The Meaning

the meaning

Grant J. Venables

Published by

Grant J. Venables

at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Grant J. Venables

Also available at Smashwords by Venables:

BOLD (poetry)

Bangkok—Just Under the Skin (short stories)

A Few Lines on (poetry)

A Sense of Place (poetry)

Coming soon by Venables,

A Bangkok Affair (novel)

the difference? (novel)

Cover image and Joni Mitchell lyrics both used with permission.

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Table of Contents

16

Trip

Mary

Married

Quiet

Control

Stirred

Some People's Kids

Grasp

Flight

Food

Days

Complexities

Questions

Zone

Shade

Meaning

The Author

Notes and Thanks

16

John was 16. His uncle was a robust man, a man who had been a great scrapper, something that held some weight in those parts of Canada’s red-necked heritage. Uncle Bob, now a security guard—once, for a long time, a jail guard—could take apart the meanest of them and in no time flat. But he was more than a burly barman; he held a certain inner strength—a homey-wisdom—that both John and his father respected. The three sat on the deck looking out over the lake, strangely peaceful for a sunny afternoon in July.

Johnny, fetch us a couple of beer, and get one for yourself. You can’t say you don’t drink beer now. Shit, you’re 16. Uncle Bob didn’t even look to John’s father, Patrick, for confirmation or permission, and he went unchallenged.

I’m nearly 17. This month I will be, John added before slipping to the house to get three Molsons from the fridge. His mother was watching the soaps and smoking a cigarette. She didn’t look up from the television as he packed the clinking bottles out the door.

John was very proud, but wouldn’t let on. He knew he’d passed through some sort of threshold, that he wasn’t a kid any longer, that he was being welcomed to share a beer with the old boys, that he was now, maybe, a young man. He sometimes drank beer with his pals, but this was different. This was in the open. This was legitimate.

You know Johnny, you best start thinking about wha-cher gunna do after high school. Bob nodded to Patrick who looked down and popped the cap off his beer. You got to have a plan. You can’t just lout around on the welfare like….

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and John knew he had to counter what he most dreaded—where he saw this conversation going. He had a feeling it was coming, as his dad made vague allusions to university over dinner one night that week, and John suspected there might be more. He sadly shrank from his freshly knighted status as young man back to somewhere in the littler realm of kid.

I do have a plan, Uncle Bob. Gunna finish high school first, then get on at the mill. There’s a good price for cedar now, and there’s lots of big wood coming in. He'd always wanted to work the mill. The smell of cedar was to him like a drug. He loved wood: cedar for its oily-rich scent, birch for its hard white beauty, fir for its utility, yew for its romantic longbow history. John was a top student in wood shop, made his dad a fishing rod cabinet that year, a piece that no other grade eleven would have even attempted. And he loved his gang and wanted to stay with them in Salmon City. He didn’t care about further education like only a smattering of his classmates did. He didn’t need to learn more. He wanted a metallic blue, 67 Malibu that rumbled deep in its horsepower growl. He wanted a girl on his arm he could love. He wanted to rent a cabin down by the lake; they went cheap in the off-season. He wanted to hold beach parties in September after all the Albertans had gone home and it was safe to get back on the water: waterskiing when the September lake held that early shock of cold in its wake. He wanted to cruise the block with Terry before he got all tangled up with marriage and then bundled up with kids. He wanted to wait till Gus got back from a logging stint at the Coast and then to show him how much he had gained from his hard work at the mill, both of them working with the same wood, one feeding the other: A double-header.

That’s not what we’re talking about, Patrick spoke up for once, pulling John away from his dreams and back to the reality of the moment. Pat looked seriously over his beer to his boy.

