by Greg Rhyno
He’s snorting again at Farkas when I sidle up to him. It takes him a minute to register I’m even there.
“Hey, Townie.”
“Oh. Hey, Pete. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, man. So ... how was dinner with the Doctor?”
“Who?”
Farkas and Hair On Fire are looking at me like I’ve got three heads. I stumble to make sense.
“Uh, you know, ‘The Doctor.’ That’s what Kim calls your dad. I thought you guys were having dinner with him tonight.”
“Dude, my dad’s in Atlanta banging some chick he met heli-skiing last month.”
“Your dad’s such a player,” Farkas says.
“Pla-ya!” Fire Hair hollers.
I have this unpleasant buzzing sensation in the base of my skull, like I just backed into a wasp’s nest.
“So, you and Kim weren’t supposed to have dinner with him tonight.”
“No, man.” Townie looks at me strangely. “I thought Kim would be here tonight.”
“Okay. Cool. Well, I’ve got to ...” I trail off and walk away, knowing that their eyes will be on the back of my head until they shrug and dismiss me. I push through the crowd to Rita’s room.
Make a phone call. I’ve got to make a phone call.
She had written it in the snow, and all the way home from the show that night, I had repeated it like a mantra. 7 6 7 8 5 1 2. 7 6 7 8 5 1 2. 7 6 7 8 5 1 2.
Under my toque, I can feel my pimple throbbing in time with my heart as I jab at the buttons on Rita’s bedroom telephone. It rings five times before her answering machine picks up and I hear her message.
“It’s a shame I’m not here,” her voice sings to the tune of a Lemonheads song. “Leave a message and I’ll call you when I reappear.” The song disintegrates into self-conscious laughter, and the beep sounds. I hang up and dial again, interrogating the keypad with each of the seven digits: Where. The. Fuck. Are. You. Kim. Kivela? I hear five rings, then the message again. I put the phone back in its cradle and then surprise myself by throwing the whole mess across the room. It stops short of hitting the wall, caught on the cord like a dog choking on its leash.
SIDE B
Nightime/Anything (it’s Alright)
There’s a part of me that wants to throw my cell phone against the wall every time it goes off. I miss the pre-cellular days, when you had no other choice but to leave your phone at home. Now, every call hunts you down like a heat-seeking missile.
“Seriously?” I say, chewing on the last of my Mexi-fries. “You want me to go to a shag?”
I’d been enjoying a quiet dinner alone at my favourite taco establishment when Ruth called.
“It’s for my cousin Sharon,” she says. “I promised my mom I’d ‘represent the family.’”
“Why don’t your parents ‘represent the family’?”
I sip root beer through a straw.
“Because they’re in Florida for the winter. Michael’s in Toronto for this stupid web design thing, and everyone else my age has kids and goes to bed at ten o’clock. Come on. I’ll buy your drinks and drive you home.”
“Fine. But I’m warning you. I’m going to have to drink a lot.”
A shag, at least in the northern Ontario vernacular, is the combination of both a wedding shower and a stag night. They’re wedding fundraisers disguised as parties, and they’re usually held in some sadly decorated community centre where they sell shitty beer, play shitty music, and at some point in the evening serve beef on a bun. People sit at long folding tables and complain about how you can’t smoke at these things anymore. Eventually, when the crowd’s downed enough beer, the DJ will crank up some ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’. Besides the beer, you’re expected to buy raffle tickets for donated door prizes, which usually consist of slow cookers, fishing trips, and unconventional meats. Once I went to a shag that offered a freezer full of moose steaks as the grand prize.
A couple hours later, I find myself seated next to Ruth at a long wooden table. People move around us in the dim hall like a shadow play. I recognize a few faces from high school—Tim Puurula, Jeannie Drew, the Guy Who Got Caught Masturbating in the Boys’ Locker Room—and depending on how drunk I get, I might even say hi to some of them.
