Unnatural Selection

In another era they were called row houses. When they looked at the new tract housing in a new subdivision, driving from Montreal to Ottawa for that very purpose, the houses were advertised as “executive” town homes. They were a decent price for what they represented. Further up the quiet street bordering a green wooded ravine, there were single-family homes and they were quite a bit pricier.

They never regretted buying their two-story town home. It had quite remarkable features, among which was the full wall of windows looking out the back onto their sloped little garden, which they made much of, as soon as the opportunity presented itself. For they were among the first to move onto the new street, and lived there while construction commenced around them.

It was noisy, it was dirty, but they loved it. For one thing, when most of the construction was going on they were away, in any event, out at work. By the time they were preparing to return to their new home, the construction crews were knocking off for the day. And it wasn’t as though the entire area was under construction; it was most definitely not. This was a well built-up area, a fairly short drive from the downtown. It was just that their street was newly carved-out of what had once been a farmer’s fields, and which had been lying fallow for quite some time.

It had waited for the right builder to come along, a builder who wasn’t fazed by having to design his new street and the houses that would sit on it, around the perimeter of a deeply wooded ravined area. Now that was the draw, wasn’t it? For them, it most certainly was. To move away from crowded Montreal with its nagging memories and gridlock to a quiet oasis a veritable short and pleasurable drive from the nation’s capital where their new jobs awaited them.

It struck him now and again how unbelievable it was that he would have chosen a woman like Lilly. What the hell had been the matter with him? To end up with a vituperative fishwife whom nothing he did could ever mollify, how could he do that? His mother, seeing a soul-mate in her, revelled in the fact that her son had chosen someone so like herself. Validating her view that regardless of the misery of their boyhood, her two sons loved her and one of them at least, found life might be inconsolable without a woman so like his mother. He must have been blind and dumb and out of his mind with the thought of owning that luscious body, nothing else.

And his father, well, his father was pleased. Because his son had chosen a Jew. And his son’s sons, therefore, would be Jews. His father, forever cringing before his wife, had regretted that his own children, born of a non-Jewish woman, were not regarded by Jewish tradition as Jews. His father was prepared to overlook anything, any slight character blight -- for he recognized what his son had not -- to have his grandchildren considered Jews.

Of his father he always thought kindly, he was a gentle man, a good enough father whose only true failing in that department was his inability to counter anything his wife did, said or demanded, even with the knowledge that her tirades fell as heavily on their sons as they did on him. She was just -- he sighed to his boys when they were older and able to understand -- born one of those people unhappy with life and determined to make life unhappy for everyone around her.

And he, fool that he was, ended up with a woman just like his mother. Nothing could bring back all those years of misery as a child sharing whipping-boy status with his older brother when their father wasn’t around. In those days there were still jobs that kept people on the road, and his father had been a successful travelling salesman. One of those people, in fact, who sold aluminum doors, storm windows and screens at atrocious cost, but they were at that time the latest craze among home-owners and he made a more than decent living. He even had his own business cards, and you didn’t too often see people with their own business cards, back then.

That was then. Now his parents were both long gone, and his brother lived in New York. He too had moved from Montreal as soon as such a transfer with his employer could be arranged. His visits with his brother and his brother’s trips to visit with him were now lost in time, but they kept in touch. He’d prided himself not all that long ago in being one of the first people of his acquaintances who knew what the Internet was, who had an email account, and he’d persuaded his brother to do the same. That’s how they corresponded for the most part. But now instead they’ve reverted to talking on the telephone. Of necessity. His brother representing all he had left of his family.

Well, his sons, his twin boys. In Montreal, with their mother. Not with her exactly, but living in that city. Ironically enough he’d moved to Ottawa to begin with because his sons were attending university there. But they transferred after their first two years back to Montreal and continued their education there. But that was long after their mutual decision to part ways. He was left with the certainty they had no use for him whatever, encouraged his interest in them only to extract what they could from him. Reflections of their mother.

When he and Martine moved into their town house the age differential between them was apparent to anyone. Twenty-five years, after all, separated them. She used to kid around with him, remind him she was the same age as his sons. That wasn’t his choice, though, it was hers. She was young, pretty, and smitten with him. And that did great things for his self-esteem. Not that he didn’t love her, too. And it certainly didn’t take much persuading to encourage him to finally make the break he’d long dreamed of. Living with Lilly had fractured his ego, just about broken him. Long afterward, long after they’d moved to their townhouse he had nightmares about Lilly.

He hardly knew whom he most loathed; her or his mother. It was a toss-up. Took some thinking to arrive at a conclusion over who had done the most harm to him between them. He still wasn’t completely certain. His mother had blemished his growing years beyond redemption. His wife had tarnished his married life to the extent that he felt a haunted man. Until he was rescued, and he would be forever grateful to Martine for that.

Things changed after that. He no longer felt so helplessly emasculated. He felt empowered, a man again. Martine adored him. That was resuscitating in a way he could never have imagined. She freed his spirit, he felt liberated, able to contemplate doing things he had just shut away in his mind. And it felt good to feel free to cast his eye around, reminiscent of his younger days before he had been straitened into a steel jacket that would not permit him to venture anything that might spring his wife’s vicious slap-downs.

He became a bon vivant again, a ladies’ man, was able to freely indulge in his cosmopolitan airs that had so delighted him before the misery that had overtaken him when he’d married -- how could he have been so utterly, stupidly unaware -- Lilly. Whom he’d imagined at that time, in a state of sex-induced delirium, would be the light of his life. Instead, she had clamped a lid on the light that illuminated him, and sent him into the cellar of dark despair.

From loving her he had speedily descended into a state of querulous confusion, quickly overtaken by a quiet desperation, ending in fear, dejection, misery that he felt helpless to do anything about. All the more so when she had so quickly become pregnant, and he was a father of two little boys. Trapped. Wasn’t that the conventional wisdom among men? Wasn’t he a living example of a trudging male subservient to an entitled female? Wasn’t he a living cliché?

