All is All

Holiday

2007-12-04T06:36:00.000-05:00

It started about three weeks ago. I got the call and I couldn't resist. Lord, I tried, but I answered anyway.

I pulled the door open and stepped inside. I waited until my eyes adjusted, leaning on the front counter.

"Just sit anywhere, sweetheart."

She brushed past me with a pot of coffee in her hand. The smell of it kick-started a rumble in my stomach that I was sure everyone in the place could hear. I picked my way down the crowded counter and found a booth. Why here? It was too crowded and I don't like being this near to people. I could feel filth emanating from every one of them. The guy sitting at the next booth reeked of alcohol and stale cigarettes. I tried to fight off the revulsion, telling myself to calm down. I don't do well in confined spaces.

"You're so fucking uptight I can smell it on you," the man in the next booth said in hoarse whisper. "You need to relax." It was him.

"What the hell happened to you?" I asked him, "You look like shit."

"Yeah, well, things haven't been going so well. I need you to do something for me," he said with a grin.

I stared at him, wondering if there was even a remote chance I could get myself out of this situation.

"Not a chance," he said. "I'm a god, remember?"

"Well, what could the great almighty Pan need with me. Run out of booze? Need a whore or two?"

"After all I've done for you, this is the thanks I get?" He tried to look hurt but succeeded only in looking like he was trying to pass a gall-stone.

"You're not a god, you're a figment of my imagination. You're a dream that torments me periodically. You're too much pizza and gravy, that's what you are." I'm not sure if I was castigating him or myself.

"Yourself. I'm a dream, remember?" he said dryly.

"Why me?" I whined. Its another one of those things I dislike about myself.

"I'm not fond of it either," Pan said, "regardless, you're all I have for the time being. The fact that you're crazy is an inconvenience but I can work around that, too."

He stood up and the diner dissolved into a pastoral setting and I found myself leaning against a tall tree, heavy with leaves and a pear shaped fruit. I reached up for one, only to have my hand slapped down. Pan appeared before me, no longer looking like a homeless man but worse. His fur was matted and in it bits of meat and twigs mixed with dribbled wine and unidentifiable detritus.

"Pay attention. I have a plan. I have no intention of hiding in here any longer and you, my squirrely little friend are going to help me."

I sighed a heavy peal of resignation. He was right. I'm completely crazy and whenever one of these apparitions decides to take control, I can't seem to stop them. Pan was particularly bad news for me. I wondered, briefly, what life would be like if I wasn't nuts, but that thought dissolved when Pan asserted himself.

I woke up this morning in a motel. Apparently, I'm in Syracuse. The headache is only now just wearing off and I have to find a way home. I've got no money, of course. He spends it all and leaves me none. I hate him, sometimes. I really do.

On the up side, it seems that I'm married now. I think she's a dancer. She snores like an ox but she smells very nice. I wonder if she's ever been to Canada.

Do It Again

2007-08-13T23:11:00.000-04:00

Jackson moved into the light, lifting a hand to shade his eyes. Somewhere in front of him a voice spoke, saying, "Not this time."
He nodded and shuffled off to the corner, trying not to let the others see his disappointment. He leaned against the rough stone that defined the cell and, with his back to the others, shook loose a sob coated in phlegm and bitter tears.
"Jackson?" It was Raleigh. He felt her hand on his back and the touch provoked more tears and he turned and buried his face in her shoulder.
"Maybe the old man can help, this time."

There was a garden in which people gathered and reminisced about life and love, dreaming of the day when they could return. They swapped stories of their past lives and the people they knew and had known as they strolled past the fig tree that defined the centre of the world.
Underneath the tree, the breeze that silently swept away the bad memories was warm and encouraged serenity, calm and reflection, and it was here that they found the old man. He was always here, chatting away the days under the protective arms of the tree, usually surrounded by a crowd of advice-seekers, acolytes and admirers. They drifted away as Jackson approached, without looking at him, without saying anything. He was getting used to the way they ignored him. Only Raleigh and the old man spoke to him.
"What is it this time?" the old man said as Jackson slumped beside him on the bench.
"Why won't they take me?" Jackson said.
"How many times do I have to tell you, you're just not ready," the old man said patting Jackson on the knee, "You stink of regret and sorrow, you ooze a melancholy sap from every pore of your body and you can't look anyone in the eye. No one wants to be near you, except Raleigh, and she's as bad as you. You're just not ready. You need to take some time off, go on a retreat or something. You need to relax."
Jackson nodded his head but held on tight to his desire. The old man sighed and sat back. He absently picked at the hem of his robe and then clasped his hands together, his thumbs pointing up. He up-ended his church and said, "And there are all the people," with a giggle to himself.
Jackson stirred beside him.
"What?" he said.
"Nothing, Jackson, I didn't say anything." The old man sat forward once again and turned to face him.
"You just don't get it, son. The whole idea is that you go back with a clear conscience and an empty mind. You don't have room in yours for a mote of dust, you're so cluttered and confused. What is it that you can't let go of? What's made you so sad, so heavy? It's only life. You go, you get to see some neat stuff, you stock up on some anecdotes and you come back. I don't understand what the problem is."
Jackson shuddered to attention.
"Only life?" he said, "That's what I can't understand. You say it's only life but it's so much more than that. It's meaningful and grand, sad and sorrowful. It's intense and ripe, it's catastrophic and it's elemental. It's the most profound experience I've ever had. It's not some sort of divine amusement park carousel that you climb on for fun. Everyone around here thinks it's such a gas to be born and to live, when it's the most precious gift any of us has ever experienced."
"An amusement park carousel? I like that. Jackson, you have quite a way with words," the old man beamed at him.
Jackson refused to be baited however, and sat silently until the old man relented.
"Alright," he said, with a grumble, "One more, but I'm not kidding when I tell you that if you don't lighten up this time around I'm going to be very displeased with you when you get back."
Jackson jumped up even before the old man had finished speaking and ran to the gate. As he jostled his way to the front of the line, the old man turned his attention to Raleigh.
"And you. What's your problem?"
"Me? I got no problem, old man. I just came by to say 'Hey'."
"Why don't I believe you?" said the old man.
"Because you're a suspicious old coot, that's why. But thanks for letting Jackson go back," she said with a small smile, "He really does take things so seriously. Maybe this time he'll have more fun. He's such a lump when he's here. I like him, though."
The old man clapped his hands together and laughed, "Oh, good," he said, "That makes my day."
"Don't make fun of me," she cried and launched herself into the old man's lap.
"Never," he said with a laugh as he wrapped her in his arms. He sighed as she lay her head on his shoulder, and thought once again of Jackson. His normally bright luminescence was dulled for a moment.
"I like him too, my girl" he said in a quiet voice, "I like him, too."

Manitoba, 1976

2007-08-09T05:23:00.000-04:00

At 5:23 the sky is a deep blue/black and the air is cool, slightly tainted with the smell of yesterday; not awake to the desires of the new day. You sleep through everything.

I leave the car idling and go into the supermarket, with you safe under the effects of too much alcohol and pot. The secretive whispers that escape your lips leave me curiously unruffled because I understand the tone, if not the meaning. It's been three days of silence, impressed upon me by the empty horizon and the memory of loss.
The lights in here are bright and unforgiving. I realize that I must look exactly like I feel, and impishly decide to strut a little more and slouch a little less.
"Can I help you?' a girl says from behind the counter which is strewn with the evidence of too few customers. Three or four magazines lie on their backs, portraying a world of luxury studded with the embarrassments of a public life. An empty bag of potato chips spins on its axis as I breeze past and answer, "Not unless you've got a cure for needless suffering, or a remedy for heartache," I say.
"Pardon me?"

I hate driving at night. My eyes have never been good and the twinkling of far off houses, the lights left on for safety and to fend of the riot of night, only confuse my depth-perception. Everything seems more relevant in the pre-dawn hours, before the sun can burn away the melancholy of sleeplessness. That should be a bumper sticker, I think, while looking for a box of crackers that doesn't have the words 'low salt' on the front.
In the middle of the aisle sits a man, with his back to me, on an upended box, pricing cans of soup to put on the shelf. The snickering recoil of his gun is the only thing I can hear above the music being piped down from the speakers above. He looks up at me as I approach and, suddenly self-conscious, straightens his back as the gun's patter picks up speed.
"Morning," I grunt and he nods in return.
"Can I help you find something?" he says, and I pause, wondering what it is that I'm looking for.

The sun flashes across the dash, as I crest the hill, leaving another town behind and before the light of day can identify me, or you for that matter. We're beyond all that now, I think. You murmur in your sleep and try to turn away from the light, but not before you crack one eye open and say, "Where are we?"
I don't answer and you are asleep again before the question can settle there between us, awkward and undisguised, looking for all the world like a guilty child, born into a family of want.

The Mountain Stream

2007-06-21T05:55:00.000-04:00

The trail wound down to the bottom of the gorge and without a second thought I walked straight into the stream that snaked across the bottom. The girls squealed in excitement when they saw the water but had second thoughts about stripping down and diving in as C.G., and the hulking, brooding man-child he was baby-sitting, broke from the cover of the trees. Instead, they walked along the bank until they found a good place to sit and dangle their feet. They are Patience and Faith, not Wanton and Lurid. I quite like them.
I call them my Lotus Eaters because of their endless ease and because they've never shared a bad thought between them. They've followed me around for most of my life, making repeated attempts to steal me away from the others and they sometimes wake me in the middle of the night to talk to me about the way I behave. They are as good as it gets. They show me the world as I would like it to be, but I'm a suspicious sort and they get frustrated with my negativity. And with Pan.
I saw them tense as Pan strode by. He makes no pretense about what he'd like to do to each one of them.

They are all with me now. They are my advisers, my mentors and my agents provocateurs. They are a motley collection of random thoughts and, at the same time, an organised team of interpreters.
There was a time when they were completely unaware of each other. It was in a time of complete disorder and confusion that I assembled them and brokered a truce. I asked them to come together for the purpose of finding someone I lost many years ago. I brought them together to track him through time and space, memory and forgetfulness, suffering, torment and grief. He's been missing for some time and I need him now, more than ever.

Ikkyu squatted at the edge of the stream and siphoned water for his kettle. As he set about building a small fire, I was, once more, impressed with the economy of his movements. He does everything with purpose and his temper is serene even in the face of danger. His musings are always concise and to the point and he never lets the boisterous attitudes of his forced compatriots interrupt the smooth flow of his thoughts.
"What is this place?" he said to me as he set the kettle in the flames.
"This is where I last saw him. Maybe twenty-five years ago?" I looked at the girls, and they nodded. They were here, too, although it wasn't me they were shadowing at the time. They followed me home that night, abandoning their post, thinking that I needed them more than the man who brought me here.
"And the one we're looking for?" Ikkyu watched me wince at the memory.
"This was the last place I saw him. I was hoping to find a clue or something." I looked around, not knowing how to begin to search.
I turned at the sounds of a scuffle and saw C.G. duck a swing from the animal he was shepherd to. This where he was born. He sprang into being at the edge of this stream, fully formed and raging. I couldn't control him then either. The flush of memory had provoked a fit of anger and C.G. was losing control of his charge. I watched impassively, as the Doctor tried in vain to soothe the beast, but the words he whispered into his ear had little effect and it wasn't until Pan held out something to him, that the child quieted and became subdued. I couldn't see what it was that the god had produced and so I stood to get a better view. The billowing form of the child began to deflate somewhat as he was held in check, mesmerized by a small mirror that he grasped in his massive fists. Pan turned to me then, and said, "You're an idiot. Get off your ass and get that old man moving or there's going to be trouble. This quack," he pointed to C.G., "doesn't know shit. Bringing us here was a foolish idea."
I looked at the Doctor and he was nodding his head.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I thought it might be helpful, but I didn't anticipate this reaction."
They all stood, staring at me, waiting for me to make a decision, and I looked from face to face.
The girls were frightened and fidgeted, holding hands and leaning on each other for support. The Doctor sat on his haunches, breathing heavily from the exertion of trying to control my rage. Pan stood in the middle of the stream, his hands on his hips and with a look of disgust on his face. Even the two headed dog was quiet, both heads avoiding my eyes.
From behind me, I heard Ikkyu clear his throat.
"Well," he said calmly, "I've finished my tea. We can go now." and he stood up, packing away the kettle.

I was sixteen the last time I was here and it looks exactly as I remember it. The stream that starts somewhere in the mountains above me, wanders down the valley and underneath the thick forest that covers both banks. It is beautiful. We camped here, after a long day of paddling. I was exhausted.
In the middle of the night, I woke to the sounds of some animal prowling around just outside the door of the tent and I sat up, trying to separate the sounds of the night from the chattering in my head.
The girls found me then, and soothed my fears, pushing me towards sleep and when I woke up all was quiet. I could sense him, then. The brutish beast that had been born by the coals of a fire left untended. He was awake, too, and I felt a terrifying realization grow inside me as I discovered that with the arrival of this beast, something else had left me. I'm still looking for him.
The connection I had, for so long unrecognized, to the world around me was shattered and in the aftermath I was disconsolate; the only comfort I felt coming from Patience and Faith, who upon discovering me in that fragile state, held me and wiped the tears away, telling me that I could survive this, that I would survive this. I did, barely. But it marked a new passage in my life, a new method to be learned. Without trust, my psyche splintered into pieces and the disparate aspects, previously held together by a common goal, came to me, one by one, to demand a reckoning.

They needed an answer. I thought this might be a good place to start.

Tempus Fugit

2007-06-19T07:07:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning to one of those startling realizations akin to remembering that there's a math test this morning and I haven't even cracked a book. As I swung crazily between dreams of exalted idolatry and being chased by a really big toad with a taste for blood, a thought careened into existence and demanded to be recognized.
"Last week went by very quickly," it mused.
"So?" I said, "they all do," I answered. "Leave me alone or help me with this big fucking frog."

I woke up feeling relieved that the frog was gone but unnerved that that persistant thought was still with me. I aquiesed and said, "All right, let's have it."

The memories of my childhood reside in a portion of my brain that is overstuffed, dusty and mostly ignored. If I need something I can push open the door and, after a sneeze or two, find what I'm looking for and get on with my day. The vault that contains my more recent doings is closer and doesn't seem so busy. The one that holds last weeks agenda is pretty near empty and if you whistle into the cool air you'll hear an echo. The point is that while every day was an EVENT when I was seven, most things don't register these days, unless it's really big.
With little experience in deciding what needed cataloguing, my seven year old brain made copies of everything and filed it away. As I get older, and more cynical I might add, the need to examine everything is less critical. As a by-product, I have less and less to mark the passage of time. When I pause to wonder what I had for dinner last Thursday, my brain makes a big show of trying to find it, knowing all the while that it never added that to the records, having already filed thousands of reports that went unheeded. If no one is going to come looking for it, then why do all that paper-work?
Caught with it's pants down, my brain makes a few suggestions and hastily changes the subject. The net effect of this phenomenon is that I can't remember Thursday, at all. I can't remember most of last week. Most of April is gone too. Sure, I can tell you that it's 2007 but if you need a detailed itinerary, giving evidence of my whereabouts for 2006 you're out of luck. Where has the time gone?

The interupptive thought smiled to itself, knowing that it had triggered a domino-like effect, and it sat back to watch it's trickle-down. I wished briefly that I was still asleep, even if that meant dodging the corrosive spit of a two hundred pound amphibian.

Taken to it's logical conclusion, it seems likely that by the time I'm eighty-two, I will have forgotten decades worth of doings. My grandfather lived in a reality that looked a lot like 1972 for the last decade of his life, simply because his brain thought, "What's the use? He'll never come looking for '86." His inner librarian was on holiday and so it took him completely by surprise when he turned ninety and I heard him say, "So short, so short." He was refering to the impression that without his knowing it, life had carried on without him.
And maybe that's a good thing. If everything we ever did was stored away, easily accesible and readily remembered, life would be long but we would all die of exaustion before we hit sixty.
On the other hand, a long and well documented life would prevent the often-heard, little-understood cries of remorse for not paying more attention to things as they happen. If life is so precious, why is it that so many of us can't remember what we did with the biggest part of it? Just because we've done it before doesn't mean it isn't worth taking note of it. What we had for dinner last night was probably pretty good, but even if it wasn't shouldn't we log that so we never have to eat it again?

Descent

2007-05-30T06:18:00.000-04:00

He stretched out his hand and wiped away the condensation that had formed on the mirror. With one hand he pulled at the skin that hung on his neck and with the other he dragged the razor across his cheek, cutting away the ugly, exposing the desirable.
When he had washed away the remnants of his natural self, he applied the after-shave that the girl at the drug store had recommended. He didn't care for the scent but felt that it was necessary to arrive slightly before he arrived. Someone once told him that women have a more acute sense of smell than men and that memories can be manipulated into fond remembrances with the proper attention to detail. He might have made up that last part.
He dressed slowly, checking and re-checking his reflection in the mirror and when the shirt he was wearing refused to hang squarely off his shoulders he took it off and it fell to the back-up to perform. His socks, examined under the cruel light of fluorescence, appeared faded but the only other choice was a pair, so thread-worn that he was afraid that one, or the other, might unravel at the wrong moment. He whispered a silent prayer that she would be too occupied to notice.
A final inspection proved that he looked as good as he was ever likely to. He wondered what it would be like to see perfection staring back at him but he quickly smiled away the criticism. Self-doubt kills the soul.

He waited at her door for more than ten minutes, at first thinking she might be in the shower and did not hear the bell. His arm began to ache. He awkwardly balanced the flowers he had purchased that morning as he switched hands, almost dropping the bottle of wine. He remembered that her favourite wine was a Beaujolais, that she liked to drink it cold and that more than one glass went straight to her head. She had turned away from him at that point and he lost the thread of the conversation. He moved closer to the group of girls she was with, but was nudged aside when two men slipped between them, to sit at the bar. He wondered if she might have annexed her comments and added the stipulation that she preferred the wines produced in the Burgundy region rather than the Rhone. It was of no consequence, really, as the bottle he held gave no indication of the region in which it was harvested.

"Nelson?"
He was startled out of his reverie by her voice, coming from behind him. He turned, with a smile, and saw that she was coming up the stairs that led to the apartment next to the one in front of which he was standing. He quickly checked the number on the door and realised that he must have read the address wrong. Granted, he'd only had a instant to glean the information from her driver's licence when she presented it to him, more than a week ago, at the super market. A driver's licence was required when paying by check. He cursed his poor memory, making a mental note to be more attentive in the future.

He felt foolish, standing so close to her, separated only by the railing, and couldn't think of anything to say.
"Do you know Peter?" she asked as her door swung open.
"Peter?"
"That's cool," she said, "He's a really nice guy. Have a good night," and she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

Nelson stood for a moment, considering his options. He'd already made a potentially devastating mistake and their date hadn't even started yet. Then he made up his mind, walked down Peter's stairs and up hers, to her door. He rapped sharply, stepped back and cleared his throat. He went over, in his mind, the introduction he had prepared, dropping the "My name is Nelson" part, as it appeared that she had remembered his name. He found that very encouraging.

A Punch in the Nose

2007-05-25T06:00:00.000-04:00

As facile as it sounds, when the television reporter wrapped up his commentary with, "It seems you can never really know anyone," I was struck by the bare truth of it. I thought about it for a moment. I didn't like the idea that the bonds I've made and the friendships cast from experiences and trials over time might be something I had imagined. I struggled to defend my perceptions. I had an existential moment, you might say. It happens.

I heard the t.v. go off and then there was a knock at my door.
"What time is it?"
I shrugged off my malaise and looked at the clock. "It's two."
"Really?" he said.
"What? Yeah, really. Look for yourself. The clocks right there."
"I guess it could be two o'clock."
"It's two o'clock."

The expression on his face made me wary. He was fucking around with me but I wasn't sure what the joke was. I hate that. He's smarter than I am and he knows it. He has a gentle way of chiding my sometimes torpid thought processes, of nudging me awake, of clearing away the nonsense I get caught up in.
I shrugged off the feeling of suspicion and returned to the problem at hand.

If I could hear the thoughts of every person I passed, I could measure it against their facial expressions and begin to read the truth in the lift of an eyebrow or the curl of a smile. I could be ready for the hurried change in moods and detect the lies before they take shape and are spun into an excuse. I could save time by sussing out root of the problem and separating the layers of rationalizations from the kernel of truth. I would never need to pause, rewind and remember what happened two weeks ago. I would know with absolute certainty what people mean when they say, "Oh, that's nice."

"Nice weather," he said.
"It's supposed to rain," I answered mechanically. I watch the weather channel more than any other. Rain, this afternoon.
"Looks good, now." he persisted.
"Well, it's going to rain," I said.
"I don't think so," he said.
I looked at him, and noticed that his eyes seemed brighter and that the edge of his mouth was quivering, almost sliding up into a smile and I realized that he was pushing me into a corner. I mentally checked for clues in the seemingly benign remarks he had made about the weather and didn't see a connection. I hate feeling stupid.

I was repulsed when I read Sartre for the first time. Freedom is a sad idea in a world that has no use for you. I was supposed to think he was the 'answer' so I muddled through the rest of it. I finally put it down and resigned myself to Jung. There are too many mysteries and I really don't have anything else to do, do I?

I looked up and realized that he was standing over me and I heard him smirk when he read the last line. The one about too many mysteries. I reviewed it myself, trying to find the humour in it.

"You contradict yourself," he said.
"I suppose I do," I answered.
"That's good. Contradiction is very healthy. It stimulates reason and nullifies certainty. I hate certainty."
"I'm glad to hear it," I said.

Certainty is something I gave up on, out of pure frustration, and I have to admit that I don't miss it one bit. Once you accept that nothing is certain, disappointment turns into wonder and doubt turns into anticipation, hope seems real and dreams take on a seismic attitude, channeling suspicion and churning out the sort of giddy glee that makes people want to punch you in the nose. Luckily, I can always see it coming.

"Oh, you're a peach, lad, a real peach," he said, laughing out loud, and I heard the door shut and the television go on, again.

The First Meeting

2007-05-17T06:33:00.000-04:00

The Lotus Eaters shook me awake to a full house. Patience and Faith, bless their frosty hearts, searched through the pile of clothes on the floor and found me something to wear while Ikkyu struggled with the coffee maker.
"Three scoops," I yelled as the girls manhandled me into a t-shirt.
"Jesus, what a madhouse."
The Great God Pan hustled in and with a pinch to any bottom unwise enough to present to him, he let the dog out, narrowly missing the huge jaws of one of the heads as they passed by, knocking over the plaster Buddha on the table near the door.
I heard a hiss from the closet and wisely detached myself from the Lotus Eaters and went to the kitchen. I found C.G. cracking eggs into a bowl, more shell than I care for, and took away the knife he was wielding over an innocent pound of bacon.
"What the hell are all of you doing here?" I yelled, but no one payed any attention to me. Even as my temper flared, I could hear the killer in the closet respond in kind and he neatly kicked the door off the hinges. With a chorus of screams the girls fled and C.G. made a dash to the bedroom, only to emerge a moment later with my hulking doppelganger, subdued, for now, and breathing heavily, his hands in Jung's.
"Michael, you must control your rage. Him, I can control. You? Not so easy."
"Sorry, C.G. What's going on? Why are you here? And why did you bring Ikkyu? You know he's not good with electronics."
"Me? I brought no one. You brought us. Tell me, my friend, what is the fuss?"
I looked at him for a moment and it dawned on me that I had called this impromptu meeting. I had caused the 'fuss'.
Pan loped down the stairs, each hand holding a bone, to which were attached the frenzied and frothing heads of Cerberus, who wanted to play.
The room quieted as they gathered around and I felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny. The coffee pot grumbled it's last and I automatically reached for a mug.
"All right. First, I drink a cup of coffee, and then we go find some place a little more spacious. I have a bit of a mystery on my hands and I need everyone of you to help me solve it.
The room erupted in chatter as the girls squealed their approval, C.G. whispered something into the killer's ear and Ikkyu searched his memory for something profound to say about the nature of the unknown. Cerberus alternately barked and gnawed on his bones and Pan loudly farted his approval. The room broke up into fits of howling laughter until the obnoxious fumes made them gag and I silently pictured a place in my mind. Seconds later we all stood in the middle of a clearing, a hundred yards wide, full of spring flowers and a dusting of morning fog.
The freshness of the breeze was a relief from the close confines of my apartment and everyone fanned out in a wide circle, fading slightly as my attention turned to Pan, who stood, hooves wide apart in a stance that spoke of stern disapproval, and I looked away, up at the sky. He was silent for a moment and then said, "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
"Yeah," I said, hesitantly. "I will. I just need a few minutes to think."
"Well, don't take all day," and he sauntered over to where Patience and Faith were kneeling over the Daises that sprouted from my imagination. He patted Faith on her full rump and as she reached out to slap his bearded face he ducked, with a laugh, and reached out to her sister. Patience smiled at him, but prudently backed away.
I stood, feeling the grass beneath my feet and closed my eyes and smelled the sweetness of the foliage on the wind and I wondered if this could work. They were rarely together, the disparate elements of my personality, and they didn't always mesh comfortably. I had no choice, though. I needed every one's help with this one.

I did need their help, every one of them, including the sullen giant, my raging alter-ego, whose sole purpose was to destroy me. He worried me the most. I looked around the clearing and found him, brooding under the eaves of an enormous Weeping Willow. He was staring at me in the way that Cerberus stares at the dead; with hateful desire and hurtful longing. I looked away.
This was going to take courage, and that's something I can't always count on.

It's So Good to See You

2007-05-08T07:07:00.000-04:00

A simple case of mistaken identity. I made it worse by playing along. I guess I just wanted to be that person; the one who could make his face light up like that. He was so animated, concerned and trusting that I wondered who she was, the woman he thought I was. When I finally had to admit to him that I wasn't her, the confusion, and then anger, that I saw in his eyes made me want to take it back. I am her, I wanted to say, but it was too late for that.
I remember thinking, I could be her, I could be that for you, but even as that thought was born, I realized how crazy it sounded. Maybe, I am crazy. Who would do such a thing? Who could pretend to be someone else just to experience a moment of togetherness with another human being?
The problem is, is that I don't know who I am. I thought I could get a glimpse into the life of someone who was cared for and worried about, instead of being me. I wondered, for a second, if I could simply assume that identity and hope that it would catch and hold, like the wick of a candle, and feel the illumination he reserved for someone else. I'm going to be remembered, now, as that crazy bitch who tried to be someone she wasn't. I can already hear him telling his friends about it.

"She pretended to be somebody else. What the fuck is wrong with people?"

I know what's wrong with me. I try too hard. I tried to give him what he wanted, even if it was just for a moment or two. I tried to care, even if it was wrong, and I tried to make him feel like it was okay that we hadn't talked in years, which is probably more than he would have heard if he'd met the real thing. I made it easy for him to get away with not keeping in touch. I told him that it was okay that he hadn't been around. I let him off the hook, which is more than he deserved. He couldn't see that, though. All he could see was the deception. If he'd looked harder he would have seen that I'm not a bad person. He was so focused on the lie that he couldn't see the truth behind it. And now? He'll never know. He walked away like I had ceased to exist. I'm nothing to him.

All the way home, I kept thinking about it. I daydreamed about the day that I see him again. I dreamed that we would meet and he would smile, in recognition, and pull me to the side of the stream and say, "You're the girl I met here, last year, aren't you? How have you been?" and I could say, "Yeah. I've been good. How about you? It's so good to see you."

Gourmet

2007-04-26T06:34:00.000-04:00

Nelson woke to the sound of his father's laughter. It was such a rare sound that for a moment he had no idea what it was. It wasn't until he heard his mother's voice answer that he remembered that he was in trouble again.
"Don't laugh. It's not funny. He made a bloody, goddamn mess all over my kitchen. It took me two hours to clean it up."

He was surprised that there was so much blood. It had unnerved him for a moment, but with a shrug he reached for another corpse, reminding himself that his mother often put paper towel down, under the cutting board, to sop up the 'juices'.

"It was like walking into a slaughter house. He had them lined up in a row and was working on them like some sort of mad scientist."

This provoked another howl from his father. Neslon smiled to himself in the darkness of his room where he had been since his mother came home from her jazzercise class. He wondered if his father would come in and sit on the edge of his bed and, with a smile, tell him not to scare the old bird like that. Then, they would laugh at her hysterical reaction and with a wink his father would say, "Now, how about some dessert to go with that dinner?" It seemed as likely as hearing his father laugh.

The house grew quiet and for a moment Nelson wondered if that was it. Then he heard his mother's voice again and he winced into the darkness.
"Would it kill you to take an interest in this family? All I want is for you to pretend you care about us every once in a while."
"What I care about is coming home to a hot meal. Do you think you could do that for me? I work my ass off every day for the two of you and I'd like to come home to a hot meal and some peace and quiet."
"Well, welcome to my world. What do you think I do all day? I work and then I come home and do you think all I want to do is clean up this goddamn pig-sty and cook a meal for you? And where were you? It's past nine. How many beers have you had? You think I wouldn't like to unwind after work? No, I get to come home and find that little monster playing Frankenstein in the kitchen."
Nelson sighed into the sheets. He'd only made things worse. He was so sure that his mother would appreciate him trying to help. The idea had come to him as he watched television a few days before, lying on the floor, trying to be quiet. His father pushed the buttons on the remote randomly and paused to watch a squat old lady put a plate of food down in front of an enthusiastic audience. His father had said, "That looks good. Why don't you ever cook like that?", to which his mother replied, "Just bring me the frogs."

Norman's Loss

2007-04-24T06:40:00.000-04:00

I heard the bottle drop from inside, where it sounded like a gunshot. All I could see through the doors was Norman circling the pile of shattered glass but I could hear Sophie wail into the night. They had been doing the huddle on the sidewalk, trying to hide their prize from the sharp eyes of the rest of the crowd and now it was splattered all over the pavement.
Norman's instincts took over first and he veered away from the mess without another word. Perhaps he knew there was no use bemoaning the disaster and still time to find some more money before the liquor store closed. Sophie was still keening into the wind and hadn't noticed that Norman was gone. She flailed her arms, making the most of the drama. When she noticed she was alone she stopped abruptly and shuffled after Norman without another sound.
I waited.

No one came to investigate. The wind howled down Cumberland and what was left of the tattered bag flapped, pinned under the glass.

I got up from my post and with a shout to my boss I pressed the security tab and the doors opened. I took a quick look around and didn't see a soul. Most of the glass was still in the bag which was dissolving in the rain and the booze but I managed to pick it up and drop it in the bin on the street corner. It was an ugly night; cold and windy with the rain coming down at a forty-five degree angle. That explained why no one noticed Norman's loss except for me. I stretched my hands to the sky, straightening my bent back, tired from four hours on the desk. It had been a slow night. When a storm comes in fast like that, the beds remain empty. It's a sad thing but most of the homeless find themselves too far away to get to the shelter and some of them even like to be out in storms like this. I can understand that. The wind and the rain will wipe the streets clean and you can't deny the hand behind it. Sometimes it can be a wonderful thing to behold. The force of it supersedes the will of the people and we all become one, indistinguishable and every one of us feeble and destitute. I like that.

With one last look up and down the street, I opened the doors and went back to my desk laughing to myself as I thought about it. Taking shelter in the shelter, I mean, when there is no shelter from the levelling hand of God. Norman was too drunk to pay attention to the message but I heard it, loud and clear. That's Norman's loss.

Every Dark Night Ends With the Sun

2007-04-22T02:15:00.000-04:00

The dog sat looking at his master, nervously pawing at the hand that hung from the arm of the chair. He was a shameless flatterer. He couldn't understand what was being said, obviously, but it didn't stop him from recognizing that the attention he was receiving was, at best, the lazy sort of regard. He hoped that by pawing at the hand and quickly standing, tail wagging, his message would be transmitted; I'm a good dog and you want to pay attention to me. He needed the attention.
It's a natural behaviour for a dog, I thought, but then dogs are simple creatures, whose reliance on their masters is necessary for their survival.
I decided I'd had enough and went to find my coat.

The night was warm, which was a cheerful notice that the unstable weather was abating. The uncertainty of the last of the winter months has an unnerving effect on everything. I was anything but cheerful, myself. I'd played at getting along for too long and drank too much. The fresh air helped my perspective and I walked along the street feeling my spirit lighten with every step. I was startled to hear my name being called and turned to see a girl running along to catch up with me. My mood darkened for a moment as I waited, not caring to pretend at civility, even for a few more minutes.
"Can I walk with you?" she said. She was breathless and I wondered why she had departed in such a hurry to catch me.
"Sure," I said. "You've had enough?"
"I've had enough," she said, falling into step beside me.

This life is the only game in town. You're playing whether you want to or not and the only difference between you and the winner is your methodology. I've been playing poorly for so long that I've racked up a considerable debt. That is the unfortunate side-effect of bluffing for too long. Eventually you bet it all without even looking at your cards, knowing that you can fool most of the table into giving you want you want. That doesn't make you a good player, however, it just makes you a good liar.

The hum of the distant highway settled into the background as I sat on the step and finished my last cigarette. The quiet at night is good for unwinding and replaying the day's events but nothing ever gets done until the sobering sun is up and the rest of world is open for business. I undressed for bed and made my list; don't beg, don't feign interest and don't lie. Every day has a lesson, I thought, as I fell into a restless sleep.

