Everything Is So Political

by Sandra McIntyre

  He sees the images all the time as he ambles and breathes stARTaKISS, stARTaKISS, stARTaKISS.

  In reality he is shy everywhere he goes. He only asks one person, a pierced, clean-shaven kid at a punk show.

  “stARTaKISS? Yeah, I’ve met him. Big hair. Beard. Brown. His real name is Ethan and he’s older. Like thirties-ish. Hang around Dartmouth and you’ll run into him.”

  February 27

  Miles is walking nervously this morning. The confidence that stARTaKISS stencilled on him has withered over an uneventful weekend. He stops at the Lacewood Terminal. He wants to put a human face on the ATU. He approaches the picket line.

  “Wo, buddy, where d’ya think yer goin’?” a burly driver asks.

  “Ugh… I don’t mean any disrespect.”

  “What do you mean, bud?”

  “I would like to see your Strike Captain.”

  Miles is led to the makeshift shelter where the strike captain looks over a clipboard with a phone in his hand. “Can I help you?”

  “I just wanted to see you. I’ve been walking for hours every day, man. I’m not trying to be rude. I just don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

  “Bud, our position is well-covered in the media. Here, this is our official pamphlet for the public. Look around HRM. Everyone is unhappy everywheres with the way this city is run. We’re just the only ones with the stones to do somethin’ about it. People may not support us now, but the mayor looks worse and worse as this goes on.”

  Miles remembers his last encounter with the Theodore Kelley. The surprise. The photo.

  “Thank you,” he says and walks away.

  March 2

  Miles is downstairs at Jacob’s lounge on Portland Street. It is early, but a wide variety of people have gathered for the weekly Scoop Outs set. A punk show is not a familiar place for Miles. Nervous, of course, he is put at ease by the humility and friendliness of these people dubbed Darksiders.

  One of them introduces himself as Pete. He has spent the past three years teaching in Korea and has only lived in Dartmouth for two weeks, but he is already a regular at Jacob’s Lounge. Eventually Miles awkwardly interrupts him.

  “Do you know a guy with a beard named Ethan?”

  “Uh…yeah.” Pete stumbles through Miles’ graceless questions with embarrassment. “He actually lives in the building next door. He’s probably here.”

  It is midnight now and Miles is sure he watched Ethan walk around the bar and out the back door. He makes his way outside where a crowd is smoking and talking in spurts. Ethan leans against the wall at the edge of the group, but with his ear in the conversation.

  Any façade of social confidence fades and Miles blurts “stARTaKISS?”

  A few in the crowd look at the nervous young man, including Ethan himself. Grinning coolly, Ethan clarifies, “That’s not my name, but it is how I identify myself.”

  “So the stencilwork. With Theodore Kelley and Ben Gilson. That’s you?”

  “Yep, that’s me,” he says, smiling through his large beard. “I hope they’ve made you laugh.”

  “Well, yeah,” Miles says. “I guess so. Mostly I’m getting tired of all this. I can’t say I’m a fan of the mayor, but this union is way out of line. They’re holding the city hostage.”

  “Yeah. I see your point. But only if we let them.”

  “Exactly!” Miles says thickening up. “The time has come to ACT!”

  “To act?” Ethan questions. “What do you mean to act?”

  Miles shrivels back down to his usual size.

  “I don’t know, exactly. I would like to think I could do something significant. That we are not at the mercy of a university, a municipality, a union.”

  “Buddy, we’re not, though,” Ethan assures him. “What’s your name?”

  “Miles. Name’s Miles Gilles.”

  “There’s lots you can do, we all can do, separate from those, um… hierarchies you mentioned.” These last three words rose in pitch. “Come back here tomorrow night at midnight,” Ethan suggests. “There is plenty we can, um…do.”

  March 4

  When Miles arrives, five or more guys in their twenties or thirties are already there. Though Miles is nervous, they give him the feeling that he is safe with them, that he is welcome, that they will be his friends.

