Hello and welcome, reader.
As always, it’s my pleasure to have you join me here.
Early this morning, as I began this last entry of 2024 for The Practice, snow fell like alabaster down onto the barren Alberta hills surrounding Pajama Flats. By the time I finished what passes for work in these parts, the once threatening countryside wore a certain fat man’s beard of white. And with the season’s signal given, even the world’s most resolute outsider must, once again, for a short while, give up his denial. So, though not a celebrant, I send best wishes for the coming holidays, and for a healthy and happy new year to you and yours.
Since last we met, I’ve resumed work on my latest manuscript, and, as a result, have returned to what passes for sanity in these parts. As usual, when referencing myself, of course, I must use what some might call a liberal interpretation of the term. Which, I will admit, may or may not adhere to the medical criteria required to, in the eyes of a pro, let’s say, earn the citation.
My guess is that’s life for a responsible individual. But I could be wrong, too. It has happened before, after all. Though not as often as I like to make out in print.
Around here, I call that keeping my ego in check. Nor am I breaking out the history books to confirm anything, be they rumour or otherwise, either. Let’s just say there’s plenty I don’t explain. As, likewise, there’s far more I won’t forget.
How was that for a little secret agent irony at arm’s length?
Anyway, I’ve returned to staring into the abyss. Beyond that, as I’ve told you before, your guess is often as good as mine.
Except for one thing.
Because, as a writer of fiction, I follow a simple rule, and only one. It’s ever been the same, too. But it struck me the other day, for the first time that I can recall, that I’ve not written about the silly thing. So, to make things plain, and to say thanks for sticking around, too, I’m sharing it with you.
I know, I know. It breaks the local secret agent’s code. I will regret it, I’m sure. If not today… you know the rest.
By now, you’ve learned I don’t toss around words such as posterity, either. But we can use it this one time, as a label, if you want, to make this stuff easier to understand. See, the fact is, I’ve always known the people I care for most can also read. So, that I waited quite a long while to share my stories is more than coincidence.
There are other reasons, better ones, too, maybe, besides those, as well. So, for today’s practice, we’ll deal with a few.
Right about here, for many, I’m told, is where things go sideways. Of course, for others, the whole deal is a miasma built on madness. Anyway, after this, what the charitable call weird, if being nice, intrudes upon our conversation. I’ve heard it takes, at least, an open mind to handle what comes next.
Best of luck with that.
Most times, I pass this stuff off by saying ‘art is subjective’ or something near as oblique and just about as meaningless. And, lucky for me, it’s not that I’m overwhelmed with such queries, either. That’s because here, as the man warned so long ago, we nowadays work without applause.
Well, that’s more luck, too, because I prefer it this way. Not just because I’m anti-social, either. Though, if truth be told, I’m not much for crowds. But that’s not the reason. No. It’s because my process works best the more time I spend alone.
The above confession surprises none that know me well.
And, once again, like clockwork, I digress. So, let’s get back on track.
Now, I’ll start by telling you that this month’s story reveals at least one fact. Too bad, so sad, for both of us, what it also shows is that I’m not much good at writing short stories. Thus, once again, I must ask that you endeavour to persevere, reader, despite my shortcomings.
I promise to do my best to make it worth your while.
Here we go.
By the time my father passed, and I returned to his remote spread in the postal district of Harwill, Manitoba, where I had spent my boyhood, I was thirty and had lived in more else where’s than I can now recall, for half my life. There, among the lingering remnants of my childhood dreams, for the first time in several years, I was alone.
In the literal, as well as the metaphorical, sense. Because the closest neighbours were miles away, and I lived with only the ranch animals for company. For long weeks, among fallen leaves and barren fields, grief was my close companion.
But, instead of surrounding me, the wilderness near at once made a home for itself in my psyche. While, with little thought, I returned to the daily grind of feeding, watering, caring for, and cleaning up after the horses in the stable and those in the pasture. Learned as a boy, my father’s careful lessons kept all of us alive, despite the lengthy time and experience since last I had used them.
There, in the crisp silence of falling snow, I will admit to sometimes hearing his voice.
Whether splitting wood or carrying water or shoveling shit or making a fire or fixing a pot of coffee, in my head, he showed me, once again, not just what to do, but how to do it. In that way, after a while, I recalled the why that drove me.
But my solitude didn’t last.
For in the years I was gone, they built a gravel road leading to the front gate of the place. Though nothing to write home about, it was solid enough for a pickup truck with an experienced hand at the wheel to manage the trip at least three seasons out of four. Which, compared to my childhood, was a shocking improvement.
Six weeks after the funeral, when the freeze had set in well enough to make the loose gravel a relative delight, a cousin, a few years older than me, who was once a good friend, visited. I can’t speak for the old ballplayer, but our visit was for me, at least, unsettling.
A white Christmas was on the way, and six inches of snow covered the fields when I saw a blue truck clear the ridge a quarter mile away from my dad’s front gate. It was a Sunday, and not yet noon, and I had finished my chores early, hoping to spend a few hours reading by daylight.
Even seated at the kitchen table next to the big window, by that date on the calendar, I needed the gas lamp to see inside the low-pitched cabin by four o’clock in the afternoon.
And though I didn’t know who owned the approaching truck, I figured it meant the end of my reading plans. Near at once, I caught myself hoping it wasn’t more sad news come to visit. With a shake of my head, I banished the worthless thought.
For by then, I had figured out that life was what I made it.
Instead, I turned away from the window and, crossing the kitchen in a couple of steps, went to the cast iron cookstove and moved the full kettle into the heat. I emptied the remains of yesterday’s tea into the slop pail next to the stove. After rinsing it with fresh well-water from a nearby steel bucket, I set the tin pot on the warming rack to await fresh leaves and boiling water.
