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.

Cambrian Errata

Some memories span years. MacLean and MacLean, for instance. My first exposure to the comedy team was back in high school. I was leafing through Mark Charette’s albums, The Police leaping from the speakers, when I came across an oddity. What’s this? I asked. Mark took the LP from me, glanced at the cover, and said, “It’s MacLean and MacLean.” That much was obvious. “It’s a comedy album,” he said. He removed “Outlandos d’ Amour,” and put the new album on. I was shocked. I shocked easily then. A seemingly endless barrage of cursing and scatology issued forth from the grooves. Dirty folk tunes, and most memorably “I’ve Seen Pubic Hair” replaced “So Lonely” and “Roxanne.” Mark knew every line, every word to every song. I giggled, and melted with disbelief, cramping from laughing so hard. But I discovered the shock wore off quickly. One followed another, they were all the same. The LPs were played on occasion, but one can only find the constant stream of curses funny for so long.

Maclean and Maclean resurfaced later, when I was in Res. They came to the college community hall. Tickets sold out quickly. We arrived early, what we thought early, anyway, but not nearly early enough. We found ourselves seated on the far right, with only a glimpse of the stage. The audience was loud with anticipation. Most of us had at least heard of them, many even knew some of their dirty limericks. The Emcee took the stage, we were hushed, and the eponymous Stars rose to the stage and took the mic. They were awful. Maybe I ought to say the sound was awful. All we heard was reverb and echo, feedback and fuzz, with only the often-yelled FUCK clearly heard through the hum, throughout. We listened, we strained, we grew impatient. Halfway through their first set we’d had enough. Let’s go, we said. We left, and went down the street to a notorious hangout, Whiskey Jack’s. Maybe I’ve got the name wrong, but I recall it was right across the street from Comics North. Whiskey Jack’s was a biker bar, just across the tracks on Elm Street, but one friendly to students who were always in attendance to play pool and slum. Slumming was popular then. There were more than one occasion when Evan and Deb and I, and then later Henri and I found ourselves sitting at a table next to grizzled old bikers, playing pool with those same gentlemen.

Surprising thing is, that was not the dumbest thing we did in Res. There were drugs everywhere, not just on my floor. You could partake as often as you’d like, if you had a mind to. Temptation was everywhere. The smell wafted up from door jams. People used to step aside from the stove to make room for others to do knives, those who didn’t have a hotplate stowed away in their room. I’ve said before, incense was everywhere too. There were a fair number of casualties. Never an overdose, just the slippage of GPA, and the inevitable loss of their year.

And as I’d mentioned more than once, there were a lot of parties. People used to crash them. It wasn’t that hard, the doors at the entrance were largely unguarded, and anyone could walk in through the door when we or any others entered. After all, we didn’t know everyone who lived there, much less be able to recognize them all. There was a guard, always of retirement age, usually wide of width, so if things went bad, one had best not expect them to sort it out. We had to do that ourselves. I remember that during the weekend long party at the start of my year in Res, we had to do just that. There were a bunch of us drinking in Evan’s room, when our floor dean roused us up and told us to come with them. Who were we to deny such a request? So, we asked the sensible question, can we bring our beer? Sure, they said, just come right now. So we followed, they lined us up shoulder to shoulder along the stairwell wall between 2^nd and 3^rd floor (the entrance floor). We weren’t the only ones placed there, either; everyone in Res was lined up along the walls. Then the stairwell door crashed open, and two obviously drunk and belligerent guys were shoved through. They saw the multitudes that led along their path out of Res. We were there to aid in intimidation. “See there?” one of the deans said to the two drunks. “Those are all the guys who’ll beat the shit out of you if you don’t leave!” They did, but I felt a little ridiculous when the drunks were paraded past. A little unnerved, too. I was never much of a fighter.

That said, the security guards were more inclined to see us as the criminals, as likely as not. During that same weekend, a guard was making his rounds, and came to our floor. “Look at this place,” he shouted. We looked around. It was a mess. But the cleaning staff was on strike, so what did he want us to do about it? “Apparently it was “Get to bed!” That’s what he yelled, anyway. That was the funniest thing we’d heard, because we all laughed at him, guys and girls, alike, no exceptions.

“Youse all belong in the hoosegow!” he countered before storming off. I can’t recall him ever patrolling our floor again.

Deb, The Beginning of the End

Sadly, all good things come to an end. The end began the night we went to see the Transvestite show. The end may have begun even before that. Had events unfolded as I wished, I’d have stayed in Sudbury, I’d have asked Deb to marry me, got a job, and I’d have raised two to four Irish-Polish Canadian children. I was young, I was idealistic, I was naïve. And I had not heard a damn thing that Deb was telling me. She liked me; that much I knew. Much later on, I understood she may have loved me, too. But Deb had seen her mother give up everything for house and home and husband and children. And although she had resigned herself to her fate, her marriage had not been good, she had not been prosperous, and she had lived mainly for her family. Deb vowed that would not be her lot in life, she vowed that she would have her own life, that she would make something of herself. Then I came along. I must have been the embodiment of the loss of those dreams.