  A few minutes after midnight, Ethan appears. He is wearing a coat that, combined with wild hair and beard, gives him the athletic appearance of a sailor. Ethan is carrying a large plastic tub with no lid. The tub is filled with water balloons. The air is cold, but must be above freezing. When each man talks, his breath is hardly visible.

  “Miles!” Ethan says warmly. “Wait till you see this. What we’re going to DO is have some fun with these goons. Okay?”

  “Uh…okay.” Miles does not understand, but the ritual unfurls before him.

  Ethan places the plastic tub in the large basket of an adult-sized tricycle. He rides the trike slowly out to Portland Street. The group has expanded to almost twenty young men. They follow him quietly. After pedalling three blocks, the tricycle turns up Victoria Road. Ethan lifts himself off the seat, bearing down on the pedals to stay in motion up the steep hill. Several of the others gather around the basket at the rear, pushing Ethan forward. He grunts and contorts his face, exerting great force upon the tricycle. Two of the others walk alongside Ethan now, each placing a hand on the handlebars to give him support.

  The dozen or so who do not push walk silently behind their friends at the tricycle, watching and walking. They are climbing. It takes them about ten minutes to move one block up Victoria Road. At this point, some of the rear guard take hold of the tricycle, relieving their friends of the heavy duty. They proceed this way for four and a half blocks in total. Even Miles took his turn supporting Ethan in his climb. It is 1:30 in the morning by the time they reach Dartmouth High, exhausted.

  They unload the tub in the space that once was a wooded path behind Dartmouth Sportsplex. The trees are gone now, and construction has begun on an expanded bus terminal. The water balloons are removed a few at a time by each man. They hide them around the rear of the Sportsplex parking lot.

  Miles approaches Ethan: “What time do they get here?”

  “We’re not sure. First run is at six, so that’s what we’re assuming. But you know.”

  “And when they get here?”

  “What do we do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “BOMMMMBS AWAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!” Ethan yells into the empty night to the laughter of his friends.

  The hours pass with steady conversation, cigarettes, and random outbursts of laughter and song.

  Now 3 AM. Now 4 AM. Now 5 AM.

  At 5:30 no one is there to start the generators to heat the makeshift shelters. No Strike Captain arrives at 5:45 to assure the pickets are properly posted. At 6 am, no one is there. The group waits quietly, each person where he has hidden his balloons. At 6:15, no one is there. At 6:30, the terminal is empty.

  “Ethan?” someone calls, hoping for some guidance, some insight.

  “Well, I suppose one benefit of being a union member is you get weekends off. Ahem—BOMMMMMMBS AWAAAAAAAAYYYYY!” Ethan cries.

  In the absence of striking bus drivers, the group splits into chaos, hurling water balloons at each other, in every direction.

  With the water balloons running out, Ethan begins handing out stencils and cans of spray paint. They checker the empty parking lot with innumerable images of Theodore Kelley and Ben Gilson: playing basketball, sharing a giant donair, on a bicycle built for two, in a parody of Millet’s Angelus.

  Miles is unsure what it all means, but he is sure they are doing something. Ethan himself is spraying a giant pair of lips on the side entrance to the Dartmouth Sportsplex. Brick-by-brick, the dripping black lips take shape on the wall.

  All ove
r the parking lot, everything is signed: stARTaKISS, stARTaKISS, stARTaKISS!

  March 7

  Miles is quite ill after a long weekend. He hardly slept, spent too much time in wet socks, and drank too much. The possibility of a Dalhousie Faculty strike seems to have come and gone. Obsessed with the transit strike, he has fallen behind academically. In bed with the delirium of a low-grade fever, he embraces certain fantasies sexual and political. He keeps a pen and notebook in his bed to write poems like this one:

  Still breathing.

  Giggle goggle google stop tickling me.

  Ize getz over my sickiez someday.

  Don’t kick my fucking cat.

  Hey fuck off do you know how sick I am?

  Whatever. Go back to bed.

  Don’t count on the strike btw-

  Better be a strike. Paper due. Know nothing about Uganda.

  Like the idea of a Rain Chief. Epo iso.

  Daniel Denver, epo iso?

  Daniel Denver, iso Thug.

