Ripshit Heart

Some kids fantasize about being adopted, and that their real parents are movie stars or royalty or whatever. I never had to fantasize-- I *was* adopted, and I *knew* my Real Parents were the coolest ever. They had to be, they were British. Of course, they had told my current pseudo-parents that I was 1/2 Vietnamese, but that was obviously just a ploy to get some barbaric Yanks to take their child. Sure, I had the semi-slanty eyes and the black straight hair, but that was because my father was Irish. Irish of course; black Irish in fact. My false mother and grandimpostors had talked about the Black Irish--they came from the North of Ireland, and had black hair, unlike the red hair and freckles that everyone else in Ireland had. My faux-Nana would know, since her own father traveled from that faraway, misty land with nothing but either the orange wooden trunk in the living room, the plain wooden one in the attic, or possibly the pine one with the red and white checkered paper inside that stood in her spare room.

Of course I was Irish and Englich-- a forbidden breed-- I had to be given away immediately, lest either party's family discovered that they had been cavorting with the enemy. My parents' forbidden love eventually led to my Real Father sacrificing his life so that my mother could smuggle me out of the old country to a new promised land. She had meant for me to live with some brilliant writer or movie star until she could be with me again. Unfortunately, papers were mixed up, and I ended up in this post-industrial wasteland town in central NY with a set of divorced hippie freaks and a younger sister obviously from another planet.

I had nothing to do with those strange-sounding peasants in pointy hats toiling in rice paddies, or being shot by American soldiers that you sometimes saw on tv. I didn't even identify with the little girl who was born to an American soldier, and needed the aid of the Bionic Woman to reunite her with a reluctant father when she was hanging off a cliff, crying, in the rain.

No, I was definitely a Brit, it was obvious. I liked tea. I prefered the Thompson Twins to Michael Jackson. I said things like /la BOR a tree/ and spelled COLOUR with a u, even though Mrs. Meade, my science teacher would circle every single occurrence of COLOUR and FLAVOUR in my la-BORE-a-tree reports in red felt-tip pen that soaked through to the other side of the pages. Every red stain on the back of a page was the symbolic blood I shed for my True Homeland.

How did I explain my lack of a British accent? I didn't even dare mimic an accent; it was a thing too sacred for the likes of me to utter. It dawned on me one day in class while we were studying geography (I was obviously not one of these American philistines, since I knew all the provinces of Canada, as well as all the states, capitals, major rivers and mountain ranges when all we had studied was the states).

I was Canadian! After all, Canadians were just Brits without the accents, right? They still spelled COLOUR with a "u" and had a Parliament. My Queen (God Bless her) was even on their coins!

My hippie freak parents had raised me to think of Canada as the Promised Land, with their liberal government and nationalized health care. We took every vacation to Canada, since it was a foreign country, and just 3 hours away. Canada was different. Each family trip we took, as soon as we crossed the border, my mother would remark, "oh look at those houses; they just look so CANADIAN!" and "look at those cows. You can tell they are Canadian. American cows just don't look like that!" Then we would all take turns making fun of her observations, saying things like, "moo, eh?" But, deep down inside, we knew that they really were different.

I invented a home town for myself-- London, British Columbia. British Columbia because it had the word "British" in it of course. It was also on the West Coast-- way too far from any of the mere mortal Americans to ever check up on. London? Self-explanatory. I'm not sure if there actually is a town called London in BC, but Americans were obviously too inferior to ever do anything like look it up on a map, so I was safe in telling all my friends about my heritage.

Because my younger sister was such a brat, she had to be replaced. Thus, I suddenly had two brothers, 10 and 12 years older than I, who had been born in our true Native Land of Merry Olde England. John and Curt, both greatly underappreciated musicians, had decided to return to the motherland because America had such crappy music.

Upon learning about my two brothers (a friend's mother had inquired about when they would be visiting), my maternal impersonator laughed, offended that I would think that she could have ever have named a child "John Burch" like the John Birch Society. "Do you know what that is?" she asked condescendingly, forcing me to roll my eyes so hard I nearly gave myself a headache. (Of course I didn't let on thet my brothers had been named after my two favorite bass players, John Taylor of Duran Duran and Curt Smith of Tears For Fears, both upstanding, proud young Englishmen.)

Pseudo-Mom was often sarcastic about my brothers, asking me sweetly, "so, how are your brothers today? Are they coming to visit their dear old mother who had them when she was 18 and 20 soon?" I didn't have the heart to tell her that they weren't my adopted brothers; they were from a family whose hallmark was genetic perfection. Thus, I sulkily would declare, "FINE. John's band is playing at a really cool club tomorrow." She would alternate between amused and concerned about my mental well-being.

I almost believed that my imaginary brothers would take me away from my inferior life someday. I would fantasize that I'd be sitting in class, and they'd magically appear, with a friendly "cheerio, old girl!" and with a "well, time to go now is it?" take me away back to the land of bangers and mash, where people wouldn't look at me funny when I called parts of a car the "boot" and the "bonnet." In fact, they'd remark at how I talked like one of Them; like aliens on Dr. Who. Everyone in the universe speaks with a British accent- Dr. Who proved that (so much superior to Star trek, though I religiously watched that as well when I managed to be at a house with a forbidden-by-my-mom tv).

Alas, my brothers never came to claim me. My mother is way too poor and frail, and filled with sorrow to ever leave her country cottage by the sea to come and get me. I'll have to go with plan B: be a movie star, so that they can all see me in a movie and instantly recognize me and write me a letter. Then I'll use some of my billions of dollars to buy us all a nice palatial yet cozy castle on a cliff overlooking the sea, and we'll have lots of cats and be in a band.

posted by Scooter B. @ 3/22/2005 08:03:00 PM