The Peacock 1046

 It was six months, no, longer, it was almost summer, after Kenny's death.  It is hard even for me to believe that after growing up near the top of that cliff that I would be twenty years old before my first visit to Wreck Beach.  But Kenny used to go there, not often, and I felt keenly a drive to somehow walk with him down there.  I started where Carl went in from the forest, continuing on from Spanish Banks West Beach along the rocks, stones, driftwood and sandbars, passing here and there naked people basking in the sun or playing frisbee out on the tidal flats.  Not all naked, but enough.  Then the two gun towers, two gaunt concrete monoliths on each end of the section of beach named appropriately Towers Beach, built during the Second World War to ward off any less than likely Japanese attack.   Then turning the bend just past tower number two, there was Wreck Beach proper, I would say, fifty percent naked, and sometimes very easy on the eyes, but I was careful not to stare, knowing how utterly tacky.  I got near to the gay section, where the ocean turns into the mouth of the Fraser River.  It was a warm, sunny day, and now it was all men, mostly naked, likely one hundred percent gay.  Near where a trail began seated on a log outside his tent, Chuck looked up and said hi to me...

The Peacock 1045

 So, who is this guy she's with now?  And what about the kid?"

"Max is with Mehmet.  Greta seems to have very little interest in raising her child.  which is just as well because her new, or old, man is a psycho whacko."

"How old is he?"

"Given how long she's known him I'd say he must be getting near sixty.  But you wouldn't know it to look at him.  He's one of those people that never ages."

"Where did she meet him?"

"Years ago at the university.  He was her anthropology professor."

"Lindstrom?"

"Good guess.  How did you know about him?"

"I have my sources."

"Listen, Christopher, I had might as well tell you this right now.  I did not really apply to take my pHd at UBC. Do you know why I really came here?"

"Tell me."

"I had to get away from them both.  It was either that or..."

"You don't have to say more than that right now, Erik, if you're not ready to.  I understand."

"How come do you know about Lindstrom."

"There's a bit of a story.  Can I tell you tomorrow?"

"Okay.  Please.  I think we both have some things to get off our chest."

"I'll call you tomorrow morning around nine, before I head out to deliver you the books."

"And art materials."

"Yes, I have a sketchbook here and some pencil crayons for you to use.  Good night..."

The Peacock 1044

 "Thanks, I guess.  I feel closer to eighty, what with jetlag and being held prisoner like this."

"It's just for two weeks.  How about Greta?  Any word from her these days?"

"She and Mehmet are separating."

"How come?"

"He doesn't want to share her."

"What do you mean.  He has a rival?"

"Sven was in the scene long before Mehmet arrived, and it looks like Greta is not about to divide her loyalties."

"What a shame."  Though I'm not sure if I really mean it, since I might also be secretly gloating that my ex-wife can't keep her man.

"You can say that again."

"You don't imagine that it would be because he's Turkish?"

"Could be.  I mean with his blond hair and blue eyes and perfect cheekbones he looks more Swedish than Greta and I put together, but there is always that ethnic odour that seems to get in the way.  But, anyway, I believe you are right about us Swedes.  We are mostly closet white supremacists and I am saying this with feelings of profound disgust.

The Peacock 1043

 "Not much to tell.  When I was in the forest today I felt the presence of God very strong, and it seemed to just completely fill me."  I am not going to mention the tongues or the singing.  Erik may not be ready for this.  He doesn't look skeptical.  Sort of receptive.

"And now your life is changed forever", he says smiling, but not quite sarcastically.

"I guess time will tell."

"So what are you guys up to tonight."

"I think we're going to be signing off soon.  We just finished eating, Carl and I, and I imagine he's with Francois right now in the living room."

"They both seem very interesting."

"They are both very interesting."

"Carl's a millionaire?"

"He inherited quite a mound of money from his father.  His great grandfather built this huge mansion where he is living and now Carl and his sister are the sole proprietor's.  Tomorrow his mother will be flying in from Switzerland in order to commandeer the place.  She of course will be in quarantine for fourteen days.  Carl really wants to get out of there."

"Has he become...I don't know...sort of a sugar daddy to you?  I know that seems weird, especially because he's so young."

"He's pushing forty."

"I thought fhe was younger than me."

