Chapter Four
I had an empty job doing mindless things. Work was paying my bills but I didn't like going there because the atmosphere was horrible. I could tolerate the mindlessness, but the backbiting and melodrama was becoming too much. In it I was nothing but a quaking, reluctant player.
I was hired as Doug's assistant, but whenever anyone else needed something menial tackled they'd seek me out. By way of response, Doug would go and whine to the boss or yell at whoever had taken me. Having grown sick of it I would refuse to go off with those who had no claim to my services. Whenever I shook my head and said no, one of the technicians working nearby would pipe up with something like, "Well, well, look at who went and got himself a backbone," or, "There must be a sale on cohunes at Kmart."
It was around this time, when the tension couldn't get much thicker, that I started to consider leaving. I thought I should get out while I could, before I became a slave to the boredom and innuendo, before I signed on as a lifer at the TV repair shop.
I thought of shooting the place up before I left and developed a droll fear of blurting out my fantasy in the lunchroom while everyone sat munching sandwiches, pretending there was nothing wrong with company morale.
I started to sleep my hangovers off in the small staff lounge. I'd go upstairs to do something and before I knew it I'd be lying down with my eyes shut, chewing a Mars bar that, thanks to the honour system, would remain unpaid for until payday. Soon I'd be soundly sleeping. The fat receptionist, Lauren, would almost always come and rescue me before I got myself in trouble. Lauren, who was also eighteen, had been a mystery to me ever since she had told me that every two weeks she was using part of her earnings to pay off a bedroom suite.
I missed the tablets prescribed for the treatment of depression and psychosis. Their effects were a dim memory yet sometimes I found myself nursing a strong desire for them. They’d made everything much easier. Anything had seemed possible. Now my thinking was becoming muddled, I was back to making poor decisions and it seemed each day was a little more difficult to get through. Anxiety and depression were resolutely banging on the door demanding entrance. They set up camp and started whittling away at my resolve. They were hateful, unafraid, incredibly stubborn squatters.
One morning, after Bob left for work, I packed and fled. I thought I was running from my job and my life, but I was really trying to outrun a sickness whose nature is to gain ground steadily on all it set its sights on.
Before I left I looked around. My eyes went from a pile of newspapers to a spilt ashtray and then came to rest on the TV. The atmosphere in the apartment seemed to become suddenly peaceful, urging me to stay. Something tugged inside. I shuddered and slowly shook my head while exhaling. The moment passed and I went to the phone booth to call a cab. Inconsiderate and self-absorbed, I left no note and spoke no good-bye.
Before I caught the greyhound I decided to have a drink. I drank as if I had just discovered thirst, but all I was doing was weakening an ache that wanted to make me cry. I drank enough to make you leery of lighting a match; I swallowed enough booze for two or three to get blasted on. I became lit, I was toasted, a smashed drunk. It’s no wonder that when I came to I was in another city, sleeping it off in a large jail cell full of snoring, muttering, smelly men in various degrees of intoxication and wakefulness. This cage is known as the tank. I'd been put off the bus until I sobered up; leastwise that's what I was told the next morning. I didn't remember a thing.
"You were being hostile," a man in a uniform told me while showing me the door.
"Me?" I said, incredulous, "that's the craziest thing I ever heard."
"You'd know," he said, looked at the ground, shook his head, and then looking me in the eye he slammed the metal door in my face. A deadbolt snapped to and then it was my turn to look at the ground, at my baggage, or rather, my bag. I grabbed it angrily, taking my frustration out on something that couldn't hit back.
"In a perfect world," spoke an unbidden thought, "inanimate objects would be able to protect themselves from those who mistreat them."
"Screw that," I yelled. For a second I thought my bag quaked before I threw it in the air. When it came down I gave it a few kicks. As a result I felt some tension leave me but I knew it only went for a quick cup of coffee at the corner. Problems that give the impression of being gone often find their way back to the host. They may seem a little different but they’re usually the same old puzzle.
I walked from the prison for drunks and managed to find my way back to the bus depot where I would re-board the coach pointed east. I would, for the duration of the journey, try to wear a suit of civility. It was a tight fit, but I managed.
I was glad to arrive in Toronto, a metropolis I had spent a good part of my childhood living in. It was a place that I had affection for. This love for concrete and atmosphere was a remnant of youth that I thought I should be able to let go of and put away as one must someday do with all things childish. Yet, there I was, soaking in the whole scene and loving it.
