Beyond Measure - A Book Review

by Andrea McKenzie Raine

Pauline Holdstock's novel, Beyond Measure, takes place in Italy in the 1500s, and spirals around the main characters Paolo, Orazio, his daughter and assistant Sofonisba, Ceccio the land lord, Matteo Tassi, Alessandro and Caterina, the slave girl. Each character has a desire to be appreciated, if not seen.

Paolo, an artist, treats human subjects like objects; he searches for the inanimate flesh to make it come alive once again in his art. He cannot see beyond his own flesh and, therefore, has a compulsive need to capture the beauty of the human form in his paintings. He is calculating, methodical and manipulative in the way he obtains these objects. Paolo attempts to move past the emotional element of his subjects to get to the purpose of his art, as illustrated in the following passage:

"...The skin of a hanged man is as the skin of any other. It is its own miracle, a paragon of suppleness and strength and exquisite sensitivity and, when hairless and smooth as in youth and in the female form, a thing of beauty beyond compare."

When Caterina, the slave girl, is presented to Paolo, he becomes obsessed with the living quality of her female form and her strange markings. Caterina is an unwitting gift or pawn, passed around between the characters for the benefit of monetary, artistic and personal status. Paolo insists on painting her in the nude, as he says "a muse clothed is against Nature. The muse must be naked. She is naked truth. The naked flame of inspiration."

The novel examines the existing classes, and relationships between master and slave. The need each character has to interact with the other characters, in their varying positions, is modeled on hierarchy, obedience, responsibility and human value. Paolo reserves the right to manipulate human beings to dissect and exploit them, for the sake of art. Still, for his livelihood and art, he must answer to his landlord, Ceccio.

The circling relationships between the characters are interconnected and dependent, with different agendas revolving around their individual needs for the slave girl, Caterina. She will win them esteem, power, love, or artistic pursuit. Art and people are for bartering, and a means of ownership. Nothing is sacred in terms of art or human life, as each are subject to revisions.

Art is the central theme, and the characters are tied to it either physically or intrinsically. Holdstock's writing is thorough and painstakingly descriptive. She leaves out no detail of the work involved. For instance:

"Carefully he sticks pins into the anima and, in a process of trial and error, positions it securely in the mould, closing the two halves round it. The protruding pins keep it away from the inner walls; it hangs inside, clear of the shell of the mould, trapped and at the same time free, the way, Maestro Paolo once remarked, the rough unfinished soul hangs inside the body, a disparate element, longing for fire. So the artist's work, said Maestro Paolo, was the mirror of God's creation, Man."

The language used is clinical and instructive, and yet poetic and transcendent. Beyond Measure is, essentially, a commentary on art: how one's work is viewed by outsiders, other artists and critics, and the lengths that artists will go to come close to divinity. As well, the sacrifices people will make to achieve their desires.

Morning Couplets

Create the day, and erase; release the mind’s fallacies,
events holding you, that aren’t otherwise real.

A chair in the corner, a book moved on the bookcase,
evidence of someone paying attention to the outside.

This house holds in the heat, the writing room
cold enough for work.

The dark mornings disorient, stumbling to work down dark roads;
the owl doesn’t know it is daylight – hoots nocturnally in the tree.

I wake up to duty, to feed the cats; I stay awake,
get ready to tread off in my good clothes and stay inside all day.

The left hand has never met the right one,
and doesn’t know it is doing anything.

I question how I spend eight hours of my day –
growing or drowning, learning or head-splitting?

The extroverted world makes me go inwards;
everyone plugged into each other – no space for a silent thought.

A blank wall, blank screen, black night; a bright mind,
a chance for something to happen.Days dying.

They all go with no ticket,
no test, no shiny diploma - they pass through.

The Blackbird’s Song by Pauline Holdstock

by Andrea McKenzie Raine

The Blackbird’s Song is a story about the challenges of faith. The reader is introduced to a group of three Christian missionaries who are chosen and sent to China to ‘spread the word’ by holy instruction.

The story is told through the eyes of one of the missionaries, Emily, who watches as her companions, one being her husband, William, struggle along with her in China’s harsh and unpredictable environment. The group also has the obstacle of not starting off strong and united, as a woman, Martha, exhibits extremist behaviour in the group and rails against the intent of the group for adaptation and survival in the strange country. Their struggles deepen as horrible mishaps befall them, and Emily begins to lose her sense of faith. A division begins to take place within the group, as conflicting ideals either real or perceived are brought to the surface, which in turn bring about internal conflicts and suppression of true feelings.

The language is poetic. For instance, “Tsechow was spread below them like a wasp’s nest broken open in the sun.” Holdstock also uses strong, descriptive images to evoke the emotions in the characters and the impact of their new environment. As well, the frequent use of short, fragment sentences echoes the abruptness and urgency of changing scenery, quick action, and sharp, violent thoughts.

The undercurrents carry the tense vibe of changing ideas, while there are increasing overtones of religious strife. Emily is steadily drifting from the group, into herself and questioning her faith and reasons for being there, while Martha is drifting away further into the dangers of the country and her own madness. Emily becomes disillusioned with the idea of God, and feels abandoned. There are also children included in the journey, those of Emily and her husband, who are suffering alongside the adults through the elements and trials of the failing mission.

There is a division of purpose in the group that emerges, displayed in the notions of Christian beliefs, religious extremism, and paganism threatening their united ability to infiltrate the society and assist the Chinese people. Still, there is a silence in the group, as the members don’t wish to communicate these changing dynamics. The mission is falling apart, as the each of the members begin to succumb, in their own way, to the unrelenting landscape and people. New demons arise to test the foreigners, and the group begins to collapse within itself as a result of mind-trickery, obsession, fear and suspicion.

The foreigners face an upward battle, and a constant threat of death, in a land that doesn't want them. Eventually, their stead-fast and narrow views about fortune, faith and god become inverted in the culture they were once trying to save.

Morning Couplets

Words wrestle in me like pregnant thoughts,
their small serifs poke through tissue, paper thin and full of intent.

Skin letting go from muscle; the flesh rises along with me,
a memory of some past self, now buried under life.

It is possible to carve the day into slices,
watch the clock, don’t watch the clock, and watch the clock again.

A thin layer of frost holds in the day,
we should all be sleeping still.

I am not awake for his humour, a side wit;
as my brain still adjusts from dark to light, blur to focus.

Why does the self turn, like a revolving snakehead?
Strike at others, fangs ready to bite into itself.

Chataranga; body made of softwood, this pose
a strengthening of the will to bend, and not break.

Fur flying at 4am, and squawking like a seagull
inside the house, begging for something we can’t give.

A pursuit of being happy; the completeness
and the work that comes with luck.

The art of slowing; to dip into the future,
taking in each minute, the length of a breath and holding.

Morning Couplets

One poet thinking,
holding a universal thought.

One degree of separation exists between bird and beggar.
The bird finds a new lookout.

I berate my heavy eyelids after a night of TV.
I could have earned my red eyes working at words.

Sharing poems, extending words to teach;strangers, connecting, creating community.
I am behind in my organization, the folders on my desk need names and homes.

A work day lost; my morning head is irritated
by this rude awakening of wellness.

My daily scribbling lost, on a yellow notepad,
in a meeting; instructing me on how to reflect on things.

My lighter hair streaks, fading and brittle, reveal the darker source;
these features that don’t matter – not now, not yet.

After a swollen-eyed night
with his ankle on mine, a paperweight.

Waiting for this life to begin, I linger in dreams for
someone to happen, and a golden band around my finger.

Morning Couplets

I make sure we kiss before sleep, waking, and going to work;
his arms, a solid vice around me, say the new day is okay.

The quiet way she enters, long solid legs touch lightly on grass
with her feminine stance, delicately tasting the leaves.

Sun hitting leaves, and the sporadic rain
glistens on the outer walls of a gray house.

A bird high in the tree, small
and invisible, sings its life.

The clear sharp night makes us
pull our sleeves over our hands, stand closer.

Fallen leaves wait in the yard to be gathered;
their tired, frail bodies brightly finished.

The gray, near-fall morning creeps in, and the only warmth
that brings me out of bed – your lips on my lips – a soft parting with sleep.

I can’t visit the dead; dig into the ground
to shake hands after they have shaken off the earth.

I look for a clean spot on my Kleenex,
summer dribbling from my nose.

A family of deer at dawn,
mama leading her kids to the low branches.

Morning Couplets

We stand at our kitchen window, waking up to a deer strolling
into our backyard; a new neighbour.

Mornings and evenings drift away – the time we call ours;
the days we pack tight, to get through them like mud.

I think of my weight in the morning,
how I am better, smaller and unburdened.

The day adds pounds of decision and thought,
I struggle with my balance.

Our fridge moans and the backroom door sticks,
while we move ourselves into the cupboards and vents.

A mountain of boxes, and the military-like strategy of where to fit
what might not fit, but will, as we chip away at the walls.

A fog settles on the house, the street, the trees lose their contrast;
I shuffle inside the halls, put air back in and stretch out of night.

My first morning commute, the art of time management;
I suck back tea and jump headlong into wakefulness.

The difficulty of having a teacher, who feels too familiar
and thoughts slip in and out so easily; there is no room to second guess.

We stop the car, after a cartoon ride – my foot covets the clutch,
after gearing up and down, too slow, too quick to take a turn.

Morning Couplets

The quiet push to be writing, submitting, creating; the pull of work
and an urgency of time to be clean, ready and fed.

We join our finances, make a solid foundation;
a pool to pull together our lives, and our pursuits.

Drive in our car, buy our groceries,
expect my parents for dinner – share our union.

Yesterday, I stayed in my crusty shell, looked desperately for a beach, somewhere
to retreat and be in the salt; I don’t know why the urge seems so easy.

This morning we touch lips lightly, and I hear you stir my tea, as always,
an offering; a quiet word, mouthing “I love you” as you go out the door.

Shifting gears in a parking lot, I swerve around the invisible cars; gear down,
with the radio on low. After hours, lights on, I learn to be calm.

My voice swells like a small ball in my throat, expands into sound,
commits me to brave tasks – makes me be heard; I begin speaking in poems.

On the street, they wake up to the same day as yesterday, and glide through it sleepwalking, swerving, jabbing and bullshitting.

I walk past the unemployed, lined up, hopeful for a little more,
or the ones hovering nearby, downtown philosophers, guarding their shopping carts.

