Things worsened. I often found myself beside the “Just by a Nose” gravestone still sucking in huge quaffs of air. “I,” I told myself, “am asthmatic. Or else allergic to something. Air, for example.”
The first weekend of May, I was scheduled to make a couple of appearances in Ottawa, Ontario. I had been invited to speak at a symposium on the Friday evening, and on Sunday I was giving a house concert. I drove up to Ottawa, checked into a rather nice hotel, and, as soon as I stepped outside, noticed I was having much more trouble breathing. Even a little rise, hardly apparent in the landscape, would have me inhaling heavily. I went back and put in some time on the stationary bike in the hotel workout room. I set the machine at a low level—two, I think, perhaps one—but I managed to get through about fifty minutes without too much stress. Thus, when I walked outside only to be rendered windless once more, I came to the sole conclusion an intelligent, right-thinking man could: I had an extreme allergic reaction to tulips. After all, Ottawa’s famous Canadian Tulip Festival was in full swing, and those fucking bulbs were sending up blossoms everywhere.
The symposium, at the University of Ottawa, was about film and literature. My talk was the keynote address, as one of my novels—Whale Music—had been made into a fine motion picture by Richard J. Lewis. Indeed, I might mention, given the intended purview of this book, that my biggest success to that point as a songwriter had arisen out of that film. The film’s soundtrack was created by the Toronto indie rock band the Rheostatics, and the script called for the main character, Desmond Howl, to write a song. He is inspired by a young woman named Claire, and I suggest, in the book and the movie script, some lines that might come to him: “Purify me, purify me, Claire.” The Rheostatics took these words and expanded upon them, and when the song “Claire” was done I was listed as one of the writers. “Claire” went on to win a Genie award (that’s the Canadian version of the Oscar, or so we Canadians like to aver) and subsequently got quite a bit of airplay.
I made it through my address—I had to clip quite a few sentences, chop them up into tiny aspirated phrases—then went to the hospitality suite of the Ottawa Writers Festival. Hey, it was in my hotel. I stayed quite late and got drunk with festival fun-guy rob mclennan and some of his colleagues, sound poets jw curry, Max Middle, and Carmel Purkis. The poets performed some of their stuff in the wee hours of the morning, emitting strange inhuman noises.
The next day—after an inexplicably exhausting journey to the store to purchase some medications (Buckley’s Cough Mixture and lozenges for my croaking throat, a big bottle of Tums for a certain sloshing heaviness I felt about my gut)—I drove out to Chelsea to visit my brother Joel. Also in attendance was Robert Wilson, who is the manager/booking agent for Porkbelly Futures. We barbecued many kinds of meat and drank many bottles of wine, so when I lay down to sleep and found comfort an impossibility, I had no reason for undue concern.
Now, I know you people out there are observing a certain irritating disregard for reality on my part, an ability for self-deception that would rival a three-year-old’s. For what it’s worth, over breakfast I did instruct Joel to Google many ailments: the aforementioned “vocal cord disorder,” “pneumonia,” “pleurisy,” and, yeah, “lung cancer.” But we ruled out lung cancer because a) I had not been coughing up blood and b) I had not experienced a “sudden and unexplained weight loss.” I drove back to the hotel.
The following day was the house concert. In case you are unfamiliar with this concept, I was, essentially, going to sing in someone’s living room. The people who were invited paid a small entrance fee, and the money would all be turned over to me. Interestingly, the woman who invited me, Renate Mohr, was someone I had known as a child. Her father, Hans, and my father were colleagues, and every so often their family would visit. Renate’s nickname all those years ago had been Tutti, which is how I addressed her. “Tutti,” I said when I arrived, “this is Carmel.” Yes, I had conscripted one of the sound poets from the Hospitality Suite to drive me, because, as I explained to Tutti, “I think in order to do this I’m going to have to get pretty drunk.” I had a bottle of whisky with me, I had my Buckley’s, and I hoped that the combo would loosen up the vocal cords and give me the requisite energy. It worked out pretty well. I sang some songs, and I read some poetry.
It occurs to me that I might add one of those poems into these very pages. After all, it has a thematic connection, and it includes a suitably dramatic bit of foreshadowing.
Crossroad Blues
When I was 15
My mother died and I
Started playing the blues on
A Zenon guitar and
Drinking Four Aces wine,
Which was not really wine.
Just like Robert Johnson.
Who made a deal with the Devil
at the Crossroads.
Robert Johnson sold his Soul
To the Devil,
Which was like selling his shoes
When he knew he had to walk down
A road of horseshoe nails.
I would listen to the records
And learn the licks with
Tongue-biting concentration.
I was pale and chubby and little-dicked.
I would drink Four Aces,
Which was not really wine,
But it was alcohol.
I would play the guitar,
Drunk in my bedroom,
Hiding from my father,
Who was drunk in the den
Of our house in Don Mills, Ontario,
Canada’s first planned community.
One night the Devil
Appeared in my bedroom.
The Devil has some personal hygiene issues
Which we need not get into.
The Devil offered me the same deal
He offered Robert Johnson
At the Crossroads.
He said, “I will make you
The best guitar player ever.
You will make strong men cry
And you will make women wilt
With their desire for you.
The songs you write will haunt
Mankind forever.
It will cost you your Soul.”
I thought about it.
“Well . . . what would it cost
If you just showed me how to play
An F7?”
Afterwards, Carmel drove me back downtown; we parked the car and went out for a drink and a bite. I didn’t eat much, despite having not eaten much all day. Indeed, it was perhaps the only time in my life when a female dining companion was given the opportunity to point to the remaining eighth of quesadilla on my plate and say, “Are you gonna eat that? Because . . .” I didn’t eat much, but I drank some. Then we