So, as time wore on, I found her more distant. I grew increasingly desperate, and I probably crowded her. I know I crowded her. Maybe frightened her. Definitely scared her off. Time passed and there was more distance. I began to grow angry. There was a fight. There was no yelling; I’ve never been a yeller; if anything, I internalize anger and rage, trying to smother it; so, there were hushed tones, there was jaw clenching anger. And then more distance.
Deb hung out with the girls more, and then there was another guy. I guess that was inevitable. I have no clue where he came from, or what his relationship to her was, but I felt betrayed. Time passed. We had not seen one another for a while. Truth is, I was avoiding her. I didn’t know what I might say, only that I’d make things worse if I opened my mouth. I’d excelled at that with Roxanne. So, why not with Deb, too? One night she approached me, said there was “a get together in her room and would I like to join them?”
“Who’s there,” I asked. She rattled off some names; I knew all but the one. I wanted to go, I wanted to be near her. But I didn’t go. I couldn’t bear to be banished across the room and see her cozy up to another guy. I just could not bear that. I was devastated, all over again, felt a burning in my chest and a tightness rise up in my throat, all but choking me off. I bit back tears, said maybe later, and didn’t go. I shut my door, thought myself the coward I knew myself to be, and buried my agony in my pillow and wept.
I hung out more and more with Henri Guenette, then with T.J. Quenelle. Treffle Jay. I’d never met a guy named Treffle, before. But Treffle drank, and by then, so did I again, even though I could ill afford to, financially, and emotionally. But T.J. was a distraction. T.J. had an Austin Mini, the first I’d ever seen, the first I’d ever rode in. I recall having to look up at the driver of a VW Bug next to us and thinking it unbelievably ridiculous being seated in a car that had wheels that were no larger than a foot in radius. I began to giggle, then lost control of myself and laughed so hard I began to cramp up. It was not the Mini. It was not Bug. I was losing control of myself.
Time passed. Fire alarms were pulled in the dead of night. You could always tell if someone was tying one on in Res. Weekday, weekend, no matter; when someone tied one on, someone pulled the fire alarm. T.J. came out yelling, “Rats! It’s those damn rats! They’re in the walls, they’re in the wiring. They’ve taken over the administration!” Deb approached me on some of these occasions. I made nice. I talked, we laughed. I kept my distance.
I began to keep to my room, door closed. The burning lump of anger and regret rarely left my chest. My eyes hardened, most likely. My circle dwindled. I read more. I recall Henri and I reading the same book concurrently, a sequel to a fav of ours back in high school. The supposed main character of the trilogy died, and Henri rushed down from the 2^nd floor to share his shock. My door was actually open again, by then. “Did you get there?” he asked, not wanting to spoil the surprise. I looked up. “Allanon?” I asked, already there, already in the know, “Yeah,” I said, my voice a dull monotone in my ears. I must have smiled. I must have appeared as shocked and thrilled by it as he was. Henri looked pleased.
I was amused, on occasion. I laughed when I heard about Henri and his 2^nd floor circle having kicked bottle caps through the gap under a neighbour’s room. Her parents were visiting, and she’d spent hours cleaning her room, getting it just so. She and they went to lunch, and while they were gone, Henri and the others kicked about a hundred caps into her room. They’d fly in all directions when they cleared the door. Her face fell when she opened the door and saw her room littered with caps. Her father thought it rather funny, I was told. Her mother didn’t. But I did.
I listened intently, and without a hint of jealousy, as Henri told me about his hook-ups, and then his girlfriend. He tried to hook me up. I presumed to be with the girl for a while, but it was obvious to even me that she was not into me. Maybe I gave off a glow of heartache. If I had, she showed no desire to lift me up, fix me, or save me.
I began to think about escape, much as I had in Haileybury. I concocted an idiotic belief that I needed the Old Boy’s name behind me if I were to get a job in my most hated chosen profession, so I applied to go back. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. That comforting habit had reasserted itself. I applied, and God help me, I accepted. So, I was leaving yet another space, this one the happiest and most comforting I had ever known.
Deb and I settled into a quiet truce. We said hi, we avoided one another, until one of our circle had had enough. A Cochrane girl, she had little patience for bullshit. She cornered me, and asked me, what the fuck, in so many words. She said, Deb misses you. I hung my head and mumbled something, but she’d have none of that, either. Talk to her, she said.
So I did. The truce warmed. Deb seemed relieved and spoke about how stupid it had been that we’d both thought the other mad at one another, and over nothing. I did not ask her about the other guy. I hadn’t seen him about, but I hadn’t looked for him, either. I didn’t see the point of mentioning it (him), by then. I told her that I was leaving, and she seemed sincerely disappointed that I’d decided to go. I too had begun to regret my decision, but I’d always been tenacious in my follow through of bad decisions, so why stop now?
That’s why that night that she and I and Evan had spent together while all the others were out at the Brian Adam’s concert had been so special to me. We were saying goodbye.
That memory guts me to this day, 30 years on. Subtext.

The Res, Part 5

Yes, part 5. Like I said, that year was one of the most formative of my life. A lot happened then; of course, a lot happened every year, but that year has been etched into my mind, like no other.

Needless to say, I was no angel, but I did do a few rather noteworthy romantic things, one of which was upon sighting someone selling roses one evening in a bar we were hangin’ at, declaring that no woman at our table should go home without one. I leapt out of my seat, bought the best looking red rose on the verge of blooming and gallantly presented the flower to Debbie. There were others, of course, not just red. There were white ones, there were yellow. Only red would do, red indicating love. Let the others buy those others, even the ones in full bloom; they’d be wilted come morning, while Deb’s would last the week, long enough until it could be replenished the next weekend. Would it have been cheaper buying them from a florist? Undoubtedly. But there was no florist at hand in the bar at that hour, at such short notice. Not to be outdone, the others followed suit. The girls were dutifully impressed, and we were all rewarded with a kiss for our chivalrous feat, and for our unparalleled manliness and bravery. A precedent had been set, one that lasted out our year. The night progressed. We danced, we drank, we laughed. Mid-evening, “Let’s Go Crazy” roared from the speakers, and Mark Lewis stood up and said that the music was not loud enough (it was; we could barely hear him), so he got up, approached the glassed-in disk jockey’s booth, and making two fists, he pointed his middle fingers to the floor. Then he rotated them, both fingers dialed up to the ceiling. “Turn it up!” he screamed. The jockey laughed, and he did. Bass drummed everywhere, compressing us, deafening us. There was nothing to be done after such a display but invade the dancefloor. Deb forgot her rose on the table as we headed home, and other than to catch her breath as we were pulling out of the parking lot, and to curse that she’d forgotten it, thought nothing more about it. “It’s just a flower,” she said. But the look on her face said otherwise, so I made a point of going out that Saturday to replenish it. Back home, I leaned against her doorframe, the rose at my back. “Got something for you,” I said, bringing it forward. The look that took hold of her face when I presented it to her was worth the effort.

