Re-posted stories

Ok, so I finally got around to downloading an OCR program, converting the graphic files to text, and re-posted three pieces from my earlier publications.  Hopefully, "The Things We" (ALL the pages this time), "I wrote a story about Vienna as my father lay dying" and "the sound of flight" are much more legible.  If you haven't read them previously, please enjoy and feel free to comment.  If you have read them, you may want to pay another visit.

Cheers!

WORK FROM HOME

 Randall sat murderously quiet.  He heard the office door close and Jack Vanetter returned to his chair on the other side of the desk.  Jack tried to look compassionate.  He gave it a good try.

“Randy,” he started, and stopped.  Randall could see him struggling with the handful of words HR had prepped him with.  Randall thought that Jack was really not cut out for this sort of thing.

He said “Randy” again, and stopped once more.

Randall thought, ‘this could take all day at this rate.’  He let his mind wander as Jack looked for what needed to be said.

On the way in that morning, Randall got to thinking about Lizzie.  He pictured her standing by the door, wearing a serious look.  She had Sarah’s way of crinkling her forehead, but also the innate ability to smear breakfast all over her face.  The area from her nose to her chin seemed to be dyed a permanent shade of orange or red.  He couldn’t take her seriousness entirely seriously, but he did his best to seem sincere.

“Daddy,” she said, waiting to continue until she had his full attention.  “Will you be home to watch Idol with me?”

Randall weighed his options:  an unconditioned yes; a maybe; or the truth.  He tried to convince himself that today would be different, that he’d slip away quietly by 6 pm; that it would not take him over an hour and a half to make the commute home, all white knuckles and profanity; that he’d pull into the driveway before the sun had slipped below the horizon.  He knew she’d be at the window when he arrived, no matter what, so he said ‘maybe’, he’d do his best.

Even then, at 6 a.m., it felt dishonest.

On the way in he passed a small sign on the side of a hill next to an entry ramp to Highway 8.  In the fall and winter it had been clearly visible.  “Work From Home”, it exhorted.  No details or instructions, or perhaps the rest of the sign had fallen off.  Still, Randall thought, it made its point.  The tall grass of the hillside had crept up, so that only a bit of the white of the sign was visible.  But he knew its message was still there, unmistakable.

Across from him, Jack’s mouth was moving, but he was far away or underwater and the words were reaching Randall muffled and incomprehensible. “Not working out …”  Randall thought that maybe it was Jack who was drowning, seeing the almost panic in his face.  He made no movement, and he imagined that his silence was making it harder on Jack.  It didn’t matter, he told himself, the particular words.  He knew the gist.  He’d heard rumours.

Randall thought about the garden edging he’d bought on the weekend.  He’d need to start installing it this Saturday.  He put it on his mental to-do list, also knowing that he could count on Sarah to remind him of the tasks to be completed.  He imagined pounding the individual pieces of edging into the ground, with steady uncomplicated thwacks.  Randall pictured the smiling woman on the box.  He figured if the petite blonde on the box could install this product without breaking a sweat, he’d be up to the task. 

Randall wondered what Lizzie and Sarah were doing just then.  Eating mac ‘n cheese?  Doing laundry?  Building a princess castle in the living room with blankets and pillows?  He wondered what he was missing, putting the things he’d already missed to one side.

Jack’s mouth kept moving, and his brow furled and unfurled like a flag in the wind. “We need to think about the organization … package …”  This was serious.  Randall was again reminded of Lizzie’s question, and the sign by the road.

Thwack, thwack.  He drove in another piece of edging, separating garden from lawn.  Placing things in their separate categories.  Work:  Home. 

Thwack, thwack.

Randall thought of the million things he needed to be doing just then.  He started to get up from his chair as Jack continued to explain what the company was offering him, on the way out the door.   He told himself:  if Jack finishes up quickly enough, I can beat the traffic. 

Thwack.  Thwack.

I might even catch the evening news. 

The rites of passing (a new/old poem)

A new poem I wrote recently, from a cast-off bit I found kicking around. Funny how something from several years ago can be recycled.

* * *

The rites of passing

 He was a textbook rummy:  like an old newspaper,

something blown into a doorway.  His skin and clothes desiccated,

battered to the same hue of dust.  Among the office tower legions, he was a

tumbleweed scouring the terrace.  The sound of grasshoppers or cicadas

in faraway trees.

The day exhaled hot breath against

your cheek and the wind came up full of sunshine and grit. No one took notice

of death in a corner, its subtlety

adrift on the day’s undercurrent.

For an instant, all was still.  A handful of coins lay at the feet of the congregated

pigeons.  Priestly crow conducted a silent mass, head cocked.

Looking to the parishioners, catching the eye of anyone

willing to observe passage and make an offering.  A gust riffled his

cloak, and he was off.

Taking the moment with him.  A single black feather

marking the occasion.

Inside the Mascot

The inside of the Otter head smelled like old rubber gloves and puke.   I set it on top of my knapsack on the seat next to me as the Number 21 bus crawled through the ‘burbs.  Mothers walked their children to the nearby public school, scolding them away from piles of fallen leaves. I looked at Jacob, but he wasn’t looking back.

It was the fall of 10^th grade.  Jacob Grant was my best friend then.  I know it was the fall of 10^th grade because that was when Jacob’s Gramms went into the nursing home and Jacob ended up on our couch for several weeks.  You remember things like that in a way that makes them more definitive than a calendar or pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, 1985. 

