

### PUNKER THAN YOU

A NOVEL

by Dave McIntyre

Published by Dave McIntyre at Smashwords

• • • •

#### Copyright ©2009, 2010 by Dave McIntyre

ISBN no. 978-0-9865265-1-0

also available in softcover edition: ISBN no. 978-0-9865265-0-3

All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction of the contents of this novel in any form - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons either living, dead or unsure, is coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### for more information please contact:

### punkerthanyou@sympatico.ca

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Dedicated to my mother, who has always wondered

why I never wrote any "happy" songs

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Part One:

### DEAD ON ARRIVAL

(first attempt, July 1995)

"Life is a joke / And the joke is on us."

The Nothings ('Morbid and Old')

• • • •

'Days of Spikes and Liberty'

(sidebar article accompanying 'Groove Inc. Rocks the Boat')

from Sonic Sauce, December 1994 issue, Volume 3, Issue 11

by Darcy Vandenheuvel

Fans of **Groove Incorporated** 's new vocalist/rapper Matt Molotov might be surprised to learn about Matt's history as a teenage punk rocker. Or maybe not. These days almost every major musician in North America claims to have played in a punk band in their youth. But Molotov insists it was different for him.

"Morganfield was a total backwater," says Molotov, referring to the north-Scarborough neighbourhood where he attended secondary school. "They had never even seen a skateboard until I showed up!"

Under the nom de plume Spike Liberty, Molotov fronted the hardcore outfit **Murderburger** , self-releasing their own CD and touring Ontario, including playing an opening slot for Kitchener hardcore legends **The Punkaholics**. "Jake (the Punkaholics lead singer) said that they should have been opening for us," Molotov exclaims. "That just blew my mind!"

Molotov also single-handedly built the Morganfield Hardcore scene from scratch, putting together local shows and even assembling bands using his friends, ranging from the old-school New York punk of **The Nothings** to the Chili Pepper funk of **The Milk Studs**.

"We could blow the T.O. bands off the stage any night of the week," Molotov insists. "There was just so much potential. They should have put out their own albums, they should have toured. But kids can be pretty lazy, you know?"

Tired of dealing with his go-nowhere bandmates, Molotov quit punk rock altogether after Murderburger fell apart in 1992 and made the transition to techno in Toronto's burgeoning dance scene. With his contributions to Groove Inc.'s second album, Molotov has proven that he is not just another one of Canada's standing army of never-were punk rock wankers.

"There's nothing wrong in saying that punk is dead," he continues. "Look around, it's just the facts. And I'm happy to say I did more to kill it than anyone else!"

### 1.

July 9, 1995

to: Sonic Sauce

c/o Triumph Media Publishing Inc.

57 Spadina Avenue, Suite 2—

Toronto, Ontario

M5V 3V5

att'n: Mr. Darcy Vandenheuvel, Contributing Editor

Dear Fuckhead,

As I usually have better sense than to pay attention to your shitty magazine, I only recently became aware of an article which appeared in your December 1994 issue concerning a certain band featuring an ex-bandmate of mine ("Groove Inc. Rocks the Boat," Volume 3, Issue 11). While I admire your ability to kiss the ass of Mr. Molotov and his digit-headed cronies and heap praise on a sophomore CD release which even to a non-fan of dance music sounds forced and starved of inspiration, I was particularly amused by Matt's willingness to discuss his "crazy punker daze of yore" and his associations with the punk rock scene in Morganfield - amused, because in all of the other articles that I have seen on Groove Incorporated, Matt is rather less than interested in discussing his past follies and escapades. The sidebar article with its precious paragraphs devoted to the Morganfield scene is the most coverage I've ever come across from anyone of that time and place - not even Chart or Exclaim! have ever bothered to mention Morganfield circa 1988-1991. And then you go and issue a very downtown-Torontonian dismissal of the Morgie scene, in particular Matt's "go-nowhere bandmates," of which I - Paul Cartwright, a.k.a. Poker Cartwright: guitarist, co-songwriter and all-round patsy - am one.

Yes, Darcy, another letter from a disgruntled former musician. Lucky little you.

How many of these letters do you receive on a monthly basis, I wonder? How many on a daily basis? How many big fish in the small pond that is the Canadian music industry (an oxymoron if there ever was one) have you goaded into sniveling shitfits of misinformation and lies about musicians who never made the cut? Drummers who were dropped before the first album, singers who had to be shuffled off to rehab on the eve of the start of a major European tour, record companies which exist mainly as tax write-offs for shareholders who own every album Phil Collins ever recorded and who think that the Tragically Hip is a heavy metal band? Indeed, how much do you actually have to prod these acts before they start dumping on the little people who may at one time have shared a stage with them or helped to write their early hits? Not much prodding is needed, I'd imagine, if my limited experience with the assholes who control the music biz and its top-selling acts is anything to go by. Oh, by the by, Mr. Vandenhoofer, did I mention I was a little miffed by your article?

I found a used copy of the magazine issue in question in the "free" bin at the local bookstore and came upon the article by chance. The photo caption on the bottom left of the page read: "Groove Inc.'s Matt Molotov says 'Disco Rocks!'" - I was immediately repulsed and yet fascinated, drawn beyond my will like metal filings to a magnet. I read the article in question, and since then the rest of my weekend has been a total and utter write-off. I have done nothing but fume and drink and otherwise make everyone within hearing and smelling range downright miserable. Not that I blame you entirely for this predicament - I did pick up the thing by accident after all. (By the way, it's not out of complete disinterest in your publication that I have not been following recent issues of Da Sauce. Besides, I can see by your prominent placement on the shelves at Chapters that you are doing just fine without my patronage. The fact that your publication has not yet been induced to have free sample issues inserted and bundled with The Globe and Mail or any of the other Toronto newspapers is a sure sign of your continuing success and robust fiscal condition - nothing says success in Canadian publishing quite like being able to charge the full cover price each and every month.)

So now I've vented a little, and I still don't feel all that much better. Heck, I'm between jobs as I write this, with nothing but my upcoming birthday present from my long-suffering parents to look forward to, reward-wise, so it's not as if I have some higher agenda keeping me from schooling you until my printer runs out of paper. Shit, I could be over at one of my friends' pads drinking and watching "The Simpsons" and otherwise just not giving a fuck about anything, but wouldn't you know it, that damn interview of yours just won't leave me alone. I have a phone number, I'm listed in the goddamn phone book. Did it ever occur to you to call around and consult your sources? Get some background info, maybe dig up some interesting facts on Molotov et al? Get your hands dirty and commit random acts of journalism, perhaps?

For instance, did you know that he was the first kid in Morganfield to get a mohawk? Did you know he used to wear a blue suit on stage and call himself "Spike Mulroney" without an iota of irony? Did you know he was the only male cheerleader that Morganfield North Secondary School ever had (you've seen him twirl that microphone on stage, I'm sure; where do you think he learned those skillz to pay the billz?) Did you know that his family owns the largest Canadian-owned chain of theme restaurants? Did you know that everyone in Buffalo NY thinks that he is a hermaphrodite? Buddy, I am a treasure trove of trivia on Matt Molotov and his early musical career! You could have asked me all of the questions that Matt no doubt refused to answer (just like he refuses to answer any of my letters or e-mails I've sent him in the last three years, but that's a whole other ball of confusion). Instead you go and dust me off as, and I quote, "one of Canada's standing army of never-were punk rock wankers." Lo, sir, thou hath wounded me gravely with thine mordant drollery. Eat shit.

It's past ten p.m. and I'm still writing. I'm missing some quality tee-vee because of you, Darcy, thanks a whole bunch. I oughta just sit here in front of the computer and keep on writing, insulting you over and over until you cry, you dim hack. In fact, now might be a good opportunity for me to clear the air a little and open your tiny little rock and roll mind. Me and my fellow soldiers in this standing army of never-weres are the folks who put food on your table and funny little pills on your tongue, and we deserve a bit of respect from you media whores. Our stories drive the music far more than your magazines and cute little programmes on CityTV, and the Morganfield scene is just one of those stories. In fact, Matt Molotov is just one character in that particular novel, and he's about an unreliable a narrator as they come.

Maybe I oughta thank you after all, Dorky Van Damme. You've given me a reason to get up tomorrow morning. I'm gonna sleep on it and write this out properly tomorrow. Frankly, you should be paying residuals for my help with the research you don't seem to want to bother with, but we'll negotiate that later. For now, let's see if this letter can turn out something useful and put your precious degree in Communications to some good use.

• • • •

### 2.

Before I dissect your dismissive missive on the Morganfield scene and the community from which it sprung, Monsieur Vandenheuvel, allow me a few minutes of your precious time to expound upon the subject of my fair hometown, and why someone like me gets so cross when someone like you brushes it off as just "a north-Scarborough neighbourhood."

Look at a map of Metro Toronto. Let your eye drift upwards and to the right, to the northern part of Scarborough above the CP rail line and the Toronto Zoo. Look for a slim "V" where Queen Street and King Street separate just above Comfort Road, with eight bisecting avenues including Margaret, Agnes, Elizabeth, Wilhelmina, Constance, Eudora, Prudence, and Anne. That there's the core of Morganfield, Ontario, founded in 1881 by one Sir Hubert Allen Morganfield: CP Railway Executive, Liberal Party supporter, and proud bearer of a kick-ass pair of mutton-chop sideburns. The town bears his name, natch, and those eight sororal avenues are named after Sir Hubert's daughters - pardon the history lesson, Darcy, but these factoids were drummed into every little Morgie student's head from their plastic-pants days onward, and I can not help upchuck 'em during otherwise civil discourse. Kinda like how you can't help but barf out brainless fellatiographies of sub-musical dance twaddle like Groove Incorporated. Feel my pain, fellow Tourette's sufferer!

So anyway, back to the map. I want you to look at the longest of the eight avenues, Elizabeth. Follow it east of Queen and it becomes Lower Elizabeth Avenue, terminating over at Railway Street. Now follow it west of Queen. Notice how it ends at Fifth Street, with only a dashed line connecting it to Morningside Road to the west? I have yet to see a Metro Toronto map show anything but that dashed line, even though Elizabeth Avenue has connected with Morningside since World War Two. It's as if you Toron-toads wanted Morganfield to be at least psychologically amputated from your proud body politic. Hell, the cartographers would probably put a dashed line at the north and south ends of Queen Street too, if they thought they could get away with it. Even after the merger, Morganfield was always separate from the rest of the Toronto boroughs: a bumpkin nowheresville written off by you downtown types with your all-too-obvious jokes and putdowns (Q. How many Morgies does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Two. One to put it in and one to lecture you about how much better the light is in Morganfield than in the rest of Toronto!) Oh yes, we Morgies remember well, we do.

Now don't get me wrong, Van. We were proud of our splendid isolation. Long after Malvern and Agincourt were subsumed into the G.T.A., Morganfield minded its own business for over a century, and minded it well, thank you very much. We had our own town council, jobs at the Shirley Soda plant and CP's Eastern Canada head office plus the rail yards just over the town line, our own schools and hospital, even our own garbage collection. Then the Scarborough Amalgamation Act came along, a deal squared away between your city council and our slime-ball town mayor, and it all went down the crapper. November 5th, 1985: Morganfielders recall this date much as others recall the JFK assassination or the space shuttle disaster. That old-time camaraderie between Morgie and non-Morgie still exists, of course (Q. What's the difference between the Toronto Zoo and Morganfield? A1. Residents of the Toronto Zoo smell better! A2. The females in the zoo are better-looking and their antlers are smaller!), but now we can not even boast about having a border to protect us. We see the subdivisions sprouting up like bland geometric fungus down from Steeles to the west and up from Old Finch Avenue from the south - that bleak brick tide is washing ever closer to our bucolic shores, and we know that it is only a matter of time before we're just another blunt suburb where nothing but conformity is bred. Sooner or later, you're gonna drag us down to your level. Happy?

I get worked up over things like this, Darcy. I get angry about it now just like how the adults back then were angry over amalgamation, what with their wounded civic pride, not to mention the substantial hike in their tax bills. At the time it all happened, however, I was barely into Grade Nine at Morganfield North Secondary School (there is no Morganfield South school, in case you're wondering - locals have been debating the reasons for this for generations), and I only had a vague idea of what was going on. Our Vice-Principal, Mrs. Wyatt, a.k.a. "Quiet Wyatt," was livid over the students' disinterest when she tried to have us discuss the changeover and what it meant to us as young Morganfield citizens. "This is your hometown!" she said. "This is about who you are!" But y'know, the houses and trees and streets still looked the same from our bedroom windows. Few of us could understand why Quiet Wyatt was so upset. Frankly, becoming part of a big city seemed like a swell idea. The older kids, at least the ones with a flicker of energy sparking in their eye-holes, all talked longingly about leaving Morganfield as soon as they were able. Now the big city was coming to us. That sounded like progress.

One of the rites of passage for kids in Morganfield was the pilgrimage to the roof of the north-end apartment complex up on Lower Anne called Brooklin Arms. The Brooklin Arms was better known as "Broken Arms," and it was as close to an actual slum as our innocent burg ever managed: welfare bums, single mothers, the occasional visit from one of the four Morganfield Police cruisers on any given weekend. Squint your eyes right and it just might pass for the real Brooklyn on a slow night. Anyway, the trip to the roof involved a quick sneak past the first floor apartment of the fat bastard superintendent, a soft-shoed trot up four flights of stairs (the elevator was rarely in working order), and then a shimmy up the metal ladder to pop the trap door open, and there you were: the highest point in all of Morganfield, top of the freakin' world. I was eleven when I first went up on some December afternoon with Steve Coleman and Kevin Mulcahey and a two-litre bottle of Shirley Cola. We spent an hour playing poker for spare change, our shoulders hunched against the cold wind until we couldn't stand it anymore, and we then marked down our names and left. I made four or five return trips after that, the novelty vanishing quickly, but every time I was up there my eyes would veer to the south-west where out on the horizon I could barely make out the thin distant prick of the CN Tower, a vision that seemed alien and yet still weirdly comforting. It was as if that tower was a compass point directing me away from a flannel-coated adolescence toward a bright and modern future.

If I am sounding a bit nostalgic here, that's because nowadays, well, I suppose I am. To paraphrase a certain horse-faced folk singer from way back when: Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got 'till it's gone? That about sums up my feelings about my long lost El Dorado out beyond the River Rouge.

Nowadays I can afford to be all reflective and crotchety. Back then, however, I was just another pissed-off teenager with a skin so thin you could see my pulse throb from the other side of the wrist. Little things set me off, not that I could explain exactly why. Like the one time I was playing road hockey with a group of kids near my house on Third Street: it was around September, and I remember the day being weirdly warm despite the overcast sky, like some leftover summer heat remained trapped under the clouds, waiting to be burned off. I had my hockey stick and my Canadiens ball cap for armour. Every shot I managed to get past the defense had been blocked; even my own teammates were ragging on me. We had already moved the nets to the curb twice to let cars pass; all I wanted was just to get one lousy shot past the goalie.

"Come on, Paulie!" big Steve Coleman shouted from the goalie net behind me. "Put 'er through the pipes!"

"Look alive, Paul," Kevin Mulcahey called out. "You're not a cripple out there!"

Suddenly one of the opposing players pointed down the street - he looked like he was about to shout "Car!" but instead he made an incredulous face and just shook his head. We turned around and saw not a car, but a tractor rolling slowly up the street towards us. Now it was not unusual to see a tractor on Queen Street once in a while, particularly during harvest season or when the farmer's market was on. But Third Street? Was this guy lost, or was he going out of his way to disrupt whatever traffic he could find? And our stupid pick-up game in particular?

We moved the nets once more to the curb, and leaned on our sticks and waited. The tractor was an old Massey Fergusson with an open cabin, pulling a flatbed trailer half-filled with baled hay. The driver was a pudgy farmer with a CAT ball cap pushed high up on his forehead, one utility-gloved hand on the wheel and the other draped languidly over one of the stick-shifts. A stereo player was rope-tied to the back of the driver's chair, playing a Kenny Rogers cassette to distorted maximum volume. The farmer's broad face was stretched out into an arrogant ear-to-ear smile that was amplified by the ruddy beard that ran in a semi-circle under his chin like a reversed halo.

He nodded at us as he passed, faux-friendliness seeping from his face while Kenny lectured us townie kids on the importance of knowin' when to hold 'em, and knowin' when to fold 'em. My eyes glazed over, and I found myself overcome with an inexplicable fury. The trailer started picking up speed as it rolled onward, and I found myself rushing back to the sidewalk where I had left my half-finished can of Pepsi. I threw the drink as hard as I could, dark drops flying in the can's wake until it clunked against the back of the flatbed. The farmer drove on, oblivious to my attack.

I stood there in the middle of the street, breathing heavily, my limbs trembling with rage. Some of the kids approved of my throwing of the Pepsi - Jamie Playfair joked that it was the closest I had come to a goal all day. But the others were downright Protestant in their condemnation. "What did you that for?" Kevin Mulcahey kept asking me, glowering and squaring his shoulders as if he was about the beat the answer out of me. But I had no answer, at least none I could articulate. Sure I was mad at the game being interrupted, but there was something more that had touched off a primitive instinct in my simian teenage brain. Something in that farmer's air of smugness, his insufferable sense of ownership over that street. I just wanted to scream out at the top of my lungs at that guy, for no good or worthwhile reason: I AM AGAINST YOU!!!

I had to step away from the computer for a few minutes there, Darcy old chap. That was my mother on the phone, asking how her little boy was doing in his cozy one-room basement dungeon whose monthly rent he can now only barely afford. Yes Darcy, I finally did make it to T.O., or at least as far as Queen East and Broadview (wrong side of the Don River to really qualify as Toronto, isn't it? Though I did make it to the "real" Queen Street as opposed to the piddly equivalent in Morganfield so, y'know, shoot for the sky and at least you'll be among the stars, blah blah blah.) I am also unemployed as of last Thursday, which should partly explain where I am getting the free time to bellow insults at you page after page. Poker Cartwright: the newest member of this country's vast welfare nation. The Pogey Express. Team Canada. I was a mere two weeks short of qualifying for U.I. when I was rounded up by my slope-browed supervisor who then pounded his caveman club on his desk going "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" and gave me my walking papers on account of a lack of boxes to stack and orders to fill. He then waddled over to his tire swing and bade me farewell and fuggoff in his own sweet manner, and I shuffled away forthwith. Ever had a job where getting fired is the best thing that ever happened to you? This wasn't my first, I'm afraid. But I digress.

So to the matter of the phone call. My sainted mudder was asking me what I wanted for my upcoming birthday. ("So I hear it's your birthday / Who gives a shit?" Name that Klassik Canuck punk tune for a hundred dollars Monsieur Vanny-van!)

"What do I want?" I told her. "A bus pass and some money!"

"That's not really a proper present, is it?" she replied. A stickler for empty traditions, the ol' girl. Of course, I suppose my old bedroom might serve as a proper consolation prize, should the main gift not be redeemable for valuable grocery funds. Oh yes, and student loans. Did I mention that I dropped out after first year Business Administration at York back in '91? I'm just the complete package, Vanny Boy!

Ah, but don't shed a tear for Ol' Poker, Darcy. I have enough dirty coins and barter-worthy records in my collection to keep me in (one-room-in-a) house and home for a few months. That goddamn Sonic Sauce article might seem like a trifling distraction in light of my current troubles, were it not for the magnitude of your offenses to both historical accuracy and propriety. I could have wiped my butt with a piece of foolscap and come away with a more thoughtful article than what you came up with. And my punctuation would have been exquisite. But again, I digress.

Anyway, about Morganfield: for whatever it merits, it was indeed a dull place for a non-farming teenager to grow up. With a stroke of a pen we were no longer a town but a part of a city, with no way of connecting to that city - no GO station, and for a long time not even a bus connection for those of us lacking a driver's license. Boredom was a demon we fought daily. After the summer jobs were done, after the road hockey games were rounded up when the sky grew dark, after the last roll of quarters had been doled out at Vector Video Arcade and the last level of Dragon's Lair had been mastered, some of us turned to our one portal on the greater world, a teenage cargo cult looking for that magic ceremony that would make us one with the city, and one with the future.

I am, of course, talking about television. (All that build-up for nothing, eh Darcy boy?) See, MuchMusic was added to the cable roster just around the time that kids of my generation were entering our teenage years. Many a Morgie teen routinely squandered their otherwise productive afternoons sprawled out on the couch watching video after video of shiny-shirted freaks belting out synth-heavy anthems while big-haired vixens in denim shorts strutted provocatively in the background. I remember sitting on the couch with my guitar and my sheet of chords copied from an old how-to songbook from the school library, riffing and plunking along with Billy Squier or Haywire or whatever was on the tube.

And then one day MuchMusic played a video by a band of non-shiny-shirted misfits, with not a synth or vixen to be had, and more than a few Morganfielder lives changed completely.

The song was 'Have Not Been The Same,' and the creators of this song was a collective with the unlikely moniker of Slow. This was not the first video that warped our teenie minds, nor would it be the last, but it was nonetheless the Christ-birth from which I measure my time on this flat planet. What you had was a gaggle of geeks in flannel shirts and thrift store suits bashing holy hell out of their instruments, the whole event caught in grainy film footage like a seventies slasher flick. There wasn't a rock star among the bunch: the drummer was a blonde Barney Rubble bashing the skins, and the lead guitarist looked like a debating club reject, and the bassist was a music class nerd if I ever saw one (he played his bass with his fingers, fer cryin' out loud!). Only the second guitarist looked like an actual rocker, what with his spiked hair and leather jacket, but even then he was lackadaisically strumming the strings as if he was doing the other guys a favour by showing up.

Still, the most perplexing part of the whole shebang was the lead singer: a skinny twerp with hair in his eyes holding the microphone limply between his fingers, singing a vocal that was one long animal roar: "I've been drinkin', but drinkin' doesn't make me f-f-f-f-f-FEEL alright!" Jesus, he looked like he wasn't even old enough to drink! He must have been all of ninety pounds, a skinny mop-haired shrimp who looked about as unthreatening and harmless as \- well, any of us in Grade Nine.

I spent the better part of an Algebra Intro lab raving and arguing with Steve Coleman about whether these Slow guys were a bunch of students who had been rounded up to perform on camera pretending they were the band - how could such a bunch of dorks could have created such fierce-sounding music? Kevin Mulcahey, on the other hand, thought the song was a "bellowing piece of crap" and told us both that we were idiots. He was genuinely offended by the same video that Steve and I found so amazing. Lines were drawn and words were said, and by Grade Ten the kid I had hung out with since kindergarten, Kevin Mulcahey, would barely acknowledge my tragically uncool presence in the school hallway. Funny, isn't it, how some can hear the universe unfold in a two-chord change, while others can just listen to the radio while they're doing homework and not reflect upon it once.

The MuchMusic vee-jay who introduced the Slow video had insinuated that what we were listening to was "punk." This confused the hell out of me. How could this be punk rock? Nobody in the band was British. And no mohawks! How could they be a punk band if they didn't have mohawks? And yet my guitar teacher, who for six months had put up with my requests to learn everything from the idiotically simple three-string run in U2's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' to the impossible intro to Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway To Heaven,' simply folded his arms when I brought in a tape recording of 'Have Not Been The Same' that I had cleverly procured by holding a tape recorder up to the television speaker and playing back the VCR dub. "I draw the line at that punk rock garbage," he told me flatly. I ended up figuring out the song on my own.

I was confused by the video, but I was still excited. A lot of us were. Peter Hammond saw it while raiding his dad's Molson Export in the rec room; Steve Coleman saw it while channel-surfing with the flu; Andy Lefebvre saw it while his parents were having one of their epic screaming matches in the kitchen; Wanda Seeley saw it while babysitting her little sister. We all found out that we had witnessed the same video over the next week. This was a band of kids not much older than we were, from Vancouver no less (who ever heard of a band coming from Vancouver? Not us rubes, that was for damn sure!) And though we disagreed on the value and the images and the lyrics, we all agreed on one thing: that big noise they made sure sounded like FUN!

The next year and a half was marked by such minor epiphanies, very occasional bright flashes in our consciences between the dull stretches of school work, awkward dates with girls, tryouts for the high school football team (the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies), chores assigned by our parents, and general daydreaming over everything and nothing in particular. There would be more practicing of instruments, occasional cacophonic jam sessions in basements and garages, and more revelations distilled via MuchMusic including videos from the Dayglo Abortions and D.O.A. (more bands from British Columbia! What the hell?!) Eventually someone got a hold of the debut album from a band from Kitchener called The Punkaholics, and the effect in our tiny crew of rock kids would be like a brain bomb that would warp our perceptions...

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I've got plenty of time to explain the wheres and whys of Morganfield Hardcore. I forgot I was haranguing you over your dumb sidebar article, Darcy! My how the mind wanders when blinded with rage, eh?

Okay, there is no question that Matt put together most of our shows and inspired us generally. But he sure as hell did not put together the bands. And the fact that no one ever released a CD besides his own benighted band was his idea! He even wrote it into a GODDAMN MANIFESTO which I am madly looking for as I write this. Yes, Darcy, a manifesto. He was Morganfield's very own Karl Marx. Or at least its Josef Stalin.

For better or for worse, Matt "Molotov" Miller was the leader of the Morganfield Hardcore scene, as well as its prime catalyst. He took more risks and generated more ideas than anyone I've ever met. Which makes seeing him on "Electric Circus" as I did two weeks all the more painful, if not wretchedly amusing. There was our former Fearless Leader along with the rest of Groove Incorporated rapping to a room of nylon track suits and facial glitter, twirling his microphone like some cheerleader of the Digital Apocalypse and grinning for dear life. What can I tell you? Think of Pierre Trudeau peddling Jordache Jeans, or Winston Churchill singing a medley from Cats. Matt Miller is like an Eaton's toy shelf on December 26th: All Sold Out.

Now Matt wants everybody to think that other Morgie scenesters hold it against him that no one ever heard of them. And did he actually have the gall to say that we were "lazy"? What a crock of shit!

True Morganfielders are anything but lazy. Just ask the only Morganfield musical troupe (aside from the aforementioned Murderburger in your helpful sidebar typing exercise) that ever left a footprint in the great cultural jungle of Rock'n'Roll. Maybe you remember The Synging Telegrams from that song 'Cheddar Chocolate' that Q107 plays on their Psychedelic Sunday program every month or two. Maybe you even own one of the many garage rock compilations that include 'Cheddar Chocolate', one of those old-timey records with the dayglo album sleeves featuring blonde chicks in short skirts and go-go boots. We young aspiring (ahem) punks in Morganfield learned about The Synging Telegrams through the regulars who hung out at Grover Antiques on Queen Street - this was the only place in town that sold records and tapes (apart from the music section at Eaton's, and the less said about that particular wasteland, the better), and that's where even today on the bulletin board you might find a moldering yellow clipping from Rolling Stone magazine in 1977 that talks about the album the band recorded but never released: "one of the lost treasures sought by fans of very bad music... by the time you reach the pipe organ solo in the middle of their desecration of The Who's 'My Generation' you too will wonder how brown the acid was in the studio where these Canucks were recording this mess." Hey, we were impressed that any group of Morgies could make it to the American music press, pan notwithstanding. But that one song 'Cheddar Chocolate,' with its flanged guitar drone and backwards cymbal rolls, was as close as any Morgie had gotten to fame and fortune and outside-world acknowledgment, and that unreleased album remained a holy grail of sorts for anyone in Morganfield concerned with our fated role in pop history.

And guess what? It happened that Graeme Forsythe, drummer for The Synging Telegrams, hung out quite a bit at Grover Antiques. He was a balding hippie type who smelled like spoiled vegetables, and there was a rumour that he used heroin, which freaked out a lot of Morgie kids. A heroin junkie! In Morganfield! You could imagine our disappointment when we found out that he was just a drunkard. Still, Graeme knew a lot about music, and he was happy to point us ignorant kids to the good records in Grover Antique's stash, regaling us with tales of touring the United States, and performing on "American Bandstand" (which never happened, but Graeme told the story so convincingly you could practically smell the pomade in Dick Clark's pompadour.) If Graeme liked you enough he would allude to the fact that he had a dubbed copy of the final mix of the unreleased album, and that he would play it for you if you came down to his apartment up at - where else? - The Brooklin Arms.

I myself never took up Graeme's offer, but Pete Hammond went. So did Andy Lefebvre and Jamie Playfair. It turns out they were some of the lucky ones. Graeme turned out to be a big pervert, and it was years before he was finally arrested on charges of child molestation. Believe it or not, the kid who finally turned him in was actually the son of Morganfield's ex-mayor. His quote in the font-page article in the local weekly paper, The Morganfield Beacon?

"The album sucked!"

So you see, whether it was punk or polka or surf-rock or whatever, a music scene had to develop in Morganfield. Kids have been lured into a diddler's den with the promise of candies or booze or dope or cash, but when was the last time you heard of kids being tempted by music? Especially music that was advertised as awful? This was what made otherwise sensible people like myself and many, many others come together and form what became the Morganfield Hardcore scene of 1989, and why it became the hidden store of rock gems that remain forgotten even to the like of journo scumbags like you, Darcy. We Morgies are just plain cut from a different cloth.

(By the by, Darcy: the name of that Klassik Canuck punk tune was 'The Birthday Song' by the Dik Van Dykes. You're welcome again!)

• • • •

### 3.

Whenever anyone asks me about growing up in Morganfield, I think of the story my dad likes to tell about how his brother Eddie came to visit back around 1980 when he was discharged from the Armed Forces. Uncle Eddie pulled into town around 3:00 p.m.; both my parents were still at work and I was at the sitter's house, so he bummed around on King Street for a while, finally taking a seat on a bench in Harriet MacTavish Square, across from the town hall. He sat there for a while with his arms stretched out, taking in the scene.

A group of teenagers came walking by. My uncle called out to them, asking: "where's the action at in this town?"

One of the teenagers looked back and said, "You're sitting on it."

So yeah, Darcy, that's Morganfield in a nutshell: nothin' to do and nowhere to do it. Particularly when you're trying to form a band and wondering where you'll find a live example. There was always at least one live show at the Morganfield Summer Fair, but this usually meant a folk singer or some a country band that was on their way down from the Billboard charts. In 1985 there was talk about Gowan and his band booking the Sir Hubert Memorial Arena for a show, but depending on who you talked to, the show was either disallowed in a secret Town Council meeting citing Gowan's "morality" (?!?) or canceled because Gowan wanted too much money.

The most reliable source of live music was a trucker dive up near Steeles Avenue, simply called "The Roadhouse." The Roadhouse featured weekend shows by cover bands, but it was a bar, and so of course kids weren't allowed in there. Me and Steve Coleman and Craig LaBrie were jamming together around 1986, and we spent several Friday nights up at the back of The Roadhouse with our ears cupped to the door listening to nameless groups plodding through the most recent hits from Heart or Robert Palmer or Bryan Adams along with guaranteed crowd-pleasers by Rush and Led Zeppelin. It could be boring at times, but it was better than spending another windy night on the roof at the Broken Arms.

Through the winter and into spring we practiced in Craig's stepfather's basement store room on Sunday afternoons, learning songs that we thought would one day get us a gig at The Roadhouse: 'Summer of 69' by Bryan Adams, 'She's So Cold' by the Rolling Stones. I was the guitar player and main singer, mainly due to the fact that I could get most of the words out while still playing my instrument. Steve Coleman started out on guitar, but eventually switched to bass - he figured that playing one note at a time would be easier in the short term. Also, he was bigger and stronger than the rest of us, and the bass guitar suited him more than the piddly Sears knock-off six-string he had been playing up until then. Craig LaBrie played on a drum set which consisted mainly of cardboard boxes that had to be replaced frequently, particularly when we had our 15 watt amplifiers turned up full and he had to hit the boxes harder to be heard over the guitars. He kept saying he was saving up for a proper drum kit, one he had seen at Steve's Music in downtown Toronto ("It's just like Neil Peart's," he kept saying, as if that mattered somehow) but instead he eventually borrowed a hi-hat and a bass drum with kick pedal from the storage locker in the Morganfield North music room, and by "borrow" I mean "take out without permission and never return." I felt a bit guilty about this, but I had to admit that with the new equipment the beat got a lot steadier. Before that Craig had been keeping time by kicking the bass drum box.

On my own I attempted to write songs, usually consisting of a single riff that I would bring to the band and then play over and over until we got bored with it. For lyrics I started out writing about knights fighting dragons and laser battles in outer space - most of these songs were pretty embarrassing, to say the least. Then I got beaten up by one of the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies' linemen because he thought I was ogling his girlfriend, and out of that experience I got a set of lyrics called 'Big Fists, Small Brains.' Craig and Steve thought the words were good, but I had too much trouble getting them down over the lead riff I wanted to play, and I eventually gave it up. I finally had my breakthrough with a tune called 'Morganfield Stinks,' later amended to the more emphatic 'Morganfield Sucks'. The chord progression was just a sped-up version of the main riff from Yes' 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' but I swear to this day it was unintentional (if Trevor Rabin happens to read this, please do not sue me for back-royalties - I'm broke enough as it is!) We played the hell out of that song on many a Sunday, sometimes for thirty or forty minutes at a stretch, improvising lyrics, playing solos, and just trashing the joint by throwing Shirley Sodas and sandwiches at each other and smashing Craig's cardboard drums and screaming at the top of our lungs like deranged idiots:

THE HIGH SCHOOL'S A DIVE CALLED MORGANFIELD NORTH

THE JOCKS ARE ALL BULLIES AND THE TEACHERS ARE DORKS

POLLUTION FROM TORONTO MAKES IT SMELL BAD

IT'S THE WORST BORING TIME THAT YOU EVER HAD -

MORGANFIELD _SUCKS!_

Good times.

For a year we kept playing, and we started to sound better, or at least not completely terrible. My Uncle Eddie brought down his old Marshall amplifier from North Bay so I could plug in my Japanese-built six-string and make it sound like a real guitar. Craig filled out his kit with a snare drum and some cymbals from Graeme Forsythe (at his apartment Graeme kept on offering Craig beer and even whiskey, trying to persuade him to stay and "listen to the album dub." Wisely, Craig turned down the offers.) Meanwhile Steve's amplifier blew a circuit, but the new distorted sound turned out to be a surprising improvement. He started playing the bass a lot harder, until it was almost like a second electric guitar.

The band got into a Sunday routine. First we would meet up for coffee and egg rolls at the Happy Dragon restaurant on Comfort Road ("The Best In Chinese-Canadian Cuisine Since 1954," dontcha know?) Then we would amble over to Craig's stepfather's clothing store on King and Eudora where we would set up in the store room and jam out versions of songs such as Honeymoon Suite's 'New Girl Now' (don't laugh, it's got some cool riffs). I had discovered the meaning of "69" in an old porn magazine I had found in an alley off of Wilhelmina Avenue, so naturally our cover of 'Summer of 69' took on a more lascivious turn. Of course, our practice sessions were capped off with our extended jam of 'Morganfield Sucks' where we got to trash the joint. Afterwards we would clean the walls and throw out the old boxes, pop open some fresh cans of Shirley Soda and talk about what our band should be called: Electric Charge, Free Breast Exam, The Cheezies, Degenerate Raspberries, Breast Exam Deluxe, Snooker and The Pool Cues, The New Beatles, The New New Monkees. We would choose a name for the coming week, and then the following Sunday we would jam and wreck the joint, re-inventing ourselves for the next week's imaginary worldwide tour. It was a fun way to pass the days: daydreaming and destroying, and then starting all over again.

At the start of the school year in September 1987 there was an announcement that Morganfield North Secondary would be holding a Christmas talent show in the school Cafetorium, open to dancers, singers, and (ding-ding-ding!!!) bands. Steve and Craig decided that we would have to enter the contest. I was a bit reluctant - we had so much fun playing by ourselves, why ruin it by performing for an actual discerning audience? But a band's gotta start somewhere, right?

Without consulting either me or Steve, Craig had pencilled us in as "Intrepid Entrance," which was Craig's idea of a fab new wave handle - this was the first problem. The second problem was that Craig drafted his girlfriend, Shauna, on keyboards: something I didn't find out about until the next band practice, when I showed up ready to chew out Craig about naming us Intrepid Fucking Entrance only to be confronted by a shiny Yamaha keyboard set up next to my Uncle Eddie's guitar amplifier. Craig said that Shauna would help "round out our sound," while Steve for some reason thought it was a good idea to bring in a fourth player. I tried to look on the bright side - bands like Bon Jovi and Loverboy had keyboards, and lord knows Bon Jovi and Loverboy songs got a lot of play up at The Roadhouse. Unfortunately Shauna had a knack for picking the wimpiest voices for her synth output, making every song she played sound as dangerous as a kindergarten recital. The only good thing was that the keyboard gave Steve and I a fixed pitch for tuning our guitars. Our new sound may have been soggy, but damn it all if we weren't in tune!

Then at the next weekend's practice, Craig announced that we needed a front man. This time I lost my temper, arguing that we already had four people in the band, but once again Craig was adamant. I had no idea why he was power-tripping all of a sudden; perhaps the chance to play live had changed his priorities. Or maybe he simply thought he deserved to be the band's leader after spending six months kicking a cardboard box. Anyway, the singer Craig brought in was a slick-looking Grade Eleven gino named Tyler, all mullet coif and shredded Def Leppard jeans and unironic demeanor. Tyler sang every song with this hunch-shouldered shuffle where he cradled the mic to his jaw and pushed out every note through his diaphragm, eyes half-closed like he was really feelin' the music, man! Again, I gritted my teeth and tried to be positive \- Tyler was a pretty good singer, and he wasn't that bad of a guy once he got to know you. He even complemented me on my "guitar style," whatever that was. If nothing else, I was at least playing a lot better without having to sing at the same time.

For the talent show, we worked out our two song set: 'New Girl Now' followed by 'Summer of 69.' On the advice of Graeme Forsythe we invited some of our friends to simulate a live show in our practice space. We even dressed up in our Craig-approved stage clothes: gray suits and ties on everyone except Shauna, who wore a silver dress that looked like a big sister's prom night leftover. After we finished playing, Peter Hammond told us that we should re-name the band "Honeymoon Sour," which was his way of saying we sounded like a bad version of Honeymoon Suite (not the cleverest of ripostes, I admit, but those were the days when calling someone a "Massengil Medicated Disposable Douchebag" was considered the apex of wit.) Otherwise the rest of our audience gave us a passing grade. Intrepid Entrance was ready to rock the world!

The talent show for the most part was a pretty dull affair: a Grade Nine dance class, a re-enactment of Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" skit, a ten-girl choir with the music teacher playing electric piano in accompaniment - that sort of thing. Our band was scheduled to go on right before a group of jocks who called themselves "The Rock Kings" (rock-kings! Get it?!), who happened to include two of the linemen from the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies who had cheered on my beating several months previous. I stood in the wings balling my fists while they trudged their way through a lumpy rendition of The Scorpion's 'Rock You Like A Hurricane'. Under any other circumstances they would have been booed off the stage, but the bands' jock buddies and their Barbified girlfriends cheered wildly as if the Rock Kings were Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin rolled into one rip-roarin' rock'n'roll package.

Finally the curtain dropped and the jocks cleared the stage (Tyler shook their hands and congratulated them, the parsimonious little fucker), and we plugged in our guitars and keyboard, pausing briefly while my sainted mudder had us pose for group photos. She insisted that we smile, but I was in no smiling mood.

The curtain parted and we played our two songs to a distracted audience. Compared to the Rock Kings, our rhythm was tighter, and again, Tyler was a far better singer. Even Shauna sounded good, having inexplicably picked a tougher-sounding voice for her keyboard. But The Rock Kings had the fans, and those fans were determined to be unimpressed. The harder I played, the more shrugs I saw in the audience. I even saw the lineman from the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies who had beaten me up, winking at me from the fourth row. His lips were curling as if was waiting for me to screw up and give him a chance to laugh derisively, but I never gave the asshole an opportunity.

We completed out set to mild applause, and mercifully the curtain closed. My guts were all knotted and the back of my shirt was damp with sweat. I was glad it was over. We were packing up our cables and guitars when my English teacher Mrs. Williams, who was the stage manager, rushed up to us and asked us to play one more song - two of the girls from the choir following us were missing (smoking cigarettes in the girls' washroom, no doubt), and they wanted us to kill some time while they went to find them. The five of us had only practiced the two songs, but then I realised that the original band - Steve, Craig and myself - knew a few more.

"We can come up with something," I told her confidently.

"You're a trouper, Paul," Mrs. Williams said with that simpering tone she used with all of her favourite students.

Steve asked me what song we were doing. "You know what song we're doing," I replied.

Craig shook his head vehemently. "Fuck off, Paul. You play that, and I'm walking off stage."

"Craig, stop being such a Massengil Medicated Disposable Douchebag." I looked hard at him and waited.

"Fine. You play that song, then you're out of the band."

The curtains went up. I played the opening riff and held the final 'E' chord and let that chord reverberate throughout the room. I heard one of the senior kids in the front row say "'Owner Of A Lonely Heart?' Cool!"

I looked back and glared at Craig. He was livid, but his drum sticks were at the ready.

Then we played 'Morganfield Sucks'. We played it and played it and played it, my face burning hotter with every chorus: "Morganfield sucks! Morganfield sucks! Morganfield fucking su-u-u-cks!!!" I sawed my guitar strings in a series of hard, Johnny Ramone-style downstrokes, like I was trying to break them clean off the fretboard. Steve was singing the chorus into the second mic, a sloppy grin on his face. Craig was furrowed behind the drum-kit, shoulders hunched like he was hoping no one would see him, but I never heard him play better than when he was playing that one song that night.

Kids in the audience were laughing, jeering, clapping in time. Adults folded their arms or laughed behind cupped mouths, or stared at us with a dumbfounded horror. Here and there among the dimly-lit Cafetorium I saw fists punching the air either in mockery or celebration, I couldn't tell which. I saw two girls in the back aisle snapping their fingers and swaying in their seats like something out of a Beatles concert film. I saw Principal Flanagan and Vice Principal Wyatt standing near the edge of the stage, their faces like stone - Flanagan held up a pointed finger and I swear he was about to drag it across his neck as a signal to stop this noisy nonsense. I sang the line about jocks being dorks directly at those Grizzly linemen, and they grinned back at me. But still I kept playing.

On the final chord I threw my guitar onto the floor, letting the open strings kerrang through the amps as I walked off the stage. Steve in turn dropped his bass guitar and then bowed to the audience. To his credit, he never was one to take these sort of things seriously. I was treating this song like an act of war, but Steve just punched the air and shouted "Rock and ROLL!!!" before bounding off the stage, giggling like a maniac.

As soon as I was out of sight from the crowd, I was no longer shaking. I felt purged, every muscle relaxed, every nerve calmed. I had done what I had to do. I remained in this happy trance for only a few seconds before I saw Mrs. Williams standing before me with her arms on her hips. "Well I hope you're happy with yourself," she said at me with a snarl. "Putting down your home town like that in front of all your friends. I hope you're pleased as punch." Needless to say, I was no longer one of her favourite students. On the other hand, two guys from Grade Thirteen bounded up to Craig and I and shook our hands, saying that our act was the funniest thing they had ever seen, and asked if we were playing any more shows. Craig said that the band was finished, but I told them I would keep them posted. The students punched the air as they walked off, chanting "Morganfield sucks! Morganfield sucks!"

Pete Hammond and Andy Lefebvre slapped our backs and declared our show "Awesome." Steve wandered off with them while Craig seethed and collected his snare and sticks. Just then I turned and I saw this girl standing before me. I vaguely remembered seeing her in the school corridors between classes - Tina was her name, I think.

"I liked your Morganfield song," the girl said.

"Uh, thanks."

The girl stood there with an agitated look, with her hands folded in front of her like she was praying. "Y-you looked real good up on stage, too."

"Thanks." I awkwardly stood with my guitar in my hands, trying desperately to recall her name: Tina? Tanya? Suddenly the girl threw her arms around my neck and pressed a violent kiss on my lips, her tongue pressing oh so slightly against my top teeth. "Sorry," she blurted out, and then she scurried away like a frightened mouse.

For a moment I stood there, stunned and breathless. I never really spoke to the girl again. In fact, she seemed to go out of her way to avoid me in the school hallways, turning up her nose and striding quickly by me whenever I waved hello. Still, it would be years before I would have an opportunity to make out with a girl, much less have sex with one. Rock and roll had gotten me that much closer to getting laid, and that memory sustained me for a long, long time.

We packed up the van and said our good-byes. Craig said that he and Shauna and Tyler were forming a new group, and that Steve and I were not invited. "That was totally unprofessional," he said to me. I asked him at what point we were ever paid for playing, and he threw back a blank stare. "You're so stupid," he said finally.

Steve and I watched the van pull away, our guitars in our hands. As we were waking back to the Cafetorium's back entrance we spotted a curly-haired kid leaning up against the wall next to the door, a board with wheels propped up against his leg. He nodded at us with an ominous, heavy-lidded stare. "You guys were cool," he said quietly. "That was the best thing anyone did on stage all night."

There was a brief introduction. The kid said his name was Matt Miller, and that he had just transferred to our school back in September. He said he was supposed to be singing with the Rock Kings that night, but he had been kicked out after almost having the band thrown off the bill because he had submitted the band name "Shorty Stubbs And The Penis Extensions." "I was gonna call us 'Buster Hymen And The Penetrators'," he told us, "but I figured that might come off as sexist."

Matt described the songs he would have played if the Rock Kings hadn't been such "bonehead rock stars": covers of bands I had never heard of, like Black Flag and Suicidal Tendencies. Then he turned to me and asked if I had written "that 'Morganfield' song." I said I had, and he began critiquing me on my writing abilities. "You should have thrown in a bridge, or at least a key change on the third verse. The joke was funny, but it got kind of repetitive." I was about to refute his argument - I was riding high on pride for having pulled off playing the song live without getting killed, plus I was still tasting that Tanya/Tina/whatever girl's kiss on my lips - when Matt offered to have me and Steve come jam at his house. "I have a drum machine we can use until we can get a drummer. I already talked to your drummer, but he's a bit of a dick."

He scribbled a phone number and address on a scrap of paper. As he was handing me the paper (all of the "A"s were circled, I noted with some confusion), Steve pointed to the board with wheels leaning on the wall behind our newfound admirer. "What is that, anyway?" he asked. "You use that for moving the amps or what?"

Matt rolled his eyes and snorted. "It's a skateboard. Jeez, you're like the fourth guy who's asked me that since I came here. Hasn't anybody in this town ever heard of a friggin' skateboard, man? You got TV, you got magazines. There's no excuse to be this out of touch."

He stared over our shoulders and flinched. "Gotta go. My old bandmates look like they wanna kick my ass." We turned and saw a rusted yellow Camaro rolling across the parking lot toward us, its headlights flickering like the eyes of an animal. "See you guys next weekend," Matt said, and he slapped his board down on the pavement with a wooden thwak! and wobbled away toward the street.

The Camaro stopped beside Steve and I, and the window rolled down. The jock who had beat me up yelled out at me. "You! The guy who sang that 'Morganfield Sucks' song!" I froze and shrugged. The jock broke out into a wide grin. "That was fuckin' funny! You and the Rock Kings oughta do a show together or something!" I leaned over and shook his hand, and then the Camaro roared off into the night.

Needless to say, we never did do a show with the Rock Kings. I heard that the next summer they did manage to get that coveted slot at The Road House, but shortly afterward the band broke up as members drifted off to college or work or parts unknown. But for Steve and I, things were just beginning. It felt weird to be one of the cool kids, even temporarily. Matt Miller seemed cooler than any kid I had ever met in Morganfield, and yet the way he panicked seeing that jock's car rolling his way, nearly falling off his skateboard trying to make his nonchalant exit, only impressed me that much more. But he was trying, you know? Then again, we were all learning.

• • • •

### 4.

Good morning, Darcy. I trust you slept well last night. I would imagine that the big pile of money you earned for writing that unbiased and oh so thorough exploration of Matt's punk rawk exploits made for a pleasantly pillowy cushion for your big fat head (but I jest of course; we both know you blew all the money on hookers and candy bars). Me, I've been re-reading the Morganfield article every morning for the past six days, just to build up a fresh steam of indignation in my noggin. It's actually pretty refreshing, kinda like having a shower with the nozzle somehow positioned inside your head. All the potential goodwill and impulses toward reconciliation are squeezed out through the pores, leaving me feeling loose and limbered up and ready for another day in front of my hilariously antiquated 286 PC where I can dispense with another history lesson with which to beat your ignorant ass into a semblance of enlightenment. Darcy, I do this because I care.

I s'pose I should take a step back here and admit that I have actually been doing other things in the past week besides writing this letter. I've also been scanning the want ads, calling companies and making an effort to change this whole no-money situation. Some advice, should you ever decide to quit the glamourous life of entertainment media and attend a run-of-the-mill joe-job interview: never say that you had no problems getting to their office. This has happened to me at two job interviews in the past six months, no joke. In both instances I was asked if I had "any difficulty finding the place," and both times I said it had not been a problem at all, that I just had to take whatever bus from whatever subway station and maybe walk that extra block or three from the bus stop, and there I was. I swear, two different interviewers in two different companies at two opposite ends of the G.T.A. made the exact same disappointed expression and then, within the next ten minutes, held up a fat wad of résumés and said they had a lot of applicants to go through that afternoon. I don't get it. Do corporate executives think of commuting as some sort of character-building activity? Should I have said that I dodged muggers and ran across all sixteen lanes of the 401 just for the privilege of getting to work? Weird.

In addition to the usual want-ad calls, the welfare office has considerately assigned me a well-meaning social worker named Yolanda, armed with a big folder of résumé samples and retraining programme schedules and stories of coming to Canada from Trinidad with barely fifty dollars to her name, all relayed in that honeyed Caribbean accent that makes me wanna curl up and take a nap somewhere cozy and warm. Yolanda has suggested that I take some courses in computer programming, because everyone's running around screaming about how information technology is going to be the big employment field in the twenty-first century, but I insisted that I just want something to pay the rent. I'm not picky, I told Yolanda. Then I got the same look from her that I got from those interviewers. I just can't catch a goddamn break, sometimes.

Mind you, this welfare thing could be the start of a glorious relationship. A few months ago I was jamming with some folks in Parkdale, and the band's drummer was bragging about having collected pogey for years while working under the table. "Dress in your worst clothes," he told me, "and don't be too quick on the draw answering your agent's questions. The more hopeless you look, the less likely they'll push you towards training program shit." And on and on. A lot of T.O. punks make a point of pride off of scamming welfare - but I'm not a T.O. punk, Darcy. I'm a hardworking boy from a blue-collar town where you put in your forty hours per week and brought home a paycheque and paid the frigging bills without some fat welfare officer rattling her bracelets and shaking her head solemnly as if she's wondering, "what's this perfectly good white boy doing sitting at my desk and begging for a job?"

Did I just write that? Wow. Three years ago if I had heard someone say what I just said, I would have launched into a fifty-minute sermon on white male privilege and how he or she had no idea what it was like to be oppressed, etc. etc. Nowadays when I go to the job bank I see all of the Indian and Chinese and African immigrants whom I'm competing with for these low-level low-qualification crapola employment positions and I have to quell that sickening feeling that, for crying out loud, I'm better than this. Christ on a pogo stick, Darcy! I'm only twenty-four years old and I'm talking like a senile Klansman! It's not like I want to turn into a conservative and go on a fund-raising campaign for Mike fucking Harris, but after all these years of increasingly abject poverty I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of options.

Once upon a time, I thought that political correctness and breaking down the capitalist system would solve all the world's ills. Yeah, you'd better believe that when I was a teenager I knew the answer to everything, or at least I could pinpoint everything that was wrong and draw a line between myself and the bad stuff so I could brag that I was not part of the problem. But you know what? A guy gets older, has a girl or two break his heart or gets fired from a job, and then he factors in the rent payments and the grocery bill and maybe the inexorable cost of actually raising another human being or two and suddenly life turns out to be so much more complicated and stress-ridden that he has no choice but to fall back in line. Being left-wing is hard, especially when you don't have money in your wallet or milk in your fridge, know what I mean?

One guy who never had to worry about milk in the fridge and cash in the wallet was Matt Miller. Steve Coleman and I had to spoon our jaws off the ground when we saw this kids' house for the first time. It was three storeys and three garage bays' worth of suburban luxury, right down to the ivory-coloured mock-Roman columns on either side of the front entrance. This mansion stood out immediately among the comparatively modest super-houses in the subdivision - Matt's father, we later learned, had commissioned the house to be custom-built. Seriously, we're talking barely five minutes' south of Finch Avenue, but we might as well have been standing in Beverly Hills. Even the birds in the trees and the squirrels scurrying across the lawns looked salon-groomed.

Matt was less than willing to divulge how his family had come into so much loot. But he was more than happy to show off the spacious basement where he kept his various teenage projects including a race car track, a comic book library, a workshop table with a tool kit and the sprawled disemboweled guts of several clock radios and other electronic geegaws ("I like to take things apart and see how they work," Matt explained nonchalantly), and a corner practice area complete with microphones, a drum machine, a Korg mini-keyboard, an eight-track mixing console and various tape players which were connected to the board's input bank by a tangle of black cables.

"I used to fool around with mixing different sounds to make new songs," Matt said. "My dad's already saying I should go into sound engineering, or whatever." He then made a practiced shrug of palpable anti-careerist ennui - I recognise it as such now, but at the time I just thought he was shrugging like any kid discussing his adult options.

Matt then flipped a few switches and started moving the faders and knobs, and we heard an old Beach Boys song accompanied by what sounded like a backwards recording of a church organ and a repeating guitar riff played at half-speed. By the end of the first verse the different recordings fell out of sync, and Matt quickly pulled down the master volume fader. "Just fucking around," he said.

"Where's the speakers?" Steve asked. Steve had a knack for asking the obvious questions that I was too cool to ask, which was why I liked having him around. A skinny twerp like me would have gotten in trouble, but someone as big and goonish as Steve demanded at least a modicum of respect when he asked why the sky was blue.

"They're under the table," Matt said. "The bass frequencies really come out against the cement floor. Lie down under the table and you'll really hear the low end. Go on, try it out."

Matt gave us this toothy smile, a smile I was already becoming familiar with. He was every inch a born troublemaker, a short kid with a freckled nose and flinty eyes that were constantly shifting back and forth like marbles on a plate. Looking one way, he's thinking how the neighbour's front yard would appear covered in toilet paper. Looking the other way, he's considering the best vantage point from which to glance up the skirts of the girls on the upper landing. His temples were constantly red and always seemed to be throbbing, his conspiratorial brain cooking up endless new schemes for mischief. Like when he spent several weeks in downtown Toronto busking on an acoustic guitar with a sign on his guitar case that read: No Spare Change, Please. Inevitably tourists and assorted goodly-hearted dupes would toss in change, and then Matt would launch into a mock-righteous diatribe about how he was not playing for money, like the sign so clearly stated, and how dare you impugn on his right to artistic expression you bourgeois so-and-so (I was witness to one such confrontation where the suburban mom who had dropped a handful of quarters into his guitar case actually stooped and scooped out the offending money, flush-faced with shame). You just couldn't trust a cat like this, not if you were smart or old enough to know better. Yet there we were: me and Steve Coleman lying under the table with our heads pointed toward the speaker cabinets while Matt played back parts of the same Beach Boys song, slowing the pitch until Mike Love and the Wilson brothers sounded like Gregorian monks, warbling in a pit of unbelievable despair. And yeah, the bass was really heavy down on the floor.

So after some more "fucking around" with the mixing console and a break for snacks in Matt's frighteningly clean kitchen on the first floor (a bowl on the counter full of fruit that wasn't apples or bananas - by this point, I was feeling like a real hick), we plugged in our guitars and started playing. Matt would set up a basic kick-snare pattern on the drum machine, the tempo fast at first but then gradually slowed to accommodate Steve and I and our uncertain riffery, and then Matt would join in on some of the most theatrical and frankly hilarious front-man moves I had ever witnessed. His basic pose was to hold the microphone in his fist at a downward angle with his shoulders jutting like your average cock-rock metal god, but now and then he would mix in some crazy snake-like torso dance or even a straight leap into the air, running back and forth in front of us like there was an escaped mouse in the room that he was trying to chase down. Matt couldn't hold a note to save his life, but his attack was firmly on the beat, which often complemented the monotonous boom-TICK-boom-TICK of the drum machine as Matt ad-libbed some anti-capitalist rant straight out of Punk Rawk 101.

Once in a while Matt would stop us mid-song and point to my guitar. "That chord progression you were playing," he would say. "Play it again."

I would then shake my head and say I couldn't.

"Why not?"

"I don't remember it."

"But you were just playing that - da-dahh, duh-duh, DA-dahhh..."

"Nope."

Mid-way through our fourth practice, I noticed that Matt had stopped this occasional frustrated interlude. It wasn't until we had finished playing and had started putting our guitars away that Matt asked me about that last E-G change I had added to our last jam. Once again I had to tell him that I couldn't quite remember what I had just come up with, and then Matt stomped over to the mixing console where he fiddled with a VCR and played back the very guitar pattern I had been playing.

"If I put this on a tape," Matt said, "could you re-learn it so we could use it again?"

I was too stunned to make a coherent reply, so Matt went ahead and dubbed a copy onto one of the spare cassettes he had stacked up next to the ghetto blaster he had plugged into another part of the mixing board. "There were a few other riffs that I'll track down later. I'll put them on the same tape and get it to you and Steve on Monday."

Matt used the VCR audio tracks to record many of our jam sessions. By setting the machine to its lowest speed he could get a whole six hours of audio onto one tape. This was how we eventually got the material that Matt later assembled into songs for the band. For instance, that end-of-jam E-G change became the main verse for Murderburger's first ever song, 'Fascist Cop' ("Fascist pig, fascist cop / beating on the homeless, you'll never stop..." Okay, it's not exactly Bob Dylan, but trust me, that song was righteous). Matt had a knack for matching verse riffs to potential choruses, and eventually he taught himself enough moves on the guitar to come up with some interesting changes on his own, but almost all of the original riffs and progressions in our final songs were mine. At the very least, I sure gave him plenty of material to work with. If even today Matt was still going through those tapes for new ideas for Groove Incorporated, I wouldn't be surprised.

By the spring of 1988 Matt was talking about looking for an actual drummer to replace the drum machine, which we had started referring to as "Buddy Poor" for reasons that escape me at the moment. Somehow we got to talking about playing up at The Roadhouse, at which point Matt scoffed and said, "They'd never let a punk band play there." I had to stop and think about how we were not really a "rock" band, but "punk," which took some getting used to. I mean, I still couldn't come to terms with calling The Ramones "punk." Weren't they just a funny rock band whose songs had no guitar solos? And if The Ramones qualified as punk rock, then why not The Rolling Stones?

You have to understand, Darcy, there was no point of reference in Morganfield for punk versus non-punk: everything that wasn't flannel-clad and grain-fed simply didn't factor in our workaday lives. Maybe an hour away in downtown Toronto the streets were teeming with spike-haired, studded-jacket-wearing punks; at times, nothing would have pleased me more than to join that disaffected throng on Toronto's Queen West strip. If being part of that scene meant not having a group of muscleheads from the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies surrounding you and calling you a faggot for sitting under a tree and reading a book, then Brother, count me in on the punk rock revolution. Still, the kids of the Morganfield Hardcore scene were exactly that: kids. We might as well have called ourselves armchairs or planets as we might have called ourselves - hah! - punks.

A year later, when the Morganfield scene was in full, marvelous flower, there would be one incident in particular that drove this point firmly home. Matt had found out about an open casting call down in Toronto for some movie-of-the-week that featured a scene where a crowd of punk rockers was needed for a concert audience. This was a chance to earn some money to put toward our various recording projects. So a group of us got onto the 116B bus and made our way into the city, finally emerging from the streetcar on Ossington and College Streets at the required 9:00 a.m. casting time (Matt was excellent at corralling us indignant sleep-deprived teenagers for whatever music-related project was on hand - you might say he put the 'punk' in punctuality.)

We diligently joined the line-up outside the storefront that led to a central warehouse hidden behind the facade of crumbling fish stores and hopeless old-timer bars along College Street. Everyone ahead of us and behind us looked damaged somehow, their voices worn from cigarette-smoking and lack of sleep, their faces caked with make-up or paunchy from fast-food diets, many of them sneering at us with these strange twisted smiles. These people were the real deal: sophisticated urban creatures with a hundred logos and band names scribbled on their jackets like hieroglyphics; conversations about sleeping on floors and working shit jobs and going to punk rock shows. It was all I could do not to pass out from an intoxicating mix of wide-eyed fascination and sheer terror, though I did my best to hide my panic behind a veneer of cool.

One man in a leather jacket and rolled-cuff jeans looked back at me and said, "Are you sure you're in the right line-up?"

"Sure I'm sure," I said, my voice hiccuping in my throat.

We waited and watched the sky turn from a foreboding gray to a bright yellow, and my spirit lifted with the brightening sun. A woman with a clipboard stood out in the street and announced that the shoot was running late due to an equipment truck breaking down somewhere around St. Clair Avenue, and she announced that she would start taking names and information from people in the middle of the line-up to save time. Almost as if she was following a script herself, she bee-lined over to our Morganfield crew.

"You kids lost or something?" she said.

Matt stepped forward in his Doc Marten boots. "We're here for the punk rock crowd shoot," he said smoothly. "Is that a problem?"

"Not for you," she said. Matt was in his full Spike Liberty glory, with his hair pointing in neon blue spikes. He was small, but he looked the part of a snarling punk. Meanwhile, Steve had taken the trouble to re-fashion a Mickey Mouse tee-shirt by adding a marker-drawn mohawk and an anarchy "A" in liquid paper on Mickey's chest, but the fisherman's hat he had taken to wearing by this point diluted the overall effect (it was the wrong kind of subversiveness, I realised long after the fact). The rest of us were in our usual hooded sweatshirts and Eaton's jeans and work-pants, and Miss Hollywood looked singularly unimpressed. "The rest of you, I don't know what you were thinking, but wardrobe's not responsible for the extras. The ad specifically said to come dressed as punks."

It was here that tiny Andy Lefebvre, the 4'11" powerhouse drummer of Morganfield's loudest band, Iremonger, screwed up his face in the tightest approximation of indignation he could manage, and squeaked "but we ARE punks!" Poor Andy, who at fifteen still spoke in a babyish voice not yet cracked by a very late pubescence, yelled at little Miss Hollywood with all the authority of a pre-schooler who had been denied a fourth Oreo cookie. Everyone in the line-up around us laughed riotously.

Matt, to his credit, said that we had every right to stay in the queue, but we nevertheless slunk away to the nearest decrepit donut shop for some mummified pastries and lukewarm Cokes. Matt put in his three hours' labour, earning a princely fifty dollars while the rest of us cooled our heels at a nearby pastry shop, munching stale donuts while a homeless woman ranted at the ever-gregarious Steve Coleman about the wires that the RCMP had put in her head to monitor her thoughts. Frankly, we couldn't get back to Morganfield fast enough.

So we were punks. Maybe we didn't look the part. Most of the time we didn't even feel the part. But over time we were given hints from others: the girls who refused to go on dates or even hang out with us because we were "weird," the police officers who stopped us frequently on the street to ask us how we were doing, the old couple who owned the Happy Dragon restaurant who told us to stop pestering their customers even though we had eaten there for years without a hassle ("Who cares about them," Matt said after one particularly nasty confrontation, "they don't even serve real Chinese food anyway.") Maybe there was nothing but a marker-drawn logo on a tee-shirt sleeve or a back-turned ball cap to mark us as offensive to the general population, but it was amazing how others could spot us coming from down the block, as if we gave off a tell-tale odour of warning.

Matt Miller had a lot to do with this transformation. Simply by the nature of his presence, we seemed to be corrupted, even as he himself managed to sidestep his share of persecution. What protected him was this odd magnetic quality that no one could ignore, be they teacher or student, parent or kid. Matt possessed in spades what report cards refer to as "leadership potential," plus a quick-wittedness that was at times just amazing. One time I witnessed Matt talk his way into a one week extension on a Canadian History assignment with Mr. Hardman a.k.a. Hardass, a teacher who was legendarily stingy with students who dared to make excuses. "That thing you said about Montcalm versus Wolfe," Matt said. "All that pre-Confederation stuff: it really made me wish I'd paid more attention in class. But I checked out that book you recommended." He even pulled out the yellow library sign-out card from his back pocket, one finger carefully placed next to his initials. Incredibly, Mr. Hardman was so touched by Matt's sincerity in admitting his failure to take seriously his lessons on the pivotal importance of the Battle on the Plains of Abraham, he gave Matt an extension on his report. Immediately after this, Matt thanked Hardass profusely and then walked not fifty steps around the corner where he met up with Jody Fergusson, a nerd among nerds whose lack of social skills even I pitied. "I need that Plains of Abraham thing Friday," Matt said to Jody, like Wolfe himself commanding the English infantry. Matt, meanwhile, was arranging a pity date on Jody's behalf with Catherine Wylie in exchange for the thousand-word assignment. And Catherine was returning a favour to Matt because Matt had gotten her out of a jam with her art teacher who had expected a series of pencil sketches that she couldn't be bothered to produce. "Any idiot can do pencil sketches," Matt told me with that ever-present shrug of his. A guy could get dizzy watching this dude work.

Matt also had the benefit of experience in the world outside of Morganfield. He had gone to punk and hardcore shows in Toronto and New York, where he lived for a year with relatives - one of his cousins was in a Brooklyn hardcore band, he would tell us, pronouncing the word "hod-koah" in a forced New York accent that made him sound as if he was related to cavemen rather than Americans. He loved to name-check the many bands he had seen in concert, including Random Killing, S.N.F.U., The Ramones, The Meatmen, Youth Of Today. But the one band that he held in regard above all others was the Punkaholics: the pride-slash-shame of Kitchener Ontario, and originators of the seminal LP This Ain't The War They're Lookin' For! (which also happens to be the 13th best punk rock album of all time according to none other than Sonic Sauce magazine, volume 2, issue 4 - yes, Darcy Vandenheuvel, my collection of old music magazines is as exhaustive as it is worthless). Matt dub-copied that album for everyone who asked, saying that the songs needed to be heard by everyone far and wide; quoting us lyrics from songs such as 'Suburban/Subhuman' and 'Fascist State', relentlessly preaching the words like gospel; scrawling the band logo on every surface imaginable: PUNKAHOLICS in scratchy block letters, with the "I" replaced by a frothing beer bottle. On more inspired occasions he would draw out the design on the back of the album sleeve: a skull-faced punk grinning insanely and holding a shotgun to his head while pointing a second gun at the viewer, the perfect image to complement the band's mix of lunacy, desperation and righteousness. (When I finally ordered this album through Grover Antiques and held it in my hands I had to keep the back of the cover turned to the wall because the punk's buggy eyes creeped me out too much.)

Unlike Slow, The Punkaholics never released a MuchMusic video, but Matt was the proud owner of a bootleg VHS tape featuring The Punkaholics live in concert. He was more than happy to play it on the giant living room television set after Sunday jam sessions.

"This," Matt would say as he popped the cassette into the VCR, "is what punk rock is."

The tape was from a recording shot in Edmonton, inside what looked like a high school cafeteria not unlike the Cafetorium up at Morganfield North Secondary. A hundred kids bobbed in the tightly packed audience like multi-coloured bubbles in a hazardous stew while up on stage, the band raged and railed. Backed by Robbie Baron on guitar, Bill Dummy on drums and the Mighty Hork on bass, singers Jake and Jen Punkaholic attacked the audience with a screaming vocal mix, Jake's throaty growl alternating with Jen's furious screech. Many of the songs were interspersed with angry political rants, like Jake's furious description of how cops in Montreal had once beaten up members of the band in an alley (the song that followed, naturally was their one-minute-thirty anti-cop blast, 'Here Piggy'). Meanwhile I saw where Matt had been stealing so many of his bizarre front man moves, such as the snake-like writhing that he had copied from Jake and Jen's hip-swinging dance during their anti-lawyer number 'Snakes In The Grass': "Snakes in the grass / slithering, slippery, cunning and crass / suing and stealing, subpoenas for sale / 'till you're guilty at last..."

What really struck me the first time I watched the tape was the band's appearance. Whereas in 'Have Not Been The Same' the members of Slow had worn everyday clothes, The Punkaholics were dressed for battle: leather jackets, ripped jeans, boots and spikes. There was no mistaking the band's members for ordinary folks on the street, especially Jake and Jen with their hair shaved in near-identical zebra mohawks (Jen's style including a feminine splay of white hair around the ears), and sleeveless denim vests with the Punkaholics' grinning gun punk drawing screened across the backs. Physically, Jake was a barrel-chested monster that nearly dwarfed Jen's comparatively wiry frame (and a smokin' frame it was - a hot chick in punk rock, whou'da thunk it?) but the uniforms made them a distinctly unified tag team. The rest of the band jabbed the necks of their guitars and occasionally leaned in for gang vocals on the chorus, but the show belonged to Jake and Jen: outrage incarnate. And yet for such an angry-sounding mob, their audience sure contained an awful lot of smiling faces.

"So does this mean we have to get mohawks?" Steve Coleman glumly asked this question after seeing the video for the first time. Matt just laughed and said, "Of course not! Besides, we aren't ready anyway." Both Steve and I breathed a sigh of relief. Even today I'm amazed we were so in thrall to ol' Spike Liberty, but like I said, he had this authority about him that was impossible to ignore. If he told us we had to get mohawks to be real punks, we might have gotten to work with a beard trimmer right there in the basement. And if Matt said that the Punkaholics were the be-all and end-all of punk rock, then it just had to be true.

While Matt and the rest of us were plotting world domination from Finch and Morningside, other future Morgie scenesters were experimenting with various sorts of sonic torture. Pete Hammond had taken to making tape recordings of himself playing songs on acoustic guitar, usually while drunk, about various teachers that annoyed him - he even put together a "concept album" of six songs which he called "Dif-Faculty: A Syphilitic Symphony in Six (bowel) Movements." By May he had joined with Greg Dunhaven on electric guitar, and the two were putting together more jokey and increasingly sloppy tunes which would eventually form the playlist of The Nothings. Andy Lefebvre had set up his drum kit in his parents' garage and was jamming with friends, much to the consternation of others in the area: "You're raising the ire of many of your good neighbours, son," brogued the crazy old Scotsman who lived behind the Lefebvre house on Fourth Street, thus giving Andy and his friends the idea for their band name, Iremonger. David Swells and Dave Mulrooney had graduated from jamming on Casio keyboards in the school band room to creating angular songs implementing the most obnoxious voice presets they could program on their state-of-the-art Yamaha DX synthesisers - all that remained was a chance meeting with wannabe drummer John-David Goreham and bass player Tony Pettinella (the honorary "Dave") before the world would see the creation of Dave: Morganfield's ultimate practitioners of what the band called "Fuck-You New Wave."

Everyone was coming to Matt for advice, partly because he was happy to encourage the noise-making, and partly because he was so adept at naming the real-world groups that the foetal-stage Morganfield bands resembled. The Nothings, Matt pronounced, was like a cross between The Ramones and The Pagans. Iremonger, he said, sounded like The Cro-Mags, or at least they could sound like the Cro-Mags if the guitars were heavier (Iremonger's guitarists misinterpreted this comment to mean that they should tune their guitars downward. Matt admitted that this was not what he had meant by "heavy," but nonetheless he approved of the results). Matt had a harder time finding an equivalent to Dave, the only guitar-less band among us, but the names he threw out while searching for a comparison - Wire, Skinny Puppy, "Depeche Mode without the eyeliner" - pleased the Daves both real and honorary to a great extent.

Even kids from outside our hermetic circle were coming to Matt for guru-like advice. A lanky jock-type named Brad Fallows talked Matt into checking out his new band over at one of the nicer houses along Comfort Road. Brad's band played mostly covers by Van Halen and Mötley Crüe, but they had two original numbers that were high in energy and silliness, and featured an impressive slap technique by bass player George McCallum (who was really too good a musician for the music he was playing, and I mean that as an honest compliment). The story that I heard was that after the practice, Matt nodded his head sagely and asked if they had ever heard of Fishbone - Brad said he had seen a video of theirs on MuchMusic, but otherwise they hadn't. The next day at school Matt provided the band with dub copies of some Fishbone songs and Uplift Mojo Party Plan by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and as per Matt's suggestion, the band re-christened themselves The Milk Studs.

Matt's house was much nicer than even Brad Fallows', a point that both Steve and I were a bit too liberal to divulge, at least to Matt's liking. Steve in particular made Matt's basement sound like a teenage version of Disneyland, complete with a music collection that made the small aisle of records at Grover Antiques seem paltry by comparison. While Matt was more than happy to hang out at other kids' houses (as were myself and Steve, in all fairness), he was surprisingly hostile to the idea of anyone else seeing where and how he lived. Matt's mouth proved quicker than either mine or Steve's, because before either of us knew what was happening, he announced that we were moving our rehearsals to a renovated barn on Elizabeth Avenue just past Fifth Street. Our of sheer creative ingenuity, we christened our new rehearsal space "The Barn." Eventually all of the Morgie Scene bands would call this space their second home, and few of us thought again on Matt's legendary basement, much to his relief, I'm sure.

The Barn was owned by one Bob Swann, proprietor of The Sunflower Café up on Lower Wilhelmina Avenue, or "Low Willy" as local kids had taken to calling it. A self-proclaimed "old-time hippie freak," Bob was a draft-dodger from the United States, and the only long-haired male in Morganfield who didn't wear his hair in a mullet-style or poodle perm. Bob also liked to refer to himself in the third person as "The Swan," which I think tells you all you need to know about the guy. (The crabby old asshole at Ollie's Paint and Hardware Supplies on the other side of Low Willy referred to Bob as "the tree-hugging queer," which of course pleased The Swan to no end). The Café, which was basically the front room in the two-storey house he owned with his wife Sophie, was the only place in Morganfield that sold vegetarian meals, and Bob was not shy about pushing his meat-eschewing religion on us impressionable young'uns (Matt Miller developed his annoying anti-meat philosophy in part due to hanging out so much with Bob Swann, though it could have been worse: Matt could have gone vegan. If that had happened I'm pretty sure we would have had to kill him, which would have been easy because he would have been too weak to fight back what with the lack of protein. But I digress). On the one hand Swann was nothing but encouraging to us kids as we were putting together bands, and he always had free space in his front window for our ads and fliers, and later for the bands themselves when we started playing Sunday matinees at the Café. On the other hand, Bob Swann was fond of pointing out the more negative aspects of the music we had come to champion, compared to the late sixties grooviness he claimed to have experienced first-hand in San Francisco in the late sixties. Still, the man was giving us places to hang out and practice. If anyone could claim to be the Morgie scene's Max Yasgur, it was The Swan.

(Slight aside: a few days before I moved to Toronto I visited the Sunflower, and Sophie Swann was minding the store. She confided to me that her husband grew up in Nebraska, and that the closest he ever got to San Francisco was a backstage meet-and-greet at a Jefferson Starship concert in Vancouver. He did move to Canada to avoid the draft, but most of the other stories he told us were bullshit. I was surprised by how sorry I felt for the guy. Sometimes a bit of wishful myth-making is all a person has to keep him sane, as I have been learning since collecting my first welfare cheque. And once again, I digress.)

Over time, bits of Matt's stereo and mixing equipment made their way into The Barn's main room, along with my uncle's guitar amp and a bass cabinet Steve bought through Graeme Forsythe. Other bands brought their amplifiers and microphones and other bits of equipment including a hodge-podge of turntables, cassette decks and cables to hook everything up. Brad Fallows ingratiated himself into our scene by bringing in an old bar fridge which we used to chill our Shirley Sodas between jams (Matt forbid keeping beer in the fridge, saying that it posed a serious risk if any of us were caught under age with booze. Pete Hammond took to chilling his stash of beer in the toilet tank, so if nothing else at least he helped to reduce Bob Swann's water bill). In addition to band practices, The Barn was also where we had our regular scene meetings, including the one where we drafted the final copy of our infamous M-A-N-I-F-E-S-T-O, which I swear is somewhere in my files \- believe me, Darcy, I've been tearing apart my whole apartment looking for that damn thing. You'll laugh your ass off when you read it, no shit.

Fond as I was of The Barn, I still missed going to Matt's house every Sunday for rehearsals, thumbing through the comic book collection and watching the succession of girlfriends that Matt's dad was bringing home (slight aside redux: when Wanda Seeley was putting together the first issue of her fanzine, I suggested that she should have a section called "Matt's Hottie Step-Mom of the Month" featuring a picture of said step-mom for every issue. Wanda said the idea was sexist and stupid, but she laughed nonetheless). What I really missed, in retrospect, was the getting to Matt's house, which meant biking or riding the 116B down Queen Street south of Comfort Road, passing over the rail line and over the hill where the houses of Morganfield ended and the tree-lined wilds of the Morganfield-Scarborough border came into view - the border was imaginary by this point, of course, but I could still pinpoint the posts on the side of the road which used to feature the sign saying "Welcome To Scarborough." The posts stood there for years, like frontier-era grave markings. I always felt a rise of anxiousness in my chest when I came up on that hill, because all throughout my childhood I felt like I was crossing into another world when I left Morganfield, as if Narnia or Middle Earth lay just beyond the thicket of trees and all the rules of the normal world were about to come to an end. Inevitably, however, I would see Old Finch Avenue approaching, along with the sign advertising the Metro Toronto Zoo, and the rows of boring houses to the west with suburban backyards full of kids who looked back at you like you were a Martian fresh out of the flying saucer. The magic feeling would evaporate like the morning dew, leaving me feeling sober and dull-headed. Once I got to Matt's house, of course, a different sort of magic took place, but I secretly enjoyed that crossing of the imaginary border most of all.

I still had to field inquiries about Matt's status as the sort of rich kid described in many a punk rawk tune, but Matt had me and Steve swear to secrecy not to divulge the secret of his good fortune. And why? Well here it is, Darcy: what Matt Miller a.k.a. Spike Liberty a.k.a. Matt Molotov has never mentioned in all those years of fanzine interviews and magazine articles was that his father was one of the Board of Directors for Nana Nummies Restaurants and Children's Entertainment Franchises. Believe it, boyo: every time you take your kids or nephews or nieces for a Kids' Feast or buy them a Cheezy McBeef toy watch or sit down to watch that insipid Nana Nummies' television show, you are supporting the very network of infantile fast food emporiums that puts money into Matt's pockets to fund his musical endeavours. Matt Miller: a trust fund kid, and a greasy, high-calorie fund at that.

Now I myself managed to avoid Nana Nummies throughout childhood, even though there are ten locations between Pickering and Hamilton for me to choose from (fifty-six across Canada, if I recall correctly the stats from the Business Administration programme I dropped out of many moons ago). When our band toured Ontario in 1989, however, I had more than my fill of Cheezy Burgers and Sooper Shakes thanks to the endless fistfuls of coupons Matt forced us to use to save money on food. But I have to admit a twisted admiration for the Nana Nummies chain. They are one of the few restaurant chains that are fully Canadian-owned, to the point where the Board President (Matt's uncle's cousin) once infamously declared that any Board member who tried to open a location in the U.S. would be out of a job. At a time when every Progressive Conservative yobbo is running around singing the wonders of Free Trade and extolling the virtues of Canadians becoming little more than discount Yankees, that sort of Canuck pride can be downright heartening. In a weird way, being connected to Nana Nummies could be something to be proud of, despite the strangeness of being associated with a seven-foot potato wedge called Frenchie (how he became so popular a figure in referendum-crazy Quebec I'll never know - must be that outr-r-r-RAGEous French accent! Mais je digresse.)

Sometimes Steve and I made a game out of irritating Matt by talking about a rumour of a Nana Nummies restaurant opening in Morganfield. By the time Matt started calling himself Spike and acting like a supreme dick, that game became particularly fierce. Maybe he could have admitted to his guilty secret up front, and maybe earn some sort of credit for being honest or even self-deprecatory for once in his life. From the looks of things, I guess we'll never know.

I just happened to look out the window, Darcy, and I realised the sun has gone down. I have been writing all day when I could have been out looking for work. But I'm sure the cheque you're writing up at this very moment for all this research will cover my time and effort. I'm gonna hafta go sparingly on the spleen next time I sit down and continue this letter, lest I find myself evicted and out on the street looking for an outlet for my computer. Anyway, Mister V, be sure to make out the cheque to Paul Cartwright. And don't scrimp with the zeros on the end of that dollar figure.

• • • •

### 5.

Salutations, Mr. Van-dee doo doo doo, de dah dah dah, that's all I want to say to you. I'm writing you this afternoon from beautiful semi-sunny Morganfield, Ontario, where I'm house-sitting for my mama and papa while they are over in Caledon playing with their friends' new grandson. They offered me a ride but I am simply too bushed this weekend to go, so I asked if I could just stay behind and soak my feet and kick back a spell, and bless their hearts, my parents obliged. Party at my house this weekend, and YOU'RE NOT INVITED! So there.

The reason I'm so wiped out, and the reason I've been neglecting my letter-writing duties for the past few days, is that I got a call last week for some pick-up work doing some landscaping out near Port Union Road. I spent three grueling days breaking sod, moving earth, and sculpting out a newly terraced hill alongside a motley crew (Crüe?) including a Mexican day labourer, an Iranian engineer, and a civil servant from Ghana. The Mexican dude worked circles around us sorry over-educated assholes, I am ashamed to admit. But man, you should have seen the Iranian go at it: wheezing and panting, cascading sweat everywhere, digging and flailing as if there was a gun at his back. I too might have been digging and flailing throughout the weekend, but the foreman said the other three could finish up what was left on Saturday, which I took to meant that I wasn't keeping up with the others. After all this my legs and arms and back feel like they've been beaten with sacks full of plasticine, and my hands are so raw I've got blisters on top of blisters. However, I now have enough money to cover next month's rent. I even got paid in cash, and boy oh boy did it feel good to be holding all that pretty money at once.

So now I've retired to the Cartwright abode, not only for recuperative purposes, but also for a chance to get out of my stinking apartment for a while. As I write this I am sitting in a clean den with the A.C. pumping, typing on my father's space-age Pentium computer. I'm talking Windows 3.11 with 16 megs of RAM and a half-gig of hard-drive space, baby! Just strap me into that fuckin' modified DeLorean and call me Marty Motherfuckin' McFly! Hoo-yeah!

At least I've got something to occupy my time. I don't know why, Darcy, but I was surprised to find how dead it is around here. Yesterday I decided to stretch out my stiff legs with a walk around Morganfield, hoping to see some familiar faces and places. Instead I got culture shock. Downtown was like the Twilight Zone. Eaton's is still partly boarded up from when it was damaged by a fire three years ago, and many of the other stores on King Street have closed completely, including the clothing shop that Craig LaBrie's stepfather used to own (I think I heard something about him moving to Peterborough, but I'm not entirely sure.) Up on Low Willy the Sunflower Café is now a Second Cup. Ollie's Paints is still open across the street, although the owner's daughter now runs it. Maybe the old coot was so happy about the Sunflower closing that he started dancing around and gave himself a heart attack, who knows?

Grover Antiques is hanging in there as well; they still stock CDs and tapes, but the selection these days is pretty pathetic. Ken Grover, the store owner, told me that I was the first familiar face from the old-time crew he had seen in years \- Pete, Wanda, Steve, Andy, they all left town years ago. Even old Graeme Forsythe, who seemed to live in the back shelves in Grover's Antiques, has gone completely AWOL since being paroled from Collins Bay Penitentiary - like everyone else, Graeme simply vanished.

The big news of late in Morganfield is the ongoing strike at Shirley Soda. The strike has been going on since April, with the owners threatening to close the plant altogether rather than give the workers the raise they're demanding. It's been no secret that the company's been doing poorly for a while now. A rumoured buy-out by Cott Beverages never came together, and a proposed employee ownership plan didn't get enough votes to pass. A lot of people seem resigned to the fact that the plant's bound to close by the fall, which would mean over a hundred people will be out of work. The Shirley Soda strike even made it to the national news, with Ontario's Finance Minister Ernie Eves commenting to reporters about how it would be a shame for the company to shut down after sixty years in business, but still with global market pressures it is inevitable that industries that are less efficient are bound to feel the pinch earlier than others, blah dee fuckin' blah. Of course, while Ernie was talking, one of the aides standing behind him was drinking a Diet Pepsi. Those goddamn Harrisites just have to rub it in, didn't they?

Anyway, I rounded up my Saturday sojourn by going across Lower Constance and up Comfort Road to Railway Street and the Shirley Soda plant, checking out the scene. There were four strikers standing at the front gate: paunchy middle-aged folks half-heartedly shouldering their placards, kicking the gravel and just generally looking bored. I asked one of the picketers if they had seen Andy's older brother, Brian Lefebvre, who drives a forklift at the plant (he was one of the last new employees they hired, and that was back in 1989). As with the others in my old Morgie crew, Brian was nowhere to be found.

I was about to turn and go when an old Cadillac-style car pulled up to the picket line, skidding to a halt just six inches from where people had been standing. The man in the car was wearing a blue security shirt. He got into an argument with the people in the picket line, something about how he was late for shift and had to get through. The argument went back and forth for a few minutes, the picketers suddenly animated whereas a few minutes previous they had looked to be ready to fall asleep where they stood. Finally they moved aside and the security guard barreled through, yelling out "Seeing you jerks out here makes me glad I'm not part of your stupid union!"

The picketers watched his car speed into the yard and screech to a halt at the security entrance, snickering as the guard struggled with his car door (it looked as if his keys had jammed in the lock). They then started muttering angrily about how this was not the first confrontation they had dealt with in the past week. "I don't care if no one supports us no more," announced one of the strikers, a large woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses. "Good jobs are goin' out of this town left and right, and buddy just wants to collect his eight bucks an hour and pretend it's not his problem. To hell with 'em all."

I hung around for a few minutes listening to the complaints, and then said my goodbyes and left. In a way I had been hoping to see more of a fight, which I suppose is not the right sentiment one should hold in these situations. But I know how much heat union members take from the general public, having heard my dad's stories from working at CP for the last twenty-six years. I would like to think that, if the guard and the strikers had come to blows, I would have been on the right side of the battle. But I've been unemployed for long enough to know that my position would not have been certain. I screwed up my own chances to join the union at CP years ago, and these days I'm not feeling all that charitable.

But on to other topics. In regards to my previous entry about Nana Nummies and how Matt has always been remiss to discuss his familial connection, I happened to be up early this morning and I caught an episode of "Nana Nummies' Sunshine Funtime Hour" on Channel Three - good Gawd, that show is awful. I remember watching it back when I was a li'l stinker in terry-cloth jammies, so I knew the basic rhythm of the show: the theme music followed by a song with Nana and Cheezy McBeef and the kids, and then a segment where Frenchie Fry introduces the French word of the day (today they conjugated the verb "to fly," as the show's topic was airplanes) and so on. But I didn't remember those kids looking so scared of Cheezy and Frenchie, and I don't remember the stage set being so blatantly fake and the camera so shaky - they obviously save their production money for the ads, which of course Nana Nummies played at every commercial break (then again, this is the same corporation that's known to stock their restaurants with rummage-sale board games like Trouble and Operation for the kids to play with. Believe me, these cats will pinch a penny until the Queen cries.) I swear, you could have made a drinking game out of the number of times where the boom mic dropped into the picture frame. And the effects - shit! They make "The Littlest Hobo" look like "Star Wars". There was a green screen segment where the kids were supposed to be flying through the air, but the blue sky that was supposed to be behind the kids kept bleeding over and chopping off bits of the kids' heads and limbs (Mommy, I'm so happy! Look, my arm dropped off! Frenchie says Je suis une infirme!) On the upside, I did learn how to make a bitchin' paper airplane - the trick is to fold over the plane's nose so it has a proper forward ballast.

And another thing: did you know that Cheezy McBeef is supposed to be a beaver? I swear, all these years I thought he was either a ferret or a rat, what with his brown fur and buck teeth (and don't ask me where I ever got the notion that a restaurant would use a giant rat as their mascot), but then Cheezy turned his back to the camera for a second and there was this small flat paddle tail flapping over his velveteen rump. I had no fricking idea, Darcy, not a goldurn clue. Story of my life: I pay no attention to detail when I think I'm on top of the game, and then I find out that Cheezy is using all that hamburger energy to fell trees and build dams, and maybe there's a reason why I graduated high school and then dropped out of university and ended up with not one single marketable skill except for running my mouth off and playing a shitty guitar for shitty punk rock bands in front of ten people in a damp College Street club that won't even chip in for beer tickets.

Not that I'm bitter.

Ah, but it all seemed so simple back at The Barn, the long-gone days of my Morgie youth! The whole summer of 1988 was one long jam session: thirty kids trading guitars and figuring out songs; putting on concerts for each other, trying to form circle pits like the ones we saw in that footage of the Punkaholics concert. We were like one of those Pacific island cargo cults, copying what we thought we were the proper rituals to recreate the sort of music scene we wanted for our podunk little neck of Greater Scarborough. A tune as basic as The Ramones' three-chorded "Blitzkrieg Bop" or The Punkaholics' two-chorded "Fascist State" might go on for thirty minutes or an hour or even longer, with people plugging and unplugging instruments or jumping on and off drum stools as the noise rose and fell like a wave, atonal solos peeling from the high strings, the microphone tossed from one singer to another as vocal chords went hoarse. Only Bob Swann's strict ten p.m. curfew kept us from playing through the night, and Matt Miller was always there to close things up and force us less-than-diligent teenagers to clean up the joint. Matt seemed obsessed with keeping things in order, as if The Barn was his property and not The Swan's. But most of us were happy to let Matt play The Adult while we goofed around juvie-style.

Adulthood, and all of its sober promises, was something that we talked about more than once between song sets. We might have happily jabbered about what was playing at The Morganfield Cinema, or which girls from school had the best rack, or what new game had been brought in to Vector Video, but the topic of growing up had a nasty tendency to leech into our conversations. The general consensus was probably best summarised by Pete Hammond, after one jam session with him on vox and me and Steve and Tony Pettinella on triple bass guitar attack, and Andy Lefebvre on drums. We broke for potato chips and a passing-round of a bottle of wine smuggled in by Pete (Steve refused to drink the stuff, but the rest of us happily took a swig) and Pete broke it down like this:

"Enjoy these days now, man, 'cause this is it. Once you graduate high school, it's all downhill from there, man. Two kinds of people in the world: kids like us, and old people. Old people have to work jobs; they get married, have kids, go to family functions and all that shit. All the obligations they've got, their bodies wear out from all the stress and strain. Bags under the eyes - like luggage on the face, full of the weight of years you gotta carry around. Boss yells at you, you can't yell back. Wife snaps at the husband, husband slaps the wife, the neighbours all gather under your window like Chinese commies talking talking talking. Car payments, house payments, water bills, heat bills, taxes. Voices, voices, voices. Responsibility! Fuck it all, you know? That's what's so great about playing music, you get to just turn up the speakers and shout those voices down, know what I mean? Make the noise now while you have the lungs and the tongues to do it, while you have the energy and, most importantly, all this precious time to spend. Spend it now, because in a few years you won't even have the energy to be bored."

Pete Hammond really talked like this, believe it or not. Actually, most of that particular rant ended up in an essay he wrote called "Heading For That Adult Crash," after the lyric from Minor Threat. The essay appeared in the debut issue of Wanda Seeley's zine, MFHC (the title was one of Matt Miller's better brainstorms: it could either mean Morganfield Hardcore, or Mother-Fucking HardCore, depending on one's mood or motivation.) Childhood was something of an obsession for Pete - I keep thinking of those songs he did with The Nothings like 'Stay Young' and 'Morbid And Old,' or the line from 'Dream Army' where he sang "the graves are filled / with the dreams that were killed / by elders more clever than wise." His other big MFHC essay was "Why Babies Are Better Than People," where he riffed on the purity of infants versus the comparative corruption of their parents:

"Babies are all primary colours. They think in basics, and they see the world in blocks where the rest of us get hung up on the petty details. Babies only understand primary emotions. They love unconditionally, they cry without fear. A grown-up knows a thousand words which they can manipulate to turn a truth into a lie. They deceive, they corrupt, and then in the doubt-clogged word they helped to create they come to doubt the very reality that they see before their own eyes.

You can keep your multi-hued deception with your hundred shades of deadening grey between an honest black and white. We can call ourselves intelligent for knowing how to describe beige and mauve and salmon, but nothing beats the purity of solid colour: blue love, red hate, yellow happiness."

I used to tell Pete he was the only real poet in the scene. That pissed him off, but I meant it as a compliment. Half of the fun at a gig by The Nothings was hearing what sort of beatnik rant Pete would spin off the top of his head, staggering from one end of the stage to the other while he riffed on how the brick used to build Morganfield North Secondary was the same brown brick in the walls of Morganfield General Hospital and The Brooklin Arms and the five store strip mall that had recently opened down on Queen Street south of Comfort Road: "From the home to the school to the workplace to the deathbed, Morganfield goes cradle to grave housed in the shit-blo-o-o-ocks!!!" Along with the rants, Pete had these kick-ass stage moves, like the wrist-flick where he would start out with a limp two-fingered grip on the microphone stem like the singer from Slow in 'Have Not Been The Same' and then, with the quickest upward snap, his hand would wrap fully around the mic and Pete would scream the chorus with a face full of real rage, his free hand choking the microphone cord like it was a rope he was bringing to a public lynching. Even at his most alcoholically wasted, Pete could pull off that rapid microphone snatch every single time, quick as a finger on a trigger. Other times he would go stumbling through the audience seeing who he could bump into and how they would react, glaring deep into peoples' eyes like he could see straight into their brains. More than anyone except Matt Miller, Pete took his stage role seriously, working his ass off at all those shows while the rest of The Nothings mostly stood and played their instruments. We all wanted to be on that stage to some degree, but Pete needed to be up there.

IfounditIfounditIfuckinfuckinFOUNDIT!!!!!! Yessiree boyo, I finally found my copy of the Morganfield HardCore Manifesto in amidst the clutter at the back of my bedroom closet, cleverly stashed in a folder along with some old gig flyers and stickers in a box labeled "PRIVATE KEEP OUT THIS MEANS YOU!" I remember painstakingly typing out the original draft of this damn thing after Matt had graciously offered Wanda Seeley the transcription duties. Wanda's response was along the lines of fuggoff-I'm-not-you're-fuggin'-secretary, which amused our band of brothers greatly. It was a kick seeing Matt Miller being put in his place by, of all people, the normally cheerful and placid Wanda, a.k.a. "The Nicest Person In Rock And Roll."

The following was hashed out over a humid and rainy afternoon in The Barn, with The Right (Dis)Honourable Matthew Miller presiding over thirty unruly mofos, all of whom added feedback to the discussion, along with the occasional rude doodle to the rough draft of the document in question. Additional legal consultation was provided by David Swells, whose father was a lawyer. David said that most of the documents in his dad's workplace employed a large number of Latin phrases, so we made sure there was enough Latin inserted in the text to make sure that the document would be (we hoped) legally binding.

And so, without further adoo-doo, here is the official scene Manifesto, in full carbon-paper-typed glory:

16h30, August 17th, 1988

WHEREAS it is heretofore known that certain youth of Morganfield wish to play PUNK ROCK and be called PUNKS, despite the insults and ignorance of Parents and Co-Students and So-Called Friends,

and WHEREAS it is understood that the music called PUNK ROCK has existed sui generis for many years in many places in many forms with differing rules and regulations (or lack thereof),

and WHEREAS it is desired by said Morganfield youth wanting to play PUNK ROCK and be PUNK to put together a SCENE in the limited time allotted, ipso facto the years before graduation from secondary school,

WE THE UNDERSIGNED, as representatives of the local vox non populi hereby proclaim the following guidelines regulating the operations and machinations of the MORGANFIELD HARDCORE musical community, heretofore referred to in this document as "the Scene":

1. All participants are hereby encouraged to form bands and write original songs, or else contribute in any way available to the Scene in e pluribus unum;

2. All bands formed in the Scene must be comprised only of residents of Morganfield, in order to preserve scene unity semper fidelis;

3. All members are encouraged to play in multiple bands, further enforcing the scene unity mentioned in Point Two, and to encourage the exchange of ideas;

4. All members are encouraged to aid each other in promoting and protecting the scene from outsiders who by rights must be considered hostile enemies until proven otherwise;

5. All members must hold one another in equal regard, and not hold bands from outside Morganfield in higher regard than themselves, for a priori even they were once young and unlearned like ourselves;

6. All members must reject prejudice in all forms, including racism, sexism and homophobia;

7. All members are encouraged to reject outward forms of punk accoutrements including, but not limited to, unconventional hairstyles, torn clothing, leather boots or other styles associated with punk rock, because we can not give ammunition to those who would ridicule the thoughts in our heads on the basis of the clothes on our backs;

8. All members are forbidden to cover songs by non-Morganfield bands in concert, so as to encourage musical knowledge and development as outlined in Point Four;

9. All members are forbidden to use puns based on quotes and names taken from the mainstream culture, so as to emphasise the seriousness of the music and its players, and further prevent the ridicule from outsiders as outlined in Point Seven;

10. No band from the Scene may record or release of albums or cassettes for non-Morganfielders' consumption until said band is deemed ready by their peers, in order to guarantee the fullest development of the musical unit in question and, again, to prevent ridicule as outlined in Point Seven;

11. There will be no corporate sponsorship or profit-taking of any kind, because a reliance on income from art compromises said art;

12. There will be no concert bookings or performances in venues that are not all-ages; and finally,

13. There will be no amendments to this manifesto without quorum majority votes among the undersigned, including the addition or subtraction of membership, and no amendments arising from voting arenas outside of The Barn on 141 Elizabeth Avenue, Morganfield, Ontario, Canada, North America, Earth, Milky Way, except by amendment under the terms already outlined verbatim ad nauseum above.

