“Black in Back” (Part II)

“You think I’m doing this for you?” he demanded later, incredulous. “Think again, sister. Raymond is building a sling for two, and my ass means more to me than yours.”

“Then maybe we should split up.”

“Stick to the plan, sweetheart. You liked it well enough when you thought of it.”

Tess wanted to cry again. Or scream. Or both. She had moments when she felt reasonably calm, but those moments were brief and too frequently overcome by fear. She tried to compose herself by sorting through the clothes Aurora had brought for her. It didn’t take long; there was only one pair of jeans, a dark blue hoodie, a strappy chemise to go under it, and a grey t-shirt for cooler days.

Black was still scowling at her when she finished taking inventory. “You know what you’re doing today, right?”

“I’m picking up my car, then getting you some new clothes.”

“Newer,” he specified. “I don’t have a problem with thrift store rejects.”

“That’s a surprise. I thought you had a problem with everything.”

They glared at each other for an ice-hot moment. Tess fluctuated from liking him to wanting to like him to not liking him at all. It was hard to remember how she had felt with him after the Four Seasons, but she wished it had stuck around for more than twenty-four hours. She had a vague memory of weeping in his arms while he praised her courage against the vampires. For the first time since Travis’s death, she had felt safe—and now he was being a first degree asshole for no reason unless …

Her eyes widened on his. His narrowed, warning her through his shades.

“How long have you lived in the city?”

“Longer than you have, sweetheart.”

“What makes you think I wasn’t born here?”

“I know a rube when I see one.”

That hurt. She might have dropped in from the prairies like Dorothy into Oz, but she had made something of herself. She had a name and a good reputation; she’d made decent money and had loved a good man. She owned her vehicle outright and she wore nice clothes—not designer, exactly, but pretty close—and she was fairly sure she’d accomplished everything in far less time than Black had spent in squalor on the waterfront.

Not that it mattered, since she was about to abandon it all.

Travis, why did you have to go and die?

………

Even if Gary was working on another vehicle when she came into the shop, he’d wave and call her name. Travis had teased that he had a crush on her. Tess had scoffed, but whether or not it was so, her ten-year-old Nissan always received the same gold star treatment as Trav’s newer BMW.

She took renewed stock of her wheels on arriving to collect them that morning. Old, weathered, grey, completely unassuming. Black would approve, though he’d be snarky about it.

“Terasina!”

She looked toward the greeting and began to smile. Gary was way ahead of her, already grinning, until he hitched up and blinked as if he had hailed the wrong customer. Then she remembered her dyed and undone hair. She promptly adopted her ladyship attitude to put him at ease.

“Good morning, Gary. Is the carriage ready to go?”

Somewhat reassured, he continued his approach. “Good as new, milady. Apologies for the wait.”

“And the bill?”

He wagged a grimy hand in a yea/nay gesture. “Not so bad if you’ve got credit. Carrie will be happy to take your money once you’re satisfied with the job.”

“I just need it to start, stop, and run at speed. I’m getting out of town for a while.” As the last words left her lips, she wished they hadn’t. The fewer people who knew of her plans, the better—safer—they would be.

But Gary nodded sympathetically. “It’s good to get away. It clears your head.” He was staring at her hair as if he had reservations. Tess called him on it.

“You don’t like the colour?”

His smile flashed sheepishly. “Gentlemen prefer blondes.”

“I just want a change,” she said. “It’s not forever.”

She hoped.

………

She hit the thrift store next. Black had given her his size for jeans and she guessed at the shirts. He had warned her off dress or designer anything, but she liked button-down shirts enough to wonder how he’d look in one. His bare forearms suggested fine biceps so she grabbed a few tanks as well, in black, blue, and grey to keep with the neutral palette. Then she bolstered her own wardrobe with cotton blouses and light sweaters, and sandals to let her toes breathe when the summer got steamy.

“Jesus,” Black said on waking to a room strewn with shopping bags.

His tone irked her. “Do you believe in God?”

“Not for years.”

“Then don’t use His Name.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

She had the feeling that she’d regret scolding him. “Are you always this grouchy when you wake up?”

