A Little Taste Of Winter

We're in the middle of our second cold snap here in Vancouver and it's still November.  Well, it's the last day of November but technically it's still fall.  But it was minus nine this morning and we are not in Saskatchewan if you know what I mean.  I have looked at the fourteen day forecast and it is going to begin to warm up starting today and the next couple of weeks will be around seasonal values, or between five and ten Celsius.  I still sometimes use the word Celsius, as though it's something unusual.  I have done this since I was seventeen when metric became official in Canada.  But I still think in imperial.  But who the heck was Celsius, anyway?  I looked him up on Wikipedia (what did we do before Wikipedia?  How did we cope?) and here is this bit of information: 

In 1742, Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744) created a temperature scale which was the reverse of the scale now known by the name "Celsius": 0 represented the boiling point of water, while 100 represented the freezing point of water. In his paper Observations of two persistent degrees on a thermometer, he recounted his experiments showing that the melting point of ice is essentially unaffected by pressure. He also determined with remarkable precision how the boiling point of water varied as a function of atmospheric pressure. He proposed that the zero point of his temperature scale, being the boiling point, would be calibrated at the mean barometric pressure at mean sea level. This pressure is known as one standard atmosphere. The BIPM's 10th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) later defined one standard atmosphere to equal precisely 1013250dynes per square centimetre (101.325 kPa).^[4]

Are you still awake?  That was pretty dull going, eh?  Now if I was doing a brief bio about this guy I would have included information about his marital status, what kind of a husband was he, how did he treat his kids, what kind of food did he like.  What did they use in place of toilet paper in eighteenth century Sweden.  You know, interesting stuff.  This is the problem with brief bios about famous scientists.  We're not given a single clue about what they were like as human beings: as though whatever went on in their heads was completely divorced from the way they lived their lives.  No wonder our civilization is so screwed up.

We have snow now.  Just an inch or two, and I can't remember the metric measurement.  I still think in imperial as I said but I try to speak in kilometres and grams anyway, but not with a lot of success, I'm afraid.  I think I also like the human scale of imperial, you know, one foot being the length of the foot of an English king, one inch being the length of, well, who only knows.

So it is still ass-biting cold but you know, we could do a lot worse here, and besides, it gives the spoiled rich kids with the enormous good fortune of living here something to complain about.




^Are

Thirteen Crucifixions, 60

2001

            Melissa was happy.  Not simply happy.  Overjoyed.  Breathless with delight. The digital clock-radio that peaked out on the floor between her black lace camisole and her dark green velvet cocktail dress declared in electric red digits that it was 9:34 a.m.  She was getting used to waking up early, which she had to do in order to get to work on time.  Sheila had just hired her to work three lunches per week at the Westwind, and Stefan, who lay curled up near her was softly snoring.  In as many days they had made vigorous, esctatic love five times or more.  Five times, six, seven, maybe even ten times. She felt renewed, remade, and reborn.  She felt like a well-fed Persian cat purring with contentment.  “A nice warm pussy for my buddy-boy”, she muttered in a sing-song voice, lightly stroking his freshly-shaved head.  He had a job now, bussing tables at the Steel Toe.  It was so easy, she had only to go down once on Ed, whose brother owned the establishment.  The rest happened like magic.  Of course she wasn’t going to tell Stefan.  Even though they had mutually declared their relationship to be an open one, still, silence at times was the best policy.  Stefan had a job that he liked.  He was happy.  Now he could be for her a proper lover.  Melissa was happy.  Stefan stirred gently.  But was clearly still fast asleep. She climbed out of bed to take her shower.

            “So, where would you like to have breakfast?” Bill said, smiling.

            “Oh, anywhere”, Persimmon replied lazily. “I’m easy.”

            “Sure you are, sure you are.”

            She smirked as they both relaxed over coffee at the kitchen table.  They were both wearing robes—hers was white terry cloth, his was deep blue velour.  In two weeks they had become lovers.  This would be the morning following their third night together.  Quite simply, he would be Persimmon’s first man since her ex-husband, Jake.  Much to her surprise, she was actually ready for love.  So far, Bill didn’t quite overwhelm her.   He seemed to know his place, letting her make the rules, set the boundaries.  He treated her like a queen.  Not that Persimmon was in love.  Somehow she seemed to know better.  And it seemed clear that he adored her, worshipped her, even.  She glowed with the silent satisfaction of a woman who is finally being properly loved. Had she really been missing this?  Certainly she’d been needing it.  Things had so far proceeded smoothly, seamlessly.  Flawlessly.  From when they met in that café following those two disastrous interviews two weeks ago it just seemed the natural thing for the two of them to be striking up a conversation.  She was feeling actually quite upset and agitated after first Leticia and then Stefan.  And Bill suddenly was there, to listen, to soothe, and to comfort.  Finally a man not so wrapped up in his own concerns that he could actually show her an interest that was not merely concerned with sex.  They were two damaged sensitive human beings whose recent lives had been fraught with tragedy.  Now they could be to each other a presence of comfort and healing.  Now they could help increase each other’s stability.

