"Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women."

Pedestrian Poetry

“If you don’t know death, you don’t know life. Maybe it’s just me, but is this the most beautiful fall you’ve ever seen? The colours are so vibrant. Yesterday, I stopped and stared at a tree. The red was just so red. That's life, man. So beautiful. I’m talking about stopping the car and staring at this tree, arrested by colour. I guess fall is a lot like death. To me, there are two things that matter; beginnings and endings. You remember when things began, and then you remember when they ended. Yeah. You never forget the last time. Death is just one moment. Life is so many of them."

Lessons From an Old Man - Entire Essay

Ours is a strange and wonderful relationship.

I called my grandfather on the phone earlier this week and told him that I wanted to interview him.

“Why, yes, my darling,” he said in a John Wayne voice.

When I walk into his house, cold from November’s endless afternoons, I realized he didn’t understand what he was agreeing to.

“Don’t ask me how long have I been married. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s a mighty, mighty long time.”

“No, Pop, I just want to talk to you about life. No specifics,” I smile, trying to show him there are no wrong answers. “It’s to conclude my book of personal essays.”

He nods but I think he’s nervous and unsure; he doesn’t know what a personal essay is. He looks and acts younger than he is. I have to remind myself of his age.

The truth is, I want to talk to him for selfish reasons. He is the most eccentric man I know, and I need him and his colourful world. He’s smart, in the way that often, I’m not smart. I think if anyone I know can give me guidance, can remind me of what matters, it’s him.

I’m all over the place. I awaken, every night, in the dark, with an aching back and crippled hips. There is little comfort anywhere. My heart won’t stop banging against my ribcage.

“I like your rings and fingernails. You go in and show your Nan,” he tells me. I look down at my blue nails and turquoise ring, tapping the white table.

“Where’s my cat? How’s your brother Mikey?” Pop asks.

“His ankle is still broken, but he’s okay.”

“He’s walking on it? Your Dad come up to see him?”

“Yeah, Dad’s helping him a lot. It’s nice.”

“How are you Mom and Dad making out?”

“Eh.”

“Comme-ci comme-ca,” he says in an accent that is not French. He grew up in Newfoundland, and if you didn’t grow up around him, you have a hard time understanding him.

“Speak slow for the camera, Pop, okay?”

He nods and dances across the floor while winking at me.

“What do you want to know? I’m a male. Eighty-years old. No, eighty-two! Christ, I forgot. That’s how old I am. I listen to that woman, she’s eighty. She was ninety yesterday,” he motions to my grandmother, far older than him in her outlook and now also older in her body. She spends her days lying on the couch, rarely moving.

...

Theirs is a crazy love. It’s not a secret that, in their youth, their marriage was tumultuous and unhappy. It was a strong glue that held them together.

She looked like Ava Gardner. He looked like Clark Gable. She was mentally ill. He was an alcoholic but with star quality that got him out of as much trouble as it got him into.

Pop should have been famous. He was a country and western singer, like Hank Snow, only better. He spent weeks in Nashville, had a fan club and got Christmas cards from Elvis. But rock and roll happened, and then, so did life. My grandmother became pregnant with my mom. Soon, two more children were born and quite suddenly, there was no room for cowboy songs. I grew up never hearing him sing. Some things are too painful to love.

“Are you giving up on acting for this?” he motions to my camera and pad of paper.

“No, I just do this too, now.”

“Good. Never give up acting.”

I feel guilty. He was so talented and unable to pursue his dreams and I complain about mine. I can tell he wants me to make it because he should have.

...

“Pop, what’s love?”

“Love is when you quit drinking. And you realize you can’t have a beer. And smoking. Them are all bad habits which is a good thing that it’s gone.”

“What else?”

He smiles.

“I don’t know, what is love? I love my wife, I love my family, I love the cat. I love everything. Not flies. I go around in the day and killing them all the time. In life, my wife and my family are close to the best things that’ve ever happened to me.”

He relaxes in his chair and I know I need to keep the questions coming furiously or he’ll start performing, hiding behind his generation’s idea of what a man should be.