  Daniel Denver, too fat fer donuts.

  Daniel/Theodore/Ben

  play their fiddles

  all the way to citadel hill.

  March 11

  Sunday afternoon Miles feels normal again. At about 3 pm an alert lights up his phone, a message from the University:

  The Government of Nova Scotia has granted permanent solvency relief to University Pension Plans. This will result in welcome relief from onerous solvency payments, and allowed both negotiating teams to arrive at a new collective agreement. Classes will continue as scheduled on Monday.

  Great, Miles thinks. Daniel Denver, or whoever it is, can sprinkle pixie dust on the pension issue so that the elite university doesn’t lose any students to Toronto, or wherever, but I still have no way of getting anywhere.

  At 11pm, after doing hours of shoddy research for a paper that will in fact be due in class tomorrow, Miles wanders the Internet. He stumbles from one goofy photo to another. He watches grainy videos of Johnny Cash from the seventies. Then he types in “hal” and waits for the history to reveal his most visited website of the last few weeks: halifaxonstrike.com. A plain white background with over a half dozen boxes containing news articles relating to whatever union is considering a work-stoppage. Under the banner that tauntingly reads Only 246 days until the next municipal election. Be careful how you vote… one box says “METRO TRANSIT- TENTATIVE AGREEMENT ANNOUNCED!”

  He is sceptical. He imagines an evil marionette-master behind the site playing ironic children’s songs on all the strings that support his life. In reality, he knows, the author is an opportunist who has finally managed a highly visited website that will soon be useless if the strike is over. Miles senses regret in the Caps-locked headline.

  Sure enough the link to Metro Transit’s website confirms that Ben Gilson will recommend that the ATU agree to the deal in a vote tomorrow afternoon. Council will then ratify on Tuesday evening. Busses and ferries could be back in service as soon as Thursday.

  Miles imagines Theodore Kelley and Ben Gilson parting ways at the Holiday Inn. Somehow the mayor’s meekness physically debilitates Ben Gilson as they shake hands. The union boss slumps against a wall as the satisfied politician turns to exit. Before stepping into the automatic revolving doorway, Kelley looks over his shoulder and smiles without opening his mouth. Then he winks at Ben Gilson, so subtly that the slouching, younger man thinks he may have imagined it.

  March 12

  Miles’ second alarm sounds at 8 am. Sun shines through the vertical blinds, casting black stripes on the hardwood floor. Dust floats around his window frame in the magnification of the sunlight. He would prefer to imagine that he is not a dust-ridden slob, and that he sees photons, warming him to the idea of a new week.

  Miles sits up and places his bare feet on the floor. He feels like a ladybug ready to fly, beleaguered by numerous breezes that amount to nothing but will ruin her day. His eyes are all but closed when he raises the blinds and is swarmed by the irony of sunlight on a cold morning when it is almost spring. A teased, tired ladybug, he decides to open the window. He lets it all go.

  Elephant Air

  Fran Kimmel

  Sarah doesn’t call me Dad any more. Now I’m just Ivan. I call her from wherever I can find a phone that works. I cram myself into the booth outside an arena or in some dingy lobby and think about where we’ve just landed. Then I study the clocks on the yellow pages map and work backwards through the time zones to make sure it’s a decent hour. I take off my baseball cap and tuck in my shirt and breathe in and out before I dial her number. Hi sweetie, I say if she picks up, which is hit and miss: lately more miss. Just checking in, seeing how you doing. I say this every time. Hundreds of phone booths. Years worth of just checking in, seeing how she’s doing. Hello Ivan, when she discovers it’s me. What she really means: I was hoping for someone…substantial.

  This time she’s telling me about some video. “You’re on YouTube. Again. It’s a forty-seven-second clip. You’re hacking away at the back of her legs. I can’t tell if it’s Sassy or Bliss.”

  When she talks like this, I feel like she’s holding a blowtorch to the phone, singeing my cheek hairs. “How are you, Sarah?”

  “She’s got the speckled ears. That’s Bliss, right?”

  Sometimes, on the good days, she gives me a few crumbs.

