The Tolerance Wars - 16
two things would happen
upper and lowercase
begin at the beginning—Chapter 1
The Tolerance Wars
16.
two things would happen
It turned out there really were ducks. I don’t think they were pets. Or had been clipped so they couldn’t fly away. These ones were mallards. The shimmering emerald green on the head of the males gave them away. Probably not from around here, more likely making their way farther south where the winters weren’t going to be as hard as ours. There were a couple of pairs by the look of things. And a few yearlings. Still following their parents around. on water or on land. There were enough of the little ones that someone must’ve been coming around to keep the fox away. And the coyote. Although it’d been a while since I’d heard the yip and yowl of the coyotes at night in these parts, like some kinda wolf-howl tribute band not quite getting it right. Though it felt like the country here, the big house was actually pretty close to the bright lights, we were only a few miles outside of the city. And while mister fox was perfectly happy making his way along the old rail lines and strips of bush and woodlot into town to see what morsels he could find dropped and forgotten among the slow and wasteful humans, madam coyote just plain didn’t like people. Or trust them. So she and her pups would stay out here in farm country proper with more than enough mice and rabbits to keep them all fed and happy.
But here and now there were ducks.
And I was right, the big old willows I’d seen through the picture window up in the hall were stood here at the far edge of a small pond. But on this side of the water there was green grass. And your choice of either glorious warm sun or righteous cool shade from a couple of maples and a line of tall spruce trees that had probably been planted as windbreak back when this was a real farm and not just the house of some rich guy who leased out the fields to actual farmers while he waited for the city developers to come back and make him a better offer. Archer and Josie had chosen the sun and were sat down in conversation. And presumably admiring the ducks.
“You guys mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.” Josie smiled up at me. “We were just talking about you.” Archer was looking at the water, enjoying the mwak-mwak of the feathered little show. Likewise a smile on her face.
“Out here, in this little patch of god’s own green? You usually make better choices than that.”
“You are such a thing.” She shook her head, still smiling. “And you don’t even know it, do you?”
“I am many things. I contain multitudes,” I said as I lowered myself onto the summer-warm grass and leaned back to encourage the late afternoon sun to do its magic on me, “any particular thing you had in mind?”
“Doofus.” She grinned. “Big one.”
I wasn’t sure where this was going. But I played along because I trusted my friend the drummer. “I come from a long line of doofusses. Actually originally the plural was doofii. But then there was talk about whether one of us should be designated an Oracle. In the end we decided it was easier just to change the word. To save confusion.”
Sister puzzled it together. Then snorted when she got there. “The Oracle of…?”
I nodded. “…doofii. Indeed. A long line of them. With serious time on their hands, based on the evidence. You can’t make this stuff up.”
“You can.” She shook her head at me. Amazed at my sheer genius. Or dumbassery. The two are often confused. “You sure you wanna hang out with this?”
I was pretty sure she wasn’t talking to me. But Archer kept looking at the ducks on the water. That same funny smile on her face. Then she gave a little shrug. “He makes me laugh.”
I guess Josie took that for some kind of informed consent. I got the sense she was a woman on a mission. And Josie on a mission is not to be trifled with. She leaned over to me and poked me in the ribs. I sat up straighter and looked at her, tilting my head in a question. I really wasn’t sure what was going on. She looked straight into my eyes and said, “Have you had the conversation yet?”
And I froze. This I was not expecting. Not here. Not now. My heart pounded. I could hear gentle wind in the treetops, the ducks splashing in the pond, sounds of people gathering up at the house, a dog barking at nothing in particular a couple of farms over, and a ringing in my ears that hadn’t been there a moment ago. I closed my eyes. And swallowed. When I opened my eyes Josie was still looking at me, not letting me go even slightly. I gave her the tiniest single shake of my head no.
