The 1975

Generation X was supposed to be the best generation. They were going to change the world. They were going to invent cures to all the diseases and innovate all our gadgets and make me a big retirement home for me to live in. I was a baby boomer, I was an afterthought, I was a defect of the war. I was a disappointment; because as it turns out, our parents died for nothing. My father told me this as he drowned himself in sorrow and vodka.

"Your children," he slurred to me one night, the night I dropped out of high school, "will create a renaissance of entrepreneurship and outdo anything I or you could do." Then he passed out.

Well, fuck, because Generation X came out just as shitty as my generation did and almost as badly as my dad's.

Regine was conceived in the back of my boyfriend at the time's car. He was ugly as fuck. His face was slack with tiredness and his eyes were filled with dead brain cells. He told me to relax, because my thighs were too stiff as he grabbed them greedily with his callused hands. So I closed my eyes and pretended that lust was the same thing as love and that the smell of cigarettes was rose petals. I pretended that the suburban Toronto streets were a rural countryside in France. I pretended that the deserted alley I found myself in was a five star hotel in Paris. And when my boyfriend extinguished his cigarette into my arm, I pretended it was the delicate fingers of a rich pianist, gracefully warming every inch of my body.

Unfortunately, once I found out that there was a baby growing in me the illusions that I'd built for myself became irrelevant. So I walked into Walmart with a meager grade 11 education and a slight belly and asked if they were hiring.

There were certain things you could smuggle out of that Walmart and certain things you couldn't. For example, cake was a no. Bread was a no. But some things you could slip into your bag on the way out without anybody asking questions. Flour, for example, is something that by boss would turn the other cheek to. Apples and broccoli I could slip into my purse on my way out. People can't ever imagine somebody stealing something like broccoli.

Shortly after Regine was born I had my tubes trimmed and solemnly swore to never go with a man again. I never told my parents about her because I'm sure that they would want to see her, and Regine deserved better than that. Instead, we lived in the basement of a rich old lady's house who never bothered to count how many bills you gave her, so as long as the pile was thick, it didn't matter. Once I paid her with fifteen five dollar bills and she didn't realize the difference as long as the bills on the ends were twenties. She also loved Regine, and would take her upstairs with her and dance around the kitchen while I made tomato soup out of ketchup and water, because you can't smuggle canned goods.

I never pretended to be the perfect mother. There was a daycare two blocks away from our house that said if you had more than two children you didn't pay for the excess. I convinced a lady whose twins were taken there to pretend that Regine was one of her children. The lady had a very thick German accent and barely knew what I was saying, so she obliged happily.

Regine reached the age of two with a giddy smile and adorable giggle. I met a man at a cafe I had been working at, alongside Walmart. He bought me a coffee after my shift and told me I was beautiful. For I minute there, I believed him. He asked if he could buy me dinner one night. Starving for a meal that wasn't made with three or fewer ingredients, I said yes. I brought Regine along too, simply because the baby-sitter didn't work after 8, and the man fell in love. His name was Jean-Pierre, JP, and he drank fine wine and thought I was much richer than I really was. I told him that I painted and was only working at the cafe for the free coffee. JP was a french baker who sold bread for $20 a loaf, because it was just that fucking fancy. I didn't swear as we talked and I pretended to be patient when Regine cried and for a little bit, I felt almost functional. He asked to see one of my drawings so I told him I would show him one day. He paid for my taxi home.

We got married one year later. I was actually not a bad artist but I mostly found pictures off the internet to copy. For once, I coloured in the lines. He moved into my basement because he wanted Regine to feel comfortable. For a while everything was perfect. I actually, for the first time in my life, had sex because I wanted to and not because I felt compelled to. Not that I really loved JP, not in the Bonnie and Clyde, never-let-go, follow-you-into-the-dark kind of way. But I loved him like a good friend, a good friend with a ten inch dick. I was so tangled into this lie of a life that I actually forgot I had ever worked at Walmart, or that the cafe had once paid my bills.