"How old are you now?"

"Thirty-three."

"You don't at all look it..."

The Peacock 1042

 "I don't know how I'm going to cope with this.  I already suffer from depression."

"Kid, you have me.  We can talk every day, two or three times a day if you want.  You can phone me any time."

"Did you find me some books?"

"Shit, I forgot.  I'll get right to it before I go to bed tonight, then I'll bring them out for you tomorrow morning.  Do you have the address for me?"

"I'm texting it to you right now."

"Could you bring me also a sketchbook, and some coloured pencils or felts?"

"Surely I can do that for my ex-brother-in-law."

"Friend.  I'm also  your friend.  Aren't I?

"You bet!"

"What's happened to you? You seem... different."

"Different how?

"I don't know.  Happier.  Lighter.  You appear to have this light surrounding you.  Did you meet God or something?"

"In a word...yes"

"Please tell me about it, I have never seen you this way..."

The Peacock 1041

 I haven't revealed anything to Carl or François about Chuck.  I'm not yet ready to do this, especially given how much I seem to be only just starting to remember.  How could I have forgotten, but I do suffer from bouts of amnesia.  I imagine this encounter today with the Holy Spirit is going to be opening a lot of stuff in me.  Anyway, here I am, back in Dad's bedroom, which maybe one day I will call my own bedroom.  Just like maybe one day I will call this my house?  Maybe it's time to sell and use the equity to help Carl buy that Victorian mansion.  Why am I thinking this right now?  The door is closed anyway, which is good.  I want to have a private conversation with Erik, without anyone eavesdropping, especially Carl.  Later, if appropriate, I will tell him. about my chat with Erik.  Not Chuck.  Not yet anyway.

It is rather nice to lie stretched out on this big bed propped against pillows, but I am getting drowsy, so it's now or never.

"Hi Erik."

"Did I wake you up?"

"No, I was just dozing.

"How are you?"

"Whacked from a super long hike in the Endowment Lands today.  I just ate and now seem to be slipping into a food coma."

"Wish I could go hiking.  Looks like I won't be walking anywhere outside this room for two weeks..."

1040

 "Is there a story there?"

"This stir fry is delicious" say I.

"Francois is an excellent cook." says Carl

"Louder please", says Francois from the living room.

"Francois is an excellent cook." repeats Carl a bit louder.

"Louder."

In unison Carl and I both shout "Francois is an excellent cook!"

"Thank you.  don't eat with your mouths full

"You mean", say I, "Don't talk with your mouths full."

"That too."

."So, Chris, about your experiences at Wreck Beach."

""Listen to the nice man.  Don't eat with your mouth full."

"Seconds?" says Carl, getting up with his now empty plate."

"Don't mind if I do", say I passing him my plate...

The Peacock 1039

 "You're both welcome!" calls Francois from the living room as Carl and I are already at table, shoveling delicious stir fry into our craws.

"Thank you Francois", I call back.

"Ditto", says Carl

"So, how did you like Wreck Beach?" say I.

"It's a beautiful place."

"With or without the naked people?

"Not a fair question.  And anyway not all the bodies there are young or beautiful.  Most of them pretty ordinary, some are downright hideous."

"Not much different from the folks we'd see in the shopping mall, only naked?"

"Something like that.  But they weren't all naked."

"You said you took off all your clothes", say I, testing. "what was that like?"

"A bit weird.  Like you I'm Not all that modest, but it still felt kind of strange.  But I also wasn't wearing sunscreen so I didn't want to take chances.  How about you Chris?  Have you ever gone naked at Wreck Beach?"

"Three times."

"Three times?"

"Three times..."

The Peacock 1038

Chuck wanted us to sleep together before leaving town the next morning for a tree planting job on the Island.  his idea was that, since dad was away, he could sleep with me.  I thought different.  We continued talking about it while eating together at the kitchen table.  There was no way I was going to show such disrespects for the man who sired and raised me and with such extraordinary car and common sense.  Church appeared to get it and so I put him to bed in kenny's room next to mine.  It worked out okay.  Curiously, we said nothing about our three encounters at Wreck Beach, whether out of tact or embarrassment or  bit of both.  Chuck was the first and only man with whom I had ever had sex, an experience even more intensely frightening that it was intensely pleasurable.

