Lonesome Hero

Introduction

Tyrone Lock was born on a mixed farm in southern Alberta. On the corner of Rocky Mountains and Rocky Mountains. Twenty-two years ago. To parents who even then were doing their best to work themselves to death.

More notable things happened that year, I have since been told by my father. Two months prior to my birth, he was elected president of the local chapter of the Farmers’ Union, something about which he is still quite proud. It was also the year that Murray Iverhorn’s eighteen-year-old milk cow had triplets, one of which lived.

My early years were a pampered time. My Irish Grannie competed with my German Omah for my first word of favour. I wish that I could remember more. Recently, I lay on my back in bed, knees up, wiggling my toes, thumb in mouth, trying to pry loose more recollection from that time, wanting at least a bar or two of When Irish Eyes are Smiling to come hurtling back.

Sometime in elementary school, I became a misfit. I can point to no exact moment when it began. I grew quiet, so that no one would notice my misfitedness, and the years began to slide silently by.

Puberty was a shock. Beer as well.

After years of sitting silently at the kitchen table or in the corner of the living room couch, I began to stay out late. Once, I threw up in the bathtub and went to bed without cleaning it. I began to scour the library’s tiny sections on psychology and sex education in desperate search for an answer to why I prematurely ejaculated in my wet dreams.

When I left for the city and university, the first thing that impressed me was the size of the sex-related sections in the university library. Shortly, I failed all my first round of university exams. I lost fourteen pounds from not being able to buy groceries when I needed them nor cook them when I had them.

An older woman, of twenty-two, began inviting me across the hall for supper. When she took me to her bedroom, I was so nervous I forgot to prematurely ejaculate, and, so, was a success on my first sexual outing. Or so she told me.

The last two years at university were scarred with tragedy. My misfitedness, deked out by the move from the farm, caught up with me. I was driven into hiding, where I ate cheese and crackers and watched kiddies’ cartoons. In my more anarchistic moods, I would go to Safeway and loiter by the ice cream freezer. When the coast was clear, I squeezed the Revels.

Now, I am twenty-two and a Bachelor of Arts. Majoring in Economics. I seldom work for money, having some, thanks to being gassed by a pipeline leak in a low spot on our farm.

I am medium height and weight, with blond hair descending to the shoulder. My girlfriend informs me my eyes are green, a surprise in that I always thought they were blue. I have no identifying marks or scars except for the six-inch appendix scar which has elongated alarmingly with age. I mention this should anyone ever wish to identify my lower abdomen.

That, in brief, is me.

1: So You’ve Decided To Take a Trip

Today, I sit in my parents’ house surrounded by memories. The Chinook wind smashes against the walls. I cuddle into a corner of the living-room couch. Quite alone. Not quite warm somehow. I try in vain to drown the fearful sounds of the wind with the rustling of pages, the tapping of my toe, and even the adhesive licks I apply to stamp hinges. Any moment, a top-heavy tree could tear from the ground and drop wind-assisted on the roof above me. Crushing me flat as these stamps.

These last days in one’s native Canada. Furiously collecting stamps to catch up my collection before I must leave it behind.

I must be off to Europe. The very last thing on earth I want to do. Yet technically, it was my idea. I recall with painful ease the circumstance which began this chain of events. Which will soon cast me, passport in hand, onto an unfriendly, foreign shore. I was sitting with my girlfriend, on giant Roman-like pillows, in the living room of her apartment. She was feeding me grapes in keeping with the setting. I was feeling pampered, safe, and conquering. A disastrous threesome. For effect, I decided to lie a little. To stack favourable impressions on this sweet pamperer. In absolute certainty that Europe held no attraction for my Athena, I said:

Have you ever thought of travelling? We should just hop on a plane to London. You know. Take in the night life of Europe. Soak up the culture. Slip over to France for the wine and atmosphere of the bistro. Establish ourselves as regulars so as to be let in on all their secrets. Learn languages. Go to bullfights. So that we can be as indignant about them as everyone else is. Swim in the miraculous spring of Lourdes.

So on and on I rambled. Painting a Rabelaisian fresco with bits borrowed from travel agency advertisements. How was I to know she would say, Splendid, save her money, and send for her passport?

Here I sit, ridden with that painfully self-inflicted remorse. No use to panic. Let the doom seep in around me like a heavy, suffocating sludge. Say little goodbyes to truck, to faithful dog, to ever-spoiling Mother, to splendid stamp collection. Even say farewell to the goddamned wind which may yet kill me before Europe does. Even to the cat who hates me so, I find myself whispering goodbye. I soak up the pain as it bites my feet. Haven’t the heart to reprimand.

