Lessons in the Key of Loneliness

Chapter 2

 "Fear not, for I am with you,

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you. I will help you,

I will uphold you with my victorious right hand."

Isaiah 41:10

March 1974, Vancouver, BC.

Early Friday evening and heavy rain was falling; straight down from a lack of wind to slant it. Pausing for a moment at the doors of the main entrance to the office building where I was employed, I fiddled with my umbrella to ready it before venturing outside. 

“Oh God, please, not another wet weekend.” pleading in silence for dry weather tomorrow.

Many days came during my first Vancouver that winter made me feel like a swimmer trying to decide whether or not to plunge into a pool of cold water. Going out into heavy winter rain had that effect. In spite of the downpour, sidewalks were crowded with people in a rush to get home, or possibly elsewhere, after work. With reluctance, and abandoning the shelter of the foyer, I too became one of those seemingly unremarkable, nameless, insignificant and forgettable faces in the rush.

Making my way eastward along West Georgia Street was a game of constant dodging through a sea of umbrellas pointed in every direction. Some inconsiderate person could always be depended upon to be rushing with head down, umbrella tipped forward like a bayonet, and charging ahead like the only person in the world. Maybe one of them owned the sidewalk and I was trespassing toll-free.

Upon reaching the shelter of the canopies outside the Hudson Bay store at Granville and West Georgia Streets, I shook my drenched umbrella, folded it, and waited for a 25 Victoria bus to come along. Not in any great hurry to arrive at my small basement abode, I ignored the first 25 that showed up, choosing instead to continue standing under the canopy and stare at the rain while contemplating recent major changes in my life. 

Winter in Vancouver was decidedly different from the Montreal winters I'd always known. Not anywhere near as cold but not anywhere near as dry either. Months had passed since I last heard a conversation in French. In fact, I hadn't heard a single word of French spoken since having said adieu to Montreal and Quebec. The "Maitres de chez nous" debate wasn't known here let alone a relevant social issue in Vancouver. 

People here were different ,and many looked different too. Very few Asians lived in the Montreal suburbs I'd always known, but in marked contrast, the Vancouver I was discovering was home to many Asians. Out of curiosity I observed and listened-in on others waiting for their buses. Chinese, at least I assumed the language to be Chinese, was the most common other language I overheard in conversations. Chinese was very different from French. Chinese was very different from any language I ever heard before.

I glanced toward Burrard Inlet and North Van's mountains, visible only as narrow strips between tall buildings. The early evening sky was grey; light grey, dark grey, every shade of grey in between and more shades of grey than anyone can imagine possible. No other word could colour a typical March evening in Vancouver. The rain had lessened at least, but everything was still wet, damp, moist, misty, dank and of course dripping. All week the rain had persisted without a break, and at times I felt like too many weeks had passed since the last pause in this so called, "Liquid sunshine." 

Someone had recently given me an accurate weather forecasting formula for Vancouver, "When it’s raining, you can’t see the mountains; when you can see the mountains, it’s going to rain." 

The formula hadn't been wrong. 

As the rain fell, I recalled some of those glowing descriptions I'd heard months earlier from people back east who'd visited here, and who'd verbally painted wonderful pictures describing Vancouver as the best place to live in Canada. Supposedly Vancouver was the end of that proverbial rainbow, but in my newfound skepticism born of hindsight, the reality I was living was much more like a cold soaking, because everything here smelled like wet something.

An almost empty bus displaying 25 Victoria soon appeared, so I decided to board and take advantage of the luxury of having a window seat on the way back. Several stops later the bus was filled with passengers to standing room only. 

The windows soon fogged over the way bus windows always do when sardine-like inside and wet outside, so I made a circle in the condensation on the window next to me so I could take an occasional peek outside. Being new to this city, I'd occasionally lose track of where I was if I couldn't see out. Some bus drivers would call out the street names, but too often the drivers couldn't be heard over the din made by a busload of people.