The Cool Light of Dawn

2007-02-18T06:18:00.000-05:00

Out of the cloud of dust sped Gord's pick-up. He skidded to a stop near the barn and yelled in my direction.
"This where you put him?"
"Good Morning, Gord. Yeah, that's where he is." I chuckled to myself.
Gord swung the door open and disappeared inside. Then all you could hear was the yelping of his seventeen year old son, David. It was the same hoarse voice that had wakened me the night before and scared the shit out of Becky. He was so drunk, he barely recognized me, nor did he complain much when I dumped him on the floor of the barn, about a half hour later. It took me that long to chase him down on the four-wheeler. At the time I wasn't too happy with him, but now, just as the sun was coming up, and as his father cuffed and pushed him into the back of the truck, I had to laugh at the how ridiculous he was.
Gord was furious. I could see the anger in his flat eyes as he strode towards me.
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I'll see that he re-pays you for any damage that he's done, and that he never does it again."
"Gord, please. He's lucky I didn't shoot him. If it hadn't been for the moon, I might have." The truth was, that I had known who it was long before I saw his bare ass flashing in the emergency lights that come on when they sense movement in the yard. And the fact that he'd been croaking Becky's name over and over again, in his half-man's voice, skipping in and out of range as he tripped through the corn stalks.
The sound of retching could be heard from the back of Gord's truck and Gord shut his eyes and put his head down.
"If we could keep this between us, I'd really appreciate it." His embarrassment was palpable, both from the sound of his voice, hushed and urgent, and from the barely discernible spread of a flush across his cheeks and neck.
"Of course, Gord. This is a family concern." I said, carefully. You don't antagonize a man like Gord. His pride carried him straight as a post and when it came to his son, his demeanor was often on the verge of cracking, his barely held fury sparkling just below his rough features. He was a very proud man.
As he spun the truck around and pointed it up the driveway, I saw a desperate hand reach up and clutch the side and I could barely hold my laughter in check. That boy was about to have a very bad day.
I heard the door open and shut behind me and Becky said, "Is he gone?"
"Yeah. He's gone." I turned to my youngest and levelled my best stare at her.
"What?" she said, too innocent, too quickly.
"I'll tell you what. You're playing with fire, young lady. Don't think, for a minute, that I don't know what's at the root of all this." I pointed to the chair behind her and she sat down sullenly, refusing to look at me.
"I didn't do anything. It was David. He's just a stupid kid." she said and I marvelled at how easily she lied to me. I wondered for a brief moment if my own mother could read me as clearly and I decided that I owed her an apology, the next time we spoke.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. The boys, before they grew up and started families of their own, were never this much trouble. I could read their expression's so clearly; they were transparent to me and as if they realized this, they never tried to sugar-coat the truth or lie their way out of trouble. I try to fill her with the same set of principles and morals that the boys accepted without question but she resists every attempt I make to instill in her a sense of self-awareness and pride. I sometimes wish her father was here. He might have been able to get past her defenses, but without him I'm on my own. I'm losing control of this one and I don't know what to do about that.

I sat for a long time, watching the horizon, watching the light change over the field, before I got up and went in to start breakfast. We sat, saying nothing, until it was time for her to get ready for school. And when the door slammed shut and she was gone I breathed a sigh of relief, happy that for a few hours I could pretend that my life was a simple one and that as I grew older and wiser, things made more sense to me. If only it were that easy.

The Slow Walk Home

2007-02-14T05:49:00.000-05:00

She swung through the market, happy and light. She wore a peasant skirt and flip-flops and an enormous bag was slung over her shoulder. She stopped at each and every stall to pick up a peach or inspect some radishes, buying what she thought was fresh and cheap. There were tables set up at either end of the street and in them mounds of handmade trinkets that the vendors swore were made in Guatemala by poor women trying to supplement their income. She knew they had been made, here, in some domestic workroom, in the basement, when the kids were asleep and hours before anyone else came home. She picked out a pair of earrings for herself and a second pair for her sister, who loved jewelry, especially if it was made in the poor countries, exotic and hot. She stopped at the coffee stand and drank a latte, standing beside Mr. Espresso (very urbane) and Ms. Cappuccino (tourist stamped all over her) and then marched on to the newsstand to get a copy of The Reflection. It contained an ongoing series of meditative exercises to combat bad skin and intestinal problems. Then she sat, to reflect on the disassociated and the weak-willed, on a bench that overlooked the small park sometimes confused for nature. When the tower clock struck five she stood and put her bag over her shoulder and walked down Murray Street, crossing Dalhousie, until the foot traffic thinned and the houses were residential, once more. She reached into the giant bag hanging from her shoulder and took out her keys and opened the door.

I know where she goes. I know where she lives. I understand her worries and her fears. The cyclical nature of her humours is evident in the way that her eyebrows move and the sharply defined creases around her mouth twitch in anticipation. I worry about her and I'm afraid something bad will happen to her when she least expects it. She has so many problems at home, things you and I might never have to contend with. I suppose that you might say she's no different from anyone else in this city, slowly collapsing under the weight of her mortality, but I say she should be spared that. Isn't that what redemption is for? I've heard her prayers to God, intercepted and deciphered. She calls for help and she calls for courage and she calls for an end to the perversion she sees around her. Just like I do. She's just like me. I know I can help her. I know so much more

My Good Reason

2007-01-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

She didn't even cry.

It was hot. The sky was cloudless and there was no wind at all. I kicked at the grass, digging a trench with my foot and leaving an 'M' for their left fielder to see, when the inning ended. If it ever ended.
I took off my glove to let the sweat on my hand air-dry and Black Lung Larry yelled at me to put it back on. The effort it took him to shout across the field provoked a coughing fit that made everyone in the bleacher shift uncomfortably on their seat. It was hard to listen to his gurgling breathing and see the expectorated phlegm that always followed one of his shouted encouragements.
I looked over at his son, Geoff, but he didn't seem to notice or care that his dad was hacking up a small piece of lung by the dugout. Maybe he didn't. He didn't care about much, except baseball.
A sharp crack caught my attention and I looked up just as she took the ball in the nose. She'd put her glove down as it skipped toward her but it caromed off a divot three feet in front of her and jumped her glove.
I started running before the ball hit the ground.

Her name was Joelle and her family lived in the trailer park on the highway. I had been in love with her since the first day I saw her. For reasons that seemed perfectly logical then, the teacher liked to seat the class in alphabetical order. That meant that for two years we sat beside each other. When the news that Mrs. Myers would move to the sixth grade along with the rest of us was read aloud to the class, I looked up and said thank you to the ceiling tiles. That gave me another year to work up the courage to speak to her.
As I remember it now, I didn't learn a thing in those two years. I was occupied by the complicated mathematics involved in maneuvering myself into the space next to her when we sat on the floor for the interactive reading sessions that took place every afternoon. I could have spoken to her, I suppose, but it never occurred to me. Really.

Middle school brought it all to an end. Things were very different there. The teachers spoke to us like adults. No longer the gentle foster parents to our blooming intellects, they sometimes didn't remember my name. No one ever forgot Joelle's name. The first song I ever wrote was called Joelle. As was the first story. And my bike.
Without the assistance of the alphabetically challenged Mrs. Myers, Joelle drifted out of my daily routine. The unfortunate growth spurt that followed squeezed my eyeballs into an oblong shape and I couldn't see the board from the back of the classroom anymore. The letter that my mother wrote, asking that I be allowed to sit at the front of the class, ended my lack-lustre performance in the rotating chair game that Joelle's random seating choices had created. Every day she sat in different seat and every day five or six boys rumbled for the one closest to her.
I make fun of her, sometimes, because she was so completely oblivious to what was going on around her. She thinks I'm exaggerating. I'm not, though.

It took me more than fifteen years to ask her out on a date, during which she confessed that she always thought I didn't like her. I never spoke to her and even after she'd made it clear to her girlfriends that she would sit beside me during the interactive reading sessions, a request which they all found odd, I didn't pay her any attention. She remembers her knee touching mine. That memory is seared into my brain as well but the flush of panic and excitement it caused me, she mistook for discomfort and dislike. I laughed so hard when she told me that, that I had to leave the table.

I was crossing the baseline just as the dust settled and the blood began to flow. She had her hands cupped underneath her nose trying, vainly, to stop the flow. Black Lung Larry surprised me by beating me to her; he didn't do anything fast. He was crouched beside her and looked up when I skidded into third. He told me to get back into the field. I looked around and saw that no one else had moved from their positions on the field. I slouched back to the field as Black Lung Larry helped her to the bench and I tried to ignore the laughter coming from the stands. Black Lung Larry's kid, Geoff, called me a doofus and the game was on.

For years, I believed that everyone knew I had a crush on her, except her. She tells me that the only person she remembers being there, was me.

She taught me that anyone can re-write a memory. You just need a good reason.

In the Eyes of the People

2007-01-23T07:02:00.000-05:00

He read the words again, not sure if he was translating correctly. When he was satisfied that he knew their meaning, he stood and with a gesture to Martinez, he strode into the main hall. It was the only room that could make him feel small.
The vaulted ceiling disappeared into the darkness above, but it didn't ease the apprehension he felt walking under the eyes painted there. He was careful to keep his face impassive, careful not to betray any sign of emotion; it was a practiced calm and fooled no one.
He stopped in the exact centre of the room, where the tiles had been worn to a dull sheen and that no amount of polishing could restore. His father had stood here, nearly thirty years before and held his head high as the bullets, smuggled from the camps hidden deep in the forest, ripped into his chest, his face and had pierced his right hand, leaving a perfectly round hole that was a clear and certain sign that he had the right to rule. That alone had put down the rebellion, spread the story and deified the man.
He waited and when he saw Martinez nod in his direction he spoke. He talked about the signs he had seen, the dreams that had held him captive for three days, the milky eyes that transmitted the gods wishes through telepathic means and then he fell silent.
There was no movement in the hall. Every breath was held tight between the lips of his people, his accusers. Minutes passed and then in the darkness above there was a flash of light and one of the eyes opened, then another, until all seventeen flooded the hall with the light of their purity, their remorse and their anger.
For long minutes, the room was held in stasis, outside the effects of time. Martinez' gaze never left his face and his finger never left the trigger of the pistol that was levelled at his President's head. After two or three minutes had passed he began to relax; the longer they waited almost always meant a resolution that would spare the man.
In those moments he seemed almost human, Martinez thought. Sweat creased his forehead and stained his shirt and he wavered, very slightly, as the effects of the sedatives struggled against his muscles, clenched tightly and protesting a lack of oxygen. Then, very slowly, the hue of the light changed and a soft amber glow began to infuse the room. It was the signal Martinez had been waiting for and he thanked the Gods for guiding his hands and raised the pistol into the air.

Thinking. It Could Save Your Soul.

2007-01-20T08:36:00.000-05:00

My long lost sense of humour turned up last night, wearing nothing but Mu-Mu and quoting Sufi poetry. As it settled in, after filling the laundry basket, I began to reflect on the last couple of months and now I see things in an entirely new light.

According to Bahá'u'lláh, our terrestrial life is a proving ground, of sorts, for our faith. Personal development is paramount in determining how close we get to sit to God when the recess bell rings.
I like that.

In the womb we slowly develop the tools (and limbs) we need to manipulate the outside world and by deduction, the tools we develop in this life will be a benefit when we shake loose the stink of this realm.
It was pointed out to me, recently, that our intellect, of which we are so fond, has no conceivable purpose to us now, as far as survival goes. For example: The Basarwa, or Bushmen, a people who have lived in approximately the same area for more than 22,000 years, have never felt the need for microwave ovens, Tomahawk missiles or vegetable steamers. These things simply aren't necessary for their survival. The only thing threatening them is the developed world, who see them as backward and standoffish. The Bushmen, however, just want to be left alone.
The argument I allude to indicates a purpose connected not to this world, but to the next. Think about it. Thumbs in the womb serve no purpose, but they still develop, well ahead of their necessity. It stands to (some) reason that our overly clever brains might have something to do with the next scene in our ever developing drama.
I don't mean to say that we'll need microwaves in the afterlife, although it might be nice if we have to heat something up in between genuflecting on the Almighty's smarts and thumbing our noses at those poor souls on the wagon train to Hell.
The argument goes that if we develop our intellect rationally and with a forward view, it might serve some purpose down the road. In that sense, the enormous amount of brain power we use to make life easier here could be better spent developing our capacity for self-realization.

But before you all toss out the baby with the bath water, think about what this says about the afterlife. It looks to me, if I was to accept what Bahá'u'lláh has said, that he might be guilty of a little wishful thinking.
While he would freely admit to having no idea what the Supreme Being has in mind for us, he's come up with his own vision of the afterlife and has been warning us to get ready for it. What if he's wrong?
What if God, while basically a nice guy, gets a kick out of watching things blow up? We were made in his image, after all. Maybe our intellect is an anomaly; an offshoot or mutation that survived because we also developed the ability to stand upright. Maybe our intellect just tagged along on the coat tails of some other genetic mutation and its appearance was accidental and serves no purpose.

It's interesting to think about the reasons for the development of the intellect and, although some of us seem to be putting it to good use, most of us won't. I, personally believe that we've just hit our terrible twos in our psychic development and that we've got a long way to go before we come close to gaining admittance into the ever-loving arms of the Creator.

In fact the question is moot, for me, because I don't believe there is a Creator. I told you my sense of humour just got back from a whirlwind tour, didn't I? It's barely finished unpacking and here I am putting it to work.

I Missed a Spot

2007-01-16T06:55:00.000-05:00

"Do you have an extra cigarette?"
I looked up from my paint brush and saw one of the welfare shut-ins, dressed in track pants and a t-shirt, with a hopeful look in his eyes. I get asked everyday. The contract to paint the building was paying the bills but I was spending the rest of it, right here, handing out cigarettes to every second person who walked by.
I stood up and stretched out my back. Hunched over for most of the morning, I wasn't in a good frame of mind and getting tired of the constant interruption.
"Nope. I ran out this morning." I was telling the truth but they never believe me when I tell them I'm out. If I had one and didn't want to give it up I'd simply say, "No."
"Hey, you missed a spot." he chuckled.

A few minutes later I heard the woman in apartment fourteen launch in to one of her tirades against her children. Apparently, she believed that the reason she was stuck in the endless loop of poverty, living amid society's broken and battered refugees, was the fault of her children. The kids immediately began to wail, their voices echoing down the halls of the dilapidated building.
I reached down and turned up the volume on my iPod to drown out the noise.

Yesterday, I was entertained by a freely offered guide to which building in the projects had the best quality drugs.
"You know that red building, at the end of the street?" said my guide.
I said that I did.
"Don't ever buy pot in there. It's all skunk, man."
"I'll keep that in mind." I say, turning back to my work; seventy-five feet of chair rail on one of eight floors.
He nodded seriously, as if he had just saved my life and it was all in a day's work.
He closed the door behind him and, right on cue, the volume of his stereo went up until I wondered how he could hear anything at all, anymore.

Day after day, I find myself face to face with teen aged mothers, drunk and disorderly malcontents, drug dealers whose doors swing wide a couple of times every hour and elderly grandmothers who have been lost, discarded and forgotten in a world where few work and anyone who does is a chump.
There are other stories, too. There are the unfortunate accidents, that have resulted in near destitution; some of the residents need help and will never get it. It's also true that some of the people who live here are hiding out. They're hiding from their sorrows and from their inability to cope in this world. They hide from creditors, their families and from the light of day.

Most of my days are like that. Some of them are better.

I could hear someone tapping on the front door of the building, as I changed floors, and saw cigarette guy grinning at me. He'd found someone who would give him some smokes.
"Thanks, man. It's freezing out there." he said when I let him in. Why he had gone out without his keys was a mystery. He wasn't even wearing a coat.
"You found a smoke." I congratulated him.
"Yeah, I got two."
"Good for you, man." I said as I turned back to my paint pail.
"Here." He said. "One of these is for you."
He handed me one of them, precious to him, I supposed.
"We got to take care of each other, man." he said with a smile.
"Thanks." I said, surprised, and he was gone down the hall.
I went back to work, thinking about why someone with next to nothing would go out of his way to be nice to me. I know people with lots of money who wouldn't do that. It was refreshing in a place where the Darwinian rules of nature are so fearsomely observed. I have to admit that this place scares the hell out of me, for reasons that have nothing to do with the violence that is so common, here.
"Hey." he was back.
"Hey." I answered.
"You need some matches. I found a pack. You can keep them." He tossed them at me and disappeared again.

On the other hand, people are people, and like anywhere else, you'll find something good if you look hard enough.

Simple Sleep

2007-01-14T11:25:00.000-05:00

The sidewalk was a muttering mess of drunken girls and hopeful boys. Their loud cursing and jostling was a wake up, to me, after an evening of relative calm. I walked the line of empty cabs until I reached the one in front and I pulled open the door and got in. As I swung the door shut, a hand held it and a face appeared in the opening.
It was distorted by hours of carelessly downing shooters and flushed with a near collapse of self-control. She tried to focus her eyes on my face and, somewhere, in the rickety assemblage of recognition and preservation she realized that I wasn't who she expected to see.
I said nothing. The seconds passed as her weakened synapses struggled to connect, and finally, she said,"This is my cab."

We joked about it, the cabbie and I. He told me that it had been a bad night for fighting and arguments. As he dropped me off in front of my house, I tried to recollect what she had said, right before her legs gave out.

I had said, "This is my cab." mimicking her tone and demeanor. She weaved to the left as she tried to process the words I had spoken and somewhere in her fogged brain she understood that I was mocking her.
"Don't ap a tor this is condition to go." she said.
I have to admit that I laughed at her, out loud. Not at her slurred words and the broken text of her understanding, but because of the indignant look she gave me, assigning every last harsh word anyone had ever spoken to her a subtext that hurt her feelings, as unjustified as the first time words had cut her down.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not cruel and careless with strangers. I understand that sometimes our real reasons for getting blind drunk disguise themselves as a desire to have fun and celebrate rather than to crack open long held grudges and release a bit of steam. She'll survive but she won't feel very good about it, later.

I put the key into the lock and I felt a wave of sorrow pass by me, seeking a home, somewhere to rest. I shrugged it off and closed the door on it. I'll get my turn, just not tonight. Right now, the balm I seek is simple sleep.

May My Feet Find Purchase in This Rocky Soil

2007-01-13T07:04:00.000-05:00

Nelson pulled into the Fifth Wheel and parked his car across the lot from the idling transport trucks. He felt like a trespasser, an outsider, and the sullen looks of disapproval he received from the occupants, a waitress and her only customer, reinforced that feeling.
His exaggerated politeness failed to impress the waitress when she came to take his order and, desperate, he decided to tell her a joke.
"What has four legs and a moustache?" he said, hopefully.
The girl sighed as she picked up the menu.
"Nothing on this menu. What can I get you?"
Nelson ordered a smoked meat sandwich and vowed to keep his mouth shut until he was done his sandwich.
The girl placed his order with the unseen cook and went back to her conversation at the counter. She smiled as she sat down across the counter from the big man, who was wearing a hunting jacket and a thick down vest that reflected the dim light, causing him to glow slightly.
Nelson squinted his eyes and moved his head back and forth, creating streaks of colour and blurry washes of light that smeared the interior of the diner with a much more hopeful ambiance, he thought. He opened his eyes all the way and found the trucker and the girl staring at him with no sign of indulgence in their eyes. He quickly looked down at the table.
The shellacked surface was transparent and Nelson saw that trapped there,forever, inside the table top, were leaves, all brightly coloured, advertising a variety of local trees. He let out his breath in a slow whistle as his eyes darted from one leaf to the next, ignoring the names printed under each.
"Those leaves are the reason so many people come up here, in the fall. We get a spectacular show, all around us, every year."
Nelson looked up and saw a woman holding his food, not a girl, like the distracted waif at the counter, but a vibrant and full-bodied woman in the prime of her sexual awakening. He smiled and let loose the predator inside.
"I suspect they come here just for a sight of the most beautiful woman in town." he purred.
"Well, aren't you observant. Here's your sandwich, sweetie. If you need anything else, you just call out my name. I'm Isabel." said Isabel as she set down the plate in front of Nelson.
Nelson took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he openly took in every inch of her full figure.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Isabel. My name is Nelson. Can I ask you if you know a place where someone like me might find a drink and some pleasant company?"
Isabel frowned down at Nelson, not at all disturbed by his perusal, and said, "What you need is someone who can show you the sights."
"I was just thinking the same thing, Isabel."

It has been said that a man, in his last hours, gains a clarity of mind that allows him to reflect openly and honestly about his life. Sometimes, the raw and emotionless reflection affirms a lifetime of intention in a positive way and sometimes a man gets a chance to contemplate the decisions he's made and is allowed a final breath to atone for the way he's lived. Nelson didn't get a chance to do either, as it happened. He did, however, learn one final lesson about obsession. He also learned that time and space don't mean a thing to the hounds of retribution and that vengeance travels faster than the speed of a 1978 Pacer.

Nelson whispered the words to a song that had floated free from the distressed tissues of his brain but couldn't remember what it meant nor did he notice that it was disassociated from any purpose. His head lolled forward and through his swollen eyes he glimpsed shuttered exposures of a woman methodically poring over the pages of a book on medical procedures.
He no longer felt the biting pinch of the ropes that held his ankles and his wrists, though he had rubbed them raw, trying to escape in the first hours of his confinement. His pleas were exhausted and his cries didn't have the strength to pass his split and bloodied lips. He could no longer count on his tired muscles and his arms jerked reflexively away from his body, although she hadn't touched the crackling end of the cattle prod to him in some time.
He gurgled the words, roughly cadenced, against some internal metronome that had escaped damage in the preceding hours, cordoned off in a remote corner of his brain and where the pain had yet to find purchase. Although he couldn't discern the meaning of the verses he mouthed, somewhere, down the seldom used paths in his brain, images associated themselves with the words and he found himself, crouched in the dirt, in the back yard of the house where he grew up.
From behind him, he heard a voice calling his name and when he looked up he saw his mother, pinning the laundry to the line and then shunting it out over the yard and his head. He leaned back and looked up at the sky, blue patched clouds and layered streams of gauze describing a beach front complete with white capped waves coming in, and in his imagination, a dog whose name he couldn't remember.
"Nelson," called his mother, "I think it's time you came in, now. I think it's going to rain."
And then he felt a jolting shock that rocketed up his spine and propelled him into that sky completely untethered by the weight of his body. As he rose into the heavens he looked down and saw his mother, her head back and her hand held up to block the light of the fading sun, and she held up the other hand in a wave and said, "I'm sorry, Nelson. I should have taken better care of you."
Nelson didn't understand what she meant by that, but by then he had stopped trying to condition his vision with meaning and he released the breath that he had been holding and felt lighter than the air.
Then, coming from a long way off, he heard the heavens expand and contract and he recognized the oscillation of words as they were forming.
"You still don't recognize me, do you?"
Nelson tried to turn his head toward the voice and felt another wave of pain explode over his head and run on tendrils throughout his extremities. He was in a small room, quite bright, and peering into a woman's face, her eyes cold and without compassion.
"Isabel." he spit out the name that came to him.
"No. Not Isabel. My name is Loreen, Nelson. It took me a very long time to understand why you treated me so badly. Eventually, I just gave up on you. Imagine my surprise when you walked into the dinner. You walked right into my arms after all these years. And finally, I can make you pay for what you did."
Nelson's head reflexively snapped back and in the early light of dawn Loreen saw that he was gone. There wasn't any sign that he had heard her admission and there was no longer any sign that he could feel the pain she was inflicting on him. With a final sigh, his body slumped in the chair and would have fallen to the floor had it not been bound. Her eyes hardened as she realized that he was going to escape her and she let out a cry of frustration as his lifeless body relaxed. Nelson left her again.

"Nelson, I'm so sorry."
"That's okay, mom. I didn't really want to go to the museum, anyway. Ritchie Clark said he went there once and it was pretty boring."
"But, you've been looking forward to it all week. This is all your father's fault. If he hadn't taken the car we'd be there by now. I should have asked Mrs. Plaintree to drive us." His mother stopped and Nelson looked up at her.
"I know what we can do."
"What?" said Nelson.
"Let's go to the Palisades and get some ice cream."
"Ice cream?" Nelson tried to inflect his voice with the just the right amount of innocence and yearning.
"Yeah. That would be a nice treat, wouldn't it?" she said, her words dissipating into the air as the light faded to black.

Loose Ends

2007-01-10T07:15:00.000-05:00

When the old woman passed away there was no one to call, no one to inform and, worst of all, no one to take care of the funeral arrangements. When Perl found an address amongst the old womans belongings for a William Berber in Smith's Falls, he had the operator check it and he had the telephone number in minutes. When Mr. Berber arrived, less than an hour later, Perl finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. In his business, loose ends spelled disaster.
William Berber was prompt in his arrival and equally prompt in pushing aside Perl to stalk from room to room, seemingly looking for something. When Perl asked Mr. Berber if he wanted to see the deceased Berber grunted. Unsure what that meant, Perl asked again and Berber said "No, I don't want to see the deceased."
Confused, Perl followed Berber around the house, worried that he might have pulled one of those figurative ends loose. When Berber's hurried search failed to turn up what he was looking for, he strode to the bottom of the stairs, tucked behind a mouldy armchair, and pulled on the door handle only to find it locked.
"Open this door." said Berber. He didn't turn when he spoke. He simply waited for Perl to comply, staring at the thinly panelled door.
"Exactly how do you know the deceased, Mr. Berber?" asked Perl. He searched the ring of keys in his hand for the one that would open the door.
"Didn't." was all Berber said.
"Well, Mr. Berber, I'm sure I can't let you into that room. I assumed you were a relative and had come to handle the funeral preparations. You understand, I can't find any living relatives of the deceased." Perl took a step back as Berber wheeled around and pushed past him.
Perl breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the man was leaving. He followed Berber into the kitchen but drew himself up short when he realized that the man was rummaging through the drawers, and he became alarmed when Berber took up a knife and returned to the bottom of the stairs.
"What are you doing, Mr Berber? I can't allow you to do this. There are considerations to be met, Mr Berber. Who will assume responsibility for the affairs of the deceased?" Perl's voice rose in alarm as he stammered out his objections but Berber ignored him and wiggled the knife into the lock.
"I have a key, Mr. Berber." Perl shrieked, more alarmed at the break and enter taking place right in front of him than the dead body being ignored in the next room.
Mr. Berber turned and snatched the ring of keys from Perl's hand and quickly found the one that fit the ancient lock.
"Perhaps you can tell me what it is you're looking for, Mr. Berber. I have inventoried the entire house and made a list of all the valuables. I assure you that there is nothing of interest in that room, sir." Perl bounced up and down, trying to see over Berber's broad shoulders and his progress with the lock. With a snap it opened and Berber tossed the keys behind him, only missing Perl by an inch or two.
"Mr. Berber. I insist that you stop this at once. I will be forced to call the police if you don't tell me what is going on, here."
Berber forced open the sagging door and was gone up the stairs before Perl finished his complaint. From below Perl could hear Berber methodically upending boxes and pushing aside the many coatracks, hung with winter clothes that likely hadn't been outside in years.
Then, the noises stopped and shortly, Berber came down the narrow stairs with a large vase in his ape-like fists.
"Mr. Berber, I did not invite you here for a looting spree. A woman is dead and there doesn't seem to be any one who will take this responsibility off my hands. I expected you to do that." Perl looked up Berber as he brushed past, silent and grim, his hands wrapped around the thin neck of the vase.
"I can't allow you to remove anything from the house, Mr. Berber. I must insist that you give that to me." Perl attempted to run around the massive bulk of Berber before he could reach the door, but Berber simply manhandled him aside and was outside before Perl could stop him.
"Mr. Berber, I'm calling the police if you don't return with that piece right now." Perl yelled at Berber's back.
Berber stopped, at that, and turned to face Perl, who hadn't expected his plea to be heard. Berber held up the vase with both hands and said, "Belongs to my mother. Don't care about nothing else." and he walked off.
Perl ran to the telephone, fully intending to call the police and have them stop Berber before he got away, but as he picked up the receiver he looked out the window and noticed a passenger in the truck Berber was climbing into. If he hadn't been sure of the identity of the woman stretched out on the bed in the next room he would have sworn that it was her, sitting on the seat of Berber's truck.
Berber handed the woman the vase as he got in and Perl saw her clutch it to her chest. She said something to Berber, who simply nodded in answer and then he put the truck into gear and was gone.
Perl stood with the reciever in his hand, staring out the window, wondering what he should do. Finally, he roused himself and put down the receiver. He looked around the room dejectedly and then he noticed something he had passed over before.
He went to the mantle and picked up a dusty photograph that rested there. In it, he could see the deceased as she must have appeared in her teenaged years and beside her there was a girl who shared the exact same features. "Twins" he said to himself. That was the obvious explanation for the uncanny resemblence between the poor deceased and the woman in Berber's truck, thought Perl. He smiled to himself, happy that he had solved the mystery but then he remembered where he was. This was not the time or the place for levity.
He returned the photograph to the mantle, methodically straightened his shirt and jacket, adjusted his necktie and lastly, carefully returned the room to its pre-Berber state. Then he bent to pick up the ring of keys Berber had thrown at him and he locked the door at the foot of the stairs.
Everything was, once again, in its place and if he could somehow forget the rough and tumble intrusion of Mr. Berber, the stolen vase and the mystery of the woman in the truck he could be satisfied that everything was as it should be. No more loose ends, he thought. In his business, loose ends spelled disaster.

In Memory

2007-01-09T14:58:00.000-05:00

Two years have come and now gone. When I woke this morning, I sat on the edge of my bed and I wondered how I ever made it this far. I still don't know.

Nothing will dull the ache that I feel. I don't have the words to describe it.

I do, however, have the words to describe the love I still feel. It is ever-present. With the light of each new day I remember the light of days past and with it the memories of Beth. The pictures I have can show me the smile I miss. I can remember the day it was taken, where it was taken and why. I remember what she said to me and I remember how I felt looking at her, being with her and being in love.
More vivid is the feeling of her near me. The feeling that your senses supply even when you're not looking for it. The nearness, the touch and the quiet assurance that comes from being with someone who has changed your life in profound ways. If I close my eyes I can feel her, still there, chatting about her day, laughing at my bad jokes and then, for a second and sometimes more, I can feel her slip her hand under my arm and take my hand. She's not so far away.

I got up and I made myself a cup of coffee and sat at the desk and wondered what I could say that I haven't already said. Then I realized that words aren't neccessary. That all I need to do is shut my eyes and she's there. She always was and she always will be.

The Scorcher and the One Punch Wonder

2007-01-06T09:44:00.000-05:00

"Here he comes."
I turned to see Brian coming down the stairs. He paused, looking around, and when he saw me, he set his shoulders, as if he was bracing himself, and then he waved.
It was a curious thing, that wave. His face was rigid with anger and yet he waved at me, as if he were caught half-way between the two extremes that had defined our relationship since I married his sister.
"Brian." I nodded to him as he stepped onto the platform where I was waiting for the ball return to spit out my ball.
"Fuck you." he said just before he swung his fist and caught me on the side of the head. I didn't bother trying to get out of the way.

Twenty centuries ago the Greeks entwined the heat of summer with the brilliance of Sirius. I like the expression 'Dog Days of summer' because of the lyrical association with our canine companions. Dogs have the right idea when it comes to dealing with the heat.
I looked out over the lake for a long time with nothing more on my mind than the easy contemplation of the luxury of rest. The trees sizzled in the breeze and the water undulated hypnotically, both lulling me towards sleep. Occasionally, I looked around and for a few moments I wondered about getting up and going to the house for a beer. I decided that a swim would be more refreshing and hauled myself out of the hammock.
I dove into the lake from the dock and when I surfaced she was there, treading water and watching me. She smiled at me.
When the bonfire began to sputter and most of us were asleep in our chairs or crowded into one of the two cabins, I took her hand and we melted into the darkness.

I understand Brian's concern. Rather, I understand, in a general way, what he means when he talks about the fierce and irrational feelings of anger and machismo he falls victim to when he feels that something is threatening his family. I'm not much of a threat, really.

I've always believed that growth comes not from the simple lessons we pass along to our children but from the horrors that penetrate the psyche as life unfolds, revealing disappointment and sorrow, standing in stark defiance to the hopes and dreams most of us will take, unfulfilled, to the damp earth. The true measure of a meaningful life is the desire to continue after all hope has been eradicated. Once the needless and uncertain belief in the right to happiness is extinguished, the wonder of simply breathing casts a clear light into the recesses of the mind.

It is important to remember that the dog days of summer are short but full.

Another Kick at the Can

2007-01-02T07:04:00.000-05:00

What is most remarkable about the end of 2006 is that we appear to have survived at all. The news yesterday, the 'litany of shit', as Gordon put it, detailed horror after horror and yet here it is the second of January and life goes on.
In that vein, so also does the endless need to lighten my load via this space, A Thousand Words (with Rob) and the newest edition to my slowly developing empire, the Mourning Kitchen.
My New Year's resolution might be to post a little more frequently than I have in the past couple of months but I'm too old to make promises I can't necessarily keep. I'll give it a shot, though.
I hope everyone celebrated the passing of the year appropriately and is looking forward to a fresh start, this morning.
Everything looks the same but something feels different. That bodes well for us all, I hope.

Red House, Winter

2006-12-28T06:58:00.000-05:00

The house looked like any other red brick farmhouse except for the ornamental cornice above each window. These were done in the oriental style and seemed exotic to me. It seemed out of place in this village, which was far from exotic and closer to safe, conservative and, to me, boring.
I stood on the sidewalk across the street and measured the view. It was winter, 1924, and the snow piled across the eaves, threatening to smother the oddity with the bland sameness that had so successfully routed adventure in every corner of this place.
I wont repeat the words that the others used to describe the unusual facade, simply because to do so would be to propagate a disease of the strange and spread fear of the unknown.
I marveled at the courage and the fortitude of the mind that built it, admiring the will that stretched and bent the mores of our little inbred society and championed difference and individuality.
I returned the next day with my pad and pencils and quickly sketched the house, the trees that hung over the walkway, threatening collapse because of the laden branches and I did not forget to include the rows of tenements in the back ground, the perfect antithesis to the wonder of invention.
One detail marked this portrait of rural bliss as a wonder, to me, and since that day I have seen the detail that man marks his world with. As they say, "The Devil is in the detail.", and all men are devils.

