Numb

 

Three.

 

Two.

 

One.

 

And then the bottom drops out of everything.

 

I absolutely love that phrase. The sensuality it lends to moments of sharp mental or emotional anguish is irresistible. The flavour of helplessness built into the saying lends a delicious seasoning to any tale of loss, or heartbreak…or any dish on the long menu of personal catastrophes.

 

Well, I found a place where you can physically experience that. A place where the bottom literally drops out of everything.

 

Twenty minutes (at least how I drive) east of Ottawa is a colourful, themed water park. It’s a haven for families, budding teenagers eager to see each other half-naked, young couples in love, the morbidly obese…whatever. It’s meant as a getaway, an escape, a day’s respite from life.

 

It is a most unlikely place to find the physical incarnation of my favourite literary device.

 

Tucked into a corner of this magical place, are two tubes entwined like a pair of crazed snakes. You step into the cylindrical head – a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare – before embarking on a 70 degree drop, followed by an angled loop and then a sharp turn before emerging from the snake’s tail – trembling and terrified.

 

“Isabelle,” I say to my water park companion. “We have to do it!”

 

She thinks I’m looking for a thrill. She doesn’t realize my aim is much more sinister: a masochistic desire to put my body through the same anguish that occasionally wracks my heart, soul, mind et al.

 

In the line for the ride/life experience, we meet a pair of, I assume, high school girls; a cute redhead with a charming spattering of adorable freckles and a toothy, easy grin…and a lithe brunette with ice cold blue eyes and a smirk that’s likely already broken a few hearts.

 

Oddly enough, they initiate the conversation.

 

“Have you guys done this already?” asks the redhead.

 

“No,” answers Isabelle. I’m still considering how many 16-year-old boys the brunette has destroyed or emotionally maimed for the next decade.

 

I settle on four. It seems a reasonable number.

 

“The scariest part,” says the redhead, grinning widely. “Is the countdown.”

 

“Yeah,” adds the brunette. “It goes ‘three, two, one’…then the bottom drops out of everything.”

 

“Ah ha,” I sigh.

 

I stop short of saying what I’m thinking.

 

Consider yourself fortunate, princess, that you’ve been afforded a count down at all. Fate does not spoil you with the warning “on the 17^th day of the 3^rd month, I will blindside you with the worst day of your life before I tear your world asunder and leave you sobbing and calling for your mother from the darkest of dark corners.”

 

“Sounds awesome!” It sounds like my voice but I scarcely believe my own words.

 

“Yeah!” They both exclaim, bouncing around with glee.

 

Good lord.

 

A few minutes later, I’m stepping into the cylinder. I’ve crossed my feet and folded my hands across my chest as instructed by the teenaged lifeguard. He’s giving me the thumbs up and grinning like an idiot. I painfully return the gesture, he nods, slaps the side of the cylinder and takes a few steps back.

 

“Three.” says the voice from the GPS unit that guided me here.

 

“Two.”

 

A deep sigh. I glance at my feet. I have to see this.

 

“One.”

 

A pneumatic thump. The bottom actually folds out…and now I’m freefalling down this translucent blue tube. I struggle to keep my eyes open. It isn’t enough that my stomach is somewhere between my ears, that I can’t breathe, that my eyelids feel like they’re writhing in the wind like a pair of torn parachutes…but I need to see this happening.

 

A rush of wind and I’m on my back, sliding forward, rushing around a turn…I feel my body being pulled to the left. It occurs to me that I’m looping…yet my senses are under such an assault that my brain computes it as sharp turn. Amazing.

 

I hear a gurgling sound. My legs are torn apart and my testicles seem to be crushed by a tidal wave of water. At some point, I’ve closed my eyes. When I open them again, I’m lying in a tube of salt water, sputtering and blinking furiously.

 

I’ve lost a contact lens. A blurry Isabelle is speaking to me.

 

“We’re never doing that again!”

 

“Okay,” I mumble. I don’t have the heart to tell her that the entire experience was oddly therapeutic…and very alarming.

 

As I stumble to my feet, I realize the whole experience may have lasted less than six seconds. It slowly dawns on me that the slowest part of the ride was the freefall. I felt numb as I plummeted into oblivion. I sadly realize why.

 

I’d been there before. Countless times.

 

I’m no stranger to fear. In nearly ten years and a pedestrian 500 hours in an airplane, I’ve had several students try to kill me attempting aerobatic manoeuvres. In fact, one tried today. I hardly batted an eyelid.

 

In the better part of five years as a television reporter, I covered fires, shootings, brutal murders…and funerals for 8 year olds who drowned in swimming pools during birthday parties. Each time, something inside me rusted, rotted, broke, died. But I swore I wouldn’t lose compassion or grace.

 

I promised myself I wouldn’t grow numb.

 

The trouble is life doesn’t give you a countdown…and when the bottom drops out, the horror doesn’t last seconds.

My Four Horsemen

Overworked. Underpaid. Over stimulated. Undersexed.

It’s a fairly meagre existence. A collection of frantic rushes to the end of the clock only to begin again in the confusion of dawn without as much as an inkling of the hour, day, month or season. After a while – and that while varies rather widely based on a number of constantly changing variables and absurdities – one develops the unpleasant notion of spinning one’s wheels, grinding one’s gears, trundling rather dumbly in a series of slowly widening circles of despair and self doubt and panic.

Anxiety is a funny thing. It rarely announces itself…yet when it does, it’s a resounding crash rather than a far off whimper. It sets upon you with the fury of fast-moving storm; blows over a few trees, knocks down a power line or two, tears the roof off a middle class home and gives two or three geriatrics heart attacks.

In the eye of the storm, I find you. My lovely little distraction. You’re really not all that unique, or fascinating, or special. Yet, if I acknowledge those facts…then you’re really nothing at all. A “dead clam” as Miller once put it – and rather crudely, I might add.

In those few brief moments, this happens: words, thoughts, glances, movements, form links in a chain, create memories and experiences, hopes, inspiration, notions, jealousies, weakness and fear.

