Underwater Heartbeat - Saturday Looks Good to Me(listen in new tab)
You could pass it on the street if you weren’t looking for it.
The neon sign above V. I. Lenin’s hasn’t been lit since the late 90’s, when the tubes’ noble gasses gave up their spirits, flickered and darkened. These days the silhouette of the bar’s namesake, traced abstractly in dead glass, keeps a dim vigil over the regulars and intrepid new comers.
Few except the bar’s owners, two failed band mates who took up the cause when the first owner disappeared, remember when opening the faded and scuffed, peeling red metal doors meant passing under the sign’s stern glow.
Tonight the doors swing open. A cluster of girls come out for a smoke. The door drags shut behind them, dampening the sounds brazen enough to escape into the night. The loose corners of hanging gig posters flutter in the spring night’s lazy wind.
Two 30-something men, bearing the clothes and meager wages of their self-absorbed, unending liberal education arrive. One pulls open the door, while the other makes quick eye contact with a skinny blonde as she casually lights her cigarette. He follows his friend inside. The blonde watches them enter as she gently waves her match in the wind to extinguish it.
Inside the music is cranked up and loudly echoes down the short hallway that leads from the door. The walls there are lined with gig posters of various currency and importance.
The two men walk past the folded-up table where cover is usually collected and passed the dormant empty coat check. They pass a few people who came into the hall so they can hear their cell phones, straining ears against the noise.
As the two enter into the main part of V.I.’s, they crane their necks looking for friends, their faces etched in a vain look of confident frequency. They are regulars - capital R regulars. With practiced ambivalent looks, they peer through the crowd milling back and forth from the bar to tables or the slowly filling dance floor. They mark paths through the complex valleys of necks and shoulders.
One looks with disdain at his watch. It’s still relatively early, only 10:00pm. Friday night is still getting into its swing. The other waves to someone off at the tables where a large group sits crammed in on the raised floor along the far left wall. He taps his buddy on the shoulder and heads in that direction. The other follows, and in his inattentiveness, shoulder-checks K.
K, pint in each hand, does his best to dodge, executing a 180 degree turn to avoid spilling. It ends up being more of a 140. He stops short of colliding with a heavy set man in a varsity football jacket.
G.T. leans against the rail that hems in the dance floor, watching K’s evasive maneuvers. He laughs to himself as K mouths a silent curse when the football player turns to tell him to “watch it”.
G.T. finishes his current glass. The slightly warm beer catches in his throat, causing him to cough into his fist. He places the empty glass on the wooden ledge behind him without looking.
A cluster of women walk by back from having a smoke no doubt. They’re maybe 23. G.T. eyes them discretely, but but not so covertly as to prevent himself from making eye contact with one of them when she looks back.
He’s not on the market. But, he loves that moment, the brief second when you meet eyes and your mind ripples. That second of tangible mystery. He lets it pass unchased and chastened.
He loves this bar. He met K here during an undergraduate pub-crawl way back when, and they latched onto it as favourite watering hole. G.T. does not view himself as one who is in the habit of living in the past. But he enjoys his history in place.
He likes the gentle wash of his past indiscretions. When he’s here, he gets to wade into them. Like tropical waters, safe and warm near the shore, but they drop off quickly - more often than he’d care to admit. And then you’re out to sea…
G.T. is also not in the habit of reliving his mistakes.
K finally navigates his way over. He hands off one pint to G.T.: “You’re up next.” It has been almost eight years that they’ve known each other, and K insists still on reminding G.T. whose turn it is.
G.T. taps K’s glass with his. The fragile clink is lost in the bar, washed over and under by a sudden burst of “Wooos!” from the dance floor.
K: “You hear from the girls?”
G.T.: “No. You?”
K doesn’t feel his phone vibrate in the pocket of his windbreaker. A few moments later, G.T. PDA, tucked into the pocket of his jeans start to ring. He barely hears the little jingle, but somehow senses. He pulls it out, looks at the display, his face lit blue-grey in the LCD glow. He takes on an unintended pallor. He smiles, shows K the display. “Hey, it’s Claire.”
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Military Madness (Nathan Graham)
Military Madness (Nathan Graham) – Woods(listen in new tab)
9:30, that Friday.
Brae closes her apartment door, locks it and drops her key into a green leather clutch. She’s ready to go out, dressed in tight dark jeans and a strategically fitted t-shirt.
