Days by moonlight Page 8
seemed less grave, I began to wonder if the farts of strangers
were harder to tolerate than those of our intimates. I eventually
put it down to cuisine. Strangers did not eat as we did, so perhaps
68
their flatulence was more noxious to us. When I put this idea to
my father, he was surprised that I’d spent so much time thinking
about it. But he made things worse by asking me what would
happen if we started eating the cuisines of others. Would we
come to accept, say, Macedonian farting? I now know the answer
to his question is no. After all, I sometimes find it difficult to
bear my own gas, let alone that unleashed by others. But I spent
quite a bit of time puzzling his question through.
By further coincidence, no sooner had I recalled this conver-
sation with my father than Mr. Henderson himself farted,
brutishly and at length.
– Christ! he said. That was a good one.
That, you’d have thought, would confirm my negative impres-
sion of the man. But it didn’t. Tall and heavyset though he was,
there was something delicate and fine about him. It wasn’t just
that he whispered, either. (Though this did make everything he
said sound intimate.) His hair – greying along the sides, black
elsewhere – stuck up in spots, so there was something untamed
and vulnerable about him. Besides which, Mr. Henderson was
as generous and attentive as Mrs. Kelly or the Flynns had been,
making certain we had what we wanted to eat and drink. The
more I knew him, the more I came to feel as if, on first impression,
I’d mistaken a dancing bear for a marauding one.
When the air had cleared, Professor Bruno turned to the
matter that interested him.
– What do you remember about John Skennen? he asked.
– What do you want to know? answered Mr. Henderson.
– Why don’t we start with his disappearance? said the profes-
sor. Do you know anything about it?
– Whose disappearance? asked Mr. Henderson. John’s? I
don’t know why people think he disappeared or died or whatever.
He’s around here all the time.
Professor Bruno’s left hand made what looked like an invol-
untary movement, twitching as if he meant to grab a glass that
69
wasn’t there. Keeping his excitement – if it was excitement – in
check, he said
– When was the last time you saw him?
– Day before last, I think, said Mr. Henderson. He’s around
from time to time. Of course, you won’t see him today. John
hates the Indigenous Parade. He can’t stand the crowds or the
stupidity.
Having heard so much about the parade – so much that made
it seem a bad thing – I was curious to hear how someone from
Coulson’s Hill might describe it.
– What, I asked, is the Indigenous Parade?
And Mr. Henderson was kind enough to answer my question.
As with so many things in our beautiful country, the Indige-
nous Parade was the product of a committee. It was also the
product of an era and a longing. Like most Canadians, the people
of Coulson’s Hill sometimes noticed that the Indigenous popu-
lations of Canada had been mistreated in any number of ways
and for quite some time. Most felt it was not enough to simply
notice this. Justice demanded restitution, even if only a symbolic
one. So, when Councillor Bergin put forward the idea of an
“amusing but serious” form of symbolic restitution, the rest of
the town council were receptive. “What if,” the councillor asked,
“we had a parade and allowed Indigenous people to throw toma-
toes – or any soft fruit – at the country’s founding fathers?”
When Bergin added that there is a Spanish town that holds
yearly tomato fights, the rest of the council gave their enthusiastic
consent, it being common knowledge that European traditions
are generally prestigious.
For the first Indigenous Parade, various townsfolk dressed as
the “Fathers of Confederation” – John A. Macdonald, Adams
George Archibald, et al. – and their families. These hundred or
so people were distributed over twelve flatbed trucks and driven
up and down the main road while the rest of the town’s population
– and some who’d come from as far away as Markham – dressed
70
in “Indigenous costumes” – eagle-feather headdresses, ceremonial
beads, moccasins, etc. – and threw tomatoes (largely) and rotten
plums at “George Brown,” “Alexander Campbell,” and all the rest
of those who’d betrayed the Indigenous population of Canada.
The parade was, economically speaking, a great success.
To begin with, it attracted tourists. It attracted so many that
they taxed the town’s modest resources. A number of visitors
had to go to Nobleton, Schomberg, or East Gwillimbury to find
accommodations. For three days, there were lineups to get into
Coulson’s Hill’s greasy spoon (Frank’s Charbroiled Grill) and
its one pub (the Rebarbative Moose). There were lineups to use
public washrooms. And stores sold out of Coulson’s Hill memo-
rabilia – in particular, a T-shirt with a picture of a highway inter-
section in the middle of nowhere, beneath which were the words
“Coulson’s Hill, the Possibilities Are Endless.’