But as I said, I could be an ass, too. Early on, Evan and I played a prank. Actually, Evan did, but I didn’t stop him. I did aid and abet. A Timmins girl in Y-section had brought her bike from home, and was always going on about it. It was a nice bike, better than any I ever had. Evan decided that we ought to hide it, just for a little while. Yes, alcohol was involved. Why’d we do it? I don’t know, the girl was a friend, and we certainly shouldn’t have, but we did. So, when she wasn’t looking, we, meaning he, took it out of her room, and brought it down the stairs to the utility room. I held the doors. She flipped out when she found it missing. A search was conducted. Of course, the bike was not found. Who’d have looked in the utility room at the base of the stairs? She was angry, then desperate, then she began to cry. Evan thought she was acting like a baby, it had been less than an hour, after all, and that her histrionics were childish, at best. But my heart broke for her, so I went and got it. Evan was pissed at me, but I told him to fuck off and grow up. We were assholes to have done it. But I did say I wouldn’t rat on him. Our deans were livid. They asked me who else was involved, but I wouldn’t say. I told them “what does it matter? It was me, just blame me.” I got down on my knees and asked the girl for forgiveness. She slapped me across the head, twice, going on about how her dead brother had given her that bike. If that were the truth, I can understand why she was so pissed. I took the punishment; it was the least I deserved. The female dean stopped her, said that was enough, then told me to get out and go to my room. She’d come by later to have a word with me.

Later, the female dean asked me, “It was Evan, wasn’t it?” knowing how inseparable he and I were. I shrugged. Then she thanked me for returning the bike, and said that, since I returned it quickly, nothing more would be said about it. She also said she thought the victim was a bit of a drama queen and that she ought to grow up. That was when the dean lit a joint and handed it to me.

The girl from Timmins transferred to 4^th floor a week later, and didn’t speak to me for months. 4^th floor was the all-girl floor, quieter, safer, whereas the rest were co-ed. I don’t think there was any taboo about our being up there (guys, that is), but it was declared all-girl, so we just had to see. Evan and I had “snuck” up there before all this to check it out. It was ALL girls, after all. It was rather adolescent of us, looking back on it. It was definitely quiet up there; in fact, it was like a tomb. We got some funny looks as we stepped from the elevator. I couldn’t stay long, it felt forbidden.

We chased another from our floor. There was a guy in Y-section, actually next door to the Timmins bicycle girl. He kept to himself, so no one knew him. He smelled. He never washed. Long stringy hair collapsed about his shoulders. It wasn’t just that he smelled, his room did too. The odour escaped out into the hall, even with the door closed, and clung to the walls. The bike girl was disgusted, and wanted the deans to do something. The deans asked him to wash, but there was only so much a dean could do. So, we pooled our resources and left toiletries outside his door. He took them in, but owing to the continued odour, he didn’t use them. So, we held a bit of an intervention. We knocked on his door and told him to please wash. He didn’t.

So, one day we jumped him in the hall, and carried him into the Y-section washroom. We held him down and poured dish soap and shampoo all over him, clothing and all. The girls yelled “Don’t you fuckin’ move,” as we boys applied the roughest brush we could find in the hardware store to his head, his hair, his clothes. Others sprayed his room with about 10 cans of aerosol and poured liquid detergent over his clothing and his bedsheets.

I never saw him again. He too moved. It was probably in his right to have us all charged with assault. Our deans shrugged, and handed us another joint.

The Res, Part 4

Residence was distracting. Which was fun, but not always a good thing. There was always music playing somewhere in Res. Transistor radios, tape decks, full on stereos, LPs and all. There was always someone wandering the hall, hanging out in the common room, someone knocking someone else up (read what you will into that). One learned to tune it out, sometimes having to close one’s door to do so. Sometimes one just needed some alone time. Sometimes alone time was one on one. Sometimes alone time was to actually do homework, to study, and to have that, one had to close one’s door.

But who am I kidding? My door was open more than it was shut. I was having the best year of my life, so sometimes distractions are a good thing. Distractions were good for burning off excess energy and stress. God knows I was a neurotic mess that year, after Haileybury, after Roxanne, and other issues I’d been carting around with me for some time, like having almost died that summer, for instance. I was open to all distractions. And in Res, there was no shortage of them. Someone was always in the know about what might be going on, and we all wanted to hear about it, whatever it was. It was impossible to keep things quiet when there were about 200 people living in close proximity, and who would want to? We were all 18 to 20, most of us, anyway (there was one 17-year-old from Quebec in Res; what he thought about our carrying on is anyone’s guess), and we were running free for the first time, with not a moment to lose. News spread rapidly, largely unfiltered.

Like when Triumph came to town. Word had spread before the posters were up. As most of us were from the North, few of us had seen a “big” concert. The big acts had begun to bypass Timmins by then, and most of us were newly legal, so more than a few of us hadn’t even seen a band in a bar yet. Triumph was not to be missed. We all still had disposable cash then, we all bought tickets, the cheap seats, obviously. The Sudbury arena was packed, the floor swaying with people, all seats full, lighters lit and sweeping side to side. I don’t know what impressed me more, that sea of flames and the communal energy, or the actual show. Rick Emmett ran up and down and around a runway that ringed the stage while playing. I had little to compare it to. Most of my experience was in long narrow bars, the band held in place by a small crowed stage, speakers piled high to low ceilings, the bass thumping my lungs and spine, my ears screaming by night’s end. The sound was alright, I suppose, but we were at the far end, so it was a little muffled as it bounced off the back wall. No complaints. I had a great time. Friends, music, live show; what’s not to love.

Later, we saw ads for a transvestite show. We just had to go. Deb shocked me. She said that one of the crossdressers was the best-looking woman she’d ever seen and wanted to take “her” to bed. “Hey,” was the best I could come up with on such short notice, wrapping my arms around her. That earned me an elbow.

Brian Adams came to town with Luba in the early spring. Brian Adams! “Reckless” had just come out. Hits were unveiled by the week. The man was becoming a superstar overnight. And he was coming to Sudbury! Luba was a smaller scale star in her own right. Everyone was thrilled. I was not. There was no way I could go. I was short of money by then, my annual loan from my parents still weeks away. Deb was tapped, too. So was Evan. Everyone else had apparently budgeted better than we had, or so it seemed, because just about everyone we knew rushed out to buy tickets. We were jealous. And depressed when the day finally came. The floor was delirious with excitement. One of our circle took pity on us. Mark Lewis invited us into his room. “Have fun,” he said, as he swept his arm over his component stereo and LPs. And pointed out some new finds, to us at least: REM, The Smiths, the Cure. There were so many, more than I had collected, and he being from down South had been exposed to so much more, so many genera. It was like being given the keys to a candy store.

