A Singular Man (22 page)

Smith walking west. A pile of ancient trolley tracks rusting in a lot. A warehouse. And in there they sharpen saws. Feel each little bump in this street. Somehow I've got to walk. Towards the trestle there. And the red funnel of a big ship. And that white little ticket hut. Day excursions. Trip round the island. Went out into the world from college. When I should have stayed in those high ceilinged rooms cold and safe, peeking out across the moonlit square, bare twigs and night time sky. Head against some hard wall. Crying for forgiveness. Her Majesty said I looked so innocent, such a young man who minds his business so. I've been watching you just standing there. Come with me. What were you thinking about. I gulped. Said yes Ma'am. You like to be quiet and I'm like that too. And the prospect of her room out those drab college stairs, gas mantles glowing.

Smith at the little booth bought a ticket. Onto a grey pier and deck of a green and white steamer he slowly stepped. Holding on to a rail. Dizzy Darling. She could have told me anything. Least of all her name in the other life she led. Lips all dust and grime. My false college heart attack ten days after I married Shirl. And left Her Majesty. Queen of a kingdom over which she never reigned and said I had a charming stubble on my upper lip. She stuck her tongue deep into my ear early in my life till I couldn't hear or think. By candle light I laid her, under eaves quiet and peaceful. At the morning dawn she stood before a window, her kimono open with the sallow color of her flesh. She was looking across the rooftops and twisted chimney pots at the distant purple mountains. I was young and fearful. She closed the shutters over the window, said don't cry.

Excursion steamer pulling out on the grey water. Dirty deep and sad. Sail out now with a beep to watch the city. The top of Miss Tomson's tower. Nothing will light up again tonight. Except that sign which says a casket company. Life's so humourous. As hope blows up in every face. If ever I get to the gates of heaven.

Please God

Let me

Bust in.

18

R
ETREATING
lonely by a window in the Epeeist's bar of The Game Club, Smith sitting bent over a tall glass of beer. After a swim. Watching down into the twilight, the passersby collecting on opposite corners and crossing in little waves as the light went red for cars and green for men. The sound across the dimly lit interior of back slapping, clinks of ice and clambake happiness.

The excursion boat this afternoon went under lofty bridges and grime encrusted girders. By humming highways. Looking out, elbows on the boat's rails, I could spy some peaceful hideouts in the leafy green on top of hard rock cliffs. Then the afternoon grew grey. Wisps of steam and gentle smoke from tops of buildings. Fading little flags. All waving goodbye.

I tramped here from the river to The Game Club through the crosstown streets. Stopping to telegraph flowering dogwood to Goliath, cold and dead in Dog-dale Cemetery. With a note to Dizzy Darling shell see should she ever visit that grave.

This is George Smith speaking, Miss Tomson.

Asking you to get in touch. I ebb.

Then I took the relaxing routine of my afternoon swim. Undressing in a mahogany booth. My little paper parcel stapled across the top and handed to a man in the steel cage. Who looked surprised at Smith turned mushroom picker, sad eyed, staring ahead at what was left of the future. Then wrapped up in towels, I gazed at the big pointer on the weighing machine. Registering a reading so sad, to make me wonder how much it weighed alone. Send the news to Miss Tomson. And I arched over the green rippling water of the swimming pool. On the tiles I thought of all cold things, and dived. Breathed with a nose like a periscope. Used a lazy flap of overhead arm to propel myself back and forth down the pool in a blaze of foam. A few nonchalant laps of backstroke to get an even distribution of exercise. For a finale, I bulleted two lengths like a seal. To break up again through the watery surface to hear George Smith paged to the telephone. For an earful of news fearful and fantastic. Club members looking up from their poolside papers. As I hurriedly wrapped up in towels, one draped over the fact Flapping and dripping, crossed the tiles to the white talking machine under a palm. tiles to the white talking machine "George Smith here."

"George Smith here."

"I have a call for you sir. Go ahead please."

"I have a call for you sir.

"George. O my God."

"George. O my "Bonniface."

"Yes. I am in woeful trouble. I must escape this town before it's too late."

"What's the matter."

"I can't tell you everything on the phone but I'll tell you this much. After you left I bought a paper and read of your tragic misfortune. I should have been warned. Then I thought I would see if you were back at Dynamo House and I foolishly availed myself of the rapid transit for this ill fated journey. One would think it could not happen twice."

"What."

"In all true madness I asked another member of the population for directions as to whether we were going uptown or downtown. So help me God he snarled in my face, asking if I could read. I requested the information once again, whereupon he replied the train didn't go anywhere. Upon the third reasonable request as to the direction of the train he asked me if I was a millionaire and wanted to fight. My dear George, I hit him. He toppled into the tracks."

'Where are you."

"I don't know. But one thing is for certain. I am about to decamp."

"Is he dead."