Hours later, feeling a little less smitten after mingling with the natives, most of whom seemed to be having bad days, I decided to check into the downtown YMCA hostel. I was road weary and having brain cramps. I was no longer in the mood to soak in anything other than the warmth of a scratchy blanket. First I had to get past a short, dumpy man with white hair and grayish-white whiskers. He had an oily look that made me feel uneasy.
"How can I help you, Sunshine," he asked, as I stood bag in hand, in the lobby of the hostel that provided food and shelter. Sure the question was a bit foolish, but it was being called 'sunshine' that knocked my pail of sand over.
"Well, Whitey," I replied, no longer awkward, "it's like this…."
"Whoa, hold it there. Nobody here calls me 'Whitey', understand, I don't answer to Whitey."
"Well, I don't remember telling you my name was Sunshine," I replied.
"Okay, look," he announced, "no games"
"Right," I muttered, "no checkers, no chess, no snakes and ladders."
"So, it seems you've had a hard day. Well, we'll fix you right up. Just need a few particulars." It wasn't long after the paperwork was done that I was taking a shower in water that came out wilted but hot. Well, you can't have everything.
Tired and a bit wet, I made a beeline for my lumpy bed and abrasive, gray blanket that reminded me, from a distance, of steel wool. A pillow that resembled a bundle of newspapers in a sack cushioned my head. I was warm and soon enough, I was fast asleep.
I don't claim to know how dreams work nor do I know why we dream. If I dream about something bad is it because I'm bad? What if I don't dream at all? I don't know much about dreams. All I know is that sometimes I dream and sometimes I don't. That night at the hostel I dreamed snatches, bits and pieces. Some I remembered and some I forgot.
There was the bus driver holding my arm in just such a way that I was immobilized yet pain free. If I tried to move he tweaked my arm a bit and then it hurt. There they were, there were the cops, walking my way…now I'm in Bob's apartment, Frank's there, they're laughing at the TV but it's not on, they're laughing at it because it's black and white. They turn to me at the same time, holding my wet pants and sleeping bag. I look down and I'm naked. "Have an accident?" somebody asks and his voice is murky, as if he is underwater.
All of a sudden I am part of a crowd watching two women sew, an old women and a younger woman. Actually, I guess they're weaving, and they're competing. My money's on the young woman, there's something different about her, something magical. I try to cheer but I have no voice. She looks at me.
I wake and I'm hot. For whatever reason, Whitey is leaning on the bed across the aisle from mine.
"Whitey?" I ask in an innocent voice.
"I told you that's not my name. We don't play games here."
With that he was coming at me furiously, with some tool he held clenched in his closed fist. I tried to yell and then I sat up for real. I quickly got out of bed. A spider fled across the floor. The floor was real. I pinched myself. I slapped myself lightly. Dreams, bloody dreams, so many nightmares, so few good ones like the ones where you're flying around on the tricycle you had when you were five. I sat up the rest of the night smoking cigarettes.
Early the next morning all of us pointless people were given meal tickets redeemable for breakfast at a local greasy spoon, but first, a short speech was in order. Before the herd, made up of men who had made a habit of taking wrong turns in life, thought twice about leaving, a lackey got everyone's attention by rattling off a string of expletives that would make a gutter rat blush. He then carried on:
"Okay! Come here at noon. Get your sandwiches. I don't want to see your faces again until supper, no excuses. If you're sick go to a doctor. If you're drunk go somewhere and sleep it off, because you won't get in here. You may now pick up your meal tickets. Goodbye gentlemen, have a nice day."
What a creep, I thought, Whitey was a lot nicer than that guy. After getting my ticket I realized that any appetite I had been in possession of had fled. A grizzled old lad with skin that made me think of lizards was walking a little ways in front of me.
"Would you like my ticket?" I asked, "I'm really not very hungry."
"Many thanks, boy," he said, sweetly smiling. If he possessed a tooth I didn't notice it.
"You're welcome, you're welcome."
"Say," he continued, "I noticed you was smokin' them fancy cigarettes. You know, when I was your age we mostly just had the makins and we was glad to have 'em. You couldn't spare me one of those fancy ones there, could you?"
As I was giving him a few cigarettes I saw the twinkle in his eye. It seemed to me to be rapidly turning into a gleam. Correspondingly, my radar went up a notch.We would walk and then he'd ask me if I fancied a nip before breakfast.
