Tuesday, February 7th, 2012...6:55 pm
My Friend Is A Man Of Controversy
I was at the Library yesterday when I noticed my friend Wayne’s newest book in the recommended section.
Just one copy.
No, no, I thought. I had just finished the dumpiest turd of a screech, Lynn Coady’s “The Antagonist”, a squeaky fart of a novel that wouldn’t be published anywhere else in the world, let alone win awards.
My friend, I decreed, needs help. He needs controversy.
I grabbed the copy of the book and marched over to the librarian, determined to ensure she would never neglect my friend Wayne again.
Excuse me, I said.
Yes, she replied, somewhat warily.
This man, this Wayne, why, he lives in the neighbourhood and – I was after controversy – and he, I leaned in real close, he goes around telling the elderly that Shania Twain is a whore.
The librarian seemed suitably horrified as she backed away from the desk.
He tells the homeless that Chris Pronger is a virgin. Tells children that Stephan Harper is a vegetarian. Tells drunk feminists that Sarah McLachlan hates cats, that Anne Murray doesn’t watch golf.
Huh? she managed.
Why, yes I replied, he lives in Mount Pleasant cemetery. He sleeps in crypts and buries all the money he makes beside unmarked graves. He sneaks into deli’s to steal paper bags, then writes novels on them with chalky gravel.
The librarian was speechless.
To publish he tosses stacks of those brown bags in the back of a cab and has them delivered to his editor. She, I declared indignantly, has to sort through them.
He is, I concluded, a man consumed by evil eccentricities and a man of continuous, bloated controversy.
Thank you, she stammered as I marched triumphantly out of the Northern District branch.
What I will do for a friend.
***
Bizarrely, I returned to the library today and found every copy of Wayne’s book removed. I was about to talk to a stocky, butch librarian when I noticed a freshly minted button adorning her denim Levi shirt; Sarah Loves Pussy, it said, and I left and went home.
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