So, after we saw our friends off, we surveyed what we had at hand. A couple beers each, more than enough smokes, enough stuff for a couple joints. We began to leaf through the albums. Not one Brian Adams. We were okay with that. We began with his suggestions. Not too loud. We wanted to talk. We did. But we also found ourselves floored by Michael Stipes’ droning “Radio Free Europe” and then “So. Central Rain,” by the Cure’s layered reverb, Johnny Marr and Morrissey of The Smiths. Joy Division. So much new and known New Wave. Post Punk. It was like a new religion. Heaven. Deb wanted to hear acoustic guitar, fingers sliding down strings, so we searched for that, too.

Mostly, we talked. And laughed. And almost forgot that were missing the concert of the year. Time passed and before we knew it, the floor was back, their echoes rolling down the halls.

They crowded the room, eager to tell us all about it. The girls gave a more than detailed description of how Luba was dressed, argued about song order, and how they called out their requests, and what requests. Then Brian Adams, white shirt blazing under the lights, jeans as worn-in as jeans ought to be. Song list. How loud. How good. How great. And then came the best description of all. How idiots in front of the stage began hurling beer cups onto the stage. Brian Adams demanding that the crowd stop. More empty cups flew. The show pressed on. But come the end, Brian Adams leaned into his mic, cast a cold stare across the gathered floor, and declared that Sudbury was the worst crowd he’d ever played for and that he would NEVER be back. He backed away from the mic, accepted the silence and then the boos with grace, and walked off.

“Wow,” we said, eager for more detail, for what more there was to tell. “Was he right to say that?”
“Oh, yeah,” our friends said. “The crowd was full of drunk assholes!”

It’s been over 30 years since I missed that show. I’ve always regretted it. But in retrospect, had I gone, I wouldn’t have had those hours with Deb and Evan. And maybe spending those hours with my best friends was more priceless than any concert. No, not maybe. Definitely. They were the people I loved most in the whole world, then.

The Res, Part 3

 

Yes, there’s a lot about Cambrian Res. But this was by far the most formative year of my life, so there’s a lot to cover.

Life’s good. Never better. Friends, lots of them. Girlfriend, my first love. I’m high on life. Marks are roughly just above the toilet bowl, but you can’t have everything. I’m passing, though, so there’s at least that.

I’d even gained a nickname. One night, I found two girls scoping out Evan Macdonald’s room. I asked them what they were doing. They said, nothing. So, I pressed them. They said they liked his Oland’s Brewery mug and did I think he’s miss it if they took it? I told them that if they took that mug, I would hunt them down to the four corners of the earth and treat them to a thousand excruciatingly painful deaths. They ran out of the room, and upon seeing a friend of theirs, they pointed me out, and said, “Do you see that guy, he’s psycho!” Not much later that evening, no more than ten minutes, my whole floor gathered and calling me out in their loudest voices, as one screamed “PSYCHO!” It stuck, God help me. And in no time at all, even my classmates were calling me that.

It was an odd year, though; it was the year of the strike. Sudbury is a union town, and I was learning that strikes were not uncommon. When I moved into Res, I had no idea that the cleaning and support staff were on strike. I found out pretty quickly though. That first weekend was a hard, full-on party. Much beer was drank, and by the end of it, much beer was spilled, too. The floors were sticky and black with it, and we’d grown accustomed to wearing shoes to the shower, and hearing and feeling them stick and peel from the glaze that had hardened there. My first weekend was also odd in that it was the first time I’d showered in the stall next to a couple having sex. It was rather obvious that they were; in fact, I could hear them as I was entering the bathroom, throughout the shower, and as I toweled odd and left. That would not be the last time, either. The building had settled into smelling like a brewery, a distillery, an ashtray. After a week we took it upon ourselves to seek out cleaning supplies and swab the deck. Only to begin the process again that next weekend. Then came the city transit strike. We’d only just begun to figure out the bus routes and get good usage from our transit passes when they walked out. We began to make heavy use of cabs, piling in way beyond what the law allowed, each handing over a quarter for the fare when we arrived, there were so many jammed into it. The cops turned a blind eye to the infractions. Had they not, every cab driver in town would have lost his license. But glory be, the college stepped in and contracted a private bus company (school buses) to ferry us to and from school. So long as we were there on time, there was no cost to us; the drivers counted heads and billed the college direct. Then they too walked out. And we were back to cabs. Thankfully, that only lasted another week before the transit settled and went back to work. We were not done, yet. One week after the transit returned, the teachers went on strike for three and a half weeks. I went home, citing the need for a twelve-step program were I to stay. More than a few people dropped out of school during its tenure. Thankfully, Deb was not among them. But the duration of the teachers’ strike did not treat Evan Macdonald well. Evan was a drinker, quite fond of his native Cape Breton Island’s drink of choice: rum. On return, I discovered our mutual experimentation of cannabis had taken over his free time. Evan and I were always friends that year, but he’d found a new crowd after that. We returned to a beer strike. I don’t know what came over Sudbury, but the city was drank dry in a weekend. The bars scrambled to take up the slack, ordering vats of American Old Milwaukee and hard liquor. Northern Brewery wouldn’t sell to you beer unless you returned your empties. We countered with keg parties on the third floor. Then the grocery stores went on strike, on after another. When we thought all was said and done, the Sudbury Star finally settled their contract. We didn’t know that the city had a newspaper.

When one door closes, another opens. I was waiting for the bus one day when I noticed a familiar face. I thread my way through the crowd (there was about 200 students in residence, so there was always a crowd waiting for the bus), and came face to face with Henri Guenette. Remember Henri? I’d known him since Beginners swimming lessons; we’d been lifeguards and instructors together; he’d turned me on to D&D; we drank gallons of beer together. And then we just drifted apart about the time I went to college the year before.

“Holy crap!” I said. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who are you visiting?”

He was obviously as surprised to see me as I was him. “I live here,” he said.

“No way,” I said. “Where?”

“2^nd floor.”

“I’m on 1^st.”

We’d been to the same parties, and had not yet caught a glimpse of one another, until then.
Thereafter, when I wasn’t in Deb’s room, I was in Henri’s. Henri’s room was rather distinctive. His bed was notably higher than most. Beer cases lifted it feet above the ground, and as the year progressed, the bed rose even higher. One had to leap up. And reach down by the spring to turn the lights on and off. I’m surprised he never got vertigo. He did this for a reason. He wanted the best damn birthday party of his life. When the time came, four of us stacked all those cases into every available space of a vintage ‘70s station wagon and carted them back to the beer store, to redeem them for free beer. Everyone drank for free. There was a hidden cost. The next morning, Henri fell off bed. It was an altitude thing. Expecting the usual height, he didn’t get his feet under him as he slid off the bed, and fell flat.