And while I’m sure I’m beholding something rare and beautiful, a sudden red mist sets in, that chain is wrapped around my neck, the bottom drops out and I’m choking.

And then, it’s gone.

You’re left picking up the pieces…and there’s a pinprick of panic hanging around just behind the eyes. You hear footsteps now…and as little as a gull’s crazed squabbling sends you scrambling for safety.

My watch recently rotted off my wrist. I took this as a sign…which is odd since I don’t believe in God and thus am at a loss as to who would send such a sign. Still, in terms of this narrative, it’s a rather impressive and timely (ha!) symbol.

All this to say, I’m almost certain I could be doing something far more productive with my time. I know for a fact that my time is finite. There are only so many years in one life, 365 days in a year, 24 hours to a day, each hour having 60 minutes and each minute the result of 60 seconds.

I often find it terrifying that these moments are ones I will never regain and so we arrive at my greatest fear.

Boredom.

And purpose.

And mathematics.

At this precise moment, I have lived:
27 years…
or 332 months…
or 1,444 weeks…
or 10,108 days…
or 242,602 hours…
or 14,556,148 minutes…
or 873,368,924 seconds…

At this reading, those numbers are no longer accurate. In fact, by the end of this sentence my age would have been 873,368,930 seconds…for yet another second before that answer rapidly melts into an error.

Now, an entire legion of dead questions will shake off their shrouds and walk again.

How many of those seconds did I spend sleeping?
Dreaming?
Eating?
Crying?
Fucking?
Lusting over one waste of time or another?
Sitting on the toilet?
Working?
Wondering what the fuck I’m doing with those seconds?

You see, now I know exactly what Miller meant when he wrote

“Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.”

Chaos and time…two things I seem to be very rich in these days. The third is boredom. The fourth, an odd sort of harnessed insanity. Together they are my four horsemen – let’s call them Charlie, Timmy, Billy and Ian. Ian’s a fucking a nut job. He rides a mule and carries a pearl-handled pistol.

My preoccupation with time and chaos, purpose and boredom is derived from current conditions. Life, while a blessed gift, has been both coldly cruel and wonderfully giving in recent years. In an odd harmony, each gift comes with a challenge. This necessitates a “day by day” existence where each 24 hour period ends at a slowly receding black wall…and begins with the four horsemen smashing through my front door and chasing me down the hallway.

Ian’s aim isn’t very good, thank God…and his mule isn’t very quick.

The end result is one runs scared almost all of the time. Sleep is a semi-concussed version of consciousness. Any sort of respite is spent trembling in anticipation of the next onslaught. While inherently positive and hopeful, I find my shoulders sagging, my feet heavy, my gaze is of the thousand yard variety – give or take a yard – and my mind punch-drunk and mired in cobwebs of regret…and there’s a debris field of bad decisions in my wake.

And so, we arrive here…somewhere between the horsemen’s herald and the crawling black wall.

Inch by inch…

Second by second…

Each word set upon paper, a small relief…each second spent is one closer to salvation, closer to you and the moment you materialize from the black wall.

Rain

It begins as a painful, faraway wail. It builds, picking up in speed, tightening, creeps near. It moans and moans. The dull, slow but urgent scream is now flowing past me, around me, through me.

It sounds like an air raid siren. It can’t be.

I am awake in an instant. Heart thumping, my breath shallow and sharp, I struggle to shake off the cobwebs of sleep – however uneasy it has been. I squint, blinking my eyes at my watch. It’s five in the morning. I’ve been asleep for less than two hours.

A rush of cool air. The wailing subsides. My mind, mired in sleep, slowed by two liters of African lager, has mistaken the wind for the herald of doom.

The wind is restless. It dances and glides and roars and whispers through gusts and lulls smashing against the side of the house, rattling the window frame, fraying my nerves.

My window is open. The first rivulets of morning light are bleeding in through it, spreading slowly across the mess of sheets, sweeping into valleys and cresting ridges. My head is thick, slow. My mouth is dry, tastes rancid.

The last effects of ibuprofen are wearing off. My ears report a slight ringing. From my leg rises a cold, throbbing numbness.

It’s raining. It’s coming down in sheets so thick I’m looking at the world through frosted glass. Beyond, the trees bow their heads in reverence to the rain.

Rain, rain, rain. For days, the skies have wept. Line after line of thunderstorms have torn through the city. They come in waves. They are relentless. When I see the sun, there is no joy for I know that soon, the rain will come again.

The sound of rain falling is a rough hiss – like thousands upon thousands of voices speaking all at once. However, like in a crowded room, a hotel lobby, a wedding reception, I can pick out words, phrases, entire conversations. It is possible to hear each raindrop slap the pavement, caress the grass. The sound is the same. A gasp. A gasp of relief or sadness, I’m not sure which.

And then it is gone.

Now, the sound of tearing linen crackles in my ears. A gunshot. Now, two. A flash lights up the morning gloom – turning crimson to icy cobalt blue. Lightening.

And now, an ugly, dark rumble grows menacingly, drowning out the chatter of the rain. Where there is lightening, there is thunder. They are perfect mates yet so frightening. I close my eyes and the world explodes and all I hear is white, hot rage.

When I open my eyes again, the clouds, flat and grey, roll on and on. Far above them, I know the sky is blue and the sun shines its rays across the billowing masses of clouds the color of freshly fallen snow. The air is thin and dry and pleasantly cool. There is no scream of lightening, no roar of thunder, nor contemptuous hiss of rain.

And although the world above is vast and empty, I know I won’t be alone.

Remy Sails Again

 

I wear a small two-tone medallion of an eight-point compass rose around my neck.

The Romans first used it.  In the middle ages, the Arabs perfected the symbol.  In all cases, ancient and contemporary, its use has remained constant for centuries.  The compass rose indicates the four cardinal directions on a map: north, south, east and west.

