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Sunday, December 8, 1991 - North Shore News - 35

The helping hands of Christmas

THE HELPING Hands of Christmas is a tale of the season set in the
Lower Lonsdale area of North Vancouver in the late 1960s.

It was written and illustrated by David Jenneson, a North Shore
writer, and originally released as a small book by Pulp Press in 1973.

The North Shere News will be publishing this local Christmas story
in six parts on Sundays and Wednesdays from now until Christmas

Day.

ANDS. Six hands who made it away, got out
‘of the bag and are now free as sparrows, flee-
» ing through the air like six white-fingered bats,
"palms down and fingers spread, looking for a place to light

_-and thrive.

‘Hands, having been severed
from no wrist of crime or sacrifice
- and. leaving behind _ them no
stump, -hands with

_ of valentines...
Hands, quick, intelligent and
“swift. as arrows, free as swallows
- -/and-searching for a place to light
“and < dwell, palms turned. softly

“*;,,and. forall those. listeners,
“(his is: the radio up above the
. -fobacee ‘rack spéaking), who live

“alone and have written in to say
«how .rauch they enjoy this pro-
gram, we bring you this Christmas
poem... a7

And he sucked i in his breath and
began to recite this ‘long-lined
moratorium dedicated. to aging
gardeners everywhere, urging them
to’ forget those dirty flower pots,
pause: before the peach. preserve,
sip: a ‘glass of-cherry wine and
thank God for forget-me-nots...

—the.. waitress came up. “and

didn’t . remember I’ took coffee °
:“black;; so: ‘she. gave me. one. of.

. those-: little. diaper-shaped _ things
© full: of; “eream along with the eggs
and toast and stuff.

1 was living alone at the. time.

and -had:-walked down: the: few
blocks to come for breakfast. My

By David Jenneson
Contributing Writer

house, during that period, was a
kind of nutritionai Death Valley,
and this morning I'd woken up to
find change piled in a_ loose
mound beside my bed.-I looked
back at the change and my miad

. went: breakfast.

There wasn’t enough there for
anything else and there was just
enough for that.

There is joy to be found in this
circumstance. Flying directly back
in the face of my pgverty-line
lifestyle 1 would now wilfully
commit an economic indiscretion,
bacon and eggs, worth a small
fortune in terms of brown rice but
providing a short, cozy glimpse
into what it.must be like to have
money and live the way everyone
else seems able to.

Breakfast. They were closing
early that day but I knocked on
the glass. The cook opened the
door a crack and said, “What do
you want?”’

“Breakfast.”

“Oh,” he said, and Iet me in.

_I began that day in incredible
wealth, and when I'd finished,
(breakfast), and was walking back
up the snowy hill that leads to the
sea I still had enough left to buy

cigarettes and a paper.

There must've been rich
scrapin’s on the beer table the
night before. At that time my life
was organized into such units: 15
paid for % hours of the world’s
sad relations and 55 cents bought
29 little friends.

With my back to the boats I
climbed the hardtrack beaten
snow sidewatks and thought about
what I could do for myself for
Christmas.

All those about me had some-
thing to help them feel good
about it: a wife, a child, or some
money or a girlfriend that
everyone else really liked.

All I had was this battered little
shanty built somewhere around
the year 1905. It had few callers.

This is because it was a lonely
little house with only one. person
inside it and therefore not much
harmony to make its walls ring.

It does not follow of course
that this applies to all houses of
that station. But its shingles had =
already soaked: up gallons of

sadness before 1 even showed up, ;.

we

so mine didn’t change things
much. It merely sighed and settled
a bit more to the left, and shortly
after I arrived one of the front
steps coliapsed.

I had the paper and the smokes
though, so I knew I’d be all right
for a while.

1 walked through the living
room which was like 2 Warebouse
for the Blues, past my bedroom
where someone had ignited a
Sally-Ann Used Clothing bomb in
my absence, into the kitchen
which was like Dracula’s
Steakhouse, all the while avoiding
the pantry which no one entered
without: a miner’s helmet and a
case of beer.

This is the procedure that will
almost always accompany those
who live alone when they come
home.

Somewhere in. the dim

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“WITH MY back to the boats | climbed the hardtrack beaten, -_ oo

snow sidewaik...”"

backbrain cradles the vague hope
that just for once everything

won't be exactly the same as they .

left it. For-if all is in the same
State as when they left, then pretty
soon: they will be in the same state
as when they left, and that’s ex-
actly what they left to get away

\_ from.

poe

Sometimes they hope - some.
body’s lit the fireplace. Sometime: _
they hope they’ve been in love for"
10 months ‘now,

the next door. ”.
See more page 38

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