New Year's Eve, Thirteen Crucifixions, 65

I can't think of anything to write tonight.  I am spending New Year's Eve, as always, alone.  A friend who is in town for the holidays decided to make other plans, perhaps because I had other plans when he wanted to see me last night.  It doesn't matter.  I never get invited anywhere and I don't know anyone who wants to see me and I don't like staying up late.  So I'm spending the evening reading, writing, praying, reflecting and refusing to feel sorry for myself.  Here is the lasted installment from my novel: The Thirteen Crucifixions:

“How did it occur to you that I should read this?”

            “I just knew.”

            “But, how?”

            “Dwight and I were sitting in the silence and I simply knew that you should read Richard’s journal.”

            “Tell me about this silence.”

            “You’ve experienced it yourself.”

            “I guess I have.”

            “And now you’ve confirmed it.”

            “That was bizarre.  Margery?”

            “Yes Glen?”

            “Do you reckon that, that the raven had anything to do with Bryan’s death?”

            “I think that it might have.  I was very mean to him.”

            “Don’t blame yourself.”

            “It isn’t that—I just can’t help wondering if I was connected in some way to this.  I didn’t hate him, but, yes, this needed to be said.  I just wasn’t expecting shock-waves.  I feel especially bad that he was a close friend of yours.  Did Carol say she was coming?”

            “She had some unexpected business with Derek.”

            “I can’t believe she’s seeing him.”

            “She is.  He had a thing with my mother for a while.”

            “With your mother?  How old is he, anyway?”

            “My age.”

            “I thought he was younger.  But with your mother.  How did you feel about that?”

            “Well, my mother’s a very attractive woman, and she seems to have always specialized in younger men.”

            “How does that affect you?”

            “It creeps me out is how it affects me.  I didn’t even know it was him, until after the crap with Carol during and after the Walk for Peace.”

            “What do you make of him?”

            “Venal.”

            “Kind of snaky.”

             “Carol seems to be keeping him in line.”

            “How does she do it?”

            “Ask her.  How are you and Dwight enjoying married life?”

            “We’re both having second thoughts.”

            “Really?”

            “We’re not really compatible, it turns out, I mean in the matrimonial sense.”

            “But you both seemed so sure about it, and so in love with each other.”

            “Well, we love each other.  We’ve stopped sleeping together.”

            “So soon?  What are you going to do?”

            “I think we’re going to stay married for now.  Neither one of us had the emotional reserves right now for dealing again with divorce.  And we still seem to like being together, but not as husband and wife.”

            “More like brother and sister?”

            “More like something.  Glen, I don’t know, and he doesn’t know either.  We’re taking it a day at a time.  Actually, we’re both comfortable with this kind of arrangement, or so it seems.”

            “It doesn’t get frustrating?”

            “We’re not physically attracted to each other, it turns out, so it looks like we’re settling for a spiritual union.”

            “But surely you’d like to have children.”

            “We have you.  And Carol.”

            “Thanks a lot.”

            “Any time, love. Any time.  Dwight is probably home now.  Shall we walk over and see him?”

Thirteen Crucifixions, 64

                                                       1984

            “Why do you want me to read this?”

            “We thought it would be a good idea”, Carol said.

            “We?”

            “Dwight, Margery.  Me.”

            “Why me?”

            “Glen, you don’t have to, not if you really don’t want to.”

            “How long is it?”

            “Long.”

            “Fifty pages?  Sixty?’

            “More than a hundred.”

            “How many more?”

            “You don’t have a lot of time, I guess.”

            “I’m afraid of that thing.”  Glen was shocked by the violence in his voice.  He was trembling.

            “You have the gift.  You have the key.  Glen, you are the key.”

            “Funny, someone just told me that recently.”

            “Who?”

            “Greg.”

            “Greg—oh, that nice bald guy.”

            “Him.”

            “Dwight and Margery positively adore him.  They’re having him for dinner next week.”

            “Am I dessert?”

            “Yes, you’re invited too.”

            “Not if they haven’t told me.”

            “I’m sure Greg would love to see you.”

            “I prefer to see him alone.”

            “You’re not—”

            “Nothing at all like that.”

