Atlanticomicon. Gerry and Jacinthe are seated at the Tragic Books table surrounded by cover art from the season’s new releases: Shaolin Cricket, Dot Dash #17, Little Miss Canada #1059. Jacinthe is thumbing through that venerable Canadian title, a mainstay of Gerry’s house via federal grants. Little Miss Canada has been around since John A. Macdonald, and, though she looks as young and innocent as ever in her Red River coat and Métis belt, she seems a bit burdened by long exposure to lost political causes. Right now she’s overturning the gift store at the National Gallery of Canada after having found the words Made in China stencilled on the bottom of a Group of Seven coffee mug.
Little Miss Canada: “Is this why we took Vimy Ridge?”
Security Guard (into his shoulder walkie): “I could use some backup.”
Gerry: “There’s Zinck.”
Jacinthe: “Who?”
“Cathy Deirdre Zinck, owner and editor of The Beach Whistle, and pretty much the writing staff too, under a bunch of pseudonyms. Nobody knows the Halifax scene like Zinck.”
“So she’s the one who liked Leblanc?” “
Yes, and we hope she’ll like Shaolin Cricket too. So we’ll be doing everything we can to make her happy, right?”
“Sure.”
Jacinthe puts her elbows on the table and takes a gander. Zinck is at the far end of the aisle talking into a pocket digital recorder. She’s dressed in black leather boots and jacket, highland kilt, and a blue and white striped sailor shirt. She has what appears to be a lady’s embroidered handbag suspended from her waist in the place of a sporran. Her hair is gathered into two short ponytails, one behind each ear, with a Glengarry cap perched between. Overall the effect is of a biker who has mugged the Macdonald’s cigarette girl, or vice versa. She notices Gerry and Jacinthe’s attention and starts toward them in an Olive Oyl-like stride.
Jacinthe: “Seems a bit of a character.”
“Remember? Making her happy.”
“Right. All right.”
Zinck: “Gerry, where’s van Vliet? He was going to meet me.”
“Piet van Vliet is here?”
“The flight from Amsterdam got in four hours ago.”
“Maybe he got waylaid.”
The two laugh. Jacinthe blinks as the joke sails over her head.
“Well, I want to interview him if you see him.”
“I’ll put the word out.”
“Thanks. Now, you would be.…” She points the recorder at Jacinthe.
“Hi. I’m Jacinthe Bailey. I cowrote a graphic novel called The Vampire Leblanc about the undead of Moncton. Now I’m here to promote our new book, Shaolin Cricket, an academic kung fu legend.”
“Nice sound bite. Tell me, Jacinthe, is it really likely that a person of your obvious youth can offer worthwhile insight into the emotional lives of 200-year-old characters?”
“I’m sure I’ll know much better when I’m thirty.”
“Ouch. So, Moncton’s one of the cultural capitals of the world. Any plans to move to a real city?”
“You mean pull up stakes?”
“Okay, good one. Halifax for instance?”
“Hm. I forget. Is Halifax Sodom and Dartmouth Gomorrah, or is it the other way around?”
“They’re both both. Aren’t vampire stories a little done?”
“Yes. That’s why we did Shaolin Cricket.”
“Good. You brought it back to the new book. Will your readers follow you from one genre to the next?”
“We try to get two or more genres into each story, so the readers ought to be used to making the leap.” Zinck says, “End of part one,” and clicks off the recorder.
“Now I’d better read your new book.”
Gerry presents a copy to her. Zinck scrutinizes the cover, flips to a couple of random pages, then pockets the recorder and begins to pour over the contents.
“This is Mount Allison.”
“Yeah. Jake and I go there.” “I went there. Look, that’s Trueman House. Oh my God, Mel’s.”
She’s enrapt. She wanders three or four steps away, reading, then calls over her shoulder, “I’ll talk to you later!” She goes.
Jacinthe: “Was I too sarcastic? She came at me hard.”
Gerry: “No, she loves sarcasm.” He has a thought, thinks it for moment, then grins at her and says, “No, you were perfect.”
Jake turns up with a bundle of new releases.“See what I snagged? The new Oaths and Curses Double Digest; Venus in Polyester; Terence Silbury’s Nannies with Guns; and Discombobulator #8.”
