Tupperware Summer
The sight of my closet made me cringe. It was a walk-in nightmare of half discarded childhood mementos my teenage years made obsolete but sentimentality deemed necessary. A mess of toys escaped from widening rips in cardboard boxes. In turn, they were entombed by successive loads of junk my parents piled in my space. I hated the invasion. But I hoped in consolation one of those boxes harboured a hidden secret about my parents. I secretly poked through the mounds of discarded relics in an effort to find a letter from an unknown lover or a picture of a crazy relative locked-up in a distant attic.
To my dismay, the only curiosity I found was a collection of old household wares. Destined to either a second life in a garage sale or a final resting place in the city dump, the fragments laid in a stagnant purgatory. Until that day of judgment, they remained shrouded by an old Halloween skeleton costume that was demoted to a dust cover. Its luminescent bones slowly faded with each bypassed spring-cleaning.
My sister was the original occupant of the bedroom. When she moved out of the house the lack of space elsewhere dictated that her toys remained behind. Her discarded possessions were intermingled with mine in a paradox of doll houses and fire-engines, tea sets and race cars, bonnets and boats. It was a cause of embarrassment when friends came to visit. I tried to convince them that the toy oven wasn’t mine although during a morbid stage of adolescence I used it as a Barbie doll Auschwitz.When I took over the room, the frilly femininity was hurriedly covered with a masculine coat of blue paint. Although the room itself became suitable for the gender of the new occupant, the closet was forgotten. It remained pink -- a shocking pansy pink.
I kept the closet door shut as much a possible. And much of the feminine decor inside was hidden behind posters of Rock groups who I didn’t particularly like or dislike. Such things were social necessities in order to mesh with high-school friends. I learned early in life that individuality was only accepted when it was homogenous amongst peers.
Despite its misgivings, my bedroom was the best in the house. From the privacy of a single window perched three stories above the street, I could view practically every yard in the ancient neighborhood. But one house down the street, framed by an overgrown hedge and shrouded by a tall oak, seemed to hide itself from the rest of the world. New residents had moved in the previous autumn. Ever since, the neighbours seemed to increasingly act as if the place was a social taboo.
From my portal in the attic hideaway, I could see my neighbours peek onto the property through a purposely poked out knothole in the gate. But curiosity was confined to the property’s boundary. Parents intentionally overlooked the house while taking their children on Halloween trick-or-treat excursions. I never witnessed anyone in the community enter that yard -- with the exception of wayward traveling salesmen and boisterous Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The sight intrigued me. On an occasion, I’d peek through the gate of 969 Waterloo St. onto perfectly manicured gardens. I never saw the residents, however. It was as if the house had a will of its own, keeping itself tidy without the help of humans.
The aura of that house seemed to coincide with my teenage years. I was well passed the stage of imaginative play, but the true wonders of the world seemed beyond my grasp. As much as I tried to become an adult, parental restraints seemed to bury me in a void of ignorance.
I was devastated when my mother volunteered my services delivering newspapers while the Thompson’s youngest son, the newspaper boy, nursed a broken leg. I was entering grade eleven that year and thought the vocation totally beneath me. My mother insisted. She said that it was important to help out friends of the family. But Mother always had an ulterior motive. As my grades hovered around a C-, she most likely felt the need to teach me the type of profession lay in my destiny.
I wasn’t expected to deliver newspapers for long, so no one felt the need to ask the publisher to change the delivery to my house. After school, I rolled the evening edition on the Thompson’s front porch. A picture of lemonade and a Tupperware container of home-made cookies always awaited my arrival. Mrs. Thompson kept me company as she sat stoutly on her rocking chair. Sometimes she’d gently sing antiquated songs about spooning underneath a moon. Other times would be spent preaching the virtues and responsibilities of work. The sermons and songs were always conducted from behind a celebrity tabloid that was scrunched close to her eyes as if she were a glaucomatous Puritan enveloping the Bible before blindness set in.