Dad’s right. The mill—that’s Ok for some, honest work too, but we want to see you well educated. We got no one in this family ever finished the University. We think you aught to go there after school. You can get a loan and study smart. You do real good in school as it is. So? Bob and his brother waited, both holding beers and looking to John who suddenly felt the slide regress further: this time he was child. He knew there was only one answer, but didn’t want to own up to it. He dreamed of the mill and getting that car, fixing it up—making it fast with Darnish, painting it with Terry—cruising the strip with a soft-skinned, brown-haired girl he silently envisioned.

You and Dad didn’t go to university, and you guys did all right. Look at this place. Johnny motioned to the house that was one of the nicest houses on the lake for miles.

Yah Son, but I fell into it easy, and am still paying on it. I’m over 50, for Chrise-sakes, and I really got nothing.

Bob nodded in agreement. We both worked too hard too long to get what little we have and it doesn’t make any sense for you to do the same. We learned that it wasn’t worth it. Sure, he smiled to Patrick, "we had our fun and made our marks of sorts, but we didn’t do it the right way. We didn’t make a mark. We worked. That’s all we ever did. We ain't been no where, don’t really got nothing, don’t know too much more than would fill a thimble."

John looked out over the water past the boat on the dock to the Island that sat lone and proud at the mouth of the bay. He took some time to consider. He didn’t want anything more. He was neither proud nor ashamed of his family. They were just fine, better than most. No one got beat up in his house; no one got stinking drunk. The cops never came around. It was more than a lot of his friends could say. It was more than his cousin Pete could say, and that was Bob’s only child. John knew he’d do better than that. Why Pete, all he did was carve wood and slough off. He never did real work, not honest work, and he lived on the reserve. He was white and he lived on the reserve with an Indian chick. Sure, some of those Indians were cute, but to live with one and on the reserve? Nah. John could see where all this concerned, education talk was coming from, and where it was going. He knew right then he was destined to head to Vancouver to university. So he accepted it, right like that.

Ok, I’ll do that. I’ll do it well. I’ll kick ass at the university.

Get us another round Johnny so we can drink to that. Bob beamed. Patrick smiled. John went to the fridge for another three.

I got the word today. John talked to Gus as they walked down the lawn to the wharf. I’m going to university. Gus gave him a hard look, but said nothing.

Once on the dock, Gus walked to the bow line and untied it, then pulled up the bumper-cushion and tucked it over the chrome rail, between the rail and the deck of the bow. John got the line at the stern; it's the way they always did it.

University? I’m sure as fuck not. I’m going to camp with the old man. I want to make some money. He motioned with his hands like he was folding bills.

Gus held the boat while John turned the engine over. It idled a bit roughly at first, then settled into its noisy purr. Gus pushed the boat out bow first then jumped in over the side and found his seat beside his pal. John idled it out to past the no wake zone: no one made waves this close to the shore where there were boats tied to wharves, where there were often kids in the water. They were heading out to do some trolling around the Island. It was John’s day off from the marina ten miles down the lake, a summer job he’d held since he was 15. The feed was on at eight, and it was just seven, so they were both pretty sure they could find something to bring back home. The mirrored water was a huge reflection of sky, trees, mountains, and a small burgundy boat idling out to a perfectly reflected island. There were a few skiers in the water on the Bay, but none out around the Island.

Shit, it’s happening so fast. You know next year at this time we’ll be graduated.

Yah, Gus smiled, grad will be great. This year’s was good too, but next year, man, that’ll fuck’n-rock. Out past the imaginary zone, John gunned the boat and looked back to his uncle and his father who were still sitting on the deck drinking beer watching him. They got small fast as the boat climbed out over its wake and was off in a noisy churn of clean water.

You really want to be a logger? John spoke loudly. He’d asked this many times before.

Look, if I start now, get in the union, get up on the list, in ten years I’ll have it set. I’ll be able to quit by 50. Retire. My old man says that’s the best way, Gus yelled over the screaming Evinrude.

But he’s not retired.

