Solidarity

Dick Bird

Solidarity
by Dick Bird

My reaction to the light was swift: No tire, soy hombre! Dont shoot, Im a man! as an afterthought in English, because I wasnt in Mexico or the States, but back inside the Canadian border. The overhead blackness glinted obliquely. When I struggled up to see where the light was shining from, my elbow was trapped in the sleeping bag wildly swinging in the hammock. Glinting on walls and roof of the cave, headlights slanted through the opening. The rock face confused me, shutting me in where I was used to waking under stars. I identified engines, the Volkswagen whine. Headlights jerked and slewed all ways as two cars bounced over bumps. Weirdly bulbous pale rock shapes and leafless trees burst out of the dark to block their way, forcing the drivers to slew their wheels in search of a track. Squinting over the edge of the hammock I saw four or five heads in the glass of the lead car, etched against lights behind. Four or five men tightly clenched, peering forward intently as hunters. In Mexico sleepless farmers hunt tepexcuintles with spotlights attached to their rifles. If the spot glints on a pair of eyes, they fire. Thats why I woke up with a yell, developed over years of camping south of the Rio Grande, never knowing if my eyes throw light like a tepexcuintles, and none too keen to find out. The cave outlined my isolation. The engines and lights reminded me uncomfortably that I was alone. Cut off from men and women and kids, most of all from

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

my youngest. In the morning Id see him after six months apart. I had phoned ahead and bargained with his mom. Some maintenance cheques for ten hours of his time. My splendid isolation bartered away. Staring over the hammocks edge, I wondered if the men in the cars were hunting me. No reason, of course. Just that uncanny feeling. But the beams veered off without slowing, letting darkness swallow the cave. While my hammering heart slowed down, I watched the stars in the cave mouth. The tail of the Great Bear furtively curled. Arcturus the archer loosed his shafts of light. Losing focus in the familiar swaying hammock, I dropped off to sleep at last. I woke to birds already singing, stars hidden behind a blind of blue. I lurched out of the swinging hammock. I had meant to get up early. Ive still got a long way to go. Im nervous, seeing my Bonker again. Hell have grown an inch since last November. To avoid spousal confrontation were meeting on neutral ground, at Sandys. Shes an old friend, one of the few who never speaks her mind about my women. Her place on the coast must be three hours north from here. Hammock and bedroll tucked under my arm I duck outside, blinking like a tepexcuintle. The rock is dazzling white. Stones like twisting drooping candles rearranged by Dali. If I was amazed to find them here last night, Im even more amazed in daylight. You could film a surrealist movie here. I never expected a place like this outside of Mexico. Each stone stands apart as if in a spotlight, glowing with an otherworldly presence. The leafless trees might have grown from seeds dropped from space. Or at least from the Vizcaina desert of Baja California where I last saw a scene like this. Trees waiting clenched for a subtropical sun. The birches and alders and aspens have settled for the local version of spring, burst already into leaf.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

Just when Im feeling buoyed up again after that worrisome night, seeing tire tracks in sand brings me low. Volkswagen tires, narrow and worn, crossing over each other in search of the trail. What would those guys be doing out here in the middle of the night? Certainly nothing lawful or normal. Teenagers out for a hoot with booze and girls would have yelled and screamed. Those were silent, serious men. Up to no good: ambiguous jokers on this surreal scene. Theres a longhaired loser mooching furtively round my van. I creep up on him from behind a rock as he bends to pick up something on the ground. Im not going to give him the chance to run. What have you got there? I yell, springing out. He jumps like a rabbit. That makes me feel good, now its my turn to dish out the fear. Thats my wallet, mister. Is it your van? He swiftly regains his cool. I guess Im not so scary as I thought. He holds out the wallet. I didnt rob you, mister. Someone else must have dropped it. I just picked it up. Havent even looked to see whats in it. All right, all right, I saw you. The wallets handmade of authentic skin of some animal that died in pain. Pain and shit you can still smell. Hecho a mano en Mexico. I pull out the twenty. It was packed with these. Five hundred Yankee bucks. Nice of you of someone to leave me one. Wasnt me, mister. I just got here. You been robbed, though. Look at your van. All five kayaks are upon the roof, the bike still on the front rack. None of the ropes cut, chains and padlock intact. Then the passenger door swims into focus. Thats what he was staring at, then at me with awe and admiration, as if Id perpetrated the

