and for the dog to pee on the living room rug, Elouise knew that her attempt at matriarchy was done. Whether it was this realization or being told that Calico and Louie were chronically engaged in carnal congress was the reason for her faint is unclear, but faint she did. It was performed with such speed and grace that the four men in the room did not catch her, and the dog did not get out of the way. It was at this moment that Calico chose to come down from upstairs and ask what was going on, which complicated matters immensely.
The emergency family meeting convened that evening was held in the home of Wendy and Jacob, and attendance was compulsory. Only two absences were noted, the first being Tommy because he had to work, and the second being Calico. She had refused to participate, choosing instead to stay at home and shampoo the living room rug with a rented rug cleaner. She was unwilling to face the entire family after repeatedly denying the priest’s accusations. Elouise and Henry entered Jacob and Wendy’s kitchen fully prepared to commit grievous bodily harm on Louie. They were taken aback to see him sitting in a chair with numerous cuts and bruises and explaining how he’d been answering questions put to him by two very suspicious R.C.M.P. officers for the last half hour.
Elouise replied resolutely, "We will live in disgrace. We must, then we will move."
"It wasn’t my fault," Louie was saying. "Angelina won’t answer her phone. How did I know that she was going to turn into a crazy person’? I didn’t know that she would run around saying lies about me."
"Lies about you? Elouise screeched at him. "What about Calico? What about us? I cannot go to church. Who cares what we say - the father is a man of God and he will be looking at me. He will believe what he wants to believe and maybe he tells other people. All the neighbors saw the police come to the house, they will want to know things. What am I suppose to say?"
"Elouise, we will have to tell them the truth, or we will have to lie," Henry decided decisively. "Louie, if you hadn’t gotten involved with that woman, this would never have happened."
"But, but..." Louie weakly responded.
"You poor dear," said Tina. She went up to Elouise and put her arms around the other woman. "Bennie and I will stand by you, no matter what happens."
"Non, non, I will be alright," shrinking back from Tina’s embrace. We will not hold up our heads…Maybe we will send Calico away."
"Send her away?" Henry was as astonished as everyone else in the room.
"What sort of reputation do you think she will have now?" Elouise asked. "This is not big, this town. She cannot have people talking about her. If she goes away then things will settle down and we will stay. It will be best for everyone."
"Maman, you are over reacting," said Suzanne, as she entered the room. "This is not the nineteen fifties - people don’t get sent away anymore."
"Those things haven’t changed so much," Elouise said with a firm conviction. "everything must be normal."
"Calico isn’t normal," Martin commented. "She doesn’t even have a boyfriend."
"So get her one." Bennie laughed. "Back in the old days, we used to get fixed up with girls by each other all the time."
"I wouldn’t want to be part of that," was Martins answer. "It makes sense," Bennie charged on excitedly. "You and Suzanne can introduce her to some nice guy. Then she’s happy, he’s happy, Louie’s off the hook, and everything looks like normal."
"No way,’ Martin said. "It’s just not done like that anymore."
"So maybe it should be," Tina squealed. "I think it’s a great idea."
No one in the room wanted to agree with Tina, but no one in the room had any better ideas, either. Faces grew thoughtful, then heads started to slowly bob up and down. "Maybe we give it a chance," Marie tentatively suggested. "It might work out," Wendy said.
"I think it’d be good for Calico," Louie added.
"People wouldn’t talk then, Elouise," Jacob contributed. "Fine, but who’s goona do the dirty work?" Martin asked. "Who finds some poor guy, and convinces him and Calico to go out with each other? They probably won’t even go out a second time.’
"We won’t know until we try," said Henry with a hint of motorcycle in his voice. "Martin, I think you could start to like this idea, if you really tried."
"You betcha," Bennie put in. He had been included in the motorcycle conspiracy by Henry on the previous night. "Martin, you and Suzanne can find some friend of yours who’s a nice kid to go out with Calico. That’s no hardship, she’s a pretty girl. Show him a picture."
"But do it quickly,," Elouise ordered, as she watched her youngest daughter being sacrificed on the alter of conventionality. "She should go out this weekend. It will make her forget everything and everyone could see nothing was wrong."
As Suzanne drove Martin to his apartment later, they commiserated over their mutual problem. The mood inside the-car was black, and in one of nature’s little ironies, perfectly matched the howling wind and pelting rain outside.
"You really blew it," Suzanne lamented. "Why’d you go on like that?"
