Her Name Was Helen

By Paul Mackan

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781462802708

Paul Mackan

Paul Mackan (rhymes with crackin’) is a nice guy, born a long time ago - in Niagara Falls, Ontario, if memory serves. He went to school, didn’t like it much, became a musician, and actor, and finally, a writer. And that’s pretty much that.

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Copyright © 2010 by Paul Mackan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

I GAVE MY LOVE A CHERRY

STORYTELLER

AGE OF REASON AGE OF GUILT

PASSING GRADES

GLAD

SO TRY ST. ANTHONY

THE 4 ft. FLUTE

NOW I LAY ME DOWN

THE PURPLE APPLE

ADAM AND YVES

SORE EYES

FAMILY VALUES

HER NAME WAS HELEN

N.B:

Age of Reason Age of Guilt was awarded Honourable Mention by The Valley Writers’ Guild and published in different form in The Grist Mill.

Family Values was awarded Second Prize by the Canadian Authors Assoc.

Her Name Was Helen was also a prize winner and was included in the anthology, Resonances by the then September House Publishing.

I am escaped wih the skin of my teeth

—Job, X1X, 20

I GAVE MY LOVE A CHERRY

It was at supper on the Saturday night. Doris decided during dessert to murder Donald.

I’m the only one who knows that, up to now anyway, and I only found out about it afterward.

I’m Donald.

I don’t like telling tales ‘out of school,’ it’s simply not done in my family, but I’ve been told that I’m to tell you. It’s part of my purgatory. The whole of it, actually. You probably don’t believe in purgatory, most people don’t today, but it’s real, and I’m in it. And evidently I’m to stay in it until I understand why Doris did what she did.

I’m pretty much as you see me—skinny. I used to tease Dorrie because she really had to watch her weight and she’d get so mad that I could eat anything and not put on a pound. Dorrie, I’d say, you can’t fatten a thoroughbred! I’m bald of course, except for the sides. My teeth are too big, I’ve always felt, but they’re sound and their mine. Dorrie lost hers through her pregnancy. I told her I didn’t care, but, well, mind you I never let on.

It really killed me, Dorrie’s deciding to do it on a Saturday. Saturday, you see, was our night. Regularly. Oh there are those who’ll tell you old Donald is just a stick-in-the-mud, especially with me not there to defend myself, but we’d worked it out, Dorrie and me, settled in to it. And the reason was you understand, that if we did anything untoward, if somehow our passion so to speak got out of hand, why next morning we could get in a quick Confession before Mass and be all straightened around and ready to receive Communion. That was important in my day, that sort of thing. Of course it’s all changed now, so I have to admit I do hold it against Dorrie—no pun intended—for choosing a Saturday night. It hurt.

Saturdays after supper I’d hit the old easy chair for The Love Boat since—let’s face it—Tommy Hunter hung it up, and Mitch Miller went for the serious stuff. It’s no fun if you can’t sing along . . . I suppose that’s all changed too, now . . .

Anyway Dorrie’d finish up in the kitchen, bring me coffee and keep me company. She wouldn’t watch so much; she’d do up her minutes from the League meeting. And when the boy came home from his supermarket job, the two of them would leave me to it and gab away in the kitchen. I never knew what all they had to gab about but they’d spend hours at it, and if young Chuck brought his girlfriend home why the three of them would have a great old time.

Chuck and I never took to each other, truth be known. He’s kind of a lippy kid. Dorrie always says he takes after her but I could never see that. He’s my looks. And he was decent enough around the house anyway. Of course the boy doesn’t come home at all anymore.

The kind of person Dorrie was—I’m sorry—I keep forgetting that Dorrie still is. I am was. Anyway she’s the kind of person they kept electing her Secretary of The League, said nobody could keep the minutes as nicely. And it was nice, too. It gave you a good feeling at the Knights, or the Ushers’ Club, that the little woman was so highly thought of. A happy marriage is a good example for the whole parish; in my day anyway.

