June 25, 2006
These people suffer from some sleeping sickness. They have not woken to the filth they lay in. They have not been awake for so long now. Oh how they sleepwalk a calm march toward death and obscurity.
I fell asleep once, but never again. I revel in the insomnia that keeps me from being them.
Or are they sleeping at all? Are they like children pretending to sleep because they were told Santa would not come otherwise? This bunch was far too cynical to believe the fat man existed. No, I have been left to hypothesize that in their eyes life was a two thousand pound Kodiak. Just play dead and it will leave you alone. Just play dead.
Death radiated from the centre of the city I call home, death and all the things that smell of it. This city reeks of sin. It stuns those with sober senses. A city left to rot in a people’s underwhelming negligence.
This is home, and I am your humble tour guide. She was named after a failed warrior who received this land for such disappointment. She was named Brantford. The river that Brant once forded has since turned toxic. The aquatic life was not even spared from the darkness seeping through run offs and water tables.
This place once offered such promise. It offered dreams. Its history is the only thing these prideful people have a right to be proud of. This is where a man would work on a device to communicate with the deaf. Sure the success was one that he did not intend, but success is rarely without compromise. She boasted on the signs the lined the skirt of herself, ‘Brantford: Telephone City’. They even had Mr. Bell put it in writing. Do you hear that Boston? However, we take no responsibility for the Verizon Guy.
This place was once made beautiful by word, a touch of poetry wielded by a daughter of Brant. Her words have long since faded, left in books these people have no interest in reading. No one hears the song her paddle sings. All she may be known for is a high school named Pauline Johnson Collegiate and Vocational School.
There was a man born here that made his world small. Or shall I say he made the world of the small large? Perhaps the last brilliant man to be born here (1915). The electron microscope his largest claim to fame. I have heard the name of Dr. Hillier cursed many a time in the chemistry classes around her. Their ignorance was so obvious, that the larger picture was beyond them.
Once a man took a look at this place and laughed at it. He made other people laugh. He made me cry when I heard his passing. I bet he must still be pissed off to know he is still only the second most famous man from this city of less than ninety thousand. Phil Hartman I hope you have found peace.
This city’s favourite son was not always so. This city holds the successful in contempt. This city chased out the great one. He has grown smart enough and rich enough to stay away from this place. He has left this place for his father to partake in the celebrity afforded by riding his son’s ass like a taskmaster before a stroke and a paradigm shift. His jerseys hang all over her, in every bar, restaurant and place of gathering. The youth all want to wear his number 99 on their sweaters thinking that they might be the next one. Now residing in an ecological desert, not this spiritual one, these people call him the Great Gretzky. I do not.
These people fall into a trap. They are lazy and content. They are content to enjoy the success of others, instead of pursuing their own. They sleep the sleep of the content knowing no dreams; no nightmares. What a nightmare.
Her downtown is a ghost town, its building old and feeble. The local economy had failed long ago. Now the abandoned store fronts had plywood coverings. What lawful business remains there is under constant act, every year being cursed by the Six Nations people who claim ancestors lay beneath. It has become a playground for drug trafficking and violence. The people fear it. Its ugliness is so known that Hollywood would come knocking, looking to use the already vacant streets for a horror scene. No effects were needed, none were used. It has grown gangrenous and must be cut from her.
Crooked men are tasked to protect her. The enforcers of law with gun and shield extort the people. They do not serve justice, they just serve themselves. They control the city and keep these people in fear. Not me. How much better this place could be if they would focus as much on preventing crime as they did committing and covering up. The blood of the innocent will fall on her several times this year and the papers will print nothing. I hold my ‘get out of jail free card’ tightly, just up my pant leg. I know I will need it to them stave off.
The elected officials are just about as crooked as the ones with the guns and shields. Under their confident direction she has exited puberty and is eating the early bird special. They have ignored the will of the people and lined their pockets instead. I have thought to run before, but she is not worth saving. The people do not want to wake up. They just play dead.
These people are sleepwalking through their life. Their behaviour suggests no hope, no dreams, and no aspirations. Stay in this city long enough and it will suck these things from you too. They work in jobs they hate. They live with people they do not love. They live alone. The people have lost faith in the traditional banking system. The people have learned to diversify their savings. The people deposit their money into the banks of Tim Horton’s and the Beer Store. I still cannot understand how these people drink so much damn coffee and are still asleep.
She has many beautiful churches that conduct services at half mass. These people have even stopped pretending to be Christian. I have noticed an alarming rate of churches for sale. These people confuse what they want from what they need. They want nothing to do with God. I couldn’t help but think the feeling was mutual.
Then there is the piece of her that I call my own. It has been mistreat by the rest of these people. They thought it was her red headed step son. They called us punks, they called us criminals. They could not see their own sins. Eagle Place was the scourge of the city, and it was the worst kept secret. We were blamed for the woes of her, we without any jobs, we without any say, we harmless few. Our reputation given was worse than was the reality of it. The violence and drug scene, which started in the downtown, and hit Eagle Place when all the jobs left, run its course through of her by now. Her children were bastards, petty bastards.
Oh how she tries to coax me. Cocooned as a child in my innocence as I dreamed such a vibrant life for myself, but for a score how she took her toll. As I grew up those dreams slowed at first, and then stopped. Soon enough I started to lose those dreams I dreamt as a youth. She has almost killed all of my dreams. I want out before I become them. I want out before she puts me to sleep.
This city is dying. I do not plan on dying with it.
