Derek
Merkeley wasn’t surprised that Alice didn’t want to see him tonight. Soon it would be over. It wasn’t her age—she looked great for
fifty-four. Alice would look great for
forty. For any age. But Derek was twenty-eight, and by the time
he was forty, in twelve years, Alice would be a senior citizen. It wasn’t that she was physically flawless. She had on her thighs a very light scattering
of varicose veins. Hardly noticeable,
but he knew they were there. She had
stretch marks, and a slight abdominal sag, just enough to indicate that she had
borne children. She seemed embarrassed
about these minor defects. She was at
first quite shy about undressing in front of Derek. Her defects were for him a turn-on. Derek detested perfection, though he wasn’t
convinced that she believed him when he told her this. For him, an older woman’s body could be like
a precious encoded document, a living Rossetta Stone. Alice had never asked him if he loved her, as
if she knew better. Such was the
pleasure of loving an older woman. For
him, this romance had been pure, vintage Colette. But he was no Cherie, and Derek already had
an incipient appreciation of the transient perfidy of the flesh. Alice, at fifty-five might suddenly mutate
into a slovenly hag. She might become
fat and gross. He didn’t want to be
surprised by this. Still, she made on
him no demands. She didn’t expect that
he’d stay, nor that anything between them should last. Alice knew that for her, time was running
out, lending to every aspect of their liaison an exquisite urgency. Why then had Derek called her, if he didn’t
feel like seeing her tonight, either? To
begin closure. Soon, so soon it would
all conclude between them, quietly, gently, maturely, like autumn giving way to
winter.
Depending on her level of
cooperation, Derek might have yet another article on Carol. He didn’t entirely question his desire for
her. She was emotionally unbalanced.
Derek was irresistibly drawn to damaged goods. He wanted to be handed a juicy
assignment in Angola or Nicaragua. Even
in South Africa. Perhaps that nasty famine over in Somalia. He felt like a small potato hack, doing his
apprenticeship with a small time rag like the Vancouver Sun. The Globe and Mail didn’t want him. That contentious young homosexual Michael
Watson had suggested that if he changed his writing style just a little, then
maybe he could write for the National Enquirer.
Audacious faggot. But Derek liked Michael, and though to his knowledge
he had never been sexually interested in another man, this one might just be
the one for him to experiment with. They
often met in the Press Club. He’d never
known anyone so enjoyable for getting drunk with. But Michael had never made a pass at Derek,
nor even suggested a more than platonic interest in him. He felt deprived, cheated. But Derek liked women. And Michael…he was going to phone him
tomorrow and ask him out for a beer.
He felt almost sorry for Carol, with
all the bad shit that she was going through, but one should expect this if one
is going to play in the big leagues. For
Derek, Carol was the very image of fully and freshly-ripened womanhood. He found her fresh, interesting, and full of
a naïve and girlish exuberance: “always ready to firmly plant both her
Birckenstocked feet in her mouth if need be, and will gladly accept the loan of
a good shoe-horn”, as he’d recently written about her. He wondered if she’d
phone him. Derek harboured her no
ill-feeling over having publicly-exposed him during her speech today. For him it was merely love-talk, since he
throve on humiliation. He could tell
that Carol liked him; in the case of women, Derek was never wrong. She was putting up a fight and courting her
would be like landing a marlin. Then
he’d be stuck with her like a beached whale; but Whoa! Easy on the cliché’s,
Buck-o! Well, Derek’s editor couldn’t
read his mind, and neither could he help it if he often thought in
cliches. He trusted that Carol’s
breakdown would be making her just a little more approachable. A little more vulnerable. He was almost certain that, the other day,
when she’d invited him up for that interview, that barring that unexpected
phone call about her lover’s death, he might have had her then and there. But Derek didn’t like to move fast with
women, preferring the slow, suspenseful and carefully played-out hunt. He wanted to fully savour the kill. Slowly, as though he were riding a
stegosaurus, he steered his land-rover into the underground parking of the
building he lived in.
