Seize the Carp
Chapter 4 of King Hell Spectacle: A Novel
Going back to ‘Bama Cross the state line Early in the morning The bright sun sun shines Up from New Orleans Pass me the wine To the land of Rosa and Martin, If you’ll let me opine Has me wonderin’ and mutterin’ What came first, the song or the sign? Demopolis and Athens, Between Longleaf Pine Tuscaloosa then Tuskegee, And I’m feelin’ fine To the moon from Huntsville Then onto cloud nine With fried green tomatoes And my sweet valentine Has me wonderin’ and mutterin’ What came first, the song or the sign?
By the following Spring, Gracie and I were travelling together. Our first trip was to the Deep South of the United States. She had heard from a friend who was doing a road trip from New Orleans up to Louisville. The guy’s name was Meko Torres. Meko and his cousin Sonny were on a wild escapade crisscrossing the South, dedicating their trip to a dying friend. Gracie was enchanted by the message she received one April day about their journey. She wanted to go. She was tired of the dreadfully cold and dark Canadian winter: a second in a row for her. I mentioned how my arrival in Banff coincided with Banff’s coldest winter on record. Well, the following year’s winter was damn near close to matching it. We needed a warm respite.
Off we went. We planned to fly to Atlanta and travel from there in a rented car. By the time we got there, Meko and his cousin would be in New York. It was unfortunate we’d miss them. Gracie said Meko played music as well. Maybe another time we’d meet. Nonetheless, I brought my guitar along. I would play in our motel room in the evenings, on street corners while Gracie shopped, anytime really. Gracie was fine with that. I’ve concluded that if you want to test a newly formed relationship, go travelling. It’s one of the best ways to determine how well you communicate and to what degree mutual flexibility exists when deciding what to do next.
In hindsight what was most surprising about our trip was what turned out to be the highlight. In touring through Atlanta, then Nashville and as far south as Florida’s Port of Saint Joe, our time in Alabama stands out the most. Of course we had a grand ole time in those aforementioned places, but 'Bama was the part of our trip I remember most fondly. We went through on the way to Florida and then back again on the way north to Nashville and our flight home to Calgary. There is nothing really eye-popping or outstanding about the state known for the Crimson Tide. There is no Broadway, no Ponce City Market, and no booze-soaked jazz and blues scene like in New Orleans (also known as the northernmost South American city). Alabama is to most people redneck central. It’s NASCAR and college football and Southern Baptism. It has an ugly past concerning racial discrimination. Maybe still to this day. If I were to tell someone back home that I went to Alabama, they’d likely respond by saying: on your way to where? Or, why? Alabama, in other words, doesn’t offer low-hanging fruit for wowing the discerning international visitor. Or even the typical American (unless you like massive college football games or NASCAR races).
Had we been travelling through the state in the fall, we would’ve gone to a Crimson Tide game. We did however go to a NASCAR race at Talladega. And who was there to meet us but Gracie’s father. This was a major surprise for me. They had been planning this all along. We went up to our seats and there he was sitting, drinking a Bud Light and eating a hot dog. He said he was taking in as much of “‘Merica” as he could. He slapped the seat next to his and said it was for me. Gracie’s father’s name is Craig. He’s a family doc on the Gold Coast. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who is so naturally a raconteur. For the entire race, which is a very long time, Craig had me riveted with story after story. He would start one and the story would take a turn and then another turn and then another yet again. The next thing I knew, he was onto something entirely different. And then this would happen again. And again. And then forty-five minutes later, he would somehow tie all of these various storylines together. It was a work of art, like a verbal Faulkner. I was transfixed. I have no idea which driver won the race that day. All the while, I heard Gracie giggling to my right. This was not her first rodeo when it came to hearing her father wax lyrical about everything and anything under the sun.
What I’ve just told you may sound like the perfect recipe for a long afternoon made even longer, but I promise you that is not the case. My advice to anyone is to sit next to a natural-born raconteur at an event that otherwise is like watching paint dry. An event that features an Alabama sun roasting from above and humidity close to one hundred percent. Despite these conditions, Craig made the afternoon unforgettable. He had me laughing my ass off at one outrageous story after another outrageous story. I don’t know if these yarns of his were all factual. That kind of detail is beside the point. I felt like I was sitting next to a curious mix of Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Twain.
