A Pause Before a Return

 

Haileybury behind me, I set my site on 3^rd year at Cambrian.

I’d weathered my summer layoff, made my money at the Dome. Bonus had filled in the loss of a week’s pay, and then some. It was not so different at the Dome. There was far more security, I’d had to endure periodic searches, but by and large, underground was underground. Cap lamps and coveralls. I had to prove myself, though. The Dome had so many students that year, I had to compete with all the others to gain the better bonus jobs.

My first shifts were as ditch cleaner, then ditch digger. Then I was trained as a “valve man.” I had to fill ore cars for a battery locomotive trolley. A week later, I was the locomotive operator. A month later, I was hauling ore for a better bonus stope. I finished my summer as a block-holer in a scram. That means I drilled holes in oversize muck that would not fit down the stope shoot, and blasted them. I filled in on occasion with the long-hole blasters, mainly man hauling explosives up a raise to a stope being loaded. Paychecks were good. Bonus checks were better. They were the crème that topped the cake.

Allergies were not. I had a bad outbreak of hives that summer. This is not to say that I had not been plagued by them every year since grade 5, because I had; this is to say that this may have been the worst case I’d had since grade 5. I blame stress. There were days that the hives were so bad that I could not stand to have my helmet sit atop my head. They itched horribly, my scalp crawling under its light pressure, so badly that on one break, I whipped it off and hurled it across the stope. It was a stupid thing to do, more a reaction than a thought, as I had to walk over to retrieve the damn thing. But they passed, as did the summer.

I was adamant that I would not stay in residence again. I was just beginning to grow up and get my act together, so, the last thing I needed was that level of regression again. Would it have been fun? Yes, it would have been fun, but I had no desire to see my GPA regain casualty status again. My first year at HSM had been a near disaster, my average a lofty 2.15; my year in Cambrian had been little better, about 2.25, an improvement, but still a disaster; the past year had been better, far better: 2.7. I was getting somewhere, where, I had no clue, but at least I was beginning to feel less of a failure than I had presumed myself to be. I was older and a far more experienced student. I could just about rhyme off what would be on any given test or exam by the abundance of detail in my notes. I just had little interest in what I was studying. I was far more interested in history and literature, archeology, sociology and the like. People interested me. The march of time interested me. Movies and novels, Vietnam, the Great War, and the War of the Rings.

This is not to say I was any more mature. I was still an adolescent in an aging body. I still haunted the bars on weekends. I still went to parties with my old friends. At one such, Deb Huisson must have taken it upon herself to sober me up some, so she insisted we talk a walk. I’d developed some feelings for Deb that summer, so I agreed without much coaxing. Halfway through, I had to pee. The urge became insistent. So, I told Deb to keep watch. She whispered, “Don’t!” But I was in such need that I told her not to worry, that it was the middle of the night, so who would know? I nestled up to a hedge, and began to relieve myself. I heard a rapping at a window. I looked up, and saw a middle-aged woman beating on her picture window. God knows why she was up at that hour, but there she was, looking down on me up against her bushes. Deb rasped a curse and hid. But there was nothing to be done but finish. If she called the cops, we’d be long gone by the time they arrived. So, I waved the woman off, zipped up, and got on my merry way. Deb kept looking over her shoulder. I did not. “Come on,” I said, reaching out for her hand. She took it, and we ran a little, mainly because it made her feel better to put some distance between us and that bush.

I was even less mature when in Aubrey Bergin’s company. I’d met Aubrey a couple years prior in the Empire. We ogled women on the dancefloor. We giggled like schoolboys at the most childish things. I was still only 18 when we met, already a regular at the Empire. One day, a waitress met us at the door with a stamp in hand, and told us to proffer our fists. “Why?” we asked.

“Because we were busted for underage drinking, and we need to be sure that everyone in here is of age.” She did not ask me for ID. Good thing, as I was just the sort they were trying to keep out.
Later, still in my childish ignorance, I began to call a rather attractive Asian woman Jizzum. Why? Because that’s what Aubrey and his friends called her, and Aubrey and his friends were her friends. At first, she took it in stride, shrugged it off. Then, when I called her that the next weekend, she lashed out, said I was a horrible person, and stormed off. I was shocked! I was confused! “What did I do?” I asked Aubrey.

“You called her, Jizzum,” he said.

I must have looked like a vacant kid, because he laughed. “Don’t you know what jizzum is?”

I didn’t want to profess ignorance, so I remained silent.

“It’s cum,” he said, and almost collapsed with laughter.

I still had a lot of growing up to do.

Uncertainty, and My Father

I returned from Haileybury to a terrifying uncertainty. Kidd Creek phoned to rescind their offer of employment. No student starting after a certain date was to be retained. I, and all other college students, were now unemployed. I had no idea what I was going to do. How could I go back to school without summer employment? Where was I to make money? All summer positions had been filled in March. I was in a panic.

That’s when my father stepped in. What could he do in the wake of my summer employment disaster? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. You'd have to know my father and the shadow he cast across Timmins, much as my Poppa had, in his town, in his day. Now, my father's shadow was not nearly as long as my Poppa's, but he cast one. Yes he did, indeed.

You don't believe me? What do you know of my father, Ed Leonard? 

Nothing, obviously. Maybe I should fill you in a little.

Hockey is the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they think of him. He was good at it too. He lived it day and night, growing up. He’d rise, pack a lunch, and be down at the rink, regardless the temperature, until he could no longer see the puck. It was all he thought about. He might have made something of it too, had he not taken a stick to the face when he was 18 years old, detaching his retina.

