The Box, George Bowering, (New Star Books: 2009), 192 pp., $19.00 Cdn
Read George Bowering’s latest collection of short stories, and feel a much-needed lift. One of the entries is matter-of-factly called “An Experimental Story”, and this could double as a description of the entire work. All ten stories contain a delightful twist of some sort. I’m baffled that (to my knowledge) this author does not have a cult following. He did, of sorts, in the mid-70s—it wasn’t exactly a cult; it was an assortment of male undergrads who’d rave about some of his work, especially Autobiology. These discussions would often take place round a pub table, after an English class. Fast-forwarding to 2010, The Box is Bowering’s ninth collection of short fiction. Currently on the Canlit scene, I rarely see writers sticking their necks out with playful stuff like this. Maybe publishers cannot afford to take chances on “stick-your-neck-out” fiction (so it doesn’t see print), unless it’s an established writer like Bowering.
One particular thing about his collection is how it recaptures, in both subtle and blindsiding ways, that early 60s, slower-paced ambience of our rainy city. A yen for folksy, less troublesome times makes itself known between the lines. In the title story, Bowering expresses a thought which more or less summarizes the whole book’s reason for being:
“This is a recollection in a series of recollections I seem to be enduring about stuff that happened to me in 1962 or thereabouts.”
He goes on to write, “Why do we say ‘thereabouts’ instead of “thereabout’? Maybe some of you do say ‘whereabout’. . .” Then he presents us with an etymological retrospective of that particular word. This performance-art of the page comes highly recommended for readers bored with the usual fare. Curiously, when I first heard of The Box, I mistakenly thought it was called Boxes. I wonder if I got it mixed up in my head with the title of another brilliant social jab (in this case, a song), “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds. Uncannily, that song was written in 1962, the same year as Bowering’s frozen-in-time recollections.
Burlesque West: Showgirls, Sex, and Sin in Postwar Vancouver, Becki L. Ross, (University of Toronto Press: 2009), 368 pp., $29.95 Cdn
Burlesque West is a finely detailed history of Vancouver’s exotic entertainment industry. The preface is about all the flack Becki Ross experienced for receiving a research grant, which was criticized as “farcical, absurd, worthless, and ridiculous squandering of taxpayers’ dollars”. And those are the politer comments. Who would have known such misplaced hostility continues to exist out there?
Regarding the work itself, the most fascinating topic was the author’s study of virtually all Vancouver’s strip clubs of the era, particular the forgotten ones of the downtown eastside, whose names stick out out like worldly signposts: The Smilin’ Buddha, the New Delhi, Oil Can Harry’s, Marco Polo, the Harlem Nocturne and the Club Zanzibar.
I remember in 1979, I’d be riding the #20 to work every day, going past the Smilin’ Buddha. At this time it had morphed into a venue for punk rock bands (and should have been renamed the Drunken Devadatta)—and I used to covet an old publicity photo I’d see behind the glass showcase on Hastings East. “Who is that?” I kept asking myself, until one day the photo disappeared.
Turns out, it was a picture of Miss Lovie, one of Vancouver’s primo local dancers. I solved the above mystery when I read the chapter “The Shifting Conditions of Selling Fantasy” in Burlesque West:
“. . . Miss Lovie performed regularly at the New Delhi Cabaret and the Smilin’ Buddha. She remembered that the Buddha’s owners displayed a large photograph of her clad in a zebra-skin bikini in the club’s window, and kept it there long after she retired from dancing.”
Elsewhere in the chapter is an analysis of how conditions for exotic dancers went increasing downhill, beginning in the early 70’s. “Inside the often dank, dark, and smelly caverns, dancers were forced to scale down their acts to fit stages that were small, sometimes dirty, roughly assembled and poorly lit”.
Another contributor to devolving conditions was the sorry fact that musicians were no longer hired in the clubs, and dancers had to rely on canned music. (“. . . the live musical accompaniment that striptease dancers had enjoyed for decades slowly faded away”). I’d say by 1978 for sure, maybe earlier, the whole business was beyond recovery. But consider what a culturally vapid time the late 70s was anyway, what with disco, Donnie & Marie, and Anita Bryant’s depressing roadshow. To gain a more thorough understanding of the times, read this fascinating study. No one has written such a complete analysis of exotic dance before Burlesque West.
My Christmas blog entry is text-only, as I haven't been able to get the hang of adding graphics and so forth. This means that 2010 might find me reverting to the old-fashioned world of Print+Picture.
Speaking of Print+Picture, if you run out of gift ideas, please refer to my previous blog entry for instructions on how to receive your very own temporary tattoo. Ask for two.
I'll leave you with a little Christmas yarn, all about distilling the highlights of a family get-together into one manageable glob. This story first saw light in the Fall 2003 issue of The New Orphic Review:
SILENT NIGHT 2001
An alarming smell came out of the spare room at my mother's place. I ran in to have a look. My teenaged nephew had just pulled his snow boots off.
Even though it was cold outside, my mother and I took a walk to the playground. She was tired so we sat on the teeter-totter; her on one end, me on the other. It was the first time I had been on a teeter-totter without feeling as though my life were at stake. I am forty-six years old.
My brother called long distance. I decided, finally, to open up about my personal life. I talked five minutes non-stop before figuring out the phone was dead. A Christmas storm had shorted out the telephone wire.
Twenty years ago I attempted to write a story about an alternative game show called The Scorpio Secret Hour. A visual artist I knew – the late Susan Pacaud – drew a graphic for me. I asked her to go ahead and design the cover, as I felt certain I’d be publishing it as a chapbook soon thereafter. Sadly, I didn't complete it in time for Susan to have a copy. You can see the haunting image, to the right. I eventually managed to write The Scorpio Secret Hour as a long poem, although it’s not about a game show anymore; it’s my life story in 1,475 words. Soon it shall appear in an upcoming issue of Event. Meanwhile, I’m proposing a free offer* to my readers: I’ve made Susan’s graphic available as a temporary tattoo. To receive your very own tattoo, complete with instructions on how to apply it, all you need to do is send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Geist office address: Geist Office/Free Tattoo Offer 341 Water Street, #200 Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 1B8. I’m sending out tattoos in honour of Susan’s memory. Please dazzle your friends with this great artwork – this “swell gift”, as our Geist editors might say. The tattoo’s light areas are reproduced with white ink, and the shadowy parts are an achromatic blend. Remember, it’s only temporary, but it’ll brighten up your corner of the neighbourhood for up to a week.
“In Memry,” loosely based on actual events, was produced as a radio play on CFRO, Vancouver Cooperative Radio (1990) and published as a story in Canadian Fiction Magazine (1991). i. Alice Wagner gets a fright
I had a feeling, call it women’s intuition: I should not have ridden past Westgranger Cemetery the other night. My judgement was not to be trusted, for three reasons.
First, my motorcycle had been stalling more than usual, and it was bound to stall up that steep hill past the boneyard. A steep hill such as the boneyard one, and that bike of mine poops out somewhere between first and second gear. Don’t laugh–when my bike doesn’t work, neither do my senses.
