Look at that face. You can tell there is fury in those eyes. A fist raised in protest because he was not immediately presented with breast or bottle when he woke from his nap. Just to make his point, he is shitting in his pants while this photo was taken, so you know who is the boss. This is Terence Mark Daniel Johnson, born October 10th, 1960. Born on Uncle Dan’s 60thbirthday and as such shared a name with his uncle.
We still lived on Redwood when this photo was taken, I can tell by the wallpaper. The chickenpox house, the house where Snowball met her doom and I tossed a 2×4 onto the neighbor childs’ head. It was risky to bring a newborn infant into this place but none the less, this is where my brother spent his first days. Fawned over by the French relatives, who thought he was so precious that they gave him the moniker ‘Little Angel’, while mine remained ‘Little Devil’. Perhaps they intended to mean the ‘angel’ referred to the fallen angel Lucifer, which would have been more appropriate, had they known what was to come.
I got a hockey stick and puck for Christmas that year, bragged that I had advanced from printing letters to cursive writing (although the extent of my written letters was e and l) and Mrs. Hunter, my grade two teacher thought there was something wrong with me, because I couldn’t sit still, and had me ‘tested’. Turned out that all my unruliness and disruption in class was not because I was spoiled or bad, but because I was bored and wanted to have fun instead of doing school work. So instead of chaining me to my desk to contain my hyper-activity, I was to be promoted to Major Work the next year (a program that covered three years of schooling in two years) following my evil sister, who was already doing Major Work in a different school. Fortunately, this did not happen, as we moved again, and I got to attend the second of twenty-one schools I went to between kindergarten and grade nine.
Meanwhile, the Angel Monster was being introduced to his first girlfriend, a second or third cousin from the French side. Terry and Sherry. Here at Uncle Dan and Aunt Mary’s place.
As was the common practice, the male French relatives are seated at the table having beers while the women prepare dinner. Notice how my brother suffered the same haircut trauma as I did and was forced to wear suspenders. Terry and Sherry were told to hug for the photo; Sherry grasped him around the shoulder, so he couldn’t escape while she pounded the Angel Monsters face with her free hand.
The armoire, on the right of this photo, was stuffed with mothballs.
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Wade Harold Johnson - Canadian Novelist/Poet 