The Motorcyclist

by George Elliott Clarke

  Carl invites Sandy to join the table, and the latter’s much obliged: he agrees to ride back to Halifax in tandem on the twelfth. He orders fish and chips and blueberry pie and ale.

  Beyond discussing details of the drives, there’s no easy gossip. Liz chats up her studies, her fetish for book-cover leather, and Carl realizes that the phrase Dewey Decimal has never sounded sexier than when slipping past her dewy lips.

  9 p.m.: Supper’s squared away. Calvados—the result of carnal apples—is inhaled and imbibed. Then, “Tut tut. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.”

  Carl switches on the telly: only a foolish space movie. Click. Anyhow, Liz expects first-class entertainment.

  Steaming, luscious showers precede showy, luxurious love. L.P. wears black panties into a milk bath: not for long. Then she’s a white beauty in a black nightgown. She straddles Carl, her nightgown fanning diaphanous over his chest. Next, Liz’s black-black hair splashes over white-white pillows. She’s a Bauhaus nude—pure, silk-smooth globes and swerves.

  After, Carl shuffles the radio dial: They hear “Crepuscule with Nellie” and “Stella by Starlight,” and then The Spaniels crooning, “Baby, It’s You,” cross a frazzle of static. Music rises from Hamlet, North Carolina (John Coltrane’s cradle), and Sweet Home, Arkansas (Henry Dumas’s crib). Soon, the sultry stations black out under the moon.

  Later, the lovers watch a late-night movie: Marlon Brando as the chic, anti-everthing biker in The Wild One. He did a marvellous job, Carl thinks.

  Liz thinks, Carl did a marvellous job.

  They fall into the blissful, beautiful sleep of lovers—limbs intertwined. Almost one.

  Thanksgiving, Monday, October 12

  Carl wakes to autumn’s first snow, a profuse fall. He regards snoozing Liz: beautiful is her profile. He recalls her wet, radiant pelvis, her jostling rhythms. The last three eves, Carl’s rediscovered Liz. He feels enormously at ease with her. I’d be happy to be with Liz always.

  On Saturday night, the 10th, Carl joined Sandy to eye the Jimmy Hornsby vs. Joey Padilla bout. The unanimous decision was for Hornsby in the tenth round at Grand Olympic Auditorium (L.A.), a site almost as smoky as Halifax’s Olympic Gardens. Neither Carl nor Sandy cared: neither had bet on the outcome. Rather, the guys drowned in boatloads of ale. Beer bottles, sinking, pouted at Heaven.

  But Sunday night, last night, post-prandial and post-Pleasure, he and Liz watched TV. Carl gloried in a CBC staging of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, featuring, as Tituba, his Aunt Pretty, the star contralto in her first dramatic role, this turn in a political allegory based on the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Carl deemed her “quite good—even better than the story.” Gratifyingly, Liz agreed.

  Now, in the snowy light of this dawn, Carl’s pretty sure that Liz P. is present tense and possibly the future. Shortly, she stretches, yawns, opens her eyes, and reaches for her man. To capitalize on his presence.

  The idyll ends too soon, but breakfast offers a last fillip: lobster cakes, then blueberry waffles with maple syrup, hot apple cider, a gallon of coffee. Sandy joins in, and the mood is good. For one thing, the warm soil is melting the snow. Fine driving ahead.

  Even at the best of times (meteorologically speaking), roads twitch wicked cross New Brunswick. The province’s asphalt is shivered to bits by trucks carting timber, lumber, paper, potatoes, and fuel, and by a tax base too dismal to make a difference. (Provincial elections never help. The Same-Old Party and The New-Old Party promise, “Better Roads Ahead,” but, after each “win,” the policy becomes “Dead Ends,” “U-Turns,” and—really, apocalyptic—“Floods.”)

  At noon, post-checkout, Sandy boards his big, hulking, hand-refined Harley: he grins toothily, leaps up and down, ignites the engine. Feeling envy for Sandy’s machine, Carl does the same; he sparks the BMW to a thunderous start. The purring roar reassures him of his equality to the plutocrat. Liz slides on Liz II, clutches Carl. In tandem, the trio exits St. Andrews by-the-Sea.

  Sandy guns his sky-blue Harley like a G.I. Tommy-gunning a Jerry. He speeds cheerily past Carl and Liz. A minute later, they overtake him: a repetitive relay is underway, and it’s fun, but Carl’s also nervous—he remembers Mack, the fatal accident of eighteen months back. Nor can Carl let Liz face harm: she’s given him—is giving him—the greatest Pleasure, just by gripping him, then mashing her chest hard against his back.

