Chapter
1
Broken
Bullet
“Excuse
me, sir! I can’t let you board the plane with this.” The airport security guard
lifted his head from perusing the few possessions I had placed in a small,
plastic, open-topped box. “I’m sorry, but I will have to confiscate it.”
I
glanced at him as his voice shook me out of the song that was lighting through
my mind. I had been standing at the check-in counter for a few moments, lazily
glancing at the checkerboard floors at my feet as Gordon Downie’s poignant
voice was rising for the pinnacle verse of the song Bobcaygeon when the security guard spoke to me and snapped my mind
back to attention.
It
was August 17, 2006, and I was about to experience firsthand one of the many
new security measures that had been put in place in airports around the world
in this post-9/11 reality.
As
I was packing my suitcase, duffel bag, small carry-on bag, and shoulder-strapped
rucksack a few days before my journey to Nunavut began, I had diligently made
sure that no toothpaste, liquid hand soap or any other banned items were in my
possession. The fact that I was now being confronted about an item that would
not be allowed to go any further on my journey had me full of questions.
The
security guard, who stood several inches taller than me, with slicked-back
black hair and a fading suntan, lifted my keychain an inch higher and dangled
it between his fingers. He could tell that I was somewhat taken aback by his
statement as a questioning look stitched itself onto my brow.
“This keychain means a
lot to me,” I started. “It was a gift from my dad. It’s a symbol of peace.”
At
that, we both regarded the coiled, flat metal ring that housed just two keys. .
. and a bullet. I could tell that he didn’t quite understand how this copper-coloured
bullet could represent peace, and as I explained the symbolism to him, I
remembered when my father had given it to me.
“See
how the tip of it is dented, James?” my dad asked me as I traced the metal
depression, back and forth, with my thumb.
It
was over half a lifetime before this moment at the London International Airport.
I had spent my morning riding the Toronto subway to its furthest north location,
near the Yorkdale Mall, before I started hitch hiking my way to my parents’
house for a Thanksgiving dinner. I was in my second year of post-secondary
school, studying Architectural Technology at George Brown College. Since it was
a holiday long weekend, I had decided to invite myself to my parents’ house for
the weekend to see them and my older sister, eat their food, drink their wine,
and spend a few afternoons wandering through the hills and valleys that
succinctly define this region.
My thumb found several
rides that took me north, along the winding country roads lined with brilliant autumn-coloured
leaves, dancing in the soft breeze. It was a typical Southern Ontario fall day.
The skies were aching blue with just a few brush strokes of white clouds that swept
upward on the easterly winds. There was a chill to the air, but while inside
the car or truck that had stopped to pick me up, the sunlight beat in through
the windows, necessitating the unbuttoning of my leather jacket.
It
always made me feel content to find myself on the roads within the hills of
Mulmur Township. The Niagara Escarpment had been the result of the receding
glaciers, after the last ice age, and the second highest point in Southern
Ontario was a short, five-minute drive from the small hamlet where I had grown
up. I had spent many summer nights on these hilltops throughout my youth, and
on a clear night, my friends and I marvelled at the lights of Barrie and
Toronto that could be seen along the farthest expanses of the same horizon.
After a belly-stuffing
meal, where I had barely managed two helpings of my mom’s homemade pumpkin pie,
after feasting on a plate full of turkey covered in gravy and many vegetables
from my parents’ garden, my dad asked me to follow him upstairs, where he was keeping,
“a small little something that I think you will like.”
We walked over to his
high dresser, and he opened the top drawer, which was always filled with an
assortment of do-dads and knick-knacks. There was usually a book or two in this
drawer, waiting to be read. A small ceramic container was home to a large
collection of pennies for when friends visited and my parents got into a game
of Rummoli. There was a tall pile of stacked-up and folded handkerchiefs. My
dad always had one stuffed into his flannel shirt’s breast pocket. There was
also a hand carved wooden bowl filled with foreign coins that he had collected
over many years as he travelled throughout Europe and as he travelled for work
while serving as an Electrical Generating Systems Technician with the RCAF.
The one item in his
drawer of collectables that I always thought was rather hilarious was a keychain
he bought while stationed in Peru. His assignment lasted just a few weeks, and
during his down-time, he enjoyed many of the local markets. This was where he
had purchased this keychain. Dangling from the ring were two figures that had
been cast in silver. They were two inches in height and each figure had a
small, thin chain attached to their backs, allowing them to hang from the ring.
One figure was male and the other one was female. The male figurine was
supporting a rather large, erect penis, quite disproportionate to the size of his
body and the female had an open hole between her legs, where the male’s penis
fit quite snuggly!
I was leaning over my
dad’s shoulder as he rummaged around in his top dresser drawer, hoping for a
glimpse of these two silver bodies, when he exclaimed, “Oh! Here it is.”
He turned toward me, and I did not see any silver reflecting off the
evening sun as the dipping star’s last rays came in through the window. Instead,
I saw a relatively small shape, dully reflecting two different tones of ruddy
copper.
My parents know that I
have always been passionate about advocating for peace - evident by the music I
listened to, the poems I wrote, the John Lennon T-shirt that rarely left my
back, and my yin-yang stud earring that I wore in my left earlobe. So when I
peered down and saw a bullet in my hand, I wasn’t exactly thrilled! “The reason
why this bullet represents peace,” he continued, “is because it can never be
fired from a gun.” He turned the bullet around in the palm of my hand and
simply said, “This bullet will never be able to harm a soul.” With that, he put
one of his hands on my shoulder and gave a little squeeze while his other
covered my hand, gently closing my fingers around the broken bullet.
It was apparent that
the security guard had already finalized his decision to confiscate my keychain,
which had been in my possession for nearing eighteen years. Although I had put
forth some effort to persuade him otherwise, I realized that any further
attempts would be in vain, so I tried a different approach.
“Could you put my
keychain somewhere safe until my wife can come and pick it up either later
today or tomorrow?”
He assured me that
Joanne would be able to get it back in the next day or so. He said that he
would put it at the customer service desk.
“Thanks so much,” I
smiled. “That keychain really means a lot to me. It was a present from my
father.” I brought the conversation back full circle to impress upon him the
personal value of this totem.
Without any further
incident, my remaining personal belongings, airline ticket and I were processed
and minutes later, I was sitting as comfortably as one can on a hard plastic
preformed chair in the departure waiting area. I only sat for a moment as an
anxious feeling crept over me. I stood
up and walked toward the large viewing windows.
“From sea to sea to
sea” echoed behind my open and sharp fixed eyes as I peered through the
airport’s windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the West Jet plane that would
soon take me to Toronto to begin my three-stage journey to Nunavut. These words
were from the poem I wrote to complement and partially explain my national art
project entitled “Canada: Glorious to Be.”
The incident with the
security guard replayed in my mind, and I couldn’t help but venture back to the
day when another journey began a little over seven years before. My heart mixed
with conflicting emotions as I compared this obstacle with the obstacle I had
been challenged with at the outset of this great art adventure. At that time, I
happened into a situation that held the possibility of certain disaster for the
project and life that I had embarked upon with my wife. What I found to be
concerning was the timing of these two events. The confiscation of my keychain
happened as I was taking my first steps on my journey to a far-off destination
and the near disaster that Joanne and I faced happened as we were taking our
first steps on our journey to Manitoba so that I could complete the second
phase of this same national art project.
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