            “Is he mentoring you, or something?”

            “We seem to be sharing some kind of journey together.”

            “But not romantic?”

            “No. We’re brothers.”

            “There is an odd likeness between you.  Are you the same age?”

            “We are, actually.”     

            “Dwight and Margery seem to be doing similar for me.  But we’re not the same ages, actually we’re all exactly four years apart—Dwight’s thirty-six, Margery’s twenty-eight and I’m smack-dab in the middle.  I just turned thirty-two yesterday.”

            “Many happy returns.”

            “Thanks.”

            “Uh, Carol?  This journal of your ex—Richard.  Is there a chance you and I could go over it together?”

            “I want you to read it alone, first.”

            “And then?”

            “You can help us interpret it.  But, listen, I have to get back to work.”

            “How’s Derek?”

            Her face cracked into an unwilling smile.  “Later”, she replied, “Much later.  Please.”

            It was a quiet afternoon of mid-August.  His attention wandered between the battered brown envelope in front of him and the art that was hanging on the wall.  Each was a strongly coloured abstract about the size of a dishwasher door, with roundish shapes and motifs that suggested a series of ovulations.  They weren’t badly done, though Glen felt that the artist still needed to develop her sense of tonality.  At least he assumed that they’d been painted by a woman.  Could he do better?  It had been so long, and still all that he could do was draw. Carol, at least, seemed happy.  More than three months ago she had quit the peace movement.  She said that she needed to start over again, from scratch.  Small.  And she had a boyfriend, of sorts, since she was now seeing that creepy journalist Derek Merkeley.  Margery and Dwight were also happy, having been married now for over a month.  Not much of a surprise, really, to anyone but themselves.  One evening, Dwight proposed, and ten days later they were tying the knot.  So, everyone was happy, except for Glen?

            Stephen had given up drugs and was now working alongside of Glen and Pierre at the Pitstop.  His sister Marlene had had one brief, messy and unsatisfactory fling with Randall which culminated in her firing him.  Glen’s mother had sworn off young men and had, as they say, completely let herself go.  Salt white hair was forcing its way out of her scalp, ending in three to four inches of honey blond.  She eschewed make-up and now wore frumpy, shapeless dresses of the sort that she might have borowed from Doris Goldberg.  She still looked ravishing.

            The world hadn’t ended.  Pierre still flirted with Glen.  And Stephen still obstinately refused to flirt with him as though by principle.  They still lived together.  Everything for Glen had taken on a bland, mildly saline sameness.  He was bored.  He was resisting, growth?  He certainly resisted reading this collection of drug-induced panegyrics from a man who got blown to bits stepping on a landmine.  His death was still under investigation for a likely CIA link.  Suicide had been definitely ruled out in his case.  Carol had shown Glen pictures of a strikingly handsome man with blond, teutonic good looks, a come-get-me smile and blue eyes to die for.  Marlene had given Glen five days off.  He wanted time away from downtown and certainly away from Davie Street.  The door opened and into the café walked a young man with an anxious face. Only when he spoke to Carol did Glen realize that it was Derek.  But somehow he had changed, had lost his foxy sharpness.  His face now reminded him of a rat, maybe more like a mouse or worse, a shrew.

            “Did I say you could come in here?” Carol said.  “Did I give you permission?”

            “No.  Sorry.”

            “Then you have to leave.”

            “Yes Carol.”

            “Now.”

            “Yes Carol.”  He turned around and left.  Glen looked at Carol.  She gave him a fiegned-looking, forced smile.

            “More coffee, Glen?”

            “Sure.”

            “I’ll tell you later.  I’m off in half an hour.”

