For Joshua (9 page)

I would tell them I’d been partying somewhere or passed out from too much dope, sex, and rock and roll. Sometimes I would visit members of the congregation of my parents’ church to borrow money and I’d flash those bills around and tell my pals that I’d been off pulling a job. I told them anything that would fit the lifestyle because I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t tell them that passages of prose, or the quality of light captured in a photograph or painting, or the languid ache in a passage of symphonic music could set off lights in my belly and fill the emptiness there with a warmth I’d never known before. I couldn’t tell them that there were ideas in the writings of great men and women that led me to a deeper world. I couldn’t tell them how alive the essence of knowledge made me feel because it wasn’t what being a rebel was all about.

I learned to keep my joys as private as my pain.

As I look back on that period of my life I see I was sad. I was sad because I didn’t know that there was so much more that I could experience beyond the books. I thought I was stuck in Montebello Park. I believed that I deserved none of the things I was finding on the library shelves. I didn’t know that the qualities of curiosity and examination were huge
parts of the person I really was. I couldn’t accept that because I couldn’t accept myself. I needed other people’s acceptance first and so I kept my refuge in the stacks a secret from everybody so that it wouldn’t endanger the first outright acceptance I had ever found.

The second thing I found was alcohol.

I found drugs, too, but alcohol was what I wanted once I’d had it. Alcohol took everything away. When I had a few drinks I felt none of the burden I’d carried so long. I would be magically transformed into someone who was handsome, strong, intelligent, cool, hip, desirable, lovable, and worthy. In an instant I no longer felt about myself the way I had felt all my life and my secret was pushed way down where I couldn’t feel its presence or hear the all-too-familiar words in my head. Alcohol was my magic potion. I fell head over heels, puppy-dog-eyed in love with it.

But I had created a trap. The alcohol gave me the courage to do things I wouldn’t normally do—things I felt I had to do to ensure that my street buddies would continue to accept me. Things like car theft, cheque fraud, and breaking and entering. I drank to get brave enough to break the law. I was addicted to the esteem of others and I was addicted to the alcohol it took to do the things that earned me the esteem. I absolutely needed both.

Drinking became my life. When there was no money I would do a “run” or a pickup for the old winos and they would pay me with a bottle for myself. We’d sit in the bushes below an expressway where the police couldn’t see us, and we’d drink and tell each other lies about our exploits until we began to pass out. Then we’d come to and do it all over again. I learned to trust the winos and they learned to trust me because I never ever “went south” with their money. Going south meant disappearing, not coming back with a bottle. Because I played by these simple rules I was welcomed into this community of despair.

Life as a wino is relentless. It’s a constant to-and-fro, from liquor store to riverbank, conscious to unconscious, drunk to hung over, inebriated to sick, until it’s all one endless ordeal of cheap sherry and rotgut wine. I liked them because I knew they were always going to be where I expected to find them and there was always going to be a drink waiting for me.

The winos taught me the secrets of living outdoors in a city. I learned about the haven of warm air grates in the cold, about the back doors of certain churches where a sandwich could be had, about dressing in layers so you didn’t need a “tote,” and how to panhandle with dignity and a certain drunken grace.

I went back and forth from the hobo jungles and crash pads to the pool halls and bars where my street brothers were. In those days, everyone had one thing they were known for. Bart was a “speed freak”—a methamphetamine user. Paradise Joe was a “head,” or an LSD fiend. Chips was a “banger”—someone who did anything he could get his hands on as long as it could be shot with a needle. Everyone was known by their drug of choice and accepted, sometimes even renowned for it, based on their consumption and ability to “maintain” or stay in control. I was a drunk. For my birthday I was given a T-shirt with big white letters stencilled across the front that read, “Rick’s a drunk.” I wore that T-shirt proudly because for once I felt recognized, esteemed, and valued. I was a member of a club, and I saw nothing shameful in the proclamation emblazoned across my chest.

