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    Idaho Winter
    Idaho Winter
    Idaho Winter
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Idaho Winter

    By Tony Burgess

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    About this ebook

    “The world of Tony Burgess is savage and blackly funny . . . It’s a place where you shouldn’t trust anybody, not even your narrator” (Uptown).
     
    Idaho Winter is a boy who, through no fault of his own, is loathed by everyone in his town. His father feeds him roadkill for breakfast, the crossing guard steers cars toward him as he crosses the road, and parents encourage their children to plot against him. That is, until he meets a young girl named Madison who empathizes with his suffering. But when Madison is attacked by dogs meant to harm Idaho, Idaho gets up and runs home, changing the course of the entire story . . .
     
    Idaho soon learns that his suffering has been cruelly designed by a clumsy writer who has made his book meaner than all the others to make it stand out. With this information, Idaho has become armed with the knowledge that the entire world is invented, and that he now has the power to change things—in a novel that is both “one of the finest parodies ever penned of the stereotypically didactic young adult novel” (Macleans) and “the most brilliantly terrifying dream you’ve ever had” (The Globe and Mail, Toronto).
     
    “[Burgess] proves himself to be a witty, lightning-quick conjurer of misanthropy in this brief, kaleidoscopic novel,” a nominee for the Trillium Award (Publishers Weekly).
     
    “An incredibly rich and thought provoking read about the theory of storytelling.” —subTerrain
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 1, 2011
    ISBN9781554909537
    Idaho Winter

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      Book preview

      Idaho Winter - Tony Burgess

      Copyright © Tony Burgess, 2011

      Published by ECW Press

      2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2

      416-694-3348 / info@ecwpress.com

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

      Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Burgess, Tony, 1959–

      Idaho Winter / Tony Burgess.

      ISBN 978-1-55022-934-9

      Also issued as:

      978-1-55490-905-6 (PDF); 978-1-55490-953-7 (ePub)

      i. Title.

      PS8553.U63614I33 2011 C813’.54 C2010-907135-2

      Editor for the press: Michael Holmes / a misFit book

      Cover Design: David Gee

      Text Design: Tania Craan

      Typesetting: Mary Bowness

      Production: Troy Cunningham

      The publication of Idaho Winter has been generously supported by the

      Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, by the Ontario Arts Council, by the OMDC Book Fund, an initiative of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and by the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

      CIP_3Logos.tiflogoECWwithtype.eps

      For Griffin and Camille

      Chapter 1

      His bedroom is a cramped and filthy box with dingy walls that sag slightly inward, shrinking the already miserable smallness. The floor is a mulch of papers and pine cones and pop cans. Hornets hover. It is a convenient garbage can for the other residents of the house.The yellow door opens enough for someone to toss in an empty bean can. The bedroom’s only window looks out onto a dirty orange brick wall. The bed consists of two tattered towels pulled over and under four ripped and rotting life vests. The fishy stench from the bed fills the room and nearly suffocates Idaho in his sleep. Poor little Idaho. He sits up and leans over and pukes onto the back of a fat sleeping mouse. The mouse doesn’t wake. Idaho watches as other mice emerge from under Styrofoam burger containers to pick his vomit off the rising and falling fur of the obese vermin. It is the first day of school and Idaho has to go outside for the first time since last June. That was when eighth grade ended.

      He had spent the last months of the school year wrapped in a coat made of tarpaper and it had burned in the sun and burned to his skin, leaving a black-red mark that still runs from the right side of his neck to the left point of his hip. He had been rolled down the hill behind the school. He had been set up on a low branch by the river so the other children could knock him off by tossing heavy rocks and lumps of hard dirt at him. The summer was spent here, in this revolting room, his back sticky with tar and his feet bruised by a winter of running away. It is difficult to describe hardship this intense. This poor, poor boy, Idaho, whose unhappiness exceeds everyone’s. No one has greater reason to give up and cry in a loathsome lump for the rest of his sad and morbid days than poor pathetic Idaho Winter.

      The door opens again and a dog appears. A yellow hound with a red mouth, its head low and ready to pounce.

      Get the boy up, Growler.

      That is Idaho’s father. Idaho’s father, known locally as Early Winter, stomps past the boy’s room, down the stairs to the kitchen and sits at the table across from a woman. Early scoops beans in milk from a shallow pan silently, staring with menace at the woman, who is known only as Wife. She is pretty and silent and thin and probably hungry. She stares at her lap. She dare not look up. She has been forbidden to look up from her hands.

