BY COLIN THORNTON
Copyright is held by the author.
MARTY SHUFFLED barefoot into the kitchen shortly before noon. Sheet wrinkles still embossed on his puffy face. Skin, fish-belly white. Eyes, red-rimmed and glassy.
He rummaged through the cupboard, dropping jars on the counter — Vitamin C for energy; B-12 to feed his brain; magnesium for insomnia; vitamin E to restore damaged nerves; powdered garlic to purify, oil of oregano to fortify, jojoba extract to detoxify, and some kind of ayurvedic ginkgo biloba concoction for reasons he couldn’t remember, two turmeric caps, because no one wants Alzheimer’s, and a gram of vitamin D, liquid sunshine, because he spent altogether too many hours working under fluorescent lights — a heaping fistful of medicinal candy in sweet Crayola colours. He popped the lot into his mouth, washed it down with a double shot of Drambuie. “Breakfast of champions,” he announced, poured himself a coffee and sparked a doobie, ready to face the day.
You’d think after knowing a guy for 10 years I’d have seen it all — his daily rituals and the full bag-of-tricks he needed to face the day. This was a first.
***
Marty was 13 when snuck his first drink from his parents’ liquor cabinet. By Grade 10 he smoked hash joints on the way to school, took tranquilizers whenever he could. Wrote his final exams on acid and graduated top of his class.
He was a writer then. Notebook stuffed in his pocket. Pencil perched on his ear. Ready to capture every burning spark of inspiration before it sputtered into the void. Poems and short stories filled with puns and profanity, twisted plots and bizarre characters: Lesbians from Venus, Swedish hockey players, Neanderthal biker gangs, and a deliciously savage tale of our high school principal slow-roasting on a spit at the Confederation of Amazonian Cannibals’ jamboree and all-you-can-eat buffet.
***
I remember a hot and sticky night in late August. Cones of mist hung from the streetlights dropping to the ground, solid looking, as if I could reach into the beam and pull out a handful of light. Five of us sat on the bleachers at the baseball diamond smoking and drinking. High school was behind us, adventure ahead. In a few weeks we’d all be going off in separate directions. Lesley to study music in Boston, James to theatre school in Ottawa, one painter, a writer, and Iris, a lithe goddess with her sights set firmly on becoming a Broadway dancer.
As always, Marty had other plans: “I don’t need some bow-tie dipstick telling me how to write like everyone else. No way! I’m going to India, like Allen Ginsberg. Smoke ganja all day, write poetry all night. Do Yoga. Meditate. Find Nirvana. Become rich and famous or flame out like Cobain, whichever comes first.” He paused, to think about that; eyes flicking side to side. “That’d make a pretty good story don’t ya think?” He pulled out his idea book, scribbled a quick note, and tucked it back in his pocket.
Iris broke the silence, “Never again,” she said, “not in a zillion years will we all be together again, in this park, on these bleachers, at midnight. Let’s make it special. C’mon Martino, tell us a story.”
Always up for a good time, Marty stood at home plate cleared his throat and began to recite Ginsberg’s epic poem, Howl with its infamous opening line: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.
“No no no no no!”
The critics were unanimous.
“Boring!”
“Too depressing.”
“Read something funny.”
“I’ll tell you what’s depressing,” Marty countered. “Ginsberg and my old man were both born on the same goddam day. Talk about astrological screw ups. I mean don’t the gods talk to each other? How does that happen?”
“Listen to me Marty. I’m serious now.” — Iris jabbed her finger at him while she spoke — “You need to clean up your act. Check in to a detox clinic somewhere, find a counsellor. Get yourself together, and do it soon.”
Marty stared at her in disbelief, looking like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “Why would I do that?”
***
Ten years later, New Year’s Eve. Marty arrived with a bouquet of roses and a fat medicine bag slung over his shoulder. There had to be close to a hundred people there, ready to party. We drank, we ate, we laughed, we stretched a net across the studio floor and played badminton and danced to kinky reggae.
Shortly before midnight, I saw Marty on the mezzanine. Standing on the bannister, waving and gyrating, speaking in tongues, invoking the dark spirit of the last Aztec king. But his call didn’t go through. Wrong number, busy signal, out of service . . . whatever the reason, Marty spread his arms wide open and dove face first onto the dancers 20 feet below. An ex-Marine from Detroit broke his fall, probably saved his life. Military reflexes kicked in and the guy leapt to his feet with a knife in hand, the business-side of the blade resting on Marty’s throat.
***
“Paging Doctor Winthrop.”
The announcement, pulled me out of my inner movie, back to the moment.
“Paging Doctor Winthrop. Doctor Winthrop to Emerge. Code Blue.”
A cluster of nurses surrounded a blood-stained figure stretched out on a gurney, examining another New Years’ casualty. Clock on the wall said 6:30. I’d been waiting for five hours. My ass gone numb from sitting on a plastic chair, my head swimming in a cloud of industrial strength disinfectant, perfume and stale beer.
Orderlies hustled the emergency case through swinging double doors. They’d barely stopped flapping when another patient was wheeled out: Marty. His face swollen, bruised and bandaged, a fresh, plaster cast from his shoulder to his elbow. When I finally got him back to his apartment I said goodbye. “I can’t watch you do this anymore, Marty.”
***
Every once in a while I hear about my old friend. Iris told me he’d published a chap book of poems. Another friend saw him at a poetry slam in a second-hand bookshop downtown. One of his stories was published in a prestigious international journal. It restores my faith in humanity to know that people can change. We always have a choice.
Last time I saw Marty was a photo in the newspaper. Cliff diving in Acapulco, he mistimed a wave and dove 85 feet into three feet of water.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.
***
Colin Thornton studied drawing and painting in college, played music for a few decades while he built a career in advertising. Today, his paints are dry, drums on a shelf, marimba locked in its case and his advertising days over, so he writes short stories.