Chapter 2
Colin was five when he found his first stray cat wandering the back alley. With matted long black fur, big golden yellow eyes and a voracious appetite the wayward kitty gladly joined the Simpson clan and showed his affection relentlessly. Someone said “Let's call him Tar Baby” and it stuck. Little did Colin realize the term was a racial slur used to disparage people of colour. Tar Baby seemed like a great name for a cat with long black hair.
At supper time he would step out the back door and call: “Tar Baby, here boy, Tar Baby” and very shortly his faithful furry friend would come bounding up the back step and make a bee line for his bowl, where a hearty serving of Perky cat food awaited.
One day as Colin headed off to school, he paused to fondly admire Tar Baby lying still on the cool grey concrete of the shaded back step. It was a hot spring day and Colin thought his cat was wisely cooling himself in the shade. He noticed a big fat shiny blue bottle fly perched on Tar Baby's nose and he marched off to school. When he arrived back home his mother greeted him gently and broke the news.
Colin: Mom I'm home. What's for supper?
Mom: Sit down dear I have something to tell you. Tar Baby died, Colin.
Colin: What? When? Where is he?
Mom: He's in a blanket by the back door.
Colin rushed to pick up the lifeless bundle. Pulling back the blanket his heart split as he sobbed inconsolably.
They buried Tar Baby under the honeysuckle tree in the back garden and every spring when the honeysuckle burst forth with a profusion of tiny pink star shaped blooms that exuded the sweetest fragrance, he thought fondly of his first best friend.
The Simpson family, now numbering seven strong, sat down to a scrumptious evening supper of smoked leg of ham, scalloped potatoes, green peas, and rhubarb crumble.
Betty was a superb cook and received few complaints on the quality of her meals.
Betty: Elbows off the table Colin. I received a call from your principal today.
Colin: Really?
Betty: Apparently a certain young man was telling kids on the playground that he is allowed to smoke at home, in front of his parents.
Colin: Aw geez.
Bill: Why did you say that?
Colin: I dunno.
Betty: You're in grade six and smoking and I have to find out from the principal. I am very disappointed young man.
Bill: Finish your supper and come downstairs with me.
Bill led him downstairs to the basement. I'm in deep shit now, thought Colin. His father sat him down on a chair. He pulled a deck of Mark Ten cigarettes from his shirt pocket and handed a cigarette to Colin.
Bill: So, you're a smoker, eh? Show me.
Colin took the cigarette and lit it. They sat in silence until it was done.
Bill: Why do you want to smoke?
Colin: I dunno.
Bill: Why do you do it?
Colin: Cause it's cool. Everyone smokes in the movies. You smoke.
Each night after supper dishes were washed and dried the gang would meet at the old, abandoned tennis courts, their clubhouse. Secret and subversive. During the day they stole cigarettes from their parents. They monitored their smoking behaviour and stole one or two when they thought the parent wouldn't notice and they rarely did. Each child would bring a smoke or two and trade for a brand they preferred.
Child One: I've got two of my mom's MacDonald Menthols. Who wants to trade?
Colin: I do. I've got two of my dad's Mark Tens.
Child One: Deal.
Child Two: Hey, let’s play Chews.
Child Three: Yeah, I'll start. Chews for ten.
She lights the cigarette and passes it to her left. Each child taking a draw, being careful not to inhale but rather holding the warm smoke in their mouth before puffing it out.
The circulating cigarette burned quickly until it reached the filter and was all but spent. The rules of the game dictated that whoever was holding the cigarette when the 'cherry', the lit part, fell away from the filter had to put the acrid filter in their mouth and chew it for the agreed number. In this case 10 chews counted out by the group in unison. The motto of their club was: “If you don't inhale you won't get hooked”.
Jeanie: When I catch you, I'm gonna tan your hide you little brat.
Colin: I didn't start it and I didn't mean to draw blood. Your daughter bit my sister, so I bit her back. It's not my fault.
