Roxanne

Roxanne was my first girlfriend. I’d been on a couple of dates prior to meeting her, but nothing that prepared me for this. There were problems with the relationship from the start, the most notable being age difference. I was in my first year of college, she was in high school. Not just high school, grade nine. Four years difference. At my age now, four years would be no difference at all, but back then? She was a child, and I should never have gone down that road. What was I thinking? The answer: I wasn’t, not at all. In my defense, there were extenuating circumstances that, had they not been in place, there would have been no introduction, and no possibility of what followed. Nothing would have happened. The first was, for whatever reason, she was hanging out with my friends, who were in grade 13. She was mature for her age, and all things considered, my mind did not actually trigger on the fact that she was in grade 9. She was hanging out with my friends, after all. Should my mind have? You bet your ass it should have. But, sadly, it did not.

My first year of college was spent travelling back and forth, to and from home. Every Friday, I’d pack up, and hop on the bus at 7:30, arriving home at 11:30 in Timmins. Every weekend. In retrospect, that was not the best atmosphere for making lasting friends, but I was 18, a young 18, and most my classmates were 19 or 20, although there were a number of mature students, as well. That may not seem a big difference, but it was to me, then. I suppose my mind was still in high school; there was a divide between grades, a divide between ages. If only that sense of divide had reared its head in Roxanne’s case.

One weekend in early winter, I arrived home and hung out with Garry Martin and Deb Huisson, who’d become an item in the past year. I had already been given an absentee introduction to Roxanne in the prior weeks, but had yet to meet her. They’d talked her up some, told me how mature she was for her age, how fun she was. I was dubious. What the hell were they doing hanging out with a grade 9, I thought. I still subscribed to that age divide we’d known and loved since kindergarten, although in the past months, living with and hanging out with guys a year or two older than me, performing lab experiments with 30-year-olds, that old divide was beginning to shake off its bonds.

Then the introduction happened. At first, she was just some hangers-on, and then, after a couple weeks, we were together more, always finding ourselves seated side by each, apparently, inexplicably, attracted to one another. I felt it, and was beginning to recognize those signs I had never before seen (or recognized) directed towards me. I was flattered, elated. And I was responding in kind.

She teasingly called me “The Plaid Lad.” Everyone laughed at that. Me, too. Because it was true. But I wasn’t the only one in plaid then. I was grunge before my time. I’d thrown off the cords, was into 501s, plaid shirt and t-shirt, parkas, then leather jackets, (sky blue, HSM school jacket, yes, but leather jacket just the same). Longish hair. Edgy, and not. I was called Smilin’ Dave by some. A bit of a fuck you attitude was still to come…shortly after Christmas, in fact.

I’d never considered myself particularly attractive. Skinny, some moles, gap between my front teeth; a co-worker at the pool had once pointed out to me at 17 that my hair had begun to thin on my scalp (not the thing ANY teen wants to hear from an attractive girl). I was shy with girls, unsure how to act around them, certainly inexperienced when it came to relations beyond study groups, and the occasional chatting up over pop at Top Hats or the show. In short, girls were friends, and goddesses on pedestals. What interest I had in them wasn’t particularly reciprocated throughout high school that I was aware of. I had one real instance of being perused. Carla Colarossi had when I was in Grade 12, she in grade 11. She asked me to go to the Valentines Dance, and had made a rather heavy broach (badge? whatever) that I was to wear, and did, even though it pulled my shirt out of shape. I liked Carla, but she did not make my heart race, so nothing came of it. Aside from that, and a couple other isolated instances, I had very little experience as to how to cope with this new attention.

My relationship with Roxanne began in earnest shortly before Christmas. I did not last long. She and I would meet Saturday afternoons, and evenings, sometimes Sundays. She once came to the bus stop to see me off back to school. But I was older, I suppose faster, most definitely needier. I was ready for an actual serious relationship, despite my lack of experience. She was probably even more unprepared for me than I was for her. So she backed off, and there was a distance during the Christmas Holidays. I asked her about it. She stammered out that she had family obligations, not enough time, other concerns that I thought a bit thin. We were going out, weren’t we? I asked my friends for guidance. I asked this other guy who was hanging out with my friends, with Roxanne; where he came from, I had no clue. He was older than me, I remember that. Aside from that, I didn’t know a thing about him. I’d never seen him before that year; I’d never see him again after that year. I thought he was a wedge, between me and my friends, between me and Roxanne. But I was desperate and asked him for advice too, just the same. I remember they gave me the usual advice, give her space. I said that I was gone for a week at a time; how much space did she need?