He rubbed absently at his forehead. “Hungry,” he muttered. His hand paused above one eye and Tess felt that eye perusing her profile, its gaze sliding like a scalding tear down her cheek to her throat. Unable to flee, she had to face him.

“I suppose you could kill me and be done with it.”

“I’ve never killed a human in my life.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe. Did anyone follow you today?”

“Not that I noticed.” And she had paid strained attention to every moment, seeing spooks in every corner, meeting every gaze and holding it until the other broke first. She had parked the Pathfinder in a mall parkade to keep it from being hotwired and taken the bus as close to this crappy hotel as the transit routes dared. She realized that she was as tired and grouchy as Black. Hungry, too. She had wolfed a Happy Meal at noon, but that had been hours ago. “Is Aurora coming by tonight?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?”

Not this again. “I don’t know. Because they’re watching her?”

“You’re smarter since you stopped being blonde.”

“Are you going to see her before we leave?”

“No.”

“Not even to say goodbye?”

Black cursed at the bag he was pawing through and pulled out a package of Jockeys. “What is this?”

“Underwear,” Tess answered, coldly. “Put it on or don’t put it on, I don’t care. You didn’t state a preference.”

“Is this what your boyfriend wore?”

“Don’t talk about my boyfriend.”

Something in her voice shut him down. He tossed the briefs aside and stormed from the room. Tess did some storming of her own while he was out, curling into a ball on the rumpled bed and sobbing until her ribs ached and her sinuses were jammed so tight that she couldn’t inhale.

To be continued …

The Cone of Silence

A Get Smart fan might have been disappointed after seeing Don Adams and the shoephone in my “KAOS or Control” piece, last week. Despite posting the pic and using the acronym in place of the actual word chaos, I made no reference to the iconic 60s TV series. That kinda sucked. So here’s a true story based on one of the more memorable gadgets featured in the show:

It’s the late 1990s. I’m working as part of a superior administrative team headed up by the present Mistress of the Manse who, in her professional life, is affectionately referred to as “Ms. Wormwood”, after the tyrannical schoolteacher in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Our group works hard, but there are days when I suffer from glass butt syndrome and can’t sit still. Worse, I wander the cubical canal and chat over the walls at my colleagues, until Ms. W. is forced to employ drastic measures.

“Ms. Greig,” she says from her desk, “the Cone of Silence is descending!”

Duly chastised, I skulk back to my cube and resume squirming. On some days, once warned is enough. Today, not so much. I am consistently called back beneath the Cone because I apparently have less interest in earning my pay than in aimless chirping. After how many episodes, and figuring that a more severe consequence is required, Ms. Wormwood rises from her desk, stalks along the aisle, and growls into my ear:

“Ms. Greig, the Cone of Silence is about to become the Cone of Isolation!”

I am tempted to point out that, in the series, the Cone of Silence never actually worked, but in this instance, it’s safer to scamper. Ms. Wormwood is infinitely scarier than the Chief of CONTROL.

We still laugh about that episode.

Joe Cool

A lot of women would probably like to say they’ve spent the past few weeks in bed with Joe Perry—and I’ve done it … with his autobiography, that is.

What a cool dude. It’s less a tell-all bio than it is a tell-all-like-it-is bio. He doesn’t exaggerate for effect, neither does he pass judgment on his bandmates (particularly, the wild and crazy Steven Tyler), but he does say what he thinks. It’s more than he’s said in forty years; he’s as famous for his silence as he is for shooting lightning from his guitar, so reading about Aerosmith’s volatile history from his point of view was a gift of no small value. He’s honest, too, about his relationship with drugs, with his family, and with the music biz. A smart, smart man. Truly, you’d never know from interviews how deeply he runs; he’s not the most articulate guy on the planet, but as with most introverts, he’s much more eloquent in writing. It helps that he had a coach in David Ritz, but his voice is definitely present and he gets his point across in straight-shooter fashion.

