by David Eddie
And poof ! They’d disappear, never to return. Later, as they were being squired out of the party by some suave young marketing exec or articling lawyer, they’d turn to me and deliver the coup de grâce: “Bye, and hey: good luck with the writing.”
There was one exception to the overall trend in that sexual Sahara of a summer: Kim, or Gloria (I’ll explain about her name later).
I like to think it was Les-induced horniness that drove me into her arms; that I was out of my mind with sexual frustration, non compos mentis dementia praecox, otherwise, surely I would have noticed some of the early-warning signs, and backed off, making the sign of the cross.
“Walk around a bit,” the Great Editor said, so I walked; I became a champion pedestrian, Toronto’s #1 practitioner of the lost art of bipedal locomotion. Seriously, I think I walked more than anyone else in the city, unless there was some bum or tramp who walked around more than me. Every day, I sat in front of the typewriter until noon, then took off, armed with a water-bottle, my trusty knife, a notebook, pen, and a couple of paperbacks. I walked all over the city and sometimes outside it, to the flat, dull suburbs. Sometimes, footsore and weary, I’d fall asleep on some park bench in the middle of nowhere, then wake with aching limbs to see the sun set over the city far, far away. I’d get up, stretch, and start the long march home.
Not that any of this helped much in front of the typewriter. In truth, I’m a terrible journalist. Mostly I walked around in a daze, in my own world, imagining how it would be some day when I was famous and some young punk reporter was forced to interview me.
“So, Mr. Henry, what’s your theory of prose?”
“Ah, interesting question, young man, I was just thinking about that the other day…”
Sometimes these internal monologues or dialogues would become so heated and intense I’d gesticulate and mutter to myself as I walked along. A surprised glance from a fellow pedestrian would bring me up short, but soon I’d be at it again. At night, after walking five, six, seven hours at a stretch, I’d open my notebook to find maybe two lines of notes: “Toronto — city of neighbourhoods?” Or: “Toronto — flat, dull suburbs.” I couldn’t bring myself to write anything but letters.
One day, I was walking along Bloor Street when something in a shop window caught the corner of my eye. A pair of specs, not just any specs but the most beautiful specs I’d ever seen, faux-antique Armanis with tortoiseshell frames, rubber-coated ear-grabbers and engraved nose-pincers. They also came with special clip-on shade-attachments so in other words, the wearer, or bearer, of these specs, looked cool and hip outdoors, studious and intellectual indoors, i.e., the perfect one-two chick-magnetizing combination. Behind their display was a picture of a stubbled, rock-jawed male model reclining in a lawnchair at the beach, reading À la Recherche Du Temps Perdu in the original and wearing these specs.
I stepped back and observed my reflection in the spec-shop window. My own specs, black-plastic orthopaedic Buddy Holly face-grabbers, I bought under a strange sort of delusion back when I was editor of the campus paper. The delusion was that they said to the world: “I am a no-nonsense, ball-breaking, journalistic-type character, but I don’t have time to talk about any of this! Rewrite! Where the hell is rewrite?”
But now, observing my reflection in the window, I realized in reality they said to the world: “I am an impulse buyer, perhaps even a bit of a fool. Some silver-tongued spec-salesperson saw me coming, and I’ve been paying for it ever since — with my face, with my sex-life.”
I didn’t have much money left from my This Land of Ours advance. First-and-last on the Palmerston place had eaten up most of it. I had maybe $200 left. But I thought what the hell? Can’t hurt to check it out.
The chimes bing-bong as I enter. The lone spec-clerk is busy with another customer, thank God. In general, I like to browse in peace, I hate clerks and their unsolicited opinions. “Those look good on you.” “That fits perfectly.” I know it’s part of their job, their bosses force them to pester all shoppers, but I prefer to be left alone and browse in peace. Just for laughs, I pause in front of the Free Frame section and try on a pair of disco-era aviators. Back in high school I had a pair of oversize octagonal wire-frames that I accessorised with a blond afro, skintight orange velour bellbottoms with 27-inch bells (in other words, each bell was only one inch less in circumference than my waistline), and a Sgt. Pepper band-uniform top. I wore that outfit every day.
