1 | (continued)

Days passed, and my life entered something like a routine. Rain or shine, I rose, dressed, splashed a little water over me, spruced up, mounted my bike and headed off for the next interruption of my destiny: playing the latest flunky in the establishment of Boss, one of the slickest wheeler-dealers I have ever known.

Being around Boss usually had a way of lifting my depression, the after-effects of a nervous breakdown a few years earlier, but I should have expected that such trivia as we would often entertain, amusing as they may have been at the moment, could not sustain their lift by the time I got back to the tent. Regardless of the weather, the endemic loneliness of my life would descend upon me like a psychic millstone as the bike bumped down the tractor lane, and by the time I stood beside the silent tent, near the silent fields, with hours to somehow fill before dark, the malignant emptiness, not so much of myself, but of most of life as it generally gets lived, filled the landscape from horizon to horizon. Prozac was still in the testing phase at the time—not yet available to the public. Which explains why I was then addicted to lorazepam (Ativan), and remained so for four and a half years.

Reading was my main escape, as always, and I had selected a small library from the 750 books I’d left in storage. I became quickly familiar with the value and the vagaries of my three-cell flashlight, without which my sanity, such as it was, would have soon gone the way of my credit rating.

Across the fallow field, east of the tent, I could see a distinct dip in the terrain, the sure sign of a secluded stream, an ideal place to bathe—except that there was no cover for the walk there and back. It was less than 200 yards away, but for that whole distance I would have been visible from the road and the local farmhouses, and I felt too insecure under the circumstances for that kind of exposure. I had visions of Fir’s neighbors complaining to the authorities that he was harboring squatters, or subletting campsites, contrary to the rental agreement, the local zoning restrictions, the prevailing community traditions, etc.

So I had no choice but to bike around the long way, about a quarter-mile north of the house, to the next road, which crossed the stream on a small concrete bridge. Before reaching the bridge, I descended the embankment to the water, carrying the bike through a small, sloping patch of woods. A lot of trouble for a bath, I know, but it was my first since I’d arrived, and it’s all my grandmother’s fault— bathing every day was part of her religion, and she remains the only Saint (Methodist) I’ve ever personally met.

The season being mid-spring, and the latitude being halfway between equator and pole, the stream was a lot colder than I would have wished, and the only shred of hope I could cling to was that the weather was bound to warm up soon, and I could always, if necessary, heat the water.

A week passed this way, with very few, but disturbingly earnest, concerns expressed by Fir, interspersed by what he thought were persuasive bits of advice on the great life style opportunities I was passing up in the local area. One apartment he touted, in a small town several miles to the east, no doubt a horror, was, in his judgement, a steal at $900 a month.

(It still amazes me that I’ve never heard anyone comment on the truly insidious implications of the word apartment. Who would truly wish to be apart if he could avoid it? There are many things we might wish to be apart from, but without Something to be apart for, or at least Someone to be apart with, it is scarcely worth the inner torment.)

And, Fir reminded me, there’s always the nearby estate where Gord had rented space for a year or two: a huge place, with lots of bush — plenty of secluded glades in which to camp unseen. And there was an even better spot, right across the road from a golf course…. Anything to get rid of me, of course, but I did bike around to some of his suggested hideouts just to confirm my prejudices. Nothing. As in photography, so in campsites: good taste is not easily learned.

When Gord came up to visit a few days later, he and Fir discussed the present dilemma: can this character be trusted? Gord, assessing the balance of loyalty being called for here, and noting more or less where his bread was buttered —where his trailer was parked—informed Fir that I had a long history of financial difficulties. He was no doubt still smarting from an observation I’d made years earlier, that he was probably one of Canada’s best wood-carvers, but he wasn’t an Artist, because he had nothing to say.

As Cicero succinctly put it:

Obsequium parit amicos. Veritas parit odium.

(Compliance produces friends; truth produces hate.)

Chapter Two >

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