Not An Islander

© Margie Carmichael April/2001

 

My name is Hector Jelley, and this is my complaint.

My twin brother is an Islander, but holy smokes I ain’t!

I was born aboard The Abegweit and I came as quite a shock -

but some idiot cut my umbilical cord before the ferry docked.

 

My younger brother – Borden – he loves to rub it in

that he’s the native Islander and I the ‘distant twin’.

I was always Tonto, he was always The Lone Ranger.

He got all the cuddly names, they just called me ‘stranger’.

 

Chorus: So is it by default? Or is it by injection?

              Is it come by honestly? Or is it an infection?

             Won’t someone tell me please before they put me in the earth –

             How in the name of God do I become an Islander?

 

I loved a girl from Carleton and she said she’d be my wife,

a third-generation Islander – I’d known her all my life.

She called it off the night before and she phoned me up to say

“I could never tell a child of mine that his daddy’s from away!”

 

In my long and lonely later years my prospects looked so cruddy

that I dug deep down for the truth in the Institute of Island Studies.

The experts said that when I’m dead I may lie in the family plot,

but even genetically qualified, an Islander I’m not.

 

Chorus

 

At ninety-five I finally died and I went to the Pearly Gates.

Surely to God by now I thought I’d found my rightful place –

but Saint Peter said “Oh Hector! I’d love to let you stay,

and Heaven’s full of Islanders – but you’re still from away.”

 

The Devil saw me coming and he licked his lips with glee

as he thought about the torture to inflict eternally.

Then God yelled down from Heaven “Do be gentle Lucifer!

Hector’s been through Hell already trying to be an Islander.”

 

Chorus: So is it by default? Or is it by injection?

              Is it come by honestly? Or is it an infection?

             Won’t someone tell me please before they put me in the earth –

             How in the name of God do I become an Islander?

             Won’t someone tell me please before they burn me with the worst –

             How in the name of God do I be re-incarnated or modified?

             How in the name of God do I become an Islander?