A Wedding on the Banks (17 page)

Jean Claude shook a few final drops on the fuzzy pink cover, a final tribute to his father, before he tucked himself away. He was reminded of how, as boys, he and Philippe LaGrange and the others would write their names in the snow as they peed. Boys who had to dot
i
's or cross
t
's usually lost. Jean Claude's problem had always been the sheer length of his name, and the separation. No matter how he practiced his technique, his calligraphy always ran together in the snow as a sunken, yellow
JeanClaude.
On some days, he lost terribly, creating only
JeanC
or
JeanClau
before his steaming pen ran out. Later, when he grew to manhood, and he and Philippe LaGrange stood out behind the Acadia Tavern, competing under the cold, blazing stars of the Big Dipper, bellies full of fifteen red beers, he had astonished even the old altar boys of his youth as they gathered around him, disbelievers.
JeanClaudeCloutierBox274WatertownMaine.
Sometimes he even went so far as to add, as a final
coup de théâtre
, a flourishing
USA.
When he stepped back to admire his handiwork, it always sent a shiver through him. He knew who he was at times like that. He was
JeanClaudeCloutier.
He felt as if he were hanging from the frosty handle of the Big Dipper, looking down on
WatertownUSA,
looking down on the tiny speck of the Acadia Tavern, where the altar boys of his past had gathered around some yellow writing in the snow.

“
Mon dieu
,” he would mutter to himself on those boozy, starry nights. And he wished he were a man who could take a pen to a sheet of paper and say clever things on it, so that it would last, instead of disappearing like this watery writing in the snow.

The stairs moved beneath him on his descent. He stopped and shut one eye to survey the situation. There they were, eight, maybe nine steps, lying in perfect unison in front of him, and not one of them was moving. He lifted his right foot carefully and every step wriggled before him. He tried the left foot. The steps danced. Chalice
de Vierge
! He tried squinting. Then he opened both eyes wide. The steps were now bouncing. He was reminded of the cold mornings of the potato harvest, when he was hung over and sleepy on the harvester, trying to concentrate on potatoes leaping before his eyes. Now here were stair steps coming at him like giant brown russets. He shut both eyes, and things quieted in his stomach. With a hand steadied against the wall, he lowered himself to a sitting position. On the top step he contemplated his fate. Putois would live up to her name for sure. There would be a big stink over this. But Christ de Calvaire! These were the last few days of his bachelorhood. Did anyone anywhere on earth, including in the Papal City, expect him to stay sober just days before the guillotine would fall?
La belle-mère
.
She
would. Jean Claude slid his rear off the top step and bounced safely to the next. He was a man.
Le
diable
avec
la
belle-mère.
She could take her fancy pink cover and go straight to hell. She could put it on the devil's toilet, for all Jean Claude cared. There would be only Protestants in hell anyway, so she wouldn't have to worry about any Catholics setting their toasty asses down. Smiling at this, he bounced down to the next step, his eyes still shut tightly to avoid the nausea of spinning stairs. He could drink an oil drum full of whiskey and still manage his affairs. It was a good mark to his ancestors, the Québecois and the Acadians, that he could drink whiskey like a workhorse. He farted and the grating music of it caused a rumbling beneath him. He wanted to dance. He longed for his father's fiddle and bow. He would play “Jolie Blonde” all night long on
la belle-mère
's
pretty pink cover, and he would dance her around until she died, straight out, of a heart attack. More intestinal wind escaped, and more loudly than before. He'd had too many hot dogs at Henri Nadeau's Quick Lunch and Gas.