I chuckle at the memory, then get down to serious business over at the designer section. Even here, the specs I’m checking have their own halogen-lit display shelf. I try them on, and turn to the mirror. I look sort of like the young Yeats, as he appears on the cover of my copy of Selected Poems. I can picture me stepping up to the podium, the light glinting off my new tortoiseshell specs. A hush comes over the audience as I crack open a copy of my latest work, brush a stray forelock from my lofty brow (you can almost hear a collective sigh rise from the women in the audience) and begin to read in my deep, sonorous, musical voice…
“Those look good on you.”
I glance in the mirror. It’s the spec-clerk, hovering at my elbow, wearing a smile that manages to be both obsequious and supercilious at the same time.
His own specs are ludicrous, preposterous: white-plastic upside-downers, such as you sometimes see snooker players wear so they can see the balls better as they bend over the table. I’m supposed to accept aesthetic advice from him?
“How much are they?”
His slack-jawed face goes suddenly serious.
“Walk this way,” he says.
He motions me to sit down, then taps some keys on a computer keyboard.
“Do you have your prescription with you?”
As a matter of fact, I do. I fish through all the paperwork in my bag: receipts, letters, envelopes, an old cheque-book, passport, a used airplane ticket, notebooks, scraps of paper. Finally, I find the scrip. He looks it over.
“Hmmm, that’s odd. The prescription is extremely high in the left lens, but is practically glass in the right lens.”
“Well, I have a (mumble) in my right eye.”
“A what?”
“A blind spot.”
“So your left eye is your good eye?”
His face is a mask of incredulity.
“Yes, yes.”
“Well, with such an unusually high prescription, you might want to consider Seiko Superthin lenses. They’re ground in a special way that makes them 25 percent thinner than regular lenses. That should help you get away from that Coke-bottle effect.”
“Well, that sounds good.”
“Of course, with a prescription this high, you’ll still get quite a bit of reflection. I suggest you also get anti-glare coating.”
This guy’s starting to get on my nerves with his cracks about my prescription, but all I say is: “O.K.”
He taps a few more keys on his keyboard.
“And naturally you’ll want a scratch-proof coating.”
“Naturally.”
Sure, whatever. Give me all the bells and whistles: rearview mirrors, wipers, defrosters, AM/FM earpieces. It’s all academic, anyway. I could already tell it would be years, perhaps decades, before I would be able to afford these specs.
“O.K. With Seiko Superthins, anti-glare coating, and scratch-proof lenses, the total comes to $465, not including tax.”
Well, that was a fun little game. Time to head back to the Free Frame section where I belong. Then suddenly I’m struck by inspiration:
“Do you take cheques?”
My conscious mind didn’t see it, but my subconscious spotted my old teenager’s cheque-book in my bag, with my mother’s address still on it. There’s no money in that old bank account, I assume it’s been closed long ago. But what can I say? I had to have those specs. Editors would start taking me a lot more seriously around this town if I had those specs. In fact, specs like these would probably pay for themselves within a matter of weeks, with increased dollar-a-word g
igs. Then I’d pay back the spec-shop.
“Sure, as long as you have a major credit card,” the spec-clerk said.
“I don’t, actually.”
“Well, do you have any I.D.?”
“Yes, yes I think I do.”
I whip out my old Newsweek I.D., lay it on the counter. The clerk eyes this artifact doubtfully. Out-of-town I.D.?
“I just got back to Toronto, from New York,” I explained. “I used to live here, but now I’m back for a three-month stint. I’ve been commissioned to write an article about Toronto for This Land of Ours.”
“What about it?”
“Oh, various things. The facilities and services the city has to offer.”
I lay subtle stress on the word services, hinting that there might be a section in my article on spec-shops, and this is all just research.
“Well, do you have any other I.D.?”