Second, the night was terribly foggy, and every time we have fog in Westgranger, the smell from Labatt’s brewery penetrates the very mist and I get drunk by absorption. I didn’t realize this until I quit drinking alcohol–then I found I could not inhale the vapours from the brewery more than five minutes without getting absolutely tuned. When I’m tuned, I should not ride my bike, but I took a chance. I had to get home from Eddy Hooker’s place.
Finally, I was all upset at what I’d seen that morning–hours before I had passed the boneyard. I was on my way to work that very morning when I could have sworn I saw Ben Bagdian on the other side of the street. The shadowy side. He had the same walrus moustache, he was not quite as thin as he’d been in the hospital that final time, and he had on a navy blue heavy-knitted toque he would have felt embarrassed to wear when he was living.
I stared at him from across the street, and he finally stared back in my direction. There was no recognition on his part–he gave me a nasty look as if to say, “Take a picture, it lasts longer.” That’s the sort of thing Kevyn Rumble says all the time, but Ben Bagdian did not used to talk that way.
I was so upset, when I got to work I got on the phone and called my friend Susie Kale. She is a street nurse and has a good working knowledge of unexplainable phenomena.
“Susie, I saw something shocking,” I forced myself to say. “I saw the spirit of Ben Bagdian.”
Susie was not convinced. She said if it were really Ben’s spirit, he wouldn’t have pulled a nasty face. Not Ben. He was our friend.
Ben’s spirit could easily have chosen to ignore me. I learned this in a writing class I took at night school. One of my classmates was a retired sergeant-major. One night when we got into a class discussion on the topic of the supernatural, the sergeant-major said, “When you see someone you know to be dead and gone, the spirit has to pretend it doesn’t know you. It would give itself away. After all, it’s supposed to be dead.”
So Ben’s spirit gave me that “take a picture, it lasts longer” look to save face. It knew I would go around blabbing it later, first to Susie and then to everyone else.
“Alice,” said Susie over the telephone, “sometimes I wonder about you. Are you pulling my leg, or are you having psychiatric problems?”
“I have to ring off, the boss is coming,” I said to her, but that was a fib. I don’t like talking to Susie when she’s acting so clinical. She cannot separate her work from her personal life.
That writing class I took at night school offered up some good discussion, but I didn’t write much. I took a crack at a horror story: The narrator was a woman addicted to caffeine who bought a brand new espresso machine from the Bay on her charge card. The machine was possessed by devilish forces and chased her around the kitchen as soon as she plugged it in. I felt too embarrassed to read it aloud in class.
The only other thing I felt inspired to write, that didn’t get written, was a combination-story. A combination-story is one in which all twelve of us classmates could participate. I would have written the first few pages, then the sergeant-major would have added a few, and all those other people hoping to better themselves would have finished it off a little at a time. What a cross-sectional marvel it would have been, but nobody else wanted to do it.
A great mystery story called The Marble Forest was written that way. Twelve people wrote it, under the pen-name of Theo Durrant. Marble forest is a lyrical term for boneyard.
I surprised myself going to night school at all, since I vowed back in high school I’d never sit in a classroom again, once I got out of there. That was after Susie Kale and I got kicked out, and had to grovel our way back in.
Westgranger Senior Secondary had bad vibes anyway, even if we hadn’t got kicked out. It was built over a cemetery, believe it or not. The oldest cemetery in Westgranger lies beneath the noisy, trampling feet of high school students. This was long before there was such a thing as a Heritage Committee, which would have prevented such disruption of all those spirits. My relatives were in that historic cemetery–the early Wagners.
I knew the early Wagners must have been buried there because the other cemetery, Westgranger, was just too new. It’s still fairly old, dating back to the turn of the century, but I could not find any relations of mine in there. One day while the sun was still up, I took my friends to Westgranger Cemetery. We were hunting for gravestones of all our relatives, and none of us could find any.
My friends consisted of Eddy Hooker, Susie Kale and Kevyn Rumble. I call them my favourite people. Ben Bagdian was a favourite but he’s gone now. There is another favourite, Beatrice Pitney, but Beatrice was in the slammer at the time.
Beatrice would still be in the slammer to this day, except she escaped together with eleven other inmates a few weeks ago. I don’t know where she is hiding out, but it must be a clever spot because the others have already been caught.
I called Eddy Hooker the other night to ask if Beatrice had made any attempt to contact him. I know this was not a discreet thing to say over the telephone. Eddy just ignored the question and asked me to come over straight away because he’d bought some new records he wanted me to hear. We’re collectors.
I lost track of time and stayed at Eddy’s till three o’clock in the morning, just as that miserable fog was descending. As I’ve said, I knew better than to drive past the cemetery, but I was too tired to take the long way round–the Ring Road. I wanted to get out of the fog as soon as possible, with Labatt’s vapours drifting through it like spirits of the dead.
My bike just would not make it up the Richmond Street hill–the street that crosses the centre of the boneyard with a fence on either side. It was near the crest that my motor cut out. I sat there for a few moments, pressing the starter at intervals, careful not to flood the engine.
I thought I heard some whispering to my far right–just on the other side of the cemetery fence. I made myself take a look in that direction, just to see if I’d get scared.
That’s when I saw them–two spirits. That very morning I had seen the spirit of Ben Bagdian, and here were two more. They did not resemble living people, though. They were a different sort of spirit: Two shapeless lumps, each about five foot six, whispering back and forth. Through the fog I could see they were an off-white colour, like the mashed potatoes from Eaton’s Grill Room.
Then I could have sworn one of them whispered, “Alice Wagner, you get over here.”
I thought spirits were supposed to ignore the living. I didn’t answer, I just got off my bike and began running beside it, pushing it along by its handlebars. How I made it over the top of that hill, I’ll never know, but once I got past the high point I hopped back on and managed to bump-start the old thing.
As I drove on, I felt icy fingers stroking the back of my neck. Later I realized this was only the mist condensing beneath my collar.
When I got back to my apartment, I immediately got on the phone and called Eddy Hooker. I knew he’d still be awake. “Eddy,” I said, “you’ve got to believe this. I just saw two spirits in the boneyard, and they even called my name.”
ii. Eddy Hooker gets a fright
You could say I’m the type who enjoys a good laugh. That is why I fell over laughing when Alice Wagner called and carried on about seeing ghosts in the graveyard.
I literally fell over onto the carpet, which I don’t like to do because the carpet has fleas in it. The telephone receiver was hanging over the edge of the table, and I was almost having a choking fit. I could hear Alice’s voice: “Get a hold of yourself, Eddy. My heart rate has gone up enough for one night.”
When I got up again, I explained to Alice that what she’d seen was not from the spirit world. After all these years I still don’t know when she is serious and when she is goofing around.
Our friendship goes back a long way; back to Westgranger Senior Secondary. I’ve been reflecting a lot about those days, most likely because I’ve been between jobs for a grossly long time and there’s not much else to do. I think about my beginnings, in times such as these. I met my two best women friends at that school, Alice Wagner and Susie Kale. We’re endured over the years, like real friends-for-life.
