Molly O Read online

  MOLLY O

  MARK FOSS

  Copyright © 2016 Mark Foss

  This edition copyright © 2016 Cormorant Books Inc.

  This is a first edition.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Foss, Mark, author

  Molly O/Mark Foss.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77086-430-6 (pbk.).— ISBN 978-1-77086-431-3 (epub)

  1. Title.

  PS8611.O787m65 2016 C813’.6 C2014-907689-4

  C2014-907690-8

  Interior text design: Tannice Goddard, Soul Oasis Networking

  Cover photo and design: angeljohnguerra.com

  Printer: Friesens

  The interior of this book is printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper.

  CORMORANT BOOKS INC.

  10 ST. MARY STREET, SUITE 615, TORONTO, ONTARIO, M4Y 1P9

  www.cormorantbooks.com

  For Michka

  1

  FOR A LONG TIME I looked for Candy at red lights. Mine was an intense but kindly stare, one that gave silent permission for a woman to wave tentatively or mouth precious words of confirmation. Something like, “Yes, it’s me. I’ve come home.” All I got was an extended middle finger.

  On the highway, a fleeting glimpse of a white-gloved hand kept my hope alive for hours. When one possibility disappeared over the horizon or off an exit ramp, another one quickly replaced it. Constant movement and high speed made me feel I was getting closer.

  If these women had known how long I’d been looking for Candy, they might have twirled their index fingers at their temples, and then stepped hard on the gas when the light changed. I knew my refusal to give up was a sign of hope, not madness. Of course, it bothered me too that I felt compelled to look, especially as I experienced a profound letdown when the woman turned out not to be her. The only relief from my disappointment was to look again, which only led to further disappointment and a renewed craving to look again.

  Now I prefer to drive at night so I can’t see anyone at all. If I only looked for Candy on the road that strategy might work, but I search for her in grocery store lineups, at the bank machine, in the back row of my early cinema class at Concordia. Maybe I am crazily optimistic, but I take solace that with the launch of my blog, my days of staring at strangers will soon be over.

  MY HOPES HAVE always found their greatest expression right here, two miles from our childhood house. Neither town nor village, Stamp is an unincorporated chunk of Ontario, home to a single crossroad, a feed store, and two churches along the tertiary highway we flatter by calling “the main drag.” Most of the three hundred-odd residents live hidden from view on back roads, content to be cut off from the world.

  Each time I turn onto the third concession, I imagine how Candy will arrive. She has no choice but to travel this dirt road to reach the Wasteland, either on foot along the grassy border or in one of her vehicles. A black Aston Martin Vantage, the one with an Emotion Control Unit for an ignition rather than a key. Driving in the gear of anticipation and regret, she will take the coupe rather than the convertible because she knows the natural elements will mess up her hair, and she wants to look as impeccable as Kim Novak in Vertigo.

  Time and space, the most complex concepts to represent in cinema, are mastered on this simple road. It teases with the promise of a short, no-nonsense journey, and then unleashes an array of effects to make the drive seem endless. Dust hovers at windshield level, enveloping vehicles in a thick, impenetrable haze that limits visibility to a few feet. The motion of the tires grinds up new dust, pollinating the gravel so that each time I visit there are more and bigger stones. Boulder-sized stones in the roadway are easy to spot at the low speeds required by the constant sandstorms. On either side of the road, oak, poplar, and elm join overhead to form a perfect canopy that blocks out the sun even on the brightest days. Here I am, crawling along at midday in July with my high beams on, negotiating new obstacles amid the darkness and shifting sands, my eyes trained for a puff of luxury exhaust.

  I anticipate the bus shelter at the edge of the Wasteland, a homing device that cuts through mirages stirred up by the shimmering heat waves; it’s a time capsule from our childhood and adolescence. Each of us had a space to express our innermost thoughts on the three-sided shelter. Hoss’s wall shows an evolution from Get Smart catch-phrases to heady quotes from progressive rock, the more meaningful lyrics underscored twice with black magic marker. In deference to King Crimson, he has sketched puppet strings descending from the roof controlled by an unseen hand — a harbinger of his future abdication from responsibility. My space on the opposite wall is split into two parts by the window. I occupy only the top half, leaving my tiny sister extra room to express herself. Even as my early Laugh-In one-liners jammed up against later snippets from Dylan, I left the bottom for her. She never claimed her own wall or took advantage of my offer.