“She deserves it.” Josie was smiling, but deadly serious. From her it was a terrifying combination. “You are one of the best people I know. And you’ve had that conversation with me. And with Tony. And Mcshane. And Waits. And Marcus. And Sparechange. Every single one of us. And we all choose to hang out with you. And we’re all better for it. She deserves the same. You need to have that conversation. If not now, then later. Not tomorrow. Tonight.”
I could hear her words. And I knew in my bones that she was right. But right now I was somewhere else. A place where I was small. And the big kids were laughing at me. Again. And suddenly I felt my chin hit the rink ice as I fell. Hard. I watched big Gary heave with frustration and flick the puck out of the way then wind-up for a massive slapshot. Now I was waking up again on the ice and hearing the teacher yelling at me to stop crying and to go inside and clean myself up while they finished the game. I knew it wasn’t real. But I was right there. Nine years old. Covered in blood and trying to be brave and not sure what had just happened. Or why everyone was so angry with me. I swallowed again. And tried to breathe. I could taste the blood. Why were there ducks? There are no ducks in winter.
Josie leaned in a bit closer. “Hey. You alright?”
That broke the spell. I blinked. Then again. And took a deep breath in. “Gimme a second,” And let it out. Then, “I’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
I nodded twice, real small. And remembered to breathe again. Off in the distance I heard a dog bark because it was just overjoyed to see someone it knew drive up the laneway. I heard people laughing and happily greeting one another up at the house. Here there was sun. And a gentle summer wind in the trees. It was warm. And there were ducks. I breathed out again, slowly. And nodded again. “I promise.”
She kept looking at me. With that same look she gets when she’s deciding whether or not to tell me that groove I’ve been proudly serving everybody for the past five minutes sounds more like street repairs than something an actual musician could actually play to for pete’s sake. A good friend will tell you. And in my life I was surrounded by good friends. I reminded myself. And took another breath. And out. Then I nodded again, still small, but a little more sure, and without sound mouthed the word. Promise.
Josie held my look for a couple more beats. Then, apparently satisfied, she blinked, and smiled. I thought maybe I could see a glistening in her eyes. But that was probably just me. “Well alright then.” She stretched a little. The way that drummers do after a really good set. “I’m gonna go see if Tony’s sold all of our equipment or we’re still a band with a gig. You guys have a visit.” Then she looked over at Archer, who I guess had been taking this all in. “Don’t let him get in too deep. When we start the first set I need mister rhythm here onstage and in good shape. Or Mcshane will try and play rhythm. And then God help us all.” She stood up, and stretched another drummer stretch. Then she leaned down and kissed the top of my head while I was still sitting. Still breathing. I looked up at her and smiled as best I could. She smiled back at me. “Don’t mess this up.” She said. She winked at Archer, then walked off up the hill towards the house like she owned the place and was just going up to check on the kids. Which I guess she was. I will forever remember my friend the drummer exactly like that, right there, in that moment. A righteous woman. I was lucky to be able to call her friend.
A guess it was Archer’s turn. “You are okay?” She asked, not worried, but genuinely wanting to know.
I half-smiled. “Honestly, I’d rather Sparechange’d whacked me again. Way more pleasant. But yeah.” I nodded. And took another breath, almost able to do it automatically again. Almost like a normal person. “And sister’s right. I guess there’s some things about me you really should know.”
“Josie told me a little. So I have at least an idea of what just happened. But she said it would be better coming from you.”
Funny, I’d had this conversation so many times. Any time someone seemed like they were getting in solid orbit with me. It never felt easy. But it was always the right thing to do. This time was different. It always mattered, but this time I cared even more. I rolled my thoughts around, looking for a way to begin. I looked over at the ducks. Heard the sound of the willows. And then I started. “There were some things that happened to me.” Why was this so hard? C’mon buddy. Trust. Like a good groove. “And I guess those things shaped me.” I took another breath. Then I continued, “And the bounce around from that, well it kinda shaped my whole life.”
“Things?”