            But she wasn’t ready to say that she was in love with him.  He looked so dreadfully handsome right now that she thought he seemed rather comical, like an updated mix of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Cary Grant.  But naturally in his former career he would want to cultivate such an antiquated look of male glamour as to effectively conquer the hearts and chequing accounts of such lonely rich old women as would happily subsidize his services.  Her little secret of affectionate contempt was making her giggle like a thirteen year old contemplating her first date.

            “What’s the joke?”

            “Life, William dearest”.  She was loudly guffawing, “Life, it’s-own-fucking-self”.  He smiled broadly, warmly and adoringly.  Persimmon, knowing that she had just been recreated as a beautiful woman, said, “Dutch Pannekoek.  How about the Dutch Pannekoek House, the one on Robson?”

            He took her freshly manicured hand in his, kissing it reverently.  “Your wish is my command.”

            It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.  They leaned each against a pillow, less than five inches of counterpane between them.  Michael was right next to the wall, which made him feel rather like a hostage to Lazarus, who was near the bed’s outer edge.  They had both woken simultaneously.  They weren’t naked.  Michael, anyway, was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  He wasn’t sure about Lazarus, who just might be naked.  They had not made love, though they mutually admitted that they might feel obligated to.  They had spent the evening together.  As usual Michael met Lazarus at work, when he was getting off around seven.  They went as usual to the Rose and Thorn for a couple of mugs, then they stood in line at a rather too popular Greek restaurant in the West End, where they also encountered a good number of Michael’s old friends, acquaintances and former sexual partners, every last one of whom seemed interested in Lazarus.  Michael was not known to associate with persons younger than himself.  From there they escaped to a café in Yaletown.  Then Lazarus suggested they take a cab to his place.  Michael still hadn’t seen it.  Not bad for a basement, small but not claustrophobic.  He shared facilities with the people upstairs.  Michael almost kissed Lazarus, but then drew back, as though knowing not to go there with him.  A few moments later Lazarus tried to kiss Michael, but realized that he wasn’t going to.  They spent the night chastely sleeping beside each other.

            “Sleep okay?” Lazarus said.

            “Profoundly.”

            “Me too.”

            “I don’t ordinarily sleep well with someone new.”

            “Same here.”

            “Was it good for you?” Michael said grinning.

            “You can wipe off the shit-eating smile if you want, but I had a wonderful time.”

            “Can I buy you breakfast?”

            “Honey, you can buy me breakfast any time.”

            “How gay of you.”

            “Oh, you bitch”, Lazarus said with a lisp.

            “You do that well.”

            “Unfortunately.”

            “So where do you want to eat?”

            “I dunno.  Where do you want to eat?”

            It was the cheekbones.  Lazarus had the most exquisitely sculpted cheekbones Michael had ever seen.  He was too beautiful to be made love to?  He only wanted to look at him, adoring this vision of human beauty.  He had never been more aesthetically than sexually attracted to another male before.

            “Anywhere but McDonald’s.”

            “Don’t you want an Egg McMuffin?”

            “Where is the coffee good around here?”

            “Where I work.”

            “We’re not going there.”

            “Oh, let’s.”

            “They’ll think we’re an item.”

            “They already do.  Russell is green with envy.”

            “What!”

            “He says I beat him to you.”

            “I didn’t know he was gay.”

            “Well, he has a thing for you.”

            “How do you feel about that?”

            “I’m not possessive.”

            “Me neither.  And we’re not really an item.  Are we?”

            “We haven’t made love.”

            “Only because we don’t need to.”

            They looked at each other, then away from each other.  Still looking straight ahead, his eyes half shut, Lazarus said. “I believe you’re right.”  He tossed of the covers to reveal the full extent of his nakedness.  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower.”  He made no attempt at covering himself, as though his body was a fact for Michael to accept.  He was very slender, not quite but almost gaunt, moving with a dancer’s grace.

            Michael decided not to shower.  To his surprise, he just didn’t feel that he needed one.  He actually woke up next to Lazarus feeling clean.  Quite a new experience for him.  He wondered what he’d say to Glen, if anything at all needed to be said.  He’d probably take it in stride, though he really wasn’t certain.  They had a platonic romance going, Glen and Michael.  They never touched each other.  Not bodily.  But they were in love.  Oh, they were in love, truly, madly, deeply in love with each other.  There was no denying it.  It was too obvious.  Michael still suffered over whatever it was that Glen and Pierre shared together.  And he could tell that Glen would, however discreetly, however courteously, suffer over Lazarus, and there wasn’t any need for either of them to.  They should be together, all four of them for a visit together. Lazarus came forth from the shower and towelled his visibly naked body dry in front of Michael, who quite couldn’t make up his mind whether or not he found him desirable.

