Just a Kid: Gary Carter (1954 – 2012)

Posted on February 17, 2012

I’ve been spending a lot of time of late thinking about my childhood. Not quite sure why. Maybe because I’ve finally realized I’m not 25 anymore after trying to celebrate that birthday for a straight decade with mixed results. Maybe because after leaving Montreal, a city I love, but a city hard to grow out of, I’m considering growing up. Maybe because I’ve been spending a lot of time with my sister’s kids, ages 3 and 5, and I’ve been blessed with quiet fragments of flashbacks, brought on by eating hot dogs with regularity, watching Mary Poppins without the cynical tones of hipster irony, and marveling in their fascination and affection for wonder. But as you get older, you find that nothing takes you back to childhood with such humility and pause as when a hero of that time is suddenly gone. Gary Carter, major league catcher, World Series champion, Hall of Famer, hero to many, the Kid, died yesterday of brain cancer at the age of 57. He will be missed.

I despise the word hero. Like love or soul, its overuse has robbed it of its meaning, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in sport. Our cultural landscape is bereft of true heroes, instead dotted in false idols born of contrivance and vanity. But when I was a kid, I had Gary Carter to look up to. By the time I fell in love with baseball, and in turn the Montreal Expos, Gary Carter had already been traded to the rival New York Mets. But through the genius of baseball cards and back issues of Sports Illustrated I was able to discover the magic that was The Kid. He was well known for his effervescent smile, which he wore in every photo I found. Through the gift of imagination and statistics, I knew that Carter was special, and that as a former Montreal Expo he was one of ours, he belonged to me.

Gary Carter was a throwback. He wore a flapless batting helmet. His uniform was dirty before the national anthems had sung their last note. He chewed bubble gum. He ran hard on every ground ball, legged out every extra base hit, tracked every foul pop until it found his glove or the stands, a style that early in his career earned him the nickname Kid sarcastically, but which as a 10-year-old fan you mercifully don’t understand. He played every inning just like we did on the weekends on gravel diamonds, in backyards as the summer light gave way to the first pitch, and in our hopeful imaginations as Dave Van Horne’s radio call gave way to sleep. Gary Carter played every inning just like we dreamt we would, if only given the chance, if only blessed with his talent.

Before twenty-four hour coverage of sport, before online forums for rumour and conjecture, before PEDs and ball players before congress, there were baseball cards. They told us the story of a player, and what wasn’t there in statistics and random factoids we filled in with our imaginations. And you could tell that Gary Carter loved baseball, the way the adult me would discover he loved his wife, and his three kids, and God. I remember the 1986 World Series not for the now infamous Bill Buckner error, but rather for a scrappy catcher with a huge smile who refused to let his team lose. It was Carter’s single that started the rally that would eventually score Ray Knight on Buckner’s legendary gaffe. And my lasting image of the ’86 series has always been, and will always be, Carter, like the perennial 10-year-old he was, charging out to the mound and jumping into Jesse Orosco’s arms, just like we did when we dreamt a championship moment playing in neighbourhood parks, on backyard diamonds, and in our imaginations.

It’s strange to look back at that ’86 team as an adult, with the curse of knowledge and cynicism of age. That team was filled with rough characters, miscreants and addicts, bastards. Lenny Dykstra used steroids and stole from friends and family. Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden struggled with cocaine and ego. I know now that Carter was the antithesis to rest of the clubhouse, a clean living religious man who famously told reporters he would bring his wife on road trips if he could, while the rest of the roster treated those trips like bachelor parties in Vegas, reveling in both their fame and wealth. And in that manner, Carter kept the nickname Kid, and as an adult armed with this knowledge, it’s interesting to look back and consider that despite their differences, despite the opposite manners in which they approached the game, approached life, they all loved Kid. Because above everything, he played hard, he played to win, and he was a better, more complete, more competitive player than all of them. And he led them to a world championship, and in sport victory is the great equalizer.