On the first day of my route, Mrs. Thompson made it very clear that I was not to enter the yard belonging to 969. I complied. But after some time had passed, I questioned her why such rules were in place. The tabloid fell, exposing an ominous expression on her cratered face. It was obvious that the innocent question was blatant insubordination to her. All sound on the porch paused until she finally spoke with a haunting groan. “I’ve seen numerous people enter that house, but none ever leave.” Her little innuendo might have scared a ten year old and the only reason I didn’t laugh in her face was because she directed such a childish ploy at me. Every time she looked down the Laurel lined street towards that house her face puffed up like a constipated rock cod.
The half-heard innuendoes and hushed voices lit an imaginative spark in my mind. I played with the idea that the K.G.B. had infiltrated the neighborhood and a shoot-out might bring some life to a relatively boring suburban summer.
The Vancouver monsoons set in just in time for Collection day. I traversed mud-soaked lawns and slick sidewalks trying to decipher who was home. And while the customers decided that their bursting wallets were full enough to pay for the next month’s services, my tips consisted of mediocre scrapings from half empty change pockets.
A strange, dual temperament seemed to possess my mother during those days. Being typically nosy, she was jealous that I had the supreme opportunity to catch a glimpse inside the neighbour’s homes. On the other hand, she was grateful that there was a potential informant in the family.
Arriving home on Collection nights, the slamming of the door would bring her scurrying to meet me. She was faster than a Tabloid reporter and as dangerous as Mada Hari.
The first night, she bolted from the kitchen and cornered me on the stairs with a cleaver still in grip. “I saw a grandfather clock being delivered to the Kent’s place. Is it in the hall?” She asked. The cleaver swung wildly with each restless question. “What colour are the Lawson’s new rugs? Blue I bet. Dotty loves blue.” After a wet night of work, I resented being interrogated at knife-point.
Collection day turned into collection week. But after grueling visits to countless doorsteps almost everyone managed to pay by week’s end. All except 969. Mrs. Thompson informed me that the residents left the collection money in the newspaper box outside the gate. Although I was willing to enter the yard, despite her warnings, my way was usually barred by a dwarf Chihuahua who’d yelp feverishly in a futile attempt to prove the “Beware of Dog” sign true. The envelope never materialized and after noticing the dog strangely absent one day, I decided to venture into the void of Waterloo Street.
From the street, only a portion of the steep, slanted roof could be seen. It sported a cherub wind vain that swung his bow and arrow to the direction of the wind. The hole in the gate only allowed a limited view of a yellow brick walkway leading past an exaltation of scarlet rhododendrons. As I looked suspiciously around to make sure my defiance would go unnoticed, the opening of the gate heralded a sight of eerie beauty.
A cornucopia of stone statues and obelisks seemed to sprout from newly turned bedding soil, and in turn, they were slowly being enveloped by the springing life of budding shrubs. An ornate Victorian house of monstrous proportions stood in the background.
I cautiously strolled passed a reflecting pool as an unexpected apparition appeared before my wandering eyes. A contemporary artist’s revision of Michelangelo’s “David” stared solemnly back at me from its floral base of pink impatience. Although the statue was posed in the same classic style, it sported bikers garb complete with boots, leather jacket and cap. But he had no pants under his tightly chiseled chaps and I couldn’t help noticing how the artist grossly overdeveloped David’s privates. I had never been witness to such a blatant exaggeration in the years I spent thumbing through pictures of nudes in the pages of classical art books and back editions of “National Geographic.” I was mesmerized.
I don’t recall exactly how long I was standing there measuring up the statue’s physical attributes before I was startled by a shadow moving in on me.
The stranger approached slowly and steadily. But as his silhouette moved from the darkness of the overgrown perennial trail into the soft, Spring glow, I became eased by his familiarity. It turned out to be a distant acquaintance that mysteriously disappeared from high-school the previous year. He looked older and more mature than I remembered him. Heredity allowed Richard to mature early. I secretly hated him in grade eight for the uncanny ability to grow sideburns.
The patch of space on the walkway was relatively small and Richard didn’t halt until he was uncomfortably close to me. If I stepped back for more room, I was sure to land in the reflecting pool. I felt somewhat trapped and the fact that Richard never reverted his eyes from mine didn’t help matters. He appeared to be in good spirits while confronting his trespasser, however. That was soothing. But the initial pleasure of seeing him looking resonant under his goatee was shattered when I realized why he was smiling. I was caught staring at David’s dink.
