Sunday poem: "A Memory of Faded Youth"

 A Memory of Faded Youth 

I awoke at 3 A. M. and sat

on the edge of my bed, thinking

of a story I had written twenty

years ago, “Our Little Getaway,”

a safe refuge from the familiar

with the love of my life, another

me, another her, and in my story,

true to the core in its disguise, I felt

an easy abandon to life that I shed

along life’s way, and I despaired

my damaged heart and loss of vital

life, what I could do in an hour

now takes a whole day; no more

easy abandon, just a memory

of faded youth.

Short story: "The Amethyst Broach"

 

The Amethyst Broach

 

The Nesbit Winter Carnival had shrunk. It didn’t even have a bingo, which always attracted people. All they had was the disking tournament and some craft booths set up in the community hall, and a torch parade. They had no log-sawing contest, no broomball, no hockey, no races of any kind, three-legged or otherwise, no bicycle decorating contests, no games, no pancake breakfast, no spaghetti supper, no king and queen of the carnival, and they didn’t even have a dance this year; but truth be told, I didn’t feel like going cross country skiing. I preferred taking a nice leisurely drive out to Nesbit where Cathy had grown up and where her widowed father, whom I liked and visited often, still resided.

“I want a hot dog,” I said to Cathy. The sun was bright, the thermometer was creeping up slowly, and I enjoyed the Sunday drive. “I haven’t had a hot dog for a long time.”

Cathy laughed. “What?” I said.

“You,” she said.

“What did I do now?”

“You’re just like a little boy. ‘I want a hot dog,’” she mimicked, and laughed again.

“Well I do. Hot dogs always taste better at carnivals, don’t they?”

“That’s what I love about you,” she said, with a radiant smile.

“What? My boyish innocence? I’m lucky to even have my innocence at this age. Did you ever stop to think about that?”

“I know. But it wouldn’t be you, would it?” she replied.

“No, it wouldn’t. Would you like to hear what I would be like if I had lost my innocence? Goddamn hot dog! They overcooked the fucking thing! And the bun’s so fucking soggy it’s like a wet sponge! They can’t even cook a goddamn hot dog! How in the Christ do they expect people to come to their fucking carnival?”

 “That’s what my husband would have said.”

“Really? That bad?” I said.

“Worse,” Cathy said, with a straight face.

“No kidding?” I said. “He could lose it over a hot dog?”

“Oh, easy. He could lose it just like that,” Cathy said, snapping her fingers. “I never knew when he would lose it. And speaking of my ex, he told me in the hospital last week that he’s going to bring Maggie and Bob over from England this summer.”

“Who?” I asked, not recalling who she meant.

“His aunt and uncle. I told you about them. We went to England to visit them one summer. I really like Maggie and Bob, but my husband was his usual asshole self. He ruined it for all of us with his temper. And for what?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” I said, curious about her ex.

“Nothing. He’d lose it over nothing. The cars were too small, the streets were too narrow, they drove on the wrong side of the road, the food was terrible, you name it.”

“Maybe he was right about the food. From what I’ve heard, English food doesn’t exactly have a great international reputation,” I said, with a chuckle.

“It’s not that bad. I didn’t mind it. But it wasn’t just the food. It could be anything. He could lose it over nothing. He made Maggie cry two or three times when we were there.”

“How did you put up with him for seventeen and a half years, then?”

“I don’t know why I stayed as long as I did,” Cathy said, and frowned as the memories flooded in. “Everyone was wrong but him. He was perfect. A perfect asshole is more like it. I used to tell him that all the time. But it didn’t make any difference. I hope he doesn’t ruin it for them this summer. He said I could have them for a day. I want Maggie and Bob to see what a good man is all about.”

I snickered. “It costs to be a good man, sweetheart.”

“I know,” she said…

 

The Nesbit Community Center parking lot was about one third full, with four or five kids standing around playing with an electronic miniaturized toy car that zoomed up and down the snow-packed lot like a crazy bee low to the ground.

Inside, seven or eight booths were set up, with small groups of people standing around talking. They had a table at the door with a guest book. We signed our name and went over to the counter where they served hot and cold drinks.

Clifford Daniels, a heavy-set local dressed in his usual casuals, grey work pants with wide suspenders and a grey work shirt, was eating a hot dog. His wife, a slim, classy-looking lady in black leather pants and neatly trimmed boyish-cut hair, was working behind the counter; the oddest couple in Nesbit, I thought whenever I saw them.

“Where’d you get the hot dog?” I asked Clifford.

“Back there, in the kitchen. It’s not a hot dog. It’s a smoky. A lot better than hot dogs.”

“They’ve got smokies?” I asked, with some surprise.

“Yeah.” Clifford said, as if it was all very natural.

“Great. Would you like one, sweetheart?”

“Please,” she said. “Just mustard and relish.”

“No onions?” I asked.

“Not today,” Cathy said, and smiled.

Clifford laughed, then he took a big slow bite of his smoky that was smothered with onions, chewed two or three times, thoroughly enjoying the taste for Cathy’s sake, then grinned. “It’s not weight-watcher food, that’s for sure,” he said.

“I know,” she said, and smiled at him. Cathy had introduced Clifford to the Weight-Watcher program one night at the Country Corner restaurant where she would often bring her senior friend Martha for coffee just to get her out of the house. Clifford had just had a triple bypass operation and was told to lose some weight, so Cathy shared her Weight-Watcher experience with him. “It works, Cliff,” she said. “I lost twenty pounds in two months, and I didn’t have to deprive myself of food.”

“How did you do that?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“I just watched what I ate. Weight-Watchers isn’t about eating less. It’s about eating smarter. It’s not big mystery, Clifford.”

“Maybe I should look into it,” he said, but he never did. He took another bite of his smokey. “They’re really good,” he said, upon swallowing. “And they’re going fast.”

I laughed. “What do you want on yours?” I asked Cathy.

“The stuff’s over there,” Clifford said, pointing.

“Oh,” I said, spotting the condiments on the counter by the kitchen door. “Would you like a cold drink, sweetheart?”