Here And There

2006-12-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

The patterns in the ice refract the lights from the street and create a swirling cascade of colour inside the cab. Through a small hole, clearing on the glass, I can make out the sign for the Bramasole Cafe and we cross Bank street.
Before I left, someone took my hand and asked me if I was okay. I mumbled that I was, not wanting to explain the confusing streaks of sorrow that are beginning to obscure my view. There's nothing anyone can do.
In the picture, the water is the same colour as the sky, separated only by a wide swath of green trees halfway up. She is behind me, with her arms wrapped around my chest, her mouth close to my ear. If I close my eyes I can smell her hair and feel her leaning against me. And if I concentrate I can hear her laughter, abrupt and sweet.
"Here?" the cab driver says.
Here. I am here.
I am there, too. I guess I always will be.

Greatest Hits

2006-12-14T09:47:00.000-05:00

"You are looking good, my young friend." he said.
"I'm feeling good, C.G." I answered.
The place was a mess and it was late for company, but some of my visitors don't come in through the door and I haven't figured out how to advertise my waking hours to the world that knows no time.
"What's going on? Is something wrong?" I asked him. I had just pulled myself out of bed, my throat dry and my eyes cluttered, and had stumbled across him going through my cd collection.
"What is this?" he asked me, avoiding my question.
"Uh...that is the greatest hits of Curtis Mayfield."
"The most popular of his recordings?"
"You got it. Do you want to hear something?"
"And I'd like coffee. Do you have coffee?"
"Yeah, no problem."
I put the cd in the tray and shuffled into the kitchen to make some coffee.
I heard him grunt to the opening strains of the beautifully haunting 'The Makings of you'. It's a song that I've always loved.
As Curtis' grainy falsetto filled the room I could see C.G.'s eyes widen. It had the same effect on me the first time I heard it.

"Do you have a 'greatest hits'?" he asked me. I could see his foot tapping to the infectious grooves of 'Move on up'. I smiled to myself.
"No. I don't. I'm not a recording artist."
"I don't mean musically. Literal, always so literal."
"A 'greatest hits'? I don't know. That's an odd question." I told him.
"Bah!. No such thing as an odd question. This is good." he said pointing to the mug of coffee sitting in front of him.
"You hate my coffee. What's going on, C.G.? Why are we sitting here listening to Curtis Mayfield, drinking coffee and exchanging pleasantries at three in the morning? Are you sure you're all right.?"
He said nothing for a minute and I couldn't help but be transported by Mayfield again.

I knew from a very young age that music was what I wanted from life. The expression, the rhythm, the words, the message and something inexplicable in the way it pockets a part of my imagination and removes doubt from my mind has affected me in a profound way since I was a kid. It has carried me all my life. It has been a part of my coping mechanism and helped me define myself.
"Now you know why I play bass." I said to him at the opening strains of 'Freddie's Dead'. He nodded and smiled, his head cocked, following the suggestion and answer in the flow of the bass line.
"And so? Your 'greatest hits'?" he smiled an unusually cocky smile at me.
"I don't know, C.G."
"I understand. "
"Well, I don't. What are you up to?"
"Can you play that first song again?"

"The love of all mankind should reflect some sign of these words I've tried to recite." Curtis sang. "They're close but not quite, almost impossible to do, reciting the makings of you."

"Can you do it?"
"It might be a short list."
I had almost forgotten that he was there, sitting so quietly with his coffee perched on the arm of the chair. It was nearly four o'clock and my eyes were drooping again.
"Nonetheless."
"Okay. I'll do it. Now, can I go back to bed?"
"Do you mind if I stay and listen to Mr. Mayfield?"
"You like it, eh?" I said. For some reason, that made me happy.

The Truth and The Consequences

2006-12-07T10:53:00.000-05:00

Jeanette Walker surprised me by jumping out from behind the fence that runs along the McCoy’s yard. That’s what started it all. I let out a squeaky scream and dropped a book about airplanes that I had been carrying. Everybody heard it, so I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t been scared and almost immediately Albert Moody started making fun of me. He was a jerk but everybody thought he was cool because if you didn’t, he’d beat you up.
I honestly can’t say that I know why I did it, but I called him an asshole, and even as the words were coming out of my mouth I knew I was in trouble. Maybe it was Jeanette standing there with a smug and satisfied smile on her face, or maybe it was just that I’d had enough. Whatever the reason, it was out there and now I’d have to deal with it.
“What did you call me?” said Albert.
I sighed inwardly and then looked around to see if anybody was likely to help me out. They weren’t. My friends, loyal and true up until a minute ago, were disappearing one by one into vapour and I felt, not for the last time, the sting of loneliness in the face of adversity. There was really only one way to deal with this.
“I called you an asshole, Moody.” I said, hoping my voice didn’t break. It didn’t and I saw, for a brief second a chance for rescue from my situation because Albert seemed a little confused. I don’t think anyone had ever stood up to him before and he was taken aback. He didn’t let his confusion get the better of him, though, and he only paused for a second before he punched me in the nose.

Later, as I plodded home, my nose stuffed with tissue to stop any more blood from staining the front of my shirt, I wondered what made people like Albert Moody so mean. I assumed it was because his parents were mean to him.
The Moody house was famously off limits for anyone not associated with the family. There were two German Shepherds that reinforced that, chained to the bumper of a rusted out pick-up truck in their front yard. In those days if a dog bit you it was your fault, not the dog’s.
My friends and I would give a wide berth to the property, walking a block out of the way to get to Main Street and the arcade.
The arcade was the place to be and it was full of pinball machines not video games. I know some of you will find that hard to believe but pinball was all we had, back then. When Space Invaders was unleashed on the world I thought I’d seen just about everything. I remember walking about five miles down the railway tracks to Kanata just to play Space Invaders.
It wasn’t the pinball machines that made the arcade cool, it was just where we hung out, at least until one of the Moody’s came along. Then we’d have to leave. They were tough and mean and there was always more of them at home.
It seemed like the supply of Moody’s never ran out but I think there were five boys ranging in age, at that time, from twelve to nineteen. It was no wonder that at forty Mrs. Moody looked like she was seventy. There was no Mr. Moody. We assumed that he had been killed in a heist or something. In those days most people lived in misery rather than divorce so it was unthinkable that he'd just walked out one day.

That Albert Moody had punched me in the nose was not very news worthy. Albert Moody was always punching someone in the nose. It was that right after he punched me in the nose that something snapped in me. I don’t really remember what happened. I just know that while the pain of being punched in the nose, and it hurts believe me, was coursing through me I started swinging and caught Albert napping. He’d never had to worry about someone punching him back before and here I was coming at him flailing my arms like a wild man. He just stood there until I clipped the side of his head and he went down in a heap.
No one moved for a minute. My friends, my disappearing friends, suddenly stopped disappearing and became solid again. Jeanette Walker’s mouth was hanging open as she stared at Albert lying on the ground. The birds flying high above stalled in mid-air and twisted their heads to see what was going on and the wind stopped blowing to see what the fuss was. Time stood still and five people were trapped, unable to move, speak or even think. The impossible had happened. Someone had knocked out Albert Moody and that someone was me. The world stood still.
As nonchalantly as I could, I stooped and picked up my book. It was about airplanes, something I couldn’t get enough of at the time. I brushed it off and adjusted my jacket. Then I looked at Albert Moody, lying on the ground, trying to re-gain his senses and I said, “Yeah, You’re an asshole.” And then I walked off.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. I believed that at any moment the door of my room would be kicked open and I’d be hauled out of bed by the Moody clan and strung up from the nearest tree. I really believed it. But it didn’t happen. In fact nothing happened.
The next day at school Albert Moody went about his business of harassing people just for the fun of it. If a girl didn’t cry at recess and a boy didn’t get sent to the nurse with a bloody nose then it was a bad day for Albert. He didn’t look at me or even acknowledge my existence. Nothing happened. There was no reprisal from any of the Moody’s that day or any day after that.
Now I know it was because it never happened, at least as far as Albert Moody was concerned. If you could find him today and ask him about it he’d deny that there was even a fight. He would deny ever knowing me.
The world is what we make it, after all, and Albert Moody wasn’t about to let one wild punch change anything. The truth of anything can be tested by examining the consequences. Who knows? Maybe it never really happened at all.

The Dead And The Dying

2006-12-02T08:29:00.000-05:00

High above the world, restrained and insolent, courage lacks the force of intent, seemingly emasculated by the vacuum of space, withered by the distance that separates our souls and keeps alive the truth of our insulation. The plaintive calls that leak across the expanse of space and time in a trickling stream of desire seem weak and ineffective; too quiet for anyone to hear. And all the while, curiosity sings an endless refrain in the back of the skull, teasing a reaction from the grumbling, dissatisfied captor of our dualistic spirit. It's a no-win situation.
The radio hummed in the background but I didn't pay it any attention. The snow on the windshield made it hard to see where the road ended and the wide world began. I absently took out a cigarette but before I could light it she interrupted my thoughts to say, "Please don't smoke in here."
Okay. I didn't want one anyway. It's something I do to keep my hands moving. To keep my mind numb and my body quiet.
I stared across the empty fields and thought about the long winter ahead. I wondered about the ceaseless revolution of seasons that turns innocent thoughts into sinister intent. I read into every gust of wind an accusation and criticism. I'm afraid of those nights when the mottled sky darkens too soon and the stiff appetite of my imagination ingests the sorrow held frozen in the furrows waiting for spring.
"You're quiet, tonight." she said to me.
I understand her concern for me. I haven't made it easy for anyone. And I lie about it all the time. I can see in her face the frustration of her growing distraction. I wish I could erase it and see her fresh and full of the thoughtless happiness that was once there. But all I can do is sit here in this car, driving across these barren fields, going somewhere, I don't know where, to do something I can't put my finger on, and stare out the window instead of looking at her, the only person I really want to see.
Restrained and insolent, my dreams lack the force of intent.

The Gentleman Daydreamer

2006-11-28T09:11:00.000-05:00

She curled her fingers around the handle and raised her arm, pointing the gun at the centre of his chest. She was surprised at how heavy it was. As her arm began to shake she worried that he would think she was frightened. She managed a quick self-deprecating thought; she was frightened, but she was also determined and with that she squeezed the trigger.
Her world exploded with the concussion. The recoil jerked her arm up and back and she staggered a step or two and tried to focus on where he had been. She was shocked to see him still standing there with a lewd grin on his face and she realized that she had missed him. No one ever missed on television, she thought.
He hadn't moved. He just stood there, defying her with a smile and then he came towards her and before she could raise her arm again, he took the pistol from her hand.
"I'm still here," he said, as he safetied the gun, "and now you're going to stop this and get over there with the others." He paused to look at her and added, "Unless you want me to try. I won't miss, though."
And then he turned away and walked to the counter. With his back to them he could let go of the muscles that had hardened into a grin. He felt sick and his heart was beating so hard he couldn't hear his own thoughts. He rested his hands on the counter and took a deep breath. He had never been so close to death and he didn't like the feeling.
Things had gone so far wrong. A security guard lay on the floor with a gunshot wound in his leg. His whimpering was distracting. And now another one of them had very nearly ended his life.
In thirteen banks he had been quick and successful; in and out before anybody knew, except for the unlucky cashier he had chosen, and he was gone long before the police arrived. He didn't even carry a gun. He had surmised that if he was unarmed he would be safer than if he stormed the door with an assault rifle. He was polite. He had never even raised his voice. He was the perfect gentleman bandit and now someone had nearly shot him.
He knew that he was in very serious trouble. After the teller had screamed and the security guard had shot himself in the leg trying to pull out his gun, all hell had broken loose. And how does a suburban housewife find the courage to pick up a revolver and point it at a man she doesn't even know?
And now he was screwed. After the guard shot himself he had fought for control, yelling that he had a gun and would kill anybody who moved. It wasn't true but they didn't know that.
Except that now he did have a gun.
Things have gone so far wrong, he thought, as the sound of police sirens filled the air, rising above the crying and terrified screams of the customers and other employees.

"You're telling me that, even in your own daydreams, you're a failure?"
"Go to hell, Ricky."
"That's hysterical. "
"Well, what would you do?"
"I'd go out shooting, man. No one's gonna put me in a cage."
"Sure you would."
"I would, man. Then I'd pick up that little chickie who tried to shoot me and I'd carry her off into the sunset."
"That's way more gay than I wanted."

He turned and pulled the gun from his waistband and pointed it at her.
"Get up and don't say a word or I'll shoot you right here."
She stood up and as she looked at him she smiled wickedly. She felt flushed and alive with excitement. She pursed her lips and cocked one hip towards him.
"Let's get out here." she said.
The late afternoon rush hour traffic was brought to a standstill by the blazing gun battle and using her as a shield he pushed his way through the line that cordoned off the bank. They commandeered a car, pulling the startled driver out of his seat and dumping him on the sidewalk. Before she got in she reached down and patted the startled man's head. "Good dog." she said and then they climbed in to the car and sped off into the distance.

"Jesus, that's so unbelievable."
"What the hell do you know about believable? A gentleman bandit? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. "
"Shut up and pass me a beer, man. You don't know shit about realism."
"I know you're an idiot. That's real."

She reached across the space that separated them and slipped her hand under his shirt.
"I'm so hot, right now." she whispered.
"Not now, baby, I'm trying to drive."
The lights of the cars following faded into the distance and the sirens had long since been silenced as the cops realized they'd never catch these two.
The detective stepped from the car and leaned against the door as he watched the taillights disappear into the desert.
"I'll find you, someday. You can't hide forever."
After all, he wasn't the top daydream cop for nothing.

Wellington Walker

2006-11-20T08:55:00.000-05:00

My brother Steve once stole one of the legal pads I used to write in and then, sitting at the kitchen table while my mother served up her famous chicken and dumplings, began to read a story that I'd written about a dog that can talk to his master. After that I began to hide everything I wanted kept secret in a trunk at the foot of my bed. It had a padlock on it and I had the only key. It cost me two weeks worth of allowance, but I've never had to sit through another dinner like that. I was humiliated, not because it was a bad story, but because in my family you just didn't do things like write stories.

My mother was impressed, I think. She had no idea that I could write a story, much less fill pad after pad with ideas. She seemed amused that one of her sons could have invented something from nothing.
My father was much less impressed and before my brother could get to the part where the dog becomes the master and makes his owner walk on all fours and wear a collar, he confiscated the pads and I never saw them again.

It was probably a good thing. By the time I sat down to re-write it, almost twelve years later, I had forgotten most of the story, but the central idea survived and it became the basis for my first novel.
In it a dull witted teenage boy steals a book and in it finds a powerful incantation that unleashes the Egyptian god Anubis, who is very unhappy that most of his followers have forgotten him. The dull witted thief becomes the dog god's first victim. I don't think Steve ever forgave me for that. Calling him dull-witted, that is. He started it, though.

After that my father tried to make sure that I never had another free moment in which to sit down and write stories. That period of my life became my second novel in which a dominating megalomaniac tires of having to tell his followers what to do every minute of the day and regrets overthrowing the world. In the end he puts on a dress and slips out the back of the palace and is never seen again. Much like the way my father disappeared one night when I was fourteen. And while, in the book, society crumbles and struggles for its survival, life at home picked up for me and my brother Steve.

My third book, Wellington Walker, had its origins in a regrettable relationship I had with a girl who broke my heart. Wellington Abruter realizes that he's become invisible after he learns that his true love is cheating on him. It's a twist on the old Zen koan about the tree in the forest; if a man has no one who loves him is he still a man? He begins to use his invisibility to help others who have been wronged until he meets another invisible man. He and his new friend, Walker, start an invisibility club, called Wellington Walker, that has chapters all across the country, taking in love-lost and love-lorn refugees. At a members meeting he meets a beautiful young woman who has been invisible since she was a girl. They fall in love and disappear from the head offices of Wellington Walker and are never seen again.

I wrote another three books after that and have done quite well for myself. I have another one in the pipe right now. It's about a man who discovers that his daydreams are spawning duplicate lives. He runs into himself disguised as a reprehensible womanizer and decides he has to kill off all the other daydream versions of himself. It isn't until half way through the book that he learns he is nothing more than a daydream himself and finds himself on the run from a man, who looks a lot like him, intent on putting out his lights and getting back to work.

I have to tell you that this one is based on real life. It's true. I don't have much time. Somewhere, right now, someone-me-or at least a version of me is sitting at a desk writing a story about himself as a writer. Soon, though, he's going to get tired, his back will get sore, or he'll have to get up and answer the telephone and then I'm done for.

I'm working as fast as I can to get this new novel finished, before his concentration goes and I disappear forever. It makes me sad. I've had a good life, for the most part, and I don't want it to end, but like my brother Steve once said, "Being a character in one of your books is like looking into a funhouse mirror. You never get it right, do you?" Maybe he's right. Maybe this is no way to live, but on the other hand, I think I've been lucky. I could have been a very bad dream. I think he's just jealous.

Are We Good?

2006-11-17T07:13:00.000-05:00

"Did you know that India is the seventh biggest country in the world?"
"Seventh? That's pretty big." I said to her. I was, admittedly, a little distracted. She had the atlas that I'd given to her for her birthday flattened on the table in front of her and was poring over the details with her fingers splayed across one of the pages. She was three when she'd begun to read. It boggled my mind that she was so smart.
"And that there are a billion people living there? There's only 32 million in all of Canada." She said this last with an air of wonder in her voice as if she was loading all those people onto an imaginary balance scale.
"That's a lot, eh?" I put away the last of the dishes and shut the cupboard door with a sigh.
I've never been a big fan of washing dishes. To me it's one of those chores that seem fruitless, especially when you figure that in another two hours I'll just have to pull them all out and dirty them again.
"Dad. You're not listening. You have to look at me when you answer. Then I know you're listening to me." She had on her teaching voice, which she used with me when she knew I needed guidance, as she often felt I did. I could hear her mother's voice in there, correcting, scolding and laying on a guilt trip, with nothing more than a few words. That woman displayed an incredible economy with words.
"I'm sorry. You're absolutely right. And now, just to prove that I'm listening to you I'm going to stare right at you, just in case you say something else. That way you'll know that I'm always listening to you."
She frowned at me for a minute, trying I think, to gauge what she should do. I made my eyes a little buggy and leaned over to stare at her, and she squirmed under the scrutiny. Then she decided that I was playing a game with her and she began to laugh.
"Dad. You don't have to listen all the time." and then she squealed as I zeroed in on her, my eyes locked on hers. "Daddy. Don't be a doofus." and she tried to hide her eyes.
"I'm still looking at you. I can still hear every word you're saying."
"Daddy. Stop looking at me." I picked her up and put my forehead to hers, my eyes still wide and staring. I soon wouldn't be able to lift her; she was getting so big.
"But then I won't be listening to you anymore."
"You don't have to listen all the time, I guess." she laughed
"Okay." I said and I dramatically turned my head to the wall.
"That's better." she said. She put her hands on my cheeks and looked into my face as if she was looking at one of her maps and following the route down from my eyebrows and across the bridge of my nose.
"What?" I said, "I'm not listening to you anymore."
"Daddy." she yelled, pretty much right into my face.
"Is someone talking? I can't tell. I'm not looking at anyone." She giggled and squirmed in my arms to reach up until her hands were on top of my head.
"Daddy." she screamed again, "Listen to me now."
"I wonder if someone's talking to me." I said.
"You. Listen to me now." her voice had taken on an imperious tone. I had told her once that I would do anything she asked as long as she asked nicely. She had forgotten that one, I guess.
"How will I know when someone is talking to me, I wonder." I said, still looking at the wall.
"Daddy." This time her voice squirreled up into that piercing range, where usually only mice can go. I felt her arch her back away from me and then she slapped my face as hard as she could and screamed again, "Daddy."

In an instant, she was crying. I held her out at arms reach as she began to swing her little fists. I was ducking and weaving the little blows and she had gone from laughing to crying, almost in one breath, and was now on the verge of hysteria. She started to kick at me and then she was having an all-out temper tantrum.
I pulled her in close and pinned her against my shoulder, a million thoughts running through my startled brain. I had pushed it too far, I knew, but her reaction was so extreme. Why was she suddenly so upset? And who taught her to hit someone who didn't listen?
I felt the tension go out of her body and she wrapped her arms around my neck and was sobbing into my shoulder. I was so stunned that for a moment I just held her.
"Hey. It's okay. I'm listening. I was just playing with you. It's okay. I'm sorry, baby. Daddy was just being silly." I tried to pour every bit of love I felt for her into that hug as she cried, and slowly she settled down, suddenly tired from her outburst.
"It's okay. I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry."

"Don't you ever don't listen to me again." she scolded me, after she had calmed down. She was looking right into my eyes, her face only inches from mine. If she hadn't been so serious, I would have laughed.
I put on a very solemn expression and said to her, "I promise. I will never not listen to you again."
That seemed good enough for her and she wriggled in my arms to be let down. I put on her feet and she began to gather up her atlas and her papers. She always had papers, it seemed. Papers to draw her pictures on. Pages and pages of drawings, and now she was cataloging them according to her own system.
When she had collected her 'work', she turned and headed for the living room. At the door she turned to me and gave me what I would call an even look.
"Are we good?" she said and I nearly choked on my own tongue. It was an expression that I had heard someone else say, so many times, in that exact tone, and I felt my stomach heave a little. My chest felt like it was caving in.
"We're good." I said softly. "You go play in the living room for a bit and then we'll go to the park. Okay?"
"Yeah," she cheered,"the park." and disappeared around the corner.

I leaned against the counter and tried to collect my thoughts, which had run from what I was thinking and had gone off groping around in the dark, looking for clues to what had just happened. I felt like I was going to be sick. And then a calmness settled over me. I stood up straight and I shrugged off my fear.
I went and looked around the corner and saw her sitting on the couch, her atlas opened again and her mouth moving over the strange words, her hand running over the surface of the page as if she could feel every river and mountain printed there.
I watched her for a minute and decided she was fully immersed in her book and then I went to the phone.
There was only one person who had ever said that to me. 'Are we good?'
We weren't good. But I was going to take care of that.

Time on My Hands

2006-11-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

To begin at the beginning is something I would call the easy way out. I prefer to begin right in the middle. The things that led up to it and what happened afterwards were just ripples, careening out in every direction and tipping over the stools we sat on, causing both the stumble that brought them face to face and then, years later, the accident that left Jeremy with a cast on his leg and Jules, her scar. It wasn't a big scar, more like a fine line of curiosity which she could turn into a great story every time some one asked about it.
But right in the middle of it, I happened to be looking in both directions and I saw the ripples stretch out and gently nudge my memories aside and implant the new ones. If I hadn't been paying attention I would have missed it entirely and I probably wouldn't remember the way things had been, had really been, just the way it seems right now.
I know now that it happens all the time. We really are a curious lot and sometimes we act impulsively, with complete free will. The anomalous outcome reverberates like a giant oriental gong in our fish tank of no surprises and when the vibrations slow things are just a little bit different than they were a few minutes ago.
This might not make much sense to you if you've never seen it happen. Halloway thinks it's a mystery and starts to pray whenever he notices a ripple pass by. I think he's just praying he'll still be here when it settles. I asked him to help me with my experiment because he's really the only one who can wrap his head around all the variables. It is probably for the best that he's refused. I don't trust that his judgment will remain unaffected by his religious leanings.
The key bit of information is that it has to be totally spontaneous and outside the normal state of functioning. I think by definition it should be impossible, after all, we are what we are. But I've seen it. Truly spontaneous things happen all the time. And they interrupt the flow of linear time much like a damn dropped across a river. It keeps moving but it has to make changes to accommodate the obstruction.
The biggest question now is what to do. Do I give it the Jimmy Stewart try and see what life would be like without, say, the guy who does my dry cleaning? Or do I just start mucking about and let the random nature of the universe go exploring? What a conundrum.
I guess you'll just have to wait and see, won't you. Except that unless you're paying very close attention you won't notice a thing. I think that's the funniest aspect of this whole experiment. I'll be the only one who has any idea that something has happened. And believe me, I'm no expert in this area. Things are about to get seriously weird.

The Meter Man

2006-11-12T10:51:00.000-05:00

January 1982

Don't ever let the threats that come veiled as dreams get in the way of your pursuing them. The dreams that is. The threats are nothing more than they seem; sinister levels of manipulation that don't usually add up to much. Although, the time I stole that '76 Olds and wrecked it in the gully prompted such a rash of sub-conscious warnings that it was a month before I got a good night's sleep. They might have continued except that Morrie found out it was me and I got a good beating over it. Satisfied that I'd paid for my stupidity, my dreams returned to the normal guy+girl+girl theme and I got on with my life.
What's happening now is of a strictly different variety and my life may never be the same. Don't fuck around with the guilty/not-guilty slide rule that measures your short-comings. It rests in the hands of that quiet voice in the back of your head and he measures you and every thing you do with it.

About a month ago I began having really disturbing dreams. They would start out the same way, like 'I meet a girl at a party and we hide in the closet for awhile' type but then it would morph into me standing on the back of a pick-up truck, say, lighting down the highway at about sixty miles an hour with nothing to hang on to but a rope that's coming apart. I watch the rope begin to stretch and then the tiny tendrils begin to snap and, one by one, every fiber comes undone. Just as I lurch backwards into the night I wake up, soaked in sweat, and wondering what I'd done to get such a stern warning from the dark side of my brain.

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but when I was young my mother caught me stuffing those penny crackers into the mouth of a frog and I caught shit when my dad got home. His hand, that fucking huge hand, came out of nowhere and clouded my head with pain and bright lights but that was nothing compared to what I suffered that night when I fell asleep. As she was passing by the room I shared with my brother she opened the door and said, "I hope you can sleep with the knowledge that you killed one of God's creature's today." and I was fucked. For two weeks every time I closed my eyes I was trying to outrun a giant toad hell-bent on stuffing a stick of dynamite into my ass. Not very imaginative, maybe, but I was only ten, and let me assure you that my internal grievance mechanism has matured along with the rest of me.

The problem now is that I have no idea what I did. I haven't stole anything of real value in months. I've been reasonably well behaved and when Buck and I go down to the Won-Ton things are cool. But, like I said before, life has a way of teaching you a lesson in real time. The dreams are still coming and they're always the same. Let me give you an example.

I'm walking across the lot beside the A&P, the one with the rusted out 150 in the ditch, and I come across a length of rope lying in the weeds. Since you never know when a good length of rope might come in handy, I pick it up and put it in a backpack that is suddenly on my shoulders. I have never had a backpack but it doesn't really seem to be a concern so I just keep on humping myself across the lot with my new rope.
It's getting dark out and I can't quite make out the line of trees that stretches from the back of the lot up to Margrave Ave., but I know it's there. And then I see something struggling to get up and out of the ditch. I don't recognize him because his head is bloodied beyond recognition. The guy's obviously been beaten up pretty bad and he staggers toward me with his hands stretched out as if he wants to grab me. Even though it's a dream, I don't want some guy that's missing half his head giving me a bear-hug so I side-step his little lunging lunatic dance and I turn around to watch him as I pass. That's when I get grabbed from behind by something I can't see, something big, and it pins my arms behind me, and sure enough before I know what's going on, the rope is going around and around and I'm trussed like a chicken and forced onto my knees.
I'm starting to freak out, but underneath I'm planning, always planning. This staggering idiot with the head-like-mush is coming at me again and now I can't move. I can hear a gurgling sound as he tries to breath in, like he's trying to suck ice cream through a straw, and he leans in close. I'm in a state of blind, fucking panic now and my plans are out the window. I start thrashing and pulling at the rope, and a hand comes free. I swing wildly at the zombie guy and my hand goes right through what is left of his head.

And then it's all gone and I'm alone in the parking lot, the rope lying at my feet and the back-pack with it. The only thing I can hear is my name being called out in the distance, quietly. But it's coming from a long way off.

Anyway, I wake up and it's my Mom calling me to get the hell out of bed and go to work. You have to add these things up, I guess: nearly spilling out of a truck on the highway, the zombie guy trying to tongue me, and then see what the common thread is. The trouble is that the only common theme is a length of rope that, at first, is about to snap and send me to my death, and, secondly, is used to tie me up. I just don't see it. I can't make any connections so I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

July 1982

It's been a while since I wrote anything. I've tried but I've got nothing to say. The nightmares have stopped, for the time being, and that's a good thing but I know it won't last. There's just too much to take-in right now; I'm a little over-loaded. All I know is that I'm in for it, sooner or later. I know that for sure.
I'm on my own now, except for Buck, my little brother Brian, but he's mostly gone, too. He doesn't want to stay here anymore and I can't say I blame him. He wants to get as far away from the old man as possible. I don't think he knows what happened; I think he bought the story just like everyone else did but he knows things aren't right anymore.
And me? I'm terrified. I spend my days nearly sick to the point of throwing up and scared to death that I'll see him again. And I feel even more sick when I think that I watched it all and didn't do a thing to help her.

And although my dreams are quiet for now, I can sense that things are coming to a head on the inside and I know that when these dreams unfold they'll be playing for keeps.

Now, I just lie awake at night, afraid to fall asleep and afraid, I guess, that I'll get what's coming to me; afraid I might not survive the onslaught of terror that I'm preparing for myself. I got no choice, though. I got no fucking choice. And here comes the Meter Man. All hail the Meter Man.

The Sitting Room

2006-11-10T10:47:00.000-05:00

He was in the sitting room. The tall windows had been opened and the shear curtains waved silently in the breeze. He sat in an old fashioned wingback chair, holding a rock glass in one hand as he gripped the arm of the chair with the other, holding on, it seemed, as if he was afraid that he might drift up and out one of the windows to sail away into the clear morning light. He wondered if that was a bad thing to wish for. He wished it would just happen.
The door burst open and he turned to see his son, Christopher, stalking towards him. He could tell from the expression on Christopher’s face that his pronouncement of this morning had been passed along and he turned away, not wanting to fight.
“Is it true?” said Christopher as he came to an abrupt halt in front of the chair his father sat in.
“Is what true?” his father replied. He raised his glass to his lips and sipped at it, the glass barely touching his lips.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Marie told me you’re not coming to the funeral. Is it true?” Christopher tired to still his shaking hands, to quiet the anger that was trying break free.
“Yes, it’s true. I’m not going.”
“You’re not going? No, you’re going.” said Christopher almost yelling.
“Don’t you come in here and tell me what to do. I made a promise and I’m going to damn well keep it. Now get the hell out of here or you’ll be late.” He leaned forward and set the glass down on the table and then, as an afterthought, reached for a coaster to put under it. He would have chuckled to himself at the irony of that, on any other day.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you care what the rest of us think?” Christopher pointed a finger at him, in a gesture that his father had always found annoying.
“Why should I care what you think? You’ve never given a shit about what I think.”
“So this is about you, again, is it? Jesus,” Christopher spun around looking for something, “you are the most selfish person I’ve ever known. This isn’t about you, Dad. It’s about her. Your wife. Remember her? Or have you forgotten about her already?” He saw what he was looking for and he took the picture and thrust it in his father’s direction.
“How dare you?” said his father, struggling to rise up out of the chair. “How dare you speak to me like that? You little shit; you have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual.” He knocked the table with his elbow and the glass there sailed out over the carpet and upended itself, splashing his drink across the hardwood floor. An ice cube skittered away as both of them tried to contain its wild bouncing.
“Jesus.” said Christopher and he left the room and returned with a cloth to soak up the spilled drink. “What is this?” he asked as he put the cloth to his nose.
“It’s soda water, you idiot. Just soak it up before your mother…” and they both stopped, frozen by the words he was about to say.

“Just tell me why.” Christopher sat on the sofa across from his father. He spoke quietly, embarrassed by his father’s slip.
“I made her a promise, that’s why.”
“What promise? What are you talking about?”
His father said nothing for a moment, his eyes far away, remembering a day, like this one, long ago. Finally he cleared his throat and looked at his son.
“How long have you been married now?”
Christopher groaned and let his head fall forward. “Six years. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything. It has everything to do with it. This year, your mother and I will have been married for thirty-seven years.”
“I know.” said Christopher.
“Thirty-seven years. That’s a long time.”
“I know. What’s your point?”
“And do you fight?”
“Sometimes. Who doesn’t?”
“And who usually wins? You or her?”
“It’s a bit of both. Where are you going with this?”
“Your mother and I haven’t had a fight in probably fifteen years.”
“You barely speak to each other. Is that supposed to impress me?” said Christopher.
“Just shut your mouth for a minute and let me tell my story.”
“Then tell your story. We have a funeral to go to.” Christopher could barely conceal his disdain for the old man. He had very little reason to like him and his father had never bothered to hide his contempt for his son.
“We used to fight, all the time, y’know.”
“I remember.” said Christopher with a grimace.
“We used to fight and say terrible things to each other. And sometimes we would look at each other and wonder why we ever got married in the first place.”
“I’ve wondered that from time to time, myself.”
“Yeah, well, you were very small at the time when it was the worst. There isn’t a person alive who can get under my skin like your mother. When you’re married for thirty-seven years you don’t get to have any secrets anymore. Eventually, though, we settled into it and we haven’t fought a day since that time.”
“Dad, you never speak to each other. What’s to fight about when you barely acknowledge each other’s presence?”
“Christ, you can be so stupid. I’m trying to tell you something, here. Do you want to hear it or do you just want to sit there and make smart-assed remarks?”
“Tell your story then, for Christ’s sake.”
“Look. When you spend as much time as your mother and I did fighting, you get very good at finding weakness and exploiting it. I lied about stupid things and purposely broke promises just to start fights and she manipulated everything I said, turned it around on me. It becomes a stupid game of one-upmanship and before long you find yourself betraying secrets and smashing trust like it was a house made out of toothpicks.” he paused and lifted the glass to his lips and for a moment seemed to be somewhere else. Then he shook his head and set the glass down.
“But one day, one day you wake up and realize that the person who holds the most over your head is also the only one who’s been there with you through it all. After all that time poking and prodding at each other we just ran out of bad things to say and we discovered that we were still together. That’s an amazing thing. An amazing thing.
We found in each other something that most people will likely never find and that thing is faith. And we fell in love all over again. Not like it was when we first met but something better, more real. And, without ever talking about it, we began to realize that the most wonderful thing about it was that no matter what happened we would always be together. It was like that right up until she died.
You say you never see us talk. We didn’t need to. We could have entire conversations passing each other in the hall on the way to the kitchen. I knew where she was and she knew where I was and at any given time she could have told you what I was thinking and she would have been right.”
He sat up in his chair and leveled a finger at his son, mimicking that same gesture which infuriated him so much when Christopher did it.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about when you criticize me, or her, for the things that went on between the two of us. You may be our son, but she was my wife and there’s something there that you’ll only get a glimpse of when you can say you’ve been married for the better part of a half century.
Don’t you ever talk to me about my relationship with my wife unless it’s to honour what we lived through just to get here. And now she’s dead. And you waltz in here telling me what I should do and what I should think but you don’t have any fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
He sat back in the chair, his eyes going to the garden outside the tall windows.
“You want to know why I’m not going to the funeral? I’ll tell you why. We made a promise to each other, one day, a beautiful sunny day; so much like this one it hurts just to remember it. She was so beautiful and happy, then. You had just moved out and we were sitting in here, just like this, and we looked at each other and found that after all we’d been through, all the struggling and all the fighting, that we were still in love with each other.
And that day she made me promise that if she went first that I wouldn’t go to the funeral. I was surprised by the way she said it, too. She was very emphatic. She said she wanted me to remember her like she was that day, young and in love. I held her hand and she squeezed it so tight. And I made her that promise.
I never expected to outlive her. I always knew in my heart that I’d die first. And then when she got so sick that I couldn’t take care of her by myself anymore she made me ask you and Marie to come. She was almost embarrassed to let me see her like that.
The day before she died she asked me if I remembered the promise that I’d made to her and she told me that she expected me to keep it. And I will.”
Christopher was sitting with his hands in his lap, his head down, unable to look at his father.
“Listen to me, Christopher. You may be my son but she was my wife and I love her more than anything in this world and I will die before I break another promise to her. You think that because I’m not going down there to stand beside her coffin and listen to people I barely know tell me how sorry they are, that I don’t love her, or honour her? It is because I do love her and honour her that I’m going to sit here and watch this day unfold, knowing that when I see her again I can tell her that I kept my promise.”
Christopher looked at his father who was staring out into the garden and saw that his father was crying quietly and without any attempt to hide it.
“I had no idea.” he said.
“Of course you had no idea. How could you?” and then he smiled. “It was between her and I. And no matter how much it hurts, it has nothing to do with you.” said his father. “Now, go, or you’ll be late. I’m going to sit here for awhile and finish my drink.”
Christopher got up and looked around the room, at the curtains billowing in the breeze, at the sun streaking its way across the floor and at the old man, that he barely knew, staring out the window and he tried to imagine his parents sitting side by side on the couch, holding hands and making promises to each other every day for thirty-seven years and he wondered why it was that the older he got the more complicated everything became.