Now more than ever, I like to read about my heroes. How they were as kids, what they dreamed and how they fit—or didn’t fit—in. Mr. Perry’s story had me shaking my head: young Joe wanted to be a marine biologist except that he came with a learning disability that messed up his grades and drove him to quit school two weeks before graduation because he knew he couldn’t survive college. Music, however, had been his passion practically from the cradle, though he was born to accountant and gym teacher parents. So where did he come from? Clearly he was meant to walk a particular path, hard as it has been; he’s as surprised as anyone that he lived to tell the tale, but his life turned out so vastly different from the way he envisioned it through a diving mask that it just makes me wonder …

We walk the path we have come here to walk. Markers are put in place to guide us, and we do have a say in how we get where we end up, but even if we’re not all following our bliss, we are working to plan. That plan is to experience what we agreed to experience before we stepped into this dimension. Joseph Anthony Perry did not set out to become “Mister Joe-fuckin’-Perry” of Toxic Twin notoriety and global rock star fame, but it’s obvious to me that marine science was going to distract him from the lessons he came to learn, the people he was meant to meet, and the fans he was meant to inspire

Twists and turns are universal to us all. Dark matter carries us between the stars, through the asteroid fields and into orbit around our individual suns; though we can’t see it, we are nonetheless moved by it, some to stellar status and some to humbler, but no less powerful, effect. Maintaining your cool throughout the journey takes monumental effort, but man, the lead guitarist from the most dysfunctional rock band in history has done it.

Rock on, Joe.

Old Time Hockey

I saw the best hockey game I’ve seen in ages, last week. Flyer arch-rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins paid a visit to Philadelphia and all hell broke loose. Period two is normally when I do the dishes or go wash my hair; it’s the middle frame and not a lot happens because the frenzies happen either out of the gate or two minutes before the final buzzer, depending on the score. At the end of the Pens/Flyers first, the score was still tight, but the boys boiled over as soon as the second started.

Whoa-hoa-hoaaaaa-Nellie! Something like sixty-six penalty minutes were issued in the second period alone—this after a five minute major and game misconduct were issued to Zac Rinaldo in the first for charging (and, I confess, injuring) Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang. These two teams really dislike each other, so a feisty match is almost always in the cards when the Battle of Pennsylvania comes to town. Scoring star Jakub Voracek had his second career fight that night, and sat out seventeen minutes while serving consecutive penalties for it. That hurt my pool points, but it was worth it to see the kid lose his mind in the crunch.

Being a Flyer girl since the days of the Broad Street Bullies, I admit I have lamented the cooling of the team’s ferocious play. There was a time when the quietest room in the NHL was the visitors’ locker room at the Spectrum, when opposing players called in sick on game days in Philadelphia. One of the Montreal Canadiens (can’t remember which one, they were all so great) complained that the 1970s Flyers ruined the game, to which Bob Clarke recently replied—and I’m paraphrasing here: “The Canadiens had an all-star lineup; they didn’t have to play rough. We didn’t have that kind of skill, so we played to our strength.” *Shrug* It worked, for two championship years, anyway. After that, though they often made it to the finals, they lost the Stanley Cup and have yet to win their third.

The game has changed, so the players have changed. Skill and speed are paramount, and the rules are so tight now that the officials delay the game while calling a penalty for delay of game (stupid, stupid, stupid). Players have to think ahead of the play, and if they don’t, I end up doing the dishes or washing my hair during the second period.

The best games are played from the gut, like the Pittsburgh/Philly game the other night. High emotion, when the boys care more about winning than getting paid, gets the bench involved, engages the crowd, and results in a win-win no matter which team scores more goals.

That the Flyers happened to win this one in overtime was extra candy for me.

“Black in Back” (Part I)

Tess understood the logic of lying low at night, but that meant she was in charge during the day and she didn’t like being scared at the same time. She didn’t like being scared at all, but after everything that had happened, “scared” had become her predominant state.

She tried to hide it since it served no purpose but to annoy her whatever-he-was. Partner? Mentor? Keeper? Nothing seemed to fit. Nothing, that is, but “vampire”.

Tess had a vampire. She wasn’t particularly happy about it, but neither was he. He probably felt as shackled to her as she felt to him; it was hard to say because she wasn’t singled out for special treatment. Black was abrasive with everyone. But he had helped her to solve the mystery of Trav’s murder and now they were stuck with each other.

Stuck and on the run.

