24 Hours in Vancouver

For Kelly

Questions of Travel

There are too many Waterfalls here; the crowded streams

hurry too rapidly down to the sea,

and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops

turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.

-For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,

aren't waterfalls yet,

in a quick age or so, as ages go here,

they probably will be.

But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,

the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,

slime-hung and barnacled

Think of the long trip home.

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Where should we be today?

Is it right to be watching strangers in a play

in this strangest of theatres?

What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life

in our bodies, we are determined to rush

to see the sun the other way around?

The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?

To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,

inexplicable and impenetrable,

at any view,

instantly seen and always, always delightful?

Oh, must we dream our dreams

and have them too?

And have we room

for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity

not to have seen the trees along this road,

really exaggerated in their beauty,

not to have seen them gesturing

like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.

-Not to have had to stop for gas and heard

the sad, two-noted, wooden tune

of disparate wooden clogs

carelessly clacking over

a grease-stained filling-station floor.

(In another country the clogs would all be tested.

Each pair there would have identical pitch.)

-A pity not to heard

the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird

who sings above the broken gasoline pump

in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:

three towers, five silver crosses.

-Yes, a pity not to have pondered,

blurr'dly and inconclusively,

on what connection can exist for centuries

between the crudest wooden footwear

and, careful and finicky,

the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.

-Never to have studied history in

the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.

-And never to have had to listen to rain

so much like politicians' speeches:

two hours of unrelenting oratory

and then a sudden golden silence

in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come

to imagined places, not just stay at home?

Or could Pascal have been not entirely right

about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:

the choice is never wide and never free.

And here, or there... No, Should we have stayed at home

wherever that may be?"

-Elizabeth Bishop

Chapter One: Jack Teaman, writer

Rolling wildly out of Vancouver, and ultimately on the long ride home, I could have been on my road to Damascus. It's hard to say for sure, I just rolled out of Canada moments ago, and burnt into my mind is the wild time I spent there. Perhaps for some it would not be considered a wild time, those soldiers of the streets walking endlessly nowhere and everywhere all the time, or those denizens of strip clubs, brothels and prisons. But for others, the healthy people, or at least those who have a semblance of normal modes of living. Really, who fits into the regular mode of living truly?

Well, I certainly do not have a standard mode of living. Sure, I have a job, I live in a house in what I consider the 'burbs, I drive a four door sedan, wear a shirt and tie everyday, and I even have the cellular phone. In short, I have all the qualities of one of those normal people. It hasn't always been like this and I hope it won't always be like it too. It is merely a stop on the train of life for me, I suppose. Honestly, I absolutely hate living this life. I enjoy the job, but the lifestyle around it really hurts, and oddly enough, it is a lifestyle I would never develop. I don't even particularly like the city I live in, or should I call it a village? The people there would be offended if they heard that, and for that reason I will not mention its name. I'll merely say, it rains there for the majority of the year, which tweaks us out of our minds, and most of the residents love it so much to them there is nothing outside of it. There is a huge world out there, I've seen some of it, and I can say with absolute sincerity there are places better than this village. I am not altogether sure where I would want to live, somewhere, not there, and I plan to move as soon as I figure it out. I'm not scared to leave; I'm staying as long as my contract with work lasts, or for as long as I can take all the rain.

I may leave the office, and the lifestyle, go back to the old way. A little time here, a little time there, travel, travel, travel. But as I recall, that life was aging me in a strange way, and that was the reason I moved there to work. I suppose the grass is always greener...

So now, I am the worst kind of person. I look one way, normal, normal life, job, person, but I feel another way. My way of dealing with it is to take as many trips as I can to various places, and stay shorter lengths, as I have to get back to work. And believe it or not, I really do look differently in each event, like two people, two faces. I seem to be less sad when travelling. Funny the things we live with, isn't it? I live with perpetual sadness. Better than fear, I suppose.

I drove for six hours on Monday to get to Vancouver, B.C. That's right, Canada, I had never been there, and to cross the border as insignificant as it may be to anyone who has been to Canada, it was my 28th country. And I was nervous as I rolled across the border. The guard asked all of two questions and pushed me through.

The last border I drove over was a dangerous affair, and I did my part to make it worse. I was smuggling two out of three things: leather and crystal. If I would have found a piece of art I really like, I would have bought it too. It's funny to think about it now, it seems unlikely. I was smuggling everyday items from Czechoslovakia to Germany. It was the time, the early 1990's, the wall had just fell, and the westerners' were exploiting the east. But isn't that the way it is, we are a people of exploiters and the exploited. I loved living in Germany in those days too, it's right in the center of Europe and all over was where I went. Germans have a bad rap in Europe, like we have a bad rap in the Americas, and Japanese in Asia. I suppose we are the privileged class of the world, the Americans, the Japanese and the Germans. And everyone of us, I am, and people like me are the privileged class of our own people. Really. I would like to say I am independently wealthy, like some computer guru, or a son of an oil tyrant, but I am not. I am just a man, a son of a file clerk and a public servant. But I realize now, the privileged people are not born from money and status, I believe it is a matter of suffering, and living that makes a person regal. We've been there, I suppose, but some people are wonderful rich with it, they have concurred it, and have grown into a wonderful peacock's tail.

I met Jack Teaman after about ten cigarettes and a half bottle of incidental wine. He was looking to buy a few cigarettes from me. I see smoking as a vehicle to meet people or some sort of comradely, and there was no way I was about to sell him cigarettes, I gave him two. Since he was really into giving me the money, I think he thought me rude not to want those coins. "If you can get me a light, never mind the fifty cents."

"A light?"

"I have the smokes, but no way of lighting them."

"Aye," he said. He was the first person I really had any contact with other than the people who were providing me services. Those were the border guard, the woman at the Cecil Hotel, the banker who exchanged my money, and the bar keep at Brass Monkey who gave me the wine. Jack had some sort of Londoner accent, but I couldn't put my finger on which one. Then again perhaps it was a washed out accent due to too much time in Vancouver and now he had two accents, two modes of language and they were at constant battle for supremacy. Perhaps he had two modes of living too, and that made me appreciate him all the more. "A light."

"I'm Jack Teaman, writer."

"I'm also a writer," I said. And within minute I had a job with him, Dear Jack, 67 years old, recently separated from his wife. He had an interesting story, but I didn't believe any of it. We were on our way to the Skytrain to go to a pub of his neighborhood to share a pint of beer and take about how we got into writing at all.

We didn't pay of course for the train. We just wandered on, and if we were questioned, then Jack would be obligated to talk. We got off only two stops later. No one asked us for the ticket, no one care, and I felt somehow badly about it. I'm not sure why, I love to get away with things like this sort of thing, really. In recent times I have been as rule abiding as possible, and for no other reason than it is the right thing to do. Occasionally, I'll do something like get ont he train and not pay, but does my catholic guilt get me. And I felt guilty until we left the station.

Two blocks down, we entered the pub, "This place can be rough, stay close to me." And close to him I stayed. At the bar we discovered we had enough for a beer each. Then to a table we went. "What's your back ground?"

"Mostly, vignettes and fiction, poetry sometimes." I was the real McCoy of the two of us. I had my notebook with me, I had been carrying it all night, and I would continue to carry for several hours more.

"Yours?"

"When were you born?"

"1972."

"I was born in 1932."

We sipped the beer, I listened.

"I never did get an education. Have you been to University?"

"Yes."

"Leave with degree?"

"Yes." He reached over the table and shook my hand. For the first time since leaving college, I left that the degree I held really meant something.

"I left after grade three."

"Why?"

"No school. I was in East London, I'm a cockney."

"I see."

"There wasn't much left of London then. They were taking child out to go to school, but I was too young."

We took a drink, and I lit his cigarette.

"They'll kill you."

"You believe that?"

"It says here on the box, 'Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease'"

"Bah! I've been smoking since..." he thought, looked up, squinted an eye and made this strange popping noise with his mouth, "Since I was 11. They haven't killed me."

"Suppose not."

"The Americans were very good to us. They gave us either candy or cigarettes."

"Soldiers?"

"There were Canadians too. They wore our uniforms, just with their flag. I came here in 1956."

"To write?"

"Aye, for the newspaper."

So, he was a newspaper man. Got for him. He was retired now, and a pensioner. His life in the course of a year had gone from worker and husband, to retired and divorced. Poor guy, I can't imagine it. So to take up his time he was writing or trying to write travel video scripts. That was what my job was going to be. He was convincing me of our importance by comparing the project to cities in the states I've lived in. Since, Jack and I both share the Pacific Coast, we were familiar with all the cities.

"What about funding?" Seemed a good question for a newly employed writer like me to ask him. In truth, I could careless, our relationship was nearly over.

"Jim Pattison."

"Who?"

"The eleventh richest guy in Canada."

"So?" Like, that doesn't impress me. Maybe if he said a hugh studio, or the government or something I would have been impressed. I discovered later that Jim Pattison is a very wealth guy.

"When did Frank Sinatra die?"

"April. April 1998."

"Well, Jimmy bought his house in L.A." Which meant of course he would gladly fund this project.

He drank down to the bottom of his glass. I had about a quarter to go, and I was looking for the escape. If he would only go to the men's room, or something. Then, "Say Jack, I've got two dollars."

"Two loonies?" I produced them. "Stay here, sit tight, I'll go get another." He got up, and before he reached the bar I got up too. If he were to turn around I would be busted. I was counting on his focus on the beer and I was right, he didn't turn around. Once I reached the door, I ran all the way back to the train station. I ran away from poor Jack.

All I could gather from our brief friendship I had with him is that he is a needy and lonely old man, just separated from work and wife, and perhaps I am a bad person for leaving him. I can't take care of strangers, strange old men on the streets.

Chapter Two: Foghorn's

I paid for the ticket this time.

Needless to say, I was a little drunk when I got on the train. I wasn't feeling so good, the very fact that i drink bothers me. They say that stuff is hereditary. My father was a very abusive drunk, he's reformed now, but my mother and step-father still drink like fiends. If I am to be a drunk, I want to be like my step-father, drink a little of the drink and fall asleep in front of the TV. Again, we are discussing the norm, and regular modes of living.

In a period of a week, back in my village of a home I had two women ask me if I am an alcoholic. One said "I always get involved with alcoholics." I am still unsure what that means, and I hope we are not involved and I am not an alcoholic. The second woman is a twenty eight year old nurse who had come all the way to my village to recover a little from a coma she'd been. Apparently, she had been a nurse in another life, and in the life that was killing her and sever addict. She had tried to kill herself a few times in the past, and really didn't want to live.

"Are you an alcoholic?" She asked as we sat there waiting for the movie to start. it didn't matter what I told this woman, as I knew she would be gone back to San Diego soon enough.

"No, but you are the second person to ask in a week. Why do you think I am?"

"I was with an alcoholic for two years and you remind me of him."

"I see."

"I thought I could see through you the other night."

"What did you see?"

"Sadness."

"Sure, sadness and alcoholism are the same thing." At least not to me. You can be a happy drunk and you can be depressed and sober.

"All addicts are sad," she said as the movie trailers came on the screen. This was a conversation I didn't want to resume after the movie. And fuck her, I thought as the movie got rolling. She had only met me twice and we were drunk the first time, and at the movies the second. She didn't know me. I stewed about it, and it stewed me even more that I let suicidal, drug addicted ex-nurse from San Diego get under my skin. At least she was up front about it, and just asked. The other woman tells me "I always get involved with alcoholics." Like I said we were not involved and I am not an alcoholic.

At any rate, in Vancouver, on the SkyTrain I was almost condemning myself for drinking so much. I was drunk, but what the hell, I wasn't hurting anyone, and I wasn't robbing stores. So, off I was, back to the Granville station, and to find something more to do with my night.

I considered patronizing the strip bar beneath my hotel, until I realized money was something I was not made from. I walked by a bar, and saw a couple of you ladies at the bar. I almost went it. The next little club had music, but I would want to drop off the notebook before going. I was not about to lose this notebook even though it only had a few pages of material in it. I lost it's predecessor in a robbery. There was almost 200 pages of material lost, stolen from the car. This is one of the reasons why I don't particularly care for the place I live. People leave their lawn furniture on the street for weeks before a parade, and no one steals it, but they rainey little fuckers will break into an automobile to steal a notebook. I don't, don't want get, and I don't want to participate.

So I walked on, clutching the notebook. It is kind of funny, in my hotel room, I hide all the things I found to be important those worth stealing, but I took the notebook with me. Well, perhaps I would have some inspiration to write something, and I had written something small and something silly over a bottle of wine in Brass Monkey.

A sparsely populated video arcade appealed to me. I went in to play pinball. It made me lonely. After two dollars I left, and headed back with a missionary purpose to the bar where I had seen those two women at the bar. I was determined to talk to some people, and hopefully some my age. Don't get me wrong, Jack Team was a great guy, but there is only so much conversation I would have handled with him. If that, as you may have guessed I am not a person who listens real well, I am a person who waits to talk. And with Jack there would have been a long wait. Even if his stories about the war were interesting, he got tiring. At least with the young people, you can leave them and meet more and no hard feelings, and they are generally in groups whereas Jack was solitary.

Instantly in FogHorn's I was reminded of an old place I went to in college. They had poor lighting, and were technically a restaurant. Alcohol at Foghorn's in theory is incidental to food. Everyone in there was drinking, no eating involved. Well, there were the peanuts. Peanuts right out of the barrel, which is why I was reminded of a bar I knew in college.

I didn't drink for most of my college days. But I did go into the campus bar, the boiler room, a few times. And oddly enough I have only three experiences there over a period of about two years and each experience involves a woman named Jodi.

The first one and I drank each other silly, went to a strip club and then back to my house. She will forever hold the title of the best one night stand. Since our drunk day was also our last day of class, we never did see one another again.

The second one, worked there. Our relationship was completely strand from the beginning. I wasn't drinking at the time and I didn't smoke. She smoked like a fiend. She smoked the way I do now, and it is disgusting. I really liked this woman, I even could have been in love with her. Things didn't work out for us that fall, and they wouldn't now so many years later, but I do think about her from time to time. I wish the best for her.

The third one made me sad. In those days I was a sad person but it was only occasional, unlike now when I am sad most of the time. She was a wonderfully sexy thing and all I wanted out of life was to sleep with her. Like a trophy I suppose, and it was wrong of me to think this way, and no matter how hard I try it is almost impossible to look past the conquest part of things. We had a drink at the Boiler Room one night. She had beer and I the lemonade. We went back to a basement nest I was living in, and did my best to take off her clothes and to no avail.