“How have you changed since you were young?” I ask.

“I’m better. I know more. I was always sick when I was young, on the way out. My childhood was real good, though. The first few years I was sick all the time, I go no schooling on account of it. I was sick with everything, my heart was supposed to be eighty-years old and I was about seven or something like that.”

Now, at eighty-two, he has the heart of a seven year old.

“How else have you changed?”

“I got old. I got almost grey sometimes, until I dye it. I feel healthy enough. I think I’m smarter, but sometimes I play a lot of Lotto. Then I’m a dummy.”

I lay my head on the table, laughing.

“How are you able to be so, I don’t know, funny? Happy?”

“Well, I couldn’t answer that. I don’t think that much about it because I enjoy every night and day. My outlook and Lottos allow me to enjoy life so much. I don’t worry so much. I don’t see nothing to worry about and if I can’t do something about it, I say 'fuck it.'”

“I should say 'fuck it' more,” I tell him.

“You should. Don’t get married again until you’re old enough to take the blame for it. You’re free, like a bird, enjoy it. See, my philosophy in life now is that I married a good woman. You don’t need to marry no good man right now. But I’m still in love with your Nan after fifty-odd years. To me, she’s a goldmine. Every time I get broke or go bust she says, ‘Are you sure you got enough money?’ and if I don’t, I say, ‘No, darling, I don’t,’” he whispers and slyly looks away.

He has never gone ‘bust’ and if he did, my grandmother would never give him money. He’s heard that line in an old movie, and thinks it’s charming to say in front of a camera.

“I love my wife regardless. I give her all the credit for everything I’ve ever done. I haven’t been a perfect angel all my life, but I’m trying to be now.”

I see what he’s getting at. My grandparent’s marriage really is old fashioned in that, they stayed. Whatever happened, the commitment and closeness they have now seems worth it.

Will I commit to anything long enough for it to be worth it?

...

“How do you get over heartbreak?”

“Get another woman or man. I think when you got lot of troubles and you get more troubles.”

“Is that a mistake, though?”

“Not actually. Nothing is. I might have made mistakes at the time, but today, they aren’t mistakes because I got this far with them so I’m on the right track. Look at my family, I got three lovely kids and grandchildren, I am quite pleased with them. You’re one of them. Mikey’s one. Then my great-grand children. Jesse is only two years old I think. Goddammit and I’m eighty-two!”

That’s what I love about my grandfather; he is always surprised that he’s old. In that way, I’m like him. Forever surprised by what happens, by the life I’ve lead, the choices I’ve made. It’s like I was never there to begin with.

“What’s wrong with the world today?”

“People are not having enough fun. Too much pressure. A lot of people, the government are screwing them out their money, left and right. I worked a place for almost twenty years, the union insisted we went on strike for two months and now I can’t get no pension. $14.19 cents per month! Not even enough to feed the cat. I think about it, hard on the brain sometimes. Hard on the wallet, too.”

He blows me a kiss and I look down at my paper. Why don’t I spend more time with him? Will I read this when he’s gone and be happy I spent today with him? That I made him feel important, even for just an hour?

It's not enough, is it?

“What advice would you give young people?”

“I could say enjoy yourself, be good to other people and they’ll be good to you. When you’re kids, you think you know everything and you don’t realize that sometimes, you’re stupid.”

I nod. He’s right. I never realize I’m stupid until way after the fact.

...

“Do you believe in God?”

“I’m a great believer in God. From the time I was knee-high to a grasshopper, my granddaddy was religious and my grandmother was religious. My mama was at one time a preacher. I was taught it all up through the years and it carries me a lot through life. You get any trouble you ask the good Lord to carry you through, and he do.”

I’m surprised. I’ve never heard him speak of God before.

“Do you think everything the Bible says is true?”

“To me, I think they all had a party and got the commandments, just when they were all drunk. Don’t do this, don’t swear, don’t commit adultery. The way life is today, you can’t do that.”

“Do you believe in your own version of God, then? One where you can swear?” I laugh.

“I believe in a lot of people’s versions of God, but I am a religious man within myself. I could be more religious, but I ain’t doing too bad.”

