Sweeter Life

by Tim Wynveen

  Eura nodded soberly. When she started to speak, he stopped her by holding up his hand. “No one knew where he was from,” he continued, “or if Cal was his real name. But one thing I know, he deserved better than to die in some second-rate hotel on the outskirts of Ironville. So I asked a few of the lads to help me lift him gently into my car, and I drove until sunrise and lo and behold I was in a beautiful place, with fresh breezes off the lake, and fruit trees and big black fields. I sat him up against a building so that he could look across to a distant horizon. I placed all his favourite things around him and bid him farewell. How could that be wrong? How could any of that be wrong? Tell me one thing you would have me change.”

  “Maybe truth is slippery,” Eura said, “but so is poetry. What do you think, Ronnie, that it would matter to Cal where the police found his body? But it would matter to you and Jim.”

  “My dear girl, be reasonable.” He held his hands out like a minister urging his congregation to put their trust in the Lord. “Of course it matters to Jim. That is precisely the point I have been trying to make. And it matters to me and you and Cyrus here. It matters to Sonny and Tony and all the people we touch. There is not one of us who came untroubled into the fold. I don’t know how or why it has happened this way, but we are, almost in spite of ourselves, a healing machine. So yes, there was another motive. What we have here is something larger than all of us, something that I, for one, do not understand. But I know one thing: our being here, our journey from town to town, makes the world a slightly better place and makes our lives more respectable. Who is willing to tamper with something like that for the sake of formalities?”

  SEVENTEEN

  The Ontario College of Art turned down Janice’s application. She’d been too late with her forms. Better luck next year.

  Deciding she would not give up so easily, she travelled by train to Toronto, where she asked for and got an assessment of her portfolio. One week later, she received a letter from one of the instructors she had met, Jonathan Davis. “While the submitted work is unquestionably of some merit,” the letter stated, “we do not feel it warrants special status for admission.”

  Her parents believed that would end it. They had planned for Janice to study law at the University of Toronto, just like her father had, and for the longest while that had seemed to her a logical step. But not anymore. She moved to Toronto in September and found a basement apartment. She worked as a waitress in a string of crummy restaurants: a coffee shop at the train station, a greasy spoon down by the beach, a well-known chop house near the racetrack, walking her feet off for puny tips and maximum hassle. In her spare time she worked on her portfolio and audited courses. She cruised the museums and art supply stores.

  Early the next spring she read about a new restaurant, Kolours, that would be opening soon. It sounded hip and fun, and she dropped by while the place was still being renovated and talked the manager, Kostas Louganis, into giving her a job. He looked like Yul Brynner in The King and I, right down to the thick gold earring. Even standing amid the construction debris and plaster dust of his would-be restaurant, she could tell he was the most handsome man she had ever met. Just looking at him made her blush. Thinking about it years later, she came to believe that he was the best thing that happened to her that year.

  When Kolours opened, it was fun. Its white walls were brightened here and there by flashes of floral accents. The wait staff were smart and energetic, the food inventive. At that time in Toronto, those wishing to dine out had few choices—either overpriced steak houses or a handful of French restaurants that had the gall to set up shop in franco-phobe T.O. The city had never seen a place both lighthearted and dedicated to fine food.

  Janice didn’t have the natural gifts of a great waitress. She was not outrageously pretty or voluptuous, and she had no reliable tricks for improving her memory. She frequently forgot part of an order and had to ask who ordered what. That she garnered more tips than anyone else was a source of genuine mystery to the rest of the staff—but not to Kostas. “People like you,” he said.

  Because of her tips, she was able to work a four-day shift, and that left her plenty of time to work on her art, write in her journal, read, walk, cook. She was learning so much, she wondered how much value there might be in formal schooling. Besides, being around Kostas was an education in itself. Every Tuesday night, he opened the bar and kitchen after-hours so his friends—musicians, actors, writers—could come for a proper meal. The musicians played, and people sang and danced and talked until, inevitably, Kostas ended up alone in the kitchen, weeping about the beauty of his life.

