ORPHAN SPIRIT
On the morning of February 15th, 1839, Pierre Remi Narbonne trudged
through the Montreal snow and faced the gallows. The cartilage in his
ears ached and throbbed to the rhythm of his crunching foot steps--was
it the snapping cold? Was it a hangover from the wine brought in
sympathy with his last supper? Or, was it where his will resolved to
pound out the howling and hatred for rebel blood?...These are Lucys'
words--she read them to me in a wanting state of love.
PIERRE
Then she read the story of my life, which ended in a state of
disgrace.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
Lucy likes to mix mediums: disgrace,
love, wanting...wanting...wanting...
PIERRE
I paid no heed to the howling and hatred from the Anglos--I had to
learn to live with my conquerors as fate. I feared not death. But
still, life drew me a thousand times for my two dear children. Mother
Mary continue to protect them--where ever they be now, they deserved a
better fate than to be orphaned for the sake of their country--although
I remain a loving victim for it..Oh Canada, when I approached the
scaffold, it was with the same courage I always had--at least I can
feel good about this when I strive to contend with all that went wrong
with my life.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
This story of the past sprung from the mind of a romantic and
rebellious descendant named Lucy. When people die violently they often
do not know all that happened to them. They linger and process until
something is observed. This is what we have in common. We, being Lucy,
Pierre, and myself. In the past we expected and longed for the
other--we had our wounds witnessed and were left wanting more. In this
in-between state, desire still haunts and taunts me. All my obsessions
tingle and prick from head to toe, which is ridiculous, since I have no
body. I don't remember the details of my passion with Lucy. I do know
that we broke through a barrier in our sexual evolution and I need to
find her. It is in this in-between world where all possibilities to
understand grief, to truly understand vulnerability, exist. (Pierre
and Orphan Spirit both say this last line) The world's
survival depends on what is reconciled here, and so does yours and mine.
PIERRE
Death, like life, turns out different than you think it ought to
be...Just like the snowy Montreal winters must eventually give way to
spring, my death, too, was an inevitable event. All the props for drama
were firmly in place to make it remarkable, even mythical. That this
story is being told more than 150 years after the fact is in no way an
attempt to reveal some new significant truth. (Pierre and
Orphan Spirit) Truth, once uttered, is already remade, more
or less.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
Rather, this story attempts to unravel something truthful about the
present past, the past-past, violence, and most important, the healing
power of sex.
(She
grabs the noose and plays with it sensually and swings it his way. He
grabs hold of it.)
PIERRE
(As he swings it back her way) It's about fighting
the good fight for liberty.
ORPHAN SPIRIT
(she holds the noose still) It's about the slippery and sensuous worlds
within when the spirit takes flight. (She let's go of the
noose and it stays still for awhile)
PIERRE
That I should sear so deeply into a consciousness beyond Humphrey my
executioner is no surprise, really. Public hangings do after all
require a public, an audience, if you will. On that fateful morning
under leaden February skies, I glimpsed my own terror in the eyes of my
public as Humphrey savagely yanked and beat me as I pulled my self up.
No, no, no... That could not have happened. I could never have seen
anyone through that black hood. It is only in this recall that I
imagine I did. I must have intuited and mixed the terror of those
compassionate members of the audience with my own. Recall is always
tricky and sometimes far too sticky. My anger and courage was talked
about amongst men and my executioner was intimidated to be killing one
more worthy than himself. You see, stupid Humphrey forgot to
accommodate the fact that I had only one hand, and one of the first
things they do when they push a man up onto the scaffold, is tie both
hands behind his back. Naturally, I used my free hand to try and save
myself. I was resolved to meet my maker, but I could never submit so
easily, such is my nature--if only I were more like a Quebec autumn
where the canvass of death implodes fluid and lucid in leaves of Mother
Maple Trees; and then the cold and aggressive winds blow them to a
brilliant fall.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
Indeed, that is one beautiful Canadian submission. Falling....falling,
it's where we land that matters...Sex and violence is part of the glue
that binds us to each other, but we must mix this palette with other
colours to go to the next level. ...Although the three of us had met in
many lifetimes before, Lucy first heard of Pierre in 1967 through her
grandmother, his great, great grand-daughter. She latched onto the
story of the 1837/38 Rebellion quite vigorously because the creative
ones love to suck on stories of past troubles and glories. It is their
bottomless bottle--the onset of unbalanced attachments and the
introduction of addictions.