The life she had known was no more. Travis was still dead, still filed as a suicide though he had died like a stag in the crosshairs of a hunter. They were clever, the vampires. The one who had killed Trav—the female Black had set on fire with a flare gun—had cut his wrists and left him in the shower, letting the running water explain why so much blood had been missing. His troubled past had supplied the cops with an easy motive, but Tess had refused to accept any of it. She had spied the tiny bruises straddling the gash in one wrist and felt the chill of innate reckoning. Vampires existed. Some people thought that was cool. Others thought it was a media ploy for ratings. Some stubbornly clung to denial, but denying the truth didn’t make it any less true. Tess hadn’t thought anything at all until one had stolen the soul she treasured more than life itself. Once it got personal, vampires became very real.

She tried to spot them in a crowd, frustrating Black with her persistent ineptitude. “You don’t find them, sweetheart. They find you.”

Tess objected. “I found you.”

That pissed him off. “You were aimed at me, sister.”

It irritated her as well, since if she hadn’t pursued the matter, he would still be haunting the waterfront and she would still be blissfully ignorant. Grieving, but ignorant. The more sympathetic cop on Trav’s case had recommended a private investigator, who hadn’t taken the job but who had suggested she try a guy he knew on the docks. “He’s a little twitchy, so you don’t want to approach him right away. Watch him for a few days, get comfortable with his routine, then hit him up.” Strange advice, but desperation had given Tess more courage than brains and so she had followed it.

The guy had turned out to be Black. She wondered now if the PI had been a vampire, too—she had left a message on his voice mail and he had returned her call after dark. Black’s suspicion that she had been sicced on him by his own kind certainly seemed more feasible after the way things had gone at the Four Seasons.

In a word, badly.

Oh, Travis had been avenged and so had Black, given that the same female—Tess refused to consider her a woman—had used him as a chew toy in his day, but vampires killing vampires was a no-no and Black had flamed Trav’s killer in front of her maker. Tess didn’t know a whole lot about the one called Raymond, but he worried Black the most so she took her cue from that.

“Can’t we just kill him?” she asked. They were damned for one already. Surely a second would make no difference.

“We’d have to get near him first, and you only get near Raymond if Raymond wants you there.”

“How did he get so powerful?”

“How do you think?”

Tess didn’t want to think. She was tired of thinking and wanted to go home, to take a bath and change her clothes and catch up on The Good Wife.

Black was relentless. “Come on, sugar, think.”

“I don’t know. Is he like the Godfather?”

“Raymond?” Black almost laughed. “He’s more the head of the serpent, but if you need a movie reference, that’s as good as any. He keeps the peace among the monsters.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “How many are there?”

“More than the cops could manage if they got out of hand.”

There by the grace of Raymond go I. “You’re saying we have to leave him where he is.”

“I like it less than you do, sweetheart, but the best thing you and I can do is get the hell out of his reach, so when is your car out of the shop? because your boyfriend’s BMW has been made.”

Tess bit her lip to redirect the sting. “It should be ready tomorrow.”

“Use the desk phone in the morning to find out.”

She glared at him. He’d dropped her cell phone down a sewer grate to punctuate his distrust of technology. Telling her to use the hotel desk phone was insulting—not to mention a health risk. “I’ll go to the shop in person.”

“In that getup? You look like the Energizer bunny without the ears.”

Despite her best effort, tears glazed her vision. “I’m a girl. I like pink, and you told me to put on the sweatpants. If that stupid flare gun wasn’t so big—”

“—you’d be dead,” he snapped.

“Maybe I’d rather be dead!”

He looked like he wanted to slap her. She could tell by the set of his jaw and the way his lips thinned, not because it showed in his eyes. Nothing showed in his eyes. She had only seen them once and once had been enough. She was glad that he always wore sunglasses, even at night, even in the rain, even if it meant that she saw her own reflection in the dark lenses, small and pink and pitiful. She dropped her gaze and plucked feebly at the fleece pants that matched her sweatshirt.

“I know you’re only trying to help me.”

“Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Damn. I was hoping one of us did.”

