The City Swallowed Red.

There I am sitting at my parents table enjoying a glass of wine. They started talking about getting me a job as a janitor again at the place where my dad works. Just six months to a year they say, then I can apply to any job that gets offered, and they would have to consider me before going outside. I think they have an idea in their heads that I am going to follow in my pops footsteps and work at the same place. They are horribly mistaken. At this point I am just staring off in the distance trying not to listen as they ramble on and on about it. I’m a University graduate, I’m not going to be a janitor, I don’t care where it takes me. I gulp down the rest of my wine and clean off my plates and head upstairs. “Where are you going?” My dad calls from back within the kitchen. I ignore him and head upstairs.

I call up Jordan and we make plans to hang out tonight, so he arrives fairly quickly and I throw on a jacket and head out the door. My parents are hanging around the entrance inviting us to watch the hockey game with them, but we head out the door. Pitch black outside. The weather is getting colder, inside the car though you are given the sensation or the feeling of being safe, even though the only threat is just a bit of chilly winds. Jordan starts up some music on a CD. As we turned on the street exiting my little community of neighbours we started talking about murky memories from our high school period of life. Memories that were seemingly lost forever until by chance we started to think about them and help remind each other of what happened to the best of our knowledge and eye witness accounts. As we drove around the city, Jordan started driving into unknown parts of the city. Places that are not in our general path when we travel around. We pass by a church where we use to go to a Youth Group once a week after school. Fond memories there of people we no longer see.

After we drove around enough to satisfy that we have reached enough unknown areas of Oshawa, we picked up Pete. Who was surprised that we were waiting outside his house for him when we called. Five minutes later he joined the fray and hopped in the backseat. We started to drive towards Toronto on the West 401 in hopes that one of our friends would be available to hang out with. Jordan uses his cell along the way to call people, and after a couple calls and no one able to come out, we exit off in Pickering to head back to Oshawa. We think about driving to Waterloo to visit our friend Jay, but the drive back at night would be rough. I suggested Peterborough. “You love that town eh?” Jordan asks, even though he knows the answer. I look out the window to avoid his jackass grin. “Yeah, yeah I do.” I muffle.

We’re back in Oshawa, driving along the highway 2. We stop into a local Blockbuster to pick up a movie to rent. When we get in the store I automatically look at the used games section for some collector value finds. Nothing there. I join in the search for a movie. I look all along the walls at the movies and see nothing of real interest. I check the other wall and get upset at all the copies of Click! with Adam Sandler checked out. Not because I wanted to rent it. But because I see that movie advertised so much and it looks so stupid, I feel bad that people actually gave into the advertising and rented it. I wonder if it is actually good though, who knows. I see a couple of unknown movies, you know the deal, first gig actors, medieval setting or something. I love those types of movies. There is another one with Bruce Campbell called Alien Apocalypse. Oh man it looks really bad. “I hate those types of movies man.” Jordan says. Pete was in for watching it. No dice though. I take photos with my cell phone to remind me to get them later. We ended up renting 16 Blocks.

As we pass by the local Pizza Pizza I suggested we pop in. Pete is down, so Jordan turns on the next street to go around the block to pick some up. We waltz in and start barking orders at the girl. The pizza looks so old, bleh, not like the stuff you get in Peterborough. I get a small square of pepperoni and Pete gets a regular deluxe slice. “Man, I keep thinking about that night here after drinking.” Jordan says in low voice.
“Yeah that was funny, you out back laying down by the dumpsters puking while I ate pizza in here.” Laughing after I said it. “Oh man.” He replied.

Walking into Jordan’s house I noticed how big one of his cats is. Seems like just a short while ago that it was still a small kitten. Now it is nearly the size of a full grown cat. We head downstairs to the basement den and finish off our pizza. Jordan comes down with a big plate of nachos with sour cream and ground beef. We decide on watching the rest of the hockey game which is now into the third period of play. The Leafs won on a high note in overtime. We switched on the movie shortly after. I want to use the washroom so badly thirty minutes into it. I know if I do, then they will pause it, and then Jordan will try to get me back by scaring me on the way back to the den. There is a short hallway from the stairs to the den, and these curtains hang in between two walls. So one goes and hide behind these curtains and reach out to grab the person when they walk back towards the den. I suffer on the chair and watch the rest of the film. After flipping the channels a bit more we decided to drive around the city some more.

Before My Eyes (Part 2.)