Kevyn Rumble is a good friend too, but he did not go to school with us–he’s younger and comes from Bridgeview. Susie Kale met Kevyn first. She was giving blood tests down at the Sisters, and this punk with hair the colour of bootblack showed up and said his name was Kevyn. I met him later at the King Edward Hotel. He was playing bass guitar in a punk band–the Chanting Skulls.
When I first took notice of Alice Wagner, it was years ago in a co-ed guidance class at Westgranger. Our teacher’s name was Mr. Burnout. It wasn’t funny then because we didn’t know the concept. That word, burnout, wasn’t even used at the time.
One day in Mr. Burnout’s class, we had a special exercise. We all had to take turns and state who our favourite person of all time was. Some of the dippier kids said their mum or dad was their favourite. One girl said Kim Novak. Some of the boys–me, anyway–said Sal Mineo. When it was Alice Wagner’s turn, she turned all red and said, “Eddy Hooker.”
I thought everyone would have a big chortle, but no one did. There was only silence. It’s like everyone respected me for a few seconds. And to think I’d never even spoken to Alice at the time. I knew she rode a motorcycle to school as soon as she was old enough, and that she could afford to because she worked at the China Doll restaurant after school and on weekends. I knew she and Susie Kale were friends, and they used to be friends with Beatrice Pitney but Beatrice had been out of school since grade eight. Susie and Alice were popular because they’d been suspended from school for a while. That was all I knew of Alice at the time.
After what she’d said in guidance class, I decided she must be a friend-for-life. I never did see the point of Mr. Burnout’s exercise. How to cope with embarrassment, maybe. Speaking of which, maybe Burnout never got bugged about his surname, but I sure got bugged about mine. Once all the kids learned what hooker meant, they never let up.
A little research I did shed some light on how my family name evolved into the slang-word. It goes back to General Hooker of the U.S. Civil War days, who incidentally was my distant relative. General Hooker provided women for his regiment, I understand, and these women came to be known as "Hooker’s Girls." "Hookers" for short. There you go.
One day Alice took Susie, Kevyn and me on an expedition into Westgranger Cemetery to see if we could find any headstones of historic relatives. That cemetery is vast, and the part we went into is no longer used–only the newer part is. We could not find any Hookers because my relations are scattered in all ten directions of the planet, everywhere but Westgranger.
We could not find any Wagners, either. Alice claims they’re all in the other cemetery, buried beneath the high school. The only Wagner I’d heard of historically was Henry Wagner, the outlaw who traveled with Butch Cassidy’s gang. He hid out in an abandoned shack not far from Westgranger, where he came to a violent, shoot-’em-up kind of death.
Alice said, “Henry Wagner was no ancestor of mine. I come from a very peaceable sort of people.”
Susie Kale could not find any Kales. It’s because they are all back east. She said she’s never been proud of her family name anyway–it just means "lettuce." I’m sure she was joking because she has a lot of dignity, possibly of the inherited sort. She’s an inner city nurse, and I’ve seen her react calmly to some of the most unnerving situations. One time she said, “Did I really look calm, Eddy? Because I was quaking in my sneakers.”
There were no Rumbles in the cemetery, for the benefit of Kevyn Rumble. He claims Rumble Street in Burnaby was named after his family.
“Oh no.” Alice decided to argue with him. “Rumble Street goes back so far, it was named for the wagon wheels rumbling over it. My ancestors manufactured those wheels–that’s what the name Wagner means.”
“Forget it,” said Susie. “Rumble Street was named much later, for the trains that rumbled alongside the Fraser River.”
“You’re both wrong,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. “Rumble got its name because there were all kinds of gang fights on that street, in the fifties.”
Kevyn got all red. He hates it when you argue with him. He turned on me. “Look here,” he said, “if you can be related to General Hooker, I can darn well be related to Mayor Rumble.”
So none of us found our roots in the cemetery that day, but we did find something just as good. Kevyn noticed it first: A tiny slate gravestone in amongst the fancier marble ones. The stone’s edges were chipped and uneven. When we got up close, we could read two words hand-fashioned on the slate: In Memry. It was spelled m-e-m-r-y, either because the carver was semi-literate, or he did not have room enough to fit the whole word. There were no names or dates, just “In Memry.”
“That’s for all our forgotten relatives, who worked so hard to make a better life,” said Alice, nodding her head thoughtfully. Pretty soon all four of us were nodding our heads and getting all dreamy.
Alice has been out of sorts this past while, partly because Ben Bagdian is gone, and because it’s been a long foggy winter, and it is quite a feat for her to quit drinking, especially since she works at the pub in the King Edward. When she called to say she was seeing ghosts, I did my best to explain the whole situation. “Alice deserves an explanation,” I thought at the moment.
“What you saw,” I explained, “was Kevyn Rumble with Beatrice Pitney. I did not tell you before because no one is supposed to know. Bea Pitney could get caught at any moment. She’s been hiding out in that derelict shack in the unused part of the cemetery. You know the one–it used to be a caretaker’s cottage. Kevyn has been giving her some sort of provisional care. The white draperies you saw them in were fleece blankets, which I gather Kevyn liberated from someplace. I’m sure it gets colder than penguin dung in there, not to mention uncomfortable in every material way.”
I thought Alice would be hurt about my not telling Bea’s whereabouts before then, as Bea is her friend, but Alice understood. We can’t have too many people knowing. Alice tends to reveal things unintentionally sometimes.
I spilled the beans to her because Kevyn and Bea were so indiscreet anyway. If they were pressed against the fence in white sheets, anyone could have seen them–not just Alice. Do you know Beatrice actually wandered down to Donuts Plus one night and gave Kevyn a call? He told me all about it. He said to her, “Bea, what in the world are you doing at Donuts Plus?”
“It’s the only place open twenty-four hours. Got a smoke on you, hon?”
“Bea, get back to the graveyard this second.”
“It’s too depressing. Well, not as bad as the slammer. Even the media thinks so. Remember how the papers described our cells? ‘Filthy, smelly hell-holes, painted orange.’”
Kevyn persuaded her to quit talking and start walking. That was last week sometime, and this week I broke down and told Alice the entire story.
“Well, I’m going back to the boneyard tomorrow to see for myself,” Alice said, just before hanging up the phone. “I won’t believe it till I see it.” That very moment, I felt overcome by panic. I told Alice the whole situation! Who knows where she’ll spread it? Poor Bea, anything could happen to her now.
I decided to call Susie Kale to get some advice. She wakes up at five every single morning to meditate. Since it was almost five at the time, I waited a few slow minutes and then called. “Susie,” I said, and my voice sounded so tired and weak, “I’m worried about Bea Pitney. And I told Alice Wagner the whole story. Is there anything we can do to make this situation a little more hopeful?”
iii. Susie Kale gets a fright
I was dead tired that morning Eddy called. It was just after five o’clock, and I hadn’t slept well because I’d had an upsetting experience around midnight. I was returning from work. Incidents like this make me wonder why I’ve put off buying a car for so long.
I was on night shift and as usual we were short-staffed. Coming home, I could have cut through the cemetery–it makes the walk so much shorter–but I had not cut through it ever since Beatrice began hiding out there.
