I guess that every kid would say that his mother is someone very special. I don’t want to brag about mine but she was something between a super clown and a hysterical cheerleader. Once, she asked me if I thought she had any enemies. I instantly said “No!” without hesitation. And I added: “Nobody would dare!” When I was a young kid she was an actress. She had to stop her career when I was six; one day, my father said: “Lucille, you have to choose. It’s either your husband or your career as an actress”. She chose the husband. That’s when my father started to regret his ultimatum and that’s when began my mother’s never-ending show.
She started waking up before everybody else to apply many layers of makeup, adjust her wig (in the seventies, when it was really fashionable, she had something like twelve of them), put on some flashy dress and climb over those super high heels; only then was she ready to start her everyday chores like cleaning the house and cooking tasteless meals.
Once, she had that very big accident with her car. As a matter of fact, she “learned” to drive a car when she was fifty but I never accepted to go anywhere with her if she was driving. She was a real menace. Lucky for her, that day, even if the car was a total wreck, she was not wounded. The accident must have been rather spectacular because the police and the ambulance came. When she told people about the accident, she always finished this way: “It was a terrible experience but, in the end, I was quite lucky because, when the ambulance came, I still had my hat on and my dress wasn’t wrinkled at all”.
In my hometown, everybody knew Lucille. She was some kind of star. Of course, she was always asked to do public appearances. When there was a banquet to celebrate something special, Lucille was the MC. When there was a political meeting, she was the one who introduced the speakers. She sang at church (she had quite a nice voice), she was in charge of tears and laments at the funerals (she could be so pathetic!) and she was satisfied only when she had her daily dose of thunderous applause.
Life was never dull with her around. But at least, I learned one really great thing from her: I learned how great artists operate. Whenever she was preparing something important, she always told me about her plans. Most of the times, I was terrified to learn what she was planning: I was always afraid of the day she would face her Waterloo. Usually, I was begging her not to do what she was planning because it always sounded so over the top. And every time she replied: “Ah!... you only say that because you don’t know these people. Just watch me and you’ll see…” And every time she was right. She knew people. She knew how to pull a tear or a laugh out. She knew how to win applause. She knew how to sow laughter to harvest happiness. She was quite an artist!
That’s how artists operate. They know! How? That’s a gift from some wicked little devil inside. But, they know, that’s all.
They know!
Comeau
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