But What Did You Come Here For // Justin Apperley
A response to Gabrielle Desrosiers’ But What Did You Come Here For
Breaking from our standard essay format, Justin Apperley presents a series of poems in response to Gabrielle Desrosiers' “But What Did You Come Here For.” This work draws inspiration from Desrosiers' road trip westward from Quebec to British Columbia to install the exhibition and her process of collecting the objects, sculptures, and assemblages along the way. Each poem features a different province, aligned with components of the show that resounded with Apperley.
But what did you come here for?
I’m often asked.
Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine…
You mean?
Well, it must be for the nature; the remoteness, the space, the experience, the beauty.
Let me tell ya: ‘cause yesterday,
I was sloughing over melting pack ice
Belly side down
My stained Budweiser t-shirt caught
Like a snag in a trap
Ripped along driftwood
Frozen sand filling up fingernails
Scratching along the red gulf shore
Rien ne sert de courir il faut partir à point
Or,
Why not rather run with
One Black Label too many
And start that roadtrip whenever you god-damned feel like it
Because there’s always another ferry
To crawl to
When my grumpy Véronique in her quaint lil’ windswept blue home
On good ol’ Prince Edward Island
Has another cold one cracked n’ waiting
It’s time for Vacation baby!
But don’t mind us; in the mean-time we are just doing a bit of beachcombin’ n’ up to no good
An orange vinyl work-glove found half buried in red sand
But Véronique and I really don’t feel like working today, sorry.
“We don’t want this shit!”
Our response is to catapult
Watch the flimsy ginger wafting, smacking salty wet
Let it sink in
Saffron-tinted sandstone watches wearily, sulking in the distance
Wishing we really were on the 9-5
Instead of us scaling its flakey surfaces
Giggling to each other and enjoying our free will
As the sandstone unwillingly loses themselves step by step
Spreading their ashes to unsuspecting explorers
A slow death, shed by every frolicking, unemployed footstep
The deep dark Atlantic lapping them up
Happily swallowing many a tangerine mitten or sandstone rock
Who next is victim?
Could be you: enjoying your late-morning double-double on the water
Quiet, unsuspecting, and still. Possibly sunbathing alone, reading the headlines.
Just you wait until the next time Véronique and I decide to take the day off
To wreak havoc
You think it’s a day for your boys and toys?
Your fancy catamaran and a lazy day casting lines??
Well, we’re fishing for compliments
And we want the whole god-damned island to know
That we’re the craziest broads this side of Souris
And no way your lollygagging pensioner privilege
Is gonna yacht its way into a comfortable retirement
Cause Véronique and I, we’re the breaking news!
We’re gonna spill that Tim Hortons of yours right over the edge.
Use a lil’ WD-40 with our lime green lighter
And use that shitty backwash National Post of yours for fire-starter
Cause we’ve had enough! Right here on the starboard side
You’re all tied up, bowline baby
A hobby with ropes goes a long way if yer trying to get somewhere
You’re held hostage where you belong, and we gotta go.
Off to New Brunswick
Allons-y, Maudit!
Feels like unemployment insurance, don’t it?
It’s a pirate’s life for me.
There’s nothing wrong with our new ’03 Chevy Astro
Of course, for when time tends to prove a cold case of limp tires,
Like recently in Nouveau-Brunswick,
Coming up to Shediac
Buddy scrambled into the road
Concerned and was he ever beyond bothered
Started pointing and blowing steam
Bent out of shape he was…
Boy, was he ever.
I says,
So what if I still use inner tubes?
Ones as red as that big ol’ lobster, this.
So we took it out n’ tied it up
And skimmed that flaccid rubber all along the dusty parking lot
What a drag
With my trusty green tether
For another patch at Canadian Tire
Like we always do when we’re in a pinch
Between a couple big red salty lobster claws
In Shediac, NB
And boy, was he ever
(Buddy, I mean)
Was he ever impressed.
All aired up n’ rolled o’er to the motherland.
And if you knew us, we always stop at our regular Québécois haunt
In Rivière-du-Loup
Slurping oysters n’ saving the shells for later
And there before we really knew it
We were graced by Hitchhiking Royalty!
Barnacle Bob!
A magnificent mooch upon its royal shell!
An imperial freeloader,
A valiant vagrant.
Stuck out its thumb and we were absolutely obliged to pick him up
With the full red-carpet treatment
On our regal ride
Elevated up immediately to our dashboard shrine
To be toured and adored across the country
Oh, how the plebeians will praise our new King
Who knew his mighty reign would begin here:
A stone’s throw away from South Shore’s finest Rôtisserie St-Hubert
Parked au Parc de la Pointe
History is made,
Alongside the sodden St. Lawrence
Vive le Roi!