  It was during one such evening of wine and food, music and song, that Janice saw Jonathan Davis a second time. “I remember you,” he said, looking a bit glassy-eyed. “Have you applied again?”

  “Still thinking.”

  “Really. A change of heart?”

  “You might say that. I’m learning a lot on my own. And I don’t really know how much you can teach art anyway.”

  He smiled. This was funny. “Is that what you think we do, teach art?”

  She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall, feeling woozy herself. “Silly me,” she said. “Tell me then, what do you do?”

  He moved closer. His words when they came were hushed, as though he were sharing a great secret. “We create tension,” he said. “We are an engine of frustration. On the one hand, we give you the tools and space and time to do whatever you please. But we also take great pains to point out to you—and this should not be underestimated—that virtually any idea that comes into that brain of yours has already been done to death.”

  “Perhaps you’ve been teaching too long. You sound bitter.”

  “Do I? I don’t feel bitter. Maybe a little drunk. And lonely. How about we go somewhere and fuck.”

  “Sorry. I never fuck lonely drunks. So you might as well point that engine of frustration somewhere else.”

  “Hey, that’s funny.”

  “Well, you’re not.”

  “No, in fact I am funny. And smart. And lots of other good things. I’m just a little drunk right now. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you when I’m in better shape.”

  “I don’t think so. That student-teacher thing, you know.”

  “So you are applying.”

  “Haven’t decided yet.”

  “Well do it. There’s no other option if you’re serious about art.”

  “Funny, but you’d never get that impression talking to you.”

  “Truth in advertising. Art’s a pain in the ass. You have to be insane to think you’ll ever be successful—a bit of wisdom you’ll never read in one of our course outlines. But if you find the prospect exciting—and I confess, I think it’s a brilliant way to spend your days—then apply. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Three months later, in September 1972, she started classes. Her parents cheered up, now that she was enrolled at a legitimate school, and agreed to pick up her expenses and tuition. Even so, she continued to waitress three nights a week.

  Throughout that first year she worked with the Virgin Mary and Christ in different situations, different materials. Jonathan had been right: the school provided a banquet of opportunities—metal, pottery, neon, wood, fabrics—and ample time and space to investigate them. Wisely, she remained focused on the one theme, exploring its significance across a broad spectrum of possibilities. As a result, at the first-year students’ year-end show, her pieces stood out as the work of an artist with vision, though one of still-limited abilities. Kostas, as proud as any father, bought several of her sketches for the walls of his restaurant. “I put big price tag on each,” he said slyly. “Huge markup. When they sell, profit is yours.”

  He took Motorcycle Mama, a pencil sketch of the Madonna in hornrimmed glasses, capri pants and a sleeveless top. A brooding Brando figure in leather jacket and jeans slumped between her legs and smoked a cigarette. He bought a series of small pen-and-ink sketches,
too: of a boy sitting motionless on a swing with his mother sailing high on the seat next to him; his mother giving him an “underdog”; his mother perched on the bar above him and looking down with a serene grace.

  Janice’s favourite piece in the show, which no one bought or seemed to understand, was a painting she called Coming Home. It showed a grey-haired woman standing in the driveway of a farm, a spooky old house looming in the background and the fields spreading out to the horizon where storm clouds are massed. The woman is supporting a large Latin cross with the transverse beam braced on her arms, and the upright resting on her shoulder—not as Christ would do it, facing away from his burden so he might drag it through the town, but rather embracing it, giving it her love. More than anything Janice had ever done, it seemed to convey a hint of the invisible. She was glad no one bought it. She wanted it for herself.

  EIGHTEEN

  In the winter of 1973, Isabel and Gerry divorced. She had dated a few times over the past year, but romance was a low priority. Since the farm had sold, she’d been plotting out the best use for her share of the money. She knew she ought to let it sit in treasury bills awhile—she had a job, she could cover her expenses easily enough—but the thought of that money ate at her. She thought she could take her little nest egg and build something substantial with it.

  Reg Foster actually had the nerve to phone her with an investment tip, something about a boatload of sugar sitting off the American coast. “Guaranteed 25 percent profit,” he said. “In three months.” But she squared her shoulders and told him to go fuck himself. It was something she’d been dying to do for ages but hadn’t, for Gerry’s sake. Her only regret was that she didn’t say it to his face.