But drinking makes you careless and sloppy and it wasn’t long before my attempts at crime landed me in jail. The things I did to get myself locked up were never outrageous or dangerous and the terms I served were never more than a few months. I found that gaining acceptance in lock-up was as easy as it had been on the street. The old-timers told me to “eat mutton, say nuttin.” I was already good at both, so it was easy advice to follow. Being in jail never scared me. I got healthy, put on some weight, even saved a
little money. When I got out I went back to the old routine—with the same result.

That’s because I had no home to return to once I’d been let out. All I had was the street. I had never met anyone of substance, anyone with a predictable routine or schedule. We called such people “Square Johns,” and for a street guy to be seen with a Square John was unforgivable. So I had no one to help me, no one to care about me, no one to reach out to. All I knew was the street. Concrete becomes a part of you when you get as familiar with it as I did. You become concrete. You become cold and hard. Sleeping on it ceases to be uncomfortable because you fit there. As I thought about it that night on the hill, surrounded by the whole country, I remembered how it used to feel on those nights when I would wander aimlessly, sucking on a bottle, looking for a place to rest for a bit without a hassle before moving on.

I’d look into the windows of the houses I passed. The lights seemed so warm, so inviting, so filled with life, and I imagined myself as a Square John, walking down one of those streets in the evening after a hard day’s work. I would be tired, hungry. My steps would get faster the closer I got, until the moment I turned up the sidewalk of my home, when I’d slow right down. I’d slow down and look at those same windows and know in my soul that there was someone
inside waiting for the sound of my footsteps. Someone who would breathe a little easier knowing I was home and safe. Someone who would rush to hug me, to welcome me, to want me near. Someone whose whole being said “love.”

I craved that then, that life of which mine was the shadow. You smell when you’ve been drinking steadily and you can’t shower regularly. Your odour makes romance impossible, except for drunken tumblings in the bushes with a woman as lonely as you are, and your lack of a telephone or address makes it hard to get a job. So the evening homecomings I imagined were light years from being possible. Still I craved them. I just didn’t know how to start trying to get there.

So I’d walk through neighbourhood after neighbourhood with sadness in my chest—a heavy, thick, unmoving sadness. I’d walk until I couldn’t take another step and then I would curl up in a back yard, a garage, a shed, or just beneath a tree and sleep dreamlessly and heavily. Street people don’t walk with their heads down because they’re ashamed or afraid. They do so because they don’t want to look at what haunts them the most: the sight of contentment, happiness, sheltered lives, and warmth beyond the lighted windows. I walked with my head down a lot.

For six years I went back and forth from street to jail. Nowadays I know it was because I went back and forth to
alcohol. Those six years were misery. Sober, in jail, I was in conflict with myself. I felt a great hunger within me for the opposite of what I was living. I wanted a sidewalk to walk up, a door to open, and a loved one to greet me. I wanted love, security, and peace. I wanted the magic of a good book in an armchair. But the choices I was making only ever resulted in fear, insecurity, and conflict. I didn’t know how to make the things I hungered for become real in the outside world. I didn’t know that my conflict was born from my spirit crying for what it needed and my mind shouting for what it wanted. I didn’t know that I always chose what my mind shouted for: acceptance, belonging, the esteem of others. I didn’t know that there was a way, a healing way, to bring those two parts of myself into balance. I didn’t know that finding myself was an inside job. I didn’t know because the choices I made always put me in a place where there was no one to teach me and make me understand.

I’d met other Native people, but only on the street, in bars, or in jail. For the most part, they were exactly like me—lost, ashamed, afraid, hurt, angry, and trying as hard as they knew how to deny it. For the most part, they were doing the same things I was doing. When they talked to me it was about the dirty deal the white man had given us. It was about anger, hatred, resentment, revenge, militancy, and getting
back what was due. It was about being a warrior. It was about fighting and it was about only being around other Indians. Sadly, too, it was about drinking and being falsely proud. After that kind of introduction to who I was, I learned to react angrily over name-calling, putdowns, snubs, and other actions people sometimes take against those they don’t understand. I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I added these reactions to my routine on the street and although my anger and hardness put distance between myself and others, it did nothing to bring me closer to the things I craved. It also added to my confusion.

Now I had two roles to play—the rebel and the Indian—neither of which I knew how to carry off. So I faked my way through everything—even friendship.