            “Sure.  I can wait.”  He pulled from the yellow envelope one hundred fifty or so pages of loose-leaf.  The writing was cramped and scarcely legible.  Just like a doctor, he thought, glancing over page after page.  One stood out to him.  He read about the dead raven on the beach.   He read it again, then a third time.  He wanted to leave, to let Carol have her manuscript back.  This was too freaky.  He looked at it again.  But how?  How could this have happened?  How often did ravens drop dead from the sky at someone’s feet?  How often did two persons completely unknown to each other, and several years apart, get the same idea—pulling a flight feather from the LEFT wing, keeping it, then burying the raven beneath a cairn of twelve stones?  Where had Glen got the idea?  And where Richard?  He had never read about, nor anywhere heard of such a thing.  Richard somehow from the realm of the dead had summoned him, instructed him?  Scary.  What should he tell Carol?  But what else would he tell her, but everything, for Carol demanded this.  He badly wanted to get up and leave, to go walking, walking and walking till he dropped.  He thought of phoning Greg, but they never phoned each other. Every Wednesday, Glen visited him in his basement apartment, and there they would talk for several hours.  Two days surely he could wait.  Chris, the café owner’s son came in. “Hi Chris”, Glen said.  He sat down at his table.

            “So how’s life?” he said to Glen, without quite looking at him.

            “Pretty good.”

            “You work in the Pitstop now?  What’s it like there?”

            “I’ve got the week off.  Benefit of working for my sister.”

            “Your sister runs it?”

            “General manager.”

            “What’s the clientele like?”

            “You get a bit of everything.  It isn’t just gay.”

            “Yeah—I go there sometimes with my girlfriend after hours.  It’s like a Fellini film.”

            “Which one?”

            “All of them.  Have you seen our menu?”

            “I’m sometimes here for breakfast.  I like your omelettes.”

            “Custom made.  Why don’t you work for us?”

            “I have a job.”

            “What do you make?”

            “Minimum.  The tips are fairly okay.”

            “You’d be perfect for this place.”

            “Thanks.  Let me think about it.”

            “What’s that you’re reading?”

            “Carol can tell you.  It was written by a friend of hers.  She wants me to read it for some reason.  He died a few months ago.”

            “Tragically?”

            “He was blown up by a landmine in Nicaragua.”

            With Chris Glen always thought they owed each other better than this.  There was liking between them, strong liking.  But what had they to talk about, what could he possibly discuss with a café-owning student microbiologist?  That he was Chinese had nothing to do with it, since Glen paid scant if any attention to race.  Perhaps because of race he felt he owed him better.  Which was itself a form of racism?  His upbringing had been liberal, progressive.  His father during the sixties had had a Chinese mistress, one of his undergrads, just seventeen, second generation Canadian daughter of a fresh off the boat Taiwanese professional.  The scandal sent shock-waves.  The parents sued, Glen’s father counter-sued.  This was the big one that had precipitated Glen’s parents’ divorce.  He had never himself had any close friends who weren’t Caucasian.

            Glen had never had any close friends at all.  He grew up, not simply with a sense of being different from other children but as it were beneath a cloak of invisibility.  No one seemed to know that he even existed.  He was quiet, studious.  He was never bullied, but only because he was never noticed, otherwise he would have been dog meat.  He had a certain notoriety by association of being Marlene’s little brother.   His sister’s exploits with drugs, alcohol and sex had made her infamous.  Her tough-girl demeanour generated considerable fear and respect.  No one was going to touch her darling little brother, not even if they were to notice that he even existed.

            Bonding had been always difficult for him.  He read abundantly, and by the time he was thirteen Glen had already a good working knowledge of the literary classics.  He drew, he painted, he hiked almost daily in the forest surrounding the university.   He often made brave forays down the cliff to Wreck Beach, where he would peak furtively at the nudists, where he first witnessed two naked men having sex together.  This for Glen was scary, a baffling experience.  He was fourteen at the time and did not know whether he was homosexual.  He wasn’t even entirely sure of what sex was until Doris Goldberg’s nephew, Scott, appeared on the scene.  He had not connected with any of the boys in school, who generally ignored him though Glen secretly perished with unrequited desire.  The showers during gym class were the worst and the best as Glen would discreetly torment himself over the naked developing young manhood that surrounded him.  And still nobody noticed him.  At sixteen he got himself a girlfriend, with whom he fumbled unsatisfactorily, then at seventeen, down at Wreck Beach, an older man, Timothy lured him into a tryst.  They became lovers, and moved to Toronto together where Glen enrolled in art school.

