Agnes Blanchard came to university her second year with three clear objectives in mind: to (a) keep the marks up; (b) see what can’t be done about the boyfriend; and (c) get elected to something. Both (a) and (b) were carry-overs from first year, so she felt she had a handle on them, and having a residence room to herself for a change didn’t hurt much either from an (a) or (b) point of view. But (c) was uncharted territory, and it made her tense, because it meant she’d have to ask someone for help, which she didn’t like to do. Last spring she had nervously approached her intro poli sci prof and spluttered out a request for some summer reading for a friend who was considering a political career, and he had prescribed an antique Scottish novel called The Provost, which she read on the job at the Sussex and District tourist information booth and found so full of obscure words that weren’t even in the dictionary she didn’t think she’d really got the full gist of it. But the unending motorcade of tourists pulling up to ask the same question, “How far to the PEI bridge?” fortified her in her conviction that the manner in which things were set up in New Brunswick was based more or less directly on foolishness. Yes, foolishness, which she, Agnes, was going to have to deal with, as nobody else seemed prepared to. So once she had pinned up the portraits of three political heroes--Charlotte Whitton, Hazel McCallion and Elsie Wayne--over the desk in her new single double she sat in her chair, played distractedly with her pigtail and wondered what those three would do in her place. Which was how Dwayne found her.
Dwayne: “Girlfriend!”
Agnes: “Boyfriend.”
Dwayne: “No exclamation mark, eh? What’d I do now?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out what to do with myself this year.”
“Oh, leave that to me.”
“No, I mean extracurricularly.”
“That’s what I meant too.”
“Of course. Look, I want to run for office, but I don’t have a voter base.”
“’Cause nobody knows you.”
“That’s right.”
“’Cause you spent all last year studying.”
“Correct.”
“And when you did talk to people, it was usually to rag them out.”
“Thank you very much!”
“Can you skate?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you proficient on the blades?”
“I took figure skating.”
“They’re always looking for referees at the rink. Sports is a great way to make contacts. You’ll build your voter base, and get to lay down the law. I’ll go find the rulebook and we’ll learn the signals. No, don’t thank me!” He strolls out.
She blinks, a little startled.
“All right, I won’t.”
Jake is inking. He’s been working flat out on Shaolin Cricket since Jacinthe mailed him the story at home in August. If he blows off the first three weeks of class he can just have it ready for the upcoming Atlanticomicon.
Jacinthe drops by to see how it’s coming. She ducks to avoid the damp pages hanging from a line across the middle of the room.
“You’ve been in residence two days and already it looks like a garret.”
Jake is using a wooden lectern as a drawing board. On the wall behind him is a poster of Dürer’s St. Jerome.
“No time to talk. Must ink.”
She removes her knapsack, causing it to clink. His ears prick up.
“Do I perceive beer?”
She hands one over.
“You’re much better than a girlfriend,” he says. He opens the beer with the desk drawer handle and returns to work, pen in right hand, beer in left.
“That’s disquieting,” says Jacinthe. “So, you missing Dwayne?”
“No jokes please, I’m trying to get this line.”
“Dwayne’s really a pretty good guy, once you get past his personality.”
“You go live with him.”
“I think I’ve figured out what Agnes sees in him: tantric sex.”
“Well, now I’ll have to drink till I lose that particular brain cell.”
“You didn’t walk in on their bare butts last year. So, is there much to do in Halifax once you’ve had the donair?”
He sits back. “Oh. You want to go?”
“Yes, I want to go. I wrote the comic.”
“Yeah, well, no, I get that. It’s just that it’s kind of a guy thing.”
“Selling comic books is a guy thing?”
“I mean afterwards.”
“What, you all go out to a strip club?”
No response.
“Oh my God, you go to a strip club! You horn dog! Is that where all the profit from the first comic went? Into a thong?”
“No. Gerry had legitimate printing expenses.”
“’Cause I got a hundred forty-seven bucks.”
“Same as me. Nobody’s trying to take advantage of your inexperience.”
“Sad but true.”
“You’re welcome to tag along.” “Thanks but no thanks. On the strip club.”
“So … you’re coming to Halifax?”
“Yes, I’m coming to Halifax!”
“Okay, just getting that clear.”
“Holy.”
She sits and thinks for a while, then: “Where’d you get the lectern?”
"Philosophy.”
“Huh. How do you think they’ll take that?”
“Philosophically.”
In fact, Jacinthe is there the next day when the prof walks in and says, “Wasn’t there a lectern here?” The class: “If there had been, how would you be sure?” “Could it have been a popular misconception?” “Suppose it only exists when you’re not looking for it.” “Do you think it’s trying to find us?” “Where is here?”
It turns out to be a pretty interesting class.
One afternoon shortly after returning to university Janice sits down to write a letter. The warm light comes in at her window with a fresh breeze that moves the curtains on either side of her desk.
Mt. A.
Sept. 14, 2006
Dear future Jan,
I’m writing you today to tell you I’m falling in love. The feeling has been coming over me for a few weeks, probably since that night out on the shore when I sat on the stones with the car blanket around me and came home with my hair full of wood smoke. Things are appearing more and more beautiful. Sometimes I gasp out loud at the amazingness of things, if that’s a word! People think I’m weird! But right now I’m noticing the warm shape of sun on this paper and my arms, and it’s lovely, it fills me with love, and I don’t think I would have been aware of it before this mood. I hope it lasts! I hope this is something that develops at a certain age and sticks with you! Maybe not, but let’s hope so. That’s my wish right now.
I feel like a cup of water. I mean, I feel that I am a cup of water. I’m resting on a table but I’m so full that if someone tried to pick me up I’d spill. The surface of the water is higher than the cup.
Do you remember that farm up behind Nictaux Falls off of Highway 10? The road was never paved, it was just two tire tracks. The people had moved out, and the forest had come and filled in the fields. The orchard was still there but in among the other trees. One apple tree had a ladder stuck up in it still, one of those ladders with the top end pointed. For me now it’s like it’s spring, with the apple trees in bloom, and I’ve just found this lost orchard, and I’m climbing up among the blossoms.
I’m going to go out and find a boy. I’m going to line them up and run my hand along them like it’s a picket fence. When I find one that comes free I’m going to take him for myself. No doubt you know how that turns out. But it’s time. It’s time for me and my skin. It likes the warmth. I like the warmth.
I hope when you read this you’re as happy as I am now.
Jan
She rereads the letter, then folds it up and seals it in an envelope. In the return address corner she puts 2006. Where the mail-to address should go she puts her name and the year she’ll be her mother’s age. She slips it in a yearbook.
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This is the first of twelve installments of "Wonderful Hell" which will appear here each Monday through May. It was originally written in 2006 by me, Douglas, and illustrated by Anne Fizzard. You can get the illustrated version by sending in five bucks. Write me at lojmit@gmail.com for details.
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