Chapter Ten: “God’s Final Act”

Ed stared at the farchment for a few more minutes before realising that perhaps his vision the night before had been playing tricks on him.  Perhaps it wasn’t a miracle after all.  It certainly didn’t look holy; it didn’t even look comprehensible.  He couldn’t believe it.  He was so sure that he had seen an apparition of Mary holding the Christ child in her arms the night before.  He was so sure!

He re-hung the macramé, went to the kitchen and put on a cup of coffee.  That woke Dave who came to the kitchen dressed only in his pants. Ed told him the whole story while he made coffee, and they were soon joined by Andrew.  Dave poured the last of the sugar from the paper bag into a bowl and carefully folded the empty bag and put it into his back pocket.

“What’d you do that for?” Andrew asked. “You know the garbage’s under the sink”.

“I know man, but last night Chumley found the centre of the universe.  It was on the wall right about by Mary’s left nipple, but Ed wouldn’t let him leave a mark there.”

“Damn right” Ed interposed.

“Well, Roy said Chumley was a little choked about

the whole thing.  It’s not as though it’s a trivial thing.  It’s the centre of the universe”

“So?” Ed riposted, half in incredulity, half in self-defence.

“Heh, heh.  Anyway, he figured there might be a need to create a backup centre of the universe.  Just in case he forgot where the original was.  After all, you wouldn’t let him mark it.  He found it on the side of this sugar bag”.  Here he paused and held it open to reveal a big ‘X’ marked with a felt pen.

“Chumley was apparently afraid it would end up in the garbage.  Roy made me promise I’d get up early and save it for him.  He was pretty obsessed about it.”

“Speaking of obsession, I think I better get washed up and head to Mass,” Ed decided, rolling his eyes.  “Father Fortinbras is pretty angry with me.  If he tells my dad about the state of this place, the rest of you guys’ll be auditioning for another new flat-mate”.  With that, he headed for the bathroom.  No sooner had he closed the door when Chumley emerged from the good bedroom with the hugest grin imaginable.

“Coffee?” someone asked as he strode past and into the communal bedroom in search of a change of clothes.  He wafted like a float in a May Queen parade, shaking his head from side to side.

“What’ve you got planned?”  Andrew asked.

”I thought we’d take a refreshing walk in the

snow.”

“We? Uh unh, I don’t know how to tell you this,

but I’m not going anywhere. Have you looked

outside?”

“Not you, peckerhead!”

At that moment, Kathy emerged from the good

bedroom and planted a wet kiss on Chumley’s cheek,

waiting outside the bathroom until Ed emerged,

doing a double take.  She smiled sidewise and

devilishly at Ed.

“Sounds like you had some pretty interesting

company this morning Ed. By the way Ed, clamato

juice isn’t made from the berries of the clematis,

is it?”

Ed was looking like a rat that had been

unexpectedly cornered.

“Not really. I guess the guy who told me didn’t

have a clue. We were both fooled.”

“There’s only one fool here, isn’t there Ed.”

“C’mon Kathy.  I was just pulling your leg. I

didn’t mean anything…”

“Oh, I think you did.  I think you meant that a

girl like me wouldn’t have the brains to know the

difference between stigma and stigmata.”

“Well…”

“And you think just because you’re a guy and in

college, that you’ve got it all over a chick who

works as a salesgirl at Le Chateau.”

”I…”

“Know what I think? I think you’re seeing too

much of Mary.  You ought to be seeing other girls.”

Giggles leaked out of the others…

“Ed, you’re a peckerhead.”

…and exploded into roars.  Kathy made it to the

hall door, but Andrew managed to intercept Chumley

and in a hoarse whisper asked, “Did ya get into her

pants?”

“Christ you’re crude Andrew. I think Ed and

Dave are having an unhealthy effect on you. You

should try and get out more often.  But for your

information  I didn’t. I didn’t even get into her

sweater.  I didn’t have to. I got into her mind.”

“Her what!”

“I didn’t expect you to understand… We read

poetry all evening.”

“The whole evening?”

“Yup.”

Kathy was waiting impatiently by the open door.

“C’mon Nigel, we have a date with some snow

angels.”

“NIGEL???” they all yelled together.

“What the hell is that all about?” Dave

complained.

Chumley was already out the door, but Kathy

stuck her head back in.

“I’d bet money none of you knew his first name

was Nigel, did you?”  The door closed behind them

Andrew groaned and looked under the macrame at

the farchment.

“Hey, Ed.  What happened to Mary and Jesus?

They look like hell.”

Ed shrugged his shoulders.

“Apparently the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh

away.  It sure doesn’t look anything like it did

last night.”

“Yeah, well I gotta phone Gervais.  I don’t

think anyone’s going to pay to see this.”

He left a chuckling Dave to make more coffee and stare at the still unrelenting snowfall, now driven by high winds and threatening to block out the lower half of the window.

“Damn!” he thought, “Pretty soon we’re going to need a chair to look out the window.”

###

Chumley and Kathy stumbled out the back door and onto Cameron’s rink.  Cameron was stick-handling around the far end and Chumley grabbed one of the sticks by the door and ran after him, trying to strip the puck from him, the two of them giggling as they jostled for possession.  Kathy stood in goal and shuffled around as the two fought, falling as Cameron slid the puck beneath her.  He smiled and waved them on.

The snow was finer now, and an occasional

respite punctuated its excess. After an hour or so, Chumley and Kathy returned, white-faced and looking like hell.  Kathy went to the good bedroom and her sobs could be heard through the door.

“What’s up Chumley?  You guys look bummed out.” Andrew asked, assuming that Kathy had dumped him as surely as she had the rest of them.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.

“You’d be bummed out too, if you’d gone through what we just went through,” Chumley responded in the self-absorbingly despondent way of someone who is exclusively privy to something important and has not yet decided with what degree of drama to share the tragedy with others.  He took off his great coat and boots, slumped in the couch, and began to tell what had taken place.

He and Kathy were walking down Ste. Catherine, playing in the snow, laughing, stumbling, swinging from the now accessible lower limbs of avenue oaks and maples.  Two blocks from Greene Avenue, just before the plaza, the city sky opened up for a brief time, as the heavy snowclouds pulled away from the high-rise offices and apartments that bordered both sides of Ste. Catherine.  It was the high-rise tower that rose like a sentinel above Alexis Nihon Plaza that had caught their attention, standing tall and grey against a backdrop of winter.

A tiny, ant-like figure crawled over the balcony of the penthouse and sat on the edge of the railing while the storm, Kathy, and Chumley, held their breath.  Then a gesture, Chumley thought it was a sign of the cross – Kathy, a rude finger to the Gods.  The tiny ant-like figure fell, it did not jump, from the railing of the balcony of the penthouse.  There was no motive impulse, no ‘do it before I chicken out’, just a slowly deliberate fall from grace, accelerating to terminal velocity by the third or fourth floor, which joined the commercial base of the plaza.

They ran like their lives depended on it, toward the plaza, legs cloying in hip-deep snow.  The clouds had closed in again, as though the gods were pulling tight once more a curtain, which they had originally drawn to reveal the spectacle.  Like the fall itself, the rush to the base of the apartment building seemed like an eternity.  When they finally got there a small crowd had congregated, students from the low-cost housing development across the street, passers-by, and a handful of students who had been in the penthouse.

Chumley milled to the front of the crowd, standing before the broken windows of a florist’s.  Peering inside, he could see that the roof of the store had been crushed in with the impact of the falling body, snow still sliding from the perimeter of the aperture and flakes drifting into the shop beneath.  It was a horrid sight.  The body was broken, it was undeniable.  But it had been spared by the fates, and looked as normal as a corpse can look, laying atop several large floral sprays that had been crushed.  The security alarm was knelling and the face stared, open mouthed, at the window.  It was the face of Roy Hershberg.

Most of the onlookers remained immobile, too stunned to ask if anything could be done.  Someone said they thought they should go in and see if they could do anything.  But the body was broken and everyone knew in their hearts that there was little assistance they could render.  Someone else stepped carefully through the broken window, while others weakly protested about disturbing the scene of a death; but the brave soul continued, and grabbing a tablecloth that had formed part of a display, respectfully covered the bulging eyes and expressionless mouth before crossing himself.  The gathering echoed his hand movements, like a congregation echoing the priest at Mass.

After ten minutes or so, a security guard trundled out of the plaza and ordered everyone back twenty feet or so.  Chumley and Kathy got into a conversation with a couple of the students who had been in the apartment. He often had them over for discussion groups.   One of the students had said that Roy had been terribly upset over the death of Jack Kerouac earlier that week and that he had started mumbling semi-coherently that it was finally over-that he was alone in the world. He had consumed more than his share of wine and became darker as the morning progressed, until he went out onto the balcony and screamed to the sky that the gods were just figments of our imagination.  Everyone thought he was just fooling around, until his hands lost their grip on the railing and he tumbled from sight.

A knot of them huddled, hugging and comforting each other with words that they could hardly believe themselves, shivering in the falling dark.  The military ambulance finally took Roy’s broken body away.

The only thing worse than certain death is uncertain death.  Chumley remembered the saying that Roy was so fond of repeating.  It seemed strangely appropriate now.  He had seen death before, but those people had been expected to die, they were old or sick and it was a natural conclusion to their lives.  It did not seem natural for Roy to have checked out quite yet.  Had he tempted the gods one time too many? They said very little on the way back, but walked as much like Siamese twins as the weather and footing would allow.  The snow was beginning to turn into freezing rain, and a delicate crust was beginning to form on the surface of the fallen snow, their clothes, and hair.

Silence for a few minutes, then the reality of hunger checked back in.  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not much in the mood for cooking tonight. Who’s up for going out for pizza?”

“I think I’m going to head back east” Andrew excused himself.  “The rally last night was postponed to tonight and I’ve got to make it.”

“Back to Lower Canada, huh” Ed shot at Andrew as he was putting his boots on.  Andrew pulled himself up and, grabbing Ed by both arms, shoved him straight back into the wall, shoulders first and head soon afterwards.  Dave jumped between them and Chumley pulled Andrew back.

“Cool out guys,” Dave yelled.

Andrew was fit to be tied.  “Roy was right man.  You’re a goddamned Philistine.  You’re too intolerant to be anything else.  You and your stupid religion.  It’s not worth wasting my breath.  Piss off, Ed!”  Andrew left, slamming the door behind him.

“What’s gotten into you Ed!” Chumley confronted him.  “I mean, sometimes it’s just best not to say anything at all!  But you had to open your big mouth!”  Ed knew he was wrong and said nothing.  Dave gave Ed a sidelong glance, and turning to Chumley, put his hand on his shoulder.

“Pizza sounds good”.

“OK boys,” said Chumley, trying his best to smooth things over.  “Get your coats, Chumley is treating.”

Chumley, Kathy, Dave, and Ed made the half-hour trudge to the pizzeria at de Maissoneuve and Claremont.  It had been a long weekend, longer than two days, and it had somehow an intensity that transcended personal experience.

“I have the feeling that, for some reason, I’m going to remember this weekend for the rest of my life.  You know, like where you were when Kennedy was assassinated,” Chumley reflected.

The trudge back was even more wearying.  Chumley was right. More than a weekend had passed, and they were silently confronted with more than what had passed, but what lay ahead. The sleet had turned to rain and the chill stuck to their bones like a hungry dog.

###

Kathy had gone to bed.  Chumley walked into the kitchen to make some coffee and snack on the last piece of cold pizza.  He poured himself a cup and mixed three spoonfuls of sugar into it.  Ed walked in.

“I feel a bit stupid about what I said to Andrew tonight.  I guess I wasn’t really thinking.  Come to think of it, I guess I’ve done a lot of stupid things this weekend.  I kind of wish I could have them back to do over.  Dave’s mad at me, so’s Andrew, and I suspect Landon is too.  Father Fortinbras is probably thinking of having me excommunicated.  But most of all, I wish I could take back some of the things I said to Roy.”

“No mulligans in life, Ed.  Let’s just call it cabin fever.  We’ve all been a bit strange this weekend, and I think we’re all in a bit of shock after this afternoon. Why don’t you talk with Dave right now?”  Chumley suggested quietly.

“He’s gone to bed, he’s still coming down, I think”

“And Andrew’s spending the night with Gervais’ family in Pointe-aux-Trembles.” Chumley advised Ed.  “It looks like you’ve got a few days to rehearse your apologies.”

“Maybe I’ll get it right this time.  G’night Chumley”

“G’night Ed”

Chumley leaned back against the counter and finished his coffee, watching the rain pelt down on the already consolidating mounds of snow that had accumulated over the last three days.  There was one more thing to do.

He put on his coat and boots and went up the stairs to the fire escape window at the end of the third floor hall, raised the window, and swung himself onto the rooftop.  The footing had become treacherous, but he edged himself close to the side of the building.  Down below in the alley, two plows, a blower, and three trucks were hard at work dismantling Cameron’s rink.  His foul-mouthed screams could be heard over the combination of motors, and the crackling radio coming from the police cruiser parked a respectable but nonetheless menacing distance away.

“Game over,” thought Chumley.

He moved cautiously to the front of the building and surveyed the street scene below.

“This one’s for you, Roy” and he shook his fist at the clouds and jumped, not fell, for he wanted to survive the exercise, into the now-receding bank of hard packed snow.

The great coat rippled against the sky, and he  landed with a ‘sploosh’, wet snow scattering.  He came to a sitting position and began to sob deeply.  A plow flew by and covered him with slush.  A pair of hands helped him to his feet. Cameron Mitchell guided him back into the building and down into his basement suite near the boiler room.

The suite was jam-packed with hockey equipment and

memorabilia. Chumley, shivering, curled up in an oversized armchair. Cameron peeled his wet coat off and threw a blanket over him, before disappearing into the kitchen.  Chumley looked around the room, his eyes resting on framed photos of Cameron with hockey players, posters with signatures, a stick with Jean Beliveau’s signature.  Cameron came out with two mugs of hot chocolate.

“Thanks Cam.”

“No sweat.  You OK?”

“Yeah, I’ll be OK. Roy’s gone. He jumped off his balcony. Cameron thought about that for a minute.

“No he didn’t. You don’t jump from great heights.  You try and reach them.  I guess Roy just didn’t see anything higher to go for.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember we talked about Roy last spring?  I understand he was your friend, but he had nothing left to believe in. It was always here and now. What about the future? Dreaming is everything.  Remember Sisyphus?”

”Yeah, pushed a boulder up a hill and it kept falling back on him before he could recover…”

“…and he had no option.  It’s the game he had to play.  The moment he stops, the game is over.  The moment you stop believing, that game’s over, too.  Roy just didn’t want to play the game anymore.

“How’d you get so smart?”

“Low centre of gravity.”

They laughed.

“Look at me Chumley. I’m the modern day

incarnation of Sisyphus. How many times have I built

that rink back there?”

“More times than I can remember.”

“And how many times has it been knocked down?”

”About the same number of times.”

”Look, I know I’m never gonna play in the NHL. But ya know it doesn’t matter.  I’m always gonna have that dream.  As soon as I give up on it, I’ll be checking out.”

###

Chumley had stopped shaking and the hot chocolate had begun to warm him.  He made his way back upstairs

Bathed and shaven, he poured himself one more coffee and put away the dishes. The folded sugar bag, with the centre of the universe clearly inscribed upon it, sat beside the toaster.  Chumley picked it up, smiled to himself, and threw it into the garbage before turning out the light and joining the now-awake Kathy on the couch.

“How on earth did anyone think that looked like Mary and Jesus?” she giggled.

“We create our own realities, our own pantheon of gods.  I wonder if it’s any less real because only certain people see it as a truth, that it’s not absolute.  Dave believes in Hendrix, Ed believes in the holy trinity, and Roy thought he believed in himself.  I have no idea what I believe in.”

Kathy got to her feet and holding both of Chumley’s hands asked, “Coming to bed?”

He smiled at her and gave her hands a squeeze.  “Not quite yet. You go ahead.  I won’t be long.  I need a few minutes to myself.”

“OK.  Don’t be long”.

He stretched out and closed his eyes.  This had been the first time that he had been alone for a long time.  He had the feeling he would have to spend a lot more time by himself over the next little while.  The college would be pandemonium tomorrow, but that could wait.  There was nothing more he could do.  Well, there was one thing.

The light went out in the bedroom as he padded to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and pulled out a handful of dishrags.  He dipped them into the tepid washing up water and wrung them out.

Noiselessly tiptoeing into the front room, he lit the votive candle that sat upon the upended Coke crate, and removed the macramé wall hanging from the farchment.  Outside, the rain fell in slashing rakes across the sweep of the streetlight, rattling the glass in the window frame.

It was as he left it last night, when they had sneaked across the room and done some major revisions to Ed’s ‘Mary and Jesus’, turning it into a meaningless tableau of lines and squiggles, courtesy of a medium point washable brown felt pen.  As he wiped the wall down with the cloths, the original image returned. Mary, her head encircled in glory, looked beatifically down at the Christ child, who was wrapped in flowing robes.  He took the poster of Jimi off the wall and taped it backwards on the window.  The light from the streetlamp shone through, creating the illusion of left-handedness.  He looked at Mary and Jesus one more time.

Damn, it was a pretty good image after all, thought Chumley as he replaced the macramé wall hanging and went to bed.