And then, shortly after Christmas Day, she broke it off. I was devastated. I was depressed for a month, drank even more heavily than I was accustomed to do. I wanted to quit school, run away. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

There was a moment that passed quickly. I was in a car with John Lavric. We were headed out to South End, to go to his girlfriend’s party. I discovered that I had my hand on the door handle. Gripping it hard. I stared at it for a moment, and then consciously, delicately, released it.

How did I do scholastically that year in the wake of my leaving home for the first time, drinking to excess every week and then every weekend, in the wake of such a disastrous reconnoiter into love and relationships? I passed with a 2.15, not low enough to have to take a year off, just enough to continue. Had I failed, things might have turned out differently. I think I hated what I was doing. My future ex-brother-in-law had quit school and returned home. I had few friends. The guys I lived with were assholes, as far as I could see. Every morning, I’d see the Northlander bus pass my house on its way to Timmins. I wanted to be on it. I wanted to be on the train heading south to Toronto. The one saving grace, was my monthly shared train trip back to Haileybury with Keith. Keith was going to college in North Bay, and he and I saw each other every month for 4 hours on that train. I never failed to exit those meetings so hammered that I didn’t feel that I was going to die; but I don’t think I could have survived Roxanne without Keith. He was my littermate. I’ve never once felt that I wasn’t where I belonged when by his side. I still don’t.

That summer John and I were hanging out in his basement. It was about a week before my near fatal car accident (see automatic escapades). My sister’s wedding was a couple weeks behind us. John was experiencing a bumpy patch with his girlfriend, Tracy, and I was just beginning to actually get a grip on myself. I said just beginning. As I said, he and I were in his basement, mixing rye and cokes. John sipped his, commenting on how his foot hurt (he had actually broken it, as I recall, having leapt a guardrail that evening, and landing poorly, spilled to the ground); I was pulling harder on my drinks. The evening progressed, we complained about women, and then I went home as dawn was beginning to give hint of its arrival, having polished off way too many inches of that bottle (it was decades before I could abide the smell of whiskey). I staggered and stumbled home, taking easily three times as long to arrive home as needed. John listened to me all night. He nodded sagely. He listened patiently, something only he and Keith had done in those six months as I clawed my way back to sanity. Others didn’t, but those two did. I will love them both till my dying day for that.

Did I love Roxanne? Probably not. Maybe I did. I thought I did. Did my brief relationship with her cast a shadow on how I approached women for years to come? Most definitely. I wish it hadn’t. Because the following school year, I met Debbie Wursluk. And I most certainly loved her.

The Girl

A snowstorm was raging one night I rode the bus back to Timmins from Haileybury. Marc had quit, taking my steady ride back and forth from home with him. It was close to Christmas, so the bus was fuller than usual. A classmate was riding home with me, sitting next to me in the last seat at the back of the bus. I was not impressed. I smelled back there whenever the bathroom door opened. When it wasn’t, the upholstery smelled of caustic chemicals, of cigarettes and of melted snow and sweat. I watched the snow rush past the high window, half hidden by the beads and streaks of condensation.
We pulled into New Liskeard, a few people disembarked, pulling up their hoods of their parks before braving that wind. More than a few climbed up and inched down the aisle, scanning the seats as they shuffled to the rear. Before long there were no more and a girl even younger than I was left surveying the already full three-seater me and my classmate were on.
“Can I sit with you guys?” she asked.
We, each of us, looked at the already full seat, and at the occupied seats ahead of us all the way to the front. At the scruffy guy who shared our seat. She was pretty. We made room and she slid in between us.
She was talkative, going on about her trip to Timmins, how this was the first time she’d been on the bus, asking us where we were from. Where we were going. The fourth in our seat moved up when a seat came open at the next stop. She could have, but she didn’t. The ice broken, she opted to remain with us. She got up to use the bathroom. Asked us to watch her things. The door closed behind her, my classmate rolled his eyes and commented on how she never shut up. I shrugged. She was not hard to look at, and she helped pass the time, I said. You can have her, then, he said, curing up in the corner and pretending to nap, leaving ample room for her between us once she returned.
“I bet you like to travel,” she said to me when she returned.
I smiled. “Me? I’ve never been anywhere,” I said.
“But you like to, don’t you?” she said.
I nodded, not sure what else to do.
“I thought so,” she said. “I can always tell.” Then she said, “I’m psychic, that way.”
I thought the statement ludicrous, then. But even then I was beginning to wonder what was over the horizon. I hated where I was, that was sure.
She settled in closer to me, leaning into me, beginning to talk herself out. Her voice went soft after a while, only she and I witness to our now quiet concentration. She told me about how crappy her family was, how she wished she too could get up and go, and how lucky I was to travel, to be independent and out on my own, and how she only wished she could be as adventuresome.
After a while, she said she was tired, and asked if she could lay her head on my shoulder. I felt her nuzzle into me. I felt her fall asleep.
I think she was more adventuresome than she imagined herself to be. I’d never met a girl like her till then, and wouldn’t again until Debbie.