  Today, I imagine my sister Candy inside the bus shelter, filling up the empty spaces with poetic descriptions of her life as Molly O. Her words spill forth at the speed of sound, eager to make up for decades of silence. They do not defend or explain her choices, simply lay them bare. Oblique, intense, mysterious. She is dressed in the unmistakable cloche hat and low-heeled boots of Clara Bow, the celebrated “It Girl” of 1927. She is testing whether I remember Bow never had a place in her pantheon of silent stars, demanding that I decode the symbolism. Nothing to it. Candy is ready, not to die, but to resume her interrupted life. This girl is no longer “It.” She has stopped running. In the space I left for her below the window, she could draw a huge heart with an arrow through it, an expression of gratitude to me for keeping the faith these long years. She has read my blog posts. She knows my motives are true. Indeed, it is my reaching into cyberspace that brings her home.

  But the bus shelter is gone; Joseph has had it quartered, splintered, and hauled away. The cosmic musings of Yes returned to the universe, Dylan’s answers tossed into the wind for good, Candy’s silence remaining unbroken. She will find her way home all the same. The navigation panel in her Vantage coupe has state-of-the-art GPS.

  I know she will arrive soon. Imminently. I sensed it early this morning when a guy with a bloodhound tried to drop his plastic bag into my empty garbage container on the sidewalk. Someone does this every week, unless I bring in the container the night before. Most dog walkers in Montreal have no second thoughts about me storing their dog’s shit in my backyard for a week. But this guy hesitated; a force held his arm down. A gust of wind pushed the container into the street and the dog howled. It refused to budge, and stared at me standing in my window. Exasperated, the man started to walk away. I think I heard him call out: “Molly!” My brother Hoss would say the wind has talked to me.

  As a film professor, well-versed in psychoanalytic theory, and as a brother who dearly misses his sister, I can’t help but look for meaning in signs. That I should receive such powerful ones amid garbage and shit is an irony worthy of Molly O. It can only mean that Candy has
read my posts, and is at long last on her way.

  Do I believe in my dreams? I must.

  2

  HOSS BELIEVES WE CHOOSE OUR parents, willing ourselves into existence in a particular nuclear family that will give us the lessons we need to grow as human beings. Candy’s destiny, then, was foretold; we could do nothing to intervene. There’s no fighting karma. This is Hoss at his big-brother, New Age best. Except that his saccharine attempts at reassurance only raise more questions. His theory means we all chose Joseph and Mary as parents and that I chose him as a brother. As the last child, Candy chose us all; she must have known what she was in for. So I have to ask myself what we did to make our sister mute, what she was fated to learn from us. What role did we play in her disappearance? If she knows the answers, and only she would, I wish she would sneak them to me.

  THE DAY BEFORE Joseph meets Mary, he is practising for his first solo auction from atop a hillock. He imagines an etching of Christ authenticated as a Rembrandt on the block. His strange chant soothes the animals, which gather at his feet. But Joseph stumbles on a clump of earth and loses his concentration. A gust of wind swirls earth around his feet, rising to his face and into his gaping mouth, delivering a new edge to his voice. The cows stuff themselves with grass to quell an inner ache. The geldings rear up on their hind legs, enraged at what has been taken. He knows he has inadvertently accessed the Tone — an expressive power that his father only ever spoke about in hushed whispers, a gift that last made its appearance in a great uncle who ended his days in an asylum. Joseph does not yet understand the nature of the Tone, but pumped up by some unknown force surging through his veins, he is more confident than ever. Tomorrow he will unleash the full power of his voice on humans for the first time, ending his long apprenticeship. None will resist him. He will transform humble Canadian cattle into descendants of the holy beasts that stood vigil outside the manger. Misty-eyed ranchers will rub dirty knuckles to fight off tears, driving bids up to demonstrate the depth of their faith. Is that someone rustling yonder in the August corn? Only the wind.

