Jim Morrison had just died, I think I remember hearing my sister mention it with dismay for she was a true hippie, born at the right time and place to see it all come to life - and then be subsumed into the wider culture - longer hair on men as the norm, louder prints, and the rise of Peter Max.
Like my socks in the previous story, the pants I am wearing in the photo scream to me of how much things have changed. My brother, also in stripes but somehow demure, had the good sense to wear only one set. He looks steadfast, while I seem to swagger. The locked arms, and my sideways glance as the wind blows my Rubber Soul hair to one side.
The pockets of my brazen fashion statement were of the cargo type, and I think I chose the shirt to complement the fact that the stripes there were horizontal. I was an early visual gay. Little things you know, subtle. Trying to complete a look 😂 I do go well with all the green railings. It's the Rideau canal I think, on our trip to the capital. I recall standing inside, behind the clock face of the Peace Tower in Ottawa, marvelling at all the cogs.
Why does the weather in old photos look so perfect, as if the past were always a sunny day?
I am eight years old here, and I am dying of an ineffable crush on my best friend's father. My memory of Arthur is a summer memory. He would fix things without a shirt on and drink a can of beer doing it. The old cans that had throw-away pull tabs. When you're a little gay boy you learn early not to stare. I had to avert my eyes from the pelt of abundant curly black chest hair which seems everywhere in my memory of him.
Sleepovers between best friends were common, and I grew up partly in the house that Art had built from the ground up. I watched the moon landings in the living room of that A frame, heard Cosby's Wonderfulness and listened to Johnny Horton sing The Battle of New Orleans and North to Alaska.
Many years later I tried to track down my best friend, after discovering a Waterman fountain pen that I had pocketed on one of those sunny days before I was even ten years old. It had belonged to his grandfather, and coming home one day I realized that I still had it in my pocket. Did I steal it, or forget about it after some mindless make believe boys conjure in their heads? Forty years later I discovered it in a box. Regardless, I thought it a good angle to reconnect. Joshua, but Josh to me, was by then teaching computational chemistry at a university out west.
I hit a stone wall, so I tried to find Art. Still alive and living in a small town in northeastern Ontario, he came to the phone and I heard his distinctive voice. After the divorce of his parents Josh had broken from his family and refused to speak to them. His mother had died and he did not attend the funeral. I thought that a very powerful and painful disdain. Given specifics, I asked Art if I could try to reach him. "You can try," said Art, "but I doubt he will reply." I mailed the Waterman to its western address. It never returned, and he never replied.
"I would go to the window and stand between the red-and-white striped curtains and look out at the plane trees, and a mixture of sadness and restlessness seemed to be taking hold of me. I couldn't shake it off. The prosperous sound of traffic seemed futile. Time seemed to be slipping away. The future seemed full of vague menace. Was there something the matter with me, or with the world, or both?"
William Plomer
Museum Pieces
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