And So I Did

2006-11-07T10:23:00.000-05:00

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then. She just looked at me and then, slowly, ever so slowly, the both of us fully aware of how she could use it, what I'd just said, to start an argument, she smiled. I hadn't meant to say it; it just came out. I'd like to think that I am a better man than that, than to bring up something that I knew would provoke her. But it was out there. I'd said it and now it was up to her.

I'm not sure when it was that I began to notice the subtle changes in the way we spoke to each other. Somewhere around the six month mark, I guess, when we felt like we knew things about each other that no one else knew. I think it's a form of possession and a way to claim ownership. There are quick looks, direct eye to eye contact, when something is said, in front of friends, or at a bar, and then the conversation moves on. Sometimes we would talk about it later. She would say, "Peter really pissed me off, tonight." and I would answer, "Yeah, I noticed."

That subtext of ownership goes both ways, too. "Do you need to vacuum the couch?" she would say, laughing outwardly. It didn't bother me, though. The best I can hope for is that my odd little habits will become endearing and not annoying. I made a promise to myself, after all.

I realized right away that I'd made a mistake. I had blurted it out, blithely thinking that I was adding another layer, another subtext to our relationship, but all it was, was hurtful. I could tell that because, despite her smile, I recognized the flash of emotion in her eyes, gone as soon as it appeared. That smile snapped shut the avenue of intimacy. That smile was a barrier that reminded me that, as well as we knew each other, we were also better than anyone else could ever be at grinding down each other's defenses. It hung there, in the air between us. Maybe she saw the instant remorse in my expression, although I tried not to show it, or maybe she just decided that she wasn't going to let me bait her anymore.

Her smile widened and became a laugh, and I used the forced levity to spit out an apology that sounded more like I'd just stepped on her foot rather than laid open her insecurities and ridiculed them. She accepted it, though, and the full impact of that hit me. That silent communication crossed the room, that eye to eye contact, and I knew that despite the meanness of what I'd said, she understood that it was a reflex and that given time and a chance to reconsider, I never would have said it. That's an incredible amount of trust to put in someone who could potentially bring down the tent on your head. She trusts me. And she forgave me.

I think that was when I realized that I loved her. Simple as that. She showed me that she could overlook a few shortcomings and that, if I felt the same way, I'd better ante up. And so I did.

Cat and Mouse

2006-11-02T09:08:00.000-05:00

I sat quietly, no, I sat more than quietly, I sat absolutely still, barely breathing, for close to an hour, waiting out and out witting those teeth, those claws, that scratched and pawed at the molding that separated us, the barrier between this life and whatever comes next and it could smell me, of that I'm sure, because I made no sound nor did I move so much as a muscle, although, at first, they had screamed in my head, "Move, run." and then they became still and heavy, like lead, leaving me no choice but wait it out, wait until either it succeeded in ripping away the barrier or it became confused and wondered if I was really there at all, wondering if maybe it was nothing more than a memory and it became confused by the lack of movement, wondering if I was already dead and therefore of no interest, because it had no interest in dead things, that was a rule to be observed and, anyway, dead things were past their expiry date and unsafe to eat and I became the representation of a lost opportunity, although I'm sure it wasn't smart enough to form those kind of thoughts, at least I hoped so because, you see, my own intelligence is the vanguard of my army and without it death would sever me from everything I know and love, my family, the simple pleasures I feel and delight in, and the anticipated scent of delivery that sometimes comes on the faint and wafting breeze and explains this world to me and indicates direction, both forward and back and, just then, told me that it had moved away, but was not gone, and that is where anyone else would have made a fatal mistake and bolted through the shadows for the safety of home, but not me because I'm not that stupid and I knew at that point that I would have to remain there, still, absolutely still, for perhaps another half-hour, just to be safe because, and it's important that you know this, impatience and foolishness always results in tragedy and I don't intend to be a footnote in someone else's story, an off-hand remark about that time he got caught unaware and out in the open, exposed and in need. Do you understand?

Lost And Looking For Home

2006-10-31T08:11:00.000-05:00

He turned out the light on the front porch and put the bowl of chocolate bars and licorice strips on the counter in the kitchen. It was over for another year and that was fine.
It had become more and more difficult with the passage of time. The kids were less interested in the blood and the gore and more interested in the candy. He'd heard them groan as he dropped, what in his day would have been a brilliant treat, into their bags, full sized pillow cases, half full and heavy with enough candy to rot the teeth of an entire generation.
And the costumes really were bad. Who the hell is afraid of a secretary or a doctor? Where were the raving marauders, their axes heavy with the greasy blood of their enemies or the mad scientists, a pulsing heart in one hand and a jagged saw-toothed blade in the other or the carrion feeders who relied on the offal that slipped unheeded from the bellies of the freshly slain?
But then, he had changed too, over the years.
The bonfires were prohibited now, as were the depictions of crucifixions that used to hang from the eaves. He'd been forced to put down the werewolves, removing the skins they wore so proudly and forcing them into human shape before he'd cut their throats and left them for the buzzards. And the most heart-wrenching, for him, he'd had to let loose the harpies, whose chains had been so slick with human blood that he'd been forced to cut them with a blow torch and had singed the feathers of one. That had cost him an eye. He wasn't in the mood for what the changing mores of polite society dictated.
As he blew out the last of the candles he looked at the sky and was saddened that his sisters, once so feared, were now a joke and likened to childless old women and thought powerless and weak. The wind that brushed past him held no hint of sulfur and the moon shone clearly without a hint of red and he let out a long sigh and went inside.
In the kitchen he opened the closet door, absently putting the padlock into the pocket of his robe and from the shelves he took up his favorite tools. He turned at the sound of padded feet and straightened in hesitation and fear. The cat jumped from the floor onto the table and sniffed the air tentatively and then wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"One of them has soiled himself." the cat said.
"I'm sorry, Master, they have weak constitutions. They are a faint-hearted race. I will finish them quickly." he said, nervously.
"No, you fool. Remember, Gohtar, do not kill them, just make them remember this night for the rest of their pitiful lives. In fear resides pure power. Remember that." and with that the cat leapt to the floor and padded out of the room.
Gohtar exhaled a ragged breath of relief and continued with his selection. Then he replaced the padlock and shuffled to the top of the stairs.
As he descended to the chamber he began to hum a happy little tune, one that his victims would be sure to remember for the rest of their miserable lives, but even that comfort felt hollow. Nothing was the same anymore. Perhaps the world really was changing and perhaps there really was no going back, but for as long as his master commanded him to persuade the terrified cries of these miserable beasts out of their blood choked throats, and as long as he believed that they could still open the door, he would do his Master's bidding. Gohtar paused before he reached the bottom step and rested his heavy body against the wall. 'I hate this place' he sniffled, 'I just want to go home.'

Home Coming

2006-10-27T08:50:00.000-04:00

"Father" said the Hound in greeting.
Lugh appeared from the darkness and sat beside Cuchulainn in the long grass that covered the hillside, high above the fort.
"Why are you here, on this of all nights?" asked Lugh.
"It's part of my penance. You know that." answered the Hound.
Lugh said nothing to this but bowed his head and let out a great sigh.

After a moment, Lugh rose up and turned to his son and said, "Setanta, you have served your penance, you fulfilled that promise long ago. It's time to come home."
"Home?" answered Cuchulainn, "Father, I am home. It's my duty to guard this hill, this night especially. They fear the Tuatha de Danann and the Bean Sidhe, and I am bound to fulfill my duties to them."
"And what night is this." Lugh said, softly, watching his son's face.
"It's Samhain, Father, you know that."
"And what happens on Samhain, Setanta?"
"The Sidhe open and the two worlds join. The dead return to the world of the living and walk among us." Cuchulainn recited, like a child at his lessons. His eyes were glazed over and he seemed to be looking at something far in the distance, something Lugh could not see.
"And me, Setanta? What of me?" said Lugh.

Cuchulainn turned to look at his father. His father's eyes were bright and fixed and in them Cuchulainn began to see the reflections of a great war and the glory that his father had won in battle and the might with which he had wielded the spear and then Lugh's eyes clouded and Cuchulainn saw his father's death at the hands of one of the sons of the Dagda and he reeled in confusion. And then Cuchulainn saw his own life unfolding, from his birth to the years of training in Scotland and the face of Ferdiad, his foster-brother, who had stood beside him so many times in battle. And finally before the light in his father's eyes faded completely he saw his own death, tied to a pillar of stone and the face of Lugaid, his enemy, as the spear found the heart of Ulster and his eyes opened wide in recognition.
"No." said Cuchulainn, "how can this be?"
"It is Samhain, Setanta. The dead return to the earth for one night."
"And we are dead, Father?" the Hound asked. He lowered his head and Lugh saw that he understood.

"Hundreds of generations have come and gone since you joined me in death, Setanta. Look around you." Lugh swept a hand across the vista in front of them. "Look and see. These aren't the fields you remember from childhood. There is no fort anymore. This is a city now. Look at the lights, how they glare against the darkness pushing back the unknown and the fear. This isn't the land that you guarded in your youth, but a strange land that has grown up where ours once stood." Cuchulainn listened to his fathers words and as the truth of them became apparent, Lugh said, "Come with me. Let's go and see what these people have done with what we taught them. Let's go have some fun ."
The Hound stood, and for a few minutes he could see the hills he had climbed in his youth, and the rough stone walls of the house, and he could hear the plaintive calls of the cattle, out of site, in the pastures behind him. And then that vision faded and he looked at the grim buildings of concrete and steel that stood before him, now. The world was gray and bleak and he could sense the disassociation they held high as a standard of strength and pride and he felt saddened that so much had been lost to the passage of time.

He looked again at his Father who was unchanged, despite the passage of the centuries, and who stood with a hand outstretched for him and he took it and let himself be led down the hill and into the city, where for one night, every year, the doors of the Sidhe open and the dead can walk once again among the living.

It All Turns On A Dime

2006-10-24T10:45:00.000-04:00

The blister packing had been punctured and that was why, he supposed, that the big red "Sale" sticker had been stamped over the price. He looked around for a smock, the uniform of employees and found none within range. His frustration grew, as he wheeled up and down the aisles cursing that the specifics he was searching out weren't listed on the over-hanging signs, as the old women, who avoided the place after five, crowded the passages with their carts, left sideways in front of the soup and pasta section, and as the cheerily indifferent cashier explained that "Sale" meant only ten percent off and not the fifty he wanted.
The days, when his soft-scented recollections were thin, were the worst. The bleak sky represented his mood, the stripped bare trees represented his soul, the whiteness of the road represented his bleached suppositions of optimism and he shut the door on it all and sat, unseeing, while the television filled his head with illusions of importance.

Later, while the chemical surrogates chimed in his veins, he laughed. Then he wondered why he had laughed. Then he stopped wondering why and laughed again.

Outside, the vista shifted and instead of decrepit houses and time stained corpulence, there emerged tendrils of contentment, nothing more, and he turned the television off and went to sit on the veranda. While the breeze, which picked up the scent of the cigars and body odour, trickled up the steps, he sought out and found those other refugees, hundreds of them, gazing out into the night and he felt hope, for the first time that day. They all sat, some smoking, some just sitting, while their vanities slept and their truculence dissolved, and he felt something of a connection.

"It all turns on a dime." he said out loud and his neighbour, who had been sitting back in the shadows and out of the light of the street, answered, "You got that right."

Wrecked

2006-10-24T10:22:00.000-04:00

When the dust cleared and it became apparent that he wasn't injured, Silas looked around at the wreckage and breathed a sigh of relief. He crawled out from behind the airbag and fell onto the sidewalk, where the car was perched at an odd angle. The street was strangely quiet as if the noise of the accident had silenced the creatures that hide in the windows and doorways, like crickets in a field.
Despite the fact that the collision had let loose a magnificent contatenation of sounds, which escaped and pounded out over the city blocks around him, he wondered that fear could hold human curiosity so neatly in check.
He felt a trickle of blood winding its way down his forehead and wiped it away with the sleeve of his jacket. He sent a message of thanks to whoever held his fate in hand and that there hadn't been anybody on the street at that hour.
When, finally a police car pulled up, he struggled to his feet, aware that the shock he could feel pulling at his consciousness was gaining control and then he blacked out.
They didn't arrest him until he had received medical treatment but by then he had assumed responsibility, anyway. There was no denying that he was drunk; the bottles, that had spilled out onto the pavement when the casing of the car had cracked wide, couldn't be denied.
The tow-truck pulled his car from its metal hammock and the city workers used a mini-crane to straighten the pole, but they couldn't erase the traces left, that despite being barely recognizable, stood glaring in the sun, the next morning.
The crickets came out, then, to watch the last of the clean-up, to commiserate with their brothers, to pretend they were living while it happened, instead of crouched in fear, not of the physical danger that had been present but because of the overwhelming need to be invisible and hidden in the dark when reality intruded on them and shook them into awareness.
And then they turned away and forgot about it. And the city came to life.

Politics

2006-10-24T09:45:00.000-04:00

The turgid ramblings of the street prophets have been silenced for the time being. That's alright. They're usually wrong anyway. If you need to know the score, look to the billboards and traffic lights. They'll tell you all you need to know about how long this rat trap will stand. And so the slippery and half-seen shades of discontent that crouch in corners and whisper about the blackness will be swept away as sun goes down, in reverse of the natural order. Government town.

I've read about places where a man can be free and mostly disbelieved what is said but someday, when I can no longer stand the sight of my own withering complexion, I might go there, just to see if they were telling me the truth. You see, I suspect that everyone lies much more than they need to, much more than is healthy. I understand, all too well, the very human need to extinguish even the idea of progress. I blame the mass hypnosis promulgated by the lecher crouched on the hill. The blaze on the horizon, that must be licking the bottom of creation by now, seems so far away as to be nothing more than a mirage of (hope, I was about to say) deception. I know that now.

A girl I once knew told me she wasn't going to be a victim anymore, while waving around the flags of aggression. I told her that the only people who have a problem with zealots are zealots and she never spoke to me again. Perception is nine-tenths reality.

You Don't Know Jack

2006-10-20T11:29:00.000-04:00

He punched her in the face and a bruise was born that would cover the left side of her face, almost completely. She'd lost consciousness for a minute or two and dreamt about the time the cat had stalked a mole half-way across the yard before disemboweling it. When she woke up, he was crying and trying to put the spilled pasta back in the bag.
I am a vector of transitional thought, loose and free. And you sit in a squalid walk-up crooning about past hurts and collapse at the sight of blood.
There was only one thing to do. I took him into the desert and made him dig his own grave, just like in Casino, and he pissed himself before he was done. At least I wanted to, but she wouldn't let me.
Instead I drove her home to Syracuse and left her with Manny and Isabel. She'll be alright, there.
I like to drive at night. I like to pick a long, straight road and turn off the lights. I can see the heavens unfold like a black angel spreading its wings and sink my teeth into the horizon and pull. Faith is a word and faithful is a feeling. I distrust them both.
It took me two days to get home but by then I had a plan. He was still there, sitting on the couch, feeling sorry for himself. He wasn't happy to see me. Nobody is. I'm a vector of transitional thought, loose and free.

Super Murray

2006-10-18T09:40:00.000-04:00

They arrested Marco outside the building on March 3rd. That was three days after he'd let himself be videotaped while holding up a convenience store in the Trough. As soon as I heard I went down to Alice's apartment and found them all crowded into her living room. Alice was an active member of the Tenants' Association and had become the centre of activity in the building. As it was I was the enemy.
"Mom, the Super's here." her other son, Josh, yelled from the door.
"I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am, Alice." I said as she came down the hall.
"Murray, you just can't help yourself, can you?" she said, her voice quivering with barely concealed rage.
"Alice, I just came by to say I'm sorry, that's it."
"Well stick it in your ass, Murray. I don't need you feeling sorry for me, right now."

When the feds caught Walker Casey, in 903, cheating on his taxes the Tenants' Association voted to have him turfed and he left without much of a fight. I was curious to see what would happen now that one of their own was in trouble. It looked to me like they were closing up ranks but before long the cracks appeared and they came to me one day, without Alice, and told me she'd been voted off the committee. They wanted her out of the building, too.
"With that other one still living with her it's only a matter of time before something happens and we just don't feel safe knowing that there is a criminal element amongst us." That was the official line. These were not people who you showed weakness to.
This isn't a high end building. I mean, it's nice and I do my best to keep up with all of the problems but it's not Shangrila.
Alice handed in her notice later that week and I felt pretty sick about it. She'd never caused any problems and even her sons, who were a little wild maybe, had never been a concern of mine. I asked her what she was going to do now and she just said, "I'm moving, Murray."
"But where will you go?" I asked her.
"What do you care, Murray? Really."
I told her that I hoped she found something nice and not too expensive.

The next day I went up to her apartment to do the obligatory inspection. The place was immaculate. I hadn't been in the apartment since before she and her sons had moved in . I'd never been called to fix a leak or patch a hole. And yet someone had done some very nice work in there. Crown moldings had been added in the living room. The hard wood floors had been sanded down and stained and the tiles in the kitchen, instead of the standard linoleum, were now a very nice faux granite. It was the best looking apartment I had seen in this building and I've been around awhile. When I told her how impressed I was she barked at me, "I'm not some low-life Murray. I'm not a criminal." and I let her alone.
She stopped me at the door, just as I was leaving and apologized.
"You've never been anything but polite to me. It's just that I'm under a bit of stress right now, with Marco. He's not co-operating with the police and I'm afraid they're going to put him in jail." She leaned her head on the wall, looking up at me and I realized that she was a very beautiful woman. She looked tired, though, and I felt bad for her.
"Y'know that the Tenant's Association's recommendations are only that: recommendations."
"And stay here? Most of my neighbor's won't even look at me, Murray."
"Yeah," I said, "it would be tough, but I could put in a good word for you, Alice. They listen to me sometimes. Besides, the owner's do like to stick it to these tenants every now and again." I said with a smile. She smiled back at me, but she was too weary and too tired to answer.

Three days later she came to the office and told me she was staying.
"I fought their battles and now that I need them they've turned their backs on me. Well, screw them, Murray."
"Good for you, Alice. " I said, and I meant it. I was happy to hear her say that. Sometimes you just have to dig in your heels.
We talked about Marco then and she told me that he'd be on probation for two years.
"He was the lookout, the stupid idiot. He's a good kid, Murray, he just got caught up in something he couldn't get out of."
I myself have been in trouble with the law once or twice. I knew Marco would be alright. He was a good kid. This neighborhood just isn't what it used to be.
"You're a widower aren't you?"
That caught me off guard. My wife died seven years ago. She stepped off a curb in the Market and the driver hadn't seen her until it was too late.
"When was the last time you had a decent meal?"
"I'm not a complete idiot in the kitchen, y'know, Alice." I said, but I let myself be invited over for dinner anyway.

Eventually the frost eased up and Alice, to her credit, never let any of her neighbors make her feel guilty about the whole incident. She still had a lot of friends in the building and now I'm happy to call myself one, too.
Maybe we're a little more than friends, but for now it's good and for once in my life I feel like I'm happier than I have been in a very long time.

Stairway to Heaven

2006-10-17T09:38:00.000-04:00

I had a beautiful vision this morning. I was sitting on the edge of a fountain when I heard a voice and looked up. Coming towards me, calling my name, was a tall, regal looking woman, who was as naked as it gets. She said something or other about the future and she made me repeat it back to her. Then she got mad at me because I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. She was very uptight for a vision who walks around with no clothes on.
Without some sort of vision for the future, you're pretty much destined to find a comfortable chair and relax for the rest of your life. Living 'in the moment' is fine if you happen to like what's going on in that moment. That's why you don't find many enlightened people in line at the bank, but if you do you can bet they're the ones who don't mind if you butt in front of them.

The mystical experience of life is something that most of us are missing. When you wake up every morning with a headache, late for work, driving an old piece of shit car and wondering how you'll ever retire on what you have saved up, you're not likely to stop and look around in wonder at the world or anybody in it. And yet the most curious of superstitions still persist.
The reason hockey players don't shave during the playoffs is the same kind of thinking that makes you lift your feet as you cross a set of railroad tracks. Knocking on wood is a ritual that persists when talking about the future and consider what you're doing when you cross yourself after something ugly happens to you. I personally know people who believe that they will be rescued from a burning lake of fire by God but wouldn't cross the street to help out a neighbor. It's all about what happens next, isn't it.

The root of the problem stems from the fact that we don't know why we're here. We didn't have anything to do with it. We woke up, one day, and found we had a family, lived in a house, had cereal for breakfast every day and a dog that humps the cushions on the couch.
But the afterlife is all ours. It's something we created and it can be anything we want. Everybody has their own version of heaven and it usually contradicts our neighbors' idea of it. There's only one planet Earth but there are millions and maybe billions of personal heavens somewhere out there, each one marked by a sign post that says something like, "Mike's Heaven. Trespassers will be prosecuted."

In the very grey zone that exists where science meets spirituality, you'll find people who are looking into the basic components of existence and they're agreeing that what we call home seems to be both a very practical place, where flat tires are the norm, and a place where thoughts and ideas become reality, where thinking something makes it possible. It's the proving ground for the axiomatic, "Be careful what you wish for." In short, it's no wonder you have a bad day when all you do is think about what a bad day it's going to be.

If you really believe that there is a fate or destiny attached to you, that you are something special and deserve a better life, it seems reasonable to assume that you might have something to do with bringing it to fruition, no? I think we can discount the people who have been driven insane by the pressures of life, and who spend their time trying to subvert whole countries and eradicate people whose beliefs don't coincide with theirs , just so they can afford to put gas in a monster truck that spits poison into the atmosphere and will destroy the planet. Those people are nuts. But you and me? We have to get by on what we've got, and what we've got is this:

If you believe that there is a God, then God exists. Easy enough. If you have faith that people are essentially good then they are. If you believe you will have a good day, then you will. If you believe that you can be happy then you will be happy. But you're not. You don't believe that last one, do you? It's time to ask yourself, "Why?"

I'm going back to bed. Maybe I'll have another vision. And this time I'm going to listen.

Hey, the spell checker just told me I didn't spell anything wrong today. That has to mean something. It's a sign.

Always A Moral

2006-10-09T06:21:00.000-04:00

I loved going to work with my Dad.
"Let me tell you a story." he said.

A long time ago, in the vicinity of the Echoing Sand Mountain, near to where Lo-tsun saw the spectacular display of sunlight but before he had begun to carve the first of the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, there lived a young couple who, although very happy, were also very poor.
Every day they would leave their miserable hut and go into the mountains to gather firewood. Every day they gathered two bundles of wood, one for their own use and one to sell, so that they could buy rice to make porridge.
One evening, after they had collected enough wood to sell, and after leaving the extra bundle in the courtyard, as they usually did, they settled into a long night's sleep. When they woke the next morning they discovered that someone had crept in while they slept and stolen the extra firewood.
All of their work had been for nothing and that day they redoubled their efforts to make up for the loss. The next day they discovered that the extra bundle they collected had also been stolen. They were perplexed by this and promptly went out to collect more wood.
After a week had gone by, and after seven bundles of firewood had been stolen from their courtyard the wife pleaded with her husband to do something.
"You idiot." she said, "How many bundles do we have to lose before you put a stop to this."
He thought about it and decided that he didn't want to lose another bundle of wood, so he hatched a plan to arrange himself inside an extra bundle of wood and wait for the perpetrator.
He lay awake, through most of the night, and just before dawn a rope came down out of the heavens and attached itself to the bundle. It was hoisted up through the air and landed at the Gates of Heaven. The man lay perfectly still, hoping to see who had been stealing his wood and soon an old man came along and picked up the bundle.
"I must be getting old," said the Emperor of Heaven, "These bundles of wood are getting heavier and heavier."
And at that moment the man burst from the bundle and accused the Emperor of Heaven of being a thief.
The Emperor of Heaven was dismayed by this and said, "Why do you collect two bundles of firewood each day if not to warm the Emperor of Heaven?"
The man explained why they collected an extra bundle of wood each day and that he and his wife had not eaten in a week because of the theft.
The Emperor of Heaven laughed when he heard this but took pity on the man and said, "Well, I suppose I should pay you for your wood, then."
"Damn straight." said the man, knowing that if anyone could afford it, the Emperor of Heaven could.
The Emperor of Heaven took the man into a large hall filled with bags of jewels and money and said to the man, "Take any bag you want. This will be my payment for your wood."
The man couldn't believe his luck and because he was a greedy man he chose the biggest and heaviest bag there was. The old man stopped him on the way out and said, "The only condition is that you can only take one coin from the bag every day and no more."
When the man returned home with the bag of money his wife was overjoyed. She considered the Emperor of Heaven's restriction reasonable and began to collect the coins that her husband pulled from the bag, one at a time, until she had a sizable stack of them.
"It's enough for an ox." he said one day.
"Dream on. I'm saving to build us a better house." she answered. Time passed and the pile of coins grew larger.
"It's enough for some cows." he said one day.
"Get your hands off that money or I'll break your arm." she answered. And the pile of coins grew larger.
"Surely it's enough to build a house now." he said one day and she relented. She gave him the pile of coins to buy the supplies they would need but instead of coming back with wooden beams and thatch he returned with bricks and mortar.
"Are you completely daft?" she said to him. "That's not enough to build a kennel much less a house."
"My pet," he said, "do not worry. Each day, as we pull a coin from the bag I will use it to buy more supplies until the house is finished." and there wasn't much she could say to that.
Before long, however, he realized that the house would never be done before the wind started to howl down from Echoing Sand Mountain and he decided that he needed to take more than one coin a day from the bag. He reached for the bag and, after he had taken one, he reached in again and withdrew another and then he reached in and drew out a third. When he reached in for a forth time he found the bag empty and he heard a wail go up from behind him.
"What have you done, you witless moron?" and he turned to see his wife standing on the threshold of their old thatch hut. All of the bricks and mortar were gone.
The man fell to his knees and pleaded with the Emperor of Heaven for another chance but his cries went unheeded and he was forced to go back to collecting firewood, an extra bundle every day, so that he could sell it at the market to buy rice to make porridge.

"I don't get it." I said.
"You asked me why your Mother is always mad at me." said my Dad.
"Yeah, but I don't get what this story has to do with you or Mom."
"Someday you will, son. Now stop asking me so many questions and start picking up wood." he said.
I looked around but didn't see any wood and for the rest of the afternoon my Dad just leaned on the Deli-counter, looking out onto 7th Avenue.

My Dad was a very weird guy.

The Grove

2006-10-08T07:01:00.000-04:00

I slipped away from the house after dinner. The confusion in the kitchen allowed me go unnoticed and I followed the path that led from the back door down to the river. I ducked under the low branches of the willow that overhung the shore and untied the boat and climbed in.
The water was almost black in the failing light and along the shore I could vaguely make out the incandescent hues of spider fungus and Aletheusis, just beginning to give off its supernatural light. I paddled upstream, pushing hard against the current, aiming the boat at the opposite shore. I could barely see the shape of Morgan's' tree against the darkening sky and knew I'd have trouble finding my way back, unless I waited until the morning light could guide me.
I leapt into the shallow water and pulled the boat up on the sand under the tree and tied it off.
The shadows here were darker and my eyes strained to pick out the void between the rocks; the path to the top of the hill.
This was where I came when I needed to be alone, or when something needed to be done, and tonight I was there for both reasons. I'd had a dream the night before and as I walked through the house, my house, I'd stepped on something soft and pliable and when I looked down I saw that it was a small mouse. I'd crushed its spine and killed it. This is where I came to bury bad dreams.
When I reached the grove I had to tear away some of the vines that had crept in and over-grown the open space. The light was poor but the sky was beginning to take on its lunar glow and by the time I had dug the grave the moon had come into view.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the package, feeling for the contents in the dark, and I dropped it into the hole. I gently covered it with loose dirt and then lay my hand, palm down, on the mound. I whispered some words into the night and then cleaned the ground around the other markers I'd left there, some going all the way back to my childhood. A life time of bad dreams buried, mourned and left here as a token to the lost nights, spent feverish and alone.
When I had finished my cleaning I looked up and knew that I would have to wait until morning before going back, that or risk missing the landing and having to plod upstream looking for the house.
I lay down among my memories and wished for a deep and trouble free sleep, knowing that once buried they were harmless and their power broken. The newest, and the last, the most troubling of them all, because, in the manner of dreams, I knew that that small mouse, darting here and there, looking for escape, only to be crushed to death was me. It needed a decent burial.
I watched the branches of the trees waving back and forth across the black blue sky, leaving trails and after-images in my mind, until my eyes closed on their own and sleep overcame me.

Eight Ball

2006-10-06T06:44:00.000-04:00

I never knew that I liked L.A. Woman by the Doors until she wandered over to the juke-box and played it. I took my shot and waited for her to come back. She didn't even make it half-way across the room before some drunk old pecker stood in her way and asked her to dance. I stood up a little straighter, wondering if I was going to have to step in and break it up, but she pointed to the end of her cue and then she pointed between the guys legs and he got the message and sat down. She hadn't said a word. They all knew her, though, and the game was played out on a regular basis every time we were in there after that.
It's hard to date a woman that everyone wants to be with.

I grew up on the road, learning how to play pool from club owners and strippers. The one time I went to a real pool hall I was confused by the 'real' rules because I'd never played on a table that you didn't have to feed coins into. When she asked me to play I decided I'd better take it easy on her. By the time she'd beat me three games straight I knew I was in love.

We didn't have much, in those days. She clipped coupons from the paper and I hustled a little on the market. The university kids were always easy because they had money and came down here to drink cheap beer. When she wasn't working she'd come in a half hour after me and challenge the table. After I'd beat everybody in the room she'd take the table from me and then we'd play another for show. After that they'd line up and let her take their money. Those were great nights, but mostly because I loved to see the looks on their faces when I'd leave with her on my arm. Not only did we take their money but every man in there wished he was me. That's a pretty good feeling.

She couldn't fall asleep unless she had her head on my shoulder and a hand on my chest. That's a pretty good feeling, too. There were times when all I could do was look at the ceiling and wonder how I could be so happy. She burned incense in the room and hung brightly coloured cloth over the lights and, despite the chill seeping in around the window's frame, we were warm, cocooned and together.

Yesterday would have been fifteen years. I say would have been because we're not together anymore. She used to come and visit for awhile but slowly, over the long months before the trial, and after, her visits became less frequent. I couldn't blame her, but that didn't make my nights any less painful. I could see it in her eyes and I knew I was in trouble. In one of the most incredibly stupid maneuvers of my life I told her to stop coming and get on with her life. Stupid, because I was wrong. There was never anyone else. At least not until I told her to leave me alone.

The last time I saw her, sitting across from me, behind the glass, she told me she was getting married. And she did. I wonder if she's happy. I hope she is. She deserves it after what I did to her. You see it wasn't the drugs, or the stealing, or even the jail time that she couldn't deal with. It was the fact that she had put everything aside, everything, to help me through this. Her life was turned upside down but she had managed, for awhile, but I let her down by thinking that she would rather be with someone else. It broke her heart.

She played to win and never made excuses for her game by blaming the table, but she couldn't fall asleep at night unless she had her head on my shoulder and a hand on my chest. Now I'm the guy whose eyes follow them out of the room, knowing that I've been hustled by the most beautiful girl in the room and I wish I was him.