I admit that I wondered what happened to Richard. But uncovering a common thread to what I thought were two unrelated mysteries left little excitement. I was embarrassingly convinced that in playing the role of amateur sleuth I let down my guard and gave up something in the process. Richard had unwittingly learned a secret about me -- a secret I wasn’t sure I had but was worried about all the same.
The silence seemed unbearably long. It appeared that he was enjoying my awkward predicament as we faced each other peer to peer, boy to man. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to break the uneasy quiet. After all, I was the intruder. I braced myself for the further degradation of uttering the immortal words of all newspaper boys, over aged or not. “Collecting,” I said a little too loud from nervousness, making sure I looked anywhere but the statue. My cheeks must have matched the rhododendrons by then. I hit a low point.
My savior came in the form of the Chihuahua as it belted out of the house and into the garden with the noise and velocity of the Space Shuttle. Yelping all the way, it bounced off my leg and ricocheted skyward off the statue. An airborne pike and a half-twist followed before it crash landed ass first in the reflecting pool. The drenching didn’t even shut up the little mutt.
Richard never diverted his attention from me as if to say that he witnessed his dog’s antics before and was bored with it all. By that time, the Chihuahua was a blur running in tumultuous circles at our feet. The centrifugal force spit water off its back like a washing machine on spin. “I better go,” I said to Richard, feeling totally exasperated by the situation. “I think I’m getting someone a little too excited.”
“Yea,” Richard smirked indulgently. He didn’t give any clue to which of my comments he was answering and no hint that he knew I was talking about the dog.
“I think I better take out his batteries,” he said finally. But the dog’s booster rockets began to tire.
Richard’s eyes didn’t budge or blink. He stared towards me with stone stability. I attempted to leave, shimmying my teetering heels along the edge of the reflecting pool but was held in place as he grasped my shoulder. “Forget something?” Richard asked as he pulled out a folded envelope from his shirt pocket. “There’s a little something in there for you.” I shrunk. Not only was I demoted to casual labour for a high-school dropout but I was also being tipped by one. I watched as Richard hesitated for a moment, reverted his eyes to the statue, then back to me. He pulled out a second envelope which was crumpled from wear within his Levi’s pocket. The dog jumped for it like a jack-in-the-box, but the gift made it to my hands before being greedily snatched. Richard caught the dog in mid flight and cuddled it close to his body.
“Thanks,” I said somewhat puzzled from the situation, but Richard was already retreating nonchalantly towards the house. I was suddenly left alone to lead myself down the garden path to the gate. The dog’s barks subsided with the calming reassurances of his voice, and as I locked the gate behind me, I heard Richard chuckle.
It took all the willpower I had but I didn’t open either envelope until I got into the privacy of my room. The first envelope contained a twenty dollar tip in addition to the newspaper payment. As I held the crisp bill in the light, it almost felt like it was worth the embarrassment. The second envelope had a far more curious surprise. An invitation on pink parchment read,
You are Cordially Invited
to a Tupperware Party
in honour of
__________________
guests -- place event here
B.Y.O.B. B.Y.O.D.
and Bring Money for Tupperware
the Wiener You Save May be Your Own.I wondered how Richard came to live in that home, but there was another question burning in my brain. Why would he host a Tupperware party? I thought it a rather odd concept, but I dismissed it as a new fad that had escaped my notice. In those days, many details escaped my notice. Richard, then David’s face kept creeping into my mind. Something, somewhere, didn’t fit.
I had no intention of going to the function at first, but Mrs. Thompson’s sermons beckoned me to act. I recalled a mass of warnings from Childhood. Don’t run with scissors. Don’t play with matches. Don’t touch the stove. Were Mrs. Thompson’s warnings foolish and unfounded, I asked myself, or would I get burned?
I looked out the window and down the street towards Richard’s yard. Little could be seen behind the Oak other than the wind vain high on the roof. I decided to go to the party. A West wind swung the cherub in my direction as if in support of the invitation and my decision.