“I’ll get a coffee,” she said, and I went into the kitchen and got two smokies wrapped tightly in a napkin and foil and brought one over to Cathy who was sipping her coffee and catching up on the local gossip with Clifford who knew everything that went on in the area. “We’ll catch up later,” she said to him, and we walked over to the condiment counter.

They had ketchup, mustard, relish, and a small jar of diced onions. I unwrapped my smoky, which stuck out on both ends of the regular hot dog bun which was stuck to the smoky because it had been over-steamed and squeezed too tightly when they wrapped it. I chuckled to myself at the ironic coincidence of playing Cathy’s malcontented husband on our drive to Nesbit as I pried the bun apart from the smoky to put on the condiments and onions, and I deliberately mimicked Cathy’s ex-husband, “Fucking buns are too soggy!”

Cathy caught on immediately, and laughed. “That’s what he would have said.”

I didn’t have much room for onions with the big smokey. I squeezed out a red line of ketchup onto my smoky (which I never used to do, because I never thought ketchup would go with mustard and relish; but to my surprise, it did) and then I spooned some mustard and relish on top, and some onions on one side, but I had to be extra careful eating it.

I took a bite as I walked over to Clifford, enjoying the taste of the smokey, and with a big grin on his country face, Clifford said, “Good, eh?”

“Much better than your weenie hot dog,” I said.

“That’s for damn sure,” he confirmed.

“But not as good as Octoberfest sausages,” I said, being mischievous.

“Really?” Clifford said. “I never had Octoberfest sausages.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing, Clifford,” I said, milking it for all I could get. “They make great Octoberfest sausages in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.”

“Yeah, they have a festival down there, don’t they?” he said, looking wise.

“Octoberfest. There’s a large German population down there. But to tell you the truth, the best Octoberfest sausages I ever tasted wasn’t in Kitchener, or Waterloo; it was at the farmer’s market in Stouffville. Cathy and I were exploring the back roads down there a couple of years ago, and we found ourselves in the farmer’s market in Stouffville, just north of Toronto. It put every farmer’s market that Cathy and I had gone to to shame.”

“That big, eh?” Clifford said, dead serious.

“What’s big?” Cathy, who overheard Clifford, said.

“The farmer’s market in Stouffville,” I said.

“That was big,” Cathy said. “I don’t suppose you’ve been there, have you Cliff?”

“No. I never get down that way. Just for my heart operation at the Toronto General. How’s the smoky? Good, eh?” Clifford said, with an impish grin.

“It’s excellent,” Cathy said. “But it’s going to cost me a lot of points.”

Clifford laughed. He liked Cathy, who had also grown up and lived in Nesbit for seven years after she got married. One night at the Country Corner restaurant, Clifford whispered into her ear while she was having coffee with her elderly friend, “I’m glad you dumped that husband of yours and got yourself a good man. He is a good man, isn’t he?”

“He’s the last good man in St. Jude,” Cathy said, quoting Irene Maki, the chain-smoking career waitress (she always broke the filters off her cigarettes) who was married to an alcoholic bush-camp mechanic and who died of lung cancer the summer that Cathy did the books for the Husky House Restaurant where Irene worked.

Clifford, who still worked with Cathy’s ex in the paper mill at Rock Point, said, “That’s good. You deserve a good man after that miserable jackass.”

“’There aren’t many of you around,” Cathy said, and laughed.

Clifford laughed too; but in my mind’s eye, I saw him putting his thumbs behind his suspenders and pulling them out and proudly snapping them back onto his puffed-up chest, with a smile on his face warm enough to toast bread…

 

I got myself another smoky, added the condiments, and walked over to one of the craft booths, leaving Cathy to catch up on the local gossip with Clifford and his beautiful wife in her black leather pants and short silver hair who had come out to join them.

The first booth had a display of wood carvings, animals, birds, locomotives, and other images that were so intricately carved they caught my attention.

I studied them as I ate my smoky, picking one up to study the details. “Are these computer-generated?” I asked the tall man with thick-lensed glasses and untrimmed beard standing behind the table. He had a name tag on his chest. Jeff Anderson. The short, chunky red-haired lady standing at the other end of the table had a name tag also. Bonnie Anderson. “No. They’re all hand made,” Jeff said, and smiled proudly.

“No kidding? The detail is incredibly meticulous,” I said.

“It’s all in the blades,” he said.

Cathy came over and stood beside me. “An eagle,” she said, noticing the carving I was holding in my hands. “That’s a nice one, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” I said. “By happy coincidence, Jeff; I have an eagle theme going at our home,” I said. “What kind of wood is this?”

“Cherry. That’s a nice one, isn’t it?”

“What do you think?” I said, looking at Cathy.

“I like it. How much is it?” she asked.

I looked at the tag on the back. “Sixty dollars. Do you charge tax on this, Jeff?”

“No. That’s the full price,” he said, with a hesitant smile.

I took out the money I had in my pocket, three twenties and a ten. “If I pay cash, I won’t have much pocket money left. You’re not set up for plastic, are you?”

“Pardon me?” Jeff said.

“Credit cards,” Cathy said.

“No,” I’m afraid not,” Jeff said, with a nervous tremor in his voice.

“Do you still have my cheques in your purse?” I asked Cathy.

Cathy had put two of my business cheques in her pure the day before when we went to the city to shop for a new computer and pick up groceries. “Yes,” she said.

“You take cheques, don’t you Jeff?” I said.

“Are you from here?” he asked.

“No. St. Jude,” I said; “but Cathy grew up in Nesbit.”

“Oh sure,” Jeff said, with some relief.

“I’ll take it, then,” I said, and Cathy wrote out the cheque and I signed it.

Jeff’s wife put the carving—the raised profile of the eagle’s head stared proudly out into the world—into a plastic bag, but as she was packaging it, I noticed another eagle on their display table. I didn’t recognize it as an eagle when I scanned the table with my first look; but upon closer inspection, I saw that it was an eagle with its wings wrapped around to form a circle around its head, and the eagle’s tail feathers formed the forked stand upon which it rested on another piece of wood, a fascinating little sculpture.