Our cat tries to get to the ghost in the bathroom, scratching
the door. He wants someone to be awake, and to follow him nowhere.

The Art of Reading Poems

As writers, we read poetry for pleasure and to better understand the craft; however, the work of reading a poem often requires great diligence. I've joined another poetry group that is more focused on analyzing the techniques and building of poems. Monthly, we gather in a small group to critique how a poem works. We are given an assignment ahead of time, to look at varying aspects of how poems are built i.e. rhythm or beat, imagery, metaphor, structure, themes, etc. Essentially, we review the poems that members bring to discuss/debate what the poet is attempting to do with the poem, and whether or not it is working. This group was organized by David Kosub, through the participation of members from the Planet Earth Poetry reading series. The blog for our group can be found at: http://www.speakingofpoems.blogspot.com/.

I attended my first meeting last week, and found the experience highly engaging. Initially, we brought these poems as curious readers, looking to the group for help in gaining a clearer insight into these poems, and asking the questions: What am I missing? What point is the poet trying to make? Where is the poem going? Why is this poem not accessible? We observed the rhythm of these poems, and quickly slid into the leaps of metaphor, first debating over whether the poet's intent was to be literal or substituting for a larger theme, such as the interpretation of Ted Hughes' poem, Poor Birds.

In the boggy copse. Blue

Dusk presses into their skulls

Electrodes of stars. All night

Clinging to sodden twigs, with twiggy claws,

They dream the featherless, ravenous

Machinery of Heaven. At dawn, fevered,

They flee to the field. All day

They try to get some proper sleep without

Losing sight of the grass. Panics

Fling them from hill to hill. They search everywhere

For the safety that sleeps

Everywhere in the closed faces

Of stones.

We wrestled with this poem. At first, we read the poem literally, seeing the birds as doing their bird-like activities. Then one member brilliantly pointed out: I see soldiers. The meaning of the poem instantly turned, as we began to pull out War images of front-line soldiers, and the emotions and actions associated with battle. This revelation occurred in many of the poems we were critiquing, and as a group we became elevated in our discoveries as somewhat novice readers.

Unlike my participation in our Waywords poetry group, we are not working on our own poems, but doing collective work to understand the poetry that is existing in the world by either esteemed or not-so-familiar poets.

I admit, I don't usually have enough time to commit to reading poems, although my book shelves are stacked with poetry simply waiting to be read, understood and appreciated. This group lends the opportunity to return to these poems and dissect them. After all, if a writer doesn't understand what other writers are doing, how can they model or improve their own work? Or have an intelligent discussion about literature and what they are attempting to do on their own? With my wine glass in hand, a gas fire blazing nearby, and notebook on my lap, I relished in the company of writers and the nostalgic atmosphere of being part of a 'study group' of sorts.

The group discussion was open and respected, as we all brought our different views and interpretations to the table, and bounced them around the living room. Often we will bring our pre-determined views and life experiences to a poem and, although it useful, it is not always easy to then carve away our own biases and see the true message of the poem, or accept the poet in their intent. Still, once the reader 'gets it', it is easier to develop a clearer opinion about the poet's intent and be able to understand why or why not we favour a poem. I look forward to our next meeting of poetic minds.

Morning Couplets

Every morning, we water the cats – let the flower petals burn,
until evening, dry and reaching; overflowing with summer.

The short hours of night often eclipse the daytime,
and leave us like vampires forced out of the dark.

A lifetime of doing and the hours to allow for such learning;
we put down the foundation blocks, make order and try to fit in the time.

I wake up to stories in the world, a light going on;
there is movement, and a promise.

I try to find sleep in the corner of my brain,
my fingers tick like the clock on the wall, counting the day.

The campfire smoke lingers in my hair, a weekend of being out of doors,
and I watch him closely while he stares at the fire, traveling.

We arrive home with salt and dirt in our hair; wash off our breathing shells,
and hold onto the presence of curious children, being reckless.

I think of how every morning you will be here, and I close my eyes
smiling, stroking the cat, and watching you move through the room.

All I can say, right now, is baby, and you rub my stomach and say yes,
and I say soon, and you say wait, and I say now.

An old flame sits in our living room, makes small references
to a time gone; we three laugh together, easily, at such changes.

Morning Couplets

Traffic-jam arteries and toothpick eye sockets;
heavy fingers type, carve tunnels, pound out the day.

Today, I leave my pillow at the same time I started my first day,
when she may have pulled me to her breast or watched me float away in white arms.

Light leaves us and we are left in a cave; we’d rather see
the false shadows on the wall than this reality.

A gun shot no one hears; the birds and deer won’t tell us
his last words spoken in love into the night.

The shell of a day waits to be filled,
an empty pie crust, cooling.

We fall back to last week, when the world was round and unaltered;
now the world is triangular, balancing on a fragile point.

We walk about in this Labyrinth, look into the trick mirrors
and find nothing, nothing that will convince us that we are real.

The alarm goes off, and is shut down; we try to push the numbers back
for sleep, and for the sake of our brief mortality.

My bones want to stretch long, greet the day unfolded
with arms raised high like an arch, a lightning rod.

A wet spot on the counter, another drop in the pond; I slide
out of bed and bend my knees to walk.

Morning Couplets

Owning of space, owning our schedules and property, owners of
our family rights, our time to go forth.

A morning run to shake off these emotional holds
like leaves, separating, only to return next season.

Our cats paw at the flower boxes, run circles
in a confined space; a mock freedom, a trial run.

This temporary space, a countdown to the next phase;
more ground and duty, our sanctuary.

For a year the slow hand ticks, then spins around
the clock, a measurement of our lives and the time we fill.

A ship sunk and I had not thought of icy waters before,
only bodies lost, and large print on front page headlines.

Amazing Grace drifts over the trees, takes me over the sea;
a transport – and gray air hangs around the dull heat.

I learn to shift gears in the evenings; park,
travel in slow, deliberate circles, and release the clutch.

I am not in the middle of traffic; I am
the girl in the wading pool learning to float.

Rain pelts the ground, a summer drink;
my bloodstream idles, meanders through these moving limbs.

Morning Couplets

We put down our pens and head for airplanes; we disband
for another year in solitary corners of the country.

A puncture in my large toe drains out the nutrients;
My foot sags in puddles dragged behind me.

I take the weather everywhere
a small notebook in my pocket.

We head up island on new wheels
christened by suicide insects and quiet stones in the road.

We strip down our house to make it less ours;
the thought of leaving and others invading this space.

Agreements made, subject to time and money,
we wake each day to find out if we won.

A house at the end of a street waits for us
to enter, first in our dreams and then with solid, waking steps.

Our cats go outside without restraints,
a balancing act of trust and independence.

One falls off the balcony, clawing at the air all the way down
perhaps he wonders, how did this happen? How did I get here?

A series of days spent, filling large bins
with our belongings to keep and to purge.

The Work of Being Read

Over the past week, I have been working at choosing poems for my next flurry of submissions to various Canadian literary anthologies. I haven’t sent out my work in months, so it is about time to get back in the saddle. I am going to try and keep my ‘balls in the air’ by keeping my poems in circulation, rather than put all of my eggs in one basket, sending select poems to one literary magazine, and waiting for a yay or nay letter in four to six months. I have also been passing out my draft manuscript of Turnstiles to friends and family, and patiently awaiting feedback and reviews. I’ve already been given a few valuable suggestions and much encouragement. Last week Patrick held an intimate reading for the launch of his debut novel, Red Dog, Red Dog at the Alix Goolden Hall in Victoria. He said something at the reading that stuck with me: writing about what you know does not mean writing about everything that has happened to you personally. Writing about what you know means having a wealth of information gathered from all the shows you’ve watched, people you’ve met, books you’ve read, news stories, foreign places you’ve been to or heard about, and conversations you’ve had with other people and picking up pieces of their lives.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the 5th Annual Victoria Butler Book Prize Awards gala in the Union Club Building. I was cheering on two friends of mine, who are becoming celebrated authors in their own right: JoAnn Dionne (Little Emperors: A Year with the Future of China) and Arleen Pare (Paper Trail). I have reviewed both of these excellent books on my blog. JoAnn’s book is a memoir about her experience teaching English to elementary school children in China, and Arleen’s book is a mixture of poetry, fiction and memoir about her years working in government beauracracy. Arleen Pare won the Victoria Butler Book prize for adult literature. There was also an award presented for the category of Children’s literature, created by Bolen Books. It was an exciting night for all of the short-listed authors, presenters and guests!

Morning Couplets

We want to move. Move into larger living, move into money,
into the world. We want steps that lead up to our front door.

After an explosion of tee-lite wax in the bathroom,
she bites at her fur, pink and sticky.

He rolls out of bed and onto the highway,
a 40-minute ride out of three hours sleep, to work.

Morning light changes the slant of shadow
on the hardwood floor, near the sleep-dented couch.

We run in concentric circles, only bumping into each other
at night, when time stops, when our hands and thoughts begin to merge again.

Stiff tendons and swelled joints, a few pints in my belly,
after running in circles overnight.

We all fall asleep at breakfast, and watch our friend nurse another beer,
head bobbing, one for the road; the antidote.

We move toward each other under the sheets, push off the comforter, and huddle against
the hot noise complaints and cramped living.

I concentrate on slow movements – reach my hands up and swan dive into a forward-fold
my head heavy, hanging; the backs of my legs tingling, taller.

As day crawls over the city I am leaving, I wait on a curb for the sun to hit me,
dodge rain drops, and fizzle with the heat of going back.

Announcements

Last night, the winners of the 5th Annual Victoria Butler Book Prize were announced: Arleen Pare (Adult Literature) and Chris Tougis (Children's Literature). Check out the website at: http://www.victoriabutlerbookprize.ca/vbbp.html

Morning Couplets

A split in the brain, sharp pain in my hair follicle;
she lies on a steel plate, in a drawer, gone from everyone.

In the silence, there is a death; and after death
there is a pause that gives way to memory and heartbreak.

My parents’ house filled with souls, living and gone;
I can’t say any are dead, some of them I bring home.

We layer the floor with area rugs, overlap themes,
patterns and colours with rubber underlay, a sound barrier.

I’ve seen the house I want for us, in my mind,
the corridors are wide and each room holds a life and purpose.