Just then, there was a knock on the two-room cabin’s front door, and I went to greet my guest.
“I don’t know how you can stand it,” he said.
Across the wooden table from him, I grinned before replying. We sat in straight-backed chairs and drank strong black tea with plenty of white sugar. The fading sun now hung low in the eastern sky behind the cabin, and ghost-like shadows of tall bare poplar trees stretched across the yard in front of the kitchen window.
“To me, it’s like a holiday, I guess.”
We spent the previous hours catching up and renewing the bond of family and friendship that had once made us close. It was a chance to appreciate Einstein’s relativity, too, as the hours passed in what seemed, later, like only minutes.
He shook his head, slow, before speaking.
“But for real,” he said, “doesn’t it drive you crazy? Alone out here, like this, all the time? I’m telling you; it’d make me insane!”
This time, I chuckled. He spoke again before I could reply.
“I mean, christ, isn’t that why you left this god forsaken place?”
That one got me, and I laughed out loud. He joined me.
“No offense to your old man, either,” he said, “because I loved him, and you know that.”
I nodded.
“He did, you, too, pard.”
It was true. My dad loved his nephews and nieces as if they were his own kids. As near as I can tell, it’s a family trait.
“So,” he said, “how, and why, do you do it? Doesn’t it drive you mental? I mean, thinking about all you’re missing? You know, in the world you left behind? Like that.”
I chuckled at the misconception before answering.
“I don’t know if anyone ever leaves anything behind, pard,” I said.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Fuck,” he said, “why’d you have to remind me? Ain’t we supposed to be a pair of jocks? And free of the misery of deep thoughts? You know I am, anyway, cousin, and that’s a fact.”
I grinned at him and thought a moment before answering. Beyond baseball, he was quite an accomplished athlete in his day. Nowadays, the world would celebrate him for such talent. Back then? In our time? Not so much.
But, and despite many disappointments, much like my cousin, I had done okay, too. In truth, for a couple of dirt poor half-breed boys from the middle of nowhere, starting with nothing, we made out alright. That’s how I see it now, anyway.
“If only it were so,” I said, “for either of us.”
He sipped from the mug in front of him, and I did the same from mine. The sweet black tea left a bitter aftertaste. Like memories, I thought. Then, to keep from slipping off into useless melancholy, I reached once more for the cup on the table in front of me, and in a single gulp, drained it.
“You ready for a fresh one?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, “but after that I gotta hit it, okay?”
I nodded to him but said nothing while filling our cups from the steaming tea pot. Not too many months later, the way was clear enough for me to once again see it. Soon after, it was time to leave my boyhood home.
And though we didn’t know it then, the loose talk and strong tea enjoyed through that winter afternoon would be the last we shared.
The rest, as we say, is history.
For as I write this, more than thirty years have passed since I left home for the last time and devoted my life to this work of mine.
The truth of the work I’ve done to date, meanwhile, is that I’ve shown little concern for story arcs and archetypes and hero’s journeys and bullshit like that. Yes, I believe that stuff is bullshit. To be specific, we call crap such as that ‘content’ and I don’t make it. What I’ve spent my life doing is art. So if you’re looking for a cheap thrill, or somebody trying to make a buck, or to escape from life and its brutal indifference, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Here, we soak ourselves in it.
It goes this way.
First, I believe that the power of artistic insight, when applied to our shared condition as people here on earth, relies on perspective. Second, I believe that perspective, to best reflect what we share, most needs time. Third, I accept that time is an aspect of nature applied at random to what we call shared reality, but impossible to either separate or experience apart from it.
The art of writing, then, as I practice it, is, at best, a paradox. For science tells us spacetime is a continuum, rather than an aimless arrow speeding toward an unknown destiny. Thus, in a sense, what happened either is, or could be, still happening. And my thing, if you recall, is showing how it was. Not a thing more. Of course, no less, either, when it’s done well.
How’s that for irony?
Too damned close for comfort, if you ask me. Likewise, too, in such a light, at worst, my practice amounts to little beyond obscure history. Despite its author claiming a seat at the artist’s table.
Before writing me off, though, allow me to at last share what brought us here today. You know, the simple rule. Which, again according to nobody aside from me, if one adheres to it, leads, through repeated failure, to ultimate success.
So, for the record, here you go. The simple rule of my fiction is: if writing it doesn’t make me cry, it’s not good enough for anyone else to read.
Now, the part about ultimate success is, as of this writing, pure conjecture. In fact, all I have for evidence is the work I’ve so far done. That, and the hope one day I’ll make my masterpiece.
Beyond that, as near as I can tell, the only way for me to reach the afore mentioned and lofty goal is by using irony to keep reality at arm’s length. Though as I told you before, it could be I’m wrong, too. I mean, it has happened before, if what I’ve heard is true.
Anyway, by now, I’m sure enough that’s okay, too. Because in these parts, I accept the simple rule as a fact of this writer’s life. And that makes every other thing alright, no matter how much, or even if, I do or don’t like it.
Thus, from here on, reader, you’re free to call me a crybaby. Go ahead. I won’t deny it. After all, if you want to call yourself an artist, you’d best be ready to suffer for your art.
And, with that questionable bon mot, the latest fiction ends.
Likewise, what passes for literary insight in these parts wraps up, too, for at least a while. As usual, I hope you’ve enjoyed whatever this was, and that I’ve left you with more questions than answers.
Until next time, thanks for being here, and for sharing this with anyone who might want to read it.
– TFP
December 14, 2024