I picked it up for a closer look. “This is beautiful,” I said. “Look at this, Cathy?”

“Is it an eagle?” she asked.

“Yes. Unique, isn’t it?” I said, smiling at the intricacy of the carving.

Cathy nodded agreement. “It is beautiful,” she said.

“How much is this one,” I asked Jeff’s wife, not bothering to check the sticker.

“Twenty dollars,” she said.

I took out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to her and she accepted it with a big smile. Clifford Daniels stepped up beside me. “Some pretty nice stuff here, eh?” he said.

“It sure is,” I said.

“You getting the eagle?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Actually Cliff, he got two eagles,” Cathy said, and smiled.

“Two? How come? Do they come as a couple?” Clifford said, and laughed.

“No. They’re two different families. One’s cherry wood, and the other is white pine. I think it’s pine. Is it?” I asked, looking at Jeff.

“Yes,” Jeff replied, “But the stand is cedar.”

“I gather you like eagles,” Clifford said.

“Yes, I do,” I said.

“How come?” he asked.

I shrugged, not wanting to disclose my reason for fear of disturbing his comfortable homespun perspective on life. “I don’t know. I just like eagles, I guess.”

“I know what you mean,” Jeff Anderson cut in. “I like wolves. I’ve got half a dozen wolf figures in my house, and one or two paintings. I’ve got a customer who loves bears, and another who loves moose. I guess it’s all personal.”

“What about you, Cliff? What animal do you like?” Cathy asked.

Clifford thought for a moment, grimacing as he scanned the table like a laser. “Owls. I like owls. I don’t see any owls here.”

“No. I don’t have any owls. I haven’t carved any owls yet. But I’ll have some next time,” Jeff said, making a mental note.

“Okay,” Cliff said, happy to be off the hook. “I’ll check you out next time around.”

I smiled at Clifford’s crafty wisdom…

 

Cathy and I sauntered over to another table, also displaying wood carvings, this time much smaller, and in a completely different style.

I studied them, picking up another eagle. Cathy thought she recognized the man and woman behind the table. “Albert? Is that you?” she said.

“Yes,” he said, a bit disconcerted. He studied Cathy’s face for a moment, then his face lit up. “Cathy Bolten?”

“Yes. Actually, it’s Collingwood now. I went back to my own name. God, it’s been years Albert! I hardly recognized you!”

“I guess not. I used to be thin when you knew me.”

We all laughed. “And you must be Dorothy?” Cathy said.

“Yes. I don’t think I remember you, though,” Dorothy said.

“You must remember Cathy Collingwood? She was married to one of the Bolton boys. They used to live in the house trailer on the east end of the loop. Who lives there now, Cathy?”

“Gary Nyman and his wife. You’re still at the fish hatchery, aren’t you?”

“Hell no. I retired from that racket four years ago.”

“Really? You’re not that old, are you Albert?”

“I took a package at fifty. I got fed up with all the politics. So, what are you doing these days?” he asked, looking happy and content with himself.

“I’m at the St. Jude District Hospital. I’m in the office.”

“Good for you. So, are you married again?”

“I wish,” she said, and laughed. “But that’s okay. It’s working, Albert; that’s all that counts. Oh, I’m sorry. Where’s my manners,” she said, and introduced me. “We’ve been together for almost ten years now.”

“No kidding?” Albert said, reaching over to shake my hand. “Pleased to meet you. Has it been ten years already?” he said, looking at Cathy. “You were still married the last time I saw you, weren’t you?”

“I think so,” she said.

“Time sure flies, doesn’t it?” Albert’s wife said.

“It sure does,” Cathy said. “So, this is what you do with your time now?”

“This and other things. You know me, I can’t sit still.”

“While you guys catch up, I’ll go and put these in the car,” I said. “I’ll be right back. I’ve got my eye on that one,” I added, pointing to the eagle profiled in a circular designed piece of light oak, it’s mighty wings raised high and about to descend and force the air to lift it up and away with the large fish clutched in its talons.

As I walked to the car, the lady sitting behind the table displaying amethyst jewelry next to the exit doors gave me a big smile. “Hi Oriano. How are you today?”

“Fine, thank you,” I said, and smiled back. I knew her, but I couldn’t think of her name. Her and her husband owned and operated the Clearwater Trailer Park on the outskirts of St. Jude. I had done some painting for them at their home in St. Jude, but her name escaped me. “I’ll check your stuff out when I come back,” I added.

“I’ll be right here,” she said.

Cathy was still talking with Albert and Dorothy when I returned. “Cathy, who’s that lady at the table by the door? I know her, but I can’t remember her name.”

“Where?” Cathy asked.

“The one selling amethyst jewelry. She owns the Clearwater Trailer Park.”

“Oh, that’s Linda Towns. You did some work for her. That job paid for our little getaway last spring. Remember?”

“Right! I couldn’t think of her name. Anyway, I like this one here,” I said, and picked the eagle with the fish in its talons. “There’s no price on it.”

“That one’s sixteen dollars. They’re all sixteen dollars except for the small ones here. They’re only four dollars each.”

I picked up one of the small carvings. It was a four-inch circle of oak with an eagle in flight in the middle of the circle, perfect for hanging in the window. It even had a fish line loop for hanging the ornament.

“I’ll take both,” I said, and reached into my pocket. As I handed Dorothy the twenty-dollar bill I said, “Any tax?”

“No tax,” she replied.

“Thank you. Now, which table do you want to look at next?”

“How about the amethyst jewelry booth,” Cathy said, and laughed. Albert and Dorothy laughed too.

“Okay. You go ahead. I just want to look through their display book here.”

Cathy knew what I was up to, but she didn’t let on. She just smiled and walked down to Linda Towns’ table. “I want to get her something for Valentine’s Day,” I said to Dorothy, whose eyes studied me with some intrigue.

“Oh, nice,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”

“This one,” I said, picking up the piece of intricately designed oak rose with the engraved lettering LOVE IS A ROSE on the top half of the circle.

“I think she’ll love that,” Dorothy said.

“I know she will. But could you put a yellow backdrop instead of the pink?”

