Gift-a-lee part 5 -- Finale

Garry Perry was awakened by the maniacal barking coming from Coloru. Looking upon the table he saw a white envelope on the coffee table and immediately walked out, storming by the Breadman and Char McCool who were walking up to the front door.

“Garry Perry, da good ‘fo about us,” said the Breadman in a voice that sounded like 4am chirping birds.

“He where?” demanded Garry Perry.

Both Char McCool and the Breadman looked lost.

Garry Perry turned around, his heart beating a mad beat until he looked up and saw the pure adulation in the Breadman and Char McCool’s eyes.

“Da’ ‘fo id good,” repeated the Breadman.

“We are getting married,” said Char McCool.

A gun blast went off from the other end of Dyke Rd. The invading aficionados had arrived again.

Garry Perry pinched his nut sack three times hard and wondered how long this dream would last.

Gift-a-lee part 3

Inside his home he was surrounded by the pictures of Clay Biffley and it would have been hard for sloughians blame him if he spent a considerable portion of the rest of his life thinking of his friend stowed away on Dinner Plate Island. He leaned back in his chair when Coloru began to bark. He could not will himself to shut his dog up.

There were so many pictures and they seemed to form an inconsistent wallpaper pattern. Another dream that was so real it had created photographs all over his wall. Had life with Clay Biffley been only a wonderful “restin’ da peeps” or was it more? In the dark milieu that could that man have possibly mean to Garry Perry. As he closed his eyes he imagined his photographs and they moved click after click, growing in to a movie that kept repeating.

Dark, gloomy light peered through his front window and painted over the wall with shadows from the slough. His eyes followed tree branches that reached from the bedroom door to the framed picture of Garry Perry, Clay Biffley and Coloru taken on a fishing trip up the Fraser River in 2002. That was the day Clay Biffley found Garry Perry’s Gone Fishin’ hat at a flea market in one of those copycat Fraser Valley farming towns. Clay Biffley told Garry Perry that the lady who sold him the hat promised that the person who wore the hat would have very good luck that day. However, Clay Biffley spent all day wearing the hat and didn’t catch as much as a summer breeze but Garry Perry, who was starting the long march to cue ball/Mr Clean status at that time, was catching fish like they wanted out of the water. Upon seeing Garry Perry’s day end total, Clay Biffley handed Garry Perry the hat and told him the story of the lady at the flea market.

“Bud a ya no catch a thing,” said Garry Perry.

“Tis not a thing to catch, but you had-a luck tis day, no? Id be no more dan slough-doo to keep id,” reasoned Clay Biffley.

Clay Biffley told Garry Perry that he wasn’t surprised Garry Perry hadn’t noticed his catch count because it seemed like he was lost in some paradise located who knows where, just no one could tell, but wherever it was, there wasn’t a flight that ever seemed to get him back on time.

“Fo shu, ho can dat be Clay Biffley,” wondered Garry Perry.

“Surely dunno but to be da safe I tell you a gift-a-lee, yeah? When you feel buzzy to da dream pinchy-da-nut sack three times. Da dream over den,” explained Clay Biffley, making slow pinching movements with his fingers.

He looked up at Clay Biffley’s hands and witnessed them dive in like gophers on a golf course, rummaging and purging until they unearthed something. Clay Biffley’s face became something fierce, scrunching three times real hard. He then pulled out his hand and smiled confidently he had shared a deeper understanding.

Upon the example, Garry Perry plunged his hand down deep and began to squeeze his testicles a little too tight, each squeeze getting tighter until the last squeeze made him yelp in pain as a scalded dog would after being kicked in the ribs by his master.

“Wada ya do Garry Perry,” laughed ferociously Clay Biffley. “You take a gift-a-lee and make it a gim-a-now.”

“Gim-a-now?” wondered Garry Perry.

“In livey we got two things: gift-a-lees and gim-a-nows. Gift-a-lees are good-ah things, given to you. Gim-a-nows be a bad thing that trickees give you but is no gift-a-lee but instead work. You think it s gift-a-lee, the giver belees id a gift-a-lee but id be just yet more work.”