  Yet, the bikes race unhurriedly on the two-lane highway, minding oncoming traffic and skipping potholes. Speed is watchful—mainly—of the limits. The machines take turns passing each other: they sit parallel rarely—an illegal and risky manoeuvre.

  The percolating percussion of Carl’s well-tuned machine—his persuasive engine—thrusts him onward, repelling the wind. Liz P. holds on tight, accepting Carl’s bearings, reflexes, weight, even the idea of his physical windbreak as a kind of cushion.

  At Musquash Marsh, Sandy accelerates. He realizes there’s no point in investing refinements—in design and power—in his Harley unless he can show off. Not to show up Carl, whose dedicated riding he respects. But definitely to show, and maybe attract Liz’s attention: So lovely a girl; so lyrical her style. Sandy lunges ahead, but his bike hits a watery patch and mutinies. The front wheel gives a sluggish twinge; then the bike. Out it scrambles from under him, like a scurrying bug. Metal rasps, sparks. A shining crash.

  Sandy strikes asphalt headfirst. Pink spray shoots off his skull.

  Carl screeches to a stop, kickstands the BMW, and rushes to help. Helpless, Sandy’s dying—in cold blood—this red October. Red gurgles from his head and mouth. Dispersed, blue metal congregates. Chrome pours into Sandy’s chest; it spills from his skull. A welder couldn’t put him back together.

  Shaking, Liz screams and weeps, weeps and screams. Shaking.

  The bitched bike lies on its side, pumping out bright oil, attended by a litter of broken glass and twisted-off metal parts. It’s a Ferris wheel bisected by a carousel.

  There’s the unbearable impotence of a dead body. Silent as smoke. Peculiarly dark, just inert, bleeding, black leather.

  Carl sees in Sandy’s incredible, fast-action demise a reflection of Mack’s, also in New Brunswick, a year and a half ago. But Sandy’s crash is distinctly a mishap of his own hand; no collisions occurred except between himself and the road.

  Minutes pass. The living motorcyclists hold each other and sob.

  Carl knows he cannot help his riding buddy, save to shoo off crows—as if in a Colville painting, pairing transport and dark animals, mingling Realism, Modernism, and Gothicism. They’re attempting to colonize cadaver. But, charitably, a dog scoots over, barking, cringing, then lunging, scaring off the carrion scavengers, to make them flinch from their tantalizing lunch. But the canine does lap up some of the brain blood.

  Carl feels weirdly disassembled himself, to be recalling his art knowledge at the same instant that he is shooing cadaver birds from the grisly highway scene. Still, there’s the memory of that living blood between Muriel’s legs, and it accents his awareness that he’s twice survived crashes that have killed a pal and an acquaintance, and also survived the potential baby that Muriel could not carry. As Carl stands, flailing at black-winged air, and, almost using the same motion, flags down passing motorists, he sees that his actual future is present: Liz—loving and supportive, respectful and encouraging.

  Once ambulance and cops come, and Carl has given out his ID and explanations, and then is cleared of Suspicion and treated for Shock, he and Liz are free to leave the scene (an al fresco morgue). But Liz loathes cycles now.

  Carl collects himself, steadies his nerves and stomach: he lives still. Thus, he calms himself enough to coax—cajole—Liz to straddle Liz II again. Slowly, shakily, she does so. Trembling, she holds Carl tight—like a vise—as the machine snorts and roars back to life. Life!

  They pit-stop in Moncton to gas up, but hotfoot it to Halifax—the glitter of home. The harbour exhibits buildings dripping glass and st
eel, the city’s liquid foundations. Liz hugs Carl, begs him to bring her to his place. She needs Relaxation. He delivers. How else can they thrive—psychologically?

  First, wine comforts the weary travellers, as it has many, after crossing—by bridge—the cold waters of Halifax Harbour. (The guarantee of Heaven: to drink wine to drunkenness from a Communion cup.) They find they enjoy breathing—together, ever, ever deeply, more deeply. In concert.

  Saturday, October 31

  Halloween marks the fallback to Daylight Saving Time, but Carl is tricked by the change. He motors to the station by eight a.m.—an hour early. Better sooner than not. Today, officially, is his last at CN Halifax.