All the larger pieces had a velvet cloth backdrop to highlight the carving in the center of the circle. The eagle I had just purchased had a deep blue velvet cloth backdrop to represent the sky. I wanted yellow to represent my favorite rose.

“We can do that for you,” Dorothy said.

“Good. And could you change the lettering for me also? I’d like you to put I LOVE YOU CATHY instead. Is that asking too much?”

“Not at all,” Albert said. “I can put anything you want as long as it fits.”

“Good. I’d also like to order one of your eagle clocks here. How long would it take?”

“I could have them both ready for you in a couple of days,” he said.

“Wonderful. I’ll give you my phone number. And if you don’t mind, I’ll pay for them when I pick them up.”

“No problem,” Albert said, smiling for his happy sale.

 

Cathy was talking with Linda. She was also holding an amethyst bracelet in her hand. “They’re only ten dollars each,” she said, showing it to me. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes,” I said. “It sure is.”

“But I like this one too,” Cathy said, picking up the other bracelet. “I can’t make up my mind which one to buy.”

“That’s not a problem. You get one, and I’ll get one.”

“Problem solved,” Linda said, and laughed.

We paid for the bracelets, but my eye zeroed in on a deep purple amethyst broach. I picked it up. It was an oval shaped perfectly smooth little gem that could only be found—according my geologist niece that I took to an amethyst gift shop on the way to the city when she was visiting one summer—in two or three places in the world, with one of the richest deposits of purple amethyst right here in our own back yard in northwestern Ontario. “I just love this one.  Look at this, Cathy. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Cathy held the broach in her hand.  “I love it too. I just love the color.”

“How about this one?” Linda said, holding up a silver broach with an inset purple amethyst and tiny diamonds that reflected the light and sparkled like stars.

I took the broach and looked at it closely, and I knew instantly that was the one I wanted to buy Cathy for Valentine’s Day; but I also liked the deep purple one too.

“Price?” I asked.

“One hundred and thirty dollars,” Linda said.

I handed it to Cathy. “What do you think, sweetheart?”

She smiled. “I don’t have to say, do I?”

“Of course not,” I said, and laughed. Linda laughed too. “How about this one, Linda?” I asked, taking the deep purple broach from Cathy.

“That one’s thirty dollars,” she said.

          “Well,” I sighed, “my heart’s leaning towards that one—”

“But your pocketbook is leaning towards this one,” Linda said, and laughed.

Cathy laughed too, but I just smiled. I didn’t say anything for a moment or two; and then, with a chuckle, I said, “I hate being torn betwixt. I’ll tell you what—” I saw the look on Linda’s face, one that said, Oh, no; he’s going to pass. He’s going to go away to think about it and won’t come back; but I surprised her: “I’m going to take both.”

Instead of a happy surprise on her face, she was shocked. “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain,” I said to myself; and, chuckling, I turned to Cathy and said, “Sweetheart, you have another one of my cheques, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. I want both, Linda.”

“Are you sure?” Cathy said.

“Of course, I’m sure,” I said.

She took out my cheque. “How much, Linda?”

Still surprised, Linda said. “I’m going to give you a discount. “Make it out for one hundred and forty dollars.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No tax?” Cathy asked.

“No,” Linda said, with a little hint of guilt on her face.

“I’m all tapped out now,” I said. “What do you say we go home and go skiing?”

“Sure,” Cathy said. “Why not? I’m happy now!”

Linda laughed. And so did I. I turned to leave and noticed Clifford leaning on the counter, looking intently, his eyes focused on us like a curious owl. I smiled, and waved to him. So did Cathy. And we left and went cross-country skiing.

 

——

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem for the week: "The Alchemy of Music"

 

The Alchemy of Music

 I got another confirmation today

that life is an individual way

when I listened to “Horn of Plenty”

on CBC’s Ideas this morning,

a surprising insight into another

personal channel for the miraculous

when gifted saxophonist “Sweet Su”

Terry unwittingly revealed that she

was an initiate of the secret way

of life by way of her music, the

unseen path to one’s true self

that is awakened when one is

called to their destined purpose,

as is everyone whom life has made

ready for their final journey

to wholeness and completeness,

and I listened with rapt attention

to her articulation of the secret way

through the alchemy of music, smiling

to myself at a fellow companion’s

miraculous discovery.

Short story: "The Genius of Updike"

The Genius of Updike

“He makes me want to shoot my word processor,” I said to Leo on the way to the city. It was raining, so I took the day off work and asked him to join me. I had an outside job to complete; forty sun-bleached office windows to stain. “He scares me dumb, he’s so brilliant.”

“He just raised the bar for you,” Leo, who surprised me by buying an Updike novel in a used book store in the city, said; Roger’s Version, a novel of love and sex and faith and God and the modern life as told by “the master of sheer elegance of form.”

I couldn’t dispute that. Why would I? Envy? Resentment? Anger? How small could I possibly be? And I vented to Leo, who was a much better listener than talker: “I regret not keeping up my reading of literature. I spent too damn many years reading spiritual books; and now I’m so far behind I don’t know if I’ll ever catch up.”

I had just finished reading Shirley MacLaine’s The Camino when I re-discovered John Updike in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, which Updike edited and introduced. I wanted to get back into short story writing, and the best way to do that was to saturate myself with the works of great writers, like the grand master of le mot juste himself.

“You still can,” Leo said, his voice slightly broken with an affected measure of consolation which, honestly, annoyed me. “You can’t give it all up now, can you?”

“No, I love writing too much. I may not have the talent to say what I want to say the way Updike says it, but I have something to say; and that should say something,” I said, with a mirthful, self-conscious chuckle.

“Then say it,” Leo said, totally oblivious to my dilemma.

I smiled, as I often do when Leo misses the point. “Updike reminds me of the story of Picasso’s father who put away his paint brushes when he saw his son’s painting of a pigeon; that’s how ‘the Mozart of Literature’ makes me feel.”

“Who?”

“Who else?”

“Updike?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t lost heart, have you?”

“No, but Updike makes me feel that way. What spares me the proverbial writer`s despair is my belief.”

