by WD Clarke
—What’s that? said Dr. Ed.
—What’s what?
—That thing with your hands.
—I’m telling ya’, the man said, repeating the strange motion with his hands, people today, drivers ’specially, they all need a big cleanout upstairs, know what I mean? They need the mental floss, you see? Mental (and, Dr. Ed got it now, his hands were going horizontally back-and-forth beside his ears) … Floss! I’m Dan Chiddle by the way. You got a booth here?
—Uh, oh, no, I’m, just a bit of a tourist, I guess.
—You’re not from the area?
—Yes, no, I mean, a tourist at the fair itself.
—I figured as much. When I dusted myself up off the floor, I said to myself for some reason, ‘that guy’s too normal to be an inmate here.’
—Inmate?
—You know, ‘the inmates have taken over the asylum’?
—Oh.
—Yeah, I thought, who else would come crashing into me like an out-of-control lunatic, except someone completely, manifestly sane—you catch my drift?
—Um?
—Never mind. Hey, would you like a free sample? We’d just need to get your e-mail address, for….
—Uh, no, I.
—… for our new electronic newsletter.
—No, thanks, said Dr. Ed, leaning, and glancing, backwards.
—One for the wife, maybe? This little doozey’s got aphro-des-i-acal herbs.
—My wife, uh. I.
—Here, take two. She’ll go crazy, trust me.
—No, thanks, rea—
—Here, please, the sales rep said, simultaneously thrusting three of the candy heart-encrusted silver-foil-wrapped confections into the palm of Dr. Ed’s hand and grasping him in a two-fisted handshake.
—Thanks, uh.
—Dan. Dan’s face froze into a Cheshire-cat smile.
—Thanks, Dan, said Dr. Ed, stumbling backwards and sideways with considerable but now-careful haste. He nevertheless collided with another table, but reached out a hand to steady himself before upending anything.
—Sorry. Don’t know where my head’s at today I guess, he said without looking around.
—A bit ironic that, isn’t it? a female voice said.
—Excuse me? said Dr. Ed, genuinely shocked, wheeling around, to come face to face with….
Feel My Heart.
—It’s, he said.
—Hi Ed, the woman said. It’s been a while.
—Uh? How… ?
—I’m a veterinarian now. I moved back to Enterprise a few months ago.
—That’s good, uh….
—I’ve been wondering when we’d bump into one another. Anyhow, I’m at the fair here to build up my client base. There’s a surplus of vets right now, but I also have this homeopathy background, hence all this stuff here.
She gestured with her hand over the table that Dr. Ed had just bumped against. There was an assortment of bottles and vials, a number of books on the subject of veterinary homeopathy, two visual charts, not much else. He looked at her. Unlike him, she did not evince the slightest trace of being disconcerted to have had him bump into her like this.
—It’s kind of Spartan, she said.
—Better to say ‘low-key’.
—You know me, she said.
Both fell silent. Unsure of what else to do, she cast her eyes to the ground. Dr. Ed scrutinized her. Unlike himself, she hadn’t changed all that much. She was still quite slim, still in possession of that same remarkable musculature (all the more remarkable as she had always been a relatively sedentary person)—thin alabaster skin displaying a tonus which called to ‘mind’ a considerable, heels-dug-in breed of determination, determination which was also evident in her firm, not-quite-clenched jawline. Determination was apparent too in those almost-black eyes which she now raised back up to meet his, eyes which testified to deep emotional resources—and to a deep emotional complexity, he remembered. If not for her hair, which was still long but whose reddish-black now bore significant veins of silver, she would pass for 30. He was 44; that made her 42. They had not seen each other for 27 years.
Feel … Feel My Heart.
—How are you, Agnes? he said finally.
—I’ve been well, thanks.
—You look….
—Life’s treated me gently, for the most part. And you?
