January 21, 2010

• My First Collaborator

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  My mother passed away today. 

  I found this story she wrote about me when I was four years old.  It was something she composed as an assignment for a creative writing course she was taking while we were living in California.  She got a lot of flak for it but I think its a great story and surprisingly relevant today considering that she was writing in 1963.  I was also struck how much her work has influenced mine.

  Goodbye Mom.  Thank you.  I love you.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  THE LITTLE ALIEN

   

   

              A long time ago when he was very little he saw a flag for the first time.  He was bouncing on the sofa, humming to himself while he waited for the cartoons to come on television, when suddenly the test pattered disappeared.  He saw instead a big Maple Leaf flag blowing in the breeze, and he heard stirring march music.  All the flag he saw tiny pictures – a tall building with a clock in a tower, oil wells, wheat fields, tall mountains, Mounties on horseback, soldiers marching and aeroplanes in formation flying overhead.  It was exciting!  He jumped to his feet and marched around the room, swinging his arms and stamping his feet.  Every day after that he watched for the flag.  Every day he saw it.

              One day his sister, Margaret, who was home from school, watched with him.  When the flag came and the marching music started she said:

              “No, you don’t march when you hear that song.  You stand at attention, like this.”  She sang words to the music and he listened.  The next day when the flag picture came and the music played he stood tall and sang as loudly as he could.  His mother came from the kitchen and her eyes were laughing.

              “Not ‘O Can A Duck’ Son.  It’s ‘O Canada!’  Can-a-da.  That’s the name of our country.”

              What’s country? Is it a flag?  Is it a clock building with a tower, a wheatfield, an oil well?  Is it Mounties on horseback, soldiers marching?  The little boy wondered.

              He’d had his own little flag once when he was three.  The Queen of England came to visit and they went to visit her.  Before the bands played and the parade began a soldier climbed on top of a high building and unfurled a big flag.  When he stood at attention to it, the little boy wanted to up there with the soldier, but they wouldn’t let him.  His father held his hand tightly, and his mother told him not to fuss but to watch and wave his little flag for the Queen when she rode by in her shiny car.  All he saw was a lady with a pretty hat, smiling and waving a gloved hand in his direction.  He still wanted to be up on the building with the flag, standing at attention.

              Once they had a cake on Canada’s birthday – no candles, just his little flag in the middle of the white frosting.  When his birthday came he got a bag of plastic Canadian soldiers.  Sometimes when he played with them he let one of the infantrymen carry his little flag.

              Then his father went away for a while to California, and when he came back he brought him a little pop gun.  His father said, “Next year we’re all going to California for a year.”  The boy was glad.  It must be nice there, he decided.  That was where his father got the pop gun.

              Winter came and it was so cold that he couldn’t play outside.  His father had to shove pathways through the high drifts nearly every day.  “This is the year we should be in California!” he exclaimed between puffs.

              Then in the spring after the snow went and there was lots of water and mud outside to slosh around in, his mother started to put things in boxes.  One day all the boxes were loaded into the car and they all squeezed in around them.  Last of all his mother handed him his bag of plastic army men to hold.  When they drove away they waved goodbye to the cluster of neighbours gathered in their backyard, and his sisters sang a song about going to California.

              They stopped to visit his grandparents on the way.  His grandfather who liked to tease said, “Oh, you’ll get down that promised land of ‘milk and honey’ and forget about Canada.”  His grandfather said funny things sometimes. 

              They travelled for a long time, by wheatfields and oil wells, and through the high mountains.  Then one day they came to a place called the border.  There was a building with his flag above, and the man there just smiled, counted them, and waved them on.  Nearby there was another building with a different flag.  His father went inside with this briefcase full of papers, and stayed there for a long time.  When he came back to the car another man in a uniform came with him.  The man looked at everyone, wrote things down, and asked, “Any fruits?  Any vegetables?”

              Then he let them go.

              His father said, “Well, we are now in the United States of America.”  It didn’t look different.  He and Janie looked out the back window of the station wagon and waved goodbye to Canada. 

              After many days his father said, “We’re just about there.”  The promised land looked just like Canada.

              Their house was waiting for them.  The next morning he found some children to play with.  One day they played army and he took out his little plastic men.  Roger, the boy down the street, called them “Kooks!”  and killed them all.  He ran to his mother screaming, “Mama, Canadians are so good guys, aren’t they? Tell Roger!”

              When he sent to kindergarten he saw two flags in the schoolyard.  One had stars and stripes and the other had big brown bear.  School was fun most days.  His teacher knew lots of things but she didn’t know that there was freedom in Canada.  She said that America was the home of the free.

              Life was different in wintertime.  There was no snow and he didn’t need mittens.  There were days and days of rain and he wore his new yellow raincoat and southwester hat.  Sometimes when dense fog hung like a thick curtain the street lights were soft and muted.  On Christmas he and his mother heard a meadow lark sing.

              “That’s a different kind of Christmas carol,” his mother said.

              During the Christmas holidays he watched television, and he hear a man say in a stern voice, “All aliens must be registered at their local post office before January 31^st.”

              “What are aliens,” he asked.

              His father explained, ending, “We are aliens.”

              “Will it hurt to be registered?” he then asked.  “Is it something like being inoculated?” His father told him not to worry, that he would take care of it.

              He went to a new school after the holidays, so new that there weren’t any flagpoles in the school grounds.  Then his teacher told them that soon they would be given their flags, and the children began preparing for Flag Day.  She taught them the songs they would sing, and then she taught them the pledge of allegiance, and told them that on the coming Friday the kindergarten children would join the other school children and they would join the other school children and they would pledge allegiance to the flag together.  He was worried – it wasn’t the right flag for him.  He asked his mother about it, and she told him to stand at attention but not to say the words.  He didn’t want Friday to come.  On Friday morning he felt sick, but his mother felt his head and decided that he was well enough for school.

              He went to school and they held the Flag Day ceremonies.  They sang the songs and he sang with them. When they said the pledge of allegiance he stood at attention and listened.

              “Why aren’t you saying the words?”

              The child next to him hissed the question in his ear and elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

              “You’re supposed to say the pledge!” There was another jab in his side.

              The small boy shook his head, stood straight and tall and said nothing.  All around he heard the other children reciting, holding their hands to their hearts, looking proudly at the flag at the front, not his flag.  He knew his sister and his brother were there somewhere, standing at attention like him, but he couldn’t see them.  He felt alone.  He was a little alien.  His eyes filled with tears.  When they went back to his kindergarten room for their milk his tears ran down his cheeks.  His teacher asked, “What’s the matter with this little boy?  Is he sick?”

              He raised his head and met her eyes, “I think I’m homesick,” was all he said.

  • 12:42 am
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