“Belief?” Leo said, with a puzzled frown.

“Yes. I believe in myself…”

It’s all about choices, really. In the media, a storm was brewing about the homeless people in Canada’s largest city, Toronto “the Good” (how ironic); but what I’d really like to know is how those people ended up on the streets in the first place.

Choices and consequences. The gap was closing more and more each day. Karma was no longer a nebulous eastern concept; it had eyes so large that the spiritually obtuse were finally beginning to see that choices always have consequences.

Leo took out Updike’s novel from his jacket pocket. He had brought it with him to impress me, which happened rarely. Running Granma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota at the age of 57 did impress me however, being a long distance runner myself; but walking around St. Jude like an overgrown kid with his finisher’s medal dangling on its red, white, and blue ribbon around his thick Ukrainian neck (actually, his mother was Ukrainian  and his father a Russian immigrant who had a picture of Stalin hanging on his living room wall that Leo took down when his father died) over his Grandma’s Marathon T-shirt for two weeks after the race wore the shine off his proud medal.

“I see what you mean,” he said, flipping through the novel to find the passage he was looking for. “He gives you so much you feel like you’re right there with him.”

“That’s Updike. He pries open the moment with metaphor and freeze-frames life. It’s spooky, as Norman Mailer would say.”

Leo read the passage, transporting me to that “fourth dimension of writing” that Updike miraculously accessed with his imagery—

“Fuck!”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Too damn much!”

“Oh.”

“The fucker turns Hemingway’s ice-berg principle upside down, and it depresses the hell out of me. If I didn’t have so much invested, I’d park it!”

“Park what?” Leo dumbly asked.

Again, I smiled. “What do you say we pick Boris up and go to the Hoito for pancakes?”

“Good idea,” Leo said…

Boris, an unkemptly bearded little civil servant, took an early retirement at fifty-five to maximize his enjoyment of life. An atheist, who believed that this life was all we had (although it seemed to me more posture than conviction), Boris had one thing in common with Leo: they both clung to the Randian philosophy of rational self-interest that struggled, in the conflicted manner of Camus’s Sisyphus, for more and more self-consciousness; but oh so vainly, and, unlike the philosopher of the absurd, I could never imagine them happy.

With Leo, long distance running had begun to transform the density of his earth-bound ego/shadow personality (“In running, I found my salvation,” said the “guru of running,” Dr. George Sheehan); and with Boris, the constant daily exposure to life’s karmic transmutations (although with people like him, recalcitrantly) forced his false outer self to make small but discernable concessions to his inner true nature, an ongoing battle with no end in sight that piqued my curiosity and often inspired arguments between us.

But that was nature’s way, as Mr. G used to say—the mystic philosopher whose Sufi-inspired teaching serendipity had introduced me to in my second year of philosophy studies at Lakehead University shifted my center of gravity from the false to the real in me, a distinction that Leo and Boris were both loath to make whenever logic pressed them.

“Nature only take you so far,” said George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, to his inner circle of students; “then must take evolution into own hands,” he added, in his thickly accented pidgin English. “First roses, roses; then thorns, thorns,” he told his students, when he set them out on their journey of self-discovery, which I knew from personal experience to be nothing less than the secret way of what Christianity blithely referred to as being born again in spirit.

“I can’t say for sure, because I haven’t read enough Updike to draw any conclusions,” I said to Leo on the way to the city; “but from the stories I’ve read so far, I’d say he’s taken up literary residence in the despairing kingdom of ephemerality and finitude.”

“What does that mean?” Leo asked, with another puzzled frown.

“The human condition, Leo!” I exclaimed, to wake him up. “That’s my impression of Updike’s short stories that I’ve read so far. Writing about the human condition makes you conscious of life, and John Updike is acutely conscious of life, especially life in the American suburbs; that’s what I mean. But there’s something missing. Despite his literary brilliance—which is more alluring to me than having sex with a bride of Jesus—he doesn’t penetrate the mystery that beckons most creative writers. He comes close, but he doesn’t quite get it.”

“Get what?” Leo asked, more puzzled than ever.

Again, I smiled to myself, because waking Leo up was hopeless. “Updike—it’s not fair yet, I know,” I said, trying to explain the mystery of creative writing; “but that’s what I suspect from all the stories I’ve read so far. Updike dissects the human condition piece by piece to see where the soul resides, and story after story, perhaps novel after novel—I’ll just have to wait and see until I read them—he finds nothing but the same tired old vanities. Man, cries Mr. New Yorker short story writer, with exquisite anguish, is an obsessive passion condemned to repeat himself over and over again; and that, mon cher ami, is his cursed rock.”

“Rock?” Leo, an LU philosophy grad, dumbly asked.

“Dilemma,” I explained.

“Oh,” Leo said, with a blank stare. “But Updike’s just writing about life, isn’t he?”

“Sadly, yes…”

Boris was home. Often when Leo and I dropped in, he was out. Usually at Lakehead University taking courses—Spanish, French, and History (not religion or philosophy, which might have threatened his belief system) to get a working knowledge of Spanish and French, because when his wife, who was also a civil servant, retired when she turned sixty, they planned to do the Camino de Santiago in Spain that Shirley MacLaine had made famous in her New York Times bestseller The Camino, but which they refused to read because they both thought she was a world-class flake.

“Sounds good,” Boris said, when we asked him to join us for breakfast.

At the Hoito restaurant, Boris and I ordered Finnish pancakes (mine with pork sausages and Boris’s with strawberry sauce) and Leo a large bowl of porridge because it was cheaper, and within minutes we were talking politics which often began our conversations.

“What do you say we go to a used book store? I’m looking for some Updike books,” I said, after we had thoroughly masticated the virtues of the new Alliance Party born whole out the right rib of the Reform Party of Canada.

“Sure,” Leo said.

“Sure,” Boris agreed. “I’ve got no classes today.”