  Beardsley has been unable to work magic, to keep his gal-pal’s son in dough. Too bad: autos are overtaking trains as ways to whiz from Kelowna to Come By Chance; thus, pavement is displacing rails. CN is retrenching, “cutting fat and belt-tightening.” Beardsley’s already had to kiss too much ass to keep his own pay, pension, and perks. Despite his local swagger, he’s still a Negro the CN bean-counters would love to erase—as if his black face explained all the red ink. All “Great Britain” can do is elevate Carl’s name on the seniority list: he’ll be among those first called back to work, if there’s an uptick in train travel (likely round Christmas).

  Normally, Studs Sponagle is rude, but today, he’s nice enough to say that he’ll try to convince Jollimore they need “a man” (Carl) in the Equipment Room. Carl is thankful for this consideration. But he’s not naive: My only real hope is that Burl, who I’ve been replacing, will suffer a relapse of cancer.

  When his shift ends, Carl is bewildered about what he should do to keep income a-comin in. His only trade besides carting luggage and linen is . . . painting. But no Scotianer has yet made a paying hobby out of Art, and most would consider painting not a hobby, but as dreamin: gossip is a hobby; drinking is a hobby; but Art’s a delirium.

  Carl goes to see Liz, that black-haired, splendidly structured beauty. He motors to a residence nearby Dalhousie University, where Liz is now ensconced, to earn that Library Science degree. They meet and Carl blurts his dilemma: “I’m jobless; can’t think what to do next.” How to avoid a tragic lull in his income? He knows his economic warfare against Ervin has degraded his ex-buddy perilously. Terrible irony would be his degeneration likewise.

  Liz sees that Carl could use mothering. So, over milkshake and tea at the Ardmore Tea Room, she prods him to see that his future could be in Art, in painting; so he should start. His triumphs and profits would benefit them both: she’d enjoy shelving catalogues of his art, while both would get invites to tony soirees at boutique N.Y.C. salons.

  When their snacking ends, Halloween trick or treat—for tykes—is over. Freshly enthusiastic, Carl drops Liz at her apartment, then roars back to Belle Aire Terrace and begins, picking up brushes and paints, to advance himself by making Art. Finally!

  Carl dusts off his Lincoln School of Art kit, ordered back in June, to ready his financial Emancipation. To go from proletarian intellectual to motorbike Bohemian; at last, to dump Halifax for New York City, Africville for Greenwich Village—to join the young folkies fuelled by drink, drugs, and dreams. But he’ll take Liz—only Liz—along. (Unless Marina comes to her senses. He thrills to think that he might give her an ultimatum: “Come with me to Manhattan to be a nurse; I can give you America; no Wessindian can.”)

  Wanted: the aromas of pastel, watercolours, oils, even charcoal pencil and India ink and eraser. These materials are his new lubricants—not chain grease, not engine oil, not hydraulic fluid—to engineer his final ascent, fine-tooled emergence, via Fine Art, from a subpar, Alley Oop and Betty Boop existence to edge closer to the attainments of a Warhol and a Monroe: to be heralded as essential, historic; his ostracism from the finer classes and better people ended.

  The flavour and purpose of Carl’s enterprise: to design a mess of colours; to realize the loveliest implementation of visions; to finesse his crafting of sugary scenery, aping Disney, or to indulge deep, dark-ink cartoon “blues,” following Poulbot’s example; or to draft solid buttocks and impressive bosoms such as those visible in Stag or Male; or to paint well-sunned or “flesh-coloured” nudes in the style of Vargas; or to limn women part-geometry and part-gymnastics, as in the work of Rockwell Kent.

  To commence, he chooses, on an assembly-line basis, to draft a bullfighter series. The sketches are copacetic: I’ll colour in the content so that it shimmers. Relief! This work takes only a day.

  Carl experiments by painting a rouge-tone Still Life of Rosé, Beets, and Apples. The canvas has the look and feel of rodomontade firewater. Perfect for any pub serving Caesar salad and light wine.

  Next, Carl turns out four No.1 Lighthouse drawings. He executes them fast. Paint follows. Colourful Sensibility bleeds from blank nothingness.

  Carl expects to improve his speed each time—without sacrificing quality. He breathes carefully as he squints at each line, each paint daub, to verify that the image in his eye is what his mind’s eye conceived. He feels cramps in his back, but nothing cramps his style. He feels just like he did way back on May 9 this year: Now is his Liberation from—or escape out of—restrictions and inhibitions—those double, demonic consequences of a lack of imagination.

