Intersection

She wishes she had a collar to flip up against the chill. Not a winter chill or even early spring. This was the chill of waiting for a reluctant ride, another one, since the first had been snapped up, or rather sat in, by a ridiculous mini-skirted rear. A deserted street, or almost. It should be, she thinks, and there should be steam curling from the storm drains and the shadow of a trenchcoat with only eyes peaking above its topmost fold, watching her every move. No one but a woman across the road, kneeling and swaying, as if in deep prayer or an even deeper drunk funk. Carob, our self-willing hardboiled star, looks back towards the viaduct to the south. Come to me. Come to me. Appear! Sedans and dark minivans. Nothing useful.

A cough. A cough! Carob settles her eyes on the curb, watching a bottlecap and a concrete crack. Circle and line. Ball and chain. Yoyo and string. I won't turn around, she thinks. This is my big moment. If he grabs me (of course he's a he) then I'll be calm and dart my eyes at the camera, all Detriech, and turn my face up as slowly as an awakening and then we'll recognize each other. Frank, I'll gasp. No--I'll rasp, Frank! It's damn good to see you. Where have you been, my darling? Purring, I'll repeat it, my darling, where have you been?

Instead, it happens all at once. The taxi flickers close and she's in and gone. In the rear mirror is a redhead in green, the focal point of an otherwise black and white comic. Given the sum of carrots she regularly demolishes, Carob wonders how she missed him.

Time for a manifesto

It’s his spot, you can tell. Back right corner, good for the electrical outlet although he doesn’t need it. He only recently acquired an e-mail address, his publisher’s. “She's good about passing them on to me, just make sure you put my name in the subject.”

Dressed up in a white shirt, buttoned-down to pants that he calls slacks, a straw hat with a black band and a small brim, ironic on anyone younger. A black satchel empty but for a folder of newsletters and a single copy of his new book, in a manila envelope that fits it perfectly. People say hello to him and he responds without pushing for conversation. He will talk if you sit down and begin it.

“You sound sort of interested, in what I do...” he says and he rummages for his latest newsletter, Democracy Now. Your eyes sidle into the bag and you feel fondness for him, tinged with envy. You too want to leave the house with so little weight on your shoulder, the weight of one opus.
“I’m starting my real life now," he says. "I’ve been writing for thirty years and now I want to publish.” You think about your own writing. So far, it only fits into the lull times of your real life’s pushes and pulls.

“It's mostly economics and social policy, but the time was never right before.” You wonder how he knows this, except in retrospect, while you look at the slender book from the envelope. On the back you see him pictured, handing a pamphlet to a young man. A big placard presides but you can’t see what’s written--their afros block the letters like shadows, like ink-filled speech bubbles. You wonder what he thinks of you because you’re young like that, now. He asks what you’re writing, and you say it's a poem, wishing it was your manifesto instead.
Earlier, you felt his eyes watching your screen and the words stopped coming. Hard not feel like all writing, when it begins, is as private and shameful as a diary.

Unslept in San Sebastian

Coiling springs, sighs to guess at
hostel noise, dark from bunks

fetal on the graffiti mattress
too alone to sprawl new names.

Tube-shaped pillows, hiding passports
sills hung over with humid sleeves

night drips down, into sealed courtyard
till morning zippers up the mildew.

Budded ears, songs from home
overheard by stranger breaths

matching traffic rev for rêve,
the dreaming engines
churn on through the sleepless air.

Driving Lessons

Parked cars pressed too close to my new driving skills. My unskills. Did I have a depth perception problem like my Mum? Their mirrors poked out like evil ears. I held my breath.
"Breathe, please."
This was my Graeme, my driving instructor. Every time I did something incorrect he stretched his oddly hairless arm over to the wheel, and its inevitable contact with my arm--always just a slight grazing--left me shuddering like I'd sunk my teeth into an ice cube. Since I was sixteen and liked to find celebrity matches for everyone I encountered, I did the same for him, and finally settled on Jabba the Hutt, albeit in his slimmer days. Soon Graeme became a bit of a celebrity amongst my close friends as I would dramatize his fastidious habits and cassette-tape monotone. I'd never heard him yell, not even when I confidently confused a green light for a green-arrow advanced green turn. As we whistled through the intersection I thought the horns squawking in our wake were about something else, like the police chase of a psychopath.

Highway driving (Lesson #6) took us very far away from our usual driving routes, also my escape routes. After a stretch of road, all silent except for the whir of Graeme's cassette, we stopped at a gas station. It had a convenience store, people, phones. Graeme unclipped his seat belt and flicked up his clip-on sunglasses, "Do you want or need anything?" He drawled this slowly.
I said no, wondered why he was drawling, and watched him walk over to the store. He moved with surprising agility--for Jabba. I waited in the quiet car, trying not to look enviously at the clump of kids hanging out around a black truck. Graeme passed them on the way back, probably thinking he'd like to teach them a lesson or two. I wondered if the kids thought I was his daughter. Or his girlfriend. Mortifying, both.

"I always mix Dr. Pepper with watermelon and sprite," he said while nestling his slurpee in the car's cup-holder. "Are you sure you don't want some?" Slurpees only vaguely reminded me of a vicious stomach flu I'd had in grade 6, but from this point on they signaled to a whole new nausea.
Next he directed me to what seemed like a deserted runway. How appropriate if he wished to make the jump to hyperspace and return to his sail barge. Instead, I was supposed to speed straight for a huddle of pylons and break only at the last moment--when Graeme gave the okay. I'm still a timid driver, and maybe this is why. With one of his smooth arms (pudgy in the wrong places like he had elbow joints floating around in there) flung across the steering wheel, he told me to start going faster. I stepped on it, but apparently not enough to keep the cassette tape from exploding:
"HARDER HARDER, HARDER, HARDERHARDERHARDER!"

Why Lemonade?

This is an old story, first told to friends while sitting on a rotting beach log, to mixed and baffled reviews.

Once upon a time, grade 11 was over and it was summertime. The weak teal colour of our house needed another weak layer, according to my Dad who is finely tuned to neurotic detail. Painters were hired and they were McGill students--two real university men--with beards. It was a week of squelching heat and they reapplied the weak teal and joked around, often with their shirts removed. Saturday arrived. The final touches were going up. Only the white trim was in need of rejuvenation. Should I make them some lemonade, Dad? I think I should. It's a nice gesture. I'll make lemonade. With pulp.

I thought I should probably take the freshly mashed and shaken drink out to them, maybe compliment their labours, accept their compliments of mine. But my Dad did instead.