by Norm Sibum
‘And what has this to do with anything?’ interjected Dubois. ‘I think you’re making this up. You haven’t lived long enough to have been to all the places you say you’ve been, and God knows you’ve been hanging around for 900 years.’
‘Why, everything, you silly twit. That Hiram here just possibly might know what he’s talking about. Hell, you only read Camus. You didn’t live it.’
And so forth and so on. I began a disquisition on bad faith. I was getting very drunk. I said: ‘What’s Iran doing that’s any different from what the Americans are doing, the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, the Europeans, the Indians? Get my drift?’
‘And what has Baghdad got to do with Berlin?’ asked Dubois, getting Jesuitical, his blue eyes glittering, he leaning forward for the kill.
‘Ah, Berlin,’ said Hiram. ‘If Europe is ever to be Europe again, and not just some deal tricked up in Brussels, Berlin will have to take the lead. It’s got the right energy.’
‘Hoo hoo,’ said Eggy. ‘Bloody Krauts.’
‘I agree with Hiram,’ I offered. ‘We’re still fighting that Christly war.’
‘All those empires gone,’ said Hiram. ‘And all these bits and pieces of them still around that are wondering who’s boss.’
Then Hiram praised the pizza he had just demolished. Then he asked why Moonface was called Moonface.
‘She just bloody is,’ said Eggy.
‘And why are you Eggy?’
‘Short for Eglinton. And I’ll have you know those Moroccan damsels were the best.’
‘You’ve got a point there,’ said Hiram. ‘I took the picture of a Moroccan prostitute once. I still do, over and over in my mind. And you, what do you do?’
Dubois answered: ‘I’m semi-retired from the world of business.’
‘We need good business,’ Hiram replied. ‘Boy, do we ever need good business, not this corporate stuff that leaves no one with any reason to live but buy, buy, buy.’
Ethical Dubois nodded; perhaps he was impressed.
‘I’m reading about Louis XIV,’ said Eggy. ‘Well, how else understand Montcalm and Wolfe and why Montcalm threw the battle? The rain in Spain and all that.’
Now Hiram Wiedemayer wished to photograph the Eggy countenance, that inverted pyramid of a face, its angular severity somehow softened by an inner sweetness of character the old bugger had stumbled upon in old age. I was always poking at that sweetness to see how real it was; I was not unlike the doubting Thomas who prodded the Christ wound. The droopy Eggy eyes. Now Hiram Wiedemayer wished to photograph Dubois. Perhaps he had it in mind to unleash some trick of light on the hairline cracks of the man’s ruddy cheeks that did, at times, seem caked with cosmetic powder, the fact of which put me in mind of a double-lived ponce: the Scarlet Pimpernel. Perhaps Hiram Wiedemayer was very drunk. Me he did not wish to photograph. At least, I received no offer. Perhaps there was no way to adequately document my inner reserve, my rich pessimism. Moonface he inspected with the eye of an artist and then discounted as portrait material, yes, with the eye of a man who, knowing his pleasure, knew he had had better. A senator from New York had gutted the soft fruit of the Democratic Party in her bid to represent it as its presidential contender. Could smashed fruit acquire the plum of the White House? Unquiet spirits, bad faith everywhere. Götterdämmerung in pantsuits. A ghostly Nero laughed, seeing in this part of the world something he recognized. He whacked away on his lyre, tried on for size pop-apocalyptic tunes. The ghost of Fast Eddy looked especially worried, regarding his glass of wine as some corrupting agent, and he needed his wits about him. Perhaps he saw Hiram Wiedemayer as a rival. Gentleman Jim seated nearby us in a freshly laundered shirt and dark Bermuda shorts, his legs woefully pale, wished to salve and soothe and otherwise calm the world down, but he had been fresh out of kisses and caresses for years. And before Hiram Wiedemayer took his leave of us, we his new-found community and potential audience, he and I stood out on the street and smoked. He said he hoped he had not come across as one of those neo-liberal apologists for the high-handed way Israel treated with Palestine. I answered, oh no, and besides, who among us would remember a thing in the morning? Hiram had enjoyed himself. Likewise, I assured him. Then he took off with rapid strides, a man who was late for other engagements. One look through the window of the Blue Danube at my friends, and I could see that Hiram was already forgotten, Dubois and Eggy most likely arguing the merits of something or another, Gentleman Jim staring at the bitter dregs of his libation. Moonface was busy preparing the café for closing hour. I went straight to my digs. There I watched the weather channel with a dull, uncomprehending, inebriated gaze. To whom at this hour could the weather-presenter, ludicrously sexy, pitch her weather-wares? She had the look of a woman who frequently availed herself of office sex. Then there was something about clouds forming in the likenesses of corporate logos. Maybe there was more to this woman than met the eye. In any case, it was decidedly too much to bear.