Garry Perry nodded his head and pinched again and again and again…

“Wooo.. Waooo!” Coloru barked from the porch. Garry Perry had been a sleep for a few minutes, or was it hours, he could not tell but his testicles hurt something bad.

“Eeeuugh, Coloru, wada ya do today, boya?” Garry Perry got up and walked to the door – BANG! BANG! BANG! “Coloru?”

It wasn't Coloru at all. It was Billy Bulkley and by some measure of elaborate slough-doo he was already sitting on Gary Perry's couch.

Gift-a-lee part 2

“Id a bee-ya a swelladee ‘tory Char McCool,” said Garry Perry with an uneasy smile on his face. “You speak-a swelladee.” And he walked back home leaving the group behind.

The Breadman walked over to Char McCool. Tears had pooled under her eyes and rested there giving her a helpless look.

“Finish be a udder ‘bage, not sad at all,” said the Breadman trying not to cry himself even though his voice crackled.

“Was missy Clay Biffley da udder day when he would ’ave…” he trailed off some more and then just gave up trying to be needlessly strong.

Char McCool held his hand and walked him over to the Horseshoe Slough trail for privacy.

The rest of the procession was still milling about and staring at the greenish Slough. Some were remarking that the water was still bubbling for no reason and others said it wasn’t bubbling enough. Soon they all floated away back in to their flats to a chorus of “Muddy Flatters” from the Lulu joggers.

****************************************************************

The grey soup in the sky had given way to a milky black evening, and the late afternoon stir had given way to an early evening calm which simmered over the slough. Often, this would be the way before the late night invasion of the narcotic aficionados, or as they were known "da Narcosy".

Garry Perry was back inside the “Dinner Plate Island School” home and back to his red Salmon Fishin’ hat. He thought long and hard about the reasons these things were happening to him. He wanted to know why Clay Biffley, his closest of friends, had been taken from him.

When Clay Biffley returned to Finn Slough, Garry Perry was never told how he had died, where he had been found and why they brought him back. He did not ask anyone any questions when the body was returned but instead began planning the very important Finn Slough ritual of giving the body to the slough. It was a busy time too, one could not be left to allow those who did not truly know Clay Biffley well to plan his final day and it would do him no good to dwell on facts when the only one that mattered was his good friend had died and needed proper sloughian respect. It had to be done by someone who cared for him because if not the slouhgians could quite well fall in to the trap of muddy flatting and toss Clay Biffley naked in to a bush somewhere to be found by the police or worse yet, the joggers. He could not allow sanity to slip out of the hands of the sloughians, especially now.

There had been recent talk of kicking the sloughians out of the Slough citing their odd behaviour. Rumours continued to swirl that they were the sickest zombie freaks who ate dog hearts and made cats fart – yes somewhere it was possible the truth had been misconstrued.

Clay Biffley would never have allowed the slough to fall out of his hands and losing him had definitely torn the fabric of slough society but Garry Perry would not allow his hands to tear the final stitches by allowing Clay Biffley’s body to be found decaying on Dyke rd by some drug dealer and user during one of their dealings; no, not his hands, which held the lines of life for not just him but the sloughians as a whole.

However, Clay Biffley had said in the past three months that his biggest worry of all was that Garry Perry would make dreams his reality and never make reality his dreams. He feared that he would spend time “restin’ da peeps ‘tead of working da arms.”

In his hands he saw lines of memories and he thought heavily of Clay Biffley who had taught him the final speech that was only to be read on the final day:

“Where once lifey sprung from the begin, you shoulda slow to be one with da Finn,” he whispered with remorse. His voice had wilted and his lips had fallen low, his eyes felt swollen.

Gift-a-lee

The procession made its way down Dyke road like a slow applause for a movie star. Only the movie had just ended for Clay Biffley. Today was digging day. Today was it for him. Today the movie ended and he was a gift to the slough.

Garry Perry left his cap at home remembering that it was not a good show of respect to have your hat sitting on your head in front of the deceased. That would be wrong. Even Clay Biffley could not forgive that.

All of Finn Slough was out on the street as a soupy coloured grey fog had rolled in sometime in the morning and had refused to leave. No one seemed to have mentioned it as a problem but the way every one in the procession kept looking upwards with those “oh fug-a-loo” eyes there was certainly an appearance of weather regret.

