Darwin Alone in the Universe Read online

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  GIFTS

  THE RETURN

  THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU

  JANE AND MR. LEAKEY

  DROUGHT ON THE CASH FLOW RIVER

  DOUBLE-WIDE

  ATTILA THE BOOKSELLER

  THE WHITE SATIRE

  IN THIS INSTANCE

  DOWN THE ROAD TO ETERNITY

  OASIS

  PRINCE CHARMING REMEMBERS

  TEN POINT LESSON

  MRS. BEAN

  THE HEARTSPEAK WELLNESS RETREAT

  TEN POINT DEFENSE

  THE HOLIDAY

  THE INEVITABLE, ONCE MET

  THE TOWERING SON

  THE POET WHO CAME IN THREE SIZES

  BRAVE NEW DESIRES

  TEN POINT TOUR

  DARWIN ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE

  A.

  THE NEW YEAR

  THE ADVICE GIVER

  WHOOPS

  THE MIRROR

  TRAVEL

  NEW LAWS

  THE DATA ENTRY CLERK

  VISITATION AT BARB’S CAFÉ, LADYSMITH, BRITISH COLUMBIA

  LANNY DOES NOT EXIST

  CHEERLEADING

  TEN POINT WEIGHT

  THE SALE OF MYSTERIES

  THE FESTIVAL

  GRAND FINALE

  THE LITTLE PIECES OF YOUR MIND

  THE ENLIGHTENMENT BAND

  THE PASTORAL SITUATION

  THE AIR IS THICK WITH METAPHORS

  AUTHOR PHOTO

  Copyright Information

  For Terry, Bill, and Anna

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, and to the Seaview Cultural Fund, Victoria, B.C., for generous support.

  Grateful thanks also to the editors of the following publications where sections of the book first appeared: Mondohunkamooga, Toronto, 1996, “Attila the Bookseller”; Geist, 1997, “The Little Pieces of Your Mind”; Ottawa Citizen, 1998, “Gifts”; Adbusters, 1998, “Lanny Does Not Exist”; Reference West Chapbook Series, 1999, the chapbook titled “Gifts” which included “Gifts,” “The Things I Do For You,” “Whoops,” “Mrs. Bean,” “The Festival,” and “The Little Pieces of Your Mind”; Monday Magazine, Victoria, 2000, a shortened version of “Down the Road to Eternity”; Geist, 2001, “Attila the Bookseller”; Exact Fare Only: Good, Bad & Ugly Rides on Public Transportation, Grant Buday, Editor, Anvil Press, 2001, “Gifts”; Adbusters, 2002, “Darwin Alone in the Universe”; Mouth, USA, 2002, “Darwin Alone in the Universe”; All Wound Up—Alternative Writing from British Columbia, Patrick Robertson, David Samis, Vanessa Violini, Christopher Wilson, Editors, Ripple Effect Press, 2002, “Darwin Alone in the Universe”; The Art Tree, Far Field Press, 2002, Alan Brown, Editor, “The Festival”; The Wayward Coast, Far Field Press, 2003, Alan Brown, Editor “The Heartspeak Wellness Retreat”; St. Peter’s Anthology, St. Peter’s Press, 2003, Dave Margoshes, Editor, “The Mirror.”

  Special thanks to Kalle Lasn of Adbusters for granting permission to use the illustrations for the title story, “Darwin Alone in the Universe,” which first appeared in that magazine.

  The story, “Darwin Alone in the Universe,” contains quotes from Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny published in 1979 by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Facility of the U.S. Dept. of Energy. The illustration concepts for the story “Darwin Alone in the Universe” and for the cover of this book are by M.A.C. Farrant, after illustrations found in Nuclear Survival Skills (1979 edition), with additional illustration by Valerie Thai.

  Photo of M.A.C. Farrant’s teeth by Dr. Ragnar Eeg, DDS, with thanks.

  INTRODUCTION

  Beginning a story, “Where Have All the Prophesies Gone?” I wrote: “When I was a child in the ’50s and early ’60s, everyone expected that we’d soon be eating pills instead of dinner, that we’d be riding around in personal helicopters, and that in this polished and idle and mechanized future we’d work one or two days a week, then play golf or pursue hobbies. This was the prevailing view of paradise.”

