Mastering the Dance

The unspoken deal was sealed. In exchange for the devotion of a student, Danny would share his secrets to life lived large – free of the ties of a petty morality and the restraints of social norms that scared one back into the herd. The call of the true self would always take you beyond the bounds of what’s expected. Boundaries kept sacred by the so-called successful; Bankers, Vice-principals, cops and certain Sunday-school teachers.

Those people were good at being good - they enjoyed snitching on kindergarten mates for colouring outside the lines – and with the wrong colours too! How did they ever become so powerful? What in their threats carried such fear? How long did one have to be an outcast before you discovered that those threats of exclusion and shame could push you no further than you’d already been pushed?

There was another set of rules. Rules made and kept by those who excelled at crossing the line where the rules lie. All the forbidden fruits of violence, sex, and greed were there to be stolen and sold. The outlaw rules were as tough to keep as the others. The keepers of the outlaw codes were as mean-spirited and power-hungry as those who patrolled moral codes – both armed with petty jealousies – chunks, not chips, on their shoulders.

Those without talent for either good, or evil, ended up serving both sets of rules at the same time – caught between the impossible, half-starved, choices of staying straight and doing time in dead-end jobs or being criminal and risk doing time in all-expenses paid government hotels. But serving, always in service, to whoever controlled the payouts and punishments.

The third option was to live with beauty as your Master. These folk danced the road between the two shoulders crossing the centre lines, changing direction with the wind, and enjoying the trip seemingly uninterested in destinations. They could turn the grey pavement between morality and immorality, between the sacred and the profane, between the profound and the silly, into the yellow-brick road. This alchemy was both worthless and priceless - depending on who your patrons were. Do you dance for the Maker creating sidewalk masterpieces washed away with the rain? Or do you deal with the Devil putting trifles on canvas treasured behind locked inner-circle gallery doors?

Commerce was the fourth way. It’s rules marched single-file somewhere between the good and the bad. Commerce took anything that you could pin a price tag to - and flogged it. The value of the endeavor was in the mind of the purchaser. They were simply the a-moral dealers of human hungers. Those with talent for it kept careful track of who ruled who. They could measure it with numbers. They’d never consider that those numbers are simply symbols that stand in for the heartbeats of time.

And if they did slow enough to listen, or feel those heartbeats inside - stargazing with a lover, or alone and exposed to the great emptiness of the impossible symbol zero - they’d be called on cellphones back to the service of downtown cathedral towers whose nameless gods were paid tribute with stories and myths of the “what’s real”. Truths told in select clubs, schools, and vacation retreats. Never ask who keeps the beat. Who first hummed life into rock and water? Who loved them all – good and bad, and artists and busy-ones? They proved how real their gods were with their chequebooks – the only true test of value.

The ocean tides found their way again into English Bay, raising expectations to the moon only to release them and let them slip away again. Grouse Mountain watched over whatever this batch of humans could come up with. It was hard to surprise a mountain. Generations had come and gone from these shores. The numbers of humans and their habitations were increasing. They covered the shorelines and the hills like a thick, leafy, creeping vine that strangled its host and crowded out all competitors for the little sun that shone on Vancouver’s shores. The mountain waited and watched and wondered when this cycle would reach its full turn. The beginning of the end is hard to see even for a mountain. You need a god’s eye view. Humans only get it in retrospect.

Amos had the feeling he wasn’t Danny’s first student. Danny would make certain allusions to folks he’d tutored in the past, but would never talk about them. A direct question would evoke only a chuckle and change of subject. It seemed a subject maybe too sacred to spoil with talk? Maybe Danny was just passing along his own method of self-schooling that had gotten him through the tough times? Maybe someone had taken Dan under their wing and shown him the ropes - the moves - the way?

He would talk about certain individuals who shone in his galaxy brighter than the rest. They were people of imagination and tenacity who had been tested by life and refused to let hardships be anything but lessons. Growing up in an Ontario Housing project in an east-end Ottawa neigbhourhood, he’d become fast friends with Phil Magiman. Impressed first and foremost with physical strength and beauty, Danny would always begin the stories of Phil by reminding Amos that he was a champion wrestler. Then, he would go on, Phil was brilliant – a philosopher, scientist, and engineer – completely self-trained.

