It is strange for me right now.
Surreal actually.
To the few people who actually read this blog I beg your indulgence while i catch you up since my last entry last march.
Faithful readers - the two or three of you that may actually remember - i was dating a girl named Amanda - was feeling like i was in love with her - was still using drugs fairly heavily and wound up going to jail for a break and enter that Amanda and I committed across from the Toronto Sun building on King Street.
Cue music... "oh the things you do for love..." sheesh eh?
Well Amanda is gone now and while a part of me still remembers the hurt - I now try and simply remember how nice, very nice it was while it lasted.
Nuff' said about this though.
Have managed to work off of drugs from march to June and stopped using in late June after one more insane run which i will write about one day but not today as it is a longer story and not really suitable for the summary i am currently writing - lets just say its a story and a half and if you know anything at all about the stories I tell and write about then I am hoping that this line will suitably tease you into looking for the story in future postings.
Have been clean since then - moved into the first of what i am thinking will be several half-decent places as I quest for the perfect place to hang my hat after many years abroad within the naked and slightly deranged city...
I go to NA, CA and even AA now - I can not see or hang out with any of the drug users or criminals I used to - I work constantly on my recovery - I carry great shame and guilt over some of the things I did over the last five years - some i will be able to make amends for and others I will not. I lost a lot of friends and people who were once important to me - which is a shame in itself. On the other hand though I have developed some new relationships with good people over the last six months and reconnected with some others. My children love me again and I see them as much as i possibly can - we have really good relationships now and i can only see them getting better and stronger as we move down the road together. I have reconnected with my parents and some of my sisters and cousins and one uncle and I hope to continue to do this.
Most importantly, my obsession to use have finally left me - i hit the end of the darkened tunnel i had been walking through - often stumbling, sometimes falling flat on my ass or face depending on the way the wind blew...
I am starting to create once more and that feels really good - better than i can possibly put into words.
So. this is where I am right now. Not nearly as exciting as my title indicates but ths' ok too.
Will post more later...
cheers!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Chapter Two - What has gone before – Jane - 1985 part one
Jane left her house on a cool November evening at six o’clock with no expectations other than meeting her friend Janice and Susan, getting some older guy to buy them a bottle of something tasty at the liquor store, getting hammered and then hitting the dance her school was holding that night.
As she walked down the leaf filled side street to Susan’s place she mused quietly to herself about the real reason they were heading to the dance. True they all loved to dance but for the most part the rest of the kids who attended to school were way too preppy for her and her friends. She had wanted to avoid the dance entirely but Susan had insisted they attend. Jane was fairly certain that her friend was getting ready to fuck the exchange student from Sri Lanka. It wasn’t that Susan really liked him or anything but she did have a dirty little habit of fucking any boy who struck her as interesting in any way and the exchange student had been a focus of conversation for a few days now.
To be truthful Jane was not that interested in any of the boys who attended their school. They all seemed so very young to her and except for a few drunken make-out sessions in Janice’s finished basement and that ill-fated date with Miles at the beach party during the summer – she still considered herself a virgin. She masturbated frequently for someone so virginal and if you asked her whose face she saw as she approached climax she would not have been able to tell you. In her mind he was yet unnamed – still an unknown.
Like any seventeen year old girl she had an ideal that her mind was forming around and she was certain she would know who he was when she saw him. Janice had been dating the same boy, a tall and stunningly handsome frat boy on a football scholarship type named Carl, for two years and they had carefully scheduled sleepover dates every Saturday night.
Usually Janice spent Monday and Tuesday lunches describing in detail every sordid act they committed between sundown Saturday and sunrise on Sunday. She and Susan would squeal in delight as Janice filled them in on what she did with her mouth, what he did with his and the numerous positions of actual intercourse between.
The running joke between them all would occur after Janice finally told them of the earth-moving orgasm she would have at he end of her date and Susan would inevitably comment that she should write a book. To which Jane would always respond that she had – it was called the Karma Sutra – to which they would launch into peels of fresh laughter. It never seemed to get old.
Jane had decided to dress up a bit for the dance so that she would not feel so upstaged by her friends, who always treated these things like the full-on fashion extravaganzas. While Jane knew is was unlikely that a Fashion czar would suddenly appear at the dance and sweep any of them away to mega stardom in the world of protein-starved cocaine-fueled photo shoots, she had selected a pair of crisp, black, skin tight jeans, her Doc Martens - freshly shined for a night of who knew what with who knew who - and a soft white cashemere top with short sleeves that seemed to show off both her cleavage and the curves of her young breasts in ways that made even the most committed guy look twice.
She looked hot and she knew it and when she arrived at Susan's place she enjoyed the whistles and mock cat-calls that her friends greeted her with. Both Susan and Janice looked fantastic. Susan wore a variation on the little black dress that looked painted on it was so tight - she had opted out of wearing a bra and her nipples were almost visible through the sheer material.
"If this doesn't get Mohammed's attention tonight, nothing will" she commented to Jane as the three girls fussed over their makeup in the bathroom of Susan's house.
"Well, if Mohammed doesn't notice those headlights he's either blind or gay" Janice added and the three girls laughed heartily.
