Everyone is Always Leaving All the Time

“I, only I, am the spectator in the orchestra.”
—Kafka, Diaries

He moved over the bedcovers in his graceful, stalking way, pawing at the blankets as he surveyed the soft, lumpy texture in search of the perfect place to lie. Seamus. He was maybe four or five, a long hair, black all over with some puffy white fur around his face that spread down to form a patch over his throat. He was a nice cat, despite his imperfections, because of them. Running a hand over his head and down along the curve where neck meets back, he purred with lazy satisfaction, arching his back and tilting his head, his little legs taut and trembling, before settling into his selected spot.

A dog can only belong to one person, but Seamus was ours. He made me feel good about things like few things did. Laying there listening to his low, mantric purring, his half-open eyes suggesting a contented tiredness, limbs huddled up under his furry round shell of a body, it felt like it would be all right, even with all the shit, some of the time. Like there was a little less hate, conflict and uncertainty in the world. And that was enough.

There wasn’t much else. The afternoon slipped past like a secret that couldn’t be kept. I wanted to hope, I wanted to believe. I really did. But it had been settled. She was leaving the next day.

That night we would sleep together for the last time. Our life together had started over two and a half yeas ago, most of it documented in a blog we kept regularly updated with photos and short entries recounting experiences we had had. Like the trip to Dublin where we had our passports and credit cards stolen and spent the weekend of the annual Bloomsday celebrations camped out in Phoenix Park amid the thousands of sloshed and surly locals. The time we stayed at a cabin on Waterton Lake and I got bit by a snake, an endangered Massasauga Rattler, after a swim, and almost had three toes on my right foot amputated. There were our two cats we rescued, Seamus and Stokes, who no one wanted them on account of one having lost an eye and the other having a stub for a tail.

We had shared a lot, and even the sour times I wouldn’t have given up for anything.

Over that time we had also befriended many new people—more than I had ever known on my own—a lot of them couples like us, and the thought of telling them she was no longer a part of my life, and I a part of hers, seemed unfathomable. I didn’t know how to tell myself.

We slept on separate sides of the bed, our backs to each other for most of the night save for when I woke to the sensation that everything was too real and rolled over on my side, wrapped my arms around her and held her close like I used to, those first couple months we were together, before she moved in permanently and would only stay over and in the morning, with the fresh light trickling through the half-drawn curtains, we would make it until both us didn’t feel anything, eventually getting up to shower, and, one hunger giving way to the next, I would make us three cheese omelets while she read from a piece of writing she was working on.

But before long it got to be too hot and uncomfortable, and we were back in our original positions, together in the same bed but divided by an impossible gulf of bitterness and longing that best intentions could never fill.

A while after that she got up, went to the bathroom and when she came back she was wearing only herself. She crawled across the bed and, her breasts dangling in front of me like ripe pears on the bough, asked me if I wanted to have sex. But I told her there was no point and rolled over on my stomach and swallowed a mouthful of pillow.

In the morning I laid in bed watching her get ready. She packed the rest of her things and then checked herself one last time in the mirror. She started for the door but came back to give me a kiss on the forehead, and was gone.

I continued to stare at the door. One of the cats hopped up on the bed and tried to curl up at my feet but I kicked it off. I smoked a joint she had left on the bedside table and went back to sleep.

It was a Saturday. That night there was a show at the Elks Hall. All of the bands on the bill were of either the screamo or metal persuasion—all of them except my friend’s band, O’Malley’s Alley. They had a sound about as far removed from those types as you could get. I didn’t much care to go but a buddy of mine, Paul, called me up and insisted I get out of the house. What the hell. So we made plans to meet for drinks and then go check it out.

When we got there the first band was already on stage. The music was deafening, the sound of the instruments bleeding together into a raw metallic roar. I hung back with Paul, observing the action. Bodies in the first few rows flailed and shook with abandon. On stage, the singer was possessed, striding back and forth with a snarling expression, occasionally taking up the microphone he clutched, while assuming a fighter-strike pose, and breaking into a hysterical shrieking fit that could have been in Turkish or Swahili. It didn’t matter. Words meant nothing. The expression was all.