  Invest in what you know, that was the conventional wisdom. If it was true at all, it left her with limited options: real estate and farmland. So when Jeb Wheeler started to make noises about putting his forty-acre parcel up for sale, she drove out to look at it.

  Jeb was a widower with no children and had landed in a nursing home after a stroke. He wanted to sell the land fast, thinking he’d need the money to tide him through his final days. But vacant land that hadn’t seen a plow in ten years would be tough to move, and she told him so.

  He closed one eye and thought awhile. “What’s the going price?” he said weakly. “I heard Boychuk got five hundred an acre.”

  She moved closer so he wouldn’t have to use so much effort. “Ron Boychuk had a better location, tilled fields, and even with that he waited three years to get his price. I honestly don’t know who’d be interested, Jeb.”

  “But you’ll give ’er a try, won’t ya, Izzy girl?”

  She came back the next day with a proposal. She’d buy it now for a minimum bid of $250 an acre, a round figure of $10,000. She’d keep the land on the market four years, the first year at $500 an acre, the second year at $400, the third year at $350, and the fourth year at $300. Whatever it sold for, she’d take back her ten grand and give him the remainder, minus fees.

  “Could be I’m a dunderhead,” he muttered, “but I don’t see where you’d wanna be doin’ that, Iz, tyin’ up your own money attaway.”

  She took a deep breath and laid her cards on the table. “Seems to me you’ve got immediate financial needs, Jeb, and I can help. That’s a fact. And here’s another: the bank’ll give me 6 percent on my savings. In other words, if I give you the use of my money for four years, I give up $2,400 in interest—a fair piece of change.”

  “Sure as shootin’.”

  “And here’s why I’d do that, Jeb. I don’t think anyone will want your land anytime soon, but I’ve got all the time in the world. So if no one buys your land, I give up $2,400 in interest and get your place for $5,000 less than I figure it’s worth. You win, I win.”

  “Course if I die tomorrow, you make out like a bandit.”

  She smoothed the wrinkles on his dry old hands. “I think you know me well enough to know that’s the last thing I want, Jeb.”

  In the end, he accepted her offer. He died six months later. Now she owned a useless piece of land that would cost her five hundred dollars a year in taxes. Two weeks after Jeb’s funeral she was complaining about that very thing to Ross Pettigrew, the golf pro at the local course.

  “I’d give my eye teeth for a piece of land like that,” he said. “A town this size and we don’t have a blasted driving range. It’s ridiculous.”

  Never one to back away from a good idea, Isabel made Ross an offer. She’d provide the land, he’d manage the property and arrange for everything else: the clubs, the markers, the driving pads, maybe a prefab building and a pop machine. In no time they’d each be clearing a minimum of five grand a year—a perfect money machine.

  Those were fine times for Isabel. She loved her house, her job, her newfound freedom. Since the divorce she’d flown off for two quick getaways, first to Chicago, then New Orleans. She and Ross had a four-day weekend of golfing in Phoenix planned in the new year. He was too young for her, but what the hell.

  The last week of August she drove to Willbourne to visit Hank, just as she’d done about once a month since he’d moved there. Getting his spine rearranged had in many ways straightened Hank right up. Some of the anger had been bled from him, the edge dulled. Two years in a wheelchair had taught him a little patience and self-respect. Ruby called it a miracle. Isabel wondered if it wasn’t more a necessity.

  She wheeled him into the gardens rather than sit inside. Her first words to him—and it had been that way all summer—were about Benny Driscoll, how rich he was getting, how the land first farmed by their family was sitting on an ocean of oil. If there was one irritant in Izzy’s life now, it was this scab that needed to be picked. She drove to the old place some nights to watch the gas flare burn, the marsh painted a lurid orange. There was a new paved road and a concrete bridge over Spring Creek. The Bailey bridge had been too small for the drilling rigs and the oil trucks travelling to and from the wells; and rather than tear down the original structure, they plunked the new one beside it and moved the road over. There were storage tanks, too, and a scattering of pumps that worked night and day. Although no one had seen official figures, it was rumoured that Benny and the farmers surrounding him were each pumping a thousand dollars a day out of the ground. The idea of it made her weak, as if it were her life they were pulling from the earth.