Poor Mrs Stone
An unholy racket woke me in the morning. Chainsaw, woodchipper. Men had come to delimb maples out back. I worried for the sparrows and the squirrels. Later, I heard Moonface crossing the hall to Eggy’s. I envied Eggy his morning audience. It was somewhat of a mystery to me what they found to talk about day after day, although I was sure Moonface’s future had always been on Eggy’s mind. I heard Dubois lock his door and head down the Traymore stairs. He kept his business dealings to himself. Not even Eleanor knew what he got up to; sometimes she suspected there was another woman. However, at this juncture in time, she had not much ground on which to stand. I would eventually come to some semblance of consciousness. I would amuse myself with my jottings while the saw shrieked through hard maple wood and did violence to the integrity of the trees. Around eleven I would pay Eleanor a visit. I dealt myself a hand of solitaire, and after a while Moonface appeared at my door, on her way to keep an appointment somewhere. She said: ‘Herodotus, page 518: Behold, I change to another mind.’
‘But of course,’ I answered playfully, ‘you’re a changeable one.’
‘Well, I’m off.’
‘And where are you off to?’
‘To visit a girlfriend of mine whose father is a poet.’
‘Poor girl.’
‘Ta-ta, then.’
‘Tra la.’
Red-sneakered Moonface went down the Traymore stairs with a boundless faith in the life force.
‘It’s astounding,’ I said to myself, ‘the countless ways we have of slipping through one another’s fingers.’
I went, that afternoon, to the grave of Gareth Howard, my oldest friend. It required roughly an hour’s worth of public transport, getting there. And there it was on its hillside overlooking the river—Gar’s headstone, this marker with its carved rose, name and dates. It seemed to me a grievous shame that his wife Clare was not buried beside him. They had loved one another, after all. She, I supposed, came to rest in a respectable family plot, her family respectable and prominent. In Kingston where she was born? I had nothing to say to Gar who, in any case, could not hear me. It was not on account of the fact that he was dead, but that he was, as I had always claimed, punishing me by way of denying me memory of his voice. Crows. Robins. Birch, spruce, maple. Ceremonial wreaths sprinkled here and there. Hello, Gar, how the hell are you? A stiffening wind, cumulus in the sky, made for fast-changing shadow on the ground of the dead, on a spectacle of finality. I shut my eyes. I could barely behold a memory of Clare. A sweater that flattered her bosom. Her pensive smile. A timbre of voice that suggested seriousness of purpose and great intelligence. All the hard thinking that Gar occasioned in me, that Clare occasioned, as well, to what did it amount in this a vain struggle on my part to preserve continuity, life’s transience the law of every land? Gar had been a serious man, committed to the exposure of lies and abuse of power and all the rest of it, Clare proud of his endeavour. And I had been, what, their clown, comic relief? Even when Clare, that day in Gar’s old shack, Gar passed o
n to his reward, had allowed a kiss to transpire between us, and just a little more than that, I had been but comic relief. Virgil the poet immortalized his obscure shepherds with their grotty little lusts and cares. A counter spin to the grinding Wheel of Time, sparks flying. All I had accomplished was a pile of jottings. Perhaps I could boast of a moment of ecstasy—her mouth on mine. We are all of us thieves in the end, and some, like Clare, steal better than others. Virgil, I surmised, looked long and hard at death, so much so he became his shepherds, words become flesh. Too many people, extravagant types, who shout they love life, always aroused my suspicions; that they had not looked at anything, especially not death in its absolute grandeur, and were only spouting some party line so as not to be cut from the herd. And if the festivities required the deaths of millions, even so, to spoil the party could cost you your life. I loved life. I began to follow the promenade along the river. I would walk a ways and catch a bus somewhere. Gulls and crows. It seemed to me I could hear Clare encouraging me to write at least one decent poem. I minded her schoolmarmish tone. I would rather she had wished a follow-up kiss, and failing that, a drink such as might lead to one.
