A Litany of Storms

It’s surprising how different any other place can be from home, regardless how close it may appear on a map. London was no different in that it too was different. London suffered from greater storms than home, or at least it had while I was there. So did Haileybury, for that matter, but Hailebury’s weather was more similar than it was different. Sudbury was much the same as Timmins, so much so I might as well have been home. But the South was noticeably more humid; so it came as no surprise that its autumn storms were more severe. So too its transition.

I recall when back in Sudbury, in Res, a floor-mate from Barrie was bragging about how great Barrie was. It was the perfect city, it was the perfect size, it had the perfect weather. We were crowded into the common room as he declared these simple, indisputable facts. The six-o’clock news was on. He was interrupted by a special report. Barrie had been hit by a tornado, cutting a swath of destruction through the city, dispelling his declaration of perfect weather. He was shocked. He was concerned. We too were shocked. A tornado! In Ontario! We were also amused. And we laughed. The Fates could never have pulled off a coincidence like that again in a million years. Yeah, we were assholes to have laughed, but we couldn’t help ourselves.

Autumn’s first snows arrived as expected in London, in late October. The day it came, it was still rather mild to my reckoning. There was a sporadically brisk breeze when I walked up to the campus, but that’s not to say that it was cold, either. I wore a light sweater and a jean jacket. No other outerwear was required. The wind picked up, slaked off, picked up again, gusting in from the north. The air smelled of snow. If you come from the North, you understand what I mean. Snow has a smell like no other. The sky filled with patchy, yet visibly fat, cloud cover. Whatever other weather held off for the rest of the morning.

My classes complete, I headed home for lunch. Early on, the first flakes fell, then thickened. At first it was rather pleasant. Fat fluffy snow drifted on a light breeze, melting as it lit on the ground. Then the wind picked up. The cloud cover closed ranks, cutting off what warmth the sun had afforded me up till then. The temperature dropped with it. The snow thickened. And turned sticky. As I was passing the University Hospital Parking Garage I was treated with the full force of the wind, and on gaining Perth Drive it began to rain. Thick heavy rain. This is not to say that it ceased snowing; it hadn’t. Snow and rain were falling together, flying in my face on an increasingly icy wind.

I’d never experienced this. Within a block I was soaked through, yet wearing an increasingly thick coat of snow to the fore. Everything I could see was painted by a wet white sticky glue that slid and drooped and defied the gravity that pulled it to the ground. Five minutes later, I gained my front stoop. I had to shake my jacket hard to detach this new skin, and skim my thighs as though scraping slush from a windshield. I stripped and spent a quarter hour in the shower to throw off the damp chill that had enveloped me in about a third of the time. When I was towelling off, I noticed that the snow had been replaced by a driving rain that had erased all evidence of the snow that had until minutes before clung to all I could see. No one in the house was particularly interested in my little adventure. They’d all seen it before.

Winter was milder, if snowier. Storms blew in, the roads impassable for hours at a time. And passed as quickly as they came. And melted away to almost nothing in a couple days. I learned a new weather term: the snow squall. Snowbanks were not the hard-pressed windrows I remembered, but temporary things that could never support my weight. I fell through one such stepping off the bus, landing flat on my face.

Spring was no less gentle. I’d been up at the library studying. It was easier studying there than arguing with Jamie night after night about volume. When I left the campus, it was a gorgeous summer evening in the spring. Hot, humid, heavy. The air felt close. Thunder rolled in the distance. I looked up and saw stars, so I didn’t think anything of it. Without a cloud in the sky, I thought I had plenty of time to get home before the storm arrived, if it ever did. I miscalculated. Before I left the hilltop campus behind, the clouds crowded in, the wind picked up, and the flash of lightning was lighting my steps more often than the overhead streetlamps. I got as far as the University Hospital Parking Garage when I began to get nervous. The flashes and the thunder had become a litany of exclamation. I was counting off the seconds between flash and boom, but I was no longer sure where one left off and the next began. Not a drop had fallen.

Then there was a flash that all but blinded me. The roar was deafening. The thunder hammered me down, buckling my knees. I’d flinched so hard that I’d actually come close to jerking flat on the ground. There was another bolt, and another, and another. And I was up and running for the open wall of the seven-story structure. Luckily the 1^st floor WAS open, so I leapt over the half wall and carried on until I was midway between the rows of parked cars.

I stood there for a few minutes, still shaking, trying and failing to light a cigarette. The gusts kept ripping the flame from the Bic’s spout. The storm passed, as quickly as it came, as quickly as that awe-inspiring storm I’d watched roll over Haileybury two years before. Only that time I was safe within the confines of the 2^nd floor cafeteria.

Not out in the open. Not at ground zero.

I waited there until I’d finished my smoke before poking my head out. It still hadn’t rained.

I could still taste the Ozone.

MIRV

Remember Jeff Chevrier? Lifeguard, D&D, Top Hats? We called him MIRV after a stage in RED ALERT, a video game he could not beat. The game would be going well until he saw the script, “Warning, M.I.R.V. being deployed!” Jeff would cry out, “Oh no, not M.I.R.V.” Nothing went well after that.

Not a bad nickname. Try wearing Psycho for a while.

Jeff and I were aware of our mutual residence in London and made plans to keep in touch. The trouble was our mutual distance. Fanshawe was not even close to Western, fully two transfers away. So were we to hang out, it was for the night. That wasn’t possible at my place. I only had a room, while Jeff shared a house, with a perfectly serviceable couch.

