Down the Road to Eternity

by M. A. C. Farrant

  Not long after that I split. I don’t know what I expected of that kid, maybe to come varooming out on a bike or something, but I sure wasn’t into all that crying and stink. Red carried on with her woodpecker ways, killing any good feeling I’d ever had about the kid, or her, even. She wanted me to do all the work, too, like hike up the cliff about fifteen times a day to get a ride to Sooke for supplies. And it was winter, too. “Get some food, Wilson.” “Gather some wood, Wilson.” “Here, Wilson, look after the baby.” Shit, man, I ain’t nobody’s slave. And Red got so fat after the kid, she ballooned up like a giant spider, and all the time shouting orders at me, breaking my balls. I had to get out of there.

  Lucky for me my grandmother croaked about then and left me some dough. I got the hell away from Red and that kid and did it ever feel good to split out of that cage, like I’d busted out of jail. No more of Red’s screaming, no more hauling wood, freezing my ass in that shack. I headed for Vancouver.

  Before I knew it Anabel from the beach had found me. That’s chicks for you. Soon as they sniff any free bread they’re on you like a dirty blanket. Anabel kept feeding me a line about how much she loved me and what a heavy dude I was. Hey, I wasn’t immune! I let her be my lady for a while but deep down I figured, no way was a chick going to get the best of me again.

  Anyways, after going to Europe on my grandmother’s money and then living in Mexico for a while, and then in an Oregon commune, I finally ended up on Salt Spring Island, where I’ve been ever since. Living by myself, staying clear of people trying to change me.

  But, hey, the trips I’ve had. Nothing too heavy, though, just small beautiful adventures, and no more of that woodpecker stuff either, none of that.

  But I don’t know where the time’s gone, months just fly by like fenceposts on a highway, whole years are a distant, golden blur. It’s like a speeded-up movie, but a good movie, one that’s beautiful. And anyways, time’s not where it’s at. These days I’m into dancing, any kind of dancing. I’m into joy and celebration; I’m going to dance till I ain’t no more. There’s so much to feel good about, so many reasons to dance. I got these two cats, Sam and Annie, they’re like people, follow me all round my place, We communicate, we understand each other. And my garden. I grow tomatoes, kohlrabi, potatoes and kale, all organic, none of that chemical crap in my food.

  But people, when they see me now at the Saturday morning market, they think I’m just another old hippie selling candles. It slays me. They think I’m brain-damaged, living in some time warp from the sixties. Shit with sauce, they look at my bald head, at my beard, and they think I’m some kind of basket case.

  But, hey, they don’t know what these eyes are seeing, they can’t ever understand what I know. I’ll bet none of them can get up and dance whenever the spirit moves them. I’m open to forces they’ll never even dream about.

  Like last week in the drug store. I get this rush, a golden glow all through my nerve endings and I hadn’t even smoked dope or done anything. Just straight and crazy. But warm, man, but hot to dance. So I grab this old broad who’s stocking the shelves and try to twirl her down the aisle to the Muzak but shit if she doesn’t scream, her old face just cracked like concrete. “Help! Help!” she yells. “Feel the spirit,” I say, “get in the Cosmic Groove, lady, we’re all children of the Universe,” but she grabs this bottle of Pepto-Bismol and cracks it across my head. Pretty soon there’s the pharmacist pulling at my poncho and next thing I know I’m in the back of a cop car. “Take it easy, Wilson,” the cop says. “Settle down, Wilson.”

  But that’s the trouble with people, they’re always freaking out over small shit like that. They got souls the size of shrivelled peas. That old broad said I smelled. But it was her that stank, must have had about a gallon of perfume on her, strong enough to make you gag. Put a match to her and she’d explode. Me, I smell natural, like earth, like dirt. Keep the oils on the body where they belong.