VENI VIDI VICI!

M.F.H.C. 1988

Considering the fact that most of the participants that afternoon were hopped up on caffeine and percolating teenage hormones, I'd say the Manifesto turned out all right. However, nothing would have been set to paper in the first place were it not for the persistence of the man who would one day call himself Spike Liberty. Matt argued that we needed a set of guidelines to follow in order to form a cohesive scene. "I am telling you this in all super-seriousness," Matt said in all super-seriousness, "I hear more good ideas and good bands coming together from the Barn jams than I ever heard down in Toronto. If we can just keep it together and work as a team we can really make shit happen." He then cited articles from a magazine he had been bringing to the Barn recently, a newsprint publication called Maximum Rock'n'Roll. There were scenes in towns and cities across not only the U.S. and Canada, but over in Europe and even Japan and Australia, where bands had come together and formed musical collectives that promoted unity and fostered a group identity. Bands helped each other, put on shows and charity benefits, released compilation albums and tapes.

"Think about this," Matt continued, his voice becoming strident. "Individually, we can all fuck around and butt heads. Or we can pull together and pool our resources and really accomplish something. Individually we're nothing, but together we can change the world."

That's one thing I miss most about those days, Darcy: it was the last time we could talk about things like "changing the world" and really believe in what we were saying.

So with this inspirational speech, we went over the individual items of the manifesto. Apart from tinkering with the wording (and the Latin phrasing, which David Swells examined with the help of an ancient-looking book from the local library), there were some minor disagreements over the rules we were agreeing to. Dwayne Simmonds, one of the guitarists from Iremonger, said that he didn't see why we couldn't dress like punks \- not that he was in a rush to buy a spiked leather jacket, he said, but why wouldn't someone who wanted to dye their hair a weird colour be allowed to do so? Matt explained that people were hung up on outward appearances, and that some places might not book a band with weird-coloured hair whereas a normal-looking bunch of kids playing the exact same music might gain acceptance ("Like the Romans with the Trojan Horse," he explained helpfully). Also, he emphasised that our words and actions would be far more important than what we wore on stage. Here he quoted some lyrics by Jello Biafra: "You ain't hardcore 'cause you spike your hair / When a jock still lives inside your head." (I think he would have preferred to quote The Punkaholics - his favourite band of all time, if it wasn't already obvious to you \- but citing a group known for their signature zebra mohawks might have diluted his argument. Matt was pretty clever about these things. But yeah, I'm digressing again.)

The next complaint was about the banning of song covers and puns. Almost every band had a few sped-up cover songs in their repertoires: The Nothings had a hilariously mawkish take on Harry Chapin's 'Cat's In The Cradle', for instance, and Dave had worked out a fascistic rendition of Glass Tiger's 'Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone' featuring a rigid martial drum pattern with distorted synth blasts and a screamed chorus (if I could I would play you a live dub of this song, but I lost my copy of the cassette tape, much as I've either lost or inadvertently damaged whatever Morganfield recordings I kept over the years. Your loss, Darcy. Come to think of it, the loss is really mine.)

Matt's counter-argument: "Doing a cover song is just taking the easy way out. Real bands write their own music." As for puns, Matt explained that this was a problem that had occurred to him while working with Steve Coleman and me on a song called 'The Kids Are All Fucked'. Because the title was an obvious cop on The Who's 'The Kids Are Alright', there was an inherent danger in the music being taken less seriously, not simply because it was a joke, but because it seemed to build on a piece of art that already existed. As a gesture of goodwill, our own song became the first sacrifice to the rule, eventually being reworked as the less punchy but more aesthetically sound 'The Young Are So Dumb'.

The most fierce dispute was over Point Eleven. Members of The Milk Studs claimed that this rule would keep bands from getting bigger and "being successful." Even though Brad Fallows and his buddies all harbored ridiculous fantasies of being rock stars, others in the Scene had also formed ideas of eventually playing music for a living; it seemed disingenuous to promote a music scene by not allowing individual bands to turn a profit. Here Matt had to engage in some verbal gymnastics and claim that bands were almost never in a position to make a living off of their music until they were in their twenties, and so because the Manifesto explicitly referred to accomplishing things before graduation (the clause specifying graduation "from secondary school" would be removed in a later draft the following year), it didn't rule out some bands becoming "successful" in the future, "with the help of a supportive scene in their early years," as he was quick to add. Besides, we were all living at home, so for now why would any of us worry about making a living from music?

If I am making it sound like there was a lot of shouting over the Manifesto, I should clarify that most of us were actually in a general state of agreement. We might have protested about not being allowed to spike our hair, but few of us were in any rush to actually do something like that. Other rules, like the provision to play only all-ages concerts, simply sounded like common sense considering our ages at the time. Wanda moved to add a Point outlawing racism and sexism, and Matt agreed that it was important, but part of his enthusiasm came from the fact that the new rule brought the number of points in the Manifesto to the punk-lucky thirteen count. We also changed the wording elsewhere so that where certain things had originally been forbidden, such as getting punk hairstyles, now we were "encouraged" to do or not do these things, making it a matter of choice rather than a black-and-white law. This compromise phrasing caused a lot of trouble later on, but at the time it seemed pretty harmless.

With our Manifesto in place, we were free to spend the rest of the summer jamming and sorting out who was playing what with which band. As outlined in Manifesto Point Three, some of us were playing in two, three or even four bands at one time. We even had an old blackboard where people would write down potential band names - Six-Pack Acid, Loudly Silent, Toxic Clown, The Stink, Vegetarian Buttocks - and for a few weeks or even a day, kids would play under that name until someone skipped a jam-time or moved to another grouping and a new band name would be chosen. Under the circumstances the practice scheduling became downright byzantine in complexity, but the number of conflicts were relatively few, and usually resolved in good-natured fashion.

Time not dedicated to playing and writing was given over to general hanging-out and playing records purchased through Grover Antiques, who had caught on to our burgeoning musical interests and had begun ordering in new records to cater to our tiny but fervent market. Whatever we bought we tended to leave at the Barn for others to dub and play, magnanimous bastards we were (then again, this could fall under Point Two and its urge to contribute to the Scene "in e pluribus unum"). Steve, for instance, found a copy of The Damned's first album that we all liked to play between jams. I contributed a second copy of Slow's Against The Glass EP along with Gun Shy from Screaming Blue Messiahs, which I liked for the cover of the lead singer with his busted-up guitar (remember the video where he was dancing on the guitar during the solo? Awesomeness!) The Daves brought in a scratchy copy of Big Black's The Hammer Party, which featured the scariest guitar sound any of us could imagine: high and harsh and ringing like a hellish chime. Pete Hammond discovered Richard Hell And The Voidoids, which gave him a Byronic model to emulate, although it did significant damage to his singing style, which went from a blustery teenage bellow to an aggravating warble that managed to hit everything but the note Pete was supposed to be singing. Wanda's contribution was a really old punk album by a band called the New York Dolls, featuring a cover photo with some of the ugliest women any of us had ever seen in our lives. And then there was Matt's formidable tape dub collection, which we kept in a milk crate that we grabbed from, sometimes at random: Circle Jerks, The Stranglers, X-Ray Spex, Metallica, Hüsker Dü, Ministry, The Misfits, The Dik Van Dykes, the "Repo Man" soundtrack, scene compilations from San Francisco and Montreal and Boston and every point between, and a mind-blowing new album by a Victoria B.C. group called Nomeansno (Slow, D.O.A., Dayglo Abortions, and now these guys. By now it was official: we Morgies had all been born on the wrong end of Canada). All of this formed a track-list that was surely louder and snottier than anything in Ontario north of the 401, the perfect soundtrack to blast away the remaining days of summer.

Things were taking shape, and a most impressive shape at that. Dude, Darcy, we weren't just playing music, we were going to change the goddamn world! Rock and fucking VENI VIDI VICI, motherfucker!

• • • •

### 6.

Let's talk about sex, Darcy. Not about the sex I was emphatically not getting in my Morgie years, but the honest-to-goodness schtupping I enjoyed last night in my subterranean estate at Queen and Broadview. Yep, Poker Cartwright gets to put another notch in his bedpost. Okay, I don't have bedposts. In fact, I have to put my mattress on the floor because the ceiling is so low. But fuck it: Paul fuckin' Cartwright got fuckin' lucky, and that's all that fuckin' matters.

Here's how it went down: I was attending a not-too-exciting hardcore gig over at this lousy bar on the scruffy end of Queen West, hanging out in the pit with an assortment of semi-amused people in ratty clothes watching yet another band unsuccessfully tune their guitars while the singer plugged the demo and t-shirts being sold at the merch table (manned, as usual, by some absolutely dead-bored roadie-slash-girlfriend). The only real highlight was the dirt-brained drummer from the opening band whose between-song banter included a rant where he repeatedly compared Mike Harris to Augusto Pinochet, pronouncing the last name as "PIE-noh-CHET"- yet another reason why you never give a drummer a vocal mic, as if another reason is needed. But I digress.

Anyway, I was nursing my beer and biding my time when my tired eyes wandered over to a tiny woman with pink hair and a vinyl mini-skirt and a tote bag with a hand-scrawled message announcing "THIS MACHINE KILLS FACISTS" [sic]. At first I asked her if she was a Woody Guthrie fan, but she gave me a confused stare and said she couldn't hear me. So I changed tactics and pointed to the exit sign hanging over the front doorway.

"Seems like a good idea, don't you think?"

And it worked! The woman's eyes lit up, and she grabbed my hand and pulled me toy-wagon style out that very door and onto a home-bound streetcar. She told me her name was Christine, and that she was staying in a vacant warehouse south of the Gardiner Expressway with a bunch of Quebec kids who spoke very little English. Christine said she wanted to sleep on a real mattress if that was okay with me. As I considered my options, I looked down at her thighs and saw the dirt encrusted in the fishnets for the first time. Then I looked at my jeans and the hard-on developing between my legs. Then I saw Christine looking at my hard-on, and she flashed me this lecherous smile that allowed me a clear view of the plaque coating her yellow teeth. I remembered that I had a spare toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, next to a box of condoms, and all was right with the world.

I won't go into a play-by-play here, but suffice to say that there was kissing (after I convinced her to brush her teeth) followed by extended groping, removal of clothing, and then a hot-blooded fuck that ruined a perfectly good pair of sheets from my sainted mudder's most recent care package. I might have tried going for Round Two, but Christine started talking about how she ran away from her home in Alliston because her step-father forced her to give him blow-jobs while her mother was passed out on the adjacent sofa, and then she asked me to go sleep on the floor rather than engage in any post-coital hugging or other bodily contact. Ever the gentleman, I grabbed a blanket and did as she asked; under the circumstances, what else could I do? (Memo to self: vacuum floor carpet A.S.A.P.)

Back when I lived in Morganfield, no one in their right mind would have gone to a punk rock show expecting sex. The only guys in the scene who got laid regularly were the Milk Studs, and they already had girlfriends; the rest of us had to go elsewhere for our mating and dating, but our options were pretty limited. Sure, there was Wanda, who was better known as "Wanda Pockets" because of the oversized camo pants she was always wearing, every available pocket jammed full with paper pads and pens and toys and more oddball gizmos than Doctor Who. Unfortunately, the pants had to be oversized as Wanda was, to put it gently, rather oversized herself. The only one of us who got it on with her was Pete Hammond, and theirs was a tryst that did not end well. One day they were holding hands in the Morganfield North corridors like sock-hoppers from a mid-fifties movie, and the next Wanda was declaiming Pete's "mommy issues" in a too-loud voice to her non-punk friends in the school Cafetorium. Other than Wanda there was Annick Tousignant, the photographer who took all the band photos, and while she was cute in a sort of wrung-out rag doll fashion, she had too many allergies and too little energy to maintain much of a relationship with anyone but her doctor. That was it for female representation in Morganfield Hardcore. Pretty chauvinistic, huh?

The Morgie scene was far from asexual, however. For instance, there was an incident where Steve Coleman went and tacked a Lee Aaron poster to the bathroom door. After discussing the poster at one of our weekly Sunday meetings, Steve was ordered to take it down. Potentially, he could have argued that her aggressive sexuality was a feminine empowerment of sorts (it certainly empowered me!), but unfortunately his chosen mode of debate was to repeatedly bellow "But she's the Metal Queen!!!" over and over until finally the rest of us started pelting him with French fries and other foodstuffs just to shut him up. From then on, whenever Steve started talking about Lee Aaron (which was often), the food would start flying. This became one of our scene's more hallowed traditions, as documented both in Annick's photo essay in Issue Two of MFHC and in Dave's synth-waltz epic 'French Fry Holocaust'.

More often than not, however, sex was something that happened around the scene, rather than within it. Our stimuli was found not at gigs or rehearsals, but instead in the halls and classrooms at Morganfield North Secondary where the decidedly non-punk farm girls and town chicks walked and studied among us, tormenting us knowingly or otherwise with their mere presence. I recall spending many an agonizing Grade Ten Geography period stealing side-glances at Tiffany Aiken, monitoring the progress of her bosom by its effect on a certain red-checkered shirt she continued to wear long after her breasts had developed to porn-star proportions. The tails of her shirt might start off safely tucked into her jeans, but after a class' worth of fidgeting and stretching the tails would slowly come untucked and then drape freely off of her breasts, exposing a maddening half-inch of female midriff. A finger curled under the rim of her neatly-buttoned shirt collar was enough to make me twitch like a psychotic. Not that I could complete a coherent sentence with a girl like Tiffany after class; even when I did manage a basic conversation with her, she would simply smile and shrug her shoulders, her breasts swelling heavenward while she talked beatifically about going to church and celebrating The Lord's love, and then she would try to convince me to attend one of her Baptist prayer meetings (why were all the really gorgeous girls so devoted to Jesus while the reputedly "easy" girls looked as greasy as egg-and-bacon breakfasts? Just more evidence that God Himself was the ultimate trickster). An hour in one of those infernal Geography classes was enough to make a guy curse whoever came up with co-ed education - and to think, we kids used to laugh at Tony Pettinella when his parents started bussing him to the boys-only Catholic school down in Scarborough! The lucky bugger got off easy, I'd say. (Okay, that was a poor choice of words, but you know what I mean.)

Maybe I'm only speaking for myself here, but it was often a relief just to get out of school for a jam at The Barn where there were no Lee Aaron posters or Baptist boobage to distract you, and the most pressing worry was that some other doofus had bogarted the last Shirley Orange soda from the fridge. Only afterwards did you need to find some sort of outlet for your orgasm addiction, such as, oh, jerking off to MuchMusic's Erica Ehm after your parents were safely asleep. Erica, Erica! So ditzy, and yet so hot! She could "umm" and "uhh" through as many botched video intros as she wanted for all I cared, especially when she wore that strapless leopard-pattern halter top. But I digress. Or undress. Maybe both. Sorry, what were we talking about again?

Simpler times, Darcy. I have to remind myself how easy I had it when I was a dumb teenager playing punk rock up in Morganfield: no responsibilities outside of school and chores, no violence and hardship except what I saw on television. More than anything since moving to Toronto, what really shocked me was learning how so many punks like Christine come from broken homes and generally horrible upbringings. Just a few months ago I was sitting in on a practice by a certain local hardcore combo whose name shall go unmentioned (I'm not protecting my sources here \- I just don't want to give these pricks any free publicity), and out of the four males present I was the only one who did not want to punch out his dad. Serious! Either the fathers in question had skipped out on child payments, or they doled out brutal beatings on a regular basis, or they were the uptight religious sorts who believed in kicking out the child after their eighteenth birthday regardless of their circumstances. Meanwhile, I have only had two fights with my dad: one was when I was ten and I had just put a hockey puck through his car window, and the other was over my choice of university programmes ("If I'm paying your way through school," he told me, "then for once in your life you're going to do something practical." Ergo my passing up English Literature courses at U of T in favour of Business Administration at York.)

So when I talk to a kid who, say, grew up with crack-addict parents who started selling off all of their possessions one by one including the couch and kitchen table, I have little to offer other than sympathetic concern, which of course doesn't amount to much.

KID: "Then I came home and they're eating Chinese take-out on the kitchen floor. They ask me how my day was at school, and I said fine, and then I go in my room and my bed is gone. My fuckin' bed!"

ME: "Wow, uh... harsh."

KID: "Yeah. Last time I was back they asked me if I had any more CDs they could sell. And it was my fuckin' birthday that week, too, so like a dumbass I asked if I was getting anything. Honey, my ma says, you know we love you. Fuckin' cunt."

Darcy, if you ever find yourself in a conversation like this, avoid any urge to break the tension by blurting out "So how 'bout them Blue Jays?" Just trust me on this.

Hardcore songs about family strife and child abuse are a dime a dozen: 'Broken Home Broken Heart' by Hüsker Dü, 'Dad' by Nomeansno, D.O.A's 'Thirteen'. Every band has at least one of these scratch-the-surface-of-suburban-tranquility-and-watch-the-demons-crawl-out numbers in their repertoire. I used to think this was just some black-humoured sarcasm on the singers' part, but a lot of these kids live out these scenarios every day.

And believe me, the last thing you want is to be labeled a rich kid, an outsider with opportunities or alternatives. Hell, I'm on welfare, but even I qualify as "rich" to some people. One time I complained to some dude about my crappy low-ceilinged basement apartment, and he told me how lucky I was to not have to share a living space with a half-dozen strangers and their dogs. Good think I kept my mouth shut about the money I still get from my parents, eh?

If anything, I feel really bad for this one guitar player I know, who secretly commutes to Richmond Hill to work in an auto repair centre specialising in luxury vehicles - this guy is one of only five mechanics in North America who's certified to work on a certain model of Italian sports car; he chooses his own hours, he has medical insurance provided by the dealership: a sweet deal all around. He caught himself bragging about this to me over a few too many beers, and he then begged me not to spill his secret to his band mates. If they find out what sort of coin he makes, he's screwed. Meanwhile I go and stupidly spend what spare cash I have on books, and I still have to hide it like dirty secret from the skids and gutter punks I somehow call my friends these days.

(In my defense, I should point out that cheap literature is one of the few things that has kept me sane these past few months. I've made some amazing finds in used bookstores in the days between job interviews and pick-up work, and it's incredible how a fifty-cent copy of Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut can salve a battered soul, to say nothing of passing the time when time is all you have left to spend.)

I'm not really sure if it occurred to any of us Morgie kids back in the late eighties that the music we were playing and digging was anything but happy and occasionally creative noise. No one, not even the worldly Matt Miller, ever said that you had to be somehow psychically damaged to appreciate punk rock. We all had roofs over our heads and warm suppers in our bellies, and more often than not we had to go out of our way to find things to complain about in our song lyrics and on-stage spiels. Of course, there were occasional crises, like when Andy Lefebvre ran away from home to get away from his parents' constant fights. He was actually living at The Barn for a whole week until Bob Swann managed to sit down with the Lefebvres and drop a few hippie clichés about brotherly love that turned out to be surprisingly potent - Andy's mom and dad managed to mute their arguments, and Andy moved back home. There was also Pete Hammond with his oft-repeated story about being left in the bathtub by his mother when he was three years old, resulting in mild burns to his legs and torso, but he and his mom still managed to hold together a chilly but otherwise functioning home life. Pete might have occasionally rolled up his shirt to show the angry red flesh on his stomach, but neither he nor any of us ever thought that some child services agent needed to get involved. This wasn't high drama, just life. You dealt with it.

I know I'm oversimplifying things here, in part because there was no way I could ever know the whole story about what happened in the Lefebvre or Hammond or any other Morganfield household but my own. Yet looking back, I can not recall ever thinking that my friends were on the verge of anything close to the suburban apocalypse outlined in all those punk songs we played and enjoyed so much. When some old fart politician from the U.S. starts grousing about how life was better back in the fifties, I can't help but think about how Morganfield in the eighties had the same sort of sterile, innocent vibe: nothing ever happened in our neck of the woods, and history was something that occurred elsewhere. Even Brian Mulroney, the purported center of evil for us teenaged Canuck punks, really wasn't all that sinister \- an egotistical blowhard, surely, but nowhere near as appalling as that cold-blooded lizard Ronald Reagan (I still see Reagan's face on record sleeves and ads in Maximum Rock'n'Roll, and the old coot's been out of power for over seven years!) No matter what threat hung over our doomed acne-riddled heads - AIDS, overpopulation, acid rain, even the long-promised nuclear annihilation triggered either by Ronnie Ray-Gun or whatever zombie was currently heading up the U.S.S.R. - none of this seemed to affect our endless comfort. We were Canadians, members of the coziest and most inconsequential nation on Earth, and being from Morganfield made us even more inconsequential. We were untouchable in our bubbles of well-being, mired in a present tense that only threatened to get more stale and desperate and candy-coloured just like all of those new wave and R&B bands on MuchMusic with their geometric pastel clothing and shoulder pads getting bigger and bigger until no one could even turn their heads; they could only stare straight ahead, right back at you, the viewer. We were all trapped in the times we occupied, like so many fossilised prehistoric moths.

But then we finished high school, and our bands broke up or left Morganfield for more inviting musical climes, and despite the warnings of Pete Hammond and others, we all started our gradual progression into adulthood. Some of us got jobs and started families, while others stagnated and got poorer and poorer until we found ourselves sleeping on the floor next to runaway punk girls who talked themselves to sleep on ruined sheets bought with someone else's money and kindness.

I wish I could tell you more about Christine, the poor lonely punk girl who would have stood out starkly in Morganfield of yore. But by the time I woke up this morning, Christine was gone - along with my television set and a lot of the food in my refrigerator. Before I sat down to write this I had to search the rest of the apartment including my record collection and the hiding spots where I keep emergency cash. Luckily nothing else was taken. Not even the toothbrush, which still sits contaminated on the top of the toilet tank. But hey, I got laid - life could be worse. And I won't be the only one feeling angry over last night when Christine finds out my TV set is busted.

Which brings me, finally, to today's plot points.

Early in September, the Morganfield Hardcore scene assembled for one of its weekly Sunday meetings. Matt said he had a major announcement to make, but first he wanted to clear off any remaining business on the week's agenda. There were only two matters to address. One was the aforementioned Lee Aaron poster scandal. After the food fight, there was a more serious discussion over whether Dave would be allowed to call their newest song 'The Quickest Way To A Man's Heart Is Through The Rib Cage With A Pickaxe' - both David Swells and Dave Mulrooney insisted that they had never heard of the phrase about the quickest way to a man's heart being through the stomach, and they swore it was not meant to be the sort of pun frowned upon the in the Manifesto. The band won the motion 14-7, which seemed to piss off Matt Miller something royal, so to placate him I asked if we could move on to this announcement he had to make.

"All right, then." Matt clapped his hands and bared his teeth in an energetic grin. "Friends, Romans, countrymen - I have major news. As some of you already know, I have been talking with a lot of people around town looking for a hall where we can set up our first gig. We've already agreed that The Barn isn't big enough for a proper show, and the number of places in Morganfield where we can play to an audience are limited at best. That fascist asshole Flanagan said that holding a show in the school's Cafetorium is out of the question, which doesn't surprise me. Sir Hubert Memorial is also out of the question, because those capitalist pigs want so much money it's sick.

"But I have been asking around," he said quickly, "and I am happy to announce that I have booked a Saturday in November at the Prudence Avenue Presbyterian Church."

Prudence Presbyterian! Now that was impressive. You have to understand, the minister who presided over the congregation at Prudence Presbyterian was a truly humourless man of God, so managing to negotiate a day's rental at this venue seemed no easy feat (to say nothing over the potential for dissent among the congregation - after all, we are talking about the Presbyterian church, Presbyterianism being sort of like Protestantism with all the fun removed). That said, the minister was also a Scotsman with a mean eye for a dollar, so renting the hall might not have posed that much of an ethical dilemma. Anyway, the hall had a good PA set-up and a large floor with little in the way of overly religious decoration that might prove tempting as targets for the vandal-minded, and the central location was ideal for the sorts of non-Morgie attendees that we were hoping to attract. We wanted more than the locals to see this show, after all. We could already picture the Toronto punks getting off the 116B bus at the stop on Prudence and King, their Doc Marten boots scarring the untainted pavement with their grimy punk authenticity, chains rattling and old ladies trembling within a two-block radius. All that remained for us was to blow their minds with our music. Veni vidi VICI!

"And dig this big crux." Matt's smile ratcheted an extra degree across his chin. "I know how we have been talking about doing an all-Morgie show as our first concert, but we still need an out-of-town band to bring in the outsiders. And if you're going to start booking a non-local band, you might as well start with the best."

And for Matt, that could mean only one band: The Punkaholics.

Matt pulled out a manila folder and showed us some of the letters he had been exchanging over the past few months with Jake Punkaholic. Every letter Jake had sent back came in an envelope plumped up with Punkaholics stickers and fliers for shows the band had played across Canada: Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax, Quebec City, and a few towns we couldn't even locate on a map. Matt then read an excerpt from the most recent letter, where Jake described how The Punkaholics had to move out of their Toronto squat in 1987 back to their own hometown earlier that year. "'It sucked at first,'" Matt read aloud in a gruff voice approximating how Jake might have sounded, "'being kicked out of Toronto by the fucking cops, but it turned out to the best thing they ever did for us. We're building a scene here in Kitchener, inspiring bands, playing shows without all the competition and bullshit in Tee-Zero. Sounds like you guys are on the right track, doing things for yourself instead of letting the corporations tell you what to listen to. Look forward to seeing the Morganfield scene, Matt my man!'"

At that moment Matt Miller could have witnessed his father being shot-gunned to death by a Nicaraguan death squad, and I doubt he could have been made any less giddy. Even The Punkaholics' demand for a $500.00 guarantee up-front didn't seem to phase him. "This show," Matt concluded, "Is. Going. To. Kick. ASS!!!!"

Immediately we started discussing which band was going to play, and in what order we were opening for the Punkaholics. By the end of the meeting we had decided that The Nothings would open, followed by Dave, and then The Milk Studs would play followed by a joint set with The Milk Studs combined with Iremonger as Morgie supergroup The Ire Studs - most of us were bummed that Iremonger were not going to play on the bill, but on the other hand we now had a blessed opportunity to heckle the Studs' self-important singer Ashley by chanting "Milk Monger! Milk Monger! Milk Monger!" until he lost his cool and started screaming at people to shut up. Anyway, after The Ire Studs there would be our band (we still didn't have a name or a stable drummer, but no one ever debated the fact that Matt's band would be playing one way or another), and then The Punkaholics, and then joy would reign across Morganfield unto eternity from Finch to Steeles Avenue and all points in between.

The Sunday meeting quickly adjourned, and after a half-hour many of the scene members had dispersed, including Wanda Pockets. Annick was home sick that day, and so that left about eight male Morgies still gathered around the table laden with Shirley Soda and potato chips and cold chicken and rice take-out from the King Street Diner. At this point Dwayne Simmonds sat up and told everyone that Matt probably had something else he wanted to announce. "Like you don't want to give us the gory details," he said with a knowing nod.

I sat up straight in my chair, and turned toward Matt. "Is this about you and Linda Quick?"

"Quick Linda!" Steve bellowed, clapping his hands. "Straight from the horse's mouth, here we go!"

Quick Linda, whose birth certificate read "Linda Quick," was a member of the cheerleading squad for the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies. As you might have surmised, she was also a woman of a certain loose reputation - truly a representative of Morganfield North's egg-and-bacon community if ever the species had trod the school's corridors. But at least she was serious about her teenie vocation, unlike her cohorts on the cheerleading squad who otherwise seemed too bored and out-of-shape to do anything but the most basic of choreographed dance moves. Luckily the perennially losing Grizzlies rarely gave them anything to cheer about, and the team's early elimination from playoff contention every single year allowed the individual cheerleaders the time to otherwise concentrate on their smoking habits and mastery of contraceptive equipment (or, once in a while, lack of mastery, much to the consternation of the school administration. I have seen a six-month pregnant cheerleader in my lifetime, Darcy, and believe me, it is not a pleasant sight).

Anyway, in 1988 Linda Quick and the other girls on the squad found themselves dealing with Morganfield North Secondary School's had its first and only male cheerleader: a diminutive chap by the name of Matthew Miller. Matt had to lobby hard for his right to cheer for the Grizzlies, first with the cheerleaders themselves, who were alternately amused and annoyed by Matt's audition; and then with the school's higher-ups, notably "fascist" Principal Flanagan, who insinuated that the idea of a male cheerleader was somewhat, well, unmasculine. Matt immediately accused Mr. Flanagan of sexism, and pointed out that male cheerleaders were more than common in American schools, and after some high-profile tactics including a threat to take the case to The Morganfield Beacon, Matt was accepted into the squad, allowing Flanagan to duplicitously brag over the morning announcements that "Morganfield North Secondary School was once again breaking barriers in prejudice and discrimination," and then some other self-congratulatory drivel that was obscured by groaning students in home-rooms throughout the building.

Disconcerting as it was to see our scene's fearless leader dressed in the blue and orange school colours, I will concede that Matt displayed an impressive ability as a cheerleader. Usually Matt's job was to hold up a placard displaying the Morganfield Grizzlies logo, replete with the drawing of a grizzly bear that was supposed to be growling fiercely, but instead seemed more on the verge of bursting into tears. Other times he joined with the other cheerleaders in a line, wearing a plastic smile and twirling a baton. In fact, Matt proved himself to be a far better baton-twirler than any of the girls ever managed, working in pirouettes and spins that seemed professionally choreographed - such moves would later be put to good use when he performed with Murderburger (as well as on stage with Groove Inc., as you are already aware, Herr Vandenheuvel). Most impressive was when Matt would approach Linda from behind and, with a rapid grasp and upward thrust Linda would sit on Matt's shoulders in a finishing move that was as close to a human pyramid that the Morganfield cheerleading squad ever managed. It was always Linda on Matt's shoulders, as she was the only cheerleader small and light enough for little Matthew to hoist up, but the move was nonetheless worthy of the scattered applause it often received.

That Sunday at The Barn, Matt explained the pivotal event that would eventually lead to his dismissal from the cheerleading squad. "We were finishing rehearsal last Friday," Matt told us as we gathered like kids around a campfire. "I was going to the boys' shower to wash up, and Linda cornered me at the door saying she and the girls had been talking. Point blank she asked me: 'Matthew,' she said, 'Are you, like, a fag?'

"Now at first I was insulted, but then again it's not like I should have been surprised. The other cheerleaders had taken to talking about their boyfriends with me around, and it had gotten to the point where I was asking them for more and more detailed information. I was hoping for some gossip I could use against the fucking jocks they were screwing, like maybe one of them wore panties under their rugger pants or some shit, but no such luck.

"Anyways. So there's Linda, pointing her finger at me, all accusingly. 'Are you a fag?' I could still smell her on the back of my neck, like from where she'd been sitting an hour ago during practice, but still -

"Then it hit me: this was, like, a golden opportunity. I looked back at her and said, You know? I've always had my doubts. I mean, you guys have been so nice to me, letting me dance with you and letting me express myself and all, but sometimes... and then I make like I'm getting choked up and I lower my eyes just so - " Matt then lowered his eyes and raised them slowly, provocative and convincingly shy. "I said, maybe I just need to prove it to myself, one way or the other."

Linda Quick, whose birth certificate may as well have read "Quick Linda," immediately led Matt into the boys' washroom at 5:00 p.m. on that pungent Friday night, stripping him to the waist with Matt removing Linda's sweater in response, and then, straddling Matt with a well-practiced stance in a bathroom stall, Linda "proved it" to him.

Matt cupped the air where Linda's breasts would have asserted themselves across from his winking eyes: "'Keep going, keep going, you're doing good, oh god...'" We shook our heads and let out whoops of approval.

"But then," Matt said with a dramatic pause, "she looked down at me after we were finished, and she gave me this look and said, 'Now Matthew, how would you like to take the test's bonus question?'"

Matt detailed this "bonus question." Some of us listened in fascination, others in horror. At the end Steve Coleman recoiled as one might recoil from seeing a dead body. "Dude, that's fuckin' gross," Steve said. "What the hell?"

David Swells, on the other hand, wore the sort of dispassionate expression one might expect from a lawyer's son: all clinical analysis. "So if you 'ate her out'," Swells said, "does that mean you tasted your own - "

"Don't say it!" Steve hollered. "In the name of all that's good and holy, do not finish that sentence!"

Matt assured us that he did not, in fact, consume his own precious bodily fluids. "The trick," he assured us, "is not to let your tongue leave the outside of the vulva." Matt then detailed a few more physiological terms that made me suspect that he had boned up (heh heh!) a little too well on the technical nomenclature ahead of time. While I have no doubt that he lost his virginity to Quick Linda, I was dubious as to the amount of skill on Matt's part in the story. Indeed, the way Linda avoided Matt in the school corridors afterward, to say nothing of Matt's hasty exit from cheerleading, led me to the conclusion that his deflowering was not as, shall we say, climactic as he wanted us to believe. But as Matt kept talking, I could detect a subtle change in his demeanour: his posture was just a bit more relaxed, like there was now a part of the world that no longer terrified him. Matt was now, as a Mafia don might pronounce, a "made man," while I along with a dwindling number of unwilling stalwarts were still virgins, either too awkward or maybe just plain unworthy of female favour. I should have been sick with envy, but instead I couldn't help but feel glad for Matt. In many ways, punk rock kept many of us from getting lucky, but the way Matt lost his virginity was way punk. Well-played, Mr. Spike Liberty. Well-played.

• • • •

### 7.

I did a quick read-through of the last billion pages I've written so far, Darcy, and I am astonished to find that I have yet to describe anything about the Morganfield scene's most famous group, Murderburger. The band Spike Liberty built up in his own image, the band I devoted three years of my besotted life to promoting and propagating - and I have made it this far into the proceedings without so much as a thumbnail summary. Maybe when Mrs. Williams wrote on one of my essays that I took too long to get to the main argument, she wasn't merely grousing out of spite (to this day I don't believe she ever forgave me for slagging Morganfield at that Intrepid Entrance concert). So fine, points deducted from Team Poker's score for rockin' the narrative a bit too garrulous-like. If brevity is the soul of wit, then I'm a fuckin' moron. Mea culpa.

If I were to describe Murderburger's sound to a curious stranger, I would compare certain tracks to Minor Threat, or The Punkaholics, or Bunchofuckingoofs. We had a few mid-tempo songs like 'Gawd Complex', but mostly we stuck with an orthodox hardcore polka beat and blasted through the songs as fast as we could, with shouted vocals and a decently raw guitar sound filling in the spaces between the beats. I thought we were re-inventing music every time we counted down a new track, but the fact is we could have been any hardcore punk band from anywhere in english-speaking North America.

It might sound strange to hear me talk like this about my own band, but that's how it is for me these days. Whenever I listen to our CD, Animus Unanimous, all I can hear are the mistakes: the flubbed B-chord I played on 'War Dead', Matt's voice cracking at the beginning of the second chorus on 'The Young Are So Dumb', the flat tuning on Steve's bass throughout the parts of the CD that didn't get over-dubbed at the last minute. Then there are the superfluous metallic flourishes in my guitar-playing - at the time I had just learned how to hit the high strings with my thumb on the downstroke, making the sort of squealing noise heavy metal guitarists like to use in their solos, so of course they're all over the guitar tracks I laid down. And as everyone who hears the CD tells me later, Harvey's drums are way too high up in the mix. In retrospect, I can't help but feel that we could have been a little more careful with the official documentation of our music. Posterity can be downright cruel.

Then again, I don't think I would be as religious about the Morgie scene if we were only one band. Fact is, Iremonger was a better group than we ever managed to be: tighter, heavier, more musically adroit. The Nothings were funnier and more soulful. Dave were more original. And The Milk Studs, I guess, were just a touch more honest in their intentions. This is not even counting the myriad spin-off groups including (but most certainly not limited to) Peter And The Pukes, The Ire Studs, OwMyFooT, Awaken, Commercial Band, the Royal Canadian Bass Ensemble and Punky Brewster Death Cult. But Murderburger were the only ones who released any music, and Animus Unanimous is the only audio document available of what we accomplished in that short stretch of time. In regards to the awesomeness of Morganfield Hardcore, you only have that CD and my good word to go on, and I'm well aware that my good word along with two dollars will get you a coffee and donut at Tim Horton's. But dammit all, Murderburger could really rock it at times. And we killed at our debut set at Prudence Presbyterian in November 1988.

But before I can describe this pivotal event, there are two not-small matters I need to address: how the band got its name, and how the band found a drummer for the show.

From the day that Steve Coleman and I set foot in Matt Miller's practice pad, we had been discussing band names. "Naming a band is as crucial as naming a song, only more so," Matt would pontificate. "A good name encapsulates everything a band's about. It's gotta be catchy, it's gotta be something people remember when they think about the music and the message."

"Geez louise, you make it sound like we're selling a new model car or something."

"Paul, get a clue. You know it's important."

I didn't actually think it was that important. In fact, I saw nothing wrong with just changing the band name every week, like what Steve and I had done when we jammed with Craig LaBrie. But Steve agreed with Matt that we needed a permanent name. And what name, you might ask, did Steve have in mind?

"The Quakers!" One week Steve brought in a grainy photocopy of the Quaker Oats man, torn off of a flour bag. He had whited out the eyes and drawn comic-book streamers of smoke wafting out from the eye sockets as if the kindly Quaker had just burned down a farming village with his laser vision. "He could have, like, these monster fists on the album cover," Steve said, balling his own fists in metal-god fashion. "We're The Quakers and we will COME DOWN HARD! RARRRGH!"

Matt shot down the suggestion, saying "It sounds like a sports team." Nevertheless, Steve stuck with the idea for weeks, waving his arms and RARRGH-ing every time he argued his point. Meanwhile I gamely brought in new band names week after week, scribbling the letters out in appropriate logo styles. For instance, I drew the name "Wall Of Power" in brick-like squares suitably suggesting an epic kind of rock, pun intended. "Vehemence," on the other hand, was given a lightning-bolt font that was way metal, and way stupid. Or sometimes I would keep it simple and just draw a circle, symbolising the band name "The Circle." Nothing is as basic and perfect as a circle, right?

The debates continued when we moved our practices to The Barn. Once in a while Matt would go over to the blackboard with the various band names that other jammers borrowed for temporary or spin-off bands, and he would surreptitiously erase a name and record it in the mysterious ledger where he worked on his song lyrics. Apparently none of the purloined monikers met his satisfaction either, so he started a contest by asking us all to submit the most offensive band name we could think of. I recall the outcome being a tie between Peter Hammond's "Shitmuffin Diarrhea" and Tony Pettinella's "The Popesuckers", even though I thought my own entry, "The Clifford Olsen Singers", was a slam-dunk (maybe if I would have had more luck if I had submitted something more obvious and flashy, like "Jeffrey Dahmer And The All-You-Can-Eat Buffet". See, Canadians don't know their own history, that's the real problem. But I digress.)

Even after Labour Day, we were still hemming and hawing over what to call ourselves. Our debut gig opening for The Punkaholics was perilously close, and Matt had rejected every idea Steve and I and others had suggested. Finally, on a Saturday afternoon, I came across Matt sitting at a table at The Sunflower Café with a strange-looking woman I had never seen before. Matt introduced her as Teresa, saying she was a Punkaholics fan and she was helping with promotion for the concert in Toronto.

"Teresa's doing a show at U of T radio," Matt said. "She says we might get to do an interview on-air."

"I was telling Matt he should bring a demo tape," Teresa said. Her voice was cracked and slow, as if she had just woken up. I had a hard time imagining her doing a radio show. "He was saying you have a 'manifesto' against that sort of thing." She wrinkled her nose. "Interesting."

I went to the front counter and ordered my usual Sunflower snack: a bacon and tomato sandwich with a Shirley Orange soda. But Teresa asked if I wouldn't mind ordering something else. "It kind of makes me sick," she said. I thought she meant she was allergic to the food, like how Annick Tousignant broke out in hives if she even tasted peanut butter, but Teresa was not allergic. "It's the bacon," she explained. "The thought of those pigs being slaughtered. You ever see how farm animals are kept in pens and then led into slaughterhouses, just to die for food to go on someone's plate?"

I could have mentioned that I had grown up around people who farmed for a living, and that we were in fact sitting in a town surrounded by farms, but I was caught off-guard by this stranger's hectoring tone. Instead I timidly changed my order to a grilled cheese sandwich ("Good for you!" Bob Swann said with an approving nod - I kept forgetting he was one of these veggie chauvinists trying to convert the unsaved), and I sat down and waited for my less flavourful but more politically correct order.

"Ever since I went vegetarian," Teresa continued, "I can't even stand the smell of meat. It makes me gag, like I'm going to be nauseous."

"I've been thinking about going vegetarian myself," Matt said in an eager voice. "I read in a magazine how the human intestine is the same length of other animals that eat only plants. Like a carnivore's intestine has to be longer because animal fat is harder to digest."

"It's better for the body," The Swann added from the front counter, "and better for the environment."

"It's not even that, it's just - " Teresa got a faraway look in her eyes and shook her head. "You can't look at a photo of a factory farm and the rows of helpless cows sticking their heads through the pen windows without thinking of, like, Nazi death camps."

Matt laughed. "Right on!" he said, nodding vigorously. His voice and smile suggested an appreciation of Teresa's radical politics, but his frequent glances down Teresa's sweater indicated a more base motivation. As for myself, I was annoyed that this stranger could complain with a straight sneer about meat smells, when she herself smelled like a laundry hamper (Teresa would later inform me that showering was "a bourgeois affectation.") Hell, she even looked like a laundry hamper, what with her ill-fitting thrift-store clothing - surely people in Toronto of all places had the money to buy new clothes?

Anyway, in between Teresa's lectures and Matt's appreciative ogles, the topic of fliers for the November concert came up and Matt mentioned that he had a rough layout already designed. "I left a blank on the poster for our band name, but after talking with Teresa here, I think I have the perfect name to go into the blank." Then, just like in the movies, Matt started sketching on the back of a napkin, drawing a long submarine-style sandwich with blood-dripping letters spelling out "MURDERBURGER" between the bread slices.

"Whaddaya think, Paul? Murderburger! It's heavy and it's got that vibe of, like, capitalism consuming the flesh of the innocent. Kill the poor and make 'em into Solvent Green for the rich to feed on at their exclusive dinner clubs."

Teresa corrected him. "You mean 'Soylent Green', with Charlton Heston."

"I thought it was 'Solvent Green'."

"No, it was 'Soylent.'" The acid in Teresa's words could have eaten holes in wrought iron. "We watched that film in Film Studies class when we studied Science Fiction."

Matt's eyes lit up, maybe because he had met a girl who was more of an insufferable know-it-all than he was (true love, surely, and an older woman to boot!) My eyes lit up at the thought that people could take a university course where all they had to do was watch movies. It would have been easier than English Lit because you wouldn't have to read anything. Man, I was so looking forward to post-secondary education.

"So Teresa," Matt said, "What do you think of 'Murderburger' for a name for our band?"

Teresa gave "Murderburger" her approval, while I sat back and gritted my teeth. While I liked the new moniker well enough (and I had no doubt that Steve would love the hell out of it), I was also pissed off that Matt would talk to someone outside of the band about what we should be calling ourselves - what business was it of this woman, a person I had never even seen before in my life? It would be years before I would argue about this with Matt, by which point Murderburger was already in the process of breaking up. To this day I kick myself for not being more assertive at the times when it mattered.

But at least the band finally had a name. So while Teresa droned on about animal cadavers trundling on conveyor belts and Bob Swann piped in with lectures about how cows were worshiped in India and considered "noble," I chewed my dry-tasting sandwich and silently promised myself that I would never get tired of the taste of hamburgers, or the smell of meat sizzling on a grill.

With the band name confirmed, the next issue was what we were going to do about a drummer. We had already gone through all of the local prospects. The obvious choice would have been Andy Lefebvre, but he was already playing in three bands including Iremonger. There was also Jeff Kryzynski from the Milk Studs, but he was too much of an egotistical pinhead to bother dealing with, and John-David Goreham from Dave was simply not good enough for Matt's liking. I'm afraid Cary Glenn from The Nothings put his finger on the real problem after he finished his last rehearsal with our band: "It's like this," he told Steve and I in confidence, "I know enough about how to play drums without Matt trying to tell me how to hold my sticks or syncopate my foot pedals or whatever. Just sing your damn songs and don't tell me how to play my instrument, you know what I mean?"

I still had faith that Matt would convince one of the others to fill in on drums for our set one way or another. A few times we even considered using old Buddy Poor, but playing live with a drum machine just seemed desperate. I was this close to phoning Craig LaBrie and seeing if he was free in November ("yeah, yeah, we're totally unprofessional. We'll pay you, all right?") when Matt pulled me aside one Thursday in school and told me he had tracked down a drummer through some contacts at Grover's Antiques. I looked around the corridor, and Matt sensed that I was wondering which of my fellow students were going to be keeping time for Murderburger's maiden gig.

"Paul, dude, he's from Morganfield. I looked on a map." And that was all the information he would give me.

I showed up late for our Sunday morning practice at The Barn. When I finally entered the room, I was startled to see this shirtless Indian kid sitting behind the drum kit. More startling, he was holding a lighter to the surface of the snare drum.

"Matt," I said, pulling him roughly aside, "who is this guy and why is he setting fire to the drum set?"

"My name's Harvey," the Indian with the lighter said without looking up. "And I'm fixing the snare skin, not burning it." He said that the skin was too pocked to play properly, and he was melting the plastic back to a uniform flatness. "My drum teacher taught me how to do this. Equipment was hard to come by back in Leningrad, you know."

"Leningrad's in the Soviet Union," Steve said. I thanked Steve for the news report.

Harvey flicked the lighter closed, and then performed a few satisfactory rolls on the snare. "Good as new," he said. "Harvinder Singh, you are a genius."

Steve leaned over and whispered under a cupped hand against my ear: "you should have heard him earlier. This guy's good." Matt, meanwhile, flashed me a satisfied smile.

In regards to how good Harvey was, Harvey spent the next forty-five minutes blasting through our play-list, leaving me and Steve just barely hanging onto the beat. I was damp in the armpits after a half-hour, but this kid didn't seem capable of sweating. We ended off with a verse riff that ended up being part of our song 'Metal Makeover'. "Aw yeah," Harvey said. "I'm liking that one muchly. I want more of that!"

Harvinder had been playing drums since he was ten, when his family moved to Canada from Kashmir. He started out on tabla drums, but then he started getting into Black Sabbath and other lumbering dinosaurs of metal. After putting two spoons simultaneously through a tabla skin while doing what must have been one heck of a John Bonham impersonation, Harvey convinced his parents to shell out for a 'western' drum kit and some lessons with the aforementioned ex-Soviet.

During a Shirley Soda break Harvey described how he had discovered Rock For Light by Bad Brains, a band that changed his life much like Slow had changed mine. He had brought a dubbed cassette copy with him, and at Matt's suggestion, he popped it into the tape player. At first I was confused when Harvey pressed play and a reggae song started playing, but then he re-wound the tape to a song called 'Attitude', and man, did that song just ROAR out of those cheap stereo speakers. The weird thing was how the drummer in Bad Brains managed to roll the off-beat on the snare as opposed to hitting it straight, unlike the typical thump-tick fashion I was used to hearing in other hardcore recordings. I couldn't quite explain it, but Bad Brains were somehow more musical that other punk bands I was used to hearing. How many more bands like this were out there?

The four of us hung out until the regular scene meeting, which happened to coincide on the afternoon of our introductory practice (gee, it's almost as if Matt planned it that way!) There was little debate among the band that Harvey was going to be the new drummer, but the larger issue was whether he would be allowed into the scene. David Swells, diligent lawyer's son that he was, noted that having Harvey play for Murderburger would contravene Point Two of the Morganfield Hardcore Manifesto ("All bands formed in the Scene must be comprised only of residents of Morganfield, in order to preserve scene unity semper fidelis"). But Matt produced a map of the Greater Toronto Area and pointed out an address on the north side of Finch Avenue. "This is Harvey's address. Technically it's in Scarborough, but if you go by the old town boundary of Morganfield - " Here Matt paused and traced a line along Finch Avenue, the traditional dividing line between Scarborough and Morganfield. "You will see that Harvey actually qualifies as a Morgie. Even though he doesn't go to Morganfield North, he's still one of us."

If anyone other than Matt had been making this claim, someone surely would have argued that the houses along either side of Finch Avenue had nothing meaningful to do with Morganfield. The boundary between us and Scarborough was as psychological as it was physical, what with the slight rise of tree-covered hill obstructing the view to the south, along with the lack of houses for a good quarter-kilometre between Finch Avenue and Comfort Road. Of course, Matt himself actually lived several blocks south of Finch Avenue and west of Morningside, and yet none of us ever questioned whether Matt Miller was never a true Morganfielder.

At best there was a muted, cautious debate as to Harvey's Morganfielder status. Most of us were more curious about the odd ball of fabric that Harvey wore wrapped at the front of his head, like a woman's head-scarf tied backward.

"It's called a keski," Harvey said. "It's like a starter-turban for Sikhs." He then explained that Sikhs never cut their hair, and that the turbans were used to wrap the hair up.

"So Sikhs are like hippies," Andy Lefebvre said.

"You're a dirty hippie!" Steve yelled.

"And you're a dumb punk!" Harvey yelled back. And the question of Harvinder Singh's Morgie status never came up again.

The meeting was capped off with a twin-drum jam between Andy Lefebvre on one of The Barn's kits, and Harvinder on the other kit - Andy was always the more capable drummer, able to adapt to any style you threw at him, but Harvey was just powerful and loud, which to our untrained ears at the time made Harvey the more impressive-sounding of the two. Afterwards a bunch of us headed over to King Street for ice cream and Shirley Sodas, and then Harvey's parents picked him up at the corner of Prudence and King and he was gone. "They're not too happy about me playing rock music," he told us before the family car pulled up to the curb, "so if they ask, just say we were playing soccer or something."

Even though we were in the same band for two years, I never really knew Harvey all that well. I only saw him at band practices and shows; once the music was done Harvey would be off sprinting for the bus or for his parent's weathered hatchback, always in a rush. The one time Steve and I went to his house down on Finch Avenue to hang out, we ended up watching television in the living room with his angry-looking aunt hovering over us as if she was waiting for one of us to spill one of the myriad cups of tea she had been serving up with a tightly-winched smile. Neither of us felt welcome enough down there to go back, but then again I often wondered how Harvey felt being up in Morganfield, a town so white and anglophilic that even folks down in The Beach probably referred to us as honkies. We would be hoovering up fries and burgers like any bunch of teenagers, mouthing off a bit too loudly in the corner of the King Street Diner or the new McDonald's that had opened up on Queen and Comfort Road, and still every adults' eyes seemed to zero in on Harvinder, faces frowning in a mixture of discomfiture and suspicion. Babies in strollers would ogle him openly in fascination, and beer-bellies outside The Roadhouse would watch from across the road and sneer.

One time a waitress at King Street Diner approached our table with a diplomatic smile on her face. "I haven't seen your friend here before," she said, nodding toward Harvinder. "Not from around here, obviously."

"That's 'cause he's a dirty hippie from Hippyland," Steve half-shouted. "He came out for Woodstock and got lost."

Harvinder laughed. "Don't mind this guy. He's a bassist and can't help being stupid."

"Shut up, hippie!"

"You shut up, dumb punk!"

The waitress grinned and then stayed away from our table for the rest of the afternoon.

I would be lying if I said that I hadn't been looking forward to a fight with the local rednecks over Harvinder's presence. Contemptuous and anti-authoritarian teenager that I was, I all but prayed for some righteous riot to overtake Morganfield's bland streets, with all of the carefully-concealed ugliness in our nice-seeming town spilling out to the surface in a poisonous ooze, vindicating every pessimistic supposition in my cracked imagination. But those treacherous neighbours of mine, they always kept a sociable distance. I knew I was making a statement playing music with Harvinder, even though Murderburger was never as close-knit as bands like The Milk Studs or Iremonger, whose members were real friends who hung out constantly both inside and outside their music-making. Then again, I'm sure if I met up with Harvey today and asked him about his times up in Morganfield, I would find out some things that would surprise me, and that I probably wouldn't want to know about even now.

A month before the Prudence Presbyterian gig, there was one incident in particular where Harvey's presence would have made for a very different outcome. At the time, Steve and Harvey were talking about forming Awaken, which would become Morganfield's first and only straight-edge band, dedicated to abstinence from booze and drugs (you know, from 'Out Of Step' by Minor Threat: "Don't smoke / don't drink / don't fuck / at least I can fuckin' think..." Dammit, Darcy, don't make me draw up a punk rock histogram here). Steve, the scene's head teetotaler, figured that they should be networking with other straight-edge bands, as many of the Morgie scenesters were, at best, practitioners of what I liked to call "straight-edge casual," i.e. we drank alcohol if alcohol was available and on offer (I actually swore off booze for over a year due to an unfortunate incident involving half a case of my dad's Labatt 50 and a strained back from sleeping in a tree, but that's a whole other story.) Then on a recent trip to downtown Toronto, Steve came across a flier for a show at a hall up off of Yonge Street near the Finch subway station: practically spitting distance from Morganfield, compared to the distant utopias down on Toronto's Queen West strip.

Despite Matt's assertion that we should "save ourselves for the big show" in Morganfield (what the hell were we, debutantes?!), Steve talked a bunch of us into checking out the gig over in North York. One of the abstainers (hee!) was Harvey; if I recall correctly, his angry aunt having drafted him for babysitting duty for his cousins. But the rest of us - myself, Jamie Playfair and Brad Fallows - we were psyched. Even the indubitable Matt Miller took down the address and grudgingly said he might be able to join us later.

We grabbed the south-bound 116B bus and transferred onto the west-bound Finch Avenue line. We were bouncing in our seats: our first honest-to-goodness punk rock show! Steve, I recall, had dressed up for the occasion in a baggy pair of cut-off jeans that he said were "skater shorts" (never mind that he had fallen off of Matt's skateboard so many times that we had started to think he was doing it on purpose). Combined with his customary fisherman's cap, his clothing could well have been mistaken from a distance for a safari costume complete with pith helmet, which was pretty appropriate. We were explorers sailing on the back of a beat-up TTC bus for unknown territory.

I'm not sure what gave Steve the impression that the show was straight-edge - it might have been the prominent heading advertising an all-ages concert, or the eagle with the banner across its chest reading "Sober, Strong and Free." None of us had heard of the bands themselves: The Bone Crushers, 88 State, and a New Hampshire band called Pride and Honor (ergo the American spelling, I proudly deduced and explicated to all and sundry). Yet by the time we had arrived at the address on the flier, with night falling grimly against the apartment blocks around the bus terminal, we all felt drunk with excitement, more than making up for our enforced sobriety.

We approached the address listed on the flyer which led to an unmarked building just off of Drewry Avenue, not a marquee or poster in sight. A few kids were standing outside the hall smoking and scraping the sidewalks with their boot soles, eyeing us suspiciously. We smiled meekly at the savages, keeping a safe distance, staring like the tourists we were.

The older man at the ticket booth saw Jamie Playfair's Morganfield tee-shirt and asked us if we were all from Morganfield, and we said we were. "Our kind of people," he said.

I looked at the man quizzically. "What, rednecks?"

The man paused and then laughed, his belly shaking. "Yeah, that's about right!" he said. He stamped our hands with a large black 'X' ("Dude, straight edge!" Steve said, proudly waving his hand) and we entered the hall.

There were about seventy kids in the dark hall, mostly males like the ones we saw on the sidewalk: boots, suspenders, and military haircuts. I watched the first band, The Bone Crushers, perform their set, and I imagined myself on the stage, playing and hopping and punking out. The guitar had a good raw sound, but the vocals were muffled and it was hard to understand what the lead singer was saying: "This next song (garble garble) fighting for (garble garble) and our (garble garble) country again!"

After The Bone Crushers finished their last song, Brad Fallows ran up to us with a crazy grin on his face. "Guys, did you see that blonde chick over by the tee-shirt table? I was talking to her for the last ten minutes about the gigs she's seen up and down the U.S. seaboard. I think she digs me! Don't tell Andrea" - Andrea was Brad's girlfriend - "but I think I might score her number if I'm lucky."

We looked over at the blonde at the merch table. She was a stacked woman with heavy eye make-up and shorts cropped up almost to her hip bones. "What does the front of her tee-shirt say?" I said, after staring intently at the scribbles stretched across her chest.

"I dunno. Some English group: Screwdriver, but spelled with a 'k.'"

"Guys!" Matt came running up to us, almost sick with panic. "We gotta get out of here! Now!"

No sooner had Matt spoken, than the next band, 88 State, had rung out on their guitars, seig-heiling the audience as the drummer performed an epic-sounding run of cymbal smashes behind the guitars. "The glory of the Fourth Reich is upon us," the front-man shouted, "for those of us who are strong enough to take it. Where are the warriors in this room?"

Around us the crowd cheered and returned the raised-arm salute, beer steins clenched in their free hands.

Matt shook his head. "I swear, I should have clued in the moment I saw the flier, but -"

Steve pointed angrily at the others in the crowd. "Where did these guys get beer? Why are they drinking fuckin' beer?!"

We bickered like this for several minutes while 88 State pounded the heck out a simple four-chord progression under the title of either "Fight Oi Oi!" or "Fight Of Our Lives" - again, the poor vocal mix, buried at points over a recurring feedback squeal, made it hard to decipher. The band looked huge even on that low-set corner stage, with a mammoth Canadian flag pinned on the wall behind them, the fabric rippling in the breeze of an oscillating fan. I saw Matt staring at that rippling maple leaf, and watched as his eyes inexplicably lit up, with that malevolent grin began to arch across his jaw.

He cupped a hand over my ear and shouted, "Paul, you and the guys should get out of here. I'm about to do something really stupid, but I can't pass up an opportunity like this."

Matt started toward the stage. "What did Matt say to you?" Brad asked.

"He said we should leave, because he's about to do something stupid." Immediately, the matter was decided. Only an idiot would leave and miss seeing Matt do something he himself had openly advertised as "stupid."

Throughout the second song, Matt stood at the left end of the stage, pointing at the Canadian flag and yelling frantically at the band. The bassist and drummer occasionally looked over at Matt, but otherwise stuck to their playing. Finally the singer turned over to address Matt's complaint. "What are you yelling about," he shouted with an obvious annoyance.

Matt pulled at the singer's microphone so the crowd to hear him. "I just wanted - I just wanted to say, you guys are dishonouring this flag! You're playing in front of a backwards flag, and that's totally unacceptable!"

The singer looked over at the Canadian flag, with its red maple leaf and two framing red bands, and then back at Matt. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"See the strings on the right side? Those are used to tie the flag to the flag pole. They're on the right, which means the flag is backwards. The pole edge should be on the left. You should be reading the flag left to right, not right to left."

The singer studied the flag intently, scratching his bristly head with the butt-end of the microphone.

"Dude," Matt said, "only Jews read right to left."

The band members looked over the flag, apparently baffled. People in the audience began to cat-call, demanding another song. "Wait a minute, wait a minute." The singer glared at Matt, who looked up with a convincing sincerity back at him. "The maple leaf is the same right to left as it is left to right. It's - what's the word?"

"Symmetrical," the drummer called out.

"Yeah, symmetrical. What difference does it make whether the flag is one way or the other. This is crap."

At this point the bassist, a beef-shouldered giant with heavy triangular sideburns and dark, intent eyes, leaned over the backing vocal mic. "Yo Joe, I'm with this kid here," he said in a halting accent, pointing in Matt's direction. "I think maybe we are disrespecting the flag by playing in front of it hanging backwards. Not that it wasn't an honest mistake or nothing, but we really should turn it around before we continue playing."

Joe, the singer, rolled his eyes. "I don't believe this shit. Listen, Serge, I served in the armed forces for two years, and I never heard a single - " Suddenly the vocal mic began to buzz loudly, the feedback humming for several seconds. Joe threw down the microphone in frustration and shouted out something that, to my ears, sounded like "I don't give a fat whoop about what this asshole says."

And just then I was seized by my own stupid idea. One that was even stupider than Matt's. "Dude," I shouted, pointing at Serge after the feedback ceased, "did you just call that guy a 'fat wop'?"

Matt stared back at me from the side of the stage. I could see him mouth "What the fuck?" at me, his expression reddening. I was surprised by his admonishing reaction. I thought he would have been impressed.

Up on stage, Joe pointed out in my direction, squinting under the stage lights. "Who said that? When the fuck did I say anything about WASPs?"

Serge stared hard toward the audience, for a moment meeting my eyes with a violent-looking stare. Then after a contemplative pause, he turned back toward Joe, the singer. "You called me a wop, Joe? A fucking wop? What's the matter with you?"

"No, I - " Joe stomped around the stage like a horse rearing against a cloud of blackflies. "Will you please listen to me? I didn't call you a wop, you dumb fuck! Jesus Christ!"

Two shaven-headed men who might have been Serge's brothers climbed onto the stage, standing next to the bassist. "Oh, now I'm a dumb fuck? I have family who died serving Benito Mussolini and I have to put up with this disrespect from you?"

The room began to tense up like a hundred balled-up fists. Bodies were alternately crowding around the stage sensing a fight or, like me and my fellow Morgies, inching toward the exit door in unconscious self-preservation. "I swear," Joe pleaded. "I meant no disrespect. I don't even know why we're arguing about this."

Now the guitarist and the drummer were gathered around Joe.

"You know what the problem is?" Serge growled. "I'm whiter than you. You can't handle the fact that you're just some half-breed from butt-fuck Nova Scotia while me and my brothers are pure blood."

Joe clocked Serge over the ear with the microphone. People flooded onto the stage, fists and boots flying, voices howling. I stood watching the brawl dumbfoundedly until Matt grabbed me by the shoulder, pushing me towards the door. "You idiot!" Matt shouted. "Get out, for fuck's sake!"

Our Morgie gang barreled down Finch Avenue and clambered onto the first east-bound bus for Morganfield. The newspapers the next day would report on the riot at the White Power concert at a private hall in North York, resulting in seven arrests and a charge stemming from an expired liquor license. The New Hampshire band, Pride And Honor, would blame the riot on undercover agents from a government agency they refused to name.

Back on the Finch bus, we laughed and high-fived each other, high on adrenaline. "That was just insane!" Brad shouted.

"I never thought I'd see nazis in real life," Jamie said. "Are all punk shows in T.O. like that?"

"They're not," Matt said, strangely churlish. "Like I said, if I had known what kind of show you guys were going to - "

"I'll say one thing," I said, interrupting Matt. "If all the skinheads are as dumb as what we saw back there, no wonder the nazis lost World War Two!"

"Fucking shut up!" Matt screamed. "Would you guys just shut up for a second?"

All conversation in the bus stopped immediately. Everything became quiet, until all you could hear was the noise of the engine. All eyes focused on our crew at the back.

"Anything I should know about?" the driver casually asked. None of us responded. The driver turned away and the bus lurched forward.

Matt leaned over toward me, his eyes as hard as metal beads. "Paul, don't you ever, ever do anything that idiotic again. You have no idea how much shit those guys could have caused."

"But you were the first one to - "

"Shut it," he said. "This conversation's over."

"Why are you being such an asshole?" Steve said.

"I might be an asshole, but at least I know what I'm talking about."

Matt said very little for the rest of the journey home. Once in a while he would sneak a glance toward the bus' back window with a sudden panicked expression, as if he expected gangs of skinheads to be chasing the bus, but then just as suddenly the panic would subside and he would resume his lock-lipped glower. I could not bring myself to peer back through that same window, not because I was paranoid like Matt, but because every time I looked, all I could see was the night-darkened road, atop which floated my own reflection: a kid among kids like so many childish ghosts trapped in the hazy glass.

• • • •

### 8.

Howdy doo, Darcy boo. Sorry I haven't been around for the last few weeks to continue typing out my grand saga of Morganfield Hardcore. I've been preoccupied of late with more pressing matters, to the point that I no longer need to read your slim essay on Morganfield and the glorious wonder that is Matt Molotov to get me upset for a day's spleneticisms. In a phrase: my life sucks, Darcy my man. Yea verily, it doth sucketh in Shakespearian proportions.

My fortnight of anguish began with a Monday morning wake-up call from my landlord, who was knocking on my front door like a drummer warming up: a loud, unsteady banging that sped up as it continued. I set my bare feet on the floor and immediately found myself ankle-deep in water - a pipe in the washroom burst overnight, flooding my apartment and, even worse, causing a drop in the water pressure that prevented my upstairs neighbours from getting their precious morning showers. For some reason, everyone managed to blame me for the leak, as if I somehow corroded the pipes through the sheer caustic powers of my punk-rawk attitude.

It took the entire morning for the bill-by-the-hour plumber to seal the leak and pump out the accumulated spillage. I am now the proud owner of a warped mattress box spring, a box of wet-fattened paperbacks, a pile of inadvertently semi-laundered clothes and - argh! \- several dozen ruined LP sleeves (thankfully, the records themselves seem to have persevered. Also, it was a good thing I keep the computer tower on top of some milk crates, or else all of my software files including this blessed letter would have been lost to the ages). The plumber helpfully pointed out that I could claim the damages to insurance, which would be splendid were it not for the fact that I have no insurance policy to speak of. Oh yeah, and my landlord has hinted that I may need to move out temporarily so he can rip out the wall-to-wall carpeting and do a proper clean-up, which would mean being homeless for a number of weeks as well as fighting a potential rent increase. Of course, a rent increase under these circumstances would be illegal, but for some reason my landlord does not seem all that concerned about my ability to take him to court.

But wait! There's more! Although I am still a proud member of Team Canada, I have just recently learned that Mike Harris and his merry band of robbing hoods are speedily enacting a thirty percent cut in welfare benefits, effective as soon as possible. By my calculations this would leave me with a monthly stipend that would just barely cover my rent and utilities, assuming that Dear Mr. Landlord doesn't successfully jack up my rent after reno-time. Forget movies and books, forget a replacement TV set or clothes or even food - like any schlub in Greater Toronto, I should count myself simply lucky enough to live in this fair city of broken-down streetcars and concrete architecture and catatonic social graces courtesy of our uptight Protestant forbears. Shit, I should be paying welfare to Mike Harris just for the privilege of breathing his hot fuckin' air!

And it just keeps getting better! I went into freak-out mode in the office of Yolande, my government assistance agent and sometimes-confidante, and in my state of agitation I happened to blurt out that I have been working under the table for a certain landscaping company out in Scarborough. Yolande sternly informed me that money earned outside of social assistance had to be counted against my monthly benefits, and that I could be asked to produce pay stubs for all of this extra work I've been so lucky to sweat for. I think my elevated panic might have stirred a latent bit of sympathy in Yolande's bureaucratic heart, because she then offered the possibility of putting my name into a pool for a new Ontario employment initiative called "Work-Fare" which is basically welfare you have to earn by working in a specially-created labour position. Hey, here's a wild idea: how about AN ACTUAL JOB? Y'know, something that would allow me to quit welfare altogether and, I dunno, pay my own fuckin' way for once in my life? I mean, I'm no legal expert, but I'm pretty sure that Work-Fare would qualify as double jeopardy in a court of law. Thanks, Mr. Harris! My donation to the Ontario Progressive Conservative party is in the mail! I hope you take water-damaged Canadian Tire dollars, you scrotum-sucking autocratic Tory bastard!

Fucking goddamn shit. Let's change the subject.

We promoted the hell out of the November Punkaholics show. Every telephone pole along Queen Street, King Street, Comfort Road and Elizabeth Avenue had a flier taped to it at one point or another, although we had to re-poster certain streets after members of the perennially-losing Morganfield Grizzlies made a point of tearing down our hard work (if they needed the paper for practicing writing out their names or doing crayon self-portraits, they could've just asked). As per Matt's instruction, we left piles of smaller pick-up fliers at any store that would have them on their shelves and ledges, including The Sunflower Café, Grover's Antiques, King Street Diner and, uh, Morton & Sons Funeral Home (maybe they were just happy to have living bodies visit them - who knows? I'm just glad that when Matt suggested that we should borrow a coffin from them to use as a snack bar at the concert, none of us took him seriously enough to even ask). We also scored a front-page write-up in The Morganfield Beacon including an awesome photo of Steve, myself and Dwayne Simmonds from Iremonger jumping in the air with our guitars accompanied by the headline "Morganfield Youths Get The Punk." Yeah, I know, I know - the woman's favourite artist was Air Supply, know what I'm saying? Still, my dad had that article clipped and tacked to the wall of his office for years, which must have looked funny amidst all of the rail schedules and memos.

As for advertising in Toronto, we had to take Matt's word that things were under control. The radio interview with Teresa never materialized, and she would also turn out to be a no-show at the concert itself. I can't prove it, but my suspicion is that Matt had gotten over-zealous in his appeals to his fellow meat-eschewing didact (it's never good form for a professed vegetarian to express wanton cravings for breasts and thighs, is it?) A few people said that they vaguely recalled seeing a poster here and there in the city, but most of them had heard about the concert through The Punkaholics' extensive mailing list, or else through good ol' word of mouth.

Speaking of the Punkaholics, a funny thing happened on the day of the concert. We were setting up our equipment at Prudence Presbyterian when Matt entered the hall in an agitated state, wearing a Punkaholics sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, looking like the Angel Of Death's petulant teenaged son. He pulled me aside and muttered in a low, tremulous voice: "don't say a word about this, but I don't think The Punkaholics are going to make it."

Matt had just gotten off the phone with Jake, who was calling from a payphone somewhere outside of Guelph. The band's van had broken down, and they were stuck in a garage trying to get the problem fixed. "Jake's gonna call back in an hour," Matt mumbled, "but he already said the mechanic told him not to get his hopes up."

My first instinct was to say "Fuck 'em," seeing as how all of the other bands had truncated their sets to twenty minutes apiece to accommodate The Punkaholics. Besides, I had warned Matt that the five hundred dollar up-front guarantee was a mistake. But I had also been looking forward to seeing the band live, just like everyone else, and I was all too aware that the hordes of Torontonians we were expecting were not going to be too happy to find out after a ninety-minute bus trip up to our particular nowhere-ville that the only band they had come to see had bailed out. But no matter how bad I felt about the situation, Matt obviously felt ten times worse. These guys were as close to personal heroes as he would ever admit to having, and they were letting him down.

Matt retired to the front office to wait for Jake's phone call. Meanwhile the fat-assed soundman hired to supervise the set-up barked and lectured us about treating the equipment (most of which was ours to begin with) with the utmost care. He also complained about the music we insisted on playing through the P.A., claiming that the "dumb-ass kiddie garbage" was hurting his ears. "You kids be careful with how you tape them cables down," he bellowed. "I didn't work all these years in this industry just to have some dummy trip and break his nose. I worked with Ronnie Hawkins and (insert names of several musicians none of us had ever heard of) and one thing I can tell you, no professional player would tolerate this sort of sloppiness."

We were still checking sound levels when the first concert attendees showed up at the door: local folks, mostly fellow students from Morganfield North. Being on the admissions table for first shift, I tried to warn them as I collected the five dollar admission charge that they were in for some loud and unruly noise, but most people seem unfazed. "You kidding? I was front row at a Rush concert last summer," one of the older kids told me. "They had a whole wall of amplifiers. That was loud!" He then asked me if any of the bands that night were covering Rush. I almost blurted out a long-winded explanation about how our scene had banned cover songs, but then I thought better of it. I took his money and said that anything was possible.

Along with the local teenagers, a number of adults also arrived. Bob Swann and his wife Sophie came in their hippie tie-dyed finest. Graeme Forsythe showed up soon after, striking up a conversation with the soundman - he knew more about the lingo of equalisers and compressors than the rest of us (except for Matt, who presumably was still holed up in the front office waiting for Jake's call), and for the first time that evening the soundman had calmed down. Also present was a few of the church ladies from the Prudence congregation, no doubt acting as self-appointed chaperones for the event, and - groan! \- a small but still-embarrassing contingent of band members' parents, including - double-groan! \- my mother, with camera in hand.

And then around 7:00 p.m., a magical presence emerged at the hall's front entrance: honest-to-goodness punks.

Three frayed figures stood in the doorway. Two of them were males, faces riddled with stubble, and the third was a lanky goggle-eyed girl a foot taller than the others. They were dressed like nuclear blast survivors: clothes askew, hair sticking in myriad directions, shoes battered and cracked. One of the males wore a suit jacket with lapels studded with band buttons, and the girl had on bright pink mesh stockings that drooped slightly around her stick-figure legs. All of them wore facial expressions like startled rabbits, their eyes frozen with a mix of confusion and fear. After my experience at the White Power concert in North York, I was not prepared for such bashfulness - these so-called "punks" seemed as threatening as open cartons of milk.

Wanda Pockets barreled past me to greet the strangers, a complimentary copy of MFHC Issue One in her out-thrust hand. "Welcome to Morganfield," she said brightly. "Are you here for the Punkaholics concert?"

The female punk raised an eyebrow. No, we were looking for the farmer's market, I could picture her replying sarcastically. "I guess so," she meekly replied.

"Where's the washroom?" The male with the lapels full of band buttons half-shouted this in a hoarse voice, adding "I gotta take a crap." They paid their admission in spare change and Mr. Gotta-Take-A-Crap shot toward the bathrooms while the others proceeded cautiously into the open hall. As they left the ticket booth I recall catching a distinct aroma wafting in their wake. They smelled like Teresa.

All in all there were about twenty Toronto punks at the show, outnumbered four to one by the Morgie crowd. The T.O. punks pretty much kept to themselves, huddled in corners of the hall. On the other hand there was also a back-packing couple from Belgium, who were talkative and curious about the punk rock scene in Canada, having only heard of D.O.A. and some other bands they had seen while traveling through B.C. and Alberta. I asked then about the bands in Toronto and they said they hadn't been impressed. "They only care about looking punk," the female half of the couple said in her weird french-accented English. "They smash bottles on ground and think they're fucking system." Wanda and the Belgians exchanged tips on zine writing - the woman was the only person I recall who actually gave money to Wanda for her copy of MFHC. While they conversed, I watched the Morgie locals stare at the Belgians with suspicious eyes, hands cupped over mouths as they apparently exchanged jokes and disparaging comments about the foreigners with the matching horn-rimmed glasses and Socialist patches on their backpacks. I have never ceased to be amazed at how people who looked so harmless could raise so much consternation in a crowd of strangers.

The only non-Morgies who elicited more attention were the three bikers who showed up in their leather jackets and boots, drinking from wine flasks and looking as if they had gotten lost on their way to The Roadhouse up on Steeles Avenue. Andy Lefebvre told me that one of the bikers knew the Punkaholics' bassist, The Mighty Hork, from a stint in jail out in Cornwall. "He said the guy was in for assaulting a cop," Andy said, bug-eyed with excitement. Hork's hatred of policemen was hardly news, of course; we all knew from Matt's videotape about how Hork had gotten the worst of The Punkaholics' confrontation with Montreal police, resulting in a permanent purple bruise under his left eye and a nose bent at an angle on his face like something from a Picasso painting (the face shot of Hork included on the Punkaholics' record liner sleeve was downright wince-inducing). Regardless of the more gruesome details, the mere thought of someone actually punching a police officer in the face (or hitting him with a hockey stick, according to one colourful version of the story) was thrilling to us kids, most of whom were too scared to even look the local cops in the eye. The sheer transgression of the idea was enough to send a chill down one's law-abiding spine.

The concert finally kicked off at 7:00 p.m. with a brief monologue by the night's "host," a class clown from Morganfield North and self-professed comedian by the name of Wes Crawley. Now, why would a comedian be giving a monologue at a punk show? Well, it was Matt's idea that we should have an emcee to introduce bands and perhaps kill a bit of time while each band set up. Andy Lefebvre suggested his good buddy Wes Crawley, better known to most of us as "Creepy-Crawley." Although I missed most of the opening monologue, what I can say is that Crawley had a commendable repertoire of impressions of American politicians even if his impressions of Canadian figures were oddly lacking (his Pierre Elliot Trudeau, for instance, sported a ridiculous french accent straight out a Pepe Le Pew cartoon). Also, his combination of a huge green clip-on bow tie with a classic black tuxedo-front tee shirt was a real winner: pure sartorial wackiness. Andy was an incredible drummer, but his taste in comedy left more than a little to be desired.

(By the way, Darcy, if Crawley's name sounds familiar, that's because he is the same Wes Crawley who currently heads up a comedy troupe called Mammals With Tools. In fact, according to an article published in the very same issue of Sonic Sauce as your Matt Molotov love-in, MWT have just signed a deal with CBC to write and star in a new all-Canadian sketch humour series to replace the dear departing "Kids In The Hall" show: something called "That's Not Funny" - a title which, knowing Crawley, is bound to be a sorry case of truth in advertising. But I digress.)

From my faraway vantage at the admissions table, I watched as Creepy-Crawley finally announced that it was "high time we got on with tonight's shue" (Crawley's Ed Sullivan impersonation flew over the heads of many a young'un, myself included) and introduced the night's first band, The Nothings. The Nothings launched into 'Morbid And Old', and the crowd lit up like a giant pinball machine. Pete Hammond was all over the place, swinging monkey-style from the overhead rafter, waggling the microphone toward audience members like a kid offering a lick of his ice cream cone, climbing the rear wall to the plain wooden crucifix where he turned to the audience, spread his arms and shouted: "Hey Jesus! I can see your house from here!" (Not long after this we had our first two angry exits from the concert, by two of the church ladies grumbling furiously about "the nerve of that... child!") Near the fourth and last song on the sadly abbreviated set, his voice was so hoarse and breathless that he sounded like he had run a marathon. And still he was clambering over everything in sight, even the speaker cabinets, much to the consternation of our dear buck-skinned soundman. The audience, I am proud to say, loved every minute of it.

As I was stretching to catch the spectacle of the last Nothings number, three of the Milk Studs' girlfriends, Andrea, Janice and Catherine, appeared at my table. They had just arrived at Prudence for the show - this was before the girls had better-honed their timing so that they showed up only in time to see their boyfriends play. They sneered when I told them to pay their five dollars, and I had to coax them into paying up, which they managed with a minimum of tongue-clucks and "ohmigawd"s. Also with the girls was Leigh-Anne Chalmers, a perky blonde Grade Eleven student who, as usual, was inexplicably glad to see me. "Hey Paul," she said, "I heard your band's performing tonight. I hope I didn't miss it!" I told her we were fourth on the bill. She laughed when I told her the name of our band: "Murderburger! That's so funny!"

A little bit of back-story is in order here. See, Leigh-Anne was the president of Morganfield North Secondary's Book Club, and more than once she had cornered me in the school corridors saying that the club really needed a male member, and asking if I wanted to join. I had a reputation as a reader, but frankly, I just read books in class to avoid talking to people (students thought I was stuck-up and left me alone, and teachers figured I was studying - what's not to like, I tell ya?) I actually sat in once or twice on their monthly get-together at the back of the library, but the spinsters-in-training who otherwise made up the club's membership insisted on reading Timothy Findley and Jane Austen and other paragons of brain-peeling boredom whereas I was keen on reading works from Philip K. Dick and William Gibson and - my then-most-recent discovery - Charles Bukowski. One time I mentioned hearing good things about Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and the women looked at me as if I had opened my mouth and showed them the food I was eating. Leigh-Anne, on the other hand, would just nod vigorously and say my choices for reading were "interesting" and "crazy," and she would flick the hair out of her eyes and ask me about what other books I could suggest. Even a dim-bulb like yours truly could figure out that she wanted to be more than reading partners, and Leigh-Anne herself was admittedly cute as hell in her own Librarian Barbie fashion. Still, the fact that she was intelligent, attractive, and attracted to me all at once led me at the time to what seemed the reasonable conclusion: that there was something seriously wrong with her. Girls who were both pretty and smart simply didn't orbit around Planet Cartwright, know what I'm saying?

Anyway, there was Leigh-Anne, pressing a fiver into my palm, and leaning toward me with a beauty-contest smile. "Wow, it's so loud in here!" she said, shrugging off her jacket. "Who's that playing?"

Janice rolled her eyes at her friends. "Oh my gawd, that's Peter Hammond's jumping around up there."

"He's such a spaz," Andrea said.

"You know," said Catherine, "I heard he sneaks beer into the school and drinks in the boys washroom, and that the janitor once sent him home after Peter threw up on his shoes."

Janice narrowed her eyes. "I heard his mother makes him sleep in her bed at night."

"Ewww! That's so gross!"

I glared at Janice and Andrea, and repeated the words my Uncle Eddie had said to my Mom's co-workers when they were gossiping and snickering at a party at my parents' house: "If you want, there are saucers of milk available over at the snack bar."

The girls sniffed piteously at me and sulked away. Leigh-Anne lingered by the table, looking slightly disappointed even though her voice was still bright and cheerful. "Why do you have to be so mean?" she said. "I mean, it's funny what you said, but you really ought to try being nicer. More people would be your friend if you did."

The conversation petered out from there, and Leigh-Anne wandered off to join the others around the Milk Studs' table at the far end of the hall. I sat in the relative solitude while the members of Dave started setting up on stage. I thought about how Leigh-Anne had been standing at the table with that stiff-backed posture certain girls assumed, with shoulders thrown back so the breasts were thrust forward. Leigh-Anne was wearing a purple button-down shirt over dark tee shirt with some lettering that for some reason were familiar. I recalled how her shirt buttons had been straining against the fabric, the tails of her shirt front draping over her tight acid-wash jeans like an unparted curtain. As a thought experiment I imagined unbuttoning Leigh-Anne's shirt, if only to read the words on the black tee-shirt underneath. I then continued the thought experiment by imagining my removing her button-down shirt completely, and then pulling the black tee shirt up over her head, revealing the inevitable bra with the frilly flower-petal serrations around the cups (for a moment I lingered over what Leigh-Anne's reaction would be to my undressing her like this, but for the sake of the thought experiment, I assumed she would have been delighted.) Then I pictured myself fiddling with the clasp at the back of the bra, revealing Leigh-Anne's tits: small and round and goose-bumped around the nipples. I imagined how her breasts would feel under the palms of my hands, the look of ecstacy on Leigh-Anne's face -

Greg Dunhaven from the Nothings snapped his fingers in my face. "Earth to Paul," he half-shouted. "I said it's my turn taking the tickets. Are you listening?"

I shook my head and blinked. "Mental vacation," I muttered, vacating my chair.

I retrieved a much-needed Shirley Soda from the concession stand and joined Steve Coleman and Jamie Playfair near the front of the stage, where Dave had set up their synthesisers and were testing their sound levels. Old Buddy Poor was making its debut as Dave's time-keeper, with John-David Goreham playing percussion in the background. I had been present at their rehearsal and I had to admit the new set-up was a vast improvement, especially on their song 'Snot Rocket' with its tricky 5/4 time signature.

Before Creepy-Crawley could get to the stage to introduce the next act, Dave launched into their opener and magnum opus, 'The Quickest Way To A Man's Heart Is Through The Ribcage With A Pickaxe'. Seven minutes of distorted 'E' major chords alternating with B-flats, highlighted by Tony Pettinella's inspired noodling on his bass guitar's high strings: an absolute epic of chaos and dissonance. Steve and I got to join in on the chorus of "chop-chop-chop! / and the bleeding won't STOP!", oblivious to the movement of bodies towards the exit. Even the punks who had been applauding The Nothings grew more reticent as the song ground onward, their arms folding and their mouths pursed like flowering plants closing up at night.

At the end of Dave's opening number there was a confused smattering of applause, and then a sudden lone voice began chanting "Bo-ring! Bo-ring!" It was the punk who had earlier barreled toward the bathroom to take his aforementioned "crap."

"Why is it boring?" David Swells asked from the stage. The punk declined to answer.

Someone else in the crowd yelled out "Where's your guitar?"

"We don't have one," Swells replied sheepishly.

Mr. Crap feigned a yawn. "BO-RING!"

Their next tune was an instrumental entitled 'Duran Duran Is Not My Idea Of Good Popular Music, But Thanks For Asking'. The title got a laugh, and the music was slightly peppier than its predecessor, but then the band launched into 'Snot Rocket' and whatever momentum Dave had built up dissipated. The dance floor emptied out until only Steve and myself and some of the other Morgie band members were left by the stage.

The members of Dave looked pretty crestfallen, especially in light of the enthusiastic response The Nothings had received earlier. "Is there anything people want to hear for our last song?" David Swells mumbled into the microphone.

One of the Toronto punks cupped his hands and yelled "Play something FAST!"

The band members huddled briefly to discuss their options, and decided to finish the set with 'Mr. Dress-Up (I Wish I Was Half As Cool As)'. Tony stepped up the tempo on Buddy Poor and the band fumbled through the sped-up number. With a simple three-chord pattern and basic beat, 'Mr. Dress-Up' was well-received; a few people even cheered at the end of the set, though it was possible they were merely glad that the band was finally getting off the stage. At later gigs Dave would add a guitar player and change their name and stick to more conventional song structures, but their music was nowhere near as interesting as it was before that debut concert. I felt bad for Swells and company: it was as if they were punished for being different, which is not at all what I expected from a punk audience.

Then again, the worst Dave had to endure was disinterest. In comparison, the opening number by the Milk Studs was treated as an open act of war. Maybe it was Ashley, who was calling himself "Ashtastic Cee" despite Manifesto rules, taking to the stage and launching into a bout of acute stage banter including quaint lines such as "It's gonna get hot in here! But the Milk Studs LIKE IT HOT, baby!" Maybe it was the intricate yet relentless slap-playing of the band's bassist, George McCallum, or the guitar-face muggings of Brad Fallows. Maybe it was the presence of the bands' girlfriends gyrating on stage in a show of popular-kid solidarity (Pete Hammond did manage to upstage the girls at one point by jumping onto the drum riser and waggling his hips in a lewd Mick Jagger imitation. The band members laughed, but their girlfriends didn't). Whatever it was, by the time The Milk Studs were starting into the opening rap stylings of 'Wonder Kind', the T.O. punks were booing and waving middle fingers at the stage, and trading insults with an increasingly-agitated Ashtastic Cee.

From out of nowhere a half-filled plastic cup flew out and bounced off of Ashley's forehead, and the music ground to a halt. "All right, who the hell threw that?" Ashley's face was pink with rage. "Who's the dummy who wants to start something?"

The dummy, it turned out, was our old friend, Mr. Crap. Crap stood at the lip of the stage, small but defiant. "What's up with this?" he shouted. "First we gotta listen to fuckin' synth-playing assholes, and now this lame rock star bullshit? Is this the best you guys can come up with?"

Brad Fallows grabbed the microphone. "Hey man, you don't like it, hit the road."

Someone at the back of the hall shouted, "We want the Punkaholics!"

Ashley stared into the crowd and sneered. "Guess what? You ain't getting the Punkaholics!" Ashley then informed everyone that The Punkaholics were not going to be playing that night, and that in fact he had been asked not to talk about it while on-stage. "But you know," he continued, "I'm in no mood for being nice to you jerks. You throw things at the band, then you get what you deserve."

Matt Miller pushed his way through the audience, grabbing the microphone from Ashley. He started arguing with him while keeping his hand over the mic, but I could hear him saying "I told you to keep your mouth shut!" He then turned to the audience, keeping the hood of his sweatshirt pulled forward with his free hand. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have to apologise, but what he's just said is true. I was talking to my good friend Jake Punkaholic, and he wants everyone to know he is sincerely sorry that his band won't be able to perform due to unforeseen - "

Matt was temporarily cut off by boos and catcalls. "But I promise you," Matt shouted, trying to regain control. "I promise, stick around and you're going to hear some amazing music. It's the debut of - "

Crap snatched the microphone from a stunned Matt Miller. "It's the debut of BULLSHIT!" he bellowed at the crowd. Matt tried to grab the microphone back and the two struggled on the stage, with members of The Milk Studs separating the fighters. Crap made one last snatch at the microphone cord but instead grabbed hold of his sweatshirt hood, pulling it down to his shoulders.

Matt's hair was spiked and dyed a uniform neon blue.

People throughout the room gasped. A few people giggled. Crap, meanwhile, simply looked at Matt and burst into laughter. "Nice dye job, buddy! Your mommy help you with that?"

Crap shook his head and hopped casually off the stage, a stunned and silenced Matt Miller wavering on the stage behind him. "Two hours on a stinking bus and what do we get? Fuckin' Mini-Pops in Hicksville with blue-haired babies. What a waste."

As he passed me, I leaned in and said, "You Toronto creeps are a bunch of assholes."

"Go till a field, farm-boy. I was told this was a punk show. Someone lied."

"I'm punker than you, buddy."

Crap stopped and stared at me, his face incredulous. "Excuse me?"

"We're punker than you. You're just a big city peckerwood with something to prove."

He shoved me hard between the shoulder blades. I shoved back. Then his fist landed on my cheek right below my right eye.

The next few seconds passed in a blur. I recall seeing myself from above, as if I was watching a television show of my own life. I saw my body fall backwards, my skull clonking coconut-style on the floor. Everything in my vision twisted, distorting and dissolving in my periphery. Half-dazed, I sat up just in time to witness Steve Coleman launching head-first into Mr. Crap, sending him skidding fifteen feet across the floor and knocking over two other punks like bowling pins. Bodies pushed back and forth until the ragged figures of several Toronto punkers caromed out the front door, pursued by two dozen Morgies swarming like bees and pouring out of the building like sand grains tumbling through the narrow aperture of an hourglass. It was a sight both bizarre and awesome in its power: a vehement mob of Murderburgerers, Milk Studs, Iremongers, Nothings, Daves and even local non-punks acting as one army, one mind and one thought, charging wildly into the night.

By the time I was back to my senses, there were but four other Morgie scenesters left in Prudence Presbyterian: Wanda and Annick, who were examining Annick's camera for damage due to a fall in the melee (prognosis: unharmed); Matt Miller, who was wandering around on stage mumbling about how "someone had to protect the sound equipment"; and Harvinder, who had just arrived for the show and was asking why everyone was running down King Street.

Meanwhile there was my sainted mudder, crouching over me and examining the spreading bruise under my eye. "Good Lord," she said, horrified despite her antiquated wording. "That was quite a tumble you took there, mister."

Also crouching over me, with a cool washcloth in hand, was none other than Leigh-Anne Chalmers. "Are you all right, Paul?" she said, dabbing my face and turning with a glower in the direction of the punks' departure. "What a bunch if idiots."

"Someone's going to have to call the police," my Mom said. "Grown people fighting like children. What is this world coming to?"

"I hope Steve and those guys kick their asses," Leigh-Anne hissed. I had never heard Leigh-Anne swear before, and I have to say that for such a minor transgression, coming from her it was an amazing turn-on.

So here's something to consider: at that very point in history my life could have completely changed. Leigh-Anne was obviously enjoying playing Florence Nightingale to my Valiant Wounded Soldier, and she may well have continued nursing me back to health until I came to the realisation that this whole Punk Rock thingamabobble was a bunch of hooey. I might well have forsaken my music for a relationship with Leigh-Anne where we would have read books together on the sofa and eventually exchange vows, and the new Mrs. Cartwright (already being shepherded under the watchful and approving eye of my sainted mudder there at Prudence) would bear our blonde super-literate children, and we would buy a modest house in the suburbs where we would live happily and boringly ever after. Sounds sweet, doesn't it, Darcy? But obviously, were that the case, you wouldn't be reading this histrionic tome, would you?

What actually happened was that I looked down from Leigh-Anne's beautiful, bookish eyes to her chest, where I realised her button-down shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open, revealing her tee-shirt and the slogan emblazoned thereon:

BON JOVI: SLIPPERY WHEN WET.

Bon Jovi. Pretty-boy faux-metal at its glossiest. Bon Jovi, with their salon-groomed heart-throb front man and clock-punching session musicians. Bon Goddamn Jovi, a band whose only mitigating factor was their flawless rhyming (blame-name-game, got-not-lot-shot - yeah, none of that lazy-ass "time-mind," "girl-world" sloppiness for our Ambassadors from New Jersey). Whether Leigh-Anne was a covert fan of pop metal, or whether perhaps she actually equated the polished clatter of Bon Jovi with the authentic howl that was Punk Rock - either way, this was a sin I could not forgive.

Oh sure, we still talked after that night with the wet cloth and the cloying sympathy. But I was never less than snippy and sarcastic with Leigh-Anne, and eventually she wised up and left me behind for English Literature studies at University of British Columbia. Even a girl as open-hearted and positive as Ms. Chalmers had her limits.

And to think: for years I couldn't figure out why I didn't lose my virginity until I was nineteen. Looking back on my younger, dumber days, it's a miracle I ever managed to get laid in the first place.

By the time the lynch mob had straggled back to Prudence Presbyterian, two of Morganfield's Finest had arrived on the scene. Steve Coleman reported seeing the punks racing away in a beat-up station wagon heading south on Queen Street - he and others chased them as far as Comfort Road, where the car accelerated up the hill, the punks waving middle fingers and sticking out their tongues as they drove away.

The cops said they were going to do a few patrols around the neighbourhood, but that they would be keeping an eye on the church and the people in the area, just in case.

"You mean you're not going after them?" Dwayne asked, astonished.

"I'm not wasting my time," one of the cops said. "Frankly I'm more concerned about a gang of youths running up and down Queen Street unchaperoned."

"This sucks," Andy Lefebvre muttered.

The second cop pointed at Andy. "You," he said. "Watch your mouth."

Some of the adults still in attendance said that there was no need to be making threats. The Belgian backpackers got up in the second cop's face about police brutality, and the conversation grew more and more heated until Bob Swann stepped in to calm things down. The three leather-clad bikers just laughed, pulling gulps out of their wine flasks when the cops' backs were turned.

After the police left, the soundman gathered up his kit. "I'll be back tomorrow morning for my pay cut," he told us with a smirk. For a few minutes we all stood around, unsure of what to do next. Then Matt, blue hair and all, alighted on the stage with renewed vigour.

"So what do we do now?" His eyes searched the crowd, which now comprised about a third of the audience members that had been present an hour previous. "We have no headliner, and we have no one working the board. But we still have this room, and we've got bands that wanna play. What do you wanna do, is what I'm asking."

From the back of the hall, a mohawked teenager stepped forward, His jeans were ripped and his denim jacket featured an anarchy "A" prominently scrawled across the back in spray paint. He approached the lip of the stage and began to chant "Morganfield Hardcore" in a dazed voice while mechanically punching the air. The backpackers joined in the chant, and then Graeme Forsythe, and then Bob and Sophie Swann. And then the Morgies, one by one until the half-empty hall echoed with the shouted words.

Matt twirled the mic and grinned, re-energised. "Morganfield Hardcore is what you want," he said. "Then Morganfield Hardcore is what you're gonna get!"

There was some more discussion, and both the Milk Studs and Iremonger decided to can the planned set as the Ire Studs (Milk Monger!) Someone commented that Iremonger should at least play a song or two, just so they could say that they were at the debut concert, and after some gentle persuasion Andy Lefebvre and the boys agreed to go on-stage and play a new song called 'Kalahari Mudslide', which a few of us had heard in bits and pieces but otherwise was being worked on by the band in private.

Graeme Forsythe agreed to work the soundboard, and so Matt joined the rest of us near the front of the stage where Iremonger plugged in and tuned the borrowed guitars' E strings down to D, the open strings resonating heavily until the noise was like the roar of a giant motor. Andy Lefebvre dropped his sticks onto the snare with a crack, like bricks hitting pavement from a four-storey drop, and the band shot head-first into a driving D-D-C# riff over which singer Tom Worrell's banshee scream skipped like a stone over the surface of water. The music was pure hardcore, faster than what The Nothings had been playing and, with the downward tuning, far more ominous-sounding.

The mohawked punk whooped and proceeded to shove into others near the front of the stage, and then Matt joined him in a run around the hall floor in a continuous circle, their booted feet kicking in all directions and their heads lowered and shoulders hunched as if preparing for impact. But before the moshpit could gather more participants, the rhythm halted, and the band rang out a low "D" over washes of cymbal and notes on the high frets, and Tom Worrell drew two lungfuls of air into his chest and bellowed "KALAHA-A-A-A-A-RI-I-I!!!", his eyes rolling back under his eyelids as he raked his hand towards the sky. Dwayne Simmonds played a rapid run of descending chords, repeating until the rest of the band joined him in a metallic gallop, the drum patterns laced with a curious funk syncopation that made the beat seem to roll backward, like the wheels of a covered wagon in a Western film. My eyes widened with amazement: this band was HEAVY. They were heavier than any band I could have imagined seeing live. Tom was screaming every sort of psychedelic blathering babble - "Murderous mud-tumble! Volcanoes churn! Molten afire, watch the forests burn!" \- and yet he was like Moses with his stone tablets up on the stage, eyes afire. In that Presbyterian church so bare-walled and unadorned with religious decoration that the cross behind the stage looked anonymous against the plain plaster wall, these five kids with their amplifiers and sonic ambition strode like gods among the mortals. This wasn't a song, it was a fucking sacrament.

