seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

seventeen...

The church at Burrard and Nelson seemed a good bet off the bat but as I entered it I knew that I was barking up the wrong tree entirely. This was more of a cathedral than a place of community worship. Shit. I want a down-home Sunday bake sale congregation complete with young girls in short plaid skirts with their moms in tow and crew cut young men flogging bibles, celibacy and car washes by donation. A place where they take people out on sundays and dump their heads in the river to be cleansed. I had been to a community church that fit once in Seattle a few years ago and in the middle of the service there was this twisted question and answer period followed by a series of announcements made by members of the congregation that made me feel entirely uneasy. Announcements for people, friends, relatives made by their loved ones on their behalf. Mentions of those in need, those needing a little tender loving care, announcements made to garner support for local kids baseball teams, car washes, bake sales, blood donor clinics and clothing drives. Prayers needed for those in the hospital. One by one they rose to give the details of their own little announcement. I almost, at one point wanted to get up and make an announcement of my own, one steeped in lies, one designed to make all those in attendance fear for their collective lives if they didn't come to aid of my cause. Maybe one with details so horrific it would send women and children running for the aisles. But as I looked over at my girlfriend, Rachel, I knew it would be the last thing I ever did in her presence and that the ride back home to Vancouver would be a very long and lonely one.
I just continued to sit with my hands securely under my jacket fingering a note Rachel's mother had given to us earlier on how to get to the after baptism party, another part of the equation I longed to duplicate but on my terms. But alas, this place of worship I now found myself in was not one for such congregational participation. Too bad, I had worked all day on a few choice announcements that would, if I believed in such a place, sent me to hell without a good pair of shoes or a pot to piss in.
Leaving the church I decide that I had better think this one out a little better, maybe I would have to head out to the burbs, to Langley or Cloverdale, the bible belt, to get what I need for this little mission. Maybe I needed a pawn to go with me. Not a pawn exactly, a friend still naive enough to believe I'm doing this because I have recently found the lord to be a supreme being I need to know more about. Can’t be Fawn because she’ll know I’m up to something. In fact, because she already knows a little about the gig would be up for sure. Someone nice, but just simple enough to go with me and not stop me when I get up and start making announcements about impending tragedy and surplus pain I'm trying to dish off on others. Either that or someone so into the whole idea they have a few ideas of their own and we go in as a team. Then again, maybe I should give this whole religion thing a little more credit, but that's not the point. I just need to see it in action again, be a part of it, be a cog in the big religion wheel, just for a day, a moment. Somebody save me.
In my car I decide to abandon the religion front for the day and get some breakfast before noon gets any closer. Striking a match to light my cigarette I head for the Grove Restaurant on Denman Street in the West End and their scary, but delicious, Eggs Florentine. The streets are still relatively empty, being early sunday morning, so the going's easy down Davie and onto Denman Street. I notice, as I round the corner at Denman and Davie, that the light still hasn't fully hit English Bay and it almost looks as if one could swim there if they so wanted. But as a local I know that unless I want to catch something ugly, the idea of swimming out there is still under the heading of bad idea.
Denman Street almost seems deserted as I pull in and park across the street from The Grove. I come here from time to time when I feel I need a dose of high cholesterol artery clogging food and I'm never disappointed. I come here every Christmas morning for breakfast to see who's here and to gauge their sadness by the looks on their faces. Maybe they're looking at me the same way and wondering why I'm there on the so-called holiest of days.
Setting my parking brake, I head across the street. As I enter the restaurant I catch the waitress' eye and wave as if to let her know I won't be needing a menu. She understands and brings me a cup of what can only be described as pure unadulterated truck stop coffee, which I truly need this morning after a fitful four hour sleep the night before. It couldn't be more perfect. I order and settle in to bastardize the crossword puzzle.
The newspaper already has stains on it from the last lucky patron and as I skim by the crossword I notice the entire thing has been filled in except that it's all filled by nothing but obscenities. New swear words created where the word needed was too long for any other regularly muttered cursings. 'Motherskullfucker', 'dickholeeyelet' and 'spooge' were my favorites although the simple 'fuck' that graced three down was good as well where the clue was where a four letter word was needed to complete, 'henry --------' car maker. Maybe because I drive one of his car's in made perfect sense, maybe I just liked the thought, whatever the reason I liked it.
The day was just beginning but I felt as though if I didn't get going, although I really had no agenda planned, the day would soon be over. Quickly eating my eggs I make a mental note to go and find my friend Kevin who has been working on some paintings for me and see if he's any closer to actually finishing them. Paying up I, for some reason, motion to the waitress that I want to give her a hug but she gives me a look that makes me think she thinks I've been up all night and probably smell like bourbon, and laughs at me and heads back into the kitchen. Damn it, doesn't she know who I am? She's alright, and probably made the right decision but who knows, I could've given her a really good hug.


eighteen...