I had a friend back then. His name was Joe Delaney and he was a retired master sergeant from the Canadian Forces. He was a fighter, Old Joe, a tough, grizzled veteran of Korea, and he loved to tell stories of his escapades. In his youth he was a brawler, a “standup guy,” a dependable friend, and an awesome enemy. His fists were as fast as his wits and he swaggered his way right into the army and upwards to sergeant’s stripes. I met him through his son, who was one of the Montebello Park gang, and Old Joe took to me right away. When I’d show up at his door he’d
smile and bellow, “Hey, it’s the big Indian!” He liked doing that and he liked me.

For a while I went to live with Old Joe in his apartment on Cherry Street. I learned his story then and it affected my whole life. Sergeant Joe was a “slap-in-the-yap” disciplinarian who wanted his men to be as tough as he was. He was proud of his battles and as we sat in his living room many nights drinking the vodka and beer with which he surrounded himself, he regaled me with colourful stories of an army life where men were brawny, brainy, and free. The picture he painted of himself was that of an independent spirit, a fighter who would never back down from a challenge, and an unparalleled drinker.

But when the nights got long and the booze soaked through his grit and resolve, I learned the true story of Old Joe Delaney, Master Sergeant. He had been a tough young man, just as he said. He had been hard. But a girl changed all that. She came into his life and cast her gaze upon him and the Master Sergeant felt something soft and warm move inside his chest.

He fell in love. She showed him places in himself that he never knew existed, and he loved her even more for that. She took his hand and tamed him. They were married and Joe took a job as a mechanic and left the battlefields behind.
When the time was right, he retired from the army and they moved to St. Catharines, where a son was born and Joe the soldier became a husband and a father. He loved that life, and the memories shone in his face when he spoke of it, even though the booze clouded his countenance.

“I’da stayed there forever,” he said. “No one ever had a better go of it than me and I prayed to whatever God there is to keep me with her always.”

But a drunk driver changed all that. His wife was walking home with a bag of groceries when the drunk careened around the corner and straight into her. She was in a coma for a year. Joe went every day to be with her and he never gave up hope that his lovely bride would one day wake and return to him. And one day she did awaken. But her brain was damaged and she couldn’t remember anything beyond the moment she was in. She recalled nothing of her life, of the son she had brought into the world, or the tough soldier she had tamed and loved. She couldn’t speak. Joe kept on visiting her every day but eventually the blank stare from the face of the woman he loved so deeply but couldn’t reach got to be too much for him.

He stopped visiting and took up drinking. Before long the arthritis born of wet mud and long marches crippled him and he was forced to leave his job. That was when I met
him. It seemed like his whole life was the sofa in his living room. We’d sit there, his son and I, and he’d tell us wild stories of rebellion and bravado, shaking his fist in the air and gritting his teeth at remembered enemies, swearing, cursing, sweating, until he led himself to the memories of her and he’d cry inconsolably. Then the booze would freeze him up again and he’d pass out to the only place where memory didn’t exist, where hurt couldn’t enter and where old soldiers could still be brawny, brainy, and free. Oblivion, sweet and dark.

And then we stole his money.

Because we were rebels, too. We didn’t care. For me, Old Joe represented free booze and handouts. I’d sit and drink his booze and listen to his tales because there was always something in it for me. He’d send me on a run for vodka and leave me the change. Every Friday the beer truck pulled up outside his door on Cherry Street and left his refrigerator full. He had his army pension and his unemployment cheques and he was careless. I always had money to try and impress the girls and whenever I needed more I’d knock on the old soldier’s door. He’d always greet me with a smile and a bellow, usher me into my seat, slap a glass in my hand, and listen to whatever tale I had to tell until it was time to launch into his own.

I watched Old Joe die. He died bit by bit right in front of me. He drank and he drank and he drank until his liver couldn’t handle it anymore. I watched him do that, watched him dissolve, shrink, and disappear. I emptied the bottles that he pissed in, changed his pants when he soiled himself, mopped the floor, cleaned the sofa and fed him when he was well enough to handle food. I took care of him as best I could, listened to him rant, covered him with a blanket after he’d passed out. And then I stole his money.