Chapter Nine – “Chumley Plays God and Ed Plays the Fool”

The party was in its death throes.  Ed was dead to the world and nothing; not even the metaphysical compulsions of a stoned Chumley could waken him.  Andrew had crashed.  Roy had gone home to his high rise apartment at the plaza.  Arvid had left, receiving little more than a beating and subway fare to show for his visit.  Landon had eventually meandered back upstairs with a young exchange student from Senegal named Eveline.  Nobody but Andrew seemed to know where Kathy was.

There was nobody left in the front room except the recumbent Ed, and Dave.  Dave had long since felt the initial tingle up the base of his spine and the invisible hand that released him from all feeling of corporeal sensation.  He was sitting cross-legged now, elbows on knees, chin on fists, and a worshipful, adoring look on his face, as he gazed up at his poster.  It was his looking glass, through which he climbed, while all around the mundane world hummed; radiators buckled and groaned, slippered feet shuffled off in the middle of the night to relieve their owner’s bladders, and still the snow fell with an unfathomable incessance.  A single votive candle beneath the image of Mary and Jesus, and the occasional snore from Ed, were the only signs of life in the House of Chumley.

Chumley almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Kathy sitting on the bed, reading by the light of the only lamp.  She still wore her jeans, but her top had been replaced by a man’s shirt. He was thoroughly embarrassed and turned to leave.

“Wait Chumley.”

Chumley hesitated, his hand on the doorknob.

“I-I’m sorry Kathy.  I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“It’s OK.  Come here”

“No, that’s OK.  I’m fine right here.”

He unconsciously tightened his grip on the

doorknob.

“I’m not going to bite you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. You don’t have to be so uptight.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

As if to prove he wasn’t nervous he took his

hand from the door and asked:

“What are you reading?”

“Poetry.”

Chumley face brightened up and he moved a

little closer to the bed.

“Ahh.  Philip Larkin. He’s one of my

favourites.”

He took the book from her and sat beside her at

the edge of the bed.

“Here, let me read you this one.”

 

Tightly folded bud

I have wished you something

None of the others would

Not the usual stuff

About being beautiful

Or running off a spring

Of innocence and love

They will all wish you that

And should it prove possible

Well, you’re a lucky girl

“Mmm.”

“Wait.  I’ve got some more.”

He stood up and pillaged a box from the

bookshelf, pulling out a folder stuffed with

papers.  He rummaged about and finally came up with

a sheet of paper.  The falling snow at the window

provided a backdrop.

 

It’s snowing again

When I was young I’d lie

Upon my back and stare up, blinking

At the angels in the sky

Coming to kiss my face

Web my lashes, brush my cheeks

And I would cry with happiness

The Earth receding as I flew with Angels

It’s snowing again

And if I laugh or cry

It will never be the same

If I live to see a million snowfalls

As when I was young and flew with Angels

“How appropriate. That’s beautiful.  You

wrote it didn’t you?”

“Uh huh.”

“Chumley, did you ever make snow angels when

you were a kid?”

He relaxed and leaned back against a pillow.

“Yeah.  I’d lie there on my back for hours.

You know Eskimos walk into a snowstorm when

It’s time for them to die.  They say it’s a very

warm feeling.  You just fall asleep in the snow and

never wake up – waiting for angels.”

“Read some more.”

Chumley slid closer to Kathy with the box and

rummaged around.

“Chumley, what do you think of the image of

Mary and Jesus?  Pretty wild, huh?”

“It’s OK I guess.”

“I think it’s perfect. It’s almost as though

someone painted it.”

Chumley chuckled to himself.

“No-one in this house is that talented.

“I guess not.  You don’t look very happy about

it.

Chumley dropped a sheath of paper and sighed.

“Well shit, I guess I’m not. Ed isn’t going to

rest until the front room is sanctified by the

pope.  Dave’s all worked up because he thinks Jimi

Hendrix is in an unfair battle with Mary and Jesus.

Andrew’s treating the whole thing like P.T. Barnum

and selling tickets to see a Virgin, and ROY is

upset because it’s stirring memories up that he

doesn’t think he can control.  If it’s a blessing,

it’s a mixed one.”

“And how about you?”

”How about me?”

“It’s changed you too, hasn’t it?”

“Maybe.  Maybe it’s time for a change. It’s

just that everything was so predictable and ordered

before the farchment.”

Kathy sat up and looked intently at

Chumley.

“What do you believe in Chumley?”

“Too many things, I guess. Or maybe not enough…”

Kathy undid the top three buttons of the shirt

and smiled at Chumley.  He leaned over, but instead

of kissing her, he reached out and re-buttoned the

shirt and stroked her hair.  He laughed.

“I’ve seen breasts before. You forget I have a

subscription to National Geographic.”

She laughed back and he turned and rooted

around the box for another poem. Kathy put her hand

on his.

“Wait.  I’ve got one for you.”

She recited from memory, her eyes always on

Chumley.

Nervelessly he cites her disarray

With too few words he seals her fate

Mindless she awaits his play-by-play

A dissertation on her failings as she waits

Needlessly she bleeds from day to day

Infrequent words, too frequent spite

Carefully she tries to find her way

And hopes she can avoid another fight

Heedlessly he dogs her every step

And holds her hostage to his whim

Endlessly he puts her to the test

Another game she cannot hope to win

Silently she turns the downstairs latch

Quietly she steps beyond the door

Noiselessly she hears the deadbolt catch

Love and passion gone for evermore

“My God, that’s beautiful. When did you start

writing poetry?”

“A couple of years ago.  After I left home.”

She began to cry softly.  Chumley moved beside

her and took her into his arms, rocking her gently

and stroking her hair, humming to her.  He too,

started weeping.  He spoke softly to her.

“For Chrissake Kathy.  You’re worth so

much more than you think you are.”

 

They clung to each other for an age that could not be

measured with timepieces.  He woke in the middle of the

darkness, went over to the desk and fumbled with the

drawer.  The noise roused Kathy and she switched on

the light.  He stood in the middle of the room

dressed in nothing more than his shorts and holding

a felt pen like a religious relic.

“What are you doing?” she asked sleepily.

“Playing God.”

“What’s that?”

“A monkey wrench. Wanna be an angel?”

They left the bedroom and closed the door

quietly behind them, armed with the felt pen.

 

Sunday, October 25, 1969

 

‘Bang – Bang’. The knock on the door woke Ed from a deep sleep. He stood up and tried to stretch out the effects of eight hours prone on a hardwood floor, and looked out the window.  Damn, Ed thought. The snow had now obscured the bottom quarter of the window and continued to fall.  The evidence of last night’s dives into the snowbank, apart from a hazy, crater-like mound, had long since been eradicated.  He might as well have been in the middle of the subarctic and the houses and trees across what had once been a street, might as well have been a cardboard cut-out movie set.  The knock returned.

Father Ferdinand Fortinbras had been a priest for almost two thirds of his sixty-one years.  He was not a tall man, and rather stout.  The hispid stragglers that sought escape from nose and ear, had been fastidiously defoliated.  On his upper lip perched a moustache of the leanest and most censorious proportions.  His round cheeks counterbalanced the silver hair that ran straight back from the ever-receding hairline.  He wore glasses that annoyingly, to himself and others, continuously slid down his nose; and the jaundiced fingers of his right hand, despite the best efforts with solvent and bleach, advertised his status as a chain smoker.

“Ed, my son.  I didn’t see you in church this morning, and your phone has been busy since nine.  So I took the liberty of dropping by before twelve o’clock mass.  Your phone call seemed rather urgent yesterday.  What do you want to speak to me about, my son?”

Now it is unlikely that Father Fortinbras would have extended such a personal courtesy to everyone in his congregation.  Then again, perhaps he would have, for he was a very conscientious man and devoted to his calling.  But the fact that Ed’s father was the publisher of the local newspaper and made substantial contributions to the parish coffers might well have had an effect on his amicable disposition toward Ed.

Ed was still trying to regain his senses.  He invited the Father into the front room, where Dave was still sitting cross-legged in front of the poster, smiling and rocking from side to side, listening to the imaginary music from beyond the face of the looking-glass.

Father Fortinbras looked uneasily at Dave as he eased himself onto the couch.

“What’s the boy doing?” he asked Ed, keeping an eye on Dave all the while.

“Uhh, uhh” Ed’s mind had only just punched in and already he was forced to make it work overtime.

“He’s meditating, Father.  Yes, he’s meditating,” now more sure of himself.  “You know that Indian sect over on Park Avenue?”

“The Hare Krishnans. Oh yes, the ones with the great vegetarian buffet?”

“Well, he’s one of them,” Ed desperately suggested.  “And he’s meditating!”

“Well, who’s he meditating to?  Father Fortinbras resumed, still not convinced of the efficacy of Dave’s devotion.  “Who’s that in the poster? It doesn’t look at all like Krishna.”

“Uhh, uhh.  I think he’s one of their mystics, Father.”  Ed thought he was on a roll now, but he was burying himself deeper and deeper.

“Come on now, Eddy.  I may be an old man, but I’m not stupid.  He’s got a guitar in his hand for Christ’s sakes.  I would have thought it was that Hendrix fellow, except he’s not right-handed.  Are you sure?”

Ed, who was emotionally near-drained, appealed to Father Fortinbras. “No Father, I’m not sure of anything anymore.  Please look at this and tell me what you think”.  Ed thought he would break into tears of joy as he swung his arm around and pulled off the macramé wall hanging that had been replaced earlier in the morning.  Father Fortinbras stared incredulously at the farchment.

“I’ll tell you what I think, Ed.  I think you boys should be a little cleaner with your personal habits.  That’s an awful mess to leave on the wall.  Haven’t you got any cleaner to wipe that off with?  Come to think of it, this whole apartment could do with a good run-through.  Let me phone a few of the auxiliary ladies, they do a smash-up job and your dada wouldn’t have to be the wiser.”  He leaned closer and winked, in an act of fraternal conspiracy.

“Father!”  Ed implored.  “Can’t you see it?”

“What I can see is that you are all very messy boys, and I have very grave misgivings about your personal habits.  ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ is not just an idle saying, my son”.  Father Fortinbras had abandoned the brotherly pep talk and his tone took on that of a judicious uncle.

Ed couldn’t believe his ears. He looked long and hard at the image on the wall, but it had somehow lost much of the clarity that it had possessed the night before, and more accurately resembled a detail from a cubist painting.  He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.  Could he see Mary or Jesus?  Yes.  No.  Maybe?

“Father!”  Ed insisted.  “Don’t you remember all you yourself taught me when I was studying in Bible class?  All the hallmarks of a religious apparition are in place”.

The poor boy, thought Father Fortinbras.  “Eddie, do you have a wee taste of something for my parched throat.  Dry heat in the church you understand.”

Ed looked for something appropriate to serve a priest, but found nothing more than the dregs of the cooking sherry.  He draped a tea towel across a battered tray, poured the sherry into the only glass with a stem on it, and offered it in sacrifice to the good Father.

“First of all, my son, we have to have a bona fide apparition.  You must admit that this is not Lourdes or Akita.  There are no tears running down the cheeks of a wooden virgin.  Just a god-awful mess on the wall.  And I don’t even want to know how it was made.”

The good Father tasted the sherry and made a face.

“But Father, it’s there!  You just have to look harder!  It’s there, really.  Just look harder!  You have to believe!”  Ed swung the old man around, face to face with the farchment.

“Ed, my boy, I have to have something to believe in.”

“Father, didn’t you tell me that visionaries were usually young and not necessarily known for extreme piety?”

“Well, that would be you,” admitted the good Father, looking down at Ed over the top of his glasses.

“That’s right, and you also told me that apparitions occur when faith is put to the test.  What more of a test could faith be put to than to thrive in a god-forsaken place like this?”

“Hmmph,” and here Father Fortinbras gave a disapproving look around the room.  “I suppose you do have a point there.”

“And that they occur in quiet and isolated places.”

Father Fortinbras was beginning to lose ground and making a religious attempt to regroup.  Ed went on.

“And that true visionaries never expected to have an apparition.  I certainly never expected to see this.”

Father Fortinbras sucked in his breath and a pious smile consumed him, as he recalled the other hallmarks of genuine apparition.  He put his hand on Ed’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.

“Ed, I don’t think you’ve been told by anyone, Christ, Mary, or me, that you won’t be happy in this life.  You haven’t been told to pray and repent even more, or do extra penance.  There have been no subsequent ‘extraordinary events’ or miracles.  None of these conditions are in place, are they my boy?”

“Well, it’s still early days, Father…” Ed interrupted.

Father Fortinbras waved him off.  He was regaining the moral high ground and was allowing himself the luxury of getting a little short-tempered.  But Ed again interrupted, looking to the Heavens and holding up his arms in supplication.

“…how long will this people insult me?  How long will they refuse to believe in me despite the signs I have worked among them?”  Father Fortinbras was positively steamed.

“How the Hell dare you quote the book of Numbers to me!  I’m a priest, for Christ’s sakes!  Don’t you take the bible and use it as a weapon against me, you little pup.”  Father Fortinbras calmed down as quickly as he had erupted, embarrassed by his expletive-laden tirade.

“Anyway, my son, the church would never recognise such a specimen as worthy of faith.  I certainly can’t imagine bringing the Bishop here to look at the results of a college prank as an apparition, one that I don’t even see for myself.  Look at it my boy.  It’s a mess of aimless squiggles”

Another knock at the door.  Dave was beginning to crawl out of the looking glass, but not far enough to perform as simple a task as opening a door.  Ed opened it.

“Good morning sir” said a fashionably dressed woman, standing next to an equally fashionable man.  She was holding a small newspaper in front of her, like a shield or an offering.  Ed was in no shape to decide which.  She smiled with all the sincerity of a religious zealot or a martyr.

“How important is God in your life?”

Ed rolled his eyes.  “Lady, you have no idea.”

Her clear and resonating voice was heard in the

front room.  Dave’s ears perked up.  Father Fortinbras called out.

“Who the hell is that, Edward!”

Caught up in a brainstorm, Ed grabbed the woman by the arm and dragged her into the front room, clicking high heels apparently untouched by the storm, past a startled Father Fortinbras, and stood her before the farchment.  Her partner, papers bundled in his arms, was two steps behind, in no small state of concern.

“Puhhlease! Lady!  Look at this!  Tell me what you see!” Ed implored her.

The woman took a step back and looked pensively at the wall.  She was not that old and quite attractive.  It was well past Labour Day, but she was wearing a smart pastel suit.  A gloved right hand came thoughtfully up to her chin and she rested her weight on one leg while the other stretched out to the side.  She had ‘serious Christian’ written all over her face.  Father Fortinbras stole a glance at the well-turned calf, extending from the knee-length wool dress and smiled.

“It’s very good,” she said.  “Are you the artist, young man?”

Ed was beside himself.  He had wanted spiritual affirmation and he was getting an art review.  The woman’s partner was behind her and peering over her shoulder.

“Cubist, right?” he proudly declared, wagging his finger in the general direction of the farchment.

“Silly!” she shot back at him.  “Neo-impressionist, if anything!”

Father Fortinbras was becoming almost as exasperated as Ed.  He was between masses and hadn’t had the chance to grab a second breakfast and the way things were going, he wouldn’t.  He began to bluster.

“Will someone tell me who in the name of God these people are?”

“Jesus Father,” Ed snapped back.  They’re Evangelists, they’re bloody Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

“Watch your language, my son.  Evangelists.  Jehovah’s Witnesses?  What the hell are you talking about Ed.”  Father Fortinbras was on his feet now.

“They’re the competition, Father!  They’re bloody Jehovah’s Witnesses.  They go from door to door recruiting more people to go door to door.  It’s a big religious pyramid scheme.  They get Tupperware points or something.

The couple were becoming quite indignant at Ed’s disrespectful diatribe, and his strong language.  They were re-considering the possibility of reclaiming any lost souls in this establishment. Ed ranted on as the pair began to make their way past Dave, who was slowly but surely regaining more and more of his senses.

“Father, they’re the people who go around on street corners and hand out those little newspapers.  You know, the ones with names like ‘Awake!’ and ‘Watchtower’.

Dave’s ears shot back upon hearing the word ‘Watchtower’ and he sat bolt upright, continuing to a standing position.  A smile crossed his face and he stood in the way of the now panic-stricken couple, barring their exit from the apartment and walking slowly toward them.

“Did you say ‘Watchtower’.  Did somebody say ‘Watchtower’?  Dave begged.

“I did peckerhead!”  Ed shot back.

“Edward, your language please!” Father Fortinbras

interrupted.

“Wow.  Did Jimi send you? Huh?  Jimi sent you didn’t he?  I knew it.  I knew it”.  Dave began to dance around on the spot, repeating over and over, ‘Jimi sent them, Jimi sent them!’  And while he danced, the pair of Jehovah’s witnesses took the opportunity to make their way stealthily out the door and back into the relative safety of the storm; but not before leaving a copy of their two newspapers by the door.

Father Fortinbras was even more disgusted than before and stormed out of the apartment, hot on the heels of the evangelists, threatening to tell Ed’s father of the filthy and disgusting conditions in which he lived, and the horrible room-mates with whom he shared his apartment.  Dave, blissed out and in a state of epiphany, fell into one of the lower bunks with a copy of ‘Watchtower’ and was soon fast asleep.