In other ways, of course, the parade was a disaster. The use
of sacred native symbols was roundly condemned by Indigenous
people from around the country – or, at least, by the few who
actually heard about the parade. But so was the idea that Indige-
nous people should be the only ones allowed to throw tomatoes
at the Fathers of Confederation. Where, for instance, was the
restitution for the Chinese who’d died building the railroad across
the country? Or the Japanese who’d been driven from their homes?
And how could Coulson’s Hill, the town, say they ‘stood with
the Indigenous’ while enjoying the privileges that had come from
Confederation? Then, too, there was the uncomfortable – and
entirely unforeseen – fact that the French Fathers – George-
Étienne Cartier, Jean-Charles Chapais, Hector-Louis Langevin,
Étienne-Paschal Taché – and their families were more vigorously
pelted with tomatoes than were the English Fathers.
Politically, the first Indigenous Parade was a debacle.
But a committee with an altruistic and profitable idea is like a
pit bull with a cloth mouse. The Coulson’s Hill town council
chose to reform its parade rather than cancel it. So, during the
71
second parade, no ceremonial headdresses or symbols sacred to
Indigenous people were permitted. Those who threw tomatoes
wore buckskin britches and moccasins. Their tops were a variety
of shirts and blouses. Space was made for those who represented
other groups with legitimate grievances. Some wore blackface,
there being so few Black people in the area. And those repre-
senting “other grievances” showed this by throwing rotten fruit
or cooked bok choy. More: those townsfo
lk who dressed as the
French Fathers were not distinguished from the English Fathers.
That is, there were no fleurs-de-lys on any of the trucks. And,
finally, the consumption of alcohol was discouraged, the parade
being about justice – even if it was only symbolic – not drink.
This second parade was also a mercantile boon, bringing in
as many tourists and as much money as the first. And, like the
first, it earned the town serious criticism, at least some of which
might have been anticipated. For instance, any number of
Indigenous people were insulted by the idea that they would
stoop to such childish violence or that throwing tomatoes at
men, women, and children dressed in nineteenth-century
costume was any kind of restitution. On the other hand, a
dozen or so young men from the Curve Lake and Alderville
First Nations did participate. Being Indigenous, they did not
dress in any special way. And they seemed to enjoy throwing
tomatoes at the costumed Fathers. This caused real anger among
the white people dressed as the Indigenous. Though the idea
of Indigenous people throwing tomatoes at the Fathers of
Confederation was appealing, the fact of it, the reality of actual
Indigenous men throwing real tomatoes at representations of
the Fathers, was offensive to many in Coulson’s Hill. As the
attack was no longer altogether symbolic, it brought out passion-
ate – not to say violent – argument and passionate defence of
the underappreciated Caucasians who’d done so much to make
the country what it is. The Fathers of Confederation, when you
thought about it, had made their own (posthumous) humiliation
72
possible. And that – the constitutional possibility of humiliation
– was something worth defending.
The least you could say about the Coulson’s Hill’s town coun-
cil (largely Liberal) is that its members were persistent. Over the
years, they tweaked or changed the rules to accommodate the
criticism they’d got. For the third parade, for instance, signs were
put up forbidding the participation of Indigenous people in the
Indigenous Parade, unless they wished to dress as Fathers of
Confederation. This led, a few years later, to the ‘baffling’ seventh
parade in which a number of Indigenous elders, dressed in cere-
monial costume, defiantly stood on the trucks meant for the
Fathers of Confederation while citizens representing the Indige-
nous apprehensively threw tomatoes at them.
Many thought this seventh parade would bury the whole
thing beneath its avalanche of meanings. But it didn’t. Coulson’s
Hill’s town council persisted, and the parade we saw – the
eleventh – was yet another refinement of the original idea.
It was a beautiful afternoon. The sky was a consistent and
unperturbed blue, looking like a postcard of sky. At the entrance
to town, we were asked if we had tomatoes of our own or if we
wished to buy some. We were politely frisked to ensure we had
no Indigenous artifacts on us – moccasins, for instance. Mr.
Henderson generously paid for a bag of rotten tomatoes and
then we were given blue sheets with which to cover ourselves,
blue being a sacred colour. The sheets, which descended to our
ankles, had eye and mouth holes cut in them and they were held
in place by bolo ties whose clasps were red plastic circles.
Maybe it was the day – almost quiet enough to hear crickets
– but I found the Eleventh Annual Indigenous Parade peculiar.
At least, it was not what I expected. All along the main street, on
both sides, men, women, and children – each covered by their
own blue sheet – lined up on the sidewalk in front of the town’s
stores and small businesses. I thought the spectators were unusu-
ally silent, until I realized that their words were muffled and their
73
hearing partially impeded by the sheets they wore. Most of them
held paper bags in front of them, filled, I assumed, with tomatoes
or rotten fruit.