"Me?" I didn’t say anything." Martin replied. "What are you talking about?"
"You should have just given them an instruction manual called "How to get Calico a date? Haven’t you figured out that if you come up with the idea, then they’ll tell you to go and do it.
"What was I supposed to do? You came in late -- Maman was going on like it was the end of the world. She was about three seconds from sending Calico to a convent."
"Maman couldn’t have done anything like that," Suzanne informed him. She’d get halfway to doing it and then change her mind."
"Well, it wasn’t my idea anyway." Martin continued in his defense. "Uncle Bennie really ticked me off with his jolly little Mrs. Matchmaker act."
"Ms." Suzanne absently corrected. "So what do we do now?" "Get her a date with one of the guys in your office," Martin threw out off-handedly.
"Not a snowball’s chance in hell," Suzanne said vehemently and punctuated her words by spinning the car around a corner viciously. "All those guys would drool in their drawers just looking at her. They’re all old enough to be her uncle themselves and either married or on the make or both."
"There’s got to be somebody," Martin begged.
"This one’s yours, buster’ Suzanne ordered. "You gave them the idea on a silver platter, and you got the strong arm because of your motorcycle, and she’s your only little sister, so this one is your’s, your’s, your’s."
"Thanks for your fabulous help," Martin said. "All the guys I work with are engineers. You want to feed her to the lion’s loins?"
"Don’t flatter yourself," Suzanne answered dryly. "From the guys I’ve seen around your shop, she’d be as safe as with a nun." As Suzanne dropped Martin off, he reflected on the fact that she was probably right. The guys he worked with were structural analysts which, in the engineering school hierarchy, put them only one level higher than computer hacking geeks. They were not known for their amorous abilities, general social skills, or table manners. Most of them combated these deficiencies through a combination of shyness and brashness, which usually consisted of alternatively blushing and then successfully making the most inappropriate comment possible.
The means Martin struck on of entrapping his victim sprang in part from his Uncle Bennie’s suggestion and in part from his knowledge of office dynamics. At work the following day, Martin made a great show of putting a photograph of Calico into a small picture frame (bought for that purpose) on his desk. His actions were surreptitiously noted, and it was not long before one of the guys ‘happened by’ to lean on his desk and inquire after who the cute dish was?
Martin explained that it wasn’t a new girlfriend, just his kid sister, the picture didn’t do her justice, she’d just been dumped by her boyfriend, she was out of school for the summer and footloose and fancy free, and if any of them thought he’d ever let them get a date with her, they were out of their minds, Martin’s tone was older brother protective but subject to negotiation, and by the time late afternoon arrived, everyone in the office had been around for a glance and a few cautious questions.
At quitting time, Martin went over to the local tavern for a beer and was trailed by a few of the likelier candidates. After letting them buy him more than one round, Martin fell into quiet conversation with his selected victim. When the time was ripe (and more than a few beers had been consumed), Martin produced the even better photograph of Calico he’d put in his wallet that morning. By closing time, he’d reluctantly agreed to ask Calico if she’d consider a date with a ‘special friend’ from work.
The next morning, Martin phoned Calico and asked her if she’d do him a favor. One of the guys in his office was really nice, but he’d been dumped by his girlfriend and would Calico consider going out on a date with this guy? Calico didn’t want to, but finally succumbed to Martin’s pressure, as he had known she would. Martin hung up the telephone, then yelled across the office to his victim in earshot of everyone. "Okay, Kevin, it’s on if you want it, but she says it had better be tonight because she’s thinking about visiting the relatives for a while."
The ruse was transparent, but possible because of the lack of sophistication in the room. Within minutes, everyone was waiting to hear Kevin’s phone call to Calico and how he would handle himself. It was that pressure Martin had been counting upon and it did not fail him. Kevin found a secluded telephone an hour later, and returned to his desk whistling to himself. Martin telephoned Suzanne and had her check things out with Calico. When the message came back that the date was on for that night, Martin leaned back in his chair feeling pleased with himself. He had the family off his back, owed Calico a favor which she’d never ask for, and had gotten a free night of drinking out of the business as well. All things considered, he thought that he’d done pretty well by himself.
He felt even better when he received a telephone call from his mother, who sounded very pleased and told him that Calico was going out on a date with some friend of his. He wrangled an invitation to dinner, both to have a chance to look at his motorcycle, and to ensure that the family did not interfere with the plans he had set in motion. His self satisfaction abated somewhat when he heard that Wendy and Jacob were also coming to dinner and that Bennie and Tina were dropping by later in the evening for cards. All he needed, Martin thought ruefully, was to have the whole family start meddling.