  This living hopefulness was as much a part of that time as is our fear today, that generalized edginess we have about where we are going, the world seen as ominous, hostile, and that period in the ’50s and ’60s, as merely a blip, merely pre-everything: pre-Anti-War, pre-cancer epidemic, pre-ozone and AIDS, pre-environmental, pre-victimization, pre-consumerism, and so on.

  Now, in place of naivete, contamination and dislocation are the prevailing moods.

  Contamination: of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the thoughts we think.

  Dislocation: of a people loving, bearing children, living in this world, and believing that their lives are inauthentic, of little value, in light of celebrity, in light of a doomed environment.

  Still, individual voices surface relentlessly like life-rings in a wild sea.

  This group of stories is about “change.” Because if you look at a thing long enough what you get is a bouquet of perceptions, various interpretations present themselves. The prolonged gaze that manifests itself in words. The prolonged questioning that attempts to keep apace with (and apart from) the times. Everything must be considered, especially our ceaseless quests for a living paradise.

  So … working on “change,” in a way, is the same as working on “vision”: a bouquet of views, of meanings, symbols, metaphors, and mysteries, of explanations and roadmaps, of concomitant alternative realities presented as existent.

  M.A.C. Farrant September 2002

  “I will be an incommensurate wanderer here,” said Ho Min. “I will not wander any further than the next step.”

  —“Sacred Tales, vol. 3”

  from Hiding Place of the Comediennes

  GIFTS

  I CALLED FOR AN EARLY MORNING TAXI and they sent a hearse. In a cunning effort to keep my mood black, I reasoned. A hearse. Making sure I got the point. But I got in. Liking the way the hearse idled in the driveway like a limousine. The way the uniformed driver opened the door, solicitous as an usher. Inside the hearse: music playing—Mozart’s Requiem or it could have been Pink Floyd At Condo Hall. I sat in the front seat beside the driver feeling strangely buoyed: we were carrying no casket.

  Traveling to the city, then, at a funereal pace. Noting the sober glances from passersby: a woman at an intersection with a look of heavy concern, a group of pensioners staring grimly. I smiled and waved, determined to be sunny.

  Delivered at length to Forty-Fifth and Sharpe. There to walk the streets, my pockets full of dollar coins. To dispense at random to the squatting street kids with their dogs, sleeping bags, packs. And when a man asked for a cigarette I gave him the one I was smoking. And when a drunk holding an empty Listerine bottle said, “Spare change?” I gave him the rest of my coins. Thinking: whatever happened to Karl Marx?

  Thinking: gifts. And the pigskin wallet that you in your downy life might possibly need. Visiting the warehouse where my old friend Mona practiced supply side economics. In theory. Seven hundred pigs and a staff of twelve. The staff toiling third world fashion—strip, snip, toss. With a conveyer belt to the Chinese restaurant next door. The warehouse air chemically treated—made cool and sweet—keeping the pigskins supple. Row upon row of skins hanging from lines like laundry.

  And last week in the mail from the Bank of Commerce, another gift: Free Accidental Death Insurance to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars. For being a loyal consumer. What is this business of giving?

  Choosing your wallet from the many pigskin items happily displayed. Buying wholesale. Thinking dear. Thinking: business might be a good way to go: simple rules and your nose aquiver with ad campaigns, market forces: your life reduced to yea or n
ay. And Mona to admire, a woman meaning business, with advice to give: Oppose takeover bids. Prune your life of all things grey—sluggish partners and so forth.

  And will you admire your new wallet with its pouches greedy for your extra bills? Bought with wholesale intentions, mainly dear, love and so forth. And will my gift prove to be a wise investment? Thinking: what ever happened to Walt Whitman, that freewheeling champion of giddy days?

  Propelling myself, then, to the afternoon reception where I paid homage to three floors of newly installed books. Keeping my mood on the far side of black. In theory. So many books. So little interest. Helped along in this endeavor by complimentary wine and sushi. Prowling the guests for advantage. And meeting Karen entertaining a crowd about Jack: I got him straight from his mother and she practically wiped his ass. He doesn’t know what helping is. Comes home, sits in front of the TV, plays with his computer. Gives me a face if I ask him to feed the dogs.