While we walked out of the stadium, among the eighty or so thousand all streaming out at once, Craig offered to take us out for dinner. By this point, I still had no clue how he and his daughter had so well planned this ambush without me knowing. I had no idea where he was staying, for how long, or anything. In Talladega, we sat down at a working-class steakhouse restaurant in the heart of town. NASCAR folk surrounded us. Big, fat, drunk white Americans; all of whom were NASCAR drunk - which is to say quite drunk indeed. Craig of course had more stories to tell. But the unifying theme for all of them over our steak dinners was that to Craig, the most important thing in life was to, in Craig’s words, “seize the carp.”
“Seize the what?” I asked.
“The carp, mate,” Craig said.
“The carp, honey,” Gracie said. “Seize it.” Father and daughter burst out laughing together at their remarks. I had no clue what they were talking about. Must be some obscure Australianism, I assumed.
“Then let me seize those damn carp! We’re talking fish, right?”
More laughter.
“You got it, mate,” Craig said.
“Awww, he doesn’t get it,” Gracie said. “That’s daddy’s way of saying Carpe Diem, honey. You know what Carpe Diem means, don’t you?” Of course I did. Craig. Funny guy. Gracie’s phone rang and she excused herself from the table. In her absence, which turned out to be a long one, Craig and I continued our discussion.
“Gracie says you play music?”
“I do.”
“Guitar? Do you sing?”
“Yes I do both. Sometimes I play the harp too.”
“I used to play. Bass,” Craig said.
“Oh yeah? When was that?”
“When I was a teenager. That’s all I did. Me and my brother and a kid who lived down the street. We played lots of Beatles. I still have all their records. You play any Beatles songs?”
“A few, yeah. Across the Universe, Dig a Pony, Two of Us, One After 909, couple others.”
“Those are all Lennon’s songs! You don’t like McCartney?”
“Never thought of that. Yeah I like McCartney, but I didn’t even realize until you pointed that out that I gravitate toward Lennon’s stuff.”
“McCartney could do it all.”
“It’s true.” What felt like a long silence followed before Craig cleared his throat.
“You know, Cliff, music, it’s a fun hobby. Should never be anything more.” Was Craig bold enough to start giving me life advice suddenly?
He continued: “My brother, he stayed with it. Moved to Europe and never got past playing seedy Dutch clubs. Struggled his whole life. Hit the bottle hard and could never shake it. Married three times. Left his first wife and son in Melbourne. He died a couple years ago. Sixty-five years young. Cirrhosis in the liver.”
“I’m so sorry to hear, Mr. Townsend.”
“Whereas I knew how to compartmentalize. I knew that music could and should never be more than something to come back to as a hobby. Something to make me happy after a long day in the hospital.”
“Gracie mentioned you’re in medicine?”
“I’m a family doc and I do my fair share of ER, Cliff. Been in medicine since I was twenty-three. Had the grades. The drive. Now, I don’t have to worry about money. I live in a nice house by the ocean. I gave my kids private school educations and vacations to Europe.”
“That’s nice. Do you still play the bass?”
“Mate, I wish. Don’t have the time. Still got my stuff, just can’t find the time. You should see my bass collection. Grows every year.”
“But you don’t play any of them?”
“My ex-wife said I work too much. She wanted out after twenty years of marriage. Took up with her pilates instructor. How long did that last? Sixteen months. Here’s another tip, kid. Never marry your mistress. That applies to your career as much as it does in a literal sense. You need to keep those things separate.”
“You need to keep what separate, daddy?” Gracie said as she sat down at the table. She said it in a way that indicated she had no clue what we were talking about.
Craig said, “Cliff needs to keep separate his ideas of what a real car race is. NASCAR? Give me a break. F1 is where it’s at. Tell Cliff about the time I took you to Melbourne for the race.”
And so Gracie did as we settled up and left the Talladega steakhouse.
Craig treated us that night to a room at the same hotel where he was staying in Birmingham. Birmingham is just under an hour of driving from Talladega. He was staying at a fancy old boutique called the Longleaf in a quieter part of the city. Our room had a king-size bed and balcony overlooking a leafy courtyard with a pool. We were all quite exhausted from our big day at the speedway. We agreed to meet the next morning for breakfast at eight in the morning. I learned then that Craig had plans to visit us in Banff. But first he said he had an old friend to visit in Vancouver. He planned to catch an early flight from Birmingham to Atlanta and then fly to Vancouver. Craig had a week booked at the Banff Springs Hotel. When Gracie and I got to our room, I felt like asking her why she didn’t let me know of her father’s plans. She read my thoughts, however, before I could say anything.