Jeff called me early on. He asked, “Have you ever heard of Joe Kools?” I hadn’t. I hadn’t ventured far from my house and campus, as yet. “It’s a bar downtown,” he said, pausing for effect. “It’s a restaurant, too,” as though that ought to explain all. He asked if I wanted to go that weekend. Fiona (Jeff’s future wife, also cashier at the Schumacher Pool that past summer) would be there too, he said. I agreed. We set a time. The Marque under the neon said Josepi Koolinski, but only the letters for Joe Kools were illuminated. It was a great space, not large, sprouting a patio that we never used owing to it being under feet of snow most of the year. It was the interior that drew me. It was amazing! Pictures everywhere, framed rejection letters for its grand opening from the Queen, the Premier and Prime Minister of the time, t-shirts papering the ceiling. Sarcasm reigned supreme. The entry sporting two horses’ asses, hung with the pictures of the asses of the week, accompanied by two papier-mâché jockey’s flipping the bar the bird. A sign declared the bar the unofficial foreign headquarters of the Detroit Tigers, so there was a Blue Jays jersey taped to the floor for all patrons to wipe their feet on. Jeff and I got down on our hands and knees when we arrived, laying a kiss on the one clean patch we could see. We were met with boos, cheers and laughter in equal measure; more importantly, the bartender awarded us with a free beer each for our display of balls.

As we sipped our reward, Jeff and I found ourselves transfixed by the TV. The weather channel, specifically. We watched the weatherman’s arms whirl and gesture, his hands pointing at a maelstrom bearing down on our hometown. It rolled and rolled repeatedly, the eye revealing the word Timmins, again and again. There was no sound from the set, music and the gaggle of the patrons filling the space, but sound was unnecessary; the expression of his face told us all we needed to know. “Holy shit,” we said, before bursting into laughter. We toasted our good fortune to not be at home.

Joe Kools and the Ceeps were great, but more often than not, we economized and partied at his house, Star Trek or porn usually flickering on the screen all the while, usually ignored. There was RISK on the table. Yes…RISK. RISK is fun when played right, by a bunch of beer-drinking near adolescents bent on making and breaking non-aggression pacts. One had to be careful. There could be only one. So, one had to assess what state one might be in after one’s round, having laid waste to one’s opponents, only to have left one’s flank exposed to one’s ally. So, one had to wonder when the best opportunity of betrayal was at hand and have the wherewithal to act upon one’s ally’s lack of preparation for the inevitable. That’s what friends were for. What ought to have been a one-hour game, at the most, could stretch for on for hours with that level of loyalty and subterfuge.

I now come to the party. What party? THE party.

Our landlord wanted to throw a housewarming party. He wanted us, Matt, Jak, and me, to invite all our friends. I didn’t have many in London, but I invited all I knew, as did Matt, as did Jak, as did Jaime, as did all of Jaime’s friends. That was a lot of people. A blizzard raged outside throughout their arrivals. Shoes and boots piled up just inside the door, burying the scrap wall-to-wall carpet Jamie had got his hands on for the occasion. We had no intention of waking to damaged hardwood, so the carpet was our sacrificial offering to Bacchus. It was soon damp with beer, dusted with the ashes of a hundred cigarettes. More guests arrived. The house filled, and soon, there wasn’t any elbow room.

Matt declared that someone could probably walk around naked and no one would know. A statement like that required testing, because a truth is not a proof until it’s proven. Bets were declared, and accepted. So, Matt undressed, completely, then put his pants back on, his underwear atop them, and then said, “See?” As far as we could see, he was right. No one noticed. No one laughed, no one catcalled, no one ogled his nakedness. Those inclined to disprove him paid up.

I grabbed a round and settled in next to Jeff and Fiona on the couch. Jeff accepted a beer, and rather calmly asked me, “Have you been upstairs, yet?”

“Haven’t broke the seal,” I said. I’d yet to have committed to the inevitable 20-minute intervals to the all too full washroom, yet, so I was holding off.

Jeff said, “It’s snowing in your room.” Deadpan.

“What?” I said, trying to see how badly it was snowing outside. Windows had been thrown open throughout the house to release the tropical heat we’d been enduring from the blazing fireplace and blazing bodies. There was no snow falling just then, and hadn’t been for some time.

“It’s snowing in your room,” he repeated, slowly, as though I might understand better were he to enunciate at a more measured pace. I was obviously not processing well just then, so he clarified. “Coke, man,” he said. “There’s a storm of coke being blown in your room!”

I was up the stairs in a flash. True enough, one of Jaimie’s close friends was dealing in my room. Why my room? I had a perfectly smooth, glossy tabletop, that’s why.

I walked up to the dealer. “What’s up?” I asked. Shook his hand, urban like.

“Nothing,” he said. He offered me a blow, call it rent, he said.

“Dude,” I said, “the cops are due here any moment. We just saw a cruiser inch past the house.” That was bullshit, of course, I’d seen no such thing, but it was the only thing that crossed my mind at such short notice.

His eyes snapped wide. He declared the party over, scooped up his traffic, and was out of the house in less than 5 minutes.

Good thing. The cops were banging on the door in 10 to warn us that they’d had complaints about the noise.

Pizza arrived while they were still at the door.

