Old friends with new faces

Amos heard his name being called out. He was walking down 4th near home. No one knew him here. Who could be calling his name? He turned to see Dave Andrews just a few steps behind him. They’d passed on the street and Dave had been the one to recognize him. They knew each other from mutual friends at Trent University back in Ontario. “Amos, how the hell are ya? What are you doin here?”
“I live here.”
“No way – where?”
“Just a few blocks from here” he laughed pointing towards the ocean.
“That’s incredible – so do I” Dave pointed in the other direction.

Dave was from Montreal and studied Philosophy like all the other guys from Montreal. They were responsible for a steady supply of black hash into Peterborough and Amos usually found them, while good for a laugh one on one, as a group too deep in thought, or smoke, to get a laugh going. They seemed to take themselves, or life, pretty seriously and that was just too heavy for Amos.

In Amos’ group, playing the fool was quite acceptable and displaying one’s smarts suspect. But in this Montreal crowd there was a stiff judgment-thing happening. He felt in the air between them almost a palpable fear of seeming stupid, or silly, or inconsequential. He’d watched a girl from smalltown Ontario go from happy, friendly, and bouncy to dark, brooding, and suicidal-looking from a year spent in their company. Not that Amos felt particularly welcome in their gatherings anyway – he could carry a sarcasm-riddled conversation spiced heavily with cynicism long enough to establish their tolerance of a Toronto fool among them. And for Amos, enough to keep the sweet black hash in supply.

Now, he was surprised and excited by this chance encounter with Dave. The distance of time and place made their somewhat arms-length, former acquaintance much closer. They quickly ran through each other’s tales – how they’d ended up on this city block of Vancouver. It turned out that Dave was living with another Trent grad – Jake Jefferson. Amos recognized the name, he told Dave, but couldn’t picture a face to go with it. Dave said “Well let’s go do that – Jake’s a t home - have you got other plans? Let’s go.”

Jake was there and he and Amos said they recognized each other from passing in pubs and parties but they’d never really met. Jake was the kind of guy who would actually enjoy dancing at Grade 8 school dances. He was smart and lean - wily even. He had an easy way about him. The way he moved across the room, smoked his cigarettes, and carried a conversation made you think he either didn’t give a damn what you thought of him or else he had his act down very tight, very well rehearsed. For all of Jake’s carefully styled manners, Amos detected also a raw rage that ran close, just beneath the surface.

As a signature story – one that would help Amos learn who he was – Jake told of the time he spit on Thomas J. Bata. Amos knew that the Bata shoe empire was a notorious exploiter of third world child-labour. The library at Trent, the architectural gem and natural meeting place at the centre of the campus, was named the Bata library for the visiting dignitary. Jake had been expelled but allowed back the next year to finish his degree. Trent reputation as the most liberal of the liberal arts school was intact.
“You lost a year for that?” Amos was amazed at the sacrafice “Was it worth it?”
Jake took a long pull on his smoke. “It’s not called the Bata Library any more is it?”

While they shared a toke and a beer, Jake put the latest Talking Heads album on. Jake knew all the words and would sing them, not to himself, but right into your eyes. There was one tune that really seemed to hit home. It had a bouncy, light melody line, that was fun and seemed to be right where they lived. It was called ‘This must be the place”.

Home - is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb, born with glowing heart
guess I must be having fun

The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It's ok I know nothing's wrong . . nothing’s wrong

Hi yo - I got plenty of time
Hi yo - you got light in your eyes

And you're standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money
Always for love
Cover up and say goodnight . . . say goodnight

Home - is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home - -she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place

I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this where I'll be . . . where I'll be


The “Speaking in Tongues” album was written just for them. They became more sure of it the more they listened. “They’re coming to Vancouver y’know.” Jake said as if prophesying.
“Who?” asked Amos.
“Talking Heads.”
“Really? Well, we gotta go. You let me know as soon as you hear about tickets on sale will you?” “Definitely” Jake nodded, smiling a knowing smile.

Peter arrived home. It was Peter’s home they were in. It was a very warm, bright, Kitsilano bungalow surrounded by trees and gardens - as they all were. This one though was filled with wondrous, bright and deep colour-filled paintings. Turns out, Peter was the painter. In his fifties now, Peter was making a good living with his art. Peter was as warm and bright as his home. Soft spoken, confident, a gentleman obviously, and attentive to his guest, Amos felt he was in the company of a strong big sister to his young Ontario friends. How the three of them ended up together didn’t come up in conversation and Amos wondered but didn’t feel it was cool to ask.

