My First Show: The day I learned nothing.
I woke up at five a.m. to a dead silent apartment. Rylynn and Beatie where working over night at the dome. Trying to find parking that morning was an absolute bitch, a common story in Toronto. I ended up getting a spot four blocks away from the dome. I knew the loading dock was on the south side of the dome so I headed down Blue Jays Way, a street that leads right up to the front door of the massive stadium.
As I walked down the street the early morning sun peaked through the towers. The traffic, slow and loud. Most of the pedestrians treat it like a high risk Frogger level to cross the streets.
The Tim Hortons on the northwest corner was lined up out the door, a citizenry of coffee addicts with an impressive collection of hi- vis vests, work boots and business suits. As I passed over the bridge a GO train raced beneath my feet bringing with it a low rumble and a flock of 905’ers. The road peaked and there it stood, the Skydome.
Just a quick side note. I am well aware it has been called “The Rogers Center” since two thousand and five, but, ask anyone in Toronto and they will say it’s called the Skydome. My eyes got a brief reprieve from the early morning sun as I climbed down the west side stair case.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs I noticed the added chill in the air while I walked into the massive shadow cast by the giant structure. I had no idea where the hell I was going until I saw a line of fork lifts and a large cherry picker driving down a steep ramp, twisting it's way down to the underground.
I crossed the street and headed to the ramp, I saw a few others like me, shiny new helmets and hi vis vests. As I approached the hill, I began to see others with similar gear. There must have been almost a hundred like me, both clueless and in awe.
I filed into a line that was just inside the large bay doors that allowed trucks into the stadium. I looked the the right of that door and there was another entrance with a large sign above it that read “Public parking”
“Oh for fuck sake.” I said to my self after walking four blocks.
The area was packed with smokers, but there was a group that stood out among all the starry-eyed noobs. They were all wearing black pants and dirty band shirts that said crew across the back. Some had fancy looking five point climbing harnesses on and they all had sleek black, red and orange helmets, much different than your standard hard helmet. One guy even had large spikes coming off of his, like a pseudo mohawk.
Their exhaustion was obvious as well as their disdain for all the new faces. One of them, a huge guy and at least six foot six, with black shorts, smoked like it was going out of style. A young kid approached him.
“Hey man.” the kid said “You got a smoke I might be able to bum off of you?”
Without even looking at the kid the man replied in a deep gravely, three pack a day kind of voice. “Fuck off punter.” he said bluntly
The line progressed to the check-in, as did my wonder. I was standing in the loading dock of one of Canada's most famous buildings. I remembered being a little kid, watching the Blue Jays wining the world series.
Once, way back when I was a child, no older then 10, my grandparents took me and my cousin Russell to see the Blue Jays play. To be honest I don’t remember a ton but I do remember our seat at the third base line. I remember my grandfather's embarrassment at our wild cheers and screams and my grandmother saying “Oh leave them be Wayne.” when he tried to tell us to sit down.
My grandfather wa-
“HEY, NAME!” a loud voice yelled at me, breaking me free of my reminiscing. I looked up to see the Legend himself, the stringy haired dick I met at the office.
“What is your name?” he asked again, this time with further agitation.
“Conner.” I snapped back. “Jae Conner, I'm your fork lift driver.” I said
“Not today.” he said. “Today you are on our stand-by crew.” he gave me blue wrist band. “Go around ring road to pillar forty-five and you'll get called from there.”
“Ring road?” I said with uncertainty.
“Follow all the people bright one.” He said pointing at a large group of people walking into the dome. I pushed through the crowd and walked to a set of large garage doors. I looked all around me as I approached them. To my left was two large broadcast trucks, in front of them was a huge rack that housed two large rolls of AstroTurf.
Beside the garage doors was a normal fire door that lead to ring road. I walked through it, into a hustle and bustle of people in hi vis vests, golf carts, fork lifts and security personnel. In front of me was ring road, as I walked down the corridor the walls rolled away like a horizon, constantly revealing the internal secrets not often seen by grunts like me.
