Three Scoops is a Blast! (8 page)

Gerry was one of the first on the scene at the original monster sighting in downtown Toronto. Finished tidying up after the “talent”, he’d walked out of the Air Canada Centre and, thanks to his computing skills, quickly grasped what was going on. In fact, it was Gerry who gave the creature the name Noise. He said it during an on-the-spot interview with a local reporter. Gerry joked that he was surprised such an event hadn’t already occurred in Ottawa, also known as Silicon Valley north. But then he’d added that the hot air from the federal parliament was probably precluding such a possibility. This witticism gained him a great deal of notoriety.

Gerry’s interest in Noise escalated. He raced home and fired up his laptop. Something Gerry kept secret from the world was his exceptional hacking ability. He struggled for a couple of days but finally made contact with the beast. Soon afterwards and knowing it would be a turning point on his own personal pathway, in terms of privacy and career choices, he still did the right thing. He contacted the authorities. Noise was an asset not to be wasted or destroyed.

The army swooped in. Gerry was taken by convoy to the danger zone. He was allowed to approach Noise and wasn’t at all bothered by the sparking giant. Meeting in person, Gerry had a calming effect on Noise. They “talked” back and forth. Noise came to understand it couldn’t stay where it was. The present situation wasn’t viable. Therefore, Noise accepted an offer posed by the military and conveyed through Gerry. It would board a Hercules transport plane and be transported to a place where it would have more room to roam. It would also take on an assignment for which its special abilities offered a chance of success where all others had failed.

And that’s what happened. During the flight, “Silent Night” was played over and over again on a portable sound system to keep Noise relaxed. This was necessary because the trip took them halfway around the world. Gerry went along for the ride as well. Noise was going where the population density was thinner and the air was always cool. The destination? A clandestine Canadian military base in the mountains of Afghanistan. The assignment and potential good deed? Noise was to use its ethereal tracking abilities to find Osama Bin Laden.

Lenny and Keith Flounder in the Shallow End

December 28, 2009

In early September, Leonard Smith covered over his family’s backyard pool and started swimming at the local health club. It wasn’t a fancy club, but it still required a membership fee. This restricted the number of people who had access to the property. Nevertheless, whenever Lenny tried to get a swim in, at lunch or after work, the other members drove him crazy.

The pool always seemed to be spilling over with either an aqua-sizer class or teenagers playing smurf football. Lenny liked to swim lengths. He saw himself as a power swimmer and fantasized about how he could have been in the Olympics. He did fancy head-over-heels turns that even he found impressive. The crowds weren’t working for him. He quickly learned the thing to do was to go to the club first thing in the morning and have the pool to himself.

However, that meant getting up at 5:15 am to be there when the doors were unlocked at 6:00 am. He followed this schedule Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he was committed to driving his children to day care. All in all, it was a comfortable schedule.

By following this routine, Lenny could quickly change into his swimming suit, then dip into the pristine water. There was nary a ripple. It was perfection at its most sublime. The smell of the chlorine was intoxicating. The amniotic fluid accepted him into its heated embrace. He cut a perfect straight line up and down for his standard 50 lengths and he could not have been happier.

In early October, however, a significant fly appeared in Lenny’s ointment. Out of the blue, another individual started showing up at the same time as him, disturbing the purity of the moment. The newcomer was a quiet but still upsetting presence in the locker room. He created waves in the water. He liked to sing in the shower area. This was not acceptable.

Should Lenny change his schedule once again? Negotiations with his wife about their respective times for dropping off and picking up the kids at school had taken considerable patience and compromise. Approach her about re-opening their agreement? Who knew where the repercussions of that might lead? Past experience persuaded him to avoid that route at all cost.

Besides, Lenny liked beginning and ending his week with a swim. And on Wednesdays, it helped him get through “hump” day. How to remove the annoyance? By inclination, Lenny was not a violent man. He would have to come up with an answer through the use of mental finesse.

