One Of These Kids Is Doing His Own Thing

I did a reading last night at Hamilton’s Lit Live, a monthly gathering of writers reading from their work in the Aquarius Lounge of the Junction Cafe on King William Street. My ever faithful buddy Pete was there to show his support, which was great -- and thank God for that, because I’m thinking that I stuck out like a sore thumb.

First of all, it was very exciting to see the entire bar filled. There must have been between 30 and 40 people there -- yes, for a literary reading event. One of the readers, a very talented writer from Ottawa whose reading I quite enjoyed (Kim Barry Brunhuber), commented that he’d been to readings where there were five people in the room -- 3 of them his friends, one of them his publisher and the third some crazy lady who wandered into the wrong place. That type of thing was more along the lines of what I’ve been used to. But I was in awe of the size of the crowd last night.

I did my reading with five other writers: three poets and two novelists. All of them gave great readings. It was about the time I took the stage that the little song from Sesame Street started going through my head. You know the one: there’s this split screen with four kids, each of them doing something. The first one is bouncing a ball, the second one is using a hula hoop, the third one is jumping rope and the fourth one is sitting reading a book. These actions, of course, are accompanied by music and the lyrics “one of these kids is doing his own thing -- can you guess which one?”

As I stood on the stage in my black shirt and skull tie, nervously holding my book in front of me and trying to decide, on the spot, what I’d lead off with -- I suddenly wondered what I was doing there. These people were here for a literary reading -- I was a horror writer. Would they boo me off the stage, or would they just start to walk out once I got a few lines into the reading? Or would they sit quietly, applaud politely when I’d finished, then go yell at whoever had the gall to actually have invited me here this evening?

I thought I’d try to find a natural flow from the reader who’d gone before me, a poet. So I thought I’d start with a few poems, then finish with a short-short story. It worked out that the reader after me was a novelist. There, if I could offer nothing more to the evening, at least I’d be a nice segue between the normal writers. Not just that strange freak on stage who read a poem about killing trick or treaters and Santa Claus, then went on to read a poem that took a beautiful Elvis Presley song and turned it into a homicidal maniac’s fears of retribution from beyond the grave, then a story about an escaped convict that sounded like a cheap rip-off of an old campfire ghost story.

After reading the first poem, one that I was hoping would bring forth at least a few chuckles from the audience, I dreaded looking up and seeing something from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. There's Bugs, dragged into a medical demonstration where they're going to switch his brain with the brain of a chicken, and he gets up, starts trying to amuse the crowd with jokes, slapstick, anything to win them over -- but all he sees is a completely quiet crowd, serious, just staring at him with blank faces. I was relieved that I didn't see that, but instead, a few smiles and a couple of laughs. Whew!

Between two other poems, I remember looking to my left and right to see if there might be one of those long cartoon hooks slowly sneaking in from the side that was going to whisk me right off the stage. It never appeared either. Second dose of relief.

There was applause when I finished my reading, nobody asked me to leave, and my buddy Pete tells me that I did a great reading. But I still get the feeling I was that “odd guy” doing his own thing (offering mostly bits of dark humour) while the other readers read poignant pieces, elegant pieces, moving passages.

In all, despite my "odd man out" routine, it was a wonderful event, one I hope to be able to return to in the future; not to participate in (God knows if I’ll ever get invited back), but just to enjoy the ambiance. Hamilton does have a very active literary community and Lit Live is a wonderful example of that.