 

[next up, the last instalment; Chapter Ten: God's Final Act]

Chapter Eight – “And the Party Continues”

“Chumley, are you OK?”  Roy was concerned with Chumley’s engrossment with his hands.

“Yea-a-h-h, just great Roy.  Look at my hands!”  Roy and Chumley stared at Chumley’s hands for what seemed ages.

“Yeah, so?”  Roy was somewhat less impressed than Chumley.

“Roy, I made brownies with these hands!”

“Yeah, cool.  I scratched myself with these hands.

So what?”

“If these hands could make brownies, imagine what else they could do, play piano or paint masterpieces, make love…”

“…or war”

“Well, there’s that I guess”

A dozen impatient snowmobilers, eager to see the

Virgin, rushed the farchment.

“Yeah, but I bet you couldn’t paint a picture of Mary and Jesus as pretty as Ed and his ass”, Roy lightened up, and the two of them doubled over in a fit of congested giggles.

“Roy, do you know what I’m going to do?”

“Haven’t got the faintest idea, man.”  Roy

laughed, but was filled with more than a little curiosity.

“I’m going to find the centre of the universe!”  And with that, he staggered to his knees and wandered off, leaving Roy to wish that he had eaten from the same end of the brownie pan as Chumley.

Ed was rousing.  It was just past eleven, but he had expended a great deal of emotional energy that day and, what with the vast quantities of ‘holy water’ he had consumed, he remained slumped on the floor, in the corner, under the watchful and motherly gaze of Mary.

Chumley had begun feeling his way along the wall of the apartment, walking over people and furniture as needed.  When he came to the farchment on the wall, he stopped.

“Here it is!” he yelled.  “I’ve found it!  The centre of the universe.”

The noise completely woke Ed, who jumped to his feet and grabbed the outstretched right hand of Chumley, which was pointing to a spot on the wall somewhere around Mary’s navel.

“What the hell are you doing?  Get away!  Don’t touch them!”

A felt pen appeared from out of nowhere into Chumley’s hand, and he brandished it menacingly towards the holy image.

“Ed, I have to.  You don’t understand!” Chumley implored him. “It’s the centre of the universe!”

“Of course they are, you crazy bastard.  They’re sacred.  You’d know that if you ever went to church or watched ‘Hymn Sing’.”

Chumley was adamant, but Ed was even more so and the whole affair would have resulted in blows, albeit poorly placed and ineffectual, had not a few of the remaining party guests and snowmobilers intervened.  Chumley sulked off and Ed resumed his vigil.

Roy found Chumley ten minutes later, sitting at the back of the kitchen on the linoleum as if nothing had transpired between him and Ed.  His face was wide eyed and innocent, as though he was seeing things with a clarity he had never before experienced.

“You look a little bummed out man.” Roy was concerned.

“I’m great!  Really! You know Roy, people tell me I’m very sensible and well organised.”

“I know bubla, we all love you,” he said dismissively.  “Someone’s gotta have a head on his shoulders for practical things.  That’s one of the things we admire you for.  You keep your cool when the rest of us just lose it.  Man, I wish I could be more organised like you.”  He was serious now.

Chumley hung his head and took a big breath, “Have you got any big fears, Roy?’

“You know…”

“D’you know what my biggest fear is?”

“No.  No wait, let me guess!  Tripping out and

jumping from the window?  Although,” and here he snorted and chortled at the very thought of it, “If you were to jump out the window tonight, it’d probably be the safest thing you could do”.

The two of them held their guts and rolled around on the linoleum, held in the grip of dry laughter that exploded every ten seconds or so and then rebuilt itself into a blood pressure-raising contortion of hysteria.

“Oh Roy, no, no, no!” Chumley gasped.

“OK man, how about this.  Getting busted in the

can with your pants around your ankles.”

“With a joint in my mouth!” Chumley added.  The two continued with their fit of laughter, their judgement to appreciate quality humour having obviously dissipated with the progress of the evening.

Wiping away tears of laughter with the back of his hand, Chumley suddenly became very serious – like a child who plays that familiar game – where you pass your hand over a smiling face and turn it into an instant frown.

“No Roy.  Of all the things that could happen to me in my life, I think I’m most scared of becoming a civil servant.  Or worse, an accountant! I think I’d rather be a garbage collector or work in a mental hospital picking up after slack-bowelled patients.”

“Bummer, man.”  Now it was Roy’s turn to get serious.  “But Chumley, you’re not an accountant, you’re an arts major.  I don’t think they’d let you become an accountant without having taken one of the courses”.

“Well it always seems to be me who collects the rent and grocery money.  If it was left to the others, we’d run out of food and drinks and dope and everything.  Dammit, that makes me practical, Roy; and I don’t know if I like it.  It’s just such a bother to be so relied on sometimes.”

“I hear you man, but listen.  Just because you’re decent enough to collect the food and rent money, doesn’t mean you’re going to turn into a bureaucrat or something.  I used to wear my mom’s old aprons when she showed me how to make cookies when I was a kid.  But I didn’t turn out queer or anything like that.”

Chumley thought about that for a moment, and while the analogy was flamboyant, it was transparent and hobbling, even to someone as stoned as Chumley.

“No Roy, it’s not the same.  I think accounting’s like depression.  It creeps up on you.  You never see it coming, but the days pile up and you creep closer and closer to the edge until one day – BANG – you’re over it.  I’ve talked to people who’ve known accountants and that’s usually how it happens, according to them anyway.”

Roy was as equally non-receptive to Chumley’s line of reasoning.  Andrew walked past the kitchen doorway toward the front room with an awkward grin on his face. Roy and Chumley looked at each other and burst into giggles again.  Roy continued after he had regained sufficient composure:

“You just aren’t accountant material.  Look at you.  Your hair’s down to your ass!  You’re a total freak!  Look at the company you keep!  Do these look like people who could possibly be friends with an accountant?  Hey, you’re a little too preoccupied with numbers and taking care of everyone, but that’s why we love ya.  Do they call this place the House of Ed or the House of Dave?  Shit no, it would sound as though it was a car dealership or a florist.  It’s called the House of Chumley because we love ya, and you ain’t no damn accountant.”

Chumley looked like he was going to cry.

“Dammit Roy.  That’s one of the most beautiful

things anyone’s ever said to me.  I’ll be glad to see the end of winter. I’ve already had enough of it. Can I tell you a story?  I’ve never shared it with anyone else, even you, and you’re my absolutest best friend in the whole wide world”

“Sure man, I ain’t going anywhere, but do you think you can stay awake for it?”

“Uh huh.  I don’t know why I thought about this story today, ‘cause it happened at another time of the year, but I haven’t seen mum for a while, and I kind of miss her”.

“So tell me the story”.

“Well, you know of all the days in

Spring, there’s always that one day when the ground would be firm enough to walk on without galoshes?”

“Galoshes?  What the hell are galoshes?”

“They’re cruddy rubber boots– the ones with the

fur around the ankle that you compressed against your calf until the circulation stopped so you could keep the snow out. We used to undo them as soon as we were out of mom’s sight.  Then we’d roll them down.  All the cool kids rolled their galoshes down. But the coolest kids had bomber boots Roy, with the two zippers down the front!

“Don’t you ever get tired of living in all this snow?” Roy interrupted.

“Sometimes.  But there was always Florida.  We used to go down to St. Petersburg once a year over Christmas and bitch about there not being any snow on Christmas day, then be back here a week later bitching that there was too much snow.”

“Have you ever checked out Vancouver?”

“Good God, Vancouver?  You’ve got to be kidding,

Roy.  All the flakes live out on the West Coast.”

“No,” Roy replied wistfully looking out the window.  “All the flakes in the world are falling on Montreal.”

“Anyway”, Chumley continued, “I used to live for the day when I didn’t’have to wear those damned galoshes anymore, and shortly after that someone would bring out a bat and ball and everyone would show up with a glove.  You know how much I love baseball, Roy.  A baseball glove is a badge of courage, a reflection of the owner’s personality – the robustness of the hand-rubbed leather, the well-worn lacing, and the tell-tale groove on the back of the pocket where the knowing ballplayer would rest his index finger.

There was a catechism of care for the glove which, if followed to the letter, assured that the glove would soon come to resemble a bunch of blackened, over-ripe bananas.  It was a well-known fact that a glove was essential to the proper playing of the game.  It was also a well-known fact that they were very expensive, and my parents were not likely to give it a lot of consideration in their budget.

The time of year between hockey and baseball was not filled with business opportunities for a young entrepreneur such as myself.  There was no snow to shovel and the grass wouldn’t even begin to grow for another six weeks.  My greatest obstacle to playing the game of baseball was not a lack of desire or skills, Roy; it was adolescent insolvency.

I would have asked Dad for the money, but he was never in town.  He was always away on some military course, and he never told me what he was up to.  I think he took an oath or something, but what he didn’t tell me, I filled in with all the imagination of an Ian Fleming.  I fantasised that he was learning better ways to defend us all from the imminent invasion of the Godless Russian hordes to the north.”

“Really,” Roy interjected. “You actually believed that shit we sent you?”

“Hey, I was only twelve, man.  I suppose when I look back it’s kind of hard to believe my gullibility over thinking how once having negociated the North Pole, the Communists would invade Longueil and Boucherville by dogsled and snowmobile, taking over our institutions and way of life, but most importantly our hockey.

No, dad would be no help.  Besides he hated Americans and anything remotely American.  He used to say he was an ‘ultra-nationalist’, but I think that was just a euphemism for anti-Americanism.  There was no way I was going to get a baseball glove out of him.  I’d have to crack Mom.  So I strode into the kitchen, full of confidence:  ‘Mom, I need a baseball glove’, I heard myself blurt out.  No preamble, no beating around the bush, no precursory empty flattery.  Shameless!  I was so desperate I would do anything – even if it meant being straightforward.

If I surprised myself with my mode of attack, I was even more surprised when my mother agreed.  I must confess to being in a state of shock.  But what if she hadn’t really understood me?  Mom was pretty sharp, but after all, she was a warbride.  Could I expect a woman who had tried to pan-fry hot dogs in their plastic sheathing to understand what I so desperately wanted?

I remember giving her the third degree.  Did she realise it was for baseball?  Did she realise it had to have a split-cowhide palm?  Yes, yes, she assured me.  The store where she worked part-time was receiving a shipment from Toronto later that week, and she could get what I wanted with her employee discount.

I rushed over to tell my friend.  Pip Reynolds didn’t believe I was going to get a glove.  I guess I should have waited until I got it and then rubbed his nose in it. It wasn’t fair of him not to believe me.  But was going to show him!

Tuesday came, no glove.  Wednesday – sorry dear, maybe tomorrow.  My confidence was beginning to show a few cracks.  Pip had told everyone at school that I’d said I was getting a new glove.  He had also let everyone know he thought I was full of shit.  I worried about what I would do if Mom didn’t come through, but the more I thought about it, the less concerned I became.  Dad would sometimes ‘forget’ things, but Mom’s word was her bond.”

“My Mom’s like that”, Roy edgewised.  “Totally trustworthy woman”.  Chumley looked a little annoyed at the interruption.  Roy picked up on it and begged him to continue.

“Anyway, Thursday night at 4:30 I was sitting on the front steps waiting for dad to bring Mom home from the bus stop at the top of the subdivision.  Finally the Biscayne pulled into the driveway.  I tore out to the driveway drenched with anticipation.

‘Did you get it, did you get it’, I asked, as though asking the question once was not enough.  Mum passed me a large white paper bag with her store’s name and logo on it in purple.

‘I bought you some new Jac shirts and underwear,’ she said.  ‘They’re all the rage, the shirts I mean.’

Piss on the rage, I thought, as I tore past the tightly sealed packages of mustard and avocado skivvies – colours I have always thought were wholly appropriate for a young man – and the two rather peculiar shirts which seemed to more closely resemble blouses for pathologically fat girls.

I got to the bottom of the bag, but couldn’t find a glove, Roy.”

“Bummer, man”

“Perhaps she had forgotten and left it in the car! I lunged into the Biscayne – no glove.

I was perplexed.  Not simply perplexed, but truly and wonderfully and magically and utterly perplexed.  Now some parents are just plain mean, but Mom wasn’t that type.  I decided to take one last look inside the bag.  Carefully I took out each item one by one and laid them side by side on the Biscayne’s rear fin.  I was about to give up, when my hand brushed against what I had previously assumed was a clump of wrapping tissue.  I pulled it out of the bag.  In my hand was the sorriest looking excuse for a pair of gloves I had ever seen!  Then it all started to make sense – why she had made those funny faces when I insisted that it have a palm of split cowhide and an ample pocket; for in my hand was a pair of men’s woolly winter gloves with a sewn-on leather palm (to better grip the snowshovel).

How could I face Pip and the rest of the guys?  How could I show my face at school?  To make things worse, all the other kids in the neighbourhood had told their parents that I was getting a glove, in hopes of gaining greater leverage in their own negociations.  Not only was I without a glove, but I was without credibility.  By the time I got a glove, I’d be too old to play baseball.

I was furious Roy. I flung the gloves over the back fence and into the gully.  I stormed into the house.  How could my mother embarrass me like this!  I remember Mum turning towards me as I came into the kitchen.  Man, I was really going to let her have it!  Then she asked me:  ‘How are the gloves, dear?’  That did it.  She had that look on her face.  You know, that ‘mom’ look.  That just drained all the rage out of me like the air out of a balloon.

“They’re great, Mum,” I lied, kissed her on the cheek, and went outside.  I jumped over the fence and began searching earnestly for my ‘baseball’ glove.

“That’s a beautiful story, man”.  Roy’s eyes were swollen with moisture and he gave Chumley a shoulder hug.

“Now I’ve bummed you out.  Hey, I know what you need man, spontaneity!  C’mon, lets go!” Chumley took Roy by the arm and led him through the kitchen.

“Whoah man, where’re we going?” Roy seemed a little concerned.

“To the roof.” Chumley shouted.

“You’ve got to be kidding…”

“No really, we’ll do it together.”

“Naw, I don’t think so.”

Roy was beginning to lose his colour again.

“I’m sorry Chumley.  I can’t…You jump for both of

us, OK?”

“What is it Roy.  Is it the fear of death, or

hitting the ground?  There’s five feet of snow out there.  You’re not gonna get hurt.”

Roy gathered himself together and caught his breath.

“Listen Chumley”.  He spoke as though being

understood was the most important thing in his life.

“There’s a point right after you leave the ground–

the point of no return – where you’re suspended in space, where you have no control.  You can’t go forward or back.  That’s what scares me the most.  Losing control.  And there’s something else.”

He began to shiver slightly.  Chumley moved him into a corner of the hallway and put his arm on his shoulder.

“Look, this is between the two of us, right?”

Chumley nodded.

“My mother was Catholic.”

“I don’t get it.  How does that change anything?”

“Haven’t you wondered why I’m so uptight about all this holy image on the wall shit?”

“I just figured you were being yourself and dumping on someone’s sacred cow again.”

“No, it goes deeper than that.  Some stuff that happened when I was an altar boy.”

“What, you got into the sacramental wine or something?”

“No, deeper, much deeper.”

“What?”

Roy’s openness quickly closed up.

“Never mind.  Better left unsaid.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Ironic, huh?”  He shuddered.  “I teach Sartre, Camus, Kerouac, and I can’t let go long enough to jump into a goddamned snow bank.  Look man, existentialists aren’t people without a plan; they just have a different set of constraints.  Go jump.  I’ll watch from below.  That’s the best I can do man.  You jump for me.”

The two of them left the apartment just as Arvid was coming in.

###

Arvid Cloutier’s feet and head always arrived first, he was a walking apostrophe, a left-side bracket, back-bent and slinky.  Combined with the shoulder-length greasy black hair and the undone bomber boots that wagged their tongues at the snow, he could have passed for Goofy.  He was originally from Chibougamou, but had left halfway through high school and travelled throughout California and Europe in a desperate attempt to find himself and lose all traces of the accent that marked his English.  It was pretty well invisible now, although if one listened closely enough, it was there; either as a clipped hesitation or a minor disagreement with a verb.  No-one ever asked him why he had turned his back on his upbringing and embraced an Anglo North American counter-culture lifestyle, but it was undeniable that Arvid was cool and he knew it.  He always had something on the go, a deal, a connection, and he always managed to be seen.  Everybody knew Arvid and everyone knew how he made his living.  Looking ticked off, he walked up to a rejuvenated Dave.

“What the hell’s the story with that goddamned midget in the back alley?”

“You’ve met Cameron Mitchell?”

“Cameron Mitchell?  What the hell kind of name is

that for a midget?”

“He’s not a midget, he’s a dwarf.”

“He’s very short and he’s very nasty, and he has a problem with his attitude.  The little bastard held me face down in the snow and wouldn’t let me up until I gave him a couple of joints.  Where the hell did he come from anyway? I haven’t seen him here before.”

“We’re not really sure.”  Dave said.  He must live around here somewhere, but we never see him until the snow falls.  Then he builds his rink in the back alley and takes over the lane.  The city comes by a couple of times a winter to knock it all down, but he just rebuilds it.  Our little Sisyphus with a stick.”

