by Greg Rhyno
I pour what’s left of Townie’s pitcher into my glass and grab a seat beside Rita at the merch table. On stage, the Killjoys go through the motions of a song I don’t recognize.
“So,” Rita says, “is your girlfriend coming tonight?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
By the time Martha Dumptruck finish checking, it’s getting late, and there’s already a healthy crowd forming in front of the stage. Deacon’s up there to support Ruth, who looks terrified standing behind a Rickenbacker that’s almost bigger than she is. The others just look excited, like they’re bursting to play.
“Can we, like, just start now?” Evie asks into the microphone. Friendly laughter ricochets around the room.
It seems like the soundguy gives them the okay, because their drummer, this tough, Joan Jett-looking chick, counts to four and they hammer into their first song. They’re way heavier than I expected, and they’re good. Evie sings lead and Ruth hits all the harmonies. They’ve got this other guitar player who plays these fuzzed-out solos on a gorgeous sunburst Fender Strat I’m sure Soda would trade his left arm for. Together, they sort of sound like the Go-Gos fronting Black Sabbath. In all honesty, I’m a little surprised. I mean, I know Evie can play, and it’s not like I don’t think women can rock—Kim Gordon, Liz Phair, PJ Harvey. It’s just that I didn’t think they’d be so good.
I watch for a while longer; then I drain the rest of my glass and stand up. “Mind the store?” I ask Rita. She nods.
When the door to the bathroom swings shut behind me, Martha Dumptruck’s third song suddenly sounds like they’re playing it underwater.
“Hey!” Soda’s voice rings out from the row of urinals. “Didn’t you read the sign?”
“Huh?”
“It says Men on the door.”
“Fuck off,” I say through a smile.
“Hey, you hear about Hildebrandt?”
“No. Why?” I step up, leaving one urinal between us.
“Well, apparently he disappeared from his period four class in the middle of a lesson. Just walked out mid-sentence. Mark Zaborniak said everyone waited fifteen minutes and then took off.”
Soda zips up and walks over to the sink.
“Shit,” I say. “I’m surprised they haven’t locked him up already. Hey, I saw Howlin’ Mad Murdock today.”
“Where?” I hear him pump the soap dispenser and run the water.
“I was at the mall. Went with Kim.”
“So where’s your girlfriend tonight?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Nope,” he clacks the button on the hand dryer and talks over the noise. “Doesn’t seem like it. At least tell me you’re getting some.”
“I’m getting some.”
“Nice. Oh hey, one more thing ...”
“Yeah?” I button my jeans and turn around, only to realize he’s already left. The fucker.
Martha Dumptruck unplug, smiling as their applause finally dies off, and the crowd heads for the bar. Mike Rotten, who usually doesn’t have anything nice to say unless it’s about the Sex Pistols, continues to clap a relentless meter shouting “Encore! Fuckin’ encore!” He’s pretty wasted.
In the limbo between bands, Rita wanders off to schmooze with some older guy with a shaved head and earrings. Deacon, having completed his boyfriendly duties, takes over the merch table, and I’m just about to see if I can get in on Soda’s pool game when Townie sees me and waves me over to his table. He’s sitting alone, and while I’m not particularly interested in any kind of hurt-my-little-sister-and-I-kill-you conversation, it’s hard to deny the golden column of beer condensating in front of him. When I sit down, he fills my empty plastic cup.
“Thanks, man,” I say. “They sounded pretty good, didn’t they?”
“Yeah ... I don’t know ...” He looks at his beer like there’s a fly in it. “I’m kind of done with the whole female vocalist, loud-quiet-loud thing. I mean, I like the Breeders as much as the next guy, but come on ...”
Townie’s review of our last show in Bigmouth Strikes Again! was, in fact, pretty kind, but he did accuse us of being too derivative of the Replacements (none of us had actually heard the Replacements, but I went out and bought Pleased To Meet Me the next day). I guess that’s just what Townie does.
“So how come none of your roommates showed up tonight?”
