United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Forever is Ending Today J. H. Dow “Quiet here, isn’t, it?” “Yeah, it’s quiet.” “What’s the matter, Harry? Did I say some¬ thing wrong?” “Naw. Nothing wrong.” “Well, what’s the matter? Why don’t you look at me? What did I do?” “Nothing. You never done nothing.” She hadn’t. Not in ten years. He had always been the one who had done everything. Most of it seemed wrong. But she was right. He had no kicks. It was just all over. “Won’t you say something, Harry?” “Sure, what do you want me to say?” “Oh, that isn’t what I meant. Until last week everything was going swell and now suddenly you are so cold. What’s got into you?” “Aw, lay off, Joan. Lay off. It’s just the way it is.” Just the way it is. For the last ten years it was always going to be different. Always they were going to have something better. Always. Now it was better and they weren’t going to have it. Something had gone sour. He had a good job for the first time in his life. He had money, friends. What had gone sour? “Take me home, Harry. There’s not much sense in just standing here if we can’t even talk to each other.” “Yeah, I’ll take you home.” “Well, don’t sound so hurt about it. I can get home myself if ' that is the way you feel about it. Where do you want to go? Am I hold¬ ing you back from something?” “Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe you are holding me back. I don’t know. I just don’t know.” She burst out crying. He hadn’t seen her cry for nearly five years. But he didn’t feel it. He just watched her as she ran away. He was all alone, with a bridge and a river and lights from the town and the sky. He wondered how it would have been any other way. He had always been alone. From the time that he had walked the long way to school in the mornings. Always alone. “Got a match, bud?” This was just one more time he was stifled with his loneliness. It would always be this way. Somewhere he felt there must be a place that . . . “Little boy! Got a match?” “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Here.” “Thanks, Mac. What you doing here all by yourself on the bridge? Waiting for your girl?” “No, she just left. I’m not waiting for no¬ body. Say, who the hell do you think you are?” “Me—I’m nobody. Nobody at all. I just got a light from you. Remember? Only if you are going swimming, leave the matches behind, I can use them.” “Swimming? Me? No, mister. You got the wrong idea. I was just standing here.” “Standing here. Just standing here. That’s what they all say. One fellow was half over and he said he was just sitting there. Just sit¬ ting. He was quite a big guy too. What was you? A big boy, or just a small-time guy?” “I’m just a small-time guy. What’s your racket?” “Racket? Me—With a racket? Don’t be silly. It’s just that when they leave this bridge, they got no use for stuff. So I ask for it before they Page Eight

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ers were not doing anything so advanced as that. They were busy teaching the students what writers in their own tongue actually were saying at any given point. This was for Blog a strange and depressing procedure. The instructors seemed depressed too. One of the younger ones was concerned to develop “skills” (that was his word) for the apprehension of poetry, but he was a guest lecturer from the big Educational Psychology building. He had quite a following, but it did not include Blog. While the Prince was noticing these disturb¬ ing facts, the faculty never noticed him. He was a name on their lists, Smith, J. B. But just be¬ fore mid-term all Freshmen took an Intelligence Test of the species named by its American Middle West manufacturer “Type MC-4-0.” Most of Blog’s fellow students made between 160 and 230 out of a possible 300. Blog made 68. The Faculty of Arts and Science, in solemn conclave assembled, decided that (in their words) “since Smith, J. B., is not adapted to the requirements of the Arts Course, we suggest that he seek admission to the School of Engin¬ eering.” Blog was out. Meanwhile the delicate and tender Prince had been introduced to what the President, in his welcoming address, had called “the ameni¬ ties of college life.” He had indeed shaken hands with reality. Reality had a warm and nervous paw. Reality’s name was Marylouann Muggridge. She was also in Freshman year, but, unlike Blog, she was happy there. She ex¬ pressed her sentiments pretty freely on their first date. I rather liked that show, didn’t you? O, I forgot, you haven’t been to shows much. Well, I suppose most of them aren’t much, same old formula, but—Professor Suggs is always critic¬ izing Hollywood in English class but did you see him there tonight? I suppose that was his wife with him, pathetically dowdy I thought. But then how could you dress decently on a teach¬ er’s salary that’s one thing I’ll never be I’m telling you is a teacher’s wife. Imagine you not having been in a car either unusual family yours must be (I don’t mean it from nasty at all so don’t get that look on your face but really). Dad’s getting me an Austin for Christ¬ mas I think and I’ll show you how to drive I’ll have to learn myself too I guess the Austin’s got a different shift but it’ll be awfully handy. Marj—you remember Marj she’s the