Tag: youth

Rabid Dogs

Returning home I took stock of myself. Almost 21 years of age with no real prospects, no real future. I had been out of school now for 5 years and was no further ahead than that first day after graduation. My parents and most of my associates thought of me as some sort of restless loser: an undergraduate of the University of Hard Knocks and Bad Experiences. Nonetheless, I never regretted anything that I had done thus far and was quite defensive when vocational criticism was thrown my way. I just didn’t have a clue at the time and lacked direction in this very adult course called living 101.

I returned to the normal everyday grind. Jimmymum has established himself in corporate finance and accounting. Good for him. He was steady, mature and had good prospects. In that regard it seemed as if life was programmed for him. Graduate high school. Check. Now what? Get a job for life. Check. Now what? Get married. Check. Now what? Get a house. Check. Now what? Have some kids. Check. Now what? Slit my wrists. No, not Jimmymum. Me!

O’Grunts was still living the hippy life without regrets; at least he couldn’t remember any in that fogged out mind of his.  Bruce, our lead guitarist, was still caught up in self discovery only this time in Nepal, trying to find himself among the Himalayan Mountains.  Unfortunately, they had to call out the Sherpas to find him. Timmy was still asleep out west and me? Well, I found employment with a national railroad and spent the next year or so unloading freight from an endless line of box cars only to reload said freight into an endless line of local delivery trucks. Great job! And, horror of horrors, I didn’t quit right away.

The sickness returned, eventually. Believe it or not O’Grunts convinced me to head back west yet a third time.  Only this time in my own car – a 64 Chevy Impala. I loved that car and it survived that west coast excursion returning safely to this shit city of a city only to be impaled by another good friend of mine on a brick wall.  I needed some money so I sold it to him for a song. Shortly thereafter he came by my place in my old ride, which now resembled an accordion, as the back end of the car was thrust up and back in mangled folds almost to the back seat. “What happened” says I, incredulous? Seems he drove home in the early hours quite inebriated from a night a drinking and debauchery, parked the car in the lane beside his flat, turned off the engine, managed to find his bed, passed out with sweet alcoholic dreams to a reality of a throbbing headache and jungle mouth a few hours later. He desperately required some hair of the dog and with cupboards bare he decided to head to his local for the requisite nourishment. Going down to his car he found to his astonishment that the car wouldn’t start. Being the industrious lad that he was he popped the hood and seeing nothing really amiss decided to jump – start the car. Now those cars may have been ancient relics of a distant past and different era but they reflected mechanical simplicity, technical beauty and dependability through their classic, masterful and graceful lines and design.

The car came to life, jerked momentarily, and then thrust itself in a backward motion, reverse as it turned out. That beautiful Impala took on a mind of its own. Technically challenged as it hightailed itself out of the laneway in full reverse, where it crossed the adjoining roadway before becoming impaled into the brick wall of a building that was across the road, all the while with my friend in hot but panicked pursuit. Fortunately for him, unfortunately for the car, the brick wall won the day. Luckily, except for his wounded pride, no one was hurt. It was a miracle that the car still ran. Turned out that when my friend arrived home, pissed to the gills, he didn’t realize that he shifted the car into reverse and not all the way into park. Of course it wouldn’t start in reverse and being heavily hung over he didn’t realize this simple fact of car life at the time. He just instinctively opened the hood and crossed the ignition wires at the starter. The car came to life immediately and the rest as they say was automotive history. Imagine my dismay as he came by to pick me up a few days later in that accordion styled sedan. Sadly my friend had to put that car down and take it to the car cemetery….