A Niche Found

University was very much an extension of college. Not of Haileybury; that had been like an extension of high school. More like Cambrian. Western treated their students like adults. It’s your education, they said. Make of it what you will. Study, or not; show up, or not; it’s up to you. It’s not our job to hold your hand. I was far more comfortable in that environment than I had been in Haileybury’s strict regimen. But I was older then than I was, an emerging adult.

I stacked all my classes in the morning, leaving my afternoons free for research and homework and study. Having to get up in the morning forced me to go to bed at night. I reviewed my notes daily. I actually liked my chosen subjects. That was a surprise. I’d never enjoyed the subject matter of my classes. This was something different, something I could sink my teeth into.

Granted, I was not in Engineering; I was in Social Sciences, taking Classical History, Sociology, Economics and Archaeology. It was a breath of fresh air. I loved ancient history, myths, cultural studies, and the rediscovery and unravelling of long-forgotten, buried secrets, and had for years. Sound like D&D? You bet your ass it does. D&D opened up a world of interests and mystery to me, much as it did from most people I’ve talked to who played it. Not one of them had any interest in joining a cult, conducting Satan rituals, hiding out in sewers stalking imaginary monsters (thanks Mazes and Monsters); they all became well-read, most attending higher education, some even becoming engineers.

I did dabble with computer programming but dropped it after a few classes. Those classes were all about learning to use an abacus and how to “program” Kraft Dinner in 25 lines or less. I thought it was ridiculous at the time, but I see now what they were getting at. Had I stuck it out, I might have been a millionaire. The timing was right. It was the mid-80s and computer programming was in its infancy. I doubt that I would have, though. I had no passion for it. Code and algorithms rang cold. I probably would have ended up hating it and failing had I stuck with it. Mind you, I did predict the future as I watched it unfold. I wondered why we needed VCRs when TVs were motherboards. I wondered why we needed cable subscriptions when anyone could reach out into the Ethernet to retrieve “whatever,” so why couldn’t anyone watch whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. These ideas of mine hadn’t arrived yet then, but they evolved over time. There was connection speed and data issues to work out, something I’d have never been able to do, but the ideas sparked within me. I suppose those same ideas sparked in a lot of heads, not just mine. But I was more interested in social science and books and movies and the arts and women than I was in code.

There was a pretty blonde sitting next to me in Classical History. There was Sharron Martin, sister of Garry Martin. There was Alison Tilly. I ventured forth tentatively. I asked them if they’d like to go for coffee. I asked them if they’d like to meet at the pub for a drink, sometime. Either I was too subtle, or they just weren’t interested. Most girls I knew then were younger than me, and I was beginning to lose my hair (it was a big hair era, for both men and women, don’t forget), and that had begun to sap my self-confidence, despite Doug’s advice to me about a woman’s worth (see earlier memories). I was not an athlete. I was a bit introverted. I was bookish. Altogether, I lacked confidence, especially when it came to women.

And I likely spent too much time in the university pub and in the bars weekends. I smoked, but a lot of people still smoked then. I was drinking far less than I had, already sick of hangovers. But a good habit is hard to break, and as I’ve said before, I’d long ago begun to associate booze and bars with fun with friends. A stupid mistake. It was the friends that made it fun. Without them, being in bars was dull, fraught with loneliness and depression.

Luckily, I had friends. I always seemed to have friends then. There was Matt Hait and Jak Yassar Nino in my house, there was Jeff Chevrier and Walter Hohman at Fanshaw. There were a couple others I met in classes.

My first friend in London was Matt, that is to say he was the first person I met in London, aside from Jamie, but enough about Jamie for now. Matt and I played chess. Matt convinced me to get a membership at the gym. He gave me the guided tour of London’s best dives and its emerging underground. Matt was not one for dance bars. And he took me to Toronto a couple times when we had his sister’s wreck at our disposal, to Kensington and to Yonge, to College and Bathurst, to Queen St W, to the Horseshoe, to Sneaky Dees, to God knows where else. It was all a blur of backbeat and bass, of mods and mosh pits.

You knew this would ultimately become a tale about alcohol, didn’t you? Of course you did.

He was especially eager to show me the Ceeps (the CPR Tavern), his favourite bar in London. It could be the oldest tavern in London. Opened in 1890, it had long since become a university watering hole by the time I arrived. No one ever went there for the ambiance, there was never any entertainment aside from MTV, but it was the only bar I’d ever been in that encouraged its patrons to etch their names, hometown, and the date into the aged wooden tabletops. The Ceeps led to seedy little basement and attic bars that hosted some of the best and worst punk bands I’d ever seen. Those seedy little bars inevitably led to the raves, little after-hours parties in basements and in loading bays. But not before street meat, souvlaki on a bun.

My favourite was the FIRE STOP. It was a small bar, black as night and decorated in all manner of red. Chicago blues men graced the stage. Old men. Grey haired and fat and by far the best players I’ve ever heard. The FIRE STOP also had the hottest wings I’d ever had the misfortune to order. They came with a free first pitcher. Because they knew you’d be ordering more.

Freshman on Campus, 2nd Time Around

I was moving up in the world. University. I would have never believed it had you told me back in high school, but here I was going to Western University in London. Sadly, I was a grown man among aged children. But as I was far from a mature adult, I thought I ought to fit in. And did. Somewhat. Let’s not forget that I was a 22-year-old among 18-year-olds. I had far more in common with my TAs than I did my fellow classmates.

