| |
Wednesday September 25, 9:30 a.m.
The rain battered the windshield as I drove aimlessly around the Hammer. I went past old haunts, down the escarpment to the city core, and then back up, thinking about the gulf that I’d let grow between myself and my old friends, realizing that it had been that same expanding gulf that had made it easy for me to leave the Hammer and chase my dreams of becoming a published writer.
Okay, but I had come back here, and maybe it hadn’t been such a bad decision. Hamilton had lots going for it; it was a blue-collar city-town, economically a mixed bag, a place where the rich and the poor pounded the same sidewalks and cheered for the Tiger-Cats, where you could go to the mall and bump into your neighbour. I mean, I’d been around—Toronto, Orillia, Bancroft, Halifax, Vancouver, Port Elgin—I’d never felt at home in any of those places. And my folks were here. Who knew how many more years I had left with them?
I pulled over to the side of the road beside the CIBC bank at the corner of Flux Road and Molson Boulevard. These Eyes, a cool Guess Who tune, was on CKOC. I cranked it up, fed off it, the same way I had as a kid in the back of my old man’s white Chrysler Newport. I sat for a while, the realization dawning in me that I had made a good choice, after all, showing my face back in the Hammer. This place had formed me. I got this place. I understood it. I’d never truly understood any place else.
The cell phone rang. Allison, it had to be Allison!
“Allison,” I practically shouted into the phone.
“No, man,” he said, wheezing, “it’s me, Norbert. Listen, man. I scored four tickets for the MegaFreak show at Copps Coliseum Today. It’s on me, bud. Fifteenth row, floors. Totally fucking aaaawesummm! Are you in, Love?”
MegaFreak? When we were thirteen, MegaFreak was it, the ultimate metal band. We’d screeched our air guitars to Big Ass Woman and plastered our bedroom walls with their posters—especially the rather pornographic one of a hot chick wearing only whipped cream and licking her own fingers. What were my parents thinking, letting me put that up? My kid isn’t going to get away with any shit—I’m going to raise him like a little monk, I caught myself thinking.
It was ridiculous, a man my age going to a MegaFreak concert. The timing couldn’t be worse. And with Allison gone, I wasn’t sure that I was even capable of having a good time. Still, it would be a night out with friends, drinkin’ in our old downtown watering hole, and I hadn’t had that pleasure in years. It was an offer that I couldn’t refuse.
“Yeah, I’m in. I don’t know if I’ll be very good company, Norb, but I’m in. And the first few rounds of drinks are on me, OK?” I pulled the phone away from my ear a bit until Reingruber’s phlegmy cheering subsided. We arranged to taxi down to the Red Ingot by seven-thirty p.m.
I was feeling hopeful already. Me and the buds. Just like old times! First, I’d make things right with Allison, then I’d go partying. I charged the car away from the bank and headed home to get my big ass woman back, before bowing to the gods that were MegaFreak.
