Fan Fiction

I have written a piece of fan fiction to help glorify the awesomeness that is The Log Driver's Waltz. I have been reading a lot about speed and the transmission of culture lately so I tried to work some of that in. Let me know what you think. It would be cool if there was more fan fiction like this so let me know what you think.

The Log Driver's Waltz
By The Log Driver


There was no dance I could not master. Jump, hop, jitter, mash potato, I could even twist. Some say I invented the twist, that Chubby Checker, Dick Clark, and the entirety of the Peppermint Lounge would steal it from the silent moving pictures filmed of me in my youth along the rivers. Whizzing past their eyes like a blur of jack hammer moves with my pole in my hand and moving moving moving. Down the Fraser, up the Thomspon, through the Peace and round about and beyond Hope to the edge of Hell's Gate.
Those bits of film are etched in my memory like those days when I was slow enough to be captured. Those grainy bits of me and other men, hunched men, silently squittering movements of minuets, baltas, charlestons, electric slides, jives, struts, saunters, and waltzes, from log to log from eveery town I cared to set foot on, wherever there was a damn good band that would let me rest my pole and indulge my neverending dance.
Me in my checkered shirt, those men, and the narrow chin, with a rounded nose, jittering along the logs under feet and pole, we would zip off with the final note of the damn good band, and off again onto the river where the dance steps no longer were imprisoned by the music, but became intwined with the movement of the water. All this with only the slightlest flicking of a pointed toe on the white capped current.
I didn't even wear spikes. I did when I began, but eventually they got in the way, interrupted the feel. Feel being crucial to the elegance, the sensation, the coldness of the air and water, the movements of the log, the moves of the body all becoming one in sweet sensation. Like a band. Music. Comics. Pictures and words, music instruments, me and the river water. It was here that the story began in a place called Alexandria Bridge.
There were only two crossings of the Fraser in them days, with in a short span before Spence's Bridge. Alexandria Bridge was one of them, by the failed echoes of Emory Creak that was dying slowly under the waits of its investors expectations, unable to grab hold of the movements that I danced along endlessly, watching as others would cross the bridge and rest, but not me. I had been coming through from Spence's Bridge with my head in the air and watching the traces of the sky that reflected downward in the murkiness of the Fraser. All that dirt and silt flecked off and grasped against my body and the logs that we were driving down to the coast.
The gold mines were fading now and so were the people. The river never died like those buildings that were now beginning to fade like a an evaporating stream in the blinding thirst of a hot mid summer sun that always threatened to trap you on a long slow dance through the back hedges and brooks on nothing more than a branch. Sometimes you would lose the twig and launch about into the mud of the shore and keep moving like a cannon as I would launch again into a dance on land.
Ever since I was a child I had wanted to dance. I was about five in my earliest memory. A waltz leaked out of the Church by the river in my hometown. It was all violins and horns in a sort of jazz that came before jazz, and a kind of rock and roll before rock and roll. There was a drum going 1,2,3 in the three three time, and it rolled along the current of the river in the hometown I now forget and have long forgotten the name of. My feet began moving 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3, swaying in time and instantly at five years old and my feet suddenly found themselves not only dancing, but were rolling out onto the river. I was in Yale before I dared to look up, and the pleasure took over for real as the old trance faded and I knew it where the rapids curved from the Thompson River, and broke about like the Nikomekl does before it buckles towards the coast. It was shooting white water into the Fraser that replied with the shooting of its mirkiness . I didn't stop dancing forward just as I did now as I danced forwards off the tip of the log that sank beneath the rapids like a stone and the air hit me in the face as I toed the protruding shore.
I laid my pole on the ground as I spun around, kicking my feet about as I removed the extension of own arm down to the ground. The outcropping of ground lapped by the Fraser without stopping and without skipping a beat. It was like a metronome keeping time for the band that was yet to play, yet to launch as I slid into more turns, more spins, and more toeing of the grass, the rocks, and the pavement that slathered about on the ground that now held my feet.
Coming into my ear was the sounds I knew I could hear from kilometres down the river; the sound of a band tearing up into the waltz and shaking the foundation of an old run down hall in a run down town. I think this was Yale. I think this was along the Fraser. I frequently lost track of these things, but didn't care anymore as I probably once used to. There were too many towns dying now. Just as this one was and when the hall with the echoing sounds of the band's dirge came into view it too was sagging from the weight of the waning ways of the gold rush that was now giving way to new commerce. New modes, and still it would be the river. Always the river that it seranaded and it was favourite god damn song.
Soon all that would be left was me dancing, me moving, me heading to a new scene to a new river, and a new cacophony of noise that would become a new style. A new rag time or sloppy blues that would pass by over the decay that was now all around me. This town and this hall were sagging and were soon to nothing more than a scrape. But in the now was the sound. In the now were my feet and despite being everywhere and anywhere there was no time and reason because where I wantd to be was here. Sliding in the old 1-2-3 towards the waltz that was slamming about every pore, every nook and cranny of this place and this hall where everyone was gonna be and had to be. I couldn't wait to be in it, and couldn't wait for it to hit me square in the face as I made way without losing a drop of time towards the enterance. THIS BAND WAS AWESOME.