The music in the hallway is muffled by the building’s yellowed wallpapered walls. Brae thinks to herself that those kids down the hall always play the worst music way too loud. She’s happy that the old building, thinned with age, still lets only a little through.
That no-fi or whatever is just not her cup of tea. Not enough sex; no groove.
Unperturbed, she bounces through the hall and bounds down the stairs, carried on the syrupy wings of a few well made rum and cokes.
Maura and she live in the same building. Brae on the third floor, back corner. Maura on the second floor in a small apartment stuck in the middle of two older couples. It’s probably the cheapest building in the city. It doesn’t hurt that Brae’s dad owns the place.
Brae passes a familiar stain on the stairwell wainscoting as she jumps the last few steps to the second floor landing. A light brown splotch, on the irregularly faded fake wood, washed out by decades of sun from the stairwell’s southern exposure.
It makes her think about when Maura moved in five years ago.
It was snowing; one of those early March days that threaten to paralyze the city with snow. Brae was coming back from some cloying grad seminar run by a vainglorious Proust scholar. She had felt battered by his appraisal of a recent paper; she was ready to sink into a meditative beer.
When she saw the white rental van parked out front, she ignored it. There was almost always someone moving in or out. Brae was used to it.
Brae literally crashed into Maura (on her way back down). Brae habitually blindly, tore up the three flights of stairs, and having gained some momentum collided with Maura. The two of them spun off each other, came to rest in orbit.
Maura was bronzed back then. Her skin had that legitimate brown that came only from long exposure. Her dark hair, longer than she ever keeps it now, was pulled back in a loose pony tail.
She wore track pants and a hoodie, slightly unzipped from the heat of running up and down the stairs. But she wasn’t sweating. She was fit, a creature of solid endurance encased in parsimonious skin.
Brae apologised for not looking. Maura smiled kindly, introduced herself as new to the place. Brae realized, hearing a lilt of fatigue, that she was moving in by herself. So, she offered to help.
As they ran up and down the stairs, they raced a blizzard that made each load increasingly treacherous. But, there wasn’t that much to move in: a sparse collection of boxes and some furniture with the tags still on them from thrift stores where she bought them.
When they were done, Brae brought down some wine and Maura produced some plastic glasses, cutting open a box with a jackknife. She wielded it readily, slicing the tape with judicious skill.
To Brae, Maura seemed a person of aplomb force. She exuded a tension, a practiced rigour that took years to dissipate, as over the years her skin whitened and her body softened. She relaxed into the city, letting herself expand as she grew used to its ambivalent comfort.
As they drank, the chill in the apartment lifted. Maura warmed by the wine, took off her sweater. She only wore a faded green tank top. She had no tan lines, except one. Brae never asked about the thin pale band on her left hand.
Over the next weeks as Maura settled in, Brae would visit. The apartment gradually became a home. But, some things were missing. There were no photos, no pictures of Maura and her ex, no family barbecues, no awkward photos of some summer vacation during high school.
Maura never talked about where she came from and why she moved to Toronto, though she mentioned she was from there originally. Brae enjoyed the mystery, happy to have something in her life that defied penetration and analysis, enjoyed the thickness of her life that her grad school friends didn’t offer. Maura, probably, liked the peace of Brae’s disinterest with her withdrawn past.
That tacit, palpable naturalness formed the foundation of their friendship. One night a year later, the two of them were falling down drunk, outside a night club. Maura leaned on the wall of a bus shelter, her body lit, a pallor in the white light of the perfume ad. She said quietly that she’d almost been married once.
Brae replied that she had guessed. And, Maura told her a story. It was something that seemed so constrained and edited that it hardly seemed accurate. But, it felt true. Brae was satisfied with that and never pressed for more. It was a breach in Maura that never really opened again. Until K. Since last winter, she seemed more in the world then ever.
Now, she raps her familiar three taps on her friend’s door. “Honey, it’s me! Let’s go out! K and G.T. are at V.I.’s and waiting for us!”
Maura takes her time coming to the door. Brae knocks again. The door opens quickly. Brae steps back. Maura’s eyes are red, ringed in dark sleepless holes. Her body hangs loosely on her shoulders. The sweet, stained smell of whiskey on her breath.
When Maura tries to say hello, she almost falls out of the door. Brae puts her hands on Maura shoulders to steady her.
Brae: “Whoa. Having a… are you ok?”
Maura, leans against the door frame. She fishes into her pocket, pulls out the ring. “Edmund. He…”
9:30, that Friday.