  “How’s school?” I ask. “Must be exam time.”

  “You were trying to make her turn on the stupid little bucket.”

  I take more slow breaths, in and out, in and out. “We’re coming. In August. It’s a few months away but I was hoping …” What was it, exactly, I was hoping?

  “Ivan the Terrible. That’s what they’re calling you now. Want the link?”

  I’ve forgotten the words I rehearsed. “Come on, Sarah. I don’t know nothing about —”

  “YouTube, Ivan. It’s called YouTube.”

  All’s I know, they got it wrong.

  “They got it wrong,” I say to her. I would never hurt Bliss. I would never hurt any of my girls.

  “It’s vi-dee-oo, so they could hardly get it wrong. Someone just turns on the camera and you do what you do. You’ll be on there forever. You’re very photogenic. You look quite ripped as you’re whacking away.”

  When Sarah was just a little thing, not more than four or five, I could make her laugh so hard she got hiccups. Sometimes even now, at night mostly, I can still feel the weight of her attached to my hip, her powder-white legs dangling.

  Her mother gave her to me for a whole summer once. It was the summer she decided to fix her bulging feet. She had lined up her sister—the mouthy one with big teeth—to watch over Sarah, but then she got double pneumonia and there was nobody else. I was last resort—the bottom of the barrel. Ivan, you got to swear to me you won’t do any of your macho-shit around our daughter. Don’t let her near the damn elephants. I kept my end of the bargain, sticking Sarah to me like a fly on flypaper. Except when the chains came off during training rounds. Then I had no choice but to whisk her behind the rope. I never took my eyes off her. Only that one time. Only that one time when the babies butted heads and all hell broke loose and we had to whip them apart and everyone screamed bloody murder and when we finally got them separated, I jumped back behind the rope to where she was supposed to be perched on the hay bundle, colouring her butterflies page, only she wasn’t. All I could find were a few scattered crayons and one half-coloured wing.

  The telephone sounds buzzy. “Sarah?”

  I hear her sigh. Then nothing. Then, “You called me.”

  “I was hoping… I was hoping we could get together. When I’m in Canada. I know it’s a ways off—August 16—but I got an extra day at the end and thought maybe I could treat you to a steak dinner, someplace fancy.”

  “I’m a vegan, Ivan.”

  This was new. Or it wasn’t.
Maybe she’d been a vegan whatever-the-hell since before her first bra. I could tell you about Ronnie and her watermelon rinds, how Bliss likes her oatbran with cinnamon on top. My own kid. I couldn’t even say what she looks like anymore.

  “I guess a hot dog is out of the question.” I wait, the phone clamped to my slippery fist. “Well, carrot sticks then. Whatever you like.” I say this stuff slowly to make it last longer. “It would be nice to catch up.”

  “The circus comes to town,” she says. “Imagine.”

  “Yeah,” I say, not sure.

  “I already heard, Ivan. I circled the date on my calendar already.”

  “Really,” I say.

  “I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it.”

  I’ll be there, she’d just said. Wouldn’t miss it. Her words knock the breath from me. I imagine sitting across from my daughter at a table with a real cloth on top. I’ll look into her eyes, sea green like her mother’s. We’ll have hours and hours, and I will listen so very carefully to everything she’ll tell me, to everything she’ll leave out.

  I get so caught up in the notion of it, I forget to pay attention. I never even hear the lilt in her voice.

  If Ronnie had been that careless, I would have clipped her under the chin.

  * * *

  It used to be that we’d unload in a new city and the crowds lined up in droves. Everyone wanted to see the elephants with painted toenails and top hats marching down their street. The girls loved the praise, flapping their ears as they clomped along, tail to trunk, trunk to tail. People hollered and cheered, a mile-long standing ovation, and we’d wave and tip our caps and blow kisses to the pretty girls and strut along like we were kings of the jungle. Nobody cared about the size of our sticks or whether they had pointy hooks or whether we shouted when we gave commands. Back then, people respected what we stood for. People remembered that elephants could stomp you flat as a soda can and that it was the men like us who kept everybody out of trouble.