Earlier, they got soaked near the basketball courts inside William Osler Elementary School, where they listened to Reg Hanna who wasn’t part of this group of friends because he wasn’t a smoker or a toker or a drinker but he claimed last night the red corner house on Campbell was broken into and that was why there were two unmarked police cars over there. It was true, cops in uniforms were sitting in two cars with no visible police markings. Kids in the city don’t have the same antennae as do country folk and the gathering black clouds was lost on them too busy listening to stories about police and thieves which coincidentally was something they were also listening to on turntables, both versions, Junior Murvin and the Clash. City kids don’t notice the weather as do kids from the country.

When it started to pour they got soaked and ran to Rick McKnight’s house nearby on Cordova. His parents weren’t home which made for a space favoured by teenagers. Rick’s left eye half closed when he smiled which had the affect of generating trust or put another way, it made one feel like he was loyal, an aw-shucks smile. Jeanie Burgess was his girlfriend and she chain smoked Player’s Light. Large smoke rings went from her mouth to the ceiling while smiling enigmatically as if she knew something special, unfortunately in a language nobody else spoke. They dried off from the rain. Joel and Brenda Chamish were there, Earl and Monique too. At some point there was a reason to drive to the vendor and Joel said let’s get Bobby to drive which everyone found exciting because I didn’t have a driver’s license. It wasn’t the first time people made decisions like that. I was a good driver and maybe it was extra thrilling because we were playing with fire.

I could never do the things I did as a teen as an adult. I can’t lie to women and I don’t like believing a dare from some random bullshitter means something worth trying to counter and I don’t have hours ready to dedicate to drugs made of three letters. I know now odds are real. Maybe the van was owned by Mike Shnier but more vivid memories are no seat-belts and wild music blasting from the speaker over Joel’s head. This was the first time I heard Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow. It was on repeat forever afterward. We went to his concert at the convention centre which was horrible, standing room only and I’m short, my view totally blocked but then Jeff got out his voice box, the magical thing that morphed his speech into music and started to sing/ speak “sit down” over and over like a mantra and people got cross legged on the floor. Those compositions carried me away, I didn’t understand the earlier parallel universes of the same thing that left audiences awestruck, whether A Love Supreme, The Rite Of Spring or Symphony No. 5. Proof that ideas, whether political or musical are like molds spreading or waves traveling across the water appearing as if it is real and made by one person when in fact there’s a way to view it as though all minds are connected which might even be what was going on for Jeannie when she smiled.