Upon arriving at the household after work, Martin discovered his concern had been warranted. Wendy and Jacob had already arrived, and Henry Jones had taken Jacob out to the garage to initiate him into the conspiracy of silence around the motorcycle. Martin found them in the garage, where they had moved the motorcycle around the family car and propped it up against the inside of the garage door. They were deep in discussion of its more complex parts, such as the gas tank. it took Martin a good fifteen minutes to convince them to go back into the house, and even then he had to promise that he would show them the owner’s manual after supper.
Supper went as well as could be expected, given that Calico was certain she had been set up to date some eight eyed loger from the outer moons of Jupiter and Jacob kept making jokes about how Henry had once set him up with the worst date of his life. Wendy and Elouise spent their time trying to be unobtrusively soothing, while Henry spent his time trying to shut Jacob up. Between bites, Martin discovered that he had a hitherto unknown ability to sweat copiously. By the time the meal had ended, the nerves of everyone around the table were frazzled.
After supper, Calico went upstairs to change and the interminable wait for Kevin began. Martin had hoped that Kevin and Calico would be spared the scrutiny of Bennie and Tina but their cheery hellos beat Kevin’s arrival by a full five minutes. When Kevin did arrive, however, the means of his conveyance so astonished Martin that his worries about family obstacles were almost completely forgotten.
Kevin swung into the driveway and parked in the only space available, which was directly in front of the garage doors. He looked casually, but appropriately dressed for a quiet date on a warm summer night. His air of self confidence was supported by the fact that he himself was supported by a burgundy and black vintage two seat convertible of vaguely British ancestry.
Martin was dumbfounded by the incongruous combination of this beautifully -reconditioned sports car and what he thought of as his thoroughly inept office mate. At work, Kevin had never demonstrated any interest or knowledge of the finer aspects of motor vehicular transportation. Yet, upon exiting the house (with his father and uncles closely in tow), Martin had to admit that it was indeed Kevin who got out of the car to greet him.
In a way, the car lubricated the formalities and embarrassments of the formal introductions. By the time Calico and the other women had left the house, the men were so deeply engrossed in their admiration of the little automobile that the women’s presence almost went unnoticed. By unspoken agreement, the males had decided that anyone who drove such a fabulous car (even if it was his father’s) had to be a good guy. The women were more reserved in their favors, asking pointed questions about how fast it could go, and noting with approval the recent addition of shoulder belts. As for Calico, she seemed somewhat relieved that Kevin could not be cast in the leading role of "The Furball from Outer Space," and appeared pleased at the prospect of a spin in such a jaunty little car.
With much ado, Kevin opened the passenger door for Calico and then closed it after she was seated. He strode around the car, got in himself and started the engine. Their good - byes made, Kevin pushed in the clutch, shifted into first, hit the gas, and popped the clutch.
Kevin really should have shifted into reverse.
The little car sprang forward, neatly knocking Martin over its front grille and bonnet, and attained the speed of six miles an hour before ending its forward motion by crashing into the garage doors.
Six miles an hour is not a great speed. When the object traveling at six miles an hour weighs in excess of one thousand pounds, however, a great deal of forward momentum is involved. At Elousie’s insistence, Kevin and Calico had put on their shoulder belts and so escaped injury. The same cannot be said of the garage door, which both crumpled and sent shards of metal flying into the garage. The same also cannot be said of Martin’s uninsured motorcycle, which was the recipient of much of the forward momentum and many of the metal shards. As well, the X-rays at the hospital later showed that Martin had a fractured right tibia.
It was not until the next morning that Henry Jones had enough time to assess the damages. Kevin, the sports car, and Kevin’s sorrowful father had been removed from the premises the previous evening by a cooperative tow truck. To Henry’s eyes, each of the three looked equally shattered. The garage door was beyond repair, as was the track it rode on. The damage to the motorcycle had not yet been calculated, but given the curious shape of the front forks, the bill would be extensive. An additional surprise was the damage to the family car, the windshield of which had been shattered by a falling chainsaw which Henry had been storing in the rafters above the car.