Francois is reclined as usual on the  sofa with his laptop.  "I left you guys a whole mess of food on top of the stove", he says, briefly looking up from his screen and before we can even say thank you, Carl and I are both in the kitchen where I am  loading up two large plates with Francois' delicious stir fry...

The Peacock 1037

 We are almost home and fortunately we have both run out of things to talk about.  And I cannot stop thinking about Chuck.  He actually followed me home one night, as though he hadn't already had enough of me that day.  It was our third and last meeting.  Dad was away at a clergy retreat leaving me with the house to myself.  It was well into summer, July, and we were having a warm spell.  It would have been about this time of evening, when the sun is getting ready to go down for its well deserved rest following a good sixteen hours in the sky.    I was famished, and made a ham and cheese sandwich with a big plate full of potato salad.  There was a knock on the door.  I looked through the peep hole and there he was, shirtless with a backpack, and so incredibly hungry and desirable....

The Peacock 1036

 "You got a history with that beach."

"Yeah, and I'm not telling you right now."

"Ah c'mon Chris.  We don't have secrets."

"About this one we are going to have to be patient."

"Aw!"

And now I do want to change the subject but I'm not sure just how to distract us from talking about Chuck, because it was Chuck I used to see down at Wreck Beach.  not often.  just three times.  But I don't feel ready yet, and Carl is so fucking inquisitive.  And to think, fresh off the baptism of the Spirit I am using that kind of language and recalling one of the most scandalous events of my shadowy past.  But this is going to have to wait.  Only now the memory has been resurrected and now it's going to linger in my face like the walking dead.  And how quickly we forget the joy and blessings of the innocence of God's perfect love....

The Peacock 1035

 "I was walking in the forest and then suddenly I was baptized in the Holy Spirit."

"Say again please?"

"Today, while walking in a different part of Pacific Spirit Park, I received the infilling of the Holy Spirit, there was this humongous release of joy and peace and I began singing in an unknown tongue."

"It really happened?

"It's happening now."

"I can see it all over you.  Yes, Chris, you are different.  Changed.  So happy and light, and kind and fun to be around.  I mean, I've always enjoyed being with you, but this is like when someone suddenly pours chocolate orange sauce all over the white chocolate ice cream."

"Yeah I guess that's one way of saying it.  The thing is, more than twenty-five years ago, along with my Dad, I received the laying on of hands.  For him it was all trumpets and fireworks and for me not even a rusted kazoo.  And then this lady prophesies and tells me that the Spirit would remain bottled up in me for a number of years until the time was right.  And, now, the time is right."

"That is just amazing, Chris.  I am so happy for you.  You know, it happened for me when I was twenty-one in Switzerland, but then it went underground for a long time.  Just now it seems to be bubbling again to the surface.  But maybe it would help if I stay away from that famous beach of yours."

"Dude, it ain't my  beach", and now we are both laughing.

"

The Peacock1034

 Carl soon relaxes his arm and lets it fall away from my shoulder.  The contact is nice, but prolonged can feel a bit icky, cloying after a while.  I think we both know this.

"So how far did you get on the beach?"

"What do you mean, how far."

"Chill.  You already said you didn't misbehave.  Not that it matters one way or the other..."

"But it does."

"Says you."

"Chris, it does matter.  Those happen to be the first penises I have seen other than my own since I sucked my last dick for pay in Amsterdam.  Do you know how long ago that was?  More than twenty years."

"So you never made it to the gay section."

"There happens to be a gay section?

"Never mind.  How are you feeling right now?"

"Shakey.  Impacted I would guess."

"Triggered?"

"Very."

"You're going to be all right."

"Pardon?"

"You're going to be all right."

"Say it again, please, Chris."

"You're going to be all rught,"

Thank you."

Okay, your turn.  Say it for yourself"

"I'm going to be all right."

"Again."

"I'm going to be all right."

"Say it again."

"I'm going to be all right."

"Very good.  Now let me tell you about my day."

"Yes, please....

The Peacock 1033

 Erik is on the phone.

"Where are you?" he demands, rather in the same tone of voice as Francois when he called me a few minutes ago.

"I just rescued Carl from Wreck Beach and now I'm walking him home."