I Can’t Wake Up…5

…Just like Woodstock there was the requisite pond. There were already fans playing in the water, peeing in the water, shitting in the water. I decided to avoid the water. There were also tents, conveniently called pavilions scattered willy nilly about the grounds. Hippy entrepreneurs sticking it to the man by charging exorbitant prices for the basic necessities of living in a farmers field with twenty thousand of your closest friends. There were craft pavilions; classes on how to make tie dye pavilions; bong pavilions; know your grass pavilions and not the garden variety type either; the ever popular oxymoronic sounding pavilion on how to take acid safely. It was at one of these pavilions that I ran into Sandy, who was already stoned out of her mind. I think she recognized me as she came over to me and stood in front of me looking studiously at me and at me face. Studying every facet of my facial expressions, I could only imagine the contorted psychedelic images rummaging and racing through the dark and warped cornices of her mind as she inspected the blackheads on my cheeks. She smiled, then grinned, then grimaced, all of the time about five inches separating me from her bulging eyeballs with their dilated pupils.

“Hmmmm” was all she could muster in profound conversation.

I asked her if she brought her bodyguard with her, y’know, the guy with the sawed off shotgun.

“Hmmmm,” was all she could say. Still looking at my facial expressions. Head bobbing from side to side.

“Hmmmm” She lifted her fore finger, pointing it at my face, making imaginary circles in the space in front of my face from my forehead down to my chin.

“Hmmmm” then she giggled, started to laugh then in flash, stopped, grinned and ran off with one of her cohorts.

I turned to Timmy and said “Let’s get the hell out of here. There’s going to be trouble”

We left immediately. The hippy lifestyle just wasn’t for us.

That weekend was something of a turning point for Timmy and I. I don’t know why but just as our business was about to take hold Timmy turned weird on me. He began to stay up very late at night, which was a toxin to our particular line of work. It became increasingly difficult to wake him up in the morning. Night after night he would be up, later then later, sometimes staying up all night long.  I’d ask him where or what he could be doing at that time of night but all he could say to me was, “you know how it is.” I didn’t.

He would sleep in till noon, then two, then three in the afternoon. I couldn’t wake him up. And I was shit out of luck as he had the car and that car was central to our business. I tried and tried to get him out of this funk but to no avail. Finally, after about a month of this, I had had enough. I told him that if he didn’t turn this shit of his around that I would have to go back home. He just shrugged his shoulders, turned over and went back to sleep.

Saying goodbye to Mrs Redfern, Robert and Mr Johnston, I was gone the next day, taking the train home to my shit city of a city.

Timmy stayed on the wet coast for the next forty five years. He is currently retired, unmarried and still stays out all night long. Or so I am led to believe. I have barely spoken to him since. To this day I don’t really know what happened to cause him to act like this. Perhaps it was those tie dye shirts and skirts, or those hippy hippy shakes.

Sandy eventually returned home. Today she is somewhat of a recluse, suffering from various mental disorders. She never married. Perhaps it was the drugs or the drug counterculture that set her off. So sad!

Madness man!

I Can’t Wake Up…4

…A tie dye convention was suddenly before us. Young women in their tie dye ankle length skirts, gum boots, tits hangin out of their tie dye tees, smiling, waving, weaving and smokin, laughin at no one in particular. Bare chested, long haired men, dirty faces, filthy fingers and knarling nails quaffing booze, smokin joints, hauling ass – literally and figuratively.  It was a lice lover’s paradise. Dante himself would have been impressed but challenged to describe this scene. He must have had Strawberry Fields in mind when writing his Divine Comedy and its depictions of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, especially hell. Strawberry Fields must have played an important part of his allegorical travels through hell.  Whatever, St John’s volunteers were sure to have a busy two days, and, Johnny on the spots, while well dispersed throughout the grounds, would be sorely lacking with an estimation of about twenty thousand visitors expected per day. Shit everywhere man! And lots of it! I made a mental note to get the hell out of here before darkness set in.

