White Shalwars

The story must come out. Only, it is afraid of the dimensions of the page. I, as the writer, express the story. I, as the first person of the story, express the writer.

The story does not always express fear, although this story does. It has never been on paper before and is apprehensive of the page's reality.

I am apprehensive also. A character always fears flatness. On the page, I never know what transcends what. And then too, I often wonder: How does the first person come off the page again, how does the first person return to its original form?

I would obtain the answers from the writer, but I cannot make his dialogue, he makes mine.

I am a self to the reader. I surround the reader's self. I surround you. I have a self. If I do not create it, I at least display it in images and perceptions. Then you, the reader, create it. My self. I am the first person. How well do you know me?

*

I boarded the hovercraft at Dover, channel swimmers and air and France were my thoughts. The physical event controlled the patterns of my thoughts; I realized only the crossing, all else on my mind seemed symbolic and deeply fictional. It was not in the least laughable to me - I felt I had no prior existence, no prior actions, no memory. I felt like the cushion of air we sailed upon; it was me.

You were waiting in Calais. We had never met, but you knew me, at least recognized me. You didn't know me long or well. You were waiting for me. You were patient. You never questioned me. I could do anything.

I ignored you. You were involving yourself with me. You followed me. You even spied when I made love. You came to conclusions about me. You tried to eat my self.

I had to confront you. I could not have you following my story till you die. Much of my fiction exists for me only. I do not want it shared or told.

I told you, I thought we had better talk. Get things straight. We settled on having a conversation following a dinner together on the canal. You thought it would be quite pleasurable and entertaining. I had no thought, only had realized its necessity.

"Enjoy your meal?" you asked. "Find any cream in your tart?"

"Mine was dry." It was not; I felt dry. It seemed the meal I ate turned to paper inside me and soaked up everything.

"Unfortunate. Shall I complain? Could get you another." You seemed sincere.

"I'm fine." I wanted you to believe me. I was all right. Just leave me alone.

"So what did you want to say to me? Be frank. I'll listen. I'm quite interested in what you have to say. You seem pressed." You leaned back in your chair and reached for a cigar or handkerchief.

I arose and left the table, the cafe, the town, the page.

*
For a time I lived in towns. I was shredded from the city. I did not have the faith to be a solo monk in the bush or the determination for pioneering.

The physical sensation of town life is a warm, muffling bath in gray, soured, holy water.

Lindsay, in Ontario, was the town in which I soaked the longest. Two years. After Lindsay, I left Canada for a year. Now I reside again in Toronto. I have been back here for two years. I write and read resumes. I study and apply.

My wife and I spent our first year of marriage in Lindsay. We rented a red brick, century old house. Inside we constructed rooms - rooms becoming enactments conceived from the obvious perfections of adolescence - ideal rooms, melting section by section into shapeless sags and bulges, looking frightening or ugly or stark depending from which window the light fell - desperate rooms of warming, slowly warming, outside perfect flakes of snow.

Occasionally in winter - the snow belt winters of Lindsay were still, not frozen - my wife and I used to enjoy hot baths together. They were spent with minimal movement and minimal speech. We used to sit in the water facing each other, our legs twined a life rope between us. The room was vapour filled, dense; it made the senses indistinguishable.

This act, in the bathroom, was in itself insular. It existed within the enamelled walls, but was so dense we could not sense any features in the bathroom. The act was its own room. We were within it. We were within the room of this act and yet were able to transcend it. And we did. Each time. We never, however, transcended the bathroom. At least I never could.

*

I am what I am given. What I am to you is not necessarily what I give to you; it may be more or less. But the whole thing is not up to me anyway.

I can only give what the writer's I allows me to give. The writer is in control of me, although he is not completely in control of what he allows me to do. The writer has a self subconscious which filters through and becomes mine. Do I have any self, conscious or subconscious, which is purely my own? How total is my creation?

*

Today I wear no shirt. It is much too hot. My white cap is an official USMC cap. I wear white shalwars. I cut across the street slicing directly in front of you. You watch me cross, step onto the sidewalk and disappear through a gray door leading up to rooms above shops. You see the hole I left and then move on through it.

1977