"You what!  What were you doing down there?"

"It's really a lovely place, you know."

"You've been there?"

"On occasion.  But today no, I simply met him at the top of the trail because he was lost, this being his first time, so now I am providing him safe passage home.  Didn't you ever go there when you were here ten years ago?

He pauses..."once."

"And?"

"Never mind.  You said you'd call me later today.  What happened?"

"I kind of got swept away on a huge gust of God's love.  But here I am now.  How are you?"

"I just woke up.  I fell asleep soon after  our last phone call.  Now I'm wide awake."

"Would you like me to call you on Skype when I get home."

"Could you please?

"Okay, but after I've eaten.  I am famished right now.  See you in about an hour, maybe at nine or so?"

"Very good.  Bye."

And now I feel Carl's arm encircling my shoulders, and it does feel nice as he draws me close to him...

The Peacock 1032

 He looks anxious and stressed, and he seems sort of glad to see me as I cross the road to meet him.  Instinctively I open my arms and enfold him in a hug which he timidly accepts.  I feel light and happy and can only see the humour.  He looks like a puppy that has just peed on the carpet.  "Thanks for coming, Chris."

"You wasted no time finding our notorious clothing optional beach.  How did you get there."

"I repeated the walk we took to the forest yesterday, and then I went down to the beach where I just continued walking, and walking and walking.  I never imagined that I would see so many naked people on a single day."

"Was it enjoyable?" say I as we cross the road together and begin our walk home.

"Please don't ask me that question"  Then after a brief silence says, "So you welcome and forgive the prodigal sinner?"

"Sinner?  What did you do"  Did you have sex with anyone?"

"No."

"Did you go naked?"

"For maybe twenty minutes when I sat down on a log to rest, but then it felt weird so I got dressed again."

"Did you get drunk?"

"No."

"Did you take any drugs?"

"No."

"Were you tormented by unclean thoughts?" and now I am giggling.

"Of course I was!"

"Welcome home sinner" , and he offers a timid little smile in response to my unsuppressed giggling...

The Peacock 1031

I cannot remember when I last walked this route.  Likely the last time I was at Wreck Beach, maybe twenty years ago?  It was always a self-indulgent novelty for me, the rare time I went.  I wandered sometimes into the gay section by the Fraser River, and was more repulsed and scared off than titillated.  I am glad Carl managed to get away from there before sunset, which happens pretty soon.  I must say I am still feeling buoyed by this revelation of God's presence in the form of tongues and song.  I feel amazingly energized even after sitting down for just ten minutes.  Here is Marine Drive, the trees, and yes, I see him, Carl, looking around anxiously...

1030

 "Hi Francois."

"Where are you?"

"What do you mean, where am I".  And now I am laughing.

"It's quarter to eight."

And I glance at my phone screen and sure enough it is 7:47.

"Oh, sorry.  It is late."

"I made a huge stir fry and it should feed us for a couple of days.  Want me to leave some out for you."

"Yes, man, I am starving."

"Any word from Carl.  He's been gone all this time and we don't have each other's contact."

"Wait a minute, i just got a text from him, five minutes ago.  he says, "Chris, I am trying to escape from Wreck Beach. it looks like a butcher shop with all this naked flesh and I have to get out of here.  Someone told me I'm on Trail Six.  How do I get home from here?

"Better call him, right away".

"agreed."

"Carl, it's Christopher.  Where are you right now."

"I am just getting to the top of the trail."

"Don't move from there.  I will be there in fifteen minutes.  Stay there at the trail entrance..."

The Peacock 1029

 I can't seem to stop walking.  I must have already covered almost every trail in this forest.  The shadows are beginning to lengthen, and the leaves glitter like pieces of emerald dipped in gold.  My legs, my feet, are getting sore.  I am thirsty.  Why did I forget to bring water with me?  I haven't sung in more than an hour,  perhaps two hours, and the silence has been wonderful.  But can I still sing like that?  Will I have forgotten this language?  This must be like that Canadian in Mexico from Aaron's story that he shared with u a few days back, walking and singing beautifully in an unknown tongue.  I have to get in touch with Aaron, see if he will have coffee with me.  He could explain a thing or two.  And, yes, I am singing again, and the language, the words flow, and I haven't a clue what any of them mean.  It sounds perhaps a little like Persian, or Sanskrit.  I don't know, but it has a beautiful sound.  

