Stepping Out, Part 2

Toronto was a veritable haven of order and cleanliness compared to Detroit.

And the accommodations were far better, as well. We pulled into the Royal York, my first time there. My head was filled with the tales I’d heard of Kings and Queens and Presidents, of Grey Cups and horses that ran up and down its long vaulting lobby, and of Prospector Conventions where swindlers were shot down upon leaving the elevator for having done their partners wrong. It was beautiful. It was opulent. It was home for the next few days and Henri and I were staying on for the weekend after the games.

Our arriving in Toronto had split that now newly tight group of ball fans. The Torontonians went home. The others had split into disparate groups. The girls wanted to shop. Their guys were in tow.
So, Henri and I were on our own. I was disappointed at first, but we were eager to explore the city. I’d been there with Matt a few times, so I knew my way around a bit, but that was years ago and Matt had navigated the whole time, with me along for the ride, so its geography was a little hazy. My mind had been preoccupied by the city’s overwhelming immensity at the time. The booze didn’t help much, either.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much need to navigate. The Skydome being within walking distance of the hotel, so that sense of group was lost. We all made our own way to the games individually and found ourselves funnelled up a concrete ramp up into it furthest heights, exiting behind home plate in the high 500s, only to discover our climb incomplete. Stairs steeper than ladders led to our seats, two rows down from the gulls. I looked them up while there: $4. I could see why. We were of an altitude that the workers under the dome were eye level with us. They at least were wrapped in parkas. We were not. We felt the full force of the wind blowing off the lake. It was cold. It was brisk. It had the bite of winter despite its early September’s howling.

Stories below us, those lucky patrons in the 300s were sweltering in the high sun. We spied shorts, tank tops and sandals. I was envious.

We shooed venders away when they hawked ice cream bars. One tapped an offending bar against a railing, its ring carried brightly on the icy air. He changed up his bright happy hawking calls thereafter to, “Something hard; something frozen!”

“Bring coffee!” I yelled back to him. We all did. He did, much to our surprise and delight.

Those seats were crap! We couldn’t tell where the ball was headed unless it was coming straight at us. We saw a few people below us reach out a little in preparation of its arrival, but there was never a hope of its ever reaching us. Not even Hercules could have batted a ball that high up.

I’d had enough after my first ineffectual coffee, caving in to my first impulse buy of the trip, a black Skydome knit sweater. Henri bought a Jay’s sweatshirt, team blue. Both were quite fetching. Both lasted us for years.

The second game was no warmer. By the 4^th inning we retreated to the bar two stories below us where we found two of our group’s number, the two eldest who’d had the sense not to freeze their tender bits off for the sake of $4 tickets. Where we’d thought to duck out of the cold for a cold one before braving the winds again amongst the gulls, we changed our minds when we saw them there and they invited us to join them, rekindling our earlier Detroit comradery. A half beer later, a third of the others joined us. By the 7^th inning stretch we were all there, watching the game on the surrounding TVs, comfortably basking in the heat streaming through the long wall of reclined windows that surrounded us.

The game over, we scattered to the four winds, and Henri and I were wondering what to do. Henri was all for cruising Yonge Street, but I wanted to head back to the Skydome Hard Rock Café; there was a stunning woman behind the bar the night before and I’d taken to her. I ought to have gone with Henri, but the call of a pretty face had overwhelmed my disdain for overpriced beer; besides, I’d done Yonge Street before, I said to myself. There were a few good bars there, but most of the better entertainment had moved on to Queen and Bathurst and Ossington years before. Henri went without me, probably pissed at me for my obvious foolishness.

Stupid of me, really. Girls in Timmins didn’t have much to do with me, so why did I think a sexy bartender in Toronto would take an interest and show me her world. But hope abounds.

Two beer later, seated in a much depleted Hard Rock café, owing to their not being a game played that night, I saw the error of my ways, but Yonge was a ways walk away, and I had no doubt that I’d ever find Henri in all those bars, so I headed up to John Street to Queen Street W and the Horseshoe, making a pit stop at a couple pubs along the way.

Later, back at the hotel, Henri told me that he’d had much the same night as I did, hopping from bar to bar. He told me about the ones he’d been in, and the ones he’d almost gone in but hadn’t. They looked too seedy, too rough, too scary. Had I been with him he’d had gone in, he said, though how having me in tow accounted for strength in numbers was beyond my ken. My rough and tumble side had never scared anyone, let alone the seasoned toughs that would have hung out in dives like those Henri had seen, but I’d always had a reckless streak. I’d probably have gone in without a second thought. I was always oblivious to the possible dangers around me when in the big city. It may have been all those dives Matt and I crawled through while in university. I must have made Henri nervous more than once when I decided to take a short cut through some alleyway.

Keith knew we were in town, so we made plans. He and Laura met us in the lobby.

“Where do you want to go,” they asked.

We’re in your hands, we said. Where’s good, we asked.

He suggested The Big Bop.

I’d never seen anything like it. Three bars in one, and black as pitch. Red pin lights and glow strips marked the walls and stairs, just bright enough to say, “Whoa, there!” STOP WALKING! WATCH YOUR STEP!

I loved the ambiance. I couldn’t see shit, only silhouettes, cigarettes glowing, the undulating sea of hats and heads, and those hellishly insignificant lights and strips. Waitresses carried little flashlights to match faces to drinks.

The band played Petty and Mellencamp covers on the first floor. The second-floor blared electronic dance, the third beat urban rap. Little alcoves lined the stairs, the sweet reek of cannabis rising from one level to the next. A ratty old wingback chair and a table lamp might fill one, where couple necked and groped, where couples congregated to smoke their weed. One music or another was piped into those narrow spaces from one bar or another. I was hopelessly lost in no time. Okay, I wasn’t that lost, but it’s fun to think so.

Keith and Laura left early by our reckoning. They were dependent on the TTC to get them home and had a ways to get there and no desire to pay a cab the fare for the distance they had to go.

Henri and I watched them go and discovered that we were exhausted. We decided to retreat to the Library Bar at the Royal York for one last drink on our last night away from home.

I promptly took a short cut and was already deep into another alley without him.

“What are you doing?” he said, whispering loudly and harshly, unable to keep the exasperation from his voice.

I shrugged his concern off. “Taking a short cut,” I said. “Look, you can see the end of it. Who could possibly be hiding in here?”

I didn’t bother to mention the puke at my feet. Like I said, reckless, oblivious.