With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present to us, in turn, their vision of the world around us. This week, we are giving carte blanche to Matthieu Pepper.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
September 2002, Labor Day weekend, a weekend where we always take the opportunity to celebrate my birthday around a voluminous pot filled with corn that serves as a starter for the best burgers that Saint-Eustache has ever known : those of my father.
September takes place, begonias and nasturtiums line the flowerbeds, the lilacs quietly die out while the cars of the visit accumulate in the street.
As in any good suburb, the guests arrive directly from the side of the house, the gift bags rub against the cedar hedge, which closes the entrance to the courtyard, it smells of the delicate mixture of “sunscreen and mosquito repellent”. My grandparents arrive empty-handed. It’s exciting because it probably means the present is too big and they left it in the car.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Matthew Pepper
I’m always stumped with gifts, I love it and hate it at the same time because everyone looks at you with expectation of your reaction.
“Are you happy? »
” You’re sure ? »
“We should have taken the other, I knew it! »
Breathe, I haven’t even made it through the Dollarama tissue paper yet.
My father is at the grill, my brother assists him, my mother shouts that the timer rang and my dad says he doesn’t need a timer. Nothing new at 267, rue des Patriotes.
The sound of ice cubes bathed in too strong sangria and banging on the plastic glasses slips between the bursts of laughter and the radio which pushes Bohemian of Aznavour. The meal was delicious, barely time to get the corn out of my teeth when my mother’s famous peanut butter ice cream pie arrives in front of me, the candle wicks burn, the wax slips , the Bengal fire sparkles, the “happy birthday” is sung, in French and Flemish, for my grandfather, and hop the time for presents.
Quickly, my grandfather disappears and reappears cluttered with a large box.
I open it and find a CRT TV from a brand I’m not sure I know…Kitachi or something.
” Eh ! ? For me ? »
“We’ll install it in your bedroom, it’ll be your own television. »
“But there are going to be rules!” »
My mother doesn’t follow her rules.
Because of the searing heat and endless carbs of the festive feast, the “Bon!” » and the « Going to have to think about doing a piece » started to be heard. It’s never my favorite moment, I have such a hard time with the endings. Why are we stopping! ? Everyone has fun!
Lucky I had my new TV to make up for it.
She was now in place, on her throne (my dresser), under the small basement window that overlooks the last branches of the family lilac. A lilac that my parents planted, probably thinking something like “This lilac will be like our family, sometimes in bloom, sometimes dull but always standing and promising blah blah blah”. Still, I really liked this lilac.
“I can listen to what I want, change stations whenever I want. Well, I’m going to have to get up every time, because my grandfather bought the television at the flea market and the “seller” had lost the controller.
Slowly, TV was becoming really important to me. Not the object, but what she was doing to me.
I laughed while listening to Captain Charles Patenaude disciplining Bob and Flavien, I loved watching Denis and Germain share a small fret, I thought Mom and Dad were the ideal couple.
I had lots of friends already, but they were where the others couldn’t be.
I attended the stories of Annie, Carlos, Jean-Michel and Yannick, National, Sylvie and Guy, Anne, Johnson, Dufour and Mayrand. They made me laugh, they made me feel good, maybe it’s stupid to say, but I really liked them.
Every year I hoped someone would write more stories, that might make me want to buy a blue watch before I even had anything to leak, that would bring tears to my eyes with Still Loving Youa story with lines that would punctuate my daily life forever.
And there always were.
Over the years, every time I saw the lilacs wither with summer, I knew it was the start of new stories, new characters, new endings.
I don’t like endings except when they announce something beautiful.
The lilacs are dead but the TV is alive and well.