"WOULD SOME POWER THE GIFT TO GEE US
TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US" Robbie Burns
I`m coming out of the tunnel once again, not running.
But at least staggering uphill with a bad limp on my left side, and trying
not to spit up anything nasty in public.
The hog`s in the tunnel, the fat is in the fire. There`s no way
I can turn back now . I try to write as soon as I get out of bed
when I`m only 1/2 conscious, before I start taking myself too seriously
later in the day.
Some mad fool is revving up a large engine right beneath me. It`s
Blind Jimmy. He`s not to be trusted with anything more powerful than
a lawn mower motor in his go-cart. Even then he`ll crack something
up.
Drinking and driving is frowned upon these days. He`d better
not do it again now... In the old times, not so very long ago,
drinking and driving along these backs roads was considered more
of a sport than a serious offense. No longer. Now drunk driving is
higher in the criminal hierarchy than assault. And I should know.
Jimmy has racked up nine drunk driving convictions in a row.
When no one was crazy enough to lend him a car, he started
stealing other means of conveyance, He ran a stolen skidoo right
smack into a pole. No one was amused.
Well, O.K., I was a little amused. He managed to make it 500
yards, then smack! He shouldn`t steal things because he gets
caught,quickly too.
He took my boat and that ride lasted 15 minutes before
disaster struck . Now I have half a boat. That was not amusing.
We`re putting an eight cylinder engine into the chassis of an
old Triumph TR6 sports car. He`s sitting in it right now gunning the
motor right below me - eight cylinders without a muffler . It makes
an incredible noise. My chair is vibrating, I can`t hear anything at
all.. The fillings in my teeth my shake loose.
(Jimmy was always such a sensitive soul, considerate of other
people`s feelings.) That prick!
I realize that the new clutch is in. That beast can go zero to
sixty in what feels like a split second ( and in second gear it really
starts to fly!) But Jimmy will never reach second gear. All Jimmy has
to do is pop the clutch... And then...And then...
If he pops the clutch he`ll take off right out of my garage, the
engine screaming and red-lining all the way. He`ll go through my
neighbour`s wall about six feet off the ground... just above the
windows.
The doctor is restoring an eighteenth century log home from
the Ottawa Valley. It is quite dignified looking. He stacks his
firewood a little too neatly for my taste...But he has really done me
no harm at all other than building a few wood and cement
structures on my land, which I made him move immediately...He`s not
a bad quy. I could do far worse for a neighbour. I could have me for
a neighbour!
He certainly doesn`t deserve to have this howling black-
snouted monstrosity bashing through his wall at six A.M.... when
he`s just starting to eat his milk and Cheerios.
It would be a nasty surprise, a shock to the system.
That sort of surprise can change the way a man views the
world - some times permanently.
What he thought was sure and solid - in the blink of an eye -
can change into some wild and swaying nightmare motion. And the
terrible sounds of chaos... engine screaming, chunks of concrete
falling, and a crashing sound that he`ll never forget.
Even the birds on the lake are quiet after a sound like that.
I grab the keys out of the ignition. I yank them away from
Blind Jimmy. My legs are shaking, though I don`t want to admit it.
Suddenly the silence seems loud.
My next door neighbour, the doctor, is not too fond of Blind
Jimmy. He thinks he`s mentally challenged... And he`s not too sure
about me. He squints when he looks my way... He believes I`ve got
some kind of intelligence, but he believes it to be of a deranged and
criminal kind. Hell, that`s what I want him to think! That`s the
image I intend to project...!
If people think you`re dangerous, that you`re unpredictable
because of some twisted psychosis the origin of which is deep in
some distant past, when there still were ghosts in Jamaica, when
voodoo masters used poisons from the puffer fish that could kill half
a man`s brain in three days, and when you`d dig him up, he had
no will of his own.
Coming from some dark past, blacker than midnight..Dark days
with wild electrical infusions that might be applied
to children as they slept to cure dropsy or a nervous fever,
or fears too deep for any forms of psychiatry to deal with...
Deep into the night, your doctor would come visit
you walking along Duppy Walk with only the stars as his guide.
and if nothing else worked, he`d give you 300 rear old rum.
And forms of telepathy were well known, and messages were
passed without telephones, and it was assumed everybody knew this
and had this ability themselves.
Darkness out of which sea-birds would call pre-dawn and a
six year old blonde child would visit his Rastaferian friends a mile
down the beach at 5:00A.M. with three turkey vultures hopping
behind him everywhere he went. He used to watch Clinton push his
dugout canoe across the tides in order to fish in some secret place
before the rising of the sun.
The doctor is not a stupid man and he suspects I come for
just such a past.
The unpredictable bursts of gunfire don`t help either.
If people think you just might actually shoot them, they don`t come
on your land. This way I`m never bothered in the mornings. And the
afternoon`s tend to be quiet, too.
So I`ve tended to act a little crazier than I really am, over the
years.
The other morning my neighbour and I were having a
conversation. We were shouting across our yards, so I walked up to
his car to talk to him as I was sipping my 7:00 A.M. Irish coffee.
Unfortunately. he started to get insulting with me. The
situation started to get ugly. As I leaned
down towards his driver`s window, he said a nasty thing to me:
he said, "Do you realize that you`re naked?"
I imagine he sees me as some kind of rabid dog, drooling and
limping, who must be kept at bay. He knows I can jump his fence so
he`s started carrying a taser with him at all times and all hours
these days.
He thinks I should be institutionalized. And he`s not
alone in this opinion.
Yesterday I had two unpleasant encounters with two older
ladies...
I offended them. I`m not sure how; I`m not sure why. My
appearance may have something to do with it... The way I lurch when
I walk might have put the old gals off. The long uncombed hair,(I`ve
been religiously instructed by the Old Testament never to brush
it); and I`ve been told the big wild eyes... can be disturbing.
Perhaps they think I`m heavily intoxicated... Though I can
stagger even when I`m stark, raving sober!
They may have the wrong idea about me.
Older ladies have always looked at me with dire suspicion.
Since I was sixteen, they have always made unpleasant sounds and
judgments in my direction.
Though when heavily intoxicated on
Jamaican over proof (full strength) white rum, and when perhaps
overmedicated on drugs prescription and otherwise, I imagine a man
can look pretty unpleasant. So reason might be on their side.
"You`re walking like you`ve got a peg leg!" one ex- wife
shrieked in laughter at me.
Then in the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (the LCBO) just
the other day, the salesman called back at me,"Hey! No passing out
in line!"
I was sure he was joking, but maybe not.
I`m not certain how these people see me, I can only hope their
thoughts are sweeter than what the expressions on their faces tend
to suggest... I can only hope their thoughts are kinder than
what I think they might be.
The City Sheriff, who I know rather well, says: "What are you
doing? "You`re an educated man! You can`t just walk around in
painter`s coveralls and dress like a bum, with your hair wild like
that, and you looking insane!"
""Hell, you are an officer of the Court. You`ve got a reputation
to maintain!`
"I know. I know," I say to him.
Later when alone, sitting by the lake, a bottle of rose in one
hand and watching a glorious sunset as evening comes on, listening
to the mating call of all those monogamous loons.
I raise a toast to the evening star. And I think, "I do. I have a
reputation to maintain!"
" Here goes!" I call out over the bay and blow a long clear
note on my trumpet, which echoes several miles across the calm
waters, and comes back at me as a beautiful sound from the cliffs
across the lake.
And that`s exactly what I`m doing...
Maintaining it!