I nodded. “We all have stuff we have to deal with. Mine was maybe a little harder than some people’s.”
“Is that where you were just now? It seemed like you went away.”
“Yeah.” Gonna hafta talk about it without being there. Stay here buddy. You can do this. Willows. Ducks. Warm sun. A friend who genuinely cares. “It’s a whole mix of things.” Okay, start here. “I guess first maybe it would be good to know that I was a lot younger than most of the kids around me. And by the time I was nine I was three years younger than most of the kids in my class.”
“What? How?”
I shrugged, “No big deal really. We lived out in the country, no kindergarten at the school the next section over, I seemed bright, so they put me straight into first grade. And they decide when you go to school based on what year you were born. Except I was a December baby. Which meant I was always going to be younger than almost everybody in my class. And then a couple years on, after we moved to town, the people who made those kind of decisions decided that I wasn’t doing as well in school as I might. That I was probably bored. So they had me take two grades in the same year. Nothing wrong with any of that. By itself. But together. Yeah, three years. They wouldn’t do it nowadays. Mostly because of how it messed up kids like me.”
“Like you.”
“You may have noticed that I’m wired a little different from your average bear?”
She thought about that. “Well… you sometimes see things I don’t. I put that down to having life experiences that are different from mine.” She thought some more. Then, “You’ll often express an idea in a way I hadn’t thought of before. You’re one of the more creative people I’ve ever known. Which can come from being around creative people. And living a life doing creative work.” Another pause. “And I think your ability to focus on whatever you’re doing is pretty remarkable.”
“That’ll do for a start. And in all of that, of course, it’s an open question whether I’m like that because of how I’ve been shaped, or how I’m wired. Though most of what you just described was apparently part of my way of being fairly early on. I guess the important thing to know is that, for whatever reason, I was around a lot of kids much older than me. Three, five, seven years older. At the age of nine or ten that’s a massive difference.”
“Okay…”
“And being pretty clueless didn’t help. Other kids would see a fight about to start and come running. I’d be standing right beside the action looking at how the shadows were falling on the school playground, wondering which of the trees it was, seeing if I could figure it out from how the shadows moved. And be surprised when one of the kids barrelled into me because he got shoved in my direction. And the fight was on.”
“Were there a lot of fights?”
“I didn’t think so at the time. I just figured it was like that everywhere. I’ve been told it wasn’t. At least not everywhere. But we lived in a factory town. Rubber manufacturing. Meat packers. I guess we had our share of folks who lived rough. And who handed their way of rough living down to their kids. Or something. What I do know is that at the start of every school year two things would happen. We’d get a new history textbook that I’d take home the first weekend and read from cover to cover. Also there’d be some other kid who’d been failed a couple of times and who needed someone to take out his anger on. Preferably someone small. And weird. And there I’d be. Fresh meat. It would start in the fall. And usually somewhere around the beginning of winter word would get out. And one day there’d be forty kids gathered around because there was gonna be a fight. Except it wasn’t a fight. It was a beating. But they’d cheer it on anyway. I still can’t watch wrestling to this day.”
“This was at school?”
“Uh huh.”
“Where were the teachers?”
“Bullies aren’t stupid. It was always after class. Teachers were gone home. None of their business what happens in the schoolyard when their day’s done. Don’t get me wrong. There were always teachers who were good people. People who cared. But at the time you still had teachers who’d come into the business thinking that a little beat-up made a kid stronger. Some of them were angry that they couldn’t use the strap any more. How were they supposed to control kids? A few of them still did it anyway. If they thought they could get away with it. Or the ruler across the knuckles. One old lady almost got fired when some poor kid got the knuckle-treatment with a steel-edged ruler. She’d forgot the edge was there. Practically cut his fingers off. He was in grade two. And the kid was the son of some big-wig. So, yeah, she retired early. Nowadays they’d get arrested for what they were doing. Most of them got away with it. Imagine my delight when some goofball starts prattling on about the good old days. And kids nowadays being soft.”
