Thirteen Crucifixions, 58

The day promised rain.  They were almost in May and the heady fragrances of the warming damp earth, the new flowers and new leaves were nearly drowning Glen in ecstasy.  Foolish though it was, since he was going to be on his feet for eight hours, he was walking home.  It was only two miles.  He needed the exercise.  He needed time to digest his inordinately huge breakfast.  It was nice of his mother to treat him.  She always did.  Some things never change.  He also wanted to digest their conversation.   Increasingly their visits were attaining the character of a mutual confessional.  He had never seen her before in such a state of obvious and naked need.  He had always known her as capable, composed, reticent and well-mannered.  Secretive, or at least discreet.  They had been spending a lot of time together lately.  Glen habitually routed his walks so as to include as many tree-shaded streets, parks and heritage houses as possible.  He almost always preferred walking alone.  It wasn’t that he disliked people.  He liked being alone.  He enjoyed others but still preferred his own company.  He was, perhaps, selfish?  And what was wrong with that?  People drained him.  He almost hid when he saw Greg at the Pitstop last night.  Occasionally they had encountered each other on the street.  In Toronto, when they were both nineteen, they nearly had sex once when he quite by accident found himself sleeping one night on his couch.   When they were introduced Glen couldn’t begin to describe the sense of mutual connection.  He at first wanted Greg, almost desperately.  He would time his visits with Colin, Greg's lover then, so as to include Greg as often as possible.  Greg, at the time a wildly beautiful boy with long tawny hair, didn’t seem particularly interested in him.  They began to meet regularly in a rather hip basement café on Charles Street where Greg was discreetly selling pot.  He had just given up smoking, himself and wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible.  He had, he admitted, been at first intensely jealous of Glen, on Colin’s account,  who had a voracious appetite for sex with as many people as he could bed, until they finally met each other.  Then he realized how much he liked Glen.  He said that was the only way he could successfully conquer his jealousy.  Befriending and forming alliances with his lover’s various conquests. became his method for coping with his lover's promiscuity. “This way”, he said, “I can see that they are also human beings, and if they are human that gives me at least an opportunity to at least learn to like them.”  Greg was a Jesus Freak, a back-slidden Christian.  He felt intensely wrong about being in a gay relationship.  He moved from Vancouver to Toronto with his boyfriend.  He hated the winter in Toronto.  He was just “rediscovering Christ.”  and already the ph. of their relationship was changing.  Glen found him focussed, intense and frighteningly intelligent.  “There are powers, there are realities”, he had said, “that we cannot fool, no matter how hard we try to.  Everything we say, do, think, is recorded somewhere, and this will surely judge us.  You are a brother to me, Glen, and I will carry you in my heart forever.”  Greg soon returned to Vancouver.  The following year Glen “died” in the fire then came back to life again.   Back in Vancouver he tried unsuccessfully to find Greg.  They met again, a few years later, at St. Jude's Anglican Church.  They spoke sometimes over coffee following mass but Greg always seemed to be in the midst of a great internal struggle, as if he was living in the teeth of a lion and they saw little of each other.

            At the Pitstop, last night, they couldn’t stop talking.  Which was why, at first, Glen had tried to conceal himself.  The fusion was still there.  And Greg had promised that he’d carry him in his heart forever.  They seemed to share the same magnetic field.  By simply being in each other’s presence the voltage became almost intolerable.

            Clarke Park was on a hill, and with its many tall trees it resembled an open woodland.  A balding, rather handsome man of Glen’s age was seated on a bench, surrounded by trees. A raven was calling.

            “Glen.”

            “Hi Greg.”

            “Come sit if you have time.”

            “I haven’t seen you since last night.”

            “So how’s it going?”

            Greg always asked one how it was going so as to convey that he was actually interested, that he expected to be told everything.

            “I just had breakfast with my mom.”

            “How is your mom?”  Likewise, when asking about anyone else.  One got the impression that whatever pain one was carrying, that Greg felt entitled to somehow share in it.  This had always put Glen a little on edge around him.

            “She’s kind of distraught.  She just broke up with her boyfriend.  He threatened her last night with rape.”

            “So you were offering her some TLC?”

            “Mothers need that at times.”  Why did he suddenly feel defensive around him?

            “Tell me about it.  When my grandmother died last month I didn’t even think about it.  I just headed right over to my mom’s after she called me, and we had a drink together and just talked about Grandma.”

            “Well, she did lose her mother.”  Glen knew that he sounded testy.

            “That she did.”

            “How is she now?”

            “Doing okay.  She hides it well.”

            “Not in front of the children.”

            “Really.”

            “What’re you up to today?”

            “I start work at five.”

            “What are you doing again?”

            “Market research.  I phone perfect strangers and ask them all sorts of nosy intrusive questions about their purchasing habits.”

            “You like it?”

