Dutchie goes down the road
(from 1973)
The little Dutch boys played
around the bunker,
threw hand grenades and fired
the Schmeisser Machine Pistols,
Live ammunition for toys
after the death of the war
in the spring and summer of ‘45.
They were half starved kids
but they had the strength to play.
They could run where they wanted
except for the minefields,
of course.
Dutchie told me about it
after beating my ass for the second time
at chess, in the rec hall, at Syncrude
north of Fort McMurray, Alberta
“We had everything we wanted.
It was just lying around,” he laughed.
He stayed in camp that weekend
so he wouldn’t drink, he was tired of it.
The morning they let him go
he was drunk.
The General Foreman was an old pal of his.
But it didn’t matter.
His back hoe stuck in the mud.
He’d walked it off his log pads.
His thermos bottle had been full of vodka.
“I don’t give a shit,” he said.
They used the widepad D5 cat
to come in and hook up the tow cable.
That cat could practically float on water
with those extra wide tracks.
The mud was so glue-like,
held the hoe tight, so stubborn
that the cable snapped
and the General Foreman
got missed by the flying cable
by about six feet or so
He would have been cut in half.
A little like a Schmeisser
might have chopped him.
My operator swore.
Then he laughed,
“Boy, that’ll sure ruin your day.”
Everyone who was there witnessing the event
took a step or two back.
I took more than that.
Dutchie laughed and laughed.
“Screw it,” he said.
His great potatohead face
with the skull-close crew cut
and his big flapping ears,
he had no chest but a decent beer gut,
white reedy arms.
He looked past all of us.
He was already down the road
driving south to Red Deer
where he owned two houses.
Someone took the crewcab
to get another tow cable.
A thicker one.
Dutchie threw his thermos bottle
as far as he could,
the orange and tan vessel
arcing out
over the torn up mud, clay and muskeg.
He stepped into the cab of the hoe,
slammed the door shut.
We could hear his portable radio start up.
A country tune.
“Leave him alone,”
said the General Foreman.
“We need to get another hoe in here.
He’s not going anywhere.”
I am alternating between three history books this week: Antonia Fraser’s book on Oliver Cromwell, and two by William L. Shirer” The Nightmare Years and Inside the Third Reich. Last week I reread parts of Stephen Ambrose’s Ike’s Spies. Not a lot of trust running amok in these books. The number of times in the rise of Hitler when there was a possibility and sometimes a strong one that he would be removed or stopped is astounding.
Right now it is just before dawn, the sky with clouds to the east is getting lighter but the sun is still just below the horizon. If I was smart I would go back to bed and finish an attempt at a good night’s sleep. But how often am I smart. So back to Shirer.
one of my favourite photos of the late Diamond and her little brother Shakespeare
thinking of changing the name of my home to “The olde Smokehouse” – once again one of my thoughtful neighbours is spending a beautiful summer windy day burning garden garbage for our enjoyment. so thoughtful….
August Srindber Meets Mr. Lube
The speedy syrup of Lister Sinclair
and the CBC poured out of the speakers
of my 1988 Ford Escort to flood
the dark blue interior
includng me
with a documenatry
on the life of August Strindberg.
The dark intensity of his passion.
The early drunken days.
The paintings, the women.
Love and hate.
Strumming his intentionally mistuned guitar
in the early days in Paris.
August didn’t mind the snow blanket
being woven around the exterior of my car and I.
We all waited for Mr. Lube to finish off
the Honda Accord, for him to let it escape
and then to lure my Escort and Strindberg and I
into his glass-doored lair.
The nervous breakdown of the Inferno period
coincided with my passing the idiot checklist.
“Lights on.
High beams on.
High beams off.
Lights off.
Turn signals on.
Step on the brakes.”
Ahead of me the glass door
failed to hide the snow
showering across the darkness of early afternoon.
The white pieces thrown by the wind
in a remote flood from right to left.
A blank reminder
that sometimes you can indeed see
which way the wind is blowing.
starteda blog for the Midland Area Writers’ Group at
http://midlandareawritersgroup.wordpress.com/
due to a technical problem with the booking system what was thought to be available was not actually free after all so now the Midland Area Writers’ Group will meet on every second Wednesday of the month from July to December, we will meet in the board room of the Midland Public Library…..