They had been drinking steadily since Susan's brother Stan dropped off a large bottle of Vodka about ten minutes after Jane arrived. He was three years older than they were and could buy liquor easily but seldom acted as their supplier. Jane had flirted with his pretty heavily when she first arrived and she could feel him sizing her up out of the corner of her eye as she spoke to Janice and Susan about how they would obtain the night's liquid lubricant. A few come hither looks later from both Janice and herself and Stan was in the car and rushing off to the liquor store to do their evil bidding.
"If he drooled any harder over your tits in that sweater I swear he would have slipped on it and knocked himself senseless" Susan teased after he had left to get the vodka.
"It didn't help that Janice over here was getting dressed in front of him. Standing around in just her bra and skirt. I could just about see her panties when she was putting on those stockings of hers" Jane retorted with an evil looking smile.
Janice pulled on her own top - a pale yellow blouse that matched the ribbon in her hair- tossed her long brown hair back over her shoulder and laughed, with mock innocence in her voice said "I've been getting dressed in front of Stan since I was five years old - I can't help it if he likes to watch".
The three primped until Stan arrived with the vodka and once he arrived Susan was quick to dismiss her in order to - as she put it- talk about girl stuff. Stan didn't put up much of a fight but made sure he took his time going back up the stairs taking one last opportunity to check both Janice and Jane out from head to toe.
"Call me if you need a ride home Sue" he shouted from the last stair before looking back once more - likely hoping to see more of Janice and her stockings or Jane and her shapely breasts.
As she walked down the leaf filled side street to Susan’s place she mused quietly to herself about the real reason they were heading to the dance. True they all loved to dance but for the most part the rest of the kids who attended to school were way too preppy for her and her friends. She had wanted to avoid the dance entirely but Susan had insisted they attend. Jane was fairly certain that her friend was getting ready to fuck the exchange student from Sri Lanka. It wasn’t that Susan really liked him or anything but she did have a dirty little habit of fucking any boy who struck her as interesting in any way and the exchange student had been a focus of conversation for a few days now.
To be truthful Jane was not that interested in any of the boys who attended their school. They all seemed so very young to her and except for a few drunken make-out sessions in Janice’s finished basement and that ill-fated date with Miles at the beach party during the summer – she still considered herself a virgin. She masturbated frequently for someone so virginal and if you asked her whose face she saw as she approached climax she would not have been able to tell you. In her mind he was yet unnamed – still an unknown.
Like any seventeen year old girl she had an ideal that her mind was forming around and she was certain she would know who he was when she saw him. Janice had been dating the same boy, a tall and stunningly handsome frat boy on a football scholarship type named Carl, for two years and they had carefully scheduled sleepover dates every Saturday night.
Usually Janice spent Monday and Tuesday lunches describing in detail every sordid act they committed between sundown Saturday and sunrise on Sunday. She and Susan would squeal in delight as Janice filled them in on what she did with her mouth, what he did with his and the numerous positions of actual intercourse between.
The running joke between them all would occur after Janice finally told them of the earth-moving orgasm she would have at he end of her date and Susan would inevitably comment that she should write a book. To which Jane would always respond that she had – it was called the Karma Sutra – to which they would launch into peels of fresh laughter. It never seemed to get old.
Jane had decided to dress up a bit for the dance so that she would not feel so upstaged by her friends, who always treated these things like the full-on fashion extravaganzas. While Jane knew is was unlikely that a Fashion czar would suddenly appear at the dance and sweep any of them away to mega stardom in the world of protein-starved cocaine-fueled photo shoots, she had selected a pair of crisp, black, skin tight jeans, her Doc Martens - freshly shined for a night of who knew what with who knew who - and a soft white cashemere top with short sleeves that seemed to show off both her cleavage and the curves of her young breasts in ways that made even the most committed guy look twice.
She looked hot and she knew it and when she arrived at Susan's place she enjoyed the whistles and mock cat-calls that her friends greeted her with. Both Susan and Janice looked fantastic. Susan wore a variation on the little black dress that looked painted on it was so tight - she had opted out of wearing a bra and her nipples were almost visible through the sheer material.
"If this doesn't get Mohammed's attention tonight, nothing will" she commented to Jane as the three girls fussed over their makeup in the bathroom of Susan's house.
"Well, if Mohammed doesn't notice those headlights he's either blind or gay" Janice added and the three girls laughed heartily.
They had been drinking steadily since Susan's brother Stan dropped off a large bottle of Vodka about ten minutes after Jane arrived. He was three years older than they were and could buy liquor easily but seldom acted as their supplier. Jane had flirted with his pretty heavily when she first arrived and she could feel him sizing her up out of the corner of her eye as she spoke to Janice and Susan about how they would obtain the night's liquid lubricant. A few come hither looks later from both Janice and herself and Stan was in the car and rushing off to the liquor store to do their evil bidding.
"If he drooled any harder over your tits in that sweater I swear he would have slipped on it and knocked himself senseless" Susan teased after he had left to get the vodka.
"It didn't help that Janice over here was getting dressed in front of him. Standing around in just her bra and skirt. I could just about see her panties when she was putting on those stockings of hers" Jane retorted with an evil looking smile.
Janice pulled on her own top - a pale yellow blouse that matched the ribbon in her hair- tossed her long brown hair back over her shoulder and laughed, with mock innocence in her voice said "I've been getting dressed in front of Stan since I was five years old - I can't help it if he likes to watch".