  His exhilaration increases daily as his acceleration in facility increases. Carl realizes that he has produced, is producing, fluid work for sale; that he can be liquid and affluent, as the impending wet of paint or ink achieves the charted illustration. Then, following each righteous execution—in his own eye—he can chug back wine, pretend to be Robert Graves on Majorca.

  Carl’s kitchen table bristles now with charcoal pencils, pastels, watercolours, and model-kit oils, all handy. For Carl, Art borders on Craft. This Labour requires a deft hand.

  Carl recalls Leo Fennel. The old drunk’s voice wheezes in his ear, instructing him how to proceed. Carl begins to whistle—even without the record player turning or the radio tuning in some song. This veritable independence is intoxicating.

  Carl goes to the corner store and buys milk and bread—plus fried herring, onions, and cheese. Then he bags white wine from a Belle Aire bootlegger—to celebrate his ascension to Art. He thrills to see images leap forth from pencil and paint, according to Imagination, and the fine muscles of his dexterous, finessing hand.

  Now, the fantasy of a painter’s Harem—of models and mistresses, harlots and bluestockings—returns with a vengeance. To lay down Simone de Beauvoir—the chic French philosophe—and Barbara Shelley—the queen of British horror flicks—ensemble!

  Carl crafts two six-by-eight-inch paintings: Full Moon. The picture features a yellow moon suspended in a turquoise sky over a river streaked with turquoise, yellow, green, and white. The crinkled tinfoil sandwiched between the cardboard back and glass surface makes each element shimmer. Carl’s innovation is to use model-kit paint as his medium: its texture is thick luxury compared to ordinary oils. Plus, it’s cheaper.

  Sunday, November 8

  Come five p.m., Carl bundles a few works in an old brown leather briefcase (a “Great Britain” castoff) and calls on four neighbourhood families: the Pleasants, the Downeys, the Crawfords, and the Dayes. He displays his works; he snags instant sales. Little gab needed. Folks’ faces gather about his paintings, looking at each as if it’s a mirror, an aquarium, or a home-ready vision of Gloom-disintegrating gold. Dollars waft Carl’s way like homing pigeons. Folks eye a painting, their wallets or purses open, and crinkled, grubby, low-denomination bills pop up. Soon, the Queen is bent and beaming, multiply, adjacent his rear orifice. Capital!

  Next, Pow-Pow buys two Lighthouse paintings, and orders two Pals—a sentimental, Norman Rockwell–category pic of a pussy and a puppy, lapping milk from the same bowl. The paintings will grace a wall where all patrons’ eyes travel as their heads are tilted, pivoted, and clipped or “buzzed.” While at Pow-Pow’s parlour, Carl meets Gerry Clark, of Africville, who purchases one Pals for his Beechville gal. The copycat Q
ueen is now swelling Carl’s wallet as much as a babe is swelling the living Queen’s abdomen.

  Carl raps on Rev. Map’s door. The minister hums and points and produces a five-dollar bill; he purchases Carl’s Autumn painting (a tree florid in tiny rectangles of red, gold, orange, and lemon). The sale is transacted inside a minute, with no sermon voiced.

  Carl slides through premature winter slush and frosty darkness to three homes, where four folks are in. He markets No. 7 Full Moon (deep blue water, yellow-white moon, purple hills, white-greyish clouds), plus Church. He clinches three sales—including one from the late police chief’s widow, Mrs. Fox. Carl grins because he’s outfoxed Mr. Fox by vending his Negro art to the dead cop’s honourable, available widow.

  Emboldened, Carl sprints over to Muriel’s and Lola’s. Lola orders a copy of Pals. Carl wonders if they spy a Lesbian subtext: all that lapping. (Well, pets are fetishes.) But his portrait of Muriel, still fronting her—or their—bedroom archway, is a perpetual reminder of his bankable talent.

  Back home, totalling the accounts, Carl discovers Art’s earned him, in a few hours, after only a week’s worth of work, the equivalent of a week’s pay at the station. Exhilarating! His metier or programme—to pass from plain proletarian to Beaux-Arts Bohemian—is succeeding. Sweet lady Liz alongside, if human; under him, if machine. But granting support in either circumstance.

  He rushes up Belle Aire Terrace to show Mrs. Black—his mom—how well he’s done. She is pleased, and sits her succeeding son to a meal of well-spiced venison.

  In the meantime, the number of U.S. dollars in circulation is now exceeding the amount of gold for which they can be exchanged. The greenback is no longer gold-backed. Now, Carl believes his art might be worth gold, not mere (toilet) paper currency.