The Not So Simple Life (A Comedy) Read online

Like he did every Wednesday, Ben Myles of Fitness 'N Things phoned me to change his ad.

  "Hello, Stephen." He had never bothered to learn my name, instead he called me Stephen—the name of my predecessor. "I want tomorrow's ads to talk about stair climbers." Ben's humorless voice sounded artificially deep; perhaps he had a voice box. "This is the important part. On Saturday we're going to have a special Try it and Buy it sale. The—"

  "Why sell stair climbers?" It wasn't my job to speak. I was just there to type out what he was saying and turn it into an 8 line, 30 second ad. My mouth opened on its own. "There's no point."

  "What?"

  "People don't need stair climbers. Everyone has stairs in their house. So why are you telling people they need stair climbers?"

  He spoke loud and slow, careful to pronounce every syllable. "Pee-pull. Buy. Stair. Climb-ers. I. Sell. Them." He switched to a higher gear. "It has nothing to do with needing."

  "And you're all right with this?"

  "Of course I'm all right with it!" His voice warbled up two octaves. A little higher and you could shatter a wine glass. "Why wouldn't I be?"

  "Well the stairs don't even go anywhere. If they went somewhere maybe it'd be okay...but they stop in mid air. Just think how this is subtly affecting each of your clients. They get on them. Puff! Puff! for a few minutes and find out there's nothing at the end of the stairs. No reward, no goal to reach. Nothing."

  Which was exactly what I was hearing on my line.

  The silence did allow me to notice the phone ring a moment later in my boss's office.

  Frodo became ice cold.

  Five

  Two Words...not "Nice Day!"

  "You're fired."

  Linda, my boss, squinted up at me, brown paper bag wrinkles folding around her eyes, the smell of cigarette smoke emanating from her body. She was leaning on her desk.

  I had always wondered what it would feel like to be canned. How many people were crushed by those two simple words? For me they were notes from a magical horn, changing winter to spring. They rang with the sound of chains snapping, wings unfolding, flowers opening.

  Freedom.

  "You heard me, didn't you?" Linda squeezed her eyes even tighter.

  "Yes."

  "Then why are you smiling?"

  Surprised, I touched my face. I was grinning. How peculiar...and wonderful. "I don't know." A lie. I did know.

  "Don't you have anything to say?"

  Yes, thank you, oh thank you!

  "God, say something, instead of smiling like an idiot."

  Suddenly Ghandi's brain touched down inside my head, blessing me with more clarity than a Japanese t.v. "You're doing the right thing. I'm not a good employee."

  "What?"

  "I've been utterly ineffective. You have every right in the world to release me from your services."

  She stepped back. "You're weird, Casey."

  "I just can't do this anymore."

  "Why?"

  "It's not me. I've changed."

  Linda opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then began patting at her pockets, searching for her Players Light. She discovered them on her desk, clutched the pack to her chest.

  "You were good at this," Linda told her cigarette pack. "You could write ads."

  "It doesn't matter now."

  She looked up. Our eyes met and in that moment I felt sorry for her, for the hours she fidgeted away inside this office, her only goal to make it to the next smoke break. They don't pay you enough.

  "You're so calm," a whisper: either she was amazed or it was a statement of how crazy she thought I was. "What will you do now?"

  "Drive." The answer had perhaps been waiting for years to swan dive off the tip of my tongue.

  "This is what you want, isn't it?" Linda asked, but it sounded more like a realization than a question. She pointed at a piece of paper on her desk. "Sign that."

  I did so, not bothering to read it. She handed me an envelope—my last cheque. We stared at each other for a silent moment, then she shrugged. Another employee canned...another day gone by. "Take care of yourself," she said.

  "You do the same," I answered, then turned, opened the door and danced my way out of the building. I didn't stop at my desk because I had never brought anything to work I really wanted to keep.

  Odin fired up without a fuss and the pavement welcomed me. I rolled out of the parking lot feeling as if I'd just come through a giant storm. The road led me to a bank machine to deposit my cheque, then home.