Three bands played after them and for most of it the intensity of the crowd didn’t let up. I’ve never been to any live UFC or NWA events, but I get the idea. And this wasn’t much different.

Between bands, while we were outside having a smoke, I told Paul that during the next set I was going to go up front and join in. He said that would be as good as suicide and I said, “Exactly.”

Sure enough, while the next band was on stage, someone got laid out by a forearm shot to the face, but only suffered a broken nose and chipped tooth. Most of the crowd didn’t notice him until the song ended, when some guys working security came over and helped him to his feet. He was good and dazed, eyes glazed over, and he probably couldn’t recite the alphabet to save himself, but as they escorted him out the fucker was grinning like a snared hyena. All the blood made him look like a circus clown with epic snot nose, or a rodeo clown who forgot his armor.

After that the band played one more song and the spilt blood got cleaned up. O’Malley’s Alley was next to go on. While they were getting ready there was a noticeable change in the room’s vibe. It was still a good size crowd; most people remained or were replaced by others who had just showed up. And though there were still lots of long hairs in the crowd, most of them were now female.

The stage darkened. The band was introduced by the single ringing notes of a lone guitar that was soon joined by an acoustic guitar, followed by an electric—the sound building until it was filled out by the rest of the band, and then the gentle wail of the keyboard player on top of it.

I looked around at others in the crowd. Compared to the overt displays of angst and aggression from earlier they were downright calm and attentive, faces peering up at the stage, focused on the intricacies of the music. Without glancing over for acknowledgement, a girl pressed herself close to me. I turned my eyes back to the stage.

It didn’t hit me until a few songs in, during a cover of The Loved Ones’ “Sad Dark Eyes,” that it was at their first show, all those years ago, that I had met Candi.

I went out into the lobby and ran into my sister. She asked me if Candi was with me. I told her she left this morning. She says “Oh, OK” in an affectless tone and goes into the washroom.

I took a seat on a bench. Next to me were two guys and a girl. The girl was standing pacing in little circles in front of them. They were in the middle of a heated discussion, their voices raised above conversational pitch, the girl’s especially, so I couldn’t help but catch certain details. Mostly it had to do with one of the guys’ getting shipped out the next week. The girl made it known how against this she was. But to her opposition the guy would only say in response, “It’s just something I gotta do,” over and over, which only made her more boisterous, more animated. Her wild eyes lit up like hot coals.

“If you don’t come back, if you don’t fucking come back, I swear, I swear, you bastard, I am going to hunt you down and fucking KILL YOU!”

“No choice, something I gotta do.”

“Goddamn you, Markus, goddamn you.”

She collapsed down next to him with her head in her hands and started to sob, in mourning for something that would always elude her. She had a shiny nose ring and her long curly blond hair was showing dark at the roots, in need of a dye job.

So was I.

I got up and went back to watch the rest of the set. But by this time they had finished playing. The show was over.

Over by the stage I caught sight of Bradley’s sister, who played bass in one of the bands, and was packing up her gear. She had long black hair and tattoos for days. I congratulated her on a good performance even though I couldn’t make out any of her playing.

“You still play much?”

“Me? No, not really,” I said. “Maybe should get back into it.”

“You should. Come by the house sometime. I’ll show you a thing or two.”

“Like when?”

“How ‘bout tomorrow?”

“Sundays aren’t good. Sundays are bad.”

“It’s not like it’s a commitment or anything. Just stop in for a couple hours. Learn something new for a change.”

“You’re right. See ya then.”

“Sunday,” she said, lowering her head.

“OK. Sunday.”

She slung a bag over her shoulder, picked up her bass case.

I had had enough, was ready to leave. I was anticipating the ringing in my ears that would keep me up most of the night, among other things.

The crowd had thinned out. I looked around for Paul but couldn’t spot him. Some of the guys from O’Malley’s Alley were hanging out off to one side of the stage, but that wasn’t my scene right now.