"Don't say that word. The terrible thing is, some innocent bystander was apprehended for the assault. The crowd closed in on him. Alas it was the presence of Mr. Mystery. With the commotion I put my hands out in front of me, stared fixedly at the distant exit and repeated quietly, help me, I may yet see with the help of a secondhand eye. I had a handful of change by the time I got back on the street. My dear George, your good Miss Martin told me how to locate you. May I come there for :e."

"Yes."

"This is truly too good of you George. I know how much misfortune you yourself have to contend with. But I shall be glad to commiserate with you. Give advice, counsel, in short, steer you right. As well as take you to Her Majesty. By the way, one last request. May I, for the purpose of further respite avail myself of your cabin in the woods."

"If you do not grope behind my books."

"George I'm sorry you said that. Be there before this hour is dead. I spoke to Her Majesty only a moment ago and she begged me say where she could find you."

I hung up the phone. Pulled the towels closely over my fact and barefoot made way along the red rubber carpet and through a glass door to the steam room. Tasting the salty trickles of sweat on the lips in this steamy limbo. Blotting out the eyes as a voice talked about the recent death of his mother which made him worry and become thirty pounds overweight.

Bonniface, your company is cheap as well as fearful. No more days of taking chances with pedestrians. And you're two hours late. Look out here across the park. For God's sake Miss Tomson. See you running there through the trees. If you were a fluttering virgin. And I broke your wings, you couldn't fly away. Summer all over. Winter ready to come knocking. On my hideaways. Find Her Majesty. Her flowered dress she used to wear and a black gleaming leather belt. Search every hotel. Her legs were of lean muscle and small ankle bones, precious gems under her skin. My first year at the university. She put her hands to her eyes and the tears welled up and stole down her cheeks. All the women I know are constantly crying. She said I loathe and fear people. All except you, George Smith. I caught an elevator to rise up through the peerage between us. As we knelt before her icon. I lit the sandalwood. More than the peerage between us. Great gulf of innocence. Until she peeled off her winter woollies.

Smith raising a hand. White coated waiter with his metal alloy tray. Staring down. Belligerence everywhere.

"Large beer. Please."

"Yeah."

"Pretzels. Cheese crackers and cheese."

Watch the people go by. No fun to be neglected. Or wait for Bonniface to come. Last week saw Mr. Browning. Who rubs his hands as he sees the car approaching. But this time I walked cross country, between the mausoleums, and evergreens. He was holding a big plan up against a tree and was distinctly startled. Some find nervousness instead of deep peace in the graveyard. He smiled all over his face with relief. To find I wasn't some apparition. We had a jolly talk on the portico. Won't be long now, Mr. Smith, till the cantilever is complete. News gave me an exciting shiver. Walked by the cemetery lake, threw a few little stones at the ducks. And chirped to a squirrel. One day little animals, we all will be neighbors.

Smith quaffing another beer. Followed by a whiskey. When the sneaky and treacherous have been sent scurrying. Just as Her Majesty said, you'll be rich one day, George, while I owe grocery bills everywhere. The muscles in her arms wearing a wan old fashioned tan. Satin wrists the ends of her limbs. Breast brushed the side of my face. George, the pain I give you offer it up to God. Did any little girl ever love you. As an ugly little boy. Yes. She hid a note in her desk in the classroom. I love George Smith. And the other kids found it and twisted her wrist till it fell out of her hands. They showed it to me while she was crying.

Another beer and whiskey from the waiter. Smiling and familiar now. Smith requesting a phone from a green uniformed page. Like Her Majesty's page of the presence. Only three hotels where she could be. Find her without Bonniface. With her race horse body. Smith you're a prude, look at me, hair flowing across my shoulder blades, I smile at you George because you're so hurt, so sweet, so sad and in the eyes of your prep school class they'll think you've come to no good end. Up someone.

"Here you are sir, your telephone."

Smith busy over these little numbers. Twisting a finger round the dial. To find another voice somewhere and erase this sound of heavy breathing. This table, the last outpost of civilization. Just as Her Majesty said, it's cold come into my arms, I owe my coal merchant and all my children's school fees. Pull the covers up on our faces. Let me teach you how to shut out the world. Tell me what you did at summer time when you were little. Why wouldn't you play with the other boys at the local monument with the fireflies blinking green in the orgasm races shooting sperm over the fence. You tell such tales, so funny, military cadets hanging from the doorjambs letting fly with their lotion shouting no hands. If you entered those contests George you'd be better prepared for this later life. And the profane farts. Albeit carried away by the same provincial wind.

Down the long list. Smith went, telephoning. Hotel after hotel. The residential, the luxury, the least likely and the most. Her majesty, Queen Evangiline. What is this, mister, a joke, never heard of her. Oaf. The royal nipple. Majestic mounds. Took the pole of this present peasant. Another beer and I'll be a yeoman. No longer nervous looking at you, even with haggard eyes, grey temples, stooped walk. Call you Evangiline the favorite of all your names. I want to escape. Get out. Go back. Into the late summer of the year. When you said, don't muff the first moment of manhood. George, the clean minded community from which you sprang. Elastic and high. And back those years. When a fresh wet breeze swept across the hills outside the city. Milkman clip clopping by to a ballad down below in the streets, all morning and grey. A tram tinkling in the distance.

