Just once no more, p.9
Just Once, No More, page 9
Erratic behavior abounds. Cars roar past you at well over the speed limit, mostly young men grim with unconscious death wishes. One driver sobs and wipes her nose on her sleeve while managing to keep both hands firmly on the wheel. She drives too slowly. There are many forlorn people out today, and you worry one of them will do something rash. Helpless to help them, you can only hope they take the next exit ramp, saving you from witnessing a solo crash or getting tangled up in their multi-vehicle despair.
But on the fast highway in your fast car, you also begin to notice faces, and to recognize them. There is the woman who resembles your sister-in-law from your first marriage, the one you watched reality TV with, both of you howling at the silly things humans said and did. You miss her more than you miss your own ex-spouse—a lot more, in fact. Or there’s the face of the employee you had to let go, although he was a good guy and had two kids and a mortgage. Losing a job after forty can be a blow, and the suicide rates for men of a certain age…What became of him, you wonder, and you suddenly hope he is okay, wherever he landed.
Or, speaking of loss, how about the driver in the red car who could be your sister’s best friend, the one you had a crush on at university. Your sister lost track of the friend over the decades, but you haven’t stopped thinking about her, not exactly. Deny it up and down—and you would, if pressed, and not just with your wife—but you would have been good together. There was real chemistry there. A natural fit. Say it, why not: the woman whose face is like the woman in the red car was ‘The One.’ What an idiot you were back then, blowing your best chance at deeper happiness. And, worse, you are still an idiot today.
Or, speaking of regrets, how about the guy in the roofing-company van, a vehicle that doesn’t seem highway safe, with a fender or even a wheel likely to come off. He could be—no, wait, he is—your good buddy from high school, thirty years ago. That guy was funny and smart, reckless and messed up. Had divorced parents. An abusive stepdad. Trouble with grades, teachers, authority, police. Smoked a lot of weed and hash and, twice in your presence, snorted cocaine. Wore too much real rage on his face and body, forever needing, seeking, walls to punch or just slam into. By Grade Eleven you were distancing yourself from him, sensing he was going to pop, and you didn’t want to be around when it happened. You had an argument over something and fled the friendship like a building up in flames. Not long after, he quit school. You heard he drifted north to plant trees and then out west to work in the oil fields. You heard he did a stretch in prison and was spotted by another high-school buddy living rough in the east end.
Is that really your friend in the van? It sure looks like him. Truth be told, you didn’t think he’d make it to forty, with the wounds he carried.
Then there is the octogenarian in a car they stopped manufacturing in the last century, a car that should be banned from major highways. Take a closer look: it’s your own dad, whom you never forgave for leaving your mom when you were a child, and who is now a sickly old man, lonely and bitter. There’s been zero contact between you in ages. Meaning you’ve no idea really if he even is lonely and bitter, which he ought to be. And to hell with him still, the prick! But then you see the prick’s son edging closer in the rearview mirror. Yes, there you are, a quarter-century younger, riding the back bumper and flashing your high beams. Get a load of that guy: thin and coiled, features lit by callow dreams, ambition and sex keeping his foot on the pedal, sights set on what is directly in front and most easily conquered.
One thing you know for sure. Among all the drivers on the highway today, he is the one you do not wish to meet.
You see these people in their cars, and they see you in your car, and maybe you ask: Okay, what happened to us? But you are all headed for different exit ramps, and in your moving vehicles there is no safe means of communicating any desire, however vague and fleeting, to connect. And here’s another hard truth: you don’t know these other drivers. They only remind you of people you do know, or did once, including your own regrettable younger self. So you drive on solo, another day done.
That is how it sometimes feels being an adult.”
In my speech, I continued: “The stories I’ve told are not mine. They’re a composite of stories I’ve seen or heard or imagined. But the failures in my own life that haunt me are nearly all related to my deciding to opt out of contact with people I could have, should have, stayed connected with. At the very least, people whom I should have made greater effort to acknowledge as being around me, part of me, their struggles and sorrows identical to my own.” Then: “You should know that everyone has trouble with the business of being in close, constant proximity with everyone else, and not being sure how to behave.” It is our shared condition, I concluded, and our shared predicament.