Regine was very good at copying. She knew exactly when to smile at JP so he would give her a chocolate croissant, she knew exactly when to cry, once he had just finished making cinnamon rolls, and she knew exactly what mood JP and I were in based on how we greeted her. Regine was the smartest three year old in all of Toronto, I'm sure. She was loved by JP and the landlord, and I guess me by default. She was an asset, a very cute asset.

Just as I began to breath, the world fucked me over again.

Regine's father, Frank, found me. He was drunk and I was walking to an art show with Regine. The sun was just rising. He waddled over to me and whispered slurred nonsense into my ear, then followed us to the gallery. He pinched my butt as we walked and patted Regine's head. She copied me, though, and didn't acknowledge him. Frank found me the next day in the front of JP's shop. Regine was in the back, pouting at JP for a macaroon I'm sure. He sat next to me and apologised about yesterday and asked if I would like to go out for a smoke with him. I hasn't been out for a smoke in nearly four years. It felt good.

"Beaut of a boy ye got there." he said.

"Yes, she's wonderful. Very smart. Kinda manipulative, to be honest."

"How old is 'e?"

"She's three."

"Is 'e mine?"

I didn't say anything.

"How did you know?" I muttered finally.

"She has my hair."

He was right, Regine had Frank's dirty blond hair that curled into ringlets on damp days and barely ever knotted.

"I'll come home with you, then."

"No. JP's her legal father."

"Nah, I'm 'is pop."

"God damn it, she's a girl."

"No, he's a boy." he extinguished his cigarette into my arm. I whimpered in pain. "And," Frank shouted into my face, "It's my constitutional right to claim my own son! Is that understood? You're against the law! I could sue you! I could have him taken away from you!"

I shuttered at the thought. I'd never much studied law, and I didn't know what the word 'constitution' meant, but it was a long word so it must be serious. I believed Frank, the same way I believed him when he said he'd pull out. I walked into the bakery with a cigarette still dangling out of my mouth, told JP not to come home tonight, grabbed Regine, and before JP could muster another word ran out of the bakery into Frank's arms. I paid for our taxi home.

One of the pamphlets I got from the hospital on parenting recommended that your child get 90 minutes of exercise a day, which I thought was far too little. Instead of 90 minutes, I would drop Regine off at the section of Walmart that housed the outdoor play-structures and she would play in there until my shift was over. Regine was very shy, so it was easy to tell her to stay in one place and not have to check on her. As she grew older, I became more determined that she should be skinny and fit, as I couldn't be, with my pregnancy belly still not fully flattened.

The landlord, the old lady with spiky purple hair and a record player in her kitchen, said Regine, who at the time was only five or so, had the perfect body of a dancer. They she would grow to be taller then me, as she presumed she had inherited her father's genes. She said Regine would have long lanky arms and tall, skinny legs. She taught Regine to dance in her kitchen as swan lake played in the background and Frank smoked in the living room beneath them. Frank was still set on having a boy so he signed Regine up for karate lessons. To pay for them, he brought the Sensei cannabis, and charged him extra because the Sensei didn't realize that cannabis was the same plant as marijuana.

When Regine reached school age, we sent her to a Jewish school because Frank said Jews were that smartest, so she would learn from the best. Regine, however, hated reading. She refused to read with any of her teachers and would rip up books if we brought them home. She loved math, though. She would listen intently if Frank every brought up ounces or payment. She loved counting how many cups of flour went into muffins. She wouldn't eat strawberries unless she knew exactly how many there were.

She got thrown out of school for kicking a boy in the head and calling him a 'fuck-tard' when she was six. So she went to public school. She was never all that smart, she took everything too literally. Once, the teacher said to draw a picture of our family. She drew me in a cafe working and Frank with a cigar hanging out of his mouth and smoke fogging up half of the page. In the corner she put JP, who was holding a cupcake with a pink heart in it.

I stopped painting soon after the divorce papers were filled. JP preached that I had rights and Frank was liar, but that was the problem. I was a liar too.