  Thinking: whatever happened to the Dali Lama and the untainted, generous life?

  Back on the streets. The sun shining in spite of itself. A city duly warmed. Imagining the pile-lined slippers I might possibly buy. Another gift. For your nightly TV vigil. Compounding my investment; my mood surging to bright. And will your feet in pile-lined slippers thank me? Your feet tender from years of giving your all: pounding pavements, carpets, linoleum, grass.

  Meeting my friend Heather, then, for coffee at five dollars a pop. Coffee in theory. Made with chocolate, whipped cream, ad campaigns. The conversation turning to her lover, Ross: They don’t understand, do they? They don’t consider COMPLEXITY. For them it’s all business, the bottom line.

  Uh huh.

  Thinking: intravenous Buddhism. Cleverly attached to our sleeping arms—subliminal brain washing pumping us full of kindness, wisdom, love. And will the man asleep in the pet shop doorway thank me?

  Thinking of what Sartre said: There are two ways to go to the gas chamber, free or not free.

  Entering, then, the waiting hearse for my return trip home. Our newest form of public transportation, tailor made for those of us preferring the slow, gloomy sweep, the funereal glide. The hearse taking me home. Where I’m a volunteer participant in whatever falls my way. Sometimes smiling, sometimes not.

  And yesterday by mail a blessing from St. Mary’s Church. With a special message from the churchwardens: Please, we need your money.

  Giving and taking. Thinking: our ability to reconcile dark with light has diminished.

  Filling out my coupon for a bag of microwave popcorn. Free with a fill-up at Save-On-Gas.

  Intent on having giddiness.

  THE RETURN

  LIKE ULYSSES, I WAS GONE FOR TEN YEARS. Little changed in my absence.

  My husband was still in bed. He had not taken up weaving. “I’ve been using the services of an elderly prostitute named Crystal,” he told me. He looked wan and threadbare lying on the unmade bed, the sheets grey and unraveling.

  The dog was miserable when I left and not much had changed there either. Upon my return she leapt into my arms and bit me.

  My son, now thirty, was still at home watching TV—Great Sea Journeys of the World. But thinking, he said, of becoming a male siren in the Fall. At last, I thought, direction!

  Only my daughter had moved on. Uninterested in Queendom, she was living on a ranch in New Mexico, studying the adventurous techniques of Georgia O’Keefe.

  She had changed her name to Penny Pacific and was painting from memory the delicate pink interiors of the West Coast clam.

  THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU

  THE CAT’S MADE A DECISION. He doesn’t want his breakfast now. He got tired of waiting in front of his bowl. He sat in front of his empty bowl for forty-five minutes trusting that his breakfast would arrive. Demonstrating for us the famous “patience of a cat” behavior, staring calmly at his empty bowl. He didn’t lie down and wait. He sat. He might have even sighed. While you ignored him. Fussing about the kitchen cleaning up last night’s dishes. The cat watching you, waiting and trusting. Then he got mad. After forty-five minutes of waiting he got mad and went out the window.

  Don’t bother calling him now. He’s gone off hungry again. Don’t be surprised if he finds another home. Someplace where meals occur on time.

  It’s not my job to feed the cat, it’s yours. This was our agreement. We have it in writing from Salvador & Davis, Notary Public. You do the cat, I do the garbage. You signed the document. You affixed your curlicue signature to the document, beside my neat MacLean’s script. Judith M. Davis witnessed our signatures. It’s all down on paper. You agreed to feed the cat, even going so far as mentioning your love of cats, your relief at being spared the garbage duties. Judith M. Davis smiled when you said this. Herself a lover of cats, she told us, a hater of garbage. “ Aren’t we all,” I said, and then we left for the pet store where we purchased the cat.

  Save your breath. Don’t bother hanging out the window calling the cat. He’s not coming back. He’s catching another hummingbird. He’s caught four this week, leaving their chewed heads on the front porch mat. All because. Well, what did you expect? The cat’s telling us something by leaving these iridescent green hummingbird heads. This is not a case of wanton slaughter. End of story.

  “Technically,” you said, “the heads are garbage.”