There was no miracle eye surgery back then, in the ‘50s. He was sequestered to a bed in hospital for months, his head held immobile by sandbags. A mask covered his eyes. He had strict instructions to not move his head, to not, if possible, even shift his eyes. He remained that way for three months, blind and immobile, with only a radio to pass the time, until the retina settled to the bottom and knit itself in place. Were this procedure unsuccessful, he’d have had vision problems for the rest of his life. Either way, he had ample time to develop an uncanny ability to remember song lyrics. Luckily, his retina did as instructed, his only concern healing bed sores. But no scout would touch him after that, not after an eye injury.

Anger does not begin to describe how he felt about that, I imagine. His love had been stolen from him, his chosen goal, forever out of reach. He continued to play hockey, despite the risk, and did so until his late 30s without any further injuries, without the retina ever causing him further problems, as was suggested could happen. He had no choice but to get on with his life.

He’d worked as a parts boy as a kid, so he'd taken a job as such after leaving school after grade 10, a common thing in the North in those days. Without hockey, time passed as it was destined to, and in time my parents married and moved to Don Mills, and in time had Dean.

And it was because of Dean they could no longer afford to live in the South. Dean was what we would call Developmentally Challenged, these days. Severely so; in fact, he'd have been the postcard for developmentally challenged. Dean’s needs were costly. And those medical bills made it impossible for my parents to remain in Toronto. The stress was unbearable. My mother required the support of family, so they moved back to Cochrane.

My Poppa stepped in, pulled lofty strings and Dean was placed in a long-term care facility. Had he not, my mother would surely have suffered a breakdown, and my parents might have split, Catholic or not. Or so I believe.

My Poppa helped out a lot, allowing my father set up his own business in Cochrane, again, in parts. He was grateful, but he was not satisfied with mere parts, anymore. So, Dad sold the business after Karen and I entered the picture, and began working for Husky Ltd (my parents opting for guaranteed security), and then shifted employment again to Molson’s.

We moved to Timmins. More money. Not the best move, for more reasons than I wish to dwell on. Maybe it was for me and Karen, we would discover, but not my parents. Not really.

Dad was always on the road, gone from Monday morning to Friday evening. Time passed. Karen and I grew up. He brought me on his rounds on rare occasions during the summer when I was older (about 15, maybe), I recall wandering between tables and peeking behind bars, inhaling the aura of cigarettes and alcohol imbedded in the gaudy carpets, each a riot of pattern and colour to mask the stains and burns. I recall the Empire Hotel most vividly, my being fascinated by the coloured Plexiglas squares of Charlie’s dancefloor, the tangle of electronics crowding the disk jockey’s booth, taking in the dark oak pillars and bannisters, the finger-smudged brass. The room seemed an empty void without patrons. Both Charlie’s and Bogie’s were poorly lit in light of day, hazy with dust, the motes caught drifting on slow currents by the surprisingly alien sunlight that invaded them. I climbed up on the stage and surveyed the terrain before it while my father wrapped up his business with the owner.

My father had been a salesman for most of his adult life, first as a self-employed parts man, then fuel products for Husky Ltd., then as a booster rep for Molson’s Brewery, and then he sold heavy equipment for Crothers (after my mother had had her fill of Molson’s); that would be Caterpillar Equip., by the way. He was a member of social and business clubs; not the Shriners, or the Masons, or the Kinsman, or any of the sort, but ethnic clubs and social clubs and the sort. He knew a lot of people. I mean he knew a lot of people. So, when I lost my job at Kidd, he made some phone calls. He asked around, he pulled some strings. And a few days later I got a call from the manager of the Dome Mine. A personal phone call from the manager of the Dome.

He’d decided to hire all of the mining students, and only the mining students, laid off by Kidd. All of us. He was under no obligation; he’d already hired all the students he needed for the summer. But he made an exception that summer. I find it hard to believe that my father had little to do with that. I was saved. I’d lost a week’s wages, but I was saved. I wouldn’t have to apply for a loan. I wouldn’t have to scrape by that summer on a pauper’s allowance. But I did have to wait out a strike vote.

The Dome was in negotiation with its Union that summer, with little progress made as the weeks dragged on. I was informed that I ought to bring all my gear home the weekend leading up to the deadline. My stomach tied itself in knots. I still had a month to go before school, and not enough money to make it through the year. I packed my gear, tossed it in the boot, and waited out the news reports.

The Union voted to accept the hastily prepared counteroffer in the eleventh hour. And I was saved, yet again.

The Nomad

Have you ever wanted to just pack up and leave? Probably. But you likely came to your senses and didn’t. The difference between you and I is that I did. On far too many occasions. This understanding that I could just get up and leave may have begun to take root when I was younger, owing to all those moves and restarts and reshuffles I’d weathered. I never quit, though. Not once. I always put my shoulder to the stone and persevered, only pulling up roots on completion of what I was doing at the time. During college I pulled up roots to escape, to run away. In time that became a wanderlust. So, it’s no surprise that halfway through my 2^nd year at Haileybury, I began to feel the desire to move on.

