Unconventional Chapter 4

*Before…

I’m right into it a whole lot when I see Jennifer’s Starbuck’s better as a brunette thing come up in my e-mails and I log in and see her out in like places and she’s sent me selfies of her being legitimate her and like at a park I think and with some other kids that are sort of like in the back ground and kind of photo bombing.

Friends…

Yeah it’d be nice to have friends like that here.

I send some smiles and comment on the pictures on her Google-plus and by the time I’m done that it’s time to go and have that whole last family supper.

I really, really want to get out of here.

*And Now…

I take a breath and hold it a minute and it’s going to be one of those things where it’s going to be extra close family time and extra close family time isn’t really my deal. I mean I like my folks sort of.

We’re disconnected and like they’re both okay but it’s not like they get me at all.

And that’s just the metal head hard rocker geek.

That they don’t know is a geekette.

I have like so much going on in my head and it’s so loud it just hurts me sometimes.

I ground myself as best as I can and I head outside and I can smell the food and my stomach is caught between being actually hungry and doing a slow roll to the left and crying out in terror.

My other relatives are here to see me off because Mom has this thing about family and making this some sort of like BFD.

We really sort of don’t hang with each other most are from other parts of town or from outside of Truro altogether. And outside of Truro well other than a few cities that aren’t all that close well it’s all rural and stuff.

Which means there’s country music playing.

Y’know when when your dog drinks all of your beer and the cactus done run off with your wimmen.

Or… there’s the opposite crowd that is like the hillbilly meth head crowd.

Mulletpeople.

My brother’s people…Parker’s.

And then like I said the food…I don’t know where it came from what part of my family found these things but they sort of like materialize at most family gatherings.

Ambrosia salad…urk.

Macaroni and Tostidos nacho-cheese chip dip…urk.

Macaroni salad with mayo mixed with vinegar and cream cheese and canned baking milk with like just a little onion and garlic powder…urk.

And yeah there hillbilly country rock playing and it’s the old generation kinda sort of rebels still trying to be like rebels but they’re so not.

Like who the hell thinks Kid Rock’s like relevant.

And there’s the yard full of cars and vehicles mostly like a few trucks and mini-vans and RAV’s but there’s some of those cousins and uncles with the Fast & Furious cars but it’s more like the Fast and Ridiculous.

Four cylinder cars maybe six with really bad versions of nice custom paintjobs and plastic chrome and those Canadian tire decals and reflector tape and the really bad track lighting like their cars a strip club and the stereos.

With enough power to cause serious damage if you actually drove like that.

And yeah my brother’s over there with them and it’s just this stark reminder of that’s likely going to be his life and stuff and what my might have been…could be and stuff. Just shit like that being my glory days?

I sigh and then the music changes and it’s not all that bad as someone actually puts on some rock and roll and yeah it’s old stuff but I’ll take it over the country and I see some of my female cousins are here and that’s okay too.

Actually while I recognize most of them they’ve changed enough that it’s pretty different over the last year and some for a few of them.

A couple of them look really amazing but also that kind of amazing that comes with I’m better than you don’t talk to me and they’re like all hanging together by default and they’re giving off this look like they’re all suffering that they’re here and they’re so like above it all.

And they’re all texting whoever is their own crowd or each other while they’re looking like they’re better than it all.

And then there’s the ones that are sort of in the middle and easier to take and wave or say high and they’re sort of in a few smaller groups and they’re talking and I really kind of want to go over and hear what they’re saying and maybe join in and then there’s Penny.

Penny is my cousin from Midjic.

Some little place out in the country up in the middle of nowhere New Brunswick and she lives with her mom who left her dad who is from some reservation up there and not to sound like I’m stereotyping natives and stuff but the guy I guess was a serious drunk and druggie who just wouldn’t stay clean.

But Penny is native, or half and she looks it with the earth-tan skin and the whole killer looks and stuff but the look sort of stop there with her having a really great undercut going on. A nose stud and three eyebrow rings and a whole lot of other piercings and she’s wearing red canvas running shoes and black cargo pants with a really nice old school thick leather belt and a Shadowrun t-shirt.

A gamer.

And she’s cool looking.

We lock eyes and she’s staring at me cause I’m wearing heavy and baggy sweatpants but I’m wearing my Halestorm band t-shirt and she looks at me like she actually recognizes the band and our eyes meet and she raises an eyebrow like Spock and I do the same and there’s a grin and she actually smiles and she waves me over to the picnic table she’s at and unpacking stuff.

