Excerpt

I've spent some time in Wasaga Beach writing a book. A teen detective story. An excerpt:

“You're being a baby. I don't believe you.”

“It's not practical.” Noa looks at herself in the mirror. She feels as if she's wearing a costume. It's the first time she's put on a two-piece bathing suit. Rachel insists that she needs to wear one if she's going to look older. Jack's friends are all eighteen and nineteen. Noa looks at herself, noticing her body, a pencil-marked moment, a memory of brushing her teeth, noticing her head was well above the faucet.

“I don't get you. You never wanted to? It was a big deal when my parents caved in.”

“I still think it's going to come off on the slide.” Noa turns sideways and notices a three-year old watching her. The child is wearing massive water wings and her hair is tied in a haphazard bundle near the top of her head. Noa strikes a pose to ask for an opinion. The child looks at her blankly.

“That yellow one would have, it's not really for swimming. But this was has this.” Rachel says, snapping the strap on her cousin's bathing suit. “You still might want to hold it when you go.”

Noa nods instead of drawing attention to the absurdity of a swimsuit not made for swimming. “I'll take them,” she concludes, shaking her head, “this one and the blue one.” Rachel raises her hands in victory, picking it off the rack, filled with the satisfaction of taking her older cousin shopping for bathing suits. “On one condition. If I ever make that face while wearing it,” Noa points to an advertisement where a bikini model curls her lips back in a mock growl, “you have to shoot me.”

“Agreed.”

Noa tries not to think about how she paid so much money for so little fabric. She tries not to think how often young girls looked in the same mirror and sucked in their stomachs, feeling inadequate. She tries to focus on Rachel's excitement, the sense of ritual, wondering if a passing thought might have been an important lesson. It wasn't a test that she could write, or an answer that she could figure out. It had nothing to do with responsibility, capability, or awareness. In the end, it is simply the size and shape of her body that makes her an adult.

I Watch Too Many Movies

I Watch Too Many Movies

I don't remember the sound of the explosion. The firefighters laughed when they heard that one. There were reports from Main and Elm that a gun had been fired. I remember a tremendous wumf. Like an enormous barbecue burner being turned out. I had to have heard the explosion they laughed, I was right beside it and the doctors said my hearing was damaged.

The old woman had been thrown up the stairs or I never would have found her. You're not supposed to move an injured body but the fire was spreading so I did.

I brought her outside and laid her on my jacket to keep her off the snow. It seemed like the right thing to do but I regretted it later. I wish I had grabbed the curtains because my jacket got all bloody and I had to throw it out. Plus it was freezing. I looked at those curtains for a long time but I thought it would be irresponsible to leave the old lady on the front lawn. Even if I got the curtains she probably had already got blood on my jacket so it's not like I could roll her onto the curtains and put my jacket on. Eventually, I saw the curtains catch fire so that was that. That's the thing in those situations. You can't overthink, you have to act.

A neighbour ran to phone 911. Later, he thanked me for taking control of the situation because he was in shock. He said I told him to call 911, report an explosion and an unconcious, breathing senior female. I don't remember doing that. I guess I was in shock too. That was the frustrating thing about being called a hero. I didn't remember the good parts. I felt like I was getting someone else's award. I remember this old lady. She looked like a bandit who had been caught by a posse and dragged by a horse. Her clothes were ripped up and dusty. I stared at her fragile body. I thought a Western that takes place in the snow would be a neat, new idea. I held her in my arms.

I watch a lot of movies and this felt like the scene where the person is dying in someone else's arms. I knew it would be a good scene if it were shot from above. Then I thought she was dead. I really started to get into my role. I tried to think about everything the old lady meant to me.

“Don't give up on me.” I said.

I don't know. Maybe I watch too many movies. The hero always has to keep the dying person awake. If they fall asleep it means that they're dead. “Fight it.” I yelled. “You can't fall asleep.” She didn't respond. “Not on my watch.” I shouted. I gave her a quick shake, a test shake, and it worried me. You ever shake a frail old lady? It's scary. It's like a bunch of toothpicks in a ziploc bag.

And that's when I did what I did. Like I said maybe I watch too many movies. Maybe she was better off sleeping. But my mind was fixated on waking her up. I wanted her to show signs of life. And maybe I was upset about being cold and using my jacket instead of the curtains. So I started yelling every obscenity I know. It sounds odd now but all I was thinking was, if she sleeps, she's gone, right? So I'm whispering to her that she's a dirty slut who fucked a pig for a dollar. And that's a light one. That's beginner's.

