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Every cloud engenders not a storm

Despite my age, and slowly receding mental capabilities, I sometimes like to assure all and sundry that I’m still up for a challenge. Sometimes, over coffee and bagels with the guys, I take on the predictable burden of suddenly reversing an opinion I had been vociferously proposing and arguing for its dark side. I think it’s important to demonstrate that it is indeed quite possible to hold several contradictory beliefs at the same time.

Actually, I have been able to do that now for some time. Taking heart from a page in Bill Clinton’s famous Lewinski defense, one need only develop closets in one’s mind where things can be stored when not in use. Quibbling about definitions is also helpful at times, but I only open that door when I am physically challenged by one of the elders at our table.

I have the keys to them all, of course, but it was only at a small spontaneous gathering with two friends at a dark little table in a downtown café that I had to pull them out. I’d just happened to see one of them walking along the sidewalk before he disappeared into Starbucks. For a moment, I wondered if he’d gone in there because he’d seen me from across the street, but I dodged through the traffic and followed him in anyway; I was feeling like a challenge.

“James,” I said as I carried my sausage-cheddar-and-egg sandwich on a little paper plate while being careful not to spill my over-creamed coffee. He was sitting by himself at a table near the washroom, but there was another dark roast cup of coffee steaming across from him.

James often showed up for our Wednesday morning coffee group at the Food Court, but I had no inkling he was a member of a rival gang. He smiled at me and invited me to pull up a chair, but perhaps that was because I was fluttering around his table like a moth. “What brings you here, G? I thought you only drank at the Food Court with the other guys…”

His ellipsis suggested he was less than thrilled to see me. But maybe he hadn’t drunk enough of his coffee yet. His cup was still full and his Everything Bagel untouched. But James was a stickler for etiquette at the Wednesday meetings, and he was visibly upset when we kept interrupting each other, or raised our voices to emphasize rival opinions. He was a retired school teacher, and our noisy excitement bothered him I think.

Suddenly he looked up from his coffee and smiled at an elderly man approaching us. “G saw me sitting by myself at the table, and came over. You know each other don’t you?”

He nodded, smiled, and proffered his hand. “Met you at one of those Wednesday morning scrums a couple of months ago.”

I had to chuckle. Scrum? Edward was an Emeritus professor of Literature, or something, from the university, but now he was just an author and always on the lookout for ideas for another short story collection; I think that’s why James had invited him to our ‘scrum’. He only came to one meeting, though; I don’t think he’d been very impressed that our group had anything to offer him.

“Edward was telling me he’s working on a new book, G…” James hesitated for a second. “You write, too, don’t you?”

I blushed, but when the washroom door was closed, it was really dark at our table, so I don’t think either of them noticed. “Well… I mean just essays and stuff that nobody really notices -I only write because I enjoy it…” I hoped I could ellipse my way out of the writing thing: I’m hardly published, after all.

Edward seemed interested. “That’s fascinating, G,” he said and had a sip of his coffee. “Anything I might have seen?”

I, however, had taken a large bite from my sausage and egg sandwich, so it gave me time to think. Edward’s interest seemed sincere, but as I was chewing, the opening washroom door flashed light on our table, and I thought I could see James rolling his eyes. I don’t think he liked me very much.

“I had one published in the Globe and Mail a few months ago…” I didn’t want to elaborate, because it was my only success in years.

James quickly unrolled his eyes. “I thought you said you just wrote for fun, G.” He mounted a simulacrum on his face; it was not a Duchenne smile: his eyes were dead.

“That was fun for me, James.”

Edward smiled and sat back in his chair, enjoying the beginnings of another scrum.

James didn’t appreciate my humour, and picked up the gauntlet. “You blog as well, didn’t you say…?” He dragged his sentence out as long as he could.

It gave me time for another bite of my Starbuck sandwich, before I defended myself for still espousing a passé social media format. “Yes,” I managed to mumble as I chewed, “But I look on my blogs as templates for longer essays and the occasional short story….” I added a premium ellipsis to show him I would not be bound by grammatical protocol.

“Are any of those not self-published?” James asked with a smirk on his face. It was a cruel rejoinder -especially the italicced ‘not’- and Edward’s smile disappeared for a second.

“Not for a while,” I answered, determined to answer him in kind. “I’ve kind of given up sending them off in writing contests, actually. The only long-list that Canada Writes, has ever put me on over the years, is the one acknowledging my entry…”

Edward chuckled at that. “I’ve never made their precious lists either.” He had a sip of his coffee and smiled. “Like you, I really only write for myself; I’m the one I have to please.” He glanced at James with a disappointed look on his face. “I just happened to get lucky when I retired from the university…” He shook his head slowly. “But I’ve never managed to get anything published in Canada’s national newspaper. That’s quite a feather in your cap, G!”

“Thanks, Edward.” I finished off the rest of my sausage-egg-and cheddar and wiped my mouth. “You make me want to resume my old Sisyphean job and start rolling a few more essays up the hill.”

“Thought you were determined only to write for yourself, G…” James could be a cold sausage sometimes.

I shrugged and glanced at Edward smiling across the table; he was no doubt waiting for a suitable riposte. “Maybe Sisyphus never pushed the boulder high enough,” I said, reaching for my coffee. “Maybe his task was only meaningless because he gave up near the top each time…”

James just snickered. “Maybe you should read the story about his punishment again.”

Edward sat up in his chair and stared at his friend. “And maybe you should read Camus again, Jamie.” I could see Edward’s eyes twinkling even in the dim light.

“He wrote The Myth of Sisyphus James,” I added with a smile when I noticed the confusion on Jamie’s face. ‘We know what we are, but know not what we may be’. I left Jamie to wonder if it was me who’d written that…

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