Phil had never got caught up in the gang scene like Danny but used his intelligence right away to invent and create. With a trade as a welder supporting him, he and a partner had begun creating and patenting their inventions. Parenthood inspired ingenuity. A large Pharmaceutical company picked up two of their child safety devices – one to keep cupboard doors from opening to prying little hands, and another to keep parents more attentive to their children bouncing away the hours in those doorway jumper swings.

Money had started rolling in. More inventions were spawned and Phil’s family grew to four. Just as he was on the verge of leaving behind a middle-class life, like he’d already left behind his low-income childhood, everything turned around on him. In a series of betrayals; first the Pharmaceutical company, then his partner, and finally his wife took it all away. As Danny described it, Amos pictured an ocean storm with waves stripping the cargo from the decks of a small boat. Finally, a wave swept Phil from the deck of his craft into the sea. He was stripped bare, beaten, and spit out on the beach. If Phil could wrestle himself away from gravity’s pin, then Amos could get off his butt and follow Dan to the gym.

Dan was living off Government Unemployment Insurance cheques from his last stint as a construction labourer. He had to stay in shape for his next gig. He showed Amos how to gain access to the downtown YMCA gym without paying. There was no sneaking or lurking involved. The technique involved assuming an attitude that the world belonged to one’s self and never questioning one’s right to be there - for free. It was all, as far as Amos could tell, in the greeting of the gatekeeper. Dan’s physical presence was intimidating but it was his smile and open, vulnerable, face that would disarm. Being greeted by this guy as an equal; as someone worthy of dignity, was as good as any currency.

Dan would enter singing some tune, calling out “hey Compadre, how’s it hanging?” to the guy handing out the towels at the desk. He’d greet Dan by name, like a local celebrity. Somehow, Amos observed, Dan had paid his way with this guy – met him on a level more valuable than the rules he was paid to keep. Amos was handed a towel with a nod and a grin that said - anyone on this guy’s coat-tails was in for a ride.

There was a routine, a ritual, discipled in the gym. Dan took Amos through the sets he’d designed to keep himself in shape. Most of them involved bending and lifting, bending and lifting, twisting and stretching; maintaining flexibility so that when it came time to sling concrete blocks again, they’d be light as feathers and Dan could whistle through the work day keeping the tempo of the crew dancing – and his bosses smiling. Amos had worked summer construction jobs. He could see how valuable Danny’s energy, strength, and spirit would be on a construction site. He followed the routine and learned it until he could show up in a gym alone and look like he knew what he was doing.

Danny even got him out jogging a couple of times. “C’mon young warrior” he’d coax him “just around the block.” He would prod and push and encourage Amos jogging backwards to Amos’s forwards trudge along each length of city street. But Amos knew that running wasn’t for him. Running wasn’t what saved him from that Grizzly in the mountains. No, he was better at standing his ground. He could walk for hours, shuffle up to any mountaintop, but pounding his feet into concrete for Amos was crossing the line from self-care into self-abuse.

On the days that Amos would join Dan in these rituals, Dan would let Amos treat him to a breakfast afterwards at one of their favourite haunts. The joys of eating well, was another one of the four corners of Dan’s method. Eating well, looking good, working with soul were the three essentials. Keeping it all light with music, humour, beauty, sacred ideas and conversations rounded out those hard corners into a circle that rolled morning into long afternoons, evenings into night into dream-time, mystery-time, time to begin again whistling, wondering, wandering with purpose soaking it all up with a hungry curiosity and an animal instinct that kept you grounded and earthy and hunting.

Sex was what drove Dan into the day. He was always hunting. Nothing; no lesson, no conversation, no meal, was more important than the opportunity to turn a woman’s head his way and test her eyes for hunger. Danny would leap, run, cross the street, jog backwards, whatever it took to meet a single woman. Every woman who passed his way would be greeted with an appreciative remark. “Gorgeous!” he’d say, by way of greeting “Wonderful!” he’d whistle turning to appreciate the curves she cut in passing.

Amos was completely embarrassed and scandalized by this approach to the opposite sex. Amos met woman as if across a great chasm of respect and fear. Danny met them as if across a mattress. What surprised Amos was how many women, while refusing to give Dan the time of day, seemed to soak up the attention and glow a little brighter for it. Sure, maybe most would give him scorn, but there were lots who responded. The saucy ones would swing their hips just a little more – toss their hair – enjoying the power of denial. The straight and skirted ones would reveal nothing - but Amos would often catch the smirk – the glee of being Eve - in their eyes. Sure, Danny would get his share of scorn, but that did little to dampen the fire that was burning hot, as he’d say, “in his savage loins”.