            “Not really.  I get along with my boss better these days.  He tried to come across at first really intimidating but then I just started laughing at him, and now he doesn’t seem to take himself so seriously anymore.  One girl there is a real idiot, total redneck from Calgary.  I came in one day with an umbrella because it was pissing rain and she says, ‘In Calgary the only men who use umbrellas are gay.’  Just the other day, during our break, I commented about the need for people to mobilize more in order to resist political oppression, especially regarding the nuclear arms race, and the stupid bitch says, ‘I didn’t know there was a communist in the room.’  As soon as I replied, ‘Honey, I’m way further left than that’, she just shut right up.  I also get some pretty interesting respondents on the phone.  Like this gay guy who tries to pick me up on the phone.  It was so weird.”

            “Must have been funny.”

            “I’ll say.  I wish they’d give us a survey about tampons.”

            “That’d be different.  But they’d probably just let women make the calls.”

            “Or how about one for men only?  Like jock spray?”

            “I’m sure you need the encouragement.”

            Greg had changed in nine years.  He was heavier, solidly built with thinning hair.  No longer elfin, but still vaguely magical.  His clothing no longer bespoke fin de siècle  decadence.  He was dressed sensibly and handsomely today in a blue and white vertically striped button down shirt and blue jeans.  He no longer wore jewelry.  He looked mature, fair-minded and reliable.  Still he walked, moved and sat as though he still carried a lot of concealed anguish.  The house he lived in across the street was much bigger than it appeared in the front.  He occupied the entire basement.  It was dark, low-ceilinged, with an enormous kitchen and a smaller wood-panelled living room.  Greg made coffee, which they both had dark, bitter and full-strength.  They sat in the livingroom, where Glen looked at three large batiks of Greg’s making, hung side by side, of brilliantly coloured birds.  He was particularly curious about the white wooden chair with the rocks in its leather seat.  It looked scuffed and beat-up, like it had seen better days.  On the wall above the chair hung a small brass and wood crucifix, underneath which a small reproduction of a stain-glass rendition of the Holy Family had been taped.  The arrangement had a curiously sacred feel about it.

            “It’s like a household altar”, Greg explained.  “The chair was a gift from a friend five years ago when I was living in a house-keeping room on Fifteenth and Cambie and had virtually no furniture.  I had moved there after eight months spent living in a rather strict kind of Christian community.  I left in disgrace, they were accusing me of insubordination.  It was really traumatic, and I still don’t think I’ve really recovered yet.  But, anyway, after spending a few weeks on my mom’s couch in Richmond I found this place.  I ended up being next door neighbour to this lesbian feminist who I befriended a couple of years earlier when we were in a house together on Fourteenth and Oak.  So it was kind of a strange coincidence, I think, for both of us.  She was recovering from a rape just when she moved into the previous place, and somehow she got to trust me, and we became really good friends.  Well, here we were again, next door neighbours in a second house.  It was really great having her around again.  I’ve always lived easier with women than with men.  Well, during this time, I was attending a house church full of radical Mennonites.  Among them was a famous Canadian artist  Monica Epp.”

            “You actually KNEW Monica Epp?”

            “Oh yeah.  We were great friends for a while.  Anyway, she gave me that chair.”

            “What about the rocks?”

            “About two years ago, it seemed that whenever I felt moved to pray for someone, I would instinctively pick up a small stone as a memorial for him or her.  So I would put the stones on the chair, as a means of sanctifying my memory of this person, and as a perpetual offering of this one to God.  After a while I felt led to stop doing this.  Then I felt led to count the stones.  There were forty.  Just like the forty days and forty nights of Jesus fasting in the wilderness.  Or the forty years of the Children of Israel wandering in the desert.  So I guess this all commemorates as well that I’m currently in a kind of wilderness or desert wandering myself.  Which includes my involvement at St. Jude’s.”

            “You do very beautiful batik work, Greg.  Have you thought of painting?”

            “I don’t think I could do it.”

            “Maybe one day?”

            “Why?”

            “Monica Epp is a fairly well-known artist.”

            “Yes.”

            “She gave you this chair and now you have these forty stones on it beneath a crucifix and picture of the Holy Family on the wall.”

            “So?”

            “You don’t know what this means?”

            “Can you give me a hint?”

            “You are one day going to be a famous artist?”

            “Don’t I have to be dead first?”

            “It’s prophecy.  You have this thing set up like an altar.  Do you pray in front of it?”

            “I do, actually.”

            “Forty means preparation.  When I met you in the park did you hear anything unusual?"

            “A raven.”

            “Bird of prophecy.  A dead raven fell at my feet the other night.  Near English Bay.”

            “I was baptized at English Bay when I was fifteen.”

            “I pulled a feather from its wing.”

            “Throw it away.”

“I just might.”

“What do you think it means?”

            “I wish I knew.”

            “Any word about Bryan?”

            “I haven’t called the hospital since yesterday.”

            “You may use my phone if you’d like to.”

