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The Rubber Plant

In real life the rubber plant belonged to an old friend of mine. When he brought the plant home, he realized that he hated it … so he refused to water it. He wanted it to die a slow, dry death. But he had parties at his place every weekend, and when he wasn’t in the room, we used to pour wine and beer into the pot. Before each party, the plant would be drooping and half dead. The next day, it would be erect and vibrant. This went on for months. Finally, though, on a sad Saturday night with a full house of partiers, the plant collapsed halfway through the evening. We weren’t sure if it was dead or drunk, but Florent, the owner, threw it out before it had a chance to resurrect. I like to think that it resurrected years later in Heavy Load.

Mrs. Big Black Purse

The woman with the purse was also lifted from real life. When I used to smoke, I went out behind the building I worked in (even wrote a novella about a smart-assed spider set in this place). On the other side of the street, there was a bus stop, and I used to time my smoke breaks so that I could watch her. And I always wondered what the bus drivers thought about her as she boarded the buses. And … oh yeah … I almost forgot. Since writing this, I moved to a new neighborhood … and the old woman with the big brown purse lives just down the street from me. I’d like to talk to her, but for some reason … I’m reluctant. Maybe some day …

Killarney Lake

Panty Fetish

I worked for several years as a bartender in the night club called The Pioneer Club. I was in the games room in a relaxed part of the club, where I had a chance to talk to the customers and listen to their stores. After a few years, the customers (mostly military) came to trust me. And that’s when things became interesting. For instance, the three men who met on Thursday nights at my bar and talked about their true passion in life. All three were in the military, and all three shared a strong fetish for women’s underwear. They met at my bar and exchanged stories about their exploits, their favorite types of panties, their favorite places to acquire (aka steal) them, their closest calls in getting caught, their most embarassing moments (when they were caught)...you know stuff that men who sniff panties like to talk about. Almost all Jeffry’s adventures in undy-land come from their stories. Thanks, guys. And don’t worry, I don’t even remember your names.

This is the lake shore that inspired the lake shore that Hillary and Tim walk along. Killarney Lake, just outside Fredericton.

It’s also the scene of the Duncan Hadley Triathlon, where I will be dying an excruciating death at the hands of sun, heat and bugs this July 10.

This is Joanne Callahan. You can’t see how green her eyes are in this picture. Nobody can ever see how green her eyes are. Her eyes inspired the eyes of Hillary in Heavy Load.

Hillary’s House

This house, on Charlotte Street in Fredericton, inspired Hillary’s house. Her flat is on the second floor. My girlfriend, Susan, and I toured it many years ago with the intention of renting it. We ended up in another flat, but the one on Charlotte Street was definitely a special place. I mean, it inspired a setting in a book.

Uh Oh...HELL HOUSE!

The Laundromat

Here it is: The Paragon Laundromat on Regent Street, Fredericton. This is where I once did my luaundry. In real life , it’s not as big as the Washing Green Laundromat, but it does read your mind and tell your story to anyone who can hear laundromances. And if you believe that there is a laundromat anywhere in the world that can’t read the stories in a bag of dirty clothing, then you need to have your head washed.

The Six Elements of a Laundromance

Heavy Load is based on observation and listening That’s what gives it the gritty, and sometimes seamy, feel that Deborah Fisher in Tregolwyn Reviews describes as ‘the unfashionable idea that ordinary, everyday life is worth observing’ in her review of the book.”

I tried to create a window into ordinary life“by studying ordinary people and not elevating their lives to some kind of literary plateau, but by just keeping things simple and everyday. There's a 'real life' nobility in ordinary lives that somehow gets lost when you gloss things over with words. I tried to avoid that in Heavy Load.

Depicting everyday life is one of the six elements of a laundromance. You can’t hide the stains and dirt on your laundry. The laundromat sees it all, which leads us into the second element of a laundromance: it must be narrated by the laundromat.

Heavy Load is in fact narrated by the Washing Green Laundromat, “the biggest, coolest, most-up-to-date, user-friendly, human/machine integrated, full service laundromat in town.”

I used a sentient, mind and body-reading laundromat as the narrator because a laundromat is a place where people have to wait, a place where people think and daydream. The laundromat has plenty of time to delve into the lives of its customers. It’s the perfect storyteller.

And, of course, there must be an element of romance. In Heavy Load, the romance is a triangle of interest between two men and a woman. They eye each other. They think about each other as the laundromat explores their past lives. They watch for opportunities with each other, but they never speak a word to each other. That would break the triangle and cut the story short. And that’s why one of the elements of a laundromat is that none of the romantically involved characters are allowed to speak to each other. Not a word.
A laundromance must include at least one laundry tip. “But there’s plenty of tips in Heavy Load. I spent hours cruising the Web for tips and information on laundry. I found some really cool stuff on the Tide site, and I found entire lists of laundry tips written by people who use laundromats. I even discovered the secret of the missing sock. It’s in the first chapter.

The last element of a laundromance is the theme: “things get dirty, things get clean…”

A laundromat is very much a place of regeneration. People bring in dirty clothing and leave with clean clothing. There’s something optimistic and uplifting about having newly cleaned clothing, almost like having a new wardrobe, except that tags and pins have already been removed. There’s even a reflective and zen-like element inherent in the various cycles of washing and drying and the folding and sorting. It’s a calming experience. Then, you wear the clothing and it gets dirty again. Just like life, it’s an endless cycle of problems and solutions, balance and imbalance, action and inaction. That’s why I like the cover by Brock Parks so much. The Yin-Yang symbol in the machine cuts straight to the main theme of the book.

This is Jilly MotoBean. She lived in the house above, the one that Susan and I almost lived in.

“It was freezing cold in the winter,” she said. “There was no heat. It was like living in an igloo with no roof, no walls, no floor...just a cold freezing void.”

Jilly, Miss Beautiful Drooly Babarooni of Zealand 2010, has a unique hair configuration (see true life likeness photo above) since living in Hell House.

“Students! College students,” she said. “Thousands of them, rowdy and roucous (Did I say roucous?), running up and down the stairs all night. Partying! Partying while we froze and shivered and suffered. The Bastards! They partied all over our misery.”

“But we got them back. We moved. We moved far, so fucking far away. And now we go there every weekend. We take friends with us. We wear work boots, steel-toed work boots, and we stomp up and down the stairs! We guzzle Screech and kiss fucking cod!”

“Take this, you fuckers!” Stomp! Stomp! Guzzle. Smooch! Stomp!

Kinda glad Susan and I didn’t move in there now.

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