Bob reached forward and took a sip of coffee just as Helen came into the kitchen scratching her head.
“I could swear I just saw Jeanie Smith running down the street in a pink chenille housecoat. I think she had a flyswatter in her hand, and she was chasing young Colin Simpson”, said Helen.
“Uh huh”’ grunted Bob, head buried in his Calgary Herald newspaper.
“Really Bob, that was Jeanie. What the heck is she doing in her housecoat at one o’clock in the afternoon? And why in blue blazes was she waving a fly swatter around?” exclaimed Helen.
Looking up from his paper Bob mused “Perhaps she’s having a nervous breakdown my dear.”
“Has she no sense of decency? I can't believe it. Running around the block in her housecoat. Good grief”, cried Helen.
“Perhaps you’re having a nervous breakdown, dear.” Bob looked up smiling sweetly at Helen.
“Oh, very funny Bob, very funny. Say I must be having a breakdown. I’m hallucinating. Oh God there’s some kind of awful self-centered lout in my kitchen. Where’s my loving husband?” retorted Helen sarcastically. But Bob had already gone back to his paper paying no heed to her usual tone.
“Bernice, I’ll call Bernice. She can see right into Jeanie’s kitchen window. At least she cares about her neighbours. Someday, Bob, you’re going to need the help of neighbours. And who will come? You spend your whole life with your nose stuck in that paper or down at the store. What did I do to deserve this, Bob? What did I do?”
“Call Bernice, Helen. Don’t waste your breath on me when there’s an urgent neighbourhood mystery to be solved by the morning coffee clutch.” he replied unceremoniously.
“At least the girls have something interesting to talk about.” sniped Helen.
“Yes dear, I know. They all talk about the ones who couldn’t make it to coffee that day.”
“We’re not gossips, Bob. We actually care about each other. And I suppose you businessmen meet for coffee at the Liberty Café and never say a word about each other?” asked Helen.
“That’s business dear. Conversation with a purpose.”
When his dad drove the family out to Betty’s parents’ farm east of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, for summer holidays, Colin looked forward with great anticipation to the precious time spent with his maternal Grandmother MacLeod and his many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Grandfather MacLeod died of cancer when Colin was a baby and he did not have the pleasure of knowing him but through his mother’s occasional stories he felt, in a small way, he did know Grandfather John MacLeod.
Life at the farm was a welcome break from the routine of town life. Each day an adventure for the Simpson children. The day started at the crack of dawn with collecting eggs from the hen house, shooing the hens from their nests, and retrieving the many coloured eggs of white, brown, cream and tan. Fried up in a blackened cast iron pan on a large wood burning stove the bright orange egg yolks glistened against their bubbling skirts of white. Home baked buttered toast and crispy thick strips of smokey bacon complemented the fried eggs. Washed down with fresh milk from the cows out back it was a substantial breakfast that got you going.
After breakfast dishes were washed and dried the children headed off to explore the nearby woods, play hide and seek among the hay bales, or pick pails of raspberries and Saskatoon berries. Sometimes Grandmother MacLeod would offer them ice cream with their berries, but Colin thought the best was when she served them with fresh farm cream, so thick that it poured like liquid honey. He thought berries with fresh farm cream and a sprinkle of white table sugar was the best treat ever.
In the spring of his grade six year Colin rode his bicycle downtown to the butcher shop where his father worked for the store's owner Pete Kennedy, a tall imposing figure with a warm, generous disposition.
Pete: So, you would like a job in the butcher shop. Why is that, Colin?
Colin: I want my own money.
Pete: And what grade are you in now?
Colin: Grade six sir.
Pete: Well, I'd like to give you a job but you're too young. Come back next year when you're in grade seven and we'll talk about it then.
Colin: Okay. Thanks Pete.
Two weeks later, Pete showed up on the Simpson’s front doorstep carrying a large brown cardboard box of precious cargo.