"No? Oh, well, could you help me out a little in that direction? I haven't had a drop in a few days and, well, you know what that's like.”
"See you, Old-timer," I said and as I walked away with intent, as if I had somewhere important to be, I started thinking again about the treatment that the denizens of the Y had received that morning.
It's strange, I thought, as I walked towards the bus terminal, it was like he was speaking to a convention for the hearing impaired; as if he had to holler just to be heard. He obviously believed he had to yell because his audience was thick headed. I laughed when I thought of he who had spoken; I saw him as a guy who still lived at home, without a girlfriend, spending most of his time watching TV. What would he know anyways? It's guys like him who spread the myth that says you have to treat these homeless old guys like crap, as if it's the right thing to do. It’s like giving your seat on the bus to a pregnant woman, stopping at a red light or buying a chocolate bar from the poor kid freezing outside the beer store. I thought on it some more with my eyes glazed over and inclined to the sidewalk until, looking up, I noticed I was at the bus depot.Oddly, I didn’t remember anything about the walk there. Autopilot, I suppose. I laughed and a woman nearby whom I hadn't noticed, smiled at me.
As I jostled with the ill-tempered, early morning crowd and staked out a place in line, I felt a final wave of concern before the hostel men dwindled and fled my heart. An image of those who would show up for their sandwiches, like gentle sheep, flitted through my mind. Something funny happened in my throat. I daydreamed a bit longer of the hapless men, as the people I was ensnarled with moved as one. The dilemma of those luckless men, gnarly, lean men who'd been made that way by the life they'd lived, seemed almost as mine.
"Can I help you, sir, sir, can I help you?"
I was at the front of the line and in a matter of minutes I’d forgotten the unfortunate men. I had my one-way ticket to Peterborough, and was thinking of the greener grass that awaited me - not to mention the cleaner air, better tasting water and more accessible women.
I generally sleep in moving vehicles whether I want to or not and there was no reason for that day to be an exception. The ninety miles from Toronto to Peterborough were void of conscious thought and substance. I was lulled into sleep by the sounds of the bus and slept as much as I could, dreaming and twitching without apology like the family pet who’s a little long in the tooth.
I had traveled the route often enough to know that slumber always stole some wonderful rural backdrop from sight. Farms, some worked others not, faded brick buildings here and there surrounded by fields partially covered in snow. Behind it all, behind huge rocks, machinery in the yard or a woman hanging out wash, was the bush, murky and mysterious.
When we disembarked in Peterborough my stomach was tied in knots and I felt shaky. I always felt better in transit, awake or not. As I stepped to the ground my tattered confidence turned traitor and fled and I was afraid. I went to the corner bar, the only place I knew that could give me back a semblance of self-assurance.
To help get myself oriented, I ordered two glasses of draft. Physically I needed the alcohol as much as the next drunk. It was a potent tranquilizer, an easy way out that worked quickly. It wasn’t cost efficient, but I always seemed to find a way to get my share of it. Once I had calmed down a bit and was more easily led by my thoughts, I began to indulge in the luxury of hindsight and from there to regard myself as a young man who'd learned some weighty lessons from his meanderings, such as they were.
After pouring back a few I went out walking around Peterborough and found it much the way I remembered it - a wonderful place if you have money. Unfortunately, I was one of the luckless that hadn't much, so I decided to stop gazing at the pricey menus posted outside downtown restaurants and went higgledy-piggledy, as the drunken crow flies, up one street and down another until I reached the highway to my parent's home. I would use my thumb to hitchhike the short journey that separated me from where I stood and there.
I planned to drop in unannounced. Having spent most of my money, like the rebellious guy in the Bible who had his fun and then repented, I was ready to be received by my family as was he by his, as a hero. Penitent and humbled, he had shown up on his folk's doorstep. I figured I would do the same. Well, I may have been ready to be welcomed as the prodigal son, but it wasn't in the cards.
I successfully traveled the six miles, which brought me within walking distance of my parent's house, in a car that was somebody's wet dream; jacked up, wide tires, oozing speed, music blaring from an absurdly good sound system that made conversation impossible and undesirable. On impulse, after I got out of that car, nodding and smiling a farewell all the while, I stopped to get a bottle of low-budget whiskey. I cracked it open as I walked diagonally across a muddy field bordering the highway. It was a field I was familiar with as being one I had often used to get to the place called home. When I thought about it I got a bit choked up. I swallowed some whiskey and it dispelled the undesired emotion.