Freshman on Campus

Mining school. What was I thinking? I wasn’t, apparently.

The facts as I knew them. Timmins was/is a mining town. So, I was very aware of mining as an employable industry, with thousands of jobs in the district. My neighbour, George Miller, worked for Texas Gulf (the anomalous copper mine in a gold camp) for as long as I knew him, so did his brother, so did most of his friends. Marc Aube, my future ex-brother-in-law, had gone off to the college to take Mining Engineering Technology at Northern College’s Haileybury School of Mines campus. Aside from that, I was utterly clueless about mining. I had never been particularly good at math or physics, so why did I choose that as a career path? I have no idea, not a one. But I had enrolled, was accepted, they took my money, and I was on my way. Glory be.

College began in the usual way, as I’d learn in the coming years. I packed the essentials, not knowing what said essentials might actually be. Dishes, cutlery, clothing. Most everything I owned was still at home, only two and a half hours away, so all was not lost should I discover I’d forgotten that crucial this or that. But I did pack what I thought I would need for the year, including winter gear.

I need not have packed winter gear yet. I was a young 18 and travelled home every weekend that first year, regardless what might be happening in Haileybury. All my friends were still in Timmins, still in high school, where, I believe now, I should still have been, too. Water under the bridge.

Did I enjoy that first year? Yeah, I suppose I did. I’m of mixed opinion about that. Did I really enjoy where I was, what I was doing, who I was living with, who I was meeting and hanging around with that first year. No, I did not, not particularly. There were some guys I liked or I wouldn’t have stuck it out, I suppose. But I was persistent. I was tenacious. I was stubborn.

I packed everything I/we thought I needed into the trunk of my parent’s car and we drove the two and a half hours to Haileybury in a talkative state. I was nervous, new chapter in life and all that, the knot in my gut tighter with every kilometer. We arrived, piled out of the car, and were greeted by my landlady, Shirley. I’d opted to live in the same rooming house as Marc, the same place he’d lived in the year before, 680(?) Lakeshore Rd. S, on the corner of Georgina Street (Georgina is little more than a laneway).

Shirley’s rooming house was a two-story house, with a converted attic. We students were crowded in, five to the 2^nd floor, with the potential for four more on the 3^rd. Marc said the rooming house was full the year before, but I don’t recall there being boarders on the 3^rd that year. My room was a long, narrow closet overtop the porch roof, hanging off the front of the house and exposed to Lake Temiskaming. Its floor sloped away from the center of the house in two directions. I would discover it cold and drafty in the coming months, the space heater within running 24-7 just to keep the icy winds that blew off the lake at bay. Winds howled off its walls, traffic sounds rattling them as clear as day, despite its paper-thin insulation. Dan Seguin shared my precarious perch across the hall to the north. He had the worst of it; he awoke one morning to discover a snow drift laid over his scalp. The one phone available to all tenants was set between us. Cream coloured, rotary dial, as heavy as a brick; remember that? My mother was probably horrified of the prospect of leaving me there for a year, but she handed over the postdated cheques, all the same. We left the house, drove up to the school at the top of the hill, went inside, and looked around for a few minutes. There wasn’t much to take in. It was an old school, two stories, two hallways, one stacked atop the other, and no more. The expected graduating class photos lined the halls, between classroom doors. Peering through windows revealed an amphitheater, labs, classes, much like any school, but with higher ceilings than most. Lots of aged oak. There was a gym, a library. With that, the tour was complete. We found a restaurant, ate, and then there were hugs and kisses all around, and with me holding back my tears and fear of abandonment, I watched my parents drive away.

That’s when the drinking began. Marc took me in hand, so to speak, and the house dragged me to the Matabanick Hotel to initiate me.

The Matabanick was a dilapidated, somewhat tumbledown, hole in the wall, even then. God knows what it looks like now, if it still exists (I’ve seen its exterior on Google Maps, so I suppose it still does). We tumbled in and I saw tables wrapped around its thrust bar, a stage near the entrance on its north wall, washrooms and jukebox on the west, pool tables to the east, beyond which, I remember, was an enclosed porch where the shuffleboard table lived. There were fellow students already in attendance when we arrived, some already three sheets to the wind.

