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Andrew McCredie . Layne Christensen

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“WHAT’S A nice guard like me doing
in a dirty business like poetry?’’ J. |
_Michael Yates asks in the intro of Line |
Screw, his 1993 best-selling tragi-comic

“memoir of “twelve riotous years work- |

ing behind bars in some of Canada’ Ss

toughest jails?”

The reversed logic of the ques-
* tion is typical of Yates’ mischievous
“brand of humor. The implication that
he’s just some respectably dysfunc-
tional prison guard, a““line screw".
with literary pretensions, is Yates
indulging his lifelong love for self-
mocking pranks. +:

In 1978, J. Michael Yates was 40-

. years-old and had it made in the hot-
house shade of Canadian literature.

The Missouri-born writer had a suc-"
cessful academic career, including a:
~Stint at UBC editing the prestigious
"Prism Intemational magazine,
founded a publishing house, Sono -.
” Nis Press, published critically ©. ;
_acclaimed cutting-edge experimental
poetry, plays and fiction, and had recently been
“appointed B.C. head of Public Relations and
Promotion for the CBC.

“Twas making almost. 100 grand a year, big
money in ‘78,” he chuckles in the mercifully air-

"conditioned upstairs study of his home in

{BIG BAND DANCE]

* Screw.

«Squamish, where he’s lived since 1989. ‘I had a
- huge office, two secretaries, an outrageous salary,

and did little day after day.” he admits in Line

Then, in the middle of a Kitsilano afternoon,
‘his car was rear-ended so hard it slammed into the
old Mercedes ahead. -

Briefly unconscious, Yates awoke feeling won-

, _.derful, bounding from the car to hand out his busi-

Jess cards and assure all‘concemed the situation
“was under control. The woman in the Mercedes
“was actress Nicola Cavendish, who had starred in
~ several of Yates’ plays, and did not understand
why her friend Mike kept thrusting cards at her
and grinning “like a mule eating briars”, He did
not recognize her.

Later came pain, so excruciating he had to.
resort to weird confi igurations of recliners, drafting
tables and C-clamped typewriters in order to write -
at all, but what he wrote was mostly gibberish:
“‘deficits in his memory were as... 26%.

- unpredictable and Jormenting as the ©.
-onset of Alzheimer’s disease, By ,
1981, his wife, no longer able to live.
_with the “wounded animal” he ‘had ‘’
become, had pulled the plug and he *

‘was alone, living in an apartment.
:-overlooking North Vancouver's:

~~ featuring the very popular

| STARDUST ORCHESTRA

Friday, July 28.
8:30pm - 12:30am ~
: Admission $10.° Bar
vee" Dress Code oe
‘EAGLES HALL
170 West ards St.
939- SELLE

_ regards the book as ‘an aberration”:

-dohn

| spotlight

feature

Victoria Park, still
unsure of his ability to think or remember but
pleased to have. passed the permit exams to
become a taxi driver. Then a friend told him they
were hiring guards at Oakalla. He applicd, was
accepted and went to prison for twelve years.

In Line Screw he observes that the guards, the

“front line” screws, (the ones who actually have to -.

interact with the inmates), often do more time
than the cons and can only survive by achieving
and maintaining a delicate unspoken social one.
tract with their charges —.a role that often | pics
both inmate and guard against the inhuman ~
machinations of the bureaucracy of Corrections.

Though the book’s adrenaline-nish blend of
black huimour‘and tragic dfama’sold well, Yates
back of my mind that Id write ‘a memoir about ~
my prison experiences some day, then a friend
pointed out that the cons and guards it might help
would be Jong gone if I waited.”

Learning the Department of Corrections drill
renewed his confidence in his ability to remember
and lear, and as early as 1983 he had rediscov-
ered his relentlessly experimental voice in Fuguue
Brancusi. He makes no apology for the “diffi cul-
ty” of what he re regards as his real work: “AS a

Friday, Saturday & Sunday :
|. Back by Popular Demand :
arren Lee"
“performs

Blin Line

Rated -
#1 Elvis Impersonator

. Sponsored by the
Graceland Estate

It was in the «.

_Sowriter, I feet you have an obligation to add s some-
-», thing to the form, not just keep cranking out the ©

same pseudo-realist stuff that hasn't changed since ;
Zola" ’
That rigorous self-criticism extends even to
refusing to repeat an experiment that has already .
Worked: “A publisher in the States wanted a _
‘sequel’ to Canticle For Electronic Music, | started

it. but quickly realized it was just going to be .

“more of the same’. so I burned jit. (The publisher)
was furious. I've burned several books I could've .
published, and I’ve published books | probably -
should have burned,” he.adds with a wry chuckle.
At 57, J. Michael Yates remains as mercurial
and stubbornly unique as ever. Friends who
expected him to’quit Corrections when he recov-
ered his creative powers in/ 1983 were surprised
when he stayed behind bars for another decade. »
“Pd had the big job, the big money, the sup-
posedly ‘safe’ life and I'd seen first hand how ;
fragile all of it really i is.” he reflects. “And the law.
the : society of prison, had become a kind of new
lens through which to look at the history of ideas...
Paroled by a serious back injury several years
ago (not vielence related), he retains his impish“

See Ex-prison guard Page 19

(S‘wmmer

in the North Vancouver District Libraries:

Did you know that the library is a registered charity?

The District Library has received a bequest of more than
$20,000 from the estate of Mrs.’Georgena Scott, a
fongtime Capilano Branch patron. Such thoughtful gifts
benefit the whole community: the Library Board -is
considering how best to use this bequest. for materials
and equipment to enhance library service to all patrons. .

"The generosity ‘of the Mount _ Seymour Lions has

“recently made possible, the purchase of a’ computer with

a large print monitor for the’ Parkgate ‘Branch: This

enables large print readers and others with low vision to

use the library's on-line catalogue. For more information

On special services for elderly or handicapped readers,
“please contact Bette C Cannings: 929- 3727.

More that 2000 District children j are © enrolled” in the:

: Flights of Fantasy Summer Reading. Club.:The kids

earn prizes and certificates for, reading daily. Summer

-. Storytimes and ‘Reading: Club programmes for

children are also i in full swing | in. all branches. ‘Cail for:

et details: ;
“CAPILANO BRANCIL

me 987-4471

- ARKGATE : BRANCIE
. 929- 3727

« a

“LYNN: Valuey Brancn
984-0286