That desire was heralded by a conversation I had at a party, during Christmas break. Garry Martin and Debbie Huisson had, or were about to break up, but she and Garry were still friends, still chumming about. Garry had a gift for that, always able to remain friends with the girls he’d dated. More than that, he was able to get away with just about anything when it came to women. On more than one occasion, Garry would chase down some girl, even one he wasn’t seeing, grab her, lift her off her feet, and turning her upside down, bite her playfully on the behind, growling and shaking his head like a dog while he did it. The girls laughed. They always laughed. Had I done that, I’d have been up on sexual harassment charges within the hour, but not Garry. He did not bite anyone’s ass at the party in question. He behaved himself, as much as Garry behaved himself. Deb and I were talking, and she was telling me about how excited she was for her upcoming spring trip to Aruba. Aruba? I asked, thinking how could she afford to go to Aruba? I certainly couldn’t. I usually began to see my finances dwindle come New Year, requiring my annual loan from my parents, so travel was out of the question. I was jealous, and said so. I said I wish I could go somewhere, anywhere, on spring break, making a joke of it. Then you should go, Deb said, as if it were as simple as that. Of course, it was that simple; for her, anyway. But hers was an affluent family; mine wasn’t. I would never have taken a loan from my parents and then spent it on a trip to fun in the sun. I wish I’d been able to, but I would never have, not then anyway. Duty called. I’d committed myself to an education I’d begun to loathe less than I had, even if I was still baffled as to why I was enrolled in it. As for travel, and new, unknown experiences, I had a fear of forging out on my own, wanting the security of friends at my side.

But her escaping on holiday did raise up the desire to move on. I began to think on returning to Sudbury. There were women there, girls my age, not the high school girls and married women some of the guys I knew were dallying with. And even though the guys I was rooming with were better than those prior HSM roommates, cabin fever was setting in, and I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied. Neil had promised to teach me guitar, and despite my bringing my father’s Gibson back down with me, he never seemed to find the time or the inclination. I tried on my own for a little while, but learning to read music and the instrument at the same time proved a daunting task. Jeff and I began to argue in Milling and Chem class. John Star began to howl how I stole his land after a few drinks. “You’re kidding, right?” I asked. “Look at me,” I said, “I don’t own a fucking thing.”

I found other friends. I took refuge at Roy’s Restaurant. My cash dwindled, but Roy was always pleased to see me, chatting me up at the bar. I began to only go out Fridays, opting to stay in and watch TVOs Saturday Night at the Movies, with Elwy Yost, on a tiny 3 inch black & white TV combo my parents had gifted me when I left for school.

I recall my final D&D session vividly, not so much for the game, but for the evening on which it was held. We were up at the college after hours, in the cafeteria, set up on the short south wall. We were playing, winding things up, when we caught sight of a flash on the horizon. Deep, lengthy thunder rolled over us. We took little notice at first, it was just another spring storm out on the horizon, somewhere far out over Quebec. But in no time at all, another, even larger bolt splayed out over the full length of all we could survey. We stopped and stood as more and more bolts struck out in the far distance. More thunder rolled, closer this time. Just as one bolt died, another arced and stretched and reached out, then another and another, each one closer and closer still, each strike leaping a kilometer ahead of the last, so many at a time that they cast a bright blue blaze over all we could see, the elms, the town, the lake, the horizon, the underside of the boiling clouds. We fanned out, each to one of the partitioned alcoves, watching and feeling the storm as it rushed in on us. The enormous elms whipped and writhed on the storm’s fury as it crashed onto the shore and climbed the hill. Sheets of rain were thrown against the building. We ought not to have remained fixed as we were in the windows, but we were, each of us, awed by the spectacle unfolding before us, rushing up to us and over us. The thunder had become a long continuous, overlapping roar, each peel a bass bell resonating within us. And once past, it was gone, receding faster than it had arrived, leaving a vast silence and ghastly black void in it wake. In its wake I felt an emptiness. I was numb. I wished to be gone.

Towards the end, I’d arrive at Roy’s with no more than five or ten dollars in my pocket, enough for a few beers, enough to catch a set and be gone. The final night there, I was preparing to leave when Roy set a beer in front of me. “It’s on me,” he said. That beer complete, another was set in front of me, then another. “It’s the least I can do for you,” he said. “You may be surprised to hear this, but I think of you as a friend. If you ever pass through here again, say on your way to Toronto or something, I want you to stop in and say hello.”
I never did.

Wisdom Abounds

Wisdom abounds, even from the mouths of babes.

Spring arrived in Haileybury, my second and final year there. Money had grown a little tight, and we’d begun hanging out at home more, going to the LCBO and investing in a case of beer that neither pleased, nor offended anyone, watching TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies. On one such Saturday night, we were settled in on our back stoop, just hanging out. Time was short. We’d soon be each on our way wherever. I was leaving for good. I’d no regrets returning. It was a good year, with good friends. I also regretted returning, leaving Debbie, but you can’t turn back time, can you? One must learn to live with one’s decisions.

It was a small space, that back stoop, room to sit two comfortably, with myself, Jeff, Joe, Neil and John in attendance. Two of Neil’s grade 13 harem had joined us, perched on the bannister, one on either side of the source their adoration. Neil was popular with the girls, and Neil liked the girls, too, he even loved his girlfriend back home. He did like a lot of attention.

Neil was strumming and picking Bruce Cockburn songs, and others, anything Canadian, only Canadian. My stereo was ready and waiting for when he’d tired. The fridge was stocked. The night was calm. Summer’s heat was settling in.

There was chat, about nothing and everything. For whatever reason, the Falklands War was a hot topic, despite it being four years past. So was Vietnam. Vietnam was always a big topic then, probably since it had always been referenced to, so long as we’d lived. War was everywhere. War was a constant. So was the Cold War. Iraq-Iran was droning on. The Culture War was beginning, that much was obvious, even to us then. Political rhetoric was far more venomous than ever, raising the ghosts of 1968. Political venom was enticing hate and vitriol. It looked, to us, like the pot was beginning to boil over. We were debating the likelihood of our fate should Canada ever go to war again. Neil’s harem was dutifully impressed by the depth of our wisdom and erudition (pretentiousness, more likely).