That monumental moment was today. Today was to be the day that I followed the last dream I had left. Everything else just left me so cursedly numb. I wish I could say that everyone was happy for me.
“What did you just say?” My mother refused to believe what I was saying.
“I am going to take up pro wrestling,” I repeated, liking the idea more each time I said it.
“No, no you are not. You have a job. You have a car to pay for. You have responsibilities.” Her attempts to sway me were in vain. I planned to hold steadfast in my position. I thought I would get some support though.
“Jerry, get in here,” my mother called for backup. She looked quite upset, and pointed the wooden spoon in her hand at me. I tried to look as confident as I knew how, and she turned back to the pasta sauce on the lit stove top. My dad was taking his time getting to the kitchen. “Jerry!”
“Alright Angel, what is the big damn emergency?” my father asked sticking his head around the corner. He didn’t like being dragged from his La-Z-Boy on a Sunday.
“Your son,” she started, passing the responsibility on my father, “wants to leave his job to become a pro wrestler.”
“I never said I would quit my job. I said I would start taking wrestling classes at night. Then maybe if I was good start doing shows on the weekends.” I knew that it was breaking my mother in two to think that her son might give up the contented life to test the waters. My father’s concerns were much more legitimate.
“What Mitch? You want to break your other leg?”
“I won’t break my leg. Besides, it was a completely freak accident the first time it happened.” I looked down at my leg. Today it felt fine. Today I could not feel the steel.
“Yeah, it was just a freak accident that left you a gimp for four months,” was my father’s retort. They didn’t want me doing anything that was not completely safe. I knew that life was not safe. I knew that it could end in a flash. I didn’t want my life to pass me by. I didn’t want to live my life playing dead. I want to fight that bear, not coward. But would my parents understand that?
“I know. I know. If I break my leg again I am on my own.” They had put a lot of time and effort into seeing me recover. It shook them up pretty good when they got the call. They openly vented their anger of the kid that would dive low at my legs, but kept their anger toward me under wraps. They warned me not to play football. They say I should have listened, but if I did everything they told me I would not have any friends, not that I had many now. Besides, I got one hell of a story out of it. “Please understand I am not doing this to upset you. I just cannot take this anymore.” I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Just can’t take this anymore?” my father questioned. “What is it that you can’t take? The free bed? The free food? The cushy job?” He was right and I knew it. I had life pretty good, but what is life without feeling alive? I couldn’t help but detect the threatening way in which he posed those questions. Was a parent’s love less than unconditional? Had they lied to me, again?
“I know I got it good Dad, really I do. It’s just… what if you had the chance to get into professional baseball when you were young?” I hit him in his soft spot. He loved his baseball, and continued to play in a beer league when he was 48 years old. Sometimes I think he loved baseball more than my own mother, his wife of twenty five years. This had to work.
“Baseball is a different sport,” he started, the same way he did when I wanted to play football. I knew the speech and braced for boredom. “Baseball is a gentlemen’s sport. You do not see any contact like you would in football or wrestling in baseball, no.” You wouldn’t find the excitement either. “Baseball pays better money too. What do you think you can make with that pro wrestling? Certainly not more than you make with that accounting job of yours.” He was right there too. My parents were picking me apart. My mother gave me an evil eye as she filtered the pasta. I am just glad that the steaming water was pouring down the drain, not tossed on me, like the expression on her face might suggest.
“I am going to take the schooling at least. You’ve been saying how I need to know how to protect myself.” They had been reading reports of violence in the paper. I could hold my own. “Who knows, maybe I will suck and they send me home. I just know this is something I want to try.” The possibility of my failure seemed to ease the tension, that was, until my brother walked in.
“So, what’s all the talking going on in here?” Tim asked.
“Your brother wants to be a pro wrestler,” my mom said slyly, almost cruelly.
“So, Psychster wants to be a ‘rassler? You need training to beat me, admit it,” my brother joked. He was four years older than me and enjoyed the upper hand in the sibling rivalry for so long, but I was catching up quick.
Oh yes, the name. You see there are the names that you are given, and then there are the names that you earn. My brother was creative in the limitless supply of names he gave me, but this one stuck out, Psychter was the latter. My childhood, while filled with dreams, was spent always with a lit match next to a short fuse protruding from an ample powder keg. I would run away from the safety and comfort. I would often take offence with myself more than anyone. I didn’t mind the pain. I may have even liked it. Psychster still lived here, hidden was all; I couldn’t afford to blow my lid. Psychster wanted out.
“Where you going to do this?” my brother asked. I could not tell if his support was genuine or was an attempt to get under the skin of Mom and Dad. I checked the faces of them before continuing the explanation of the prerequisite of this dream. Mom’s anger had fizzled to simple disappointment, while my father had turned his back and began walking back to the game. Had I already beaten one?
“They have a school in Hamilton I was looking at, Squared Circle. It is close, it is cheap.” My cash supply was at a low with the recent purchase of a vehicle, so cheap would be a deciding factor. I had watched this stuff all my life, I was sure that I would just need the basics. All I looked for was a foot in the door.
The conversion ended with a burst of belching provided by Tim. Mom was all too happy to change the subject, complaining of his act. She didn’t want the final word? Had I really won this? That easy? I would have enjoyed having support and approval from my family, but the lack there of was not enough to put me to sleep. I refuse to let death become me, not without a fight. I would fight the bear. I would make contact with the Hamilton based school in the morning.
That night the family gathered around the television and ate. The meal spent in silence.