Nothing he did, clumsily, hopefully, served to placate her burning sense of resentment. She shrieked at him incessantly that she would not submit to the status of a ‘kept’ woman, subservient to a man who provided the wherewithal for her and their children. Children? They were a curse, she said, steely-eyed, shrivelling him with their piercing animosity. Because of them, she was dependent on him to a higher degree, and she felt trapped like a frail animal caught within the iron jaws of tradition.

But what about him? Why blame him? He didn’t create the social mores she had been so ready to accept, batting those long eyelashes of feminine longing at him before he’d finally succumbed. Wasn’t he a victim, if that was how she interpreted the covenant of marriage, just as much as she?

He’d studiously, obediently read all the feminist tracts she had thrust scornfully at him, to prove her hysterical rants were a reality. A glimmer of understanding arose in his consciousness. But why blame him, still? He tried, he went out of his way in a manner he’d never seen his friends attempt, to mollify her incandescent rage.

He changed diapers, fed the boys in their highchairs, walked with them at night to still their nightmares, to help them over feverish childish ailments, allowing her to sleep, while he went in to work the next morning, exhausted, his resources utterly drained. He’d done his best, what more could he possibly have done? It was as though she was on a track and would see nothing on either side that might ameliorate her angst, and he was the object directly before her on that track, requiring annihilation before she might find the peace she was seeking.

He tried to school himself to think, to reason as he imagined a woman might. He tried to anticipate things, to head them off, to protect himself, and yes, her too, from the constant eruptions that threw the lava of hate so lavishly over everything they had achieved together before she had succumbed to this pathological drive to diminish him.

Martine had been an amazing surprise, nothing he might have foreseen. She simply materialized into a life-saving mirage that turned out, in the final analysis, to be his rescue from a life of subdued misery, hopeless self-abnegation and burning resentment. He hadn’t taken her seriously at first; she was just a kid. He was 45 and she only 19. What had attracted her to him would always be a mystery, but it was self-affirming, and then a brilliant rescue from the torment he lived. Unnecessarily, he later assured himself, as he made the final break, leaving his wife to fume and fulminate and weep on his mother’s bosom. They were both, it was clear, more than satisfied to disown him, and he, he just did not give a damn. That too was a rescue.

If his father had still been alive, it would have been different. He’d hated to disappoint the old man. He’d loved him deeply for what he was, everything that his mother was not. Decent, kindly, supportive, loving.

What was that word? Manumission? That’s how he felt, delivered from a state of slavery. And he had Martine to thank for that. And he thanked her in the only way that made real sense to him. When divorce became a reality, they were married. Of course they’d been living together for years before that happened, but it was as though, finally, a dark curtain of failure had been lifted from his soul.

For a quiet young woman from the far reaches of the province Martine seemed to know a lot about sex. With her it was more like fornication and he delighted in that. She was so natural about it all, so assured, so undemanding, but ready to try anything, imbued with an innocent sense of sexual audacity. He loved it. And it was clear enough she did, as well. He felt proud standing beside her, she was so young, so pretty, so pliable, amenable, so in love with him.

It wasn’t as though he meant to take advantage of her. He was more than a little aware of the syndrome he exemplified, an older man grasping the freshness of a young woman. He’d tried, earnestly, to persuade her that she needed a young man, someone her own age, but she laughed him off. He went out of his way to persuade her that theirs was a union of unequal age, that she might regret it at some future time. And she became angry with him, as though he were disputing the clarity and authenticity of her love for him.

He had tried. And had, in the end, become convinced that they were doing the right thing. For themselves. And wasn’t it past time for him to take something for himself? To grasp this opportunity that had been carelessly thrown his way by fortune? Hadn’t he suffered enough? How many sighs add up to yes? Life has a way of altering things, opportunities arise, one grasps them or regrets their loss forever.

She’d been indifferent to the prospect of marriage. He’d had to persuade her that it would be in her best interests. She’d shrugged noncommittally, but agreed to proceed with a civic marriage. She retained her maiden name. They proceeded as before. And when they moved into their new city, their new home, their new jobs, it seemed that everything had changed, he had been re-born a new man, and she was quietly satisfied -- more than that -- exquisitely pleased with the trajectory her life had taken. Together they thrived, enjoyed life; what more could anyone ask for?

As others moved in on the new street he, an extrovert, introduced himself, spoke fluently French or English, depending on the language of the newcomers, and welcoming them, offered his help wherever possible should they need information about anything. Everyone knew him. Few got to know her; she was an introvert, shy, given to holding herself at a distance from others, but sweetly welcoming in her own way.

Which was just as he saw her, too, and what he most appreciated; that she gave herself to him entirely, unreservedly; no one else mattered.

They did so many things together. Took their favourite holidays, went out for dinner whenever they felt like it. Often, that is. Matter of fact, it was he who turned out the family chef, although they shopped together. He did most of the house work too, and really didn’t mind one iota. After all, when he retired she was still working.

And he had Delilah’s company during the day. He had named her that because of her long, blonde hair and because she too had committed herself to him. Delilah went for long morning and late afternoon walks with him every day, across the road from their house, into the ravine. She ran after squirrels, socialized with other peoples’ dogs, and was a loyal companion. When at age nine she developed hip dysplasia, there was no question they’d get surgery done for her. Martine was as attached to that big dog as he was. Everyone on the street knew Delilah, and the kids ambling home from school would stop, throw her ball for her, pet her, and Delilah loved all the attention.

But Delilah died, even though she had a very long life for a large dog. And they decided once was enough; it was just too painful, they wouldn’t replace her. She was, in any event, irreplaceable. And perhaps it was for the best, because his health too began to reflect his age. In his mid-70s he was struggling with high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. About the same time he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. That operation went well enough, but he never felt quite the same, afterward.

Their holiday times, mostly in Vermont and New Hampshire, because they both loved the mountains and hiking, became fewer and fewer. Martine joined a women’s group of hikers and went off on the week-ends with her new adventure buddies, and he was proud of her. She was in good health and had no plans to let herself go; she was determined to keep fit. She looked as young and pretty as ever, he kept telling her.