That ought not to have lasted out the night, given the consumption of alcohol, but it did. We were in fine form. Politics, the rise of government debt, the impending fall of intellectualism. Such philosophers we were!

We devised what we referred to as the Immutable Laws and Rules of Life.
These being:

1.      Never underestimate anyone’s ability to be stupid

a.       later amended with: this means you, too

2.      Never let anyone else do your thinking for you

a.       their motives are not your own

b.      their end goals are not your own

c.       never trust a politician

3.      Bravery is a tool, leveraged by others, if not yourself

a.       leverages include:

                                                              i.      seduction

                                                            ii.      coaxing

                                                          iii.      intimidation

                                                          iv.      threats

4.      Stamp out bravery, bravery will only get you in trouble

a.       if any action requires you to be brave, what you’re about to do is inadvisable and foolhardy

b.      courage and fortitude are not the same thing as bravery

5.      Always ask yourself this before doing anything, what am I forgetting?

a.       if you aren’t forgetting anything and it still requires bravery, see above

6.      When in doubt, a man’s intelligence is inversely proportional to the complexity of his watch

a.       if in doubt, refer to your own watch

                                                              i.      is it complex?

                                                            ii.      does it do more than tell the time?

                                                          iii.      refer to the Laws and Rules mentioned above

7.      Lastly, life is too short to get mad about stupid shit.

We did get a little silly as the evening wore on. There was a lot of giggling and laughter as we bore on.
But I stand by our early wisdom.

The Ecclesiastical Siege

I earn the nickname Psycho. Again.

There are times when kindness backfires. In the depth of winter in my second year at Haileybury, I did one such kindness. I don’t regret the act; I do resent their taking advantage.

Our house had been out the night before, out till all hours. We partook of our time-honoured tradition of 2 am spaghetti dinner and hit the sack at about 3:00. I slept as only the truly self-medicated can, in a coma, rising as expected, awarded with the near-death experience hangover any reasonable human-being would expect given my overindulgence, my head splitting and my guts in knots, unbearably nauseous.
I shuffled to the bathroom, and fully intended to sleep the day away if that were possible, when I heard a knock at the door. I turned and faced it. Who the hell could that be, I thought. Wind buffeted the house. I could hear pellets of snow driven against the windows. There was so much frost on the door’s window that it was impossible to see who could possibly be visiting us at that time, in such weather. What time was it? I had no idea.

I threw open the door and was met with a rush of misery. It had to be -40*. Icy wind blew past and through my robe. Two obviously freezing young men hunched on our stoop. Even in my state, I knew exactly what they were. Jehovah’s. There to save my soul, and to get their quota of converts, so they might bask in the glory of their savior, forevermore.

“Good morning,” they said, far too chipper for my state, far to chipper for the weather.

“Morning,” I croaked, unwilling to commit to good or any other adjective. All I was willing to commit to was my unwillingness to stand in an open doorway, in my bathrobe, subjected to the fullest fury of winter. “Jesus,” I said, not caring a whit what they thought of my language. “You look frozen.” Fuck ‘em if they couldn’t take a joke. I then made my mistake of kindness. “Come on in for a couple minutes to warm up,” I said.

They did, unwilling just then to venture much further than the entry into our obviously tattered and tumbledown den of student’s debauchery. I had, after all, met them at the door in my bathrobe, clearly still in the throes of last night’s excess. I must have seemed quite a catch, someone clearly in need of saving.

I was, just not by them

“Cold out,” I said, shuffling into the kitchen, “isn’t it.”

They agreed. They introduced themselves

I asked them if they’d like some coffee to help thaw their bones. “It’s instant,” I said. Forewarned is forearmed.

They accepted, then began their spiel. Had I heard the Good News? Did I know our Savior?
Not personally, I said.

I mentioned that I was a practicing Catholic, and that I was not interested. Contradictory? Yes. But that’s what my mother always said at the door when they came to call and it always seemed to work for her.

The kettle boiled, I poured us each a cup. I sat down at the fixed picnic table that served as our dining room table. They remained standing. I offered them a seat. Another mistake, but I was taught to be polite.

I asked if they wouldn’t mind if I put some clothes on. I did. I also threw back a couple extra-strength Tylenols and about a litre of water for good measure. I lit a smoke, unmindful of my headache, addictions being what they are.

They set in on me when I returned, bringing out a battery of pamphlets, enlightening me on how Catholicism had got it all wrong, pointing out just how, and in increasing detail. I was well armed for such a debate, my mother having taken me in hand every Saturday night for Mass, and although I always brought a novel to read while waiting for Mass to commence, she always insisted I put it aside and pay attention. I did. I listened then, and I listened now, so, as far as I was concerned, the Jehovah’s had just taken the Catholic scripture, ignoring whatever bits they didn’t like, and reinventing it as they saw fit. It was all a mess as far as I could see. Jesus had brothers and sisters, whose names were conveniently the same as the apostles and disciples, etc. I always loved a good debate, so I perked up, pointed out those facts as I remembered them, and in time, thanked them for their time, informing them that I was hungry, and needed a shower.

They thanked me for the coffee, and gave me further reading material. Hard covers, this time. I begged off, tried to return them, but they insisted. Then they told me that they’d be back with one of their elders next week, just to introduce him. So we could all get to know one another better.

Crap! I thought. Idiot.

I saw them out. And promptly chucked their reading material in the trash without giving it a glance. I thought about giving the books back, but they’d pissed me off, intruding on my hangover as they had. I had enough confusion and uncertainty in my life; the last thing I needed was a bunch of bible-thumpers at my door, showing me the way to enlightenment and salvation.