  But they don’t see any of that. They keep hassling me about my dancing. And I’m not even on the dole any more! Shit, I sell enough dope, I make enough candles to get by pretty well without it. But the cops are always on my case anyway. They want to squash my dancing, they want to stop me from doing it in public. “No way,” I tell them. “I dance to the rhythm of the Universe.” But they just laugh when I say that like I was a retard or something.

  Most nights I get ripped and go out to the field back of my rented place. Nobody bothers me there. Sam and Annie always follow and watch from a rotten log by the side of the field. I go out to dance under the stars or in the rain and fog, it doesn’t matter, but I always dance alone. I start by standing perfectly still and letting the forces of the universe enter into me, like strong warm rays, all the good and beautiful forces. I give myself up to them and then when I open my eyes I see clear blue crystal everywhere like an ice palace and the shadows are smiling. And then I dance. I’m in touch then and I dance. It’s a swirling, whirling dance like planets in motion, like heavenly bodies careening through space. And then I know that time doesn’t exist anymore. I’m in the continuous present and death’s defeated, death’s not even in the picture.

  Sometimes I dance all night. I lose my body and I’m just this red and living spirit floating around my field. And sometimes Sam and Annie seem to be dancing too. I see their flashing cat’s eyes moving through the inky blackness and I know they’re with me, that they’re in touch.

  When I dance in my field, everything’s gone, all the bad shit, the cops, the chicks with their woodpecker ways, people trying to change you, make you small. And I’m free and large and nothing matters. My soul is a net as huge as the world and I dance it outward in larger and larger circles until I have completely covered the Universe and I am one with it. And then I’m close, man, I’m near Nirvana.

  MACARONI AND CHEESE

  FROM: THE WE-USED-TO-BE-THE-MIDDLE-CLASS COOKBOOK

  The first time I served my family Macaroni and Cheese you might find this amusing my youngest son said What’s this Mom? And pushed it away never having seen Macaroni and Cheese before let alone tasting it and not knowing that this was what poor people ate and now that his parents were no longer middle-class there would be a lot more Macaroni and Cheese dinners in his five-year-old future.

  The first time I served it I cried yes I did. I served it on a Tuesday when there were no more leftovers not wanting to give up roast beef on Sundays some things are sacred. I served it carried it on a silver service tea-tray a wedding gift from Bud’s great-aunt the one with the money left to cancer research and we ate it at the dining room table not the kitchen table sometimes you have to be brave.

  I served a nice little salad with it too and even put the ketchup in a small cut-glass bowl because ketchup bottles on the table are dreadful. The milk too went into a pretty glass pitcher not the milk carton on the table no never the carton. But finally it was Macaroni and Cheese for dinner and I cried not boo hoo but hot squinty tears when Bud said pass the salad and pouted yes he did I could tell that hurt pouty look of his he was thinking not even a strip of bacon for godsake.

  The trouble was I had never made Macaroni and Cheese before and who would I mean ever want to? I had tried a complicated recipe since I pride myself on my ability to read books do sums choose colours but what I didn’t know was that this Macaroni and Cheese called for oh my god a milk sauce. And the other thing I didn’t know was that with a milk sauce the milk has to be added slowly mother’s told me since. How was I to know? The sauce was lumpy oh no lumpy sauce so that bits of uncooked white yes cancer-causing bleached white flour would come away in our mouths. My mouth, Bud’s hurt pouty mouth, Jason Jeremy Jasper’s round pink trusting mouths sucking on lumpy Macaroni and Cheese. Like sawdust said Bud it’s good said Jason Jeremy. Goo said Jasper.

  But Bud but Bud all Bud could do was pout sniff pout sniff then snort This looks like barf he said yes he did like barf. It’s true I wailed like barf Cathy Grant serves her family barf from a silver service tea-tray
cut-glass bowl pretty pitcher at the dining room table and oh what’s to become of us?