My talk did not go over well. Fixating on vehicular alienation and failed relationships was probably a mistake for a commencement address. Likewise, portraying adulthood as a grind, stepping on the same life-lesson rake over and over, resulting, apparently, in permanent brain injury. Several students, passing by me to collect their degree from the university chancellor, offered kind words. One even put her hand on my arm and said, “It’s going to be okay.” I suspect I reminded her of her father, or any bewildered adult in her sphere. I suspect I reminded many graduates of their parents. Intending to tell a cautionary tale, I had served as one instead. Maybe, I consoled myself, that was of some help?
I had drafted, but then put aside, an alternative address. In part it read:
Adulthood can sometimes feel like a string of one-night affairs. But instead of a single evening of friction, each experience lasts about six months. Each, in the moment, is full of satisfaction and meaning. Each also portends happy change and—at last—confident direction.
For instance: For six months you are in love—love of the consuming, never-felt-anything-like-this variety. The person has lifted your heart up, drawn you out of shadow, shown you the path. Or you make a baby. A baby! For six months your eyes are opened to the universe, the flood of light across the field. No more midnight sob-fests. No more anxious waits for dawn. Or you get the new job. Not a job—the job, the one you dreamed of and fought for. It is the career cap, the life changer, the face in the mirror that is, finally, the face you will proudly own. At least, it feels this way for half a year. Almost, although not quite, as full of meaning as making that baby or falling in crazy love.
And those are the big-ticket items, the illusions worth deluding yourself over. How about the new condo or house? Four months of friction, tops. Or the flash car that has you feeling sleek and sexy? Ninety days, at the outside. The bespoke suit and Prada bag, business-class ticket and five-star hotel? A month, if lucky. After that, it is the organic wild cod flown in from the west coast, the 1957 Bowmore single malt from Islay, the dark chocolate by Amedei. Give those a week, if your nature is sunny, or twenty-four hours, if you’re like most of us. Then the satisfaction, the satiation, drains away, sure as water down a drain, and hunger and thirst creep back in. Along with disappointment. The nag of desire.
Until, that is, the next drink or meal, holiday or car, house or job, come along. Happy days, or maybe weeks, of friction. Better still, the babies, so adorable and fresh, and the sweeter, more agreeable lover. Six months of bliss, here we all come.
I had planned to end this version with the famous Albert Einstein quote: “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few people nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living beings and the whole of nature.”
For decades those words were pinned to a bulletin board beside my writing desk. As explained by a great mind, a meaningful existence seemed so clear: the challenge of a lifetime, simply framed. To escape the shabby prison of the self, and our disastrous relations with the rest of the planet, we need only “widen our circles of compassion.” How to go about this? By getting out of our miserable heads. Getting out and staying out.
But even with the Einstein quote, would the graduating class of 2018 have liked my alternative speech any better? I was in a mood, heavy of heart, head and spirit; and heavy, for all to see, of jowl and gut. “You’re looking more and more like your dad,” people had been saying to me, thinking, I am sure, of that jowl, that gut. “Not for trying,” I usually replied, thinking of head, heart, spirit. Such a comment earned puzzled expressions, which I ignored—just as I was ignoring concerned looks from my wife about my appearance and manner, the fatigue that kept my feet in cement.
This conversation was private. I thought of two generations of men in a fast car racing down a fast highway, no exits in sight, brakes failing or already failed. That sounded about right.
18
You have no one to ask for permission. Your father is in Europe, fighting the Nazis. Your older sister, Barb, is at summer camp. Your mom lives in your family’s apartment, where you lived until recently, but you haven’t talked to her in ages and aren’t allowed to tell the operator to please connect you to Queen1407. Aunt Jean told you and Barb: “Leave your mother be for now. She has to get better.” So now you are both staying with Aunt Jean and Uncle Harry, in a house that is miles away from Sandy Hill, until your mom gets better—which, you already know, means not sneaking her first drink before lunch. “She’ll never stop,” you heard your aunt tell your uncle. “Poor her. Poor them, especially.”