      Growler’s getting the boy.

      A crashing noise. Pictures fall and plaster crumbles as Growler, who has Idaho’s shoulder in his jaws, knocks the boy back and forth against the hall’s narrow walls, finally dropping him at Early’s feet. Early looks down at the wretched boy. Idaho looks up, squinting in fear of this hateful man. Early’s eyes are hidden roads: cold crooked roads that carry killers back up into the woods. Early’s eyes are the same secret roads that killers take. Idaho buries his face in his thin hands.

      School. You eat what the critter found.

      Idaho feels something kicked across his knees. He looks through his spidery fingers at the stiff raccoon. Its throat and belly are covered in flies.

      Eat its cheeks and clean yer teeth with the tail.

      Idaho can see his mother’s slender feet under the table, her big toes curled and white. This is as close as he has gotten to her in many months. He sees one toe straighten and the other scoop up under her foot. These feet seem absorbed in caring for each other. Two little blind puppets that seek each other out and exchange tendernesses even here in the harshest spot on earth. Idaho feels a buzzing on his knuckles. A tear has fallen and stirred the flies from his breakfast.

      Chapter 2

      It is the first day of school and thin lines of smoke rise through the chill of the September morning. Little boys and girls with brightly colored backpacks go up on tiptoes to kiss their mothers at front doors. They jog down the short straight walkways from their porches and open the clean white swinging gates, then turn down the sidewalks that will take them to school. Some linger on corners waiting for friends, others run ahead, swinging books on book belts and skipping to greet the crossing guard with freshly baked cookies. The sun is bright this morning and the few clouds in the solid blue sky are white and sharp. Ms. Joost, the crossing guard, bends to accept the cookies, then straightens quickly to watch for cars. A beautiful little girl with heavy orange ringlets on her cheeks looks up.

      What is it, Madison?

      Two boys, one large and round with fat hands and the other thin with pointy hands, run up and push Madison out of the way.

      Ms. Joost swings her great stop sign down in front of the boys. Kyle! Evan! Do I need to send a note ahead on the first day?

      The boys lower their little bratty heads, and Kyle, the large one, shoots Madison a deadly glance.

      Now, Madison, what did you want to ask?

      The boys are not sure if they’ve been dismissed and stand waiting. Soon, they’re snickering.

      She wants to know about Potato.

      Potato is the awful nickname given to Idaho by, well, virtually the entire town. To a startling degree most people have accepted that Idaho should suffer terrible cruelty. Ms. Joost taps the boys’ shoulders and they explode down the street, running and laughing to the far curb. Ms Joost shoots them a stern look before going down to one knee and placing one of Madison’s ringlets in her palm.

      Now, Madison. You shouldn’t think about the Potato.

      Madison lowers her eyes, mostly in shame. She thinks about Idaho all the time. She nods solemnly.

      Okay, my dear. I know it’s hard for you to understand. You have such little experience with people. But the Potato is treated badly for a reason.

      Madison shakes her ringlet from the woman’s palm. She doesn’t look up.

      The Potato is an awful boy. He smells like rotten fish. He is dressed in filth and, why, even his parents can’t stand the sight of him. No shoes. And his hair! Ms. Joost covers her mouth. Nobody likes him because there is no reason to. Some people find this difficult to understand, Maddie, but here it is: some people are born in a very foul state and stay that way. We should never feel sorry for them. We should avoid them until their own rot, one day, swallows them whole.

      Madison stares up at Ms. Joost. The crossing guard has such a kind face, she thinks, with sad, caring eyes, and a laughing, wonderful mouth. A beautiful face. Why does she say these things?

      Actually, Madison, people aren’t born this way, there isn’t anyone quite like that. Except for him. Potato. When he gets to that curb over there, I’ll wait, like I do every year, for a fast car to turn that corner, then I’ll summon him across.

      Madison gasps.

      That’s right, Maddie. It’s what we all want. Don’t spoil it. Now off you go.

      Madison takes two steps, then stops. I must warn him, she thinks. She turns to go back, but the giant red hexagon swats her coat, stopping her short. Ms. Joost winks and wrinkles her nose.

      "Go

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