The Games I Play

Icy Relations

2007-02-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

The last month has helped me see clearly that the people of my neighbourhood are not nearly as considerate as I might have thought, or hoped. As ice and snow have coated their sidewalks and made walking a hazard, many – but certainly not all – of these apparently friendly people have been embarrassingly slow to respond with any more than a half-assed snow shoveling. I’m taking this opportunity to remind them, and everyone, that a little salt on the sidewalk goes along way to maintaining a positive relationship with those of us who like to – and have to – traverse across their portion of slippery cement.

My dog Sydney doesn’t enjoy walking herself and on weekends I really have no choice but to take her around the neighbourhood until she gets tired enough to let us have peace. In the summer, this is a pleasure because the weather is nice, people are out and the walking is always safe. But in the last while, those same people who I said hello to in the sunshine and who admired the little white fur ball on the end of the leash have had their common sense frozen by the outdoors. They are forgetting that while they are inside getting fat and watching the idiot box, others of us enjoy being out and, unbelievably, like the feel of a chilly winter. But we don’t like getting our tailbones smashed on their ice.

So without further ado, I’m telling them to get off their lazy warm asses, go to the store and buy a bag of road salt (of the organic variety if they’re worried about the environment), and sprinkle it generously across the sidewalk. I don’t even care if they don’t want to salt their own bleeping driveway.

Adding to my aggravation is the fact that I have a knee injury right now and can’t bend my right leg much. If I begin to slip, this leg will offer me scant little support and any tumble I take, even a small slip like the other day, invariably aggravates my aching knee further and makes me even more pissed off that people can’t think a little less of themselves a little more often.

And neighbours, don’t bother trying to convince me that a little salt now will ruin your prospects for yet another previous perfectly green lawn come springtime. Frankly, even if you have scientific evidence, I don’t care. Saving my body from long-term disrepair is far more important than your grass. And it should be more important to you. Hey, I’m only 39. What if a 75-year-old lady – a neighbour of yours that you adore, perhaps – falls flat on her backside right in front of your house after losing her balance on ice she didn’t see, because it was covered by snow that you haven’t yet bothered to shovel? What if she broke her hip and couldn’t look after herself any more?

Are we supposed to stay inside all winter because you are cold, inconvenienced, lazy, busy, uncaring, irresponsible…? And what about the kids in the neighbourhood who you know perfectly well aren’t going to stay inside no matter what? I guess they’re supposed to know better than to put a foot down anywhere near your property because you are a self-absorbed wienie.

In closing, I say a heartfelt thank you to my neighbours who – like me and my wife – have shoveled earnestly, iced responsibly, and even cleared the snow and ice for the elderly near them who couldn’t make it outside. You did your bit and saved others from injury, and you braved the cold and wind to boot. (It hasn’t really been that cold or windy for very long, by the way.)

To the rest of you, I hope that when I see you in the warmer weather, you don’t feign friendliness and forget all about your neglect. But of course you will. That’s just the kind of people you are. Apparently it’s easy to be nice but a lot tougher to go out of your way to do something that really helps people.

Oh, and don’t forget, in case you didn’t already know, when you bought your house, you bought the responsibility that goes with it. In this case, it’s not the kind you and pick and choose when to deal with.

Mrs. Crocodile Hunter

2007-02-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

One of the cool things about working for a television broadcaster – CBC, in my case – is that occasionally interesting guests drop by the building for an on-air appearance. And once in a while you get to see the segment before it airs. Today I saw an interview with Terri Irwin, widow of Steve Irwin, the famed Australian wildlife conservationist (“The Crocodile Hunter”) who died tragically last fall.

Much like I expected, Terri was astoundingly down-to-earth and even-keeled. She lost her husband and the father of her two young kids less than six months ago and here she was carrying on his work of promoting wildlife and his homeland (she’s American-born).

Terri explained to the small studio audience that everyone deals with grief differently and this was her way of feeling close to Steve. Though she acknowledges that sometimes it’s hard to put one foot in front of the other. She told an amusing story about how she, a young tourist from Oregon, met him years ago at the same Australian Zoo they later co-owned and she now runs. Terri related how Steve told her that when he used to ask girls to dance and they refused, he snuck an earwig into their hair and watched them freak out. It turned out that Terri likes earwigs and found the story funny. She also told of her late husband’s interesting perspective on ‘crocs’: (I paraphrase) “You know crocodiles always want to bite you and eat you, whereas with people some of them pretend to be your friends.”

Steve and Terri’s daughter Bindi was supposed to be on the show but this obviously wonderful mother let Bindi do something that caught her fancy upon arriving in the neighbourhood. Instead of sitting dutifully on the couch and being interviewed for the umpteenth time in recent months, 8-year-old Bindi got the sky high thrill of climbing up the CN Tower (right across the street) with her younger brother Bob and obviously an escort or two in tow.

Why exactly is this so cool? Before the show – The Hour – started, host George Stroumboulopoulos told the gathering that he’s interviewed many show business children and their parents, and said that the moms and dads who didn’t let their kids have a childhood despite the show biz pressures ended up creating screwed up young adults.

Terri evidently understands that the greatest gift she is giving now is to two little people who thought their daddy walked on water: she’s letting them live, the demands of TV be damned. She said that Bindi’s dream from early on was to do what her daddy does. To that end, this total cutie will soon be starring in a show called Bindi the Jungle Girl. I’ll be watching with my daughter.

Terri explained that if her children ever tell her they’ve had enough of the limelight, then that would be it – all cameras off. Strong lady it seems. There’s much to like about her.

Is it possible?

2007-02-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

My Canadian-American utopia, given those who are currently in the running to lead --plus a trio that may be most pissed off if my vision turns to reality:

Here It Is!!

2006-11-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

A handful of people may care somewhat initially, but as every aspiring novelist hopes, a few million people may eventually -- SOON -- hang on every word. Here then is the beginning of my new novel, subject of course to change at any minute:

June 15, 2001. A distinctly glorious date that is otherwise completely unidentifiable in the mind of even the most ardent intellectual.

Ten days earlier Tropical Storm Allison ravaged Houston, Texas with rain and left five billion American dollars worth of damage in its wake. Eight days before the Labour Party took the British election and Tony Blair won a second term as Prime Minister. Four days previous Timothy McVeigh was executed in Indiana for masterminding the infamous Oklahoma City bombing. Six days afterward a rare total solar eclipse obscured Earth’s view of the sun. On that same day, famed American actor Carroll O’Connor died and the legendary fictional bigotry of Archie Bunker passed on with him.

The attacks that changed Weltanschauung for a generation were 88 days away, and were still wholly malleable in the icy hearts and black spirits of the perpetrators.

Perhaps the most perfect place on the earth on this day, evening specifically, was a modern hospital in need of a good exterior paint job, which was nonetheless rather abounding with trained and experienced staff and the most modern medical equipment that could be bought or alternately obtained anywhere on the face of the planet.

The building stands at westernmost tip of Lake Ontario, which is picturesque from a well-aimed camera lens despite the nearby steel mills that predominate these shores.

The room of focus is just barely colourful enough to be considered off-white, though no one but the uncharacteristically nervous husband took notice. Even he was only aware of this for a few moments as he became progressively more distracted by the crucial goings-on, as the clocked on the wall above the omnipresent bed ticked ever so much closer to midnight.

Laughing gas was at work on the wife under the starched pale sheets. She had thus far endured several bouts of excruciating pain that required her to hunch over as she paced the halls with her spouse in tow. He comforted her however he could think of but felt rather helpless regarding her situation.

The contractions soon came ten minutes apart, at which point the recently summoned doctor ordered the nurses to ease the mother-to-be into as comfortable as possible a position. Her feet were soon in stirrups, easing the tension of an abdomen in the most progressive state of natural bloating. Still, her behaviour could soon become irrepressible despite her subdued inclinations.

Midnight passed and the culmination of the evening’s events turned into an early morning waiting game, with two nurses working happily past their usual quitting times, a family physician who never got bored with the celebration of birth, a man in his mid-30s soon to be exultant, or unconscious, and a woman – his bride of three years – feeling half way between the promised land and the front lines of a gun-less battle.

Everything sped up by the second at just before one o’clock in the morning. A glorious seriousness predominated all present parties. The doctor was in control with his hands busy between the stirrups and the nurses on either side doling out the required instruments. The husband held onto his wife’s ever-tightening grip. He tried to speak but was told to shut up.

“I need to concentrate,” Mom said between fierce gasps. Mom inhaled and exhaled repeatedly in rapid succession, seemingly too involved in the process to be aware of the pending outcome.

Dad stood back in awe as the doctor announced that he could see the head. Soon it was in his hands and then it came in contact with the air in the room accompanied by a shrill yet melodic cry.

A heavenly wail. Tender screeching.

A fresh new person exposed to nitrogen and oxygen, held up by expensive rubber gloves and experienced hands.

“Your baby,” the doctor said.

An apprehensive look.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor said with a smile, holding her out for Daddy to see.

Daddy gazed at the face longingly, seeing utter perfection and nothing else. Finding his composure, he redirected his eyes to take in the reassuring presence of five fingers on each hand and an equal number of toes on each foot.

“Well?” sweat-soaked Mommy asked as Daddy turned his head calmly and smiled at her.

“She’s perfect,” the doctor declared.

“Perfect,” Daddy added sweetly, looking into Mommy’s exhausted eyes that were brimming with relief. “A girl,” she cooed and exhaled a massive breath.

Daddy leaned over to kiss red-faced Mommy before baby was swaddled in a sterile blanket and placed between them, her umbilical cord still attached. The world was suddenly just three people.

Heaven, the one in the middle primarily. The picture of pictures. The harbinger of more endless possibilities than the Lord could ever promise.

In a minute there was the rather comical sight of Daddy cutting the umbilical cord. As he repeatedly asked if he was holding the scissors correctly and cutting in the right place, the doctor joked to Mommy that there should be a class for this. Mommy said Daddy wouldn’t pass anyway.

The otherworldly delight that began at 1:17am lasted another 40 minutes or so. It would have gone on longer if not for Mommy’s unrelenting need for sleep and baby’s need to be cleaned up completely and prepared for what was to come.

With everyone moving around Daddy was soon alone in the room, left to ponder. Then
came the problem. Not a physical problem of any sort and nothing that affected the birthing process or anyone involved. This was a problem due to foresight, a look to the future at what could – within the realm of mathematical calculation anyway – possibly happen if someone was inclined to be too brutally realistic at a time meant for great celebration and shared excitement.

Daddy, who was moments ago the physical embracer of this marvelous new gift, was overcome with an unspeakable fear that would soon grow into a wayward frenzy. Somehow it just occurred to him now, at what he was heretofore to call the greatest moment of his life, that he – along with his worn out wife – were from this point forward solely responsible for a fledgling person that couldn’t as much as move across the floor, or eat or drink, without their conscious action.

Base Camp Musings

2006-11-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

If you never want to know what it feels like to be stuck indefinitely at base camp waiting for the weather to clear so you can climb the mountain of your dreams, then don’t write a novel. Don’t begin with an idea and don’t dream how it might progress or finish. Don’t even imagine your ideal protagonist or scribble a few notes regarding your plot.

That way you won’t have to feel your stomach churning endlessly and your mind numbing before you even complete a sentence. Consider yourself lucky that you now have the time, the brainpower and the freedom of spirit to go and construct a log cabin, train for the Hawaiian triathlon, become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or get married to a supermodel and raise five beautiful children from your castle in the Swiss countryside.

I don’t want you to get the idea that writing a great novel is that most difficult thing you can ever do. That’s just not true. In fact, for the overwhelming majority of accomplished writers, never mind published authors, it is the most difficult thing they tried to do -- and ended up failing.

This isn’t to say it can’t be done. I have to believe this. I know it’s true. Why? For one, because I have read a few novels that are considered classics and thought to myself throughout the reading that I could write something this good, and could have it finished and edited within six months. (A remarkable accomplishment with any real novel exceeding 200 pages (meaning not a Harlequin romance, second-rate paperback mystery, or something of the like).

Unfortunately, that’s simply not the case for most (98%) of the novels I consider great. These works of masterful artistic achievement take years in some cases to mold and fine tune. That’s a lot of time at the base camp before the summit is eventually, ultimately, within reach.

However, against all odds, come what may, no matter the mental anguish, this is my goal. There’s no use deliberating on it any further. I will summon up the wherewithal that’s within me and complete my masterpiece – even if it’s a masterpiece in my mind only –
even if I come to detest it in the years to come – even if it takes three or four other novels before I arrive at an elevated place of creativity that allows me to construct it.

With this drivel out of my mind, I give you an update on my new novel…

Tomorrow…

Or soon.

Blogging The Novel's Progress

2006-10-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

It lies steadily, somewhere between my abdomen and sternum, waiting to be drawn out from me by long hours of hard thinking and sustained soul searching. It is the well-stored but seemingly reachable dream: to create my own Owen Meany, Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield, Rodion Raskolnikov, Duddy Kravitz or Mark Renton – or at least a well-though-out homage to their memory.

It begins with a vision of workability that simply isn’t possible: a mere eighteen straight months that I would do nothing but devote myself entirely to penning and then perfecting the greatest novel that I am humanly capable of conceiving at this point in my existence. (I’d still talk to my wife, play with my daughter, clean the house, eat, exercise and groom myself.)

It has a genuine hold-up: each time I have the opportunity to scribble a new page of my masterpiece-in-the-making, I instead catch myself assembling a fresh entry for my burgeoning blog. This, I deem, is a noble pursuit in the art of noting the weekly goings-on.

However, there is so much more at stake than capturing my opinion of what happened in any given 7-day period for the few people who can be bothered to sift through it. So, my blogging now will take the form of updating my progress on this new lengthy work.

I will try, starting immediately, to devote myself, in manageable increments, to this novel pursuit. To this end, I began a few days ago to jot down a couple of opening lines, which have since been transformed into a page and a half of what I deem decent work. Of course I retain the right to change, alter and edit it at any time and according to any whim I might have.

It has no title yet, begins with some notion of autobiography, and will blossom from there until it seems to be entirely about anyone but me. Without further hold-up, it begins like this:

The effervescent five-year-old girl with hair awash in long blonde and bushy curls skips and twirls on her way to her local suburban kindergarten class one early fall morning, her doting father in tow.

The charming little lady is rarely if ever overlooked by those she passes. She is so utterly unfettered of suspicion and shame, and so totally enamored with childhood exuberance that all parents and grandparents, and most young people, can’t help but take in her presence.

On this day, the tall, jaunty and quick-footed retiree who always walks to get his newspaper instead of having it delivered because he once mentioned he needs a reason to ‘get up and at it’; he smiles easily and says ‘hello young lady’ before nodding at the girl’s father and ambling on up the block.

The father and daughter eye each other and giggle, a soothingly familiar exchange for them. Daddy holds out his hand and his little girl cheerfully places hers inside. Anyone looking on would easily notice they are blissful in their early morning routine. In a minute he will drop her off at school, into the care of her teacher and the company of her classmates.

She loves school and always enters jubilantly and without fuss, after giving her father the kiss on the lips he rarely has to remind her about.

It is 8:15 a.m. in suburbia and this is a prime example how days routinely unfold in the centre of this family’s universe. And they would keep going this way, according to Mommy and Daddy’s loosely conceived plan and barring harrowing incident, as long as someone from an evil-doing dimension doesn’t come along and screw it all up, or as long as…
…the whole family don’t all get swallowed up by the horrible monster that their dear daughter once saw in her worst-ever nightmare (which she never had again, after much soothing from Mommy and Daddy)
Or,
…an otherworldly ball of hail doesn’t smash through the car window as the family is on their way to pick up a new batch of groceries and assorted household cleaning items one Saturday morning
Or,
…Beatles records never stop playing on the FM frequency, and we can always count on being freed from small anxieties by the simple beauty of In My Life, Yesterday, Norwegian Wood and Yellow Submarine (but not the scary Piggies or Bungalow Bill from the While Album)
Or,
…God wants things to remain this way, because apparently he has the power to blast everything to hell in one fell swoop if he wants to, according to the crazy frizzy-haired lady who screams her nonsensical laments as she walks through the older parts of downtown
Or,
…Lula (real name: Luanda) and her Daddy Rolf keep loving each other in the simple, honest old-time way that’s seen him through the darkest days of a battle with cancer and has driven into him the impetus to take up what he deems a fabulous new hobby: creating his own line of dolls (for girls) and action figures (for boys). Making children happy through gentle movement and animation comes naturally to Rolf, and this new venture is the result of an epiphany he had on his darkest day.

Requiem to the Amish

2006-10-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

If anyone’s faith in humanity was on the wane last week, namely in light of the murder of several Amish children in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, they needed look no further than that very Amish community for a heartrending tale of the kind of boundless charity we tend to call rare or nonexistent in our modern world.

Five, and possibly six, precious lives were lost after a deranged man transposed his misery on a rural schoolhouse on Monday. A few short and agonizing days later, newspaper reports showed the Amish community setting aside personal anguish – as they are routinely inclined to do – and reaching out to the family of the killer. Rightly, they deemed his wife and children as additional victims in the aftermath of the heinous crime.

As people from around the world mourned from afar and pledged money to help the families of the deceased and the Amish community as a whole, Amish leaders in turn set up a fund for the killer’s widow and her kids.

What’s more, the wife of murderer Charles Roberts, Marie, was invited to attend the funeral of at least one of the young girls, by the family of that girl. It’s not known whether she attended, but that’s rather irrelevant.

What is relevant is what we can all, as a society, learn from the Amish in their weakest moments. From their simple, unspoiled and work hard ways has come profound and life-affirming empathy and warm-heartedness.

I come from Mennonite ancestry and would like to believe that I am capable of such acts of utter selflessness. However, until I find myself in the same dire predicament – and hopefully I never will – I understand that I will not truly know the impact of their benevolence.

God bless these lovely people and I hope they will find at least a small bit of solace in the fact that millions of people the world over share in their pain and have shed a tear over the death of their young ones. May they somehow find the strength to celebrate the lives that were lost and retain their faith that there is much good in the world.

Given their loving actions in the most difficult of days, with the unwanted media attention forced upon them and hovering over their every move and expression, I doubt these people need my smidgen of support. But they have it anyway.

May they continue to show us their better world, even if we aren’t inclined to pay attention.

My letter to Peter MacKay about this Tie-Belinda thing

2006-09-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Peter,

First of all, I have to admit that I don’t get it. Belinda had you and she evidently put little stock in that relationship as she jumped ship from your Conservatives to the enemy Grits last year. Okay, so she decided to swap political alliances and that meant she couldn’t be with someone of a different party. We get that. It’s old news. But what about her taste in men? Given the recent state of affairs (excuse the pun), the people of Canada may not understand. Can you offer any insight?

The way I see it, you’re a good-looking guy with brains, ambition and a bright future. Which ostensibly means you have four things that Tie Domi doesn’t have – well, at least not to the same extent as you. You’re the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, a reasonable step up in importance from Tie’s new gig as a sports commentator, fresh off his years-long tenure as a successful NHL pugilist.

Yet here Tie is splashed on the front page of all the papers with your ex-girlfriend, the fervent Ms. Stronach, being yanked mercilessly into the fray. It certainly seems they had a lurid affair, which is bad judgment running afoul on both sides, him being a married man with two kids and her a high profile Liberal Member of Parliament, currently unmarried but with two kids of her own. Don’t you think they’d know better than to not only allegedly have sex, but to be seen together, frequently? Surely they both realized the press would have a field day with them. No doubt they understood they couldn’t keep their wanton little tryst under wraps for long? I’m sure you’d make a wiser choice if you were in the same boat. Well, you probably wouldn’t have an affair in the first place, even though I’m sure you have the opportunity. You seem like too devoted a guy. I mean that in the best way.

I must ask if you have any opinion on why Belinda would be interested in a recently-retired hockey enforcer, a guy known more for pummeling his on-ice opponents into submission than more any intellectual pursuits, least of all politics? There’s also the fact that Tie’s not exactly Tom Selleck to look at: he’s neither tall nor handsome, he’s balding and he’s pretty mean-looking. Sure he’s popular with the Leaf faithful, because he’s beat up so many of their opponents. Although I don’t want for a minute to imagine it, maybe he’s also quite a force in bed.

And after all, Belinda does have more than a passing interest in athletes, one of her two former husbands being Norwegian speed skating legend Johann Olav Koss.

As an aside, I wonder what her two kids think of all this shameful press she’s getting? It can’t be easy to deflect among their peers at school.