Back on the campus now and here is the café where I used to work. They are still open, and a table outside would be nice.  I will order a bottle of perrier.  The server is a young man, perhaps Korean, friendly and likeable.  And now to look at my phone again which I haven't turned on since I left the house today.  A text from Francois.  He wants me to call him.  And a text from Carl...

The Peacock 1028

 Yes, I remember.  After Kenny's death, when my father started drinking, then the AA program he enrolled in, and then some friends he met there coming to visit, and soon every week, Wednesday evenings they would gather for prayer in the living room.  A friend he had made at AA was a charismatic Christian, and he introduced Dad to some people from his church, and then one evening they laid their hands on him and he was suddenly weeping with joy and babbling in an unknown tongue and then with my permission they did the same with me and...nothing.  I felt numb.  Then a woman there, a lady in her fifties spoke prophetically over me.  How could I have forgotten?  She said that I had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, but it would lie dormant for some years, some many years until the tree had grown to maturity and the fruit had ripened and then the living waters would flow out.  Or something to that effect.  And never have I felt such joy, never in my life could I have imagined such joy.  I walk now in ecstasy...

The Peacock 1027

 As I pass the towering douglas fir, hemlock and sitka spruce and cedar trees and the banks of salmonberry bushes still in wild magenta bloom I have suddenly gone silent.  There is something stirring, struggling to emerge, and in this place of no place and no time, I open my mouth and again song pours forth but in a strange music and a strange tongue I have never spoken or sung before, and it is so hauntingly beautiful that I have to keep singing and it tears its way out of my throat like a flock of imprisoned white doves finally released to their aerial dance and flight into the heavens and my voice rises, but not my voice but the voice of another proclaiming from my lungs the majesty of the Lord, with the doves,  and the man on the bike looks at me astonished and even he cannot stop me, and not even I can prevent this magic, this celestial power from ripping its sonorous beauty out into the surrounding air vibrating with light and mystery...

Years ago, my father and some of his friends, surrounded me in the living room of our house, placed their hands on me and prayed.  This can be none other than the baptism of the Holy Spirit...

The Peacock 1026

 And now song rips its way through me as I raise my voice to the raven.  A Christian Hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty"...I know that I sound good, I was often pressured in both parish churches to enlist in the choir and I did not want that kind of attention..."Early in the morning my song shall rise to thee", and it pours out sweet, strong and buoyant and the two young women walking by smile, and not with sarcasm.  I have not lost the magic, the power resides in me still, and I am its channel...."Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty..." and I hear other birds singing as I meld my voice with theirs..."God in three persons, blessed Trinity..."

The Peacock 1025

 I knew better than to tell the doctors.  They would have just increased my medications and left me a blathering drooling zombie, and I was not going to sacrifice any more of my mind in order to fulfill my obligations as a patient.  They had their diagnosis, their neat little box to pack me in, but this unity of dimensions, this merging of time, space and being, they would have dismissed as psychosis and they would likely have kept me in there another three weeks, then released me into a tertiary care facility.  But now that robin's singing pierces through and units me with the shining green leaves and the call of the raven overhead is my signal to watch and beware as I soar with the raven, and now I am its stomach filled with the putrefying remains of the dead squirrel it has just ingested.  The powerline trail is wide, like a gravel road in the bush and it will carry me further and further still.  A jogger runs past and his desperate gasping for air betrays his unwellness, his utter obsession with running and running and running and suddenly I am his legs and the stinking feet enclosed in his expensive runners that move with staccato force on the gravel.  His T shirt is a flaming magenta passion screaming out frustration and fury to every branch extending its hungry leaves to a cruel and benevolent sun....

The Peacock 1024

 This is where Kenny and I used to go hiking together.  He had a way of making the forest come to life, scientifically and aesthetically.  He knew all the secrets of the plants, the bushes, the mosses and ferns, the complex web of fungi networking among and between the tree roots, its own peculiar worldwide web.  Two men are walking ahead of me with their golden retriever dog.  I am simply not in the mood for people and I am happy to stop and examine this clump of deer ferns on the ground as they move further ahead of me.  I am not worried about being left behind  For me there is no behind, no ahead, no up, no down, I know this place well, this union of dimensions.  When I was in hospital, my last two days, I came into this awareness, and then I knew I was going to be well....