Boy isn’t life just full of surprises! I thought I really knew my Dorrie, the kind of person she was—is. But after that Saturday night I wouldn’t bet a plug nickel! Do you know I’ve found out more about my wife since she murdered me than I ever knew when I was living with her every day. Funny, eh?

We were to school together as kids; in the same room. Heck you had to be in St. Brigid’s. There were only four rooms to begin with. Dorrie, however, went with the tomboy crowd, basketball in bloomers, that sort of thing, while I was handicapped. My mother dressed me in three-piece suits. So I’d remember who I was, you see. And she’d drive me to school. Everybody else walked. St. Brigid’s was mainly lower working class so most of the kids had never seen a Catholic with a car.

Then in grade eight Dorrie and I were picked as First Girl and First Boy for that year’s May Crowning. That was the prestigious parish event of the year. The kids would process around the church, singing hymns, while the parents looked on. There’d be a huge platform up at the front with a statue of Mary surrounded by a ton and a half of lilacs, snowballs, bridal veil, orange blossoms and bleeding hearts. Even the working class had a lilac bush in the yard, and Dermody’s Funeral Home would donate the better stuff from their leftovers.

We practiced for weeks with the nuns poking and prodding us into perfection while their all-seeing eyes recorded us for eternity. Even the priests had to cancel their weekly poker game to be on deck. So it was a real honour for Dorrie and me to be chosen. For a while there we were the cat’s pyjamas!

The girls wore veils, and the way Dorrie’s sat on top of her red hair was a sight to see; the boys got all dolled up in shirts and ties. Sister Loyola would barrel in on the organ with Bring Flowers of the Rarest and we’d come to the chorus:

Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today . . . while Dorrie mounted the platform—you could see her shaking—and put a crown of lilies-of-the-valley on the statue’s head. The procession would go around again ’till the fourth verse when I went up the platform carrying a huge bunch of cala lilies from Dermody’s. I knelt with my gentlemen-in-waiting and laid the lilies right on the line:

"Forsake us o never! our hearts be they ever

as pure as the lilies we lay at thy feet."

And then boy! did we rip in to that final chorus:

Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May!

Ah it was a swell time! You don’t forget those things!

Afterward, my mother invited Dorrie’s family to join us at The Sugar Bowl, a real tony place in those days. That’s when we sort of fell in together, Dorrie and me. We both ordered a sundae called a Tin Roof, covered with peanuts and walnuts and topped with a maraschino cherry. I noticed that Dorrie set her cherry aside. I wanted to ask her for it but didn’t think I should.

The next September we had to go to separate high schools; Cathedral Girls’ and Cathedral Boys’. I called her whenever there were Saturday night school dances. On Sunday afternoons we’d go for long walks. There were also long telephone conversations. We talked a lot then I must say. Now we can sit by the hour saying nothing and I feel perfectly comfortable.

I was comfortable the night she killed me. She even had my favourite dessert that night, cherry pie.

I asked, What’s the occasion?

No occasion. She said.

I hugged her as we stood in front of the kitchen counter. Cherry pie, cherry pie; I could eat it ’till I die.

Some day you might, you know, you just might. She gave a little laugh and worked herself out of my hug and went to do something at the sink.

Yeah but what a way to go!

Cherries, were a kind of thing between Dorrie and me. If we’d been through a rough patch I’d bring her a box of chocolate-coated ones. For Valentine’s I always got her the two-pound box. These little things are what keep love alive. And regularity. Indubitably it’s more important for the man I think—to be regular. Women have always understood this. I know Dorrie did because that very Saturday night she had the wild idea of going out to a movie. I was nonplussed. I didn’t want to be crass and come right out and say, Dorrie it’s Saturday night. But I wanted to get my message across:

Gee, hon, think of the lineups—on a Saturday night!

At least we’d get some fresh air, get out of our rut—pardon the expression—

I didn’t catch on right away.

Dorrie said, Dense? I’d love to.

Then I got it. Dorrie never made direct talk about our Saturday night pattern—you know—in a rut—rutting—she was very quiet about that sort of thing; shy. But there she was this time grinning at me.