Arvid had come late, when most of the partygoers were winding it down and not giving thought to staying up much later; except for Dave, who gave Arvid five dollars in exchange for the foil-wrapped tab he placed in his mouth.

Swoosh-ploomp! Chumley had jumped off the roof and fallen into the snowbank in front of the apartment.  Andrew, drink in hand and wondering if Kathy would ever reappear from the bedroom, watched the whole thing with an attitude.  Turning from the window, he yelled to the dozen or so partygoers who remained.

“Hey, check it out!  It’s Chumley, and he’s in his underwear!”  The prospective surrealism of the montage drew most to the window, to view a backdrop quieter than quiet – silent but for the kisses that the giant flakes made upon contact with the ground, and the counterpoint of screaming and hollering that the fallen snow angel made.  Cheers erupted when he ran upstairs and jumped again, and they erupted even more loudly when he ran back inside wearing nothing but soaked undies and a foolish grin.  Roy, who had watched from the front of the followed closely behind. Chumley, under the misapprehension that the good bedroom was vacant, scurried inside to change and was greeted with a woman’s gasp.  Andrew chuckled to himself and escorted the last of the pilgrims to the door, where Gervais and Claudel were laying out twenty dollar bills on the floor.

“So how’d we do?”

“’ey man, we did good, real good.  Two ‘unnerd an’ twenny dollars each, after I give Claudel ‘ere forty dollars for ‘elping me.”

Andrew surreptitiously slid the money into his pocket.

“Not bad, eh.  What time you want Claudel an’ me to bring da next group tomorrow?”  The two of them were giggling with excitement.

“You’d better wait until I call.  We don’t want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”

“Dat’s for sure, man” Claudel agreed.  “We don’ts want to goose no golden eggs for sure.  See you tomorrow.”

[Coming Friday, Chapter Nine - "Chumley Plays God"]

Chapter Seven – “Parties and Virgins”

By four o’clock it was already dark.  The boundaries of the universe appeared to have closed in on Dave, Andrew, and Roy.  They were in a snowglobe, a snowglobe which had not stopped shaking for over twenty-four hours.  It was a scene straight out of It’s a Wonderful Life; three Jimmy Stewarts walking through the streets of Montreal.  There were no identifiable roads or streets, just a wide expanse between buildings along which they alternately stumbled over or fell through.  Here and there a bundled-up brave soul ventured out across the snowy Sahara, spotlit by streetlights and framed by barren boulevard oaks.

The liquor store was closed and they were forced to make their tobacco and alcohol purchases at the little epicerie on the way home.

“Chumley’s gonna have a fit.” Dave warned, as they clanked their way home with a half dozen bottles of ‘Four Aces Cooking Sherry’ under their coats.

“Can’t be helped, man. The liquor store was closed.

“Four Aces cooking sherry, huh?  Back in Santa Cruz it’d be Ripple.  Lotta things about this country I can’t get used to, like these damned smokes.”  Roy pulled a cigarette out of a pack of Export ‘A’.  “Snow’s another thing.  Eight months of lousy walking.”

“More like four months of lousy hockey”, Dave suggested.    “Say,” Andrew went on, “How come the only time conditions are just right for busbogganning, there’s no buses?”

Perhaps the only bus running on the whole island slithered past them.  Even the oversized tire chains did little but throw up bigger whirlwinds of snow.

“What the hell’s busbogganing?” Roy asked querulously.

Dave jumped the snow bank just as the bus passed, ran behind and grabbed the rear bumper.  Squatting down, he surfed the bus for half a block, yelling his head off.  Finally he let go and came to a sliding, standing position.  He ran back, smiling and breathless.

“That’s busbogganing, and if you haven’t tried it you haven’t lived! I’ll bet you never did that in Santa Cruz.”  It appeared that there was finally something Roy didn’t have all the answers to.

“What childishness, what silliness, what fun” Roy conceded.

Dave smiled as Andrew explained further:

“You really ought to do it with a bunch of kids.  You hang around a bus stop and wait until all the passengers are on and the driver’s about to pull out.  Then, while some of the kids distract the driver, the others rush to the back bumper, hang on, and squat down.”

“Yeah,” Dave helped out, “You can’t do it alone or the driver’ll see you sneaking back and come out screaming at you.”

“Then,” Andrew picked up the description, “You hang on for all you’re worth.  The best streets are the suburban subdivisions, where there isn’t as much traffic and salt on the road. The idea is to let go and slowly come up to a standing position, sort of like water skiing without the skis”

“Or the water, apparently” Roy added.

“Well, yeah.  The winner is the last guy to let go”.

“Sort of like chicken”, Roy clarified.

“Didn’t you guys ever get hurt doing that”

Andrew looked a bit abashed, and continued, “Funny you should say that.  The last time I ever busbogganed was when we were living in Jacques Cartier on the South Shore.  I had hopped a great bus on snow that was hard packed and fast, just outside Terry Mancuso’s house.  I was looking good.  But just before the bus pulled away, a sand truck had turned onto the road in front of it, and I had no idea.  Apparently, this was one of the old trucks, where some old geezer nearing retirement rides in the back and throws a shovelful of sand onto the road whenever he catches his breath.  So the sand wasn’t evenly distributed, but fell in big clumps across the road.

Anyway, the bus accelerated quickly and so did I.  Just as I reached top speed, I let go and started to stand up, when BANG!  I hit a mountain of sand and my feet stopped dead in their tracks.  The rest of my body flew forward and there I was flat on my face in the middle of Fontainebleau South, without a trace of air in my lungs.  Thank God Terry saw what happened and came out and rolled me off the road.  I couldn’t move!”

“Ouch!”  The two of them winced at the same time.

“Yeah, it was quite a sight.  Me lying at the side of the road and my boots stuck in the middle atop a clump of sand, the traffic respectfully picking its way around them.”

“Dave!”  Roy changed the subject.  “You know, I learn something every time I visit you guys.”  Dave beamed, but Andrew saw it coming.  Roy continued

“For example, I was looking at your Hendrix poster before we left, and ya know, I never realised he was right-handed.”

“He’s not!”  Dave snapped back.

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe he’s right handed in your poster!”  Roy insisted.  Dave fretted for an instant and then ran home to disprove Roy’s outrageous allegation.

“Hey Roy,” Andrew chided him.  “You didn’t have to tell him that.  It wouldn’t have hurt to let him believe it was all real.  We all knew the poster was backwards…”

“Exactly.  Like the goddamned war.  You all know it’s wrong, but no-one’s saying anything.  Nobody calls a spade a spade anymore”.

“Probably because it’s a bit insensitive a phrase to use.”

“So sue me, you know what I’m talking about.  Nobody likes the little boy in the crowd who yells out ‘The emperor has no clothes’.  Not because he really doesn’t, but because they’ve all been proven wrong.  Nobody likes the existentialist for making people look through the shabby clothing of culture and civilisation.

Anyway, who said it wasn’t real?  Not me.  I just said it had a different reality for me. Is it any less real because it’s backwards?”

“Is it any less real than Ed’s virgin.  They’re both going to worship their fucking icons and say their rosaries regardless of what we do.  I refuse to pander to their misplaced desire to serve some mighty force.  It’s here and now that matters, not there and later.  You can’t serve as an altar boy to someone else’s religiousness out of politeness.  That’s why you never see any polite social activists.  We’re all fucking rude as hell.  Anyway, neither of them get it.”

“Get what?” Andrew was a bit disappointed in Roy and in himself for having thought so highly of him in the first place.

“C’mon Andrew.  I thought you had potential.  They both want the same thing.  Dave wants to be Jimi and Ed wants to be sucking on Mary’s tits.  They both want to be gods, but deep down in their hearts they know it’ll never happen.  So they worship heroes, or facsimiles of their heroes, their perfect fucking heroes.  But you see they’re not perfect.  We created them.  In this reality, Hendrix is right-handed and Mary and Jesus are the product of Ed’s bowels.

Organised religion and idol worship are the same thing.  Why do you think God got so pissed at the Israelites for making graven images in the desert? Because pretty soon the Jews would realise there was no difference between their beliefs and where they came from in Egypt. They’re gangs, and if you can’t be the leader, you attach yourself to whoever is – a bit of prestige is better than none at all.  We always suck up to the next higher level because we want to get closer to the source, regardless of whether it’s the boss, the pope, or Adolf Hitler.

So you pay tribute and maybe protection money so you won’t get your metaphysical kneecaps broken.  Dave and Ed aren’t looking for enlightenment.  They’re looking for protection, for a womb for them to climb back into and take them out of their hum drum lives.”

Andrew watched as the hunched figure walked up the front steps of the apartment building and disappeared behind the doors.  In some way, he knew Roy was probably right, but still…

“Shit, Roy” he said to the falling snow.  “It was only a poster”

Dammit he was right – again.  Dave stood in full winter outerwear in the front room staring, not two feet away, at the poster of his hero.  Water pooled from his boots and Chumley shrieked at him to take them off.

“Now that’s irony, man,” he said to no-one in particular.  “Discovering something perfectly good then finding out it’s not real.”

By now, Ed had moved the phone into the front room and was trying to get hold of someone in the news department at CBC.  The chuckling staff reporter told him that they wouldn’t be able to send anyone until the next afternoon, and would Mary and Jesus mind waiting?  Meanwhile, Father Fortinbras had decided that Ed was in need of some serious counselling and would be dropping by between masses tomorrow morning.

Chumley had recovered from Dave’s footwear indiscretion and was in the kitchen making a batch of his ‘special’ brownies.  Roy was getting into the cooking sherry.

“Hey, not bad!  Tastes a little like Manishevitz”.

Dave was on Chumley’s throne playing guitar, and Andrew was staring out the window and wondering if the snow would eventually drift right over the window, the apartment, the city.  He had never seen so much snow in his life.

“Anybody catch the weather forecast?” he yelled out.

“Worst twenty-four hours in over sixty years.  More snow on the way.  Everything’s closed up tight.  All flights cancelled,” Chumley recited from the kitchen.

“Jeez!” Andrew yelled, and jumped back from the window in fright.  Everyone ran to the window, including Chumley in his apron, wiping his hands.

Something fell past the window!” Andrew told the others, and they all strained to see anything in the huge snowbank that had grown in the front yard, framed by the trees and backlit by streetlight.  Several of them managed to catch a glimpse of a large, dark figure scurrying across the front yard and into the building.

“It’s that peckerhead Landon,” someone said.  They heard the main entrance doors slam and the sound of footsteps running up the stairs as though someone had the devil on their tail.  Still, they remained transfixed at the window.

“He’ll be back!” Dave promised.

“Damn, there he goes again!” Andrew exclaimed.  Someone had indeed fallen past the window, dressed

in a sweatsuit, and landed on his back in the middle of the drift, spraying loose snow like a rock dropped in a pond.

“Yup, it’s Landon,” Ed confirmed.  As they strained, they could make out the figure of a very big man scrambling out of the drift with a smile so big, there must have been ear wax in the corners of his mouth.

“Ever do anything like that?” he asked Roy, who had turned pale and had begun to sweat ever so slightly.

“Can’t say’s I have Ed.  Can’t say’s I have.”

Once more Landon repeated the ritual and once more they cheered him on.

“There he goes again!”

“Why not?” Ed insisted.

“Roy has this thing about heights” Chumley apologised for Roy, who was becoming more uncomfortable with the mere idea of someone jumping from the roof, and backed away from the window.

Chumley’s brownies were done and cooling on a rack above the stove.  By six, about a dozen guests had arrived for the party.  Andrew had opened the violin case and passed around a couple of joints.  Ed had returned to the Holy corner and was keeping vigil with a glass of cooking sherry, offering sermons to anyone unwise enough to venture close.

By seven-thirty, when Landon and Kathy made an entrance, half the crowd let out a cheer either in appreciation of Landon’s earlier acrobatics, or simply because he was a lot of fun at parties.

“Chumley!” Landon bellowed and bear-hugged his neighbour.  Chumley escaped his good-natured grip and brought a tray of brownies from the kitchen.  Landon disengaged himself from Kathy and began to mingle.

At the front door, Mabel and her sister the nun had pushed their way into the apartment past a startled Ed and were making their way to the farchment.  Chumley brought the brownies over and offered them to the two ladies who were staring intently at the image.

“Sorry for barging in Chumley, but Dave told me about the miracle.  He was right.  Jesus I could lay a log and die right here.  Her sister poked at her with her elbow, but maintained her incessant stare.

“Oh my” was all that would come out of her.

“I knew you wouldn’t mind Chumley, only we just had to see it, you understand.  Well mostly my sister had to see it.  It’s what she does for a living.

“Oh my.”

 

Landon was beginning to make the rounds.  He was extremely likeable – big and with a faceful of teeth that he flashed often, and he always made you feel important.

“Brownies for everyone!” exclaimed Chumley, as he passed through the crowd, offering his unusually uplifting variety of desert.  By eight, the brownies were gone and people were gathering in informal groups, talking above the music and the effect of the brownies, the sherry, and whatever else they had brought along.  Landon strolled over to Ed’s farchment. Outside in the darkened, muffled street, a dull roar wells up from the East.

“Ed, this must be the likeness that everyone’s told me about.  You must be very proud.”

Ed beamed.  Finally, someone was beginning to take him seriously.  He had been ridiculed by his flat-mates and quite possibly the CBC and the Roman Catholic Church’s emissary, Father Fortinbras.  Outside, the noise was getting louder and nearer.

“Thank you Landon, that means a lot to me”. Ed sat back down on the kitchen chair he had positioned in the corner next to what had grown to a minor shrine – three candles and a rosary on the Coke crate sitting beneath the icon.  He was the pope of Ste. Catherine, giving audiences to the poor and downtrodden.  Landon found himself talking louder to overcome what had become a riot of noise from the outside.

“You know, I’m a bit of a Catholic myself.  I know what a big deal this is for you, man.  I really do,” Landon continued; and then turned and walked away with Chumley on his left and, in a sotto voice, asked him, “The boy’s crazy.  Has he seen a doctor?”  At that, as if from a signal from God himself, the noise stopped and Landon found himself yelling.  He trimmed for volume and made the quick adjustment.

Chumley shook his head; “He’ll be alright.  It’s good for him to have something on his mind other than physics and calculus”

“Well, you’re the man Chumley.  You know what’s best.”

Outside at the head of the concrete stairs that drifted deep with snow, Claude Gervais was ministering to a congregation of thirty odd snowmobilers, all dressed in orange one piece snowmobiling suits emblazoned with their club crest, Loisirs de l’est. Bombardiers huddles around the entrance, ignoring the politeness of parking protocol, like so much sperm waddling in for a shot at the egg.  The canopy-like effect produced by the streetlights and heavily falling snow seemed to preclude the existence of Heaven, which was just as well.  If God had seen what was about to transpire, he might have had a difficult time turning his head the other way.

“Ecoute bien, mes amis.  I ‘ave done as I ‘ave promised.  I’ave brought you to dis ‘oly place, to dis shrine.  Inside, you will see a sign from God, an apparition, a miracle.”

The crowd murmured and drew closer.

“In dis ‘umble place. Like the stable in which our saviour Jesus came into da world, you will see a sight dat will stay with you and strengten your faith for da rest of your life.”

The crowd drew even closer.

“All I ask you my friends is dat you leave a little something in dis ‘elmet for da upkeep of da shrine.  You know, a little something for da virgin, like in church.”

The orange coated crowd surged past Gervais and into the apartment, dropping bills into his snowmobile helmet.

“Hey Claudel!” he yelled inside, “Make sure dey wait in line by da door”.  Gervais was being pushed aside by the pilgrims and in danger of being thrown off the stoop.

“Hey, colis.  Don’t forget to take dose goddamned boots off.

Back in the apartment, Chumley whispered something to Landon.

“Hey Dave!”  Landon yelled across the room.  “Hendrix is left-handed, isn’t he?”

Dave nodded, eyes closed, and a resigned look on his face as he thought aloud for a minute.

“Jeez,I wonder if Christ was left-handed?”

“Anyone who walked on water was probably ambidextrous.  Why?  Would it matter?”

There was an insistent knocking at the door. Andrew rushed to answer it.

“Sure it would.  A lot of left-handed people have been victims of prejudice.  I happen to be left-handed myself.  I know!”  Dave knew he was in for it as soon as the words left his lips.

The door opened.  Gervais who had made his way to the head of the line of snowmobiling pilgrims, stood with a helmet full of paper.

“OK man.  Dey’re ‘ere.  ‘Ow many you want in at a time?”

Chumley yelled from across the crowded room “Who is it Andrew?”

“Just a few friends, man.  They wanted to see the image on the wall, OK?”

“Hey, it’s a party.  What’s a few more bodies?”

“OK Gervais, you heard him.  A few more bodies.  No more than four and five minutes each.”

“Colis, five minutes?  Some of dem paid good money to see da virgin.”

“Claude, five minutes!  Period!  Jesus, what is it about Catholics and virgins.  She’s still going to be a virgin in twenty minutes.”

“OK man.  Be cool.  Je suis d’accord.  Five minutes.”

“Had a tough life, have we Dave?” Landon responded sarcastically. Kathy was walking through the crowd, smiling at everyone until she came to Andrew.  Landon winked at her and then returned to work Dave over.