Jacinthe: “What’s that one?”
He attempts a pronunciation: “Hoer en Pooier. From Holland.”
Gerry: “That’s van Vliet’s book. I’ve been after him for ten years to get him to sell me the English language rights to that.”
Jacinthe: “What does the title mean?”
“Whore and Pimp.”
She flips through it. “Who’s the rival prostitute?”
“Snufferd. That’s Dutch for breast.”
“Pretty obviously. You can tell Hoer doesn’t like her.”
“Classic fat and skinny scenario.”
“Hoer seems very house-proud.”
“Yeah, it’s a Dutch thing.”
She stops at a full-page illustration of an annoyed Hoer sweeping a set of stairs. The slight dark-haired woman seems unaware that the staircase folds back into an Escheresque Moebius construction designed to repeat infinitely.
Jacinthe: “Oh, my God, that’s my life.”
Jake and Gerry take this as sardonic humour on her part and laugh, but Jacinthe means it.
The convention adjourns at nine, when Gerry, Zinck, Jake, Jacinthe and Piet van Vliet head out to a Japanese restaurant. They file their boots and shoes in cubby holes in the vestibule and pad across the tatami mats in their stocking feet. Jacinthe is glad she wore fairly new socks for this trip and glances in fear at Jake’s feet, but discerns no naked heels or toes. Zinck, now that the boots are off, is revealed to be wearing knee-length Argyle hose to match her kilt.
Jacinthe: “Which tartan is that?”
“Irk Heart,” says Zinck, smiling.
The room is divided into a central dias with low Japanese tables, and an outer area with Western chairs and tables. At the last moment Gerry veers toward the edge, saying, “I tore my ACL at squash. Do you mind if we sit in chairs?”
“Fine.”
They occupy a table for six with the Dutch cartoonist at one end, Jake and Zinck on one side, and Jacinthe and Gerry on the other. They all laugh as their stocking feet collide under the table. The waitress shows up instantly and takes their beer order. Keith’s, Keith’s, Grolsch, Keith’s and a Garrison Khybeer Moka for Zinck.
Jake: “Mocha beer?”
Zinck: “Think about it. It’s chocolate, and it’s beer. Mmm.”
Piet: “Just because you can do a thing, it doesn’t follow that you must.”
Zinck: “Where were you all day? You took an inordinate amount of time to get from the airport.”
Piet: “I was waylaid.”
Jacinthe nearly snorts her first mouthful of beer.
He continues: “The customs men discovered in their computer that I live off the avails of prostitution.”
This time she really does. She coughs and coughs. They slap her back.
Jacinthe: “But you only write comics about it.”
“Records are records. They only know what they see. The president of the arts council had to come and straighten it out.”
Gerry: “Customs. Remember that time they held up that interior design book?”
Jacinthe: “Eh?”
“Greek Style.”
“Oh.”
Gerry: “You ought to let somebody do an English language edition.”
“No, my friend. It’s a Dutch book. Dutch is not a hard language. With the exception of Frisian it’s the closest thing there is to English.”
Jake: “It sounds like Klingon to me.”
“Perhaps. But it’s built very much like English. As an example, both languages use phrasal verbs to create idioms. You simply add a preposition to a verb.”
They object: “Go on!” “Take off!” “Get out!”
“I have an appointment on Monday to speak to someone about this at the Department of Education.”
Jacinthe, caught with her mouth full again: “Splerf! Cough! You want to put Hoer en Pooier in the schools?”
“Think of all the young people who have learned French from Astérix.”
Zinck: “Moses in the rushes. The day they teach a book set in a brothel in the schools of this province is the day they pay off that big bridge over to Dartmouth.”
Piet: “You find your compatriots rather narrow.”
Zinck: “Well, anecdotally, I was sent home from East Paradise Intermediate School in grade nine for doing a project on bundling in 19th-century Nova Scotia.”
“Bundling?”
“Sleeping together in the same bed, but under different numbers of blankets. A charming Victorian custom that fully deserves a revival.”
Jacinthe: “Sounds kind of prophylactic.”
“It is! It’s like phone sex before the phone. But they felt I was veering too close to the topic of sexual arousal.”