one with the hair—was in tonight she’s got a frightful complex about the athletic director wept salt tears you’d hardly believe she’s had wonderful grades up to now I told her to snap out of it if I had her brains I wouldn’t mess up my life for anybody. That reminds me I’ve got to sell tickets for the Hop tomorrow awful bore but I suppose it’ll get me out of French class all those verbs I mean I’m just not getting anything done at all I’ll have to get cracking on the books soon . . . Isn’t that sweet, that one on the left I mean, such a lovely shade. . . . Who could resist this girlish naivete, this abundant charm? Not Blog. In Marylouann’s presence, moving ecstatically in the aura of “Tempt Me,” he found refuge from the barren¬ ness of his formal studies, and consolation for his failure therein. Here was one so beauti¬ fully untouched by the contaminations of the intellect, a child of nature. Blog failed to per¬ ceive that Marylouann was not unusual, that she indeed was an almost ideal representative of her kind. To him she was she. He determined to marry her. He did marry her, was disinherited for dis¬ obeying the provisions of the Royal Marriage Act, 39 Blog XIV, c. 4, and the good King his father passed into the power of the palace cabal headed by that evil counsellor. Blog went into the insurance business in order to support Marylouann in the style to which she was accustomed. A psychiatrist friend of mine, in a moment of indiscretion, told me the other night that Marylouann was his patient. Are there already some little tensions in that love- nest? Poor Blog. Page Seven

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go. One fellow had nearly a million dollars and it frightened him. Another told me he was glad to give me the stuff. Sort of a last way of cheat¬ ing the income tax. Charitable donations. Guess he kept his book too long.” “What the hell are you talking about? Go on, beat it. Leave me alone.” “You want to be alone, eh? Getting real dramatic, like a movie. O.K., sonny boy, I’ll leave you alone. But how about leaving your stuff behind you?” “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?” “Crazy? Maybe. I should maybe stay at home where it’s warmer. But I like guys like you. So long, sonny boy. Be seeing you, w, maybe fifty years.” The man must be a loony. Stumping off across the bridge like a cheated dog watching a bone being taken away from him. The whole damn world was crazy. He tossed a pebble that was lying on the walk. It arched out and away from the bridge, caught in some mysterious gust of wind. It splashed and the loony turned around sharply. He broke into a weird cackle that drifted on the air like a kid’s paper plane, skimming and dipping and then disappearing. He went out of sight on the far side of a street light and became a part of the shadows. Where to now? Back home to nothing. A scene and explanations that would never ex¬ plain anything. They had married with the idea they would be together forever. But when did forever end? Today? Yesterday? When was it? Or was there more of it yet? He should do something, go somewhere. He felt foolish standing here. Go where? Home. Forever had 1 gone from home. He wanted to leave too. Another girl? For what? That same thing all over again. No, he would start moving and never stop. Now he was in the middle of nowhere, stopped in the middle of a bridge. Another bridge to cross. What was that ex¬ pression his mother used? Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them. And he was right in the middle of one. Why bother cross¬ ing? A cool breeze sprang up from nowhere. This was what the loony had meant by being warmer at home. He felt it along his hand, cool and a little damp. There was no human hand could ever equal the sensation. Just the wind and the water would ever have that effect. Only the wind was something that you had to wait for. The water was always waiting for you. Wonder how many people had gone in off this bridge? Making the fatal step. They hadn’t bothered to cross their bridges. He hadn’t heard of any from this bridge. Funny, such a good spot too. And the loony wanting a match. Maybe he had wanted to leap. Too bad he had come along and stopped him. He would have read about it in the papers next day and could have kidded Joan about it. Only she would have got mad at him. “Don’t you dare joke about such things.” That’s what she always said. Life was too serious to kid about death in that way. He lit a cigarette and tossed the match over the rail. It burned all the way down and he imagined he could hear psst as it hit the water. He dragged deeply and followed the smoke up with his eyes as it disappeared into the stars, then he followed the stars down into the water again. He was sure he had heard the match drop. He flicked the cigarette out and over and followed the red spark as it arched into the water. This time he heard a noise. The water seemed closer at night. The stars bobbing silently on the waves, bibbing, bobbing. Black water, rising and falling with his breath. Ris¬ ing and falling. Falling, falling, falling . . . “Got a match, bub? You seem to take a long time ...” “What? Who the hell? You . . . Here, take them all. I’m going home.” “Yes, it’s warmer there. I think I will go too. Now.” Page Nine