I was 8 years old in Stote during the Cuban missile crisis. The air raid siren sat high on top of a humungous telephone pole at the end of our street. That pole marked the spot where the street next to ours ended, and a narrow, dirt footpath curved down into the abandoned sandpit. This was my route to school each day.
In those days in Stote, it seemed incredibly safe to be young. I walked a mile to school each morning, a mile back for lunch, then back to school and then home the same mile at four o`clock. Well not always the same route. I was bullied a lot, so I varied my path depending on who was after me that week. So maybe it wasn`t all that safe. But it was soft bullying compared to now. I mean, Stote bullies just wanted to see you cry. It wasn`t like now when a bully might kick your head to a bloody pulp, or spring a knife.
About the only danger to children, other than bullies, in Stote were the rabid foxes in the springtime. I never saw one. But they lurked just inside the treeline along Sheldon`s fields. Sometimes I saw a fox-like shadow disappear into the junipers at the far end of the sandpit. Once I even saw strange footprints that might have been from space aliens. Though Mom came to look and said that it was just from a big dog. I never heard of pedophiles or serial killers, or mad women stealing other people`s children until I came to Toronto.
I did hear about the bombs though, in bits and pieces from the TV. I didn`t understand much, just that the Russians might bomb us and that a brave man called John Kennedy was trying to stop them. The newsmen said the word ``detente`` from time to time, which sounded a lot like ``dentist`` or ``taunt.` I lived in mortal terror of our dentist did not believe in freezing children`s teeth. And ``taunt`` was a word in the Oxford English Dictionary which I liked to read sometimes. Maybe that`s why I wasn`t too popular at school. Anyway, `taunt`was something that bullies did. So `detente` didn`t sound like a good thing to me, even though I heard Dad say that it was the only thing holding the Russians back.
If a bomb was dropped on Toronto, our skin and eyebrows would fall off in Stote. That`s what Blaine, one of the boys in our little neighbourhood gang said. Blaine knew stuff.
Sometimes the siren went off for testing. At the sound, my chest would tighten and I`d feel naked somehow. Like the walls of the house were suddenly thin like flakes of ash.
Once I asked Mom,
``If you found out on the news that we were going to be bombed tomorrow would you tell me?``
``Well, I don`t think so,`` she said. You`d just be up all night worrying``
And that was that! So I went to bed every night and worried away. Many nights I`d crawl into bed with my parents and curl there against Mom until Dad got up for work. Mornings at that time dawned cold and gritty.. There was a little black stone pushing through my chest. It was hardest in the mornings and only melted up around 3 in the afternoon in English class. It came back at bedtime.
So for years, even after people stopped talking about nuclear war so much, I listened obsessively to the news just in case I missed the part about the bombs. I knew that my parents would not be much help.
``If that siren goes off, how soon would the bombs come?, I asked my friend Aaron`s father one day as he was shoveling snow. Aaron was my best friend. he lived right across the street from our house.
``About fifteen minutes,` said Aaron`s Dad.
Aaron`s family were were the only Jewish people in Stote. Dad said that Jews were really intelligent. Aaron`s dad tossed a big shovel full of fluffy snow onto a snow bank. It was dusk and the snow sparkled the way it always did. Sparkles, sparkles I would sing to myself when the snow fell and everything felt tucked in and safe. Only now the magic was gone. Aaron`s dad grinned at me. He had seen fighting in Israel. I guess he thought that bombs were kind of normal - like mosquitos and measles.
Anyway, I was a pretty nervous kid and every time I walked under that air raid siren, the pole seemed to loom and lean as if it was about to fall on top of me. Especially, if it was windy and the clouds were scudding fast along the sky above the pole, I was sure the thing was going to fall and crush me to death even if `detentè` held the bombs in dentention just like those big kids itching to get out and wreck havoc with us smaller ones.
Well, one morning day, Aaron and I were walking under the siren on the way to school. It was one of those grey, windy winter days that reminded me of the black white pictures we saw in school about WWI and II. It was always overcast and raining during those times I believed.
Anyway, Aaron and me both heard the wind creaking overhead in the power cables. We looked up and.... shock!. There hanging in the cables was huge black cat – dead! He was draped over the wires in a kind of U shape one wire under his armpits and the other wire under his belly just in front of his limp dangling hind legs. The wires moved this way and that with the wind, so looked like the cat was moving in a way unnatural for cats. One green eye was half open staring down at me. His red tongue lolled out of his mouth. He was a scruffy, giant of a dead cat - big as a racoon. I wondered if the Russians had put him there - you know - like psychological warfare.
Aaron was bigger than me and he really was smart, just like my Dad said. He was the leader of our gang. So when he wasn`t scared I tried to look brave too.