I know she was lonesome in that place, but I could not risk having contact. Kevyn could have gotten into so much trouble for aiding and abetting. I resolved that if I ever saw Beatrice, I would simply advise her to turn herself in.
Also, it’s illegal for pedestrians to cut through the cemetery at that hour. A sign at the gate says Westgranger Cemetery is closed to the living after 9 p.m. I took the long way round, following the Ring Road alongside the fence.
From one moment to the next, I heard all this yelling and hooting in amongst the gravestones. This was followed by a monumental thud and a crash, almost as though someone were flinging dead bodies about.
I peered through the fence and saw three teenage boys making a ruckus. At first I thought they were more escapees from the prison, but no, these characters were too young. And I remembered that all of the escapees except Bea had been rounded up. They were spotted at the Bridgeview Hotel, drinking beer. Anyway you’ll never guess what those teenagers were doing: Prying gravestones and markers out of the ground and seeing how far they could be thrown.
I hastened my step so I could pass by unnoticed and call the police when I got in my door. As I rushed past, I saw one of these kids dig a tiny marker from its place between two larger ones. The fog had not yet rolled in, so I got a clear view of what he was doing: He was pulling the “In Memry” stone out of the ground.
This I couldn’t stand for. I forgot myself and hollered, “You there. Put my little stone back this instant.”
He dropped it, and looked around in all directions. The other two looked up and saw me right away. They ran over to the Fraser monument–that’s the one shaped like an obelisk–and pulled at it. The thing must have been cracked already because they managed to break it off near the middle, and then they pointed it at me like a giant cattle prod. I began running for dear life, and the two of them heaved the half-obelisk clear over the fence. It hit the sidewalk a few feet behind me, and I kept running without looking back. The little monsters.
When I got home, I decided I could not call the police after all. If they scoured the cemetery, they’d find Beatrice for sure. I couldn’t have that. I haven’t helped her in this endeavor, but I sure don’t want to hurt her. Beatrice never had much of a chance.
She was Alice’s friend right from the beginning, protecting her from all the tough Westgranger kids. Beatrice would stick up for me too, just because Alice told her to. I was always the smartest kid in class so I needed industrial-strength protection.
By the end of grade eight, Beatrice really fell in with the wrong lot. Besides all the typical wrongdoings, they used to spray paint political slogans on every viewable surface. Beatrice never has broken that habit.
Soon enough, she got sent up to the reformatory, but whenever she’d get a leave or go AWOL, she’d come back to Westgranger and find Alice. I can still see the spectre of Beatrice in my mind’s eye; she’d be standing at the schoolyard’s edge, her legs firmly planted in the ground like a scarecrow, waiting for the 3:30 bell when Alice and I would emerge.
Even for the long stretches that Beatrice was away, we’d still feel safe from the schoolyard bullies. Then something happened to change all that.
This would have been in grade ten, when Alice and I began taking walks during lunch hour. We’d walk to the entrance of the shopping centre, which was new at the time, and then we’d have to hurry all the way back so as not to be late for afternoon classes.
One lunch hour I had the strangest feeling Alice and I were being watched. Or followed. I quickly turned round and, sure enough, there stood the three toughest girls in the school: Lorraine Mack, Bev Windsor and Shirley Sinko. They called themselves the Westgranger Wolverines–a pompous name for three pathetic animules.
“Where do you two think you’re going?” Lorraine Mack pointed at us.
“We think you’re a couple of weirdos,” Bev Windsor added.
“Yah,” said Shirley Sinko, “the pair of you. We’re gonna have a scrag fight with you.”
Bev Windsor pulled something from her purse that looked like a switchblade. We heard an unmistakable click!, and a steel point came into view. Upon furtive inspection, I saw it wasn’t a blade at all but a rat-tail comb made to look like a blade. “Who on earth would manufacture a thing like that?” I remember thinking.
“Which one of you wants a poke first?” Bev Windsor sneered at us.
Alice was doing her best to look cool, calm and collected, but her tremulous voice betrayed her. “We don’t wanna fight,” she explained, “we’re a peaceable sort of people.”
“You think you’re so smart,” Bev Windsor sneered again. She must have been addressing me because Alice was not being smart.
Housewives on their way to the shopping centre skirted round us nervously. “Windsor, put the comb away,” Lorraine Mack said, quite unexpectedly. “I’ve got a better idea.”
“Yah,” said Shirley Sinko, although I doubt if Sinko knew what the better idea was.
“You see that big supermarket over there, you two dopes?” Lorraine Mack narrowed her eyes at us. They were already narrow, but she made them even more so. “I want you to go in there and steal us each a carton of smokes. I smoke Players. Windsor smokes Export A. Sinko, what about you?”
“Players,” said Shirley Sinko. “Just like you.”
“You hear that?” Lorraine Mack said. “Three cartons of smokes. Now get going.”
We went. It was easy to do; we just hid the cartons in my windbreaker. Alice and I were foolish enough to think this would be the first and last time. “Oh Beatrice, where are you?” Alice murmured into the thin air.
A few days later I was accosted in the halls between classes. “Hey, Brain,” the Wolverines were calling. That was my nickname in those days, Brain.
“It’s smoke time again,” they were saying. “You and your friend had better get us three more cartons by the end of lunch hour, or we’ll rearrange your features for you.”
When I told Alice at lunch time, she went all white. I could tell she was thinking hard. “I’ve got an idea,” she finally said, “we’ll go do it and just let ourselves get caught. Once that happens, the Wolverines won’t bother asking again.”
“Let ourselves get caught,” I nearly shrieked. “My bum would be a lovely shade of vermilion if my folks knew I stole cigarettes.”
“Hold on,” said Alice, “I’ve thought all this out. We simply steal a roll of Lifesavers each. The cops won’t do anything with just twenty cents’ worth of merchandise.”
I went along with this plan. We practically waved our Lifesavers in the manager’s face and he hauled us into his office. First he called the police station, and Alice was right, they weren’t interested in a twenty-cent misdemeanor.
Then he called our school. The regular principal, Mr. Dunkley, was on leave–the rumour was that he’d had a nervous breakdown–and Mr. Burnout was the acting principal. I did my best to follow the telephone conversation. Mr. Burnout had apparently said this was out of his hands; the police would have to be contacted. Of course it was already established the police would not do anything, so the manager was livid.
“Now just a moment,” he said to Mr. Burnout, “you do something about this now, or you’ll be hearing from me again. These hooligans have been stealing us blind all year.”
“All year?” I whispered to Alice. “Sounds like we’re taking the rap for the Wolverines.” Alice had never looked so defeated in the whole time I’d known her.
We ended up getting suspended from school, for an indefinite period. Alice was already working at the China Doll restaurant, receiving a steady paycheque, so her parents didn’t really care.
Mine, on the other hand, were furious. I couldn’t very well tell them how our theft had come about–cowardice was a far greater crime than petty theft. My parents made me go to Mr. Burnout’s office and apologize and say I disgraced the name of the school and so on. I talked Alice into joining me, which was not easy, and we both were back in classes the following Monday.
