Selected Writing
The Funeral
He leaves Bernice at the funeral and finds himself at a red light on Yellowhead Trail, heading west towards Randi's place. Bernice liked the milling about with discomfort and coffee in a church basement. Samuel Miller had told his wife that he was going to go grab a coffee somewhere downtown. He was going to have a coffee and read the paper.
"You alright?" she said.
"Ya, sure, fine," he said. "Me and funerals don't like each other too much. I want out."
"Oh, okay, well, see you for dinner. Pizza?"
"Sounds good."
He doesn't like pizza, Bernice thinks. And then she chalks it up to his being a little freaked out by the funeral…mortality, death, all that. She looks around at the swarms of solemn-faced people. It was a good turnout. Horrible weather stuck between snow and rain today. Swirled clouds in a jumble of indecision. Yes. It was fine turnout for a funeral on a day like this, which made a strong argument for staying home, renting a movie, snuggling in bed under down quilts.
Am I going to hit absolutely every single goddamned red light on this road? Samuel Miller is not a patient man right now. He's rushing towards his antidote to death. He's going to meet Bernice's sister at her condo, and then 23 floors up in the air, they will push death back where it belongs. She'll meet him at the door wearing only white stockings and a garter. She'll hand him a drink.
And then in the bedroom, while he is still moving inside her, she'll whisper; "I can't keep doing this to Bernice." Perhaps, when Samuel Miller first comes in the door, she asks him if the funeral was rough. Or perhaps, she just says, "Come in. Here's a drink."
"Thanks."
"Sure," she says.
"How are you?"
"I'm good. It was a good week." She smiles but her mouth becomes down-turned as she does.
"That's good," he says. "Ya, that's excellent." Why do we bother with these banalities, he thinks.
She looks as if she might want to say something more but instead there is a boxed silence. And then she's kissing him. He barely manages to put his drink down before she is pulling at his clothes. And then they are in a soft room and he is lost inside the physical distraction of panting skin. But she is saying something about her sister. What was that?
There are certain crystal images, scratched and treasured intaglios, frozen into the memories of lovers. These pictures are dangerous because they don't move; they don't age or droop; they only fade over time. And they can be nurtured, life-supported along, for a very long time. She's sitting on the couch in her living room, smoking a cigarette. He decides that she is either very sad or extremely content. Long waves of dark hair cover half her face. She doesn't bother to brush this hair aside. She's wearing only a white T-shirt. Behind her, on the wall is a Modigliani print of a sitting woman. There's a small spotlight illuminating the painting. There's also a recessed box the colour of oranges and inside the box is a black Buddha with a single unlit candle. The woman pulls her legs up beside her, becomes smaller, more fragile. Without looking she reaches beside the couch and clinks her ring on a bottle of wine. As she drinks, he notices again, that her fingers are long and elegant. Samuel Miller decides that Randi is very sad and this firming up of his perceptions makes him tired. He feels a heaviness move through his body. He's suddenly weary of everything. He's sick of this deception and Randi and his neutered marriage.
Where are my keys, he thinks. "I'm going home," he says. "I'm going home to my wife."
She turns her expressionless face in his direction.
The rain has transformed to sleet and then again to streaking snow. On his way home he takes the truck into the black hole of Brice Tunnel. It's a little out his way but it just feels right to drive down there. Half way through, Samuel Miller pulls over and stops at an emergency pull-off. He turns the truck off and sits for a while as sporadic cars move past. Red lights getting smaller. Silence interrupted. Eventually, he starts to wonder if a million years would be too long a time for him to just sit there in the quiet half-light and be still.