Rounds were bought, and I immediately fell behind. I didn’t have the year or more of their future 12 step program under my belt. The night flew by, and then dragged by. Towards its end, there were five opened, untouched blurry beers floating on the table awaiting me. But I could not drink anymore. I was so drunk that my body refused to swallow more than a drop at a time before my throat closed to it. I heard coaxing from some distant fuzzy voices, and what I suspect mockery from others. There was mockery. Given time, given proximity, exposure, and familiarity with these people, I began to recognize from which voices each came. I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake coming there.

We stumbled back to the house, and I was introduced to the 680 Lakeshore 1 am tradition: after-hour’s spaghetti and Bravo sauce and about a litre of choked back water.

School began the next day under the cloud of the worst hangover of my life. No classes, thankfully, just the expected hazing. We wore togas for the occasion, much as I did for O’Gorman’s now distant prep rally induction.

There were activities the whole week, usually scavenger hunts and the like, usually involving more beer and rye and vodka and shots. Sign-ups for clubs, to which I chose archery, thinking that might be the coolest club I’d ever heard of, or imagined. And classes. I met new people, those who I’d be spending the next year with. Hangovers every morning. Comas interrupted by the incessant blare of the fire engine red Big Ben wind-up alarm clock that would accompany my entire post-secondary career.

Then came Friday, the first weekend of college. I bought a ticket on the Northlander bus to Timmins, to get home and dry out for two days before beginning the process all over again.

I was so happy to see my friends. They missed me. They pounced on me. They buried me with questions. I filled their heads with stories and expectations of what for them was yet to come.

Thus ended my first week of college. I’m surprised that I remember anything at all.

The Maze

After graduation, summer in full swing, a mere month before I was to be off to my first year of college, I was visiting the Schumacher Pool, hanging out with friends on their breaks.

My old boss at the pool was miffed whenever she laid eyes on me. "What are you doing here?" she say. "I thought you were helping your father." She was alluding to one of the reasons I gave for giving notice at the Sportsplex Pool at the start of the summer. We were in the midst of renos that summer, and I had made myself free to help. Or so I said. I have to say that my mother was none to pleased with my decision, either. I knew my quitting would piss them both off, and I was rather nervous when I did; but I just didn't want to work at the pool for a pittance anymore. I can understand why my old boss was angry. I left her in a lurch, so to speak. She'd probably already scheduled my shifts for the season, and she was likely left shorthanded by my declaration. No matter. That was her problem, not mine. Anyone can up and quite a job that no longer fills their needs, just like anyone can be fired at a moment's notice, for that matter.

As to my helping my father: I did. Just not every day. He did not have the summer off. So, home renos happened on the weekends, when they did; which was not every weekend, or everyday on said weekends, either. So I had a fair bit of time on my hands. Mainly on weekdays. Weekends, too, actually. My father had a tendency to slip away with friends when there was work to be done; enough on that for now.

But I digress. I was visiting friends at the Schumacher Pool. Garry Martin and Sue Spencer were excited. It was plain they'd discovered something that was too good not to share. They took me by the arms and said, “You gotta see this,” they said. They led me into the basement, down into the underside of the pool basement. There were tunnels and passageways and crawlspaces throughout.

What was it exactly? It was the utility tunnels beneath and alongside the pool. There were more than expected, with nooks and crawlspaces and hides from which one could see and not be seen. It roused the imagination. Thoughts of Dungeons and Dragons sprung to our minds. Assignations and sex might ought to have, but such things didn't.

“Someone could hide down here and no one would ever know.” That, of course, prompted a bout of hide and seek. Of course it did. What else might come to mind when presented with such a thing. You’d think we were too old for that sort of behaviour? You would think so; but, obviously not.

Were we being childish? Probably. We were set to head off to school soon, "post-secondary school," or I was, anyway. Garry and Susan still had a year’s reprieve, to be "young," and without much in the way of having to face a looming future, whatever that might be.

The full weight of growing up was poised to drop on our shoulders in years to come. With that in mind, we thought keep a hold on childish fun as long as one could.

A Wedding

That time between high school and college was my last carefree summer.

What happened? Not much. A lot. I should have worked, but I was a little pissed at not been given my choice lifeguard placement at the beach near my house. Most others on staff were, Garry at the Schumacher Pool for instance, so too Jodie at the Mattagami River, etc. I just couldn't abide spending the summer working at the Archie Dillon Sportsplex, where one never knew what the weather might be while in its humid and claustrophobic expanse. Unless there was a torrential downpour, that is.

ButI digress. This post is about a wedding. My sister's, specifically.