            “Where are we having breakfast?” Lazarus said, slipping into his black bikini briefs.

            “My place.”

            “You mean your mother’s.”

            “Yes.”

            “Do you think she’s ready for me?”

            “She’ll be at work.”

            “Let’s eat at her café.”

            “I’m not ready for her this morning.”

            “Afraid of what she’ll think?”

            “Well—yeah.  She’s my mother, after all.”

            “Sure”, he said, while pulling on a long-sleeve black t-shirt.  “What are you going to feed me?”

           

            The house was quiet.  But it usually was quiet.  On the floor behind the front door a single white envelope shone like a promise in the dark foyer.  Michael picked it up.  His name was on it in Matthew’s writing.

            “Bad news?” Lazarus said, as Michael paused with the letter in his hand.

            “Anticipated.”

            “Nice place”, Lazarus said, glancing at various doorways and rooms.

            “It’s big anyway.  I grew up in this house.”

            “Nice place to grow up.”

            In the kitchen they sat at the arborite table eating granola, toast, jam, cheese and fruit.  The clock of Michael’s childhood said that it was five past eleven.

            “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Lazarus said.

            “It’s wide open.  Do you work?”

            “I’m off today.”

            “What would you like to do?”

            “I dunno.  Just hang, I guess.”

            “Where do you want to hang?’

            “Here?”

            Glen came in carrying a glass jar full of murky coloured water and paint brushes.

            “Glen, I would like you to meet Lazarus.”

            Glen smiled, nodded and proceeded to the kitchen sink.

            “Have you been painting?”

            “Yes.”  He was leaning over the running water.

            “Why don’t you join us?  The coffee’s still fresh.”

            “I will in a sec’”.  Glen appeared to be all right concerning Lazarus though for Michael it was often hard to tell.  He did seem to be holding himself in check, or reserve, as though withholding his judgement, or merely holding his tongue.  Or perhaps he was so preoccupied with his art that he wasn’t even on the same plane of existence as lesser mortals.  One never could tell with artists.  He also wasn’t sure how Lazarus would respond to Glen, who seemed quite indifferent towards him, actually, though friendly.  Glen seemed benign and equaniminous to almost everybody.  He found his perpetually calm state unsettling, though also consoling.

            “Were you out early this morning?” Glen said as he sat down with a mug of coffee.

            “I didn’t come home.”

            Glen said nothing.  Michael was trying to discern some indication or sign that this might somehow be troubling him.  Nothing.

            “He stayed at my place”, Lazarus said.

            Glen, appearing to be trying to force himself out of his apparent indifference, a big smile on his face, roared, “Where’s my rolling pin!  And who IS this shameless hussy you brought home with you?”

            Lazarus and Glen together laughed long, loud and hard, shaking off once and for all the tension Michael had unwittingly visited on them.  Michael, not laughing, but seeing that he was the odd man out, forced a wry, obligatory grin.

            “Well”, Glen said, copping the pose of a prim school marm.  “I just hope you both used some pro-TEC-tion?”

            “We didn’t have sex”, Lazarus deadpanned.

            “Though we did sleep together”, Michael added.

            “Too much information.  But it does sound rather cozy.”  Glen helped himself to a wedge of melon that he thoughtfully chewed on.  To Lazarus he said, “So you’re the guy who works at the café at the Library.”

            “Central Branch”, Lazarus said.

            “I was stalking him there”, Michael said.

            “Like hell, you were”, Lazarus said, authentically indignant.

            “Darling, our first fight.”

            “Oh, fuck the darling! Lazarus said, picking up his coffee.

            “And to think I almost did.”  Lazarus made as though he was going to hurl his coffee in Michael’s face.  Glen was laughing again.

            “Made for each other.”

            “I think not”, Lazarus said.

            “See, he admits that he doesn’t think”, Michael said.

            “Oh will you stop”, Lazarus said, showing annoyance.

            “Easy, big fellow.”

            “That’s it.  Show some respect.”

            “Yes-suh.  Yes massah.”

            “What did you put in that coffee, anyway?” Glen said, sniffing his mug.

            “You don’t want to know”, Lazarus said.

            “So, you’re not boyfriends?” Glen said to Lazarus.”

            “I don’t know what the fuck we are.”  He seemed visibly troubled about this.

            “Perhaps, brothers?”

            He looked to Michael, who said, “I’m at a loss for words.”

            “If my discernment is correct”, Glen said looking first at one, then at the other, “What you both have in each other is something very precious and extremely rare.  Nurture it.”