She was seven years old, the age of reason (Pierre and Orphan Spirit
together) or, as Lucy preferred to call it--the age of treason, when
first told of her ancestor's place in Canadian history.
PIERRE
I had learned to be efficient with just one hand. Farmer, painter, and
bailiff. I had learned not to pity myself, except my botched hanging
evoked a wretched pity that spread across the river. Humphrey beat me
with a plank till I finally let go. Such a bloody spectacle. Crushed
vertebras make it hard to hang on, and then hangings such as mine are
repeatedly told in drunkenness by people who love to horrify, and by
children desperate for heroes, and by women who believe in men more
than they should. It's no wonder I linger still--pity is such
dispicable thing to witness. (Pierre and Orphan Spirit
together) Violent endings may be quick on that end, but they
are long on this one.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
When a child comes to that first realization that her parents are less
than what she bargained for she forgives them because it is in the
nature of children to do so. However, it is also the beginning of
resentment towards the family unit, from which there is no escape, only
acceptance. This is the place where Lucy always gets stuck and where I
can help her. You see, I am an Orphan Spirit. I've had a few lifetimes
with families, and therefore I know how they can get in the way. I hold
my Orphan status close to my chest, sort to speak. However rough and
shameful, being an Orphan is the perfect soul state to know one's true
self. Our power is pure because we move forward in social actions not
caring what 'mommy or daddy' want us to do--we're beyond that
bottomless approval system, but still, we crave so much love at times,
it's bound to cause us trouble, and it gets us into trouble, sex
trouble, most of the time. Naturally, we have a reflex to mock parental
control and so many of you want us to play you the same way. You know
who you are. And yes, you can suck on our creative Orphan power because
the Sacred Mother has deemed it so, and you must never, ever take us
for granted... but of course...you always do and then we become each
other's drug. No matter the addiction, because it's the only way back
to the great love we once knew. Lucy, being emotionally intelligent and
sensitive, was coming into awareness, and therefore strongly attracted
to the Orphan that was me, masochistically tingling to be set up for a
brilliant autumn fall. She saw in me freedom and I saw in her the
freedom to sweeten her shame...with shame. As arrogant as dominance can
be, I mistook our mutual attraction as something she needed more than
me. Such is the trickster that camouflages lust--it crystalizes your
own deficiency.
Musical transition here-- PIERRE
Clearly. Deficiencies become crystal clear on the pathway to
here...Mine was not the first botched hanging of Humphrey, but it would
be his last. He became unemployed after me, and while he chose not to
mask himself, as was customary for executioners, his deformed face,
along with his bad form, ended his livelihood. There was a crowd
roaring for rebel blood. Anglos of course, except for Humphrey, who set
the noose wrong on the 23 year old Duquette. Still a boy, Duquette had
to be carried sobbing to the platform. The boy cried for those of us
born without tears--bless him, he dampened my eyes...Why did it have to
take seeing that for me not to feel afraid of showing vulnerability for
the first time I could remember? (Pierre frames his face
inside the noose.)
Musical transition here--Humphrey lost his
focus and hurried his big clumsy hands. When the trap door opened, the
noose slipped up to Duquette's chin, causing him to swing sideways and
crash face first into the beam. The poor bloody boy shit himself. The
black hood was red soaked. Humphrey had to start over and it took
twenty minutes to kill the boy. Twenty times 60 second minutes of
blood-curdling screams--kicking, crying, coughing--20 minutes--it was
long enough for the many present, the Habitant and even some English,
to think deeply about the brutality they were witnessing. A collective
sigh of relief spread--floated over the river along with Duquette's
spirit when his neck finally snapped and his corpse was left writhing.
For years to come, most of the crowd would recount the sight and sounds
of Duquette's hanging over and over again, asking themselves and God,
why they had not stayed home that day. (He moves from the
noose and addresses the audience.)