  Six

  Every Journey Starts with a First Misstep

  I packed quickly—stuffing my suitcase to bursting, taking some out, filling it again. The dance of a peculiar tribe: The Not Quite Sure Where They're Going. I finally decided to leave it at the three quarter's line.

  That done I made sure I had my wallet. Slumbering inside his leather pocket, with a 2000 dollar credit limit, was the great god Visa—gathering his energy for a furious charging spree. The amount on my card plus another five or six hundred in the bank made me a...well made me a poor man going nowhere fast, but I didn't stop to reflect. I should have applied for more credit cards.

  How silly of me.

  I shoved my wallet firmly into my front pocket. Two seconds later I was opening the door to my apartment, on the threshold of my great adventure.

  Someone very wise once said every journey begins with the first step.

  Except I couldn't take it. Yes, I wanted to go. Yes, the suitcase was heavy in my hand. But I had a sudden powerful urge boiling up in my subconscious, spilling over my thoughts.

  I had to say goodbye to someone. My neighbor, the mailman, a wrong number...anyone. Maybe I'd just yell See ya soon! out the window.

  No, it had to be more direct. Someone I had connections with. Someone who knew who I was.

  Violet. Of course! She of the blind date. Violet and I were almost romantically entangled—we had shared a meal together less than twenty four hours ago. It was only out of embarrassment that she left early.

  She must still like me.

  I deposited my luggage on the floor, scampered back to the kitchen, dug through the pile of sticky notes on the cupboard and found the one with Violet circled in red. I dialed the number and her phone buzzed. At once my hands became clammy, my heart did a quick rumba in triple time and sweat gathered on my forehead.

  Ugh! Me shy, You Jane.

  The third ring was followed by: "Hello?"

  "Hi, Violet, it's Casey," I spat out.

  "Who?"

  I blinked. A second ago I had an ego. Now where was it? "Casey. You know from...uh...last night, blind date, flaming chicken swallower...Casey."

  "Casey? Oh...yeah, Casey. Sorry, I was thinking of something else—I'm in a rush. Are you at work?"

  "Well actually I just quit." Oops, rewriting the past again—a bad habit. "I mean I got fired. But I was going to quit anyway."

  "Oh..." A long pause. She was searching for something to say...maybe signing a get over losing your job soon card. "You okay?"

  "Never better!" I had to explain myself quickly before I lost her. "I'm going on a trip. That's why I phoned, just to say I'd be out of town for a few days in case you called me and left a message and wondered why I didn't answer then phoned again ten minutes later and left another message and then another and then well...you know." I was blowing our romance all out of proportion. All we did was masticate at the same candlelit table. Deflated, I succumbed to mumbling: "I...uh...just wanted to say goodbye."

  "Where are you going?"

  My world faltered. I hadn't thought about it. "Well...wherever the road takes me."

  "Really? You don't seem the adventurous type."

  "Guess you don't know me well enough," I countered. "Yet."

  "No. Guess not." Sarcasm?

  A buzzer buzzed in the background—someone wanting entrance to her apartment building. A lover perhaps? Her pizza arriving?

  "Look," Violet whispered quickly, "why don't we hav
e a drink before you go?"

  "A drink?"

  "Yeah. Meet me at Kelsey's in about ten minutes."

  Click.

  She wanted to see me! Not for her a simple phone call, but real face to face contact, a tearful parting is such sweet sorrow goodbye. Suddenly my mind was a chorus of voices. Maybe she'll hug us. Maybe we'll get a kiss.

  Or maybe she'll have quick writhing sex with us on the table!

  Testosterone tumbling through my system, heart palpitating, feeling subtle pangs of guilt for seeing Violet as a sexual object, I quickly piled everything into Odin and clambered inside, pulling on the choke and starting him up. He announced himself to the world with a thunderous hollow muffler roar. A moment later I was chugging down the street, cyclists and pedestrians weaving respectful paths around me.

  Odin, ancient invulnerable god of the Volvos, was not one to take lightly.

  Let me pause to tell you about my blue 1970 Volvo. Odin is a simple machine: each part fits with the other, each bolt snug, each chamber smooth, every piston firing in a symphony of automobile perfection. Odin knows the highway and when something's wrong he has his own language of coughs and interrupted revs to tell me about it.