On the sixth step he sensed, as a blind mountain climber might, that he was approaching the base of the stairway. He celebrated by lifting his left hip and extracting more of Henri Nadeau's heaven-reaching vapors. He
needed
to dance. There were Acadian fiddles playing “Alouette” in both of his feet. It was true he rarely drank, like most hardworking men of the valley, unless it was Saturday night and then, Tabernacle! Jean Claude would stomp his good dress shoes rhythmically upon the hardwood floor of the Acadia Tavern, which had been, in its prime, the J. J. Newberry store. He would toss down shots of Yukon Jack and then dance, holding Amy Joy's buttocks fast in the palms of his hands during the waltzes. He must find Putois and take her to the Acadia Tavern and twirl her around the old J. J. Newberry floor until they both dropped. He swung his left leg out, in a half pirouette, and felt it make contact with some object before he heard a soft
thunk!
on the floor. But he didn't care. He was celebrating. He wished he were lying on top of Putois at that very moment. He could almost smell her, the spray she used in her hair mixed with her perfume. But the smell nauseated him again. It did not mix well with Henri's hot dogs and Yukon Jack. He kept his eyes closed to avoid the topsy-turviness of the stairs, but it did no good. He felt the mixture of his afternoon's indulgences surfacing in his mouth, some leaking through his nostrils, and soon he had vomited upon the bottom step of
la belle-mère
's
stairs.

Jean Claude had not imagined the fragrance of Amy Joy's hair spray and perfume. Nor did he imagine hearing voices in some faraway reality. In fact, Amy Joy and Sicily had stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched his descent. Sicily reached down and picked up the pot of Irish shamrocks that had scattered on the floor when Jean Claude kicked it with his foot.

“These belonged to your grandma Grace,” said Sicily, faint with emotion. “They come straight from Ireland and they've been passed around the family for almost sixty years, and now look at them.”

“They'll grow back,” said Amy Joy. She grabbed Jean Claude by his booted feet. He kicked to fight her off, but she pulled until he left the last step and lay spread out on the living room floor. Amy Joy hoped Sicily was satisfied now. It was true that Jean Claude had lost that certain
je ne sais quoi
in her eyes.

“Do you know what you did?” Amy Joy asked Jean Claude. She pointed to the vomit on the step. Jean Claude's head slowly followed her arm, down to the hand, and out the pointing finger. His eyes rested on the mixture of food and booze.

“
Non
,” he said, and shook his head. “It was
le chien
.”

“
Chien
!” screamed Amy Joy.

“Please,” said Sicily, who had sunk down into the sofa, still battling nausea from the sights, smells, and sounds of getting to know her future son-in-law. “Please don't speak any more French.” She held a fistful of the shamrocks, which Jean Claude Cloutier had seemingly chosen for his symbolic attack upon the Irish ancestry of his future bride.

“You're blaming this on my
dog
!” Amy Joy shouted. “
Chien
my ass!”

“It's too bad your aunt Pearl couldn't have the pleasure of meeting your future husband,” Sicily said.

“Would you stop thinking about yourself, as usual?” asked Amy Joy. She had gotten Jean Claude to his feet and was leading him to the door. “Come help me get him out to the car.” Sicily tried to help, but could not bring herself to touch this French person.

“
Allons danser
!” Jean Claude shouted and began to stomp his feet. He could almost feel the old J. J. Newberry floor sagging under his weight. “
Dansons
!” He clapped his hands and motioned to Sicily.

“Oh no,” said Sicily, and mashed the shamrocks against her bosom. “He's gonna do one of them French dances in our living room! Stop him, Amy Joy, before he breaks all my Avon pieces!”

“Stop it, Jean!' Amy Joy yelled.

“Oh, it's no use,” Sicily wept. “Once them people get it into their heads to dance, there's no stopping them. Their feet are French.”

Jean Claude escaped Amy Joy's grip and jumped onto the sofa. So
la belle-mère
thought he wasn't such a good dancer, did she? Well, he would show her what dancing was all about. There wasn't a single soul in Mattagash, Maine, with any rhythm. Everyone knew that. All the rhythm on the American side of the border had been given to the French descendants of the old Canadian settlers. Yes, the Catholics had all the rhythm in the state of Maine, even to the musical kind. Jean Claude jumped off the sofa and into Sicily's face.

“
Allons danser, belle-mère
!” Jean Claude shouted to Sicily, who recognized that she was being referred to as a
mare
before she was swept off her feet. Jean Claude reeled her around, occasionally bouncing her off the wall. The smell of booze was heavy on his breath.