The three primped until Stan arrived with the vodka and once he arrived Susan was quick to dismiss her in order to - as she put it- talk about girl stuff. Stan didn't put up much of a fight but made sure he took his time going back up the stairs taking one last opportunity to check both Janice and Jane out from head to toe.
"Call me if you need a ride home Sue" he shouted from the last stair before looking back once more - likely hoping to see more of Janice and her stockings or Jane and her shapely breasts.
Chapter One – What has gone before – James - 1985
James Watson was seventeen years old, attending grade twelve at the neighborhood high school and impressively, almost staggeringly high on several hits of purple mike acid the night he first met Jane.
Earlier that evening, he and his friend Dave had met on the corner of Old Weston Road and Montgomery Road and after a few minutes of hushed almost frantic conversation, had gone on to commit a daring break and enter on a music store – stealing several electric guitars – one of which may have or may not have been a Fender Stratocaster.
In addition to the five guitars that the two sweet faced and shabbily dressed young men made off with that night - James also pocketed a silver harmonica off the table of the darkened shop.
He would wind up keeping the harmonica as a sort of talisman against personal harm on future crimes he would commit. Crimes he would commit against his fellow man – crimes he would commit of the heart, and most of all - crimes he would commit against himself.
If asked, later on in life, about his superstitious and almost obsessive nature of carrying around this harmonica he would grin a mischievous grin, use his left hand to brush the stray and wild locks of dark hair that always hung in his eyes back and over his forehead and begin to chuckle softly as if laughing at a private joke.
James linked his protective talisman to every thing that was good in his life. The day he scored his silver token he had met Jane – who he fell in love with instantly – with the intensity that only acid and especially purple mike flavored acid can bring to the type of hormonally charged, adrenaline fueled, juvenile delinquent that he aspired to be.
He and Dave, who was a good looking boy according to his female classmates, taller than James by a good six inches with a cheerful face and strong squared jaw had just left the music store by way of a back window situated some eight feet above the ground in the rear of the building. James had sent Dave out first and then handed each guitar carefully out the window and lowered it into Dave’s waiting hands.
By the time all the stolen guitars were passed down Dave resembled an overloaded roadie/caddie the straps of each guitar crisscrossing across his chest in a manner that struck James very similar to the Union Jack. As he lowered himself to the ground and landed with a soft thud he told Dave that he looked like the British flag.
Dave laughed and started singing “God Save the Queen” in a raspy broken voice that would have made any aspiring punk musician proud. James laughed heartily at his friend, rolled his eyes and with relish suddenly joined in the singing.
Ten years later James would remember this night with vivid accuracy - the two of them, best of friends – invulnerable to harm - laden down with their stolen wares and full of the jubilant glee that can only come after a successful and totally illegal evening’s work.
The two wannabe master criminals made their way down Weston Road, cockily aware of oncoming vehicles and making sure they slid far enough into the shadows of the cool November night so that they would not be seen. They may have been cocky but they were far from stupid. To be caught would not only ruin the night’s festivities but it would also result in another trip to the Sudbury Juvenile detention Centre where the two had met the previous year.
James had been caught stealing chocolates, of all things, at the local shopping mall’s Laura Secord store. The security guards at the mall had taken him down rather harshly as exiting the mall and when James stepped off the little yellow school bus in Sudbury he had looked pretty much the archetype of the battered and beaten down street hooligan. It was an image he wore with cocky pride.
He was a mosaic of bumps and bruises. He had seven stitches above his right eye and his left arm was in a cast and had been signed by as many of his friends as space would allow. Written prominently across the forearm of the cast were the words “GIVE ‘M HELL JAMES!!” printed in big, bold block letters by his friend Alice just before he left Toronto.
She had magically produced a thick black sharpie and had meticulously printed out the message while simultaneously slipping little folded cellophane packets of acid, hash and pot into the cast through the opening at the wrist. Most of his friends had come to see him off that time and for the most part he never really expected to see any of them again.
This was his reasoning as he planted the end all and be all of kisses on Alice seconds before they pulled him away and tossed him roughly onto the bus. She had tasted like vanilla and their tongues swam for scant seconds, teeth clicking so very softly before they were abruptly pulled apart. Looking out the dirty bus window at the group of his friend gathered to see him off he saw that Alice was crying now. Johnny’s brother Steve had put his arm around her in an attempt to try and console her and she turned into it, sobbing into his shoulder and upper chest.
James felt immediate pangs of jealousy over the move. Couldn’t the guy have at least waited until I was out of sight before pulling that sort of shit? He thought to himself bitterly, his face a complex mosaic of yellowing purple and red bruises and his eyes welling up over the tearful goodbye. His pants felt a little tight around the crotch as a result of Alice’s well-educated lips and soft warm tongue. His stomach was churning over being forced to leave. His mouth was dry and for a moment he thought he would pass out from the light-headedness he was feeling. He struggled with his feelings until the dizziness lifted.
His eyes flitted over to his Father who was standing in the back of the crowd with his large arms folded over his equally large over-coated chest. His hair blow wildly in the late November wind and his collar was turned up to protect his face from the cold chill of the air.
