I have to write a novel (part three)
December 02, 2005 // Link
Yesterday, I trekked up to the Xerox building, camera in hand and lump in throat. Heading up Yonge Street it was easy to spot the salmon tinted tower among the uniformity of apartment buildings and cookie-cutter houses that make up the North York skyline.
As I stood there taking the photo, a man walking past looked back and forth between me and the building a few times. At the next block he stopped, looked back at me, and then took his own photo of the tower. The cheek!
I quickly walked past him a few feet and took another shot of the tower a bit closer than he had. I gave him a look that clearly indicated “I’m the obsessed blogger ‘round these parts and don’t you forget it.”
He walked on, and at the corner he quickly lifted his camera and snapped a sudden second photo of the tower. Then he looked at me as if to say “don’t be so quick to judge, Mr. Smarty Blogger, because maybe I’ve got two essays in there.” And then he actually ran away.
Well, I guess it was more of a jog than a run. Okay, a rapid mosey. But still, he rapidly moseyed up the street and around the corner before I could take another photo.
Weird. And I guess he won, dammit.
I crossed the street and entered the looming pink tower. Can a tower loom? If it contains a date that might doom you to an inevitable and very public failure, then you betcha it can loom. And loom it bloody well did.
[aside]
Yeah, yeah: giant pink tower equals phallic symbol. We all get it. I was feeling unconfident, worried about creative underachievement, and entering a place that’s held sway over me since puberty. So don’t blame me if I’m a little heavy handed with the symbols of creation, power, and emasculation. It’s not like I’m a professional novelist or anything. Thanks for reminding me. Bastards.
[end of aside]
My first thought as I stepped out of the revolving door was “oh no, the time capsule is gone!” Yes, I thought it with an exclamation point. The lobby looked nothing at all like I’d remembered it, and more importantly there was no big plexiglass shell anywhere to be seen.
I’d been worried about this. For some reason I’d been secretly hopeful that the uncorking date was in 2017. I’d had that year in mind, though I couldn’t recall why. Perhaps I’d had a vague idea the capsule was meant to be sealed for 30 years and it had been closed in 1987? Frankly, I don’t know what I’d been thinking. But I do know what I thought at that moment, and it rhymes with “oh tuck.”
[aside]
It was “oh fuck,” in case you are as good with rhymes as I am with penis metaphors.
[end of aside]
What if the time capsule was supposed to be sealed for twenty years? And what if it had been sealed in 1986? Or 1985? That would mean it would have been opened earlier this year, or even (gulp) last year.
The ceremony was over. It happened without me. I’d already missed my deadline. The reason the capsule was on my mind was that subconsciously I’d recalled that this year was the unsealing year.
It was this year.
The capsule was gone.
I was a failure.
Or maybe the capsule was around the corner behind the elevators? Oh, right. There it was. Fwew!
I hadn’t missed the deadline after all. Now all I had to worry about was when that date actually was, and would there be enough time for me to become a published novelist beforehand? Confidently, I looked at the plaque.
And my heart sank...
Next time: a highly disappointing date, a blood soaked hand, and a confrontation with security.
I have to write a novel (part four)
December 08, 2005 // Link
Looking at the plaque, I could tell at a glance it held dates for both corking and uncorking the time capsule.
“Not 1986. Please not 1986,” I thought. It was probable that the time capsule was to remain sealed for a “time capsuley” number of years, such as 20, 25, or 100. So if it had been sealed in 1986 then there was a good chance it was due to be opened in 2006—and there wasn’t much 2006 left.
“Not 1986. Please not 1986,” I repeated, for dramatic effect, foreshadowing the inevitable. You’re way ahead of me on this, aren’t you?
I read the first date on the plaque: “SEALED DECEMBER 3, 1986”
Well, pooh.
The capsule’s twentieth anniversary would be Saturday, December 3, 2006. I was reading the plaque on Thursday, December 1, 2006.
December 3 minus December 1 equals two days. Gulp.
This could be a dilemma, logistically speaking.
It’s odd to think I could be distracted at this point, but I was: a blood soaked hand appeared to be floating inside the capsule. You have to admit, that’s a pretty good distracter.
An odd choice of things to preserve, I thought. Could I really have been so intent on Timothy Findley’s pennapping (or the Cats gals) back in 1986 that I’d missed the part of the ceremony where they’d cut some dude’s hand off?
I leaned against the capsule for a better look and realized it wasn’t a hand, it was a glove: the red golf glove of U.S. Women’s Open champion Marlene Stewart Streit, now crusty and hard.
[aside]
The glove, that is. Ms. Streit may very well remain crustless and pliable for all I know.
[end of aside]
Other items on display were: Jesse Barfield’s bat; Borje Salming’s hockey stick; December 3, 1986, issues of four newspapers; a platinum record by Sharon, Lois and Bram; a photo of the place where Lester B. Pearson was born in 1897; a box of Trivial Pursuit (huh?); student essays by Julia Basin, Aubrey Kassirer, and yours truly; and 1985 Annual Reports by the North American Life Assurance Company and Xerox Canada Inc.