  Mary is not unattractive at thirty-four. Her chestnut hair, when released from its tight bun for nightly strokes of the comb, is full and soft. Her face has been called pretty. When she believes the compliments, her skin becomes ageless, betraying no hint of the cigarettes she feels compelled to hide from her father. Her green eyes are striking. She has already turned down the hand of two local farmers; one she could love a little, the other not at all. She wants more out of life than cleaning up after pigs.

  On the morning of Joseph’s first auction, a gust of wind blows open the window of Mary’s bedroom, infiltrates her pores. Emboldened, Mary reaches deep into her closet, beyond her everyday clothes, selecting a dress better than her Sunday best.

  Her elegance is too refined for the muck and straw of the barn, and the farmers and ranchers spit to show their disgust as she passes. Her cheeks burning, she defiantly returns their nasty glances. Above the sweat, stink, and dampness, Joseph takes the stage, and the venomous looks of one hundred men suddenly shift from Mary towards this upstart in a fedora with a walking stick. Mary is relieved; a bit resentful, too, since contemptuous looks are better than none. As Joseph moves the podium to one side, low grumbles turn to catcalls, especially from the back. How are they supposed to hear the bids without a microphone? He adjusts his fedora, and, confidence shaken, reaches towards the lectern. An inexplicable force holds down his arm. Only when he holds to his convictions and returns centre-stage without a microphone does the force let up.

  He starts slowly, his voice firm. The first item is a lot of brooding cows. Nothing special. The ranchers stand with arms folded. “Louder,” someone shouts. “Lower,” shouts someone else. Joseph stops, and the bidders jerk forward slightly, as if on a suddenly braking train. The hall is strangely quiet, uncertain.

  Joseph points his staff into the crowd, gripping tightly before launching into the chant he has been secretly perfecting The stream of nonsense words between the numbers takes on the quality of a sonnet, the rhythm and rhyme perfectly calibrated. How these men hated Shakespeare in school, but now their hairy ears perk up, the intrinsic beauty of the sounds sweeping them away.

  He alters the colour of his voice, the overtones transforming secular poetry into a sermon. Their wives and children still go to church, and these men all profess to be believers, but they have no patience for preachers. This voice shakes them to the core, convincing them that owning these sacred cows can relieve the emptiness of their sorry lives. And so it comes to pass that more than three-quarters of the men start twitching their noses, scratching their temples, rubbing their eyelids — anything to get Joseph’s benediction.

  His gaze keeps returning to Mary, who stands between her father Willem and Nose-Scratcher, the two high bidders. Each time Joseph catches her eye, his voice takes on a richer hue, his pace quickens. She blinks frequently. He reads this as a sign of love.

  They need an obstacle to overcome, a competitor to vanquish. An unexpected cross-breeze tickles the cheek of the Nose-Scratcher’s son, giving him an itch to smile at Mary. She turns away, wary because of the crowd’s earlier rage. She is weighed down with unknown feelings for this strange auctioneer whose glance holds her in thrall. Enraged at her rejection, Son of Nose-Scratcher stomps mud at her feet, which flows up the full length of her fine coat, even so far as her cheek. Willem flicks the worst mud off his daughter’s coat with his bid card.

  A cool breeze drifts past Joseph’s face, and his voice takes on a darker tone — just as insistent, but with the raw edge of free verse. This time when the ranchers are thrown back to the school room they hear nails on a chalkboard. They clench their jaws and fists, throw defiant looks at this Antichrist on the stage.

  Willem has the last high bid, but he is distracted now by the needs of his daughter. Nose-Scratcher senses imminent victory, but Joseph ignores the facial tics that constitute a counter offer. In desperation, Nose-Scratcher tries to lift his arm to draw attention, but a mysterious force holds it in place. None of the four men who step in to help can budge his arm. Joseph looks directly at Mary and declares her father the winner.