            “Do you have the number?  No?  I’ll have to call Directory Assistance.”

            “Go for it.”

            “Yes, I’d like the number for St. Paul’s Hospital, patient information, please.  Thanks.”  Glen scribbled the phone number on a small piece of paper he pulled from his pocket.  He dialed the hospital.  Hello, I’d like some information, please about one of your patients: Bryan Verhoeven—V-E-R-H-O-E-V-E-N.  Yes.  I see.  At what time?  Yes, thanks.  Yes, thank you.  “Bye.”

            “How is he?”

             “He died at 5:30 this morning.”

            “Was he a good friend?”

            “Yes.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Nothing to be sorry about.  Looks like Rochelle’s going to be up for at least manslaughter.  It was really a weird friendship, you know?  He seemed to be in love with me.  I guess I felt guilty about not being able to reciprocate.  He tried to mentor me. He was actually very good to me, as friends go.  I think that it’s really sad how unappreciated he was.  And so pathetic the way he was constantly striving for recognition, for approval.  He wanted so badly to be wanted, to be loved.  To be needed.  He could be so abrasive and controlling, but I’ve never seen anyone love other people with Bryan’s kind of raw intensity.  It was scary at times, but only because it was so fucking real.” 

            “Are you okay?”

            “Sorry.  I’ll pull myself together in a bit.”

            “It’s okay, there’s no need to apologize.”

            “Want me to go?”

            “I want you to stay, please.”

            “Did you know him well?”

            “Not really.  There was always a kind of distance between Bryan and me.  But that’s been my experience of St. Jude’s in general.”

            “It’s because you’re authentic.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You have a relationship with God.  Why do you think I’ve  always tried to avoid you?”

            “But so do you, Glen.”

            “I do.  But I don’t acknowledge it.  You do.”

            “How can you not acknowledge something so obvious as God?”

            “And it’s also because you’re not afraid to ask strategic questions.”

            “It’s the only way I’m going to grow.”

            “Are you in love with Pierre?”

            “That waiter at the Pitstop?  No.  I like him.  He’s a bit of a mystery to me.”

            “He seems fond of you.  Want me to say anything to him?”

            “I wrote him a letter.  Ask him if he’d like to join both of us for coffee.”

            “Look out for Stephen.  Don’t trust him whatever you do.”

            “How’d you make out with him?”

            “Not well.  He hit on me, severely.  I didn’t respond.  He left.”

            “The cuter they think they are the nastier they get when you turn them down.”

            “Really.”

            “How did you start going to St. Judes’?”

            “Bryan.  You?”

            “Fred.  That guy I hang out with there.”

            “Older, heavy, with a beard?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I always assumed that you two are lovers.”

            “Not him!”

            “Okay.  Good friends.  But tell me about you and St. Judes’.”

            “Not much to say.  Fred thought it should be my next stop along the way.”

            “And you agreed.”

            “I used to take him pretty seriously.”

            “Yes.”

            “He’s been like a mentor to me.”

            “And he still is?  How did you guys meet?”

            “We’ve known each other a long time, for over ten years.  First he broke a mirror, then seven years later, I broke one.”

            “Sounds a little like love-hate.”

            “We love to hate each other, and we hate to love each other.”

            “So tell me more.”

            “Everything?”

            “Yes.  Tell me everything.”

            “About?”

            “You.”

            “Fred and I first met when I was, I don’t know, seventeen?”

            “Under what kind of auspices?”

            “Ever hear of Hobbit House?”

            “No.”

            “A Christian coffee house run by First Baptist Church on Burrard and Nelson.”

            “Are or were you ever a Baptist?”

            “No.  Just a Jesus Freak.”

            “You’ve never told me your entire story.”

            “You’ve never shut up long enough for me to have a chance to tell you my entire story.”

            “Sorry about that.”

            “Think nothing of it, dear.  Fred often accuses me of the same sin.”

            “So, what happened?”

            “At the very beginning?  I was fourteen.  In grade nine.  I was already using drugs.  Nothing heavy, just pot and hash.  And of course alcohol.”

            “What was your family life like?”

            “Shitty.  Divorced parents, violent older brother and mother, alcoholic father who diddled me when I was little.”

            “Are you pretty angry about it?”

            “It was one vast, grey, damp, cold miserable hell.”

            “Tell me something, please.”

            “Maybe.  What would you like to know?”

            “This is not an easy question to ask.  But, why did you and I never make love?

            “It wouldn’t have been right.  Please don’t ask me why.  I just know this was a line that we shouldn’t cross.”

            “Same here.”

            “I always felt that we were like two fellow travellers, fellow-pilgrims if you will.”

            “Yet, we knew next to nothing about each other.  Tell me, Greg, does this make us like brothers?”

            “I’ve never thought of it.  But I guess it does.”

            “I have to leave for work, but I would really like us to, I would really, really, really like us to talk again.  Maybe every week?”

            “That works well for me.”