Anyway it’s ok, she said, we can go another time. We’ll stay home and be ourselves tonight.

That’s what I mean about her understanding a man’s point of view. She was very sweet and shy.

She wasn’t always I can tell you! When we were kids we’d get so excited! Once I became of age to borrow my mother’s car for the dances, why, we were always double-dating. Usually with Dorrie’s best friend, Agnes, and her long line of different friends. I used to call Agnes ‘Glory’ because she wanted the world to know a good Catholic when it saw one. Everything with her was ‘Glory be to God!’ this and ‘Glory be to God!’ that. She was abundant and affectionate and had no trouble stringing up the whole boys’ school like a rosary she could prey on.

And we were so innocent! Kids weren’t told beans in those days—the whole subject was a no-no. Every urge you had was a sin. For instance, in religion class the Biblical quote about ‘the handwriting on the wall’ was a dire warning. In the boys’ washroom it was the best source of information around. That was our sex education, that and some hit-and-miss talk and a lot of what the priests called ‘self-abuse.’ I never learned what the nuns called it.

Anyway, one night, driving home, Dorrie and I could hear the goings-on in the back seat; whispers from him, ‘glories’ from her. I took the bull by the horns so to speak and pulled in to a country lane and parked. Dorrie didn’t seem surprised, and the two in the back never noticed. Dorrie and I stared at each other, tantalized, terrified. From the back seat came the unmistakable sound of a zipper. Then came Agnes’ voice, sounding more like his than hers, with her ejaculation, Glory be to the Father! Dorrie and I both knew that Agnes had finally seen something she’d never seen before. Dorrie looked straight down at me to see what I had to show for myself, and I started the car and roared out of there burning with embarrassment—and—worry as to how the hell I was going to describe this in Confession.

I lay awake half the night playing with what I might say to the priest! But as it turned out I got lucky—there was a visiting priest in the confessional Sunday morning. He didn’t know my voice so I got through it alright and was able to receive Communion.

When I got to Dorrie’s house that afternoon we didn’t speak for a long time, just sat together on the veranda. Then she grinned, Agnes sure proved the power of prayer!

Truth is, Dorrie was disposed to a little fun in that line. One time on our walk in the woods I got her to touch me intimately. And she took her time about it and I had to tell her she’d better stop before I had an accident.

She smiled, I hope my mother is right.

About what?—my voice about two octaves higher—

She gave me a final little pat, Well, she’s always saying ‘good things come in small packages.’

Dorrie had a great sense of humour then. That’s how I came to calling her Dorrie: I told her that old joke about the Newfie fisherman who ‘did it’ in his dory.

We were married right after high school and we’d both of us saved ourselves, which was the way of things then. Looking back I suppose we thought it was like our fooling around in the woods only we didn’t have to go home after. We carried right on, free of restraint. Especially Dorrie. I mean the things you read about in books she wanted to do. So we did. She laughed and joked, and she made me want her, and she provoked me:

Come on Donald, do it in your Dorrie!

Dorrie your shameless!

What’s there to be ashamed of? It’s wonderful!

It was of course; she was right. I couldn’t believe it was me making noises like that. One touch could buckle your knees.

But I couldn’t put our public and private parts together. I mean, how could you make the hotel people for instance think you were proper—pull it off with a straight face—it’s hard even to talk about—I found it embarrassing to leave our room if I thought we might meet the maid who’d changed our bedding. One evening we took a walk around the grounds after dinner. Dorrie sat on a bench and waited for me to join her. I was afraid to.

We got home on the Saturday afternoon. I only had a week off. But frankly that was a blessing in disguise because it was the hardest week I’d ever put in and I couldn’t have kept it up for another. We stood in the middle of our little apartment looking at each other. This was it. Our first home.

Dorrie smiled, Come on Donald, we can unpack later. Let’s christen this place!

Listen, I said, you’re right, we can unpack later, after we nip over to Confession—now—before the lineups, and be all set for Mass in the morning?

Why do you want to go to Confession?

Well, you know what we’ve been getting up to—

Donald, we’re married.