“Who? The Honey-Dudes? Fucking at home watching the Leafs game. God. Those guys walk around like the second coming of Pink Floyd, but deep down they’re all small-town rednecks.”
I don’t know if Townie is officially “out” or not. Kim talks about his “jerk-off obsession” with Jordan Catalano like it’s common knowledge, but I’m not so sure it is. Maybe it’s different once you get to university, but admitting you’re gay in a Thunder Bay high school is almost as dangerous as admitting you don’t like hockey.
“How’d you wind up living with a bunch of guys from Sudbury?”
“Kyle’s from Sioux Lookout.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure, man. It was kind of a bad scene when my parents split up. I wanted to move out, but they thought I was too young to live on my own. So they agreed to pay for residence. Made some friends there. This year I rented a house with them. Had I known they were going to start a jam band ...” He lets the conclusion hang in the air like it’s self-evident. It kind of is.
“Ever think you’d want to move back home?”
He raises an eyebrow. “What home? My dad got a job in Vancouver and now we barely ever hear from him. My mom and Kim—you’ve met my sister, right? They’ve got this tiny place in Current River ...”
He keeps talking but I kind of lose track of what he’s saying. I’m on my fourth or fifth beer, and the room’s starting to swim a little. Plus, if I’m not mistaken, he just asked if I met his sister. Of course I’d met his sister.
And then it dawns on me. Townie has no idea I’ve been dating Kim for nearly a month. Even though I’d spent all this time with her, even though I’d gone out and bought her a two-hundred-dollar camera lens for Christmas, she hasn’t even mentioned my name in polite conversation.
“Hey, is your sister coming tonight?” I ask. It’s a clumsy segue.
“I don’t think so. I think she had other plans.”
“What could be more important than this?” Also clumsy.
“I don’t know. I think she was going to go winter camping with Wilson and Janie, you know—that whole outdoorsy crew. They’re crazy. Who wants to go camping when it’s twenty below?”
Wilson and Janie. That whole crew. Who were these people?
A couple university students I don’t recognize sit down at our table and start talking to Townie. He doesn’t introduce me and after a couple minutes seems to forget I’m even sitting there. I look at my watch and realize it’s almost eleven o’clock. Behind me, I can hear the sudden fade of the house music, and the anticipatory hum of amplifiers takes its place. The lead singer from the out-of-town band says something I can’t quite make out into the microphone, and people laugh. From our table, I can see the crowd multiplying exponentially in front of the stage.
This is the crowd that was supposed to be our crowd. Everyone who’s drinking is just drunk enough, and everyone who isn’t is still excited to have the night ahead of them. Maybe they’d meet a girl or a boy from another high school, or smoke a joint with the band behind the bar. I finally get why the Killjoys wanted to play in the middle. Because that’s where the action is. Right in the heart of the evening. By the time we get on, people will be looking at their watches, thinking about curfew or where they’re going next. We won’t be headliners; we’ll be sloppy seconds—sloppy thirds, in fact. We’ll be playing the crowd out.
I sit and watch the band for a few songs. They’re okay, but all the noise and heat starts to seem a little oppressive, and I’ve got this weird feeling in my stomach, like I’m heading into a rollercoaster loop. Before I even realize I’ve done i
t, I stand up. My chair tips dangerously behind me, almost falls, then doesn’t.
“Hey—sorry—” I say to Townie. “Thanks for the beer.” His new friends stare at me like I’ve just materialized out of nowhere. He nods, and I walk outside to breathe some cool air. Something’s shifted irreversibly in my guts, and there’s a telltale watering in my mouth that means trouble’s coming. I run around to the alley where Deacon parked the Sabre and stop by a pile of black garbage bags. I feel my stomach close like a fist and empty its contents through my esophagus. Townie’s beer and what’s left of his sister’s stolen pizza boil a hole in the snow. I steady myself against the wall of the bar and wait one minute, then another, until a second wave of nausea hits. At this point, there’s not much left but bile. Eventually, I stand up, lean against the building, and spit stringy orange gobs onto the ground. I’m suddenly exhausted. I rummage around in my jacket pocket for candy or a piece of gum, but all I can find is Kim’s BIC, and a crumpled, nearly empty pack of du Mauriers.