He was a large man, well over six feet tall and wide in the shoulders. A thick grayish silver beard framed his wide face and seemed to highlight the sharp lines of both his brow and nose. His eyes were sky blue in color and the dark rings beneath them alluded to more than a few sleepless nights in recent days. James could remember his Mother telling him once a long time ago that his Father’s eyes were a way to look into his soul and see all the things he bottled up tight inside of him. Although when James looked in his father’s eyes he saw disappointment, loneliness and fear. He wished he could have seen love or even a little bit of parental concern – but James could only see his own feelings mirrored back and this almost always caused him to look away.
James’ Father looked on in silence, seemingly feeling uncomfortable at the display of youthful affection the gathered teens were showing his son. Maybe he was proud, but James would never know. His father stood there like a statue and even when their eyes met though the dirty glass window James could read nothing and after a few seconds he simply looked away. The bus lurched forward and off they went and after a few seconds James could no longer see the small crowd of kids screaming and waving at his departure.
When he arrived in Sudbury he was grateful for the chance to stand up and stretch his legs and lower back as he had actually fallen asleep for a majority of the long drive. There were three others on the small bus and for the most part they had all kept to themselves.
James had not paid much attention to the on the trip itself but once the inside light came on inside the bus he could see that, like himself they were beaten, haggad and more than a little scared.
They had passed the time by sleeping or staring banefully out the window of the bus at the passing snow covered and by now twilight colored countryside. The driver had pulled through a drive through coffee shop in Barrie but had not asked the boys in the back if they wanted anything and they had not asked.
It was a bleak two-storied building they pulled into and as he stepped off the bus he could feel the bite of the winter wind on his sore and battered face. He had already tucked his dope deep into the crevice of his cast and was confident that the only way anyone would find it was to dig it out with a long pencil or if worse came to worse actually remove the cast and let the small packages fall out – exposing his illicit drug use to everyone.
If anything, he had a half-hearted hope to be caught smuggling the drugs he was carrying in his cast into the facility and thereby elevate his standing among the other delinquents currently incarcerated there.
As he left the bus and walked up the wide, granite slab sidewalk, recently shoveled by the looks of it, James felt his freedom slip away with every step. It was a feeling he would come to know with the intimacy of a lover. He breathing became shallow and every step towards the door brought him closer and closer to feeling like he was about to be buried alive.
James was two feet from the door and about to be the third boy through the door and he suddenly felt that he was about to succumb to absolute mind-numbing, pant wetting panic.
He knees began to buckle and tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. His adams apple felt painfully large for his throat and scant seconds before he was about to cry he was stopped dead in his tracks. The boy in front of him threw his arms up with a piecing wail and grabbed hold of the door frame – refusing to enter the building.
The boy fell to his knees crying and screaming that he was sorry and just wanted to go home, please he cried, he just wanted to go home. Ashamed of feeling the same way and embarrassed by the display James diverted his eyes from the scene and his gaze landed on the windows of the second floor of the building and to his surprise there were dozens of somber faces looking down at the four newcomers and the scene unfolding on the steps.
The faces were young ranging from twelve to possible eighteen years of age, but the eyes told a different story. These were not the eyes of children or even of youth but they were they eyes of men who had already seen and felt and experience more life and pain then any young man should ever have to.
These were the eyes of the street, the hoodlum, the drug addict, the homeless man drinking Listerine, the glue snifter who huffed paint thinner in a desperate attempt to kill the pain.
Feeling strangely comforted, James suddenly knew he would be ok.
Later that night he met his bunkmate Dave and as a show of respect James divided up his dope and he and Dave got as high as they could stand – staying up all night trading sharing stories about girls they slept with, hearts they broke, fights they had won, families that didn’t understand them, teachers that hated them and crimes they had gotten away with.
(THE FOLLOWING DAY _MEETING THE REST OF THE BOYS)
The following night after dinner James fell asleep almost instantly. He could remember feeling a sense of kinship with the rest of the youthful criminal element around him. It was a strange sense of comfort - similar to that he felt when he would stay out for days at a time with his friends, drinking, drugging. fighting and fucking.
He slept well that night and when he woke up he woke up with a sense of pride. He knew that he would be ok. He knew deep in his being that he would survive this ordeal – that he would become a stronger person because of it. That coming to that god-awful place had not destroyed him, had not broken him as he had originally thought it might.
James had not seen the boy who broke down on the steps since he arrived and for all he knew perhaps that display had worked and the boy sent home – full of remorse and rehabilitation. Perhaps he got his wish and was allowed back onto the bus and returned home to his grateful parents.
James would never know what became of the crying boy, but he would never forget how close he came to being that guy. It was this experience that taught him to bury his hurt and weakness deep within himself.
He was stronger than that, stronger than most and he would never give them the satisfaction of knowing they could somehow hurt him.
The remainder of his time in Sudbury passed in a blur of classes, meals, exercise time, card games, long-winded boasting sessions with the other guys, the occasional fight and evening drug use with Dave. The two became close and when it was time for Dave’s release – a full month and a half before James they swore a blood oath to hook up again in Toronto when they were both free.
James doubted he would ever see his friend again and served the remainder of his time in a haze, using more acid to get through the day and ending each evening staring out the window of his room at the thawing snow banks, numb from his evening hash intake.
On his release he toyed with the idea of seeing his old friends but wound up simply going back to his Father’s house, getting a summer job at the closest pharmacy and basically keeping his head down until school started in September.