Birds on the street stood without bobbing their heads. The winds did not blow through the reeves. The Lulu Island joggers slowed down and walked.

The procession itself was clumsy if for no other reason then the joggers running on the road would blatantly rumble in to the crowd saying “get out of my way”, and “move it muddy flatters”. But that was to be expected and so the pall bearers, which included Garry Perry, eventually began moving in a zigzag motion to accommodate the joggers, who while not moving fast, were still defiant. The zigzag was not a small feat as even in death the enormity of Clay Biffley weighed heavy on the ragtag group’s hands. Char McCool said in fact it was Clay Biffley’s soul stuck in the coffin box that made it so though Billy Bulkley had his doubts that anyone soul could be stuck in a wooden box.

Billy Bulkley was one of the pall bearers and had known the man quite well during his life. He would often arrive to Clay Biffley’s home with a pack of cigarettes and a sparking topic of conversation that often burned until the early morning. Garry Perry didn’t know him too well, though. He would often be arriving to Clay Biffley’s flat when Garry Perry was leaving and would often be leaving when Garry Perry was arriving. They were cordial but not friends.

The only biographical information Garry Perry knew about Billy Bulkley was that he was a Simpson Indian from around Prince Rupert.

Prince Rupert itself seemed so much like a mystery. Garry Perry knew that it was so far up north that it almost touched Alaska and that it rained even more there then it did down here. He thought he had read a book that told him about how many people lived up there on only fish and beer. He wondered how anyone could live eating like that. The lifestyle and distance seemed so far away that Garry Perry thought you would have to take a spaceship to get there and once you did it would be difficult to ever leave.

He had no idea how Billy Bulkley came to live in the slough. But he was glad his big hands were on the other side of the coffin because he felt so depressed he wasn’t sure he could make it the whole way to the greenish slough finish line.

Coming to the edge of the cliff that looked over the slough, something strange happened. Billy Bulkley turned his face away from the water, as if looking at it would bring him great pain. He started walking backwards and soon the lack of coordination from Billy Bulkley created a collective stumble motion and all six pall bearers tripped and lost grip of Clay Biffley’s coffin, which subsequently tumbled to the ground – face down.

“Uh, sorry-a-pology,” Billy Bukley said meekly but he wouldn’t look at the slough.

Char McCool raised her arms pointing her index fingers upwards like an maestro before the final gusto. It was well speculated that Char McCool loved having all the eyes on her because it reassured her that there was some merit to her slough-doo even if the rest of the sloughians believed they only listened to humour her. The other five pall bearers picked up the casket in concert and awited the maestro’s orders, who had been chosen to lead the ceremony as her slough-doo was the closest thing to a religious figure they sloughians had. She was also the only one who seemed to get the final speech right.

“Let me tell you, loud man true. You lived a life, quiet in Slough. Where once a life sprang from the begin, you shall slow to become one with the Finn. Sparks fly from all of us, from the fire of life, but we all burn out when sparks become ash, when the taste has no spice. So fear not as we place you in the water that cools. You have joined seabed of great minds not a weak bucket of sad fools.”

And with that they disposed the coffin abruptly in to the water as if Clay Biffley was no more than an old tool that had outlived its use, a screw that had been stripped of its edges. Even the Lulu Island joggers stopped their fast remarks for a brief moment.

A gift of love - act 3

Margaret sat in silence in the porcelain covered bathroom her mother had loved so much. It was a clean place to such a dirty task. She slipped the thingy under what used to be her warm soft place that now seemed so cold and hard she hated it but she went ahead as she had to know.

When she looked down it was just as she thought – another defective device. It read positive when she had bought the damn thing to read negative. She yelled at it to work…

“Are you alright in there Margaret,” yelled her mother askance.

“Work…work…work…damn it…”

“Margaret honey...”

Margaret opened the door slowly and peered out. Her tears were heavy and heart was hollow and if ever she needed a mother she would need one now.

“Mom,”

“Yes Margaret,”

“I’m…I’m fucking pregnant.”

Margaret’s mother pulled her in close and began to tear up as well. She grabbed Margaret’s shoulders sternly and lifted her chin.

“This is wonderful news. This is a gift.”