But you are no poor boy, and you don’t think your sister is a poor girl. You need to speak with your dad. Several times you’ve tried, secretly picking up the phone and requesting that the operator put you through to Colonel Charlie Foran, stationed in England, or maybe Belgium. Though most of those women tell you to get off the line, an older-sounding operator asks you when you last saw your father or talked to him. “I was seven,” you answer. When you reply to her next question—you say you are ten now, almost a man—the woman’s voice softens. “Honey,” she says, “everything’s going to be okay.”
Your dad says that too—or used to. He would stand behind your chair at the kitchen table and squeeze your shoulders too hard. “You okay, kiddo?” he would ask. Your mother never touches you or Barb; she pulls back from people as if they are on fire. Now, every day, you stare at the photo of the colonel in full regalia that you brought from the apartment, although you weren’t permitted to bring the lamp in your bedroom, the one that casts animal silhouettes onto the wall. But you still see those images in your dreams—rabbit, deer, moose, bear—along with officers in trench coats and leather boots, pistol sashes and hats with insignia. Sometimes you dream of both animals and men. The streets of Ottawa are sure full of soldiers, and while it is foolish—Colonel Foran is in Europe fighting the Nazis—your mouth goes dry whenever you pass by one displaying a crown and two stars.
Asking permission from your Aunt Jean and Uncle Harry to walk from their house in Alta Vista to another uncle’s home in Rockcliffe Park isn’t something you will do—ever. You’re still mad at them for complaining in front of you about the “arrangement,” and how they weren’t meant to be doing the “heavy lifting.” It is true that John Foran, the other uncle, promised his youngest brother Charlie—that’s your dad—to look after Barb and Dave while he sorted out the Krauts. “Hell,” Uncle John said, right in front of you and your sister, “the kids can come live with us, if it proves too much for Ruthie. Anything for the family.” “Anything,” it seems, except even one single thing, such as inviting the “kids” to their house for Christmas or Thanksgiving, or calling to see how you and Barb, or your sick mom Ruthie, are doing all these months—no, all these years—later. You’ve rehearsed that call a hundred times. “She’s not doing too well, Uncle John,” you will say to him. “And can I please play with my cousin Dick, like you said I could?”
You set off mid-morning, a map of the route, copied from a city guide, in your pocket. You are a soldier parachuted behind enemy lines, the map—guiding the soldier to the bridge he must blow up—hidden in your sock. It is August, and the sky is high and cloudless, hazy from the heat. You are red-haired and freckled and wearing no cap. Following Bank Street to the river is straightforward. Same for crossing the gleaming white bridge, the Rideau green and sluggish between the arches. Though you could save a mile by staying on the east side of the river, you head for downtown. Sandy Hill sits between the bridge and Lower Town, and you wouldn’t mind walking by the apartment where you usually live. Not stopping in; just walking by. Your mother is probably home, keeping out of the sun that so disagrees with her complexion, and flipping through magazines. Sipping a cool drink. Humming to the radio. You know her favorite song as well as she does. Do you think I’ll remember/How you looked when you smile?/Only forever/That’s puttin’ it mild.
You hum the tune now, hearing her voice wobble, trying to hold the melody, which is easy.
Riverdale Avenue takes you to Main Street. A streetcar rumbles past and the Peace Tower peals twelve bells. Thanks to gas rationing, you can walk down the center of most streets without being honked at. You like doing that. You admire St. Pat’s high school, where you will probably end up in two years, and then skirt along the eastern flank of Sandy Hill. No one spots you. No one sees the soldier executing his secret mission. Thirsty—it is boiling out now—you stop at Sandelman’s for a Coke.
“Long time, no see,” Mr. Sandelman says.
“I’m on a mission,” you reply.
“Groceries for your mother?”
“I can’t say.”
Three soldiers enter the shop. Your heart pounds, despite that they are noncommissioned men, two of them with no stripes at all. They ask for Woodbines and Cokes, and wipe their brows, khaki shirts soaked through.
