I used to get really angry when I would watch those infomercials on television for child sponsorship programs.
The host — usually some suave git in sandals and a golf shirt — would look into the camera with “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” eyes while he conveyed the plight of some tiny, malnourished baby sitting next to him in rags.
Now, I understood that that’s how life was in some countries and regions — my parents had raised us to be aware of the world around us and how unusual and abundant our own lives were, even as we counted pennies — but there was still something so repellent about the contrast between this big, clean man with too much meat on his bones holding the frail hand of an emaciated, haggard infant covered in flies.
I would yell two different things at the television:
“Oh my GOSH, pick them UP while you walk, there is STUFF ON THE GROUND.”
and
“GET THE FLIES OUT OF THEIR EYES.”
He never would pick them up, and the flies would still be going at their tear ducts by the time the pitch was over. My mother would explain to me that they were going for pathos; fewer people would think to give money unless they saw those little feet on the ground or those flies all over their faces. Not only that, but once he was gone, no one would be there to help them, anyhow.
But I just figured that the guy — while he was standing there, for the love of Pete — could probably do something about it for a moment. Not being able to do it every time is no excuse to not do it once.
Then I noticed that the children who’d been helped by the charity had no flies in their eyes. Maybe it was because they were healthier and cleaner and not crying. That was good. Or maybe it was just a marketing ploy.
But I just couldn’t see sitting next to a baby covered in flies and not even just waving my hand around a bit near their face. Or, you know, picking them up. Or, you know, taking them home. Or beating up chubby men who ignore them.
Even if I was trying to get money.
***
We have a fly that flies in circles around our living room.
I mean, I assume it’s not the same fly every day, but one appears there without fail, so I’m led to believe it’s an organized shift of some sort.
When you try and wave the fly outside, it always darts out of the way of the pillow or flip flop or newspaper you’re holding, and flies just over your head, still making drunken little circles.
Then, when the coast is clear — or you’ve given up — it proceeds to go back to eye level (if you are sitting on the couch) and go around and around and around. It never even seems to land. It just circles. And circles.
And circles.
It makes me kind of crazy.
I’ve spent entire minutes — maybe hours, though I’d sound really crazy if I admitted that — of my life, standing in one place waiting for the damn thing to come close enough to me so I could smack it out of the air or whoosh it outside with the object in my hand. But it knows. OH, does it know.
It comes nowhere near me.
Though once? I think it did a Figure Eight around my legs.
Cocky fly.
I almost admire that kind of spirit. But I’d still smoke it into next week if I got the chance.
***
When my great-grandfather was dying in hospital, we’d trek to Camrose on occasion to see my great-grandmother and take her up to his ward for a visit.
She liked to go to McDonalds for lunch when we came, or, of course, the Norseman Inn, where I understood nothing on the menu and would invariably order fries or a green salad with Italian (the waitress would pronounce it “EYE-talian”) dressing.
I have a jumbled set of memories when it comes to my great grandparents: her Rose Milk lotion on the counter in the bathroom; the front steps painted bright, glossy red; the beast of a motorhome with a Good Sam sticker on the back that my great-grandfather drove like a maniac (my great-grandmother next to him, holding her purse tightly to her chest and praying for mercy); the KFC we’d eat at the dining room table when they were both still healthy; the odd objects and delights in their mothball- and rust-scented basement; the dog-eared Daily Bread books that sat waiting for post-meal devotions; and the way the light came in through their front window, cut into yellow ribbons by the spindly prairie trees across the street.
He was no picnic to her before I knew him, in the years when they ran their farm in Killam. I’ve heard vague stories of hitting and yelling and pushing down stairs — all told to me long after his death, and not until the very day of her June funeral, actually — but those notions don’t line up with the gentle man who held me in his lap when I was tiny and remarked on the length of my mahogany hair.
I believe all of it, though, because of his children. His sons bore his anger forward in their tense, weather-creased faces before they passed, and his daughter still echoes her mother’s tired martyrdom. They are my evidence.