We made our way toward the large staged scaffold. It was impressive: large amps everywhere, lights strewn about the structural framework, drum sets, guitar racks, mics, black staging curtains and men and women scurrying about like ants on the stage itself. Organized commotion in disarray. It looked as if they knew they were well behind schedule. Timmy and I must have looked a sight standing there before the stage watching all of this unfold.  Here we were, two guys with relatively short hair, conservatively dressed, prepared for the inclement weather. We were square. We knew it. Pat Boone like. Completely out of place…man. We did take a gander at the musical playlist beside the stage. Never heard of any of these bands. Locals no doubt but it didn’t really matter as no one would be able to hear the music anyway. And just like Woodstock they would be too stoned…

I Can’t Wake Up…2

…The jobs just seemed to come our way: by chance, by rote, or by sheer luck, perhaps madness, although Timmy could really put on the charm. One homeowner, happy with the job we did for him, owned a strip mall in the local area. Would we be willing to take that on? You bet. And on and on she went. Just like that. All the customers that we landed wanted us to come back regularly, say every four to six months. Before long and by word of mouth we had quite the catalogue of clients, our own body of work.

We were working, making money, growing. We would leave our digs every morning around 7am, drive down 4th Avenue by the local am radio station and the Last Chance Saloon, a favourite hangout for the local hippy clientele. I always wondered how they stayed in business for most hippies I came across were always broke, panhandling, begging for loose change. One of my future naval colleagues, he himself a hippy at the time, used to sell pencils in the downtown core of this same west coast city. He was pure Officer material for sure.

Yet here they were hanging out at their Last Chance Saloon, appropriately chilling out in their drug induced Purple Haze of life. The real stoners would crash on the front lawn and terraces of the radio station, which was adjacent to the Saloon, which fronted 4th Avenue. We would pass them every morning on our way to the north shore, stoned, crashed, bellies up toward the heavens, like sea lions on the rocks except there was no squawking, no squealing, no cawing from this crowd as they appeared to be comatose. On our way back to our flat from a hard days work these same stoners, these same dudes, these same mans, were still laid out across the green expanse of the radio station. “Hey man, what a life man. Want a toke?” Good gawd. And if they were really bored or stoned they could go up one block, turn left, walk about a half mile and crash at the local Kool-Aid. Man, what life has to offer to a stoner: from Kool-Aid to the Last Chance Saloon. “What a trip man, dude, toker…yeah smokin dude!” And if they were really, really lucky they could catch up on the morning’s children’s show at the Kool Aid, and tune into the show sponsored by the letter “M:” “yeah man, cool man, hey man, what’s happenin man, chilling dude. No man, the letter “D” doesn’t come on til tomorrow man. Far out!…

I Can’t Wake Up!

…With Scotty gone a new tenant appeared. He was young, brash and a few years older than Timmy and I. He was also a drug user and an abuser of alcohol. Consequently he was often sick and soiled himself many, many times along with the second floor hallway carpet and a great deal of the washroom itself.  He always missed his mark. For me it was getting a bit too much and would soon be time to leave.

What of Timmy and I? Well, our window cleaning business really took off. I could not believe how successful we became in a very short period of time. Perhaps it was because nobody like us had ever canvassed this neighbourhood up until now, given its propensity for rain and heights. Or perhaps other purveyors of our trade felt that there was really no point. When we began canvassing and cold calling potential clients they seemed to come out of the woodwork on our behalf.  Then again, perhaps there was something about these homes that was didn’t quite grasp.

Timmy was good with the gab so I left him to chat things up with potential clients, that being the housewives. When we won over a customer it was my job to look at the place and provide an estimate. Normally I was way under. Inexperience perhaps. On some occasions I estimated a job just by looking at the front of what appeared to be a one floor bungalow or a rancher only to find out later that the house went down three levels at the back. All glass with a cedar beam for separation at all levels. No wonder these people were so anxious for us to take on these jobs. Then again it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to ascertain how these houses were built on the side of a mountain for heaven’s sake. I must admit there were many times where I took my life into my hands, hanging there on the top rung of the ladder, holding against all hope that the ladder would not give way. I operated like some circus performer, acrobat and contortionist all rolled up into one. Often I had to balance myself on the top rung, holding on for dear life on the one side while attempting to wash down, squeegee and dry each of the window frames with my free hand. How on earth I didn’t fall was beyond me. I survived. But my life was only worth about ten bucks!…