Cheeseburger Subversive (17 page)

Hilda steps into the gallery again at this point, nodding her head in agreement. Apparently, she dislikes the Rococo style as well. Behind the tour group, Hilda follows us into the next room, and I am torn between wanting to make Zoe laugh and wanting to impress Hilda.

“Then came the Neo-Classical style,” I continue, raising a hand dramatically each time I stroll past a painting. “It was a hard-edged, historically themed method which rebelled against the fluffy genre scenes of the Rococo technique. Next came the more emotional and patriotic Romanticism, which rebelled against the austerity of Neo-Classicism.”

Hilda leaves the room, smiling and jotting a note on her clipboard. Time to make jokes again!

“Then there was Realism,” I continue, “which depicted everyday people and things, and which rebelled against both Neo-Classicism and Romanticism, and threw rotten eggs at Rococo. Then a guy named Bob O'Toole-Flanagan came along and rebelled against everybody by hanging stuff other than paintings on his walls, such as farm implements, traffic signs, and car parts. And, thus, the North American restaurant franchise industry was born.”

“Anyway, these next few paintings are by the Impressionists, whose leader was Monet. There was also another Impressionist named Manet. It's kind of like having another talk-show host called David Betterman, eh?”

Zoe giggles.

“After the Impressionists,” I explain, “came the Pre-Cubists, who intentionally stuck to simple forms — cubes, cones, and spheres, and ignored the rules of mathematical perspective. So, cheer up all of you who are taking introductory oil painting! You're not lousy painters, you're Pre-Cubists!”

Zoe laughs out loud.

“We're Pre-Cubists, Doris!” one lady chirps to another.

Zoe is giggling uncontrollably, now. This is great! Working here with her is going to be so much fun!

At the end of the tour, back at the gallery's entrance, Hilda smiles warmly and extends a hand.

“Congratulations, Mr. Sifter! The bits of your tour I was able to see were very well done. Can you start working here on Monday morning? On a trial basis, of course.”

“Of course!” I reply. From behind Hilda, Zoe leans against the reception desk and gives me a thumbs-up.

As if she has eyes in the back of her head, Hilda spins around and says, “Now, Miss Perry, dear, what have I told you about sitting on the desk? The desk is not a chair, dear!”

“I wasn't sitting, Hilda. I was only leaning.”

Hilda's tone of voice immediately shifts into a bulldog snarl, as she stomps toward Zoe. “Leaning on a desk is just as unbecoming as sitting, Miss Perry,” she snaps, “especially when one wears skirts as short as those you seem to favour.” Hilda glances over her shoulder at me, her voice resuming its grandmotherly sweetness, and says, “Rather unladylike, I'm afraid. Attracts the wrong sort of boys, too, I might add. Don't you agree, Mr. Sifter?”

“Ahh . . . Ummmmm . . . Hmmm,” is my response. Ouch. Maybe Hilda is not so nice after all.

On Monday I return to the gallery for my first day as a tour guide.

In my pocket, as part of my plan to win Zoe again, is a poem I have written for her, which I am going to slip into her hand when the perfect moment presents itself. It begins:

GALLERY
(by Dak, for Zoe)

This woman wears an Archaic Smile
It doesn't change - I've been watching for awhile
It's just a convention of the times
And it nicely masks whatever's happening inside

She's gone, she's lost,
She's wasted on the post-modern eye
Only the sculptor knows for sure
What she was thinking at the time

And here she is again, the symbolic bride
Two thousand years have passed and she still averts her
eyes
The Renaissance has veiled her in drapes of wine
But you'll have to call her Venus if you want her to recline

She's gone, she's lost
She's wasted on the Nintendo mind
Only the painter knows for sure
What drew him to her at the time

Monday's admission to the Gallery is free
There's one specific work I always come to see
She wears a nametag, and she gives the tour
These are the only things I know of her for sure

Is she gone? Lost?
Wasted in a digital age?
Is she the kind of poetry
Whose meaning lies beyond the page?

I want so much to give this poem to Zoe, to see her unfold it in her hands. It's practically burning a hole in my pocket. I want to be Zoe's Renaissance Man.