I let the groove settle for a minute. Then I began again.
“Today they’d call it abuse. All that stuff with the kids happening to me. And they’d be right. I think the term they use is ‘peer abuse’. But you know the worst thing about being abused? You figure it’s normal. That it’s how everyone behaves. So you can find yourself passing it on. I was the oldest kid in my family, had brothers younger than me. I was an adult before I found out that their childhood memories included a solid stretch of me treating them like I was being treated at school. Eventually I woke up to what I was doing. And we’ve talked about it since, my bothers and I. That they’ve forgiven me is all the proof I need that there are good people in this world.”
I listened to the world around me. The sound of wind in the long grass by the willows at the far edge of the pond. A fish leapt out of the water and snapped at something in the air then dove back in, late afternoon sun meant you could see the mayfly it was after. It felt good to be here. And now.
I guess she could feel me looking for words. Could feel that there was another part to this. Maybe could feel that I was hesitating. Maybe I was a bit. So she opened a door. “But that’s not what Josie was talking about.”
“No.” I took a deep breath and steadied myself. Then I walked through the door my friend was holding open for me. “I was also sexualized way too early.”
“Oh no…” I could see she’d got it right away. And for once I wouldn’t have to explain what I meant. “…how old?”
“Ten.” I paused. Not to let that thought sink in. But because I wasn’t sure where to go next. Well, I knew where to go. “The details aren’t the important part.” Just maybe not how to get there. From here. Wherever here was. “And the important part is not that my childhood was taken away from me. And” I shook my head, “it’s not about who did anything to me. They lived a hard life and it took them out, now they’re gone.” Breathe. It’s about pace. “But there’s that thing about being abused.” Breathe. Trust. “You figure it’s normal. It’s how everyone behaves.” Breathe. It will not go badly this time. Trust. “So you find yourself…”
She completed the thought. “…passing it on.”
I nodded. “Not much. Not often. But enough.” I looked at her straight, so she’d know I was taking full responsibility. “Just enough to do the same kind of damage that was done to me.” I shook my head, “Never anything illegal, or unkindly meant. And sometimes it was okay, and we still laugh about it today. But sometimes they didn’t think it was okay. And today…”
“They don’t laugh about it?”
“No. No they don’t.”
I could see her thinking. Then she came to the important part. All on her own. “What do they do?”
I took another breath. Looked right into her eyes. And said it. “Hate me.”
She took that in. “And so now?”
“Now there is the passing on. And packed into that are two things. There is the… thing itself. And there is how you feel about it. And you can pass along either of those things.”
“Passing along hate?”
“There’s probably a better way of saying it. But yeah.” I wondered if maybe painting a picture would be helpful. “So let’s say that one day you will be standing at a party somewhere. And you will be watching what I do. And you say something to the random person standing beside you about something cool I play, or maybe about something funny that falls out of my mouth. And you’ll maybe say to the person beside you that you like what I do. And the person beside you will tell you exactly what they think about me. And it won’t be very pretty.”
“I’m a scientist. Sudden, ugly, opinionated interactions coming from out of nowhere are part of my business. It’s a shame. But it’s true. And I probably wouldn’t deck them to defend your honour. Though I’d probably file them away under dickhead.”
So my friend was perfectly capable of decking someone. And both noting a dickhead and filing the thought away for future reference. I kept being astonished at how much science and music had in common. Don’t get lost. Stay in the groove. We’re almost there. “Good to know. Both the filing and the decking.”
“But that’s not what Josie was taking about, is it?”