Chapters, where I usually bought my books (apart from my two book clubs, QPB and Doubleday) didn’t have any more Updike. I had already purchased three collections of his short stories there the last time Leo and I were in the city—The Afterlife, Trust Me, and Pigeon Feathers, and I already had his novels The Centaur and Rabbit, Run, which I remember attempting to read in grade nine but which I had put aside in favor of Hemingway’s beguiling “cablese” style of writing that seduced me from exploring my own style.

Boris and Leo liked to frequent Chapters (they used it like their personal library), but in strict adherence to their more-for-less philosophy of life, they bought most of their books from used book stores, so they knew where to go; and I followed their directions.

I’m curious to know what you think of this guy,” Leo said, as we drove over to Westfort, which was known as the rough part of town. “He’s pretty gruff.”

Boris laughed, and said, “He’s different, that’s for sure.”

When we walked into the used book store, an old red brick building that stubbornly resisted the march of time, it felt like walking into the dingy past. It was crowded with wire bookshelves cloying with musty paperbacks, the air was close, and the ceiling and walls (what we could see of them), a dirty yellow from cigarette smoke, were blistered and cracked. The whole place smelt of being stuck in time.

The book seller sat behind an old wooden counter leaning back on his chair, his feet propped up on the inside shelf and a paperback in his hands. He had black thick-lensed glasses as dense as the bottom of the old female-shaped Coca-Cola bottles, and he wore a black Greek sailor’s cap and had on wide yellow tape-measure suspenders over a well-worn frayed shirt. There was an ashtray half full of the day’s butts on the counter, and directly above his head a piece of plaster hung loose and ready to fall like the sword of Damocles.

The man waited until he finished reading his page, and then he looked up at us. “Where the hell you been hiding?” he said, recognizing Leo.

“I’ve been around,” Leo, who hadn’t seen him in four or five years, replied.

“Me too. Right here,” the man said, cracking wise.

“It looks like you haven’t gone anywhere for the past thirty years” I chimed in.

“Twenty-nine years,” he corrected, dead pan.

“What did you do before that?” I asked.

“I worked on construction. What do you do?”

“I’m a contractor. Drywall and painting.”

“How do you price a job?” he asked.

“It depends. By the hour or square foot.”

“How much a square foot?”

“Taping or painting?”

“Taping.”

“Anywhere from twenty-five to thirty cents.”

“How about windows and doors?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s the room dimensions.”

“But you don’t tape windows and doors.”

“It’s a working formula. If I charge by the hour, it comes out to about the same thing.”

“How do you know how many hours to charge?”

“Experience.”

“How long you been contracting?”

“Twenty-some years.”

“You like it?”

“I like being my own boss.”

“Me too. I couldn’t work with the bricklayers anymore. Those wops treated me like I was stupid. Too thick, too thin, too dry, too wet; the gymento was never right for them. You know what I did? I took the fucking gymento back and did nothing to it. And when I brought it back to them, they said it was just right. Fucking dummies. They just wanted to let me know who was boss, that’s all. And they worked you like a fucking horse.”

“So, you bought this place and told them to go and fuck themselves,” I said.

Startled, he just stared at me. “Exactly. You Italian?”

“Canadian,” I replied.

“Italian Canadian,” he said.

“Canadian. You want to see my papers?”

“Bullshit. Curly hair, brown skin; you’re a wop.”

“Brown skin? My skin’s no browner than yours. What are you, Polish?”

“Ukrainian.”

“I was born in Italy, but I was young when we came to Canada. How about you?”

“I was born here.”

“No kidding?”

“No.”

“You’ve got a Slavic accent.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Just like I’ve got brown skin.”

Struck dumb again, he just stared at me with his large Coca-Cola eyes. “So, how’s business?” I asked.

“Who cares. I got my pension now.”

“And you’re just putting in time?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“You just sit here and read?”

“So what?”

“Do you have any Updike?”

He stared at me again. Boris and Leo were transfixed by our verbal sparring; but the silence extended beyond its conversational pause, and nervousness set in.

“John Updike,” I said, breaking the tension.

“I know that,” he snapped back.

“Then what the hell took you so long to reply?”

He didn’t say anything. He got up and walked over to an aisle of books and started thumbing through. “No Updike.”

“Any Philip Roth?” I asked, curious about another American author who had also mined his own life of its precious ore and was still mining for more.

The bookseller dug through the Rs but found no Roth, and I asked for another seasoned miner of literary gold, but he had no Saul Bellow either.

 “Well, you’re no good to me,” I said.

“Fuck off then!” he snapped back.

Leo and Boris winced. They still hadn’t caught on to the bookseller’s sardonic wit and wondered how I was going to respond.

“Is this how you treat all your potential customers?” I replied.

“Why not?” he said. “I don’t need you.”

“Because you get your old age pension, right?”

“You got that right.”

My friends laughed. “Life’s good now, eh?” I said, with a snicker.

“Good enough for me.”

“Don’t you get bored here all day?”

“Sure, I do. Who wouldn’t?”

“You keep a journal?”

“What for?”

“Something to do.”

“Who the fuck cares?”

“So, you’re just putting in time?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“That’s all life means to you, then?”

“What else is there?” he said, with the most cynical stare.

A grey-haired lady with gold-framed glasses and a tired purple port stain the size of a deformed baby’s hand clinging to her right cheek like an alien insect and dressed in a matching lavender pant suit walked into the musty store.

Hesitant to walk up to the counter where Leo, Boris, and I stood, the lady waited hesitantly. No one spoke. Finally, she said, “Bill, do you still trade books?”

“Maybe. How many you got?”

“I’ve got a shopping bag full.”

“Let’s see them.”

“You remember me, don’t you Bill? I used to come in here all the time before I moved to British Columbia three years ago. I always traded my books here.”

“Sure, I remember you.”

The nervous lady was expecting more; but the bookseller, whose name I had just learned was Bill, didn’t amplify. “Okay, I’ll go and get them,” she said.

“I guess there’s no point hanging around here,” I said, and turned to leave. “See you in four or five years, Bill.”

“If I’m not six feet under,” he replied.

Smiling, Boris and Leo said goodbye and followed me out the door. We passed the lady carrying her bag full of paperbacks. Looking at me, she said, “Bill hasn’t changed much, has he?”