Karen was getting married and I’d been allowed to invite friends to her wedding. Not to the meal, but to the ceremony and the dance. So, I invited the lot. Why not? Suits, ties, and the Dante Club. And I was an usher. One of two times. Never a best man. I’m still baffled by that. I’d had a lot of friends then, and I  was always left wondering why I wasn't asked to tuxedo up. As to being best man? There were a few times whan I wondered why I hadn’t been chosen. There can only be one, I suppose. I can only guess that I was passed over as a kindness; I was somewhat shy, not much of a public speaker then, either. Also, a great many of us had begun to drift apart and had also relocated when those nuptials were finally embarked upon. No matter.

That summer, I was chosen to be one of my future ex-brother-in-law’s ushers. It was an obligation, I imagine.

Powder blue tux. Sylvie Aube, Marc's cousin, on my arm. She was pretty, and I may have fallen in love with her a bit at the time. Pretty girl, friends, cousins, a few drinks and a lot of dancing. What more could one ask for?

Fracturing Friendships

Jerry, Roger, John, Mark, Chris, Me, Rene, Sean (Garry & Dan MIA)

Nothing lasts forever, not high school, not friendships, not anything. That’s a part of life. I’d already learned that, and was prepared for the eventuality of the end. Ready for it? No. Prepared for it? Yes.

I’ve had many restarts in my life. I moved from Cochrane to Timmins. Restart. I began Grade 1 in a new school, in a new town. Restart. I was held back in Grade 2 and had to repeat the year, with new classmates. Restart. When I left Pinecrest, I went to St. Theresa when all my school friends went to R. Ross Beattie. Restart. Half my friends left St. Theresa for the public-school system at the end of Grade 7. Reshuffle. Commencing high school, we were combined and amalgamated with the other Separate schools. Reshuffle. Throughout the ensuing years, I see from leafing through yearbooks, that our numbers dwindled as more and more kids transferred to TH&VS and RMSS. So, as Grade 12 began to come to its expected conclusion, I knew the writing was on the wall. All things must pass.

I was drifting through high school. I had no clue what I liked, no guidance on what I might be good at, what I might excel at in postsecondary school, or in life. Or what options were open to me, for that matter. I didn’t think I was especially bright. I’d never done that well at math or physics. I was largely disinterested in most of the subjects offered. I was especially good at English and History. We had next to no exposure to the Arts, no Music at all, so I had no insight into that world. I suspect now what I ought to have done, but hindsight is 20-20 and all that.

Butch MacMillian was our guidance counselor. I believe he was hopeless at it then. But I don’t think he had much choice as to whether or not he would fill that role, either. I think it was thrust upon him. Regardless, he sucked at it when we were there.

Butch told my sister that she wasn’t bright enough to become a nurse. She enrolled in Northern College’s Nursing program despite his advice, maybe even in spite of it; and when she graduated she told me to give him a copy of her graduation picture. Grad photos of nurses are/were different from others; they wore white uniforms and the now defunct, time honoured caps of old. She had obviously graduated from the Nursing program, something Butch told her she could never do. So her wanting me to give him her grad photo was a big fat fuck you. I don’t blame her. I’ve some of that lurking inside me, too, so I know it when I see it.

Butch didn’t just err when it came to guiding Karen. Butch told Dan Loreto that he did not require physics to get into teacher’s college. It turns out that Danny did need physics to get into the teacher’s program at the university he was attending. Danny had to go to summer school and pass physics or he would not be able to enter his program. He did.

As for me, Butch was silent as to my prospects of anything. That left me floundering with indecision. I actually travelled to Brock University to check out their campus the summer after Grade 11, but after poring through their course loads and curriculum, the degrees they offered, I wasn’t sure if they had anything to offer me. Nothing interested me, I couldn’t imagine what sort of jobs I might get from their degrees. And truth be told, I didn’t think I was bright enough to attend university. And I was terrified of the prospect of leaving home.

Then, my sister’s boyfriend, my future ex-brother-in-law, enrolled in the Haileybury School of Mines. I pondered HSM. Mining? I came from a mining town. I was informed by Marc (said future ex-brother-in-law) that there would always be mining. There was always a need for metal production, ergo, mining, and so there would always be jobs in mining. Clueless kid that I was, I did not think that mining engineering was in fact, a fistful of engineering, and that meant math and physics. There was also the security of knowing someone already in attendance. After mulling the prospect over for most of the coming year, I somehow convinced myself that I should go to Haileybury. And that meant leaving high school.