Just as the books hit the bin, I heard every occupied door on my floor open. Jeff, and Joe Clark, and Neil and John all spilled out from their hiding to confront me and laugh at my good fortune.
“You idiot,” they said. “Now we’d have every Holy Roller in town at our door.”

“I fix,” I said.

And I did.

I made signs for our kitchen window. I made my own pamphlets for distribution. And I made a folder in which said pamphlets could rest until needed. Next Friday night, before collapsing into bed, I put them up.

JESUS SUCKS, declared the kitchen window signs. Were that not to deter them, I’d set the folder filled with pamphlets jammed in the front door, the pages easy to get at.

I was not awakened early that Saturday. I suppose they thought it better that they visit later in the day.
That sunny afternoon, I saw the two return, this time led by a middle-aged man. They took no note of the kitchen window papers. Perhaps they did not see them. They climbed the stairs. Paused for a moment at the door, then descended again.

Perhaps they took offence at my own ecclesiastical message.

An erect penis glared up from the cover of each folded pamphlet. Inside was the same penis, this time ejaculating. Above and below it was written: Jesus took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it; this is my body.”

We were never bothered by them again.

Yes, I was an irreverent asshole. But as I said, I was pissed that they’d taken advantage of my kindness. And I did earn my nickname anew that day. Word gets around.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God! Amen!

Limbo, and Beyond

So there I was, back in Haileybury, repeating 2^nd year, even though I’d passed it in Cambrian. It was like 2^nd grade, all over again. I’ll be fair; there were differences in the curriculums. Cambrian was more class-oriented, fewer field trips, with more mechanical and statistical overlaps, while HSM was a more “practical,” hands on, technical course load. Way more surveying, something I was never particularly fond of, having to do circle checks out back in the freezing cold. HSM covered milling, Cambrian did not.

Psycho followed me. For Christ’s sake, is about all I can say about that. James Parisi spread the nickname around when we returned for summer employment, and the Haileybury guys we knew picked up on it. My stereo followed that year, too. The purple palace had oodles more room than did the porch perch I’d had prior, and I’d always been jealous of those guys who’d had the luxury of their own music, so I was not to be outdone that year.

I met Greg early on, and after discovering we both played D&D, he told me that he wanted to get a game started, that he’d already lined up a few players, and asked me if I wanted to play, but only after consulting whether the others were okay with adding yet another player. I spoke to a few of them prior, displaying some enthusiasm, and was shocked and amused when Greg told me they were unsure, saying that they thought I wanted to want to play in a darkened room with black candles or some such nonsense. I burst out laughing, wondering where they got that idea. I asked Greg if I could stick the candles in beer bottles, then asked him where I could buy candles. We played, off and on, then the group split in two after a while. I was somewhat dissatisfied with some of their play, generally goody-two-shoes, one big happy family, let’s all stick together, hack and slash stuff. If you’ve ever played, maybe you understand what I’m getting at. My splinter group (Greg was involved in both) was a grittier affair, more focused on city adventures, politics, roleplaying, and vendettas and the like. I was asked to sit in with the other group on occasion when someone couldn’t make the session, but I didn’t make a point of it. It irritated me how poorly they played.

I’d met another friend in that first month, an older married guy (mid-late-30s) who was on what we used to refer to as the walking wounded program (workman’s comp. was paying his way). I knew Doug’s wife too; she worked at the cafeteria to help make ends meet. Doug heard about our game, wanted to try, and before I knew it, he and his wife were inviting me over for dinner once a month, maybe to get me out of the bars and fatten me up some. What I remember most about those dinners was kicking back to Doug’s album collection afterwards, the beers we shared, the conversations we had. He told me that he knew that my thinning hair was dragging my confidence down, and removing his own cap even though I already knew he was as bald as can be, exposed his own shining scalp. “Bald is beautiful,” he said, his expansive grin brightening his feral beard, “and any woman who doesn’t love your big beautiful bald head is no woman worth your time of day.” To prove his point, his wife bent over to kiss the top of his own, perfectly big beautiful bald head. They dragged Roxanne and Debbie out of me, told me neither disaster was my fault and that I’d get my feet back under me and find another woman when I was ready; I just needed some time to find my centre again. I laughed at that, then, pointing out that the School of Mines was only one step above a monastery. I believe now that they loved me and wanted to fix me, sure that I’d slake off drinking and self-deprecation when I pulled myself together. Had Doug’s goal been to get me back on the road to weekend sobriety (which it wasn’t, considering his love of hops and rye and cokes), he wouldn’t have fed me so many beers that I suffered some of the worst hangovers of my life.

The School of Mines was not really a monastery, despite its overwhelmingly male student body. There were a few females in attendance, if you were willing to join the queue. There were other women about, too, the locals, if you were into high school students, married women, or clingy girls looking for an escape route from the Tri-towns. There were those guys who preyed upon them. I remember a couple of my roommates picking up girls for a romp, only to trade them off amongst themselves mid-night, water them from a pot and not a glass, and send them on their way in the morning, joking about how skanks didn’t deserve a glass. Another roommate dated and sometimes bedded the grade 13 girls. I serenaded their romantic endeavors with the volume control on my stereo. Earplugs were a necessity.