The Res, Part 2

We were all trying to find ourselves that year. Some did better than others. I suppose some didn’t like what they found. Most in Residence were in their first year, a scary prospect at best. I ought to know, as I’d already been through what they were just then experiencing. It was actually rare to find people not in first year in Residence, myself and the floor deans being notable exceptions (and I was an exception to the exception; 2^nd year, but first year in Cambrian). There were a few other 2^nd and 3^rd year about, but they, we, were rare, and we all came to understand why. Residence can be hard on your marks. 

There were parties, never planned, they just evolved. Two people might be sharing a beer and quiet conversation in a room, stereo pushing music out into the hall. Doors were almost never shut, and an open door was generally an open invitation to passers-by. Music playing, another would poke their nose in, and be offered a beer, an invitation to join. Three is always a crowd, so a fourth would invariably resolve. Four people are louder than two, so a few others might look in, just to see who was there, and the music would rise a couple notches. And before you knew it, you were up at 1am on a weeknight.

If only it were just the booze. There were drugs, lots of them. It was the ‘80s, so hash and oil mainly. Some people smoked so much they had smokers’ coughs, yet somehow still declared themselves non-smokers. I ask you, how does one break down weed or fill a joint with hay and oil and inhale smoothly without coughing and still believe themselves a non-smoker? I proposed an experiment. I challenged one such hypocrite, handed him my dart, and declared that if he could inhale cleanly he was a smoker. Mine were particularly strong in those years, Export A, the green pack, anything stronger was unfiltered, and the only people who I knew who bought those only bought them for hash filler. He refused to participate in the experiment. 

Was I cool that year? I think so. Cooler than I’d ever been, anyway. I still had hair, it was thinning but I still had it. I had a noted look: knock-off Wayfarers (all I could afford), my HSM blue leather jacket, jean jacket beneath it, plaid shirts, unbuttoned, untucked, open to t-shirts. Voluminously baggy sweater. 501s. White cross trainers. We all wore white leather cross trainers, then. I smoked like a chimney. And I may have partook of the processed cannabis, then, too. No pills. No ‘shrooms. I watched a guy nicknamed Brain pull the payphone off the wall while on them to bring it to the girl whose parents were calling her. It was some time before we got our payphone back. That said, I had friends, I had a real girlfriend. We had parties, we hit the bars. I liked the Colson. Best of all worlds under one roof: bands and strippers. I remember we, the guys, were supposed to meet the girls downtown. They were shopping, we had no interest; so, we told them to meet us at the Colson. The band sucked, unfortunately, so we settled into the attached strip club. Before long, the girls rush in, Deb first among them. Deb didn’t care that she’d just entered a strip club. Deb didn’t care that all eyes were now on her and the other girls. Deb didn’t give a shit about things like that. Let them gawk. Deb leaped and landed in my lap in the front row. Was the stripper put out? I don’t know. I didn’t care. Why would I care when I had a real woman in my lap, my woman. I only had eyes for Deb. 

Of course, all this may explain why my marks, while somewhat better than they were the year prior, were nothing to brag about. All I can say is that I had more and better personal growth that year than the last. I’d begun to have a better sense of myself. I’d begun to wonder what the hell I was doing in mining. I was hanging out with anyone but. Musicians, singers, audio-visual, the literate and artsy crowd; these were by and large the people I called friends, not the engineering set. I thought the engineering set dull as dirt. They talked about stocks they didn’t have, and couldn’t afford. They talked about torque, and production rates, and they talked about money. I thought them all morons. Well, that might be too strong a description.

One such showed promise, early on. He was local, he liked to party, talked about girls, had a sports car. He invited me to his place to taste his old man’s homemade wine. Problem was, we had classes in a couple hours. I was thinking about seeking out Deb and Evan, but I wasn’t sure if they had class then, and there was no one in our front entry common room spot, so I agreed. Stupid decision. It was pretty strong stuff. I wanted to beg off, but he called me a pussy, so I had a couple more, half of what he had. For whatever stupid reason, I got back in the car with him. He was drunk. He was reckless. I thought I might die, just then. He laid rubber down everywhere, even in the college parking lot. I got out quickly when he finally did stop, and I staggered away. The passenger door not yet closed, he took off again, and continued to peel around the entryway.

I entered the college, pale, somewhat unsteady, all eyes on me, and found my gang in the front common area I mentioned, 2^nd floor, ground floor, just in from the entry. They were arranged as usual in and around our adopted comfy couch, lolling about in the sunlit warmth. They were looking back where I had come from, the tires still plainly heard.

“Fuck me,” I said, as I collapsed into the spot made for me. They asked me what I meant, and I filled them in. Half of them ran off to see the commotion, and saw old whatshisname get arrested.
The Res crowd had our preferred area, always sought out, always seemingly occupied by one of us. I didn’t hang out with the mining crowd much, after that, despite their telling me the guy was an idiot. I had my crowd, so what did I need them for? I was always safe with my crowd, and I was never alone.
I’m not saying I disliked my classmates. They were alright. Some better than others. Ken, the first to tell me to never mind about old whatshisname, had a motorcycle. Grant had a wicked sense of humour.

Another, can’t remember his name, was a noted slut, eager to give advice and clear up some of those mysteries. They were certainly a far cry better than those I’d spent my prior year with. They just weren’t my friends. They were always giving me shit; not in a bad way; it was because I never invited them to Res parties. Because I don’t know when they are, I told them. They looked comically dubious, when I told them that. Res parties are never planned, I said. They just happen. My classmates were insistent, so I threw one. Or tried to. Throwing a party was relatively rare, almost uncalled for. They arrived, I tried to drum up some interest. One did resolve, but it was not an all-out, end-all like the spontaneous ones always were. I suppose it was a success for Grant; he got laid that night; and he locked me out of my room for just that reason. I was forced to crash in Deb’s. Not the worst outcome, but the beds were singles, a hair wider than twins, not particularly comfortable for two. We made due.
Grant finished, the rest of the mining crowd crashed in my room, and my room smelled like beer farts the next day. It was toxic in there.

My female floor dean lent me a couple incense rods to clear the air. There was a fair bit of incense about that year.
Why? See above.