Things change so quickly in this city that it's really is hard to keep up with what's happening and the changes that transform neighborhood's, seemingly overnight. Buildings sprout up here as if they're manufactured somewhere else and put up in the dead of night. Without any real character. In fact, there are very few neighbourhoods that I really want to hang out in. Friends are moving into new buildings that weren't there less than a few months ago. I just doesn't seem right somehow. The West End seems to be the only real constant and as I make my way through it towards Kevin's studio down on Pacific, I pass by buildings of ex-girlfriends and ex-one-night lovers. A part of my stomach turns as I pass by some of them, while others make me slightly nostalgic and reminiscent of times gone by. Times when I was young and, perhaps, good or at least better looking. Sometimes I wish sometimes I could bring back and do all over again. But then I think that I’m just being an idiot and that if I could do it all over again I’d probably do everything exactly the same. Complete with all the fuck-ups and bits that go with them. I don’t always feel this way maybe it's just the eggs and truck stop coffee.
Kevin's been working on a couple of pieces for me that I will one day actually hang on my wall but not, seemingly, in the very near future. It seems as if he's got his own agenda and work schedule. I suppose, I can respect that to a certain degree, but it has been a couple of months now. To make matters worse, in some sort of perverse act of good faith I paid him up front for the entire thing, money I now wish I had in my shrinking bank account. Now I just like to drop by every once in a while and see how things are going, if they're going at all-which I suspect they are not and I'm actually doing nothing more than supporting his bohemian lifestyle. It's still very early sunday morning but I know he's down there because he's been living in his studio ever since he and his girlfriend broke up, kicked him out or whatever it is that they're doing right now. He lived at my place once when she booted him out and maybe know why she wouldn’t want him around-he’s just a bit of a pain in the ass and it bothered me to have him around even though I could never exactly pin-down exactly why.
Kevin's studio is near the water, under the Granville Street Bridge, just across from Granville Island and sits in-between several high-rise condo towers, one of which my ex-boss, Bob, lives in with his wife Lea. Although I think they're marriage is more a smoke screen, than anything else, if any of what I've heard about his late night parties is true, which it probably is, but who am I to say?
Kevin's studio is probably regarded by many in the neighborhood as an eyesore, including my ex-boss, but due to strange zoning laws isn't going anywhere in the near future. Neither is Kevin. From Pacific Boulevard I head in behind the Kettle Of Fish Restaurant and down the alley to Kevin's studio/temporary home. Pulling up next to the doors I notice that all of the locks are still very much applied and see that Kevin as taken to leaving one word notes for anyone who should drop by. A yellowed piece of paper, that has obviously been used many times before, has been stuck to the front of the door and simply says: coffee. I have an idea where he has gone but decide before I go and try and find him, that I should leave my mark on his door just in case he comes back and we miss each other, again.
Getting out of my car I walk over to the door and after pulling a small felt pen out of my pocket simply write my name next to the word coffee and the number seven. The number means nothing but I know that it will confuse Kevin when he comes back, if I don't run into him first, or anyone else who may come by looking for him. Back in my car I head for Davie Street and the spot where I figure Kevin is getting his morning coffee and trying to bum free food.
The pavement is wet from the water flying out from the street washer in front of me and I wonder if I'm a little close to it as I catch myself unconsciously pumping by brakes to make sure they work in case I need them. I have, before had to apply my brakes a little too quickly and, as my car is over thirty years old, I wonder what I will fly into one day. Along the highway, be it on the way to Whistler or Seattle, I have at times been very nervous as I have approached corners in the rain at speeds far too fast for my car to handle should I have to stop all of a sudden. My windshield wipers offer little, if any, confidence as they move back and forth across my car's abnormally large front window wiping away perhaps, at best, fifty