For those of us on the rebound and less inclined to those sorts of romantic pitfalls, there were other distractions aside from D&D. There was the archery club, there were the bands that came to town, there were school bonspiels. I signed up for one, but as the teams were already set, I accepted a spare slot, subbing in whenever someone didn’t show. I had reservations. I’d never curled, and I thought it would be dull, arriving each night only to sit in the observation pub by myself, but one guy never showed, not once, so I curled each and every week. We were the worst! We sucked, but unless we were playing against a team set on qualifying for the Briar, we always had fun. Not one of us had ever curled before, so when consulting our skip (a dapper goateed fellow about my age who affected the country gentleman, replete with tweed and pipe) as to where we thought we should place a rock, the answer was invariably, “I’m thinkin’ anywhere within these coloured circles,” he’d say, pointing with the stem of his pipe. Not that we ever expected that we’d pull off even that lofty goal. We did win one glorious end, not the game, although we had won the occasional end throughout the tournament. We had just one glorious end. There were about six rocks in house (some of them closest to the button ours…a minor miracle), and on the final rock, one of their sweepers slipped, flailed about, and wiped out, somehow causing all of their rocks to be banished from the house, leaving only our three remaining! We celebrated like we’d just won gold.

Haileybury, The Scene of the Crime

Why did I return to Haileybury? I suppose I’d forgotten how miserable I’d been there. I may have thought it a symptom of homesickness, which it was in part. I suppose it was mainly my putting distance between Deb and I. Either way, my return was imminent. Where Cambrian took my year at Haileybury into account and afforded me credit, Haileybury was arrogant enough to believe that no other school could meet its high standards, so I was to “repeat” 2^nd year. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I decided to return to the Old Boy. But before I did, I needed to make some money.

I returned home, with the usual twenty dollars to my name, took a loan from my parents to tide me over, and went back to work at Kidd. There was a slight change from the prior year. I spent the summer on surface, not underground, working in the load-out. The load-out is where the muck (ore) is loaded onto the met site train. It was a quiet summer at work. There were sunny days, a few moments of tanning on breaks, tons of clean-up, and one minor accident. I fell from a ladder into a bin of scrap metal, no more than three for four feet, but far enough to earn some scrapes, some bruises. Within the hour I was relatively pain free, so I didn’t report it. Was that stupid? Maybe. Probably. But, it was more a blow to my pride than my body.

I met Aubrey Bergin in the Empire Hotel, that summer, Charlie’s specifically (although we’d spend time in both Charlie’s and Bogie’s; those were the two sides, dance and live music, respectively). A couple years older, he was as adrift as I was, so we hit it off right away. New friends, love to meet people! Of course, I hung out with my old friends too, returning from their first year of university. Most were slipping through my fingers, by then, soon to be just faces recognized in the mall. They, at least, seemed on the road to wherever they were going. True, they were only just finishing their first year, with loads of time to regret their decisions, but those are their stories to tell. There was Garry Martin, and Jodie Russell, still at the pool, and Chris Cooper, John Lavric, and Danny Loreto still out and about, seen mainly on weekends. D&D with Garry and Jodie on weekend afternoons, with Jeff Chevrier and Sharron Martin by then. And then the summer was over. Uneventful? Not really. Vague in my memory? Yes. Who remembers uneventful routine? I was settling in to a routine of work, and weekend indulgence, one that I coasted on until it was time to return to school.

Haileybury was exactly as I remembered it, no surprise there. I even stayed at Shirley’s rooming house again, although that year I upgraded to Marc’s old room, hereby known as the purple palace. Purple wall-to-wall carpet, violet wallpaper. It was by far the largest of all the rooms, and as I was already in the know, I reserved it. But this time, there was a whole new bunch of tenants, guys far more amiable than those I’d slummed with last time. Two of whom were to be classmates, owing to my year’s absence, Brian and Jeff. Brian was quiet, studious, travelled home often to see his girlfriend. Jeff had a Hog. There was a young guy there, Neil (not to be mistaken with Neil Petersen, who’s live large in further memories), one with a guitar. And a native, John Star. A few others.

What was different? I did not return home weekends like I had last time I was there. I’d grown accustomed to my freedom and independence at Cambrian, and was learning to spread my wings a little. I didn’t fly far. We wasted our weekends at the Matabanick Hotel, and at another (an un-named strip club; unnamed because I can’t remember what it was called), down by the Curling Hall (gone now, owing to the new lakeside development throughout), but mainly at a new bar on the corner of Ferguson and Broadway, Roy’s Restaurant (what I remembered as the old defunct theatre). The Matabanick still got the occasional band, but the focus had shifted to Roy’s, because Roy was determined to gain ad keep the college business. Which he did. He certainly gained mine, and my friends, Jeff, and Joe Clark, and Ronald MacDonald.

Yes, those were their names. I am not making that up. Most people wouldn’t believe it, either, at first. Not even the QPP. One weekend we were all headed out to Notre Dame du Nord to drink and meet French women, Jeff and I in one vehicle, Joe and Ronald in another. They were running late, promising to catch us up. Joe and Ronald didn’t make it. The cops pulled them over, asked them what their names were and when they replied, the cops thought they were just being smart-assed Anglaise students making fun of them, so they arrested them. Joe and Ronald tried to show their IDs, but the cops didn’t bother looking at them, they told them to get out of the car, cuffed them and threw them in jail. They released them in the morning when they finally got around to looking at their photo IDs and driver’s licenses, but the night was lost.

I had an experience while waiting for them to arrive. I bought a litre beer from a corner store, and drank it out on the street, talking with an old Quebecoise who sat with me and Jeff while we waited for the bar to open (he was probably the ripe old age of 54, looking back). It was so weird. I’d never met an old guy like him before; pony tail, sideburns, pencil moustaches, gold teeth, grizzled countenance. All decked out in denim and cowboy boots, he looked like something that stepped out of the ‘60s. All the men I ever met that were his age looked like my father, blazers, dress shoes, dress shirts. How’d Jeff and I do, you ask? We drank on Ontario time, meaning we were a couple sheets to the wind by midnight when all the Quebecoise came out. We had no idea bars were open till 3 am in Quebec. We gave up and went home.