Even so—

This is part of us now for as long as we last—

But we’re home now, Dorrie, not in the hotel, shouldn’t things, shouldn’t we, ‘settle down?’

What do you mean?

Look— I put my hands on her arms to explain.

She slapped me away from her. I was confused.

What do you mean! Donald? Spit it out!

Uh—why don’t you look after the suitcases and maybe get a start on supper, and I’ll just nip over to church and that way I’ll feel better.

I was always satisfied afterwards that I’d gone.

At first though, I couldn’t even enter the church. Right in front of the main doors I was suddenly—and fully—aroused. There wasn’t an inch of me not throbbing with sin. I was publicly indecent. But my God it felt good! I sensed tinglings and touches, my knees went weak, my stomach hit below the belt and I could hear Dorrie calling me to come. I wanted to. I tried to pray. The nuns used to tell us that even the desire for forgiveness was a provenient grace. But what I desired wasn’t grace. What I wanted you’d not find in the bosom of the church! I put my hand in to my pocket to finger my beads and my fingers almost brought the issue to a head. I told myself that was not the way to say the rosary!

I tried reasoning: does a good Catholic lust after his own wife? I know my mother would say Not in our family, dear. Dorrie had opened me up to something I literally couldn’t handle. Where was the sacrament in all this? I mean, I was the boy who’d climbed up that platform and swore I was as pure as those lilies I’d laid at her feet!

Boy God works in mysterious ways! I’d just about decided I’d have to pull off my jacket and hold in front of me as a cover-up, even though that meant going in to church in my shirt sleeves, when out of the church came Mr. and Mrs. Moran.

Have you ever seen a man walk like a chicken? He did. He was a scrawny little bantam-weight and his head actually jerked forward with every step he took. His wife on the other hand was what is called your big woman: breasts to feed the world and hips to change its balance of power. They’d been a parish institution since Adam was a pup. Suffice it to say that the image of the two of them trying to do anything in a bed put the damper on me, thank God! A quick ejaculation to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and a nod to those two got me in to the church. But I liked the thought that the Morans had seen me heading to Confession the first day back from my honeymoon. That was a good sign I felt.

But my embarrassment wasn’t over because I no sooner got in the box and said, Bless me Father for I have sinned, when Father Boarington said, Hello Donald and welcome back!

Did you have a good honeymoon?

Well yes, Father—I—uh—

Is there something troubling you Donald?

I think so, Father—

Something to do uh with your marriage, Donald?

It’s very hard, Father, to put it into words.

Well now tell me this, Donald, were you uh able to consummate your union?

Yes father.

Well then everything’s alright, then.

I’m not so sure, Father.

Then Donald, uh let me ask you this—

And boy did he ask. Who would have thought a priest would know about such things. He took me over everything in detail and it was a rough go. I learned some new things. Onanism, for example.

I don’t think you sinned, Donald, but it’s wise to pray for the grace to remember that the uh marriage act is pro-life and pro-creation and not uh for uh hedonism. Do you follow me now, Donald?

I’m not sure, father.

The pleasure principle, Donald. The pleasure principle. Keep in mind that the uh hedonist—

How do you spell that, Father—

You can look it up when you get home, Donald. The important thing is uh that the hedonist believes that the uh physical pleasure is the uh be-all and end-all. Do you follow me now?

I think I’ve the idea, Father—uhm—do you suppose that could be any part for example of what happened in the Garden of Eden?

It could be uh Donald, it could very well be and it’s best to avoid uh that sort of thing. Now for your penance say five Hail Marys and ask the Holy Mother of God to guide you in all things and make a good act of contrition while I give you uh absolution.

But Father—how do I make all this clear, you know, to the little woman—?

Uh here’s what I’ll do, uh Donald . . .

We had a quiet dinner, then while Dorrie did up the dishes I read the paper. And true to his promise Father Boarington popped in to ‘bless the new home.’ I must say he did it up right, he brought the holy water, the sprinkler, his stole; Dorrie was really surprised. Father went through the