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Ecw Press - Missy Marston

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165 pages

English

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Wildly funny and wonderfully moving, Bad Ideas is about just that a string of bad ideas and the absurdity of love Trudy works nights in a linen factory, avoiding romance and sharing the care of her four-year-old niece with Trudy s mother, Claire. Claire still pines for Trudy s father, a St. Lawrence Seaway construction worker who left her twenty years ago. Claire believes in true love. Trudy does not. She s keeping herself to herself. But when Jules Tremblay, aspiring daredevil, walks into the Jubilee restaurant, Trudy s a goner. Loosely inspired by Ken the Crazy Canuck Carter s attempt to jump the St. Lawrence River in a rocket car, and set in a 1970s hollowed-out town in eastern Ontario, Bad Ideas paints an indelible portrait of people on the forgotten fringes of life. Witty and wise, this is a novel that will stay with you a long time.

Informations

Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	23 avril 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773053202
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Bad Ideas
A Novel
Missy Marston

Contents
Why do they do it?
Part 1
Trudy
Because it had been years
Because the air became water
Because they had no right
Because everything stopped making sense
Because never is a long time
Because sometimes you can see things coming from a long way away
Because everyone makes mistakes
Because it would kill her mother
Because small towns are unbearable
Because enough was enough
Because some solutions can fix more than one kind of problem
Because you can’t help looking
Because the black water wanted to swallow you whole
Because the light at sunset can make anything look golden
Because sometimes you have to set the world on fire
Because not everything has to make sense
Because not all unicorns have horns
Claire
Because you can’t just lay down and die
Because it wasn’t called “The Number Two” for nothing
Because love at first sight is real
Because there was no stopping it
Because you can definitely make the same mistake twice
Because memories are more important than remembering
Because hate can be love
Because the sadness can just start leaking out of you
Because Mama needs love
Because you never get a moment to yourself
Darren
Because trouble will find you
Because everything inside you has been rearranged
Because you don’t get to choose your dreams
Jules
Because it’s hard to tell the difference between flying and falling
Because everything looks left behind
Because in the country, birds make an unbelievable racket
Because you can only do some things for so long
Because so many sad stories are almost the same
Trudy
Because even monsters can be lovable
Because you should be careful what you wish for
Because you learn something new every day
Because it doesn’t take much
Because that’s life
Because real love is always mixed with terror
Because everybody remembers everything
Because if you look hard enough it is probably there
Tammy (and Fenton)
Because there is another skin beneath your skin
Because you don’t know what makes it happen
Because you’re nobody’s baby
Because it can never be far enough
Because you feel the only feeling you can bear
Because sometimes it all mixes together
Because sometimes you don’t know what’s happening until it’s over
Because the impossible is not the possible
Mercy
Because nothing is ever quite the way you want it to be
Because dreams can march right into the daylight
Because there is always someone eager to deliver bad news
Because you just keep making things up until they seem true
Because a little progress would be nice for a change
Trudy
Because you never know what you might see in the moonlight
Because nobody will ever love you enough
Because there is no point in lying
Because you think you’re so fucking good
Part 2
So Long at the Fair
Because the end of summer means the beginning of something else
Because what goes up must come down
Because there are rude surprises in this life
Because sometimes it’s better to just turn around and walk away
Because joy can fill you up and send you right up into the sky
Because you don’t always want to hear what other people think
Because some rides are too rough
Because sometimes you just want to go home
Because the sun on the water looks like diamonds
Because a tumour is the last thing you need
Because Sunday is the Lord’s Day (not yours)
Because the hospital is never fun for long
Because the new day is pink
The Circus
Because you think you know what you’re in for
Because nobody invited you
Because time travels in both directions
Because family can get on your very last nerve
Because crying when you are happy makes no sense to children
Because sometimes you lose the thread
Because sometimes you feel like a sheet on the clothesline
Because you don’t want to hear it
Because it’s always just the beginning
Because the years come charging in
Because love is weird
Because sooner or later you have to make your move
Because it will all end one way or another
Because they’re only numbers
Because there are two kinds of surprises
Because sometimes it seems like there is only one kind of luck
Because some things just don’t feel natural
Because some people never learn
Because it has always been serious
The Stunt
Because maybe they really are trying to kill you
Because you don’t have to see people go to know they are gone
Because sometimes you can smell a rat
Because you made it this way
Because some people are harder to love than others
Because it has already happened without you
Because the wind makes your eyes water
Because you wouldn’t
Because you don’t even know who to be mad at for what
Because it is just a body in the end
Because there are no diamonds
Acknowledgements and thanks
About the Author
Copyright