The Peacock 1023

 This feels like a liberation.  I have wandered, all alone, across the university campus, and have found my way to the coffee shop tucked away in a neighbourhood of townhouses.  It's run and staffed by a Korean family, and they are connected to a Korean evangelical church that rents space in the local Anglican parish.  It is always quiet here and the patio has only one lone occupant, a young woman, likely student, engrossed in her smartphone.  A hummingbird visits the potted petunias of one of the hanging flower pots overhead, probing each  electric magenta flower with hungry precision and curious greed.  I have decided to ignore my phone for now, though it is lurking in my pocket, like a sinister imp always on the ready to emerge from the dark and make trouble.  I decided to carry with me the Doris Lessing novel and give it another go.  The Four Gated City.  I am still at the beginning and making slow progress because this is an incredibly dense novel.  Not boring.  Dense.  So this Martha woman has recently turned thirty and is on her own in postwar London where she is freebooting around and having adventures.  Right now she is in a restaurant with a couple of middle class twits who are there to keep an eye on her, and she suspects maybe more than an eye.  But she is telling them all about how completely divorced from reality they are...this is going to be interesting.  It's a nice day and I can't sit still much longer,.  I have drained the last bitter drops of my Americano and now I am on my way to the forest nearby...

The Peacock 1022

 "You must be in quarantine now", says Carl.

"It isn't too bad, though it still kind of sucks.  I also might have it.  I'm still waiting for the results."

"Haven't they been pretty lax in your country about covid?"

"Please, let's not talk about that."

"How do you like your hotel room?" say I , while signalling with my finger running across my lips to Carl that he had better shut up for a while.

"It isn't too bad.  It's big enough to move around, so I can do exercises okay.  The bed looks nice and there's a couple of comfy chairs, plus a desk and big TV screen.  Could do worse.  But I am going to have to live in here nonstop for the next fourteen days, and that is a bit daunting."

"Do you think it would be a good time for research."

"It's always a good time for research.  But what I would like is books.  Nothing academic.  A trashy detective novel would help."

"Can't you get books online?" says Carl, disobeying my orders to stay quiet.

"My eyes get tired from the screen.  Paper and ink is good."

Say I, "My father left me a huge library, all numerically and alphabetically organized and there is s generous fiction section.  How about I bring you a few books tomorrow"

"Oh, Christopher, that would be super."

"Send me the name and address of your hotel.  Do you want to talk, more this evening, around seven maybe?"

"That would be super..."

The Peacock 1021

 My mother was pregnant with me when she came here as a refugee from Rwanda during the genocide.  My father died in the genocide.  Years later, at the monastery, as a freshly minted priest, I was hearing confessions from a Hutu gentleman who killed my father.  He was not repenting for murdering my father, but wanted absolution for helping torch the Catholic church where my father with one hundred other Tutsis had sought refuge.  I told this gentleman that I could not give him absolution, that he must return at once to Rwanda and make his confession to a Tutsi Catholic priest.  Then I told him to get out and given that it was my father that he murdered, that if I ever saw him again I would kill him.  One thing led to anther, Carl rescued me from the monastery, and now I am here with Carl and Christopher.  Have you met Carl?"

"No, I  haven't." says Eric.

"Hey Carl", calls Francois.  "Come and meet Erik."

"Yeah, I'll be right there", he says from the living room.  Carl pulls up a chair on my left.

"You would be Erik", he says, leaning towards the screen.

"Yes", sys Erik, his eyes widening, then narrowing.  "You're...Carl?"  And I can already tell this is not going to go very well...

1020

 Francois continues, "Basically, with a lot of support from unexpected places I got through university rather quickly and enrolled in theological training at  seminary here in British Columbia that also is the location of a Benedictine monastery.  I was ordained when I was twenty-three, since they fast tracked my training, given how short supplied they are for priests in the Roman Catholic Church.  So, I was put immediately to work while living with the brothers at the monastery.  I lasted less than two years, was rescued by Carl and stayed in his house with the community there, then things went sideways.  Anyway, I decided I'd had enough, so I just bailed.