            Michael said, “But what is it?”  The resulting silence was becoming unbearable to him.  He was feeling enough pressure in his bladder to suggest that he might be justified in excusing himself to use the bathroom.  Glen’s equanimity, his robust goodwill, concerning Lazarus was troubling to him.  He couldn’t figure out why.  Matthew had never spared him some sense of guilt or vague embarrassment whenever he brought a new boyfriend or fuck buddy home for him to meet and “measure”.  There would be always some sense of reserve, of embarrassed and embarrassing disapproval.  Glen betrayed none of this.  But Glen and Michael were not lovers, whatever bond there might be between them.  Just as Michael and Lazarus were bonded.  So Matthew had finally written to him.  A proper letter.  And from the appearance of things, it would be a good fat and long letter.  He would have to find, he would have to make time, a good long bit of time, for reading it.  After a good long pee, he wiped the toilet rim with toilet paper, then flushed.  He couldn’t understand some of these morons who would spray and spatter their urine all over the place for someone else to have to clean up or step in.  Matthew had taught him very well.  He wondered how much of the day Lazarus and he could spare for each other, how long it would be before one or both of them would become antsy, feeling held-in, held hostage.  They were both fragile.  Lazarus would be grieving for his mother for quite a while yet.  He had already set him off once today.  Descending the stairs to the kitchen, to the table of his childhood, Michael couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before he misstepped and said or did one clumsy thing too many, and wrecked everything. 

            Glen could paint for only so long with Michael and Lazarus in the room.  He could paint only for so long with Lazarus looking on, oohing and aweing, and asking question after question about the way Glen painted.  Glen could paint only for so long.  Before he went completely stir-crazy.  That he had a good thing going was very obvious.  Hoping that he could stay in this house for a good long time he really didn’t know for how long it would be tenable.  It was a comfortable arrangement.  He had enough money to live on—Randall and Barbara were very generous when it came to remunerating his services.  They usually went on separate retreats.  Glen had long found their arrangements with each other to be quite interesting.  Whatever romance had been rekindled between them had ebbed away shortly after they re-married.  That they still loved and would likely always love each other, seemed obvious.  But not as husband and wife.  By her own admission Barbara was on a pilgrimage.  And Randall had followed suit.  They slept in separate rooms and their house had taken on very much the nature of a monastery or a convent.  It had long been confided to Glen, by whom he couldn't remember, that they’d each taken vows of celibacy, had become associates of an obscure, eccentric ecumenical religious order.  Personally, Glen could not understand why they’d have to eschew sex in order to do this sort of thing, but he felt prepared to allow for an exception to almost any rule.  By both their admission, sex between them had almost always been a mistake.  They had courted and married each other the first time around because that was what they’d assumed that mutually interested men and women should always do with each other.  Seven years later they came together again, after a fitful and sporadic fashion.  According to Randall they had only had enough sex with each other to produce both their children.  It was only a transcendent, mutual loyalty, heightened by the appearance of two children, one of whom was profoundly disabled, that kept them together.  He had yet to visit this community with which Randall and Barbara had become associated.  It was located somewhere near Victoria.

            He felt that he’d walked enough.  The weather wasn’t bad, if a little on the cool side for the middle of May.  Sheila was right—cool springs seemed always to bring on an unparalleled abundance of flowers.  Now in the full light he watched azaleas, rhododendrons and peonies dissolving into the gentle sunlight.  He often did faux-impressionism, mostly of woodland scenes with azaleas in sun-drenched clearings.  This particular series of work had brought on quite a variety of responses—from “derivative pablum” to “more Monet than Monet.”  For Glen it wasn’t the subject but the colour; and not simply the colour but the light—light emerging out of darkness and bringing to light the hidden treasures of darkness.  How could anyone miss something so simple, so elemental? 

            There was the West Wind, as though it was waiting for him.  He usually didn’t come in during the lunch rush, and as he expected there wasn’t an available seat in the place.  Sheila and Melissa were both frantically waiting on tables.  Just as he was on his way out the door Sheila signalled to him.

            “Wait a minute, Glen, I have an important message for you.”

            He was still heading out the door, feeling more bewildered than anything.

            “I said wait!”  Sheila was pointing wildly at the back of the café, like an old fashioned school teacher banishing a naughty pupil to go stand in the corner.

            “What?”

            “I said, go sit in the back.”  She was beginning to look frantic and exasperated.  Glen obediently went into the tiny back room where he sat down on the sofa. As he was browsing through a National Geographic Sheila came in brandishing a small red card in one hand and a cordless phone in the other.

            “Someone wants to buy one of your paintings. He left me his card.  He just stepped out before you came in, but he said he’s in the neighbourhood and would gladly come back and settle with you if you call him on his cell phone.”

            He had to listen and watch her closely to make sure that he was getting the correct information.  She looked actually like a traffic cop in Manhattan as she brandished the card and the phone in front of him, her face a contortion of stern enthusiasm.

