Of Memories & Men November 2004 Click to view Table of Contents Click to view photo gallery Click to view cover story

Creative Non-fiction

Kaleidoscope
a pocket of intimate portraits
By M. Marcus A. Lopés

Matthew ? I only knew his name, and the sound of his deep silky voice on the other end of the phone as we chatted on CruiseLine (Halifax's most comprehensive service for the gay community). And here, safeguarded by 'anonymity', creating for ourselves an image of the other, we came to speak in truth. How odd it is to reveal the substance of being in such circumstances, yet where there is secrecy there is comfort and blind trust. When depression clenched my body, breast to breast, his comforting voice released me, for a time, from that black knight of misery and doom. After several weeks of this bizarre form of communication, our brotherhood firmly established, we agreed to meet for dinner. He never showed. Time passed. As I again chatted on CruiseLine, there was that deep silky voice upon which I had come to trust. I learned, as it was told to me, that Matthew had been sideswiped on his way to dinner; the driver ran a red light. We agreed, once he had fully convalesced, to meet again. I never heard from Matthew again, although I thought of him often...for a time. Was I mad? Was this love? I don't know. Some days I wonder if Matthew remembers me.	Photograph by Charlie O'Shields
MATHEUS MARCOS My paternal grandfather. In my life, a photograph proudly on display, for so many years, on the unused, out of tune, piano in my grandmother's living room. So long dead (before I was born). I bear the Canadianized versions of his name, Mathew Marcus. A great man, so they say. Growing up I was repeatedly told how much I am like him. I am tall like him. I am a good cook like him. How can I be like someone I have never known? Perhaps only if I exist without form, denying what is proper to a man, and what is proper to a man is being: dwelling in this world with the knowledge of who we are and what it is that our lives represent. Time passed. History left my grandfather and I unconnected, the thinnest of linkages through a name. I am like him. How impertinent! Here I am, unto my own.	Arthur Edward My maternal grandfather. His name too I bear (Mathew Marcus Arthur). He, too, so long dead (before I was born). Unlike my paternal grandfather, no comparisons have ever been made between us (at least none that readily stand out). All I know about him is what people say. 'He was a good man'. And what does that mean? Good? To believe that, must I accept that good can only exist within a strict and limited moral jurisprudence, outside of which all other good is quid pro quo corrupt? I do know this: long ago I stopped believing in that concept of good. Time passed, without much thought of him. We remain casually connected, just like my paternal grandfather and me, through a name.
Gary My father died in the early morning hours of March 9, 2001. As he lay dying, I was cautiously navigating the icy salt-covered sidewalks of downtown Ottawa, when my cell phone rang, my Uncle Blair calling to tell me the news. There was, in that instant, a sense of relief, finality, despair. Death had hung thick and expanse in the air for so long, the cancer slowly eating its way through my father's body. Then, the tears flowed, my heart tightening, my throat constricting. He was gone. Father and son, and most of my life I thought we were different, without commonality. He had gone to trade school and worked in typography all his life. He grew up in Halifax's inner city, his English broken. 'You done good,' he often said when praising others. Before I was born, he was ordained a deacon in the church (we were raised Baptist), and clung steadfast and sure to his unwavering faith. I went to university, grew up 'privileged' in a white community, learned to speak grammatically correct English, left the church long ago. And for the longest time, I did not consider my father a sophisticated man. I thought him a simpleton, blinded by religion until the day - Boxing Day 1997, in fact - when I told him I was gay. He said, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'Yes, I'm sure.' He said, 'I love you anyway.' Growing up, my father and I were not close, yet the lingering presence of death somehow brought us closer together. We did not have those final heart-to-heart talks. I cannot say for certain that everything that should have been said, that needed to be said, was said. But when my father was going through a rough time, the pain insufferable, I did not hesitate to get on a plane and head to Halifax. Then, I learned to pray, and for the first time, thought seriously about God, immortality and salvation. I'm still searching for an answer. The last time I saw my father alive was on March 4, 2001. I received a call from my mother encouraging me to come home. My father was weak, hardly eating, prepared to surrender himself voluntarily to death. Before leaving for the airport, I did what I had done at the end of all my previous visits. I hugged my father. I told him I loved him. His arms, which he could barely lift up, clung flimsily around my body, clenching me as long as he could, hanging onto me a little longer than before, and then let go. Something had changed. Whatever had been left unsaid up until that point had been communicated in that embrace. In the beginning, the days and weeks after my father's death, I expected my father to answer the phone when I called the family home. There were moments when I felt a type of gnawing at my heart, and it was usually then when I felt sad, lonely, lost. I consoled myself by believing that this was my father encouraging me, watching over me. Time passed. And death still speaks to me in a calm familiar voice, and the shadows of the past resurrected, no longer weigh me down	William G. It was a cold windy February night in Ottawa. Having only been in the city six months at this point, in search of home, I ventured out alone to two of the city's gay bars. I had left the Centretown Pub after consuming one Corona (and successfully dodging the unwanted advances of a mature gentleman) and made my way to the now defunct Club Polo Pub. On the way, I stopped at a CIBC bank machine, on the southwest corner of the Queen and Bank Street intersection, to withdraw forty dollars. As I crossed from the west side to the east side of Bank Street, I was struck by the dark penetrating eyes of this ethereally beautiful man bundled up in his winter jacket, red scarf and tuque. Our eyes fixed on each other (he was not alone) as we passed in the street. I turned around to catch one final glimpse, and when our eyes met again, we smiled sheepishly, and then dropped our gazes. A short time later at Club Polo Pub, there he was, his white long sleeved T-shirt clinging to his chest. He smiled. He waded through the crowd, and when he reached me, we said 'Hello', followed by an awkward silence. The night ended with us back at his place surrendering to the murky world of one-night stands. It was easy to believe that this was fate but then (as I do now), I rejected fate because it removes all personal responsibility and accountability for our actions. Holding him, caressing him, being with him... this was love, or so it was supposed to be. There I was, searching for home, searching out love, not fully understanding that you cannot search out love until you have found it, embraced it, tempered it, deep from within. Professing our love, the idea that we could build a life together, when our young foolish hearts had not been tempered or tamed. And to confuse, then, love and desire, unable to distinguish one from the other. Time passed. William now lives in Philadelphia, or at least that was where he was living the last time we communicated, several months ago. He wanted us to remain friends. Such an impossibility in the aftermath of sex and love. Now and again, he creeps back into my thoughts, and I smile. All that we were so long ago, condemned to history.