I walk through the entire gallery but Zoe is nowhere to be found. I knock on the door of Hilda's office and gently push the door open.

“Oh! Good morning, Mr. Sifter!” Hilda chirps, sitting upright behind her desk, dipping a tea bag into her china cup. “Come in! Come in!”

“Good morning, Hilda. So, um, during my trial period, will I, um, be working with a partner?”

“Oh, of course, dear,” Hilda coos. She takes a sip from her teacup. “I would never leave a new tour guide all on his own.”

“Um, well, will I be working with Miss Perry, then?”

“Oh no, no,” Hilda says, her rosy cheeks turning grey, “Miss Perry is no longer with us.”

“What?” I yelp.

Hilda's nostrils flare.

“She was insubordinate. Her skirts were unbecoming. She constantly mispronounced Caravaggio. She giggled all the way through your first tour last week which showed a lack of decorum.”

My hands dangle at my sides. My jaw drops open. I can't blink. The girl of my dreams got fired because of my stupid jokes? How could this be any worse?

“But the final straw,” Hilda continues, “was when I caught her in a compromising position in the cloakroom with that boyfriend of hers. Of course I had to terminate her employment then.”

Jimmy got Zoe into a closet in the gallery? I feel like I might puke.

“Don't you worry, though, Mr. Sifter,” Hilda says, resuming her sing-song voice. “I've hired a new girl to help you give the tours. I think you'll like her!”

In through the office door skips — no! It can't be!

“Good morning, Miss Hilda!” says my sister Charlotte, grinning smugly. “I'm all ready to start my first tour!”

“She's just as qualified as yourself, and I figured the two of you would work well together as a team, being siblings,” Hilda beams.

“Yeah,” Charlotte says, “and you'll be able to drive me back and forth to work, too!” She grins widely, relishing my suffering. “Won't that be fun, big brother?”

Charlotte turns to a reproduction on Hilda's office wall.

“Oh!” she squeals, “It's a Georgia O'Keefe! How beautiful!”

“Yes,” Hilda smiles, “her work speaks to me.”

“It speaks to me, too,” Charlotte concurs.

Behind Hilda's desk hangs an old woodcut, which speaks to me. It's an illustration from Dante's
Inferno
, which shows a man being dragged down to hell.

Cheeseburger Subversive

(Grade twelve)

I
t has finally happened: My chance for redemption! Zoe Perry is sitting next to me on the squeaky, torn bench seat of my 1972 Ford pickup. Despite the size of the seat, she is pressed up against me, her cheek on my shoulder. Her position causes some difficulty when I have to shift gears, but hey, this is Zoe. Third gear will just have to wait.

This isn't a first date, exactly — Zoe and I were out on a date once in grade ten, but since it resulted in the engine of my car blowing up and in Zoe deciding to explore relationships with other guys, I've decided to look at this as a new beginning. And a major new beginning it is! Zoe is pressed up against me! Of her own free will! And all I had to do to get her here was manufacture a new personal ideology.

“It's supposed to be thirty-two degrees Celsius by noon,” Zoe says. “The hottest day of the year so far!”

Indeed.

I softened her a little with a new-found knack for writing poetry, I softened her a little more with a new-found appreciation for art, and I warmed her nearly to the melting point by finding her jewellery when she lost it at the beach. I wanted so much for her to love me, I was beginning to fear that maybe she was too good for me. To think that I nearly blew it forever when I admitted, during one of our grade twelve political science classes, that, if I had been old enough to vote, I would have voted for the Conservatives in the last federal election. Zoe's look of disdain made me feel like crawling under my desk.

I suppose I should have known that Zoe had become a political
subversive
. I should have known it from her all black wardrobe, and from the dangling silver earrings shaped like the head of Karl Marx. While I was drawing doodles of airplanes and electric guitars in the margins of my notebook, Zoe was carefully carving slogans like
Question Authority before Authority questions You
across the top of her back row desk.