I'm honestly trying to put this story into perspective as relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But it seems at least a little important in your corner of Canada. You and your Tory mates have to face Belinda and her party on a regular basis in the House of Commons and I’m sure you run into her on occasion. Though I understand that given your acrimonious break-up and the fact she couldn't bring herself to say goodbye face-to-face, you probably don’t speak much.

I wonder if, during the last couple of days when this story became big news, you felt any sort of kinship with Tie’s now ex-wife, Leanne, as she played the part of the scorned and betrayed mate. Perhaps you appreciated the upheaval she went through as she felt compelled to sue the man she once loved dearly and whose offspring she raised, putting aside her own career as a merchandising manager.

No doubt you’ve heard that Tie told her (according to Leanne) that if she kept the affair with Belinda quite, he’d give her a pretty decent payout but if she didn’t she’d get nothing. Tie apparently also said the press wouldn’t want to hear any of her weeping about her husband and his extramarital goings-on. Which forced her hand and made her go straight to the press. Now a court has decided that he gets to fork over for all of her expenses and the kids’. And he gets only limited access to them.

We don’t know the inner-workings of the Domis’ relationship and I wouldn’t want to go so far as to call him a lousy scoundrel. He’s done some good charity work here in Toronto. But maybe he’s been a bad husband all along. Or perhaps she’s been horribly mean to him for years. We just don’t know.

However, it seems (again, according to Leanne) that he’s been unfaithful before, notably with a certain TV Relic Hunter named Tia Carrere a few years back when she was in the Big Smoke filming. Oh, did you know her real name is Althea Janairo?

Back to Belinda. I wonder if you hear the flushing sound of her political career going down the toilet faster than Tie could deck a rookie goon. Well, at least she’s still got all her daddy‘s Magna money to fall back on. Okay, I guess she did actually run the company for him in recent years. I’ll give her some credit. It's clear she's an awfully good businesswoman. And, it’s not like many men who run these big companies don’t go off screwing women who aren’t their wives, or somebody’s wife and mother.

In wrapping, I should apologize to Canadians on this day for not aggressively dissecting your government’s new budget cutbacks, which, as one editorial noted, seem to be shoring up your Conservative base nicely while apparently having little to no impact on the federal economy – on the large scale that is. But since the rest of this letter has such a friendly tone, I won’t go on about how your buddies (surely you have little say in these money matters) are going to be seen as picking on women, youths, Aboriginals, jobless youth, illiterate adults, among others. I’ll refrain from going further.

Oh, I meant to ask: what’s going on between you and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice? You two seem to have spent a lot of time together while she was in Canada commemorating the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. On second thought, you’re both single people with no kids, so whatever you do is your own damn business.

Much happiness to you, Peter.

And have a great 41st birthday. You don’t look your age.

Regards,

Erich

Hailing Hamid and Hugo

2006-09-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

Hugo Chavez and Hamid Karzai aren’t names I think about often, not like Roy Halladay and Bruce Springsteen. But the unlikely pair have found themselves in the fore of my mind in recent days, as they have made the covers of the daily papers for different reasons. Chavez lambasted Dubbya in his own country while Karzai was here in Canada lauding some very brave and heroic Canucks.

At the risk of sounding encyclopedic, let me tell you a little about these men and their recent exploits.

Chavez, the president of Venezuela, is an interesting case. This career military officer turned aggressive reformist leader made big waves at the United Nations meeting late last week when, in his U.N. address, he called George Bush the devil (El Diablo), saying he smelled like sulphur. **Bravo, many cheers heard ’round Canada!** It was ostensibly his way of announcing to anyone who doesn’t already know that he doesn’t care for current American foreign policy (and possibly any/all of previous U.S. foreign policies). Word is the U.S. lit the fire under his ass by allegedly trying to block his country from gaining a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Three quick facts: Chavez, a career military officer turned aggressive reformist leader, has been president of Venezuela since 1999. He is controversial and has been called both a socialist liberator and authoritarian demagogue. He’s also been named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people (2006).

Despite the fact that a host of Bush critics have rebuked his recent remarks and even Bill Clinton has come out to denounce them, I am a new fan of the man. I certainly don’t buy into the notion that he has, as many (even some renowned Bush bashers) are suggesting, overstepped the bounds of decency and decorum and disgraced his country on the international stage. Bush has done that a thousand times over already without calling anyone a bad name. Sorry Bill, we disagree this once. Chavez spoke an increasingly universal truth.

Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has been known to the world since after the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing allied invasion of his country. He is noticeable because he wears a really cool looking traditional chapan, or Uzbek coat, at official functions. He also appears remarkably Western, not a coincidence since he spent most of the 1980s in the U.S. (wonder if he had a Flock of Seagulls haircut?) and is very comfortable with digital media. These things (and others, keep reading...) helped make him a perfect choice to be the leader of the new Afghanistan.

It’s a job he certainly is dedicated to. The Taliban assassinated his father in 1999, perhaps because the elder Karzai didn’t appreciate their caveman he-man woman-hater ways. The son vowed revenge against the Taliban and presumably doesn’t mind their mounting death toll. Interestingly, he actually supported them at one time, long ago, because he simply believed they were from the same Pashtun tribe as him.

I watched as Karzai spoke in Ottawa and thanked Canadians for their generous support of his homeland, and I listened as he worked so hard to convince us that our soldiers’ presence is dearly needed in his country. He seemed so earnest as he told us our men and women are not dying in vain as they try to kill as many Taliban fighters as possible. To date, 36 Canuck military personnel – 35 soldiers and one peacekeeper – have been killed in Afghanistan, endeavouring to help the many good people there build some semblance of a democratic base –- a truly gargantuan undertaking.

I like Karzai and I understand that he needs all the assistance he can get. His country is relying on some 70 donor nations, the United Nations and NATO allies for sustenance, military might, peacekeeping, food, moral support… He’s up against terrorism (he claims Afghanistan is the biggest victim of terrorism), the Afghan poppy trade that its operators won’t relinquish without a fight to the death, and the fact many people still consider his nation a backwoods far away place full of terrorists in hiding.

While I like the man and salute his devotion to his homeland, my heart also goes out to our dearly departed soldiers. It seems Karzai will get the full support of our government – which is what he came here for – meaning our military presence in Afghanistan will go on for an indefinite period. Meanwhile we pray to God daily that our men and women all come home safely.

At the same time, we must also remember that Karzai’s people, countless numbers of innocent Afghanis, have fought, died, watched their loved ones die, suffered and agonized as their land and its population have undergone an almost impossible transformation in the matter of just five years. And this is on the heels of years of spirit-killing Taliban rule. Karzai speaks for them and he speaks very well.

Good for Jordan

2006-09-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning the news told me that (the country of) Jordan has sentenced seven people to death for the horrendous triple hotel bombings in the capital of Amman last November. Sixty people died in the blasts. One of the soon-to-be-executed is a 35-year-old Iraqi woman named Sajida al-Rishawi, who confessed on Jordanian television shortly afterward that it was (my words begin here) her full intention to annihilate as many unwitting humans as possible. The other six depraved lunatics, one a woman, were sentenced in absentia and remain at large. May karma strike them down where they roam!

The story brings me to my point, which the last sentence begins to illustrate: People who conspire to commit suicide bombings must die; I agree with Jordan on this point. Although I’m an ardent Liberal, I’m not one of the many bleeding hearts that seem to pervade Canadian public opinion.

It is wholly reasonable to think that anyone who is willing and fully prepared to blow up themselves, along with conceivably hundreds of others, has already written their own death sentence. All their country is doing is giving them what they want and had long planned for.

Let there be no mistake: there are countless numbers of offenders, some even hardened criminals, who can be rehabilitated and become contributing members of society. I like the example of TV’s Dog the Bounty Hunter, who was once a genuine American bad ass and now devotes himself to tracking down other hardened – and helpless – criminals. He is a humanist who genuinely tries to appeal to his captives’ better instincts and attempts to empathize with them: “I used to be where you are, brother, and look at me now.”

By the way, Dog never loaded himself with explosives and set about to destroy the lives of innocent bystanders in a marketplace somewhere.

Some – albeit few, I believe – criminals and would be evildoers are far beyond the best psychiatric help money can buy. They will continue to repeat the most heinous acts of recidivism imaginable. In other words, they are so deeply disturbed that no amount of rehabilitation of negative reinforcement will even begin to correct their behaviour. Think for instance of famed serial killer Gary Gilmore, who noted on death row that the only way to stop him from killing again was to kill him outright.

As for suicide bombers who failed to obliterate themselves on their first attempt, I say the faster we weed them out, the faster we can begin to help those who are truly deserving. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that there are people out there who simply need to be wiped off the face of the earth in order to preserve the rest, the best, of the species.

Now I don’t want to play God; nor do I feel I would ever be deserving of the honour. I do hope that something called karma will help us all out. I imagine that karma would see all the world’s suicide bombers-in-training die from strokes, heart attacks, aneurisms, self-inflicted gunshot wounds … alone and quickly, in other words; no time and resources wasted.

In conclusion, I hope all the decent, hard-working Jordanians now hopefully have one less thing to worry about as they leave their homes in the morning, after saying goodbye to their families and setting out to earn an honest day’s wage. I don’t know if they feel as I do on this issue, but nonetheless I wish them all the best. I know they live in a country laden with good people and I pray for their safe passage into each new day.

For Kim, as always

2006-09-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

There have been two distinctly wonderful days in my life and both rank worlds ahead of any other day I could even imagine. One was June 15, 2001, when my wife Kim and I welcomed our amazing little girl into the world. The other was September 19, 1998, when Kim and I battled the late summer heat and exchanged “I dos” in a cozy heritage-style chapel, later celebrating our union with 70 of our closest friends and relatives.

Eight years after that day, I am telling my best friend once again that there’s no one else I would rather be married to and share my life with … simply said and heartfelt.

Back in 1996 when I was a chronically ill 29-year-old with no job experience and seemingly few prospects, this incredible and inspiring lady took a chance on me. I could offer her no guarantees of a rosy future with all the modern-day trimmings, and yet she took me for what I was. I have been trying since then, in my own backward yet earnest way, to give her a happy life. I hope all the time that I am doing okay in this respect. She knows that even when I stumble and fall, I will never stop aiming to get it right. I wouldn’t try this hard for most people, but she’s certainly not most people. She’s always been worth the effort.

Happy 8th anniversary Kim. I hope I got the words right.

Bashing My Burlington

2006-09-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

(Picking on my city instead of yours, Toronto)

It’s simply not nice to say, na na, my city is better than yours.

Still, much too often I blabber on to my Toronto coworkers about how my Burlington has peace and quiet and their city doesn’t, and so I could never live among them and their hullabaloo. I refer also to other great gifts that my Burlington bears, namely relatively affordable living, a virtual absence of crime and enough big city stuff but not too much. Plus, we’re more central to other things in southern Ontario than is their vaunted Big Smoke.

Now though, it has come time to dissect my suburban narcissism and cut right to the smarmy inner workings of my community. Time for some perspective or fair treatment, in other words. While Toronto isn’t all endless streams of traffic and a never-say-you can’t-work harder attitude, Burlington isn’t all glorious scenery and sanctified green space.

As a matter of fact, there really isn’t much to look in many parts of the city, especially the newer areas. Yet young families are literally climbing over each other to snag for themselves a choice dwelling in northeast treeless and nondescript neighbourhoods. Houses there are placed so closely together that the dad in one house needs to constantly remind his eighteen-year-old daughter to close the drapes because the eager sixteen year-old son next door has top-notch vision.

My first real complaint: I imagine myself looking down from our treasured escarpment and into the heart of whiteness. Burlington simply isn’t noted for being multi-racial and ethnically diverse. Much like Oakville next door, there is an almost unseemly preponderance of colourlessness in our population. Funny, considering we boast many fine restaurants that run the gamut from Caribbean to Lebanese to Thai to Mexican cuisine – all featuring many inspiring dishes. Don’t these people live in our community somewhere?

From colourlesness I turn to our highways as I note that in Toronto, at least you can travel a few miles without actually seeing one. Impossible in Burlington. There is practically no location in the city that isn’t one mile from a highway, be it the constantly clogged QEW/403 combo or the more scenic and less horrendous Lakeshore Road (Highway 2), or even Highway 5 to the north. On the positive side, my city is popular with out-of-towners because of its proximity to major attractions nearby (such as Niagara Falls and yes, Toronto). In fact, I was once told by someone in the Tourism Burlington office that’s the basis of their advertising.

Near that tourism office is the scenic Spencer Smith Park, a longtime favourite for my wife and I and host to many great festivals including the wildly popular Sound of Music Festival. But the park that stretches along the western shores of Lake Ontario isn’t quite as plain and simple as it used to be. About ten years ago the city installed a very nice boardwalk for those who like to amble close to the water in style. This summer the park has had a major facelift featuring the addition of a fancy new restaurant and much-improved kids play area, and soon a picturesque pier. These fresh amenities must all cost quite a bit, we should have figured. The other day I pulled into the parking lot and realized they’re passing part of that cost onto motorists who used to park gratis. Since my daughter loves playing at Spencer Smith, I guess I will have to shell out. The fee isn’t a king’s ransom, but it’s the principle that bothers me.

Burlington’s famed Royal Botanical Gardens used to be free too, in my youth. Now they charge too, and not just a few bucks any more I see.

But at least the RBG smells nice. The Maple Leaf factory on the east side of town, on the other hand, is a stinking disgrace. From where I stand on the platform of the Appleby GO station every morning, my nostrils can hardly wait for the train to come rolling along so I can be crammed tightly in a locomotive full of commuters rather than take one more ungodly whiff of a chicken’s worst nightmare.

It is from that GO station that I try every day to catch the bus. Why try, you ask. Because no matter what time the train arrives -- early, late or on time – the bus invariably seems to be at least 10 minutes off or has just left, even though the schedule indicates otherwise. After a long day in Toronto, the last thing I need is to be upset by having my only means of travel home to be inextricably off schedule. Nevertheless, the one thing I can always count on with Burlington Transit is that I can never count on them.

If and when the bus does eventually get to you (oh, by the way, it doesn’t run early on Sunday or much past dusk any day), it takes you to many interesting locales: such as major malls and strip malls, schools, one lovely older or newer neighbourhood after another, the miniscule downtown area, some nice parks … basically up and down and the grid system upon which Burlington is based. You can either go north, south, west or east. It’s tough to find a street where you can travel in a radically different direction, say south-southwest. So there’s never much guessing which direction you’re going. The good thing is that it’s hard to get lost in Burlington. And even if you do, there’s always a trusty highway just blocks away to end your confusion and set you free.

If you get the idea that there’s not a lot to do in my Burlington, you may not be far off – if hardcore excitement is your game. I don’t see it that way of course, because all I want is my safe neighbourhood with my family in tow. I like that all the stores I need are nearby and I don’t have to drive too far for anything. If I were younger and unattached, though, I’d probably be screaming for brighter lights and more nighttime activity. Not to say that we don’t have our bars and hot spots. It’s just that they’re not as sophisticated and “hot” as those rocking Toronto joints always seem to be. As my old friend Paul always used to say, “When I want to have fun, I leave Borington.”

Remember Paul, boring is often in the eye of the eager adolescent. As I approach 40 and am firmly rooted in my familial responsibilities, I’ll take my town’s quality education – both elementary and secondary schools, public and Catholic systems – any day. I’ll also gladly take the excellent healthcare including at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital, where my little girl was ushered into the world. I’ll also accept that I now have to pay a little to visit the wonderful waterfront (best in the Golden Horseshoe, I’d say). I don’t have to pay anything to stand atop the ravishing escarpment. Simply by setting down roots in Burlington, I also reap the benefits of clean and sophisticated living that espouses all the charms of modern-day living without too many of the downfalls.

To my Toronto friends I simply say, you chose your city for certain reasons and I chose mine for some of the same reasons. My city isn’t any better than yours no matter what I say, though I might continue to say it, especially when your city frustrates the living hell out of me. But as you can see, my city frustrates the crap out of me too. Or maybe it’s the fog in my head from the pollution that wafts over the bay from Hamilton, where I was born and raised … and learned to hate Toronto.

Impact of A Collision

2006-09-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

(written September 5-7, 2006)

As the work world shifts back grudgingly into operational mode after the summer swoon and my wife returns just as reticently to driving hundreds of kilometres a week for her job after having had the summer off, I have unearthed a distressing new predicament: how do I keep her from getting into a car accident? The simple answer, I found out late last week, is: I can’t. And that’s what’s so upsetting to me now.

A collision was the furthest thing from my mind on Friday as Kim headed out for her fourth day back at work, on the last day before the Labour Day long weekend. She called me in the early afternoon and surprised me by saying she was in the hospital because she was just involved in her worst accident yet, of the five or six she’s been a part of so far. Not what I was expecting or ever want to hear again.

It turns out Kim is fine although she suffered from minor aches and pains all weekend, and will requires chiropractic and massage treatments for a few weeks. And, who knows if there will yet be any long-term physical repercussions for her.

As Kim explained it to me, a 73-year-old woman was traveling on Waterdown Road (at the North Service Road) in Burlington and sailed right through a red light, hitting our Ford Focus wagon flush on the driver’s side front door, as Kim began to accelerate through the intersection on a light that had just turned green.

She said the woman was traveling at between 60-70 km/hr and obviously had no idea the light had changed to red, because she hadn’t even begun to slow down. The driver of the car behind my wife ran to make sure Kim was okay and later confirmed with police that the light was indeed green when Kim began to travel through it.

In the hospital, the lady’s son talked to my wife and said that his mother was devastated and didn’t know how the collision happened, and that his mother had never been in an accident before. He said she was very upset that she’d hit someone.

Yes, upsetting. Kim’s been in about six accidents in her life, one with me in the car, none her fault. To date, none have caused her any permanent damage or even long-term physical or psychological harm. None have resulted in any demerit points on her driver’s license or cost her or her insurance company even one red cent.

In short, she’s a damn good driver who traverses carefully, even planning her lane changes and exits ahead of time. No kind of stress or turmoil seems to weigh so heavily on her mind that she can’t remember to follow all the basic rules of the road at all times.

If you drive as much as Kim does, you simply have to be constantly and consistently mindful to navigate your vehicle safely and defensively. Which brings me to my point: every motorist of any kind who’s on the road at any time absolutely must follow traffic laws as they’re stated no matter their personal level of distraction or anxiety – or God forbid, intoxication.

There are no justifiable excuse s for not being sufficiently aware or alert to operate what essentially doubles for a killing machine on wheels. Similarly, there’s no defence for not heeding stop signs and traffic lights, driving with a damaged or un-safe vehicle, drinking and driving, or being an active part of any number of other driving transgressions. Think I’m being a little extreme or dogmatic? Talk to anyone who’s lost a loved one in a collision (I find it increasingly difficult over time to call them ‘accidents’) and think again!

Don’t be a freaking idiot, I constantly ache to scream at people I see driving too fast or too recklessly. I am a constant pedestrian and rider of public transit, who spends little time in a car and many hours witnessing first-hand the stupid decisions (I refuse to call them mistakes) many drivers make, with seemingly callous disregard for everyone else on the road. It’s shocking and frightening to me that in our embarrassingly hectic urban areas, many motorists cut so quickly through small streets that they couldn’t stop if they wanted to if someone happened to dart out in front of them at any point. It’s disgraceful that they act like they’re doing nothing wrong.

I have an unrelenting urge to drill a thousand different admonitions into these drivers’ heads: If you’re in such a hurry, you should have damn well left sooner. If you can’t control your impulse to race along our quiet streets, then we need to make you drive exclusively out on barren country roads where you will kill only yourself. If you haven’t got it in you at the moment to take on the highways and byways safely and with a good degree of consideration, then stay the bloody hell off the road. If you aren’t able to drive any longer for one reason or another – be it old age, disability, constant intoxication, extreme nervousness, or any other reason – then stay away the f—k away from the wheel of a car.

It doesn’t take a master’s degree to figure it out: There’s no amount of reasoning that will justify having killed or seriously injured a family of four because you just had to rush to the grocery store for that bottle of wine that goes so perfectly with the chicken dish you just finished cooking for your guests that are about to arrive. You should have planned better. Likewise when you’re late for work. Consider that you may get where you’re going on time; or you may crash headfirst into a mini-van containing a mom, her young son, and three other players on his soccer team. The notion that you could have planned better or driven slower or more carefully then sounds great in hindsight, doesn’t it? Infinitely reasonable and perfectly safe! Let’s hope that hindsight never occurs to you from a jail cell as you ponder what wiser choice you might have made before the people you hit all suffer horrible deaths and their families commences years of suffering.

