by WD Clarke
—No I haven’t. It’s fascinating, go on, continue.
—Let’s talk about you.
—Let’s not. Your story is more interesting.
—Granted, but.
—And yet.
—Listen, Amē, why are you sweating it out here, so far from the real action?
—Hey, you’re the one who’s sweating, look at yourself. Look, just look why don’t you? I mean and this place is air conditioned!
—You’ve got ambition. Don’t waste yourself schlepping around. You’ve got the right clothes, baby, use’em or lose’em. I mean, how do you say in French? Get in the game. Play along, keep the ball bouncing. I can pull some strings for you, get you on a short list.
He stops playing with the potato. She listens.
—The Canada Development Corporation he says. You’ve always dreamed of it, since McGill anyhow. Overseas do-good-er-ism, the balm or salve your guilty whitebread conscience desperately needs, and a great salary to boot.
—Can’t beat that combination.
His chopsticks hover in mid-air. He looks her in the eye.
—Send me your resume.
—Sure.
—Don’t put it off. Make hay. While the iron’s hot.
—I’ll send you my resume.
—Seriously now.
—All kidding aside.
—Cos the universe is expanding, he says.
—Huh?
—Woody Allen.
—Oh.
—In Annie Hall Woody’s little alter-ego, Alvy Singer, is, oh, twelve? And he becomes precociously aware of the meaninglessness of existence for the first time, and so he can’t just be a normal kid doing normal kidlike things.
—So?
—So this gets his sensible if shrilly worry-worting mom into a stereotypical Jewish Mother tizzy, and she drags his carcass to the good ol’ pragmatic, two-feet-on-the-ground family doctor. Little Alvy tells him, he says, with the weariness of one destined to luxuriate further, as his life passes him by, in the roiling but perversely comforting, pessimistic Schopenhauer Jacuzzi, little Alvy says to the doc: ‘The universe is expanding.’
—So?
—Exactly: Alvy is depressed, won’t do his homework, all because of something he read in a book, like his mother says. Little wisenheimer Alvy is trapped in his own head: the universe is expanding. The universe will one day rip apart. That will be the end of everything. So, therefore, what’s the point of doing homework, what’s the point of doing anything? The syllogism is compelling, and it compels Alvy to accept the obvious: that there is no point. Point finale, q.e.d.
—Wow. Bummer.
—Hold on. The wise doctor looks upon him with a knowing, genial, man-to-man kinda gaze. Now Doc is a successful professional in the prime of his life, and from the way he carries himself, he’s quite obviously a full-blooded hedonist as well. But he is above all a man, and he too once had his own Dark Night Of The Soul, perhaps back in medical school, who knows, whenever, when his ideals came crashing to the terra firma of blood and sinew, and he got his first truly visceral insight into the essence of reality, into The Impermanence Of All Good Things. So Doc understands Alvy, he really does.
—I’m not sure I do.
—Neither does Frustrated Mom. Uncomfortable with being sent to the sidelines for even a moment, she cuts in on this brief Tête-à-Tête, shrieking at Alvy: ‘And what’s that your business?’ And to the doctor, she adds: ‘Tell him, what’s that his business?’ It’s difficult for me to reproduce her exact shriek here, but if I say that she howls like a banshee, you get the picture.
—I’m a bit vague on banshees.
—That’s not too important for our purposes. What is essential is that you recoil physically, that you have a corporeal sense—a physical knowing, mind you—of a shriek, a wailing, the synchronic sonic summation of your grade five teacher yelling at you as you scrape your fingernails across her blackboard.
—You don’t like Mom, then.
—I didn’t say that.
—You didn’t have to.
—Anyway, I see you’re looking at your watch again, so I’ll cut this short: taking heed of Mom’s interrogative imperatives, Doc counsels Alvy. Mom hectors her son with the obvious: ‘You’re in Brooklyn, and Brooklyn is not expanding.’
—She’s right.
—True enough, but she has no empathy for Alvy’s predicament. The way she says it, she says it like someone who has never thought a thought beyond the next sale at Macy’s, beyond telling us all, over the back fence, over-and-over, that Finklestein’s wife has diabetes. She says it like life is about keeping your head down, your nose clean and doing what you’re told.
—You think it’s not?
—It’s about choosing to do what’s in your own self-interest. If it’s about fitting in, it’s only so that you can get what you want out of it. Doc knows this. He’s been around. He’s seen a lot of life, and he’s seen a lot of this kind of mother before. He knows that there’s a big ol’ world out there, one of which the likes of Alvy’s mother hasn’t heard so much as a whisper. Doc rocks back and forth on his feet good-humouredly, that is to say: wisely. He doesn’t know if young Alvy will take his sage advice. He doesn’t know if Mom will let the boy breathe a little. But he tries to be as helpful as he can, without letting Mom’s hysteria or Alvy’s lassitude get to him. He says that Brooklyn ‘won’t be expanding for a lonnnnnnnggg time yet, Alvy’. And guess what he says next? Heh!
—Beats me.
—It’s only polite to guess.
—Sorry.
