The long walk: part of signs and omens

Most cities have a village or two. They are the places that seemed out of synch with the world during our childhoods but by the time we have reached adulthood have changed into something else. They are a kind of urban sundial tracking the days until it is time to settle down or leave.

Mine was in Victoria.

At first the village is a run-down collection of knitting shops and shabby grocery stores. There is a used book store that is always empty and a china shop that carries Royal Albert. My Aunt is proud of the pieces of Royal Albert China she owns and seeing this makes me cringe. The saloon-spitoon shape of their teacups combined with the matron’s-nightgown floral motifs communicate a kind of ignorant yearning for beautiful things that I wish my Aunt did not possess. Even as a child, I looked for ways to show her better things but thankfully, I could never be as blunt as the task required. She loved cheap beauty until she died, polyester flowers, grocery store cakes, mass produced “art prints” and factory-made furniture; and why not? Her husband was able to provide all of these things in abundance without ever compromising their security, all of her children grew up well fed and cared for and every aspect of her life gave her joy.

Nevertheless, it sometimes makes me sad to think she died without ever really knowing how much finer a china cup could be.

When I was ten, the village was also home to a pharmacy that carried absolutely nothing of interest and very few recognizable items to me. All of the shops catered to the needs of the elderly ladies who populated South Fairfield. To me it seemed like the most boring place on earth.

I never considered those ladies much. They were the legions of loggers’ widows, ex-wives of military officers, teachers, milkmen and civil servants. Their children grew into doctors, lawyers or sometimes real estate agents, some became teachers, like their fathers, nearly all moved away to the suburbs or out of town altogether.

There was a small nursery with a chain-link front and back wall and clapboard sides. It had a dirt floor and carried an array of dubious looking vegetables in the summer, Christmas trees in December. There was a dimly lit bakery with long oak and glass cabinets. The bakery specialized in the kinds of thing I did not like to eat but would later crave from time to time; sticky buns, covered in a glass-like caramel glaze and studded with candied cherries and pecans, cupcakes adrift in butter cream frosting, pink pillowy confections of cake, icing, coconut and jam and of course, lofty white bread square on the bottom and mushrooming out on the top in paper bags dotted with grease spots.

There was a shoe repair shop. I remember it clearly.

One day when I was walking to the beach with my best friend, we passed by the shoe repair. Someone was waving at the side door near the back, we paused to look and saw an old man with a round, taut belly, chest tufted with grey hair and baggy, wrinkled knees, stepped out onto the path that ran alongside the shop. He stood on the cracked paving stones, flanked by a cedar hedge and he called to us. I don’t remember what he said but I remember the image clearly. He was wearing a green crocheted tam-o-shanter, it looked like one of the tea cosies my grandmother liked to knit and send, I could almost feel the acrylic yarn, thick and smooth. He gestured for us to come closer and when we just stood there looking at him, he took his penis in his hand and waved it at us, nodding it up and down like it was bait.

We resumed our walk. Neither one of us said a word.

Later, our parents refused to believe us. Nevertheless, we were forbidden to explore the village alone from that day on. I felt as though they thought we would make up terrible things and stir up trouble. In retrospect, I think it is more likely they wanted to protect their children without having to endure a confrontation. Such is the Canadian way.

Gradually, the village changed.

The grocery stores cleaned up. The tea room became fashionable. The bakery and the shoe repair closed.

The elderly ladies died or were moved to convalescent homes and their married children moved into their houses or fixed them up for sale. Apartment houses were aired out and refurbished. The deserted entrance to the park, once known as a dangerous place where gay lovers or prostitutes sometimes met for rough sex and drug dealers arranged transactions was cleaned up. The underbrush was cleared away along with the condoms and needles. It was noted that a family of eagles made their nest in the cottonwoods above the park sign. Eventually there would be a webcam there.

A Starbucks opened.

I moved into a one-bedroom apartment two blocks from the beach and chose a lover based on his potential as a long-term mate and not on my attraction to him, which was largely absent. When we kissed, he seemed to have no muscle tone in his lips. They lay there flaccid on my face. He placed them there and seemed proud of his initiative in doing so but they felt like two banana slugs carefully laid over my mouth. It was repellent. I told myself I would get used to it. The relationship lasted for eight years. I never got used to it. He never noticed.