"I can't. You're doing everything right, believe me."

"Why?"

"I just can't."

"Okay," I whispered in her ear and continued with my task. And for a little while she entertained it.

"I have a disease."

"What?"

"Herpes." A pause followed, as one would.

"It doesn't change the way I feel about you," I whispered continuing my kiss on her face, although my hands stopped trying to undo her trousers. It didn't change the fact that I thought her a very sexy creature, and that I thought the sex with her would be out of this world. But it did change me from wanting it. I would be content to kiss her and forever think about how wonderful sex with her would have been.

At any rate, there was a specific smell around the boiler room, forever of stale beer, rancid peanuts, old cigarette smoke and old walls.

I took a handful of peanuts out of the barrel and marveled at the smell of the Foghorn's, so much like The Boiler Room.

I ordered a coke, and tried to make conversation.

I saw her face eclipse on someone else's head. She looked pretty, dark, but far away. She had an Oakly baseball cap pulled down and her hair was long, it was kind of hard to see her. And I continued to sit and sip my coke and smoke Export A cigarettes. Next to me on the left were two women, both strikingly familiar like two I should have known, and maybe in a previous life I knew someone who looked like each of them.

I started to think about things again. I always seem to think about them, random things and past things and things that will never come. But I was sitting there thinking about Siddartha and how he didn't fully live until he came out of the palace. Conversely, I don't want to dwell on my existence, but really... If I lived in a palace where everything is wonderful, beautiful and perfect, there would be no way I would ever leave it.

Then, it is about what you know, right? I thought, if my life had been different anywhere along the way, perhaps I would never have come this far, or never had come to Canada. So, I don't really remember where I am from. The earliest memories I had where moving around to various places. i moved around too much as a kid and I never really lived with too much family. And once I moved to live with my mother, I never really saw family again. I think she prided herself on living far away. So that is one reason why I think I travel and don't really like it, and why I never live anywhere for too long and why I don't form any relationships. If life for me would have been different, if I could have grown up with a happy family and one who lived in the same area or community, I doubt I would have even found myself in Foghorn's bar on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, British Colombia. I laughed at the difference in thought, between all the Jodis I every knew and the Boiler Room and what if my childhood was different.

"Hi," it was the young thing who smiled at me moments before and let herself eclipse behind the other head.

"Hello."

"What's your name?"

I told her. And she told me her name, Kelly.

"What's your story?" I asked, I always do. I think I ask to see what the response is, and not really for the story itself. Perhaps I say it because someone asked me what my story was, I'm not sure. When I asked her, she winced a little, moved the chair out and sat in closer to the bar.

"It's very long."

"What's the story for today?" Seemingly an easier topic. If I knew then that I would be able to tell the story of today with her at that point maybe I would have obeyed my first thought which was bed. But much like the whole Jack Teaman incident, I would have to ride this one to the very end, or at least the end of my comfort.

"You wouldn't believe it, eh? I lost my wallet, $300, all my ID and my bus pass." And it wouldn't be the last time i would hear the story.

"That sucks."

"Especially the bus pass."

It didn't take long for her to discover my foreignness. Looking on it now, if I lived in the same neighborhood for any length of time, I would be able to tell if there was an outsider in it too. By just one look, she knew. All the way from the United States too. We talked about Vancouver, her home town and about Toronto, where her father lives.

Another woman came and sat at my left eagerly listen on. I figured her a friend of Kelly, and the two talked. Then we talked about the Prairie's which I suppose is all the vastness between Toronto and Vancouver. How would I know? Never even thought about it.

"Where are you from?" The girl on the left asked, almost annoyed. Kelly told her. "You have prairies there."

"Sure, but I never...."

"You've never been here before?"

"Actually I just rolled into town."

"Do you know Shawn?"

"Who?"

"The DJ, darling," Kelly said. And the other pointed past me to this box looking place above a ladder at the end of the bar. And in it was Shawn and his discs and a vacant seat for guest.

"Actually, Shawn and I go way back," which was completely untrue. "Why?"

"He told me you were a good friend, and I should come talk to you."

"I see," and I did too. It was either a case of mistaken identity, unlikely, or old Shawn was trying to get rid of her. My head lowered a little, and noticing Kelly disappearance became more open to conversation with the other girl of Shawn's acquaintance.

"You've never seen Shawn, have you?" She was getting demanding.

"No," time for honesty.

She stood off the chair and began to go back.

"Well, honey, if you ever get a chance, like if you get a sex change, have sex with him, he's great."

"What makes him so great?"

"Oh! you just know, eh?" And she vanished back to her end of the bar. And alone I was again. I could see Kelly away from the crowd talking to someone. I was banking on her return, and was not disappointed.

The crowd seemed to be thinning out. The girl who loved to have sex with shawn hang at the other end of the bar, and to my right Kelly returned, and between her and the other woman were plenty of others all friends of Kelly's.

"Do you want to go to the Roxy with us?"

"Are you leaving?"

"Foghorn's is about to close."

"Really?"

"Class B place. Only stays open twelve hours a day."

The small crowd was getting ready to leave the bar, they were donning their jackets and gloves, something almost excessive in my opinion, but I was wearing a scarf. It wasn't really all that cold outside.

"Ready?" She asked.

"Are you inviting me?"

She nodded and we left. Across Granville we were at the door of The Roxy. There was a line and a cover. Neither of which we had to deal with, we walked right in. I was only able to get by due to my hand being in Kelly's.

Chapter Three: The Roxy and Siesta Rooms

I suppose you win some and you lose some, right? I suppose we can also draw the same conclusions about life, there are some lives that win and other that lose. Of course we would all like to be winners, and sometimes we are. However, I am sure everyone knows someone who has never won, they have either been sick their whole lives or they have been given the short end of things forever. Such a way to go through life, and then there are others who seem to have everything.

There are people who from the outside have it all, and still they waste away in such a state that know one seems to understand what could have infected them. They have turned to addictions or abuse of some sort and wasted away into nothing, losing everything they were given. Some are all about self mutilation, tattooed from head to toe, and pierced like a pincushion, and those to a lesser extent who hide behind plastic surgery. Ballooned breasts, and fake lips and a perma-smile with falsely white and straight teeth. And were does all the self mutilation get us? Somewhere deep inside the Roxy, I suppose. It was a strange crowd, and I couldn't put my finger one it. Like my now three companions we did not belong, but were there anyway.

The first tanned, obscenely tanned girl I saw with her blond too bland hair and plastic tits depressed me. It isn't attractive, and who is it attractive too? Some sort of plastic man. Someone who I should fear.

Five years ago, I spent the early Denver winter with a plastic woman seven years my senior. I liked her sometimes because I was never obligated to talk to her about anything, she never wanted to know, and I was certainly not obligated to listen to her. She was a sexy thing, I suppose, supple, but definitely not my type. She was a retired Stripper, and I imagine she left the scene before I even know what a stripper really was. She was a smart stripper, if ever there was such a thing. She invested her wealth. Her first investment was a new set of breast. And that investment paid for itself. She saved and invested more, bought a house, a car, and set herself up for a modest existence for the rest of her life. At 24 years old settled into a life of hanging out with friends, playing with her dog, taking a class here and there (Always getting the A) and pursuing any other interest that might come her way. Her name was Dana, and I remember how unnatural her breasts felt when she let me touch them. They were the antithesis of what I would think a woman should feel like, soft and natural, warm, pleasant. And perhaps she really wasn't a cold and unnatural person like I thought she was, I just didn't understand her, and didn't want too, and I will forever have a view of her that rings of how the breast felt.

I kept seeing Dana at the Roxy, and women who strived to be like her. I suppose they all have interesting aspects to their lives and unique stories, like Dana, but I could never accept them, like I could never accept the tattooed and pierced people. I may not like myself any more or less than anyone else, but self-mutilation as such is just unacceptable. I intend to like myself someday and everything about myself, and I don't know if I could live with unnatural things under my skin, killing me from the inside rotting forever and always in the self-loathing I had as a youth.

For that reason, how could I possibly love anyone who has contributed to their own wounds, scars and ultimate demise? I lived with a fellow named Josie when I was in Europe. He refused to date a smoker, and you can imagine how hard a nonsmoker in our age cohort was to find in Germany in those days. His entire reasoning was that if he were to fall in love with a person who was steadily trying to kill themselves, he would eventually be heart broken. I understand after I left and returned to the states, be began to date an ex-girlfriend of mine who was a passionate smoker. I never kept in touch with either of them, but I adopted Josie's way of seeing relationships, and I wondered if the Ex ever adopted it too. To further extremes of the Josie way was what I did, I refused to date a smoker, a tattooed beast, or someone excessively pierce, someone with obnoxious gum chewing/ eating habits, or a waitress. That criteria eliminated everyone. Which is okay, for if I haven't said it prior, I have this profound fear of commitment. I have never really been able to comply completely to a job or to a person, nor really to myself. In fact, I am only successful with one of these things if there is an end built into it. I have always had wonderful love affairs with wonderful people when I am travelling, and the entire romance, first kiss, heartbreak and all between can occur in a period of one to two days. I am expert at it.

In the Roxy, I was looking at three women who would be my most successful lover ever, and it would be a joy to be with them forever I would stay in Vancouver, which would be a short as possible. There was of course Kelly, 19 years old as she had told me, half Filipino, and half Irish, dark, pretty. Then there was Shawna, the friend, whole five years before weighed twice what she does now, and I could tell she was a little uncomfortable around me, and why not. The third girl was out of the loop. I could tell that if we could get to know one another she would have been the perfect candidate. She was older than the rest, but she also had a hugh ring on her finger and constantly looked at it. I have never seen anyone look and look at a ring like that. I thought that was only for the fairy tales and things of that nature. Perhaps every time she looked at it she could see the lovers face, and I hope he has a pleasant one, she was a real find, simple, pretty, natural. It was an attractive ring too.

Or I could venture away from the group who so gladly brought me in, and find someone else at the Roxy, they were all waiting for something, and perhaps an opportunity for love of a foreigner was what they were needing. It was what I wanted, and I'm sure if the ask was right or the movements, it could have been anyone.

Instead, I drank a shot of whatever they bought for me, and stayed with the people I came with. I listened to them, held my notebook and waited peacefully for the pool table which we were next to play on.

I talked here and there, but most clutched that notebook, and what a crazy sight I must have been to all the drunks there.

Ugly plaid jacket, scarf still tied, notebook, tall and skinny. Well, whatever, why would I care about them, I knew I would never see them again. Honestly, how could I tell if they were looking at me or not, it was dim and smokey in there.

Kelly rambled on and on about her job with the telemarketing firm., She got to call Americans all day long and give away airline tickets for 90 minutes of their time. A fairly high hourly wage, and it was all under the table so she could continue to collect her welfare. The married one, I have forgotten her name, was fiercely interested in what she had to say. Then the conversation shifted to the other forms of income in this part of the city which of course was the illegal institution of drugs. Everybody had something for sale and everyone bought, and that's all I could really gather.

It was our turn on the table.

"Give me two loonies," she said. I produced them, and into the machine they went. No balls came out. We tried again with the Roxy's money, and again nothing came out. On the third try the barman gave us a table closed sign. The table then became our bench and we talked further. Rather, I listen further. I could have been with old Jack all night at this rate, and just waiting to talk. Although, there conversation was interesting to me and something outside of my realm of knowledge, it was equally as unattainable as Jack's WWII London.

I looked at all the pretty people, and all the petty people. Some of them were truly gifts, at least to look at and a person can not really be judged by appearance alone. And looking down at my little acquaintance Kelly, the only person I can say I know in all of Vancouver and Canada, she looked like a little devil, living life and having a good time.

With your last days on Earth, reader, would you be a little devil, living life and having a good time?

"I don't really like drinking," Kelly said over another drink, and included me in conversation. The married girl was gone now and it was the three of us, myself, Kelly and Shawna.

"Me neither, really."

"I can't help it though, I live upstairs and it goes on like this until 2:30, eh? and the drunks don't leave until 3:30."

"You live upstairs?"

"Number 31. You're in the Cecil, eh?"

"I am tonight."

"Do you live here?" Shawna asked. Kelly explained to her all she needed to know of my existence and it was in the same manner as she had told the other girl in Foghorn's. "I used to live in Cecil. Have you been in the club."

"No, but I like strippers." We all laughed and I'm not sure why.Perhaps it was a lie and we all knew it, hard to say, but laughter felt good.

The bar seemed to be emptying out, and those who remained seemed only to stumble around looking for someone they'd seen hours ago and not being able to find them. I couldn't really stand staying any longer but I wasn't really ready for bed, and I certainly wasn't ready to say goodnight.

"I'm going to bed."

"No. I'll take you breakfast, eh?"

"Omelets, maybe."

"There's nothing open now, just Taco Time."

"Tacos sound appealing, don't they."

"We always eat there at this time of night."

So Taco Time it was. Supermeal burritos, mexifries, and soda, on the cooling, quieting Granville Street. The taxis were lining up across the street like they always do in front of clubs at closing, like drunken mosquitos draining the victim of what's left of their money. Limos too.

"Hey you see that limo? That's my limo, eh? Come on." Kelly tugged me around and we headed toward it. Shawna in a fit of something strange had sad goodnight, I imagine her as some sort of tweeker strung out on something or other, she apparently had to meet someone very soon. Kelly and I were alone.

"It's the right limo, but that's not my driver."

At this point the streets were filling up with people who I had seen at various points of the night. People from the first Pub with Jack Teaman, people from Foghorn's the Roxy and perhaps the arcade. There were panhandlers, clubbers and randoms, but aren't we all randoms really?

Kelly seemed to know just about everyone. She told me of her relationship with the place. She'd been living on or around this strip since she left home at 12, seven years ago. And we were on our way to a phone booth, she asked if I wanted to go for a ride, perhaps see Stanley Park.

"Gerry? I see your limo, eh? and someone else was driving." And the conversation began. "Oh! I see you. This young man is my friend, yeah..." And off she went telling this Gerry all about me. I had made it to friend status. She made me feel good, I am and always have been a stranger, an acquaintance, someone who was just met. There are only a few people around the world who can call me friend, really. And only a couple come to mind, one in Geneva, one somewhere on the DMZ of Korea and a dear friend in Denver. All someplace foreign to right there at that moment. Somehow all of these friends would not be so surprised by my circumstances, or appalled as all the people who know me in the village where I live now. "If you'ren't busy, take us for a ride, eh?" And as she finished it, I could see old Gerry on his cell phone wandering up slowly toward us.