That’s 'cause he didn’t get a start till he was 24. We got it figured. The Island got nearer; John steered the boat out to do a loop around it before they rigged up their gear. One side was gentle and sloped up to a series of benches. John, Darnish, and Gus often took girls there, summer girls, tourist girls—Alberta’s finest—and paired off then disappeared in the tall grass. The other side of the Island was sheer cliff, dangerous and dramatic. John, Gus, Darnish and Dean would cliff dive there from dizzying heights to the delight of the tourists gathered in their boats, sunglasses on, beers in their hands; a confused concert of blaring, boat rock-n-roll playing like their summer-movie soundtrack.

He killed the engine and the wake overtook them in its roll as he cracked a beer, spilling some of it on the seat and floor. Clumsy fuck, Gus said with a laugh.

I swiped it, I’ll spill it. Got any cigars? John smiled crazily and used his butt to clean the beer off the seat, Gus just shook his head and handed him a colt from a fresh pack. John then moved to the stern and slapped down the 5-horse kicker that was attached to the steering arm of the bigger Evinrude. He pulled at it and on the third try it whined into quiet action; it was a lulling, soft moan once in gear. Soon both had lures on and out and let out many meters of line. John was fishing the top using a three-ounce weight so it would entice the trout from just nicely below the surface; Gus used the downrigger and was at about sixty feet. This was their method—one learned from John’s dad and uncle—and it was rare that they missed: one high, one low.

What do you figure about university? Gus spoke as he released a bit more line; he thought he felt a slight hit but it was tough to tell with a downrigger.

I guess I’ll know more about the big picture. John really had no idea why he was going but didn’t want to let on. Guess I’ll try to figure out the game, figure out what it’s all about.

They trolled a while in the calm silence of long friendship.

Got one! Gus tugged frantically at his line releasing the downrigger and setting the hook. He started to reel in. Yah, got a good one, fuck’n A! John moved to the stern and killed the kicker. He found the net. This was always the best: bringing up a big laker. The rainbows tended to stay on top, but the bigger, large-mouthed lakers hung deep. The rainbow was better on the barbeque, but lakers were fine, especially good smoked because of their size.

Go easy.

I don’t see a fish on your line, pal. Gus smiled as John remembered his line was still out and slowly sinking, and so he snatched his rod from the rod-holder and began to bring his in with great haste, not wanting to tangle with Gus’s incoming bomb.

Jesus, I got one too!

Fuck off, you do. Gus snarled with mock-cynicism.

Wait and see, brother. The rainbow rose and danced on the end of John’s now taut line. They could see the colours clearly from its leap 30 meters back.

Christ, said Gus smiling broadly, still playing his low-lying laker but bringing her steadily up, cigar clenched between his teeth like some movie gangster. Double-header!

Graduation day came slower than spring in the north after a cold winter. The days seemed to ooze in slow, thick drips. Skiing wrapped up at Todd and at the Star. The thaw was on down lower and people turned from downhill skiing to driving golf balls. The lake rose with runoff mountain water that nearly flooded the Blind Bay Road. The warmth returned. Lawns were raked clean; plugs were pulled from them; insidious dandelions removed by hand. Wood was cut for the following winter; the chainsaws high whine a spring song for the awakening summer. Blankets were put out in the sun to warm the winter from their linings, to get some fresh air and early summer heat with the longer hours of light. Houses were opened to the glorious, spring fresh air; they lost their stagnant heat retained by all those airtight winter months of essential wood-stove flame. Eves were cleaned of the previous autumn’s leaves and all the winter’s small-stick debris and readied for the gentle rains that spring and summer would bring. May edged into June and the true countdown was on.

