TWO
COLLEGE
PUS
The heartbreak, the sudden-onset penile hypertrophy, the fire, the trial, the community service—this was, for the moment at least, the last straw.
Milton gave up all hope of becoming a poet, of getting laid, of becoming someone who was somebody who did something. He quit listening to Leonard Cohen. He quit clackity-clacking under his bed. He resigned himself to his fate: a faceless, nameless nobody somewhere out in the Alberta Oil Patch. Like everybody else.
So, as every person younger than his parents who lived in a town smaller than Moose Jaw has had to do since even the worst job started requiring a degree or a diploma, Milton packed his everything and moved to the city to enrol in the Instrumentation Diploma program at the Polytechnic University of Saskatchewan’s Moose Jaw campus.
He had no real interest in instrumentation. He didn’t even know what it was. Just that his Uncle Ronnie was “making good money” in the oil patch as an instrumentation technician “fucking the dog all day for journeyman wages,” according to his father.7
Instrumentation—the installation and maintenance of the precision instruments used in the oil and gas industry to measure production and control various processes—he discovered, was dreadfully dull.
It was the refuge of broken-down has-been junior hockey players with their lips full of chewing tobacco, forever spitting brown globs of ‘snus’ or ‘chaw’ into empty Gatorade bottles, and one never-was poet who’d given up on his dreams and resigned himself to his Oil Patch fate.
Milton’s classes were all taught by retired instrument men—they were all men—with moustaches, ball caps, and steel-toed boots, whose teaching styles fell somewhere on the spectrum between comatose and root canal.
Every day, from 9:00 to 5:00 with two 15-minute “smoke breaks,” and 45 minutes for lunch, Milton would sit in a white cinderblock and linoleum classroom and try to stay awake through the drone of Larry the Has-Been Flin Flon Bomber turned Has-Been Instrument Man reading word-for-word out of the text book.
Milton’s college life became very monastic: studious, silent, celibate, dreadfully tedious, obsessed with an unrequited high-school love, and religiously jerking off into an old sock several times per day.
Each day after class, Milton would go to the PUS library to do his homework, then go home to his “apartment”—a windowless bedroom in a basement with a microwave and mini-fridge—and eat a frozen dinner in front of whatever was on the two channels he sort of got through the tinfoil bunny ears he’d jammed into the back of an antique 12-inch TV until it was time to go to work.
He had landed a part-time nighttime shelf-stocking gig at Farmtime, the Walmart of Saskatchewan farm stores. He’d work four nights per week from when the store closed at 9:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., stocking shelves with a deaf-mute ex-con named Charlie. Then back to his basement studio apartment to watch infomercials until he fell asleep.
. . .
The Boys
Milton did his best to stick to his involuntary vow of friendless, celibate silence. But after the mid-term exam the entire class—“No exceptions, you assholes”—went to the campus bar, Gassy’s, for beers; Milton didn’t have a choice.
He ended up as one of eight wedged around a corner booth meant for five—six, tops—silently sipping cheap beer and staring over one another’s ball caps at different TVs playing the LPGA Idaho Potato Insurance Invitational from Spokane, Washington, on GolfTV with the sound off and the black closed-caption boxes covering the lower third of the screen.
After about an hour, with only nods, “welps,” and oneway trips to the pisser, the group had dwindled to a threesome. The three of them—Milton, who desperately wanted to go home but was stuck in the corner, and two dudes in ball caps—sat in silence for a long while, half-watching golf over one another’s heads.
“You boys from here?”
“I’m from Bellybutton.”
“Where in the feck is that?”
“By Diefenbaker Lake.”
“Ah. Right on, man.”
They all returned to watching golf, until a commercial.
“I’m from Mantario.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a fecking hole, man, just south of Alsask.”
“Right on. Man.”
Milton and Ball Cap 1 both waited for Ball Cap 2 to say something, anything. He didn’t. He just silently sipped his beer, eyes glued on the TV over Milton’s head.
“Who you boys like for the cup this year?”
“I dunno, the Habs look good.”
“…”
“Yeah. If they get Koivu back.”
“…”
“You guys play?”
“Uh… I did… A bit. You?”
“Yeah, five years in the ess-jay8 for seven teams: La Ronge, Melfort—that place blows, feck me!—Kindersley, Estevan, Weyburn, Melville—not much better than Melfort! Feck that place too!—and then Yorkton, but luckily not Flin Flon, that place is the fecking moon, man!”
“Cool. That’s pretty good.”
