Page 128 - Exile-ebook

128 AN EXILE OF THE MIND MAGGIE, THE FLOWER CHILD 129

Maggie, the flower child

Trudeaumania in Toronto. Arrested in US. Down Mexico way.
Two girls, two hitch-hikers and a Bambino Fiat.
Chased for my blood. Bernie and the baker’s daughter.

triding along Robson Street under a purple, darkening sky
Swith my worldly goods on my back, I jingled the last 19 cents in
my pocket. Further along I bumped into a large Irishman draped
over a gate. Behind him stood a tired-looking rooming house,
one of several along Robsonstrasse as it was known in the sixties.
Seamus, a big man with a broad Irish accent and a nose flattened
sideways by a heavy fist, crunched my fingers in a handshake when
he detected a trace of Kiwi accent.
Seamus had sweated part of his life on sugar plantations under
a hot Queensland sun. He offered me a room on the third floor, a
self-contained attic with a view of the harbour from a small window
the size of a tea towel. With a monthly rent of $55 and electricity
thrown in, I jumped at the chance and cheekily offered my 19
cents as deposit. I think my lucky bush jacket had an influence.
The army jacket I acquired when walking in jungle circles. I had no
qualms about having no money. I was riding the crest of a wave as
everything seemed to fall in place.
The next day I got a job as janitor mopping floors and brushing
marijuana ash from seats at the Centre for the Arts at Simon
Fraser University. A newly-built concrete blot on the landscape
nestled amongst Burnaby’s forested hills. Within weeks my career
catapulted to Instructional Specialist in Fine Arts. Influenced
no doubt by the hotbed of conflicts and chaos that set students,

Log cabin north of Vancouver, British Columbia.