Deb

Debbie Wursluk is indelibly entwined with my memories of my first year at Cambrian College. I could no more disentangle her from that year than I could cut out my heart. That year, they were one and the same. Does that sound too extreme? Not to me, it doesn’t. She was, without a doubt, the first woman I was ever in love with, and I fell hard. I was not aware how hard, not on that first night, not for some time to come, but she suffused me, and her presence became a daily affair from the first.

Both on the first floor, we moved in the same day, and as striking as she was, I could not help but notice her right away. I was drawn to her. That first day and that first night, she and Evan Macdonald and I became fast friends, and then as that night progressed, she very quickly became the focus of my world. I was not actually aware of that, then; how I was not baffles me, but it’s not that much of a mystery either, as naïve as I know myself to have been. Remember, I’d been shy with girls in high school, and had cloistered myself in a predominately and almost exclusively male school my first year of college. Then there was Roxanne. So, I was not what one might call worldly. I was unaware how completely one can become entranced by another person, or how completely that person can occupy one’s every thought. Yes, I’d thought about women before…a lot; I had just never thought so exclusively about the same woman. And yes, there had been Roxanne. But this was different. Not to say Deb was the only thing on my mind. There were classes; there were other friends; there were parties and new experiences, and the humdrum of homework. And, no, Deb and I did not spend every waking hour together; but, when I came home from school, she was invariably the first person I sought out. Evan Macdonald, too, he being housed midway between my and Deb’s rooms. As I said, we’d become fast friends, the three of us. But seeing how hard I fell that first night, Deb and I became rather inseparable quickly. We had quiet conversations where we felt each other out, seeking everything there was to learn. She openly discussed her sex life (she was way more experienced than I was, intimidatingly so), she talked about her family, her adoration for her openly gay brother. He was self-assured. He was courageous. He was her hero. We talked about so many things: parents, home life, death, her want and need to escape her life as she knew it. She loved her mother, but she wanted better.

We spent a lot of time getting to know one another, as well, by design, by circumstance. Within our first week in residence, we had our first lengthy, uninterrupted time together. We’d been downtown, and having walked there already, decided to walk back. Only we were not paying close attention to where we were going, and were not particularly familiar with Sudbury yet, either, so we, lost in conversation, took a wrong turn. We walked up the adjacent street to the one we’d intended, and almost immediately found ourselves lost. We’d come face to face with rail spur lines, a site neither of us had seen before. We could have retraced our steps, but we decided that was just a waste of time, so we crossed the rail yard and carried on. We felt sure that we’d stumble across our proper path soon enough. But we didn’t. Where we ought to have been angling southwest, we were in fact following roads that headed due south. Deb began to show concern, but I glanced around, sighted the Superstack, and remembered how the stack looked from downtown and from Residence. I told her not to worry, that I knew exactly where we were, not exactly the truth, but close enough that it didn’t make a difference in my mind. I actually had no clue whether the road we were following would actually take us back to residence, but I did know where we were from a largely bird’s eye view perspective. We found our path somewhat erratic, but so long as I kept sight of the stack, I thought we were alright; then I saw Bell Park, and realizing that if we’d kept on as we were going, we’d be walking as far as the Four Corners, quite a hike, before doubling back, so I took a chance, and turned up York Street. “Is this the way,” Deb asked. “Without a doubt,” I said, filled with doubt. I lucked out. York crossed Regent, and as luck would have it, when we gained Regent, we could see the Res. She was elated! I looked like a hero! Well, in my eyes I did. That said, we were both a little footsore when we climbed the front steps. But, we’d shared an adventure together. More importantly, in my eyes, we’d spent an hour wandering about chatting, without anyone to disturb us.

Shortly after that, the Res was out together at the Ramada Hotel, the hottest bar in town, the room so crowded we had to inch through the press to get to the washrooms or the dance floor. I was playing it cool for Deb, sporting a stiff new jean jacket and knock-off Wayfarers (all I could afford, then). I could hardly see, but Deb thought both were the apex of cool so I brought them, and wore them that night; I was all about impressing Deb by this point. We found every opportunity to dance together, our focus on the slow ones. The night skipped past in a heartbeat. Last Call. Lights on. And Res spilled out into the night, looking for cabs. There was at least 30 of us, so there was a lot of hailing to be done. Sudbury’s big yellow ‘50s checkered cabs rolled in and out, and then we of 1^st floor pressed forward. Deb and a girl from Cochrane ducked into the front, and Evan and I and another guy from our circle piled into the back. The girls made short small talk with the driver and then turned back to face us, hanging over the seat. “Kiss us,” Deb demanded, and we did, each in turn, necking with each of the girls for easily 15 to 20 seconds per. There was a short awkward pause, and we all laughed, the driver too. “Is that it?” Deb asked. No one moved, I looked to the other guys who were glancing about, mainly at me. Apparently, everyone had been given crib notes for the evening, everyone but me. All I knew was that I’d rather have me kissing Deb than them, so I leaned in, effectively cutting the other two off from her. They shifted somewhat while I did. Like I said, things may have been discussed during my washroom breaks. “Is that it? Not a chance,” I said, and cupping the back of her head, I drew her to me. That kiss may have lasted slightly longer than the last. By however long.
We arrived, departed, climbed the front steps, rode the elevator down. There were further awkward moments, mainly carried on by me. I kept looking at her lips, feeling her heat. We somehow ended up in my room, beers in hand, myself and Deb on the bed, the others arranged around.
And then I woke up, fully dressed and rumpled under the covers, wondering how I came to be in that state. I must have nodded off, and I’ll assume Deb tucked me in. I guess you weren’t expecting that after such a lengthy lead up. I would not have been either. Imagine my surprise, imagine my disappointment.
We did eventually find ourselves alone in bed the following weekend. Similar circumstances. Everyone jostling for a cab, what with a bus strike in full swing. There was a running bet on as to how many people could be piled into those enormous cabs. We managed twenty-five, jammed in and stacked like cord wood in the back. I ended up on the floor, pressed flat by hips and elbows and the weight of my floor above me. I arrived numb and had to be pealed out of the cab. Deb waited for me to regain feeling in my legs, and escorted me back to my room. She went to the bathroom, and when she returned, I’d kicked off my jeans and settled under the covers. Unabashed by my altered state, she leapt over me, nestled between wall and me. She peeked under the covers.
“You don’t have much on under there,” she said. Not entirely true, but accurate enough, for that moment, anyway.
Deb was strong. Deb was confident. Deb was self-assured. Deb was my world just then. Deb was also in need of comfort, understanding, a strong shoulder, someone to take her as she was, and to raise her up from her own demons and doubts and uncertainties. She was as in need of those things as much as I was.
I only wish that I had not been such the neurotic mess I was then, as she was too.
I wish I had been able rise to the occasion.