When he had his double-heart bypass operation which he had insisted on putting off time after time until his doctor and the heart surgeon cornered him to let him know he was placing himself in an awfully risky situation, that without an operation to repair his faulty heart valve, he’d soon be in big trouble, he grudgingly agreed to undergo the procedure. Post-operatively he felt worse than ever before; his chest just as tight, his breath hard to come by, tiring easily, and on top of all that, a blazing headache that just never seemed to leave him.

Martine was a good scout. She stuck around for as long as she could, until wanderlust got to her again. She’d joined another group, a women’s adventure club, and with them went to South America and all over Europe. She’d seen the pyramids at Giza, climbed in the Andes, gone to marvel at Machu Picchu, seen the Great Wall of China.

And finally, when he reached 80, one of his eyes went kaput. He had to use one eye to do the work of both, and it was tiring. So he was cut off from reading, from the Internet -- other than sporadic excursions in both.

And he’d needed another small surgery which was a real pain in the … arse … because he had decided to accompany Martine to Portugal. She decided she had no intention of spending another winter in the ‘coldest, snowiest capital city in the world’ and had rented an apartment in Portugal - the Algarve. But the surgery intervened, and off she went, and here he was, sitting alone, at home.

Oh, he loved their house, and he loved their street and their neighbours, but how many people do you see in the winter, particularly when you’re mostly house-bound yourself?

Martine telephones regularly now, rather than sending emails as she had been doing previously from all over the world in her travels before returning home to him. Another three weeks and she’ll be home again. The weather is fine in the Algarve, she told him, and she loves it there. Thinking of actually buying a little place there. He’ll love it, she tells him.

And by the way, she said last time they spoke, she was planning to take another little trip to Arizona, maybe stay there a few weeks, look around. She’d heard it was quite beautiful, the geological features outstanding, and the weather nice and dry.

 

The Dominion of Winter

 

Snow; it falls in tender, tiny flakes
of crystallized stars, patterning
winter on this northern geography.
It punctuates the atmosphere
with its extraordinary fragrance
its certain promise of an altered
landscape, chill and softly bright.

Even as snow drifts gently below
the sun erupts, shattering the
landscape with arrows of light
before receding again under
steel-hued and -purposed clouds
leaving the wind to scatter the
lofty coverlet. Last night a

renascent wind emulating an
earlier wind-day phenomenon
on the penultimate day of January
blasted February into the new
calendar with fierce squalls
of snow in dominion over a densely
black sky, moon bright, suddenly

obscured by yet another capricious
winter delight, aiding the shy
landscape in transition to
mysteriously disappear
from temporary human sight.

Mankind's hubristic conceit of
challenging nature dissolved by
random acts of magisterially
assuming power. Assumption
of benevolence set casually aside.

 

 

Just Be Assertive

 

“Father, my soul is troubled. I see her face in my dreams. They’re nightmares, I see her haunted, fearful eyes. It was my ego that caused her death. I persuaded her that I knew the conditions, I was familiar with them, I had years of experience….”

“My son, do not presume. It is our Heavenly Shepherd’s to make those decisions. He it is who makes the determination that a soul has lived sufficiently long, and to take that soul unto Himself.”

“But Father, surely … I told her everything would be all right. I knew what I was doing. And then, when it happened, when I tried to pull her out of the truck while it was sinking … she said to me, she said ‘I don’t want to die this way’, and then it just wasn’t working, I couldn’t free her. And Dusty, my dog, he was barking at me, he was in the back …”

“You must forgive yourself, my son. The Heavenly Father takes those whom He will.”

Standing in his mother’s living room yesterday, he was sure it was her brother he saw. Dimly, in the distance, a lone figure. A figure that dropped something onto the ice. Having to throw what he held in his arms, avoiding the yawning open water where Carrie had perished. Along with poor old Dusty. But a dog’s a dog, they can always be replaced. Carrie, that was another thing. Not that he would want to replace her. She wasn’t, in fact, what he’d been looking for. But she had come looking for him. And what a surprise that had been.

What, he wondered, had Trevor thrown into the open water? A worn old Teddy bear that his sister had loved? Something she had cherished, a little old baby comforter? Ah, more likely a bouquet of flowers. Carrie loved flowers. A tribute from her brother to his beloved sister. He must be in mortal anguish, poor guy. Life’s tough, isn’t it, Trevor?

You and your squirt brother really bothered the hell out of me, you sure did. Thought your sister was so special, didn’t you? Everyone knew your family thought they were different than everyone else around. Just because a street was named after the family, just because your family said they were founders of the area, like it was lost and you guys came around and whoa! Here’s a place needing to be found.

What a stupid name to give a kid. We used to rush at her yelling “carry me!” and she would always stand there, like she didn’t know what was coming at her. Every time we did it, she would stand there. And be knocked over. And like man, that was funny. We laughed our fool heads off. Until the time you guys saw us, and it was like, game over, right? You were always a scrappy kid, my dad said it was the Irish, they’re like that. But know what? The Frenchies were too, and we lit into you good and proper. With sister Carrie yelling at all of us to stop ‘right now!’, only no one ever listened to her, right?

Sure, maybe it wasn’t fair, all of us picking on you two stumpy little guys, but you were asking for it. What was the big deal? We teased all the girls, it wasn’t just your sister. It was a game, it was a lot of fun, the girls didn’t really mind, they loved it. We were just kids, having a good time. But you needed to tell us we had to lay off your sister. Your big sister at that. Didn’t think she could look after herself? She did, you know, she did pretty good. She had guts, standing there, telling us to knock it off, not backing down, like the other girls who went off squealing, pretending to be afraid.

Anyway, that time you got me alone, without the guys around and knocked the shit out of me, even though you’re younger and you were smaller than me, still are, I guess. I never forgot that. Even though no one saw it, so I wasn’t embarrassed like. I was still shaken up, felt bad for myself, felt ashamed some little runt like you could do that to me. And man, I don’t forget.

Funny how when your dad got wind of what was going on he told your sister and you to steer clear of us. Like you could, eh? How’d I know? How’d you think I’d know? Carrie told me. She told me lots of things. You had to respect her, she never got mad, she just stood there and took it, and then whisked herself off and went on her way. Until the next time. And then the time after.