I didn’t consider Residence as a place to live. I remembered a couple of older guys in Cambrian Res. I thought a couple were cool, I even smoked a joint with one a few times in the front row of the theatre, but most had been ostracized by we young pups; I had no desire to be on the receiving end now that I gained their age. Luckily, we had somewhere to stay while house hunting. My Uncle Derik lived in London (still does, actually), so we made a visit of it, bunking at his house. I never considered living with Uncle Derik. He never offered, and I really didn’t want to live with my Uncle and his partner; I wanted to be on my own by that time, and would never have tolerated a “my house, my rules” environment. I had that at home. Aside from that, I doubt Larry wanted me crashing in his house, cramping his life. I don’t blame him. Armed with the list of prospective houses, my parents and I made the rounds, and found a suitable house a couple blocks from campus on Richmond Street. There was a mall and a grocery store a few blocks to the north, a bus stop around the corner. I was set. I went home to work off the rest of my summer.

That was to be my last summer slumming with Aubrey. He’d been accepted into the military where he’d begin his aircraft mechanic apprenticeship. I was happy for him, if not for his absence. But hanging out with Aubrey had been a case of back-wheeling arrested development, and it was about time we both began to grow up.

Garry Martin, Chris Cooper and Jodie Russell were still about, but wouldn’t be for long. John Lavric was finished school. I was beginning to see the first of my friends drift away. And I was starting university from scratch. I was beginning to wonder what I was doing. I would be in school until I was 28, I realized, assuming I didn’t do a Master’s Program. Garry, Jodie and I were playing D&D with Neil Petersen and Jeff Chevrier. During one session, Jeff told me that he was attending Fanshawe in London, so we exchanged addresses, with a promise to exchange phone numbers once I got one.

I was the first to arrive at my new place of residence. Matt Hait (from Toronto) and Jak Yassar Ninio (from Turkey) were yet to land, so I set about setting up. My landlord, Jaimie, was already there, taking up the basement in its entirety. This was our first meeting. I’d dealt with his mother when reserving my room and signing on the dotted line. Jamie and I chatted, and within about 5 minutes I marked him for an unreliable idiot. He would never disappoint me in that regard.

I was bored, so I grabbed a paperback (yeah, I’m that type, if you didn’t already know) and headed up to the campus to get my bearings, saw posters advertising ROCK and HYDE’s performance the following day, so I made a note of when and where, found a map to see where the when and where might be. I found the cafeteria, and I found my home base, the social science building, where I’d complete registration the following day. And I found the campus pub, arguably, the most important find of all. It was open. I was pleased. Like I said, I was bored. There were clusters of people here and there who took no interest in the old guy entering, so it was a good thing I brought a book.

Jamie had said that he was itching to see ROCK and HYDE, and that he would head up to campus with me. So I waited, crashed out on the couch with a book. And waited. I ought to have known. I’d marked him and he had already not let me down. So I locked up my room, and made my own way to the campus, to the hill descending to Talbot Hall. I was late enough that I was way at the back, but not so late as to miss anything. They played some PAYOLAS too. That made me happy. It was like seeing two bands at the same time.

I met my fellow roommates in due course. I liked them straight off.

Matt had access to his sister junker, once a month, so we planned our groceries around that. We were thrilled to see that rust bucket when it first arrived. Matt said, “My sister says for us to be careful with it.” I gave it a long hard look, and asked, “Why? What could we possibly do to it that’s not already been done?” It stalled. It stalled often the first time he had it, at each application of the brakes, at each stop sign and at each red light, it stalled each time we said the word stall within its hearing; so, we took it out for a 401 for a road trip, to blow the carbon out of it. Matt floored it, that’s not saying much, but it didn’t stall. It did leave a trail of black smoke and backfires behind it. We topped out at 70 km/hr, and over the next 2 hours gained another 10, but no more. We loved it, christened it Bessie, and Bessie she remained forevermore.

Days of Empire

When I was about 15, my father took me on his booster rounds one summer day. I’d never been in a bar and I was fascinated by the Empire’s empty space. I’d only seen a disco in movies and I wondered how a night out in one would compare with our school dances. It seems inevitable now that I’d I spend my weekends at the Empire Hotel in those early years. It was the place to be. It was two bars in one. Adjoined, Charlie’s was the disco, Bogie’s was the music hall; both were loud, both were teeming with people, both were filled with women. And if you weren’t in either by 8:30 or 9:00, you were in for a long wait outside, because every weekend there was a long line to get in. But which one to choose? Word of mouth usually carried the day. If there was a good band, we went to Bogie’s; if not, we went to Charlie’s.

Early on, Charlie’s usually won out. Back then, dancing with girls and spending eight minutes in the arms of one at the end of the night would always beat out sitting still and having ones’ ears rung, any day.

They were an enormous step up from my watering holes in Haileybury, an enormous step down from my haunts in Sudbury. But I was always comfortable there, especially in those days. They were home. Everyone I knew went there. Okay, maybe not everybody. There were those who didn’t waste their time and money in bars, there were those who watered themselves in South End at Jakes and the Zoo (the Central House Hotel), and then there was the Mattog, across the river (otherwise known as the Mattagami, the May-Tag, to some). We never went to the Mattog; it was too far to go, too expensive a cab ride back, and rumour had it, too French, and that we Anglaise were not welcome, that there would be fights. There were others, but it was the Empire my crowd happened to settle into. Lucky for me, because it was also the bar I could walk home from in my sleep (see much earlier memory).