“Well, umm…I guess prejudice is a bit too strong.  I mean, nobody here is prejudiced…”

“Bullshit!” Landon raged.  “Everyone here is prejudiced.  You’re prejudiced, Chumley’s prejudiced, hell even I’m prejudiced.  If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be human.”

The waters of the party washed aside to allow four odd looking orange suits carrying rosary beads and little bibles to approach the miraculous apparition, before lapping back to engulf them into the ebb and flow of the party.

Dave cringed and Chumley grinned.  Landon was warming up, and Dave would be in for it now.

“Listen Dave.  Let’s say one of your dozy ancestors, livin’ in some god-awful, lice-ridden hovel in a village in eighth century England, saw some black man stroll past his front door one day.  What’s he gonna do?  Go up to him and say ‘good morning Mister black man.  Pray tell what would you be doing in our village on such a lovely day’?  Hell no, I’ll tell you what your dozy ancestor would have done.  He’d have killed the poor bastard, and d’ya know what?  He’d have been perfectly justified”

The worshippers backed out, muttering respectfully and fingering their rosaries with the dexterity of a Habanero cigar maker.  Four others took their place.

“In those days in particular, being different really meant you were different.  If you were a black man and you found yourself strolling through Dave’s ancestors’ village; there’d only be two reasons for it.  Either you got lost and wandered all the way from goddamned Ethiopia, or you were looking for mischief. Black men don’t wander around eighth century England making social calls”

“So what’s Dave’s reaction to this black fella.  Well he goes inside and looks for that nice piece of stick he found last week, the interesting piece of stick with the knurly bit on the end, the one he thought would make a great cudgel, and he bashes the black fella’s head in.  Ya ever seen that sucky slogan?  You know, you can find it on posters hanging in half the student ghetto bedrooms.  It goes something like, ‘if you love something let it go and it’ll come back, and if it doesn’t then it wasn’t supposed to’?  This credo was not reflective of this man’s consciousness.  He was more like, ‘if it moves, hit it with a stick, and after it’s dead, hit it with a stick some more’.  Remember, this is the country that invented the penal sentence of ‘life and a day’.”

The pilgrim tag teams once again changed places.  Chumley and the two sisters found themselves once more before the image.  Mabel’s sister, an art major as it turned out, had a question for Chumley.

“That’s a very unique medium Mr. Chumley.”

“That’s Chumley.”

“I know.  I believe that’s what I said. Tell me.  Do you know how the effect was created?”

“Well”  Chumley began “I do know it’s, uh, some sort of gas operated device.  I believe the artist, that poor tired fellow asleep on the floor over there, works intuitively, letting nature take its own course for the most part.”

“Ya see Mabel.  The acts of nature are God’s own medium.  That boys brush was guided by angels. What a talented boy.  If only more young people could be like him.”

Mabel leaned over the recumbent Ed and sniffed the miracle to the disapproval of the pilgrims, wrinkling her nose suspiciously.

“I dunno.  Smells kind of fishy to me.  C’mon sister.”  She grabbed the sister’s hand and the two of them brushed past a knot of revellers out the door.  Landon was still going.

“But you can’t blame this poor ancestor of Dave’s. He’s programmed to react aggressively to things that look different and might pose a threat.  But Dave, man!  You and that left hand pose no threat to anyone but yourself, and you couldn’t taste prejudice if it came in five flavours.”

“Anyway, so what’s my point?  Oh yeah, that was then and this is now.  Uh huh.”

Dave, Chumley, and a few partygoers who had warmed to Landon’s tirade, were glassy-eyed and mesmerised.  Andrew and Kathy slipped off to the ‘good’ bedroom.  Landon went on.

“What I’m sayin’ is that we’re all prejudiced.  We’re the product of our pasts, and we had to look out for folks who were different when we lived in loincloths.  But nowadays…” and here he paused for effect “…we have to be aware of this prejudice we all carry around inside ourselves.  The person who does the right thing is the one who’s able to say ‘OK I feel like killing this fella ‘cause his nose is bigger than mine.  Why do I feel like killing him?  Hmm, ‘cause my ancestors used prejudice as a defence against outsiders.  Cool.  I’m not gonna kill him’.  Of course, the fact that you’d probably spend a long time in prison might also have a deterring effect.  D’ya see what I’m saying here, Dave?”

Everyone in a ten foot radius nodded their agreement – everyone except Dave, who had fallen asleep and was snoring on the floor beneath the poster, and Chumley, who was beginning to develop an intense and unnatural interest in the back of his hands and the veins that criss-crossed them.  Still, Landon held forth:

“Sometimes I wish my ancestors had a big stick in their hut when the white man came around looking for slaves to take to America.  Naw, we were too trusting.

And nowadays, if the mailman comes to your door and he happens to be black, you don’t shoot him, ‘cause he ‘s got a reason to be there.  I don’t think that black fella was delivering mail to Dave’s ancestors, and we don’t go around stealing each other’s women like they did centuries ago”.

Landon was losing his place more frequently and coming off his roll.  Looking around, he asked, “Anyone seen Kathy?” and wandered into the kitchen with Roy right behind him.

“Hey Landon.”

 

”Oh hi, Roy.  Have a drink, man.”

Landon tweaked the last glass of sherry out of the bottle and handed it to Roy.

“Thanks. So, you still running that blues club over on Bishop Street?”

“Oh yeah.  We got Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee comin’ in for the weekend.”

“I bet they’ll pack them in.”

“Sure, we’ll be turning them away at the door.”

“So you stand to make a lot of money, huh?”

“Roy, we’ve been doing nothing but make money in that place.  People up here go ape-shit over anything black.  It’s a licence to make money”

They both grinned, although both for different reasons.

“Uh huh, so basically, black pays.  Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Whoah man, I wouldn’t put it exactly that way…”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah.  I guess, but…”

”Tell me Landon, where would you be if you weren’t here?”

Landon’s eyes narrowed and he realised why Roy had been grinning in the first place.

“You know damn well where I’d be.”

“Yeah, in a foxhole in Viet Nam.”

“Yeah, what about you?”

“What about me?  I’m too old.  Even if I was

stupid enough, they wouldn’t take me. I guess I

just want to know how you come off standing on

a soapbox lecturing everyone about prejudice.  How

do you do that Landon? Huh?

“I’m black, man.  That gives me the right. Centuries of slavery and oppression gives me the right.  Centuries of second class citizenship  gives me the right.”

“…and your pompousness gives me the heaves.

I’m half-Jew, but you don’t see me wearing it on my chest like a medal.  Why don’t you save that bullshit for those fools in the front room?”

“It ain’t the same thing. You have no idea what it’s like to be black…”

“…and neither do you, bullshitter.  Where’d you grow up Landon?”

Landon stared at him angrily. He answered tersely.

“Long Island.”

“I bet there was some wicked prejudice where you went to school.  Now correct me if I’m wrong.  All this information came to me second-hand, you understand. You went to private school in Connecticut and Switzerland.  I heard they get some pretty mean towel fights up in Hartford. You’re not a draft dodger like everyone thinks, but you got a deferment for some psychological infirmity.”

“I got an image to maintain, and hey, I get depressed sometimes…”

“Hey, and I get constipation and hemmorhoids sometimes, but it ain’t no grounds for deferral.”

“It ain’t the same thing.”

“ Hell no, of course it’s not.  The medicine for constipation and hemmorhoids actually works. Who the hell do you think you’re fooling? You’re just a spoiled little rich boy who happens to have a dark complexion.  You’ve got about as much in common with all those poor niggers in Asia as I do. Your money and your daddy set you up in a tidy little business serving drinks to minors and turning a blind eye to pushers and pimps. What the hell do you believe in LANDON?  It sure as hell ain’t equality and justice. The only line you lay down on is the bottom line. You’re just a greedy little nigger boy who lives with a white girl and isn’t getting any.”

Landon’s rage exploded and he slammed Roy against the fridge.

“What is your problem, Roy?”

Roy pushed him away and smiled.

“No problem.  But Landon, if you actually believed all that bullshit you were spouting tonight…”

“…yeah?”

“It just might make it all come true.”

Roy walked away with a self satisfied smile on his face.  Back to the front room where Chumley was curled up on the couch, playing with his fingers.

 

[Coming up Wednesday, February 23: Chapter Eight - And the Party Continues"]

Chapter Six – “How do I Explain This?”

“Holy Mary, mother of God. What does this mean?”

Ed wondered out loud. A tattoo artist could not have rendered a more accurate portrayal.

“Probably that your butt makes a pretty good

paintbrush,” Chumley offered.

“But we all made a…you know…contribution” Ed

demurred.

“Yeah, right.  You didn’t see the effects of your

contribution as well as we did, Ed.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that you can claim 99% of the credit for this one” Dave assured him.

“But what does it really mean?”  Ed repeated.

“Well, look at it this way,” Dave continued.  “They say if you give enough monkeys enough

typewriters and enough time, one of them will eventually write the Merchant of Venice, so maybe this is one of those outside shots.  I mean, there must be millions of farch marks all over the world that don’t bear a striking resemblance to Mary and Christ.  It is good though, isn’t it?”

“But why farch marks?”  Ed was still very confused.  “It’s not the way I thought miracles were supposed to happen.  This is a bloody miracle! I thought these things came from the blood of martyrs or the tears of saints…”

“…and not the arses of students?”  asked Chumley.  “And why not?  The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Ed, you shouldn’t be so ashamed of natural bodily functions.”

Dave, in the meantime, had gotten over the novelty of the image and was beginning to question whether the faces of the two holy figures were even present, motivated by a desire to have his poster occupy what was, arguably, the best viewing wall in the apartment.

“Can I hang this damned poster now,” he whined.

Chumley and Andrew shrugged their shoulders non-committally, but Ed rushed to the wall.

“Nobody touches this wall!” he demanded, facing

them and inching backwards until his outstretched arms protectively covered the divine duet.  He looked desperately and imploringly at them.

“C’mon guys, you know I’m the only Catholic here”.  He looked questioningly at Andrew.

“United Church of Canada” Andrew dismissively

reassured him.

“Look Ed, you just do what you have to do.  We can

find another place to put Jimi.  I’m sure he’d understand,” Chumley suggested.

Dave looked crestfallen.  “Aww man, maybe Jimi would, but I wouldn’t.  This is the best spot in the house and I can’t put anything up here just because Ed got lucky with his ass.  That’s a first.”

Dave was ticked off, and Ed was considering telling him how lucky he was he didn’t kick his ass, until he remembered he was in the immediate vicinity of divinity.

Andrew had an idea.  “You know, Dave, if you were to hang Jimi over there on the opposite wall above the radiator, he’d be facing this wall.  They’d be sort of drawing energy from each other.  Hendrix is a guitar god after all, right?”

Dave thought about that for a minute, and finally decided it made sense.  It was at least a face saving retreat. He set about hanging his icon, while Ed scurried to find the candle and set it on the upended Coke crate beneath Mary.

“Good one,” Chumley congratulated Andrew as they diplomatically withdrew to the kitchen.

“Those two would have started another Holy

War”. He turned to Andrew.

“There should be an empty box in the bedroom

closet.  You can put your clothes in there if you want.  I’m going downstairs to do some more laundry.  Anything you want doing ?  No?  OK.  Lots to do.  Party to get ready for, yum, yum, and Kathy’s coming.”

###

A knock at the door.  Chumley dropped the laundry to answer it.  “Roy!”  Chumley shouted.

Roy Hershberg could have passed for a scat cat from a very bad 1950’s ‘B’ movie or a Robert Crumb cartoon.  He stamped what remained of the snow from his knee-high boots and laid his briefcase by the couch.

“Good to see you, Roy!”  Chumley welcomed with an unusual handshake that Andrew had seen once in a movie.  Roy was dressed almost entirely in black; zootish trousers tucked into boots, and a dark shirt and sweater enclosed in an Edwardian great coat, topped with an oversized fedora that glistened with the residue of melted snow.  He taught English at the college, specialising in the existentialists.  He was not much older than his students. That, combined with his high profile on the ethics committee and his avowed distrust of the establishment and outright rage against the war in south-east Asia and apartheid in South Africa made him one of the most popular professors on campus.  He was always looking for a way to do an end-run around the system and was a regular visitor to the House of Chumley.  People did not make friends with him as much as he made friends with them.

“What’s new, Roy?”

“You always come up with the most insightful

questions.  But I’m glad you asked anyway”, and he threw his coat and hat on the couch, precariously close to Mary and Jesus.  Ed moved quickly and cautiously to protect the votive mural, and hung the discarded vestments by the door.

“What’s with Ed?”  Roy asked Chumley and Dave in a

somewhat subdued voice and a nod of his head, as if Ed were absent.

“Guilt”, Dave answered.  “It’s a Catholic thing”.

Roy lowered his aviator glasses and stared at the

mural.

“Far out,” he decided, and began an

explanation of his latest project.  He swung the briefcase onto the couch and snapped open the lid, revealing a paper bag and a large metal ring about a foot in diameter.

“What’ve you got for us this week, Roy?”  Dave

asked.

“Not yet.  First things first, gentlemen”.

“Bagels!”  They all shouted together.  It had become a tradition for Roy to bring them bagels baked fresh from the little shop on the Outremont shoulder of Mount Royal whenever he visited.  Although he was close to their age, he always seemed to inhabit the persona of a favoured and eccentric uncle.  Roy always had something interesting or peculiar to show them.  They dug into the bagels and, as they were finishing, Roy hauled the ring out of the briefcase.  Attached to the ring were hundreds of subway transfers, blue and about two inches long and half an inch wide.

“Nice transfer collection Roy.  What’d you do, hang around Atwater picking them out of garbage cans?” Ed charged. He was still obviously pissed at Roy’s indifference to the evidence of his epiphany.

“No man,” Roy replied, with no small amount of

attitude.  Turning to the other three, he began his explanation.  “Just another way to liberate the system. I can get on the subway any time I want for free.”

“Me too!”  Dave chuckled.  “All I do is jump over

the turnstile when no-one’s looking”

“And get chased, maybe caught.  That’s for

amateurs, there’s no beauty in that, no intelligence, no beating the system.  It’s Neanderthal!”

“Did you know that the ticketing system works on

one hundred day increments?”  Of course, none of them knew that and none of them really cared.

“Look at this ring!” and he hoisted the oversized

loop of transfers over his head, as though he were Moses presenting the ten commandments.  The four of them looked as disinterested as ever, even a little disappointed.

“Oh c’mon, you guys must get it. Awkward pause. Look, each transfer is a series of hole punches, big ones and little ones.  You can only use a particular transfer on a particular day, during a specific two hour increment, and there are thousands of possibilities. This must have occurred to you before now. I cracked the code last night!”

“So?” Andrew deadpanned, still not quite sure what

Roy was getting at.

Roy was flustered, but went on with the

explanation, unsure if it was worth the expenditure of effort.  He held up the ring of transfers.

“Look.  Each of these transfers is numbered.  Before I go to the subway, I simply make a copy of the right transfer for that day and for the times I’ll be travelling, and save thirty- five cents each way. And I make the system work for me”.

“Hold on a minute”, demanded Chumley.  “I can see

how you might have cracked the code, but how do you make copies?  Those things come out of machines.”

“Exactly, well you know those aluminum boxes that

bus drivers get their transfers from after you pay your fare?  Well I know someone who found one that fell off a bus.”

Knowing looks and nods all around.  They knew that it was highly unlikely that a transfer box would ‘fall off’ a bus.  They were clamped and locked to the railing that ran protectively beside the driver.  More than likely, Roy was speaking euphemistically.

“Fell off a bus?” Ed asked.  “ If they were a

friend of yours, they most likely tore it off the railing on commission.”

“Believe what you will,” answered Roy, with a hurt look; and then he leaned forward and in a conspiratorial voice said:

“I was eventually able to re-machine the device to print out transfers in the sequence I wanted.  It wasn’t too difficult – a bit of tinkering with the internal clock.  This ring of transfers is really a working model.”

“Roy, you’ve got to get out more often.  How much time did you spend on this?” Chumley inquired.

“A lot, I can tell you that,” Roy responded, obviously glad and relieved that someone was beginning to show some appreciation for his efforts.

“I dunno.  I think it’s a whole lot easier to jump the turnstile like Dave said,” Ed insisted.

“Ed,” began Roy, looking down his nose and over his glasses, “You’re a Philistine!”

“I am not!” retorted Ed.  “I’m a goddamned Catholic”.  He would have flummoxed off to the bedroom had it not been for his self-appointed role as bodyguard to Mary and Jesus, looking benignly and beatifically down upon them.

“Apart from free transit for life, what else is new?”  Chumley inquired.

“Ahh, I’m glad you asked.  Lots of things are happening in the world of computers.”  Roy’s eyes lit up.

“There’s a new vision out there of something called a personal computer.  By the year 1995, everyone will have one!”

Quizzical looks all round.

“But why?” Chumley asked.  “Why would anyone want or need to take up a whole room in their house for a machine they don’t need anyway.  I don’t think very many people need to do university scheduling or advanced research”

“Ahh, but people will think they do.  And the capitalists are just waiting to make more money on the backs of the rest of us.”

Ed snickered.  Roy turned to him.

“Ed, you know that stupid game you and your friends play at the pubs on Stanley Street?”

“What, Pong?”  That’s not a stupid game.  It’s a test of skill and co-ordination,” he insisted.