His first day back to regular High School arrived and he pulled together his book-bag, threw a handful of pencils into it and headed out the door expecting the day to suck more than any previous day had before it. He threw his heavy and badly beaten leather jacket over his shoulders and said goodbye to his Father.
He took his usual route to the school, passing others he recognized along the way and because he was feeling like crap about life in general he kept his head down, the smoke from his cigarette swirling around and through his thick mop of dark hair. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone and when he turned into the school he was annoyed to find that someone was deliberately blocking his path into the building. He looked up from the sidewalk, smoke from his cigarette making him squint – ready to slap down the asshole blocking his path.
James sighed and lifted his head to give the bastard his best “do you really want to fuck with me so early in th day” look and as he did so he found himself looking directly into the smiling face of his friend Dave.
More than a few curses later the two were reunited and joyful to discover they had signed up for most of the same classes that semester.
They were inseparable, incorrigible and more than a little streetwise. For James it was as if he had been reconnected to his Siamese brother and there were no limits to the things they could do.
A perfect example of the things they would find themselves doing was the music store burglary. James had scoped the place out and came up with the plan, making sure they could get rid of the stolen instruments at a local biker clubhouse afterwards in exchange for copious amount of illegal and illicit narcotics. As usual all he needed to do was spell the plan out to Dave and it was game on.
The job had gone off as well as could be expected and they arrived at the clubhouse on schedule and went up the stairs of the large residential house and rang the bell. Hearts beating a little faster as neither of them had actually been inside before. They had spoken at lengths earlier about the nessessity to appear at ease while dealing with the bikers. To make sure they didn’t come across as punk-ass kids and above all else, they had to make sure that in no way, shape or form - show disrespect to anyone in the house.
The whole encounter took less than ten minutes, but to the two teens it felt more like an hour.
A large bearded man wearing a dirty black muscle shirt that read “Yeah I Fucked Yo’ Momma” and equally filthy pair of jeans answered the door looked annoyed as hell at the interruption.
He asked them what the fuck they wanted and James told the man that they were there to see someone named Little Devon.
The burly biker grunted in mock annoyance and waved them through the door into a wide front hallway. The boys maneuvered through the door carefully making sure the guitars did not touch or scratch the walls as they entered the “Momma Fucker”, as James later referred to him, closed the front door behind them and took his time putting the dozen or so locking mechanisms back in place. Dave’s mouth dropped open as he counted no less than eight deadbolts and at least seven chains. This was not including the thick slab of lumber the biker wedged under the handle of the door itself.
He looked up smiling wickedly at the boys and noticing Dave’s look of amazement told them that it was a rough neighborhood and that you could never be too careful.
The boys nodded in agreement – not really knowing any other way to respond.
They were led through a dimly lit living area filled with men and women who represented the spectrum of the biker subculture. Several men in black leather played pool at a table on the far side of the room. Another dozen or so men and women – all in various degrees of undress sat around a long coffee table cluttered with beer bottles ashtrays and other assorted drugs, paraphernalia and garbage.
You could smell the pungent aroma of pungent pot mixing with acrid cigarette smoke, sweetly musky sweat and stale beer. On the far end of the couch that sat nearest the table, one of the bikers was suckling on the teat of a large breasted woman with a number of tattoos. Her fingers glided lazily back and forth across one nipple as the man suck the other. She looked very high and seemed to look through the two young men as they passed through the room and up a set of stairs on the far side of the room.
The inside of the house was dirty and unkempt but was not without its own charm to both boys. They later spoke of the numerous weapons they had seen leaning against various walls, the number of bare breasts they saw and the sheer quantity of drugs they saw during their short visit. In the main living room alone they saw at least a half pound of pot, several people hot knifing hash, a bowl full of white powder which could have only been cocaine.
When they got to the top of the stairs they were led into a small room and the “Yo’ Momma” Biker pointed them to a couple of chairs and left the room. It was a small room with a large black Harley Davidson poster scotch taped to one wall. The wall opposite the poster contained a large window that overlooked the front yard.
Dave walked over to it and looked down onto the street. He was a little nervous. He and James began to unload the guitars just as Little Devon entered the room and whistled appreciatively at the guitars. He was short, greasy and was sporting a wicked looking handlebar mustache. James stepped forward and shook hands with Little Devon.
They exchanged a few words about the number of instruments versus the quantity of narcotic they received and after a few minutes of dickering back and forth they both smiled and Little Devon pulled out a small brown paper package wrapped in string. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small plastic bag full of pot and tossed it over to Dave.
They three shook hands and Little Devon clapped them both on the back, encouraging them to come back and visit often. He led them down a second set of stairs and out the back door of the house into the adjoining back alley.
They had made a successful deal and left the clubhouse with two hundred hits of purple mike acid and almost an ounce of pot. The pot they would sell and the acid they divided equally. They took two hits each and stashed the rest deep into the recesses of their battered leather jackets, oblivious to the fact that if they were pulled over by police they would likely be facing some serious possession for the purpose of trafficking charges.
They continued to wind their way through the city’s west end until finally they found themselves both peaking and standing across from a High School that was quite obviously holding some kind of dance.
The two high teens entered the High School and bought tickets for, what Dave thought with a smirk, a ridiculously high price and went into the dance.