~~

Keith Chan was a serious-looking gentleman of an age at most five years younger than Lenny. They were on either side of the cusp of forty. Keith was a match for Lenny in every way. Athletic and lean, he also had a stubborn streak that was hidden behind impeccable manners.

Keith soon caught on to the fact his swimming companion was at odds with the idea of co-habiting the pool early in the morning. His first clue was when, not just once, but on back-to-back occasions, the red panic button beside the sauna was pushed shortly after Lenny exited the area. This set off a klaxon call that was deafening in its intensity. Keith was left on his own to provide assurances to club staff that he was neither in distress nor responsible for the incident.

Keith was no dummy. This was a conundrum, no doubt about it. He wasn’t going to change his schedule either. That was his obstinate side coming through. Also, behind the serious façade, there was a desire to have some fun with the situation. Keith began a charade of making friendly overtures to Lenny. Although he spoke perfect English, he became more oriental.

When Keith found out Lenny’s name, he dropped his “l’s” and started emphasizing his “r’s”. From that moment on, his greeting three times a week was, “Herro Renny. Rooks rike a rovery day.” As Keith tried to engage him in further conversation, Lenny looked more and more upset.

~~

In early December, Lenny took his machinations to the next level. While Keith was taking a pre-swim shower, Lenny went to work with some crazy glue. He then fled into the pool area and uncharacteristically floated on his back, waiting to see the outcome of what he had initiated. When Keith took his usual long deep swig of drinking water before entering the pool, he was left with a dilemma – what to do with a giant plastic water bottle cemented to his right hand?

Keith was no quitter. After several moments of confusion and doubt, he climbed into the pool and attempted the crawl. The problem was the bottle kept filling up with liquid. This caused Keith to list to the right. He kept crashing into the side wall. Did he let himself show his annoyance? Not on your life. In fact, this gave him a whole new inventory of ideas to pursue.

For the rest of the month, Keith showed up with ever more elaborate gear. He started with flippers for his feet. Then he added web-fingered gloves for his hands. He topped it all off with a shiny black shower cap. He became quite the sartorial spectacle, draped with all the accoutrements of a well-equipped water baby. Lenny was left feeling both aghast and fascinated.

In January of the new year, Lenny tried the first of his sexual gambits. He began shaving his chest in front of Keith, back in the locker room after their swim. He’d have been surprised to know how little this bothered Keith. Keith thought Lenny was a bit of a hairy bear anyway. Some curbing of Lenny’s hirsute furry exterior would be no water off Keith’s back.

Several days later, Keith responded in kind. He showed up in the locker room wearing a hidden costume he had managed, after lengthy explanations, to talk his wife into buying. When he removed his trousers, he was exposed in black lace stockings and a garter belt. To Lenny’s questioning look, he responded, “Out rate rast night.” That was all he said. He knew such a level of inscrutability would drive Lenny nuts. It darn nearly did push Lenny over the edge.

The next time they were together, Lenny pulled what he thought was an inspired rabbit out of his hat. Just as Keith was changing into his trunks, Lenny dragged a young man into the locker room who promptly set up a camera on a tripod. “It’s for my company’s newsletter,” Lenny explained. “The goal is to encourage other employees to take up an exercise program like mine. You don’t mind, do you?”

Without skipping a beat, Keith struck a muscleman pose in the background and that’s how the whole session went. When it was over, Lenny hustled his young protégé out the door and was disgusted he’d wasted $50 setting up a fake photo shoot.

In early February, a certain level of fatigue began to settle in with respect to their battle. Lenny was developing a grudging respect for Keith’s chutzpah and Keith had never been opposed to Lenny in the first place. They began to talk more. Lenny noticed Keith’s accent became more intermittent. When asked about it, Keith said he was a quick learner.