I think about what might have happened to my wife of eight years and the love of my life, the mother of my five-year-old daughter and the most important person her life. Every notion I have about safe driving is reinforced tenfold. I recall what I learned most from my Young Drivers of Canada training: anything can happen at any time so expect that it will. Kim expects that people won’t do the smartest thing on the roads, but how can you ever really expect to be literally blindsided at 70 km/hr.

Kim is lucky she had her seatbelt on; otherwise she might have ended up in much worse shape. Our lovely automobile suffered over $16,000 of damage, according to the insurance company. It will probably be a write-off. We’re still awaiting word on that.

I don’t know what to think about the woman who hit Kim. I don’t want to hate her and really I don’t. But I do hate that she didn’t have the wherewithal to notice that her light wasn’t remotely green when she went through it. I also hate to think (as does Kim) that she could have had our little girl in the car with her. I cringe at the notion that, statistically, someone who drives as much as Kim is hard-pressed to avoid collisions entirely for years on end. I am truly grateful that Kim has never been in an even more serious collision, namely on the horrendously busy 400 series highways, which she can’t avoid even for a day.

Lastly, I pray that those who drive near her can find it in them – somewhere, even on their worst days – to concentrate on the task at hand, and don’t end up causing themselves, and me, and many others like me – including a darling five-year-old girl who would never be the same again without her mommy – a lifetime of heartache.

Maple Leaf Stench

2006-09-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

My nose sometimes can’t stomach the stench of my early morning commuter train ride. This has nothing to do with the train or the ride actually, but is directly concerned with the Maple Leaf Foods processing plant that is located directly across from the platform at the Appleby GO Station in Burlington.

There is an omnipresent odour emanating from the plant most of the time, but it is especially nauseating in the mornings, and often overpowering in the summer months (which we are still celebrating), when the warm morning breeze seems to waft in a perfect line from the plant to the waiting nostrils of the hundreds of riders awaiting their locomotive.

I don’t know anything about the meat processing business and quite frankly I feel that the less I know, the better. This feeling is now intensified every a.m., as I inhale the pungent stink of what was recently a four-legged creature and is now being transformed into a juicy entrée. (Juicy would be a meat eater’s adjective, not mine.)

I haven’t consumed red meat for years so what transpires behind the four walls of this aging building is largely for the benefit of other palettes and digestive systems. But it’s hard for me to believe that this acrid smell is for anyone’s benefit, least of all for those who toil on the plant’s floors or have chosen to live in the new town home development just across the street from the GO Station, to the south, in the very direction that the wind always seems to blow.

I don’t want to get into any discussion about animal rights and the ethics of turning a live animal into dinner by squalid means. My problem here is simply a matter of my irritated nose, and how on many days I can’t bear to stand on the platform for more than two minutes without holding my nose. Even then, I must try hard not to breath in too deeply (a stretch sometimes, given my bad allergies and need to inhale fully). I also have to bite my tongue so as not to exclaim to another commuter who couldn’t care less: “Good God, it couldn’t be any worse unless we could actually hear the squeals of pigs being slaughtered.”

There have been newspaper reports in recent months about the Maple Leaf plant perhaps being moved to the city of Hamilton next door. The proposal apparently had the plant being relocated to somewhere south of that city, up on the escarpment and away from residential areas. Laterally I heard that the move wasn’t being well received on the Hamilton mountain, where the locals apparently have a strong sense of smell and little tolerance for vile new industry.

As I write this, the annual Ribfest celebrations are underway in Burlington, at our beautiful and freshly renovated Spencer Smith Park on the waterfront. The festival is a veritable homage to all things animal-derived that can be digested, after much chewing work by the teeth. The event is advertised on its website as the largest of its kind in Canada. Last year it attracted 131,000 visitors, who were able to feast on the barbecued creations of “expert teams of rib cookers from Canada and across the United States.”

I write this so as not to alienate red meat lovers, who I don’t really have an issue with. They have their vice, and I have fish and chicken. I also don’t have anything against this event or others like it. I really like summer and fall festivals, even if there is plenty of red meat being cooked, served and devoured.

I’m happy to say that the aroma emanating from Ribfest each year almost approaches delightful and certainly doesn’t make my nasal passage cringe. What’s more, in childhood, when I actually preferred red meat, my mouth watered at the very idea of eating bacon or a tender and well-seasoned steak.

However, what transpires at the Maple Leaf plant has nothing to do with enjoying meat for its taste or smell. What comes from there and hits my nose with full frontal assault, is the whiff of small-scale barbarism, and I hate to think it will remain there for years to come.

Myself, The Mafia, Hell’s Angels, A Mercenary, The Cops, or Whoever Would Like To Volunteer for the Task

2006-08-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

a.k.a. The person or persons that will pay you a decidedly non-social visit if you ever touch my daughter against her will or my better judgment

Just for the sake of forewarning, I’d like to take some time and explain to young (and old) men everywhere what exactly – and I mean with incisive precision – will happen to them if they ever decide to touch my daughter against her will or my better judgment. This is a textbook case of no means no and any excuse about not having heard or clearly understood the word no won’t go over especially well to whoever is dispatched to deal with the boy or boys.

This caustic essay reaches far into the future, at least seven or eight years and hopefully well beyond that, I pray. My daughter has just turned five years old and is in no imminent danger of being preyed upon by horny teenage boys with intercourse on their brains day and night and an almost unseemly urge to purge the building excitement in their groins. (I’m not saying all teenage boys are like this but I am referring to the ones who are.)

Now that it’s clear whom I’m addressing I’ll get to the subject at hand: my baby girl.
If I were to commission a sketch artist to draw me a composite of what my daughter will look like, more or less, at 16, I believe I would have a rendering of what I, on one hand, want most for my little girl but, on the other hand, fear most: a ravishing young woman full of vitality and the confidence to take on the world headlong plus the dual propensity for laughing easily and not giving in when her efforts meet with haughty resistance. Many boys will like her for being this way and hopefully all the ones she chooses to mingle with are nice and respectful. I’m more worried about the ones that are less interested in her personality and more preoccupied by her physical gifts.

As I can see already, these gifts make her outwardly astounding and will only become more pronounced with puberty, adolescence, and early adulthood: Like her mother, my daughter will be naturally slim with soft curves. Like her mother, she will also be beautiful, inside and out. Her face is and will likely be rounder than my wife’s, more like mine. Her expression is and may always be one of gentle joy and innate exuberance. Her spotless alabaster skin comes from an early inclination to drink lots of water instead of juice. That’s only her third most prominent feature. Number two is her eyes, which are softly prominent and sea blue in colour, communicating in equal parts an eagerness to absorb and learn and a sincere willingness to listen and empathize. Her hair is what really grabs attention: abundant and unearthly blonde curly locks that are gorgeously interwoven from the root with brown and golden highlights, and corkscrew their way down to her lower back even when dry. It is dream hair: more intoxicating to look at than anything a professional stylist could conjure on a day of divine inspiration.

How her hair appears on the outside is tantamount to who she is on the inside: unendingly creative (which she gets from me), wholly compassionate for anyone who is hurt or in distress (from her mother mostly), delightfully playful and immensely communicative. She is also fashionably stubborn with boundless energy.

Before she reaches double figures in age, I have so much to teach my little girl in preparation for the day when she will turn heads for being more shapely than endearing. Right now, she is noticed most by mothers and grandparents. Ten years on, boys will begin losing their ability to pronounce words when she ambles by. By 18, those same boys will narrowly evade traffic accidents as they swivel their necks in her direction as they drive by – or cycle and skateboard by, for the poorer bunch.

I have in my head a collection of loosely-assembled lessons that will be carried out by myself, during long walks with my sweetheart. In between moments of admiring nature, I will teach my young lady to understand that she deserves nothing but the best treatment complete with respect and consideration – namely from men but also, of course, from hard-driving women she may encounter on the road to a fulfilling professional life.

Somewhere in the course of our walks we will discuss one of my primary lessons: self-defence (which, by the way, must be coupled with reinforcing both self-respect and a positive self-image). This is my vision and hopefully my daughter will be interested to learn. I will explain to her how to strike someone, with proper mechanics and with great force and precision: a swift kick in the groin or a nice fist to the solar plexus, or even a “cuffing” of the throat. I will impart to her that it’s not at all unladylike to hit someone who has taunted you, continues to bother you and simply won’t go away. The theory is, you get one distinct warning and then you get hit. So, if you’re a boy who doesn’t easily take no for an answer and thinks all you have to do is persist and she will be yours, prepare for pain. Also prepare to not breathe easily for a while or pee with incredible discomfort for a week or so. Also, get ready to explain to everyone how this misery was inflicted on you and why.

I know that my girl is compassionate and maybe she won’t want to see a guy get seriously hurt just because he gave her too much of the wrong attention. She’ll get over this feeling with some training, beginning with learning the signs of a bad boy and how to deal with one diplomatically, up to the point when that’s no longer possible.

Then I will instruct her about going into self-protection mode. This involves staring the boy in the eye while in an unmistakable offensive mode: body square to the boy and limbs ready to lash out at a second’s notice. It also encompasses slinging a barrage of harsh language including words that make a devout churchgoer cower. This will inform the lad that he’s crossed the line of acceptable behaviour and she now means serious business. If he perseveres, he can expect that one final warning to come quickly. The young man may also hear some thoughts I will have reinforced in my daughter: “I’ll kick you until you stop moving, and then my dad will hunt you down like a wild animal and dissect you mercilessly with his car keys.” That’s my imagination roaming; her mind will produce different words.

I know what you may be thinking at this point, especially if you’re a parent: preparing you child for the worst is a responsible thing to do but things never work out exactly as planned, and no matter what you teach it may or may not make a difference, and it may or may not work as you planned. I understand this, and so will my girl. The idea is to give her a framework to help guide her.

As much as I dream endlessly about how I will scare the top layer of skin off any boy who dares enter my home in search of my daughter, I realize that this probably isn’t what my daughter wants or needs. I will discuss this with her as she gets older. In the meantime I will read up plenty on how to treat her so that she will keep talking to me about what’s going on in her life and not be fearful to tell me the secrets I need to know about. I vow to be reasonable and open-minded, and will continue to ask my wife to tell me when I made the wrong decision with my daughter or may have gone overboard on punishment.

However, if going overboard in any way means preparing my girl well for the inevitable, then so be it: I’ll probably go overboard. There comes a point in every young person’s life when they will need to confront a situation with courage and resolution. A potential attacker (yes I know we don’t like to think about these things) may need to be told to back off and a physical struggle may ensue. It’s a brutal world out there and these kinds of things occasionally happen. I simply don’t intend for my girl to be easy prey in these situations. If I can do anything ahead of time that will help her to handle the buggers out there who roam the streets with trouble on their minds, then I will do just that. I will teach her whatever is required to get her back home safely and I won’t ever be sorry for having given my daughter what she needs to protect herself.

I have to admit to myself now that whatever I do to prepare my daughter for the big, bad, ugly world may not be enough. The awful truth is that bad things happen to the best people who are well prepared and ready to face vile and vicious people. Fine. Then she simply won’t have to face trouble alone. Not that there will always be people around her to fight on her behalf; that’s not possible. But there will always be people in her corner who won’t mind pitching in to help get her out of trouble. Thought they may not be there on a moment’s notice, they will show up eventually. And when they do, they will be very, very angry and ready to do something about it.

I don’t mean to write in vague, hypothetical language. I will spell it out clearly: If a boy ever touches my daughter against her will and does her any kind of harm, be it physical, mental, psychological, or even financial, there will be a price to pay. If she does not inflict harm on the boy or boys, or is for some reason unable to, then someone else will. That person or persons will assess the situation and do whatever is necessary, be it a doling out a sound thrashing or delivering a clear and decisive warning. That person might be myself, the mafia, one or several Hell’s Angels bikers or members of some other gang of ill-reputes, a mercenary, or even the cops ... or anyone who I can trust and would like to volunteer for the task.

Let me get it straight that I don’t personally know anyone in the mafia or a Hell’s Angels member. Not have I ever met a mercenary or any of the self-appointed folks who do bad things to bad people. I have met police and like them, and I know a few people who share my views on the type of punishment I am outlining: direct retribution for having hurt someone’s son or daughter, wife, mother or other assorted family members. But special circumstances tend to bring like-minded people together very quickly, and I’m not above calling a friend or associate who “knows someone” that can help me in times of trouble.

My daughter will always be sure that her daddy will do what it takes to help her in times of trouble. You might not believe this at this point, but I honestly hope that the police and law enforcement officials can handle these situations on the up and up. I don’t really desire to call upon people who live on the dark side of life, or on the wrong side of the tracks, and do unmentionable things to ignorant youths who have crossed them. I truly prefer to live and let live. I like to be good-natured and happy-go-lucky.

But like I said, life doesn’t always work out this way. In instances where young males make the decision to let their insatiable groins overrule their developing better instincts, I make the choice to do everything in my power to stop them in their tracks. If I can talk to them, I will. If I can’t reason with them, I won’t. When I can control a situation before it gets out of control, I will endeavour to do just that. If I lose control, I vow that it will be for a very good reason. Up to that point, I want my little girl to know that I tried using my brain to stop trouble, or at least whatever methods of non-physical intimidation that sprang to mind. But in the case where she is in definite trouble, I’m afraid that my heart will tend to rule the day.

So, boys, if you’re reading this and your mind isn’t in a clean place and your sexual instincts are in an even more disgusting location, remember these words and know there are more dads out there than just me who think this way. Most of us understand that it’s tough being a young lad with fire in his pants and no place to put it out. But there’s always a manual pump available for that, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, just as every firefighter has had to pull hose once in a while in order to stretch out a limited supply of it, I’m certainly not above yanking a hose to its absolute limits and even beyond, even when it appears clear there is scarcely little hose to yank.
I believe that I’ve said my peace now and I hope that my daughter doesn’t read this until she’s at least 18 years old. If and when she does come across it, I hope that she will be able to smile as she thinks about her strange and ever-loving dad who would always do anything in the world for her. It is my greatest hope that she can reflect on a childhood that was safe and wonderful, where she didn’t have to worry about horrible things happening to her, and was taught enough every step along the way to feel comfortable in relatively scary situations. I don’t want to think about any other scenarios right now. It’s up to me to put these words into practice. My daughter’s safety depends on it, as does my sanity.

Tragedy Isn’t In Her Young Vocabulary

2005-10-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

The 9/11 attacks came precisely 88 days after my daughter Ailsa made her ceremonious entrance into the world. In fact it was that very day when she took her first bite of real food: strained fruit, I believe it was Heinz strawberries and apples. I remember through teary eyes realizing it was both hopeless and inappropriate to try to explain to her what had happened and how it changed the world in an instant.

Flash forward to last holiday season and the great tsunami in Southeast Asia. Ailsa was three-and-a-half and quite capable of a simple understanding of what had been inflicted on millions of innocent people on the other side of the world. Yet my wife and I didn’t say much to her at all about the massive tragedy. We felt that if she commented on the startling images flashing across the TV set, we would answer any of her questions but elaborate no further. It’s not necessary, after all, to have a firm grasp of unfolding history before your fourth birthday. There’s no sense in having that much misery to deal with.

Our feelings are much the same now about the post-hurricane devastation in New Orleans and the American South. As far as Ailsa knows or will know for the foreseeable future, Katrina is simply the name of a pretty girl who is utterly incapable of inflicting the least bit of harm on anyone. Rita, similarly, is a lovely woman’s name. All Ailsa understands about news shows - and most shows in fact - is that they’re not Dora, Caillou or Little Bear and we should return to one of those. With rare exception, we do.

Kim and I don’t believe we will ever rely on so-called expert advice to teach our daughter about devastation. While Kim reads Today’s Parent magazine regularly along with many articles on parenting - including right now on defiant four-year-olds – I am rightly or wrongly content to ‘sense’ when my little girl is ready to learn life’s hardest lessons. This approach only works, of course, if you pay close attention to your children and the signs they are putting out. We both constantly discuss what Ailsa is learning day-by-day and week-by-week. We look for signs that she is unhappy or not adjusting well to her routine and we adjust our teaching accordingly.

But sometimes I find it tough to adjust. I often get quite intense and emotional as I tune into horror stories unfolding across the globe and close to home. My behaviour is not at all what you’d expect from someone who’s spent five years covering the daily news. I’m not detached. My wife, though equally distressed as I am about death and destruction, doesn’t act on any urge to scream out. I sometimes do.

Sometimes I am too late in remembering that my angel will only sleep with her bedroom door open and doesn’t like it when mommy and daddy are upset. She doesn’t know what I’m acting out against. That’s my clearest clue that at the tender age of four, she simply doesn’t need to know that New Orleans will never be the same festive Mardi Gras city that it was when I partied there in 1993. She might never enter a calm lake again until adulthood if she was made to understand that a massive wall of water came out of nowhere right after Christmas last year and remorselessly washed away over 120,000 lives. It would be unimaginably scary for her to learn that a small group of angry men killed thousands of innocent people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania as she ate real food for the first time.

So we live on as a family without divulging to our youngest the complexities of devastation. Happily we refrain. Instead, and quite appropriately, we read her books that relate the inevitabilities of life on a junior kindergarten level. On these pages it explains that it’s okay to be scared and feel shivery when something unfamiliar is happening. It’s alright to be angry when you wanted to play with a toy and another girl took it first. It’s natural and even healthy to be sad when a beloved family pet dies.

As I write this all out and think about it with greater gravity, I understand more deeply that even I don’t want to know every last detail of the incomprehensible misery taking place in the world today. Well before the summer began, I ended my stint as an online news writer in Toronto. So I didn’t have to regurgitate the grisly details of the “Summer of the Gun” in the Big Smoke. Still I hark back to the previous years where I was the lone writer at the web desk when police made the arrest in the murder of 11-year-old Holly Jones. Months later, I was once again alone when Toronto’s finest tracked down their suspect in the Cecilia Zhang murder case.

In both cases, I couldn’t stop the tears. I wrote feverishly and could only halt the floodgates by looking upward every few minutes, or when a brutal detail in the story stopped my fingers from typing and my mind from thinking straight. I had to pull myself together quickly and keep on delivering the breaking news. As much as it sometimes hurt to carry on, that was the job.

Ailsa’s job, plain and simple, is to be a kid. When we tell her there’s no chocolate before dinner even though she really wants chocolate, she knows the world isn’t fair. That’s enough to deal with for now as September ends and her first month in junior kindergarten is completed. The happy girl with long blonde ringlets doesn’t need any more to think about. We could all use a lot less devastation to think about.

Elmer's Last Stand

2005-05-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

1. Elmer

"Anyone who steals from you is a piece of shit and should be locked up without question", I've always said. My name is Elmer K. Dodd. I am a staunch conservative. My parents raised 2.78 children in an efficiently constructed 2.5 storey house in beautiful suburban Mississauga. Everyone who lived there was upper-middle class, and those who weren't we didn't know anything about. All our friends and neighbours were superficially content in their secure white-collar careers that provided benefits aplenty.

For their holidays, each of our friends and neighbours spent some time in Florida, theirs and our favourite place to flaunt our contemporary urban Canadian lifestyles.

As a matter of fact, some of my fondest childhood memories are of Florida: prancing in the Everglades with my Mickey Mouse billfold waving in the wind, and riding Disneyland's larger rollercoasters, barraging the crowd below with coins that spilled from my pockets.

My family spent their time in Florida in the company of boorish, fat bastards and their families from back home. Most were lifelong friends; conservative compatriots. Others we used for their status value, because of the people my father said they could put us in cahoots with.

We tried to meet new people, but the time was around the mid-sixties, when a huge influx of liberal-democratic wingnuts made Florida smell like a breeding ground for welfare cases. Hell, we had to pack up our Perry Como records and head straight for the foothills of Texas, where our traditional values were appreciated.

People had the gall to tell us that our culturally elite mores were outdated and intolerable. To hell with them I say as I sit and reflect on my youth, demanding for my beautiful wife to bring me another Coors Lite, the beer of choice for assholes like me.

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

I raise my family, in the year 1994, in a three-storey luxury house in lovely Rosedale, where all I smell from my front porch is the exhilarating aroma of upper-class ostentatiousness. I have three children, two sons and a daughter, because every self-respecting father in Canada has at least that many, upholding the current birthrate of our country.

I have a fancy French dog that my wife takes to fancy dog shows because my position affords her ample discretionary income to squander in her ample discretionary time.

