The Mercedes Variation

The Mercedes Variation lyrically chronicles Paul's infatuation with his rural neighbour Mercedes. She "stepped from her truck scrubbed, fresh and vibrant. Her eyes sent sparks as she smiled. She'd twined a chain of daisies through her ebony black hair and her nipples played hide and seek behind the delicate lace of her blouse. The wind wrapped her skirt around her more tightly than a mummy. She had open leather sandals on her feet. She looked like a virgin gypsy. I was dazzled." The background explores the uneasy mingling of hippies into the established rural culture of Ontario in the nineteen eighties, but the theme is a personal struggle. Paul not only discovers natural rhythms but, from the hippies, or "beansprouters", as the locals called them, he observes other values. "Profit wasn't a dirty word and yet, no one priced their skill higher than another's. Jobs were done cooperatively, or bartered, and at less than commercial rates. In that way they all sustained their dreams."