Margaret lifted her stomach. Her faint smile said much more than her words would. Nothing had brought mom and daughter together like the knowledge that she would be a single lesbian mommy by Christmas.

A gift of love - act 2

The berry field was dark and filled with drunken teens, two of them being one half of the best romance in a fictional world.

Ned Bryant had brought a stereo and two speakers that boomed triumphantly the sounds of Tupac, NWA and Metallica. He was a tall boy, handsome with defiant brown eyes and long black hair the colour of crow feathers. Most girls thought he was too difficult to like, even to love because he would challenge anyone on anything. Most teen girls like boys who didn’t think too much, who wanted a lot and who drank more than they talked. That was Surrey for ya.

But Margaret and Stacy loved hanging out with Ned because he was not bothered by their lesbian lives and because he was so challenging. He would ask how come lesbians said they hated penis and then used dildos shaped like a penis.

Stacy would answer that she liked a penis that was neon blue and until she met a man that had that particular colour she would stay a woman-wanter.

“But I have a magnificent dick!” said Ned.

“But it’s your balls that are blue my dear,” quipped Stacy.

Margaret kept looking at Ned and wondering why on earth he wanted to sleep with a lesbian so badly? He certainly was not an ugly boy by any standards and there must be a girl who would easily slip off the cotton between her thighs for a trip down prom memory making lane. Her eyes kept searching him for a physical clue to his mental make up and all that she could discover without words was that he was a curious fucker.

“What is the deal Ned?” asked Margaret.

“I love this song…”

“No, what is the deal with you? You always argue about nothing like you are fighting someone else who is long dead.”

“Shut-the-fuck-up,” said Ned, his head now searching the fields.

The music had seemed to become louder and it felt to Margaret that Stacy had been gone for too long. Yet her attention remained on Ned, his boyish charm heightening a certain curiosity in herself that she seemed to have missed somewhere.

As he began to swing his head to ‘Off to Never Neverland’ she could see the raw power in his physique. His body moved like a mad accordionist drunk on the power of carnival lore, tempting the clowns, public and bears to stop what they were doing and fall in love with the tune he was playing. Enter night, enter love. Somehow, Margaret fell off to never neverland and she was not sure just why she was there.

What she understood was “Shut-the-fuck-up”, in all its ridiculousness, became a sort of call to inebriated lust. It was everything she had wanted to say to her mother but hadn’t. It was everything she had wanted to say to Stacy when she was under her in the bedroom. It was everything she wanted to believe in. And it came from this boy whose face had never worn a moustache.

Ned handed her another bottle of beer and she chugged it back hard, leaving little to remember.

“You know Margaret I always thought you were alright for a dyke,” said Ned. “I mean, I’d do you. And not just because of the challenge but because you don’t where army boots and don’t listen to Ani DeFanco and you don’t smell like months old cheese. You have a lot of don’ts for a dyke.”

Margaret kept throwing back the beer. A lot of don’ts for a lesbian angered her. She would and could do as good as any straight girl if given half the chance, and feeling colder, moved to sit on the pick up back door and sat beside Ned staring at him, smiling.

“Really, really look great,” said Ned.

Margaret didn’t feel anxious around Ned. She liked his smell of teenage male shamelessness – a stirring desperate mixture of Aqua Velva and sweat. She leaned on him.

A few moments passed and then Ned began to run his palm against her back. The strength of that motion made her weak and she felt that she was to let go. But she held on tight not wanting to give in. What was she doing?

“It’s ok, if you don’t want to?”

Margaret began to think of what did she not want to? Did he actually believe there was light at then end of this love tunnel?

But his hand kept pursuing and whether it was the alcohol or the dim light she was not able to see nor could she muster up the defense necessary to block off his moves. So for some unknown reason to her she went with it.

Kissing Ned was like being held to a vice, the squeeze hurt. The music was blaring behind her but this new thing was making her deaf. The whole world around her seemed to have been muted and her senses seemed to have piled in her lips, feeling only Ned and his worthless teenage lips. Out of curiosity or out of sympathy, she wanted it to continue like with one simple kiss the world was turned in to her world and she was god.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to” was in chorus with “Shut-the-fuck-up” and as his hands felt there way in to her pants she “Shut-the-fuck-up” because it was “ok if you don’t want to” but she did want to, dearly try what she had never tried.