I work hard; I love my work. I'm told that I'm supposed to love my family, so I do. Even when they don't treat me like the saint of a husband and father that I am.

Furthermore, I eat well and I wear nice clothes. I drive a great car. Mercedes, top of the line. I take relaxing vacations three times a year. I'd have to say that I'm quite satisfied with my life, even though I am a colossal dickhead. Yeah, I can laugh about it.

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

Had I any introspection, I'd loath myself for the frighteningly shallow life I've chosen to live. I'd realize that my status-laden executive vice president "in charge of all things corrupt and unethical" position is devoid of depth and meaning, and that my company -Suburban Insurance Associates- is embezzling money from Central American subsidiaries who can barely afford to pay their employees meagre wages. I realize what is going on of course, but I keep my mouth shut and thank the Robin Hoods of corporate North America -the chronic do-gooders of big business-to keep the hell out of my company's affairs.

Would I reflect on my life and how disdainfully I live it, I'd have to come to grips with my bitter self-hatred. And about my deep physical longings for my burly, outdoorsy, liberal-democratic, bearded neighbour Floyd. Fuck that, I only like women, I'd castigate myself. I only notice women, and I'll only ever have buoyant sexual adventures with women, because if I didn't I'd be a disgrace to insufferable studs everywhere. Geez, I'd have to kill myself.

2. My problem

Even rich pricks like me have problems.

Right now, I have a really big one. Two mornings ago, while I carried my trash to the treeless, manicured boulevard, a van whizzed around the corner and onto my street. To my greatest consternation, I noticed that it was full of multi-racial hoodlums who seemed to be screaming "Die rich bastards", while waving heavy artillery in the morning air. Hey, that's me, I thought, and quickly dropped my trash and ran for the cover of my suburban landscape.

From that point on, all I remember is rolling on my lawn in twisted agony, trying in vain to save my freshly transplanted lawn from my bloodshed. Then I guess I stopped moving.

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

As I awoke, Floyd was standing over me in my hospital bed.

"Man, they got you good, didn't they?", he said.

"Mmmm", I mumbled.

"Hey, don't try to talk. Just listen. Doc says they got five of the six bullets out. Says you'll be okay. You'll be walking like normal. But you're really lucky just to be alive."

"Mm hmmm."

"Anyway, I know you can't hear me very well, but I have to tell ya, you were the prime targets of the hoods who shot you."

"H-Who were they?"

"They're a left-wing liberation group, calling themselves the 'International Freedom Fighters'."

"Whaa?..."

"Yeah, they've been scouring the 'burbs for who they call "those sadistic conservative pinheads who rob the peasant workers in Central America of the right to earn a decent living.""

I heard enough of Floyd's voice to lapse into a dream about his 18 and 7/8 inch biceps.

I woke suddenly and found myself screaming: "Aaaaggghhhh!" Apparently, I'd just ingested what Floyd told me, and I was screaming out of deathly fear for my petty life. I realized that the hoodlums would have heard by now that they hadn't completed their mission to assassinate me, and they'd come after me again. Of course they will, I thought. And I know a guy like me is easy enough to find, because everyone knows you can smell a dirty asshole a mile away.

I thought about their name -International Freedom Fighters- and figured it sounded like some clique with a sizable following. I made a personal note to do some research about them.

Right now, though, I was quaking in my hospital robe and I had other things on my mind.

I asked the amply-breasted young nurse who came into the room to comfort me for a pen and paper which I would use to rewrite my last will and testament. What I wouldn't do to secure my reputation as a devout heterosexual, I reckoned, as I asked her name.

3. Life After Near Death

Eight days later I was out of the hospital and on crutches. I would be walking independently, after two months of rehabilitation, the doctors informed me. I have designated my eldest son Charles -my longest-haired and most liberal-looking offspring- to take out the family's trash on all future occasions. I bribed him into doing most of our shopping and errand-running. (If he doesn't open his mouth, no one will know he's related to us.)

The rest of the family are tight-wads like me, and are to remain in seclusion, under the cover of our impeccably-decorated suburban home, with near round the clock police supervision courtesy of Metro Toronto's finest.

I have hired a private investigator to search out the lunatics who shot me; and a personal bodyguard -Chester- to accompany me to and from work, and to and from Monday night meetings with the Conservative Brotherhood of North America, of which I am the president of the regional chapter. Chester accompanies my wife to and from her bridge games with the wives of the members of the Conservative Brotherhood of North America, henceforth to be known as the C.B.N.A.

Chester also accompanies little Arthur, all his nine jaded years, to and from his elementary school, where he's been receiving respondent criticism, apparently aimed at me, from a certain left-wing liberal educator adversary of mine who shall soon be out of a job.

My worst problem is that I can go nowhere alone. I am afraid for my peach-coloured skin. My colleagues and friends, every one a staunch conservative dickhead, share in a similar predicament. Any of them have yet to be shot at. Only a matter of opportunity I say.

4. The Man who follows me around

Chester is my personal bodyguard. He is, essentially, an ox with a rattlesnake's brain. Really, he does have an ox tattooed on his chest. A verification of his credentials for the job as he explains it. Get this: he's 6'6" and 305 lbs., and he sports a gleaming goatee, which is the only hair on his otherwise bald head. Says he'll eat a bullet for a free meal. Also says he has no beliefs that can't be overcome for the right price, if you know what he means. My kinda guy.

The way Chester is contributing to this whole shenanigan is simply through sheer intimidation. How's he going to stop a gunshot from coming my way? Well, he says he can smell trouble a mile away, and that means ammunition of any sort.

He says he's not afraid of "any bunch o' damn pinkos".

5. The International Freedom Fighters

The damn pinkos.

No doubt, this is a group that sounds like it means business, so I had an associate of mine run a check on them. It seems they are, as the name suggests, a group primarily concerned with fighting for the rights of the labour class of second- and third-world countries around the world. Their membership, as of December 31st, 1993, was 313,000 internationally, with about 1/5 of those operating on a military basis. In the U.S., current numbers have them at some 78,000 strong, with over 25,000 militarily involved. Apparently, they are led by several U.S. ex-military personnel, who found their niche operating independently from formal military procedures. Some of those ex-military were supposedly high-ranking army rats. Others are ex-navy seals. They are all well-trained and should be considered dangerous if they have a personal vendetta against you. They are also apparently in cahoots with some ex-military in Canada, long-time members of the International Freedom Fighters.

I concluded that Metro Toronto's finest would be no match against them.
Neither is Chester or any P.I. I contemplated suicide...Naaahh, my ego couldn't handle it.

6. The C.B.N.A.

The C.B.N.A. is an organization consisting of only the finest, most upstanding citizens of Canada and the United States of America.
Our credo runs like this: We, the proud members of the C.B.N.A., seek to employ no violent measures, but only to spread a peaceful friendly message of egalitarian brotherhood.

Sound like bigots? The administration of the C.B.N.A. regrets any perception of our organization as racist, misogynous, homophobic, anti-environmental, blindly pro-capitalistic, cult-like in structure, or otherwise exclusionary or elite. Truth is, we're all of these things, but if we admit that to the general public, some people just wouldn't understand. Fuck 'em.

Essentially, we meet weekly to discuss, to paraphrase, our plans for restructuring the Canadian pattern of corporate elitism.

Mostly, we poke fun at natives, penniless Quebecois separatists, and "feminazis". Bored with that, we pay tribute to everything that's right with the world: Ronny Reagan, our pal Rush, Monday Night football, and unrated Swedish films.

7. The Hoodlums May have a Point

They're still out there, and they've made it known, through the media and by word-of-mouth on the streets, they're "not scared of me or of any of my butthead conservative cronies". They're the ones who shot me full of bullets once already, and they're horny to do it again.

A phone call I just received warned me 'not to try anything stupid anytime soon'. "Fuck you", I screamed, as I slammed down the phone and poured myself a shot of scotch.

They said they're not interested in my dealings with the C.B.N.A., but specifically with my deliberate participation in extorting funds from various Central American countries, from companies with which I committed to exchange money for promises of technical assistance for restructuring.

Sounds feasible I guess, I think to myself, as I lapse momentarily into that lost part of my memory that can recall all the times I signed invoices and affidavits that I will hereafter deny ever having had knowledge of. I also vow to forget having had an associate of mine sent to Nicaragua to seek and destroy all legal documents that could have led the poor schmucks to believe that I'd fulfil a promise to help them.

I am connected enough, with my various associates from the C.B.N.A. and from Suburban Insurance Associates, to secure technical assistance for second-world countries. And I have the sufficient gumption to put such operations into effect.
What does all this mean? Means that I'm guilty of course. Guilty of extorting a shit-load of cash that should have been sent from the Central American countries from which it came to the North American companies that could provide technical assistance to them. Somehow the money got lost in the shuffle, its whereabouts hereafter unknown to me or to any of my associates.

However, somebody made a slip-up and opened their trap, and the wrong people got word of the misplaced funds. I guess my name came up, and that's how I got shot.

So the hoodlums had a case. Had they been more erudite in their actions, they might have caught me and my associates red-handed. But they shot me. Now they're screwed. They'll have a charge of attempted murder on their hands. That's how I may get out of this whole mess. There'll be so much attention put on my attempted murder and the litigation that will ensue that everyone will magically forget about my secret dealings.

8. My Paranoia

By public proclamation, my brothers at the C.B.N.A. have made it known that the violent acts against me, the Metro Toronto regional chapter president, shall not go unpunished. They went much further than Suburban Insurance Associates, who simply reprimanded the thugs verbally and wrote me a get well card. Seems that loyalty doesn't go as far as it used to.

As it was, Chester was by my side 24 hours a day, even to the point of busting through my bedroom door to see if I was alright when my wife screamed ravenously at the apex of our lovemaking. Jesus Q. Christ knows there's nothing more mortifying than being shot down at the completion of intercourse.

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

It was my daughter Lesley, 16 years old and a cork firmly jammed up her young Conservative ass, who answered the door when the pizza delivery guy rang. I was sitting in the parlour, located beside the front hall, as I heard Lesley say, "But I don't think anybody here ordered pizza." Well, that was all my ears needed to hear. "Shut the damn door", I screamed at Lesley, "NOW". So she did. Right on the pizza guy's face. Chester heard me scream, and he ran from the toilet, to the door, with has pants half done up. He tore open the door and picked up a stunned-looking delivery boy over his head. He twirled the boy around a few times and dropped him on the grass, where the boy lay dazed and winded. Ten seconds later, a van tore around the corner and screeched to a halt right in front of our door. As we stood there stunned, presumably waiting for someone to shoot us, we heard uproarious laughter abounding from the van. I realized the pizza boy scheme was theirs, and that these hoodlums had us by the seat of our pants, paranoid beyond all reason.
The next day, word out on the street was that the hoodlums are massive in number. Should one or two of them be charged and put through a trial, there would be many more to take their place in a torrential effort to terrorize me and my associates.

The police, I knew, could stop some of the terror on me, but the assaults would continue, endlessly, I knew.

9. My Tirade and the Aftermath

My plan now was to appear on television and publicly denounce the International Freedom Fighters and their "very badly misdirected vendetta against me, an upstanding member of the Metro community..." I would proceed to run down a list of accomplishments of mine in the Toronto business community that are mostly white lies and half-baked truths. Maybe enough suckers would sympathize with me that my reputation could be elevated to a level where any more attacks on me would puncture the bleeding hearts of Toronto. As it is, people are more worried about their financial situations than about my impending death. I can understand that.

I have a date booked to go on television. It's October 18th, a good three weeks away. Bastards at CFTO don't know what good publicity they're missing by not putting me on today. But I have to wait, because none of the other stations even considered putting me on the air. They must be run by left-wing pinko martyrs.

Every morning I can count on that same van peeling around the corner onto my street, stopping just long enough to make sure someone has seen it. Sometimes there are police on guard outside my house, and the van makes a quick pass. The police have stopped the van on more than one occasion, but each time the story was the same: They aren't looking for trouble.

I even obtained a restraining order against the Freedom Fighters, but the response I got about a week later was that it would be most difficult to enforce, seeing as how the Freedom Fighters have been most cooperative in all procedures involving Metro Police.

I called an associate -from my 'secret dealings'- and had him put out the word to temporarily suspend all interactions with Central America. I didn't do this to appease the International Freedom Fighters. Merely to save my white ass.

Meanwhile, I know that money from previous deals is still rolling in. I thank the good lord for that.

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
Chester and I have become famous patrons of the local pub, where we put away a good twenty brews between us every night, as we try to figure a way out of this damn mess. Chester seems more interested in setting personal records for chugging. He's more stupid than I thought.

"Hey Elmer", the barkeep calls out.

"Yeah Norm, what's up?"

"You really stealing money from the 'spics?"

"Yeah Normy, I am, and why don't you allow me to admit it to everybody in the room?"

"Word's out buddy. Probably doesn't matter if you're guilty or not any more."

"Yeah, well at least I know you're on my side."

"I'm on the side o' the livin'."

"Don't you worry about me. They'll get theirs, you'll see. I got pull."

I don't feel like I have anything. I've been drunk every night for the last two weeks. When I'm sober, I'm busy thinking about what to say on t.v., my appearance being only a week away. The only ideas that have been running through my head resemble jingles from beer advertisements. Beer seems to be the only thing I'm really interested in any more. Ahhhh, beer.

I can't even make love to my wife, and word has it that she's been screwing a few guys from the C.B.N.A. Bastards, whoever they are. It's like I said, loyalty doesn't go as far as it used to.

And my wife doesn't even seem to care that my life is a quarter way down the toilet. Why should she? I thought. She's getting laid by the heart and soul, the good boys of the C.B.N.A.

I try to remember how much she'll be getting from that trusty insurance policy I signed a couple years back. Maybe that's the reason she's so fucking happy. She figures I'm toast any day now, and she's on the receiving end of the big cash-in when it happens.

"Yvette, where the hell are you?"

"In the kitchen honey, baking cookies."

She hasn't baked any damn cookies since our first years together. Tramp!

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

I've missed three consecutive C.B.N.A. meetings and they've appointed a deputy president in my absence. Old Ed Pinkney. Bastard's probably bucking my old lady.

I haven't been at work in a week. That should be the real tipper as to my going off the deep end, but I can't even see the deep end from the reflection in my bottle of beer.

Floyd tells me that I should be takin' better care of myself. Why? So he can take me to bed? I wish. I mean, NO, I hope not.

Arthur and Lesley seem worried about me, as far as I can tell. They always seem to be wanting my opinion about one major investment or another. "Daddy", they say, "can you advise us on a lucrative investment or two, one that one that projects well in the immediate future? You know, in case anything happens to the family?" Smart kids, investing at such a young age.

Charles has joined some hippy band that plays long-haired scrunchy music. Someday, Arthur and Lesley will bail him out.

I've discovered that I like to watch late night television, where deeply-disturbed people talk openly about their inner-most thoughts to an audience of sceptics who'll castigate their every word. Losers.

Here I am, reviewing everything that's important to me in my wanton life. I'm as corrupt as they come, and have been that way for as long as I can remember. But I used to be happy with it. Satisfied, with a stupid grin on my face. Now I'm questioning the degenerate laurels on which I've built my life. I haven't been so depressed since when I was eight and I found out that Santa Claus gives gifts to all kids, not just to little money-hungry behemoths like me.

Now I figure, what's there left to live for?

"Honey, bring me another beer. (Slut!)"

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

They had me feeling pretty comfortable on the set of the local news before we went on air. The two on-air personalities with whom I spoke were congenial toward me, and introduced me as "a respected Toronto businessman who has recently experienced some very trying times". Provincials!
I started by talking about my position as vice-president of Suburban Insurance Associates and my affiliation with several relief agencies and volunteer associations in the Metro area. Truth is, they asked for my support, and I told them to 'stick it where the sun don't shine'.

I had five beers only an hour before, and they suddenly made me feel quite relaxed. The camera was mine.

"So my predicament is such that I've been shot at four times in the last two months by a gang calling themselves International Freedom Fighters, and I'm none too pleased about it. (Creative embellishment can't hurt.) “Truth is", (cough, cough), "I'm an honest business man who's trying to do well by his family... and I'm just trying to do my fair share to contribute to decency and democracy in the Toronto area. I don't wish to hurt (burp) anybody, or to have anybody hurt me, or my family. I just want to make it clear...to the Freedom Fighters, that they will be reprimanded for any further actions against me and my family..."

I was on the verge of major stuttering, and the beer was just beginning to fuel my conservative fire.

"...And If those bastards think they can get away with what they've done, they're out of their damn minds. And I don't wish to give them the wrong impression when I say they'll be put through the ringer and hung out to dry. I have connections that will make them wish they'd never heard of me. They'll pay dearly for messing with me. What's more, if they think..."

"Mr. Dodd...Mr. Dodd", someone was shouting my name, but I continued to run at the mouth. As drunk as I was, I didn't give a shit. Finally someone grabbed me and shook me, telling me that the camera was off, and I should go outside to let off some steam. I staggered outside, where I fell down and passed out.

About half an hour later, I felt water being splashed on me. I opened my eyes to see Floyd standing over me. I thought I was in heaven.

Floyd drove me home, explaining to me all the while that he figured I had said too much on t.v. He advised me to throw myself on the mercy of a court, to save my own neck.

I asked him if Yvette was screwing around on me, to which he only shut up. I started bawling, telling him about how my life was ruined, and about how I felt the liberal democrats had cooked up this terrific scheme against me that was going to culminate in my own self-destruction. He listened, and even began to cry for me. Wuss.

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

When I woke up the next morning, I realized how badly I had shot off my mouth, and that I'd played right into the hands the hoodlums. I felt so paranoid of them now that I'd lost all perspective. My job, that I used to cling to like a safety blanket, was no longer significant to me. Hiding behind the false sense of protection that the C.B.N.A. gave me wouldn't help me now. If the Freedom Fighters wanted me to self-destruct, they were doing an enviable job of helping me along.

There were five calls from work, each one from the president of the company. He was livid and then some. I was to be in his office immediately to discuss my future with the company. I jumped to my own conclusion.

The last message informed me that Ed Pinkney would remain president of the C.B.N.A., at least until I get back on my feet. Fuck them, I thought. I don't give a flying shit.

My wife gave me an obligatory kiss on my way out of the house. She seemed way too happy. I hadn't dressed properly, nor had I combed my hair or brushed my teeth. Under usual circumstances, that would have sent her into hysterics.

I didn't bother waking Chester. I didn't care if I was killed today. I'd be better off.

I was just about to get into my car when the van peeled around the corner onto my street. Without thinking, I ran straight toward it screaming, "Go ahead you bastards, shoot me, SHOOT ME!" The van had stopped and I ran out into the street trying to get to the driver's side.

An impatient stranger hit me, accelerating like he was late for a job interview. As I lost consciousness, I heard:

11. Two Guys In the Van

"Did you see that?"

"Yeah, man. He's squashed like a pancake."

"Is he dead?"

"I dunno."

"He looks dead. Think we should get out and console that guy who hit him?"
"Are you nuts? Let's get outta here."

The van roars off.

"He really was an asshole, taking all that money from our Central American friends."

"Yeah, no scruples."

"Guess he got his due."

"Guess so."

Job

2005-05-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

I really can't sell kitchen knives. For that matter, I can't sell any damn thing. I couldn't sell a dying man a fresh start. I'd tell him I have this incredible opportunity for him to live fifteen more years.

"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" he'd ask.

I'd have to say I don't have a fuckin' clue. "The guy that trained me said that for only one thousand dollars down and five easy payments of five hundred dollars a month for the next five months, you could be the proud owner of a new heart and a fresh set of lungs. He said to ask you, 'Doesn't that sound great?'. So I'm asking."

He'd die right there in front of me and leave me holding a lot of valuable body parts I have no use for. I hate this bloody job.

I don't know if you could equate kitchen knives with a fresh start. The guys at the company think you can. They'd have you believing that, as of the precise moment you take ownership of whatever knife they're demonstrating to you, your life is exactly this much --hold thumb and forefinger a millimetre apart-- better, more fulfilled. After the demonstration the boss gave me of how to show the product without being pushy, I wanted to have what he was selling. I lost sight of what I was there for. To be recruited as a salesperson for the company.

He told me he never thought he could do this job, either, but that once he had sold a few orders, he became quite confident in himself and in the product. He could tolerate hundreds of rejections. He believes that I can sell knives too. All I'd have to do is believe in myself. Well I do. But I know I can't sell. My best pitch is:

"Here it is. It's a damn good product. I'd buy one if I had the money. And I will have the money if you help me out by buying one right now."

(At this point I pause and smile sarcastically.)