The 1986 Mets may have been one of the best teams ever, but what Carter’s teammates lacked, and what defined Carter, would eventually lead to their downfall. On a team that won 108 games, that won the World Series, that boasted Gooden, and Dykstra, and Strawberry, and Howard Johnson, Carter would be the only one who would eventually make it to the Hall of Fame. And when he did, he entered the Hall in a Montreal Expos cap, the first player to do so. As a lifelong Expos fan, as someone who took a long time to return to baseball after Nos Amours were moved to Washington, this was a moment, a redemption. Many Canadian baseball fans’ defining moment is when Joe Carter hit a homerun to win the 1993 World Series. For some, it’s Blue Monday, the 1981 NLCS when the Dodgers’ Rick Monday hit a two-out ninth inning homerun off the Expos’ Steve Rogers in what would prove to be the difference in the game. But for many of us, for me, that defining moment came in a nothing game in a year the Blue Jays would bring Canada it’s first World Series title.

In 1992 Gary Carter returned to Montreal for what would be his final MLB season. It was a mostly unspectacular year, a quiet swansong for the Kid, but in what ended up being his final at-bat, Carter laced a double over former Expo Andre Dawson to score Canadian Larry Walker in what proved to be the winning run. The crowd of over 40 000, knowing that this was it, that Carter would never play baseball again, rose to their feet and said goodbye to a player who they could only wish had stayed in their town a little longer, could only dream of what might have been. Kid was replaced for pinch runner Tim Laker, and the Olympic Stadium crowd, his teammates, the city of Montreal, would not let the moment end, and Carter stepped from the dugout for a curtain call, a storybook ending to a beautiful career, a moment that could not be dreamt, nor written, nor contrived. A moment of pure, unadulterated love for a kid who just wanted to play a game, and ended up dominating it on its biggest stage.

As a kid, I loved baseball. I loved oiling my glove and wrapping a ball in it, securing it with elastic bands with the help of my dad before I went to bed. I loved diving for balls and coming up bruised and grass stained. I loved that odd occasion that I made contact and could leg out a single. But, I realized very early on that I would never be a great ball player. Or even a good one. The great myth of professional sport is that character can get you far. It can’t. I wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t hit a curveball. A decent fastball found the catcher’s glove before I realized it had been thrown. But I loved the game. I loved putting on the uniform. Loved having a number on my back. I loved it’s traditions and history, its narrative. My parents bought me a copy of Bill James’ Abstract before I knew what it was, before sabremetrics became part of baseball’s lexicon. I just loved looking through the numbers, studying them, memorizing them, and wondering how I could fit into this magical world. Turns out my entry was Gary Carter, because though I would never play an inning above little league, everything I had ever wanted, everything I had ever dreamt of in baseball, Gary Carter would go out and achieve, and as a child I would live vicariously through the innocent wonder of a kid in a grownup’s body. Somewhere, in a place Gary Carter very much believed in, Kid is lacing up his cleats, getting ready to step onto the fresh cut grass of a field of dreams, smiling, about to play the game he loved.

Entitlement

Posted on February 15, 2012

“If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.” – Hunter S. Thompson

“Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.” – Adam Smith

“The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.” – Robert Benchley

I awoke early and noticing it was a beautiful spring-like morning, I decided to take a day off from underemployment and spend it walking about town. Leaving my apartment, I ran into my landlord, who reminded me that I was late on my rent. I told him I wasn’t going to pay February rent, but that I really loved the apartment, the general conceit of its aesthetic, and the narrative flow of its layout, and that I was totally blogging about it all the time, which was good business for us both. He seemed unimpressed, but I told him “what are your options? You expect everyone just to hand over rent every month, just arbitrarily on the first?” How presumptuous. I mean, I was living there, isn’t that half the work? And, plus, as soon as my novel got big, he could, like, turn it into a museum like Dostoevsky’s place. Who the fuck expects to be paid regularly, and in a timely fashion, for providing goods or services? Like, what world is this guy living in, right? Like, some utopian paradise or whatever where effort was compensated?

I hit up my local Starbucks for a coffee, ordering my usual venti Pike Place. When the pretty barista with the weird perm who always played Tom Waits told me it cost $2.57, I told her that I wasn’t going to pay but I would tell everyone I know how much I enjoyed the coffee, and that I always mentioned it on my blog, and that Tom Waits is the best, and wasn’t my enjoyment and celebration of the coffee enough for the both of us, and then I complimented her hair. She was aces about it.

