For years I have had the intention to publish my mother’s diaries. That almost sounds like a really bitchy thing to do, doesn’t it? She recorded her days when she was young; a time of life many of us can relate to–before marriage, kids, mortgages, deadlines and career pressures take precedence over having fun and sneaking into dance pavilions.

She kept her notebooks and journals in a shoe box, bringing them along through all the moves from city to city, house to house, donating scarce closet space to accommodate them. I know she re-read them in her final years because there are notes here and there in the margins in her shaky, senior’s handwriting. Her house had a working fireplace–those diaries could have gone up in flames any time she chose. I think she liked reading about herself as a young woman and didn’t mind that they were left behind for the family to discover after she passed.

I’m working on my final edits to these diaries. The publisher is Friesen Press, a Canadian company that meets authors half-way between traditional methods and self-publishing. My deadline is the end of October. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll see these journals in book form before Christmas. Honestly, I think she’d be thrilled.

Below is another short story I wrote, one of my earlier efforts; A Boy, A Bottle, and a Baker.

Keep your joy.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or sign up for delivery to your email.

A Boy, a Bottle, and a Baker

It was Saturday. The back door slammed, his Grandmother shouted after him, “Be back for dinner!” Kenny jumped the three wooden steps to hit the ground running. He squeezed through the hole in the fence, cut through MacDougall’s yard to the next block. In minutes he was downtown, PF Flyers slapping time. Following the map in his head he peered up and down every street. He spotted old Carrothers, the baker, on his back stoop with a broom. Kenny abruptly stopped, pulled himself to attention and saluted. Carrothers returned the salute, shouting, “At ease, soldier.” Carrothers and his dad had been in the war together.

If Kenny was lucky, he’d find his dad in a good mood. He’d call him Buddy, and say things like, “What’s up, Doc?” or, “Look at the size of you!” He’d roll up his sleeve, show Kenny his tattoo of Popeye pouring a bottle of Jack Daniels into his mouth. He’d flex his forearm to make Popeye chug, “Glug, glug, glug,” making Kenny laugh.

If he was in a bad mood, he’d say, “Hey, Buddy,” but tell Kenny to go on back home, go play somewhere else.

Every alleyway, every gritty back parking lot was as familiar to Kenny as the tree in his back yard. He made his way behind the Chinese restaurant. Spotting a familiar boot amongst the trash cans, he ran over. Something didn’t look right; “Dad!” He heaved the bins out of his way. His father was sprawled motionless in mud and vomit, his face an ugly shade of blue. Kenny’s wail sliced through the Saturday morning sounds of business as usual. Carrothers reached him first.

Back at school the teachers were kind. At first. He enjoyed special perks, like going outside to clean the chalk from the erasers. Until one recess, Shawn Snyder taunted him, “Teacher’s pet!” Then sneered, “Your Dad was a drunken bum.”

“Take that back!”

Kenny head-butted him hard onto the ground. Kids chanted, “Fight, fight!” His fists pounded Shawn’s face, blood from his knuckles and Shawn’s nose spraying into the air. The principal hauled him up by his shirt collar and shook him hard.

Sweating, wiping blood, snot and tears from his face, Kenny listened to his grandmother plead; she couldn’t miss three days work if Kenny was suspended. The principal slowly repeated he could not tolerate this behaviour. His Grandmother stood, “No, of course not—not while you think that Snyder bastard is right.” She yanked Kenny up by his arm.

A few years went by, not quite a kid anymore, not yet a teen, Kenny found the older kids down by the river. He sold them the cigarettes he’d shoplifted. Somebody had a bottle of homemade barrel whiskey and offered it to him. He took a big swig to pretend like it wasn’t his first time. He felt the scorch all the way down. It made him cough and he shook his head hard. The teens found this funny, they offered him more, fanning the flames with laughter and false inclusion. A few more swigs and Kenny felt a warm lift he didn’t know existed. The trash bins in his mind melted away.

Several years and many bottles later, Ken stopped at the local bar after work, just for one or two. The waitress dropped a double shot in front of him without waiting for his order. The burn slid nicely down his throat.

He fumbled with the lock, carried his shoes inside. He had loved Marla since the early days of high school, loved her still. They had bought their tiny war-time home when they were twenty, gutted and refurbished it. They had plans.

He looked at the closed bedroom door, saw his alarm clock and blanket dumped on the couch. Again.

The alarm yanked him out of the same old dream. He rubbed his face, assessed his hangover, stumbled into a cold shower. Pouring a large coffee, Ken opened the cupboard above his head, stared at the JD label. Lightening quick, he tipped the bottle so it fell forward. He caught it lightly, his right thumb spinning the cap off like stone sparking a flint. Just for fun he waved the bottle under his nose before he poured a generous shot into his mug.

He turned around. Marla stood there, her eyes cold, mouth tight. He raised his mug with a smart-ass smile, “Breakfast of champions. Just to warm up the day.”

“Be home for dinner. We’re gonna talk.” She shut the bathroom door and turned the lock.

Straight home after work, Ken danced a little jig in the doorway, threw Marla a friendly salute, “Here I am, as promised.”

He ground one fist into the other listening while she listed the reasons why she was leaving him. He interrupted vehemently, “I can quit drinking any time I want. I hold a job, I pay the bills…” She cut him off with the real reason.

He gasped, sucker-punched, barely heard her explanations, that she’d be gone by Saturday, that she’d buy out his half of the house.