"You say you can't afford it? You have to ask your wife first? I understand. Here's my number if you should change your mind."

Once outside I begin cursing. "What kind of a pussy-whipped wimp has to ask his wife for permission to buy something he'd be better off having? I don't believe he can't afford it. He's a lying sack o' shit. Ah fuck, they're probably all like that. In that case, fuck 'em all, the whole goddamn bunch. I don't need this shit."

Selling knives with this company isn't all bad. For some guys it works out. You demonstrate the product to a few of your close friends, neighbours, people you know. You ask them if they know of anyone who would be nice enough to take a look, and could you please demonstrate the knives to them? You call on these referred people on the telephone or in person. They should be expecting you because their good friend told them about you, about what a nice person you are. You work only through referrals, and you demonstrate right in the peoples' own homes.

My boss said, "You don't have to sweet talk the customer because the product sells itself."

And they'll never have to buy another set of knives. (That's supposed to be the clincher.) When I heard that, I signed up to sell for them.
I did two demonstrations. One for my buddy; one for my Mom. I performed all the amazing feats I learned the knives could do. I stuttered through the manual, regurgitating every heartfelt syllable to the best of my ill appetite, pointing out every interesting feature of every last knife. I showed the razor-sharp edges, the durable construction, and the electronically heat infused handles. When I finished, I breathed deeply.

"So whatdya think?"

"Yeah, but how much?" they both said.

"The important part is that you'll never have to buy another knife."

Not good enough. They wanted dollars and cents. (Even Jon, who routinely drops half his salary on lime and lagers at The Gay Maiden.)

"It's only eight- hundred-and-thirty-eight dollars for the homemaker set with eight tables knives." I looked at the floor. And then, full of hope, I looked up.

'You've got to be kidding' was etched on their faces, right over their awestruck open jaws.

"Okay then", I began as I was taught to, "we have several other sets that might interest you..." By now, my lack of resolve and lack of enthusiasm were heavy in my gut. I could have gone on, stuttering through the manual, regurgitating every heartfelt syllable. But that familiar nausea which I always feel when I'm trying to sell something, would get worse.

And so, my blabbering mouth fatigued. I wanted to go home. That's a bad sign, I thought, and I knew it was time for me to quit. After just two demonstrations; twenty hours after I signed the terms of employment.

I do believe there's good money to be made in this venture. That's what's really disconcerting to me, as I announce my retirement from the knife selling business. The product is really good. Every knife the company sells comes with a lifetime guarantee, all parts and service. In the knife business, a lifetime guarantee is extremely hard to come by because, as I understand it, most knives are constructed with planned obsolescence in mind. Most knives are intended to rust, corrode, dull (the blades) and crack (wood handles), among their numerous shortcomings.

But some of these knives do really cool tricks. One cuts a half-inch thick piece of rope in a single slice. The table knife can cut leather strips better than any knife it's been compared with. My Mom sure was impressed. The butcher knife is menacing. Another one called the 'Fisherman's Solution' had me aching to bait a hook. The scissors are the most awesome. With them, I cut a Canadian penny into a corkscrew. Then I did it again. Then I cut paper to make sure they were still sharp. Razor-sharp they were. Man, I wanted a pair.

But it was too much. The forty-minute rehearsed sales pitch, straight from the sales manual, dealing with objections. I get crazy. Jiving through all that shit makes me feel silly, then tongue-tied.

So I'm covered with sweat and the demonstration's ending in a refusal. "Thanks for showing it to me. I really liked it, but..."

I'm thinkin' I might become homicidal. I'd become keenly aware of the knives I have at my disposal. My knives would take on lives of their own. They would do human-carving acrobatics. The butcher knife would lead a raucous parade of knife tomfoolery with his bravado and sheer power. The daring petite carver would search out the heart of the victim with cold precision. Meanwhile, the steak knife would ready itself at the cutting board for whatever organs randomly splash out from said person and onto the floor. I'd scoop up an eye, an intestine, part of a lung, and set it carefully on the board, anticipating what wondrous feats the steak knife might perform on it. No concern for damages. I am a knife-toting maniac.

The boss and I agreed on the reason why I quit. I don't want to sell kitchen knives, just like I said. We both felt I could do it, if I'd wanted to. Well, he thought so anyway.

Me and the Rocket Man

2005-05-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Since I was brought up properly, I recognize and respect the important things in life. I've learned the three things that matter most are: 1) always listen to those who can teach you something; 2) above all else, respect yourself; and 3) the kid with the sixty-five mile an hour fastball is the coolest kid around.

In my part of the city, there was a kid who had me firmly convinced that he was God's gift to the local baseball scene. I don't remember how well he could hit, but I often gaped at the way he struck out guys. Just like they do in the big leagues.

His name was Bill Botten, and he was popular, especially when he and his friends got together with me and my friends at a diamond one afternoon to see who could one-up who in the skills department.

I was never a bad ballplayer. Good gloveman. Had lucky at-bats. But I was mush with a useless piece of timber in my grip whenever I went to bat against young Mr. Botten and his ace fastball.

Once, I saw Bill Botten strike out six or seven guys in a row, and as many as fourteen or fifteen in a seven-inning game. I remember his father once interjecting when a coach tried to pitch him on two days rest in a crucial playoff game. Bill Botten on two days rest was better than anyone else fresh.

When I think of that fastball coming my way that afternoon, I must have appeared to all the guys to be scared out of my shorts. When you're fifteen years old, a sixty-five mile an hour fastball looks to you like a pea whizzing through a pea patch, one mere pea amalgamated into a background of millions of other peas. That meant that the tiny white baseball appeared to me, at sixty-five miles an hour, as green as the green grass surrounding the diamond. An old coach told me: a white baseball can appear green if it is moving fast enough across a green background. He was right.

This is exactly the image I conjured as I strove confidently forth into the batter's box in Fenway Park one hot August afternoon to face Roger "the Rocket Man" Clemens. My team hadn't scored yet, and we'd barely touched that razor-sharp fastball of his, nor had we managed to get pegged in the backside by a pitch and get on base that way. From the dugout, I'd failed to get an inkling of how fast that ball was really travelling, or on which part of the plate it would end up at when it got there. I knew that I'd be hackin' to even make contact. "Nice and easy", I repeated over and over to myself, as I stared down the vacuum of emptiness, the eternity between the pitching mound and my little wooden stick of opportunity.

I peered sheepishly out from under my batting helmet at the big man on the mound. He was gazing straight back at me, or more aptly, right through me. As I was a rookie, I knew Mr. Clemens wouldn't take kindly to me showing him up. If the Rocket Man ever needed extra incentive to get someone out, that would do it.

I had studied my look in the mirror that morning and had found just the perfect expression that would be required to camouflage a cup-and-a-half-full of scared-straightness. I applied the look, refused the deep breath my lungs begged for, planted my body for action, and waggled the bat affirmatively.

As businesslike as ever, Roger cocked his brow, rolled his big shoulders menacingly forward, and began his wind-up.

I was way too excited to take a good rip. I guessed fastball, and the biting curve made mince-meat out of me.

STRIKE ONE.

Had I dwelled on that pitch, I woulda been a goner. Instead I blocked out the applause, -it wasn't for my team- noted the sign from my third base coach, and focused on Mr. Clemens' throwing hand.

STRIKE TWO.

I didn't even see it. I was thinking curve. He showed me a real hummer. I had a headache. Was the manager going to replace me? Would it be 'to the showers'? Yeah, I thought, oh shit, yeah.

Suddenly I remembered my lungs, took a breath, and got air, which helped for about ten seconds... until I saw the Rocket Man in his wind-up again. As he wound up, so did my stomach. But this time, I hit the ball... Mr Clemens didn't seem so nasty to me now.
Foul to left. Nice distance.

I looked out at the wall in left-centrefield and saw the names, Williams and Yastrezemski. Their memories were forever etched with pride into the facing of the big Green Monster. Suddenly the vigour of their early years was mine.

"Ball One"... "Ball Two"... the umpire said softly as I willed the next two pitches out of the strike zone. Letting two go by without really looking at them was never a smart move, but I had Yaz and Ted in my corner now.

I drove the next pitch, a fastball high and tight, way back into the bleachers on the third base side. Foul again. Maybe the ball knocked a popcorn or Coke out of some fat guy's hands. I didn't care. Who was he anyway, I scoffed, but some long undernourished Red Sox fan?

Anyway, Roger didn't look intimidating at all any more. What only short moments ago appeared to me like the slow ticking of a time bomb in his composure now felt more like the dainty ticking of a Mickey Mouse watch. "C'mon Rog. Strike me out now", I muttered, "... if you can". And, of course, he did.

STEERIKE THREEEE!

It was the fastball I'd wanted. The one I imagined -no, envisioned- sailing up over the Green Monster and into tomorrow's morning's box score in all the papers. Instead, it echoed in my ears like a shell from a popgun, as the ball nestled into the bruised palm of the worn-out old catcher's mitt.

There is no consolation when the Rocket Man strikes you out. For me, there was only the recollection that Bill Botten had done the same on numerous occasions. I turned away from home plate and trudged slowly toward my place in the dugout. I couldn't muster up the courage to look out at Mr. Clemens to acknowledge his small victory. Nothing to appease my embarrassment. No suggestive "Next time it will be different" stare, like any young rookie should, had he any self-respect left.

I stepped out of my concentrative haze and looked over at the guys standing outside of the batting cage. As I walked by them I said, "Look out guys, that machine is a real rocket launcher".

THE END

My Prodigious Trek: The Vanities Of A Neophyte Mountain Biker

2005-05-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

May 8, 1998. A wonderfully sunny afternoon on the Hoodoos Trail in Banff National Park, and I am pedaling with a child’s voraciousness. It is not the first time I have set about to mountain bike, but the first time I have done it on a real mountain. And I am good.

Having hired the finest new full-suspension, high-performance Cannondale, and having had it professionally adjusted to my size and comfort, I donned my helmet and sunglasses. With water bottle intact and map at the ready, I rolled confidently through town and over to the nearby base of the mountain, where I set into lowest gear, and began my quest. Guarding against over-pacing, I churned the pedals continuously up the revolving incline (a road), relishing the inevitability of handsomer, more tightly-knotted calves. Later I tore through metre-wide gaps in the bush with tree roots abounding everywhere, conspiring to throw me head first over handlebars and onto hard dusty trail. I rumbled over them fearlessly. Quick turns, bumps, and straight-aways; I maneuvered them all with equal adroitness. This mountain was my new stomping ground.

Illusions like these pass quickly for the level-headed weekend athlete, who will discover that it is safest to take what the mountain gives, but ask no favours. I, on the other hand, believe that, while I am not quite prepared for Olympic service to my country, I am one day to be proclaimed Master Mountain Biker. This is not to say that I believe I will be the best that there is, or even the best that I can be, but I believe that I will be the best that my far-reaching vanity will permit. This is everything to me.

Reaching this apex of illusion of grandeur is precisely what I had in mind when Kim asked me if I would like to accompany her on her business conference. The claim that she will make that I begged her to come along is a fallacy. I came along for support, encouragement, and of course, just for the hell of it. And now, I conquered a mountain.

Had the mountain tried to dethrone me, the effort would have been in vain. I was consistently honed in on the path of least resistance and was downright artful in negotiating the trail’s edge, where a small blunder would have made me unannounced company for the colossal mountainside. But that was not to be.

My destination was unbounded glory. Two scoops with a cherry on top. A five-star resort hotel (which, incidentally, is where we stayed: at the fabulous Rimrock). Had I aimed for anything less, I would not have written this piece. Instead, I would have written a piece on how disappointed I was that the adult movie that we ordered came with tacky music dubbed over the unabashedly amusing dialogue. But anyone can write that. Few can write about having ridden a mountain to perfection.

It matters little that I can’t recollect the name of the mountain. (It doesn’t say on the map I brought home.) It was a bumpy, rocky one with a road and some rudimentary paths strewn through it. The map tells me that The Hoodoos are bizarre natural pillars. I don’t recall having seen them. I did see some spectacular mountain vistas, noteworthy at least from an Ontarian’s perspective. I forced myself to brake momentarily, to take snapshots. But days later at home, as I leafed through the prints, a wave of distress flushed through me. I forgot to photograph the bicycle. So much for the sentimentality of the mountains. I have no proof of my conquest. I had in my possession the most illustrious piece of equipment I have ever handled, the one that makes aspiring bikers from all over dream, “Some day, I’ll have one of those.” And I overlooked documenting it.

All I have now are memories. Well, not quite all. The other day, as I lay in front of the t.v. in my boxers, Kim remarked on the shape of my legs. “I can really see the results”, she said, as her soft hand grazed my thigh. I was proud. But now, I am sad. I live in southern Ontario, and what the hell can a Master Mountain Biker hope to accomplish here? I could attempt a suicidal dash on Highway 401 at Friday rush hour. I’d risk trading a possible attack by a Rocky Mountain brown bear for the chance at a drive-by gunning from a road-raged executive. Perhaps this is a reasonable substitute for the thrill of the mountain. But alas, the air is better in the mountains, so it just won’t do.

Plus, the mountains have elk. They seem the moose’s more diminutive and less brutish cousin. I fondly recall the ones I met on the side of the road and on the grassy parts of open trail. The idle grazers. They seemed utterly indifferent to the Master Mountain Biker, and I quickly figured that they have probably encountered my like before. Or maybe they were just too bagged to take heed. Mountain life, after all, is taxing. I snapped a photograph from a safe distance, and nodded my head at the small herd, showing a respectful deference to them, the wily veterans of the hill. Then I sped away, not to evade possible attack, but to resume my trek.

There was an instant, while I was blazing downhill, that I thought of ordinary things. I pictured the town of Banff, below me, indulging good-natured sightseers and sedentary mountain watchers. I scoffed at their misfortune, their poor vantage point; their unwittingness, unwillingness and incapability. Then came an ascent, and I simply pedaled on, harbouring no pity. I was too swept up in the momentum of my journey, thrilled at the challenge of yet one more break-neck climb. With my body pressed forward and my fingers clamping the handgrips, I drove one leg then the other into the ground, set my eyes on pavement and my mind on a sunlit snow-capped summit. Then I thought of Kim, huddled amongst co-workers and prospective clients in a meeting room, discussing something about audiology. Or was there a presentation?

All this wonderment may be deemed by some to be not as spine wrenching as riding a bull in the Calgary Stampede. To this I cede. It is not. But in the mighty province of Alberta, where I figure most folks are more likely to be devoured by a grizzly than they are to ever board a deranged mammal, my trek must be fodder for the sane outdoor enthusiast. And I aver that while biking with maximum mastery is no rope-a-cow thrill, it requires the kind of stamina and dexterity that would drive any manure-loving ploughboy to heart stoppage.

I know that not everyone can do what I did. I rode that damn mountain for two-and-a-half hours. That’s one-hundred and fifty minutes of pedal-crunching up punishing inclines that metamorphosize instantly into dizzying labyrinths of dire descent. I worked for the right to claim myself fit for otherworldliness; a claim that I make with no avarice or impunity: Anyone care to take this outside?

May 20. It is twelve days since I made my trek. I miss the Banff Rockies much, and I know they miss me too. While I have not received as much as a postcard from the bike rental place, I cannot help but believe that me and the two clerks I met share a common bond --that of respect and deference to the big hills-- though I doubt if either of them have ever torn into the trails with the same gusto as I did. I didn’t see the appetite for it in their eyes.

I am broke, and Kim is not soon going to a conference anywhere near the big hills, so it seems that it will be some time before I will once again traverse a grand mountain top.

Meanwhile, my aching heart waits in limbo. I bide time by hiking, jogging, canoeing, or by savouring whatever other prodigious adventure that becomes available. And I contemplate why I can’t simply enjoy a vacation for the easygoing comforts that it offers. Kim says that I’m way too competitive for my own good. I argue that I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone but myself, and my standards are set higher than most. She sighs and asks if I couldn’t see myself one day enjoying a pleasant hot summer afternoon basking in the sun. “The whole afternoon?!” I am shocked she would suggest it.

“Maybe a couple of hours”, I smile enthusiastically, “as long as I have a good book to read, and as long as there is a quality bike rental place nearby. Either that, or we could do some skydiving or hang gliding. You can get sun doing any of these things.” She simply huffs, and looks skyward in exasperation. Even she can’t make a servile sedentarian of a robust Master Mountain Biker.

Next quest: to be the first guy to swim the Baltic Sea, from Stockholm to Riga, at the height of winter, with only a small Norwegian fishing boat for an escort.

The Zen of Tomato Picking

2005-04-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Picking tomatoes is the ultimate Zen activity, and I think of my garden as the Zen palace. When the goings-on in my neighbourhood get testy, I have a place where things are simple and beautiful.

In my backyard, there are three tomato plants. They are located on the far side of my square lawn, the side furthest away from the front door, beside my driveway. They are the centrepieces of my manicured small garden, which includes some yellow marigolds -to complement the red and green of the tomato plants, three rose plants, and a swiftly-carved small wood sign that reads, "Garden of Joy". Two of the tomato plants are low, growing large-size tomatoes that droop from their weighted, outstretched vines. The other one grows higher, its vines strategically arranged, for stability, to intertwine with the pear-less limbs of the pear tree that shades it from too much sunlight. Perfectly rounded cherry tomatoes grow in clusters on its long weightless vines.

Every couple of days, there are ripe tomatoes waiting, beckoning to be snatched from their stems. The large ones want to be sliced, and served alongside strips of bacon, in a sandwich. The cherry ones wish to be tossed whole into a caesar salad. Their fortunes await them every time I step into the garden with a large metal bowl in my hands.

Stubbornly, I kneel down first alongside one of the low-growing plants, preferring to begin my picking with the deformed and welted large tomatoes. I want to get them out of the way. I don't pay attention to anything but their redness. A red brilliant enough that it stands out despite the afternoon sun glaring on its unsightliness is ready for picking.

The better formed large tomatoes come next. They're less difficult to look at, and more pleasant to touch. I pick one, making sure to leave as much of the stem as possible on the vine. I try to pick enough of the good ones to cover up, as much as possible, the deformed and welted ones, which are relegated to the bottom of the bowl, invisible.
I make sure to scoop up from the earth any fallen tomatoes. Because they are bug-infested, I throw them out.

I shift over to the cherry tomato plant, and my mood becomes lighter. I delight in the vision of long dangly vines that, despite their entanglements, seem to have a vivaciousness about them; a longing to be noticed. It is why the tomato is properly called a fruit. The cherry analogy seems most appropriate.

Taking heed of a ripe batch of five or six cherries directly to my left, I begin to pluck, one at a time. I start to wonder how many of my neighbours have a cherry tomato plant as fruitful as mine, which seems, at a glance, to have sprung twenty-five perfect nuggets since I last picked, only four days ago. The neighbours next door are new, and they don't have a cherry tomato plant. They don't spend enough time at home to properly nurture one. My neighbours on the other side would be better off sharing the delights of caring for a tomato plant. It would give them something to do together, besides hurling abuses. Sometimes, I hear them scream at each other. I hear their baby wail. I wish they'd shut their door. I want to sound proof my plants from their shouting, because I think that's what's causing the deformities and welting.

This batch has seven ripe cherries. That's a new record. I can already feel them bursting inside my mouth, as I pluck one after another out of my caesar's salad.

Mr. Swanridge down the road has more tomato plants than I do. His plants grow alongside the back of his house and outward. The large tomato plants are intertwined with the cherry plants, so the batch looks like a hodgepodge of big and little tomatoes. His tomatoes are bigger, greener when unripe, and often more fruitful than mine. Yet he still doesn't seem happy. I don't get it. It couldn't be because his plants aren't doing their bit to brighten him up. When I walk by his house, I always take note of the many bright red large and cherry tomatoes on his plants. I admire them, not so much because they're more abundant than my batch, but because Mr. Swanridge lives on a corner lot that's accessible to traffic, and people will appreciate them. My plants, conversely, have to live in anonymity, appreciated only by me.

When ever Mr. Swanridge is outside, I say hello. He's a portly man, six-feet tall, with cheeks drooping like a hound dog's and a vastly protruding forehead. When he walks, which he does only very slowly and laboriously, he appears desperate for the ability to manoeuvre more freely.