He was considerable older than I would have guessed him to be by her description. Actually she'd not described him at all, but I figured a limo drive of her acquaintance would be young, as young as her and if not, not even as old as me.

Gerry was older, thinning, somewhat wrinkled. He had on a cheap suit and a yellowing blue shirt toped with a clip-on tie. He smiled at me only with apprehension and resumed talk with young Kelly as they both hung up their respected phones.

"Meet Gerry."

"Hi."

We were introduced. He was waiting as I thought like all the others to take home all the drunks, or at least to take them to a home. He stood chatting with her, and me to an extent. "Here," he said producing a folded piece of paper from his jacket breast pocket. "Clean." I thought it may be a blood test of some sort, it was something. The paper looked abused like all the papers we were given as children to take home and they just got trashed on the way. he had had this paper for a long time, or perhaps it just got some use. Then he told us the story of the urine analysis. Apparently the Ex-wife was trying to prevent him from seeing the children, and he was not about to let that happen.

Good for him, I thought. Too many fathers easily give up, or walk away at the first chance. I think that many of them want nothing to do with their children. perhaps that is my own conclusion with the life I've lived and things I've seen, and I hope I am all wrong. Whatever the case is, I was very impressed by Gerry for fighting to stay in the lives of his children. I wanted to say something to him, something comforting, something poetic. I looked at the paper he gladly showed off to me when kelly went through the trauma of her day and how she had lost the wallet on the bus, the three hundred dollars, the ID and the bus pass. The story had stayed the same every time, the words were a little different and the catalogue of lost items only changed order on the telling, depending on who she was telling.

"Can I call around four?"

"Sure." We turned to walk away. "Be careful!" And we were off down the street, Granville, toward my home. She was passionate about walking me home something I was very flattered about.

We were interrupted by a panhandler, "Change?"

"No. Sorry. No money, today was welfare day too and all my money's gone. Haha." And the old man laughed or something which sounded a bit like it.

"Really?"

"No. What can I tell him? He can relate, you know." It was true, he could. She laughed about it a bit more and danced around me. "Do you smoke pot?" I said nothing but looked at her. "Oh." She'd asked a few times before, and really in our first conversation a lifetime ago in Foghorn's I'd even inquired about the Hash Bars. "Do you want to get high?"

"Yes."

"Well, we can go to your room, unless we have to pay the guest fee, we can wait and ride around with Gerry."

"What's the guest fee?"

"$10."

"If they ask, I'll pay it."

"Can I buy you something to drink?" Before I could answer she grabbed my hand and across the street we went. "This is Sami's all night market. he used to look after me."

And into the market, greeted by Sami we went. He knew her, and was a little disappointed to hear she had come back down to live in the hotel. I could tell he looked after her. Like Gerry there was something of love in his eyes as he talked to her in his broken English. He was probably Indian although he could have been from Pakistan.

I marveled at his store, the typical convenient store, I suppose, but he had all sorts of porno magazines of all titles and all years, new and used. It was after all Sami's all night market.

"What kind of juice?"

"Anything, I even like tomato."

"I don't like tomato," she said with the passion of a child. "How about something normal?" She settled on Orange, fine.

Sami inquired about a few people who he hadn't seen in some time. Some were long gone, disappeared with no trace, others were in prison.

"He's had three years already, four to go for that arcade incident."

"Oh," was his reply tallying up the juice and a pack of smokes for her. "Be good Kelly, come see me."

"Okay Sami." Into the night air we walked the almost deserted street to the Cecil. Sami had taken care of Kelly in the past. She recollected the only time she had seen him in four years in a different neighborhood, completely out of place from this one. I couldn't even imagine. perhaps I could.

I spent about seven years in Denver, being a stranger the whole time, knowing everyone and no one all the same. I had just left the Mongolian BBQ one day when the owner, a little man who I talked to every day was murdered. I was less than a block away when it happened. Shot, cold dead in his own store, on a tourist strip of town in the middle of the day. It was on a Tuesday. I can't remember his name now, but he looked a little like old Sami.

I felt an overwhelming love for her at that moment. We lit some cigarettes, and walked closer to my residence. I suppose it was a love one would give a caged puppy, or an injured lady bug. I wanted to touch her and make it all better, perfect, take away all the bad stuff. I could never help her, I knew it, and how could I? I was waiting for someone to do it for me. After the next instant I really wanted to take all the pain away. There were four or five days when she was 13, "And I sold my ass," she said. And the story got worse from there.

"Only a spotter for my girlfriend." At thirteen, just walking around with an older more experience prostitute. I never knew they traveled in pairs. The ones I had seen were alone and the two who I had talked to worked in the sanction of a legal prostitution system. One was in Nurnberg Germany, I talked to her only briefly, and the second was in a cat house in Wells, Nevada. I talked to that one for several minutes. I learned something from her on that frigid winter's night. She told me she has learned only one thing in life: "You can't judge someone by their profession." And I wasn't about to judge my new friend Kelly.

"But, it didn't last, men are sick, whatever, something about prepubescent, they wanted me instead." And that's where the problems arose, when all the dirties wanted her instead. So the two black pimps prostituted her, they took her money. The girlfriend turned on her too. Pressuring her to work for her, and forcing her to give up the money to her instead to the pimps. No payment was ever received. It seems to me if someone sells their body or their soul, if such a thing exists then the money belongs to that person.

I've been undecided if we really have a soul or not. Sometimes I feel very soulful and others I don't. I suppose instead of the current western thought that everyone is granted a soul at birth, I believe otherwise. Perhaps, after plenty of thinking and prayer, suffering and pain we achieve one. Also with that rational, many don't not get a soul and will never get one. I am still working on mine. The prayer part is what I'm lacking these days and sometime I intend to pray about it more, meditate on it more, and perhaps I'll get one.

Crossing the street, Davie Street, I believe, I was certain that if I ever met someone with a soul, it was young Kelly. Maybe even a woman I once met under the Colfax Viaduct in Denver. It was during a bike ride home one day when I saw a couple of boys fishing in Cherry Creek, just under the Colfax viaduct with a make shift fishing pole. I rode past them. The afternoon was deepening with stormy darkness, like many afternoons. I knew I was limited by time. Is it really possible to out run a thunderstorm on a bicycle?

I passed under the Colfax viaduct when the rain started. Two things about rain in the desert, one, it is fast and brutal, two it never lasts. I was wet enough when I reached the 14th street viaduct. There were others. There where I decided to stop. Bridge people. The people I see everyday, like Kelly, I suppose. The people I would see everyday while speeding past on my bike. But I had stopped, parked my bike at the furthest edge of the bridge, and I looked out into the rain.

All kinds of people past, bicyclist, skaters, runners I didn't feel exactly idle, but I was.

Under this vast bridge with me, were a homeless couple, a man and a woman. They were on the other side of the path, but on the same side of the river. I can't remember when this time was, but as we were wandering the streets of Vancouver, and Kelly whispered the horribleness of her past to me, I could see the bridge scene clearly in my memory. I could see her soul, and the I could see the face of the only other person I'd ever met who had a soul too.

The homeless couple sat quietly smoking cigarettes and talking, although I couldn't hear their voiced over the rain, or the rushing of Cherry Creek, or the traffic above us. In retrospect it was probably the creek, it always seemed louder under the viaducts.

I sat down on the dry dust cement and pulled out a library borrowed copy of Homer's The Odyssey attempting the study. Just then a vibrant older woman cycled up and dismounted. She wore her graying hair up, and ran her hands over it after she wiped her face of the dirt city rain water. I looked up to her and smiled, we smiled at one another. I could tell at my age what an exquisite woman she must have been, even at her age she was exquisite. Although beauty was not all that emanated from her, wisdom,a nd intelligence.

Just then the two boys with the fishing pole rode past us. One of them still had the fishing pole. As they rode past I asked: "Catch anything?"

"No," he replied. I looked back to my new companion.

"I don't think there are any fish in here anyway."

"No, none good for eating anyway," she began. "But I think he realizes there's a difference in fishing and catching fish." I agreed stupidly, smiling. The stiff desert rain was already slowing. "He had the classic fishing hole, didn't he? Right under the water fall."

I became absorbed in Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn dreams. I put the book away, I felt more Emersonian then... Searching out nature, and real experience. The woman and the two boys were real. The others under the bridge I had no feeling about,save the normal prejudices.

She mounted her yellow old model Schwinn. I have always had a soft spot for people with Schwinns. "Ready to go out?"

"I think it's stopped enough, If not there is another bridge up the way."

I watched her ride away across the wet cement. I stood, looked out into the distance. I had an appointment to keep as well. I quickly embarked, wallowing in the moment with the woman, who had left such an impact.

And had she really left me with the impact then, or has it grown in later days. Or had it grown up now? There was something with her, some sort of soul. I wondered if something heinous had happened to the grey haired old woman too in her younger days, something like prostitution.

"So, it was only four or five days?"

"Yeah, I went to them and I said I wanted my money and I wanted out. I'd do anything to get out. That was the worst thing I could've said."

"What?"

"I'd do anything." We quietly crossed the street and the Cecil was coming into view, half a block away. "He raped me, took all my money, beat me, and threw me out on the street. I went back and showed everyone what they did to me. I thought they'd kill him, eh? and they almost did. he went back to Montreal."

We rang to get into the Cecil. I was prepared to pay the ten dollars, we were able to get by without it and ascended the stairs. "Sometimes I see these young girls, and I tell them I know a better way, I was there once, you know? And of the like twenty who I've told, only two come with me." It brought a smile to her face. She was helping where so can, and all the more reason why a person like this has a soul. I can't think if I've ever even helped anyone in my life.

Being self-absorbed has it's advantages and it's disadvantages. At least being self-absorbed there is no way to see the heartache and pain in the world. Contrariwise there is no way of seeing past self pain and loathing. I was lost somewhere in between, content with it and perpetually dissatisfied.

I unlocked the door, room 401, the Cecil, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Chapter Four: A night at the Cecil, Room 401

She talked, I listened. I was really listening, and not the usual waiting to talk routine. We discussed out problem briefly of not having a pipe or rolling papers, and some pot to smoke. I hollowed an Export A, see broke up the bud. I had seen this done long ago and in some other place, but I couldn't recall where. I was excited to be doing it, for no other reason than it had been such a long time since I had smoked it. It would change my mind on things, I was sure of it and that was reason enough to do it.

We were quietly in my room absorbed in doing our respective tasks. Surely we must have been talking, but I have no idea what we were saying. I thought about the marijuana days, and laughed a little to myself.

I had laughed a lot in those days. Even during the depressing times I laughed. I lived in a dark one bedroom apartment on a street called Poet's Row. We lived in the James Russell Lowell, me and Ryan. We had lived together off and on for several years at that point and both in college at the time it made better sense than ever to live with one another. I think we were very depressed in that dark little room which only had a worm's eye view of a parking lot. We drank, and we smoked every day after work and school. We would pass out listening to CDs every night on the floor in the living room. It was not a happy time, but we did laugh, perhaps at our sadness or cynicism or something, maybe our ineptness. It would not last, I knew it wouldn't, it never did then, so why not laugh at it, revel in it? Smoke it away and drink it away, and wake up the next day tight from the floor sleeping and go to the gym to work off the pent up aggression? Live all day on campus, have below average conversations with otherwise intelligent people and thing of all the love that would come, sometime, someday only to go home and hustle through the studies to smoke some more pot and drink beers until the darkness clouded the confusion and pass out again on the floor listening to Pearl Jam or Blur or Bob Marley or the Beatles? Oh! How I thought that was living.

Once we moved, we were better off. Ryan looked better, stronger, healthier, so did I, we got girlfriends and love made us pass out and not being stoned. I can't really remember a time I smoked the stuff since then, and if I had, well, it wasn't too memorable.

And here in my little room above the strip club, with Kelly, a stranger, a street kid, and soulful creature, I would smoke some more and hope to change my perception of things, and hopefully for the better. The better...

Does it really make it better? I Began to relate a story to Kelly, of a time when I didn't do drugs, drink alcohol or caffeine or smoke cigarettes, and it was a recent time too. I told her about the afternoon when I met JR, and purchased sanity for $2.68. Well I supposed it depended on what is bought and an individuals value of money. We laughed about it, and she wanted to know more.

I'm not sure some would say that sanity is bought or sold, which is probably true and still others might say that sanity and it's dark twin insanity has absolutely nothing to of money.

I walked into the thrift store to make some decisions that day. Actually it was a place a walk up 13th Ave up the street from my house, a walk to sanity, I suppose.

I had just finished writing a story. It wasn't a particularly brilliant story and I hadn't spent enough time on it to fall in love with any of the characters. But once I finished that most beloved of first drafts (many seldom make it further) I could feel the depression setting in. It's the same depression I get after every completion, a piece of writing, when I seal an envelope or a novel I just finished reading. They are all of varying degrees, and I knew this one a simple walk would eliminate, and that walk to me to the thrift store. I guess that brings us to the question can $2.68 buy sanity? I would make the decision in the thrift store.

The decision was easy, amidst all of the silly and out of date books on the shelf, I simply bought the only five books that were of interest: Edith Warton's The House of Mirth, a Norton Anthology, John Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus, a late translation of Beowolf, and John Knowles A Separate Peace. I told Kelly how I was spending a year reading, everyday writing bad poetry and lurid fiction and living my room and the library in Denver, the last year I lived there.

Each of those books were fifty cents apiece and with tax it was $2.68. But I wasn't out of the funk yet. I hesitated in the store a moment longer after I paid and for no good reason. Then walking out onto 13th Ave I turned my feet home with the five books under my arm. Some black-hispanic looking guy stumbled out of an apartment building to the sidewalk with me. He said hello.

"What's up?" I asked not expecting a reply. I generally didn't talk to strangers in my neighborhood, none of us did.

"I'm high," he replied. He was wearing a baggy pair of jeans torn at both knees exposing the running pants he wore underneath. They were a very old style of jeans, they were painted all down the front, a late 80's fashion. He had on a plain black sweatshirt and a bandanna on his head.

"Yeah? I once spent two years that way."

"You don't smoke no more?"

"No brother, I don't do anything anymore."

"Things are worse when you're somber."

"Think so? I'm happier now," and we were locked in conversation walking towards Pearl street on 13th.

My first surprise was his very western accent, I thought he'd have had a different dialect, he looked like he was from the caribbean, or something.