“Have you met Tom Stevenson, Clarice?” her father guffawed and wheezed as he directed her towards a thing suited cartoonish man who smiled with a faint whistle from his oversized front teeth.
She was almost blinded by the whiteness of those choppers like two big ivory polished piano keys that were stapled into his mouth.
“”How do you do,” she said with a faint nod of her, “My name is Clarice Parker.”
Clarice turned to look back at her father who kept his hands at his side like a proud sentry.
“Would you mind a dance?” Tom Stevenson, the numer two merchant in town behind Phillip Paulsley who was watching from across the dimly lit hall, but was busy pretending to talk with Clarice's mother.
“She's a beautiful girl. Poised and honourable. We are really ever so proud,” Clarice's mother babbled, her stout bulbous figure barely containing itself.
Mrs. Parker's lips however could not help but smack louldy as they sone like dusty grapes in and about the candle light that was now being ever so increased in about the building as it was growing ever darker.
“One day we will have electricity piping in here,” spoke Daniek Fenton, the vice chair of the town booster committee, “we will be the provincial capital.”
There were banners about all in black and white, the only paints in the town, on giant pieces of blankets proclaiming the glory of the little dying town in giant optimist letters like a screaming cow about to crushed into meat.
Below one of those banners was a classmate of Clarice's named Elly who was all in curls and was studying Clarice carefully. She knew Clarice could see her curls and was deeply envious of the way she had it up because she had given her that look while she danced with Tom Stevenson the number two merchant in all of town behind Phillip Paulsley who had escaped Clarice's mother, swerved past Clarice's father and now was trying to chat up Elly, who was being prodded by her parents.
“He wants to dance with you, Elly, you should dance with Mr. Paulsley, and then maybe one of the doctors or that lawyer, Mr. Kent,” her thin rake of a mother hissed at her.
“I don't want to dance with him mom,” she said through smiling lips and she gave a nod to Mr. Paulsley who backed up a bit fidgetting.
Mr. Paulsley retreated towards Elly's father and with his cap in hand like a begger rather than the top merchant in town, and he began to strike up conversation with the man.
“The weather sure has been good. Got a large shipment going in and out. Good prices. Good prices. This town is really coming around. Money to be made. Home steaders should be coming in. Cattle business and livestock,” spoke Mr. Paulsley, the words rolling off his tongue to Elly's father who nodded approvingly.
“My feet are still soar from him and that lawyer stamping on them and nearing twisting my ankle last week at the Green Grass,” Elly moaned without breaking her smile.
“Don't dishonour me and your father,” hissed her mother coldly, “these are your opportunities!”
Elly's mother itched at her wedding ring that flopped about on her bony fingers, which she always did when she said those exact lines. Elly of course always noticed this and it made her itch in and around the tight neckline of her blouse.
On the dance floor Clarice suddenly fell awkwardly as Tom Stevenson coiled his cumbersome legs about her, sending her sprawling with a muffled scream to the floor causing Doctor Reinhardt to blaze in with his feather duster mustache flared over his mouth, not passing up on the chance to get his hands on Clarice's now twisted leg.
Tom Stevenson, his pride wounded stood watching behind the doctor's back with his arm outstetched as if he wanted to offer a hand but could not find the words to speak. His thoughts instead turned to the shipment of soap that he knew was coming in by the ferry in the morning.
The rest of the hall all began milling about as if they were concerned for the poor Clarice who was hardly injured and was frowning a bored expression that made Elly smirk and hum to herself. Before she knew it words came to her lips and the band heard her and they played in time. It was like an explosion that only a log driver could dare to dream of.