Eggy was having too much fun to die. The Blue Danube. Wine. Genteel talk. Served hand and foot by the likes of Moonface. Even the new waitress Anna, tall, redheaded, looked like she might get into the spirit of things. As for Traymorean society in general, its pursuit of frivolity was not likely to amuse oligarchs whose fascist notions of virtue had only masked an appetite for depravity. Our social and political betters were, of course, amused by the fact that they were not us.
In any case, we were seated in the Blue Danube of an evening, Eggy, Dubois and I. It was an evening like any other, we situated in a deep trough of sea as calm as the water of a bath, but between two gigantic and rolling swells. Eggy had indeed said he was having too much fun to kick the bucket yet. Dubois responded that he may as well die, and we would all jump up and down on his grave, and we would have one hell of a party. Eggy sniffed that if we were not too cheap, we might contribute a bottle of scotch to said grave, yes, for that long journey he was about to take. Dubois supposed it could be arranged. Moonface looked a little alarmed. Gregory the cook asked how it was going for us. For him, we were just business. There was hockey on TV, the Habs long gone. Echo was gone. How many articles could one read on American foreign policy and remain human? What, in God’s name, was ‘dual containment’? Literate slaves ran the show that was Claudius’s rule, this after the madness that was Caligula; but those slaves were, at least, competent and smarter than your average bear. Elias was on the street examining a dent in his car. He squatted by the fender in question, and he was pondering, what, life’s great questions? He did not have the air of a man who might have done some horrible thing to a girl like Echo. But then, what would such an air look like? The ghost of Fast Eddy was now at table, complaining that the delimbed maple which once shaded his backyard was a ghost of its former self. Moonface was thinking again of a post-graduate career. I regretted encouraging her; I had a dim view of academe. Who was she really? It was alleged that Laurier, an early Canadian prime minister, had got five bucks a head for every Russian immigrant who was prairie-bound. Would that the black nurse of enormous heft had drowned Eggy when she had the chance, scrubbing him in his bath, Eggy a tiny sparrow of a man. And Eggy sniffed that, at least, he would not have the bother of attending at our funerals, that is, with any luck. I took my leave of my soul mates, repaired to my digs. There was a movie on TV: The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone. I wallowed in nostalgia for the ancient corruptions as they were portrayed, ancient loneliness by which some of the privileged of the world do fall. Poor Mrs Stone. She tried to grab love with her passion and with her expendable dollars, and she grabbed a chimera. Still, she had been, in the end, more honest than her cynical gigolo. Later, on the Letterman show, there was that insufferable blonde celebrity, her tits and her tanned legs and her family’s money her excuse for exciting our attention.
‘Echo’s gone,’ I said to my four walls.
Rot Your Socks
Said Eggy: ‘According to Bob, you’re getting worse.’
‘Worse than what?’ I answered, playing it straight.
‘Why, moody. It won’t do, you know: constant doom. And what, by the way, what’s that on your head?’
‘Baseball cap.’
I had found it, that morning, among some forgotten effects of mine, its bill furled just so.
Hey batter batter. No batter batter.
Though the wind cut a little in its chill, we were seated outdoors at a Blue Danube table. Eggy raised his glass to me.
‘Whatever. Rot your socks.’
‘Rot yours,’ I said.
We fell silent, Eggy and I. It was Eggy who caved first, breaking the silence: ‘I told you I was in Innsbruck, didn’t I?’
‘A hundred times.’
‘You needn’t get snippy.’
‘Must have been some wench.’
‘She was no wench. She was, well, I suppose she was a wench, at that.’
An angelic grin did grotesque things to Eggy’s face.
‘I’m sure of it. Rot your socks.’