A week or so later, Beatrice Pitney came to see us. She was looking deathly thin at the time; she had been on a hunger strike in reform school. Alice told her what had happened to us. I’ve no idea what Beatrice said to the Wolverines right after that, but they never came near us again. They were afraid.
Beatrice was awfully good to us back then. Alice kept in touch with her over the years, but I seldom saw her. In fact I did not give her much thought until all that business about escapees from the prison.
After seeing those graveyard vandals–ghouls is a better word –I could not sleep, so I listened to the five o’clock news on the radio. Well, the vandalism had been discovered, and so had Beatrice. The police apprehended her after someone tipped them off. What’s worse is, a reward had been offered for any tips on the whereabouts of the remaining escapee. Beatrice. Those ghouls must have ratted on her and collected the money.
Then Eddy called while the news was still on, and I had to tell him what I’d just heard over the local station. It was too late. We talked awhile and then I said, “I’d best go and see how Kevyn is doing. I’ll wait till later this morning.”
Kevyn lives in King Rooms–a place I’ve never felt safe in. “Kevyn,” I hollered as I knocked on the door, so he’d know who it was, “are you okay after what happened to Beatrice?”
Kevyn opened the door only a crack. He was still in his shorts. All he did was glare at me.
I glanced round his room, as much of it as I could see, and noticed something brand new in the background. “Kevyn, where did you get such an expensive portable tape player?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” Kevyn said, after he paused to think about it, and then he slammed the door in my face. He’s always been that way to an extent, but this was the worst.
On my way back home, I got a staggering thought. Did Kevyn tip off the police about Beatrice? I mean, for the reward money. Maybe I was just plain tired, but I could not get that thought out of my mind.
When I got home, I called Eddy and asked what he thought. Eddy said he didn’t know what to think, but he’d call Alice and ask what she thought. I didn’t want to wait for them to call me back. My conscience told me to call Kevyn and voice my suspicion.
One has to let the phone ring about ten times when calling King Rooms. The phone is in the foyer–it’s a pay phone and Kevyn is usually the one to pick it up because his room is closest to it. “Hello, who’s this?” he finally answered.
“This is Susie Kale,” I replied. “Kevyn, I need to put my mind at rest. Did you turn Beatrice in? Maybe you thought you were doing her a favour, who knows? But I’d like to know the answer.”
iv. Kevyn Rumble gets a fright
These past few weeks I’ve felt like I’ve been climbing a treacherous mountain, and to top it off, my so-called friend Susie Kale called and accused me of finking on Bea. Bad fortune.
Those graveyard goofs were the ones who finked. I’m sure of that. I heard on the news that their vandalism will end up costing the city thousands of dollars, but they’d still have the cheek to collect the reward money. No one could prove they were the vandals. Maybe they’d even try and pin it on Bea. I’m in no position to come forward.
Do you remember a scary flick called My Blood Runs Cold? Troy Donahue was in it. Eddy Hooker looks a bit like Troy Donahue, but only if Troy had spent a sorry childhood in Westgranger. Well, my blood ran cold when I was in the graveyard with Bea, and we heard those vandals coming closer and closer.
I had seen them before one night at the King Edward Hotel, when I was playing there with the Skulls. These three minors got thrown out for being under age; now they were tossing headstones around. They’re the type of people you can’t stand to be around for more than five minutes at a time.
I’m sure I heard someone outside the cemetery fence yell at the three of them but then the voice died away. Whoever it was had a lot of balls. Just after that, the kids started off in Bea’s and my direction, near the old caretaker’s cottage. They must have been hearing noises–each of them was armed with a tombstone. We hid but they spotted us anyway.
“Hey look,” said one, “it’s one of the Chanting Skulls.”
“And it’s that skinny convict-lady who escaped from prison,” said another, so excited he about peed his pants. He would have seen Bea’s infamous mugshot in the papers.
Right about then, Bea let go with a rush of cusswords only someone who spent half her life in the slammer would use. Even I don’t. The three goofs only laughed and took off. The next two hours were agonizing. “They’re gonna fink,” said Bea. “I guess I ought to run if there is any use to it.”
We ended up going nowhere; don’t ask me why. Defeat. We huddled in our blankets. Life in the cemetery had been hell for Bea anyway. Early on she had told me, “It’s good to be in the fresh air, but how long? How long?”
“What this place needs is a little music, Bea.” I had made a useless attempt at sounding cheerful. Then I went and appropriated a fancy portable tape player from Groat’s Pawn Shop. I don’t regularly do such things but I was desperate, and I didn’t mind taking from Groat’s because they have all that hocked merchandise from half my friends and neighbours anyway. If Butch Cassidy or any of those guys were alive today, they would do the same thing.
I could not tell Susie how I got that machine, when she asked her nosy question. I’ve always felt that Susie Kale is the type you mind your p’s and q’s around. How could she make that accusation? It’s out of her character.
I never did bring that tape player to Bea. Someone would have heard it and got suspicious. Bea would have cranked up the oldies station. What difference does it make now? Bea would have been better off having just two days of fun in the cemetery, than two weeks of sensory deprivation. Speaking of that, they’ve put Bea in solitary. The segregation unit. I heard this on the news. The segregation unit is known as "the hole." Well, the whole slammer is called "the hole," but I understand solitary is a special hole.
Bea was badly in need of music. How she loves it. Before she escaped from the slammer, I tried to bring in her favourite record but the prison guards would not let it past the gatehouse.
Her favourite record is Doris Troy’s original version of “Just One Look.” She specified the Doris Troy version. I was too young to remember it–I’m familiar only with a couple of ball-less cover versions recorded later.
I borrowed “Just One Look” from Alice Wagner. Between her and Eddy Hooker, they have hundreds of old 45s. I was so impressed with Doris Troy’s style of singing, I said, “What balls,” and then Alice jumped down my throat.
“We’d get along far better,” she said, “if you do not say ‘balls’ when describing women who sing like they have something indispensable to impart.” She learned that kind of talk from Susie Kale.
I can’t help it if I don’t have a wide vocabulary. What I had meant was, Doris Troy sang from some far-reaching, indescribable place. I know about this–to be able to reach out to people’s hearts with a song, and mean it, is a privilege.
Up at the King Edward Hotel, the Skulls and I try to reach out to people to the best of our ability. This is our prime point. The only people I don’t care to reach are ones like the three brats who got thrown out. I don’t care for the management either. They almost didn’t hire us because of our name–the Chanting Skulls. They said it sounded too spiritual, enough to scare people away.
Alice works half-time in their kitchen and half-time in their pub, and she put in a good word for me. Eddy used to work there as a waiter, but he got tired of wearing the period costumes, and now he tries to make a living just from his acting. If he makes as much money from acting as I make from music, he’s broke.
When Bea escaped from prison, I was the only friend she contacted. At first I wasn’t going to tell a living soul. Then I told Susie, in case I would need medical provisions at some point. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Susie told me, a little nervously. “If Beatrice gets sick, you come and tell me; otherwise, I’ve never heard a word of any of this.”