By the time we hit the next block, he had told me about his father. He had a triple bypass surgery, still living and a recovered alcoholic. "Why am I talking to you?" he asked. he was in pain I could feel it. "I can't believe I'm telling you this.' His father had beat them when they were children. 'I don't know man, I can tell you've been through shit, your life ain't easy, that's maybe why I'm telling you this."

"No one's life's been easy," I said to him. "Everyone's been through shit."

"That's true," he reflected. "Why am I talking to you?"

"I don't know, it's easier to talk to strangers, and I'll listen." And I did.

We crossed Ogden street. "Hey let me buy you a drink."

"I don't drink."

"A cup of coffee then, I'll buy."

I accepted although the last cup of coffee I drank was in May of 1991 in Ansbach Germany and I didn't like it then. It wasn't the coffee, it was the company, I guess.

"Hi, I'm JR," he said. I introduced myself and we were no longer strangers. Then half a block away from Cafe Netherworld, our destination he told me about his passion. He had been an underground fighter, and ultimate fighter. I couldn't really see it in him. Not in his gentle voice and gestures, but there in his scares, both hands and his face. I just didn't see it in him, but apparently, at least to himself, he was successful at it.

He felt like crying sometimes he said, but the tears wouldn't come. I told him I had a similar problem Although I had cried recently over an article in newspaper about Matthew Shepard the college kid in Laramie Wyoming who was beat to death. JR had read it too and wanted to cry but couldn't. "Wyoming man, Cheyenne. I lived there my whole life, 31 years, until I came here six months ago."

"How do you like it?"

"It's nice, like Cheyenne only larger."

We sat at the corner of the bar. I ordered a coffee, and he ordered a screwdriver. I put my books on the bar. Looking between the books and the screwdriver I thought we all have our additions, and what is the difference between vices, really? His was the bottle and mine at the time was books. I suppose they are just a vehicle to the same destination, somewhere away from reality.

"Where you from, man?"

"San Francisco."

"I've never even seen the ocean," he said taking a drink of the screwdriver. "I feel like crying."

"Plenty of people haven't seen the ocean."

"No man, just me." He took another drink. I sipped the coffee. "I don't know man, I'm confused," He sighed. I wanted to tell him everyone is confused, not the world really but all the people in it. "You can see it, can't you, look at me."

"I can't tell." And I couldn't. He couldn't be any more or less confused than me. He raised his glass. "Down the hatch," I mumbled. He drank the rest of the screwdriver whereas I only sipped the coffee.

He held up his scared hands in a peace sign "I think you got it," he said. "Like maybe you're my angel." I was unsure of what to make of that. No one had ever made me an angel before. "maybe I'm yours."

"Yeah, maybe." he shook my hand in that brotherly way and he was gone. I just sat there considering myself an angel. he really did make me feel good.

I was finishing packing the emptied cigarette when I finished the story. I laughed and so did she. It was funny, especially to the two of us. Half drunk, half tired and half related.

"I don't go to church, but I grew up catholic, so it will always be with me."

"Yeah, me too. My mother is Irish and my father is from the Philippines, so catholic."

"You know what I'm saying, it's with you for life. I totally believe in angels even though I know it's silly."

"Me too."

We laid on the bed facing each other the ashtray between us and we passed the cigarette back and forth until it was gone and everything dimmed, even the conversation.

It was somewhere the undeterminable time of the lost wallet and her comparing my room and her room I asked how she came about being on the street at such a young age.

"I lived with my grandparents a lot when I was younger. My sister's eight years older, I'm the baby. I was supposed to save the marriage. My grandfather abused me. I didn't know it was wrong. We lived in Toronto. We moved her when I was 11, around the age they tell you about abuse in school. Then my grandparents moved here. I told my boyfriend at the time. We were kissing and I started crying, all I could think about was my grandfather. So, I told him and made him promise not to tell anyone. Like a week later I stood up in band class and threw my violin, and ran out. When he ran after me, I made him promise not tell. later that day the school counselor called me in. He had told."

"I think that was the right thing to do."

"yeah me too. So i told my mother, it was either him or me. She could throw out her own mother, they were living with us. And a couple of month we lived there, then I left."

"You were twelve?"

"yeah."

"No one came for you, no one helped?"

"No. I lived with my sister for a while in Toronto, then I came back here."

"Wow."

"I just want a normal like eh? I think that's why I like my job so much, it's stable, eh?"

"Do you like to spoon?"

"What?" I pulled her closer to me and held her. "I love to snuggle."

I tried to smell her, any smell at all on her, but couldn't find one. Not even the smoke smell from the bar. I held her tight and tried not to think about all the frightful things she'd told me, and I tried not to think about any of the frightful things in my history. It's hard to get away from your own history, especially when your self absorbed like I am.

"Do you want to go swimming tomorrow?"

"I thought you were going to take me to breakfast?"

"After breakfast."

"I just learned how to swim like a year ago."

"Really?"

"I'd love to go swimming with you."

"Good," she whispered we were on our way to sleep. "Everyone is so lazy, welfare royalty, so lazy. No one swims with me..."

Sometime in the middle of the night to took off our clothes and got in the sheets. So soft. I curse anyone who had abused this creature of God, and stewed about it until I fell back asleep. May those abusers, hers, mine, and anyhow has been abused a child burn hell forever, two forevers. Hell is too good for them, and there is no justice for such a person. Fuck them, I thought, they are the most vilest wrecked people, and there is and never will be any punishment great enough for such crimes. I wandered over all the possibilities until I fell asleep. There would be no way to make it better. And Kelly had forgiven her mother for not kicking out her mother, a difficult decision she recognized. She had forgiven her mother, be she hadn't forgotten. She will never forget, and neither will I.

Chapter Five: Breakfast on Davie Street

She stirred. The streets outside stirred. Still stoned, hungover and sick, I stirred. I kissed the young Kelly. We laughed. We sipped the orange juice. We smoked cigarettes in bed. We laughed. We planned the day. We got up.

"Do you have a brush?"

"No, why would I?" My hair, so short needed no brush. Fir the first time I noticed her hair. So thick and black, I could see the Filipino in it, even the European because it wasn't complete straight. Long too, high maintenance long, and I could never have had hair as long as hers, and I knew by looking at it, it was such a rats nest after our sleep.

"Let's go to my room before breakfast, I wanna change, eh?" And that seemed reasonable to me. I completely packed before we left my room, I wasn't going to come back to it. I was unsure where I would be by the time I would be going to bed. And really every day should be like that.

Just thinking about the prospects of the day turn me on. When I wake up every morning, I should have no clue what the day brings, and many days it is really like that. My life had been getting mellow in the past couple of years and the last year in particular it had gotten unbearable with stability. When each day comes like any other even remotely alike then there really is a problem, certain death already. I would rather waste away moving through a drowning forest than to be in the same boring place with the same people doing the same thing day after day after day after day after day. Death after death after death. Honestly I was dying already with that very thing.

But imagine going to bed at night somewhere odd, unusual, foreign and recalling all the wonderful and freeing events of the day and cataloguing them in the last waking thoughts of the day. Then waking up the next morning and knowing that something will happen beyond any wonderment and comprehension, something to enhance life to perfection. Perhaps something horrid would happen, and really in the grand scheme of things perhaps that is okay too. After all it is better to feel something instead of nothing even if it is teeth.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know, I might be back, but might not. Wouldn't want to gather any moss, bad form, you know."

"Sure."

"Do you remember your dreams?"

"Sure, sometimes."

"Had the strangest dream last night. I dreamt I was on this beach and I was talking to a crab, well, we were having a conversation. There was a hugh glass wall, tall, like an aquarium. At one point I asked the crab if he wanted to be in it. I took a lot of work, but I got to the top of the wall and I put it in, at which point you were walking down the beach with Thomas Steele and this girl Karry."

"Who're they?"

"Thom and I grew up together. He was from England, and when we were 19 the government deported him. Karry is some random girl I met in a bar like a month or two ago. Anyhow, you had decided we would go into Thom's room. In his room there was a bed and two columns. Once we were in there the three of you wanted to get into bed. For some crazy reason I didn't want to go. What's up with that? In dreams you're always suppose to go, right?" We laughed.

"So, I leaned against one of the columns and sat down. If I moved this way, the other column obscured my view from the bed. So I half watched what was going on. You and Thomas were in each other's arms, then Kelly looked at me and smiled, she lifted the sheets and was going to work on you. I couldn't hang so I got up and ran out to the beach again. "

"On the beach I saw the sun, and I noticed I had wet my pants, and I was hoping the sun would dry them before you came back. By that aquarium there were all sorts of logs and things and I was going to find a sunny spot on them to dry myself. I climbed on one, and then I fell. Strange isn't it?"

"Wow, what do you think it means?"

"I don't know, doesn't mean anything."

"You don't think dreams mean anything?"

"No. Maybe symbols in dreams, but I think they are just what happens when your mind fucks with you."

"Yeah, my mind fucks with me, eh?"

"Mine too. Even when I'm not asleep."

We descended the stair and wandered out to the street. For such a large city I was really expecting more movement, more traffic, more people, more of something, maybe even dancing clowns.

"Today's American Thanksgiving, I suppose you know, eh?"

"Yeah, and why do you know?"

"I work for Timeshares, an American firm, I get off all the American Holidays."

"Me too." We walked up Granville toward the Siesta Rooms. We were coming up on the arcade I'd played pinball in the night before. "Here's where I played pinball before I met you."

"Remember when we were at Sami's all night market and we were talking about Tommy, the one whose in prison?"

"Yeah," I vaguely did.

"He and three of his friends went in there one night at closed, killed the man and took all the money."

"Doesn't seem to lucrative."

"They got like three big bags of quarters," she said gesturing the size with both arms and then a leg.

"Was it worth it?"

"You tell me, he's in prison."

I had been in that very arcade the night before playing pinball, if I'd known, would I have been in there? Probably, I had eaten in the Mongolian BBQ the same day the owner was murdered. Although I never went in there again. I decided after that information I would never go back to play pinball there. "I don't think killing anyone is worth it. I don't want to kill anyone."

"Me neither. Have you?"

"Killed someone?" I was shocked she asked, but was obviously waiting the response.

The missiles ejected from some pounding guns ripped across the sky to the other side. In their flight they lit the darkness like day before they vanished. In the exact darkness the hugh vehicles of ware tore across the sand. We talked about them but we could see nothing with our naked eye. We sat back into the turret and looked into the thermal sights.

I scanned across the desert in front of us. McGill put his head against the brow-pad and fell asleep. I sat there frozen and away looking for the enemy.

It was at that time I saw them. Three enemy personnel. I kicked McGill.

"Three enemy personnel, Sgt." I screamed.

"Gunner, personnel, co-ax, on my command." Came his formal order.

I settled his cross-hairs on the man in the center. His sorry-ass was about to be my first confirmed kill.

"Gunner-fire!"

Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak-Klak

Went the 7.62 rounds at 200 rounds per minute.

I could see the direct hit in the thermal sights as his companions opened their wings and flew away.

"Well, Spit, I think you got the vulture in the middle."

And you can judge anyone by their profession, I thought. "I think I may have."

"Really?"

"When I was your age, I was in the back of a tank, in Iraq, I shot at a lot of things, I don't know if I killed anyone."

"How can you not know?"

"You just can't, I don't think I did, and I like to think I haven't."

We reached the Siesta Rooms in time, and the subject by nature was changed. "How long have you lived here?"

"Month and a half."

"Where were you before?"

"The suburbs."

"Really?"

"I lived with my boyfriend for four years, we lived in a house." I was very impressed. She had mentioned him before, and the exact phrase was: "My ex-boyfriend, for four years." She said it over and over like it was new information for me to hear each time. It was similar to the lost wallet story, and I was beginning to learn it like me own. I wasn't offended by it or annoyed, it was just one of her habits, if she had any in the speech. She did say darling a little and eh? a lot, but they all did. I could only mildly tell their dialect over other west coast places of my residence and history. There were some strange influences too in Vancouver as I could tell them. There were various English accents, as was displayed to my by old Jack, there were Frenchy sounding English speakers and some Aussies too. There were plenty of Asians and East Indians, but they did really blend into the nuances of the English dialect in Vancouver, at least not to my ability to discriminate. It was certainly interesting listening to them, and in some sort of subtle way, I was hoping I added to the whole blend of spiced English with my gutter slug accent. If I talked long enough, someone would surely remind me that we are not brothers or please don't call me pallie, I'm not your pal. Whatever, it was interesting. It was also interesting that Kelly always prefaced the ex-boyfriend, Dave with my ex-boyfriend for four years. I could really take that two ways: the first is he has not been her boyfriend for four years, meaning they broke up four years ago, or he was a boyfriend for four years and he is now, as in recently, and ex. I thought of it in the latter sense of the statement and with the frequency in which she was beginning to talk about him I was realizing that the latter was true.

We walked up the warped floorboards in the front stairs and past the desk. "No guest fee?"

"Not during the day." And she pulled out a number of keys on a number of key rings, unlocked the door and we went in. The room was smaller, much smaller than mine. They had a bed, and a desk, a couple of chairs, a refer, in fact the place really looked like a bedroom. She was sharing the place with another girl. Their bed was smaller than the one we had shared the night before, and the whole situation made me laugh. I wondered if the two of them snuggled, probably women are more apt to do that sort of thing, I thought. I sat in one of the chairs and watched her pull open her gym bag and look for some clothes to wear. She brushed out her hair in the midst of the search and then resumed the search on the outfit.

There were a number of pictures on the walls, some in frames, others pinned up. The funniest one was one of those silly barroom looking pinups with the bust and hips of scantily clad woman. I thought it was odd that two women having such a thing on their bedroom wall, in fact it would be weird for anyone to have it other than a teenaged boy. There were framed paintings, and I wandered if they were part of the room before the two had moved in or if they were purchased or found somewhere.

The two did not have there own bathroom, which made my room better in that way, but they did have a makeshift stereo with little radios and walkmans and the like. She had a collection of ten CDs, and some photographs on a shelf. They were wonderful to look at, a real glimpse into a person. They had a refrigerator, which made their room superior to mine. Understandably I was eager too look into the refer: mayo, mustard (both used once probably) and a half empty cup of coffee, and since the lid was on it, I imagined mold underneath. The freezer held the opened box of baking soda. I think every refrigerator I've ever seen has had a box of Arm and Hammer, but I have never bought one for my own use. It seems odd that a couple of young girls living in a hotel, with nothing in the refer would have taken the trouble to buy the baking soda. Who tells us to do such things or do we do it because a mother or grandmother told us to? Baking soda, what are it's uses, I bet they make the industry in an insidious way by perpetuating the myth that it absorbs smells in your refer. Well, take out all the nasty crap that hangs out in the nooks of the appliance and clean it once in a while, no need for the Arm and Hammer. their refer was unusually clean, I imagine it was from lack of use, but what do I know, perhaps they stay up late nights to clean the thing, who knows?