A two o’clock sun in an indifferent sky seemed shoddy somehow, the birds just birds. Tulips. Dandelions. Tiny ants in their eternities. The fragile purple blooms of some ground cover. So much for Eggy’s 81st. Perhaps Eleanor was baking a birthday item. Perhaps Moonface would present it with its candle and we sing Happy Birthday, Zeus. Zeus the rotter. Amiable rotter who had had killer instinct enough when joining battle with those Titans, moody, implacable earth spirits opposed to the airy lightness of the sky. So it must have been. Passersby were jacketed. The more intrepid wore only shirts. It was a national pastime, defying climate. A dachshund rebelled against its leash, was yanked to order by a white-haired, stoop-shouldered biddy punch-drunk with the banalities. Now here was the too-tall poet, Joe Smithers.
‘Ah,’ Eggy called out, hailing him, ‘a real poet. Not like some I know.’
Too Tall Poet was confused. Some believed poets were a vanishing breed, and one did not insult the remnants. I begged to differ.
‘Can’t stay,’ the too-tall poet advised. ‘My laundry.’
‘It can wait,’ surmised Eggy.
But it could not wait. And Joe Smithers had recently buried his father and watched his girlfriend go starkers. It seemed he would cast a cold eye and move on. Real poet, indeed.
‘Oh well,’ observed Eggy, ‘passing one’s birthday with a depressive like you—it isn’t so bad.’
‘Rot your socks.’
‘Up yours.’
And so, come that evening, we celebrated Eggy’s 81st. Dubois, teasing, was sure it was more like Eggy’s 901st.
‘1107,’ said Eggy. ‘That was the year a pope took on the Empire.’
We none of us had any idea what he was on about. For sure, Gentleman Jim did not know; he was still coming to grips with the Truman Doctrine, but that Eggy should not expect anything grander than vermouth, seeing as Eggy had agreed to pay him a visit on the morrow. Fast Eddy the ghost offered to find me a literary agent. I was surprised at how much he was getting around. But since when had Fast Eddy developed a sense of humour, he with his insufferable gravitas? Moonface, as it turned out, did not present our table with cake. Eleanor, who would have cooked one up, opted to enter Eggy’s digs earlier, instead. She kissed his horrid little pate. She pleaded to a sore throat and would not show that evening. It seemed to me that relations between her and Dubois had been strained since that time that Dubois cast aspersions on her bust. So that a stir was caused when it was revealed that, on the next Monday, Dubois and Moonface were to date. It was, as Dubois explained, not an assignation so much as a long-standing pledge to wine and dine at a fancy old town restaurant; that it had been in the cards for months and had always been put off. I was jealous. Outside, the trees were getting their boulevard airs. Perhaps it was the effect of the twilight in the new foliage, each leaf pert and ar
oused, tingling with life force. Women with immense buttocks, some wearing shades in the dimming light, were walking dogs. Some, resting on bus stop benches, were nuzzling dog noses. Everything was so dear. The world was threatening to do us all well-being, yes, as opposed to rape, rapine and pillage, and holding the White House hostage. Eggy said: ‘I even got a phone call. That woman, you know.’
‘Here we go,’ said Dubois. ‘What woman? Which of the hundreds with whom you have relations?’
‘I beg your pardon. Nothing to extremes. But if you must know, it was International Sales Manager.’
‘Ah, the clothing woman,’ said a comprehending Dubois.
‘Well, I don’t suppose she’s in lanjeray.’
‘Lingerie,’ Dubois corrected.
‘Oh well then, lawnjeray. Bloody effing hell. Anyway, it wasn’t Henry V the English guy; it was Henri V the French guy who said Paris was worth a mass.’
Gentleman Jim looked hopelessly confused. His face was red with wine as was the face of Dubois, the hairline cracks of his cheeks more fine than usual.
‘We’ve been getting our Henry’s mixed up,’ thundered Eggy, a tiny sparrow of a man.
This, of course, explained everything. Eggy continued: ‘But I won’t be taking any pills. 36-hour boner, indeed. Bloody hell.’
Clearly, Eggy and Dubois had just referred to an earlier conversation known only to them—
‘And you lost your virginity where?’ asked Dubois.
‘Why, it was Beirut,’ Eggy answered, not blinking an eye; and then, quoting Marlowe: ‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?’
Gentleman Jim looked even more confused. Did a thousand ships have something to do with sex? With what sort of men was he hobnobbing? Eggy expressed his disappointment with Moonface, addressing Dubois: ‘You two going to paint the town red. And she’d promised to take me to the Ritz-Carlton, that ungrateful wench, after all I’ve done for her.’