I can’t say that I had a favourite side. I loved to dance, and had ever since I’d begun to feel comfortable putting myself out there at those monthly high school events, and Charlie’s was a place where that could happen every weekend. And I loved live music, the way the bass would hammer my chest cavity, watching and hearing how each musician knit their sound in with their mates, magically recreating all those songs we loved, and Bogie’s was a place where that could happen every weekend!

Charlie’s was a place of wonder. Aged oak, gleaming brass. Marbled glass wall, a disco ball. A bottom-lit, coloured Plexiglas dance floor. Strobe lights. New wave and rock and roll. Everything that could make a night exciting. Mostly the crush of bodies and the uncertainty of whether she’d accept. The dance floor was huge for a small bar, but tiny in comparison to all those who wanted to press onto it. We’d be jostled, thrust into on another, and once, Danny Loreto inadvertently punched a girl in the face who strayed too close to his moves. She was laid flat, the dance floor parted, allowing her to crumble smoothly. It was the one time I’d ever seen such a strip of unoccupied space so close to the centre of the dance floor.

When we first began to go to Bogie’s, we wondered why no one sat in the disused raised stage. We were told that was Carriere country. I thought on how far Carriere country was from the stage, the bar, and the washrooms and said, let the Carrieres have it. I wanted to be closer to the stage, I wanted to see and meet the musicians. I did sometimes. It cost a few rounds to get them to sit with us, but we thought it was worth it, seeing the envy on the faces surrounding us. But we also learned how poverty-stricken most musicians actually were upon getting to know some of them. The vision of glamour I held departed with familiarity and scrutiny. Up close I saw the sometimes-tattered clothes, I heard about the crappy food, the crappy accommodations, the life crammed into a VW van for hours and weeks on end.

Summers passed and I gained some perks when Henri Guenette became a bouncer at Bogie’s. I got to know the staff, and I could skip between both halves of the bar without getting bounced. But I also saw some guys take sucker shots at Henri, I also saw Henri take down a guy who was going after another bouncer from behind with an ashtray. I wondered why Henri did it. Perks were fine. But I didn’t want to see him laid out on the floor, bleeding, either.

In time, my high school friends were elsewhere. Maybe they found other distractions. Maybe they were more in tune with budgeting for the upcoming year. Maybe the polished brass and aged oak had tarnished and cracked in their eyes. Maybe it was as simple as they had girlfriends and weren’t up to catting around any longer. Aubrey Bergin filled the gap they left. Aubrey and I became wingmen. One needed a wingman in a rough joint.

One Christmas holiday, Aubrey and I were coming up on the Empire. I’d dutifully gone to Saturday Mass with my mother, and promptly proceeded to stain my cleansed soul at the Downtown, a strip club round the corner from the Empire, waiting for Aubrey. Well met, we headed out before the Empire was filled and we were shut out. It was a windswept night, a little cold. As we came on to the doors, an old man (late 30s, early 40s, but he seemed ancient to me then) and his friend exited. He hailed Aubrey. Aubrey waved hello to the man, but we were chilled and were set on the heat. The man gripped Aubrey and spun him around. Aubrey laughed it off, but was still held firm.

I turned around and asked, “Is there a problem here?”

The man’s attention snapped to me, but he still held Aubrey firm.

“No problem,” he said.

“Great,” I said. “Let him go.” Those were the only words I said. I just stared at him. At first I was just waiting, then I must have looked angry, because the man pulled Aubrey closer and held him like a shield. He looked nervous. So did Aubrey. But Aubrey wasn’t my concern just then. I’d locked eyes with the man, expecting trouble from him and his friend. I needn’t have worried. He kept insisting that I shake his hand.

“No,” I said. “Why would I shake the hand of someone who’s holding my friend against his will?”

A couple minutes had passed. He finally released Aubrey, and Aubrey began stammering apologies to the man.

“Don’t apologize to him,” I said. Then to the man, “Are we done here?”

Apparently, we were because he walked off. I don’t really know where that FUCK YOU attitude came from. Had we got into a fight, Aubrey and I probably would have had the shit kicked out of us.

Future Endeavors

 

Art by Roy Lichtenstein

My Mining Tech education coming to an end, I had to think about what I’d accomplished, and what I might do with it. I can’t say that I ever liked what I was studying. It was boring. It was tedious. It was baffling that I hadn’t bailed on it after my first year. But my marks had always been in the toilet, I’d lacked confidence in my ability to succeed at anything, and to be honest, I still had no clue what I’d like to do with my life. What I liked and loved was staring me in the face every day, but I was too blind to see that. So, I persevered, and I was on my way to graduating with honours. Honours? I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears.

Graduating with a high GPA changed my perspective on everything. I discussed the prospect of university with my parents. I thought I might like to try my hand at an MBA. I thought it would be a good mix. I could work in the business end of mining; and if that didn’t work out, I still had two mining diplomas to fall back on. My parents ought to be proud. I was always thinking of a practical, marketable application. My parents agreed. The only problem, as I see it, is that I’ve never been motivated by money. And just like engineering, I didn’t give a shit about business. Long story short, my parents agreed.