It was west-coast manners not to ask about work – the reply out here to “what do you do?” was to name your passion; as in “I sail.”. But when Amos announced that he’d have to leave soon to pick up his cab for the 4pm start of the night shift, Jake asked him if he knew “The Underground”. “It’s where I tend bar” explained Jake. Amos recognized the bar. His cab had been to them all by now. It was an electro-funk dance bar - one of the city’s main establishments for gay men. Amos swallowed that shot of information without a flinch. “Yeah, I know it – off Granville right?” He looked straight into Jake’s searching eyes as he passed him the spliff he’d just lit up. When he sat back to focus on the smoke, Amos could feel Jake and Dave and Peter’s eyes carefully watching him, checking him, with glances back and forth, for reactions.

To shift the attention Amos asked David “Are you working man?” In reply, Dave stood up “Let me show you.” The four of them followed Dave past the kitchen into a hallway leading back to the house’s bedrooms. Amos was doing his best not to have a panic attack. His imagination was running ahead of him. Were they going to seduce him into a homosexual orgy? What if he liked it? How would he tell his mother? His heart rate raced. It was very warm in this hallway.

Dave opened the door at the end of the hall and Amos followed the others in. It was a large room with a wall of windows facing east. It was the Master Bedroom but there was no bed. Instead, at its centre stood an easel with an almost life-sized portrait of Dave - hairy, naked and sensual, surrounded by leafy green sun dappled bushes and bright orange, red and blue flowers.

“Oh wow,” Amos exclaimed, letting out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Dave, you look like Adam in the garden of Eden.” Peter seemed pleased with the comment. He was watching Dave. Dave laughed to relieve his own discomfort. “Right before the fall - eh Amos?” Peter added quietly, but for all to hear “Innocent and natural.”

Amos could tell that Dave was loving the attention but at the same time unsure about sharing the intimacy of the portrait beyond the four walls of this room. The painting had a story to tell. As Amos soaked it in, it slowly dawned on him that Dave was taking a big risk here - trusting him with this revelation. And it felt like this was a trial run.

Peter and Jake were coaching – gently encouraging Dave to come out of that dark closet where his sexuality was safely locked up - and live it large in the world. Dave had just put his toe in the water – Amos was the first person from his past that he’d come out to. Jake had a huge grin on his face that said “See, the water’s fine, c’mon in.”

On the walk home, Amos’ mind was doing calisthenics. He realized that these guys were the first gay men that he’d actually known – and he liked them. Knowing Dave from an earlier life caused him to readjust his perceptions. There was more to Dave than he’d originally seen. Like Amos, Dave was out here exploring a wider, deeper, freer, wilder version of himself. That afternoon Dave had crossed a raging river of doubt on a slippery log by trusting him. Amos felt like he had crossed that same river without really thinking about it. The land of homosexuality was no longer a dark continent whose natives he could laugh at and scorn from his ignorant and fearful island of so-called normal sex.

He found that, with some mental exercise, it wasn’t a big deal withholding his judgment of these guys – these friends. His curiosity kept taking him into those bedrooms trying to get his head around what went on there. But he recognized it as the same curiosity he had about everyone’s private sex lives – and what went on in his head wasn’t where he was meeting these guys. They had offered friendship and he had welcomed it. He enjoyed their company and he wasn’t going to let his thoughts get in the way.

In the weeks to come, Dave, Jake and Peter got to meet Danny. Now it was Amos’ turn to watch his friends for their reactions and eye signals. He wondered what they thought of this coaching Amos had signed up for. He knew that the sight of he and Danny strolling down Vancouver streets was probably stranger to most eyes than seeing two men arm in arm in a lover’s embrace. It’s a lot easier to withhold judgment, Amos noted, when you know that you’re being judged and placed on the far side of normal yourself.

While his new friends definitely caused him to wonder about his own sexuality – could he, under the right circumstances be persuaded to open up to homo-erotic love? He decided he was simply a tourist passing through and there was no chance of him staying - even for a visit.

It was decided for him really. It wasn’t like there was a choice or a decision to be made. The amount of time he spent thinking about women - women from his past and women in his future - left a well-worn path in his brain when it came to sex. While he supposed he could leave the path and bush-whack - it would be all uphill work. When it came to spending emotional energy on relationships, he was just plain lazy.

