THE GIANT SNAIL

          It's just amazing; the tripe, nonsensical, unmeaningful, and should be forgotten crap that rolls around inside this old man's head; stuff that should never come to the forefront, should be left far behind like a lingering fart that just slides out of the great toothless orifice and clings to my butt like a Spandex body suit.  And then again, some things just never leave the mind and so it is as I look back in time to my very early teenage years when boys will be boys and girls, well girls, they were still just aliens; they lived in an entirely different dimension.  It's a time when I was a paperboy delivering the Vancouver Sun, swam in a lake that turned me green (luckily, not toxic waste green) clouds were still magical and my friends were carefree; one such friend, being Danny T. - a cohort of many joint mischievous deeds.
          Danny and I, since our first meeting at the paper-shack, where we bagged our Vancouver Sun newspapers before heading out to our various routes to deliver them; just hit it off; we were almost like brothers.  But make no mistake about it, Danny was a troublemaker, he had already stolen his first car at age 13 and smashed it up.  Basically a straight-A student, a policeman for a father, you'd think he'd become a prominent person when he grew up but I guess that doesn't mean anything because when I met him years later while I was going to art school, he had just been released from prison for robbery; what appeared to be his chosen career and it would not be the last time he went to prison.  But this isn't what I want to write about, I want to stay with that time when we were still boys and the best of friends.
          Sleep-overs were as rare as first kisses in those days but somehow or another I managed to stay overnight at his house.  He shared his bedroom with his younger brother Ronnie and that evening, after we were all told to quiet down several times and get to sleep, he showed me his special tin can that he kept on the floor beside his bed.  Now what's so special about a tin can; well nothing really; it was the contents.  Every night and like tonight, Danny dragged up all the phlegm and snot out of his lungs and nose and hucked  it into his big tin can.  When he showed me the contents, I have to admit I was in awe; I'd never seen anything quite so vile and yet it was wondrous at the same time.  How many times he had hucked a gooey mouthful of guck into that big old tin can that seems to just collect in all of us, I have no idea but it was almost up to the brim; it looked like a giant snail.  And in the morning when we woke up, the sun just cresting the neighbours' houses, Danny set his giant snail free!
          Danny and his brother's bedroom was located above the living room overlooking a small veranda that covered the front porch.  I have no idea the length of time that had passed since Danny first hucked into his big old tin can but when he tipped it upside down outside on the window sill, like a snail, it was not in a hurry to leave.  However, after banging the tin several time, the yellowish-grey glob began to ooze its way out of the tin can.  Like drool, creeping out of the side of someone's mouth, it just seemed to hover suspended in mid air until gravity finally took hold and it plopped on the veranda, which was covered in shingles.  Slowly and slowly, ever so slowly, it oozed its way down the slope of the veranda from shingle to shingle until it reached the edge of the roof.  The contents of the tin can were close to being empty by now, so not until Danny scooped the remaining gob of congested snot and phlegm out of the tin can with his finger and added it to the edge of the widow sill, did the gob of goo collected at the edge of the roof finally start its long descent to the ground below.
          Not wanting to miss the conclusion of this exciting event, barely able to contain our laughter and not wake up his mom and dad, we hightailed it down the stairs and out the front door as fast as we could.  One would think, the gigantic snot ball would have separated at this point and just dripped to the ground, but like a snail trail, the goo still held together.  We looked at each other in amazement when the disgusting blob eventually touched the ground unbroken - Spiderman had nothing on Danny's gooey gob - he could have probably swung from the top of the tallest building to the street below with that strange concoction that could have put a witch's brew to shame.
          It's been at least 30 years since I last met Danny walking along a downtown street in Nanaimo, BC - he was on the run then, not from the police or a prison escape but from some real bad people.  From what he told me, he'd spent much of his life behind bars, mostly for violent robberies.  He also told m, his brother had been found at his home in the basement by his young daughter; he'd been killed by a shot gun blast at very close range.  I don't know if what happened to his brother had anything to do with Danny; it didn't sound like it but he did mention seeking revenge.
          Danny would be as old as I am now and I sometimes wonder whatever became of him - the last time I heard from him, it was by telephone and that he was living up island with a woman.  I don't know if he had settled down by then or if he was hiding out from the law or bad guys but it's the last I ever heard from my boyhood friend and like his giant snot-ball, I guess the memories of our good times will always cling to me - cheers, eh!