He used to come right over and talk. In fact, he inspired me to buy my first tomato plant. When I saw the expression of joy on his face as he talked about his babies, I knew I had to get my own plants. But that was six years ago. Back then, he walked with a lilting gait, and his portliness came across as an enormous capacity for affection.
Though Mr. Swanridge's plants remain as fruitful as ever, his mood has darkened considerably. His wife died a couple of summers back, in the middle of prime picking season. I think now he associates the season with her death. Considering this, it's amazing he's kept his plants looking so sprightly. It's a shame about her death. She was a melancholy woman -too dour to be called lively, too pear-shaped to be called shapely. And she didn't share her husband's enthusiasm for tomatoes. It's a tragedy that he looks lifeless now, especially since his tomatoes look so good. Someone else must be looking after them. Funny that I haven't seen anyone but an aimlessly meandering Mr. Swanridge around the property.

I found three more cherries on my plants. There are five or six more green ones in the same batch. They'll be ready for picking within the week. By then, school will have started. The twenty or so kids that have been running around the neighbourhood for the last two months will not be upsetting my plants with their hoarse screams and calls for attention. I will, however, miss J.B. Ellis' afternoon visits. He's the only black kid in the neighbourhood. His family's from Puerto Rico. I think he's the smartest kid around.

--I wish my dad was into cool stuff like that, he says to me, pointing to my tomato plants, --but all he wants to do is watch sports on the dish. Then again, at least he doesn't follow me around or want to do father-son stuff all the time, J.B. admits, though I notice the tone of his voice suggests that he'd really like to be doing father-son stuff with his old man.

J.B., I notice from my kitchen window, is always the first kid up and out of his house in the morning. He's always out before eight-thirty, usually shooting hoops. That's his Zen activity. He's dazzling with a basketball in his grips. For a ten-year old, that is. I've watched him grow from a feisty chubby baby to an enlightened and energetic boy.

Between unending tours of all "the coolest spots" in the woods across the street, he comes over whenever he sees me gardening. He doesn't yell from across the street. Not like the other kids. Instead, he sits down on the driveway and talks to me better than most adults I know. Maybe I like him because he's actually interested in my tomato plants.

--How do you like them today?, I'd ask.

--They're really coming along, he says.

I ask him about his walks in the woods, and if he sees anything in there he likes as much as tomato plants.

--Yeah. I like all the different trees. I try to guess how old they are, and if they've ever been hit by lightning.
We talk about geography. He tells me he wants to go to Alaska, to ride a dog-pulled sled. I tell him I dream of meditating at the base of a mountain outside Katmandu, Nepal. I have to tell him where that is. I concede that I'd have to go there in our winter, because I don't trust anyone with my tomato plants in the summer.

We retreat to my porch, to the iced tea jug. Not even five minutes go by and the neighbours start their yelling.

--That's no good for your plants, J.B. says.

I agree. --Can you hear them from your house?

--No, but when I walk by, sometimes I think they're going to kill each other.

--Do you think it's 'cause they don't have tomato plants?

--Could be.

It's a hot day, and we devour the iced tea. A pot clangs in the neighbour's house, and a woman shrieks. J.B. looks at me.

--Sure is great iced tea, eh? I say.

He nods. Two more loud thuds are heard. The baby wails louder.

--Too bad about Mr. Swanridge, J.B. says, trying to hide his uneasiness about the commotion. We have discussed Mr. Swanridge before.

--Have you seen him lately?

--Yeah. He looks awful. He's getting fatter all the time.

--Have you seen anyone looking after his tomatoes?

--Just once. But I think it was the grass-cutting guy.

--How do you suppose he keeps his plants looking so good when he looks so bad?

--Maybe they're all he's got.

--You might be right.

We each drank one last gulp. The noise next door had died down suddenly. J.B. and I looked at each other but neither said a word. But we wondered what happened that made everything quiet.

As J.B. leaves, I tend to the matter at hand. One of the cherry plants has a drooping vine. It's an inch from the ground. I grab a wood stick from my shed and hammer it into the earth, about two feet deep; deep enough so that any commotion from next door or anywhere else won't budge the vine, once I've secured it to the stick with a pink cloth. I never tie the cloth too tight, for fear of restricting the plants breathing ability. I didn't used to use pink necessarily, until one day when I noticed the plant that was bound by a pink cloth seemed to have spouted red cherries more quickly and abundantly than any of the ones bound by differently coloured ones. So I started using pink exclusively.

Mr. Swanridge died the last week of September. Heart attack, due to his increasing obesity. The day I heard, I walked by his house. There were a few people standing around his porch, and some other alongside his house. No one was near his tomato plants. Stepping a few feet onto his back lawn, I notice they hadn't drooped one centimetre. There were many big red ones on the vines. The cherries are lagging behind, I thought. I glanced at the small crowd. No one was watching, so I walked forward and snatched the largest red tomato from its stem, and placed it gently in my pocket. I intended to eat it later, by itself, as a fitting tribute to Mr. Swanridge's ability to maintain a beautiful tomato batch, despite his declining health.

Two weeks later, on a Tuesday October afternoon, there was a commotion of a different kind next door. A police-woman had been by the day before. Something about a neighbour repeatedly reporting child abuse. That day, two policemen came by, along with a social worker. The woman yelled. I was out back, taking my tomato plants out of the earth. I was nearly done when the commotion started. Good thing, I thought, because the plants had been subjected to enough turmoil. I didn't want their last moments alive to be beset with discord. They'd done well this summer, but I couldn't help but wonder if, had the atmosphere been more serene, would their yield have been more plentiful? I sat on my front porch, to see what would be done by the police and the social worker. A short while later, the man of the house came out with cuffs on; one cop in front of him, the other behind. His head was bowed down. The cops shuffled him into the back of the squad car. They drove off. A minute later, the social worker was coaxing the woman with the baby in her arms through the door.

--Don't worry. We're going to do all we can for you, the social worker repeated, but the woman kept sobbing, and apparently didn't want to go anywhere. Finally, the social worker got her into the car, and they drove off.

I retreated back to the smoothed over ground where my plants had been, wondering about the neighbours I never knew, and if they would get the help they needed. Would they ever be a caring, nurturing family? I soon began thinking about the tomato plants I will plant here next year. Will they be able grow in more peaceful surroundings? Or will they require the stubborn resistance to produce the freshest, ripest tomatoes despite the clamour that has beset them? In one last moment of reflection, I flipped some loose earth over the packed down earth that lay where the plants had grown. It was my way of thanking the earth for its part in the growing process. I proceeded to carefully break up the plants, preparing them for bundling, the haul to the dump site, and eventually and inevitably, to the afterlife.

Winger

2005-04-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not nearly as fucked up as Ray thinks I am. He tells me, "Winger, you don't know how close to the edge you are, man", which is quite something from a guy who routinely does twice as much hash as I do.

Ray's thinks that every-fucking-body has to be just like him or else they're one step short of killing themselves. But I'm doin' fine. Just 'cause I don't get off on working fifty hours a week on the assembly line like him, and 'cause I don't own a turtle and a microwave, like him. Maybe because I don't want to get myself a new whore every weekend like him, maybe that's what it is that makes him think I'm livin' close to the edge.

The thought of it all makes me really tired...

There were these two pieces of toast, man. They were fucking human. One had a moustache and glasses. The other one had blonde hair and a dangly earring. They were flinging strawberry jam on each other with these really huge spoons. It started out innocent. Standing firm at twenty feet apart, they each dipped their spoons in their own huge jam bowls, and came out tossing. The jam was going through the air so fast I couldn't see it. They were hurting each other. The guy with the 'stache screamed, "I'm the toughest, and I'll prove it." And he was blindsided by a huge gob.

Waking up, like now, hurts even more than any of those dreams I've been having. I nearly stepped on my ashtray when I got up to get my Gatorade. It's the light green kind, in a bottle. It always makes me feel better. I drink it warm, so it doesn't hurt my teeth. Ray thinks that's pretty fucked up. He tells me, Winger man, you never see any of those high-paid pro athletes drinking warm Gatorade, do ya? I wish he'd shut up.

Sometimes Gatorade is really damaging to my senses, like when I stare into it for too long and my hand starts shaking, and I go into a sort of trance...

Holy shit! The ocean's turned lime green man, and the waves are swooshing back and forth, and it's all making my head feel like one of those Christmas ornaments you shake up to get snow falling. Except it's summer, but sometimes it feels like winter, I get so cold. Anyhow, I really fucking hope there's no body swimming out there, in the swooshy green water, 'cause I don't think they'll make it to shore, man, I really don't.

I put the Gatorade down, and laid down on my futon. I had to get my head straight. Sometimes it takes hours. Ray says that if I had a job, I wouldn't feel so fucked up all the time, because I'd have a higher sense of self-esteem. I told him to go fuck himself with his self-esteem.

When I woke up, I had a funny feeling in my stomach. I looked around my room, at the white walls, and I swore they were closing in on me. I had to close my eyes and hold my head.

I needed a cigarette. I looked around the apartment. I got into so much of a nick fit that I threw all my clothes onto the floor. When I threw down my heavy sweater, a load of dust zoomed up my nose and made me start coughing, then sneezing and stammerin' around the apartment. I sat on my chair, with my elbows on the table, and tried to pick all the dust out of my nose. A really big sneeze caught me off guard and my head snapped forward to where it went clunk on the table. I musta passed out cold, because the next thing I knew...

I was at Farm Aid man, on the stage. There were thousands of people in the crowd, a major party. I looked to my left and fuck me, there was Johnny Cash, talking to some woman singer. On my right was Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson. They were arguing. Willie's beard was twitching. Garth hauled off and decked Willie, knocking him to the ground. Willie got really mad, and kicked Garth, popping his knee right out of joint and making him scream. I yelled, "Way to go Willie. Kill the fat bastard!"

I got up with a big welt on my forehead and I didn't remember how it got there. I looked in my freezer for ice, but I don't have an ice cube tray. I had to use my last beer on my forehead.

I think I stopped the swelling, but there's gonna be a bruise there, and I know Ray's gonna ask about it. He's gonna say, "Winger, did you get drunk and fall down?" And I'm gonna say, "No, I didn't fucking get drunk!" And he's gonna puff on his cigarette with that same fucking superior look on his face that's always bugged the crap outta me.

We're good buddies, but sometimes he gets too much for me, bugging me about my lifestyle. Like when he says, "If you had an ounce of motivation, you could be a really good bum." Once I got mad and smashed an empty coke bottle over his knee. Usually I just leave, even if we're in the middle of doing hash. He'll say, "Hey loser, where you going?" like he's kidding, but it makes me want to bash his skull in. I wish he'd stop with the criticizing.

I didn't see Ray for a couple of days, which is the longest I've been away from him in a while. I don't have a phone, so I decided to go right on over to his place. I needed him to fix my flashlight. I need it for the times my building has a blackout, and Ray's good at fixing things. He's even good for fixing a headache, when he's got some really good acid. Last time he had some, we smoked a whole popcorn sized piece of it. I asked him if he could see the beetles on the wall. He looked at me like I was fucked up, and so I described them to him. I said they were walking up and down the wall, along the stripes of the wallpaper. That was the last time I was there.

The hallway on Ray's floor has these really bright lights that make my head pound. I knocked on his door, three times. No answer. C'mon Ray, my head hurts, so stop being a prick. It was two o'clock, and Ray doesn't start work until four, so I knew he was home. I went back outside, where I'd seen the maintenance guy working. He knew me and let me into Ray's.

I looked at the apartment, trying to avoid the disgusting green wall on the right. Going into the living room, a bad smell hit me so hard that I had to plug my nose. It made me woozy, and I went over to the living room, to the couch, to sit down. On the other side of it was where I found Ray, on the floor, all sprawled out, his face tilted to one side. He had on only a pair of boxer shorts and a red t-shirt. The smell was worst by him. I sat down and stared at him. Ray, it's not like you to have the place smellin' so bad, I thought.

Ray's skin looked like white wax. It was like a really bad drug got a hold of him. I gave him a push with my leg. "Get up Ray, you lazy piece of shit". He didn't move.

I pulled the flashlight out of my pocket and laid it on his chest. "Hey man, I need you to fix this". No reaction. He smelled really bad. I picked up a pillow and whiffed at the air with it, trying to clear the air. "I think you should get up and take a shower man, or the maintenance guy is gonna have to quarantine you".

I went to his fridge for a beer. Some of the smell must have crept through anyway, because before I knew it...

There was this turkey, running around a farmyard with it's head off, bumping into things all over the place. The head was lying on the ground screaming, "I'm no good to you at the market, now that you cut my head off. No good. No darn good." A farmer was standing around with an axe in his hand, looking really confused. Two other farmers came up behind him. One said, "I think you made a mistake Jim."

I got up off the kitchen floor, dusting crumbs and stuff off my pants. My ass hurt. "Fucking smell". I limped over to the patio door and opened it, and I stepped outside for a minute to catch some air. I saw the maintenance guy and waved at him. Then I went back inside, back to the couch, to see if Ray'd woken up yet. He hadn't. I knelt down beside him, and was about to shake him, when I noticed a huge bump on the side of his head. It had a brown-red colour. I reached out to touch it. It was mushy. I jumped back. It reminded of the part in "Aliens" where the aliens burst out of peoples' bodies. I didn't want to touch it again.

I sat on the floor and it hit me: Hey, what if Ray's, like, dead? I wondered how the fuck he got that way? I didn't know anything about what to do with a guy who might be dead.

I figured I'd better take him to the hospital or something. I was thinking that they'd know what to do with a dead person. I went to his bedroom to look for clothes to put him in. I almost tripped over the baseball bat that was lying in the middle of the floor. What the hell is a baseball bat doing lying in the middle of the room? I wondered.

I sat down on his bed. Something was happening in my head, like one of those bad dreams I've been having...

Ray and me were sitting on the floor in the living room, across from each other. He was rolling the hash. We were both smoking it, and we were talking. He said something about some ad he saw in a magazine about k.d.lang. He said, "I'm not fucking going to listen to anybody who tell's me I shouldn't be eating meat when I really like eating meat."

"Fuck you. I fucking love k.d. lang and I'm not gonna let you dog her", I said, angry-like.

"You don't even fucking know who k.d.lang fucking is."

"Fuck you", I screamed. I got up, stammering around the apartment. I went into his bedroom and came back with a baseball bat. "If you say one more bad thing about her, I'm gonna bash your brains in."

"Aw, Winger, sit your fucking ass down. I'm too fucking stoned to care", he said. And I hit him. Again. And the bat went thud against his stomach and bang across his head.

"You always fucking bug me about stuff you should shut up about, always", I screamed.

"Holy fuck. Holy fuck", I said. I started shaking, and pulled hard on my hair, pulling it upwards. "Too much drugs man, too fucking much." I got up from the bed and started pacing around Ray's bedroom thinking, You can't fucking take him to the hospital, 'cause you fucking killed him, and they'll know about it.

The ambulance pulled up to the building about an hour later, after I told the maintenance guy about Ray. "I, uh, I think something bad's happened to Ray."

He squinted his eyes, like he didn't know what I was talking about. I wanted to tell him, 'cause he knew Ray.

"I think he's dead."

He went "Hmph", like I was crazy or something.

I looked at him totally seriously, and I said, "No man, really. He's really really dead."

He came to the apartment. As soon as he smelled it, he said, "Holy shit", and plugged his nose. Then he saw Ray, and his hand dropped from his nose. His mouth was open. He said, "Fuck. Holy fucking fuck."

The ambulance guys said the same thing. So did the cops. And everybody else who came by to see what was going on. The cops asked me questions about how well I knew Ray and when was the last time I saw him and stuff. Then they put the cuffs on me and hauled me into the back of their car. It smelled better than the apartment.

At the station, the fat guy with the suit leaned over me and said, "Did you kill him?", spitting the words at me.

"I don't know", I said. "I mean, I've been having these blackouts."

"Blackouts?"

"Yeah, I see things. They're like dreams, and sometimes I'm inside them."

"I see. Are any of these dreams violent?"
"Oh Yeah." I smiled big.

I looked up at the fat guy. He turned to the tall guy standing by the door with his hands in his pockets and said, "I think he's staying for a while."

Who Are the “Good People”?

2005-04-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

Range Road Retirement Home is a country resort for mostly Jewish, German, and English folk. The enormous Victorian-style home has been refurbished many times, but it is still filled with trinkets and baubles from the World War One era. Intoxicating aromas of freshly-baked breads and pastries flood the residents' senses throughout each day. Before smoking was banned, you could smell cigar or pipe smoke wafting through the halls.

The front yard is enormous, and lawn chairs are scattered over it; with room to spare for lawn croquet, played by the more active crowd. A white picket fence encircles the perimeter of the grounds, and small colourful flowers line the inside of it. A lush fruit and vegetable garden adorns the right third of the front lawn. Two giant weeping willows shade the entire left third, where the residents can be found lounging, on sunny afternoons, hiding from the sun.

Mr. Abraham Lowenstein and Mr. Waldo Reicher are out on the front lawn every ay, playing chess. Abraham plays a relaxed game, and tries to humour Waldo. Waldo, conversely, fixes himself with eyes glued and gums imparted. No matter the winner, the crescendo of their match is invariably the prologue for an argument.

--Damn you Abraham. You know bloody well that my bishop was one spot to the left. You moved it at your own convenience when I as blowing my nose, Waldo snaps in his old Bavarian accent.

--That's just like you Waldo. Always a conspiracy. Maybe it was the KGB who moved your bishop. Worse yet, have you checked your rook? It's been moved a bloody half acre, or is your glaucoma acting up again?, Abraham answers back in Canadian English.

--Mind your words old man. I'll whoop you with an arm to spare.

--Put down your hands, you imbecile. I'm not going to come
to fisticuffs with an invalid.

Sometimes Waldo has to be peeled off Abraham. It's not that Abraham is a weak man. Even from a sitting position he can fend off blows from Waldo, who gets winded after throwing ten soft punches. When the orderlies come to break up the fight, Abraham says,

--Don't worry about me. I held my own in a couple of wars. I can take care of old Waldo.

Abraham prefers not to answer Waldo's blows with blows of his own. He fears what damage he could do to Waldo, who has suffered through two heart attacks; a man on his last legs.

For his part, Waldo refuses to give into reason, which suggests that he should rest and relax in his last years. But he loathes the forced comfort of the home. Though he attacks Abraham at every turn, everyone feels this is his way of reaching out. He is also a veteran of some wars, and is as tough as nails, though no longer physically strong.

The two men are opposites.

Abraham, at seventy-seven, is strong and physically enduring, and has thick shoulders and a prominent jawline. He is well-postured, thoroughly considerate, and contented. Since his wife died ten years ago, Abraham has delighted in life's simpler pleasures. He has been at Range Road for five years, and everyone there likes him.

Waldo is an obstinate and frustrated eighty-one year old man. He is poorly groomed, and attributes his diminishing abilities to nature. He's been at Range Road for twelve years. No one knows much about his previous life, other than a spouse who died years before, and his five or so children and many grandchildren, who rarely visit. He is hunched in the back, and wears a thick scowl that camouflages his many hurts.

The staff at the home feel they can count on Abraham suffering the brunt of Waldo's frustrations, and that's how they perceive the relationship of the two men. Word is that the two old men are disparate souls, awkwardly joined together by some sort of bond, perhaps of war-time hardships, and now, shared old age.

When Waldo tries to fight Abraham, it is the duty of the head nurse, Mildred Schomberg, to pull him back. She dreads the paper work it would require should he suffer a seizure.

Mildred has been the head nurse at Range Road for eight years. She is a tall and gracious lady, with rosy cheeks and a smile that could soften hard leather. Though mostly amiable, her patience can be exhausted on the drop of an old man's diaper.

She and Abraham long have had an agreement. She says to him:

--You keep on with Waldo like you've been and I'll see to it that there's extra pie for you come dessert time.

She doesn't publicly endure Waldo's moods. She tells him to shape up or ship out, a phrase she figures he's become familiar with in his army days. He usually growls at her.

Waldo feels the whole world is against him, like it was back in WW2, when he was a foot soldier in Hitler's army. Abraham was a Canadian fighter pilot, and, if not for fortune or misfortune, he might have dutifully finished Waldo's bickering forty-nine years ago, while he was on a flying assignment over France, where Waldo was marching.

One day on the veranda, during a rainstorm:

--Do you ever think of the big war Abe?

--C'mon Waldo, it's not becoming of you to be sentimental.

--I want to know.

--I'm an old man, like you. I don't think much at all.

--Answer my question!

--Hell yes. Now shut up!

And this conversation continues on another rainy day:

--You know, it was me you could have been bombing.

--Would have shut you up a long time ago if I did.

--We might have won it you know.

--Won what?

--The war. The big one.

--Waldo, shut up about it before I take back my vow not to put your lights out!

And Waldo fights on, and Abraham always peels the old man off of him from a sitting position.