Guitar strings pluck at my brain, her voice
still uncoils, rises up from inside my ribs.

A small woman on a stage can make a noise that resounds
around the earth, a tidal wave builds, with us in the arena.

A rumble in the dark, my face stuffed into a pillow,
to deafen the sound, and his hand soothes a beast I did not invite.

A heart-shaped token of something sweet, to chase away
bad dreams. My loose eye sockets and sad shoulders.

We walk through houses, perhaps ours, survey
the dimensions and wall colour; envision ourselves.

Morning Couplets

I move through the day like thick sludge, my feet
drag weight, my voice low, sparse, selective.

I pull myself up and out, look towards work and next year,
a favourite TV show, and think of her not being able.

Saying goodbye with her absent hand under mine,
thin skin rolling off her body, she begins to shed this life.

Our short hallway, a race track, our cats slalom
around corners with expertise, their legs no longer fishtailing behind.

A noise complaint at 7 am; we know our cats
don’t have room to stretch their claws, or the capacity to tell time.

A popping microphone and glowing stage; a heavy silence
breath held in and my words fill their ears.

Into the ring with another poet, this elbowing for space
in the local magazine, on the stage, in the mail, on the list.

The cars line the street, bumper to bumper, snails
turning into jaguars, watching for red circles.

He says he doesn’t want to go, go there, go anywhere
clutching his travel mug, glazed eyes seeing the tires in front.

The world wakes up without her;
my limbs are heavy and overworked.

Morning Couplets

He stumbles into his clothes, his head full of sleep,
toothpaste kisses – his contracted nose, trying to keep the sickness in.

A dream of an old lover’s car – the colour, style, speed;
the teenaged debt and driving without a licence.

The way the sun hit the campsite, small planes overhead;
only a few rabbits now – the buildings, smaller.

Cats break our ribs as they race, chasing tails;
the day started, and the quiet corner in the bedroom is gone.

Calendar squares fill up with ink reminders,
a week missing, a long breath exhaled on an empty block.

My muscles decompress from the memory of a yoga mat;
that strange, disobedient body becomes mine, again.

One cat stashes invaluable treasures in the bottom of our bed,
while the other distracts us with hungry head-butts and spurts.

I listen to the colourful lives of others, now gone;
these eccentrics – drinking, marrying, running at the wall.

On my walk to work, I encounter some of the same
faces that show a vague recognition of me, meeting at crosswalks.

Wake with a dry mouth, no sound, no twist in your neck;
my grandma – her eyes practicing sleep, her ears wide open.

Morning Couplets

We move like molasses – only noon and the day waits;
we emerge into spring, a slow trot down to the water.

Turn your back on the weather and it will shift,
light rain teases, on and off like a switch – no plan, no warning.

Patches of sunlight or is it false, a stage light or candle beam?
This bluff of rain and spring – the reason, April tip-toeing in.

The idea of work, going out of the house, clogs my arteries;
I fall ahead to 30 years, when I can finish my book.

The time it takes to write a letter and explain
to someone what you can’t give them, unless they are dying for it.

Living inside an astronaut’s helmet, or a deep sea
diver in this comforter – the juice near my bed, oxygen.

He can’t recall his broken sleep, early morning risings;
our Houdini cats wait to be found inside the bathroom.

My head is clear enough to process work; a red line
across his head, in the back, is evidence of a small animal’s distress.

First barefoot day, gathering sand in toes,
rock heat on my soles; write green poems growing.

Wanting to send my stunt double out,
the minutes tick while I look for the right voice to broadcast.

Favourite poem of the month

PAPER MATCHES

By Paulette Jiles

My aunts washed dishes while the uncles
squirted each other on the lawn with
garden hoses. Why are we in here,
I said, and they are out there?
That's the way it is,
said Aunt Hetty, the shriveled-up one.
I have the rages that small animals have,
being small, being animal.
Written on me was a message,
"At Your Service,"
like a book of paper matches.
One by one we were taken out
and struck.
We come bearing supper,
our heads on fire.

Morning Couplets

A flurry to sign up before deadline; two days, ten words,
another toss into the contestant hat for some slight recognition.

His ear punctured by morning purrs, head butts
and extended claws; her oblivion in being. Happy.

On Mondays, I have to get rid of the weekend,
and accept that I’ve done all I could do in two sun-filled days.

He traces a raised line of cat claws with kisses
and ointment to draw out the sting, gone down by morning.

Everything I can’t think of from yesterday;
what I can’t say is caught and tangled in a dream catcher.

I mourn the death of pre-children, a sigh of not quite relief;
my boy cat lies outside the bathroom door, waits with me.

I don’t believe this is spring, not yet; still a breeze,
as I walk to work under discarded petals and gray sky.

My cat attacks my toes, under the covers,
an unidentified alien thing moving. What he must believe.

Boiled water in a mug says it is morning, part of
his ritual and mine, when there is time.

I make wet eggs, old eggs, my earnest attempt
at breakfast, he glues on a smile and reheats the pan.

A Circle of Poets

On the weekend, I had the opportunity to attend an afternoon poetry workshop with an esteemed American poet, Jim Bertolino, at Wendy Morton’s cozy abode in Sooke, B.C. I haven’t attended a concentrated writing workshop in ages, and found it enlightening to once again be in the circle of poets eager to learn, grow and express through exercises and techniques. It was a way to bring me back further into the world of poetry, after drifting for awhile – to think again in terms of the musicality, space, image and rhythm of words. I often feel that I am at home in these circles, brought into an exclusive group with a secret language, flexing our wings.

A Work in Progress

I am directing my energies towards completing a novella in the first person that is gaining momentum. I am writing about fictional conversations with my grandpa, who passed away nearly ten years ago, using myself also as a loosely fictional character. I am trying to keep his voice real, the way I can still hear him, but it is not easy. Both conversations take place in the mind of the granddaughter who has chosen to retreat to her grandpa’s remote cabin in Golden, B.C. for a summer. I think I can get away with creative licence in not always having the authenticity of his voice, as the voices overlap in thought.

This novella is becoming an important project for me, as it is an opportunity to reconnect with my grandparents and rekindle their personal histories and stories about growing up in early Victoria. When I was younger, I didn’t pay close attention to the wealth of their stories. As well, I lost my grandpa too soon and there were many unfinished conversations, or ones that we never had the chance to start. This is also a chance to ask the questions that he probably wouldn’t have answered, mostly about the time he served in WWII and how that period in his youth affected the rest of his life.

I find myself approaching this project like someone with a long stick poking a sleeping bear – there is so much depth and I want to create a story or environment that unfolds like a journey and does him justice. I don’t want to travel too far down into fabrication, and at the same time I need to be careful of what truths I reveal. I also have many topics to research – as this journey is also physical and geographical. There is travel time involved on roads that I haven’t travelled alone before. I will need to learn about the adventure of driving through the B.C. interior and into the Rockies. I drove across the province once before, as a passenger, to Elkford, B.C. On the way back home, we drove through Golden and slept in the truck on the side of the road. The most I saw of Golden was the sunrise and a gas station. There is no doubt that I have my work cut out for me, and I don’t have the luxury of taking a road trip any time soon.

I also want to incorporate my grandma’s knowledge and love of the wildflowers in B.C. – she was an artist and enjoyed painting our native flowers.

The motivation for this novella was sparked by a contest through Mother Tongue Publishing to write a novel or novella set in British Columbia.

My other news is that last night I received several bound draft copies of my novel, Turnstiles, which were printed for me by a friend. I am so excited to finally have bound copies to pass around to family and friends for review and critique. This will be the final step in making any necessary changes before sending pages with a query letter to a publishing agency.

Morning Couplets

The cats look out like coast guards on this soggy day;
they watch the birds bathe and squirrels run out of the trees.

Spring clean the litter away, sunlight
picking up every speck of winter’s gray evidence.

Monday again and the rain has stopped, I want him
to photograph the cherry blossoms, in such a way, to inspire.

This renovated space falls apart, old pipe
and broken balcony; the impermanence of things.

Thoughts on an open site – an invitation to write,
to writers, more text to read; another angle of the word.

A red flare rockets, a piece of an old ship
carries ghosts and artifacts, time and uncertainty.

Paint a picture of a past event; the colour is never the same and when is it okay
to blend the colours into something imagined, based on story, and share it?

Possibilities lift from our pillows, and manifest into
real time, a real day – the future not so far.

A phone call can mean everything; tell you who you are
where you’re going next, the weight of those thin lines that connect.

The alarm clock fails to tell him it is morning;
a sudden burst of shower and swearing, cats scatter.

Morning Couplets

Wind crashes against window, the hoop and holler
of late night jamboree, and god dousing the flames.

He envelopes me in half sleep, waking, wriggled toes
and skin, here, present and far from dreaming.

A character gently disturbed, tug on his arm,
make him stretch out of mind fibers onto a white page.

Disconnected from the world with a slow Internet,
we rub our eyes, wanting Saturday and unable to accept today.

Sun filters through, Sunday still under a thin blanket;
we wait for the cable guy to hook us up, feed us through chewed wires.

Our alarm slept in and he calmly kisses me, fresh from dreaming;
an hour late, and still he hangs back to kiss the cats, look at me.

Uncoiled from sleep, from winter rains, time springs forward –
a rush to work, pump out night and get ready.

A first bird calling, sings to morning light, a tinkling of glasses;
the way we slowly rub one finger along the rim, arouse our eardrums.

Calculating weeks, looking down the growing beanstalk,
and we passed cloud number nine months ago.

Morning Couplets

When he’s showered, and dressing in the red-lit room, I am lucid
and try to make my legs move. The neon numbers on the clock are abrupt.

Quiet. Soft scuffing of cat paws, pacing and digging;
the assembly of day, drawing this picture before stepping in.

I bring in music, a small device I will take anywhere;
replace the rhythm in my head and songs I made.

My memory betrays me – his fingernail split and I can’t
remember how; those coarse black hairs grow from the top of my head.

Pulsing the snooze bar and rolling on a wide ocean
of mattress, and pillows like flotation devices.

Finding sleep behind wet, stubborn eyelids;
you lying there, a disturbance in me and nothing to do with you.

His coat on and my eyes adjust, wanting this morning
and no desire for more sleep, the writer awakens.

Early morning complaints from the woman downstairs;
thin walls and a thick head, our need to start the day clean.