“Hmm. Let’s see,” I say, rummaging through my bag.
Finally I unearth my old expired library card. “That’s about it, I’m afraid,” I say. I also had my U.S. passport with me, but I didn’t want to give him that. Too much of a skip-town feel.
“Well, that ought to be fi-ine,” the clerk says finally.
I felt a bit guilty. The clerk was clearly bending the rules accepting a cheque with such flimsy I.D. When it came back N.S.F. his boss would probably call him onto the carpet, and then, when he found out he’d accepted a cheque based on an out-of-town I.D. and an expired library card, fire him on the spot. The spec clerk would apply for other jobs, but it’s tough when you’ve been fired. He could wind up on the street, rooting through garbage cans, sleeping on steam grates, and it’d be all my fault.
On the other hand, getting fired can often be the best thing that happens to a person. It wakes you up, gives you a kick in the ass, forces you to reassess your direction in life. Maybe the clerk would end up writing a bestseller about his experiences on the street; thinking about it, I even got a little jealous. At the very least, getting fired would make the spec-clerk humbler, wiser, more sensitive to other people’s foibles and high prescriptions.
I signed the cheque with a flourish.
But suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spot another pair of specs, just like mine, only with gold frames and tortoiseshell shade-attachments.
“Hang on a sec,” I say to the spec-clerk, slipping the cheque in my pocket. “I want to try these other ones.”
I try them on. They’re equally cool, but in a completely different way. I can’t make up my mind. I try on first one pair, then the other.
This goes on for some time, possibly even half an hour, while the clerk hovers around me in a cloud of agitation.
“I like the tortoiseshell ones on you better,” he volunteers.
If I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you, I think calmly, and continue trying on first one pair, then the other. Behind me, the door opens — bing-bong — and a perfume-scented breeze wafts into my nostrils. My antennae perk up: woman. I glance in the mirror: a stunning Oriental woman, dressed to the nines, wearing a white cocktail dress, white stockings, Joan Collins shades. That’s what I need, a woman’s opinion. She passes by where I’m sitting. I turn towards her.
“I wonder if you could help me? I can’t make up my mind. I can’t decide between these two pairs of glasses. Which do you like better? These, or these?”
She drops everything and studies me intensely, looking like a surgeon performing a particularly delicate and complicated operation. She understands the gravity of this fashion decision. I mean, it’s your face, after all.
And as she studies me, I study her. Almond eyes, porcelain skin, kewpie-doll lips, surprisingly large breasts for an Oriental woman.
“I like the gold ones better,” she says finally. “They make you look like… a writer or something.”
“Well, that’s good, because I am a writer.”
“Really? Who do you write for?”
“I write for a number of publications in Canada and the U.S. Right now, I’m working on something for This Land of Ours.”
“Really. What sort of things do you write?”
“Features, mostly. The occasional book review. I think I have a copy of something in my pack.”
I whip out “Letter From New York” and hand it to her. This artifact, proof positive that I’m an actual writer and not lying, impresses her deeply. How could I tell? Her face. It’s not true what they say about the Oriental face, at least not in her case. Her face was an open book, I could read every thought and emotion that passed over it. Seeming almost to hold her breath, she asks me:
“Do you ever write about art?”
“Not yet. However, I am quite interested in art.”
A stinking, steaming lie, my friends. I don’t give a fucking shit about art. Glorified interior decoration, that’s all art is to me.
I feel guilty lying to her like that but what could I do? Those breasts of hers were talking to me. They were saying: “Howdy, stranger. We’d love to come out and play, slap you silly, but first our mistress has to pose several skill-testing questions. If you pass, we’re yours to do with as you will. If you fail… well, we want you to know it was nice meeting you, anyway. Good luck!”
“Maybe you’d like to write about my art group, Le Gab Productions?” she asks.
“Le Gab Productions?”
“Yes, it’s bagel spelled backwards,” she says.
That should have been my first clue, the first sign of imbalance, oddity, a straying from the golden mean laid down for us by the Greeks. But, as I say, my mind was on its goal.