His face flushed with anger, hurt and frustration, “That should be my baby!” He drew his fist back and slammed it through the drywall. Pain shot up his forearm, he grabbed his coat, banged the front door loudly behind him.

Ken frequented the local bar so often the staff teased him as if he was late for a shift. He hosted his buddies, bought rounds, repeated his favourite opinions and jokes; “A man who holds his liquor holds his job.” Or, “When it comes to losing, I’m a winner!”

Somebody clapped him on the back. He laughed because everybody else was laughing. More shots; finally the noise deadened, the quiet, cool recesses in his mind opened. He eased back, believing he was contributing to the camaraderie.

On a Friday morning, making his way to his work station, Ken swaggered a little bit, proud that he was never technically late, but always last to punch in. Cutting that late-but-not-late line as thinly as possible was as satisfying to him as driving a nail with one swing. His job was riveting bolts as the parts moved down the line. A lot of guys complained about the boredom, but the rhythm was soothing to Ken. Pull the overhead part down, first bolt, second, third, fourth and done. Swing and punch, swing and punch. Collect pay, pass go.

This day, his boss came out on the floor, stepping into Ken’s path. He nodded toward the office with an exaggerated double handed after-you sweep of his hands. A stony-faced union rep was there, waiting. Ken had been warned, but never really believed it. He never missed a day. He always made quota. He felt the blood in his neck turn to ice water.

His boss reached into the desk and pushed a portable breathalyzer towards him. “I can smell it on you, Ken. Every morning I can smell it. Look, I’m sorry, but we can’t take the risk, the liability is too much. You need to blow into this, it’s in the contract.”

Feigning innocent disbelief, Ken looked at the union rep, who repeated, “It is in the contract. You can choose not to, but you’ll be suspended without pay until you do.” Ken jerked to his feet purposefully knocking his chair over. He swept the breathalyzer onto the floor, shouted a few suggestions of what the whole factory could do and slammed the office door.

After the bartender cut him off, Ken stumbled home. He shouted obscenities randomly at passersby. He challenged some guy to a fight because he and his girlfriend were laughing. The girlfriend scoffed, “Leave him alone, he’s not worth it.”

The next morning the alarm snapped him out of the usual dream. On his way to shower, he stopped, pressed play on the answering machine. Someone from HR said they needed his signature on the severance papers. Yesterday came back to him like a push into a cold lake.

Ken showed up regularly at the construction site. The foreman gave him work, whatever needed doing that day, cash only. Ken was always early at first, but as months passed, he was pleased to be there before noon. Eventually he was told, “Don’t bother coming back.”

Ken sat at the bar, laughing mindlessly at everything and nothing. He’d had a good day: old Mrs. Snyder had given him a fifty for raking leaves and fixing her shutters. He looked around. With luck, a buddy from the old days might buy him a shot. He locked eyes with someone, knew the man had been watching him.

Carrothers gave him a half-hearted salute.

Sliding off his stool, Ken met the bartender out back. Ken handed over what was left of his fifty for a half-empty bottle. Placing one foot carefully in front of the other he made it back to his room. He’d never had to go to the Mission or the Sally Ann, or worse a church basement. He could handle things.

When the tremors and sweats woke him, Ken reached for the bottle. He took it with both hands, concentrating on getting it to his mouth. He choked and heaved the bottle against the wall. The rat-bastard bartender had sold him water.

Ken pushed through the hole in the fence and pulled himself up the wooden steps. He knocked to the rhythm of shave-and-a-haircut. His grandmother answered. With a weak smile, could she spot him a twenty? He promised to clean her gutters. She left him waiting and returned, silently handing over two tens.

In the morning, the grit in his eye woke him. He could barely stand upright, he kept a hand on the trash bin for balance. He’d wet his pants. He recognized the parking lot behind the Chinese restaurant. When the dry heaves subsided, the sobs started.

Carrothers answered the banging on his back door. He pulled Ken up the stairs into his apartment, got him in the shower, put him to bed, then parked himself in a chair outside the door.

Three days passed. Ken sweated and vomited, shook and chattered his way through terrible dreams. Carrothers talked quietly to him, made him sip water or sometimes broth. On the fourth morning, Carrothers brought him tea and toast with butter melting deep into it, honey dripping off the sides.

Clean, sober, and showered, muttering an awkward thank you, Ken headed for the door. But Carrothers blocked his way, holding an old shoe box under one arm. “Kenny, you can leave anytime you want. Or stay as long as you need to but nobody knew your Dad better than me. If you want to know who he was… before…”

Carrothers told the good stories first. How he and Ken’s dad had signed up together “fresh as buns from the oven”. The later stories, the battles, the trenches, the things they saw, came slower. Alcohol was a comfort, a way to escape. After the war, some couldn’t shake the habit. It was no one’s fault. Ken asked questions, listened again and again to Carrothers’ stories. He spent hours looking at the photos, cooling his shame, refocussing his lens. He earned his keep repairing all the broken bits of the building.

But when he was paid cash for washing windows for the shop down the street, his feet took him straight to the liquor store. The bottle felt right at home in his hand, the shot put out its own fire.

Carrothers never judged him; he took Ken back in three more times.

—

Nowadays, Kenneth walks through the back alleyways of downtown. He peers in all the dark spots, crouches beside the men and women he finds. Sometimes he offers advice or guides them to the shelters, sometimes he just holds their hand. Sometimes he rolls up his sleeve to show them Popeye eating his spinach, standing with his foot on a bottle of JD.