Two wrong numbers on Saturday morning, one cat vanished;
the other cat, like Velcro, bristles against my hand.

Sunday with no sun, a day of rest;
a day of rest before resting ends, and the moon, a warden.

Morning Couplets

Rain and sun together, candles sparking the corners;
intermittent stages of winter slide into spring.

He sleeps off the work, the night, and the sickness;
his body, a dark mound, a fifth grader stayed home.

My brain pounds against pavement; I am already
laced up in shoes, ready to race through puddles.

I pick at my mouth for words, to unclog some dam –
and only coffee drips from my lips; my dry well cracks.

A female clown and daisy-down, upside down frown;
I knew you’d eventually come around.

Claw marks in the table from some desperate escape,
after a new discovery gone wrong by the cat.

A fault in Gibraltar causes the earth to shift, a jolt,
possibly a move closer to home – a broken voyage.

There are no hard barriers – your sleep before I close
my book, your rising before I move a muscle, and the in-between.

When I think to stumble off my pillow, out from a warm night,
I am greeted by day-sleepers, curled up, who don’t talk to me otherwise.

The cats hunt loose thread, and anything that moves;
I chase after an early morning thought.

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

The notion of bundling myself under blankets with my books is becoming more and more appealing. I need to start organizing my time better to really accomplish everything I want to do. During the week, I spend nearly ten hours a day away from my house. I know... I can hear your tiny violins, and I also know that I don't have as long or frustrating a commute as many people do, but I still find it difficult to cram into the morning whatever I need to do before work. I mean the time for me. I've given up on my morning yoga, and I am lucky if I can churn out a few morning couplets. I usually leave the house with wet hair and a packed shoulder bag (containing a novel, writer's magazine or notebook for lunchtime). I also faithfully cart around a few copies of my poetry book, A Mother's String, just in case. It is always the way -- as soon as I don't have a copy with me, I meet someone who is interested in buying my book. This rarely happens when I do have my book with me. I wouldn't call this Murphy's Law, but it is definitely annoying.

On the writing front, I may be biting off a little more than I can chew. At least it seems that way at the moment. My husband cooks dinner (I am the luckiest woman in the world!) most nights to allow me the time to write. More thinking and structured planning happens than actual writing, but I do get down some thoughts and decent passages. My poems are usually written at my Waywords group, or unexpected moments. I am currently chipping away at a novella, and I am patiently awaiting the first draft of my novel to be printed in book form for review. I have also committed to writing several book reviews for the Pacific Rim Review of Books (PRRB), and I recently submitted an application for a Canada Council grant to assist in research for my second novel. All of these words, places, characters and story lines are swimming around in my head. I try to ignore the quiet, nagging guilt of trying to write rather than cook for my husband. Yet, I make sure our house is relatively clean and organized. I can't help but think: "I hope this means my work will be published someday".

Room to Write

by Andrea McKenzie Raine

You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you look like a real princess.
- The Paper Bag Princess

The rest of the house sneers –
who is she to leave hairs in the bathtub,
to leave the unpacked boxes,
to stay absorbed in her books?

Your words smell like ashes, your stanzas are all tangled –
come back when you are a real poet

I look at all my smelly words.

I told someone about my new writing room,
and she said, “Oh, how wonderful
to have a room where you can shut the door.”
But I never do.
I think of how I might be
shutting something out, or in –

I look at all my messy stanzas.

In my room, I bristle a little,
at any intrusion. I fly around
until I am dizzy.

My elbows poke at the four corners of this paper-bag fortress
with its unguarded border; how easily I could flee.
Instead, the room reins me in and marks this territory.

Enough! I puff out my chest, let fly my fiery words
and slay the critic, the cynic, and all the dirty rascals.

Morning Couplets

Our kittens look innocent after their rampant hours in the dark;
I didn’t dream of them, he didn’t dream at all.

The teasing rain outside, someone playing a drum;
I’m not sure whether to believe the weather.

I pull my sleepy bones into dog-facing down, lunge
into blood flow caffeine flushing, stretch, an offering.

A rare sunlight, rising at noon, small journal entries –
I want to somehow keep the sun in this room.

The warm tea and half-burnt scones don’t entice him
from sleep, a hesitant body, a last day of rest.

Christmas continues to hide in corners, another holiday
of hearts peeks around this week’s bend.

My wits scattered like seeds tossed to chickens;
the day already a puzzle with borrowed pieces, some missing.

On this hearts’ day, we brush lips gently
and later I will bake a cake, deep chocolate, cut to the shape of our love.

As though sleep was something we had not been given, we lie prone
under the sheets, suck air in and out, our inside legs touching, in a three-legged race.

No lights on yet – my mind under a comforter;
I keep the cats off dangerous surfaces where they only hurt things.

Morning Couplets

This morning dance we invent of up and shower, and up,
and you make me a sandwich and I kiss you to work.

Tucked into this room of furniture, galloping
cats, a computer, and yesterday’s news piled high to ceiling.

We clear away the walkways and dream of three bedrooms,
a space to pursue and unattached walls to inhabit.

The shower echoes the Monday rain, alert;
a deep drone to signify a yawn, as water stretches and pounds.

A small flashlight in the closet, and the cats jump
around you; I watch, in fetal position, not ready for today’s clothes.

And, again, the earth makes its weary rotation
around a new moon, another month to howl at.

A home for my books, that other place I escape to;
the wet sky outside, my warm robe, the reluctant push to go out.

There is the writing that takes place before the actual
writing. The daily work I go to and the stillness of ending night.

An old man in the above suite moves furniture, drags
chair legs and bangs on walls all night; he tries to find
a living space – goes nowhere.

A careful eye on the clock, tick-tock, the sleepy seconds
rushed to write and create a day before I am chained to a different desk.

Morning Couplets

After the gift giving, paper unwrapped and turkey stuffed,
we lie mesmerized in our new luxuries and reflect on twelve months of plenty.

The year creeps away; remnants of Christmas live in drawers and messages on the phone, a card in the mail, snowflakes held like canopied balloons on New Year’s Eve.

A new year of chance, we spend the first day betting
on low and high cards; we wait for the dealer with hopeful hands.

The computer screen flickers a greeting; the cat watches
from the far armchair, startled by my early morning.

A couple of pills popped mask the sharp pang of Monday;
the weekend residue dissipates into beer and late nights.

Icy roads, the sliding of classical movements;
a high flute, soft snow – or is the air moving frozen air?

This morning, filled with intention, slips through cracks
of sunlight; how my floor is joined, I exist in-between.

A new connection, another woman’s words on the screen;
I invited this – the past woven with present, and welcomed it.

We rise together in a working life, staggered showers
and the first to put on the kettle; a happy shift.

Piano music occupies spacious thoughts; notes remembered
better than words; a jumble of sound that creates order.

The Empress Letters by Linda Rogers – A Book Review

by Andrea McKenzie Raine

Linda Rogers’ novel, The Empress Letters, is a tale abstractly woven into the historical setting of Victoria, BC during the early 20th century. The story is told through current, intimate letters written by the mother and narrator, Poppy, to her daughter who is lost in China. The word ‘lost’ holds multiple meanings, and sets a tone or an understanding for what is occurring in the narrator’s mind. There are many lost or buried pieces. With the assistance of her travelling companion, Tony, Poppy is on a quest to reclaim her daughter as well as her own truths. The unfiltered letters reveal a strange and hard truth about the unfolding events of the mother’s life. They are also an attempt to explain a family history and rekindle a strained relationship, which has not been reconciled.

The narrator’s experiences of growing into adolescence are somewhat shielded in a proverbial snow-globe of luxury, which is inevitably shattered by the larger, grittier world as she witnesses the human reality of the Chinese slaves “Coolies”, the emergence of World War I, the facades of social hierarchy, and her own confusing desires of coming into womanhood. Her perspective is quickly moved from the smaller scope of her privileged existence to a larger, more philosophical, political and sexually-charged coming of age. Sexual boundaries are crossed, as well as geographical and imaginary ones, which are often skewed by the narrator’s younger, innocent recollections while trying to associate worlds.

Poppy uses art, particularly painting, to define her world through the mentorship of the historical Emily Carr’s free-thinking ideas and committed lifestyle. The historical figures, such as Emily Carr and the Chinese slaves, ‘paint the scenery’ for both social and political events in a turbulent era. For instance, the novel delves into the mysterious underground world of Chinatown during the turn of the century. There is a lesson of place and identity, ritual rhythms, and being safe with your own kind.

There is also constancy in fighting for independence, which resonates through the narrator and her childhood companions. At the same time, they are each in desperate need of support, affection and stability. Poppy revisits her important rites of passage, as she literally journeys across the Pacific Ocean on a cruise ship, The Empress of Asia, to rescue her daughter from the strange, mystical holds of China.

Throughout the letters, there are currents of disruptive change, which are personal, historical or both. The ground shifts underneath like the San Andreas Fault, as Poppy rides the moving earth and adapts to new surroundings in her childhood home, or learns to accept what will not change such as the cruel effects of her distant relationship with her own mother.

Turning Over A New Book Leaf

The summer has rolled by, and now we are settling into the cooling month of September; embracing a new season with the opportunity for seclusion and reflection. I had a busy summer with a life-changing adventure: marriage. Now that the ceremony is over (but never the honeymoon), I am rediscovering the time and space to return to my various writing projects. My hand has been drawn to prose over this past year, so I am working to bring myself back to the strange, ever-changing landscapes of poetry. I am also playing more with the abstraction of poetry, rather than taking images based on my own ready-made experiences or perceptions -- I am trying to step further away from myself. I want to try on new skin, even if I don't understand where it is coming from or where it is leading me.
I am also going to make a more solid commitment to this blog (I can sense your eyes rolling... if you are still there). As I get deeper into my projects, more questions will arise. They are already forming, as I struggle with the confidence to say "okay, I've come up with this idea, but do I have the stamina and guts to follow through?" The answer always comes back as a triumphant "Yes!", but never in terms of "How". That is the journey.
First, I am making sure I spend time on my own writing each day -- morning: couplets, after work: blog, or tweaking any number of genres. Really, take your pick - poetry, book review articles, novels, and most recently an idea for a novella I've been exploring. I have more than ten projects lined up at this moment. Ambitious, right? Nerve-wracking, definitely. Doable? Yes. Tonight, I've started: I am in my writing room unwinding after my work day of, well, writing... but the excitement of my own writing (as opposed to the structured formulas and set language of government writing) takes the tiredness out. I'm now releasing the words that have been waiting not-so-patiently, and switching over to a place of play...