“For practice,” she had said.
I light the tip and take a drag. Immediately, I start to hack until I think I’m going to throw up a third time. Eventually, though, my breathing evens out, and I stand and smoke a few feet away from the puke, until I’m down to the filter. It’s cold, but I jam my hands in my pockets and start walking down the street. Through the foggy window of a Robin’s Donuts, I can see a smear of old men in peaked caps drinking coffee. I go past a strip mall dark with storefront vacancies. For Sale. For Lease. There’s a Mike’s Milk so I go inside. The light is fluorescent, like a hospital or a high school. By the time I get to the front with a pack of Trident, I realize I gave Rita the rest of my money for the float. The woman behind the counter scowls at me under hairsprayed bangs that reach out from her forehead like a bleached claw. I feel like I’ve seen her around, like maybe she was a senior when I was in grade nine, but she has an age-disguising fatness that could put her anywhere between twenty and forty. Even though I know there’s nothing there, I make a show of searching my pockets, as if it would somehow validate her time and mine.
“Sorry,” I eventually tell her.
She doesn’t say anything but stares at me until I put the gum back and leave, as though her eyes were emitting some sort of reverse-tractor beam, pushing me out of her store. Outside, in a fog of my own smoky puke-breath, I realize I should probably head back. As I get closer to End of the Century, I start to pass people on the sidewalk—my audience, on its way home. One by one, they make their excuses.
Mark Zaborniak pauses with one leg already inside the backseat of an idling minivan. “Sorry dude, my ride’s leaving. Have a good show.”
Danny Grove apologizes through a balaclava. “I’ve got to work an early shift tomorrow.”
Brandy Sawchuck shrugs. “Twelve o’clock curfew.”
Rotten is shitfaced. “I need to go pass out. Tell that Evie chick I think she’s hot.”
Martha Dumptruck’s Joan Jett drummer and guitar player walk past me and avoid eye contact.
When I get to the door, it sounds like the Killjoys have finished, which means I have to get up on stage and summon the energy to play to whoever’s left. I’m about to go inside and confirm this when the front door swings open and clocks me in the nose. I lose my balance and trip backward onto the sidewalk. Until this exact moment, I had always thought “seeing stars” was just an expression, but there they are—a whole constellation twinkling in front of my eyes. When they clear, I see Toby Watkins’s fish face grinning down at me.
“Have a nice trip?” He laughs, and a little snort escapes.
I’m exhausted, my mouth tastes like a sour asshole, and my jeans are soaked. Nothing is funny.
I get to my feet and notice he’s got his arm around the waist of an exact female version of himself, minus the moustache and dandruff. Well, minus the dandruff. It’s like seeing some ugly, Robert Crumb rendering of Mickey and Minnie Mouse out on a date. They’re even wearing matching Killjoys t-shirts under half-zipped winter coats.
“What the fuck, Twatkins!”
My voice comes out thick and mean, but it makes me feel good.
Toby cringes a little. “I don’t like that name, Pete.”
He doesn’t look at me or his girlfriend when he says it, but I keep looking right at him. A shiver of adrenalin unhinges my mouth from my brain, and I get this wild thrill of cruelty, like I’m about to squish a bug.
“Yeah?” I say, taking a step toward him. “Well, you should probably take that up with your stupid fucking parents, shouldn’t you, Twatkins?”
I half-expect him to freak out, or lunge at me, or something, but he just watches some spot on the ground with this hangdog expression that only makes him look more pathetic. Minnie Mouse stares daggers at me.
“Come on,” she says to him. “Let’s go.”
I watch them leave; then I turn to go into the bar. Rita’s waiting in the doorway and watching me with this weird look in her eye.
“You guys are on in a couple minutes,” she says.
She goes back inside and the door swings shut behind her. I follow with a vague sense of horror, like I’m about to attend my own funeral.
SIDE B
Where Have All the Good People Gone?
“Someone die?”
Dylan Beaucage poses the question as he comes in late for the third time this week. “What’s with the suit?”