“All this bad music is making me thirsty,” I say meaningfully in Ruth’s direction.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, why don’t I get you some drink tickets?” She stands up and wanders off in the direction of the bar.
The truth is, I’m glad I’ve got an excuse to do something tonight. It definitely beats sitting around debating whether or not I should return Vicky’s latest phone message.
“I’ve got the house to myself a-a-all weekend. Just thought you’d like to know. Call me anytime.”
Since the show last month, we’ve slept together a total of three times. That first time was in her guest bedroom. I have a vague recollection of a mauve bedspread depicting some fairly majestic stallions running through a riverbed, and a photograph of the Sleeping Giant hanging on the wall. The second, and what I swore would be the last time, happened at my place. She knocked on my door, and when I opened it, she said something like It’s cold out here. Maybe you could warm me up? It just seemed so surreal, like some kind of cliché porno movie. How could I turn her down? The third time, a staff meeting ran late, so she offered me a ride home. Stupidly, I accepted. We didn’t get two blocks before she had both unbuckled and unzipped me with her free hand. Older women—they don’t waste any time. She drove us to this secluded place down by the train yard, and we did it in the back of her PT Cruiser. I had to listen to her Nickelback CD the entire time.
I’m not sure if three times technically constitutes an affair—I’d like to think of it as three isolated errors in judgement—but either way, as I watch Ruth’s cousin and her fiancé work the room, my conscience is winning the wrestling match it’s been having with my libido since this all started. I can’t help but imagine what Vicky and Jamie’s shag must have been like. Baggy overalls. MuchMusic Dance Mix ‘92. Betty Boo ‘Doin’ the Do.’ And their whole lives ahead of them.
I try to remember the last time I felt optimistic about my love life. Or even the last time I had sex that didn’t feel like a bad idea the next day. Back when I was living in Toronto, I thought things might actually work out with Catherine. She was beautiful and dressed really cool and knew about all these bands before anyone else did. She worked for this weekly called Pulse and got us our first and only feature article, titled “Filthy Witness Pleads the Fifth” (even though I’m pretty sure we answered all of her questions). I still have a copy of it somewhere. I moved into her one-bedroom apartment on Clinton Street, and she’d come out to our shows and drink our free beer. Then, when things with the record label fell through, so did things with us. I couldn’t help but wonder if the two were related.
Ruth returns after a while with a handful of tickets and two plastic cups of beer. She gives me the tickets and one of the cups.
“So,” she says as she sits down, “we might have another show lined up.”
“How’s that?”
“Matty Wheeler’s mom.” She points behind herself in the general direction of a middle-aged woman dressed like Stevie Nicks. “She was at the Shenanigans show. She told Matty that you’re in a new band, and he wants us to play his birthday.”
“What ... the Bunsen Burner?”
“It’s the tenth anniversary of everything, so apparently the city’s getting involved. Might be kind of cool.”
I’m not convinced. Since the accident, Matty’s birthday had become an annual event that I went to great lengths to avoid. They rent out the Polish Legion for an open mic jam session and produce what I can only imagine is some of the worst psychedelia, folk, and prog rock ever heard by human ears. As I search my brain for a reasonable excuse, I’m interrupted by the bride to be.
“Ruthie! I’m so glad you’re here!” Ruth’s cousin Sharon approaches her with shoulders hunched and arms out, like she’
s about to pounce. She’s a good five years older than we are, heavyset with a round face and hair bleached matrimonial blonde. Ruth disappears inside her bear hug, and I can make out the hilarious discomfort on her face over Sharon’s meaty shoulder. “And Michael! I haven’t seen you in ages!” Suddenly, I’m subjected to the same ursine attack. I feel like Luke Skywalker in the trash compactor.
“Sharon,” Ruth corrects her, buoyant with schadenfreude, “that’s not Michael. That’s my friend Peter.”
“Oh gosh. I’m sorry, Peter! I’m just a little tipsy.”
A moment later, a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head appears beside her. “This is my fiancé, Ray. Ray, you remember my cousin Ruthie—you know, the teacher? And this is her friend Peter.”