They were there for less than a minute before Jane walked by and began a love affair that would change everything James ever knew. It would be the only true relationship James would ever have with another human being. It would begin with the shyest smile and would later circumvent every natural law, every reasonable emotion and somehow even cross the boundaries of time itself.
James may not have known it at the time, but he was about to meet his match.
Earlier that evening, he and his friend Dave had met on the corner of Old Weston Road and Montgomery Road and after a few minutes of hushed almost frantic conversation, had gone on to commit a daring break and enter on a music store – stealing several electric guitars – one of which may have or may not have been a Fender Stratocaster.
In addition to the five guitars that the two sweet faced and shabbily dressed young men made off with that night - James also pocketed a silver harmonica off the table of the darkened shop.
He would wind up keeping the harmonica as a sort of talisman against personal harm on future crimes he would commit. Crimes he would commit against his fellow man – crimes he would commit of the heart, and most of all - crimes he would commit against himself.
If asked, later on in life, about his superstitious and almost obsessive nature of carrying around this harmonica he would grin a mischievous grin, use his left hand to brush the stray and wild locks of dark hair that always hung in his eyes back and over his forehead and begin to chuckle softly as if laughing at a private joke.
James linked his protective talisman to every thing that was good in his life. The day he scored his silver token he had met Jane – who he fell in love with instantly – with the intensity that only acid and especially purple mike flavored acid can bring to the type of hormonally charged, adrenaline fueled, juvenile delinquent that he aspired to be.
He and Dave, who was a good looking boy according to his female classmates, taller than James by a good six inches with a cheerful face and strong squared jaw had just left the music store by way of a back window situated some eight feet above the ground in the rear of the building. James had sent Dave out first and then handed each guitar carefully out the window and lowered it into Dave’s waiting hands.
By the time all the stolen guitars were passed down Dave resembled an overloaded roadie/caddie the straps of each guitar crisscrossing across his chest in a manner that struck James very similar to the Union Jack. As he lowered himself to the ground and landed with a soft thud he told Dave that he looked like the British flag.
Dave laughed and started singing “God Save the Queen” in a raspy broken voice that would have made any aspiring punk musician proud. James laughed heartily at his friend, rolled his eyes and with relish suddenly joined in the singing.
Ten years later James would remember this night with vivid accuracy - the two of them, best of friends – invulnerable to harm - laden down with their stolen wares and full of the jubilant glee that can only come after a successful and totally illegal evening’s work.
The two wannabe master criminals made their way down Weston Road, cockily aware of oncoming vehicles and making sure they slid far enough into the shadows of the cool November night so that they would not be seen. They may have been cocky but they were far from stupid. To be caught would not only ruin the night’s festivities but it would also result in another trip to the Sudbury Juvenile detention Centre where the two had met the previous year.
James had been caught stealing chocolates, of all things, at the local shopping mall’s Laura Secord store. The security guards at the mall had taken him down rather harshly as exiting the mall and when James stepped off the little yellow school bus in Sudbury he had looked pretty much the archetype of the battered and beaten down street hooligan. It was an image he wore with cocky pride.
He was a mosaic of bumps and bruises. He had seven stitches above his right eye and his left arm was in a cast and had been signed by as many of his friends as space would allow. Written prominently across the forearm of the cast were the words “GIVE ‘M HELL JAMES!!” printed in big, bold block letters by his friend Alice just before he left Toronto.
She had magically produced a thick black sharpie and had meticulously printed out the message while simultaneously slipping little folded cellophane packets of acid, hash and pot into the cast through the opening at the wrist. Most of his friends had come to see him off that time and for the most part he never really expected to see any of them again.
This was his reasoning as he planted the end all and be all of kisses on Alice seconds before they pulled him away and tossed him roughly onto the bus. She had tasted like vanilla and their tongues swam for scant seconds, teeth clicking so very softly before they were abruptly pulled apart. Looking out the dirty bus window at the group of his friend gathered to see him off he saw that Alice was crying now. Johnny’s brother Steve had put his arm around her in an attempt to try and console her and she turned into it, sobbing into his shoulder and upper chest.
James felt immediate pangs of jealousy over the move. Couldn’t the guy have at least waited until I was out of sight before pulling that sort of shit? He thought to himself bitterly, his face a complex mosaic of yellowing purple and red bruises and his eyes welling up over the tearful goodbye. His pants felt a little tight around the crotch as a result of Alice’s well-educated lips and soft warm tongue. His stomach was churning over being forced to leave. His mouth was dry and for a moment he thought he would pass out from the light-headedness he was feeling. He struggled with his feelings until the dizziness lifted.
His eyes flitted over to his Father who was standing in the back of the crowd with his large arms folded over his equally large over-coated chest. His hair blow wildly in the late November wind and his collar was turned up to protect his face from the cold chill of the air.
He was a large man, well over six feet tall and wide in the shoulders. A thick grayish silver beard framed his wide face and seemed to highlight the sharp lines of both his brow and nose. His eyes were sky blue in color and the dark rings beneath them alluded to more than a few sleepless nights in recent days. James could remember his Mother telling him once a long time ago that his Father’s eyes were a way to look into his soul and see all the things he bottled up tight inside of him. Although when James looked in his father’s eyes he saw disappointment, loneliness and fear. He wished he could have seen love or even a little bit of parental concern – but James could only see his own feelings mirrored back and this almost always caused him to look away.