She said she was behaving in a Christian manner, while we -- me she meant -- were being brutish louts. Brutish louts, get that. She even spoke differently than we did. I don’t mean French-English, since we all spoke both, but the way she talked, it was different. Elevated like, like the parish priest, or something.

She was my friend later, you didn’t know that did you? Well, I got to like her and I knew she liked me. She convinced me I wouldn’t “get anywhere in this world” -- that’s her words, I remember them like it was just fresh, and that was more years than I can really remember back. She was right. I straightened right out. I sure did, I got good at school, got good marks, my mom didn’t know what to make of it.

And then you guys just up and moved. One day you were there, the next day pouf! And I’m just betting that your family wanted to get all of you away from here. I’m just betting this place wasn’t good enough for all of you any more. The street named after your great-great whatever is still there, but you aren’t, none of you.

Like I said, I did good, and I was serious about keeping out of trouble and making a life for myself. I have my own business now, bet you don’t know that. I’ve got my own roofing company and there’s no problem getting jobs, let me tell you. I’m proud of the work that my people do, I’ve got standards. Bet that would surprise you too. Look, people grow up, they look around, they see how other people live, and they change their values. That’s what I did, and I’ve never regretted it.

All that time that passed since we last saw one another, me and Carrie. I thought of her sometimes but never bothered looking her up. So isn’t technology wonderful? I’m on Facebook, like just about everyone else - not you, I know, it’s beneath you, Carrie said so, not in those words, but letting me know you have no use for ‘social networking’. You’re an academic now, she said, you‘re a professor of what, history is it? I forgot where she said you were teaching. In Montreal somewhere?

But Carrie got on Facebook and she looked me up, found me and messaged me. At first it didn’t click, I couldn’t think straight, but how many chicks have that name? She looked different kind of, better looking than before, a lot prettier, and really tall, who would’ve thought? We began to keep in touch. She told me about her work, about how much she enjoyed it, what a challenge it was to her. And where she was living. Not all that far, actually, just across the river. So we decided to meet over coffee at the National Arts Centre café. That was the first time. There were a lot of other times.

We graduated from casual meetings and began to see a lot of one another. I liked your sister a lot. I really did. She never thought she was better than anyone else. She never really gave me a hard time. She represented, I know, a different social level than what I did, but she didn’t much care, and neither did I. She was easy to talk with, I could tease her and we’d both laugh about it, laugh about how it had been, back then.

I had this dog, a nice big golden retriever, a real suck of a dog. He was really a terrific dog, trusting and loyal; you know the usual stuff you hear about man-dog relationships. That was me and him, Dusty. A really good dog. Used to take him along hunting with me. He was kind of useless there. Sooner make friends with the wild animals than help in any way; he was so friendly he’d wag his big rump at any animal he’d see and make such a fuss over seeing it he’d scare them right out of sight.

Carrie liked Dusty, a whole lot, and we went off on week-end afternoons, spending a lot of time together. She ever tell you that? Well, your parents found out and they weren’t too happy, as it turned out. Carrie felt it wouldn’t be right, not to tell her mom and dad about who she was seeing. They asked, see? Because she was getting kind of long in the tooth, as they say, and probably wanted to see her married. Have some grandkids. Your dad, she said, has a weak heart, and your mom, she said, had a bout with cancer.

Things were going really well, you know? Neither of us had any other plans for going out with anyone else, so it was kind of nice hanging out together. Fun, like, and nice, comfortable. And then, wham!

Carrie being like she is, she didn’t send me an email message or anything like that. She planned to be right with me when she gave me the kiss-off. I thought there might be something wrong. She acted kind of strange … for Carrie. She wasn’t relaxed, she was kind of strained looking. I asked her what was wrong, and at first she said nothing. And then she said it, she said she didn’t think our relationship was heading anywhere and it was just a waste of time for both of us. I felt kind of stunned. No one likes to be told that they’re wasting their time when they’re trying to get involved with someone, and they feel good about it, and looking forward to maybe having a future together.

I asked her why.

“Just that, you know, we don’t really have all that much in common”, she said.

And that really surprised me, it really did. Because just being together and having fun and discovering things we both liked did mean we had stuff in common, you know?

“How do you figure that?” I asked her.

“Well, our general lookout on life”, she finally said. “You know, your politics isn’t mine, your values don’t reflect mine. Our backgrounds are different”, not, she said, that we hadn’t shared growing up in the same place, but that our families were so … different.

“I thought we’d put all that away”, I said, really stung, her reminding me of that now, after all that’s gone by, the years when we didn’t know each other, and the progress we’d made lately re-introducing ourselves to one another as adults.

“Yes, you’re right, we did do that to a certain degree, we certainly did, but there’s more to life than simply shifting inconvenient incidentals out of the way. Take, for example, our levels of education - not that I’m faulting you for not completing yours and venturing into post-secondary, but your background set you up for that, and I’m fine with it. But even the entertainment that means so much to you, it’s way off canter to my values. You aren’t interested in cultural entertainment that is a huge part of my life, orchestral performances, live theatre, that kind of thing. When we talk about seeing a film, you always insist on those mindless action films with sex and gore, and that’s repugnant to me.”

“Well look”, I said, “you never mentioned that to me, before. You just kind of went along with whatever I suggested. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes, I did, and that’s not your fault, it’s mine. I was too ready to acquiesce, not to create a fuss. It just isn’t my way to be adamant about things like that. I usually do stand down, don’t insist on what I want. You know I haven’t got an assertive personality. And that’s all right with casual acquaintances, but our relationship may develop into something far greater than that. And I’m simply not prepared to invalidate my values and aesthetics to live the kind of life that entertains you.”

“Well, sure, I can see where you’re coming from. We can talk about this, can’t we?”

“Sure we can, but what’s the point? Where are we right now? On a frozen river, ambling along, which is very nice, since I enjoy the out-of-doors too, but I’d rather be out snow-shoeing, skiing, skating, not going out on an icy river having ‘fun’ ice-fishing. It’s just not my expression. And it’s not about to become a favourite activity for me. I’m not prepared to turn around a life-time of appreciation for cultural and aesthetic and leisure-time activities and shut them away in some dark recess of my mind, and lend myself to the rural-type things you’re invested in.”