Her gaze lifted, followed by the threat of a smile. Black sat on the floor across from her, wrists resting atop his drawn-up knees, his face a stony mask behind the shades. Her impulse to smile popped before it got momentum. “I can never tell if you’re joking.”

He deadpanned. “Neither can I.”

If Tess had ever imagined meeting a vampire, Black was the furthest thing from her imagining. PR had vampires masquerading as impeccably-mannered society icons in evening clothes and expensive cars. Black was dirt poor and mean as an abused mutt. He was shaggy, too, sporting a rough-chopped mop of dirty blond hair that fell past his shoulders. Tess itched to tie it back if not cut it off; she didn’t have to look closely to see how handsome he would be if he could be made to give a hoot.

An idea occurred. “You know, that ten grand I offered you for solving Trav’s murder could go a long way to helping us get out of town.”

“Seems to me I turned down that ten grand.”

“You did, but since we’re a team, I don’t mind footing the bill for a makeover.”

Suspicion lent an edge to his voice. “What makeover?”

“Raymond’s goons are looking for a fluffy pink blonde and a scruffy derelict. They don’t know where we are right now. They don’t know my car, either. That’s an advantage, especially if a brunette is driving it. What if we dyed my hair and cleaned you up? It’s the oldest trick in the book, but it might work.”

“What do we do about these?” Black pushed up his shades and cocked his head at her.

Tess made herself hold his gaze … such as it was. She knew he could see, but how much and how well he had yet to say. Light bothered him; she knew by the tension around his eyes as he struggled to keep from squinting in the overhead bulb’s low-watt glow. “I could get you a white cane,” she said.

“That’ll fool ’em.”

“Different shades, then. Something pricier, with tinted lenses instead of full black.”

He dropped his current pair back into place and Tess felt the tension ease from her shoulders. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was fighting a smirk. “You gonna make me a star, sugar?”

“Nope,” she replied, mimicking his smartass drawl, “just a face in the crowd.”

………

She needed clothes before she dared to collect her car. Enter Black’s buddy Aurora, who had squirreled them away in a different cheap hotel from the cheap hotel where he had been living before Tess had come on scene. As far as prostitutes went, Aurora had better fashion sense than her peers. She was also taller and bustier than Tess, so borrowing from her closet was out of the question—as if it had ever been in the running—but she was willing to scour the thrift stores for attire that wasn’t an animal print or faux leather. She also hit the drugstore for a box of light brown hair colour, and arrived at the hotel laden with bags and greasy takeout just as Black was waking up. After a quiet word with her, he slipped out the door without acknowledging Tess at all.

“Is he going to hunt?”

“Hell, no. Black doesn’t hunt. Eat up, honey, then we’ll dim your light.”

Mexican wasn’t Tess’s favourite, but the burritos Aurora had brought were unexpectedly tasty. They sat together at the rickety table, sharing an order of spicy tater tots and sipping Coke spiked with Bacardi poured from the elegant silver flask in Aurora’s purse. She handed it over when she noticed Tess trying not to stare. “A parting gift when I left my office job.”

“You worked in an office?”

“More or less. You sweet on Black?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me, honey. Are you sweet on Black?”

“I’m not sure that’s your business.”

“I’m asking just the same.”

Tess toyed uncomfortably with her straw. Aurora was friendly enough, but something in her chocolate brown eyes called to mind Bambi with a machete. She and Black were close, but how close? “Maybe I should ask you the same question.”

The smile Aurora gave her was almost coy. “One way or another, I don’t know a soul who don’t have it for ol’ Black.” The coyness vanished, leaving ice shards to glitter in her smoky contralto. “He’s one of us.”

“And I’m not.”

Aurora pulled a pack of Marlboros from her bag. “How many years at college taught you to figure that out? Honey, I’m not dissing you; I know how his mind works, and he’s a chump for pitiful creatures. He lives by this medieval code from the days of King Arthur or something and, like it or not, you are a damsel in distress.” She paused to light a foot-long cigarette then arched inquisitive brows at Tess, who didn’t dare to wrinkle her nose, let alone ask the dusky Amazon not to smoke.

“I guess you live by the same code, or you wouldn’t be helping us.”