percent of the water that falls there. And, while the windshield is the least of my worries, and I do worry, or maybe it's more of a perverse fantasy, I wonder what would happen should I have to stop right now behind this street washer. Perhaps, worst case scenario, slide underneath it and perhaps never see Kevin or his work done for me again. Years ago, while out looking for a job, I practically flew into the car in front of me along very wet pavement on Main Street. While I should have been concerned for myself and the large cut which now adorning my face and the blood streaming from it, my first thought was that I wouldn't be finding a job that day. Also how upset my father was going to be once he found out that I had maybe totaled my mother’s car. Strange how it all comes together sometimes and what you think of at times of great stress. The things that happen after, many times, eclipse the actual event tenfold and there's no stopping it once it all starts to take place.
The coffee shop on Davie, Spuntino, that Kevin should be at, is at the corner of Thurlow Street and as I come up to it all I can think of is a night I spent there with my friend Stacey. We had, actually just met and I had liked her right off. She had told me of stories she had written and those already written in her head that would soon be put to paper. She had been, for the last while doing technical writing but really wanted to be a writer. She had turned down the support of her family, who were apparently loaded, so she could feel better about what she was doing and live the true writer’s life.
She had also given up smoking, at least for then, and every time I would go to light a smoke she'd ask to light it for me. The cigarettes looked right in her hands. The way she handled the lighter and the way she took the first pull, and no more, off of the smoke. The night became early morning and we ended up back at her place, a dingy basement suite off of Davie on Jervis Street. Her parents had been there once, she told me, and freaked out at the way she was living. It seemed odd to be there even though I was totally comfortable with her and the fact that she wanted nothing from me. When I left at five-thirty or six, after calling a cab, I couldn't help but think I had met someone unique but that I would never have that experience again with her. And, things being what they are, it's been true to a certain extent. I see her, at bars or on the street but it's as if nothing ever happened. She, I think, is in love again after a long, self-imposed time off, and I'm the last one to try and disrupt that.
I park in the lot next to the coffee shop and, as I lock the car, watch the street washer head down the hill towards Denman Street. I've seemingly lost my train of thought and for whatever reason, now feel reminiscent about everything. Almost unhappy for no reason at all, like something has happened to set me off. My pockets feel full and my wallet heavy in my back pocket so things can't be that bad. Before I know it I have taken a smoke out and placed it between my lips and as it sits there I search my pockets for my Zippo. Ignition. The first drag catches me almost off guard with it's heaviness but the second quick pull brings me back to the love that is smoking.
Standing at the door to the cafe is Kevin but he hasn't seen me yet. He's holding a cup of coffee in his right hand and gesturing with his left as if he's telling a story to someone I can't yet see. Halfway through a sentence he stops and looks in my direction as if he's sensed me there and then smiles and laughs waving to the person inside the shop.
"Hey" Kevin says coming towards me
"What's up?" I say sitting down at one of the outdoor tables
"Nothing. I was down at my studio and freaked out with all the work there so I had to come up here"
"How are my paintings coming?"
"Almost done. A figure a couple of more days and you can take 'em home."
I don't really believe him but for once, instead of giving him a hard time, give him the benefit of the doubt. He works hard and has a lot of stuff on his plate, even though he doesn’t have a so-called day job, so cutting him some slack comes easy to me.
"Are you going back to the studio?" I ask grabbing his coffee and taking a healthy drink.
"Later. I just need a little time out of there." He says grabbing the coffee back.
"Want to go for a ride?" I ask looking him directly in the eyes.
"Shit. So serious. Are you firing me?"
"No. How can I fire you when I’ve already paid you for everything?"
"What's up? I've heard you've been out doing some very un- Tim type stuff."
"A little. Nothing that'll get me into trouble or anything."
"Not yet."
"Right. Not yet."


