30.EP.27f:
August 8, 2002.
"The War Party, part 5:
The Scouting Expedition: THE NUMB BEFORE THE STORM."
But nothing's ever real until it's gone
--Hüsker Dü, "Too Far Down."
A suburb of Calgary. About 8:00 am. June 26, 2002:
OPENING THE BOOK
Morning, light. The blinds
let in morning light.
My aunt and uncle get up
early. Everybody in my family seems to love getting up early.
I've never understood the fascination, myself.
Getting up early.
Sucks ass.
I squint and focus on the
ceiling above my bed.
The ceiling is white.
The sun is already too bright,
and the room is already too hot.
The day is going to be like
a blast furnace. Still early morning, and already the heat is crushing.
White ceiling.
I sit up. I groan.
I rub my eyes.
I look at my copy of Candy
Apple Grey. It's sitting on the nightstand beside the bed.
The art on the cover is
blue and red.
Looks like shattered glass.
SUMMERTIME, SUMMERTIME, SUM-SUM-SUMMERTIME
I shower, get ready for the
day. I put on clothes.
I come upstairs. My
aunt is sitting on the couch, watching tv. She is nearly deaf.
But for some reason the volume on the tv is turned down low. I don't
ask.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi," I say.
It's a nice livingroom.
Well-kept.
The couch is soft, there
is a recliner in one corner, a big comfy chair in another. They're
all beige.
My aunt's coffee cup is
on a coaster. And the coffee table has the morning newspaper laid
out, well-placed, obviously read but still held together neatly.
Each crease precise.
My uncle walks into the
room.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi," I say.
My aunt and uncle are both
in their 70s, now. Or, if not 70s, late 60s. I'm not really
sure. Somewhere around there.
"You going to be around
for supper?" my uncle asks.
"Naw, I can't," I say.
"I'm gonna be meeting up with Adrian. "We're checking out the big
protest downtown and then we're gonna hang out for a while, or something."
"Oh," he says.
They both look vaguely disappointed.
"Can I get you any breakfast?"
my aunt asks.
"No. I'm okay."
"You're sure?" she says.
"I'm fine. I'm not
really much for breakfast."
"Because it's no problem,"
my uncle says.
"No. Really, I'm,
good."
"Okay," she says.
"But remember whatever you want you can have. Whenever you want.
All you have to do is ask."
"Yeah, okay. But I'm
fine."
"You're sure?" my uncle.
"Yeah," me.
"Okay," he says.
I walk to the tv.
My aunt's been watching Murder She Wrote. I didn't know they
put Murder She Wrote on tv this early in the morning.
"I had it on the news,"
my aunt says, "but it's always the same thing over and over."
One of these days there's
going to be a Murder She Wrote channel. Murder She Wrote
24 hours a day.
"They started protesting
at about 6 this morning," my uncle says. "There might not be much
left of it when you get downtown."
"Anything happen?"
"Nothing so far," he says.
"But the day's still early."
And then, later, there will
be a Matlock channel. And a Perry Mason channel.
And a Golden Girls channel. And a Silver Spoons channel.
And a Home Improvement channel. And an Alf channel.
And on and on. And then we'll finally all be happy. And then
the stars will all go out.
"I think you've got rocks
in your head." My aunt laughs. "You couldn't pay me enough
to go down there. All those people."
I shrug.
"It's what I do."
"Are you protesting?" she
asks.
"No," I say. "I'm
just observing. I just kinda wanna find out what it's all about."
I leave out the part about
how I need focus, how I need to leech of other peoples' focus because I've
lost my own, the part about how ever since the odometer turned over and
everything became the 21st century I've been feeling my own reserves of
focus and purpose dwindle, and how this lack of focus in my life is driving
me insane. Because that part sounds kinda nuts.
"Oh well," my aunt says.
"Have a good time."
She laughs again and goes
back to Murder She Wrote.
The Outer World. About 9:00 am. June 26, 2002:
ON THE ROAD
The way I shrugged off my relatives
back there makes me feel kind of guilty, but I'm in the car now, driving
70, curving alongside the huge mass that makes up Nose Hill Park, and the
wind is blowing through the open windows of my car, and I'd be playing
music right now too but the tape player's scragged, and so....
The plan is this:
I'm supposed to phone Adrian.
And then we're supposed to get together downtown and check out the protesters.
This is the big one: They started at 6:00 am, and supposedly they're
closing in on the downtown core. At every major intersection, they're
stopping and blocking traffic. That's their plan: traffic disruption
during the busiest times of the day-- start when everybody's going to work,
then continue through lunch hour, and then beyond. Needless to say,
this protest hasn't been officially sanctioned. Everybody knows they're
doing it, and they're being allowed to do it-- but this is simply because
it's easier to allow them to screw up the traffic flow for one day than
haul them all into jail. Sometimes there still is power in numbers.
So, the plan is to phone,
then go downtown. And let the party begin. So to speak.
The only real hitch is I
don't really know if Adrian knows the plan. Also, I don't know if
Adrian is actually at his sister's right now or not. Adrian is another
one of those sickening early-wakers. Up at the crack of dawn come
hell or high water or mind-numbing fatigue. I just don't know how
people can do that. I so very much need my sleep.
In fact, I'd intended to
get up at 6:00 am, head out early, and meet up with the protesters (and
maybe Adrian)-- but I'd slept in because I just can not get out of bed
unless I absolutely have to. I think a deep-seated, ultimately unshakable,
perpetually haunting (even when I seem to be happy), existential despair
might play a part in this, but I'm not 100% sure.
So I don't know what to
do, really. Should I call Adrian now, or should I just go downtown
and call him there?
The speed limit quickly
shifts from 70 to 50.
I slow.
The truck following me honks,
and illegally passes me in the oncoming lane. The driver gives me
the finger as he zips in front of me, narrowly missing a headon with a
taxicab.
The cab's horn blares.
ONE STEP AT A TIME
In the end, I decide to park
the car near Alex's place and walk across the bridge, stopping a few times
to stare at the river.
I'll call Adrian when I
get to the other side.
30.EP.27f:
August 8, 2002.