—‘And we’ve got to enjoy ourselves,’ he says, ‘while-we’re-here, heh! Heh!’
—Ok, Amē says.
—Seize it with both hands, kiddo.
—And eyes wide open.
He’s still looking her in the eye. He’s summing her up, that’s what he’s doing, the prick, and he’s succeeding. That’s how she feels. She breaks his gaze, watches his chopsticks make a clever, fluent little move. Pretending to casually pick the potato up, pretending to lose interest. The childish delight in the displaying the fake, the deke, the simulacrum of skill. ‘Bangbang, You’re Dead!’ and other forms of imaginary control. Saying to yourself: ‘Hey, I could do this, I could pick this sucker up any day of the week, if I wanted to.’ If nothing else, Roger is a regular guy, a guy’s guy, and (you could make an argument for it, anyhow) there’s probably something to be said for that.
—I can get your resume into the swim, he says. Send it.
—Of course. You’ll keep in touch?
—I always do.
Rather than picking up the mountain potato with proper chopstick etiquette, he skewers the gelatinous little tuber kebab-style, and brings it to his mouth. Smiles, shows his teeth.
—You always do.
—Whatchew gonna do? Julian says.
—Dunno, Tim Says. Get drunk. Drunker.
The Englishman and the Canadian extract themselves, somehow, from the overstocked fish farm in which they had been treading water, and head for the showers.
—You’re that already. You love her?
—Yup.
—Then whatchew gonna do ’bout it?
—What’s there to do?
—Christ, somethin’, anyway! You gotta do somethin’, say somethin’.
—I’d say you’re doing a bit of a hatchet job on the Canadian accent.
—I’m just taking the piss. But then, you all sound American to me.
—My point exactly. You just don’t have the ear for it. For the subtle variations. For the, the frisson.
—No, you’ve got the wrong word pal. My point was, youse guys is generic, like. Verymuchso. Cookie-cuttered. Franchised. There’s just One Standardized, Suburban Accent, from coast to coast. Yer Edmonton is identical to yer Toronto, or yer Ottawa, or Hallyfax.
—That’s ‘Hal-if-fax’, chump. But ok, the middle class has its own accent, you want me to deny this? Like it’s a scandal or something?
—I’m appalled, Julian says.
—And those with heavy accents don’t seem to get ahead much—is this a conspiracy, or so very different from your neck of the woods?
—And how do you pronounce the name of my, er, neck?
—‘War-chester’.
—Try ‘Woust-er’.
—‘Wuh-ster’. ‘Woost-er’. ‘Woustershestershistershire’.
—And who has no ear for it?
—Next stop ‘Wuss-ter’ Shrub Hill, tickets please. All wusses please disembark Shrubb Hill.
—Anyway, you should say something.
—Huh?
—You’re evading the issue here, Julian says, the issue at hand.
—So? Tim says.
—The issue.
—Amē?
—What will you do?
—Drink. Wake up sick, numb. Then, avoid the issue until she makes a clean break of it. Finally, wallow in maudlin sentimentality and write saccharine verse to her for an indefinite period of time. Is that ok? Sound about right?
—Sounds like a plan. But Christ you’ve got to say something.
—To her?
Julian does not answer this question. He just stares at Tim, who is now naked, out of his swimsuit, and edging his way out of the locker room toward the shower stalls. He won’t press it any further. He looks away, moves into a stall next to his friend’s.
—What do you make of this sign, Julian?
Beneath the shower head there is a notice, red sans-serif letters on a white plastic background, which reads:
It is prohibited
To use a shampoo
There is also, presumably, a Japanese translation. Weak on their Kanji, neither man can tell if it means the same thing.
—I’ve never figured that one out. You got any?
—Sure. Here.
He hands Julian a bottle of Body On Tap, and the two lather up.
—You know what I figure, Julian?
—Uh-uh.
—Neither do I, but I’ll say this: it’s certainly Miller Time, for this cowboy anyway.
—Miller? Julian says, affecting an East Enders accent. The archetypal American beer? The beer that tastes like, like nothing? Like a moistened cipher, a wet nullity? Listen you geezer….
—Blahblahblah. You’ve gone down this road before, buddy. I mean, let’s go get blotto. Cos I’ve got me a motive.
—Sing me that Döppelbrau song, will yas? Julian says, trying this time for Texas. Cos pardner, I’m fixin’ t’ git muh hands on one real soon. Now there’s one—how d’youse Albertans say it?
—Killer diller. It’s Texans, actually. It’s Texans who say that.
—Now there’s one killer diller beer. No more of this Crapporro or Shittory, no suh. But how’s that Döppelbrau song go?
Tim doesn’t respond for a second. He’s closed his eyes. He’s thinking.
—Uh, I forget. You know it, you sing it.
Julian clears his throat:
He shoots, he scores,
but don't mop the floor
cos the beer
keeps on a-pouring
down,
when you drink Döppelbrau
—Uh, Julian?
—Hmm?
—I have to urinate.
—‘With extreme prejudice?’
—Uh-huh.
—Me too.