In short, it shows the way.  It is direction for the lost, salvation for the doomed.  Sailors, overland explorers and later aviators placed their trust onto its faithful petals.

I thought it could do the same for me.

Hold onto the thread…

 

Her name was Remy.  Her name still is Remy.  I’m reasonably certain she didn’t change it.  I know for a fact she isn’t dead.  I only refer to her in the past tense because she has no place in my future. 

In keeping with the nautical theme, Remy’s ship has sailed.  It never made port and appears on the Lloyd’s List as having been “lost at sea”.  I like to think it ventured into the Bermuda Triangle of relationships and disappeared…fated to resurface abandoned years later and cause us all to scratch our heads in bewilderment as to would forsake such a lovely vessel for the cruelty of the unforgiving sea.

Well, me, for starters.

And, by the way, her name isn’t really Remy.

I’d had that compass rose medallion for years.  It used to sit in a small red box, resting lightly on a square of spongy Styrofoam, waiting silently on my bookshelf.  One day, I took it out and put it on and silently prayed for a little direction.

The currents will shift…

 

Glide me towards you…

And then, like the waves in the song, Remy rolled gently into my life.  At first, I was drawn to what I thought was a placid, glasslike surface of peace and calmness.  Some time later, I was surprised to realize what I saw was the reflection of turmoil and chaos – a foaming, raging sea whipped wild and white by the wind of the roaring twenties.

All the warning signs were there.  My internal compass, usually rock steady and unwavering, would spin dizzily in circles.  I’d drown in this girl’s presence.  I’d let myself be swept away by whatever nonsense she was carrying on about.  Then, the giddiness would wear off and I’d find myself lying face down in the sand on an unknown shoreline covered in seaweed and naked except for my trusty compass rose.

And we’re all allowed

 

To dream of the next oh, ohh the next,

 

Time we touch…

That was the worst part.  To be perfectly honest, however, I don’t think we ever really touched.  I imagine hugs don’t count.  She may have touched my hand once.  In this case, the word “touch” means “see each other” or “talk” or, more appropriately when it came to Remy, “collide in the middle of the night”.  I usually went straight to the bottom with all hands.

 

To dream of the next oh, ohh the next,

 

Time we touch…

Right, sorry.  It was like coming down from the best heroin high in the history of mankind.[1]  I’d be the King of the World, a handsome Leo DiCaprio riding the majestic prow of the Titanic one moment…and then a bearded Tom Hanks losing his mind and talking to a volleyball the next. 

Remy shipwrecked me – at least emotionally.  I’d wait for days, weeks for a glimmer on the horizon.  Nothing.  Then a text message, maybe an email, the rare phone call…but always, always, always when Remy needed something from me.  Just when I’d be on the verge of losing all hope, Remy would go drifting by in full sail and a new paint job – young and sleek and shiny and gorgeous. 

You dont have to stray

 

Tho oceans away

Oh, but she did.  Anywhere from four to twelve hours later, I’d be on the shore again – coughing up salt water and tearing mollusks off my thighs. 

I’m not a very good swimmer and although I’m a great admirer of ocean-going vessels and own two coffee table books of famous shipwrecks, I eventually tired of fighting against Remy’s undertow.  I’d had it.  I’d lost my sea legs.  And I really didn’t give a fuck.

Waves roll in my thoughts…

I made the mistake of doing just that.  I let Remy take shelter in my mind’s safe harbor for a night on one of her cocaine smuggling runs.  I figured that was the only explanation.  Clearly, it was the lucrative drug trade that kept her away from me.

I fell asleep thinking about how embarrassingly off I was on Remy.  I fell in love with the idea of her before slowly beginning to realize how awful she actually was. 

For such a magnificent little racing yacht, she couldn’t hold anything close to a true course.  The storms followed her everywhere.  The small auxiliary engine meant to keep you going on no-wind days was seized.  Her bilge pumps never worked so you were constantly ankle deep in shit.  Even in calm seas, she bucked and rolled so fiercely you were perpetually in danger of being tossed overboard.[2]

 

The sea will rise…

 

I guess Remy needed a little time on dry land to wait out the tide.  So, we went for a walk in my dream – through a shopping mall, of all places.  Remy held my hand.  I suppose she had spent too many long nights at sea. 

“Do you have a condom?”

We’re standing in front of a drug store.

“No,” I squeak.  You have to understand that Remy had been making a superhuman effort to jerk me around for weeks.  The revelation now that she wants nothing more than to go for a raunchy romp through the garden of earthly delights triggers instant bipolarism. 

What the fuck?  She’s crazy.  This is it.  She’s going to smother me with a pillow then steal my credit card.

For now, she leads me by the hand into the drug store then to the family planning aisle. 

“Lifestyles,” she insists, grabbing a box.  “I use these all the time.”

I want to ask: with who? And when? And did you insist on an STI exam beforehand?

She buys a bottle of iced tea and a pack of gum as unlikely companions to the rubbers.  I stand behind her smiling shyly.  The guy behind the counter winks at me.  Little do each of us know, this maiden voyage is doomed to end in disaster.  Only one brave little iceberg managed to survive its drift into the warm south Atlantic. 

I’m heading straight for it.

“Okay,” Remy sings.  “I’ve got to make one stop.  I’ll meet you outside.”

Fine.  Five minutes later, I’m waiting by the door and Remy rolls up in her rental car.  It must be a rental car because it isn’t hers.  She’s talking on her cell phone.  She’s smiling at me but something’s off.

It begins as a pinprick.  A tiny, nearly imperceptible but searing pang of fear in the depths of my stomach.  Slowly, it expands and swirls and bubbles up until I feel full and ill. 

Soon, I’ll be on that shoreline again – carrying an incoherent conversation with sporting equipment.

Remy drives away, still talking on her phone.  I see her eyes in the rearview mirror – calm, peaceful, soul-shattering. 

The compass rose on my chest burns against my skin.

She waves.

I stand there.  I hear Pearl Jam’s “Oceans” in the distance somewhere – wafting across the parking lot from some grunge afficionado’s open car window.