"Were you born in Canada?" says Erik.

"You are asking me this because I am black."

"No.  Because you seem to speak English with an accent.  French, I would say?"

"Um..." and I can tell that François is working really hard at being patient right now..."I was born in Quebec where French is the official language, if that helps at all."

"Oh, yes, sorry", says Erik. "I completely forgot."

And I can tell that Francois is tactfully refusing to reply:  of course you forgot...sure you did.

The Peacock 1019

 "Is that your Swedish friend?" says Francois coming into the kitchen for something to drink.

"Erik, would you like to meet Francois?" say I

"Sure, put him on."

Francois pulls up a chair next to me. "Hello, Erik, I am Francois.  How are you?"

"I've been better.  I just arrived."

"From Sweden?"

"That's right."  neither of my friends appear to know what to say to each other  next.

"Christopher", says Francois, "Would you like a glass of orange juice with me?"

"Sure", say I, and he gets up and goes to the fridge, pours juice into two tall tumblers, then brings them to the table.  To my surprise, he is sitting down again next to me.

"What brings you to Canada?" he says to Erik.

"I enrolled in the PHD program at UBC.

"What's your field of study?"

"Social work.  I am going to write a paper comparing the treatment and integration of immigrant communities with indigenous people in different countries, and I have opted to compare the Canadian experiments of multiculturalism and reconciliation with First Nations to the experiences of ethnic minorities and the indigenous Sami of Sweden."

"That is going to be a very long thesis", says Francois.

"I would say so.  How about you?  Are you a student?"

"Until yesterday I was a Roman Catholic priest."

"Until yesterday."

"I could tell you a bit right now about my CV if you and Christopher don't feel like I'm butting in."

"I'm okay", say I.  "how about you, Erik, are you up to it?"

"Sure..."

The Peacock 1018

 On the first ring Erik picks up.  His face shows tired and pale against a very pale blue hotel room wall.  He looks clearly upset.  But now he is smiling.  Yes, he does love me.

"Christopher" he chimes, almost musically.  "How incredibly good to see you."

"How are you?"

"I got here anyway.  Christ it is so good to see you."

"And you as well.  Where are you staying?"

"I don't even know the name of the hotel.  It doesn't seem that far from the airport."

"how much is this going to cost you?"

"More than I could budget for.  It could set me back at least three thousand Canadian."

"how are you paying for it?"

"I put it all on my Visa."

"You realize that I won't be charging you rent when you're here with us.  You'll be okay."

"Are you sure?"

"The house is all paid for, and Carl has agreed to take care of the property taxes."

"Carl.  Is that your rich Dutch friend?"  He seems a bit terse and uncomfortable.

"Francois is also here."

"I'm sure you'll both get on famously.  And I think you will hit it off with Francois."

"So there's three of you?

"So, here's the plan.  After your quarantine you will be going with us and Carl's mom and two friends of hers to the mansion in the mountains.  Unless you want to stay alone here at the house for a week or two, but I think you really won't want to be alone after your time in the hotel.   I need to square off a couple of things, get my car back and we'll be back here at my father's house in as couple of days."

"It's going to be that simple?"

"Maybe not..."

1017

"I wonder if she knows Chelsea", say I.

"you mean...sure, why not", says Carl.

"We could introduce them", says Francois.

"Or maybe not", say I

"So, what are we all doing for the rest of the day", says Carl

"I'm taking off."

"The woods?" says Carl

"Maybe."

"Wreck Beach?"

"Maybe not."

"Isn't that the famous nudist beach", says Francois.

"Yes indeed", says Carl.  "Hey, here's an idea.  let's all go suntanning in the nude at Wreck Beach."

"Maybe not", say I.

"Party pooper."

"There is nothing keeping you from going", say I.  "But I have too much to do and this place is full of distractions if you know what I don't mean.  Thanks for the great sandwiches, by the way."

"Would you like another?".

"If I wasn't so full.  I am tuning into a fat pig from all the great food you were feeding me last week."

"And you want to get your beach body back", says Carl.

"Well, maybe."

"So that you can bare it all with pride at Wreck Beach", says Francois, laughing devilishly.

"Or maybe not..."