“I just met the man today,” I said.

“Oh, well; that’s the way he was twenty years ago. He’s still wearing the same hat, I see. But he’s a nice man once you get to know him,” she said, apologetically.

“A little rough around the edges,” I replied. “Have a nice day, mam.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “You too.”

At Chapters, we gravitated to different aisles and browsed for an hour or so and I bought Gary Zukav’s Soul Stories and Dr. Brian Weiss’s latest installment in his past-life regression series, Messages from the Masters (old habits die hard), and later we went to the Scandinavian House which Boris and Leo chose because, like the Hoito, it served good food cheaper than most restaurants, and we talked about Bill, the used books dealer.

And this led to a discussion about life’s purpose. “So, what’s the problem?” Boris replied, to my Socrates-inspired comment that the squandered life wasn’t worth living. “I know it’s his choice, but he’s like a dried-up old prune just putting in time. But that’s okay, I guess. He’ll just keep coming back until he gets it right,” I added, and laughed.

“Get what right?” Leo asked.

“Life,” I replied.

“I don’t follow you,” Leo said.

“He’s talking about reincarnation,” Boris said.

“Oh,” Leo said, popping his head up like a gopher coming up for air. “You don’t believe in reincarnation, do you?” he said, addressing Boris.

“Leo, Boris is an atheist,” I said, with a chuckle.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot,” Leo said.

“You didn’t go for your run today, did you?”

“No. Why?” Leo asked, puzzled.

“Consciousness, Leo. That’s what getting life right is all about—more and more and more self-consciousness. Incidentally, Updike wrote a book of memoirs called Self-Consciousness. I forgot I had it in my library until I re-discovered him.”

“Have you read it?” Leo asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did. After I finished his Afterlife stories.”

“What did you think of it?” he asked.

“His memoirs, or Afterlife stories?”

“His memoirs.”

“Disappointing,” I said.

“Oh? I thought you liked Updike,” Leo said, surprised.

“I do. Updike makes my old high school hero and literary mentor Papa Hemingway read like he was verbally challenged, but he doesn’t tell us much about who he really is in his memoirs. But judging from the short stories I’ve read so far, I’d say that the flame of Updike’s imagination consumes his life in his fiction. Just as Saul Bellow’s son said about his father, ‘If you want to know anything about my father, read his novels.’ So, I guess I’ll just have to keep reading Updike’s fiction to see what he’s all about.”

“Really? You think he writes about himself in his novels?” Leo asked.

“‘Memoir is the facts of life. Fiction is the truth of life,’ said Alice Munro. I’m going to see if anyone has written a biography on Updike to find out for sure, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar that he mined his own life for all the literary gold he could get.”

“Have you read Updike?” Leo asked Boris.

“No,” Boris replied.

“You should. He’s really good,” Leo, who had only read the first two chapters of one Updike novel, said. I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t.

“I don’t read novels anymore,” Boris said.

“Why not?” Leo asked.

“I’ve got no time,” Boris replied.

“You should make time. He’s really good,” Leo repeated.

I did laugh. “He’s right, Leo. Why read Updike to confirm what he already knows.”

“Knows what?” Leo asked.

“Life is what you make of it. Unlike Bill the bookseller, Boris lives his life. But, I suspect,” I added, the thought forcing me to smile at Boris, then chuckle, “as different as you may be from crusty Bill, I think you’ve both staked out your own cynical ground.”

“I agree. So what?” Boris said, mimicking Bill.

I laughed. “Good one, Boris,” I said.

“What?” Leo asked, again like a gopher popping his head up for air.

“I respect skepticism, Boris,” I said, ignoring Leo; “but I can’t condone the ostrich syndrome when I see it. You can’t pass judgment on something if you don’t know anything about it. For example, Shirley MacLaine had past-life visions on her Camino pilgrimage, and she gave us information about the androgynous inhabitants of the lost continent of Lemuria that taxed my credulity; but I can’t dismiss her experience simply because I find it hard to believe. The only thing I can do is neither believe nor disbelieve until I get more information, or have a personal experience that confirms what she experienced.”

“It’s all moot. I don’t believe in reincarnation,” Boris said.

“You choose not to believe,” I corrected.

“What do you mean, choose? I don’t believe in it period,” Boris insisted.

“I’d love to see what you would say if someone like Doctor Weiss hypnotized and regressed you to a some of your own past lives,” I said, with a snicker.

“I wouldn’t let him. I don’t agree with the idea of letting someone control my mind.”

“Is that why you don’t believe in God?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Boris asked, squinting.

“Belief in God is more nurture than nature. You’re rebelling, is that it?”

“No. I just don’t believe in God.”

“And no soul either?”

“No soul.”

“And no afterlife?”

“No.”

“No spiritual phenomena of any kind?”

“Nope.”

“Boris, I’ve been reading the literature of the Way for over thirty years now—” I stopped in mid-sentence. I saw the puzzled look on his face. “Literature of the Way is any writing that has to do with man’s spiritual quest,” I explained. “And whether you want to accept it or not, there’s something there. Literary history confirms it.”

“Not for me, there isn’t.” he insisted.

“You just don’t believe, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Then how do you explain all those near-death experiences that Doctor Raymond Moody has written about? And the past-life regressions that Doctor Brian Weiss explored in his books? And communicating with the Other Side, like the psychic James Van Praagh demonstrated on the Larry King show? How do you explain that?”

“I don’t know if I can explain it. All I know is that I just don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Don’t you think you’re being intellectually dishonest?” I said, knowing this would bristle my head-strong friend.

“Just because I don’t believe in this stuff doesn’t make me intellectually dishonest.”

“Sartre wouldn’t agree with you. He would call this mauvaise foi. Bad faith,” I replied, giving it to him between the eyes. This was an old argument with us, but I couldn’t let it go. It had taken two years for Boris to wander back to the topic, and I wasn’t about to let him off; so, I persisted. His atheism got under my skin. “Belief is a matter of faith, Boris. But what about experience? Suppose you had an out-of-body or near-death experience; would you explain that away as some kind of mental phenomenon too?”

