Lou Milner - An Appetite for Discourse

An Appetite

for Discourse

by Lou Milner

Funny, thought Saya, staring at Gwyn's kaleidoscope of features and forms that garnished her wall; dozens of new faces enter my life every day, and in the ten years I've had the café, not once have I been glanced by the arrow. Well, all right, maybe once. But it wasn't at the café where statistics alone dictate it should have. No, it was on a ferry to the mainland. Well, in the line-up, really.

He was in Lane Eleven, she, adjacent to him in Ten. His radio was far too loud, and she found it exceedingly difficult to mentally calculate just how many beans would be required should she buy enough now to keep her in coffee till retirement at age 55--fifteen dreadfully long years away.

Looking over at the Citroen in Eleven, she assessed the driver to be of that age already. God, still playing Janis Joplin's Someone to Love. And at such a decibel!

He was highly amused by her searing glares and made a point of telling her so, shipside, half an hour later when he finally found her sitting alone, at the bow, listing to starboard -- not in the cafeteria eating fries where he fully expected her to be, with a couple of hundred other grease-crazed boarders. He flirted. She didn't ( she didn't! ). Oh she was amiable enough, but she wanted direct answers to her direct questions. He, she thought, just wanted to play, to have fun at her expense.

"I don't like being used."

"Why not? People use each other all the time. And most often it's quite pleasant," he said, with the faintest of accents. Welsh perhaps?

"For whom."

"Both."

"Only when the user gives the usee permission to be used."

"Like now."

"No! Not like now! Now listen--did you tell me your name?"

"I did not, but I will, it's Bellamy," said Bellamy.

"Bellamy?"

"Bellamy Beech. Call me 2-B," said 2-B as he offered his hand.

"I will not," said Saya as she took it. "I loathe shortened appellations." And at the press of his palm, suddenly feeling red in the face as well as the hair, she clambered to end the nonsense, "Let's be honest with each other shall we? "

"Why?"

"So we know where we stand."

"Don't we know? And why do we need to know, anyway?" said he.

"So there are no misunderstandings," said she.

"Misunderstanding can lead to understanding."

"But it generally takes longer."

"Are we in a hurry?" he asked in all innocence before suddenly packing up Timothy Findley's latest novel and striding off, portside, before she had a chance to answer.

That encounter occurred five years ago to the day. Since then, excluding a life-altering phone call, had anything of significance happened in Saya's world?

Professionally, there had been changes to the café: Thanks mainly to her prized patron, Gwyn (though, who was patronizing whom had always been a matter for debate).

Gwyn is a superb artist who paints amazing pictures of french fries and vinegar bottles, half-eaten pie, crumpled napkins and glasses of rye, though it's usually the ice that catches her eye. And we're not talking run-o-the-mill Andy Warhol let-them-eat-soup kind of stuff. We're talking good.

An important critic once speculated that Gwyn would probably be a fantastic portrait painter if she could only look up, eye-ward, long enough to sketch people's faces, but no, she seemed pretty much fixated on the area between neck and navel, hence the plate and its plenty.

Then one day it was discovered--not even by a local Riverite for godsake, but by some Camaro-driving, long-haired, tattoo-toting, coke-snorting, pot-smoking ex-hippie from Cortez who happened to be stonily gazing at the collage of victuals adorning the south wall--that there were faces hiding in the pie, and the ice, and the fries, and the crumpled napkins.

"Wow, man," slurred he, sounding like a burnt-out George Carlin, "I can see faces."

No one in the place doubted that the George Carlin impersonator could see faces; in fact they were pretty sure he was capable of seeing wild sea lions frantically swimming and barking hitherto and hitherfro before his worn-out orbs, but they were getting a little tired of him stoking on and on and on... and on... about the pie faces. Finally, Dick, who used to be a pothead himself, decided to see what the asshole was so goddamned excited about. And sure enough, the woman, our little Gwyn, was a fraggin' genius; and it took some space captain from Cortez to see it. Hey, and not only were there faces, but those faces were recognizable.

