Mrs. Coupland
Oh what fresh hell is this? It’s about as fresh as an evening-old fart trapped under cover, released upon awakening, like breaking the seal on a can of crushed assholes. I’m shivering, lying on a cot beside the stage where i have just performed, while my boss is loading out my drums and saying i don’t have to be at work in the morning. I haven’t worked for him in a year and a half. I pack up the sweat-soaked cot, climb in the back of the Ford Econoline, and rumble out of the parking lot towards a radiant summer field, where i jump down into a small stream and commando a wooden raft. Paddling towards the towering cliffs now unfolding around me, i marvel at the heights that the indigenous peoples are willing to dive from, even though several limbs floating in the water beside me would suggest it as folly. Further down in the shallows, i part with my new buddy the raft and spy the doe-eyed kid from summer camp ‘83 that i kinda felt sorry for and who looks a bit like my cousin Fraser. We ascend the river bank and talk sheepishly at two girls in braces, and i get the sneaking suspicion that the one on the left becomes my first high school girlfriend. I trace figure eights in the sand with the antenna of my walkie talkie until we’re summoned to participate in the first round of the everfun games. I head off to climb the lookout tower, where i barbecue some burgers up top, and afterwards the grill scraper explodes in my hand like a firecracker. I float down and walk towards the camp lodge, which looks suspiciously like one of the longhouses from the replica Iroquois village in the south end of town. Decked out in my olive-coloured blazer from grade 13 grad, accented with a pair of baby blue New Balance jogging shorts, i proceed to re-organize the list of everfun events, while Mrs. Coupland, my grade 6 teacher with the runner’s legs, trucker’s mouth, and an undying love for Van Halen’s Jump, condones my initiative and then asks me to fuck her. Goddamn NyQuil.