Caution masses: When you take communion with brutal death, it doesn't
end when the event is over. If you want to play power games with death,
well then let me tell you about rule number one of engagement: Death
always wins and when She does, She rubs those power games in your face
beyond your wildest comprehension, like nothing you can imagine, until
you are summoned here, to be with an Orphan Spirit, witnessing,
processing, endlessly processing for it to make uncommon, common
lesbian sense. And, until you do, the misery of the bloody mud you
mixed will be caked on your soul for what feels interminable. The
Mother insists it be cleansed out, I know, down to its final grain of
sand, which you labour and mine to this depth...(pause first)
(Pierre and Orphan Spirit together) But, then, no one could
ever love us this much.
ORPHAN SPIRIT
The depiction of Duquette's hanging and that of her great, great, great
grandfather, that being you Pierre Remi Narbonne, stuck to the flypaper
of Lucy's morbid-in-the-making brain. One morning after the sweetest,
artistic shame based sex, Lucy mentioned her penchant for turtle necks
and the psychic comfort they provided. She thought that in a previous
life she might have gone to the scaffold, like her ancestor. My sense
was that she had sucked on the story too much. You see, Lucy grew up
working-class Catholic where all the schools have icons of tortured
Saints in the main foyer. For someone imaginative, the need to
romanticize tragedy would have imbedded like shrapnel. It's the only
explanation for writing this story like this. But now, she's imbedded
in me like shrapnel. It's impossible to be like this. It's impossible
not to be...Life's best lessons mirror what's behind our desires and
disdain...Lucy, how dare you infuse me this way and ignite such
unbearable loss. Did you not understand the game, Lucy? You can't
reflect this much sorrow and then leave me to my own devices--it's like
you tricked me, you trick. And now what? I am a spirt muse cast as your
tormented Orphaned lover with your muse, your tormented ancestor? Damn
you for this damned story on the eternal love of rebellion.
Musical
transition here-- PIERRE
Duquette had been his mother's only child. Many of us pleaded on his
behalf, recognizing he was a mere lad, still wet behind the ears, and
for the most part, innocent...Innocent--when did we stop being
innocent?...Duquette's mother had allowed meetings to take place at her
Inn, and because of this they were both to pay the ultimate price: His
life. The Redcoats knew how to break a woman as well as a man. Her Inn
was burnt to the ground along with hundreds of other properties. The
grief from her son's death was not laid to rest with the rest of her.
(Pierre and Orphan Spirit together) Sorrow and sins can live on in the
ground and do not thaw with the coming of spring.
ORPHAN SPIRIT
Lucy told me that some February days can be so cold the hair in your
nostrils stick together like jagged little icicles, making one's inhale
sharp. On February 15th, 1969, 130 years after the hanging, Lucy ended
up in the hospital and experienced a very powerful hallucination. I
believe I came to her then as a spirit. The problem is timing. I wasn't
dead, but one of the spirits Lucy spoke of felt like it was me from
another life. Emotions are what matter most in this Life-and- Death
quest...Pierre, time could not separate her from the story of the only
kin she would feel akin to. You rebelled as an outsider in your own
country, but Lucy was an outsider in her family--this is the next
Bastille to be stormed. It's the eternal rebel love that will finally
submit us all into co-existing, deeply, co-existing.
Musical transition here--Do the shells of
past
lives suspend like empty encasements of snakes? I feel like I bump into
them and get confused about lifetimes. Could it be that we all share
the same past? That we're sharing this story right now as we might have
once lived it?...In a feverish state, young Lucy straddled two worlds
and floated into the next hospital room where a young girl lay dying.
There, Lucy saw many souls around the bed, including a nun and a young
girl. She said the nun looked right through her in an undeniable way
and said: 'Lucy, you have always known about the love in the world...'
Then, the young girl holding the nun's hand, added, 'we were just
coming to see you, Lucy.'--this made Lucy think that maybe she also was
dying ...Strangely, she was not afraid and began to regard death as her
long time companion who would one day take her by the hand and walk her
to where all the love began. Death is afterall the MOMENT we are healed
from life.