To the left of the refer, a skin and a mirror stuck in the corner. It was a small mirror, enough for the face only, and if you are short. I had a huge mirror in my room, making it superior again. Kelly had spend time in my room looking at herself, talking about the various stages her body has seen due to too much beer or too many drugs ant the random low points. She was a little plump now, but not fat - fit, really and very sexy. She commented on my mirror at one point, I think and if I could give her one, I would. Some think it's vanity, I don;t think it's bad. If you makes the looker feel good to look in the mirror, so be it. I have looked in the mirror before and seen a face that seemed strange to me, for no other reason but that it feels strange, and there have been times when I was dumbfounded by what I saw. And still there were other times when I grew tired of the face in the mirror, and wondered about a change, although I would never spend money or energy or anything on plastics, cosmetics or anything else. I have changes the hair length before, and that tends to quell the desire for change.

"One needs nothing more than this, Kelly, I think this is a wonderful room." And with that a knock came on the door.

Some weird looking dude came in. I remembered seeing him the night before in Foghorn's. At the risk of being a snob, he looked like the stereotypical inbred. He looked even worse in the daytime. He was with some older looking dude. If there was an accent I picked up on in the time I was in Vancouver, it was the theirs, they talked funny. The older dud looked like someone from the past, really, an older hairstyle or no hair style at all. The inbred fellow was clearly an acquaintance of Kelly's and he introduced her to the older fellow. I sat there quietly and no one introduced me. I wasn't offended. It seems the older one was looking to buy so pot. She produced some from her roommates stash and he eventually turned it down. It was packaged in a neat little bag, the kind a coin collector might buy a coin in. Kelly offered the acquaintance a chance to smoke with her, thinking I would turn her down. After all, right before we left my room I had said I wanted to stay straight for the day. He had told her he'd be right back, he had people in his room, and they were about to go somewhere.

"What?"

"Huh?" I looked up at her, she was staring down at me, I was sitting in one of two chairs in her room and had been looking at my boots. "What?"

"Where were you?"

"I was thinking about this film that I saw once that was just this footage of a plastic bag drifting around by this corner of a building in the wind, you know like in an alley or something."

"Yeah?"

"I feel like that right now."

"Good?"

"I'm unhappy."

"In my room?"

"No, in life, in the village I live, you know."

"Why do you call it a village, I thought it was a big city."

"It's like one fifth of Vancouver, it's tiny. I was in Mexico City before I went there, and Mexico City is pretty large."

"I thought it was big when I went there."

"You've been there?"

"Once, when I was ten, I was there with the band."

"You liked it?"

"No, I was in the band eh? and I was ten."

"I'd better lock the door." and directly afterward she changed. It was interesting watching her change, but then I looked at my boots again and thought of the bag. I couldn't remember when or where I had seen it. I thought about it longer and still couldn't think of it. I thought about all the little film festivals I'd been to, only going to see the short films, and still I couldn't put my finger one it. I remember it so clearly, there must have been minutes of footage, and that poor plastic bag lifted in the air and settled for a moment and lifted again and in circles the whole time just trying to get free, to go where? Probably to get lodged in a tree. Like in winter when all the leaves are gone from trees and some many pieces of plastic, the tattered remains of a bag lodged in them. What did those bags have in them during their one time use? Maybe quarters stained with blood from arcades or old ladies groceries: frozen vegetables and soap. Stuck in trees, stuck. The bag drifting in the alley captured on film forever is a better way of going.

Kelly sat down and began to roll a joint. I watched her with fascination and then I played with the package of rolling papers when the knock came on the door again. She had just finished it and opened the door and we were ready to go again. The few minutes in her room made me both sad at that mode of living and completely envious at the same time. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side.

The analysis of room comparison made me laugh, we were discussing the greener grass, and came up with nothing. My room was better for some many reasons, my won bathroom, a bigger bed, and my mirror. But hers was superior too, the refer, the music, the homeliness, it was her home, at least for now, and my room was just a room for a night. But it was my form, never to stay anywhere too long that really made my grass green. Who knew what that day had in store for me, for her, us and the entire population on earth, an new day, a first day and a last day, for someone, for everyone and for us, me and Kelly.

The knock came again, she answered it, and the inbred looking guy came in again. He was rushing us, but he was offering us a ride, and passionate about it, we left together. In the hallway there was the two guys I'd seen before and three additional guys, all talking and all talking in that strange accent. We left the building.

On the street, walking toward some unknown vehicle I was the last in the pack. I looked at all of them, shabby, but not too unkept. I looked at the shoes. I was wearing warm comfortable boots, and Kelly had on boots too, although they were more worn than mine. The others all had athletic shoes in various states of wear. Athletic shoes, what a funny thing for them to have, I thought. I doubted them ever being athletic not to mention the bad insulation quality they have when wet.

I was dreading the car ride with all of them, I just wanted loneliness with Kelly, and when we got to the plain looking van of the older fellow who refused to buy the pot, it was clear to me we would have to walk. And so walking we did.

It wasn't Kelly's pot he had refused, but the roommates. Kelly stated simply how liberal she was with it, and that was the reason behind her success, and the lack of success of the roommate. In a world such as ours, good dealings and good customer service is what keeps them coming back, really.

I supposed I would respect a business person, no matter how illegitimate the business was.

"Sometimes, I wish I was a drug dealer again."

"Is it better?"

"It's easier. I get tired going to school, and working. At least when I sold drugs people respected me. Maybe they just worshipped me."

"Why'd you go back to school then?" And again I heard about the ex-boyfriend for four years. They had built a small empire on selling. And once hey made the agreement to come off the crystal meth, things got better, she returned to school, got a job and was able to live a little more normal life. Although the house in the suburbs, fully furnished was nice, she came to a point where it wasn't worth it anymore.

"He became very abusive. Calling me shit, eh? And telling me I was nothing. I went to school and work all day and he did nothing, still does nothing, and he called me shit. So I stood up to him. I left, I came back, eh? and still he abused me, so finally I said, 'if you hate me so much tell me to leave.' and he did." It was compelling what she said and the manner in which she said it, and again I felt something stir in me, just hearing her problems and her strength, and seeing her soul, even if it was laced with all manners of evil things, she was good really good, alive and strong.

I've not met too many strong people, people with the facade of being strong, but not too many who were actually strong. "That must have been an empowering thing to do."

We walked down Davie street and soon came to restaurant. "Let's eat outside, we can smoke outside." It seemed reasonable to me, although I could go all meal without smoking. They had heaters under a glass roof outside, all of which were not operating. We ate inside.

Sitting down we took up the menu. The place was reasonably busy for a Thursday morning. The waitress was loud, and very Canadian, full of "darlin's" and "eh?s".

"Look," I began dramatically holding my menu up. "They have Denver omelets. I lived seven years in Denver, and never once had I seen the Denver omelet."

"Really?"

"Never once, but they are on every menu I've seen since." And I didn't order one. Instead I ordered a mushroom and cheese omelet, and sourdough toast. Kelly ordered eggs benedict. I would have ordered them too, but they're too rich, rich enough to make me sick. I hadn't eaten in a few days, and my eating habits are really bad as it was. A greasy breakfast and an empty stomach are okay, but nothing too rich. I was curious how much of it she could eat.

We talked about Dave, the ex-boyfriend for four years during breakfast. He seemed like a real detestable person. I was trying to weigh through it some, after all aren't all the ex-boyfriends detestable in someway? If they weren't detestable, then they would still be boyfriends. Dave sounded particularly awful.

Dave was stressed a little because he was afraid Kelly would blow the whistle on the operation. They had quite the growing operation in the basement. Although the entire thing was in Kelly's name, the lease, the electricity and everything. If there was a whistle blown, she had more to lose than Dave. He would of course lose the money,but she faced jail time. What's worse? And she no longer lived there. There was a $100,000 crop about to come in, and Kelly really wanted half of it, and she doubted Dave would give it to her.

"What would you do with it?"

"I don't know, get started, get away."

"Where would you go?" I asked, and we had talked about this before. She was unsure of where to go, and afraid to go anywhere, this was all she knew and she reminded me of it every time we talked about it.

"I don't know, I don't know where to go."

"You can go anywhere, everywhere. The world belongs to you."

"Like it does to you?"

"I suppose, I've never stayed anywhere too long."

"I afraid to travel."

"Why?"

"Well, I'd probably be alone, eh? and I don't speak any languages." I gave her the language thing, that was real, a real concern, but how can walking around various places alone be anymore stressful than the history she had right here in Vancouver, her home?

"It can't be worse than anything that's happened to you here."

"Yeah, but if all the stuff happened here, it could be worse someplace else." And I gave her that one too, I could see the point. I could also see why a woman traveling by herself could be intimidating. It scares some people.

Adam, a guy I knew once was the same way. He was terrified to leave town, the town he'd lived in his whole life. He was a great big tall guy, strong looking, almost intimidating, but he was afraid that he'd get robbed, or murdered if he ever left. I couldn't imagine it, such a strong guy. I suppose it isn't only women with such fears. The fears people live with are unreal, which I suppose is what fear really is, something ureal built into our minds. Kelly was so afraid to stay in Vancouver, but it was familiar, and too afraid to travel anywhere. I think if it were up to me, I would take the unknown.

"Look, the more you travel, the less things seem different. For instance, I've never been in Vancouver before, and I can tell you it isn't much different than anywhere else I've been. There are streets and signs, restaurants and shops. Although the names are different, the insides are the same. Look, see that beer sign? I've never heard of that brand, but it is the exact same sign as every other beer everywhere else and it hangs in every restaurant. There really is little difference when you look at it. If you were to go anywhere else in Canada, you'd still be Canadian, and if you went anywhere in the United States people would think nothing of it."

"My father has told me horror stories about everywhere he's ever been."

"And you've told me horror stories about Vancouver." We laughed. The food came, and we ate, quietly. I took the paper napkin and put it in my lap. Kelly never even touched hers. I could tell by the way she ate she had been like an animal in the past. She didn't have any obnoxious habits, but she did eat with a manner that suggested she may not eat for a while, and each bite was savored and enjoyed. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed any food. It had been awhile.

As we were settling down the last few bites she told me about meal tickets, which from all I could gather where like food stamps in the united states. Meal tickets, issued by the government were redeemable at grocery stores and at restaurants. Seems like a fitting thing to give street kids I thought. Apparently she had gotten too old to use them, or maybe it was the fact that she now collected welfare that made her ineligible.

We paid for breakfast and left. And outside we smoked. We had the entire city to ourselves for the day and she was determined to show me everything. And of all the options, I had no clue of where I would want to go. Honestly I would go anywhere, and anywhere was the prime destination. I had come to see Vancouver, but I had also come to learn something.

Chapter Six: Destination Anywhere

We walked to the water. English bay. It was like something I had seen before, only it was impossible, I had never been to English Bay before. It was a quality of light, low clouds, dark, high clouds, light filtered light, something dream like something real something I have seen before, somewhere, sometime, but I hadn't. Once while still in college I over heard two psychology students talking, and it was interesting. Usually we just made fun of the psych students, like they were more fucked up than us, or something, but these two held my attention, and I have not one mean thought to think about them. They were discussing the Deja Vu phenomenon. Apparently on half of the brian scans the scene, and when the conscious part of the brain catches up less that a heart beat later the mind gets this eerie feeling it's been through this thing before. It has but not in a dream or in another life, like we might like to think. It had seen the scene just before. Wild, I thought. And here in English Bay perhaps that was what was happening to me, although I wanted it to be like dream I'd head or if there are indeed other lives, past lives, perhaps I was standing in this light, with this woman or one like here looking at a similar scene.

There were barges on the bay and hugh boats, I looked at them relentlessly as we passed over the bicycle path and onto the beach avoiding the tents that were there. Who sleeps on a beach in the middle of city, it's beyond me. We walked right up to the water.

It felt strikingly similar to a time, years ago when my grandmother had died and I walked away from the arguing family to get some peace, I walked to the river. It smelled the same as this one, and similarly I felt the same sort of peace and relief.

Nature, Beauty and Industrialization.

Beauty left Martinez long ago, when industrialization came. Mother taught me that Martinez was not a place to be, or to go. I grew to think of it as some sort of awful wasteland reserved for the steal mills, glass manufacturers, and other creepy factories. We lived in Oakland, several miles from Martinez. In my youth, I wouldn't have even had know about the town of Martinez if my grandparents didn't live in Antioch. Martinez lies between Oakland and Antioch.

Antioch is growing now and with every house and strip mall the wilderness of the Sacramento valley vanishes quickly. When I was a small boy Antioch was still in the process of rusting. The sardine canneries, the steel mills and the Army post empty of life and activity and became extinct before I was born. I came to regard Antioch as a modern day ghost town. My grandparents and other relatives actually became the ghost to me. They explained the golden days, when people lived there and worked. Work, as plentiful as the water from the Sacramento river could spread around for everyone's well being. Those days were history by the time I was born in 1972.

The real ghosts came out in some of my grandfather's stories. Stories from his youth, when he first came to California. His stories, set before the advent of the factories and mills, intrigued me to the point that I would record them meticulously. I recall all of his stories as if they were my own.

Duck hunting in the September in the salt smelling, dry grasses of the marshes, pulling a shad or a salmon from the river, taking a horse for a joy ride and always avoiding the game warren. I know the farms, and the orchards, the river and San Francisco bay, I know the fish that brought the Italians, I know the Italians who brought me, or at least my existence. I feel the poverty that they felt, and I smell the cooking ducks that they killed for dinner. I hear their words spilled over their bootlegged liquor and prohibition beer, and I smell the leather that covers their bocchi balls on the lawn. My memories sting like my grandfather's especially when I see the strip malls and half a million dollar homes that have been built in the last five or so years.

About a year ago my grandmother and I spent a week together. She took me to some historical sites. Places she had lived, places she had worked, the movie theater that she watched movies in: silent movies, the talkies, black and white, later color until the doors closed in 1972. I tired to imagine the smell inside, the texture of the seats, or the color of the carpet. I'm sure its wavy glass windows hid underneath the plywood that prevented grandmother and me from looking in. Her voice wavered a little as we walked away, she whispered again, "1972."