That year was a tough one for John. He changed his course of study to take into account university acceptance. He dropped Wood Craft 12, a class he’d been anticipating since grade nine. He was going to make a china cabinet for his mom; he’d already drawn up the plans. He switched from English 12 to Advanced English Studies, a much more rigorous study of higher-level literature: many more works to examine and truly deconstruct. John was amazed at how much he loved the challenge of that advanced reading. In that same final year he also took both French 11 and 12 to properly qualify for any of the universities. These unwelcome inclusions into his schedule cancelled the free periods he had planned for, and so anticipated wasting during his last semester of school. He now took classes every block of every day. His pals all enjoyed spares at least every second day; some had five per week. He felt obligated to skip classes almost weekly to make up for this grievous inconvenience. Even with his somewhat regularly scheduled absences, his grades were excellent and so no one really bothered him—his work was always in on time and done well. He’d gone down to the University of British Columbia with his dad and Uncle Bob to check out the campus and catch a Canucks game. The school was awfully big, bigger it seemed, than Salmon City. John felt the steep walls of academia close in on him.

Dean, a good pal from high school, and another guy not from Salmon City but from the lake, a dozen miles up-lake from the Bay, was going to the University of Alberta, so John made it out east to see that school, too. He took that trip, driving with his mother. As it was, it wasn’t much farther—perhaps five hours drive—so that school also offered possibilities. Vancouver had the weather, the green, the water, but there was something about Alberta that tugged at John. The trip to the university at the coast was only the third time John had been to Vancouver, and before his trip to the Albertan university, he’d never before been east of the Rockies. Like most of his friends, he’d still never been on a plane.

He wasn’t entirely sure what it was—perhaps the extra distance, or the threat and promise of truly cold winters—but in the end the east won over, and he enrolled at the University of Alberta and was easily accepted. His dad wasn’t too pleased with the decision—it all seemed a bit foreign and unnatural for a B.C. boy to be heading that far east—but it was a good university, and in the end that was good enough for Pat.

June 19 was Grad. The party was planned up Silver Valley at McLeod’s farm; each year the parents and the cops agreed on a location then they bussed out the kids and locked them in if they’d driven out there. The busses ran hourly all night, and the high school Christian Club parents ran food till dawn for those who were hungry or just needed sobering up. It was a safe way to party—somewhat too contrived to suit John and his mates—but it was their party and they were actually appreciative of all the parental support and effort that went into it.

Jesus, this gown sucks. John laughed at his large mate, Tuna, who looked more draped in a tent than dressed in a formal and dignified gown. Tuna never actually graduated, but as long as he promised to come back for one semester to get his full credits the next year—and he behaved—they let him walk with his class.

Looks just fine Tuna…looks real smart, Terrence White joked. Terrence had a job since anyone could remember. While Gus was heading to the Island to cut trees, Tuna was heading back to school, and John and Dean were off to Alberta for some more learning, Terrence was going to join his dad’s auto body business, full-time. It was the biggest auto body repair shop in the valley, and Terry’d worked his way up from sweeping floors at twelve, to being able to prep and paint, detail as well. By now, six years on, he knew the business inside out, and had some fresh ideas of his own. He always knew it would be his shop at some point. Terry could talk the leg off a steel chair, as his own mom used to say; he was built for some sort of business where he could deal with people. He had been going out with Bernie Weston since grade eleven and they shared unspoken plans to marry as soon as Terry took over the company from his old man. No one ever said it, yet everybody knew: this was after all, Salmon City.

Fuck off, Whitey. ‘Looks real smart.’ I’ll kick your ass when you spew tonight. You’ll ‘look real smart’ then! Tuna laughed back. Gus joined John. The four young men joked and jostled together, nervous energy in natural abundance. Terry was known for his amazing inability to hold down any more than six or seven beers. He was a sprinter without finish: first wasted, first to bed; none of their crew ever let him forget it. But Terry didn’t mind his own lack of endurance in the slightest: when it was time to go down, unapologetically he went.

This is it, boys. It’s over. John looked to his friends who were still huddled and laughing. Dean joined them and was goofing off, trying to make his gown look somehow attractive, pulling it in at the sides making it look like a form-fitting dress.