Jacob was a good kid, at least as far as you could know that about anyone.  He was the kind of kid that your parents liked and asked about when they hadn’t seen him for a while, hopeful you hadn’t abandoned the friendship in the fickleness of youth.  That’s how I remembered him when he showed up for school that fall.  Only there was something about him that hadn’t been there before.  He wore it like a bruise, just visible at the edge of a sleeve.  I started to doubt he was the good kid any more as days went on.

Jacob had taken up swearing like a biker, not just the routine profanity of adolescence but real crude talk that would get you kicked out of a shopping mall.  At the same time, he’d adopted a filthy laugh that he never had before.  He started pushing his hair to the side, out of his eyes, instead of getting it cut.  I couldn’t say whether these were habits he acquired over the summer, or something that was developing in front of my eyes, like a very slow Polaroid picture. 

Sitting across from him on the bus, I noticed that his jeans were ripped above the knee.  I figured that mom hadn’t seen him before he left the house that morning.  If she had, she would’ve marched him back upstairs to find a pair of pants that didn’t suit a hobo.  Since he moved in with a hockey bag of his belongings, mom had gone out of her way to treat him like her own son.  She made his lunches, cutting the crusts from his sandwiches the way he liked.  She washed his clothes, ensuring that he was as presentable as possible.  At night, she would have loud conversations with my father – discussions that I was not supposed to hear through the hastily closed door of their bedroom – so I knew that she felt compelled to look after him in ways my father couldn’t understand or tolerate. 

I walked into the living room one day when Jacob was watching TV.  Mom was standing behind him.  Her hand hung in the air just above his head, as if she were about to stroke his hair.  When she realized I was there, she took her hand back and asked me if I wanted something to eat.  The image lasted with me.  Having seen my current wife take in a malnourished cat, I now understand that my mother was acting on an instinct even she couldn’t explain.

As I sat looking at him across the aisle, Jacob unfolded his jack-knife and stuck it into the seat cushion next to him, stabbing and twisting. There was less stuffing in the seat than you’d expect.  He worked the blade like he was prying open clams or trying to work a lock, but not having much success.  He didn’t look up or catch my eye.

“Jacob,” I hissed, and he looked at me finally.  He placed a finger to his lips.

Jacob scrunched up his mouth and nose into a sort of duck-face with the effort of cutting through the thick vinyl of the bus seat.  Finally, it surrendered with a horrible shredding sound. 

The bus pulled over to the curb and stopped.  The driver turned in his seat and I got a look at his eyes in the big mirror as he searched for the source of the ripping sound.  I lowered my head.  In my mind, at his size it would take 13 strides to reach the back of the bus. Maybe 12.  Jacob flipped the blade of the knife closed inside his palm and slipped it into his pocket. 

Nine, ten, eleven. Eleven-and-one-half paces brought him to a spot directly in front of Jacob. 

My mind leapt to the reckoning:  my parents called to deal with the police and the transit people, and Jacob saying nothing to help his cause.  Me with nothing to say at all, since I couldn’t make out what would inspire someone to attack a bus seat that way.  It would come down on me by extension, I was certain, as things that your friends do always follow you home.  Guilt by association, they call it.  I felt myself shrivelling.  The driver stuck out his hand in front of Jacob, palm up.  Jacob just looked at his hand, following the curve of his meaty arm up to the shoulder, the driver’s face. 

I looked to the front of the bus.  A 30-something woman held the tiny hand of a very young child, who stared back.  My view of the bus started stretching out, as if the vehicle were elongating.  I was at the wrong end of a telescope, getting smaller and further away.  The image of the bus driver started to wobble, and then vibrate.  I could taste breakfast pushing up the back of my throat.  My legs made their own decisions.  Their certainty started to spread to my basal brain.

I stood and picked up the Otter head.  I couldn’t carry it and the book bag, not the 10 blocks to school.  I held it under one arm for a moment, while I pulled the straps of the backpack over my shoulders.  The bus wasn’t moving, but my knees and stomach were swaying.  The coward’s certainty was waning.

“Excuse me,” I whispered as I tried to move past the driver.  His bulk filled the aisle, blocking the long tunnel that led to the front door of the bus.  He didn’t seem to hear me.  His hand still stuck out in Jacob’s direction, demanding.  “Excuse me,” I said again, slightly louder, “may I get past?”

The driver wheeled and looked at me for the first time.  “Are you with him?” 

Almost twenty-five years later, I wrestled with this question when my first wife, Marg, asked me virtually the same thing.  It was over dinner one night, when we were into it over my mother’s refusal to come live with us after my father passed suddenly.  Marg was hurt by some things my mother had said.  Untrue, but hurtful things that people say when they’re looking for someone to share some of their pain.  My then-wife looked at me over the bowl of potato salad. 

She said, “I need to know if you’re with me or if you’re with her?”  She said that and then she waited for an answer.  I stopped cutting my steak and looked across at her, the fork still in my hand, unable to answer.  Incapable of taking a side.  The question hung over the marriage for a couple of years like a wobbling tight-rope walker, before it inevitably lost its balance and fell over.

That day on the bus was the same and I could read the impatience in the driver’s face.  He waited for an answer a moment or two longer, but no response was coming.  He turned his attention back to Jacob, without moving out of the way.

Jacob studied his fingernails.  I thought about whether the driver would call the cops, and whether Amy would ever come to my house again if Jacob got sent away.  I wondered whether I could outrun the driver if I pushed him and made a run for it.  A million swear words riffled through my head – things I could say to blow up the moment and distract the driver.  Nothing fit.  My calculations did not factor in what would become of Jacob.

Jacob’s gaze never left his lap.  He’d made his choice, I assumed, or a choice had been made, in any event, from which there was no retreat.  Either way.