He’d avoided the whole dating scene in high school just because he hated the idea of everyone else knowing and talking about his intimate affairs. He was so acutely aware of himself through other’s eyes, that to see his own awkward attempts at love being the subject of discussion was akin to putting his balls on the altar for public sacrifice. It just wasn’t worth it.

So, he kept himself pure. Or, he kept his own version of sex in a closet of a different kind. He had a Hollywood Playboy, combined with an Archie comic-book - Betty and Veronica - image of women that he’d managed to preserve right through his adolescence. Along with an idealized vision of the perfect woman – the one who would stand by him - or maybe just behind him – trusted, affectionate, understanding – like a good dog - only with a body out of a Playboy magazine.

Porn magazines – soft porn left room for his imagination to work – was much easier than a relationship any day. You could just close the cover with very little mess and put it away until the urge surged again. Minor guilt pangs were easier to live with than demands of a human being who wanted or expected a piece of his attention. The shame of being a boy in the eyes of men was better than risking embarrassment in the hands of a woman.

But it happened anyway. It was closing time and three young, more than tipsy, women climbed into his cab. They were in a good mood and teased Amos with harmless innuendo and flirting. “Hey, he’s cute, look at those shoulders – two of us could curl up in those!” Amos surprised himself by not choking up and turning red. Instead he played along “There’s room for all three of you in these arms ladies.” And they loved it. He thought that maybe he was in for a good tip.

She lived furthest away and was the last to be dropped off. The laughs turned into life stories. Heather didn’t know many people here. She’d grown up on the island – a small town girl in the big city. She and her friends were off-duty hospital nurses. When she invited him up to her apartment for a drink, Amos’ blood pumped a little faster in his veins. He liked her down to earth sense of humour. His sensitive stuck-up meter didn’t register with her at all. She put him at ease with a friendly touch as they met on the sidewalk steering him towards the apartment doorway.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” she laughed, “you’ll be getting the wrong idea about me. Why am I trusting you? You could be a serial killer.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why either. Are you crazy?” he teased “I’m going to have to ask you to give me all your butcher’s knives when we get upstairs.” They laughed and teased each other along these lines in the elevator and down the hall into her apartment. Amos found it as sensible, clean, and maybe just a little cutesy - as its owner. Heather seemed as comfortable in this place as she was in her own body. She had a natural physicality that quietened him - as if he was a skittish horse entering a stable after running wild for a season.

He called her the next week after fully debating the issue with Dan. Dan said it was good for man to have a mistress – the implication being that Amos’ passions needed to stay focused on the training. A woman on the side was okay. Amos thought Danny was maybe just a bit jealous. He liked that. And he didn’t like the way a one-night-stand looked on him. And he definitely liked the way Heather felt – natural and easy like an old pair of jeans. If only he could keep it uncomplicated.

He wouldn’t tell her where he lived – letting her know at dinner that second time that he was too messed up, too self-absorbed for a relationship and she would have to just enjoy his company when she had it and not get any ideas about anything more. Heather agreed with a silent smile – she wasn’t going to scare this stray cat away with a collar. She knew that he was hungry and had come back to her door for more.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


First day’s ski in the Rockies

He was a tourist behind the wheel of a Vancouver cab with one sole aim in life – to ski the Rocky Mountains. A North Van rich kid climbed into his cab and they got talking ski talk and this guy said “ you know that Whistler opens tomorrow eh?”
“No, I hadn’t heard man.”
“Well officially, it’s the day after tomorrow, but the tradition is that they open up the hills for the locals for one day of free skiing before the throngs arrive.”

That was the only invitation Amos needed. Next morning before dawn he had his gear packed in the Fleshmobile and was headed up Highway 99. He’d been there in the summer - stayed at his treeplanting girlfriends’ family condo - so he knew where to find the ski hill and went straight there. The Whistler village was under construction, only a couple of stores and brand new deluxe hotels were open for business. He parked the car and walked past them directly to the ski hill. He was a man on a mission.

Amos was both surprised and delighted when, sure enough, the young, obviously envious, lift operators welcomed his ticket-less butt onto the chair-lift. With a huge grin on his face the chair swung him up into the hills. He was alone on the five person chair. There was hardly anyone there that morning. It might have had something to do with the heavy cloud and mist lying low over the bottom of the mountain. Amos had been waiting months for this day and there was no way that clouds were going to daunt his hopes.