He answered in kind. He told the truth, or a version of it, that being, that he really … couldn’t really complain, for the most part. Yessiree. But then all of that seemed rather meaningless just then. He ‘felt’ overwhelmed; he ‘felt’ like he was 17 again and he remembered, suddenly and most distinctly what 17 years-old was like, how love had taken him hostage then, had possessed him the way it possessed medieval knights like Chaucer’s Palamon and Troilus. He remembered how simple and pure it had felt, and how complex and hostile the rest of the world had been—and was still, by comparison. What’s more, seeing Agnes here, after such a lengthy interval, shocked him into the partial realisation that he had traded the one world for the other. He was now, in 1993, entirely at ease in that very world which, 27 years earlier, had seemed to threaten him (or so he had then ‘felt’) with extinction. As for the world of love, well….
—About Max, she said.
Dr. Ed was floored at the mention of the name of his friend, his dog.
—Uh? he said.
—Your wife dropped him off yesterday. I called and left a message this morning, but….
—She? Dr. Ed interrupted.
—He’s fine. I removed a kidney stone yesterday … He’s resting well. You can come pick him up in the evening, if you like.
—Sure, uh, I better be, I have to….
—6 o’clock, say?
—Yes, um. Do you, have you met…. ?
—Yes?
—Never mind, it’s complicated, we’ll, I’ll, see you later.
—But you were going to say?
—No, I’ll, at 6, see you then.
Dr. Ed backed away, looking around this time, and avoided—just—bumping into Dan Chiddle (who had been looking on and listening to their conversation with interest) a second time. He then turned and walked rapidly away, ignoring the imprecations of the Instant Karma soft drink company sales rep to try their ‘Buddha Betel BlastOff ’, ‘Dharma Kola Cola’ and ‘Sangha Sarsaparilla’. He wove his way through the remainder of this Purgatorial landscape, successfully avoiding eye contact with an Iridologist, side-stepping around an aging Hempster (with his petition to save ‘heritage varieties’ of marijuana from, his sandwich board said, near-certain extinction at the hands of corporatised, gmo hydroponic monoculture), and gamely aimed for the exit. Once he hit the door to the street, he fell first into a trot and then into a semi-canter, unsure of quite where he was going, certain only of what he was running away from.
* * *
1. The Recovery Discovery (1991) by Jasmine Heartsong. Other books in her Wellness Wisdom series (a chronicle of one remarkable woman’s spiritual odyssey through the 1980s and beyond) include, in order of publication: A Light In The Night, Heartsong Daybreak, Time For Me!, Past Lives/Present Loves, I’m Every Woman, as well as the omnibus edition, The Road To Eden Reader. Available from Hera Publications.
19
Western Hemisphere, The Earth
Out of Breath after 500m or so of exertion, Dr. Ed reached the end of Union St., where the street forms a T-junction with Barrie St., at City Park. Here he had to make a decision: to cross the park and head towards downtown (and then what—go shopping? catch a bus or taxi [to where?]? get drunk/buy stamps/get a haircut/have a heat-to-heart with his stockbroker about potential risks in the Latin American ‘emerging market’?), or to turn right and rectangle it back to….
He went a very abrupt right. South on Barrie for a block and then east on Penforth for another, into the hospital through Emerg, then up, over and in, his stride rate and anger level increasing the closer he got to the….
—Listen you little peck
er-head, he said.
There was no one in the office save Ted, who was leaning back in the receptionist’s chair and reading his book.
—Yes?
—Are you Fraser, G-ddammit?
—Who?
—Don’t be coy with me. I’m on to you.
—Huh?
—[email protected]. You know.
—Don’t have the least effin’ clue what yer on about, uh, ‘dad’.
—Did you or did you not send me those e-mails?
—Excuse me?
—Did you send me those e-mails? said Dr. Ed, raising his voice significantly.
—It’s not getting any clearer, ‘dad’. You know what? I’d actually like to suggest that, when in doubt, if you’re having problems with the locals—with making yourself understood that is—by all means, go ahead, yell. That’s my motto anyway.
—What are you trying to do to me?
—A good question, and one I’ve asked myself many, ah, many times. It deserves a good answer, I’ll give you that.
—So it was you!
—No. Not yet.
—Not yet? What!?