I sat down.  The books in my knapsack bit into my back.  The driver’s hand remained, stuck out like a sort of fixture. 

He said, “son, just give it up already.”  Then, in a slightly gentler tone, he said, “you’re not fooling anyone.”

Jacob looked up then.  As if emerging from a dream, he saw the driver and the panic in my face.  He reached into his pocket, and for an instant I imagined him pulling out the knife and stabbing the driver, repeatedly, in the hand and then the chest.  He had the look of being adrift.  Dazed and at sea.  Like someone you might step over on the street, making crazy sounds.  Someone who might who do anything at that very moment.

Instead, he placed the folded-up knife in the driver’s palm, which immediately closed on it.  The driver said, “that’s right, son.”  He walked the 11 ½ strides to the front of the bus. 

Over his shoulder, he spoke to us.  “I believe this is your stop, gentlemen.”  The driver sat down, and the rear doors popped open as he pushed a lever. 

I looked at Jacob.  He wasn’t moving, but I could see him shaking off the last of the trance.  He’d need to be awake – it was about 10 blocks to school.  I’d have to run to make the first-period pep rally.
I said, “c’mon, let’s go.”

Jacob found his legs.  We stood at the same time, and I could see he was wobbling.  I put out a hand to take his elbow.  I thought he might brush it away, but he didn’t.

Jacob said, “I’m ok.  You go ahead.”  I released his arm and let myself down the back steps of the bus.

Jacob walked to the front.  He leaned over to the driver, holding onto the fare box to steady himself.  I walked along the side of the bus, meeting him at the front door.  I wanted to know what he said, but I didn’t have a voice or the words to ask.

Jacob descended from the bus and started walking in the direction of the school.  I fell in behind him.

I put on the stinking mascot head.  I didn’t want him to see me crying.

Friday morning. Vacation.

So, I'm sitting on the patio at the laptop, trying to avoid the glare of the sun and a breeze that periodically kicks up dog hair and cigarette ashes.  The house is full of girls in their early 20s, rabidly awaiting bacon and eggs after an evening "on the town" that went too late for civilized bodies.  They all look used up and a little guilty.  Someone's bra hangs on the clothes line, discarded for a late night/very early morning swim.  I keep the music down to a dull throb that I can barely hear over the rustling of wind-blown leaves. 

I'd like to write.  God knows.  But the demands of this house, this morning, and the dog begging that the frisbee be thrown and returned and thrown and returned, are too much.  And the cat's been sitting on the laptop again, so the "g" key refuses to cooperate.  My smartphone continues to wink it's single red eye at me, somewhere on the edge of consciousness.

There must be an idea in here somewhere, I keep trying to convince myself. Some kernel of a story or a few lines of verse that might reflect on the moment.  But it's bottled.  Corked.

Still, I can't help but smirk a little.  Satisfied or mixed up in the madness, it's too early to tell.  I'll just pound away - a little too violently whenever the letter "g" is required - and hope for the best.  A happy accident.  Something worth reducing to words.  Something worthy of sharing.

Look who's baaaacccckkk!

After 4 months of apparent inactivity (hey, things happen and I've got other stuff to do, alright?), I'm going to try to post some new material this week while I'm on vacation. Stay tuned.

Catching Up With Judith - revised and re-posted

Made some tweaks on a sad Saturday night and re-posted the most recent story I've put up.  Looking for any feedback:  good, bad or indifferent.

Another New Piece - Catching Up with Judith

Catching Up with Judith

Bobby devoured his chicken wings and spat the bones onto a paper place mat.  You could feel the whirr outside the restaurant windows as the WestJet at the nearest gate prepared to taxi away, guided by a man with orange torches and wearing a neon yellow vest.

The bartender made the universal gesture for "Another drink?", and Bobby nodded.  He stacked and arranged the bones, forming a pentagram, and the word "HELL".  The bartender set two fingers of scotch in front of him.

"How are the wings?" 

Bobby pulled his thumb out of his mouth.  "Tolerable."  He asked for a Red Bull.  When the waiter brought it, he poured it over the scotch and the ice cubes, looking around to see if anyone was watching.

Judith would not approve. 

The taxiing 737 had pulled back from the gate and the tunnel retracted toward the terminal.  As if the fixed were withdrawing from the moving.  It looked like the man with the torches was walking a well-behaved dinosaur.

Bobby would be on a jet soon, too, he reminded himself, leaving YYZ and the whole crummy city behind.  He polished off the last of the wings and set down a radius bone as an exclamation point.  He was certain Judith would not approve of that either. 

Or would she?  

Bobby sipped his energized whiskey, questioning whether he knew what Judith would think of his chicken bone epitaph.  She was the one who took off, headed for the Left Coast in pursuit of “her conscience”.  After that, Bobby could not be too sure. 

From the restaurant, Bobby could see the gate where he’d board the plane in an hour.  Two children chased each other, leaping occasionally over the outstretched legs of sleeping strangers.  Passengers were reminded to not leave bags unattended. No one was reminded to not leave children unattended.  No one ever warned you to not leave your girlfriend alone for too long, either.

Bobby struggled to remember when it was that he lost touch with Judith.  He’d need to lay off the Red-Bull-scotches from here out.  When the bartender gave him the look again, he placed his hand over the mouth of the glass.  He looked at the tarmac, and then at the sad parade of humanity passing through the terminal on their way to other places they wanted or needed to be more than here. 