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

outrage myself. The door is in place but inside out and upside down. A closer look shows the twisted hinges wrenched apart with a crowbar. Someone sure went to a lot of trouble, he says appreciatively, standing back to let me touch it first. He giggles, Nice of them to put the door back. He helps me lift and set it down against a wheel. The van has been ransacked. Clothing, books and music cassettes scattered on the carpet. Food cupboards open, blackened pots pulled out. Diving masks and swim fins, even my two spearguns, jumbled in a pile. Someone was interested only in cash. And found it: hecho en Mexico: my wallet. Someone with a sense of generosity, if only a vestige, illustrated by the sole surviving twenty. I crouch in the back. He leans in the gaping door. I was wrong to suspect him. He had his chance to run and didnt take it. Hes rat-faced and nervous, as who wouldnt be, nabbed with someones wallet in his hand? A youth of indeterminate years, roughed up by disappointments: laid off to cut his seniority rights at the sawmill, unable to stick it out with a girl, he wouldnt be looking too hard for a brighter future. I know the feeling. It creeps over me with the failing sun of each October, till I head for Mexico. Thank heaven I can still scrape a living there. Which way you heading? Hes friendly now, overlooking my churlishness in hopes of a ride. Down to the coast. Can you drop me off in Hope? Gotta see the old lady. She owes me some cash. His words stir up a fellow feeling. My old ladies owe me plenty: kids and cash and intangibles: self-respect, a steady job, a headstone in the cemetery of life. Sure hop in. Youll have to hold on to the door till we find a garage.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

I drive too fast on the bumpy track. Both his hands occupied with the door, my rider bounces satisfyingly at my side. All the way down the road Im scanning Volkswagens. Theres plenty of them, gushing smoke as they totter along, drivers looking nervous as they should be. Im still bristling with injury. If I see four or five men jammed into a bug, following or followed by another, Ill probably run both cars off the road. And search the wreckage for my missing cash.

Come in for a beer? he invites me in Hope. Thanks, but Im late. Gotta burn rubber down to the coast. Im going to see Bonker. First time in six months. It had better be a good day, weve both earned it. Though its getting off to a lousy start. These visiting days are always precarious, ticking away like a time bomb. Always fixed by negotiation, conducted in an atmosphere of distrust. Always in the shadow of lawyers, hunched like vultures sitting on the wall. Last year his mother took me to court to claim sole custody. As if hes her prisoner: well, he is. When I said Id contest, her attorney bumped the case up to Supreme Court. I was too proud and too poor to hire a lawyer, but since Im used to turning my hand to all sorts of jobs, I represented myself. Myself and Bonker, that is. Now I cant look at a vulture or zopilote without recalling that barristers eyes appraising my juicy carcass. Sandy, who should know, says I got off easy, merely losing custody, not my wages past and yet to come. She should know, shes one of them: a lawyer in her own right, though not so ravenous nor in the same field as that zopilote.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

They havent arrived yet, she says. Come up and look at this deck. How was it this year? Did you get enough clients? Just covered expenses. But the paddling was great, and the diving. Had the most fun on the Caribbean as usual: that reef makes the rest of the continent worthwhile. But you know, its so bizarre to drive all over Mexico without getting robbed, then my first night back in this country You were robbed? The passenger door ripped off and my wallet emptied. They left me a twenty: charity or insult? Ripped off a door and you didnt wake up? I was sleeping outside. I did hear their cars: two Volkswagen bugs. But I didnt know what they were up to. I just laid low. So they cleaned you out? Ive got a few jobs if you need cash. Thanks Sandy, Id do the same for you. What, give me a job? You know I wont touch family law. The red cedar thats a couple of centuries senior to the house has grown thicker in the twenty years since I built the deck around it. Sandy says it rubs the octagonal hole when the wind blows off the sea, which is how it blows more often than not. So now she wants the hole made wider. Its a ten minute job and Im on my way out to the van for my tools when I hear a child shout from below the bluff on the beach. Yelling to Sandy, Bonkers here! I bounce down steps between the trees and over slippery dulse-stained ledges towards two figures bent over a pool in the intertidal zone. Hes on his knees, back toward me, hands in the pool where hes poking green sea anemones. His mother stares across him, hands in deep pockets and winter coat flapping