I was standing there helplessly, repeating to myself “I got to get out of here,” when Sheila came up to me. I hadn’t seen her all night. The expression she was wearing, she looked about how I felt but not quite. I was starting to say something to her but barely got out two sentences as she took me by the arm and started leading me somewhere. “Come with me,” she was saying, “right now, just the two of us.” I didn’t know where we were going but her boyfriend Dan was nowhere in sight, and next thing I knew we were out the door and down the street.

As we walked along I started to notice that others were following us, had joined us. I didn’t know where they were coming from.

“Where are we going?”

“Never mind that. Keep moving.”

We made the steep climb out of the downtown and I realized we were headed for her house, a new place—she was always moving—I hadn’t been to yet. By now there was a line of people going back almost a block, some of whom I recognized from the show, and even more once we reached the top of the hill. We were surrounded by people, the streets filled with them all drinking and shouting and having a good time with it. Somewhere in the confusion I lost Sheila and was off on my own, another stranger in the crowd.

I was at the center of something I couldn’t name. Something overtook me and I started back in the direction I came, away from everyone.

I didn’t know where I was running to or why but it didn’t matter, and that was the point.

Everything was like in a dream. The song “Where the Streets Have No Name” could be heard playing from somewhere, some invisible stereo, like a movie soundtrack. The downtown businesses passed by on my left and up ahead I could see another person, a girl, coming directly toward me, also running, her long hair flapping behind her like a frayed, cut-off cape. She got closer and closer. She was coming straight on with no sign of let up, her eyes fixed on something beyond me. She kept coming and coming, and I waited until she was within near breathing distance before stepping off the sidewalk onto the street to avoid crashing into her. She flew past and I hopped back up on the sidewalk, narrowly escaping another head-on collision, this with a street cleaner my attention had been drawn from.

The streetlamps beamed down weak light. The night sky was black nothing. There were splotches of pink scattered along the cement, a regular pathway to nowhere. Nothing made sense and everything was as it should be. If life was like one of those mad Joyce novels I read my only year of college, this would be my divine moment.

But then it was over before it happened.

I cut left at the next block and found myself back at the hall where the show had been. In the parking lot, I slowed up, flushed and perspiring, bent forward with my hands on my legs above my shaking knees, trying to find my breath, regain some composure.

A girl I knew from someplace and a friend of hers came up to me.

“Hey, what are you doing? Surprised to see you here. Alone. Where’s Candi?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh. Well what are you doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“We heard there was something going on up at Sheila’s.”

“Yeah. There is. Something.”

“I think that’s where we’re headed now. You want to come with? or you got other plans?”

“No. I’ll go.”

They started walking away and I pulled myself up, straight.

“We can take my car.”

“Are you sure? You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

The car was around the other side of the building, in the middle of the lot, the only one there.

“Your car’s not that nice,” said the girl’s friend.

“Wait till you see the inside.”

I took a needless turn on the way and ended up down an unfamiliar side street. I turned into the parking lot of a convenience store, meant to be a shortcut, but a semi appeared out of nowhere, blocking the far exit.

“Watch out for the Handy Van!”

“I see it. I see it.”

I hit the brakes but the downhill slope we were on made them slow to respond and the eighteen-wheeler, seeing this, hooked it and managed an impossibly tight U-turn as we came to a stop barely a couple feet from it.

Coming out of the parking lot I took the next right. I felt lost but knew we were close when I saw stragglers from earlier bumming around, and swung into an intersection.

The first thing I caught side of was its sharp, wicked eyes flashing in the oncoming headlights like two small, concentrated candles burning in the night. Then the rest of its startled figure emerged, a sinister black statue in the street, and I stopped dead and turned my head to the passenger side in time to catch my divine moment shining at me, bright and perfect. And this time it wouldn’t pass me by.

The Patient

We took our seats at the back of the hospital’s lecture hall as they carted it in on a gurney, though what it was was as of yet not completely clear. It was hard to get a good look at it from my vantage point, concealed as it was behind a thin drawn curtain. What I could make out was but a shadowy outline, the general form of what appeared to be a rounded, semi-transparent case, possibly filled with a fluid of some kind, with something moving, that is to say, floating inside it.

