Thank You for being you, Bud.

Friends ...I've had 'em

CATHY JONES·MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2018

Perry was my boyfriend in 1979 when  I lived in Kitsilano, bright and rainy days I  rode my bike across the Burrard Bridge to swim at the Aquatic Centre , and to sit alone with an Earl Grey tea at the Stanley Park Cafe. I  lived on Unemployment Insurance from a stage show I’d done with Codco that ended us up here, and I had  decided to stay. I bought a cheap  car so I could drive  out to the country to visit Grr Sexton in Kent, Mission and Matsqui prisons  and    bring him a delicious salad and slip him a nickel of hash- how else is a second stringer gonna get a kiss?. My beat was 4th Street West ..Lifestream, Theodora’s  Naam and Banyen Books ( or was that on 9th?) I lived with a couple of amazing Social Workers  in a building on 2nd and Yew . I met cool people. I met Perry. It was  good to be so far from St. John’s. The asthma I’d had since my Mom died when I was 22 dropped away.  You can breathe out here.  I think that’s what made Perry love it too. Because he had a Montreal heart and a body made for the freedom of this gorgeous mountainside Pacific coast city. Touching down in Vancouver today I was met at the airport by Perry’s friends Stephen and Susan. Oh no.  While I was  flying across the country to show him my heart one last time Perry had died.  Perry! One of maybe  17 people on earth  I was crazy comfortable with. Perry. One of those “ your favourite shirt” type guys. Perry the Posterman! Hockey player, passionate people person, open hearted father, good to the last drop. The funny full hearted warrior of what’s good. His machine said “go ahead Caller, you are on the line!”He called me “Vave” ( “Babe” when you're smiling too much ) Oh Per.  One of those people you could just BE with.  Just be. No expectations, no suggestions for a better diet, no big trips, just a spark of what’s good in humans burning like a flame. Perry. Beautiful,Handsome. A push pin heart on a mental map of  the West coast. And now the flame was out.  Still warm where he lay no doubt. Hearts in his daughters still beating. Friends with memories. ..Beatles on Ed Sullivan, man on moon, Perry in our lives.  Lou Gehrig you bastard! (note to an increasingly confused and literal readership-(note- within -a -note to the literal, confused and bordering- on-humourless “readership”-the Author knows there is no “readership”!}-I know it wasn't Lou  who invented the disease.

Perry had  gone down so damn fast. He didn't even have to deal with calling in the suicide squad. Oh! this painful , difficult life. What do we have to cling to?   GOOD PEOPLE?! yes. Good people . That’s it.  And nature. Good, good people,(* all children) Nature , and chocolate. That’s it. Ok good good people, nature, chocolate and sex. For me, and for a bunch of us- people like Perry. One of the  good tent pegs on a crazy campground full of wild winds.  So.. here I am on the West coast, far far from home, in a house, by myself. (“alone again naturally”)

So why am I not “just  sitting” in  this great (free, generously offered for the duration ) house, sending messages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead on “what to do in the Bardo”  to my good friend P? Because my neurosis makes me have to make a spot to relax in FIRST. I can’t relax in dirt, and this house is wildly dirty. So, sorry P, you’ll have to figure out  life without a body on your own for a couple hours because I gotta flush  the scum of a hundred baths out of the  jets of this tub with hot water, white vinegar and baking soda (three fillings!) ( hang on Perry!) I’ll be right there!  Look,I know I  shouldn't go there, but ohhh!  what’s under the bed! oh oh! ... oh oh !  the mattress !!! Holy skin-crawl Batman- is this a happy couple’s bed  I see before me or the stains of the sweat of a thousand drunk tanks ? Hopefully some pre-deceased relative can hang with Perry  while I just  vacuum out the batting buttons which are literally  filled to the little brim  with dirt. Maybe you can just  recognize the true nature of your mind, Bud,   while I find out where the dump is , hire a truck, dump their mattress , find the Ikea, get them a new mattress  haul it up the stairs...hey-  cheaper than staying  at a hotel for one night, right?   THINKING.

  Ya dont have to tell me  I am crazy neurotic Per,  I get it.

This place is cleaner now, and I got thru a night in the bed , S0, now I’m  going to turn off spotify, fold up this ‘puter and sit with good posture and speak to you softly,  because the newly dead , while their sense of smell is gone, can hear you very clearly.

I will say  Oh Perry,  Son of Noble Family , now the basic luminosity is shining upon you, your state of mind is by nature pure emptiness... I loved you, you are good, nothing to regret...you will be ok. and..   Thank You.I am not a Greif Councillor