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

against her calf-length boots. No smile, not a word. I couldnt hide my feelings like that. Her lawyer must have given her lessons. So whats it to be, a confrontation? I dip my hands in water next to his. He leaps to his feet and hurls himself at me, swinging around me like a monkey up a tree. Abundant feelings he always shows. He doesnt see any harm in it yet. No shame in showing what he feels. Sure, of course hes going to get hurt, hes a kid isnt he? Downtown, where the action is, we stand fooling at a shop window. Alone with each other at last, pulling faces in the glass, flipping through and erasing old emotions. Our reflections are suddenly ambushed from all sides. I see the men converging and cant move. Theyre after me and I wont get away this time: this time? has it happened before? Four or five in the first rank, more behind: hard-faced men with their heads down, hands in pockets of mothballed Sally Ann suits. Im thrown like the ball in a rugby scrum. Bonkers quicker: twenty feet away in the safe zone, poised for another leap. But its me they want. They dont give him a second glance. They dont look like police. Dont smell like mafia. One guy says something I dont understand, dont even know in what language. I pride myself on identifying languages, picking up linguistic clues. The scrum tapers out to a phalanx with me in the middle, as far as the plaza in front of the courthouse, where a flea markets in full swing. They clot up tight on the sidewalk, forcing bystanders to step down off the curb. Their breath smells boozy. Their eyes are shifty with shaky triumph easily snatched away. They lean together breast to breast, trying to focus on each others faces. Their shadows assume forgotten shapes from some nightmare I thought I had escaped. I run my tongue around my lips for a noncommittal: Hey, whats happening?

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

My teacher, says the nearest guy, centring everyones attention. Vancouver, he whispers in my ear, 1984. The last year I taught any serious ESL. While mother-to-be bulged with unborn Bonker, claiming all my attention. That unforgettable class of Slav, Balkan, and Baltic dissidents had spun on an axis of polarized Poles, survivors of the brutal shutdown of their uprising known to the hopeful world as Solidarity. This is one of them: a broad face smiling blandly with as little meaning as the moon. Do you still play piano? He spreads his arms as wide as a keyboard. Vladi you remember? The same fleshy fingers palpate my spine that once stroked the ivories, healing wounds sustained in the battle with grammar, rallying us on the weepy edge of laughter, twitching to shocks of nigger jive like sparks chipped off the frozen Warsaw Bloc. Can you speak English yet? He lets me go to spread his arms, showing the wider he reaches the more he misses, or the size of the hole in his brain that my lessons whistled through. I repeat the question: You still play piano? Music was his redeeming magic, never failing to lighten his shadowed face. Baring his teeth like an octave of ivories with some of the black keys missing, he spits out words in ill-fitting English: At night, in bar. Too much smoking. And too much vodka? I remember him blissfully blacked out under a table at the Greater Slavs passing out parade from whence we all went our separate ways: mine to espousal and fatherhood, theirs to an uncertain labour market. Too much vodka? they echo, guffawing. Unpossible!