What kind of boring-ass companies pick their own annual reports as contributions to a time capsule? Welcome to Yawnsville, population you.
And then my eyes were drawn down below the bloody(-seeming) (non-)hand where on a little shelf sat Not Wanted On The Voyage.
“Gimme back my pen, Findley.”
My words came out sounding like “Gimeh buh muh PEH, FIMMY!” because my face was pressed against the capsule to peer inside it. The capsule was up on a railing/riser, so I had to lean far forward with my legs splayed wide. My hands were planted on either side of the capsule as I hugged it to hold myself upright. The right side of my face was mashed up against the clear plexiglass, my nose smushed to the side.
It’s important for you to have a clear idea what I looked like at that moment, because that’s how I appeared when I glanced up and saw the security guard looking at me from the other side of the capsule.
“Can I help you, sir?” he asked. It may have been the fact that the capsule muffled his words, but to me it sounded a little like “Can I distract you, Mr. Crazy Time Capsule Kissing Man, while my partner levels his tazer at your back?”
I think it was the way he said “sir.”
Next time: the plaque distracts, and the date is finally revealed.
I have to write a novel (the conclusion)
December 14, 2005 // Link
I straightened up and wiped my face-smudge off the capsule while I stammered an explanation to the security guard. I blurted out a bit about how the rolled up white paper suspended inside the capsule was my essay. I told him I’d been worried that the time capsule might be opened on its twentieth anniversary. I told him about attending the ceremony back in 1986.
By the time I mentioned the Cats girls I realized I was rambling.
“See, that’s my name,” I said, pointing out the “Carrington Vanston” etched in the plaque as if that settled the matter. I definitely pointed to it in a “no need to tazer me, no siree” sort of way.
He had walked around the capsule while I was babbling, and he looked at the plaque. I steeled myself to explain in more detail about my novelist-or-failure deadline, about this blog, and perhaps even about how Timothy Findley stole my pen but was dead now. I made a mental note not to make that sound like a causal relationship.
Then I realized he wasn’t looking back. He was just standing there staring at the plaque. This went on for some time: me looking at him, him looking at the plaque, me not mentioning Findley.
Finally, he turned back to me and said: “It’s 2005.”
This is not what I was expecting him to say. It didn’t have the words “don’t touch” in it. It didn’t have the words “escorted from the premises” in it. It didn’t even have that ominous “sir” in it. I was confused.
This is a precise transcription of the next exchange between us, word for word as far as I can recall:
Me: “I’msorrywhat?” (said as one word)
Him: “Pardon?”
Me: “I mean...pardon?”
Him: “What?”
Me: “What what? I mean, which what? What did I say, or what did you say?”
Him: “It’s 2005.”
Me: “Oh. Okay.”
[aside]
At this point my mind wandered, as it often does. I was reminded of a favorite gag from high school. I used to rush up to people in malls and ask them what time it was. When they’d look at their watch I’d say “No, the year? What YEAR is it?!?” When they’d tell me the year I’d say something like “So it worked! It WORKED!” and then I’d run away laughing triumphantly. I used to love doing that.
[end of aside]
Him: “It’s 2005, not 2006.”
Oh, right. So it was.
The rest of the exchange with the security guard was standard “please don’t touch the capsule” stuff, then he left me to it. Strange. I would’ve kept my eye on someone like me.
I’d like to say I had mixed up the year because I’d gotten so caught up in the “twentieth anniversary” idea. But the reality is I often get the year wrong anyway. My cheques still have “19__” on them, which I cross out on the rare times I need to use one and write in some vaguely early 21st Century-ish year. I’m usually not off by more than one or two.
I’d also like to mention that of the scores of you who have written in during this extended blog story only one of you pointed out the errant year. (Here’s a shout-out to sharp-eyed Postmodern Sass, one of my favorite bloggers and a fellow Torontonian.)
So it was 2005 (and for all I know it still is). It had only been 19 years since my essay had been sequestered. The twentieth anniversary wasn’t for a full year and two days.
I had tons of time!
In fact, I had even more time than you might think because I’d already read the true uncorking date on the plaque. I’d read it as soon as I got there, of course, but I thought it would be more fun to string you along a bit on the blog. I’m a meanie.
Below the disappointing 1986 date on the plaque was the all-important second date, the date of my deadline:
“TO BE OPENED DECEMBER 3, 2011.”
I had six years and two days to go! Six long wonderful amazing incredible and most important of all probably sufficient years.
It was the perfect result. Much less and I’d likely have no chance to get a novel written and published in time. Much more and I’d probably slip back into the lazy “oh there’s lots of time” mentality that got me into this mess in the first place.
The giant pink tower didn’t seem nearly so intimidating when I left, but that’s probably because it was cold out.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a novel to write.