End Times

2006-10-03T10:23:00.000-04:00

I really shouldn't stay up all night reading 'end days' prophesies and apocalyptic interpretations of historical events. It's bad for my digestive system and I woke up this morning with a headache.

As a species, and in general, we have a morbid fascination with our own mortality. This has led, at various times, to people from all walks of life getting into the prophecy game. There are lots to chose from so I've thrown together a bunch just to see what happens when you mix and match human destiny with religious fervor and a pinch of mysticism. I have come up with the following.

From the Catholic Church's refusal to reveal the third prophecy of Lucia dos Santos, otherwise known as the 'Our Lady of Fatima' events, to the identification, by certain groups, of the European Union as the 'Seven Headed Dragon' to the revelation that the U.N., who is in the midst of trying to find a new leader, will become the world power ruled by Lucifer in disguise and will topple all forms of government but its own, I have gleaned that we are on the edge of an abyss into which most of us will be plunged as the war for the souls of mankind rages between the forces of Our Father, Who Art In Heaven, and his ungrateful and renegade Arch-Angel, Lucifer.

Generally, it goes like this:

By ignoring the third warning delivered by the Virgin Mary at Fatima, in 1917, and refusing to consecrate Russia, like they were told to, the Vatican has put us on the path to destruction. The Church will be overtaken by the 'anti-pope' who will bring about the destruction of that establishment. Then the European Union will emerge as the dominate power in the western world. The U.N. will assume world government and wage war on an unnamed Eastern Power (take a guess.) and the war of the Apocalypse will be engaged.

Pope John Paul 2, in Fulda, Germany in 1980, was caught a little off guard when he was asked about the contents of the third prophecy of Fatima said, more or less, "What good will it do you to know that the oceans will rise and destroy a bunch of us, and that the church will be subverted, millions will die and a world power, led by the devil, will annihilate the rest of us? But that's not what it says, it says we should all pray and be good. Seriously, I'm telling you the truth, here. It's a message of hope and all that stuff about pain and destruction was just a little joke. Get it?"

Things to watch out for:

1) The re-emergence of the Roman Empire-Done (see European Union)
2) One World Government led by the anti-Christ-Waiting to see what happens at the U.N.
3) One World Money System-Coming (I'm changing everything to Euros in anticipation)
4) The appearance of the Whore Of Babylon, who will rule beside the anti-Christ-Uncertain (variously referred to as the Church, Jerusalem, The Soviet Union, Queen Elizabeth [according to Rastafarians], The United States and Pauly Shore.)
5) Christ appears in Jackson County, Missouri-Not yet (This, according to the Mormons)
6) Christ becomes King of Heaven-Already happened (1914, according to the Jehovah's Witness')
7) The birth of the Buddha Maitreya-Uncertain (Buddhist's aren't saying, but not denying it either)

All in all, I intend to keep a watchful eye on things, although I don't know that it will do any of us any good to get ourselves in a knot over it. I should probably be paying attention to things a little closer to home, like the price of gas, the monopoly Roger's is building, Stephan Harper's weight, and that smell coming from behind the stove.

Oh, and if I'm wrong, just ignore this and chalk it up to a little indigestion.

Something Special

2006-10-02T07:53:00.000-04:00

"Are we poor?"
Nelson Tubbs looked up at his mother from the the dinner table as he asked this. Eunice Tubbs had her back to him and he thought he saw a slight stiffening in her shoulders as he asked his question. She didn't say anything, instead she shoveled the dry biscuits onto a plate, waiting, maybe, for an answer from the wheezing blob at the head of the table.
"Mom?"
"What, Nelson?" she said, pretending to inspect her latest creation. The biscuits sat quietly on the plate, trying to look innocent without much success. I'm making biscuits with powdered milk, she thought, you tell me if we're poor. But she didn't say it. Instead she said, "Ask your father."
"Hey, Dad? Are we poor?"
Donald Tubbs said nothing and seemed not to have heard. Nelson watched the paper in front of his father's face, waiting, but the paper didn't move except for one quick snap as a page was turned.
"Aren't you going to answer your son?" said his mother.
"Uh huh." from behind the paper, "Yeah."

Nelson tuned out the argument and when he was finished his dinner he left the table and went to his room. He had never known that his family was poor but Ritchie Clark had told him he was, that afternoon, after school. Sometimes Ritchie Clark was allowed to have friends over to play in his basement before dinner. Nelson liked going to Ritchie Clark's house because Ritchie had nearly every G.I. Joe that there was. He also had the jeep and the helicopter and the base, but he wouldn't let Nelson play with those, just in case he broke them. Ritchie Clark always made him play with the blond haired G.I. Joe, who wasn't as cool, but Nelson might have done the same if Ritchie ever came over to his house to play and if Nelson had more than one G.I. Joe.
That was how Ritchie knew he was poor, Nelson thought.

Eunice Tubbs sat long into the night, with only a small lamp to illuminate the room, her fingers working, abstractly alone, on the sweater as she considered her options. She wondered how things could have turned out so wrong for her. There was a time when she had considered herself very lucky, but that memory had been left to gather dust while she struggled to make ends meet with the pitiful allowance she got from the silent, brooding, selfish man she'd pinned her dreams to. No longer, did she smile at the memory of her girlfriends giggling when he came into the room or at the anticipation she felt as his car pulled into the yard wondering when he would ask her the only question she wanted to hear. And now she knew that the truth was out there, on the lips of everyone in town. She was poor and there wasn't a goddamned thing she could do about it. She put down her needles and turned out the light but stayed in her chair, looking out the window and eventually fell asleep dreaming of the day she met him, the day she'd lost herself in his dreams and drowned in his arms.

Donald Tubbs sat at the end of the bar absently mopping up the condensation from the glass with the sleeve of his shirt. He thought about her, her eyes hard and her mouth twisted into a grimace as she cut him open and lay out his pride, right there in front of the ungrateful little bastard. He thought about the long days he spent in the sun, breaking his back for them, all so that he could come home and be treated like a criminal. 'You don't even give me enough to feed us properly' she had screamed into his face. Where did that come from? They ate every night, under his roof, at his table, and they had the nerve to complain about it. This is my life, he thought.
He looked around the room. It was quiet tonight. There was one other couple in the place and they were leaning drunkenly on each other as he whispered into her ear and she giggled at everything he said. Donald wanted to go over there and slap the man stupid, telling him to get out while he could, before she trapped him and pinned him with kids, a mortgage and expectations he could never fulfill.
He finished his beer and wobbled to the front door, searching his pockets for the keys. Behind the wheel, he started the car and then shut it off again. He leaned his head on his hands and than felt a wave of nausea rising up from his stomach and with a heaving flush of self-loathing, he punched the wheel, immersing himself in the pain and waiting for it to transform his guilt into anger. But it didn't come tonight, the anger. Instead, it dissolved into nothing, leaving him quiet and alone. This life is a quiet killer, he thought, and now so am I. He started the car again but before he could slip it into gear another wave of dizziness raced up his spine and he slipped into unconsciousness and slumped over on the front seat, the engine still sputtering into the night.

"Hi, Mom." chirped Nelson as he sat down at the table. She set a bowl of cereal in front of him and he dug in hungrily, not stopping until the last Shreddie was gone and then he tilted the bowl and drank the milk left in the bottom.
"Did you sleep okay?" she asked him, watching his eyes as they moved to the empty chair at the other end of the table.
"Yeah. Where's Dad?" he said.
"Oh, he had to go into work early today. Nelson, are you sure you're okay? Are you still thinking about what Ritchie said to you yesterday?" Eunice tried to sound casual, sure her son would hear the fear in her voice.
"No. Ritchie Clark is a jerk. He just thinks that because he has lots of toys, he's better than me. But I got eighty-eight on my spelling test and he only got a seventy-three. And he got in trouble yesterday for talking in class." Nelson took his bowl to the sink and rinsed it out.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Nelson?"
"I don't care if we're poor. I got lots of toys and a lot more friends than Ritchie Clark." he stood, legs apart, waiting for her to finish putting his peanut butter sandwiches into his lunch box.
Eunice Tubbs thought about what he'd said long after he'd climbed onto the school bus and long into the morning, as she washed the dishes, and long into the afternoon, as she sat knitting her sweater, and then she put it away and got up to see what she could find in the freezer for dinner. Something special.

Gorman's Back

2006-09-30T08:56:00.000-04:00

Gorman called me at six that morning and if he'd been in the room I would knocked his block off. He was freaking out and told me I had to come over right away. I said, "Sure." and went back to bed. I woke up again at nine and decided to head over there after I ate some Shreddies and watched some cartoons.
I miss the old time Saturday cartoons. I just can't follow these new ones. I didn't really like Bugs Bunny or the Roadrunner, both of whom were a little too smug for me, so I cheered for Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote, completely inept but full of wonder and creative pride. Transformers be damned, these were the classics.
By the time I got to Gorman's it was about ten-thirty. His mom said he was in his room but hadn't heard anything for a while. I went down and knocked on his door but there was no answer.

His room was a complete disaster. As much as I hated it when my mom bitched and complained until I cleaned my room, I had to admit that I liked it that way. This was chaos and it smelled bad. Gorman had a cool room, though. It took up almost half the basement in his house. And it had real walls, and not just blankets nailed into the ceiling joists. His dad wasn't the kind of guy to do things halfway, so when Gorman moved his room downstairs, they fixed it up right.
I called out his name and when no answer came I figured he'd probably gone somewhere. Maybe he was in the can or went to the store for a coke. I decided to wait him out and sat down at the desk.

Gorman always had projects on the go, and his desk was always crowded with drawings of machines that didn't exist and math that didn't work. He was the guy who took things apart to find out how they worked and then couldn't put them back together. He was really smart but really confused at the same time.
I sat looking through the sheets on the top of the pile but couldn't make any sense out of them, until I began to hear a strange whining. It was like the sound of two sheets of metal being ground against one another and it was getting louder. I looked out the window, half expecting to see some big tractor pushing around Mrs. Gorman's garden but there was nothing there. I cocked my head from side to side trying to figure out what direction it was coming from but couldn't find it. The noise seemed to be coming from everywhere.

I turned around, looking for the sound, and that was when I noticed a strange glow in the centre of the room. It was the size of a quarter but was growing quickly and the noise was coming out of the centre of it. I remember backing up against the wall, I remember being terrified. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone. I was just stuck there watching this thing get bigger and bigger until I decided that I'd better get out of there. I gauged the distance to the door and figured I could get there without touching the growing ball of light because, while it was pretty, I had no intention of staying to find out what it was.

I edged my way down the wall and toward the door and just before I went through it I thought I heard a voice, a grinding kind of screech, and it might have been coming from the hole in the universe that was opening in Gorman's bedroom and it might have been a voice, maybe Gorman's, screaming in excruciating pain, screaming the words, "Help me.", screaming something I couldn't make out, just screaming, but then the noise began to diminish and the ball of light began to shrink and then, almost as quickly as it appeared, it popped out of existence and was gone.
I stood there for what might have been ten minutes just looking at the space where it had appeared and then I bolted.

You don't believe me, I know. I wouldn't believe me either if I hadn't been there, and in fact I eventually started to believe what his parents and the cops and everyone else believed and that was that he was either kidnapped by some crazy or he fell down a well somewhere or that he ran away. When I was eleven it seemed likely that he'd opened a door to another universe and had been trapped, possibly by some malevolent force, but as I grew up I let go of those ideas. The world went on without him and eventually I even forgot about him.

The reason I'm telling you this is that he's here. He's back. I woke up last night and could hear a strange noise coming from somewhere downstairs. By the time I got down there was that ball of light, just like the one I'd seen in Gorman's room all those years ago, and the same grinding metal sound was coming from the centre of it. I was terrified and frozen halfway down the stairs as I watched the thing expand until in one short burst of energy something flew out of the hole and it slammed shut with a bang and was gone. And on the floor was Gorman.

He looks exactly the same as he did the last time I saw him. I mean he hasn't aged at all, but it's him. He's still eleven years old. He was unconscious when I got to him and has been sleeping for close to two days now in the spare bedroom and I don't know what to do with him. What do I do? I can't tell anyone that an eleven year old kid popped out of thin air in my basement and I certainly can't tell his family that he's back from wherever he's been, completely unchanged and still a kid. It was nearly twenty five years ago.

I'll have to wait until he wakes up, I guess, and ask him what I should do, what happened to him and where he's been, but until then I'm just going to sit here and listen. That sound is something I'll never forget. I can still hear it. And it just keeps getting louder and louder.

On The Road To Eleusis

2006-09-28T13:42:00.000-04:00

"Hey, there you are."
"Here I am. How are you holding up?"
"Good. I'm hungry, though. When do we get to eat? All this fasting and walking is wearing me down."
"Well, this is the fifth day of the Mysteries, so that means that after we get cursed at, we get to drink the kykeon at Eleusis and after a night of celebration, we eat."
"Wait a second. What do you mean we get cursed at?"
"You weren't listening in Athens were you?"
"No, I was talking to a very pretty girl and missed most of what they were saying."
"Well, Baubo was an old crone who made Demeter laugh by telling her dirty jokes and flashing the Goddess."
"Ugghh. What does that have to do with us getting cursed at?"
"It's just a reference to Baubo. They'll have a bunch of locals lined up and down the street and when we pass they'll hurl obscenities at us. It's really pretty fun."
"Fun, eh? So then what? We drink this stuff and party?"
"Yeah. It's some sort of hallucinogen. Makes for a very weird night, let me tell you."
"I take it, you've done this before."
"My second year, friend. I was initiated last year. I met my wife at Eleusis. We were so high. Good night."
"Wow. So there's lots of action at this party, eh?"
"Not the kind of action you're thinking of. It's not allowed."
"Not allowed? What kind of party is that? Sounds pretty dull to me."
"I think you've got the wrong idea, my friend. We dance and tell stories and just have fun. That sort of thing."
"Well, what kind of Mysteries are we talking about, then?"
"Can't tell you. Not allowed. That's why they're called Mysteries, my man. You'll just have to wait and find out."
"You're not kidding are you? This is a rip-off. I'm not walking all the way to Eleusis just to hang out with a bunch of ponsy do-gooders and listen to religious gibberish. I was told this was a great bash. I knew I should have gone to the Dionysia. Now that's a party. I got so drunk last year. I woke up two towns over and had to thumb it all the way back to Athens."
"Look, I'm not really into that sort of thing. I'm going to walk with someone else if you don't mind."
"Don't be such a prude, man. I'm just saying that it seems like a waste of time, walking all the way down there if there's not going to be any action, y'know?"
"No, I don't know."
"Y'know you really are a drag. I'm outta here."
"Suit yourself but your gonna miss a good time."
"Doesn't sound all that good to me. Shit, I wish you'd told me this before we left Athens. Friggin' wierdos."
"Hey, that's about enough of that. Why don't you just go and leave us alone. Go have fun diddling Dionysus, or something."
"Oh yeah, well, have fun not having fun, loser."
"Whatever, you clod. May you be infested with crabs and syphilis."
"Thanks, man. Nice talk for a religious man. You're a real treat. What a jerk. And now I have to walk all the way back. Maybe I can catch a ride with someone. Hey, ladies, what's going on? You ever hear of Dionysus?"

Mora, All The Time

2006-09-26T08:21:00.000-04:00

We sat playing Mora and drinking wine until the quiet hours and then, after clapping each other on the back, we headed for home. I lost all night.
"Not surprising." he said to me, "I can read you like a book."
I don't buy it. It's a game of chance. He claims that he knows what I'm going to throw before I do.
"You like the number three and throw it more than anything else. That alone gives me enough of an advantage to win the point."

The Romans called it micare digitis and the Chinese chai mei, and took it pretty seriously but Med plays it because it reminds him of his father and watching as the old men sat for hours, telling stories, drinking wine and laughing long after he'd been put to bed. He says it was even outlawed for a time because it encouraged arguments and fighting over points.

Sometimes we sit, at the cafe, for hours at a time and Med nods to people he knows as they walk by. He is at home there, with an esspresso and a smile. He crosses his legs in a way that my father would call 'queer' but not even my father would say something like that to Med. He says little to me, as we sit and watch the world go by; his wisdom seems to come from the meditative wash of people going about their business. I sometimes get restless, waiting for something to happen, but Med says this is because I'm Irish and need distractions to feel alive. I don't exactly understand this but I think it may be an insult.

"Sit down and shut up." he said to me once, after I'd asked him why he comes here every day. My anger spread quickly and I was about to leave when he added, "If you don't sit down and shut up you'll miss what's going on. Look, she's going home to cook dinner. Look at the way she keeps looking up at the tower clock. She's late and there's going to be an argument. And him, he's forgotten what his wife asked him to pick up. There's Lucy. She's working at the noodle house. She's early today. That means they'll be busy tonight. Don't go to the noodle house before nine." I told him I didn't care about these people and he sat forward on his chair and said, "These are your people. Whether you care about them or not, they're your people. That's what you forget."

Mora is a game of wiggling fingers, shouting and drinking. But Med thinks it's a game in which we put down our weapons and face each other, like men, with nothing but our wits to guide us. He claims he can see into a man's soul when he plays. He thinks it brings us closer together and that we can learn from each other the secrets that make each of us strong in the face of adversity. He thinks it's a philosophy, a way of life and a tonic. I think he's crazy.

He does win all the time, though. He says it's because he knows me better than I know myself. He's probably right.

Why Do You Ask?

2006-09-22T08:31:00.000-04:00

Today feels like a day for getting things done. Evy agrees and has offered to work all day shredding the chair that I'm sitting on. Its a work-in-progress, I guess. I, meanwhile will spend my time trying to fix a number of broken things around here: hinges, light switches, my sense of humour-that sort of thing.

I think I may have burnt out my sense of humour. Nothing seems funny anymore. Sure, I still have a cynical eye, a detachment that allows me to critique my betters, and I have a keen understanding of why I think it's so funny when people trip over their own feet or get hit in the head with a golfball. But it has occurred to me that these things are an extension of my cruelty, not my good will, and my desire to laugh at you before you laugh at me. As hard as I try, it seems to me that funny only comes in disguise and never as itself.
I'm going to go one step further and say that nothing is funny if it doesn't involve someone else's misfortune. That's not a criticism, it's a fact. Test it. Go ahead. What is the funniest thing that's ever happened to you, or more likely, in front of you?

I recently posted an updated version of my resume on the internet and my phone has not stopped ringing. Except for one, all the calls are from insurance and financial planning outfits who tell me that I'd be a great salesman. All I have to do is call people, randomly, and use jingoistic phraseology to lure the stupid and unaware into buying products and coverage that they don't need. Of course, none of these jobs pay an hourly wage, you work on commission, but I am assured that with the right attitude I can make up to $100,000 a year. Now that's funny. Maybe 'funny' isn't the right word.

I waited patiently, which for me amounts to climbing Everest in my underwear and without a Sherpa, and when the old lady in front of me finally finished loading her groceries into the basket of her scooter, the cashier started to ring through mine. I said, "Hello." to which she answered, "Fine, thanks." I waited but she didn't say anything more. I was curious to see what else I might not say, and how she would answer. I didn't say, "You're a sour old bitch." but I guess she didn't hear me, so then I didn't say, "There's a potted plant in my pants." No good. This conversation was going nowhere. When she gave me my change she skimmed her eyes past where she assumed I was standing and said, "Have a nice day." to which I responded "Why do you ask?" She looked at me, and for a moment, I thought I had penetrated her hard-boiled exterior and then she said, "Thanks." For the life of me, I can't remember what I didn't say, but I now I know to watch my tongue.

For three days there has been a front end loader sitting outside my window. The driver periodically has to fire it up and front end load something, something to do with the repetitive digging out and filling in of holes on my street, but for the most part he sits quietly, reading his paper and fiddling with the laces of his boot. For three days he has read and fiddled and periodically dug out or filled in a hole on the street. He must have a patient demeanor and an unflappable resolve. I imagine that you could probably fire bomb his house and he'd stroll out through the flames, singed but untroubled. I bet he could make it through the longest and most incoherent wedding speech ever written without yawning or throwing a brick. The man has incredible patience and fortitude.
Shit. I just looked out the window and noticed that he's gone off somewhere. All this time sitting and watching, waiting for something to happen, and now I've gone and missed him climbing down out of the machine. I miss all the action.

I'm a terrible judge of distance when it comes to parking spots. I'm forever hitting those cement stops and bending my license plate. I wonder why I never err on the side of caution and leave the car jutting out into the lot behind me. I suppose I worry that someone will come along and clip the back end. It's never happened but it could. I tell myself that that's what the bumper is for but when I hear that sound, that grating, metal bending sound I can't help looking around quickly to see if anyone has noticed. It's embarrassing to be so consistently inept. What I really should work on is not being embarrassed. I should accept the fact that I'm going mangle the front of my car and glare at anybody who notices and say things like, "Fits like a glove." or "If it ain't tight, it ain't right."

Evy's pissed at me. I clipped his nails so that it would take him a little longer to shred the chair and he's given it up as waste of his time. I'm ashamed that I'm raising a quitter. Now he's determined to break the record for the most consecutive hours slept by a cat in one day, so I'm going to get the vacuum out. I'm trying to help him set the record for highest standing vertical leap. Why? Because it's funny and if you don't think so you should check out the definition of funny at the top of the page. I'm pretty sure this qualifies.

Hey, front end loader guy is back.

Remember: God is Everywhere

2006-09-20T07:50:00.000-04:00

He was two years old and had no idea that the collection plate he had just laid his toy truck on wasn't coming back. His mother didn't notice that the truck had been offered up to the church and, as the plate went by, more than one of them smiled to see it, parked along the raised edge of the tray. He watched it disappear down the line and his expression of delight slowly soured as it occurred to him that it wasn't coming back.

"I don't know why these people bring their children to church." the old man said. "They do nothing but fuss and fidget during the service and at some point there is the inevitable bawling that starts and ends when the embarrassed parents haul the kid down the aisle and outside for a spanking. They should save us all the irritation and leave them at home, perched on dad's belly as he sleeps through the first football game of the day."
"Uh Huh." I said as I poured him a coffee.

It was Sunday afternoon and he'd just come from church.

"It's those parents who do such a poor job of disciplining their children. They hope an extended sit down in my place of prayer and devotion will calm their infantile souls. God doesn't care about children, though. They're all instinct and aggression, and as near to being perfectly human as anyone can hope to achieve, I say. And it's all down hill from there."

This one didn't cry, however, as his toy truck receded into the distance and then was passed toward the front. Instead he watched it, his eyes never leaving the brightly coloured blue and red designs stenciled onto the side of the truck, as it was dumped, with little ceremony, onto the huge salver at the front of the church. His steady gaze neither betrayed any fear of losing it forever nor the panic that one might assume would register in him when that fear became fact. He just followed its progression through the hands of the collectors until one of them picked it up and, walking slowly so as not to interrupt the patter coming from the pulpit, slipped it into the hand of the minister.
The minister carefully set the toy truck on the edge of the lectern, in sight of all the parishioners, and as he looked around he could see smiles appearing everywhere, including on the face of the giver. The child had stood up on the pew in order to get a better view of his truck and clapped his hands together in delight as it appeared out of the ministers hands.

"And now," intoned the minister, "I would like to draw your attention to this." and he indicated the truck in front of him. "We all share, in and with our savior, Jesus Christ, a divine inspiration, an undeniable instinct to return to our Father, the love which he so freely gives to us. To Him this is a sign that we are not enslaved by the material nature of this world but that we accept his will and his word, and need no more to ensure us of his great design, than the love in our hearts and the trust in his good will."
The child stood still now, entranced by the ceremony playing out before him, but with a clear eye still held fast by the toy, now the centre of everyone's attention.
"And, although He gratefully accepts our tithes so that his ministry on earth will always exist to mollify our troubled hearts, he does not require that we forfeit the playthings that develop our minds, for through this development we gain a clearer understanding of his will and grow into our responsibilities as illustrated by his only son, our savior, Jesus Christ."

There was a laugh or two at this pronouncement.

"Truck." yelled the boy, clapping his hands together with gusto to more laughter from the congregation.
"Yes, truck." said the minister, "and now we know who it is who is so generous in spirit. Would you care to return this to him," he said to the waiting congregation, "so that the kindness with which he gave his prized possession will grow in him and that he may learn of his Lord's limitless compassion?"

"Oh brother, I thought. This guy could milk anything for a lesson. The congregation, right on cue, said, "Yes." just like the sheep they are." said the old man.

The boy was still on his feet, with his mother steadying him, and he watched his toy coming closer and closer until he squealed in a piercing voice when his mother handed it to him. He promptly stuffed it into his mouth and sat down on the pew to gnaw away at it, and by the time the service ended he was oblivious to anything, asleep on his mother's shoulder.

"The whole thing was a game to the boy. And that fool of a minister used it as an anecdote in God's ministry, and I, for one, thought it was reprehensible. Instead of being punished for his carelessness he was being patted on the head by everyone, except me, that's for sure." he grumbled. "I suppose it was a relief that the kid didn't scream his bloody head off and ruin the service for everyone but that was no reason to use his foolishness as a tool to teach a lesson in morality. That's my opinion, anyway. In my day, children were meant to be invisible. But not today; today it's all about love and forgiveness instead of fear and compliance. No wonder the world is going to hell. And that's one more reason I don't like this new minister. This never would have played with the old one. Now there was a man who knew how to handle children."

It was like this every Sunday. I nodded and smiled, thinking to myself that what awaited this old prick was likely to come as a shock to him. I topped up his coffee and wondered that no matter how many opportunities I gave him, he just didn't get it. And I like the new minister. He might be a bit melodramatic for my tastes but he does his best, and that's all I ask for, after all.

Doing Business

2006-09-18T08:07:00.000-04:00

I was very impressed with the wallet my father gave me for my ninth birthday. It was leather; not just leather, but calf leather. And while I tried not to think about the poor animal it used to belong to, every now and again I imagine that the beast is out there still, going cold because I need a place to put my credit card. If I'd known that my father was to give me no less than four wallets in five years I might not have been so grateful, but that day I was pleased with myself, although a little frustrated that for the rest of my life I would have to sit leaning ever so slightly to the left.

Yesterday morning, early, maybe about six-thirty, I was asked for it by an enterprising young man outside the twenty-four hour convenience store near my house. He knew I had it with me because he had seen me pull it out to pay for the milk, cat food and coffee. I just can't get my day started without coffee and the cat can't get his day started without breakfast.

I've always been an early riser. I can stay up until most of the channels I get go off the air, but my eyes spring open with the dawn, no matter how tired I am. I'm one of those people who always thinks that something fun is going on without me and that if I don't get up and take a look around I might miss out. For thirty years I've been disappointed.

I can understand why the prostitute that works that convenience store is up. I'd hate her hours. I'd have to sleep all day, get up around seven in the evening, spend a few minutes trying to decide between the leather thong and nothing at all, ingest whatever drugs will push my dreams of becoming the youngest beauty technician at the Mac counter to the back of my mind and be out the door by dark. One of the truths about commerce is you have to go where the customers are.

I don't want you to think I'm a prude. I've spent a fair part of my life caterwauling up and down the darkened streets of this city, hustling and being hustled, but it seems to me that thieves, these days, are losing sight of an important aspect of their craft. The 'don't get caught' part. Standing outside a convenience store in the middle of the night might be a good idea, although I have an argument for that, too, but to hang around for one more mark, long enough for the sun to come up, doesn't seem like a wise career move. I think he was working two jobs, though, maybe three. Let me see. Pimping, selling hot laptops, and as a last resort stealing wallets. Yeah, that's three.

Honestly, I think the stealing the wallet thing was something he made up on the spot. As soon as his girlfriend figured out what he was up to, she decided she'd been up too long and went home to get some sleep.

"Hey , man. Want to buy a laptop? Still in the plastic. Pentium 4, 256mb of Ram, 160g hard drive. Only $80." he said as I was getting into the car.
"You work for MDG, don't you?" I said, suspiciously.
"What?"
"No, I don't want a laptop. Have a nice morning."
"O.K. $50. It's brand new, man. Never been used." he countered.
"Look," I said, "You don't need to say 'never been used' right after you say 'brand new'. Have a little faith in your customer."
"What are you talking about, man? Do you want to buy or not?"
"I've already said 'no'. Now you should ask me why I don't think I need one and work on some examples of how it could positively influence my life to buy one anyway." I used to work in sales and I hate sloppy patter.
"Hey, no problem. What about a ride on my girl?"
"The girl who just left? Do I have to imagine her too? How can you sell something without advertising? You're not very good at this are you?" and I closed the car door.
He motioned me to roll down my window, which I did, just to see if he was going to take any of my advice.
"Gimme your wallet."
"No. I like this one but I've got three more just like it at home. Why don't I go get you one and meet you back here in, say, ten minutes. My dad's been dead for years, now, so I don't think he'll care. Actually I don't think he ever realized that he gave me four wallets inside of five years. Sometimes it's a good idea to write down what you give someone on their birthday so that you don't repeat the gift the next year."
"What?"
"Man, this is what I'm talking about. You have to listen to your customers. You drop the price of the computer the first time I say 'no', you're trying to sell me a girl who's probably at home and in bed by now, and you haven't listened to a thing I've been saying. On top of that, it's light out and you're trying to conduct shady business in the full light of the sun. Have you never wondered why they call it 'shady business'?" I started the car at that point. I was done trying to help this guy out.
"Hey, I said gimme your wallet. Gimme your money."
"Oh, brother." I said as I backed the car up, with him trotting along side the whole time. "Do you want my money or my wallet? The first rule of business is to develop a feasible plan and then stick to it. Do you even know what you want out of this little enterprise?"
I put the car in gear and eased it toward the road, at which point my young protege began to yell, "Gimme your wallet. Gimme your wallet." as he ran behind the car.
I leaned out the window and looked back at him, standing, alone now, in the parking lot of the all night convenience store, without a plan, or even an idea about how to make a living and I felt kind of sorry for him. Rules are rules, however, and I went home to make myself a cup of coffee and feed the cat.

I was thinking, though, that it might be a nice idea to put the three extra wallets I have in the glovebox of the car. I don't believe in making things easy for people, especially people who hope to make it big in business, because it's important to learn that sales can be tough. On the other hand, sometimes it's nice to be able to help people out, sometimes.
And like I said, as far as I know, my father never had the faintest idea that he gave me the same present four out of five years.

Viscosity

2006-09-13T23:41:00.000-04:00

Anderson arrived at the dance studio fifteen minutes before his lesson was to begin. He leaned against the brick wall, near to the door, and watched as six or seven couples tripped around the room in wide circles while Ms. Valeri clapped her hands in time to the music.
When the music ended and she dismissed the class, she came across the floor, her arms outstretched to receive him and kissed him on both cheeks.
"Mr. Miller, it's so wonderful to see you again. I hope you've been practicing your steps."
"Oh, I have Ms. Valeri, I have."
"That's good, Mr. Miller. Your wife will be mesmerized by your agility. How many lessons do we have before your anniversary?" she said as she reset the music and drew him to the centre of the floor.
"Only two more, Ms. Valeri."
"Wonderful, wonderful."

Anderson cursed under his breath when he dropped the keys and had to put down the suitcase; the other hand was full of newspaper and his mail, just collected from the box. As he stood, he heard the door to the apartment next to his open and Virginia stuck her head out and gave him a quick smile.
"Hi Andy." she squeaked. "How was Detroit?"
"Minneapolis." he said.
"Sorry. How was Minneapolis?" She was breathtakingly beautiful even in cotton track pants and a sweat shirt.
"Not bad." he said.
"Doesn't your girlfriend get pissed with you for being away so much?" She was making fun of him, he knew, but he laughed anyway.
"I hope not. Have you seen her today?"
"I've never met the woman, Andy. How would I know?"
"Don't think I haven't noticed the cameras you've got installed in my bedroom, Virginia." he laughed.
"Found those, eh? Hope your girl doesn't mind. See you later." and she was gone.

"Good morning, Anderson." It was Alice.
"'Morning Mrs. V. I'll just take the coffee this morning. I'm late again."
Alice was alone in the shop this morning and almost hidden behind the stack of magazines.
"Where have you been? I tried calling but no one answered." she said with mock severity.
"Alice, you've got to give this up. What would your husband say?"
"If he says anything it will be a miracle. Besides, he's buried way out in the country and he doesn't get out much anymore." she laughed.
"That is probably the most morbid thing I've heard today, Mrs. V."
"The day is young, my friend."

Clarice Volga was the last of the great family that had founded Volga Inc. three decades ago. When Anderson started his internship twelve years ago she was still a child. Now she was the youngest C.E.O. in the city and counted Anderson as one of her most trusted, if inscrutable, advisors.
"Clarice." he nodded to her as he entered her office.
"Your late." she said.
"So fire me."
"I would if you weren't the best looking man around here. Look at this. I just got it. I think this calls for a bit of a celebration, don't you?" handing him a folder.
"I'll say. That didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would."
"Let me take you out for a drink tonight. Shorty's?"
"Oh, I would love to, Clarice, but..."
"But you have to sit in with your mother, I know. Can't you just take one night off, Anderson? How else can I show my appreciation?" she smiled coyly at him.

He turned on the light and went to the kitchen to pour himself a drink. He sat in the big armchair in front of the t.v. and leaned back, deep into the cushion. The cat came out from whatever hiding place she 'd found and crawled up into his lap.
"Just you and me tonight, Virgo."
Just you and me every night, he thought. He stared absently at the television, his mind wandering over the events of the day. He finished his drink and left the glass on the side table for morning and, despite the complaints Virgo mewled in his direction, he dumped the cat to the floor.
As he collapsed onto his bed, without undressing, he thought about them, all of them, and he wondered why he told such elaborate lies but before he could find an answer to that he fell into a deep and peaceful sleep while the cat pawed at his hand, hoping for a reaction, looking for nothing more than a return on her affections.