            “Hey, cool”, he said receiving both items from her.  The card belonged to a Douglas P. Furnis, Clothing Designer.

            “Hello”, an anxious sounding male voice said on the first ring.

            “Yes, it’s Glen McIntyre calling, is this Douglas Furnis I’m speaking to?”

            “Yes it is.”

            “You were inquiring concerning one of my paintings at the West Wind Café?”

            “Oh, yes, yes”, he said, suddenly ecstatic.  “It’s the big blue and gold abstract.  What would you like for it?”

            “Six-fifty.”

            “Are you there now at the café?”

            “Yes, I am.”

            “Stay there, I’ll be right over.”

            It wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly.  There was bound to be some catch, some complication.  Murphy’s Law.  Every one of Glen’s art sales and commissions had been fraught with some sort of difficulty.  There were usually strings attached.  I wonder what fresh hell this can be he caught himself wondering.  It was a vintage issue of the National Geographic he was leafing through—May, 1968.  The article was on Czechoslovakia, during the Prague Spring, written just three months before the Russian tanks came rolling into Wenceslas Square.

Surviving As A Human Being In A World Full Of Sociopaths

I can only approach this theme from my experience as a Christian.  When I was a teenage Jesus Freak we were told that we were in the world but not of the world.  This has long resonated with me.  Being a biblical fundamentalist as well as a zealous young Christian (not exactly a zealot, though, even at the tender age of fifteen I was actually remarkably sane even for a fifteen year old male) I really took this command to the letter.  I quit watching TV which I think was the final axe that separated me from my brother.  Our only time together, every day after school, was spent lounging in the rec room watching reruns of Batman, Hogan's Heroes, Bewitched and the Flintstones.  Even in my first few months as a new convert I continued to indulge in this fraternal practice and I think that we both, my brother and I, knew that this was the single shared activity that still held our fragile relationship together.

Then it came.  I was early in grade ten and I think it was not quite October 1971.  We were both seated in the rec room, TV on.  I think we were watching Hogan's Heroes.  I suddenly got up and announced as I left "You can sit here and get brainwashed if you want.  I'm not doing this anymore."  I began evangelizing the local mall after school instead or sometimes I would hitch-hike downtown and hang out with other Jesus freaks.

I wanted as little to do with the "values" I had been nurtured on as possible.  I could not imagine going to university.  I thought it was a waste of time, despite my own academic potential.  I wanted to grow close to God, serve him through serving others and keep myself unspotted by a world that I considered to be corrupt, evil and headed straight for hell.

My how we change as we mature!  I long ago became reconciled with the idea of higher education as being not only acceptable to God but inescapably necessary for arming people with knowledge and information against the rampant materialism and consumerism and vicious capitalism that have come to pervade our culture.  While surviving the ruins of my family following my parents' divorce I came to realize that knowledge and learning would be essential to my coming to understand and overcome the world I was living in.  Higher education was closed to me however.  Having some huge issues about physical education (no problems about exercise but I never could adapt to the highly competitive jock culture that was being foisted on us as students by well meaning but ignorant gym teachers) so I eventually opted out and this compromised my ability to graduate from high school.  I finished grade twelve one credit short which would bar me from post secondary school until my twenty-second birthday.

I could not stay with either of my parents, they were divorced, Mom was surviving the aftermath of a failed relationship and my father wanted nothing to do with me.  At eighteen I got my own place, found unsuitable low paying employment and simply muddled my way forward as well as I could.  Through some very influential and highly educated people in my life (some became mentors for a while) I became a voracious reader of literary classics, especially the works of Dostoyevsky and Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing.  I survived a couple of semesters in college as a young mature student but lack of funds and other resources and supports made it necessary to discontinue my studies and continue working but in an honorable if poorly paid profession as a home support worker.  I continued to read, and where I was able, to study but it became too difficult to maintain  enough energy to attend evening classes in English literature and psychology after a day spent  wiping other people's bums, emotionally supporting spouses approaching widowhood from their husband's deathbeds and cleaning up unspeakable domestic and bodily messes (none of this is exaggeration by the way).  Did I also say that I was just twenty-six or twenty-seven or so?

