Wednesday, May 05, 2010


The 88-year-old-man let me into his house. He was wearing a pristine Mexican guayabera. Inside, a very large and dark desk had a modern computer with a large flat screen monitor. Directly behind the desk, between it and the large flat screen TV on the wall, there was a coffee table with a large panoramic sized laptop. Paul St. Pierre is seriously wired. He reads countless newspapers on line and has RSS feeds to other news magazines.

Over a very large (it seems that large is a common feature of Fort Langley) spicy ramen Paul St. Pierre and I spoke about Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias El Chapo, a notorious Culiacán, Mexico drug lord. The man may be living near St. Pierre’s vacation home in Mexico. “I am not all that famous but I am beginning to fear for my life. I could be kidnapped.” If that were the case I am sure that the would-be kidnappers, in ignorance of O’Henry’s Ransom of Red Chief, would live to regret such an action.

On our way back to St. Pierre’s home we stopped at the post office where I was relieved to find out that the wired man also indulges in the pleasures of the Atlantic Monthly. In this case it was a special fiction issue featuring a story by my favourite author Jerome Charyn.

After taking the snap with my iPhone I left St. Pierre thinking that I must find a new excuse to visit him again. I had asked him to pose so we could see his trademark Mexican silver bracelet. I am sure he was happy to accommodate as it gave him ample opportunity to hide the nasty stain an uncapped fountain pen left on his formerly pristine guayabera pocket.