“My dad smokes Woodbines,” you say, straightening your posture. “He’s a full colonel.”
The soldier with the stripe looks at you. “What division?” he asks.
“First infantry. But he’s at HQ.”
“An Alder-big-shot, eh?”
“He’s in England, I think,” you answer, confused.
“Leave the kid alone,” Mr. Sandelman says.
“My mom likes Chesterfields,” you tell them. “I have to go see my father’s brother. We talk war stuff.”
“You go,” one of the soldiers says.
You don’t think of walking by the apartment now. Strathcona Park offers some shade, the trees’ dark canopies and spruce needles releasing a ripe scent, like your dad’s cologne. You remember the cologne, or imagine you do. You must remember! Colonel Foran would approve of your mission so far. Okay, maybe not the stop for a Coke, but everything else. “Textbook soldiering,” the Colonel would say. “Top drawer.” Your sister does a funnier imitation of him. Puffs her chest and drops her voice, drags on a phantom cigarette. “Jesus-h-Christ, Ruthie. Not in front of the kids!” She was older when your father went away; she has clearer memories of him, and of you as a family. You miss Barb too. Why so long at summer camp?
On St. Patrick Bridge, which you could blow up if you had the dynamite, you decide that you should have stuffed your Royals baseball cap into your pocket. Steam rises from the river. Sweat stings your eyes. You study the soggy map, confirming the name of the long street—Springfield—that will take you up into Rockcliffe Park, where John and Winifred Foran live. Once you have memorized it, you tear the map up and release the bits into the Rideau—more top-drawer soldiering.
The final half hour is pure grit. You really should have worn your cap. You really should have used your other nickel to buy a Hershey bar. You feel light, a helium balloon ready to climb the sky. You also feel heavy, like you did that time you caught fever and lay in bed for days, a compress to your forehead and your mother rubbing Vicks VapoRub onto your chest. The burn. The smell. And wait a second: she touched you! She had to, of course. You feel close to crying now, although you can’t think why, and pinch a prickly bush to stanch the emotion. Raising your arm, you watch the blood ride down the inside of your finger and spread across your palm, not feeling a thing.
As you turn at last onto Maple Lane, a block of brick homes with garages and lawns, you remember Uncle John. Once he ruffled your hair and called you “Red.” You try remembering Aunt Winifred. She, as best you can recall, never spoke to you or Barb, nor pretended to be friends with your mom or “big-shot” dad. But you remember your cousin Dick. You remember how you used to play together. Dick likes—liked—you. He’ll be happy to see your face.
You stand before the front door. It is brown, made of wood, with both a knocker and a bell.
Did you break a vase in their house when you were five or six? Tip it off a coffee table, no rug to absorb the fall? The incident comes back to you, a rush of blood to the head. But so what? Kids break vases. Adults, you are beginning to suspect, break everything else.
A voice keeps you from retreating to the street. It is your father, sweeping into your room and pulling back the curtains. “Wake up!” Colonel Foran says. “Don’t sleep so much!”
You tell yourself you’re not scared, and don’t need to pee—or not too badly. You even hum, following your mother’s shaky melody line. How long would it take me/To be near if you beckon?/Off hand I could figure/Less than a second.
You ring the doorbell.
19
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by ruins. Temples, churches, burial mounds and cemeteries, amphitheaters, stadiums, city walls and aqueducts, even just ordinary buildings, houses, barns and sheds: my eye is drawn to their beauty and humility, the evidence of lives lived and lives forgotten nestled within their rubble. During the period when I was mourning the death of my father—and my own younger, more purposeful self—I doubled down on this fascination, largely via the Internet. At the same time, my appetite for learning almost anything, in the hope of better understanding a few things, as though for future career advancement and personal growth, also expanded. If these impulses seemed contradictory, even in conflict, one raising a gaze to the sky and the other lowering a foot into the grave, I didn’t care. Or I didn’t notice, being myself in conflict, contradictory.
