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Lone
Wolf
Howl:
IF
THESE
WALLS
COULD
SPEAK…
(Originally
published
in
Calgary
Country: April 2004)
"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know." (Tao Te Ching) The Cochrane Community Hall is on her way out. What was once the very heart of Cochrane has assumed a less vital, less attractive component of the town's anatomy, and the doctors are saying 'amputate'. Maybe those walls can't speak, but by God they know. When the hall is gone, what happens with all that knowledge? As part of Lone Wolf Theatre Company's LIVESTORIES programme -- a programme dedicated to helping people identify, compose, and tell their stories -- I spoke with long-time resident Wayland Britton about his memories of the community hall. What I discovered in speaking with Wayland was that if we put our ear up to the wooden beams on her walls and give a listen, she does speak. She speaks through all those who've danced and reveled and convened inside her four walls. Listen... Autumn, 1955… square dance tonight at the harvest celebration. The evening light is golden and warm. The boys are downstairs, hiding in the bathroom stalls. Usually they conceal their beverages in the hedge on the north side, but tonight they've got other ideas. I see a mickey of rum, half emptied, then filled to the top with coke. A couple of swallows, the cap goes on, and he slides the mickey inside his boot like a knife. Upstairs he swings, turns & stomps. The music's good 'n loud so no one hears the explosion. Not even him. But I hear it. I see his expression change like he's been shot in the back. His boot's full of rum and coke and glass and blood; every step grinds the shards deeper into his foot, but he finishes off the dance. New Year's Eve, 1957... I see him dancing the polka with a lively girl. She's as refined as he is shy, but they're going at it strong. She's from England, and her father is a section foreman for the CPR. 1958 they dance the polka again. All night. Same in '59. He comes to the dance the next year, boots clean and shirt pressed. He walks around the hall, leans right up against me, and scans the room with his eyes. The place is packed. I try to tell him there was a CPR meeting here last month, and she went back to England with her family. I try to tell him to find another partner before the next dance starts up, but he doesn't hear my silence. Early spring, 1965… there's a Booster Club meeting (his wife's a member so he is too). He volunteers to get his projectionist's certificate. Two Saturdays and $40.00 later, he's approved. He hangs his certificate in the projection room upstairs. On me. For seven years he operates the projectors, showing Hollywood's finest every other weekend. March, 2004... he was here just the other day. He'd gotten older, like me, but I recognized him at once. He put a stepladder up to the little door above the stairs and climbed into the projection room. The two projectors were gone, and he stood looking through the windows into the empty hall. Memories played out as if on a screen. He remembered the smell of fresh popcorn mingled with cigarette smoke; the laughter, tears, and music; the boot full of glass, and the English girl who lived for the polka. As he was leaving, he stopped and put his hand up against me, and held it there for a moment. Was he finally trying to speak to me? Or listen? Or just connect somehow before we're both ghosts? He touched me. I could have cried, and almost did, but then I heard him mumble something: "Damnit!" he said. " They took my projectionist's certificate!" Back to Resources Page |