  I’m sorry so sorry I said Macaroni and Cheese is not ever is never ever the thing to feed an upwardly mobile white Caucasian male used to Coq au Vin Waldorf Salad Chocolate Mousse lying about all day now reading spy novels not looking for Engineer work any work. Don’t be mad I should never have done it slap my hand Cathy Cathy naughty Cathy make something interesting with crackers vacuum bags kitty litter god knows I’ve tried hard to economize. Every magazine knows this for the truth I have them all Chatelaine Women’s Own Family Circle Western Living Ladies Digest tasty tempting morsels for pennies for nothing. Yes there’s Africa I should be thankful but the magazines don’t help too many olives pimentos kiwi fruit mushroom soup min-mallows cost too much.

  Nevertheless if only there was a cookbook for people like us for the newly poor rambling around in our good lives with not a cent to spend at dollar-forty-nine day not even one piece of lint. If only there was a cookbook to help those of us who used to be middle-class and who are now god help us out of work the nouveau poor and having to this whole lesser life adjust.

  To the whole idea of budget. Can’t can’t can’t spend like we used to. Teach old dogs new tricks like making budget a state of mind now that shopping as a way of life has cruelly ended oh it’s going going gone.

  Surely there must be a book about it something for smart up-to-date women like me yes I am in no need to be falsely modest. I read books do sums choose colours. Well well well. How to make hamburger casseroles for instance that don’t taste like sawdust goo milk sauce don’t taste like brown rice dry Third World bland. Yes I’m thankful. But show me point the way to cook healthy cook cheap cook very interestingly amusingly on pennies next to nothing. Make my husband smile oh make Bud smile.

  I grieve yes I do for some handy little book which could point the way without getting weird getting religious. Something I could put with pride on my kitchen counter something fun. Nice pictures. Could pass around show Joan show Vicky Gail Jane Pauline the latest thing. Mother too Aunt Bee.

  Some way there’s got to be some way I can go on looking like Cathy Grant that Bud can go on looking like Bud Grant on the outside. Some way I can fill us up with Regular instead of Super as it were till Bud gets work does something.

  Clunk. Clunk. What if he doesn’t? What if finally after all it comes down to desperate Macaroni and Cheese on the best china probably sold. What if what if that’s all that happens before I die some horrible lumpy milk sauce death with bits of unmelted cheese what everyone knows poor people eat. Of my own making. You make your own Macaroni and Cheese you lie in it. But never Kraft Dinner. No never some things are principles are sacred. Never ever serve that I’d sooner die not even as a joke. Oh what is to become of us?

  I could heaven forbid get a job work get liberated drive a tractor sell jewelry sell clothes minimum wage. Jason Jeremy Jasper’s mother a working person poor. Read books do sums choose colours for a fee by the hour? Bud forever reading Helen MacInnes John Le Carré. Furious face to the end to find out who did it.

  To me? What if we start eating in our undershirts picking our teeth with matchbook covers wearing old grey wool gloves without fingers? Pick over bargain basement bins looking for something cheery yellow polyester? God forbid polyester. And Jason Jeremy Jasper turning dirty out of control eventually into mean adolescents causing social workers school counsellors juvenile judges to impose on us. Impose. Down to one car sell the house pitch a tent. No rent a welfare basement one-bedroom suite raining all the time spots on the rug.

  Become less than middle-class less than average. All this life wading that wide wonderful road in middle centre between heady glitter and dirt on your face disgrace. All this life pushed off the shoulder nevertheless falling having been pushed by statistical restraint. Falling like Alice and no How-To Books in sight no good solid formulas pointing the way to be un-middle-class. How to adjust with style same on the outside no one need know how to have Bud smile again oh have Bud smile. What’s to become of us? Nothing other than this whine my god we’re run out of pennies run out. Of ideas there’s no other way to be just the middle way no other worthwhile proper way to be no way up except lottery every way down. And terrible out. We’re out. Fallen angel oh my god I’m going to start crying really cry and never stop amusing no?