Buses in Vancouver were unlike any that I'd ever seen in Montreal. These buses were electric and powered from a system of overhead wires. Attached to the rear of the buses were two sprung poles with cables and the ends of the poles ran along the overhead wires. Once in a while the poles would bounce off and when they did, power was lost. The bus would come to a quick forced stop making it necessary for the driver to exit, run around to the rear of the bus and place the wayward poles back on the wires. I often wondered how the drivers regarded this task in heavy rain. In spite of the idiosyncrasies of electric trolley buses they did seem to be just as reliable as diesel buses minus the fumes, but when the power failed nothing would move those electric buses.

The bus dutifully followed its predetermined route of stops and starts but I'd already given up looking at people getting on and off. I wasn't going to encounter a familiar face, and instead, stared ahead at an imaginary fixed point and drifted into reflective thought about my life. The sense of adventure in moving from Montreal to Vancouver had waned and first pangs of homesickness were surfacing. The excitement from my first full time job had subsided and the drudgery of eking out an austere living began to set in. Only now were the realities of the consequences of the drastic changes in my life becoming all too uncomfortably apparent.

Daily I was fighting off the urge to just give up and return to Montreal. Every day, and many times during the day, I reminded myself that a move back home would just be an unconditional surrender, and an admission of having really failed. I wasn't prepared to swallow my pride and make any such admission. Not yet! 

Months earlier I'd convinced myself into believing that heading west out of Quebec to find my raison d'etre was vitally necessary, but now that I was here in Vancouver, vitally necessary had become less easy to recall. Before leaving home and Montreal, that drive to get out had seemed so overwhelming, so monumental, so urgent, so compelling, but now it seemed less relevant. But this evening I could only wonder, "Exactly what was it that drove me to come here?"

Unlike high school and far worse, drug use in CEGEP was rampant, eye-opening visible in the lounges and seemingly so natural and accepted. Constantly having to confront substance abuse in and around the campus left me discouraged and totally disheartened, perhaps somewhat intimidated too. I knew where a few of the teachers stood on the issue of drug use from comments made in class and they weren't the same side I was on. Sure life was difficult and events beyond our control could make life miserable but I just couldn't comprehend what may have driven too many of my peers to use those substances. 

The Beatles, hippies, the peace movement, protest the war, just drop out and escape were all the rages with claims they possessed the change-the-world answers, but none of that made sense because nothing was changing for the better. Far more incomprehensible to me was the importance students and teachers seemed to place on that conflict in Southeast Asia. What was the relevance, and what possible connection did substance abuse in academic West Island have with an American military mess?

The latter was supposed to justify the former but the logic was beyond me. I didn't want to know about drugs and hear about Vietnam any more, and under no circumstance was I prepared to capitulate, join in, and blindly follow along. Having drawn my line, the fear of not fitting in and not belonging was crushing.

If the world was ever going to discover another Beethoven, then I wanted in. At times I border-line believed I was destined to become that person, but such was the world of foolish and introverted self-delusion. The truth was that the world didn't want or need another Beethoven, and in fact, the music world didn't even need me. Cold hard reality began to seep in, that making any sort of living from music composition would nigh be impossible for me.

Prior to awakening from my wonderful delusions, thoughts about needing to prepare for the possibility of requiring a Plan B never entered my mind, so alternatives were never envisioned. Instead, I found myself confronting a troubling new companion called, "Now What?"

Disillusioned first and then discouraged, I soon lost the desire to waste additional years in higher learning to pursue that lost cause, so in capitulating I dropped out.

The increasingly vocal language issue in Quebec was gaining political momentum, and the French fact, or threat depending on how one perceived the issue at the time, was becoming all too real. The truth is that I was completely ignorant of the issues the French in Quebec were so terribly upset about. Honestly, the whole issue was of absolutely no interest nor of value to me, and as far as I was concerned, the debate totally irrelevant. Nonetheless, reality was clear enough for me to see that my other lifelong dream of working on CP Rail’s trains in the Eastern Townships was beyond any hope of grasping. Trains and railway jobs were disappearing by the hundreds. Working for the railway in Montreal or anywhere in Quebec was never going to happen as far as I was concerned.

With more apparent reasons to go than reasons to stay, I believed myself to be ready to leave home and strike out on my own. I'd always been comfortable in keeping to myself when I lived with my parents, in fact I even preferred being left alone, but nothing; neither parental advice nor advice from friends had prepared me for the complete separation and total isolation that independent living in a distant city would entail.