As the final chord rang against out eardrums and the applause and howls of the crowd rose around us, Matt and Steve and Harvey and I exchanged shell-shocked expressions.

"Guys," Steve said, "I don't think we can top that."

Matt paused and then shook his head. "Naw, we can do better," he said, smirking confidently. "We're gonna blow them away."

"Jealous! Cowards! Try to control! Rise above! We're gonna RISE ABOVE!!!"

The hiss-laden tape dub of Black Flag's 'Rise Above' filled the empty space in Prudence Presbyterian as we plugged in our instruments for our debut set. I looked over the half-empty hall with the hardwood floor scuffed with the footprints of everyone who should have been there - those who bailed when they found out that The Punkaholics weren't playing - and I could feel my stomach recede queasily. We were no substitute for the Punkaholics.

The twinging ache under my eye was now a dark red swelling over my cheekbone. Just before we were to start playing I felt the beginnings of a dizzy spell. I took a deep breath and shook it off. No one noticed, except for Matt.

"My man Paul Cartwright!" Matt shouted into the microphone, pointing with his free hand. "You can knock Morganfield Hardcore down, but you can't keep it down!" The dissipated crowd cheered while I smiled sheepishly and tried to appear unbowed.

"WE! Are TIRED! Of YOUR! A-BUSE!" Black Flag on the speakers, final chorus before the big finish. "Try to stop us! IT'S NO USE!!!"

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Matt stalked the stage, microphone in hand and hood over eyes. "Thank you for sticking it out this long! I know it's been rough, I know things didn't go as planned." Matt paused for a long stare out into the cheering audience. "I'm sorry that the Punkaholics couldn't make it tonight. My good friend Jake sends his apologies, he says he and the band will make it up to us later. Where are the Punkaholics fans in the audience tonight?"

A few whoops and hollers from the Toronto punks and the bikers, a mix of cheers and booing from the Morgies. Another dramatic pause.

"Where are the punks in the audience tonight?"

Everyone cheered.

"Damn right." From my side of the stage I could see the edge of Matt's mouth curl knowingly. "I just wanted to say, to those cops who were here before - " Another pause for the knowing boos that Matt expected, but never came. "Maybe we look like just a bunch of dumb kids who don't know what they're doing. Who need to be watched, who are the real danger threatening some assholes who wanna start fights. If they were here, I'd only say one thing." He grabbed the back of his hood and yanked his blue head free, the crowd hooting on cue. "Spike Liberty says: GO TO HELL, FASCIST!"

Instinctively my hand dragged the pick across my guitar's strings. Harvinder clacked his drum sticks together in a rapid four-count and we plowed headfirst into 'Fascist Cop'. "Fascist PIG! Fascist COP! Beating on the homeless, YOU NEVER STOP!" Tiny flecks of spit were shooting like sparks from Matt's mouth, his voice a belligerent howl. Behind him, Steve was a towering force of nature on his bass, and Harvinder a runaway blur over the skins of his drums, while I just stood wonderstruck, my guitar seeming to play itself somewhere between my floating head and faraway feet.

There would be shows later where we played better, but Murderburger never played with more fire and conviction than we did that night at Prudence. From 'Fascist Cop' we propelled forward through our songs: 'War Dead', 'Metal Makeover', 'The Young Are So Dumb', 'Teacher Preacher', 'Jocks On Parade', 'Gawd Complex'. We even fumbled through a new song we had not planned to play that night, our pro-feminist anthem 'Weaker Sex': "Big men only think they're strong / To compensate for their tiny schlongs!"

The clock on the side wall was counting out the minutes leading up to the 11:00 p.m. cut-off time we had been given by the church custodian. Somehow our set had ended up twice as long as that of any of the other bands that had played; Matt had simply yelled out song titles and we had kept on playing. My ears were buzzing and my clothes were squishing with sweat. Behind me, in start contrast, was our poreless wonder on drums, Harvinder, grinning beatifically under his white turban and twiddling his drumstick idly in his left hand like a propeller.

"The Master on drums," Matt bellowed between gulps of breath, "Harvey Singh!" The people pushed around the edge of the stage clapped and cheered in equally hoarse voices. Matt look winded - he had started the first few songs jumping and gyrating in his best Jake Punkaholic imitation, but by this point he was stoop-shouldered and reduced to stumbling paces from stage left to right and back.

He raised a fist towards Steve. "Steve Coleman, the Enforcer!" More cheers. Matt then looked over at me with a weirdly wounded expression. "Paul Cartwright, the fuckin' Warrior!" I received the loudest cheers of all. Five foot nine and one hundred thirty pounds, at that moment I felt like I could have strode across continents.

The custodian waved an open hand at us from next to the soundboard: five more minutes. "Who wants more?" Matt shouted, though the response was a foregone conclusion. The band waited for him to announce a song, and he seemed to be racking his brain over what to play next. But then Steve plonked out a riff similar to Yes' 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' on his bass guitar, and several Morgies applauded knowingly. I nodded at Steve, and the matter was decided.

With Harvinder tapping out a kick-snare rhythm that gained confidence as he familiarised himself with the riff, we started playing 'Morganfield Sucks'. Matt didn't know the words, so I took over the lead vocals on the backing mic while Matt contented himself with jumping in place and yelling out the chorus words. Others joined in on Steve's microphone, and then Dwayne and Pete and others clambered on stage and began dismantling the microphones around Harvinder's kit and passing them around from singer to singer (over at the soundboard, Graeme Forsythe was slapping his forehead and laughing). By the third verse two-thirds in the crowd were on stage, shoving and dancing and adding fills on Harvey's cymbals, a few people strumming on unplugged guitars, while the remainder of the crowd were either moshing haphazardly or gathered around the stage lip with fists raised and faces smiling.

I found myself out of verses to sing, but just as I was about to count down the end of the song Pete Hammond grabbed my vocal mic off of the stand and began ranting in a preacher-voice: "And so it came to pass that a music scene emerged from the frontier wilds of Canada, a backwards land of trees and moose and trees and rocks and bushes and things and trees. And this music consisted of guitars and drums and voices, and truly did they battle with forces from outside, who were driven asunder and out of Eden in their beat-up shitbox Ford station wagon like so much pestilence. And yea did the victorious party jump and sing to the wondrous noise that is the one and only Murderburger! Hallelujah!" Pete fanned his fingers over the hollering revelers, pushed his palm against Wanda Pockets' forehead and "healed" her (Wanda began dancing rapidly and shouted "I can see! Praise Jesus!") and then neatly replaced the microphone in its stand before crawling behind the heavy stage curtain and falling into the sort of coma-like sleep that only a practiced alcohol drinker can muster.

Not knowing where to go from there, I re-sang the second verse: "Our high school's a dump called Morganfield North / The jocks are all bullies and the teachers are dorks..." But as Matt and I were singing the chorus, I became aware that Brad Fallows was shouting a new chorus into his microphone with all the force of his athletic lungs, and Andy Lefebvre and Tony Pettinella were joining in with nods of affirmation.

"Morganfield ROCKS! Morganfield ROCKS!"

Five minutes past cut-off, then fifteen, then twenty. The custodian started yanking the amplifier plugs out of the walls, but Morgies plugged them back as soon as he was out of range. Finally he went to the breaker box at the back of the hall and shut off the power to the stage, leaving only Harvinder's drums and our howling voices bellowing out the chorus. Ashtastic Cee ran out into the middle of the floor with a fireman's loudspeaker (some of the Milk Studs were drinking with their girlfriends in the utility room and had found the loudspeaker in a trunk with some emergency supplies) and began improvising a rap about how the Toronto punks had been chased down King Street, and how the Morganfield scene would never be divided because they would always be united (hmm... never figured young Ashley to be a Sham 69 fan, but there you go.) Annick Tousignant was snapping pictures in a rapid-fire volley, the flash bulb strobing madly, and amidst the jumping kids crowded onto that flat stage front, Matt jumped and shook his blue hair spikes, now drooping with sweat. He was doing his best trying to convince others to sing "Morganfield Punk" instead of "Morganfield Rocks," but to no avail.

It took both the custodian and the church minister himself, woken up at home and rallied by a phone call from one of the panicking church ladies, to start herding us all out the front door. Even then, people were still singing and screaming joyously, chanting as we packed our guitars and parental vehicles hovered cautiously along the sidewalk: "Morganfield Rocks! Morganfield Rocks!" Of course, if you had told me at the time that this was to be the high point of the Morganfield Hardcore scene, and that it would be all downhill disappointment and hard lessons from there on in, I would have laughed in your haggard, cynical face. Ah, the ignorant confidence of youth, eh Darcy boy?

• • • •

### 9.

Well, well, WELL, Darcy Vandenheuvel. It would seem that I am not the only punk rock wanker upset with your sidebar article after all. I happen to be holding in my hand the follow-up issue of Sonic Sauce, published in February 1995 (a three-month lag between issues - not a good sign, Darcy ol' boy, not a good sign at all), and in the Letters section I found this nasty little riposte:

With friends like these...

I had to laugh when I read about how Matt Molotov a.k.a. Spike Liberty formed the Morganfield music scene by himself and then helped to kill punk rock. I was part of the Morganfield scene, and I saw first-hand what a manipulator he can be. Matt was an expert in turning on the charm when he thought he could get something in return, but when things weren't going his way he was the biggest baby imaginable. In the end he proved to be nothing but a thief and a liar (...) As for his current project, if I ever find a Groove Incorporated CD in my kid's stereo, I'm sending him to reform school. Friends don't let friends listen to dance music!

Tony Pettinella

Halifax, NS

(Friends also don't let friends call others "thieves" and "liars" without consulting their lawyers first. Just a reminder. - ed.)

Ooh, BURN, Darcy! Wicked comeback on the part of your editors, what with that sly warning about making slanderous remarks. When Groove Inc.'s legal team finish up with all the court cases over the sampling done on the band's first album, I'm sure they'll catch the first flight out to Halifax and get to work on Pettinella's nasty name-calling. Justice shall truly be served to those who can afford it - huzzah!

Mind you, I am a bit surprised to see that Tony is writing from Halifax; it would be interesting to hear how a nice Catholic Italian boy ended up in Nova Scotia. Then again, members of the Morgie clan that I grew up have ended up in all sorts of places: Pete and Greg from The Nothings ventured out to New York, Iremonger moved to Montreal (and promptly broke up, from what I heard), and the Milk Studs made it as far as Vancouver (and promptly broke up as well - all that talk of going to L.A. to "make it," what a pseudo-shame). Interestingly, almost nobody I know moved to Toronto, which is strange considering how nearby it is, and how much the city dominated our local mythology. Apart from myself, the only other Morgie who moved down here was Matt Miller.

Come to think of it, maybe I'm answering my own question.

I can not overstate how angry many of us were by Matt's about-face at the Prudence gig. On top of the blue hair, he had been referring to himself as "Spike" when talking to the out-of-towners after the concert, exchanging contact info and discussing future gigs and projects. He was also insisting to Annick and Wanda that he was to be named as "Spike Liberty" on the photo captions in the next zine issue. If he had shown up the following Sunday, we would all have tore into him like so many jackals. Than he had not shown up at a meeting where he was the unofficial leader - the first time he had ever skipped out on a Sunday meeting - was taken as an even bigger insult. It was his idea that we shouldn't mark ourselves as punks through clothing and monikers and so forth, and all we could do was shout at each other over what a hypocrite Matt was turning out to be. A few people expressed a casual acceptance - Harvey, in particular, merely shrugged and said "his hair, his problem," and left it at that - but most of us were ready to tear off that fat head of his, blue spikes and all.

As it happened, we weren't the only ones in Morganfield who were mad at Mr. Spike Liberty. And this is where things got complicated. There are so many versions of this story floating around Morganfield even to this day, that I can only say that there is a certain amount of conjecture in what I'm about to tell you.

Somewhere around eleven o'clock on the Sunday morning following the concert at Prudence, Matt was biking up to Morganfield, and he stopped off at the McDonald's for some food. Linda Quick and a few of her catty friends waved Matt over to their booth, where they fingered Matt's blue hair and asked him about the Punkaholics concert. Matt described the concert in epic tones, no doubt emphasising how his own band had stolen the show and made everyone forget about the absence of the star attraction. Eventually Linda suggested that they should take a walk through the parking lot and check out the woods to the south, and have a little talk in private.

According to the statement Matt later gave to the police, Linda repeatedly told him that his "punker get-up" was a real turn-on, and she was reminiscing over what fun they had had back in the girls' washroom at school a few months previous. She even went so far as to say that she would be talking to the school's administration about having Matt re-instated on the cheerleading squad. "We need a little beefcake back on the sidelines," she allegedly told him, squeezing Matt's slender shoulder as she pushed him up against a tree and started kissing him.

The tree against which Matt was leaning was the same tree where he was found three hours later, coatless and bound by duct tape, with his face and arms covered in marker drawings of penises and slogans including "FAGGET DIE" [sic] and "PUNK SUCKS". The members of the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies who were later charged with the assault also took turns slapping and punching Matt, and cutting off chunks of Matt's blue hair with a pocket knife. The final blow was delivered by Linda herself, in the form of a sharp kick to Matt's inner thigh. This kick was almost certainly intended for Matt's crotch, but luckily for him this may have been the one time in Linda's life where she targeted a set of male genitalia and missed.

If I had the time to investigate further (okay, if I had the "inclination" to investigate - lord knows I have plenty of time these days), I would go back up to Morganfield and check out the records on what officially transpired. What I do know is that on Monday there was a hasty assembly in the school Cafetorium where our principal announced that one of their fellow students had been "prejudicially targeted" and assaulted by others who "shall remain nameless, but who's identities would surprise and dismay" many of us. We were then given the rest of the day off to consider the importance of acceptance and understanding (most kids, of course, did no such thing and instead went home to watch TV). By the time Matt was back in classes the following week, his hacked hair re-styled into a stubble-sided mohawk, there were at least three lawsuits in progress, including Matt's father's suit against the parents of three of the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies, and a countersuit from Linda Quick's father over Matt's "taking sexual advantage" of his daughter's felicitations back in September. David Swells said his father's law office hadn't been so busy in years.

So how's this for lemonade made from life's handing out of lemons: in one week Matt, now affectionately called Spike by teachers and fellow students alike, suddenly found his status so elevated that there was talk of having him nominated for Class President in the following year's student elections. Better yet, with his newfound clout Matt was able to convince the Principal to let us use the school Cafetorium for a follow-up punk show over the Christmas break. This was a boon to the Morgie scene, because after the Prudence debacle none of the church halls in town wanted anything to do with us.

And we, obviously, were only too happy to take advantage of the school's benevolence and blow another opportunity to have a regular concert venue in Morganfield. After all, what's a punk scene without blown opportunities?

I am writing to you today from my temporary home in an industrial loft shared by a half-dozen punks in Parkdale. This building used to be a dairy plant of some sort, which explains the preponderance of metal dairy containers scattered throughout the back lot (I am using two of these containers as a makeshift table for my computer, in fact). The good news is that I am only here for a few more days before I can move back into my re-carpeted apartment, with none of the rent increases that my landlord had been threatening. The bad news is that I have had to endure nine straight days of communal punk living, with three more to suffer through. Far be it from me to disparage the pleasures of freely-shared dope and rancid-tasting red wine, or the occasional clandestine glimpse of resident punkettes parading around unself-consciously in bras and stockings. But dammit, Darcy, that stereo has been blasting hardcore and speed-metal non-stop for hours and hours and hours on end. I would give anything for a change in listening material, like a Bach symphony, or Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits, or even complete silence. As for my fellow transients and company, all I will say is this: no one should have to explain to a grown human being why it is unsanitary to borrow someone else's toothbrush - that is all.

You know something, Darcy? People today who self-identify as "punk" - those who claimed to be "oppressed" by society - are really not oppressed enough. It's too damn easy for kids to strap on a spiked armband and some Doc Martens and clomp down the main drag expressing their opposition to The Man. How long have they been selling Anarchy "A" tee-shirts in novelty stores and record shops? Jesus, for some of these kids, punk rock has become a phase: one summer you're blasting Bad Religion CDs and scribbling band logos on your sneakers in ballpoint pen, the next year you're all cleaned up and running on the track team. Is there something wrong with people like me, who can't seem to get this whole rebellion thing out of our systems even in our mid-twenties? Big business corporate greedheads still suck, developers still rape the rainforest and ruin farmland with their ugly duplicate houses, cops in L.A. and other big cities still "aim for the black" during rifle practice. There is still so much to be angry at these days, and the only reasonable reaction is revolt, or a loud guitar and a scream at the absolute least.

Even so, the people I deal with daily here make me furious. Occasionally they're inspired enough to articulate a political position, but then you ask them when they last participated in a demonstration or wrote a letter to the editor and they look back at you like a dog watching television. See, it doesn't matter to them, because obviously politics is a game for crooks, and all media is suspect, and any foreseeable future is little more than a boot stomping on a human face forever (Wanna impress a punk? Tell him how it was George Orwell who in the book 1984 came up with that line about the future being like a boot forever on a face. Better yet, tell him it was Margaret Thatcher - that'll fry his mental circuits for sure!) I swear, one more lecture about how voting is just a covert scheme the government uses to collect information on its citizens, and I'm joining the hippie commune in the warehouse across the street. Maybe someone there knows how to cook a real dinner.

See, once upon a time, it meant something more to call yourself a punk (narrator pauses to adjust his spectacles and yell at the neighbour kids to stay the hell out of his petunias). Back in the days before facial piercings and tattooed everything, kids in the late eighties could be called out for something as inconsequential as a hand-drawn tee-shirt or a too-severe haircut. And kids in late-eighties Morganfield were subject to some intense scrutiny indeed. Ironically, Punky Smurf Matt Miller might have received preferential treatment, but the rest of us in the scene were viewed by the school administration with a nervous skepticism. Once in a while someone commented on "cult-like" behaviour among certain students at Morganfield North, and at least one Geography teacher went so far as to call the Morganfield scene a "gang," which was just ridiculous. Still, some of us played off this idea of being an actual gang - one of the fliers we put out for a Spring concert even used a stock photo from an old Hollywood gangster film with cut-outs of guitars crudely glued over where they were holding their machine guns: "Murderburger and Peter And The Pukes are going to case the joint March 25th, see?!"

Taking the gang analogy a playful step further, some of us took to sneaking into empty classrooms and writing out "Morganfield Hardcore" on school blackboards, marking our territory like dogs. But then someone spray-painted a giant Morganfield Hardcore logo in one of the stalls of the boys' washroom, and this got us into serious trouble. Most of the identified scenesters were individually warned by teachers and administration of varying punishments unless we ratted out who was doing it. We held our ground and kept our mouths shut; and the mystery artist was never found. Still, it was kind of cool seeing that logo scrawled out in big letters on the stall door; even after the school janitor removed the graffiti with paint thinner, you could still make out the ghostly scrawl on the bare metal, looking something like this:

MorganField HardCore, Mother-Fucking HardCore. One and the same for cool kids like us, know what I mean?

Anyway, the Christmas show went well enough, but after the Prudence gig, it was sort of a let-down. First off, only three bands played: Murderburger (occupied the headlining slot, natch), OwMyFoot and The Nothings. Some of the scenesters were pretty vocal about feeling left out, the Milk Studs and their followers in particular - all but Brad Fallows and Jeff Kryzynski sat out the gig. The bigger drag was that the show happened on the day after final exams, before the school closed for the Christmas holidays, so we were really playing the show to each other and whatever friends we could cajole into entering school property on a holiday. Once you factor in the 15cm snowfall Morganfield received the night before, it's incredible the concert happened at all.

By the way, it goes without saying that not a single Torontonian showed that afternoon. So much for all the posters we put up on Yonge Street in the freezing rain the week before.

Anyway, The Nothings were the definite highlight of the show. Pete Hammond was in top form, singing with a plastic bottle in his hand, which he took swigs from between verses \- he claimed that the bottle was filled with "the tears of his mother, wept after she looked at (Pete)'s report card" (I'm not totally sure what was in the bottle, but it definitely did not smell like tears.) The rest of the band was sounding great as well, with Greg Dunhaven really grinding down on those chords in 'Dream Army' like he was Johnny Thunders' bastard son. Pete even managed to catch a drumstick that Cary Glenn had bounced off his tom kit, and then toss it back to Cary without missing a beat. "We planned that, totally," Pete said after the song had finished.

OwMyFooT, by comparison, was just a mess. The Ramones-like songs that Dwayne Simmonds and company had been jamming out over the past month sounded a few more months shy of coming together, and Dave Mulrooney was only slightly more adequate a time keeper than simply throwing drums randomly down a flight of stairs. And it was painful watching Wanda Pockets grip that microphone stand and choke out the lyrics in between fits of terror \- her performance was only slightly more confident at their second and last concert that following April, and after that she swore she would never go on a public stage again. (The only noteworthy legacy of OwMyFooT is the story of how they got their band name, which was essentially a bet on the first words that Pete Hammond would say when he came in to The Barn one particular day. Pete was usually very good at off-the-cuff bizarro quips, and the band might have lucked out on a moniker like "Free-Range Teenagers" or "Fudgie Punk" or "Pancakes And Cough Syrup." However, on that particular day Pete stubbed his toe on the doorjamb coming in and - well, them there's the breaks sometimes.)

As for Murderburger, we were all right. We played almost the exact same set as we did at Prudence, with the exception of one new song called 'Riot At The Eaton Centre,' which was our first and last attempt at playing a ska number - after the show we dropped it from the set-list permanently. Matt, now exclusively calling himself "Spike," must have felt a bit upstaged by Pete's accidental catch and toss of the drumstick, because mid-way through the set he started twirling one of Harvinder's drum sticks like a baton. The stick-twirling garnered a positive response, so during 'Gawd Complex' he started doing pirouettes while tossing and catching the stick, (we forgot sometimes how many hours of practice Matt put in with the cheerleading squad, so the effect was startling.) Then he tried creating a fire baton by wadding tissue paper at either end and lighting the wads with a lighter borrowed from Jeff from The Milk Studs.

This "fire hazard" was the official reason why the Morganfield HardCore scene was forbidden from using the Cafetorium as a concert venue ever again. But what was more galling was that Jeff ended up taking the blame and detention time for the offence - Matt, according to the administration, had been "goaded into reckless behaviour" and had apparently voiced a significant regret over his actions so that he was left off the hook. Make no mistake, Jeff Kryzynski was a jerk, but he wasn't the one lighting things on fire on school property.

After the show I overheard Wanda and Annick talking about Matt. They neatly summarised some of the concerns I myself was feeling, though carefully not expressing, at the time:

Annick: "Is it just me, or is Matt wiping his butt with the Scene Manifesto?

Wanda: "That's one way of putting it."

Annick: "But why?"

Wanda: "Because he can."

Matt may have been busy breaking the rules, but he was also keeping the other bands in venues to play. Over the holidays he managed to convince Bob Swann to let bands set up Sunday afternoon shows at the Sunflower Café on a monthly basis. Not only did this give us a regular concert setting, but the smaller capacity of the Sunflower guaranteed that we wouldn't have to deal with the cavernous emptiness that we had to deal with at the Cafetorium at Morganfield North. In addition, Matt had also gone over to Tiny Bigg's Pizzeria up at Lower Anne and King Streets and convince the proprietor, Angelo Bigras, to let them use the spacious side room for putting on occasional concerts. The side room was where the Morganfield Community Theatre Company had been rehearsing and staging plays for the past year due to a dispute with the Town Hall, and with the dispute now resolved Mr. Bigras was interested in alternate uses for the now-unused space (it also helped that Angelo was also a Metallica fan, and Matt was able to spin a suitably slavering commiseration over how Metallica's new bassist, Jason Newsted, was simply not an adequate replacement for the late Cliff Burton). Moving equipment in and out of The Barn every few weeks was a major pain in the gluteus maximi, but give the devil his due: Spike Liberty kept the rest of us in gigs from Christmas 1988 right through to senior year.

And you think that we would be thankful to the young geezer. Ah, but it is to laugh.

When Spike announced that he had finagled the monthly matinee slot at the Sunflower, Steve Coleman blurted out that he wanted to go back to the Morganfield North Cafetorium. "We can use the empty Cafetorium floor for skateboarding between sets," he said. "Besides, the Sunflower's tiny. Where are we gonna put the audience?"

"What audience?" Jeff Kryzynski snickered. Spike glared hard at Jeff, who then winced and shrugged apologetically, even though he was only saying what many of us were thinking.

Oh, how we used to needle ol' Spike every week at the Barn meetings. Those of us who weren't grousing over wordings to Manifesto amendments contented themselves with making oblique (and immature) (and thoroughly envious, in my own case) references to Spike's escapades with the girls he had started bringing to shows: imports from the Toronto punk scene, each one skankier and more disinterested than the last (like father, like son; a year after Wanda Pockets scolded me for my "Matt's Hottie Step-Mom of the Month" idea for the zine, now she was openly discussing a back-page feature entitled "Spike Liberty Skweeze/Sleaze Of The Week"). Now and then one of us got up the gumption to point out that Spike's mohawk was indeed a Manifesto contravention, but then Spike would turn it around and say that if "we thought we were ready," we were free to take the next step despite the "(encouragement) to reject" wording of Manifesto Point Seven. Few of us did, perhaps because the thought of being tied to a tree by the perennially losing Morganfield Grizzlies combined with the inevitable parental disapproval (see also: Free Room and Board) was not worth the ethical dilemma - Ashley did get a Milk Studs logo tattoo on his shoulder, and David Swells engaged in some ill-advised eyeliner experimentation, but that's about as far as it went.

(You might notice here, Darcy, that I am now referring to Matt by his chosen nickname, Spike. More than a few of us were doing the same at the time, which is no mere coincidence, I assure you).

Throughout the spring of 1989 Steve and I let slip a few references to Nana Nummies, which was confusing to the other scenesters who were still not in on the Big Secret Life Of Matt Miller, Rich Kid Esq. Eventually I laid off the Nana analogies (Nanalogies?), but Steve was starting to sound vindictive toward Mr. Liberty. When Harvey found out about the Miller fortune, Harvey told me that he "had suspected as much all along," and he too became prone to dropping jokes about bad kiddie food and worse kiddie programming. If Awaken hadn't folded in the spring, I'm sure Steve and Harvey would have put the boots to Murderburger with smiling faces. In retrospect, I can see how the band had already split into two factions, with Spike and his loyal sidekick Poker Cartwright on one side, and Steve and Harvinder on the other. At the time, however, I was bat-blind and oblivious to the band's fragile state. Blissfully so, I supposed.

And here again, another niggling negative: Matt was the only member of the scene who was not, as per Manifesto Point Three, playing in secondary bands. Even his drum machine, Buddy Poor, was doing double duty in both Dave and Punky Brewster Death Cult. Many of us kept asking the guy: where's your extra-musical credits? Well, Spikey-boy surprised us yet again when in February he admitted he had been practicing with another band. But not with one from the scene.

What happened was this: The Artist Formerly Known As Matt Miller had answered an advertisement from a Scarborough-based band called Higher Voltage, an AC/DC tribute act comprised of what he described as truly supreme asshole musicians (their nickname for him was - wait for it - "Sid Vicious"! Wotta surprise, eh?). Matt managed a decent vocal impression of AC/DC's vocalist Brian Johnson, but his Bon Scott voicing was impeccable (he was even managing to hit real notes now and again), and with a Brian Johnson-style newsboy cap pulled over his eyes and a curly wig concealing his blue locks, Matt passed the audition with flying colours, or so he assured us skeptical cock-rock-hating punks.

Fake I.D.s in hand, Steve, Andy Lefebvre and I piled into Dwayne Simmond's newly-acquired Datsun rust-bucket and ventured deep into the bowels of deepest, dankest Scarborough to catch Matt's debut with the band. The venue was a self-advertised "pool hall and eatery" on Kingston Road, situated between a Ford dealership and a motel that looked like it rented rooms by the hour. The doorman checked our names off of the guest-list (pausing to examine baby-faced Andy's I.D. card before shrugging and waving us in regardless), and we grabbed the biggest table in the club, which was right in front of the soundboard, and ordered a pitcher of water and a platter of what turned out to be the most grotesque jalapeño nachos imaginable. Other tables were occupied by an assortment of rummies in thrift-store clothes and rocker types in too-tight jeans, many wearing expressions of bitter expectation. I remember looking at some of the faces in the crowd and thinking: somewhere along the line, a lot of these people had to settle for less in life. The last thing they probably wanted was to be the butt of some kids' practical joke. I braced myself for a hasty exit.

Not long after we had settled in, a black man in a wide-collared shirt passed by our table and asked if we were "looking for candy." Andy Lefebvre said he would like some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, if he had any. The man cackled and slapped him on the shoulder. "You're all right, son!" he exclaimed, and he left our table alone for the rest of the evening.

Finally the artfully chapeau'd singer of Higher Voltage take to the stage and, after a brief introduction, sing a heretofore unknown AC/DC chestnut entitled 'Backdoor Amour'. The song bore a curious resemblance to 'Highway To Hell', just like the follow-up number 'Bill's Balls' followed the same chord progressions as 'Hell's Bells', and what at first sounded like 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap' turned out instead to be 'Stick The Meat Between My Cheeks'. The only people in the bar who seemed unaware of this lyrical disparity were the other members of Higher Voltage, who soldiered on behind Matt, apparently mistaking the audiences' hoots and whistles as signs of rabid appreciation.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned to see a figure leaning over the soundboard with a conspiratorial leer. It was Graeme Forsythe. "I left Matt's vocals out of the monitor mix," he said. "The guys in the band have no idea what he's singing!" The management of the club, we would later learn, owed Graeme several hundred dollars in unpaid sound duties from previous shows, and he was quite thankful for the opportunity to enact a bit of revenge.

By the time Higher Voltage were wending through the final chorus of 'If You Want Blood You Got It', sung by Matt as 'Sensitive Male Buttfuck Fiesta' (with the outro refrain: "Gotta share my feeling with ya / Gonna share my fee-lings with ya!"), a number of offended rednecks began pelting the stage with assorted foodstuffs. The guitar players both dropped their guitars and started arguing with their assailants, at which point Matt leapt off the stage, doffing his cap and wig and yelling out "Spike Liberty rides again!" Everyone at our table barreled out of the club behind Spike, piling into Dwayne's creaky Datsun. Pausing only to let in a giggling Graeme Forsythe, we made a rickety but swift getaway, dumbfounded mullet-heads and beer-bellies trailing us in the parking lot.

"I don't know why everyone was so upset," Spike announced three blocks away from the scene of the crime. "You'd think fans of a band called 'AC/DC' would be gay-positive, or at least bi-curious!" As a case in point, he further explicated that the next song they had planned to play was a version of 'Let's Get It Up' without a single change in lyrics.

Now before you write off Spike's adventure as merely a grotesque albeit highly creative time-waster, as a few of us did back then, Spike was adamant that his original intention had been to raise funds for his own band - had the other members of Higher Voltage not been, in Spike's estimation, moronic jerks, he would have stood to make several hundred dollars' worth of cash over the following months to go toward his main project, Murderburger. Cover bands, Spike said, made money which could go toward funding of less profitable enterprises. Considering that the average take from our Morganfield shows was around fifty dollars split among four bands, he had a pretty valid point. Oh sure, daddy's money could have bought and paid for the whole scene if Mr. Matthew Miller had been so inclined to ask. But perhaps he thought, as so many of the more naïve naïfs in the scene liked to think, that at some point we would be able to actually generate revenue from our punk rock shenanigans.

See, we were stone-cold ignorant of the fact that for almost everyone else on the planet, punk was considered good and dead, or a dead end at the very least. All that bustle and bluster we read about in Maximum Rock'n'Roll and the Punkaholics' newsletter, as well as the stories we heard filtering up from Toronto and elsewhere, kept the illusion going. For example, only in the past two years have I really bothered to educate myself about Toronto's late-seventies contribution to the art(less) form of Punk, a scene that has all but washed away with the tide of history. Forget about the punk promise of The Diodes, the menace of The Demics, the audacity of The Viletones, the verve of Teenage Head, the tastelessness of The Battered Wives, the vulgarity of the Forgotten Rebels - that was all someone else's grand experiment from back when people like you and I were still experimenting with the taste of Play-Doh sandwiches; back when the music really could change the world, with lessons lost to history and hearsay. Nowadays punks seem doomed to repeat others' mistakes, enjoyable as that might seem to those of us with bridges left to burn and precious time prime for the wasting.

So I'll give Spike Liberty this much credit: he knew when and how to waste his time, but he also knew how to use the time that wasn't thrown away. And if punk rock really was well and truly dead, he still knew a few tricks that could make the corpse dance.

Spike had an agenda, and that agenda was getting Murderburger to record a CD by December. We were "ready," he insisted. And who were we, his esteemed orchestra, to disagree? According to Spike, we were also ready to try playing shows outside of Morganfield, and we needed to raise some money to record and press the CD. So the solution was obvious: a three week summer tour. While the rest of us were fumbling around playing shows at the Sunflower and Tiny Bigg's, goofing and having fun and pretending to matter, Spike was working the phone and setting up shows. He told us to keep out summer schedules clear, which didn't sit well with the rest of us.

"But I have a co-op position at CP Rail," I said.

"But I have make-up summer classes," Steve said.

"But I have to work at my uncle's store," Harvinder said.

"Cancel 'em," Spike replied with a dismissive wave. Spoken like a true rich kid who didn't have to work.

All of us had to finagle our schedules to accommodate Spike's plan. You would think that we would have at the very least been impressed: a sixteen-year-old kid had booked an eleven concert tour for an unknown Canadian punk band in 1989, arranging advertising with local bands including some people he had called cold. He even managed to rent a van from Angelo Bigras' brother-in-law for a laughable sum of a hundred dollars. All we had to do was pack our instruments and some sleeping bags.

But yet again, I am getting ahead of myself. Rewind the tape, start over.

Between the Cafetorium Christmas show and the tour, we had six months of Morganfield concerts and practices and all-around fuckin'-da-yak to go through in between. Murderburger played four Morganfield shows, headlining every time. Spike was getting better at pacing himself so he didn't end up winded at the end like he was at Prudence, and all of that rhythm work that Steve and Harvey put in between Murderburger and Awaken turned them into a solid bass-and-drum foundation. All I had to do was keep the guitar riffs coming.

During this time we put together a few new songs including my first solo-composed contribution called 'Shut Up Old Man' (a witty ditty about Woodstock-worshipping Boomers and all the damage they have wrought - Bob Swann, for one, was not impressed). Murderburger often got the best reaction from the few Toronto punks who ventured up to Morganfield for shows; some of them were in bands and had demo tapes to trade, and they were baffled when we told them we had no tapes of our own to barter with. Other Morgie bands were also getting edgy about this whole "no albums or cassettes" rule from Manifesto Point Ten, but Spike was adamant that even Murderburger would "sell no 'whine' before it's time." Meanwhile, Spike was happy to tell the Torontonians about the upcoming CD, although he was careful to do this only when the Morgie crew was out of ear-shot.

At the same time, The Nothings were also putting in some strong showings, along with their pro-drinking spin-off combo Peter And The Pukes. At one Tiny Bigg's show both The Pukes and The Nothings shared the bill, and Peter conducted an on-stage argument with himself over which band was playing first, even going so far as to punch himself out and knock over part of the drum kit (Angelo Bigras shook his head when he saw this, muttering, "That boy needs mental help"). Iremonger put in occasional appearances here and there, only playing two or three songs at a time, but every time their performance and stage presence grew all the more intense. They were also the first group to play a show outside of Morganfield, though it really was just a Battle Of The Bands concert in Toronto where they took the Runner-Up prize of a gift certificate to Steve's Music (some guy at the concert who claimed to be an agent even gave them his card. When none of the band's phone calls to the number on the card were returned, Iremonger wrote the closest thing to a political song they ever did, called 'Poison Promise').

As for other Morgie bands, Dave re-grouped with Greg Dunhaven's brother Keith on guitar as Sonic Cones, and shortened their songs to under four minutes and added choruses and generally became boring as hell, though none of us had the heart to tell them to their faces. David Swells and Dave Mulrooney did put on a live performance at a music exhibition at Morganfield North where they added original synth music to a silent screening of the movie "Metropolis", which earned them a write-up in The Morganfield Beacon while reassuring us that the band members had not completely lost their creative spark. Other bands including Punky Brewster Death Cult and Commercial Band played some decent sets, as did a certain new band on the scene: a group of Grade Ten pop-punk fans who went by the promising name Ratzenberger, after the esteemed actor who played Cliff Claven on "Cheers".

But what of the Milk Studs, you might ask? Well, the Milk Studs were happy to participate for the first few months, as long as they got to headline the show, or at least have their band logo bigger on the advertising flyers. As usual, they brought in a much-needed quotient of female concert-goers (some of them even talked to us!), but they also attracted an unfortunate jock element which caused no small amount of tension at shows. In particular, Ashley suggested that we book a Sunflower show with a band that included members of the Rock Kings (football players at a punk show - yeah, that'll work), and he was baffled as to why everyone else in the Scene was against the move.

The breaking point occurred at a meeting in April after a concert at Tiny Bigg's where the Milk Studs debuted a new song entitled 'Three Dollar Bill', featuring lyrics such as "Funny as a three dollar bill / queer little homo, you don't wanna fly solo." During the song intro Ashley had claimed that gay people were responsible for spreading AIDS, and he joked that the song was dedicated to "everyone who came to the concert through the back entrance."

This confrontation was a long time coming. Even back when Matt first sat in on the Milk Studs' jam back at Brad Fallows house, the story goes that Ashley had sneered when Matt started talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "Isn't that the band with that video where the two guys kiss?" Matt had to assure them that the band members were not homosexual, and that in the video Ashley had referred to ('True Men Don't Kill Coyotes') neither the singer nor the bassist actually kissed, though they did mash their faces together like they were about to. It's a shame, really: The Milk Studs were raving Chili Peppers copycats long before it became fashionable to rip off the Chili Peppers, but they never did lose that metal machismo from their days of covering Van Halen. After over a year, the guys in the band had not evolved nearly as much as we had wanted to believe.

I felt kind of sorry for Ashley and Brad, who had to make the case on their bands' behalf - they honestly had no idea that what they had done was in any way wrong. Still, we all took turns lecturing them on how gays were a persecuted minority, and how the Milk Studs were not allowed to play the song at future Morgie shows. David Swells was especially vehement, at one point screaming in Brad's face and shaking so hard I thought he was going to fall apart before our eyes - usually he was so distant and analytical during band meetings that you wanted to check to make sure he wasn't a robot.

After David calmed down and re-took his seat, Spike stood up and announced that we were going to have to vote on whether the Milk Studs would be allowed to stay in the scene.

"But none of us put a motion forward," Dwayne said.

"I'm putting it forward." Matt was in full Spike Liberty mode that day, all self-righteous authority and bluster. "Anyone second the motion?"

Wanda put up her hand, glowering at Ashley and Brad. "Seconded."

"Thirded," mumbled Swells.

Before we could put it to a vote, Ashley stood up and said, "I'll save you assholes the trouble. We're kicking ourselves out." He gathered up his soda and knapsack and stalked out of The Barn. Brad Fallows pursed his lips, sighed heavily and followed Ashley a few seconds later.

There was a ten second period of absolute silence, as we stared at each other and individually weighed the importance of what had just happened. Finally Spike sat forward and said, "We're better off without them." None of us wanted to believe him, though I'm certain we all tried our best to convince ourselves that what he said was true.

• • • •

### 10.

Would you believe it's November, Darcy, and I'm still writing out this fucking letter? It's been so long since I began that I can barely remember what started it all - I seem to recall something about a stupid sidebar article about how a wannabe techno-rapper calling himself Matt Molotov managed to fart out an entire music scene in a Canadian town called Morgan-something-or-other, creating it in his own image like a delinquent god or somesuch demi-(dummy?)-deity. And now here I am: bashing the heck out of my computer keyboard in a fuzzy-minded rage, my fingers blood-swollen and sore and my back stooped into a permanent question mark. I feel like I'm curse-bound to waste the rest of my earthly existence schooling your stupid ass about The Meaning Of Punk, as if anyone would care about such things in 1995. Oh well, beats working for a living.

(We interrupt this broadcast for a highly ironic announcement: I just received a phone call from a nice woman from the job agency where I interviewed last month, and I have agreed to a two-week temp position at a warehouse up on Brimley Road with a possibility of a six-month extension. I'd better hurry up and finish this letter, lest the threat of steady employment ruin my chance at wasting my life pontificating pointlessly over a music scene that has been dead for four years. Who will be left to tilt at windmills once Don Quixote gets his Union card? Tune in next week when our narrator finds a steady girlfriend and the letter-writing really falls by the wayside. We now return you to our regularly scheduled de-programming, already in progress...)

So it's past Thanksgiving, and there's frost on the lawns and a distinctly Christmas-like shiver in the air, that weird combination of wintry death and gift-wrap promise that makes even supposed grown-ups like myself giddy with expectation even as we're shrugging our upper bodies in our too-thin coats for warmth. I'm feeling that winter cold coming on more acutely than most: in the confusion of the move-out from the apartment after the flood and the subsequent move-back-in after the damage was repaired, some of my good clothes including my new winter coat and gloves went missing. Recently I spotted one of the local winos slouching along Broadview Avenue, wearing my gloves. He said he found them in a box of garbage that had been left on the sidewalk outside my apartment. Charity begins at home, they say.

Speaking of charity, my lying shitbag landlord has informed me that he will be jacking up my rent in the new year after all. Apparently my lease expired back in July and was never renewed and signed, and as per the sixty-day requirement in the Landlord And Tenant Act I will be considered a new tenant starting in January, with the seventy-five dollar increase effective accordingly. Needless to say, a lawyer has been contacted. I know he's a good lawyer by the way he took me apart verbally for paying my rent in cash for the past seven months without asking for receipts. You know how us punks like to keep it informal and not get hung up on pieces of paper like contracts and so forth - or so I explained to him. Oh how the lawyer and I laughed about this little oversight.

On a positive note, I am now working on a new song, the first I've written in months. The working title is 'My Landlord Is A Lying Asshole (And His Elaborate Comb-Over Is Fooling Nobody)', but I'm hoping to come up with something a bit punchier for the finished product. Coming soon to a split 7" record near you!

In the months leading up to summer break and the big 1989 Ontario tour I was prone to a different sort of excessiveness in song-craft. I had finally cracked the mystery of writing songs, and I no longer had to wait for Spike to assemble my riffs like so many Lego blocks. So I went nuts on the song-writing front, using the story of Captain Beefheart as my inspiration. You might recall how the Captain wrote twenty-eight songs in eight hours for the album 'Trout Mask Replica', not that I need remind a music expert as venerated as yourself, Herr Vannykins (mind you, I'm pretty sure that the Beefheart story is a load of bullshit, but like the rumour about how Rod Stewart once had five litres of semen pumped out of his stomach, it's a fun story to imagine to be true). I spent several hours over several evenings and weekends with a microphone and a borrowed four-track cassette recorder, along with our good friend Buddy Poor, laying down tracks like a madman. At times I was writing songs as I was recording them, ransacking old notebook pages for lyric couplets I scribbled down during Science and History classes when I was bored (my abysmal report card marks at the time attest to my creative turmoil), fudging guitar leads and rhyme schemes in an over-caffeinated panic that I would lose the musical thread before the fever subsided.

When I was finished I had seventy-seven songs done in less than two months, a pace I have not come close to matching since then. I had so many brilliant-seeming tuneage ready to rip that I was devastated when the rest of the band shot down my pleas to go over some new material to play while on tour.

"Seventy-seven songs?" Spike looked at me like I was crazy, which I guess was a fair assessment. "If you think we're going to try out seventy-seven new songs when we should be practicing for a tour, you are out of your mind."

"We've already got, what, twenty songs?" Steve added, a look of worry on his face.

I pleaded with the guys to at least listen to the tapes I made. "Hey, we'll listen to them," Harvinder said with a dismissive-sounding laugh. "But like the man says, there's no time to try new stuff now, what with the tour starting in a month."

Tour, tour, tour - from February until July that's all the band seemed to talk about. Even as we were going to classes and playing shows in Morganfield, the Big Tour floated above our heads like a collective thought balloon, but for me it felt more like a dark, foreboding cloud. Oh sure, I was looking forward to it as much as anyone; even so, I had this weird feeling that I should be preparing myself for a big let-down. I planned on bringing plenty of paperback books and tapes for the walkman, along with a few notebooks for writing. I figured I might even keep some sort of tour diary, like the ones I had seen in some fanzines from the States. Better yet, I thought to myself, I'll bring that tape recorder and write even more new songs! Damn all you naysayers!

There was one positive side-effect of my presenting of new demo tapes: it raised the issue of why we as a band had no tapes of own to sell during the Big Tour. If we were going to be raising money on this tour for a CD, then we obviously couldn't depend on ticket sales for revenue. But Spike had put his faith in tee-shirts, investing the remaining band funds into making a hundred tee shirts with the Murderburger logo printed in bright green ink on blue fabric. The blank tee-shirts came from Craig LaBrie's father, as part of a deal to clear out some overstock. Some were missing sleeves, and one shirt was so big that both Harvey and I could fit inside it at once, but Spike said this was actually a selling point, because people could choose between different styles of shirts they wanted.

So we had a hundred tee-shirts. But no recordings to sell, which brought us back to the whole argument over demo tapes. As Marie Antoinette might have put it, the peasants were revolting.

"How many people go to concerts to buy tee-shirts?" Harvey sneered.

"You'd be surprised," Spike sneered back. "Besides, we're making six dollars on every tee-shirt we sell, so why are you complaining?"

Steve leaned forward and snarled. "We're complaining 'cause we're not a fashion show. We're a band and we should be selling music. Can't you dub a few cassettes outta that stack of tapes you record every week at practice?"

"It's against the Manifesto," Spike replied.

"Fuck the Manifesto!" Steve yelled back.

The next week at The Barn, Spike drew up a ten-song set while we set up some room and vocal mics. We played the set straight through, recording straight to two-track, pausing only for Spike to yell out the name of each number and do a count-in ("WAR DEAD! ONE-TWO-THREE-GO!" Rawka-rawka-rawka-rawka-brugga-brugga-brugga-boom. "OKAY... FASCIST COP! ONE-TWO-THREE-GO!" And so on). We didn't even stop recording when I broke a string in the opening verse of 'The Young Are So Dumb'; instead we kept the tape rolling while Harvey and Steve jammed on a two-note run that morphed into a bluesy call-and-response between myself and Spike and Steve while I rushed to change the string.

"Hey! Paul! Change the string! Change the string now!"

"Fuck off!"

"Hey! Paul! Change the string! Change the string NOW!"

"FUCK OFF!!!"

So we ended up with an eleventh track on the tape, called 'Paul Changes An 'A' String'. Later we would receive a fan letter from a twelve-year-old in Lindsay who said that this was his favourite song from the demo. Accolades like these are what drive otherwise sane people to put down their guitars and pursue careers in Dentistry.

Spike and I ran off cassette dubs for the rest of the night while Harvey and Steve rushed back to their respective homes to cram for exams. For blanks we used a box of Bananarama cassettes, which we would over-dub one by one and then re-label using masking tape and writing "Murderburger" in magic marker (and don't ask me where Spike got a hold of a hundred Bananarama cassettes, because I have no friggin' idea). By the end of the following week Spike had hand-drawn a tape cover template and, with the aid of a bypass code for the photocopier in the school library, a hundred tape covers made from the template. The band spent an afternoon cutting, folding and inserting the sleeves into the cassette cases. And yet before we could gloat over our handiwork, Spike stuffed the tapes into a box and took them away, hoarding them in his bedroom like a crazed miser until the start of the tour. The last thing he wanted was for any of us to blab about recording a demo tape to others in the scene, which no doubt would have started yet another round of accusations and finger-pointing. I couldn't blame him for being paranoid.

Anyway, that's the story of the demo, which sold well enough at various tour dates, though certainly not as profitably as the tee-shirts. Years later, whenever I played the demo tape and then the CD we released a year later, friends and foes alike would inform me that the tape was better than the CD, which cost thousands more to produce. I have yet to meet a band who's experience recording demos and albums has ended up any different.

Oh, and as for those songs I wrote and recorded in the spring? None of them made it into the band repertoire. In fact it took me years to realise how terrible a lot of the songs were. Worse, of the dozen songs I did hold on to, most of them weren't even straight-ahead punk. Some were plain ol' rock songs, and a few were close to being (gulp!) folk music. Bottom line, I was starting to branch off in other directions and develop my own style, which is the worst thing a punk musician can do to himself.

I'm going to fudge a bit here, Darcy. Rather than give you a blow-by-blow of the Great Amazing Wondrous Super-Fantastical Pan-Ontario Summer Tour In The Year Of Someone Else's Lord 1989, I'm going to re-type the tour diary instead. Originally this was supposed to have been published as an article in Issue 3 of MFHC, but unfortunately it got spiked (pun not intended) due to the argument Spike and Wanda got into the following September. Spike announced that the zine "belonged to the scene" and that Wanda was exerting too much control over what was being printed, and so the editor's position was going to have to be taken over by someone else, preferably a committee. Wanda then stood up and explained that she was doing fifty percent of the writing and a hundred percent of the page layouts, not to mention contributing most of the funds to get the thing printed, and so MFHC was "her" zine and not anyone else's, and in conclusion Spike was welcome to "go rotate the tires on a moving truck" (not an exact quote, mind you, although in her not exactly calm and sensible reply Wanda did employ a number of words that rhymed with "truck"). After that, all Murderburger-related writing in MFHC was halted. In fact, Wanda's zine post-meeting would have little to do with Morganfield bands at all.

So here you go. I'll warn you ahead of time that this is the raw version of the tour diary, and it's in dire need of some editing, including some parts that obviously would have been cut out completely before I gave it over to Wanda for publication. Anyway, begin the rote transcription:

**July 14th, 2pm** \- As I write this, Murderburger is in a van, heading out on tour. Ten shows over fifteen days, including one in Waterloo where we're opening up for The Punkaholics, and an eight-band Sunday matinee in Toronto with Bunchofuckingoofs and a bunch of others. We're late getting in the road because Steve had a big panic attack about his summer courses. He's convinced he's going to flunk out and have to work in Oshawa building cars or something. Anyway, Spike says we gotta make time due to being late, so no bathroom breaks and no stops for food. Onward!

**July 14th, 9:30pm** \- St. Catherines, first stop. We were third on a four band bill inside a civic centre gymnasium - inside looks exactly like the caf at Morgie North Secondary, which is pretty freaky. A lot of kids at this show, more than I expected to see. Lots of skateboarding, which made Steve pretty happy.

The other bands on the bill were Jerk Chicken, Spazmelodica and The Contras. Spazmelodica resorted to not one, not two, but _three_ covers of Guns'N'Roses! Apparently GnR counts as "punk" down here. The only decent local band was The Contras. They have this twangy guitar sound like on The Dead Kennedy's first album, and they have one songs called 'Bombs Across Canada' which was particularly righteous. We exchanged numbers because The Contras want to tour out as well. "Anywhere but St. Cath!" they kept saying. They sound like a lot of people I know back home.

Murderburger kicked everyone's asses. Spike got to show off his newest toy: a homemade microphone baton that he twirls during certain numbers. It looks pretty cool spinning around, but the sound is pretty boxy, like he's singing through a telephone. Still, it's impressive that he built it himself. I'd be showing it off too.

While Harvey and Steve were loading the van, Spike and I counted up our earnings for the night. Between our cut of the door and sales of shirts and demos, we made three hundred dollars! We're rich!

**July 15th, 1pm** \- Tonight we're playing a club in London called The Bearded Rainbow, which got its name from a line in a Cream song. Funny story: back when Spike was setting up the tour he called around asking where we could play in London, and everyone kept saying "Call the office!" Spike would say, okay, what's the number for the office, and they'd say "No, call the office!" He later found out that there is actually a well-known venue in London called "Call The Office." It was like that "Who's On First" routine with Abbott & Costello: Who's on second? No, who's on first? I don't know? _Third Base!!!_ I swear, someone oughta set up a superstar concert at Call The Office with The Who, The Guess Who and Yes.

For lunch today we got to eat take-out meals from Nana Nummies just outside St. Catherines - Spike's got a whole bundle of coupons which he says will last us for the whole tour. Spike ordered a salad and some bread while we all chowed down on burgers. I give him one week before he caves in and starts eating meat like a normal person.

**Same day, 11:30pm** \- Bummer show. First off, it turns out this is an adults-only concert venue, so we all had to pretend we were over nineteen. Also, we were supposed to be opening up for some big-shot California punk band that I'd never even heard of, but they got held up at the U.S. border and had to cancel. No one danced, no one skated, everyone just stood there with their beers. Grown-up crowds at punk shows suck!

The weird thing was that for some reason everyone keeps calling me Poker. It started with this one old guy over at the bar called Hank, who looked like he had been sitting on that stool since the dawn of time and the club had been built up around him. All night Hank kept calling me "Poker" for no reason I could figure out. "Hey, Poker, come here!" "Good show, Poker!" "Have a beer, Poker! You look like you need a drink." Now everyone in the club's calling me Poker, even Spike and Steve. Sold one tee-shirt and two demo tapes. Lame!

**July 16th, noon** \- I'm really getting sick of people calling me "Poker." We slept in the club's storage room last night and the first thing I heard when I woke up is Harvey saying "Someone tell Poker that they're serving breakfast." Shit, give it a rest! The owner of the Bearded Rainbow made us all eggs and toast in the bar kitchen, which was mighty righteous. He even whipped up this salad mix in a container for Spike to take out on the road. Even so, I had to twist Spike's arm to get him to give the guy a free tee-shirt as a thank-you. "He's feeding us, for crying out loud," I said. "Whatever you say, Poker," Spike replied. Argh!

**Same day, 1:30pm** \- On the 401 heading for Windsor now. I once heard a story about how bullets from a gunfight in Detroit found their way across the St. Clair River and landed on a house in Windsor. Other than that I have no idea what to expect. Harvey and Spike are arguing over what to play in the tape deck. Harvey wants to listen to Black Sabbath, but Spike said no way. Makes me glad I brought a Walkman and a bag of spare batteries.

**Same day, 10pm** \- Weird show tonight. The "club" was actually the basement underneath a pool hall. People had to enter from a doorway in the alley. The bill was supposed to be a local band, Nuclear Option, followed by The Jerk Chickens (no relation to Jerk Chicken in St. Cath), and then us. The Jerk Chickens broke up this afternoon, so that cut the bill to two bands. But then we were told that the building was owned by the father of Nuclear Option's lead guitarist, Brad, and Brad actually threatened to call his dad (!!!) unless we played first. As it turned out, the local cops shut down the show mid-way through Nuclear Option's set. Yay Brad!

Usually Spike looks after selling the "merch" - that's what Spike's calling the shirts and tapes. Tonight, however, I got stuck with the tee-shirts because Spike agreed to do an interview with a girl who writes a local fanzine. I can't believe some of the cheapskates I had to deal with. One kid in a S.N.F.U. tee-shirt tried to trade me a beer for a demo tape, no joke. On the other hand I had three fourteen-year old punk chicks mob me saying how great Murderburger sounded. One of the girls, Chantal, was this tiny brunette chick dressed up in a kilt and white shirt - she told me that it was her actual school uniform (Red Hot Chili Peppers are right: "Catholic Schoolgirls Rule"!). The girls took off when the cops showed up, however, which was a bummer. Still, I think I might have to work the "merch" table more often.

**July 18th, 2pm** \- Today we had what my mom would call an "adventure" crossing the US border. We had to get to Buffalo NY for our next show, and so Steve had to drive the van because he looked the most "respectable" out of the four of us. Steve has a license, but he isn't used to driving, and he was panicking big-time about crossing the border. We ended up going at about 30kph all the way from Niagara Falls to Fort Erie, angry drivers honking behind us all the way. Meanwhile Spike covered his mohawk with a winter toque, and then he gave Harvey a ridiculous cowboy hat to wear over his turban. We must have looked like the Village People in that stupid van!

When we finally got to the border crossing Steve got completely tongue-tied, babbling and not really answering the border guard's questions, so Spike leaned over and said that the four of us were just driving through New York on our way to Kingston. We all had to show our IDs, and then the guard asked me what all the stuff under the blanket in the back of the van was. Yikes! Spike said it was camping gear. Double yikes!!! The guard gave me a very hard stare and then waved us through.

As soon as we were across Steve got pissed off and said we just broke the law by lying. Spike just shrugged and said, "So?"

**Same day, 1am** \- 98 degrees outside. I don't know what that is in Celsius, but it's hot, especially as it's the middle of the night. Buffalo is everything I imagined seeing in a big American city, gritty and scary. Everyone here walks around with these determined expressions like they've just received some really bad news and they're wondering how they're going to cope. Kind of fitting for a town that's named after an animal that's been hunted almost to extinction.

This turned out to be the most amazing show we've played since our Prudence debut. The club was packed. Punks down here mean business, diving headfirst off the stage during songs, slamming into each other like they're trying to break themselves. One crazy-looking guy in the pit roared when we announced our song 'Fascist Cop', grabbing my mic in the middle of the song and running around screaming "Fucking Cops! Fucking cops!" and just carrying on like a rabid wildebeest. Insane! The highlight of the set was when, during the intro to 'Weaker Sex', Spike got up onto the drum riser and yelled into his baton-mic: "We're from Canada, and if you don't like it then y'all can LICK MY CANADIAN BEAVER!!!", at which point he yanked down the front of his jeans. His fist covered his dick so that only his pubes showed, so it looked like Spike actually had a pussy. One guy in the crowd took a picture and told me afterward that he was going to use it in a Maximum Rock'n'Roll scene report. I'm keeping an eye out for that one, for sure.

Funny story: after our set this one guy came up to me and asked if Spike was really a woman. I said no, Spike was actually a hermaphrodite. I told him that OHIP covered the surgery to remove his dick and balls. The guy got a weird look and stumbled away. I told Harvey and Steve the story afterward, and I had to explain to them what a hermaphrodite was. "You read way too many books," Steve said.

The last band on the bill was a Buffalo group called Killing Spree - totally psychotic Cromag-style hardcore with growled vocals. Spike shoved me into the pit while Killing Spree were playing, evil fucker that he is. I ping-ponged around the floor from body to body until I tripped and fell. Six pairs of hands reached down all at once to pick me up, like it was a contest to see who would be first. Everyone was smiling while bashing each other senseless.

And get this: Spike's dad showed up! In Buffalo! A middle-aged guy in a sports jacket and slacks standing in the middle of a hundred punk kids in torn denim and mohawks with this big goofy grin on his face. He even started hitting on the chick at the door, some stripper-looking sleazeoid half the old man's age! Mr. Miller said that he was in Buffalo for business and wanted to check in on "Matt and the boys." Too bad he missed our set. I wonder what he would have thought of the "Canadian Beaver" stunt.

**July 19th, noon** \- Three cheers for Mr. Miller! Spike's dad paid for a hotel room for us last night, so Murderburger lived it up in style at the Howard Johnson's. Ordered pizzas and cokes, watched cable TV, called home on long-distance. Righteous!!! The only downer was having to share the double-beds. Steve's snoring could wake the fucking dead.

The route Spike had planned to take turned out to be a toll highway, so now we're zigzagging along side roads through New York. So much for saving time by cutting through the U.S. Very sunny outside, not a lot of traffic. I've seen more American flags in the last half-hour than I've seen Canadian flags in my entire life. Every other house has the stars and stripes hanging on a flagpole or draped over windows or painted on the backs of trucks. At first it's kinda like driving through a John Cougar Mellencamp video, but after a while it sure feels like 1984 knockin'-knockin' at your front door.

In Rochester as I write this, eating at a roadside diner. One waitress told us we "Canadians" had "the cutest accents," even though her own accent didn't sound any different from ours. Something about being here in the U.S. just gives me the creeps for some reason. Like listening to a tape player with the Dolby off. Everything sounds brighter, but you also hear the hissing underneath.

**Same day, 4pm** \- Got pulled over at Canada Customs for an hour. They made us empty out the van, going through our equipment and backpacks and asking a million questions. Spike tried to convince them that we were just traveling and that "the shirts and tapes are for trading," but the border guards weren't buying it. After some hemming and hawing they let us go with a stern warning. Who would've thought getting back into Canada would be harder than going into the States?

**July 21st, 2pm** \- It's Thursday, and we're in Kingston with a day to kill before our next show in Ottawa. We're staying in a punk house located in the student housing district near Queen's University lovingly called the "Student Ghetto." On any given night you can watch hordes of well-dressed preppies and Nazis-in-training walking around the neighbourhood, which looks like a warzone. Queens students get to live out their Animal House fantasies for four years. They all think they're playing John Belushi's Bluto, when in fact they're really just a bunch of Niedermayers.

The "concert" last night - and I use that term loosely - was in a cramped back room of the punk house. We played to ten people who sat on whatever scraps of furniture they could drag in. The couple who booked the show, Darren and Jackie, share the house along with about five others. Only Darren has a full-time job; the rest are on welfare. On one level it was a fun night - for once we broke down on our ban on cover songs, and we managed to fumble our way through some requests like Black Flag's 'Nervous Breakdown'. Also, Darren showed Steve the bass-line to Flipper's 'Sex Bomb' so that Jackie's friend Bonnie could play saxophone (badly) with us on a jam. On the other hand, it was kind of depressing watching these worn-out-looking people watch us while we played. Like we were a giant TV set and no one had the energy or will to change the channel. The weirdest part was when one guy from upstairs wandered in wearing a bathrobe and track pants while eating a bologna sandwich. He just stared at us for half a song and wandered off again, like he had just gotten out of bed, saw us, and simply figured he was having a bad dream.

Our pay, apart from room and board, was a two-four of Molson Canadian. Spike insisted that bands like D.O.A. have played hundreds of shows like this, but I still distinctly recall him saying that we were touring to raise money for a CD. Like Harvey told me afterward, "We didn't drive four hundred kilometres for a case of beer."

I got about three hours of sleep last night because I was sleeping in the hall outside Darren and Jackie's room. They started yelling at each other at around 3am and didn't shut up until dawn. Then Yarbles, the house mutt, came up and started licking my face. I tried to shoo him away, but it was useless. I finally got dressed and took him for a walk. He looked happy to be outside, away from the house. I could kinda understand why.

**July 21st, 5:45pm** \- Got to the club in Ottawa where we were booked to play, and guess what? The club is closed. A big padlock on the door and a notice in the window about a revoked liquor license. Spike has been on the payphone for a good twenty minutes now. I think he's resorted to dialing up numbers at random and yelling "I thought you said we had a deal!" to whoever picks up. Harvey and Steve are down the street at Nana Nummies, while I'm minding the van. Spike always wants one of us to mind the van, in case anything gets stolen. He's been getting pretty bossy lately. It's hard to take. Especially over things like the importance of "playing your guts out" to a room full of bored welfare punks in a bedroom in Kingston.

**July 22nd (23rd?), 2am** \- I'm tired as fuck as I write this, so I'm sorry if this comes out more incoherent than usual. We're in another club show where Spike made us lie about our ages, this time in Montreal. Even so, everyone in the club looks like they're underage anyway. Most of the kids around me are speaking French, which combined with the ultra-distorted British crustie-core blasting on the sound system makes it difficult to talk to people. Spike had told us that everyone in Montreal is bilingual, which shows how much Mr. Know-It-All really knows after all. A lot of cute chicks here. The hotter the girl, the less English they understand. I could plot it on a graph, I swear.

We played with four bands, including our hosts and interpreters... The Jerk Chickens! The poor guys nearly shit their pants when we told them we'd already run across two bands with the same name. The Jerk Chickens are from the "West Island," which is where most of the English-speakers in Montreal live. The other two bands, Rien Normal and Fractured Authority, were French. The audience really liked our songs, except for some older guy who stood at the front of the stage demanding that we sing in French and yelling "101 or 401," which I'm told is a popular slogan with the Separatists. A lot of slamming in the pit, especially during 'Fascist Cop' - everyone seems to like that song. Everybody hates cops.

Speaking of slamming, I was talking to some people during Rien Normal's set and they laughed at me when I referred to punks in the pit "slam-dancing." "That's what old people call it," I was told. The proper term, apparently, is "thrashing," although they pronounced the word _"t'rashing."_ I think I'll call it "trashing" from now on. Sounds more appropriate.

The punk music they play in Quebec is really heavy, almost like metal without the guitar solos. Rien Normal sang entirely in French, while Fractured Authority sang half of their songs in English and half in French. During FA's set Spike got called up onto the stage to sing 'Do They Owe Us A Living?' by a band called Crass. The Quebeckers seem to really like Spike for some weird reason. Meanwhile Steve and Harvey hung out with the Jerk Chickens most of the night at the back of the bar watching a baseball game on TV (Expos lost 5-3 to Boston).

Some other band just got up on stage. I don't think they're on the bill. They opened with a song called 'Solidarity' or something. Boring as fuck. I just want to go to bed. Enough!

**July 24th, 6:30pm** \- Still in Montreal. No shows booked until Wednesday. Last night we went to this warehouse party with the guys from Fractured Authority, and I actually came close to getting lucky with this spaced-out French chick who started coming on to me. We started making out, and things were going good, but just when things were getting heavy, she bent over and puked her guts out all over the floor. I had to help her over to the nearest sofa where she then passed out. Fuck! (Or Not Fuck, as the case may be.)

The band met up for lunch today at a restaurant on Rue St Laurent. Spike is supposed to be getting us on a punk show bill in Trois Rivieres that the guys in Fractured Authority told him about. Yves, the drummer from FA, said that he was "proof-positive" they could swing it. Spike was eating a smoked meat sandwich ("I need protein!" he insisted - yeah right!) and explaining that we were "definitely" coming back for more Quebec shows in the fall. "Montreal gets it," he said to us. The girl he was with was wearing a Murderburger tee-shirt and rubbing Spike's shoulder. I have a funny feeling she didn't pay for the shirt.

Afterward Steve and Harvey and I went wandering around the city. Montreal is like a piece of Europe plunked into the middle of Canada, all narrow tree-lined streets and stone townhouses with stairwells on the front leading to the second floor. They also have beer in the grocery stores, which is pretty freaky. We sat at a park splitting a two-litre bottle of Coke, and Steve asked me if we were "on vacation." I said we were, sort of. "So why aren't we doing vacation-type stuff?" he said. "We've got three days between shows and all we're doing is walking around like bums." He had a point.

The highlight last night was riding the subway, or "Metro," this morning. We went all the way from Peel to Angrignon and then back up around to Laurier. Harvey pointed out that one of the train route maps had all of the English station names scratched out: Snowdon, Sherbrooke, McGill. But Villa Maria was untouched. You can't escape the anti-English bias in this city. The Jerk Chickens' bassist, Clive, told us how he took a first-year French class at Concordia University, and the professor refused to believe that he had grown up in Quebec without ever speaking French. He said "you get used to the politics" in Quebec after a while. I've been here less than two days and it's already bugging me. A week of this and my head would explode.

**July 25th, 3pm** \- Finally in the van heading back to Ontario. The Trois Rivieres gig fell through, and the pick-up shows in Montreal the guys in Fractured Authority kept promising never happened. I fucked up my one good pair of sneakers walking through the rain Monday night, and Harvey got yelled at by some old fart on Rue Maisonneuve and some passing cops almost arrested Harvey for causing a disturbance - luckily some American tourists stepped forward and convinced the cops that Harvey hadn't done anything wrong. That's enough Montreal for me, merci.

Spike is driving the van, giving the rest of us the silent treatment. Steve and Harvey had threatened to quit the band and grab a bus back to Morganfield if we didn't leave Quebec a day early. Spike had to call Oshawa ahead of schedule and make arrangements. He says the cost of a motel - "assuming we find a motel" - is coming out of the CD fund. Since the gig in St. Catherines Spike hasn't told us how much we're making at the shows, but I heard that most of out take from the Montreal concert went to the band who showed up at the last minute because they're some big-deal group in Quebec. Spike told me the story was bullshit, and that "we got our cut," but I have my doubts.

At the Scott's truck-stop on the 401 near Cornwall, I telephoned my mom and dad and told them the tour was going well. My mom asked if we were stopping by Morganfield on our way. I lied and said we wouldn't have time. I felt shitty saying that, considering all this time we've been fucking around these past few days. We all might need a vacation after the tour is over.

I just found out I forgot my bag of walkman batteries back in Montreal. Great.

**July 27th, 8:15am** \- In Oshawa. Woke up early to use the bathroom, decided not to go back to sleep. Everyone else in the house is snoring away. It's nice to have the morning to oneself. I grabbed a shower and ate a bowl of cereal, felt at peace with the world.

I realised last night that the only time I'm having fun on this tour is when I'm on stage. If I could figure out a way to play three or four shows in a day, I could live just playing music. You get addicted to the feel of the electric hum in your guitar, looking down from the stage at the kids jumping around in the pit, or looking over at the bassist and drummer and see them smiling. Forget all the other touring stuff, all the waiting around, doing soundchecks, watching shitty science fiction films with other bored musicians, and fucking eating fucking Nana Nummies fucking take-out three fucking times a day. It's all bullshit.

Last night we were second on a three-band bill between two Oshawa bands, Monkeyshines and Name This. Monkeyshines were pretty funny - they had this one song called 'Donut Love' which was about the bands' collective crush on this hot older woman who works at the Tim Horton's over in Pickering. During the last chorus the lead singer started throwing donuts at the audience, which naturally resulted in a big food fight. Reminded me of the food fights that Dave like to start during 'French Fry Holocaust'. Unfortunately this is Monkeyshines' last concert, as two of the members are leaving town to go to university. The lead singer, Chad, was talking about band names for a new project. As a joke, I suggested "The Jerk Chickens." Chad loved the idea. Oops.

**Same day, 5pm** \- Just sound-checked for our concert in Hamilton. Harvey and I are eating at the Pizza Pizza across the street, even though we still have a wad of Nana Nummies coupons left to go through, because neither of us can take another goddamn Frenchie Meal or Cheezy Combo. More time-killing. Spike is doing an interview at a college station. Steve has family in town and is having dinner with them. They're coming to see the show. It turns out that we're playing the same night as The Forgotten Rebels, and so we shouldn't expect much of a local turnout. Steve's family might be our only audience, from the sounds of it.

Harvey just went to the washroom. I don't usually get a chance to talk to the guy, even though I'm in a band with him. He said that some kids hassled him at the Oshawa show, calling him Ali Baba. I don't see half of this shit happening when it goes down, and it bugs me that he doesn't tell us about it afterward. "You know we'll back you up," I told Harvey, but he didn't seem to care.

Gotta close this notebook, Harvey's coming back.

**Same day, 11:30pm** \- Ugh. Disaster. About twenty people showed up. The opening band, Shellshocked Vietnam Veterans, played a bunch of Ramones-styled punk numbers while their friends danced. Then we got on stage and the first thing out of Spike's mouth is this rant about the "industrial death machine" at Stelco that spews out pollution and kills the environment and so forth. Dead silence. After the first song this one guy starts an argument with Spike saying that Stelco provides jobs for Hamilton and that "you Toronto boys wouldn't understand." "We're not from Toronto, asshole," I yelled back. Steve's aunt bought the only tee-shirt we sold that night.

**July 28th, 11:30pm** \- Sleeping in the van in Lindsay tonight. I should have tried this earlier - it's RIGHTEOUS!!!!!! Like having your own bedroom! I've got some sandwiches, a bag of Doritos and some Shirley Soda from the local supermarket (first time I've ever seen Shirley Soda outside of Morganfield), writing by flashlight like a ten-year-old in a backyard tent. Shit, I could LIVE like this!

To get to Lindsay from Hamilton yesterday, we cut through Toronto along the Gardiner Expressway. It's weird how we're zigzagging back and forth across Ontario playing shows everywhere but Toronto, but it kind of makes sense to finish the tour there. A big eight-band benefit concert at the El Mocambo, "where The Rolling Stones once played," Spike likes to say sarcastically. I once told Spike that The Rolling Stones were like pre-punks - my Uncle Eddie told me a story about how Mick Jagger and Keith Richards once pissed on a guy at a gas station, which sounds pretty punk to me. Spike just looked at me like I was nuts. For someone who knows so much about music, Spike can sure be narrow-minded.

Lindsay was weird. Everyone here is into the D.C. sound, all that Fugazi-style mid-tempo start-stop music with the cryptic lyrics. Spike was the only person in the hall with coloured hair. All the kids wear oversized tee-shirts and baggy pants and wallet chains, and some of the girls wear long dresses and head scarves like they're hippies or something. Still, they sure seemed to like us. We sold more Murderburger tapes and tee-shirts here than anywhere since Buffalo.

Midway through our set, one of the hippie-chicks came up on stage and twirled Spike's baton-microphone and then ran off-stage with it. Steve and I laughed our asses off, but Spike threw a hissy fit and refused to sing until the mic was brought back. After our set the show organisers, Brad and Jesse, paid me the money rather than Spike. They said they would rather deal with me because "I didn't act like a rock star." Fair enough.

**Sunday 30th, 9:45am** \- Last night kicked some righteous fucking ass. We got to open up for the one and only PUNKAHOLICS in Kitchener. Spike looked like he was going to wet himself, he was so excited. But who could blame him? IT'S THE FUCKING PUNKAHOLICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The show was in a legion hall over in Waterloo. Hundreds of kids packed the place. People were so wired that they were slam-dancing to the recorded music between live acts. We got amazing reactions to everything we played: 'Metal Makeover', 'Weaker Sex', 'Low Willy Blues', 'Shut Up Old Man' and, of course, 'Fascist Cop'. (I only realised last night how similar that song is to The Punkaholics' 'Fascist State'. I think we'll have to re-write that one, which is a total bummer.)

We thought we got over well, but then The Punkaholics got on stage, and they just fucking destroyed the joint. From the moment that Robbie Baron dropped the opening chords of 'Suburban/Subhuman', the band was in total control. Murderburger was playing pretty well after two weeks on the road, but The Punkaholics were tight. Like bottle-glass around a beer. The Mighty Hork and Robbie Barron started and stopped their instruments on a dime, and the band's new drummer, Josh Kidding, was monstrous, pounding out the beat like a machine. Meanwhile Jake and Jen were stalking the stage like hired killers, each word a bullet through the brain. During the lead-up to 'Here Piggy' I thought a riot was going to break out, what with the ominous tom rolls and rumbling guitars while Jake retold the story of his big confrontation with cops in Montreal, interspersed with Jen naming people killed by police officers over the years:

"Pig looked at me and Hork... hate in his eyes... hand on his holster like a gunslinger..."

"Buddy Evans! Shot and killed by Toronto police in 1978! No charges were laid against the offending officer!"

"He says, 'You punk shitheads aren't going anywhere...' I look at him and say, 'We're not doing anything, we're not criminals'... all I want to do is pop him one, fuckin' pig... but he has a gun... a badge... my word against his..."

"John Joseph Harper! Aboriginal activist, shot and killed by Winnipeg police in 1988!"

"The cop went ape-shit on Hork with the billy club, beat the shape out of his face while I was cuffed in the squad car... fuckin' cop has the authority, fuckin' cop knows how to hide a choke-hold..."

"Michael Wade Lawson! Seventeen years old, shot in the back of the head! An all-white jury acquitted Lawsons' killers of all charges!"

"Your word, their word... who they gonna believe?"

I have never seen a pit more violent than the one The Punkaholics played to in Waterloo. Steve came out with a bloody nose, and Harvey got some vicious bruises on his arm and shoulder. Midway through the set I wised up and hid out behind the speakers on the stage. All that energy directed inward like a whirlpool on the dance floor, heads and arms flying everywhere like shrapnel. The crowd looked like the contents of a blender set to "purée".

After the show, we all partied at the Punkaholics' headquarters in Kitchener, a sprawling two-floor compound nicknamed "The Haunted House." It felt like every punk in the world was there at some point, pushing their way into the kitchen and out again, every room with a stereo blasting music. The only creepy part was the cop car that was parked outside across the street. I asked Hork about it and he told me that there's cops parked outside most nights of the week. "They're waiting for us to slip up," he said. "Any reason they can bust in and fuck up shit."

Hork is an intense dude. He has this creepy habit of laughing when no one's said anything funny, baring his teeth like a hyena and staring right through you, all the while breathing noisily through that bent nose of his like a faulty steam pipe. Hork was really laying into Harvey last night, grilling him about Sikhism, saying that all religions were bullshit designed to control people, forcing men and women into hierarchies and "charging money for salvation." Harvey replied by saying that the Sikh religion was based on principles like charity and non-violence, and that men and women used the same names as a way of maintaining equality of the sexes. As far as "bullshit religions" go, Sikhism seems pretty hard to argue with. But then after Harvey finished, Hork got this wild look in his eyes and just started laughing like a madman and walked away looking like he was gonna punch someone. Scary.

The guy I really wanted to talk to was Jake, but Spike was hogging all the conversation with him. "Pass me a beer from the fridge behind you, would you, brother?" That was about as much as I got from him. Meanwhile Spike was like a disciple at Jake's knee, babbling about all the towns we had played over the past few weeks and how "everyone dug our sound and said they were looking forward to the CD." Jake laughed when Spike explained the plan to raise CD money by touring. "You've got it the wrong way round, brother!" he said. "You record the CD, then you tour!" As if to emphasise his argument Jake handed Spike a copy of the cassette that The Punkaholics were selling on their upcoming tour, entitled _Live'n'Drinkin' 89_ , which includes two new songs: 'Eviction Party' and '101 Uses For A Dead Nazi'. "Touring's great," Jake explained, "but you gotta pay for gas somehow. And everyone's already got the first album."

It was strange seeing Jake Punkaholic up close. On stage, he looked fierce, like a Mohican gladiator: all knotted muscle and clenched fist. There, however, in the back of the Haunted House, slouching in his chair with his beer-belly burgeoning under his denim vest and his pouchy face and drooping zebra mohawk, he looked more like a dockworker who had lost a bet. Frankly, he seemed a little old to be entertaining the kiddie likes of myself and Spike.

The clock on the wall read 3:15. The people still in the house had started passing out on couches and curling up like dogs on the dirty floor. Jake moved over to a table outside the kitchen where a beatnik-looking guy in granny glasses set up a tape recorder and microphone and began interviewing Jake for a radio show. Jake modulated his voice slightly, pronouncing his words like a politician would. Over the next half-hour he answered questions about the tour and what advice he had for other bands: "Number One, choose your roadies wisely. Number Two, tune up the van before hitting the road. Number Three, always always ALWAYS play Thunder Bay."

Jake also described the problems in putting together funds for the long-awaited follow-up to _This Ain't The War They're Looking For!_ , and he pontificated on the changes he had witnessed in the punk scene since The Punkaholics first started out:

"Back then, there weren't any rules like you have now. You need a look, you need to say the right things. It's like, people rag on hippies because of long hair, not because they fucked up things in the sixties, know what I mean? It's a pose. Easier than direct action. Saying the right things has always been easier than getting involved."

Just then Jen entered the room, her mohawk tied back in a damp pony-tail. She stalked towards the kitchen as if she was still on stage, her Doc Martens clomping dully on the beaten carpet. Jake smiled and his voice became a simpering lilt. "Honey?" he said as Jen passed him. "Love of my life? Are you starting clean-up already? The party's still going."

Jen slowed but did not stop her trod toward the kitchen. She turned her head slightly toward Jake, her eyes hard and narrowed, and she muttered the only words I heard her say off stage the entire night:

"Suck my dick."

She entered the kitchen, and there was a loud clatter of dishes and the sound of water running. The interviewer put the microphone down, his face an anguished grimace. He asked if he should stop the tape. Jake waved him off. "She gets like this sometimes," he said.

Without missing a beat, Jake continued. "Looking hardcore is more important than being hardcore, that's been the big change I've seen. And that's dangerous because then it just becomes fashion, and the mainstream will co-opt fashion sooner or later. Like with tattoos. I've seen a lot more kids getting ink on their arms and backs, and while it's not my job to tell people what to do, I still think people have to think twice about what they're doing." (Here the interviewer put his free hand over the flaming heart tattoo on his forearm.) "I got one tattoo on my shoulder when I was nineteen. It says 'Punkaholics 81.' Jen and I got the matching tattoos when we were putting the band together. I can tell you where and why we got the tats, who did the ink, how we got the money, what we had for supper afterward. Marking yourself is serious business. Cops recognise you from you tats, normal people cross the street. Now I see these college idiots getting so-called 'Celtic' tattoos on their wrists and ankles, and they have no fucking idea what they mean. I think some of them think it's like a earring, like the skin will grow out again before they graduate and have to go for a big corporate job interview. Once they find a way to remove tattoos, you can bet they'll become the next bell-bottom jeans, just a pointless fashion accessory."

"Rules you follow," Spike added eagerly from across the table.

"Exactly. It's become a rule. Get your tat, colour your hair funny, and always mosh counter-clockwise in the pit. Punk by numbers. That's what it's becoming."

I got up from the couch to take a leak, carefully avoiding the sleeping bodies in my path. On the way back from the washroom I saw a shadow shifting on the far wall in the kitchen. Spike and the beatnik interviewer were in Jake's thrall, so I continued past them to the kitchen. Jen was standing at the sink, going through the mountain of dishes piled on the counter, attacking them with a plastic scrubber, rinsing them and then stacking them in the dish drainer. She was wearing yellow rubber gloves, the kind sold in supermarkets and bought by housewives. Water from the dishes had stained the front of Jen's shirt so that the dark bra showed through the clinging fabric. As she worked she pursed her lips and clenched her jaw muscles as if she was suppressing a howl of rage.

From the other room Jake and Spike started laughing at something. I turned away for a second. When I turned back Jen was staring at me, her one hand on the counter top while the other gripped tightly around the scrubber which quivered in her fist. She glowered at me for only five seconds, but it was a long and nerve-wracking five seconds. I stared at her face with the heavy mascara around the eyes, the velour of white-dyed stubble on the side of her head, the tits rising and falling under her sweat- and soap-dampened shirt. I then looked down awkwardly at my toes, embarrassed. Here was the lead singer of Canada's greatest hardcore punk band, stuck in a kitchen in rubber dish gloves like June Cleaver. Who wouldn't be humiliated by some dumb kid stumbling in on her and ogling her like an idiot?

"You enjoying this?"

I looked up from the scuffed floor. Jen was still gripping the scrubber, which looked more and more weapon-like the more it shivered in her gloved fist. "Get a good fucking look. Fifty stupid cocksuckers passed out in this fucked up shithole, and who's stuck cleaning up? Who's sweating it out washing the fucking dishes like a slave while the other boys and girls get to party?"

She threw the scrubber onto the counter and tore off the gloves, the rubber making loud smacks as she pulled them off. "You know how many times I've had to do this? Who do you think vacuums the floors and cleans the toilet in this dump? Who does the fuckin' laundry, who cooks the food, who picks up after all the snot-nose dumbfucks in the band? Who has to mommy everyone when they get a cold and then later has to crawl out of bed sick as a dog to get a cup of fuckin' tea? You think Jake's ever so much as dusted a tabletop without me yelling at him? Not fucking likely."

Jen leaned against the stove, shaking her head and snorting. "You know, every night we play, we gotta sing that song 'Equal Rights', as if it fucking means anything. _'Man and woman, two balances on the scale / no difference that we oughta see!'_ Jake wrote those words. I hear him sing them and the women in the audience are all cheering him on like he's some superhero stud. Jake doesn't believe half the bullshit coming out of his own mouth. He's one to talk about politics and equality. Makes me sick.

"And you know the best part? All the time he's playing Mr. Equal Rights Punk Rocker, I've gotta deal with a hundred horny punk guys feeling me up with their eyes. Sometimes I think men only put us up on a pedestal to get a look up our fuckin' dresses."

I looked instinctively at her green and black tartan kilt, the ragged hem trailing threads along her bare thighs, pale shins pouring into her oversized Docs.

"So, now." Jen moved forward, closing the kitchen door. "You're 'Poker', right? They call you that for a reason? Because you 'poke'?" She laid a hand on my chest and pushed me against the wall. "No offense, but all you small town boys look the same to me."

Her voice had dropped a half-octave, a purr emanating from her cracked lips which were now mere inches from my face. "You male chauvinist fuckheads are all the same. I know what you want. A little bit of moist twat, some chicky calling you names like 'daddy' and 'stud'. Only reason you slam into each other in the pit is because a real woman won't give you the physical contact you so desperately need. Then a woman gets within five feet of you and you go all tongue-tied. Kinda like you are now. Right?"

I tried to choke out a response, but my mouth was dry. "Exactly," she said.

Jen tilted her head like a bird, smirking at me with a withering condescension. "You should smile a little, Poker. You're about to live out the fantasy of ten thousand teenage punk monkeys across Canada. Jen Punkaholic is tired and needs a fuck from one of her adoring boy-toy fans. Or are you not up to the job?" She reached confidently and grabbed my throbbing cock, which was pushed up under my jeans. I don't know how I kept from exploding in my pants. "Well there you go," Jen slurred. "Am I a fucking psychic or what?"

Jen removed her shirt and placed my hands on the cups of her bra. "This will keep your mitts busy while I do the work. As usual, I might add." I gasped as she undid my belt buckle and shoved my jeans and underwear down to my knees, and then straddled my crotch while pulling her own panties downward. Her wet pussy engulfed me like the mouth of a snake. "This is the only nice thing I've got going for me all weekend," she sighed. "So be a nice boy and shut your fucking gob, all right?"

As if she didn't trust my shock-locked vocal chords, she pushed her own mouth overtop mine, her neck craning downward and her hips pumped over my nether regions. My back slipped and I pushed myself upward, awkwardly thrusting myself into her. "Fuck yes," she moaned, rolling her shoulders. "You liking this shit, Poker? You fucking enjoying this?!"

I couldn't believe what was happening. What a way to lose your virginity - to Jen Punkaholic, of all people! It was surely all downhill from here, as far as sexual experiences would go.

So I guess it's just as well that none of this actually occurred. What did happen was that I looked down at my shoes and then up again, and Jen was back cleaning the dishes. Scrub, rinse, stack, repeat. I may as well have not even been in the room.

I staggered back to the outer room where Jake was now standing over Spike and the interviewer. With the sleeping bodies behind him, he looked like a conqueror on a bloody battlefield. "This," Jake said with a ceremonial sweep of his hand. "All of this is just temporary." Bodies stirred behind him but otherwise remained asleep or passed out as he spoke in barely-controlled tones. "They're tearing down all of the houses on this block. Two years from now there'll be stripmalls up and down the street. That's why I don't care about the cops watching us. Pretty soon we'll be totally out of here."

"Where to?" the interviewer asked. He pointed the microphone toward Jake, eager to catch the next words of gospel.

"Out of Kitchener." Jake surveyed the stained walls, the battered furniture, the comatose punkers. He sneered in disgust. "City council has already named us as a nuisance. Sooner or later the pigs they park across the road are gonna act. My plan is to act first and get the fuck out."

Suddenly, Jake turned and retrieved a sheaf of paper rolls from a nearby closet. He told the interview to turn off the tape recorder, and then he unfurled the rolls across the table, which turned out to be a series of maps and drawings. Jake pointed to a map of Western Ontario and said, "This here is where we're moving to." He then detailed the negotiations with the owner of an unused farm lot near Strathroy, a two hundred acre plot of land costing pennies on the square metre. Half of the land was either uncut forest or undrained swamp, but there were two standing houses that could be renovated, and a clearing further into the wooded area where a stage could be built.

"Imagine a venue where bands could play and party for a weekend, or even longer, with no pigs allowed. Private goddamn property, well away from prying eyes. No city councilors, no cops. Like a fuckin' sanctuary."

Jake stared out god-like over the table, his face blooming with pride. "I have money coming in from an inheritance. At first we were gonna spend it on building a studio in-town, but this is a way better plan. Me and Jen have been up there a few times scoping things out. The air's fresher out there. Not like how you gotta chew and swallow before you breathe down in Hamil-dumb or Tee-Zero."

He pointed to some hand-drawn squares on a topographic map blow-up. "The band will live here, while the practice space will be set up in the second house. We're gonna build a shed for the van and other vehicles." He pencil-traced a route through the map's contours to a blank space above the houses. "Visitors will camp out here along the trail. A permanent stage will go up here, just south of the escarpment below Old Carruthers Road. Above that, we'll either sell off the northern part or maybe build a viewing space for the concert area. Old Carruthers Road is technically a private road, because it'll be on our property, so we might be able to use it for band access for shows. Or maybe we'll get the province to pony up for power lines so we don't have to use generators for the stage rig."

Jake stood back, looking over the plans and blueprints. "Kamp Punkaholic!" he boomed. Sleepers stirred behind him, with a few grumbling in protest. "Our own concerts, our own turf. We'll set up a studio there for recording, maybe later a pressing plant. We can grow our own food, brew our own beer. Set up a tee-shirt screening factory. Become self-sufficient, away from the prying eyes of this consumerist society. Everything we talk about in our songs, we can make a reality. Fuck Kitchener, and fuck Toronto. We're gonna make our future out on the soil, where human beings belong. Not the fuckin' factory floor or shopping mall or suburban cookie-cutter graveyard."

There was a pause, and I swear all that was audible was Jake's breath vaulting through the cavern of his rib cage. Finally Spike sat up and grinned. "That is so fucking radical, man."

"Sounds like a lot of work," the interviewer said.

"You bet it's work!" Jake said, nodding. "But it's working for ourselves, and that's what makes the difference."

Somewhere in the kitchen, dishes rattled. The water that had been rushing through the taps suddenly ceased.

Behind Jake, a few of the punks were now fully awake, rubbing their eyes and grumbling. Others curled up their bodies and tightly squeezed their eyes as if trying to force a return to sleep. The interviewer pointed towards them and said, "How about them? Do they know about it?"

"Some do, some don't." Jake shrugged. "Doesn't matter either way."

"Then why did you make me turn off the tape recorder?"

Jake leaned in, hovering briefly over the interviewer with a menacing smile, and pressed 'play' on the recorder. "Another rule for bands: don't always trust the media." He sat back down in his chair, the wooden frame creaking. "Any more questions?"

As I write this morning, I am looking again out the front window, across the dead grass and the trash scattered across the lawn. The cop car is back. Hork is standing shirtless on the sidewalk, arms outstretched. Maybe he is daring them to shoot him. Or crucify him. Who knows? I just want out of here before some stupid ass dies for my sins.

**July 30th, 6pm** \- Toronto, Ontario. Sunday matinee at the fabled El Mocambo, an eight band bill featuring Bunchofuckingoofs, Armed & Hammered, and a bunch of others. Unfortunately, Murderburger was never scheduled to play. After a brief shouting match with the benefit concert organisers, Spike herded us into the van and we drove back home to Morganfield, and that was the end of the tour. Talk about anticlimactic.

Okay, Darcy, I admit it: I got bored half-way through the transcription and I started elaborating. Did I mention that the diary needed some goddamn fucking editing?!

• • • •

### 11.

Hey there, Darcy. Long time, no talk. It's actually January now, so happy belated Christmas and New Years Solstice or whatever it is you music biz minions of Beezelbub celebrate during the holidays. I trust the goat sacrifice went well and no one got any excess blood on their Druidic robes - dry-cleaning those robes can be a pain, I'd imagine.

I've been wondering lately what I'm going to do with this letter once I'm done. I have a weird feeling the editors of Sonic Sauce aren't keen on expanding the Letters section to accommodate my over-enthusiastic repartee. Maybe after I get all of my ideas down on paper, or hard disk as it were, I can just edit all this down to a good eight to ten pages. Kinda like how Lester Bangs used to write dozens of pages over the course of a week just to get a few paragraphs for a record review in Creem or The Village Voice. I figure the same approach might work for someone as unfocussed as myself - jeez, now I'm comparing myself to the late, great Lester Bangs. Talk about delusions of grandeur! Maybe I did hang around Spike more than I should have.

Still, this gives me a chance to cool off after another grueling week of work up in Scarborough. I have another four months to go on my contract, and I'm starting to dread the though of staying on until May, even though I need the money. I'm spending forty hours a week picking orders at a lighting supply warehouse, not counting the two hours spent daily on the bus to and from work or the ten minute trudges through the snow and slush in the street because there are no sidewalks going from Markham Road to the end of the cul-de-sac where work is located. Once I get home it's all I can do to nuke a frozen pizza, flip on the TV (a recent hand-me-down unit courtesy of Mommy and Dada) and vegetate under the cathode rays for the rest of the evening. Some nights I can barely compose a shopping list, much less a novel-length letter. On harder days I actually start to miss being on Welfare.

Not that the job itself isn't rewarding in its own right. Yes sir, nothing like digging through a row of dusty boxes searching for the last XL-00010 fluorescent bulb for a last-minute order, sneezing and sweating while the head shipper yells at you to hurry it up because the truck is waiting, and then not finding anything and having the head shipper yell at you and then dig through the boxes himself only to come out empty-handed, glaring at you like it's your fault the items are missing, and then finally learning that the last XL-00010 was actually picked and shipped back in April and that no one logged it properly out of inventory. Between this and the variety of racist and sexist jokes the truck drivers and other warehouse workers trade and repeat throughout the day, how could I possibly claim to be unfulfilled?

One other thing: if I am ever forced to listen to Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon in its entirety again, as I have on multiple occasions while working in the warehouse, I may have no recourse but to buy a shotgun and take someone's life - mine or that of the owner of the CD player plugged into the P.A., I haven't quite decided.

So yeah, I suppose I should be putting a little more effort into keeping up with this letter, if only to get my mind off of things. I haven't gone out to a show in ages because I'm trying to save some money and pay off a few debts before my rent increase kicks in. My father and mother think I'm nuts for staying here, and they even pointed out that my commute would be shorter if I simply moved back to Morganfield, but I don't think they understand how crippling it would be to be back in my bedroom after all these years. Meanwhile, rent costs all over Toronto are going berserk, and I dread the thought of having to share an apartment again. Besides, where I'm living is really conveniently located for getting downtown and buying records and seeing shows (oh yeah, I'm not doing that because I'm trying to save money - shit, it's like "Gift Of The Magi" or something.)

So yeah, I'm gonna stick it out for a while longer, obstinate mule that I am. When the contract's over, I'll consider my options then. In the meantime, Darcy, bear with me while I continue panning for nuggets of meaning in all this fool's gold of nostalgia.

By the time Murderburger returned from the tour in August, we were a different band: better players, experienced, road-wise. Card-carrying Real Punks in a league of amateurs. We all enjoyed taking turns telling our war stories to the others in the scene, though typically Spike was more florid in his descriptions. In particular he liked to talk about his meeting with Jake Punkaholic, describing how Jake had confided to him that Murderburger should have headlined the Waterloo concert. At first some of us took this to be the sort of all-for-one platitude that punk bands used to express solidarity, but Spike insisted the words came out verbatim from Jake's mouth.

I took the risk of questioning Spike on this in the middle of a meeting at The Barn. "I was there all night," I said. "When did Jake ever say that?"

Spike gave me one of those nonchalant shrugs. "He said it when you were in the kitchen helping Jen with the dishes." Nice way of putting a guy in his place, eh?

The band had only been away from Morganfield for three weeks, but there had been some crucial developments while we were gone. For one thing, the entire Scene had been banned from Tiny Bigg's after a fight broke out between Andy Lefebvre's brother Brian and some T.O. punks at a show featuring Punky Brewster Death Cult - Brian had gone over and lectured the T.O. punks about bringing six-packs of beer to an all-ages show, and one of the punks flicked beer in Russ's face, which led to Brian throwing the first punch. The brawl and subsequent banning made it into a front-page article in The Morganfield Beacon, with Angelo showing off the "No Punks Allowed" sign in his front window: a silhouette of a mohawked head with a red circle and slash through it. (Karma in action: the following summer, Tiny Bigg's had become a popular hangout for the comparatively upstanding jock community from Morganfield North Secondary, but the room got completely trashed by some intoxicated Morganfield Grizzlies who didn't take kindly to Angelo trying to kick them out.) Losing Tiny Bigg's as a venue for bands meant that we were stuck gigging at the Sunflower, which was half the size and twice the frustration quotient thanks to The Swan's increasingly aggravating hectors about the "negative vibes" our music was supposedly giving off.

Bigger still was the news that three-fifths of Iremonger were moving to Montreal - the guys had talked about this on and off over the past year, but the suddenness of the final announcement threw a lot of us off-guard. Dwayne Simmonds and Tom Worrell were going to Concordia University, but Andy Lefebvre was dropping out of school to make the move. (I asked Andy what his parents thought of this, and he said, "At this point I really couldn't give a fuck.") The rest of Iremonger was staying behind in Morganfield to finish Grade Twelve, but eventually the best band in the scene was going to leave town altogether.

The really big surprise was the recording other bands had been doing on the equipment in the Barn. Somehow people found out that we had recorded a demo tape to sell while on tour, and a lot of people felt like fools for holding off because of the Manifesto. Many of the bands had been taping themselves live "for internal band use only" for the past year, but now homemade cassettes by both The Nothings and Sonic Cones were suddenly available at Grover's Antiques. Ratzenberger had just finished a demo tape as well, and both OwMyFoot and Punky Brewster Death Cult were planning posthumous releases. Iremonger, too, had recorded a four-song demo, but in typical fashion they had decided it wasn't "good enough" to sell, though they were planning on doing a proper (i.e. professional) recording later after the Montreal move was settled.