The Res

 

After vacating the Haileybury School of Mines, I was next schooled at Cambrian College in Sudbury. Same course, Mining Engineering Technology, just different school. Should I have changed schools? Yes. Should I have found a different path to pursue? Even then that should have been obvious to me, but I was still oblivious to that. Even in regards to all things Engineering. My neighbour, George Miller, had worked in labour and supervision in the Timmins mining industry his whole life, and George had tried to give me some sage career advice that summer, but George was too cryptic in his delivery; George should not have just said, “Get the ring, David,” referring to the iron ring all engineers wear on their right pinky, George ought to have been bolder in his advice, telling me that the industry (largely engineers in management) does not respect technologists, only engineers, and that my career advancement would be severely limited because of it. Of course, no school that teaches technology courses would ever enlighten their students with that tidbit of wisdom, would they? That said, I was too full of myself back then to heed George’s advice, brushing it aside, as though I knew my choice of career better than a man in his 50s who’d already spent his life in it.
Essentials packed again, we arrived in Sudbury, found the college residence, found my room (1B10), and dropped my stuff off. That took a while. The residence entrance was on the 3^rd floor, my room on the 1^st. You’d think that my having worked underground and used to a three-dimensional world, that I’d have been able to figure out that the 1^st floor was not the ground entrance, that should have been a piece of cake, but it took a few tries before it sunk in. My parents took me to lunch, and were on their way back home in the early afternoon. I was less devastated this time than the last. There was more excitement this time. Bigger school, more people, more to do.
My stuff arranged, I crashed out in the common room, no more than five feet from my room, and flipped channels. I found football, and left it there. I didn’t actually want to watch anything, I wanted to get on with meeting new friends, but I needed something to fill the time with something, was too excited to concentrate on a book, and I didn’t want to appear too introverted or closed off. I kept glancing through the common room windows at the halls for activity, and shortly, Evan Macdonald was seen, and having just seen me, came in to introduce himself. I said, “Hey, I’m Dave,” and he answered with “Hey,” and whatever else he said. Evan spoke in such a thick Cape Breton accent that it took me about a month before I could really decipher what he said, and by then I’d already begun to pick up bits and pieces of his accent, too (so said my friends when I returned home for Thanksgiving). But within about a half hour, I’d begun to pick out most of what I thought he said, or enough to figure out what I thought he said, anyway. We began with easy words. Evan had beer, so we started with that one. I had beer too. We were best friends. We settled in, introduced bits about ourselves. Evan was in Audio Visual, a drummer, a soundman for his band out East. He wanted to learn more about the electronic end of music.

More people arrive, people from Timmins, Cochrane, North Bay, people from the North and people from the South. And there were girls, the Res being co-op. Everywhere I looked there were girls. And one in particular who caught my eye, a girl from Elliot Lake. Enter Debbie Wursluk. Polish ancestry, my height, good figure, a blonde mullet Mohawk that rivaled Robert Smith’s for height. We begin to mix in the common room, in the halls, chatting each other up in doorways.
Then we had our residence induction from our floor deans. Each floor had a male and female dean. Our male dean looked like he stepped out of Platinum Blonde. Our female dean looked like Patty Smythe from Scandal. Rules were laid out involving guests and such, the usual fire drill. Then we were told that there was a meet and greet at Cortina Café later. No one knew where Cortina Café was. They didn’t tell us. But I knew where Cortina Pizzeria was, my parents had just treated me to lunch there. And Cortina Pizzeria was only about a half mile away, just up Regent Street, the same Regent the Res was, on so I assumed that was what they were talking about. So, I said, I knew where Cortina’s was. Word spread, and that’s where first floor Res went. As a group, everyone, B section, G section, Y section. We filed in, and Cortina’s, seeing all those greenbacks roll in, set up an enormous table down the centre of the restaurant. We dominated the restaurant. We wondered where our deans were, as they weren’t in Cortina’s when we arrived. We shrugged, and settled in, Evan to one side of me, Debbie to the other, the three of us already fast friends. We ordered drinks, then more while we waited a while for our deans to arrive. They did not. It was suggested by Evan that maybe we were in the wrong place. I countered with, “well, this is the only Cortina’s I know about, and we’re here now. If there’s another, I’m not going to go traipsing all over town to find it.” We ordered, we ate, we drank some more, paid our bills, and once we got back to the Res, we piled into cabs for the nearest Beer Store.
By the time the deans returned from the actual Cortina Café, downtown and quite some distance away, we were back with our now much depleted cases, the party in full swing.
“Where the fuck were you,” they asked me.
“At Cortina’s, “I said, “just down the road,” pointing up Regent Street through the windowless hall (my 3D senses fully aware by now where everything was in relation to one another), “Where were you?”
They explained where the “real” Cortina Café was. I shrugged. “Oh,” I said before taking a pull on my beer, not really caring. I may have been a little tipsy by then.
The night progressed, the party surged from hall to rooms, to the common room, spilling out to other floors to meet newer new people.
Debbie and I found ourselves alone in Evan’s room, close, her on his bed, me on a chair facing her, the chair abut the bed, our legs resting alongside one another, touching. She was surveying me with what I believe now was smoldering sensuality. I was responding like I never had before. Breath deeper, a bull urge rising up. Looking back, I think Evan concocted a reason to leave us alone, figuring out rather quickly and easily what I was too daft to see for myself.
We are taking each other in, feeling each other out, chatting about everything and nothing at that moment. Deb was in Audio Visual, as well. Loved music, loved movies, chatted endlessly (I was entranced with her voice, her laugh), but also hung on my every word when I did speak.
After a pause, she asked me, “Have you ever wanted to go to bed, but weren’t sure you wanted to go to bed?” She said. My heart lurched, skipped a beat.
I was pretty naïve then, and I’d just come from a largely all male college, so such conversations were pretty much unheard of, so I was not entirely sure what she was getting at. Was she tired? Did she want to take me to bed? I was really beginning to like this girl, even after so short an acquaintance, so I was really hoping for the later, and was really hoping that she would decide to do just that. But I was a gentleman, raised to respect women and their choices. And we were drunk, so I really didn’t want my first time to be a drunken tumble, soon to be regretted by her in the morning. Regretted by me were she to reject me on that count.
“Yeah,” was all I could think of to say, hoping that she’d read manly worldliness into so short a response.
I did not turn out how I’d hoped.
I think she decided that she was too drunk to continue, and that I was too drunk to continue. And maybe she didn’t really want to mess things up with me, either. Her mind made up, she slinked and hopped from the bed, she whisked past, but not without grazing her fingertips along my pant leg as she passed.
Good night, she said, and laid a kiss on my cheek. She must have heard my breath catch in my throat, because she smiled more broadly than she had already. “Loved meeting you. It was a good night.”
It was.