For John & Cathy, Don & Dave

Why do they do it?
Why do they do it? What makes them drive their fists through walls, through windows, into each other’s faces? What makes them press the burning ends of cigarettes into the backs of their hands while staring into each other’s eyes? Why do they ride wild horses, bucking bulls, motorcycles, whatever crazy, dangerous, stupid thing they can climb onto? And when they are thrown, trampled, broken to pieces, what in God’s name makes them get back on?
What makes a man imagine that he can drive a car up a ramp and fly over bales of hay, buses, creeks, canyons and forget that he will break his ankles, his ribs, puncture his lungs, bounce his brain off the inside of his cranium when he lands? If he is lucky. If his sorry life is spared one more time.
And why are these the ones? The ones making noise, wasting space. The ones that are covered in scars, that should be dead. The ones with less than half a brain inside their heads. Why are these the only ones she ever loves?
And here comes another one — sad story and all. His jeans riding so low, his T-shirt so thin, his eyes so dark. Jesus Christ. She’s a goner.
Again.

Part 1

Trudy

Because it had been years
When those strangers walked into the Jubilee restaurant, Trudy Johnson was twenty-two years old and she had not had sex in five years. Her horniness was closing in on her every thought. It was making her edgy, irritable. But she had made herself a promise. She had decided to forgo the physical for a while. She was in recovery.
Trudy had the kind of body that caused no end of trouble. Her mother had the same one. Her sister Tammy had it. And her little niece, Mercy, would likely have it one day, too, God help her. The kind of body that grew up too soon, that alienated you from your later-blooming classmates. That attracted the attention of the wrong men. Or maybe it made men act wrong. It made them call you a goddess but treat you like trash. Impregnate you and evaporate. The Johnson family had, at this point, three generations of females living in their house and zero generations of men.
She had the kind of body that, if you lived in it long enough, confused you about love. It could lead you to believe that any man who really cared for you would not want to have sex with you. Because he would be able to see that sex was not your only purpose. That you had other things to offer. So far, she had not met such a man.
Except once, in a way.
Once she had met a man who was not the least bit interested in having sex with her. Maybe because he saw people naked every day, all bodies — even hers — had lost their magic. Dr. Noel Cameron had saved her life once. No questions asked. Every time she saw him in town, he nodded at her, then looked away. The sun always seemed to be behind him, shining all around his big head.
That was it: one shining exception to the rule. One good man. The rest, Trudy was pretty sure, were complete bastards.

Because the air became water
That first spring evening seemed like a long time ago now. A lot can happen in seven months. A lot can fall apart. Trudy would say that it was like a scene in a movie, except no movie she had ever seen was set anywhere that looked anything like Preston Mills, Ontario. Scrubby shit-town clinging to the bank of the cold grey St. Lawrence River.
Eight hundred inhabitants, one grocery store, one gas station, one corner store called Smitty’s where you could fill tiny paper bags with stale penny candy. Swedish berries, toffee nuggets, black balls, licorice nibs.
One pool hall that no female would dare enter and that hollering, fighting men tumbled out of at hourly intervals each evening.
Six churches, one of them Catholic, one evangelical — complete with snake-handlers and speakers of tongues — and four barely distinguishable flavours of Protestantism: Presbyterian, United, Lutheran, Anglican.
A mile east of town, one massive set of locks that huge tankers eased into and then were slowly lowered and released to continue along the river to the ocean.
And there was a mill, WestMark Linen Mill, that employed Trudy and her mother, Claire, as well as most of the other working adults in the town.
There must have been other mills at some point, at least one other, to justify the town’s nam