I shook my head. “No.” And breathe. One last verse. Then the chorus and we’ve made it. Trust. We’re doing this together. This is not a thing I’m doing alone. Just lay down the groove. Breathe. Trust. Speak. “Pass along hate and it takes its own form. Becomes a bullet. Becomes an arrow. Becomes a beating. Becomes a bomb. It takes on its own shape depending on where the hate lands. It has its own life. The original person who started it all may even have moved on from hating. But the hate will still be out there. Moving among people. It’s like a bullet that gets shot. The ricochet will kill you just as dead as if the shooter had perfect aim. And hate can ricochet for a long time. Centuries. Some folks think that’s just a goofy thing to say. But I know that’s exactly how it all works. And it’s not just History. Because, of course, History is made up of people. People like you. And me. And everyone who’s coming to this party tonight.”
I realized I was just riffing now. And I’d been staring at the water. Probably for a while. My eyes wandered back to my friend. She had a look on her like she was rolling a bunch of big thoughts around in her mind. The same way she did when she was doing science and working data on my rig at home. That same way Tony does just before she sings a new line that turns out to be perfect. And is gonna take us home. Probably a good thing the scientist doesn’t sing. I’d be pretty much hopeless. Unlike now.
“Have you been beaten?”
I was surprised she’d got there on her own. That was the sound of me losing another pre-conceived notion. But I nodded. “Didn’t roll me for money. Didn’t seem like a random whacko. Came out of nowhere. No explanation. But yeah. Twice. First one tried to break my fingers. Second time couple years later sent me to the hospital. I was so confused by it all that I ended up spending a serious amount of time and resources finding out who they were. And eventually, with some help from a few friends, I was able to trace them back to… someone who hated me.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“Well now, a few years ago a friend of mine was doing a big-deal sound gig in Winnipeg. The next day coupla guys beat him up pretty bad. Ended up in the hospital. Hospital called the police because there’s clearly been violence involved. Cop came to his hospital bed, him all wired up. Cop asked what happened. Buddy said these two guys beat me up because they figured I was gay. Very first words out of the cop’s mouth were, “Well are ya?” Cop decided that was reason enough. Wouldn’t write ‘em up. Was not all that long ago. Right here in Canada. So, no. Getting cops involved in this is just asking for another beating. This time from some bad apple with a badge who’s a big fan of Judge Dredd. Only ever takes his anger out on people who deserve it. He figures. And his buddies, they keep his name out of reports because there’s a thin blue line that keeps ‘em all in the good. A thin blue line that has nothing to do with keeping people safe. And everything to do with looking after your teammates. No matter what.”
“You’re speaking from experience.”
“I’m speaking from the experience of someone very dear to me. Who is now very dead.”
“From the police.”
“No. According to the reports. Offed himself. According to the reports. But I know my friend. Railed against people we both knew leaving their friends like that. The mess it left behind in the lives of everyone who cared. No. I don’t know what happened. But I know what didn’t happen.” I was still speaking quietly, I’d long ago parked any sense of self-righteousness about it. Too easy for people to use it against you. Use it as a reason to decide you’re the problem. And some people just hate problems. “That’s the long way around to answer your question. But no, I’ve never gone to the police about any of what happened to me. Not then. Not now.”
There. Alright. We’d made it all the way through. And now if she decided this was all too weird I was prepared to have my friend move on to the next part of her life. Wouldn’t blame her. My life was pretty weird. Even before you knew everything we’d just talked about.
I watched her take it all in and adjust her view of the world to accommodate the new information. I realised I was holding my breath. “So what was Josie saying?”
“Well, first of all, that’s part of my background. And that I have haters. And that sometimes those haters can gather around. Whether you know it or not. And when they do, there is every possibility things could get violent.”
“Well, based on the evidence, I guess that makes two of us.” I had no idea how to take what she’d just said. I must’ve had a look on my face like there’d been a key change I hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Were those sharps or flats? She let me spin for a few beats. And then she hit the ending. Taking me with her. “I’m glad to know you. Good to know you better. Why don’t we go on up to the house. I want to tell Josie that you’re okay. And give her a big hug to say thank you.”
Yeah, I thought, me too.
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