The landlord recommended that I buy Regine pointe shoes for Regine's seventh birthday. Frank, instead, bought her nunchucks. He still called Regine 'Reggie' because he wouldn't accept that he'd had a girl. The landlord told us that if we didn't get her lessons soon then she would miss her prime. Frank refused to pay for lessons. He also refused to pay rent, and here lay the problem. I sent Regine to a dance studio and told her to watch through the window what all the other ballerinas were doing. When she got home she told the landlord what she's seen and tried to recreate it. After two weeks of dropping her off everyday the owner of the studio noticed and told us that we had to start paying for classes. Regine told her we couldn't pay for them, so the owner told her to go sort all the tutus by colour and put them each in their own packaging, then said that Regine could attend the beginner class.

Regine was too good for the other girls, though. To the owners distress she was moved into intermediate, then advanced, then advanced II, until she was in the competition team. It took her the year to get used to pointe, but with the landladies help and the fitness she'd gained from karate, she was entered in a citywide competition with funding from the studio. Regine stopped going to karate and instead would go to the studio and clean the washrooms or scrub the studio floors before and after classes. Frank still denied she was a girl and refused to go to any of her recitals because he didn't want his son to be a fag. He would cut her hair while she was sleeping because he hated when she let it grow down to her shoulders. He would only buy her boy clothes as well, but I learned that once Regine was in Middle School she kept a full wardrobe in her locker because the other students would tease her.

I dreamed often of the day I would leave Frank, but I was afraid of what he'd do if he ever found me, or what he'd do to Regine after I was gone. I'd have to leave Regine here because there's no way I could afford to take her with me.

When Regine turned twelve she was asked to dance Clara in the nutcracker for a company. The landlady was right, Regine was five foot seven and had tall, thin legs. Her arms moved elegantly, like wings that could break any second or else fly away. This was also the year she achieved her black belt in karate, and the year she met Matty Healy, who may have been the best thing to ever happen to her.

Matty and her had an unspoken agreement that they were perfect for each other. They would watch TV in our livingroom with their elbows entwined and legs overlapping. They would play drinking games then pretend to be angry when the other when the other person won. It was refreshing to realize that love still does exist. More importantly, that love exists beyond the realm of reality.

Frank forbid Matty from coming over because he thought 'Reggie' and him were too close, and he wouldn't have a gay son. I wished, briefly, once, that Regine would be gay, then I wouldn't have to worry about her ever getting pregnant. But no, she had to fall in love. And even worse, she did it without even trying. I was almost jealous.

Frank was not a wonderful man. He was not kind or empathetic or sweet. He was a lovely drunk, contrary to what you may think. He was goofy and clumsy and sweet when he drank. Sometimes, I pretended the smell of beer was instead lavender and that his lips weren't dyed red from the wine but instead from my lipstick. In those moments, I was almost in love. A love with blurred edges and slurred speech and dizzy frames and slow reactions. A love that I wake up some mornings and I can't remember existed. Those forgotten moments were what I lived for.

But the rest of the time Frank was a dick. He never hit me. Well, he didn't hit me regularly. And he didn't take his anger out on me, at least not in that way. When he hit me I deserved it. The only thing that hurt was when he extinguished cigarettes into my arm. He said it was a metaphor. He said I was too dumb to understand, so I didn't try to.

Frank could yell, though. All the time. Every day when he came home he was angry at the world and he attributed that to Regine and I. He would lock Regine in her room and shout at me, then lock me in the bathroom and go back and yell at her, and he would repeat this for a long time. But Regine was smarter than him. She would sneak out the window and go to Matty's house. This I was jealous for, because the bathroom had no window, and because he would return even angrier that she had escaped his wrath, and because she had somebody to run to.

The year 1975 came around. It was the 1975, because it was the day my life de-shit-ified itself.

Regine took third in a national ballet competition wearing a fake bun, because her hair was still short, and second hand leotards. She was also baked, but when you're on stage, it just looks spiritual instead of stupid. She won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School. I didn't ask if she'd taken it, I knew she was a smart girl, I knew what she'd do. She was fifteen and she was destined for bright things.