Instead of finding happiness and a sense of contentment that my expectations had led me to believe would automatically follow from successfully achieving the few modest goals that had been set, I was terribly miserable. All that I'd managed to accomplish was to cut myself off from my immediate family and all lifelong friends, to severely distance myself from everything familiar and to completely turn my life upside down and make myself very unhappy in the process. Many times I would ask myself what were to become two familiar haunting questions, "What went wrong? Did I miss something out somewhere?"  

Over the next weeks and months I would have many hours in which to consider these two questions and ponder possible answers... if any existed.

Pulling the cord to signal the driver to stop, I exited the bus a few stops early and walked the remainder of the way. My abode was on the northwest corner of West First Avenue and Arbutus Street, and practically a perfect location to reside in for my needs and requirements. The majority of the nearest stores and businesses were located only a few blocks south on West Fourth Avenue. Kitsilano Beach was only two short blocks away and the bus route over Burrard Bridge into the downtown core was even closer. The office was a fifteen-minute bus ride when it was raining or a half-hour walk when it wasn't raining but it usually seemed to be raining far more often than it wasn't.

The sunken doorway to my residence was dark and I fumbled around with the key to get it into the lock. I'd turned off the light when leaving for work in the morning without remembering that it was going to be dark upon returning. As I unlocked and opened the door I silently prayed that someone special would be waiting inside to greet me; if not today, then one day. Again darkness and silence were the only companions waiting to welcome me back to my dwelling. I was reluctant to use the word home because my new dwelling didn't yet feel like home, and I didn't know if it ever would.

My dwelling was a sparsely furnished apartment in the basement of what was an older house in one of the older established areas of Vancouver. Judging from the well-maintained solid hardwood floors and high ceilings of the upper levels, this structure must have at one time been home to an upper class family in the post Victorian era. In later years the building had been converted into five small apartments. 

My suite, the word my landlady used, was more like a three-room closet. Size was definitely not this suite’s strong suit, however, the rent was low and affordable for someone just starting out. The only luxury was the private side entrance complete with coat hooks on the wall just inside the door.

The living room was small to say the least, but did have a trio of small, double hung windows that faced the street at lawn level. The windows were adorned with yellowed blinds and white curtains. The walls and ceiling were a dark shade of beige and what I could see of the floor was covered with a beige-orange and brown patterned linoleum. The furniture consisted of a well-worn, chocolate brown couch, which was positioned beneath the windows and faced the kitchen alcove. At one end of the couch was a small brown, almost black, wooden end table with the room’s only lamp upon it. A small, dark-brown, rectangular-shaped carpet covered most of the open floor area. Everything was well worn and some shade of brown.

The kitchen was small and very much smaller than the kitchens I'd seen in the dining cars of the train that had brought me across Canada. The walls were a light shade of what would best be described as mint green. Seated in the back right corner was a small, white gas range, with four burners and an oven, with just enough room for the oven door to drop down without hitting the opposite wall when fully opened. A small built-in counter and sink, with a cupboard beneath, occupied the remainder of the right side. A single small cupboard was above the sink. The counter and cupboards were made of wood, stained dark brown and covered with many coatings of what appeared to be polyurethane. The metal fittings betrayed the probable age of the cabinets but the wood-finish had stood up well over the years. Against the left wall was a tiny wooden folding table complete with a matching small wooden chair. These were made of pine and both had seen numerous layers of varnish added over their many years. I could stand in the center, stretch out each arm and just touch the opposite walls at the same time. This was the length of my kitchen.

The bedroom was furnished with a large, ancient-looking, brown, metal framed double bed. The mattress surface must have been at least three feet off the floor. The only other furnishing was a large, brown, wooden, double-door ceiling-high wardrobe that stood against the wall facing the foot of the bed. I sometimes wondered how the wardrobe had been moved into the suite. On the far side of the bedroom from the doorway was the only other window in my dwelling. The window was a pair of double-hung wooden-framed panes hidden behind a well-worn dark green blind, which was always kept pulled-down and obscured by a pair of curtains.