I refuse to think of Europe. I even wince now as I lick the hinge and press an Italian stamp into a symmetrical row of them. For a cold-sweating moment, I am swept to Venice. I sit petrified in a gondola, clutching frantically at its sides. The gondolier, drunk as a lord and singing Santa Lucia off-key, loses his balance and tips us into the oil slick. Buffeted by human wastes and gulping hepatitis germs, I slowly sink. My last glimpse catches Athena grinning widely as she treads sludge. She swims into the arms of the drunken gondolier and I think I can hear her say, Isn’t this glorious, Tyrone? The bloated body of a cat floats by.

I haven’t the slightest interest in museums, tire easily of historical buildings, and would just as soon not learn how the other half or nine-tenths live. So, why, oh why, go to Europe? Being trampled and elbowed and eye-gouged by vacant-eyed tourists as I stand a hundred feet of solid people away from a bobbing row of furry black hats that I’m only taking somebody’s word for being atop the Queen’s guards’ heads. The holidaying horde shooting films of them with revolver movie cameras held at arm’s length to get above the crowd, only to find that their aim was bad and all they’ve got to show the folks at home of the marching guards are underexposed five-minute features of the second-storey windows of Buckingham Palace.

But it won’t be the Europeans’ fault if I am killed. Maimed in a busy street, a little car atop my chest. They didn’t ask me to come. I did it all by myself. Invited myself to miserable, unfriendly death on foreign soil by a so-thought harmless boast of adventurousness. Is this what adventurous means? To place one’s body on a rack of foreign torture? To stuff one’s cherished digestive system with weird foods which it does not know how to process?

Out into the gale, I think. I will stand downwind of the trees. A branch will rip off. About the size of my arm and strike me down. Into the hospital I will go, unless dead. To lie in antiseptic, domestically made sheets safely unable to travel possibly for years. Blood thumps in my brain. I can stamp-collect no longer. Too remindful of prospective death-trip abroad. I’ll cuddle here in comfy couch corner. So absolutely at home. Now I’ll snap on the tv and get lost for two hours in the escapades of a western movie hero.

For this week only, Wild West Night at the Movies has been cancelled so that we can bring you a special report on the progress to date of Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community.

Snap. The room goes dark and I watch the bead of light in the centre of the screen until it too dies. There is darkness everywhere as my life breaks into ever smaller pieces. Torn from my orbit, I will wander forever lost.

2: Purchasing Necessary Supplies

Tyrone Lock in a sporting goods store. Dressed more warmly in woollen cardigan and gloves than the weather warrants. What the observer cannot see is that he has the winter liner zipped into his trench coat as well. He walks slowly from truck to store so as not to sweat. Now facing ruddy-faced sportsman who grins with health.

Can I help you there, Doc? Sportsman leans over Arborite, several teeth showing for his sales pitch. Views Tyrone as a sucker easily caught up in the race to have the latest equipment.

You must be hot in all those clothes, Doc. It’s a beautiful day out.

No.

No what?

No on both counts.

Oh, well what can I do for you, Doc?

I want a backpack.

Oh, a pack. Yeah, well we got all the latest in packs. Now this. You’ll like this. It has an automatic flotation balloon built right into it. If you fall in a lake, you just pull this little handle and bingo! instant life jacket. A little expensive some might say. But when you think of all the advantages, it’s probably cheaper value-wise than a lot of these others.

I don’t hike near lakes or rivers. What I want is one that is light and cheap.

You’re a long-distance hiker, are you?

Short distance.

Oh, well we have this one here with . . .

How much?

Here on the label, Doc.

Too much.

This one then.

Also too much. I want one for twenty dollars.

We only have one that’s that cheap.

I’ll take it.

It’ll fall apart on you, Doc.

Good. Then I’ll stop hiking.

A good-humoured ring of the register. Money transferred. Twenty dollars in and a penny back. Tyrone slips it in a special pocket of his trench coat marked S for stingy.

•

Tyrone Lock in a drugstore. A lady behind the counter dressed in flashing white smiles up at him. She always feels happy selling goodies to make the sick well. She feels not only good but holy.

Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you? Have you a fever that you’re wearing so much?

No on both counts.

Wasn’t that just one, sir?

It’s not a beautiful day either and that makes two.

You poor dear. You’re not well, are you?

Yes on one count. I am fine. I have a list of the ten most prominent sicknesses in Europe. I want a guaranteed prevention or cure for all of them.

Oh dear. Little lady takes the slip. She is dazed. Thinking this has never happened before. I don’t know, sir. I only fill prescriptions. You would have to go to a doctor.

He would only send me back here. Fill the prescription.

Now sir, this is not a prescription.

It is.

Doctors issue prescriptions. You wrote this list yourself.

A prescription is an order for drugs. This list combined with my instructions is also an order for drugs. Therefore, this is a prescription. Now fill it.

This is not a prescription.

You, madam, are incompetent.

I’m calling the police.

I was just leaving.

In thirty years, I have never had a complaint. Everyone has always complimented me on my devotion to my work.

The lady in white begins to cry, and Tyrone leaves, little list in hand.

