Pagan Time by Micah Perks

Author:Micah Perks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Published: 2012-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

But what about you? Are you tired of my urge for order? Are you tired of women and children and winter and mud season all together? Are you ready for a man’s adventure? A Royal Navy trip is about to depart. My father, Doug and Paul leave first in a pickup truck. They’re carrying twenty dozen eggs. You and the others follow a half hour later in the van, with your own cache of eggs. The van turns a corner, and there’s the empty truck blocking the road.

Grab a carton of eggs, yank open the van door, duck your head. Bellow, Attack! and run out into the ambush. It’s an all-out egg battle for an hour. Laugh so hard it hurts.

After the eggs, this Royal Navy trip goes on as usual for a while, you’re swigging rum, setting off cannons in the middle of the ocean, almost drowning every day and then, somehow, at the end of a bleary, drunken week, you end up in Montreal.

You all check into some sleazy dive. Come home late from carousing—Paul, the admiral, Doug and you. You’re stumbling down a narrow hallway to your rooms, dressed in your white sailor pants, navy wool coats with gold buttons, swords, the admiral in his whole getup, stockings, etc., ... when down the hall come some genuine Canadian sailors, in genuine uniforms.

They block the way.

What the fuck are you supposed to be? one of them says, and they all snicker.

The admiral replies, Her Majesty’s royal naval officers. Stand aside.

A sailor says, Are you pussies fucking with the navy?

The admiral says, Draw your swords, gentlemen.

You all look at him.

Draw your swords, he slurs again in his English accent.

You draw your swords. The swords make that shriek they do when they come out of the scabbard. Are you holding the sword correctly? Look at Doug. That big dumb grin on his face.

Stand aside, the admiral repeats.

There’s this moment of nothing, the swords out, quivering a little, impatient. You can’t even see the enemies’ faces in the dark hallway. This hall is so close and hot, it’s hard to breathe.

Then the sailors shrug, say something like, Wackos, loonies, just get out of our fucking way.

They’re gone, you can put your sword away.

Maybe this is getting a little too real.

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