I think it's a rule that at some point every child has to run away. At the cafe, one of the baristas with a little boy complained that he'd run away five times already, and each time she had to unpack all his clothes and explain to him something new that he'd discovered, like why the man sitting on the corner asks for change, or why couples roll around naked in the bushes, or what kinds of people stand in a tight circle in the park at three in the morning. Each time the boy would say 'I love you' to his mother when he returned, then run away a few months later.

Regine ran away when she was seven. She didn't take clothes, or canned goods, or even money. She took who bottles of cooking brandy in her Hello Kitty lunch bag and walked straight into Jackson Square. She sold the bottles of brandy, claiming they were a gift God had bestowed upon her, and that whoever drank them would be granted riches beyond belief. She make two hundred dollars on those bottles. With the money she got herself Euros, because she thought the only thing more valuable than money, must be foreign money. I thought it was cute, Frank did not. I hated seeing her get hurt, but what can I say? She deserved it.

I, however, never ran away as a child. So I missed out, I guess. I needed to do it before I died. So I ran away when I was seventeen instead. Except I was serious, and I didn't take a Hello Kitty lunch box.

My parents weren't horrible people. They were much nicer than Frank, at least. But not as nice as JP. Not even close. They worked alot, and ignored me alot, but they always found something about me that was wrong. So I made a point of avoiding my house because I didn't like being criticized. If by some chance I was home in time for dinner, and did get to hear my parents ostracize me, then I made it my goal to make every thing they said come true.

You're such a brat!

I refused to eat my vegetables.

You're spoiled rotten!

I wouldn't wear shoes until they bought me new ones.

You're so disrespectful!

I spit in their face.

You're vain!

I started wearing makeup.

Why are you such an idiot?!

I dropped out of school.

You're such a whore.

I had Regine.

You have no appreciation for anything worthwhile in your life!

I ran away.

I figured that was it, I got my one good run in, now I've matured. Now I've settled.

But I haven't.

Maybe I'm like the barista's son, who has to keep uncovering horrible things until he can find something beautiful to cover it up with. Maybe I'm still angry at my parents. Maybe I'm angry at Frank. Maybe I envy Regine because she found something I couldn't, love. Because that's why the barista's son came back, wasn't it? Love? Or dinner? Or air conditioning?

I wanted one last hurrah before I went, so I tried something new. Ecstasy. With coke and rum. Spiked with roofie.

But the thing with the last hurrah, is that it's your last.

I just never thought I would find myself in a police car by the end.

But the police car was so damn peaceful. As they drove me down to the police station, with Regine beside me, and Frank in a car slightly in front of us, I was relaxed. Regine was crying, perhaps in fear, or anger, or grief. I cried in relief.

Now I couldn't run away anymore.

The muted sounds of sirens bled through the locked door. We passed a church with a clock on one of the towers, it was midnight. The soft sounds of traffic cocooned me. Car lights seemed like blurred stars in my vision; never close enough for me to reach, but just close enough for me to crave.

I'll admit, I was high. The air was solid around me, pushing into me and swirling around my head. I held Regine close to me in the back of the car, as my final act of motherhood. I breathed in her hair, her hair that filtered out the solid parts of the air for me.

We were driving down to the police station, it seemed too good to be true. Regine and I could live in adjoint cubicles in jail. We could braid each others hair and talk about all the things I never got to tell her before, like how to get boys to pay your rent, or how to lick the eyeliner brush to get a clean line, or how to lick a dick so they jizz faster.

Regine whimpered softly beneath her hair.

She smelled clean.

So I had another revelation, she would walk. She would finally run away for good. I was happy for her. I was glad she and Matty could finally run away together. I wished I could jump into her bones and live her life. Living vicariously through your child is bad, but I didn't want that. I didn't just want to slip into her skin. I wanted to consume her. For us to switch places, respectively. For another chance to run away.

I kissed the top of her head as we pulled up to the station. I kissed her for as long as I could, to make up for all the times I didn't kiss her, and for all the times I wouldn't be there to kiss her. I breathed into her hair. She smelled clean.