Budgeting was as much a problem that year as any other. I took to staying in on Saturday nights again, watching Spencer for Hire, and Saturday Night at the Movies with Elwy Yost. I bought pop and chips instead of beer and pretzels. I actually payed closer attention in school. Studied more scientifically. Passed better. One advantage of Cambrian was that their final exams, any exams, did not carry the same weight as they had in Haileybury. In Haileybury, exams were a make or break phenomena, making up such a high percentage of one’s GPA as to stagger the senses, to invoke a level of panic unparalleled. Not so Cambrian. Exams were obviously worth more than any single test, but to not do well on any given exam did not necessitate failure. I did well on my exams, notwithstanding. I was a better student, a more methodical, calculating student.

I applied to a number of universities, Western among them. I was accepted, pending my final GPA. 3.01. Honours. Glory be. I was in.

But one did not just slide into Western’s MBA program. And although Western gave me credit for many of my mining courses, enough that I didn’t require any more 1^st year classes to move on to 2^nd year university (in engineering), I was enrolled in Social Sciences, and engineering credits didn’t count towards a Soc. Sci. degree, and there were Business 101, and 201 to take before anyone was let in to those hallowed ivy league halls.

There was a girl those last couple months. I’d met her through some guys I’d somehow met. I don’t know how we met, just that we did, and for a very short time I played a couple sessions of D&D with them. It didn’t last long. I was not that interested. I’d come to realize that my love of D&D was actually tied to and fused with my love for my friends. These guys were okay, they were as good and kind and welcoming as any others, but I suppose I was feeling nostalgic for those earlier best friends. She was a friend of one of them. She pursued me. She was rather pretty, too. Dark hair, almost black, bedroom eyes, ample curves. Actually being the target of such a girl was novel. Her friend asked me to tread lightly, to be gentle and kind, that she’d been mistreated by the last couple of guys she seen. She asked me if I’d like to accompany her to a wedding as her date. I thought about it, but I declined, telling her that I was leaving in a couple weeks for good, that she ought to set her sights on someone she could grow with. My mining friends told me I was an idiot.

All that said, registration was still months ahead, and money had to be made. Kidd Creek’s woes were temporarily behind them. I was accepted as a summer student again. And I landed work in the load-out again. That was alright. Why spend the summer underground when I could turn my face into the sun on my breaks.

Most of my high school friends weren’t really my friends anymore. There was still Garry Martin, and Chris Cooper, but most had begun to graduate and get on with their lives by then. Garry had begun to call me “Old Man,” citing that for six days a year I was actually two years older than he was, numerically. I couldn’t argue with such tenuous logic, and “Old Man” was better than “Psycho,” despite its esoteric appeal; but as you might imagine, Psycho was a tall order to live up to. There were still some friends at/from the pool, Jodie Russell, Jeff Chevrier (MIRV, nicknamed after RED ALERT, a video game at Top Hats that he could never defeat), and now there was Neil Petersen. Neil was younger, so I wasn’t sure what Garry saw in him then, but Neil played D&D, so he was in.

Were we growing up? Yes. Were we maturing? Somewhat. Not entirely.

Aubrey Bergin had about completed a correspondence course on Aircraft maintenance. He was finding it difficult finding future employment owing to his lack of hands-on experience. Go figure. He was seriously considering the military, the only employer who’d give him an apprenticeship. But until then, Aubrey and I were still lining up on the dancefloor bannister, girl watching, Aubrey still rolling the occasional beer bottle amidst the dancers.

Another night, Jodie and I were meeting others at the Victory Tavern. One block away, Jodie crossed on a Red, where I, noticing a cop lazing up the block, stopped cold. “Jodie,” I said, but Jodie was already halfway across. When he gained the far side, he noticed he was alone, and looked back to see why. There I was, on the corner, standing next to a bear of a cop. I waved. The cop hooked a finger at Jodie, who, after glancing at the still red light, and then the lack of any traffic, re-crossed, again on the Red.

“Never cross on a red light,” the cop said.

I could scarcely believe what he said, after his ordering Jodie to do just that.

More importantly, I saw Deb before I left Sudbury. It turns out that she was in Sudbury the whole time. I’d looked for her. I was always looking for her. But I never saw her. Then one weekend in Timmins I met up with one of my old Res friends. I asked after her, and he not only told me that she was still in Sudbury, he told me where she worked, a Camera shop, right downtown. I found it, and went there. I asked for her, and the guy manning the counter said she was downstairs and would be up shortly. I browsed the cameras they had on hand, and heard her stumble up the stairs. My heart raced. When she topped the stairs, she saw me. Her jaw dropped. She almost fell flat on her face in her rush to embrace me. Any doubts I had whether she loved me or not were dispelled at that moment. I knew then that she loved me when we were together, and I believed then that she loved me still. We embraced hard, we kissed. Tears rushed to my eyes. We kissed again. God, I missed her.

I asked her to join me for coffee. She said she was working. I said, “After.”

I asked her when she was working till, and when she said 9 pm, I said, “Come for a coffee,” again. “maybe I drink. I’ll wait.” I told her I’d do whatever she’d like. I told her where I was going to be, hour by hour. She was noncommittal.

I remembered that guy I’d seen once or twice in those last couple months while still in Res; and I wondered. I should have asked her for her number, but I was terrified that she’d refuse me, that she would actually tell me that she was still with that other guy, with any guy.

I waited for her. I watched the door. With each hour, my hopes slipped, my heart fell. I was crushed. Again. I wanted to leave, but I kept up that futile hope.

I never saw Debbie again. Not once.