“Are you satisfied now?” Amy Joy yelled. “This is what you wanted, isn't it? I hope he dances you to pieces!” Amy Joy grabbed the new spring-summer issue of the Sears Roebuck catalog and began to wallop Jean on the backs of his knees. The pounding knocked the dancers against the wall in a fast embrace. Sicily caught her breath, and then pointed to the catalog.

“Please don't tear that,” she whispered. “I've yet to order a single thing from it.”

“You let my mother go this minute,” Amy Joy ordered Jean Claude.

“She dance good, her,” Jean Claude said, heavily winded, and even in the midst of such utter humiliation Sicily had to suppress a blush. Amy Joy whacked him again, this time on the elbows. The catalog ripped.

“Please, dear,” said Sicily. “Be careful with the pages.” The balmy arrival of April had reminded her to order a new lawn chair. She and Jean Claude were still leaning with their backs against the wall, harmonious at last in that they were both fighting for breath.

“Well, this is one big happy family, if I ever saw one,” Pearl McKinnon Ivy said from the doorway. “Don't you people ever answer a knock?”

“It's Pearl!” said Sicily, and broke away from Jean Claude's arms.

“You want to dance, you?” Jean Claude asked the bosomy woman now standing before him. Chalice
de Vierge
! They were lining up to dance with him. This one would be like dancing with a plow horse, but no matter. He reached his hand out to Pearl and then proceeded to slide slowly across the wall until he hit the hardwood floor with a thump, taking an end lamp and two Avon candlesticks with him in a crescendo of breaking glass.

“Jean Claude Cloutier,” Amy Joy introduced him to Pearl.

“The groom,” said Sicily.

Pearl stared. Suddenly Thelma Parsons didn't seem like such an awful addition to her family.

“We were practicing for the wedding,” Sicily said quickly. Her hair was lopping in all directions on her head. Her face and neck were flushed red and her apron was twisted around to her side. “French people dance an awful lot at weddings,” she explained.

“On sofas?” asked Pearl. So she had been watching from the doorway all along. The
snoop
.

“Sometimes,” said Sicily.

“If there's one around,” Amy Joy added.

“What's wrong with him?” Pearl asked.

“He's exhausted,” said Amy Joy. “He's been rehearsing for the wedding all week.”

“Looks more like he's been rehearsing for the honeymoon,” said Pearl. “Anyway, I just stopped by for the key to the old house. What's that smell?” She sniffed the air. “Have you been grilling hot dogs?”

“Yup,” said Amy Joy quickly. “We grilled all evening.”

“Spring finally here and all,” added Sicily.

Pearl walked over to the pot of smashed shamrocks. The trios of little leaves, which had already closed for the night, were clinging desperately to the pot.

“Is that a batch of Mama's original shamrocks?” she asked.

“That sure looks like them,” said Sicily. She hoped Amy Joy might say something. Even Jean Claude's breaking new wind would give her time to think.

“Is it a French custom to throw them on the floor before a wedding?”

“Well, here's the key,” said Sicily. She fished it out of her apron pocket, which was now on her rear hip. She knew Pearl would be stopping for it, but she hadn't expected to give it to her under such circumstances. She had imagined herself driving over with Pearl and unlocking the big front door, and their going into the old homestead as
sisters.
The way women do in movies. And they would say warm things to each other, like “Remember this” and “Remember that,” and the old house would come to life around them. But this is what happened when French Catholics infiltrated good Protestant, English-speaking families. They crumbled like cookies. Like that unleavened bread those Catholics were always chewing on during mass.

“The telephone man came yesterday and hooked you up a telephone, like you wanted,” Sicily added.

Pearl said nothing more. It was obvious that what was going on was nothing more than washing off the dirt. She wasn't sure what kind of dirt, or just how much, but it was typical of Mattagashers, especially of McKinnons, to hide every wart and mole they could, even from other family members. Sometimes
especially
from family members.

“I'll be running along, then,” said Pearl. She was thankful that Sicily looked too distraught to follow her over to the old house. She wanted to walk inside alone. She had even asked Marvin if he would wait a few minutes in the car. “Marvin's out in the car. We're pretty tired.”

“You get some rest, then,” said Sicily, and attempted to swing Pearl around, point her to the door. “It's good to see you,” she said, shoving.