            Scott was his first.  He was rooming with his aunt and uncle, Doris and Sam Goldberg, while attending university.  He was encouraged to take in Glen a mentoring interest, not difficult, given his taste for pubescent boys.  Glen, starved and deprived of male friendship, laconically welcomed the diversion.  They smoked pot and drank beer together while watching vintage Marx Brother’s movies on late night TV.  Glen’s mother’s frequent two and three day absences made sex between them convenient and thoroughly enjoyable.  This went on for a year, then two years, then Scott graduated and returned to Edmonton.  They never saw each other again.  Glen didn’t know that he was heart-broken, nor could anyone figure out why he would want to overdose on his mother’s sleeping pills.  Alice blamed herself, and Glen’s father.  He spent a year in psychotherapy being told that he must accept his sexuality.  He could not get it across that that was not his problem, that he had loved, had lost, and now felt irreparably abandoned.  Only during his three years with Timothy did Glen learn not simply to discuss his feelings, but that he had any feelings and that they were worthy of discussion.

            “So, what did you read?” Carol was stirring cream into her coffee.

            “Are you ready for this?”

            “Read it to me.”

            He read her the account of the dead raven.

            “Pretty freaky, eh?”

            “Want to hear something even freakier?”

            “What?”

            “The same thing happened to me.”

            “When?”

            “The night of the walk for Peace.  After I left the Pitstop.”

            “Just like Richard.”

            “Just like.”

            “But, how?”

            “I was walking on the seawall, then went over to English Bay, then—Thump!—it almost landed on my head.  I covered it with stones—twelve—but first I pulled out a flight feather from its left wing.  Here, I’ve got it in my bag.”

            “That is freaky.  But, why?”
            “Like, I should know?”

            “No, I guess I can’t expect you to.  Say, what if I call Dwight and Margery and see if they’re up to a visit from us?”

             “Don’t you have something on with Derek?”

            “Who?”

            “You didn’t seem too enchanted with him when he came in.”

            “Standard procedure.  He loves being humiliated.  Why do you think he gave me his card after I publicly exposed him at the rally?”

            “Kinky.”

            “He also likes being tied up and spanked.”

            “You don’t, do you?  You do!  You enjoy it?”

            “I’m a dirty naughty little girl.  Stop laughing.”

            “Can you say that while doing your nails and cracking gum?”

            “You’ll have to pay me first.  He was stalking me.  I began to confront him.  I nearly called the police, but—well, I sort of liked him.  So, when he was standing in front of my house for the umpteenth time I let him have it.  I flew at him like a fury, then I cracked him one across the face.  He started crying.  Then I shook him by the shoulders, then I kind of felt sorry for him so I put my arms around him and let him cry like a baby.  He was so pathetic, I brought him up to my place for a cup of tea, and we’ve been together ever since.  I’m the only woman, it seems, who’s ever done this to him.  He seems to need discipline.”

            “What are the chances of it lasting?”

            “I have my doubts about it.  I enjoy being dominant, but I don’t feel right about it.  I never had any of this sort of nonsense with Richard.  On the other hand, I seem to be keeping him in line.  And he’s always such a sweetie after I’ve spanked him.”

            “Does anyone else know?”

            “Just you.”

            “I won’t tell anyone.  I promise.”

            “Thanks.”

            “Chris just asked me about working here.”

            “Go for it.  You need a wholesome environment.”

            “Carol, after what you’ve just confided to me, I’m not sure that wholesome would be the word.  I might be safer at the Pitstop."

Thirteen Crucifixions, 63

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to sit perfectly still.”

            “Are you sure?” asked Douglas Furnis.  “I do want it to look like me.”

            “That shouldn’t be a problem.  But I’ve found while doing live portraits that when the subject sits perfectly still, then some of the life abandons the face”, Glen said.

            “Well, I don’t want that to happen.”

            He had a handsome face, one so beautifully made that for Glen it was almost an exquisite pain being commissioned to do his portrait.  Still, he couldn’t understand the discomfort he felt in this person’s presence.  They were sitting in his living room, which was all Danish Modern furniture, black, white, grey, and taupe, clean lines, no clutter.  An environment so clean, ordered and sterile, as to suggest an underlying sinisterness.  Like Douglas’ face?  Glen had never had the dubious pleasure of painting so beautiful, perfect and flawless a face, male or female.  He had just learned from Greg, now Aaron, who also did commissioned portraits, that one should really charge the highest fees to the prettiest sitters.   The terms they had agreed on were indeed generous.  Along with the painting he had just purchased, Glen was guaranteed to live comfortably for a while.  The silence in his apartment was almost tomb-like.