I woke up. I am still groggy from staying up late again last night. It is just past noon and so I start my daily routine of going on the computer right away to check my inbox for job offers and newsletters, plus my usual blog reading and myspace.com time. My cellphone starts to ring and the vibration moves it closer to me. Private number. It’s Jordan.
“Hello?” I answer, trying my best to disguise the fact that I just woke up.
“Hey, what’s up? There is like massive flea market going on in Pickering man.”
“Serious, where?”
“Just west on Brock.”
“Yeah? Hmm.”
“Yeah you should try to get down here, selling vinyl records and everything. Anyways, just thought I’d give you a shout.”
“Yeah thanks man, talk to you later.”
I put down the cellphone back on my desk. Naw, I thought to myself, I would have to get changed, go downstairs, deal with the family. I just want to chill up here in my room. The phone rings again and it is Jordan again. This time to tell me that there is a Polaroid camera available for 10 bucks. As he described it, it bares a resemblance to a Polaroid camera I already own, but does not work. This one works.

I get changed and head downstairs and see that everyone is busy. My dad is washing the car, moms in the kitchen, and John is watching… something on TV, it looks kind of weird so I just head outside. My dad is leaning over a bucket that he just poured car washing soap + wax into. He squeezes the level inward on the nozzle on the hose to spray water inside. He had it at a high pressured stream as a setting so the soap shoots up and out of the bucket as the water hits the bottom of the bucket. He releases the grip, sets it to a fanned out spray instead and pours water in, submerging it when enough water fills up. Afterwards he looks up and gives me a sincere good morning. I guess I looked a little tired in the afternoon. In my defense I am battling off a cold. I tell him about the big flea market in Pickering and he seems interested. However, since it is no longer early in the day he figures there is no point in going. He’s probably right though, might close at anytime. He turns back to the car washing and sprays down his car. Afterwards he sprays some of the soap on the floor of the garage to run it down the driveway. Cruelly, he then attacks the anthills that lined the gap between the garage and the driveway. The homes to the little creatures are washed up and the wet sand spreads down the asphalt. I stood there starring at it happening, but no trace of animism idealism in my body compels me to say anything, because I’ve brought up with the belief that ants are bad around the house. I walk away and go back upstairs.

Kinda laying down on my bed and listening to music at the same time, I just rest there, getting up once in a while to blow my nose or to change the song on my music player. I keep changing to the same song though by Dallas Green of City and Colour.

A couple hours later I go back downstairs to see my dad cutting the grass. It is usually my job to do around the house because nobody else wants to do it. They didn’t ask me to this time because I have been sick. I don’t really want to do it either, but I would rather do it rather than my dad. I put on my new boots and head outside to take over. He did the small front lawn and is already tired so he welcomes me to take over. So I cut the back yard. Afterwards I brought the lawnmower out to the front and my dad wanted to cut a bit more and took it to the center of the court. Cut a straight line from the outside to the center, then want around cutting in a circle from the inside out. After three rotations he wanted me to take over, and so I got out from the lawn chair I was sitting on and finished the job. After I finished cutting I turned it off and put it back to rest underneath the back deck.

My dad looks at me as if to give me another gardening task “I want two things from you now, two vodkas, lime cordials, and club soda for you and I.” He said. “No problem.” I answered back and went inside to mix up a couple cocktails. I bring them outside and we sit underneath the big tree in our front yard. It is a green ash that is still kind of young for a tree. We kept the branches low so that when we sit underneath it, the leaves give us a sort of roof shelter from the sun. Of course one has to watch one branch when cutting the grass because it can bonk you on the head. My mom wants to cut it down, but my dad and I have been very resourceful with trickery and lies to prolong it’s demise. We say it’s too late in the year to prune, even thought we have no idea when is a good time to do so. We say that someone told us that it has to be done in the spring, when it could very well be done now. We hope by saying it, that she’ll forget about wanting it cut, and we can continue to sit underneath it.

I pull the brim of my hat down to my eyes and sip on my drink. I outstretch my legs to rest on the heels on the grass. Foxy, our dog, is laying down beside my lawn chair on a chain lease that pegs into the ground. Normally we’d just let her stay on the lawn without one, but with the increase of rabbits in the area, it’s not a good idea anymore. My eyes are drawn to the tree, small yellowed leaves fall when the wind picks up, and slowly hit the grass one by one. The sun is gone now and replaced by the graying clouds, the temperature has dropped. We sit there taking sips of our drink and not saying anything to one another. For no reason other than to enjoy the silence and to watch the leaves fall to the ground.

music to accompany the blog: City And Colour – Missing.

Before My Eyes.