Ray shakes my hand like there’s a handshaking competition no one told me about.
“Pleasure’s mine. You both teachers?”
We nod and identify ourselves by our subject: English. History.
“You know, I love the History Channel and all that, but Canadian History—yeesh! So boring.” He takes a sip of his beer.
I shrug and smile. “I think a lot of the kids would agree with you.”
“All that stuff about the Fur Trade and Quebec and boohooing about the Indians. I heard they make Louis Riel out to be some kind of hero now.” His face grimaces in disgust.
“Well,” I offer, “Riel was a pretty controversial—”
“And English,” he continues, gathering steam. “All that fruity Shakespeare stuff? Half these kids can’t write a goddamn sentence and you confuse them with five-hundred-year-old nonsense?”
“Actually—” Ruth tries to interject.
“You know what my English teacher did?” He pauses for effect and takes another sip of beer. “I’ll never forget. He got halfway through Hamlet—and of course we were all screwing around ’cause we didn’t care—and he said, ‘Hell with it.’ We spent the rest of the semester analyzing the lyrics of rock songs. Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Rush. It was great. And now, every time I hear ‘Closer To The Heart’ on the radio I actually know what it means. Did you know the drummer wrote all the lyrics? And that he was inspired by Ayn Rand?”
I can’t say I did.
“Now that’s useful stuff. Kids would appreciate that kind of stuff.” He looks at me straight on and says, “That’s the kind of stuff you should teach. Not King Richard or whatever.”
I want to remind him that I’m the one who teaches boring Canadian History, but I don’t think he’d hear me. Instead, I shrug noncommittally and decide it’s time to pull the rip cord on this conversation.
“Well, my glass is getting dangerously empty,” I say and shake the plastic beer cup as if to demonstrate its potential threat. “Anybody want something from the bar?”
The bride and groom-to-be politely refuse, and Ruth reminds me, not without ire, that she’s the designated driver tonight.
“Well, good luck, you two. And congratulations.”
I leave Ruth to represent the family and make my way through the crowd to the window where a steel girder of a man is serving drinks. His sleeves are rolled up to reveal an unrecognizable smear of tattoo under his forearm hair. He doesn’t say anything, but watches as I fish a chain of drink tickets out of my jeans.
“Uh, could I get a rye and ginger?”
The bartender turns around and gets a bottle of Canadian Club out of the fridge behind him. “Want a double? Costs two tickets.”
I’m drinking on Ruth, so it’s all the same to me. Plus, I don’t want to look like a pussy in front of this guy. “Sure. I could use one.”
“A double, huh?” I hear a voice say behind me. “Let me guess. You must be the groom.”
I turn around and find myself knowing the face but not the name. I wish I knew her name. Pale blue eyes. Beach-sand hair. Pretty without trying to be pretty. Where do I know her from? And why the fuck can’t I think of her name?
“Groom ... ? Oh, god no,” I say. “I mean—unless you’re—shit, sorry—are you related to somebody?”
“Well, I’m definitely related to somebody, but no, no one in the wedding party.”
Suddenly, it comes to me. I can’t remember her name because I never knew it in the first place. I actually snap my fingers in recognition. “Video Store Girl.”
“Jim Jaramusch Guy,” she snaps back.
“Pete.” I hold out my hand with what must seem like weird formality, but she shakes it and smiles this crooked smile that completely reorganizes my priorities.
“Alex.” There’s a laugh as she says it, as if that crooked smile had crept into her name as well.
“Sorry—I couldn’t place you at first. You know, that whole thing where you don’t recognize people out of context.”
“Prosopagnosia.”
“Sorry?”
“Prosopagnosia. That’s what it’s called when you can’t remember people by what they look like.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“It’s usually a sign of acute brain damage.”
“Uh ...”
Is she fucking with me?
“I’m fucking with you. Next time just picture me next to a faded poster of Bridget Jones’s Diary and you’ll be fine.”