Spike was furious. Not because of the violation of the Manifesto, but rather because everyone had used his equipment to record and dub the cassettes, in the process using reel-to-reel tapes which happened to include some of his old audio experiments.

"If those were your only copies," Dwayne pointed out, "then why did you leave them in the Barn?"

"Because I didn't think you goofs would dig 'em up and use them!"

I took it upon myself to smooth things over. Over the next two weeks I practiced diplomacy among the other bands. Time I could have used prepping for make-up courses in the fall semester (I was re-taking some classes to improve my marks for applying to university) was instead spent convincing other musicians to stick together and not move out of The Barn, while simultaneously assuring Spike that no one would make the mistake of using his tapes in the future.

Sticking up for Spike did not make me a popular guy, unfortunately. If I wasn't being accused of being Spike's toady before, by the end of September I might as well have had the title stamped on my forehead. I still hung out with Steve Coleman and went religiously to gigs at the Sunflower Café, but there was a growing distance between myself and other players. Luckily, Spike transferred to a private school in Toronto for his senior year, so at worst I was finally considered a press agent for rather than a full-on sycophant. However, this also meant that Spike was more of an absentee landlord than a caretaker of Morganfield Hardcore. And none of us were ideal tenants.

By this point, Matt "Spike Liberty" Miller was well into transition to being a complete asshole. Even so, his myth was gaining a weird power. At Morganfield North some students, girls in particular, would approach me and ask how Spike was doing down in Toronto. I tried to tell them that I knew as much as they did, what with seeing him at practices and meetings and only occasionally discussing plans for the CD during phone conversations. Obviously there were the nay-sayers to deal with, like the guys from The Milk Studs, still gigging and doing their own thing without help from Spike and the scene - now and then Jeff Kryzynski would yell across the Cafetorium and ask how "Der Führer" was doing. It was bizarre to witness Spike's influence grow, becoming at once more hated and yet also more admired. Even the school principal told me to pass on his regards to "our friend, Mr. Miller."

On occasion that same curiosity would get the better of me, like the time when Spike arrived early to a practice and left to pick up some food just as I was pulling up to the Barn on my bike. I was alone for about ten minutes waiting for the others to show, and I noticed that Spike had left one of his fat spiral notebooks lying on the mixing console - it looked as if he had been listening back to one of our practice recordings on the VCR. I picked up the notebook and thumbed through the pages. There were sets of lyrics, lists of prospective song titles and band names, a sketch of what would later turn out to be the front cover for Animus Unanimous, some electrical drawings including what might have been a prototype design for his baton microphone, phone numbers for Ontario clubs and other bands, a list of girls' names and mailing addresses - and then a half-page with the following scrawled in blue pen ink:

THE THING YOU HAVE ABOVE ME

IS THE FACT YOU CAN NOT LOVE ME

I stared at the page for a full minute, trying to figure out the significance of these words. Spike was openly scornful of any band who deigned to write love songs, so I was fairly sure that this wasn't an idea for a song for Murderburger. For a while I decided that this was part of an angry poem he was writing in response to one of his ex-girlfriends. The mere idea of Spike Liberty writing poetry was hilarious in its own right, but the subsequent mental image of a lovelorn Matt Miller attempting some overwrought emotional purge was enough to sprain one's funny bone. And yet the passage appeared on its own on a page surrounded by more pedantic scribblings including contacts for recording studios and price rates, well away from the girls' mailing addresses at the back of the notebook. Maybe Spike had woken up one day and wrote down the last thing he had been dreaming. Never disregard the potential for subconscious inspiration, after all - Keith Richards wrote the main guitar line and first verse for 'Satisfaction' right after waking up one morning (look it up if you don't believe me). The possible explanations were as numerous as they were maddening.

Just then I heard Harvey and Steve opening the front door and I slammed the notebook shut. Spike, as far as I know, never found out about my snooping through his journal pages. I haven't talked to Spike since 1993, and these days I guess it would be no great loss if I never ran across him again (unless, you know, I was driving a zamboni or wheat thresher or something similarly emphatic). But I sure would like to find out what the real story was with those two scribbled lines. Knowing my luck, it would only open up even more questions, and to be honest I have plenty of other things to say to Spike before I start asking about mysterious couplets about lost love.

As soon as I had finished my last December exam, I was running for my dad's car to drive down to the studio to start recording the CD. Renegade Recordings promised "tip-to-tail" service from set-up to mastering, plus a discount package for pressing CDs, all for two-thirds the cost of using the next-cheapest studio we could find (okay, the next-cheapest studio that Spike could find). We had access to a sixteen track console, which was eight tracks more than we were used to, plus a full complement of FX boxes, compressors, gates, and a whole mess of other geegaws that made Spike's eyes light up like Christmas ornaments. The owner of the studio, Barry, was a thirty-year-old Trebas Institute graduate who used to play in cover bands, including a group that had once featured the guitar player from Higher Voltage - Barry was in full agreement with Spike that the Higher Voltage guys were shitheads. Needless to say, the two got along like Fred and Barney in the Bedrock quarry.

There were a few drawbacks to our arrangement, however. For one thing, the studio was in the basement of Barry's mother's house, and we had to stop recording whenever his mother ran the dishwasher or clothes-dryer because of the electrical buzz they sent through the console. There was also the problem of space and ceiling clearance - Steve spent a lot of time stooping until he finally decided to sit down to record his bass parts, and the drum kit had to be set up behind the water heater so we could only make eye-contact with Harvey using a mirror Barry had strategically mounted in the corner. Harvey complained about the acoustics of the corner where his drums were set up, and this was a beginning of a litany of complaints that made Harvey very difficult to deal with during recording and especially during mix-down.

But the biggest nuisance turned out to be Barry's niece, Julie. Julie was seventeen years old, living with Barry's mother while her parents were finalising their divorce up in Sudbury. She was also a self-professed studio rat, having done a co-op program at a radio station back home, and while knowledgeable about the equipment she was also not shy about voicing her opinion when she thought Barry was, in her estimation, "making things worse." Julie's job was to assist Barry in the studio, but Spike declared repeatedly that in Murderburger's case he should be the right-hand man.

To the untrained eye, of course, it sure seemed like love at first sight.

"Barry, could you please tell your assistant to leave my mic stand alone?"

"Hey Spike-head, it's not my fault you're so short. Get a stool if you can't reach the microphone."

Julie also had the misfortune of looking like a tomboy, with her bone-skinny frame and backward ball-cap holding her long orange-red hair in lank curtains down to her boyish chest, and baggy jeans that would not have looked out of the place on the body of a Morganfield farm-hand. She also had a weird preference for old tee-shirts advertising dinosaur rockers like Triumph and Deep Purple. One time she even bragged about owning a vintage tee-shirt from Boston. Not the city of Boston, not the Red Sox or Bruins, but the band Boston.

"Don't laugh," she told us with an indignant snarl while we snickered away. "Tom Scholz is a genius in the studio, and on guitar he could play circles around you stupid punks."

From the sound booth Barry chimed in on the talk-back speaker. "Julie, please don't call my clients 'stupid', please and thank you."

"That's okay," Spike said back into the microphone. "I don't pay attention to idiots who look like Manson Family rejects."

Julie snorted. "You're one to talk, pal. With that blue mop on your head, you look like you lost a fight with a blueberry-picking machine."

Steve laughed so hard that he slid off his stool. "That was awesome," he said to her in front of Spike. "Score one for the hippie chick!" Surprisingly, this was the only time Steve used the "hippie" line, which was usually his favourite insult. During our stay at Renegade, he saved most of his vitriol for Spike, criticising his vocal leads, arguing with him about having to plug the bass guitar into the mixing board rather than using an amplifier, even hassling Spike over the Greek salad he ate for lunch. Back in November Steve had announced that we should do an "ironic" cover of Bryan Adams' 'Kids Wanna Rock', even going so far as bringing a copy of the album on tape for us to listen to at rehearsal. Between takes at Renegade, Steve would occasionally start playing the bass riff and yelling out his favourite verse from the song while staring pointedly at Spike: "For a couple of bucks you get a STUPID HAIRCUT / and waste your life away!" Harvey, on the other hand, only opened his mouth to argue about the drum set-up. The overhead mics didn't pick up the ride cymbal, the kick pedal was sticking, the snare skin was too loose, the toms buzzed. Barry and Julie wasted more time trying to please Harvey than actually recording the band, and even then he couldn't be satisfied. When Spike threatened to go back and retrieve Buddy Poor for the final tracks, even Steve was on Spike's side. And yet Harvey was all over the mixing console during a practice mix, pushing up his drum faders, his face a mask of panic.

"I can't hear the drums, guys! Do something about my drums!"

"A dead man could hear your drums!" Steve yelled back. "Where the fuck's my bass?"

Thankfully, there were also a few happier moments during recording, such as when we did the hand-claps for 'Gawd Complex'. Back in October Spike had told us that when he was in the shower he found that he could get a real good clapping sound by slapping his thighs - as a bonus, the two-handed approach doubled up the clap. We did a test of Spike's claim by recording ourselves slapping our bare upper legs in the Barn, and the results were surprisingly effective. So when the time came to do the hand-claps on 'Gawd Complex' at Renegade Recordings, the four of us gathered around the boom mic, pointed it down towards our knees and dropped our pants, stooping over as we got ready to record.

Barry stared at us through the glass, and pressed the talk-back button. "Uh, guys, what are you doing?"

Steve shouted down toward the mic. "Duh, we're doing hand-claps! What does it look like?"

In all, we spent three days laying down bed tracks, and then another day doing vocals and other fills such as the aforementioned hand-claps. Spike brought in a dub recording from that infamous gala dinner where Brian Mulroney was singing 'When Irish Eyes Are Smiling' with Ronald Reagan, and Barry mixed it right into the fade-out of 'Brian Mulroney Blues'. We were playing back the rough mix at the end of the night, and suddenly Spike leaned forward with a manic gleam in his eyes.

"You know," Spike said, "I have an idea. At the CD release, I'm gonna change my stage name. Spike Mulroney. I'll wear a blue suit with a tee shirt that reads 'GST'. It'll be like taking the piss out of Mulroney." He stood and started singing the chorus from 'Brian Mulroney Blues': "I'm Conservative, not Progressive / My attitude's regressive / I got the Brian! Mulroney! BLU-U-U-U-UES!!!"

"That's one way of getting people to vote Liberal," I said. Everybody in the studio laughed except for Spike, who threw me an annoyed look. Even Julie laughed, despite having managed to maintain a professional glower of superiority for the past week. Her face then settled into a smile, her stare softening as it lingered in my direction for a beat longer than I was comfortable with. Only when she caught me looking back at her did she resume her harridan's stance, lecturing Barry about the excessive sibilance on Spike's vocal track.

For the time being, Matt kept the Spike Liberty stage name. Typically, none of us found out that he had officially changed it to Spike Mulroney until the CD launch in May, when he showed up on stage in a blue suit and started spieling nonsense about "the P.C. Fascist One-Party State." On the CD sleeve, however, we kept to the naming we had agreed on:

Spike Liberty: mouth

Poker: guitar, backing vocals

Stool: bass

Har D'Har: drums

For reasons known only to Steve Coleman, Steve thought it would be hilarious to call himself "Stool." Harvinder's nickname was the result of a brainstorm session between him and his brother - the apostrophe in particular was a clever touch, I thought. My name on the sleeve was never in dispute, unfortunately. It was bad enough I was the only one who got stuck with a nickname not of his own choosing, but what was really frustrating was I didn't even have a good story about how I got it. One day in London, Ontario, some drunk guy in a bar called me "Poker," and the title stuck. The End. Is it too much to ask to have a story to go with the name? Something I could tell the chicks at the bar after the show while I tried to persuade them to join me at the hotel for the after-party? Can't the bastard Fates cut a poor Canuck a break and allocate a bit of mythology where it's sorely needed?

Final mix-down was scheduled for the day after Boxing Day. I was late to the studio because of the heavy snowfall, at one point almost landing my dad's car in a ditch near Brimley and Danforth Road. When I got there at around 2:00 p.m., Spike was with Barry at the mixing board playing back some of the tracks. Steve had not yet arrived. Harvinder was lounging in a bean bag chair, twiddling his thumbs and staring into the overhead lights, while Julie stood in a corner smirking and generally acting contemptuous. Meanwhile Spike was hovering over the board and licking his lips, looking almost as if he was about to throw up.

"We've got a problem," Spike intoned sombrely. Barry played back one of the songs and shut off the tracks until only the bass guitar was playing, along with an oscillating buzz.

"My mom must have been doing a load of laundry while we were recording," Barry said. "It's all over half of the bass tracks."

"Can't we fix it in EQ?" I asked.

"We tried," Spike said. "Fuck, we don't have time for this." He then told me I was going to have to re-do Steve's bass lines, because he didn't know enough of the chord patterns. I told him that we should let Steve do the bass lines, but Spike said that Steve wasn't getting to the studio until 6:00 p.m. When I tried to suggest that we re-book another session, Spike covered his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "Paul, we do not have the money to book another session, do you understand? There's no money left, Paul, there's no money!"

Rather than argue further - and being a bit thrown by Spike's unexpected freak-out - I went into the sound booth and plugged in Steve's bass guitar, and we started re-recording the bass line on 'Fascist Cop'. This took some time as I had to do a couple of re-takes as I familiarised myself with what notes to play. I worked my way through the rest of the affected songs, even improvising some new lines. I wondered if I should try convincing Steve to make the changes for when we played live.

It was all going pretty smoothly, I thought, as I finished playing the final chorus of 'Metal Makeover', which was the last song we had to fix. Then I looked up through the booth window and saw Steve glaring at me like I had been caught stealing from his house.

"What the fuck are you guys doing?" he shouted. When Spike and Harvey explained what was going on, Steve ran into the booth and grabbed the bass from my hands. "Rewind the tape," he said.

Spike stood on the other side of the glass, wooden-faced. "Play the fuckin' tape!" Steve screamed. He then threw the bass down on the floor and stormed back into the main studio. Steve yelled that it wasn't fair that we were re-dubbing his bass lines without him, and Spike yelled back that there wasn't time for that, and again, "there wasn't ANY MONEY!" (Since when does Matt Miller worry about money? I recall thinking at the time).

Finally Steve stomped back upstairs, put on his coat and boots and said he was "done with you fuckin' assholes." Spike, Harvinder and I followed him out to driveway where he and Spike continued shouting at each other. Finally, Spike corralled Steve into the passenger seat of Spike's dad's car and said they were going for a drive to sort things out.

The car's tail-lights disappeared around the corner. The others went back inside. I stood in the blowing wind staring up the wintry suburban street, the paneled houses like dark frowning faces staring at me shivering in my track-pants and hooded Punkaholics sweatshirt: a dirty lump on an otherwise sanitary canopy of porcelain snow.

Spike and Steve were gone for hours. Harvey killed time watching television with Barry upstairs while I stayed in the studio reading an old science fiction paperback. After a while I got bored and I started playing an acoustic guitar Barry had left in the corner. I wasn't used to playing acoustic, with its thicker strings spaced further apart and higher off the neck, and I had to stop every now and then to shake the fatigue out of my fingers.

"Not as easy as playing electric, is it?"

Julie was sitting on the stool next to the mixing board. I had been so absorbed in playing that I hadn't noticed her enter the room. "Takes some getting used to," I said. I continued playing.

"So your buddy, Spike. Is he always that big of a cheese-dick?"

"Only when he's awake."

Julie retrieved Steve's bass guitar from the other room and offered to jam. She re-tuned the bass by putting her ear to the guitar body and playing the harmonics (my Uncle Eddie had taught me the same trick way back when) and the two of us played along to a simple twelve bar blues in "A." I was thrown slightly by the alternating notes Julie was playing, and she had to stop and show me how it fit with my chords. "It's a walking bass line," she explained. "Country players use it all the time. If you knew anything about music, you'd have recognised it."

We started up again and I began playing the chords from a song I had written back in my pre-tour writing binge. Julie managed to follow along and we continued for a few bars. "What is that?" Julie asked me. I said it was a song I was re-working, called 'Can't Let Go'. The lyrics were from the time when I went with Andy Lefebvre and Andy's dad to a Trooper concert in the summer of '87 down at the CNE fairgrounds. I had watched the two in fascination as they sat in their seats, barely tolerating each others' presence throughout most of the concert, only standing glumly during the encore of 'We're Here For A Good Time' and 'Raise A Little Hell'. Seeing as how I had a rare chance at an audience demonstration, I sang for Julie one of the verses I could remember: "Sit down at the last song, then up for the encore / No lighters, no tee-shirt, no emotions they show / They can't let go..."

"Well aren't we Mr. Sensitive!" Julie said, stopping herself in mid-snort. "I take it Spike's not too keen on that one?"

I nodded. "You could say that one's for the solo album."

I then played part of another song for her, called 'Old Fogey'. It had a bit more of what I thought was a "country" feel, and Julie easily adapter her bass-playing to fit the song even though the chord pattern was pretty complicated. "Now that one, I actually like," she said after we had finished. "But let me guess: you brought in the song and Spike said no."

"The whole band said 'no'," I replied. "Steve thought it was hokey, and Spike said it was too melodic."

Julie rolled her eyes. "Too melodic?! How can music be 'too melodic'? What kind of dumb comment is that?"

"The kind that comes from a guy who can't hold a note to save his life," I blurted.

We carried on like this for over an hour, playing and laughing and ragging on ol' Matty Miller. It was a real kick for me to be playing with someone who could actually react to a chord change, rather than having to go through a note-for-note rehearsal as Spike and I had to do with Steve. And I liked seeing Julie smile - this, after wryly describing her to my friends as "a bread-stick with really bad taste in music," which at the time I thought was a witheringly witty put-down. I had to admit: for a tomboy bread-stick, she was starting to look awfully cute.

Suddenly there was a rumbling noise at the top of the stairs, and Spike came down into the basement looking even glummer than when he had left. "Steve's gone home," he said. "He's still whining about how we over-dubbed his bass lines. What a baby."

Barry came down to the studio a minute after Spike. He told us that Harvey had gone home over an hour previous. "It's after nine, you guys, and so if we're going to do mix-down, we're gonna either have to start soon or else call it a night."

Spike managed to convince Barry to let him do a practice mix with the remaining studio time booked. "If Julie can stick around to supervise," Spike said with a leer in Julie's direction, "then we don't have to bother you. Deal?"

Barry gave Spike's hand a business-like shake and returned upstairs. With Julie's help, Spike set up the reel-to-reel and began setting levels for the songs. There was little for me to do except to pop open the last of my lukewarm Shirley Orange sodas while Spike and Julie bickered over the soundboard. Once in a while Spike would brag about the mixing projects he was doing at home and how he was assembling a demo reel for an application to the U of T Music Department, and Julie would counter by saying that she already had an early "in" with both The Trebas Institute and Western University. Now and then Julie would ask for my opinion about my guitar level, but otherwise I might as well have taken a nap.

Which is what must have happened. I closed my eyes and settled back into the bean-bag chair, and when I opened them up Julie was standing over Spike yelling in his face. "How in the world," she yelled, "do you expect to be a studio engineer if you can't tell an 'E' from a 'B'?"

"You're full of shit!" Spike turned toward me, sneering haughtily. "Paul, look alive over there. In 'War Dead', the chord progression is 'E, E, B, B, F, C, D.' Right?"

I rubbed my eyes, still disoriented from having just woken up. "No, the first part's 'E, B, E, B.'" I then sang the notes to the chorus, my groggy voice cracking.

Spike looked perplexed. "You mean 'E, E, B, B,'" he said.

I stared back at Spike, and then at Julie. For a second Julie puzzled over what Spike had said, and then she jumped from her chair and grabbed the acoustic guitar that was on the floor beside me. She played a chord and turned toward Spike. "What note is that?"

Spike glared back at her. "It's an 'E' chord."

Julie played a second chord. "And this?"

"'B'."

"And how do you know?"

"Because I can see your fingers on the fretboard, genius."

"Okay, fine." Julie turned to the side so the guitar neck was facing away from Spike, and played another chord. "Now what am I playing? Seriously, what chord am I playing."

Spike threw out his hands with an exasperated shrug. "'B', you're playing 'B'!"

Julie turned back toward Spike with a victorious smile. She sang the notes as she played the corresponding chord: "'E, B, E, B'! I'll bet it all sounds the same to you, am I right or what?"

I had a bad feeling about what was happening. "Is there a point to all this?" I asked.

"Oh, I'll tell you what the point is. The point is your buddy Spike is tone-deaf. If he can't see the guitar then he can't tell what notes I'm playing. That explains why he sounds like a dying walrus when he's doing vocals, and guess what?" Julie turned back toward Spike, cocking her head and smirking. "It also puts a real dent in your plans to go into sound engineering. That's going to be a big-time problem, don't you think?"

Spike's was balling his fist and stealing glances at the floor, his face becoming beet-red. He took a step towards Julie and stared her hard in the face. "If I wanted career advice from an ugly freckle-faced cunt from the backwoods, I would have hitched a ride up to fucking Sudbury and asked you, all right?"

I shot up from my seat. "C'mon, Matt, show some class."

"What, you're on her side now?"

"I'm on the side of whoever's not being an asshole, and right now you're fitting the bill."

"Excuse me, but Manson Tranny Cunt here calls me tone deaf, and I'm the asshole? I got better things to do than listen to some tin-eared flat-chested CUNT from Buttfuck Saskatchewan say to me that - "

A weird rage washed over me. "Stop saying that word. I mean it."

"Cunt, cunt, cunt."

"I swear Matt, say that word one more time and I'm putting your head through the fucking wall!"

"Guys, stop it!" Julie put herself between me and Spike. "You're both acting like dicks. Let's just calm down before one of you macho assholes breaks something."

Spike looked at Julie, and then back at me. For a split-second I had a vision of Spike as an English nobleman on horseback with a red velvet coat and riding crop, and Julie and I as peasants in rags cowering beneath his impetuous sneer. "Well," he said, his eyes narrowed to slits. "I don't know about you kids, but I think it's time I head home."

He gathered up his notebooks and curtly told me that he would let me know when mix-down was happening. He then pivoted and spoke softly: "Julie, please be a dear and put away the tapes. I would hate to have Barry think you're not being professional with his customers."

I watched the bottoms of his Converse All-Star sneakers recede up the stairwell, counting to ten after he had left. "What a dick," I said. "Believe me, Julie, I don't know what crawled up that guy's ass and - "

There was no reply. When I looked over at Julie, she was sitting facing the effects rack. Her body was shaking and she was making a sound like a muffled giggle. I asked her what was so funny and she veered towards me, her face shattered with tears. "Why does everyone in the world have to be such a total shithead?!" She sobbed and gulped for air, throwing down her ball-cap and wiping her eyes with the back of her arm. "I work hard, I work fucking hard at what I do, and I'm so fed up with all you no-talent assholes putting me down to my face! Dearie, girlie, ugly, lesbian, bitch, cunt - that's all I hear when I'm trying to do my job!"

I wasn't exactly sure how I was supposed to handle this. Part of me was thinking, if it weren't for all the techie one-upsmanship, Julie would never have ridiculed Spike by calling him tone-deaf. That said, if someone had told me that Spike Liberty had called someone a "cunt" or even a "bitch," I would have called that person a stone-cold liar. In any case, I was wholly unprepared for dealing with a girl who was crying uncontrollably.

I took a hesitant step forward. "Look, I'm sorry." My voice trailed.

"Aw shit, why should you be sorry?" Julie said while collecting herself. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You're a guy, you and cheese-dick can go into any studio or radio station and practically walk into a career. I've been doing sound work since I was in Grade Eight, and you know, I've just about had it. One more guy calls me a name, I'm gonna - shit, who am I kidding?"

Julie got up and started shutting down the sound gear. I asked her if she needed any help, but she waved me away. I picked up my knapsack and I was about to leave when Julie asked me one last question: "Paul, do you think I'm ugly?"

Once again, I was unprepared for a response. "No, of course not. I mean, you're kind of pretty and stuff, but I mean, uh - " Julie stared back at me quizzically, her loose hair hanging over part of her face and sticking to her damp cheek. Without thinking I moved her hair back behind her ear. The moment my fingers touched her cheek, I felt what I thought was an electrical surge course through my body, and jumped back.

"Sorry, I didn't mean - "

"No, it's okay. Really. Thanks."

The two of us stood there, exchanging glances and stupid grins. I leaned over and kissed her on the lips. Julie started back with a shocked expression. Shit, I thought, now I've really done it.

I bolted from the studio with my coat-tails flapping. Below me I could hear Julie saying good-bye in a confused voice. I stumbled past Barry and babbled about seeing him at the mix-down, rushing through the foyer and out into the evening air. What Barry was thinking as he watched me stumble away in terror, I could only guess.

The next day I got a phone call from Steve. He told me that he was quitting Murderburger. I tried to talk him out of it, but he said his mind was made up. "I've had it with Matt's bullshit," he said. "And don't get me wrong, Paul, you're still my friend, but taping over my bass lines was really low. I know Matt twisted your arm and stuff, but still."

Spike was unconcerned when I told him the news. He suggested that we give Steve some time to "chill out," and then we would talk to him again in January. Meanwhile, we were mixing down the CD on Sunday. "Barry's doing us a favour," he said, the words sounding more like an order than a suggestion. I would later find out that Spike had arranged a trade-off for extra studio time by agreeing to put an ad for Renegade Recordings on the back of our CD sleeve - all this, only after the CDs came back from the pressing plant.

On Sunday, the remaining three members of Murderburger convened at Renegade Recordings for the mix-down. Barry sat back and let Spike do most of the work on the board. Harvey occasionally leaned over to move up a fader on his drum mix, but otherwise Spike was in control. At one point I said that the mix sounded a little flat, like it could use a bit more lower end, but Spike insisted that the sound was fine. Barry just shrugged and watched Spike working the console, at one point assuring us that the mix was "in capable hands."

Julie showed up mid-way through the session. I waved hello and she waved back, grinning nervously. We stood together like dummies for a few minutes, and then Julie crooked a finger to me and leaned toward my ear. "Your buddy's mix is total shit," she whispered. "If you don't do something now, you'd better hope that whoever's doing the final CD master can fix it."

At the next break I talked to Barry and asked about adding some bottom end to correct for the boxy sound, but he replied that I should talk to Spike instead. "Your friend said he wanted to handle it. Besides, I'm not here to argue with a paying customer." He winked at me when he said this, and I suddenly realised: we were fucked.

For the rest of the evening I stood around feeling despondent, while Spike finished his butchered mix-down. Before I left Renegade, Julie pulled me aside and asked if I would be interested in recording some of the songs I had played for her the other day on the acoustic. She told me that Barry was letting her use the studio on New Year's Day, and all I had to do was bring a guitar and a lunch. Seeing as how I wasn't sure if Murderburger was going to make it into 1990, I figured I might as well lay down some tracks for a possible new project, just in case. Besides, since when does a musician turn down free studio time?

Darcy, at the risk of stating the mind-meltingly obvious, I have never been an expert at dealing with the opposite sex - not now in my twenties, and most definitely not when I was a teenager. I was so dumbfounded by girls that when I was sixteen, I got a hold of some paperback romance novels and read them in secret in my bedroom (sweet christ, Darcy, why am I telling you this? Ah, who am I kidding? It's not like you're even reading the letter at this point.) After burrowing through two lousy over-long bodice-rippers in the space of an extra-boring summer weekend I can't say I learned a whole lot, except that women apparently longed to be seduced by a sensitive pirate. I was also perplexed and somewhat upset by the novel writers' collective obsession with the "manly pelt" on their male heroes' chests, self-conscious as I was about the smooth hairlessness of my own torso. As for the "roiling" the novels' heroines were forever feeling "burning in their loins" - jeez louise, go down to Shoppers Drug Mart and pick up a prescription, already!

All of this is to say that when Julie met me at the front door wearing make-up and an extra-tight pair of jeans, I hardly suspected a thing. Even when she excitedly told me that Barry and his mother were away until the next morning, I thought nothing of the revelation, except that I was relieved that no one would be running the washing machine while we were recording. Yes, Darcy, I really was that dumb.

We had fun laying down tracks for the six songs I had planned for my demo tape. Julie and I recorded 'Old Fogey', 'Can't Let Go', 'Tourist Season', 'Shut Up Old Man', 'Giving Up', and a quiet new number called 'Asian Greens', which was based on a sci-fi story I wrote in Grade Nine about a futuristic retirement home where old people were euthanised on their sixtieth birthday due to world overcrowding (the final chorus had a line about how "now is the time I celebrate my youth... in Asian Greens!" Yeah, well, I thought it was clever.) After we finished the vocal tracks Julie brought down some Molson Canadian from Barry's beer stash in the upstairs fridge and we both worked on the final mix. I explained to Julie how I wrote 'Giving Up' as an experiment in writing a song all in minor chords, and how 'Tourist Season' was inspired by a CBC documentary on Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia and how it's over-run with American tourists every summer ("Sooner or later," I joked, "one of the old village fishermen is gonna grab a gun, and then it'll really be 'Tourist Season'!") Julie laughed and sipped her beer, and I drank my beer along with her.

As we finished the final track, our eyes met. Julie smiled at me knowingly and shook her head so her hair fell over her right eye. I took this as my cue to brush it aside like had done before. She giggled and shook her hair back over her face, and again I moved it back from her cheek. Touching led to kissing, and kissing led to groping, and eventually we were both making out in the spare bedroom upstairs, peeling off each others' shirts.

And then, the moment of truth.

Julie handed me a condom and bit her lip. I fingered the condom wrapper, recalling how in my Health class at Morganfield North, for the Sexual Education portion the school's football coach had come in and shown the boys a crappy old film-strip called "Boys Become Men And Girls Become Women" (gee coach, thanks for clearing that up). He then spent the rest of the hour talking to the jocks about NFL picks.

I said to Julie, "I'm not sure if I know how to put this on right."

Julie's eyes widened. "Me neither," she said. It turned out that at her Health class, the teacher spent the hour allotted for Sex Ed quoting lines from the Bible about the importance of chastity. They didn't even get as far as watching a crappy film-strip.

Somehow we figured things out, and both of us lost our virginity that afternoon. I wasn't prepared for the pain Julie experienced upon penetration, and my perceptions of sexual intercourse were a bit screwed up for some time afterwards ("Ow, shit, fuck, this fucking hurts! Hey, I didn't say stop!") I was also bugged by how she rambled on afterwards about how glad she was that she was no longer a virgin, like I was some sexual stepping stone to bigger and better things. Then again, considering how I had woken up that morning intent on nothing more than recording a demo, I suppose I had no right to complain. Like my Uncle Eddie says: sometimes, a guy just gets lucky.

For the following week I hung out with Julie, not quite sure if I was now her boyfriend or not, but glad to have a real live female in my immediate vicinity. One of our dates was a matinee at the Morganfield Cinema featuring "Kickboxer", starring Julie's hopeless celluloid crush, one Jean-Claude Van Damme (you know you live in a cultural backwater when even Sudbury movie-goers get to see a lousy Van Damme flick before you do). Even as I was unbuttoning Julie's shirt and fondling her right tit in the darkened theatre, Julie was regaling me with commentaries about her beloved "boy": "My boy Jean-Claude's gonna lay some hurt on this chump"; "Check out my boy Jean-Claude, he looks so cute in those tight shorts." At least the lack of a "manly pelt" on Jean-Claude's chest gave me hope - Julie liked smooth men! Be still, my roiling loins!

Our last Sunday night involved dinner at the Happy Dragon and a sad final kiss at the bus station (sex, then heavy petting, then kissing: yes Darcy, I went the wrong way round from home to second base to first. I can't help it, man, I'm a born rebel.) We kept up a correspondence by mail through the spring and summer, but after that we lost touch. The last letter I received from her included a cassette with a separate mix-down of my demo sessions, this one including bass lines that Julie had added because "the songs sounded unfinished." The added lines were improvements, I had to admit. Whenever I played back that tape I imagined myself with Julie, jamming in the basement studio at Renegade Recordings like the Christmas holidays would go on forever: nothing but the music and the snow outside the window.

In the years that followed, I have come to accept the fact that I was probably never going to find a lasting love with a Boston-loving Van Damme fanatic. That said, what I can say is that in a very, very, very, VERY roundabout manner, punk rock did finally manage to get me laid. Yay for me.

• • • •

### 12.

Well, so much for keeping up with this letter to take my mind off things. It's now the middle of May and I'm only getting around now to re-opening this DOC file. I have no clue why it's taking me so long to round things up, considering how close I am getting to the end of my story. Yeah, I know this was all supposed to be about Morganfield and Murderburger and what a Machiavellian doofus Matt Miller really is (from hereon in I refuse to call him Molotov, no matter how many albums Groove Incorporated inflicts upon the listening public), but to hell with all that. This is ME ME ME talking about ME ME ME! All Poker, all the time, 24/7, up-to-the-minute news on the one and only Paul Cartwright, representative of Generation X (the demographic slice, not the punk band with Billy Idol on vocals) and the all-round best thing since sliced bread! Don't you dare call me a solipsist when there's simply nothing else worth talking about, dammit!

Whew! That felt good. I'm glad that's off my chest. Good thing it didn't get stuck in my manly pelt.

I would like to say that things are going lousy for me as per usual, or even that things are looking up, but the fact is my life is in total stasis. My theme song lately has been The Buzzcocks' anthem 'I Don't Know What To Do With My Life', which plays in my head from time to time, taking up that portion of aural spectrum where the tinnitus ring used to linger in my ear. I have gotten used to the commute to work and the slog through the work day and the commute back home, and the paperbacks I read and the tapes I listen to in my walkman along the way there and back. Since my contract extension came through along with a pay raise, I now have a steady income with enough coin left over for going out to shows on the weekend and buying a new CD or vinyl record here and there. I even met a girl at a Nomeansno gig up at Lee's Palace not too long ago. Her name is Bethany and she's taking Political Science at the University of Toronto. She's a bit earnest like Leigh-Anne Chalmers, and a bit pushy like Julie, and even a little crazy like Christine who stole my busted TV set last year. If it weren't for the fact that Bethany's been boring the ever-loving piss out of me lately, to say nothing about her unironic love of Weezer and other alt-rock half measure bands, I'd say I have finally found the love of my life. Or the love of my next six months, perhaps. But it beats sleeping alone on Friday nights.

As for playing in bands, I still look over "guitarist wanted" ads now and then, but I can't say I miss playing live shows all that much. All the musicians I've run into here in Toronto are either overly obsessed with politics (the internal and personal kind, not the world politics they are supposed to care about so passionately), or career-oriented to the point of delusion (there are still punk bands who think they can make a living playing music, believe it or not). Or else they're so unimaginative that they couldn't come up with an original-sounding song if there was a gun pointed at their heads (for instance, play the D-A-B-G chord progression from U2's 'With Or Without You' at twice the speed and sing the vocals with a faux-British-by-way-of-Californian accent, and you'll have a rough template for every pop-punk song ever written, including half of the repertoire from Green Day. It's just that easy!) There are still a few old-school hardcore bands, but even they sound as if they're just going through the motions.

Yet no matter how much the musicians annoy me, the people who go to shows are even worse. Lately I've noticed that more and more kids are sitting down at shows, in chairs around tables or on stools by the bar or even cross-legged on the floor like school children at a Christmas recital. I'm hearing all these new genre terms like "cuddle-core" and "emo-core," and there's all these zine articles and interviews about the new music being "heartfelt," and how confrontation is no longer "cool." I honestly don't get it. At least grunge singers sound pissed off; some of the bands I've heard lately sound so earnest that you want to give them a merit badge. I even heard a story from a friend of mine about how, at last year's Fugazi concert, a woman actually shushed him and complained that he was making so much noise talking that she couldn't hear the opening acts! How can a scene whose members drink so much coffee come across as so decaffeinated?

Maybe it is time for me to move on from what remains of punk. There's no point in staying immature when everyone else is acting like grannies in a tea room. That's the ticket: I'll propose to Bethany and settle down with her, buy a house, go totally legit. From now on it's nothing but network TV and mall-shopping and this month's Gap fashion selections for me and my wife and our 2.3 children. No point in living on the cutting edge when the blade is so dull.

For what it's worth, the name for the Murderburger CD was my idea. "Animus Unanimous" seemed like a classic title at first, right up there with "Double Nickels On The Dime" or "This Ain't The War They're Looking For!" However, the more I thought about the words "Animus Unanimous," the stupider the name sounded. Similarly, when we first listened to the CD the mix sounded passable, but after a while the overly compressed and mid-heavy processing became almost headache-inducing, especially at higher volumes where the distortion on the high end became apparent. Boosting the bass on the stereo EQ improved the sound somewhat, but it's never good when you have to fiddle with your stereo controls before you can comfortably listen to an album.

Spike was quite happy with the CD; of course the mix sounded perfectly fine to him. Harvinder was pretty pleased as well. "You can really hear the kick come through the speakers," he said when we were first listening to the CD over in the Barn (the kick drum was hard to avoid, actually, what with the speaker thudding so hard on the beat that the cone shot out a whole centimetre). Corey Johnson, who was our new bass player now that Steve had officially left the group, also said the CD sounded good, although me might have still been a bit too star-struck to offer an objective opinion - Corey had been the bassist in Ratzenberger, and everyone in his old band had encouraged him to make the move, stepping up the punk rock ladder as it were. He was a good kid, and he was a skilled musician, but it just did not feel right seeing him on the other end of the stage instead of Steve.

Still, at least the band had a future again. Or so I thought until Harvinder mentioned casually after soundcheck at our CD launch party that he was moving to B.C. to attend university in the fall. Spike and Corey were off the stage when Harvinder and I got to talking. This was our official Toronto debut at the El Mocambo as well as our CD launch, and we had even got a two-line write-up in Now promoting the gig, so you could imagine how it felt to hear your drummer talking about quitting music to go to university right before the big show.

"How could you be quitting?" I said. "We just put out a frigging album!"

Harvinder could see I was upset, but he was pretty placid about the whole thing. "It's not like I'm leaving you guys in the lurch," he said. "We finished a tour and recorded an album. That's more than a lot of bands ever manage to do. Besides, you still have a few months left to find a new drummer before I'm gone. And it's not like I was going to be playing music forever. You sure you're still going to be doing this a year from now?"

I was too flabbergasted to make a reply. Music was all I talked about - not school, which I was finishing up in two months; not university, which I was starting in the fall; not work, not dating, not the prom, not anything that the brain-dead zombies stumbling around the corridors at Morganfield North were babbling about. Harvinder made it sound as if the release of the CD was the end of the band, whereas I was convinced it was only the beginning.

I kept quiet about Harvinder for the rest of the night. We played to a crowd of a hundred people, many of whom came down from Morganfield to cheer us on: Pete Hammond, Wanda Pockets, Greg and Keith Dunhaven - all the familiar faces. Also attending were friends of the opening bands Dynamite Sticklers and Rita Big-Wheel, both T.O. bands who were going to play Morganfield shows in return. Spike insisted that we would be working a lot with these bands in the future, even though I had no idea how we fit in with them - Dynamite Sticklers played Pixies-style college rock, and Rita Big-Wheel was an all-girl band whose entire repertoire sounded like variations of The Bangles' 'Walk Like An Egyptian' (the one semi-hot member of Rita Big-Wheel went home with Spike after the show, so that explained at least part of the reason why they were on the bill). The El Mocambo wait-staff told me that for a Thursday night we drew a pretty good crowd, but still the launch felt like a disappointment. Even when Spike went on-stage in a blue suit and started into his whole Brian Mulroney routine for the first time, it felt like I had heard it all before.

We played one more show that year back at The Sunflower Café in Morganfield, with The Nothings opening along with Rita Big-Wheel. All of the other Murderburger projects Spike talked about doing, like shows in Toronto and Montreal and a compilation track for a CD including Dynamite Sticklers and other southern Ontario bands, never came through. I concentrated on getting my school marks up for the remainder of the spring, jamming more with others at the Barn than with my own band. The entire scene seemed to be running down: Sonic Cones were on hiatus, The Milk Studs were moving to Vancouver, and Ratzenberger had broken up completely now that Corey was in Murderburger. Iremonger came down from Montreal to play a Toronto show without even bothering to visit Morganfield.

For me the most depressing news was the break-up of The Nothings, which I found out about from Pete Hammond. We were hanging out up at the Barn with Wanda Pockets on a Friday night with nothing else to do when he broke the news. At the same time he was playing back a new song the band had just recorded, called 'Straight-Ahead Man', and saying it was the best song The Nothings had yet written. We sat and listened to the lyrics, which perfectly encapsulated the alienation and anomie that many of us were feeling back then, even if we couldn't articulate it as well:

IF YOU NEED AN EXPLANATION

THEN YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND

WHY A GUY LIKE ME COULD NEVER BE

A STRAIGHT-AHEAD MAN!

"All that work down the drain," Pete moaned despondently between slugs of Canadian Club sucked straight out of the bottle. "Now Greg is saying we gotta go to New York City. If we're serious about this... music - " He said this last word with a sneer of disgust.

"I thought you wanted to move to New York." I said this recalling all the times I had seen Pete hanging out in the Barn, singing along to 'New York City' by The Demics. By the way he threw himself into the song's lyrics, his voice a throaty rasp that mimicked the Demics' singer perfectly, I had up until that moment assumed that Pete would jump at the chance to bypass Toronto and go directly to the Mecca that mattered.

"Yeah, I guess New York would be all right." Pete lowered his eyes, smiling sadly. "Fuck, who am I kidding? There's more down there than there ever was in Canada anyway."

I watched the bottle in Pete's hand waver back and forth. Wanda seemed too upset to speak. "Don't you ever worry that you drink too much?" I asked.

Pete pursed his lips and squinted into space, like he was deeply pondering the question. "Sometimes," he said. "I worry about it once in a while, but then I have a drink or three and I calm right down again."

After the song finished, Pete struggled to his feet and changed the tape over to a Mozart symphony. The sound of the orchestra swelled form the speakers, pouring into the empty space and enveloping us in a surprising sonic comfort. If the punk rock we usually listened to was like a ratty blanket, the classical music in comparison was a down-filled comforter, soft and warm. It was a nice change, I have to admit.

Maybe we were all a little tired with MFHC status quo. Another time I showed up at the Barn and Jamie Playfair was there with some black girls from Scarborough (you never saw black people in Morganfield unless they were up visiting from Scarborough). They were sitting on the sofa drinking Shirley Cola ("This stuff tastes strange," one of the girls announced) and listening to some old-school R&B on a turntable connected to the mixing board. When I mentioned I had just bought the new Dayglo Abortions album, Jamie let out an exasperated sigh and said, "man, don't you ever get tired of listening to the same hardcore shit day in and day out?"

I shrugged and said, "Not really." I hung around for a few minutes while Jamie and the girls laughed and chatted amongst themselves, and then I got up and left. There didn't seem like a whole lot for me to add to the party.

Throughout the summer Murderburger kept to a schedule, practicing every other Sunday. Once in a while we auditioned drummers and discussed future projects. Spike was mailing out copies of the CD to various record stores in Ontario and Quebec, and he was talking about doing a winter mini-tour over the Christmas break. I didn't think much of driving through snowy roads to get from city to city, but I was eager to get back to playing concerts, having frittered away most of the summer. I also had plenty of ideas for new songs, what with the Gulf War tearing through Kuwait and Iraq over winter and the Rodney King Riots burning up L.A. in the spring. But Spike was talking more about aligning the band with the "alternative" scene than about working out new songs - he had also started listening to techno music, which made me worry as to what direction he thought Murderburger was eventually going to take. Corey seemed content to let others argue over the direction of the group; Harvinder didn't care either way.

I finally lost my temper somewhere around August. "Are we even trying to write new material?" I shouted after practice. "We've been playing the same set for ages!"

Spike coolly reiterated what Jake Punkaholic had said back in Kitchener: "'Record the CD, then you tour.' Now we have a CD, so let's worry about promoting that first."

Because we were not playing any shows, we were now paying rent for The Barn fully out of our own pockets - in fact, we were paying more than before, because there were fewer bands paying into the collective pot by this point. As for the mail-outs, Spike was paying for these himself - he was no longer worried about money, thankfully.

The reason Spike had been freaking out back at Renegade Recordings was because his father had been fired from the Board of Directors at Nana Nummies. Our running into Mr. Miller in Buffalo had been no accident - Spike had set up the gig knowing that his dad was going to be in town. While we were making our way across the border, Mr. Miller was meeting with some investors about opening up some Nana franchises in New York state, which would have been the first Nana Nummies restaurants ever opened outside of Canada. Negotiations continued over the following months until the Board President, a nationalist who wanted nothing to do with the American market, found out what was happening and moved to terminate Mr. Miller effective immediately - the fact that the Board President was Mr. Miller's cousin didn't seem to make a difference. After a string of heated meetings between board members and shareholders, three Nana executives (or "Nanecutives" - sorry, Darcy, I can't help myself) were turfed, including Mr. Miller. In the New Year, however, Mr. Miller was hired on to the Executive Management team at Wendy's Canadian head office, and so Spike's money panic period turned out mercifully brief; if anything, Spike insinuated that his father was making more money at the new job. So on that level, there was no reason to suspect that it wasn't going to be business as usual from thereon in.

In September 1991 Spike started classes at the University of Toronto, while I began my Business Administration courses at York university. I got an OSAP loan and moved down near Spadina and Harbord Streets, sharing a house with five other students and riding the subway and bussing up to York for classes (yeah, as if I was gonna do the fiscally responsible thing and move into the cheaper student housing on campus, all the way out in fucking Downsview no less). After three months of dealing with the slimiest bunch of ass-kissing money-grubbing greedhead prep school corporate motherfuckers I had ever met in my life, I dropped out of Business Administration (much to the delight of my dear ol' dad, and by "delight," I mean "seething fury.") Not that it mattered to me at the time - I was finally living it up in downtown Toronto, the heart of the biggest and brassiest urban centre in all of Canada: bolder, colder and broader of shoulder than any two-bit hamlet between Signal Hill and Vancouver Island. I was going to concerts and making new friends by the day, drinking away my college loan money in bars and clubs up and down Queen West and the College strip. The beer tasted better in Toronto, the women were hotter, and only the dead could manage to be bored. Even the campus protests against the Gulf War in Kuwait were a blast. I can't say I missed Morganfield all that much, or the Scene for that matter. And after all that work the previous year raising my school grades while simultaneously working on Murderburger and other Morgie projects, it was exhilarating just to go from day to day not caring about marks or deadlines or anything related to future accomplishments.

In 1991 I finagled a late-term transfer to the English department at U of T, seeing as I was living practically right next door to the campus anyway. I managed to continue courses right until exam time, when I somehow found myself on a road trip with a van full of other punks to see an Iggy Pop concert in Detroit, missing every exam and flunking out the end of the term. I also got to do some volunteer slots at the school's college radio station, filling in for dee-jays and spinning punk rock and hardcore records well into the wee hours, and I carried on a torrid three-week affair with a skinny goth chick who insisted on playing Bauhaus CDs while we screwed on the black satin sheets in her bedroom (hard to believe, I know: a skinny goth chick! Rarer than unicorns, that breed.) I was twenty years old, living on pizza slices and Kraft Dinner with a bedroom wallpapered with gig flyers, and every day brought with it a new kind of trouble. It was great.

Once in a while I would run into Spike at shows and clubs. Spike was now calling himself Matt again, and he had taken to hanging out with the rave crowd, even dyeing his famous blue 'do a neon orange. We talked on and off about playing another Murderburger show and finding a drummer (Corey was holding fast up in Morganfield, taking Grade Twelve and waiting for our signal.) Spike would allude vaguely to tour plans and brag about how many people were ordering copies of Animus Unanimous. "Whatever you say," I would reply, too busy with student life and general carousing to care about the band.

I was caught off-guard when Spike actually booked an honest-to-goodness gig for Murderburger in April, down at a jam space in Kensington Market. Spike drafted his club pal Welsh to play drums; Welsh was a pretty good drummer, but he often talked about how he had "out-grown" punk rock a long time ago and was only playing as a favour to Spike (later he would introduce Spike to the members of Groove Incorporated - if only I had known!) Corey was excited to come down to Toronto for rehearsals; I was just happy to be playing guitar in a band again.

The show was held at midnight in a tiny club space hardly bigger than the front room at The Sunflower Café - so small, in fact, that beer had to be sold and dispensed through a cut-out wall from the next room. Even though it was billed as a private party and promoted only by word of mouth, there were dozens of punks crammed into that tiny space, steaming up the ceiling and causing condensed sweat to run down the glass on the doors. The windows were boarded with black-painted wood, and there were band stickers and graffiti over every square inch of wall space. The air smelled of spilled beer and electricity. It felt like home.

Welsh played a controlled set on drums, looking almost bored with confidence. Corey, meanwhile, was terrified of all the T.O. punks crammed into the club and looked ready to bolt off stage at any minute, but he managed to hold his own on-stage. An orange-haired, blue-suited Spike Mulroney was working the crowd and we were blasting through our set just like old times.

We were midway through the final verse of 'War Dead' when a trench-coated man muscled his way through the throng on the dance floor. He locked eyes with Spike and pointed up in his face, screaming something that I couldn't hear over the roar of the guitar. Whatever he was saying, it was making Spike red in the face.

"You're full of shit," Spike said, his voice breaking from his deep-pitched Mulroney character. "Stop wasting our time and go home."

The altercation had brought the set to a grinding halt. A few punks near the back of the room yelled out that the stranger should be allowed to speak. "It's private business," Spike yelled back. "Nothing to do with anything."

Suddenly the stranger lunged for Spike's microphone and grabbed it out of his hand. He turned in my direction and I was shocked to see that the stranger was Tony Pettinella. I hadn't seen him since the last Sonic Cones show in August, and with his new beard and slicked-back guido hairstyle Tony was virtually unrecognisable.

"I want everyone to know," Tony shouted. "This asshole, Spike, he's a goddamn thief and a liar!" Spike tried to grab back the mic, but Tony fought him off. "We shared a practice space up in Morganfield, his band and mine, and two months ago I found out he had stolen every master tape in the room. Not just from my band, but every band that shared the rent! He also took microphones, amplifers, the mixing console - "

"That was my equipment, asshole!" Spike was screaming at Tony, much to the amusement of the audience. "Or have you forgotten after all this time?"

"But those weren't your tapes!"

"Like hell they weren't!"

I was standing five feet away, watching the two argue back and forth. I had officially resigned my duties in the Morgie Scene back in September, and I hadn't been up in Morganfield for months, much less been near The Barn. Corey would corroborate Tony's story later on, saying that he thought I knew about what had happened, but at the time I had no idea what was going on, or whose side I should be taking.

"I called your house seven times in six weeks, you lying shit!" Tony was baring his teeth in an animal rage. "I left messages with your room mates, I left messages on your machine! You could have been a man about it and answered my calls, but instead I have to track you down to your own concert and drag the truth out of you! You pathetic thief! THIEF!"

"Shut the fuck up," Spike snarled. "Like I said already: you can't steal what you already own. Go back to Morganfield and talk to me when you figure it out."

After more pointing and screaming, Tony threw the microphone down on the stage and shoved his way back through the audience. The room was strangely quiet, with people either too shocked to speak or else giggling up their sleeves. Spike gathered up the microphone and shot out the cuffs of his suit jacket. "Another satisfied constituent," he said, resuming his Mulroney voice. "A good leader borrows, but a good artist steals! That's what we say up at the House Of Commons. Just another case of the 'Brian Muroney Blues'. If my co-minister Poker would be so kind as to... Paul, where are you going?"

I had unplugged my guitar and leapt from the stage, pushing through the audience after Tony. I finally caught up with him out on the sidewalk and asked him what the hell was going on. Tony shot me a piteous look and shook his head.

"Everything I just said is all I had to say, Paul. I'm sorry if it's all news to you, but you've already chosen sides as far as I'm concerned. Go back and finish your show, your buddies are waiting inside." He then turned and left. One more former Morgie comrade walking out of my life, past the shuttered vegetable markets and coffee bars and restaurants, and finally disappearing out of sight, and all I did was watch him leave.

The next day I made the long trip back to Morganfield to find out what was happening. My first stop was The Barn on Elizabeth Avenue. My old key didn't fit the lock, but I could hear music playing inside, so I knocked on the door. I was shocked when the door opened and Graeme Forsythe was standing there in a bathrobe and pyjamas, smoking a morning joint.

"I live here now," he explained with a stoned smile. Inside The Barn, Graeme's furniture was crammed in among guitar amplifiers and a drum set-up. A sauce-stained hot plate sat on the shelf where the cassette decks and turntables used to sit.

"Bands still practice here now and then," Graeme explained. "The Swan put me in charge of collecting the rent money, so it's working out nicely all around."

I asked Graeme about the master tapes that Tony said had been stolen, but he said that Spike had taken them away and that was all he knew about it. "By the way," he said. "Speaking of tapes, I do have some dub recordings from the unreleased album by The Synging Telegrams. You never heard the album, did you? I can cue up some tracks if you're interested."

I beat the land speed record up to Low Willy and the Sunflower Café. "Yep, Graeme's the new captain of the Barn," Bob Swann said. "Seeing as so few bands are practicing these days it's just as well someone put the space to other uses. I heard about Matt and the tapes - a real shame."

I said that I noticed the lack of punk flyers in the front window. "That's because we've moved away from having bands play on Sundays," Swann replied. "We've got more folk players now, singer-songwriters and the like. It's a far more pleasant vibe. All that punk rock was something of a dead end anyway. I kept thinking you boys would outgrow that greasy kid stuff, to be honest."

Next I made the forty-five minute walk down to the Miller house near Finch and Morningside. The house was empty and there were "For Sale" signs on the front lawn. None of the neighbours I talked to would tell me where the Millers had gone.

My final stop was back at my house up on Third Street. My parents weren't home, so I went up to my old bedroom and cried like a baby alone on my bed.

After I bailed on the Murderburger set in Kensington market, I had a harder and harder time getting in touch with Spike. Incredibly, when I did get a hold of him, he was still talking about doing a Murderburger tour and selling more CDs. That kept me calling his number, looking for updates. Corey, meanwhile, phoned me in June and said he was putting the band aside for a French immersion programme in Quebec, and he probably wasn't going to re-join the band when he was back in Ontario.

The tour never happened. Obviously.

Through the rest of 1992 and into 1993 I floated between jobs and night-courses, unsure of whether I wanted to re-start in English or maybe brave a second attempt at BizAdmin up at York. I also started up a company with an ex-classmate from York where we planned to build and sell computers - at the time I had started teaching myself basic PC repair using some out-of-date manuals and trial-and-error - but after a year and change of flailing about and making intermittent sales it became obvious there was no useful margin in hardware, so my classmate bought me out and I was officially unemployed again. Meanwhile I asked my father about applying to CP Rail for some sort of internship, but he told me that "management is giving preference to hiring college graduates." (Hint, hint.)

On the same day I signed off on part-ownership of the computer company, I picked up a copy of Now and discovered through an article that Matt was now the newest member of Groove Incorporated. I tried calling him and asking what-the-fuck, but his phone line was disconnected.

I've decided to call in sick to work tomorrow. It's after 4:00 a.m. and there's no way I'm going to be coherent for another day in the warehouse. Right now I'd just like to find some sense in everything I've written here. There's got to be a better reason for me wasting all this time just because of your stupid half-page sidebar last summer, Darcy. Morganfield Hardcore deserves better than that.

In the time I was playing music, Nirvana formed and released Nevermind, simultaneously culminating years of hard work among punks in the scene and making most of those same hard-working punks redundant to the cause. I was dee-jaying at U of T's radio station when Nirvana broke big, and I got to witness the excitement first-hand. I even briefly joined a band that called itself a "grunge" act and I tried to play along, but something just didn't feel right. This new form of punk was slower and more lethargic, more interested in following a template than blazing a trail. And everyone was obsessed with signing a record deal. Meanwhile I still went to traditional hardcore gigs, but all I was hearing were the same lectures about corporate oppression and the evils of wearing leather and how George H.W. Bush was a former chief of the CIA. Eventually I found myself listening to music at home rather than going out to shows. The joke was getting old.

Once in a while I still see copies of Animus Unanimous in used record stores. I've made a game out of asking people at the cash about whether they had ever heard of Murderburger. "I don't know who they are," a girl behind the cash register at The Record Peddler told me once, "but I'm tired of seeing their CD all over the place. If it was up to me I'd let you take it for free, 'cause there's no way anyone's gonna buy it!" I was too afraid of what she might say if I told her I had actually played on the album.

At least the CD finally got a write-up in Maximum Rock'n'Roll, even though it was almost a year after Spike had told me he had mailed out a copy. Our glorious review in full:

**Murderburger** \- _Animus Unanimous (CD)_

Ho-hum Canucklehead hardcore in a Punkaholics vein. Some good riffs and a few funny lyrics, but it's hard to get too excited about a band that sounds so relentlessly average. And why are the drums so loud?

(Murderburger Wreckords, PO Box 1--, Stn. 'P', Toronto, ON, M5S 2JS)

I actually tried mailing a letter to the P.O. box at the bottom of the review, addressing the letter to Spike. I wrote something to effect of "Hey, we finally made it to the pages of Max RnR, ha ha!" I never got a reply.

So that's the story of Murderburger and Morganfield Hardcore. Not much of a punch-line, is there? Spike's a dancing fool in an industrial dance collective, I'm shelving light bulbs in Scarborough, and all of the other major players have fucked off to parts unknown. Barely three years have passed, and we're already history. And half-assed musical papers like Sonic Sauce continue onward, oblivious to the difference. Man, it gives you a glowing feeling right at the bottom of your gut, doesn't it? Kinda like nausea without the promise of a good throw-up.

The sun has come up now. I can hear my upstairs neighbours rushing around, getting ready to go to work in the cubicle farms. I left a message on my boss' voice-mail, saying I'm too sick to come in today. Maybe I'll take a nap and call Bethany later, see what she's up to. Yea verily, the young day is like an unblemished canvas awaiting the paint-strokes of an artist. Shall I engage in the careful anatomical study of a Carravaggio, or should I go for an action splatter a la Jackson Pollock? Maybe I'll leave it untouched, empty but full of promise. So many options.

Last week we had a slow day at the warehouse, so one of the I.T. guys set us up for what they call "barcode laser-tag." What they do is they print out a big reflective label with a barcode on it and stick it to the front of your shirt, and then everyone gets a scanner programmed to decode the label. We all then run into the aisles and shoot at each other, each scanned code marked out of a database the I.T. staff have programmed to display on the top screen of our scanner, so you can see who's still playing, and who's out. Pretty clever.

We started playing with eight guys, and after a half-hour we were down to three remaining shooters, including myself. I was sweating in some dark corner in the north end of the building where we keep the obsolete inventory, planning my next move. Then as if on cue, the overhead lamps suddenly switched on, flooding the aisle with an antiseptic yellow light. I looked down at myself with my barcode identifier slapped on my chest. I was just a number in the system after all, wearing jeans bought at Zeller's and work shoes bought at Mark's Work Warehouse, a wallet full of corporate ID and government identification. Some god could have grabbed me and shaken me to pieces until there was nothing but numbers littering the floor.

Instead one of my co-workers ran up and shot a laser across my chest. His scanner beeped, and I was dead.

You know what? Fuck this fucking shit. I'm shutting down this computer and going to sleep. Maybe when I wake up I'll have something worth saying.

• • • •

Part Two:

### END OF THE CENTURY

(second attempt, December 2002)

"I have seen the future of rock'n'roll / I want my money back."

Iremonger ('Poison Promise')

• • • •

### 13.

Well, hello again, Darcy Vandenheuval! Long time, no hear, kemosabe! Has it really been six and a half years since we last spoke? Sorry I never sent that big letter like I promised-slash-threatened to send - things kept getting in the way, as you could imagine. How the hell ya doin' buddy?!

I can't believe I still had that old Word document after all this time. I was sure my anthemic polemic was lost to the ages. But acting on a whim, I went into the storage locker downstairs, pulled out the old PC286 hard drive from the box of computer parts, hooked it up to a spare tower on my work table and there it was: every word as I had left them in May of 1996, right down to the implied juvenile snarl of derision. I spent a good four hours reading my original epic and chuckling at what a self-righteous asshole I was in my youth (plus ça change, etc.) Too bad you never got to enjoy my screed while it was still relevant, huh?

I suppose it was just as well. Sonic Sauce ceased publication a few months after I last signed off, so it wasn't as if you would have received my finished letter anyway. I remember that article in the Globe and Mail Business section where they detailed the auctioning off of the magazine's assets right down to the office furniture and photocopiers - considering how deep in the red your publisher was, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had tried to find some way to sell any leftover Letters To The Editor for a few more pennies to placate the creditors. You could have at least used all those manuscript pages for IOU notes, or kindling for a bonfire, perhaps.

After Da Sauce departed for that great recycling bin in the sky I lost track of you, Darcy, and I dare say I missed having a sounding board for my self-pitying blather. But then I happened to be flipping through the TV channels this fine Saturday morning and I saw your name flash on the screen along with the names of other self-styled "culture pundits" on some re-run of a TVOntario discussion panel programme (tonight's topic: "Technology and the Pop Soundtrack," a.k.a. "All This Machinery Making Modern Music: Can It Still Be Open-Hearted?") and I must say my cranky old heart skipped a beat. It was like running across an old classmate at a reunion at a school far from your own hometown, as random as it was weirdly providential. After all this time, I was glad to see you.

But as the old saying goes: be careful what you wish for.

Back when I was slaving away at my initial reply to that lousy Spike Liberty sidebar article, all I knew about you was your name and job description. I had never heard your voice or seen your face. Well, Darcy, ignorance truly is bliss after all. First off, I can only hope that time has been cruelly unkind to you, and that in your younger years you were at least passingly handsome. Second, I was surprised that someone in the studio didn't stop you before you went on camera wearing that disco tux; combined with those big glasses and Gabe Kaplan afro, you looked like a refugee from a 1970's dating gameshow. I would further comment on your coronary-inducing girth, but as someone who has been struggling to drop the last of the forty extra pounds I have gained since my mid-twenties (a losing battle with losing, as it were), I am in no position to play "Laugh At Fatty."

Appearances aside, however, your speaking voice made me long for the deafness that all those years of playing punk rock had promised - jeez louise, do you always preach at people in that high-pitched nasal whine? And would it have killed you to let some of the other panel members get a word in edgewise? You interrupted so many times that the moderator looked as if she was about to slap you near the end of the programme. For example:

Seemingly-Reasonable Panel Member: "What we have to remember, however, is that the bed tracks for much of commercial hip-hop are not organic. It's synthesisers and sound samples, all digital - "

You (barging in as usual): "But that's what makes the production of the music so exciting! It's data, it's malleable, you can do whatever you want with it. You can only blow a saxophone so many ways, but as digital sound the options are almost endless!"

Seemingly-Reasonable Panel Member: "Er, I suppose. But my point is that by rendering organic sound into simple computer data, you take out a lot of the elements that make that original sound pleasing. Digital information might be easier to transmit, as on the Internet - "

You (bouncing in your chair like a sugar-addled toddler): "Absolutely! It's all data: sound, images, text. A song, a movie, a newspaper - it's all just bits and bytes in the end."

I was quite willing to let bygones be bygones. After all, when you wrote about Spike and the Morganfield scene, you were just a young grunt looking for a modest paycheque. Now that I have seen and heard the person behind that tossed-off sidebar article, however, I find myself mortally offended. Without a doubt, Darcy, you are the most annoying, preening, vacuous, humourless, stomach-turning, motor-mouthed, self-congratulatory douchebag that the Canadian media machine has farted out its precious sphincter since Don Cherry stuck a pair of shoulder pads into a bagpipe carcass and went on the CBC yelling about all the sissies coming over from the European Hockey leagues. And at the very least, Cherry knows a thing or two about hockey. You, on the other hand, are content with interrupting others with such astoundingly putrid pronouncements as the following, in regards to a certain long-defunct dance collective from Toronto:

"Maybe if Canada supported real visionaries like Groove Incorporated, the music fans wouldn't have to settle for hokey guitar pickers and Celtic bar bands masquerading as Canadian cultural entertainment. Kids in Canada don't care about culture, they just wanna dance!"

Good god, Darcy! Oh it's on, motherfucker. Let the Revenge of the Punk Rock Wankers recommence!

Whew! I just had to take a break for a minute. All that vitriol I just spewed took a lot out of me. I'm getting old, Darcy. Back in the day I could dole out abuse by the pound and not break a sweat. Nowadays, I have to pace myself. You know that line John Lydon sings, about how anger is an energy? I think I just burned off three hundred calories typing out the last two pages.

Anyway, as you can imagine, there have been quite a few changes since the last time we communicated. I'm still living on the wrong side of the Don River, but now I'm up in Riverdale in a much nicer apartment, thanks in no small part to my dear wife ("A wife?" you say incredulously. Oh there is so much to tell you, DeeVee!). Morganfield the town is long gone, but Morganfield the north Scarborough neighbourhood is still around, as are my sainted mudder and dear ol' dad.

On a more personal front, notwithstanding the typical ravages of aging, I have otherwise mellowed like fine vinegar as I have entered my thirties. Despite all that vitriol I spewed earlier, I am indeed a more even-tempered fella than the overgrown teenager who bellowed at you way back when. If anything, I should probably apologise ahead of time if I'm a little blander in the wordsmithing department this time around. That's the problem with maturity: you may be wiser, but you're also a lot less fun at parties.

I should also point out that I am now a member of the "physically disabled" class, although I prefer the more direct nomenclature of "cripple." It's a long story.

In July of '96, around the time that Sonic Sauce was circling the fiscal drain, the lighting distributor where I was working was bought out and operations were transferred back to the parent corporation in Tennessee. All of a sudden I was out of a job and without income yet again, panicking not unlike our mutual friend Spike Liberty had done back when his papa got the heave-ho from Nana Nummies. While I waited for my Employment Insurance application to be processed, I got in touch with the landscaping company I had been working for the previous year, desperate for pick-up work of any kind. We were re-leveling a courtyard down in The Beach when one of my fellow ditch-diggers drove a shovel into the top of my right foot, breaking several bones and nearly severing my big toe. One minute I was sweating and cursing while breaking sod, and the next minute: CRUNCH! I didn't even feel any pain for the first few seconds, which is a bad sign right off the top. Half of my foot was hanging off the heel at an unhealthy angle, and all I recall thinking was: Not good. Then everything went snowy white like a staticky television and I went down like a sack of potatoes.

I had to be taken to the hospital for immediate surgery, and I was laid up for a week. Even after two follow-up operations and three months of recuperative physiotherapy, however, I still walked with great difficulty. In fact it has only been in the last three years where I have been able to manouevre without a crutch or cane. Meanwhile, as I was convalescing my father and his lawyer had come swooping in, pouncing on the fact that the landscaper's foremen had a decidedly lax policy toward their day labourers wearing sneakers rather than proper work shoes while on site. I would rather not go into detail about the ensuing trial, except to say that in some ways the legal wrangling was more traumatic than the injury itself.

The final ruling resulted in a settlement pay-out which covered my back rent, my student loan and my two credit cards. In the end I was left with a princely sum of $900.00 in the bank. While the settlement solved my financial situation, I was still left without a job, and my one marketable asset - a functioning labour-ready body - was severely compromised.

By February I out of the last of the leg casts, and alternating between crutches and a walking stick I bought at a yard sale for five dollars. Between appointments with the assorted doctors and specialists, my parents would urge me via phone calls and care package mail-outs to move back to Morganfield, at least temporarily. I wasn't all that keen on the idea, especially considering how Morganfield General Hospital had just been shut down by the Mike Harris gang. Besides, my Employment Insurance cheques were coming in every other week, and I was quite eager to milk the public teat as was my patriotic Canadian duty. Nevertheless, I made a deal with Ma and Pa Cartwright that I would make a final decision once the money from the settlement ran out.

I spent the next two months popping various painkillers along with a goodly amount of soothing sugary treats and microwave dinners, feeling sorry for myself while my stomach swelled up like a Jiffy-Pop popcorn container on a stove burner. My disposition throughout that spring was decidedly funereal. All around me the flowers were blooming and the sun was shining and young couples were holding hands and smiling at each other like drugged lunatics, and meanwhile I was fumbling around with my head shrouded in a cloud of darkness like some Edward Gorey cartoon character ("'P' is for "Paul," a Cartwright done wrong / 'Q' is for "querulous," his cynical song..." Hey, I just made that up. I still got it, Darcy!) Still, I continued to hobble around the neighbourhood, scanning newspapers and want-ads in a pathetic attempt at a job search. Once in a while I would catch a glimpse of the prematurely old man I had become at twenty-five: fat and tired and propped on a crutch, Charles Dickens' Tiny Tim all grown up and more pathetic than ever.

I literally stumbled past the "Help Wanted" sign in the front window at Schlender Medical Aids down on Eastern Avenue. It seemed like a sick joke: me, a newly disabled curmudgeon applying for a job at a distributor of leg braces and wheelchairs. Weirder still was the fact that Schlender Medical Aids was actually a large house converted to business use; from street level the sign looked like a joke planted by whatever bored pensioner lived within its musty decrepit interior (apply for work, then stay for tea while Methuselah rambles on about World War Two and that Belgian farm girl he almost married). Then again, I was in the mood for a joke.

I filled out an application while the unsmiling middle-aged woman in the front office hovered over me, her eyes filled with a suspicious pity. Meekly, I passed back the completed form and staggered ineptly as I exited the premise, shuffling more slowly than normal. I was convinced that my application was destined for the recycling bin, so I spent the rest of the afternoon with a box of glazed donuts and a round of truly lousy daytime television, eventually drifting off to sleep on the ratty sofa.

I was startled to be woken the next morning by a phone call from a heavily-accented man calling himself Hans Schlender, who asked me to report for an afternoon of work moving some furniture. I was too stunned to fumble a coherent reply other than "I'll see you at one!"

I reached the front office and met up with Hans, a gaunt white-haired German with hands like the Crypt Keeper: long cold fingers with the barest web of skin stretched over the narrow bones. He shook my limp hand and eyed me through his bifocals, while beside him the unsmiling woman, whose name was Abby, shook her head and sighed with a disappointment I recognised immediately. Still, by pivoting on my good foot while using my left hand to lift, I heroically managed to help Hans re-arrange the desks in the front office. Only once did I have to request additional assistance from Hans' part-time shipper Lincoln, a squat man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ernie from "Sesame Street," right down to the wide Muppet mouth and wheezing "khee-hee-hee!" laugh.

As we were re-connecting the PC towers, I off-handedly said something about how the two computers ought to have been networked. "I used to work with a business partner at York University," I half-bragged, "setting up computer equipment. A used router, some cards and some cable is all you need." Hans quizzed me about it for a few minutes, curious about how most of my computer knowledge was self-taught (no one taught me how to write a song, and no one showed me how to install RAM in a motherboard.) I then collected my day's cash from Abby, and I went home to order a celebratory pizza and otherwise forgot about the day's labour.

I got another call from Hans later that same week. This time he wanted me to re-organise a shelf of inventory. Again I scuttled laboriously down to Eastern Avenue, spending the day in the back shelves of the musty storeroom. I asked Hans why all of the heavy inventory like scooter motors and prosthetics were on the top shelves while the smaller items were on the bottom shelf, and Hans said that the old Inventory Manager had always stored items that way. I convinced Hans that having the heavier stock on the bottom shelves made more sense, and so I managed to talk myself into an extra day of work on the following Tuesday. It was not easy, but by working my way very slowly up and down the ladder I was able to switch around one set of shelves on the Tuesday, and then the other set of shelves with Lincoln's help on Wednesday.

On Thursday Hans asked me to mind the phones while he and Abby went downtown to attend a trade show. I answered four calls in five hours watching the traffic roll through the dirty front window. I passed the time by playing Solitaire on one computer and then the other, and then ran a few basic clean-up applications on the PCs including a defrag and a virus scan. Later I told Hans that he should have a technician check one of the computers because the outdated virus scan program was not removing one of the worms on his main computer (the one with the customer database). I also offered to sell him an old 28.8 modem to replace the 600 baud antique he was currently using.

"Seriously," I said, "you may as well have someone yelling ones and zeros on one end of the phone with a modem that old."

Hans squinted and stroked his chin. "That is, what, computer humour, yes?"

After two weeks I was getting used to coming in and taking care of the odd jobs around the office and warehouse space, and digging the cash Hans was giving me at the end of each work day, even if the hourly pay varied wildly depending on Hans' mood. I also liked hanging out with Lincoln, whose lunches included a six-pack of Jamaican stubby-bottle beer he freely split with me in exchange for a sandwich or apple. The building itself was decrepit and there was no end of maintenance I could busy myself with, ranging from cleaning the mildew-encrusted washroom to logging in the outdated inventory Hans and Lincoln had stuck in the upstairs alcove behind Hans' office. I even found a lightweight cane with a much more comfortable grip, which I traded from Hans in exchange for washing the front windows (Lincoln laughed when he saw me fumbling with an old squeegee taped to the butt-end of my old cane. "No one's cleaned those windows on over five years!" he said. "All that light coming in, they're gonna see what a dump the front office really is! Khee-hee-hee!") Meanwhile I kept pocketing my cash, checking ads in the paper and wondering how much longer my tax-free windfall was going to last.

Then one day Hans' son Gunther came checking on his father's business. I chatted idly with Gunther and he asked me about how long I had been working there. I let it slip that I had been working on a cash basis for the past three weeks. Gunther nodded with a weirdly worried expression and retired to his father's upstairs office. I heard a heated argument break out, with Gunther repeatedly shouting "Why do you keep making me do this?" while his father grunted halting replies in German. Finally Gunther came stomping down the stairs with a sheaf of Revenue Canada paperwork and informed me that I was officially hired.

"Your official title is 'Inventory Manager'," Gunther said with an obvious exasperation. "You need to sign these forms so we can square things away Revenue Canada."

"'Inventory' what?"

"Manager. Christ, choose whatever title you want. Why should I care?"

Hans Schlender, in his own odd manner, was actually a pretty good businessman. He and Abby kept very professional relationships with their suppliers and the doctors' offices they supplied in Toronto and other parts of southern Ontario. On the other hand, he was a bit overly casual when it came to managing the actual business, like hiring people and filling out tax returns. Gunther's main occupation was being a CPA at Toronto Dominion, but he was also the unofficial book-keeper for Schlender Medical Aids, and he often had to handle the niceties his father preferred to ignore.

"I keep telling Dad, you can't pay people out of the petty cash box," he said over beers later that afternoon. "What if you get audited, I tell him. What if an undocumented employee gets injured on your property?" He glanced at my bum foot and winced, rubbing his worry-reddened temples. "You can't run this sort of business like it's some popsicle stand. God, I feel like I'm shepherding cats when I'm dealing with the old man."

"You think I should stay?"

Gunther shrugged. "Stay, go, do whatever. One less cat I have to herd is fine by me."

So that's how I stumbled into my career as a Warehouse Manager, which is the title I finally settled on. In addition to managing inventory, I also mind the computer set-ups including the Ethernet network I eventually installed. Even then my days are pretty leisurely, to the point where I've spent whole afternoons sitting by the phone reading while Abby is out on client calls or mailing out invoices. Although I'm not making much more than I was up in Scarborough, I do have a decidedly stress-free occupation including medical and dental benefits, and all within a ten minute streetcar ride. And despite his peculiarities, my boss is the most humane person I have ever worked for. We even have regular lunches in the front office: the Boss, the Saleswoman and myself, and the new shipper Solomon, who is Lincoln's cousin (no word of a lie, Darcy: Solomon looks exactly like Bert from "Sesame Street." I wonder if he and Lincoln slept in the same bedroom growing up as well).

It's surreal how much I like my job, actually. So much so, that I'm amazed that Matt Miller almost talked me into quitting it to play full time in a lousy punk rock band in 1999, as if I had learned nothing in all those years up in Morganfield. But like I was saying earlier: it's a long story.

I'm going to leave it there for now. My wife is coming home pretty soon and I don't want her catching me writing on her laptop. In case I didn't mention it already, despite my ineptitude with the fairer sex, I managed to marry a BEAUTIFUL AND INTELLIGENT woman named Maia back in 2000, who has shown both incredible patience in light of my curmudgeonly demeanor over the years and a winning affection for my crippled body WHICH IS ESPECIALLY ADORABLE WHEN I WALK AROUND THE BEDROOM NAKED LIKE A PIRATE, ARRRRRH! Maia just started her first shift this week as a registered nurse at St. Michael's Hospital, which unfortunately conflicts with our Christmas holiday plans, but it does give me a few unfettered weeks to concentrate on finishing my letter to you once and for all. I have told Maia the basic story about growing up in Morganfield and playing in Murderburger as a teenager. Early on I figured that there was not much point in recounting all of my previous exploits, so it has become kind of a personal secret history. In any case, seeing as how Maia's not a fan of heavy music in general I doubt she really wants to know about the details of my Punk Rock Daze Of Yore EVEN THOUGH SHE WOULD PROBABLY THINK IT WAS CUTE IF MAYBE KIND OF WEIRD.

So for the purposes of our ongoing communiqué, Darcy, I have commandeered Maia's laptop, at least for the time being. I have the junk computers in the workshop I could work on (and yes, I backed up the original letter just in case), but those PCs are a little awkward for me to use, what with the high work tables in my shop. In any case I would rather type this in the well-lit front room than in the musty workshop area anyway. It's a bit of a risk, but as long as I bury the Word file deep enough in the hard drive, Maia need never know THOUGH BOY WOULDN'T I LOOK LIKE A BIG DUMMY IF SHE FOUND IT ON HER COMPUTER AFTER ALL. LIKE IMAGINE IF SHE STARTED READING MY LETTER AFTER I'VE GONE TO BED AND STARTED ADDING HER OWN COMMENTS - THAT WOULD BE SO EMBARRASSING! :D Seriously, I love Maia more than anything in the world, but she doesn't need to know every stupid thing I've done in my life.

You, on the other hand, aren't quite so lucky.

• • • •

### 14.

Top O' The Mornin', Darcy. I just re-read my previous entry and I realised - quel suprise! - that I've been rambling just a tad. I'm trying my darnedest to get to the music part of my back history, as that is what ostensibly matters in this ongoing diatribe (that, and berating you constantly for being a fatheaded know-nothing putz). But the fact is that for the past few years music has been such a minor concern in my day-to-day thinking that there's not a whole lot to tell. At one time in my life I was so dedicated to punk rock that I proudly proclaimed that if I ever went deaf, I would kill myself. Nowadays I can go weeks without picking up a guitar. Man, if my teenage self could see the thirty-year-old version of what he would become, he probably would have puked up like a geyser.

Case in point: my wife likes to download music. She has a cache of links to websites in Croatia and Russia where she can get free copies of music from Abba, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, all sorts of REALLY GREAT SONGS. It's not that I have a problem with these mega-wealthy major label artists losing money from illegal downloads, or even that I can't stand Maia's taste in music BECAUSE I'M SUCH A PIGHEADED MUSICAL BIGOT. But what should be making me crazy is the simple principle of not paying for music. I have known and played in too many bands who went into debt recording and releasing CDs, scraping together dishwashing cheques to pay for a amplifiers and practice space, not to work up a head of steam. But even though I know I should be lecturing Maia and everyone else with hard drives full of downloaded tunes about the costs of studio time and tour van maintenance and how small-time bands and one-hit wonders are being robbed of what little income they'll ever see for their artistic efforts, I simply do not have the interest or energy for the argument WHICH SOUNDS ESPECIALLY CRAZY COMING FROM A GUY WRITING A MILLION-PAGE LETTER TO SOME DUMB REPORTER HE'S NEVER EVEN MET.

For all my pontificating and bluster in the earlier part of my letter, Darcy, at the time I was actually pretty burned out on the music thing. Every punk album I bought sounded like a copy of something I had already heard, and the new melodic school of California merch-punk ushered in by Green Day and their major-key copycats increased that disinterest ten-fold. So I started casting around for other noise with which to cook my ear-holes. I tried getting into the underground metal scene for a bit, but one too many overly-serious Norwegian death-metal albums pushed my incredulity to the breaking point. I also went through that jazz phase that so many of my musician friends go through at some point - Satchmo, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, all the usual suspects - but compared to the ecstatic algebra of punk rock barre chords, jazz can seem as inscrutable as differential calculus. It was like learning a whole new language, and while I did pick up a few key phrases, I was never much more than a tourist in that area. For a while I even tried to get into Pearl Jam and Hole and all of those corporate alternative bands Bethany liked to foist on my unwilling ears, but you can only hum along and tap your toe so much before you drive your shoe through the floorboards. I wanted edge, I wanted rawness, I wanted to feel something I could recognise, and none of that Edge 102 crap was scratching the itch.

The most recent candidate for a replacement for punk has been the old country and acoustic records I've been listening to in the last few years. After my Uncle Eddie died back in 1998, I talked my aunt into letting me take care of his old albums rather than pitching them in the trash as she had originally planned. Once in a while I've been spinning some old Hank Snow and Stompin' Tom records on the old turntable in the workshop, and while their overall hokiness gets on my nerves at times, I've been enjoying some of the punchier numbers more than I thought I would. I even bought an old banjo at a yard sale last summer, and I have started teaching myself to play along with some of the bluegrass records in my Uncle's stash, much to the distress of my dear wife WHO WILL BE INSTALLING SOUNDPROOFING AND A LOCK ON THE WORKSHOP DOOR PRETTY DAMN SOON. Then again, if I really did hate her as much as she claims when I try to play banjo, I would be taking up bagpipes instead AND MY LONG-SUFFERING WIFE WOULD GO CRAZY AND MACHINE GUN HER HUBBY TO BITS! JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE!!!

All of this to say: by 1996 I was less pre-occupied with artistic quandaries than I was with other concerns. Such as walking. And getting fat. And earning enough coin so that I didn't have to move back in with my parents out in Morganfield. My job at Schlender solved the last dilemma, but I was still bloated from all the junk food I'd been eating. More than my bad foot, I was increasingly self-conscious about my flabby torso, which might have been bearable to look at with a bit of body hair, but my perennially baby-smooth state gave my mid-section an unfortunate melted Ken-doll appearance. Bethany, for her part, was not too happy with my new putrescence either, dumping my widening ass not long after the accident and beating a hasty retreat back to academia at U of T. In all fairness, she might have simply been fed up with my constant whining and self-pity; either way I can't say I blame her for concentrating on her PoliSci degree rather than my wide-load ego.

My physiotherapist encouraged me to sign up for the nearest health club, which in my case meant the Absolute Fitness outlet that had just opened up on Carlaw Avenue south of Queen East. From what I had heard, the gym used to be a fairly no-nonsense boxing club before the Abso-Fit franchise bought out the original owners ("Abso-Fit" is what the resident muscle heads and gym bunnies like to call Absolute Fitness, as in "Abs so fit." Clever enough, I suppose, but then again we're talking about people who routinely spent five dollars on a candy bar as long as words like "carb" or "power" are printed on the wrapper). Despite the synth-bloop soundtrack on the P.A. and the ubiquitous mirror-plated decor and the weird toothpaste smell of the over-scrubbed workout equipment, I steeled myself and signed up for a one-year membership with a two-step agenda: (a) stop eating any food I actually enjoyed, and (b) work out three times a week for at least thirty minutes. Simple, right?

Step "A" fell by the wayside pretty quickly, as you can probably guess. As for Step "B", I did manage to stick to regimen for at least a few months. I developed some decent muscle tone in my shoulders and chest, and my foot started to hurt a little less, amazingly enough. Still, my belly hardly receded from its belt-obscuring proportions, worsening my self-conscious state. Meanwhile I was surrounded by lantern-jawed gymbos with cobblestone torsos, and I could only boast soft shoulders. They sported six packs, I carried a party keg. I was a Bill Bixby stranded in a room full of Lou Ferrignos, and no amount of anger was going to turn me into The Hulk. You get the idea.

And then there's the gym itself. Why do I hate it so much? Let me count the ways:

1. The poised young lady who walked me through the initial tour but who spent more time going over her resume of bit parts in recent Toronto movie productions than explaining the payment structure on my contract;

2. The personal trainer who led me through my initiation sessions on the equipment, insisting on a high-five whenever a particularly well-toned woman sauntered in our general vicinity;

3. The old naked men who insist on having conversations with me in the change room (at least my after-workout meals were significantly reduced after such confrontations);

4. The chicken-strutting muscleheads howling like wounded animals even when they are bench-pressing the same amount of weight that I just finished lifting without so much as a snort of exertion;

5. Dance music, Darcy. It sucks. Always has, always will;

6. The middle-aged business-codger who makes those bizarre nasal "Nyaah!" sounds when doing dead lifts. After a while it's like working out next to Edward G. Robinson;

7. The human globule in the terry cloth headband and bright red shorts two sizes too small who leaves toxic-looking sweat stains on every padded surface without so much as a cursory pass of a cleaning towel;

8. The whiny-voiced soccer moms on the stair-climbers, yelling plot points of last nights' episodes of "Friends" and "Melrose Place" at each other, occasionally exchanging disparaging comments about the creepy guy on the rowing machine behind them (three guesses as to the identity of the "creepy guy" in this scenario.)

Needless to say, I didn't quite fit in with the environment at Abso-Fit. I felt like I was surrounded by all the people at Morganfield North Secondary School that I was glad to have left behind: the jocks, the keeners, the joiners, the shallow fashion followers; proto-suburbanite robots and assorted humans of such a manicured appearance that their attractiveness looked somehow unnatural. I might as well have been Johnny Rotten hanging out at the Queen's Jubilee.

Which made my encounter with a certain gothic-looking girl in the middle of the workout floor such a shock. Even though the woman was a complete stranger, it was nonetheless like meeting a fellow member of the tribe.

She should have been a blonde. Maybe that's a disingenuous way of saying that the dark-haired woman who introduced herself as Betty Rage was charming yet vacuous, manipulative in her flirtations, aware of her effect on men even as she pretended not to notice the ogles and stares of longing around her. Every shift of her leather bustier, every rubbery creak of her vinyl thigh-high boots, every element of the woman drew the eye and ear toward her like light rushing to fill in the void of blackness in space. With her black clothes and blood-red lipstick and menacing snake-wrapped knife tattoo along the length of her left outer arm, she was a tantalising drop of poison in that relentlessly healthy petri dish of a gym. Yet there was nevertheless something unmistakably blonde in Betty's demeanour: a relentless optimism in her speaking voice, an effervescence accenting the paleness of her bare arms and shoulders so that she resembled a walking glass of champagne, a pleasing froth rising up from a black decanter. Betty carried herself like a woman who had no reason to fear the future, because there would always be some gullible father figure available to dig her out of whatever mess she got herself into. That's what allowed her to walk into Absolute Fitness without even a guest pass, pausing only to request temporary admission to speak with the male attendant at the reception desk (she pointed at me as she spoke to him, as if I were a puppy in a pet store she had chosen to take home), stopping at the shoulder press machine where I had been pausing mid-set and mid-sweat watching her approach from outside the front window to the middle of the gym floor like a prisoner of a hallucinogenic dream.

"I thought I recognised the logo on your shirt," the woman said approvingly. "The Punkaholics kick ass."

I looked down at my hooded sweatshirt, as if seeing the fabric plastered to my swollen torso for the first time. "Beats the crap they play here," I blurted, nodding towards the ceiling and the dance music playing on the P.A.

"Yeah, this shit's lame," she said. "I used to work out at the Abso-Fit up at Yorkville, and they played the same electronic gak there too. I think it's a rule at gyms that the music's gotta suck."

Around me I could feel the spillover of stares from other exercisers. One of the female trainers muttered something to her co-worker behind a cupped hand. Now I really felt like I was back in high school.

The gothic girl then cleared her throat and her voice became professionally insincere. "Anyway, the reason I'm here is that I am cordially inviting you to a special Friday concert for my band." She fished out a laminated flyer from her purse. "Betty Rage is the newest punk rock sensation that's gonna shake Toronto to the core. And only cool people like you are cordially invited."

The flyer included the Betty Rage logo with a cartoon brunette woman in a red mini-dress holding a riding crop, her spike-heeled boot propped on the chest of a dazed-looking punk lying on the ground beneath her, hearts and bluebirds circling his head.

"I assume you're Betty?"

"I am Betty. Well, actually, the band is Betty Rage. We're all Betty Rage."

"Kinda like the Borg on 'Star Trek'?"

"Exactly like the Borg. And resistance is totally futile."

A heavy-browed man approached us, ambling over from the weight benches. "Hey, are those, like, concert passes?"

The woman sighed and shook her head. "This guy just got the last one. Sorry."

The man squinted and pointed at the half-dozen flyers sticking out of her purse. "Wait, what about those?"

The woman rolled her eyes and sighed in mock exasperation. "Okay, what I meant to say was, Sorry, but I'm not giving you or your friends passes. I should have been more specific."

The man frowned and furrowed his brow tighter, his eyebrows squeezing like caterpillars kissing on his forehead. "You don't need to be a bitch about it," he muttered.

"Uh, excuse me? Private conversation? Do you mind?"

The man sneered and ambled back to the weights benches. "It's so cute to see them try to think. You can almost hear the gears in their head grinding away, clackety-clack-clack."

The gothic woman pushed the flyers back down to the bottom of her purse. "Now then, the concert is Friday at The Cameron House. I'm sure you know where that is. Remember to bring the flyer or you'll have to pay full admission. And try to come after 10 p.m. because, between you and me, the opening band totally sucks."

I listened politely to her speech, which alternated between auto-pilot sales pitch and insider gossip. I guess you could say I was a bit off-put, and not just a little flattered as I usually am when an attractive woman deigns to give me the time of day. Ever was it thus, I suppose: back when I was suffering through my BizAdmin courses at York University, the promise of good-looking women in the classroom was the only thing that got me through the day. God knows there was little else to look forward to after that long bus ride to Downsview and the longer hike across the alien landscape of the campus, the trudge up the antiseptic stairwell to the classroom where that sea of assholes waited to engulf me in its smarmy depths.

Those were weird months for me. The first-year classes were deceptively simple and light on workload, so I wasn't concerned with passing as much as persisting. The actual studying of marketing and corporate strategies was boring as hell. I had to convince myself that what I was learning could be useful to me at a later date: some covert information on the nebulous enemy that was Big Business, or inspiration for a song or fanzine article. I also had to remind myself that I had a better chance of learning something that would get me an actual job than in the English Lit courses I had wanted to take. After a while I was even beginning to entertain ideas of starting my own business, like a record label or a music store. The dream of financial independence proved to be a heady antidote to the CP Rail career path my father had so often mapped out in our familial strategy sessions, to say nothing of the lure of being able to sleep in and open up at a humane noontime hour like Ken at Grover Antiques or The Swan at the Sunflower Café.

Even as I fumbled through the quiz-taking and essay-writing, however, I had the creeping sensation that I was being surreptitiously brainwashed by my right-wing professors: suspender-wearing blockheads for whom "Thatcherite" was a compliment and not a curse word, and who espoused the view that Brian Mulroney was too hung up on Canadian unity issues to concentrate on "worthy initiatives" like the GST and the Free Trade accord with the States. Worse still were the young Tories who constituted the majority of my classmates, many of whom wore collared shirts and ties to class and carried updated C.V.s in their briefcases, and sported the eager-beaver demeanours of Jonestown disciples who had happily drank down the Flavor-Aid and then went back for seconds. Meanwhile there was your esteemed author, replete in old track pants and battered Doc Martens and ragged Murderburger tee-shirt three washes past its date with the trash can, and an ill-advised goatee sprouting on my incredulous face which made me look, in more than one fellow students' estimation, like a homeless person.

One of these losers was not like the others. One of these losers just didn't belong.

I was quickly relegated to being a mascot of sorts, an emissary from the lower classes deserving little more than scorn or pity. Whenever discussions in my Intro To Economics course turned to issues regarding the jobless rate or welfare compensation, all eyes turned toward me. Over time I got pretty good at picking apart the arguments of my fellow students, some of whom were so enamoured of Reagan's trickle-down economics spiel that their answers in class verged upon self-parody, like the one football-playing jerk who openly wondered why, during the Great Depression of the 1920's, Prime Minister Bennett simply didn't round up the unemployed and put them into work camps. It amazed me how some of these boobs never imagined the possibility that they might ever be poor. From the gel-haired suck-up who routinely met with professors after class to praise them for their lectures to the weasel-faced frat brother who sneered that "poor people have had the work ethic bred out of them, and they deserve to live in trailer parks," I hated almost every one of the oxygen-wasters with whom I was forced to share a classroom. In retrospect I was amazed I lasted three whole months in their vicinity.

There were a few mitigating factors, obviously. I had a few decent classmates such as Oliver, an immigrant from Hong Kong who later became my business partner in that ill-fated computer-resale company I tried to start up in 1992. Surprisingly, I also got a fair bit of appreciation from my professors, some of whom I believe were happy to have at least one contradictory opinion amidst the sea of Gordon Gecko wannabes in the classroom.

But the real saving grace, of course, were the female students: beautiful, slim and fresh-smelling, so clean and pure-seeming that I was scared to look at them and dirty their skins with my filthy punker gaze. Sometimes I would walk late into a classroom and they would be staring back at me in unison like a forest full of startled does, each one more achingly gorgeous than the next, crisply attired in Oxford button-down shirts and pleated dresses over demurely-crossed legs, here and there a shoe dangling precipitously at the end of a stockinged foot kicking nervously over their knee - argh! It was all I could do to stumble past these preppy goddesses and collapse into the nearest empty chair, and focus my eyes on the whiteboard at the front of the room.

Nevertheless, I was still an interloper. When I became overly confident and tried to converse with my female classmates, that was when the trouble started. I asked out one woman for an after-school coffee, and her response was a nose-wrinkling huff with a sneering "You're not serious, are you?" Even then, in subsequent classes she would avoid me by sitting on the opposite side of the room, occasionally looking in my direction only to shake her head and roll her eyes away as soon as I noticed her staring. In my more delusional moments I could not help but wonder if perhaps she was simply disappointed that I had given up so easily.

Eventually, not even the distant prospect of a business-suit-wearing hottie girlfriend was enough to keep me in BizAdmin, and I dropped out of my classes at York before first term exams. Off and on I have considered going back and maybe getting a degree through night school, but I can't honestly say how much of that latent desire is due to a lingering interest in what I could have learned, and how much is simply covert lust for preppy chicks. Anyway it's been pretty well a moot point since I married Maia, my tiny Indian princess WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO OWN SOME OXFORD SHIRTS! YEAH BABY! and so I doubt I'll be going back to class anytime soon.

But I do still go to health clubs, so I still have a healthy quotient of doofuses to deal with, and Betty's appearance there in 1996 was a welcome respite from the workout drudgery. When you're surrounded by so much militant healthiness, it's reassuring to come across a woman so decidedly unwholesome.

We were talking about the bands we were listening to, and when I bought up the new Punkaholics album she stopped and pointed at the logo on my work-out shirt. "By the way, you have to tell me where you got that hoodie," she said. "My boyfriend's a huge Punkaholics fan and I know for a fact he doesn't own that one."

My boyfriend. Oh well. It was fun to dream while it lasted, I thought to myself. I replied that I had bought it when my own band opened for the Punkaholics in Waterloo in 1989.

"Cool. What band was that?"

"Well, it was a group called Murderburger, we were a hardcore band from - "

The woman covered her mouth, and a loud squealing noise pierced my ear drums. At first I thought a fire alarm had gone off on the gym floor. It took me a few seconds to figure out it was actually her voice doing the squealing. "Holy shit, you're Poker Cartwright!" At this point she actually hopped in place like a little girl who had just received a pony for Christmas, and her voice became a rapid babble. "I saw you guys play in Windsor when I was, like, fourteen years old. You guys kicked ass and I talked to you after your set and you were totally gorgeous - oh fuck, did I just say that? Oh my god, I didn't mean to say that, I'm sorry!"

"No problem," I said. A minute ago this woman was disinterestedly pitching a concert promotion at me, and now she was gushing like a star-struck groupie. Of course there was no problem, except for the fact that all of the testosterone-addled lunkheads on the workout machines around us were going to grill me later for details. All that hard work training them to ignore me and leave me alone was going up in smoke right before my eyes.

"So yeah, I saw you guys in Windsor and talked to you at the tee-shirt booth. You probably don't remember me, I'm Chantal."

I suddenly recalled the faces of the girls at the merch table in Windsor. "Yeah, I remember. Schoolgirl's uniform." Behind me I could hear guys muttering and groaning with obvious approval. Oh lord, I was not looking forward to the post-game wrap-up.

"Yup, that was me. My god, I didn't think you'd remember." Underneath her makeup I could see Chantal was blushing. "I had no idea you played with fucking Murderburger! I wasn't expecting to be giving out flyers in this part of the city, I was just across the street visiting friends and I saw the Punkaholics logo on your shirt through the window - fuck, this is just too weird, you know? Anyway, you definitely have to see us play at The Cameron this Friday. I personally insist."

"Betty Rage herself?"

"Betty herself. But you can call me Chantal."

So there you have it. For the first time in ages, I was looking forward to going to a punk rock show. As an added incentive, Chantal told me that there would be a surprise guest in attendance - she refused to say who the guest was, catching herself before she accidentally gave away the secret: "You'll just have to come and find out," she told me with a sly smile.