nineteen...

Storybook romance part three...

Resting back against my seat I pull out a fresh Winston and light it trying to decide whether or not to go in. The smoke fills my car as the radio plays another song I've never heard before. My head runs with thoughts I've thought so many times before. And now as I sit smoking what seems like my hundredth smoke of the day inside a car I have practically lived in for the past two months, driving around aimlessly from place to place, I decide to just go home. And somehow it's like someone else has made the decision for me.
As I start my car I see a woman I know crossing the street and heading towards my car. Turning the headlights on I notice that she's waving to me and wants to talk to me. Rolling down my window I flick my cigarette out and say hello as she bends down to look in at me.
"Hi, " she says blowing the smoke from her cigarette into my car, "I saw you sitting out here by yourself. Not going in?"
"I don't think so, " I say hedging, "no. I'm not. Not tonight."
"You alright?"
"Sure. Just tired."
"You look like you could use a little sleep." She says pulling a Kleenex out of her purse and wiping her lips.
"Maybe. I've been working alot lately." I’m lying
"So are you going home now?"
"I should. Or at least away from here."
"Can I get a lift with you?"
It was coming to me. The decision had been made but now it was coming to me. Like I was being tested. A test I could fail so easily yet still feel like I had passed later on. Her hands resting against the frame of my car were killing me now, her eyes cutting into me making me weaker than I've ever been. She could have been the one so many times before but I had somehow thought better of it, somehow left her alone, she was too good for me, too good to spoil, but now I was having second thoughts. Did I want to add her to the long list of women I'd never ever speak to again? Did I want to take her home and make her do things, talk her into doing things she'd never do otherwise? I'd been with friends of hers and now she was presenting herself to me. Young, ten years less than myself. A body to die for, the face of an angel, lips that were made for sex.
"Yeah, I'll give you a lift. Get in."
"Thanks."
Inside the car she lights another smoke and tells me the easiest way to her place, down Burrard to Davie and down to Denman. Her hands fumble with her purse and then as if she knows I'm going to look over she lifts her ass and adjusts her skirt which has bunched up on the seat under her. I watch as she pulls it down and then as if she knows she's testing me runs her hands along her nylons and down to her shoes. As she smokes her chest heaves and it's all I can do to keep my eyes on the road. At Denman Street I turn right and pass my friend Ben's house hoping he doesn't happen to look out and see me drive by.
"Can I borrow your mirror?" She says pulling out a tube of lipstick from her purse
"Sure." I say turning the mirror towards her
As we sit at the light at Nelson Street I watch as she carefully applies stoke after stroke of lipstick stopping once to look over at me and tell me the light is now green and that I can go. My mind races with thoughts of her naked lying on her bed, with or without me. With others. Her body perfect, young, tight and ready. Turning onto her street I can hardly think straight anymore.
"Which is your building?"
"The one on the left," she says indicating with her right hand, "You can park anywhere you want."
Pulling up in front of her building I throw on my flashers and wait to see what happens next. Will she ask me in? Will I have to say no? Can I say no? Do I want to burn this bridge? Will I get another chance at this? Does she even want to invite me in? Looking at her I know I want her but on what terms? Hers or mine?
Opening her purse she finds her keys and turns towards me and smiles. Her lips thick and freshly fixed say more than I can take in. Her eyes are almost completely hidden by the darkness in the car. And I wonder if she can see mine, if she can hear my heart beating.
"Thanks for the ride."
"No problem, it was on my way home."
I felt sixteen. Waiting for what would happen next. Like I had borrowed my dad's car and had to get it home before he knew how late I was out. Who would make the first move? I knew what I should do, but couldn't.
"I should go. I have to up early tomorrow, well I guess it's actually today, isn't it?" I say hoping to make a clean getaway
"So you don't want to come in and have a drink?"
"I really shouldn't"
"Shouldn't?"
"Yeah."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Do I not do it for you?"
"No. You do."
"Then why is it that every time you've had a chance to have me you've gone the other way?"
"I'm not sure." I say wishing now that I was lying but I really didn’t know.
"Don't you want me now?"
"Yes."
"So?"
"I can't. I just can't."
"It's just between us."
"I know. But it's just not a good idea. Not right now."
"Maybe some other time?"
"Maybe." I said hoping I was lying now and that there would maybe a chance some other time. Soon.
"I'll see you later."
"OK."
With that she opens the door and is gone across the street and into her building. Turning off the flashers I put the car into gear and head for the Burrard Street Bridge and home once again. A girl at a bus stop on Davie makes me pause for a second as I think she looks familiar but then as I get closer realize I don't know her and keep going. Down Burrard, across the bridge, up Fourth and home again.


twenty...