“Of course. What else would it be?” he said.

“It would be what it is, an experience of your inner self leaving your physical body.
Believe it or not, Boris; we have two selves: an inner self, and an outer self. Our inner self is our true self that we’re born with and lives on after our body dies, and our outer self is the self that we create with every new incarnation. You can choose not to believe this, but you can’t dismiss all the anecdotal evidence that’s out there. And believe me, there’s plenty. I’ve also had experiences that fall into this category, and I know it wasn’t my imagination. This makes your belief hollow, Boris; that’s why I said that you choose not to believe—”

“Who are you to say my belief is hollow?” Boris snapped at me, like an angry dog that had just been rudely awakened. “You don’t know a damn thing about my life.”

Updike popped into my mind. “It’s the writer’s curse, Boris.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he barked.

“The mote in your own eye, and all of that,” I replied.

“Are you saying I don’t know myself?” he snapped back.

“Ironically, yes. Just like Updike’s memoirs Self-Consciousness. It’s not about his essential inner self; it’s all about his psoriasis-afflicted existential life that he called his ‘lode of ore’ and ‘massive datum.’ I distinctly remember him saying in his forward that his aim in writing his memoirs was to achieve a ‘mode of impersonal egoism.’ But the damn thing about the ego self is that it’s dual in nature, and making conscious our unconscious inner self is what life is supposed to be about. Christ called it making the two into one, which is what Gurdjieff’s teaching was all about too; and Jung’s psychology of individuation, I might add. But that, I’m afraid, scares the hell out of most people; especially you, Boris.”

Livid, Boris just glared at me; and my agnostic friend Leo, who graduated with an Honors BA in Philosophy from Lakehead University but still didn’t know what the word agnostic meant, had to break the silence. “Why would it scare him,” he nervously asked.

Leo had witnessed this before, and he loved it when Boris and I got into it.

“And you too, Leo,” I said, looking straight at him. “It would scare the hell out of you too, because with more self-consciousness comes moral accountability; that’s why. The more conscious you are of your inner self, the more accountable you have to be; and I know you’re just going to love this, Boris—because fundamentally, it’s a moral universe.”

“Bullshit!” my moral relativist friend exclaimed.

“Then you’ll just keep coming back until you get it right,” I repeated.

“No, I won’t. And neither will you. This is the only life there is, and you can’t prove different,” Boris insisted, and flung himself back into his chair.

“You’re right, I can’t prove it. And would you like to know why?”

Boris didn’t reply. He just glared at me, and good old dozy Leo had to break the silence once more, “Why can’t you prove it?” he asked.

“Because there is only self-initiation into the mysteries of life, that’s why,” I replied, quoting my mentor Gurdjieff. “To some it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and to others it is not, as Jesus would say. But if you choose not to believe, you can’t expect to be initiated into the mysteries of life; can you? It’s that simple, Boris.”

“Bullshit!” he snapped back again.

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “What a small world you live in, Boris. But that’s your choice, isn’t it? Now, what about this other used bookstore; are we going or not?”

“Sure,” Leo said. “You want to go now?”

“I’d like to see if they have any Updike.”

“They do. When I bought Roger’s Version, they had a lot of his other books there.”

“Good. Let’s go, then,” I said. I could feel Boris fuming, but I knew he would get over it eventually. He had before. I left a tip, and we left; but Boris and Leo didn’t bother. True to their philosophy of thrift, they never tipped…

Coincidentally, I knew the young man who worked at the Book Shelf next door to Fanny’s Fabric; a twenty-four-year-old baby giant with a friendly smile whose abusive alcoholic father kicked him out of the house when he was sixteen.

“Tommy!” I exclaimed, surprised to see him. “So, this is where you work?”

“Yeah. I’ve been here for three years now,” he replied, with a big happy smile.

“And how’s it going, Tommy?” I asked.

“Good. I like it here. It’s not Chapters, but hey; it keeps me out of trouble.”

“Good for you. I see your mom finally moved out of the house.”

“Yeah. She’s renting aunt Carol`s apartment. She should have moved out long ago. My dad’s not too happy about it. He thinks she’s going to go back, but she won’t.”

“I doubt it too. Your brother and sister are happy. Your mom was telling me they can bring friends home to visit now.”

“Yeah. They really like it at aunt Carol`s.”

“I’m glad. Maybe they can have a normal life now.”

“Yeah. What a waste, eh? That’s why I don’t booze it. I can’t afford it on what I make, here anyway. But I’d never drink even if I could afford it. It’s stupid.”

“Good for you. So, Tommy; are you familiar with John Updike?”

“The Witches of Eastwick!” he burst out, as if it were a quiz show.

“Yes,” I said, smiling. I always liked Tommy, and I was happy he was doing okay. “Do you have any of his books?”

“Sure. I’ve got a whole bunch of his novels,” he replied, brimming with pride.

He showed me where they were, and I ended up buying six new Updikes for under twenty dollars, which sweetly validated my friends’ pecuniary philosophy and elicited the comment from Leo, “You would have paid ten times that at Chapters.”

“For sure,” Boris, who bought a paperback on naturopathy, complied.

I didn’t reply. I understood my friends’ frugality; but something about second-handing life really bothered me. As prudent as my friends were, they made it feel like a sin.

I couldn’t quite pin it down, but the image that popped into my mind (no doubt, from my days of working in bush camps; both cutting, and skidding) was that of a moss-covered powder-dry tree trunk that was once green and vibrant with élan vital, and I chuckled to myself at the spiritual aridity of my friends’ parsimony.

The image made my head spin. Holding my new Updikes in my hand, I looked at my friends and exclaimed: “The right image! That’s it! It’s even better than le mot juste! That’s the genius of Updike!” I couldn’t contain myself, and Leo, Boris, and Tommy looked at me.

          “I really like his writing too,” Tommy said, breaking the awkward silence.

We dropped Boris off, and Leo and I headed back to St. Jude; and I couldn’t wait to get into one of my new Updike novels. Probably, Couples; the novel that broke up his New Yorker suburban marriage and set his literary career on fire.

——