Three Scoops is a Blast! (9 page)

Many times over the intervening months, Norman went back over his life to weigh the pros and cons of his individual actions. Had he been a good person or had he crossed over the line too many times? It was the “on balance” part of the equation that worried him. Through his night-time interactions with others in the spirit world, Norman learned how the system worked. Judgement-Day tests were no longer left to chance. A proper sizing-up was now done according to a scientific set of criteria. There was a check list. Certain items on the left side of a ledger would bring approbation. Other items on the right side would earn accolades.

Most souls spent their remaining time on earth before New Year’s Eve fretting over the lists. That was all very well, but there were still two problems. First, there remained a good deal of subjective judgement on the part of adjudicators as to whether or not a certain action was positive or negative not only for the specific individual but also in terms of repercussions for the populace at large. Second, and even trickier to assess, was how much weighting would be given to each course of action. No formerly-human spirit had access to that information.

Norman looked at the lists. Some of the items were obvious. Murderers, robbers and philanderers were going to be in trouble. Caregivers, benefactors and the charitable already had a step up, as it were. But a number of the other categories were a surprise. For example, emotional button-pushers had a separate and prominent box on the negative side of the ledger. However, this was immediately followed by another box for those who allowed their buttons to be pushed , either in terms of getting mad or becoming despondent too easily under criticism.

Jealousy, greed and covetousness also figured strongly on the downside and frankly, the list of bad things one could be accused of vastly outnumbered the good things. “Hard working” was a positive. Maintaining a sunny disposition even under adversity was also a winner, but Norman’s confidence was sinking regardless. That is, until he came across an item way down among the pluses he never expected to see. Incredibly, this might be his saving grace.

~~

Much of what I have written so far is based on supposition. But I don’t think I’m far off the mark. I have good reason for drawing the conclusions I have come to. I knew Norman very well and I was there at his apotheosis. Let me explain. When Norman died, I had an especially tough time of it. A light had been turned off. Work was drudgery. Half a year later, when the Christmas season arrived, I chose to spend it in lonely isolation at my cottage on Georgian Bay.

As the stroke of twelve approached on New Year’s Eve, I was drawn to the beach. I would mark the occasion with a glass of wine outdoors under the stars. The southern rim of Georgian Bay is a region where the waters of the great lakes congregate. It’s the base of a shoreline that sweeps from beachfront on the east to semi-mountainous terrain on the west. Like cupped hands with fingertips touching, it forms an upside-down fulcrum. The water usually doesn’t freeze until mid-January.

At the midnight hour, to my astonishment, a spectral shape reached slowly out of the dark waters of the bay and stretched skywards. It gradually coalesced into the image of an escalator with a half-empty payload of shining wraiths working their way upwards. Backlighting from a full moon showed the grandstand from which these souls would be able to keep an eye on earth’s events.

In relatively quick succession, a second escalator snaked downward into the inky void. This was the means of transportation for those on their way to a torturous eternity. I know what you’re thinking, that the second escalator was a reflection of the first. No, there were a great many more souls being transported on the second device and they were clearly in distress.

Across the water on that frigid night, I heard what I didn’t think I would ever encounter again. It was the voice of an angel singing about heartbreak and tenderness. I recognized it immediately. More accurately, it was the intonation of two voices wrapped in one. Norman was doing his best impression ever. I can speak of this with authority, since I was his booking agent.

The sound of that singing was moving upward. Salty tears encrusted my eyes until the serenade gradually faded away. I’m pretty sure I know what happened. I must surmise that “Elvis impersonator” is on God’s side of the ledger. And why would it not be? The music of The King has brought joy to millions. Commensurate with the pleasure it brings into people’s lives, its relative importance is immense.

Catching Up on the Not So Local News

(a.k.a. Burying Barry in Barrie)

January 2, 2010

Spoiler alert: This story is full of Canadian place names that may not be familiar to some or even many. Nevertheless, the fun of trying to weave together a tale from a multitude of disparate strands should come through. And yes, Virginia, there is a Victoria B.C. and a Brandon, Manitoba.

North of the city and not that long ago, I eaves-dropped on the following conversation in a local diner.

MAN: Do ya suppose it’s okay to bury Barry in Barrie?

WOMAN: He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

MAN: Bad how he bought it, though.

WOMAN: Yes, busting his back when he fell off his burro. He and that burro made a good team. They traveled all over northern Ontario.

MAN: So I’ve heard. After a nip of the suds, the burro would sing. It was a legend in Sudbury and Nippissing.

WOMAN: They didn’t always get along. He called it Scar after it bit him in Scarborough. They were both going after the same burrito.

MAN: That’s what I was told too. Gary in Calgary gave me a call. People sure get around these days.

WOMAN: That’s for certain. Did you hear about Gary’s sister, Cathy, in St. Catharines? She was a saint, married to Hal from Halifax all those years.

MAN: Tell me about it. He had horrible halitosis and no sense of humour.

WOMAN: You can’t blame her for the breakup. He worked on a trawler, but she caught him wearing highliner eye liner. How heartbreaking.

MAN: They were married by a monk in Moncton. His superior from Abbotsford didn’t approve. Never knew why.

WOMAN: I can answer that. Because those Maritime marriages often don’t last. Charlotte from Charlottetown got fed up with Fred from Fredericton in no time at all.

MAN: I know that story. He took a fancy to Brooke from Sherbrooke.

WOMAN: So did every other guy. Halifax Harry, Regina Reggie and Edmonton Eddie were chasing her at the same time.

MAN: They went to university together. If they all show up at Barry’s funeral, it could be interesting.

WOMAN: Brooke’s mother, Nadia, was the first person to dance the Can-Can in Canada. My grandparents Al and Bertha once saw her perform in Alberta.