  Hank found it all very funny, called Benny and the others the Wilbury Hillbillies. If he had any bitterness, it was about their father. “He would have blown that chance, too, he was such a loser. I bet he wouldn’t have signed the agreement in the first place.”

  They sat together in the sun, eating a couple of peaches she had brought. During the past few visits she’d begun to talk about the future. She had already set in motion a request for an occasional day pass. In a few years he would be eligible for parole, and she had suggested he live with her in Wilbury. Her house had only one floor, and she could get it outfitted with ramps and handrails. The prospect made Hank feel nauseous.

  When he finished his peach, she gave him a paper towel to wipe his mouth and said, “What if I can swing an outing? Any preferences?”

  He looked across the garden, a grin easing into place. Then he turned to her and said, “I’d love to see the kid play. He’s coming, you know. I heard it on the radio. That’d be cool, wouldn’t it, seeing the kid play?”

  THE JIMMY WATERS REVIVAL was on a roll, and had been since the release of “JimJam #2 (The Door).”

  Wade Resman turned out to be a genius, pulling together one of Sonny’s incomparable grooves, Jim’s rap and a weird-ass background of jungle percussion and layered keyboards. As a final overdub, they got Cyrus to play a solo over the fade-out. Wade had wanted a sound that was full of echo—like Jim’s dad fading into the sunset with the radio in his arms—so he laid Cy’s amp inside the grand piano and wedged the sustain pedal down so all the strings inside could vibrate in sympathy. A single note from Cyrus set up a hundred overtones.

  It
stirred something in radio programmers, too. The day the single was released, it started to generate excitement. And with the success of that record, Jim was signed to a major label. They recorded two LPs, both of which cracked the Hot 100. The tours took on a different tone. Nate Wroxeter was on the case these days, and all the papers were in order—the visas, the manifest, the tax forms. Jim bought himself a brand new Winnebago, and a refurbished Greyhound to replace the school bus. They graduated to a better class of hotel, a better sound-and-light system. They were booked into rock clubs and concert halls, with cut flowers and platters of food and buckets of Heineken in the dressing room. And fans. Young men came to study the guitar wizardry, the keyboard magic, the complex rhythms. Some worshipped Eura’s every move. But most came for Jim, believing he had something important to say and would one day make it clear to them.

  Cyrus, who had always wanted to belong to something large and bewildering, arrived at the gig in Toronto long before the scheduled sound check. He loved to sit in a hall and watch the beautiful chaos of the road crew nimbly manoeuvring through the sprawl of drums and speakers and microphone stands. The crash and boom, the heft and groan, the feedback, the laughter—it was the kind of scene you might find at the heart of a busy port, the pandemonium that speaks of a world in transition.

  When it was his turn onstage, he fingered his favourite lick:

  Ba-doodle-la-doo dal-lee-doop

  Ba-doodle-la-doo dal-lee-dah

  And as he played, he concentrated on the pure physical path of his music, how the vibration of the strings above his pickups created an electronic pattern that passed through his guitar cord to his amplifier, where various vacuum tubes and diodes and condensers translated that pulse back into sound, but larger and louder and infinitely variable. From there, a microphone in front of his amp picked up those notes and changed them once again into a flow of electrons, which raced down a series of cables and connectors to the back of the huge mixing console out front, where Adrian worked his magic—boosting this frequency, tamping that—so Cyrus’s notes would, in theory, fit perfectly into the acoustic space. Reshaped to this larger purpose, his music moved on to the massive amplifiers beside the mixing console. These, too, boosted the strength of the signal, making it heavy with promise. From there, that pumped-up electronic sculpture travelled, via two thick cords, to the side of the stage and plugged into the tower of speaker bins positioned there, whereupon the notes, Cyrus’s notes, came roaring into the open space like the voice of God and echoed off the back wall to greet him.