James’ Father looked on in silence, seemingly feeling uncomfortable at the display of youthful affection the gathered teens were showing his son. Maybe he was proud, but James would never know. His father stood there like a statue and even when their eyes met though the dirty glass window James could read nothing and after a few seconds he simply looked away. The bus lurched forward and off they went and after a few seconds James could no longer see the small crowd of kids screaming and waving at his departure.
When he arrived in Sudbury he was grateful for the chance to stand up and stretch his legs and lower back as he had actually fallen asleep for a majority of the long drive. There were three others on the small bus and for the most part they had all kept to themselves.
James had not paid much attention to the on the trip itself but once the inside light came on inside the bus he could see that, like himself they were beaten, haggad and more than a little scared.
They had passed the time by sleeping or staring banefully out the window of the bus at the passing snow covered and by now twilight colored countryside. The driver had pulled through a drive through coffee shop in Barrie but had not asked the boys in the back if they wanted anything and they had not asked.
It was a bleak two-storied building they pulled into and as he stepped off the bus he could feel the bite of the winter wind on his sore and battered face. He had already tucked his dope deep into the crevice of his cast and was confident that the only way anyone would find it was to dig it out with a long pencil or if worse came to worse actually remove the cast and let the small packages fall out – exposing his illicit drug use to everyone.
If anything, he had a half-hearted hope to be caught smuggling the drugs he was carrying in his cast into the facility and thereby elevate his standing among the other delinquents currently incarcerated there.
As he left the bus and walked up the wide, granite slab sidewalk, recently shoveled by the looks of it, James felt his freedom slip away with every step. It was a feeling he would come to know with the intimacy of a lover. He breathing became shallow and every step towards the door brought him closer and closer to feeling like he was about to be buried alive.
James was two feet from the door and about to be the third boy through the door and he suddenly felt that he was about to succumb to absolute mind-numbing, pant wetting panic.
He knees began to buckle and tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. His adams apple felt painfully large for his throat and scant seconds before he was about to cry he was stopped dead in his tracks. The boy in front of him threw his arms up with a piecing wail and grabbed hold of the door frame – refusing to enter the building.
The boy fell to his knees crying and screaming that he was sorry and just wanted to go home, please he cried, he just wanted to go home. Ashamed of feeling the same way and embarrassed by the display James diverted his eyes from the scene and his gaze landed on the windows of the second floor of the building and to his surprise there were dozens of somber faces looking down at the four newcomers and the scene unfolding on the steps.
The faces were young ranging from twelve to possible eighteen years of age, but the eyes told a different story. These were not the eyes of children or even of youth but they were they eyes of men who had already seen and felt and experience more life and pain then any young man should ever have to.
These were the eyes of the street, the hoodlum, the drug addict, the homeless man drinking Listerine, the glue snifter who huffed paint thinner in a desperate attempt to kill the pain.
Feeling strangely comforted, James suddenly knew he would be ok.
Later that night he met his bunkmate Dave and as a show of respect James divided up his dope and he and Dave got as high as they could stand – staying up all night trading sharing stories about girls they slept with, hearts they broke, fights they had won, families that didn’t understand them, teachers that hated them and crimes they had gotten away with.
(THE FOLLOWING DAY _MEETING THE REST OF THE BOYS)
The following night after dinner James fell asleep almost instantly. He could remember feeling a sense of kinship with the rest of the youthful criminal element around him. It was a strange sense of comfort - similar to that he felt when he would stay out for days at a time with his friends, drinking, drugging. fighting and fucking.
He slept well that night and when he woke up he woke up with a sense of pride. He knew that he would be ok. He knew deep in his being that he would survive this ordeal – that he would become a stronger person because of it. That coming to that god-awful place had not destroyed him, had not broken him as he had originally thought it might.
James had not seen the boy who broke down on the steps since he arrived and for all he knew perhaps that display had worked and the boy sent home – full of remorse and rehabilitation. Perhaps he got his wish and was allowed back onto the bus and returned home to his grateful parents.
James would never know what became of the crying boy, but he would never forget how close he came to being that guy. It was this experience that taught him to bury his hurt and weakness deep within himself.
He was stronger than that, stronger than most and he would never give them the satisfaction of knowing they could somehow hurt him.
The remainder of his time in Sudbury passed in a blur of classes, meals, exercise time, card games, long-winded boasting sessions with the other guys, the occasional fight and evening drug use with Dave. The two became close and when it was time for Dave’s release – a full month and a half before James they swore a blood oath to hook up again in Toronto when they were both free.
James doubted he would ever see his friend again and served the remainder of his time in a haze, using more acid to get through the day and ending each evening staring out the window of his room at the thawing snow banks, numb from his evening hash intake.
On his release he toyed with the idea of seeing his old friends but wound up simply going back to his Father’s house, getting a summer job at the closest pharmacy and basically keeping his head down until school started in September.
His first day back to regular High School arrived and he pulled together his book-bag, threw a handful of pencils into it and headed out the door expecting the day to suck more than any previous day had before it. He threw his heavy and badly beaten leather jacket over his shoulders and said goodbye to his Father.