Dave jumped in, “Yeah, especially when you’re

pissed, peckerhead.

“Well, gentlemen, imagine, not only Pong, but games even more complex and interesting, played at home on your very own computer.”

“But what about the program cards?”  It’d be awfully clumsy to cart those things all over the place?” Dave asked.  He remembered his part-time job last spring, where he had to carry dollies of computer program cards from the registration department to the computer centre and back.

“Well,” Roy began. “They will no doubt have developed new and more sophisticated ways to deliver the cards to the computers, perhaps more advanced feeder trays.  An associate of mine at Queens, says that some computer scientists are already working on a way of storing data on one tiny little plastic disk, the size of a pack of cigarettes”

“No way,” Dave yelled.  “There’s no way you could get all the information you need on something so small.  There’s not enough space to punch all the holes you need.”

Roy shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t shoot the messenger boys. It’s just what I’ve heard. But these new ‘personal computers’ won’t be for everyone.  Very few people would have the room to keep a computer in the house let alone be able to afford the air-conditioning”.

“That’s right! The cost of the air conditioning alone would be astronomical!”  Dave added.

“Exactly, my brother.  And that brings me to the real point of this little show-and-tell – the mercantile aspect.  I’ve been thinking that if this computer thing is going to catch on, there’s a segment of the market that’ll go through the roof over the next twenty years – air conditioning companies.  You should know, I’ve converted all my long-term stock options into Lennox and Carrier.  That’s Roy’s tip for the day, my boys.  Buy air conditioning – the cool wave of the future!”

“Air conditioning,” Ed snickered.  “Roy, you’re full of hot air.”

Roy looked over his glasses again, this time at the image on the wall and then at Ed.

“And Ed you’re full of shit, about as much as you were last night.  You really believe that’s an image of Mary and Jesus don’t you?”

Ed nodded.

“OK, so the next time you feel a little bloated, a little gassy, a little logie as the commercial says, you’re not telling me that it’s intestinal back pressure, but a visitation from the Divine muses, the Holy ghost?  C’mon Ed, I can imagine, metaphorically of course, how the good Lord would guide someone’s hand to create a miraculous apparition, or even something as mundane as a masterpiece, or even put words in his mouth; but dammit, I have a hard time imagining God directing all that flatulent energy onto the wall in just the right proportions to create a Madonna and Pie Jesu.  Ed, I love ya man, but get a grip.  You got pissed, ate too many beans, and got lucky.”

Ed had come to a full boil. This was too much.  He stormed out of the room.

“Any you guys got smokes?” Roy asked absent-mindedly, patting his pockets.

“Ed does.” Dave said.

“Shit.  Why didn’t you tell me before I dumped on him like that”

Andrew and Dave decided to go with Roy to the plaza and get some smokes and see if the liquor store was open.

“And no more of that cheap cooking sherry!”  Chumley yelled after them.

Ed soon came back from the kitchen with the phone book in his hand, and a mission in his eyes.

“What’re you doing now?”  Chumley asked.

“I’ll show you guys, it’s not just a fluke.  I’m calling Father Fortinbras to tell him the news.

Despite Chumley’s advice to the contrary, Ed rang the Father’s number.  Fortunately, the phone system was still one of the few things working.

“Father Fortinbras please…hello Father…yes, it’s Ed, Ed Brennan.  No, everything’s fine, yes, we’re all healthy.  Uh huh, quite a storm we’re having.  Yes it’s snowing here, too.  Well, what I wanted to tell you…well it’s a bit difficult to explain now that I actually have you on the line.  Father, do you believe in miracles?  No, no, of course you do, it’s what you do for a living isn’t it?…I’m sorry Father, I didn’t mean to trivialise your life’s calling.  What I mean to say is.. do you believe in grand miracles like Fatima, Lourdes, statues bleeding blood… I see…keep an open mind…suspend judgement…uh huh.

Well Father, we seem to have something here that defies logical explanation…yes…I thought you’d be interested…yes, right here in the apartment.  No father, I haven’t been drinking…Well, we appear to have an image of Mary and the Christ child on the wall…yes I know it’s still two months ‘til Christmas…no, I haven’t been drinking Father.  I’m not making it up..yes…it appeared last night..no, more like a spontaneous creation…a flash of light..uh huh.  Perhaps you’d better pop ‘round and have a look.  It might be better if I explained how it happened when you got here.  Okay Father… no, don’t call Dad…OK…goodbye”.

Meanwhile Chumley had returned to his laundry, leaving Ed alone in the apartment with Mary, Jesus, and a rather confused Father Fortinbras on the other end of the line.

[next up  Chapter Seven - "The Party"]

Chapter Five – “The Second Coming-and Going”

Saturday, October, 24^th, 1969

 

Ed rudely awoke him with a few well-timed boots and expletives.

“Some little pepper’s been banging on the door for the past five minutes,” Ed complained.  “If it wasn’t for the construction hat on his head, I wouldn’t have seen him through the peep-hole…yelling something about his snowmobile and the dwarf”

Then Andrew remembered – his part-time job.  It must be Gervais at the door…must move legs off the bed.  He staggered to the door, and despite having few doubts that it was his fellow crew member from Pointe-aux-Trembles, he peered through the Judas hole and saw the familiar orange hardhat of Claude Gervais, bobbing almost out of sight below the range of his vision – a screaming buoy in a passage of eggshell.

Andrew had found work that summer in a most unusual place.  Acting on a tip from one of his friends, he marched into the north end offices of La Compagnie de Construction Miron, and applied for a position as a chain-man on one of their surveying crews.  For whatever reason, guilt or tokenism, he was hired and promptly assigned to a site which was soon to become Complexe Desjardins, a forty storey office and commercial building situated across from Place des Arts.  It was situated on a stretch of Ste. Catherine that was strategically and diplomatically correct; just enough inside the east/west Bleury dividing line, but not too far beyond Boulevard St. Laurent to intimidate the Anglo dollars that ventured that far east only for the hot dogs and the flea markets and the pre-wrapped culture.

Summer had come and gone, but the job had worked out well despite his being the only Anglo out of 300 odd workers on the site.

Usually the instrument man, the fellow who looked down the transit or theodolite to get a line or take a bearing, would require one of the crew members to hold a pencil atop a marked wooden stake.  Then a rod man would hold the sliding rule at the site and it would be determined how much earth to excavate.  Occasionally, there would be no benchmark within the site, and it invariably fell to Andrew to scramble up the five storey high wooden sign at the corner of the site or dangle from an adjacent rooftop to locate the mark; all the while huddling from the high winds that ripped in from the St.Lawrence river and clinging with both legs to whatever support could be found.

Andrew began to wonder whether the reason he had been hired was not so much tokenism, but that no-one else was stupid enough to do the job, and he began to take a more defensive posture to his tenure.  Not everyone was happy to have an Anglo on the job.  Plumb bobs would appear out of nowhere, swung on fifty foot lines from the parapet above, occasionally knocking his helmet off. Old Frise and a couple of his crew locked him into the porta-potty by nailing it shut with two by fours.  No-one would ask questions if something happened to him.  It was a construction site after all, and if he didn’t take care of himself, it would just be marked down as another industrial accident.  The possibility that all of these events were tied to his being Anglo more than once crossed his mind, and every step from that point on was taken with an appropriate sense of paranoia.

He decided he would reinvent himself and tell them

that he was not English, but Irish.  He was neither, in fact, for his father’s bloodlines ran back eight generations through the United Empire Loyalists and into Boston, but who would know?  After all, it is about as easy for an average Francophone to differentiate between an English and an Irish accent as it is for an Anglophone to tell whether someone is from the Pas de Calais or Marseilles.  Besides, any self respecting Quebec nationalist in 1969 would instantly have fallen in love with anyone who was a member of a race that had hated the English for longer and with more virulence than they.  They would have adored a man who belonged to a culture, obsessive and pathological, which frequently used explosives and violence to settle scores between themselves and their common enemy.

If they hated him as an Englishman, they loved him as an Irishman.  Overnight, the other workers saw him in an entirely different light, and he could do no wrong.

Early one morning in August, an hour before the site opened, Andrew hopped the fence and stole down the descending truck ramp that wagged its way sixty feet to the bottom of the pit.  Already the day had become languid and unbearably sticky, but Andrew didn’t notice.  He was on a mission. Armed with a couple of spray cans that the crew used to mark the top of the stakes, he covered the walls of the site with the nastiest variety of anti-English graffiti he could conjure up.  He made rude suggestions about the Queen’s ancestry and maligned John Diefenbaker’s private parts.  By the time it was over, he had surreptitiously covered the entire site with graffiti.

“Some day, someone’s gonna call this therapy and make a lot of money,” he chuckled prophetically to himself.  He tossed the empty cans into the rubbish, and slunk back up to the café that sat atop the taxi dispatcher, affording himself a reasonably unobstructed view of the site below and settled in with a coffee and a stale Danish.

No more than ten minutes had passed before the first of the workers began arriving on the scene, Gervais among them. There appeared to be a sense of confusion for a minute or two as bodies pointed and arms waved and legs scurried.  Then a hesitation, before every man armed himself with a spray can and set to work effacing the graffiti that Andrew himself had written not half an hour before.  They worked slavishly to ensure that Andrew, when he showed up, would not be upset or think that they had done this terrible deed.  He was their friend after all, and he was not English, he was Irish, he was of Gallic descent like them.  He knew about bombs and knee-cappings and holy urban terror.  He hated the English!

Andrew sat back, lit another cigarette and started on his third refill.  He reflected that this might be the first and last time that three hundred Francophones would willingly erase the sentiments that they held in their hearts anyway, and for which many of them would be arrested in a year or two.

Politics suck, thought Andrew.  All these guys are thinking about is how upset I’d be if I saw this, and they’re sparing my feelings.  Andrew felt a little guilty over the prank and went down to work.  He never told Gervais of the prank.

“Let me in, tabernack,” Gervais moaned at the door.  Andrew swung it open.  Gervais took one look at his friend and let fly a barrage of bon mots.

“Col-l-is, we gotsta to be at work real soon, and look at you.  C’mon you, get some clothes on man.  I got my dad’s ski-doo.  We can be dere in fifteen minutes.  Lucky for you Normand told me where you were.”

Andrew rubbed his eyes and motioned for Gervais to wait while he got some clothes on.

“Hey man,” Gervais called out as Andrew staggered to the bedroom in his initiate’s costume.

“You gotsta gets some better unnerwear.”

He threw on his clothes, the same pathetic clothes in which he had arrived last night – the dilapidated boots, the still damp jeans, and Normand’s parka, when it occurred to him what a lamentably ridiculous idea this was.  He staggered back to the doorway.

“Wait a minute Gervais, this is stupid.  No-one’s

going to be at the site. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that the snow has closed the site down?  Have you looked outside?”

“What you mean, tabernack?  I come from da outside.”

The comedic figure, bundled in a bulky one-piece

snowmobile suit that swished and crinkled as he danced from foot to foot down the hall, turned on his clunky, unlaced Sorel boots.  He looked at Andrew like a dog whose owner has pretended to throw him a ball, but tucked it under his armpit.

“I know man, dat’s da best part.  Dere’s no-one in da streets, but we can get dere in fifteen minutes and punch in.  We come back six hours later and punch out.  Dey have to pay us if we show up?”

“I don’t know, Claude.  Surely they’ve closed the site for the weekend?  Somebody must have figured that there won’t be a lot of work done this weekend, at least until the damn snow stops.  Besides, there’s probably a night watchman on site, living in one of the trailers.  Surely he’s going to see that there’s no-one working there?”

“Look, you makes up your mind, OK?  Me, I’m going anyway.  C’mon Handrew. We can make some money driving some of dose rich guys back to Outremont.  My dad made over two hunnerd dollars just last night.  Hey.  And da girls love going for a ride on da skidoo.”

“Wait a minute, Claude.  If your dad made so much money last night, how come he isn’t out this morning?”

“Parce que ‘e’s got a beauty of a ‘angover.  Dat’s means I get da skidoo.  Well.  You comin’ or not?”

“I dunno Claude.”  Andrew was torn between going back to bed and his allegiance to his friend and having trouble making up his mind when his thoughts were interrupted.  The most beautiful woman he had ever seen was coming down the stairs from the third and final floor, and he felt his body surging ahead of his brain.  The choice became clearer now. The option of bouncing around in inadequate attire on the back of Gervais’ skidoo for the day, sucking up exhaust fumes, head rattling to the braying of the engine, in the middle of a raging snowstorm was slowly losing whatever appeal it held in the first place.

“No, I’m not going,” he said finally.  “You go without me, you’ll have more fun.  Anyway how’re you going to pick up chicks with me on the back?”

Gervais’ arms went out, his shoulders did a slow shrug, and he smiled a slow and knowing smile.  He was a good friend, but he had done his duty, and could not be expected to do any more.  Besides, he had seen the competition, who by now had stopped on the stairs and was shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation.

“OK bon.” Gervais relented with a quick clin d’oeil, “I’ll call you about da rally tonight.”

Rally, thought Andrew.  Oh shit, the rally at the

Maurice Richard Arena that Rene Levesque was going to speak at.  He had promised Gervais and a few of his other friends he would be there.  He hadn’t really wanted to go, he had seen enough of Diane Dufresne, Robert Charlebois, and Gilles Vigneault to last a lifetime.  If only they could get Jethro Tull, perhaps he could be talked into separating from something.  The problem was, turning down an offer to a separatist rally was tantamount to refusing to go to a Sicilian friend’s sister’s wedding – possible, but not recommended.  Oh well, there was lots of time to make up an excuse…and there was always the storm to blame it on.

“OK man, I’ll call you,” and Gervais was on his way.  Andrew watched him as he plodded through the oak doors, slamming them behind him; and in syncopation, he swung around and found, to his great relief, that this stunning woman was not only still there, but closer, and smiling at him.

“Are you Andrew?” she asked with a huskiness that had nothing to do with sled dogs or oversized juvenile clothing.

Her face was framed in a sort of black velvet holly hobby hat.  Waves of honey-gold hair tusked its way from beneath the collar of her frock coat, which clung to her waist and vaulted across and around her backside.  She was impossibly cute and he was instantly in love!

“Chumley told me all about you” she intoned.  His

heart soared.  Gawd, he loved Chumley.  What a guy!

“He said you were going to move in.  That’s so

exciting!” she squealed.

His heart soared even higher and he made a mental

note to give Chumley a big kiss and buy him a box of chocolates.  Maybe even take him to a movie.  She smiled at him.

“D’you want to see my engagement ring?” she asked, thrusting her left arm straight at his face, wrist bent and fingers extended.  His heart plummeted and nose-dived to ground zero.  He felt like a test pilot – one moment, the rarefied air of unknown horizons, the next a world’s record for quickest crash and burn.  Goddamned Chumley.  Screw the kiss, the chocolates, and the movie. He made a mental note to take him to task for not telling him about the engagement ring.

“Sure” he found himself saying, about as commitedly as a man can after climbing out of the cockpit of a wrecked plane.  Somewhere on the third finger of her left hand was a ring that held what might have been a diamond.  Andrew, still operating under the assumption that he might not be terminally grounded, had other jewels on his mind.

She had moved her right leg to the side and brushed back her coat to place her hand on her hip while he looked at her ring, revealing a breast, spray painted with a snugly fitting turtle neck sweater.  Andrew’s head swam as he transparently pretended to look appreciatively at the ring in the foreground while taking in the panorama of a chest that swelled in the background.  Words and images swam in his mind like free-form associative therapy – cling free, shake and bake, whip and chill, Jell-O.

“Must touch, must touch!” his brain told him in a hypnotic voice that fell somewhere between Franz Mesmer and late-night Peter Cushing.  This must be what his father had alluded to when, some years ago, he had expressed a hope that his number one son would not turn out to be ‘girl-crazy’.  A quaint phrase, Andrew had thought at the time.  Well, maybe he had, and what was so bad about that?

She seemed to be convinced that he had taken a more than adequate look at her ring and breast and withdrew both of them, closing her jacket and replacing her hands in her pockets.

“I’m Kathy.  Kathy Chess.  I hear there’s a party

tonight.  I hope you’ll be there Andrew”.  She planted a kiss on Andrew’s cheek and continued on her way.  She must have been out the door and two blocks away before Andrew came to and made his way back inside the apartment.  Inside, the other three were lying around, browsing on coffee and munching on toast that Dave was processing in the kitchen.

“I just met the most beautiful woman in the

world!”  Andrew exclaimed, still slack-jawed and dumbfounded at his chance meeting with the precocious and succulent Miss Chess.

“No you didn’t” explained Chumley, matter of

factly, trundling from the good bedroom with an armful of dirty sheets and underwear bound for the laundry.

“You just met Kathy Chess, the biggest tease in

Westmount!”

Andrew couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“She’s engaged, though!” he protested, feeling he

had suffered enough punishment on the stairs without having to submit to the ridicule of his flat-mates.

The three of them burst into laughter anyway.

“What!” Andrew protested again.

Ed snapped to a very serious and pensive pose, two

fingers extended to his temple like Toscanini on an album cover, and in a voice dripping with mock intelligence stated “She has very attractive breasts, don’t you think?”  Again the three of them broke into laughter.

“But I saw the ring!” he insisted.