In many ways, I’d already begun the process. High school friendships are fleeting, temporary relationships, destined to fracture once the participants have moved on. As we grow up, we develop new interests, foster new friendships, and those older ones begin to fade away. Or so I found. Maybe others have forged long lasting relationships with those friends they had then. I didn’t. I wanted to, but for some reason, they all slipped out of my life, one by one.

John Lavric began telling stories about Lance, a new friend, someone we’d never met. Of weekend snowmobile adventures, of accidents and harrowing rides for help. He began talking about Tracy, this red-head he had his eye on, and who would ultimately become his girlfriend, and when that happened, we saw less and less of John.

Chris Cooper and Mark Charette began hanging out more, and Chris who’d been a presence in my life for the past five years became someone I usually just saw in class and bumped into in the hallways. And although I hung out with Mark, as well, and Roger Rheault, too, I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have a girlfriend, and I and they didn’t seem to share as many of the same interests anymore. Drifting began. They tried to set me up with a girl who had absolutely no interest I me, but that was as short lived an affair as you’d imagine. Mark and Roger and I drifted even further apart.

Renato Romey seemed destined to move to Toronto, where most of his family was.

And Garry Martin and I were spending more time at the pool, what with training and guarding and teaching swim lessons. And playing D&D. But we saw time marching on there, too. Alma and Astra Senkus left, Christine Rasicot, Lisa Leone, the list goes on. But there were also new friend cropping up within the Sportsplex’s walls, and then outside them too. There was Jeff O'Reilly, Jeff Chevrier, and there was Peter Cassidy, and Fran Cassidy, and then Cathy Walli, and then…. You know the drill. At that age, as some friends slip through your fingers, others slip in.

And then, abruptly, high school was over. We had our graduation ceremony at Nativity Church, we were Catholic, after all. We had our graduation dance, three-piece navy-blue pin stripes all around, complete with pocket watches. Throughout that weekend, we had our after-grad parties. We crisscrossed town, then out to Kamiscotia where one of the popular girls had opened her house to the masses, probably in hopes of her’s being remembered as the most popular grad party EVER! We geeks and freaks were welcomed to lackluster fanfare, we drank our beer, and piled back into our cars in search of better company. And then it was over. There are faces I’ve never seen again, whether I’d have liked to or not.

That summer, I quit my job at the pool. I’d had enough of it. My father wanted me to help with his on again, off again renovation of the addition basement. I guess my mother put her foot down, so there was an effort to complete the sauna, the shower, and what would become my burnt orange den. Construction was off and on, even then, so I had a lot of free time. I probably shouldn’t have quit. Lord knows I needed the money. But I did.

I went to summer school too. I’d passed math, but I took it again to get my marks up.

My mother told me to get out and get a job, so I went around some, and asked for applications, but by that time, all summer placements were filled, mainly by college and university students, back in February.

That too passed, then the summer.

And in the fall, I entered the Mining Engineering program at the Haileybury School of Mines.

It was the first big mistake of my life.

It would not be the last.

High School Errata

I remember Garry forgot his homework at work and ran to the Sportsplex, without throwing on his winter coat and boots, to retrieve it. I told him that was crazy, that it was -30 out there and that he would freeze his ears off. He shrugged my concern off, and he didn’t.

I remember my high school parka. It was long and beige and reached past my knees. The hood zipped up until it was a long tube that projected from my face. It served me well on those long cold walks to and from O’Gorman.

Between the spring of ‘82 and the spring of ‘83, Lord of the Rings was all the rage. I’d just begun playing D&D and was keen to get a copy. I read it during all my free moments, even while walking home from school.

Not that many of my high school friends were interested in D&D. John Lavric expressed his. I brushed him off. I didn’t mean to, not in a mean way. But I did. I said it was fairly complicated and would take some time to teach him. I didn’t think he would really be interested (he was a car and snowmobile type guy, after all), not really, and it was largely a lifeguard clique thing. So, yeah, maybe I was just being an ass. I don’t know if he was insulted by my brush off. It was certainly pointed out to John as such by Danny Loreto. It thought Danny was a dick for pressing the issue, but Danny and John were pumping iron then together and maybe he was jealous for John's attention.

All those nights at the movies, those classic bits of pastime and drivel, that, once we watch again in our middle years, we are sometimes horrified by how bad they were, but weren’t then: Heavy Metal, The Dark Crystal, the Secret of Nimh, Beastmaster, what have you. There were gems in there, too, but as I recall all those John Hughes films were released in my college years and not in my high school ones. Those and others would come later: Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Diner, Reality Bites. After GenX had kicked in, in earnest, in all its angst and glory.