Saya's was found in the salmonberry pie and that's quite likely, the klatch conceded, why it went undetected for so long. Saya, you see, has a thicketful of curls the color of salmon. Of course those who are jealous say she has orange hair, while she herself refers to it as terra rosa. And it wasn't so much the terra rosa hair--though he was wild about it--that drew her husband, Ed, to her those endless years ago. No, it was the fact that she referred to it that way.

He was amused by her speech, for when Saya spoke, it was quickly, rattatatatat, as though afraid if she stopped for a breath she'd lose her thought. And she sprinkled her soliloquies with sparkly great jewels of words never before heard by the likes of Ed. While most acquaintances were in awe of Saya and her veritable lexicon, Ed would have none of it. Not only did he reject verbal intimidation, he slighted the words belonging to Ms. Terra Rosa who, with her long skinny legs and missing posterior, was a little too puffed-up for her tight little britches. And he ably deflated her just a little each time they dated.

"Lanuginous?" he queried matter-of-factly.

"Yes, lanuginous."

"My arms are lanuginous?"

"That's right."

"What's that? strong? muscley? manly?"

"It means downy. Soft and furry."

"Soft, eh?"

Saya nodded, self-satisfied.

"Well, thank you very much. Ya know, I never noticed before, but your hair is orange."

Hah, he got the last word, as usual, which never failed to astound him considering she had so many more of them than he. Maybe the secret to dumbfounding her was using the word orange. She sure did have it in for that word. Not that it mattered, he thought, it was gorgeous hair no matter how you described it, and it served as the perfect frame for her white-blue skin and kelp-green eyes (though the latter two characteristics took on slightly different hues in the pie portraiture).

Truthfully, Saya herself acquiesced, when it came to Ed, the words weren't all that important; the attraction between she and he was for good or bad--better or worse, in sickness and health--primordial. But she didn't necessarily mean in the fleshy, lascivious, tactile sense, though that was undeniably part of it. Among other tangibles, she did love to rake her delicate and exquisitely manicured cinnamon-tipped fingers through his lush sable hair and rub her own downy cheek on his lanuginous chest. All right, it's true, they both had a thing about hair. But it wasn't just the hair that made them absolutely physically compatible. Her five-foot, five-inch frame was a perfect crescent fit for his six-foot arch. And both bodies required a full eight hours of sleep to accomplish everything they needed to do in the remaining sixteen. Both bodies liked the same food. And both adored sunlight, though his preferred the direct approach, which meant during the summer months Ed would wear as little as possible when he wasn't working the combination prawn and gillnetter he co-owned with brother Bob.

Bob Jones. Bob and Ed. Bob's name was Bob, and Ed's name was in fact Ed, not Edwic or Edsel or Edson, just Ed. It was there on the birth certificate, Ed Jones. Saya believed Mr. and Mrs. Fay and Art Jones had an unhealthy predilection for monosyllabic names. Naturally, Saya herself was comprised of the incorrect chemical matter to allow participation in such abusive name-calling. As a result, she was compelled to refer to Ed as Eduardo (Eduardo being the only Ed word she could think of with at least three syllables: more always being better, of course).

When their daughter was born, they called her Renata Ricotta (Ricotta was Saya's made-up maiden and still-existing surname) Jones. However, Renata--and seriously, were it not for very intense memories of Renata's painful journey through the birth canal two decades earlier, Saya would have to question who the real parents were--insisted on calling herself Renny Jones.

Anyway, Renny Renata Ricotta Jones, with her chubby body, flawless olive complexion, hair that changes colour more frequently than the seasons but always remains thick and straight and short and shiny, recently began her first year of university in Vancouver, just far east enough that she probably wouldn't be home on weekends. Which was good.

While Saya naturally loved her daughter dearly (in that encoded way that mothers must), she was happy to see her go and, in fact, for the two previous years had harped at Renata, "That is why man invented universities and God created wheels, to encourage children to leave home."

"Oh Mum. Click mute would ya? I have a whole lifetime to be in school."

"That may be true, Dear, but I don't want to occupy the rest of my life waiting for that time."

"Don't think about it and it won't bother you."

Saya instantly thought about that for countless seconds because she had to. Not thinking about something, or even putting it aside momentarily, was an impossibility for Renata's mother. Her mum went over everything, everything, over and over and over, in her mind until the subject had exhausted itself. Under close scrutiny, one could actually see muscles sprouting in the area of the cerebrum.

