Woman ironing As I watched, she carefully folded the white cotton, ironing the pleats. Experienced hands flicking the fabric in that special way. The iron disappeared. She handed the shirt over the blue and yellow flower-print ironing board to his waiting hands. Around the curved end of the board. A blue and white checked shirt appears in the doorway. My window into their kitchen. The building just down the cliff. First the collar. The flick. The shoulder spread tight over the end. Wet fabric hanging in wrinkles. Steam. The other shoulder. He comes back. The blue and white disappears. The white shirt, now unfolded, returns to the board. Flick. Steam. Folding. Flick The shirt is offered again. She walks heavily to the balcony, her old stocky body borne upright and firm. Her yellow and brown – flowers on background – blouse with pleated skirt hang limp from her frame. She removes the blue plastic clip. A toss and lustrous, amber hair spreads over her shoulders. Her chest heaves. Breathing. The moon over Vesuvius. Her hair is returned to the knot and fastened with the blue plastic clip. The blue and white returns to the ironing board. ----- From a balcony I shared in Italy.

Morning …I’m in here. Soft. Bare feet on cotton. Warm safety. Wrinkles and wrinkles of protection. Crows. The rumblehum of traffic. The city. A bus’s brakes. It’s quiet this morning. The construction has stopped. All resurfaced after putting in the new bike path. Is that a helicopter? Someone doing dishes across the alley. “…and that was  Bach’s Concerto in D minor for two violins and strings performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by…” I can’t get up. I won’t. I’ve already snoozed it twice. Life is so nice asleep, cuddled by a thick duvet and that grainy fleshy smell. It’s taken some time but even my pillow, this morning, is perfect. The right spot, the right height. And it stays right even when I roll back from the alarm clock. Snooze three. I like the little sunlight coming in around my curtains. Like living high up and far away. Up in the mountains maybe. A cliff by the sea. That’s not a garbage truck. That’s a liner cruising by far out at sea. And that droning hum? That’s not the city full of people and cars. That’s the sea rolling over itself. It’s calm this morning. No great crashing booms like during the storm last week. No. Gentle pebble shuffling and the morning air moving inland. I’ll open my door and, wrapped in my sweater, take fresh coffee to the edge of the cliff and watch that ship go by. The gulls on the wind will be chasing it as always.  My feet are too hot. If I just untuck a little. ooh too much. Too cold. Maybe just a little air hole… There we go. It sounds like the wind is picking up. There’ll be waves down at the beach this afternoon. “…You’re listening to CBC Radio Two…a rather unusual request now from….A Flibberty Jib… ‘a stranger came into our town. He was tall and dark and had eyes that could look right into the bottom of you… out of his tallness came the chanting.’ Never heard anything like this before. ‘First as a whisper we could hardly hear. Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop. Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop. Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop… It trapped us without our knowing… Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop. Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop. We came alive to him… ----- These two pieces were written for a Quebec Writer's Federation workshop on creative non-fiction conducted by Mark Abley. This first piece was to describe a place.

We started to chant with him.  Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop… Flibberty jib bum a bipati bop. We were in the dark. Enchanted. And the magic was with us…. That’s the way things have been in our town as long as any one cares to remember. By the way how are things in your town?’ ...And that was Ken Nordine’s Flibberty Jib, a wonderful example of word jazz. And Nordine’s voice is so dark and strong. Just such a special treat this morning.…” Word jazz. I’ll look that up. Five more minutes. And I have the bed to myself this morning. He must have slept on the couch again. Mmm. Face down. Spread eagle. I can stretch out for days. My back.  Really why do I have to leave this place? Just bring me bread and water. I’ll be fine. I have my books. They’re all right there. Busy on the shelves. Wait.  Not bread and water. No. A sliced pear and a hot cup of tea. Oooh. That would be great right now. What is that?? I hate contemporary classical. Damn thing gets faster the more you snooze. I’m turning you off. Off off. I’ll get up. I’ll get up. Just close my eyes for two minutes. Soon. Just the perfect temperature. The sheets. The pillow. That wind’s really picking up. A little shiver. There’ll be breakers at the beach for sure. I should have put some shoes on. My coffee’s wonderfully bitter. Sharp on my sleepy mouth. Warm on my fingers. A silly Star Trek collector’s mug. I wonder where that liner’s headed? There are so many gulls now. From here like a cloud of gnats in a field. But slow. Lazy. It’s amazing I can hear them this far away. I really should get up.  Places to go and people to see. I wonder if Stan’s replied to my last email yet. Probably upset over my last edits. Oh well. I should get up and check. His pillow. It’s colder than mine. Tuck that right in there. All curled up on my side. Why is his pillow so comfortable? It just fits perfectly under my arm. Two more minutes. Now I’m really never going to get up. The sun’s almost gone from my window. Get up. Get up. Okay okay.