So I was back where I thought I'd never again be, a dog returning to his vomit. I took a drink of whiskey and I thought: life isn't so bad, this place isn't the hell hole you thought it was. The dark skies opened a crack and it started to rain. I started to feel cold and picked up the pace.
When I arrived at my parent's house the back door was unlocked and open.
"Aren't we trusting," I muttered.
Kicking the mud off my boots I stuck my head in the door and yelled, "Mom."
Mom had been the greeting of choice for years, as it was more likely to elicit a positive response than hollering for Dad.
There was no answer. I stopped lurking in the doorway, kicked off my boots and went inside. Everything was the same as I remembered it. I sat down beside a table whose surface I recalled as though it was an early memory; I even remembered the place mats that were on the table. I drew a chair close and put my feet up on it, reached into my coat for the bottle, unscrewed the lid and took a long swallow. I thought of the defeated men from the shelter and compared them with my self-assured and successful father. I was a bit drunk and the comparison made me giggle. You, I thought, should know better than to laugh at those outcasts, after all, you bunked in with them last night. I could be harsh with myself. I was suddenly tired and fell asleep sitting, an infrequent act for me as I usually found some way to be horizontal.
I woke an hour or so later, sometime in the afternoon. I turned on the radio and strains of a sentimental song filled the kitchen. I sang along softly for a moment then quit singing. I can't relate to that stuff, I thought, I don't have anyone that I feel that way about. I changed the radio station.
I allowed myself to think about Michele while my mouth, like a baby, accepted the bottle offered it. I thought of the girl I'd loved, who'd stolen my heart along with my virginity. I uneasily remembered it all as another song droned on about love and loss. Will I ever get over that damned runaround, I wondered?
I turned the radio off with a nettled flick and held my head for a moment. I knew some people believed that I had lost my mind over her, but that wasn’t true. It was true that I had loved her once and probably still did. It hadn't been that long since she had had said she would never see me again though, strangely, she claimed in the same breath to love me. That was one mixed message I was going to tiptoe around for some time. Every time I thought of how hard I'd cried while she was telling me that it was over I shuddered. Even though she loved me she couldn't go on, even though she loved me it was too harsh, I was unpredictable, moody, a bit of a drunk.
Well, I thought, no sense dwelling on her and her strange way of expressing love. I rose to my feet untidily and staggered a bit as I went to see what my Dad was drinking at the time. Well stocked as usual, I thought, and smiled as I filled my glass to capacity, drank half and refilled it.
Where were they anyways? I was drinking glasses full of straight rye, as though I were in a hurry. I was on my third glass when I noticed over the rim of it a twinkling that enticed. One little ride wouldn't hurt, would it? It suddenly seemed as if the car keys I had spied could speak and were saying,
"Hey, live a little."
Why didn't I stay home, tune into the shell of what was once Hockey Night in Canada and get drunk in my chair? I don't know. All I know is that hindsight can deplete you. It gives you the blues. What if?I'll never know.
I guess I could blame an old girlfriend, a set of talking keys, the watered down state of professional hockey or my own burgeoning alcoholism for what transpired, for my taking the keys and making a break with a whiskey bottle for a quiet friend and confidant, but I won't.
I would soon be in a mess. The days and weeks that followed it would bring to light a true ailment living within me, one with a set of symptoms that were treatable to a degree. In the time that followed an invasive analysis of my person and an ongoing course of treatment tailored to meet my needs would be enacted.
In the days that were to come I would envision church ladies dressed up for Sunday, wagging their fingers at me, speaking on behalf of God, mankind and all that was decent - in my imagination they would go round and round me, in a circle that came close and then receded. There was nothing wrong with me a good dose of the Holy Scriptures wouldn't cure.
Touring the winter ravaged dirt roads a while gave a feeling back to me, one I fancied I'd been missing. It, felt good to be behind the wheel again, to float and land, to swerve and miss what looked like ice and then to right myself, pick up speed and do it all again. After running the gauntlet of dirt roads I decided to take my father's car to Peterborough and have a quick beer. In a split second of lunacy, I changed my plans. Bucking common sense I took the turnoff to Toronto when it presented itself. Thus began a car ride the likes of which I'd heard about, but believed were made up and reported by the news media as propaganda, whose sole purpose was to keep us all in line.