The two men, still a bit wobbly on their feet, still ensconced in their shower stalls, begin to relieve themselves, both taking care to aim for the drain.
4
Truth Telling: 1997, Toronto
I Thought I’d never get you alone, Amy.
—It’s Amē.
—Oh! Sorry!
—Everyone gets it wrong. A-m-ē, actually pronounced ‘Ahh-may’.
—‘Ahh-may’.
—Perfect. My Japanese mother named me after the rain.
—Spelled with a little hat, a circumflex over the ‘a’, it means ‘soul’ in French.
—Now you’re flirting. But that ‘soul’ come-on? I learned that from Leonard Cohen, when I was sitting beside him on a flight to Paris.
—You’re joking.
—That’s what he said when I introduced myself by my middle name, Suzanne. Then I showed him my driver’s license, and … well, then he looked, into my soul—or so he said. He’d just moved into a Zen Monastery in Los Angeles, and his Roshi was Japanese. So, then we basically hit it off, and chatted all the way to Charles de Gaulle!
—No way!
—Don’t you believe me, David?
—Of course.
—No one else does. But it’s 100% true, I swear.
Saying this, Amē crosses her heart with her index finger, then grabs her pint glass and knocks back the rest of her beer. He follows her as she goes in search of more alcohol. She chooses wine because that's what he is drinking. She realizes that she is taller than David, who is only 5 foot 6, and he has a hard time looking her in the eye, it seems. She hears herself telling herself that she would have a hard time dating a man significantly shorter than she, even if he was as handsome and rich as this allegedly capital-E ‘Entrepreneur’.
She pushes the thought aside: it wasn’t worthy of her to think like that. That wasn’t Amē, it wasn’t like her. Hmm. Of course she could date him, but would she? Well, he doesn’t seem to mind the height differential, so why does she?
—What do you do, David? What interests you?
—Well, I own a company that owns other companies.
—A holding company.
—Mm-hmm, yes. We’re professional holders-on, if not quite hangers-on.
—Describe it for me.
—A lot of paper gets pushed around. We buy low and sell high.
—Of course. You sound like someone I know. Knew. She forced a frown, a furrow to retreat from her face.
—You’re smiling. I think these thoughts myself: how puerile, how philistine, right, this snakes-and-ladders game of profit-and-loss? Something so unsubtle and inhumanely rational that it could only interest a seventeen year-old boy?
—Or a forty year-old seventeen year-old.
—Touché. No, this racket generates a fair bit of money, but I wouldn’t say it interests me.
—What does?
—Well I know for a fact that you have an English degree, your friend, er….
—Andrea?
—Yes, Andrea told me. And since I’d very much like to impress you, I’d like to say that my passion was literature, but that would be a bit of a fib.
—I was a double major, actually. Do you think your confession impresses?
—I sense, I … have a hunch, that you value honesty, above all else, and so I am … being honest with you.
—If you sensed that I valued, say, flattery, would you give me that, instead?
—I hardly meant….
—Fair enough. I’m giving you a hard time because I’m a bit drunk—my turn to confess, and I’m afraid I enjoy it.
—Confessing? Or giving people a hard time?
—Uh-huh.
—Oh, but I’m sure you only give a hard time to those who you like!
She doesn’t answer. He looks into her eyes, but she averts them, saying:
—So, you haven’t answered my first question, what does interest you?
—Honestly?
—If you like. That seems to be the game you’re playing at the moment.
—Love, he says. Love interests me. It’s the only thing that interests me, and it’s not a game.
This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love,
We see by this, it was not sex,
We see, we saw not what did move:
—How many times have you said this line before? Honestly, now, remember, honestly!
—Honesty is the best pottery, he says.
—Meaning… ?
—Exactly twice.
—Twice including just now?
—No, I guess three including just now.
<
br /> But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things, they know not what,
Love, these mixed souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this and that.
—Thrice, in other words, she says.
—Yes.
—Did you love the women you said it to?
—Yes, er, at least I believed I did at the time.
—I see.
—Do you? What do you see?
—I’m not sure. Something, maybe, she says.
—Something? What?
—I couldn’t say.
—What could you say?
She takes a drink of wine and says, looking at him steadily now:
—That we, as a society, perhaps, are too jaded to believe that what we see when we connect with someone is anything other than a reflection of our own desires and needs. Agreed?
—It’s a theory.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size,
(All which before was poor, and scant)
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
—It is, she says. Nothing more.
—But we continue to look, regardless.
—Yes, she says. Yes, we do.
—And that’s something, at any rate, then, he says.
—Yes.
—But are you saying, as you look into my eyes, that you’re not sure that you are capable of seeing what is there? Or that there is perhaps nothing there to see?
—I’m not sure, she says.
—At least you’re the honest type.
—Me, I’m not so sure.
—I’d like to know more about you.
—Join the club.
—I think you enjoy being evasive, he says. It keeps you apart from things. From people.
She doesn’t answer, but looks him in the eye again. This guy is quite the package, alright, she thinks. She says:
—You want something from the hip? Ok, try this: I’m married.