I have to laugh, thinking back on all this. In retrospect it was a good thing that Chantal mentioned ahead of time that she had a boyfriend, because there was no way I would have handled myself so confidently if that particular door had been left open. Besides, if I had known that the "surprise guest" would turn out to be her boyfriend Matt Miller, I would have stayed home instead and saved myself a great deal of agony. Such are the reasons why I have learned not to get my hopes up in these situations.

• • • •

### 15.

Jesus H. Christ, Darcy, what the heck is going on? After seven years of being sweetly oblivious to your odious persona, now it's like I can't get away from you! To wit: this morning I picked up an old copy of The Toronto Star from the local coffee shop, and there's your smug mug plastered on page E2 above a commentary column entitled "CultureSchlock." I read your column, which concerned (no surprise here) electronic music, and how the technology of computer sequencing puts music-making in the hands of the average listener. You then raved about some recordings by Richie Hawtins, and then called Moby "retrograde" for reverting back to playing guitar on some tracks from his last album, and said a few more things before I threw the paper down in disgust. If I wasn't on vacation, Darcy, I'd seriously consider writing your editor a note of complaint. I know I would just be labeled a crank and my comment ignored, but it's therapeutic, you know? I like to think I contribute in my own meager manner, cultural discourse and all.

(By the way, I should also mention that I fished around on-line and found a few more of your TorStar columns. In one essay, you dissected the "Lord Of The Rings" movie series and then claimed, apropos of nothing whatever, that the increased presence of female characters like Eowyn and Arwen was meant to counteract what you called the "more-than-implied latent homosexual relationship between Aragorn and other manly characters." Wow, Darcy! Real cutting edge! Here, let me try: notice how the male leads in the TV show "Friends" all shared an apartment at one point, and how they tended to hang out with each other even though they have hot chicks living right across the hall? Of course the men were all gay! What other explanation could there be? Shit, why don't the editors at The Star give ME a fucking column?)

So I trudged back home, java-less and cranky. But no sooner had I flipped on the television when I saw your ugly puss again on TVOntario, on another re-run of that lousy cultural discussion panel (Oh goody! A two-part series!) I watched in disbelief as the moderator actually told you to shut up because you were interrupting the other panelists; you just squinched up in your chair like a petulant four year old and stared at the floor. Still, you were adamant that rock music was done and over with, and that "music made by machines" were the wave of the future. Ol' Matt Molotov would certainly have approved, assuming he would ever sit down and watch a programme on TVOntario, which is unlikely at best.

Matt Miller, man of mystery. Organiser, womaniser, role-player, nay-sayer, back-stabber, credit-grabber. At one time he truly aspired to become Spike Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Punk. And yet I was awe-struck by the little cretin. He managed to sweet-talk so many people into doing what he wanted, that it never really occurred to me that I too was being baffled by the bullshit. Wasn't I giving over all my time and energy to Murderburger, a project that really belonged to Matt? While Steve and Harvey played along and contributed as much as was needed, I was going the extra mile by putting up flyers, volunteering at Scene meetings, and generally acting the toady. No wonder everyone else in the Morgie Scene started going all weird on me. Hell, I wasn't Matt's friend, I was his disciple.

There was the time back in '92, when we were planning the CD launch in Kensington Market. Matt, in Spike Mulroney mode, suggested idly that the band should put out coupons with the CDs to be redeemed for other Murderburger merchandise. "Like Canadian Tire money," he said. "We could call them 'MurderDollars' or whatever." Well of course I thought it was a great idea, and that night I went to my room and sketched out various prototypes for Murderburger currency, using some old Canadian Tire dollars as design templates. I came to the next band practice with my finished drawings and Matt/Spike looked at me like I had lost my mind. "You didn't think I was serious, did you?" he said. "Well, yeah, I did," I answered sheepishly. The rest of the band laughed at me, and I put the drawings back in my knapsack.

So there were no MurderDollars, and eventually there was no Murderburger, either. I hadn't even thought about my old band for years until Chantal Lafierre strutted onto the Abso-Fit gym floor and started telling me how Murderburger had changed her life back at that crappy show in Windsor. I had read fan letters sent to the band, but I had never managed to get an honest-to-goodness groupie (Julie doesn't count, as we pretty much hooked up despite the band's music WAIT A MINUTE, WHO'S JULIE?!?), so this was a novelty to say the least. I was actually nervous on my streetcar ride to the Queen West strip, sweating at one point like a teenager picking up his prom date. The fact that I hadn't been to a gig in over a year was beside the point. A woman who had called me "gorgeous" (yeah, I know - past tense) was going to be on stage. Who cares if she has a boyfriend?

Turns out I cared. A lot.

Matt Miller walked over and shook my hand just as the opening band had finished their set. "I thought it was you," he said with a grin on his face. "I thought you had dropped off the face of the earth or something."

"I could say the same about you." I took a gulp of beer and coolly sized up my former bandmate. Like me, he looked older: a bit puffy around the eyes, with signs of a receding hairline around the temples and paling skin where freckles used to dominate his flesh. But he was still as skinny as he ever had been, and his arms showed the sort of gym-trained muscle tone that I had been struggling to obtain over the recent few months.

"By the way," Matt said, regarding the crutch under my right armpit. "What happened to your leg?"

"Long story," I said. "Let's just say I'll be dealing with this for a little while."

Matt paused and took a sip from his water bottle. "So," I finally blurted, "what brings the star of Groove Incorporated to a punk rock gig? I thought you were done with the punk scene."

I had expected Matt to start back at this, but instead he closed his eyes and nodded his head, as if I had said exactly what he had expected to hear. "I was never 'done with' anything. Let me guess, you read that interview in Sonic Sauce, right?"

"I did indeed. You said some pretty harsh things about Morganfield - "

Matt held his hand out at me, palm forward, and sighed. "Look, before you start: you're right. You're absolutely right. But in my defense, Paul, not all the things in that article came out of my own mouth. Believe me, I get more flack from that interview than anything else I've done in the last three years. That Darcy Vandenheuvel is such a fucking tool, I swear to god."

Rest assured, Darcy (you fucking tool!), I had been dreaming about this confrontation for years. I had a memorised list of grievances, some of which I had written out in letters I planned to send to Matt as soon as I tracked down a valid mailing address. I had spoken to friends and acquaintances asking about Matt's whereabouts, e-mailed Groove Inc care of their website, all to no avail. Eventually I became too wrapped up in my own problems to concentrate on tracking down my adversary - I would like to think I matured in this regard OH PLEASE! A KID IN PRESCHOOL IS MORE "MATURE" :P So I was unprepared for this chance meeting with the Artist Formerly Known As Spike Liberty, and I was most certainly unprepared for his diffident attitude.

And then, the finishing move: I was trying to gather myself for a counter-attack when Chantal rushed up to us from the other side of the dance floor, waving and squealing like she had done at Abso-Fit. For a second her perfect white smile flashed in my direction, but then she continued past me and wrapped her arms around Matt's neck, planting a girlish smooch on his cheek and telling him, "we packed the place, Matty, just like you said we would."

Well there you have it, I thought to myself. Not only is Matt the boyfriend, he's also the manager for Chantal's band. Suddenly I was no longer in a mood to argue. No point in worrying that you left your pistol at home on the morning of the big duel, not when your opponent goes and drops an H-bomb on your noggin.

"And lookee here!" Chantal exclaimed, turning in my direction. "Even Poker showed up tonight!" She grinned giddily at her boyfriend, and then did a double-take on my crutch. "Shit, dude, what happened to your foot?"

"Long story," I muttered.

With the battle lost, there was little left but for me to be sociable and make the most of the night. Matt, Chantal and I talked briefly about the night's set, and how the other bands were obviously inferior to Betty Rage. "Paul, my man," Matt said with obvious pride, "you're getting in on the ground floor tonight. This here's the face of the next wave of punk rock." It took me a moment to realise Matt was actually talking about Chantal, and not himself.

Chantal laughed. "Listen to this guy," she said. "He sounds like a fuckin' commercial!" Her eyes then swept from me to Matt, and then back again. "I still can't believe it. Me, accidentally tracking down Matt's old partner in crime!" The odds were pretty steep, I had to agree.

At last Matt excused himself and his girlfriend, saying that they had to go prepare for the show. "Don't go anywhere," Matt said. "We need to talk after the set." Matt needn't worry about me leaving right away - a man hobbling on a crutch is no paragon of mobility. Besides, there was a bar readily available for me to order from, which was good because for the first time in years, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to drink myself into oblivion.

Distractions, distractions. Maia just called, asking me to run a few errands for her this afternoon as she is working another double shift. We also talked again about what we can do for cheap Christmas gifts. We're a little tight this year because Maia's student loans just started coming due over the summer, and we're trying to stick to an accelerated repayment plan which is going to leave us pretty well frill-less for the next eight months. Maia's family is from India and they don't celebrate Christmas (lucky Hindus), but gift-giving is a pretty big deal with my sainted mudder and fadder this time of year, to say nothing about my in-laws up in the hinterlands. It has caused a bit of friction, especially since Maia hasn't had any time for shopping since the beginning of December, and with the five inches of snow outside, I'm not much good for lugging Christmas purchases. It's a problem.

Strange - after two years of marriage I am still amazed by how much of my time is taken up with all of these picayune dramas. Some days are great, but other times I feel like we're constantly revising the same old peace accord. I don't have much of a track record when it comes to relations with women (as you are acutely aware by now, Darcy), and to be honest, I never really foresaw myself getting married. I'm glad it happened, but it still feels bizarre. As for Maia, she has been suspicious of commitment ever since plans for an arranged marriage fell apart several years ago. I am not really allowed to go into detail about this, but suffice to say I'M NOT REALLY ALLOWED TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT THIS. Basically, I try to tread lightly when and minor issues threaten to become major dilemmas.

Music is one of those minor issues. I have shown Maia my record collection and played her as much of the Murderburger demo tape as she can tolerate in one sitting, but otherwise I have not bothered to tell her much else about my days playing hardcore punk. Just as well, really, seeing as her main impression of punks come from the squeegee kids who run up to her car when she drives downtown. Thankfully, I have a workshop where I can listen to all the guitar-driven noise I want. My father once told me when I was a kid: "The secret to a long marriage is separate clubhouses." Dad has his model train sets in the attic, and Mom has her library in the back room. They celebrated their thirty-third anniversary last year, so I take my dad's advice seriously.

Maia might not care much for the music I played, but she has suggested that I must have gotten "boatloads of girls" when I was in a band, which of course is ludicrous - if anything, my being a punk was an impediment to getting laid. I have tried to tell her that I got into the punk scene because of the music, but of course she thinks I'm being ridiculous. Everyone thinks I'm being ridiculous when I say that, come to think of it. What do you do when no one believes your version of the truth? You either lie, or you learn to shut up. And I'm a lousy liar.

At first I was not all that impressed with the headliner's set that night. Betty Rage the band consisted of Chantal and four male backing musicians dressed in the standard alt-rock uniform of thrift-store shirts and worn-out jeans and bed-head bangs. Musically it was pretty workman-like: all mid- to upper-mid tempo verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus with an occasional interesting bridge. The band's sound was salvaged somewhat by the chunky barre-chording and surprising solo leads of the main guitar player: a tall, yellow-haired scarecrow who looked oddly familiar, though I had trouble placing the face.

Chantal, of course, was the real star of the concert, with her cherubic smile and throaty vocals that recalled Debbie Harry at her toughest-sounding. Dressed in black fishnet stockings and a bright red bikini top, and wielding a dominatrix horsewhip to obvious effect, Chantal was impossible to look away from: moving from one end of the stage to the other, tapping a male patron here and there with her bundled horsewhip like a queen knighting lucky strangers at random. The other band members hardly deigned to look at the crowd in the pit, but when Chantal fixed her practiced gaze on you, her eyelids narrowed like twin bear-traps about to close; your own stare in turn was fixed, helplessly tracking her every movement, every sly smile and thrusted hip like a secret code communicated to you alone. Not surprisingly, the loudest cheers came from the men in the audience, though the inevitable coterie of girl-power punkettes who limned the edge of the stage were making a noise of their own.

Near the end of the set the songs became noticeably stronger. I was surprised by how Chantal threw herself into one number entitled 'Solitary Confinement', where she broke away from her catlike confidence and started dancing and shaking like an unselfconscious teenager, the microphone held before her like a hairbrush while we, the audience, became her mirror. She even growled when she reached the song's chorus: "I'm in.... solitary confinement!" The next song, 'Demolition Girl', was even more powerful, with the guitarists really leaning into the riffs while Chantal's dance became a hopping frenzy. Without a pause the band throttled into their set closer, which I learned afterward bore the odd title 'Night In Venice'. The song was a basic E-E-A-D chord pattern, but it felt more primal than simplistic, and it was as if the audience had morphed into cavemen howling around a great fire, with Chantal as Pebbles Flintstone with a bone in her hair chanting gooba-gooba nonsense while sparks crackled from the burning logs and shot heavenward into the steaming night.

So Betty Rage won me over, despite my initial reservations. The many beers I was sucking back certainly helped to blur my judgement, but nonetheless I was convinced that I had seen potential greatness. I wobbled forward to tell Chantal how good the band sounded, but I was blocked by the admirers already gathered around her, babbling and praising while she grinned and acted the part of the startled ingenue. When pushing my way through the throng proved fruitless, I rolled sideways to the unoccupied part of the stage lip where the scarecrow guitarist was wrapping cables and otherwise being ignored by the reverie. Up closer to the stranger, my eyes widened as I finally matched a name to the face.

"Greg!" I shouted. "Greg Dunhaven! It's me, Paul! Holy shit, I haven't seen you since that last gig with The Nothings at Sunflower!"

Greg turned and eyed me suspiciously. His stony face shifted and evinced the slightest bemusement at the bloated, crutch-propped form of his fellow Morganfielder. "Fuck, Paul," he said with the perfect timing of a natural musician. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I got old!" I shouted back. "What the hell's your excuse?"

Unfortunately the conversation was brief, as the next band was coming on stage and urging Greg and the other members of Betty Rage to a hasty exit. I turned toward Chantal and saw she was signing one male fan's bare torso with a magic marker, tracing a bubbly heart around his left pectoral. As I contemplated struggling forward so I could gush to Chantal as Chantal had gushed to me earlier in the week, I felt a firm grip on my upper arm. I swerved around, thinking that a bouncer was about to eject me from the premises for crimes unknown. Instead I came face to face with Matt Miller, whose expression was all business.

"Come with me, dude. We gotta talk."

Shit. Where's a bouncer when you need one?

Matt and I were perched at the front bar. I ordered two pints of the cheapest beer on tap and began siphoning the contents of the first glass while keeping a protective hand curled around the second. Matt, meanwhile, had the audacity to order a mineral water. "What are you, fifty?" I said to him.

"Designated driver," Matt replied. "You think I'm letting the Betty Rage kids pilot the van, you're crazy."

Our voices were raised over the rumble behind the curtain dividing the bar from the concert room, where the hidden band was starting off with what sounded like a cover of Johnny Cash by way of Motörhead. On the television behind the bar, CityTV was showing the movie "Airplane!" - Leslie Nielsen was poking his head into the cockpit, wishing Striker the pilot good luck and reminding him: we're all counting on you.

"So, Paul," Matt said, "besides the leg thing and all, how you been?"

I gave Matt a few sentences summing up my post-Murderburger activities. Once I was finished, Matt enthusiastically launched into his own back-story, lingering over the details of Groove Incorporated with a mix of pride and a surprising exasperation.

"We were on the cusp, Paul. We had club dates lined up in Belgium and the U.K., our manager was in discussions with Fatboy Slim's people about doing a re-mix. The second album was just a mess, though. Every idea I brought to the table, the other guys shot down. I was just the rapper for the group. A fucking jester, for crying out loud. Like, why don't I just dress up in a clown suit and juggle?"

I nodded and gulped my beer. I recalled the video that Groove Incorporated did for their song 'Scream in Velvet'. Matt had little to do but hop on stage in his ridiculous black kimono while twirling his baton-mic, adding a perfunctory rap before the final chorus. He seemed more than a little angry, no doubt because (as I well knew) he wasn't used to being ignored.

"I kept saying: guys, bring in a guitar on the chorus here, just two power chords. Some distortion, a little traction to offset all the synth presets. Then The Prodigy comes on the scene with 'Firestarter' and the guys are all 'Wow, that's what we should be doing!' Yeah, sure, it's a fine idea now that someone else has proved it can move units. Typical Canadian short-sighted me-too-ism. I really thought they were better than that. Now the Groove guys are moving to England trying to re-start the project. Good luck with that, you jerks!"

Since Matt had unofficially gone "on hiatus" from Groove Inc., he had been biding his time and his creative instincts, in the interim going through his own jazz phase (Matt favoured Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck while I had gone with John Coltrane and Charlie Mingus). He then had "a careerist freak-out" and decided to quit music altogether, taking on a low-level administration position at Nana Nummies' corporate office in Mississauga - his father was still estranged from the company, but Matt was welcomed by senior management like a prodigal son. He lasted a full five months before having another freak-out and quitting without so much as giving his notice.

"I hated every minute at Nana," Matt said. "The drive in the morning, the lousy coffee, the mindless prattle with the other cubicle drones, the board meetings ('bored' meetings is more like it), the commute back home, day in and day out. I'm pretty sure they were fast-tracking me to management, so I probably should have stuck it out. Still, everyone I worked with just seemed, like, resigned. Like being at Nana was their fate. Like their lives were just some sort of prison sentence: doing time, regardless of the crime. Photos of your loved ones clipped to the divider wall, donuts on Friday morning, a birthday here, a retirement party there, talk about what was on TV last night. The same boring shit every single day."

I swam to the bottom of my beer glass and ordered another, sneaking a glance at the television behind the bar. On screen, the airliner had touched ground and was careening across the tarmac. Frenzied passengers were scrambling to keep up with the out of control plane: Now boarding at Gate Ten... Gate Eleven... Twelve...

"And I'll tell you one thing. If I ever have to go through another conversation with people talking about what they would do if they ever won the lottery, I swear I'll shoot myself in the head!"

I listened to Matt's spiel, nodding in agreement. The funny thing is that I had actually been following the saga of the Nana Nummies corporation over the past few years, through my readings of the business section of the Saturday edition of The Globe And Mail (this was the one remaining habit of mine dating from my aborted tenure at York University - well, that and my fetish for women in Oxford shirts). Over the years, Matt's dad had not been the only board member pushing for US expansion, but the resulting turmoil from the failed Buffalo franchise attracted unwanted attention from Nana's American competitors. The first to strike was McDonald's, who launched a ridiculous lawsuit in 1994 claiming that the "Mc" in Cheezy McBeef's name was a copyright infringement (no doubt there is a follow-up suit in the works against the entire country of Scotland for the same offense). After a six month slog through the courts the lawsuit was settled when Nana's board members agreed to change the character's name to "Cheezy Beaver" which, as you probably recall, was a public relations disaster of the highest order - even now, I'm sure that franchise managers and wait-staff have to contend with drunken college kids staggering in night, asking to "see some cheesy beaver." Anyway, they changed the name again to simply "Cheezy," and everything seemed fine for a few weeks, but then Chuck E. Cheese launched a lawsuit claiming that the Cheezy character was too similar to their own furry mascot. Nana Nummies ended up dropping Cheezy altogether along with Frenchie Fry, even though his character never came up during any of the court proceedings. I remember reading an editorial saying that dropping the "racist holdover" of Frenchie Fry was long overdue, but otherwise no one really noticed.

While the head office was busy with all of the lawsuits and bickering, the family clientele that used to go to Nana Nummies started drifting toward their Disneyfied competitors. Chuck E. Cheese and McDonald's and Burger King offered built-in children's playgrounds along with the food and frolic, and eventually the overall Nana brand was considered too dull and hokey for most kids - second-hand board games were simply no match for skee-ball alleys and three-level crawling tube mazes. Last I checked, the Nana empire had shrunk from forty branches across Canada to a mere eleven scattered across Ontario and parts of the Maritimes. "The Sunshine Funtime Hour" has long ceased production, and the more recent television advertisements have taken on a desperate air: all of a sudden the chain is "A Proudly Canadian Eating Experience," as if Sir John A. himself had patented the deep-fryer. Perhaps Matt was wiser than I give him credit for, getting away from Nana Nummies for a career in rock'n'roll. Or maybe middle management simply didn't suit the one-time Morgie wunderkind.

"I can go back anytime I want," he continued. "They love me at Nana. But anytime I get too complacent, all I have to do is remember the time I was stuck on the 409 near the airport listening to Radiohead's OK Computer (you don't own that, Paul? Shit, go get a copy of that album. It's Nevermind times ten, I'm serious). Anyway, that song 'No Surprises' came on, and I realised: the people I work with, the people that live in all these cookie-cutter houses in the suburbs, that's all they care about. To not be caught off-guard by another crisis. I was crawling through traffic on a cloudy afternoon breathing exhaust from all the tractor trailers around me and all I can hear is that chorus: 'No alarms / And no surprises...' Right there, I said: there's got to be a better way than - this!"

I kept silent throughout most of Matt's speech. I tried to picture the mood at Nana Nummies, which had to be even grimmer than the slate-coloured picture that Matt was painting. If I had really wanted to stir the shit, I would have asked him how he had secured a position at the corporate office when I knew that the same office had laid off thirty people back in December 1996 (Merry Fucking Christmas, indeed!) Instead I coasted on my alcohol high while Matt proselytised.

"I met up with Greg and Chantal just after I quit. Since then I've been managing them, renewing my old club contacts and getting back in the game. Luckily I've got some cash put aside, but for now I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep from having to go back to Nana." At this point Matt had to shout over the noise and guitars from the adjacent room. "It's a lucky stroke you showed up. I've also been thinking about all these Murderburger CDs we sent out back in 1991. You know you can still buy them in stores across Ontario? I'm thinking, maybe it's time to make a second go at it. Seeing Chantal and the guys having fun on stage has got me thinking: it might be time for me to get back on stage as well."

On the television screen, the plane had finally screeched to a stop on the battered tarmac. Again, Leslie Neilsen opened the cockpit door, wishing Striker the pilot good luck: we're all counting on you.

"I had no idea Greg was back in Canada," I said, hoping to change the subject. I knew what was coming, but I was hoping to ward it off nonetheless.

"He and Pete Hammond were in New York for two years, but nothing happened. But he's come back at the right time. Betty Rage is going places." Matt took a sip of water, and returned to the subject at hand. "Fuck it. We've gotta get Murderburger back on track, Paul. The time is right. The Offspring and Green Day made punk rock legit; clubs aren't afraid to book it anymore. It's not like 1990 when you had to go begging for shows."

"Why not play with Betty Rage?"

"They've already got a singer. I just write some of their songs. I mean, for god's sake don't tell Greg and the guys I said this, but let's face it: Chantal is Betty Rage. But forget about that. Look, Paul, we've got seven years of advance advertising sitting in record shops across the province, and it's easier selling a reunion act than a new band even if no one's heard of the act re-uniting."

"I'm not dropping my day job for a punk band, Matt." My head was distorted with booze. The pilot and the stewardess were kissing on the television screen, cameras spinning around them.

"I never said anything about quitting a job. I just wanna kick out some jams again. For now we can just do it for shits and giggles, and see what happens. We could open for Betty Rage, even. Betty's getting gig offers across town right now \- it'd be easy."

I thought for a minute about my upcoming weekend: some television, reading a book, brunch with my parents on Sunday where I would get to field the usual inquiries into my continuing single status. My mother would have a friend of a friend with a single daughter just starting second year business studies at Ryerson. No alarms and no surprises.

"Tell you what," Matt said, his arm around my shoulder in that buddy-buddy stance so familiar to drunks in a downtown bar. "Sunday afternoon there's a gig happening down on College Street. It's a farewell show for a band called The Lagerheads, heard of them?" He continued talking even before I could answer. "You come down, I'll get you in for free because I know Andre, the band's singer. Come check it out and tell me what you think. Think of it: a new band taking up where another band leaves off. How about it, 'Poker Cartwright'?"

"I thought we were an old band," I mumbled drunkenly. At that moment Greg Dunhaven sauntered over with a half-filled pitcher of Budweiser, and the thread of the conversation was lost. The three of us exchanged war stories about the Morgie scene, and Greg briefed me in on his stay in New York. I was so completely shitfaced by this point that I can only remember fragments of what transpired afterward, though I do clearly remember Matt and the members of Betty Rage driving me home somewhere around 1:30 a.m. and Chantal giving me a hug and a kiss on the cheek as I was poured through the front door of my apartment. Matt drew out directions to the club on a piece of paper and folded it into my shirt pocket before waving goodbye. I somehow knew even then that Murderburger was going to take shape again somehow, rising like a phoenix out of the proverbial ashes. Like Chantal had said about the Borg: resistance was futile.

Now you may be wondering, Darcy, as any sane observer might wonder in kind: why in god's name would I ever consider re-joining Spike Liberty in repeating past mistakes, no doubt leaving myself open to further humiliation and disappointment? I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of a coherent answer, other than the fact that at that point in time, my ego needed a bit of re-inflation. I had a safe but low-paying job, I had a quiet but dull life. I had the body of a seventy-year-old and the desire of a twenty-year-old trapped within. That silly little punk concert had awakened some of those slumbering urges, and not all of them were artistic - Chantal had not been the only attractive woman at that show at the Cameron House, and like a long-dormant furnace my libido was beginning to kick up some heat. I also thought about Greg Dunhaven and how alive he looked up on stage sawing away on that beat-up Fender guitar of his, and how dead I felt lying on that mattress in my crypt-like apartment, the darkened room swirling around me like a pool of water sloshing down a drain. I knew I was going to be persuaded against all evidence and reason on Sunday to go back into music, and perversely I was looking forward to it. More than his words, really, what I remembered most from that night was the way Matt's eyes lit up in their sockets while he talked, afire with childish mischief and alive with possibilities. I wanted to see where that glimmer of possibility would lead, were it given a chance to be fulfilled. Bottom line, life was simply more interesting when Matt was around.

And besides, I was also pretty drunk. Did I mention that?

• • • •

### 16.

Merry Christmas, Darcy Vandenheuval. I hope Santa was generous to you this year and brought you all sorts of Yuletide goodies, as opposed to the coal he usually deposits in your stocking. Maia and I spent the twenty-fifth up at my parents' house in Morganfield, getting a lot more gifts than what we gave out in return. There was a minor tiff when Maia got stuck helping my mother and aunt with the cooking while my father and I checked out the newest additions to the train sets in the attic, including a new mountain tunnel and a freight car for transporting automobiles (my old Hot Wheels cars! I wondered what had happened to them), and we had to rush back home so Maia could get ready for work at 7:00 a.m. the next morning, so the traditional Boxing Day brunch was scuttled. Otherwise, it was a pleasant visit with the folks TOO BAD MY WIFE HAD TO SPEND ALL AFTERNOON SWEATING IN THE KITCHEN WITH MY PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE MOTHER HOVERING OVER HER LIKE A HAWK, MEAN WHILE I GOT TO PLAY WITH TOY TRAINS IN THE ATTIC! BEING A MAN IS AWESOME!

So now it's Boxing Day, and Maia's at the hospital for another double shift. I'm spending the morning looking out across the snow-covered yard in front of the apartment building, watching the traffic trundle by on the roads below. This apartment is definitely a step up from the old crypt I used to live in over on Broadview, but Maia is obsessed with buying a house as soon as we can afford one. There are a few inexpensive fixer-uppers around Leslieville (well, inexpensive by Toronto standards), but Maia is adamant about moving out to the boonies where the real estate is cheaper and the lots are bigger. It's amazing, really: not long ago I was collecting welfare, and now I'm feeling almost middle class. Thank goodness for old vendettas against lousy entertainment writers to keep my life on track while the world around me morphs and mutates at such a dizzying speed.

I had to travel straight from the Sunday brunch with the family up in Morganfield to the club on College Street where The Lagerheads were playing their afternoon farewell show. Matt was in front of the club playing old Ramones and Clash songs on an acoustic guitar, his guitar case open beside him with an old sign saying "No Spare Change, Please!" It was the same sign from when Matt pulled this stunt back in Morganfield days, the cardboard edges curled like the sides of a dead leaf, the masking tape yellowed and cracked. Sure enough, passers-by were thoughtlessly tossing spare change into the case, and Matt repeatedly stopped and asked them to remove the offending currency. One man, a chain-wearing Euro-trash thug with an exaggerated accent, was so angry that he even threatened to punch Matt "right in the chops, yo," for even suggesting that he pick up his tossed quarters. After the man had left, Matt quickly scooped out the money and shoved it into my hand. "Some people don't appreciate a good joke," he said to me with no trace of disappointment.

The club was late in opening up, so I stood around leaning on my walking stick watching Matt strum and sing. Eventually something about Matt playing out on the chipped concrete sidewalk started to bother me: the idea of duping innocent strangers, the useless cruelty inherent in the charade - whatever the problem was, I couldn't pin it down. Finally I heard the latch on the club's front door being unlocked from inside, and to my relief Matt packed up his guitar. I was impatient to get inside, get the concert over with along with the negotiations with Matt about re-starting Murderburger.

The room filled up quickly. Matt commandeered a booth in the back corner, where we were soon joined by Greg Dunhaven and Jonez, the bassist from Betty Rage. Matt also introduced me to a burly metalhead named Doug Morello, otherwise known as "Doog" ("like 'good' spelled backwards," he explained). Doog played drums for Infinite Blasphemy, a Mississauga-based death metal band that was reforming for the first time since they initially broke up in '92. He sat with us in the booth and handed me a few promo stickers with the Infinite Blasphemy logo written out in that incomprehensible flame-lettered font that metal groups like to use. "I know Andre and the Lagerhead guys from way back in the day," Doog said in his gravelly voice. "I was part of the security crew working an anti-racist benefit show the Lagerheads were playing, the one The Punkaholics were supposed to play."

"I remember that show," Matt said. "Me and my crew got down there and everyone was telling me how Hork had bailed on them in London and got arrested. Man, what a rip-off." Matt was referring to Hork's arrest in 1993 for a string of break-ins around Hamilton and Brantford. He had been living like a fugitive for over a year, crashing on peoples' couches and playing occasional Punkaholics shows until the cops finally found Hork sleeping in a hayloft somewhere outside of Cambridge. After his release from Joyceville Penitentiary, Hork disappeared from the scene completely, leaving behind nothing but rumours as to his whereabouts. In any case, the prison sentence meant that he was effectively no longer a member of The Punkaholics, though from what I understand the band did make a fair bit of money off of their "Free The Mighty Hork!" tee-shirts.

"It was a shame," Doog said. "Jake pissed off a lot of people that night. I remember that interview in Now where Jake talked about fighting skinheads in Parkdale back in the eighties. 'We gotta carry the fight to their home turf', and all that crap. The promoters were terrified - probably expected Jake and the gang to show up with some of Hork's biker pals in tow, waving chains and all. Instead everyone stayed inside the club talking about the four boneheads sitting on the apartment stoop across the road, smoking cigarettes and trying to pick a fight with anyone who looked their way. Four lousy boneheads had everyone cowering indoors like frightened bunnies, while everyone else was bitching about how Jake Punkaholic's band couldn't be bothered to show up - "

Matt sat forward, interrupting Doog. "I felt bad for Andre," he said. "Two of the hippie chicks on the organising committee kept bugging him to go talk to the boneheads, like he could convince them to go away. Andre kept saying, 'But I'm not even a skinhead!' but then one girl pointed to his shaved head and said, 'Of course you are!' and everyone standing around Andre were like, Gotcha!"

I listened to Doog and Matt reminisce, not mentioning the fact that even I have trouble telling skins from guys with shaved heads. The Lagerheads' best-known song was called 'Don't Call Me Skinhead', but anyone watching them straggle onto stage would have been confused. The band members wore Doc Marten-like boots and work jeans, and all but one member had hair longer than a brush cut. The bass player even wore a button-down shirt that looked strikingly familiar to the Ben Sherman shirts favoured by both racist and non-racist skinheads. Even though I knew the history of Skinhead culture - how it had a mixed-race origin back in late sixties England, and how even some of the modern North American followers of the movement insisted that the Neo-Nazis were an aberration that didn't represent "true" Skins - I still had that nervous quiver in my stomach similar to what I felt back at the White Power show I accidentally stumbled into in North York back in 1989. For all of my complaining about how ordinary Canucks can't tell a real punk from a kid with access to a jar of Manic Panic hair dye, I have never been totally clear on what separates the dress code for an everyday skinhead from that of a neo-Nazi (calling them "boneheads" instead of skinheads doesn't help all that much). I had also heard the stories about Jake and Hork chasing down skinheads in Parkdale back in the Eighties when The Punkaholics were living in Toronto, and I often wondered if they bothered to differentiate between the two; the boots'n'braces might have been enough to make any white kid a target. It was reassuring, I guess, to believe that I wasn't the only supposed insider who got confused.

As we were drinking and talking, one of Matt's crazier acquaintances to approach our side of the room. "Freaky!" Matt said, shaking his hand and introducing the people around the table. "So what's the news?"

Freaky Gonzales was one of those familiar faces I had seen at other shows, but had never actually met. He always wore a trademark bowler hat pulled tightly down over his clown mop of curly black hair, and an open trenchcoat over some tee-shirt that usually bore an ironic cultural reference of some sort - this afternoon, the reference was Michael Jackson, in the form of what looked like a vintage iron-on that dated back to Jackson's Thriller album (a cartoon word-balloon was hand-scribbled over Michael's head saying "Thank Heaven for Little Boys!") With his short, stocky build and mannered yet emphatic diction, Freaky resembled a nervous troll who was frantically searching for the bridge that he lived under before he was caught by the local villagers.

"I'm recruiting people for a project," Freaky announced. "You know how The Lagerheads have that most wonderful piece of tuneage called 'Don't Call Me Skinhead'? I happen to know that they will be finishing the set - their last set ever, I might add - with this fine song. Now, I have been on a one-man campaign to uncover the underlying fallacy of this otherwise excellent musical morsel, and this will be our last chance to reveal this fallacy to the world."

"What fallacy?" I asked.

"The fallacy," Freaky explained between gulps of air, "that 'Don't Call Me Skinhead' is the exact same song as the much better-known 'You Are My Sunshine'!" He sang the chorus from the former tune followed immediately by the chorus from the latter, and the melodies were startlingly similar. "Sir Andre is well-aware of my ongoing campaign, and he insists that the two songs have nothing in common. Tonight, gentlemen, we must take to the stage and demonstrate to Andre and everyone else that they are one and the same! Who's with me?"

Matt immediately volunteered his service to the cause, and mine as well, despite my meager protests. Doog and Greg and the others at the table politely refused, pointing to their beers. I reluctantly got up from my comfortable chair and followed Matt and Freaky and his entourage of saboteurs stage-ward. Meanwhile The Lagerheads were banging out chords and tuning their instruments, and fans were pushing inward at the front of the stage in that familiar rise of expectation, and I felt in kind the excitement of a punk rock concert about to begin with its loud guitars and hammering drums and shout-coarsened voices, the bodies gathered around vocal mics and jostling for position in the pit.

The Lagerheads played standard issue Oi punk, all four-chord riffs with growled singalong choruses. In all the years the band had been together, it sounded as if they had never mastered more than one tempo. All the same the Lagerhead fans and friends hollered and cheered as if they were witnessing The Beatles playing The Cavern Club in Liverpool, and their energy made for a much more lively show than I had otherwise expected. Andre was smiling and laughing between songs, even as he rolled his eyes after certain verses, seeming almost embarrassed by the audience's enthusiasm.

"And now the moment you've all been waiting for," Andre muttered into the microphone. People in the pit started singing the chorus to 'Don't Call Me Skinhead', and Andre paused and chuckled, looking strangely defeated - it struck me that only now was he realizing that this truly was the band's last concert.

I felt a hand grab my shirt sleeve, and turned to see Freaky's madman grin. "We gotta hurry, my good man," he said right before the Lagerheads started into the opening verse.

Freaky marshaled us onto the left end of the stage behind the bass cabinet. From where I was standing the audience jumping with arms linked, an unbroken wall of sweat and smiles like a wave crashing against a sheet of glass. We waited through the main verses and solo break before we made our move - Andre saw Freaky approaching the microphone at the final chorus and he shook his head, warning him off helplessly even as Freaky and Matt and I muscled our way in. Even as Andre sang the chorus into the lead mic, Freaky was shouting his contrary version into the bassist's microphone, which the bass player had ceded with an obvious bemusement:

"Don't call me skinhead / don't put me down ..."

"You are my sunshine! / My only sunshine ..."

"'Cause I got a shaved head / don't make me a nazi clown ..."

"You make me hap-py! / when skies are gray ..."

Our counter-vocal eventually overwhelmed Andre's lead once audience members caught on. The final chorus repeated three times, and by the end the entire room was singing 'You Are My Sunshine' in a unified, beer-breathed vocal. Even Andre, the last hold-out, was finally trading off with his lead adversary, playing Sonny to Freaky's Cher:

"I am your sunshine / your only sunshine..."

"You make us happy / when skies are gray ..."

The final chords crashed in a resonating finale, at which point Freaky grabbed Andre in a brotherly bear hug while shouting "Lagerheads!" As the two men hugged I saw Andre wipe his eyes with his free hand. It was a good thing his back was to the audience when he did this; otherwise they would have seen him crying.

The party continued for several hours afterward. Andre was holding court in the back room around a tapped keg of beer, dispensing mugs of frothing ale like a king sharing the victors' spoils with his generals. On hand for the rewards were Matt, myself, Freaky, Bill Steever from The Lagerheads (he was the one in the Ben Sherman shirt), and Doog who had wandered in looking for us after the set. With the afternoon show over, many of the punks and skins had left the club, and neighbourhood regulars had taken over their familiar stools at the bar along with their rotating soundtrack of The Doors and Bachman Turner Overdrive. We were all gathered round the sweating keg nonetheless, laughing and carrying on, oblivious to the typical drinker misery next door.

Andre and Bill told stories about the Lagerheads' two North American tours, which mainly consisted of the band living out of a van for months at a time while they drove back and forth across Canada and the U.S. looking for shows to play. Sometimes they had stayed in a certain town for days or even weeks when the van broke down and awaited repair. The guys would take jobs painting houses, landscaping, dishwashing, whatever it took to earn the money for fixing the van to get them to the next city. Bill mentioned eating at soup kitchens, and Andre and Bill started arguing over whether it was right for them to do so - Andre insisted that soup kitchen food should be reserved for the homeless and "other poor people who really need it," Bill countered that at the time the band members were homeless themselves, and Andre said that it wasn't the same thing. I got a sense that they had gone through arguments like these for years; this relationship had no doubt been the essential core of The Lagerheads. Now the band was over, and Bill was moving to Vancouver to go to university, while Andre was either starting a new band or else going to college in Toronto to study "something technical, like Air Conditioner or T.V. Repair" - the way he kept revising his story made me wonder if even Andre really knew what he was doing next.

While Andre was vacillating, Freaky pointed in the direction of the main bar. "Gentlemen," he said, "one of us really needs to get the bar staff to change the stereo. The Doors are a blight upon the virgin ear."

"I fucking hate The Doors," Matt added. "That sixties bullshit just won't die."

"I like The Doors," Bill said feebly. Andre glared as if he wanted to re-form The Lagerheads then and there just so he could kick Bill out again. "What?" Bill said. "'Light My Fire' is a good song!"

"'Light My Fire'," Matt said coolly, "is two Tesla at best."

"Three Tesla," Doog said. "Though on 'L.A. Woman' The Doors did reach four."

Matt Miller stopped and explained to the rest of the group how he and Doog had devised the Tesla Scale Of Rock, a.k.a. the Tesla Scale Of Rockingness, over bong hits at a party at Freaky's house the previous month. All bands, they insisted, registered somewhere on the Tesla Scale, which measured how hard and heavy the band "rocked" during a particular song or overall as a group. The base measure, naturally enough, was established by the pop-metal band Tesla, which was a 1. Bon Jovi was 2 Tesla. The Rolling Stones were generally around 10. Def Leppard used to be 16, though since their album Hysteria they had dropped as low as 3. Judas Priest were a 24. The Ramones were about 33. AC/DC was somewhere between 37 and 42. At the high point of measured Tesla was Motörhead, who topped out at 51, which we all agreed was pretty rockin'.

"What about Slayer?" I asked. "If Motörhead reached 51 Tesla, then Slayer must be at least 70."

"True," Matt replied, "but a lot of that is False Tesla. Playing faster isn't the same thing as rocking harder, which is why a lot of speed-metal bands and hardcore bands don't actually register as highly as other, slower bands. Minor Threat register as 31 Tesla, and Bad Brains measure as high as 46, but that's not because they play faster."

"There's a scientific basis you have to consider, Paul." This was Doog taking up the argument from Matt. "If you've studied advanced math, you'll know that values outside of the traditional X and Y plane can be charted using multiples of the square root of -1, using vectors. False Tesla is like a vector off of the X-Y plane. It might be greater in overall length, but on the main plane it still comes up short."

Matt nodded. "Which is why Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' measures 12 Tesla despite it sounding like it's barely a 2, while Hüsker Dü's first album is so full of False Tesla that it can't even be measured properly."

Rest assured, Darcy, I was initially as baffled as anyone would have been by the explanation of the Tesla Scale. But scratch the surface of even the meanest-looking drumstick-wielding rock monster and you're bound to find the biggest music nerd you could ever hope to meet. Whether it's arbitrarily inventing measurement standards for "rockingness" or arguing over whether the third chord in 'Louie Louie' is an E-minor or an E-minor-7th, nothing is quite as entertainingly dweeby as music geeks riffing on a concept, especially when intoxicants are involved.

"Okay," Andre said. "If Motörhead rocks the hardest on the Tesla scale, then who rocks the least? Is there such a thing as 'Zero Tesla'?"

"It's impossible," Matt said confidently. "It's like absolute zero Celsius. Even Rick Astley measures 0.0017 at his worst."

"And Barry Manilow was around 0.6 on his song 'Copa Cabana'," Doog added with a grin. "And by the way, Matt: you mean 'Kelvin's,' not Celsius. Zero Kelvin is absolute zero."

Matt shrugged. "Same thing," he said sulkily.

"What about Elvis Presley?" I asked. "Back in his day he must have been 20 Tesla."

"True, but now you're talking about Relative Tesla." Doog scratched his beard, looking ever more like a crazed college professor. "It's like how Einstein theorised that time is relative to movement through space. An Elvis song recorded in 1958 will lose Tesla over time, much as an asteroid loses matter during acceleration. In theory, a song or band can also accumulate Tesla, though it's rare."

Freaky leaned forward in his seat, as if waking suddenly from a dream. "'Electric Avenue' by Eddy Grant," he said. "That song gets heavier every time I hear it."

"It's possible." Doog stared at the ceiling in contemplation. "We may need to notify the Institute, have them do a study."

Bill Steever leaned forward. "What about Anti-Tesla? If you have Tesla and Anti-Tesla and mix them together, what would happen?"

Doog pointed accusingly at Bill. "What do you think? Destruction of all sound. Nothing left but white noise and distortion."

"And Celine Dion," Matt added.

We all burst out laughing. I was hoping to continue the ridiculous conversation by any means necessary (would a deaf person be able to sense Tesla when in presence of music he or she couldn't hear?), but then Freaky suddenly asserted that 'Electric Avenue' was the greatest one-chord song ever written, and Matt countered that The Clash's 'London Calling' held that title. Andre pointed out that 'London Calling' had a chord change in the chorus, so it wasn't a true one-chord song, and the Tesla Scale discussion was lost in a flurry of shouted arguments.

Just then, Chantal and her decidedly non-nerdy friends had suddenly entered the room with bottles in hand, and any further discussion of vectors and chords were quickly curtailed. To my amazement, Chantal bypassed Matt and sat directly on my lap, showing me her latest tattoo: a naked woman reclining against a giant skull on her right bicep, the epidermis around the ink still shiny and reddened. She then asked me how the Lagerheads show turned out. I managed to blurt out a reply along the lines of "It was awesome," but otherwise I was pretty incoherent.

"That's what sucks about my work," Chantal said. "You miss seeing so many shows, it's not funny."

I asked Chantal where she worked. "Matt didn't tell you?" she said, surprised. "I work at Exxposure Nightclub over on Sherbourne and King. Basically I take off my clothes while a bunch of icky old men look at me and drool into their eleven-dollar beers. It's totally gross, but the pay is awesome."

"Uh, maybe I should check out your performance. Or something." I heard the words leave my mouth and I immediately recalled why I was chronically single. Chantal simply laughed it off, ruffling my hair. "Only if you promise to be nice," she said.

Chantal remained seated on my lap for the next ten minutes before rising to leave with Matt for a lift back to her apartment. Apart from my babbled inquiries I had been silent for the most part, content with my role as human upholstery. Chantal's small body pressing against my chest and fingers stroking my shoulder was slowly rendering me unhinged. Meanwhile Matt was talking to others gathered around the keg, oblivious to the scenario at our end of the room. There had to be a reason why Chantal was sitting on my lap and not Matt's. Convenience? Pity? A change of scenery?

My confusion was further deepened after Matt and Chantal had left, and Greg Dunhaven had re-entered the back room (where he had spent the last two hours, I had no idea). I asked Greg about Chantal and Matt and how long they had been dating. "They're not 'dating'," Greg said with a snort. "What are you, twelve?"

"Paul's actually 15 Tesla," Freaky said. "And I know that without even hearing him play guitar."

Greg stared blankly at Freaky. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Later in the swirl of conversation, I told Greg that Chantal had said that Matt was her boyfriend. "Oh, everyone's her boyfriend," Greg replied. I had a sense that he was unwilling to elaborate, so I left his point alone. In any case, I was quickly learning that it was best not talk to Greg Dunhaven unless it was absolutely necessary. Compared to the upbeat kid I had known back in Morganfield, Greg in 1997 was a surly, unpleasant hipster. Then again, socializing had never been Greg's strong point.

It's funny how someone's idealized image can stay frozen in memory even as the years progress, and how time filters out the contrary elements. I was talking with Maia a while back about Sikhism in India (Maia's father had a business partner who died in the Air India bombing of 1985, so it's a touchy subject at best) and I suddenly remembered a bizarre conversation Harvey Singh and I were having with members of the Jerk Chickens in Montreal when we were on our tour in 1990. The guys in the Jerk Chickens were talking in lowered voices, saying that the Quebec separatists who blew up mailboxes and killed Pierre LaPorte were nothing but terrorists, even though "no francophone would ever admit it." Harvey suddenly sat up and blurted, "You know who was one of the biggest terrorists ever? Gandhi!" Everyone stared at Harvey like he had lost his mind, and the weird comment was ignored. Only when I was having that conversation with Maia years later did I suddenly realise: when Harvinder Singh said that Gandhi was a terrorist, he was not talking about Mahatma Gahndi. He meant Indira, the Indian Prime Minister who had been assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. All of a sudden the cool kid who played drums like the guy in Bad Brains was not as cool as I remembered.

In hindsight, I should have heeded Greg's oblique warning about Chantal. However, what mattered most to me at the time was the last few sentences Chantal had told me before leaving with Matt for parts unknown: "I'm so happy you and Matt are getting back together. When Murderburger plays its first show I'm gonna be right at the front of the stage watching you."

Suddenly, I too was very happy I was getting the band back together. In retrospect Matt didn't really have to work to convince me to help re-start Murderburger. He didn't have to. Chantal gave me all the motivation I needed with two simple sentences. If Matt had planned out Chantal's intervention right down to scripting her dialogue, it would not surprise me in the least.

I was about to shut down the laptop for the night, but I just realised something. That uneasy feeling I had watching Matt busking outside the club that afternoon? It was because I was witnessing something extraordinary: for the first time I could ever recall, Matt Miller was repeating himself.

• • • •

### 17.

Good afternoon, Darcy. I am writing you today from the doghouse, i.e. a booth at the coffee shop around the corner where I am currently hiding away from my aggrieved wife, Maia Cartwright. Bear with me while I nurse a latté and collect my thoughts here.

Maia was sent home early from shift yesterday. It started when, only five minutes after she had signed on for duty at 7:00 a.m., a kid going into convulsions on an incoming stretcher threw up all over Maia's work scrubs. After she had washed up and changed, an elderly man in a wheelchair reached up and slapped her butt, announcing to everyone in the corridor that a "pretty young thing" like Maia was all the medicine he needed. Under normal circumstances Maia might have laughed it off, but instead she grabbed the old man's wrist and told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't keep his hands to himself, the next physician he would be seeing would be Dr. Kevorkian. Her supervisor, as you might imagine, was not amused, and told Maia to take rest of the day off - never a good thing to hear on the second week at a new job, especially considering that Maia had already scheduled tomorrow as her day off from work.

I did my best to assuage Maia's fears, telling her that she was not going to be fired. I pointed out that she had just put in eighty-five hours of work over the past seven days, and that hospitals in Ontario were in no position to turn away what registered nurses they have available. "You deserve an extra day off," I told her. She appeared to calm down somewhat, but then during lunch, Maia asks me how my vacation was going: "It must be nice to have two whole weeks off, even considering how easy your job is." I told her I wasn't going to go down that road again - usually that discussion led to how low my hourly pay was, and how I should press my boss for a raise. But then Maia made one of her famous conversational tangents and she started quizzing me once again about my days playing punk rock. She insisted that I must have had a lot more fun hanging out with "all those hot chicks" at the shows. "Who would have thought that years later, you'd have to settle for a humourless bitch like me," she said.

"Maia," I said. "Come on, don't talk like that."

"It's okay. I'm just saying, all those sexy little punker girls hanging out at your shows, I don't know why you ever quit music."

"I didn't quit music, the music quit me. And the girls had little to do with it, frankly."

"Yeah, right! What about - " Maia looked as if she was about to deliver some sort of grand lecture, but stopped herself at the last second. "Every guy I talk to, they say that the only reason to play in a rock band is for the girls. Are you honestly going to say you didn't?"

I countered with my usual explanations about why I got into playing music, and how few women there were in the Morganfield scene to begin with. I then asked if we could change the subject. Maia stared quietly at me across the table. Then she said in a small, childish voice, "Paul, do you like me?"

I rubbed my temples. "I married you, didn't I?"

"You didn't answer my question."

I tried to explain in the most sensitive terms that, yes, I "liked" Maia. I even held her hands between my own, the way that actors do in romantic comedies. "Maia," I said, "you are a beautiful, hardworking human being who is very tired from working double shifts at a downtown hospital. It hurts me to see you do this to yourself. You're smart, you're gorgeous - you know all that!"

Maia pulled back and made a petulant face. "You're just saying things," she said.

I could feel the beginnings of a monster headache burgeoning in my skull. I asked Maia what in the name of god she wanted to hear, and she said that she wanted me to tell her that she was prettier than "those punk girls" I used to hang out with. I asked her, "What punk girls?!" But she was undeterred.

Frustrated, I stood up from the table. "Look, you wanna know something? A lot of the women I knew back then, they were stupid. They took drugs, they drank, stayed up all night - they squandered everything they had. You work for everything you have, Maia. You don't take things for granted. You're smart enough not to give up on yourself, and that's what makes you attractive. Okay? That's what makes the difference."

"So you're saying I'm pretty because I'm smart. What the crap does that mean?"

"Maia, you're pretty because you're fucking pretty, alright? Shit, you have old geezers slapping your ass in the hallways, doesn't that count for anything?"

Sometimes I forget that the sofa in the living room has a fold-out mattress built in. I'm starting to think that it's because of some sort of memory loss due to pinching nerves in my neck vertebrae every time I sleep on it. When I woke up this morning, my back was so stiff that I could barely raise my head. On the other hand, last night's headache was gone.

When I last saw Maia, she was still asleep. I left a note on the bedspread saying that I had left the house to go over the household budget spreadsheets and took her laptop with me so she could have the morning to herself BECAUSE ITS NOT LIKE SHE MIGHT WANT TO CHECK HER FUCKING EMAIL WHEN SHE WAKES UP!!! It looks like I'm going to be writing the rest of today's entry at a safe remove while my wife enjoys her much-needed break.

I really wish I could have better explained myself. Maia is not simply attractive. She knows she's attractive, and she nurtures this; she doesn't take it for granted, much less despise it. When you have spent as many years as I have in a subculture where something as basic as beauty is considered suspect, it can be a monumental relief to meet someone who works at maintaining themselves.

In the punk scene there are people who are filled with self-loathing and revulsion, and their sole cause is causing offense to the mainstream; if the mainstream prizes health and good looks, then the opposition must champion sickness and decay. It was depressing to see kids come into the scene looking robust and energetic with youth, only to ravage themselves with every form of abuse: bodies polluted with junk food and drugs and alcohol, hair hacked, skin scarred with tattoos and piercings. In comparison, living with Maia has been a revelation. There is something weirdly life-affirming in watching a woman grooming herself in the morning: showering, dressing, smoothing and brushing her hair, making up her already lovely face. Cornball as it sounds, it's almost a refutation of mortality to prepare oneself for the day like this. We're all gonna die, after all. It's just a matter of time before the clock runs out, so would it not be more honest to simply eat and drink and fuck off from work and live every day like it's your last? Time eventually destroys you even if you don't contract a disease or get hit by a car or get stabbed by a mugger or die in some other act of random misfortune. Why try? Why strive when failure is so much easier to accomplish, when the bulk of existence is nothing but a day-to-day drudgery that only a fool could enjoy? And yet every morning, there she is: snapping wrinkles out of clothes, prepping herself for another day's worth of that same drudgery. For someone like her, that very striving that the drunk-punk ideology ridicules is instead the meat of existence, the winnable battle in an unwinnable war; living not just for today, but also for the promise of tomorrow.

For years I lived without thinking about tomorrow, because tomorrow was like a foreign country I figured I might never visit. In this regard, Maia is smarter than me; she knows enough to fight the dying of the light. Being with her makes me understand why I need to live as an exile.

I was stoked when I entered Betty Rage's rehearsal space to jam with Matt on our old Murderburger songs. I recognised everything in that crowded room as if they were old friends: the stacks of amplifiers and forests of microphone stands, the destroyed grayish brown floor carpet, the rock posters stuck chaotically to the walls, the slabs of sofa foam and egg cartons meant to act as sound baffling even though they never really muffled the noise, the lurid mix of cigarette stink and incense burned after a rehearsal or jam session smoke-up. I was especially thrilled to see Matt hooking up old Buddy Poor to a speaker cabinet \- I had not seen that black plastic box of circuits in years. I think I even said hello to it.

Matt and I jammed out an hour's worth of songs on two guitars, with Buddy keeping a metronomic beat. We had to stop and start several times while re-learning old tunes like 'Gawd Complex' and 'Metal Makeover' - chord progressions and changes that I thought I knew by heart, I had all but forgotten in the five years since the band broke up. Matt told me not to sweat it. After all, this was only the first rehearsal.

"As soon as we have a half-dozen songs learned," Matt said during a beer break, "we can start putting up ads for a bassist and drummer. We're also going to have to discuss what direction the band's going to take."

"Direction?"

"Yeah. I mean, I've been thinking: there's no point in playing straight-ahead hardcore like it's 1986. Plus, I don't know if I feel like bellowing 'Fascist Cop' at a hundred miles an hour. That's why I want to add a second guitar. If we round out the sound a little, maybe concentrate on melody more than speed, we can bring in the younger crowd while still keeping it old school."

I wish I had brought a tape recorder so I could have recorded Matt's speech, Darcy - some parts were pure comedy gold. In light of the paltry commercial potential of a reformed hardcore punk band, all of that blather about adding melodic content and slowing down certain numbers in a bid to appeal to "the younger crowd" sounded ridiculous.

More aggravating (albeit understandable) was how Matt wouldn't stop talking about Betty Rage. At the time, Matt was hard at work co-ordinating radio interviews and club dates, and laying out plans for Betty Rage to record an EP's worth of songs which he hoped to shop around to various record labels, mainly in the United States. "It would make sense to get released in the States," Matt explained. "There are far more labels down there to choose from, and most companies in Canada are simply not open to the kind of music Betty plays. If we get an American label, then coverage in Canada is bound to follow."

"Are you sure the bowling shirt crowd will go for Betty?" I was referring to what Matt liked to call "the ironic bowling shirt-wearing crowd," the alt-rock fans who outnumbered the rowdier (and poorer) punk music fans four to one. Trust me, Darcy: hang around Matt Miller circa 1997 for even ten minutes, and you too would be talking like this.

"You kidding? A hot chick fronting a rock band? It's an easy sell. Women will call it 'girl power' and idolise Chantal, while the guys will dig the music and the hot chick. Shit, after four years of Pearl Jam and Tragically Hip, the market's dying for a bit of sex and danger. It'll be like selling seal meat to starving Eskimos."

After we put away our gear, Matt told me he would set up a second Murderburger practice the following week. In the meantime, he insisted that I should take on roadie duties for Betty Rage. "I really could use your help, Paul." (Note the use of my regular name and not the nickname "Poker".) " Greg and the boys, they simply don't have that sort of focus. Even if it just means there's another set of hands to set up the amps and mics that would make a huge difference."

"What about Chantal?" I said.

"I'm sure she'd love to have you on board," Matt replied with a wink.

My duties as Betty Rage's roadie varied from night to night. I was kept busy with carrying guitars and other bits of gear to and from the van, plugging things in and helping the club's sound crew with levels and mic placement. I also sold the band's merchandise, which included Betty Rage pins, demo tapes, and tee-shirts that ranged from XXL black to pink baby tees with the band's logo embossed in hand-applied glitter. Some nights I did little except sit on the side of the stage in case there was a problem with equipment during the set. Being on stage and not playing felt a little odd, but it was nice to not have the stress of performing.

Contrary to Matt's warning, the members of Betty Rage supervised themselves fairly well. Greg Dunhaven was the most troublesome to deal with, though usually his only problem was his excessive moodiness. He tended to ignore other people, avoiding eye contact even when a fan was just trying to ask a friendly question; but when he was on stage playing, Greg seemed pretty satisfied. The other members - Jonez on bass, Fidel on rhythm guitar, and Hammer on drums - were generally easy-going. Fidel usually asked my help in adjusting his guitar amp as he couldn't hear properly in the upper register, and Jonez, who drew the band's artwork, often came to me looking for feedback on the posters he put together for the band's shows. I also got along relatively well with the band's entourage of girlfriends, associates and hangers-on such as Freaky, Doog, and several far less savory characters.

As for Chantal, I can not honestly claim that I was all that close to her during this period. Usually she was friendly with me during set-up and after the show, and once in a while she came to me for back-up if one of the male fans was hassling her and Matt wasn't available (inevitably these guys wanted to but Chantal a drink or three while they drank water or ginger ale, and they tended to work in pairs, with one creepazoid acting as an audience/backup for the main instigator.) Over time, Chantal started calling upon me as part of her act during shows. It started with her pausing between songs and asking for "Poker" to straighten the set list taped to the monitor or adjust her mic stand, and while I was crouched before her she would tell the audience, "I just like having boys at my feet!" After a while her mid-set calls became sarcastic: "Oh Poker dahling! Be a good boy and approach the stage!" My pitiful limp and stooped posture no doubt gave the audience an impression of a cowering Igor-like servitude. After shows people would comment to me laughing about my role in the proceedings, which seemed to them to be just another part of the night's entertainment. The women were the worst - the way they narrowed their eyes and smiled at me, I half-expected them to prop a dog biscuit on my nose and command me to do a trick.

From October 1997 to February the following year, Betty Rage was playing shows almost every week. Apart from the occasional one-off gig in Hamilton or Peterborough, all of the gigs were in Toronto; they hit all of the major venues including Lee's Palace, The Horseshoe Tavern, El Mocambo, and they also put their time in at the smaller clubs around Kensington Market and the Queen West strip beyond Bathurst Street. Matt got the group a mention in a year-end summary article in the Toronto Star entitled "Artists To Watch in 1998," and Chantal was interviewed by several fanzines and weblogs throughout Canada and the U.S. as well as a rock magazine in Ireland. As Matt had boasted back at that Cameron House show, his girlfriend's band certainly seemed to be "going places."

Meanwhile, I noticed that Matt was constantly delaying follow-up rehearsals for Murderburger. When Matt was not available, I jammed with members of Betty Rage - Hammer offered to play drums for Murderburger, though he did say that Betty Rage was his main preoccupation outside of his classes at Seneca College and his part-time shift at Purolator's North York depot. But Matt was more occupied with his managerial duties, and Murderburger was seeming more and more like an afterthought. At the same time, I was becoming used to my roadie duties; notwithstanding Chantal's odd abuse, I did not really mind getting into Betty Rage concerts admission-free and sharing the drink tickets and occasional snack trays in the dressing rooms. The upcoming shows gave me something to daydream about on slower days at work when Lincoln and I were waiting for orders or Hans and Abby were out of the office.

One of the most memorable gigs was one that Betty Rage didn't even get to play. It was a Valentine's Day concert at an unlicenced arts space near Queen and Dufferin Street. Betty Rage was headlining on a bill that included a new rockabilly band called Slick Critters and a retro burlesque act starring two lipstick lesbians in corsets and feather boas. Chantal had bought a red satin dress specifically for the show, with a plunging neckline and a large pink bow tied at the back. She modeled the dress for members of the band in the practice room while we were packing up equipment.

"Paul, dahling, do you like my pretty new dress?"

I meant to tell her that she looked like a walking Valentine's present, but the words came out in an incoherent stammer. "I'll take that as a yes," Chantal said with a giggle.

Matt dropped the band and I at the club around 9:00 p.m. Normally the club put on boozecan shows after 2:00 a.m., but this show was starting at midnight. As usual, however, Matt had us load in well before the starting time, so while he drove Chantal over to Exxposure for a truncated shift, the rest of the Betty Rage crew was stuck with several hours to kill after the set-up and sound-check. The other members took off to look for a pizza joint, but the ice on the sidewalks precluded my joining them in their search for food.

I bummed around the building munching on one of the sandwiches I had brought with me, and then parked myself at the unopen bar at the back of the main floor. On the stage the owners of the venue, two rotund men in form-fitting business suits, were conferring with some artists over some last-minute changes to the Valentine-themed set design. A few seats down the bar was an unblinking, intense individual who had spent several minutes staring into an empty glass until he sat up rigidly on his stool.

"Fuckin' Boy George," the man said to me while pointing at a large dreadlocked woman in heavy eyeliner behind the bar. "Doesn't wanna serve drinks, even if you ask nicely."

The woman continued prepping the bar equipment, struggling with a dispenser hose. "There's a bar down the street, buddy," she said in a hoarse rasp. "No one's tying you to your chair here."

"Fuck, you kidding? This place is full of freaks. I'm being entertained!"

The bartender made it clear that she intended to ignore him, so instead the man turned back toward me and introduced himself as Roger. Roger had been discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces in 1995 due to bad behaviour - "too many fistfights with the civvies!" he loudly explained. Since then, Roger had been bumming around the northern States, taking on odd jobs and sleeping on couches, and he was now staying with his uncle in North York for a week before heading back to his parents' house in Albany. When I asked him what he was doing at a venue where several "freaks" were about to congregate, Roger replied that his uncle had kicked him out of the house for the night and he had nothing better to do.

"I don't like punks, right? But I like the music, the aggression. Like I was in Milwaukee years ago, in this shitty little club full of people with rings in their lips and noses. Freaks, know what I mean? They were playing this Ministry shit, but then this song comes on: 'Joe man's back... Joe man's head will crack... and it's, WELCOME BACK JOE!' The lights on the dance floor went all red and green and strobing, and all the freaks come running. It's like Vietnam, middle of the fuckin' jungle, right?"

I nodded my head. "Uh-huh."

Roger snapped his fingers. "Big Black! The name of the band was Big Black. I asked the dee-jay, that's what he told me. There was something about the song - I'd thought at first it was just some homo shit about a guy coming on to this dude Joe: 'HANG with me, Joe!' and all that shit. But actually the song's about a guy who's just come out of the army. He's got nothing to do, his head's about to crack, but then a guy gives him a job working, training mercenaries. Okay? A soldier training soldiers, right? Even the song, the drum track, someone told me it has like an M1 carbine going off on the beat. Doot-doot bang! Doot-doot bang! Doot-doot bang! Doot-doot bang! Fucking hell yeah! That's what I oughta be doing!"

"Sure," I replied helpfully.

"I ask people wherever I go, you know: I'm looking for something like that, somewhere I could use those skills, okay? I can strip and rebuild an M240 rifle in two minutes thirty, clean and prep, no shit! I got skills to pay the motherfucking bills! Serious, buddy, you know anyone looking for ex-militia, I'm your man. Joe man's back!"

Part of the fun of going to punk rock shows is meeting people like Roger. You simply do not get this quality of lunatic at your typical Coldplay concert, you know?

Thankfully, I was able to extricate myself from Roger when I caught a glimpse of Wanda Pockets entering the main hall with her friends. I excused myself and worked my crippled-freak legs across the floor toward Wanda as fast as I could manage. We hugged each other like school kids and exchanged the regular introductory pleasantries ("My god, what happened to your foot?" "Long story," etc., etc.) Wanda was almost exactly as I remembered from Morganfield days: same glasses, same hair, same bulky camouflage pants. Hugging her was like hugging the past. And then she introduced her friends.

"Jasmine, Bo, this is Paul Cartwright from Morganfield. Paul, this is Bo, and this is my partner Jasmine."

"What, like a business partner?"

The women laughed. "No, Paul, my partner. You know, 'life partner'?"

A little stunned, I then asked what seemed at the time to be the obvious question: "Since when were you a lesbian?!" Wanda shook her head. "Paul, for such a smart guy, you can be pretty clueless. But that's why we like you!"

We chatted near the stairwell. Wanda was thrilled to find out that I worked with Betty Rage and that I knew Chantal, whom she continued to call "Betty" even after I corrected her. "Betty is just so beautiful," Wanda said, starry-eyed in a way she never had been for the New York Dolls or The Cramps or her other favourite bands back in high school. "You just have to introduce us when she gets here!"

Her friends were not quite as enamoured, however. "I think it's sad," Jasmine said. Jasmine was a tall, heavy-set woman with a deep-pitched voice that seemed calibrated for condemnation. "You realise she's selling her body as a stripper at that fucking shithole Exxposure nightclub."

"I don't think it's that big of a deal," Bo replied. Bo was a pan-faced woman with hard, green eyes that were set close together, like the eyes of a Victorian baby doll. "She's expressing her power as a woman, owning her beauty rather than having it taken away."

A discussion ensued, revolving around sexual dynamics and feminism - the three of them had met at a Women's Studies course at the University of Toronto and were heavily involved in the local campus politics. Wanda bragged about how she and Jasmine had participated in a demonstration where they had bared their breasts in a show of solidarity for the then-recent motion allowing women in Ontario to go topless. It is here, unfortunately, that I chose to assert myself in the conversation.

"I couldn't believe the perverts who showed up," Wanda said with a warm laugh. "Taking pictures and hooting like they'd never seen tits before."

"Well, you don't see a woman's bare breasts every day," I replied.

Jasmine squared her shoulders. "What does that mean?" she pointedly asked.

I faltered under her sudden, accusing stare. "I mean... well... you were bare-chested. Men like to look at breasts, so, ah - "

"Well they shouldn't. They're not sex objects."

"But - wait, why would the guys be staring and taking pictures if they weren't?"

Bo leaned in, smiling with aggression. "That is so sexist! Are you saying that women can't take off their shirts because men can't stop looking at their breasts?"

I grimaced and shrugged meekly. "Well - yeah! I guess?"

Just then the emcee tapped the microphone on stage and announced that the burlesque act was about to start. Wanda and her friends eagerly made their way towards the main dance floor. "I heard the redheaded dancer has a three-inch clit," Bo announced excitedly as they turned away in unison. Wanda threw back a parting glance that was simultaneously wistful and wounded before disappearing into the thickening crowd. If nothing else, it looked as if I was no longer stuck trying to introduce them to "Betty" after the concert, and so I had one less thing to worry about that night. Cherish the small victories.

By half past midnight, the warehouse was packed. There were old-school punks, rumpled alt-rockers in untucked shirts, sharp-dressed clubbers, men and women in Valentines Day costuming ranging from angel-winged body stockings to red-tinted ballerina outfits with stuffed valentine hearts clipped to the upper chest, and a few regular Joes who looked as if they had just arrived from shopping at The Gap. There was a brief disruption when the bouncers had to eject Roger from the dancefloor ("I wasn't touching the bitch!" Roger yelled as he was strong-armed toward the door) but otherwise the vibe was peaceful, a collaborative jubilation. I stood on the stairwell, watching the audience as they in turn watched the burlesque dancers and ordered illegal shots and bottles at the bar and smoked and giggled, straight couples sneaking kisses, gay couples openly groping, and here and there a woman half-dancing to the music, lost in their own private ecstasies.

Greg and Hammer sauntered through the front doors. Greg started up the stairwell toward me, grabbing me by the sleeve as he climbed the steps. "Me and Hammer are going upstairs for a smoke. Come on." I politely declined, but Greg was insistent. "You're fucking uptight, Paul. You need a smoke or I swear, I'm punching your lights out." Apprehensively, I followed Greg upstairs while Hammer, walking beside me, simply rolled his eyes and shrugged.

There were six other people in the back room on the second floor, sitting on broken furniture and drinking and smoking. The second floor doubled as a backstage area for the performers including members of Betty Rage and the Slick Critters, with the room across the hall (actually the venue owners' private apartment) being reserved for women to use as a dressing room. Framed paintings made by the owners and their artist friends lined the walls, and the musicians took turns making jokes about the artwork.

"You know what this is?" Greg said while pointing to a collage of paint strips and chalk lines. "That's four years of tuition money at OCAD flushed down the toilet. If it looks like something a two-year-old could draw, then guess what? A two-year-old probably could!"

Across the room a tall woman in an evening gown, who turned out to be the Slick Critters' bass player, said that technique was not what was important in non-representational art. "Non-representational?" Greg replied. "Art has to represent something! When you play a song, it has to mean something to people or its worthless. You need notes, you need an order for the notes, you need skill to play 'em in the right order. You don't just jam your knuckles on the fretboard and hope it makes sense on playback."

"What about John Cage?" the bass-player replied.

"John Cage?" Greg grabbed his crotch and grinned. "Cage can rub my scrote and wave my magic wand! Now that's fucking art!"

People in the room laughed and drank. I laughed as well, though the spliff I was sucking on was colouring my amusement. This was the first time I had smoked up since I had started working with Betty Rage, and the herb was far more potent than what I was used to.

"How's it hangin', Paul?" Greg plopped himself down beside me on an old sofa. "Look, I know Hitler Matt told you to keep straight while 'roadie-ing' for us" - Greg made quotation marks with his fingers as he said "roadie-ing" - "but trust me, you need to goddamn chill. When I was in New York people were always telling me that Torontonians were so wound-up that they were insufferable. And no offense, Paul, but you are as uptight as they come in this town."

"I'm not from Toronto," I gasped between coughs. "I'm from - kaff! \- Morganfield!"

Greg laughed deeply, as if his body was trying to dislodge something from his body. "'Morganfield'! Who the fuck cares?"

I handed the joint over to Hammer and struggled to stand upright. The stairs felt distant beneath my feet, my legs seeming to travel for days before landing on each step; the cane handle in my right hand felt like I was gripping it between five layers of woolen gloves. Normally I avoid drugs as a rule - not out of any strict moral stance, really; I just don't trust drugs because they usually inspire me to write really bad songs. Marijuana causes me to write long droney Velvet Underground dirges, while taking speed usually results in my turning my guitar amp's treble up full and churning out British crust-core rants by the worthless dozen. One time I tried mushrooms and I wrote out a page's worth of non-rhyming couplets about a colony of butterflies that declared war on a beehive, which was somehow meant to be an allegory about advertising versus the working class. Later I tried to atone for this misguided act of inspiration by using the piece of foolscap I used to compose the lyrics to hand-roll some cigarettes, which led to another valuable revelation: foolscap makes for really lousy rolling paper. Nevertheless, that night I felt incredibly subdued as I ambled across the half-lit dance floor like a man on the moon, grinning goofily at everyone I passed while in turn the panorama of civilisation unfolded around me like one giant fist slowly unclenching, the tension releasing into space in an endless dissipation.

On the stage one of the suit-wearing club owners, Jack, was telling the audience that his boyfriend, Arnold, was a few blocks away picking up some more last-minute supplies. "It's his birthday tomorrow morning," Jack said giddily, "so before Betty Rage go on we're going to sing 'Happy Birthday'. Can you all do that for me?" The crowd cheered in approval. I hooted and pumped my cottony fist. Arnold's birthday was tomorrow morning - that was just terrific! Who wouldn't want to sing 'Happy Birthday' to the dude?

"Excuse me," a voice called out to me as a hand tapped my shoulder with authority. "Are you Paul Cartwright?"

My head rolled upward and I sobered slightly with recognition. "That depends," I said. "Are you Steven Coleman?"

"Buddy! Great to see you!" Steve was dressed like a suburban TV father attempting a beatnik hipness, wearing a sports jacket over a black turtleneck. Beside him was a nervous-looking woman dressed in a standard-issue "sexy cop" costume including a policeman's hat, a short-sleeved security guard's shirt tied at the mid-section and a blue mini-skirt that was decidedly non-regulation despite the handcuffs clipped around the belt loops.

"Paul, I'd like you to meet Stacey, my fiancée." Stacey made a wincing smile and shook my hand. Steve told Stacey that we used to be in a band together, and he then asked me if I was still playing music. I told him that I was actually re-forming Murderburger with Matt. At the mention of Matt's name, Steve's face hardened.

"Oh man! Don't tell me you're still hanging out with that jagoff." He paused to explain to Stacey who Matt was, and how he was "the reason I stopped playing rock and roll."

Steve was particularly excited because he had just accepted a new job position earlier that afternoon. "You're looking at the newest officer of the Ontario Provincial Police, Peel division," he announced proudly. "It's taken four interviews and two physicals, but I finally made the cut."

Behind him I could see the sneers of those who had overheard his boast. Steve, of course, was oblivious. "I even got the daytime shift," he continued, "which is rare as hell for rookies. I was kind of hoping for the night shift, though. That's when the action really happens."

"Oh, we wouldn't want night shift," Stacey said through another wincing smile.

"Honey, you know what I mean." Steve caressed her shoulder. "Of course day shift is better. I'm just saying nights would be more fun." Stacey smiled back at Steve. I could see she was uneasy. Despite her sexy get-up, it was obvious that she was feeling more than a little out of place. She probably had nothing heavier than Def Leppard's Hysteria in her record collection.

"So Paul," Steve said. "I saw Betty Page's picture on the Eye cover last month. She's something else, huh?" He caught Stacey glaring at him out of the corner of his eye. "I'm just making conversation, honey!" he told her.

I answered Steve's inquiry just as a second-wind marijuana high began to flood my skull. "I'm afraid that's Betty 'Rage', not Page. Betty Page is the bondage model beloved by millions. Betty Rage is the rock group led by the diminutive Chantal Lafierre from Windsor, Ontario."

Steve squinted at me with a concerned look. "Paul, are you all right? You're acting real weird all of a sudden."

I started to blather something about working with the band Betty Rage as their roadie, but the members of Slick Critters were assembling, slapping drums and plucking guitar strings. "Good evening, cats and kitties," the lead singer said. "We are the Slick Critters, here to rock you into the wee hours of Valentines 1998! Every boy grab a girl and let's get things started!"

People surged stage-ward, and the music began, a twangy rockabilly guitar over slapped upright bass and a bare-boned snare and kick set. Steve led Stacey onto the dance floor where they embraced and danced woodenly, cheek to chest and hand in hand. Strangers swirled around me while I stared dumbfounded at the stage. The Slick Critters seemed majestic, like primitive towers looming high above, their pompadours glistening in space. The lead guitarist was King Kong with a polished Rickenbacker hollow-body in his immense gorrila mitts; the girl with the upright bass and evening gown was the Fifty-Foot-Tall Woman. The lead singer, one Connie Dury, was like a Hollywood actor cast to play a fifties rocker, down to the carefully frayed denim around the cut-off sleeves of his jacket and the spit-glimmer on the tips of his boots. The music sounded raw at first, but in fact it was painfully meticulous, as if every note was being surgically implemented. There was celebration in the songs, but no danger; all care and no dare. I was affixed to the concrete floor, square in the eye of a hollow hurricane. Betty Rage was going to blow these museum replicas clean off the elevated hardwood, no doubt in my mud-patty mind.

As if willing thought into action, I turned and saw Chantal standing at my side. There was glitter make-up caked around her eyes and cheeks, and glitter flecks in her hair like stars. She smiled at me and tilted her head at the stage as if to state the obvious: this band was not worth the ogling time.

I followed her back up the stairs to the comparatively empty second floor. "They weren't bad," I caught myself saying.

"They weren't good either," Chantal replied. She opened the door to the apartment that was the women's dressing room and paused. "Come in," she said. "I won't bite."

The room was about fourteen feet squared, with lavender paint smeared unevenly over the brick walls. In one corner was a dresser with a round mirror ringed with unlit gray light bulbs and dog-eared postcards. A poster next to the shuttered window displayed a four-foot high head shot of a dark-haired woman who looked like a 1940's movie star, the name of whom I could not recall. There was a canted wooden dresser pushed against the wall, and a closet so full of clothes that the thin wooden slat doors could not close properly, and a battered mattress with a canopy of rumpled blankets on the floor in the far corner.

"Jesus," I said. "Those two guys actually live in here?"

Chantal rifled through her heavy purse, either not hearing or ignoring my comment. "I have a few minutes until I gotta change. You can stay for a bit." She turned and exhaled with frustration. "I swear, some of the custies I have to deal with, they make me wanna take a week-long shower. And they don't even tip, the cheap fuckers."

My head felt as if it was contracting. The squalor of the small room was sobering me quickly. "Maybe I should go," I said.

"No wait, stay." Chantal took a step forward. "I hate being alone." After the immenseness of the members of the Slick Critters, it was a thrill just to be able to look downward into her eyes. "Matt is always off doing some bullshit, he's never there when he's needed."

She took another step forward, and I could sense a near-magnetic attraction between us. "If you don't mind, Paul, there's something you could help me with. You might like it, actually."

She bit her lower lip, and grinned childishly. I snuck a look at the beaten-looking bed in the corner, and back at Chantal. The room seemed to pinch around us, dimensions contracting even as possibility exploded, palpable and exhilarating.

A loud bang shot up outside the door; people were shouting over the music's rumble. I tore away from Chantal's gaze and exited the apartment, peering over the rickety balustrade. Cops were swarming in through the front entrance. The music dribbled to a halt - all that could be heard were voices murmuring and grumbling while the black-coated policemen poured into the building like malevolent viruses into a healthy blood stream.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" I said. I had intended the comment for Chantal, but she was already storming toward the bathroom at the far end of the hall, cursing as she barricaded herself inside with her over-stuffed purse.

Sobered, I made my way downstairs. The police were behind the bar, picking up bottles of liquor and yelling accusations at Jack and the bartender. I saw Steve standing with Stacey next to the deejay booth, and began pushing my way towards them, but just as soon as I was within five feet, one of the policemen had accosted Steve with a disbelieving raise of the eyebrows. "Steven!" the cop said in an astonished voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing!" Steve replied jovially. The two men, I later discovered, knew each other from a Law Enforcement course at Seneca.

"Man," the uniformed cop said to Steve. "You picked a real bad night to come here."

Steve introduced Stacey to the cop, who made an appreciative comment about her sexy cop costume. The trio of figures, police and mock-police, continued with small talk that I couldn't quite hear as they made their way towards the bar, where a man in a blue trench-coat was eyeing a bottle of green liquid and glaring at Jack with withering contempt. Arnold stood at Jack's side with a worried expression. I could only hope that his errand picking up supplies was successful.

Matt caught up with me near the lip of the stage. "Can you believe this shit?" he said, lowering his voice when his eyes met those of a nearby policeman. "Six months of boozecans, and the pigs have to bust in tonight of all nights!"

We discussed how we were going to round up the band members and make a discreet exit. Cops and civilians alike milled around the floor awaiting instructions. Finally we saw Arnold push his way through the audience and ascend the stage, a look of shock in his face.

Among the crowd, a lone voice began caterwauling: "Happy birthday to you!"

More voices joined in song. "Happy birthday to you!"

The entire room bawled in unison. Beside me, Matt's face was stretched into an open-jawed yell. "Happy birth-day, dear Ar-r-r-nold! Happy birthday to you!"

The applause was a near-deafening roar. Police officers stood aside dumbly as people clapped their hands long and hard, whistling in defiance.

Arnold smiled and waved at the crowd. "Thank you so much for that rousing rendition. This isn't how I expected to spend my fortieth birthday, but I'll take what I can get. Special thanks to Jack, whom I suspect is behind your impromptu singalong. Am I right?"

From behind the bar, Jack smiled and waved briskly. The cops, including Steve and the trench-coated officer, smirked and shuffled their feet.

"Anyway," Arnold said. "Jack and I were talking to the police, and we have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that the show is over, and everyone is going to have to leave, toot sweet. The good news is that after some negotiations, there will be no charges pressed against anyone who organised tonight's show. All the alcohol is being confiscated, and there won't be any more shows, but no one is going to jail tonight either. I would like to thank Superintendent Cross for his understanding and his flexibility under the circumstances" - Arnold held out a hand symbolically toward the officer in the trench-coat, who nodded back with professional courtesy while people in the crowd hissed - "And I would also like to thank Officer Coleman, who helped work out this deal so that everyone benefits." People hissed harder, with several hands punching space impotently next to their tensed-up bodies. "No, please, no hissing. I thank you again for coming out tonight. Everyone needs to leave in as orderly fashion as possible. Remember: don't fuck with the cops, because the cops will fuck with you. Good night, and peace be with you all."

I helped Matt and the band load up the van. Chantal perched in the front seat, shivering and glowering while we worked. I told Matt that I wanted to say good-bye to Steve, and Matt snorted. "Why do you want to talk to that traitor?" he said. "Fuck his pig ass."

"You used to be in a band with him, asshole." I told Matt and the others that I would find my own way home that night. Doors slamming, the van skidded over the slushy ice and caromed up Dufferin Street.

Back in the foyer, Steve and Stacey were talking to Superintendent Cross. As soon as he saw me, Steve excused himself and hustled me back outside. "You have no idea what strings I had to pull," he said. "Seriously, Paul, if they smell dope on your breath - dude, please tell me that's dope I see in your red eyes and not something else."

Steve turned his head just as Wanda approaching out of the corner of his eye. Jasmine and Bo were following closely behind. For a moment, Steve's face blossomed with good cheer. "Wanda!"

"I can't believe you," Wanda spat back. "I can't believe you would turn out innocent people just trying to have some fun."

Steve shook his head, regaining his composure. "What are you talking about? They were selling booze without a license!"

"You're a fucking pig," Bo said with a sneer. "You have nothing better to do but bust folks who were trying to have a good time."

"Yeah, don't you have some homeless punk kids you should be beating up somewhere?"

"Pig!"

"Oink! Oink!"

Jasmine and Bo stomped past us, escaping into the night air. Wanda soon followed, but not before glowering stone-faced at Steve and I, her facial muscles calcified with hostility.

I turned back to Steve. "I'm really sorry."

"Sorry? For what?" Steve was furious. "I'm not the one who fucked up here. The only reason no one's going to jail tonight is because of me. I don't have to feel sorry for a goddamn thing." Steve retreated back into the warehouse, and I stood in the cold for a moment watching the street lamps twinkle like crystals flaring in the freezing dark. The blue and red of police cruiser lights rolled across the storefronts along Dufferin Street, slashes of colour across a slate of gray asphalt and white crusted snow. Finally I slipped on my winter coat and hat, trod carefully over the ice and gravel with my cane and Doc Marten boots, and found my way home that night as I usually did in those days: alone.

• • • •

### 18.

I thought I'd get up a little early today and get a head start on this ongoing autobiography. Maia's back on duty at St. Michael's. The time off seems to have done wonders for her; she even got a little frisky last night, which surprised the hell out of me. I was also a little worried that Maia was going to be late this morning, what with her taking longer than usual to shower and get dressed, giving me the eye all the while. She was even singing to herself. Yesterday she was accusing me of getting it on with punk groupies, and this morning she couldn't keep her hands off of me. I will never understand women. <\-- AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH?! :) Anyway, back to the blah-blah-blah.

Around late April in 1997 I got a phone call from an agitated Matt Miller: "We got a problem," he said. "Both Jonez and Fidel jumped ship."

I had just returned from the gym, and my head was aching from playing my cassette walkman too loudly. My first thought, upon hearing the bad news, was that Betty Rage might have to cancel their upcoming show headlining at the Rivoli. My second thought was that five days was pretty short notice to cancel, unless somehow the band could round up some last-minute back-up players. My third thought was: Uh-oh.

"I've been going through the songs all day at the practice space with Hammer and Greg. I can cover on rhythm guitar, but I just can't handle playing bass. My fingers cramp up like crazy."

"Maybe Greg could switch to bass? He already knows the songs."

"Paul, don't make me beg. We spent a shitload of money on posters for the Rivoli show. Three-colour printing, man, you know how much that costs?"

"I haven't played bass guitar in years, Matt."

"For the love of - " There was a muffled noise like a hand being pressed to the phone's mouthpiece. After a half-minute of frantic discussion on the other end of the line, a new voice spoke.

"Hey Poker! It's Chantal! Matt says you can cover for us on bass - that's awesome!"

Matt Miller, you Machiavellian son-of-a-bitch. Oh you're good, pal.

I was at the practice space every night that week, jamming with Matt and Greg and Hammer. We ran through the eight song set over and over, so that by the time Chantal finally showed up for a rehearsal the night before the big show, our sound was as cohesive as if we had been playing together for a year. I can not lie: it was great being part of a band again.

The Rivoli gig was one of the band's best shows yet, according to Freaky and others from the Betty Rage extended family. The only complaint from my new band members was that I should have been standing up while playing rather than sitting in a chair. "You looked like the kid from 'Deliverance,'" was how Greg summed up the general sentiment. Ever the good soldier, I took to binding my right ankle and knee with duct tape and pieces of wood under my pant leg, so that at future shows I was leaning on the makeshift splints for the duration of the set, retreating quickly to the bathroom after the last encore to nurse the welts on my shin and foot.

The reason for Jonez' and Fidel's "mutiny," according to Matt, was that the two musicians no longer wanted to play the sort of harder-edged music that Betty Rage was known for. They wanted to move in a more alt-rock direction, with Chantal taking on more of a rocker chick persona similar to Sheryl Crow; when Chantal and the others balked, the two of them split. I was pretty sure that Matt's explanation was bullshit, and so I met up with Hammer at a sports bar down the street for some covert nachos and a second opinion.

"Fidel and Jonez were fed up," Hammer explained with a shrug. "They challenged Matt's authority, Matt got pissy, end of story. Too many practices, too many suggestions on how to play their instruments. Buddy's been giving so many orders lately, it's just as well that he picks up a guitar and walks the walk."

Hammer was a big guy, all muscle from the drum-playing in Betty Rage and the box-hauling at the Purolator depot up in North York. His family had escaped Beirut at the height of the Israeli invasion in 1982 (Hammer's real name is Hamid) and they spent two years in a miserable refugee camp in Palestine before emigrating to Canada. I couldn't see him putting up with orders from a scrawny motor-mouth like Matt Miller.

"Why didn't I quit? Because this is the first band I've played in that people actually come to see. Betty Rage is a solid project, man. Chantal's got a good presence on vocals, and Greg's a great guitar player."

Hammer lingered over his beer and made a sinister smile. "And I'll give Matt this much: he gets things done. It sure isn't his girlfriend hustling gigs."

I had already noticed that Chantal was a no-show for rehearsals more often than not. But soon she was blowing off sound checks, at times wandering into the venue only minutes before we were supposed to play. She had a variety of excuses for her tardiness, ranging from scheduling problems at Exxposure to taxi drivers who got lost trying to find the club's address. But no matter how often Matt lectured her in front of the band, Chantal always managed to smile and charm her way through the worst of his bluster. The rest of us, in comparison, kept to a pretty tight itinerary. We knew damn well who the audience was there to see, and it wasn't the geeks with the guitars.

By this point it was obvious that Matt had put aside any plans for reforming Murderburger, so instead I devoted my pent-up creative energy to Betty Rage. I started playing riffs for new songs, jamming out ideas with Greg and Hammer in our spare time at the rehearsal space; Greg taught me the chords for some old Nothings tunes including 'Morbid And Old', and in return I showed him and Hammer how to play Murderburger standards like 'War Dead' and 'Gawd Complex'. Chantal liked the idea of reviving some of the old Murderburger tracks, but Matt shot down every suggestion for new songs to play. He insisted that we had to focus on our repertoire of fifteen songs, because those were proven in concert.

The closest I got to getting Betty Rage to incorporate new material was when I introduced a seventy-second ska-metal song-blast entitled 'Never Again (All Over Again)'. The song was about the Rwanda massacre in 1994; at the time I wrote it, U.S. President Bill Clinton had recently flown to Kigali and apologised to the Rwandan people on behalf of the west, saying that he never knew that the genocide was happening until it was too late. I had read a number of magazine articles that pointed out the Clinton had been advised repeatedly about what was happening, including warnings from his own Congress. However, Clinton had declined to get involved, possibly due to the American army's embarrassing retreat from Somalia a few years previous. The lyrics, if I say so myself, were some of the best I have ever written:

Tribal warfare brewing fast

Observers said the peace won't last

Amidst the genocidal fears

A president plugged up his ears

Machetes in Rwandan streets

Bodies wrapped in bloody sheets

How can leaders watch this show

Then shrug and say they didn't know?

"NEVER AGAIN" - ALL OVER AGAIN!

Billy Clinton had the power

Billy Clinton played the coward

Shaking hands down in Kigali

Four years past the final tally

Machetes in Rwandan streets

Bodies wrapped in bloody sheets

Sorry isn't good enough

When murderers have called your bluff

"NEVER AGAIN" - ALL OVER AGAIN!

Matt dismissed the song outright. I tried to convince him that it would be a good bumper song, something that would fit on one side of a seven inch record between two longer songs (a lot of orthodox punk bands in the late nineties put out seven-inch records, partly because CDs were considered too "corporate"). Matt, however, was unmoved. "Betty Rage should stay away from political material," he said. "It doesn't suit the band's image." Freaky echoed Matt's assessment, adding that "Political ska and punk-sex do not mix. Oil and water, my friend, oil and water." Hammer, for his part, was simply indifferent. "What's the point of a one minute song?" was his response.

Greg's outright hatred for 'Never Again...' startled me even more. Apparently, Bill Clinton was the "cool" U.S. president, the one who played saxophone on The Arsenio Hall show and worked on plans for socialised medicine for Americans, and criticising Clinton in song was as good as promoting the Republican party. "You really want to States to go back to Reagan and Bush? All those born-again Christian creeps? Forget it." I should also mention that this was around the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with all of the political fallout from the blowjob heard 'round the world tumbling down on the Clinton administration's collective heads. The fact that the president had received oral sex from an intern in the White House, in Greg's mind, just made Clinton "cooler" and more deserving of support rather than criticism.

Surprisingly, the only member of Betty Rage who liked 'Never Again...' was Chantal. "It's pretty funny," she said. "It'd be like ambushing the audience with this mini-song about war." This was not my idea of a ringing endorsement, but it was better than nothing.

Being a member of Betty Rage was like having a second full-time job: three practices a week, two concerts a month, plus band meetings and the occasional promotional photo shoot. My bum foot got me out of postering duties, which was usually handled by Greg, Hammer, and Freaky, depending on who was available. Matt handled the arranging of shows and interviews at the college radio stations, and he dealt with the record shops that sold the band's merchandise including the demos recorded with Jonez and Fidel. And Chantal was an expert at handling the media attention. We had a pretty well-oiled machine going for most of that year. Everybody knew their place.

All of the hard work paid off in mid-June when Matt announced that he had arranged a deal with an American record company to release a Betty Rage album on CD. The record label was small, but their ads were all over the prominent zines in the States. We were the first non-California band that the record company would be working with, and so signing our band to a one-album contract was a big deal to both parties. I was a bit skeptical about having to sign a contract (I had a funny feeling that there would be fewer than five dotted lines to sign on our half of the legal document), but otherwise the band was in a celebratory mood.

Matt let us finish the rehearsal early so we could reconvene over at Exxposure on Sherbourne Street, where Chantal would be joining us after she was finished her shift. This was not the first time that band members had met up at Exxposure, nor was it the first time that other band members had watched Chantal perform on stage. However, this was my inaugural visit, and I made the mistake of admitting that I had only been in a strip club once previously, at a cousin's bachelor party - "Did the women get pissed when you tipped them in quarters?" Greg asked me with a sniggering laugh. Strangely, no one thought to wonder aloud if I would be uncomfortable with seeing a female band member (and girlfriend of the band's manager!) naked on stage. After all, it wasn't as if we were going to watch her wait tables in a restaurant.

Freaky met up with us at the front door of Exxposure on Sherbourne Street. He showed off his latest tee shirt: a vintage "Adolf Hitler World Tour" shirt with the word "canceled" printed over the entry for Russia (I remembered being a little kid and seeing those in a novelty store window on downtown Yonge Street, hung next to a "US Out Of North America" shirt that my father refused to let me purchase). I then turned and stood back on the sidewalk, and looked the club over. The exterior of Exxposure was all bricked-in windows and photos of semi-dressed women under scratched glass, with a blue and white marquee sign lettered in that airbrushed style that made me think of 70s-era customised vans and amusement park fun houses.

Freaky saw me looking up at the sign. "Shame, isn't it?" he said. "You would think that a fine establishment like Exxposure could have afforded a third 'X' in their name."

After producing I.D. for the mammoth bouncer inside the foyer (Matt was recognised immediately, and was spared the indignity of carding), our group shuffled forward into the club. The lighting inside was somehow dim and harsh at the same time, a mix of fluorescent white and blue lights like the ones used in gas station washrooms to prevent heroin junkies from finding a vein to shoot up. The room was sparsely populated with men who had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon: flannel-jacketed rednecks and bi-focaled retirees, suit-wearing Indian businessmen, a clutch of jut-jawed thugs in Ryerson jackets. Some sat in groups but most sat alone, their faces lumpen and transfixed except for the occasional teeth-baring snarls that flashed across their faces like fireworks in darkened skies.

We sat down at a table mid-way between the main bar and the dee-jay booth, while on the drab T-shaped stage, an Asian woman twirled listlessly around a brass pole to a new-wavish ballad called (what else?) 'Tokyo Rose'. A waitress strode forward and took our orders, which Matt graciously covering the first round of watered-down beer. Hammer offered an extra five dollars if the waitress smiled for us. The woman obliged with a Miss America grin, tilting her head with a subtle bat of her eyelashes. "Women are always prettier when they smile," Hammer said approvingly. I realised I was sitting in a venue where people offered money for smiles. No wonder the place reeked of shame and desperation, I thought to myself.

The next set featured a thirty-ish white woman who looked a little old for the trade, kicking her legs and fondling her sagging breasts (I cringed when Greg cupped his hands and yelled "Get off the stage, Grandma!") With our collective interest waning, Matt leaned forward and started talking at us about the band's plans for the summer. Specifically, he told us that he had lined up a slot for us at a certain punk festival in western Ontario, the name of which scratched an old itch in my memory.

"Punkaholica!" Matt pronounced with an ear-to-ear grin. "I'm talking Saturday night, I'm talking bands from across Canada and the U.S., I'm talking a slot right before the goddamn Punkaholics themselves. Betty Rage missed out last year, and I'll be fucked if we blow our chance this time around."

Punkaholica was one of those annual events I had heard a lot about, but never had the opportunity or the cash to check out on my own. Jake Punkaholic had bought the land for Kamp Punkaholic not long after Murderburger had visited the Haunted House in Kitchener, and the band moved en masse into the main farmhouse soon after. The smaller second house which served mainly as a practice space was burned down under mysterious circumstances in the winter of 1994 - the rumour was that one of the neighbours torched it in a bid to scare the band into selling and moving. Jake and Jen set up a weekend fund-raising festival following summer featuring The Punkaholics along with twelve other bands from Kitchener and London. Punkaholica 1996 was bigger, with bands and fans coming in from as far away as Detroit and Buffalo. By 1997 it had become a two-day, thirty-band extravaganza with an estimated attendance of 1,000 punks, some of whom camped out on the property for the rest of the summer. Even though The Punkaholics had broken up at that point, missing a performance slot at their own party, many agreed that it was the best Punkaholica yet.

Matt, Greg and Freaky had all been at that previous year's festival, and each of them spoke in glowing terms about the experience.

"Fans all across Ontario and the northern U.S.," Matt said. "Think of the exposure for Betty Rage!"

"I met friends I haven't seen in years," Freaky said, shaking with excitement. "The music, the camaraderie - truly a transcendent cultural experience!"

"I got so fucking wasted there," Greg said, licking his chops. "I was hung over for like a week!"

"Best of all," Matt continued. "This year The Punkaholics are re-forming, with Jen back on vocals with Jake. And we're going on stage right before them!"

I asked Matt if it was true that original guitarist Robbie Baron was also re-joining The Punkaholics (I had heard a rumour to this effect mentioned at a recent record swap). Matt nodded. "Robbie's back. Quit his job, moved back from Calgary. First time he's played with the band since '93."