            “I’ve never sat in such a clean apartment”, he said.

            “I have a very good cleaning lady”, Douglas replied.   “I’ve had her for years.  She’s Croatian.  She used to bring her son with her, but he’s gone off to university.”  Glen had so far established the ground colour of the painting: a deep rich and uniform maroon.  The face had already been shaped in strokes of titanium white, chrome yellow and process magenta.  This was not going to be an easy paint.  There was something almost too perfect and flawless about this face, and he was sure that there was also something lacking.  What was it?  Glen was painting a mask?  Had he had extensive plastic surgery?  How could a nose be so perfectly formed?  Glen didn’t paint perfection, but this Douglas Furnis wanted a perfect representation.  This would be the first face he’d painted that didn’t appear to have some underlying truth that was just waiting to be brought out in paint.

            “Tell me a bit about yourself, Doug.”

            “You may call me Douglas.”

            “Sorry.  Douglas.  But tell me about yourself, please.”

            “Why?”

            “When I’m doing a live sitting, it often helps me bring out something real in the portrait.”

            “I’m not interested in that kind of ‘real’.”

            “I’m just concerned that I might turn out a plastic, sterile kind of representation.”

            “That’s what I want.  It’ll go with the furniture.”

            Glen almost laughed, but immediately realized that Douglas was not joking.  He gave him the creepy, oppressive impression of someone who had never laughed in his life.  He couldn’t begin to guess his age.  If he had had recent plastic surgery then he might be as old as fifty, though his hands suggested a man somewhere near thirty.  Glen was too shy to ask.

            “How long will this take.”

            “It might be a couple of weeks.  If you give me a couple of good photos I can work with it might be done sooner.

            “I prefer live sittings.”

            “You don’t mind?”

            “I have lots of time right now.  I’m leaving my business in the hands of my two partners for the time being.  I’m thinking of travelling.”

            “Where?”

            “Costa Rica.  Then maybe Thailand and Cambodia.”  I try to go every year if I can.”

            “How long have you lived here in Vancouver?”

            “Please, no more personal questions.”

            “But—”

            “You are here to paint.”

 

 

 

The Gifted Child Complex

I was diagnosed as a gifted child.  I will give you exactly thirty seconds to catch your breath.  Okay, I'm not saying it again.  Once is enough.  When I was in grade one I was considered a child genius, or nearly so and they gave me a beautifully illustrated book about everything as an award at school.  It was all in the form of ABC and the only one I remember is the letter G, which is for "Gay" and the illustration was of two incredibly gorgeous birds.  I forget exactly what they might have been but I suspect now they might have been sunbirds or similar.  Here is a Google image to refresh your memory:

 

Neat eh?  Probably time soon to paint or draw one of these little beauties.  Well, now the word gay means something entirely different and I promise to spare you disagreeable British puns about birds, but seeing that image, especially given that I cannot remember what the birds were, was the first thing that inspired me to paint tropical birds.  I think that with each painting I am trying to remember that incredibly lovely image from that book.  Under G for Gay.  Referring to their colours of course.  Here is one of my paintings of sunbirds:

 7.   2007

"Africa"

acrylic,   12"x36"

 

In grade four I was put in an experimental class for advanced kids.  We shared facilities with students in grades five and six.  It was fun, actually, with field trips and open learning.  Mom had me kept in the school when we moved to a different catchment area halfway through the year because it was such a beneficial experience for me.  But my big brother was one of the cool kids and I wanted to be a cool kid.  From when I settled into grade five at a new school surrounded by very average kids through grade eight I was relentlessly bullied and ostracised.  What helped keep me sane was my ability to stand my ground and fight back.  But I was widely hated and feared for being smart and gifted.  Those, and not just the weak little idiots, are among the most popular targets in the schoolyard.