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

Dick Bird

Their drinking frenzy had shocked me, alarmed me. I was the only one able to crawl out through the door. Young men and women sprawled in vodka fumes and cigarette ash, minds blotted out for the night. They plunged headlong into drinking and smoking like I wished they would dive into English. Their jokes and songs were spiked with despair. Despair of prisoners still in thrall to the regimes they had run away from, that allowed them tobacco and booze instead of freedom: escapism, not real escape, even for these who had made it physically, breaking out of the frozen East to the softer clime of my English class. Yet these were the clowns who pulled the rug from under the Warsaw Pacts boots. Flying spores of the rot in the structure that crashed down a few years later. Diffident behind his beard in the back row, one fortyish man shyly admitted he had been Solidaritys lawyer: shaking my hand, he uttered a declaration hed been chewing on for weeks: This hand shook the hand of Lech Walesa. This at the time of Walesas arrest, when he sat in jail like a light switched off and our hopes for Solidarity dimmed. I dont see that lawyers face here today, unless hes shaved off the beard. But it turns out they need him. Now whats the problem? I demand when hands are shaken and tears wiped from eyes. I know that wherever two or three of these guys are gathered together there must be a problem. The law. Police, sound from various sides. Immigraczion. They have cleared the junk for sale off a trestle table. I am seated in a sagging wicker chair with an optimistic $10 price tag. Bonker sidles up behind me. My former students who keep dodging behind and across one another, making their number hard

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

10

Dick Bird

to guess bunch up on a narrow church pew facing me, swelling their mothballed suits with deep optimistic breaths that force their lighter colleagues off the ends. Vladi, the moonfaced jazz pianist, sums up their hopes and fears: We fail immigration test. They say Poland a safe country. We send back. Looking for you help, we good old English teacher. Well, Poland is a safe place now. Safe but no money. Is there money here? Money! Plenty money! Amid the guffaws and waving arms, brandished wallets bulge with banknotes, some of which even look American, almost as if I have seen them before. Well, I have just driven across the US. But I still feel uneasy. You need a lawyer not a teacher. And a lawyer will cost you lots of money. Money no problem! Here it is waving in my face. I know I have seen it somewhere before. My life seems to run on dja-vu. I have a friend. Shes a lawyer. She specializes in immigration. Each word is echoed around the table: Friend. Lawyer. Immigration. I insert: Money to complete the equation. Woman lawyer, Vladi says, hands held up around imaginary breasts, woman lawyer smarter. Sharper minds, I nod. Some object itches for my attention, something twitching in the gaps between shabby suits and unruly hair: its a Volkswagen bug among cars at the curb. I crane my head sideways. If theres another but Bonker squeals behind my chair, where someones hand has tickled his balls. Now look, I dont have time to

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

11

Dick Bird

waste. This is my son, who I havent seen for half a year. Todays the only time well get for another month, so will you guys hurry up and get to the point? Ive stood up and pushed the cane chair over, gasping as if I were being smothered. But their grip on my shoulders is swift and strong, turning me in a new direction. Vladi points across the plaza, to finger a woman marching briskly, clad in a dark formal skirt suit. Problem coming here now. You go talk, go speak! Yes, she walks like a zopilote, targeting the meat. My friend Sandys been practising for years, but still cant manage that swing of shoulder and hip, crushing arguments underfoot. This lady must be the figurehead of state, cutting a course through uncertain waves: shes the friendly democratic power these guys are up against now. My former students are nowhere in sight as I stand in her path, hoping to slow her pace with an upraised finger. Excuse me, could we have a word? Her gray eyes flicker up and down my campers clothes. She stops on the first of the courthouse steps, already one up over me. Standing still just as much as walking, her dignity flutters flawlessly as a flagship under sail. How to address her: your honour? Learned friend? I dont wish to impose... Please, I havent got all day. Well, neither have I, thats my point exactly. The fact is, those friends of mine over there with a wave at the throng of flea marketeers where not a crumpled hangdog suit or even a whiff of mothballs gives a clue as to who my friends are, only my Bonker standing his ground alone tell me they are having some trouble running out of spit and ideas with the department of Immigration.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