  “Technically,” I said, “you’re right—but under the circumstances.”

  “Your department,” you said.

  And four times this week you walked away from the tiny heads. Our agreement didn’t mention the cross-contamination of duties. An oversight. I realize that now.

  I buried the hummingbird heads in the garden. Alongside the remains of the rabbits, snakes, mice and finches that the cat’s resorted to killing because his breakfast hasn’t arrived on time.

  Ed English came over pushing his walker while I was burying yesterday’s hummingbird. He planted the walker alongside the graves and stared at the earth while I was burying number four. Ed English is present at most of the burials. Yesterday, he shook his head as he always does and said what he always says, namely, “I’ll be next.” An ominous, hopeless tone to his voice. The red-rimmed eyes of Ed English staring at the gravesite. He seems to think that tending the backyard graves is my job in life, that I’m a gravedigger by choice. Ed English forgets what the rows of grave markers indicate. Besides the birds, mice, snakes and hummingbirds, Ed English thinks I’m ridding the neighborhood of Old Age Pensioners. An idea, incidentally, whose time may have come.

  Because Ed English is becoming noisome. It was the same with the plants, if you recall. They, too, had become noisome.

  Because each Fall you rip the year-old geraniums out of their hanging baskets, declaring, “They look like shit,” and throw them on the compost. (There’s a cluster of survivor geraniums planted by the back fence. Thanks to me.)

  “Noisome” equals your views about children.

  “They fracture the peaceful air with their whining, bawling and screaming,” was how you put it. And slept in the spare bed for a year.

  “Fair enough,” I finally said. And had my penis seen to.

  Twenty-seven years ago.

  For which you were grateful. Admit it. You were grateful. The things I do for you.

  Ed English was over Wednesday night while you were at the Centre playing Bridge. Watching me at the kitchen table while I made the grave markers, the balsam crucifixes. While I soldered on the species type and date of kill.

  “I thought there’d be more to it, making grave markers, digging graves,” Ed English said. “It’s beginning to look like dying is no big deal.”

  Here Kitty, Kitty.

  The cat returning in hope of an evening meal. Being fed by me. Then settling himself in the middle of the finished crucifixes.

  JANE AND MR. LEAKEY

  OKAY, WE WERE BORED. One night. One decade. We were sitting on the couch, staring out the window, waiting for the sunset to dazzle and we only had three and a half hours to go. So we
thought about it, sort of, and decided that the remedy for our boredom could be had with the purchase of a live pet to keep in a cage like a bunny. The idea just came to us. Like a cartoon light bulb flashing over our heads. Like inspiration.

  So we thought some more, sort of, and decided the new pet couldn’t be a bunny, after all, because of the cats. “Picture this,” one of us said: “Cat claws gripping the cage wire, then cat fangs and panic when the bunny attempts to flee, thump thumping to nowhere, then a bunny heart attack, then a bunny stiff … ”

  So a ferret. We decided on a ferret. Something miserable that could hold it’s own against the cats. Could even, if need be, destroy the cats. A nasty ferret in a cage on the kitchen floor to look at and love.

  We imagined our lives with a ferret. There’d be the initial reading up on ferrets; we’d feel obliged to do that. Then the shopping for one, or searching the internet wilds for one, and then, possibly, discovering that the only way to get hold of a ferret was to trap one.

  “How do you do that?” one of us said.

  “Make a trap using common household items like coat hangers and nylon stockings and plastic bags and empty cottage cheese containers and bobby pins. You blockhead.” One of us said. One of us called the other a “blockhead.”

  “Well, you’re a blockhead, too,” the other replied.

  That stated, we proceeded, sort of. We were still seated side by side on the couch at this juncture but had stopped holding hands. Irritated, affronted, cranky blockheads place their hands elsewhere.

  “We’d have to camp out in the bush, wouldn’t we? Like a pair of demented Jane Goodalls lusting for the trap to catch a real actual live ferret and not a cougar or something.”

  “I am not a Jane Goodall,” said the male one of us. “I’m more of a Leakey figure.”

  “Leakey? All right. If you wish, we’ll be Jane Goodall and Mr. Leakey there in the blind. That’s a hiding place, you know. Blind is a hiding place.”