TRANS-LOBAL
Prarie Hoisters - Calgary
I step for my Haircut Anytime! into a brown any place maybe the first person
in forty years. The barber, no taller standing up from his own chair points,
"You read a lot of pork?"
I say, "Pork?"
"Yeh," he say, "You read pork." Steers me onto the cracked leather, grey capes me, tucks knuckles under my collar.
We establish English, Lebanese, agree a skin cut, my bristle joining the grey filings clogged in his clippers, I scuff where he missed a buzz above my ear. On the formica counter a black and white box TV, Musharraf deposes Sharif, a peace keeper lies dead in leafy Kosovo.
"They should never go in." He say, "They don't know the roos."
"Roos?"
"Roos."
I ask, "You been back to Beirut?"
"No, too damn heart." Fans himself. "And for you in England eh? All these grills."
"Grills?"
"Yeh, grills." He slaps a folded Globe and Mail across my knees, "Teenage pregnancies are concentrated in the North of England where joblessness, poverty and hopelessness are endemic."
He shrugs sympathy, shakes my dust from the cape, hands me my Chapters bag, "Enjoy your porks."
I pick up a Red Top, the driver over here three years from Pakistan, we trade Lahore driving stories: the rickshaw sandwich - one slice ox-cart, the other 4x4. Back at the Crow Trail Best Village Hotel, I search for a rupee tip, come up with dollars and sense.
Rocky Mountings - Banff
Banff could be Ilkley with bigger rocks if it weren't for old dears like Elke,
on the town with her sisters, high haunching, loping their fur-ringed bums down
Main Street, asking for it, stopping the traffic. Hot for trot. Born for horn.
Strutting for a rutting.
And Ilkley could be Banff were its springs sulphur, it pools lounge pools, steaming poools, lie back watching sun set over ice peaks pools, rather than o o o ice cold lunge out as fast as you plunge in pools.
Could be. If our rails ran right through and beyond the valley, freight slower than walking, longer than a stroll. Freight calling - not a whistle not a hooter not a klaxon nor Elke, deep in the woods - but a coming "you're welcome", passing "no rush", right through "back soon" blat. Far off inside us.