“What took you so long telling me? I thought everything was fine between us. Why now, all of a sudden?”

“I told you. I thought I’d better face reality before things got any more serious. For both of us. Look at us here, now. I don’t want to be here, out on the ice on a frozen river. It frightens me. I don’t trust the ice. How much does that truck of yours weigh? What happens if we drove over an area of ice that isn’t thick enough to support the truck?”

I laughed. Not at her, but kind of to change her attitude, know what I mean? To let her know she had nothing to worry about. “Don’t you think I know ice conditions, when they’re safe or not? Haven’t I been doing this for almost my entire life?” Do you really think I’d put your life, mine, let alone Dusty’s in danger? And risk losing my truck, as well? Don’t you think I have any common sense?”

“No, it’s not that, not at all. It’s just that when people are familiar with circumstances they become too much at ease, comfortable when sometimes they shouldn’t be, should be alert to potential problems. It’s not just you, it’s human nature. But it’s also in your nature to enjoy outings like this, they’re an integral part of your life. They’re not mine, and there’s no point my pretending I enjoy it any longer, none at all. You need someone who shares your pleasures, and I’m just not that person.”

“That pains me”, I said, really meaning it. I did feel bad, kind of deprived of something I really wanted, I thought. Know what I mean?

She said nothing for a few minutes, and I suggested, just to prove to her that I knew what I knew, we’d get in the truck and drive over to the island in the centre of the river. “Look, look over there at the edge of the river. See that? That’s my mom’s place. We can drive right up to the island and you’ll still be able to see my mom’s house. Think that’s far? Dangerous? It isn’t. I’ve driven over the ice at this time of year since I was a kid. You know that. Give me a break, Carrie. Okay, I get what you’re saying and maybe you’re right. We gave it a try. Anyway, let’s try to make the most of this day, if it’s really going to be the last day we spend together. Okay?”

She agreed. Nodded in agreement. But said she still felt fearful. She’d do it for me, though.

I called Dusty, got him into the back seat, then we settled in and drove close to the island. I turned around, to look back at my mom’s place, and said to her “have a look, didn’t I tell you so?”

And that’s when that loud crack happened. I’ve heard ice crack before, it does that when it settles. And you know the ice is good and solid, it’s just kind of settling. Nothing to get steamed up about. This was different. Jesus, there were people all around, everywhere you could look at, people, kids, running around on the ice, guys in their ice huts, fishing, trucks parked right there, even some kids flying kites. It’s like no one else was there on the river but us. Like no one else heard that crack.

And faster than I could react, I knew that truck was going under. I’m not stupid, I reacted, I opened my door and got out just in time to leap out and struggle my way through that icy river to haul myself up onto the ice. I was yelling at her to open her door, to get the hell out of the truck. I could see she was trying, but it just wasn’t working. I kept shouting at her, and screaming my fool head off. And then, gone. All of it, the truck, Dusty, Carrie. Like they were never there. Like my being there was a casual stroll over the ice.

I ran like hell, boy did I run. I was freezing, I felt unreal, my clothes frozen, stiff, like this was some nightmare I wandered into. I figure it must have been maybe a half-hour, and then I was banging on my mom’s door. I called 911.

I told the police later I did my best. That I tried three times to get her out of the truck, but she was stuck there. And then, I said, the truck was sinking and I knew I had just a few seconds to get clear of it. And I did. I got clear of the truck. I’m alive and Carrie isn’t. 

 

 

Her Social-Conscience Education

 

Her parents were involved social humanists, activists who deplored and abhorred racism and social injustice in its many forms. They and their like-minded friends spent evening hours debating how they would help to make the world a far better place than it was. They had profound personal knowledge of the inequities that abounded in the world, of the plague of racism.

They were the fortunate ones, those who had emigrated from Europe, to live in North America. They took nothing for granted. They valued everything that was fair and just. Including the opportunities that they felt were opening for them in their new countries. They might well have left the past behind and dedicated themselves completely to their futures without plaguing themselves with the reasons they had left Europe.

They did not. Which goes far in explaining why there was seldom unaffected, light-hearted laughter. And why she, even as a child, suspected something was dreadfully wrong. She was given books to read, just as soon as she could, books that challenged her newfound abilities, just as they challenged her emerging sensibility toward the normatives of failed societies.

She soon became disabused of the idea that it was just Jews and blacks who were both spurned and slandered. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird, How Green Was My Valley, and the Grapes of Wrath grew her awareness of the world beyond her immediate knowledge. And she slowly graduated to books like Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew at a time when her classmates were reading Black Beauty.

She romanticized the plight of American Blacks, although at that time they were called Negroes. And she was confused, coming across young black Canadians who were standoffish and unfriendly to her understanding overtures. Once, trembling before a physically threatening black girl older and larger than her in an alleyway, she grovelled and was permitted to leave unscathed.

And another lesson was learned thereby. After that occurrence she turned to other types of literature, and her favourites became the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan series; she haunted her neighbourhood library for the possibility of any new editions she had never yet read. She had noted her father's choice of reading material; Zane Grey's cowboy action novels, little knowing their fascination as moral redemption through confrontation.

Her sensitivities had been set, she felt great empathy for the world's downtrodden. This was part of her emerging worldview, her intrinsic values. Still, she never aspired to the commitment she had seen in her parents. She was alert, however, and did small things to alert others, to protest inequities when and where she could, to communicate her lofty and genuine human rights values.

Without becoming too overtly involved, she wrote letters, some to be published as letters to the editor, and joined peace marches. She occasionally went along with organized activists to lobby Parliament Hill. She used to joke about her wizened little old mother as a peacenik. That she might be, but she was also forbidden entry to the United States.

Her parents had belonged to a social group that called themselves socialists, but the government called them communists. She could dimly recall having had the figure of Tim Buck pointed out to her in the lecture room where he gave one of his speeches at her parents' social club. She knew, but could not remember that she had heard Paul Robeson sing in the club's auditorium.

She became a feminist in due time, and for a while attached herself to the Quakers. But she soon discovered that 'belonging' to any group just did not express her total commitment to her generalized worldview, and soon left them. She began to write articles focusing on social empathy along with poetry, short fiction, sent them out hopeful they might be accepted in literary magazines, and some were.

