Lament

It wasn't my idea to learn how to play the bagpipes. Gran was the one who thought up this brilliant plan when I was born. Something about that Bonnie Prince Charlie crap. Apparently every Roddy Mackenzie since some battle in 1745 has played the pipes. So they started me when I was about 10. I don't remember anyone ever asking me, Roddy, do you want to learn how to play the bagpipes? I do remember feeling like an idiot marching around the backyard with my chanter, this reedy little whistle thing that you learn on. Tunes slowly forming under my fingers. Gran hollering from her chair. Steady, Roddy. Keep it steady! I was terrible at the beginning, but everybody is. That's what the old guys at the Legion told me, the guys who ran the pipe band. Everybody stinks at the beginning. But it gets better, they said. If you just stick with it.

It did get better. I got better at it. At the beginning, my parents had to kind of force me to go to lessons. They said they'd sick Gran on me. Roddy Mackenzie you'll go or you won't know what hit you, she'd say, all 5'2 and 100 pounds of her. She was like a little pit bull. I don't think she would have hit me, not really, but she could really lay it on thick. The funny thing was, I actually started to like it a bit. The marching was kind of cool, especially when I got to move up from being a solo learner and got invited to be part of the actual band. The band was great. The drums were the best - I almost switched, but Gran would have killed me. And the whole uniform thing wasn't so bad either. The kilt had a neat feel when you were marching, all back and forth. I was ok with the whole Scottish tribal thing. And of course Gran loved it. Roddy, you make me proud, she would say whenever I suited up for a parade or some special event at the curling club or whatever. She'd look me up and down, and she'd nod. Pat my arm. You look fine, Roddy. What a fine young man. Old lady stuff.

So it's Grade 11 and I'm marching in the Remembrance Day Parade in town. The weather is terrible, fits the mood of the day perfectly. Cold, depressing. Windy too, and a few showers that soak into my jacket and shoes and make everything feel heavy. We play and march down Main Street to stand in front of the statue at the edge of the park: "To The Memory Of Our Glorious Dead" it says in big letters carved into the stone. I always wonder about that.

How can being dead be glorious? There's a pretty good crowd, despite the cold wind and the rain. People line both sides of the street right downtown. Everyone stands in silence, no clapping or cheering or anything. It's all kind of solemn. I just look straight ahead at Dave Wolchisky's back as we march along. Dave's a really good piper, but I can't figure out what he's doing in this band. I mean, clearly there were no Wolchiskys in that big battle at Culloden, were there? We also have a guy named Eddie Li, who plays the drums. I think it's unlikely there were any Chinese guys in Scotland back then either. But here we all are, playing pipes in this band and marching down Main Street to honour the glorious dead.

So afterwards Mr. McLennan, the pipe major, is driving me home. He was my first teacher, and he kind of took me on as his project. He knows Gran, knew my grandfather too. We have a routine after one of these events where we stop at Tim Horton's. Run in will you, Roddy? Here's some money. Get the old man a double double, will you? Sometimes we just go to the drive-thru, but today it's backed up all the way to the street. So I go in. I've taken off my band jacket and I'm just wearing a sweatshirt over my kilt. I'm so used to this now that I don't even think about it. I mean, you don't see a lot of guys walking into Tim Hortons wearing a kilt, but I guess it's not that unusual on the day of a parade. At first I was kind of self-conscious and thought everybody was staring at me. I don't even think about it anymore.

Somebody laughs while I'm standing in line. I don't really think much about it, but they laugh again. A few voices, and I just have this weird feeling all of a sudden. I look over. You should never look over when people are laughing at you, but I didn't know they were laughing at me until I looked over. Some kids from school are sitting huddled around a table. They don't look windblown and wet and cold, so I figure they haven't been at the parade. They're all sort of grinning at me, laughing. I turn away. My face is hot.