“Not really. I shoulda got a scholly,9 but I got fecked.”
“Like hurt?”
“Nah, like a bunch of things. Coaches and shit.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, man. Like, I fecked the coach’s daughter in Melville, eh. And he gets all pissy about it. Like, what did he expect to happen? She was a smoke show. And it’s not like I knocked ’er up or anything! Jesus! But the asshole trades me to feckin’ Yorkton in my overage year for a feckin’ space heater for the dressing room. We won three games all year, man. I led the team in PIMs,10 and was third on the team in apples,11 but I got fecked… Where’d you play?”
“Uh… Nowhere, really. Just Midget last year.”
“Midget trips?”12
“Uh… I guess. I went to camp in Battleford, but… uh… hurt my… um… shoulder.”13
“Shitty… What about you, boss? You play?”
“…”
“Chatty one, aren’t yah?”
“…”
Milton shrugged.
They sat sipping their beers and watching golf for a long while. Finally, Ball Cap 2 spoke, without taking his eyes off the TV.
“I did a few years in PA in the dub and then got dumped in the ay-jay after I got suspended for pitching my lid at some donkey in Swift. Got a few games in Boise in the Coast in ’93. Bitzy Federko was my D-partner, Bernie’s nephew. I was a plug though, better at drinkin’ and screwin’. So, I’ve done that and a lot of blow for the last 15 years loadin’ shit at a feedlot in Meddy Hat. But now I’m 37, got three kids with three broads, time to grow up, I guess, quit drinkin’, make some real money.”14
With that he downed the last half of his beer, belched, slammed his hand on the table, nodded at Milton and Ball Cap 1, and left.
Ball Cap 1 and Milton stared into the bottom of their empty beer glasses for a long time before leaving. Milton walked to the library, in the cold, and looked up the 1993 Boise Noise on hockeystats.com.
. . .
A Poet’s Heart
The night out with the boys was never repeated. Milton stuck to the school-work-school-work-repeat for as long as he could stand it, but couldn’t bear it much past the end of January.
He had cultivated a poet’s heart. And a poet’s heart, he decided, could not be satiated by the drudgery of thermal expansion coefficients or PID action pneumatic controller functions.
He stopped going to class, started reading books by Bukowski and Kerouac and Hemingway, skipped the Instrumentation final exam, and didn’t take a summer apprenticeship placement in the Oil Patch like he was supposed to.
He started writing poetry again. He read more of the classics. He convinced himself that he wasn’t meant to be an Instrument Man. He was meant to be a poet. An artist. He was meant to carry the mantle for Bukowski and Ginsberg. For Leonard Freaking Cohen.
The more he read, the more he began to think he might be one of these men. These great men. These men who’ve swallowed all the unfairness of the world—the unfairness of being unloved and unappreciated and miscast—and turned all that pain into righteous indignation and rage. Into beautiful fever-dream novels that made Milton feel at home in the world for the first time. These men. These beautiful, great men. These heroes. These martyrs. These brightest minds of their generations. Died so that Milton might live. Lived so that Milton might too. That Milton might live forever, like them.
He was ready to fulfill this destiny. But first, he had to convince his parents of his impending immortality.
They would absolutely shit if they found out Milton wanted to drop out and be a poet.
He headed home for the summer to work at Uncle Randy’s Farm Supply and try and talk his parents into lending him enough money to move somewhere better and help him get started on a career in poetry.
“Poetry? Poetry! There ain’t no money in poetry! That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Poetry! Finish school and get a job. Poetry? Instrumentation is a good job. Your Uncle Ronnie makes good money at it. He fucks the dog all day and drives a new truck every year.”
“Ronnie drives a new truck every year, hon, because he writes them off drunk driving all the time.”
“Well, at least he can afford it.”
No amount of begging, pleading, research into earning potential of poets—which, at the highest end of the spectrum on pickyourjob.com, was quite a bit less than first year instrumentation apprentice—no amount of anything could help his parents see the light. But they didn’t protest too loudly when Milton mentioned changing his program as he got out of the car the next September when they dropped him back off at PUS.
“We’re worried about you, hon. We don’t want you turning into a deadbeat like your Uncle Jeff.”
“Just get out.”
Each summer played out the same as the first. Milton would start a new program in the Fall, hate it, come home in the Spring wanting to drop out entirely and go be a poet somewhere, anywhere. His parents would insist he continue, he’d enrol in a new program, and on and on.