  If I opened my Volvo door and he started talking to me, I'd have to shoot him. Technology will be the downfall of humankind.

  I performed a wide fire truck turn off 8th street and into Kelsey's, scanning for a parking spot. I saw Violet dashing towards me, waving her arms like a crazed air controller. Was Odin on fire? I knew it would happen someday! I stomped his brakes, glanced in the rearview mirror. No smoke ascending skyward, no flames licking the trunk. What was she signaling me for?

  Violet flung open Odin's passenger door, swung inside, slammed it, then tossed a backpack on the front floor. She grabbed for the shoulder harness.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "Trying to get this belt on. Is it broke?" She pulled, it tightened; Odin was tricky that way, you have to be gentle. She discovered this, began working slowly.

  "What are you doing in my Volvo?"

  "Coming with you. Let's go." She clicked the seatbelt into place. "The road's that way." Violet pointed.

  "Coming with me?"

  "Yeah," she answered, swinging her backpack into the rear seat, atop my suitcase. She gave me a sidelong look, a sprite smile on her face, her hair windblown. Her larger eye stared right into my soul. "You invited me on the phone."

  "I invited you?"

  "Well not in so many words. But that's why you called."

  "It is?"

  She rolled down the window and twisted the side mirror from left to right. Checking her lipstick? "It's okay isn't it, if I come?"

  "Well, I..." Events were moving too fast for comprehension—I was like an understudy, awakened from a nap and shoved into the middle of a complicated musical. Do! Re! Me! Uh-Oh! The lily scent of Violet's perfume drifted into my nostrils, scattering my thoughts.

  Now what was I thinking about?

  Violet patted my leg and I jumped—if not for my seatbelt, I'd have made a sunroof. "I'll pay for half the gas." She was grinning as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be in my Volvo.

  "Well, okay, I guess, I mean—"

  "Let's go." She pointed to 8th street.

  Entranced by her long, thin finger, compelled by forces far beyond my ken; I popped Odin into gear and rumbled forward. I poked his nose out onto the street and was almost hit by a rusty truck that roared past, horn blaring. I glimpsed a sasquatch of a man shaking a shovel-sized fist. His wife was bracing her hands on the dash, eyes wide, cigarette dangling precariously from a gaping mouth.

  Hi, how's your heart rate!

  I waited until the street was clear and pulled the rest of the way out. I still couldn't organize my thoughts—they were bees desperate for a beehive, a configuration to fit into. I concentrated on the steering wheel, let Odin take the turns.

  We headed onto Circle Drive. Violet pulled down the sun shade and looked in the mirror. Checking her hair again? Red alert! Strand number 561 is out of place.

  It turned out to be the perfect traveling weather for a Volvo without air conditioning. Clouds had drifted across the sun, cooling the hot day to a pleasant temperature. We headed southwest.

  Seven

  Hi Ho, it's Off to...I Don't Know

  Soon Saskatoon was just an image in my rear view mirror; square shapes under the prairie sky, oversized play blocks cleverly piled one on top of the other, mimicking buildings. We were alone on the highway. My problems, my ghost life, receded behind me, stranded amidst the concrete, pavement and traffic lights. Now it was just me and Odin.

  And Violet.

  I found myself happy to have her along. I guess I really didn't want to be alone. Had she intuitively sensed this? I peeked at her out of the corner of my eye.

  "Are you wondering why I came along?" Violet asked. Was she reading my mind?

  "Well...a little."

  "I do whatever jumps into my head, Casey. I had fun with you on our little date. I thought it might be a gas to go somewhere together. So here I am."

  "Simple as that?"

  She shrugged. "Everything's simple, if you look at it the right way."

  Not in my world, I thought.

  Then I returned to what she'd said. She'd had fun with me. Hell had frozen over! The Leafs had won the Stanley Cup!

  But of course there was one thing left unanswered: "Why did you leave the restaurant early?"

  Violet set her feet on Odin's dash, tapping away with her Chinese slippers, a mystical beat inside her body. "It wasn't the right time for us to be together. You had some demons you had to wrestle on your own."