They all laugh loudly and I don't look. But I hear. Oh yeah I hear. Geek boy in a kilt. Jennifer Smythe says to Lynn Taylor and Paula Smaile and Mike and Pete Tallman and Brandon Malone and some guy I don't know and some girl I don't know. They're laughing at Jennifer's description of me. So I stand there in the line, just looking forward and feeling the hot blood rise up in my neck until my face is pounding. In my mind, I see myself pulling out my sgian dubh and flinging it right at her - right at her white, smooth, throat. A long neck, like a swan. Graceful. I see the blood. See her blue eyes go round and glaze over in shock. Who knew Geek Boy In A Kilt could throw a knife? Who knew he would do that?

I get the double double without looking over at them and go back to Mr. McLennan who tries to start a conversation, but he stops when I don't answer anymore.

Gran gets sick that winter of my grade eleven year. She's been living at the seniors' home in town, but my parents bring her to live with us. The house smells. Medicine. Pee. Old lady. She lies in her special bed in the front room that used to be my mom's home office and sleeps a lot. When she's uncomfortable ("agitated" says the nurse) I play for her because it seems to help. As soon as the snow has melted, I march up and down the driveway and play her favourite, Amazing Grace. I play other stuff too, traditional pipe stuff, but she likes Amazing Grace best. I don't wear my kilt, but that doesn't seem to matter. The neighbours don't complain. They know about Gran.

She dies in August, and my mom asks me to play at the funeral. Of course it rains. I picture Gran sitting up there on her cloud or wherever cackling away like one of those demented witches in Macbeth. Hee hee hee hee hee. Roddy has to stand in the rain and play Amazing Grace. Hee hee hee. I don't mind. Even when my mother cries, she's smiling at me. To the memory of our glorious dead. I play and play until the people are gone and I feel my father's hand on my shoulder. He's telling me it's ok to stop now, we're going to go home for the wake. Come along now, Roddy.

For days afterwards, the sun shines. School starts in a week, and I'm still out on the driveway playing Amazing Grace. I can't seem to stop. On the first day of grade twelve, they call us all into the gym for the usual assembly and in among the announcements about timetables and stuff Mr. Phillips says that we are sorry to share the news of the death of one of our students from complications associated with leukemia. Jennifer Smythe, the girl with the smooth white throat and big blue eyes. Geek boy in a kilt. I had hated her that day. I thought I did. I thought I hated her.

I'm marching up and down the driveway that night playing for Gran. Playing for the girl with the big blue eyes. She's a beautiful girl. Was a beautiful girl. What does leukemia do anyway? It's a blood thing, isn't it? Did she go all pale and blue and lose her hair?

March, march, march. Amazing Grace up and down the driveway. I can't stop.

There's a memorial service for Jennifer Smythe, the first Saturday after school starts. I sit near the back because I don't know many of this crowd very well. I see Mike and Pete, Brandon, Lynn and Paula. The Tim Horton's Gang. They don't see me. They were her friends, so they get to sit up near the front. There's a picture of Jennifer, enlarged. She's beautiful. She's an angel. I picture her and Gran - the beauty and the beast - sitting up there on Gran's cloud making comments about the people down below. I can just hear Gran: Don't you say bad things about my Roddy, young lady! And Jennifer says, Who? You mean Geek Boy?

Jennifer's mother gets up to speak, and she looks nothing like her daughter. Well, maybe a little. The same long neck. She reads from something Jennifer wrote, a poem or something. What I Will Remember. Not "what I will miss". Stuff like friends and food and movies and sleepovers and school stuff. Her family. It's so sad I can hardly stand it. People are crying and everything. But then, in the middle of it, her mother reads out loud "...and listening to Roddy Mackenzie play Amazing Grace on his pipes..." and then she's on to the next thing on the list. I stare at her, but she doesn't say it again. A few people look over at me. The Tim Horton's gang doesn't, but they're probably more interested in what she had to say about them. Maybe they don't know my name.

She knew my name, though. She knew.

She lived somewhere nearby. I see her lying in her bedroom, a girl bedroom, with lots of white furniture, and blue curtains. She's lying there through the hot summer nights watching her sun go down and listening to the sounds coming in from the living world outside. Me. Me marching up and down the driveway playing for Gran. The sound of the pipes carrying over the rooftops, over the trees, over the wings of the birds and in through her bedroom window. Geek boy in a kilt, she must have thought. Geek boy in a kilt playing Amazing Grace for me.