The curious feature of the bedroom was a second door at a right angle to the opening into the living room. A key was kept in the turn-of-the-century lock on this door. On my first visit to see this place I thought a closet was behind the door. The second door turned out to be an exit into the basement where my refrigerator was located as well as the route upstairs to the main entrance and foyer. The floor on the outside of the door was a step higher than inside, so I left the key in the lock where it was found. I'm certain the tenants before me must have done the same.

Leaving the key where it was, was surest way not to lose it. Anyone who may have given thought to gaining entrance by poking the key out of the lock onto a paper pushed under the door would have been stymied. Sometimes out of boredom I'd try to think of a solution to this puzzle but gave up. Such a feat seemed impossible at this doorway.

Nothing in the entire apartment could even remotely be considered new, however, the place was clean and everything did work. Rental units were difficult to find in Vancouver and affordable ones even scarcer. This dwelling signified my independence and that I'd had finally made that exciting but terrifying first step of making my own way in the world. I was truly on my own now and responsible to pay my own way. Yes I was free, but free to do what? Yes I was independent, but independent from what? Yes I was also completely alone, but now what?

Upon entering the pocket-sized suite, I chased out my two unwanted companions darkness and silence by turning on the lights and the radio, then hung my hat and coat on the hooks just inside the doorway. Water requires time to boil so I started the pots going on the stove before going upstairs to see if there was any mail.

Nothing. No letter from home, not a single edition from any of the three daily out-of-town newspapers I subscribed to, not even a bill, and I think I would've been grateful even for that.

While waiting for the water in the pots to boil I took quick peek outside. The rain hadn't started again so I decided to pass on making my own supper, shut off the stove and dumped the water. I found that making dinner was far more convenient when I walked around the corner to the far end of the block to the little Chinese restaurant to pick up something that was already cooked and was going to taste far better than anything I could possibly concoct.

During rainy evenings and through wet weekends the silence in my three-room closet at times could feel excruciating. Silence was noiseless torture. How else could too much alone and quiet have been described?

If anyone lived in the four upstairs apartments, there was little evidence from the lack of noises. Not once, even in passing or looking out the window, did I ever meet or see any of the other tenants. They were silent, anonymous faceless strangers, but they didn't remain nameless. Mail was shoved through the slot in the front door and dumped on the floor inside the upstairs entrance. One of those unwritten rules was that the first one in sorted out the mail and placed it on the small table by the stairs leading to the top floor. On occasion I was the first in, thus in time determined the other residents were all men.

My telephone rarely rang, but when it did, the caller was almost always a wrong number or somebody trying to sell something, and that was just as good as a wrong number. On the odd occasion I'd lift the receiver merely to confirm there was a dial tone. Millstone-like shyness coupled with an inability to understand people in general made it paralyzingly difficult for me to take the initiative to reach out and telephone someone. And who was here for me to call in this new home city? 

Meeting new people felt overwhelming and the few people I did meet were already busy getting on with life and too preoccupied with their relationships to welcome interference from an awkward outsider. So in the end, very few of the few attempted calls ever made it to the first ring.

Shortly after moving into the three-room closet and managing to save some of the little that was left after paying the bills, my first major purchase was an inexpensive stereo. That necessitated a rearrangement of some of the furnishings in order to make room for the new arrival. The folding table and chair were moved out of the kitchen into the living room and set up to use as a desk. The lamp from the end table was placed on a corner of my new desk. The end table was just the right size for the stereo and speakers. The now empty carton was turned upside down to become my coffee table.

In the process of moving stuff around, I gave up sleeping in the bedroom and permanently made the couch my bed so I could listen to music at night. Being able to selectively listen to Beethoven, Mozart and others again was a joy. Music also provided some relief to lessen what often seemed like endless silence, relief the radio hadn't been able to provide.

The move proved a good choice because the couch turned out to be more comfortable than the bed. The bedroom became my place to spread out books, sort and file newspaper clippings as well as any and every other piece of paper that was of an esoteric value. In other words, the bed was soon buried with junk.