I'll never forget how serious Garry was when dancing. His moves were smooth, erratic, detailed, practiced. He and his sister Sharron had spent hours refining their moves. Come to think on it, so had Karen and I. So, there may be others out there who’d marvelled at my dancing technique, too.

There are more of these dropped threads, a lifetime’s worth. And I’m sure that I’ll remember more, and better ones, the moment I’ve written this. But I can’t put them all here; there are far too many of them. We all have them, those little moments that fill our time and memory, brought forth again by a smell, a glimpse of a picture, a little thing that your child does, a scene in a film. They rush in, linger for but a moment, and pass, sinking back into those murky depths they came from.

Cherish them when they do. Relive their wonder.

The Soccer Pitch

We were playing soccer in O’Gorman’s back field (the one that would soon sprout a crop of portables) in my final year of high school. Grade 12 and 13 boys were participating, each grade a team. How we came about this, I’ve no clue, but I remember it was extremely competitive. We wanted to show the older boys that we weren’t kids. They didn’t want to lose to a bunch of kids.

So, there was a fair bit of aggressive play. John D’Alessandri had possession of the ball, and was moving it up field. He was in range of the net, and set to kick. He kicked for all he was worth. He kicked so hard that when his foot swept the ground just short of the ball he broke his ankle. He didn’t just break it, he broke it and twisted it around until his foot faced backwards. He dropped, screaming. We rushed to help, but fully half of us were so sickened by the sight that we turned away. John lay there, arms wrapped around his head, continuing to scream until the endorphins began to kick in and we realized that he’d been screaming FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, over and over, longer at first, then rapidly, then breathlessly. Teachers rushed out of the buildings, brushed us aside. John continued his litany, despite being surrounded by a number of nuns, Sister Fay among them. It was the first time I’d ever seen them not correct someone’s language. When that thought passed my mind, I had to turn away and clutch at my mouth or I’d have begun to giggle. I felt it boiling up, and there was no way I was going to laugh in light of what was unfolding.
The ambulance came, collected him and left. Jodie Russell visited John at the hospital after school had let out. John had still not been attended to, as yet...but he had been pumped full of morphine upon arrival. He was sitting upright, his legs crossed, the leg sporting his backwards foot crossed over the other. “Jesus Christ,” John said to Jodie, “are they ever fuckin’ slow here! Look at that,” he railed, pointing at his foot, “look at it! That is so fuckin’ wrong.”

Automotive Escapades

I didn’t get my driver’s license at 16. I didn’t think of it. I didn’t care about it. I walked. I rode my bike. There was the bus. And there was always someone about offering me a ride. Most of my friends had theirs, though. And that’s when the “fun” began. We were teen boys, and no one should have let us within 10 feet of a steering wheel, let along keys. The vehicles of choice were Mark Charette’s 330, replete with its ever so fashionable 8 Track player, Roger Rheault’s new Trans-Am, Chris Cooper’s 3-on-a-tree pick-up truck, John Lavric’s pick-up, or his parent’s Volvo, and Renato Romey’s Firebird. Neither Garry Martin nor I had cars; neither of us had our driver’s license at the time, either. In most cases, there was too much muscle under the hood. Youth and power can be a potentially disastrous combination.

To illustrate this, I present the following cases. Enter a boy, a red-blooded Canadian youth with delusions of immortality, and a thrill of speed….

We were over at John’s place, preparing to go…wherever. We were running a little late, in a bit of a hurry. We ran out the door, piling into John’s truck, among other vehicles when John’s father came round from the back of the house. “John,” he called, “you forgot to bring the car into the driveway, like I asked you.” John looked at the Volvo parked on the street, and said, “Oh, fuck…I forgot.” He rushed back into the house, collected the keys and got behind the wheel. He revved the engine, cranked the steering wheel, and backed into the drive. Quickly. We were running late, don’t forget. The car pulled off the road in a smooth arc. And didn’t appear to be losing much speed. My heart skipped as I watched the car close with the house. When the Volvo did stop, it did so in a screech of tires, a hair’s breadth beyond the bricks within the inset depth of the basement window sill. John hopped out of the Volvo, rounded the car, and bent down to look at the bumper. He looked up at my obviously still anxious features, and wearing a broad smile, said, “Holy crap, that was close.”