She wasn't responding so I tried everything I knew. And when you work in international shipping, you hear them all. Tu madre es una puta, darashinai onna, tu es un putain, du hast null hoden, pezze di merda, bouffe ma queue calisse de fag. It was hard to place her ethnicity so I called this old lady a whore in every language. I'm trying Polish, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and all the Swahilii I know. Her eyes start to open. I'm really getting to her. Then I think, she's an old woman, maybe she's racist. So I start saying, oh look who's awake for a big white cock, big black cock, brown cock. It's a long process but I find out that she hates Catholics and the Swedish and she speaks Italian and some Polish. So I'm telling her that she wants a Swedish Catholic to take his greasy balls and put them-

Suddenly she's hitting me, she's awake, she's full of life. And then I'm being tackled to the ground. At first the copsy were arresting me but then they found out I was saving her life.

The old lady's family was cool and I got to hug them a lot at the hospital. We really didn't know if she was going to make it. I mentioned my jacket and they were really impressed with my sacrifice but they didn't get the hint. Eventually, the old lady came around and they brought me into the room to celebrate. I couldn't really understand what she said to me and I asked someone to translate. Finally, someone did.

"What is she saying?" I asked.
“I don't like this man.”

But there's no way that's everything because she talked for about three minutes until I was told I had to leave the room for her health.

(2009 snow walk to a movie store in Wasaga.)

Literate in the darkness

Streetlights have taken night away. Before perma-day, Benjamin Franklin and his friends would run away from the maddening black abyss of nightfall and hold hands as they huddled around a candle. They were terrified into developing electricity. An exaggeration. I forget moonlight can be quite bright.

All science began with a curiosity about the stars. A nightly constant that has been observed, predicted and pondered by every civilization. Sometimes they insisted that you should connect some of them because they looked like animals (do you see the lion?). Today, the celestial wildlife is hidden by the artificial glow from our well-lit cities. I guess we're done thinking about them.

I used to work as a maintenance man at a recreation center. We cleaned up from midnight until eight am. Our ice rink was overwhelmingly lit -the glare on the white ice strained tired eyes. Our auditorium was throbbing with the dull glow of artificial light. It gives a peculiar manufactured look to colours as if we were all shot on a worn video. When we took garbage bags outside to the dumpster it was always amazing to see what time nature was trying to suggest. Inside there is one hour: on.

State education may seem like daycare for teenagers to keep their trouble causing instincts off of the street (my brother's interesting theory) but it does provide one useful tool: literacy. At no time in human history have so many people been trained and encouraged to read. I liked the metaphor of knowing the combination to a safe. Without literacy, information remains locked away. But now I prefer to think we are given a light that allows us to see more.

That should be the criteria for what tools we should expect from our teachers: lights that helps to see more. Basically, I'm arguing that our musical theater unit in drama was bullshit.

They hate being alone.

You'd see it if you watched us from above. If you received the globe in a glass to sit on your shelf. We'd be interesting for a week, maybe less. You'd say: "I get it, they hate being alone." Sure, at first glance we looked quite dynamic: we're different heights, we have lots of different rules about how to eat and some of us ride other animals. But on a rainy day, if you stared at us long enough you'd realize it's billions of variations on the same theme. They hate being alone.

Even their stories, which are allowed to be anything, are about loneliness. There's this one story about these people that rob a bank and they're being hunted by an old friend-turned-bounty-hunter. Also, they all ride animals. Anyway, there's a big shootout where they kill the Mexican army and everyone is dead except the old friend-turned-bounty-hunter who got there late and feels very lonely. I know you could have predicted that.

They dream about loneliness encoded in images like live snake bracelets and hopping across the ocean on the rooftops of lilypad cars. You watched us at night and exclaimed: "don't they take a break?" You'd torture us with a magnifying glass -anything to save us from our monotonous lives.

The history of their species haunts them: survival by working together. The curse of the community. Courting each other's acceptance, risking rejection. Second-guessing a thousand accidental gestures. She touched my arm, his laughter stopped abruptly, she didn't blink, he asked me to repeat myself -what did it all mean? They hold the antidote for each other but they all suspect it's poison. A hilarious premise, a tired joke they continue to tell.