Mildred dropped by the chess game one day to remind Waldo that he hadn't taken his medication.

--Trying to poison me with that hell candy again, aren't you?

--Come now Mr. Reicher, it's for your health.

--I don't want it!

He threw the chess game in the air with his flailing arms, and got up, ready to fight. Mildred was taken back. The medication was supposed to calm Waldo, but someone had neglected to sneak it into his morning tea, like usual. Mildred wasn't aware of this practice.

--Sit down Waldo. I'll whip you if you hit her, Abraham declared.

--Now Abraham, I'm sure Waldo doesn't want to be violent, Mildred said.

--Waldo, sit down you asshole, Abraham insisted.

Waldo sucked up air and lunged for Mildred. He fell down. Got up and tried again, and again, until it became a running gag. The angry old man had become pooped. An orderly lifted him into his chair, and offered him tea, which Waldo was too exasperated to refuse. He drank his medicine. Meanwhile Abraham roared with laughter. Mildred snickered, then left.

--Making an idiot of yourself again, eh Waldo?, Abraham jibed.

Waldo took a minute to catch his breath.

--I'll win yet, you'll see, he said, gasping.

Everyone at the home wonders why Abraham puts up with Waldo's cantankerous antics. Abraham envisions, painfully, the hundreds or thousands --he doesn't know how many-- of Germans he fired upon from his plane so long ago. He dreads that it could have been Waldo he was bombing. Or anyone else for that matter.

And so, when Waldo behaves particularly badly, Abraham says,

--Waldo, you shape up once and for all, or you'll be living the loneliest last years the devil's ever had the pleasure to witness.

But nothing more.

Still, Abraham wonders in the privacy of his covers if Waldo wants the help of a pitying Canadian ex-pilot.

A hot, hazy, and humid Sunday afternoon round about the middle of August was family day at Range Road. Not just an ordinary family day either. A big and important end of the summer one, where all the relatives who lived anywhere near were expected to attend. They would come to visit, take part in a tour and craft exhibit, and eat from the kosher smorgasbord.

The old people's faces lit up upon seeing grandchildren they had been relegated to eying only twice a year. Everyone, it seemed, had at least two visitors, who, it was assumed, were their offspring. Any more than two were usually grandchildren. They were husked away after a short visit, so that adult matters could be discussed.

Abraham had a host of visitors. Three sets of children and their spouses, and seven grandchildren. By the looks on their faces, it would have seemed that none of them wanted him ever to die. He, in turn, received them most cheerily.

Poor old decrepit Waldo, had had only a handful of visitors in the past couple of years, and he let on like he preferred it that way.

Since Waldo's room was next to Abraham's, and since Waldo didn't appreciate visitors staying long, be it his visitors or anyone else's, he'd begin to bang on the wall that separated his room from Abraham's. Abraham would ignore this rude gesture for the most part, except when it became unending. Then he'd explain to his guests something about his neighbour's having a mental illness.

On this celebratory day in August, near the end of the day, after waking restlessly from a late-afternoon nap, Waldo wheeled himself to Abraham's doorway, hoping to challenge his neighbour to a game of chess. He saw two visitors, Abraham's daughter and her husband, who were enjoying a pleasant conversation with the smiling old man.
--Oh, hello Waldo. Come in here and say hello to Warren and Melissa, Abraham said, as the two visitors turned around to look at Waldo.

--Ahh. You go on with your visiting, Waldo said, without his familiar bitterness.

--So that's Waldo, eh, Warren said, once the old man had wheeled himself away from the door. A multitude of visions of despondent and helpless old people filled his head, and he said to Abraham,

--Missy and I have talked it over Grandpa. We'd like you to come and live with us.

--That's damned thoughtful of you Warren, but I moved in here five years ago to take everyone's worries off me. And for that matter, my worries off them, Abraham said kindly, positively.

--I'm not sure what you mean.

--I mean, there's nothing better for me than to play chess, eat perogies, and smell the flowers in the garden. I'm enjoying myself.

--You sure? asked Melissa.

--Honey, I wouldn't have it any other way, Abraham said, stroking the girl's hand.

A short while later there was a loud clang heard around the home. All the staff ran towards the kitchen. They found Waldo wheeling himself patiently around the cutting table, where a bowl of mixed fruit sat suitably out of his reach. He looked scornfully at the amazed faces. They looked at the enormous steel bowl laying on the floor behind Waldo. He mumbled hoarsely,

--Damn jail. Can't even get a snack.

Nurse Mildred broke from the pack and said patiently,

--Mr. Reicher. You're aware of the rules around here. No clients in the kitchen.

As she went for the wheelchair, Waldo shrieked,

--You can't patronize me any more. I'm not going to let you. I'll have you all shot and killed.

He wheeled himself around to the range where he spotted a butcher knife. Mildred motioned to two orderlies, then she left the room.

She returned with Abraham.

--What in God's name are you trying to prove?" Abraham shouted at Waldo.

--They're trying to finish me, can't you see?

--You've lost your crackers.

--I won't be taken alive. I won't...

The staff stood back while the orderlies kept a firm hold on Waldo. They all stared at Abraham, hoping.

Abraham stared at Waldo until Waldo calmed down.

--You'd all better leave us alone, Abraham announced quietly.

When everyone was gone, Abraham went face to face with Waldo. Waldo hadn't moved an inch since Abraham walked into the room.

--Don't you see? Don't you see?, Waldo whimpered, begging for confirmation.

Abraham put his hands easily into his pants pockets and took a deep breath.

--Waldo old friend, he said in a comforting tone, --before it kills you, you have to realize that the only one out to get you is you.

Waldo stared long and big-eyed right into Abraham's eyes until it appeared he was about to break into tears. Suddenly, he stiffened up, and pulled his dangly legs sharply into the foot slots on his wheelchair. Quickly, his body stiffened, in war-like anticipation. He grabbed the wheels and irately wheeled himself out of the kitchen, past a disconsolate Abraham, who knew he'd failed to get through to the old man.

The staff only stood and watched as Waldo, now determined only to get privacy, rolled toward his room. Once Waldo was inside, a dead thump was heard. Then there was silence, like nothing had happened.

Mildred was the only one who went into Waldo's room, to check that Waldo had no suicidal intentions. She came out in a moment and nodded, and the awe-struck crowd all dropped their shoulders and let out breaths, as if having presumed that Waldo had spent all his energy and was now off to sleep.

The next morning, the mood was reflective and sunshiny at Range Road. Residents grinned from visits they had, and talked about how nice it was to see family and friends. The staff were cleaning up. Abraham stood in front of his full-length mirror, alternately sucking in his gut and letting it out, and examining the difference. Waldo sat at his window, in the heavy old leather chair with the high backrest, his wheelchair cast aside. He stared out at the long road that pointed to domains way beyond the shaded aloneness of his musty room.

The order of the day for the residents was to sit around and drink lemonade, as the intense heat dictated. Abraham was among them, until he noted his friend's peculiar absence. At two p.m., he made his way to Waldo's room, where he found Waldo barely moved out of his early morning position.

--Waldo old boy, why don't you come outside and challenge me to some checkers? he asked.

Waldo just gawked open-mouthed at the window. Abraham went to see what the old man was looking at.

--Do you see a naked lady out there somewhere?, he asked.

Waldo said nothing for a minute. Then he let out a slight sigh. Abraham, who had sat down on Waldo's bed and was wiping the perspiration off his brow, lifted his eyes at the sound.

--They're not going to let me suffer any more, Waldo said, faithfully, as if speaking to a ghost.

--Who're they?

--The good people.

--What in God's name are you going on about now?

--I'll be okay. I don't have to worry.

It was the first time Abraham had ever heard words of redemption from Waldo's. He stared briefly at Waldo, in disbelief. Then he looked out of the window once again. He saw nothing unusual.

--Special for you, Mildred said to Abraham, placing the small plate full of perogies on his t.v. table. --From my Aunt Grace. You can't tell a soul.
Abraham smiled, not convincingly.

--Not like you to be so serious, Mildred said.

--It's Waldo, Abraham said, in a worried tone.

--Did he beat you up?

--He says the good people are coming for him.

--Who are the good people?

--I don't think he knows.

--I don't get you.

--He just sits there staring out into God knows where, looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost is coming to save him from his own private hell.

--All day?

--Yes.

Mildred checked on Waldo several times that day. Each time she went to his room, he sat at his window, same as before, not realizing that someone was there. Each time, she said nothing. She watched the old man carefully, curiously.

The residents retired early that evening. The heat had taken a toll on them. A few relaxed in the common area. The staff cleaned up from supper. Abraham put on his reading glasses, then took them off. With his left pinkie finger, he tried to tighten a screw at the base of the frame. Waldo, who had not moved all day, seemed still to be staring steadfastly out his window. His head was tilted back to where it made a reasonable impression on the leather backrest. His mouth was three-quarters open, his eyes were lightly shut, and his arms rested solidly on the armrests, with all fingers together. The bitterness and angst of his years of stay at Range Road was gone. He was just slightly pale.

Abraham went to see him first thing the next morning. As soon as he looked at the old man, he knew that the good people had taken him away. He stood beside him, and slid his hands easily into his pants pockets. His expression was demure.

--I now know what you meant, was all he said.
He understood that Waldo had gotten the message that heaven was waiting for him. Abraham realized that he should have clued in to the old man's words the day before, but the unanticipated change in Waldo's character blurred his insight. As he stood and stared out the window, all he could think was, Heaven helps those who can no longer help themselves. This thought would not soon leave his head.

Word soon spread throughout the home that Waldo was dead. Some residents expressed good riddance. Others sighed deeply and shook their heads.

--Hell will be a more eventful place now, a maid said to the reception lady.

Everyone knew that Range Road would be a much calmer place.

Mildred was immediately struck by how much less hassle there would be for her now, once the arrangements were made to take Waldo's body from the home. She couldn't help but feel a tiny bit empty, like she'd had her gallstones removed.

Abraham wanted to go for a walk down the road he'd seen Waldo staring at. He wanted to feel a closer connection with something out there. It was not usual for anyone to be allowed to walk the road, but Mildred gave Abraham quick permission.

The combination of thick foreboding trees and muddled shrubbery made Abraham feel immediately enveloped in some sort of magical kingdom. It was heavenly, and healthy-smelling. His nose cleared for the first time in days. He spent three hours out there, just walking on the side of the road, lost in his reflections. Maybe something's out here; maybe someone, he contemplated, but he remained reticent in the knowledge that there are no easy answers. He did, however, believe in an afterlife, and this comforted him.

Some time passed before Abraham stopped to sit on a fallen tree trunk. He looked at a squirrel in the scattered brush, standing erect, with a big berry in its mouth. It's a damned nice place to be, was all that entered his mind, and he was glad that Waldo had found such a restful place to spend time.

The Regret

2005-04-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

A loonie.

An eleven-sided, gold-coloured coin with the queen on the front. On the back: a bird on water, CANADA DOLLAR, 1987.

Russ lifted the coin from his pants pocket only once he was sure he was out of view of the batcave beggar girl with holed fishnet stockings and a sheepish, sweet smile. He was thrown from his whimsy, and couldn't focus on where he was supposed to go next. Perturbed that he just shook his head quickly when she asked if he had any spare change. Tried to dismiss the incident as her having caught him off guard and she'd get money from someone else. Didn't do any good.

Something about the girl gave him the impression that she was much more needy than anyone he'd ever encountered. Maybe it was the way she sat patiently, on cement, at the entrance to the boarded up old pizza shop. Perhaps it was that she was slim, maybe to the point of frail, somehow evading gaunt. He saw that she was pretty; much more so than the girls at the university who dressed the same way. And she sat more upright than them, held a straighter posture, and was evidently more gracious. Hands cupped. Legs together. Not blinking her black marble eyes. This was very odd. He'd remember her fifty years from now, he knew it. Thought of her as the virgin pauper princess, on whom the magic wand of poverty cast a spell. Not her fault that she was homeless, without food, without boyfriend. Nothing she could do about it. Needed help.

All this sifted through his mind as he walked on, ignoring the few oncomers, his eyes glued to the coin held by the forefingers of both his hands, studying every conceivable angle. As he passed into bright sunlight and the rays hit the coin square -causing a penetrating reflection- Russ shielded the coin with one hand and focused in on it. Even as he ambled across the street; even though he hadn't checked the walk signal.

One thing was certain: he wished he would have given the girl his dollar. To say the least. Wished he'd looked her in the eye, like she did to him.

Frank

2005-04-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

Frank lost his position as a consultant with one of Toronto's most prominent engineering firms. An alcohol-induced blunder on the job nearly cost the life of a co-worker, a hardhat having his lunch. Frank was supervising the site. When the heavy piece of un-harnessed machinery came crashing down, inches from the man, Frank was fingered for blame. The ensuing investigation opened questions about Frank's alcoholic tendencies. Shortly thereafter, he was out of a job. Soon no one would hire him. His infrequent wife beatings became regular fare. Soon she left. Then their three children, who were already grown up and out of the house, stopped calling. They all lived very far away.

Frank lives in Montreal. He moved there when his life disappeared into oblivion. He took a tiny apartment on the Plateau, by St. Laurent St., where students and rejects live. His place is a hollowed-out cavern, with white walls and barely sufficient working parts. It has three rooms, one a bathroom where Frank likes to analyze his drunken complexion.

Fifteen years after losing everything, his life these days goes like this:

Thoughts of improbable miracles and lonely holidays are all that remain for Frank, a chronic alcoholic who looks terribly depressed. He has a bad liver and heart and respiratory problems, diagnosed by a doctor. Frank doesn't notice, and doesn't care.

Frank looks like a spry prune. Awkward. He's mournfully flushed pink, and revels in his meatless and ever-decaying facial features. With dim brown eyes and pale crunchy skin and lips, topped with thread-like brown hair, Frank is profoundly groomed, like a strawman. He looks stupid; laughable.
He walks through town day after day, wearing several uncomfortable-looking layers of tattered old clothes, even in temperate weather, never without at least a warm sweater. A smelly rag one, thrown over his crippled-looking body, not matching his deathly red cheeks. Frank especially likes to walk in the rain, even though he doesn't own an umbrella. As he walks, the rain stalks him, dripping sloppily down the polyester outer layer, always landing in the cuff of Frank's pileless corduroy pants.

He stops to stare at fancy configurations in art shop windows and is mesmerized by loaves of bread shaped like pigs and mice in the window of the local boulangerie. Most of all, he likes the electronically-operated Christmas display in the front window of 'The Bay'. Every December, Frank stands for many minutes and ogles at the way the toy animals scamper through the fake snow and how the wooden elves hammer diligently on the fascinating new toys they are busily constructing. He walks east down St. Catherine St., past St. Laurent St., to the place where the ladies of the evening flaunt themselves, and Frank glares open-mouthed at their tits and asses. Sooner or later, he always comes back anxiously to his favourite window. Like a pre-occupied puppie dog.

In his apartment, on the bare old-wood floor in the largest room, he plays with bottles of various shapes and sizes. He makes himself believe that the bottles are tall beautiful buildings whose construction he masterminded. And this one shall be called my masterpiece, Frank thinks, as he places the finishing touches --the last bottle in the glued-together bottle building-- on the piece of crap.

Everything seems normal to Frank. Falling down without being pushed, where an icy sidewalk ceases to be an excuse for walking clumsily, is usual fare. As is strolling through the mall, searching for the perfect cologne sample that would camouflage six straight days without a shower.

Frank never stoops to panhandling. He suffers, days on end without food, never asking for a handout. Not even another bum's sloppy leftovers. He remembers how proud he used to be, a good husband and a playful father, who taught his children the value of hard work. This is advice he used to follow. Now he sleeps a lot. He drinks when he awakes. His bottle is his only friend.

Most people passing him on the street would consider Frank to be a happy meandering drunk, if they considered him at all. Frank certainly doesn't live on the edge. Usually, he can't find the edge. His edge is in a bottle of whisky. The whisky has the edge over Frank.

In recent days, the accomplishment Frank has been the most proud of is his new-found ability to hold his right leg up with his left hand, creating a loop, and jumping through the loop with his left leg. Somehow, he maintains the level of awareness required for proficiency in this trick. He practises it regularly and uses it as a means to prove his virility to himself. But he fails to reason that virile men don't amuse so easily. Men like Frank amuse easily.

One day, home from meandering in the heavy rain and having already sufficiently practised his trick, Frank wonders what to do next. This is one of those times when lost lonely souls undergo an inescapable frustration of having nothing constructive to do. No grown-up men’s toys to play with; no furniture to sit on or television to watch. Not even arm pit farting noises could amuse at a time like this. Frank looks at his mantlepiece, where a photo of his children stands, the last picture he has of them together. How long ago was this picture taken, he wonders? A couple of years back at least. More like five. Frank can't bear to think back any further. He begins to weep. It is evening time; a time when mature adult people long for the comfort of family and friends. But he has no family --none to look at, talk to, or touch-- and friends are only where there's free booze. It's interesting to watch Frank cry. As tears stream forlornly down his cheeks, he pushes his plump behind into a wall, and slowly slides down onto the dusty bare wood floor in his largest room. Cradling his head in his crossed arms, he begins to sob freely, filling the room with the taste of pitiful tears. Suddenly, he stops crying. He starts picking his nose, ignorant of the tears he has shed and the reason he shed them. In the blink of an eye, the urge to peel away hardened mucus from inside his nose has overtaken the urge to weep that had only seconds before overwhelmed him.

Three weeks ago, Frank had a visitor. The visitor talked to him and Frank listened intently. As Frank had no furniture for the visitor to sit upon, he and the visitor talked in the corridor of Frank's apartment. The visitor told Frank of the end of the world and described in detail the last three days of existence of the planet Earth. The visitor had with him books to sell and told Frank of a club he could join, where humans gather to sip tea, burn incense, and discuss with one another their past, future, and alternate lives. Frank was amused by the story and smiled politely. He was shit-faced. He liked having a visitor, and he wanted the visitor to stay. The visitor left. Since the end of existence was near, there were plenty more people to visit and not much time to do it. No longer having a visitor made Frank sad.

Frank ponders the last days of existence. When will they be upon us? What should we do while we wait for them to come? Is there any way to stop it from happening? With these thoughts, it is clear that Frank has not lost his ability to think abstractly. He could probably still perform all the sedentary duties of an engineer. These thoughts last for as long as it takes Frank to walk from his flat to the depanneur for booze, and back.

Frank has managed, through months of empty-headed soul-searching, to piece together one constructive thought. He could get a job. For three months straight he thought this. One day he seriously considered it. In the next two months, he seriously considered it three more times. Throughout the bitterly cold winter that followed, he considered it twice more. Each time, he drank to celebrate; to celebrate that he could still have a constructive thought. When he contemplates a job search, something holds Frank back: He doesn't enjoy moving much anymore. Most companies don't prefer this trait in an employee. Neither do they want employees with drunken and accident-prone backgrounds. The companies with which he considers employment are mostly in the cleaning and maintenance field; cleaning toilets and maintaining a paper towel supply. Frank takes for granted these are the only positions he'd any longer qualify for. It's as if he knows how fucked up he really is.

Frank has dreams about failing a company's competence test for its employees. Subsequently, he would fail the physical examination and the eyesight test. When he dreams intently, he fails the urine examination. Worse yet, Frank makes a total ass of himself in front of his prospective employer. He sits in the prospective employee's interview chair and say nothing. Even when asked simple questions, like "What's your name?", Frank pauses long enough to cause any other man considerable embarrassment, then he burps, "F...r...aaank." For this, he'd hear an abrupt, "Thank you, we'll be in touch."

On his way to an interview one day, Frank stops and sits. Anywhere he can stop and sit is fine with Frank. He stops anywhere. In a parkette just off the main street. He spots a young couple necking, about fifteen feet away, close enough so that he Frank can see their lips colliding and their tongues swirling. As the man's hand reaches for the girl's left breast, Frank recalls sharing a similar escapade with his ex-wife, long before they married. Her breasts were smaller than this girls', he thinks, and watches the girl's hand slide discreetly between her lover's legs, in full view of Frank and probably no one else. A tear drips down Frank's face and onto the grass as he reminisces about days when his hands could grasp a breast firmly and his heart could love sweetly. He thinks about how beautiful his wife looked on their wedding day, and how he couldn't wait to take her, naked, and make her pregnant. As he looks away from the young couple, he thinks about his children, all grown up, independent. He wishes to hug them, any one of them. It doesn't matter which one; he can't recall their names. He weeps, his tears filling his drunken eyes. He cries silently, as he has no audience to cry to. He gets up, still crying, and starts walking.