I stopped to collect my thoughts several times on the way to 969. After a week of musing I definitely had reservations. But as I looked towards the Thompson’s house and closed the gate behind me, I felt a sense of relief -- a sense of rebellion. Whatever happened inside the house would be my little secret. It would be a secret that I could keep from those who kept secrets from me.
A sudden clamber from an upstairs window shattered my defiant mood. The dog, who was obviously locked in an upstairs bedroom, once again heard a trespasser. Being too tiny to climb up to the window to see the intruder, the mutt had learned to jump on the bed only exposing his yappy self in flight -- like a hairy, trampoline trained car alarm. I cringed at the noise but there was one consolation. No one from the outside world could see me. Nevertheless, the dog made sure no doorbell needed, and even if I had a last minute hesitation, there was no turning back. Richard opened the door before I was halfway up the walk. I entered the house cursing the mutt all the way.
“Good to see ya,” Richard said at the door. “I somehow knew you were coming.” He gave me a knowing glance as he took my coat. I wasn’t used to the service. In all the high-school parties I attended, I held on to my coat for fear of thieves. But my shabby windbreaker looked out of place amongst the designer coats on the rack. It seemed safe.
The hall was decorated from end to end with bouquets of Chinese umbrellas. A multitude of over-sized origami birds and bees swung from the ceiling in pairs. The flight overhead seemed like a chaotic queue to board an Ark -- only to be halted by a doorway of serpentine streamers. In the parlour, white and pink crepe paper fanned along the ceiling from a central chandelier and hung side by side down the walls. Antique white wicker furniture finalized the impression of a garden gazebo.
A middle-aged woman stood prim and proper amongst an entourage of men. Each and everyone of the guys were dressed their pastel coloured summer finest. They pranced around the room laughing, bantering, and bickering like an ostentation of peacocks displaying their colours for the homely female.
The room was suddenly silenced as yaps, yelps, thumps and bed-spring squeaks echoed from the upstairs bedroom. “Richard,” one of them called, “either someone’s having wild sex upstairs or there’s someone else at the door.”
“I know,” Richard answered, rolling his eyes skyward before throwing his attention back to me. He counted the guests, peeked out the door, and summarized that the dog was up to something other than guard duty. “Help yourself to punch. I have to give Toto another keg of valium.” Richard trotted upstairs, leaving me to fend for myself in the surreal garden of Eden.
As I entered the parlour, I was neither ignored nor introduced. I was willingly included into conversations and treated as if I instantly became a member of a secret fraternity. My presence was my pledge.
Everyones ease made me feel like dropping my teenage paranoia. Mrs. Thompson’s words were still in the back of my mind, however. I played with the idea that everyone that entered the house were in some elaborate trap and may never leave. I had a vision of everyone side by side in a mass grave in the cellar slowly being entombed by successive shovel-fulls of dirt. I made a strategic retreat to the bar.
Punch flowed from several spouts of an antiquated champagne fountain to a swirling pool below. There, a barbie doll basked amongst the alcoholic bubbles. Complete with a yellow polka-dot bikini and a blonde bouffant, Barbie reclined nonchalantly as if she defiantly stripped her girlish pretense for a swim in a Bacchanalian oasis.
I drank copious amounts from that fountain and I wasn’t alone. Most of the guests flamboyantly trotted to the punch, throwing a colourful stream of movement within the parlour’s tight confines. Richard chaperoned me to a corner of the room and we sat tightly together on the floor by a steam radiator. A festive array of Chinese umbrellas hovered over our heads like a tent.
The Tupperware lady sat somewhat unsteadily in her designated chair. It was decorated as such with billows of multicoloured bows tied to kitchen-help do-dads given away at the Modern Living pavilion at the local fair. She made a point of acknowledging her place of honour, fingering the safety vegetable peeler and the Handy-Dandy apple sectioner. It was obvious that she intended to sell her wares despite an undertone of uneasiness underneath her Maybaline soaked lips. She began to tell us of space-age technologies, the importance of burping a salad container and the glories of the five gallon Jell-O mold.
An aura of understated and lighthearted ridicule seemed to emanate from the audience. Hushed innuendoes intended for one floated out of earshot only to be answered with a lonely chuckle. For the most part, the audience was polite and reserved, but I felt like there was a volcanic build-up of energy begging to be unleashed. It was as if everyone was waiting for a stage cue to simultaneously break out in a frenzied Go Go dance.