 

The day I finished great eight, June 16, Tuesday, at the tender age of fourteen I smoked my first joint, offered by older rebel kids, all cool underachievers.  I morphed into a cool underachiever.  I also read politically revolutionary and socially progressive literature, particularly underground newspapers.  I turned into a leftist anarchist, or an anarchist leftist.  I continued to smoke pot.

 

Six months later I met the Jesus freaks, gave my heart to Jesus, and nothing has ever been the same.  This spiritually empowered and enlivened movement was also anti-intellectual and anti-education.  For an underachiever like me it was the perfect disguise.  I could excel at being a Christian, ignore my gifts and let them rot in the ground.  I was determined that if I could not be normal and ordinary I could at least excel at being strange and still be left off the hook.

 

It wasn't that easy.  Because I had actually met God he was not going to let me get away with neglecting my gifts.  Little by little, over the years, I reclaimed my gifts: my intellectual gifts, my artistic gifts, my literary gifts, my linguistic gifts, and now, my musical gifts, and each one I came to see not as an obstacle to my spiritual growth and development but an opportunity and a tool with which God is calling me to serve him.  I also discovered that instead of distancing me from God and spiritual values this developing my gifts has rather brought me closer to God than ever before.

 

I still find myself resenting being singled out for being gifted.  So I have a well-above average IQ?  Big deal.  What kind of human being am I?  Do I care about others?  Respect them?  Treat them with compassion and dignity?  Quite seriously I feel like a duck that lays golden eggs.  A very ordinary little white duck, sitting on a nest, not really aware of what's happening, then suddenly, "QUACK!", and lookie! What a big fat golden egg and boy did that hurt.  Do I care?  Not really.  I would still rather be ordinary.  In the meantime I will continue to use and cultivate my gifts in a way that pleases God and can benefit others.  I will also continue appreciating the great works of literature, music, art and scholarship, if for no other reason but learn from the masters, gain new inspiration and keep me humble.

After Christmas

Christmas is over and I have survived.  Pause for applause.  Thank you Gentle Reader.  You are very kind.  After a couple of brief battles with depression early this month I got through it.  It seems that the dark shadow that had been squatting over me every Christmas for the past twenty years has finally flown back to the circle of Hell it calls home.  This could even be the best Christmas I've ever had.  Nothing special really.  And yes there were a few people around who tested my patience, and perhaps vice-versa, but there were so many more wonderful folks around.

I actually did give a gift, even.  It was neither planned or expected.  I was having coffee with two friends of mine last week and one of them wanted to write down my work number.  No one had any paper, so I offered him one of my bird drawings that I had with me.  He picked one.  On the back I wrote my name, my work number and the words "Merry Christmas."  My other friend didn't want one, claiming that there is no more space in her small apartment and the walls already are holding art given her by other friends.

I have mentioned that writing last Christmas the three posts "Hanging Christmas Out To Dry" and re-posting them this year has been enormously helpful.  Please Gentle Reader, you are most welcome to make use of these writings for future Christmases should you find them of value.  One very dear friend also gave me an early Christmas gift of $100 and a lovely card before he left the country for the holidays early this month.  I also kept my emotions on a very short leash and made good and sure that every bout of depression would be as brief as possible.  Instead of wallowing I used the down times for prayer and reflection.  I truly observed a good Advent this year.

I also had the wisdom to leave a toxic church, St. Paul's Anglican in the West End of Vancouver, where I languished for six years, doing everything I could to belong and feel included in a parish full of cliquish snobs, many of whom probably would have frozen Jesus out of the place had he arrived in person. (so sue me!).  This parish has a collective borderline personality disorder.  Every single Christmas, except for two or three grudging Christmas Eve dinners, I was left high and dry for Christmas Day.  Many knew that I was alone without family or friends and they simply ignored me.  One of them even had the colossal gall to chew me out for asking around if anyone would be willing to include me in their Christmas celebrations.  He certainly didn't. Yes I am throwing it in your faces.  Live with it!  Last May I packed up and moved to a different church, St. Anselm's, and I finally feel as though I am in a community that welcomes me and where I can participate and my gifts are welcome.