Please stand by the shore…

 

Oh, oh, oh, I will be…

 

I will be there once more…

 

No, Remy.  Not this time.

---

[1] The author has never done heroin.  He has, however, read a book written by someone who has done more heroin than the entire population of New York State and California combined.  This statement is made based on the expertise garnered from literature.

[2] Just to clear up any confusion, Remy is actually a woman – not a racing yacht.  The author is employing the literary device known as a metaphor.

Theatre – Part 2

The rain’s falling with the sound of static.  There’s a crack of lightning.  And then the bass line starts.  It’s a low, dark, prowling line that snakes along smoothly, effortlessly.  The sweet strikes of piano keys swirl around the clockwork of the bass and the guitars wind themselves tightly around the whole experience.

            I see her at about the same time I hear Jim Morrison’s haunting vocals.

            Riders on the storm…

            He sounds so eerie because there’s actually two of him singing the line.  Morrison recorded the vocals twice: once singing, once whispering the words.  The two tracks were layered one of top of the other. The result: ghostly, echoing vocals that linger even today…and the maudlin tone of the tune isn’t diminished by the fact that Jim Morrison was found dead in a Paris bathtub six months after recording it.

            So, this one walks onto the stage like a storm crashing through the stillness of night.  She comes marching down the middle of the mall in all her splendor: mid to late twenties, 5’6”, with long, dark hair falling across broad shoulders and dancing across a lovely pair hidden behind a crisp white t-shirt.

            Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan…

            Okay.  So, that doesn’t quite fit.  I’m not saying Morrison wrote this song about this particular woman.  The song apparently has a number of inspirations behind it: another song, a French surrealist poem from the 1930s, a car accident that killed Navajo tribesmen, even spree killer Billy Cook.

I acknowledge that none of these inspirations are even remotely related to this woman.  The point is, every movie needs a soundtrack and at least right now, this woman fits the song.

            Anyway, she seems to slow down to fall into step with the bass line.  The soundtrack is perfect.  Like her, it’s slow, flowing, dark, brooding, haunting…almost frightening.  But frightening in the sense that you’d like to find out more – not hide or run breathlessly in the other direction.  Like her stride, her body is disciplined and hard…and I imagine she spends a lot of time in a gym.  Her legs seem a mile long in tight, over-washed jeans strapped around her hips with a thick leather belt.  A rock star-inspired pentacle belt buckle completes the image.  Perfect.  Although, I doubt Morrison would have worn such a belt.

            As she comes closer, those illusions melt away behind The Lizard King’s shimmering vocals.  Her face is unremarkable.  It’s attractive but common.  Every second girl in this mall has a face like that: sour, uninterested, bored.  She’s wearing far too much mascara.  I can’t tell the color of her eyes – just that they too are sour, uninterested, bored.

            Girl ya gotta love your man…

            This one’s loved a lot of men and it has made her heart hard and callous.  She’s selfish, cold, self-absorbed, probably mean and violent in bed. She plays it well, though.  After the deed, she’d insist on parading around naked in the half-light as if to suggest she could get used to you.

            “I love you, Andy,” she’s standing by the dresser in a non-descript bedroom, looking at you, smiling.

            And that’s nice, really nice.  Except your name is Kevin.

            Well, Jolene unlocked the thick, breezeway door like she’d done one hundred times before…

            A good friend of mine told me something about redheads.  Actually, it was two things.  I’ll only repeat one, however.  The second “fact” was far too vulgar but I believed it since he insisted someone somewhere had done some sort of scientific study to prove it.  It turns out that particular “fact” is directly related to diet and thus changes from fire-headed woman to woman.  Oh, well, so much for that.

            Anyway, the first “fact” is that redheads are “crazy in bed.”  If there’s any place where crazy is a good thing, I suppose the bed would be it.  This evidence came from personal experience, I was told, with two redheads spanning quite some time.  Irrefutable, really.

            So, it’s the red hair that I notice first.

Jolene smoothed her dark hair in the mirror.

Okay, so Jolene had dark hair.  This Anne of Green Gables imposter has lovely, red locks tinged with golden blonde. And her name probably isn’t Jolene.  It’s Amy or Jessica or Anna or something like that.  Or, maybe, it is Jolene. 

That would be wild.

Anyway, like Jolene from the Cake single of the same name, this girl seems to lead a pretty run-of-the-mill, tedious existence.

She folded the towel carefully and put it back in place…

She’s sorting through the sale rack inside a clothing store.  Sweaters.  $4.95. 

Thank you, Recession. 

She picks one up, holds it in front of her.  It’s a burnt orange color…the kind that makes you think of leaves crunching underfoot in autumn or orange peels smoldering in an early winter fireplace. 

Well, every time I pull you close, push my face into your hair, cream rinse and tobacco smoke, that sickly scent is always, always there…

Actually, the color nearly matches her hair and, because of that, I wonder how odd the sweater may look on her.  She’s wearing a long, black coat over a thick, green cable-knit turtleneck.  It sits high and her chin rests upon it comfortably.  Her skin is clear, healthy and lightly speckled with freckles under her eyes.  I imagine they were far more pronounced when she was younger and wore her hair in pig-tails.

Every third-grade class had a girl like that. 

Grown up again, she frowns.  I like the way the corners of her mouth turn down and tight as her delicate brow furrows and she makes her decision.  She folds the sweater carefully and puts it back in place.

Oh, Jolene.

Then I hear the guitars.  The rhythm is scratching through chords in the same vein as those awful porn soundtracks…only without the wa-wa pedal or whammy.  The lead is picking through a lovely, warm riff played with such emotion that it sings. 

Yeah, I want to throw you out into space…

Like the man in the song, I want to rescue this woman from her boring life.  I get the feeling she wants to be rescued.  Not by some Prince Charming clad in shining armor sitting astride a magnificent white steed…but by me.

