Dad Character Analysis

In front of him were more than twenty very hairy men. They looked as surprised as he was. They were tall, with thick brown fur on their chests, arms and legs. Their heads were shaped oddly, very large and slanted back sharply from the brow. One of them growled and started towards him. He panicked and bolted back into the bushes, and they began to chase him.

They were fast. He was quickly cornered at the foot of a cliff. He climbed up. They gathered at the bottom in a semicircle and roared. When they followed him up, he raised his gun and, knowing he’d probably have only one shot, picked the leader. The trapper shot him in the head, and the creature landed with a heavy thump at the bottom of the cliff. As the other sasquatches let out howls of grief, the trapper ran.

Now that I think back, the pattern of the little man’s visits seems unwelcomely obvious, but at the time, his arrivals and departures had no meaning. As I grew older, he became a variation of the monster under the bed or the thing in the closet, a nightmare that faded with morning. He liked to sit on the top of my dresser when he came to visit, and he had a shock of bright red hair which stood up in messy, tangled puffs that he sometimes hid under a black top hat. When he was in a mean mood, he did a jerky little dance and pretended to poke at my eyes. The night before the hawks came, he drooped his head and blew me sad kisses that sparkled silver and gold in the dark and fell as soft as confetti.

Ba-ba-oo had lost his arm in the Second World War, at Verrières Ridge. When he came home, he couldn’t get the money he thought he should get form Veterans Affairs because they said Indian Affairs were taking care of him. Indian Affairs said if he wanted the same benefits as a white vet, he should move off reserve and give up his status. If he did that, they’d lose their house and by this time, they had three children and my dad, Albert, was on the way.

“Geordie and Edith helped as much as they could,” Mick had told me […] “But they had their own family. My father worked hard all his life, and now he would say things like, ‘Agnes, I’m useless.’ She didn’t know what to do.”

The greengage tree was covered with a fishing net. The greengages were almost ripe, so Dad had put the net on to keep the crows from raiding our tree. Crows are clever, though, and find the holes or simply go under the net. I don’t like ripe greengages, anyway. I like them tart and green, hard enough to scrape the roof of my mouth.

White feathers tumbled down from the half-eaten chickens caught near the top of the tree, where the hawks had dropped them. The chickens were still alive. They flapped wings, kicked feet, struggled against the net. Their heads had fallen to the ground like ripe fruit. Their beaks opened and closed soundlessly, and their eyes blinked rapidly, puzzled and frightened.

Most people only learn about their body when something goes wrong with it. Mom could tell you anything about skin when she got her first deep wrinkle. Dad could talk for hours about the stomach after he got a hiatus hernia. After she had her first attack, Ma-ma-oo read everything she could about the human heart.

The doctors gave her pamphlets, a slew of nurses sat patiently by her bed and drew her pictures of what had gone wrong, and Mom tried to translate the jargon into something that made sense […] When she came back to the Kitimat hospital, I would visit her after school, catching the late bus home after we had looked at my picture book describing the heart. Even in the kids’ books, the technical words were confusing.

“Alberni? Really? There’s a treatment centre where the residential school used to be?” one of the women said to Aunt Trudy.

Another woman laughed, then said, “Hey, how many priests does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“How many?”

“Three. One to screw it, one to beat it for being screwed and one to tell the lawyers that no screwing took place.”

“That’s not funny,” Josh said.

“That’s the point,” the woman said.

In front of him were more than twenty very hairy men. They looked as surprised as he was. They were tall, with thick brown fur on their chests, arms and legs. Their heads were shaped oddly, very large and slanted back sharply from the brow. One of them growled and started towards him. He panicked and bolted back into the bushes, and they began to chase him.

They were fast. He was quickly cornered at the foot of a cliff. He climbed up. They gathered at the bottom in a semicircle and roared. When they followed him up, he raised his gun and, knowing he’d probably have only one shot, picked the leader. The trapper shot him in the head, and the creature landed with a heavy thump at the bottom of the cliff. As the other sasquatches let out howls of grief, the trapper ran.

Now that I think back, the pattern of the little man’s visits seems unwelcomely obvious, but at the time, his arrivals and departures had no meaning. As I grew older, he became a variation of the monster under the bed or the thing in the closet, a nightmare that faded with morning. He liked to sit on the top of my dresser when he came to visit, and he had a shock of bright red hair which stood up in messy, tangled puffs that he sometimes hid under a black top hat. When he was in a mean mood, he did a jerky little dance and pretended to poke at my eyes. The night before the hawks came, he drooped his head and blew me sad kisses that sparkled silver and gold in the dark and fell as soft as confetti.

Ba-ba-oo had lost his arm in the Second World War, at Verrières Ridge. When he came home, he couldn’t get the money he thought he should get form Veterans Affairs because they said Indian Affairs were taking care of him. Indian Affairs said if he wanted the same benefits as a white vet, he should move off reserve and give up his status. If he did that, they’d lose their house and by this time, they had three children and my dad, Albert, was on the way.

“Geordie and Edith helped as much as they could,” Mick had told me […] “But they had their own family. My father worked hard all his life, and now he would say things like, ‘Agnes, I’m useless.’ She didn’t know what to do.”

The greengage tree was covered with a fishing net. The greengages were almost ripe, so Dad had put the net on to keep the crows from raiding our tree. Crows are clever, though, and find the holes or simply go under the net. I don’t like ripe greengages, anyway. I like them tart and green, hard enough to scrape the roof of my mouth.

White feathers tumbled down from the half-eaten chickens caught near the top of the tree, where the hawks had dropped them. The chickens were still alive. They flapped wings, kicked feet, struggled against the net. Their heads had fallen to the ground like ripe fruit. Their beaks opened and closed soundlessly, and their eyes blinked rapidly, puzzled and frightened.

Most people only learn about their body when something goes wrong with it. Mom could tell you anything about skin when she got her first deep wrinkle. Dad could talk for hours about the stomach after he got a hiatus hernia. After she had her first attack, Ma-ma-oo read everything she could about the human heart.

The doctors gave her pamphlets, a slew of nurses sat patiently by her bed and drew her pictures of what had gone wrong, and Mom tried to translate the jargon into something that made sense […] When she came back to the Kitimat hospital, I would visit her after school, catching the late bus home after we had looked at my picture book describing the heart. Even in the kids’ books, the technical words were confusing.

“Alberni? Really? There’s a treatment centre where the residential school used to be?” one of the women said to Aunt Trudy.

Another woman laughed, then said, “Hey, how many priests does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“How many?”

“Three. One to screw it, one to beat it for being screwed and one to tell the lawyers that no screwing took place.”

“That’s not funny,” Josh said.

“That’s the point,” the woman said.