Not sure why, but I started to write this over at my myspace.com blog and it was really really long. Long enough to be an entry here. I don't really want to post stories here anymore, but I wanted to post this one anyways. So I hope you enjoy it, and happy Thanksgiving.

Nelson calls me up after I finished eating Thanksgiving dinner with my family. He wants to hang out and go to a show with me and Pete. I say sure and tell him to come over to hang out and have some dessert that was leftover. They arrive and eat their fair share of pie with ice cream. Nelson makes some obscene comment which luckily my parents did not catch on to. I must have given him a wide eyed look.

We get in his car, a black Sunfire, and drive off in the night to the movie theatre. We get to King Street and we have to decide whether we want to go to AMC in Whitby, or the Cineplex in Clarington. One is great to sit in and expensive. The other is really cheap and bad seating and sound. We choose the cheaper option and turn right.

The drive is fairly long and the street is not lit at all by any street lights. Instead we have to rely on the lighting provided by the cars passing by us and our own headlights. We're quiet in the car, not even the radio is on, laughing about this and that. While stopped at a red light talking about girls, Nelson thrusts his pelvis in his seat shaking the whole car. Pete squirms and hides his face from the onlookers from the cars beside us.

We get to the show pretty early and buy tickets to see The Departed. So while we wait for the show time to start we play some arcade games. Pete and I played a couple games with the light guns because nobody wanted to embarrass themselves with DDR with me. After that we went in and watched the movie. It kind of sucks watching a movie with a bunch of strangers sometimes. There are always people to annoy you when you want to hear what's going on. A cell phone went off during the movie. People were laughing at events in the movie. I don't know, I guess it depends on the movie. I had a blast watching Jackass 2 with a whole audience because everyone was laughing.

We left the theatre and walked down the parking lot to Nelson's car after the movie was over. Nelson lights up a dart and looks at a car closely parked to his. "I think he hit me man, look how close he is." Nelson said.
I inspect the bumper. "Nelson, if he hit you, he wouldn't have parked here." Pete and I start laughing. Nelson takes a drag of his cigarette.

Trying to figure out what to do, we decide on going to a bar and then hanging out at Jordans house. We stop at the local bar near my place but I didn’t really want to go in. “Man, we can just have a beer at my house, this place is kind of sketch. If we go to a bar, let’s go to the Tartan or something where it’s popular.” We don’t go to a bar and then just went to Jordan’s house. We phone up Jordan on the cell to tell him to meet us by the back door. Nelson undoes Jordan’s gate and we walk to the back door. It opens and Jordan stands before us from the inside. None of us say a word and we glance back and forth at one another. For whatever reason it was kinda funny so we all laughed. Except for Nelson, who was taking drags from another cigarette. Jordan didn’t want to go to a bar either, and so Nelson just walked to his car. We all agreed to go out for coffee though.

Driving back to the direction of my house and check out the local Williams coffee pub. It has a great atmosphere for hanging out; it’s sort of dim lit, wood-like flooring and décor, and some pretty glass windows all around to see the city streets. Though this night it was closed, we missed it by a half an hour or so. Instead we had to settle for Tim Hortons, which has an atmosphere of get in and get out.

We walked in and Jordan was the first to order and sit down. Before I order I look over at Jordan sitting by himself at the table. He smirks back with his jackass look like always and we both start laughing. Pete is confused as to what is going on. A couple of girls are sitting adjacent to us with large textbooks spread open and pads of notepaper at pen’s reach. I get my coffee and donut and sit down. Pete and Nelson join too.

Our conversations were normal as always, saying jokes to one another, and reminiscing about the old times. It’s moments like this that you can appreciate about life, and not remembering a thing you said to one another. We left for outside because Nelson wanted to light up another dart. Outside we stood on the sidewalk and shuffled our feet. Jordan and I got a good laugh talking about a trip to an old furniture auction house we did with his dad, and at the same time we both pictured the same scenery of the forestry that lined the road.

When we got back into Nelson’s car I opted out and wanted to get dropped off at home. I said goodbyes and went up to my room to chat online for a bit longer. For whatever reason I still was feeling a little sick so I went downstairs to get a Tylenol cold pill before going to sleep.

Laying in my bed I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of my computer still running beside me. My life played before me as I lay there. Starting from when I was a little boy to about grade 9. It was stream of conscious, in the sense that I wasn’t trying to remember anything. It was comforting in a way to remember all those events in my life, yet there was so much that I didn’t remember at the same time. Thinking back on it now, flashes of my childhood; things I wouldn’t normally remember appear my head. It is definitely a weird feeling to remember such things after all the time that has past since then.

I shrugged it off and feel asleep though.