But it was D&D that made that year bearable. I met a quiet guy early on in the cafeteria. He was smart, a little terse and condescending most of the time to most of the guys myself included, so he was usually in there alone, lounging in the alcoves along the long wall of windows that overlooked Lake Temiskaming, basking in the heat with a book. I usually ignored him, but I was always curious about what people were reading, even then. One day I sat beside him and asked what he was reading. He angled the cover my way without responding. It was a fantasy book I’d burned through that summer. “Not bad,” I said, not meaning it (I thought it was dull and poorly written, actually; I remember that, not what the book was), “have you read…” That got us to talking, mainly about the books we liked, which turned out to be too long a list, many of which overlapped. D&D was referenced, we discovered we both played, and then like little kids, we were best friends. Not best friends forever, though. My friendship with Greg lasted the year, no more. We’ve never crossed paths since. But I recall him vividly: short, a bit on the stalky side, red hair, receding hairline, and sporting a Van Dyke with a chin strap. I’m horrific with names, always have been.

Thus began my return to the scene of the crime, the crime being the beginning of my life in mining.

Cambrian Errata

Some memories span years. MacLean and MacLean, for instance. My first exposure to the comedy team was back in high school. I was leafing through Mark Charette’s albums, The Police leaping from the speakers, when I came across an oddity. What’s this? I asked. Mark took the LP from me, glanced at the cover, and said, “It’s MacLean and MacLean.” That much was obvious. “It’s a comedy album,” he said. He removed “Outlandos d’ Amour,” and put the new album on. I was shocked. I shocked easily then. A seemingly endless barrage of cursing and scatology issued forth from the grooves. Dirty folk tunes, and most memorably “I’ve Seen Pubic Hair” replaced “So Lonely” and “Roxanne.” Mark knew every line, every word to every song. I giggled, and melted with disbelief, cramping from laughing so hard. But I discovered the shock wore off quickly. One followed another, they were all the same. The LPs were played on occasion, but one can only find the constant stream of curses funny for so long.

Maclean and Maclean resurfaced later, when I was in Res. They came to the college community hall. Tickets sold out quickly. We arrived early, what we thought early, anyway, but not nearly early enough. We found ourselves seated on the far right, with only a glimpse of the stage. The audience was loud with anticipation. Most of us had at least heard of them, many even knew some of their dirty limericks. The Emcee took the stage, we were hushed, and the eponymous Stars rose to the stage and took the mic. They were awful. Maybe I ought to say the sound was awful. All we heard was reverb and echo, feedback and fuzz, with only the often-yelled FUCK clearly heard through the hum, throughout. We listened, we strained, we grew impatient. Halfway through their first set we’d had enough. Let’s go, we said. We left, and went down the street to a notorious hangout, Whiskey Jack’s. Maybe I’ve got the name wrong, but I recall it was right across the street from Comics North. Whiskey Jack’s was a biker bar, just across the tracks on Elm Street, but one friendly to students who were always in attendance to play pool and slum. Slumming was popular then. There were more than one occasion when Evan and Deb and I, and then later Henri and I found ourselves sitting at a table next to grizzled old bikers, playing pool with those same gentlemen.

Surprising thing is, that was not the dumbest thing we did in Res. There were drugs everywhere, not just on my floor. You could partake as often as you’d like, if you had a mind to. Temptation was everywhere. The smell wafted up from door jams. People used to step aside from the stove to make room for others to do knives, those who didn’t have a hotplate stowed away in their room. I’ve said before, incense was everywhere too. There were a fair number of casualties. Never an overdose, just the slippage of GPA, and the inevitable loss of their year.

And as I’d mentioned more than once, there were a lot of parties. People used to crash them. It wasn’t that hard, the doors at the entrance were largely unguarded, and anyone could walk in through the door when we or any others entered. After all, we didn’t know everyone who lived there, much less be able to recognize them all. There was a guard, always of retirement age, usually wide of width, so if things went bad, one had best not expect them to sort it out. We had to do that ourselves. I remember that during the weekend long party at the start of my year in Res, we had to do just that. There were a bunch of us drinking in Evan’s room, when our floor dean roused us up and told us to come with them. Who were we to deny such a request? So, we asked the sensible question, can we bring our beer? Sure, they said, just come right now. So we followed, they lined us up shoulder to shoulder along the stairwell wall between 2^nd and 3^rd floor (the entrance floor). We weren’t the only ones placed there, either; everyone in Res was lined up along the walls. Then the stairwell door crashed open, and two obviously drunk and belligerent guys were shoved through. They saw the multitudes that led along their path out of Res. We were there to aid in intimidation. “See there?” one of the deans said to the two drunks. “Those are all the guys who’ll beat the shit out of you if you don’t leave!” They did, but I felt a little ridiculous when the drunks were paraded past. A little unnerved, too. I was never much of a fighter.

That said, the security guards were more inclined to see us as the criminals, as likely as not. During that same weekend, a guard was making his rounds, and came to our floor. “Look at this place,” he shouted. We looked around. It was a mess. But the cleaning staff was on strike, so what did he want us to do about it? “Apparently it was “Get to bed!” That’s what he yelled, anyway. That was the funniest thing we’d heard, because we all laughed at him, guys and girls, alike, no exceptions.

“Youse all belong in the hoosegow!” he countered before storming off. I can’t recall him ever patrolling our floor again.