One of my particular pivotal moments occurred when I was twenty-three.  I was working in a parking lot and given the long periods of doing nothing but sitting on my south end I listened a lot to the radio, in this case to the CBC Ideas program.  There were two program series that particularly marked me for life: "Freebooter Treatises" and "The Terror of Consumerism." At this time I was attending a Mennonite house church of intellectuals, radicals and artists seeking a Christian experience integrated with concepts of feminism, egalitarianism, anarchism, social and political activism, and simplicity of life.  This was when I made my bench mark decision.  Realizing that I had already made this choice, or rather that God had made this choice for me and I was now officially accepting it, I vowed that I would do everything possible to not allow consumerism or materialism or pop culture (sic) to touch, taint or influence my life.  I eschewed pop culture, read the New Yorker, listened only to classical music, and read literary classics and anything that was spiritually, socially and politically inspiring and informative.  I saw only cheap foreign and indie films that challenged or helped further inform my values, usually in repertory cinemas.  Instead of getting a driver's license I walked everywhere or took public transit.  I continued to work in low wage employment as a caregiver and support worker.  I became adept in silent and contemplative prayer and did what I could to work and fight for social justice and minister to the outcasts of society.  Eventually I became an artist, poet, and writer.  I have sold some art but have gone largely unrecognized as an artist, writer or thinker, primarily as part of my pact with God to live humbly, silently and obscurely but to walk in a way that brings forth his light.

Living this way has completely destroyed my ability or inclination to be competitive in anything and to succeed in a viciously capitalist consumerist society you have to be competitive and not simply competitive but ruthless.  You have to already be, or consent to turning into an amoral psychopath who cares nothing about whom he steps on or destroys in order to get ahead.  This kind of thinking completely pervades our pop culture, our politics, the work world, our social values, everything.  Capitalism has permeated everything, just like a chunk of uncovered Limburger cheese will make everything in your fridge smell like Limburger cheese.

I know it has also affected me, but I continue to resist it, even at the cost of my mental health which suffered tremendously from, among other things, the pressure of living apart from such a vile and repulsive societal environment.  But I have recovered, I have found new strength and I will continue to walk, I will continue to pray, I will continue to talk and I will continue to resist, question, challenge and conquer this cancer of materialism, consumerism and unrestrained social Darwinism that is destroying our souls until either I am pushing up daisies or we have overcome, or both.

I don't really know what's become of my brother, in the meantime.  We haven't seen or heard of each other in more than fifteen years.  He would be in his early sixties.  I believe that he did very well professionally.  But at a very high cost.  In the meantime I celebrate the abundance with which I am blessed in every moment of each new day.

If You're Attracted, Then Run Away. Fast!

This is about charisma.  We all know it when we see it, and we all secretly envy those who have it.  They can appear among us like visiting gods.  From the heights of Olympus we are visited and blessed and privileged by their shining presence.  They seem gifted, often highly gifted, but really they just wear the costume, or the drag of giftedness rather well.  Or they can talk a scintillating talk but their walk, which they can very artfully conceal from the rest of us, can be something rather different and less. What is  clear is that these people, these demi-gods, so gifted, shining, eloquent, and alluring, are often so seductive and so skilled at the art that before we know it we are hooked.  They could be romantic partners, which often turn into the most unfortunate possible choice for a spouse, or political leaders, perhaps even official royalty.  Princess Diana?

More often they are media and performing stars: film actors, pop musicians, rock stars.  Sometimes religious figures.  Pope John Paul II anyone? They are often irresistibly lovely.  But not always.  They shine and their voices drip with honey and they know so well how to work a crowd, how to lure, caress and conquer the mob and how to seep like poisoned honey into our very souls. 

Often they are narcissists.  Sometimes they are sociopaths.  Being indifferent to others except in extorting from them their adoration, they care about no one but themselves.  They are the ultimate in selfishness.  They are, shall we say, satanically glamorous.  So, then it isn't beauty that would describe them, that is quite a different word, but glamour.  They shine and sparkle, and tempt and lure.  Behind the gloss they are nothing.

Charismatic narcissists are not necessarily better looking than the rest of us, though this often helps.  They are not necessarily more gifted creatively or intellectually, though sometimes they are.  What they are is incredibly cunning.  What they all appear to have in common is an absolute interior emptiness.  They are hollow people.  They live for the affirmation and adoration of others and they will stop at nothing to ensnare our devotion and loyalty.  They feed on us, absorbing all of our neediness, emptiness and longing and reflecting it back to us in the form of our unattainable dreams.  We choose them, in a way we elect them to be the vision, the image of what we ourselves want to be and can never ourselves become.  The charismatic leader, the movie star, the rock star is every bit as empty as we are.  They have simply learned how to use it as a way of working and manipulating others. They serve as a mirror.  Looking upon them inspires us, gives us hope and a moment's pleasurable distraction from our grey, monotonous lives. 

They are us, like dollar store trinkets wrapped in pretty paper and ribbons.

We often don't give ourselves time or permission to know ourselves, to develop and grow into whole and mature persons.  We don't know how to, but I think that once we start doing this, learning how to develop as whole human beings, actually take charge of our lives and our growth, our real gifts begin to develop.  We become more discerning about our choice of mentors and teachers.  We become less interested in being dazzled and titillated and more committed to the sometimes arduous and monotonous, but always rewarding, business of growth.