As the pacing of their searching picked up the lights turned off, the music went mute and the night ended.


The noon sun glared on the back of the truck. Margaret awoke in a pool of beer cans and cigarette ash and she was not certain where she was until she looked up to see the squished berries and sunken footprints in the muddy field. She felt like shit.

It her like a winter gust, she had slept with Ned Bryant that night. It was not the way she had pictured the first time having lesbian sex. In that it wasn’t took some time to register and the horror of that realisation made her wince so hard her face felt like it would eat itself without the help of the mouth, having done quite enough already, thank you very much.

“Here you’ll be needing these,” said a female voice as wayward panties made their way back home.

It was Stacy and the look in her eyes could not have even begun to describe the hurt that she felt. She walked Margaret back to her car and said nothing. She did not even look at Margaret.

When she dropped her off at Margaret’s home, she used no words to say goodbye, the peeling of her tires said enough.

Entering her home, Margaret’s face was dry as if somehow a hurricane of emotion had veered off course but there was no one left to witness the good turn of fortunes. It was an empty feeling.

A gift of love - act 1

Margaret’s mom found out Margaret was a lesbian when they were at the dress shop looking for a prom dress for the big night. Her mom asked her if she had in mind who she would be going with and when her mom asked who, Margaret said it was someone she loved very much. That left Margaret’s mom in a heap flush as she became very hungry for info about the boy she would be going with. What was he like? Did he drive a car? Was he tall, was he smart, did he play sports,was he in to art – what-what-what!?

“No mom,” is all Margaret answered and tried to leave it there.

But mom pressed further and asked her if this boy did not have any of such qualities what, pray tale did he have?

“He doesn’t have a penis,” Margaret said while twirling in a magnificent blue dress.

Obviously this left mom a little confused. If this boy didn’t have a penis how on earth could Margaret and he copulate and eventually have children. She told Margaret she wasn’t sure she wanted her to date a eunuch.

“She isn’t a eunuch mom,” Margaret said. The flush heap was now a ghost white. Mom’s baby girl liked other moms' baby girls and that was no small thing. In fact it seemed to have cost a lot of money because as soon as mom registered this little fact, the till closed at mom’s bank and suddenly she could no longer purchase a dress for Margaret’s prom.

Not being able to attend prom would have been a disaster but Stacy was so in love with Margaret that they pledged to get drunk at Stacy’s home, whose parents long ago assumed that their baby girl liked other baby girls.

And so prom night was a great. Sublime bounced off the walls that were dressed like a clubbing paradise with intermittent blue and green Christmas lights illuminating the room, and martini glasses on Stacy’s night stand beside a bottle of vodka and vermouth that illuminated their thirst. They both liked dry martinis but Margaret loved dry martinis.

They devised a plan to announce their own winners for prom night and wouldn’t you know it one of them was always the winner.

Heck, each announcement they made was met with a congratulatory martini and soon the announcements got pretty ridiculous –

Best butch dancer in a comedy role: Stacy Sherman!

Best non-attendance in a Home Ec class: Margret Rollings!

Best romance in a fictional life: Margaret Rollings and Stacy Sherman!

It kept going like this until the winner was Margaret who had soundly drank three quarters of the bottle and slipped a bit on the rug. Tumbling over her was Stacy, who faded in to her and kisser her – that kiss feeling more like a big hug on her lips then a deep embrace.

Margaret soon thought of being bad and having her fingers roll up Stacy’s leg, they had never traveled such distances, and visiting that soft warm place she had wanted play in. The thought of being closer to Stacy made her very anxious and she closed her eyes thinking of doing what she felt she needed to do.

Stacy never gave her the chance and got up to go to the bathroom.

Alone, Margaret could feel her panties were damp. She got up and took them off, slowly examining the centre where her own soft warm place rested and she blushed at the sight of this. Hearing approaching footsteps, she hid the panties under a pillow on the bed and straightened her dress.

“James just called. There is a wicked after-party happening in one hour in a berry field. What do you think?”

Not wanting out of the room, Margaret nodded her head passively and poured another martini for herself.