—I want to try, to do something, to you I mean, but I haven’t tried yet. See, I’m not sure if what I want is right for me, at this stage.
—At what stage?
—At this stage in our relationship.
—I don’t ‘think’ we have one, Ted.
—Oh, we do, we do.
—You.
—Anyhow, when I decide what exactly I want to do to you, I’ll be sure to let you know.
—I.
—One way or another. ’Scuse me, sir, if you please. Smoke break. Union rules.
—The.
—Oh, about Major Plumtree’s wife?
Dr. Ed said nothing, but stared at his son from behind white-hot eyes.
—The Major called again. Twice more.
—Yes?
—Just wanted to keep you informed, said Ted, leaving through the front door, cigarette pack and lighter in hand. Dr. Ed picked up the novel Ted had been reading, which had been left splayed open on the desk. It wasn’t a novel at all, in fact. It was a book of poetry: Donne—The Complete English Poems. He opened it to the poem Ted had evidently been reading, ‘Love’s Alchemy’, and scanned it. It was all Greek to him, save the closing couplet, which he repeated to himself:
Hope not for mind in women; at their best
Sweetness and wit, they are but mummy, possessed
—Huh, Dr. Ed grunted, flipping next to the inscription on the frontispiece.
Teddy boy,
Now THIS is the business, the full meal deal. Chew well and slowly. And good luck on your little Genealogical expedition eh? -Just remember… be prepared!
Scouts honour,
Mondo-man,
Vancouver, August ’93
He tossed the book down onto the desk, and went into his office, whereupon he sat, inert, stupefied, ergonomically crumpled, down-but-not-quite-yet-out, his pinball brain tilting atop his multi-swivel executive leather chair.
—Let’s get straight on this, Edward, he said to himself, his chin cupped in the splayed delta of his pensive fingers. First, your wife takes off on you, without notice. Without notice she drops off your dog at your long-lost girlfriend’s farm. Unlike you, she somehow knows about the farm, and you’ve never even told her about the girl. Ok. Next, someone named Fraser wants to meet you, or at any rate wants you to meet up with that long-lost girlfriend of yours at the so-called holistic fair, and that Fraser Somebody is, allegedly, not your so-called ‘son’ Ted. This Ted himself vigorously maintains. Which means … which means … hell, fucked if I know, he said, shocking himself with the obscenity.
—Meanwhile, he continued, after a considerable pause. Meanwhile, meanwhile your best friend is scheming to implement a snap proposal of marriage to your best—no—to your only—nurse. You are forced to conclude that he is, in short and to employ, ahh, layman’s terms, at least temporarily insane.
The phone rang. Ted was still out. Dr. Ed knew, somehow, that it would be that monkey on his back, Major Mutation, the one with the wife who’s acting bonkers…. He hesitated, but answered it himself on the 4th ring.
—Is Dr. Blanchette available? a woman’s voice said. This is Major Plumtree’s office calling.
—He’s out all day, said Dr. Ed, about to immediately put the receiver down.
—Does he have a pager?
—He most certainly does not.
—Can I leave a message then?
—You neither can nor may, he said, remembering one of his mother’s many little lessons.
He put the phone down and said:
—Right.
He left via the back doorway and took an eccentric routing through the hospital to ensure that he would have to confront neither Ted nor anyone else that he knew. He immediately climbed to the icu on the 5th floor, and then proceeded to slipslide his way to the backside of the building, to a service elevator, dropping down to the boiler room in the basement without pausing at any of the intermediate floors. The elevator released him into a dark, cacophonic environment that was devoid of any discernible human presence, and while there was light sufficient enough for Dr. Ed to navigate his way across the short distance separating the elevator from the south (rear) ‘emergency’ exit, it was not sufficient to prevent him, in his haste, from missing a ‘Wet Floor—Slippery!’ sign. Thus, after his first few impatient steps he was sent hurtling backwards into the air, and found himself landing—Whaa?!—left elbow and then hip-first, on the concrete floor.
—Christ! was his 1st ‘thought’; the ass of my trousers is ripped his 2nd; I—I don’t think I can walk his 3rd.