I think that as we actually begin to mature, and this can never happen without hard work and time and patience, we are still going to be lured by the charisma of others.  We will even give ourselves permission to enjoy them.  But from a safe distance.  As we come to value ourselves, and love ourselves, I think we become less easily seduced.  We will have acquired substance and strength.  We will look on the rock stars with a detached and cynical eye, or perhaps we won't much notice them at all.  We will at times miss the thrill of seduction, but I think we will be too busy working to build a better world to give them much notice.

Thirteen Crucifixions, 59

                                                            1987 

 

            The warmth of early May glowed from the dusty hardwood floor that gleamed red and golden beneath Barbara’s bare feet.  She had lived here in this house with her once again husband Randall for six months now, ever since they remarried under the benign watch of a Catholic priest.  Home again, in Victoria, where they lived during their first time married to each other ten years ago, within walking distance of their old apartment.  They liked this house better, they liked Victoria better, they enjoyed marriage together more than the first time.  Barbara had returned to the church bringing with her Randall who happily consented again to being her husband.  Not that Barbara was silly with love or any such romance.  She felt that she knew better at her age, and indeed she did know better this time, at forty-one, and now pregnant.  She had just returned this morning from the doctor, who confirmed what she these last five weeks had suspected.  She couldn’t wait to tell Randall.   She was humming absentmindedly Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”  She gulped back what remained of her herbal tea and shoved the newspaper she’d been pretending to read across the kitchen table.

            Randall credited Barbara with rescuing him.  He was not in good shape when she saw him early last summer in Stanley Park.  He was still in traumatic shock from a murder he had witnessed in the skid row hotel where he was staying.  Outside his room, just as he was unlocking his door, the tenant across the hall from him was shot.  His door was open.  Randall saw everything, the man lying on the floor bleeding and twitching towards his rapid death, and the assailant, whose face he hadn’t seen, running out and down the fire escape.  For two days and two nights Randall wandered the streets, grabbing a bit of sleep wherever he could, and then he saw Barbara staring at him stupidly near Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park.  From that time on he lived with her.  He was back at university working on his master’s in social work.  Barbara had returned to the antiquarian bookstore where they’d first met in the seventies.  She worked there again part time.  She was feeling well and strong enough to work even if she didn’t need the money. 

            Her flush of joy was giving way to boredom and restlessness.  She needed to move, to be active and busy.  There was no immediate need to do housework.  She was sick of reading.  Beacon Hill Park wasn’t far, but first there were a couple of details to attend to.  She brought out of the closet the neatly folded blue cotton fabric she had worn as a chiton on the night of the party where she first had met Rafael.  In her hand were the two faux-scarab brooches that had held the fabric together over her shoulders, the art-nouveau serpent bracelet that had adorned her left upper arm.  Long gone were the sandals she had worn.  These she rolled together neatly and tucked under her arm as she left for the park.

            Rafael she still tried to see whenever she visited Vancouver.  He had been released from hospital and now lived in a mental health boarding home.  He was always glad to see her.  She couldn’t imagine now that she had ever been frightened of him, that he could ever have held any sort of threat or menace over her.  He was no longer sinister, but had become very sweet and obliging.  It was, she had mentioned to Randall, as if he had been subjected to an exorcism.  All his strength had come from the diabolical energy that had enslaved him.  Now he was an empty shell, a groveling remnant of what he once was.  She had also been to see Glen, Steven and Pierre many times, now all ensconced in that wealthy widow’s grand house in Shaughnessy.  She and Randall both had come to stay there during their visits to Vancouver, though both confessed feeling ambivalent about being surrounded by people suffering in the final stages of AIDS.

            She made her way to the bluffs, taking the wooden stairs down to the rocks below where she found a sheltered ledge of rock where she could remain safely dry at high tide. Further down, as the tide was already coming in, she set on a rock her folded fabric, with the brooches and bracelet.  As she settled in on the sheltered ledge, she watched and waited dreamily, before falling asleep.  When she awoke, the waters had risen, and this final remnant of Barbara’s troubled past had been carried out to sea.

 

 

 

 

The Eight Seasons

Hello, Gentle Readers.  I am confident that I have not yet covered this auspicious theme in this blog that is rapidly approaching it's first birthday, December 9, I believe.  I have been faithfully writing on this dear instrument of public literary expression every day.  EVERY DAY.  Sometimes twice in one day.  I also will be the first to acknowledge that with such frequent, fervent and faithful input (how's that for alliteration?) there might be from time to time a tendency of repeating myself, not a mortal but surely a venal sin for daily bloggers.  In which case I humbly beg your patient indulgence.  By the way, in December, to celebrate the first anniversary of Content Under Pressure, I would love to run original contributions from five guest bloggers.  That is one post per guest of up to, say, five hundred words?  Here is my email if I have any takers, especially from frequent readers (I do have frequent readers, don't I?) pajarohermoso@yahoo.ca.  Contributions will be welcome covering any theme or subject important to the guest, but it must be presented maturely and respectfully and if the writer is taking a controversial position then there must be cogent arguments and cited sources to back up and strengthen the argument.  Submissions will be welcome in English or Spanish.  Any Spanish contribution will be published as is with English translation following.