Ring road was a vital part of making any event happen at the dome. It’s a tunnel that wraps around the entire field, big enough for trucks to bring in stages and whatever else they need to make shows and events happen.
On my left was a series of staff locker rooms and uniform check-in and storage. This is not for players but for the staff that actually work at the dome. One door I came to read “Players' wives club”. It was a non-descript white door with a subtle sign.
Then, just as the cold concrete wall on my right rolled away with my stride, a warm wooden horizon caught my attention. My eyes were locked on the two large doors passed by my right side and I looked up at the elaborate sign above the door.
“Blue Jays’ Dressing Room.”
This room was anything but subtle. The sign brought something of a smile to my normally cold stoic face. You see despite having come here as a child with my grandparents to see a game, I didn’t really like baseball, but you have to admit it’s a pretty cool place to accidentally end up.
After an almost five-minute walk I came to a row of orange fork lifts and a steep hill down to a crowd of people wearing climbing gear walking in and out of a mustard yellow room with four blue grease covered cages about waist high, three large tool lockers and two dirty guys sleeping on broken down card board boxes on the floor and one bald newfie with plans in one hand and a coffee in the other.
At the base of the hill there was a gap in the wall so you could see out to what used to be a sports arena. It had since been transformed into a back stage area. As my trip from the dock ended, I finally found pillar forty-five. It had a sign on it that read “Catering” and an arrow pointing back to an unassuming door on the back wall, tucked between field maintenance gear and rolls of turf. But opposite that, just beyond the tight crowd of people awaiting to be beckoned to perform their job was the wide-open field level of the Skydome.
Across the center of the fifty-six point five million cubic square feet of space was two massive black drapes. They stretched from the east and west wings of the stadium and reached about three sevenths of the way to the center of the stadium, meeting the stage in the middle of the field level. They reached about a hundred and fifty feet into the air. The biggest god damn drapes I had ever seen, and they still only went halfway to the roof.
“STAND-BY CREW, BLUE WRIST BANDS.” A large bearded man yelled at the crowd.
Me and twenty or so people hurriedly shuffled though the thick crowd of cluelessness, slowly assembling like an ill prepared platoon, buying into the glitz, glam and most importantly glory of war.
“Ok, see those stands.” he said pointing to the un-used roll away stadium seats. “Go there till we come and get you.”
******
“And that’s what we did.” I said to Rylynn as I sucked on my twenty fifth cigarette of the shift. The smoking pit just outside the bay door became a regular trip for those of us on stand-by crew. Turns out we were hired to be used just in case something went wrong and they needed to throw some bodies at the problem to solve it. I continued “For thirteen fucking hours we sat there and did nothing.”
“That sucks dude.” Rylynn said to me “You done now?
“Yeah” I said “I slept like shit last night.”
Rylynn began giving her best impression of a slow kid “Oh, you mean to tell me it was hard to sleep on the floor, pun intended.”
“Yeah, your working all night, right? Can I crash in your bed?” I asked
“Ya” she said
Beatie was talking to some guy next to us but overhead our conversation and broke into it. “As a good friend.” she said “Rylynn was fucking on that thing like, two hours ago.”
“Oh, that’s true.” Rylynn said as if she had forgotten
“Dude.” I said, then paused for a moment. “Well sounds like it was a hell of a memorable fuck.”
“Meh, not really.” she said as she lit her smoke. Just then the young guy Beatie had been talking to finally clued into what Rylynn had said
“Dude!” he said to her “I'm right here.”
“Oh.” she said shifting her eyes quickly looking for an exit before finally shrugging her shoulders “Don’t worry kid, we can’t all pitch a perfect game every time we play.” then she walked toward the door. “Peace Jae." she yelled as she walked away.
“Peace.” I said as I threw my butt on the ground
“Hey man.” the young kid said as he followed her through the crowd of blissfully happy smokers.
I got home curled up on my parquet bed and used a sweater as a pillow. Like hell I was gonna’ sleep in Rylynn’s room. There’s not enough soap in the world to get that cleaned off.
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