At St. Anselm's they had a Christmas Dinner for students and parishioners.  I came for dessert following work.  I had a blast.  I did work Christmas Day as usual at Venture the psychiatric facility where I work.  It went sublimely.  I chatted with clients, we did a long walk in the beautiful weather, then some of us did some art together and I stayed for dinner and had enjoyable random chats with people.  And the manager gave me a gift card for Chapters.  Earlier in the day I had coffee with my Mexican friend, whom I gave a Christmas Card (my only one).  It is one of many that I have that contain images of my art:  The painting itself is big, three feet by four and the image from my website is overexposed.  It is much darker than this but it's still beautiful, eh?  The title: La Danza de la Noche, Spanish for the dance of the night.  I have become a bit shy around offering images of my art.  People all have different tastes.  And some who likely hate my work will still say it's lovely or nice.  I think this happens a lot, for which reason I no longer trust what others say, or don't say about my art.  What is important is that I am satisfied with my painting.

Altogether it's gone well this year.  Better than ever.
Happy New Year Gentle Reader.

The Temptation of Gentrification

We were walking on Hastings Street in Vancouver's poorest postal zone and it was unsettling.  There was the black man yelling for no reason other than he wasn't on his meds then the two (one aboriginal) crack heads almost jumping on us to give them money.  As we found our way to a quiet and sheltered café I mentioned to my companion that these are times when gentrification can be very appealing.

Last night I was enjoying dessert following Christmas dinner with some friends and two sisters and brother-in-law visiting from out of town, among other fine people.  The out of towners were wondering what they could see in Vancouver over the next couple of days.  I suggested Chinatown, which has against all odds retained much of its old magic.  "Isn't it dangerous?" someone said.  I mentioned that it runs parallel to Hastings and could be sketchy but is generally safe.  Someone recommended that they indeed should stay off of Hastings Street given the desolation and the homeless people suffering from addictions and mental illness.  Citing my experience the other day I mentioned that it isn't particularly dangerous there but it can be very unsettling.  I proceeded to tell them that I worked in the area for four years in social services and also lived in the area for a brief time (they seemed so impressed) and my suggestion was that they would not likely be in danger but if they had no reason for being there, for example to work or somehow help out that they would do better to stay away altogether.  Or, as their brother-in-law said, if they're not on a mission to save the Downtown Eastside (not my choice of words) they would best stay away from the area.

In recent weeks two competing petitions have been circulating: one to close the two emergency shelters that recently opened in my Downtown South neighbourhood where I live; the other to drive the selfish yuppies from Vancouver, the very people who want the homeless shelters shut down.  I have signed the second petition, naturally.

Gentrification is a very nasty process.  Everything becomes too expensive for the low income residents who eventually have to move, making way for well-incomed yuppies and their little dogs too.  Superficially it is wonderful.  Everything looks nice, clean, smells nice; there are no awful ugly looking poor people bothering anyone for money nor with their disagreeable presence.  I think of it as a kind of social cleansing.

I don't like the sight of dishevelled, desperate and unstable, broken down persons going through the garbage bins of my neighbourhood.  I like even less the well groomed, good looking and sweet smelling young professionals who are the only demographic that can now afford to live here.  We need more than shelters.  We need safe affordable housing for everyone.  We also need treatment and recovery services.  We need everything.  Except greedy selfish people who hate those less fortunate than themselves.

Thirteen Crucifixions, 62

Full disclosure: Following is one of the few parts of my novel that are at all autobiographical.  I am the artist named Aaron, formally known as Greg, who makes some cameo appearances in the story.  It isn't completely fact, since I have never known Glen or anyone really like him.  Enjoy.  And Merry Christmas.

He was sure he would have known the back of that head anywhere.  When first they’d known each other, twenty-five years ago, that same head was covered in a cascade of tangled, tawny coloured hair that swept down to his shoulders.  Now, gleamed a modestly proportioned bald spot surrounded by closely cropped dark brown hair that held a sprinkling of gray.  The head turned, and Glen caught the profile.  Since 1984 Greg had not aged appreciably.  Being the same age as he, he would be forty-five already.  The years had been very kind to his face.  He had just paid Melissa his bill, and was getting up to leave the Westwind.  He almost let him go.  They hadn’t seen or run into each other in seventeen years.  What would they say to each other?  Glen decided to take his chances.

