I'm Your Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

almost every day in London,” which sounds about right—but, that day, it rained even more heavily than usual, that cold, sideways, winter rain in which England specializes. He took shelter in a nearby building, which turned out to be a branch of the Bank of Greece. Leonard could not fail to notice that the teller wore a pair of sunglasses and had a tan. The man told Leonard that he was Greek and had recently been home; the weather, he said, was lovely there at this time of year.
    There was nothing to keep Leonard in London. He had no project to complete or promote, which left him not only free but also vulnerable to the depression that the short, dark days of a London winter are so good at inducing. On his application for the Canada Council grant, Leonard had said he would go to all the old capitals—Athens, Jerusalem and Rome, as well as London. On Hampstead High Street he stopped in at a travel agent’s and bought tickets to Israel and Greece.
    S urvival, in discussions of the mystery and motivations of Leonard Cohen, has tended to be left in the corner clutching an empty dance card while writers head for the more alluring sex, God and depression and haul them around the dance floor. There is no argument that between them these three have been a driving force in his life and work. But what served Leonard best was his survival instinct. Leonard had an instinct for self-protection that not all writers—or lovers, or depressives, or spiritual seekers, or any of those creative types that nature or nurture made raw and sensitive—possess. Leonard was a lover, but when it comes to survival he was also a fighter.
    When Leonard’s father died, what the nine-year-old boy wanted to keep of his was a knife and a service revolver; when Leonard was fourteen, the first story of his ever published (in his high school yearbook) bore the title “Kill or be Killed.” Yes, young boys like guns and gangsters, and small Jewish boys who grow up during World War II have even more layers to add to the general chromosomal bias, but Leonard definitely has a fighting spirit. Asked who his hero was, he rattled off the names of spiritual leaders and poets—Roshi, Ramesh Balsekar, Lorca, Yeats—adding the caveat, “I admire many men and women but it’s the designation ‘hero’ that I have difficulty with, because that implies some kind of reverence that is somewhat alien to my nature.” But the following day Leonard sent an e-mail, having thought about the question. His message said, without qualification this time:
    Â Â Â Â  i forgot
    Â Â Â Â  my hero is muhammad ali
    Â Â Â Â  as they say about the Timex in their ads
    Â Â Â Â  takes a lickin’
    Â Â Â Â  keeps on tickin’ 4
    Leonard still is a fighter. Some years after this correspondence, when Leonard, in his seventies, discovered that his former manager had bled his retirement account dry, he dusted off his suit, put on his hat and set off around the world to win his fortune back. But the gods conspired to give him an instinct for flight as well as fight. When it came to survival, Leonard would often turn to the first of the two for, as he put it, “the health of my soul.” 5
    Leonard was not entirely joking when he spoke about having had a “messianic” childhood. From an early age he had a strong sense that he was going to do something special and an expectation that he would “grow into manhood leading other men.” 6 He had also known from an early age that he would be a writer—a serious writer. Of all the trades a sensitive and depressive man could follow, few are more hazardous than being a serious writer. Acting? Actors are on the front line, yes, but most of the damage occurs during auditions. Once they land a role, they have a mask to hide behind. But writing is about uncovering. “Not I, but the poet discovered the unconscious,” said Freud,