My coffee was warm, the sun was shining, and I had some new shoes on that I needed to break in. The shoes were custom made for me by this great little cobbler around the corner from my place. I didn’t pay him for the shoes, but I’m sure to make note of his location when asked about them, and of course it’s up on the blog. I took a long meandering walk from one neighbourhood to another, and decided to grab some lunch at a little café that had just opened that a friend had told me about. I had a phenomenal sandwich: grilled mahi mahi on fresh sourdough, with a cilantro jalapeno pesto aioli and grilled peppers. On my way out, I complimented the chef on an outstanding effort, and noted that while I did not intend on paying I would totally blog about it later, and it would reflect well upon him that I had eaten there, and that one day, if he continued to work really hard, he would eventually be paid for his food.

I wanted to share the day so I figured I’d get ahold of my buddy, who would certainly be in on celebrating a day of underemployment. Unfortunately, my phone was out of minutes so I dropped by the Bell Store. I let them know that I didn’t have the cash on me to pay for additional minutes, but as soon as I got some grant money I was expecting that I would probably send them a bit. And, I would totally tell everyone I know that they were better than Rogers, and that if people saw me using Bell, then it would be good business for Bell. And plus, I used to volunteer my time at this poetry journal so why did I have to pay for my phone, am I right?

They reluctantly gave in, because my argument got louder and more self-righteous the more I repeated it. I texted my buddy, and he met up with me down by the university where we both got our MFAs. Suddenly, it started to rain, so we decided to catch a matinee at the varsity cinema. My buddy didn’t have any money either, but we explained to the usher that we were both artists, and that we could identify with all the work and artistic sacrifice that went in to making the film, and there was no one else in the theatre so what did it matter if we snuck in, and even if we didn’t like it we would totally say nice things about it on our respective blogs, and in our Huffington Post columns.

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The Week in Review – Feb. 5 to 11

Posted on February 11, 2012

So, I’ve got my first advertiser on the site, Disquiet: Dzanc Book’s International Literary Program in Lisbon, which coincidentally I’ll be reading at this summer in Lisbon, Portugal (July 1 -13). You should come. Details on the events page, or by clicking the ad on the homepage. Now, a recap of the week that was: started with Bon Iver on SNL, then some Super Bowl, a full week of Canada Reads, and Saturday morning coffee with a Bill Callahan cover of Leonard Cohen. Aces.

Sunday – The Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever

Monday – Ardor Shining

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Tuesday – Two Minutes for Being a Minority

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Wednesday – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Horse Back

Thursday – Bon Iver – Holocene (Saturday Night Live 02.03.12)

Friday – Truth & Pettiness on Canada Reads

For the most part, I’d rather stab myself in the eye with Margaret Atwood’s Long Pen than listen to a debate about CanLit. As you can imagine, my MA in English Literature was torturous, which is why I developed a dependency on bourbon and NeoCitran. It’s not that I don’t love Canadian writing, because I do. It’s not that I don’t like the Canadian writing community, because I have found it warm and accepting. It’s mostly because these debates tend to illuminate Canadian literature’s tendency to be insulated, precious, and protectionist. Also, there’s too many poems about wheat.

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Saturday – Bill Callahan – So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen cover)

Truth & Pettiness on Canada Reads

Posted on February 10, 2012

I tuned in all week to the CBC’s Canada Reads series, as four Canadian pseudo-celebrities and Alan Thicke debated the merits of five books of non-fiction in a Survivor-like competition. I believe the winner, Carmen Aguirre for Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter, received a dinner with Margaret Atwood, or a window display at Chapters or something. I’m not sure. I don’t think it was important. The week’s broadcasts, acutely moderated by Jian Ghomeshi, were at once entertaining, informative, combative, and funny. So, you know, everything that Canadian Literature tends not to be. For the most part, I’d rather stab myself in the eye with Margaret Atwood’s Long Pen than listen to a debate about CanLit. As you can imagine, my MA in English Literature was torturous, which is why I developed a dependency on bourbon and NeoCitran. It’s not that I don’t love Canadian writing, because I do. It’s not that I don’t like the Canadian writing community, because I have found it warm and accepting. It’s mostly because these debates tend to illuminate Canadian literature’s tendency to be insulated, precious, and protectionist. Also, there’s too many poems about wheat.