Brae closes her apartment door, locks it and drops her key into a green leather clutch. She’s ready to go out, dressed in tight dark jeans and a strategically fitted t-shirt.
The music in the hallway is muffled by the building’s yellowed wallpapered walls. Brae thinks to herself that those kids down the hall always play the worst music way too loud. She’s happy that the old building, thinned with age, still lets only a little through.
That no-fi or whatever is just not her cup of tea. Not enough sex; no groove.
Unperturbed, she bounces through the hall and bounds down the stairs, carried on the syrupy wings of a few well made rum and cokes.
Maura and she live in the same building. Brae on the third floor, back corner. Maura on the second floor in a small apartment stuck in the middle of two older couples. It’s probably the cheapest building in the city. It doesn’t hurt that Brae’s dad owns the place.
Brae passes a familiar stain on the stairwell wainscoting as she jumps the last few steps to the second floor landing. A light brown splotch, on the irregularly faded fake wood, washed out by decades of sun from the stairwell’s southern exposure.
It makes her think about when Maura moved in five years ago.
It was snowing; one of those early March days that threaten to paralyze the city with snow. Brae was coming back from some cloying grad seminar run by a vainglorious Proust scholar. She had felt battered by his appraisal of a recent paper; she was ready to sink into a meditative beer.
When she saw the white rental van parked out front, she ignored it. There was almost always someone moving in or out. Brae was used to it.
Brae literally crashed into Maura (on her way back down). Brae habitually blindly, tore up the three flights of stairs, and having gained some momentum collided with Maura. The two of them spun off each other, came to rest in orbit.
Maura was bronzed back then. Her skin had that legitimate brown that came only from long exposure. Her dark hair, longer than she ever keeps it now, was pulled back in a loose pony tail.
She wore track pants and a hoodie, slightly unzipped from the heat of running up and down the stairs. But she wasn’t sweating. She was fit, a creature of solid endurance encased in parsimonious skin.
Brae apologised for not looking. Maura smiled kindly, introduced herself as new to the place. Brae realized, hearing a lilt of fatigue, that she was moving in by herself. So, she offered to help.
As they ran up and down the stairs, they raced a blizzard that made each load increasingly treacherous. But, there wasn’t that much to move in: a sparse collection of boxes and some furniture with the tags still on them from thrift stores where she bought them.
When they were done, Brae brought down some wine and Maura produced some plastic glasses, cutting open a box with a jackknife. She wielded it readily, slicing the tape with judicious skill.
To Brae, Maura seemed a person of aplomb force. She exuded a tension, a practiced rigour that took years to dissipate, as over the years her skin whitened and her body softened. She relaxed into the city, letting herself expand as she grew used to its ambivalent comfort.
As they drank, the chill in the apartment lifted. Maura warmed by the wine, took off her sweater. She only wore a faded green tank top. She had no tan lines, except one. Brae never asked about the thin pale band on her left hand.
Over the next weeks as Maura settled in, Brae would visit. The apartment gradually became a home. But, some things were missing. There were no photos, no pictures of Maura and her ex, no family barbecues, no awkward photos of some summer vacation during high school.
Maura never talked about where she came from and why she moved to Toronto, though she mentioned she was from there originally. Brae enjoyed the mystery, happy to have something in her life that defied penetration and analysis, enjoyed the thickness of her life that her grad school friends didn’t offer. Maura, probably, liked the peace of Brae’s disinterest with her withdrawn past.
That tacit, palpable naturalness formed the foundation of their friendship. One night a year later, the two of them were falling down drunk, outside a night club. Maura leaned on the wall of a bus shelter, her body lit, a pallor in the white light of the perfume ad. She said quietly that she’d almost been married once.
Brae replied that she had guessed. And, Maura told her a story. It was something that seemed so constrained and edited that it hardly seemed accurate. But, it felt true. Brae was satisfied with that and never pressed for more. It was a breach in Maura that never really opened again. Until K. Since last winter, she seemed more in the world then ever.
Now, she raps her familiar three taps on her friend’s door. “Honey, it’s me! Let’s go out! K and G.T. are at V.I.’s and waiting for us!”
Maura takes her time coming to the door. Brae knocks again. The door opens quickly. Brae steps back. Maura’s eyes are red, ringed in dark sleepless holes. Her body hangs loosely on her shoulders. The sweet, stained smell of whiskey on her breath.