  The mood turns ugly at this injustice. There is jostling on the floor, grunts and shoves. Haymakers. In the final sequence of North by Northwest, Cary Grant lifts Eva Marie Saint off Mount Rushmore straight into the upper bunk of the train berth where they consummate their recent marriage. Joseph Grant holds out his staff over the brawling auction crowd and a part opens, permitting the exodus of father and daughter. They head straight into the church where Joseph takes Mary’s hand in wedlock.

  You do what you need to do to get born to the right parents.

  3

  A STYLIZED G, CARVED WITH a router, is featured in the middle of a massive arch that marks the entrance to the Wasteland. A more conventional sign announcing Grant’s Auction Service hangs just below. This much hasn’t changed. Not yet.

  I’ve been living alone now for thirty years and never needed vocal cords to work the microwave. As long as the crab stays at bay, I’ll be fine. You deal the cards you’re dealt. The Lord giveth. I’ve had a good life. I imagine Joseph shovels out these que-sera-sera platitudes for my benefit, and that in fact, he roams the Wasteland in the utmost despair, unable to talk even to himself.

  Why not blindness from diabetes? Or a heart condition? Deafness, perhaps. Or maybe loss of both legs? No, Joseph has to be stricken with cancer that robs him of his voice, the one function that truly mattered.

  His biggest regret, the one that surely gnaws at him through the long hours: the dynasty of Grant auctioneers ends with him. Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but in complete silence. I am using my voice, yes, but what for? Lectures to know-it-alls who text and tweet their way through my experimental cinema course. Hoss is no better, peddling affirmations and other sweet nothings in his polarity therapy practice in Toronto. Instead of squandering our genetic gifts, we could have transcended our humble country origins
and risen through the ranks of Sotheby’s. Candy’s long silence is too big a regret to ponder. Will the long-awaited answers I’m bringing Joseph soothe him or strike him dead?

  THE DRIVEWAY SNAKES from the archway back towards our two-storey farmhouse, the house that time forgot. Once inside, I will immerse myself in leftovers from childhood auctions scattered around the living room — the blond Predicta television that no longer swivels, the once-coveted now-sagging beanbag chair, the overwrought iron fire tongs reproduced from the eighteenth century.

  Upstairs, the bunk beds that never attached still mark out territory for me and Hoss. Joseph’s massive four-poster bed and canopy, which belongs in a Laura Antonelli sex farce, has aged gracefully. In Candy’s homage to the silent screen, Marlene Dietrich watches from the wall in top hat and tails, smiling her androgynous smile for the ages.

  But it’s the lingering traces of older generations that move me most. The banister polished from the grip of countless hands over the centuries, the stone steps at the entrance worn smooth from the stomp of workboots. On the kitchen wall, a series of pencil strokes marks the annual growth of three siblings who lived in our farmhouse one hundred years before: Isaac, Lewis, and Phebe, born in August, February, and June, the same months as Hoss, me, and Candy. Phebe and Candy, in fact, share the same birth date. This is not coincidence; Joseph was determined to time the births of his children with those of their predecessors. He had set up three parallel tracks on the wall to mark the growth of his own children. It pleased him whenever the six of us were in sync. Phebe’s timeline stops before she reaches sixteen. I don’t know whether Candy’s disappearance at the same age is poetic, predestined, or simply respects Joseph’s penchant for symmetry.

  WHAT I DO know: Mary, afraid to name her children after dead people, outright refuses the idea of a new generation of Isaac, Lewis, and Phebe living in the same house. She is not keen on Joseph’s second idea either, but wants to compromise. Joseph likes My Three Sons, and I almost go through life as a Chip or an Ernie. Bonanza, though, is his favourite television show. Like patriarch Ben Cartwright, his firstborn will be Adam. But when the Adam character left the show while my brother was in the womb, and my mother feared for what this might mean for her pregnancy, Joseph settled on Eric for a name, the second son more commonly known as Hoss. I am named after my father and the youngest brother on the show, and thus, Little Joe. Having run out of Cartwright boys, he had planned to name the third son after the ranch foreman. Once again the character disappeared from the show while the child was in the womb, but he stuck with Candy anyway, even after Mary died delivering a girl.