We walked down the block to the river. Eucalyptus trees shaded us from the March sun. We sat together on a bench. Down the grassy knoll right before the river train tracks shone in the sun. We talked about the train, how wonderfully it can take a traveller away. She told me about the train journeys to Los Angeles, or somewhere back east. I shared my stories of train trips in Europe where the train remains a real source of transportation. Trains. The last conversation we had before she died; trains can take travelers away.

Later, I walked around by myself, looking for the places of the past. I soon became depressed and disappointed. I convinced myself that the natural beauty of Antioch, of California and the beauty in my grandparents memory had dissolved in a slow process of being buried under concrete, and gas stations.

I returned to Antioch on a Thursday evening in October. We buried my beautifully withered old Grandmother the next day. After the funeral I left the cemetery last. I walked around sorting out my feelings, and said goodbye to her in my own quiet way. I thanked her for all the lessons she taught me and the stories she so willingly shared.

I hurried back to grandfather's house. His sight had dimmed greatly in the six months since my last visit, and he could only recognize me by my height which is several inches taller than the rest of the family. I wanted to thank him for everything while I still had the chance, while he could still recognize me, and I certainly wanted to tell him about my love for him.

I drove some back roads into Antioch, if anything else to avoid the traffic. At one point a few miles from town the road narrows and comes close to the river. I turned off the road and parked as soon as I could. I wanted to be by the water to collect my thoughts before my return.

Suddenly, I noticed the sun. At that moment I couldn't recall a time that I had seen it shining before. Likewise, the breeze whispered in from the river, it watered my eyes. Then in the mist of my grandmother's death I realized life, at least my own life. I looked out into the water, I could see all of the past, her stories as well as grandfather's: the water rippling, the ducks flying from the water to the safety of the marshes, jumping fish. I reduced all to a photograph of a collected memory. I imagined my grandmother as the day, swooping around the river, me, the past. Perhaps, she packed bags and was smiling in the line on the train platform. With a smile I threw a stone into the water and got back into the car.

Saturday night I found myself stir crazy in the house with all my relatives. I'm sure they are all good people, but I think of them as strangers. I never grew up with any of them, and I never really liked any of them either. These family strangers along with some friends filled the house. Nathan, a young guy about my age, had worked with my Grandmother, and the two of them grew quite close. Nathan and I had grown to be friends as well. He proposed a night out in Berkeley. I eagerly accepted.

We started out in a coffee shop in Antioch. I had seen the building once the March before as my grandmother and I sat on the bench under the Eucalyptus trees. I thought, what a funny little building. In that coffee shop I met an attractive brunette Italian girl named Maria, she was plainly dressed and seemed quite modest. She introduced me to her friend Michael. Michael seemed to be more like a Nancy or Julie. She didn't mind her name, even though Michael is a boy's name, "I was named after my father, and I love my father," she said.

The four of us landed in Berkeley. We took Michael's car. I was thankful these people were able to take me away from the chaos of the family. We past the night playing pool, darts and later we danced. When it came time to go home, Michael didn't want to drive Nathan and I back to Antioch. Instead, she promised to drive us back in the morning, and we were to spend the night her house in Martinez.

Instantly my prejudice for Martinez made me want to not stay there. I tried not to be rude, but subtle. Then I tried to respect her position, she was tired as were Nathan and I. Moments later we accepted.

In the darkness of the hills between Berkeley and Martinez nothing could be seen outside. The moment the road winded into Martinez, however I had to squint. All the factories had lights on and the place was lit up brighter than day. Hideousness glowed from the large complex that was the town of Martinez. Once we got to Michael's house I noticed every window had a view of a lighted factory.

I thought about someone else's grandparents telling them about the wonderful beauty that Martinez had before the factories came. I told Maria about these thoughts, as well as some of the recent events with me and my family. I told her how I thought all of the cities in the bay area were ugly, but how I found a piece of the past and beauty by the river. She agreed with much of what I had to say. But then she called me an ugly person, "I think a beautiful person can see beauty in everything, even in 'Industrial Martinez.' I bet I can show you some beauty here."

The next morning we awoke before Nathan and Michael. Maria showed me some beautiful things, birds' nests in the chain-link fences, and some moss and fungus on telephone poles. "Now, I want you to see the most amazing thing," she said. We stood on the corner of Tenth and A street. She pointed up. I looked. Underneath the street lamp what looked like veins appeared. They were simply marks of oxidation made by the rain. The amazing lamp post veins were so obscure they were beautiful. At that moment, much like the day before, I felt as if I had never seen something so beautiful, so wonderful. "Thank you," I whispered as we crossed the street.

The veins in the lamp made me curious if all the lamp posts had them, and why I had not noticed them before. Indeed by the other side of the street I had spotted two more with the same veined belly. I laughed at the thought of actual blood flowing through them. Then I thought of the blood in my veins. I realized life again, and this time death. The blood in my veins would some day be dry, just like the empty veins in my grandmother's body. Just like the veins in the lamp which not only is dead but never had the chance to live. The chance to live suddenly gave all meaning to my life. I would like to attribute that realization to a moments walk in Martinez, under the veined street lamps, or the singing chain link birds, but it probably came from Maria who pointed it out to me.

"Let's burn this one." And we did, standing there on the bay looking at the sky, looking at the barges. I only took two drags from it, and if I'd have taken more, I would probably have gotten sick. "They do fireworks here, on the water." She pointed out to the bay and I looked.

I don't particularly care for fireworks, but they are a sight to see on the water. I went to a world's fair once in Lisbon, and every night at midnight they threw all manners of fireworks into the Teju river. I was fascinated my them, all colorful and bright. As I recall I went every night with Carlos. Carlos and I had a routine there, dinner with his wife and his sister, then drinks with the two of us and then the fireworks, then we would catch up to the women again. He was the only company I like of the bunch,a nd although he was Portuguese, he had spent more time in the United States than in his own country. He love fireworks, and he love the fourth of July, Independence day for us in the United States. I would just listen to him, like i was listening now to Kelly. Fireworks, whatever makes you happy. "Let's go to my school so I can check my e-mail."

We crossed the beach again and I could feel my body slowing down, and the more I slowed the happier I became, school? Sure.

"I'm so bummed about my wallet, eh? I wanted to go to Toronto to be with my sister, can't go now."

"Why?"

"No ID. I have airline tickets, free ones, but without ID I can't get them." We crossed the street and made our way to Denman street. I had been on Denman the night before, in the Brass Monkey, drinking wine. It was in that curious moment after I stopped at the bank and before I met old Jack Teaman. I don't remember much of Brass Monkey other than I went in because there were some pretty women at the bar (Who moved to a table shortly after I walk in), the below average wine and the two Spanish speakers who came in after I was a little drunk. We talked, and the man was so eager to talk to me, he was from Guadalajara. We talked about Mexico City, and he helped me through my drunk Spanish. "Lo ciento, estoy un poco borrracho," I said, sorry, I'm a little drunk. He smiled and continued to ask me questions about where I was from and about my agenda in Vancouver. When the woman came back, an Chilean, Ii felt it a proper time to leave. "Mucho Gusto."

The more we walked the Denman the more removed I was becoming from it, from Kelly and from myself as well. It was making me motion sick just to walk and the heavier I was becoming even though I no longer belonged to my body. She keep mumbling about the wallet, and the loss was getting worse with every breath she took. I have only ever lost one thing in my life, three or four weeks prior I could compare to it, and I felt her loss as I thought about my own.

I hate the village where I live, not from the size of the place or the people so much as what happened one night. I had a small canvas bag stolen from the back seat of my car. In that bag I had, my address book, letters, some read and some I hadn't opened yet, a few pens and pencils and just under two hundred pages of drafts, articles, lurid fiction and bad poetry. It chapped me to think about the punk who stole the little canvas bag with my blood and pain in it. It was surely a kid who had done it, and there was no real dollar amount I could put to it. The police were as ambivalent with it as they were when my car had been broken into the first two times when items of "value" had been stolen. I suppose those things were as important to my health and well being as some ID, $300, and the bus pass. All in the hands of someone else who is an non appreciator.

I believe in karma, so I think all the bad things I've done, caught up to me in that instance. Perhaps the same is true for Kelly.

"Hey, it's brass monkey."

"That funky monkey?" We laughed.

"No, this is where I drank that bottle of wine last night before we met. Have you ever been in here?"

"I've walked by it a thousand times."

I linger a little and looked into the windows, like I had the night before. There was so much traffic on the little street we were walking on the night before. When I had looked down the street after leaving the bar, it looked so dark and desolate, residential or something. I could not imagine walking up, and indeed I never would have, too dark, seemingly going nowhere, no action, a place for locals at night, and not tourist, if indeed I really was a tourist. I hadn't seen anything in Vancouver at all, the couple of bars, and restaurants and my hotel, Kelly's hotel and all the off places I'd been with her. I did get to see English Bay, but not Stanley park, or any of the other attractions that the place would hold for tourists. I smiled, and boy was I high. She was ahead of me, I could hear her feet, her boots on the sidewalk. It was comforting, to me a stranger as always, and always alone. Not today.

"Hi," she whispered. I looked up to see another random with her. I instantly thought him a waiter or worker of the brass monkey since we were on the side of the restaurant at this point. I caught up to them.

They were silent. I looked at her acquaintance, and could only guess how she knew this one. He was very handsome, by anyone's standards. I couldn't stop looking at his lips, full, strong, but there was something strange about them. They were faded in spots and it looked like a top layer of them was missing, if that could be. I went to school with a kid named Scott someone or other. He had lips like this, he had had frostbite and lost some of the flesh on his lips too. As a result they were faded in parts and uneven. this guy's lips where the same. It did not make him unattractive though.

I'd seen a house cat once that had a mangled ear, and although it was in itself an unattractive quality, it made him look more wild, exotic, almost beautiful. Funny, I don't think I'm the only one to find a simple physical flaw in someone or something an unattractive attribute. Really, we find four leaf clovers to be good luck.

He had a nice physique too, very muscular, it was obvious he hung out in a gym. He stood there with his arms folded and he listened with a fierceness at what Kelly was telling him. She told him in the same fashion she was telling everyone else about the last wallet: the three hundred dollars, and the ID.

"I didn't even know you had a wallet," he said chewing the gum aggressively. I was getting sick from standing still and it felt as if I was sinking into my boots. He was so angry it was bothering me. I then realized there was a problem. he leaned forward trying to intimidate her. Kelly was in some sort of trouble with this guy. "So, what your telling me, you don't have any money for me?"

I could see up ahead of us a little ways a white van, brake lights one as it faced up him. It was running, waiting and there was a driver in it. "Well, I call the transit station at four to see if they have it."

He nodded. He looked worse than ever. His short manicured hair frightened me, he was obviously very vain. I tried to look through his glasses, at his eyes, they seemed clear but I really couldn't tell their color. Once he looked at me, we locked into a stare. He was angry, and I was completely expressionless. He looked at me for a time, and I refused to look away. There was no reason for him to try and intimidate me, I was nothing to him, and he was nothing to me, a stranger on the street. He finally looked away, back to Kelly.

"We have to go to school." And I realized he was sort of blocking our path up the sidewalk. We were really going to school, and he probably accepted me as a class mate. He backed away from us and turned toward the parked van. I could see now he was getting into it, he hadn't been on the street like us, and her certainly wasn't a worker in the Brass Monkey.

"You have two days Kelly. I've changed the locks." He was behind us now, and going into the van. I never stopped looking at him, although my eyes were falling from his angry face to his lower section then to his feet on the ground as he got into the van.

"Okay." She whispered from behind me, and we were walking away from him, I was glad to be out of that situation. Aggressive people, so unpredictable and sobering bother me, and I would hate to be infected with their filth. "Okay Dave."

So this was Dave, the ex-boyfriend for four years. he was awful. She had told me how abusive he was, so verbally abusive. He had never hit her, but she usually flinched from him, and I could reasonably understand why. It bothered her that she flinched from him, retracting forever in a strange sort of fear like someone who keeps an unpredictable wild animal in captivity. If you keep a bird of prey in your possession it is probably a matter of time before it attacks taking an ear or an eye maiming the captor for life. And that was Dave.

I watched them drive off with a certain feeling of dread. I was getting paranoid about it, partly due to the drug invading my brain, and partly because of his aggression and all around creepiness. "What was that all about?"

"That was Dave. They drive around all day looking for me."

"Why?"

"They don't have anything better today, just crystal meth, go to the gym and find me."

"Do you owe him money?"

"I give him half my welfare check."

"Really?"

"Yeah, until the crop comes in..."

I resumed my stare at the ground, it was making me sick to look at the world all jumbling around in my eyes so fast. All I could see as the seams in the sidewalk were rushing by was that angry look in his eyes. He had the house, in her name, he had everything the two had put together, which I couldn't imagine it being too much. She had talked about the furniture, and all the little things. He had it all. She was sharing a hotel room with another girl, living in a gym bag. He owed her from all I could think, half of his welfare check, which he didn't have. He didn't even work, I couldn't imagine it. In a house with furniture and things. That sort of thing generally means more to women. Even a woman who had left home at a young age, and lived on the streets.

The deeper we walked into the city, closer to her school all I could think about was that white van coming back. Of all the precarious situations I'd gotten myself into, I never had any fear. Not the fear for my life anyhow, maybe a wallet, but not my life. And to further the fear that was mounting in me for my life, I was completely terrified for her well being, which at this point was nil.

"He's just trying to scare me, and to bother me by telling the locks are changed." I agreed with her although I imagine neither of us really believed it. We reached her school.

Chapter Six: The Mapleleaf

The school was wonderful. It was half elementary school and half adult ed. We walked through the halls too fast for me to really see anything, straight to a library computer lab titled "self-paced".

The teacher or administrator recognized her straight away. I felt so embarrassed to be high in the school I merely looked down at my boots and tried not to breath so much, I was certain my breath smelled of pot and cigarettes, and what a combo some poor student would have to smell. Kelly was talking to the instructor telling him about her life, the woes of living in the siesta rooms above the roxy, the troubles with telemarketing, and she even tried to lie about having another job. The man called her on it to, asking about the other job, and she tried to lie, it sounded so much of a lie. She looked down, hesitated and mumbled through something. "I see," said the man. Kelly mumbled something like "No", I think he forgave her for it. So did I.

She laughed as she read the e-mail from her sister, something about her having thrown out a man, Patrick. Apparently he was no good anyway, I suppose it was the season for that sort of thing. I looked to the screen the chuckles got thicker, but couldn't stare for long. We left quickly and quietly.