I walk over and I’m still feeling a little shy and stuff and she smiles at me.

“Thank god someone that looks halfway sane in this place.” She says when I get there.

I nod. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

She jerks her head towards Parker and the gousins. “I can see that, sooo glad I’m an only child though my family over in Dorchester and Memramcook’s no better just the sort of French versions.”

I nod. “Seriously, that’s gotta suck too.”

She shrugs. “I keep to myself, except for a few people that I’ll hang with now and then from like Mount A. I really try and like not do this sort of stuff.”

I shrug. “Sorry I thought it was just like going to be just a BBQ and stuff before I left and I didn’t think that I was going to be a cause for the gathering of the clans.”

She nods. “Well you’re like going further than most of us have ever gone and that’s sort of a big deal.”

I hold my hand over my heart. “And I promise to not talk about it over the next thirty years like it’s my one thing that I ever did.”

She rolls her eyes and looks at one of the gousins… that’s guy cousins BTW. “Thank fuck, serious if I hear about how he scored that three pointer that took them to the provincials in basketball one more time I’m going to take one of the corkscrews from the adults and do something drastic.”

I nod. “Sportsing people do that to me too. And y’know it wouldn’t be too bad if they won the provincials and played at nationals but nope…and the sad thing is.”

She says. “That’s when he like peaked.”

I look at him and he’s from Amherst which is closer to her end of things. “What’s he doing now?”

“Pumps gas in Port Agony.”

I frown. “Eeew…”

Port Agony is Port Elgin and it’s a nice little village as long as you drive through it otherwise once you see past the quaint veneer it’s just awful. Like Bon-Temps from True-Blood without the monsters and interesting people.

Penny’s nodding and she’s taking out food that looks interesting at least.

I’m looking some of it over.

“I’m going to open my own place I hope.”

“In Sackville?”

“Hell no, Halifax or maybe Moncton or Fredericton.”

“More business?”

“More Yuppies and hipsters, I’m doing Canadian native fusion cuisine.”

I give her the Spock eyebrow.

She laughs. “Really it’s just reservation cooking and stuff using game and stuff that we can and usually get to like change things up or like replace some stuff.”

“Like deer hamburger in chili.”

“Exactly, you and me we’ve like had that at least once or twice a year right well these new agey hipster folks won’t and they’ll all like freak out for it and stuff.”

I nod.

“We sort of see some of these kids here going to CEC and the Teacher College and they’re in town and going to the entire trendy kinda sort of places and once in the while they’ll go in the game and comic shop buying stuff.”

She nods and she’s setting out one of those little table top old school BBQ hibachis and charcoal and some actual chunks of tree or branches cut into charcoal sized lumps?

“The shirts, all the stuff we wear because we love it they’re wearing because it’s trendy…I kind of hate them for it but at the same time it’s good for those places and stuff because we really don’t have a lot of people down around here to keep things going steadily.”

“Yeah not around here, you’d have to have something really wicked going on to keep going and stuff in the Maritimes for running a hobby shop.”

We’re suddenly smiling at each other and while Penny’s a couple of years older than me it’s sort of like finding out you had someone really cool around you that you never knew that you did.

I actually blush a little and watch her get her charcoal going and then the wood.

“What’s with the wood chunks?”

“Choke cherry and Alder they’re kinda smoking woods but they make decent wood to cook with too for this. I cut this stuff out of the backyard and have been playing around with it.”

She goes on to talk about the partridge she has with like it soaking in the stuff for butter chicken and the Tupperware of rabbit she has that she’s marinated in a Korean begogi style. And then she has honey garlic deer sausages from this butcher shop place in Dorchester and she has a salad that she has made and it’s like cooked then frozen and reheated fiddleheads and chunked up frozen asparagus and then there’s dandelion greens and roasted green peppers with the skins off and green beans just in like slices and wild rice in it like some of those fancy salads that have like quinoa in them and her dressing is literally a jar of Unico brand marinated artichoke hearts and some capers and whole grain mustard all put through a blender.

I try some and it’s so green tasting…there’s the hard greens from the dandelions and fiddle heads and then the rest sort of meets everything in the middle and then there’s that sweet gree but other thing from the peppers and the wild rice sort of helps round everything out with the dressing and the sauce.

I’ve like never had anything like it at all and it’s really good.

“You serve this and you’ll do really well.”

