Stepping Out

It took some doing to get me off that barstool, despite my appetite being whetted by that small step to Sudbury. Not that I was idle, even though I was. My days and weeks were full, or so it seemed. I was not bored. New people entered and exited my life with increasing regularity. But inertia is a powerful thing. There’s comfort in familiarity, regardless its nature.

I began to feel a void in my life. Incomplete. I flirted some, first with Holly Barkwell, then with Janice Milton. Janice Kaufman and Cathy Walli, but sparks never flew. What seemed like interest was likely only curiosity. My sister begged to differ, telling me on those rare occasions that she was out with me, after my future ex-brother-in-law had become just that, that once or twice she’d caught one or another of them checking me out with more than just curiosity. Or so she said. I didn’t believe her, or more accurately, I wouldn’t let myself believe her; but her words were seductive. They seduced me with hope. So, I decided to try. But when I did pursue them there was always reluctance, an excuse, a sudden illness when time came for me to pick them up for a movie.

That led to more time spent on that barstool, a spectator to all that unfolded around me.

I suppose spending time on the barstool paid off, in time. I won some tickets to see the Blue Jays play in Detroit and in Toronto, plane fare and hotels included. I really didn’t know a thing about baseball. I’d stare up at the screen while at Casey’s, belly to the bar and beer in hand for more than a few games, but I didn’t care if I watched or not. I listened to some of those sad lonely souls argue and debate this play and that, how this player was “due” and that one not, but I was more of a movie guy, a bookish sort far more interested in story and character than the clichés spewed by the fan boys. I didn’t want to spend a week with any of them, so I asked Henri if he wanted to go

Henri didn’t know much about baseball back then, either, but he accepted, and began to watch games while he wiled away the hours at the city’s fresh water plant, where he was summering.

We flew to Windsor for the first games and met the other winners at the meet and greet. We were all Ontarians, but it was remarked to us that we were from the “super-Casey’s.” Apparently, even those from Sudbury weren’t aware how few “poplar” bars there were in Timmins where we Gen-X could gather to listen and dance to the only music we were interested in. Dinner was had, then we were on the bus to Detroit for the first game in the venerable Tiger Stadium. I was of mixed loyalty at those first games. I’d won Jays tickets, but I had been introduced to baseball while in London at Joe Kool’s, the unofficial Detroit Tigers foreign headquarters. But for that trip, I bought a Jays cap, and rooted for our “home” team while away.

Detroit was an awakening. We left Windsor in its manicured glory and spotted the burned husk of a thousand and one Devil’s Nights, as burnt and broken as Beirut at the time. Shattered glass caught the low light, a blackened and windowless church standing lonely vigil in its empty grounds.

I loved Tiger Stadium! It was like an open-air cathedral. We gained entry at field level, the green stretching out before us before climbing back up to our seats in all their obstructed glory.

I bought hot dogs and beer for Henri and me, mistakenly resting them on the head of the guy seated in front of me. His quick anger fled upon hearing my largely Canadian “sorry!” I offered him a hot dog or beer for his trouble but he declined, now laughing with the rest of us.

The Jays won. The Jays were great that year, making a run for the pennant. The bus lost. One of its windows was smashed, but shatterproof, the glass remained fixed in place. We left. There were cops on every corner, baring arms I’d only seen in movies.

We were halfway across the Ambassador Bridge when someone declared that we were missing someone. How the hell could we be missing someone, I wondered. Didn’t we do roll call? I thought we had. We turned around. In the middle of the Ambassador bridge! Alone at first, I watched as the big bus inched back and forth in its graceless U-turn, the distant traffic bearing down on us.

“Any time now,” we yelled as that distant traffic resolved into cars.

We were missing more than one. Fully four people decided to cross the street to watch the game from an authentic Irish American pub down the street. The game over, they walked back, only to see their ride gone when they got back to the stadium.

Back at the hotel we convened to drink and get to know one another better and relive our American adventure. What was the pub like? How was the crowd? Mainly Black, we were told. Were they nervous, we wondered, our heads filled with Hill Street Blues and the like. No, they said, they were baseball fans.

We still had another game to see in Detroit before moving on to Toronto.

I drank Molson Ex, much to the other’s amusement. It was a Labatt sponsored event, after all.