All those students in that room I figured were just like Kelly, a hard knock here and there and now settling in to do something positive. I was not the best of students, and my life certainly wasn't the easiest, but I was damn sure to get through school when I did. If it had to go on one day longer than it did it would have been impossible. College was the same way. It got worse in college though, I had to pay for it.

I wanted to apologize to all the students in that lab, sorry for having disrespected them by coming into their classroom in such a state. I had no idea it would make me feel such a way, but it did.

In the hall on the way out, Kelly whispered something like an "oh-no". She had been concerned when we came into the building we would run into a teacher, and it looked as if it were happening. He talked very calming to her, no anger, no guilt, nothing, and that's what I imagine was so hard for her to face. Or it could be that she was unable to face his disappointment. If she was afraid of that, then she was more of a person than most. He talked very calming to her, all about options, the method for her,the next semester and different tracks. It was not only his job to help her, but his passion, and I could feel it. I sat on the bench looking through some sort of student magazine while they talked, so nonchalant, as if he couldn't notice me, I thought. That teacher believed in Kelly, he probably believed in them all. A teacher with so much love could only be placed in such a school. There were others, earlier, who I wanted to curse and damn to hell, and this teacher was the best of anyone I had ever seen. I'm unsure if he really was this way or if his kindness impressed me about the poor show I had seen from old Dave.

The mood had lifted by the time we left school, even though I scanned the streets for that horrid white van. We got back on the sidewalk and headed toward somewhere. "You want to see where I go with my friends sometimes after school?"

"Of course." Of course I did. It could have been the garbage dumps or a botanical garden, both the same to me, as long as it was quiet and we could be alone. We were in the same state of mind, I knew we could relate, and it would be ideal to just be together. If we were obligated to talk to someone else, I would feel as stupid as I felt in the restaurant the night before, drunk and trying to speak in a language not my own. Stupid isn't the right word. It is like insulting, yes, and insult on the other person. It was okay for the two of us to be together and talk our silly talk, and try to follow our own crocked pathways of dim speech in and out of giggles. Giggles, we hadn't giggled at all, and that is generally a sign of intoxication. We didn't giggle the night before when drunk and stoned either. It was a obligatory laugh here and there or slight laugh, but no light hearted giggling.

She was trying to explain to me the place we were going, like a park, or a museum or an old folks home, I wasn't sure. Perhaps it was a description of the building, or maybe it was the neighborhood, I was unsure and it was unfair for me to let her go on with it. She keep explaining, and all I kept answering was: "I don't know where that is." And after the second time, she pointed:

"Right there." A little park next to a museum run by old people, retired folk that is. It looked so secluded, wonderful. Suddenly I realized, this is where street people go, parks, or schools or cafes, there was no house to rest in, or a car for use out of the rain. There were only public places. And I hadn't made use of one in a long, long time.

As a teenager, I spent years with Chrissy and we had our friends some of whom had good relations with their family, but most did not. We generally hung out in a park much like this one, or under bridges, and many times a school yard until we were chased out of it. It had been ten years since i sat in the park with a friend simply because there was nowhere else to go. And here we were walking though the muddy grass. "This bench looks so comfortable." I sat down first.

Immediately I lean away from Kelly and took a look out across the field and the high-rise beyond. The street were I'm sure old Dave was driving was behind us and behind a hedge. We were safe here and here we would stay if I had my way until the darkness came. Not only for cover from Dave, but the world which was making me motion sick with each step.

"What can he do to you?"

"He could put a cap in me, bury me on the mountain."

"Really?" I was amazed, and not surprised. She said it with a certain stoicism, and it wasn't really for drama. We sat there quietly a woman came into the park with herr dog. A dog who understood the concept of chase the ball, but not bring it back. We watched the scene with the older fatter woman and it would normally have been funny, quite funny really to someone who was in the state that we were. And yet we sat there quietly watching the woman throw the ball, the dog chase the ball, then the woman chasing the dog. And on our minds, the gun, the motive, and the burial of Kelly.

"No one would even know I was gone, I don't see anyone everyday. No one would miss me." She was right I could tell. there were times in my life too, I never spent any time with anyone everyday. It is the way with singular people never to spent too much time in one place. I would noticed after being gone for several months at a time, when I lived in Denver, and running into to someone who thought nothing of the time I was gone. It was worse with Kelly. Sami, at Sami's all night market talked to her in manner of friendship and love, but the two of them had only seen one another one time in the last four years. He had told me to take care of her when we left. There was no way I could do that, and if it came down to it, no one really could, not Sami, not Gerry not the people on the street who valued her because she had sold them drugs, or because of their interest. Her teachers, how could they do it? I suppose they were providing a vehicle to support her by educating her and giving her the world, but it is another question to physically keep her from harm. The police? We didn't talk about them once, and since I had never seen one in Canada, perhaps there weren't any at all.

The welfare office. They got to see Kelly every Wednesday. So in Sick days they may get suspicious, really, or perhaps they are so bureaucratic, and so busy they wouldn't notice she was gone until there were thousands of dollars of uncollected checks. And her job, working under the table, telemarketing for the Americans? Enough said, they would simply believe she left for something better and not think about it again. And perhaps she will have left for something better too. Something better...

There would be know way for me to know, either. I would not be in Canada for any length of time, and after what I had just seen, no reason for me to want to stay. Indeed if I wasn't so fucked up at that moment I would have walked to my car and driven away. A ratty thing to do, I know, but where was I in this whole mess, really? A stranger watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theaters. I didn't belong here, I didn't belong anywhere and my new friend Kelly knew it too. I had shown her kindness, listened to her, and not really for her benefit, but for my own.

And the wallet, no money, although I had seen her pull out a wad of cash from her coat pocket when we were in her room, take a few bills and put the rest back. She had explained to me how lucrative panhandling had been, and I believe it. Three hundred dollars, she could probably replace that in an afternoon of good panhandling. She could always go back to selling, and not for he roommate or Dave, but for herself, how long would it take for her to gain the three hundred dollars? But I was beginning to think it wasn't as easy as that. It was as easy as anyone would think, just to walk away, get an education and get a legitimate job. And further more, she had said several times expressively how afraid of travelling she was. A fear I was unable to understand. My youth was spent on the road, and in the ten years I'd been an adult I stayed in a place anywhere from two days to 19 months. Staying in one place and committing to it was my fear, completely irrational, I suppose, but like her, afraid to stay and afraid to leave. And the fears we live with...

The fear presently was that speed freak Dave, stressed out of his mind. There was $100,000 of marijuana and probably other drugs in his house. The police probably knew it. He was out of control and there was his life riding on it, and a young street kid named Kelly who had given him four years of her young life in service. There was the whole house, filled with goods, some traded for drugs probably, something stolen. It was a grimmer picture by the moment. I was looking ahead, the woman and her dog had gone and the darkness was falling, we were silent and my mind was racing over all the possibilities. I wanted to touch her head and make it all better, to take was all the pain and gain some sort of retribution on all the evils who had hurt her life, including her. And somewhere I hoped someone missed me at this moment, or someone was telling a story of things they's done with me, or some pious person was reading a pray. Give my the strength, I thought to make it better, and to be less crazy myself.

I was leaning on my right elbow comfortable slouched in an otherwise uncomfortable bench. Kelly on my left was leaning on my. I imagine she'd been that way for some time, although I didn't realize she had been touching me. "What is that flying up there?"

"At the top of that building?"

"Yeah."

"It looks like a Canadian flag." I couldn't see it so clearly now, but I had noticed it earlier. It looked very majestic flying there, twenty or so stories up in wind that would never reach us. As we looked at it a flock of noisy birds shuffled past. "It seems so easy to be a bird."

"I would fly away to a warm beach somewhere."

"With those wings you'd think you could go anywhere."

"Yeah."

"But most birds do get very far, they hang out on a block somewhere downtown and look for food. It's better to have our legs, we can walk anywhere we want to go."

We laughed, at what I wasn't sure. It wasn't funny, we could walk anywhere. Our moods were changing, the night was falling and I was pretty cold, not to mention Kelly who unlike me did not have the benefit of a scarf. "Let's go, want some tea?"

It was four o'clock and I thought it fitting for tea, so English, after all this was British Colombia. I thought of Jack Teaman again, a lonely old man, very English, perhaps he was drinking tea now too. "Let's go up to Robson."

"That's the other big street, right?" She nodded and we stood from our bench. I looked aback once more across the park and to the high-rise beyond, and finally to the flag on top of it. The mapleleaf, Canada. It wasn't unnatural to see it, but it was out of the norm for me. I tried to think of building at home with flags flying on them, I could only think of one, and it was in a city I no longer live in, and will probably never live in again. I wonder what and where the tradition of flying a flag on the top of a building must come from. Probably days of knights and kings, castles and peasants. Clearly it must have been institutionalized somewhere in France. I'd seen a castle there once with some strange flag atop of it. God bless the banner I thought, do Canadians say "God bless the Mapleleaf."?

Chapter Seven: The Daydream

We walked quickly to Robson street and look furiously for a cafe. I looked at all the people passing by us, I was no longer motion sick, we had sit on that bench for close to an hour. I no longer looked for the white van either. It was nearing rush hour traffic,and there were people everywhere. If we were sheep being selected specifically out of the flock, we were hidden deep in the millions of other sheep of Vancouver. I doubted Dave would return tonight. With that thought, I knew I would never see Dave again, and good thing, I didn't particularly care for him. Kelly conversely would have to see him again. I hoped she would be able to live through it, and although I was optimistic I was doubtful of the reality of it. If she does make it, what does kill us only makes us stronger. I couldn't imagine her with any more strength, not so say she couldn't handle it, she could, but what a strong woman indeed.

If the feminist could only see this, I thought. Those hardcore ones, the yuppie ones back home who have had an ideal life, what would they say. Would they open their arms and embrace this woman or would they shun her and tell her to leave all manners of life behind or not be welcomed in the clique? Hard to say, and I had no right to say it anyway, I am not a feminist, and I have never known one. Since the thoughts were unfounded I looked back to the people we were passing.

I wondered how many of them were like me, foreign, crazy and unable to think happy thoughts? I wondered how many of them lived on the streets like Kelly? I wondered how many of them were under the influence of something? How many in situation they don't like and can't control? It seemed everyone fell into one of these. Most of us are in situations we don't like. I have met a few who liked living life and working to pay bills, and their jobs. Most find they don't like much about their jobs. Some people are focused and contented, not necessarily happy. Some would envy me for my job. After all someone else's job generally seems more favorable to a better life than our own. Again, the grass is always greener.

I thought again how many of them were intoxicated. How many had stopped by the bar after work and had a drink? How many of them, like Kelly and I had smoked some marijuana that afternoon.

The it occurred to me, how many of them would be part of the $100,000 crop Dave was about to produce... And if Kelly were to be silenced about the operation now, how many of them would bother to ask about her blood on the bud they were buying.

I had never thought about the blood that was on the herb we rolled into that paper. I had never thought about any blood on any of the illicits I had tried. Surely there must be an opportunity cost to it all, and that opportunity cost is the life of someone else. perhaps I never thought about it because I had never met anyone to make me think it, much less someone who was actually murdered for the benefit of my vice, habit or addiction.

The TV tells us about people who are users of the stuff and do desperate things to get it, but generally it never tells us of the death it can and does take to get the stuff to us. And suddenly I realized why a government would make it illegal. Punishable. If we can't handle a privilege, teacher take sit away, right?

I resolved not to touch another illegal drug to my lips at that moment. I suppose I could think of the poor workers all over the world who suffer to get a piece of clothing to me, or a piece of food, cauliflower, shrimp or even tea.

We walked into the coffee shop, cold, quiet and very thirsty. She ordered a chamomile tea, the only tea I drink, I ordered the same. We sat down, by the window of course and looked out.

No Dave could see us now, no one could. We were in a coffee shop and rested behind some plants in the window. The place was covered in plants, and we were safe.

Some of the plants were plastic, and other real. At first it is hard to tell the difference between them, but then looking closer, a final examination came tell the difference. The real plants have uneven growth and death spots, the plastics are perfect.

I had a love affair with house plants once, years ago, I even had a talent with them. I had sixty five of them, all started from a cutting or a seed, or a dead one bequeathed to me. I even grew chamomile flowers. On February tenth of that year that chamomile produced its first flower, and someone set fire to that apartment building that night.

I was with a body builder named Heather that night and we had fallen asleep on the sofa. She was the one who heard the alarm before it melted, she was the one who was persistent to wake me, she was the one who probably saved my life. I would have slept through the entire ordeal. No doubt in my mind I would still be laying in that bed now, or some proverbial bed like it. Heather, an apple growers daughter from Colorado's western slope. She was a peaceful woman, and in a way much like Kelly, strong, stoic, previously abused.

She saved my life that night, and the two of us crawled out that building. Afterward everyone asked about the possessions. I didn't care about them, but I did care about skin, and fortunately all the people in the building left it with their skin.

I started to categorize the events after that night. If I had died in the fire, I certainly would never had seen Vancouver, met Kelly and felt the feelings there. There were thousands of incidents like it, most with less reality and feeling, but great experiences nonetheless.

If I knew on any given day, I was living my last day, I have no idea what I would be doing. Some people probably know, perhaps they would spend it with their family, or drink it away to face death with a drunken confidence. Perhaps they would rush to finish all the things they never got the time to do. Maybe they'd pray, or at least find some comfort somewhere. I think I might try to run from it. If I knew it was my last day.

I wonder if I would spend it on the streets of my city talking to a foreigner, spending the day with them only varying my routine a little. Perhaps I wouldn't bother to talk to anyone at all.

I had the privilege once to work with a brilliant writer from Chile named Liza who had an interest in dark things. She had grown up in Chile, obviously and during the awful time of Augusto Pinochet. She once told me how people would vanish on from life because they were an enemy of the state for whatever reason. It got to the point on the streets of Santiago where people no longer yelled help when the police took them. They would yell their name, as loud as possible and as many times as possible hoping someone would hear it. If someone did hear it, they would not be forgotten, but remembered, remembered by a stranger. In the bible there is a lesson about finding something lost and returning it to its rightful owner. If there is no rightful owner, it was law to keep it until the owner came, at which point it was to be returned. What would happen if the owner never returned? In Chile, I imagine, that was the way of things. Any name a person would hear would become their own, until they could give it back.

I wondered if those people knew the police were coming for them, and if so, how did they spend those last hours? Making love, reading to their children, reading, writing, perhaps quietly reflecting on their lives, their history and trying to make sense of it all.