Piet sits back and slaps the table: “And so you were expelled from Paradise.”
“Well, suspended. From East Paradise. For a week.”
Zinck blushes charmingly, and glances at Jacinthe for what Jacinthe realizes is the umpteenth time. Then, while Piet embarks on a discourse on the advantages of a tell-all strategy of sexual education, which not surprisingly it turns out they have in the Netherlands, Jacinthe feels a foot snuggle up against hers. A second foot slides in from the other side and the pair cups hers in a foot embrace. Jacinthe abruptly pretends to have become interested in a conversation at another table, chews her lip, and thinks furiously. Her muscles are relaxing all around her. This foot massage is starting to turn me on she realizes, which is, she also realizes, a phrasal verb. She pushes her other foot into the mix and begins to return caress for caress, without looking in Zinck’s direction at all. Jake, Gerry and Piet have gotten onto the World Cup during the course of this, and soon the seaweed rolls arrive.
Later, they’re standing in a group on the sidewalk, when Zinck says, “So where are you two staying tonight?”
Jacinthe: “Oh my God, I hadn’t even thought about it.”
Gerry: “Piet and Jake are coming to my place to drink beer and watch the Vancouver game, correct?”
Jake: “Sounds like a plan.”
Zinck takes Jacinthe’s arm. “It’s the Dartmouth Ferry for you, my dear.”
They stand at the rail of the upper deck and watch the city spread out as the ferry powers through the chop.
Jacinthe: “So, Mt A. Did you like it?”
Zinck: “It was okay, I guess. In retrospect I think St FX would’ve been a better choice.”
“St FX? How come? Aren’t they about the same?”
“The ring. Everyone who goes through St FX gets that superpower ring.”
“Okay. You’re weird. So how’d you end up owning a newspaper, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I used to write for it in high school. Fridays I’d catch the Acadian Line bus outside of school, write my homework on the bus, get into Halifax, catch some bands, then write it up for The Beach Whistle, and earn enough for the return trip.”
“But how’d you pay for the trip down?”
“Weekend jobs. I just pretended I was from Halifax. Which, in my heart of hearts, I was.”
“And your folks went along with that?"
“Nope. So, after university I moved to Halifax. The paper was deep in debt, so Gerry sold it to me for a dollar.”
“Gerry owned the paper?”
“Well, a bunch of creditors. I had to assume the debt. $86,000.”
“You must’ve had student loans already.”
“Yes. It was a risky venture.”
“So what’d you do?”
“An all ad issue. Sixty-four pages of national advertising.”
“Didn’t the readers hate that?”
“The next issue was a write-in-and-rate-the-all-ad-issue issue.”
“Didn’t the advertisers hate that?”
“Yes, most of them cancelled their accounts. But by then the debt was cleared.”
“Huzzah!”
“Huzzah! Want to wear my Glengarry?”
“Okay.”
They trudge up the hill to Zinck’s house. It’s now near midnight. In the darkened hallway Zinck seems to make a snap decision and says, “There’s the guest room. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jacinthe hauls off her jeans, pulls her bra out her sleeve, and slips quickly into the guest bed. Her leg touches something. She reaches down and pulls out a sock monkey. What’s your story? she thinks, looking deep into the button eyes. Were you there when it all went down? How many different feet have booted you around the bed? You’re an insider. What’s the deal with Zinck? Is she putting the moves on me or not? And would I really mind if she did? It’s not like I’m getting any from the male crowd. Maybe this is just the ticket--a bold night of goddess worship with big sister. Aren’t these supposed to be my experimental years? Hell, look at the advantages. Not much prospect of pregnancy or communicable disease, plus the opportunity to bask in the glow of an older broad’s experience. She’s from the Nineties after all. You can bet she knows all kinds of stuff. How soon before she shows up at the door, claiming insomnia, and insinuates herself between the sheets? Will I raise a fuss? Should I? “Please, madam, you mistake me!” “You’re in Dartmouth now, my dear! Part those knees!” “Oh, Mother, why did I not heed you?”
She hears a bump in the next room and puts a hand over the monkey’s mouth.