“Did you really see the ring, or did you think you

saw the ring?  The only person Kathy Chess is engaged to is Kathy Chess.” Chumley authoritatively stated with more than a trace of bitterness in his voice.

“Well, it was pretty small.”

“Exactly, Andrew.  But please don’t feel bad.

Consider it another initiation.  Every one of us has gone through what you just went through.  Every time Kathy meets a new guy, the first thing she does is show him ‘the ring’.  It’s her little way of keeping men at arm’s length until she decides how to deploy or dispose of them.  She’s actually quite a nice person once you get over the sexual crap”

“There’s something behind the sexual crap?”

Andrew began to bang his head symbolically against the door frame, wishing he could be banging something else, “I just…don’t…get it”

“Not for a while, anyway” Dave snickered.  “She shares an apartment with Landon Warner and as far as I know he doesn’t get any more from her than we do.”

“Not from lack of trying,” insisted Ed.

“No” Chumley went on.  “You see, as far as we

know, the only people to get into her pants are her gynaecologist and a select few of the city’s better known musicians.  She loves musicians. Her breasts may be public domain, half the west side has had their hands on her boobs; but her pants are off limits to schmucks like us.”

Andrew still looked confused.  Ed began.

“Try and get this right the first time. She and

Landon have this deal.  She tells everyone she meets that she’s engaged to him.  Right off the bat that weeds out the sex-crazed curious and offers her a degree of protection.  We have also come to the conclusion that she is a little enamoured with the idea of being engaged.”

“Yeah, it’s some sick girl thing,” Dave protested.

Andrew looked as though the whole picture was coming a little more into focus.  “What the hell does Landon get out of this?” he though out loud.

“Ahh!”  Chumley continued.  “You might better understand if you knew Landon better.  You see Kathy gives him respectability and keeps his ego inflated to full pressure.  Landon is black.  There, I’ve said it.  Quick, run and hide the women and children.  He’s black, very black, and it seems to be in vogue these days for some white girls to run around kissing every black man they see.  A dispensation against accusations of bias.  As if they were trying to say,‘See, I can’t be prejudiced or I couldn’t possibly have kissed you’.

And the few black fellows I know, don’t seem to mind one bit.”

“Lewis didn’t seem to be too upset last year, did he?”, Dave intimated.

“Well, there’s also the ‘legend’ about the size of the wrench in the toolbox…” blurted Ed.

“Ed, there’s no need to be so crass.  It’s not a

‘wrench’ and Landon’s not a plumber.  He’s a friend.  And you’re missing the point.  Kathy doesn’t want a relationship with him any more than he does with her.  It’s all appearances, you see.  Kathy is, as my grand-mother would say, ‘tres speciale’”, Chumley concluded.

“She sure is, and she can do more with those two boobs than most women could do with two bodies” Dave snickered again.  Andrew came to the conclusion that Ed and Dave snickered a lot, maybe too much.

“Really?” Andrew added as an afterthought.

“Really!”  the three of them answered in

enthusiastic near-unison.

“Anyway, don’t let it get you too down.  It’s

Saturday and that can only mean one thing; it’s party night at the House of Chumley.  She’ll be back” Chumley consoled Andrew.

“And so will Landon” Dave added.  “But don’t let that or the fact that he’s six-seven stop you.  Like we said, they’ve got an arrangement,” he added with a barely perceptible giggle.

“And she likes fresh meat,” Ed growled, and he and

Dave snickered once more.

A knock at the door saved Andrew from more of their puerile humour. Chumley answered it.  It was Kathy.

“Uhh, Kathy.  How nice to see you.  We were just talking about you.”

Chumley and women were an unstable mixture.  Chumley and Kathy together were, for some reason, dangerously unstable.

“I hope you were saying nice things”

“I liked them.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, I guarantee the things I said about you could be repeated anywhere…I mean they won’t be repeated outside of this apartment…out of context…I mean…oh shit, I don’t know what I mean.”

And without saying more than a few words, Kathy drew blood.  With a smile she caused it to well up under Chumley’s pimples and erupt in a blush.

“Oh Chumley, you’re so funny!”

Once the embarrassment of the blush had subsided, Chumley afforded himself the luxury of a good lean on the doorframe.

“You think so, huh?’

“You break me up Chumley,” Ed confided in his ear as he made his way back to the kitchen in search of another cup of coffee.

“What can I do for you, fair lady?”

“Well Landon asked me to ask you if you had anything he could mix with his vodka.”

“Hey Ed.  We got any mixers in the fridge?”

“Just some clamato juice that Lewis left.”

This was uncharted territory for Kathy.

“What’s clamato juice, Ed?”

Ed appeared from the kitchen with a grave look on his face.

“Clamato juice is made from clematis plants.  It’s very expensive.  Has to be handpicked.  Very expensive.  Like saffron.”

“What’s saffron?”

“Saffron is derived from the stigma of a crocus.  It takes hours just to harvest an ounce of the stuff.  Used in Indian cooking a lot.  Very expensive.”

“Aren’t stigmas the marks that Jesus got from hanging on the cross?” Kathy was trying to get a foothold somewhere.  Chumley finally interrupted.

“No, no, those were stigmata”

“Oh, I thought they were little stigmas.  You know, like being pregnant and unmarried is a stigma, but being broke all the time is just a stigmata.  Well, if it’s really that expensive Ed, maybe I’d better take just a little bit.”

“Shit no, Kathy.  I insist.  For you anything.”

And Ed handed the almost full bottle of clamato juice that Lewis had probably spent $1.69 on at the IGA, across the threshold to Kathy.

“Gee, thanks guys.  Bye!”

No sooner had the door closed behind her than Chumley took a swing at the doubled up Ed.

“Peckerhead!”

###

The morning decelerated into a slow-paced time of reading, which for Dave and Ed meant studying for mid-term exams.  Andrew contented himself with a pot of coffee and a stack of National Geographics he had found in the good bedroom.  The quiet was suffocating and every time he came to a photo spread on naked African women, his mind would wander back to the encounter on the stairs.  Who was the patron saint of lost causes, he thought wandering over to the window and marvelling at the scene outside?  St. Jude, wasn’t it?

He decided nothing compared with an eastern Canadian blizzard.  It was unlike the snow that fell on the west coast, where it tumbled perfunctorily and melted a few days later after having blocked storm drains and sent homeowners in a panicked frenzy to Canadian Tire to replace the snow shovel and  window scraper that were lost five years ago after the last storm; and complaining to the manager why these items weren’t in stock.

Quebec snow was an art form. It dazzled and beguiled.  Voices clung to each flake  The tumble from the clouds was only an overture to several more movements and a crescendo.  Wind brought the snow to life.  It varied in intensity, driving almost horizontally before momentarily relenting in ebbs and flows to animate the corps de ballet of flakes, wavering first one way then another; never revealing the choreography with predictable or cliched movements or repetitiously paced dynamics.  Mon pays ce n’est pas mon pays, c’est l’hiver, he chanted softly to himself.  A ski-doo ripped across his line of vision going from left sash to right, blasting the snowflakes and voices back to the heavens.

It was now close to noon, but the sky was as dark as ever, snow materialising as if by magic from the hand of an unseen conjuror.  It would take a long time to clear up this mess, thought Andrew, even somewhere as used to heavy snowfall as Montreal.  He chuckled with the recollection of a story his father had once told him about an erstwhile mayor of Montreal, a man whose name he could not recall, who had found creative ways to pay for snow removal.  This guardian of the public trust, finding himself confronted with a particularly hefty bill for an unusually heavy winter of snowfall, had increased the residential water tax.  This did not escape the attention of taxpayers’ groups who demanded to know the reason for such an

increase.  Had there been a commensurate increase in water consumption?  “Snow removal” shot back the mayor.   Infuriated, the taxpayers demanded to know how snow removal could be paid for with an increase in water tax.  “Well, after all,” responded the mayor, “Snow is water.”

Andrew made another pot of coffee and went out to the back door landing.  Looking through the floor to ceiling window, he could make out the entoqued head of Cameron Mitchell buzzing back and forth.  He was wielding a snow shovel now, and scraping the white stuff off his rink as fast as it fell.  He took another gulp of coffee, shook his head and went back inside.  Dave was right behind him.

“Hey,” he yelled as he burst through the door.  “Look what I found in the basement garbage.

Someone was gonna throw this out.”  And he carefully unfurled a perfectly good poster of Jimi Hendrix.

“Oh my God” Chumley intoned.  “Who in their right

mind would throw out a poster of Hendrix?  Somebody must have stolen it and ditched it there.”

Dave could not believe his good luck.  After deliberation, it was decided to take down the macramé wall hanging that covered the farch marks and hang it there.  It had been made by Ed’s sister in Edmonton.  Ed didn’t have strong bonds with either macramé or his sister.

“Good, I never did like that piece of shit,” Ed muttered. Chumley pulled it down and Dave stood waiting with pins in his mouth, ready to mount his new found masterpiece.

No sooner had the hanging come off the wall than Ed dropped to his knees and crossed himself repeatedly, as though the pope had entered the room.  Dave’s mouth hung open, spilling the pins all over the floor, and Chumley let out a ‘Whoa-a-h!’  None of them could believe their eyes.  The night before, nobody had been in any state of mind to pay close attention to the wall after the hanging was returned to cover the evidence of the initiation.  But now, in the full light of day, a seemingly miraculous image revealed itself; an image of Mary holding the Christ child in her arms.  It was not close, nor was it not an approximation. It was exact in every detail.  It was as though someone had taken pen and ink and drawn the image skilfully by hand, rather than by another part of the human anatomy.

Chapter Four – The Initiation

By the time Andrew had made it back to the Greene Avenue Metro station, his sodden great coat had completely betrayed him.  He stood once more in front of the giant exhaust fan, but the hot air did little but exacerbate his clamminess.  He continued down the long corridor that connected Greene Avenue with Alexis Nihon Plaza, the Forum, and Atwater Station.

When he was ten and his brother seven, they had caught Gump Worsley waddling out of Trader Vic’s in the plaza after a playoff game and managed to get his autograph on an envelope in pencil.  The Gump’s french fry greased fingerprints smearing the signature was as much a part of the souvenir as the barely legible name; but his brother had decided that pencil was too impermanent and had carefully traced the Gumper’s inebriated autograph in red ink with his own uncertain seven-year-old’s hand.  Nothing ever changed, he thought.  While his brother still insisted that everything have the permanence of the Ten Commandments, Andrew would frequently forget which way he was travelling on the Metro.

Four miles later and worlds apart, he ran up the wrong way escalator at Bleury and trudged ten minutes through what had now become a raging blizzard.  The damp from his clothing had penetrated to bone-depth and made the trek to the seven-room walk-up miserable and almost unbearable.  Up the snow covered wrought-iron spiral stairs he slogged, and into the apartment – more of a long hallway with a string of rooms issuing to one side.  The smell of wet enamel told him that Normand had been at work again.  Normand was a graphic arts student who shared the apartment with him.  In his spare time, which to Andrew seemed to be considerable, Normand had recreated his own psychotically psychedelic version of the Last Supper in the bathroom, with Fritz the Cat as Jesus, something that looked like the Sistine chapel with God giving life to Jerry Garcia’s right hand on the walls of the kitchen, and was by now half-way down the hall and considering a re-creation of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Andrew winced critically as he passed a working Normand, but said nothing.  There was an unmistakable tension in the air.  He drew himself a hot bath and laid back in the tub, giggling to himself as he noticed through the open door that, not only was Christ’s body in the form of Fritz the Cat, but that a pair of kitty paws peered out from beneath the folds of the table cloth.

Then the music started up.  It amazed him how the landlord could complain about their music when RCA’s recording studio was located on the other side of the wall. There were acoustic barriers in the wall, but they did little to prevent the sonic vibrations from undulating through plaster, wood, and brick.  Some nights were quiet, but the rule was that evenings were unpredictable and if you weren’t tired you probably wouldn’t get to sleep.  What a contrast to the house of Chumley!  He was feeling better and better at his good luck.  Normand was busy highlighting some lesser God’s genitals, when Andrew finally reappeared from the steaming bathroom.

“How’d the apartment hunting go?” he asked pithily.

“Got it!  The place I told you about in Westmount!”

Normand looked sidelong at him and grinned malevolently.

“So, we’re a West Side boy now, are we?” he shot testily.

Andrew bristled for an instant.  To those who grew up east of Boulevard St. Laurent, the term West Side is as much an insult as it is a geographical descriptor; but before he could respond, Normand jumped back in.  With a wave of his hand and a self-dismissive twist to his face, he pleaded:

“Never mind.  When are you leaving!”  Normand’s mouth was asking, but it was really a statement.  Normand was a very fit and athletic individual, who had excelled in gymnastics in high school.  If one were to substitute a brush-cut and clean-cut jowl for the long straggly blond hair and semi-transparent Richelieu beard, it would be easy to imagine him in mismatched and oversized gym strip tumbling down a row of mats.  Normand was proud of his fitness, but he was equally proud of his sexual athleticism; a pride that was inspired by a particular event in his life.

At the age of seventeen, he had been diagnosed with cancer in his left testicle.  After attempts to destroy and then halt the disease proved fruitless, the offending gonad was surgically removed.  Later that evening, while he was recovering on the third floor of the Jewish General, his father came to visit him.  He told his son that the doctors had reserved his testicle and given it to him in case Normand would want it for a keepsake.  His father then shoved an open paper bag containing a slightly crushed ping pong ball before his face, which gave Normand what he would later call ‘a sense of looking at my own morality’.  But he was not deterred, and like a man with one kidney and a mission, he vowed from that point on to make the best of his remaining testicle and use it to the utmost of his abilities.

“So when are you leaving?”

“About an hour or so” Andrew offered.

“Uh huh”

“Look Norm, I’m really sorry about Roslyn and me,

but it really wasn’t as bad as you think.”

“No, of course not,” Normand bristled.  “It’s winter.  You were both too hot, you know how efficient the heating system is in the apartment.  You took off your clothes and continued the conversation in the buff.  Happens every day, right?  Fuck off.”  Normand stomped off.

Andrew stood by the front room window, absently drying the tightly curling hair over the heater and looking down at the street below.  The scene now resembled one of those grade four art assignments where the kids had to bring in an old toothbrush from home and splatter white paint over their artwork, or a Christmas globe that snowed when you shook it.  As the afternoon wore on and evening began, the snow began to focus its descent more regularly through the conical illumination of the streetlights.  Normand returned with a turpentine soaked rag working over a paint brush.

“Look, it’s for the best I guess,” Normand said in a more conciliatory tone.  They had been friends for too long to part company on such bad terms.  Maybe later they could make it up, but not now.

“When’s she coming over?”

“Anytime now!”

“Make you a deal!  Lend me your parka for the

night.  You’re not going anywhere.  Do that and I’ll be out of your hair in fifteen minutes!”

“Make it ten and you’ve got a deal!”

And before ten minutes had elapsed, Andrew was standing at the door with as many clothes as he could jam into his old canvas backpack, and the violin case stuffed with joints, under his arm.

“I can come back next week for the rest of my stuff, OK?”

Normand nodded, his hand on the door, ready to close it behind him.  Andrew was halfway out the door.

“Look, let’s keep in touch, right?”

“Yeah sure man, just go!”  and Normand swung the door closed behind him.

Halfway down the stairs he passed Roslyn in her fur coat.  The two of them, almost doubled in bulk by the density of their outerwear, had little chance but to stop and exchange pleasantries, despite Andrew’s best self-counsel.  Her fur stroked seductively across his rip-stop nylon as they parted company. He was of two minds when it came to talking with her.  She was an outrageously attractive woman, but he and Normand had had difficulties with girl friends before and he wanted to leave the apartment on friendly terms.  She smiled sweetly at him and he smiled absently in return, hurrying on his way up rue Viger to the Metro station.

The snow had become even heavier and the side streets almost completely abandoned.  It was increasingly difficult to tell the difference between roadway and sidewalk, for the incidence of either motorised or pedestrian traffic was equally non-existent.  On Dorchester, some attempt had been made to keep two of the six lanes clear, but the snowplows and graders were fighting a losing battle.  As quickly as they made a sweep with their rumbling blades, the darkened sky would just as quickly fill the void with wet, heavy snow.  The little Bombardiers, for which pedestrians had always to keep a sharp eye out, had disappeared off the face of the snowscape, as had the city buses, now that there was nowhere for them to travel to or from.

A little north of Ste. Catherine and he was back in the subway, perhaps the only thing open in Montreal besides the downtown bars.  Normand’s parka, while not entirely waterproof, was more than warm enough and a darn sight more useful than the sodden great coat lying on the floor of the hallway at home.

Huddled into the last seat at the end of the train, Andrew felt a little concerned for Normand.  He had never known him to be involved with a member of the opposite sex for more than a few weeks, but he had been keeping company with Roslyn for over two months.  This was serious, and worse, she was five years older than he was!  She was a mature woman and she was Jewish to boot.  It would only be a matter of time before either a little voice in her head or her mother would remind her that there were irreconcilable differences between them.  He wondered why that same logic didn’t work the other way around.  He knew lots of Jewish guys who had long term relationships with shiksas; Christ, Barry Lipschitz even married one.  He figured it was the closest thing to European sensibility to be found in Montreal. If you discounted the usually undiscountable French presence.  Andrew called it the Leonard Cohen syndrome.  It seemed that the worse the poetry, the worse the tailor, and the cheesier the approach, the more successful the guy would be.  Hell, look at Andy Kim – the voice of ‘The Archies’ – you couldn’t get much cheesier than that.  At least Cohen had the good taste not to paint roll-on suntan all over his face and wear those god-awful jump-suits.