He showed Amos the best shops to pick up second hand clothes. They found a black linen jacket that Amos could pull off with jeans and sneakers. Dan had a brown wool blazer that he’d wear with his leather wingtip shoes when he wanted to be in society. When his cheque would arrive, they’d dine at classy Italian, German, or maybe a favourite Mexican place on West 4th.

When things were lean, they’d travel across the city for what Dan would call a “scoff”. At all you can eat, buffet, restaurants the growing boys would revel in meat and carb feasts washed down with gallons of coffee. A favourite was the Countryman Buffet. Ribs and chicken smothered in a sweet tangy sauce were scoffed down with thick crusts of sourdough bread. Plates of roast beef and potatoes in a brown gravy with green beans and pickles would balance the meal off. Berry pies, cheesecake, and brownies slid down with ice cream and more coffee. Amos couldn’t believe the place could stay in business with customers like them. It was one of those un-real situations that kept occurring as he accompanied Dan around the city.

To Amos, the whole city seemed more than a little unreal. The beauty of the ocean sunsets he’d catch crossing the Granville Island bridge in his cab made him feel like he was living someone else’s life. The sun sparkling on the south face of Grouse Mountain in the morning, the Lion’s Head peaks just beyond, would catch Amos by surprise. The ocean waves pounding; sending its scents into the streets, seemed to come from another time just beyond memory. Even the warm rains welcomed you into them to explore the wet greys the concrete offered. This was much different from the cold stinging rains of Lake Ontario that drove you indoors to watch from windows or turn to TV.

One rainy day Dan showed up with two umbrellas. “Let’s go man” he called to Amos throwing an umbrella at him. “Rain is from the Maker. It’s a chance to be close to God. Don’t miss it.” They’d walk down the lush green sidestreets – every yard had its own variety of tree and flower. Some Amos would recognize, others were unknown, but they all seemed larger and greener than what grew in the East. Even the leaf stems seemed thicker as if every single leaf had a better grip on life out here. They’d always end up down at the ocean. Rain and waves would play with mists and breezes to produce a mist-ical feel that was beyond anything captured in print or imagination. To feel it on your skin was the only way to know it.

On these walks, or over huge pans of lasagna or shepherd’s pie that they’d build for themselves, the talk would always begin and end with authors, artists, musicians. The one thing about his past that Amos could get some credit from Dan about, was his knowledge of literature. He raved to Dan about Dostoyevsky; about his moral authority and the rich colours, both dark and light, that he painted the world with. He couldn’t get him interested in the brainy Camus and Sarte though. Dan couldn’t believe Amos hadn’t read Tolstoy yet. He gave him a biography – as thick as “War and Peace” - and urged him to read it. Amos introduced Danny to Matt Cohen and Al Purdy, eastern Ontario boys grittier than the slick Montreal crowd. Danny opened up the awful, earthy, American trilogy of Henry Miller to Amos’ virgin eyes.

Miller’s descriptions of his journey into author-ity captivated Amos. The world he lived in; hookers and scammers and thieves, was Danny’s home turf. The way Miller found beauty, and the shine of the sacred, in those rooms and streets was entrancing to Amos. Jack Kerouac seemed an innocent romantic to Miller’s dirty-handed portrayal of the light that streaked all the way through the dark tunnel of life’s misery.

Amos secretly took heart in Miller’s story. It had taken him decades of living before he could put the way he saw into words on paper. He spent his best and brightest, youthful, years just learning how to see - before he even dared to try to write anything down. In Miller, Amos learned that the circle could turn and turn and tumble in a jewel’s sanding box before a gem was ready. Turning life over and over and over again. Turning over the lessons with the truth of experience, turning truth on its head with the lessons of time, turning hope upside down with the ugly underside of honesty, would turn, in time, turn out something worth saying.

