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.

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.

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.”

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.