When Lucy was telling me this story, which came out of an inquiry about
a scar on her leg from being hurled onto ice during school recess, I
was certain the young girl holding the nun's hand was me, but said
nothing. She told me about her accident in a bed and breakfast. We were
both traveling and would spend three sexually inspiring nights
together. It would have sounded too Hollywood for me to declare that
our souls must have been intermingling again. But it's true. Hollywood
and heaven project from the same projector and my soul is betwixt and
intermingled with Lucy's, as I will never stop seeking her.
PIERRE
We are all trying to become free, Orphan Spirit...On a cool day in June
1832 the Voyageur limped into Montreal harbor. Six days later there
were 94 cases of cholera and 23 deaths. Three days following, there
were 204 cases and 230 dead. The disease raged in Canada with a fury
unknown in Europe. By fall, more than 2000 had succumbed, but still,
trade continued by an English Bureaucracy that had messed up every
measure for public health. There were rumours, as always with plagues,
that the Government knew of the death germs brewing in the stagnant
puddles of those poor British coastal towns. We believed it was part of
a greater plan to diminish our numbers.
Pierre gets down from his box and circles
around the noose.
Musical transition here-- ORPHAN
SPIRIT
For thousands, the St. Lawrence was
the Mother of all
rivers when it came to sorrow. I was there at Gross Isle assisting the
dying. Those huge plague-ridden ships were lined up like bloated
coffins--lulling its sick to death. Irish souls moaning, lingering,
stinking, crying, waiting for the Priests to give them their last
rites, so they could finally die--many without socks or shoes. Those
with socks had them glued to their skin with stench and rot. So dragged
down poor and sick, but still they brought their hopes to Canada and
Canada was better for it. They begged their male god to release them
from the shackles of poverty and degradation of classism. 'C'mon
father--we've suffered enough, done our best, let us finally
die...please, enough already'...They came to Canada with the intention
of liberty. ...Intention matters--it becomes matter. Matter of fact, if
you die with good intentions and hopes, the ground and air is changed
by it. Trouble is, so many die with fear, so much wretched fear.
PIERRE
I had not been inclined towards politics until I heard Papineau speak
in the House of Assembly on the justice of an elected legislative
council. He had a magnificent stature, a virtuosic voice. A sense of
destiny owned him, determined to have Canadians participate in the
shaping of their country. One always wants to be in company of such men
as Papineau. He solemnly declared that no harmony would exist until the
elective principle was applied. The room was electrified when he spoke
on democracy. Democracy. The world was primed for such an ideal--still
is trying to apply it, but, it is oxymoronic as an export of war.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
My Lucy was sparked on the politics of her time, sexual abuse,
HIV/AIDS, the sad realities of moving the world forward. Having many
lives as an Orphan, I was interested in her perspective, though I
thought she couldn't fully appreciate the many intriguing layers of
being a survivor. Tricksters such as I need to extract fun and cunning
from those freshly emerging from (slightly mocking) all that is so
wrong. You sensitive ones like to suck on an Orphan's vulnerability to
help you know the world differently. It's our strength to make you see
this and I assumed the power to be relinguished would not be my own,
not in this way, that is for sure. I never met a survivor who survived
as good as me. Therefore I felt advantaged...foolishly...but you know
the song, 'everybody plays the fool'...sometime...there's no exception
to the rule...'. Oh, being the fool never felt so cool. Anytime Lucy,
I'll be one for you.
PIERRE
I too have perspective on my destiny and the blood of building a great
nation. I am free of all of it except a few memories. Images of burning
farms flickering on the river from all directions, haunt me, yet those
watery flames looked surreal as they rippled luminously, licking the
water, like a baptism in horrifying beauty...When I approached the
scaffold, I was alone, and resigned to my fate. But as my neck
tightened I was seized by the riverbank memory; still I am not free
from it, and doubt I ever will be. This grief is as deep as the earth's
core, but so is my desire to be done with it. Too many infant girls
have cried themselves dry...Sacred Mother comfort them. Please, let the
Orphan's time come....(becoming more emotional) I pulled myself up with
my free hand and tried to prevent my death, but what I mostly wanted to
prevent was facing the riverbank memory.
