Buckle Me In On A Highway of Sin

 

All my life I’d been looking for a place, a harbour, a friend, a mentor, guidance. Sometimes I found one. Most times I did not. After a time, I stopped looking. Bleak outlook. Yes. But by my early working years I’d begun stumbling through life, slipping into a shell, not really giving a shit about anything.

I’d received little guidance in high school, not sure what I wanted to do, not really planning for or on much of anything, living in the moment. By grade 12, the realization that I’d have to make a decision about my future was impressed on me by my mother. I was taken aback, looked to the horizon of possibilities, and discovered a blank. My father was a salesman, a precarious way to make a living, in my view, considering the economic winds that had blown him hither and thither. I looked to those surrounding my upbringing and saw teachers and lawyers, construction workers and plumbers, cab drivers and miners. I did not see myself as particularly bright, so the law and teaching were out of the question, to my reckoning. I hated home construction, did not want to drive a cab. George Miller was a miner, a shift boss; Marc, my future ex-brother-in-law was attending the Haileybury School of Mines. I was from a mining town, there’d always be a need for metals and mines, so I made up my mind without much forethought. I hated mining, then just grew apathetic to it.

I thought about a business degree and applied to university. I didn’t care for business much once I was exposed to it, preferring my electives in anthropology, sociology, and history. That brought me back to teacher, something I’d never considered and didn’t call to me, either.

I had a thought while in London. What about the military? Why did that cross my mind? I don’t know. There were commercials on TV. I thought I might be educated enough to be an officer. I looked into it, saw that they would train me in a technical trade. So, I actually applied, God help me. I passed the fitness test, barely. That’s what they told me. They also told me that my marks weren’t good enough to be an officer. They wanted to recruit straight ‘A’ students with an athletic bent, who were leaders in clubs, extracurricular activities, and the captain of the football team, all rolled into one. Would I be interested in the enlisted ranks?

I was not. And seeing how the next decade unfolded, I can thank my lucky stars that I did not fall into that path. Rwanda, Bosnia, ethnic cleansing. I’d have been PTSD had I accepted their offer.

I left school. I did not find a suitable engineering position. Instead I found myself within the enlisted ranks of the mining industry, on a French crew, invested with little training, seeing no possibility of advancement, altogether ignored and passed over.

But I was loaned out. I found myself trained on haulage trucks for the purpose of backfilling in 2 Mine, the same job I was doing in 1 Mine, but sans conveyors. At least there were new guys to work with: Tim Gignac, Frank Chiera, and James Patrick. New people, new sights, new job, of a sort. And driving haulage trucks was fun for a time. Until it wasn’t.

In time I’d saved enough to buy a car, a 4 cylinder Pontiac Sunbird. It was sporty looking, if a little gutless. It was a bit of a lemon, at first as well, always in the shop for one thing or another for a few months, for a faulty dash, for two faulty CD players, for a sunroof and windows that leaked, for a misaligned driver’s door. But it was MINE! And soon, the wrinkles ironed out, it was my passport to freedom. I became a chauffeur for my friend Garry Martin, and his sister Sharon.

That taste of freedom awakened an old wish in me. I wanted to go places and see things. We’d never gone anywhere while I was growing up, so there was lots to see. But where to go? I recalled watching friends head off to the Caribbean for spring breaks, and listening with envy as they told their tales of what they’d seen and what they’d done, tales of beach parties, and bonfires, and of blue seas and Sea-dos. I asked Garry and Henri if they were interested. “Let’s go to Cuba!” I said. Yeah, let’s go to Cuba, they said. I got my first passport. But when the time came, we didn’t. No money, no holidays, no passports.

Years passed. Let’s go to Cuba, I said. Then, let’s go to Jamaica, I said. We didn’t. For one reason or another, usually the same reasons, time and again.

So, I decided to take a small step on my own. I would go to Sudbury. I knew Sudbury, so I would know my way around. And I had a yearning to see some of my old haunts.

I arrived, I booked into the Ramada Hotel downtown. I went to the malls and did some shopping. I kept my eye open for a face I might recognize (secretly hoping to bump into Debbie while there), thinking that one or two of my old Res Rat friends might have landed there, but I didn’t recognize a soul. Before long, I grew bored.

I found myself in a bar in the afternoon. After two beers, I asked myself, what are you doing? I left and wandered the streets downtown, and spied a placard outside the Cambrian Community Centre, advertising a concert that evening. The Watchmen! I had their CDs! I tried the door, found it unlocked, and was pleased to see someone at the box office.

Did they have tickets? Yes, they did. Did I have to be a student to buy one? No, I didn’t. So, I did.

I was flattered when they asked for my ID, but they said they had to card everybody. I was informed that there was no booze on the concert floor, only in the licensed lobby. The band would hit the stage in about an hour, they said. I’d never been in the building before, so, I checked it out. It was a converted theatre, the floor still sloping somewhat to a raised floor before the stage. I retreated, had a beer, struck up a conversation with a couple people who were curious about the old guy in their midst. Then I made my way back to the stage. A couple of the curious stayed with me, wanting to hear more about Cambrian in the “old days.”

The band came out, they cranked their amps, the smallish, yet fullish crowd roared their appreciation, me among them. We surged forward and I found myself mid crowd, mid mosh pit. We flowed back and forth, leapt and crashed together. And before long the first bodies were hoisted up to surf. The curious asked me if we’d done that “back then?” No, I yelled back. They took hold of me and raised me up, their hands gathered in to stretch me out and lay me flat, drawing my forward and back, sweeping to and from the stage.

It was like floating on a precarious bed of flat fleshy needles. It was beautiful.