Susan Doherty

“We focused our eyes on a dozen quaking aspen, trembling in the breeze, creating ripples of liquid gold. Ernie said, “Did you know, if the leaves can’t move, they get eaten by insects.” We listened to the quiver of a million shimmery yellow leaves, then Ernie said, “The trees look like brothers the way they stand by each other. Not one of them looks sick or in danger of falling by the wayside.”
― Susan Doherty, Monday Rent Boy

“On train trips, Ernie always wanted the window seat. He knew the names of the trees we passed, and the clouds—nacreous, cumulus, nimbus. He was ever vigilant for animal life and appreciative of the tiny patches of humanity along the tracks that exposed the lives of the rail-side dwellers in such intimate detail. “I love sad houses,” he’d say, pointing to a chorus line of discoloured laundry waving at us, to an upturned self-propelled lawnmower, straggly gardens, leaky drainpipes, a rain-weathered pram that had been turned into a wheelbarrow. “The porch lights are on to keep the rats in their dens,” he’d said. To be a voyeur of decay at such close range was as much of an enthrallment as it was a validation of the scarcities in his own backyard. I knew exactly which days Ernie’s mum had had to choose between heating the house and putting food on the table. My mother had been there too. Before the Zipper had given her a leg up.”
― Susan Doherty, Monday Rent Boy