Buddy-boy, this might just be the start. Don’t get all teary on me now. Let’s get through this shit and then on to the party. Bets on who doesn’t get laid tonight? Terry wiggled his eyebrows after he spoke.

I’ll put five on Tuna, John responded.

Sucker bet. Both laughed as they joined in their alphabet placement in line, helper mothers franticly fussing with their clipboard lists and myriad small jobs.

325 graduates was the biggest class ever seen in Salmon City. Gus, Darnish and Dean were stationed near the front of the impressive pack. Tuna parked his large form somewhere near the middle. John, being a Vantz, was near the end of the line, not too far in front of Terry and Bernice. John was paired with Mary Vickers.

He was sure that, for once, the stars were aligned in his favour. She had tied him up in small knots since grade ten. During their senior year they’d shared a senior math class and Jazz Band. They’d also shared a P.E. class since grade ten. John thought her tits were amazing, but far more than the physical, Mary carried a beautifully sad expression that John had never before seen on any girl—and how its subtlety stung him. Her tragedy pulled him down like a soft, warm wrap, and he willing sank to its delicious depths. He didn't fully understand his feelings for her either, because he was both enthralled and terrified, and he'd been with enough girls, but never felt anything even close to this before: nothing like it. Gus knew about it and teased him privately, but kept it quiet with rest of the boys. Although Mary and John shared those three senior classes, they’d never really connected. His crush—if you could call it that, for that term holds so many trivial connotations—was intense, and there was something so subtle and tragic about Mary that stunned him into clumsy observance, into awkward silence. All this was disturbing, confusing and new to John, who flirted freely and often successfully with many of the prettier girls in his grade.

Mary was different. Mary’s skin was stunning and radiant in its natural glow. John had just studied The Great Gatsby in his advanced English class, and he now thought that much like Gatsby and his voyeuristic knowledge of his across-the-bay lover, Daisy, John too knew all—unbeknownst to her—about his Mary: she was a virgin, she was a real Christian, she liked reading, she played alto saxophone in their band, she lived near the hospital, had always lived in Salmon City, and she had the most beautiful eyes. He loved dancing with her in gym class. Trying to go unnoticed, he’d shuffle himself in the boys’ line while roughly calculating the spot where he’d get paired with her at the start of each awkward dancing session. Sometimes it worked. He thought it was the best luck he’d ever experienced, being paired with her for the entire grad ceremony. It made him almost believe in some god. Just as they lined-up and prepared to enter the large rink-cum-convocation hall, he set his sights on her for the night. It took him two years to gather this sort of courage.

Why not, he thought, this is grad—anything can happen.

The speeches droned on. Mary, what are your plans for later? John leaned over slightly and asked nervously in hushed tones.

Well, I’m going to the party. She smiled somewhat mischievously. You’ll be there too, I guess?

Yah, I guess. Don’t much like being locked up, but them’s the rules. He smiled at her goofy-like. She giggled so adorably he thought his heart might actually explode.

It’s true you’re going to university?

Guess so, he answered like it was no big deal, although for months he’d been trying to sweep it from his mind as it quietly terrified him. Once the word was out at school, and indeed around the town itself, he’d often had to reluctantly respond to those awful questions: What are you going to study? Are your friends going? Where will you live? Are you nervous? Are you scared?

Guess that’s pretty exciting? Her close gaze made his heart beat so profoundly that he was sure there was visible movement through his loose-fitting gown.

Yah, no biggie. Again his fear masked in bravado. He looked at her hand and yearned to hold it, to kiss its softness. She always smelt faintly of flowers. John loved this when they’d danced. Her weightless clutch and her floral air made even the Box Step a thing of profound beauty, a memory to cherish.

I would love to go, but my parents say it’s a waste. Say I should get a job here and get on with it, she sighed. John thought about how they should simply trade places and then everyone would be happy.