But — the visits.
On one such occasion, I was packed into an elevator with my purse-clutching great-grandmother, my mother, and a cowboy.
A real cowboy, mind you — not some city slicker poseur, but a man in weathered jeans and a hat tipped forward over his brown, creased face. He smelled like a combination of aftershave and hay and manure, which is much, much better than it sounds.
He didn’t say a word to us as we rode, opting instead to lean in the corner, boots crossed in front of him, eyes on the floor. We didn’t say much, either. Actually, the only sound was of a fly, bouncing off the walls and the celing, buzzing like he’d had one too many cups of joe at the cafeteria downstairs. I hated that sound. It seemed to resonate in your head even after you left the fly behind.
But my great-grandmother watched the fly with her bright, wide eyes — paler in colour every year, as I recall — as it circled us, trained on his every movement like a bloodhound. Her head moved with his little black body, following, following, until he was right in front of her face.
Then her hand shot out like a lizard’s tongue and caught him. His droning buzz was gone in a heartbeat. Her face contorted a little as she squeezed her fist, finishing off the job.
She’d done this thousands of times. Mr. Miyagi in a housedress and hairnet and sensible shoes. We knew the schtick.
The cowboy didn’t, though.
He immediately stood up straight, tipped his hat back, and looked at this tiny, old thing with a mixture of fear, respect, and unabashed love. Then he spoke, voice raspy with cigarettes and whisky.
“Ma’am, will you marry me?”
***
Wedding planners say that couples who do the “cake-smashing” thing at their weddings are more likely to divorce. I’ve heard at least five of them say that, on television and in-person.
You know the bit — the bride and the groom go to feed one another a bite of their wedding cake, and instead end up smearing it across one another’s faces.
Now, I’ve always thought that was kind of stupid for two reaons: a) how much money did you spend on that cake just to squish it into your beloved’s nostrils; and b) you might get chocolate ganache on your dress, which will cost approximately $4 million to get out at the drycleaners.
Still. While the planners might advise against it, but there are always some couples who think it’s just the cutest thing.
But here’s what I want to know: if you feed your bride a fly on the day of your wedding, what impact does that have on the longevity of your marriage?
Because I saw someone do that.
I was emceeing the wedding. I emcee about 60% of the weddings I go to, I think. People say it’s because I’m well spoken. I think they just like to see me make an ass of myself.
(Fortunately, I’m game.)
The reception was drawing to a close as the evening light turned from apricot to indigo in the harbour behind us. The food had been exceptional, the toasts had been emotional, and everything had gone just as the bride and groom intended.
I felt like I was in the home stretch as far as my duties went, and I was looking forward to taking my heels off in the car and making fun of the groom’s uncle, who yelled “You’ll see! You’ll see!” every time someone made a happy pronouncement about wedded bliss.
All that was left was the cutting of the cake.
Everyone crowded around the table with their cameras, ready to catch the classic shot of the night. I was near the front of the pack, because the podium was right next to the cake table. They both put their hands on the ribbon-dressed knife and grinned for the paparazzi as they sliced into the thick fondant icing. Then the feeding moment came.
Now, I’d warned them both not to cake-smash, citing the weddingista pronouncements about the success of their relationship if they went for the kill. I wasn’t sure whether or not they were going to listen to me, though. Recently married people always believe they know everything about everything, so you can’t tell them much.
They are too busy unwrapping waffle irons and working their way through lingerie to hear sense.
But she fed him a bite of cake without any drama, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, as he went to lift a piece to her mouth, a fly came out of nowhere and landed in the center of the pink rosette.
I saw the fly. It was a big fly. The fly was obvious to me. My eyes widened in horror.
But they were too blinded by love and flashbulbs to notice him perched there like Miss Muffet. And I wanted to intervene, but everything just happened too fast.
She swallowed the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly.
She didn’t die.
Nor did I tell them about it, although I swore you could make out his beady little eyes in a couple of the photos.