Harmonic Disquiet

Living alone does not necessitate a life of pastoral listlessness. But living alone can allow one to choose when one will find solace from the fray. I needed it that year. Doug had told me I did, but I’d brushed him off. I know now that I ought to have paid closer attention to the wisdom of my elders. I’d have had a smoother ride.

Life away from Residence had a certain rhythm. Rise, bathe, breakfast, dress, school, classes, lunch, more classes, return, do homework, cook, eat, watch TV, play pool, read, sleep. Repeat. I hadn’t had such rhythm since leaving high school. It allowed me to concentrate, even though I ought to have applied myself more. But playing pool with my roommate, reading, watching TV seemed far more interesting. That said, I was developing an understanding of my chosen curriculum. Time does that, time and persistence. All I needed was a year away from distractions to centre myself, just like Doug said I did.

I rekindled an old friendship that year. Chris Cooper was studying pre-med at Laurentian, and he and I stumbled across one another one day, got to talking, and discovered how we’d missed one another, so we exchanged phone numbers. We decided to meet up for coffee one day, then for a couple beers one night, then we were beginning to hang out in earnest. Not during the week, and not every weekend, either. Chris had his sights on being a doctor, so his workload was fairly intense, his study hours long. But he would call me when he needed to blow off some steam, when there was a pub at Laurentian worth going to, and I did him the same courtesy.

He invited me to go see David Wilcox. I was thrilled. Wilcox was all over the radio that year. Wilcox was great, but we all thought he was SO old; we also thought he was SO high on coke. His eyes were wild and vacant, never fixing on any given point. He never treated the crowd with his attention once. I’d discover later that Wilcox was/is legally blind. That explained the vacant eyes, the lack of interest in his audience. We must have seemed a blur to the man.

Chris kept to himself most days, struggling with his studies. He called me up one day and asked me out for a coffee, or two. We met and told me how exhausted he was, owing to some crazy girl who kept calling him all night, yelling at him to put her boyfriend on the line. He tried to tell her that he lived alone, that he had no guest, that he had no clue who her boyfriend was, let alone who she was. But she was insistent. He hung up. She called back, and kept calling back, never letting up throughout the night, until she finally discovered near dawn that she’d been calling the wrong number. She hung up on him. No apologies necessary, lady, Chris told me that day.

He would call me up and tell me that he was going home for the weekend, on a Friday night, at one in the morning, and ask me if I wanted to go. I did, once or twice, but by then I’d grown accustomed to staying “home.” There were more things to do in Sudbury, even when there was nothing to do.

One week we were carted off to Mine Rescue training by the College, no exceptions. We were livid. Octoberfest was Thursday night; our test was Friday. Did we go? You bet your ass we went. But we brought our crib notes with us and quizzed each other between eying girls, chatting up girls, and hoisting our less than tankard sized beers. I stayed till 11 pm, was in bed by midnight, and was up again by 6. All but one of us passed. The Stu Unit failed. The Stu Unit didn’t even show up for the final day.
October was as eventful. We all went out pub crawling on Halloween, too (when I say we, I mean the Mining Tech crowd). All but one passed on dressing up. We had no clue where to rent costumes, and were adamant that we wouldn’t waste money on cheap K-mart costumes either; that would have been a waste of money better spent on beer. The Stu Unit did dress up, though. The Stu Unit dressed up in a Wehrmacht uniform. Our jaws dropped. “What the FUCK are you doing dressed up like a Nazi,” we asked.

“It’s not a Nazi uniform,” he said, “it’s Wehrmacht!”

We begged to differ. So did the cops when the Stu Unit decided to tap dance on top of their cruiser. Stu had no idea it was a cop car. Probably because he was too drunk to see straight. The cops stepped out of their cruiser, warned us off with a glance, and hauled Stu back down. They cuffed him, tossed him in back, and drove away. The next time we saw Stu, he was battered and bruised. The cops had beat the shit out of him, he said.

Serves you right for dressing up like a Nazi, we said.

I began a dangerous precedent. I began to go out alone. I asked about at school, but I lived alone (I had a roommate, but he was young, and inclined to go home a lot, much as I did when I was his age, and I really didn’t want to hang out with him much, anyway; we were too different), so it wasn’t like I could just walk down the hall to see who wanted to go. Sometimes the boys from class came out, sometimes they did not. I usually met up with people I knew, and if I didn’t, I had an uncanny ability to meet and strike up conversations with strangers (maybe all young people do, but it’s been remarked on, then, and now), but there were evenings when I didn’t as well. I still went out, though; I’d begun to associate pubs and bars and alcohol with friends and good times. Because they had always been those last few years. So, when someone suggested that we go out, I was usually up for it.

Jim Parisi had some time on his hands one day. He wanted to go see some strippers. The bar was almost empty when we arrived. The bar was almost empty when we left. It was the afternoon, after all. We sat in the front row to watch the show. The girls did their usual thing, an act so old and tired, even they looked bored. Jim and I got to talking. I’d glance up from time to time, but I was looking at Jim throughout most of our conversation. I noticed Jim’s expression change. He began to look amused, his eyes bouncing back and forth from me to the stage. So I glanced back at the stage, just in time to see the stripper take a dive down on my crotch, laying a big red mouthful of lipstick on my faded 501s. I looked from her, back down to my crotch in disbelief.

You bitch, I thought.

Jim thought it hilarious.

You could have warned me, I said.

He laughed. “What, and miss that look on your face? Not a chance.”

