There was a snowstorm on Labour Day—the third of the 311 days that would comprise his stint as writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library—which he hoped in vain the natives of Regina would assure him was anomalous or would seem even slightly disconcerted by.
Being a Newfoundlander, he thought of a familiar phrase that made him disinclined to even remark upon the occurrence of a snowstorm fifteen days before the end of summer: “People in glass houses should not throw stones.”
They found him an inexpensive basement apartment within walking distance of the library. They searched their attics and basements for pieces of furniture which they no longer used but which were still serviceable and saved him the bother and expense of buying his own.
One writer, whom he never saw again after their initial transaction, asked him, “Do you have your own brick or would you like me to get one for you?” To which he responded that he neither had a brick nor was able to think of why he might be thought to need one.
The writer came to his library office the next day bearing a red clay brick, assured him that, in ways that he did not have time to explain and which in any case a newcomer might not believe, it would prove useful, then left.
He took the brick home with him and put it in his closet.
Not until mid-winter did he discover its purpose. By then, the nights were so cold that not even by plugging one’s car into a block heater could one ensure that it would start in the morning, a problem that was easily solved by keeping one’s car running all night long by placing a brick on the gas pedal. On the coldest nights, the cars in the parking lot of his apartment building idled from eight at night to seven in the morning, row upon row of them with plumes of exhaust rising up like smoke from chimneys, engines running, windows opaque with frost.
But he decided that to keep his car running all night long, night after night, was, given the proximity of his workplace, more trouble than it was worth.
Comments