behindtheax

Leaves and Actors

It is still raining. Yesterday as I stepped from the bank I spotted the used book store across the street and decided I needed to look in it. The owner has books crammed in shelves to the very ceiling and boxes and piles of books in every narrow aisle. In the back is where he keeps the Canadian literature, the poetry, the classics, the- how-to books. Up front is everything else but it seems to me that fantasy and mystery out number the others. I bought an old, brown page copy of Catcher in the Rye but before that I lost complete track of time in there. A whole hour went by without me. I was busy reading the back of books, the first pages of books, the inside jackets of books before I realized I had other things to do. When I left the store the rain had soften to drizzle. The side walks were covered in wet leaves, the flower shop was displaying big baskets of rust coloured fall mums and gigantic cabbage like flowers with mauve centres, out front. The coffee shop I walked by was full of people. As I kept walking I started thinking of my husband and how he looked after his jog the night before. With the ballcap on and redden cheeks, I saw for a brief moment the boy in him that he once was.

I was in his grade six class. The only times we ever spoke was when the teacher put us in groups of six and told each group to come up with a ten minute skit for parent night. I was placed in his group. He and his friend David wrote the skit. It was a spoof on M.A.S.H. He played Klinger. I played a nurse. I asked them not to write me any words to say. They were fine with this. The night of the show, for the first few minutes it was going well but then David and Greg after getting a few laughs decided to abandon the skit for complete improv. Needless to say it went where a grade six class shouldn’t of took it. I was in the back of the stage hiding when I was told by the teacher to go up front and stop them , to come up with something to end the skit. I was horrified that I had to this. I think she had to literally push me forward. I followed Greg around the stage for a while trying to speak to him but he was too busy waddling around as a very pregnant Klinger. I forget how it ended. Not well.

posted by mary j. @ 9:26 AM