There was a kind of excitement as the trucks came into view.
The flatbeds were identical – fifty feet long, eight feet wide –
with white aprons. On each of the twelve flatbeds: six tall figures
in blue sheets, six short figures in blue sheets. Those on the
flatbeds were meant to represent the thirty-six Fathers of Confed-
eration, their wives, and their children. Not all the Fathers had
had two children. Most had had more. But, in parades past, the
crowds had thrown more tomatoes at the families with greater
numbers of children, on the understanding that the French had
had larger families than the English in the old days.
The spectators, beneath their blue sheets, enthusiastically
threw tomatoes at the blue-sheeted people on the flatbeds. The
tomatoes – a local variety known as Medicine Heart – left their
bright red pulp in a kind of low wave along the hems of their
sheets, few of the tomatoes hitting anyone on the trucks above
the knees. Then, the trucks turned around and passed through
town a second time and, once again, the blue-sheeted figures
were pelted with tomatoes by blue-sheeted celebrants.
And that was the Eleventh Annual Indigenous Parade done.
After we’d sat down in the Rebarbative Moose, we were told
that this was the best parade the town had ever held. More than
that, most of those in the pub were convinced that this parade
proved them morally superior to the people of Nobleton who,
for entertainment, endangered women and children. I myself
had a difficult time judging the relative moral densities of Noble-
ton and Coulson’s Hill. Was it virtuous to burn down poor
people’s homes, having given them homes in the first place?
Was it noble to wear blue sheets and throw tomatoes at people
who also wore blue sheets? Both events – the parade and the
house burning – were founded in notions of justice, but both
seemed perverse.
74
– John would agree with you, said Mr. Henderson. He calls
both of them displays of power, not goodwill.
The Rebarbative Moose was done up in the faux-English or
faux-Irish style of pubs across the province. The bar was stained
wood, as were the bar stools and most of the tables. Behind the
bar, there was a picture of Prince Charles and his consort, Camilla.
Beside the picture was a clock that looked like an owl with its
eyes wide open. The pub’s name was meant to suggest England.
At least, it sounded English to its owner, a Flemish immigrant
who was convinced the word rebarbative was Shakespearean.
We – Mr. Henderson, Professor Bruno, and I – sat at a table
near the centre of the Moose. All around us, men and women
drank a local cider known as “amber mole” – so named because,
according to the waitress, “if you drink too much of it, you won’t
care what hole you’re in.” Her words brought cheers from the
tables around us. Mr. Henderson paid for our pints. But when
the cider came, Professor Bruno p
ushed his glass toward me.
– I’m sorry, he said, but I’m not allowed alcohol. My kidneys
are giving me trouble. Alfie’s young. He’ll be happy to drink mine.
He smiled at me, and, in that moment, I understood that it
wasn’t the alcohol that troubled him but, rather, the cider itself.
The professor had evidently tasted it before. And after my first
mouthful I understood why he didn’t want to repeat the experi-
ence. The cider tasted as if apple juice had been strained through
dirty socks.
– How do you like it? Mr. Henderson asked.
– That’s hard to say, I answered.
– Well, drink up, he said. I can’t stand drinking alone. It
reminds me of my ex-wife.
I couldn’t decide how to drink the cider. The faster I drank,
the faster I’d get over the unpleasantness. But when I drink
quickly, I tend to get drunk, which makes it harder to turn down
more. The thing is, I didn’t want to get drunk, because the Moose
had an unpleasant atmosphere. It felt as if all the pub’s patrons
75
were aware of our presence and weren’t happy about it. I drank
slowly, though this meant, with every sip, I was haunted by the
thought of someone rubbing their socks in my face.
As it turned out, our presence was irritating to the Moose’s
patrons. Professor Bruno resembled a person who was disliked
in Coulson’s Hill: Bob Grenville, a man from Nobleton who’d
seduced and impregnated a number of young women in the
town. The seduction and impregnation were not what people
held against him. What they couldn’t forgive was that Grenville
had, in a drunken rage, burned down the town’s post office – a
nineteenth-century wooden manse that had been lovingly
preserved – because he resented that the constant demands for
child support he received inevitably bore the stamp of the Coul-
son’s Hill post office.
Still, all went more or less well until, after drinking a few
pints of cider, Mr. Henderson went off to the washroom. As
soon as he’d gone, a man approached our table.
– The hell you doing here? he asked.
The pub was quiet.
The man, who wore a red baseball cap that said Massey Fergu-
son, swore at the professor.
– You piece-a-shit building burner, he said. Go back to
Nobleton.
– I’m from around Nobleton, said Professor Bruno, but I’ve