They try to accumulate love points without risking their own stash. In their darkest hour they lie, bully, intimidate, manipulate, demonize. No one really dislikes anyone else. But they try. they try to create undertows to draw their sweethearts closer by pushing others away. They hate being alone that much. They'll tear their friends apart in order to feel that they're touching someone. It was exciting the first time you saw it. Now, it's exhausting. It makes you want to shake the globe and yell at us. That's what thunder is, children. Someone is bored with us and is shaking the globe.

Play the Song

One of my finest last minute birthday gifts. Kayla suggested I write her a story (an honour of a request) and I suggested I pay her library fines. Here is half of her gift.

Musicians know that you get used to the pain of playing. Instruments hurt. They steal your breath, slice your skin, and damage your ligaments with their relentless demands. Either you build the right muscles and your skin hardens or you quit. It takes time. Music is mostly for lonely people who use the pain to feel alive. It's penance for rock star dreams. The faithful know that if enough worshipers flock to the altar then one of them emerges as the sacrificial lamb.

She made it. She had the record deal. She heard herself on the radio. Now she had the chance to play to thousands of strangers who liked her before they met her. They had bought her album. It was that song. It had become the collective anthem for sad. We all had walked slowly in the rain or stayed on the line to hear the dial tone or felt a dog's heart stop while that song had played. Here are some important statistics about that song that could never be collected:
-Second most total volume of tears caused by a song while listener was in public.
-Fourth greatest average decibel increase when appearing on car radio (the so called "turn it up" effect).
-Most often sung in the shower (indexed by an exposure-to-shower ratio)

Most listeners could not articulate their addiction. They were not aware of the single line that kept them listening to the song. In the third verse she sang "and I found myself, found myself, forever lost" and her voice cracked with emotion. It took great strength for her to continue. The art had almost overpowered the artist. It was a gasp of reality for a culture that was submerged in photoshopped images of beauty and food.

The setting for the concert was beautiful. Summer. Outdoors. They came in great numbers to hear her play the song she had written. She played. She was full of joy. They booed her. In one tremendous voice they booed until she stopped playing.

"What do you want from me?" she was frustrated. She yelled into the mic and it bit their ears with feedback.
"Sing it like it's supposed to be sung." The crowd yelled in unison as if they had rehearsed.
"It's my song." she said.
"Sing it like it's supposed to be sung." The crowd said again, still speaking as one.
"I'm not going to pretend I'm sad." she yelled at them and left the stage. She was crying.
"Do the song now." The crowd said but she had already left. Someone saved the concert by playing her CD through the massive sound system. The familiar recording soothed the masses which were on the verge of rioting.

When asked about the concert no one mentioned how uncanny it was that so many people had spoken as one. Yet they all said the same thing:
"It was bad. She didn't know how to play her own song."

The style became more whimsical than I intended. When I originally thought of the idea I pictured Umberto Eco phoning all of his buddies from semiotics. At least now the story has been created and can enjoy the luxury of retrospect.

Donation

Donation
for Raquel Zepeda (as I wrote this I pictured you enjoying it)