            “Greg!”

            He stopped by the door and turned slowly around.  His eyes widened in delayed recognition.  He seemed to be forcing a smile.  He was in a hurry, perhaps, or he didn’t recognize him, or he simply couldn’t be bothered.  “Hey Glen”, he said with nonchalance.

            “How have you been?” he reached out to shake Greg’s reluctant hand.

            “Can’t complain.  You might call me Aaron.  I changed my name six years ago.”

            “Aaron.”  He formed the word in his mouth, as though it were something entirely foreign.  “Are you in a hurry?  Do you have time to visit for a while?”

            “Sure, for a few minutes anyway.”

            “Where’ve you been all these years?  Did you leave the country?”

            “Not for any great length of time.  I was in London and the rest of Europe in summer ’91, and spent two weeks in Costa Rica in summer ’94.  Otherwise I’ve been here most of the time.”

            “Funny, I was in both those places too, but at different times.”

            “I’ve always believed us to be on parallel journeys”, he said dryly.  “So Glen, tell me everything.”

            “I’ve always told you everything.  You’re one of the hardest people to keep anything from.”

            “And don’t you forget it.”

            “This is the first time I’ve seen you in here.”

            “This is my first time in this place.  Not bad, really.  I used to walk by it all the time, then, today, just on a whim, I thought I’d step in for a coffee.  It was actually the art that drew me in.”

            “You like the paintings?”

            “Tremendously.  Is that your name I saw on the labels?”

            “Yes.  It is indeed.”

            “It’s great that you’re doing this again.  Do you think the owners will be looking for any new artists down the road?”

            “I could ask Sheila for you.  What did you have in mind?”

            “Well, I’ve been painting, myself, for the past eight years or so, and I’m always on the look out for places where I can show my work.”

            “What kind of painting do you do?”

            Aaron reached into his army bag, from which he produced a small photo album that contained on the front cover an image of Van Gogh’s “Sidewalk Café at Night”.  They were photos mostly of paintings of birds: swarms of multihued hummingbirds ascending and descending and vanishing into a living cloud of light, stately peacocks, and perched blue and black birds with elegant de-curved beaks and surrounded by fire.

            “Greg, sorry, I mean Aaron.  These are wonderful.  I knew you had it in you.  These are just so beautiful.  You must show them to Sheila.”

            “Are you sure?  I don’t want to crowd you out."

            “Do you mind sharing wall space?”

            “I don’t mind at all.” 

            “Do you live in the area?”

            “I’m sharing a house with four other guys on Seventh near Clarke.  Hey Glen, are you doing anything right now?”

           


            “So why did you change your name?”

            “I had a huge falling out with my father.  Since my mother died from cancer in ninety-one, we actually were becoming very good friends.  Then, when his own mother died in early ninety-four, it was too much for him.  He started drinking again, and then he turned mean.  This brought back some very unpleasant childhood memories.  You see, he used to abuse me sexually when I was small.  So, that was it.  Time for a new identity.  I didn’t realize the extent to which he had disowned me until I was staying with him part-time while I was homeless.  He nearly drove me to suicide with his vicious nastiness.  Very painstakingly I’m trying to rebuild some kind of relationship with him, and he does seem to be responding, somewhat anyway.”

            They sat in Aaron’s room, tiny, on top of a tall teetering old house.  Three sides of windows gave view to mountains, and a surrounding copse of trees.  There were paintings in various stages of finishedness everywhere.  Aaron sat on the bed, while Glen occupied a chair in the corner.

            “Do you think it’s worth it?” Glen asked.

            “I really don’t know.  Hey Glen?”

            “Yes?”

            “Tell me something please.”

            “Sure.”

            “Are you interested at all in silent prayer?”

            “I am actually.  Why?”

            “Would you be interested in meeting with me every week for this, say for an hour?”

            “I would actually.”  They both smiled, separately, discreetly, taking the greatest care to not betray to each other the great joy they were suddenly causing one another.  It was only after Aaron saw Glen to the front door at the bottom of the house, and only once he was safely across Clarke Drive, when the walk signal had ceased its electronic bird chirping, did he permit the smile to unabashedly fill his face.