“I didn’t know any of this,” she said as we laid on the bed.
“What about Alabama? Did he tell you he was coming here?”
“He’s been acting strange lately, to be honest. He sent me these cryptic emails the last few weeks before we even left. Wondering how I was and so on. I mentioned our trip once and then I never heard from him until he called me a couple of days ago. He wanted it to be a surprise, but he didn’t know how he was going to surprise both of us. So I just told him we could surprise you. I’m sorry if that was inappropriate.”
“No it’s fine. It’s just kind of hard to believe that he went to all that effort to come to the States from Australia.”
“I know,” she said with a worried undertone.
“He seems okay?”
“Daddy is very good at hiding his emotions. I guess that comes with his day job, but I never know what’s going on in his life.”
“Well, if it means anything I enjoyed meeting him and you definitely brightened up when he joined us. Not saying you were dark, but you did seem happy.”
“Yeah, well, I miss him. And my mom. And my little brother. I just hope he’s okay. What did you guys talk about while I was on the phone, anyway? Seemed pretty serious.”
“Oh, at the steakhouse? Um, he was just, you know, giving me some life advice. Pretty standard stuff.”
“Oh no, I hope he didn’t try and scare you off!”
“No, no, nothing like that,” I said between laughs.
“He can be overbearing sometimes.”
“Wait till you meet my parents.”
“When?! You’ve been saying that for too long now.”
“I guess whenever they decide to come out to Banff.”
“You don’t want to go visit them?”
“In Toronto? No way. I’m not going back there unless I have to.”
“Okay, well, hopefully someday soon.” Gracie yawned. “I’m knackered. Night hon.”
“Night.”
I didn’t sleep that night. The conversation I had with Craig about careers and mistresses and so on was enough to have my mind racing faster than a stock car around the Talladega Speedway. What he told me was nothing I hadn’t already considered. It was enough of an effort for me to launch myself out of the orbit of upper middle-class Toronto and land in Banff. In chasing down a dream, that of playing music for a living, one can’t help but be aware of the extremely long odds. I woke with a start at two in the morning will all of this on my mind. Would I ever be able to afford buying a house? Would I ever be able to provide for a family? Give them the good life? Gracie, meanwhile, was sound asleep next to me, snoring ever so gently in her adorable way. For an hour I laid in bed having a staring contest with the ceiling. Was I making the right life choices? Was I on a path going nowhere? Was I being negligent, irresponsible, and unrealistic? Who was I to think that I could make it in music? Was there a better, smarter way to be using my time?
When I have sleepless nights, at some point, I get out of bed and do… something. Anything, really. Anything to take my mind off of whatever it is that’s preventing peace of mind. That night in Birmingham, out I went onto the balcony. I took my six string and shut the door behind me. Quietly I would strum a few songs, and hum a few melodies. Maybe I’d even write a new song. The outside air was pleasantly warm. The stars were out and the waning moon lit up the courtyard below. All was quiet except for the sound of a muffled voice. The voice sounded faintly familiar. There was an accent to it. English? Maybe. South African? Doubtful. New Zealand? More likely. How about Australian? Likely. It had to be Craig. The odds of a male Australian voice belonging to someone other than Gracie’s father were in my estimation too low. Which begged the question: What was he doing at this hour? For whatever reason, I felt compelled to see with my own two eyes.
I went down to the courtyard where the voice was louder, but still, no one was in sight. From there, I went out into the parking lot. There I found Craig pacing under a street light. He had his phone to his ear and the body language of a distressed man. He was arguing about something. I didn’t want to get too close because I didn’t want him to know I was out snooping. From what little I heard, it sounded as though he was pleading his case. Like he was unsuccessfully persuading whoever was on the other line. His free hand raked through his hair as he listened to whatever he was being told. My cover was blown when a door I was standing next to opened. An older man was on his way out with his luggage muttering something about an early flight. Anyway, the opening, the way certain doors do startled Craig enough to look my way.
“Cliff? That you, mate?” Craig said.