Then I told Eddy, in case I might need some spare change to help out with expenses. I know he doesn’t have any money, but who else could I trust? Eddy looked alarmed and said, “Who else have you told?”
“Only Susie. I haven’t told Alice.”
“Good thinking,” said Eddy. “Loose lips sink ships.”
I didn’t reply but that is not the reason I didn’t tell Alice. She wouldn’t have opened her mouth. I didn’t tell Alice because Bea asked me not to. “I can’t have her see me this way,” is what Bea said.
Then on the foggy night the vandals saw us, Bea and I were shivering around waiting to hear police sirens. What we heard instead was something that sounded like a raging chainsaw. We looked up and saw nothing other than Alice on her motorcycle, chugging up the hill. The bike stopped abruptly and I whispered, “Bea, here’s your chance. Escape on the back of Alice’s bike.” Bea spent a few frantic moments thinking about where Alice could take her, and then she called out.
I’ve never seen Alice move so fast. People think she’s tough but what a fraidy cat. There went Bea’s chance. A few moments later we heard what sounded like a bull horn.
“The cops,” said Bea. “Kevyn, you get out of here before they find you, too. You’d get two to five years just for helping me out. It’s no use.”
That’s what I did–I got out, leaving Bea on her own. Later on in the day, when Susie came around to King Rooms, I did not feel like talking. The next thing I knew, she called and made that accusation. As if I didn’t feel badly enough already.
I sat around all day. By about seven o’clock at night, I got an idea. I decided to go back to the graveyard and see if any of the stuff I’d stashed for Bea–blankets, canned food, tobacco–was still around. No use wasting it.
I headed out and tried to look inconspicuous, which isn’t easy for me. I had to go through downtown, and that means I passed the Harbour Light where Susie gives her Thursday night health talk to Westgranger’s needy.
I stopped and peered into the steamed, grimy window. Sure enough, there she was, engrossed in her work. They adore her at the Harbour Light. “Susie, how could you?” I wanted to burst in and say, but I didn’t. Maybe later.
When I got to the graveyard, I saw that all of Bea’s personal effects were gone. The cops must have taken them together with Bea. I started back towards the gate when suddenly I tripped over something. I got up and had a look. It was the little “In Memry” grave marker. Someone had stuck it rather indelicately in the dirt. There was something different about it, too.
I bent more closely. There on the uneven surface, just under, “In Memry,” someone had written “Kevyn Rumble.” It was written with either white chalk or white pastel. At least they spelled my name correctly.
As I was bending over, I began hearing voices behind me. They were so muffled I could not even tell if they were male or female. “Kevyn,” they were whispering, “Kevyn, Kevyn.” Heaven help me. I started toward the sound when I again tripped over something. This time it was not a grave marker. It was shaped like one but not as heavy. Whatever it was, I kicked it away when I fell, and I got up again without looking back.
The voices disappeared but now I heard a familiar chainsaw sound. A single headlamp was bobbing up and down on Richmond Street. Alice’s motorcycle. I ran out the gate to meet it.
Alice stopped, but reluctantly. Eddy was sitting on the back. “What are you doing here?” I asked in a voice that was so shaky it surprised me.
Eddy just sat there with a grin on his silly face. Alice looked partly relieved and partly silly, herself. “Ah, it’s you,” she said, “not a ghost.” That’s all she said. Then she gave her bike some gas and it went whining up Richmond Street faster than ever.
“Alice. Eddy. Wait.” I ran after them. “We didn’t mean to scare you last night.” I was out of breath before the top of the hill. It was no use. I had met Bea through Alice, Eddy and Susie, and in Bea’s hour of need, who stood by her? Me, kind of.
I took it slow the rest of the way home. I was no longer afraid of what had just happened in the graveyard. The voices, I mean. It must have been those three destructive brats once again, who didn’t know when to quit. They would have learned my name from hanging around the King Edward. Nothing better to do.
When I got back to King Rooms, like the cap to a miserable evening, the door to my room had been kicked in. I jumped in and flicked on the light but no one was there. My tape player had been stolen. Nothing else had been disturbed, but then I have nothing else of value there. My bass and amplifier are stored at the King Edward, behind the pantry.
Trouble comes in threes, I’m told. First, Bea got caught. Second, I managed to estrange myself from three friends. Third, my hard-earned tape player got lifted. I collapsed on my lumpy mattress to think for a while.
I was still thinking when the sun came up. I had an idea to get on the phone and make an important call. People can go only one of two ways, up or down, and my phone call would be a start on the way up. I had to begin someplace.
I was not going to call Susie Kale, or Eddy Hooker or Alice Wagner. I was going to call the slammer. I would call the slammer switchboard and before they’d have a chance to hang up on me, I would say, “This is Kevyn Rumble, friend of Beatrice Pitney. Please don’t keep her down in solitary. Can’t you put her with the other inmates, up in one of the tiers? I can’t sleep at night knowing Bea is in the hole.”
A classic piece of playground equipment stood near the primary wing. It was a circular platform that revolved when enough of us kids pushed, and in order to get on board you had to take a running jump.
At lunch time, that thing was more crowded than the school bus. We’d play a game where one kid was the Conductor. He’d holler, “Where to?” and someone else would answer, “Chilliwack” or “Calgary” or “the Ponderosa.” We’d begin pushing that merry-go-round till everyone was satisfied we’d arrived.
One day a girl answered, “Texaco!” No one made fun of her, even though most of us knew she couldn’t have meant the gas station. The weather must have been sweltering that day because her cheeks were flushed. “Okay, we’re going to Texaco,” said the Conductor. We began spinning around faster than ever before. The girl who'd said “Texaco” flew off and was partially dragged under the revolving floor.
This was the first time I’d heard someone cry “Mummy, Mummy” when in danger. I didn’t know kids really said that. The Conductor and his friends managed to bring the merry-go-round to a halt before the girl hollered “Mummy” more than three or four times. She got back on as though nothing in the world had happened, and we all went someplace new.
The Conductor that day was a kid called Greg. In class, that afternoon, Miss Tudor caught Greg eating his sandwich when he thought no one was looking. She got the strap out from her desk, took Greg to the cloakroom and hit him with it. The strap was a classic piece of teacher’s equipment; black leather with a red pinstripe down the middle. It had the same design as the red racer snakes we’d see on the way home. The red racer isn’t deadly.
ii. Ronny’s Report Card
When Ronny was in grade 8, he was afraid to bring his report card home. His teacher, Mr. McMurray, had written in the Comments: “Ronald has lost interest in everything except girls and Elvis Presley”. If McMurray had taught Ronny the following year, he would have written: “Ronald has lost interest in everything except girls and the Beatles,” but this was the year before the Beatles played Empire Stadium.
When Ronny handed his report card over to Mum, she read McMurray’s comments out loud in a disgusted voice. “...girls and Elvis Presley.”
“Nah, that’s not true,” Ronny muttered before he was sent to his room.