Peter “It’s complicated,” he begins, trying to answer my question. It usually is with Peter. His answers are never simple and there’s usually a back story which is sort of like a long magic carpet ride that branches and branches and branches in seemingly endless connections of people and places. It’s sort of a swirling collage of everything and everyone all at the same time and Peter is trying to filter, pick and choose what needs to be said, what needs to be conveyed for me to understand. Here A doesn’t lead to B; A leads to B, C, D and E which then have their own back stories which need to be explained. B goes to L, M and N. And I follow trying to carry all the pieces and pick up more as we skit from point to point on this erratic map. And just when I think I’m completely lost and the story is never going to get to the point and actually answer my question, he curves, gracefully and purposefully, as if that was the intention all along, and the story folds back on itself. “And that’s why Johnny was mad a Frank. Not because of what Frank did per se but because of what Johnny did at Rachel’s house when Frank was out of town and didn’t want Frank to know about. Does that make sense?” “Yes, it does,” I say. “More coffee?” “Sure, thanks.” I go to the kitchen with our two empty mugs. The cold fall air is coming through the slightly open darkened kitchen window. Across the alley I can see my neighbour watching TV. It’s late but gossiping the hours away on this Tuesday night in my downtown apartment is just about all I feel like doing. As I return to the living room with fresh cups of steaming coffee, milk and two sugars for both of us, Peter tosses his cellphone back on the coffee table. “Anything interesting?” I ask. “Text from Butterfly. She wants to have a meeting about Mouth.” “Oh, that’s right. Next Sunday. So what’s the problem?” ----- This second was to describe a person.

And as I sit on my sofa to drink my coffee and listen to this handsome, strong-jawed, bright-eyed man with gentle confident motion taking his mug and settling back, I begin to understand. Although he’s talking about problems with spoken word performers, troubles with venues for his monthly night, its perceived importance to Montreal’s black community, his responsibility to that community, and all the complicated details, he’s not really talking about them. And when he was talking about Johnny and Frank deep in the heart of club land, he wasn’t really talking about them either. The real story is his own: his own secret identity. I’ve known Peter for nearly ten years. We met like most people in club land and the one truth I have discovered is that secretly he wants to be a superhero. Not for the flying or the gadgets or the super strength, but for the secret identity. His secret wish is to have a singular person that is untouched by the world around him and its demands on him. To be a member of the Black community, an openly gay man, an ER coordinator, a writer, a TV host, scenester, man about town, movie producer, and for there to be a different Peter, a different super-suite,  for each of those groups of people. When he takes me on those carpet rides and tells me all about how B connects to M, he’s trying to understand how people might understand him. Is it inappropriate for an ER coordinator to party as much as he does? Is it unacceptable for a Black Community leader to be gay? And is it equally a contradiction for a scenester to read comic books and want to be Wonder Woman? If he could have a super power I bet it would be for the ability to guarantee that no one from one group would know people from the others. If he could achieve that, his life would be a lot simpler. And sometimes he pulls it off. He plays the mirror, projecting back at you the super-you, the you you’d be if only you had a little more courage, the you who makes great paintings, the you who becomes a DJ, the you who takes dance classes, performs your poetry,

launches your first CD, writes your first book. His desire to help you is very sincere but at the same time it is a mask, the lycra suite and cape that fools everyone into understanding him only in so much as they need to, leaving the rest of himself safe. “But so you see. I can’t move Mouth to Luba because Jonathan and Sabyl are mad at me.” The explanation as to why Butterfly, Mouth’s stage manager, wants to have a meeting has just curved back to its beginning. “So, can’t you just stay where you are for this month and plan to move for next?” “That’s what Butterfly wants to have the meeting about.” “Got it.” Of all things I know he does, for me he is writer. He tells stories of buddies and friends set against a backdrop of mothers and fathers, expectations, fears, goals hopes and dreams. He works on twisting what is to ask why not? Why can’t there be gay roommates who really are just roommates? Why can’t there be strong proud women who don’t get abused and taken advantage of? Why can’t there be a greater sense of justice? And why can’t there be a gay black super hero?