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Bell & Howell Infornation and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Rad, Ann A*, MI 481064346 USA -521- Sanctuary and Other Stories Jennifer Duncan A Thesis in The Department of English Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of English at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada April 1998 O Jennifer Duncan, 1998 National Library Bibliothéque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibiiographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue WeUingtm Ottawa ON KlAON4 OttawaON KlAON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in rnicroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/lnlm. de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT Sanctuary and Other Stones Jennifer Duncan This collection of linked short stories concerns itseff with the lives of young people coming of age in the punk subculhire of downtown Toronto in the 1980s. Long third- person narratives are interposed with brief first-person monologues. The longer stories explore how the alienated characters, who are either unconsciously unwibg or psychologically incapable of articulating themselves, nevertheless inadequately hble into moments of haphazard connection in which they resonate with each other in a way that suggeas the possibility ofnt least limited evolutinn. The brief rnonologue~are close- ups that allow a more immediate and intimate exposure of the ways in which the anonymous characters are constmcted by the economic restrictions, farnily breakdowns, corporate-dnven culture of simulacra, etc. that compose their world. b TABLE OF CONTENTS Slice of Life ....................................................................................... 1 Camellia and Jane.......................................................................... 5 Falling .............................................................................................. 20 Exorcism ........................................................................................... 23 Garden of Eden ................................................................................. 40 Conf ounding the Hounds .................................................................. 50 Selena and Bobby ............................................................................. 56 A Kick ................................................................................................ 83 You Like It. It Likes You..................................................................... 88 Happy When It Rains ................. .. ................................................. 104 The Red Moon .................................................................................. 109 Sanctuary......................................................................................... 115 The New Pants.................................................................................. 140 The Scrapbook .................................................................................. 145 SLICE OF LIFE With white hard joy 1 felt bones jutting at odd angles all around and inside me. Sharp, that's what 1 wanted to be, sharp like a sword dancer. I would stick my stiletto finger down my sickeningly slidc throat and in shaking spasms bring up the acidic poison. Clean and sharp. Ninety-eight pounds strong. Addicted to coffee, my heart tapped staccato beats and 1 shook, quivered and raced my way around myseif. 1 looked dead. White bones caught in black fishnet. He was afraid to touch me, afraid the dry cold of my skin would burn, afraid his hand would be enmeshed in a web of bone, afraid 1 would crumble into dust. 1 stared at the pale raised anarchy symbol he'd carved into his am and 1 said, "You can't hurt me - stomp on my feet as hard as you can - harder." And looking deep into his eyes, 1 laughed as the combat boot stomped. The next day he was at the café with half a face. His Ieft eye hli of blood and his left cheek ail scab, he sang, "Since my baby left me, 1 found a new place to dwell - Sunnybrook Hospital." and threw the table across the room as 1 ran out He had taken four hits of acid and driven his motorcycle into a wall. 1 breathed in short gasps but they fiiled my hoilow form, ratthg the bones with whirlwinds promising destruction. 1 stared at the feezing blue veins wriggling in my wrist. With a shudder, 1 tumed the arm over and took off my watch. 1 held a razor blade delicately between my nght thurnb and index finger. The blade made my skin look very soft and Young. I cut fifteen parailel lines in the tough side of my forearm, one for every year. I did not cut deep. The straightness of the red lines and the little, sharp, stinging pains were satisfying enough. But the blood would not flow. It only settled like carefdly arranged pick-up sticks. Simone de Beauvoir said that women cut themselves to own the first camal stab of the future lover, to prove they can hurt themselves better than he will. Too late for me. 1 just wanted to feel something, anything. Just wanted some proof that 1was still alive - red wet blood, warm and flowing. Just wanted to open the scars that hid deep deep inside. I cut strips of black cotton from the bottom of my t-shirt and twined them around my wrist. 1 vowed I would love and love would Save me. PASSION OR DEATH! My next lover had HAE with the E badcwards canred into his inner thigh. The one after him stuck a needle in his amevery day. And the next one lost his job as a busboy because the customers complained about the blistery hive of cigarette bums on his arm. Day after day 1sat in the café as we al1 sat, moaning and cursing. Somebody killed herself and someone else got arrested and so-and-so died of a dmg overdose. But this is not what concemed us- This is not what we bewailed in jaded conversation. No, it was nuclear arms and men in suits and poverty that quaked the ground under Our feet and made us raise Our voices and fists. It was concrete and ta11 buildings and telephone wires that made us scurry in circles Like trapped rats. Really it was ourselves that we ran from when we ran from each other. Love had failed me and the world scared me. To the home for the degenerate doomed 1 retumed each night after spilling beer for the rent. Waste begets waste. 1 would lock the door of my room behind me. The guy in the next room had a @nt cross on his wall with manacles attached to the horizontal ends. He was very nice and baked us al1 muffins but he didn't drink coffee or alcohol because he said it affected hÏrn too much and this made me nervous. I would open the cracked window and climb out on my little roof There I would lie in rain and in snow to stare up at the sky and down at the soil. 1 drew deep breaths there and felt my shriveled innards expand. AS 1 mapped the patterns of stars and houses, an inner world emerged, where I could take seeds of past and self and 1 could sow and grow. Soon 1 knew the day. 1 leamed to unfurl towards the sun whose rays used to slice painfuliy into my sleep. 1 met a man in black with nine holes pierced in his left ear and one in his left nostril. He wore a diain from his nose to his ear that tears caught in. 1 took this man to rny roof. We planted ourselves there for two years. This made him very happy. This made me very happy. He got bigger and hlier, opening petal by petal with each dawn. He got so big he scared himself. He scared himself so much he ran away. I go to the café to show off my tattoo of a butterfly. Sometimes pain can give birth to beauty that lasts as long as flesh. 1 try very hard to get involved in the conversation but I've lost the refrain and my words chorus inside me, out of tempo and out of tune. The refrain echoes around me but 1 cm no longer sing along: Stay confiised by dl means for chaos is fieedorn and above al2 do not feel your feelings, do not name them, do not heal them, show only your scars, yoiir mutilation, your defomity, Iive only for a siice of Ife. CAMELLIA AND JANE Day finally digs into Camellia's operatic dreams. She writhes away hom the paintbrush jabbing into her back. There are horns blaring and wheels screeching and a metallic trilling.