They’d haunt second-hand book stores and assault music stores. Dan would go through the stacks rapidly pulling albums from their rows growing a pile that he’d take from aisle to aisle. Amos would watch as the store owner’s attention would be drawn to this frenzied all-you-can-eat buffet approach. Finally Dan would heft his stack of maybe twenty albums and drop it on the counter. “Fifty bucks?” he’d offer. If the answer was a “no”, he was out the door. Maybe next time the owner would be hungrier for a sale.

It’s not like he and Danny were attached at the hip. Amos worked the cabbie night shift, four til four, - as many days as he could take at a stretch. He was squirreling away a stash for his ski trips that winter. On a good night he could clear $100. Slow nights he’d cover gas and the cab rate and come home with only enough to lend Dan til the month’s end. Saving money seemed a talent beyond Dan’s reach – or desire. When he had money, he shared it with a generosity that left Amos humbled. When he was without, he lived hand to mouth and looked, without shame, for other hands to help him out.

Amos learned to give up trying to track the loans and trust that it would all come out in the wash between friends. The Union Hall would call Danny up from time to time and he’d have work for a week or two. Their paths would barely cross with Dan working days and Amos nights.

Helen would keep them informed of each other’s health. Amos noticed how Helen was still charmed by Danny’s domestic presence. Dan knew how to keep a place as carefully as his own personal grooming - leaving only a few crumbs for his pet mice in their basement cupboards. Helen was too courteous to complain to Dan about Amos’ habits. But Dan wasn’t.

Every so often, he’d blow off steam in Amos’ direction. He’d confront Amos about the laundry and dishes left where they dropped. Amos would bring up the issue of money’s lent. Dan would push back with a curled lip about Amos’ petty and caustic snide remarks. Amos had a dirty little habit of regular put-downs. He’d try to hide them in unfunny, joking, observations about his companions’ observed weaknesses. It was Amos’ way of asserting authority – letting others know that he could see their ugly sides – trying to make it okay to say such cutting things by making a joke of it.

What Amos didn’t see was how it revealed his own poverty of grace and manners. He was blind to how those little put-downs, that he thought were witty and harmless, were endured by friends who graciously let the comments pass. Danny held the mirror up. He made Amos look at the prickly barbs on his hide – how they were a poor form of protection – keeping others at a safe distance.

In spite of this nasty blind spot, Amos had qualities that would attract. When he was relaxed and natural, his laugh came out strong and easily. His smile would put strangers at ease and was a gentle stroke of fur that his friends would come close for. He was smart and attentive. When his watery eyes were on you, you felt like a thoughtful mind was watching. That is, until you realized that behind the gaze, as often as not, a whole other inner story was being followed while he tuned in and out to your company. For some, it became a challenge to see how long they could hold that mercurial attention. Others would take offence. Most were just as self-absorbed and didn’t even notice Amos’ inner wanderings.

While the smile and eyes were attractive, he had a large, quiet presence that for most was a barrier. He projected a silent shield that strangers sensed was tough to get around. When he tried to get past his own silence with attempts at small talk in social settings - his own distaste for conversations without purpose – people could smell like bad breath. The truth was that while at times Amos longed for companions, he mostly found his own company sufficient. He didn’t consider himself a loner. He was just very good at being alone and often too lazy to put himself out there, in the world, to share.

Sharing, generosity really, was the subject of Danny’s school. It was the only lesson that mattered. Dan would share his dream of gathering musicians and artists to come together for a benefit concert for Mother Earth. He was sure they would do it and that he could pull it off. He’d list off the musicians and bands he’d approach. He knew their hearts from their music. Bruce Coburn would do it he knew. And Neil Young – more gritty Eastern Ontario boys. Carlos Santana was a sure bet. Dexy’s Midnight Runners were near the top of his list. He knew Bob Gandolph had it in him. “We’re here to create; to enjoy what the Creator makes, and to make whatever we’re given even more beautiful.” They talked it over and over. They agreed and elaborated and saw evidence of it in every place and every one.

Amos’ walk with Danny was taking him deeper and deeper into his own soul. Danny was impatiently hurrying him down into Dante’s Inferno. While Amos didn’t get a lot out of that dense old text, he did get this. The sooner you hit bottom rung of hell, the sooner you could crawl up Satan’s leg, get through his asshole, and make it back into the world. Getting past the demons and getting ready to share was Dan’s program.