When Maura tries to say hello, she almost falls out of the door. Brae puts her hands on Maura shoulders to steady her.
Brae: “Whoa. Having a… are you ok?”
Maura, leans against the door frame. She fishes into her pocket, pulls out the ring. “Edmund. He…”
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Get to Leave
Get to Leave - Howe Gelb(listen in new tab)
The rain started slow; now it drives against Ulysses’s windowpane, strumming the glass in low notes along with the music playing inside.
Danielle sits on the counter, near the sink. Hera leans with her back against the espresso bar. They’re watching the rivulets of rain water fracture and refract the streetscape.
The next day, Thursday night, 7:00 pm, and the café’s been empty for a while.
Hera: “Danielle. I don’t know if you should sit on the counter like that. I mean…”
Danielle gives her a look. She lifts a hand; from it a set of brass keys on a worn shoelace, shaking them for effect. It’s been a frequent display lately. “Claire gave me these. So I’m in charge. I declare that I may sit here with this commanding view.”
Hera shrugs. “Whatever.” She eyes the place. It’s clean. She checks from habit the pastry case. Its white lights frosts the few cookies and cakes that remain in fresh stasis. The bakery run hasn’t happened yet. A day, no two days late. “I hate when there’s nothing to do.”
Danielle’s turn to shrug. “You could clean the washrooms.” She pushes herself off the counter with a flourish. “I guess this counter, too.”
Hera rolls her eyes. “Claire only gave you the key because she’s out trying to get some action from that rich guy. And, K couldn’t come in today.”
Danielle grabs a wide cream-white ceramic cup from a shelf. She casually rotates it in her hands, watching the coffee slosh against its curved walls as she fills the cup from a brushed steel carafe. “I am a woman who, despite her failings, has always made the most of the opportunities that present themselves.” She sips the black coffee with caliphatic pomp.
Hera: “Is that on your underwear?”
Danielle spits, spurting in a amber mist from her lips. “Jesus. Totally.”
The bell rings. The two girls look to see who it is. The noise of the rain is chaotic, but hushes the rain as the door closes behind Maura. The little bell shepherds back out the torrent damp taps.
Danielle, wiping her mouth with a piece of paper towel: “You got soaked right through, dear.”
Maura comes across the room. Soaked shoes tile leave dark stains that slowly dry and shrink. Her dark hair is matted, sticks in clumps to her forehead and her glasses. She pushes them out of the way, shaking her wet hands dry. Her nylon jacket, dark, damp and heavy, clings to her torso.
Maura: “Yeah. I guess I got caught.”
Hera: “You want a tea or something? To warm you up?”
Maura looks at her. Her glasses have fogged a little. Her face is etched with worry, or consternation, a look exaggerated by streaked mascara.
Maura: “No. Umm. No thanks. I’m just kind of blowing through. Is K here?”
Danielle: “No. He called me last night, late, asked me to switch Saturday’s close with this one. How could I say no?”
Maura: “Oh right.” Her voice is clumsy, caught off guard. As the fog on her glasses dissipates; Hera sees her eyes - red and tired, they are lost somewhere between confused, crestfallen, and relieved. A triangulation of discomfiture.
Hera: “He didn’t tell you?”
Maura, lies: “No. I must have forgot.” She proffers a weak smile. “I ran here in the rain, too. God.” A weak offering. “I should have called first.”
Hera: “You sure you don’t want anything?”
Maura backs away: “No. Really. I should go.” She turns and is out the door.
The rain rattles in, and is shooed out again. Hera leans out over the counter and watches Maura move out of sight, her body compressed into as little space as possible against the rain and whatever else.
Hera: “What was that about?”
Danielle: “Communication error. Also, way to push too hard. That could have been a sale.”
Hera scratches her shoulder. “Whatever. I mean, I hope she ok.”
Danielle: “She’s a big girl.” She sighs deeply. “It’s so dead here.” She flails her arm at the door. “It’s so dead, that counts as drama.”
Hera: “Yeah. I wish Claire would reconsider my idea.”
Danielle: “That competition, the café contest?”
Hera, hands in the air in frustration: “The Café Olympics. Arg! You should take it seriously. So should Claire. It did wonders for Johnny Bean Good across town.”
Danille: “That’s a terrible name.”
Hera: “It is a terrible name, but they’re busy as heck now. And there’s a prize for the barista or whatever who wins the most events.”