He tried instrumentation, welding, pipefitting, carpentry, and a brief flirtation with electrical before finding a program he could stomach in his fifth year: Artistic Sciences.
. . .
Artistic Sciences
The Artistic Sciences was an altogether made-up discipline that PUS administration concocted to “tap a lucrative market for students who eschew stable careers in favour of mislaid conceptions of illusory personal ‘fulfillment’,” according to a secret internal memo turned over to the Moose Jaw Times Herald through a Freedom of Information request as part of a sweeping investigation into the bankruptcy of PUS years later.
Thanks to Milton’s four year tour through the trades, he only needed to complete the final course: ARTSCI1000: Applied Arts Sciences.
Semi-retired millwright Instructor Mr. Moustache Ball Cap Steel-Toed Boots led a class of misfit toys through such topics as theatre-set framing and wiring, sculpting with pipe, live figure AutoCAD drafting, and a final self-directed project.
Milton’s final project was a book of semi-lewd poems entitled O, AD. A clever secret reference to the hollowness of his heart without Ashley D. in it.
0, AD was 536 pages long. Milton sent it away to be leather-bound at a specialty book bindery in Iceland. Sorglegt Poka LLC from Reykjavík had pioneered a method of compressing many types of organic fibers into a kind of synthetic suede that could be used for things like book covers. Milton paid $1,200—every last cent he had—to have them turn thin slices of dehydrated reindeer heart into a lavishly plush book cover with the title and his name, albeit misspelled and a minimalist sketch of the Mona Lisa embossed in gold on the cover.
His masterpiece contained poems such as the eponymous “O, AD,” which contained lines like:
woe woe is the heart
that does not start
to break so fast
because it was consumed as breakfast
woe woe is the heart
that does not mark
the passing of time
because it does not have a dime
woe woe is the heart
that cannot part
because it has no past
only eyes for that ass15
Milton poured his heart into the project. He was sure it was going to get an A+, and Mr. Moustache Ball Cap Steel-Toed Boots would send a copy immediately to his cousin at Random House in New York, and O, AD would become an instant smash hit bestseller, and he would return to Bellybutton richer than a first-year instrumentation apprentice, and his parents would apologize and tell him how wrong they were to doubt him, and he’d be made the Marshall of the Chaff Days Parade, and as the parade pulled back into the Legion parking lot after its three-block lap around town, he would see Ashley D. in a sundress squinting into the light reflected off the pristine green paint of the John Deere S700 combine they let the Marshall drive in the parade each year, and he would hop down from the climate-controlled, surround-sound-with-satellite-radio cab and take her by the hand and run off to the shore of Diefenbaker Lake and he would give her the reindeer heart bound original O, AD, and she would swoon and they’d make love right there on shore.
He was sure of all of this. Well most of it. He wasn’t sure if there was a new S-series combine out this year or not, but if there was, Central Butte Machine would provide the newest model to the Parade Marshall. Other than that, he was sure of every last detail.
But, Mr. Moustache Ball Cap Steel-Toed Boots wasn’t a connoisseur of poetry and didn’t even have a cousin at Random House. His criteria for grading final projects was “potential financial value” and “employable skills exhibited.” So, when Milton got his priceless final project back, there was a giant “D-” scratched in red Sharpie on the inside cover with the comment:
Poetry is a dead medium that has long been surpassed by newer stuff like TV and videos. A quick search of the Google shows that the few poetry books that still get made don’t make any money at all, and that poets usually die poor and by suicide. These poems, or at least the first 30 I got through, are all so sad, and not very good, and you seem to be obsessed with some guy named Andy. Overall, this is worthless art, you’ve shown little employable skills. This would have been a fail, but for the fine leather work on the cover, might I suggest changing to our leather work program, here is a brochure.
. . .
The Graduate
Milton’s parent’s drove down for Milton’s graduation ceremony and, mostly, to take him back to Bellybutton. The celebration only lasted until they were out of the parking lot.
“Do you have a job lined up yet?”
“Not yet. Maybe Randy’s for now.”
“I ran into Karen the other day at the post-office.”
“Randy’s? You went to school for five years to stock shelves at Randy’s?”
“She said Roger has the gout pretty bad.”
“Should’ve stayed with instrumentation.”
“I told Karen that Roger needs to get off the sweets. They’re just so bad for you.”
“Good money in it.”
“It’s so bad Karen wasn’t sure he’d be able to go up to Edmonton this weekend.”
“Remember Tiny Schmautz’s boy, Teeny from hockey? Could barely lick his lips?”