Morning Couplets

Trees bow to each other and dance madly; a celebration.
The dog in his yard stands bewildered, watching.

I light candles mid-day, a tribute to the heart
of December. Soon, we will blow out their cinnamon scent and join the wind.

A crisp sunlight, slice of sky, illuminates a year
closing, opens a window; a bird glides by effortlessly.

The cats pamper each other briefly, in an hour
of change and bricks lifted from shoulders sagged; a fresh coat.

As the rain buckets and near night greets us, we hibernate;
in our flannel, with writing utensils, I lasso words and he untangles numbers.

When the kittens forget the seasonal tree, and chase sunlight,
after the winter night storm that made us all twist our necks.

Like bears, we stay in our soft cocoons, rise to dark skies;
we walk, still asleep, burrow lightly into the folds of each other’s arms.

I am pummeled with sounds – the words and voices of unfinished
speeches and stories – of records by those real or not; always real work.

I awoke to more deaths printed and, still, this day chokes me;
this could be a last day I sleep through and glide my hand across.

The kittens circle the perimeter of the tree, invade diameters,and scramble across the hard surface with overturned parcels in their wake.

Morning Couplets

Housebound kittens watch a flurry of white;
flower boxes frosting under a patch of blue sky.

Packed icicles adorn the roof, two of them;
like twin swords they glisten and melt into the sun’s victory.

The warmth of black kittens contrast the icy white,
beyond my window pane, and the tire tracks of ambition.

There is a stillness in snow, winter gray makes me stay;
reflect on time slowing or moving forward, a reminder, a gift.

Snow melting, and our kittens chase their tails
when everything could be wiped clean as a chalkboard.

He caresses dishes with soap and water, while I coax
the existence of cats from a hardwood surface; these acts of living.

Yesterday’s interview and today’s chipped nail polish;
roads clear and winter moves in with the sun behind it.

I rise first and devour words for breakfast;
my hands are utensils, the cold outside – an instrument.

A meal prepared, a table christened, and friends brought
to warm cups of conversation; a growing circle.

The overcast sky holds in warmth, our hands held
under blankets; we dream of each other under a thick, white blanket.

A week in May

I have fallen off the radar, again. I let the entire month of April, National Poetry month, go by without a single blog entry. However, I did not let the month slip by completely unnoticed. I squeaked in a lunchtime poetry reading at work on April 30, with the help of a poet colleague of mine, Charles. We shared the microphone and had a decent turnout. We also recorded our reading and Charles is working at creating an MP3 file. Once this happens, I will post our reading on my blog and facebook profile.

Otherwise, my attention to poetry has been slipping. I haven't been attending the Planet Earth Poetry series at the Black Stilt Cafe as regularly as in the past -- I am so drained by the end of the week, and I want to spend my time resting at home, and letting my ideas gestate. It reassured me to know that the likes of P.K. Page admitted to not writing a single poem for years, and she managed to come back into the spotlight. Life does have a way of shifting in waves. Right now, my focus is on my upcoming wedding. I do manage to write the odd poem, and I am working at finishing my draft of Turnstiles. It is all work, and exploration. I am also frustrated that I am not being accepted for publication of the poems I do spend time with and send out into the world, heart full of hope. I've entered random poems and contests for publication, and only received pleasant rejection letters. I believe it is all timing, and perhaps my time hasn't arrived yet. I won't give up.

I find that my day job, writing for the government, is sucking me dry. I once had a poetry prof warn me that if I choose a career in writing, the last thing I will want to do is come home at night and write. I am grateful for my work flex days, my writing days. I wish I could work from home every day as a writer.

Announcements

Ekstasis Reading at the Pacific Festival of the Book - March 15, 2008 @ Victoria Arts Connection

Morning Couplets

The force of re-entry from an orbit retreat; hitting ground
with pen in hand, I plunge back into the world.

Pieces of wood snap together and boast their deep burn,
red and solid; the transformation of space and energy.

Paper covered shelves, homeless in their temporary home;
this place of disorder, schedules lost, and a wormhole for the renovators
of thought and work.

Our cats don’t mind the chaos – jumbled furniture,
piled books and yesterday’s news – more surface space.

Kittens scratching at heads, night time cardboard rustles;
a test of skill in the morning rewarded late afternoon.

My kittens lie away from me, until a phone rings or visitors
take my attention, their ego brains attack, vie for my affection again.

Rain falls heavy in carport pools, our half day ticks
by lounging bare on the couch, as we watch the cats race.

We wake to white blankets – this cold warmth of brightness;
snug inside with words, warm tea, our own singular warmth shared.

Our kittens don’t notice the snow – their world, us, loud toys
across the floor. Maybe they can’t see white or anything past normal conditions.

A white-trimmed tree sways like a cobweb, snowy
breeze pushes through an early winter.

Little Emperors' Book Launch - March 1, 2008

On March 1, 2008, my close friend, JoAnn Dionne, launched her first book titled, Little Emperors. The book is a memoir of her time spent teaching English to elementary students in the Republic of China. She takes a look at the boundaries acknowledged and dissolved both in the classroom and beyond the school gates, and the change in China's politics and collective thinking, succumbing to Western influences. Her memoir is both humourous and startling from the daily activities she relays, and life-altering adventures she encounters in a communist country. The book is a reflection of her acqaintances, choices, observations of people and ideas, and emotions while in a foreign place as she struggles with her foreign concepts and assimilates herself into a new world.
She organized her launch to be held in a new art gallery called Dales in Chinatown, Victoria, BC. A fit setting and a phenomenal turnout, as her audience was packed to the rafters. She graciously invited a few local writers - Steven J. Thompson, Yvonne Blomer, Liz Walker, Missie Peters, and myself -to read our selected poems (her favourites) before she read excerpts from Little Emperors. As part of her launch, she also invited a spokesperson from the Free Tibet society. Her memoir is a sharing of her broadening perspectives and embracing of Eastern culture, as well as a message to Westerners about the atrocities that still occur in that part of the world; atrocities that are against basic human rights.
I am honoured to be able to call such a brilliant, adventurous writer my friend, and to have witnessed her great accomplishment and be a part of the celebration of her book.
You can check out her book at: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Little-Emperors-Year-Future-China-JoAnn-Dionne/9781550027563-item.html

Poems

Bare Branches
A fugue

The branches are bare outside my window.
It has been many days since we slept here.
I try not to watch
the little hand move through the day.

The branches are bare.
Outside my window I see stars begin to form.
They mark another day
gone since we slept here. I try not to measure
These mornings I don’t wake in his arms.

The branches bore leaves
for a season. The stars formed slower in blue sky.
It has been many days since
we slept here.
The morning won’t wake in his arms

and I rise in a bed full of night,
try not to watch my little hands move
through the day.
The branches will bear leaves again
and outside my window stars form.
Here we will sleep for many days.






Because You Love Me

I will spill drinks.
I will break things unceremoniously,
stick my foot in my mouth,
but never chomp on my tongue.

Because you love me I will forget some,
but never the scars you hold;
everything you say in quiet darkness.

I will say the wrong thing,
still sound awkward on the phone,
bang my funny bone.

Because you love me I will sing in the car,
challenge yellow lights.
I will tell you off in jest or no –

I may have one drink too many,
burp like a man,
eat with my hands, order squid,
wrap up restaurant dinners.

Because you love me I will stay where you are,
be the last voice you hear before sleep.

Turnstiles - Excerpt

You pay a fee to be admitted through life’s turnstiles; to be propelled into experience.

1.

Marty

Martin opened his eyes. He squinted between his zippered lashes, stuck together with sleep. A small army of shoes marched past his face, half-hidden inside a dingy, blue sleeping bag. His first instinct was to place a limp, protective hand on his nearby knapsack. He was inside a short tunnel that lay beneath a busy London street beside Hyde Park. He didn’t look up. He knew what their faces would convey; their cowardly faces. He was experiencing the real Europe, instead of peering out at it through heated hotel windows or army bunk beds and tour buses. He didn’t have to pay anyone for his space of concrete bedding. He was free. He closed his eyes again. Martin was free.
He ignored his growling stomach. He could smell the subtle waft of French fries from the nearby Hard Rock Café. Tourists - they were all missing the local colour. He would visit Joe, the hotdog vendor, later on for lunch. He got his hotdogs free from Joe. Then he would lie under a tree in the park and watch the tourists get dinged two pounds for using the lawn chairs. He felt as though mindless sheep surrounded him. He had it all figured out. A year ago he had bought a cheap ticket to London and decided to depend on the day to see him through. Martin cherished every consequence. He held on to every face that examined him with curiosity and disgust. He always kept a plain expression. He had no reason to indulge anyone with emotion. In fact, he barely spoke. Except to people like Joe.
When he opened his eyes again, a different army of shoes were marching past. The tunnel was never quiet, and he had long gotten used to the intrusion of echoing sounds and rustling pavement. It was a small sacrifice. He wriggled out of his bed and began to pack up. He would return later that night. Martin had become a familiar sight, and some of the locals knew this tunnel was his home. So did the other shoestring backpackers. Martin marched alongside the army out of the tunnel. The sun was out, and again he squinted. He ran a hand over his stubble head and rubbed his eyes. He turned left.
The sun was already seated royally in the sky as Martin strolled down the wide, crowded sidewalk. He could see the faint shape of an umbrella a few blocks away, and as he came closer he recognized Joe. Martin’s stomach began to growl again.
“Get your hotdogs here! Hello Sir, what a gorgeous day. Would you like a hotdog? Get your hotdogs here! Good day, love! Can I get you a hotdog? Would you like the works?” Joe called to the passing public all day long. He set up his stand on the same corner every day, and everyone who frequented that spot knew him. Some just by his ruddy, round face and others knew him well enough to have a word or two. Martin felt he could relate to Joe because it seemed they were both stuck in London making a living on the sidewalks, and most of the people bustling by chose to ignore them.
“Hey, Joe,” Martin showed a couple of teeth and then retracted his smile. Even though he liked Joe, he was still careful not to let anyone get too close. “Catering to the North American public, are we? It’s amazing you are able to sell hotdogs here. I guess if you had your way, you’d be selling cans of haggis.”
“Marty, my boy!” Joe’s face opened wide with good-natured eyes. “How was your night? Those bloody bed bugs didn’t bite ya, aye, lad?” Joe boomed in his rich, Scottish accent, completely disregarding Joe’s offhand remarks.
“Nah, Joe. No rats, neither. Just the bloody tourists waking me up in the morning,” Martin grimaced.
“Bloody tourists?” Joe raised his eyebrows so high they looked comical. “You better button your tongue, Marty. If there were no tourists there’d be no hotdogs! Besides, what the devil do you think you are... a member of the general voting public?
“You’re the worst kind of tourist, Marty. You don’t pay taxes and you don’t leave!” Joe chuckled and flung a hotdog with ketchup and mustard into Martin’s waiting hand.
“See ya tomorrow, Joe,” said Martin without looking at his friend, and began to walk away.
“See ya, Marty,” Joe said quietly to himself because Martin was already out of earshot. And they both knew they meant it. Tomorrow. Chances were they would find themselves in the same skin, and doing the same thing. The two of them were like hamsters trapped in transparent, plastic balls looking out at the world without being able to break free of their bubbles, and constantly bumping into walls.