"Like a salmon swimming back to his old mating ground," Freaky added. "Like a homing pigeon returning to the roost."

Matt started further explaining his plans for Punkaholica, but the conversation kept veering to the topic of The Punkaholics, and how they had devolved in recent years to shadows of their former legendary selves. Their long-delayed follow-up CD - Stay Alert, Stay Angry, Stay Strong \- certainly looked sharp, with its green-gray cover graphics and bold-lettered font against a white background, the title embossed above the heads of a silhouette rendition of Jake and Jen with their fists on their hips, heads angled over their shoulders like soldiers on an old Soviet propaganda leaflet. The songs, however, were another matter. Granted, the opening track 'Onward We Fight' was decently fast and raw, but from thereon it was all time changes and prog-rock plodding, with an overly compressed metallic edge to the sound mix featuring the incessant solo noodling of the band's new guitarist, Vinnie Violent. Even when they broke out in a decent hardcore riff for a few bars, they would lose the groove by changing over into some other progression, as if someone was flipping channels on a television set. Jen's vocals had taken on a sing-song quality, off-key and dissipated, while Jake's growl had taken on the tired cadence of someone at the tail-end of a losing argument. As for the lyrics, arty poetics predominated in place of the straightforward accusations of anthems like 'Here Piggy' and 'Fascist State'; at points the meanings of the words became abstract, as if phrases were being assembled merely to fit the rhyme scheme.

What had happened to The Punkaholics was truly tragic: they had turned into Rush. There was even a ten-minute four-part megasong entitled 'Battle For Planet Earth' (i \- Dawn Of The Corporate Kings; ii - The Infinite Terror; iii - Punkocalypse (inst.); iv - Afterworld/Our World), and a rambling inner-sleeve essay about the world shutting down in the year 2000, written in a mock-biblical style that was at odds with the otherwise futuristic design of the CD art: "... and after the Computers cease to churn numbers / for the Bean Counters and Corporate Underlords of Commercial Fascism / the World shall face an endless night / and Anarchy will reign supreme for all ..." et cetera, et cetera. Under different circumstances, the essay would have made for some excellent comedy. Too band the band wasn't joking.

The strangest part of the album was the bonus song tacked on the end of the CD: a throwaway track called 'Hey Hey (You Asshole)': "Here's a stupid song about people we hate / Kicking their ass would be really great," and so on. Incredibly, the song was picked up by several college radio stations and even added to the after-midnight rotation on commercial stations like Edge 102. It was bad enough that 'Hey Hey' was a moronic singalong with no apparent meaning ("All Punkaholics song have a meaning," Jen had famously said in several interviews, "otherwise it's just a bunch of cruddy pop music"), but this was also the first Punkaholics song with only Jake on vocals. Everything recorded by The Punkaholics had both Jake and Jen sharing the singing duties in a democratic fashion, and the sudden success of this one dumb number credited only to Jake on the CD sleeve was part of the reason why Jen quit the Punkaholics not long afterward, precipitating the group's eventual break-up.

"I don't care what anyone says," Matt said. "The Punkaholics had a right to experiment with that album. Besides, from what I've heard, they're going back to basics with the new set."

Hammer shook his head. "I sure as shit hope they do. I'm not sitting through some Jethro Tull bullshit for anyone." Freaky then performed a falsetto mock-up of 'Hey Hey (You Asshole)", with the rest of us joining in despite Matt's chagrin.

Eventually the five men at our table were approached by two women: Chantal, who had been warned by Matt about our attendance and had apparently steeled herself appropriately; and Deanna, who was Greg's girlfriend at the time. Chantal excused herself to prepare for her set on stage, while Deanna parked herself between Greg and Freaky. Matt and Greg continued discussing band plans with Hammer (who occasionally distracted himself with buying more smiles from passing female serving staff) while Deanna described to me and Freaky how she had once auditioned at Exxposure but ultimately decided against stripping. "I'm too scared to dance naked," she said with a juvenile wrinkling of the nose. Deanna was a frail-looking but pretty woman, and a near-decade younger than Greg, who looked like a gargoyle sitting next to her. I couldn't help but be envious: once again, rock and roll was getting an ugly guy laid by a good-looking woman.

Matt rose from his chair and said we should move up because Chantal was about to go on stage. He led us to the empty seats at Pervert's Row, right at the lip of the catwalk. I began to protest, but Matt was non-plussed. "The woman needs a proper audience," he said. "Look at the crowd, they're hardly paying attention." Behind us the men at their tables looked attentive enough, beers in hand and leers on face. Regardless, I took my place near the end of the catwalk, my stomach flipping with guilt.

The dee-jay's voice boomed over the speakers, announcing the next performer: "Give it up for Janis, everybody!" Chantal entered from stage left, her legs perched atop four-inch heels and a flimsy black negligee obscuring her upper body. Motley Crüe's 'Looks That Kill' started playing, and Chantal swung around the brass pole to an enthusiastic roar from the crowd. By the first chorus she had removed the negligee, thrashing it on the scuffed catwalk like the whip she often wielded at Betty Rage concerts. By the second chorus she was completely naked except for her high heels. People throughout the club hooted, pounding the tables whenever Chantal jerked her chest forward causing her breasts to bounce, or bent over and slapped her own butt cheek, making a meaty smacking sound that resonated through the room. Chantal had a runner's body, all lean muscle with the slightest show of ribs at the sides of her torso, with skin so pale as to seem translucent. She looked like the world's most beautiful disease.

Hammer applauded enthusiastically; Freaky whistled hard through his fingers, a mist of saliva coming out between the digits. I smiled and clapped my hands, trying not to look too excited while my hard-on raged under my jeans. What amazed me was how Chantal seemed to really enjoy dancing on stage. While the other strippers tended to close their eyes as if blocking out the experience, Chantal was feeding off the reactions of the crowd, playing off of them much like I had seen her play off audience members at Betty Rage concerts. I started to wonder if her stripping sessions were like rehearsals for the rock shows. Or maybe it was the other way around?

Chantal strutted her way through the second song of her set, 'I Love Rock And Roll' by Joan Jett, and then rushed to the back of the stage and leaned over a duffel bag propped against the wall. "Hang on, folks, Janis has one more song for us tonight." As the dee-jay said this, Chantal pulled out some items of clothing including a tartan skirt and a white button-down blouse. The dee-jay's voice became sarcastic. "Janis! This is a strip club! You're not supposed to put clothes on!" Chantal looked back over her shoulder and shouted that she was doing "performance art." "Oh, 'performance art'! Well excuse me, Ms. Streisand! I'm working with an artist here!" Chantal laughed and finished getting into her schoolgirl's costume, strapping on a small plastic Barbie backpack and pulling her hair into pigtails. She then caught my eye and winked at me, sending a weird chill down my spine.

Right before the music started, one of the men sitting behind me said to his friend, "Ten bucks says she's peeling to 'Rag Doll' by Aerosmith."

The song started with a thin guitar lead tracing a bluesy riff. I heard a second voice behind me, laughing harshly. "Bitch just cost you ten bucks, buddy!"

I recognised the guitar line immediately. Chantal was dancing to 'Have Not Been The Same' by Slow, the song I first heard in that MuchMusic video way back in 1986. Over at the far end of Pervert's Row, I saw Matt grinning at me, a malicious satisfaction in his eyes.

Chantal started the first verse by skipping across the catwalk, her girlish pantomime at odds with the violent male vocals and raw guitar lines. She waved and blew kisses at the audience, pausing mid-verse to retrieve a half-filled water bottle from her Barbie knapsack. A hand-written label on the bottle read "VODKA" in large black letters - she glanced at the label and made an inquisitive face at the crowd. At the vocal line "I've been drinkin', but drinkin' doesn't make me f-f-f-feel alright!" she belted down the clear drink, staggering drunkenly as she neared the bottom of the bottle, the last few gulps splashing onto her shirt. She dropped the bottle and staggered some more, reaching up to rub the wet fabric across her chest, her mouth parting provocatively. The audience hooted and growled in appreciation.

The song's chorus came out in a torrent of violent barre chords. Chantal pulled the bands out of her pigtails and dropped to the floor, thrashing her loose hair onto the floor and jacking her pelvis in a fucking motion to the beat. At the chorus' climax, she raised herself up and tore her blouse open, arching her back and thrusting out her tits in a practiced pose. Men bayed like wolves. Chantal stared down at me through her veil of hair, mouthing words I couldn't begin to decipher. Beside me, Greg and Freaky were laughing so hard that their faces were turning purple.

During the second verse Chantal strutted adult-like across the stage, tossing the knapsack and ruined blouse out of harm's way. I had never imagined hearing 'Have Not Been The Same' in this context, but the thumping kick drums and rolling bass line suddenly made perfect sense. The rawness of the guitar added an ominous ballast to the arrangement, and the rage-filled male vocal made for an odd counterpoint to the image of a woman dancing herself out of her little girls' uniform.

As the second verse rose to a crescendo Chantal again strutted in my direction while I cowered further into my seat. On the speaker system the Slow vocalist bellowed "I want a target, a target I can't miss," and with a wrist snap and a tearing of velcro, Chantal snapped her kilt from her body, throwing it directly into my face in one fluid motion.

My nostrils and mouth filled with Chantal's aroma, stunning me with a pungent scent of sweat and powder. When I finally pulled the discarded kilt from my face, Chantal was humping the brass pole at far end of the catwalk, her pelvic thrusts accelerating with the final chorus until she was jack-hammering her body against the metal (I later learned that this move got her in trouble with the other dancers - grinding one's crotch against the pole is a major faux-pax in strip clubs). When the song ended, leaving Chantal hanging limply from the brass pole by one hand, panting heavily, her half-open eyes surveying the darkness. Around me people were pounding their tables like senators, screaming from every corner of the club.

"Janis! Wow!" The dee-jay sounded genuinely astonished. He waited for the applause to die down. "By the way, I was supposed to announce that the last song was dedicated to Janis' friend, Poker. That must be you, Poker, the guy who got skirt in the face there? Stand up, let's get a look at you." Against my better judgement, I rose up from my chair. "There he is, folks. Poker, buddy, are you limping a little there? Don't worry, I'd be limping too right about now ..."

A few minutes later, Chantal dressed and joined us at the bar near the back of the club, perching herself on a stool next to Matt. His arm was pulled across Chantal and his mouth had settled into a satisfied grin spread across his face like butter on toast.

"'Have Not Been The Same' was one of Paul's favourite songs back in high school," Matt explained to the others. "You gotta admit: it makes for pretty good peeler music, doesn't it?"

"Did you see how I was following the lyrics?" Chantal asked eagerly. "I was like trying to play it like I was a young girl getting drunk, like the singer in the song says. Did you guys see how I shook my head at the line in the second verse about 'I used to be so good, but now I'm all uptight'?" I was about to correct her, saying that the lyric was actually "I was feeling so good," but then I figured it would have been a moot point.

Deanna turned to me, shaking her head. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop laughing, Paul. You looked like you were having a heart attack!"

Greg nodded. "Yeah, Paul. Haven't gotten laid in a while, or what?"

The waitress came over to our corner spot with a glass of beer. "Compliments of the house," she said with a wry smile. I drained half the glass in one desperate gulp. At least this drink wasn't watered down.

We sat at the bar discussing Punkaholica and trading bits of scene gossip. Freaky then asked Chantal about her stage persona, and Chantal explained about how Janis Joplin had inspired her. "Janis was a total badass," she said. "A real bluesy chick." Chantal then sang the first chorus of 'Piece Of My Heart' in enthusiastic imitation. I was startled by the thinness of her un-miked singing voice: Chantal, I'm afraid, was no Janis Joplin.

Matt turned toward his girlfriend and said, "You know, what you oughta do is change your stage name to Betty. It'd be promoting the band: singer by day, stripper by night!"

"Oh jeez, Matt, quit with the band talk for like thirty seconds, will you?" Chantal rolled her eyes. "I swear, you guys, this guy doesn't let up ever!"

"Might I remind you," Matt replied, "That my constant plotting is what's getting us a CD release in California? All I'm saying is that it'd be cool if you called yourself Betty."

"There's something else, however." Freaky said this with a flourish of his hand, commanding attention. "What you're forgetting, Matthew sir, is that when people think of the name 'Betty', they think of the blonde woman from the Archie comics. Our friend, Chantal, with her raven locks, is a Veronica all the way."

Matt shook his head. "I gotta disagree, Freaky. I'm saying that if she's Betty in the band Betty Rage, then by extension she's Betty here in Exxposure. People know the difference between a punk band and a kids' comic."

"In your mind, yes." Freaky's voice assumed a sage-like tranquility, even against the noise of the crowd and the music. "But when it comes to comics versus punk rock in the common culture, then the battle is a lost cause. Archie trumps all, my friend. Archie trumps all."

I felt a shove in the small of my back, and turned to see two very intoxicated rednecks hanging over me with demented grins. "Hey there, Poker!" the first man slurred. "That hot piece Chantal you got. You're a lucky fuckin' fucker, brother!"

The second man stumbled forward, gripping me by the scruff of my neck. "Poker, buddy." He leaned further forward, polluting my nostrils with his rotten breath. "Nail her tonight for me, would ya? Fuckin' stick it up her 'till she chokes!" The two men collapsed into snickering fits. "Nail her fuckin' good tonight, Poke-Her! Ha-hah!"

Chantal was sitting with Matt at the other end of the bar, shaking her head while Matt and the others chuckled nervously. I wanted to tell these two drunken assholes to go to hell - you don't see me with her right now? I wanted to shout. I'm not the one nailing anything to anything tonight! Instead I assumed that typically Torontonian veneer of terse politeness, nodding at the drunks and answering that I would do my best on their behalf. The two men took turns shaking my hand vigourously and then weaved their way up toward the club exit, arm in arm like children encumbered in snowsuits, sing-shouting "Have not been the same! Have not been the same!" as they trundled off into the night's oblivion.

I had to take a break there, Darcy. Maia was entering the apartment just as I managed to save my Word document and power down the laptop. An old woman died in Maia's care this afternoon; she was holding Maia's hand and rambling about her honeymoon Ireland back in 1961, and saying how her husband was going to show up any minute to take her home. The woman's husband had been dead for fifteen years.

"She was in mid-sentence, staring at me," Maia said to me wearily. "Her eyes then kind of fluttered and rolled up in their sockets." Here Maia rolled her eyes in half-hearted imitation. "And then her grip went slack. The life just rolled out of her face." She then picked at her supper and then fell asleep on the sofa; I had to carry her to bed. Right now I'm watching her sleep, wondering exactly who it is I married, who I'm sharing a bed with, who bears my last name in lieu of her own.

A life told in stages, snapshots of reminiscence: a young man limping on a mangled right foot in Toronto's east end, June 1998, standing outside a health club with a strained look on his face. He has been exercising regularly at this gym for two years, enduring the simpering glares of the muscle-headed gym rats and the endorphin-happy club staff. In that time the young man has lost a few pounds, firmed up some muscles; otherwise he feels like he is wasting his time. He can not endure much more of this insipid place.

Resigning himself to the task, he staggers into the gym with his cane and his gym bag. He changes clothes and begins his workout, popping a tape into his walkman and cranking the volume to maximum. In the past he used to listen to punk rock albums in an effort to block out the dance music playing over the gym speakers, but over time he graduated to hardcore thrash, followed by death metal, and now he is experimenting with tape recordings of snow and static from the upper channels of his television set. The blithering roar of the tape is buzzing in his ears, but still he can make out the putrid beat of the mechanical club muzak.

Ten minutes into his workout, he sits down on a bench near the free weights and removes his headphones, surveying the room: men flexing steroid-plumped biceps, admiring their reflections; gym bunnies in sports bras gabbing about diets and boyfriends; an Aryan maiden in an Absolute Fitness tank top leading a tired middle-aged couple in a tour of the facilities, the maiden's fingernails clicking impatiently against her clipboard as she passes; and everywhere, the constant clatter of dropped weights and dumbbells like the chattering of Lucifer's dentures.

Two benches over, an overweight man in a terry-cloth headband unsticks himself from the leather-bound seat, leaving a Rorschach blot of sweat spread across the seat's back rest like a large smeared butterfly. Across the floor, Edward G. Robinson begins a set of dead lifts. "Nyaah! Nyaah!"

The young man feels his right foot throb.

Beside the reception desk, the young man scans the schedule for fitness classes held in the health club's second floor. The next class, "Yoga, All Levels," starts in ten minutes. He asks the bull-necked man at the front desk about the schedule, and learns that his membership package does cover certain fitness classes including Yoga on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

"One question," the young man says, pointing toward the P.A. speakers above the doorway. "Do they play this shitty music in the yoga class?"

The bull-necked man squints. "I don't think so," he says, frowning.

Ten minutes later the young man is sitting on a cool mat in the second floor studio. He is one of only three men in a class of twenty. The instructor is a middle-aged woman in a lemon-coloured leotard and a sour expression to match. She stares at the young man in his baggy shorts and stained Iremonger tee shirt, and asks him if he is sure he is in the right room. "Sure, whatever," he replies as his new classmates giggle and mutter judgements to each other.

They begin with some simple poses: the Cat, the Cobra, the Mountain, the Corpse, a promising-sounding manouevre called Downward Facing Dog. The second part of the class continues these poses, this time holding them in place for minutes at a time. At first the young man thought that the class was ridiculously simple, but now he is starting to struggle. He begins to ache in places where he did not know he had places, the muscles in his back and legs burning with the strain. He watches the other students, who seem to have bodies made of plasticine, endlessly pliant. One woman has her head turned so far over her shoulder she can practically look down her own spine.

Near the end of the hour-long session, the young man tries to fold his legs into the lotus position. His right leg spasms, snapping out straight like a fire hose. The young man yelps in pain. "Are we all right, Mr. Sure-Whatever?" the instructor asks sarcastically. People chuckle.

A small woman moves over from a nearby mat, tenderly maneuvering the man's leg into position. "Easy," she says calmly. She puts a mocha-coloured hand on his sweat-dampened chest. "Try to regulate your breathing. You're not breathing, that's the problem."

"I'm breathing fine," the young man protests. "It's the bending and holding that's pissing me off."

The class concludes. The young man staggers downstairs like a soldier limping from combat. He showers and dresses with difficulty. Ambling towards the lobby he avoids eye contact with the gym rats, shame-faced and defeated.

He is stopped at the front door by the small south-Asian woman who had assisted him earlier. She is dressed in a tan jacket and white sweater and blue jeans, meticulously neat and clean-looking; it seems impossible that she could have changed and assembled herself so quickly. She tells him that the class he took was too advanced for a beginner, but that it was impressive that he had made it all the way through. The man nods. He is almost afraid to look at her, as if his wandering gaze will smudge her clean clothes.

The woman looks down at his cane and offers him a lift to the bus stop. His apartment is only seven blocks away, so she further offers to drive him right to his front door. The young man agrees. They then proceed to the parking lot beside the health club, and they approach a two-door Mercury Tracer that looks like an abandoned wreck: the most decrepit, broken-down car the young man has ever seen. The fenders and wheel rims are rotten with rust, and what is left of the green paint is faded and dull as the colour of a military vehicle. Holes of corrosion in the trunk area and door bottoms are filled with some sort of putty, like butterscotch pudding oozing out of the brown wounds. The windows are scratched and clouded with dirt, and the backseat is teeming with garbage. In all his years of playing punk rock and driving to shows in beaters and rust-buckets, never has the young man seen a car as pathetic as this. Even the hardiest dumpster-diving crustie punk would be ashamed to be seen in this rolling monstrosity.

The woman sits in the driver's seat, which is covered by a neat clear plastic, the upholstery underneath cracked and splitting in several places. She picks up some debris from the passenger's side, tosses it into the backseat pile and unlocks the passenger door. "Sorry for the mess," she tells him, sounding almost proud.

The engine turns over noisily, and the Tracer sputters to life. The woman, whose first name is Maia ("don't even try pronouncing my last name," she tells him) explains how her brother bought this car for a hundred dollars, and she in turn bought it off of him for twenty-five. "Three hundred dollars for an engine tune-up, a new set of tires, and voila!" she says brightly.

The car caroms along Eastern Avenue, slaloming through traffic as Maia explains how she has been taking yoga classes since she was fifteen, and how what the young man was doing was a wonderful first step in mastering his physical energies and exploring the sort of inner strengths that traditional Western fitness regimens never touched upon. As she talks, she sails through yellow lights and skims dangerously close to the other cars on the road. The young man sees the expressions of the other drivers, their faces panic-stricken as they swerve to avoid Maia's path.

"It's too bad they only have the two yoga classes at Absolute," Maia says. "The class you just had was mainly Asthanga Yoga, which is - hold on." Maia swerves around a pedestrian midway through a jay-walk across Eastern Avenue; in the rear-view mirror's reflection, the pedestrian's eyes are as wide and white as hard-boiled eggs. "Idiot. Anyway, I was saying that Asthanga's like a power yoga, which is way beyond your level. What you need is something slower to start out, more like a Hatha yoga. There's more movement and variety of poses. Oh wait, here's Broadview." She pulls a hard right turn at Broadview Avenue, tires squealing like in the soundtrack of a television cop chase. "All that talking and I almost missed your street! So anyway, you could start with a few sessions of Hatha yoga, and then work your way back up to Asthanga. Or maybe Hot Yoga is what you should really work toward - "

Over the next month, the young man continues with the class at Absolute Fitness, regardless of Maia's alternative suggestions. Maia becomes his regular partner in the class which speeds up his development, and also guarantees him a lift back home. He even learns to tolerate the barely-controlled driving habits of his yoga partner, which over time exhibit a demented logic in their repeated weaves and nerve-wracking turns. She is like Supergirl twisting through the skyscrapers of Metropolis, invincible amidst the chaos with him flying alongside as her breathless captive.

What distracts him from the potential elation of these asphalt flights is the constantly sifting pile of newspapers and trash in the Tracer's back seat. Periodically he detects odd odours, scents that make him think of fermenting fruit. By the fourth week the scents are verging on rancid. Maia seems as oblivious to the developing stink as she is of the terrified faces of the other drivers.

Finally during one of the homeward drives, the young man convinces her to pull over at the service station next to the railway overpass just past McGee Avenue. He has her stop the car next to the trash receptacle. "Look," he says. "This is going to sound weird, but - "

Maia stares at the young man as he fumbles for words. "But what?" she says.

"I gotta clean out that back seat of yours. There's something under that pile that's smelling up the car like crazy."

Maia does not reply.

The young man looks back at her. "Is it okay?" he says.

Maia sits with her hands gripping the steering wheel, seeming startled into silence. Finally the young man exits the car and begins scooping out handfuls of trash from the backseat, scuttling back and forth between the car and the trash can. He notes the contents of the back seat refuse as he makes each round: plastic bags, take-out containers, a Cosmopolitan magazine, pages from East Indian community newspapers, empty AA battery blister packs, pay stubs from a Coffee Time outlet dating back to 1994 ("You probably want these," he says as he hands Maia the stubs), notebook paper, lipstick containers, coffee cups, wads of used tissues, paper towel cores, a kleenex box, and finally three pear cores and the rind of some fruit that the young man could not recognise, holding the rotten wedge to the light and studying it intently.

"Guava," Maia says. She shrugs and half-smiles in embarrassment.

With the last remnants of the pile disposed of, the young man lowers himself into the passenger's seat and closes the door. "Much better," he says, breathing deeply through his nose. "Feels brighter in here without all the clutter in back."

Maia does not reply. Instead she slowly backs the car from the trash receptacle and drives the young man back to his apartment at a near-funereal trudge. At his usual drop-off point, she parks the Tracer and stares blankly through the streaked windshield. "Look, don't take this the wrong way - " Her eyes flash angrily in his direction. "I don't know if I can explain this properly, but there was something - I don't know. You shouldn't have done that. With the trash."

The young man pauses. He waits for clarification, but there is none. "I thought you were okay with me cleaning out the back seat."

"Well, I'm not. I mean, okay, it needed cleaning. But you shouldn't have gone ahead and did that."

"I'm sorry," the young man says. The two of them sit wordlessly while a large Metro Works truck rumbles past them, an ominous metal beast with orange pylons stuck on the front bumper like upturned fangs. The young man recalls his days picking up trash left behind by other practicing bands at The Barn in Morganfield. "I guess I'm a little used to keeping things in order," he says.

He looks at Maia, who is still staring through the clouded window glass. "Do you want to go back and I'll put the trash back in?" he says, smiling. Maia stares back at him coldly.

The young man unbuckles his seat belt. He exits the car, and then leans back across the passenger door, looking inside. Maia seems so tiny inside the Tracer. The driver's seat has been moved all the way forward, and still she has to stretch her leg out to reach the accelerator. The young man thinks to himself that Maia is all too used to being looked down upon, treated childishly. "I guess I'll see you next week," he says.

"I guess." She pinches her eyes closed and turns towards him. "Look, I know I sound all crazy snapping at you like I did. You didn't deserve me going off on you like that. I'll still give you lifts and stuff, if you want."

The young man pauses. He digs deep into himself for the energy he reserves for all of his seemingly lost causes, and looks her straight in the eye. "Maybe I could make it up to you over coffee. Or even dinner Friday night. I know a café right around the corner that serves curry and rice, it's actually pretty good. Or so I've been told."

Maia glares back at the young man in astonishment. Later she would tell him that all she could think at the time was: if nothing else, this weirdo white guy sure had a whole lot of nerve.

• • • •

### 19.

Morganfield: represent! Last night the wife and I were watching TV, fishing through all the holiday re-runs, and on CBC they were showing an old episode of "That's Not Funny" starring old Wes Crawley - you know, that bow-tie wearing cr-r-r-razy guy who emceed the inaugural Morganfield Hardcore concert way back in 1988? I told Maia that I went to school with Crawley, which impressed her so much that she was overcome with star-struck lust and ripped off my pants and fellated me for an hour straight. And by "ripped off my pants and fellated me," I mean that Maia blinked her eyes, shrugged and said, "When they called this show 'That's Not Funny,' they weren't kidding, were they?" and then rolled over and fell asleep. Oh well. Maybe if I had some more famous friends I could get a proper blowjob. OR NEXT TIME I COULD TRY ACTUALLY TALKING WITH MY WIFE AND MAYBE ASKING FOR SEX, INSTEAD OF EXPECTING HER TO READ MY MIND!!! o.O Thank gawd for poetic license, eh?

Maia was right, of course BECAUSE SHE'S ALWAYS RIGHT! :P "That's Not Funny" was a pretty lousy show, even by CBC comedy standards. I mean, sure, ideas like The Fathers Of Confederation performing as a rap group were probably funny enough on paper, at least after a proper number of tokes on the communal reefer. But having Sir. John A. MacDonald and his fellow nation-building gangstas wave their hands in the air like they just don't care will only go so far if you don't write any punchlines. Worse still, they had Wes Crawley playing Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Fathers Of Confederation, which makes neither logical nor chronological sense. Hell, bring in Joey Smallwood if you're going to go all ahistorical! And why not throw in Kim Campbell and Sheila Copps and have them get all jiggy with some fly dance routine?

Anyway, once in a while the show did manage to get it right. One of the best TNF sketches, as it happens, was in the episode that aired last night. According to the website, the title is "Anarchy Jamboree," but most T.O. punks just call it the "Punk Farm" sketch. Assuming you don't recall the scene in question, here's a wee recap:

The scene is a wooded hill, somewhere in the countryside. Four generic punk rockers in denim vests and funny-coloured hair convene with their amps and camping gear. The lead punk announces that they're going to live out in the country and start a commune. "No cops, no rules, no bull crap!" he growls while the others cheer and smash beer cans against their heads.

Over a series of vignettes we see the punks building rickety shacks, arguing over beer runs and hair dye, and trying to cook cans of spaghetti over open fires. "We're almost out of canned food," the female punk says. "Soon we're gonna have to, like, grow vegetables and stuff!" Eventually one of the communers, played by Crawley, complains about having nowhere to plug in his guitar amplifier. After a brief argument with the lead punk about how much this "goddamn sucks, man!" he decides to leave the commune, stomping his Doc Marten boots all the way back to the big city.

A few months pass, and the city punk returns to visit the commune. He is horrified to discover that his friends have all turned into blonde-haired, slack-wearing Christians. "Peace and Anarchy be with ye, brother!" the former lead punk and now commune leader says. "You're just in time for the Sunday moshpit!"

The commune has turned into a quasi-Amish farming community, with a cluster of houses and a church with a circle "A" on the steeple in the background. The moshpit, in the centre of the town, is an open field ringed with trees. The city punk asks nervously if there will be somewhere to plug in his guitar to play at the moshpit. "No need for electricity, brother," a bright-eyed communer assures him in a robotically cheerful voice. "We grow our own food, make our own clothes, play our own music. D.I.Y. rules!"

The moshpit commences, with the slack-wearing communers playing acoustic guitars and linking arms as they dance to 'Anarchy In The U.K.' and 'Holiday In Cambodia'. During a rendition of 'Beat On The Brat' the female punk, now a long-haired hippie in a white sundress, enters the pit and dances barefoot. Meanwhile the city punk grows more and more agitated, watching from the edge of the pit in horror. Finally, during a swaying, hand-clapping sing-a-long version of D.O.A's 'The Enemy', the city punk looks into the camera and screams in horror, and runs from the former Punk Camp with his hands clamped over his ears.

As I was re-watching Punk Camp sketch, I had to wonder how many non-punks would catch all of the references - Maia, for one, certainly seemed unimpressed. One thing that I am sure of is that somebody at "That's Not Funny" must have heard about Kamp Punkaholic. No mere comedian could ever come up with a skit so divinely inspired, least of all Mr. Wesley "MC Laurier / Tellin' you da story, eh!" Crawley. A hardcore punk turning into an acoustic-strumming nature-loving flower child? Perish the thought!

"Kamp Punkaholic, 5km!" the large hand-drawn sign said at the side of Highway 19 north of Strathroy. Even with the van flying past at 90 kph, I could still make out the jagged black lines of the lettering, like coal slashes drawn by a convict in flight, leaving directions for his fellow prison escapees to follow. The watery splash across the bare wood added to the effect, as did the shards of broken bottle on the ground below.

"Locals did that," Matt said, referring to the smashed bottles. "The rednecks around here would like nothing better than to drive all these dirty punks out of their territory."

"Too bad it's private property," Greg added from the back of the van. "I'd like to see those fuckers go up to Jake's place and try something."

"They already did," Matt retorted solemnly. "Who do you think burned down the studio house?"

Matt was driving the van, and as usual I was in the front passenger's seat due to my bad foot (disability has its privileges). Greg and Chantal were in the back sitting on top of their rolled-up sleeping bags. The amplifiers and drums were stacked in a wall in the back of the van in case police pulled us over - that way, if the cops opened up the back doors, they wouldn't see Greg and Chantal sitting in the van without seat belts. Everyone talked over each other, joking and laughing while I sat watching the houses and service stations roll by on the roadside, the unlit front windows and parked cars scattered on front lawns giving the area an eerie quality, as if the local population had fled due to warnings of an oncoming storm.

I could already hear the electric guitars in the distance as Matt eased the van off the paved road and onto the dirt lane leading into Kamp Punkaholic. We queued up behind a station wagon waiting at the wooden gate. On one side of the gate, an aluminum-plated trailer was parked on cement blocks. A blow-up drawing of the crazed Mohican from the back of The Punkaholics' first album was taped up under the trailer's broken window glass, one cartoon gun to the temple, and the other pointed toward the viewer, the nozzle's aperture a solid black circle like a dilated iris.

Two barrel-bellied punks sat on a picnic table in front of the trailer, a bruised styrofoam cooler between them on the table. One of the punks picked up a clipboard and kicked his way through the discarded beer cans on the ground to collect admission money from the driver of the station wagon. When he approached our van in turn, Matt explained that we were part of a performing band and so we did not have to pay to enter. The gatekeeper nodded, checked our band's name off of a list on a clipboard, and waved us through. There were dozens of bands on the bill that weekend. I had to wonder how much money the admission-takers were actually collecting.

The van rocked over the muddy contours of the lane-way, low-hanging tree branches dragging across the roof and clattering over the window frames. Beyond the tree trunks I could see the various patches of clear land where punks had set up their make-shift camp sites, along with the primitive flicker of campfires and the movement of human forms. Cardboard signs were tied to branches along the lane-way advertising the sale of beer, dope and PCP, or else announcing the presence of visitors from as far away as British Columbia ("Victoria H.C.") and Nova Scotia ("Cape Breton Punk Krew 98!").

A filthy, shirtless man stood dazed next to one prominent sign, giving me the thumbs-up as we drove slowly past. I returned the thumbs-up and read aloud the sign beside him: Abandin all Hope ye who entre Here!

"More like, 'Abandon all soap ye who enter here!'" I smiled at the others in the van. "Guy looks like he dug his way out from his own grave."

"You're a card, Paul," Greg muttered. "You oughta be dealt with."

The Punkaholic's two-storey house was situated at the main campsite clearing, a low-lying stretch of meadow and gravel off the eastern edge of a curve in the lane. Hardcore punk music blared from the first floor windows. A collection of crusties and metal-heads were lounging on the drooping front porch smoking, shooting shit, killing time. In the clearing beyond the house, several more tents had been pitched in a loose circle. To the south stood the charred remains of the second house where the studio had been. The front two walls were charcoal-black and crumbled, while what remained of the unburned wood in the remaining two sides was being pulled off in pieces by nearby camp-dwellers for firewood. Further south, other punks were rooting through the furrows of a large garden, the remnants of the self-sufficient farm that band members had tried to start in previous years. Some lucky foragers emerged with a few stubby carrots or a green tomato, but most came up empty-handed.

We stopped and pitched our tents on the west side of the lane-way, across from the main campsite. Freaky and Hammer met up with the van as we were finishing our set-up. Hammer had rode up in Freaky's new second-hand Mazda, and by the nervous shifting of his eyes and his unsteady gait, it was immediately obvious that Hammer was regretting the choice.

"I'm riding back to Toronto with you guys," he stammered. "There's no damn way I'm going back in that death trap."

Freaky followed up with a shrug of the shoulders. "I still do not see what the fuss is about," he said. "Surely you had a more comfortable ride than you would have had in the van." I glanced across the laneway at Freaky's two-door Mazda hatchback, which was shaded by road dirt but seemed otherwise benign.

Hammer glared furiously at Freaky. "Dude, you have NO BRAKES in that thing! How can I be comfortable when there are no fucking brakes on the fucking car?"

Freaky was sanguine, unmoved by Hammer's panic. "Look, I was as startled as you. I had no idea that the brakes would fail as soon as we got on the highway. Still, all I had to do was get on the back roads and downshift at every stop. So what's the problem? We made it in one piece, did we not?"

Chantal laughed and offered to take Hammer's place on the return trip. "Matt won't even let us smoke up in the car," she said.

"Damn right I won't let you," Matt shouted over a turned shoulder. "Last thing we need is to be pulled over by the cops with the van stinking of weed."

Chantal batted her eyes and smirked at Matt. "Thanks, dad!"

"Yeah, thanks dad."

"Shut up, Greg."

After we had set up camp and ate our supper of beans and franks, we made our way up around 7:00 p.m. to check out the bands. Betty Rage wasn't scheduled to play until Saturday night, so we had twenty-four hours to kill. I followed the others down the stony trail, the music and cheers growing louder as we neared the concert site. I struggled to keep up with the others, maneuvering over the stones and gnarled tree roots sticking up from the foot path, here and there dodging mud puddles and the occasional stray dog until we rounded the final curve, where the path sloped suddenly downward through a parting of birch trees.

On stage, Dirty Bird from Toronto were barreling through a breakneck set of rasp-throated hardcore. Below the stage, a tangle of bodies were slamming furiously in the pit, and behind them - up the sloping hill, as far as my eye could see - were more punks than I had ever seen in one place in my life. There must have been a thousand people lying atop ratty blankets or sitting around campfires, joints and wine bottles passed from hand to hand. To the north of the concert area was a sharp thirty-foot bluff - according to the hand-drawn map on the concert flier, Old Carruthers Road cut across the upper side of Kamp Punkaholic along the crest's tree-lined precipice. On the south end of the clearing stood a dense thicket of forest, blocking access from the campsites to the south for a good half-kilometre. Between the ridge and the forest, looking eastward, one could see nothing but a veritable ocean of spikes and boots and tattered denim, a vast barbarian horde gathered in celebration under the granite sky.

"Holy shit," Hammer shouted. "It looks like Mad Max out here."

Freaky grinned maniacally. "It's after the end of the world! Don't you know it yet?"

We found an empty space on the grass and spread out a blanket, and watched the rest of Dirty Bird's set followed by an all-girl punk band from New York and a group made up of former members of Killing Spree from Buffalo. We were passing around a large jug of foul-tasting purple wine and over the next few hours I managed to get thoroughly trashed. Sometime after dusk had fallen, an overweight girl with lime-green hair staggered over and forced me down onto the ground, much to the amusement of my band-mates. She started kissing me all over my face, slobbering like a dog. The girl was too heavy for me to push aside, and I was too intoxicated to fight her off. I remember Greg at one point, picking up a used condom from the ground and tossing it in our direction: "Go for it, Paul!" he shouted. Most of this I watched later on the video-cam recording Freaky took while the make-out session took place; despite the fact that I was being smothered, I looked like I was enjoying myself immensely.

At some point I must have blacked out, because I remember sitting up suddenly with the girl asleep at my side. I had no idea where she had come from, or why she had chosen me out of the hundreds of potential partners on the hillside. Matt and Chantal and Greg had wandered off; Hammer and Freaky were sharing bong hits with some crusty punk chicks. I took a toke from the bong, and Hammer pointed at the passed-out girl and said "You sure your wife over there doesn't want a hit?" I tried to tell Hammer to fuck off but my mouth and lips were totally numb as if shot up with novocaine, and the words came out sounding like non-syllabic mush.

A few minutes later I retrieved my pocket flashlight and wobbled away on my cane, my head reeling and my stomach lurching violently. I passed the stage and managed to get over to the first curve of the foot path before I let out the first stream of vomit safely into the bushes. A hundred feet further down the lane I vomited again, this time coating the tips of my boots, and then I tripped over a tree root and collapsed onto the soft cool mud, rolling over to witness the night sky between the two walls of forest, the stars as hard and sharp as crystals of ice in the black heavens. Here I was in the middle of Canadian wilderness, geopolitical nowhere on the small of the back of the world, where the diamond glint of starlight cut through the darkness undiluted by the omnipresent haze of big city street lamps and skyscraper fluorescents. Meanwhile the roar of the electric guitars and thundering drums was but a hollow howl in my ear canals, a noise only partially diluted by the canopy of trees and the windless blanket of humid air that hugged my skin and seeped mercilessly into my pores. I lay on the wet mud for several minutes like this, too stoned to move, feeling the cold moisture stains pooling on the back of my shirt and the legs of my pants, at once god-like and yet forsaken, lost among the mud and rocks of some great, failed plain of creation.

I somehow found myself in my sleeping bag the next afternoon, dry-mouthed and hung over, wearing the same dirty clothes I had on from the previous night. Matt brought me a bottled water and a hoagie sandwich. "Some of the local rednecks pulled in this morning with a catering truck," he explained. "I figured you might need some food. You shouldn't have gotten so wasted, not so close to our own show."

Matt wanted me to sober up quickly, because our slot had been moved up to the afternoon. The stage manager was some scrawny jerk who had taken over from Jake Punkaholic, and at the last minute he had re-arranged the bands' performance schedule to accommodate some other bands that he was personal friends with. From what I heard, Matt argued with him pretty fiercely, and almost got us kicked off the bill altogether. Greg of all people had to play peace-maker, agreeing despite Matt's objections to playing at 3:00 p.m. Chantal and Hammer were thrilled to be playing earlier, leaving their evenings open to partying into the wee hours. Matt, meanwhile, tried to console himself with the fact that Freaky and the other amateur photographers would be able to film and photograph the band during daylight.

I now had only two hours to clear up my head and get ready. I ate my sandwich in gulping bites - I was amazed at how hungry I was - and washed down some Tylenol with my water. After changing clothes in the van, I gathered up my cane and guitar case and walked over to the main campfire where Hammer and Freaky were cooking hot dogs and marshmallows. A thin bearded punk from Quebec had wandered over looking for food - a lot of people had showed up at Kamp Punkaholic with only their backpacks, never mind camping provisions, and a few had even hitchhiked all the way from the city with only the clothes on their backs. The Quebec punk look completely lost, unable to speak English and completely bewildered by our broad-gestured explanations as he gripped the hot dog that Hammer had given him. At first he tried to eat the hot dog raw, but Hammer grabbed his arm and pointed to the fire, saying that he should cook the meat before eating it. So the punk walked over and tried to stick the hot dog over the flames with his bare hands. Again Hammer pulled him back and tried to show him how to use a jack-knife to whittle down a stick and use the stick as a skewer for the hot dog. The Quebec punk nodded vigorously and made affirmative giggling noises, and so Hammer handed him the knife and pointed to the small pile of wood and sticks next to the tent. The punk then contemplated the knife for a minute, and stuck the hot dog onto the knife blade and held it over the fire. Seeing this, Greg leapt up cursing and grabbed the knife and hot dog from the punk's hand, giving him his own cooked hot dog instead, which the punk chewed thoughtfully.

"Shouldn't we give him a bun for the hot dog?" Hammer said.

"Why bother?" Greg snorted. "He'd probably stick it on his head and wear it like a hat."

A moment later we were joined by some other Quebeckers, who in turn bummed food and drinks off of us. The one bilingual Quebecker told us that our confused buddy, whose name was Gaston, was a major glue-sniffer and was pretty much dependent on others most of the time; not understanding English was the least of his problems. The bilingual Quebecker then asked us if anyone wanted to buy some PCP. "Awesome shit," he assured us. "It'll blow your heads off for sure."

I looked over at Gaston, who was holding his hot dog loosely between his fingers and staring randomly into the distance. "Maybe another time," I said.

As soon as I got up on stage, I could see why Matt didn't want to play a show in the afternoon. A lot of punks were still asleep or else lounging around the campsites to the south. The vast hillside that the night before had teemed with hundreds of people were now only littered with half-sober and half-curious concert-goers gathered around the smouldering remains of the previous night's bonfires. We did have a good two-dozen Betty Rage loyalists gathered in the pit, along with Freaky and other photogs in the stage wings, but that was hardly a substitute for the multitudinous throng of the previous night.

Matt remained surly and taciturn the entire time we performed. Already frustrated with the set time change and the lost opportunity to open for the Punkaholics, Matt was also throwing withering glares in my direction as I had chosen to forego the usual ankle-binding and instead sat in an old wooden chair while playing. I had even found a old Tilley hat to wear, completing the hillbilly image by chewing on a piece of long grass. "We're in the country," I told him. "So why not dress the part?" So sue me, I was enjoying myself.

As always, Chantal was the centre of attention: working the skater-chick aesthetic in a bikini top and a pair of pink track pants, hopping around in a more energetic manner than usual. It was a good thing she was wearing sneakers - I could see the planks of the stage floor pop in and out of alignment in certain sections as she hopped and danced. Some of the knots in the wood looked big enough to take out the spiked heel of the boots she usually wore while performing.

She had just announced our next number, 'Girl Power', when some grimy young men sitting just past the main pit started yelling out "Take off your top!" and "Show us your tits!" This was not the first time audience members had taunted Chantal like this - at a show at the Bovine Sex Club we had women shouting "Take off your shirt, girl!" with such rowdy abandon that the bar-staff were starting to look nervous. These guys, however, were particularly crass, cupping their hands around their stubble-rimmed cake-holes and calling out in rude, ragged voices. At first, Chantal acknowledged them with sly shakes of her head, wagging her finger in schoolmarm-ish fashion. Matt grabbed up my vocal mic and yelled back, "Show us your dicks first!" to which one of the men wittily retorted, "Shut up, faggot!" Others in the crowd were yelling their own ripostes back at the male punks. Things were getting tense, and a fist-fight looked all but imminent.

Chantal stared hard at the hecklers, smirking piteously. "What's with you guys yelling 'show us your tits'? It's not like you're even asking nicely. Didn't your mommy teach you to say 'please'?"

People near the stage laughed loudly. Meanwhile the male punks sat stone-faced, looking properly admonished. There was a nerve-wracking pause, and then one of the men, a boyish figure whose adam's apple was so prominent it made his neck appear broken, stood up and called out in a hesitant voice: "Please?"

Chantal stood with a hand on her hip. "Please what?"

The boyish man smiled weakly, stammering his words. "Your top? Off?"

"In a sentence."

The man rolled his eyes and clasped his hands in mock-prayer, his shoulders subserviently bent forward. "Please, miss Betty Rage, can you please take off your top and show us your beautiful breasts?"

Chantal nodded and made a condescending smile. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" She then put the mic back on the stand and reached behind her to untie her bikini string. The audience yelped as she threw away her top and stood bare-chested, beaming girlishly. "My god," she said wryly. "Some of you are acting like you've never seen tits before!" In the audience, the boyish man stood bug-eyed with astonishment, while his two dirty-faced friends exchanged a high-five.

The band romped its way through 'Girl Power,' with Chantal hopping and dancing to the beat, her breasts jumping in time. Two tiny punkettes in the crowd doffed their shirts in solidarity, waving their tops above their heads. As we were segueing into 'Demolition Girl', I looked across the stage and saw Freaky lower his video camera to talk with a green-haired woman in a cardigan and ragged skirt. I realised that it was the girl who had made out with me and then passed out the night before. I panicked and turned away quickly - I was not in the mood for a repeat performance, especially in the sober light of day. But when I looked back across the stage during the second verse, the woman was kissing Freaky and pushing his dirty coat off of his shoulders. At first Freaky seemed shocked, but he then relaxed as the make-out session continued.

By the time we were into 'A Night In Venice', the green-haired woman had worked her way down Freaky's body until she was crouched before him, wrestling his pants zipper open. My eyes met Freaky's for a few seconds - his expression was at once helpless and yet deliriously grateful (much like how I looked in the video recording from the previous night). Heads in the crowd turned as the woman fished out Freaky's engorged cock and took it into her mouth, gobbling it like a pelican struggling with a piece of fish.

I could hear the hoots and jeering from the audience, even over the din of the music. Chantal shouted "You go, girl!" at the green-haired woman, pausing her dance moves to gawk at the spectacle. Greg, meanwhile, was laughing so hard he completely botched the guitar solo, while Matt stood chagrined but determined, banging out the rhythm chords on his guitar with his teeth gritting tightly. Thankfully, Hammer kept a rock-steady beat while the rest of us fumbled and flailed.

By the final verse we had gathered enough momentum that we were playing like a band again. As we headed into the final chorus, the amateur porn-show on stage right began its parallel crescendo as the woman's head bobbed over Freaky's crotch, her movements becoming more fierce. Chantal was singing toward the couple, cradling the mic stand like the hammiest of lounge crooners, her toplessness forgotten as the rest of us played on, harder and faster while the green-haired woman worked vigorously on Freaky's dick. Then with an eerily perfect timing, as we closed in on the final bar of the final song, Freaky jerked his head back in an ecstatic moan while jism sprayed out across the woman's face.

The band managed to hang onto a final resonating "E" chord as the woman turned away from Freaky and faced the crowd with a sloppy, gap-toothed grin, her cheeks and lips glistening with pearl-gray ejaculate. People applauded wildly, whistling and whooping and roaring. All I could do was sit with my bass guitar in my lap, marveling at what I had just witnessed. Apparently, her molesting me the night before had been nothing more than a practice run.

Needless to say, our set proved to be the highlight of the afternoon. The band that followed us, a group of sixteen-year-olds from Brantford calling themselves The Urine Bonerz, were trying desperately to keep up the excitement in their own teenaged way - taking off their pants mid-song, calling out to the women in the audience to get naked - but it was all for naught. A gaggle of greasy basement-dwellers bashing out inept renditions of 'Ursula Finally Has Tits' by The Queers simply doesn't hold one's attention like bare-breasted girls and impromptu blowjobs. I watched them for the first few songs, trying to feel engaged, but otherwise I was as bored and underwhelmed as everyone else out on the hillside.

Under these circumstances, I was happy for the diversion of having a new fan come up and praise my band's earlier performance. Having that fan turn out to be Robbie Baron from The Punkaholics was an excellent bonus indeed.

"I heard about Betty Rage playing shows in T.O.," Robbie said. "I had you pegged as some typical girl group bullshit, but - man! That was some total chaos you had going on."

Robbie and I talked briefly about the set. It felt strange to be conversing as equals: me with the guitar player from Canada's greatest hardcore band. But while Robbie was singing the praises of Betty Rage, my own band's fearless leader was standing six feet away holding court with an entertainment reporter from a newspaper in Hamilton. The reporter, a thirty-ish woman in hoop earrings and a new-looking leather jacket, had been following around various people all afternoon looking for a story on the "punk Woodstock" phenomenon at Kamp Punkaholic. Most of the punks had been more than happy to tell the reporter to piss off, so not surprisingly she seemed relieved to finally have someone willing to give her some sound bytes. Matt, for his part, was treating the reporter's questioning as a prime promotional opportunity - I didn't have to hear the words coming out of his mouth to know that he was shaping the narrative to make it sound as if Betty Rage was the weekend's main attraction, matinee time-slot notwithstanding.

Robbie threw a withering side-glance at Matt and the reporter. "Your guitar player's a real Joe Hollywood," he said to me. " I don't think I could put up with five minutes in the same room with the guy."

I shrugged. "Matt's a good manager. He gets us the gigs."

Robbie sighed. "They usually do."

I scored a late-afternoon lift with Robbie on the back of an ATV back to the Punkaholics' house. Robbie shouted over the noise of the ATV motor, talking about how tonight was going to be his first major concert with the Punkaholics since his move back from Calgary. He then followed up with a rambling back-story detailing how his marriage had fallen apart over Christmas, and how he had quit his job and grabbed the first train back to Ontario, with no real plans for what he would do once he returned home.

"Back in '95 I had a vague idea that it was time to grow up," Robbie told me. "Oil started to get big again in Alberta, and my ex-wife had family around Lethbridge. After four years of living together, I proposed and got hitched, and then took the first field job I was offered. Big mistakes, one after the other."

For the past four months, Robbie had been living in a cramped attic at the Punkaholics' house, a thirty-five year old man with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothes and CDs to his name. "The band is what I'm now dedicating myself to. Playing guitar is the only thing I'm really good at anyway." I thought about venturing a question as to whether re-joining The Punkaholics might simply be another mistake, but instead I let Robbie babble on about how good it was hooking up with Jake and the boys after all these years, his eyes squinting periodically and staring hard into the distance. His many words added up to little in meaning, but those reticent stares spoke volumes.

If Robbie's meandering soliloquy was merely disquieting, then the scene of Jake in the Punkaholics house living room was downright horrifying. Jake was now so fat that he waddled, a ridiculous yellow Hawaiian shirt draped over his copious flab. His left hand seemed permanently gripped around the throat of a bottle of Jack Daniels from which he took occasional lip-smacking slurps. Robbie sat on a battered chesterfield next to Vinnie Violent, who was nervously running through finger exercises on an unplugged guitar. Wiry punkers and burly metalheads filtered in twos and threes through the living room, making their way from the front entrance to the kitchen and back, while a towering bald monster of a man stood silently next to the kitchen doorway: a beast so tall that his forehead was parallel to the top of the door frame. It was only when Robbie asked the silent giant about the drawing up of the set-list that I found out that the giant was actually Billy Bronto, the Punkaholics' newest bass player. Bronto nodded affirmatively to indicate that the set-list had been attended to, otherwise folding his massive arms like telephone poles drawn across his chest and maintaining a state of wordless observation.

Jake paced back and forth with his brow furrowed, depleting his bottle of rye whiskey and cursing the OPP cruisers that were cutting across the property's north end. "The pigs know Old Carruthers Road is private fuckin' property," he announced to the room in a gravelly voice. "I was up there this morning, I told them to get their pig asses back to the main highway. Fuckin' shitheads just laughed." He wiped his face with the back of his free hand, raking his fingers over his mohawk cut, which stuck up sparsely at the crown where his hair was now thinning with age. "Warrant my ass. I'm calling Wiebe again, I'm not putting up with this bullshit."

"Wiebe's not gonna help you." The speaker of these words was a skinny, angry-looking woman who was sitting on a recliner across from Jake in the corner of the room. "What good's a real estate lawyer gonna do? You need a criminal lawyer for this."

"A lawyer's a lawyer, for chrissakes!" Jake glared furiously at the angry-looking woman. "What do you care? It's not like you live up here anymore."

I took a hard look at the woman on the recliner. With her long stringy hair and sweatshirt and jeans, I had figured she was one of the rednecks from the concession truck. I then realised with a start that she was actually Jen Punkaholic. "For fuck's sake," Jen half-shouted at Jake, "I'm trying to talk sense into you. A real estate lawyer can't do shit here. What's he gonna know about getting cops off of private property, especially when they're carrying provincial maps showing Old Carruthers Road as a public route? You wanna raise shit, get one of those reporters crawling around the camp to write up a story. You place one call to City TV - "

"Fuck the reporters! They're worse than the fuckin' pigs! They'll just go all 'ooh lookit the drug-huffin' underage punks' the moment they see this place! Lying bags of shit!"

"Those bags of shit are already here! Fuck, there are fuckin' bands from Toronto bringing in their own cameramen. But those reporters will be a hell of a lot more useful than a goddamn real estate lawyer!"

I was sitting on an ottoman next to the television, cringing and feeling self-conscious about the discussion of the reporters at Kamp Punkaholic - Matt had been one of the people who had called in the media wolves. All I had wanted was to boast to Matt later about chilling with his favourite group of all time. I had not anticipated being in the middle of an intense band meeting, watching a redneck Jen shouting at fat-man Jake and shrimpy little Vinnie Violent sat cross-legged on the chesterfield scratching out technoid guitar scales like an autistic Steve Vai, and wall-eyed Robbie Baron staring blankly into his beer can. I tried to remain inconspicuous, concentrating on the muted television that was playing a VCR tape of "The Hills Have Eyes". But Jake managed to zero in on me anyway, rearing back accusingly as if I had magically appeared in the room, Tilley hat and all.

"You!" he said at me with a sneer. "Who the fuck are you anyway?"

Before I could muster a reply, Robbie told Jake that I was the bassist from Betty Rage. "They played a wicked set an hour ago," he explained. "It was crazy! The singer got topless, and some guy got a blowjob on stage while they were playing."

Jen rolled her eyes. "Sounds charming," she said.

"No, Jen, you would have dug it. They ended their set with a bunch of Saints covers: 'Demolition Girl' and that other song."

I sat up on the ottoman. "What do you mean about 'Saints covers'?" I asked. I was coolly informed by both Robbie and Jen that 'Demolition Girl' was written by an Australian band called the Saints, a band I had heard of but otherwise knew nothing about. "You even played that second song after 'Demolition Girl' with the same lead-in," Robbie explained, "just like on the first record. Who do you think wrote those songs?"

I felt my face flush. "Matt?" I replied shakily.

"What, Hollywood Boy told you he wrote those songs? 'Demolition Girl' and that song right after - "

"'Night In Venice'," Jen said, finishing Robbie's sentence with a grin. "Looks like someone lied to you big-time, buddy."

The bickering about the cops resumed while I sat back, stunned by the revelation that Betty Rage, led by the former manifesto-writer Spike Liberty, was secretly a cover act. A few days later, I would confront Matt and the rest of the band about this, only to be shocked when everyone in the practice laughed it off "I thought you already knew who wrote those songs," Matt would tell me with a straight face, while Greg and Hammer would insist that 'Demolition Girl' and 'Night In Venice' were nothing but strong set-closers. I also found out that 'Solitary Confinement' was written by a California band called the Weirdos. I accused Matt of trying to pass off obscure punk songs as originals, but Greg told me I was being paranoid. Even when I tried to bring up the banning of cover songs back in Morganfield, Matt simply shrugged. "Morganfield was a long time ago," he replied. "It's time to move forward, don't you think?"

Eventually, Jake followed Jen upstairs muttering anti-cop harangues, while Robbie got up and left the room with a group of college-aged fans to smoke a bowl on the front porch (one of the fans recognised me from Betty Rage and paused to shake my hand: "You played with that band with the naked girls - alright!"). While Bronto stood sentinel by the kitchen and Vinnie Violent continued performing mixolydian two-steps on his fretboard, and with nowhere better to take myself for the next few hours, I wandered the first floor, pausing to scrutinise the paltry bookshelf in the hall. Most of the books were lousy science fiction paperbacks of the sort I had put aside back in Grade Eleven, along with a few dog-eared conspiracy tomes about Mumia Abu-Jamal and the massacre at Waco. However, there was a copy of Lester Bangs' Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung, and a hardback of Kerouac's On The Road, so I retrieved the two books and killed the next half hour back in the living room re-reading Bangs' essays, skimming through the good parts. Once in a while people filed through the room, pausing to throw me a curious look, but otherwise I was left alone with my books and beer.

I heard a pause from Vinnie Violent's guitar-playing, and looked up to see him staring at me with a creepy grin. "I practice every day," he said to me, as if I had asked him about his routine. "The only way you get good is doing the scales and shit." Vinnie's voice was parched and reedy, as if his esophagus was made of onion paper. His arms were like cardboard tubes sticking out if his shirt sleeves, and his matted hair and acne-cratered face belied a diet of junk food and cola by the two-litre bottle. But then his gnarled fingers slid confidently over the neck of his guitar and he plucked out a note-perfect rendition of Jimi Hendrix' 'Castles Made Of Sand' followed by 'Broon's Bane' from Rush's second live album. All of this wasted figure's life force seemed to flow through the unplugged guitar, so confident were the movements of his hands over the strings that I half-expected his body to wither like a sac while his spirit washed through the guitar body and out from the front of the instrument, resonating out and upward in heaven-bound waves.

He paused mid-chord and grimaced childishly. "Rock and roll, homie!" He then cackled and wiped down the strings with a rag, exiting to the kitchen carrying the guitar under his arm like a gangster with a machine gun.

I killed the next hour with Kerouac, and then exited the house and bought a ham and chicken sandwich from the lunch truck still parked at the south end of the clearing (one crusty punk yelled at me, shouting "Don't support the redneck assholes!") Sandwich in hand, I wandered back to the Punkaholics' house. But when I opened the door I was startled to instead come across Jake and Jen in the middle of a fierce argument, with Billy Bronto and others gathered by the kitchen door watching passively.

"Jake, that's the dumbest fuckin' idea I've ever heard. No way am I doing that!"

I looked and saw a cordless beard trimmer in Jake's hand, where the bottle of whiskey had been four hours previous. "It's for the band," Jake bellowed. "You don't even look like a Punkaholic."

Jen sneered back incredulously. "What the fuck does that even mean, 'I don't look like a Punkaholic'? I look like me, you prick!"

Since I had last seen the two, Jen had changed clothes and was now wearing a purple dress and denim jacket, while Jake had squeezed himself into his traditional Punkaholics stage-wear of combat pants and vest open over his gigantic stomach. Jen seemed dressed for an arts and crafts fair, but comfortable. Jake, however, looked like a twelve-inch hot dog stuffed into an eight-inch bun.

"Jen, baby, we're going on stage for the first time in over a year, we've got Robbie back in the band, just like old times. All I'm saying is that people out there on the hill, they're expecting to see The Punkaholics, not some long-haired hippie." Just then Jake inexplicably turned toward me. "Hey buddy," Jake said. "Don't you think Jen would look hot with a sexy little mohawk cut? A little Wendy O Williams action for the fans?"

Jen hissed through her teeth. "You are such a fucking creep." Now it was Jen's turn to address me. "Can you believe this guy? He actually expects me to shave my fuckin' head for a stupid concert."

"Not your whole head," Jake countered. "Just wanna get some of that ratty hippie hair out of that pretty face of yours. Hey Billy, what do you think?"

Billy Bronto shrugged his shoulders. He was warily eyeing the scene, though it seemed as if he was used to these confrontations. Out on the porch people were cranking the tunes and laughing and clinking bottles as if it were any Saturday night at the party house.

Jen ran a fist through her "hippie" hair in exasperation. "Jake, ask yourself why I quit the band after fifteen goddamn years. Ask yourself why I got fed up with all the bullshit about band loyalty and image. I don't deserve this shit, not when I was driving all the way to Waterloo five days a week to work in a library just so we could afford something to eat while you fucked around on a second album. I believed in this band, Jake. I believed in you until I couldn't take it anymore. Now I come out here for one stupid reunion - and I sure hope you weren't actually thinking I was re-joining the band for good - and you have the absolute gall to tell me to cut my hair off just so you can pretend like nothing's changed. Moving on, Jake! Growing up. You oughta try it sometime."

Jen grabbed a can of Molson's from the water-filled cooler and dropped down on the chesterfield. Jake stood grimly with the beard trimmer still in his grip. "Well, Jen," he muttered after a long pause, "I'm glad to hear that you've come so far that you don't need to be part of this band anymore. Unfortunately, some of us are in this for life, whether we like it or not. You weren't there when the cops threw us out of The Haunted House, remember? You weren't there when the cops kicked Hork's face in Montreal back in '84. I had to watch that shit while you were safe at home in Waterloo."

"No Jake, I wasn't with you in Montreal." Jen's voice was a low, emotionless hum. "I was working, remember? But Robbie was there. And he told me the cops never beat up Hork."

"They chased us for three blocks, dammit - "

"And Hork ran face-first into a lamp post! The cops picked Hork up off the ground, laughing their asses off, and took him to the hospital. But they never beat him up, unlike this grandiose story you like to tell everybody. You think people don't know?"

Jake stared back at Jen, his face like a wedge of stone, a pink tinge of blood slowly flooding his forehead and cheeks.

"Let's try something different," Jen said. "When we play tonight, go to the microphone and tell everyone you've been feeding them crocks of shit for ten years. You don't have to lie to these kids about how bad the fuckin' cops are - they already know that cops suck. But you don't have to lie. Or is your fuckin' badass image as King Punk all you fuckin' care about?"

There was no noise in the room except for the sound of the stereo from the kitchen. The front door had cracked open, and I could see the faces of strangers and friends alike out on the porch, eavesdropping nervously. Robbie and Vinnie had appeared on the stairwell behind me, along with other mute bystanders. We all held our breaths, waiting.

Jake made a strange grunt, like the start of a pointed rebuttal, but instead the grunt extended into an animal roar. He threw himself over Jen onto the chesterfield, grabbing her by the hair and forcing the buzzing clipper towards her. Jen screamed and struggled against him. Robbie and I and others rushed toward the two to break up the fight, but it was Bronto who pulled Jake up from the chesterfield, scooping him bodily under his gigantic arm and throwing him against the far wall so hard that dust billowed from the wall seams and paint chips fluttered down from the ceiling. He kept a hand pushed against Jake's chest, and then spoke in a voice that was strangely high-pitched, almost adolescent despite his size:

"Don't do this, Jake. I love you like a brother, dude, but if you go after Jen like that again, I'm gonna hurt you."

Jake struggled and squirmed under Bronto's grip like a bug pinned to the wall. Then he went slack, his shoulders drooping in acquiescence. Bronto released him and let Jake take a few dazed steps forward. Jake's upper body shook as if he was about to throw up, and then he screamed and threw the clipper at the far wall, where it shattered and broke into several pieces. He then stomped around the living room, grabbing and throwing random items including two of the empty beer cans and the Kerouac book I had left sitting on the coffee table. Finally he threw his foot at the muted television, knocking it backwards and sending it crashing onto the floor, where it shot sparks out across the hardwood and screeched as if in hideous pain. Robbie kicked the plug out of the outlet, and the television hissed into lifelessness.

Everyone who had watched Jake rampage impotently in that small, sad-looking room now stood around, too embarrassed to speak. Jake, meanwhile, leaned against the stairwell banister, panting and drained of his anger. Finally, Jen stepped forward. "Jake," she said, holding her arms out in a motherly gesture, smiling serenely with apparent forgiveness. Bronto and Robbie lurched in her direction, but she signaled at them to keep a distance. "It's okay," she said.

Jake was all jowls and contrition: an old, humiliated man, wavering like a robot whose batteries had run low. Jen nodded at him, and Jake pursed his lips childishly and went toward her, eyes lowered in shame. Just as he was about to embrace her, however, Jen gripped his shoulders and kneed Jake hard in his groin. Clutching between his legs, Jake doubled over in agony and crumpled on the floor.

Jen turned away quickly and strutted towards the front door. "All right, let's play this fuckin' show and get it over with."

The humid night air crackled over the concert hill. Looking out from the lip of the stage the faces of fans and onlookers flickered with the light of bonfires, the landscape like a primitive village under aerial bombardment from an unseen military force. Between the warm-up chords from Robbie and Vinnie and the percussive rolls from Adam Split on the drumkit, the bellows and shouts of the hundreds of people gathered were so loud that one had to raise their voice to converse even with a hand cupped to the listeners' ear. The stage seemed like a vortex, a gravitational force holding this ghoulish mass of humanity to its centre; without this central force, the muddy murderous audience would surely fly out across the countryside like airborne viruses, unstoppable in their velocity and terminally toxic.

I surveyed this scene from my perch on the left end of the stage platform, sitting on a monitor cabinet that had blown out the previous evening. Several punk kids rotated on and off the left and right stage skirts, eager for a vantage away from the murky pit and closer to the band, shoving their way up only to be ejected by the burlier hardcore punks and bikers who served as Kamp Punkaholic's de facto security team. Robbie had pointed me out to the lead enforcer, a biker wearing a bullet belt and a "Free Hork" tee-shirt, and my post remained undisturbed for the time I remained seated. With a folded blanket for a seat cushion and a plastic bag's worth of Moosehead beers at my side, I was comfortably ensconced and pleasantly buzzed, at worst a weird Tilley-hatted mascot for the festivities but otherwise an unobtrusive presence, a ghost amongst spirits far more malevolent.

When Jake Punkaholic appeared, the crowd erupted with savage cheers, surging toward the stage lip like Visigoths storming a medieval parapet. Jake, in turn, stood at the mic stand and cupped a hand over his eyes, surveying the swarming hill. Jen had taken up her microphone at the other end of the stage, her entrance going unnoted except for the giddy squeals of a quartet of female punks who had been camped out on the stage's opposite end for most of the evening. The four women were seated around a massive beer bong from which they and other audience members would pound down alcoholic liquids by the quart, taking turns pouring booze in an industrial funnel and laughing while the eager recipients at the other end of the bong hose choked down the torrent of liquor that gravity-fed into their gullets. I caught Jake staring briefly at the four girls in their tattered tops and torn stockings, their mascara-smeared eyes rolling blearily with advancing drunkenness. His lips twisted into a smirk of anticipation. "Save some for the rest of us, girls," he brayed into his microphone. But then he lurched forward and grabbed at his crotch and winced - I winced along with him, recalling Jen's groin kick from earlier in the evening. Jen, for her part, simply shook her head, assuming a stance with her microphone stand that could only be described as professionally poised. C'mon Jake, let's play this fuckin' show and get it over with.

"How the fuck is everyone doing out there?" Jake shouted at the audience. The crowd howled in affirmation, fists pumping in the darkness. "I gotta tell you, it's been way too fuckin' long since The Punkaholics last played a proper show. We've got Robbie Baron back, the madman on rhythm guitar!" He pointed at Robbie, who smiled at the cheers and applause. "We've got the lovely Jen." Jen waved patiently at the crowd, to cheering twice as loud as what Robbie had received. "Billy on the four-string, Vinnie on the shredder, Adam on the skins! Punkaholica 1998! Let's fuckin' destroy the place!"

With these words, Billy Bronto pounded out the opening four-note riff on his bass guitar, and the band launched head-first into 'Fascist State'. Immediately the pit started churning with bodies, the moshing punks like a cauldron of soup, bubbling and sloshing violently. Young men launched themselves bodily into the teeming mass, some skimming the surface as they were passed along outstretched hands, others sinking leadenly into the stew.

For the next forty minutes as The Punkaholics pounded relentlessly through their set: 'Power Tool', 'Radio Rock', 'Porno Pimp Headstomp', 'Onward We Fight', 'Suburban/Subhuman', 'Tax The Rich'. I scanned the booze-brightened faces in the pit - half of these kids had not even started kindergarten when most of these songs had been written. In the middle of this summer night at the dying end of the twentieth century, when the growing promise of Y2K augured a coming age of massive technological failures and a breakdown of civilisation as we knew it, these babies were throwing themselves against each other in ecstasy: a grassy field of sophisticated primitives enraptured in a bacchanal devoted to an utterly pagan pair gods named Anarchy and Chaos, with every swirling eddy of bodies in the pit like the spiral of an infant universe being born.

At the end of 'Stolen Native Land,' Jake straightened up and stared across the rise in the land, turning his gaze northward. His eyes narrowed into slits. "Seems we got some company tonight," he said, pointing up to the hill's crest. The audience turned in the direction where Jake was pointing. At the top of the hill, where Old Carruthers' Road wended through the forest under a fat pale moon, several white lights had pierced through the heavy foliage, dissolving in the night's periphery. Among the white lights there were flickers of red that began to strobe intermittently like faulty Christmas ornaments strung along the precipice. Eventually the strobing red lights strengthened until their pattern became unmistakable: they were from the warning lamps of police cruisers, a half-dozen or more perhaps, parked on the road less than two hundred feet from the concert stage.

"You're on citizen's property, assholes!" Jake glared fiercely toward the ridge. "This is a private party, and you OPP shits ain't invited!"

One of the police cruisers let out a hesitant siren call, more like a nervous hiccup caused by a finger slipping on the siren's trigger than a sound of warning. The audience below howled in reply, waving middle fingers and British-styled "V"-handed gestures towards the cops. People nearest to the steep rise began throwing beer cans and rocks up toward the crest, only to have them land half-way up the hill and then tumble back down. The height of the precipice prevented any of the projectiles from reaching the police, but at the same time the bluff was far too steep for the police to attempt any easy descent on foot, assuming any of them were foolhardy enough to try. For the time being, at least, both sides had been contained and separated by the landscape.

"I don't know how many times it's happened," Jake said, addressing the anonymous wheeling lights. "Punk bands play a show, cops come and look to bust some heads. I've seen teenage girls get shoved around by cops on power trips. I've seen cops in groups of four throwing some skinny kid around the alley like a fuckin' beach ball. My good friend Hork - " The crowd of punks sounded out angrily in recognition of the name and the story. "The Mighty Hork. Your pals in Montreal chased him down like a dog!" He glanced over quickly at Jen, and then back up at the glowing hilltop. "Like a fuckin' dog, you fucks!"

Jake switched the microphone to his other hand. "The one thing that always gets me, is how you can show up to a club with only two, three, maybe four officers, and you can boss around a hundred punks just like that. I don't know if it's the attitude, or the guns, or what, but I've seen it over and over. Someone calls in a noise complaint or reports seeing someone drinking a beer on the sidewalk, and you ride on over cavalry-style and take right over, like a bunch of cowboys. It's impressive. But I'll tell you one thing." He paused to scan the audience across the sloping field, a thousand pairs of ears straining and fists clenching. "It must suck when you're really outnumbered."

I don't know if I can accurately describe the response of the crowd, the sheer vehement wave of affirmation: a cry of surreal rage emanating at every frequency, filtered through a thousand shredded throats. A fresh volley of bottles and stones pelted the northern slope, battering the scrub brush and thatches of grass that clung to the clay-and-mud face of the bluff. Above the crest, the red and white lights continued to turn and split in shards through the tree branches, a mute alien presence hovering above the terrestrial army of savage fury. Freaky's words from the previous evening resounded in my mind: it wasn't quite after the end of the world, but we were awfully close, and getting closer with every shattered bottle and hollered cry.

"So how about this," Jake said, addressing the police with a sarcastic lilt in his ravaged voice. "Seeing as you gate-crashers up on my road have come so far to hang with the plebes, why don't we all sing a song written especially for you? You boys in blue, you gallant guardians of the business class?"

Jen nodded and took up the lead. "Raymond Constantine Lawrence," she shouted into her microphone. "Shot and killed by Toronto police in 1992!"

Punks in the audience cheered in recognition. Moshers in the pit braced themselves, squaring shoulders and preparing for launch.

"The Canadian way: Peace, Order, and Good Government." Jake lisped his words with menace. "'Peace', as in 'rest in peace after we shoot your sorry ass!' 'Order', as in 'we order you to keep in line, or we'll club your face bloody until your own mother won't recognise you in the fuckin' morgue!'"

"Marcellus Francois! Shot and killed by police in Montreal due to mistaken identity! All they had was a blurry fax picture to go by! Black man in a car, and Marcellus fit the bill!"

"And 'good government'!" Jake narrowed his eyes, his lip curling. "As in, 'the good get government, while the rest of you - punks, homeless people, gays, immigrants - all you sorry fuckers are on your own. You fall out line once, we're gonna get you where it hurts!'"

"Dudley George!" Jen didn't even have to finish the phrase. Everyone in the audience knew about the Native protester gunned down by the OPP in Ipperwash in 1995. The pounding of fists on the stage platform caused the amplifier stacks to rock and shiver.

Jake cleared his throat. "This song is all about you fine law enforcement officers. I also invite you to join us for a dance in the pit - come on down, if you're man enough!"

The Punkaholics played their song 'Here Piggy' with a ferociousness far beyond the recorded version. Like Viking Berserkers, the punks in the pit charged into each other senselessly, a free-for-all of fists and boots. Jake and Jen screamed the lyrics in unison, with hundreds joining in the lead-in stanza:

BULLY BOYS IN UNIFORM

BEATING IN GESTAPO SWARM

ABOVE THE LAW, ENFORCE THE RIGHT

PARAMILITARY MIGHT

LAWS FOR RICH MEN, LAWS FOR WHITES

YOU'RE THE CRIMINALS IN OUR SIGHTS

HERE PIGGY! HERE PIGGY!

HERE PIGGY! HERE PIGGY!

Two verses, two choruses, and one guitar solo courtesy of Vinnie Violent, and the song was finished. Robbie and Vinnie let their guitar chords resonate over the heads of the crowd, many bruised but still battle-hungry, full bottles and cans emptying into thirsty mouths and ash-ends of cigarettes and joints winking like fireflies. Below the mid-heavy thunder-roll of guitar sustain, Adam Split began an instinctive kick drum pulse, like the heartbeat of a monster buried deep beneath the soil. Billy Bronto began to play the riff from 'Here Piggy' in time with the pulse, the song's E-B-G-A/G progression slowed down to a menacing pace. Robbie picked up on Bronto's insistent bass line, and Adam Split followed up with a kick-snare back beat. A hundred bodies began to revolve slowly in the pit, people pushing against each other, their heads lowered and chanting. None of this had been planned; the music and the crowd's reaction had culminated like a collective proto-religious urge.

"Fuck cops!" Jake paced the stage like he had earlier been pacing in the Punkaholics' house living room, more than ever resembling a caged animal waiting for the latch to come loose. "That's all I gotta say: fuck 'em. Power corrupts. You pigs are corrupt. You call us out, say we cause trouble for nice middle-class tax-paying folks. You hound us in the cities, you hound us in the towns we grew up in, you beat us and call us scum. Then you come out to the countryside where we go to get away from you fuckers, and you try to start the same shit. But we're not the trouble out here. We're not the ones rounding up innocent kids on public property and arresting them. We're not the ones enforcing a corporate police state. We're not the trouble. Police are the trouble. Fuck you fucking pigs straight to goddamn Hell!"

The murderous riff continued, twisting tightly like a noose of rope around a throat. The mosh circle spun harder, resembling a whirlpool around a black drain. The girls around the beer bong threw their jaws open with laughter, pausing to suck back the endless slurry of wine and beer from the dispensing hose. A lone man in the pit struggled against the weight of bodies crushing him against the edge of the stage, his drug-glazed eyes rolling back in their sockets. He slumped and collapsed against a flurry of outstretched hands, and his limp body was dragged like driftwood in a current to the edge of the pit, and lost in the shadows beyond the stage lights. More bodies swirled into the whirlpool , the drowning man forgotten.

"Fuck cops," Jake continued to chant. "Fuck cops! Fuck cops!" At first he chanted this on the beat, the syllables forming a two-note refrain alternating with an instrumental pause, but then some of the kids in the pit began screaming to fill the gap in the off-beat: "Kill cops! Kill cops!" One of the bikers on the stage picked up on the call-back and commandeered Robbie's backing mic, bellowing with a giddy cry: Kill cops! Kill cops! Jen joined with the biker on her own microphone, and the resulting call-and-response became a horrific bluesy chant the like of which would have caused Robert Johnson himself to renounce his deal at the crossroads and run horrified for shelter in the nearest clapboard church:

"Fuck cops!" "Kill cops!" "Fuck cops!" "Kill cops!"

The pit spun, the lights along the ridge flashed, the kick drum pulse thudded without pause. Vinnie launched into a bitter, atonal solo on his guitar, the wavering notes like a thread of wire weaving through the fabric of the murky music. Jake broke away from the call-and-response that continued unabated beneath his renewed rant. "I want everyone up on Old Carruthers Road to hear this," he shouted. "I want every jack-booted, club-swinging motherfucker in the Ontario Provincial Police to hear what's going on. No matter how many kids you beat up, no matter how many bullshit charges you drop on our heads - you can't break us! You can not break us, okay? We are the weeds in your pristine Garden of Eden, brothers! No matter how you stomp us out, we'll sprout right back up! Flowers in the motherfuckin' dustbin! You're just the bars in the cage of society, pigs! No one will miss you when you rust away - "

Jake's rant was interrupted by a tweaked-looking kid who briefly snatched away his microphone, shouting gibberish about how high he was and how the police needed to try Ecstacy and open their minds. Robbie and some others pulled the kid off the stage, returning the mic back to Jake, who seemed enraged at being interrupted. "Cops won't last," he growled, trying to resume his monologue. "The rule of the gun - it won't last. We'll be here long after you're out collecting pensions in the old folks' home, complaining about the punk kids across the street." Jake lowered his mic again, furrowing his brow. There had been a grand speech in his head, but the words had been lost. Frustrated, he resumed the chant along with the mob:

Fuck cops! Kill cops! Fuck cops! Kill cops!

I was mesmerised, pinned to my seat by a mix of exhaustion from the lateness of the hour and the unending bellow of the mindless mantra: Fuck cops! Kill cops! Fuck cops! Kill cops! Time lost all meaning under the star-spattered void of the night sky and the immortal milky moon, the fires along the hillside and the smashing of glass against the ridge like shooting stars refracting the flames as they traced determined parabolas overhead. Fuck Cops! Kill Cops! Fuck Cops! People screamed out the words in dumb numb voices until the meaning had fallen away, like the meaning in Jake's speech that was more of a soliloquy to himself: a lifetime of fighting the system, even though the system would surely prevail regardless of his defiance. His band was disintegrating before his eyes even as the kids in the pit with their youthful boundless energy flailed and pounded and the cynical onlookers further in the darkness clinked cans and traded spliffs and gulped back pills, stoned fools floating higher until their psyches burned away under the sun's heat and they crashed down to earth like so many singed bugs - the young who snicker about No Future even as they party their youth away, melting into middle-aged corpulent uselessness like their drunken fathers and despondent mothers. Fuck Cops Kill Cops, the chant continued, the kick drum pulse quickening, the girls with their beer bong pounding booze into their tender slender bodies, faces immobile with imminent blackout while Jake and a hundred million dirty old men waited for the magic of liquor to render the tiny flowers helpless, the funnel of booze spinning like the pit of bodies spinning, everything whirling down some drain or other to a sinister underworld destination. Fuck Cops Kill Cops, the chant continued; Fuck Cops Kill Cops, as we watched the red lights spin on the top of the hill, waiting as we waited, vultures on one side and carrion on the other but no one was certain who was on which side, and some punks decided not to wait for a decision and began scuttling up the slope, two bodies and then three and soon a half-dozen, determined to reach the top, but nevertheless they tumbled one by one, crabs fumbling backward down into the saucepan, but still they struggled upward, unwilling to be roasted alive in the cook-pot, yes, a simple matter of numbers, yes, one of the thousand punks gathered must surely be able to surmount the precipice, yes, this is now and this is right, yes, no punker crabcakes tonight but surely there will be smoked pork by dawn yes yes yes hell Yes! Fuck Cops Kill Cops, the chant continued; Fuck Cops Kill Cops, the chant prevailing for five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes of pounding rhythm like the desperate pounding on the inside of a coffin lid, and skeletal metal guitar spiderwork along the viscous surface of sound like quicksand drawing ankle shin thigh torso head inward, downward, everything drawn down with the surety of gravity's pull like the punks struggling toward the top of the ridge and the beer bong liquor and the moshpit centrifuge, the earth below now certainly a formless paste of soil and piss and vomit and sweat under bloody-minded youths' feet legs hips chests downward drown-ward yes, the suicidal hour this time this year - it is infinite under an obsolete heaven when everything is exquisite Hades, this pit this music this remorseless chant of doom: Punkaholica Nineteen-Ninety-Eight Motherfucker, the end of time and the end of all things, an infinity of nothing and a future frozen in oblivion -

I blinked as if waking from a dream. The crowd was still shouting, the band was still pounding out their sludgy riff-rhythm. Jake was screaming at the cops on the hill. Jen was also screaming, albeit half-heartedly. Robbie and Bronto looked bored.

On the other end of the stage, I noticed that two of the four girls at the beer bong had left their post, replaced by more eager supplicants. They had simply up and split from the joint. That seemed like a good idea, so I took up my cane and remaining cans of beer in a plastic sack, and left by the rear of the stage, returning eventually to my sleeping bag at the campsite.

On Sunday morning I helped Hammer and Greg pack up the tents and gear in the van. There were rumours of a massive police raid coming sometime later in the day, and many people were leaving however possible - Chantal had offered rides back to Toronto to three crusty-punks who turned out to be hung-over but harmless, and Freaky's brake-less Mazda was fully booked for the return trip as well. I suggested one last tour of the concert area, but Greg said not to bother. "There's nothing but garbage and burned-out fire pits and passed-out assholes." Hammer added that one of the punks who had tried to ascend the face of the ridge the previous evening had fallen asleep half-way up the scrabbly slope.

"Pretty pathetic," he said with a chuckle.

Matt and Chantal hopped into the van just as we were loading the last of the equipment. The two of them had been giving a last-minute interview to a fanzine writer from Ohio. I was shocked when I learned that they had missed the near-riot during the Punkaholics' set. Chantal was excited when I blithely mentioned that I actually got to sit up on the stage while the band was playing. For his part, Matt seemed strangely uninterested in my penetration of the Punkaholics' inner circle, except to suggest that I should have tried to snag an opening slot for one of their future concerts. "Think of the band," he said several times, his voice agitated but apparently untainted by jealously, which disappointed the hell out of me.

We started up the van and rolled back to the highway for the two hour trip. I watched Kamp Punkaholic recede in the side-view mirror, watching the trees wave back in the clean summer breeze. I leaned back in the passenger seat while Greg and Chantal and Hammer and the three free-riding strangers chatted and laughed, Matt staring at the oncoming road with a grim expression. My eyes shuttered and I fell into the restless sleep of someone who had gone an entire weekend without proper rest. Work awaited me on Monday morning, a dinner date with Maia was to come Monday evening. A world of responsibilities, of schedules, of time regimented and segmented and apportioned. My head was still aching from Saturday night's noise, and the chant that followed me from the stage to the long and treacherous foot path, all the way back to the camp and my sleeping bag, the voices pursuing me like fragments of conscience despite their idiot refrain - words I could hear being muttered from disparate surrounding tents, a dozen voices of fellow would-be slumberers, tired and yet still drunk with the evening's anthem: fuck cops... kill cops... fuck cops... kill..........

• • • •

### 20.

Happy New Year, Mr. Vandenheuval! I trust you and your fellow media whores passed an eventful evening last night, welcoming in 2003 in a suitably undignified fashion. Me, I made a surprise visit to Maia's work last night and earned some much-needed brownie points with the missus, showing up at around 11:30 p.m. with a bundle of flowers and a bottle of champagne: completely against St. Michael's policy, I'm sure, but Maia's co-workers seemed quite satisfied nonetheless with their cups of bubble. Meanwhile I had a second bottle tucked under my coat, so all that remained was for Maia to negotiate our way to an unused office on one of the upper floors where we could drink and toast to the New Year with cheery aplomb.

"This is all very thoughtful of you," she said to me. "It's almost like you're covering up for something."

There was more than a little calculation on my part, I admit - not for nothing had I scheduled my visit so close to the countdown (if nothing else, a musician's gotta have timing). With the radio counting down in the background we drank our cups, and kissed at the stroke of midnight. But just as we seemed to be on the cusp of a more enthusiastic celebration, a security guard burst into the room blowing a paper whistle and shouting "Happy New Year!" As soon as he saw Maia being manhandled, the guard went into full cop mode, his voice dropping a half-octave as he demanded to know what was going on. I assured him that I was a patient at St. Michael's and that Maia was treating me for chronic priapism. This seemed to satisfy his cro-magnon curiosity, and he left the office. Unfortunately, by that point Maia was laughing too hard for her to perform any of the necessary treatment.

So that was the end of the festivities for me; nothing kills a party like a visit from the cops. It was incredible, how quickly and completely that security guard's voice switched gears, going from a jovial "Happy New Year" to a low, guttural accusation with hardly a pause for breath. There must be some course offered at community college where officers-in-training learn how to slacken their vocal chords and boom out in the lower frequencies, thereby dominating the discourse and quelling any rebellious back-talk from the higher-voiced citizens around them. It reminded me of every confrontation I have had with authority figures, dating back all the way to the concert at Prudence Presbyterian in Morganfield where the one cop told Andy Lefebvre to "watch (his) mouth." Even Steve Coleman at Betty Rage concert had that bass-pitch underpinning down pat. Authority doesn't carry well in a falsetto, I suppose.

The closest I got to seeing a policeman in the flesh during Punkaholica '98 was that row of cop car lights up on Old Carruthers Road. A lot of others weren't so lucky, however. Matt told me that people going in and out of Strathroy for supplies were being stopped by constables from various police forces, with charges levied for offenses ranging from drug possession to driving without a license. In fact, the reason why Matt and Chantal had missed seeing me on stage with The Punkaholics was because they had been pulled over by the Strathroy police, and held while the van searched bumper to tailpipe. By the time they made it back to camp, it was past 2:00 a.m., well after the Punkaholics' set was winding down.

"I would've loved a chance to throw a bottle up at the fuckin' cops." I heard Matt say this as I woke up with a start somewhere on the eastbound 402 south of London. Apparently there had been an excited discussion about the Saturday standoff between the punks and the police. Two of our passengers, Tara and Archie, were self-described "anarchists" and so had a fair bit to say on the subject. Tara claimed that she and her friends had talked about making a molotov cocktail out of a rag and a bottle of eighty-proof rum, but the bottle's owner had insisted that it wouldn't light properly.

"Then again," Tara added, "he probably just wanted to save the rum for himself."

Archie let out a nasal, braying laugh. "That's weak!"

Chantal and Hammer and Tara and Archie debated over whether a bottle of rum could be successfully used as a molotov cocktail. Matt said he was positive that alcohol over eighty proof would work. I decided to pretend I was still asleep rather than get involved - instead of debating how to make a working firebomb, maybe they should have talked about what they would have done with it when no one seemed able to lob anything up to the top of the bluff in the first place. All the broken glass and burning liquor would have only tumbled back down into the crowd. And then what?

"The main thing," Archie said, "is, like, make sure you soak the rag in the same fuel. If you put a dry rag in, it won't burn properly."

Matt disagreed. "Put the rag in the mouth of the bottle, it'll wick up on the bottom end. Besides, once the bottle breaks, it'll all catch fire anyway."

"Really? How would you know?"

I heard Greg speak up. "Yeah, Matt. How would you know?"

Matt hesitated. "Well, ah - think about it. If you have an open flame, and a flammable liquid like gas or rum was floating around - I mean, assuming the rum would burn, and I'm pretty sure it would - "

"So what, now you're only 'pretty sure' an eighty proof liquor would burn. Didn't you just say a minute ago it definitely would?"

The music on the CD player in the back of the van was turned down. "It's not like I tested it in a lab, Greg. Shit, what difference does it make?"

"I'm just saying it's weird hearing you talking about what makes a working molotov cocktail when we all know you'd never use one. Like saying you'd have thrown a bottle at the cops last night if you had been there. That's bullshit."

"So what, were you throwing stuff at the cops last night?"

"I would have, if Hammer hadn't stopped me."

"Greg," Chantal said. "What's the point of this?"

"The point is that your boyfriend is talking shit. No way in a million years would he attack a cop."

"Hey asshole, if it makes you feel any better, me and Chantal were pulled over for four hours last night by the police. We were lucky there was nothing illegal in the van, or else none of you would be getting a lift back to Toronto."

My eyes were closed as I was still feigning sleep at this point, but I cracked open one eyelid and saw that Matt was looking in the rearview mirror to argue with Greg. I was starting to wonder if I should officially "wake up" and get involved. That said, watching Matt being put in his place was highly entertaining.

"That's another thing," Hammer said. "While we're talking about the van, how come you have the only set of ignition keys? Me and Greg only have a key for the door to get in. It's like you don't trust us or something."

"It's because it's my van," Matt said in a sharpened voice. "Like everything else in this damn band, I'm footing the bill for this thing. I get you the shows, the interviews, the posters for fuck-sake! I'm the manager and the babysitter and everything else for Betty Rage and I'll be damned if I let you clowns fuck around in this thing behind my back."

"Fuck you, Matt. I don't see you paying for my drum kit."

"Good. Because I hate to break it to you, but the money from the shows is barely covering the rent on the practice space. Whatever's left over is going into promotion."

"So spend less on promotion! I still don't get why we're dumping so much money into these fancy posters you keep printing up. What's the big deal?"

Matt glared hard into the rearview at Hammer, while I nervously watched the oncoming road, the van holding to the centre line on the highway. "The big deal, Hamid, is that I am working my ass off trying to get Betty Rage to the point where we don't have to worry about any of us spending our own money on anything. I'm not a bottomless money pit, despite what you seem to believe."

"Come on," Greg said. "Matt, why can't you just come out and admit that you're rich?"

"Go to hell," Matt snarled.

"Am I wrong? Who else here in this van is not working a day job? I mean, Chantal's a peeler, I'm bussing tables, Sleeping Beauty up front is working in some shitty warehouse out in Leslieville - "

"And I'm running up a thousand dollar phone bill with fucking California trying to get a CD out for you ungrateful shitheads! What was the last gig you got for us, asshole?"

The van was silent except for the hum of the road. "I thought so," Matt muttered.

For the next few minutes no one said anything. Then Greg broke the silence. "Hey Matt," he said. "Tell me if you can name this tune." He then sang the following in a warbling major-key: "Come on kids, the time is now! / it's Nana's Sunshine Funtime Hour! / with Nana and Cheezy and Frenchy Fry - "

Matt slammed on the brakes and swerved hard onto the gravel shoulder. My eyes snapped open as I felt peoples' bodies thump into the back of the passenger seat, and I turned just in time to see Matt launching himself between the front seats and punching Greg in the face as hard as he could.

It took several minutes to break up the fistfight, and several more minutes to convince Matt that, despite his threats, he was not leaving Greg or Hammer on the side of the 401. Meanwhile a tractor trailer with Michigan plates pulled over in front of us and warned us that our van was a safety hazard - "Your driver's side tires are hanging off the pavement," he said to Matt. "No hazard lights, no four-ways. You kids are lucky no-one's run into you."

Properly admonished, Matt got back into the driver's seat, and the rest of us piled into the van. Tara and Archie had to be coaxed back into the vehicle, rather than allowed to hitch-hike to the city - when Matt had slammed on the brakes, the wall of stacked amplifiers had nearly toppled onto their heads.

"So Paul," Matt said after several kilometres of awkward silence. "How was your nap?"

I turned my head and saw Matt throwing me a sideways glance. It was only then that I realised that Matt knew I had been awake the entire time, and that he had been waiting for me to intervene on his behalf. I was foolish enough to feel guilty about this.

Throughout the fall Betty Rage continued to play shows. True to his word, Matt was indeed working hard for the band, landing weekly gigs around Ontario and scoring opening slots for major bands ranging from Reverend Horton Heat to Queens Of The Stone Age. He also set up what I thought was going to be the recording session for our CD, but instead ended up being what he called a "practice run" for a future recording. Neither he nor Greg brought up the fight in the van again, as they had reached a gentleman's agreement over a private meeting. "We just had a talk and worked out some personal shit," he told me when I asked him about it. "Betty Rage is more important than a stupid fight, and I'm not saying anything else."

Regardless of any lingering conflict between Matt and Greg, dealing with Chantal was becoming far more difficult. By November she was hardly showing up for band meetings, let alone rehearsals. Matt had taken to driving the van out to pick up Chantal personally, because she was arriving late for concerts so often that Betty Rage was gaining a reputation on the club circuit as a booking risk. At one gig we were forced to trade sets with another band because Matt was stuck in traffic on Queen Street; at another show at the Horseshoe we had just finished negotiating another set time swap when Chantal and Matt finally arrived, and Chantal threw a temper tantrum and refused to sing unless we switched the sets back to their original order. In December we had to cancel out entirely on a benefit concert on the day it was scheduled, because Chantal had decided to visit her parents in Windsor that weekend and had "forgotten" that we were booked for Saturday night.

During rehearsals I took to singing Chantal's lyrics, partly because I knew the bass lines so well that I was getting bored. I was playing the bass like a guitar, mostly down-stroking with a pick rather than finger-plucking - secretly I was hoping to trade instruments at some point with Matt so I could sing more often. Matt, on the other hand, was trying to get me to go back to finger-plucking because it sounded better to him than using a pick.

"If I use my fingers, then I have problems singing," I told him. "Besides, having some more background vocals behind Chantal would fill out the sound a little."

Hammer liked that idea. "Paul's got a good singing voice, Matt. That could work."

"Better yet," Greg added, "give Paul a black wig and make him the singer. Shit, at least he shows up for practice!"

I would like to point out here that, in all honesty, I am not a great singer. I would say that am a decent vocalist with a solid three-quarter octave range, and I can harmonise well as long as I avoid getting fancy with the melody. By the time I was in Betty Rage, my voice had deepened as adulthood finally caught up with me physically, so there was no trace of the teenaged squeal from my Morganfield days. All of this might not add up to a lot in the higher forms of music, but in punk rock it's enough to make me Luciano friggin' Pavarotti. And as Greg pointed out, I was always there to do the singing, and dedication can mean a lot when others choose to play the star trip.

Things came to a head when we were opening up for The Donnas at a December show at Lee's Palace - this was when The Donnas were just starting out, and their label was trying to rev up publicity for their debut album. Matt had heard great things about the band from his connections in the U.S., so he was extremely pleased to land us the gig. Chantal even showed up for sound check for a change, cough syrup bottle in hand and fighting off a head cold but otherwise handling it like a trouper, telling everyone how she was looking forward to going on stage. Everything was going swell until Matt came up to us backstage fifteen minutes before show time with his brow furrowed with panic.

"Chantal had to go home," Matt said. "She's too sick to play."

Hammer threw his sticks at the far wall. "She wasn't 'too sick' half an hour ago," he shouted. "Why'd you let her walk, Matt? Fuck this shit, man, fuck it!"

The band argued back and forth about Chantal. Both Hammer and Greg wanted to kick her out of the band immediately, while Matt insisted that "you don't just replace someone like Chantal." Finally one of Lee's sound techs stuck his head into the room: "You guys ready?"

The four of us exchanged stunned glances. Hammer then gave me a subtle nod, followed by Greg. "Sure," I replied. "Let's do this."

"Where's your singer, Chantal? You want me to track her down?"

"Change of plans," Hammer said. "Paul's singing tonight."

The tech threw me a perplexed look. He was probably looking forward to seeing Chantal perform. Join the fucking club, I wanted to tell him.

Matt shook his head. "No way. That's not happening."

Greg pushed past Matt, swigging the last of his beer. "Matt, stop being a goddamn pussy and get your guitar."

I was certain as I pulled myself up on stage that this was going to be our final concert. The last thing I expected was the scene depicted the following month's weirdly positive concert review in Chart:

"What could have been a disaster for **The Donnas** ' opening act turned out to be an unexpected surprise. **Betty Rage** 's eponymous lead singer canceled at the last minute due to illness, leaving the band's scruffy bass player Paul Poker [sic!] to take over on vocals. In contrast to Betty's naughty-girl antics, Poker sang band favourites like 'Get Up Get Out' with a buzzing fury. "Let's play this fucking show and get it over with," he sneered, and the group played accordingly, blasting through their set with hardly a pause for breath. The result - more rage, less betty - made for a harder, harsher band that is less eager to please. Interestingly, some in the audience said this was an improvement."

I had more fun playing that night than I had since my days in Murderburger. For once I was the music's driving force, which was a strange feeling after all those years of playing support. But there was more than simple ego at play. Shoulders hunched, brow furrowed, fists white-knuckled over the fretboard, I felt as if I was powering my way through a blizzard, a primal fury coursing through my limbs that somehow transmuted into white-light bliss, a joy verging on the spiritually ecstatic. I felt an odd peace within me, an inkling of what the Buddhist monks refer to as nirvana (the state of mind and soul, not the grunge band with the depressed singer and the interesting chord progressions). More than the groupies and the camaraderie or even the mathematics of notes and spectrum and rhythm, this transcendence was what musicians were truly after, and what they might attain for at least a few minutes or even a few seconds, if they were lucky. Not by drugs, or by booze, or through sex - this was what it felt like to be one with God.