She’s with two other girls about her age.  I’d say early 20s…certainly no more than 24.  They’re clamoring on about stupidities while she smiles politely and keeps browsing.  She’s their friend, yes, but almost like a big sister: grounded, mature…and bored out of her mind.

Yeah, I want to pull you down into bed…

It would be slow, steady at first but emotionally charged.  Grateful, involved, overly present for a bit longer.  With each passing second, the inhibitions would be worn flat and there would be no choice but to slide uncontrollably into oblivion and delight. 

And that’s when Jolene hears the singing in the forest, opens the door quietly and steps into the night.

Crazy in bed, remember?

            Awwww, guitar!

And then the guitars and lead singer John McCrea roll into this orgasmic screaming match, the chanting starts…it’s almost religious, except for, well, you know.

Have you ever heard that song?  It was Cake’s second ever single off their debut album in 1994 and it was (still is) great.

If you haven’t heard the song, look it up – you’ll get my meaning.

“Hey, can I get a snack-sized Bananas-A-Whey, please?”

I cringe.  That’s a fucking stupid name for a fruit smoothie.  But it tastes good and Booster Juice is one of those few luxuries I’ll permit myself.  Still, I wish they had numbers instead of names.  I always feel like such a tool saying “Bananas-A-Whey.”

I move over a few steps and wait behind the counter for my smoothie.

“Hi, a Funky Monkey with an energy booster.”

Well, that’s certainly worse.  Thanks.

I look up at the board to see what-in-god’s-name could be in a Funky Monkey.

Chocolate Soy-Milk.

Bananas.

Free-trade yogurt.

There’s free-trade yogurt?  Okay, that’s enough.

I glance to my left to see who-in-god’s-name would order a Funky

Monkey.  She’s a walking stereo-type but a very, very pretty one.

She’s wearing a violet, roughly knit, oversized toque that fails miserably in covering up a shock of curly, golden blonde hair.  Her hair is unruly, yes, but in such a way that she’s set it up to look like that.  It spills out and tickles the shoulders of a gray, belted tweed jacket.  It springs softly against perfectly cared for skin.  It frames a lovely, simple face graced by a pair of pale green and endlessly deep eyes.

A brown, wool sweater peeks out below the tweed coat and ends halfway down the seat of dark blue jeans with stitching the color of copper.  The jeans disappear into a pair of high boots that are a light fawn brown. 

God, I love boots.

I want to live with a cinnamon girl…

Yes, Neil! Hey! That’s fucking spot-on!

Neil Young purportedly wrote the song Cinnamon Girl about a hippy girl he ran into on his way home one day.  So, it seems pretty fitting that I assign this track to the hippy/bohemian who ordered the Funky Monkey next to me in the line at Booster Juice.

Six silver saxes, a bass with a bow, the drummer relaxes and waits between shows for his cinnamon girl…
            Well, see, I’m the bassist.  And I’m waiting in line for a fruit snack next to a cinnamon girl. 

Close enough.

            “Here you go,” says the guy behind the counter.  “Bananas-A-Whey.”

            Fuck you, man. 

            “Right,” I say, grinning widely. “Thanks.”

            Cinnamon Girl looks at me for the first time.  She doesn’t look impressed.  I wonder why. 

It’s true, I haven’t shaved in a few days but I can’t grow much facial hair and besides I’m wearing a hundred dollar sweatshirt from a trendy shop I’m sure she frequents and, oh yeah, my suede boots cost me about one hundred and fifty bucks but they were a break-up gift to myself so it was worth it and, fuck you, you bought something called a Funky Monkey so what the hell are you looking at?

“Here’s your Funky Monkey.”

Ha!  See!  Yours sounds way dumber than mine.  And, by the way, that soy milk free-trade hippy bullshit drink you’re holding has 517 calories and something like 7 grams of fat.

Enjoy it, bitch.

I could be happy the rest of my life with a cinnamon girl…

All right, Neil, that’s enough, you can stop now.  We were wrong about this one.  I couldn’t be happy the rest of this minute with this one.  I know you’re the Godfather of Grunge, considered a rock god and all that but we all make mistakes.  Sit this one out, okay?

I’m a little steamed because of the way she looked at me.  Those pale green eyes suddenly seemed so shallow and judgmental and full of disdain and…

Wait.  That’s kind of hot.

By the time I make that realization, I’m halfway done my smoothie and out of sight of the Booster Juice counter.

I turn around and, you guessed it, she’s gone.

Well, I figure I’ve done enough casting calls to put together something of a line-up. 

I’m in that non-descript bedroom again and my heart is racing mostly because I’m not sure how I got from that mall to this place.  It’s like waking up late from a bad dream and trying to figure out what day it is and whether or not you need to be at work.  You know the feeling.  The one where your heart’s beating against the mattress, you can’t breathe and you’re struggling to find something, anything that gives you some kind of a clue as to what’s going on.

I blink and suddenly realize I haven’t looked at anyone from here in about four months.  It’s Stormy – that first girl from the mall that Jim Morrison sang so eerily about.  I’m watching that movie I told you about, the one I’m supposed to be writing.  There’s no sound, however, no feeling, just pictures.

Stormy’s eyes are closed, her dark hair swinging back and forth and stretching out of sight.  Sweat glistens. 

A flash – like one of those pulsating strobes at a dance club.

Jolene now – eyes wide and wondrous.  A tight smile and electricity and shivers and red hair – messy and tangled and knotted and beautiful.

Another flash.  Jesus Christ, they hurt.  It’s like a taking a punch to the nose – my eyes are teary and blurry and I’m fighting to focus.

It’s the not-Cinnamon Girl and she’s still wearing that toque – which is really, really weird.

Flash. 

Stormy again.  Her head tilted back.  A toothy, open mouthed grin plastered on her face.  She’s saying something but I can’t hear her and she’s gone before I can read her lips. 

Flash.

Hello, Jolene.  Eyes pressed tightly shut.  Sweat beading on her lovely forehead.  Her long, slender neck, the one hidden by the sweater until now, is slick and shiny in the low light.  She’s biting a thin lip.  She’s entirely lost.