What if she writes it up afterward? They review everything at The Beach Whistle: tattoos, bus rides, weather reports. They’re murder on weather girls. Not a big leap to sexual partners. Lukewarm Lesbian Lovemaking From New Brunswick. I’ll have to retire to some nunnery out in the woods and spend my years consoling ruined weather girls.
Zinck is standing in the doorway. Jacinthe pulls the sheets up to her chin.
Zinck: “I’m not sleepy. Are you?”
“No.”
“Want to make cookies?”
“Okay.”
The kitchen is dominated by a large yellow table with blue legs. Jacinthe pulls out one of the painted wooden chairs, sits, and looks around. On top of the cupboards is Zinck’s collection of metal lunchboxes. One of them features a Harlequinesque painting of a woman and a bear.
“That’s my Marian Engel’s Bear lunchbox. There’s four in the series: Marian Engel’s Bear, Who Do You Think You Are, Stone Angel, and Surfacing.”
“Wow.”
“Check this out.” She takes a deck of cards from the nearest drawer and hands them over.
“The Robertson Davies Tarot? When did they make all this stuff?”
“Seventies or Eighties. Deliberate nationalism I call it. None of that globalized shit.”
“Do you write Little Miss Canada?”
“Perceptive bunny.”
“Huh. You have a lot of neat stuff.”
“Aye, but where’s the husband?”
“Do you need one?” “About twice a week would be about right. As long as he didn’t object to picking up after my lady friends.”
“Ha.”
“And yourself?”
“Oh. I don’t know.” She squirms a bit. “University is supposed to be this great sexfest, but so far I’m not gettin’ much.”
“It runs hot and cold. Years of abstinence followed by a panicky frenzy. You watch the seniors.”
“I will.”
"And don’t discount your own powers of self-satisfaction.”
“Okay.”
“And Jake? You two doin’ it?”
Jacinthe squawks. “Why does everybody think that? We went out for like two weeks in grade nine!”
“Sorry! I stand corrected. So, how about friends? You building up the life-long connections? Oftentimes those are more important than the learning.”
“I dunno. There’s Jake. Some girls from here, actually. My ex-roommate Agnes who takes a bit of getting--oh my God, are you mentoring me?”
“Yes. The federated alumni make us.”
Jacinthe finds herself welling up. “Nobody’s ever done that before.” She wipes her eye with the heel of her hand. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’re deserving.”
That starts it. Jacinthe covers her face and bawls. Zinck reaches over to the counter for a roll of paper towel.
Jacinthe: “I’m sorry. I’m foolish.”
Zinck: “It’s okay. You’re, what, twenty?”
“Next Thursday.”
“And am I right in surmising you don’t particularly like where you come from, and have no idea where you’re going?”
“That’s about right.”
“And what are you taking?”
“General Arts.”
“And what do you plan to do with that when you grow up?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should cry.”
“Shut up!”
“Ah-ha! A phrasal verb!”
“Fuck off!”
“Now we see the benefits of a liberal education!”
“Bastardess!”
“Tee-hee. Like some whiskey?”
“Sure.”
Later they’re on the living room couch, slumped against each other for support. They start to fight each other with their feet and laugh in sleepy drunkenness.
Zinck: “That was funny when you started playing footsie at the restaurant.”
“Huh? You’re the one who started that.”
“Excuse me. I distinctly remem—(Gasp!) Gerry!”
“(Gasp!) Jake!”
Jacinthe wakes in the dawn light and finds herself bundled up to the armpits in a grey army blanket in the guest bedroom. She looks down toward her stocking feet and finds the sock monkey cuddled up against her middle.
“Oh. Hello.”
She pets the monkey, then rolls over and gets Zinck’s sleeping elbow in the eye.
“Ow!”
Later, Jacinthe is getting her shoes on at the door, still uncertain whether this was a hook-up or not. Zinck takes a little of the doubt out of it by enfolding her and calling her a darling girl. Jacinthe skips down the hill.
Jacinthe and Jake take the train back to Sackville. Somewhere near Windsor Junction she turns and punches him on the arm, hard.
Jacinthe: “If you thought it would sell more comics would you get your Mom to sleep with the reviewer?”
Jake: “No.”
That’s all they say for about a hundred miles.
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