I burst in with my feet still moving, my eyes wide, and that song that was now coming from the band and the lips of a girl who was all in curls and it was just what I needed. I could see her singing and in my arms as we raced down the long rivers and streams on one log together at the speed of sound and light all at once. Singing that song. I am the log driver.
I grabbed her in my arms not asking her name and not wanting to hear it and she kept singing. We went down and down and along white waters, we were waltzing here in this tired little town, in this tired little hall but with a rocking band that we rocked to in the that three step time. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. Over and over and over the bodies of her angry parents who wanted her to dance with the merchants and lawyers who wanted her to marry them and flick their itchy wedding fingers in anxiety every time they spoke to her about the goodness of the men that twisted Clarice's ankle.
They lept over Clarice who smiled and joined them. Singing in the song that pushed aside the doctor and pushed aside Tom Stevenson and Phillip Paulsley and those angry parents.
There would definitely be a meeting of the morality committee in the rickety Church this Sunday.


“Our youth are going to the devil by that waltzing theiving bop!” screamed the preecher.
“They have hynotized us with their rhythms and their feet that tempts us to sin. To lewdly move our bodies in that satanic fashion that brings us to a lower, baseless, Godlessness that jeopardizes the very existance of this holy community,” screamed the priest.
“And singing with abandon, is hardly the place of a proper woman who does not want to bring herself into the repute of a harlot,” screamed the nun.
They all stood about at the front of the Church at the meeting of the holy morals, which Elly was made to sit at the front of like a defendent in a trial.
She could smell the sweat pouring around their shouting lips, see their unblinking eyes popping out of their skulls like giant gobstoppers she was sometimes given as a treat when she was little at the general store that Mr Phillip Paulsley ran, and who was sitting three rows behind her and nodding approvingly at the fire and brimstone that was being tossed about like aimless music.
“We must protect our youth from the influence of these transient devils going town to town on their logging roots, hynotizing our youth with their dangerous rebellion that threatens the stability of this beautiful little town,” hissed the mayor.
A poster reading LOG DRIVERS FORBIDDEN was plastered about by the river and all dances soon came to stop. No more bands. No more singing. Just the quiet mundane life of nothing to do in a town that was doomed to wash back into the river that it now looked at with scorn.
Weeks became months and Elly found herself staring out at the vastness of the river, wondering where he was, that log driver, who had gone down and long white waters and over top of the foolish Tom Stevenson and the ridiculous Phillip Paulsley.
“That is where he learned to step lightly,” she smiled to herself, “along those long ever flowing rivers that stretch on as far as I can see.”
She remembered being little and making sail boats with Clarice and they would race them down the river and how they would always eventually disappear and how they never knew who won. They used to argue endlessly that their's was the fastest that their's was the quickest even though the river went further on than they could see, they had won.
“I wonder where it goes,” she hummed to herself, “I wonder where it goes.”
The next day in the twilight of the evening Elly wandered down to the river bank with a boat in her hand that she plunked down in the river. She gave it a small push as it sailed down into the currents and down into the white capped rushing noise that filled her ears. She couldn't remember the river ever being this loud, ever being so much like a band playing their instruments all at once.
The band that had been the toast of the town had left the day after the last dance thanking her for her voice, for her dancing.
“Like an angel,” the saxophonist said, which drew a slap on the back from the banjo player who ushered him on over to the river where thy climbed aboard the ferry that brought in Tom Stevenson's soap order, which he was to ship back upstream in a few days to a merchant in another town that would be dead by the time the soap would arrive and he would lose a sizeable sum.
Elly watched now as her little sailboat that she had made out of twigs and bit of the LOG DRIVERS FORBIDDEN sign that she had torn down with zeal. She had folded it and molded it in the way she had done as a little girl with scraped knees and Clarice ,whom was playing up her twisted ankle about town the past week.
She was doing that just now in Tom Stevenson's store. Her leg was wrapped in tight bandages that bulged about over her stockings, and she was propped up a pair of wooden crutches that her father had hastily made her in order to “keep her mobile.”
“I never knew Elly could be so disgraceful,” she said to Tom Stevenson who ws fidgetting over his lost soap order in his store, “I've known her all my life and didn't think she would turn out so improper.”
Tom Stevenson smiled faintly and scratched about on his note pad trying to figure out some way he was going to possibly collect. His eys kept darting back and forth to Clarice's ankle from the notepad he was busily scratching out notes, plans, directives, and the fragments of a note to Mr. Kent, his lawyer and advisor in hopes of getting some sort of collection on the loss of the soap.
Back by the river, the sailboat slowly sailed out of distance and Elly wrapped her arms around herself. Remembering the touch of the log driver and the movements of his feet that she could feel as if they were a part of her own body.
“Synchronicity,” sh sighed as the boat slipped out of her sight, bobbing up and down in the beat of the river.