"The rich man put a million dollars into the box. One million dollars. Then he went home where he had more millions of dollars. Then a poor child came to the donations box. His clothes were torn. His face and hands were dirty with soot-"
"What's soot?" asked Olivia.
"It's dirt."
"It's from ashes." Riley corrected.
"It's a type of dirt from ashes." said the priest. "But the point is the child only had one quarter. That's it. And the poor child donated that quarter to the church. And, in the eyes of God, it was a greater donation than the one million dollars that the rich man gave."
"Why?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Did God see that it was a special old quarter that was worth a lot?"
"No children, it was a regular quarter. But, you see, the rich man has more millions at home but the child gave everything that he had."
"What are his fiscal responsibilities?"
"Sorry?"
"It means: what does the child need to spend his money on?"
"I know that. I'm sorry, you're Riley aren't you?"
"Consider that the child's quarter is one hundred percent expendable income because his parents provide food and shelter-"
"The child has no parents," the priest snapped, immediately feeling guilty, "he lived on the streets, alone."
"Where did he get the soot?" Olivia inquired.
"From the dirty streets." the priest collected himself.
"Was there a fire on the street?"
"Where did his clothes come from?"
"Children, let us not lose the meaning of this story. It is about sacrifice-"
"How's he going to eat?" Meredith said. Her crew audibly agreed.
"The rich man should have given the kid the money. Forget the donations box." Justin's suggestion caught the attention of Judith. He was smart and good in arts and crafts. Perhaps they could get married at recess.
"Now wait, children-"
"What if he kept the quarter and put his clothes in the box? Then God would love him and he could eat, right?" said thoughtful Claire.
"After he put the money in, God would make sure he could eat." Heavy Charles stated definitively.
"No," said Riley. "God is not a vending machine."
"That's right, Riley." said the priest.
"But Father, if given a choice between the rich man's million and the child's quarter, which would you choose to accept? You could do more good through the church with the million. A quarter wouldn't even buy a new bulb for the overhead projector." Father Eddie looked at the church's old pathetic projector. What he wouldn't give for one of those new LED jobs they had over at St. Anne's. The childen's questions brought him back to the service. Always the questions.
"Would God be mad if he stole the quarter?"
"Yes. We talked about that last session." Father Eddie pointed to the Commandment count on the wall. They were up to seven.
"I was sick." Kyla then mimed throwing up, much to the dismay of Petra.
"Father," big-eyed Dewey Dawson said in his quiet voice, "is it stealing if the child found the quarter on the ground but didn't yell: did anyone drop a quarter?" all the children leaned in for the answer. Father Eddie felt tired.
"If you found five dollars do you have to call the police?"
"Yeah, how much can you find and be allowed to keep?"
"Is there a correlation between atheism and wealth?" that had caught Father Eddie off guard. He was asked that, years ago, during his studies.
"Excuse me?"
"Correlation. It means a relationship-"
"I know what it means," this Riley child knew many words past her grade, "what made you think to ask?"
"Well, Charles raised a good point, the child might think donating the quarter will bring him food; in which case his faith in God is false. Thus, only rich people can truly believe in God because they're not preoccupied with the struggle to survive. But then I thought, perhaps rich people were less likely to have faith in God because they focus on buying temporary things and forget their eternal souls." The class stared at the Father Eddie. They rarely understood Riley but they could feel the tension in the atmosphere.
"Which do you think, Riley?"
"I think of myself as that child and I want to give everything that I have. But I also want to use my money to care for others on Earth and buy them gifts and food. I love my mom and I hope God knows that I'm trying to show my love for him by loving my mom. I bought her paint for Christmas because I know she likes to paint but she has no time and now my money-" She paused and began to choke up. No one knew Riley's mom but they knew that she started crying whenever she talked about her. The class continued to safely stare at her because her gaze was pinned to the eyes of Father Eddie. "I want to surrender myself to God and study to be a priest but I don't know. Sometimes I don't know if the church is the best way to serve God." Riley's voice held as tracks of tears ran down her cheeks. Her words had traveled far into the priest's memory and recalled a faint echo. Father Eddie's eyes were glazed in quiet crying. Suddenly, he didn't want to be here teaching kids about sacrifice and giving quarters. He wanted to be robbing banks. Robbing banks and donating the money to the church. The world was crazy, bankers collected massive profits while his church couldn't even project the words to "Silent Night" for the Christmas service. He pictured himself with a bag of money, shooting his gun in the air and riding on the sidebar of a car from the 1920s. But modern banking and theft were digital and he was hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine computer world. St. Anne's was still mad at him for playing with their LED projector and changing the default resolution or some such nonsense. He looked at the children's faces. They had been sitting there silently, waiting for him, for guidance.
"Wait," said Justin. "Riley, you can't be a priest, you're a girl." The class burst into laughter like a fully trained choir. Sometimes, Justin said the right thing at the right time. Some tears rolled down the priest's face. Perhaps it was seeing an adult cry or perhaps Justin's comment had been that funny but all of the children began to cry as they laughed themselves to an exhausting, sniffling aftermath.
"Riley," Father Eddie said, disguising the tremble in his voice, "with people like you, I never worry about God's love on Earth." Riley smiled and the bell rang.
The entire class of Ms. Pemberton's Grade Twos would reach adulthood. Most would say that they "believed in God" but their reasoning varied. Some would argue that the human eye was so complex it meant it had been designed. Others believed there was something out there but unsure if they called it 'God'. Still others, would point to a flower, a tiger, or a natural disaster as their proof.