The Club

2006-09-13T08:22:00.000-04:00

I like to sit on the front step of the building I live in and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes my neighbour is out there, too. He's an older guy, clean cut, probably wears a suit at work, and he talks about sports all the time. Almost all the time. Sometimes he talks about his wife and how much she bugs him.
"It never fails. As soon as I sit down to watch a game, she's got something that needs doing." he said one night.
"Yeah?" I said in that way that one does when you have no particular interest in someone's story.
"You gotta a woman?" he asked me. I was happy that the darkness covered my smile.
"Yeah, I suppose." I answered. He might have been asking me if I owned some golf clubs.
"Women, eh?"

I hate these conversations. I know that I'm supposed to agree with him and affirm my membership in the most secret of societies, the Men Who Put Up With Women For Sex club, but I just can't do it. With a look, a nod, a wink or a roll of the eyes I could be a member but the truth of the matter is that I'm a traitor. I love women.

The door he sat in front of cracked an inch or two and a voice said, "Dan, can you put out the garbage before you come in?"
He looked at me with a 'see what I mean' look and said, "Yeah, in a minute."
Then to me, with a smile and after the door closed, he said, "It never ends." And, in the light of the single bare bulb that hung above his head, I suddenly understood him. He was a pretender.
"What's she like?" he asked.
"She's beautiful. Smart, too." I said. I decided I would play along with him for the time being and added, "She keeps me in line."
"Good for you." he said as he stood up. "Have a good night."

I sat out for a while longer, wondering what life must be like in that house. A long slow dance with familiar patterns and repeating steps performed with a half smile of concentration and a tender commitment to the outcome.

I finally stood up and shook off the chill and with one last look around I went inside. She was under a blanket on the couch and nearly asleep while the final minutes of her movie played out. She looked up at me and said, "You missed it."
"Was it any good?"
"It was alright, I guess." she said sleepily, "It's garbage night. Can you put it out before you come to bed?"
I smiled at her as she turned out the lights and said, "It never ends, does it?"
"Not if I can help it." came her voice out of the darkness.

The Grace of God

2006-09-12T08:29:00.000-04:00

"There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford."
"Why do you always refer to yourself in the third person?"
"What?" said Bradford as he turned away from the window.
"And do I have to remind you that your name is on their list of Protestant Heretics? They'll be coming in here for you next, Bradford."
"Oh, I don't know. I met her once. Mary, I mean. She didn't seem like a bad sort. Not exactly what you would call a beauty, but quite a nice girl."
"You've got to be joking. She's already burned a couple of dozen of you Protestant buggers. I'll bet you're next."
"Yeah, maybe, but not today." said Bradford.
"There's always tomorrow. Hey, listen. Someone's coming."
"Maybe their coming for you." Bradford smiled at him.
"Me? I didn't do anything. I'm innocent."
"Sure, and this place is full of innocent men."
"Well, guilt is simply a matter of interpretation of the law."
The door swung open and in the glaring light stood one of the Tower guards.
"Which one of you is John Bradford?" he said.
"Uh... He is." said Bradford.
"Hey. What? No I'm not. Look at me. Do I look like the 'Holy Bradford'?"
"You look like fuel for the fire to me." said the guard.
"Hey, you can't do this. I'm not John Bradford. That guy is."
"Come on. No use fighting, Bradford. You'll be dining with your Lord and Saviour tonight."
"Bradford! Tell them the truth."
"What? Why do you keep calling me Bradford? My name is...uh...Smith. Buddy Smith. I'm just a vagrant caught pissing on the steps of Westminster. I don't know no Bradford." said Bradford.
"I'll get you Bradford. I'll hunt you down. I'll...Oh look, I've wet myself."
"C'mon Mr. Pissy-pants. The fire'll dry that up."
The door shut with a bang and when he heard the gates below screeching open he stood up and leaned over the window sill, peering into the courtyard below. The guards appeared, dragging their prisoner between them as he cursed them, the new Queen and anybody else who happened to be around. With a sigh, he sat down. Not today, maybe tomorrow.
"There, but for the grace of God, go I." said Buddy Smith.

Purged

2006-09-11T08:41:00.000-04:00

Nine months after the accident, I woke up in bed unaware of the time that had passed. It was no longer autumn and even after so short a time the faces that I did recognize seemed changed. There were things not being said and I could sense that I was missing something. The questions I asked were avoided and it wasn't until I cornered one of them that they told me the truth.
The thing that disturbs me the most is that I was never bedridden, but had been released from the hospital a couple of weeks after it had happened and have been living at home since. I carried on normally in every respect, except one. I ate, talked, walked and went to work. I paid bills, drove my car and went out. Everything was normal except for the fact that I had no memory of Richard. I never asked about him or wondered where he was. I had completely wiped him from my mind and went about my business, as usual. They told me that when his name came up, in front of me and by accident, my eyes would glaze over and I would get up and leave the room. They would find me sitting on a chair, on the patio, looking at the sky but with no indication that I knew what had transpired.
But nine months after the accident I woke up and knew something was missing. When I finally wondered out loud where Richard was they told me he was dead. I felt a loss that wasn't completely a surprise to me. The longing and the pain was too familiar to me, even though I couldn't remember the specifics. I asked them again and again how it had happened and they avoided my eyes. They told me that I had cried when they came to see me in the hospital and that I knew then what I didn't know now. The doctors had warned them that my memory would never be the same. I can't remember the accident, although I did briefly. And then nothing. I stopped remembering and went back to my normal routine.
But right now, I remember everything. It was my fault. I also know that I will probably forget again, and that some time, in the future, I'll wake up one morning and wonder where Richard is, having forgotten that he's dead, and that for the rest of my life the shock and the pain will be re-born in me as fresh as it was the first time.

Sweet Dreams Baby

2006-09-08T07:34:00.000-04:00

I have been having some trouble sleeping lately. This is something that comes up from time to time, I suspect as a result of not enough physical activity. Go ahead and make all the jokes you want, but sitting at a computer all day long has a downside I'm only beginning to explore.
As time goes by the effects caused by a lack of sleep begin to influence my behavior, including the rituals and proposed solutions to sleeplessness. The pillows are punched first, then the fan is turned off/on, depending on the current state, then the t.v. is turned off/on, again depending on what didn't work last night and finally a dizzying array of sedatives, ranging from boring movies to tequila shooters, is employed.
And when none of the above work?
Why, self-hypnosis, of course. It goes like this.

Begin with any number of relaxation techniques, including counting backwards while relaxing body parts one-by-one. Then imagine a walk which takes you past symbolically pointed markers, for example: descending stairs, large bodies of water and darkness, all representing the unconscious. Then finally a vivid and relaxed image of repose, focusing on the steady rhythm of the breath. Try to ignore the couple that has stopped outside your window to argue about his mother. Forgive the cat for being nocturnal and chasing around a pen he managed to slide off the table. Ignore the sirens sounds that travel from all over the city to instigate that fight or flight response in your primordial brain. Stop wondering if you locked the car, turned off the stove, or have enough money in your chequing account to cover the rent. These things will intrude into your relaxation time and sit around like friends from high school who don't know when to go home.

And I worry about the hazards associated with self-hypnosis. Specifically, that I'll enter a random bit of code into my brain by accident and then suffer from the embarrassment of stripping down to my underpants any time someone says "lunar eclipse." Not that it's happened. But it is a valid concern. The assurances of psychologists, who claim that no form of hypnosis can coerce any type of behavior we wouldn't normally partake in is no comfort to me. I've willingly done a lot of things that I regretted later.

The point is moot, though, because no amount of self-hypnosis has resolved my sleep issue. I want to be unconscious not hyper-conscious. I have, however, learned three languages and how to do algebra, just not when I'm awake.

Warm Milk-tastes like crap
Larry King-almost, but not quite
'Personal' attentions-sometimes
C.S.I. marathon-makes me dream about autopsies
Any book on Economic Principles-just makes me mad

I'm willing to take any suggestions at this point. Sweet sleep. That would be nice.

Idle Speculation

2006-09-05T08:07:00.000-04:00

We stood together on the sidewalk and watched as the roller purred back and forth over the new road surface. The heat emanating from the asphalt was a reminder that the seasons are changing and I was surprised at how welcome the sensation was. The kid, about four years old, was asking his mother what was going on and she explained, in a patient voice, the process. He was transfixed with the perfection of that top layer, so smooth and black. It looked like the beginning of something to him and I knew then that he had none of the doubt I harbored. It didn't look like a beginning to me, it looked like asphalt. In thirty five years he'll know what I mean.

On the highway, on the way home, I was watching the horizon, waiting for the tall buildings to rise up and tell me I was home. A day earlier I had been watching them shrink in the rear view mirror. The coming and the going blurred into one long-lasting sensation of traveling without reaching any kind of destination. It's a restless kind of movement, like shuffling your feet on a subway platform, hearing the murmuring of the people around you and testing the air for any breeze that will tell you that your wait is over.

I'm keeping an eye on that pile of garbage, waiting for the truck to arrive. Someone keeps ripping open the bags to see what's in them. The first time it happened I wasn't too surprised. Some people can't stand the mystery of what I call trash. The second time convinced me that the neighborhood is losing its collective memory and needs everything in the open to feel secure. No secrets here.

Beginning last week, my phone has been ringing off the hook with wrong number calls. My curiosity has been piqued. I lost my temper with a woman who, after three tries, refused to admit that she had the wrong number. I yelled at her that last time and then wondered for the rest of the night if there might be some unknown reason I was being targeted. I wandered down that line of speculation until I began to believe that some higher power might be trying to contact me and finally, when my imagination had me jumping at every strange noise and peering into the faces of my friends with suspicion and doubt, I imagined what I might do if I called a wrong number. I decided that having been told once I wouldn't try again. There's definitely something going on here and I'm going to find out what it is.

I was talking with someone recently about how crappy television is. I speculated, as I am wont to do, that life without cable might be a good thing. I got home that night and fell asleep to the weather channel and now I can't get that damned song out of my head. I came to the conclusion that I'm afraid of life without t.v. I was out last night and I found myself thinking, "Why am I here? I could be at home watching television." In a rational world, with a rational mind, I would have slapped myself silly to hear that. As it is, I saw a new episode of C.S.I. last night. That was all the convincing I needed. My real friends live in Vegas and it's time I got myself down there.

I got a call from the Globe and Mail people asking me to buy a subscription. The salesman seemed genuinely surprised to hear that I don't read newspapers, or rather that I read them online. I was in a funny mood and told him that I wasn't going to support a model of information gathering that was destroying the environment and that he was going to hell in a greenhouse gas handbasket. He broke from his script to deny any wrongdoing himself and said he was just trying to earn a living. I felt bad for a minute until I realized that he nearly had me offering to buy a subscription. Having caught on to his tactics, I screamed, "Not today, you cold blooded tree killer!" I hung up the phone and found the cat staring at me. I felt embarrassed and fed him an extra spoonful of cat food. He let it slide without comment.

I had another dream in which I could fly. I woke up believing that, if I had the space to get up some speed, I might get off the ground. I wondered if there was a park close by, without a lot of spectators, to give it a try. I remembered seeing a possible location on a walk last week and decided to go over there after breakfast. By the time I got out of the bathroom I had forgotten about the dream and I didn't remember it until just a few minutes ago. I was pouring a second cup of coffee when it came to me and I had to laugh at my foolishness. There wasn't anywhere near enough open ground to get off the ground in that park. Too many trees. If it doesn't rain today, I'm going down to the Arboretum. There's more than enough room to fly there.

Moon Men and Bipedal Beavers

2006-08-31T09:35:00.000-04:00

It was on this day in 1835 that Richard Adams Locke published his final installment of essays on British Astronomer Sir John Herschel and Herschel's incredible discovery of life on the moon. In the articles, Locke outlined the apparent discovery of spheroid amphibians, goat-like unicorns and finally the 'Vespertilio-Homo', or man-bat, winged men who flew around the gardens Locke claimed Herschel had discovered.
There was a lot of speculation about the possibility of a hoax by society's more learned fellows but to the average Joe the news was spectacular and made the New York Sun the best selling newspaper during that time. The stupefied public learned of the herds of bison that roamed the moon and the up-right beavers who built huts and had fire, but the most shocking news was of the flying men who lived in a golden temple and dwelt in tranquil harmony with all the other beasts who inhabited this garden of delight.
Locke may have outdone himself, however, because while he was poking fun at societies tendency to believe just about anything a scientist claimed was true, an alarming and still current practice amongst us poor and unwashed, it was that unflagging belief that foiled his hoax. He couldn't make the story outlandish enough to make his point. It's only funny when someone gets the joke and very few people got the joke.
The New York Sun never did come right out and say it was a hoax, clinging, to the last, to the 'reports' it had confirming Herschel's work. Herschel was oblivious to what was going on in the States at the time and didn't learn about it until much later. He was amused, at first, saying that his own discoveries were never that interesting, but in the end he would grow furious when people questioned him about the moon-men he had discovered.
What Herschel did leave us with are the names for all of Saturn and Uranus' satellites, his influence on a young Charles Darwin, Herschel Island and the J. Herschel crater (which really does exist on the moon) and his improvements to the photographic process which saw him give Daguerre the key to 'fixing' his images to make them permanent. Not too bad, if a little mundane.
And so here's to Richard Adams Locke. The man who fooled the entire United States into believing that there was life on the moon. Maybe it wasn't all that hard after all. Most Americans still believe that they landed there in 1969. They are a gullible people.

Sinisterman

2006-08-31T09:14:00.000-04:00

I reckon I've been punished enough. The years since I began to question my purpose have been filled with anxiety and fear and through it all there was a note of sadness that developed a deep and longed for solitude. I can't remember what it was that brought down this sentence or even if there is a reason. Lawrence tells me there was nothing I could have done to prevent it and I hate him for his sanguine reflections, because he can find hope in despair and I don't have that talent. I find only despair in despair and he thinks this is a narrow view.
He visits me every day and cheerfully regales me with tales from outside, his intent is that I eat his words and digest the happiness contained within them. He is mistaken in his conviction that this will bring me peace. I am interested only in myself. I don't give a damn what happens on the outside. Without his visits, however, my imprisonment would be seamless and without variety.
On the twentieth anniversary of my confinement I had many visitors but the mood was blackened when Lawrence sang a song from my childhood and then smirked as he crooned the last line, "and now we go our ways." The others sat nervously watching me but I did not oblige them with a smile. He is truly my tormentor with a grin.
I'm telling you this to illustrate my refusal to co-operate with my tormentors any more. I have turned my back on them and indicated that I will no longer accept his visits. I reckon I have been punished enough and I no longer question my purpose.

Languid, At Times

2006-08-31T08:02:00.000-04:00

I think it's very lucky for me that my car knows the way home. I strap myself in and start the engine and the car, suddenly aware of its purpose, takes off and I sit back and wrap a layer of dense radiance around my head, covering my eyes and I don't come out until the car is parked and idling, waiting for another cue or to be turned off and locked up. It sleeps then, its hard shell turned out, for this city is no longer as safe as it once was, dreaming of roads it has never seen. It hears and communicates within the hum of trucks and vans and small compact cars that ribbon the highways and wander aimlessly down black roads, across a world barren and empty, thought so, simply, because there are no roads to investigate the damp underbelly of the earth. Among them there are braggarts who tell wildly implausible stories about deep forests, still and intact and demanding tribute, but how is this possible? There are no paths but those that ring this city and those that reach across the wastes to the other cities. Above all it stares, dimly into the future, hopelessly denied any glimpse of life after the stock yard and the compressor. And the night passes thus, half remembered and never understood until the sun comes and warms the metal and sneaks through the glass to fade the leather and crack the dashboard. Some days it sits alone, endlessly mistaking the noises it hears for a command to drive, waiting until nightfall and again slipping into the cacophonous dreams of cluttered highways, and sometimes of clear nights chasing stars while I sit wrapped in radiance riding on the back of a beast whose sole purpose is to travel and wait and to travel and wait.

Between Friends

2006-08-28T20:19:00.000-04:00

"It was awesome, man. I said 'I got three words for you, man. Stick your job up your ass."
I was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, but I had something to say.
"That's six words, Ronnie." I said, but he didn't hear me. He was in the kitchen cutting the lids off of those two litre coke bottles, the plastic ones, to make another bong. I ran over the last one with my bike and spilled the shitty water all over the floor.
"How are you going to pay rent?" I asked him. It was a valid question.
"Oh, no worries, man. I got another job on the way home. Yeah, I'm gonna be working at Morrow's." he said as he sat down. He had the tinfoil out and was fashioning the bowl.
"Doing what?"
"Waitering. I know the manager. I give him a pretty good price on pot." He stuffed the bowl and leaned into a pillow, "You should see his wife, man. She's fucking hot."
Ronnie was the luckiest guy I knew. He could have made tons of money selling pot but he smoked most of it himself. Well, I smoked some, too, but he smoked the most of it. I was having a rough time trying to keep on top of the bills and tuition while Ronnie just fell into big pits of money without even trying.
I really liked him, though. He wasn't all that bright but I've never known a happier guy.
I met him one night at the Strand. My band was playing and he was the only guy in the place who actually listened to us. Everybody else just kept on talking as if no one was on stage. Ronnie was in the middle of the dance floor, dancing by himself, and he would yell stuff like "Fuckin eh." and "The freaks are out tonight."
He lives in his own little world.
Afterward he came over to 'party' with me and Tam. Tam just went to bed but Ronnie and I sat up all night forming something like a friendship, I suppose.
Tam likes him too, but she has limited patience for his antics. Like the time we came home and found him naked in our bed. She wasn't impressed. I couldn't wake him up, so I had to sleep with him and Tam slept on the couch. He called me his 'little faggot' for months.
And then I offerred to let him move in with us. And Tam didn't know yet.
She was in Toronto for the break and I didn't have to nerve to tell her over the phone. Worse, still, the hydro got cut off because I forgot to pay the bill. I had them put it back on but it cost me almost everything I had in the bank. She wasn't going to be happy with me.
"Hey." Ronnie yelled from the kitchen, "Want a Samosa? There's two in here."
"No. I have to talk to you about something."
He sat down beside me, cramming one of the samosas into his mouth, chutney squeezing out of the corners. He held out the other one to me but I waved it off.
"What are we going to do about this?"
"About what?" he said, smiling at me. I looked at him for a moment wishing he wouldn't do that.
"About what's been going on. I think I have to tell Tam."
He leaned forward and put the other Samosa on the table and then turned to look at me.
"Why do you have to tell her anything? C'mon, man. We're friends. Let's just keep it between us." and he put his arm around my shoulder and pressed his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes.
"Don't worry." he said, "You'll still be my little faggot."

Ayee Beefower Ee

2006-08-28T06:50:00.000-04:00

Ayeev reesintlee bin reedeeng eh buk awn thu duvelupmint uv thu Inglish langwedj end Ayee wuz pridee tikuld wen Ayee red thu chaptur awn prununseeayshun. Ayee thot Ayee wud eksparamint uh lidel tu see haoo wee pranawunce sertin wurdz. Its hardur than it luks

It awlso acurd tu mee that cunsiduring thu constant flux uf not ownly thu speling, but thu meening uf wurdz, end haoo cwicly sum uf theez chayinjes cum abaoot, that its dam neeyer imposibul tu keep it awl straeet end that Ayee mieet haf tu maik uh feeyoo apalajees tu sum uf yoo fower beeying eh bit uf uh speling end gramur bich, awl theez yeeyurs. So heeyur wee go.

Ayem soree. Its bin ah lesin in hyoomilitee, lemee tel yoo, too reeuhlieez haoo rbitrehree sum uv awer spehling iz. End eh bit uv eh strayin on mahyee brayin too.

I promise I'll try to lighten up, in the future.

That iz ol.

Collecting Souls

2006-08-27T08:02:00.000-04:00

Al Green had a hole in his heart and knew he was going to die young. I think that's what made him so crazy. I tried to steer clear of him but his locker was right next to mine, so it was hard.

As a teenager, life is one long dramatic twist and it's very easy to believe in thin plots and superficial emotions. Al was very different in that his mortality was with him every day, clearing his eyes to see the world for what it really was. He was a voracious reader and was always giving me books by philosophers I had never heard of. When I found out my girlfriend was cheating on me he put a consoling hand on my shoulder and said, "Fuck her, man. She's going nowhere." and I believed him because he never told a lie. That's what got him into so much trouble.
I told Al I was having trouble at work with my boss. My boss was an alcoholic and would sit at the bar all night long and get drunk and then come into the kitchen just before I closed and scream and yell at me and the rest of the crew. He would push me around, daring me to hit him and then threaten to fire me if I raised a finger in his direction.
Al told me he'd take care of it. And he did. He came in and sat at the bar, beside my boss, and matched him drink for drink all night. When the alcohol had turned him into a raging lunatic Al challenged him to an arm wrestle and when they wrapped their hands together, Al used his free hand to punch him in the face until the man collapsed. The cops showed up and arrested Al, and as they dragged him out he smiled at me.
He was nuts but for some reason he liked me.
I asked him once why he did the things he did and he answered, "I'm dead already. What do I care?"

Karl was a different sort of crazy. He applied for a job one day and asked me to fill in his application because he couldn't read or write. I was surprised by that and felt sorry for him and gave him a job. I also asked my mom if he could live with us, for a while, because he had been sleeping in an old shack near the flea market. He didn't have a family, or a place to live, and he couldn't read or write. I wondered how that could happen in this age.
I took him to a party one night and when he ran out of cigarettes he went to the store and came back with four or five cartons. He handed them out smiling and laughing, and kept on smiling even as the police handcuffed him and took him away. He never tried to hide from anything.
I expected him to steal from me and he did, but I had done him a favour so he only stole things I didn't really need anymore. I was o.k. with that.
He and Al spent a night drinking together but didn't like each other for some reason. Their versions of crazy didn't match I guess. They left each other alone, though.
Karl was killed when he wrapped a motorcycle around a light standard. He didn't own a motorcycle so I assume he stole it.

I wonder sometimes why so many people I know are dead now. For a while I thought it might have something to do with me. You would too, believe me.
As it is, they are frozen, in my recollections, exactly as they were the last time I saw them.
Karl is looking for trouble just to test himself and take his anger out on the world and Al is pushing the limits of his understanding by peering into the dark side of his humanity, bravely facing all of his fears, knowing the end will come quickly.
And they are here, with me, now. I'm collecting souls and I don't know why. I'd like to think that there is a reason for it but that opens a can of worms I'm not ready to deal with yet. For now the question remains.

The Pulpit of Self-Defeat

2006-08-25T06:06:00.000-04:00

Restless and inadequate to the task is how an entire generation lives out the days that remember the promise of individual freedoms and look forward to a future of protracted servitude to a system that they don't understand.
As a majority most of us have given over our rights to intercede on each other's behalf and then fail at creating tangible opportunities for ourselves. Well educated and morally inexact, faith in anything seems pointless and yet it is that faithlessness which undermines personal victories. Everyone wants recognition for their individual achievements but without the risks attached to carving out that individualism in a world where the risk of losing freedoms is very real.
Who's going to hitch their wagon to yours if you don't know where you are going?

Like in art, the secret affinities, the personal victories and the passion for living come from a reductionist view. Life is not lived wholly, revealed in its final form in one awe inspiring tug that pulls the sheet off a magician's box, it is applied, it is gilt, flake by flake and with great dexterity until the task is finished and then comes the satisfaction born out of the application, delicately and purposefully, of one leaf at a time, each one representing the whole, multiplied throughout life. Every step along the way is as important as the arrival, the end of the journey.

All of this is hardly new, but despite the truth of it the malaise increases and the frustration that accompanies it wears down the practitioner. The consumerism that overtook the western world in the early part of this century hasn't made life easier, it has reduced us to infantile and helpless prey. Without the protection of society at large, many of us would be the first run down by predators we previously triumphed over. It doesn't make sense to champion natural selection when you're overweight, have bad eyesight and haven't lifted anything heavier than a newspaper in ten years.

Here's a mundane example. I was watching a popular renovation hero come to the rescue of a middle aged couple and the gentleman who had been wronged complained that he had no idea how to tell if someone was doing the job right. He said, "Why isn't someone doing something about it?" There was a time in our not too distant past when if you wanted a house, you built it yourself. I read a statistic not very long ago that claimed fifty percent of households will be renovated in some way this year. Given our penchant for buying it rather than doing it, being a contractor is a very lucrative business right now.

The lesson applies across the board, however, not only in trades and skilled labour. We view ourselves as commodities and sell to the highest bidder. If no one can use you, you'll likely sit on the shelf for a long while gathering dust. That is if you insist on being a commodity. Do what you want and do it well. Being non-committal in anything, as any child can tell you while he pleads and pleads and then has a temper tantrum just to get a cookie, will end in, not only failure, but in self-defeat. The second has much darker consequences. Believe me, I know.

Thursday

2006-08-24T08:47:00.000-04:00

Mornings like this unsettle my mind. The sky is clouded over, with a even sheet of gray that, for all I know, could stretch around the world, covering us all and leaving a sleepy residue that won't lift until the sun burns it all away. This is the perfect weather for tainted memories and for bitter accusations and envy.

The universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old if you can follow WMAP cosmology. It is nearly flat and expansion is increasing. Ultimately that means a long slow death in ice and cold. I hate the cold and am thankful I won't be around to see it.

Angels are an alien and intelligent life form, who believe that the universe has a consciousness behind it and have set out to discover what it's up to. They still don't have any idea. They are trying to re-trace the evolution of consciousness back to the beginning. We are a small annotation in their study.

On a sub-atomic scale the nature of reality is in a constant state of flux. Nothing remains the same from one nano-second to the next. It's no wonder I can never remember people's names. I'm surprised I can find my way home at night.

Because of the way my brain works I will never be aware of as much as my sub-conscious mind is. It seems I'm lacking the right kind of opener. This is analogous to forgetting you need a corkscrew if you're going to buy the good wine. We are a screwtop kind of people, psychically speaking.

Nobody can figure out exactly why gravity does what it does.

There are people out there, right now, working on implanting computer chips into our brains so we can communicate telepathically over the internet. I had my bags packed and ready to load into the car, with a map of Antarctica in my hand, when I heard them say that it was still some years away. I've told you how much I hate the cold.

Despite a couple of millions of years of evolution, sex is still the best way to get rid of a headache, despite the old "it's not you, it's me" cliche. Actually it's the best way to cure a lot of things, isn't it?

Jane Jacobs predicted a dark age about to descend on western civilization. I've read some of her ideas and I think she's right. What now?

I just took a look outside and the sky seems to be clearing a little. Not quite sunny but on its way. I think I'll go outside.

Springsteen Vs. Manfred Mann

2006-08-23T09:32:00.000-04:00

The sun was so hot I was sweating just standing there. I smoked a cigarette, leaning up against John's car, wondering what the hell was taking so long. Finally I saw him and Howell and Glen coming across the lot and we all climbed in. I only had an hour before my next class and I didn't want to be late. Fourth time this week wouldn't go down well with Mailbox-head, my algebra teacher.
John's Celica made him cool and the fact that he was Jamaican didn't hurt either. John had an undying obsession for Bruce Springsteen, mostly over looked by the rest of us, and he'd tell us stories about the Boss, and we tried to care.
It drove him nuts that 'Blinded by the Light' had been 'butchered' by Manfred Mann's Earth Band and I never did tell him that I thought their version was better than Springsteen's. It would have just started an argument.
There was never any consideration for the two who got stuck in the back seat. The best you could do was just nod and smile. I could see his lips moving in the rear view mirror but the music was too loud to make out what he was saying and you just didn't ask him to turn it down.
The deafening noise was having an effect on Glen, too, who was sitting beside me. He was turning green and John's erratic driving was making it worse. We barely made it to the Pit before Glen opened the door and started puking all over the place. He was always hung over, that guy. He was one of those people who get drunk for the express purpose of blinding himself. We just laughed and took turns trying to kick him in the ass as he bent over the ditch and heaved.

"I might be moving." he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, my Mom wants to go back to Jamaica."
"That's cool, isn't it?" I said.
"It's a fucking poor country, man. You have no idea. I'd have to sell my car. Get rid of all my shit because I can't take it with me." He was looking across the lot at Glen's back as he heaved another round at the ground.
"Why don't you stay here?" I asked him. I was thinking about moving out and it came to me that John and I could find an apartment. I was always thinking about moving out. I hated this place.
"Naw. I'd have to get a job." He had all this cool shit, a cool car, a cool house with a pool and all the money he wanted but he had no idea how to take care of himself. That was the real reason he couldn't move out.
"Suck it up, man." I'd been working since I was thirteen. I still didn't have any money, though.
"Fuck you. The other thing is that my Dad is there."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing." I asked him.
"I don't know. He's been phoning every week for the last two months. I think he wants to get back together with my Mom. She's so fucking excited about it she doesn't give a shit what we want."
John's older brother still lived at home, too. He was twenty four and still needed his Mom's help just to get by. I don't know where all her money came from but I figured that was probably why his Dad was so anxious to get them back.
Glen doubled over in another fit of wretching and I said to John, "What is that guy's problem? He's always puking on something."
"He doesn't want anyone to know, but his Mom's got cancer. He started crying last night when I was talking to him. He's really fucked up about it." John said, staring off across the lot.
"Shit." was all I could come up with.

It seemed like a minute ago nothing mattered and now all this shit was piling up around me. It felt like I was being asked a question. It felt like the spotlight was on me and I was being timed. Even now, I don't like to be put on the spot.
When Glen had cleaned himself up we climbed back into the car and on the way home we just listened to Springsteen and looked out the window.

I haven't seen either one of them since. I hate looking back at that stuff. I still don't have the answers to those questions. I just left. I keep on leaving and I suppose that says something about me, but I've had my share of shit, too.

The other night Manfred Mann's version of 'Blinded by the Light' came on and I listened to this guy say, "Have you ever heard Springsteen's version of this? It's complete shit." And I told him he was wrong, that he just didn't get it. I didn't, either.
Not then. But I do now.

Don't Take Advice From a Goat

2006-08-18T07:15:00.000-04:00

"Tell me something." I said to her.
"Something." she said with a laugh that made me melt.
She was petite and pretty and I could understand why she inspired so much frustration.
"Why would someone like you be attracted to an idiot like Narcissus." It was a little pointed but I have to admit to a certain frustration when it comes to the choices that women make.
She sighed and said only, "Narcissus." I thought I was going to be sick. 'Love is blind' the saying goes but I might add deaf, dumb and totally stupid to the saying.
"Sure, he might be good looking but there's got to be more to it than that."
"More to it than that." she answered in a dreamy way.

"After all this time she's still in love with the guy. I just don't get it."
"What don't you get?" said Pan. "The girl's nuts. She made me crazy, too, and I can have anybody I want."
I decided now wasn't the time to remind him about Syrinx, but then she hadn't totally escaped him, either. I was more confused than ever when he sat up and belched into the night, clearing the patio more efficiently than a fire alarm, but not before two or three girls stopped by to give him their numbers.
"Look." he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm, "If you're hoping to understand women I'll tell you all you need to know. You will never truly win the heart of any woman by being nice to them. You can try to understand them, you can try to take care of them and you hope they'll love you for it, but the truth is, while they'll respect you, they'll never love you."
"Yeah, yeah. I've heard this one before. They want the bad boys. I asking why. Why do they want the bad boys?"
"Are you an idiot? They like the bad boys because they wish they could be as self-consumed as they are. They wish that they could act like that and get away with it. They want to emulate that behavior because everybody admires the guy who doesn't give a shit what anybody else thinks of them and does what he wants, even if it means breaking a few hearts."
"I think you're full of shit."
"Hey man, I didn't make the rules. Why don't you go ask Echo."
"Ugh. Talking to her gives me a headache."
"That, my friend, is why I don't waste my breath talking."

I set the mug down in front of her and she smiled in return. She was beautiful and aloof, but I could read a sadness in her eyes that very nearly broke my heart.
"Even after he refused you, you still love him, don't you? He treated you like shit and you still think he'll come around." I didn't want to appear insensitive but her refusal to see the reality of the situation was making me crazy.
"He'll come around." she said softly.
"No, he won't, Echo. You've got to stop this foolishness and get on with your life. Don't you want to find someone who respects you, someone who will love you as much as you love him? Someone who cares? Someone like me?" I paused and then decided to just say it. "Echo, I have to tell you something. I love you."
"I love you.", she said woodenly.
"You do?" I looked at her but then it dawned on me that she was just saying it to make me feel better.
"Hey, don't do that. Don't fool around with me." I said.
"Fool around with me." she said. She smiled and batted her eyelashes at me and I thought for a second I might faint.
"Really, do you mean it? Are you sure?"
"Sure." she answered and all at once my heart filled with a joy and a gladness that made me ache all over.
"I knew you'd come around. That guy's no good for you. I can make you happy. I may not be as good looking as Narcissus but I've got something he doesn't."
"Something he doesn't?" she asked.
"Yeah. I've got heart."
"I've got heart."
"Uh...o.k."
"Uh...o.k."
"What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?"
"Stop that. It's really annoying."
"Stop that. It's really annoying."
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"With me?"
"With me?"

"What did you think was going to happen? You're such an idiot." Pan laughed heartily and wouldn't stop until I got up a grabbed my coat.
"Hey, C'mon kid. I tried to warn you about her. Don't take it so seriously." he said wiping a tear from his cheek.
"I can't help it. I take things seriously. That's what I do." I signaled the server who handed me the bill and I noticed that I was paying for Pan, too.
"You don't have any money, do you?"
"Money. What do I need money for when I've got good friend's like you." he said as he stood up, still laughing. "Oh Jesus, you're funny, kid. Let me give you a bit of advice. Be nice, if you have to. Hell, even be accommodating from time to time, but remember, women need a challenge. Give them everything they want and they'll leave you crying into your beer. Everybody needs a little mystery in life, otherwise no one would need for anything. Be a little mystery. Keep a little something from them from time to time and you'll never be alone again."
"Oh, really? I'll keep that in mind. Can we go now?"
Pan chuckled into the night air. "Yeah, we can go." he said.
"Hey." he grabbed my arm and pointed me up the avenue. "I know a little place close by where you can practice some of your bad boy moves and I promise no one will get hurt. You might even enjoy yourself."
"Oh yeah?" I said, not even remotely interested.
"It might cost us a bit of that money you're also so careful with, though." he winked at me and I knew it was going to be a long night.
"Sure. I guess I've got nothing else to do."
"That's my boy." he said as he struck off into the night, whistling a happy little tune.

