No Exit #7

From the No Exit series. Visit my website at KentBarrett.com.

Footnote: the boy here is the son of my lover at the time. He was somewhat "undocumented" as can happen 'around here, and so he got to pick his own name, and he chose Robin Beach. A beautiful name. Anyway, he lived with his father so I didn't see much of him and I left the province shortly after this show was shot.

Fast forward about eight years...I'm in Vancouver. North Vancouver somewhere...on a ledge at the edge of a cliff hundreds of feet over the Georgia Straight. It's an unbearably beautiful bright spring day. I'm sitting on a blanket with two beautiful women, drinking champaigne and eating strawberries the size of golf balls. We're there relaxing, waiting for the marriage cerimony for my two friends to start. We have time to kill. The bride is stuck in traffic because Bill Clinton has the Lion's Gate bridge closed so he can jog the seawall. We're listening to jazz music on my portable stereo. The wind dies and the cd finishes and a great quiet appears to our ears.

I hear a faint scrabbling sound. Then again. It seems to be coming from nowhere. It gets louder and I can hear breathing. It seems to be coming from the bay below. I look up and see the edge of the cliff and nothing more, but I can hear the sound of laboured breathing. Two seconds later a naked hand appears at the top of the cliff. It feels around for a grip and digs in. Another hand appears and does the same. I hear a great exhalation and a foot appears and with a tough grunt a body pulls itself over the top of the cliff and rolls over panting at my feet.

I look down into the dazed face of the climber. A shock of recognition ran through me as I looked into the eyes of this strapping fearless athlete.

"Hi Robin." I said, "How's yer mum? Care for some champaigne?"

True story.

P.S. The groom was a mutual friend of myself and Robin's mother and we used to hang around together at the time these photos were shot, of course. And people ask me why I think Newfoundland is magic.