If the audience were not getting similarly religious, at least most people had a good time. The band got a lot of compliments after the show - even The Donnas' guitar player said she liked our set. The only person who hated it was... well, take a wild guess.

"God, that was embarrassing," Matt said as we started unloading our gear back at the practice space. "Paul, I know you tried your best, but next time something like this happens, we should probably bail."

"What are you talking about?" Hammer blurted from across the room. "That show tonight kicked ass!"

Matt sniffed and sneered. "No, it wasn't. It was punk-fucking-amateur hour."

I shrugged. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

I knew something was up when Matt canceled band rehearsals for the following week. Matt also canceled our booking at the 48-track recording studio where we were supposed to lay down proper tracks for our CD. Finally I received the following voice-mail message:

"Paul, I've been talking with Chantal, and we have decided to break up the band and start from scratch. We just think you guys are going in a different direction than where Betty Rage should be going. I know you like the harder punk stuff, and that's fine, but that's not what Betty's about. I also have to remind myself that I sort of drafted you into all of this, so maybe I was expecting too much. I've already talked to the other guys: Greg may or may not stay on to join the new band. Hammer's pretty pissed, but he understands. Anyway, thanks for all you've done for the past twelve months. We won't forget it."

"What a raving cock-socket!" Hammer grabbed up his beer at the College Street pub where he and Greg and I were commiserating. "Fuckin' Matt told me he's already got a drummer and bass player learning the songs. You know he actually told me my drumming was 'getting sloppy!' The nerve of that guy!"

Greg's reaction was more sanguine. "Matt's an asshole. Always has been. Paul could tell you."

We ordered a platter of wings and nachos, the meat-laden kind that Matt always warned us about due to the fat and cholesterol. Greg confirmed that he had been offered a chance to stay on with the new Betty Rage, but that he wasn't all that eager. "Right now I'm jamming with some of my roomies on weekends. If I had a better offer I'd jump at it."

I scooped up some guacamole with a tortilla chip. "Well, you are still in a band, technically."

"What, you guys?" Greg sat up and curled his lip as if he meant to sneer, but his posture relaxed as he turned over the idea in his mind.

"It'd be a good way of showing up Matt," Hammer said. "Re-form Betty Rage without him and Little Miss Primadonna, and go play behind his back."

"No, fuck that. We're not Betty Rage."

"So who are we?"

Like a slot machine whose lever had been pulled, the dials in my head began spinning, searching out word combinations for a band name. But only one came up a jackpot.

"You know who we are? We're Murderburger."

Greg collapsed into laughter. "That's just evil," he said. "Cartwright, you impress me!"

"'Murderburger,' huh?" Hammer nodded his head. "Cool name. I like that." When Greg and I were finished explaining the history of the name 'Murderburger,' including me and Spike Liberty and the ill-fated Animus Unanimous CD, he liked it even more.

Wow, that was close. Maia walked in on me this afternoon and I had to shut down the Word file but quick (Ctrl-S is a friend for life). Because she pulled a night shift she's got the next day off, and I expect she'll be wanting to catch up on her e-mail and other web-surfing, so I have had to copy the file and switch it over to my workshop computer for the time being. Hopefully this is just a temporary move - that laptop sure is convenient ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON'T BOTHER ASKING BEFORE BORROWING IT! Anyway, I'm writing this behind a closed door THAT HAS NO LOCK and on top of that, my main PC is password protected AND MY PASSWORD IS "MORGANFIELD," HA HA! PAUL CARTWRONG LOSES AGAIN!!! so at least I feel fairly certain that Maia won't find me out.

You know, Darcy, looking around my workshop as I write this, I can not help but feel gypped in my living arrangements. Maia and I both have our private rooms - our "clubhouses," as it were. However, Maia's study is twice the size of my workshop, which itself isn't even a proper room, but an old storage closet next to the kitchen. On top of this, Maia has not only one, but two windows facing north and east, which means she gets plenty of sunlight (our bedroom, in comparison, has only one window). Meanwhile I have four walls of dust-coloured plaster with only fluorescent lamps for illumination, and I barely have enough room to turn my swivel chair. Maia's study has all the wall space she needs for her college photos, her street maps of Mumbai and Vancouver, and the five-foot high Chinese calendar her best friend at Seneca bought her for her birthday, and I have one measly side board accommodating what few knickknacks I have carefully chosen from storage: a vintage 1962 Shirley Orange Soda bottle, a made-in-England model train engine, a glow-in-the-dark skull ashtray, and a red and white souvenir hockey puck signed by Ken Dryden (limited collector value due to one of my dumbass roommates at U of T spilling his rum and coke on it and smearing Dryden's signature half-off trying to clean up the mess). With my old amplifiers and guitar cases under the main workbench, and every shelf occupied with computer parts, monitors, stereo equipment, audio tapes, manuals and tools, this room is packed as tightly as the blocks in a Tetris game.

That said, I do take a perverse pride in having at least one room in the house arranged in a perfect utilitarian order, as opposed to our bedroom closet which, thanks to Maia's unique housekeeping strategy, resembles a giant laundry hamper prior to sorting. I am constantly amazed at how Maia looks so fresh and neatly-dressed when all of her clothes are balled up on the bedroom floor - I have seen her pick up a rumpled slip, snap it a few times, and suddenly it's as smooth as if it just came from the dry cleaners. I suspect some sort of black magic is somehow involved. ON THE OTHER HAND I COULD IRON MY JEANS AFTER EVERY WASH AND I'D STILL LOOK LIKE A WALKING DISHRAG WHEN I GET DRESSED - I SUSPECT PUNK ROCK IS SOMEHOW INVOLVED :P

All of this is to say, I guess, that I'm going to have to be little more careful when we're choosing who gets what room in the next apartment. There's a reason Maia and her friends refer to my workshop as "the Dungeon." Next time, I need to rattle my chains a little more loudly.

Before I started the new version of Murderburger with Paul and Hammer (I liked to think of it as "Murderburger 2.0"), I had never been the leader of a band. In all those years of gigging in Morganfield and then Toronto, I was always just one of the hands on deck and not the captain. Now all of a sudden I was captain, and as such, my learning curve turned out to be steep. There was a lot more to keeping the ship afloat than I had anticipated.

First, we had to audition a bass player so I could switch over to rhythm guitar - that took two rounds of ads at the downtown record stores, after which we finally hooked up with a dreadlocked YorkU History student named Wendell Schiffer, a.k.a. Wendie, as in "Wendie-don't-call-me-Wendell-Clark." Wendie was a good bass player and he liked the songs we were playing. There were downsides - his favourite band was Korn - but hey, nobody's perfect. The important part is that I got to play guitar again, which made singing immeasurably easier.

Second, while holding auditions, we also started selecting what songs we were going to play. We started with some obvious selections from the old Murderburger catalogue, such as 'Metal Makeover,' 'Teacher Preacher' and 'Gawd Complex'. Working with Greg, we also incorporated some old Nothings songs including 'Morbid And Old'. For newer material, I brought in an old anti-Harris rant-rocker I wrote, called 'Common Sense', and Wendie brought in a bass riff which Greg and I used to work out a new tune entitled 'Do the Chretien' ("find a partner at the demonstration / and wring their neck 'till they lose sensation!"). I also dug up some tunes from my old cassette tapes, the ones with all those songs I mass-recorded back in high school: 'Dogshit', 'Trepidation', 'Bookworm Girl', 'Dumb American (I Wanna Be Dumb As A)'. Finally, we worked in a liberal selection of cover material, including 'The Enemy' by D.O.A. as well as a few choice (as in, "easy to learn") Ramones numbers. If the former Spike Liberty had broken the old MFHC statute forbidding cover tracks, then we were free to jam out every ridiculous cover idea we could think of. Even Gordon Lightfoot's 'Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald' made it into the repertoire - I wanted to do 'Canadian Railway Trilogy', but the other band members said there were too many changes. Wendie said he had never even heard of 'Canadian Railway Trilogy'.

"Here's my idea," I told Greg over an after-jam beer. "This is a way for us to revive the old Morgie scene. We can even cover some Dave and Iremonger tracks later on."

"Sure, whatever."

"Greg, seriously! There are too many good songs from back in the day. We shouldn't let them die."

"Why are you so hung up on Morganfield, Paul?"

"Why aren't you?"

While it was exhilarating to have finally wriggled out from underneath Matt's managerial thumb, I did develop a new-found respect for his ability to get gigs. I was spending several otherwise productive evenings and Saturday afternoons pounding the pavement and working the phone trying to set up concerts with other local bands, with mixed results at best (for the time being, let's put aside the sorry fact that I was still walking with a cane, so any door-to-door work ended up taking twice the time as would have been needed by an able-bodied manager-cum-stooge). On top of all this, there was the constant search for transportation for the bands' equipment, and for this we resorted to renting local "band vans" whose fees more often than not gobbled up our evenings' take at the door. I took to forsaking my allotment of beer tickets to the rest of the band in a futile attempt to placate their incessant whining about a lack of compensation for the night's efforts.

During my crash course in band management, I was able to make a few new allies. One of them was an affable fellow named Donnie Greene, who played guitar for a band called (deep breath) The Flatulent Dumbfucks. Our bands co-headlined a gig at a basement club on Ossington Avenue and we also shared a dual demo launch on an Elvis Monday bill: shows that were fun more because of the personalities involved than the actual music (let's just say that the name "Flatulent Dumbfucks" was by far the most imaginative aspect of the band in question.) Still, it was a boost to the ego to get to play scene veterans amidst the young'uns - one time I showed Donnie the opening riff to 'Johnny B. Goode' and the kid reacted as if I had calculated Pi to the twentieth decimal place in my head. Rocket science is all the more impressive to folks who haven't yet mastered The Wheel.

Of our potential supporters, however, I was most surprised and dismayed by Freaky Gonzales, who before our parting with Matt Miller had nothing but kind and erudite words for your dear narrator-type person. I must admit that the memory of his Mazda hatchback loomed large in my recollection when I was racking my brain for sources for equipment transportation, faulty brakes notwithstanding. However, I was startled by Freaky's churlishness when I first phoned him to inquire about borrowing his vehicle to move our equipment.

"Why do you even bother?" he suddenly said to me. "Do you really get something out of playing in this makeshift band of yours?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, Paul, don't be offended, but the only reason anyone came out to your shows was Chantal. And Matt. Really, people only feel sorry for you when they see you hobble up on stage."

"Thanks for the words of encouragement. Can we get a lift for our gear or not?" Freaky hung up the phone. I had to splurge for cab fare that night.

A few weeks later, I came across Freaky again, this time in the front bar at a new Queen West club called Sonic Reducer. I was trying to land another show for Murderburger: a Wednesday night, a free Sunday matinee, I didn't really care. The booker of the club, however, reacted as if I was demanding an audience with the Pope. I still recall that jerk's self-satisfied smile, the rubbery curl of adolescent lips drawn across a pizza-textured face, topped off with a thrift store fedora and a paisley scarf wrapped around his dweeby throat.

"What's the band's name? Murderburger?" He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his oily beak. "Never heard of you."

Freaky was there in the booth with the booker, along with a fat black woman who looked oddly familiar - I later recognised her picture under a byline in a free music magazine (you would probably recognise her too, Darcy; frankly, I'm not going to waste my mental energy trying to recall her name).

"Oh, that's Poker Cartwright," Freaky explained to his cohorts with an edge of simpering condescension. "He used to be in Betty Rage before they kicked him to the curb." The black woman nodded, her face dissolving into a piteous smirk.

"You were in Betty Rage?" The booker's eyes flickered with interest. "Maybe if you could get them on the bill, we could talk."

"So Paul," Freaky called out. "Are you still at that medical aid warehouse?" Freaky turned toward his cohorts. "That's how Poker earns his paycheque, you know. Shelving prosthetic limbs and crutches." He looked at me with a malicious grin. "Tell me, Paul, has Def Leppard's drummer ever dropped by to pick up a spare arm?"

The booker snickered. "Do they have other types of prosthetics? Dildoes and rubber pussies, those are prosthetics, right?"

The black woman snorted. "You're awful," she said, cackling and giving the booker's shoulder a playful shove. "Dildoes and rubber pussies!"

Anyone with an iota of pride would have told these morons to go fuck themselves. Unfortunately, when you're trying to book a punk show in 1998 in Toronto, pride only gets in the way. "Come on, guys," I said with a weak smile. "I'm just looking for a night to play."

"Only if we can pay you in dildoes," the booker coughed out between giggles. "We could put on Wank Night at Sonic Reducer!"

Freaky's face was turning bright red. "Starring Poker Cartwright on lead cock!" I left a demo tape and walked out stoop-shouldered with embarrassment. The club closed down a few months later due to a problem with the liquor license - good riddance.

Not all of my old Betty Rage contacts were as ungenerous as Freaky. Good ol' Doog Morello was happy to slot us in on a multi-band all-ages concert out in Mississauga. "I know how hard it is to re-start an old band," Doog said to me at the time. "It's taken two years to get Infinite Blasphemy up and running from where we left it in '93." Being the only non-metal band on the itinerary, we did feel a bit out of place, but the kids were astonishingly open-minded, accepting us as if we were missionaries from a foreign country (playing Ramones covers also helped immensely - I was surprised at how those little metalheads took to the ol' "Gabba Gabba Hey!") After our set, Wendie hooked up with some fellow Korn fanatics while the rest of us got to headbang along with Infinite Blasphemy, waving our devil horns high and having a grand old time.

The band crashed for the night at Doog's townhouse up in Brampton, which he shared with his girlfriend Aurora and an assortment of surly cats. All of the windows were covered in tinfoil, left over from the townhouses' previous residents. Aurora said she "liked the darkness" in the house due to the covered windows. Doog, meanwhile, explained that the police came by the townhouse complex on a monthly basis because they constantly suspected him of being a drug dealer.

"Nothing stronger than Advil here," he explained. "Though help yourself to the beer in the fridge. I recommend the Fin Du Monde. Quebec beer, takes some getting used to."

Wendie read the label. "Nine percent alcohol," he recited with a dopey smile. "Awesome!"

Wendie and Hammer went to the second floor to busy themselves with playing video games, while Greg and I hung out with Doog in the kitchen. Doog and Greg talked about slasher films, as well as the merits of Norwegian death metal versus the Swedish metal scene - according to Doog, the Swedes generally had fun with the music and treated the Satanic themes as something of a joke, whereas the Norwegians were dead serious about it all. "Never make fun of metal music with a guy from Norway," Doog said. "Those guys burn churches and murder their friends just to prove they're not joking."

While Doog recounted stories of ritual murders in Scandinavia, I busied myself by looking through a small break in the foil covering the kitchen window. I could see the backyard outside, lit by a series of lights from the central courtyard in the townhouse complex - the grass was overgrown, the lawn empty except for a rusted-out barbecue. Beyond a low wire fence, a trio of Filipino kids chased each other in the adjacent yard under a string of cheap patio lanterns, while on the deck above them a skinny man who might have been their father sat in a white plastic lawn-chair, staring intently into a paperback book lit with a pen-lamp. Now and then he would survey the circling children, raising his eyes briefly and looking into the distance like a man contemplating a disappointing truth before returning to his reading. At one point he glanced up from his paperback suddenly and swiveled around in my direction with a look of sour anger. There was no way he could have seen me staring through the break in the foil, but I was still spooked enough to turn away with a nervous catch in my throat.

Aurora came into the kitchen, serving up a platter of vegetarian finger foods. She was a heavy-set woman, with a low-cut black dress showing off her tumultuous cleavage to its obvious advantage. "Avoid the muffins if you have a gluten allergy," she said. "Last band that stayed with us, the drummer was allergic to gluten - poor kid's throat swelled up like a tourniquet. It was good we got him to the hospital in the nick of time."

We listened to Infinite Blasphemy's new demo. It sounded like every other death metal recording I've ever heard: rapid-fire beats alternating with mid-tempo grinding sections, gargled vocals, atonal guitar solos spattered throughout like fragments of glass shattered by a bomb blast. I told him I liked it.

"We recorded it on down time over at Trebas," Doog said. "First time I've ever seen recording done straight to a computer hard drive, no tape involved. It was truly bizarre to be in a studio and not see a reel-to-reel machine." This led to a heated debate between Greg and I over the merits of digital recording as opposed to old-style analog. It was a variation of the same analog-vs-digital argument we've all heard a hundred times over the last ten years, so I won't bore you with the details. What did emerge was a claim from Greg that Iremonger's album had been recorded digitally. "Iremonger?" I asked incredulously. "Andy Lefebvre and Dwayne Simmonds' Iremonger? I thought they had broke up."

Greg explained that Iremonger had reformed with a new bassist and guitar player as Buddha Spine. "They're mostly a metal band now," he explained, "so it's not like you'd read about them in Maximum Rock'n'Roll." Doog retrieved a copy of a New York fanzine that specialised in thrash metal and grindcore, and handed it to me with the pages turned to the following review:

**Buddha Spine** \- _Iremonger_ (Disques Diables D'Erables)

Whoever is running Diables D'Erables has a lot to answer for. A year ago they inflicted **The Punkaholics** ' baffling _Stay Alert Stay Angry Stay Strong_ on the world. Now they've finally put out a long-delayed debut album by Montreal's **Buddha Spine** after sitting on the master tapes for over three years. Adding insult to injury, Diables D'Erables pressed the CD with one of the weakest mastering jobs I've ever heard. It's a crying shame, because even with the botched mix, you won't hear a better set of heavy music from a North American band this year. Best of the lot is 'Kalahari Mudslide,' which is an ungodly fusion of At The Gates and Led Zeppelin, topped off by Tom Worrell's banshee bellow. But don't forget tracks like 'Poison Promise' with its monster six-string assault courtesy of Dwayne Simmonds, or 'Scrotum Of The Fire Lord' and 'Hydra' featuring funked-up blast beats by Andy Lefebvre that sound like James Brown on crack. _Iremonger_ shows all the makings of an underground thrash classic. Now someone release this album with a proper sound job, or else I'm going to take the first Voyageur bus up to Montreal and smack some heads around!

"The worst part," Greg added, "is that Buddha Spine broke up again six months before the CD was released. Andy's brother told me that the label only put the album out because they were going under and hoping to get some of their costs recouped. And guess who did the mastering job for Diables D'Erables?"

I thought for a moment about who might have foisted such a famously lousy sound mix on an unsuspecting group of Morgie metalheads. "Matt Miller?"

Greg nodded. "Credited on the sleeve as 'Matt Molotov'. Fucker gets around, doesn't he?"

Doog retrieved a copy of the Iremonger CD and put it in the stereo. The sound was not as bad as I had imagined from the review's description, but it was awfully boxy. "I met the owner of Diables D'Erables," Doog added. "Nice enough guy. West-end Montreal kid. Our band was at one point going to release an album with him, and he was always talking about bringing in a 'name producer' for the publicity value, like Ric Ocasek producing the first Bad Brains' album. I guess Matt was enough of a celebrity to qualify."

Greg adjusted the EQ on the stereo console. "It's like they recorded Andy's drums over a phone line!" he said, scowling. "Fuckin' bogus!"

Maybe it was the beer, or the weak lighting in the kitchen, or perhaps it was the gluten in Aurora's vegetarian muffins, but I suddenly felt all moody and maudlin, my head as numb and fuzz-filled as a sofa cushion. Listening to Dwayne's riffing and Andy's drumming and Tom's "banshee bellow" made me nostalgic as hell: a dozen long-forgotten shows at The Sunflower and Tiny Bigg's welled up like dead leaves to the surface of my memory, drifting helplessly along the synaptic currents. Once again a Morganfield band, possibly the best band in the old scene, had gotten the royal shaft. If Iremonger couldn't put our podunk village on the rock'n'roll map, then who ever would? Certainly not Murderburger. So why was I working so hard, trying to keep the old songs alive? Greg certainly didn't care; he lived to play music, plain and simple. Without the guitar in his hand he was little more than a bitter crank, working shifts in a restaurant to pay for his strings and amplifier repairs. Hammer seemed more practical, although he seemed to have no plans for himself once his classes finished in August. While I doubted that he was going to be hauling boxes at Purolator for longer than he had to, I had the sense that he too was falling into a rut, and we the band were his enablers. As for Wendie, he was still young, with plenty of time to waste. I was twenty-seven years old - what the hell was my excuse?

Greg shifted in his chair, a strange smile creeping across his lips. "You know, listening to this mix and thinking about Matt being behind it, I'm gladder than ever that I quit his fuckin' band. I don't know what I was thinking. All he does is fuck people over in the end. Paul, you were right. I should never have joined Betty Rage in the first place. Complete waste of time."

I could not remember saying anything of the sort to Greg, but I nodded and acted appreciative all the same. "You're moving on, that's good," I mumbled.

"Speaking of which, you know Matt is getting sued, right?" Greg turned to Doog to continue the story. "You know that label in California Matt was bragging about? They turned down the recordings we did last fall, and now Matty boy doesn't have a functioning band to record new tracks with. His dear pals in Los An-gel-eez are suing for breach of contract. At the same time, Matt's trying to schmooze the local labels, 'cause he's hoping one of them will buy out the band's contract. He even tried to set up a private audition concert for a bunch of execs from WEA and Aquarius, only to have Chantal pass out right on stage." Greg brought his palm down on the table. "'Flop!' Out like a light, just like that.."

"Let me guess," Doog said with a knowing nod. "Chemical stimulants. Not just stress knocking her out."

"Oh, Chantal's using, all right." Greg was grinning wildly. "Jonez was at the showcase. He said that Chantal was high as a kite."

I nursed my beer and hung back in the conversion. I had heard a number of recent rumours that Chantal was dabbling in a variety of addictions ranging from cocaine to ecstacy to the Big H. Some of my contacts insisted that Matt was dabbling right alongside her, at times spending days in his condo with Chantal, rotating through their supplies. I had a hard time believing Matt would be stupid enough to fall for drugs, but in the last few months before the Donnas gig Chantal had started acting very irrationally, often dealing with prolonged colds and missing appointments and even concerts. And while she did have a steady intake of bottled water, she still indulged in too many washroom breaks for anyone's liking. Yet with all of the evidence available, I preferred to believe that I was wrong about Chantal, that she was too sweet-natured and street-wise to fall into addiction, and so I never really confronted her or Matt directly. As the old cliché goes, denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

When Greg had finished, Doog shook his head. "I don't envy Matt, having to deal with Chantal, but I've been there. Infinite Blasphemy's first singer was a full-on cokehead. Mind you, Hammond turned out a lot worse."

"Hammond?" I said.

"Yeah, Peter Hammond. He was the singer for X-Human, the band I was in before I re-formed Infinite Blasphemy last year."

"That's funny. Greg and I knew a guy named Pete Hammond back in Morganfield - "

"It's the same guy, Paul." Greg was staring at me sullenly.

My jaw dropped. I knew that Pete had come back to Toronto from New York around the same time as Greg, and the last I heard was that he was living with his mother due to some sort of nervous breakdown. I kept meaning to stop by Hammond's house on Fifth Street the next time I was up in Morganfield, but it was one of those errands I never got around to doing.

"Pete from The Nothings was in a metal band?" I asked incredulously. "How the hell did that happen?"

Greg stood up abruptly, the chair legs scraping. "You tell him," he said to Doog. "I'm going upstairs to check up on the kids." He left the kitchen just as Aurora was re-entering; Aurora took Greg's seat at the table, pouring a glass of wine for herself and picking at the food platter. Doog then proceeded to tell me the story about Pete:

"Around 1994 the former members of Infinite Blasphemy got together: myself, Fritz, and Jim from the original group, along with Jim's buddy Lester Molester, who had moved to Toronto from Moncton the previous year. Fritz and Jim wanted to start a new band, something with a more straight-ahead formulation than the old Infinite Blasphemy songs, which had become pretty baroque: all time changes and blast beats. Lester, meanwhile, was a fan of the New York hardcore bands like Biohazard, so he wanted to do a sort of no-frills metal project. As for me, I just wanted to get back into performing and touring - Infinite B was this close to a record deal when the band fell apart - so I was willing to go to some jam sessions and see what came up.

"The only thing we were missing was a front man, so we put up some ads here and there, but nothing much came of them. Then Fritz said he met up with some punkers at an Anthrax concert and he traded numbers with this guy named Pete Hammond, who had fronted a band down in New York. I wasn't sure why Fritz thought this Pete person was a good candidate for our project, but I was willing to give it a shot.

"Our rehearsal space is in this warehouse across from Pearson Airport. It's a bitch to get to if you don't have a car, but Jim knows the owner so we get the place for dirt cheap. Plus it's out in the middle of nowhere, so no one bugs us, and we don't bug others. Anyway, this Pete Hammond guy was an hour late for his audition, stumbling in complaining that he had to walk over from Carlingview Road because the bus driver was charging a second ticket for crossing over into Mississauga. The guy was a walking boneyard, with rings around his eyes like he hadn't slept in three days. He was also carrying a bottle in a paper bag like a hobo - I don't know how he got all the way from Lawrence West station to Mississauga while carrying an open bottle of liquor, but there he was. Nice going, Fritz, I thought to myself.

"So we tell Hammond we're going to play some of the new songs we were working on, and I give him some sets of lyrics that I wrote. Hammond throws down the lyrics and tells me that he would rather make up his own words, saying 'I will let divine inspiration guide my muse.' Fine, I figure: fuck you too, buddy. We play our first song and this guy starts ranting over the first verse like some demented preacher, alternating between full-out screaming in the chorus. He tells us afterward that he was improvising a surrealist rant about the oppression of modern consumerist society, calling it 'Discount Jesus Won't Save Your Soul'. The next song, he stands there yelling out names like Abigail, Andy, Arthur, and then in the second verse Barry, Bartholomew, Becky, Bridget. He calls that one 'Kill Everybody In Alphabetical Order.' The next song, he decides to sing while hanging from the rafters like a fuckin' chimpanzee, and then he crawls on top of Jim's amplifier stack and starts flapping his wings yelling 'I am the Bat! I'm funky like that!' before diving headfirst into an open trash barrel next to my drum-kit, knocking over a stack of folding chairs. We dig him out of the mess, and the first thing he says is, 'Am I in the band?'

"We had a pretty fierce argument after the audition. Fritz and Lester thought Pete was hilarious and perfect for the front-man job, while Jim wrote him off as a 'drunk punk'. As for myself, I was more than a little leery of taking the band in a metal-core direction, which is the only direction we could go with a singer like Pete. Nothing against punk rock per se; I just wanted to stick with a more pure metal sound, regardless of what the others wanted

"Somehow Fritz and Lester strong-armed us into a second try-out for Hammond, with Aurora and some others acting as a sort of test audience. Hammond charmed the hell out of everyone with his stories about playing music in New York, meeting Lou Reed at an art gallery and so forth. He then had me and Fritz play this jazzy bebop on bass and drums while he told us how he and Greg once swabbed the door handle on a cop car with LSD as part of a dare to win fifty bucks - an idea they got from an obscure Dead Kennedys song called 'DMSO'. I had to admit: the guy knew how to work a crowd. He even brought in a list of band names, including the one we eventually settled on: 'X-Human'.

"During our rehearsals, when we were working out our sound, Pete developed a vocal style that was like a high-pitched screech. Pete called this his 'Grover voice' - metal vocals are either Cookie Monster or Grover, and Hammond said he 'felt more like Grover'. He put this vocal style to use in our debut show down at Sanctuary, along with his usual stunts like spinning around in circles until he was completely wrapped up in the mic cord, and then falling down on the stage writhing like an inchworm; or going from table to table in the back of the room grabbing peoples' drinks and gulping them, in between shrieking things like 'Beer makes me happy! Beer makes me sad! Beer is the only lover I've ever had!' For most of the show, however, he stuck to this pose where he would limp across the stage like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, one eye bugging out as he clawed at the crowd with his free hand. Very witchy, very effective - or so I thought until the last song, when Pete turned his back to the crowd, bent over and yanked down his pants, mooning the audience and screaming 'Kiss my ass! We're X-Human!'

"We played a few more shows around Ontario, plus a couple in Michigan and New York. Our crowd was an almost even split between metal fans and punkers. On the one hand it felt like a bit of a freakshow, with Hammond diving around and acting like a clown, but on the other hand the rest of the group was starting to develop a real solid groove, musically. And we were getting a solid following very quickly, much quicker than I ever experienced with Infinite B.

"At the same time, however, Pete's constant drinking was becoming a problem. I have never in my life seen anyone put away so much alcohol while managing to stand, much less manage to get through a bunch of live shows. But then one time in London, Hammond ended up passing out after an all-ages set, and we couldn't wake him up - cold water, slaps to the face, nothing was working. We actually had him in the backseat of the promoter's car ready to rush out to the hospital when suddenly he sat bolt upright and asked us what was going on. He even told us that we were 'over-reacting', which just made me angry. 'We thought you were dead, asshole,' was all I kept saying to him, over and over.

"We called a band meeting, and on behalf of the rest of the guys, I explained our position to Pete. Back in Infinite Blasphemy, we had to deal with a singer who got so heavily into coke that he was selling off our equipment behind our backs to pay for his habit. Even after kicking him out, the guy smashed in the lock of our practice space and robbed us again, which is when our landlord kicked us out and we had to move our gear up to our new place across from Pearson. We had Roadrunner and Caroline Records calling up and asking to hear our demo, but it didn't matter. The whole thing fell through because our dumbfuck vocalist couldn't stop stuffing his nose with Colombian Marching Powder.

"Now we had a new band, and another vocalist with a drug problem. I looked at Hammond and told him flat out: I am not going to go through this same shit again. We might have tolerated Lester Molester and his clove cigarettes, or Jim with his five-cup-a-minute coffee habit, but having a band member almost hospitalised due to an alcoholic coma was just unacceptable. Flat out, I told him I wasn't going to sit around beating the drums while watching some asshole drink himself to death.

"Hammond nodded, and said he needed a few days to consider the ultimatum. Take all the time you want, we told him. A few days go by and then I got a phone call from Hammond, saying that he had made a decision to give up drinking, both for his own sake and for the good of the band. None of us really believed that he was going to stop, but a week later there he was at practice, chugging grapefruit juice and smoking like a chimney, but otherwise alcohol-free. Even after only ten days he looked healthier, his complexion clearer and the circles around his eyes less pronounced. Maybe it was the citrus from the grapefruit juice \- who knows? Pete still put on a crazy show; the only difference was that his diction was more pronounced now that he wasn't constantly shitfaced. Hammond's mom even came down to one of our shows, thanking us for getting her son off the bottle.

"By June we had lined up a week-long tour of Quebec for September, including stops in Montreal, Trois Rivieres, Quebec City, Chicoutimi and Rimouski. Touring Quebec was going to be a major step in preparing for a tour of Europe - we already had a label in Germany who wanted to release a CD-EP, and they were fronting a lot of money to make sure we were ready for playing shows across the Atlantic. Plus, any real metal band from Canada needs to play in Quebec, especially in Rimouski, which is a serious metal town despite it being in the middle of nowhere. Factor in the crossover potential with the punk crowd, and X-Human was looking to become huge, like Pantera huge - I'm not kidding.

"We started prepping for the September tour. By then Pete had started acting a little strange. At first I thought was just him being his normal weird self without the 24-7 liquor consumption. But then I noticed that when someone else told a joke, Pete wouldn't even crack a smile, even if others were laughing. He still let loose when we were playing, scuttling across the floor doing his madman-Igor routine and climbing the speaker stacks. But at the end of each song his face was like a mask he flipped over himself, a creepy thousand-yard stare no matter who he was looking at.

"One night at a rehearsal he started talking about the character or 'persona' he had been developing for when he was singing. He said that when he did the hunchback thing with the one eye bugging out, he was playing the character of a witch named Esmerelda Bishop, who lived in the Morganfield area back in the 1800s. Esmerelda Bishop was supposed to be the only person ever tried for witchcraft in Upper Canada, and she was eventually put in jail for murdering her infant son by boiling him in a pot, claiming that he was the son of Lucifer. Hammond told us that she was still haunting parts of Morganfield to this day, floating around peoples' yards supposedly searching for her son. He even claimed that he had based the lyrics for one of our most popular songs, 'Boiled Alive,' on the Esmerelda Bishop story.

"Now, what bothered me wasn't so much the story Hammond was telling, but the fact that he was insisting that Esmerelda Bishop was a real person. You see, when I was a teenager, I was fascinated by things like Satanism and witchcraft, read every book I could find on the subject. Aurora, she's Wiccan, and she's read some of those books as well. We've talked about this, and neither of us has ever heard of anyone named Esmerelda Bishop, or a witch in Upper Canada who boiled her son. One of us would have heard of her if she existed, believe me.

"When Greg started coming out to see X-Human play, we asked him about it, and he said that he had never heard of Esmerelda Bishop, either. 'Pete likes to screw with peoples' heads,' he told us. Greg also explained how Hammond's mom had left him in a hot bathtub when he was little. Okay, that's pretty fucked up, but at least we knew where some of this baby-boiling nonsense was coming from. Still, Pete was claiming that he was dreaming about Esmerelda, hearing her screaming in her prison cell. Fritz and Lester said I was worrying over nothing. Meanwhile, we had shows lined up, a preliminary record deal with a three-record contract waiting to be signed, and a tour manager driving down from Montreal with a van and a budget. I was simply hoping that Pete could just hold it together for another few weeks until we could sit down and seriously discuss getting Hammond to see a psychiatrist. I was being greedy, I guess. I wanted to tour, I wanted to see Europe before I turned thirty. When you play heavy music, sometimes a little craziness is just part of the bargain. Right?

"Our first show was in Montreal, where we were opening on a four-band bill at Foufounes Electriques. Pete goes on stage in this old dress with a gray wig on his head, looking like Anthony Perkins from 'Psycho'. 'I killed my baby!' Pete screams at the top of his lungs in his Grover voice. 'Let me tell you the story!' We go straight into 'Boiled Alive', and the crowd just went ape-shit. Our tour manager said he had never seen a band sell so many tee-shirts in one night, especially when half the crowd had never even heard of the band before. Pete took the dress and wig off after the set, hung out with the crowd, looked like he was having a good time. I thought, maybe I had been worrying over nothing after all.

"The next stop was in Trois Rivieres. This time Pete didn't take off the dress. He stayed in character the entire night, telling these French-speaking kids about how 'she' had murdered her infant for speaking in a devil's tongue, 'poaching the bastard like a hen's egg.' The kids loved it, of course. Or else they were just laughing at this anglo freak talking in an old lady voice about being an evil witch. Either way, we sold a lot of tee-shirts that night as well.

"By the time we pulled into Quebec City, we were smuggling Hammond in and out of the truck stop restrooms, trying to shield him from the general public. He refused to get out of that stupid dress, and he screamed whenever we tried to grab that smelly wig off of his head. Jim and I were wondering if we should turn around and go back to Ontario, but the rest of the guys insisted we had to see the tour through. Fritz was convinced that our lead vocalist was putting on an act trying to see how much he could get away with before we all flipped out. Meanwhile Lester was taking photos and documenting the whole thing in his notebook - he said the Pete Hammond saga was going to be legendary, like Iggy Pop when he was snorting angel dust and rolling around in broken glass on stage. As for myself, I was just marking the hours until the end of the tour. This shit wasn't funny anymore.

"In Chicoutimi we were playing at a club where the only person who spoke english was the bartender. Our tour manager was running around doing translation for us. Kids were running around in Deicide shirts, drinking Pepsis and chasing each other across the stage, making the chaos worse. Jim helped the tour manager drag Pete out of the van, bringing him in through the kitchen in the back of the club. Pete looked worse than ever. It was like he had just come out of shock therapy, with that ratty wig covering up where the doctors had stuck the electrodes. He would only answer you if you called him 'Mrs. Bishop.'

"Pete stood there at the mic, not saying anything, just staring out at the audience. I counted in the first song, and we played it without Hammond singing a word. At the end of the song he just continued to stare at the crowd. People yelled at him in french, the laughter eventually dying down when Pete still didn't respond. Finally Pete started into his Esmerelda Bishop act, telling people in a low, creaking voice how in 1818 she was sentenced to hang at the neck for throwing her child into boiling water. 'I killed him!' he screamed. 'I killed my son because he was the devil! No one will ever forgive me!' The kids just laughed at him.

Because I was sitting behind him, I couldn't see the butcher's knife Hammond was carrying, clutching it to his chest like a baby doll. Fritz said later that Pete must have picked it up on his way through the kitchen. He honestly thought it was a prop of some sort, to go along with the dress and wig.

"We started playing 'Discount Jesus,' and meanwhile Hammond's still yelling about killing his son. One of the bouncers must have spotted the knife, because from out of nowhere the guy lunged up from the edge of the stage, trying to take the knife away. Hammond yelled out and held the knife closer, cutting his arm in the process. Now he's bleeding all over the place, still babbling about being a witch. A couple of kids actually put their fingers in the droplets on the stage floor, thinking it was fake blood. I could see them giggling, and then freaking out when they realised the blood was real.

"The bouncer tried to grab Hammond again. Hammond leapt on top of the bouncer with the knife raised. The rest of the security staff tackled Pete, and finally the lights came up. Blood all over the place. Two of the bouncers had to get stitches on their hands. I don't know how we got out of all that without charges being pressed; the tour manager must have been bribing people with our record label money, because we were in the hole for three thousand dollars after the tour was done. Serves us right, I guess.

"They put Hammond under heavy sedation at the hospital. The tour manager had to translate for the doctors, who told us that Pete needed to go back to Ontario for evaluation. The final prognosis was that Hammond was manic depressive, that it was a long-term condition that had never been properly diagnosed. All that alcohol he had been sucking up turned out to be a form of unknowing self-medication, preventing the sort of psychotic episode we finally saw happen in Chicoutimi. It was only when Pete stopped drinking that his condition got out of control. How's that for fuckin' irony?

"Anyway, that was the end of X-Human. Jim and I re-started Infinite Blasphemy, while Fritz went back to school and Lester moved out to Vancouver. For some reason, I got stuck doing public relations with Pete's family, trying to explain to the doctors how we let the guy get to this state. It was his idea to stop drinking cold turkey, but his relatives all hold us responsible for his breakdown. Fair enough. You gotta blame someone, right?"

Doog stroked his beard, his eyelids fluttering as if he was fighting off a breakdown of his own. Upstairs I heard Greg yell out - he might have been playing video games with Hammer and Wendie. It sounded oddly like a victory cry.

"Last time I saw Hammond," Doog said in a quiet, hesitant voice, "he was in his old room at his house up in Scarborough, sitting in bed, doped up on all the medications his doctors prescribed. He must have put on a hundred pounds over the last two years, doing nothing but eating the suppers and candy bars his mother brought up, not getting out of bed for days. Eating and watching television, that's all he does now. I had to turn on the stereo for him because he was too woozy to cross the room and load the CD player. He asked me how X-Human is doing without him."

Doog got up and started making a pot of tea. With his back turned to me he said, "Sometimes I wonder if we should have just let Hammond drink himself to death. Maybe it would have been more humane." Aurora stared helplessly at Doog, who in turn was watching the steam rise from the kettle. I looked through the hole in the window foil. The Filipino man was gone, as were the kids circling the yard. The only movement came from the flies hovering around the overhead lights like slow-motion sparks.

• • • •

### 21.

Ouch, ouch, and furthermore: ouch! Darcy, buddy, I am in serious pain right now. And not because I've been reading more of your columns for the Toronto Star (those just make me suicidal). No, I was dragged by the missus to a yoga class, the first one I've been to since starting my well-deserved vacation. I admit that I've been putting off the exercise routine. But that's why they call it a "vacation": one vacates their normal duties during their time off. Heck, I have to go back to work in three days anyway, so why not enjoy myself?

Unfortunately, Maia is adamant about not letting me fall back into all of my old gut-building habits, especially after I have managed to lose thirty pounds thanks to her diligent administration. And so the pain continues: on Saturday Maia and I are going to follow up with a visit to the main floor to hit the weights and do some cardio. Yeah, I still going to the regular gym - Maia insists that I need to mix up my workout routine, even though I would be more than happy to hide up in the yoga studio rather than mingle with the morons. Considering the progress I have made, I suppose a little suffering and even outright pain is a minor price to pay to keep up appearances BECAUSE IF I CAN'T LOOK HALF-DECENT WHEN I'M ALWAYS DRESSED LIKE A SLOB, AT LEAST MY DEAR WIFE MIGHT APPRECIATE IT IF I LOOKED GOOD WHEN I'M NAKED :D

That said, I can not pin the entirety of my weight-loss success to exercise alone. Maia has also forced me onto some draconian diet measures, mainly by throwing away my beloved frozen foods and junk goodies. And I mean literally throwing them away: in a fit of exasperation Maia raided my freezer and cupboard and performed a mass comestible pogrom (hereafter referred to as The Great McCain Pizza Pocket Massacre Of 1998). Many bitter tears were shed that terrible evening, but afterwards as I adapted to Maia's salads and rice and skinless chicken dinners, darn it if the pounds didn't fall off the ol' gut pouch. Not only did I drop a few inches off of the waistline, I also found I was more able to manouevre on the bum foot now that I wasn't carrying around the surplus poundage. I can even get around without a cane if I'm careful enough.

My apologies if I'm boring you with my paean to healthy living, Darcy. I know I bore myself when I start talking about eating properly and exercising and doing all the necessary things for leaving behind a robust-looking corpse when I die. I'm just some punk-playing jackass living in Leslieville in a beautiful house (apartment) with a beautiful wife (ME!), asking myself: Well, how did I get here? How did I worm my way back into the middle class after years of muddling and mistakes? How can one white-bread schmuck be so goddamn lucky? And how is it that a crappy sidebar article by some second-rate music columnist in a third-rate music rag continues to kick loose a bunch of repressed memories about a long-forgotten music scene in a long-forgotten town in Ontario, resulting in a diahretic rebuttal the likes of which would make Marcel Proust beg for an editor?

But.

I.

Digress.

"Good evening, my name's Poker Cartwright, and we're Murderburger. Let's play this fucking show and get it over with!"

This was the standard introduction I used for the ten gigs the band played between March and July of 1999. Except for the gig in Mississauga with Infinite Blasphemy, all of our shows were in Toronto, at a variety of scuzzy venues ranging from a basement bar on Ossington near College Street to a warehouse party off of the Danforth. Considering that many local bands only played a show every two months, we were pretty prodigious. However, I have wondered in retrospect if we wouldn't have been better off if we had been a little more choosy. The endorphin rush from fronting Betty Rage at The Donnas concert proved to be difficult to replicate at each successive gig with Murderburger. After load-in and sound check and doling out beer tickets and making sure band members didn't wander off before set time and fending off requests to mooch equipment from other bands who couldn't be bothered to bring their own gear - sometimes "getting it over with" was the most I could ask for.

"Our next song is called 'Straight-Ahead Man', by an old-time Morganfield group called The Nothings. Don't worry, no one else has heard of them either. Just ask Greg here. Yes, Greg. Fuck you, too."

The drudgery of managing a punk band might have been leavened if the crowds we played for showed a little enthusiasm in return. For the first time, I really understood why out-of-towners complain about Toronto audiences. No one danced. No one even moved. They just sat there watching us, or stood and watched us if there were no chairs available, applauding politely after every song as if we were Chinese acrobats. If the people were bored, they could have jeered, or yell out sarcastic requests for Sarah McLaughlan or Hootie And The Blowfish, or grab the microphone and start telling knock-knock jokes. Instead the folks at Murderburger concerts seemed merely appreciative, which felt far more insulting.

The closest we came to audience interplay was when I introduced 'Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald', and after a pregnant pause some knowing voice shouted out from the back of the room: "Gordon Lightfoot sucks!" When I asked why Lightfoot sucked, all I got was a half-hearted reply of "Because!" Eventually we dropped the Lightfoot cover from out set list. What was the point?

"This next song is not a rebel song. It's called 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'!" (Intro to 'Trepidation')

Oh sure, the actual music was what we were there for. Playing on stage is fun; don't let anyone tell you otherwise. For their parts, Greg and Hammer always enjoyed themselves both at rehearsals and on stage. Even when Wendie quit the band in June to go tree-planting, they still managed to have a grand old time. Meanwhile I got busted down to bass duties again, and then Greg drafted his drinking buddy Todd to play rhythm guitar, so for several weeks I was stuck playing bass while singing. I ended up begging Todd to switch to bass. And still those good times kept a' rollin'.

I was doing almost all of the promotion for gigs, to the point where I was struggling with a folding grocery cart and paste bucket doing all of the postering along Queen West and College Street by myself, walking stick and all. One time the police stopped me at Bathurst and Queen, and the confiscated my paste brush and cart, dumping my poster paste into the sewer. When Greg later asked me who was going to pay for a new folding cart, I finally flipped out and fired Greg on the spot. Hammer and Todd had to drag me out and feed me beers and chicken wings until they could coerce me into letting our lead guitar player back into the band. In conciliation, Greg then agreed to help me with the postering for the next show; but after standing outside his second-floor window for half an hour throwing gravel pebbles at the window pane and buzzing his front door in vain, I gave up and did the postering on my own. At least I now had Greg's old skateboard carrying the paste bucket.

"This next song is the same as every other song, so what goddamn difference does it make?"

I was stubborn. The last thing I wanted to admit was that re-starting Murderburger had been a mistake. Even though we were doing important work, reviving all of these old Morganfield Hardcore songs, promoting the Morganfield story in the two fanzine interviews and one radio interview I managed to score that year (one of the fanzines cut out the scene history entirely; the other kept referring to the town as "Morganford"). Even though we were accomplished musicians playing with groups made up of kids like Donnie from the Flatulent Dumbfucks, who could not even play a major scale on his instrument. Even though I was finally a front man after a decade of supporting others on stage. Even though we as a group had something to say.

Most significantly, I was competing with Matt Miller at his own game. No matter how many times the bookers at Lee's Palace and The Horseshoe turned us down, I still pounded the pavement looking for the breakthrough gig that would launch us into that upper tier of Toronto bands that included Betty Rage. One-upping Spike Liberty: that was my goal. How else was I going to get back at Matt? Steal Chantal away from him? Not bloody likely.

Betty Rage, meanwhile, had been notably absent from the scene since Chantal's abrupt walk-out back in December. Matt did manage to land a half-column in an April edition of Exclaim! where he discussed Betty Rage's upcoming re-launch at Punkaholica '99, and alluded to the "mass mutiny" instigated by his one-time good friend, Paul Cartwright:

"It's too bad he changed the name," Matt said. "They should have kept calling themselves 'Betty Rage.' That would have been funny. We could start a franchise of Betty Rages, like McDonald's."

"Or Nana Nummies," I grumbled, my fingers digging into the newsprint. What I wanted more than anything was revenge, even if it meant playing one miserable show after another until I was stage-diving off of Matt's tombstone.

It's funny what an obsession does to a man. This obsession with Matt and Chantal, for instance, is what ultimately drove me to keep plugging away with Murderburger. During the months I was going to work and dating Maia and living my pathetic secret life behind everyone's straight-standing backs, I dreamed about my eventual Plains-Of-Abraham victory over Mr. Spike Liberty, King of Morganfield Hardcore Past and Present (such as it was, with my silly cover act and Matt's vanity project being the sole remnants). I became fixated on every bit of gossip about Matt and Chantal, their rumoured addictions and attempts at band-building, their quixotic perpetual slouch towards Bethlehem. At night I would wake up sweating and deranged, my nerves fried and twitching due to mad dreams about playing shows with Matt stage-diving into the crowd that adored him, the faces of hecklers far more animated than I ever saw at my real-life shows with Murderburger. Maia would wake up and ask me about my nightmares, and I would come up with the most ridiculous lies in explanation: I was looking for the exam room in high school, I was running naked down Yonge Street, et cetera. In fact, I had been dreaming about trying to get to Punkaholica, only to have Betty Rage play the show without me while I watched helplessly from the pit.

Some people live through wars, through bankruptcies, through sexual assaults, through crippling disease. One can only imagine what haunts their dreams. Me, I was waking up trembling like a baby because of a stupid punk rock band. I wasn't embarrassed to tell Maia about Murderburger. I was ashamed.

One of the benefits of playing music is that you get to socialise with other musicians, and artistic types in general. Even though you were secretly (or not-so-secretly) competing with other bands for shows and media attention, on the surface there was still that camaraderie: brothers in arms struggling against the squares on Main Street and the corporate greedheads on Bay Street. I attended several after-show parties with these people throughout the first half of '99. It was refreshing to be part of a creative milieu where people could understand the pop culture references and political views I had learned to stifle at Schlender, or that I could never express freely around my sainted mudder and fadder without having to translate. Despite the thirty-minute wait afterwards for the night bus and the following morning's hangover, being able to quote Dead Kennedys lyrics and bash Mike Harris without the necessary placating qualifiers made the hassle worthwhile.

One of these parties happened in May at a Parkdale rowhouse out on King Street West. I went with Donnie from the Flatulent Dumbfucks, each of us carrying a six pack of beer; in addition I was carrying a small bag of marijuana for later rolling. By the time we got there, all three floors were swarming with punks and greasers and neo-hippies and artists, along with a scattering of rastafarians and goths and other representatives of the myriad subcultural sects of Toronto.

The house was owned by a older couple who had been part of the original Yorkville hippie scene in the sixties. The couple, Manny and Carol, were holding court in the first-floor kitchen, reeling off stories about the skirmishes between the kids and the cops back when the hippies in sixties' Yorkville were trying to establish the neighbourhood as a car-free district. Manny, the patriarch, bragged about seeing a teenaged Neil Young jamming with Rick James in a folk band called the Mynah Birds; his old lady, Carol, told a story about sharing her last cigarette with Joni Mitchell at a coffee house on Harbord Street. Around them the much younger party-goers drank and smoked and fought over the stereo controls, some of them spilling onto the porch and second-floor balcony for a gulp of fresh air as they looked over King Street and Lake Shore Boulevard below, the non-stop flow of traffic along Lake Shore like twin streams of liquid iron and rust shivering in the darkness.

I recognised some of the party-goers from previous concerts. A few recognised me in turn, either approaching me to ask me when Murderburger was playing next or else turning away with barely-contained expressions of condescension. Greg arrived along with his girlfriend Deanna, whom I had not seen for several months. Freaky was around as well, ignoring me as was now his common practice.

Also there was Matt Miller, with Chantal Lafierre clinging at his side. Matt was unremarkable to me; his ramrod posture and practiced, commanding smile was no different than they had ever been. Chantal, however, knocked the wind out of my chest. I forgot all of the drug rumours, the tales of botched gigs and on-stage collapses - she was fucking radiant, with bright wild eyes and luminescent skin, and shining black hair with a tendril of dyed Easter pink tracing the contour down from her scalp and around her cheek. At one time she might have seemed merely attractive. Now the mere sight of her made me want to crawl out of my own skin.

I handled myself as I normally did in such situations: by ducking away and proceeding to drink heavily from my six-pack. Soon enough, however, Chantal tracked me down amidst the throng of drinkers and smokers, and threw her arms around my neck. "Paulie!" she squealed in my ear. "My god, I missed you guys so much!" She pressed her face into the crook under my jawline, her hair wafting into my face with its aroma of shampoo and fruit perfume. I stammered out an inquiry as to how Betty Rage was doing, but she didn't answer. When she finally did raise her face up from under my chin, I saw that her pupils were almost completely dilated, making her look like a cartoon character. "Paul, I just took the most amazing bunch of E I've ever had. It's called 'Kangaroo' because it's supposed to make you want to jump, but like instead, I just wanna touch everything forever. It's like, if we were naked right now, I could feel your heartbeat, because it's just that good!"

Chantal pressed herself tightly into me, her skin grinding under her clothes. My erection sprang up so fiercely that I nearly sprained my penis. Thankfully, Matt came along to kill off my complicated joy.

"Hey, Paul," he said to me casually. "Long time no see." He took up my hand and shook it while Chantal continued to press against my torso. "Nice to see there's no hard feelings between us." If only you knew, buddy, I thought to myself.

Matt coolly observed me and his girlfriend hugging, until finally he tapped Chantal's shoulder and said, "May I have the next dance?" Chantal turned away from me and pressed herself in turn onto Matt, but not before slipping an orange tablet into my shirt pocket. "I want you to feel as good as I feel right now," she whispered into my ear, smiling and blinking her cartoon eyes rapidly.

"So how's tricks?" Matt said. "I hear Murderburger's been gigging pretty regularly. I keep meaning to catch you guys, but you know how it goes."

"It goes," I replied. "Goes well, in fact." I gave Matt a brief run-down of our latest shows, accentuating the positives. "I've also been making calls trying to get on the bill at Punkaholica '99. That would be a sweet way to cap off the summer."

Matt shook his head. "Ah, man, I wouldn't get your hopes up on that. Jake's been pretty picky with who gets to play. If you haven't gotten a call back by now, you're probably out of luck."

"Matt can get you on the bill!" Chantal grinned at me, hopping with excitement against Matt's chest. "Matty, please please please get Paul's band into Punkaholica! I wanna see Murderburger play Punkaholica!"

"I'm not a miracle worker, Chan. I can't just call up Jake and - "

"I wanna see Murderburger, so you have to call up Jake and make him do it. Or I'll never ever be nice to you again." Chantal made a petulant face and stuck her tongue out at Matt before dissolving into fits of giggling.

Matt shrugged. "We'll talk later," he said to me before excusing himself, taking Chantal somewhere upstairs to recuperate. I waved at the two of them and then returned to rapidly downing my six-pack.

An hour later I caught up with Matt again, this time in the kitchen with Manny and Carol and a slew of bohemian onlookers. I was visibly plastered by this point, and I had to take advantage of the nearest available chair so I could sit down and give my cane-hand a rest. Matt had skillfully taken over the conversation, pontificating about how the Beat Generation had been the truly revolutionary cultural force as opposed to the hippie movement (critiquing hippies in front of people who were actually part of the '60s counterculture - wow! Never let it be said that Matthew Miller didn't have brass balls to spare.) During his monologue, one of the people in the room interrupted him on a point about free love, saying something about how the truly revolutionary sexual advances such as the acceptance of homosexuals and transvestites had to wait until the rise of glam rock in the early seventies. Someone else in the room brought up pedophilia as an example of a transgression that was beyond the limits of acceptance, citing the case of Graeme Forsythe of The Synging Telegrams, who had recently been in the news for a high-profile arrest near Kingston. At the mention of Graeme's name, Matt's face turned red.

"The Synging Telegrams!" Manny exclaimed. "There's a band I haven't heard talked about in a long while. I remember seeing them play a high school dance up in North York. Don't remember the drummer that well - "

"Graeme was a good guy," Matt interjected, resuming his lead in the conversation. "He used to hang out a lot at punk shows up in Morganfield. He actually helped out the local scene quite a bit, even if his intentions weren't always the purest. Paul could tell you, I'm sure."

"Oh yeah, Graeme was a total perv." I rocked back and forth in my seat, my voice ringing out a bit too loudly. "The guy was always offering to do sound or tune your guitar and shit. Always wanted to talk about music while he tried to get his arm around you. Creepy as hell."

"Yeah, but he did help out the scene, Paul. I mean, despite all that, he was still a decent guy."

"Oh sure, 'decent!'" As I said this, I made quotation marks in the air with my index and ring fingers. "Just as long as you didn't go to his apartment to 'listen to his copy of the Synging Telegrams album'! Like when Craig LaBrie had to go to Graeme's place to buy his drums? Or when Steve went over to pick up his bass cabinet? Steve said he nearly slugged the guy when he tried to grope his ass!"

I stopped laughing when I noticed Matt's stone-faced expression. "Paul," Matt said, "why are you ragging on Graeme? What did he ever do to you?"

"He didn't do anything to me. I avoided that creep like the plague. What, it's not as if he ever got you, right?"

Matt stared coldly in my direction. "What if he did?" he asked.

There was a nervous silence throughout the kitchen. "You're kidding," I said.

Matt waved me off with a contemptuous sigh. "It's not that big of a deal." Matt's voice was terse, as if he was trying to quell a sudden sob. "We were together, once or twice. Things didn't work out, that's all."

"You and - Graeme?" I stammered. I must have looked like a beached fish, the way my mouth was gaping wordlessly with my jaw hanging off of my face.

Someone at the kitchen table said, "well isn't this just awkward!" A few people chuckled hesitantly.

"So how about that, Paul?" Matt took a step forward, his shoulders squaring. "I'm actually a bit disappointed. Somehow I thought you were a little more open-minded."

"Yeah, but, you were what, fifteen?"

"Seventeen. What's the difference? Just because Graeme happened to be gay - "

"He wasn't just gay, Matt, he was a fuckin' chickenhawk!"

Matt glared at me angrily. Over at the table, Carol sat forward. "Guys, I don't think this conversation is going in a positive direction. Perhaps one of you should step away and let things cool off."

Matt nodded, but stayed where he was standing. Everyone then looked toward me. Knowing even in my shocked state when to take a hint, I rose up and left the kitchen.

I stumbled dumbly around the first floor for a few minutes, trying to clear my head. I then decided to find Greg Dunhaven and confer with him about what Matt had just said about Graeme Forsythe. Surely my fellow Morgie would prove receptive to my astonishment.

I asked around and I found out that Greg had gone down to the basement. I made my way downstairs and found Greg sitting in a back corner behind a heavy curtain, pushing a syringe into a vein below his left bicep. Across from him, his girlfriend Deanna was slumped against the wall, a trickle of drool running down her chin.

Greg looked up at me with his eyelids drooping heavily, his face blanching as he let out a long, relaxed sigh. Reacting to my befuddled stare, Greg said to me in a low, lethargic voice: "Take a picture, Paul. It'll last longer."

This, for me, was enough revelations for one night. Breathing deeply to try and accelerate my sobering-up, I grabbed my coat and knapsack from the front closet, and pulled on my boots. On my way out the door, I called over to Donnie and handed him my unused bag of marijuana. "Put it to good use," I said. I also gave him the ecstacy pill Chantal had handed me earlier. "It's called 'kangaroo'," I explained. "It's supposed to make you jump."

Donnie grinned at the pill I had deposited in his palm. "Holy shit," he said. "Paul, you are like the coolest guy ever!" He then turned and rushed back in the house, bounding like a little kid. I started down the steps toward the street, satisfied at least that one of us was going to be enjoying the rest of his Saturday night.

Well, Darcy, I have officially run out of excuses for borrowing Maia's laptop - she caught me pecking away earlier and asked me what I was doing. I said that I was writing an e-mail to a friend. "That's a long e-mail," she said while looking over my shoulder. I fed her some bullshit about how a buddy from high school had tracked me down and asked me to fill him in on what I had been up to. Maia nodded and said she'd be happy to proofread my letter once I'm done.

Darcy, I think she's on to us.

But never fear, Darcy dear, for I have deleted all incriminating evidence from her laptop hard drive, and I will be typing out the remainder of my overlong yarn here in my dungeon-slash-workshop with the doors safely closed BUT STILL UNLOCKED HA-HA! No more writing from the comfort of the kitchen table or the warm coziness of the coffee shop down the street, I'm afraid. From hereon in I'll be passing my dreary sentence, and passing off my dreary sentences, from my clunky old tower PC with the overclocked CPU. I can already feel my shoulder muscles stiffen up from having to prop up my arms over the keyboard. Goodbye soft coffee shop recliners, hello carpal tunnel syndrome.

It's 2:00 a.m. on a Thursday night in the Cartwright residence. Maia is sleeping soundly in preparation for her Friday shift. She looks so damn beautiful, tucked up under the covers. I know this will make me sound like a Grade A creepazoid, but there is just something magically erotic in seeing Maia sleeping, at once a few feet away and yet a million miles distant, her eyelids fluttering and torso rising and falling with her soft respiratory movements, like some aquatic organism at the bottom of a dusky ocean. When she is in this state, I am almost mortally terrified to touch her, lest my clumsy attempts at affection rouse her from her dream-state, causing her to suddenly drown in the night's dry and lifeless air.

A life told in stages (so our saga continues): a warm-wind Sunday afternoon in May; a rust-eaten Mercury Tracer parked on a side-street in Overlea near Don Mills Road, next to one of several anonymous-looking apartment blocks in the neighbourhood. From where he is sitting, the white-skinned man can see the phone number painted near the top of the building, advertising vacancies - he had considered looking for apartments in this area when his girlfriend had first suggested finding shared living quarters. The man had noted that the rent here was cheaper than in other parts of Toronto. However, his girlfriend, the brown-skinned woman sitting behind the wheel, detests the neighbourhood with a seething passion. She would like nothing better than for her own parents to move away from this place - the sooner the better.

The girlfriend warily eyes the people criss-crossing the sidewalk: a panoply of working-class immigrants from Asia and Africa and Eastern Europe; some kicking balls across the pavement, some waddling under the weight of purchases from No Frills and Zellers, others merely promenading with arms folded behind backs, discussing serious-seeming matters with their comrades. Saris and turbans mix with satin jackets and baseball caps; voices intermingle in a polysyllabic tapestry.

"Look at these idiots," the woman says, referring to some selection of strangers that the man can not pinpoint. "This is their life now. They've forgotten that you're only supposed to stay in this part of town for as long as you have to."

The man stays his tongue. He has had this argument before with her. He himself is still poor, technically, although he is employed full-time. His girlfriend, however, often talks as if immigrant poverty is the truly offensive condition.

"I mean, you want to call these people 'white trash' - " The woman wrinkles her nose. "But they're not white!"

"Call them 'trash,' then." The man sighs. He waits for her mood to pass. If he really wanted to stir up trouble, he would remind her that her own family still lives here, among the supposed non-strivers. As it stands, the man knows little about the people he is about to meet for supper. Tonight's introduction is a crucial part of his evaluation as potential husband material - as such, he has been firmly been instructed to dress in his best shirt and a proper tie and slacks, which he is currently wearing despite his discomfiture. His girlfriend, in turn, is wearing a loose tan-coloured blouse that looks Indian in design, along with a white scarf and billowing slacks. It is a shock to see her dressed like this, as she usually wears a more tight-fitting, western-styled wardrobe.

The couple sits in the Tracer, the derelict-looking vehicle that now sports a twin set of protective plastic coverings over the ratty front seats. The man has been using this car on weekends for practicing for his driver's test, which is scheduled for June. His girlfriend is two years away from attaining a degree in nursing. She shares an apartment with three rowdy students out near Danforth and Pape, a living arrangement from which she is desperate to disentangle herself (although not desperate enough to consider moving back in with her parents in dreaded Overlea). The woman has been forthright with her boyfriend: they have been dating for close to a year, but he needs to make a decision sooner than later. Barely older than twenty-five, the woman is already planning out the rest of her life. This aspect of her simultaneously fascinates and horrifies him. Tiny as she is, barely four-foot-eleven in high heels, she is megalomaniacal, desperate to succeed. Still, she wants him to be a part of her success, and he is scared to disappoint her.

"So here's how it goes," the woman says to him. "You're going to meet my family, we're going to have a nice dinner, and if all goes well we'll get to the end of the night without an argument. If my father starts talking about Canadian immigration policies or business laws, don't say anything: just let him talk until he shuts up. If my mother starts criticising you about what you're wearing or makes any cracks about your walking with a cane - "

"Ignore her, got it."

"And when Jonathan gets on your nerves - and he will - you're not allowed to punch him out, even though he'll deserve it. He's my little brother, so I get to hit him all I want."

"All right. Anyone else I should know about?"

"My nani, grandmother, will be there. She's a dearie, but she doesn't understand a word of English." The woman snaps her fingers. "Oh, and whatever you do, do not mention Sanjay, no matter what."

"Speaking of which - "

The woman sighs in exasperation. "Paul, I promise I'll tell you about Sanjay another time. Just not right now."

The man nods. Sanjay was supposed to have been the woman's husband as per an arrangement made with Sanjay's family when the bride-to-be was only five years old and still living in India. The parents of the groom owned a large part of a newspaper chain with interests in a Bollywood film production company, and the woman's marriage was going to be her family's ticket out of their own comparative poverty. The prospective bride's father, Dilip, had elected to move his wife and children to Canada in an attempt to establish chain of laundromats similar to the dry-cleaning company he had founded and driven to foreclosure back in Mumbai - his theory was that Canadians were obsessed with cleanliness, and so laundromats there would be a safe investment. When his Leaside coin-op laundry burned to the ground Dilip almost went completely bankrupt, his losses compounded by the fact that he had skimped on insurance coverage (property insurance of any kind, he had insisted, was a frippery: "like gambling on your own failure.") In recent years Dilip had been reduced to driving a taxicab to pay off his debt load while his wife Prashanti took care of the kids as well as her own mother, who was recuperating from a cancer operation that had removed most of her tongue and part of her bottom jaw. When his daughter announced that she and Sanjay had mutually agreed to forego marriage, Dilip's hopes of escaping both Canada and the lower class were cruelly dashed.

The white-skinned man surveys the neighbourhood again. He feels like an interloper in this neighbourhood filled with curry smells and myriad dialects. The poured-concrete sameness of the apartment blocks pitched amongst the mitigating green of park-like lawns, the townhouse rows with their blanched wooden fences, the ubiquitous stretches of parking pavement - the entirety of the surrounding architecture seemed custom-designed to eliminate any lingering sentiment of tranquility and belonging.

"As long as I don't embarrass you," he says.

"You're not the one I'm worried will embarrass me." The woman closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, holding a meditative pose he has seem her assume in times of tension, such as days before crucial exams.

The man grins. "I like how your tits stick out when you sit up like that."

The woman rolls her head towards him, glaring ruefully.

"You're beautiful when you're disappointed," the man says.

Maia leans forward, and presses her index finger over the man's lips. She speaks in a low voice with the mannered British accent she often assumes when she is being sardonic. "Try this. Tonight, you keep your flappy mouth closed. That way, you won't embarrass me, all right? Use Big Paul as much as possible - " Here she points to the man's forehead, and then lets her hand fall toward his crotch. "And Little Paul will be very happy later tonight."

"Promise?"

The woman kisses the man, her mouth releasing with a wet smack "No promises," she says, and she then unlocks and opens the driver's side door, its hinges screeching.

The fifteenth floor apartment is cluttered with furniture: three sofas in the main living room, wooden shelves nearly bowed with Hindu statues and books and touristy knick-knacks, pictures and posters and newspaper clippings shingled in massive collages along both sides of the main corridor. The white-skinned man has to step around the rubber mats piled with sneakers and sandals and other discarded footwear, and the wooden chairs pushed against the wall, obstacles further encumbering his journey from the foyer to the sofa-stuffed main room. He also has to wait for Maia's brother Jonathan to complete his lethargic trundle up and down the hallway - his was the first face he had witnessed when Maia had knocked on the door: a broad, over-fed visage whose expression betrayed nothing but a pre-emptive contempt for everything outside his own eye sockets. Despite being twenty-two years of age, Jonathan looks putatively juvenile, wearing an oversized tee shirt and Blue Jays baseball cap, his hairless legs planted in fuzzy slippers. There is also the matter of the powder-blue soother Jonathan is suckling constantly. Maia's brother had in fact stood at the door for several seconds, staring impassively while chewing on the rubber nipple, emitting no noise of greeting to his own sister and her guest other than a non-committal grunt that could easily have been mistaken for a low belch.

"That's Jonathan," Maia said. "Charming, isn't he?"

The second person to greet Maia's boyfriend is Prashanti, who had patted the sofa cushion next to where she had been sitting, beckoning him as if he was a neighbour's dog. Prashanti is a handsome woman, her sari and scarves arranged with as much care as the gray-streaked hair drawn back to a large bun behind her head. If Maia's future was mapped out in her mother's appearance, then the boyfriend was receiving good news: Prashanti is attractive, slim and smooth-faced, with the only real damage of time present in the dark swaths of flesh under her eyes (the raccoon-like discolourations above Maia's own cheeks mirror those of her mother). Prashanti's speech, however, is almost comically mannered, a British inflection to her words that barely masks her Indian accent. The way she surveys the man instead of looking at him renders him uneasy.

"So," Prashanti had said at him after opening pleasantries in the main room. "Maia tells me you play the electric guitar. A rock and roll person, I take it?"

"Oh yes, rock and roll. Hard rock. Punk, sometimes."

"Punk rock? Unh!" Prashanti made a sour face. "Ugly English boys trying to look uglier. You shouldn't put yourself down like that, Paul."

"Mummy, stop it." Maia's back was stiff, her fingers pinched against her kneecaps.

"Maia, dear, I am only saying punk rockers are ugly, not your friend." Prashanti was statue-like in poise, compared to her daughter's quivering agitation. "I mean, look at the tie he is wearing. You can not say he isn't making an effort."

"Mummy!"

"It's only an observation, daughter. Most young men in this country go around looking like bums. A simple shirt and tie looks so much nicer."

"Ties are stupid." This was Jonathan talking through the pacifier. The slurping noises were incessant, revolting.

"Speaking of which," Prashanti said to Jonathan. "Are you going to get dressed for supper with Maia's guest? And please take that piece of rubber out of your mouth before you make us all nauseous."

"I am dressed, mah. Who gives a shit if I don't - OW!"

"You're a retard," Maia had said, retracting her hand from the back of her brother's head.

Prashanti closed her eyes and smiled blissfully. "Maia, show respect to your brother. And Jonathan, no cursing in the house."

In the dining room, the supper is served by Dilip, who wears battered oven mitts over his hands as he brought in platter after steaming platter from the kitchen. With the large mitts at the ends of his thin arms he looked even smaller than his actual five-foot-four stature, though in the claustrophobic kitchen he looks more proportionate. It is a peculiar trick: every time he emerges through the gauzy curtain separating the kitchen from the dining room, he seems to shrink, only to re-enlarge when he retreats back behind the opaque curtain fabric.

"Prashanti, dearest," Dilip says through a strained voice, "would you please avail yourself to assist me bringing in all of this food so we can eat sooner, please?"

Dilip's wife bats her lashes. "I cooked the food, Dilip. It's only fair you serve. In Canada some husbands help in the kitchen. Doesn't that sound civilised, husband?"

"O yes, very civlised!" Dilip's grin is manic, his head shaking in spasms. "But dearest wife, one of us has been driving a wretched taxi-cab for fourteen hours and only had a two hour nap before our esteemed guest arrived, and I am not so civilised as to suggest that you might want to remove your precious behind from your comfortable chair and help me with the basanti and rice, if it pleases you!"

Prashanti eyes roll under half-closed lids. "Jonathan, help your father serve supper."

"Not fuckin' likely - OW! Mah!"

"Maia, please do not hit your brother at the supper table."

The white-skinned man rises to assist Dilip, but Maia presses him back down into his chair, throwing him a tightly winched scowl before retreating into the kitchen. His attention is diverted by a shriveled figure who approaches the supper table wrapped in a faded blue body-length wrap. "Mother, dear!" Prashanti exclaims in a high-pitched voice, shepherding Nani into the chair beside her. Prashanti talked rapidly to her mother in Bengali, motioning toward the white stranger with a free hand. Nani makes a loose, rubbery smile at the man, which the man returns bashfully.

"I was just telling Nani that you walk with a cane. Nani is too proud for that. You saw her shuffle down the hall, her bad hips and all. And not a word of complaint."

"Maybe 'cause she's got no tongue, mah." Jonathan flinches reflexively, his shoulders dropping when he realises Maia is in the other room.

"Jonathan, some respect, if you will. Paul, you were saying you manage a warehouse. Perhaps your organisation could use a healthy young gentleman like our Jonathan."

"Mah, I've got it covered. I keep saying."

Prashanti stares at her son, her air of bemusement no longer concealing her contempt. "Dear son, you keep telling us your little rave is going to generate money. And every month you and your friends push back the launch date. Your father and I have already accepted that we are not seeing our investment money return to us, but the least you could do is put your energies toward something useful."

"Mah, it's coming together. Give it time. Carlos has got a sweet deal on a sound system, all we gotta do is clear the rental fees and it's a go. And some of the tracks we're laying down in rehearsal are, like, tight!"

The white man's ears perk up at the mention of "laying down tracks." "I thought," he says to Jonathan, "that dee-jays just played records at raves. You're recording your own stuff as well?"

"That's part of it," Johnathan says, exhibiting enthusiasm for the first time that evening. "Me and my boys, we're a techno collective, right? This rave's gonna be part experience, part launch for our label. A two-in-one package." Jonathan speaks rapidly, his intonation like that of a child trying to convince his parents that there are monsters under his bed. "My boy Chin, he's in tight with the guys in Pleasure Force, he's bringing up reps from Chicago soon as we give the word. All we gotta do is get the venue locked down and get a crew, and then - " He flicked his wrist, snapping index and middle fingers together as punctuation.

At this moment, Maia enters the dining room, setting down vegetable dishes. "Paul used to be in a band with Matt Molotov," she says. "From Groove Incorporated. Jonathan here used to listen to them when was a kid."

The man braces himself for what he thinks will be a fanboy's questioning from Maia's brother, or at least an interrogation seeking out contacts in the music business. Instead Jonathan tilts his head and sniffs. "Groove? That's so old it's, like, extinct! I also wore diapers one time, you know that?"

"And you still suck a pacifier," Maia interjects, "So I guess nothing changes."

"It calms my nerves! Shut up!" Jonathan grinds his teeth and exhales nasally. "Mah, I need a smoke."

"You don't need a smoke, dear son. You need a job."

Dilip and Maia take their seats at the table, and the family begins to eat. Prashanti mashes clumps of rice and vegetables with her fork and feeds them to her mother. Jonathan shovels the food into his mouth with ecstatic grunts. Dilip works over his food like an artist, his fork like a brush dipping into the paints on his palette, bringing small bites to his lips.

"So Maia tells me you went to university, but quit. I take it you will resume your studies at some later date?"

"Well, not really. I'm working now, so no. I mean, we've talked about it and all - "

The artist ceases daubing at his paints. "It concerns me that you are so hesitant about furthering your education. In this country a man without a degree is a man at a serious disadvantage in life."

"Paul," Prashanti asks, "why did you drop out of school?"

The man searches for an appropriate response. "Well, I'm not sure. I guess business classes just weren't, um - they weren't for me, I suppose."

Dilip's voice tightens. "Mr. Cartwright, please do not follow up that sentence with 'I needed to find myself!' I implore you, sir! I have heard that phrase spoken by too many young men in this country to find it funny in the least. Did you know your predecessor said the exact same thing, sitting in the very chair where you are sitting - "

"Daddy! Please!"

"Maia, I am only telling the truth! That Kalen boy you brought to us, he actually had the audacity to tell me he 'needed to find himself'! And I told him: I can find you right now, Kalen. You are sitting with my only daughter eating my food in my house. And now that you are not lost, you can go get a job and do something with your life, preferably without dragging my family down with you."

"But Dilip, darling, Paul does have a career." Prashanti continues feeding her mother as she talks, her head turned slightly. "He can support Maia while she goes to university. And then when she has her career settled, perhaps Paul can resume his own studies." She raises her head in reverie. "I have never understood why women in Canada are so uncomfortable with their husbands supporting them. Back in Mumbai, Dilip and his family provided me a wonderful house, with four servants at my bidding. I hardly had to lift a finger. Now times have changed. I must cook, I must take care of Mother. It is not shameful, but I do miss those blessed days."

"You are still Queen in my eyes," Dilip said with a slightly sharp inflection. "You do not work here, even though it would ease our burden financially. You can not say you must lower yourself to a mere job."

"You are a most excellent provider," Prashanti replied, not looking at her husband. "And when Jonathan gets a job, your burden will be lighter still."

"Mah, get off my back, already! You'll get your money back."

"Of course we'll get our money, Jonathan. Of course."

The supper continues. Paul heaps his plate with a mix of rice and curried chicken, along with some salad and part of an otherwise untouched bowl of Kraft Dinner which he assumes was prepared for his benefit. He looks around the room as he eats, observing the watery plaster of the kitchen walls and the dingy windows behind him, the panorama of northern Toronto beyond the glass eerily reminiscent of a screen shot from Blade Runner: all cloud-choked dusk and smoggy haze atop an endless vista of scrabbly slab buildings and suburban spillage. He wonders if Maia's family is spending money they do not have on this elaborate meal.

Maia pours an after-supper coffee, moving from cup to cup around the table. A small lemon cake is divided into six portions by Dilip, and served up on a mixed collection of saucers. Paul catches Dilip eyeing him suspiciously. He can barely trace the path of Dilip's tongue against the inside of the cheek, as if he was tasting something unpleasant.

"I must tell you," Dilip begins as he resumes his seat at the head of the table. "I am still concerned about this unfinished business degree of yours. What is your father's opinion of this, if I might ask?"

"My dad's not thrilled. I admit it. He said he could have got me into CP Rail if I had a degree, but - "

"Your father works for CP Rail!" Dilip's eyes widen with astonishment. "This is truly impressive. I have driven clients to their offices in Scarborough. They have an excellent pay scale and benefits package - and, am I to understand you turned down a position?"

"What? No, you misunderstood. See, I can't get in unless I have some sort of degree - "

"So get a degree! My god, sir, you would rather be in a musty warehouse than working for a federal corporation!"

"Er, it's not a government-owned company."

Jonathan turns in the white man's direction, snickering. "CP Rail's got a union, don't it? People don't do shit working in unions. And you turned it down?"

The man feels his face growing hot. "I said, I didn't turn anything down."

Prashanti puts down the fork and looks away from Nani. "Dilip, I am sure Paul earns a reasonable salary at the warehouse. Right, Paul?"

"He's actually getting a raise." Maia blurts this with her hand gripping the man's forearm, her head nodding rapidly. "That's what he was saying last week."

"Maia, it's not the same thing." Dilip was sitting forward in his chair, his palms flattened over the stained tablecloth. "A federal position is like a golden ticket to prosperity! To be a civil servant is to have your family's future secured. And now that your boyfriend is saying he turned it down, I am very very hesitant to give my blessing to him. Very hesitant!"

"Is anyone listening to what I am saying?" The man shakes his head. "It - is - not - federal! It's just a job. And I already have a job. So what's the problem?"

Dilip turns angrily toward the white man sitting beside his daughter. "Mr. Cartwright, exactly what can you give to my daughter with your warehouse job and, forgive me for saying, your gammy leg?"

"Daddy!"

"Maia, I am talking! Please! Mr. Cartwright, please answer my question. In all seriousness, what advantage do you offer that a good not-foolish Indian boy can not provide to my daughter? What wonderful lessons in life can you teach her that is beyond our humble ability?"

The man contemplates Dilip's heated words. He considers a possible rejoinder, replaying it in his mind: Well, sir, I have taught your daughter a few lessons of a sort. For instance, when we first started having sex, Maia would turn away from me when she undressed, unbuttoning her shirt from the bottom to the top in a rush like she was embarrassed. Now she faces me when she undresses, and she unbuttons her shirt starting at the top, working down slowly with a warm smile. Sometimes she even does a little dance.

Dilip flares his nostrils, waiting for his reply.

"Okay, I admit, I do regret dropping out of York, sometimes. But it's not like I can't go back when Maia's got her schooling finished."

He watches Maia's father lower his arms to the table, his upper body slackening with relief. The white man struggles to keep an evil grin from creeping across his face.

"But then again, maybe I should also take some time to find myself."

Dilip lowers his head into his hands, muttering. "Mr. Cartwright, I am not an elevator. Please do not be pushing my buttons."

While fending off Dilip's accusations, the white man overhears Jonathan address the man's girlfriend under his breath. "Maia, your boyfriend's a loser. Only a loser turns down a union job."

"Big talk from a guy mooching off his parents." Maia's voice raises. "Stay out of this."

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Jonathan," Prashanti intones, "do not shout at your sister."

"Mummy, Jonathan's an ass."

"Maia, do not - "

Jonathan sits forward, swearing as he shoves his sister. Maia punches her brother in the shoulder. Jonathan returns with a hard punch of his own, knocking Maia halfway out of her chair. In righting her balance, Maia knocks her plate to the floor, the food splattering.

"Jonathan! How dare you!" Dilip is standing with his fists balled and shaking. He then notices that Maia's boyfriend is also standing, ruddy-faced with his shoulders squared. The boyfriend looks back at Dilip. Dilip looks at Maia. Maia looks at her father, and then Jonathan, who is alternately startled and puzzled by the development. Jonathan looks at his mother. Prashanti looks quizzically up at the boyfriend.

Nani looks down at her plate. She picks up a fork and continues eating her dessert.

"Mr. Cartwright," Dilip bellows. "I would suggest you sit down immediately and stay out of my family's business, thank you."

"The guy punched my girlfriend," the man replies. "It already is my business."

Jonathan sneers. "What, you're gonna knock my lights out? Serious?"

"Hit her again and find out, asshole."

"Both of you!" Maia stands between her brother and boyfriend. "Just shut up and sit down, okay?"

All of the men return to their chairs, grumbling. "Maia is correct," Prashanti says, the British affectation in her speech overtaken by a subcontinental clipping of syllables. "It is always horseplay and foolish cursing in this house because you two can not behave like adults. What the neighbours must think of us!" For a moment the white man thinks Prashanti is referring to him and Jonathan, but then he realises she talking about Jonathan and Maia. He realised that he is still the outside party here. Dilip is stabbing at his cake; Prashanti gives him an insouciant shrug. Perhaps the white man has just scored some brownie points in this otherwise typical family exchange. All he has to do is sit tight and bask in his virtuousness.

Then his eyes meet Jonathan's, who in turn lowers his head and picks at his dessert.

"White trash punk... could kick your ass easy - "

The man explodes from his seat, yanking Jonathan upward from the table. Jonathan shoves the man back and stands before him, his arms raised hesitantly. He outweighs his sister's boyfriend by forty pounds, and he has a good six inches of reach than his opponent if he chose to take a swing. Instead he lowers his arms to his sides, more baffled by the enraged man pivoting before him on his good left leg.

"Wanna kick my ass?" The man's fists flail wildly before him. "Here you go! Kick my ass! Let's do it!"

Jonathan snorts derisively. "Forget it. I'm not fighting a cripple."

"Kick my fuckin' ass, you pussy! I dare you!"

Prashanti's voice resumes its regal lilt. "People! Language!"

The man weaves and dances, bracing for the inevitable monster punch. He had felt the hard sinew beneath the flab when he had grabbed Jonathan under the shoulder and arm. He is shocked, however, when his assailant actually began to retreat down the corridor.

"This is stupid," Jonathan said. "I could lay you out so easy."

"So do it, for chrissake! Talk minus action equals zero!" The man slaps himself several times in the face. "There! I'm softened up. Now get your pansy raver ass over here and finish the job!"

"This guy's nuts." Jonathan continues backing up the hallway. "I'm going for a smoke." He then opens his bedroom door and locks himself inside.

The man stands in the dining room doorway, stunned but still boiling with rage. "Well now, Mr. Cartwright," he hears Dilip say. "I hope you are satisfied with your performance, your little song and dance. Coming into my house with my daughter's precious hand, and then picking fights with my son like some lunatic from the mental hospital."

The man turns and sees Dilip standing, his face a mask of astonishment. "Truly, Mr. Cartwright, you are a piece of work. I can not believe my only daughter canceled her engagement to a fine Indian boy, only to fall for the likes of you \- it boggles the mind!"

"Daddy, don't start up about Sanjay - "

"I am not 'starting up,' Maia! Oh, no - you finished that conversation for us a long time ago. Sanjay's father told me, it was your choice not to go back to Mumbai to be married."

Maia glares at her father. "That's not true! Sanjay and I - "

"Do not interrupt your father! I am too tired to go through this again. Not with this crazy man you bring home threatening my son." Dilip waggles a long finger accusingly at Maia's boyfriend. "Rest assured, my friend, I have half a mind to kick your behind my own self! And do not suggest I am not able to do so!"

"Who's suggesting?" The man throws out his fists once more. "Jonathan won't kick my ass? Okey-dokey, you kick my ass! Let's rock!"

Dilip stands stoop-shouldered, his head canted to one side, eyes bulging in their sockets. "Young man, please do not insult my intelligence. I have been disciplining my son since he was old enough to walk, and I will not tolerate your silly threats any more lightly."

"So don't tolerate! Demonstrate! Jesus H. Christ! What's a guy gotta do to get his ass kicked around here?"

"Paul," Maia says through clenched teeth. "Please sit down and eat your cake before I kick your stupid ass myself. Okay?"

"Promises, promises! What's with you people?" The man rubs his temples. "You're all crazy, you know that? And you've made me nuts in the process. Maybe I do need an ass-kicking. C'mon, Dilip! Whaddaya say?" The man turns and waggles his posterior at Dilip, pointing at his buttocks while sing-songing to the tune of 'Duke Of Earl': "Kick my ASS, kick, kick / Kick my ASS, kick, kick - "

Dilip is still standing next to the table, dumbfounded. "I can not believe I have to put up with such nonsense. Oh yes, Maia, daughter, this is a vast improvement over marriage to Sanjay. How could I have ever doubted your judgement?" He then turns away and enters the kitchen, his proportions resuming their expanded shape beyond the curtain fabric. His grumbling carries through unabated to the people left standing in the dining room. "A lazy son, a daughter who brings home madmen. A bloody circus, all around me..."

The man stares at the space where Dilip had been standing, his head shaking side to side. "Will someone in this apartment please kick my ass?!" he shouts with his face tilted and fists raised heavenward. He exhales and looks back at Maia, who is glaring at him with a gaze as hard and cold as granite - it is safe to say that Little Paul would be getting no reward that evening. Prashanti, meanwhile, is wearing a weird half-smile on her stately lips, her posture relaxed as she lets out a curious hum suggesting, of all things, approval.

"Well, daughter," she finally says, "never let it be said that our family does not keep your friends entertained."

A sudden crash emanates from behind the curtain. "Blast it!" Dilip shouts. Prashanti and Maia rush over to help Dilip gather up pieces of a glass mixing bowl that had slipped from the pile of dishes in the sink. As they clean up, Dilip and Maia begin arguing in Bengali, soon joined by Prashanti's more controlled exaltations. Back in the dining room, the man hears the argument rage, with Sanjay's name coming up twice.

He beings to stumble toward the kitchen entrance, but he feels a small hand grasp weakly at his forearm. The man looks down and sees Nani at his side, grinning like an apple doll. She guides him down the corridor, the two of them limping in tandem, and she stops at the entrance to a tiny side room that turns out to be Nana's bedroom, a space that is barely larger than the single bed it encloses, and somehow even more cluttered with boxes and furniture than the rest of the apartment.

Nani leads the man to sit on the side of the bed, and she retrieves a twine-bound scrapbook with a yellowed cardboard cover, and folio pages containing postcards and other paper artifacts. Wordlessly, Nani shows the man several photographs, including portraits from Dilip and Prashanti's wedding in India, and baby photos of Maia and Jonathan.

The man picks up one picture of a baby Maia held in the arms of a slender woman he takes to be Maia's mother. "Is that Prashanti?" he says. Nani smiles and shakes her head, and points to herself. The man has to re-examine the photograph, and Nani in turn. The resemblance between Prashanti and Prashanti's mother at the same age is so uncanny that it approaches science fiction.

Nani holds up a palm towards the man, as if to halt his imminent flight from the room. She turns to the back pages of the folio and pulls out a more recent picture showing two young men standing arm in arm, their faces captured in mid-laughter. The white-skinned man is hardly an expert on Indian culture and fashion, but the flowing, bright-coloured robes worn by the men in the photograph strike him as being something very close to women's saris. Their matching lipstick and eyeshadow, however, is a matter less ambiguous.

Nani taps her index finger on the edge of the photograph, pointing toward the figure on the right in the yellow clothing. The man leans forward and studies the picture, searching for the hidden meaning.

He arches an eyebrow, and asks in a hesitant voice: "Sanjay?"

The old, frail-seeming woman grasps the man firmly by the wrists, and beings to moan beseechingly. He can see the stump of her tongue as she tries to talk, the black void along her jawbone where her teeth used to sit in the gums. Behind him, he can hear Maia and her parents still yelling at each other at the other end of the apartment, a distant mix of English and Indian epithets. Meanwhile Nani's attempted words, regardless of language, are rendered incomprehensible by her useless stump-tongue and misshapen mouth, but from the agony in her voice and the wet slivers webbing out through the wrinkles around her yellow eyes, the man begins to sense a pattern in her desperate moaning, an unverbalised plea that seems to reach him telepathically, saying: whatever else you are, please do not turn out to be yet another curse brought down by the Gods upon the heads of this wretched family.

• • • •

### 22.

Okay, Darcy. It's Saturday morning. Maia's at work until 3:00 p.m., and then it's off to the gym. No more fooling around. I've got seven hours to finish this life-in-punk autobi-blah-graphy, so let's do it. No more dawdling, no surfing the web or answering the phone; no listening back to the voice-mails including the one from Solomon at work, even though he's begging me to call him back because he thinks something serious is going down at Schlender. Whatever Solomon has to tell me can wait until Monday. I'm on vacation, dammit! I'm tired of schooling your journalistic gluteus mega-maximus, Darcy, as surely as you are fed up with me schooling said gluteus mega-maximus. Let's write this fucking letter and get it over with!

I didn't want to go to Punkaholica '99. The other members of Murderburger 2.0 were eager to go, however, even though I had failed to land a slot on the bill. The closest I had gotten to a booking was a single call where I managed to get someone at Kamp Punkaholic on the line - no idea who it was - and the guy told me he "would talk to Jake about it," hanging up the phone before I could even leave a call-back number. Greg told me that a lot of bands were having the same problem, and most of them were planning to drive out anyway and try to scam a time slot when they got there. Todd backed up Greg, saying that we would be better off going up and hanging out on the off-chance we could find a way to get on stage (I still barely knew this guy, Todd; it had taken me several weeks to negotiate getting back my rightful position on rhythm guitar, and now he was telling me how to run the band as if was a charter member of the corporation. Was it Frank Black from The Pixies who said that participatory democracy doesn't work in rock groups? Or perhaps it was Mike Love from The Beach Boys? Either way, I forget. LOOK DARCY, I'M RAMBLING AGAIN! NO WONDER I CAN'T FINISH THIS STUPID LETTER EVEN AFTER SEVEN WHOLE YEARS! BLAH BLAH BLAH! I DIGRESS!)

Anyway, against my better judgement, I got into the rental minivan along with the other guys from Murderburger and The Flatulent Dumbfucks, packing my duffel bag and guitar and my Uncle Eddie's trusty Marshall half-stack into the back along with the drums and other equipment. I didn't get to sit in the front passenger side where I usually rode because Jabber, the fat-lipped tub of goo who drummed for the FDs, shouted "Shotgun!" and refused to give up his seat. Hammer gave up his side of the second row bench so I could stretch out my right foot to keep it from cramping, but the lack of leg room meant that I had to sit sideways all the way out to Strathroy. Meanwhile everyone kept ragging on me because of the shirt I was wearing: a bright orange and red patterned shirt that Maia had given me for my birthday, and that I had put on that morning without thinking. "Turn up the stereo," Donnie from the FDs kept shouting; "I can't hear the music over Paul's shirt!" My goodness, how we laughed our way out along the 402, me and those giggling chromosome shuckers I called my friends and band-mates! Man, I could tell it was going to be a long weekend.

One of the topics of conversation during the trip, apart from my hilarious choice of wardrobe, was whether or not the Punkaholics themselves were going to perform this year. After Punkaholica '98, the band had played only a few shows around Kitchener and London before Robbie Baron quit to move back out to Alberta. Vinnie Violent was spending most of his time in Montreal playing in an Iron Maiden tribute act, and Billy Bronto was busy with a new band out in Hamilton called Clobberin' Time. Jake's new girlfriend, who had taken over Jen's place on co-vocals, had supposedly quit the band back in April and moved back to Vancouver. As for Jake himself, he had hardly been seen at any punk shows, or anywhere else, since Christmas.

There was another reason why I wasn't too keen on seeing Jake at Punkaholica. In May I had been trying to sell tee-shirts to some punk women at a Murderburger gig (I was stuck on the merch table, doing everything at once as per usual) and I half-bragged that we "might" be going up to Punkaholica. One of the women sneered and told me a story about how Jake Punkaholic had hit on her at a punk party in Toronto back in '95, following her around like an oversexed bulldog all night, offering her drinks and feeding her bullshit lines like "You're a pretty girl, you know?" and "I saw you dancing with your friends at the show tonight. I couldn't take my eyes off of you."

She described looking back up at Jake with a sneering smile and saying: "You don't remember me, do you?" Back in 1987 the woman had been fourteen years old, hanging out drinking in Trinity Bellwoods Park with a skinhead crowd, young teens with shaved heads and braces along with rude boys in porkpie hats. A gang of anti-racist punks led by Jake and Hork chased the kids through the park, crossing Queen Street and then trapping her and two others in an alley behind the old Candy Factory.

"The one boy got it worst," she said. "Hork smashed his head against a fire escape and kicked him on the ground. Jake stood over him laughing, telling him 'You Nazis deserve it'. You know what that boy's favourite band was? The English Beat!"

"Wow," the woman's friend said, laughing. "I'll bet that shut the fat asshole's mouth."

"Oh, fuck, he just slithered away. You should have seen that guilty fucker's face." She turned back to me briefly but pointedly. "So yeah. You could say we're not going to see you up at Punkaholica this year." Needless to say, I did not manage to sell her a tee-shirt.

In the minivan, everyone was talking at once, the stereo blasting without end. I tried to read a book, but it was futile. The only relief I had to look forward to was that I had a pup tent that my parents had given me for the trip, and that I only had to share it with Hammer while the other guys were stuffing themselves inside a four-man tent or else sleeping in the van. Hammer was like a monk compared to the howler monkeys comprising the rest of our crew; in fact, he was strangely quiet for most of the drive out to Strathroy, chewing on his thumbnail nervously and staring out the back window.

"Something wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing," Hammer replied without turning his head. "Just looking forward to playing the show. Gotta get back to Toronto on Sunday."

I wasn't able to get much more out of him than that. Still, I too was looking forward to a quick getaway once the weekend was done and over with. I had worked out a six-song set-list including a new cover song to replace our ill-fated Gordon Lightfoot tribute: another folkie standard, easier to play and far cornier to boot - so corny, that even the thickest punker could not possibly miss the joke. Or so I believed. Once we finished those six songs - assuming we even made it onto the Kamp Punkaholic stage \- I would be free to sip my beverage of choice and watch the ongoing circus. Media coverage was a non-issue as Punkaholica '99 had been advertised as a "private party", and unless the cops came up with a whopper of a warrant, nobody except for band members and their spike-haired entourages were going to be on the property. I had granola bars and a stash of Creemore Ale tucked away in my duffel bag, I had a flashlight for reading during the night while everyone else drank themselves sick. I honestly thought I was prepared for whatever might go wrong.

About a half-kilometre south of Kamp Punkaholica, we were stopped at a police blockade. The OPP were waving drivers to the side of the road and questioning anyone who said they were going to Punkaholica. Greg and Todd answered the officers' questions while the rest of us kept our mouths shut. Meanwhile a rusted-out Volkswagen parked twenty feet in front of us was being rooted through by more cops, who were tossing luggage and bags out from the trunk while three punks stood scowling by the roadside. A German Shepherd on a heavy leash was sniffing around the Volkswagen's front seats while its handler looked on hopefully.

The constable questioning Todd smiled broadly under his regulation cop moustache. "You gentlemen wouldn't have any illegal substances in the vehicle, would you?"

Todd smiled back, his fingers wringing the rim of the steering wheel. "Nothing but good Canadian beer, sir."

"Well that's not really illegal, is it?" The cop laughed with his buddy, who was standing by the passenger's side of the van. The rest of us cringed in our seats.

The second constable asked the first if they should wait for the other crew to finish their search and free up the German Shepherd. "I don't think that'll be necessary," the first cop replied. "I'm sure these fine gentlemen wouldn't be dumb enough to lie at us." He made another broad smile and tapped the van's hood with his palm. "Have fun at your party, boys!"

We drove away while the other policemen continued tearing apart the Volkswagen. "Fuckin' cops," Greg muttered.

A few minutes later we pulled into the camp's laneway and queued up at the main gate. There were three other band vans ahead of us waiting to enter, as a group of denim-clad bikers went through each vehicle. "Must be the Crimsons," Todd said with a frustrated sigh. "I think that's their colours on the one guy's back."

Donnie winced. "What, we go through one check point, not we gotta do another? Christ!"

The Crimsons were a small-time organisation made up of former members of The Para-Dice Riders and Satan's Choice. Prior to the gang's formation, some of the same bikers had been present at past Punkaholics shows, having known the band members since the days of The Mighty Hork. Now I was learning that they were doing full-on security for the weekend: a detail that Greg and the others had craftily kept from me until it was too late.

We all got out of the minivan except for Todd and Hammer, who stayed to wait their turn in the queue. I went over to the parked cars and met up with Doog and Aurora and other members of Infinite Blasphemy, who had somehow made it onto the bill, even getting their name onto the flyer (a number of metal bands had been scheduled to play that year, possibly due to the influence of The Crimsons.) Many of the nearby punks were psyched to be at Punkaholica, but the members of Infinite Blasphemy were far from thrilled at the set-up.

"'Searching for guns,'" Aurora said in a gruff, sarcastic imitation of the Crimsons at the gate. She was sitting inside the back of the band van, comfortable in the shadows. "What a load of garbage. Like anyone's going to bring a gun to a punk show."

