“All I’m trying to say is that. . I’m somebody, too.”
“What do you mean? Of course you’re somebody!”
“I mean, I make an effort, I do my best to adapt, to learn everything there is to learn about maple trees, spruce trees, moose and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. . but I, too, come from somewhere, for the love of God! I, too, have a past, a history. . I don’t want for my whole life to be drowned here erased and replaced by yours. . So all I’m asking is that you take one little step toward my own history.”
“What kind of step? Oh! Did you hear that? He burped!”
“Leave me the boys.”
“Sorry?”
“We’ll divide the children up between us. You’ll take the girls, choose their names, talk to them in French, bring them up to be nice little Catholic women from Quebec. . and I’ll take the boys: Irish names, English language and a lay education.”
Marie-Jeanne looks at her son, her husband, her son. She loves Neil with all her heart, but dreads her father’s ire.
“Otherwise,” says Neil, raising his voice, “if everything I’ve ever been and done gets wiped out, I don’t know how I can ever be a man in this household, much less a writer. Please understand me, Marie-Jeanne: I can’t create works literature if I feel I have no heir, no hope of passing on my lore and learning.”
Marie-Jeanne is still hesitant. Neil tries another tack.
“Besides, the sad truth of the matter is that anglophones earn a better living in Quebec than francophones. They’re the ones who run businesses, they’re taking over the pulp-and-paper industry. . The future is anglophone. If you want our sons to make something of themselves. .”
“Well, okay,” says Marie-Jeanne with a sigh. “I have to admit I can see your point.”
“So this one won’t be named Pierre-Joseph, okay? He’ll be named Thom.”
“. . All right.”
CUT to a close-up of a tiny coffin being lowered into a tiny grave. Drawing back, we see a few dozen members of the Chabot family gathered in the town churchyard, their faces glistening with tears. Neil hugs Marie-Jeanne to his side. The camera moves back in to read the words engraved on the tombstone: THOM NOIRLAC. 3 SEPTEMBRE 1920–17 SEPTEMBRE 1920.
• • • • •
Awinita, September 1951
TOTAL DARKNESS. BLACK screen. It’s four A.M. in the cruddy bedroom above the bar. Declan’s speech is distinctly slurred (so to speak).
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. . I promise you, Nita. Sumpin’ll turn up.”
“You already said dat.”
“I know, but this time I mean it. Soon’s our baby’s born, I’ll clean up my act.”
“Dat’s a whole six months from now, Deck.”
“Yeah, but jobs are always scarce in September. My chances’ll be better in the spring.”
“Why’s dat?”
“I heard tell.”
“Where’d you hear tell? In jail?”
He hits her. We don’t see the blow, only hear it, and Awinita’s yelp of indignation.
“Hey! Shit, Deck!”
“Don’t talk down to me, Nita. With seven sisters, I had enough o’ women talkin’ down to me since I was born.”
“Yeah? Well, I had enough o’ guys hittin’ me.”
“That’s not what they do to you. They screw you. Every Tom, Dick, ‘n’ Harry’s got the right to screw you. I’m the only who has to ask permission.”
“Least it makes you special. . You oughta be grateful to ‘em for screwing me. It’s deir money you live off.”
“Oh, thank you, Tom! Thank you, Dick! Thank you, Harry! Specially Dick. Thank you for fuckin’ my wife, you great big Dick!”
LIGHTS (Awinita has just turned on the bedside lamp).
“I not your wife, little boy.”
We’re in her eyes, in her body, when Declan’s fist makes contact with her jaw. The blow sends us careening backward to stare at a corner of the phony oakwood headboard.
“Fuck, man. Ya broke my fuckin’ jaw.”
“Did I?”
Declan is sincerely shocked.
“I tink so, asshole. . You’re destroyin’ your only source of income, you know dat? Who gonna come upstairs wit a girl got a twisty purple face?”
Declan breaks down. Blubbering drunkly, he kneels at the side of the bed and covers his face with his hands.
“I’m so sorry, Nita. I’m. . so. . sorry! Can you ever forgive me? I’m so, so sorry I hit you, Nita, you’re pregnant with my baby. . I’ll never lay a finger on you again, I swear it. I solemnly swear I’ll never lay a finger on you again. Oh, Nita, can you ever forgive me?”
His shoulders heave, and tears come trickling through his fingers. We put a hand on his head and, sobbing, he buries his face between our dark breasts.
“I’m out of sorts ‘cause I went home over the weekend. . hitchhiked all the way there. . Thought everybody’d be glad to see me. . but they didn’t give a fuck. . Didn’t pay me any attention. . I’m used to Marie-Thérèse being nasty, but this time it was especially. . my da. He lit into me, called me weak and spineless. . Said I had no gumption, no political convictions, nothin’. Said I was wasting my days on earth. How can a da talk that way to his son, Nita? I’ll never talk that way to my son, I can tell you that. . He called me spineless, Nita! My own da called me spineless!”
Gradually his sobs space themselves out and, with his head still weighing heavily on our chest, he begins to snore.
An X-ray image of Awinita’s spine, perfectly straight and normal. But suddenly her vertebrae turn into red balloons. They swell and expand until they literally become her, and the rest of her body is awkwardly curled up inside the colored, bobbing balls.
Awinita’s apartment on a Friday morning; Liz is staring at her.
“. . You pregnant again, Nita?”
“. .”
“Hey, Nita, don’t tell me you’re pregnant again. Don’t tell me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Sweetheart, that’s bad news. You know that?”
“Yeah.”
“You want me to give you the address of somebody who. .”
“Nah, it’s a’right. . I like de guy.”
“You’re not supporting him, I hope.”
“Nah. . Well, a bit. Just till he finds work. I don’t give him much.”
“Listen, Nita. If I were you, I’d get rid of that baby before it’s too late. Your credit’s running out. If you’re not careful, you’re gonna find yourself in the street. And a pregnant Indian whore in the street, I don’t need to tell you that spells trouble. Sweetheart, you wanna get married, settle down and have seventeen kids like those rabbity French Canadians, go right ahead! It’s no skin off my back, just so long as you pay me back what you owe me. I got plenty of hot young babes just itchin’ to take your place. You met Alison yet, by the way?”
“Who’s Alison?”
“Moved into your room yesterday. She’ll be sleepin’ in Cheryl’s bed, seein’ as how Cheryl found herself a cushier job out at Trois-Rivières.”
“I tought dat was just a weekend gig.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t do part-time, Nita. You’re either with me or you’re without me. Is that clear?”
“Sure.”
“Then toe the line, I’m warning you.”
CUT to the girls’ bedroom.
Alison is a thin, fragile-looking Haitian girl, clearly a novice. Lorraine and Deena giggle as they teach her the ropes.
“It’s nothin’, man,” says Lorraine. “Don’t worry. I mean, what’s a dick, right? To them it may be the be-all and end-all, but to you? Nothin’ at all!”
“Yeah,” Deena chimes in. “Dicks come and go, you know what I mean?”