What mattered was your own sense of style. To be an artist was to be unique. To do what others feared, not for shock value, but to push back the night-terrors that kept people from seeing the beauty all around them; in everything. It was your job to give others courage; to get them to grasp onto the hope waiting to spring up in every broken soul, in every hurting place, where greed and hate leaves fear in its shadows. The trick was – to live it – and to let your living be your canvas.

Amos had pretty much forgotten the whole idea of Danny actually being the Devil. When he thought of it now, knowing what a sweetheart, sincere, artist lay behind that angry exterior, he’d laugh at his crazy notions. How simplistic. How could he have been caught - thinking a tough exterior meant a sinister heart too?

Amos had been yearning out loud for some weed to smoke. He hadn’t really encountered a good source at the cab company. While wishing out loud that he had some, he also kept trying to convince Dan how weed could really add to one’s creative point of view. At first, Danny had ignored the request. But when Amos kept going on about it, Mephistopheles was forced to keep his part of the bargain.

They got into Amos’ car and drove across the city to the eastern edge of the Vancouver suburbs where the city became strung out into long streets of industrial malls interspersed with blocks of houses barren empty of even the shade of a mature tree. They found Danny’s friend Derek at home and soon they were high. It was good weed.

Derek was young. Maybe even younger than Amos. But he was a street cat. Sure his house was a dump, but he had his own place and had been there for a while. Danny and Derek exchanged news in few words. They seemed to have an understanding between them that Amos wondered at. There was a lot unsaid behind the smiles and nods they exchanged as they smoked another reefer.

Feeling unsettled and more than a little uneasy about the focus these two guys were putting on him, Amos announced he wanted to find a party. Danny and Derek looked at each other and shrugged. While Derek went into the other room to get showered and dressed, Danny sat grinning at Amos. Amos became uncomfortable with this fixed attention and said “What?”.

Danny began to spill out a devil’s prophecy. It was like he had been watching all of Amos’ dreams while he mused or slept. He began describing in a flat surly monotone how Amos wanted to become a writer. He went on in a terrible mocking telling of how Amos saw himself writing in a cabin in the woods with a faithful woman at his side like a dog. It terrified Amos. He hadn’t told anyone of these private thoughts. Danny’s eyes pinned him into his chair and his smile made him small and foolish. Danny was channeling an evil, mocking spirit. The drugs had opened his heart to this demon. Danny was gone and now Amos was sitting facing the demon who lived in his own mirror.

It was a cruel and cutting attack on his most cherished self-image. He’d experienced drug-induced paranoia many times. Having a cherished self-image twisted upon itself was part of the attraction of drugs – never letting oneself get too caught up in mental illusions and delusions was almost a spiritual practice. But to go through that in your own head was one thing. To have someone else tap into those secret thoughts and portray them exactly was haunting. The dark part of himself that could twist things was now sitting across from him – laughing at his surprise like a cat with a mouse.
Amos was caught, trapped, exposed, helpless to rescue his hidden heart from the fangs of this devil.

When Derek came back into the room Danny was still going on. With relief Amos saw that Derek wanted no part of it – what would he have done if they’d teamed up on him? Derek seemed to recognize instinctively that Danny had changed personalities. Something he’d seen before.

“You still want to go?” he asked Amos. Amos said “Let’s just get out of here eh?” So they piled out the door and into the Dart, Danny laughing and singing in the back seat. They didn’t make it far before Danny called for a piss stop. Still in a residential neighbourhood, they pulled into a dark lot behind a warehouse. Out of the car, Danny was hooting and hollering. Amos told him to keep it down – he didn’t want to attract cops in this stoned condition. In answer, Dan threw his beer bottle against a wall.

Amos looked at Derek and said “I’m not taking this guy downtown.” Derek said “Why don’t you just take me home?” But Danny would have none of it. He was belligerent and threatening and getting uglier still laughing at the two of them - dancing across the asphalt. So, they left him there in the darkened lot.

Danny showed up the next day about noon. He’d spent the night in prison was all he’d tell. Whether he remembered the episode in the house, Amos was never sure. When he tried to describe it – Dan looked blankly at him – and he felt foolish all over again trying to explain what’s best left unsaid between soul warriors. What Dan remembered was that Amos had betrayed him by leaving him there for the cops. After that, Amos was a lot more careful what he asked Danny to help him with.