Bill from Infinite Blasphemy gave our crew the following warning: "If any of you left something valuable in your van, I'd run up and grab it while you can. I heard they're stealing peoples' dope stashes, camcorders, whatever else they can take. Your guitars and amps are fine, but if your back is turned and you've got a stack of CDs or something else they can fence, you'd better grab it now."

Greg ran off to warn Todd and Hammer. I mentioned to Bill that I had nothing but a bag full of books. Bill laughed. "Buddy, you've got nothing to worry about!"

The members of Infinite Blasphemy were discussing whether or not they should try finding an entrance from Old Carruthers Road or else turning back altogether. Doog told me that he had already made his mind up. "Aurora won't say this out loud," he told me out of earshot from the others, "but she told me she's getting a bad vibe from this area. Something really awful is going to happen here, Paul. If I were you, I'd turn back while you still can."

Before I could discuss this with my own band, Greg came running back down from the minivan. "I just talked to Hammer and Todd," he said. "They're gonna keep an eye on the Crimsons. If they try to steal anything, then we're turning back. Otherwise we're going in." He then ran off to grab a beer before I had a chance to apprehend him with my opinion.

Doog looked at me and gave me a shrug of his own. "Your choice, Paul. All I'm saying, is that when Aurora gets one of these premonitions, she's usually not wrong." His voice became low and nearly threatening. "She told me someone's gonna die here in the next forty-eight hours."

I tried not to snort in laughter. "You think so?"

"Does it matter, Paul? Look around you. Something stinks here, and I'm not talking about cow manure."

While Greg and the kids from Flatulent Dumbfucks hung out with the metalheads, I wandered among the parked cars on the other side of the laneway. "Well look who's here!" I heard a woman's voice call. "Mr. Covering-The-Saints-And-Doesn't-Know-It!"

Jen Punkaholic was sitting on the back lip of a flatbed truck with her new boyfriend, Carson. Carson was like the un-Jake: skinny, placid, collegiate. With his granny glasses and ironic smirk, he looked like a member of Sloan. Jen, meanwhile, looked more or less like the sundress-wearing redneck chick I remembered from the previous year, except for the fact that she was also seven months pregnant with Carson's son.

I introduced myself to Carson, and I told Jen that I had a band of my own playing this year, and that I was finished with Betty Rage. Jen nodded, feigning interest as she adjusted a walkman headset that she was holding over her protruding belly. "I'm playing Brahms for the little guy," she said. "I read somewhere that playing classical music was good for a baby in the womb, so I've got all these tapes from the library that I've been playing for him. I've also been playing some Ramones as well, just to make sure he's not bored." She pointed her thumb at Carson. "Buddy here thinks I shouldn't be playing punk rock for the kid. I mean, come on! It's the fuckin' Ramones. Who doesn't like the Ramones?"

Carson made a sly smile. "I don't like The Ramones."

Jen looked over at Carson with a sardonic expression. "You know what'd be really embarrassing? Getting your ass kicked by a pregnant woman in front of a whole crowd of people. Think about it, pal."

They both smiled at each other, the way young couples still in love will exchange fleeting glances. Between Carson's glasses and Jen's sensible ponytail and floral dress, the two conveyed a palpable aura of subdued hipster domesticity. It was hard to believe that the female half of the tableau used to be a full-on punk priestess screaming from a concert stage.

I asked Jen if The Punkaholics were playing this year. "Who cares?" she said with a roll of her eyes. "Shit, I don't even know why I came up here." She then turned and looked up wistfully in the direction of Kamp Punkaholic. "I guess I just didn't want to be cooped up in an apartment for another weekend. God, I just want to get this pregnancy shit over with already." She leaned down and addressed her stomach bulge. "You hear me, pal? I'm gonna start charging rent if you don't hurry up and get born soon!"

Carson laughed. "All the way up here, I was telling Jen: You sure you want to go to a punk rock camp in your condition?"

"Oh, my 'condition'!" Jen snorted. "Shit, Carson! What am I, handicapped?"

Up near the gate, someone started shouting. Jen rolled her eyes. "Ah fuck, not this asshole again!" We turned and watched as a skinny man in a gray three-piece suit came running down from the gate, people laughing and staring in his wake. His arms flapped at his sides as he ran around the cars, his eyes were wide with terror. "Altamont!" he shouted. "Altamont Two Thousand! Altamont Two Thousand!"

Jen explained that the man in the suit had been running around the campsite for hours. "No one knows who he is or how he got here," she said. "All he's been doing is going around yelling 'Altamont Two Thousand' like a fuckin' idiot."

"He must be strung out on something," Carson added. "Acid, maybe?"

Jen shook her head. "Naw, crystal meth. You can see the rings round his eyes all the way over here."

The man in the suit ran towards us, stopping about twenty feet away like a wild animal hesitating outside someone's front yard. He could not have been more than eighteen years old, but his face had that prematurely-aged look of a long-term drug user. The running shoes he was wearing were caked with mud, and his face and hands were glazed with sweat.

"Why is he wearing a suit out here," I said. "In the middle of July? Did he have a job interview or what?"

Jen cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey Altamont," she shouted. "It's 1999, not 2000. Check a calendar!"

Altamont stared blankly, as if Jen was speaking to him in a foreign language. His face whitened with horror, the skin stretching as if being pulled up from the back of his skull. "ALTAMONT TWO THOUSAND!" he screamed, turning away and scrambling madly back up the hill, passing back through the gate while the Crimsons chortled and raised their beer bottles in salute. "Altamont Two Thousand! Altamont Two Thousand!"

"That fucker almost makes me want to stick around for the weekend," Jen said. "The Punkaholics always had a way of attracting the freaks. Like those biker assholes Hork used to pal around with." She fiddled with the walkman headset. "Fuck, I can't believe Jake is dealing with them now. Stupidest thing he's ever done by far."

Jen informed me that The Crimsons were not simply doing security; they had actually bought out part of the land on Kamp Punkaholic. Some of the Crimsons had even moved in to the main house with Jake, and they had hired a construction crew and put in a cement foundation for a new building where the second house used to stand. "They're building a clubhouse," she added. "Jake told me it was going to be a studio, but that's bullshit."

"He's pretty close to broke as it is," Carson added. "He's suing the city of Strathroy and the OPP for trespassing, but he keeps acting up in court and blowing his case. At this point it's either sell off part of the land or get a job."

Jen snorted. "He actually said he's going to release another benefit album and make back his money that way. Poor Jake's just lost it. I love the guy, but fuck!"

Donnie came over and told me that our minivan had been cleared to enter the campground. I said goodbye to Jen and Carson and we wished each other good luck. I then hobbled quickly up the hill with my walking stick and got into the minivan, and the bikers waved us through.

"Everything went fine with the search," Hammer said. "But, uh, Paul, you might want to check your duffel bag."

Donnie handed me my duffel bag, which had been opened and rifled through. My books and other possessions were intact, but all of my bottles of beer were missing.

"One of the bikers said he liked Creemore." Hammer continued. "He said he wouldn't let us in unless we paid him in beer."

I stared incredulously at Hammer. "And you let him take it?"

"We've still got the Moosehead," Greg said. Before I could sputter out a response, Greg heaved out a frustrated sigh and shoved a can of Moosehead into my grip. "Have a drink, Paul. Christ, stop acting like such a wuss."

"Hey Paul," Todd said, agitated. "You wanna go back and take it up with The Crimsons, be my guest. I wasn't gonna yell at them over a few beers."

"Doesn't matter if he yells at 'em," Jabber said, snickering. "They wouldn't hear him over his fuckin' loud shirt anyways!"

It was going to be a lo-o-o-o-o-ong weekend.

We set up camp in the clearing across from the Punkaholic's house, parking the van in almost the exact same location as where we had camped back in '98, on the western edge of the main lane-way. Further up the lane, there were two concession trucks serving food as opposed to the one sandwich truck from the previous year, along with a couple of rednecks on ATVs offering lifts to and from the concert area (an invaluable service to bands carting equipment to and from the campsite, and well worth the five bucks per ride). Across from us in the main clearing, there was nothing but tall grass where the garden had once been. Nearby, a large cement rectangle was planted where the burned-down studio used to be, a sheet of plastic covering the open hole. People walked obliviously through the tall grass, but treaded lightly around the rectangle as if it were haunted.

Greg and Todd wandered off with the FDs as soon as their tent was pitched. I helped Hammer finish putting up the pup tent. The bright white nylon contrasted sharply with the surrounding wilderness; this, I thought to myself, would be a cinch to find in the middle of the night, regardless of how much beer I would no doubt be sucking down to get through the weekend.

Hammer put away the peg hammer and told me he was going to crash for a few hours before checking out the live show later in the evening. "By the way," he said. "I'm sorry about the Crimsons taking your beer. It was a fucked-up situation."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "We'll take the van into town tomorrow and get more from the beer store."

"Yeah, sure." Hammer's eyelids were heavy with what I thought was fatigue, but which seemed to be closer to guilt. "Look, this whole weekend, it's really a fucked-up situation. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Never mind. Sorry, but I need to crash." Hammer then crawled into the pup tent, handing me my duffel bag so I could retrieve my flashlight and a paperback before zipping up the flap.

With nothing better to do, I thought I should pay a visit to Jake, and perhaps see if I could get Murderburger on the bill. I made my way over to the main house, where two bikers and a tall tattooed punk were slouched on lawn chairs on the front porch. I asked if I could go in and see Jake, but I was not allowed inside. "Jake doesn't want any visitors," one of the bikers said. "He's resting up for tomorrow."

"And don't try going 'round the back," the second biker added. "People've been trying that all morning. Next one that does gets a pop in the mouth."

The tattooed punk pointed at me. "Nice shirt, buddy. My stepmom has living room curtains, look just like that!" The bikers laughed loudly in deep, sonorous sobs.

I took a walk by myself around the campground. A lot of people asked me if I knew anyone who was selling marijuana or beer, both of which were in short supply. Several people were also low on food, and they didn't have any money to buy from the concession trucks. Many kids, I discovered, had snuck into the campground through an open section in the barbed-wire fence up near the intersection of Old Carruthers Road and Highway 19 with little more than their backpacks. The only things that were plentifully available were meth and PCP, both of which were copiously advertised on handwritten signs up and down the main lane-way. All around me, punks were wandering around agitated, their jaws locked in frustration. Back in '98 most of the attendees were friendly with strangers, exchanging stories of traveling cross-country to the show or tangling with the local rednecks and getting away scot-free. Now it felt like everyone was bracing themselves for confrontation, averting their gaze if you looked at them or else staring hard back as if daring you to make a hostile move.

Bands had started playing at the concert stage, even though it was only four in the afternoon. There were hundreds of punks spread out over the hill, and over a dozen more milling around the pit - not a Crimson in sight. I met up with Donnie by the southern wall of trees, where I was informed that Donnie had scored a time slot for Flatulent Dumbfucks for Sunday afternoon. He pointed out the stage manager, Loogie, standing over the mixing console. "Go talk to him now," Donnie shouted in my ear. "He told me the line-up's filling up fast."

I managed to get close enough to the stage lip and shout for Loogie's attention. Loogie was a lanky punk whose thin face, wispy goatee, and limp shock of fire-engine-red hair combined in such a way as to make him look like a rooster. His face belied the exhaustion of a relief worker in a disaster area: over-tired, frazzled, and desperate to maintain even a veneer of authority. I asked him about putting Murderburger on the bill and he simply shook his head. "I've got twenty bands on the waiting list already. Everyone and his fuckin' mom's been bugging me for a time slot, and it's pissing me the fuck off."

The stern reproach in Loogie's reply, combined with that ridiculous rooster's comb of red hair flapping in the breeze, made me angry for a few seconds. But then I realised: who cares if we play or not? I could tell Greg and Hammer and Todd that I had asked, that I was rebuffed, and we were out of luck, and then I could take it easy until Sunday. So instead of bawling out Loogie, I shook his hand and thanked him for his time. He seemed perplexed by my lassitude; no doubt he had been bracing himself for yet another screaming match. I was more than happy to thwart his expectations.

I sat with Donnie down at the south end watching the bands for the next few hours. Each group was supposed to perform for only twenty minutes, but inevitably the players were overstaying their welcomes, starting and stopping numbers while arguing both with Loogie and with the next band who were holding their guitars and drumsticks, waiting impatiently in the stage wings. Apart from one band decked out in full ska uniform complete with rolled shirt sleeves and porkpie hats, the groups were forgettable at best; the same four chords, the same incompetent metalloid guitar solos, the same covers of Screeching Weasel and GG Allin. Occasionally there was moshing in the pit, but mostly people stood around dazed, as if they had just staggered away from a plane crash. One band, calling themselves "The No-Brainers", managed to pull off a decent cover of 'What Do I Get' by The Buzzcocks, and a stocky black kid with a green afro and cherry red Doc Marten boots started pogoing by the lip of the stage. It was one of the saddest things I have ever seen: all of these bored-looking boys and girls wandering aimlessly around the pit while some teenager was hopping in place like it was Manchester in 1977. Pogo dancing only makes sense in a packed club where there is no room to dance except in a vertical trajectory, so the sight of a single pogo dancer in a wide-open country field was like seeing a single piston firing in a once-powerful but now antiquated engine.

After the band finished, Donnie and I were accosted by a panicked young man selling tee-shirts for The No-Brainers. "I really need to sell some shirts here," he shouted tersely. "Our car got robbed, and all of our cash was ripped off. We've got nothing to eat, and no way of getting back home unless we buy some gas. Help me out, man! I'm serious!"

I gave the man five dollars and told him he could keep the shirt. Instead he threw the shirt in my lap, flinging it as if the fabric was burning his fingers. It was a plain white tee with a silk-screening of The No-Brainers' logo atop a crude drawing of a Ku Klux Klansman on a hangman's platform with two punks holding the trap door release lever. "Destroy That Which Destroys You," read the inscription below.

The next band was a metal-core band from Niagara Falls, and they were able to get the crowd moving with a few Megadeth-style aggro numbers. Near the end of their set a fight broke out in the pit, and the band had to stop playing three times while people tried to break up the recurring scuffle. During the following set by a group called William Shatner Overdrive a much more aggressive fight started up between what seemed like rival gangs of kids. WSO's lead singer, a college kid sporting a soul patch and wearing a red Star Trek TNG uniform top, pleaded with the people in the pit. "Come on guys," he said. "Are we here to fight, or are we here to have fun? We're here to have a good time, right?" The fighting stopped, but punks were still shouting angrily at each other from opposite sides of the pit. One kid threw a bottle across the crowd, only to be jumped by a half-dozen punks and mercilessly beaten. More people dove in trying to break up the brawl. "Aw man, that's just not cool," the singer said. Across the hill slope, onlookers cat-called and cheered on the fight. Suddenly, I was hoping that The Crimsons would show up and take control.

By 8:00 p.m. I decided I had seen enough, and I started back towards the campsite. The sky was overcast, threatening rain. I took out my flashlight and turned it on, but then turned it off again when I realised that there was still enough daylight to see the southern path. I hung the flashlight by its plastic strap from my belt loop and continued walking.

Two grungy kids in flannel jackets passed me on the lane-way. "Hey, are you using your flashlight?" one of them asked. I said I wasn't. He then asked if he could have it. "We're going to be out all night and we might need it to get back to our tent."

The kid had his hand outstretched, not begging, but demanding. "I'm sorry," I said, slightly puzzled. "But I need it myself."

"But you're not using it now," the second kid replied.

I walked past them, hurrying my pace. "I can't just give it to you."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Give us your flashlight, asshole!" I kept walking. I turned back and saw they were still moving in the other direction, although their heads were turned towards me. "Fuckin' greedy pig!" they shouted. "We'll kick your ass next time we see you!"

I moved as fast as I could, my cane padding the soft earth. I was shivering with nervous energy; the two kids' threats had shaken me up far more than the fights back at the concert area. As I was plodding southward, I heard a voice call my name, or a common version of my name at least.

"Is that Poker Cartwright I see limping down the road? I bet it is!"

Chantal was sitting on a stool in the back of an open cube van, with two female punks standing over her. As I got closer, I saw that the punks were cutting off handfuls of Chantal's hair, dropping the chopped black hanks onto the blanket spread out under the stool. "I'm getting a mohawk!" Chantal said excitedly. "All these years I've never had short hair, and Matt's always telling me about how he had a mohawk back when he was in Murderburger. So I thought, what am I waiting for?"

The women worked their way across either side of Chantal's head, leaving jagged sprouts sticking out where the hair used to hang freely to her shoulders. One woman was a skinhead in a tank-top and red suspenders; the other was a crusty punk with dirty red dreadlocks and a dishwater-gray Discharge shirt. Both wore half-smiles on their pinched faces, seeming to enjoy their handiwork.

I asked Chantal if Matt was around, and she told me that he had gone down to see Jake at the Punkaholics house. When I asked her if Matt knew about the haircut, she told me she was going to surprise him. "He's gonna love it," she said, beaming.

"He sure is," the skinhead woman said. The crusty punk looked over with a conspiratorial leer.

A crowd began to gather around the open cube, males mostly, watching the defoliation. "What about your boss at Exxposure?" I asked. "You still work there, right?"

"Oh yeah." Chantal's smile dropped slightly. "I was a bit worried about it, but then again so many of the girls there wear wigs that it doesn't matter. I had my eye on this pink wig I saw the other day down on Yonge near Wellesley - it'll look awesome!"

The two women were cutting off the remainder of Chantal's hair at the back of her head. "You like the van, Poker? Matt just got this renovated. We're gonna tour the band cross-country starting in September."

I looked at the inside of the van, which included bunk beds along either side of the top of the cube and amplifiers stored in the bottom corners behind the passenger cab. Two spotlights, bolted above the van's rear door, were directed at Chantal and the barbers, providing light for the show as the sky turned dusky.

"Matt says we can do impromptu concerts in the back of the van," Chantal said. "All we need to do is set up the drums in the back, fold up the bunk beds and turn on the spotlights. If we have an off-night we can just pull into a parking lot, plug in and rock out!"

I watched as the two women put down their scissors. The skinhead pulled out a cordless clipper.

"How do I look so far?" Chantal folded her hands nervously in her lap, shrugging her shoulders anxiously. Her thin legs were spread open on the chair, covered by an oversized pair of camouflage shorts. As I moved a few steps closer to the cube van platform, I caught a glance of some red streaks along Chantal's left inner arm, with black pinpoints terminating the streaks like tiny red comets against the pale sky of her flesh.

"My god," Chantal said, her eyes rolling upwards. "My head feels lighter already! I want to touch it, but I'm trying to hold off until it's done."

"A few more minutes, sweetie." The crusty punk nodded as the skinhead drew the clipper in two passes overtop Chantal's scalp, leaving two rows of stubble bracketing a band of inch-long black hair from brow to nape. Chantal arched her back as the clippers were pulled across her head. The men in the crowd around me whooped and clapped their hands, their eyes glazed. At times they resembled scruffier versions of the patrons back at Exxposure.

"So Paul," Chantal said, "is Murderburger playing this weekend?" I said it was unlikely. "I'll talk to Matt," she replied. "I keep hearing about your band's shows, and I never get around to seeing you guys. Maybe Matt could go on stage with you, sing all the old songs. Wouldn't that be totally amazing?"

I bit the inside of my cheek. "It's a thought."

"Almost done," the skinhead announced as she finished the final passes behind Chantal's ears. The gathered crowd applauded, whistling harshly. The crusty punk handed Chantal an old-fashioned handle mirror, and Chantal examined herself in her reflection: her face, framed by a ragged shock of black atop her crown and broad swathes of denuded flesh over her ears. Her face widened with shock. She tried to smile, but instead her eyes narrowed and turned wet, and she collapsed into bawling sobs.

The audience grew quiet, unsure of how to react as Chantal doubled over crying. Her barbers, meanwhile, patted Chantal lightly on the back, stroking her cheeks with the backs of their hands and telling her she looked fantastic. They leaned over her, hovering like vultures, barely able to contain their mocking grins.

• • • •

### 23.

Dammit, Darcy, why did I answer the phone yesterday? I was humming along, typing away when the phone rang and, like the idiot I am, I answered the call. Solomon had me locked up for the next fifteen minutes, telling me that there was a big meeting at Schlender on Monday morning, and that Hans was going to close the company down. Solomon has no evidence, of course; he said that things have been really slow over the past few weeks while I have been away. I reminded him that we were always slow at the end of December. It's Christmas, what does he expect? Okay, Solomon says, but Hans and Agnes have been making a bunch of trips to another distributor up at Finch Avenue and Markham Road - he's convinced that the other company's going to buy us out and we are all going to lose our jobs.

"Don't need this, no how!" Solomon whined in that nasal voice of his. "Hans is gonna sell us out, I know for sure!"

"Have you talked to Hans about this?" I sensibly inquired.

"Yeh, no, but - " I could picture Solomon pinching the front flap of skin on his neck, the way he usually does when he's nervous. "But we're all meeting at nine Monday morning. I can't believe Hans hasn't called you yet. Maybe you're not supposed to know - ah, blood-clot! Hans hasn't called you!"

I took the unusual step of phoning Hans' house, and I got Gunther on the line. "I can't really talk about it," Gunther said. "All I can tell you is that no one is losing their jobs, unless they want to quit. Just wait 'till Monday, Paul. This is your vacation, after all."

Vacation, shmacation! Goddamn, Solomon, why did I have to pick up the phone? "No one is losing their job" - unless they want to quit? What the hell does that mean? Maia and I are finally in a position to get our debts paid down, and now I'm freaking out over my fucking job! I don't need this, Darcy! Not now!

(Okay, calm, breathe in, breathe out.)

So needless to say, after I got off the phone with Solomon and Gunther, I was done with writing for the day. Maia came home, we went to the gym, and then we went to her parents' apartment for supper. This morning we had brunch with my parents, and if it were not for the fact that Maia got called in for an emergency shift at St. Michael's this afternoon, I wouldn't have time to get back to this letter at all. I'm trying very hard to put this to a close, Darcy, because I want to finish this diabolical diatribe and get on with my life. Though if I am out of a job after all come Monday, perhaps I'll have more time to devote to my original vocation: insulting you and all of your over-fed, over-hyped, quasi-objective brethren who deign to call themselves journalists. You write the history, Darcy. The best that I can manage is myth.

I am not proud to say that I had no consoling words for Chantal after the mohawk cut. She looked like an insect with her whittled limbs and bristly head, like she had been somehow violated. As it was, my words were unnecessary; others in the gathered crowd were coming forward, giving thumbs-up gestures and saying she looked "hot." Chantal, for her part, gathered herself up quickly once the others began to feed her the kind words I myself was unable to muster. When I last saw her that night, she was sitting on the edge of the cube van platform, talking with her new boyfriends and letting them rub her stubbly head like it would bring them good luck. The scowling barberettes were brandishing their clippers and offering haircuts to other women and men in the audience.

As I was pondering this on the walk back to camp, I suddenly thought about Maia. I pictured her brushing her hair on some recent morning, hair that had grown past her shoulders since I had first met her at the health club a year previous. I realised that I was supposed to call her the next morning, and now I was going to have to look for a phone on top of everything else.

I managed to crawl into the pup tent just as fat pellets of rain began to fall. Lying on my back in the sleeping bag I watched raindrops pummel the white translucent nylon, running in rivulets down the curved tent wall. I was hypnotised, falling into slumber by the hiss and the pelting rain.

I managed to sleep for the next hour and a half, missing out on the start of the massive mud clod fight that broke out across the clearing. The pats of flung mud against the tent woke me from my fitful slumber. I stuck my head out into the rain to find out what had happened, and caught a fistful of earth full in the face.

"Whoa, dude, sorry!" The speaker of this apology was a bearded kid drenched to the skin. Far from looking sorry, he seemed downright delighted. His compatriots were trading volleys of mud, giggling and screeching. I glowered impotently for about twenty seconds, retreating back into the tent and zipping up the flat just as another handful of mud splattered against the flap where my head had been. "Sorry," my arse.

I spent the rest of the night listening to the whoops and hollers throughout the campground. Hardcore music rose and fell from car speakers in several directions, half-buried under the hiss of the rainfall. I heard a bottle shatter in the distance, and a bang of metal, and a scream that could have either been joyful or murderous; I was in no mood to investigate.

By my estimation the rain stopped falling at around 3:00 a.m., after which the party noises resumed with a new vigour. I managed another hour or two of half-sleep until dawn, when Hammer clambered into the tent, soaking-wet and stinking of beer and sweat. The stench was unbearable, and so I finally had to scuttle out of the tiny pup tent looking for air to breathe.

When I stood up, the sight before my eyes nearly knocked the wind from my lungs. The whole clearing looked half-destroyed: brown mud holes torn through the carpet of grass, bottles and cans and trash everywhere. My once-clean white tent was filthy, the rain run-off dried across the nylon in a blurry streaming smear. Everything was covered in mud and grime. The plumes of smoke from dampened campfires and the gray-bellied clouds crowded in the sky only added to the desolate, warzone-like atmosphere.

I stared in stunned disbelief for a few minutes at most. A fat metal-head emerged from one of the tents in the distance, stepping a few feet and then urinating groggily into the middle of the field, not even bothering to go behind the bushes not four metres away. I then heard a clatter of metal coming from the one concession truck still parked across from the main campsite. The truck's owner, a sunburnt man in a bandanna, was prepping for a quick getaway.

"The other guy got away last night," he explained to me in a ragged, sleep-deprived voice. "A couple of kids broke into his truck, scooping up sandwiches and drinks liked they owned the place. They were like goddamn locusts, swarming over everything." He then pointed to some dents on the back corner of his van. "See this? I swung a baseball bat on my own truck, told those punks that I'd do the same thing to their heads if they came within one foot of me or my property. I had to pay The Crimsons a royalty to even come into this fuckin' rat hole, and even then all these punks tell me that they have no money and that I gotta 'share' my food with them or else. Fuck that."

I felt a rumble in my stomach, and I meekly asked if I could buy some food off of him before he left. I even offered pay him double the price. "I gotta get out of here, buddy. Wish I could help you, but I can't." He blinked a few times, fighting obvious fatigue, and loaded up the last of his belongings before driving hurriedly over the hill.

Throughout Saturday I learned to hide my granola bars and water bottles, retreating into the pup tent and gobbling my food quickly. Whenever I was unwise enough to wander around with food or water in my hands I had hungry-eyed strangers approaching me, begging for a bite or a sip of whatever I was holding. A few actually became angry when no food or beer was left to be given, swearing and stomping away like those grunge kids who had demanded to have my flashlight the night before. Meanwhile, in the middle of all the chaos, The Crimson gang members were sitting pretty at Jake's house. They smoked and ate barbequed hamburgers on the front porch, occasionally feeding hungry punkers by leaning over the railing, making some of them beg and even jump in the air trying to snatch the food from the bikers' hands.

Todd and Hammer finally took the minivan down to Strathroy to pick up more food. One punk actually chased after the van with a squeegee; begging for a ride into Strathroy so he could make some money downtown washing windshields at an intersection. The sight of this dirty punker chasing down the van with his little squeegee caused me to laugh uncontrollably. By that point it was like a contest to see how fucked-up (to paraphrase Hammer) the situation could get.

Some time around noon there was a sudden commotion at the back of the house where the Crimsons' motorcycles were parked under a plastic tarpaulin. One of the bikers had found a young man in a gray suit sleeping under the tarp, curled up in a foetal ball.

Two Crimsons dragged Altamont into the open field, their prey snapping to life and screeching. His suit was drenched and torn at the shoulder, his face caked in filth.

One biker held up Altamont, hugging him at the shoulder like he was his buddy. "You'd better not have fucked up our bikes, pal." The biker was smiling broadly, exposing his missing front teeth. "We guys put a lot of money into those rides, you follow?"

The suit-wearing boy under the biker's massive arm drooped and blinked his ember-red eyes. "Altamont," he mumbled.

"Yeah, yeah. 'Altamont Two Thousand' - we get the drill, pal." He gripped him harder, hauling the boy up like a giant rag doll. "Let's try something different, buddy. How about you tell us a bit about yourself? There's grub in it for you if you play nice."

Altamont stared at him blearily. He let out a hoarse groan. "Altamont Two - "

The biker smacked him hard across the cheekbone. "Enough with the Altamont shit." The boy under his arm clutched his face, grimacing. "Say 'Altamont' one more time, and I'll bust you in half. Now how about something interesting, just this once?"

The boy caught his breath and licked his lips. "I - I don't know what you want to hear."

"See? That's better already. You sound almost human now. No go on, tell us how you got here. Your life story. Anything."

Another Crimson raised a fist clutching a cold beer. "Yeah, Altamont! Tell us a story!"

Altamont stood up straighter. "My name's Kyle," he said woozily.

"Good, good." The Crimson nodded. "Now Kyle, maybe you could explain why you're running around yelling 'Altamont Two Thousand' in your prom suit when you could be having a drink and having fun like your little friends."

By this point there were about a half-dozen punks standing around the scene, looking like pygmies among the giant bikers. One of the punks, a girl half the Crimson's size, shouted "Let him go, you asshole!"

"Honey, don't speak unless you're spoken to." The biker turned back to Altamont. "Now Kyle, I want you to understand something. I know you're a little fucked up on something. But that still doesn't excuse you from running around going 'Altuh-mont two-t'ousen!' like a faggot. There were Angels at Altamont, pal. Don't you think me and my friends might not be a little insulted?" He squeezed Kyle hard at the shoulder. "Answer me, punk!"

"I'm, uh - I'm trying to warn people."

"Warn them about what?"

Kyle's body slackened. His eyes glazed over and lost their focus, as if his head was filling with smoke. "Altamont Two Thousand."

"Fuck this." The Crimson dropped Kyle and kicked him hard in the chest. "I try to be nice to you, kid. I was gonna give you something to eat, something to drink, but then you have to be stupid." He strode away, leaving Kyle crumpled in the dirt.

The punk girl sneered in the Crimsons' direction. "You're a fuckin' creep!" she yelled.

"Sticks and stones, chickpea. Sticks and stones." The Crimson stood on the back landing, joining one of his fellow bikers at the door before turning to address the assembling crowd. "I want all you maggots to listen in," he announced. "We ain't doing nothing but minding the house, and minding the generator. You'll get some gas in an hour, then you can all fuck off and play your party music for the rest of the night. We see any of you touch the generator, or touch our bikes, there's gonna be a war out here."

Punks started yelling at the bikers. Someone in the crowd shouted, "there's more of us than there are of you!"

The Crimson stared stonily in the direction of the shouter. "Kid, think long and think hard about what you're saying. Twenty Crimsons versus a couple hundred starving punk losers? Far as I'm concerned, those are pretty good odds."

His buddy on the landing snickered. "Yeah, call the cops up the highway if you don't like it!" The two bikers laughed and entered the house, slamming the door shut behind them.

For the next hour, people milled around the clearing discussing their options. I found out that the generator that had been powering the concert stage had run out of gasoline a little after midnight. Some punks were trying to figure out how to restart the generator when they were caught by The Crimsons and chased away, and that ended the music for the night - that, and the torrential downpour. Since The Crimsons were essentially in charge of Jake's house, a few punks were advocating running at the house in open battle. Others discussed ways of flagging Jake's attention, although no one had a clear idea whether he was even on the property at this point. One punk said he had seen Billy Bronto up near the stage just before the music cut out the previous night; another mentioned the cutaway in the fence up near Highway 19 and Old Carruthers Road - "We could go out and smuggle in some food," he said. "Or some weapons," added another.

Meanwhile the Crimsons continued drinking on the front porch, teasing hungry punks with burger patties. Behind us, Kyle staggered to his feet, his gait drunken and ponderous, and once more he began shouting "Altamont Two Thousand!," stumbling straight into the woods, tripping over the bushes and ripping a new hole in pant leg as he threw himself through the dense wilderness: "Altamont Two Thousand! Altamont!"

I nearly jumped when I heard a siren coming from the southern lane. An ambulance was wending through the clearing heading northwards, its' lights flashing and spinning. The ambulance stalled in the mud in front of the Punkaholics house, and one of the paramedics spoke briefly with the members of The Crimsons on the front porch. I heard the medic cry out in exasperation: "I don't care what you think!" before getting back in the ambulance and then, tires spitting earth, heading northward towards the concert area. By the way the tires were spinning in the rain-sodden mud, I was doubtful there were going to make it all the way up the lane.

"Some idiot called the city," one of the punks said after running back up from the scene. "Said there we're kids tripping out on acid last night by the stage. Fuckin' Crimsons let them in the front gate."

"Fuckin' ambulance," another growled. "What's next? Cops?"

Not a bad idea, I thought to myself.

As I watched the ambulance struggle up the lane, I saw our minivan pull up from the south. "We managed to smuggle you a six-pack of Creemore," Hammer said as he unloaded the fresh provisions from the back of the van. I hauled Hammer aside, hissing and explained to him to keep his voice down in regards to food and drink. As if in demonstration of my warning, Todd pulled out the Mr. Sub sandwich he had bought on the way back from Strathroy, and a hungry punks came running and tried to snatch the food from Todd's fingers.

"What the fuck's his problem," Todd said angrily as the punk walked away, swearing hoarsely. "Go out and buy some food, you dicks!"

Just then, Greg came up with a weirdly cheerful look on his face. "So Poker, you ready for tonight's show?" It was then that I found out that, despite my concerted lack of effort, Murderburger would be playing a prime-time set after all that night around 9:00 p.m. Right before Betty Rage. My heart sank so deeply that I nearly shat it out of my backside.

"Shit, Paul. You don't have to thank me." Greg took a bite of his own Mr. Sub sandwich. Over his shoulder I watched the punks approach ominously, like zombies from a horror movie. "By the way, Loogie asked us to bring up all of our amps, because the house amplifiers got fried last night."

I was too tired to argue. Instead I opened my can of beer and took a thirsty gulp. Lukewarm Creemore had never tasted so good.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Those were Johnny Rotten's words at the Sex Pistols' last concert in San Francisco. I asked myself that same question repeatedly as I looked out from the stage that afternoon at Punkaholica: hundreds of exhausted people scattered like gravel across the hill slope: partiers, pluggers, drunkards, druggies, dimwits, lunatics; patches of grass amidst boot-beaten earth copiously littered with garbage; wandering dogs that all somehow managed to look healthier and better-groomed than their ostensible owners; and that cloud-riddled afternoon sky pressing down heavily over everything like a gigantic pillow smothering the hill's comatose face.

I found myself holding my trusty guitar with the cord plugged into the Marshall half-stack, the electricity flowing under my fingertips. Behind me Greg and Todd thrummed their guitar and bass strings. Hammer adjusted and re-adjusted his hi-hat stand, fiddling with the pedal and thumping the kick with a heavy but sure foot. Behind the stage, two Crimsons sat by the rumbling generator, each armed with two-by-fours and glowering at anyone who dared to look back in their direction. We had to travel a kilometre's worth of blasted lane-way to get to the stage itself, bypassing the ambulance which, as I had predicted, had become stuck in the steep mud not two-hundred feet from the concert area. As we were passing, several punks were trying to push the ambulance up the slope, a near-hopeless endeavour considering the softness of the lane's surface and the incline of the hill.

Punk kids squatted on the stage wings around us, looking like street urchins from a Dickens novel, their knees gathered to their chins by their scuffed, scrawny arms. Some of them had traveled hundreds of kilometres to be here. The least we could do, I guess, was provide a bit of distraction.

I looked over the set list taped to the monitor. Six songs. Eighteen minutes total if we kept pumping them out as I intended (Hammer, no doubt, would pause between each song, breaking up our potential momentum). I made a decision then and there that this was going to be the last punk rock show I would ever play. Fatigue, hunger, muggy sweat, frustration: this was not what I had signed on for.

"Who are you?" one kid shouted from the pit. "Say the name of the band!"

I stepped forward to the mike, received a slight electric shock from the microphone. "Good evening. We're the Barenaked Ladies." My mind blanked as I tried to complete the weak improvisation.

Someone further up the hill shouted, "Barenaked Ladies suck!"

"I was joking," I mumbled back. "Sorry, a bunch of biker assholes beat up my script writer this morning." The audience roared to life, waving their fists and screaming.

Todd tugged at my sleeve, leaning in to hiss in my ear. "Paul, don't be a dick." Over at the generator, the Crimsons looked up at me with new curiosity.

At that moment I felt a surge of energy, and everything became lucid. "Know what? Fuck it." I turned up my guitar. "This is Dogshit."

'Dogshit' was the name of our first song, but the punks reacted as if I was summing up the current situation - we were both correct, in our own fashions. "Dogshit piled on the sidewalk / Owners never stop to clean up / Dogs are squatting, owners taunting: Look what my doggie do!" This was easily the dumbest song I had ever written, but the punks loved it nonetheless, cheering as we careened through the final chords.

Our next song, 'The Young Are So Dumb', got an even better reaction, even though I couldn't manage a better introduction than to mumble "So Dumb... goddamn, this is all bullshit, fuck..." I was feeling light-headed with the lack of sleep, banging away numbly at my old guitar and shouting my lungs out. The fuckers in the pit were jumping and howling. Enjoy it while you can, you cretins, I thought to myself. I felt no affinity whatsoever with those punks. The sheer antipathy was all I had to keep me going.

During the third song, 'Morbid And Old', a fight broke out near the front of the stage. Everyone else in the band stopped, but I kept on singing and playing until Todd pulled my hands off of my guitar. Judging from the worried looks he exchanged with Hammer, I think they were genuinely concerned that I had well and truly snapped. I hadn't snapped, really, but I was coming perilously close. After all of the near-constant misery I had endured over the course of the weekend, getting to play music was like a sugar high: too much energy all at once. The crash, I realised, was going to be murderous.

We started into 'Morbid And Old' a second time. Again, a brawl broke out among the punks. "Any chance you folks from The Crimsons want to get involved in this?" I asked with my head slightly turned towards the bikers by the generator. The Crimsons simply laughed. Like hell they were going to try and break up the fights. They were prison guards safe in the gun towers watching the starving prisoners beating on each other in the jail yard.

For the second time in five minutes, the fighting was brought under control. Those of us in the band held back on our instruments, debating on whether we should continue. Greg played the guitar riff from Black Flag's 'Nervous Breakdown', which got a few people in the crowd excited. I had to inform them that we didn't actually know the song, which led to several looks of disappointment from faces closest to the stage. Behind me I heard Hammer call out, "Straight-Ahead Man," which was the next song we were supposed to play. There was an odd pause while I stood with my guitar, dazed and disinterested. I had this sense of omniscient power, fleeting and false as it was, like I was holding this field of vagrants in my palm.

"How about a little folk ditty for you good people?" I said.

The punks looked back at me with furrowed brows. Greg leaned over and said, "Come on, Paul. Stop screwing around."

I looked down at the set-list, scrolling to the bottom of the page. I had never felt as strongly about a choice in songs as I did when I played the opening harmonics. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Greg scowling. Nevertheless, he followed my lead, as did the others, and I sang the following words:

"I came into town as a man of renown

A writer of songs about freedom and joy

A hall had been rented and I was presented

As the kind of a singer that all could enjoyh

As I climbed up the stair to the stage standing there

It was obvious something was missing

I could tell by the vibes they wouldn't be bribed

They weren't in the mood to listen

They yelled out: 'Play me a rock'n'roll song

Don't play me songs about freedom and joy

Play me a rock'n'roll song

Or don't play me no song at all.'"

I was fairly certain that no one at Kamp Punkaholic outside of the band had ever heard of Valdy, or the song of his that we were covering. As the title advertised, 'Rock'n'Roll Song' was unadorned mid-tempo rock and roll: no frills and nothin' fancy. Except for an added solo bridge, our version was pretty close to the original I had dubbed from the vinyl disc in my Uncle Eddie's record collection.

The kids in the pit were standing around, too stunned to fight. Meanwhile, the band and I were locked in a pure groove that was so soulful that I was shocked to hear the music coming from my strings and my throat, and from the instruments around me. The effect after blasting through those three preceding fast and choppy hardcore numbers was like surfacing from an underwater swim, the open air hitting your face with a cold, crisp snap. Hell, it was like finally being able to breathe after a lifetime of near-suffocation.

I was taking a perverse joy out of killing off whatever rapport I had built up with the kids in the pit. They wanted fast, so I was playing slow. They wanted hate and rage, and I was delivering disillusion. I sang when they were expecting screams. The sea of fists and boots, meanwhile, had calmed down to a ripple. A boy and a girl pressed their bodies together and began to mockingly slow-dance with exaggerated smirks upon their faces. Most of the others in the crowd simply seemed baffled.

After the second chorus, we pushed forward into the new version's bridge. Greg absolutely nailed that break with a bluesy guitar solo that owed more to Eric Clapton than anything "punk," bending the strings and making the notes soar. Whatever irony there was remaining in our cover was burned away as his solo brought the music to a higher level. I had to wonder what more Greg was capable of as an artist, and why he seemed content to waste his talents on a bunch of punk rock tunes. More punks started mocking in protest, lighting lighters and waving them in the crowd. They might have thought they were hip to the joke. But I wasn't joking.

As Greg played the final notes of his solo, I turned to face the stage's right wing. In nearly the same place I had sat and watched The Punkaholics play the previous year, I saw Jake Punkaholic crouched on a milk crate, staring at me with a face of stone. His large body looked deflated, his fat haunches sagging; his face pouched with loose skin as if he had not slept in years. In his faded track pants and stained wife-beater shirt, it is possible he had only left his house in the past hour, though I had no reason to believe he had come to see my band specifically. Yet there he was, an unmoving bulk of battered humanity watching over us like a forsaken god, too saddened to unleash a final judgement upon his errant followers. I looked away, shaken by Jake's desolate stare.

"Play me a rock'n'roll song. Or don't play me no song at all."

I let the final chord resonate over Hammer's cymbal washes, giving the jeering audience one last surveying sweep. What a perfect end to my career in punk, I was thinking as I turned down my guitar's volume knob. I looked back at the stage wing, eager to see Jake Punkaholic's reaction, but someone else was perched upon the milk crate where he had been sitting. As if I had been hallucinating, Jake had vanished as quickly as he had appeared.

I unplugged my guitar. "What are you doing?" Todd asked.

"What do you think?" I replied. "Set's over. We're done."

For the second time that weekend, Loogie threw me a perplexed look - no doubt we were the first band all weekend to finish our set ahead of schedule. He then rushed up to the microphone and announced to the crowd that the medics from the ambulance had reported to him that one of their flashlights had been stolen, and that they needed it back. People in the crowd laughed, cheering with sarcastic delight. "No, man, this ain't funny!" Loogie shouted. I felt bad for Loogie; he was sincerely trying to keep things under control. Unfortunately, most everyone around him was enjoying watching things fall apart, the long drink unto common unconsciousness.

I moved over and retrieved my walking stick from beside the Marshall cab. "Glad that's over with," I said. I then noticed that the others still had their instruments plugged in. "Guys," I said, "the set is finished."

"We're not done yet," Greg said. Hammer hunched down behind his drum kit as if he was trying to hide.

"Of course we're done," I replied. "Why are you still standing there?" Greg and Todd looked past my left shoulder, and when I turned around I saw Matt Miller and Chantal Lafierre standing in the wing behind me. Chantal was dressed only in a black lace bra and panties; the bare swaths of scalp over her ears added to the startling effect of her nakedness. Matt was more conservatively dressed in shirt and jeans, and he was holding a guitar and a coil of guitar cable.

"Dude," Matt said with a forward step toward me. "I need to use your guitar amp. You gotta move over so I can plug in."

I turned back to my so-called band-mates, the three of them looking at me expectantly. Greg shrugged. "Like I said, Paul. Some of us are not finished playing."

Matt plugged his guitar into my Marshall half-stack and played a few chords. He played a few notes against Greg's low "E" string; Greg nodded and told him they were in tune.

"Greg. Hammer. Guys, I - "

"What, Paul? What's the big deal?" Greg sneered angrily at me. "Matt hired us out for the Betty Rage set. How the hell do you think we got to play in the first place?"

Matt put his hand on my shoulder. "We'll talk about this later, Paul. I thought the guys had told you."

"I liked your show," Chantal said with a distant smile. "That last song was pretty funny."

Loogie ushered me behind the speaker stacks. With my unplugged guitar hanging uselessly off my shoulder, I crowded in with the others in the stage wing while Greg and Todd and Matt banged out some declamatory chords, Hammer rolling his sticks over his toms behind them. Chantal grasped at the microphone and stared out across the hillside, the audience beneath her roaring.

"Punk-a-HOL-i-ca!" she shouted, punching the air on the final drawn-out syllable. She draped her arm over the mic and stood for a moment surveying the audience. Matt leaned over her and shouted something into her ear. She turned and threw him a dazed look. "Yeah, whatever," I heard her slur. "I'm not a kid, Matt. Shit."

Chantal swiveled her head forward back to the microphone. "We're Betty Rage, back from the fuckin' dead." She hesitated again for a beat too long. From where I stood only a few metres away, Matt's face looked as if he had aged ten years in the last ten minutes. I was close enough to hear him mutter: "couldn't wait thirty goddamn minutes, could you?"

The band started playing 'Get Up, Get Out'; Chantal sang the lyrics in a flat, lifeless voice. Her dance moves were limited to a weak jumping in place, staggering with the microphone in hand. At one point she seemed to forget the words entirely. Nevertheless the Betty Rage fans applauded loudly at the end of the song.

"All right!" Chantal half-shouted. She hesitated as if she was going to say something more, but instead she let the mic drop to her side.

"Take off your top!" someone in the pit screamed.

"You would say that." Chantal laughed weakly. "So, I got this haircut," she said, pointing languidly at the side of her head. "And, like... we're going on tour this summer..."

Matt shouted out the name of the next song. "I don't like that one," Chantal muttered petulantly. She then said she was tired, and she leaned against Todd's bass cabinet. "So, did everyone see the van we're traveling in this summer? We're gonna tour in it in the fall. It's the coolest thing."

I leaned over to talk into Matt's ear. "Dude, you've got to stop this," I said. "She's falling apart." Matt furtively shook his head and told Greg to start playing the next song. They got half-way through 'Girl Power' when Chantal dropped to one knee and started to cough wildly. The band trailed off in mid-verse.

A young man near the left-hand stage lip cupped his hands and shouted. "Take off your top, you junkie bitch!"

"Fuck you," Chantal mumbled. Matt helped her up to her feet. For a moment it looked as if he was going to cancel the set, but Chantal waved him off. They argued for a few seconds and then Chantal shouted, "I can do this, Matt. Stop treating me like a fuckin' child." She then took a deep breath, closing her eyes meditatively. "Solitary Confinement!" she screamed. "One, two, three, GO!"

The band lurched into 'Solitary Confinement,' and the audience began to churn in a circle mosh. "I can't get out... stuck inside... I have to shout..." Chantal powered her way through the first verse, shouting with a renewed energy before her voice began to trail again by the chorus. "Stuck in my brain, it's all in my mind... I'm in myself 'cause there's nothing to find... I'm in... solitary confinement!"

She stumbled several times trying to dance from one side of the stage to the other, her gasping becoming more pronounced between each line. On the final chorus she fell down and curled onto her side, babbling while the music petered out behind her.

"I'm sorry," Chantal said, the mic cradled like a baby bottle to her lips. "Screwed up. I screwed up. I just wanted to sing, like you were all waiting for. It's just so hot up here. It's like... you're all suffocating me, staring and waiting for me to screw up. And I screwed up. I'm so useless and stupid. So useless and stupid."

For a few seconds the audience went quiet. Everyone was watching Chantal as she lay there panting and rambling. Like the lyrics said in the song she had just been singing, Chantal was a prisoner - trapped on the stage and her failed performance; trapped in her own body; trapped inside her own youth and degraded beauty. In a country field swarming with hundreds of people, Chantal seemed utterly alone, sprawled out helpless a few metres away and yet distant by a hundred miles from everything around her.

Chantal turned over onto her back, arching her torso and drawing in a deep, moaning breath. The effect of this move caused several males at the far side of the pit to hoot approvingly, some of them thumping the stage lip with hardened fists. Around them people turned to glare at them sternly - "Sexist fucks," one woman shouted. I looked over at Matt, and saw that he was paralysed with horror. Greg simply shook his head and looked away.

"I can't do this... was wrong..." Chantal said, her voice dropping half an octave so that she was purring her words. "Can't sing... can't dance. I'm a fucking fake." She drew in another purring breath, pushing her palm between her eyes. "I'm good for nothing... piece of meat. I suck, I suck, I fuckin' suck."

Chantal rolled her head towards the crowd, her eyes rolling under their lids. "So what now? What do we do now?"

Several men near the far end of the pit resumed their pounding of the stage planks, chanting "Show us your tits! Show us your tits!" A tall man pulled himself onto the stage, his hands extended toward Chantal with clawing fingers - it was the tattooed punk I had seen the day before, hanging out with The Crimsons on Jake's porch. Loogie intercepted, pushing the tattooed punk back on his heels. The tattooed punk cracked his knuckles across Loogie's jaw, dropping him with a single punch. All at once people swarmed onto the stage. The two Crimsons who had been minding the generator rushed up and started beating on the people who were attacking the tattooed punk. Greg and Hammer jumped into the dogpile. Chantal, meanwhile, had rolled over against the drum riser away from the fighting. I looked around for Matt, expecting him to pull her to safety, but like Jake earlier, he had somehow vanished.

I dropped my walking stick and loped over to Chantal, pushing away the feet of the brawlers kicking in my direction, and I managed to scoop her up and carry her away, making my way down the back gangplank and away from the riot, lurching like the Hunchback Of Notre Dame. I stood her up beside me when my right foot began to throb painfully. I was not used to walking for long periods without a cane, and I was in no way able to go far with only my one good foot to propel me. I was further encumbered by the guitar still slung over my shoulder, but it was proving to be a useful weapon for forcing my way through hostile crowds; judging by the growing noise of the riot behind me, I decided I should hold on to it for the time being.

Chantal was drooping heavily against me, her eyelids fluttering. I asked her if she was all right, but she didn't respond. I managed to coax her into walking slowly down the lane, each of us leaning against the other. "We need to get you to the ambulance," I said to her. "It's probably still stuck in the mud, so we don't have far to go."

We hobbled along for a few metres. I could hear people shouting in the distance, but apart from Chantal there was no one else in sight.

"Just like old times," Chantal blurted.

"What do you mean?"

Chantal took a breath or two, struggling to concentrate. "Last year... remember? I found you lying on the trail. Middle of the night." She let out a weary giggle. "You were, like, totally gone. I had to help you... walk you back to your tent. You were so wasted!"

I tried to remember what had happened to me at Punkaholica '98, after I had drank that bad wine with Freaky and Matt. Now I understood how I had ended up in my own sleeping bag the next morning. "So you were my guardian angel that night," I said.

"Yeah, but I was... totally wasted too." She smiled and slouched forward. I tried to hurry our pace.

We rounded the curve to where the ambulance had been stuck earlier. There was nothing on the hill but deep tire treads leading further south. "Shit!" I shouted. Chantal slumped further, and her eyes started to roll back in their sockets. I desperately slapped her cheek, trying to keep her awake.

Behind me I saw people running towards us. "The Crimsons heard about their buddies getting their asses kicked," one man shouted as he passed us. "Everyone's getting the fuck out." He ran off before I could get him to help me carry Chantal. As he disappeared up the hill, it occurred to me that the only way The Crimsons were getting to the scene of the fight was by driving up this same lane that everyone was using to make their escape. Then again, the people fleeing the concert area seemed so fixed in panic that trying to explain this seemed pointless.

By this point my right foot was in serious pain, and I could only go a few steps before having to lean against a tree to rest up, while keeping Chantal standing at the same time. I even tried using my guitar as a cane, but it was too awkward to manage for any distance. Finally a small stubble-faced punk stopped and helped Chantal stand upright. I tried to explain that I needed help in getting her to a doctor, but the punk shook his head and said, "No English" in a heavy Quebecois accent. By pointing down the lane-way and repeating the words "medicine" and "ambulance" using a french pronunciation, I was able to persuade the Quebec punk to help me carry Chantal southward at a quickened pace. From above, the three of us struggling down the dirty trail must have looked like Vietnamese peasants running from American armed forces in 1968. Only the guitar still tucked under my arm would have seemed incongruous.

We came upon the ambulance around a turn in the lane about two hundred metres south, once again mired in the soft mud. One paramedic, a male, was sitting on the back bumper, smoking a cigarette and looking very frustrated, while the other, female, tended to a man on a stretcher. The smoking paramedic motioned us into the empty side of the ambulance. After examining Chantal's eyes and taking a pulse, he asked me what drugs Chantal had taken.

"I'm not sure," I said.

The medic examined Chantal's arms, looking again into her eyes as if he had dropped something inside her pupil. "Okay, what drugs hasn't she taken?" He let out a terse sigh. "Sorry, chief. We're having a rough day out here."

"Join the club," I muttered.

The second paramedic turned around, and helped her partner administer an I.V. drip and an oxygen mask. "If you don't mind me asking," the first medic asked, "why is your friend in her underwear?"

I told him that she had been performing with a band when she had collapsed. "Performing what? A strip-tease?"

His partner hissed and shot him a withering look. He apologised again and forced a smile to his lips. "Did I mention we were having a lousy day?" he said.

I stood back while the two paramedics continued to work on Chantal. The Quebecker who had helped me carry her had disappeared. More people came running down the lane-way, passing us with hardly a sidelong glance. Then Matt came barreling up, breathing heavily with exertion and pressing his palm against his ear. "Thank god I found you guys," he said. "Is she all right?"

The female medic assured Matt that Chantal was responding well to her treatment. "Where the hell were you?" I asked, not even trying to control my anger.

"I was knocked out cold by those bikers. They shoved me and I knocked my head on your amp on my way down. My brain feels like it's on fire, I swear."

"I'll bet it does."

Matt's eyes narrowed, and his chin jutted forward. His uncovered ear was ruddy and swollen. "Paul, if this is about me stealing your band out from under you, this is not the time and place."

"Fuck the band," I spouted back. "You should have been keeping an eye on your girlfriend and the shit she was sticking in her arm. Or is the band more important than her?"

An angry grimace broke out across Matt's face. He laughed and wiped the glaze of perspiration from his forehead. "You know what, pal? Fuck you. Fuck you and go to hell with your holier-than-thou attitude. You're worse than Steve ever was, you know that? He might have been some straight-edge fuckwad, but you're a hundred times worse!"

Matt shook his head and gritted his teeth. His upper body was trembling, every muscle clenched. "Do you honestly think I didn't try to keep her clean? Who was it that kept trying to get her into rehab? Who do you think spent night after night driving up and down Parliament Street looking for Chantal when she ran off looking for a fix? I've done everything in my power, Paul - everything in my power \- trying to help her. And I believed in her, okay? I believed in her as a singer and a human goddamn being when every single one of her rat-faced friends had given up and left her to rot. This band was what she needed to do. Understand? I worked the phones, I set up a tour, I invested every part of myself into this! You don't think it kills me to see her suffering? It tears my fucking heart out, Paul! If I hadn't been knocked out on my ass I would have carried her all the fucking way to Toronto with my bare hands just to make sure she was all right!"

Matt stood back, glaring at me through angry pools of tears that began to break and trickle down his cheeks. "Seriously, Paul. Go to goddamn hell if you think I don't give a shit. Just because you saved her this one time doesn't make you the fucking hero."

The medics hovered over Chantal, struggling to pretend that they hadn't heard Matt's breakdown. Matt then turned away from me, gathered his fury and held Chantal's hand, and Chantal blearily smiled up at him.

There was little I could do but turn away myself.

I floated for the next few minutes in the direction of the campsite, unsure of what to do next. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to get away from Kamp Punkaholic as quickly as possible. I considered my options. With only forty dollars in my wallet, a bus ticket back to Toronto was out of the question. Greg had the only set of keys for the rental van, and I was no mood to wait around for those assholes. I couldn't imagine myself hitchhiking all the way back to Toronto. Phoning Maia for an emergency rescue meant tracking down one of the few people with cell phones, and even then, Kamp Punkaholic was outside the working range of any cellular network.

As I continued limping southward, an ATV four-wheeler approached me: it was one of the rednecks who had been carting equipment to and from the campsite. I flagged him down and asked if he could take me back to camp. I tried to offer my guitar as payment, as I was hoping to ration my cash for my trip back to Toronto, however that would turn out. The redneck looked at my six-string Fender knockoff coated in dirt and laughed. "You'll have to do better than that, buddy!" he said to me.

"I have a six of beer back at the tent," I said. "Creemore."

The redneck considered this offer. "Good enough."

I pulled myself onto the back of his ATV, which was rigged with a oversized welded-metal frame for strapping down cargo. "Hold on," he shouted. He turned the ATV around and we sped back southward. A few minutes later I was handing over my remaining six pack of Creemore, retrieving my duffel bag from the tent that I had decided I was leaving behind.

People were running in and out of their tents and vehicles. I asked the redneck if he knew of any way I could get a ride back to Toronto. "Probably ask one of these guys, " he replied, nodding toward the punks. "Otherwise get a car. That's all I can tell you."

In desperation, I asked him if he had a car to buy. He raised an eyebrow with suspicion, but then he said he had a re-built Buick at his workshop a few kilometres away. "Ancient as hell, and needs a tune-up," he warned me. "But if there's any way you can come up with the scratch, we can work out a deal. I've had it at my house for months, and it's no use to me sitting there."

I looked down at my guitar, which I knew was worth a few hundred dollars despite the dirt on its surface. "What about an amplifier? Vintage Marshall half-stack, built in 1977. Worth five hundred dollars, easy."

The redneck brightened, but then soured when I admitted that the amp was back up on the stage. The fact that it was my Uncle Eddie's amplifier and an heirloom of enormous sentimental value was beside the point. I must have been a piteous site in my muddy jeans and Maia's birthday shirt and lame right foot, because the redneck agreed to retrieving the amp. "We'll go through the back way," he said. "I know a trail we can cut through the woods. If we can't get the amp, I can take you to the highway at least. Sound good?"

"Sounds good to me." I crawled back onto the ATV. Before starting the motor, the redneck turned back and held out his right hand.

"My name's Russ, by the way."

"Paul Cartwright." I shook his hand and forced a smile.

"Hang on, Paul. This is gonna be a rough ride." Russ drove the ATV to the far end of the clearing, and then rammed through a low rise of wild shrubs. I had to brace myself with both hands, my guitar and duffel back wedged perilously between my knees and we caromed over the rough terrain. Russ seemed to know instinctively when to turn, weaving through the trees and around the rocks and cuts hidden by the tall grass. We couldn't have been moving faster than 5 kph at times, but it still felt as if the ATV was hurtling through space.

(I should mention here that, before we had left the clearing, I turned my head and took one last look behind me. I saw a dozen punks crowded outside the back of Jake's house. Their fists were raised, and one person was brandishing what looked like a tire iron. They might have been shouting, but the ATV was too loud for me to hear clearly. With the first bump over uncleared terrain I turned back facing forward, as what was lying ahead suddenly seemed more pertinent than what I was leaving behind. Later I would find out that we were lucky to get away from the campsite when we did.)

Russ piloted the ATV through the dense forest, while I held onto the back metal rack as best as I could, jostling around like a sackful of laundry. Occasionally Russ would stand up over the seat, flexing his forearms and whooping with joy. Russ might have been enjoying the trip, but my bowels weren't.

Ahead of us I saw a white form emerging from the grass. We slowed slightly as we came up to it on the left side. It was Altamont, a.k.a. Kyle, lying on the ground shirtless with his pants pulled down half-way on his hips. His bare skin was a lattice of cuts and scratches, and his fingernails were broken and bloody. His eyes rolled up and he reached toward me beseechingly, his mouth trying to form words begging for assistance. Russ revved the accelerator as we passed Altamont, rubbernecking with curiosity before driving onward through the woods. I felt like a pragmatic jerk leaving him behind, but I somehow knew Russ wouldn't have listened to me even if I had asked him to stop. Altamont/Kyle was going to have to find his own way out of this mess.

We emerged finally near the crest of the hill overlooking the stage, across from the northern precipice and Old Carruthers Road. Surprisingly, the hillside was almost empty except for a few bystanders hovering over fires, and a wide expanse of trash and other leavings. The only people left at the stage was a panicked soundman wrapping cables in a hurry, and Loogie, who was holding a damp rag to a bloody gash along his jaw. Behind the stage, the generator had been turned on its side, resembling a felled beast abandoned by its hunters.

A lot of musical equipment had been left on the stage, including my beloved Marshall half-stack. I asked Loogie if I could take my amp, and he replied with a weary shrug. "Doesn't matter to me," he said. "If you don't take it, The Crimsons will."

I asked him where everybody had gone. Loogie chuckled. "I don't fucking care."

Russ and the soundman loaded my amplifier onto the ATV rack, strapping it down with bungee cords. The soundman then asked Russ if could come back later and get his soundboard back to the highway. Russ looked over the board and worked out a deal to come back after he was finished with my amp. As we mounted the ATV, Russ smiled brightly. "This is turning out to be a good day for me," he said.

With the Marshall on one side of the oversized rack, and me and the guitar and duffel bag on the other, Russ had to drive even slower to get from the stage to the northwest end of Jake's property where the precipice lowered to meet the plain. "I've known this area most of my life!" Russ shouted over the motor noise. He eased up on the throttle as we worked our way up the incline. "Me and my buddies used to ride all around here! Till Jake bought it! It was abandoned for years!"

"Maybe it should have stayed abandoned!" I yelled back.

We crossed over the property line, with Russ using some planks to weigh down and cover a loose run of barbed wire. After carefully hiding the planks for later use, Russ re-mounted the ATV and continued through the woods, emerging on a county road running roughly parallel to Highway 19 on the other side of Kamp Punkaholic. Riding along the gravel shoulder, we traveled a few kilometres further north to a small house surrounded by uncut grass and various appliances and vehicles in various states of seeming abandonment and disrepair.

"Home sweet home," Russ shouted. He pulled in at the side of the house, and hauled the Marshall into a cluttered garage workshop where he checked for loose tubes, then plugged in the amp and tried it out using my guitar. "Seems all right," he said.

"My Uncle Eddie used to take it in every April to a guy he knew," I explained. "Cleaned the pots, replaced the pre-amp tubes. He called it 'spring cleaning' for the amplifier."

"Why'd he let it go, if you don't mind me asking."

"He had to get rid of it." I gave the Marshall a long, silent look. "Uncle Eddie died a few years ago, actually."

"Shit buddy, sorry." Russ turned off the amp. "Wouldn't've asked if I'd known."

"Don't worry about it," I said. I felt the need to break the nervous silence. "He was cleaning leaves out of the eavestrough when he fell off the roof. Right on his head."

"Ouch! Shit." Russ rubbed his chin, looking weirdly amused. "Sounds like my brother-in-law. He'd been drinking all afternoon when he got the bright idea to fix a leak in the roof. Doctor said the booze had probably relaxed his body, so when he fell, all he got was a dislocated shoulder. Dumb fool has trouble moving his arm since then, but he's still alive and drinkin'."

The last sentence made me think of Live'N'Drinkin' 89 by The Punkaholics. For a second I wondered if Russ had been thinking of the title when he said it.

"So where's the car?"

Russ led me to a shed behind the house, and pulled a ragged blanket off of a four-door Buick. "I've driven it a few times," Russ said. "New bulbs in all the signal lights, fresh oil. Full tank of gas. You'll have to keep an eye on the temperature gauge, though, because the rad is pretty corroded." Russ lifted the hood and showed me how to add coolant, if it was needed. "I left a couple bottles in the trunk, just in case. This model's pretty common, so I'm sure a junk yard in Toronto can sell you the parts you need."

Russ examined the sky, which was clear of clouds but starting to darken. "I'm running late for buddy with the soundboard," he said. He then drew out a rough map on a sheet of brown wrapping paper, showing me how to get around the county roads and over to Highway 19. "I think there's an old map in the glove compartment, too. Hang on." He reached in on the passenger's side and retrieved a yellowed Ontario road map, along with the ownership papers, which he had me sign in case I got pulled over. "Don't get caught speeding," he said in warning. "The cops around here are assholes about that sort of thing."

I put my duffel bag and guitar in the musty backseat, piled in behind the steering wheel and turned on the ignition. The engine sounded hesitant, but nonetheless turned over with a confident-sounding rumble. "Good luck, buddy," Russ shouted, waving at me like an old relative as I drove north on the narrow county road.

I disregarded Russ' hand-drawn map for the most part, instead bypassing Highway 19 altogether and taking the next road over to the 402 interchange. I had a hunch that it would be best to avoid the main entrance to Kamp Punkaholic. Sure enough, my suspicions were proven correct when I fiddled with the radio and came across reports of police answering a disturbance call at a "punk festival" north of Strathroy. The reports I heard through the cracked radio speakers ("Okay, Paul," I said to myself, "you'll have to pay to fix the car stereo when you get back home") were brief, one station reporting only that "multiple arrests" were happening, while another station indicated that "several punk rockers (were) facing criminal charges, along with members of a motorcycle gang hired to do security." I alternated between the two stations trying to follow the story, but by the time I reached the east-bound 401, the reception had faded to a blanket of white noise.

While I was fishing for news on the radio, I was becoming progressively more concerned with the heat gauge, which was inching towards the red as I continued east-ward. I pulled over at a service station west of London and nearly burned my fingers trying to remove the radiator cap to add more coolant and water. I had to pull over again outside of Guelph to repeat the ritual ("Okay, Paul," I said to myself, "you'll have to pay to fix the radiator AND the car stereo when you get home,") using up a second bottle of coolant.

"Nice shirt, buddy," the station attendant said to me, grinning at me. "You just come from Mardi Gras or what?"

I looked down and realised I was still wearing the shirt Maia had given me for my birthday. I had told her that I was going to a weekend party at a friend's cabin out near Kitchener. On top of explaining why I had never called her, I was going to have to explain how come I was covered in mud like some refugee.

By the time I had reached Mississauga, the heat gauge was practically welded up in the red. I pulled over at a commuter lot by the interchange at Winston Churchill Boulevard. Steam was bolting out from all edges of the front hood. As I was circling the car trying to figure out what to do next, I looked over the bumpers and realised something was missing.

The Buick had no license plates. I had just driven across southern Ontario in a car with no license plates. Russ must have forgotten about the plates in his rush to return for the soundman's gear. For my part, I hadn't even thought to ask. It was a good thing I had ridden the speed limit all the way back from Strathroy.

I saw a pay phone on the far end of the parking lot. Using my guitar to support my right foot, I took my duffel bag and pivoted my way over to the phone and called Maia for a lift.

"I thought you were gone until Sunday," she said. Her voice was like butter in my ears.

"Change of plans," I replied. "I'll explain later."

Maia was confused and more than a little annoyed when I asked her to come pick me up in Mississauga. I was going to have to hold on until she was finished her shift at Coffee Time, which meant a two hour wait. I could hear the clatter of the customers in the background behind her. Her every word cut a silhouette in my imagination. All that was left was for her to come find me, and fill in that blank space.

"I wasn't expecting this, Paul." I pictured her shifting her weight, switching the phone from one ear to the other. "There's better be a good explanation."

"Oh, there's an explanation," I replied. I then stopped myself when I realised there was too much that needed explaining. I needed to change the subject.

"Let's get married."

"Excuse me?"

"I want to marry you, Maia." I wiped my burning eyes. "I want you for a wife."

This wasn't much of a proposal, I'll admit. But she said yes anyway, which is all that mattered. And it also meant that I could avoid having to tell my ridiculous story. Until now, at least.

• • • •

Part Three:

### ZEN ARCADE

(final attempt, March 2003)

"I make the same mistake / Every day and every night

I'll make and make this same mistake / Until I get it right."

Poker Cartwright (unused song lyrics)

• • • •

### 24.

It's not for a lack of trying, Darcy. I swear, I've done my best to bring this letter to a close, despite all my hemming and hawing and previous commitments getting in the way. I did not intend to wait two entire months after my last installment before getting back to you. Shit happens, as the poet says.

The Monday morning I went back to Schlender, I was called in to a meeting with Hans and Agnes, as Solomon had predicted (he was there, too, with a look on his face that would have impressed Edvard Munch). The bad news was that the Eastern Avenue warehouse was closing down at the end of January. The good news was that Hans had sold Schlender Medical Aids to another distributor in Scarborough, so while Hans was going into semi-retirement as a part-time consultant, the rest of us had full-time jobs at the new company if we wanted them, including medical benefits and a modest pay raise. As a bonus, I got to sign up for a company-funded I.T. training course, as part of my duties will now involve maintaining the on-site computers. The only real drawback so far is the location: the distributor's warehouse is on Finchdene Square, up near Finch Avenue and Markham Road, which currently means a forty minute commute both ways. Getting there is not a problem for me as I now own a car (not the Buick that Russ sold me, though; after being quoted over $2,000.00cdn to re-build the burnt-out engine, I finally sold it for twenty bucks to a scrap yard), but I was hardly pleased about having to schlep out to the 'burbs five days a week. I already miss my daily walking commute to Schlender.

In the evening I broke the news to Maia about my job transfer. Diabolically, the move fit in with her long-standing plans to buy a house, which I had been resisting on the ground of fiscal recklessness (did I mention that Maia dropped a big wad of coin on a new Toyota to replace her battered old Tracer?) Since our wedding on New Year's Eve 1999, scheduled in haste because of some weird superstition on Maia's part, the details of which I won't bore you with OH GO AHEAD! IT'S NOT LIKE YOU HAVEN'T BORED US ALL WITH EVERY OTHER TINY DETAIL OF YOUR LIFE BY NOW!, Maia has been talking constantly about getting a house with a yard and a two-car garage. "Like every other normal couple," she explained. Some people are so obsessed with normality - it's like compressing dough in your hands: the harder you squeeze, the more weirdness comes squeezing through your fingers. Hasn't punk rock taught people anything?

Needless to say, my pleas for practicality were roundly ignored. Maia was already calling real estate agents back in October, checking out houses down in The Beach and up around Riverdale. When I told her the address of my new place of employment, she got particularly excited. Her most recent agent was telling her about the hot new district in north Toronto to buy a house, west of Neilson Road and south of Steeles Avenue. It was an older-style neighbourhood with a small-town vibe, and there were bungalows to be had for as little as $200,000.00. The agent had even lined up some addresses for us to check it out, and if I wanted, we could look at some properties as early as Wednesday evening.

If I need to tell you where that "hot new district" was located, Darcy, then you obviously haven't been paying attention.

Morganfield hasn't been a real town for a long time. The final nail in the coffin was the announcement in the summer of 2002 that CP Rail was going to close down their Eastern Canada offices in the new year. My father opted for a buy-out package, which makes him one of the lucky ones. The loss of 110 local jobs means that the old town of Morganfield is now officially a suburb, albeit one with an old-timey street grid and that "authentic" feel that the real estate agents around here like to promote (they even have a motto for it on their brochures: "Come See How Good Life Used To Be!") People in the Morganfield district now have to commute elsewhere for work that used to be mere blocks away. And while the downtown shops are doing well, there's a rumour about a Wal-Mart that might be going up on Steeles Avenue. Yep, it's like a real modern small town 'round these parts. And they said that irony died after 9/11!

The house we're currently bidding on is a one-storey fixer-upper on Eudora Avenue. Needless to say, my sainted mudder and fadder are thrilled with the prospect of me bringing my bride to within smothering distance. They are a little less excited about having more drop-in visits from Maia's family, though relations have improved a lot since the two sides had a long deep talk at Nani's funeral. Prashanti gets along pretty well with my mom, but my dad could do without Dilip's non-stop business proposals. As for Jonathan, he's got a new girlfriend who's doing a superb job of kicking his ass - he's almost become bearable in the past few months.

Tighter familial relations have also resulted in more trips out to visit my in-laws in Caledon and Orillia. Several of my cousins are sporting newborns and showing them off to the delight of all my female relatives. Maia, in particular, is taken with my one cousin's six-month-old daughter Emily; on the drive home from our last visit, every third word from Maia's mouth concerned the perceived cuteness of Emily, and the general adorableness of all of my infant in-laws. After years of squeamish faces when having to stand in the presence of children, Maia is suddenly mad for babies. "Our kids are going to be so cute," she keeps saying. All I can think is that whatever children we do produce (how many there will be depends on Maia's mood that day) are going to be in for a shock. They will be the first kids who spend their youths picking up after their mother AND WHO IN POOP-FILLED DIAPERS WILL STILL BE BETTER-DRESSED THAN THEIR FATHER!

By the way, I should point out that Maia just typed that last all-caps sentence there. HI DARCY! I only recently discovered all of Maia's helpful editorial input in the last few chapters, so I figured it was only fair I let her in on this entry while I type it in on her laptop WITH HER PERMISSION FOR A CHANGE! Some of her comments actually verged on the necessary, which was nice. Anyway, she's going to step away while I continue this never-ending narrative. YOU KIDS PLAY NICE, OKAY? BYE!!!

And we're back. Goddammit, I'm gonna finish this letter even if it kills me.

So with all of the time spent house-hunting, in addition to the proximity of my work place and my sainted mudder's lunch table, I have been spending more time up in Morganfield that I have done in years. I have managed a fair bit of wandering down Queen Street, cutting along Comfort Road and up Railway Street to the industrial park and back. All I can see are the changes. The Shirley Soda plant is being torn down for a retirement complex. The Eaton's store is now a Winners outlet. Many of the houses on Comfort Road have been bought by Chinese families, and there are more Indians and Pakistanis living in the Brooklin Arms than whites. The Barn has been renovated and converted into a private daycare facility, which seems weirdly fitting. On the other hand, the King Street Diner is still around, as is The Happy Dragon, although the latter has been renovated and is now a high-end restaurant. And Grover Antiques is still hanging in there, although they haven't had a music section since Ken Grover's brother bought out the business. They specialise in "quality collectibles" now - they even filmed an episode of "Antiques Roadshow" there a while back.

The latest hot-spot in Morganfield (okay, the only hot-spot) is the new MacKinney's Pub on Queen Street. MacKinney's is owned by the same franchise that runs The "Mac" pub chain throughout Toronto (the MacCrae Pub north of Bloor Street near U of T, MacDonough's English Public House in High Park, and so forth). The place is of a typical Canadian pub styling, with a mixture of Scottish and Irish and English paraphernalia lining the walls and bangers'n'mash listed prominently on the menu and a CD jukebox heavily stocked with songs from The Pogues and Spirit Of The West. MacKinney's is often packed on week-nights with ex-pat Scotsmen and Welshmen, as well as younger Canucks eager to express their Celtic connections. What I find really off-putting, however, is the lack of recognisable faces. I grew up in Morganfield, and by rights these people should have all been old friends and neighbours. It's as if the local population had been replaced by alien pods: a hundred faces staring back politely, but not invitingly. But isn't that Toronto in a nutshell, Darcy? Heck, when Morganfield first amalgamated with Scarborough back in '85, I was so excited - finally, we were part of the big city! Now everything is Toronto: all suburban, all disconnected, at once familiar and yet foreboding. This could be anywhere. This could be everywhere.

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone?

I was thinking about this recently while sitting up at the bar at MacKinney's when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a face that, like the others around me, should have been familiar. Regardless of the confusion on my end, he somehow knew how I was.

"Paul Cartwright! I knew it was you, buddy!" Kevin Mulcahey reached over and pumped my hand warmly. "Man, I haven't seen you since high school! Remember?"

It took me a moment to connect the weathered face with that of the kid with whom I hung out back in Kindergarten. Suddenly all the memories returned: the card games up on the roof of The Brooklin Arms, the road hockey matches on Third Street, the sneering rejection when Steve Coleman and I started talking about the Slow video on MuchMusic and preaching the odd gospel of punk rock.

"Man, Paul, you were a crazy kid! I used to hear about those shows at the coffee shop on Low Willy and think to myself, what are those guys trying to prove? But looking back, I kind of admired you in a way, doing your thing and all."

I have chatted off and on with Kevin during slow nights at MacKinney's. Among other revelations, Kevin recently revealed that it was he and his punk-hating pals who spray-painted the MFHC "X" logo in the boys' washroom at Morganfield North Secondary. "We just wanted to get the punk kids in trouble," Kevin explained. "It was a stupid thing to do, I guess." It's strange how we've been getting along since that night. Funny, how things that seem so elemental back then seem so petty now.

My sojourns at MacKinney's also put me in touch with Steve Coleman. Steve recently started playing music again when he was on medical leave - his old skateboarding injuries finally caught up with him and the OPP transferred him to a desk job because of his bad knees. While re-orienting himself with the bass guitar, he also started arranging a loose circle of friends for playing music. Among the members of that loose circle is Cary Glenn, who is playing drums for the first time since The Nothings broke up, and David Swells, who is working as a graphic artist up in Markham. Swells, by the way, is out of the closet now, which as per normal caught me off-guard more than it should have ("'Since when have I been gay?'" Swells said, mocking my surprised tone. "Since when haven't I been gay?") Except for his black nail polish, he doesn't look much different from when he was a kid, but the rest of us have aged in various ways. Steve in particular, sometimes resembles a walking climbing gym for his three rambunctious kids, all thumb-prints and tugged-loose sleeves. And Cary's gone balder than his dad. And then there's Grandpa Cartwright with the wooden cane. Christ! Growing old is for the adults; this wasn't supposed to happen to us!

As of this writing I am now the de facto fourth member of the group, which so far doesn't have a name. The collective started out playing punk songs, but over the past few months the repertoire has slowly shifted to a celtic-flavoured, neo-country punk. Seeing as how I have decided to learn to play banjo for the group while also bringing in a number of country and folk songs to the set-list, I suppose my influence has expedited the process (you should hear our bluegrass version of The Dayglo Abortions' 'Stupid Songs'!) So now we're also bringing in Andy Lefebvre's brother, Brian, to fill in the sound behind the banjo by acoustic guitar - he's not that good, but he's enthusiastic and trying hard to learn, which helps a lot.

The dilemma we're currently facing is the question of finding a singer. I've been drafted for singing duties, but seeing as I'm still trying to figure out finger-picking on the banjo, I've already got my hands full (so to speak). That's why I was thrilled when we were able to get Pete Hammond to leave the house and take up the microphone one afternoon. He had to sit while he sang, but he's still got that front man presence. Unfortunately, Pete tires easily, and he's dependent on his mother helping his to get around in his medicated state. Mrs. Hammond (actually Ms. Bishop, since she reverted back to her maiden name) says she would like Pete to jam with us more often, if only because it cheers him up. At the very least, having Pete on board as a regular is still a slight possibility for the time being. Here's hoping.

The most surprising recent addition to the jam circle is Annick Tousignant, who still lives in the house she grew up in on Elizabeth Avenue. The first time she came over with her boyfriend, she took a few photos just like she used to do back at The Barn and The Sunflower Café. However, I was taken aback when she showed up two weeks later with a violin. She accompanied us on some old Hank Williams covers, and then cut a mind-blowing solo on our folked-up cover of The Ramones' 'Rock'N'Roll High School'.

I was shocked. "Since when have you played the fiddle?"

"I've always played," she answered. "What, you expected me to bring a fiddle to a punk rock gig?"

So that's the group so far. Kevin says we can set up a show at MacKinney's any time we're ready. It's certainly made moving back to Morganfield a more enticing prospect. Even if it's not exactly Morganfield to which I am returning.

So am I still a punk, playing punk rock? If punk is only about playing what you want, as recklessly as you want, regardless of what others think - I suppose the answer is yes. I still listen to my old albums on my CD walkman at the gym and on the stereo in the car, and I expect I'll be listening to the same CDs for a long time to come. But I don't feel like a punk, necessarily. Maybe it's a school I've graduated from. My diploma must be lost in the mail.

If you told me twelve years ago that HMV would have a section set aside for punk music, I would not have believed you. It is simply bizarre to see how the genre has been so blithely accepted by the mainstream - when I first heard The Clash being played on Q107, I swear I nearly drove my car off the road. At the same time, the music's lost a lot of its bite; vocals are sung and not shouted, and arrangements trend all too often toward the major key. There is no danger in wearing funny-coloured hair and a nose stud - if anything, it's expected at some point in your high school years. And yet sometimes when I am in downtown Toronto I see a young boy or girl in an army surplus jacket and heavy boots with kerchiefs tied around the ankles, and for a minute I think I recognise them as a friend. Then I remember that I'm a decade older than them or more, and I realise that I am no longer part of that world.

As I write these words, George W. Bush is giving a speech on T.V., trying to convince his audience of the need to invade Iraq and dismantle Saddam Hussein's so-called "weapons of mass destruction." Sometimes I watch that simian dimwit the Americans elected as president, mangling his speeches even as the world listens in rapt attention, and I wonder how he gets away with it. How can this man be the most powerful person in the world's most powerful nation? Why is it that every American news channel is going "rah-rah-Iraq-attack!" when the best case for war they can concoct is a PowerPoint slide-show including aerial photos of semi trailers that may or may not be transporting chemical weapons? And why aren't those boys and girls in the army surplus jackets out playing in a hundred punk rock bands at a hundred punk rock shows protesting G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and all of his mealy-mouthed conspirators? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher inspired thousands of show fliers and album covers in the eighties, even in the Canadian punk scenes - why are even the mainstream copro-punks so scared of making the sort of political statement that defined hardcore in the first place?

Shit! Now I really sound like an old man.

Maybe more than anything, punk is a time and a place. Maybe for those kids I see downtown, the rush is as bracing and rejuvenating as it was for me and my friends. After that, however, there are only ripples in the pool from the first tossed stone, ebbing to stillness at the water's edge. I worry sometimes that the water will never bear waves again, but no one despises stillness like an angry teenager, and the world will always have some of those running around, skating and spitting and sneering at the bullshit.

Punk rock is not bigger than life. It's not even bigger than the coming invasion of Iraq. All I can hope as I watch this ridiculous televised speech is that maybe, maybe, Bush and the Republicans will prove me wrong. Maybe they'll find mountains of uranium yellowcake lying on the banks of the Tigris River, and storehouses teeming with warheads and chemical canisters from one end of Baghdad to the other. Perhaps Canada will be the foolish-looking nation in future times, having opted out of the Coalition to invade Iraq. Perhaps Bush is going to be proven so right that I will never have cause to doubt a politician again, and never be prompted to write another anti-establishment rant plotted to a three-chord change.

Until then, there is always room for skepticism, and the roaring void of doubt.

Like many Punkaholics fans, I had always thought that Jake Punkaholic was the king of skepticism and doubt; his message was to think for yourself, and don't trust those who are not worthy of trust. The last time I saw him he was a broken man, disconnected from himself and his life's mission. At least, I think it was Jake who was sitting on the edge of the stage near the end of Murderburger's set. The only person I have talked to from the band's final show was Hammer, and he told me that he remembered seeing a fat man in track pants, but nothing more. As the years pass, and I revisit the news reports of the police raid that occurred at Kamp Punkaholic that night, the more I suspect that I was seeing someone other than Jake. I probably never will know for sure, and that's what especially maddening.

What I do know for certain, as per the various newspaper clippings I have put aside along with the article in MacLean's, is that around 9:10 p.m. Saturday evening, Strathroy police officers entered Kamp Punkaholic answering a call from somewhere on the property reporting "a war." They came upon several Crimsons fighting with between fifty and a hundred punks throughout the clearing around the central farmhouse. After calling in reinforcements from the local Ontario Provincial Police as well as some additional ambulance crews, a total of twenty-seven people were arrested for charges ranging from aggravated assault to drug possession. There were dozens of injuries including a shattered spine from one Crimson running over a sixteen-year-old punk with his motorcycle, and a cache of weapons including an automatic rifle was discovered in a closet on the farmhouse's first floor. One of the handguns from this cache, incidentally, was taken by Jake, who used it to blast a hole in his left temple. According to the coroner's report, he was standing by the south window when he pulled the trigger, likely watching the OPP arrive on his property as the fighting was at its peak.

If you ask the punks in Toronto about Punkaholica '99, you'll hear a lot of valiant talk about fighting the bikers and battling back the invading cops. Getting the Crimsons' side of the story is more difficult, as the gang broke up shortly thereafter, most members opting to join the new Ontario chapter of the Hell's Angels. Kamp Punkaholic itself was bought out by a developer last summer; five years from now there may well be suburban housing lots cutting across the former battleground, and once more history will lose out to commerce.

Hammer and Greg had to give statements to the police, and Todd received treatment for a broken finger, but they otherwise escaped with their skins intact. Matt called Hammer a few days afterward and told him that he had gotten a lift to Strathroy in the ambulance with Chantal, and Matt had taken a bus back to Toronto. I should have pressed Hammer for more details (did Matt take Chantal on the return bus trip, for instance?), but he didn't seem eager to talk - even three months after Murderburger had broken up so dramatically, Hammer sounded uncomfortable even discussing the matter.

I haven't spoken with Hammer since then. I have tried to contact Matt, but I recently learned that has moved to Los Angeles with plans to start a new dance music project similar to Groove Incorporated. As for the others: Donnie has started a group called Cookie Duster with Todd playing bass guitar. Greg moved to Hamilton and is playing in a blues band, though Deanna says he hasn't been looking well in recent months. And Doog and Infinite Blasphemy recently snagged a deal with a U.K. metal label, with plans to tour England and Scandanavia in October.

As for Chantal, Maia and I actually ran into her a few weeks ago at the gym. She was at Absolute Fitness doing a promotion for the Yorkville branch of the club where she works part-time as a sales agent. For the past few months she has been organising something called "Metalhead Mondays" at her club, where they play hard rock tracks on the P.A. in the weights area. "I just couldn't take the dance crap anymore," she told us. "So I brought in a stereo deck with some Mötley Crüe and Judas Priest tapes and plugged it in. It was a total hit!" She said she was trying to work some punk tracks into the mix, but there was some resistance - when she tried to play a dub of Slow's 'Have Not Been The Same' she got complaints verging on the violent.

Thinking about our shared history with that song, I took this as a sideways invitation from Chantal to visit her up at Yorkville, so I thought it prudent to introduce Maia as my wife. Chantal was delighted with the news that I was married, which stung me more than it should have. "We were always giving Paul a hard time," Chantal explained to Maia with what I thought was a completely unnecessary enthusiasm. "He never seemed to have luck with women back then."

The weird thing was that even though Chantal looked better than ever, I realised as she was talking that I wasn't all that attracted to her. She was barely dressed in a black sports-bra and tights, with her hair pulled into loose girlish pigtails much like she had worn back in Windsor when she was a fourteen-year-old Murderburger fanatic. Judging by her complexion, her drug use was long over and done with; her toned arms and muscled torso indicated addiction to nothing more harmful than protein shakes. Chantal looked as healthy and energetic as anyone I have ever seen, and yet for some reason she didn't interest me physically in the least. I've been pondering why I was more attracted to Chantal when she was busy destroying herself, but perhaps that's a road of contemplation I would be better off not traveling.

So for a number of reasons, I won't be going uptown to check out Metalhead Mondays at Abso-Fit, even though it means being stuck here in Leslieville with the dance muzak. Though god knows even a few Judas Priest tracks on the P.A. would be a vast improvement.

On the topic of music: with the help of David Swells and a programmer friend, the Morganfield Hardcore website I started working on a year ago is almost ready to go on line. Annick gave me some scene photos and scans of her copies of Wanda's zine, and both Steve and Cary have written essays about some of the shows the bands played back in the late eighties at Prudence Presbyterian and the Sunflower Café. I posted some tracks from the Murderburger CD for people to download, but it wouldn't be a real scene web-site without recordings of the other bands; thanks to Matt taking all of "his" tape reels back in '91, no one had anything but third-generation tape dubs, and the digital transfers we tried to make sounded terrible.

But then Doog put me in touch with a record company in Germany (actually one man with a mailbox number, but apparently the label itself is a big deal in metal circles). The label's owner, Christophe, claimed to have a number of recordings from bands in, of all places, Morganfield, Ontario. Over a series of e-mails I found out that Christophe had bought a box of 1" tape reels from a source in Toronto back in '99 - he had been searching for unreleased demos by Iremonger, back before they became Buddha Spine - but the source insisted that he had to buy the box of tapes as a lot, for an increased amount. Christophe agreed to sell me back the tapes provided that he could keep the original Iremonger masters. After some pooling of money and an agreement to promote the Iremonger sessions CD, we got the tapes shipped back to Canada. So now the website has a total of forty-five downloadable MP3s including songs from all of the main Morganfield bands, as well as session tracks by Awaken, the Royal Canadian Bass Ensemble, OwMyFoot, Sonic Cones and Punky Brewster Death Cult. There's also a video tape that I didn't even know existed, taken by one of Annick's friends at the Prudence Presbyterian concert, and right now I'm working on a video transfer of the good segments including The Nothings' entire set and Murderburger's closing rendition of that heartwarming scene anthem, 'Morganfield Sucks'. The Milk Studs and Dave will have excerpts from their sets that night posted as well.

So far there has been a tacit agreement that no one would be earning money from the downloadable tracks. I'm sure that if Ashley from The Milk Studs or even Matt Miller find out about the project, one of them is going to write an angry e-mail looking for royalties. The people I have talked to so far, however, understand that there really is no money to be made here. The whole purpose of the website is to keep the memory of Morganfield Hardcore alive for others to find out about. If Morganfield itself no longer exists, then at least the music from the scene we supported can live on. We were just a group of kids in Canada who arrived late to the punk party, but I will go to my grave insisting that our mistakes were more creative and exciting than other scenes' most significant accomplishments. Of course people from scenes in Montreal and Vancouver and wherever else will insist otherwise, but that's to be expected - the beer in your country always tastes better than the beer anywhere else. Let them set up their own websites. Our truth will soon be heard.

Here's a thought, Darcy: I could post this entire letter online, all eleventy-billion pages of it, for you and others to download and read. It sure would save a lot of trees, wouldn't it?

All the same, I wish I had the finished version of this mammoth letter with me a month ago when I was over at the Scarborough Town Centre. That was when I saw you in person at some record store signing copies of your book. I didn't even know you had been working on a book, but as it was a history of rave and techno music in North America, I suppose it was just as well I was unaware of its existence. If that "Art Across Toronto" program hadn't sponsored you, I wouldn't have even come across your nebulous presence so far removed from the hip downtown core. You must have felt like a lonely satellite circling the distant sun of Queen West credibility, chatting idly with the three or four semi-interested patrons of reading and mechanical music while mechanical music in turn pumped through the store speakers behind you.

I approached you with trepidation. You were smaller in person than I expected. Seeing you on TVOntario earlier in the year I expected you to fill my view to the periphery much as you crowded the television screen, but instead you were positively diminutive behind the table stacked with copies of your unsigned paperbacks. In place of the unfortunate disco tux from your televised version, you were wearing a conservative pinstripe shirt and your afro had been slicked down to a toxic black corrugation across your scalp. If only you had worn shined shoes instead of the scuffed Nikes that adorned your feet, I might have been astonished by your professional presentation. Then again, you had a published book, in addition to your TV appearances and your newspaper column \- who was I, a one-time punk rock performer, to question the wardrobe choices of my supposed superiors?

"You're Darcy Vandenheuval," I said. "From the Toronto Star column, right?"

"Correct, sir!" Your tone of voice was a perfect mix: haughty, professional, and marinated in ironic contempt. "Darcy's the name, babe. Don't wear it out."

I politely inquired about the book you had written. Obviously I knew very little about dance music, other than what I have learned from talking with Jonathan about the local rave scene. I mentioned a few artist names, and you fielded the inquiries with a curious hostility, rattling off dates and song titles like an army major reporter listing off the names of wounded soldiers. "Most of that is covered in the chapter on the Canadian scene. I could have written whole chapters on Toronto or Montreal alone, but there's a fair bit of ground to cover with all of the European scenes as well as Chicago and Detroit. Gotta keep the foreign publishers happy, you know."

Behind you I watched as some black girls with oversized hoop ear-rings picked at the cover of one of your books as if they were removing flecks of lint. One of them watched you lecture me and then turned to her friend, giggling as they shared a whispered joke. They couldn't have been older than fifteen, and likely wouldn't have cared about the sort of underground techno you championed any more than they would have cared about D.O.A. or The Punkaholics. I had a sense that you were fatigued, tired of arguing, and now reduced to wanting only to see the end of this particular day. You were pimping a history no one cared about, and because of that, I felt a strange empathy.

"What about Groove Incorporated?"

Your shoulders drooped slightly, and I saw your eyes shift warily in their sockets. "You know, I tried to like Groove for the longest time. They sounded really promising early on, and that first 12" is still one of my favourite records. But looking back, they probably never had the goods in the first place. And that so-called 'punk rapper,' Matt Molotov. Jesus! Worst thing the band ever did was let that chump in the door. All he could do was talk and twirl a baton. God knows he couldn't play music."

You then sat back and clapped your hands. "So now that I've completely screwed up the sales pitch, can I interest you in a signed copy of my book?"

I bought a copy, which seemed to surprise you (I certainly surprised myself with the purchase). Your signature took up two-thirds of the inner cover. "By the way," you said, "it's good to meet a techno fan out here in Scarberia. I thought it was all hip-hop and bhangra in this part of town."

"I'm not really a fan," I replied. "I'm more into punk rock and hardcore - " I was about to continue explaining that I had recently been listening to folk and old-style country, but your struggle to control your laughter was too obvious to ignore. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing." Your face was blooming red, the corners of your eyes crinkled in mirth. You then coughed several times, breathing deeply to regain composure. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude. Punk rock, that's nice."

I nodded calmly at you. "Okay, what's wrong with punk?"

"Oh, nothing's wrong with punk. Heck, everyone listens to punk at some point in their lives, but - you know." You threw your hands upward and smirked.

For a second or two, my mind seized up solid with a righteous anger. I was a kid again on Third Street, watching the smug farmer roll past, with my can of Pepsi waiting for use as ammunition. I pictured myself leaning over you, furiously shouting about how punk rock had made your precious little doinky-doink music possible; how without the innovations of punk, you wouldn't have rave music or techno in the first place. I pictured myself telling you about my seeing that Sonic Sauce sidebar article back in '95, and how I started writing you a rebuttal letter that mutated into an epic recollection about one kid's life in punk rock, and his small town that was no longer a small town; about the apostle that built up the scene only to play Judas in the end, and the young fan who took all of the wrong lessons from her idols; about the many friends lost, the few friends re-found, and the culminating accident of adulthood making fools of them all with its inevitable ambush. "And now that I have your publisher's address," I would have shouted, waving his book above my head, "I'll be printing out that entire letter and delivering it to you personally, just to stick you with the reading material. And I promise you this: I won't be shoving all the Canadian content into one stupid chapter!"

The mall security guards would have appeared at my side, taking control and preparing to escort me off the property. I would suddenly become aware of the scene I was making: half-yelling in the busy mall with dozens of befuddled onlookers amused by the angry cripple's lunatic rant. I pictured myself turning and hobbling onward, amidst the whispers and giggles of the idiot onlookers: the consumers laden with newly-purchased junk, garbed in the faded fashions of tomorrow, the television heads and commercialised minds. The guards would follow a few paces behind me, no doubt eager to see me depart - I would nevertheless walk with my head held aloft, my pace quickening with pride, and I would turn one last time to look at you, and even though you would be several metres away, I would still make out the swirl of emotions rushing through your facial muscles, every twitch and shift like tiny animals under a pink blanket. Your complete and awesome terror.

Instead, I simply thanked you and walked away. I must be maturing, Darcy. Ain't that a shame?

Sincerely,

P.C.

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

##

##

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks go out to the individuals who suffered through early versions of this book, in part or in whole. This illustrious roster of victims includes, but is not limited to: Mark Carpenter; Colin Kish; Soren Frederiksen; Liz Moore; Kathy Essex-McIntyre; Winnie, Colleen, Lilac, Charles, Mike, and the other members of The Victory Crew; Nicole, Greg and Stephen from Meeting Of The Minds; Ray Robertson; Alana Wilcox; and Gillian Rodgerson. And while I think of it: a big "thank you" to you, the dear beleaguered reader, for making it all the way through the final product.

I would also like to thank the many artists who graciously allowed me the use of their lyrics, as well as Michael Barclay and Jason Schneider for their assistance in contacting some of the quoted artists.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

  * Lyric extracts from 'Have Not Been The Same', ©1985, music and lyrics by Slow, all rights reserved SOCAN

  * Lyric extract from 'The Birthday Song', ©1985, music and lyrics by Mike Johnston (song recorded by The Dik Van Dykes), all rights reserved SOCAN

  * Lyric extract from 'Out Of Step', ©1981, music by Minor Threat, lyrics by Ian MacKaye, all rights reserved

  * Lyric extract from 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off', ©1981, lyrics by Jello Biafra, all rights reserved

  * Lyric extracts from 'Solitary Confinement', ©1977, music by John Denney and Cliff Roman, lyrics by John Denney (song recorded by The Weirdos), all rights reserved BMI

  * Lyric extracts from 'Rock and Roll Song', ©1972, music and lyrics by Valdy Horsdal, all rights reserved BMI

Cover design is by Dave McIntyre. The font used in the cover graphics is Miasm Infection, as designed by Andi Jones at angelwerks.com (used with permission).

One more thing, before I sign off: could someone please re-issue Slow's Against The Glass EP, preferably including the two songs from 'I Broke The Circle'? Thanks in advance.
