Apocalypse Pony

Diver Down

Last week, I'd looked at the collection of spots where Chicken had just jumped from. There was a constellation of scabs on my right knee. I don't know where they came from, but it was the first time since I was 12 years old that I remember having scabs there. Prior to 12, my knees were in a perpetual state of fresh or scabbed wounds.

Over the long weekend (an unspecified civic holiday - the sole purpose: providing a long weekend in August), Fatty and I went to his family's cottage.

Yes, we're working it out.

In the rickety, most definitely crotchety, but ultimately reliable '94 VW Golf that Ack and I still share custody, I was at the wheel, Fatty was the co-pilot, and the gunner between us was my nearly 17 year old cat, Chicken, who was sitting squarely on Darth Vader's face. His left paw was kneading Princess Leia's scant chest; his right, Hans Solo's nuts. Any cries from Chewie were silenced by his tail. The gunner's seat was a pillow sheathed in Fatty's highly coveted, to second graders, Star Wars boudoir collection from the late 1970's. Cruising at an average of 140 km/h, we three headed to Lake Skootamatta.

Fatty: Let's play DeNiro.
The Comrade: Okay! What's that?
Fatty: It's a game where you start with a movie, say Scarface...
The Comrade: DeNiro wasn't in Scarface.
Fatty: I know.
The Comrade: Then why is it called DeNiro?
Fatty: Hang on! You start with a movie, say Scarface, and you name someone in the movie...
The Comrade: Michelle Pfeiffer!
Fatty: And then the other person has to think of another movie Michelle Pfeiffer's been in. If you can't think of an answer, you get a letter from DeNiro's last name. Whoever spells DeNiro first, loses.
The Comrade: Okay! Dangerous Liasons!
Fatty: But, if you can't think of anything else that person's done, you get another letter from DeNiro's name. Okay? You start.
The Comrade: I thought I already started.
Fatty: Start again.
The Comrade; Okay, um... Madeleine Kahn!
Fatty: Who's that?
The Comrade: The bride in Young Frankenstein!
Fatty: Okay, I challenge you! What else has she done?
The Comrade: What the hell is that?
Fatty: If the other person says challenge, and you can't come up with another movie your actor's done, you get another letter.

I learned two things in 30 seconds: That I was no good at this game, and that there are 30 year old men who don't know who Cary Grant is.

The Comrade: Do you know who Abbott and Costello are?*
Fatty: [indignant] Of course!

*[Anyone who remembers the Who's On First skit, might like this.]

Over the weekend I'd given myself a goal: I will learn how to dive.

Fatty moved the floating dock farther out into the, normally still, rough waters.

Fatty: Show me what you got.
I showed him.
Fatty: Wow. That must have hurt!

I found out from the mare's mouth that Fatty's mother has not submerged her head since she bonked it on the bottom of a pool at the tender age of 13.

Fatty: And you know? I don't think I've ever seen her hair wet.

On shore, too disdainful to even look at me, Chicken thought I was wasting my time. He continued sunning himself by the blackberry bushes, building up strength for the 3, easy-prey, baby mice he would kill later that night. I paid him no mind. I had a mission. After each imperfect dive, I climbed back up the aluminum ladder, thought about it, and tried again. And again. And again. Sometimes it was painful: the little bridge of my little nose still hurts from the impact, and there still is a vertebrae that is misbehaving. But during one or two dives, I'd felt one of the sweetest sensations of grace and beauty that has ever come out of me. And then a bellyflop followed. Actually, it was more like a boobyflop. But that was okay. I kept trying. The thing about diving is you know when you've done a good one. And they're never a fluke or a one-off. They absolute require skill.

I have trouble doing things the way others do, sometimes. For example, I have trouble swimming without a mask and snorkel. There are reasons for this. One pragmatic reason is you can scream through a snorkel. Without one, and coming across a bloated, dead body, say - something I'm always half poised to see - screaming might lead to death by drowning. Oh, and also, if ever the shit goes down, you can hide in a bed of reeds with a snorkel. Or a straw for that matter.

Eyes can't refract light properly underwater unless there is a bit of air between the water and the cornea. Also, by wearing a mask, you can see underwater life at 30% increased magnification. This I learned in my scuba diving course. I need to wear corrective lenses at all time, as I am a bit myopic, so this is like wielding a Sherlock Holmes hands-free magnifying glass. All the better to see freshwater mussels with. When I used to snorkel with Ack, he used to fly over crayfish and salivate, which is harder to detect while submerged in water, but disturbing nonetheless. He never did catch any, and I sense he always regretted it. Looking at those huge mussels, I thought of Ack. And I thought about the Christian Right.

What if those crazy Evangelical weirdos get what they want? You know, the ones who are pro-war, pro second coming of the Lord? What if they mostly succeed in blowing up much of the world, making Christianity the only game in town? Why, it inspires in me the need to survive. And what better way to do that, than by living off the land.

Blackberries bushes, Chicken's camouflage, were picked clean of ripened fruit for pie and shredded wheat garnishing. And those mussels didn't stand a fighting chance. Well, actually, other than clamming up, they have no other defense. It didn't stop me from conjuring up venomous sprays or hidden incisor scenarios for these seemingly innocuous mollusks. With a red plastic kid's bucket, the kind that molds turrets for sandcastles, I greedily went hunting. 3 lbs of freshwater mussels were caught, scrubbed of all slime and beard matter, and sautéed in a pan with red wine vinegar, garlic, onions, tomatillos, lime, chilies, and cilantro. Heaped in a ceramic bowl, served with crusty bread, they were absolutely disgusting tasting. I do not recommend the freshwater varietal. They taste like stringy, dirty lake water. Horrified and guilt-ridden, I apologised to each of them as they were set upon a blazing funeral pyre, the former wieny-roast pit. I felt like Hitler, but with a conscience. I'm making up for it.

I've just finished reading A China Study, the most comprehensive study on nutrition... ever. I think I'm off animal flesh. Just like a severe night of alcohol bingeing can promote a serious reduction in consumption, needless slaughter of innocents can produce the same effects. That, and information government agencies and corporations want to keep from you.

There is a community centre located 5 blocks away from where I'm typing right now. Of the five years I've lived in this neighbourhood, I've never once participated in any of the programmes this centre offers. Until yesterday.

I went to the pool and did laps. With my snorkel. And when everyone in the slow lane was heading back towards the shallow end, I practiced my diving. I still did some boobyflops, but that's okay. I kept trying, and that's the most important thing. There was something else I'd forgotten, something I'd known well when I used to have scraped knees. You don't get good at anything, unless you do it a lot.