A flight to Boston was announced.  And then one to Kingston, Jamaica.  He was listening for Air Canada, flight 739, knowing there wouldn’t be a boarding call for half an hour.  Still, it gave him something to listen to aside from the steady stream of inoffensive soft rock that the restaurant P.A. oozed.

Judith would approve, and Bobby marvelled at how his mind endlessly returned to her.  He wished he could smell her hair right now, or taste the pancakes she made with fresh blueberries and small chunks of canned pineapple in them.

And then, just then, as he imagined the taste of Judith’s pancakes, he stopped.  She’d made those pancakes the day that she left.  She set them in front of Bobby when he arrived at the table.  She placed those very same pancakes on the table, like she’d done a dozen times before, and he never knew that this would be the last time she’d do that. 

No one ever warns you that this time, right now, will be the last time for anything.

It was thinking of those pancakes that compelled Bobby to buy the ticket.  It drove him to the airport, too – despite knowing he’d white-knuckle the take-off and likely crap on the landing.  Judith’s pancakes, and the way that she said nothing as she set them down to be eaten.  He recalled that she just watched him eat, and then cleared his plate away, wordlessly.

That was just Judith, he told himself at the time.

She put his plate back in the cupboard.

Just Judith.

Southwest flight 1752 to Miami was boarding Premium Class passengers.  The elderly, disabled and people with children.  Rows 17 – 28.  Finally steerage class.

They would call his flight soon.  He finished his drink and slid the credit card across the counter.  He hoped it would go through.  The airline ticket ate most of his remaining credit limit.  The bartender took it without comment, being accustomed to people who eat, drink and clear out in a hurry.

As the bartender rang up his bill, Bobby looked back at the tarmac.  They’d be wheeling a 737 up to his gate by now.  Cleaning up after the last passengers and re-loading with booze and overpriced snacks.  He looked at his wing bones and scooped them into his napkin.  He placed the package on the centre of the plate and his knife & fork at 25 after 5.

Judith would approve.  As if that mattered now.

The man sleeping in the lounge at Gate 15 stirred, and one of the children tripped over his feet.  The man pretended to fall asleep again, with a smirk on his face.  No one announced, passengers flying with children should ensure that they are properly stowed in overhead compartments or under the seat during flight.  Bobby thought someone should have.

The energetic whiskey skipped in his stomach and spread its warmth.

Judith had some explaining to do, Bobby told himself.  He needed to find out:  did she know she was leaving before she served him pancakes or after?

Bobby stepped out of the restaurant.  He was only steps from the departure gate where they’d be announcing boarding any minute.  He reminded himself to take it all in – this could be the last time he’d be in Pearson International Airport preparing to ask Judith when she decided to leave him.  “Before or after?” he asked.  Sadly, whether she approved or not, he’d be boarding soon.  Bobby would be catching up with Judith before she knew it.

New Writing - A Birthday Party for Steinmetz

A Birthday Party for Steinmetz

“Steinmetz, Steinmetz!”   They cheered and stomped their feet, or at least that’s how he told it.  The room was on tenterhooks, as he described the crowd rushing from the stands and hoisting him, their hobbled hero, onto their shoulders. Of course, they were rapt.  It was Steinmetz’ birthday party after all, I reminded myself.  

The rough cardigan I wore clearly intended on itching me to death.  Between the sweater and the cheap plastic of the seats, I was transported 25 years to Schwartz’s on Saint-Laurent boulevard.  I crammed a handful of cold cuts from the tray between two slices of heavily-mustarded rye bread and scooped a small armada of pickles onto the side of the plate to ride shotgun.  The bartender was watching a golf tournament from somewhere hot and lush on the TV.  Tiger Woods missed an 18-foot putt on 15 and slipped another shot back of the lead.

The DJ kept the music to a dull roar, playing some light contemporary tunes that seemed to seep from one to another seamlessly.  I scratched my arm through the sweater and knew that I’d be tearing up the skin soon.

Uncle Frank was well into his rye and slapping people too forcefully on the back.  Steinmetz kept telling the story of his greatest soccer success, although he said, football or ‘footie’, I think.  He emphasized how impressive it was to lead his team to a Division 2 title with a compound fracture of the left foot.  The women, always a little taken with how he wore cravats and bow ties (even when they weren’t really in fashion), hung on his every word.  Even Irma and my mother smiled dreamily. 

Steinmetz moved from one triumph to another, seamlessly.  His escapades on the pitch gave way to the story of how he single-handedly raised hell in the Łódź Ghetto, before fleeing across the Channel to England in a leaky dory.  

Uncle Frank studied his rye silently, eyeing Steinmetz occasionally, until he finished his story in a flurry of waving arms.  It appeared he could hear no more, and so he cleared his throat to attract the room’s attention.  Not surprisingly, he captured the attention of virtually no one.  Irma turned a scalding look on him.  He went back to drinking silently. 

“But perhaps my greatest moment,” Steinmetz paused, “my fondest memory, occurred on this very spot.”  And with that his head fell, like he was deeply affected by the story as it washed over him anew. 

I found even my jaw and tongued slowed as they worked on the sandwich.  My mother was rapt.

"It was right here,” Steinmetz said, pointing at a spot on the floor not six feet from where he stood, and then he moved to the very location.  “Right here,” he said, “that I met Rebecca in the year nineteen hundred and fifty.”   At the mention of his dead, sainted wife, you knew it wouldn’t be long before there wasn’t a dry eye to be found.  “Oh, Rebecca,” he said with a practised warmth. 

I thought Uncle Frank rolled his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure without looking away from the spectacle of Steinmetz weeping, in a quiet dignified manner.  I pushed the last of the kosher dills into my mouth and bowed my head in the only facsimile of respect that I could think of. 

