Walter Kist & the Seven Whorls Chapter 4

Fred Astaire glides into the studio in top hat, white tie and tails, as guests arrive for the Friday night social. But Fred is not quite himself: his pants are too short and his socks are mismatched - one blue, one argyle.

Also the smooth black surface of his topper is interrupted by a glassy ebony orb. An almost imperceptible jewel in his crown, it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, a transmitter to the Mothership or the cyclopean eye of Big Brother.

It’s noticed by few, and only known in its true nature to its wearer and me. The wearer is, of course, not Fred Astaire at all but the irrepressible Walter Kist in his grandfather’s best formal attire topped with his own madcap hatcam.

“Beam me up, Scottie,” I mumble, as Kist sashays past, shooting on the sly.

“There’s no intelligent life down here,” he counters, then aims his chapeau in my direction. I stick my tongue out at him as maracas and marimbas guide the scant dancers on the floor. He smiles and moves on, a soft shoe man dancing on crushed diamonds and velvet rose petals.

No one pays Kist much attention throughout the evening even with his odd postures and cocky hat tilts.

But jaws drop at night’s end when he doffs his cap to dance a mad-hatter tango with me, ignoring all proper bronze, silver or gold steps. We don’t moon like Brando but our twists and turns and leaps are outlandish, and they comprise my last tango at Deermont’s. The next day I hand in my resignation.

As a kid I always thought Jericho Beach had some biblical affiliation, walls of Jericho and all that. Turns out it was named after Jeremiah Rogers who ran a logging camp there back in the 1800s. It became known as Jerry’s Cove to loggers and locals, and by the time I was cutting my feet on barnacles there, it’d become Jericho. It was to that holy shore that Kist and I retreated a week after my swansong at Deermont’s.

It was a relief to no longer have to resist the warm charm of Walter Kist. I moved into his ersatz private eye office, where the streetlight cast slashes of Venetian blind shadows over our lovemaking at night. By day we hit the beach.

That day at Jericho I wore my blue maillot, and Kist took pictures of me with his camera placed at his throat. “Vishuddha,” he said. “A whorl in the throat, characterized by the colour blue.”

“What shade of blue?” I asked, skeptically.

“Well, not the blues of a rainy day. More like the blues of sapphires, aquamarines, cornflowers. The Delarobia blue of Blanche Dubois’ dress.”

Like a glaring adam’s apple, his camera lens gulped in increments of light and shadow with each click. “Vishuddha expresses truth through the power of the spoken word,” he said, then fell silent. Swish of waves, haw of seagulls, click of camera; Kist in his element, I in my Delarobia blue swimsuit at Jericho Beach.

“Manipura is yellow,” Kist said, shooting me from his solar plexus at English Bay. “Not the yellow of nicotine on an addict’s fingers but the yellow of sunflowers, buttercups, citrine. The yellow of Van Gogh’s house in Arles.” He took a deep breath and a shot of me. “This whorl represents expansiveness,” he said exhaling.

Dipping and bending, camera atop his head, capturing barnacles, clouds, seaweed, me in purple at Spanish Banks

“Sahasrara, the crown, is the centre of pure consciousness. Purple as amethysts and irises, purple as the light of a summer night in Spain…”

“But not the purple of bruises,” I interrupted.

“You mock me,” he smiled.

“I mock myself.” And then we laughed. Kist’s laughter was like champagne, sparkling and full of light.

“But…” I said. “I don’t believe in chakras.”

“Chakras don’t require your belief,” Kist countered. “They’re energy, that’s all. Everything’s energy. Chakras are just an approach, a way in.”

“To what?”

“The energy. The mystery. God. Love. Yahwey. Santa.”

“Maybe we don’t need a way in. Maybe it’s all there before us if we stop the busy work and belief systems.”

“I’ll have to think about that,” he said, placing his camera on his forehead. “I want to shoot you from my third eye just as you’re doubting yours.”

He looked so silly with his camera stuck to his forehead like that but nothing could rob him of his appeal, and I felt a pang in my heart, a pang that said I would never possess this man completely, this wunderkind with the dancing eyes (all three), and that he would disappear out of my life just as easily as he’d appeared.

I kissed him on his lips long and hard.

“You’re activating another centre altogether now,” he said as we tumbled onto the sand.

“And what’s it called?”

“I can’t remember.”

*

Thank you to the fabulous actors who appear in these scenes: Tony Dunn, Aaron Schwartz, Lynn Fairweather, Anna May Henry. - MW

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