Later that evening, I was listening to my radio and one of Ronny’s favourite songs came on. It was a lesser-known Presley tune, with a rollicking, uplifting refrain: “I gotta know, gotta know, gotta know…” Ronny’s room was next to mine and I wanted to cheer him up, so I cranked the volume as loud as it would go. The volume wasn’t loud, but laughably feeble, if you compare it to what’s playing now.
iii. Snack Bar at the Drive-in
On Labour Day when I was eight years old, I wondered why the teenage tough guy would not go back to school for another lousy year. He didn’t answer the question; he only gave half a shrug. He wore a leather jacket with cracks in it, as though he’d spent a lot of time in the rain. Craven M tobacco smoke blew from both his nostrils. He was ahead of me in the queue-up at the drive-in snack bar. Another guy in a leather jacket, with his girlfriend tagging along, shoved ahead of me and said, "Brent, are you going back to school tomorrow?”
“Nope.”
“Did you pass?”
“Yep.”
“Everything?”
“Yep.”
“Then why not go back for another lousy year?” His friend tried to sound nonchalant, but I could tell he was disappointed.
The man behind the snack bar, wearing the sort of chef’s toque you rarely see now, leaned over and asked me what I wanted. I wanted a candy bar that I’d had only once previously, but couldn’t think of its name. I gave half a shrug, in complete imitation of the teenage tough guy. I later discovered, when asking around, that what I’d wanted was a Charleston Chew.
iv. Popular
Why did all five of us pile into the car, just to go to the store for milk, eggs and bread, and maybe butter? Dad said, “We’re out of milk, eggs and bread, and we’re low on butter.” Mum was away somewhere that day. Dad got in the car, followed by me, Grampa, my brother Milt and my friend Henry. The ride was bumpy for half a block. Dad stopped the car and got out. “Flat tire in the front,” he said. Then Grampa, Milt, Henry and I got out and stood around while Dad got busy. He bent over the trunk. A few drops of rain fell. “This spare tire is for some other car,” Dad shouted.
Two girls and a boy from my school were walking past. The boy, who was extremely popular in school, looked in our direction and groaned. Then he smirked. The two girls, who were almost as popular as the boy, didn’t look at us. One of them was casually swinging a transistor radio. The music wafting in our direction was “Yes, I’m Ready” by Barbara Mason. Ooh, I loved that song. It took a painfully long time for the three kids to walk past, as though I were dreaming them.
Then I guess the car was pushed back to our driveway. I wouldn’t have had to push, being a girl. Henry wouldn’t have had to push, being so young, but he would have wanted to. Grampa wouldn’t have had to push because he was frail. Dad would have said, “Oh no, Frank, you don’t have to push.” He might have even said that to Milt, too, just to be nice. “Watch me move this bucket of bolts all by myself.”
When the Rio Theatre opened again in Summer 2006, I wrote an article for The Peak (for the September 5, 2006, issue) about this awesome undertaking: In economic times such as ours, someone was planning to revive a single screen cinema. The article discussed what audiences didn’t like about the movie-going experience, and how to implement some changes.
Three years later, the Rio is still operating—this is more impressive than its grand re-opening. Its retro-facade looks as good as ever. Most importantly, though, the Rio has maintained and kept alive that rare concept known as neighbourhood cinema.
There has been some success with the Rio’s midnight double features. I wonder if this success can be expanded. That is to say, what if we had more double-bills at seven or nine o'clock as well, for people who can't stay awake past midnight?
On the topic of repertory cinema, I've sometimes thought about what the ideal double-bill might be. If you had a choice of any two second run movies (or third or fourth run, etc.), can you think of two that totally belong together? I've come up with this one:
An excellent double-bill, in my opinion, would be William Castle’s Homicidal (1961), paired with Alfred Hitchcock’s more widely-known Psycho (1960)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film). Both these chiaroscuro masterpieces tend to complement each other. I won’t go into details, but let us say the word used in my opening paragraph, “undertaking,” would double as a good description for this pair of films.
I’m trying to pinpoint when I quit liking horror films.
It could have begun in 1978, when I went to the neighbourhood cinema to see the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I found it lame—I mean, Technicolor and big budget, but lame—compared to Don Siegel’s original from 1956. The remake added too many superfluous subplots that added nothing to the story. I wondered why the original simply wasn’t re-released. I filed it under "Fluke"—a bungled remake that caused no serious harm.
Then in 1982 I saw the remake of The Cat People, and found it even worse than the remake of Invasion. The subtleties of Val Lewton’s 1942 original, its melancholy undertones and striking photography, were ruthlessly trampled on. I decided I shouldn’t see any more remakes, if the only feeling I came away with was disappointment.
But what did I do in 1999? I went to see the remake of House on Haunted Hill and once again was dumbfounded by its inability to be anywhere near as thought-provoking, intelligent and downright psychologically riveting as William Castle’s original from 1959.
That’s one reason why I don’t care for contemporary horror films: The "updated" ones take the wind out of my sails. But what about contemporary films that are not remakes? There have been a few superior ones, in amongst the gratuitous guck, since 1978: Alien (1979) certainly, and The Hunger (1983). Or how about Stand By Me (1986), and The Sixth Sense (1999)? Sadly, though, I feel I must patiently wait for a good one to come around.
When you consider the above auteurs I’ve mentioned—Don Siegel, Val Lewton and William Castle—the stuff they prolifically turned out always had you jumping out of your skin. (Note: Siegel cannot be classed as a horror movie director. He mostly directed crime drama, like The Killers and Riot in Cell Block 11. But whatever his genre, the work was consistently good).
Having said the above, I stuck my neck out and attempted to direct my very own horror film. For insurance against viewer-boredom, it’s only 40 seconds long. My larger idea is to compile a whole anthology of minute-long horror films (well, give or take a minute) by different amateur directors. If I string them together, with a five-second blackout—for breathing space—between each one, I’d have a feature-length film.
My mini–horror movie, called Churchill Cemetery, is on YouTube (see below). I admit it’s not much, however it has three elements that belong in every effective Spooker:
1. A “found” backdrop (or a setting that has an existing spooky ambience. The best example I can think of is the Saltair Pavilion in Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls).
2. An element of surprise (Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected has excellent examples of the finely honed plot twist).
3. A Beauty and the Beast motif (it seems all horror movies have some variation of this. Consider the Gill-man in The Creature From the Black Lagoon, carrying Julie Adams away in his amphibian arms).
The Prairie Fire Volume 29 #2 stood out as one of the best Canlit journals I’ve read in a while.
Some of the works included Sarah Selecky’s “1000 Wax Buddhas,” which won their second-place fiction award; Laura Trunkey’s “Pennies in My Pocket: Stories of My Brother,” which won their second-place creative non-fiction award; and Shane Nelson’s “Elm,” which won an honourable mention in creative non-fiction. All three of these insightful stories were about the subject of mental illness—one’s own, or a loved one’s.
There were other stories which touched on the subject as well, and I’ve often found that themes tend to show up in “waves.” In other words, a literary journal will yield an unintentional theme; a similarity in the tide of current submissions.
This same issue featured a reprint of Margaret Atwood’s “Why Poetry?”, the Anne Szumigalski Memorial Lecture. In it, Atwood has explained how poets must not, under any circumstances, let themselves become obsolete. I considered excerpting some of this wisdom for the Writer’s Toolbox section of Geist, however, it turns out we have access to her lecture in its entirety (in pdf form on the web), if you’d like to read it.