Flash.  I’m getting used to them now.  They don’t hurt as much as before.

The Funky Monkey again.  Her skin matches the color of the hair fighting to free itself from that ridiculous hat.  Now, I’m lost, hypnotized by the swaying and springing of those golden locks.

It goes on like this for a while longer.  But not too long.  Then it starts all over again.  A disjointed, messy, confusing and one-dimensional denouement with no climax in sight.

At least, that’s the fantasy.

Awwww, guitar!

Theatre – Part 1

            “Have a good night!”

            She’s blonde – which is a good start after years of chasing brunettes, avoiding redheads and ignoring blondes.  She’s 18, maybe, hair stylishly cut, hanging down over one eye (almost) and her smile seems genuine.  The magenta full-zip hoodie is an eyesore despite the fact that it cradles a pair of truly magnificent breasts.  She’s standing behind the counter of a shoe store in a downtown mall.  I know she’s wearing a shapeless khaki skirt and that it ends just above the knee. I caught a glimpse of it on my swing through the store.  I know she’s only wearing it because she’s at work. Girls like that don’t wear anything sensible.  They walk around half-naked at home.  They lie back on the bed, twirl a lock of hair with one finger, chew a wad of gum and spew endless gibberish wrapped around a million “likes” and “you knows” into a portable phone. 

At least, that’s the fantasy.

            The store’s pretty well empty and the blonde has spent the last five minutes chatting brainlessly about boys with an uglier coworker – and I get the distinct sense that the pretty blonde pities the homely one.  I also get the feeling the homely one is a lot smarter than she lets on.  She’s only putting on this Barbie doll, stunted-IQ, I-love-skinny-jeans routine to fit in.  It’s clear she idolized the well-endowed one.  I almost feel sorry for her. 

            I should say, though, that I’d rather be with the blonde than the homely one.  That’s just where I’m at right now.  I’d like something fast, cheap and meaningless…oh, and very bad for you.  Like Burger King.  Yes.  This blonde is the Burger King of women. 

            Okay, this has gone on far too long.  You’d better say something.

            “Yes, thanks,” I fire back, not unpleasantly.  “You too, now.”

            It always amazes me how quickly the mind works and how badly time keeps up. 

            She smiles again.  Such a lovely smile.  But I know she’s just being polite because she has to be.  That’s her job.  She’s really wondering why I walked out of her store without buying anything.  She’s further mystified because everything is at least 70% off thanks to the recession.

            So, really, all that didn’t mean a whole hell of a lot.

            “She had great tits,” we’re in the mall now and my friend has issued his evaluation.

Great. Tits.

            I used to hate that word.  I would cringe every time I heard it.  Now, though, at least this time, I feel nothing.  I really don’t care.  And anyway, he’s right.  She did have great ones.  It’s a free country, he’s entitled to his opinion and it was a compliment after all. 

            Something tells me the maybe-18-year-old would have smiled her exquisite smile at that comment. 

At least, that’s the fantasy.

            A little perspective on this latest rant: I’ve been out of university for almost three years now.  You have to consider that the best years, at least when it comes to being surrounded by gorgeous, impressionable, horny, reckless girls (and they’re girls, not women) are the first two years of the degree.  After that, the days melt into one blurry, unrecognizable filmstrip and you have that awful feeling that you’re on a runaway rollercoaster and there’s no way to get off. 

The same sirens that lured you to disaster on the rocks with long eyelashes, low cut shirts, hipster jeans, and raunchy thongs just a few months ago become bitter relics of youth gone by.  They haven’t changed…but you have.  You’re so consumed by the work that you begin to despise them – not because of anything they did (or didn’t do) to you but because you can’t dive headlong into their guilty pleasures without some sort of career limiting consequence.

            Now, I didn’t get too much action during my first two carefree university years.  In fact, my last two years were much more bountiful.  It was never reckless, though. 

It was great but always sane, reasonable, safe and in a relationship.  I guess “cultured” is the word. 

            You know, I can’t help but feel like I lost out – even seven years later.  I graduated in the top ten per cent of my class and I landed a great job in my field even before I was awarded my degree.  My academic career certainly wasn’t stellar – but it was strong.  Despite all that, my biggest regret is this: I didn’t have enough meaningless sex with random girls.

            I know what you’re thinking.  My God, what’s wrong with this guy?  I don’t know.  I wish I could help you out with that.  All I know is that while my peers were fucking anything with a heartbeat, I was busy looking for a relationship.

           

“You need to sleep with a whole mess of different women at the same time,” he says.

            It’s still 2008 – just before the New Year.  We’re no longer in the mall but in an Irish Pub in the heart of Little Italy – which is a vaguely insulting and glaring geographical contradiction.  After all, the Italians are still smarting from the 1-0 defeat at the hands of the Irish during World Cup 1994.  That was a national disaster.  This is a cultural invasion.

Anyway, I’m there with one of my best friends (he’s gay) and his sister (who is a female version of me – at least when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex).

            “What?” 

I heard him the first time but he doesn’t need to know that.

            “You need to fuck a ton of women,” he’s yelling over the bar band’s rendition of “Brown Eyed Girl.”

            “I can’t do that.”

            “Why not?”  I’m not sure if I hear pity or disgust in his voice.  “What’s wrong with you?”

            “Lay off, will you?”  Thanks, gay friend’s sister.

“Nothing’s wrong with me, asshole,” I moan, insulted by his suggestion that I’m less than fully functional.  “I just can’t do that.  It’s not me.  One woman takes all my attention – you know that.”

            “I don’t mean two or three girls at the same time,” he laughs as if to suggest I can’t handle that.  He’s probably right. 

“I mean one on Monday, another on Tuesday, a third on Wednesday, another but not necessarily a new one on Thursday, one more on Friday and…”

            “And?”

            “And well, I guess you’d be pretty tired after five days of that, so, you know, do one more on Saturday then take Sunday off.”