“Here’s my card.”
She pulled a card from her purse. It said:
Kim W. Lee
LE GAB PRODUCTIONS
Her group wasn’t set to display its stuff until next week, at the O’Keefe Centre. We set a day, Tuesday, I agreed to meet her there, and entered the details in my notebook.
She left. I approached the spec-clerk, who’d been lurking in the background this whole time.
“I’ve decided to take the gold ones,” I said, and handed him the cheque. Here you go — BOING, BOING, BOING — catch!
11
A Lousy Lover
Kim was waiting for me in the bar at the O’Keefe Centre, dressed to kill. It was only around noon, but she looked like she’d just come from a black-tie charity gala.
As I approached her, I suddenly realized in an intuitive flash why she dressed the way she did. It was a movie, an old one, starring Marilyn Monroe or maybe even Betty Grable, something she’d seen back in her homeland. This old flick made an indelible impression on her, and ever since she dressed in this cocktail-party style.
And I was Bogie or Jimmy Stewart or whatever, playing the handsome young American reporter who meets her, recognizes her talent, catapults her to fame and fortune as an artist, and marries her in the final frames.
I can handle that, I thought — up to a point. I sashayed up to the bar with my best Bogie stroll, flashed her a smile. Of all the gin-joints in all the world…
“Would you like a drink, Mr. Henry?” she asked, as I slid onto the stool next to her.
“Sure.”
I ordered a tequila and ginger ale, with three limes. The bartender raised his eyebrows at this — they always do (it tastes better than it sounds, but don’t forget the limes, they’re crucial) —then brought it over. I clinked glasses with Kim. Here’s looking at you, kid.
We chatted. I asked how she made money — from her art?
“Oh, no, my parents are rich. They live in Korea, they send me money every month.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Yes, except they try to have too much control over my life.”
“How can they control your life from Korea?”
“Well, for example, they want to arrange my marriage.”
“People still do that?”
“Yes, they already picked the man they want me to marry. An old, fat businessman.” She
made a face. “But I don’t want to marry a Korean man. I want to marry a Canadian boy. Artsy type!”
In response to this frank, candid declaration, I stared into my drink, stirred the cubes around with the swizzle-stick, then brought it to my lips and downed it in a single gulp. She didn’t seem to notice my embarrassment, just kept me fixed with a dewy-eyed stare.
“Shall we go look at the art?” I asked her.
“You want another drink first?”
“Sure.”
Le Gab’s art was fairly typical student-y stuff, I felt, “multimedia,” i.e., bits of pipe cleaner, newspaper clippings, and other three-dimensional objects were glued to the canvas. I paused in front of each “piece” for what I felt was an appropriate length of time, sipped my drink, and made what I felt were appropriate comments. There were about 25 pieces and it took about ten minutes to check them all out. After the last one, I swished the cubes around in my empty glass, and turned to Kim.
“They’re all very interesting.”
“Thank you, Mr. Henry. I’m glad you enjoy them. Would you like another drink?”
“Thank you.”
We sat at the bar.
“Maybe you’re interested in knowing more about Le Gab?” she asked me.
“Uh, sure.”
They were a collective, all-female, non-hierarchical, funded by the Ministry of Blah Blah Blah. I stopped listening after the first couple of seconds, and allowed my eyes to wander appreciatively over her body. She was a bit on the plump side, but I like them that way. Her cocktail dress was fairly bursting at the seams, her body seemed to be straining to be free of its bonds, its corsetry and gartering. I had a vision of the dress suddenly ripping open and Kim stepping out of it, in complicated underwear, snap-on garters, push-up bra, the whole works, and wiggling into my arms.
All this was done with my highly trained peripheral vision because, as she talked, her seductive, almond-shaped eyes watched me closely. I nodded, furrowed my brow, said “mm-hm,” and “ah, yes, I see,” a lot.
Afterwards, as we stepped into the sunlight, she seemed to be struck by a thought.