I can’t help but notice she said next time.
“So, Pete, what brings you to the social event of the season?”
“Well—”
Just then, Avril Lavigne’s adolescent lament, which for the better part of this conversation has been describing the unfair treatment of a Sk8r Boi, dies a sudden death. The house lights pour down like a bucket of cold water, and I hear Sharon’s voice through the PA.
“Oh. Sure. Could you ... oh, it’s on? Now?”
She taps a microphone, and I locate her somewhere near the front of the room. She and her fiancé are standing in front of a folding table, over which door and raffle prizes have been spread.
“Hi, everyone! Uh, we’re going to give a way a couple prizes now, and then it’ll be time for some food!”
Shit. I feel like someone’s hit the pause button a few minutes into a romantic comedy. As Sharon brays out the winning numbers for a set of frying pans—“donated by the wonderful folks at Stokes. Hey! That rhymes”—Alex and I shrug and grin helplessly at each other. When Sharon announces that she’s giving away a set of “beautiful brand-new camping chairs” and starts fumbling around in a shoebox full of ticket stubs, I imagine Alex will take her leave. She could do it easily enough, and it would be completely understandable under the circumstances. She could give me a little smile and a wave that said See you later and then disappear back to wherever her friends are sitting. But she doesn’t. She sticks it out. That’s something, at least.
After an eternity of bad lighting and bad public address, Sharon finally wraps it up. “We’ll be back in an hour, so stick around.”
Someone wheels out a cart topped with limp-looking cold cuts, fleshy roast beef, processed cheese, and powdery kaiser rolls. The lights go back down, and the music comes back up halfway through a soul-eroding Maroon 5 song.
With all this extra time, you’d think I would’ve come up with some witty banter, or at the very least a good excuse to keep talking. In the six or so minutes we stood in shag limbo, I must have thought of something decent to say, right?
“So ...” I gesture toward the food cart. “Beef on a bun?”
It’s official. I’m dying alone.
“Uh, no, thanks. I’m a vegetarian.”
“So ... just bun, then?”
She laughs, and I realize whatever kind of moment we were having before has passed.
“No, I’m good. But you go ahead. It was nice to see you out here in—” she looks around and names the place hesitantly “—the real world.”
Suddenly she’s gone. And while I may be partly to blame, at this particular moment I’m choosing instead to blame Ruth. Ruth, for convincing me to come here tonight, and Ruth, for being related to that idiot Sharon who just stepped all over my chances
like a downtown Tokyo Godzilla. Some people are just happier than they deserve to be.
“Who’s your new friend?” Ruth asks when I collapse into my seat and put my forehead on the table.
“Alex Something-Something,” I grumble. “Fu-uck. I hate how you can’t smoke at these things anymore.”
Ruth ignores me. “She’s pretty cute. You should go back and talk to her.”
I sit up and shrug.
“You should,” she says again.
Normally, Ruth wouldn’t encourage me to get involved with two women at once. Of course, she wouldn’t encourage me to sleep with a married woman either, which is exactly why I haven’t told her about Vicky.
“She looks kind of familiar.”
“She works at Video Hutch.”
“That’s not it. Michael downloads everything. I haven’t been to a video rental place in years.”
“Well, maybe you just have prosopagnosia.”
“What?”
“Never mind. God, I need a smoke. I’m going outside.”
As I walk through the crowd, I survey the room for Alex while trying to look like I’m not surveying the room for Alex. I fail miserably, I’m sure, at both endeavours, and finally push through the front doors to find a group of four other outcasts shivering around their cigarettes. I recognize the closest to me as Tim Puurula. Last I heard, he got a job working at the Chronicle. I light a cigarette and ask him if he’s doing a story for the Local Events page.
“Nah. The groom’s my cousin. You?”
“I’m friends with the bride’s cousin.”
“Oh.”
We smoke in silence until the Guy Who Got Caught Masturbating in the Boys’ Locker Room slams through the doors and clinks open a Zippo.