  "Demons?"

  "You know, your past catching up to you...that kind of stuff. I left cause it's the only thing you can do in that situation." She paused. "So how does it feel, Casey?"

  "How does what feel?"

  "Not having a job anymore."

  Suddenly Odin was driving himself. "I feel like me again."

  "It's a good thing, being you again, isn't it?"

  "I could get used to it."

  A comfortable silence fell over us. I pushed a tape into the stereo. Rawlins Cross played a jig through the back speakers.

  I glanced at my watch. 12:30. Right now my co-workers would be seated in various restaurants, half-way through their meals, their bodies urging them to pause for a smoke. Maybe they were gossiping about me: You know, I don't want to say anything bad, but that Casey sure was a weird fellow.

  Yeah, the quiet guy next door with the axe type.

  Glad he was canned though, I owe him five bucks.

  If it was an ordinary day I'd be at home right now, stuffing down my lunch, rushing to get back to work on time.

  On time. One of the strangest concepts in human history. Getting things done on time—damn the price.

  My watch grew heavy, my hand slipped on the steering wheel. I rolled down the window, warm air gushed in. I undid the band on my Timex and flicked it outside, looking in the mirror to see it skip, somersault, slide and finally curl up in the middle of the highway, becoming mechanical road kill.

  When I closed the window, silencing the roar of wind, Violet was laughing.

  "Time flies," she said.

  I chuckled along with her—two explorers sharing a joke, private from the rest of humanity. Once I'd caught my breath, I asked: "So where are we going?"

  This set Violet tittering again. "Don't ask me. I'm just tagging along."

  "In other words you don't want to make any decisions."

  "I'm an observer."

  "Will you take notes? Man goes through pre-mid-life crisis, quits job, grows his hair. Drifts away like the rest of Generation X."

  "We're not Gen X—We're generation Tao. The way. The path. The generation that should learn to put everything in balance again. There's been too much yang in the world for too many years—we need more yin."

  "Sounds like you've done a l
ot of thinking about it."

  "Once in awhile I try to figure out what's going on in the big picture. Most of the time I'm just happy being where I am. Do you have any idea at all where you want to go?"

  "I don't know. Gabriola Island, maybe."

  "That's near Victoria isn't it?"

  "Yes. It's home to the granola crowd: artists and free thinkers, recycled hippies." I paused. "I'm not sure if I could live there though. Too dreamy."

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "I might float away. Join a commune. Become a Marxist."

  "Oh, don't do that. There aren't any communists worth knowing." She huddled away from me, perhaps fearing I would metamorphose into Mao himself.

  "You're from China?" I asked.

  "Yes," she snorted. "Can't you tell?"

  "But your English is perfect. I thought you were raised in Canada."

  "My father was a diplomat. He made sure I learned English. I spent most of my life in Europe and over here. China was a crowded place we were forced to visit twice a year."

  "Do you have to go back?"

  "We won't," she answered, her voice flat. "We're Canadian now. After Tiananmen, we asked to stay. We couldn't return...not after that."

  As what happened every time someone mentioned Tiananmen Square, newsreel images flickered in the back of my mind of all the Chinese students waving flags and chanting. Again, I saw that one man standing in front of the tanks, his arms raised in a gesture of hope and defiance, somehow holding back a hideous and clanging machine with human machines inside. Did all the sacrifices made during those few days mean anything?

  "So where are your parents now?" I asked, hoping to guide both of us to safer emotional ground.

  At first Violet didn't answer. Had she heard me? Then she spoke in a quiet, careful voice: "Mom's in Vancouver. Dad...he died a year ago."

  Out of the frying pan into the flame-thrower.

  "I miss him. Sometimes he visits when I'm tired. He appears in the corner of my eye. And he sings to me, like he used to when I was a child."

  Was she saying she sees ghosts? Well, hello, Miss Hamlet.

  "And no matter how down I am, I feel good. If I don't look straight at him he won't disappear and the song doesn't stop. I get this warm feeling. I feel new." A pause. "You must think I'm crazy."