We sat on a bench in front of the hotel. Craig looked spent. He wasn’t angry with me. Not after I told him I was just wondering where the sound was coming from and why I was there. Of course, he didn’t realize he was talking loud enough for me to hear. Though I suppose when you’re in a state of distress, that’s not the kind of thing you’re thinking about. He put his phone away shortly after seeing me and said he needed to take a seat. So that’s where I found myself at what must’ve been three in the morning—sitting on a bench next to my girlfriend’s dad in Birmingham, Alabama.
“Everything okay?” he asked before I could ask the same thing.
“Who me? Oh, I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep for some reason.”
“That’s good. I have those nights too.”
“And… how about you?” I cautiously said. “Everything all right?”
Craig searched for an answer. Finally he spat out: “Fuckin’ eh, mate. That’s what you Canadians say, right?”
“I guess so. Minus the mate.”
“Fuckin’ eh,” he repeated.
“Work calling?”
“You could say that.”
“What time is it there, anyway?”
“Seven at night.”
“The hospital?”
“Don’t worry about it, mate. None of your business.”
Silence followed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“That’s another Canadianism, isn’t it? Over-apologizing,” he said chuckling.
“Guess so.”
Another silence followed.
“Funny how so much of our life is, in fact, out of our control despite our best efforts.”
“What, uh, makes you say that?”
“You ever wonder how good people can do bad things? I hear about it all the time in the ER. Girl off the street will come in all punched up and she’s defending the apparently good guy who did it to her. Like this guy is actually a fucking saint.”
“Yeah, I mean I—“
“I guess it just takes a certain situation. Like they say anyone’s capable of murder given the right circumstances. I guess that’s true. What do you think?”
“I mean, I guess—“
“Are you a good person, Cliff? Am I a good person? Of course we know Gracie is. But I think we all must think we are inherently good in our heart of hearts, don’t you? How could we live with ourselves if we didn’t?”
“Might explain one reason for those who self-medicate.”
“True. But even those people, I think must have some modicum of self-worth. It’s in our DNA, mate. It just baffles me how we can end up in fucked up situations despite our best intentions.”
“Are you in a fucked up situation?”
Craig laughed heartily. Was this his way of concealing?
“Aren’t we all?” he said before yawning deeply. “Life can get tricky when you’ve worked as a family doc for as long as I have. You do favours for people. People do favours for you. Anyway, enough about this. You’re probably sick of hearing my generalities on life. What we do know is we both have a breakfast date with Gracie in only a few hours.” Craig stood. “And mate? Let’s not tell Gracie about this little wee hour rendezvous of ours, shall we? Wouldn’t want to give her the wrong idea.”
“Copy that.”
“Fuckin’ eh.”
At breakfast, I wondered if Gracie could see the exhaustion in my eyes, or in Craig's. I know I sure looked like I hadn’t slept that night. If she did, she didn’t let on. The morning discussion concerned Banff. And it was a rushed morning discussion over croissants and coffee as Craig’s flight time had moved an hour earlier than planned.
“Daddy it’s too bad you won’t be in Banff a week earlier. The week before is the World Media Festival. Lots of fun parties. Cliff even has a few shows that week.”
“Does he?” Craig said.
“I do.”
Gracie added, “It’s one of those weeks in the year where for people like Cliff, it’s great for networking.”
“I think he got that,” I said with a chuckle. I wanted to change the subject as any discussion involving my career with those on the outside tends to make me uncomfortable. “Craig, there anything you’d like to do while you're in town?”
“Plenty. Too much. Gracie’s got a full week of things planned for us. And didn’t you say one of your friends will also be in town, hon?”
“Yes, Jess. She’s coming from Revelstoke for two weeks.”
“Marvelous,” Craig said. “The four of us will play golf at the Springs, eat steak at that place all Australians like to go, drink and dance at that other place all Australians like to go. Oh and of course we’ll have to go seize us some carps. And… am I missing anything, dear?”
Gracie laughed. “Oh, dad. Plenty! We’re also going to hike. And go for tea at the Chateau up at Louise, and take the gondola up to Sulphur, and so much more. Oh, and Cliff knows a place to find a bear for you to see.”
“A bear?!?”
“Sure. ” I said. “The biggest, most badass Grizzly of 'em all. The Boss is his name.”
Craig said, “Can I feed the Boss?”
At the same time, Gracie and I yelled: “NO!”
Editor’s Note…
Two weeks from now Chapter 5 of King Hell Spectacle: A Novel will arrive in your inbox.
Missed a chapter? Click the following links: