Nine Lies of B.G. Davies

The Stories We Keep

In the centre of the table, a wooden crate. A chubby face pouts from the faded and torn label, 'Cry Baby Snow Peas.' I recognize the box, know where it's been hiding, and know its secrets.

I reach for the magazine on the top of a stack inside the open crate. The look of fear in the woman's eyes on the cover strikes me. Her hand is raised as if to shield her face from an approaching monster. The black and white drawing, thick lines of ink on well-worn yellowed newsprint, releases a flood of memories. The image has never left me: the terrified blonde woman's blouse is gratuitously torn open to reveal a lace brasier, her skirt hiked mid-thigh.

I flip through the tabloid, inhaling the must of old pulp. On the cover, a circle stamps the price: fifteen cents.

"Where did you find these?"

Sandra takes an armful of the tabloids from the crate and drops them onto the kitchen table with a thud. Dust rises and my sister waves a cloud away from her face.

"They were in the shed, at the back of the top shelf. You remember looking at these when we were kids?"

I throw her a smirk, the unspoken acknowledgement co-conspirators share. How could I forget? Sneaking into Grandpa's cottage workshop to pull out the box of his old magazines. We would sit there, Sandra and I, under the workbench, handling them like they were ancient scrolls. I was probably ten years old and my sister nine when we first discovered the treasure of the wooden crate. It became our regular activity on those rainy summer afternoons at the cottage, our forbidden Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries. We would sneak behind the cottage, toss a quick look behind, then duck into the shed. The thrill of knowing we were up to no good, as Mom would say, was half the fun.

Years later, I still recall the titles: True Crime, Detective Stories, Real Confessions. There was a French-Canadian magazine, Allo Police, which really didn't cut it compared to the scandalous American publications.

Sandra and I never spoke while we flipped through the pages. I didn't give any consideration to what she might have been thinking, but I know my boyhood imagination was ignited by the images of scantily clad women in distress. I wanted to be a detective.

"These must be worth a fortune. We can't throw them out." Actually, I have no idea if there is a market for old pulp tabloids among collectors; they are far from mint condition, with pages torn, covers crumpled, titles faded. Old pulp periodicals must have some value.

Sandra pulls out a magazine from deep within the stack and flips it open. She reads out loud, "'The frowsy blonde laughed shrilly.' There's a great opening line. You should use it in one of your stories."

She reads more in silence, then says, "This is disgusting. Can you imagine if they tried to publish this crap today? Talk about objectifying women." Sandra tosses the magazine back on the pile.

I peek at the cover, checking out the cleavage. I can't say I remember ever reading the stories, but I do recall the pictures. "Well, these were from a different era. This was their mainstream porn, tame compared to what is out there today. Think what our kids have access to."

I prefer not to think of my kids as sexual beings, like I try not to think of our parents as having a sexual existence, let alone keeping a secret lover on the side. This weekend, as we clean out the cottage and throw away the remains of our family's history, I can't help but be aware of their humanity. My sister and I are both privately trying to accept that our parents had secret lives. It isn't the disbelief that it could happen to them, or who is to blame, or what will happen now, what we are unable to understand is how long it had been going on, how we never knew, how Dad never revealed a thing, and how Mom always managed to keep the story happy. It was a different era, too. The secrets of a family, the stories we keep.

Would Grandpa disappear into his workshop and like Sandra and me, sneak glimpses into the gritty world of True Police? Did my grandmother know of his secret pastime? Certainly, my father must have been aware of the existence of these magazines. He spent a lot of time in the shop, stubbornly trying to slow the endless march of the broken and the damaged, never willing to admit when a pump or a motor had deteriorated beyond repair. I imagine the old vice, pocked and flaked, its jaws still open, ready to bite the next rusted pipe, bolt, or nut.

I make my way out to the porch and look across the narrow channel of the lake. It seems the red pines haven't grown since I was a kid. They've always been big and always will be. Unless the new owners take them down to fit a massive home here.

A jet ski streaks past the dock, its wake slashing the stillness, dividing the channel. We used to keep a record of the first one to swim across each year. It was usually my dad's brother, Uncle Ron, who would endure the early frigid water of early June, until he stopped coming to the cottage. I never saw the point but, then again, I had no one to impress.

The whine of the jet ski fades. The chipping and chirping of a nesting bird reach my ears, along with the watercraft's waves slapping the rock shoreline, punctuated by the whack of the screen door. Sandra is loading her car.

I tell her I plan to stay a while longer. For old time's sake.

"Then you'll have to drop the keys off at the realtor's office on your way home. I'll go to the dump with these boxes." She is carrying the last of an era in the hearse of her hatchback, boxes bound for their final resting place.

I ask if she's throwing out the crate of old magazines.

"You don't want to keep them, do you?"

"Maybe I'll recycle them." I might sit here on the porch until the sun tucks in behind the trees on the far shore and the bugs come out; maybe flip through a few of the magazines, smell the pages, take in the pictures. I'll listen to the sounds of the lake as it changes and imagine the secrets lurking beneath its inky surface.

Sandra's Infinity starts and she shouts for me to call her when I get home. Gravel crunches as she drives up the hill.

I walk back into the cottage. The box of magazines is still on the table. The red and white vinyl tablecloth matches the shelf paper, and I remember holding the roll of the shelf paper for my mother as she measured and cut, and how she flattened it with her hand, trying to get it to adhere to the grime. I see how the screen door, always sagging, is still adjusted by the wire stretching from corner to corner, and I imagine Dad, on his knees, tightening the tourniquet that kept the whole thing together. The painted-over scars from a spray of buckshot on the door frame are still visible, the collateral damage from a legendary poker game, and I can see Grandpa laughing as he tells the story one more time.

Pulling out another magazine, my finger slides between the pages and I flip it open. This one features a black and white drawing of the back of a man's head as he spies through a window. Inside a woman is doing dishes, unaware of the peering gaze of the intruder. And somewhere in here, there is a story.