Aurora took a deep drag and forced the smoke out through her nose. “There is no ‘us’, honey. I’m helping Black. So, are you done eating? ’Cause I promised him a brunette when he gets back and I wasn’t talking about myself.”

………

It was weird to look in the mirror and see dark where there had always been blonde.

“What,” Black said when she remarked on the oddity, “did you dye there, too?”

Some white knight. Aurora guffawed, but Tess was not amused. “You need a haircut.”

“And I suppose you’ll be the barber?”

She had cut Trav’s hair. She wasn’t a professional, but she knew how to use a pair of scissors—though the kitchen shears in Aurora’s bag of goodies proved more cumbersome than she had expected, especially when trimming the uneven ends. Black sat with his eyes closed, his sunglasses resting on the table by the burrito wrappers. Aurora sat, chain-smoking, in the other chair. “Missed a spot,” she offered, pointing with her cigarette. Tess followed the sightline and brought the shears to bear on an errant strand. She had to tug Black’s t-shirt from his throat to get the right angle.

Snip, snip.

“What happens if I cut you?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know,” he answered, eyes still closed.

She ran her fingers through his damp locks, comparing them to Travis’s despite her resolve to the contrary. Trav’s hair had been soft and silky, naturally wavy no matter how long he’d worn it. Black’s was stick straight, thicker, coarser, and harder to manage—kind of like Black himself. Tess did the best she could with it, but promised him a trip to a salon once they got out of town.

“Yippee,” he said, flatly. He slipped his shades back on and faced Aurora across the table. His tone changed for her, becoming as playful as surly could get. “Well, sugar? Red carpet material?”

Aurora didn’t answer right away. She stubbed out her smoke with unnecessary violence, chewed on her lips when she thought Tess couldn’t see, then raised her head, forced a smile, and said too brightly, “Look out, George Clooney.”

That was when Tess realized that she was taking him away from more than town. She was taking him from his friends.

To be continued …

“Black in Back” (Preface)

Ariel Black is back in the sequel to “Black and Blonde”, a continuation of his relationship with the mortal woman who blackmailed him into helping her solve the murder of her boyfriend. Things got a little sticky at the end of that story and, as the first installment of “Black in Back” indicates, the stickiness is about to get stickier.

He refused to tell this one. “Don’t know, don’t care” was his attitude when I approached him. I tried everything to persuade him, but he wanted nothing to do with it. In the end, Tess stepped up to tell her version of what happened next. Turns out that this is her story. Black is in it, but his is more of a supporting role as our heroine both navigates the shark-infested waters of mortal/immortal relations and discovers a secret that at once divides her from and binds her to her older sister.

It’s a story about survival, about family, about forgiveness, about courage and friendship and, ultimately, trust.

The strongest allies are often the unlikeliest.

Enjoy.

KAOS or Control?

The next time you’re driving somewhere, take your hands off the wheel and see what happens. I bet your vehicle will run straight for a little bit, then the tires will hit a bump or a curve in the road and suddenly you’ll be mildly—or wildly—off course. By taking the wheel again, you’ll be able to get back on track, but surrender the helm once more and you’ll be offroading before you know it.

The same thing happens when you let life run itself.

On the flip side, it’s possible to over steer, as well. Tighten your grip too much and you’ll be over-correcting the tiniest ripple, slowing in fear of an unforeseen curve, and generally depriving yourself of the pleasure in driving that long and winding road.

The same thing happens when you micromanage life.

I saw another Bradbury gem the other day: “Life should be touched, not strangled”. It struck a chord because I, the hundred-proof Virgo, am a control freak in the extreme. (A sick irony, considering that I dislike being micromanaged, myself.) By the same token, I have learned over the years to release my white-knuckled grip and let my life happen naturally, working with it rather than fighting to make it do my bidding.

It’s half what you get and half what you do with it. I’ve taken my eyes off the road on occasion, and that’s when my life has spun into chaos. Some control is required in order to keep to the map. Lately I’ve been reminded to trust in my partnership with the universe, that things beyond my control are being handled and I am to let them happen in due course. My role is to handle them when they happen. Everything we do is the result of a decision, a choice. Choose to do nothing and you’ll be at life’s mercy. Choose to act and you’ll be part of a team, you and the universe, getting it done.

