Likeness

by David Macfarlane

  On our way back from his funeral, as we turned from Kent onto Aberdeen, I was thinking how many more layers of history he knew of these streets than I do. How many more names of however many more former owners of however many addresses. How many more stories and characters and ghosts of old neighbourhood rumour. How many more long-departed. I was thinking about how densely populated his imaginary space of Hamilton was. We were turning onto Spruceside Avenue at the time. And that’s when I realized that my father’s world was gone.

  “You’re making me sound like a rube,” I can easily imagine him saying. And, yes, he knew bigger cities than Hamilton. He’d lived in Toronto and New York. He knew his way around London and Paris. But really, the streets of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada—the red brick houses and hedges and sidewalks that we were driving past—were the grid of the one place in the world he knew really, really well. His history of Hamilton was so deeply inside him it was part of who he was. Evidently. It was gone when he was gone.

  The two young guys from Superframe were only slightly inconvenienced by the Deluxe Reverb-Amps and the Roland and Yamaha keyboards. There’s a big Kendrick tweed. It’s the biggest amplifier in the band, actually—our harmonica player’s. There’s a third electric organ leaning against the wall, and I was with Blake when he chose the red Mapex drum kit. I remember that we had to convince each other that we didn’t like it best just because it looked so cool. There are currently (I just counted) six electric guitars in the living room, and it’s not a very wide room to begin with. But these were obstacles that presented no difficulty to Superframe. They’d seen worse.

  In no time at all, really, the painting was down. Just as quickly it was wrapped, signed-for, and loaded into the temperature-controlled truck. That was to be expected. It was the empty wall that took me by surprise.

  William Blakely Macfarlane 1988-2018

  those Blake would have thanked

  The nurses, doctors, and staff of Princess Margaret, Toronto General, Toronto Western, and Mount Sinai Hospitals

  Friends: Cheryl Atkinson and Don Schmitt, Bruce Bailey, Sam Bailey, Karen and Tom Bell, Cathrin Bradbury, Laura Bradbury, Jessica Bradley and Geoffrey James, Kevin Breit, Shauna Cairns Gundy, George Cohon, Tecca Crosby, Mona Cui and Weixian Min, Lorna Day and David Wilson, Charlotte Day Wilson, Diana and Nigel Dickson, Ann Dowsett Johnston, Leslie Fischook and David Wallen, Alyssa Gerber, Joanna and Meric Gertler, Isabel Gertler, Miles Gertler, Libby and Hope Gibson, Alison Gordon, Gillian and Ron Graham, Mimi Graham, James Graham, Lorraine Greey, Ali Greey, Meredith Greey, Susan Grimbly and Ian Pearson, Lily Harmer and Douglas Cameron, Deborah Hope, Paddy Horrigan, Julia Hune-Brown, Roz Ivey, Charles James, Roz Kavander, Dave Kazala, Lisa Kent and Danny Greenspoon, Daisy Kling, Al Kling, Sari Lightman, Romy Lightman, Hereward Longley, John Macfarlane, Pat MacKay, Alexandra Mackenzie, Ryan Mandelbaum, Janice McAuley, Murray McLauchlan, Marybeth McTeague and David Hayes, Sarah and Tom Milroy, Effy Min, Corey Moranis, Vanessa Nicholas, Nathalie and Sean O’Connor, Maria Pasquino and Richard Longley, Nine Pos, Bob Rae, Lynda Reeves, Liz Rykert and John Sewell, Deborah Scheuneman and Vezi Tayeb, Johanna Schneller and Ian Brown, Cornelia Schuh and Michiel Horn, Scout, Adam See, Myra and George See, Gail Singer, Linda Sully, Diane Walker, Michèle White, Bonnie Whitehall and Judd Brucke, Ellen Vanstone, Simmy and Mark Zaret

  Family

  DAVID MACFARLANE was born in Hamilton. His family memoir, The Danger Tree, was described by Christopher Hitchens as “one of the finest and most intriguing miniature elegies that I have read in many a year.” Macfarlane’s novel Summer Gone was short-listed for the Giller Prize. Based on The Danger Tree, The Door You Came In, a two-man show (co-written and performed with Douglas Cameron), has been produced to acclaim from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Stratford, Ontario. Macfarlane lives in Toronto with his wife, the designer Janice Lindsay.