In the car I tell Kevin about going to church that morning and not finding what I had hoped to find. About my idea of becoming part of a congregation, getting up and telling stories to all assembled. About my experience with Rachel and the church in Seattle and how I wanted to experience the feeling of having people believe every word I said. I tell Kevin about the book and how I was going about gaining worldly knowledge. The after hours parties, the offers of sex from complete strangers, the older women phoning me because they got my number from someone else, the drugs, the ideas I had yet to act on. How it was all part of something bigger and that he shouldn't listen to the others who have seemingly decided that I'd finally gone off my rocker and lost it completely. Kevin, as if transfixed, listens intently, every once in a while laughing then looking away out the window as if looking for something to say but can’t find anything so he just laughs.
"So what do you think?" I finally ask
"About what? The ideas?"
"All of it"
"Well..."
"Well, what?"
"While it's not really you, I'd have to say it really is you. Kinda."
"I'm not out of my head. I'm not."
"I know that."
Maybe he did know but I wasn't sure. We head across town to Commercial Drive and while it is still before noon the streets are finally coming alive with other traffic and pedestrians. Some looking as if they are just heading home from the night before while others look as if they're on their way to work, church or otherwise. A car full of young girls pulls up beside us at a light and I tell Kevin to talk to them and see where they're going but he declines pulling the shy guy routine as only he can. They pull off as the light turns green and leave us behind waving out their back window as they disappear up the road.
"You should have said something." I say looking over at him as if disappointed with him.
"Like what?"
"That I'm not sure of just yet. But something would have been good."
"I can't just talk to strangers like that. Like you. I wouldn't know what to say."
"You'd think of something. I'm sure of that." I say as trying if instilling confidence in him
" I'm sure."
"You would."
"Was that like material?" Kevin asks fishing a piece of gum from out of his pocket.
"What do you mean, material? Like for my book?"
"Sure. A little nugget. Something to work from."
"Maybe. I wasn't really thinking about that right then but I guess anything could help."
"I'll do better next time."
"I'm sure you will. "
I need gas so I pull into a gas station at Commercial and Hastings and as I get out of the car I tell Kevin to pump in ten bucks and I'll go in and pay. From inside I can see Kevin attending to the gas chore I've given him and wonder when the last time it was that he filled up a car. He looks completely lost in the whole process having to go back to the pump several times to make sure he's flicked the right lever and then back to the gun end which is now fixed inside the car. Kevin once set a friend of ours cabin on fire because he wasn't exactly familiar with the lighting procedure of a gas stove and remembering this think about going out and helping him. He looks confused as nothing is happening and then I realize that the attendant hasn't turned on the pump yet because he's waiting for me to pay him so he can set the amount in the computer. Kevin, finally having given up throws his hands up and looks towards the kiosk and finally me. I wave the money over the heads of the others in front of me and the attendant taking it as a sign punches in the correct amount and I motion to Kevin to start pumping. The gas, as if being right on the verge of coming out rushes so quickly into the tank that it backs up out of the tank and onto Kevin's pants and shoes. I know now that I'm buying breakfast.
The line-up at Havana, a spot rich in poor service and newly made old decor, is short enough that we decide to wait until a table comes up. The woman who runs the place is a constant source of entertainment and desire for my friend Jamie so whenever it's his turn to pick the breakfast place we always end up here. It's walls were made with plaster just ripe for scratching your name into and a few weeks back Fawn decided it was time that she add her name to the fray and using my keys imbedded her initials along with her boyfriend's into the wall above our booth. Initials that are still firmly imbedded in the walls now even though fawn gave him the pink slip months ago.
"I find myself here alot lately because Jamie has a thing for her." I say to Kevin who's not really paying any attention. "He thinks she's the shit."
"The what?" Kevin says as if he hasn't heard me correctly
"The shit. The works. "
"You mean good looking. A dish?"
"Sure, Kevin. Good looking. "
Kevin, while not unfamiliar with current terms of endearment or hip local lingo sometimes, seemingly, gets lost in the weight of it all. Sometimes I think he's working on an entirely different level than me which is fine but it does make it tough sometimes to hold a relevant conversation. Other times he makes comments that seem so foreign to his usual nature, jokes about sex and references to women, that I want to check his driver's license to make sure it's him that I'm talking to.
Today, like every weekend at Havana, the specials are Eggs Benny and Eggs Florentine and, usually I go for the Florentine but having just eaten at the grove decided to just have juice and a coffee and treat Kevin to something instead. Hoping this time we can get them before the day ends or before either of us needs another shave whichever come first. While the service is hardly that bad I have noticed that the service staff seem to have their own agenda and a 'you'll get it when you get it' attitude prevails here. The coffee's good though and usually holds me over until the eggs finally arrive along with my three dollar 'freshly squeezed' juice concoction. Maybe I have a thing for the woman who runs this place as well now, I keep coming back despite my great efforts to not do so. Could be the booths too though.
"What do you think of her, Kevin?"
"Who?"
"The woman I pointed out. The one who runs this place."
"She's fine. I mean, I don't know. I suppose I'd go there."
"Go there?"
"Fuck her. Go there. Have a roll around."
"Do you have any i.d. On you Kevin?"
"Why?"
"No reason."