Three Scoops is a Blast! (5 page)

The devil was insulted and angered by this attitude and decided to exact his revenge. He chose to let Carl see the future unfold. The cruel punishment would be played out over a very long period of time.

When Carl experienced a life-threatening car accident, the devil made sure he recovered. Subsequently, the devil found Carl a wife to keep an eye on him and guard his well-being. They had children that were a plague on their house in the teenage years, but those times did pass.

Wrapped within the bosom of his family, Carl struggled with his inventions in the garage and in the basement every weekend and most weeknights. Everyone knew where to find him. He’d be whistling and singing as he came up with one unsuccessful concept after another.

Each time one of Carl’s inventions failed, it made him work harder on the next project. What he learned from his hobby did spill over into his day job, making him a better research scientist, but that was neither here nor there. None of his beloved creations clicked with the public.

The devil saw to it Carl lived 30 years longer than he should have. The devil wanted Carl to understand he was never going to be famous. That nothing he ever did in his personal life was going to find public expression. There was going to be no take-off or “tipping” point, no launch pad and no skyrocketing. Not in this life and not ever.

When Carl’s mortal vessel finally slipped its tether, after a brief illness and quiet easing, there was no media coverage or national attention. Only second, third and fourth generation family and their friends were in attendance at the dignified funeral.

The devil could not have been more pleased with himself. When he finished telling God all about his evil triumph, what could God say but, “You got me good on that one, BB.” Everyone knows the devil, or Beelzebub as he’s sometimes called in the Bible, has no shortage of “Old Nick” names.

But secretly God had a warm feeling in His heart. He made sure not to give any outward sign of His pleasure. As He thought back over the totality of Carl’s long and often-times rewarding life, one thought did force its way to the foreground of His bright focus. Apparently the devil had never heard of the phrase “unintended consequences.”

Giving a Finger to the Moon

November 14, 2009

Frank had learned how to control his dreams. He had never experienced nightmares before. That’s why the past several months were so disturbing for him.

His power over dreams first came when he was a young boy. He’d perused a magazine photo of Michelangelo’s famous scene on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome’s Vatican. It depicted Adam, from Genesis, receiving the electric shock of life with an outstretched finger. Ever since, Frank used that mental image to adjust his dreams in any way he liked.

Whenever dream sequences seemed to be taking a darker turn, he taught himself to employ a simple trick. He would snap his imaginings back to a dark country lane at midnight. High in the sky, between a lacy veil of branches, a full overstuffed moon would hang bright and shiny.

From out of the horizon on Frank’s left, a giant finger would reach across the sky and push the moon’s bulbous presence. That action would be the equivalent of hitting a reset button. The former awkwardness would immediately vanish and Frank would be transported to a different place, to enjoy ethereal good times once again.

His life was fairly sunny to begin with. He met with mostly success, first in his academic endeavors, then in his business ventures. He usually slept with a sound conscience.

In his dreams, he’d be the star quarterback on a professional football team. Or the best hockey player in the world. The ladies would adore him. Their shapes came in all varieties and guises. He travelled the phantom world and was given the keys to the kingdom wherever he alighted.

That’s the way things had been until a couple of months ago. Suddenly everything was altered. Whenever he walked down that back country lane, the tree branches would bend over and block out his sighting of the moon. He’d hear some distant music that was familiar and haunting, but frustratingly inaccessible.

Then out of the blackness, they would emerge – the crazed-eyed and clearly mad creatures doing their slow dance. It was a league of zombies advancing relentlessly and voraciously to embrace him. Later than usual in life, he was starting to acquire a familiarity with night-time dreads.

Frank would wake up with a start in a cold sweat and be afraid to go back to sleep. This was leading to a persistent insomnia that was affecting him badly. Going to bed was no longer a pleasant experience. His nocturnal misadventures did open his eyes in another way, however.

He began to notice vampires were everywhere. Maybe it was only make-believe – but then again, perhaps not. There were thousands of books on the subject. Television was inundated by “undead” programming. So were the movies, with one blockbuster hit after another showcasing actors with pale and haunted demeanors. People lapped it up. Frank could not see the appeal.

The seduction and eroticism were obvious attractions. And for self-absorbed baby boomers, eternal life was going to be a drawing card. But what was one to think of all the blood? It was more than a little icky and tasteless. Frank was himself a vegetarian and blood was a type of non-traditional dietary supplement that was beyond his comprehension.

His daylight hours were becoming ever more difficult, but Frank wasn’t ready to give up. He was going to confront his demons. Every night when he went to bed, he tried harder and harder to escape the stranglehold of the forest. If he could get to a clearing and see the moon again, maybe he would understand what was going on. Had Adam’s limpid finger abandoned him?

Finally, the night of significant breakthrough arrived. After a particularly awful day of walking around in a fog, Frank fell into a deep and troubled sleep. Before the zombies could approach and while the music in his head was just a murmur, Frank retreated up the lane as fast as he could.

Then it happened. He stumbled backwards into a clearing among the trees. He looked skyward, seeking celestial help. What he saw instead chilled him to the bone. This time, instead of Adam’s gnarly digit of old, it was a huge white-gloved hand that was stretching across the sky.

A gentle push was applied to the milk-white bauble and the music rose to a crescendo. Now the tune was recognizable. The sound track from Thriller reverberated through his skull at full throttle. At the same time, he realized all was hopeless. His rhythm and soul were lost. His only option was to moonwalk back into darkness. When it came to Frank’s sleepy-time wanderings, Michael Jackson was now calling the shots, from his perch in rock and roll heaven.

