I was on a trail. But then I was on a train. I was with the beloved. How come the sun doesn’t hurt your eyes with the brightness of things? It definitely hurts mine. It bothers me. And sounds. And people. And many things besides. People seem unaffected. There was a man smoking a cigarette right in the middle of everyone, sitting on a cement form. He was trying to hide it. There is no smoking there on that property absolutely anywhere. I spotted this. I spot much. When the bus began to load for going far away to a train, he got up and assisted somehow. He worked there. Funny. Odd.
‘You should get the watch, one of those watches everyone has,’ I mention to the beloved, ‘if that’s your thing.’ I glance up. ‘Those guys are so normal or something, I don’t know the word I am looking for. Look there.’ And they are nice, I can tell. Khakis and clean shoes and kind and well-adjusted. They have the watch. All three of them. (Two know each other and one doesn’t.) ‘But I couldn’t do that, work in a cubicle or something and tend to the data entry or the sales or whatever people do. I’d go insane in an hour. I’d leave. I’d disappear.’
‘That’s great,’ she says pejoratively, and then lets out a sigh.
The one on the left turns around with his upper body to the right without moving his feet and glances at me to see the owner of the voice. He heard me. I didn’t mean for him to hear me and didn’t mean anything by it. I hurt his feelings a tiny bit somewhere.
Outside I walk and am awkward, not sure of where I am going and not used to the crowds. A woman appears on my left and says, ‘Sorry, I almost ran into you.’ There is a woman in front of me nondescript and unassuming, except she is drinking from a can of beer as she walks along. That also means she was drinking on the train. ‘Look,’ I whisper to the Virgo, ‘that one is drinking.’
‘Really?’
‘Ya “really” because I recognize the can, the brand.’
On the fairgrounds it’s crowded. Dusk settles. Lights arrive. Who made all the people? These scholars I was studying accepted for the most part the gnostic texts, the apocryphal gospels so-called found in those mountains. But they disagreed about whether a demiurge or some spirit made the world and without permission. And if whatever it was made the world, it had screwed up. That was all scary thought. It was as if someone tried to make pancakes but really messed them up. And we were the pancakes. The maker had some ingredients sure, but had floundered. And wasn’t even supposed to be in the kitchen in the first place. Uh. Meh. What of it? The data entry boys don’t think of those things. I don’t think they do anyways. I don’t wear a watch or any jewelry. It all just bothers me.
We walk. We talk. Me and the beloved. The Virgo. There was once a relative with a sociology degree and somehow knew things. He told me, ‘Your girlfriend is like an American girl, from the north, from Michigan.’ I didn’t know what he meant but did on some level. Language, idiom, idiosyncrasies, aura. And she was American. From the South though. Born. But if she lives in Canada after doesn’t that place her somewhere between the American South and Canada? Interesting. To me. The rides and lights blossom amidst late dusk. Balloons. Vendors. Whistles. Horns. Microphones. Cacophonous sometimes. And other instances, symphonic, pleasant. Our friends give us corned beef sandwiches, pickles, sauerkraut and fries, and pop and water for free. Oh my god. I needed to eat. I eat everything. Thanks to Kate and her mother. It’s crowded though. There is a band playing terrible country music, and there is a band up the way playing worse. Escape into the buildings. Shawls and stones, posters and quiet calm people. Flowers. Displays. My grandparents used to bring me as a kid. Beloved says for some reason, as if psychically picking up my thoughts of past magic, ‘When you are young here, it’s an amazing thing, to be here amidst all this. I still like the lights.’
‘But it can be magic again.’
‘If you have grandkids and bring them and enjoy family and nice new times in the world.’
‘No. Even before that. I think you can become awakened to it all again on your own somehow, almost spiritually or something—secularly spiritual, I don’t know—enjoying the place.’
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t agree. I know her. I know what that means. That’s okay. Maybe she is right.
We find a place. Outside. Get some drinks. I have coffee. Lot of cannabis scent wafting through the air at times. Not me. Not mine. Not for me. Lot of people. Ferris wheel. Distant. Like in Malcolm Lowry there was a Ferris wheel I think. Lineups. Some strange people. ‘This is a nice place to sit, pleasant, not too crowded but you are still “here,” and I think also I might say, that I am getting old, not wanting to get this or that or go here or there just enjoying being. We should get ice cream.’
‘Why are you so obsessed with ice cream? You talk about ice cream all the time.’
‘I don’t know. What’s wrong with ice cream? I keep seeing people having ice cream.’ It’s one of those things as I walk to the washroom, a washroom I can’t find for the life of me, where others have found the ice cream place and I can’t see one anywhere. Everyone is like the data entry boys—they just know things or something. I go back and stand by the beloved, who is like an American from the north, and Kate. They are relaxing, enjoying the night.
I walk off and take pictures of this night, electric light in nocturne—colourful—the crowds playing games, trying to win prizes. I get a bit lost almost right away. If there is a fifty-fifty chance of going the right way I will almost always somehow go the wrong way. I look around and get back by trial and error. It’s time to go soon. It just is. But the girls want to run to the washroom so I watch the things. Then they call and tell me to just meet them in another building they ended up at. Don’t forget the bags. I bend down and get the knapsack and put it on my back and carry Kate’s bag in my left hand. I notice they left a beer cup two thirds full. Without thinking too much I hold it in my right and carry it out. Almost anyhow. Security stops me. ‘Don’t bring that out.’
‘Sorry,’ I say genuinely, ‘Can I leave it on this wooden rail or you want it somewhere else?’
‘It is whatever you wish.’
A strange way to put it I think, but like it. It is ‘whatever I wish.’ Free will has shown up amidst determinism. I leave it there. Nobody seems to care too much or something. There is nothing so gnostic about it all one way or the other. A lady and her friend immediately come take the seats, and had been waiting though I missed that. ‘We can sit here?’
‘Enjoy,’ I reply, and go off again into the carnival night.
I find them. We walk Kate somewhere safely. Later, on the trains everyone pretends not to push into doorways for seats while pushing into the doorways for seats. I stand. I don’t care. I hear mundane conversations. A man starts singing. He assumes people want to hear him or else doesn't care. I mentally and physically cringe somewhat but try not to let it show. I have to wait for a bus. We have missed the train we planned on or the schedule was incorrect. The workers are bothered that we ask for help—complacent, dull, annoyed to even do their jobs.
Finally we end up on a bus headed north. It’s far later. Turns out there are around seven stops in a strange distant series of places. Beloved is tired. I don’t blame her. It’s been a good day overall—but with many hours to it. The sun is long gone but now the electric lights from the cars and streets outside are there to bother me. Finally our destination is approaching. It must be 1:15 in the morning. A man just on the left and back a seat or two says to me the name of my town. I say, ‘Yes.’ I turn to American-Virgo-Beloved. ‘Was he asking me or was he telling me that our town is next?’
‘He was telling you. Because he knows you are lost.’
(Image credit: Brian Michael Barbeito)
Comments