Too depressed to make any sense of his day, Frank begins to wander aimlessly, having squandered one more in a long line of squandered job opportunities. Finding himself too tired to walk anymore, he stops to look at a t.v. in a shop window. There are rich and famous people expounding on how much money they have and how hard they worked to earn this money, to a famous interviewer who also is familiar with fame and fortune. They look lovely, he thinks, and soon plods wearily home.

The next morning, Frank begins to drink. He continues drinking all day. Two more days pass without event. Frank drinks endlessly.

The next morning

Last night Frank drank Scotch. He drank more scotch than ever before. He fell down and hit his head. No more tears. No more burps. No more farts. Frank was dead.

Now Frank's children visit him regularly.

Ache

2005-04-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

"I'm sorry Ms. Ryce, but there's nothing I can do for you", the doctor insisted. You've made it clear you don't want any drugs. I don't know how else I can help you."

Marlena sank even further in her chair. From the pit of her melodramatic hell, she ached to scream at the doctor. She yearned for the doctor to know how profoundly fatigued she was and had been for two years now; how utterly hopeless and devoid of lifeblood her life has been; and that she aches a little more every day because she knows of no one who thinks that what she is going through is anything more than a woman's problem, one of life's inevitable road bumps; or simply just a figment of her imagination.

The doctor simply didn't see Marlena's torment. And Marlena was too drained to express it. She wanted to cry, but only the faint whisper of a tear trickled down her face. The doctor looked concerned just then, but only because the look of a woman in tears annoyed her. She forced a, "Please cheer up, Ms. Ryce." The entreaty got no response.

Marlena was doubled over in exhaustion now, and her short, thick, greying hair fell forward, as she buried her face in her lap and hugged both arms around the back of her head.

A minute later the doctor was gently escorting her out of the office, past a full waiting room, and onto the street. "Try to get some rest", was the last thing she said. Marlena nearly fell down on the sidewalk the second the doctor let her go.

There was no strength left in Marlena. Maybe she should have called someone; a friend to help her just to get back home. But because of the illness, she'd lost most of her friends. They thought she was faking. Those that remained contended that they just didn't have enough time to deal with all her complaints. So she trudged, a meagre step at a time, up the sidewalk.

Each half a step overwhelmed her, and it was many long minutes before she came to a bench. When she finally manipulated herself down into it, she was immediately overcome with a profound appreciation of benches. She painfully lifted her head, only to see a grey and austere afternoon skyline. And the few people who passed by, she noticed, looked the same way: stern, sober.

She didn't lift her head again for a while, and then only because she felt chilled. She pulled her coat shut tight and pulled her scarf out of her handbag. She wrapped the long piece snug around her neck and face. It was only October, and not cold, but because of her chronic sore throat and fear of catching a cold, she took that scarf everywhere. She did the same with her mittens. Two buses passed, and though they would have taken her straight home, Marlena just sighed at the sight of them.

Now it was mid-afternoon, and Marlena finally got off that bench. She remembered a cafe just up the street. Inside, the comely waiter asked for her order. She stared blankly at him and asked if they had coffee. He smiled and said yes. She asked if she could have one with no sugar, just a spot of cream, not too hot. Sensing her derangement, he said yes.

Having finished her coffee, Marlena fumbled around her handbag for change, but there was none. She was too fatigued to be frustrated, so when the waiter came, she explained that she was ill, and had forgotten her money. He smiled and told her it was no problem. As she left, she vaguely noticed the waiter and a waitress watching her move painfully.

She climbed the steps of the bus slowly, her exhausted limbs not cooperating, and soon met the empty eyes of the a full load of passengers. She struggled not to gasp, but one came suddenly anyway. It always did these days when she felt she would be surrounded by people. No one in the front of the bus made room for her. Instead, they looked sullenly at her, so she felt. She only looked at the ground, to make sure it was still there, because by now, she could barely feel it with her feet. Marlena straggled to the back of the bus, and still no one moved for her. So she patiently steadied herself against a rail as the bus accelerated. The dazzling young lady seated beneath her struggled to get away from Marlena's thighs, which were pressed against the young lady because Marlena needed the support to help her stand. With each move the young lady made, Marlena gasped and gripped more tightly to the rail. And she wondered how much strength she had left to grip at all. She heard someone say something about the bag lady, and Marlena didn't need to look over to know he was speaking of her. She wanted to be dead. She hadn't thought that she looked that bad, but it certainly occurred to her now. Since the onset of her illness, she chose her clothes to be loose and warm, never much considering their appearance. She tightened her lips around her pained gums, and she felt a tear trickle down her face. Because of her fear of falling down, she didn't try to get and hand free to wipe it away. She just locked her head in a downcast position, not daring to look up even long enough to see how close her stop was. She wondered if she could remember where it was. Her head was in a deep brain fog.

Soon, a seat became available, until an abrasive teen rushed in there ahead of her. He gave her a look like she should move faster next time. Marlena sucked up a big breath and opened and closed her eyes a few times. She felt she'd better do this, because she sensed herself close to the point of passing out. A large man shoved by her, and mumbled something to the effect that he wouldn't have had to push her if she wasn't in the pathway. For a second, she kept grip of the rail. Then it slipped out of her hand, and only the throng of new passengers all pushed tightly together kept her vaguely erect. Marlena made a horrible, frightening noise. A tall businessman took note, and yelled for people to get out of her way, because maybe they were crushing her. There was a commotion, and even more so when the bus halted to a stop. The businessman lifted Marlena under the arms, and scolded a shocked young boy wearing headphones into giving up his seat. The man set Marlena down, and asked her if everything was okay. She said no, and let out a faint, nervous giggle. He asked where her stop was. She racked her brain, and finally came up with the answer, "three stops after the bridge", but she wasn't sure if that was her stop or someone else's.

The man continued to stand by her side. Though she couldn't express it, she was very glad for his help. The man soon told her that her stop was near, and again lifted her out of her seat. She felt rag-like and ridiculous, but she made no attempt to help herself. He clamoured for people to get out of his way, and pushed Marlena ahead of him through the irritated crowd. When the bus stop came, he eased her down one stair at a time, and got off with her.
Marlena scanned the surroundings, and was most relieved to find them quite familiar. The man asked if she'd like help getting home. Suddenly, Marlena was filled with a resolve not to accept any more help. It likely came from the relief of not being on the bus any more. She straightened up and smiled at the man and said sincerely, "No. Thank you". He nodded back just as sincerely. And she went on her way.

She trod about a hundred or so steps when she felt quite numb again. She wondered why she ever went out this morning. Sensing that her apartment was just around the next corner, Marlena pictured the cramped, untidy dwelling. She thought about how, in the last two years, she'd been relegated to spending most of her time in the apartment; hopelessly lonely, pathetically absentminded, and terminally sleepless. She sighed. The thought of giving the place the cleaning it so badly needed seemed to cramp her shoulders and arms, and suddenly she came to the grave realization of why she left it this morning: She just had to get out.

A Game of Tactics with a Moron

2005-04-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

The moron frog cast a spell on me so well that he might have considered it hilarious, had he had a good sense of humour.

He was a moron because I had him cornered and he didn't seem interested in doing anything about it. He just stood there, facing the tree base, his fours seemingly locked. He'd hopped into the area between two jutting roots of the giant willow, and now he was stuck. Maybe he knew it. I don't know; I couldn't see his face. I was crouched behind him, studying his lumpy backside, fascinated by his puffing cheeks; mesmerized by his incomprehensible lack of movement.

I figured he should be desperate. He should leap, over and over onto the tree base, banging his tiny head each time, yet never fatiguing in his bid to escape certain capture. But he was still, the wily little moron. He was still, and I didn't have a clue why.

Suddenly, it was 1979, in the Dalewood schoolyard. Steve Kerfoot was cocky and pimple-faced, and the consummate athlete. He was in my face, cursing me. I didn't know it, but my touch football team had challenged his to a rumble. Now I was the only team member he could find. I was tall and skinny, with big ears and no courage, and I'd just walked out of the school. He pushed me once, enough to startle me. A small crowd gathered. My voice was shaking as I asked him what he wanted me for. He put his finger in my face, and spit the explanation at me. He was out to get whoever he could find. I begged for mercy. He was remorseless. He pushed me over and over, backing me up each time, until he was sure that he'd succeeded in terrifying me. I was cowering, and was near tears. "Don't mess with me again, you got it?" he shouted. I nodded wildly. A smug look covered his faced. Then he ambled away, scot-free, his teammates lauding him. It was over and I was humiliated.

This frog made me think of what Steve did to me, and that's why I didn't assault him. I felt for him and his compromising situation. My plan was to play him like a game of chess. I'd move only after he'd completed his move. We were immersed in a battle of tactics. It was my cunning versus his instincts and agility. For now, I crouched behind him and watched him, and awaited his next move.

My knees were sore, I needed to stand. But how was I going to stand without his interpreting it as an attack? I'd be humiliated if he got spooked out and leapt away undetected. It would be Steve Kerfoot all over again. Only worse. Now I was twenty-six, strong and brave.

Slowly, I backed up a step and sat down on the ground; and backed right onto a tree root. It grooved too perfectly into the valley between my cheeks, and I winced; but I was careful, and didn't make a sound.

It was 1991, in the examining room of the medical clinic in west end Montreal. In my underwear, I waited for the doctor. Scheduled was my test for lactose intolerance. I had no idea what the test was. He came in and told me I'd have to remove my underwear. Maybe that's why I don't recall anything about the doctor. Faced with the prospect of a test involving my naked flesh, I think it is understandable that I wouldn't recall anything but my apprehension. I watched the doctor as he walked over to his equipment shelf. When he turned around, he had in his hand a cylindrical object. It was long, round, hollow, and plastic, and looked a lot like a turkey baster.

I was starting to change my mind. Maybe the frog wasn't a moron.

Decree: Out of Necessity

2005-04-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

Emptying bedpans full of old men's urine. Changing sheets that have been shat upon. Do this; do that; hurry, before they die! No glory in any of it.

What the hell am I doing here? These words raced into my head; a frail reminder of the vibrant dignity in me, that, as a youth, I could retrieve at will; but now has sunk to the pit of my gut, where it has stuck itself, refusing to function.

The personnel office is ten feet wide and twenty-three feet long. I figured that out in the first twenty-three minutes. There are sixteen ceiling tiles; seven of which are either damaged or appear ready to fall about. Through the one that is already half out, I see a pipe. It is green, and there are droplets of water stuck to it. They look cool; cold even. If the pipe bursts, that is the only way I can assure myself of not being hired.

The last trace of vibrant dignity in me longs for that pipe to burst. It wills it to burst. But the force is too meek. And I'm no telepathic.

A tiny man in a white doctor's jacket has just walked out of the door that says "Medical Personnel Only". He bolts across the room, and out. The heavy door closes slowly behind him. Finally, I hear it lock back into place.

Lock. A word I suddenly associate with its synonyms: impound; incarcerate; jail.
There could be worse jobs, right? A ditch-digger. A cotton picker. Bound in shackles, banished to a chain gang?

But the white squalor in here is numbing. There's a tickle at the back of my throat. I try to swallow it down. It stays in place.

A well-dressed young girl, about twenty, with dimples and trust in her eyes comes in and sits down across from me. I watch her confidently push her brown bangs out of her eyes. She pries any remaining sleep out of her eyes. She doesn't look at me. That's good, because I don't want her to contract my cynicism; not if she feels she has anything to gain by being here.

I'm here only for the nine seventy-five an hour advertised in the paper. Just to pay the bills. So it goes. It doesn't have to be pleasant. Or even bearable. But this job has to keep the cable bill paid, so I can relax with a ball game. That's all I need. My ex-wife can have the rest. It's alright. I don't resent the money she gets. It goes to the kids, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep their stomachs full. God knows I don't have the cash to take them any of the places I'd like my kids to see: out west, to the Rockies; and down to the Grand Canyon. And Disneyland. That would be the ultimate.

As I regain consciousness of where I am and what I'm here for, I take note of the tickle in my throat. It's perhaps a lump now.

Lump. In the here and now, it means a dull, heavy, awkward, firm, irregular mass.

The girl has been here just long enough that she's become restless. She walks over to the magazine rack and pulls one out. I don't think I could bear to read. Not about how frantic, bordering on maniacal, things are in the lives of the rich and famous. Nor about how clear my skin ought to be; if only I were young, pretty and stylish enough that it should matter.

I want someone to interview me now, before part of my face breaks into a nervous twitch. I strain to listen for some noise; any noise. If I heard even a pin drop, I'd think it must be the pin falling from the hand of the person about to interview
me; and he or she is coming toward the waiting room, walking slowly and demurely, like hospital staff always walk, as far as I can recall.

But I can't hear anything, except for the shrill murmur of my ever-quickening heartbeat. I hear the girl's breathing, and her gasps of frustration every time she looks at her watch. I look at my own watch. My interviewer is twelve minutes late, and no has bothered to inform me that he or she is even here. Still, I don't feel frustrated.

Frustration, in this context, could only take place if I cared at all about getting this job.

But I don't care, because it's just another job in a long line of jobs.

I ask the girl to please tell the interviewer, should he or she show up, that I'll be right back. I walk down the all white hallway toward the water fountain I saw on my way in. Down an adjacent hallway, I see the bulky backside of an old woman, hobbling slowly, bent on her cane. In a few seconds, as I bend down to take a drink, I realize that I'm disturbed by my lack of reaction to the sight of her. The lump in my throat impedes the progress of water to my throat. I put my mouth closer to the fountain base, urging the water to flood my mouth, hoping for more of it to enter my throat. More water. Please, more water.

It should be easier than this, this drinking, especially with a fountain gushing like this one.

Coffee With The Ponytail Man

2005-04-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

Based on a title inspired by Dr. Theodore Venema

Huddled by the water cooler, one co-worker whispered to the other, “I just saw the pony tail man”. “Oh yeah?,” the other returned, “Who’d you suppose he’s here for?” “No one in my department”, the first one said, “we were just commended for our work.” “Hey maybe it’s me”, the second one laughed, “maybe it’ll get me outta alimony.” They bantered about the possibilities, and agreed to keep each other informed as they separated for the day’s work.

At the same time, company president Richard Garson and the pony tail man entered the office of Paul Angeloni, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Angeloni had been brought in a year earlier to boost the sales of Gar-Phonics’ hearing aids. He came with an exceptional record for reviving business. He was, you might say, a sales rejuvenation expert. But sales had not improved as hoped, and word around Gar-Phonics was that something would be done. Garson, not often seen around the office, had been visiting recently.

The pony tail man was a discharge specialist, brought in to console those who were let go, to ensure that they left their work premises safely, without incident. Phil Roman was his name. He was slight and pale, yet sturdy, with a runaway beard and long straight hair tied back. A psychedelic man with a serene demeanor. He came up with the idea for this job about a year ago, when a friend told him about a horrible experience his firm had letting go of a disgruntled employee. The man locked himself in his office and began destroying the company’s computer files. By the time they got him out, the damage was done: the company’s files were in ruins. Roman, who’d worked with troubled youth, was adept at dealing with people in high stress situations, and he wanted a change of career. In researching the marketability of a discharge specialist, he discovered there was a great necessity for a person like this. He figured that he could rent himself out, on a contract basis, to companies that demonstrated a need.

In recent months, word-of-mouth advertising had increased demand for his services so much that Roman made his job full-time. He had been invaluable in helping many companies deflect the agitation of discharged employees.

Garson called the pony tail man for precisely this reason. Having used his service before, Garson realized how much anguish was alleviated by having him there. He knew the pony tail man was the right man for the job. Today, his role was to deflect Angeloni’s impending agitation.

Angeloni was not a people person. He could be counted on to be gruff and tactless. This was his downfall with most of his underlings, the sales and marketing staff. He’d lost their support after four months on the job. Angeloni had not previously worked in the health care field, and clearly lacked the soft touch that the hearing aid business required. He was used to selling soft drinks, razors, tires. He was in the wrong business, and he lacked the perceptiveness to realize it.

The pony tail man stood beside a poised Mr. Garson, who looked the assured Angeloni in the eye and asked him to sit down. Garson was irritated by Angeloni’s unfailing confidence. He couldn’t believe that he ever hired a man so unenlightened. The pony tail man sensed Garson’s feelings. He couldn’t believe that Angeloni didn’t seem to know what was coming.

Angeloni made small talk and took his time to sit down. He was treating this as a social visit. Garson gave the pony tail man a disbelieving look and the pony tail man returned a knowing nod. They stood while Angeloni leaned forward in his swivel chair. “I may as well get to the point”, Garson began. “Won’t you sit down?”, Angeloni said. “Thank you, no”, Garson said curtly. Angeloni looked at the pony tail man like he was wondering when he was going to be introduced. Garson saw this and said, “This is Phil Roman. He would like to take you out for coffee.” Angeloni began to look perplexed. “You know that business hasn’t been good”, Garson said. “Sure, that happens in summertime”, Angeloni stated. “Yes”, Garson said, “but that’s not the issue here.” There was silence enough to hear the clamour outside. “We’re letting you go”, Garson said straightly.

Angeloni remained composed for what seemed an inordinate amount of time. Garson and the pony tail man stood fixed in their spots, cautiously awaiting Angeloni’s response. Angeloni remained unflustered. He gave the pony tail man a quick look. Then he sat back in his chair, swiveled around a bit with his fingers interwoven, his forefingers and thumbs together, creating a church steeple effect, the forefingers meeting at his bottom lip, where they pushed upward, creating the illusion of deeply contemplative thought. Even his strangely squinted eyes indicated that he was deep in thought. But Angeloni was incapable of such thought. He was merely trying to decide how to best preserve for himself the maximum amount of dignity, for Paul Angeloni, with all his faults, somehow always managed to remain dignified. He was dignified the time sales associate Ian Lockyer came to him asking for two days off. Lockyer’s wife had just given birth to their second child, and he wanted to help her set up shop in their new home. They had recently moved from Edmonton, and hadn’t had time to settle in before Lockyer started work. Angeloni had looked at Lockyer with patronizing eyes. “Your wife needs help with the baby?” Angeloni said. Before Lockyer had time to respond, Angeloni said, “That’s her job. We need you here.”

Garson became irked by Angeloni’s stalling, so he said, “We’ll need you out of here in one hour. We’ll contact you in a week to settle up final matters.” He turned around and walked out the door.

It was a while before Angeloni made a move. Finally, he got up slowly, pushed his chair aside, stretched his arms above his head, took a deep breath, bent down to touch his toes, came back up and did some more odd stretches with his arms, and finally whipped his arms around in a frenzied windmill fashion, as if trying to propel himself into motion. His breathing became short and pointed, and he repeatedly made faint, distressing whistling sounds. All the while, he determinedly avoided looking at the pony tail man. The pony tail man let Angeloni alone. He was ready to step in if Angeloni’s actions should become violent or dangerous. Until then, he seemed content to lean against the wall and wait.

Angeloni pushed hard against his desk, exerting himself to stretch his calves. Then he pulled his legs up, one then another, toward his back to stretch his hamstring muscles. Now he began shuffling around the items on his desk. He picked up the monogrammed brass name plate he had custom made. He studied it, for error it seemed. The pony tail man watched him subtly, as if he was wondering what Angeloni might do with the item. Angeloni put it down easily and picked up the elaborately-crafted cherrywood miniature desk-size grandfather clock. He studied its face, and soon moved his eyes downward, where he became entranced by the fleet swinging of the slim copper pendulum. In a mere minute, his face lost its determined guise, his shoulders drooped, and he closed his eyes with avowed resignation. For the first time in his life, Paul Angeloni was regretful. Like the losing pitcher of the seventh game of the World Series, he was benumbed by the realization that he had failed, and the reason why he failed. He didn’t do well enough. Strangely, he wasn’t bothered that everyone would know that he had failed. What bothered him was that he’d never before failed to produce; he’d always delivered the goods. In his own mind, he was the best damn bottom line man in the business. Now, he was a failure. Until this very moment, he had proved himself thoroughly incapable of ceding to this fact.

Angeloni showed no outward emotion as he lifted his head and looked at the pony tail man. “So where are we going for coffee?” he said stoically, surprising the pony tail man with his sudden apparent acceptance of his fate. “About a mile away”, Phil Roman said. “And what do we do there?” Angeloni asked. “We talk”, Roman said. “Can we go now?” Angeloni asked. Roman glanced at the items on the desk and said, “Sure”. “Good. I’m thirsty”, Angeloni said.