The End of the Beginning

If there’s one thing everyone learns, it’s that all things end, nothing lasts forever. This includes school. There is a progression, suggesting that there will always be more: grade school leads to middle-school, middle-school to high school, high school to postsecondary, be that trade school, college, or university. It’s a dizzying succession that leads on forever, or so it seems at the time. So many years, so many people.

I’d been fortunate in my companions along the way, both domestic and foreign.

I’m surprised at the number of “foreign” people in my life, the first being Tony Siball. I don’t know if Tony could be categorized as “foreign,” but he was from Jamaica, or at least his father was. Tony never had an accent, so he was probably from Toronto, and not Jamaica at all. But he was black, so he was certainly foreign to these parts. He was the first black person I’d ever met. He was curious insomuch as his skin was a different colour, but he was just a kid, and I was a kid, and we were in the same grade. He liked to play, and I liked to play, and that’s about as far as my thoughts went at that time. Tony was Tony. His skin colour didn’t matter a whit.

Once I left Pinecrest and began attending St. Theresa, there were Natives, specifically John. John was shy. John was quiet. Aside from that, I liked John. He smiled a lot. But John went back up the coast before the year was up, and I never saw him again.

I met Renato Romey in high school. Renato began life in the Philippines, and never lost his accent so long as I knew him.

In college, both in Haileybury and in Cambrian, there were a number of African students. I only knew them in passing; they hung out with one another, generally, keeping to themselves, speaking their mother tongue often, English when needed. I recall our having to make presentations (it didn’t matter on what, so long as we were able to speak in front of the class for about 15 minutes), so one of the Africans chose to lecture us on the life of Bob Marley, his revolutionary music, and his love of the sacred Rastafarian herb. Naïve as I was, I had no idea that they’d heard of Bob Marley in Africa; obviously they had. But love of Bob’s music broke the ice, and allowed we Canadians and they Africans to begin to bridge what had been until then, a fairly wide gap. They never became friends, but from that point on we never shied away from sharing a lunch table.

And finally, there was Jak Yassar Ninio. Turkish and Jewish, Jak was quiet, and a bit effeminate by North American standards. But Jak was not North American, and as I had no reference as to how Turkish men acted, I thought Jak was gay. I could not be further from the mark. Jak’s girlfriend was gorgeous, so beautiful she might have been a supermodel. And Jak’s girlfriend slept over, and slept over often.

And then there was Matt Hait. Even though Matt was from Toronto, he was in many ways as foreign to me as any of those others. Until I met Matt, I had little exposure to Torontonians. To be clear, I know, and knew, people are people and you’d be hard pressed to find two who are completely alike, regardless how close or far apart they may have grown up, but for the most part, I thought Ontarians were Ontarians, and thought little of it. But Matt’s Torontonian perspective, and my Northern one, were rather different. His level of urban maturity dwarfed mine. And though he never belittled my naivety, he did chuckle about my being from the sticks, on occasion.

Matt was wilder than me. When he was drinking. Sober, he was a diligent student, achieving far better marks than I usually did. He was far less constrained by perceived responsibility and duty, and really didn’t think much about decorum. In his world view, it didn’t matter what people saw, heard or thought; because you were likely to never see them ever again. That could lead to rather startling behavior. One might say destructive, evil behavior. And anarchy. Surprising for an Economics major. I’d have expected him to be buttoned dawn and straight laced.

Matt liked punk music. Not like I liked punk. I liked punk that bordered on New Wave. Matt liked his with an edge, nihilistic. Matt liked the violence of a mosh pit. Matt would pop Ecstasy. Matt could then party until the sun came up, writhing to the beat at an afterhours rave.

I was invited to a party by an acquaintance in 1^st year Economics. He introduced himself to me early on, noting my thinning hair. He swept his hat off and said, “Hey man, you’re bald, too!” That really didn’t win him any points with me then. But he was persistent. He’d park himself beside me in the Spoke (the cafeteria) when he’d spot me, insist we pair up in study groups and such. He was a Frat boy. Older than his roommates, so he was eager for a friend his own age. But he was angry and bitter. That annoyed me. I had a lot of anger in me, but I wasn’t that negative. At least I thought I wasn’t then, but I probably was. When Matt heard I was invited to a party at a Frat house, he lobbied me to accept, and he wanted to come. I did. We did.

Their house was older, and more opulent than ours. They had a full-sized billiards table in their rumpus room. We didn’t have a rumpus room. We had a 13-inch colour TV in our living room. I didn’t know anyone there except the one, so I never actually relaxed. We’d also only arrived with a limited amount of beer, owing to our having to carry it on the bus.

We stuck around for a couple hours, largely ignored by the Frat boys and Sorority girls. That pissed Matt off, so we left, drinking our last couple beers on the walk home under the heat of the starlit canopy. That’s when Matt revealed that he’d pocketed four billiard balls on the way out. We pitched them down the street, watching them bounce and roll and roll until they faded from site.

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.

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.

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.