She led a busy life, and a solitary one, finding it difficult to make friends, and feeling distant from family. But she moved steadily up in the ranks of the civil service, and she travelled widely, considering herself truly privileged to see so many disparate parts of the world, some she admired, others not.

When, in late life, when the bloom certainly had left the rose of her physical appearance, she did marry. To a man whom she had met at a diplomatic function, while abroad. He was himself a diplomat, born in Tunisia, an un-observant black Jew who claimed his forebears were most likely remnants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Amazingly, she conceived, not once, but twice, and confounded both their expectations by producing two little boys, one shortly after the other. A natural process, but a feat withal, at her age. They exulted, and began to raise their children in harmony and a mutual determination to raise well-adjusted and intelligent beings who would become a benefit to society.

When they re-settled briefly in Atlanta, Georgia, she dutifully visited the Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. She felt awed by being there, moved by the video she'd viewed along with others rapt in attention, hearing that long-dead voice intone "I have a dream". Exiting the building she felt re-energized -- and exceedingly humble.

Because of her husband's diplomatic connections, their two little boys attended an International School, and they adjusted well to their new environment. Another privileged one where they were housed in a lovely bucolic area of the city, a community with its own well-forested little lake wherein swam ducks, geese and swans. She had no cause to worry about her boys bicycling in the neighbourhood.

But in the neighbourhood stories circulated. Hear those sharp sounds at night? Gunshots, that's what. Just be aware. Reasoned that was why, although she and her husband would often go for evening walks in the neighbourhood, they rarely saw anyone else on foot. And those other rumours, that blacks had been seen driving up to the lake, shooting their park geese for the dinner table.

At diplomatic soirees she met the black aristocracy of the city, and the black mayor, and the black Congressman who slid effortlessly through the crowd of those whom he largely represented. Viewing all those well-dressed, sophisticated people she was a little amazed. At the easy confidence with which all these well-connected people, white and black, assimilated at cocktail parties.

Her mind dragged her back to the reality of that part of the city that was a ghetto, where people lived inadequate, degraded lives without any hint of upward mobility remotely possible for the disaffected young. Where young boys dealt drugs and threatened one another through gang affiliations, and young girls thrilled to the prospect of becoming unwed mothers.

She knew the statistics well, had deplored them as unbelievable. Yet a secret part of her took comfort in the well-realized fact that desperately poor blacks preyed on one another, seldom upon those who lived elsewhere. Those areas and life-styles appropriated by an entirely different strata of society, whose well-financed lives bore no resemblance to theirs.

It was there, in the ghettos, that the battles continued to diminish the possibility of extraction from a life-style with few values and wholesale detriments to useful human aspiration. And she often wondered why it was that there was that great divide. What she identified as a divide between educated, well-remunerated, socially-upward blacks, and those who could never sever their ties with disadvantage.

She had met diplomats at the Canadian mission, the Consul-General and his wife, those consular officials representing Canada's trade issues, political, economic reporting and public affairs programs, and tourism. She became intimate with some of the issues involved and because of her past work as a civil servant was welcomed at the Consulate for her experienced advice.

She soon learned to avoid the Consul-General's wife, if she could, emulating all the other personnel, both Canadian and locally-engaged who did likewise. The woman was a haughtily-entitled black beauty, her mother a high-ranking diplomat from Jamaica and her husband was utterly devoted to her to the point of allowing her to interfere with the official work of the consulate.

She preyed on junior diplomats, made their lives miserable, and did even worse with the locally-engaged who were so in fear of her that they trembled in her presence. Should any happen to offend her they would be reported to the Consul-General and then the anger that his wife directed toward him would be re-directed to the cringing offender who had dared question his wife's authority.

When she eventually accepted yet another proffered invitation from the local Welcome Wagon group in her affluent neighbourhood, she understood that the group was a regular one, meeting on a weekly basis, as friends finding much in common. They were delighted to have among them someone with her diplomatic connections and much-travelled experience, and she enjoyed just being another woman in their company.

Their homes were as gracious and well-appointed as hers. Although they owned their own homes, and she did not. Hers was rented and she was there for a specific period of time, after which she would be returning to her own home, back in Canada. The last meeting she attended with the group before cutting off complete contact with them was when they began speaking conspiratorially, then boldly, about school busing.

Integrated schooling hadn't worked, wouldn't work, and they would never accept it. "Why not?" she asked innocently, as they turned astonished eyes on her. "Those black thugs, that's why! You wouldn't want your kids in everyday contact with them, would you?" Would she? She felt embarrassed, stumbled, said something inane about the unfortunate needing opportunities. She wondered, weren't they aware of her children?

Reminding her of the last cocktail party she had attended and when she'd been introduced to a large, black woman wearing a turquoise cocktail dress and large pink pearls, she had somehow managed to lose confidence, spoke tentatively at first, then babbled on about how difficult it must be to be black in this country, this city ... remembering how she had withered under the woman's stolidly blank gaze. 

 

 

Pauper's Purgatory

Vagrant women in 19th-century poor houses. Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832)

The area was overcrowded, clearly not meant in its design to hold the number of incarcerants that were forlornly in some instances, belligerently in others, held together in its fastness. Besides himself there were five other men. The men did not exchange civil pleasantries with one another for there was nothing civil about their surroundings. Some of the faces he took pains to avoid looking directly at were devoid of expression, others incapable of controlling the expressions of their passions.

It was the most wretched of environments, quite beyond anything he could possibly have imagined heretofore. His nightmares - and he’d had a few before this time of absolute purgatory - were unmatched by the reality of his presence in this place. The inmates exchanged nothing, not daily greetings nor their names; not the state of their feelings, nor the helplessness they all felt, at their presence there.

There had been a number of encounters in the month he’d been there. One of the men, a large, skulking figure of a man with a perpetually angry visage, had lunged at another, a young man with bulging biceps who felt he had the right to mock the sloppily loping gait of the other. And who, for his troubles, was given a lesson in, if not civility, then that silence is the better part of braggadocio when in such confined quarters.

