Man Descending

Soloviev, Ellul and even Simone Weil. I was even forced to read some of their books. In fact, at one time I had a very strong affection for Soren Kierkegaard, who, at least in the flesh, seemed to have much the same effect on people that I have. Like me, the gnarled little Dane didn’t mix well at parties, was inclined to goad people into a frenzy, and made too much of a love affair.

Because of my exposure to great thoughts I feel a vague obligation not to reflect too badly on my education. I feel I ought to at least take a shot at a Big Book. Somehow I can’t seem to manage it.

My first Big Book was to be about my generation, a revealing tale about what it was like being a Canadian university student during the Vietnam war. Let me tell you it wasn’t easy having to vicariously share the guilt and agony of their war like some poor cousin.

There was, of course, the question of Canadian complicity. But we lacked the necessary stage properties to put on a really top-notch performance. We had no draft cards to burn and there was the lingering suspicion that if we desecrated the new flag we might be taken as friends of the Canadian Legion. Back then, twelve or thirteen years ago, we didn’t even have our own black problem, though we did have plenty of relatively unmilitant and unfashionable Indians. So we imported Black Panthers from Detroit to address rallies and harangue us as motherfuckers. Somehow the home-grown product, cats like Lincoln Alexander, didn’t seem capable of that.

This novel about the groves of Academe came along quite briskly for some four or five pages and then I started to worry about a title. What was I going to call this masterwork? My first choice (because it has a nice hollow sound) was The Lost Generation. But that was Gertrude Stein’s line, and the bunch from the twenties, Ernest, Scotty, etc., had earned their right to it by a lot of self-destructive behaviour. It just wasn’t fair of me to pinch it.

But mulling over the word “lost” got me reminiscing about my grade one teacher, Mrs. Edwards, who wouldn’t countenance the word. Unless any object, be it eraser, jumbo pencil, or crayon, was indisputably proved to have been irrevocably blasted into a time-space warp, in Mrs. Edwards’ mind that object held out hope of being recovered. Hence, it was not lost but misplaced. All Mrs. Edwards’ charges were firmly taught to blithely chirp, “Teacher, my pencil is misplaced.”

So I began to wonder, if my generation couldn’t be lost, might it be misplaced? The Misplaced Generation. And somehow, having once thought that, I couldn’t return to my novel with the same serious, sober heartiness I had shown before, and so I abandoned it.

I then began my second Big Book, the story of the seduction of a Washington-based Canadian diplomat by an American anchorwoman, a little tale that was to be a parable of Canadian innocence pitted against American worldliness and savvy. But the longer I sat at my kitchen table with the chipped Arborite top, the soles of my stockinged feet being concussed by my downstairs neighbour’s stereo, the more utterly at sea I found myself. No matter how hard I tried to skilfully manoeuvre my characters, they just wouldn’t steer. Nothing my diplomat insisted on saying sounded diplomatic or persuasive, and my anchorwoman kept wanting to unhook her bra and cast off her panties at the drop of a hat, which didn’t jibe with my attempt to portray a metaphorical view of the relations of our two nations. That is, unless I could work in a scene of enforced coitus interruptus. That Big Book died too.

I note with some dissatisfaction and envy that Victoria’s apartment building is obviously newer and better- maintained than my own. From where I sit in my parked car I am also able to see that it has a security door and one of those buzzer panels that force you to ring the occupant to get the door sprung. That might cause me some problems.

I get out of the car and begin to nonchalantly cruise the sidewalk in front of the building with my hands stuffed carelessly in my pockets, and an eye cocked on the entrance. When I finally spot a couple standing in the vestibule waiting for a taxi, I go up to the door and hopelessly fumble in my pockets as if looking for my keys. No one knows anyone else in these buildings and after twenty seconds of watching me rummage in my pants the man obligingly opens the door. I smile and shake my head ruefully and jangle a set of keys at him.

“You always find ’em after somebody takes the trouble,” I say in a fair imitation of bemusement at the world’s wondrous workings.

He nods and smiles in agreement.

I locate Victoria’s apartment on the second floor. I know she is in because I hear the stereo playing Cleo Laine. My heart melts a little. My wife is nuts about Cleo Laine. I knock on the door.

Victoria doesn’t take the chain off the door when she answers it. This is untypical. Perhaps living alone has made her more cautious. At one time, to my worry, she was too trustful, a petter of stray dogs, distempered cats and their human counterparts.

I let her see clearly who it is.

“What do you want?” she inquires sourly.

“Please let me in.”

“No.”

I dart my hand through the gap and grab the chain. This is a desperate measure. It isn’t going to get me in, but it prevents her closing the door in my face. Of course, she could break my wrist by banging the door on it, but I’m willing to risk agony for love.

Victoria doesn’t slam the door but she does bite my thumb. Right on the nail, hard. I almost faint, the way I did when I was a boy being vaccinated at school. There is something about me and pain. But I grimly hang on, issue an exquisitely pitiful moan and think of Sam Waters and all he suffered. Speaking comparatively, this is nothing.

The pain suddenly subsides and Victoria is gone. She comes back and shows me a claw hammer. An Iroquois squaw displaying the instrument of torture to Pere Brebeuf.

“You let go of this chain, Ed, or you’ll be sorry.”

“Tear my heart out and feed it to the dogs,” I declare dramatically. “Here I stand, I can do no other.”

“I’ll smack you, Ed,” she says, beginning to cry.

“Please. Please let me talk to you.”

“Damn it,” she says, quietly snuffling, apparently resigned to my entry, “let go of the chain so I can unhook it.”

“No tricks? Promise?” I say doubtfully.

“Let go of the damn chain!” she shouts in frustration.

I do and she opens up. I go immediately to the kitchen sink and begin to run cold water on my thumb.

I am a little disappointed to see that the skin isn’t broken or the nail discoloured. I won’t be able to play this for much.

“They say a human bite is far more dangerous than a dog’s,” I comment matter-of-factly. “The bacteria in the saliva are more dangerous. Maybe it has to do with the carbohydrates in our diet. Maybe they provide a richer culture.”

No answer.

I poke my head around the corner and peer cautiously into the living-room. Victoria has flung herself in a resentful attitude across the chesterfield.

“You have a very nice apartment,” I say. “You should see the place I’m in. The tile’s lifting off the kitchen floor and the walls are so thin I can hear my neighbour’s bum squeaking and rubbing on the bottom of his bathtub.”

“So move.”

I take a deep, contrite breath. “I know I had no business butting in today,” I say. “But I was worried about you. You looked so goddamn awful.”

“Check out a mirror. Worry about yourself. How long have you been sleeping in those clothes?”

She’s right. I should have, at the very least, changed my clothes and showered before coming by. To be perfectly frank, a trip to a barber might have been in order too.

“Excuse my appearance,” I say. “It’s just that I’ve been so busy -”

“Ha!” An explosion of bitter disbelief and contempt. “Busy doing what? Just what in hell has occupied so much of your time you can’t wash your clothes or comb your hair? Tell me, Ed. That’s one I want to hear.”

“The novel,” I say uneasily, beginning to shift my weight from foot to foot nervously like a small boy called up on the carpet, “I’ve been working hard on the novel.”

“Excuse my scepticism,” she says tartly as she gets up and flicks on the television.

“Turn that off!” I shout. I’m angry now. I am working on a novel. I have nearly seventy pages written and I can hardly sleep some nights for the notions that pop into my head.

Victoria ignores my request and fixes her pretty, long-lashed peepers on the TV. Two pitiful clowns on the