The highlight of the week on Canada Reads was Anne-France Goldwater, a Quebec judge who garnered attention on day one for accusing eventual winner Aguirre (who, incidentally, Goldwater ultimately voted for) of being a “bloody terrorist” to which panelist Shad replied: “If you consider her a terrorist, you have to consider Nelson Mandela a terrorist.” Goldwater agreed with the hip hop artist: “Damn straight. Blood on his hands,” to which the rest of us replied: who’s Shad? Goldwater also accused the author of another one of the Canada Reads books, Marina Nemat, of lying in her memoir Prisoner of Tehran about her time in an Iranian jail: “Marina Nemat – and it’s known to other prisoners; other prisoners who shared her experience – tells a story that’s not true and you can tell it’s not true when you read it.” Did Goldwater believe in what she was arguing? Probably. Is there truth to her claims? Maybe, but to me that’s not important. Good debate relies on half-truths, strong opinions, and passionate advocates and that’s what Goldwater provided.

Predictably, the CanLit mob were outraged. This is what happens in Canada. Any discussion that travels outside the norm, that dares to engage and challenge an informed and intelligent readership, is viciously attacked. They want to wrap CanLit in a Hudson’s Bay blanket and tell it everything’s going to be alright. It’s insulting to both writers and readers, and it’s all too common. Nemat herself went on the offensive, demanding an apology from Goldwater, and claiming on Facebook that Goldwater’s comments were “bullying and it’s a crime.” I don’t doubt for a moment that Nemat was hurt, and I don’t doubt the veracity of her writings but bullying isn’t a crime, rather possibly an actionable offense, and she certainly has the right to engage Goldwater in a civil suit. Though Goldwater is a successful lawyer and I imagine she knows the line between actionable and argumentative.

Nemat took her argument to the pages of The Globe and Mail, perpetuating the notion that no press is bad press. What Nemat went through in prison is an abomination, acts that reflect the worst of humanity, and her strength in writing of her experiences is both admirable and inspirational. But she chose to do so, and that opened up her experience to public discourse. In her closing paragraph of the Globe piece, she appeals directly to Goldwater: “Dear Ms. Goldwater: The witness is the cornerstone of the justice system. If we throw stones at her, we have taken a step toward burying freedom and democracy. Canada and Canadians deserve better than this.” Arguably, truth is the cornerstone of the justice system, and witness requires corroboration. But any witness must face confrontation, and in writing the book, Nemat has opened herself up to cross examination.

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Two Minutes for Being a Minority

Posted on February 7, 2012

A few Saturdays ago I was at the Air Canada Centre to see the Leafs play the Canadiens. It was my first time to the ACC for hockey game, my only other visit coming in 2001 to see Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, a memorable show and the only time in the seven I’ve seen Neil Young perform that he played Down By the River, which has been proven by NASA scientists and Harvard academics alike to be the greatest song ever. But what a dichotomy of crowds in my two visits to the arena. One was an evening filled with a solid team effort and a celebration of Canadiana, and the other was a hockey game. Though I have witnessed the booing of the Montreal Canadiens in rival arenas throughout the NHL on television, with a special amount of vitriol coming from the ticket holders in Boston, Philadelphia, and Toronto, I had never witnessed it first hand. I came prepared, wearing my Larry Robinson vintage Canadiens jersey, and I fully expected a playful boo or an occasion of drunken derision. But what surprised me, what offended and saddened me, was the unparalleled level of hatred the home crowd had for Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban. I had seen it on game broadcasts, but in order to fully appreciate the level of animus that the opposition has towards Pernell Karl Subban you really have to be there. It’s more than playful chiding of a respected opponent. More than an attempt to throw a valued foe off his game. What it is, and having seen it first hand I am convinced, that it is pure unadulterated hatred. And it’s because P.K. Subban is an African-Canadian.

I have wronged a good woman or three, so I know the difference between anger and hatred. I have seen it up close, and it is a tangible and violent emotion born of a fierce rage. But to have seen the manner in which the ACC faithful booed Subban, to have seen it from those in Philly and Boston and New York on television, the hopeful peacenik in me tried to resolve the spite and hostility as simply a part of pro sports. Subban, admittedly, plays with an edge. He has what the hockey community like to call “sandpaper”. But while those in the NHL of Subban’s ilk, those who get under the skins of their opponents with their combination of talent, wit, and lip, are often celebrated as players with “character”, Subban is almost universally derided by fans, media, management, and players. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why that is, except to argue that the NHL and the culture of hockey is one that fosters and accepts racism.