So, in my ignorance, I very nearly erased forever the possibility of having a torrid love affair with Zoe Perry. I blame it on the fact that she fooled me for years, first by wearing cute, pink jumpsuits and flowery sun dresses all through elementary school, then by wearing short skirts and tight jeans in grades nine and ten (which often caused me some major blood relocation). But more important, I blame nearly losing Zoe on my father.

My father votes Conservative. Always. Without question. “In our family,” says Dad, almost threateningly, “we vote Conservative. My father voted Conservative, as did his father and grandfather, and his great grandfather, too.” Dad even carries a blue-and-white card in his wallet that confirms his lifetime membership in the I-Vote-Conservative-No-Matter-What Club.

It was from my father that I got the impression that political subversives are all hunchbacked, gap-toothed, babbling homicidal maniacs. To my father, Charles Manson is the type of guy who probably never voted Conservative. Subversives spend all of their time bombing police stations and belonging to clubs called fronts. They seldom bathe, wash their clothes, or shave. Dad says, “They're almost as destructive as the Liberal Party!”

So naturally, being raised to believe that conservatism is the major trait in normal-functioning brains, I was a little surprised when Zoe announced to everybody in class that she is an anarchist. She does wear black, of course, and she's got the earrings, but I was confused somewhat by her membership in the glee club and the prom committee. Also, quite unlike Charles Manson, she has a nice figure and exquisitely manicured nails. Her legs are slim, shaved, and generally very non-subversive looking.

“Anyone who votes Conservative votes against the working class!” she snapped.

Well, my dad is a working man (I think) so I was a little puzzled by her remark. At the same time, though, my heart was crushed.

How could I let politics triumph over love! I had to act quickly or lose her forever! Luckily, right before class, I had consumed two cans of Coke and three Ding Dongs at the local Quickie Mart, so my brain was spinning like the wheels of a supercharged Chevette.

“Well,” I asserted boldly, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall, right? Since the pre-election polls indicated a landslide victory for the Conservatives anyway, I figured that the best strategy would be to help them win the election. That way, when we anarchists convince the rest of the country to rise against the government, the Conservative Party will be decimated in the process!”

Zoe's expression changed, which inspired me to continue. Summoning all I could remember from a Socialist Party of Canada leaflet that was once left under the windshield wiper of my truck, I jumped to my feet, my caffeine and sugar charged head buzzing, and chanted:

“Heck, give ‘em all seats in the House of Commons! All the more Conservatives to fall on their big corporate butts when we pull the seats out from under them! And when the Conservatives fall, so shall the military-industrial complex! The strength will be sapped from the corporate stranglehold around the necks of the proletariat and the workers of our land will rise like a flood, cleansing all in their wake, washing away the sins of greed! So let ‘em have the House of Commons! That way, they'll all be in one convenient location when we pull the green rug out from under them!”

The class was silent. I was out of breath. Zoe's eyes were glistening with tears. How could she have misjudged me so? Ah, the loquaciousness of love! The rhetoric of romance!

“Uh, yes, thank-you, Dak,” muttered my astonished teacher. “A lovely speech, especially considering that your father holds a Progressive Conservative Party barbecue at your home each summer.”

I wish he hadn't mentioned that.

“And yes,” he says, “you are correct insofar as you point out that the rug of the House of Commons is indeed green. I'll give you a bonus mark if you can tell me what colour the Senate chamber is.”

I was stumped. It could be meringue yellow for all I know. Nevertheless, Zoe met me at my locker after class.

“You were great in class today, Dak!” she says. “I'm sorry I was so short with you initially. I misunderstood you. Mr. Hawthorn was awestruck!”

Wow.
Awestruck
!

“I never would have guessed that you were an anarchist like me. I mean, I know you like poetry and art, but you wear pleated pants and loafers! You don't dress like a subversive at all! You part your hair on the right, too, which I always thought was supposed to be a subconscious confession of right-wing attitudes.”

“Ah, but that's the idea, Zoe,” I reply, trying to sound whiskey-smooth with my Coca-Cola voice. “Destroy the process from the inside. Act like one of them, dress like one of them, and they'll never know what hit ‘em when we, the masses, turn on ‘em.”