PIERRE STEPS UP AND REACHES FOR THE NOOSE,
LUCY STOPS HIM AND PLACES HER HAND ON HIS HEART AREA FOR A MOMENT.
ORPHAN SPIRIT
Be fine with this emotional disturbance, Pierre,--it's better this way,
trust me, I know this one...Lucy once told me that she believed the
sexiest people in the world were always a little disturbed..She was
right...I met her when she was in Montreal doing some research on your
damned Rebellion. She was determined to write a novel but felt
disadvantaged not knowing French. I listened, read some things she
wrote, and walked to the monument with her. I was encouraging, but
really what I wanted was to have her in an uncompromising position,
playing, begging... Blaming the victim has such intrinsic appeal,
because if it is somehow the victim's fault, then the rest of the world
can feel safe. Oh, the need to play safe with unsafe space is so
tantalizing, so romanticizing, so transforming. As an Orphan I learned
to manipulate and toy with this, which gave me many thrills, even if it
didn't always put food in my belly. Nothing matters except the longing
that lingers, and here is proof that it can linger long. Every story,
like every life, begs for a suitable conclusion, and we will live again
and again until we have it. If you haven't yet yearned, negotiated,
fought, violated, begged for a suitable conclusion, then you haven't
fully lived.
PIERRE
On a hot summer's morning in 1833, I headed for Montreal under
beautiful blue skies and bold clouds. It seemed like a perfect day. It
felt like nothing could ever go wrong. My purpose for traveling was two
fold: to attend a meeting regarding our great leader, Papineau's 92
Resolutions--a long list of grievances from which there was no retreat,
and to pick up some tincture of lavender and rhubarb. The previous
summer's memory of cholera was still sharp. I took my leave before my
son Eugene woke. He would always make such a fuss when he saw me
mounting my horse and heading off. As I rotted and froze in prison I
wondered if somewhere in his little body he knew what tragic, Orphan
fate awaited him? I believe so. I can see from here how we map our
destiny when being expelled from the womb. Is this changing it
though--I think so?
My beloved wife Catherine asked me to pick
up some Morrison pills as she suspected the baby was constipated. I
reluctantly agreed. Catherine would only crush a quarter pill for
little Oniciade, but the medication worked immediately. Anything that
worked that fast always made me suspicious. Such thoughts are
meaningless now, except, it appears my fate with you Orphan Spirit, is
tied to the universal Orphan stratum. Its momentum pulls us both ever
so strong.
ORPHAN SPIRIT
It's destined to pull everyone forward, Pierre!..It's the Orphan's
time, finally. It's hard to believe that a brain can grow on neglect,
absent caresses, and pangs of hunger, but it does. We are forced again
and again to make sense of the misery and majesty of this miracle
called life. It's hard because there is so much avoidable heartache due
to stupidity. Everything is easier if you get to touch Lucy because you
finally realize how hard it is to let love in. Lucy blamed the church.
She felt 'cultural-fried', like the petrified saints in those Catholic
foyers. As a young girl, Lucy had a feeling that the act of confession
was a tool that guaranteed a reflex to easily confess. She decided to
make up grandiose lies and it resulted in hundreds of thumb-pressed
beads of Hail Mary's, plus a obsessive compulsive disorder for
repeating things. At times though she did feel the presence of the Holy
Mother, which was intoxicating, and something she deeply desired. It
was, after all, the Sacred Mother, whose gaze included all. Lucy did
not want to hide in the shadows from the Sacred Mother because she felt
that this is where crimes against the self were committed. It was
conflicting because it felt so right, yet it came from soul-crushing
indoctrination, which Lucy abhorred. It was Lucy's first big
existential conflict. She started to resolve this conflict by pondering
on the increasing number of feminist therapists clearly taking over the
confession business of the priests. Lucy believed that the Sacred
Mother hinted to her that this was always part of the plan and that
more takeovers were coming down the river.