3: Choosing a Travelling Companion

The sun will soon go down on another Canadian day. So few left before takeoff and exile. Already the sky above the Rockies is a candy-floss pink. Paying tribute to raging forest fires somewhere below.

Matches the redness of my farm truck which bears me at madcap pace between hills. I am eager to be snuggled in front of my parents’ tv. I wouldn’t pick my nose if I wasn’t so nervous. Quite a trick really, as it requires that I raise one hand from the wheel. Could lower my head to my waiting finger. But no, that would be even more daring.

Now I am smoking. Suspending my nose-picking for the moment. Any way that I can soothe my nerves will do. One of the many reasons why I must smoke. If I quit, I would find myself in restaurants reaching for the nose to answer the inner need. Or merrily picking over my beer in the tavern. People moving disgustedly away. Athena of course would leave me. Suffering to think that she’d ever given her love to a pick-nose.

Looking at it analytically, what is really wrong with picking one’s nose? Not any more disgusting than scratching at dandruff. Society has inhibitions as regards any orifice, I suppose. It’s a lewd-thinking society that condemns us.

I sit here picking languidly again. Driving very slowly now. All the big hurry gone as I contemplate a utopia where a pick-nose could aspire to public office. And all institutionalized cowards would be granted amnesty.

•

Soon home and in front of our lovely television set. With its graceful lines. And many-coloured knobs. It lights up the dark room with fast-moving shadows. Flickering across me. Giving me a ghostly pallor, no doubt.

Such a better way to travel. To board the magic tube and sail to anywhere on celluloid tracks. And never leave the comfort of my couch.

My father walks in. Tired from a long day of riding his grunting tractor. He stands near by. Apparently wishing to start a conversation.

What’s on?

Living colour.

What in living colour?

An exposé of life.

Father remains. Pretending to watch. This exposé of life.

How’s Athena?

I will be available for comment at the next commercial break.

Father persists.

I hear you’re going to Europe.

I roll over onto my back and stare through light beams at the ceiling. Thinking, so that’s why.

Yes, I’m going to Europe.

Go ahead and watch your program if you like.

No, its all right. It was a fairly poor exposé of life anyway.

Where are you going exactly? Or do you know?

Across a wide sea.

I know where it is. You don’t seem very pleased about it.

I’m pleased. See, I’m smiling.

Yeah.

Did you plough a field today?

Yeah, I’m doing the summer fallow on the far east quarter again.

That’s nice. I pick up my guitar and strum a minor chord string by string, very slowly. My mind sings a single lyric. Doom. Doom. Doom. My father leaves, closing the kitchen door, to sit across from my mother and whisper, I think we did something wrong with that boy.

I strum on. D minor. D minor. D minor. I sing Doom, Doom and then say etc. and know what I mean anyway.

Suddenly another voice in the kitchen. Athena! I know it is she. Has come to see me over miles and miles. I rate. So nice to rate with one so pretty. She is talking to my father. They are fond of one another. Athena, being more sane than I, puts hope in my father’s autumn days. Hope for pretty grandkiddies. Patter of little feet again on the old kitchen floor. Bring out the toy box from its dusty cupboard. I get up and walk to the kitchen.

Hi, sweetie. We have a little hug. Were you watching that thing again? It’s going to rot your eyes, Ty.

I was strumming the other thing.

Oh yeah? You haven’t played in a long while. Were you learning that song I’ve been begging you to learn?

No, I was writing one.

Oh far out! Have you named it yet?

Yes. It’s called ‘Doom.’

Oh. Well let’s go. I want to hear it.

No. I’m not completely satisfied with it yet.

Grinning wide, she chucks me under the chin and addressing my father says, He’s such a perfectionist, he never gets anything quite ready. Then to me, You know, I’ve never heard you sing a note.

My heart sings constantly, but no one listens.

Oh, poor baby. We link arms and into the living room we go. The tv buzzes on. A new world has commenced on the sacred tube. The dimly lit room full of these new shadows. Ours mingling in. Quite a concept really. That this man on the tv, whether he is in Siam or dead, has his shadow, at this moment, in my house. I wonder what Descartes would make of that.

We sit and are now so closely pressed.

Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?

I presume you’ve come to see me.

Of course I’ve come to see you. You’re always fishing for those little words, aren’t you? You know what I mean.

You mean, I suppose, what set of circumstances enabled you to come on this twilight ride to my old country home on a night when you’d ordinarily be going to bed early to prepare yourself for an early morning of wrapping the limbs of chickens in pieces of cellophane.

Yeah, that’s about it, Tyrone.

Well, what set of circumstances did enable you to come on a night . . .

I quit, Tyrone. No more chickens!

Then you aren’t going to Europe after all? Suppress that note of hope in the voice. Keep those syllables monotone.

"Of course I’m going. I landed another job, that’s all. No more chickens. I’m going to be a