It was then that the loud scrawl of metal chair legs on linoleum tore through the place like shrapnel. The bartender turned away from Phil Mickelson’s tee shot on 15.

“Bullshit!”  Uncle Frank shouted.  The bartender stepped to the end of the bar with purpose.

The DJ took notice, too, increasing the volume slightly.

For an instant, Steinmetz did not move, although every craning neck in the hall had snapped ‘round to bring eyes to bear on this horrid display.

I kept my head down.  “That’s bull-shit, Steinmetz, and you know it!”  Uncle Frank was on his feet and moving toward the spot where Steinmetz claimed he’d met Rebecca all those many years ago.  “I call bull shit.” 

Steinmetz turned a pair of understanding eyes on his denouncer, but barely lifted his brows. 

“This place, this spot, wasn’t built in 1950.  This …” and Uncle Frank made a broad gesture as if to take in the entire place, “was a cow pasture in 1950!”  He made a dismissive gesture in Steinmetz’ direction.  Surprisingly, Steinmetz did not reply.

"It’s all bullshit,” Uncle Frank derided, growing bolder.  “He” (Frank pointed at Steinmetz, as if he were the accused in the dock) “was an adequate midfielder at best, and I have reason to doubt that he escaped the Ghetto!”  A gasp went up from the room like the last desperate desire of a people, extinguished.  All eyes turned back to Steinmetz.

He lowered his eyes again, and for a moment he was just a sad old man, suddenly smaller and fragile-looking.  When his voice first re-started, it was soft and vulnerable.

“It is true, perhaps, that I was not the greatest footballer.”  He raised his eyes to meet his accuser for the first time.  “But there can be no dispute” (as his voice grew in depth and strength) “that I did score the winning goal in the Division 2 title match in 1946!”  There was a harrumph from the men and the ladies were all nodding in agreement that what he said could not really be disputed.

“You may question,” he said, his fire returning, “my escape from the Jewish guard and the Nazis, too.  But,” he whacked a fork off of his hip, with an oddly metallic thunk, “can you explain the German lead in my bones?  I think not.”  Steinmetz looked satisfied, and I imagined the stands clearing as his supporters stormed the pitch. 

All eyes turned back to Frank.  He looked like a man about to evaporate back into the crowd, sensing his defeat.  However, liquor boldness doesn’t melt away that easily.  He stood his ground, and the fire in him built anew.  I washed the remainder of my sandwich down with the last mouthful of the rye he’d left on the table, only now able to take in the final showdown. 

The bartender continued to watch from the end of the bar, wiping the same spot over and over.  The DJ had increased the pace, too, moving from the faceless songs he’d been playing most of the afternoon to something more recognizable:

It's getting late have you seen my mates?

Ma, tell me when the boys get here.

It's seven o'clock and I want to rock,

Want to get a belly full of beer.

Uncle Frank stuck out his hand to me, and I passed him his glass.  He raised it to his mouth, without first looking, and then slammed it down on the table when he realized it contained no further courage. 

Elton John’s Saturday Night seemed to get a bit louder, as Tiger’s drive on 16 went way right and bounced off a spectator.  Things were going horribly wrong.  I felt a little warmth in my chest from the rye, but I was transfixed by the showdown unfolding in the small ballroom of the Marriott.  Uncle Frank looked like a man ten years younger as he stepped toward Steinmetz.

“You, sir,” he said with venom and deliberation, one gnarled finger pointing directly at Steinmetz, “are a bag of wind.”  I tried to focus on the television to see how Tiger would rescue himself from this unfortunate turn of events, but the prickling of the sweater kept bringing me back to the table and the plastic bench.  “You cannot possibly claim with a straight face that you met Rebecca on this spot?!  If you do, you’re a, a …” and even Uncle Frank stammered a moment before going all in:  “a LIAR!” 

The bartender was burly, I noticed.  Even the banquet servers looked like they could take a punch.  I surveyed the room for exits.

Steinmetz looked to the crowd assembled to honour his achievement of 80 years.  They were shocked into silence, but the room buzzed with anticipation of Steinmetz’ answer.  Irma and my mother were torn between embarrassment and expectation.  Uncle Frank sensed that he stood on a great precipice.

Don't give us none of your aggravation,

We had it with your discipline.

Saturday night's alright for fighting,

Get a little action in!

Steinmetz sagged onto a chair.  Some disciple produced a glass of water and he drank for a long, still moment.

Steinmetz looked straight into Uncle Frank.  “You’re right, Francis.”  He said, and let those syllables hang for a moment.  Rory McIlroy’s second shot on 16 hung in the air, a tiny speck of white floating across the blue screen.  The DJ turned the music down a little; a couple of young kids who were dancing on the other side of the room stopped to see why.  The air in the room got uncomfortable and prickly.  I ate my last pickle, in case I’d need the energy.  I slid further back on my chair, away from Uncle Frank dangling out on the edge.

“You’re right, Francis, and you’re wrong at the same time.”  Steinmetz’ eyes took on the familiar glint they’d had earlier.  “This room did not exist in 1950.  It, indeed, was a farm.”  The banquet hall was again still, hanging on his every word.  My mother looked like an infatuated girl.  His pauses were subtle and polished, as he continued.  “And at that time, I was still a young man, looking for his lot in this world.  I travelled from place to place around Montreal for a couple of years after I landed here, a refugee as they said at the time.  I was restless, and that was how I found myself at the gates of a farm just outside the city in the year 1950.  Looking for work, I told the farmer.  He was a Scotsman, I recall.  McDougall or Stewart or something.  He knew cheap labour when he saw it, and he almost immediately put me to work.  He called off his dog, and sent me to the barn with another fellow.  I remember him, Seamus.  A man of maybe 30, with muscles on his muscles and a bushy, red beard.”