All of this excluded the personal cost, which was comprised mostly of Martin and his broken leg. After having his leg set at the local hospital, Martin had been placed in his old room in the family household. He had spent a restless night making his sentiments known to all. He was accepting no responsibility for the situation, alternatively blaming Kevin, Suzanne, Bennie, Louie, Calico, and the whole family in general. Calico was so upset by all this that she had forgotten that Martin had arranged the disastrous date and forgiven him his part in the affair. Henry had given her some money and sent her out that morning to buy Martin some flowers for his room. From the flurry of phone calls that Elouise had been making and receiving since breakfast, Henry predicted that the family meeting that Sunday night would be a classic.
He was not disappointed. Barring Calico, who had once again refused to attend, the entire family was present. Out of consideration for Martin, the meal and meeting took place in Elouise and Henry’s house. Martin occupied a place of prominence at the table, with his leg in its large cast. The meal was marked by its careful politeness, which foreshadowed the storm of recriminations which broke over the table once the children had been dismissed.
"Were you out of your mind?!" was the question which rang round the table from mouth to mouth. Martin was blamed for introducing a variable like Kevin into the situation. Suzanne was blamed for not helping Martin. Bennie was blamed for suggesting the idea of a date. Louie was blamed for being involved with Angelina. Bennie was blamed for not taking Calico back into the donut shop. Elouise was blamed for raising the problem at all, and Henry was blamed for Calico’s existence in the first place. Even Wendy and Jacob did not escape recrimination for their minor role in events.
Meanwhile Tina kept saying, "No one is really at fault, you know." She did not seem to notice that she was at odds with the general sentiments of the conversation. Fortunately, the closeness of the room contributed to the noise level which spared Tommy from having anyone notice that he was constantly snickering.
Eventually, frustrations abated as everyone realized the intractability of the situation. No one was willing to admit that their position might possibly be wrong. As this realization sunk in, a general mood of despair settled around the table.
"So what do we do now?" Henry asked. "We haven’t got Calico a job or a boyfriend or anything else to do. Anybody got anymore bright ideas?" I
No one was willing to address that particular question.
As they were mulling it over, the doorbell rang and Elouise went out to the front hall to answer it. The silence in the dining room was such that it allowed everyone to hear the following conversation, which produced in them ever greater degrees of incredulity.
"Hello, does Calico Jones live here?" asked a strange male voice
"Yes, but she isn’t here right now," answered Elouise carefully. "I’m her mother. Is something not right?"
"No, no, everything’s fine. My name’s Hielstra. I just wanted to bring her her wallet. She left it in my store yesterday," he said. "Her identification told me where she lived, but I didn’t have a chance to phone because we’ve been so busy at the greenhouse, so I just thought I’d drop it off on my way home." "Thank you very much, she could have come to get it," Elouise said. "That was nice of you."
"Well, I was also hoping to get a chance to talk with her. I wanted to know if she’d made any decision about my offer." "What offer?" Elouise asked, immediately suspicious.
"When she was in the greenhouse yesterday, we got to talking. She knows as much about flowers as I do and I’ve been in the business thirty two years," he told her. "I sort of asked her if she’d be interested in coming to work for me. My wife is not so well, and I really need somebody to take her place in the front, in the shop."
"You want Calico to work for you in a flower shop’?" Elouise asked in a wavering voice.
"Well, only if that’s okay," he replied. "There’d be some work in back in the greenhouse for her too, getting shipments ready."
"Would you like to come in?" Elouise asked in a dazed way. "No, my wife’s waiting in the car. But if Calico wants to work for me, have her come round in the morning. If she can’t come by, maybe she could give me a call. Here’s my card - the number’s on it."
With that the man was gone, down the walk to a waiting car. Elouise returned to the dining room to a chorus of exclamations. "She never said a thing," Henry burst out.
"I should have known something when I heard her singing," Suzanne observed.
"Working in a flower shop," Bennie mused. "And a greenhouse." Wendy added.
"She stopped to smell the roses, and now we’ll never get her face out of the flowers," Martin concluded. "Now if she just had a boyfriend."
"Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that," Tommy stated. "So far as I know, Calico and a friend of mine are getting pretty close."
"What?!" Henry shouted.
"Oh, it’s alright, Uncle Henry," placated Tommy. "He’s a really nice guy."
"Son, why didn’t you tell us about this before?" asked Jacob "Nobody asked me," was the inevitable reply. "His name is Rudolph Malcolm Bilgewater."
"Bilgewater"’ exploded Louie. "What kinda name is that?’" "It’s okay, Uncle Louie," insisted Tommy. "His friends call him Rusty."
Finis
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