Short Story: "On the Cusp"

On the Cusp

Click. Panic. Click again. Panic. It wouldn’t start, so Cathy called a tow truck. At the garage, they told her it could be any number of things; but it proved to be just the battery: dead. Cost: two hundred dollars.

That was the first of a series of incidents that led our gas stove serviceman to say, “They’re targeting you.” By “they,” he meant the negative little forces in life.

It started with Cathy’s car, then the foreboding incident of the florescent lights in our washroom flickering out; then a car rolling down the driveway of our neighbor’s yard across the street, smashing into the corner of our house; then we got our taxes, which shocked the hell out of us with an increment of sixteen hundred dollars; and then the oven in our gas stove went on the blink, and all within two weeks, not to mention all the computer problems that demanded the most of our technician. “Something’s going on,” I said to Cathy.

“I’ll say,” she said. “I wonder what’s next?”

What came next didn’t happen to us. It happened to the whole world: September 11, humanity’s rite of passage…

Bart and Wanda, Cathy’s friends from her marriage, whom she wanted to visit, lived in Englehart, Northeastern Ontario; so, we decided to take the northern Highway 11 route for our annual leafing holiday down in the Soo area instead of the Highway 17 scenic route along the shores of Lake Superior which we normally took, and we couldn’t wait to get away.

“Should we bring the cooler with us?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“How foolish of me. We always bring our cooler,” Cathy said, self-consciously.

We did a last minute inspection (I shut off the hot water tank just in case it leaked into the middle apartment of our triplex like it did one weekend we went away), Cathy made sure the coffee pot was off, and we got into “Satori” (I always name our vehicles) and drove off.

“Bye Eckshar Place. See you when we get back,” I said, and waved.

Cathy waved too. “Be good,” she said.

Eckshar Place is our triplex. Cathy and I built it. It took several years before we could move into it, but it’s all ours free and clear; except for taxes.

“When we get back, I’ll send in the forms to have our house re-assessed,” Cathy said.

“God, sixteen hundred dollars increase!” I exclaimed. I still couldn’t get over the shock. “That’s all I’m working for, bloody taxes. Will we ever get a life?”

“We have a life. We’re going on holidays right now. It may not be a real holiday, but I love our little getaways,” Cathy said, with a reassuring smile.

“Yeah. Let’s not worry about anything. Let’s just enjoy our getaway…”

Englehart is near New Liskard, a short distance from North Bay. We planned to stay the night in Englehart to visit Bart and Wanda, drive down to Huntsville the next day, spend a day or two in the area, and then go up the Georgian Bay and on to Sault Ste. Marie and St. Joseph Island where we always go for our final leafing holiday; but for some strange reason, I felt uneasy about taking the northern route.

It’s a long, boring drive from Longlac to Hearst, and from Hearst to Kapuskasing; and only from Cochrane on does it begin to take on interest. I knew this. I had taken the northern route a number of times when I used to visit my family in southern Ontario; but I stopped taking it. And the only reason we were taking it now was to visit Bart and Wanda who asked us to make a point of dropping in should we ever be in the area.

“We’ll end up in the Soo anyway, so why not surprise them?” I said.

Cathy first met Bart at the Nesbit Inn where she worked. He was driving transport then and stopped for fuel and they struck up a friendship, so he made a point of stopping every time he passed through on his way to Winnipeg. They became good friends, and Cathy’s husband every so often went with Bart to Winnipeg, and Cathy and her husband often visited Bart and his family at his home in Craigleith, on the shores of Georgian Bay.

Bart and Wanda had come to the Nesbit homecoming this summer to visit. Cathy’s ex-husband had invited them. Cathy and her ex were born in Nesbit, and it was Bart and Wanda’s first time back in twenty-one years. They were staying with Cathy’s ex, and she was surprised and delighted to see them. We had them over for dinner one evening, and Cathy promised we’d look them up in Englehart where they had moved to from their home in Wasaga.

Because they were staying with Cathy’s ex, it was a little tricky for Wanda and Bart; but within minutes at Eckshar Place, they were at ease with the new man in Cathy’s life; and at the Nesbit homecoming open-air dance the following evening Wanda whispered into Cathy’s ear, “Bart and I really like Oriano. We’re both very happy for you…”

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I didn’t feel right; like I was being unmoored. Perhaps it’s my job in Treadmore, I thought to myself. I had just finished taping and painting a new office building in Treadmore, an hour’s commute from St. Jude, a little highway community of less than two hundred people that I never quite felt comfortable in. “A bad karma town,” I said to Cathy, with a wry chuckle.

She didn’t have to ask me why. I had done two other jobs in Treadmore. While I was doing the first house, I burned out the motor on Cathy’s Skylark on my way home after work one evening. “A freak accident,” our mechanic said. And the second job I did there was for one of those clients that can never be satisfied (an indigenous woman married to a white logging contractor). I had to do three days extra work to please my client’s endless demands before she paid me, and only after I threatened to take her to small claims court.

So, I wasn’t comfortable taking on a new indigenous office building in Treadmore; but I had to work my way through the negative karma of that dying little old gold mining town hanging on for dear life. Besides, I needed the work; so, it was a mixed blessing.

The sky was overcast when we pulled out of St. Jude and onto Highway 11; but as we drove off into the week of our little fall getaway, we tried to leave our worries behind us.