He had been set upon in such a brutal manner as to have taken him completely by surprise. His assailant had brutally assaulted him, taking him completely off guard, so that his vaunted physical strength availed him little against the other equally physically endowed, but obviously owning superior strength owing to his dementia. The younger man had been so badly beaten, stomped upon, that his head resembled a mash of red potage. The guards, when they finally intervened - and it took three of those burly fellows - rescued him from certain death.

The maimed and horribly injured man was no longer in the cell, another had been put within in his place. And although his blighted assailant was still with them in the confines that held them all so sturdily, he was now well secured, in chains so that he could no longer move beyond a few inches of the manacles that held him, by one wrist, and the opposite ankle, to the stanchions that were securely pounded into the stone floor.

Although the cell might have been sufficiently commodious for perhaps four inmates, with the five men and two women held within it, there was hardly room for the inmates to move about as freely as they needed to. The attainment of any kind of physical exercise quite impossible, without colliding with someone else determined to move their bodily parts about lest they become stiff from disuse.

The men did tend to move about, quietly, purposefully -- to relieve the tedium and their deep anger at their situation -- in circular paths, yet careful to avoid confrontations.

The women occupied two distinct corners of the cell. He found it peculiar that they did not seek comfort in one another’s presence. Instead, the women did seek out one another’s eyes and they used those contacts to glare hatefully at one another. As though each found the other’s presence disgustingly appalling, an affront not to be taken lightly, as though one was the innocent party, there through no fault of her own, while the other was an indelible symptom representative of the fallibility of Eve’s fall from grace.

Though both had been taken off the streets, as affronts to civil decency, plying their trade openly, raucously, as social deviants through their utter depravity in their attempts to attract the attention of low-down reprobates, the scum of the streets.

The women were scantily dressed, their hair bedraggled, faces smudged with perspiration-laden dirt. And were it not for their obvious bodily contours so attractive to the men there, they would be thought of as hags. The odours emanating from them no less wickedly assaulting than those from the men. Stinking of uncleanliness and suppurating open sores, and the less than fastidious manner by which all of those present cleaned themselves after using the pots for their daily evacuations.

One, the younger of the two, had somehow availed herself of a sharp implement which she kept concealed in the folds of the skirt of her dress. The older one, with remnants of bright cosmetics still on her face, sneered at the younger one.

But both huddled in their separate corners, and at times sobs of desperation could be heard from one or the other of the women. He felt badly for them, even though they were beneath the notice of a God-fearing, upright man with personal responsibilities and an entrenched sense of social obligations. He hadn’t been raised to either use or to scorn such women of the street. Harlots were not spoken of in the circles in which he had been raised. They were merely one of those facts of life, like lice, to be avoided if at all possible.

Their presence bothered him not one whit. He might feel offended at the thought of what they represented, the kind of low vices that were a scourge on society and an offence against God, but he also acknowledged, as an intelligent man, that they were themselves victims of society. He had many other thoughts, however, to consume his time and none of them brought comfort to him.

Needless to say, it bothered him horribly when he heard the muffled and stealthy movements during the night, the soft tones of the women attempting to beg off the attentions of the men whom they no longer had any power to deny for there was no refuge for them that they could take shelter within.

He had heard the younger one weeping, for although she had something resembling a weapon, she was easily overpowered without having wrought too much damage to any of the men who took their turns with her. The older woman as well seemed to try to persuade the men ravenous in their lust when dark fell, but her persuasions did her no more good than the desperate lashings of the other woman.

Little wonder they sat so despondently in the corners throughout the daylight hours, heads hanging low, fingers restlessly pleating the fabrics of their long skirts, mumbling to themselves as though they too had succumbed to lunacy. Little wonder indeed if they did, although it was clear they were in their right minds, minds that desperately clung to some future time when they might be released and breathe the freshness of the air of freedom, and get on with their lives. Whatever their futures were comprised of. He suspected that their futures offered them little hope, that they would cycle from the streets back into the same situation time over time, until physical disorders and death took them.

As for the men, they were the obvious detritus that any society anywhere in the world produces. Born of poor women - likely the very same sort of women that were there in the cell with them - who were unable to provide for their offspring, leaving them to grow into a childhood of poverty and endemic maladies, and if they were fortunate - or unfortunate as the mind’s eye saw it - grow to an early embittered adulthood un-endowed with any education other than the brittle street smarts it took to teach them how to survive against all odds.

None of them had any reason to trust any other human being. For no other human being ever looked on any of them with even a modicum of compassion. Theirs was a life of survival, and petty crime was the only technique which they mastered to overcome the lack of imagination which might steer them into another direction entirely. They were incapable of comprehending another kind of existence, one that might preclude theft, assault, and murder.

It hardly seemed to matter that he, with his reserved manner and tender sensibilities, unused to the rough displays of street life shared these unlikely accommodations with the kind of riff-raff he’d scarce ever noticed as he went about his daily business. But here he was, taken into custody and placed within the sere, stark confines of the institution he and his family had rarely made much note of, despite its direct view of the little cottage in which they lived.

He could, in fact, if he raised himself sufficiently on the balls of his feet, peer out the narrow barred windows in the grey stone walls and make out the cottage which he had taken for his family. At night he could see light in their abode, as candles were ferried from room to room. It tore at his heart to know that Fiona was alone, on her own, with their two infant daughters.

At the back of his mind was the gnawing question: how long would he be kept in this place? No one had informed him of the length of time he had been committed for, although the reason for his being placed there was evident enough. He had lost his employment when his employer had been bankrupted, and had been unable to find alternate employment at a time when the town was undergoing difficulties.

He had defaulted on his fiscal responsibilities. The message he had sent back home to London in desperation to his family who could hardly afford to spare funds that they were themselves not generously endowed with, would scarcely have had time to result in anything to enable him to avoid gaol.

But here he was, eating thin gruel twice each day, with a thin slab of stale bread thrown to them, along with rank water in tin utensils, to still the pangs of hunger. Each of the men there, let alone the two women, seemed to suffer from one ailment or another. Their eyes were red and rheumy, their lips cracked, their facial skin horribly wrinkled as though they were desert dwellers having to cope with the incessant ill effects of direct exposure to enervating heat, a ruinous sun and unceasing hot winds, sucking the spirit of life and the moisture of their very carcasses to leave but a semblance of humanity in their sallow, sorrowing faces and their shambling presence.