12

Dick Bird

Ah! I see! Her sharp zopilotes eye has spied her meat. And youre appearing for them at the hearing? Not appearing exactly. Then what exactly are you trying to tell me? Look, they brought me here, almost forced me here Without telling you why? Communication is difficult. Running into them here was pure coincidence. You see, years ago I taught them English. Even her snort of contempt carries weight. They cant speak it yet. Thats one of the charges against them. And against me, she lets me infer. An accomplice abetting their ignorance, defrauding the state of its valuable time. I see no other way than to waste still more of it, appeasing her aggression with an anecdote: That short fellow there with the moustache and glasses was a film director in Russia. At the time I was teaching, ten years ago, one of his films won a prize at the Vancouver Festival. He was, like you say, quite hopeless at English. When I saw him last he had a job at the Georgia Hotel, in the basement pressing pants. Be careful, she flags me. Your sympathys showing. I do find it hard to be objective where friends are concerned, thats my weakness. Then you shouldnt represent them. What exactly are you doing? Are you their interpreter? I would like to suggest a friend of mine as counsel. Another friend? Waxed lips curl back to expose her teeth. Dear, dear. You know their time is running out.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

13

Dick Bird

Time to what? Our action against them. Our assessment. Our order. She taps a varnished nail on her loaded briefcase. Deportation. That guy over there with the Vandyke beard trying to winkle him out of the crowd where he hovers behind his colleagues, unwilling as ever to stand up and be seen was one of Solidaritys advisors. He shook Lech Walesas hand: before he became president My hand is shaking itself: my voice sounds unconvinced. Bystanders jostle me, climbing steps. They dont jostle her. I suck in some air. Whens the hearing? She tugs her sleeve in such a way as to block my view of her wristwatch. Her dignity is seamless, not a stitch out of place: hair pinned up and face put on straight every morning. Five minutes. We should go in now, if youre coming. Should I believe her? If she wont even let me see her watch, what else would she conceal from me? I glance over at the Warsaw Bloc, camouflaged by junk for quick sale with no refund. Here comes Bonker sliding on his sneakers, a rash of intelligence flushing his face. Hes got the ultrasensitive ears of his age for speech overheard in the distance. He pulls me down, my ear to his lips. Remember last year in Kelowna, at court? What was it you asked for, time to prepare? An adjournment! We grip hands and I swing him around, setting him down just abeam of her ladyships bow. Thats it, an adjournment: thats what we need! She ruffles her sails: Youre going to request an adjournment? These men need counsel, time to prepare.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

14

Dick Bird

She sniffs: They dont have a leg to stand on. The sooner theyre on the plane the better, for them and for everyone. Like your friend the movie director. Theyre never going to make it in this country. You could say the same for the native Indians. Youre going to need a lot of airplanes. She looks me up and down reserving judgment. I take your point. Very well, I see no objection to a short adjournment while you arrange for counsel. Is a week enough? Lets make it a month. No, a couple of months. She starts up the steps. Very well, Ill take care of it. Theres no need for you to appear. Wait I follow but Bonker tugs me back. Through the market crowd to the trestle table. The meeting reconvenes among the bric-a-brac. My son and I are shielded from buyers as if were already paid for. All right gentlemen, were in business. Ill phone my lawyer friend. First, lets see your money. Ill need a retainer. Five hundred for a start. Five hundred? No problem! Handfuls of money are waved in my face. Is that American? I smell it from here. The odour of my looted wallet: shit and fear: hecho a mano en Mexico. Wads of paper fit tight in my hand, and where it belongs, safe and snug in my pocket. But I have to ask: Its a lot of money. How did you where did you get it? Hoarse guffaws, hearty slaps on the back, are all the answers I get. Broken phrases business mans working night shift official secrets give my suspicious mind solid food to chew.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com

Solidarity

15

Dick Bird

Well lets get a move on, weve got to appear in court. We cant trust that lawyer. Shes one of the smart ones. They hoist me on their shoulders like a football favourite or slain warrior on his shield. The phalanx surges up the courthouse steps with Bonker hoisted on shoulders beside me. Face up to the sky, I relax. No stars are visible, yet I know where I am. In the thick of the struggle for justice, where it feels right to be. Cheered on by unpronounceable words whose meaning is crystal clear. And in company with my youngest son, in whom I am well pleased. I remind myself, upright again as my feet touch down on the marble floor of Justice, to screw another hundred out of my former students to repair the damage done to my van.

Laugh your way through life with http://DicksTravels.com