PIERRE
On my trusty horse Rose I felt like the king of my domain. Human beings
really don't want to think about what makes them discontent unless they
are forced to. I barely remember the 92 Resolutions, though I knew our
man Papineau was a special genius. After I picked up the supplies for
Catherine, I took a different route to the back door of the
bookseller's store, where we held our meetings. What possessed me to do
so was a desire to have a closer view of the mighty St. Lawrence. The
river that brought us all to this new country--such expansiveness--such
flowing opportunity to be unhindered, unyoked from oppressive
Monarchies. Such a mighty river to do all this, but also to bring us
cholera. Tiny fingers penetrated through my peripheral vision and I saw
little hands flailing to my right in the distance. I galloped closer
and heard the traumatizing cries of a toddler. Who could leave a baby
there, I thought in horror? Then, about ten feet away, I saw the mother
curled over some rocks, gripping a few smaller ones as though she had
pounded her stomach to stop the horrendous cramps accompanying her
fever before death. Rigormortis had settled in, but I'm sure the voice
I heard was the dead mothers': (Pierre and Orphan Spirit
together) 'P l e a s e pick up
my baby.'
While
he relives this terrible memory, Lucy processes her own Orphan
experiences.
ORPHAN
SPIRIT
When I am hovering between these lives, shining in this abyss, I tingle
with awe at the great impulse to live, irrespective of all the dread.
In one life I learned to allay my hunger by rubbing my stomach, wishing
a genie might grant me some food. However much I had to freeze my body
and squelch my tears, the important thing was getting fed. Sometimes
the kindness of strangers was enough, and sometimes their kindness
exacted too much. As an Orphan you learn a lot about how weak and
pathetic are the ways of adults. You convince yourself you will never
be like them, but with each passing day you feel the pull of the
patterns they placed on you. Eventually, however, you must endure
adulthood and piece together the stickiness--the good with the bad of
your life. Evolution has brought us to this point of spending most of
our adult lives reckoning our childhoods. Such as it is when one
survives, but one survives, and then one must labour towards the
currents of wisdom and compassion. To flow in the wake of the Sacred
Mother River is my last dream with Lucy, where we will be together,
forever.
LUCY
GETS DOWN FROM HER BOX AND SITS ON IT LOOKING UP AT HIM.
PIERRE
I got off my horse. My instinct was to run
to
the child to comfort her or him. I wasn't sure of the sex, but I sensed
girl. Beautiful brown eyes like molten glass and dark curly hair. Her
arms were raised, expecting to be picked up and comforted--a god-given
right that should never, ever, be denied a child. Then, a second away
from making contact with her--alleviating her terror of abandonment, I
stopped in my tracks upon seeing the white, furry tongue and the bluish
pallor of sunken cheeks. I had not heard any reports of the cholera
thus far, but one could never trust the authorities. I thought about
Catherine and the children, and then made the worst decision of my
life. I turned and got back on my horse to her piercing cries. I went
as fast as I could to get away from the wailing. It was a windless day,
but shame was at my back, forever. Shame visited me in the wind and
swirled upon me as I swung from the gallows...Shame infused every cell
of my being...I arrived at the hospital and demanded they pick up the
child at the river. I said the child was a boy, hoping that would help.
I threatened that if they didn't do it by day's end, I would spread the
rumour that the cholera had returned with a vengeance. I arrived late
to the bookseller's room where the meeting had begun. I announced that
the cholera was again with us and I spoke about the child in a way that
must have revealed my guilt. Chevalier de Lorimier patted me on the
shoulder in a consoling gesture, saying I had done the right thing. He
along with three others in that room would join me at the gallows. The
following day I arrived home to my wife staring blankly into the
cradle. Before anything was said, I knew little Oniciade was dead. It
was not clear if it had been caused by the cholera. Infant deaths then
were as common as bad crops. Now, I was not the most cultivated man,
but neither was I the least, but I can never escape the fact that the
biggest mistake of my life was not picking up that child. (Pierre
and Orphan Spirit together) When one turns one's back on a
grief stricken Orphan, one commits the most grievous of sins.
LUCY RE-ENACTS, PUTS HER ARMS UP FLAILING, CAUSING
HIM TO COMPLETELY BREAK DOWN.
PIERRE
Forgive
me little Orphan, please forgive me.
(Multi-colours
are projected in the river footage to suggest them going to the next
level).