Laundry was one of those chores given no thought whatsoever until I was on my own for the first time in my life. Doing laundry became a weekly ritual that usually fell on Monday evenings or Tuesday evenings or any evening later in the week when it was raining on Mondays and Tuesdays. Hauling a stuff-sack full of laundry uphill to the laundromat on West 4th Avenue wasn't the least bit exciting the first time and became drearier each successive trip. Later, a classical music record store opened up right beside the laundromat so I timed my trips to coincide with the store's open hours. Waiting for clothing to wash and dry became more bearable as I looked for new recordings to add to my mostly Beethoven collection.

Food shopping was another chore given little thought until I had to do it for the first time and my learning was all done the hard way. The first valuable lesson quickly learned from having to walk back from the store was this: never buy more than you can comfortably carry.  Food shopping eventually fell on Thursday evenings because the food stores were open late on Thursday evenings and paydays fell on Thursdays too. Like other chores, my grocery-shopping schedule would be altered when it was raining.

Dinner was soon finished and the few dishes were washed, dried and put away. Sitting at my desk, I began fiddling with a pencil and scribbling down notes on a sheet of music paper but I soon placed the page aside. Several months had passed since I last looked at music paper. Picking up the sheet again and taking another look at the marks scribbled down, I closed my eyes, tipped my head back and then tried to mind-hear the music the notes were supposed to convey if ever played. 

Try as I might, I couldn't hear the music in my mind. I just couldn't be certain that what had been written on the paper were the melodies playing in my thoughts. Opening my eyes I pushed the chair back with disgust. Perhaps Beethoven and Mozart could compose music without the aid of a musical instrument but I couldn't. Tossing the sheet onto the desk, I gave up wasting any more time with music. 

"I need a piano,” muttering aloud.

Turning my attention to a corner of my makeshift desk I picked up my pocket billfold. Made only of cheap plastic it nonetheless housed what seemed to be my identity; a few dollars, a credit card, my social insurance card, a tiny card-calendar for 1974 and a black and white photo of my former girlfriend. More than three years had passed since she tossed me aside and said good-bye, but I'd never met someone else to replace her.

I opened the little folder to look at her, but instead, I looked at the tiny calendar. Mom had given it to me that day I was leaving home, and almost last-minute while she was driving me to Windsor Station in downtown Montreal. On the other side of the card was that Bible verse, Isaiah 41:10. In that instant I wanted to feel that God was with me because no one else was.

Next, and reaching over for the tobacco tin that was perched atop the row of music books that lined the wall at the back of the desk, I pulled out one of the half dozen plus pipes kept there. Removing the odd little pipe tool I usually carried in my pocket, I began scraping out the cinders and clinkers that had accumulated on the inside of the pipe's bowl; a task much like chimney sweeping without having to climb on top of a roof. When that was done and like a judge with his gavel, I banged the soot out into another empty tobacco tin that had been relegated to ashtray duty. 

Satisfied the pipe was now suitably prepared for another burning, I stuffed it to the brim with one of my favourite mixtures of tobacco. Striking a wooden match afire I waited first for the chemicals to burn off and then set my little stove alight as I'd done so many times before. In no time at all clouds of smoke billowed upward to the ceiling and shortly afterwards the upper half of the living room was a blueish haze.

Pipe smoking certainly wasn't a healthy activity nor was it even remotely useful, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and regarded the habit as a sort of art form. Choosing a pipe or a tobacco mixture was a matter of personal taste, however, packing tobacco into the bowl had to be done just right or the tobacco wouldn't burn quite right. And getting this far along was to no avail if the pipe wasn't properly lit. Firing a pipe with a lighter was almost sacrilege. Lighter fluid gases always ruined the flavour of the tobacco not to mention leaving an awful aftertaste in the mouth. Cardboard book-matches weren't much better because of their short lengths; they didn't burn long enough to properly set fire to a packed pipe without burning fingertips in the process. Wood matches were best and the longer the better. Even these could completely ruin a smoke if the match's chemical-laden head wasn't completely burned off first. Except possibly for lighter fluid flavour, nothing tasted worse than puffing away on sulphured tobacco.

Before turning in for the night I took a last peek out the window. The street wasn't dry but it hadn't rained in the last few hours. 

"Perhaps there's a chance it'll be dry tomorrow." I thought and now feeling hopeful.

Here in Vancouver, I think people's winter prayer on a Friday is for sun on Saturday. If not, then it should be.

The Oddblock Station Agent