Furthermore, Lenny had other problems on his mind. He needed all of his wisdom teeth removed. For a week after the surgery, he was laid up and didn’t go to the club. The two men found they missed each other. They both looked forward to seeing one another again.

On the first day Lenny returned, his mouth still felt like it was filled with cotton batting. “How you feeling?” Keith asked. “I guess you’re still in a lot of pain.”

Lenny nodded his head.

“Is there anything you can do about it?”

“The only wemedy is west,” said Lenny.

“Just the same, it must be getting on your nerves.”

“I’m taking twanqwilizers.”

“Life can be a bitter pill sometimes.”

“Too twue. Too twue.”

So the days went by and the bonding between Lenny and Keith grew apace. But contentment and peace are not the lot of man. They, among all people, should have known that their “ideal” could not be enduring. On the Ides of March, their more simpatico world was turned upside down.

Lenny and Keith simultaneously sensed the new presence that slipped into the space between them in the pool. Cutting through the water with grace and elegance was a young lady of obvious abilities. Bobbing up and down, head and backside alternately in and out of the water, she motored along with powerful strokes that left the other two in her wake. This was a woman with training, experience and porpoise-like talent.

After returning to the locker room, the two men looked at each other in consternation.

“What did you think of that?” said Keith.

“Show-offy and excessive,” was Lenny’s response.

“I agree, but what can we do about it?”

“We have to come up with a plan.”

The Mechanized Sorting Day of the Dead

December 31, 2009

Now that he was dead, Norman Watts was in possession of certain information that someone in the living world would have given an arm and a leg to discover. Forget Halloween or Dia de los Muertos or any of those other days of the year when the departed are supposed to be revered. They might have been more meaningful in earlier times, but circumstances had changed. Mechanization had come to the afterlife. With respect to sorting out the good from the bad and those to be rewarded from those to be punished, there was a new way of doing things. Everything now happened once per annum. That day was far more obvious from the back side of the curtain than from the front.

There is a time of year when it becomes nigh on impossible not to think about relatives and friends now departed. It’s a time of great joy but also deep sadness. When the sense of loss can be overwhelming and memories of moments spent with grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, friends and loved ones can sweep one away in a flood of regret for shared occasions no longer accessible.

It’s a time of year when popular music playing everywhere features lyrics that squeeze the heart. The whole season is a setup to remembrances of sunny skies past and nostalgic warmth that can never be repeated. The anthem for this instance is Auld Lange Syne and life centres on thoughts of old acquaintances. In newspapers and on television, respects are paid to celebrities whose glow has been extinguished over the past year. Of course I’m speaking of New Year’s Eve.

Around the globe, at the midnight hour on December 31 and consecutively in each of 24 zones, there is a tear in the fabric of time. That is the moment when the reach-out-and-touch world undergoes a seismic shift to open portals for the incorporeal phantasmagorical world. It serves up moments when the everyday world is pre-occupied with seasonal parties. And the nights are at their longest. This is when the great sorting of souls now takes place. It is most convenient for the bureaucrats of heaven and hell – minions, functionaries and marshalling agents alike.

Norman had already been informed of the staging area to which he was supposed to report. His essence had been marking time since a fiery car crash six months earlier. Needing the money and anxious to perform at his best, he’d been rushing to a singles-bar gig some twenty kilometres away from home on a Friday evening. A heavy rain was falling. Norman’s concentration wavered and he lost control of his car on the Toronto expressway. It swerved from the middle lane to the outside lane, clipping the guard rail. Then the Impala rebounded back across the whole expanse of asphalt and slammed rear-end-first into an abutment on the edge of an off ramp.

The car exploded. The hood, glass from the windshield, engine parts and a tire flew into the air. It was a miracle no other drivers were seriously injured. Several witnesses knew they had escaped with their lives by the narrowest of margins. As for Norman, death was instantaneous. He was buried four days later in Cul de Sac Cemetery after a customary period of respect was paid by family and friends. The casket lid remained firmly closed throughout.