When The Rains Came

2006-08-17T10:04:00.000-04:00

He climbed the length of the reed, using the handholds and footholds he had dug out of the rough interior, and when he peered over the edge he saw nothing on the water except the nostrils of the four beasts, each at one of the four corners of the world.
"What can you see?" yelled his wife from the base of the reed.
"I can't see anything."
"Is the water still rising?" she asked.
"No. It seems to have stopped."
"And the beasts?" she cried.
"Still out there. Mostly just nose, now."
"What now?" she asked.
"Well, I don't know." he replied in a distracted way. He was relieved to see that the water had stopped rising but with only a few feet to spare, it had been a close one. "I guess we just wait."
"I'm tired of waiting. This reed is too small and stuffy and pretty soon we'll have to eat our shoes and I don't like the taste of your feet."
"Your's are no better, buttercup." he said under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing, dear. Let's give it another day." he said as he rested his head on his arms.
He had never seen so much water before and he certainly had no experience with giant reeds designed to hold and protect all he could carry, all he could pack into it, and his wife, to boot. He had spent so many sleepless nights waiting for the water to flow in over the top and drown them all that he was sure the turtle swimming towards him was some sort of vision brought about by lack of sleep and the noxious smell of so many animals crammed into such a tight space.
And yet it kept coming, straight towards their new dwelling. The lack of any landmarks made it hard to judge how big it really was but soon it reached the reed and with some sloshing of water over the edge, which started his wife and all the animals screaming about the end of all things, the turtle turned out to be a massive thing, twenty feet wide across its brightly coloured shell.
It stopped before him, treading water and eyeing him with some curiosity.
"Hello." he said to the giant turtle but it said nothing in return. It simply looked at him out of watery eyes and then, finally, with a snort, it dove down into the depths and he began to wonder if it had been a figment of his imagination.
Suddenly, behind him, he heard a sputtering and a ferocious yell and he spun around, nearly losing his footing on the edge of the reed and saw water pouring into the nostrils of the beast in the East. With a deafening roar it disappeared under the water, followed a few minutes later by a cascade of escaping air and it did not re-appear again. He watched dumbfounded by this until he heard another sputtering from the North and turned just as the second beast disappeared under the waves. Following that, the beasts in the West and the South sank under the waves with much thrashing and explosions of compressed air and then there was silence.
"What's all that racket?" his wife yelled up at him. "Is it rising again?"
"I don't know. Something strange is happening. I just saw a giant turtle and now it looks like the four beast have gone under for good."
"Well that's good news isn't it?"
"I hope so." he answered but his heart was troubled when he saw the turtle surface some distance away and begin a leisurely swim toward the reed.
"Uh..." he said.
"What? What's going on? Say something, you damn fool." And then he could feel the reed begin to sway and he knew that she was climbing up to join him in his lookout.
"Hey, watch it. This thing might go over with both of us up here." he cried.
"Oh, phooey. You just don't want me to know what's going on. I'm coming up. Move over." And then she was beside him and they both stared at the turtle as it came close to the edge of the reed causing more water to spill over the top.
"Hey, watch it, you big galoot." she yelled at the turtle to which it answered, "Do not fear, my children. You are safe, for now."
"Hey, it can talk." she said, punching him in the arm.
"Yes, I can talk Mother, but you, you talk too much." said the turtle with what the man could only describe as a big turtle grin. It turned to look at the man and said, "Well, that's it. Give it a few more minutes, just to make sure those things are dead, and then the water will start to recede."
"O.K." said the man, "And then what?"
"And then? Then it's up to you. You and all the animals and all the plants and, of course, this lovely wife of yours, are all that are left and it's up to you get busy and start re-populating this place." the turtle explained.
"All by ourselves?" cried his wife,"Have you any idea how painful childbirth is? And you want me to get busy popping out generations of brats to re-populate the whole damn earth? What kind of a plan is that?..."
And she continued to voice her objections while the turtle turned to the man and said, "I can do something about that for you, y'know." pointing at his wife as she waved her arms wildly and let loose with a stream of profanities that might have brought about a second deluge, but the man shook his head and said, "No, that's alright. I kind of like it."
"Suit yourself." said the turtle and with that it disappeared beneath the water leaving the man hanging onto the edge of his reed with his wife bleating into the darkening sky and the waters receding around them.

Summer Long

2006-08-15T07:54:00.000-04:00

Its the middle of August and all of you out there who prefer to consider your lives cursed instead of fueled by the anticipation of new things, problematic instead of adventurous and would rather wallow in the morbid allure of decay than the sweet song of beginnings are already yammering on about how summer is over. Don't talk to me anymore.
You are the same people, who in March when the temperature hit seven degrees, complained that the streets were too slushy and in April, when the gardens of the city were gearing up for an explosive assault on our senses, thought that summer would never get here.

I know what you suffer from. Back-to-schoolitis. It begins with a sickly, sweet melancholy causing all sorts of mooning and sighing, long looks out over the lake and endless evenings in the back yard refusing to come in, long after dark. Of course it ends with an unsteady upheaval of emotions cured only by a shopping spree for new clothes, calendars, pencil sets, calculators and binders full of pristinely empty three hole paper; the reward for having your summer cut short and being forced back to the classroom when its still hot and the bugs have finally left us alone. You are not in school anymore, though, so pass on your disappointment to your kids and enjoy the next couple of months. Don't worry, I have a source in the weather office that assures me that it probably won't snow until December.

Consider this. When you see the construction crews, that have been making your life miserable for the last eight weeks, pack up and pave over the enormous holes in front of your house, you'll know summer's gone. When your neighbor gives up his Speedo and stops sunbathing in the front yard you'll know summer is over. When your weekend consists of going store to store to find the sold-out leaf bags you'll be well on your way to kissing summer good-bye. Just about the time you start patting yourself on the back for not taking down the Christmas lights from last year is the time you can pause and think, "I guess its over for another year." But not until then. We've got a long way to go yet and the only people who should be complaining about summer being over are getting ready to go back to school. Better them than me. I still have camping trips to plan, friends to visit and backyard bar-b-q's to enjoy, all of them without any kids in attendance. Don't you kids be late for class.

You Are Nothing To Me

2006-08-09T07:32:00.000-04:00

The studio was a well lit temple to his works; the works in progress, for the entire area, some fifty feet by twenty, was over-stuffed with half finished canvases that hung like corpses in a forest of trees, forgotten and left for the birds. The windows soared vertically into the gloom of the vaulted ceiling and none of the light penetrated the heavens despite the dozen or so reflectors that moored the room at each corner. It felt, to me, like a mausoleum.
In the farthest corner of the room we found him, leathery and grey, in a state of repose. I wondered if he was dead but Carmine bent to his bedside and spoke a few words into his ear and eventually his eyes opened and, with some effort, he sat up and blearily looked at us, as we stood in a semi-circle around his cot.
He immediately became animated, latching onto Carmine's arm in an attempt to stand to welcome his visitors. The eagerness in his eyes was upsetting to me. I had expected a master and was shown an old man, lost and confused, but with enough hunger in him yet to seem desperate. I wondered if his years in prison had saturated his soul with the fawning attitude he absently presented and I suddenly had no desire to speak with him. I was afraid of this.
A nurse appeared and went to his side to replace Carmine who, looking slightly hurt, shuffled off to the side and looked at me with concern. His eyes told me the worst and I knew he was offering me an apology even before he opened his mouth.
"We shouldn't have come. He has been ill and I had hoped a visitor or two would perk him up a bit."
In a matter of moments we were hustled out by an intern who admonished us for disturbing the old man, but we got what we wanted, I suppose: a glimpse into the genius behind the strange and wonderful hauntings that populated his mind. Ultimately it only removed any doubt that accidents happen and perhaps the accident of his youth was the recognition he found in Germany before the war.
"You shouldn't judge him so harshly.", Carmine said to me, days later, when we sat at the August Cafe, "No man is invulnerable to the ravages of time."
"Carmine, you misunderstand.", I said to him. "Time has nothing to do with what ruined him."
We talked late into the night about colour and form, neither one of us able to evoke in the other an appreciation for the things that made us vulnerable.
The next day I boarded a train home and from the window I saw Carmine, looking lost and alone, and I knew then that he truly was the heir to misfortune and grief, and I sat back wishing I could erase him from my mind.

Sleep Away The Past

2006-08-06T09:36:00.000-04:00

The underbrush wasn't as thick here. It made walking easier but his pack still got hung up on every other branch and soon he called a halt. He trampled down the grass, kicked at the saplings until they bent away from the assault and he pulled twenty-five feet of vines off to the side to expose the dark and damp soil upon which he spread the canvas.
It took less time to put up the tent and tie it off, and when his sleeping bag was tucked away he sat on the corner of his new home, at least for the night, and rolled himself a cigarette.
As the darkness came on he listened to the sounds of the forest and stared into the shadows cast by the small light he allowed himself. The sway of the trees cast mottled and moving images on the backdrop of leaves and in the undulating illumination he could make out faces that smiled and winked at him until his eyes grew heavy and he crawled inside the tent to sleep.
Wrapped in the sleeping bag, tucked inside the tent, folded into the trees and blanketed with the blue and black sky he whispered his goodnights and sighed away the anger of the waking world until he slipped away, leaving no watch and giving no thought to the wheezing, creaking sounds that mimicked his breathing and was asleep before the trees bent themselves towards the malice and hatred he exhaled into the night.

Speed Up A Little Bit

2006-08-01T07:32:00.000-04:00

The footprint of this city is not so deep, nor so wide that it can't be filled with a longing to depart for more exotic locales. I've never been one to jump to a conclusion that was only halfway to extreme, so when the invitation came, how could I refuse? I packed my bags and left to spend four days crammed into a seat too small for me, beside a woman who, despite being a lovely creature, had the distasteful ability to recreate great symphonies using only her lungs and her partially blocked sinuses. For the first thousand miles it was amusing, and during her waking hours she was a great conversationalist, however, as the border drew closer and her destination loomed in the headlights, not many of us were sad to see her go.
As the saying goes, though, I shouldn't have been counting sheep when I could just as easily have slept through the whole thing. Her replacement was a man of about forty, who, while dressed nattily, smelled vaguely of warm bread. Once my nose worked out the dilemma, finally breaking through the wall of olfactory comfort and discarding the repetitive associations it relied on, I was able to convince it that he had no bread tucked under his arm; he was all man.
Like the pictures an art teacher parades around the room, prodding his students with hints and waiting for the shift in perception that turns an old lady into a young girl, a large fur stole wrapped around her shoulders, and once my brain had registered the difference between fresh baked bread and over-warm fat guy, it wouldn't let go and I tried to breath through my collar for the four hundred miles he chatted away to me.
A romantic is a man who looks at the wonders of life in all their decrepitude and sees only the underlying synchronicity that feeds, strand by strand, our sense of well-being and oneness with all that resides under the sun. I have decided that I'm a realist, however, and I refuse to go back to those old ways. For a glimpse into the mysteries of life, a bus ride across the country will beat your senses into something like an honest machine whose cogs and gears and vibrating cams and heavily greased pistons simply do what their told all day and long into the night of your existence, while the tethered thoughts you believed were prancing out time in happily measured two steps are actually trudging around a massive gear connected to the unknown, slaves to mechanical, maniacal traditions of expansion, building up and out, creating nothing more than what you can see, the rest hidden from view.
What that means is that body odor sometimes smells like fresh bread and who wants to sit in a bakery and watch four hundred miles of nothing spread across the window.
I awoke to find that the bus had stopped, the driver had disappeared into the night and that most of the passengers were standing in the aisle with no clear indication that they were allowed to get off. I pushed my way to front and stepped out into the blackest night I have ever seen. The cloud cover was uniform and gave me no indication that there were stars waiting to reveal themselves behind it. I walked across the lot to the only light I could see and discovered an oasis of slightly stale crescent rolls and greasy coffee laid out like a banquet. My newly minted sense of defeat was losing its cohesion and I actually smiled at the waitress, who poured me a cup.
"Long way from home?", she purred.
"I'm a long way from anywhere, I think.", I answered sleepily.
"Not that far, sugar."
As the rest of my traveling companions filed into the truckstop she picked up her pad and began shouting orders at a cook I couldn't see and directing the traffic to booths lining the front window.
"Sit. Sit and Louise will be right with you. You're all just in time for the show.", Louise called out and I wondered what she could have meant. I didn't have to wait long.
The parking lot snapped to life, blazing with the light of eight floods atop the four standards spread out across the front of the diner. Revealed in that hurried dawn were two dozen forms, almost familiar but with odd shapes and angles jutting out from where nothing should have been. These mewling approximations in somewhat human form flinched under the scrutiny but continued their steady crawl and shuffle toward the bus.
I sat, awestruck by the scene, as if a curtain had lifted and I was enchanted by the seething fluidity of the players, as they climbed atop and slithered under the carriage of the bus. I absently noted a few screams of terror and a rattling of quick reactions from the audience but I was transfixed by the morbid strangeness I was witnessing. Hands were grasping at the door of the bus, long tongues lolled out of misshapen mouths, and the sounds coming from beyond the glass were muted cries of discovery and elation. They swarmed the windows, frantically clawing at the seams to gain entry but none had the dexterity for it and, frustrated, they howled into the night and that sound crawled down the spine of everyone in the diner and we became silent expecting a bad end and pain and suffering.
And then, slowly, the creatures slid down the sides of the bus and shuffled beyond the plane of light and then the lot was as empty as it had been when we arrived. Silence and despair filled the diner until Louise clapped her hands twice in the air and yelled, "That's the show, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patronage and we hope to see you next time. Don't forget to get your souvenirs at the counter on the way out and have a safe journey."
We sat, stunned, while she marched up and down the aisle collecting half drunk coffees and cleared the plates of half eaten food. When it became apparent that no one was going to move from their seats she sighed, the long sigh of resignation born from the endless repetition that only entertainers know when they've produced their best and fail to impress.
"The show's over folks, and the bus will be leaving in five minutes. If you want to go, now is the time.", said Louise.
No one moved, thinking that a lifetime in this diner might be preferable to ever going outside again.
"Another show will start with the next bus to arrive, but not until then. It's up to you.", and she disappeared into the kitchen with a swoosh of her skirt.
Just then the bus started up, it's engine singing into the darkness and the noise startled our silence into a frenzied clamor, as all of us jumped up and fled the diner. Not a word was spoken as we jostled and fought or way onto the bus, the driver politely smiling at us the whole time.
It was then, as I took my seat that I realized that my yeasty friend hadn't gotten off the bus. He was asleep, soundly snoring into the tension and was completely unaware of what had happened. As I climbed over him the bus jumped into gear and he awoke with a start. He looked at me, suspicious and half-alert, gathered his bag to his chest and sniffled his way back to sleep.
Nobody else slept that night, and by dawn there came the quiet whispers, each organizing and re-formulating and explaining away what had happened to them in the middle of the night.
I sat, with my thoughts, evaluating and excavating a laundry list of beliefs and assertions only to come home to the fact that the machinery of life had slipped a gear and was happily firing off in the wrong direction. I looked around trying to grasp the frayed and unraveling sense of reality I could see fading into the distance but found nothing there but dust and dry rot.
As much as I want to, I might never find out what this machine does and I may have to resign myself to the harness, though it bites, and the rough stone floor, even though my shoes have, not yet, worn through, and if I'm lucky I just might be able to sleep through the night and live to see the anonymous wonders of another day. I won't, however, travel by bus again.

Henna Girls

2006-07-24T08:01:00.000-04:00

I watched the two of them for a while. They communicated an easy relationship between each other that I assumed was forged on the road, in their tent, in the face of the threat of abuse and suspicion heaped on them by the residents of this town, who were probably not as accepting of these two girls as they might have been, had they been their daughters, traveling around the countryside with a henna booth they set up every weekend in a new town.
They looked like sisters, but that's a guess and it may be that their identical dress just stretched that association over the two of them, like the blanket they shared as the sun went down and the wind picked up. They spoke only when they needed to and then it was only to the little girls and the young teenagers who wanted that temporary tattoo, perhaps as a test run for the real thing.
They stood in line at the stand that fed them, along with the rest of us, a poor diet of thin and protein-less hamburgers, French fries and poutine and also deep-fried chocolate bars and pop. Side by side, they were in constant contact with each other. A hand on the other's arm, their shoulders touching or their hips pressed together, as if the touch made them a single unit, more able to withstand the press of so many townspeople, who they feared as much as they needed. Their faces were marked by their loneliness and their movements were cat-like and they often turned, back to back, when they found themselves in a crowd of more than two or three people, until they had navigated their way back to the safety of their booth.
It was a small cube, hung with saris and sheets of samples with a table in the middle and a chair for those who wouldn't sit on the ground with them while they scrawled their designs on arms and backs and shoulders. When there was no one looking at the fairies, dragons and Celtic ribbons that could be etched into their skin, they sat huddled together in the back corner whispering to each other and every now and again they would peer around as if trying to find out where they were simply by reading the expressions in faces and the set of shoulders.

On the last day, Sunday, I walked past them and saw that they were folding their sheets and their table into small transportable packages that could be carried in little more than a couple of knapsacks and a carrying case and were getting ready to leave this strange place, where we came every year to watch the horse shows and to see the loud and obnoxious smash up derby, the local bands who wailed into their sleep, the constant barrage of AC/DC from the mid-way, the steady stream of locals who pitied and despised them, and I wondered how long a life like that can last before being swept into oblivion, translated into a cloud of exclusion and blown away like dust, the smell of freedom lost in a crowd, to be replaced the next year by whatever fashion would make them the few dollars they needed to keep on moving, to start and re-start their lives on a daily basis, always fresh to the cynical eye and appearing like a forgotten memory that begins in the mind and delivers a systematic dissolution to what it is to be alone and roaming the country with nothing but a change of clothes and a longing for new experiences.

Then, as I walked away, I noticed a sticker on the folded table that was waiting to be loaded into a beat up old car and it made me re-consider my tendencies towards overly dramatizing life's simple curiosities. It was about two inches, squared, and it said, "Carpe Deum". Not "Carpe Diem"-"pluck the day", which is a mantra so many of us use to dislodge ourselves from the habit of life, but "Carpe Deum"-which translates to "Take all that is holy from this moment." and I felt a shiver run through me. The gentle twist of perception that tweaks your nose and makes you realize that as simple as things seem there are layers of understanding and recognition that most of us will never bother to uncover in each other.
I stood staring at the two girls as they loaded up their traveling mysteries and wondered if God was having a bit of a laugh at my expense. Then again, it could have been the gentlest kick in the ass from someone who just wanted me to see something beautiful in that field, something outside of my experiences and something sublime in the way the fair collapsed around me and left me wondering why I was standing in the middle of an empty field looking up into the sky.

Watch Your Speed

2006-07-21T06:46:00.000-04:00

"Trouble ahead, trouble behind."

"You must be getting tired of driving.", she said. And I had to admit that I was, a little. "Casey Jones" was playing and I thought about him, and wondered if he knew he was going to die, considering what the next few seconds held for him. I'll bet that, even knowing that this was the end, he was tempted to just gun it and try to crash through. Maybe. Or maybe he just held on, hoping he would survive.

"And you know that notion just crossed my mind."

In another time, in another place, I sat and listened to the Dead and wondered that I had never heard it before. I was in love and loved everything she did. That was before the long sleep overcame me and I dreamt the years away, focused on the strange images sinking below the horizon behind me, trapped within the billowing steam, and heard the cacophonous voices that fed me pellets of compressed sorrow and distilled fear. That was before I slowed down to get my bearings and noticed she was gone.

The car jumped ahead, bringing me back, and I wondered again about the brakes. A little too soft for my liking but then I considered that sometimes coming to crashing stop, if you survive, re-invents the landscape and mountains are formed from the plowing gravel, valleys are revealed in the aftermath of disaster, and if you strike out for the nearest hill you'll likely see something you hadn't noticed before. You just don't want to look back at the wreckage.

"The trouble with you
Is the trouble with me
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see."

The Getaway

2006-07-17T07:31:00.000-04:00

I wonder if you'll understand what I mean when I say it's not the arriving, it's the getting there. I've been told that the sublime pleasure I feel while I'm behind the wheel has more to do with getting away from something than getting anywhere. I suppose I can accept that diagnosis.

An old memory settled over my eyes and, long before I took the corner, I was once again huddled in the back seat of one of those giant cars people drove in the seventies. The persistent smell of cigarettes from the front seat, the whine of over inflated tires on scorched asphalt and the occasional squeal from my sister developed into an aural backdrop to the repetitive wave and glide of the countryside as it streamed by, faster than the legal limit, and I saw the world as a mutable companion to my aspirations and kept it locked up and fed it a diet of lonely whimsy and cotton mouthed sentiments. Lulled into a hypnotic state by the rise and fall of wires strung across the world, the fanciful explanations I gorged on would come back up as bitter truth when the car stopped and the weekend arrived. From my perspective, it was over when the doors opened and the supplies and coolers piled out, the tent went up and the obligatory exploration of the washroom and shower building was begun. We hadn't left anything behind, though, or had tried but had been beaten to the site by spirits of disagreement, regret and accusatory recrimination and they had taken most of the room, leaving us with the beach and maybe the playground. The disappointment I felt eroded the anticipation as quickly as waves will a sand castle, built too close to the water, but perfectly symmetrical and aligned with the sun, one door and a spire for everyone and one in the middle for a lookout. Lookout.

Where can I go now? Does it even matter? As long as the drive deepens my reveries and opens the door to possibilities beyond the mundane act of getting from point A to point B, I will drive and maybe stop at a country store for a drink and a pack of cigarettes but unless you see something that looks different from where we've been I don't think I'll pull over just yet.

Waiting For Something To Happen

2006-07-15T09:40:00.000-04:00

The sun had disappeared behind the buildings that hemmed us in and a slight breeze carried the scent of food to me. Roasted meats, the spices of desire and courage, the aromas of honey and garlic and I could swear I tasted salt in the air. All around, the pleasant lilt of conversation levitated us and from that height I caught her eye. I searched those eyes for something beyond this moment, for something I could use to tightrope myself out of here, and I saw the reflected light of the river, deep and dark and so faint I might not have seen it but for the clear transmission of her gaze. I answered a dozen questions, habitually smiling, while I floated a raft into the night, past villages asleep in the current, but for a single sentry who neither waved nor acknowledged me until at last he was swallowed by the trees and I sailed on.

Take That as a Compliment

2006-07-11T08:37:00.000-04:00

Every now and again I get a lesson in perspective, even when I don't particularly want one. I was recently informed, in a matter-of-fact way, that I wasn't invited when some of my single girl friends decided to have a night on the town. They explained that they didn't want me fouling up their chances with potential partners by being an unknown element in their midst. According to my friends, men aren't interested in them because I'm sitting with them. On the flip side women aren't interested in me unlesss I'm sitting at a table with other women. If you think about it this makes perfect sense, in a very weird way.

When I walk into a bar and see that guy sitting alone at a table, looking around at girls and trying to appear relaxed, the first thing I think is, "Go home, man. It's not going to happen tonight."

In that group of guys over there, the one who's waving his arms and telling a joke and generally being over-bearing should go home, too.

You. Yeah, you. If you're going to wear that jacket, buy some shoes that match. Go home.

Excuse me. Yeah, most girls don't care if you can keep the pool table all night long. They do care if you can kick some ass, but aren't going to be your personal cheering squad. Go home.

The curious thing about women is that they aren't interested in guys who appear, and are very obviously single. They want that guy, there. The one sitting in the middle of the table of girls. If other women find him interesting you might, too.

My single girl friends have forgotten one very important thing about men. We can tell if your single, even when you're surrounded by guys. If you've haven't met the right man, it isn't because you're sitting with me.

Of course, I've left out one very salient point and that is that they weren't going out to find husbands or boyfriends, or meaningful relationships. They had something else on their minds.

Mmmm. Now where can I meet girls like that?

The Trinity of Defeat

2006-07-10T09:10:00.000-04:00

Three waves of attackers pushed the General and his troops to the edge of the Nedorack Escarpment and rather than be taken prisoner, some of his men thought it would be better to leap to their deaths. When the General realized what was happening he gave up all hope of a rout and was captured soon after. His treatment at the hands of his life-long enemies was fair if not luxurious. He was given his own tent and a servant but surrounded twenty four hours of every day by the leathery faces of Rossiter's guerrillas and forced to endure the humiliation of carrying his own belongings on the four day hike to the capital, now under Rossiter's control.
On his arrival in the city, his city, he was unceremoniously dumped into a cell at the base of the Mercy Tower and forgotten. During the first week he waited for the arrival of Rossiter, sure he would be mocked and humiliated, but the usurper never came. The General was awake at dawn every morning, so as to have time to carefully dress and clean his appearance, as well as he was able, to receive his nemesis, carefully combing his moustaches and arranging the medals on his chest to make the best of his situation, knowing that his very life might depend on how he presented to his captors. It was customary, in those days, so long gone, to ransom prisoners to fund the movement, and so the General was confused when, after three months had gone by, he was still locked in his cell.
The General began a morning routine of strenuous exercise when the waistcoat of his uniform began to get a little snug. This was due to the regular appearance of heaping mounds of food which, at first, had been welcomed by the nearly starved General, but now was the cause, along with the narrow confines of his cell, of his steadily deteriorating physical condition. At sixty-three the General had been amongst the fittest of his men, but now, as his stomach grew to accept the sumptuous meals that arrived in the morning, mid-afternoon and evening he began to take on a more rotund profile.
His captors began to leave the un-eaten portions of food at the door and would not replace them unless he had finished every thing on the plate. On the first occasion, as the half eaten food was left for three days without being replaced, the General realized too late that he would have to eat the rotted meat, the stale and infested bread and drink in order to receive fresh sustenance and considered for the first time that his enemy's plan for him was more diabolical than he had imagined.
He was sick for three days, and when the fever had left him dry, and his stomach and bowels had been purged of the organisms of disease, a heaping plate of beef appeared, with freshly steamed potatoes and a half litre of creamed corn which he ate to the last morsel. Six hours later another meal was served and the General declared a new war, rising ever earlier to combat his enemy, his ever expanding stomach.
Three long years passed for the General, and despite the steady consumption of what could easily have fed a small family on a daily basis, he was able to maintain the rough approximation of a fit man, even at sixty-six years of age. His exercise routine was now so rigorous that it was not uncommon for him to do 3,000 sit ups in one day, to jog in place for hours at a time or to spend an entire evening doing push-ups instead of sleeping. He would not let his captors find him bloated and obese, and so gave over all of his time to maintaining his physical condition.
Time was not on the mighty General's side, however, and despite his efforts he soon began to lose the war all over again. At first, it was simply the dampness of the cell that made his knees ache and unable to bend them and the cold of the mornings which made the muscles in his body contract and then shriek loudly in his head as he rose to stretch them out but soon it was the fatigue that came over him after a meal and the sedative effect of the high levels of proteins he consumed. Bite by bite the General began to lose ground and in the end he was longer able to stave off the attack on his constitution and it occurred to him that he was losing the battle.
On the morning they came for him he was reclining on his bed, breathless from the three dozen eggs he had just consumed, swollen with the three litres of goat's milk he had washed them down with, and formulating a plan of attack to relieve him of the three pounds of bacon lying in wait somewhere below.
The door to his cell opened and two large-chested soldiers rushed at him, while a third held a bayonet to his chest, and they forced his rotund form into a uniform that no longer fit and then jostled him out of the cell and into the courtyard at the base of the Mercy Tower. The courtyard was full of the people he had ruled so mightily for years and he wondered what this could mean. Had his forces taken back the city? Were they come to liberate their captive General and restore him to his rightful place as their leader? Why do they hiss at me? What is it they are saying? "Death to the tyrant"?
The bewildered General stood in the middle of courtyard turning to look into the faces of his beleaguered people. They were cursing at him and some began to pelt him with clods of dirt and to spit at him. He turned from them, towards the great balcony of the palace, which flanked the courtyard on its northern edge and saw that his questions would remain unanswered for now. Seated on the tall throne, surrounded by officials, some of whom the General recognized as his own administration, was Rossiter, his enemy.
Rossiter stood and the crowd quickly quieted down. The General looked around again and saw that this upstart, this usurper had the loyalty of his people and he wondered how it was that, in the time he was imprisoned, as long as it had been, that they had turned from him so completely.
A voice boomed out across the square and the General turned again to the balcony to see Rossiter gesture across the courtyard at him.
"My people, look at your cowardly General. While you have suffered mightily because of his unwillingness to lay down his claims to this throne, he has been hiding deep in the jungle, hoarding your crops, stolen by his imperialist dogs, and has gorged himself on the fruits of your labours. A surprise attack on his hiding place this morning found your General in a stupor from the massive amounts of your food that he consumes on a daily basis. Look at his swollen belly, at the flesh that hangs from his arms, at the layers of fat that wrap him in comfort while you wither under his constant raids and attacks on your properties. Is this what you call out for? Is this the rule you desire? Tonight there will be a feast like none of you have seen in years, made from the plundered stocks we have found hidden in his jungle fortress. All of you shall dine tonight, like your General has dined, for free and until you are full. But don't anyone think that this offering has come to you without a price. For three years you have starved while he has eaten his fill. For three years you have watched your families fade before your eyes while he has outgrown his frame. For three years you have endured his tortuous appetite while you ate dirt and drank sand. Tonight, we take back what we have lost and as for this General, I leave his punishment up to you."
Rossiter turned and left the balcony, and at a prearranged signal, the guards who had stood between the General and his people filed out of the square, and for a moment the General stood staring at the receding backs of his enemies until he realized that he had been utterly beaten and out maneuvered by Rossiter and his rebels. Bewildered and confused, he looked to his people and saw only hatred and vengeance in their faces, and as they closed on him he knew, for the third time in his life, the humiliation of defeat.

The Dark Lord and the Little Woman

2006-07-06T07:02:00.000-04:00

Hermes entered the hall to see Hades sitting with Persephone at his side. She was radiant, clothed in mystery and darkness, with wraiths circling her and the living ghosts serving her. She smiled at Hermes and he lowered his head in acknowledgment while Hades, who was never very stable, noticed this communication and stood to move in front of his young bride.
"All right, Hermes, what do you want?", said the Lord of the Underworld.
"Gimme a second, you old windbag. Persephone, are you all right?"
"Hermes." The dread queen poked her head out from behind her husband. "Be nice or I'll kick your ass. You know I can."
"You can kick my ass whenever you want, sweet thing, but what I want to know is did he hurt you?", Hermes said with a nod to Hades.
"Of course not. He's been very nice to me. Even when he was being very naughty to me.", she smiled at him and Hermes felt his knees weaken.
"Can we get on with this, Hermes.", said Hades, "What does my little brother want?"
"What does he want? He's losing his patience, man. Demeter is making his life miserable and he's about ten minutes from losing it altogether. If that happens then he's going to come down here and tear you a new one. Brother or not, she's his wife, and you'll lose. Decide now, oh Master of Regret or you'll be only God on Olympus to need his own ministrations."
"Shit. Really? Is he pissed?", said Hades, looking a little worried now.
"Pissed? He's beyond pissed my friend. You know what Demeter's like. He'd rather take on the Titans all over again, by himself, than go home to that woman."
"Hades." Persephone wriggled out form under his arm and looked up into his cloudless eyes, "You're not afraid of my dad, are you?"
"Afraid? Of Zeus? No, not really." Hermes smirked and Hades shot him a look that might have sent him to the bottom of Phlegathon had he not been under the protection of Zeus.
"I don't want to go, Hades, I want to stay here with you.", she whined into his ear.
"If your father comes down here, there's not going to be any here, anymore.", said Hermes, "I'm sorry Persephone but you're in a heap of shit right now."
"But I don't want to go.", she cried, "You can't make me." Persephone whirled around and ran for the door, trailed by her demon spawn and a gaggle of ghosts. " I hate you. I hate you all."
"Oh for Christ's sake. Persephone, come back here. Shit." Hades stood with his head down and then turned to Hermes but before he could say anything Hermes put up a hand.
"Look, man. That was for her. Zeus told me to make a big deal of the pain and punishment part but he just wants you to listen to reason. He can't hold back Demeter for much longer. If she finds you with Persephone then you really might be in some serious trouble. It might be politic to consider giving her back."
Hades looked up at Hermes sadly and said, "She's really driving me nuts, man. She's as spoiled as they come. 'I want this' and 'Get me that.' I can't take much more of this. If I didn't think they'd flay me alive for it I would have booted her out of here months ago. And the stories she tells. She's a bigger bullshitter than you are, Hermes."
"Thanks. I appreciate that. Look, she is a bit of a handful, but you love her, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I just don't know if I can live with her."
"Well, we'll just have to figure something out.", and he sat down on the Dread Lord's throne and looked up at the ceiling of the cavern. "You really do have a morbid sense of style, Hades. You should try painting this place, y'know. Spruce it up a bit."
"Can we try a little more thinking and a little less criticism. What am I going to do. I can't take on Zeus with his hordes of star struck followers. This was her idea as much as mine. Why do I have to take all the blame.", Hades kicked at a rock near his foot and planted it into the wall beside Hermes' head.
"Hey, for fuck's sake, Hades, watch it.", said Hermes, sitting forward, "Alright, I've got something. Have you got any pomegranate around here?", he asked.
"You can have anything you want. Why?", said the God of the Dead, absently.
"Think, you moron. If you feed her some she'll be bound to you. It fits perfectly. You do what Zeus wants but you throw in a little of that devil Hades spice and the girl has to come back every six months, or so. Everyone knows what pomegranate seeds do but it might solve the issue. Zeus doesn't have to obliterate you, Demeter gets her daughter back and you only have to put up with the wife for six months out of the year. She'll do it, too. For some reason she's really taken with you.", Hermes smiled and spread his hands.
Hades thought about that for a moment. "It's the demons, actually. They love her and they'll do anything for her. I think she's way more evil than me. They like evil, the little bastards."
"So? What do you think? Are we good?", asked Hermes.
Hades leaned back and smiled wickedly at Hermes and said, "We're better than good, we're golden."