This café, where Bryan and Glen used
to meet regularly had already changed hands twice since they first begun
patronizing the place. They hadn’t met
here in more than two months. Bryan had
yet to forgive Glen for having robbed him of Stephen. Not that Glen had stolen anybody. Stephen had simply made on him his claim and
Glen, like a jerboa cornered by a viper in the desert, had given his
assent. Bryan had often told Glen that
his passivity would one day be his undoing.
He wanted to change tables, to
create distance with the crowd of young people that had just descended on the
next table like a flock of starlings on a cornfield. On his last day at Good Shepherd Glen had
seen two starlings gourmandizing on a puddle of fresh vomit near Hastings and
Main, their iridescent plumage shining violet and green splendour in the spring
sunshine. He realized that he recognized
two of the young people: a Chinese girl and a Caucasian youth. They lived in his neighbourhood. The girl was cuddling another, younger
Caucasian boy. The older youth, his name was Michael Watson, who had lived with
his mother and siblings in the blue and white mansion nearby. He was gay, an aspiring journalist, now
living with a wealthy antique dealer.
His
mother, Sheila, sometimes invited Glen in for tea or coffee. Operating a drop-in centre for street youth
and ex-mental patients herself she was very interested in knowing more about
Glen’s work with the Good Shepherd. He
didn’t know how long it would take him to inform her that he no longer
worked there. Not that he owed her any
explanations, but Sheila commanded in Glen a great deal of respect. Or he seemed to still think that he owed the
world an explanation, a justification for his existence. She had been surprisingly candid with Glen
about her son’s sexuality—perhaps by means of testing him? But Glen had never been particularly
interested in Michael, except as a friendly blond-haired boy in the
neighbourhood who always said hi to him.
This evening, Michael didn’t appear to notice him, neither did the
Chinese girl. There also sat with them a
South Asian girl. She sat with her black
West Indian boyfriend. There was also a
Latina girl, probably from Mexico, and another boy, whose origins Glen could
only guess. Green eyes set in
toffee-coloured skin, and short black wavy hair, the light he exuded made
everyone else look drab and frumpy. Glen
had rarely seen anyone so beautiful.
This was the future? A photo-op
for Canada Mosaic? But Glen was looking
at the future, and he could see that it was very good. And bad.
If he was going to write in his journal then he must have quiet. He was afraid that they might take it
personally were he to change tables. But
they didn’t appear to notice that he was there, apart from Michael, who was
suddenly smiling and flirting with him.
Glen felt very old in their
presence, and with them he felt also the invisibility of the old among the
young, who might never recognize the old, whose existence would simply remind
them of their own future decline. But
Glen was still younger than thirty. He
was young himself, but for recalling that when he was eighteen he considered as
ancient anyone older than twenty-five, apart from Tim. While the young had no eyes for the old, the
old could never stop noticing the young, whether across a span of ten years or
sixty, whether through desire or disapproval or envy, Glen was already marking
the beginning of his reluctant maturity, exercising his judgment and his regret
as whether through Michael and his entourage or through Stephen, he could mark
again his earliest experience of youth.
He had moved to the window where he
looked out on an artificially lit street and the black but for the lights of
anchored freighters water of English Bay.
“You are all people”, he wrote in his notebook, “And all people are
you.” The words seemed to stare back at
him, redolent with meaning. Then he
wrote “Rejoice in the many that are you, and rejoice in the you who are
many. You are being awakened; you will
touch the lives of many, your heart shall become an open portal, and your life
a highway to the places of God.”
Tears welled in his eyes, and
unselfconsciously he let them roll down his cheeks. Glen was feeling restless, he wanted to walk
by the water’s edge. The waitress, who
might be Bangladeshi or Indian, smiled sweetly at him. As Glen approached the door Michael Watson
called out, “Hi Glen”, and the Chinese girl, who might also be Korean or
Japanese, also smiled and waved. The
beautiful green eyed youth, who he suddenly realized to be Metis, also smiled
and Glen smiled in response and waved as he left the café.
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