Winter time, Renato, Garry and I were in Renato’s car, racing up Ross Street. Why were we travelling so fast? Lord knows. All I can say is that Renato went everywhere fast, but Garry and I never once thought to tell Renato to slow down. We were high school students, reckless, risk takers. And one didn’t nag one’s friends. Or ever appeared afraid in front of them. As we were about to top the hill, we saw another car pull out of Toke Street with the intent to gain our opposing lane. The trouble was, we were travelling so fast Renato’s car was floating on a cushion of air. Renato inched the wheel to the right and the car settled, catching just enough road to find traction. I watched from the back seat as the car we were about to T-bone accelerated, and we raced past, barely avoiding its back bumper. Renato struggled to control the Firebird, fishtailing left and right for two blocks before he brought the beast under control again. A heartbeat later Renato said to a deathly quiet car, “Whoa…that was close.” Did I say that not one of us was wearing a seat-belt?

Chris and John were in Chris’s parent’s new car. Ozzy Osbourne was singing “Flying High Again.” The volume was deafening, likely trailing bass for blocks. Chris hit a pothole, the car skid to the ditch, and Chris and John felt the car begin to roll. And it did. Both were thankfully wearing their seatbelts this time because the car came to rest on its roof. John told me later that “the stereo stopped playing while we rolled. At least I think it did, because I don’t remember hearing it. And when we stopped rolling, we were stuck there, hanging from our seats.” And then he chucked, his grin ear to ear. “Just then,” he said, “all was quiet. (Pause for effect) And then when the stereo began playing again we hear Ozzy sing, ‘Momma’s gonna worry, I’ve been a bad, bad boy.’”

I did not become wiser with age, or learn from our earlier recklessness, either, as evidence will show. I’ll skip ahead a couple years, I’m 19, out of high school, through my first year of college and working at my first real job as a student at Kidd Creek Mine. I’ve money in my pocket, money to burn on gas. And still oblivious to potential harm. I was cruising, driving my mother’s ‘79 Malibu. Man, what a car! V8, rear wheel drive, prone to fishtailing due to its oversize engine and weight distribution. Way too much power for my limited experience; I’d only passed my driver’s test and received my license the summer before. I made a pit stop, stopping to visit Dan Loreto and Anthony Lionello, up in Moneta. They were playing baseball, but took a break when they saw me pull up. We chatted for a while, but not for long; I had to get home. So, I jumped back behind the steering wheel, promptly forgetting my seatbelt. I peeled out, rounded the Flora MacDonald playground, and headed back north up Balsam and drove right through the stop sign at Kirby without seeing it or slowing down.

Halfway through Kirby, I saw a big black shape loom in my peripheral vision. I glanced left and saw the toothy maw of a grill bearing down on me. Time slowed to a crawl. I realized that the truck about to hit me was travelling at immense speed. I realized that there was no way I’d clear the intersection before I was hit, no matter what speed I was travelling at. I leaned to the right, I suppose in an attempt to retreat from the truck that’s about to hit me, and my left arm instinctively rose in the feeble hope of warding me from harm.

And then the car crumpled around me. Titillation sparkled as the glass flew. My arm caught most of it. The collapsing door thrust me further into the passenger seat. The Malibu was thrown from the grill of the pickup and I felt the tires scrape and skid on the asphalt. The car crashed into the black, wrought iron picket fence at the corner, scraping it hard. I heard metal tear.

I rose up from the passenger seat, sliding back into the now too tight driver’s seat. And tried to crank the steering wheel to correct the car’s travel, to hold it straight. The car responded, but it did so grudgingly. The wheel was stiff and tested my strength, but I did manage to set the car against the curb. It came to a stop. I put it in park. And reached to release my seatbelt. Oh, my numb mind said, when I couldn’t find it, it wasn’t on. I tried the driver’s side door. It wouldn’t budge. I reached over and tried the passenger’s. Neither did it.

I noticed than that there was broken glass around me, and saw that the driver’s window was broken, shards of glass jutting up from the door, so I tried to roll down the other. It wouldn’t roll down. I was determined to be free of the car, so I reached out, onto the roof, and pulled myself past through the driver’s side empty space. I almost blacked out, actually saw the edges of my vision narrow, but I didn’t. I pulled myself through the window space, and miraculously didn’t fall to the asphalt. I set one foot on the ground, and then I collapsed. I rose up, and made my way on weak, unsteady legs across the street, where I flopped down onto a stretch of grass there.

I looked back and saw a trail of blood leading back to the car, smears of blood on the roof, on the door. It dawned on me that, oh, that must be mine.

More details resolved to my sluggish mind. I’d parked in front of the Loreto’s house. I heard screen doors crash open.

Two thoughts crossed my mind. My old man’s gonna kill me, was the first. And, my insurance is gonna go sky high. I began to giggle. I couldn’t stop.

That’s when I heard Mrs. Loreto scream, and saw Mario Senior rushing across the street towards me.