A Return

There was no way I was going to live in Cambrian College Residence again, so my parents rook me on a road trip to Sudbury early in the summer to help me search for a place to live. We found a list of potential rooms to let at the college, phone numbers and addresses, and began to visit them in turn. We didn’t visit many. We found one that was only a couple blocks from the college, on the corner of Woodbine and Holland. It was perfect, mere blocks from the college, two malls a few minutes away on Lasalle, beer store, ATMs, groceries, and only a couple blocks from transit stops in either direction. Who could ask for more?

There were two bedrooms in the basement, I’d be given more or less free range of the house, use of the family kitchen, free use of cable TV, and a pool table in the basement. There was a pool in the back yard that I was welcome to use, as well, but given the months I’d be in Sudbury, I didn’t think I’d get much use of it. Smoking was permitted (it was still the ‘80s, an ashtray in every room). Done. We were invited to chat, so we had a few drinks poolside so both my parents and I could get to know Pat and Stan a little, and them me. Pat and Stan were very welcoming. I think they liked the idea that I was a more “mature” student. I saw no need to correct them on that point. We signed on the dotted line and went home.

Living there was good for me. It was quiet. I could concentrate. To be honest, I didn’t study any more or any less than I had the prior years. Despite that, my marks improved. I still went out to bars and clubs on the weekend, but I never once drank during the week. Okay, I rarely drank during the week. There was no cannabis present, no one doing knives beside me while I was cooking supper, no one offering me a beer or a joint every time I sat down with them to talk, no one having sex in the shower stall next to me in the morning. My cigarettes had even grown milder over the years. I ceased smoking Export A’s in Res. Both Evan and Deb had smoked Players Regular, and owing to how often we traded off smokes, I inevitably began to smoke the same brand as them.

I updated my look, a look that would become my signature winter skin for years to come. The HSM leather jacket was getting a little snug, what with my growing into a man. My shoulders and chest had broadened from years of summer labour. I may have even gained a pound or two from all that beer I drank; not many, I walked everywhere. Browsing men’s fashion at the New Sudbury Centre, I spotted a totally ‘80s overcoat I just had to have, a near ankle length Donegal tweed, bought roomy enough to fit a bulky sweater and jean jacket beneath. Pockets galore. I blame John Hughes, but I loved it. It was the cat’s ass!

I bought a new suit, too. Black blazer with peacock undertones (not Ducky, far more Mickey Rourke in Diner, but very ‘80s), black trousers, a few shirts, and two ties, one leather, the other a knit black silk. Doc Martin brogues. I had to invest in the upgrade; a new club named City Lights had opened that year in Sudbury, one that required a top end dress code. There was a cover charge to get in, more if there was a booked band, to keep the riff-raff out. I suppose they thought that if we were in suits and the girls in little black dresses we’d behave ourselves. We did, for the most part, although there were still fights that spilled out into the street as the nights wore on. I had to be there. It was the most popular club in town. They had a long line of pool tables, they had a disc jockey, they had a house band, they brought in New Wave from Toronto.

Stan set me down early on after seeing my stumble in at all hours on the weekend. He told me that if I ever found myself short on cash, or ever in trouble, that I was to call him right away, any time, no matter when. I may have been 20, but Stan knew what it was like to be young, and maybe what it was like to be heartbroken and adrift, too. I never did call, but it was comforting to think I had someone to fall back on. Truth is, I could never remember his number, so it wouldn’t have mattered had I needed him. So, I kept a ten tucked away in my wallet when I went out, with a promise to self to never touch it. It was always meant to be emergency cab fare. It also stayed tucked away the whole year through. Maybe I was learning. Maybe I was finally beginning to grow up.

I knew a few guys that year, those who were in 1^st year mining and in Res when I’d been there last, James Parisi, Dan Dumas, a few others. Sinclair (Sync), Brain, the Stu Unit. A few others in other courses. But for the most part, my “3^rd” year was a blank slate. Psycho remained, thanks to Jim Parisi. I think he loved that nickname, even if he probably never knew how it came to be. He still calls me that, if you can believe it, to this day, regardless how rarely we may see one another.

Girlfriends? Not a one. Dates? None of those, either. Probably a good thing, considering. That doesn’t mean I didn’t look. I did go out, after all. But I suspect I must have had a sign around my neck, one that said, KEEP AWAY, or ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

One day…night, I’d begun a night’s prowl at City Lights. There was no booked band, just the house band and DJ. The music was alright. I played some pool, asked a few girls to dance. But there was no one there that I knew, so I left and slummed the rest of the night in Whiskey Jacks with the bikers, me in a suit, they in jeans and leather vests, then at the Colson, listening to some Scorpion cover band. I was lonely. I drank more than I should have, especially when slumming alone. I was eyed by some, the only guy present in an ‘80s peacock suit and leather tie, but I was left alone. I must also have a worn a “c’mon, do something,” aura, because I was always surprised to note that my spot against a pole near the stage was never once occupied when I came back from bio breaks. The last song rang my ears, the lights came on and blinded us, illuminated the seediness, and I staggered off to catch the bus to New Sudbury. The seats were all taken at the bus depot, so I leaned back into the Plexiglas and slumped down on my haunches.

A girl passing by gave me a long, hard look. She was not unattractive. Blonde. Her hair teased up. She reminded me of Debbie. “You need to get laid,” she said. Not kindly.

I thought on that for a moment, and then said, “Without a doubt.”