Le Roi des Mollusques!!
There’s something about a roadtrip...
What does it take to hit the road?
Hitting the road?
Like? Slapping the road?
Smacking about that unassuming ol’ road?…..
C’mon now… is that really the case?
I’ve bruised a highway or two, lemme tell you.
But jeez, let’s be honest, some of us like to spend our time caressing the road.
A casual John Prine and the great calming lull of the odometer clicking kilometres
EXCEPT for when one slips into Ontario…
Can one truly caress that sheer amount of endless northern pavement
Pinned between insurmountable swaths of black spruce and jack pine?
It’s a bit much no?
Maybe that’s where we come to hit the road.
Seventeen hours in one day of driving?!
Only so many country legends one can take… In spite of ourselves
We’ll end up a’sittin’ on a rainbow
Or spitting on that awfully big log pile in Hearst, Ontario..
Ready to curse the province as a complete and entire whole.
Away from alllllll those highway men who look too long
And are a bit too glad to hold open the greasy handle
On the full-glass door of the truck stop diner for you
As they ask you to ‘show us a smile’
_ _
______
We are sick.
Véronique and I.
We are sick of being civil, damnit.
Cause really? How polite can you really be if you are well-known to hit a road?
Those 7 cups of gas station coffee, 2 monster drinks
And that exhausted look on my face won’t do it for our long-lost dear friend Myriam
Who moved years ago from Magdalen to Manitoba
Because one can only have so many noise complaints on a small island
(That was truly one helluva broken muffler…)
So now we’re forced to park our overheated Van n’ hop in the fucking quad for once
Straddle up as you saddle up, and hang on to her for dear life
Myriam always taking it to the next level, cackling away and letting ‘er rip
A true baba yaga; a bit beyond possessed
As a gale of raven hair stuffs itself down my throat; blindfolds all but every passing tree
As we fly by the final few bumpy kilometres of Canadian Shield
Before that protective coat plunges into prairies
Stray headlights barely beaming
Limbering beside a bare cliff face
Scowling to see
Fast as fast can be
The skid trail pummels into a frozen lake
But we skim the surface
I swear it’s only Manitobans who choose to go ice fishing at 2AM
Go on and let’s cast our net.
But WHY??
There’s spray foam tangled within the weave – it just floats?
Myriam, she does all the work these days…
But why would take us out here just to float her net?!?!?!
Cursing beside the quad,
Kicking the mostly empty pearl n’ collar-blue cooler
That caffeine kick ain’t gonna help now
So I curl up perched on the cracked pleather seat
Below, a slow coolant leak dripping neon
The smell of burnt oil on a cold engine
I squeeze my eyes closed shut
And wish the day to just fucking end
For me and my good ol’ annoying best friend, Miri the adrenaline junkie
Muttering and shivering
Wrapped forlornly under her draped pink and black Real Tree Fox Racing jacket…
I’m happier than a pig in shit.
Véronique’s eyes roll
But with my enthusiastic nudge she sighs
To turn and tie another rope onto the rock:
To make sure it’s coming with us.
Another big boulder to help with the gas bill.
Painted rocks seem to be a real pleasure to gather
The bigger the better
A boulder or two to spoon when the weathers cold
Another to keep the gas pedal down
Since cruise control
Tends to hiccup lately
For those long prairie days
Of clocking kilometres between Westeels and Twisters
Fluttery fields of golden strings
Making onlooking cheeks rosy from wind
Saskatchewan headed west from Eastend
Counting the haybales at Jack’s,
As the server scoffs
While my toes twiddle two colourful rocks
That I purposely placed
On the diner’s diamond patterned carpet
Véronique must be dizzy
Her eyes keep rolling
But I adamantly explain
You can’t disagree, mon amour: the purples pretty,
Oh lord, what about that indigo,
Even the rose, a lil’ lavender,
Mint on the side, and cream to tie it together.
So off I go…
Salivating for that next badland boulder
Finding its perfect spot
Underneath our truck-bed pillow
YOU pranced right into the glass bead section
At the Crossroads Market
Beside the vendor selling heavy metal motorcycle rings with skulls
And just threw your typical big ol’ 5 cent bill at the sweet unsuspecting bead lady
And she wilted, so distracted with prying the money off
You cleaned the front shelf dry
Lil’ orange spheres that look like sorbet,
These v. bespoke rectangular green prism numbers,
A couple cloudy white small little beans,
Wow! The amber ones really seem to pop, hey?