I spent a day once half frozen on the streets of Ansbach as a teenager. I had been doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I spent the night in somebodies else's room. In the middle of december, it was too cold to do anything else. Her name was Tina, and she smuggled me into her room so we could spend the might together.

There had been a terrible ice storm while we slept and in the morning she smuggled me out again so I could catch the first bus home. The roads were closed, too many wrecks and no way of clearing the ice. I had nowhere to go at such an early hour except home. I decided to walk.

That walk home and my alienation during it categorize the rest of my life: somewhere where I wasn't supposed to be, and a long way from home. But still that morning, it would have been a shame not to have experienced the ice falling on my head, and my coatless body. It would have changed my whole existence to have stayed at home the night before and not had the opportunity to have spent the night with Tina.

I smiled, I could feel myself smiling as I thought about the walk down the hill toward home that morning of the ice storm. I slipped and fell so many times, when finally I sat on my backpack and sledded to the bottom of the hill. I smiled at the fact that when I was there I hated it, and all I could think about was how warm it was the summer before. It didn't matter then, all I thought about was how terrible it was. I never thought about the future, or where I'd been when it came. Why was thinking about the future such a terrible thing to me then? Why was it so horrible while I sat there with Kelly. I hadn't heard her mention it once beyond the vague wish not to be stuck in her current position. The future. I had one, if I wanted it. Life was horrible to me, I ran all over due to unhappiness or something, knowing life will always go on. Everyday was a day like the ice storm. Miserable at the time, loathsome, but in retrospect very wonderful. Perhaps it's all about time and place, piece of mind, the past, memories, and how we deal with them. All the homes we have, and all the lives we live. And there I was all the way home again, a continent, a life and a memory away...

The way home was never hard to find, and I never forgot it. No matter how drunk I was or how I tried, I could never forget the way home. Funny, I could conveniently forget things to avoid work or a girlfriend, but not home or the way there. I could honestly forget other things too, my name, the name of the bar, or the girl, but I lived on Dombach Strasse in the young soldier housing at Barton Barracks on the topmost hill north of Ansbach.

One night I decided to leave the bar at a decent hour. Tired, a bit pissed off, drunk, I realized none of the girls would stoop to talk to me, much less have sex with me, so I decided to cut my loses and go home. I imagined the damply cool night air as an air pocket in a damp sponge. It smelled like plants and mold, and it rained almost everyday. Since I had grown up in a desert most of my life, be it California or Colorado, living in a damp climate like Germany was a real oddity. My German friends always thought me as the oddity, the way I acted in the foul, rainy weather.

That night was clear, it had been the first clear night in a couple of months. Clear meant that no rain fell, but the sky itself was still a dense haze. Only the stronger stars could shine through it, and here and there one did. Around each one of those strong stars a blue and purple halo appeared giving each a royal look. When the moon rose high enough, close to the zenith, its light not only produced a halo but a rainbow. Inside the lunar rainbow all the colors hatched in slightly darker hues than a day time rainbow. If more light existed that night the air all around would have been rainbows due to all the moisture in the air. In some of the high street lamps, I could see the marbling and swirling columns and mountains of mist. It looked a bit like the smoke inside the bar but considerably cleaner and healthier. The air moved only slightly, probably due to the water in it. I could see the individual balls of mist as they grew from tiny ones to the larger ones that got too heavy to cheat gravity any longer and fell to the Earth. When they fell, they made little rippling circles on the puddles in the streets. I was elated in this night time environment, the contrast it had over the desert I grew up in. A desert where the rain comes violently for a few minutes and all the moisture gets quickly absorbed into the thirsty Earth, and what the Earth can't drink the sky reclaims and the storm moves on. Yes, the Ansbach night air gave me life.

Once I was outside, I couldn't have been happier. The bar called City Limits, one drinking establishment in a large building in downtown Ansbach, was built before ventilation. The place got hot, sweaty, smelly and smokey. When I first learned about "Irony" it was at City Limits: if a person is in a house and it is on fire, filled with smoke, what is the first thing they do? They get out! Yet people can linger on for hours, and hours in a smokey bar. What is the difference really? I suppose one can't file an insurance claim for smoke inhalation from sitting in a bar. Fire or no fire, City Limits bulged with smoke, and it felt pretty good to walk out into the Ansbach night air, even though it did smell a bit like manure from the surrounding fields.

Little puddles stood quietly in the cobble stone streets. I walked across them heading toward the clock tower on the other side of town. I passed Round the Clock, a German "rocker" bar, impulsively I wanted to go in. First impulses pass quickly with fear of death.

Miriam and I had had a perfect relationship. It was quick, sensual and vicious. We met, got drunk, had sex, decided to go Paris where we talked, got drunk, had sex, and we returned home. The good times lasted three days, maybe four; that was the quick and sensual part. The vicious part lasted for several weeks afterward. She told me I was a cold, heartless person, perhaps, but I blamed it all on a difference in values. Other than beer and sex we had nothing in common. Paris was her favorite city, and if I could image hell, it would be just like Paris only the busses would be on time.

She tended bar at Round the Clock. Miriam, more attractive than any other woman in Ansbach, had all the men in love with her. With out question, if I even walked into Round the Clock, I would become grout between the tiles. I decided to conserve on

my chip free teeth, so I walked on, toward home.

I passed Cafe Realto, the hippest place to hang out, and as I passed happiness filled me at the thought of how people accepted me there. I wanted to go in, but the place always closed early. I craved an ice cream or a soda, a positive alternative to Cappuccino. I never had the heart to tell everyone I didn't like Cappuccino, or any other coffee for that matter. The atmosphere was good, but like everywhere else too smokey. In fact Martina, the first German friend I had, gave me a lecture there because of my abnormality of non-smoking. As convincing as she wanted to be, soliciting the whole tobacco industry, I still didn't pick cigarettes up as a habit. I didn't pick Cappuccino as a habit either.

Generally, I took a quick drink at Cafe Realto twice a week, Tuesdays before going to Das Boat, a club in Nürnberg, and Fridays before going to Neurose in Schwach, the other two hip places to hang out. I would sit next to Martina at Cafe Realto, or someone else who seemed interesting, but in such a smokey place healthy lungs wanted to sit next to someone who didn't smoke.

Naffia didn't smoke. I missed her greatly after she went back to Bosnia. She didn't know any English and her German was as bad as mine. We smiled constantly at one another, and we made fun of everyone else. Without certainty I suspected she didn't like coffee either!

Naffia lived on the other side of the clock tower in a small apartment above McDonalds. She probably lived in the worst place in all of Ansbach. Her place smelled forever like cooking oil and under arms, and the one window she had overlooked the taxi pickup point. I ventured into her place under an invitation after a long night of dancing. I spent the night with her once, her place was too small for the two of us. I often wondered as I walked past her old place what became of her, who moved into that nasty place and if we spoke the same language if we could have had a different relationship.

Across Maximilion Platz kitty corner from the clock tower and adjacent to McDonalds stood Cafe Central. The two things I constantly reminded myself of Cafe Central: the ten year old kid who drank me under the table when I first got to Ansbach, and the girl who took me to bed first. I would see the kid from time to time, and we always talked to one another, but I never talked to the girl when I saw her. I did see her, she lived in a house on my route home just after the train tracks where Maximilion Platz connected to the path which connected to the cemetery on Rathaus Strasse. She giggled when she met me, claimed to know English and introduced herself as Sofia. She not only gave me my first experience with sex in Germany, but my first experience with disease as well. Every day, I walked by her house, sometimes I would see her, and we ignored each other. Sometimes, I would see her older sister and mother (The two were never apart), and they would just laugh. They laughed from the time they saw me until I

walked out of sight. They were always laughing at me, it bothered me, but I had nothing to say in rebut. I think they must have known what went on between Sofia and me.

The cemetery lay between Sofia's house and my Barracks. A deep colored brick wall separated the cemetery from the street. When I first got to Ansbach I would walk on the wall. The wall-walking ended late one night when I saw ghosts moving around in there. There seemed to be several of them, and they stood in a little group as if they were mourning over something, or pontificating the passing of someone. At that point I leaped from the wall and ran all the way home too afraid to look back at all the specters following me. In retrospect, if I hadn't drank so much tequila and eaten too many worms there probably wouldn't have been ghosts lurking about in the cemetery!

At the end of the cemetery wall, Rathaus Strasse ended. Rathaus in German means courthouse, that word became my second lesson in irony, because in English it sounds like "Rat House". I crossed the street and walked up the hill on a foot path. The ability to walk out of a city infatuated me about Europe. Granted Ansbach, a smaller city than Nürnberg or München, took less time to walk out of, but countryside surrounded them all. This particular foot path had trees on each side, and beyond those trees some landmarks of Ansbach. The Tücher brewery on one side overlooked the town she supplied beer with and fields that supplied the brewery with grain on the other.

After a dark walk on the foot path ending by the television tower, the final stretch home last no more than two minutes. I always enjoyed the darkness on the foot path, and then coming out of the trees on the hill to see the lights of Ansbach below. I typically stopped and looked at the view, mostly to catch my breath or vomit. Thinking about the whole situation now, living in Ansbach and the walk home, it was that moment at the top of the hill, looking down on the city that made it all worthwhile. At least my memory amplifies those moments. It amplifies the walk home making it worthwhile, no matter how tired, or how drunk, or forgetful. It even made the walk up memory lane worthwhile, it made the moments with Miriam, Martina, Naffia and Sofia worthwhile. The loneliness didn't seem so horrible there, probably because no one stood there with me, ridiculing my expressions or lack of understanding. It made all of life worthwhile, two minutes before going home, standing at the top of Ansbach, alone.

A bus passed, a car horn honked and the espresso machine hissed when the plastic plants came back into focus. Looking at Kelly she was looking at me.

"Where are you?"

"What?"

"Where are you right now?" She asked again.

"In a coffee shop."

"No you're someplace else, eh?"

"I guess, I was daydreaming."

"Was it good?"

"Oh yeah, the best." I sat and looked out the window again. It was dark. We were tired. I wanted sleep. Nowhere to go for it. I could see she was tiring too, I always suspected I was a tiring person. She'd danced around me all the night before, and we walked all day. She didn't strike me as tiring, and she didn't tire me out, exactly. "It was the best daydream I've had in a while. In fact, I don't remember daydreaming before."

We left the coffee house and wandered up Robson again.

"Have you been to Chapters?"

"I don't know what that is," I whispered. I found myself looking for the white van again. I was sure it was one the street and there were some desperates in it waiting to strike at us.

"It's the bookstore, eh? The one I was telling you about." And there it was, hugh, right in the middle of downtown, on Robson street. It brought a smile to my face, a warm sanctuary. I was cold already.

"Let's go in there, I'll read you my favorite poem." We crossed the street and went in.

I had never been to Chapters before, but I've been to a thousand bookstores just like it. We wandered up to the third floor, and to the poetry section. Poetry always seems to be away from all the rest of the books. I think a bookstore can be judged by the size of the poetry section. A low quality bookstore has a part of a shelf for poetry, and the highest of quality bookstore has an entire floor.

Chapters was in between. There were several shelves, and that was good enough for me.

"Let's see here, here's the book," I whispered for my own benefit. Kelly could hear me too. I pulled off a copy of an Elizabeth Bishop collection. "She's my favorite," I began as I flipped through the pages. "She writes all about traveling, and gas stations, she's wonderful." I paused a second wondering if Kelly really cared about it. She looked at the book and up to me, back to the book. If she didn't care, she was a good actress. "Here it is: Questions of Travel..." I read the poem to her. I laughed at the end of it. I laughed until I carefully put the book back on the shelf.

"What's so funny?"

"The choice is never wide and never free, I never understood that before. She's right the choice is never wide and never free. Let's go."

Leaving Chapters, Kelly talked about napping. I was invited, and although the sleep would be welcomed, I didn't want to nap in her room. I was starting to feel uncomfortable around her, and despite any feelings I may have had concerning longing or love, I needed to be apart from her.

"Am I going to see you again?" she asked after I refused the nap.

"Of course," and like her, I was a terrible liar. It was so unlikely, it was unlikely she would see anyone again.

We turned up Granville. She didn't want to see anyone, and that too was unlikely. "I'll walk you to your hotel." We ran into a few randoms, they all knew Kelly by name, and she said hello and we didn't stop to chat. We had chatted with everyone, but not now. Not to say she wasn't polite, we just didn't stop to talk.

I could see the Roxy's marquee about a block away. We crossed the last street to it. I heard her sigh, it was endearing. I was in love once, two years it went on, and that woman sighed all the time.

"Did I tell you how I lost my wallet?"

"No." And I was taken back a little. She talked about it all the time, I heard the story every time, and I thought I was listening. I recounted all the retellings, and nowhere had she mentioned it before. "You lost it on the bus, right?"

"Yeah, but did I tell you how?"

"No, I guess not."

She paused. We were directly outside the Roxy and everything seemed quiet, it wasn't of course, it just seemed that way.

"I was going to the welfare office, and I was daydreaming."

"Was it a good daydream," I tried to ask in the same way she'd asked me.

"The best, I don't daydream much either. I was drawing on the vapor on the window. I had a palm tree and a little island, it was where I want to live. I looked up, and no one was looking at me or the drawing. I put another palm tree, and some sea shells. I had a canoe and a fishing pole. I was going to make a hut, but I wanted to sleep on the beach instead. Then I looked at this kid and he smiled. I made him smile with my daydream. Then I thought I missed my stop, so I rang the bell and run to get off."

"leaving the wallet?"

"Yes. Leaving the wallet on the seat next to me."

I said nothing, and how could I? She was on the beach, free, daydreaming, like me in the coffeehouse. Her last day one Earth would have been better spent on some beach in Belize, or maybe in herr father's homeland of the Philippians. Instead her last day was with me, a foreigner, an unhappy one at that.

I hugged Kelly, and it was a hug I've never hugged before. I was once called cold and dispassionate by a friend who was appalled by a one-arm hug I'd given her. I hugged Kelly with arms, both arms, indeed everything and anything I could hug with.

"Sleep well."

"Goodbye Andre." And I watched her walk up the stairs to the lobby. Say your name Kelly, I thought, I’d make it mine, I won't forget.

Once she was gone I wandered down Granville Street. It would only take me minutes to find my car and minutes after that to make it to the border of United States. I could roll wildly down the road home, after all Canadians have 94-octane gas. I could speed home with it, the road home, maybe my road to Damascus.