Deb, The Beginning of the End

Sadly, all good things come to an end. The end began the night we went to see the Transvestite show. The end may have begun even before that. Had events unfolded as I wished, I’d have stayed in Sudbury, I’d have asked Deb to marry me, got a job, and I’d have raised two to four Irish-Polish Canadian children. I was young, I was idealistic, I was naïve. And I had not heard a damn thing that Deb was telling me. She liked me; that much I knew. Much later on, I understood she may have loved me, too. But Deb had seen her mother give up everything for house and home and husband and children. And although she had resigned herself to her fate, her marriage had not been good, she had not been prosperous, and she had lived mainly for her family. Deb vowed that would not be her lot in life, she vowed that she would have her own life, that she would make something of herself. Then I came along. I must have been the embodiment of the loss of those dreams.

So, as time wore on, I found her more distant. I grew increasingly desperate, and I probably crowded her. I know I crowded her. Maybe frightened her. Definitely scared her off. Time passed and there was more distance. I began to grow angry. There was a fight. There was no yelling; I’ve never been a yeller; if anything, I internalize anger and rage, trying to smother it; so, there were hushed tones, there was jaw clenching anger. And then more distance.
Deb hung out with the girls more, and then there was another guy. I guess that was inevitable. I have no clue where he came from, or what his relationship to her was, but I felt betrayed. Time passed. We had not seen one another for a while. Truth is, I was avoiding her. I didn’t know what I might say, only that I’d make things worse if I opened my mouth. I’d excelled at that with Roxanne. So, why not with Deb, too? One night she approached me, said there was “a get together in her room and would I like to join them?”
“Who’s there,” I asked. She rattled off some names; I knew all but the one. I wanted to go, I wanted to be near her. But I didn’t go. I couldn’t bear to be banished across the room and see her cozy up to another guy. I just could not bear that. I was devastated, all over again, felt a burning in my chest and a tightness rise up in my throat, all but choking me off. I bit back tears, said maybe later, and didn’t go. I shut my door, thought myself the coward I knew myself to be, and buried my agony in my pillow and wept.
I hung out more and more with Henri Guenette, then with T.J. Quenelle. Treffle Jay. I’d never met a guy named Treffle, before. But Treffle drank, and by then, so did I again, even though I could ill afford to, financially, and emotionally. But T.J. was a distraction. T.J. had an Austin Mini, the first I’d ever seen, the first I’d ever rode in. I recall having to look up at the driver of a VW Bug next to us and thinking it unbelievably ridiculous being seated in a car that had wheels that were no larger than a foot in radius. I began to giggle, then lost control of myself and laughed so hard I began to cramp up. It was not the Mini. It was not Bug. I was losing control of myself.
Time passed. Fire alarms were pulled in the dead of night. You could always tell if someone was tying one on in Res. Weekday, weekend, no matter; when someone tied one on, someone pulled the fire alarm. T.J. came out yelling, “Rats! It’s those damn rats! They’re in the walls, they’re in the wiring. They’ve taken over the administration!” Deb approached me on some of these occasions. I made nice. I talked, we laughed. I kept my distance.
I began to keep to my room, door closed. The burning lump of anger and regret rarely left my chest. My eyes hardened, most likely. My circle dwindled. I read more. I recall Henri and I reading the same book concurrently, a sequel to a fav of ours back in high school. The supposed main character of the trilogy died, and Henri rushed down from the 2^nd floor to share his shock. My door was actually open again, by then. “Did you get there?” he asked, not wanting to spoil the surprise. I looked up. “Allanon?” I asked, already there, already in the know, “Yeah,” I said, my voice a dull monotone in my ears. I must have smiled. I must have appeared as shocked and thrilled by it as he was. Henri looked pleased.
I was amused, on occasion. I laughed when I heard about Henri and his 2^nd floor circle having kicked bottle caps through the gap under a neighbour’s room. Her parents were visiting, and she’d spent hours cleaning her room, getting it just so. She and they went to lunch, and while they were gone, Henri and the others kicked about a hundred caps into her room. They’d fly in all directions when they cleared the door. Her face fell when she opened the door and saw her room littered with caps. Her father thought it rather funny, I was told. Her mother didn’t. But I did.
I listened intently, and without a hint of jealousy, as Henri told me about his hook-ups, and then his girlfriend. He tried to hook me up. I presumed to be with the girl for a while, but it was obvious to even me that she was not into me. Maybe I gave off a glow of heartache. If I had, she showed no desire to lift me up, fix me, or save me.
I began to think about escape, much as I had in Haileybury. I concocted an idiotic belief that I needed the Old Boy’s name behind me if I were to get a job in my most hated chosen profession, so I applied to go back. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. That comforting habit had reasserted itself. I applied, and God help me, I accepted. So, I was leaving yet another space, this one the happiest and most comforting I had ever known.
Deb and I settled into a quiet truce. We said hi, we avoided one another, until one of our circle had had enough. A Cochrane girl, she had little patience for bullshit. She cornered me, and asked me, what the fuck, in so many words. She said, Deb misses you. I hung my head and mumbled something, but she’d have none of that, either. Talk to her, she said.
So I did. The truce warmed. Deb seemed relieved and spoke about how stupid it had been that we’d both thought the other mad at one another, and over nothing. I did not ask her about the other guy. I hadn’t seen him about, but I hadn’t looked for him, either. I didn’t see the point of mentioning it (him), by then. I told her that I was leaving, and she seemed sincerely disappointed that I’d decided to go. I too had begun to regret my decision, but I’d always been tenacious in my follow through of bad decisions, so why stop now?
That’s why that night that she and I and Evan had spent together while all the others were out at the Brian Adam’s concert had been so special to me. We were saying goodbye.
That memory guts me to this day, 30 years on. Subtext.