I’ll admit that I am biased in that I am a Montreal Canadiens fan. My winters are spent living vicariously through the Habs, and my springs rise and fall on their successes and failures. And I really like Subban. He has a personality, something I have argued in the past that the NHL notably lacks, and often eschews in favour of cliché and a culture that toes the company line. To attribute this double standard to racism may seem simple, perhaps in and of its self inherently racist, but consider the following non-scientific study. I took 10 players from a recent Bleacher Report article on the most hated NHL players since 2000, and I googled their names in quotations and the word hate. I tried to vary the players in terms of age, conference, position, market, and ethnicity. Additionally, I’ve noted their average ice time, points, and penalty minutes. Here are the results (as of February 6):

Player	Google Results	Ice Time/Game	Points	PIM
Sean Avery	1 470 000	7:00	3	21
P.K. Subban	871 000	23:35	20	64
Matt Cooke	595 000	15:52	19	20
Jordin Tootoo	396 000	14:01	21	66
Colby Armstrong	390 000	11:17	1	4
Daniel Carcillo	198 000	11:24	11	82
Trevor Gillies	160 000	2:52	0	0
Patrick Kaleta	111 000	13:27	6	69
Brad Marchand	106 000	17:09	38	77
Maxime Lapierre	46 700	11:10	10	96

It should be noted Armstrong has been out most of the year, but he still gets a lot of hate. Sean Avery is the clear winner in terms of internet hatred, but he’s a veteran, one the most hated players to have ever laced up a pair of Bauers and insulted another player’s starlet girlfriend, and has been dispatched to Connecticut of the AHL, most likely until his hockey career ends and his fashion career begins. But P.K., in only his second full NHL season, has 276 000 more Google hate-results than his closest competitor, Matt Cooke, who fancies headshots more than an aspiring actor. Trevor Gillies, whose only NHL accomplishment is his moustache, has also been dispatched to the AHL but maintains a hefty web-based hatred. And even if you double Max Lapierre’s totals to account for bilingualism, he’s still nowhere close to Subban.

What truly surprised me about the survey, which admittedly has the scientific acumen of creationism, was that none of the players even approach Subban’s level of talent or importance to their respective teams. Subban’s average ice time per game is 23 minutes and 35 seconds. The next closest on this list is Cooke at a good 8 minutes less. Though Subban is the only defenseman on the list, the fact remains that hatred at the professional level is typically reserved for 4^th line pluggers and fringe pros, who need to play the role of pest in order to maintain a roster spot. Arguably, Marchand is the only other player on this list whose team value approaches Subban’s, and it’s interesting that he has been Subban’s foe since their junior days, but with a substantially smaller hate-base.

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Ardor Shining

Posted on February 6, 2012

Brady Pearson hadn’t been home in 37 months, but it had nothing to do with his mother’s cooking nor the taxidermied pheasant his father kept next to his recliner and occasionally fed goldfish crackers diluted in flat club soda. No, despite the fact that he loved his parents and adored dead birds, Brady hadn’t been home since his girlfriend Lila, his former girlfriend Lila, his former fiancé Lila, the very same Lila who had only 36 months earlier so readily and happily accepted an engagement ring, who had moments later changed her Facebook status to “engaged”, who had disappeared 35 weeks ago only to return four days later with a sleeve tattoo and guy named Chan who smelled like vinegar and kept calling Brady “Pepé”, who had left Brady for that very same Chan, and who had yet to return the engagement ring. That Lila. But now, over three years later, with word that Lila and Chan owned a surf shop in Nicaragua and were happy, with nothing to show for that three years except an unpublished collection of breakup poems and a scar above his left eye, Brady’s brother was getting married, and so he’d have to go home, and he’d have to bring a gift, and he’d have to wear a tuxedo, and make a speech, and rap his cutlery against his champagne flute, and dance with his aunts, and eat salmon, and tolerate young cousins, and lie.