“Well, Dylan, sometimes a guy just wants to look his prettiest,” I tell him.
“Fag,” he mumbles, just loud enough so I can hear him. He sits down at his desk and checks his phone.
As much as I’d like to, I don’t send him down to see the vice-principal. I have a job interview later today, and I don’t want the people in charge thinking I can’t handle my class. I swear, though, if I ever get a full contract, I’m going to send kids down just for looking at me funny.
At lunch, right after I’ve tucked into a chicken burger, Ruth sits down across from me and hands me a piece of paper.
“You may remember some of this bullshit from teacher’s college,” she says.
I read through a list of vaguely Orwellian terminology. Backward design. Cooperative grouping. Context variables. There’s about fifteen terms in all, and each one has a little check box beside it.
“What’s this?”
“That, my friend, is a checklist of buzzwords that Trimble wants to hear during your interview today.”
“Seriously? How did you get it?”
“Swiped it off his desk when I went in to talk about my schedule next semester. There were a bunch of them there. He didn’t notice anything.”
“So, what do you think my chances are?” I ask her.
“To get the job?”
I nod.
“I think it’s a no-brainer. Two positions and two incumbents? I think you and Ms. Pearson—” she winks when she says Molly’s name “—have it pretty much locked down.”
When fourth period rolls around, I find myself outside the principal’s office sitting in one of the chairs usually reserved for delinquent students.
“In trouble again, Pete?” one of the secretaries jokes.
“No, ma’am,” I say. Although I have to admit I am feeling a bit pre-firing-squad.
Out of nowhere, two miraculous legs appear before me, and I look up to see Molly transformed into a living, breathing sexy librarian archetype, complete with the skirt, blouse, and a pair of glasses I’ve never seen her wear before. Her hair is tied up in a bun and I half expect her to shake it loose in slow motion, like we’re in some glam rock music video. I sure wish she would.
She leans over, squeezes my arm, and whispers, “The last question is about a ‘defining event’ and how it shaped you as a teacher.”
“Thanks,” I say, but I’m barely processing her advice. I’m too blissed out on the smell of her orange blossom perfume and the fact that her breasts are hovering mere inches from my face.
“Merry Christmas.” She smil
es back at me as she walks away, and I immediately wish I’d given her a copy of Trimble’s checklist.
Eventually, the door to the office, decorated with a politically correct wreath that wishes everyone “Happy Holidays,” opens and my department head walks out.
“Hi, Peter,” Gail says with a reasonable facsimile of a smile. “We’re ready for you.”
When I walk into the office, two men in suits are seated at a round table—not the principal’s desk but a table for meetings and interviews like this one. The first man is Principal Wayne Trimble, a demure, thin-faced man in his late fifties. When I was a student, our principal was this six-foot monster named Barry Hawkes, who scared the shit out of just about everyone. There was always a rumour that he kept a strap in his desk in hopes that corporal punishment would once again come back in style. Since I’ve started teaching, I kind of miss the Hawk. We could use a little more authoritarian terror around here.
The other man is someone I haven’t spoken to in ten years. For a moment I’m almost happy to see him, like when you see your ex-girlfriend unexpectedly and for just a second you can remember the good times before they’re eclipsed by the bad. In that moment, I forget to hate his guts, but when I hear that arrogant, fruity voice, all the old feelings come flooding back.
“Mister Starkey. Nice to see you again.”
He looks older, but there’s still a boyishness to his face. He’s put on a bit of weight and tied his hair back in a sad little ponytail to disguise a developing bald spot. I try to remember if he’s always worn that earring.
“Er, no, Ken,” Wayne corrects him, “this is Peter Curtis. He’s been doing an LTO for Sue Ramsey this semester.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I know Ringo. He and I go way back.” He smiles a toothy grin and, in turn, I twist my face into mask of professional civility.
Wayne seems a little confused, but we all take our seats and begin. “Right. So, Peter,” he says, “we thought it might be best if Ken sat in on these interviews since he’ll be taking over next semester when Stan retires.”