“I sure hope we can break this cycle of karma,” I said to Cathy, and took a sip of coffee that she had poured for us from the ready thermos. The leaves, despite the gloomy day, were turning fast and glorious, and we couldn’t wait to get away.

“Why don’t we do a HU to get things going right for our little holiday?” Cathy said.

“Okay,” I said, and we sang the Love Song to God for a few minutes, accompanied by the choir of the HU tape that Cathy had brought along.

We drove through Treadmore. I showed Cathy the new indigenous office building on the main street that I had just finished taping and painting (I still had to go back to do touch-ups after the flooring was laid and suspended ceiling hung in the basement), but we didn’t stop in Treadmore; I didn’t want to jinx our little leafing getaway to the Soo.

In fact, we didn’t stop until we got to Hearst where we had lunch. Cathy had baked blueberry muffins to take with us (she always baked blueberry muffins from our yearly pick at Camp 81 road before our little fall getaways); so, we didn’t stop for breakfast.

It was nice to get away, but I began to feel a discomfort with the geography. Miles and miles of little or no color, just the drab green of stunted evergreens and sadly unkempt and dilapidated houses along the way; it began to have a creeping visceral effect upon me.

“God, this is ugly country! I’m never going this way again!”

“It’s not that bad,” Cathy said.

I chuckled to myself. I knew Cathy regretted taking the northern route too, and were it not for her old friends Bart and Wanda, she would have admitted it…

Since 9/11, every news broadcast began with an update on America’s war on terrorism, or related events; but that wasn’t why I felt unmoored.

The psyche of the world was affected by Osama bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center (“America has lost its innocence,” said William Bennet, author of The Book of Virtues, which I had read and dipped into every now and then), and that did play upon my emotions; but it was something more, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

In my dream one night, Cathy and I bought a new yellow car, a Ford Focus; and in the same dream, we received a new copy of The Way of the Eternal, the bible of the spiritual teaching we were living. Yellow symbolizes Spirit, and Focus symbolizes concentrated attention—on the secret path of the eternal way; and I interpreted the dream to mean that we were on the cusp of greater spiritual and personal freedom. And so was the world!

“I know it’s not the time to say this,” I said to Cathy on our drive to Englehart, thinking out loud, as I often do to initiate a conversation; “but this tragedy is a good thing. It woke America up from its complacency.”

“That’s a terrible way to wake up,” Cathy responded.

“It shocked America. But it was coming to a head. I remember something that my old mentor Gurdjieff said years ago, way back in the thirties, that the problem the world would one day have to face would be the confrontation of the old world with the new; and that’s what America’s war on terrorism is all about.”

“What do you mean, old world?” Cathy asked.

“Values. Beliefs. Customs. The Muslim world is one of rigid, inflexible rules; and we in the west have taken personal freedom to unprecedented levels. That’s the root cause of this new conflict. Osama bin Laden symbolizes the old word, and America the new world; and the two worlds had to come to a head one day.

“And that day is now?” Cathy said.

“It seems so,” I said.

“But where will it lead?” she asked.

“Who knows. Personally, I believe that the tyranny of rigid rules will never win over personal freedom; but I suspect it’s going to take some convincing for the old world to realize this. This is a war of two worlds, sweetheart; and it’s going to go on for years.”

“I don’t know much about politics, but I know I’d never give up my freedom for anything, I love my freedom now,” Cathy replied, with conviction.

I laughed. Cathy was married for seventeen and a half years to a man who had, according to her, “one hundred and one rules,” but she couldn’t take it anymore; that’s when we fell for each other and had an affair and she left her husband.

“Life’s all about bondage and freedom, Cathy,” I said, with a wry chuckle. “And if there is one purpose to life, it’s to realize our individual freedom. Did I ever tell you of my past lifetime as a black slave in southern Georgia?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, it wasn’t very nice. My name was Solomon, and I was known as Solomon, the Good Slave; but I tried to run away. Three times, in fact; but I got caught every time, and I paid for it. God, did I pay for it. Our plantation master tried to break my spirit, and the spirit of every slave on the plantation. The last time I got caught, he had me whipped every Sunday morning in front of all the slaves, but he couldn’t break my spirit. It was a horrible life. Just horrible. But that lifetime taught me what I was meant to learn—”

“What?” Cathy asked.

“You won’t believe this, but during one of my whippings, I think it was the last one before I died of infection, I realized that the plantation master could own my body but not my soul. It came to me as I was being whipped, that in my soul I was free, and the plantation master could never own my soul. And that realization, ironically, lies at the very heart of the American way of life. That’s why I love Americans so much, despite their arrogance.”

Cathy wanted to know more, but there wasn’t much more to tell. That was all I remembered of that lifetime. But it was enough. Freedom. That’s what America’s war on terrorism was all about. The God-given right to live our own life.

“But whose God?” I reflected, out loud.

“Pardon me?” Cathy said.

I laughed a hearty chuckle.

“What?” Cathy said. “What’s so funny?”

“I really think so,” I smiled, coming to a firm conclusion. “It’s all about God, sweetheart. That’s what this first war of the 21^st Century is all about.”

“God?” Cathy queried. “I don’t understand.”

“I know. That’s the problem. No one understands,” I said, and then I asked Cathy to pour me some coffee from the thermos she had replenished in Hearst; but when we pulled into Englehart, Bart and Wanda weren’t there, and their house was for sale.

——