Did Normand really know what he was letting himself in for?  Could he really compete with Leonard Cohen and Andy Kim?  Would he want to?

Andrew made the twenty-minute trip from Atwater to the house of Chumley in much greater comfort than he had that afternoon.  He stopped at an open convenience store to pick up a bottle of Four Aces cooking sherry for the meal, tucked it deep within the folds of the blessed down parka and continued westward.  The wind had returned and the temperature had dropped enough to change the snowflakes into biting grains of crystal that sandblasted the exposed areas of his face.

Up against the doorway of a rooming house, a rubby was howling to be let in.  His coat had become caught in the doorway and he had lost or forgotten his key.  Urine soaked his Sally Ann trousers, and he was dancing around in hopes that it would not freeze before his room-mates answered his appeals.

He was now in Lower Westmount, in the heart of the ‘enemy’; where school children wore ties and blazers to school and whose parents spent summer weekends with them either sailing on Lac St. Louis or cottaging in the Laurentians.  East End kids would spend their summers and weekends sweltering in 100% humidity and temperatures that baked them, uncooled by lakeshore winds or ragged pines, but roasted by concrete and metal.

Did Chumley belong to this world?  For that matter was Chumley even from this planet?  He could not tell from first appearances, but had a feeling it would be interesting trying to find out.  The living room light from the front window of the house of Chumley guided him on.

The apartment door opened like a swollen earthen dam unleashing a cacophony of light, sound, and smell.  Chumley himself, now attired in striped pants, paisley shirt, and baseball cap, welcomed him back and led him into the living room where he introduced him to Dave Edgington, another knight of the house of Chumley.  Dave sat to the right of the large window, cross-legged in the oversized chair, a nimble, elven-looking creature.  Andrew found himself checking for pointed ears.  Across his lap sat a five-string tenor guitar and his fingers danced across the strings as he talked to Andrew; voice and hands apparently oblivious to each other.

The aroma of beans wafted from the kitchen, an earthy smell that worked in counterpoint with the warm wooden floors and the softly decorated walls, illuminated by the yellow glow of floor lamps and candles.  Andrew sat against an overstuffed pillow propped against the couch, watching Dave’s hands interact with the guitar strings.  While they talked, he played note-for-note, the first side of Jethro Tull’s second album.  Andrew was transfixed.  He had never met anyone who could not only play and talk at the same time, but play with the grace of an angel as well.

“How long did it take you to learn that?”  Andrew asked solicitously.

Dave smiled a wide, toothy grin, eyes twinkling.  He was obviously pleased that someone was actually listening to his music and not treating it as background.

“I bought the album yesterday” he admitted, anticipating Andrew’s response.

“How many times have you listened to it?” he asked in disbelief.

“I’ve gotta be honest, twice”

“Twice!  Twice!  People have told me their names more often than that and I haven’t been able to remember them!  Are you putting me on?”

Andrew wanted to believe him, but the possibility that someone could play half an album with such accuracy and dexterity was beyond his understanding.

Dave smiled again and continued playing.  He had heard it all before.  Since he could talk, he had been able to repeat songs that he had heard on the radio note for note and word for word. When his dad got him a guitar for his sixth birthday, there was no turning back.  He played at parties, then local TV in the Eastern Townships caught up to him and featured him on ‘Saturday Night Hoe-down’.  He was a minor phenomenon, but here he was just another little frog in a big pond.

He knew every Johnny Winter lick, copied every move that Eric Clapton flashed, but Dave Edgington worshipped Jimi Hendrix.

Dave yelled into the kitchen.  “I dunno what you were talking about Chumley.  He looks pretty normal to me.”

Chumley’s head appeared around the corner.  “Oops.  Sorry Andrew.”

Dave chuckled to himself, pleased that he could have caught Chumley out on some indiscretion.

“Ya met Ed yet?  Andrew shook his head.

“You will.”

The window rattled in its frame and the snow sifted hard against the glass. It had been snowing for over a day now and with the help of the wind, was lapping mercilessly against the bottom of the window, a full four feet above ground level.  Andrew felt safe and contented; the smell of beans, good music, and the comfort of a warm and friendly haven while outside the storm showed no sign of letting up.  The boulevard maples waggled across the streetlight illuminated canvas of winter, uninterrupted by what would have been heavy traffic.  Nothing moved, except for the occasional brave soul with a desperate dog or an adventurous cross-country skier.

A grossly contorted face appeared at the window, nose pressed to the glass, thumbs in ears.

“Aggghh!” yelled Andrew, as he and Dave recoiled at about the same time from the hideous apparition at the window.

“Shee-it, it’s that peckerhead Ed again”, Davespat.

“Well, call the boy in.  It’s almost suppertime,”

Chumley added, in a matter-of-fact Betty Crocker way.  He was playing grown-up again. Ed appeared at the door, stamping the snow from his galoshes and the legs of his wool pants.

“Halloa in there!” he cried to everyone and no-one in particular.

Ed certainly looked normal. In fact he looked too normal.  A pale Afro extended around his chin, framing a clown’s face that betrayed little apparent depth of human intelligence.  When he looked at you with an attentive pose, it was difficult to tell whether he was giving you his fullest attention or preparing for a god-awful belch.

“Ed, meet Andrew.  He’s number four.  Look at what he’s brought us!”  Chumley said mockingly, holding high the cheap bottle of cooking sherry.

“Oh, great,” Ed moaned, pulling the same convenience store vintage from his coat.

“Where’ve you been, you naughty boy, you were almost late for supper!”  Chumley playfully pinched his cheek. He was an unrepentant cheek tweaker.

“Well, I would have been home sooner, but this very bizarre comedy show from England came on.  Very good stuff, but not really mainstream.  I don’t think it’s going to catch on though.  A pity really, Maureen doesn’t give it more than a month.  You know how straight-laced and high-brow CBC programming is.”

“What was the programme called?” Andrew asked, more out of politeness than any real interest.  He had already decided that Ed really was a bit of a peckerhead.

“Monty Something”, I think.  “Anyway, Chumley, we’ve got to do something about that short-assed bastard in the alley.  He chased me all the way back to Greene, waving a hockey stick and threatening to cripple me.”  Andrew chuckled to himself.  Good for you Cameron.  He made a mental note to take him out a glass of sherry later.  Ed continued, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to play shinny in a blizzard with a midget so I can get back to my own apartment”.

“Actually, he’s a dwarf.”

“Huh!”  Ed turned to look at Andrew.  He was obviously not used to being corrected.

“He’s a dwarf, I said, and he knocked out Butch Bouchard.” Andrew repeated.

“He’s a goddamned asshole is what he is, and I don’t care who he knocked out.”

“Now, now, boys. No sense in arguing,” Chumley reasoned.

“Maybe he’s a dwarf and an asshole.  Ever think of that?  Now, Ed, there’s not much we can do about it.  It’s just one of his little peccadilloes.

“I don’t think the size of his pecker has anything

to do with it Chumley…”

“Ed, read my lips.  P-E-C-A-D-I-L-L-O!

“You’ll just have to use the front door like the rest of us until spring.  Now, are you boys ready for supper?”

Ed rubbed his hands together, “Am I ever!”  The rest of them echoed the sentiment.  Chumley served the beans and Dave moved off the throne, while the rest of them spread out wherever they could, eating from large mixing bowls and mismatched cutlery; listening to more Jethro Tull on Dave’s scratchy record player that he had brought with him from Rawdon.  Andrew’s Four Aces soon disappeared, as did other bottles of indeterminate vintage, as well as several pipefuls of even lesser known etiology.

Andrew excused himself.  He needed some air, and grabbed a half full bottle of sherry before light-footing it down the back stairs to a rear entrance.  He was right, the door issued onto Cameron’s rink, and it opened with a thundering creak.

Cameron was in the middle of laying down  a barrage of snowballs on a teenager who had apparently failed to meet the challenge.

“And don’t show yer face around here until ya get some decent moves, ya little bastard!”  The teenager scrambled to the top of the snow bank before turning and waving a fist.

“I’m gonna tell my dad and the cops.  You’ll be sorry.”

“Not likely,” Cameron shot back.  “I’ve already beaten yer dad twice this year and the Westmount cops can’t stickhandle worth a shit.  Keep goin’ kid”

Andrew passed Cameron the bottle.

“Attaboy Cameron.”

“Thanks, Stretch.  What a guy.  Say, did that idiot Ed ever make it home?”

“Yeah, but he had a few words to say about you and your pecadillo.”

“My what?  God, that boy’s a first class asshole.”

He drained the rest of the bottle and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“I won’t give you an argument there.”

Cameron turned as a middle aged man in topcoat and fedora stealthily slithered down the snow bank.

“Hey, you!  I guess ya wanna pass, doncha?”

Andrew giggled and went back inside.

Andrew could not remember the last time he had tasted such delicious beans and was on his second large bowl.  Chumley seemed dismayed at the alacrity with which he was consuming his legumes.

“Andrew, be careful!  These are ‘quick-acting’ beans, especially chosen for initiations.”

“Chumley!” Dave and Ed scolded in unison. “You used the ‘I’ word.  You know that’s against protocol,” Dave continued.

“Wait a minute!  He doesn’t know a thing about it, does he? You haven’t told him!”

“Well, I didn’t think it necessary and besides, he’ll find out soon enough,” Chumley sing-songed in a hurt voice.

“F-f-f-ind out what?”  Andrew was becoming concerned.  The three of them looked at each other and beamed, like three little boys who had a secret and had it hidden in the tree house in a bucket by the door.  Ed stood up and proudly walked over to the corner.  Lifting up the edge of the macramé wall hanging, he pointed to a series of concentric black rings, here and there splattered with what appeared to be equally black but irregular impact craters.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Andrew said in wonder.

“What is it?”

“Farch marks,” Ed deadpanned, and went back to eating his beans.

“What’re farch marks?”  Andrew asked.  His three flat-mates could control themselves no longer and roared with laughter.  Dave completely succumbed to hysteria, beans sliding out his nose, head shaking in violent paroxysms of lunacy.  It had been a long time since they had welcomed an initiate into the house of Chumley.

“What’re farch marks?” they repeated to each other, barely able to disguise their amusement and disdain.  Andrew sat in a state of suspended animation, not liking his status as object of ridicule, but sufficiently curious enough about the nature of the topic at hand to remain unmoved.  Chumley began the explanation in his most pompous, professorial, and patronising tone.

“Farches are a hybrid commodity,” he began.  “The ill-advised, but invariably consummated progeny of ‘fart’ and ‘torch’.  Fart and torch, you see.  If you combine the words a different way you get tarting, which is something totally different.  We don’t do that here it’s much too dangerous. Farching is unique.  In the hands of the uninitiated and inexperienced, it can be a dangerous process, but if certain precautions are taken, it can also be a very entertaining and enjoyable one.”

Andrew sat transfixed at the explanation.  So did Ed and Dave for that matter, for they never ceased to enjoy Chumley’s explanation, not only of the art of farching, but of the internal combustion machine or the private sex life of Catherine the Great, or how to booby trap a car.  Chumley had such a damned interesting way of explaining things.  He continued.

“What we have is a process which requires a deal of preparation.  To begin with, one needs to consume a large amount of gas-forming nutrients.  Where some people swear by cruciferous vegetables or even chemicals, I’ve found beans to be most effective, particularly a type of navy bean grown in Oklahoma”

“O-o-o-o-oklahoma, where the wind comes whistling ‘round your legs,” Dave and Ed sang in unison.  Andrew had the feeling they had done all of this before.  Chumley glared at Dave and Ed disdainfully before continuing.

“Anyway, these beans were almost taken off the market a few years ago, because of their rapid and intense gas forming properties.  For most civilised applications, this was a definite drawback, but for others a positive boon, and there arose a great cry from certain segments of the population who had begun to view ‘Dr. Omar’s Whities’ with the same esteem as such icons as ‘Ripple’ or ‘Tiger Balm’

“Ouch!” Ed squeaked.  “Don’t ever put that stuff on your privates.  It burns for days.”

“Ripple?” Dave asked without thinking.

“No peckerhead, Tiger Balm.  What the hell would I put perfectly good Ripple on my ass for?”

Chumley ignored Ed and continued.

“Consequently, ‘Dr. Omar’s Whities’ have become much easier to acquire and are to be procured in any reputable health food store or head shop.”

“Hang on Chumley,” Ed moaned.  “I gotta go.  Jeez, these beans work fast.”

“No number twos!”  Chumley yelled insistently.  Ed whined.  Dave chuckled.

“You know the rules.  Get back here, Ed!  If it’s that bad, you can go first.”

Ed whimpered back to the chesterfield, his metaphoric tail between his legs.

“We have fulfilled the first requirement by consuming a healthy quantity of gas forming nutrients and can move on to the second step”

Andrew sat quite unable to protest or even move, assuming he wanted to. This initiation fascinated him, and how harmful could it really be, assuming it turned out to be what he supposed?  It was not as though he was being recruited by the Hare Krishnas or the scientologists.  He certainly didn’t recall L. Ron Hubbard talking about farching as a component of dianetics.  Chumley went on.

“Step number two involves the use of dedicated clothing – a uniform if you will.  Gentlemen!  Prepare for initiation.”

With that, the three of them adjourned to the common sleeping area and rustled around behind the curtain, emerging several minutes later wearing nothing but underwear, t-shirts, and socks.  An absurdist procession led by Ed, who carried a large, squat candle in his hands and placed it on top of the Coke crate, which served as an end table next to the farching wall.  The macramé was removed and the candle was lit, the bronze glow transforming the previously non-descript farchmarks into a thing of beauty – an objet  d’art.

“Andrew, catch!”  Chumley had tossed him a plastic package with a pair of refolded underwear inside.

“They’re quite clean, I can assure you.  But quick, get changed.  I don’t think Ed can hold out much longer.”

Andrew sidled into the sleeping quarters and got the new skivvies halfway up his legs before discovering that a neat, two inch diameter, hole had been cut in the approximate location of the anus. As strange as it might have seemed, he greeted this revelation with relief that he would not have to completely disrobe in front of three strangers.  He reappeared to raucous applause, especially from a squirming Ed, who by now was growing quite desperate for some measure of relief from his costiveness.  Andrew put his hand down the back of the underwear, poking his finger out where his anus was located, as though trying to reassure himself that everything was in the right location.

“Ed, you’re up first.  Dave, you’re on deck. Andrew, you’re in the hole (groans from everyone).  I’d bring up the rear (more groans), but not tonight.”

Ed clambered onto the chesterfield, the end of which was three feet away from the wall and abutted the end table with the strongly burning candle.  The others tried desperately to control themselves, but the image of a hyper-flatulent Ed on all fours, wool socks trailing off his feet, and the off-grey undies sporting a charred and blackened aperture at the business end, did little to incur seriousness.

While Dave stood by with a pre-soaked towel (in the unlikely event of a mis-fire) Chumley turned down most of the lights and carefully guided Ed closer and closer to the flame.

“She’s gonna blow! Stand back!”  Ed warned.

“Let ‘er rip”  Dave yelled.

Ed relaxed the grip on his sphincter and let fly. Later, all three of them would admit that if they had seen a more spectacular farch in their lives, they could not remember it.  It literally flew from Ed’s buttocks, struck the wall with incredible force, and ricocheted ninety degrees up the wall until the blue flame reached halfway to the ceiling.  As it died down, Dave tossed the damp towel over Ed’s derriere, for fear of a backflash.  Dave explained to Andrew that the possibility of a ‘fire in the hole’, as he so colourfully put it, was a real one and not to be taken lightly.

Dave produced no results that could compete with Ed.  Ed had simply been awesome.  In fact it was in question whether Dave had reached the wall at all.  When it came to Andrew, he quickly took his place on the chesterfield, but had great difficulty allowing himself to be manoeuvred into position behind the candle, and when he was, even greater difficulty relaxing enough to release his gas.  He was tentative, bit eventually it came – a small, tight streamer at first, followed by a respectably voluble torrent of flame that lasted a brief time.  He had undergone his baptism of fire and was now a full-blooded member of the house of Chumley.

Chumley passed, claiming to be the victim of that most insidious enemy of farchers everywhere – diarrhoea. Andrew leaned against the window frame, sickened by the cheap wine and grass and the fumes that had been emitted throughout the initiation.  Nonetheless he had been wonderfully transfixed by the beauty of the glow given off by Ed, an illuminating revelation that had bathed the walls in a soft purple and amber wash.  Lower Westmount’s own aurora borealis.  A fireworks display to welcome him into the House of Chumley.

The storm seemed to be in remission, but was still managing to crawl part way up the window.  Snowmobiles buzzed by from time to time, ferrying businessmen back to the suburbs at sixty dollars a pop.  He was shit-faced and out of gas.  Not yet an official resident, but close enough to fall into one of the lower bunks where unconsciousness overcame him.

[to be continued Saturday February 19...]