“No, you’re doing great.”

I look down at my paper once more. All the questions are gone.

“Okay, all done, Pop.”

“Fantastic, my darling.”

He puts the kettle on. I want to stay but I’ve agreed to something, someone, somewhere, just to fill the space I don’t want to spend alone. I wish I’d cancelled. When I hug him, he feels smaller in my arms than he ever has before.

“You are a gem, Katie. Never forget that,” he tells me and then spins me around the kitchen.

...

On my way home, I think about my grandfather, about God and men and love and every word that’s filled this book.

Maybe men will just float in and out. Maybe one will matter permanently, one day. Or maybe they will all matter permanently, just occupying different spaces and places that live and die in me. Maybe all love has conditions, but happens and finds you, whether you want it to or not.

Maybe God is what you believe in because you need to feel you aren't alone. Maybe God is that part of me I never touch but always feel, always there and always strong, even when I'm not.

Then I think of my Pop once more.

“Just be happy,” he yelled at me from his porch, as I walked away from him, dressed all in black, with my hair whipping every direction, with my hands in pockets, with my shoulders shaking.

I walk farther.

I pay my three dollars to get on the subway. I walk down to the platform and a great gust of wind swallows me. The train barrels towards me. I look around and I watch people move in and out of the doors and I decide that I can wait for the next train, glued to the ugly tile and concrete walls.

I think of endings.

Finality is strange, isn’t it? I can feel the goodbyes coming now. I look in my mind’s eye into a collage of people, of places, of things I thought I knew for sure, for some clue of what to let go of.

That’s the thing about endings. When you know one’s coming, for better or for worse, you always want to hold on, just so it can hurt a little bit more.

Like Father Part Three

He's wearing a stained red sweatshirt, a trench coat and a black Indiana Jones hat. In the diner's morning light, I can see that he was handsome once and, in some ways, is still. His features are shaded by age and a life disconnected.

No matter what, he always says yes when I ask him to have breakfast with me. There is always time but I make none for him. Looking at him, I feel touched and like something is stuck in my throat. I can't find the words to explain why.

"Where'd you learn to write?" he asks me.

"You."

"I'm taking no credit for it."

"Of course I learned from you."

"I suppose I was always careful in how I spoke. I never felt successful, though."

"You didn't?"

"Not at anything."

"Really?"

"You're the same. Do you feel successful?"

"No. Never. I hope one day."

"You probably won't. I never did. Well, I had a few moments, at the Gazette and later at The Star, but they were fleeting. A ballplayer told me once, never think you have it made. He was right, you never do. Nothing is ever made."

I watch him eat his pancakes. He's too old for that much syrup.

"I was like your brother though, I was basically unemployable until I was twenty-one. Never tell him that."

"Why'd you always get fired?"

"I would oversell myself."

"You did?"

"Yeah, and being a drunk. But the gap between what I said and what I could do eventually narrowed."

"Dad, I feel really confused."

"About what?"

"Life. I'm losing people all over the place."

"Yep, you are. That's growing up, kid."

After we get the cheque he walks home too slowly, always five paces behind me. When I close the door, I watch him go where he lives now.

He's lost to me, too.

Saturday - Short Story Excerpt Two

There we so many phone calls after the news spread.

When he first got sick, people came in droves. They were all so willing to give advice, to tell them it would be okay. Like every great tragedy, this one’s first act was crowded with supporting players. But then, when he got sicker, the court jesters and kinsmen silently slipped away, without phone calls and without visits. As the curtain fell, only Meryl and Joe were left standing.

People scatter like cockroaches in the light when death gets too close. Anyone will come to your funeral. Not everyone will sit with you when you’re on the way out.

Meryl didn't remember having many long conversations with old friends. She remembered the absence. The loneliness.

She had come to realize that death and dying are silent. 

Tragic Hero - Short Story Excerpt Two

“You have to start sticking up for yourself, Maggie. You’re better than that asshole.”

“But I still love him.”

“Jesus, Maggie, you shouldn’t. He’s a worthless shit. What you need to do is stop showing people how you feel.”