I keep that sail boat with me as I move faster than sight now. Up and down the rivers and in and through halls and in and around the sick, flared out grooves of every band, singer, and musician, and down the rivers of the entire world. I dance with people who don't know I am dancing with them. I danced with myself n lonely corners and rooms, bars, pubs, underground gatherings, and sock hops. They are just logs for my feet to glide up and down those rivers that I now drive alone.
I still wear the same clothes as they caught me in for that moving picture film; that flannel plaid shirt and a toque that droops down to eyebrows. The only difference was now I hug that sail boat that Elly made against my very soul.
It makes me go faster. It makes me want to be a song that came from her mouth and deep from with in her throat on the last dance in that little bull shit town on that day that was god knows how many years ago. It still echoes about me, that Log Driver's waltz, that only that sail boat keeps me from fully exploding into a hail of disconnected atoms.
I had gone back to that town the moment I had found that little boat and appeared like a spirit from under a rock where only Elly could see me. We danced again, and again I heard her sing and the way she held me I knew she too was going to be climbing onto the river just as I had done when I was five years old and had never looked back.
There was screaming all around us as Clarice had alerted the whole town. People came storming out with pitch foks to stop the devil that had shown up again on their shores. We ducked and weaved around them, still in our waltz time of three and three. Their swings of weaponry only flashed by us, deflecting off the air and smiles that tore holes in their battle.
“She has gone to the dogs,” Elly's mother grunted, clenching her fist.
We moved back to the hall and onto the same floor as where we had first began this movement, and I managed a half bow as I could hear the sounds of the river now calling me back. The sounds of another band down the long water way now calling me to some place else that I had to be, that I had to check out. I dropped her arms, and kept spinning and laughed as she too kept weaving, spinning, and singing louder and louder filling up the entire hall with her voice.
Outside the rest of the town was now trying to encircle us to close us in, but they could not stop us. Those fools could only watch. We were already gone from them.
“Never stop singing,” I told her.
“Never stop dancing,” she said, but I was already gone, merging with the light and her voice singing and laughing and launching grenades and explosives in and about Tom Stevenson, Phillip Paulsley, and that muffle duster doctor who had gleefully touched Clarice's twisted leg.