A new speaker came to the podium to quiet applause. The Salmon City Memorial Arena was hot in June. It was a hockey rink, not built for a thousand people in the summertime. The sound system crackled. The grade eleven band stirred uneasily at the front. Everyone used their programs as fans so the audience took on a strange spectacle of silent yet constant motion. Banners for the Salmon City Totems found some sort of breeze, perhaps lifted from those hundreds of small fans, and so occasionally moved behind the stage, distracting the audience with their slight, rolling shudders. John wondered why they hadn’t taken the banners down for his grad, but then remembered that in B.C., in Canada, hockey—even Jr. Hockey—was far more important than any graduation, any marriage, any funeral. This was Canada, and that was hockey. There was no use pretending that a graduation—even the largest one ever seen in Salmon City—would ever take precedence over that fast game of ice and blades and blood.

John had been up there with Mary the year before—not actually with her, as he sat with Gus and Dean: the mean trombone section. They’d filled their slide water bottles with gin and quietly got buzzed by spraying the juniper mist into their mouths throughout the everlasting ceremony. He remembered watching Charlene and Mary on their shared saxophone riser. He remembered thinking how they were both so damned beautiful, yet his gaze was not evenly shared, Mary always getting far more of his invisible attention. But on this day that all seemed so distant: a vague dream, so far removed.

Hey Mary, remember last year when we were up there watching all this shit? he whispered, using the whisper as a reasonable excuse to come in far closer to her skin than he would have otherwise ever dared.

Yah, I was pretty nervous. She, too, leaned into him when she spoke. Their shoulders touched. John admired her lips. They were moist perfection.

Yah, me too. Always get nervous when I’m in the light. How he ached to kiss her.

You know John, you can live in the light and never fear anything.

Oh no, thought John, here comes the bible lesson. He knew the group she hung with, The Young Christians. They were continually apostatizing about the school. John believed solidly in nothing: a soul maybe, but that was it.

They sometimes talked god when they’d skipped school, smoked some weed. One afternoon that same year, the spring sun had just melted the last clumps of winter’s snow in the fields, John sat with Tuna, McKee, and Gus in an abandoned apple orchard only a stone’s throw from school, but easily far enough to sit there and smoke pot on a sunny afternoon. There they talked of god. The conversation was sincere—stoned, but sincere—and their questions and comments philosophical beyond their years. They never came to an agreement or a conclusion, as Tuna, his large form propped up awkwardly, spilling his rolls in a gnarled, feral apple tree, unknowingly set the field on fire after he’d dropped a roach of homegrown into the massive nest of the previous autumn’s grass, newly dried in the spring sunshine. By the time the four got down to the rapidly spreading grass fire and tried to stomp it out, it was too late. They looked at each other with shared comic disbelief.

Let’s get the fuck ouda-here! Tuna squealed.

To the pond! McKee mock-commanded.

The four stoners headed stealthily down a side lane, then across the road to the hospital pond; four buzzed commandos running as not to be seen. Once there, still quite stoned, and all seated innocently on a green park bench, they watched with harmless amusement as two fire trucks arrived, sirens blaring, and then men in stiff coats doused the old orchard fire. With the four stoners, the god-talk was never resumed. They smoked another small joint and then headed back to school for the last class of the day.

What you mean? He feigned ignorance.

The Light, she sweetly resumed. John, God loves you. I pray for you, you know. I see your group—drugs, booze, and all that. I pray for you John, ‘cause I think you’re one of the good guys, just got some bad company.

Keep your prayers. My friends are as good as gold. We don’t need saving…. He wouldn’t look at her as he coiled in confusion. He'd just been thinking about how she would look by his side in that metallic-blue, 67 Malibu, how she'd look naked, how she would feel…how her skin, all her skin, would smell, and then she came at him with her saviour. Christ, he thought, this fantasy’s officially grounded. He was angered that she and her Jesus would destroy his blissful moment like that.

"Ok, John, sorry. But I can’t help it. I think you’re really cute. I wish you could have