On the first night in Calgary – pre the Calgary Literature Festival - 
I am dining  with Ann Green, producer of
the festival, Ian Samuels  the artistic director  and an Australian author who has a smile and a
twinkle in the eye that says “yeah I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. And I like it.”.
 He shall remain nameless for reasons
which will become apparent. There's only one person who is not here who
was supposed to be here – the ex president of Canada. She like many an
ex president has written a book and will be reading at the festival
tomorrow, is tired and staying at our hotel.

The restaurant is at
the top in a revolving room of the tower 525 ft in the air by the aptly named Vertigo Theatre where I am to
perform on another day. The
online catalogue describes it as “the third largest tower in
Calgary”.  BThe Tower was built in 1968. I was born in 1967. The Vietnam war
began in 1961. 

As we sit to eat
the sun falls behind distant mountains and throws up fists of fire from behind mountainous trenches.The
sky is at war with the
night. The lights dimmed in the revolving thing and the night entered
the restaurant.  Wine poured itself and the conversation
spilled into the air. A slide of blood and fat  curled from my
steak and seasoned the plate as the serrated edges of my knife slid
back. Here's to conversation.   We, the five of us  became
the  lava inside its lamp, rising and gently
falling as others rise   and gently fall and this is how  conversation  should be – in warmth like vocal  Ti chi. 

And maybe it was the redness of the sky against
the darkness of the night. And maybe it was that we were 500 feet or so inside
the sky spinning in slo mo  like a UFO (unidentified food object) but here an unsentimental story
began to rise as we circled it. It was about something that had happened recently to the Australian authors brother. 

 He was in the Vietnam war, his brother,  he was drafted and fought and experienced all
the dark delights that  war brings. He was a waiter at a  banquet of bursting
bodies. He did his job. he served his country.   He’s there for two years or so, his brother.
And in the click of a safety switch The War Is Over.  He is back in America.
There’s no welcome committee waiting for him. No ceremony. No ticker tape
parade just a  a quiet resentment of him.
A seething. A loathing. The kind you find in the film Jacobs ladder. The kind
of loathing that is only picked up in peripheral vision.

He’s in the city. Maybe it’s New York
maybe it’s  LA. But if they think this is
a fast city then  they have no idea what
fast is. He’s a man who knows what fast is. How fast a life can pass. How fast
the decision to defend and attack. How fast. This man is a survivor. His
brother.  And he immerses himself in work.
He sets up businesses, sells them, sets em up and sells em again. It’s a jungle
out there. He got through the American nightmare and was living the dream.
Forty fifty years ago is it now. His brother survived and thrived and married
and all was good.

 A few weeks ago he’s dressed to go to his downtown office,  right. Same old system.  Suite’s clean, teeth sparkling, shoes
polished, socks laid out and put on. Left first and then Right. Left first and
then right.  And he aligns his tie in the
mirror, right.  Maybe  he’s got a little shaving cut. No problem. He
checks it out. dabs it with his finger. No problem.

The news is on the radio
blathering away as it does something about Iraq
this and right to defend that.  He fixes
his pen in his pocket. Loves the pen.  Present from his father. As it was a present
from his father.  He turns his head looks
out of his house window and the the car’s waiting for him. The same car  that waits every day and the driver’s  reading The NY Daily Post.. On time. Its an
autumnal morning, the  shaking trees the
sharpness of light, autistic almost.  He
hears the slow purr of its engine 
as  bouquets of white smoke spread
from its exhaust. Maybe there’s a frost today. 
The radio is blathering about, president bush “supporting the troops in
the field and some foreign correspondent is almost shouting because “if you
listen you may be able to hear the insurgence attack”…”. 

And  it’s one of those
rich crisp molten morning suns. Maybe there’s a frost today. And he sees
through the diagonal bars of sunlight through the speckles of dust to the car.
And he looks back and he straightens his hair and he straightens his tie a
little more because his ties feels a little un-straight.  And the radio  is on. And “there’s been an explosion and….
people have died”  and he can hear quiver
of fear in the journalists voice He straightens his tie again and the man in
the car  is now at the window. It’s been
an hour since when?. Hasn’t it. Has it. He looks through the light through the
speckles, through the window from the mirror where he is standing and he sees
the man at the window cupping his hands and peering in  to the front room and he looks back at the
mirror and he straightens his tie. Cause his ties not straight.   

He’s there for four  hours. And it isn’t news any more on the radio. And it wasn't radio. It was TV.    It’s The
Simpson's that’s on in the background. He hears the beginning of The 
theme tune. But it starts to echo in his head. Distant echo. Dah dah dah  dah dah dah dadadada”.   And he
wants to make a phone call to say “mom mom I’m okay. I’m okay really”. But he
can’t get to the phone right now. He remembers there was a man at the window
waving at him. But he couldn’t hear because the sound was muffled. And the man
has gone like his breath on the window – gone like that. Evaporated.  And the shadows are crawling
around the room in concentric circles. They are actually drawing into him The
shadows – until he is enveloped in darkness

By now myself and Ann have let our food cool in the forks
that are resting mid air frozen mid step – poised like soldiers in the bush.  “It’s the war.” Said the Australian author “The
Iraq war. It triggered something in him. Like a landmine left in the fields.It Blew up.  My
brother is now in hospital teaching his brain how to teach himself to
teach  his legs  to walk.”.  Ann asks how his wife and
children are coping “one step at a time” says the author “one step at
a time”.