He relented long enough for people to take a bite or a drink, but no one moved. 

“Seamus handed me a pitchfork, assuming I knew how to use one, and sent me up to the hayloft.  It was dark and dusty and it smelled of cow … manure,” he said, setting the scene.  The bartender had returned to the golf tournament on TV.  Tiger Woods scowled, but everyone listening to Steinmetz was amused anyway.  “So, I bucked hay for a few hours, until around noon.  I was leaning on the pitchfork, looking out over the farm, when I heard a shrill whistle.  I looked down, to the ground just outside the barn, and there she stood.  Rebecca.  My lot was cast, as certain as I’m here today.”

The room sighed, and the music got a little louder.  Uncle Frank stood alone, punctured by a hundred hard looks.  He was a flat tire.

“And, so you see, Francis, you are a little bit right and yet, you are even more wrong.  It was right here,” and he used that perfect pause again to point to the very spot, “that I met my Rebecca.”  And with that, Steinmetz dabbed at his eye and got up from the chair.  “God rest her beautiful soul,” he added, and retreated to the bar at a shuffle befitting a man of his age.

It was then that the room rose up in a symphony of scraping chair legs.  Uncle Frank was encircled as he stuttered and looked to me for assistance.  I just disappeared into the roiling crowd, heading toward the bar to watch the final holes of the tournament.  I was anywhere but by his side at that moment.  I have no guilt. 

The music got louder yet – Elton exhorting 'Cause Saturday night's the night I like / Saturday night's alright, alright, alright – and the room (my aged mother among them) lifted Uncle Frank high on their shoulders like a six-foot plank, and carried him to the exit.  The young kids on the far side of the room danced riotously as Frank crowd-surfed right out of the banquet hall, calling out helplessly to be put down. 

I stood beside Steinmetz as he tentatively sipped at a glass of scotch.  The bartender made no attempt to intercede, instead finding a new spot on the bar to wipe.  I said, “McIlroy is really putting on a clinic.”

Steinmetz took another sip and said, “it’s only the third round.  Don’t count Tiger out yet.”  I think he winked.

The crowd, having deposited Uncle Frank in the parking lot, returned to the hall.  As they lifted their glasses, I swear that they chanted, “Steinmetz, Steinmetz”.  The birthday boy raised his glass to them, and the chant of “Steinmetz, Steinmetz” got louder.  I asked the bartender for a rye and scratched my arm.  I think Tiger made it close in the final round of that tournament.  At least, that’s the way I choose to remember it.

For No Particular Reason ...

Just because I saw a link to the video for How Soon is Now?, and I followed it, and it reminded me how important the Smiths were at one time in my life, and how Morrissey likely had the most impressive persona/appearance of any front man from the 80's (sorry, Robert Smith).

Hearing these songs still gives me shivers for some reason I really can't explain.

* Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
* Girlfriend in a Coma
* Ask
* The Queen is Dead
* How Soon is Now?
* Panic
* There is a Light That Never Goes Out

Simply iconic, in my very humble opinion.  If I ever get my hands on a way-back machine, the dial will be set to 1985.

Another Episode of Odds & Sods

A few things from the dustbin of my brain on Leap/Hump Day...

• Today is Repetitive Strain Injury Awareness Day (no, do not attempt to say this 3 times quickly - no good can come of it).  It's scheduled for the last day in February.  On a leap year like this one, this results in it falling on the least repetitive day on the calendar.  Weird.
• Hint to the guy I passed on the right coming home from work - "passing the time" is not a good reason to be in the far left lane (i.e., the "passing lane") of the 401.  You pretty much have to be passing other vehicles for it to apply.  I only wish the MTO handbook for new drivers was a little more clear on the subject.
• Finally concrete evidence to explain why incompetent people are so endlessly frustrating - they simply do not think (or won't admit) that they are incompetent.  Says here that even when offered a reward, they can't predict how poorly they've done at a task with any accuracy.  Hmmm... that does explain a few things.  Warning:  if you think you're competent, they might be talking about you, but how would you know?
• After listening to a lot of new music, thought I'd plug a few recent releases by artists who are worth checking out:
• John K. Samson - Weakerthans (from Winnipeg, MB) front-man released a solo album on January 24th that is typically terrific.  Check out the video for "Longitudinal Centre" here.
• Young Galaxy - ok, so it's not that new, but another Canadian act that has put out a ton of very good, catchy music.  Check out "Blown Minded" here.
•  The Big Pink - if you like 80's influenced synth-pop (and you need something to wash Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" out of your frontal lobe), check this out.
• The Wombats - you've likely stopped dancing to Joy Division, but the new Wombats release is pretty decent, too.  Here's "1996".
• Again, it's not brand-spanking new, but Wilco's most recent albums is awesome.  Here's a live version of "Whole Love", recorded on the Letterman Show.  Yeah - remember when Letterman was relevant?  You're old.
• The Decemberists - I'll admit that I don't think they can ever do anything wrong and that Colin Meloy is a genius, but Down By the Water could be the best thing they've done to date.  Instantly catchy.  This version was recorded on Austin City Limits.
• Like Mumford & Sons?  Try Of Monsters and Men - "Little Talks" is "Little Lion Man" with a brass section and some female vocals reminiscent of early Björk (ca. the Sugarcubes) - you may even hear a similarity with the Beautiful South, if your memory is long and your tastes ran that direction in the 80's.
• Can't forget the new single from the forthcoming Shins album, due out March 20th.  Here's "Simple Song".