Wil

The radio alarm clock began to hum in Willis Hancock’s hotel room. He groaned, rolled over, and slapped an unseeing hand on the off button. He rolled back and stared groggily at the dented pillow beside him. She was already gone, and he tried to recollect the night before. He rolled his eye towards the dresser. There was his wallet, open and most likely empty. His pants lay crumpled beside it. He rubbed his hands over his face and gave a self-deprecating chuckle. Then he began to rise. He was anything but happy. She had definitely served her purpose, but the others had been more professional, and much more discreet. When this happened, he usually didn’t realize he had been robbed until hours later when he found himself at a store counter fumbling for his credit cards.
“You cheeky little bitch,” Willis mumbled to himself as he flipped through his wallet. She hadn’t been discreet, but she had been thorough. Even his lucky Franc coin from his trip to Paris in 1980 was gone. It must have caught her eye. Ignorant street kid.
“She’ll never use it,” he mumbled. “Never in a million years.” And suddenly he felt vulnerable without it. He was a lawyer, and was used to having small charms in his pockets. They were little reminders that there was some luck in the universe, good or bad. This afternoon he was going to the courthouse to hear his father’s will. His father. He sure as hell had never been a Dad. He hadn’t earned the title. Dads played cricket on summer days. Fathers called from foreign cities to say, again, that they wouldn’t make it to the biggest day of your life.
Willis was tempted to throw the wallet in the wastebasket, but he gently placed it back on the dresser with an air of defeat.
An hour later he was showered, sharply dressed, and hurriedly locking the hotel room behind him. He strolled with purpose through the chic lobby and out onto the pavement. He was not rushing to his appointment with excitement or even mild anticipation. He was rushing to get it all over with. He desired the whole matter to be dead and buried. There was a shameful question repeating itself over and over again in his head, and he tried desperately to ignore it… ‘What did the bastard leave me? His only son. What did the bastard leave me? Bastard… bastard… bast…’ he began walking faster.
As he rounded the corner, the large impersonal, grey building loomed before him with its long stone steps. He vaguely imagined guillotines. Willis couldn’t remember the streets he had walked, as though something else had brought him to this place without his knowing or consent. In many ways, it had. He did not want this part of his life to exist. Where was Occam’s razor for moments like these? How wonderful it would be to splice out all the undesirable bits.
Willis threw these encroaching thoughts from his mind and scurried up the stone steps. The engraved wooden entrance doors looked large and imposing, but were surprisingly light and swung open with ease. Willis couldn’t help thinking that perhaps these doors were much like his father. If only he had taken the time to turn the doorknob. Once again he banished his useless mind chatter. None of it could be helped now. His father’s lawyer was waiting for him, perched on one of the many benches placed along the sides of the grandeur hallway. The white marble floor was immaculate. Almost so that if he desired he could see his reflection near his feet, but few dared to look at themselves in a courthouse.
The man rose to meet Willis. Willis knew this man well. Too well. Sometimes the disappointing calls from his father would be telegrammed through this man’s voice.
“I’m sorry, son…” the voice would say, “your father has been held up in a meeting.” Even this man knew his father well enough to know he was only that. A father. A sperm donor. An absent male figure. The dictionary was far too generous with the word. Father. A male parent. God. One who originates, makes possible, or inspires something. The word Dad was merely listed as a colloquial term or a short-cut for Father. It was all so backwards.
“Hello, Wil,” the man extended his hand, which was taken without hesitation. However, Willis shook hands limply. He was still overwhelmed by this place and these people and papers and things. They were all just things. Was he grieving? He didn’t know. It was all packed somewhere inside his big toe. Everything would take a very long time to reach his mouth, and then his brain.
“Hi, Sam,” he answered in a voice that seemed barely audible. Sam motioned him into another imposing room nearby. There were too many thresholds today. The room was small and dimly lit. The blinds were down and the large desk and tall bookshelves seemed to judge Willis from their standpoints. Willis loosened his tie, feeling the musty tone of the heavy dark brown books and neglected carpets. It was a furnished closet where many unsaid things happened.
“Would you like some coffee?” Sam offered. Willis thought he could use something a bit stronger, but he politely raised his hand in decline. Sam poured himself a cup and settled in behind the modest oak desk. He folded and unfolded his hands and then laid them flat before him. There was no real sense of sorrow in the room, but the situation was delicate and Sam wasn’t sure where to begin. He didn’t want to touch a raw nerve.
“I have your father’s papers, Wil,” he began. He pulled an envelope out of a large, squeaky drawer in his desk and deftly handed it over. Willis didn’t make any move to open it.
“Shouldn’t mother be here?” Wil stalled.
“Your mother conveyed point blank that she isn’t interested in what he had to say.” Wil nodded solemnly. She was still his widow, but he had been less than a husband to her. She had known the truth behind his unscheduled business trips years ago. However, she had kept quiet and continued to pack his lunch every morning and make pork chops every Tuesday night. It had been a different era then and she probably made herself believe there was nowhere else for her to go. Maybe it would have been easier if he had run off and left her for good. Besides, she had to stay. She had Willis to think about. And now Hancocks Sr. was dead. The freedom of it was suffocating. Wil squirmed in his seat. Sam noticed and decided to move things along. He was starting to feel uncomfortable, too. He jerked the papers impatiently towards Wil and he could tell that Sam was struggling with the fine balance between urgency and regret.. Wil glanced at him sharply, warily, as though he’d been wakened from a deep sleep. He didn’t want anything from his father, either. Not like this. But, feeling cornered, he accepted the envelope and toyed with the seal.
“Do I have to open this now?” he asked, sounding like a child who didn’t want to do a chore. “Here?”
“I must be a witness to make sure you understand all the implications of your father’s last wishes,” Sam answered in a distant voice. Wil began to peel open the seal. The package felt quite heavy for a man who had been so empty. He pulled out a stack of papers attached with a paper clip. There was too much print. Large blocks of paragraphed ink that Wil didn’t want to swim through. He passed the document back to Sam with a plea in his eyes for some comprehension.
Sam replaced his reading glasses with an air of formality and began to read:
Here states the last will and testament of I, Willis Hancocks Sr., to be read upon my time of death. To my faithful wife I leave my property estate…”
Faithful! How the bastard could even constitute the word and never know the meaning. Wil felt his innards turn and was relieved for his mother’s absence in this obscene mockery.
“…and to my only son I leave a portion of myself that I can only hope will fill the gaps I have left behind…” the remainder of the document contained instructions for the dividing of his assets, including a generous portion, which was granted to Sam for both his personal and professional services through the years. Wil barely heard the rest of it.
“How much?” he interrupted. Sam stopped in mid-sentence and removed the ominous glasses. His eyes were small and beady. A dusty blue. He had a luke-warm glance that took on a cooler slant if disrupted.
Sam had been a dutiful friend, even when it had gone against his better judgement. He was trying to be discreet about the will even now, by sounding vague and assuming his business voice of authority, but the younger Wil knew him too well. Sam’s voice began to trail off.... losing its facade.
“It’s quite a sum, Wil,” he replied in a serious tone.
“How much?”
“Your father wasn’t very good with his feelings. He didn’t really know how to express…”
“How much?” Wil was becoming irritable.
“Two hundred and fifty million pounds, son.” His voice was like a dull thud in the room. Then he added, “I’ve already taken the liberty of depositing the funds directly into your account.” Wil felt immobilized in his chair. The cushion had suddenly become quicksand. He was a millionaire, just like his father. Just like his father.
“What if I don’t accept?” brilliant, he thought. Wil wanted no part of his father’s impersonal, hard cash world.
“Then the money will be given to the city,” Sam looked urgent. His loyalty still lay with his friend. And the last thing Hancocks Sr. ever wanted was to invest one cent in the government. He never trusted the politicians to do the right thing with their liberties. If Wil had known that he would have marched down to the city hall and delivered the boodle himself. But, he didn’t, and the affections he had carried unreturned for his father lay like silt in his stomach. He didn’t want his father’s money to go into a new McDonald’s or a city parade. The men stood up abruptly and shook hands. Wil just wanted to escape. When he emerged from the ominous courthouse doors, he took a long pause on the entrance steps. He drew everything in and the world looked stranger. Even the clouds appeared to be moving faster across an otherwise pleasant sky. The voices around him slowed down. The tempo in the atmosphere was out of step. The mechanics in his brain had been reduced to a hamster in a wheel, overworked. What had just happened?