And so, changing tack, Saya continued, "The people of this great nation--excluding the people of Quebec, which is ostensibly an even greater nation, a theory based entirely on hearsay--have spent fortunes building and furnishing these monuments, and it is your duty to donate a few hours of your time each day to frequent them."

It's a silly argument of course, but Renata, for some inexplicable reason, woke one morning feeling immeasurably charitable, and got herself enrolled. Marine biology. She thinks she'll be a fish farmer. Or, as Saya maintains, a pisciculturist.

Saya had at Renata's age experimented, dabbled, okay trifled, with university herself (mostly taking useless arts courses) but lacked the discipline (after all, it was the Seventies) to see it through to a Degree. Instead, destiny lead Saya to short-order cooking, which in turn led her to a resort in Campbell River, which is where she met Renata's father, Eduardo. Eduardo, the man who, in his mind, all but cured (a few minor blemishes remain) Saya of her goddam airs. "Insufferable polysylabatrosis, don't you mean?"

Twenty-three years. Saya has been married to the same man, living in the same town, in the same house....

Twenty-three years ….

And it's been five years already! since her chance encounter with Bellamy Beech. Saya had been thinking all this as she absently watched Gwyn dribble and dot her way into an empty spot on an adjoining wall. "When you began, did you know where you were going?" she had asked Gwyn seemingly hours ago.

"No idea."

"So, you were just...doodling... on my wall?"

"Life is a doodle, my girl. A daub, a dab, a scratch, a stroke, and before you know it, you're off on a tangent, a smorgasbord of possibilities, like."

" How would you paint temptation?" Saya mistakenly said aloud.

Gwyn stopped her doodling to look at her friend. Eyeball to eyeball. Which was a startling new experience for Saya who had no recollection of ever seeing the yolk of Gwyn's eyes.

"Temptation is a big white wall. Can't touch it with a paintbrush. Once ya touches it, it's something else. Get what I mean, Saya? It's a trap,"

Saya meditated on Gwyn's words. And puzzled over the massive collage of life where one twist, one turn, one deviation could produce the unexpected. Where temptation, once executed, becomes buried in the past.

And what of it? countered Saya's libido. Does it give birth to a future more perilous? a present more alluring? What was it about their meeting that haunts her memory? Ah, but was it the meeting, per se? Or was it the damned phone call? Six m-o-n-t-h-s later.

B: Thanks very much for the loan of your book. It was a delightful read

S: By what means and by which date shall it be returned?

B: I thought we'd discussed this and decided we weren't in a hurry.

S: We? Now look here Mr. Bellamy Beech. In the first place, I didn't lend you that book--

B: You didn't?

S: Not at all, you simply took it. A less charitable person might say "stole" it. I fully expected to find it on the roof of my car prior to disembarkation.

B: Why did you not say debarkation, departure, or simply 'leaving'?

S: Because disembarkation has more syllables.

B: Oh I see, but I thought you favoured expediency?

S: Not expediency, exactitude.

B:
Uh, I understand, thank you for clarifying. At any rate, that notion hadn't

occurred to me. I was genuinely interested in reading the book, you see.

S: Yes, but I hadn't finished.

B: Oh, well, let me read it to you.

She wilted.

S: Read it to me?

B: We'll rent a cottage in the clouds (wilt) , pack a week's worth of picnic (wilt) , and float into the future of books unread and lives unled. (Wilt, wilt, wilt.)

In all her years with Ed, she had only been tempted that once. What if Bellamy hadn't called? If he hadn't known the phrases of fulfillment? What if he had shown at the appointed spot on the appointed day? Where might their words have wandered?

"What happens when you run out of wall?" Saya asked Gwyn.

"I'll be finished then, won't I?"

"No going back? No whiting out? No painting over?"

"Well, if I did that," said Gwyn, "it would be like erasing my past, like it never happened. I'd be cheating myself, like, wouldn't I? Robbing myself of the pleasure it gave me. Just didilly-doodling."

Saya wondered where her book was now.

Lives unled.

Books unread.

Words unsaid.