            His tone of voice suggests we’re discussing the weather. 

            “Yeah,” I nod sheepishly, reach for my beer, remember that it’s warm and then dismiss both ideas – the beer and me as a raging sex-o-holic. 

             However, at that moment, I cross that avenue and briefly contemplate going down that road.  And that explains why, roughly eight weeks later, I’m plodding through this downtown mall and nearly every girl unfortunate enough to enter my field of vision gets to star in her own little mental screenplay.

           

             “If you’re looking for a relationship, forget it,” my buddy says.  I realize time hasn’t stopped for my reverie.  I’ve been thinking about the two-month-old Irish pub promiscuity dialogue and carrying on a conversation about the current focus of my misplaced attention at the same time.

            “No,” I mumble.  “No, I don’t need another one of those.”

            “You’re looking for a good time then?”

            “Yeah.”

            And that makes me feel cheap and run-of-the-mill.  For years, my insistence on being a gentleman, a listener, a conversationalist and a romantic doomed me to a life of near-celibacy.  I didn’t behave that way as some ploy – thinking that if I put on the act then some ravishing beauty would fall madly in love with me.  I behaved the way I did because that’s exactly who I am.  After a while, women found that attractive.  They have some kind of radar for sensibility and they love me for it.  To be honest, the whole thing is very confusing…but it’s me and it works so whatever.  Anyway, the suggestion that I abandon that way of life is both shocking and hurtful.

            “You’ll get that.”

            I envy his confidence in my situation.  I know he has his own problems and he’s less than confident when it comes to them.  With mine, though, he doesn’t seem to have a shred of doubt.  I’ll get what I’m looking for.

            What I’m looking for, at least right now, are actors in that little mental screenplay I just told you about.  The script is written.  I’ve got the characters figured out – well, more or less.  I know they’ll say and do some things that you’ll take issue with.  In writing these parts for them, I don’t mean to judge them – or make some sweeping and damning commentary on “woman as bitch.”

            But this is theatre, a little mental screenplay, remember?  These girls are just playing parts in a movie I’m putting together in my mind’s eye.  They don’t choose the parts.  I do.  They just play them.

            The cast…next.

Tailgating the Sun

The room smells like peaches.  Full and ripe.  It’s a sweet smell, not overpowering but comforting, and it drifts lazily around the room ducking in and out of shadows, around bedposts and across the sheets. 

I breathe deeply – taking great care in counting through the long draw, pausing then pushing the air out until I am empty inside.  I’m not, really.  But I like to feel that way from time to time just to remember.  You know, to keep myself honest, I suppose.

Honesty.  Hmm.

I hear the dog snoring softly.  He’s lying on a square pillow on the floor between the bed and the door.  He’s perfectly happy, content.  His life is simple.  He wakes up, goes outside, takes a walk, eats, sleeps and repeats.  Every day, without fail.  His emotions are pure.  When he’s upset, he’s upset.  When he’s happy, he wags his tail.  When he wants to play, he wags his tail, finds a toy then drops it at your feet.  When he’s hungry, he eats.  When he’s horny, he’ll fuck anything. 

When I’m upset, he somehow knows – and doesn’t leave my side.  When I’m sick, he won’t stray from the room.  Then there are the times when he lays his muzzle on my arm, looks at me curiously and raises his eyebrows.  Those are the times I’m at my lowest.  I’m usually so moved, the only response I can muster is a pat on the head and the whisper “I know, I know.”

I don’t, really.  But he does.  That seems to be enough.  I could learn a thing or two from the dog.  Like, for example, how to get some sleep with a shift looming in the not so distance future.  I don’t even want to look at my watch.  I’m afraid of what I would see.  I know from the weight of my head pressing down on my shoulders (even lying down) and what feels like a flushed face that it is well past one in the morning.

The dog stirs, grunts.  I hear him reposition his muzzle, tucking it in beside his leg.  Then he goes on sleeping.  There’s a candle burning on top of an unfinished pine dresser in the corner.  I know it’s a votive candle because I lit it…but I just see it as a little, dancing globe of light. Myopic eyes, you see. I marvel at the chaos.  There’s no rhythm, no sense, no method, no direction or constant. 

I count seven rays of light reaching out from the flame.  They begin at an apex in the flame, then fan out and gradually fade into the black inches from my face.  I count them again.  Seven rays.  Well, that’s something.

I look at my watch.  1:16 a.m.  Fuck.

A sigh.  Tilt the head back, try to look thru the darkness at the ceiling.

“Fuck it.”

I roll out of bed, find my glasses and stagger across the room to the closet.  I throw on my favourite hoodie.  It’s like wearing a blanket and I love it.  I shrug it on.  It’s cold and the sweater warms me up.  It reminds me of someone.  That warms me up too.

So, that’s how it starts.  That’s how I end up sitting in the dirty glow of my monitor in the early morning. 

I really shouldn’t be here.  I should be sleeping like a baby, dead to the world, lost in a dream and quite content to stay there, wrapped in a rare sea of pure happiness.

You see, today…or yesterday now…was one of the best days I can remember in the last four months.  And I have a razor sharp memory, especially for details, so I know for a fact, it is the best day I’ve lived in the last 120 days.  Every detail stands out like a brushstroke on a painting.  Not a great painting, sure. It certainly isn’t anything close to a masterpiece.  But it works.  It feels nice when you run your fingers across the ridges and into the valleys and see where each hair made its mark.  And it’s not just mine.  I shared in it and that makes it all the more fascinating. 

I’d put it up on my wall, if I could.  And if people saw it and asked me about it (you know, the standard: hey, nice! Where did you pick that up? Who painted it?  Was it you?  Wow! I’d like something like that.  Yeah, sure you would) I’d smile shyly, shrug, say something like:

“Just messing about, you know.” Lying ass.  “It’s not that great,” yes, it is.