Man, Woman, Sofa now posted to the Danforth Review

For those who are interested, the short fictional piece (originally titled, "Josephine") has now been published to the Danforth Review site.

Happy reading!

Of the Walking Dead and Individuality

As I drove home down the 401 tonight, I got to thinking about why the Walking Dead speaks to me.

In the typical zombie story, the heroes (usually a small, rag-tag group forced together by circumstances) are vastly outnumbered by hordes of slow, dim-witted, single-minded monsters.  It's unlike the typical slasher movie where the viewer is asked to identify with the group (think of the teens in Carrie or in any of the Hallowe'en or Friday the 13th films, or the victims of "Jigsaw" in the Saw franchise) as it tries to flee, outthink, or simply defeat the individual ghoul, freak or psycho. In the zombie movie, it's the group that we fear while we side with or emulate the individual in his or her desire to escape.  The viewer roots for the survivors, perhaps in a narcissistic self-identification with their plight.  You want them to persist despite the ridiculous odds, maybe because of the analogy between the survivor's story and our own experience of the workplace, the shopping mall, the grocery line-up or highway traffic.  Our own understanding of the dangers of "the mob" appears to shape our tastes.  In some subconscious way, do we perhaps see a bit of our (idealized) selves in these average individuals pitted against the savage masses? 

Maybe I'm overthinking it (that happens when you spend copious amounts of time behind the wheel on a road you know too well), but I think this may be the reason I can tolerate or even enjoy the Walking Dead while I can't sit through a typical horror movie.

Interestingly, another writer has come to similar ideas about the zombie genre's "hyper cynical, nihilistic sort of individualism" which arises out of fears of a world on the verge of apocalypse where the only person you can count on is yourself.  In an age when the state is withdrawing from many of the social protections that we have come to rely on (particularly following the economic downturns of the past few years and the failure of the markets to redistribute wealth in any meaningful way), it is understandable that we might be fascinated with the concept of self-reliance in an increasingly lawless world.

While I'm not sure about the depth of concern expressed by the piece linked above - which is admittedly rather bleak - the appeal of the zombie genre now makes sense to me personally, at least.

What do you think?

Returning from Miami

A few thoughts on returning from a business trip to Miami.

*   *   *

My first time in Miami (and South Florida generally) gave me the impression of a very wealthy Latin American country – the palm trees and the layout of the streets and the architecture all had the feel of a location more tropical and less concerned with rules.  It was almost like a resort (complete with Policia all over the place).  I think I heard more Spanish spoken than I did in Cuba or Costa Rica.

*   *   *

The airport was part fashion show, part sad parade, as places of coming & going usually are.  Three soldiers in camouflage walked by and I almost didn`t see them.  Almost beautiful girls on improbable heals wearing impossibly tight clothing tried to catch everyone`s attention inconspicuously.  Old people snored as their grandchildren ran around the terminal.  I tried to focus on the New Yorker article detailing the abuses of US campaign laws, the undisclosed, unidentified monies flooding into the two sides of the Republican stand-off through the SuperPACs – but the coming & the going kept grabbing my attention by the throat. 

The flight was delayed.  I returned my darting eyes to the New Yorker, less than fascinated.

*   *   *

I got to my seat near the back of the plane.  The residents of the other two seats in my row had conveniently stowed all 3 of their bags in the overhead compartment above our section, leaving no room for mine.  I politely suggested they put one of their bags under one of the seats in front of them.  They feigned an ignorance of English and resumed an aloofness that made me retreat.  I put my bag in someone else`s overhead spot, who in turn complained that they had nowhere to put their bags. 

The row of seats behind mine was empty.  The male steward offered the opportunity to move back a row.  I did so and had all three seats to myself to continue reading my magazine. 

With access to the window, I watched as the plane climbed through cloud cover, Miami and Key Biscayne (with its lavish homes, yachts, a golf course) slowly receding and then eclipsed by a blanket of cloud. 

Soon Miami was just a distant spot on the ground and I was already somewhere else.

*   *   *

We broke cloud cover with a few shudders, and there lay the grid of the GTA; pinpoints of orange and white light spread out in all directions as far as I could see.  Flying into the city at night once again reminded me of the glow that comes from the embers of a campfire.  The same orange pulsating light scattered across a black canvas. 

There was a warmth to the scenery, as if you could hold your hands up and feel the heat, and it matched the mood of returning home.

Within an hour it would start to snow.

UPDATE: A New Piece of Writing [Artist's Note: Please be gentle]

UPDATE:  Shortly after I posted the story "Josephine" on this blog, I also submitted it to the on-line publication, The Danforth Review (under the name "MAN WOMAN SOFA").  I just got word that TDR is going to publish the piece in an upcoming issue.  I have therefore taken it down in order to not negatively impact TDR's publication of it. 

Thanks to those who commented or just took a look!

So, we're here and it's now ...

Well, 2012 is off to a good start, with a real sense of opportunity and change blowing a hopeful breeze into the dark corners of a Canadian winter existence.  Something particularly exciting may be just around the corner, but more on that later if it pans out...

In any event, after a long hiatus from submitting and getting writing published, I got back on the horse over the last 12 + months, and finally succeeded in having another story published by Scrivener in its Summer 2011 issue.  There are still plenty of submissions out there (fingers crossed), but this represents the most recent work I've had published.  For those who are interested, however, in the business of writing and getting short fiction and poetry published, I would recommend joining Places for Writers on Facebook.  They offer a good community of writers to engage with, as well as a constantly refreshed listing of publications and contests looking for submissions representing a wide array of subjects, interests and genres.  A must for any aspiring writer on-line!