``C`mon, just a dead cat, he said. ``In Israel, cats are just like rats. Nobody keeps them as pets you know.`` Aaron, had this different point of view on stuff.
Just then I see this big kid Derek just ahead of us down the dirt path. I forget the cat cause I`m really scared of Derek. Once he caught me in the sand pit and pushed my face into the snow till the cold hurt. He sat on me so I couldn`t get up and then I cried and he let me go. But he was laughing. I didn`t tell anybody.
``Aaron, c`mon I whispered, pulling at his parka. ``We can take the long way round.``
But Aaron, as usual wouldn`t listen cause he was a boy, I guess. Mom told me that girls are supposed to be quiet and sweet and let everybody look after them. Mom didn`t walk to school through the sandpit though.
So I`m tugging on Aaron and Derek is just walking steady towards us. I don`t want to run, because I know he can run faster. He`s bigger than Aaron too, no matter what Aaron thinks about being a boy and all. Also, if I ran away it would break our code – Aaron and me. We were friends and friends don`t leave friends.
Derek comes up to Aaron. I see he`s got an ice ball in his hand. Probably been working on it for a long time so it`s nice and round and shiny in his dirty mit. Derek is kind of fat, but he`s fast too. He has this ugly, fat pasty face –like a melton mulberry pie.
``Ooo Aaron`s got a girlfriend,`` he sing songs. `Cmon Aaron, Jew boy, show her how tough you are.``
So Aaron goes all red in the face.
``Lay off Derek!,`` he says.
I see he`s going to try to talk Derek out of being a bully. Aaron is a talker for sure. But Derek isn`t – a talker- that is. He just keeps coming and smashes that ice ball right in Aaron`s face. Aaron falls down right there in the path holding his mits over his nose. There`s red on the snow from his nose. But he`s not crying, just kind of trying to catch his breath. But Derek is already coming towards me – only slow. Like he`s enjoying watching how scared I am. And I just keep backing up and up till I`m back out on the street under the air raid siren.
By this time, I can see Aaron`s on his hands and knees.
``Run Deb,` he gasps. `Just run!``
But Derek`s already grabbed my shoulders and is trying to throw me on the ground like he did last time. I`m braced for it now and for a moment, I think I can kick him or something. He`s strong though and suddenly I`m spinning through the air and then bang on the ground so hard that I roll on the pavement. Too bad for me that the plough went through this morning.
Derek comes to stand over me. I`m lying on my back on the road. I can see his jeans are dirty at the
knees and he`s wearing a blue sweater under his brown parka. He`s grinning like a rabid fox now. I start to put my hands up to protect my face. Above Derek`s pie face, I see that cat straight above still dangling from the wire, like he`s watching us.
I look over and see Aaron leaning against the pole now, kind of sagging, like he`s dizzy or something and then he starts throwing up. I`m too scared at this point to worry about him.
`:Hey Aaron, Jew, come and save your little Jew loving girlfriend eh!` Derek has grabbed one of my legs now. I`m kicking and screaming. It`s so awful because I wore my plaid tunic today with the ugly green tights underneath because Mom said that my cordurouys were in the wash. Derek jerks my leg and me with it around and around.
`Gonna cry, baby. Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby.`` He`s really into it now.
Anyway I don`t really hear it but the wind has picked up and snow is falling on my face covering my glasses (which are still miraculously on my nose). They`re no help now because they`re covered in snow. There`s a big gust of wind. And then suddenly I hear this shrieking. It`s like nothing else I`ve ever heard. Blood curdling screams, shreaks, sobs. Derek has let go my leg now. I struggle up on my feet and pull off my glasses to see.
``Get it off!, Get it off! Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!
There`s Derek tearing away at something on the back of his neck. He`s whirling round and round and screaming. And then Aaron is beside me, still bleeding from the nose but laughing his head off. In fact he`s doubled over with laughing he`s so tickled.
I squint through the thick snow that`s blowing about us. And then I see it. The dead cat has tipped off the wires and landed square around Derek`s neck. The back part is trapped in Derek`s parka hood . It`s in the shape of a U with the the front and back paws on either side of his neck and the front claws hooked into the fur on the parka hood at the front. Boy that cat is stiff! I remember the word `rigor mortus` from the Oxford English Dictionary. That cat`s got rigor mortus for sure and it`s not letting Derek go.
``Get it awwwwwwfffff!`` he howls. I can see his face is kind of crumpled up now, like pie when the crust caves in. I almost feel sorry for him. But Aaron`s laughter is getting me too. I start giggling and then snorting and howling with laughter.
But Aaron is in charge again.
``Now let`s run!` he says.
And we leave Derek still flailing and screaming. As we pass under the air raid pole. I look up a minute. It is still swaying, ominous as ever.
``Détente`` I whisper.
You just never know.