“Ashley is graduating from medical school.”
“He finished his instrumentation three friggin’ years ago, he’s working in Fort Mac, fucks the dog all day for $65 an hour.”
“Hon, I wish you wouldn’t curse so much in front of him.”
“What’d I say?”
“The… the thing about dogs.”
“Fucking the dog? That’s what they call it.”
“Call what?”
“Sitting around… fucking the dog! It’s a technical term.”
“It’s just so crude.”
“That’s $65 an hour straight time, Milt.”
“Karen said Ashley finished a year early too.”
“You’d get time-and-a-half overtime on top of that.”
“They are just so proud of her.”
“Tiny says Teeny makes $100 an hour working overtime. And when he’s up north he’s only working in the camps.”
“Not that your father and I aren’t proud of you.”
“That’s 10 times what Randy will ever pay you.”
“We know you worked really hard on your arts diploma.”
“Worked hard? He took five years to get an arts diploma!”
“You could have gone to medical school, hon. If you just applied yourself more.”
“He didn’t have the grades for that, mother.”
“I sure hope Roger’s gout clears up soon.”
“It’s probably not too late to finish the instrumentation. It’s good money”
“With the wedding coming up. He’ll want to walk her down the aisle.”
“Wait, what?”
“I said you should have stuck with instrumentation, like Teeny Schmautz.”
“No, the other part.”
“Roger’s gout?”
“No, no. A wedding?”
“Oh yes. They’re planning on getting married in the fall back home, it’s so pretty by the lake in the fall, just after harvest. Everyone in town is just so excited.”
“Maybe you can get your ticket quicker because you got a five-year head start.”
“Who’s getting married?”
“Ashley and some doctor fellow from Edmonton.”
“Ashley D.?”
“Yes, hon. She brought him home to Chaff Days this year. Really handsome, tall fellow. Seemed nice.”
“Good money in instrumentation.”
“They’re a cute couple. They even let him drive the new S800 in the parade, to sort of initiate him into the community.”
“You should see them new S800s!”
“He said it was just like driving his BMW. Oh, did we laugh at that.”
“They’ve got a hydrostatic clutch, supposed to last 10,000 hours.”
“Do you remember his name, hon?”
“Who’s that? Tiny Schmautz?”
“No, the Dukowski girl’s fellow. They had him driving the S800 in the parade there.”
“That fella couldn’t drive a hot stick through fresh snow, had the hydrostat smoking all the way down main street.”
“He was a real nice fellow.”
“That Dukowski girl wouldn’t be hanging around that skinny doctor fella if he wasn’t loaded.”
“Anyway, I’m sure you’ll think of something, hon.”
“He’s had five years to think. He needs a job.”
“You could have gone to medical school, hon. If you just applied yourself more.”
“He should have stuck with instrumentation. $100 an hour to fuck the dog.”
“Oh my, hon, are you all right? Pull over, hon, Milty’s carsick, poor thing.”
“I’m not pulling over. We’re making good time.”
“What’s wrong, hon? Are you going to puke? Hon, I think he’s going to puke.”
“He’s not going to puke. This is the flattest, straightest road on earth. He’s not carsick. He’s fine.”
“He doesn’t look fine.”
Milton’s mom rummaged through a pile of trash on the floor of the back seat of the car and found half a bottle of old Diet Coke.
“Here, drink this, hon. There’s no water.”
“I’m fine. I just need some air.”
Milton opened the window next to his head. The fresh air helped, but it also picked up about 200 poems worth of loose papers he had in an open box and sucked them out of the car.
“Oh Milty, your art! Hon, pull over, Milty’s art?”
“That ain’t art, it’s just a bunch of paper. It’ll biodegrade, he’s fine.”
Milton decided that second, in the back of that car, to make it his sole purpose in life to get to Montreal as soon as he could.
He got his old job back at Uncle Randy’s. But, Uncle Randy would only ever give him two- or three-hour shifts at a time, and refused to pay him the actual minimum wage and instead paid him $5 per hour in cash—“the tax man would take more than that anyway”—so it took a while for Milton to get enough to get away.
Within six months, the week before Ashley D. got hitched to Dr. Jerkface McClutchsmoke on the shores of Lake Diefenbaker, Milton hitched a ride to Regina with “One-eyed” Rick, the local courier who ran freight for several farm-supply stores along Highway 42. There he used 35 five-dollar bills (Uncle Randy took the $5/hour cash very literally) to buy a one-way bus ticket to Montreal.
