Tell Pa I'm Dead

In this, my third book, there's a story about the time Murray, my twin, and I kidnapped a hydro pole; and the day I took Teedy on an outing to paint the town red on just one package of needles, right down to the night I slept with Pa. Then suddenly I'm all grown up, and you'll relive the horror Teddy and I went through at Pa's funeral when we had quite a scuffle with his ghost. Then there's the time Teedy and I were living in Virginia when we were accosted by a sadistic car salesman. You'll marvel at the intricacies of my secret operation and be astounded at the night I went from being a pauper to a wealthy man and back to a pauper again, within a space of half an hour. You'll also be happy to read that our house is jinxed and that nothing ever works for us from the day we bring it home.

(Excerpt) The Way We Were

No matter what else Pa was, he did have a great brain. He was president of the A.M.W. (mine worker's union) and also president of the Hospital Association for Nova Scotia. We all loved this about Pa because it took him away from Sydney Mines many times for his meetings.

During one of his meetings, we decided to have a wake. Billy, a year, older than me, was the slickest and fastest talker of the bunch. Somehow, he had gotten hold of a plaster of Paris pig's head. We worked all day making a casket for the pig out of two large wooden egg crates, nailed some black crepe over the front door and, as Pa was away at a convention in Halifax, we put his Masonic suit, his tall hat, and an extra pair of his glasses on the pig, and then laid the whole mess in the casket. We dimmed the lamps and took our places in the hall to receive condolences as was the custom.

We lived on a deserted street, kind of a lover's lane, so we had a few young people come over to review the remains of the dear departed. Shaking our hand, they'd say, "I'm sorry for your troubles." We were not too heartbroken, so Billy would reply, "Well, we've all got to go sometime." They would ask us who had passed on, and we'd say our father. So they'd go in to see him and pay their respects. They didn't know what to do then. They couldn't laugh right over the coffin because, for all they knew, that might have been the way Pa really looked after he died. (Maybe he'd had his face pushed in by a truck.) But as soon as they left the house, we could hear them going into hysterics.

One little fellow, who was quite a favourite of Pa's, came up to the house, with his eyes as big as saucers. On finding Pa had passed away, he commenced to cry. We took him into the room and he was so small, we had to lift him up to observe the remains. Still crying, he looked at the pig's head on Pa's clothes, shook his little head, tears dripping on the pig's face, and said, "Poor Pa, he used to give me a cent every Saturday when he got his pay." (By the way , everybody called Pa, Pa, even strangers. Even Teedy, when caught at some mischief one time and asked who his father was, answered: "Pa MacDonald.")

All of a sudden, we had an unexpected visitor. It was Pa. He had come home early from his convention in Halifax. He tore into the house like Ferdinand the bull, put up the window shades, turned the lamps up bright, and beat us with the pig's head for having no respect for the dead. He gave me the worst going over, as he figured I was the instigator, and said, "I've a good mind to make use of the casket and put Andy in it." It was no good going after Billy. He'd have convinced Pa the pig jumped into the casket by itself.

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