Witness to a Backyard Execution

November 21, 2009

We were all in the backyard to witness an execution – my grandmother, parents, sister and brother. Standing around the fire pit, Nana lit the kindling. Then she placed the painting on the pyre. Almost immediately, the canvas was consumed by flames. The more substantial frame took longer. It was a sad moment for all of us, but a necessary part of our grieving process.

Grandpa Fred died the month before. It had been a lengthy illness and we were all prepared, as much as one ever can be, for his passing. The painting had been one of his prime talking points for as long as I knew him and to burn it seemed like a sacrilege. But Nana was adamant.

Three feet by two feet, it had hung on my grandparents’ living room wall above the fireplace forever. It was not a particularly good painting in a technical sense. The brush strokes were frantic, the perspective was slightly off and the composition didn’t come fully to life. But it was the subject matter that counted.

For a spectator facing it, the bottom left quadrant was dominated by a coyote with head extended upward and snout open. In the background was a train trestle, with a steam locomotive charging upward across the expanse from right to left. The foreground at the bottom right featured a moonlight-dappled river. The time of day was early evening. It was quintessential Canadiana.

Grandpa used to love talking about the work. It was out of place in the rest of the house, which was full of fine furniture and lovingly-chosen artworks. But a chord had been struck and the older grandpa became, the more he would stare at this particular scene of northern Ontario.

He talked about the mood of the piece, a combination of melancholy, wistfulness and isolation. Then there was the unheard music – the howl of the coyote and the air-splitting whistle of the train. There are few more mournful sounds on earth. It depicted a time that was already over. Diesels and electrics now rule the rails. New infrastructure is replacing the grand old railway crossings. And nature in the raw is being driven further backwards into whatever bush remains.

Grandpa seemed to become more obsessed by the painting with each passing year. There was a sense it symbolized his own withdrawal from the newest fashions and influences to seek refuge in the past and more familiar memories from his youth. I asked but never got an answer about who the artist was. I came to believe grandpa had probably done it himself when he was a young man and lingering affection for those early days kept him in its thrall.

After the unofficial ceremony, we all moved into the house and the day resumed a more normal rhythm. We ate a late lunch, the other members of my family took their leave and I was left alone with Grandma. We sat quietly together in the dining room, each in our own thoughts. Finally, I broached the subject of the painting.

“Grandpa really loved that painting, eh, Nana?” I said.

“What? Oh sorry, I was thinking about something else. No, he absolutely hated it.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“He loathed that painting. He thought it was awful.”

“How can that be? He talked about it all the time.”

“I guess I can speak about it now. Look around you. This house is full of beautiful artworks. Your grandfather had terrific taste. He was a connoisseur. McEwen, Lemieux, Roberts and Ronald, those are the artists we’ve bought over the years, all top rung.”

She could see my confusion and continued with her story. “The painting we burned today was done by a boyfriend of mine from before I met your grandfather. It was given to me as a present after a brief intimacy that was quickly over. When Fred and I got married, I insisted we hang it in a prominent place partly as a test of our new partnership.

“After some preliminary resistance, Fred came through beautifully. He accepted me for who I am, past, present and future. Gradually over the years, we were even able to laugh about
Coyote Moon
as we came to call it. Then as far as the rest of you were concerned, Fred had some secret fun putting you on about his regard for that painting.”

“Then why burn it?”

“To officially bury my long-ago past. And out of respect for your grandfather. He really did think the painting was horrible. To have lived with it all those years for my sake made him quite a man.”

I was still stunned and it showed. That’s when she said the words that have stayed with me ever since.

“You still have some living to do, don’t you, Sonny?”

So You Think You Know Flop Sweat

November 28, 2009

It’s a terror nearly as elemental as the fear of dying. It can bring strong men to their knees and turn the smartest of women into incoherent babblers. Maybe you already know where I’m headed. It’s public speaking and there’s nothing else quite like its scary prospect. Many people would rather go through a spinal tap than have to address an audience. I know the feeling. It’s been part of my job throughout my adult life and not once have I ever been completely relaxed.

Do it often enough and it does get easier. When I was starting out in my career, I would begin to get anxious weeks before a speaking engagement. Only in the last several years has my period of anxiety been reduced to a couple of days ahead of time, followed by a night of sleeplessness afterwards. It’s easy to get so wound up it’s impossible to find tranquility.

In my own small way, I have come to understand why professional entertainers need to find equilibrium by artificial means. The highs and the lows are too extreme. I have managed to get my most extreme anxiety down to about one hour before I am called to the podium. I prefer to be outside the room until the very last moment. But often that is not possible. The hosts of whatever event one has been invited to often expect their guest to mix with the delegates. Believe me, the last thing one wants to do is to insult someone who will be sitting in the audience.

This opens the door to all kinds of problems. Someone might ask a question I can’t answer, which is hardly a confidence builder. Or they might give expression to that most dreaded of all queries, “So Alex, what are you going to tell us today?” My mind usually goes blank when so confronted. If some intelligence does creep back in, then there’s the matter of responding in a sentence or two. And if I do pull it off, whatever reason is there for anyone to linger on in the room? Never mind that I hate to have to say the same thing over again when I’m on stage.

There are some people who seem to be naturally outgoing and love to stand in front of an audience. I’m more reticent, but I’ve learned to do it anyway. One of my coping mechanisms is to make sure I have gone over my material an adequate number of times. I have found three to be the right number of trial presentations. At that level, the words will come out under almost any circumstances, from panic attack right up to and including nuclear bombardment. Actually, the latter has never really been tested, but I suspect it would hold true regardless.