Smith putting back the telephone on its little cradle. Never trust wires. Get crossed and confused. My heart on one end can never get its warmth to the other. Then all scared I hang up. Must find her. By legs. Ungladly stepping one foot in shit, the other in sublime. Could even pose as the most dangerous human being alive today. After Bonniface. And I'll be afraid to look at her. To see instead the Sally Tomson, that Dizzy Darling, cruising from one pent house to another, with her ruler looking for bigger ones. To measure. And you, Evangiline, undressed so slowly and folded all your clothes. Said no two poles the same, George, yours is a gift of nature. On safari I had four black ones one after another. Anything can be black in the dark. Love your tombstone teeth. I cry because I'm getting old. Nice of you to tell me I'm so terribly beautiful. White in all the corners of your eyes. Taste of honey in the mouth. And George present your pole to posterity. Be remembered long. Rearing up from these sweet short hairs. I hate the priests in this town and all the gossip that goes on about me. Their pulpit stunted organs. She talked her eyes like a frightened horse. Her denture slipped. Whole world moved over a little to the left. I haven't told you all the things how they tried to murder me, cut out my stomach. Jealous green eyed woman because I was so beautiful and a queen. You with such a whopper. Dutch cap now instead of a crown. My eyes go wild, for all that marvelous mouthful. Before I'm bleak dead and buried, part of a field. You plow. Come under my shattered wing, head in my hands, body in a land I cannot love. Have me as I am if have me you must. With the pip in the core.

The strange

Sour

In the

Seed.

Smith with paper parcel stepped out of The Game Club and walked east. Past the glittering entrances. Hotels and nightclubs. Doormen saluting to arriving and departing cars. So easy to go in one of these doors. Become a maniac. Buy the whole building out of my little bag of bank notes. Dismiss the doorman, bellboys, tell the customers to go. Clear out. Turn off the lights. Let me be in here. A secluded place to entertain Her Majesty. Supper by candle light. Spinach, egg plant and sour cream. Miss Martin with her gun could stand guard at the door. Shoot intruders. Bonniface as butler. And phantom figures chewing gum seen across in the park under the trees doing strange things with the procreative gifts of God.

Crossing the street to the plaza and the fountain. Smith sat down on the cool stone shelf around the water with his paper parcel between his feet. Figure which way to go. Put hands up to the cheeks of the face, rest elbows on the knees. A row of jaunting cars and sad horses. On this square foot make another small world. These last few days Miss Martin has been sour and tense. In the recent misery I have not dared to put my hands on her. Could be a restorative for us both. Frisking in the afternoon loneliness of Dynamo House. With the little letters that still arrive.

Wing Of Life Building

Dear Sir,

At the latest meeting we laughed at your request for mercy. What are your remaining assets. Learning of these we will talk further turkey.

Yours,

Jaws Inc.

P.S. We will squeeze out what is left of your toothpaste.

And for all my worries, I can still broadcast an answer on the ether.

Arse Square Foot Of Plaza

Dear Jaws Inc.

As George Smith sitting near this fountain utterly alone, please do not view me as the giblets. For God's sake, would that you behave honourably and vouchsafe the human dignity.

Yours,

Good old George

P.S. There are impurities in the toothpaste.

Two brown shoes stopping in front of Smith. As he looks up in the semi darkness into a stranger's face with rimless glasses. Thigh muscles tightening, ready to run from this possible visitation of more discourtesy. Thank God no transit tracks are near.

"Buddy things could not be that bad. But I know how it feels. Here's a couple of coins. Go have a piece of pie and cup of coffee. Do you good. So long."

Figure floating away in the crowd. Smith taking the two coins, staring at them in the palm of the hand and slipping them in his waistcoat pocket. A little drop of water landing on the back of his neck and running down inside the collar. Sign of good luck. A pity to meet kindness. Lower one's guard. And wham.

That girl going by looks just like Shirl. I took her along here one summer evening just like this. White coated waiters brought us Scotch and sodas, olives and cheese tidbits. She sat white gloved, an attack of warts on her hands. She always felt she ought to try other men. Because of all she had to give. Months since I've been called Daddy. Thought it was unique to be a father. Get asked for an autograph. And when arrested for momentary unseemliness somewhere, you plead a married man with children. But the world stares back at you, ignoring your troubles, blindly terrified by its own. Shirl has her problems. The starlight shining dimmer and dimmer on her hair. Deep line under her cheek when she smiles. Lying under the coats on the hair sofa of Dynamo House, I counted up all the women I've had. Shirl fifth. I added Miss Tomson, counting in two figures. As Dizzy Darling she's one more. Matilda, that staggering bit of tan. Entwined she was three at once. Said I couldn't lift her. I said you just wait. Tried and dropped her. It was a good game we used to play on all fours.