Martin had been wandering the streets all morning. The sidewalks were wide and crowded. The streets themselves had a smaller ratio of traffic and he was tempted to walk along the painted dotted lines in the road and dodge the cars. At least he would get paid if someone bumped into him. The mobs on the sidewalk lived by the rule of every man for himself. He tried to avoid the shoving and also give it back where he could, and rarely did he make eye contact. He had grown sour and didn’t want to admit his own thoughts, even to himself. But the truth was he was young and ready to accept his creature comforts again. He began to miss pillows, basic warmth, and friendly conversation. Only now he had delved so deep into his notions of the world being dictated by money, politics, and fads, that he didn’t know how to slip back into the norm undetected. His rebellious nature had won him a reputation in the spreading vicinity of his tunnel life. His thoughts pushed behind his eyes as he walked recklessly. What could he do now? He had no money. Suddenly the colourful printed paper and accumulative clinking coins he once detested seemed essential. He kicked the pavement in defeat. There was no use fighting the greedy gods. Could he work? Would anyone hire him? Here? His appearance was almost frightening. He prayed for rain between using the public showers twice a week, which cost two pounds. Martin didn’t want to admit that he had failed in his attempts to rail against the grain, to not be a sheep. He always returned to the underground walkway. He considered it his home – after all, wasn’t home a place you could escape to after your legs grew weary and your head swelled with the pressure of people and words and laborious tasks. Perhaps Marty’s home didn’t provide the best comfort, but it provided him with shelter and a place to submerge from the busy streets. The hum of cars and shoes clanking on the grates above him provided company late in the night when only a few stray souls might join him or pass through, stealth-like, hiding also from the moonlight or police car beams. Marty wandered the streets of London by day and hid from them in the late, dark hours. As he headed back to Hyde Park, he would often see the homeless people cluster together in alleys. They were prohibited from seeking soft grass beds in the parks, even in the warmer season. So, in alleys they lit each other’s cigarettes and spat on the sidewalks. They swayed from the drink, and huddled together to keep warm and upright. They cajoled with each other and laughed with smoker’s lungs. Marty knew none of them and he avoided them. Whatever choices those poor, fading souls had ever made in their lives, they had not chosen to live on the streets with every door closed against them. At least, the choice had not been a conscious one. How the warmly lit windows in every flat on every block must have appeared to them. Marty was painfully aware of his free will in the matter. He wasn’t ready to surrender, yet. He still chose the broadness of the streets over being confined in those brightly lit boxes of windows looking down. Now his smug feelings had turned to jealousy. He suddenly hated the tourists brushing by him cheerfully with their Harrods bags, for a different reason. They had something he didn’t have. They were free. Martin sat down and occupied a piece of concrete.
As Wil rounded the corner he almost tripped over a grungy looking young man sitting on the pavement. The man looked as though he had walked across the continent. The blue of his eyes as he glanced up, startled, looked lost and old. The young man’s expectant hand emerged from his jacket sheepishly, and wavered open before him. Wil hesitated for half a second and then pulled out an executive leather booklet from his inside pocket. He then pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and began scribbling furiously inside the booklet.
“Here chap, here’s a big fat cheque and all you have to do is sign it,” Wil said. Wil roughly stuffed the content into the man’s waiting hand and hurried off, jamming both his empty hands into his deep pockets.




2.

As soon as Martin had sat down on the sidewalk, a man came around the corner at a rapid pace. He stopped short and caught himself from stumbling over Martin’s hunched frame. The moment was confused and Martin was rarely surprised these days. But the look in this man’s eyes was stricken and tormented. He thought he knew his own suffering until now. By habit, he already had his hand out and he suddenly felt ashamed. But before he could take it back, the man hastily said something about a cheque, and impatiently shoved something into his palm. The offering was so abrupt; somewhere in the back of Martin’s mind he wondered if it was a curse. And then the man was gone. Disappearing into the crowd and covering ground with long strides. Martin slowly uncoiled his fingers and stared at the crumpled ball of paper nestled in his palm. He began to delicately pull at the corners, as though recovering some ancient artefact, to free the item from its condensed shape. Then he stared longer in disbelief. The implications of the treasure in his hand registered rapidly. Okay, it was a cheque. He could barely get past all the zeros before he saw that it had not yet been signed. His fingers trembled as he held the thin paper. His hands did not grasp the cheque and pull at the corners as though trying to stretch more zeros out of it. They were not so confident. Instead, he held the cheque as someone might examine the feather of a long extinct bird. The greedy gods had shown some mercy. Martin quickly folded the cheque and shoved it deep into his pocket. He did not move. He sat for a long time with his hands clasped around his tucked in knees. He sat in an upright foetal position while wrestling with his inner voice. As harsh words ping-ponged between his ears, his own self-deprecating words, he wanted more than anything to feel comforted. He had seen the name on the cheque. Willis Hancocks, Jr. Even the name sounded like money. Why not Edmond Shawshanks III? He smirked at his runaway thought and then caught himself with a strange wave of guilt. Even in this humble moment, Martin could not lose his zeal for sarcasm. Perhaps he was still trying to shake the tormented look he saw in the stranger’s eyes. His train of thought turned. The entire episode was ridiculous. For over a year he hadn’t had to juggle more than fifty dollars, and that was on a good day. The only thing he had to do now was endorse the cheque. Fortunately, he would not have to forge the signature. Willis Hancocks, Jr? Hell, Martin didn’t look like anyone’s junior. Some people even gossiped in low tones that he didn’t have parents. Martin had picked up word that apparently he was an abandoned orphan. Perhaps they also thought he had been left in the London tunnel. Martin smirked to himself again.
He was not a malicious man. He knew that. He hadn’t put out his hand for charity until the thread got too thin and he could barely scrounge enough to eat. He hadn’t asked for this, had he? He wanted to run after the man and throw it back at him. If the man didn’t want it, then why didn’t he just tear it up? Why couldn’t he tear it up? Martin wasn’t sure about the workings of fate. He admitted to himself how he had brought on his own failures and, consequently, he was faced with a no exit sign. It was everything he had said he wanted, once. To be his own master and treat his experience on earth as being no more than a human body occupying space and living day to day, just as people had before government and laws and technology. Martin hadn’t expected a dead end to come so soon. And now there was an opening folded neatly in his pocket. But it wasn’t really his opening. It was a door in which that haunting, hasty man had closed.
Martin crouched on the pavement for the remainder of the day and, as the sun began to set, he slowly rose to his feet and started trudging back towards the tunnel. Home was only the distance of one foot in front of the other. He kept his hands out of his pockets deliberately until later he forgot his reasons why, and habitually shoved his chapped, closed knuckles into the shallow tweed pockets. The corners of the folded paper brushed against his startled fingers and, instead of rapidly jerking out his hand as though it would get bitten, he retrieved the cheque and toyed with it for a few minutes. He walked slower with a small grimace on his face. He placed the cheque back in his pocket and walked past the tunnel at Hyde Park. He always returned to the underground walkway. He considered it his home, but not tonight. He vaguely knew that he couldn’t go back there anymore.
. Martin aimlessly covered the streets of London for the better part of the night, and eventually found his sleep on a park bench in Soho. The morning came earlier than he was used to, since being in the tunnel he was sheltered from the sun’s dawning beams that pierced him like swords. He opened one confused eye to witness a familiar sight. Only this time he saw briefcases, flouncing skirts, and wristwatches marching past him. He didn’t really care to know what hour it was. Filling the hours today would not be an uncertainty. Today had a purpose. He sat upright and stretched his neck about to determine in which part of London he had landed. Soho. He hadn’t ventured so far in months. Already he was beginning to stretch his boundaries and now there was nowhere to go except further. He had tried not to think too much about the cheque in his pocket as he concentrated on the sound of the worn soles of his shoes scuffing the old cobblestones the night before. Everything seemed to echo at night without the buffer of bodies crowding the narrow back streets. He had been able to hear his thoughts in the rhythm… scuffle, scuff… scuffle, scuff… move ahead, move ahead.
Martin’s eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, and for the first time in ages he genuinely smiled to himself, mostly because the border between yesterday and today was ironically fated. Pray for rain and you might get hit by lightning. He noticed that the passers-by in Soho didn’t notice him, and he was quietly relieved. Sadly, he could not have smiled to himself so easily in Hyde Park. He was finally abandoning an identity that had created his own villian. Martin was shedding an old and useless skin. He spotted a barbershop on the opposite side of the street, reached into his other pocket, and pulled out five pounds. As he waited for a break in the traffic and jogged easily between the slowing cars, he was struck by another humorous thought that only the day before he would have wished for a car to hit him so that he could claim injury. Despite Martin’s growing lightness of heart at the change of events, when he reached the barbershop’s door he did not bounce through it like a normal person with an average weight on his shoulders. None of this was routine for Martin, and the reality of it smacked him in the face. For a moment, he suddenly felt like a criminal or a sub-human as he lingered outside of the establishment. He opened the door slowly and went inside, but not without a few bewildered looks from the handful of customers sitting in a row with their coffees and magazines. Even the barber, Antonio, who was doing a routine beard trim, raised one eyebrow, and mainly because almost all of his customers were regulars and he had never laid eyes on Martin. At first glance, the young man looked grubby and moth-eaten. His hands and face were dirty and his tweed jacket and jeans had hanging threads and discernible holes. His stubbly head was growing in dark roots. The most he required to look presentable was a bath, new clothes, and a clean shave. As long as he could pay, Antonio didn’t care what he looked like.
“Hey, look what the cat dragged in!” exclaimed one of the younger men waiting, but he had no supporters.
“Shut yer pie hole, Danny,” mumbled an older man seated beside the boy. Danny gave the man and Marty a cutting look and poked his nose back in the daily paper he was reading. Marty’s first instinct was to thump him, but he felt he was out of his league in this joint. He was the stranger.
“Take a number, lad,” Antonio shouted from the barber’s chair. He also gave Danny a disapproving glance. “I’ll be with you in two shakes.” Marty picked up a magazine and settled into the only empty chair left. He tried not to notice the gentlemen beside him, as they examined him. The older man at the end of the row piped up, “leave ‘im alone, boys. Yer no bein’ very subtle!” Antonio smiled to himself with his back turned. Marty remained unmoved until his number was called.
As he climbed in the chair, he noticed Antonio made no enquiring looks towards him.
“What’ll it be today?” he asked in a friendly jaunt.
“I…I guess I just need a clean up,” Marty muttered. He felt small in the chair. He wasn’t used to having anyone take care of him in any fashion. Now he was at the mercy of this man’s razor.
“I agree, you haven’t got much to take off the top… but you do look a bit grizzly,” Antonio jabbered on, “I mean no offence!”
“None taken.”
“Alright.”
Then Antonio kept jabbering. Barbers were like Bartenders. And as a customer, you felt an obligation to tell them everything because they were being intimate with either your beard or your beer.
“So, where did you roll in from?” he asked easily.
“Hyde Park.”
“No, no… I mean, where are you from?”
Martin wasn’t sure how to answer and kept silent a moment. Then he uttered, as if he was afraid it were the wrong answer “…Hyde Park.” Antonio was silent as he trimmed Martin’s beard and moustache. There seemed to be a shift in the air, and Martin felt sorry for it. He was more different than he realized, and it was becoming rapidly apparent. How was he ever going to fit in again? It was a nightmare. Antonio wheeled Martin around to face the mirror.
“There you are, Mr. Hyde Park… like a new man!” Antonio exclaimed.






