By the time I started high school, I was really isolated within myself. I wore a happy exterior demeanor but in reality I was hoping I could just get hit by a bus or a tractor trailer… funny thing is your instinct normally makes killing yourself ‘by accident’ impossible.
I don’t think I had a best friend for most of grade 9. I spent most of my time alone from what I recall. I had many acquaintances but no one I confided in or trusted. I always felt awkward, like I was an outsider. My entire high school experience felt like that… as if everyone tolerated me or invited me, to be polite. It probably was my anxiety telling me what I heard at home, but it made opening my mouth to speak to people nearly impossible. I would attempt a conversation and freeze in fear that my peers would know I was an idiot, and then I would just not talk. I always waited for someone to speak to me first. I truly felt like I walked around with a giant L on my forehead.
I would not be able to tell you who my friends were in grade 9. I don’t recall ‘hanging out’ with anyone in 9th grade, though I’m certain I did. I have no close friends from that grade that I can recall. All I remember is feeling incredibly self-conscious about my braces because one of the patients in the house told me I was affecting radio waves with them… Deep down I knew it wasn’t true, but I felt that other people would feel that way. I also wore glasses so I was well aware that I was wearing ‘basement windows’ on my face (this is a French insult… wearing basement windows is equivalent to “the lights are on but nobody’s home”).
“YOU!”
Oh fuck, she’s screaming, I think to myself. I could hear it was Maeve screaming at someone and my stomach plummeted, my entire body felt like ice and I had a living breathing jackrabbit in my chest trying to make me move faster. I dropped low to the floor as I tried to scurry to the clothing section so I could hide in the clothes racks and maybe she would forget I was with them. She was really loud.
“You let your own daughter be molested. You’re a fucking bastard! And your own sister knew it was happening!”
Oh my god. What is she doing? She’s telling everyone in the store! They’re all going to know what happened to me. They’re going to look at me. I’m still hiding inside a rack of shirts.
“MARGEAUX!”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What do I do?
“Margeaux! Get your ass over here!”
“Your sister is a piece of shit, Jack!”
I slowly come out of my hiding place and hang my head, eyes on the floor as she keeps screaming about my father letting me be molested.
“Maeve, calm down, let’s talk about this at home. Come on now, you’re embarrassing her.”
It’s like she didn’t even hear him or it makes her want to shout louder, I’m not sure. I have my school supplies in my arms as I approach the cash, my face is red hot, tears are about to start streaming down my face; I’m beyond humiliated. She’s screaming about me in a store and although I’m in my vault, I’m not safe. I have to pay attention to what’s happening around me because we’re in public. I’ve never been faced with this situation before. Normally, I am safe in my vault there is no sound, hearing my name brings me out of my vault. In this very public situation, there’s too much going on and my concentration is too split: Watch what I’m doing, where I’m walking, listen for my name, try not to let anyone see me cry, etc. To control my emotions, I bite down HARD on the insides of both my cheeks until I taste blood. Oh, that’s the distraction I needed.
I’m able to focus on the pain, the taste of iron in my mouth, watch the cashier’s hands as she puts my supplies in a bag and I speed walk out the door without looking back. As I continue to ignore her screaming, I sprint to the truck so nobody sees me and position myself so I’m as small as possible near the side of the truck. I remained silent for the ride home and spent the night crying in my room until it was time for school the next day.
I started exploring explicit punk rock, alternative and
heavy metal, and hard rock music as a way to escape in the lyrics. I started smoking on the
regular and I did not even care if they caught me. Every single day after
school I was screamed at for some perceived wrong I did – in reality it was all
made up shit that I was accused of and told I was not allowed to ‘talk back’ so
I was to sit there and eat shit without defending myself. Around this time, Big M also started searching my bedroom
frequently when I was at school claiming she was in there “cleaning” or “looking
for some good music to vacuum to.”
BULLSHIT
What parent listens to soundboard recordings of offensive punk and rock music? Music I had not even gotten around to listening to yet. I remember the day I discovered she did not like Dayglo Abortions. I loved their song titled Proud to be a Canadian. It did not end well for me. They confiscated all my tapes and searched my bedroom daily after that.
In protest, I purchased incense, a ton of magazines like YM, Tiger Beat, and other music magazines, cigarettes, and decorated all my walls with posters. All the pink paint and wallpaper was covered with Jon Bon Jovi, AC DC, Motley Crüe, Ozzy, etc. The ceiling was reserved for my favourite actors and I used sticky packing tape to keep them up on the ceiling tiles. Next, I purchased and installed (all by myself) a ceiling fan, perfume, and glade plug-ins. I bought scented candles and slowly created a dark Goth oasis. In defiance, knowing I’d be yelled at for shit I never even did, I decided to cause my own trouble… get in shit for stuff I actually did… so I used perfume on the lamp light bulbs, sparked some incense, turned off the overhead lights, opened my bedroom window, and lit my Players filter cigarette, blowing smoke out my window. For years dad would run up the hall and start yelling at the ‘old people’ to smoke outside and not in the house. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I drove him mental. Then I pierced my ears in several places that were not even a thought back then… started colouring my hair and getting haircuts that Big M hated.
Grade 9 wasn’t totally horrible, I met my best friend while taking music class that year. Chloé played clarinet while I tried to find the instrument I would like to play. I wanted to learn a new instrument, something different. I selected the tuba. I actually chose it because I found the size and sound to be quite intimidating. I was fairly certain Maeve would hate it so I had a winner! After learning a few notes, I realized I enjoyed this instrument and joined school band in 10th grade. The summer of my grade 9 year was fabulous because I had Chloé.
I spent most of my summer at the local lake, with Chloé at her house, or with Roxanne scrubbing walls, floors, and toilets upstairs. In the summer the house always got deep cleaned by us; it sucked but we made the best of it.
The house did not have air conditioning and it got super hot in August. It's a very dry heat up there, not the humidity we get here. After doing laundry, cleaning rooms, changing beds, scrubbing walls, floors, and window sills on the 2nd and 3rd floor, Roxanne and I would often have water fights (Maeve and Jack spent the weekends in the bush most of the time and were not home). These water fights are my fondest memories of living there.
Let me set the scene.... have you ever seen industrial sized mop buckets? We would fill them and literally throw them at one another in the hallway of the 2nd floor. The floor sometimes had 2 inches of water in some areas before disappearing.... and coming thru the halogen light fixtures in the kitchen below. Roxanne and I were expert cleaning machines and bath towels are no match for water messes. Aside from the water stains in the tiled ceiling of the kitchen, Maeve and Jackass were none the wiser. If they noticed the water stains on the ceiling, they never mentioned it. The residents thought it was a hoot watching us cool down that way. Other times we had wheelchair races with the residents up the hallways. We definitely kept everyone young at heart.
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