A whole slew of wires, presumably attached the case in some fashion, ran out from behind the curtain and connected up to a small machine positioned on a nearby table, resembling a portable radio with an elaborate, glowing interface, the small patch of light shining brilliant and profound in the darkly lit room.

Out of the handful of lab coat-clad doctors and researchers standing before the small assembled crowd, one eager gentleman with a shock of white hair stepped forward.

“Velcome, velcome, everyone. And thank you for joining us today on dis, a very special occasion. My name is Dr. Verloop, and I ‘ave the ‘umble privilege of presenting to you the latest advancement in consciousness preservation. This device behind me vich my colleagues an’ I ‘ave vorked tirelessly on, spending years perfecting, represents nutting less than a revolution in human consciousness as ve ‘ave come to undastand it.”

Dr. Verloop used the platform to explain to those in attendance, many of whose faces were transfixed by the curious curtain behind him, how the mysterious machine functioned.

He explained how it could maintain the brain’s vital functioning without the need of cumbersome flesh-and-blood encasing. Through the use of specially configured sensors that allowed it to receive incoming sound waves, it was able to then transmit those same sound waves back to the bodiless brain bobbing around safely in its new solid shell compartment. Once received—and this was the part he was most excited about, as indicated by his animated face, broad gestures and booming voice—a counter signal, generated from the electro-induced stimuli, would then be sent out, to create a response which the device could then convert into discernable speech, translated into any of hundreds of different languages. Taken together, this new device would in effect act as the free-standing brain’s ears and mouth.

Some time after the presentation drew to a close, to a rousing ovation all round, I found myself seated in the hospital’s waiting room. With me from the event was a friend from school, a fellow Ph.D. candidate, and our Professor, who had brought us along at his urging, and had since spoken with one of the presenters and arranged for us a meeting, a face-to-face of sorts. A nurse soon appeared and escorted the three of us down a long corridor.

Inside the room, a curtain was drawn around the bed, the device from the presentation arranged behind it in some unseen, undisturbed fashion. The only signs of life came from the voice that echoed through a nearby set of speakers. The voice spoke clearly and precisely in perfectly formulated sentences. Refined really. Its nuanced inflections and authorial tone were like that of a television or radio announcer, only without the self-conscious projecting to a large, generalized audience—to entertain, to capture, to draw in others with a conceited display of elevated oratory. It was a cold voice, computerized. But there was also the hint of something else, something that could almost be construed as human.

My professor, a double Ph.D. in the field of philosophy and critical theory, began by conversing with the voice, engaging it in matters related to everything from history to linguistics to psychology to analytic philosophy. The voice never missed a beat, was there to meet all of his points and opinions with a quick, informed response, and, moreover, had its own share of original knowledge and ideas to impart.

A nurse came in. She leaned in behind the curtain, making a few adjustments before sealing the curtains tight with a sharp flick of her wrist. She played around with a few settings on the machine next to the bed, and as quickly as she had appeared, was gone.

Silence.

I looked over at my friend and he looked back at me with an expression hard to read but insistent all the same. It was my turn to speak. Nervousness overtook me. I felt something I to this day cannot fully explain. Was it just nerves, being put on the spot like this, or something else entirely? I wish for the life of me I knew.

Or maybe not. Maybe some things are better left unknown, left to operations beyond our honest comprehension. Cosmic strategies long ago put in place, since time immemorial. Who’s to say? Discretion is a tricky mistress. At the time, all I could do was work at a nonexistent itch behind my right ear.

Sudden movement from behind the curtain. A shadow stretched up along the thin fabric and curved along the ceiling. But it was an empty shadow, indistinct; like it was waiting to be filled with something, given form.

I addressed the voice finally, as best I could, in all my scattered incoherence. And it responded in turn. It responded automatically, without much in the way of forethought, its general language sinking back into the soft seas of complacence, the turtle receding into its shell. I pressed on, trying to coax it out, attempting with everything I had to generate some form of meaningful discourse.

It was no use. The voice continued to respond but its pop was gone; the sense of intellectual curiosity it showed earlier had weakened, grown flat, bored. I kept on talking, trying to fill in the gaps, but it was all for naught. Like trying to resurrect the dead, hold up a crumbling structure, as if my words were the pillars supporting a collapsing expanse of impenetrable silence.