Wil slipped out of the alley and began to move with the crowd until he ducked into a familiar pub a few blocks away. That day there was a new face behind the bar, possibly the bartender’s son. He gave Wil a passing glance as he cleaned the mugs. Wil was thankful not to see a familiar face. He didn’t feel like shooting the breeze. He approached the young bartender and ordered a pint of Scottish Ale. The darker the better. And he proceeded to order the same for the rest of the afternoon, trying to clear away his own murky waters he found himself drowning in. Eventually, the man behind the bar, who he now didn’t recognize at all, asked him to leave.
“I think you’ve had enough drink for today, sir.”
“What? Oh shut up and pour me another.”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“Well, then, I’ll get behind there and do it myself, then,” Wil shot back as he attempted to clamber over the bar. He felt a strong grip on the back of his shirt, and he knew it couldn’t be the young bartender because he was square in front of him, looking very bewildered.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to go helping yourself?” the deep voice from behind growled, and the next thing Wil realized he was standing out on the curb with a trail of jeers and laughter behind him. He wobbled for a second and leaned his hand on the wall. His arms and legs were like spaghetti.
“Cheeky blokes,” he muttered. He lifted his head to see a sea of people moving towards him, and in his drunken distortion he laid himself flat up against the building, in fear of being trampled.
“Whoa, there, where’s the fire?” he exclaimed. The only response he received were the disgusted grimaces on the faces of the passers-by. Wil began to move slowly against the crowd. He clung to the wall like a first-time ice skater. And then he saw him, and he remembered. That crouched, sorry figure was still squatting on the concrete. Wil’s eyes narrowed. He stood only a block away from the remains of his life, one block away from what could have been his future. But he knew that either way he would have still felt hollow. He had exorcised all of his ghosts by relieving himself of that cheque. That gift. That burden. Hadn’t he? Or had he invited more demons? He stood and watched and felt perilous. His form was highly conspicuous in contrast to the bustling sidewalk. And so was this strange beggar’s form. Neither of them seemed to fit, and somehow they were connected. Anyone watching from a distance would have taken note of this blocked interaction - the watcher being watched. But the beggar never glanced in Wil’s direction. He remained naïve to the entire scene, as he stared ahead, battling with his own spiralling thoughts, like demons ascending back into heaven.
The sun went down behind the buildings and Wil, still in a drunken stupor, was leaning lifeless against the wall. He had not moved an inch in an hour, and his eyes were still fixed on the crouched figure until it began to stir. The figure leaned forward and stretched into a tall, animated being, which then disappeared around the far corner of the street. Wil caught his breath; he had to remind his legs to move until they collapsed into an awkward trot. He followed the stranger, keeping a calculated distance. Part of him wanted to reach out his hands and grab him, apologize, and scour his pockets. Mostly, he felt obsessed about the man he had given his destiny to. Suddenly, the cheque was not just a symbol of money that had replaced his father’s affection. Wil had been irrational. He saw that now. And there was still a chance to make it right. If only to see where this man went… like a mother giving away her baby… simply wanting to know if the right choice was made. Wil was not in the right state of mind, and he had no real intention of doing anything. He followed the stranger all night, all the way across London, just to watch him fall asleep on a park bench in Soho. And he waited until morning.
When Wil awoke by the curb, he met more grimacing faces. He had once been one of those faces, thinking to himself “damn bum.” However, these faces were mixed with puzzlement at the way he was dressed. Wil appeared to be nothing more than a crumpled gentleman, except for the fact he still reeked of beer. He glanced across the street and further down to find that the park bench the young beggar fell asleep on was empty. He reeled around frantically, startling those around him with his wild, jerky movements. Then he spotted his target, entering a barbershop. Wil was willing to wait, but a bobby approached him.
“No loitering here, move along. There’s a hostel down the road. You can clean yerself up there.” Wil stalled for a moment, and made a motion to tie his shoe when he felt the swift pat of the bobby’s stick. Wil gave him a wary look before slinking away down the sidewalk.
“Get movin’, man.” The bobby growled and stood in an authoritative stance, surrounded by happy-faced, law-abiding citizens, and watched him go.


Wil felt a gnawing inside of him. A driving force that he didn’t agree with and one he couldn’t ignore. He was obsessed with the loss of his father, which led back to his childhood. Wil hated his own desire to be near him; to have a piece of him. And he had thrown his father’s last and only gift away, haphazardly, into the hands of a stranger. A stranger who, seemingly, was also leading a less than ideal life. Perhaps his father’s gift would bring this man happiness, if not love. There was such a bitter irony to it all. Still, Wil returned to the barbershop after he had sobered up.
When he reached the entrance, he lingered outside for a moment. The shop was empty except for Antonio who was sweeping the hair on the floor into a pile, which began to resemble a small, furry animal. Antonio looked up and saw an agitated-looking man loitering outside his shop. The man did not look like respectable clientele, so he decided to confront the stranger. A little bell sounded in the doorway as Antonio poked his head outside, startling the stranger.
“Can I help you with something?” Antonio sized up the stranger. A funny vibe told him that he was not in danger of offending a potential customer.
“Uh, yeah… yes,” Wil stammered. “I’m looking for someone who might have come into your shop earlier.”
“This morning has been very busy…”
“A tall fellow, tweed jacket, a little on the scruffy side?”
Antonio’s eyes visibly scrutinized Wil. He couldn’t explain why, but a protective inkling came over him.
“I vaguely remember a chap like that… but that was this morning…” he tried to sound evasive.
“Any idea which direction he might have gone?”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Think.” Wil was growing impatient, and then he realized how he was behaving and internally he kicked himself. He saw the suspicion in the barber’s face. “I mean, well, it’s important. If you can remember anything at all…”
“You could try Hyde Park.”
“Hyde Park?”
“That’s all I remember, chap,” Antonio was growing irritable. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Right… thanks,” Wil moved on down the street, not sure if he wanted to traipse back across London. Antonio stood in his modest doorway, watching him go, wondering what he had done.
“Hope you don’t find him,” he whispered.








3.

Instead of taking the barber’s advice and heading towards Hyde Park, Wil headed back to his apartment. He sat in a chair near the window, his head tilted back, not bothering to put a light on. The next morning, his alarm clock sounded, as usual. He rubbed his head, trying to soothe his hangover from the day before. It wasn’t working. His back ached from a night spent on a park bench, and he wondered how the street people did it. They had no choice, of course. At the time, he felt he didn’t either. His father was gone, completely – every part of him that had been there or not. The possibility of him was gone, which rattled Wil most of all. He tried to rub out the truth, and moved off his bed in his rumpled suit that he been too drunk and tired to take off. He shed his suit on the ground and stepped out of the room, naked, into the shower. The steady pulse of water felt like a gift. Warm water, cleansing him; a bar of soap – he was rich. He stood there, eyes closed, wanting to stay there, feeling the weight rubbing on his skin. But, he knew he couldn’t, which kept his insides cold. He turned off the tap abruptly, like ripping off a Band-Aid; done. Okay, get on with it, he thought. He towel-dried and put on a new suit, the same dark blue colour.
The traffic seemed more chaotic than usual. Yesterday, he had shut out everything except his duty and then his pursuit. He forgot there were more people living and making daily decisions, clambering over each other for some greater happiness. Where were they all going? He hailed a cab.
“Where to, mate?” the cab driver asked, half-interested. It was his job to know where people were going.
“Hancocks and Associates Law Firm. Earl’s Court Square.”
“Law firm? Are you a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of lawyer? My brother-in-law is a small claims lawyer,” Cab drivers always wanted to talk, Wil sighed in his head. They drove around in their hard shells all day, disconnected from the world, but seeming to no everything about it through the sources they found in their customers or through the car radio.
“A criminal defense lawyer,” Wil answered, tersely.
“Oh, ho! You’re one of the big lawyers. Big cases, I bet. Are you handling the case of that murder that happened in downtown London last week?”
Which one? Wil thought, cynically. Instead he answered, “Possibly. There are a few recent murderers that are being looked into.” He was tempted to add, no trials, yet. But that was privileged information. The police were still trying to track down a few, as well. They only had the stories, no suspects. The newspapers were chomping at the bit, and he was glad he didn’t have to answer their phone calls, yet. Instead, he was trapped in a moving vehicle and being questioned by this guy, a roadway philosopher.
“You know, people can say what they like – but I don’t think they all need to go to jail.”
“No?” Wil mused, “You’d rather have them hanging around your neighbourhood then? Jolly good.”
“No, that’s not what I mean, exactly. I mean, they have to go somewhere where they can’t hurt anyone, including themselves.”
“We’re still just talking about the murderers, then?”
The cab driver was silent for a moment, as though he was being challenged.
“No, not exactly...” he started off slow and careful. “Anyone who had done any kind of harm to another human being – couldn’t they do something more useful to pay for that crime, rather than just rot in a jail? I mean, does anybody learn from that?”
“Most people don’t care if they learn,” Wil answered, more thoughtfully. It was a question he sometimes caught himself asking.
“How does it ever get better, then?”
“Sometimes it doesn’t. People want to see those criminals either die or they don’t want see them at all, ever again. They don’t want to know that those people still exist and that they are being sheltered and fed.”
“But, you try and get them off...” the cab driver let his thought hang out, somewhere near the windshield, still inside the car.
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“That’s my job, to try and make sure the wrong people don’t go to jail.”
“How do you know?”
Wil didn’t answer right away. It was too early in the day to question his existence as a lawyer – his life, his career. For some reason, he was supposed to have this conversation. Here, now. Something was stopping him in this cab to give an answer, or something close to it, for his choices. “I don’t always know. I try to have faith in people’s stories; or find some explanation for their guilty actions. I guess I try to show that people aren’t always bad just because they may do bad things.”
“No offense, mate, but I’m glad I don’t have your job.”
For a second, Wil desperately wished that he was in the cab driver’s seat.