Brady could not bear to go home alone, not to his mother’s judging eyes, his father’s stained recliner, and his brother’s many successes. But, in the three years since Lila left, since he had been home, since a promising season for the local sports franchise, since he came to hate Central America, Brady had lost touch with most of his female friends, certainly the ones who would’ve amicably attend his brother’s wedding, certainly those who would’ve gone and fooled around with him in the wee hours of the morning, even just a little over the dress action. In those three years he had been on a few dates, dates usually set up by his friend Kurt, dates that could politely be called apocalyptic disasters. On one of these dates, Brady had drunkenly set fire to a young woman’s dress, and had attempted to put out the fire with his cocktail, before realizing that her dress was not ablaze, but rather quite simply multiple shades of reds and yellows. On another, his date left the restaurant to check the parking metre, and had simply not returned, leaving Brady to conclude that she either had been kidnapped, or had not cared for his poetry. On his last date, what certainly at this juncture in his life seemed like it would be his last date, 9 months earlier, Brady had absent mindedly carved the name of his date into the table at which they were sitting, which some might see as romantic, but which this young woman saw correctly as a warning, and left immediately.

So, left with no favours to call in, no female friends to borrow and perhaps fondle, no successful dates on which to build, and a second volume of poetry well underway, Brady turned reluctantly to Kurt for counsel. Kurt. The same Kurt who had never managed a relationship that lasted longer than a Ramones’ song, Kurt who’s greatest talent was being able to smoke a cigarette from his left ear, Kurt who often passed out in bars only to wake up screaming “muffins, mama, muffins”, Kurt, whose idea of dating was teaching Art History at the community college. This is what it had come to. Kurt had heard of a service, a rental service, a contemporary service, a modern convenience for those in predicaments like Brady’s. For a considerable fee, one could rent a girlfriend or boyfriend, not an escort, but a professional girlfriend or boyfriend who would accompany one to a wedding, or briss, or bat mitzvah, or monster truck rally. Brady was skeptical, because he knew of Kurt’s affection for prostitutes and practical jokes, once attending their high school chum Andy’s wedding in which he married the very very Catholic and humourless Elizabeth, with a cross-dressing escort named Bill who insisted juggling clementines every hour on the hour. But Kurt assured Brady that it was on the level, on the up-and-up, fully onside.

So a meeting was scheduled, and Brady took a Friday afternoon off of work so that he could meet with his prospective date, or so he had assumed. Brady wasn’t sure what to expect, really, nor was he sure how to dress, nor how to prepare, nor how to act, or what to ask, what to bring with him, or what to request. The service, the pedestrian titled Social Event Consultants, was housed in a six-story building in a fashionable neighbourhood. Their offices were on the top floor, with windows to the ceiling that provided an impressive view of the cafes, bars, restaurants, and clothiers on the streets below. Brady was greeted at reception by a woman named Carol, who smelled like lemon meringue and had a slight accent which Brady placed as Tahitian though would actually prove to be Iowan, and he was given a questionnaire to fill out. The questions were varied and all-encompassing, from favourite hair colour and body type to monthly income and properties owned to opinions on a flat tax and carbon footprints to tastes in music and film to a short essay about clogs in 15^th century Luxembourg. After the questionnaire, which took over an hour, Brady was asked to provide both a urine and blood sample, unabridged biographical information on himself and his family, given a cardiac stress test, have a simulated argument with his mother concerning sexuality, prepare a soup, and write a second language exam. Finally, he was led to room at the opposite end of the floor with a small table and a spectacular view. He was told to wait, and in that time he thought of Lila, and how much he hated Central America, and clogs.

Eventually, the door opened, and a young woman came in with a cup if coffee and an electronic tablet. She said nothing, though acknowledged Brady with a slight glance before taking a seat, and making herself comfortable. It took a moment before Brady realized that she was beautiful. More than beautiful, she was perfect. Her eyes were spectacular blue, and they shone in the already brilliant radiance of the room. Her hair was cut short, though it fell around her face as if to frame the very notion of a face. She curved where she was supposed to curve, and straightened where he was supposed to straighten, and when she smiled, and eventually she did release the shortest of smiles, Brady could feel his body both tense and relax like a wave breaking against the Nicaraguan coast he hated so. Her manner was confident, and yet friendly and warm, and when she finally spoke Brady swore that he had heard her voice in a song so familiar and yet so very much forgotten at that particular moment.

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