She grins. “It’s technically Vegan and it’s Gluten free so it’s right in the buzz-word zone.”

We eat and I sort of help cook and she has some of the family come over to try her food and there’s a whole lot of very questionable looks from the bulk of the family but the aloof and really, like really (sarc) popular girls came over when they heard the buzz words and they ate a lot of the salad and they had some of the other stuff too and they even took pictures and put them online like all the rest of the people that just, just had to (sarc) put it like online.

Penny and I even shared moment’s looking at each other as we really tried not to make fun of them and just the sheer… I have no words.

I almost made her choke on a mouthful of her rabbit begogi when Paula asks me. “So Tommy like why are you like all into like the burgers and the mountain dew and stuff like the other guys and you’re like eating here?”

“This is healthier and I like mountain dew once in a while but it’s just too heavy and stuff and I cannot even.”

Paula totally missed it and Penny choked and I even said “I cannot even” in that kinda ditzy sort lo like off nasally way that these girls do all the time and it…well they were so oblivious to it you could actually see it go whoosh over their heads.

God it was actually a really good night.

It went too fast and it was like over and people heading out and things so they could like all get home and I found myself trading off info with Penny with like all our online stuff and talking until it was actually pretty late about bands and comics and gaming both tabletop and online stuff.

She’s plays Star Wars online with the Knights of The Old Republic and she plays Warcraft and she plays Shadowrun online too which I’ve never really tried at all and she reads Jem and the new Transformers stuff with the female gender bots and storylines and Lumberjanes.

She’s giving me looks and then she’s staring at me when I say. “I love what they did with Jo.”

She nods. “Actually yeah that was very cool.” She’s sort of whispering talking now as we’re packing up her stuff into her mom’s Yukon.

See Jo’s a trans girl and that’s in a very girl power popular comic and they got flak from serious bad radical feminist types over that and at the same time it’s a really yay moment for a lot of people in the trans community.

Right up there with the Stevonnie thing.

I don’t know what to say next until she asks. “So you going to cosplay while you’re there?”

I nod. “Definitely and I have like a few ideas and stuff.”

“Gay ideas!” Parker calls out as he’s going by with some of the gousins and I can smell booze on him.

I flip him the bird. “Fuck off Parker.”

He stops. “You gonna make me Tommy? You prissy little shit.”

Penny says. “Parker go away you’re drunk.”

He says. “Ho...! and now we get to hear from the dyke wagon burner. Is that why you and you’re mom live in the middle of fucking nowhere because you’re such a lez?”

“PARKER!!!” Dad yell growls it and he usually is a quiet sort of semi laid back guy but this time…this time he did his usual bullshit and Dad was just the other side of Penny’s mom’s Yukon and he caught it all.

It was that loud it made me jump and Parker turns white as a ghost and then red like the booze in him made him remember stuff that just got him all pissed off again.

“What! what! I can’t say shit about them and they’re bullshit!?”

“BACKYARD NOW!!!” Dad didn’t lower the volume and he doesn’t even wait and he grabs parker by the arm and he hauls him out back.

I’m looking at Penny and she’s red faced and she looks upset by some of the shit my brother said and I see her mom looking concerned and pissed at what just happened and I tap Penny on the shoulder and she looks at me instead of where Dad and parker disappeared to and I try and give her a sorry look and she actually steps over and she hugs me.

It’s a girl hug.

It’s a girl hugging another girl hug and that just…I shiver and we’re both almost crying.

“You call me later tonight, we can like talk?” I say.

“Aren’t you going to be asleep?”

“I’m leaving early for Halifax so not likely and especially after this.”

“Okay.”

I look at her when we break the hug. “You going to be okay?”

She nods and sniffles. “Yeah, hey when you get back maybe you can come up and like hang out and stuff?”

She looks at her mom who is giving her this look and Penny signs something to her and she looks and me and she signs and does that deaf talking thing. “It’s cool with me, we’re all good.” and she does that close her mouth thing and turns the key and tosses it away thing.

I look right at her and say so she can read me better. “Thanks Aunt Maggie.”

She hugs me and Penny does too and they head out right after that since it’s late enough and it’s still like a two hour drive for them to get home and I go and I actually try and help mom with cleaning stuff up and avoiding the he’s gay looks from the gousins that are getting read the riot act from Great Uncle Peter who’s taking keys and going off about drinking and driving.

Soon…soon I’ll be out of here.