An hour passed and the Tupperware Lady continued undeterred as the radiator’s heat began to accumulate in the umbrellas over my head. The air became as humid as a steam bath.
Looking at my empty glass, I tried to devise a way to get to the punch bowl without making it all to obvious that a drink was my primary interest. I was sweaty and parched. Richard noticed that I was uncomfortable and fanned my face with a folded brochure. The cooling air was welcome with each brisk swish of his wrist. I’m sure my face showed it. The Tupperware lady momentarily halted her spiel long enough to give Richard a “boys don’t fan boys look” before she continued. But not to be condemned in his own home, Richard kept on with his host’s chores despite her misgivings.
There was no doubt in my mind that the Tupperware lady was an upper-class, bored housewife who considered herself a philanthropist of sorts by bringing affordable kitchenware to the masses. O.K., Mother Theresa she wasn’t, but she’d found her niche in life and I wasn’t willing to deprive her of that.
Perhaps her years, or maybe it was just woman’s intuition that gave the Tupperware Lady a heightened sense of awareness. She noticed inconsistencies in the stereotypical male persona long before I did. Every effeminate giggle seemed to grate on her psyche like Ajax on sandpaper. It took little time before her teacup turned into a tumbler of Scotch.
On the other end of the spectrum, I never saw Richard look more relaxed. He was amongst friends and peers and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the company of his guests. During high-school, he always seemed somewhat timid and out of place. It was as if he awoke prematurely and popped unwittingly out of his burrow well before Groundhog Day. He was a groundhog caught between wintry blizzards of foreign scholastic cliques.
The end of the party was heralded by the slurping sounds of the champagne fountain. It became clear that all available alcohol was consumed. Empties lined the bar and the Barbie doll was tattered and tipped face down in her dried up pool as if the punchbowl oasis had been nothing more than a desert mirage. By that time, the early summer light was fading and several guests managed to pour the Tupperware lady into a cab. The stragglers, increasingly animated in their inebriated state, decided that a view with a different mood was needed to keep the party going. They filed out the back door in pairs to unknown destinations. I thanked Richard, declined several invitations, and went home.
I took a long route past the park and through the lane. The walk sobered me up enough to sneak into the house more or less undetected. I made sure to close the door quietly before I snuck up the stairs and entered my room.
I laid awake all night, giddy from the alcohol but edgy from the event. The gloomy face of a full moon shone onto mine through the window. It stared me down as if in shock. Its contorted expression was frozen in an eternal gasp. I tried not to look at it. I tried to sleep, but the moonbeams burned into the room as they stretched across the bed and illuminated a shaft of pink from within my closet.
I shut the closet door. I drew the curtains tight.
Some time passed before I talked to Richard again. He caught my attention leaning out his gate as I rode my bike past his home. I was delivering again. It wasn’t newspapers that time, but rather, a parcel of ice-cream for Mrs. Thompson. I was apprehensive about deviating from my errand. I knew that the old woman was eagerly awaiting her package. But not to be rude, I propped by bike against the fence and entered the yard.As their garden laid testament, the first signs of Autumn had set in. I could barely see my face in the reflecting pool’s murky water. The obelisks stood solitary amongst the bare heaps of compost as the gardens were laid to rest.
“Haven’t seen ya for a while.” Richard’s smile never retreated. “Where have ya been?”
“Around.” I felt guilty answering the question with such incompassion and I wrestled with my brain to remedy the chill of my demeanor. “How are you?”
“Good. Did ya have fun at the party?”
“ Yep,” I said a little too quickly. “Your friends seem nice.”
“They’re mostly my roommate’s.” The ice cream was beginning to melt. Richard noticed the paper bag becoming increasingly soggy.
“I wont keep you, but I just wanted you to have this.”
“Thanks,” I said, looking down at an orange and black envelope with little depiction’s of Baby Jane Hudson and the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Hope you can make it for Halloween.”