He struggled to his feet, lurched toward the weakly glowing exit sign, realised that his shoe had come off in the tumble, and agonized his way back to it. He found his wallet there as well.
—Wouldn’t want them finding this down here, he said, becoming aware that he was quite unaware of who, precisely (or was that whom?) he’d meant just now by ‘them’. Deep breath now old boy, almost there….
Emergency Exit Only !
Alarm Will Sound If Opened !
—Yeah, right, whatever, he said, and pushed on the aluminum bar that opened the door. It opened, sounding, as promised, the alarm. And as if opening the door any wider would make the alarm ring more loudly, making the situation just generally worse, he slipped through the barely open crack and breathed in the cold chill of the afternoon.
—Smoke? he ‘thought’, turning around to face….
—Hey, hi ‘dad’, said Ted, grinding the butt of a cigarette into the cement.
—What the… ?
—You look awful, that’s the what.
Dr. Ed stared at him mutely.
—Well I better be headin’ back inside, don’t want security to finger me for that alarm. And if I were you I’d….
—Yeah, said Dr. Ed.
—Yeah. You take care now.
—Mmh, said Dr. Ed, who then walked ‘thought’-lessly off, to the south.
To the south of the hospital ran King St, on the opposite side of which lay John A. Macdonald Park, across from which lay the Great Lake, on the opposite shore of which lurked the United States of America. Dr. Ed heard himself saying as much as he walked over the road, across the park and up to the pebbly edge of the lakeshore. It reminded him of a rather childish ‘game’ in which one declared one’s residency status in a progressive manner, from the narrowest to the widest possible sense, beginning with the street on which one lived and ending with the universe in toto. It was a childish kind of ‘game’ because (he knew) only a child could believe that one’s place in the universe could possibly mean anything, even to oneself.
His uncle Joey Nicholls always got him to recite it at family get-togethers. At first, when he was merely 5, the attention of the entire household had excited him, but as the years passed and he came to understand that Joey and the other adults were, in a way, pu
rchasing his boyish sense of wonder, extracting from it ‘cuteness’ and ‘nostalgia’ and turning the entire scene into a weird kind of fetish object. That was when he had begun to despise this ritual, and began a process which ultimately led him to distrust anything even remotely related to what might be called ‘The Sublime’.
—William Edward Theodore Blanchette, 17 North St, Noman’s Island, Frontenac County, Ontario, Canada, North America, Western Hemisphere, The Earth…, he heard something inside him saying as he stared out across the water and up into the sky.
The sun was shining; the sky was blue; the southeasterly wind predictably strong, forming large whitecaps on the open water which were beaching themselves with not insignificant force. Near to where Dr. Ed was standing, the lake funnelled down into the river, making, it was said, for some of the most consistently strong winds, and for some of the best freshwater sailing in all of North America. Wind speed rarely dropped below 15 mph here; today it was more like 30. The temperature had to be 20°f/-7°c. He couldn’t guess what that made the wind-chill effect, but he didn’t really care. The wind cut through his woolen greatcoat, made his face burn and his ears prickle. For the second time that day, Dr. Ed ‘felt’ curiously … what, curiously what, exactly?
20
Cloud Illusions
Or, The Message In The Wind
Wind comes about primarily because of motions in the upper air, about which we can have no or little knowledge.
—Alan Watts, The Weather Handbook
Dr. Ed Stood on the beach for quite some time. He stood there until he ‘realized’ something, until he ‘understood’, until he had done some substantive ‘thinking’ about just what it was that he was ‘feeling’. He stood there until he came to the quite-nearly-epiphanic conclusion that he was in a very bad way, indeed. It transpired, approximately, as follows:
Well then, he said quietly, although he could hardly have ‘thought’ anyone could be around to hear it. There was only the wind-driven lake and the cirrus-striped sky to hear him. He stood facing the wind, which was coming from the south-east, and he looked toward the Martello tower in the near distance. It was ringed by ancient cannon, and was situated at the tip of a peninsula that jutted out into the lake and which was occupied by the Royal Military College.