And OFFFFFF you run
Quite the good deal, to the same unsuspecting miscreant living out of their van
With Québécois license plates
Which often tends to overnight in the SW corner
Of the Saddledome parking lot
Once in a while though
The outlaw is lucky enough
To retreat temporarily to a buddy’s for a productive afternoon
To blast some classic rock
And unveil the illicit stash of beads
In a musty suburban Albertan bungalow
With brown vinyl kitchen flooring and fake wood cabinetry
The comfort of some slight yellowing
From years upon years of cigarette enjoyment
AC/DC at 3pm
KISS hits hard around 4:45
LED ZEPELLIN comes in steady 5:35
And after putting in what’s going good
Those beads just always tend to fall perfectly in place
When Stairway to Heaven hits
And your last drag concludes
With a translucent lil’ ball with a tangerine core
And a buzzed n’ satisfied grip crumples the beer can
As golden drops dance in the sunlight streaming
Through the mosquito screen.
But what did you come here for?
The nature, the remoteness, the space, the experience, the beauty?
Crickets in high grass jumping over piles
Of fishing rope flopping out the Astro
Dry mountains raising an eyebrow
To knotty buoys tethered where they belong
Sunk on dry ground
So?
We’re all here… Why are you?
Myriam flew in from Falcon Lake
Rocker Buddy from Calgary hittin’ the Pinot Grigio hard
Other-buddy’s also here? Somehow from Shediac, being a bit creepy, in my opinion.
My Véronique is outside smoking, avoiding the schmoozing,
Grumbling beneath her breath, groveling about something and the dreadful drive back east
At least she’s thanking her lucky stars I finally lightened the load
The rocks, the lines, the beads rolling from bumper to bumper between gas and brake,
Spray foam spilling through nets like my unwaxed bikini line
No time on the road for arm pit stops
Sweaty sunshine cascading through my driver’s side window
And swaths of fruity Okanagan air floating over the lake
Personally, I’m raring to go
It’s time to shine!
More than ready for this exact moment.
My grand debut: My pièce de résistance: a vernissage of the century
This evening British Columbia will never know what hit them.
The wining, The dining, The consummation of culture
Hovering over the cheese table like swine at the trough
What looks like an oversized maritime necklace on the floor
A few maquettes that seem a bit too challenging to explain.
Colours strewn over the walls and floor
We now have this room full of people
Chatting awkwardly.
Scratching the wine glass stem nervously in a corner
Squirming for inspiration on their next conversation starter
Seemingly weak west coasters constantly grasping for straws.
While I, I know what to say:
I ALWAYS know what to say.
So I just prance up,
Collect my congratulations and hit homerun hard:
Every time: it’s a win-win solution.
Oh yes, of course it’s a bit rigged for my own success in the matter
But I still love to watch the competition cower
They scramble, squirm and suffer
And it’s always a defiant defeat
With my simple, innocent, unassuming direct question:
“But what?” I begin.
My confidence oozing.
Hiding back my evil grimace, the curl of my upper lip, the lewd piercing of my glassy-eyed stare.
Awaiting my prey.
Feeling my target tremble.
Awkwardness spilling out their pant leg on to the Alternator floor.
My success is so close to completion.
I drove across the country hungry for this very moment.
Here it comes. I’m up for bat. ready to deliver:
My mischievous glare drives deep and my toothy smile finally cannot contain itself:
I go on, I ask:
..
“But what did you come here for??”
ꗯ
Justin Apperley is an artist based on the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (Dawson City, Yukon Territory). Justin holds an MFA at The Glasgow School of Art and a BDes from OCAD and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Working with photography, sculpture and print media, Apperley’s practice deals with emerging themes of climate change, nomadic futures and alternative survival strategies.
Selected exhibitions include Bonsoir Moreau, Espace Maurice, Montréal, CA (2023), Cowboys Can’t Sleep, Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture, Dawson City, CA (2022), Silver Linings, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, CA (2020), Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Leeds Art Gallery & South London Gallery, Leeds & London, UK (2019), Last Futures, Tramway, Glasgow, UK (2018), and Pin-Up, Mercer Union, Toronto, CA (2011). Selected publications include Dust to Oaxaca, by Colour Code Printing, Toronto, CA (2016), and Freeze up / Break up, by Rockbottom Press, Los Angeles, USA (2015).