Scars Are Souvenirs You Never Lose

Punks

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. But stoned or not; even asleep, Tommy's words would come back to haunt her.

Dear Minnie,
How could you leave me here to rot? How could you not come see me? You must think I did it too. Well, fuck you, Minnie. FUCK YOU!!!!!!
Tommy

She cried and cried everytime she read the letter; and she could do almost nothing else but. She wanted to go see him, but she was too scared.
Climbing through her bedroom window late, Minnie walked the all-night over and over again.
And waited for the next visit from Officer Rialian. He stopped by every other day.

She did not go to school. She stayed in her room and her mother never came down the stairs to notice. She erased the school's messages from the answering machine every day, before her father came home, until the one day, Daddy stayed home and Minnie had to go prentend going to class. And when she came home Daddy was waiting for her, with an envelope in his hand from the school. Thirty days missing. One more day and she would be expelled.
And he hit her.
He hit her.
He hit her.

Her return to school was the news of the week.

in excelsis Deo.

It's winter here again and I don't like it. I should have headed back home years ago; back to the sunny days and the warm basking bodies, but I just stay here year after year instead. I lie to my mother. "Yeah, Mom! I love it here! You should see the polar bears…" and all that other bullshit. Fuck. I really thought it would be cool; that I would get to see some penguins and shit. Well, I haven’t seen a fucking penguin yet. How did I end up here? I mean, what kind of guy just up and says, "Hey! I am gonna move to Canada!" And not just to Canada, but way fucking up north Canada? I am an idiot. I swear it snows eight months of the year up here...

So, I sit at home a lot and there is nothing ever on television anymore. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick the channels. That’s what I do until I want to swear and yell and throw the remote against the wall. But if I did that I would break the fucking thing and then I would have to stand in front of the TV to flick, flick, flick the fucking channels...And fuck that. It’s bad enough I have to clean the satellite of snow almost every day. At least I do not pay for all this bullshit: reality TV craze and Oprah Winfrey and fucking Anderson Cooper, I steal my satellite signal. Too many bad things are happening. On the TV. In books. In the paper. No one wants to hear about anything else but the bad and then we all sit around bitchin’ and maonin’ and fucking wondering why we aren't happy. Fuck. I am guilty of it too. And then we will all smile at each other, when we would rather scream; never genuine. Yeah. Everybody wants to get good on everybody, but nobody wants to do any of it. Upward and onward, my friends...

Hell. It's like that up here in Canada too. Sure, these good ole boys would take their shirt off their back for you, but no one is paying Peter to feed Paul. Everybody’s greedy everywhere. Even I came up here because they offered me fifty thousand dollars more a year than what I could make anywhere back home. Fifty thousands dollars. I can do a lot with that, I thought. Stupid scholarship student who had forgotten every word they taught him, except the promise of wealth. Fifty thousand dollars more a year don't mean shit. It means even less up here. What the fuck am I gonna spend it on? The fucking bowling alley? No thanks, I'd rather drink alone...

Yeah. So, I stay here. I don't go home for holidays. "I am needed here, Mom! People are fucking freezing to death! A lot of Indians like killing themselves around this time of year!" Happy cheer and a Ho-Ho-Ho. I send her a check for ten thousand dollars every Christmas and I think she would rather have that instead of me home anyway. It pays for her hair and her nails and all that other useless shit my mother likes to do with herself. None of it helps her find a husband...

Up here, there is two kinds of women. Those empty-headed fatties who wear their tops too tight showing off their giant stomach rolls and...it's gross. I know there is nothing better to do but sit around this fucking place, but still...I have standards. The other half are skinny, pale and soulless. Be Marilyn. Be Farrah. Be fucking Paris Hilton. Anyone but yourself. Fake blonde is even dumber than natural blonde, but who the fuck is gonna tell them that? I spent the first five years up here wanting to smack every single one of them; wanting to watch their heads shatter like glass…until I forgave them for doing nothing about who they are; for living the way they do. Realistically, who the fuck wants to be Canadian? Of course, they have to pretend to be something else…

Probably over half of the people up here are on some sort of welfare. It barely covers their rent. Barely gets them that case of beer. No one can afford electricity. So two years back, I am in bed one night, when I start to feel bad that I have all this extra money just sitting around and there are all these sad Canadian people and their pathetic children going without and I start thinking of myself as a would-be hero. I devised a plan. I was gonna be fuckin’ Boogie Woogie Santa Claus! Goddammit. I was going to give-away that extra fifty thousand dollars a year! And it’s the first time I can jerk-off in over a year and a half. And then I go through the records the very next day and I decide that the nine families that have lost a parent to murder or suicide are going to be the recipients of my money. Five thousand, five hundred, fifty-five dollars and fifty five cents. Five is my favorite number…

And I did it too. I gave away all that money away. On Christmas Eve, almost four o’clock in the morning, I was parking my truck on the outskirts of town, so no one would see me sneaking around. I hummed Christmas carols when I could get away with it and went through a few windows to put my envelopes under the tree when I could get away with that too. I felt all the joy forgiveness promises to bring. But with forgiveness also comes sacrifice. I could see her walking into town from half a mile up and I think that I should hide. No one is allowed to see Santa Claus. She doesn’t see me...

And Ang and I are the first on the scene that morning and we are there late into the afternoon before anyone else shows up. Ang brings a thermos of hot chocolate and a thermos of coffee and some Christmas cookies. And I realize that I have brought nothing. I realize she is the only one who ever brings something. I tell her I am sorry for being selfish-Merry Christmas- and she laughs and says, “What? Are you kidding me? You do all the driving”. And I feel better about myself because yes, yes I do do all the driving, even though we’re suppose to take turns. We only look at the girl once when we get there. And we both gag. And then cover up our honesty with lopsided smiles and jokes: “It’s was Kris Kringle,” Ang says. And I tell her, “No, one of Santa’s reindeer.” We laugh, as we head back to sit in the truck. And when the coroner finally comes, he gave us a quarter bottle of his special bourbon and burps out, "Merry Christmas, folks…", and then he clutches his chest when he sees her, straight through to his heart. “Jesus Christ…” He thanks the Lord he is alive…
And you know, I thank Him everyday too. I thank Him for the food on my plate and for the fact I’m alive and the fact some others aren’t…

I tell her all this on the drive into town. A little plump Indian with large brown eyes. I tell her, “This year I gave the money to nine woman who had are being abused by their partners. Maybe they will move away.” She nods her head, “That is a good thing.” And she nods her head again when I tell her, “You know I’m gonna kill you.”