His heart was pounding from excitement and a good dose of fear as the lift took him higher and higher up and over the rock faces and tree tops. He could only see what was directly below and around him the fog was so thick. He was higher than any hill in Ontario within the first ten minutes. In the pit of his stomach a stew of worry stirred in with the excitement and adrenaline in his system and he thought he might puke.

And then, with another sweep up over a cliff face, his chariot broke free from the clouds and he entered paradise. The sun shone bright in a blue, cloudless sky, on a mountain of white, white, white snow! Breaking through into heaven out of the dim mortal reality - for this Ontario lad – truly a dream come true. He couldn’t help but begin bouncing in his seat and whooping it up along with the riders in the chairs in front of him.

This was the dream he’d been pursuing – what he’d given up law school to pursue. This was why he was alive – to live out his adolescent ambition of a Rocky Mountain ski bum – and he was doing it! His heart was soaring like a hawk high over the mountain.

Now, getting back down the mountain was a very different experience for our hero Amos. It was an experience that brought him very quickly back down to earth. He had his long stiff skis - perfect for Ontario’s icy slopes - shipped from home. He’d bought equally stiff boots on sale that fall to cement his ski-bum resolve. Now, he hit the slopes with enthusiasm only to discover that he didn’t have a clue about how to ski in two feet of snow.

Deep snow in Ontario meant you might have snow up to your ankles. Most of the time you were traversing hard packed, machine-groomed snow. Very often you had to deal with large sheets of ice to cross between the edges where hundreds of skiers had pushed the snow before you. Skiing in untouched snow up to his knees was totally different.

Amos took several tumbles before he’d made it down even part of the first slope. His ski tips kept getting pulled this way and that and the more he fought to muscle them together, the more they misbehaved. He was determined to enjoy this though. He kept pulling his legs back under him and struggling, staggering for balance, stabbing his poles deep into the snow looking for something solid to push against.

About half way down the mountain, he wiped out good enough to make him stop and sit After he’d collected his brains and equipment scattered across the hill, he sat and stewed. If breaking through those clouds had been a Rocky Mountain high, then he’d fallen flat on his face the very next thing. This was no dream. This was a nightmare. He couldn’t do this. What a disaster! What seemed at first to be a wonderful gift had turned into an incredible challenge.

As a poet, the metaphor wasn’t lost on him. Just as he’d sought out the freedom and fun of life alone on the west coast, he was finding that what seemed great from far was far from great. Complications and unseen challenges required new skill and insight untested ‘til now.

What was he gonna do? Give up and go home?
Like fuck! Amos answered his own questions. “FUCK THAT!” he said out loud. Hearing his own voice in defiance kindled a resolve in his belly. He could do it. He would do it. It just meant learning how to ski all over again. He learned to ski once, he could do it again. And if that was what it would take to ski the Rockies that winter, then, that’s what he’d do. He had all winter. He had his whole life ahead to learn one lesson at a time – one small step at a time. So, he began.

He managed to get to the bottom of the mountain feeling totally exhausted. His knees were as weak and wobbly as a new born colt’s. His shoulder’s ached as if he’d been carrying bags of cement all day. He was tired and breathing heavy, but he wasn’t totally discouraged. He got back on the lift in spite of his brain’s request for the chalet.

The rest of the day he hacked his way down the slopes – falling often, but with every fall he was learning. Skiing in deep snow was more about sitting back on his skiis and persuading, not pushing, his skiis to shift with his weight. Trying to force his feet around and set his edges hard would get him back into trouble. He had to lighten up. Get lighter on his feet – he laughed thinking of his new gay friends – more west coast swoosh and less Ontario macho man. It would take some time.

Back at the car, Amos packed his skiis and headed out for the little secluded parkette at the end of a street at the edge of the town. He’d spotted it that summer, packing it away in his memory as part of the plan he was cooking up. Out of the trunk, he dragged the canvas six-man tent he’d brought tree-planting. It must have weighed a hundred pounds and somehow in the deep snow he wrestled it up. Lassoing poles and tying the centre rail off to nearby trees took energy from stores he didn’t think he had left in him.

When he had it up though, (just the one side with the door in it) and a pot of soup cooking on the Coleman stove, there couldn’t have been a young man on the planet more satisfied with the choices he’d made. He was proud that the plans he’d crafted were working. Lifting the mug of soup to his lips and feeling the warmth go down through him he decided - living in a dream was a good place to be. His breath raised like smoke from his lips in a satisfied prayer of thanksgiving.