He was the tallest among them, and well shaped, having had advantages that they had not. He had been well brought up, in a genteel environment, albeit one of poverty, the son of an
Anglican priest in a small town outside London. He'd not wanted to follow in his father's footsteps; the vicarage did not hold any attraction for him, nor the respected, but ill-paid profession.

How many times since was it that he had berated himself for having believed the stories that went the rounds of opportunities to be had overseas, in North America?

“What, abandon us?” cried his parents, alarmed at the very thought that their sole child might be lost to them forever. And he, seeking to reassure them, that he and his new wife would be far better off where opportunity beckoned, and isn’t that what his parents visualized for him?

“We’ll never have the opportunity to see our grandchildren!” his mother wailed, as his father shrugged helplessly, glum with the realization that nothing they could say or do would dissuade him from his chosen course.

And his wife, dear trusting Fiona, believing in him, trusting him, telling her own parents that when they made their fortune they would most certainly return.

That long, miserable sea voyage they had undertaken. Hoping to save a little more money to enable them to find a house immediately on arrival in Montreal he had paid for steerage accommodation. He hadn’t imagined the difficulties, the crowded conditions, the lack of space, of clean air to breathe, the stench overpowering them of human feces, vomit, uncleanliness and rot. The food they’d taken with them had staled and then run out well before their passage was over, and he’d had to hand over money they could ill afford in greater measure than planned in any event, to those who had experience and knew well what was involved and measures to be taken to ensure they had sufficient of what they required victualizing themselves.

And then it was over. They’d arrived. At a busy seaport, with bustling dock workers - many looking very similar to those with whom he now shared this cell - lofting and heaving the trunks and possessions of those other hopeful immigrants who had gambled with fate and left the poverty of their homeland to confront the opportunities of a brave new world.

Once all the confusion settled into some semblance of order and they’d found what they sought; a good sound position for him as an accountant with a well established import firm owned by a kindly expatriate who took him on trust, and helped them find adequate accommodation, the future began to look as though it might unfold as they had anticipated.

They were comfortable enough, although their accommodations were not in an area they might have preferred. But this was a new place, a raw town where everyone was starting anew, and relations were often strained between the English and the French. Because of those strained relations he began to entertain thoughts of travelling elsewhere, to York, if he could put together enough savings to fund that trip. Intervening, however, were two charmed events, the birth of their two children.

He had begged the guards to give him news from outside. His words were rare for his fellow inmates, but he steeled himself to beg the guards when they appeared with food, to let him know what was happening. Did they know when he might be discharged? Had they any idea how long he was destined to remain there? Was there anything he could possibly do to find out on his own?

He called upon their humanity; how might it be with them if they too lost their employment and found themselves likewise incarcerated? Their stony-faced disinterest made him even more fearful. There was no one to whom he could appeal.

And his thoughts turned to what he had repeatedly seen during the night hours that so fearfully concerned him.

No, not the furtive movements that culminated in groans and wheedling persuasions, the shrieking imprecations of hellfire that often followed. He had inured himself against all of that. It had nothing to do with him.

Little Edie, their baby girl, had been taken ill before he’d been taken away. Marched directly across the street into the great yawping bowels of this prison they knew was there but hardly knew what it represented, apart from protecting society from miscreants, robbers, murderers who lived short and nasty lives. What did they know then about the dregs of society being joined by those whose misfortune flung them into the company of those dregs?

He had watched, night after night in the distance, as the candle flame he knew represented Fiona, moved to the tiny second floor of their cottage where the two bedrooms were; theirs and that of the children. When he realized that the candle remained in the children’s room throughout the length of the night, he well understood that their baby had taken a turn for the worse.

And he well knew that his wife hadn’t the wherewithal to pay for the services of a physician. He knew that Sarah would tenderly nurse their child back to health. Hadn’t it happened countless times before, when their little girls had succumbed to one childish ailment after another?

He felt certain that his employer, although unable to keep employing him, would look in on Sarah when he could. Their cottage had been rented for the year; he’d been able to pay the rental on their arrival in Montreal.

How Fiona eked out of their scant savings sufficient to ensure she could feed herself and their children he had no idea. But he trusted she would somehow, God willing, manage. He imagined that his message had got through to his parents and by return passage, what they could afford to spare had come through to help support his wife.

Night after long night he would rouse himself to move his way carefully through the dank, dark cell until he stood before that narrow window. And it was only on the night that there was no candle, not seen through the downstairs window, nor in the upstairs window, that he truly despaired.

But no one could answer the questions burning through his mind, leaving him in an abyss of terror. 

 

 

Inheritance

 

Verily, it is an odiously ungraceful world

that idolizes a Jewish sage while violating

the humanity of his successors. Ingratitude

of the greatest magnitude unendingly

visited upon a tribe whose numbers are in

constant flux, never permitted to substantial

increase before another deadly assault begins

throughout history from ancient origins to

the present. His name is spoken in hushed

reverence, his people referred to as pestilence

personified not fit to occupy a place in a 

world body never prepared to accept their

presence other than as scheming perpetrators

lusting to gain dominance over all, even

while the veneration of a Jewish scion of

the House of David, inheritor of Abraham's

covenant with God is held to personify all

that is nobly enriching of the human spirit.

 

Winter's Rigid Grasp

 

White, wispy-soft
skeins of cloud
pass leisurely across
the face of the wide, blue sky
that yesterday was busy
with dark clouds
drifting an early spring
gift of enveloping
snow. An icy, dry wind
has since teased
the snow from
tree boughs - and high above,
a murder of crows
whip themselves into a
cacophony of frenzied fury,
dark, wheeling figures
against the blue. The
sun's resurgent brightness
glances off the
winter green fastness
of pine, spruce, hemlock
and fir. The ravined forest
whose trails were
glaciated, are now
tempered with snow again.
The waterways below
have been liberated
and rush impulsively
to swell far-off rivers
clamouring their rescue
from winter's rigid grasp.