Now, on with the show:

I want to write today about the eight seasons we experience here on our Wet Coast.  Yes, I said Wet Coast, which it is, not West Coast, which it also is.  Some of you reading my blog from say Russia or China or France might not even realize how different our climate is here from the rest of Canada.  I live in the Balmy West.  Also known as the Barmy West, as we do tend to be a little bit odd out here. 

We don't get a lot of snow in this part of the country.  We even on occasion have had completely snowless winters here in Vancouver and other parts of the South Coast of British Columbia, my province.  Ask Uncle Google about snow in Vancouver and he will reply that here we average twelve days of actual snowfall, but often it doesn't even stay on the ground.  Generally we will have perhaps two to five days of actual snow on the ground every winter.  It is absolutely lovely when it falls and piles up and this city is transformed into something pure lovely silent and magical.  For the first twenty-four hours, I mean.  Then it warms up.  The snow turns to rain.  It turns into slush, flooding streets, paralyzing traffic and turning the fantasy into a wet slimy nightmare.  Fortunately it never lasts, well, almost never.  In 2008-2009 we were blessed with two months straight of snow into late February and spring was delayed by a month.  This happens perhaps once in forty years, well, maybe twenty.

Spring starts early and is our longest and after winter wettest season.  The first flowers begin to bloom in January: hellebore, snowdrops and the earliest daffodils and crocuses.  If the snow and frost stay away then we will be seeing flowering plums blooming in late February followed by the first cherry trees and forsythia.  It stays chilly though: a florist's refrigerator. 

For these reasons I propose that the southwest coast of Canada and Vancouver and the Gulf Islands be designated as having eight official regional seasons: Sprinter, which will begin February 15 and last until March 31; Spring will begin April 1 and end May 15, followed by Sprummer, May 16-June 30, then Summer, July 1-August 15, Fummer, August 16-September 30, Fall, or Autumn, October 1-November 15,  Finter (our season right now) November 16-December 31 and finally Winter, January 1-February 14.

The New Jerusalem

This is something I enjoy about public transit: I pick up a lot of raw material there for this blog.  For example, these two American hoser wannabes on the Canada Line elevator.  We were using the elevator at the Yaletown Roundhouse Canada Line, or for those readers who know little about Vancouver, our subway.  Yes, we have a subway.  A real one and not a toy one.  Just like a World Class City.  Wee!

One of the escalators there has been out of service for more than a month.  Yeah, yeah, I know, long time, eh?  Like, maybe in Mexico or the Philippines, but come on you guys we're in Canada, one of the most developed nations on earth, and it takes them longer than a month to fix a goddamn escalator in the public transit system?  Those of us who had no desire of dragging our tired hienies up the stairs opted for the tiny and slow as molasses in January elevator.  This is when the two young Americans started in, loudly trying to add the uniquely Canadian conversation tic, eh? to every single sentence.  I wonder if they had done something so bad in their hometown of Seattle that they must have been tied to chairs and forced to watch McKenzie Brothers reruns for three days and nights in a row. 

Like good Canadians the rest of us quietly tolerated them.  Then one of them said, "But what do Canadians say besides eh?  I replied "I don't know but if you're a doofus we're sure to apologize to you for it."  Everyone burst out laughing and when off the elevator one of the visiting Americans told me "You know my name."  I replied, "Huh?"  He said, "Yeah, my name is Doofus.  Well, aren't you going to apologize?"

"Sorry", I said, and I got on the bus.  Now I did not indicate the various subtle meanings of that magic and almost uniquely Canadian "sorry."  The sorry I said means something like, "Dude, I am so so very sorry that you are a doofus.  I am also sorry that I didn't tell you what you really are, which is at the very least a dumbass and at the worst, a complete hose bag.  It also means that I am very sorry you didn't stay in Seattle today and just pee on a Starbuck's washroom floor there instead of doing the equivalent all over Vancouver, or at least in the part I happen to be occupying.  It could also mean that I'm sorry that I cannot get over myself and laugh with you because many of us Canadians really do take a secret and shameful delight in the warm friendly openness of our American neighbours.

So, I'm a passive-aggressive Canadian skank.  Sorry.

In other news today, a young Asian woman actually gave up her seat for me on the crowded bus.  Then another young Asian woman gave her seat to a woman of a certain age.  Then another young Asian woman offered her seat to an elderly man.  Then a young Asian man gave his seat to woman with walking difficulties.

Could this be the bus to the New Jerusalem?

No?  Sorry.

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.”