To Infinity and Beyond

2006-07-05T08:32:00.000-04:00

He came when I beckoned and sat on the couch, stroking Evy under the chin, and listened quietly to what I had to say. When I offered him a drink he said, "I've been dead now for forty years. What do I need with a drink?"
"Sorry. You used to drink."
"O.K.", he said, "I'll have sherry."
"How about a beer?", thinking I should really stock up on sherry, then realized that keeping a stocked liquor cabinet for the rare appearance of the dead is a little more crazy than I'm comfortable with.
"What do you want?"

He was in a bad mood; not surprising as he always appears ready to reflect my own state. I told him about the dreams. I asked him why the dead visit periodically and what it is they want?
"Well,", he said expansively, jostling Evy from her repose as he shifted his weight on the couch, "It is my belief that, if there is an afterlife at all, it is essentially a cessation of consciousness. As much as the unconscious mind offers clues to our existence in life, so does the conscious mind provide fodder for it's deep dwelling progenitor. Without consciousness the unconscious mind has lost its inside man, so to speak. The unconscious mind, if it survives at all after the bodily death, remains at an impasse and at times seeks the world of the living for further illumination. I believe this is the basis for the oriental belief in re-incarnation."
I thought about that for a moment and then said, "They've pulled over on the highway, before reaching their destination, and flag us down from time to time to get a look at the map."

C.G. sighed and sat back on the cat, who took a swipe at him and promptly lost his balance and fell off the couch. He gloomily looked back at C.G. and decided he should be ignored.
"Your ability to suck the life out of my work astounds me.", he said crustily .
"I was taught that when I die all the secrets of the cosmos will be revealed to me.", I accused.
"Yeah, and you'll sit at God's feet eating an endless ham and cheese sandwich, getting a foot rub from some beautiful, blonde bimbo. What is it they want, in your dreams? Do they ever impart secrets from the beyond? Do they come encircled by angels, with fanfares and hallelujahs? Or do they appear, pretty much the same as the were in life, asking about friends and family, wondering who's made it to the world cup and who won the cold war?"
"The cold war? You have been dead for a while.", I said.
"My point, exactly. You are living, my friend. The path to wholeness is essentially supplying the unconscious mind with all the information it can acquire. This has nothing to do with nice cars or big houses, but your relation to the infinite. The unconscious mind is your link to the infinite, but it's a two way street. Your waking mind is limited by what you see, hear, smell and touch but this contact is essential for growth as a whole. If you learn this you will understand that you are both limited and eternal and you will become conscious of the eternal.
"Uh-would you like another beer?"
"You're an idiot and I've got work to do. Do me a favour, would you? Consider this. Just as our unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious. The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. Your being here poses a question which only you, throughout your life, can answer."
"Oh.", I said, standing up. "Thanks for coming by." And he was gone.

I sat there for a while, thinking about what he had said, and wondered if it wasn't more simple than that. Maybe I dream about dead people because I miss them and wish that they were still around so I could talk to them.

However, if he's right, and real reason that I'm here and they are not is because I don't know the answer to the question I pose, then I guess I've got work to do, too.

No More Complaining

2006-06-30T06:26:00.000-04:00

As a writer, I am sometimes ruled by the desire to pour a little light into a darkened corner and reveal the ugly truths about life and the vermin crawling around in here. I've mentioned before the project that's underway on my street and I've also mentioned that I can't seem to determine what it's all about. The digging, the equipment, the bits and pieces of detritus left lying around at the end of each day, have me wondering exactly what's going on and who's to blame. I decided, yesterday, that it was time someone found out.
I dug out my workboots, an old pair of workpants and a spaghetti stained t-shirt and made my way through the half-ton trucks, around the inexplicable piles of dirt that have been left lying everywhere and finally, after picking up someone's hard hat, to a group of men who were leaning on the cleanest backhoe I have ever seen. I walked slowly, dragging my boots and stirring up a cloud of dust, grunting at anyone who looked at me and punctuated my arrival with the loudest fart I could muster. No one looked up and the conversation carried on as if I were invisible.
"...and I told him that if he expects me to stay one minute after three that he'd be paying me $75 an hour.", said the guy leaning on the front tire of the backhoe. Eminem was pumping from the cab at around 120 decibels and the motor was doing double time keeping the air conditioner in the ring against the thirty degree heat of the outside world.
"I know, I know.", said another guy, who rested a can of Diet Coke on his card table sized belly. "That pool of yours don't chlorinate itself, does it?"
"Fuckin' eh, man. An I ain't spending an extra minute in this pig slop slum at the end of my day. If I don't get to Kanata before four, that friggin' pool boy'll be telling my wife that it don't need no scrubbing with the toothbrush today, lazy som-bitch."
"He'll be scrubbing something, though, eh Skinny?", said the guy with the white hard hat, and they all laughed at that.
I didn't really understand what they were talking about but I joined in the laughter just the same and, I suppose now, that was my mistake.
"What you laughing at, boy?", said Coke Can.
"And what are you doing out of your hole?", said White Hat.
"I, uh, just came over to express my outrage at...uh, the corporate man who...uh...", I was caught off guard.
"Are you speaking English, boy?", said White Hat, "'Cos I know you didn't just insult this city and it's wise councilors, the ones that keep you working all day so's you can crawl home to your shack on Rideau and crack up with your whore girls all night long. You must be speaking' some sort of city folk slang, so I'm gonna ignore it. Now get your sorry ass back in that hole and you dig 'til four o'clock and don't come out a minute before, y'hear?"
"Yeah, 'til four o' five, even.", said Coke Can, "And don't think we won't know how long you stayed in there, 'cos these fine poverty stricken' folk living up and down this street will tell me. Not a damn one of them won't phone the complaint line if there ain't at least one man working' after three. Har, har."
"Git.", said White Hat, "And maybe I won't call my brother Bill at City Hall. Union be damned."
I really had no choice. I jumped in the nearest hole I could find and picked up a shovel, despite the fact that it was on someone's front lawn, and I started digging. I knew Coke Can spoke the truth because whenever I looked out from my hole I could see the frightened stares of the people who lived up and down my street, looking at me with pity from behind the drawn drapes of their houses, but I also knew that no one would speak up for me because, in their eyes, I was one of them. I was a city worker.
As the strains of "Smack My Bitch Up" faded into the distance, I took a chance and poked my head out from my hole and noticed six or seven heads poking out of holes up and down the block. It was four o' five and I guess, now that the bosses were gone, it was safe to come out. We all gathered by the backhoe, quiet now and pristinely clean against the backdrop of dirt and shattered concrete and commiserated about sore backs and sun burns and before long a pole thin guy, about six feet tall, said, "Man, I hate that guy."
"The Super?", I asked.
"The Super? Are you nuts? The Super's the reason I got this kick-ass job. No, I mean that little weasel who keeps writing all that crap about us every day. He's giving city workers a bad name."
A chorus of agreement met his pronouncement and I began to feel very small in this wilderness of steel toed boots and Coleman lunch coolers.
"Just think boys, two more years of this and we'll be the ones leaning on the back hoe.", said Slim.
"Yeah, that'll be sweet. I already got my eye on a sweet little place out in Manotick. Got a pool and a hot tub."
"Nice. I'm almost there. By the end of this summer I'll have close to 30,000 saved for a down payment on a place near the river. Might have to sell the 150, though. I should have listened to you guys. I was shooting a little high for a simple city worker."
And maybe I've got it wrong, too. If I had to spend every day doing what I did yesterday, even for two years, I'd want to drive home in the biggest truck I could afford to the biggest house I could afford in the nicest neighbourhood I could afford. As it is, here I sit in my basement apartment bitching about the hole on my lawn.
They'll be finished right around the time summer winds down into fall and we won't see them again until next year's snow melts, but by then the city will have decided that another street needs to be ripped up and refurbished and you'll have to deal with them. Just don't piss them off or you'll end up like me, sore and sunburned and hiding in your hole until at least four o'clock everyday.

"Hello. I'm very clean."

2006-06-28T07:27:00.000-04:00

A personality is a sales pitch. I like that. I should, as I said it, and you can use it.

I have decided that when anyone asks me what it is I do for a living I'm just going to make up stuff on the spot. Polite society won't question a thing. We do put a little too much emphasis on things like that. What we should be worried about is if this person we just met is going to follow us home and steal the stereo, or fold over all the pages of the books in the library. We should be asking questions like, "Are you a good person?" or "Have you showered this morning?"
The handshake should take care of the "friendly" part. How often have you considered that when you shake someone's hand you are assuring them that you don't have any intent to hurt them? If you do intend to hurt them you shouldn't shake their hand, just so they know ahead of time. The smile is a tough one. If I smile at the cat he thinks I'm being aggressive by showing him my teeth. He's small but he never lets a challenge like that go by without some sort of rebuttal.
Eye contact is a tough one, too. Too little and you're about to get walked all over. Too much and you might have to fight to get out with your coat. Staring is just downright creepy. Try it and you'll see what I mean. Experimenting with these things will ensure that you have an interesting day.
I have a job interview today so I thought it might be fun to explore the arena of human body language. I'll let you know how I do.

Morning Already?

2006-06-27T07:11:00.000-04:00

I have to admit to being a little ticked off at the city right now. They've blocked off my street, loaded it with heavy equipment, some fancy new pipes and pieces of crap I can't identify and then went to work at the other end. For a month I've been veering in and around all of this just trying to get home and the work hasn't even come close to my place yet. I leave before they start, get home after they've finished and can't tell if they've done anything. Summer in Ottawa.

You can take the idiot out of the cesspool, but.... I was happily meandering home a couple of nights ago when I saw a girl on the side of the street waving at me. She wanted me to stop and I actually began to slow down. I think I may have forgotten where I was, temporarily, and thought, "She looks like she needs help." It's not that we don't have prostitutes where I grew up, they just owned houses and raised families like the rest of us.

I stood in the middle of the field, a beer in my hand and two in the bag, waiting for the fireworks to start. There was a lot of yelling and laughing that I didn't quite follow. I was busy looking up at the stars. That was when the first one went off. I single shooter volleyed straight up and flashed briefly against the real thing and from all around me, out of the darkness came the disappointed chorus of hisses and booing. I turned around and began to walk back to the party painfully aware that as hard as we try we just can't seem to come close to the real thing.

I floated on a chaise in a pool that was a degree or two cooler than me, just enough to make the heat seem less threatening. I put all of the concerns and worries out of my mind, which for me is something like building a skyscraper out of wet lasagna noodles, and concentrated on the ticklish feeling of the water lapping at the soles of my feet. I cracked one eye open just as two of the girls passed by the pool in their bikinis, towels in hand, and thought that maybe being single wasn't so bad. I decided that chivalry was the best course and rolled off the chaise and into the water. "Hey girls, you can take this." I am so smooth.

The guy at the corner store, across the street from me, wants me dead. I know this because last month when I tried to quit smoking he persisted in trying to sell me cigarettes. He said, "You can't quit. Here, do you want cigarette? No? You will smoke again, my friend and I'll be here." I thought it was pretty creepy and decided it was time to set up surveillance myself. On the other hand, it may be that he's looking square into a trend that will likely end in his having to close up shop. I don't think that anybody buys anything else from him. After watching him for a week I decided that, while he definitely is a weird guy, he isn't trying to hasten my demise. He's just waiting until I do it to myself. Smug bastard.

I can't remember if I like rainy days or not. Meh, maybe it doesn't matter one way or the other.

P.S.
The spell checker doesn't know what lasagna is.

Redivider

2006-06-25T07:56:00.000-04:00

The darkened room had an aura of disintegration that wove a spell around Linus so that he sat confused and surprised while the long hours that had unwound into minutes and then seconds, co-mingled and found partners, joining themselves to once again tally time, just slightly out of synch with their progenitors. The armchair was worn through to wood, here and there, but his mind's eye couldn't discern the direction of the decay. Beside the chair was a squat table, too low for easy use, that was covered in tinfoiled packages of meat, mashed potatoes and peas with knives and forks jutting out at angles that suggested mathematical anomalies to him, as he drifted in and out of sleep.
It was there, in the dark, that he was confronted with the ghost of his father, whose hard and expectant looks made him feel unmasked and at a loss for words. It was there, in the quiet, that he found pieces of some old ceramic bowl, painted garishly to imitate Klee's whispered secrets, shattered into fragments reminding him of fishing lures and then a cottage hidden from view by the trees, over grown and contemptuous. He shrugged these off, wishing for sweeter dreams than these and decided it was time to clean up the apartment and, maybe, go out for a paper.
It was early and the streets were still crowded with the weekend tourists who filtered into the Market for a glimpse, from a safe distance, of the wilderness of human activities that skyscrapers and all night restaurants couldn't disguise. During the day it was quaint and enough to titillate them and slightly rancid with smells that they could take home to frame beside their memories of Europe in '82 and Mexico the year before. Linus didn't smell anything but asphalt and confused it for nineteen ninety six and the road crew that hovered in front of his apartment for three days catcalling anything that moved while waiting for the horn of the lunch truck.
He paused at the entrance of the smoke shop as three young children confused their exit and tried to attach flags to each others backpacks normally reserved for school books and home-made lunches, emptied now for cheap Peruvian treasures and a pamphlet on how to care for their newly applied Henna tattoos. He picked out three newspapers to add to the pile in his apartment and a pack of Marlboro Lights to keep him company and stood patiently behind a woman who had heard that you had to haggle with street vendors if you wanted them to take you seriously. She wore a wildly coloured shawl around her shoulders, crocheted with thick wool, that presented Linus with a blackboard full of potentials created by the shifting angles that her gesticulating arms brought into existence. He resisted the temptation to wipe it clean and start over again and when he looked up she was gone.
He held the plastic bag tight to chest, on the return trip, careful not to bump these cultural interlopers, afraid of the strange viral infections he believed they could pass on to him and held his breath until the elevator doors closed behind him and his ascension was begun. As he shut the apartment door on the noise and the human pollution he registered his anxiety and dutifully waved it off. In the bathroom he stared deeply into to his own eyes, breaking the number one rule of neurotics and laughed to himself while he created the revised eyebrow ballet. In the kitchen he practiced standing absolutely still while his dinner warmed and then he poured himself a glass of milk, even though he hated it, and at last he turned out the light.
And in the living room he settled into the mottled armchair, turned on the t.v. and opened the foil-shrouded Roast Beef Deluxe on his knee as the day, the hours and the minutes, bored by their cohesion, dissolved into their component parts and hid themselves in the darkened room, playing hide-and-go-seek without flashlights, giggling out loud when found and wondering how long they could stay out and play.

The Sandwich Man

2006-06-21T07:33:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has ever had the dubious pleasure of sitting down to lunch with me knows how much I like a good sandwich. And probably knows how much I complain about the lack of a good sandwich on most of the menus presented to me during that lunch. In a town where the success rate of a new restaurant is roughly one in ten, I think I have the answer. Put a good sandwich on your menu and you might just survive that difficult first year of business.

I can hear you, already, saying, "O.K. , what makes a good sandwich?", and I have an answer in one word. Bread. Did you hear me? I said Bread.

I know about the temptation to try new things, oh lord do I know about temptation, but the basic definition of a sandwich is something, anything, between two slices of bread. White, brown, sourdough and rye, I really don't care but let me state for now and for all of eternity that wrapping the same ingredients in a flour tortilla is not a sandwich. Wraps. What a waste of time.

In all things, care must be taken to indulge oneself and to search out the small things in life that make us happy. People who smile up and down the halls at work don't have a great secret for their happiness, they have hundreds. Every minute of every day contains the potential for a life altering event, and given the proper perspective, I consider the discovery of a restaurant that has a good sandwich to be one of the highlights of my week. I don't necessarily want a stupendous and mountainous stack of meats, cheeses and pickles but I do want something as good as the one I could make at home, waiting for Coronation Street to begin. If I'm going to give you ten bucks to build me one, you'd better do it right.

Its time for a shout out to my current favourite sandwich place. If you haven't tried it, go to the Mayflower on Elgin, at lunch time, and order their daily deli sandwich. They're simple and yet superb. They're straightforward but still made mystical by their rare appearances around town.
I know you've got your favourite too, so out with it. And I don't want to hear about anything that isn't between two slices of bread. It isn't a sandwich.

Thank you for your attention. Now go back to work.

Butter the Wise

2006-06-18T01:19:00.000-04:00

I was there the day that Butter the Wise got his new wheels. It was fucked up, really. This middle class suburban guy on the inside, Jamaican ex-pat on the outside bought himself a Toyota Celica and had it fleshed out with a massive stereo cassette system and the first neon I ever saw I on a car, I shit you not. I was allowed to drive my mom's k-car if she didn't need it for groceries or something and I wasn't allowed to take it out at night at all. The fact that Butter had his own Celica was definitely fucked up.
It was me who first called him Butter the Wise. I didn't know him from Adam when someone told me they called him Butter because he was a fat boy. Big and fat. He played football on the defensive line kind of fat. I was standing in the pit one day and he walked up and asked me if I played guitar. I told him I did and he said he was looking for a band for a party he was having. He was going to charge ten bucks to get in and use the cash to buy booze and food and considering that it was likely that there would be a hundred plus people there he was going to make some money on the side to pay for a band. So I said....
"They should call you Butter the Wise, man.", and the whole place went quiet. Apparently nobody called him Butter to his face, but he knew about it and he was wise, so I didn't get punched in the head and he became Butter the Wise to everybody.
Butter's mom was what you might call robust. She was pretty tough on Butter and his brother but you could tell she was pretty happy with them, too. That summer he threw a party every weekend she went down to Toronto to visit her sister and I have never seen anything close to the debauchery that went on in that house. My band set up and played almost every time but we had to learn a bunch of Springsteen tunes because Butter liked Springsteen.
Saturday afternoon we had to help Butter pick up the beer. He never picked up a fucking case, as far as I remember. He would say, "My car. You guys load the beer." I wanted to point out the obvious but I got lucky once and wasn't sure I would again. But we discovered, despite his questionable logic that Butter had an ear for sound and he became our sound man after that.
The summer after grade thirteen I bought a van which we ripped apart to become the band bus. We managed to get a booking agency in Toronto to take us on and by August we were on the road with Butter following behind, in his Celica, to do sound.
He told me once that he never felt out of place when he drove that car. The universe was his and he went were he wanted. It was a cool car.
I want you all to raise a glass to Butter the Wise. He was man, he was a good man, he was a good soundman, and I hope they let him drive that Celica where ever he his now.

York Street

2006-06-17T08:35:00.000-04:00

As the revolutions slow, anybody who isn't jumping rings will end up just as they are now, just as they've always been. I tried to take them two at a time but the glint of the sun off the polished aluminum surface blinded me and I slipped and slid, almost over the edge. As I lay on my face, my elbow aching from the impact I looked up and saw a little girl laughing at me. I smiled back at her, agreeing that I must have looked like a jack-ass. Her name was Lila and she had a flower in her hair. I saw her again, about two years later but she didn't remember me. I'm not surprised by that. I discovered some time ago that I seem to be the only one who remembers. Its made me kind of crazy, I guess. When I consider that the answers most people are looking for are offered up every milli-second of every day without them understanding, it makes me the sane one and them the crazies. Lemon has an inkling but he's also got some serious issues that he can't seem to shake himself awake to. He's compulsive and paranoid but keeps so quiet that even the psychotics leave him alone. Like dogs who can sense death, they circle around him trying to avoid being noticed. He will combust someday and if the fire can burn out the memories that haunt him he might just remember that we've done this a thousand times before and that the next time, if we try hard enough, we might just make it out of here alive.

Sha La La La

2006-06-16T07:02:00.000-04:00

It was hard to miss. A man in a lobster suit handed out pamphlets and a server handed out curried chicken samosas. This bar is resistant to change but the atmosphere was festive and the band was tuning up to launch into a series of crowd favourites and that's when I realized I shouldn't have come. I understand the need, in this town, for the band to bust out a bunch of over used covers. The average crowd here is, well, average. They don't want to hear anything but old favourites and are ready to ignore anything interesting. I think its odd in a town that has such an inexhaustible supply of great musicians, all of whom at one point or another have known the shame of playing "Brown Eyed Girl" night after night, they allow themselves to be pushed around by the people that keep songs from forty years ago on the radio. It might be easy to blame Ottawa's classic rock mentality but its time to call a spade a spade.

Anybody who has tried to pick up a guitar and teach themselves to play knows that only a few will persevere long enough, ignoring painful hand cramps and permanently creased fingers that ache all the time, to actually get into a band. Then there's the 'creative difference' element, endless fights over who's actually the singer and who's going to take the solo and then another round of fist fights over who drank all the beer (it was the drummer). Finding a place to practice, trying to get everyone there and then dealing with volume issues pale beside getting gigs and deciding who's on the guestlist. After all that you get set up and start playing songs that every other band is playing? Stop letting bar owners and drunken students dictate what you'll play and then maybe you'll earn back some of the self respect you developed after all those years of effort.

I left after an hour but I felt bad for the guys in the band. They were good musicians, just trying to make a couple of extra bucks and do what they love to do. I really do have to ask, though. Is it the chance to stand on a beer soaked carpet, put up with complaints from the manager about the volume, learning to deal with people who want to come up and sing along with you or the opportunity to chain link arms with the other guys in the band, across the front of the stage, to protect the gear from being used as projectiles when the brawl breaks out? I suspect it is none of the above. Hey, if your dream is to churn out creaky renditions of "Hotel California" for a room full of drunks, have at it, but I still think its time for the music scene in this town to stop pandering to beer sales and start doing what they worked at for all those years.

There, I said it. Feels good to get that off my chest. Now I'll just sit around and wait for the complaints from the guys in the band.

Water Horse

2006-06-15T09:03:00.000-04:00

I dreamt of a lake. Deep and dark, it made me nervous to stand openly on the shore. I wondered why I was here when the water burst into the air and the Kelpie emerged foaming at the mouth and black as the night. In the form of the Ech Uisque and it rode the water to the shore and stood in front of me as if waiting for something. I wasn't afraid as I climbed on its back and I didn't resist as it plunged back into the pool but clamped my feet to its sides and grabbed a handful of mane. The Kelpie swam hard and in the murky water I could make out the faces of a generation of the drowned, all reaching for me and pulling at my clothes.
Lifetimes of anger and fear lived here and died here and willing or unwilling they all clamored for the shore to exhaust themselves on the beach. On the back of the nightmare I lost my grip and slid into the depths and came to rest in the mud on the bottom of the lake and from there I looked to the sky, wavering and bright.
I could have awakened myself then, but I don't want to remember this night. I'll sleep until the water clears and I can see the sun, clear and inviting and then I'll swim, Kelpie or no, and pull myself onto the shore.

Forgotten

2006-06-14T05:46:00.000-04:00

Robert Southey's motto "Curses are like young chickens; they always come home to roost." reflects the karmic inspiration for today. "Do unto others..." just doesn't seem like enough of a threat to influence behavior. I would guess that we have always been a little more chickenhearted than genial, so it makes sense to fear reprisal rather than to anticipate a return on good behavior. Good deeds take a long time to make it back, often being hi-jacked and stripped of their dignity and time is rarely on our side.

Despite this, and whether you respond to threats or are inspired through reward, try to do something nice today. If its true that your ill-will will outlast you and your good deeds will fade by sunset, who wants to be remembered at all. Its better to be forgotten.

Look Ma, #203

2006-06-08T05:41:00.000-04:00

The Lotus Eaters dragged me out of bed early this morning. They stuck me under the shower and poured consciousness into my gullet and here I am. Those girls get on my nerves. Carl Gustav and Ikkyu have been up for hours arguing economics, their half-heard voices a background as Jules Renard and Lucullus stand in the kitchen creating a symphony of clanging pots and clinking glasses, trying to outdo each other with breakfast but it was Kaldi who gave me what I needed; a hot cut of coffee. I don't see Cu Chulainn or Epona and can only guess they've taken the guard dog out for a run. Just as well, Evy gets very insulted if I pay too much attention to either hound.

I have been poked and prodded all night by reconstructed memories and jimmied and jabbed by half-truths and pure fiction, all because today is the first anniversary of this little collection of rants from the basement. Just as our dead become more real and influential as time passes, these posturings have paved my soul with a solace, solid and steady, that nonetheless sometimes disappears out from under my feet when I least expect it. Such is the nature of reality and I will not begrudge a single moment of it.

To the Fabulous Bee, the Cracker, The Prophet, the Photo to my Words, El Jefe, She, Evy, G-spot as well as Two Dogs and Anonymous and to Cato and Susan...Thank you. Without your antics I would never have anything to say.

To my flat-mates, you mordantly cantankerous lot, keep it down. I'm trying to sleep. Damn freeloaders. Now, where's my breakfast?

Inheritance

2006-06-06T07:21:00.000-04:00

"I am haunted by the spectre of community. Am I in or am I out? I just wish the city would pick up the garbage when they say they will. Or that the phone company was as direct with their service as they wish I were with the payments. I shrug off those thoughts and concentrate on getting to work on time and not missing my appointments but in the back of my brain the spectre of community dances a macabre two-step, illustrating my dependency and mocking my individualism. If I didn't fear reprisals I would have left years ago, and I guess that's what makes this situation so ironic. I invite everyone over so I can ask them to leave me alone."

It occurred to me then that I never could make much sense out of the things he said. I followed along, dodging the branches he carelessly let loose and wondered how much further we had to go. At seventy-two, he was so much older than me and it seemed that my sole duty was to listen, try to understand and then disappoint him by misinterpreting the messages he filtered to me. How I ended up here, I'll never know. I chuckled to myself when it occurred to me that he had called me on the telephone. He was a phony, I know, but at this point I wasn't going to burst the bubble he'd worked so many years to inflate, wind-bag that he was. I guess it didn't sit well with me that despite my personal feelings for the man, he believed I was his best friend. My fault, I suppose, because I never did tell him what I really thought of him.

As the summit came into view he paused and turned to me.
"You'll love the view, Bern. When I found this place I thought of you and you're penchant for meaningless speculation."

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Now you understand why he irritated me so much. The back handed insults he delivered were hard to defend against. I ground my teeth around my anger and followed his finger, pointing out over the plain.

The sun was sinking low across the valley from where we stood, muted by the atmosphere and the pollution, insulating our eyes and casting long shadows, like splayed fingers, on the floor of the valley. I followed the rough edge of the scree down from where we stood and into the shadows and saw the horses, bunched together, racing across the green and brown vista. I could just make out the weak winding of the stream that nearly gave out before it left the valley floor. I could see the clouds that tried but couldn't obscure the peaks in the distance, far out over this jagged scratch on the face of the earth. I was stunned by the beauty of the landscape and for once, couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"I hope you live a long time, because it will take you years to understand why I came here in the first place. But when you do, maybe you could lift a glass to me. Now let's go home and get something to eat."

A Nice Velvet Soup

2006-06-02T09:56:00.000-04:00

The first time she passed the stall, she ignored its frank look, pretending to concentrate on the other vegetables, all of them in a frenzied state, yelling things at her like, "Me, pick me." and "I'm very fresh." On her second round the tray of radish exploded in a sing-songy chorus of joy when her hand passed over them. Their tiny voices rang shrilly in her ears and, annoyed by their jubilant certainty, she refuses to pick a bunch, which sent them into a cacophonic depression, punctuated by threats of revenge. Radish were an unstable vegetable and on top of that they often gave her heartburn. As she listened to the smooth purring of the tomatoes she was intently aware of the large turnip, that sat leering at her from the corner of the stall. As the cucumbers and the asparagus argued loudly over who was more delicious she paused, whirled around and said to the offending root, "Why do you stare like that. It's not polite."

"And why do you pretend to want anything else, when you know that in the end you will take me home with you.", said the turnip.
"Of all the nerve. You are an insolent vegetable and I should let you sit there until the rot consumes you from the inside.", she barked at it, "and perhaps I will. Then you'll not look so smug."
"Lady, you have misconstrued my intent. I seek only to save you time and expense and if by my impertinent speech I have offended, let me assure you that you and I both know where your palate will take you today."
She was impressed with this odd turnip's command of the language and hesitated for a moment while she considered the truth of what it had said to her.

The shade that the canopy provided her was welcome in the heat of the day but she knew that she couldn't dally here, so she simply picked up the turnip and paid the stupefied farmer and began the long walk home. The root, perched in the crook of her arm, was content to ride along silently until they reached the house and she entered the kitchen, where the smooth tongue of the turnip once again began to whisper in her mind. She realized, as it dreamily advised her of its condition and best method of preparation that this turnip was one of the most self-aware vegetables she had ever spoken to. 'We should all be so self-possessed', she thought, reaching for the knife.

"I wish you well, madame, and I hope you find this poor and unassuming vegetable to be to your liking.", said the turnip as the knife came close.
"Oh, you are a smooth one, aren't you?", she said with a smile.

Thanks to E.P. Evans

2006-05-30T07:49:00.000-04:00

As I entered the apartment it became clear that Evy the Cat had been up to no good. I had failed, it seemed, in providing him with a good role model and I could have blamed myself for his bad behavior but, "No.", I thought, "It's time for him to accept the responsibility for his actions." I wondered what the legal precedents were and upon examination I discovered that there is a long history of animal prosecution in western society.

Fragments from Athenian law books indicate that there was a court set up in the common hearth area of the town to investigate and try inanimate objects and animals if it could be proved that they had, by their behavior, caused the death of a human being. Thus a stone or a log could be convicted and powdered or chipped out of existence if found guilty. Animals were treated with the same regard when it came to their crimes. Their cases were arbitrated, with a representative for both parties and, if found guilty, the animals could receive punishment.

This form of representational law was used, not infrequently, throughout medieval Europe and there are cases recorded wherein a pig, who had caused the death of an infant was executed. From time to time, any number of animals, pests and vermin have been tried and found guilty of malicious acts against people. Bees, horses and snakes have all been indicted for murder, mice for fraud, fox for thievery and in all but the most severe, the punishment was usually excommunication. The most dangerous offenders were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered, sometimes after having been dressed in clothes and forced to wear shoes.

Apparently, if you look hard enough, you can find a precedent for prosecuting just about anything. Can't find the remote? Sue it and if it can't pay, take out its batteries. Did that pebble cause you to roll over on your ankle? Call the police and cite your precedent and then sit back and watch them try to put on the handcuffs.

Hey, don't laugh too hard. This isn't about how stupid medieval peoples were. In 1906 a dog was tried in Delemont, Switzerland and in Canada turtle doves have been indicted. Neither is too far away nor too long ago that charges are out of the question. Just because you can't read, speak, walk on two legs or draw blueprints doesn't mean you aren't guilty. Take the case of the burrowing ants in Brazil. When the Franciscan monks took the case to court and the defense council was unable to persuade the judge, they were told to move to the next field or face excommunication. Unfortunately the records don't show whether the ants capitulated or if they applied for an appeal. We may never know.

Sadly, my case against Evy the Cat was tossed out when the judge discovered he'd been living here rent free for more than eight months. He has squatters rights that supersede my complaint and I'm not allowed to kick him out. When we got home we had a long talk and have patched things up, for now. I did take away his 'mouse on a string' toy for a day, though. I think he's learned his lesson.

Generations

2006-05-29T07:20:00.000-04:00

He looked like a stuffed animal or a really old hound dog. Two hairy spiders danced on his forehead and a distracting waddle of skin wagged back and forth under his chin when he talked. His name was Bert and he explained that his name was a shortened version of Albert, which made them all look at each other in confusion. Their names were Braenna and Sierra, Haidyn, Rhiby and Skyanna, and they sat in a semi-circle at Bert's feet while he rambled on and on about being named after some prince, somewhere in England. They took turns doing impersonations of him on the bus ride home and Mrs. Heatherington sighed, knowing that the field trip to the old age home had failed, in some ways, to impress her students. 'Living history', were the words she had used to describe her reasons for wanting to take a classroom full of ten-year-olds to visit their forgotten predecessors. She'd nearly called it a day after Kyler Winde had been found pushing a forlorn and confused woman down the hall in a wheelchair and she shuddered when she considered how he had convinced her to get in the damn thing.

Lisa Heatherington had applied and been accepted to teacher's college after a talk with a friend, who had convinced her that there was no higher calling than the one that infused children with the right ideas and the mettle that would influence future generations. What could be more virtuous than educating our young, more satisfying than watching as they grew into the next generation that could mold and shape the world using the inspiration and determination she could give them. Lisa knew she should have gone to Thailand when she had the chance.

Bert paused, in mid speech, and looked at the children, sitting on the floor around him, and wondered why he had let his grand-daughter talk him into this. These little pukes didn't give a shit what he was talking about. He didn't even give a shit what he was talking about. He was half-way through a story about his tour of duty, a story that had dragged him around the planet twice, and deposited him in France before he caught the fragment of a bullet in his thigh, a bullet he believed had come from an American rifle, although he could never prove it. He looked at these kids and realized they didn't know where France was or cared that he had been decorated twice for valor, or that on every remembrance Day he was asked to join the parade that celebrated the commitment to the cause, the country and her King. "It was there that I caught the crabs from a lovely prostitute named Lilla. Damn near ruined my military career, that woman."

She couldn't decide who was worse. There was no escaping the coming controversy, once the kids got home and told their parents about the trip, no escaping the sanctions, if not outright dismissal, and no way to escape the laughter as the kids re-counted every word of Bert's story all the way back to the school. Bert had leaned back in his chair and waited as his words sank into the pre-occupied minds of the chattering children in front of him and when it did the howling laughter had started and she witnessed an incredible coming together of generations as the kids finally looked at, and saw, the old man with his withered hands in his lap, grinning from ear to ear at her while the room exploded around them.