Here is an excerpt about recommended day jobs for a poet:
My advice? Go to plumbing school, there’s always a demand for that. Also you can think about poetry better while doing things with your hands than you can if you have to run computer programmes and so forth. It’s nice and dark underneath sinks, and nobody bothers you in there. My second choice for you would be cemetery upkeep.
If you happen to think of other absurdly suitable employment, feel free to unofficially add to the list.
I first discovered George K. Ilsley around Christmas 2003, when I read his then-new collection of stories, Random Acts of Hatred. I do my best to spread the word about books I like, and I managed to get a review published in the January 5, 2004 issue of The Peak.
I recently got around to reading his first novel, Manbug, and I do want to recommend it, even though I have a hunch the author’s fans will be inclined to prefer his other genre, short stories. The simplest explanation is that they pack more of a punch.
Whatever your style preferences, some lines in Manbug can put you in mind of other great works of cosmic loneliness. For example, Ilsley says this about one of the principals: “Sebastian carries with him what might be called the reek of desperation.” This is like the poet John Newlove’s masterful phrase, “the smell of involuntary celibacy”. Isn’t it overwhelming how there are so many ways of expressing the same pathetic circumstance?
Another line is “Being in love is not easily distinguishable from what it must be like to be totally taken over by an alien life form.” That is reminiscent of James Purdy’s dead-on description of forbidden love from Garments the Living Wear: “his knees were turning to some kind of watery soup such as derelicts are fed in charity kitchens.”
While charity kitchens and alien life forms do not have an immediate connection, I guess one could say they’re all related to being crazy for love in a hostile world. Come to think of it, Ilsley’s two protagonists-in-the-shadows actually have it pretty good.
Luckily, in a recent issue of Fuse, I came across a reference to a visual artist called Daryl Vocat. It turns out he has a smashingly clever portfolio of line drawings called Pact for Adventure, consisting of “found, manipulated and redrawn Boy Scout Illustrations.” The entire set is made up of twelve prints, mostly black and white, but with strategically placed bits of red, green or blue (and, in one instance, pink).
My personal favourite is a drawing modelled after one of Diane Arbus’ most famous photos, “Child With Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park” (1962). In fact, Vocat manages to incorporate all kinds of icons and references into one series. If you’re of the baby boom generation, you might experience nostalgic flashes of the Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew as well, when you see some of his work. If you are younger, I’m not sure what connections you’ll make, just as I haven’t a clue what the ghost of Lord Baden-Powell should make of these pictures.
Vocat’s two- and three-colour drawings also invoke the work of another icon: Vladimir Mayakovsky. The book covers and posters Mayakovsky designed, c. 1915, have the same minimal placement of colour. I was able to see a number of these images at Presentation House Art Gallery, when it featured a Mayakovsky and Rodchenko exhibit in November/December 2001. The spare use of colour is more stunning when you can see these works in person.
Letter from Lubumbashi, K. Linda Kivi (New Orphic Publishers: 2009), 110 pp., $16.00 Cdn.
Ernest Hekkanen, editor of New Orphic Press, said this about K. Linda Kivi’s second and most recent work of long fiction, Letter from Lubumbashi:
“In my estimation, it’s a perfect example of a ‘typical’ novella, as opposed to an ‘atypical’ novella, and it follows in the tradition of Georges Simenon and Albert Camus.”
I believe I know what he’s talking about: A typical novella must be the balanced blend of not-a-long-short-story, and not-a-short-novel.
That commentary, I confess, reminds me of Alden Nowlan’s memorable definition of a hypocrite:
“One who is too kind to be wholly honest and too honest to be wholly kind.”
Yes, sometimes a term can best be defined only by what it is not. A typical, or traditional, novella is not only difficult to define, but also difficult to assemble. To me, an “atypical” novella is a short story that simply got too long, or a novel whose steam seeped out somewhat abruptly.
A few typically best novellas could be Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, John Steinbeck’s ThePearl, James Joyce’s The Dead, Carson McCullers’s The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, and Katherine Anne Porter’s Noon Wine. Who can tell?—K. Linda Kivi’s Letter from Lubumbashi might be added to this list some day.
The story is essentially a mystery, which hangs upon a letter reluctantly sent to Lubumbashi in the Congo.
The protagonist, Joseph, has fled from the nation of his birth, and managed to put together a comparatively pastoral life for himself in Ontario. Memories of his homeland are mostly embittered—how could they be anything else?
How is the road that leads home now? They all spent so many hours working that road, filling in the potholes, slicing back the impending forest. . . . What was this road except a means to take out the palm nuts they were forced to grow and harvest? Except to bring in missionaries, tax collectors and agricultural officers, all bent on changing their lives.
When Joseph finally forces himself to write a letter home, the very equilibrium of his future depends on whatever response this missive emits. (“Hope is only useful when the outcome hasn’t already occurred . . .”).
We can feel Joseph’s agony around sending it in the first place: “He drives past the familiar, red mailbox. The box grows smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror, a red spider, a dot, until he can’t see it. Not at all.”
That quote really jumped out, possibly because I read this book during the spider mite season, and never realized how much a mailbox receding in the rearview mirror resembles that industrious little critter, popping up everywhere.
K. Linda Kivi began drafting Letter toLubumbashi in 1997, during a third trip to Africa. I can see how a carefully built work such as this could take ten or twelve years to complete. Quoting from Ernest Hekkanen once again, I agree that Letter from Lubumbashi, like several other contemporary works of its stature, “. . . deserves much more attention than it has so far gotten.”
Excited! Oh Gee! RT @ConanOBrien: Want to see an insecure celebrity avoid eye contact? Meet me courtesy of Amex: http://bit.ly/bEUqsh. —2 days 12 hours ago
Geist writer's make it easier for us all to feel proud to be Canadian http://ow.ly/1o8sV—2 days 15 hours ago
Or where they just trying to write a poem back in the comments. RT @poetryisdead: Wow, poets are really mean in comment sections. —3 days 9 hours ago
He had marched with several thousand anti-Olympic protesters. Then it was time to go back and open the restaurant http://ow.ly/1nQyn—3 days 15 hours ago
The Box, George Bowering, (New Star Books: 2009), 192 pp., $19.00 Cdn
Burlesque West: Showgirls, Sex, and Sin in Postwar Vancouver, Becki L. Ross, (University of Toronto Press: 2009), 368 pp., $29.95 Cdn
Twenty years ago I attempted to write a story about an alternative game show called The Scorpio Secret Hour. A visual artist I knew – the late Susan Pacaud – drew a graphic for me. I asked her to go ahead and design the cover, as I felt certain I’d be publishing it as a chapbook soon thereafter. Sadly, I didn't complete it in time for Susan to have a copy. You can see the haunting image, to the right. I eventually managed to write The Scorpio Secret Hour as a long poem, although it’s not about a game show anymore; it’s my life story in 1,475 words. Soon it shall appear in an upcoming issue of 