“I’ll try. It should be fun.” The truth is I knew it would be fun. But I wasn’t sure if I was really ready for another digression from the life that I knew. It seemed like I didn’t look but rather dived head first into the world behind the gate when I went to the Tupperware Party. Ever since, I felt like I was dog-paddling three feet under the surface helplessly trying to get a breath of air.
The ice-cream container ripped through the bag and landed on the walkway with a vanilla splat. The Thompson’s would have their Jell-O plain for dessert.
“Oops.” Richard looked down at the blob of white slowly engulfing the yellow brick. “Was that important.” I nodded with apprehension.
“Sorry.” I was so sorry.
“Wait here,” he said. “I’ve got just the thing. He rushed into the house, leaving me holding the sticky, empty paper bag. I felt like a child who just lost his balloon.
David’s stone eyes glared proudly foreword as if he had just triumphed over a modern day Goliath. His exposed groin acted like a divining-rod, of sorts, for innocent creatures to land. There, one of the last butterflies of the season sunned its wings totally oblivious to the dog’s snapping jaws. I was prepared for the worst when the mutt spotted me but it only expelled a half hearted huff in my direction before reverting his attention back to his prey. His energy was needed for more lucrative pursuits.
Richard came back into the garden with another carton of ice-cream. “Take this,” he said. “We keep extras around for emergencies anyway.” I traded with him. There was a genuine kindness in Richard’s face. It was something I didn’t fully realize until then. I accepted a fresh carton with a sense of admiration and friendship. “You’re a life saver,” I said. “I’ll pay you back for this.”
“Come to the party.” Richard’s smile turned into a grimace. It was clear that he didn’t expect any monetary reward for his trouble. He simply wanted to see me again.
I felt like I could breathe easier. I returned the smile as I turned to leave. The dog lapped up the vanilla while the butterfly remained behind.
I carelessly lurched out of the gate directly into the waiting eyes of Mrs. Thompson. She stood motionless in her picture window glaring at me with a rock hard “if your mother only knew it would break her heart” look. That contorted expression remained etched on her face as I delivered her ice-cream. There was no lemonade and no home made cookies offered to me. She simply peered in her bag and scoffed “This isn’t what I asked for.” She pulled out the carton. The ice-cream flavour was Double Bon Bon Cherry Decadence. I could tell she was not impressed as she looked towards 969. “It’s got fruit and nuts in it,” were her last words before she slammed the door .
Mrs. Thompson’s sighting heralded the end of mindless gossip. What was originally considered a comically strange intrusion into the morality of suburbia intensified into an infestation and a threat. I listened in disgust to the slanderous preaching of supposedly church going housewives echo over fences and through telephone receivers. Rumors spread throughout the community of the strange happenings in that house. Although my name was never mentioned, there was talk of how the so-called disease was spreading to the neighbourhood children like a toxic spill.
Somewhere, someone decided that it had to end.
In the night, I awoke to a ghostly glow in my room. I threw open the curtains and opened the window to investigate. To my shock, I saw fire break over the roof of Richard’s home. The oak tree cringed and contorted as if to fend itself from the heat and damp leaves singed in the eaves, causing a plume of ink black smoke to blot out the moon. The house was fully engulfed before the dog’s muffled cries ended in an ungodly squeal as fire exploded out the bedroom window.
The neighbours began to congregate on the street as if it were a fireworks display. Some people were in shock while others were in triumph. Spray painted in red upon the lynch-gate, a single word dripped like blood to the rain-soaked street -- “FAG.”
I couldn’t look any longer and I couldn’t help. It was too late. The sight was already etched in my mind like hieroglyphics on stone. I ran to my closet, closing the door behind me in a frantic attempt to escape. But from inside the garbage laden tomb, the sounds were still clear. The vision reverberated in my mind.
Wafts of smoke crept under the door. It was the undeniable smell of burning plastic; melting salad bowls and Jell-O molds. I held my breath, ripping the skeleton costume from its resting place. The toy oven fell to the floor, awakening a cloud of dust. Smells of stagnancy intermingled with smells of death. I tried to block the reeking air by stuffing the dirty, black boned costume tight under the door. It was in vain. I couldn’t keep out the smoke. The wretched stench lingered all night, and as I huddled alone, I realized that my closet wasn’t pink in the dark.