The Summer Student

When I returned home from school for the summer, I did so with less than twenty dollars in the bank. It was the same every year, so it’s no surprise that my first was no exception. My working at Kidd Creek during the summer made no difference, either. No matter how much money I made, I was always in need of a loan from my parents come March, and upon arriving home for the summer. I always paid them back, usually with my income tax return, but sometimes with a portion of my first couple pays, as well. You’d think I’d have learned restraint in the following years, but back then I can’t say I was much of a long-term planner.
That first summer back from college was a big one for me. There was money to be made (my first well-paying job), savings to be stowed for the coming year, Roxanne to exorcise from my soul, my sister’s wedding, and my near fatal car accident (see prior early memories if you haven’t been keeping abreast of these ongoing missives).
I arrived home, having already made up my mind to leave Haileybury and continue my scholastic career in Sudbury at Cambrian. I’d applied and was accepted. Now, all I needed to do was make and save some money. I didn’t even need to make arrangements for a car pool. My neighbor, George Miller, asked around and set me up. But first, I had to celebrate my homecoming…not that I’d actually ever really left. Like I said, I wasn’t much of a long-term planner back then.
My first day of work, I was out on my curb waiting for my ride. The car pool pulled up, the Econoline’s side panel slid open, and I was ushered in by a van full of strangers. Shy at first, I kept to myself, observing these grown men I would be travelling to work with for the coming months. They were a grizzled bunch, not one of them taking the time to shave that morning. They were gruff, loud, eager to make the smallest of talk. Half an hour later, I spilled out with the rest of them, and made my way to training, following the arrows penned on sheets of paper taped to the wall to guide me. I sat through induction, was given a locker, a payroll number, sheets to sign. I was introduced to my Captain (General Foreman) and my Shifter (Front Line Foreman). And then I was told that I’d be working in the field, away from my crew for a week, scaling and bolting the back (the ceiling) of a newly fired round on 40-1. Too much mining talk? Confused? So was I.
The next morning, suited up in coveralls, boots, belt and hard hat, we were taught how to collect the cap lamps allotted us, and where to wait for the cage. New to this, we were herded together like the inexperienced sheep we were. The pager squawked inexplicable instructions (I, personally, could not make out a word that was said), and those in the know stood up and headed to the shaft. We waited like sensible sheep for our turn. And when it came, we too inched our way to the shaft, onto the cage, jammed in as tight as can be, lunch pails held tightly between our legs. The door crashed down, bells were rung to the hoistman, and we descended into the black depths. Silence descended too, quiet mutterings here and there. Over those, the cage rattled and scraped the guides. Our breath steamed from us, illuminated by already affixed headlamps, their beams sweeping about. Never in another’s eyes; to do so risked having the lamp rapped and smashed by an irate wrench. The cold of the upper mine escaped the cracks, replaced with a heavy heat as each level rushed past in a piston pressed cushion of air. The cage shuddered and shook with each passing, then slowed, then inched, then stopped as the cagetender indicated: one bell, stop, then three, men in motion.
2 Mine was hot; deeply humid, not as well ventilated as 1 Mine. The heading was quiet, stifling. At least until the scaling and bolting began. Then, rocks crashed to our feet after prying, drills blared the loudest roar I’d ever heard. The air smelled of oil and nitrates and resin and sweat. And cigarettes. Fog enveloped us, we each silhouetted in backlight. Eerie. Beautiful. You’d have to see it to understand.
I joined my crew the next week. Bob Semour, Charlie Trampanier, Rod Skinner, Brian Wilson, among others. I was to man the picking belt for the summer, part of the crusher crew. But I was also to work with the construction gang on occasion, when needed. Building walls, pumping cement. On the belts, there was shoveling to do, every day there was shoveling, scrap to be picked up, and dumped in rail cars, and pushed by hand to the station. Lean into it, shove hard to get it going, pick up speed or we’d never get it through the S turn and it would grind to a halt, and we’d have to pry it on, or push it halfway back to try again. I learned important lessons. You fucked it, you fix it, being the most important. Always wear your safety glasses when the boss is around. Sit on your gloves or you’ll get piles. Lift this way. Watch out, that’s dangerous. Don’t touch that. I learned the thrill of setting off a blast. The boredom of guarding. Always bring a book.
And I learned that you can earn the nickname Crash when you’ve been in a car accident that caused you to miss a week’s work. And how happy they are to see you after that accident too, if stiff and limping. And how your boss says, you’re light duty this week, Crash. I want you to drive that pick-up. I was terrified at the prospect, but he said, better get back on that horse, or it’ll scare you the rest of your life. I did. It didn’t.
Paychecks, parties.
And that summer I started smoking. At 19. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. Idiot! You’d think I’d have been immune to beginning after 19 years of having not. You’ll note a theme that runs through these early years, these early memories. Thinking was not foremost in my mind, then. I was at the Empire Hotel, in early enough that the sunlight still found its way into its narrow smoky twilight. I found Astra and Alma Senkus already there. They called me over. They had a couple beers before them, smokes lit. I watched. I wondered what it would be like to take a drag, to inhale and blow that long steam of smoke across the table. And I wanted to impress the twins. Secretly, I wondered what it would be like to lose my virginity to twins. So, I asked for one. They were reticent, joked with me about how addictive smoking was. But I was a man, under the spell of wanting to impress attractive women. I insisted. They gave me one. I inhaled, coughed as expected, inhaled again, coughed less. And grew somewhat lightheaded. On my second beer, I asked for another.
As you can imagine, this was another one of those worst decisions of my life.
And in case you’re wondering, no, I did not lose my virginity to the Senkus twins that night.