Scattershot on a Monday evening

Just some thoughts with no particular association and in no particular order.

1.  Automobiles come equipped with headlights AND taillights.  People who fail to turn on their lights at dusk seem to forget the latter.  Athough you may have daytime running lights that provide some illumination ahead, a black car on a dark road with no taillights is a virtual phantom that you can't see until you're right on top of it. 

So, ... please turn on your lights before dark if you don't want to end up as a hood ornament.

2.  I listen to REM's greatest hits album, Part Lies,  Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982 - 2011, on my long commute home and I can't help being struck by how Michael Stipe's plaintive "I nee-e-ed this" on Country Feedback still feels like a cry for help. When I was recently indisposed (to be as delicate as I can be), the refrain to Green Grow the Rushes started running through my head.  I sat wondering if any music I've listened to since 1995 will ever have the intimate impact that REM, Midnight Oil, the Smiths and U2 (and a handful of other bands) did.  Okkervil River?  Arcade Fire?  The broken poetry of Art Brut?  I wonder if anything, musical or otherwise, can ever be that romantic and immediate again.  Middle age.  Meh.

3.  Watch when you use the word we, I and you.  It can be very telling.  The best laid plans of mice and people, especially the ones that require a clear delineation between 'us' and 'them', are so easily undone.  Even a pronoun can be a tell.

The Summer of '98

In the summer of 1998, my creative output had waned significantly.  One bad relationship had given way to another which was by then on its last, wobbling legs.  I was staring down the barrel of my 30th birthday, with little to show for my life but 2 degrees and a job that was taking me nowhere.  By the end of the early autumn of that year, I would make some significant decisions:  I dumped the girl; I moved out of the townhouse we were sharing; and I decided that I'd become a lawyer.  By the new year, I was getting ready to move into my own place, had scored reasonably well on my LSATs, and was waiting for the outcome of my application to the law school at the University of Western Ontario (where I'd done my undergrad degree).  In the words of a story I once read (liberally paraphrased here - I believe it's Amy Hempel, but I've perused her Collected Stories, and can't locate it), I'd pulled out the junk drawer of my life and turned it upside down on the floor.

While none of these details are directly relevant to this publication, I think there is a sense of being on the cusp of something that also comes through in this poem.  It was published in connection with the Forest City Poetry Contest, in Afterthoughts:  Today's Best Poetry (which ceased publication in 2000), published by Harmonia Press right here in London, Ontario.  Until I re-read it , I wasn't so sure about this poem - now, I think I kind of like it.

The Slowing Fall

So many ants without love as trees shed

and terminal house flies by windows reflect

their dying

in 1000 eyes

The word slipped out –

this time of browning greenery,

trees going fiery, thinning

as the days;

of all the times

for one slow-burning

phrase to find

withered lips.

I said it quietly, imitating Autumn, uncertain

of words dying mid-air, and you

returned it

with geese

stabbing south.

QWERTY #2 - Spring 1997

This story was written after I had completed my M.A. thesis (and during a time when I was battling the inescapable conclusion that I no longer had anything new or interesting to say).  It was published in the spring 1997 issue of QWERTY. 

i wrote a story about vienna while my father lay dying

I sit composing a fiction about Vienna and about falling in love with someone other than my fiancée, when the phone rings; I look at the clock – 7:13 p.m. My mother's on the other end. ”Dad's in hospital. He’s okay, just some chest pains" She tries to sound calm, talking like she’s rubbing my back. Instead, that false calm sounds like dead-silence before an alarm. I'm thinking of buildings a disturbing shade of gold, the colour beneath five centuries of soot, and the imperfect beauty of the woman who might have loved me. Mom suggests it's his heart, considering the man's age; hearts forever breaking down as they do. My mother implies he'll be in hospital a while, as they mend what’s broken. I think I hear coronary, infarction, angina. I swear my mother said those words, then promised to call back if there was any change. Mom, sounding calm as low tide, sends love.

Something breaks inside so I build verbal buttresses around frail muscle. In my head a castle falls down. I write a story, not about the Blue-Danube, postcard Vienna; St. Stephensplatz crowded with pigeons like mawkish old men; Klimt faces in every Kaffeehaus, but about the other Vienna: the cold-hearted place with its harsh cigarettes and forty-shilling coffee, walled against foreign features. This contrary, miraculous Vienna, an oddly shaped beauty moving me by one ginger elbow through the Christkindlmarkt. Past stalls of ornaments, Glühwein, Maroni …     

In the story the woman loves me. You can make people love you in stories. I wait for the phone to ring, thinking my father will die before I finish. His heart is broken. My mother's hopeless reassurance becomes long-distance silence. Midnight: I assume my father is deeply cold or under a knife. I stop writing a story about Vienna as my father lay dying.

I have a problem telling the truth, so I tell stories.

The call actually comes at 3 p.m.: I start the story later. I like Vienna more than I say, and love the woman less. Her feelings for me are pursued by question marks. My heart, therefore, is not so bad. Neither is my father’s, not nearly so bad as I pretend. He passes tests of the heart with flying colours. My mother sounds calm because she is calm; she says nothing about hearts — I compose words to justify writing about a woman who probably never loved me. If I told you that I retreated into fictions because my father had chest pains from eating pepperoni, you wouldn't have come this far.

In retrospect, everything’s fine. Except the story. The story is a disaster.