I was growing desperate. My words spilled out carelessly like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle tossed out at random in preparation of the tedious task of being fitted together into a connected whole. What could be said to correct this, set things straight? Nothing seemed to make sense. I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks causing them to flush as I became acutely aware of the others, my friend and our Professor, in the room with me, the thoughts and judgements they were forming about my performance. My hurried speech, now verging on hysteria, careened forward, word upon word spit out with reckless abandon, toward some unforeseen end at which point—my hope held out in vain—all would be made clear, lucid.

“But what is thought, insight, all the powers of the intellect at your disposal, what is its worth without, without experience. You are limited to yourself and yourself alone. Don’t you see? Without some connection to the world how can you measure your theories, go about implementing them into concrete reality? How can you even conceive of a concrete reality? How can anybody except to be in it, a part of it? This is the point where theory is put into practice, the theoretical measured against the actual. I ask of you now, how can you speak with such certainties about matters that only ever operate within your own mental self-conception? Every theory seems pure and infallible until it inevitably meets with the chaotic, murky waters of life. Life as it is lived not just imagined.”

I cut myself off. Breathless, spent. It had all tumbled out of me at once, out of my control or reason, as if I had been overtaken by a force outside—or even inside—beyond myself.

The room again fell silent.

I waited for something, anything in the way of a response, from either my Professor or my friend or even the maddening figure behind the curtain. No one spoke. The shadow shrunk down from the ceiling like it had been dropped into a hole, a grave. The light from the machine's interface went off and the room was thrown into darkness.

Renovations

I am woken up by a group of musicians rehearsing in the next room. There are maybe four or five of them and they are jamming out Metallica songs. They are excited because James Hetfield is supposed to come over later. Other than that I don’t know what they are doing here. I am mad they woke me up. Their presence irritates me. I pass by them in a daze and shuffle upstairs. I am shocked to discover that all my stuff, furniture, books, everything, has been removed. The rooms are empty. The floor is covered in dirt and debris. There are extension cords and wires running down the hallway and through all the rooms. I’m confused. I go into the bathroom. While hanging it out I accidently knock a pile of hot wires into the toilet. They hit the water and come alive like pissed off electric eels. I drop the seat but don’t flush. I go back out into the hallway. My landlord is there. He is not happy about the loud music downstairs. Neither am I, I say, and tell him I’ll make sure they leave soon. He informs me he’s going to be doing some renovations. He is a licensed carpenter and plumber. He tells me the renovations will take four or five weeks, working on weekends, if they are diligent.

I leave my apartment. I go to a movie with a friend I’ve known since we were ten. It’s been about six years since I’ve last spoken to this person. Something to do with a girl both of us liked. I was with her and he wanted to be, I guess, but wasn’t. In their MSN conversations he told her what a big loser I was. Later she printed off these conversations and showed them to me and I took them over to him. He denied having said anything despite the evidence to the contrary I held in my hands. This is what happens. The hazards of life. At the concession, instead of giant watered down sodas and buckets of gooey yellow popcorn they hand out cushions and pillows so we’ll be more comfortable. We take a few and go to our seats. The theatre is very small by average theatre standards. Cineplex’s they’re called now. Everything has gotten so big they now must be referred to as “plex.” Imagine going down to the Bowlingplex on a weeknight and tossing rock hard balls down one of the hundred-and-fifty slicked up hardwood lanes all running the length of a football field to a set of itty bitty pins that resemble a row of bleached white front teeth. Even though it’s a small theatre there are two screens playing two different movies at the same time. On one screen a movie is showing that stars Benicio del Toro as a charismatic political radical not Che Guevara. On the other screen is a comedy starring a chuiwawa or maybe Dane Cook, it’s hard to tell the difference. I’m not sure what part of the audience came to see which movie. After the movie we hang out for a while, then go get something to eat. We have a good time and agree to hang out again sometime soon. I am glad we are friends again.

