The List of Retribution, and Other Creatures of the Night

Già nella notte densa
S'estingue ogni clamor.
Già il mio cor fremebondo
S'ammansa in quest'amplesso, e si rinsensa.

--Verdi, Otello

The theme of today's entry is night time. This is because (prepare to be shocked), my days have been quite empty, of late. I've packed, I've cleaned, I've slept, and I've drawn faces in the condensation on the walls of my shower. Later on, discovering the ghosts of those faces still there, I've Windexed them away. I have nothing but whiskery old memories to record, this week.

Scene: me and my mother are standing on some snow-encrusted porch in suburban Ontario. It's only seven o'clock, but the sky is black. Falling snow haloes the streetlights in an eerie sort of way. Ask Mother, and she'll tell you it's brisk and invigorating, being out here like this. Ask me, and I'll have some choicer words for you. I'll tell you about the winter scene in the third act of La Boh�me, where the notes fall as gently as snowflakes, and one dreams of marmalade and Christmas and interesting rattly things done up in brown paper. I'll wax eloquent on snowglobes and reindeer and penguins in scarves, then interrupt myself to explain that it's all bollocks.

"Look at my ears," I'll howl. "See how red they are? Every time your ears go red like this, your skin ages thirty days! Twelve nights in the snow, and you've lost a year of youth and beauty. By the time I'm old enough to find my own Rodolfo and die in his adoring arms, I'll be a shriveled old hag! I'll be lucky to wed Old Father Time! You'd better make a big donation, that the destruction of my rose-petal complexion shall not be in vain."

A big donation--that's right. We're out raising money for the Canadian Diabetes Association. Everyone else signed up to canvas one block, but I (what an idiot!) signed up for three. I don't know why. Maybe I wanted to impress folks with my kindness. Maybe I felt genuinely friendly that day. Maybe someone slipped me a mickey. At any rate, it didn't seem such a chore in the balmy days of September, when the signup sheets went round. Now, in the middle of November, with a miniature snowdrift forming on the brim of my hat, I can't believe I volunteered for this.

My mother and I stand on the darkened porch.

"Shall I ring again?" I know there's nobody home, but ringing one more time will allow me to postpone that inevitable moment where I step back out into the searing wind.

"One more time," says Mother, no doubt thinking the same thing. I ring. We wait. Nobody comes, and nobody comes. At length, waiting turns to loitering, and it's time to go.

"Ah, well," says Mother, ever chirpy. "Add 'em to the List of Retribution."

I get out my pencil (it's too cold for pens), and make a note of the street number. We'll be back. Death, taxes, and the Canadian Diabetes Association, man--inexorable.

(We called it the List of Retribution, that scrap of paper with people's house numbers on it. Who thought that up? It still makes me smile and shake my head....)

Spying on folks is often more rewarding at night, when the streets are near-deserted. People seem to believe that when they see nobody, nobody sees them. I've seen people getting up to all sorts of tomfoolery--drinking, spraying graffiti, dancing--yes, dancing, if you'll credit it, a few quirky solo steps, or a full-fledged alley minuet. (All right, I've never seen a minuet, as such--I'm probably the only living soul in Vancouver who could even demonstrate such a thing--but I've seen slow-dancing on several occasions, and even something that might've been intended as a waltz.) People walk by reading, playing video games on their mobbies, and doing all sorts of things you simply couldn't do on a crowded daytime street, unless you wanted to make a nuisance of yourself.

Of course, dancing and reading aren't the only things folks get up to when they think no-one's looking. Nose-picking incidents are disturbingly common at night, as are wall-for-urinal substitutions. One doesn't want to see such things, so one raises one's eyes, and...

...and one night last year, later in the year than this, I glanced upwards. In so doing, I happened to spot a little grey seagull, almost invisible in the shadows. He was perched on a concrete outcropping across the driveway from me, on the twenty-first floor of the Delta Hotel. I stared fixedly at him, trying to wipe the image of the latest nosepicker from my memory.

At first, I thought the bird was simply shrugging--puffing up his feathers the way they do, hoping to trap warm air underneath. He raised his right wing first, then his left one. Then, he did a pigeony little head-bobbing thing, twiddled his tail, and stamped each foot twice. I didn't take any particular note of his motions at first, of course. Had he only done it once, I couldn't have described it again, almost a full year later. See, here's the funny thing: he did it again and again, same thing every time.

Left-shrug, I whispered, keeping track. Left-shrug, right-shrug, bob, tail. Foot-foot-foot-foot, pause. Left-shrug, right-shrug, bob, tail. Foot-foot-foot-foot, pause.

"It's an ancient seagull longevity dance," I said, using an ordinary speaking voice. "Every year, at the end of autumn, aged gulls perform this ritual, beseeching the gods for the fortitude to see another spring."

"Braaaawwwwwk!" said the seagull, feeling violated.

"I didn't know it was supposed to be private," I giggled. "No need to get all toffee-nosed about it."

The seagull flew away, leaving a messy bird-turd behind by way of thanks-for-nothing.

I meant to write about slime molds--this is the second time I've meant to do that--but I'm too tired. Last time, something terrible happened (so terrible, indeed, that I've quite forgotten what it was), so I wrote about that instead. This time, alas, my eyelids are heavier than lead, and I keep typing "smile molds", so I'll have to put it off yet again.