He took his usual route to the school, passing others he recognized along the way and because he was feeling like crap about life in general he kept his head down, the smoke from his cigarette swirling around and through his thick mop of dark hair. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone and when he turned into the school he was annoyed to find that someone was deliberately blocking his path into the building. He looked up from the sidewalk, smoke from his cigarette making him squint – ready to slap down the asshole blocking his path.
James sighed and lifted his head to give the bastard his best “do you really want to fuck with me so early in th day” look and as he did so he found himself looking directly into the smiling face of his friend Dave.
More than a few curses later the two were reunited and joyful to discover they had signed up for most of the same classes that semester.
They were inseparable, incorrigible and more than a little streetwise. For James it was as if he had been reconnected to his Siamese brother and there were no limits to the things they could do.
A perfect example of the things they would find themselves doing was the music store burglary. James had scoped the place out and came up with the plan, making sure they could get rid of the stolen instruments at a local biker clubhouse afterwards in exchange for copious amount of illegal and illicit narcotics. As usual all he needed to do was spell the plan out to Dave and it was game on.
The job had gone off as well as could be expected and they arrived at the clubhouse on schedule and went up the stairs of the large residential house and rang the bell. Hearts beating a little faster as neither of them had actually been inside before. They had spoken at lengths earlier about the nessessity to appear at ease while dealing with the bikers. To make sure they didn’t come across as punk-ass kids and above all else, they had to make sure that in no way, shape or form - show disrespect to anyone in the house.
The whole encounter took less than ten minutes, but to the two teens it felt more like an hour.
A large bearded man wearing a dirty black muscle shirt that read “Yeah I Fucked Yo’ Momma” and equally filthy pair of jeans answered the door looked annoyed as hell at the interruption.
He asked them what the fuck they wanted and James told the man that they were there to see someone named Little Devon.
The burly biker grunted in mock annoyance and waved them through the door into a wide front hallway. The boys maneuvered through the door carefully making sure the guitars did not touch or scratch the walls as they entered the “Momma Fucker”, as James later referred to him, closed the front door behind them and took his time putting the dozen or so locking mechanisms back in place. Dave’s mouth dropped open as he counted no less than eight deadbolts and at least seven chains. This was not including the thick slab of lumber the biker wedged under the handle of the door itself.
He looked up smiling wickedly at the boys and noticing Dave’s look of amazement told them that it was a rough neighborhood and that you could never be too careful.
The boys nodded in agreement – not really knowing any other way to respond.
They were led through a dimly lit living area filled with men and women who represented the spectrum of the biker subculture. Several men in black leather played pool at a table on the far side of the room. Another dozen or so men and women – all in various degrees of undress sat around a long coffee table cluttered with beer bottles ashtrays and other assorted drugs, paraphernalia and garbage.
You could smell the pungent aroma of pungent pot mixing with acrid cigarette smoke, sweetly musky sweat and stale beer. On the far end of the couch that sat nearest the table, one of the bikers was suckling on the teat of a large breasted woman with a number of tattoos. Her fingers glided lazily back and forth across one nipple as the man suck the other. She looked very high and seemed to look through the two young men as they passed through the room and up a set of stairs on the far side of the room.
The inside of the house was dirty and unkempt but was not without its own charm to both boys. They later spoke of the numerous weapons they had seen leaning against various walls, the number of bare breasts they saw and the sheer quantity of drugs they saw during their short visit. In the main living room alone they saw at least a half pound of pot, several people hot knifing hash, a bowl full of white powder which could have only been cocaine.
When they got to the top of the stairs they were led into a small room and the “Yo’ Momma” Biker pointed them to a couple of chairs and left the room. It was a small room with a large black Harley Davidson poster scotch taped to one wall. The wall opposite the poster contained a large window that overlooked the front yard.
Dave walked over to it and looked down onto the street. He was a little nervous. He and James began to unload the guitars just as Little Devon entered the room and whistled appreciatively at the guitars. He was short, greasy and was sporting a wicked looking handlebar mustache. James stepped forward and shook hands with Little Devon.
They exchanged a few words about the number of instruments versus the quantity of narcotic they received and after a few minutes of dickering back and forth they both smiled and Little Devon pulled out a small brown paper package wrapped in string. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small plastic bag full of pot and tossed it over to Dave.
They three shook hands and Little Devon clapped them both on the back, encouraging them to come back and visit often. He led them down a second set of stairs and out the back door of the house into the adjoining back alley.
They had made a successful deal and left the clubhouse with two hundred hits of purple mike acid and almost an ounce of pot. The pot they would sell and the acid they divided equally. They took two hits each and stashed the rest deep into the recesses of their battered leather jackets, oblivious to the fact that if they were pulled over by police they would likely be facing some serious possession for the purpose of trafficking charges.
They continued to wind their way through the city’s west end until finally they found themselves both peaking and standing across from a High School that was quite obviously holding some kind of dance.
The two high teens entered the High School and bought tickets for, what Dave thought with a smirk, a ridiculously high price and went into the dance.
They were there for less than a minute before Jane walked by and began a love affair that would change everything James ever knew. It would be the only true relationship James would ever have with another human being. It would begin with the shyest smile and would later circumvent every natural law, every reasonable emotion and somehow even cross the boundaries of time itself.
James may not have known it at the time, but he was about to meet his match.
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