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While waiting in the doctor’s office, I’d dashed off the next Steven McCartney instalment. It was a screeching big falsehood, all of it, but I’d loved writing every last letter of it. It was the easiest, smoothest, fastest column I’d written so far. It had almost made me feel pure inside.
There was a Tim Hortons a few doors down, so I bought myself a care package and returned to the car, scarfing down a chocolate dip donut as I listened to the Beatles singing Yesterday on CKOC. Still one of the most heart-breaking songs I’ve heard or will ever hear in this lifetime. Last night’s news footage reeled through my heated brain. Pappas, Valentini, and Reingruber—they were The Three Stooges. Since I’d left the Hammer, I hadn’t really found any new long-term friends. Work friends, sure, but none that stuck; I’d never felt connected to any of them in a deep or meaningful way. Beers after work, or a social barbecue—that was about it. Since leaving Hamilton, I’d worn my past around my neck like a string of worry beads. Had Fate turned me around and sent me back to Hamilton to start over with these old friends? I wasn’t so sure I wanted it that way—I still felt pretty disconnected from them.
Allison was right: what kind of losers started aping for the camera like twelve-year-olds starved for attention? Were we all just a bunch of class clowns who felt ripped off that we hadn’t grown up to be the centre of attention? Was I really trying to make Steven famous so I could be in the limelight?
After seeing them on television I’d felt a mix of revulsion and shock. Revulsion because they all seemed so desperate; shock because I realized I didn’t know these old friends, not really, nor had I ever really known them. I wasn’t sure if I hated them or loved them.
I stared at my cell phone lying on the dashboard. I wondered if the guys would call me, or if their sixty seconds of fame had gone to their heads and they wouldn’t need me anymore. Truth was, any one of us who made it big wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the others and would surf that fame wave for as long as he could.
You don’t know that for sure, asshole. Maybe you’re the only one who’d do a shitty thing like that. Maybe you’re the only real jerk here.
Tim Hortons was hopping. People left in droves, carrying trays of coffee and donuts. It seemed that wherever I went in life I saw someone who reminded me of someone I’d once known from high school. My brain seemed to be going into meltdown.
I dumped my coffee out the window and screeched out of the parking lot, feeling like some half-baked pilot. My car was practically flying. I felt free and chased and chasing, and wondered what the hell was happening to me. I’d just seen a doctor and was telling her I was suicidal and was waiting for the loony doctor to buzz me up for an appointment. Oh My God what the hell is happening to you?
The only thing I knew at that moment was this: I was becoming unhinged, and I was digging it in a dark and wild way.