You may also find that the scenery is pretty darned amazing.

KAOS or control. It’s always your choice.

Onward and Upward

The first week after holidays is always brutal, but last week was particularly so. My back went out, I paid two visits to the chiropractor, needed a sick day to recover, and finally pulled out of the gloom by Friday. I thought it was me. Turns out that the third week of January is the most depressing week of the calendar year.

Honest. Boy Sister told me so at coffee on Thursday—and it was a revelation.

Think about it. Christmas is over, but the bills are coming in the mail. The cheerful lights have been boxed up for next Christmas, abandoning us to the long, dark winter. New Year’s resolutions are proving too ambitious, so we start to drop them and feel like failures as a result. And I return to work with renewed understanding of why I was so stressed when I left and a plan to regain control of my destiny, but the stressors remain unchanged and my plan requires time to implement so I wind up immobilized—mentally, emotionally and physically.

Truly, I was ready to hang myself mid-week. The string of Philly games probably saved me, despite the dismal duo of shutouts they suffered on Wednesday/Thursday. Then, BS and I spent a few minutes together after coffee with my wee sister, and he told me that we were halfway through the most depressing week of the year.

I immediately felt better. Walking home from the limo stop that same night, I noticed a bunch of snowdrops blooming beneath a garden bush yet glowing with fruitcake lights—an odd juxtaposition that gave me more hope. Then I saw it happening in my own garden: new green buds swelling amid the teeny-tiny blossoms already born. Spring is on the way, I thought with relief. We’ve made it.

I say “we” because poor Ter, who had returned to work on January 5th, suffered more last week than she had the week previous. Yep, the third week sucked, but we’re out of it and on our way to better things. I am also forewarned.

In 2016, I intend to take the whole month off.

Birthday Gift

VAN 4 - PHI 0

My younger older brother received two gifts for his birthday, yesterday: the Canucks snapped their four-game losing streak, and the Flyers let them do it in Philadelphia.

I could have done without it being a shutout, though, to be perfectly relevant to my brother’s age, the final score should have been 6-0.

Now the Flyers are on a streak of being shut out for two games in a row. Shutouts are normally measured by periods or minutes or whatever is the most humiliating, but this time out, I’m happily appalled at straight games.

On the other hand, no less than three Flyer games have been on TV this week – they won the first one 7-3, then quit scoring for the rest of the streak. Guess they used up their weekly goals-for allotment against Tampa Bay on Monday.

Funny that right after I promise to quit ragging on Rogers, the universe sees fit to reward me with a tripleheader. That my brother’s team happened to play against mine on his birthday was a bonus. That his team won is … well, I’d like to say that I engineered it just for him, but the reality is I’d rather have had the score reversed in Philly’s favour. However, I’m sure he was happy and that’s all that matters. I may be grateful to see my hockey team, but I am far more grateful to have him.

Happy belated, bro.

Round and Round the Bradbury Bush

Great saying, eh? I first read it in the Ray Bradbury essays that Nic sent me for Christmas, Zen in the Art of Writing, and I like it so much that I’m putting it on my office board when I get back to work next week.

Back to reality, I mean.

I can’t say I’ve been drunk, but I’ve certainly been tiddly on writing during the past few weeks. I finished the Calista story in November but took this long to nail a title that doesn’t out and out suggest a cheeseball bodice-ripper—my original title of “The Devil’s Duchess” never sat comfortably, and when I ran it past my office-tea-fairy-slash-beta-reader, she did her best not to wrinkle her nose until I wrinkled mine, then she let herself release an unbridled sneer. I’m truly grateful that she didn’t barf, because I wanted to. Eventually, I settled on “The Devil She Knows” and filed Calista under “finished”.

Then, with more help from Ray Bradbury, I got the novel rolling again. Bradbury—whose fictional work I have never read—recommends following a character along whatever path he/she is walking (or running, in the case of sci-fi/suspense) or, better yet, jumping onto a landmine in the morning and picking up the pieces during the course of the day. I took his advice and punched through the barrier that’s hung me up for months on Reijo’s romance. It was more a matter of getting me out of the way and letting the characters run the sequence of events—I had a pre-conceived notion of said sequence and they were ignoring it. My continual efforts to redirect them proved so frustrating that we all gave up on the project. Now that I’m listening again, it’s proceeding much more smoothly, though the debris around the broken barrier will need some big time cleanup in the edit.