I go back to my apartment. As I approach my street I see that large crowds have gathered and traffic has been blocked off. Police have been brought in to keep things in order. The reason for the excitement is the Cohen Brothers are in town to direct my home renovations. To get in closer I decide to go undercover. I disguise myself as a telephone booth. I make my way through the people undetected. An officer waves me in, and I’m home. Inside, the renovations are complete. I go in and look around. The apartment has been drastically transformed. For one thing, the walls are red. There are more rooms then there used to be, all of them divided into snug little compartments designed in perfect geometrical dimensions. There is one room that is rectangular like a hallway only it doesn’t lead anywhere. A dead end. Also the floors are on a downward slope so that when you stand in the front hallway you have to brace yourself against the wall so you don’t fall forward. At first I am no at all happy with the new design. Then I slowly start to warm to it. It is a unique apartment, I think. Nobody else has one quite like this one. And besides that, I have a newly renovated apartment and am still paying the same rent as I used to, the Scottish part of my brain says. I tell my landlord I am happy with the changes, I will stay here. We shake hands. He leaves and I go upstairs into a large, perfectly squared room. All my furniture is back, including my bed and desk. I plug my phone in to charge it. I never got to meet the Cohen brothers.

I’m in my new house. I have moved from my old apartment. I’m with a girl. She has dark hair and dark skin and blue eyes that are as big and inviting as her smile. I tell her, where I used to live I was close to the ocean and almost always alone. Now you’re in the middle of the city, she says, and surrounded by people. I know, I say. She smiles at me. I laugh for no reason. I look out the window at the rows of houses along the block and recognize some of the people outside. That night we will go inside some of those houses and drink and eat food and laugh for no reason.

This is a Poem, This is a Place

This is the door that opens wide
This is the hall that fills with light
This is the cat that paws the air
This is the child’s toys left strewn

This is how birds announce the day
This is how sun breaks thru the clouds
This is how trees green in the yard
This is how flowers come to bloom

This is the bed that sags and creaks
This is the tap that drips and leaks
This is the lamp that flickers off
This is the fridge door hung open

This is how cracks form on the pane
This is how dust grows on the sill
This is how silence fills the dark
This is how clocks no longer toc

This is a purpose without aim
This is a will without belief
This is a faith without passion
This is a mercy without love

This is the street where blind men meet
This is the bridge where jumpers leap
This is the field where cold wind blows
This is the spot where lovers go

This is a poem that slips from me
This is a heart that breaks for you
This is a day that runs and fades
This is a night I give to you

Winter Poem

I trudge through the snow-packed streets,
grey steam pushing across the sky,
behind me a fresh path of feet.

I open my mouth, try to eat
the flakes that circle like white flies;
I trudge through the snow-packed streets,
grey steam pushing across the sky,
in search of a small room with heat
where I can find a bed to lie
down and dream of the next time we meet;
I trudge through the snow-packed streets,
grey steam pushing across the sky,
behind me a fresh path of feet.

The Fear

What do you say to this face that you meet?
Eased in by simple smile, those dark, searching
eyes: how they pull you in, hypnotize. You
cannot, you must not, you don’t want to look
away…until they become too much, too much
to take; break through like frozen earth by a spade.

Those eyes! Like the piercing laser light that
cuts right to the zero point, locked in, so
precise. Staring into the abyss, even
the abyss would open its darkened fist
and readily step into the warm glow
that shows like bright vapors on thawing snow.

And suddenly it’s there, the moment that
you share. And everything seems so perfect,
so right, like the day’s first dawning light, that
pours through the windowpane and takes away
your sleep. A new day! As if born again.
The freshness is the essence that you crave.

More than anything
More than nothing

But time weighs like a rock, the ticking of
the clock. It can never last, always drifting
into the past. Hurrying to action, the
need for satisfaction, it becomes so
overwhelming! Maybe, just maybe, you’ll
take the leap, maybe something will strike, this

could be the time. But you hold back, why? What
is this fear that you hold so near? Why not
go for it, risk it—the leap—to land on
your feet? But weighing indecision and
there is the fear, threatening an early
night to fall, causing it all to disappear.