  RAW MATERIAL

  1993

  RAW MATERIAL

  “Go feed Daddy,” I said to my daughter Janice.

  Needing something special from him, I had prepared a tray of cheeseburgers and french fries for his lunch.

  Janice whined as usual—you know what nine-year-olds are like—but I said (again) that if she didn’t take her responsibilities seriously then what kind of adult would she grow into?

  “You have two choices,” I told her, “you can either feed Daddy or you can spend the rest of your life being gnawed at by the horrible guilt which will be your due and from which there is no escape.”

  She fed Daddy, grumbling, mind you, but grumbling I can stand as long as they make the right decision. You can never let up with children; you must always be rigidly predictable in your responses to them. Some day I will write a book about this; child rearing is so obvious it hurts.

  Janice reported back that Daddy liked his lunch but had smeared it all over his face again and that when she didn’t laugh at his joke he got upset and started spitting at her.

  Not for the first time did it occur to me that much of child rearing is like dog obedience: rules and expectations must be ruthlessly repeated, a monotonous chore to be sure, but so necessary in the proper handling of nine-year-olds, who are strange creatures at best—as Janice is, mostly teeth and argument and entirely without style: baseball hat, party dress, gumboots.

  “Your father-daughter relationship will suffer needlessly if you fail to laugh at Daddy’s jokes,” I told her (again), “which means that you’re going to have to clean him up or we’ll never get any work done this afternoon and I’m beginning to feel desperate for a fresh idea.”

  We headed off towards the study at the other end of the rancher; already we could hear Daddy’s shouting as he banged at his cage.

  Janice kept up her toneless chatter all the while needing eye contact and “uh-huh” from me at regular intervals. She was saying something about not having adequate peer relationships because of all the time she had to spend assisting with Daddy and what kind of learning experience was it anyway if all she ever got to do was clean his cage or run the video equipment?

  “I can see how you might feel,” I told her. (You’ve got to give them some expression or they will turn into teenage time bombs.)

  “However,” I added, “you will soon be entering pre-adolescence and that is the time when you must start to emancipate your ego from the solipsistic concerns that now absorb you and begin to consider the welfare of the world at large. In your case, this will take the form of service to Art.

  Janice replied snottily with something about my stage of life being an impossible one and that when she has children of her own she will never make them serve Art no matter how creatively important it is.

  Fortunately her nattering stopped when we reached Daddy and his cage.

  “Oh dear,” I said when I saw him.

  He was in his usual place, all right, bouncing on the recliner rocker that sits in the centre of the cage but he had smeared ketchup and mustard all over his handsome face and several bread-and-butter pickles sat atop his head.

  Janice smirked nastily, a gesture that seemed to be directed at me.

  “Laugh now,” I said, “but where was your laughter when it was needed?” There are times when I forget that I love Janice.

  She got the pail and washcloth and I unlocked the cage door. It isn’t a lot of work for her, the washing of Daddy’s face and tidying his cage, but enough to warrant her two-dollar-a-week allowance. Children must learn the value of money and this is why I insist that Janice save at least half
of her weekly allowance for something worthwhile. I believe she’s saving up for an elephant.

  Daddy doesn’t mind having Janice in his cage. In fact, there are times when it seems he prefers playing Crazy Eights with her to having his weekly conjugal visit from me. He reassures me, though, that his card playing with Janice is important to him, a welcome respite from the vigorous demands that my creativity places upon him. All told, we three are a happy family and this is not often the case with families who serve Art.

  But it was time for me to be stern with Daddy: this food on the face routine had been hilarious six weeks back but he had been doing it every day since and it was becoming downright stale. What’s the point, I reasoned, of caging up your inspiration if all it yielded was stuck records? His original action, certainly, had resulted in quite a lively story, an apt metaphor for our materialistic times, and I had been screamingly pleased with Daddy then for suggesting it but now it was time for some fresh material.