Pete: Colin asked me for a job at the shop the other day and I said he could start next year when he's in grade seven. In the meantime, I brought something to get him going.
Bill: Thanks Pete. We'll see what we can do.
Bill peered into the box and heaved a quiet sigh.
Inside were seven newborn lambs, which Pete had purchased at the auction market for one dollar each. Beside themselves with excitement, the Simpson children clamored around for a peek at the small wooly infants. Bill headed downstairs to build a pen in the basement where the lambs would begin their life with the Simpsons.
From the outset they were wobbly on their skinny legs with shiny black pointed hooves and forever hungry. Colin and his siblings, bottle fed them during the day while his parents took charge of night time feedings. Within a month the lambs were large enough to be moved to a pen in the back yard.
Feeding the seven lambs was a chaotic frenzy of desperate pushing and shoving and it was difficult to tell who had been fed and who had not so Colin's mother dug into her sewing basket for an elegant solution. Each lamb had a different colour of ribbon tied around its neck for identification and from then on were known by their ribbon colour as bluey, greeny, etc. Soon children from all around the neighbourhood flocked to the Simpson back yard vying for a turn to bottle feed the lambs and pet their soft white wool and the little lambs seemed to appreciate the affection.
After two months in the backyard the seven lambs had grown enough to be transported to the feedlot about a mile and a half east of town. The feedlot was part of the butcher shop operation and consisted of a few acres of grazing land, corrals, a slaughterhouse, a hog barn, and a small house for a hired hand.
Every day that summer Colin rode his bicycle out to the feedlot, often accompanied by friends and siblings. They fed the fast-growing lambs who could now eat dry pellets from a trough and thus were stripped of their coloured ribbon collars. Soon they were moved out to the pasture to graze on lush green grass. But still the children rode their bicycles out to see them regularly as they had grown fond of the young flock. That fall his father sold the lambs and they were slaughtered and processed for the freezer.
Colin: So how much money did I make? How much did you sell them for?
Bill: I did the calculations and subtracted the overhead.
Colin: What's overhead?
Bill: That's how much it cost to raise them: feed, board, veterinary care.
Colin looked at the figures Bill had written on the paper. He had forgotten about all the costs his father had incurred and remembered they were a loan to be paid back. At the bottom of the page was a small figure.
Colin: That's it. That can't be it. I made $49 for all that work. Seven dollars per lamb?
Bill: Yes.
Colin: But that can't be right. All that work and I only made $49?
Bill: Yes, the figures are all there. Farmers don't get rich raising a handful of lambs and they work hard for their money.
Colin: I want a job in the store Dad. I want to make more money. No more raising lambs.
He used some of his $49 to buy a large wire basket for his bicycle and when he turned 13 and was in grade seven he started work at Central Meat Market after school and on weekends delivering meat orders around town for 15 cents an order. Now in junior high school he was earning his own money and was very pleased about that.
The local Capital Theatre movie house, a mecca for the imagination, filled up nightly as people from Hanna and surrounding districts gathered to commune in the glow of the silver screen. As a youngster Colin deeply admired Hollywood tough guys John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Elvis. They were tough, private, self-sacrificing lovers of liquor, women, and song. They were fearless, take-charge kind of men who held his respect firmly. He wished he had their courage, that he too could be a tough guy.
The sun beams brightly as Colin rounds a corner and slowly approaches the large square of tan-coloured canvas. Weighed down on four corners with weathered grey fence posts, the centre of the tawny canvas heaves from something big and alive trapped underneath. Fear grips Colin as he wrestles with curiosity, gives in, and lifts the edge of the canvas. He is compelled to see what lies beneath. A large male lion, head crowned with an impressive shaggy black mane, leaps out from beneath the canvas knocking Colin to the ground. The lion snatches up Colin's small feet in its powerful jaws. Horrified and looking down at the carnage Colin opens his mouth to scream. His eyes pop open. He shivers from the stark terror of his recurring nightmare.