End of Summer

I was quite drunk. Even by my own high tolerance standards. Stacy had just run off late to work, and as her sad lovely image receded into the night and the vague whispers of an all too familiar nostalgia mixed with an unnamed loneliness began to fill the chilly night air like the sifting plumes of smoke from the embers of a dying flame, I found my mind reeling, rushing to think of how to spend my last few hours in town, the last of the summer, as it were. What exactly did I still need to do? It didn’t take long to remember the first thing, and I turned, rounded the corner of The Pub, past the Bus Depot, and made the short strut down the block to the loft located above the fitness center.

Once inside, having climbed the long winding creaky staircase, I was met with the familiar faces of Mike and Booney, who had wandered up there earlier from The Pub and were lounging in the living room with beers and some unknown program running on the small screen across from them. They were making little jokey comments between the action while Frank sat in his big relaxing chair holding court in his calm, stoic manner. There was also another guy there with them. I only vaguely recognized him at first but then very quickly, as my scattered mind began working the pieces of the past back together, realized it was an old friend from pre-high school days, a guitar player who I had played in some early bands with. Someone who I hadn’t seen or so much as spoken to in years, I was momentarily stupefied, having only briefly, in recent times, thought back to that period while writing the introduction to a short retrospective story before hitting the road in late June. Now here he was. We chatted briefly in the kind of excited, summarizing way that is customary for people long out of contact, as if trying to construct bridges over the ever-expanding waterways of time.

This went on for a while and I became so could up in it that I almost forgot my original intention for going over there. And so when the program ended and the beers were finished and everybody was getting up to leave, I took Frank aside and in grave, earnest tones reiterated my regret over an episode that had taken place back on the night of his birthday when, in a moment of indecisiveness had allowed an unwelcome guest to crash his party, briefly, and make a whole big drunken scene. He coolly reassured me though that all was forgiven, laughing the whole thing off, along with the gravity I brought to the matter, and at that moment I had the palpable sense of a great weight being lifted. The rest of us made our way down to the street where I said my goodbyes to and continued my journey through the night.

From there I stopped off at home, trying in stumbling, bumbling disorganized fashion to get the last of my things in order, until, noticing the lateness of the hour and my promise made earlier on to Raven to go over and make personal—in person that is—goodbyes to her before I left. How could I not?

So back downtown I went.

When I got to her house the place was dark and quiet. She was somewhere in the front of the house listening to music, waiting for my eventual arrival. I apologized for the lateness of my getting there and she seemed to silently forgive the jumpy, boozy state I was in, inviting me to partake in a late night vaporizer bag session. Once flopped out on the her way-too-comfortable couch in the patio, enjoying a couple clean, calming tokes and relaxed talk it didn’t take long for the adrenaline, the ceaseless energy I had been running on all day and the day before preparing everything in anticipation of my imminent departure, to give out, and within minutes, seemingly in mid-conversation, mid-sentence, I was out cold—

The next thing I remember is waking on her leather couch in the living room, not knowing how I got there, a blanket spread out overtop me, and the sounds of random noises, movements, coming from the kitchen followed by the sound of Dino’s distinct drawl—which is not exactly the first thing you want to hear upon waking any day of the week, and only slightly less annoying then the distorted blare of my old junk alarm clock. I let out a groan, turned over on my side and thought for a moment of continuing on with my slumber. Then suddenly the reality of the day and the long journey I was to embark on dawned on me, and all at once I pulled my half-conscious carcass off the couch and made the first gestures towards making the day.

It was as I was grimacing at the harried, beat mask glaring at me from the mirror next to the couch that Dino and his goofy hangdog mug appeared. I turned to face him with a sleepy, wearied grin.

“I was hoping I’d catch you here,” he said. “Since you’re leaving today I came over before work just to check and see if you were still around so I could smoke you up before you left.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” I said before retreating to the kitchen to pour out a tall glass of hang-over water to guzzle.