Danielle slaps Hera on the shoulder: “Prize? Now you’re talking.”
Hera: “Good luck, there. You know what espresso is, right?”
Danielle pushes her playfully. “Easy now, showboat.”
The rain started slow; now it drives against Ulysses’s windowpane, strumming the glass in low notes along with the music playing inside.
Danielle sits on the counter, near the sink. Hera leans with her back against the espresso bar. They’re watching the rivulets of rain water fracture and refract the streetscape.
The next day, Thursday night, 7:00 pm, and the café’s been empty for a while.
Hera: “Danielle. I don’t know if you should sit on the counter like that. I mean…”
Danielle gives her a look. She lifts a hand; from it a set of brass keys on a worn shoelace, shaking them for effect. It’s been a frequent display lately. “Claire gave me these. So I’m in charge. I declare that I may sit here with this commanding view.”
Hera shrugs. “Whatever.” She eyes the place. It’s clean. She checks from habit the pastry case. Its white lights frosts the few cookies and cakes that remain in fresh stasis. The bakery run hasn’t happened yet. A day, no two days late. “I hate when there’s nothing to do.”
Danielle’s turn to shrug. “You could clean the washrooms.” She pushes herself off the counter with a flourish. “I guess this counter, too.”
Hera rolls her eyes. “Claire only gave you the key because she’s out trying to get some action from that rich guy. And, K couldn’t come in today.”
Danielle grabs a wide cream-white ceramic cup from a shelf. She casually rotates it in her hands, watching the coffee slosh against its curved walls as she fills the cup from a brushed steel carafe. “I am a woman who, despite her failings, has always made the most of the opportunities that present themselves.” She sips the black coffee with caliphatic pomp.
Hera: “Is that on your underwear?”
Danielle spits, spurting in a amber mist from her lips. “Jesus. Totally.”
The bell rings. The two girls look to see who it is. The noise of the rain is chaotic, but hushes the rain as the door closes behind Maura. The little bell shepherds back out the torrent damp taps.
Danielle, wiping her mouth with a piece of paper towel: “You got soaked right through, dear.”
Maura comes across the room. Soaked shoes tile leave dark stains that slowly dry and shrink. Her dark hair is matted, sticks in clumps to her forehead and her glasses. She pushes them out of the way, shaking her wet hands dry. Her nylon jacket, dark, damp and heavy, clings to her torso.
Maura: “Yeah. I guess I got caught.”
Hera: “You want a tea or something? To warm you up?”
Maura looks at her. Her glasses have fogged a little. Her face is etched with worry, or consternation, a look exaggerated by streaked mascara.
Maura: “No. Umm. No thanks. I’m just kind of blowing through. Is K here?”
Danielle: “No. He called me last night, late, asked me to switch Saturday’s close with this one. How could I say no?”
Maura: “Oh right.” Her voice is clumsy, caught off guard. As the fog on her glasses dissipates; Hera sees her eyes - red and tired, they are lost somewhere between confused, crestfallen, and relieved. A triangulation of discomfiture.
Hera: “He didn’t tell you?”
Maura, lies: “No. I must have forgot.” She proffers a weak smile. “I ran here in the rain, too. God.” A weak offering. “I should have called first.”
Hera: “You sure you don’t want anything?”
Maura backs away: “No. Really. I should go.” She turns and is out the door.
The rain rattles in, and is shooed out again. Hera leans out over the counter and watches Maura move out of sight, her body compressed into as little space as possible against the rain and whatever else.
Hera: “What was that about?”
Danielle: “Communication error. Also, way to push too hard. That could have been a sale.”
Hera scratches her shoulder. “Whatever. I mean, I hope she ok.”
Danielle: “She’s a big girl.” She sighs deeply. “It’s so dead here.” She flails her arm at the door. “It’s so dead, that counts as drama.”
Hera: “Yeah. I wish Claire would reconsider my idea.”
Danielle: “That competition, the café contest?”
Hera, hands in the air in frustration: “The Café Olympics. Arg! You should take it seriously. So should Claire. It did wonders for Johnny Bean Good across town.”
Danille: “That’s a terrible name.”
Hera: “It is a terrible name, but they’re busy as heck now. And there’s a prize for the barista or whatever who wins the most events.”
Danielle slaps Hera on the shoulder: “Prize? Now you’re talking.”
Hera: “Good luck, there. You know what espresso is, right?”
Danielle pushes her playfully. “Easy now, showboat.”
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