MAN: At the time, they were staying with Lloyd Munster in Lloydminster.

WOMAN: Munster’s twin boys were always getting in trouble.

MAN: Remember when Brad borrowed a Ford in Peterborough and his brother Peter drove it to Bradford.

WOMAN: Then you got conned by them in the Yukon, as I recall. Luckily, I was having none of it in Nunavut when the pair showed up there.

MAN: They almost took all my money. I gave my wallet to Ron to take to Toronto for safekeeping. Why do we find these people so fascinating?

WOMAN: I’ve often thought about that too. It’s beyond me.

MAN: So we have enough money to bury Barry?

WOMAN: Yes, let’s wrap this up so you can go home to Manitoba, Brandon.

MAN: And you to B.C., Victoria.

The Wizard and the Rose

January 9, 2010

Liz Stuckey’s marriage to her husband, Brian, was not without its rewards. First, there was their daughter Abby who was a delightful child of eight and accounted for much of Liz’ appreciation of life. Then there was her comfortable existence in the suburbs, with a 3,000 square-foot home and a Lexus in the driveway. Of course, it was Brian who drove the Lexus, but the cachet still enveloped the whole family. Liz drove a serviceable but hardly glamorous Dodge Caravan.

Brian, however, was another matter. Most nights, he wasn’t home. He either stayed late at work or he was out with the boys, playing in a house-league game or hanging around a tavern watching one of Toronto’s numerous professional sports teams on big-screen TV. Both Liz and Abby felt some sense of betrayal and abandonment, but most of the time, they got by alright.

Liz had her own pre-occupations buried in her family history. There was a matter about which she felt a weighty sense of obligation. Perhaps there was more she could have done. Liz’ older brother Edward had turned into a troubled young man. Throughout his university years, his professors marked him as brilliant. But he’d been overwhelmed by emotional problems.

Try as they might, the Smith family elders had never been able to rescue him from his demons. Bouts of rehab and mood-altering drugs all came up short. The upshot was Edward disappeared into the legions of the homeless in the city’s core when Liz was only in her teens. She’d been too young to do anything about it then and her sense of loss and impotence never left her. There was no doubt in her mind she still had a duty to perform.

Since her father died and her mother’s health deteriorated, mainly due to heartache, Liz had adopted a new routine. For the past decade, there was one day a year when Liz would go to her friend Cynthia’s florist shop and purchase two dozen yellow roses. Cynthia would usually throw in an extra one for good measure, bringing the total to 25. Liz would sit in her car and carefully cut each blossom to a length of five or six inches, also snipping off the thorns along the remaining stems. Then she would drive downtown. This was a journey that always threw her into heightened anxiety, not only due to the traffic but also on account of what she imagined she might find when she got there. She never wavered, though, and proved she was a trooper.

She’d park the car around Sherbourne and King Streets and make her way west on foot. Along the route, she’d pause when she encountered some derelict soul and hand them one of her roses, all the while checking if a flicker of recognition might cross their face or creep into her own. Originally, she had shown pictures of her brother to some of the people she met, including social workers and the “soldiers” of the Salvation Army. Lately, though, she’d given up that effort.

Life on the streets was hard on people and the change in appearance in a short period of time could be unbelievable. She wasn’t even sure what she would do if she did meet her brother. It wasn’t as if she could take him into her home. His problems had always been too deep and ingrained. But she had to try to find him if for no other reason than to let him know she cared.

The first person she encountered that night seemed harmless from an approaching distance of ten feet or so. He was a stooped version of a former giant, with straggly red hair and craterous skin. But standing right in front of him and getting a close-up look at his face, sent a jolt of fear through her. His countenance was as angry as any she’d ever seen. Suppressing her trembling, she handed over a flower. It took a moment to register, but the positive change in his appearance was astonishing. Liz moved on quickly. This might augur well for the rest of the evening.

Two hours later, Liz had worked her way across King Street all the way to Bay. That’s where the skyscrapers stood. Sixty-storey and higher towers loomed over all the corners of the intersection. Giant media screens with advertising, stock information from foreign exchanges and the latest news lit up the sky. Human diminishment and eerie dislocation were hard to shove aside.

Liz was getting tired and there was only one rose left. She crossed the street on a green light to pass on her final floral treasure to an indigent who had camped on the south sidewalk, swathed only in a sleeping blanket, other assorted scraps of fabric and cardboard. The cold of the night at this time of year was like what one might imagine encountering in the vacuum of outer space.

~~

Ever since the Wiz came to appreciate his skill in math, he’d been grappling with one question. It occupied all of his time, costing him all prospects and pushing him to the brink of insanity. He had a theory with the potential to explain the most important subject of all, good versus evil.

In his younger days, when he’d been more cogent, his proposition was framed as follows. Most people think they know what one plus one adds up to. Well they’re wrong. One plus one does not equal two. Nor does it make 11 as grade schoolers like to say in their riddle. Nor is it the punch line for the joke about the shady accountant which ends with, “Whatever you’d like it to be.”

No, one plus one, when it comes to human affairs, is always more or less than the individual parts. The interpersonal reaction of one-on-one results in a net plus or a net minus. In the case of the former, the difference between the whole and the sum is a quantifiable good. That’s where angels live. In the event of the latter, the net negative, that’s where soul eaters are born and derive their nourishment. One always has to worry about being pursued by soul eaters.

When many people get together and behave well, such as in charity events or in response to catastrophe in weather-ravaged regions of the world, the storehouse of good receives a boost to its inventory. When gatherings of people turn into a lawless mob, the subtraction from the whole is nothing short of evil. At all times, the psychic balance of the world can be determined by mathematical calculations. The Wiz had been working for years to figure out the exact formulas.