On my way back to meet him in the patio I popped my head into Raven’s bedroom, having assumed she was still up after letting him in, only to discover she was back asleep, or at least half-asleep, and tried to delicately but insistently remind her that I’d be going soon and she should come join us for a last going away toke. She mumbled something like “Yeah, I’ll be right out,” and I slipped back to the patio where Dino already had a bag inflating. A few minutes passed and then a few more and Raven still hadn’t showed, and Dino finally decided to go ahead and start smoking without her. While he did this I glanced at my watch, thinking, in how many hours can I make it to Canmore? My concern over time given to the fact that I was informed by the proprietor of the Motel at which I had booked in advance (having been unable to find a single free room during the earlier drive out and forced to sleep outside in a park somewhere on the edge of Kamloops) was a 10 or 11 o’clock cut off time, with my chances of claiming my room any time after that substantially diminished. In other words, the sooner you get there the better.

The bag is almost finished off by both of us by the time Raven had finally dragged herself into the room, all bundled up in blankets and heavy, downcast features. An argument of sorts unfolded over whose decision it was to not wait for Raven before smoking, with Dino saying over and over, “It was mutual. Come on. It was decided between the two of us,” and repeatedly nudging me with, “Hey back me up on this.” Incredulous, hurried and generally exhausted with the whole scene taking place before me, I stole away to the kitchen to start putting a big breakfast-on-the-fly together: eggs, toast, coffee, juice, the whole bit.

It’s after cracking off a couple eggs in the frying pan with a crackling sizzle that there came a knock at the door. With a sudden jolt of surprise I nervously and uncertainly turned in the direction of the sound. Before long Raven was there informing me that it was her landlord come over for a check up of sorts and that I should go back and join Dino in the patio while she handles it. “But I’m cooking my eggs,” I said, holding the shells in my hand helplessly.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Get back there. Now.”

So I did, abandoning my half-cooked eggs in the process. Meanwhile, back at the patio, Dino was rushing around packaging up the vaporizer, brushing ash off everything, and conspicuously concealing all ashtrays from sight. “We’re not supposed to be smoking anything,” he said. “Pot or cigarettes.”

I anxiously paced around the small patio, occasionally stretching myself out against the door to peer through the high small window to see if I could gauge the situation. About ten minutes later, after I’d settled down and it became clear he was not going to be coming in to do a survey of the house or whatever it is that landlord’s do when they “pop over,” Raven came back to tell us coast was clear. Back in the kitchen my eggs were burnt black and so I went about frying up a couple fresh ones.

“Raven says sorry for ruining your eggs,” said Dino as he re-entered the kitchen.

“Its fine,” I said, “I don’t really carry. I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal that other people were here. Since when is having friends over to visit a crime?”

He shrugged, put a cigarette between his lips and shuffled out of the room.

When breakfast was all made up I went back to join them in the patio and ate hurriedly.

“I got to go use your shower before I go to work,” said Dino.

“What?”

“There’s no hot water at my place,” Dino continued, “and I figured I could just as easily use your one downstairs. What’s the big deal?”

Raven let out an exasperated sigh and relented.

“You know,” I said once he had left, “if you don’t cut ties and make a clean break he’s always going to be around like this, always finding a reason, some excuse for stopping by.”

“I know that,” she said, “but he, he’s so persistent. He refuses to take no for an answer. I tell him it’s over. I tell him over and over that he’s not getting anything more out of me, that there’s nothing left here, between us, but he just stares at me unbelieving. Like, ‘Kay, whatever.’ He just doesn’t get it.”

She turned her head to one side looking out the window at something, perhaps at a low-flying bird, wings outspread, gliding by majestically, or perhaps at nothing, at something only she herself could see, and took a drag of her cigarette, serene, composed, as if it were a kind of meditative act from which she was able to gain a newfound mental resolve, strength.

I didn’t know what else to say. There was nothing more to say. The time was up. The summer was over. The only thing left to do was hit the road and make my way back west. Weigh the gains against the losses, brood over the results, begin from scratch, rebuild, start all over again.

While the shower ran downstairs, we said our goodbyes. Outside, in the bright light of day, I adjusted my eyes, turned with sad sullen smile and took one last look at her standing in the doorway at the far end of the hall, still clutching the blanket she had draped over her slender shoulders. And as I pulled the door shut and it snapped closed, her figure all but disappeared, vanished, and through the reflection in the glass I was left with only my weather-whipped face staring back at me.