I read today that the cure to unhappiness is happiness.  Yep, it’s that simple.  I’m not saying I’m unhappy.  I’m thrilled, brilliant, golden.  But I will concede this: if God is in the details, so too is bloody Lucifer.

It’s like chipping away at a stone, if you think about it.  Every swing of the pick-axe is a carefully chosen word, a smile, a wink, a laugh, biting your lip, rolling your eyes, a pause.  It’s a stupid, little game…but it’s so much fun.  Eventually, you get somewhere but you’ve got to hit that stone just so.  You see if you muck it up, one fateful strike of the pick-axe and the whole damn thing falls back on you.  That’s the devil’s detail.

You can’t be afraid of it, though.  If you are, nothing good can happen.

It’s like a friend of mine said the other day:

“You know, the two of us should be running away from this shit as fast as we can.”

I was a little drunk – halfway thru a bottle of atrocious German white wine.  I get philosophical when I’m drinking…or sleep deprived.

“Well, do you want to run away?”

“No.”  Swig.  “You?”

“Absolutely not,” I smack my lips.  The wine is far too sweet.  “I want to see what happens.”

“Yeah,” and it suddenly makes sense – to both of us.  “Me too.”

So, I figure it goes like this.  If you’re running away from something, it stands to reason you’re only running to something else, right?  Think about it.  It makes sense. 

Well, I’m running.  And I’m excited because I don’t know where I’ll end up.  And that’s good. 

I’m also done feeling sorry for everyone else.  I pure, straight don’t give a damn.  I have nothing to apologize for.  I spent a lot of time worrying about other people and not enough time looking after myself…in more ways than one.

Well, here and now, it stops. 

I’m tailgating the sun.  It’s warm.  I’m happy.

And I don’t feel guilty about it.

Losing It

“I lost it. I lost it all- faith, dignity… about 15 pounds.”

High Fidelity, the movie, 2002.

Londoner Rob Fleming doesn’t say those words in the book. It’s in the film, rather, where his American version Chicagoan Rob Gordon mutters that pathetic line as he stumbles up a nameless street, in the rain and at night and ends up sitting, sobbing on a curb…his skater shoes soaking in a puddle.

Charlie Nicholson has just left him for Marco. Marco! Poor Robert is heartbroken, miserable, inconsolable, insecure and borderline suicidal. He writes dozens of letters, sends some of them, creeps around outside Charlie’s residence hall…even fantasizes about killing Marco. In the end, he goes off the deep end…and you can’t help but laugh.

It really isn’t supposed to be funny. But it is…in a disgusting, feel-sick-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach kind of way.

I lost it all – faith, dignity…about 15 pounds.

There’s morbid fascination in that line – in the idea, really. We’ve all been there…or we’ve put someone through that same torture. It’s fascinating (comforting almost) to see someone self-destruct knowing the same could have happened to you in that same situation – and didn’t. It’s equally fascinating to wonder: my god, could I have done that to them? Imagine. I did that to them? Jesus.

I’ve been on both sides of that particular no-man’s-land. In the first skirmish, I did lose it all. Faith, certainly – I didn’t believe in anything, anyone, any Saint, any ideal. I figured an injustice that severe could only have been brought on by the grand puppeteer…and I hated him/her/it/whatever for it. I gained, rather than lost, 15 pounds. It was probably closer to 20…but anyway, I packed on the pounds and drank away my dignity at an alarming speed.

This was my routine in October of 2005:

1) Polish off a bottle of Portuguese Green Wine.
2) Get to the pub.
3) Drink a half dozen pints of Strongbow English Cider.
4) Get violently ill.
5) Somehow, find my way to the University bar and keep going.

I did this for about three weeks from 6 in the evening to just shy of midnight every second day or so.

Eventually, I found it (whatever it was) again. Something resembling normalcy returned. I found my dignity exactly where I left it – in the porcelain throne of the neighborhood pub.

(Through this time of monstrous vulnerability and rampant self-abuse, I drank in an English pub about five minutes away from my house. It shares a strip mall with a bad sushi place, a dirty convenience store where I bought smokes…oh, and a sex shop. The sex shop is my favorite. A steel door flanked by frosted glass with a low-key sign as a crown. Ridiculous. We all know what you can buy in there so why go to great lengths to shamefully conceal it?)

At any rate, I picked myself up, dusted myself off and stumbled forward – without faith though. She, like Charlie Nicholson, was a fucking bitch…one that knew how to lie low and disappear. I was happy to let her hide.

In the second skirmish, three years later, almost to the day, I set fire to and burned to the ground a three year relationship.

I won’t get into the details. They aren’t important. Only this is important: in losing what meant so much to me for such a long time, I found my faith…or rather, I realized I’d never lost it…nor did I lose its partner dignity.

Faith is believing there is something greater. Faith is knowing we exist for a reason. Faith is understanding that reason does not include suffering perpetually for an entire, agonizing and insulting lifetime. Faith is a smile, a laugh, a kiss, the veins of a leaf in autumn, a subtle chord in a new, exciting, personally meaningful song, holding a baby, saying ‘I love you’. Faith is Neil Young in ‘Cowgirl in the Sand,’ Eddie Vedder in ‘Black,’ Carlos Escamilla tearing through the solo in ‘Carolina’ (you don’t know him but I do and that’s all that matters). Faith is flaxen hair, hazel eyes and skin the colour of a late winter dawn…for a lovely, passionate few seconds, minutes, weeks or months.

Faith is forever and that’s magical, exciting, frightening, pure, raw…that’s everything.

I lost it all – faith, dignity…about 15 pounds.

See, like most people these days, I could stand to lose 15 pounds. That wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would be great. I’d love to lose 20…even 30 pounds. Why not? Hmmm. I’d do it, yeah, but not at the expense of faith and dignity. I can’t lose that again. They are too important.

The house. The business. The money. The family. When people lose these things, they blow their brains out in a casino parking lot, they hang themselves in an upstairs closet or they go to sleep in the garage with the car running.

I don’t even want to know what happens when you lose faith…when you lose dignity.