And, as of this morning, I am thisssss close to finishing “Black in Back”. I had written my protagonist into such a pickle that she couldn’t figure a way out, so I left her stranded with the villain for a few weeks while I concentrated on Christmas and Calista and a few other non-writing distractions. Again, I threw a Bradbury-style punch and she plunged through the hole, taking me with her rather than the other way around. Now I have an ending in sight and hope to have ’er done by Sunday night.

The biggest Bradbury fan I have known was our lone male in the 21^st Century Poets. His work was very much a nod to his idol’s genre, but Johnny, like the rest of the Poets, had his own magical style. He was also generous with his support for the rest of the gang in our communal flexing of the creative muscle. I will always hold him dear to my heart, but when Nic sent me the Bradbury book, she also sent me a flood of good-time memories, and a little nostalgia for the days of nonstop poetry and prose that I shared with a unique band of creative spirits.

Zen in the Art of Writing is the first collection of literary essays that I am using as a textbook, marking it up with a highlighter and scribbly notes in the margins. Normally I like my books to look like they’ve been read but remain relatively pristine. It seems appropriate that Bradbury, who recommends a punch to kickstart a project, authored the first book to be so punched. I expect to gain more nuggets from the pages, but every time I pick it up, my first thought will be a fond one for the Poets’ JP Jensen.

Wherever you are, write on, Johnny.

Where 'Ere You Find It

Downton Abbey, series 4, episode 8: Lady Edith Crawley laments to her grandmother, “Sometimes I think God doesn’t want me to be happy.” To which the Dowager Countess of Grantham replies with something along the lines of, “Life is full of challenges. One is resolved, then another … and another … and … and why don’t you fetch us some ice cream?”

I confess, I often want to smack Lady Edith. Ter admonishes me to be more forgiving and to consider the time in which the Crawleys live. Edith is clearly a misfit in Edwardian society, a culture where a woman’s worth is based on how good a marriage she makes. She’s a misfit in her own family, as well—the homely middle daughter outshone by her beautiful older sister (who is mean as a junkyard dog with her) and eclipsed by her charismatic younger sister (who, unfortunately, died in season 3). She may also be the smartest of the three, the one who strikes out on her own to write a weekly newspaper column and even—gasp!—has a fling with a married man, but because every “normal” move she makes blows up in her face, she is an object of pity and self-loathing. Playing by society’s rules hasn’t worked for her, so, naturally, she is a sullen, self-pitying presence in the drawing room and is surely justified in suspecting that God is out to get her.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

God, by whichever name applies, wants everyone to be happy. God, however, is not responsible for whether or not we are happy. That’s our part of the bargain. And while life is designed to push us beyond our comfort zone, it also provides for joy. Even in our darkest moments, joy can be found. It doesn’t have to last long; just enough to help us forget our moment of misery and emerge a little bit stronger for having had the break.

Sometimes I think that the more we have, the more we expect from happiness—and the less likely we are to get it, because happiness is a soul thing and we seek it through our egos. Don’t get me wrong, I love “stuff”. I love coloured pencils and hardcover books and shiny earrings and fast cars and cool shoes, and who doesn’t love chocolate??? but acquiring stuff is like eating too much sugar: it only whets your appetite and leaves you sick and unsatisfied.

Joy is found in experience rather than stuff. Hearing a child’s laughter. Holding a warm mug of tea in your cold hands. Listening to the ocean’s heartbeat. Watching the Flyers even if they’re losing the &*^%ing game. Thinking fondly of someone you love. Trusting that the someone will sense that thought and feel better for it.

Knowing that you, too, are loved.

Rather than smacking her, now I wish Lady Edith would bust out and tip the world on its ear. If she does, however, her life won’t get any easier. She may not be any happier, either. But if she chooses to look for it, she will find joy.

And so will you.

With love,