“But I’m not real good at hiding how I feel.”

“Well, you got to get better at hiding it, kid. You can’t go around showing every asshole how much they upset you. Then they think they won.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Show them that you won. You have to act like you don’t care. You can’t ever let people know they got you. Not ever, hear me?”

“Really?”

“Yes, kid. Really. That’s the only way they know not to fuck with you anymore. You can never show people you care.”

“But why? What’s the point of lying, if you do care?”

“Because people prey on weakness. You can’t show them that you’re weak. You can only show them that you’re strong. You do that by showing them that you don’t care.”

“You aren’t always going to be strong, though.”

"Nobody needs to know that.”

She sighed after I said that, and she looked up at me. She looked so small on my couch. Then a wash of tears came to her eyes, but I could tell she was trying to fight them. I put my arm around her then, just instinctively. I just wanted to put my arm around her. I don’t know why.

“Why are men so mean?” she asked me.

“Listen, every asshole that isn’t good enough for you is going to be mean to you. Because you scare them. You are beautiful and smart and you have a lot going for you, kid. You don’t need to wear a dress like that to look beautiful. You look beautiful right now, just normal.”

“You think I’m beautiful?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Really?”

“Truly.”

She smiled after I said that. I think it meant a lot to her. And she was beautiful. Well, once you really got looking at her anyway. I thought it was real nice of me to be building up her confidence.   

“You need to know how much you got going for you, Maggie. Until then, nobody else is going to know.”

She moved in closer after I said that. She rested her head on my shoulder.

“Yeah.”

Then she went quiet for a bit. I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep.

“Are you mean to women?” she asked me in a real quiet voice.

“No. I tell them what I’m like up front. They know what they’re getting into.”

“They probably fall in love with you anyway, though.”

“No. I don’t let that happen.”

“You don’t let love happen. It happens, whether you want it or not.”

She was always coming at me with corny shit like that. And she said like she just knew it to be true, like there was no convincing her otherwise.

“Oh, the ignorance of youth,” I said.

“It’s true! I bet they all fall in love with you even though they don’t want to.”

“Well, if they are falling in love with me it’ s because they really want to, trust me. I make it real hard for them to think I’d ever love them back.”

“You don’t think that’s mean?”

The Falling Action - Short Story Excerpt Two

There's a joke we tell up here, and it gets us all pissin' laughing 'cause it's so brutally true.

"Wha's tha difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? The side you're on."

I'm sittin up here with men with fucking turbans on their heads, the lads that starved themselves and painted their jail cells with their own shite, and we are all crying with laughter because we did no fuckin' good.

I think we all missed the flamin' point, to tell ya the truth.

Catholic, Prod, God doesn' give a flyin’. He's na even sure He's right, He was just thrown inta this position and now people are dyin' for Him all over the place. He doesn' even exist, not how they told me growin' up. He's more just real because we all collectively live life believing in him. It's hard ta explain unless ya see it, like, but is na what ya think. It's really a lot more abstract than ya think.

And the laugh that He's havin' on us is that life isn't what ya think either. Life is the most precious fuckin' gift because things can change. It's tha worst part of life, too, but it's also tha best.

Things are changin' every day and nothin' can be predicted for certain, and about a million things will happen in your lifetime that'll shock the Jesus outta ya, but that's the really cool bit. Up here, everythin's always the same, and nothin' changes, not really, because nothin' has any weight now that it's all over. And surprising change, tha’s what makes life bigger than us, and that's what makes us all small, but small together.

Up here, it's like you only got the same ten records to play all the time, and let me tell ya, even if they're great records, you are left bustin' for a radio station. Even a shite one, because the great thrill in life is not knowin' what's coming next. Even if it is shite.

And I think His only point, that I well missed, is to love the shite out of everythin' ya can, because that's what you think of when you're up here, alone but not really alone, if ya get my drift.

There are some perks, like. I get ta meet famous people. I met Elvis. I met John Lennon. I met Jesus, he's got gross hair in person. But ya know what they all said?

"I wish I wasn't fuckin' dead."