I understood B's frustration with Rylynn. I have been there with her in the past and to be honest hearing that she had repeated the mistake with someone else, well it made me more than a little frustrated with my little sister from another mister.
However, our fight was in the past and that’s where I let it live. This fight, this war between her and B was really between them. I didn’t have a dog in that fight, so I made my room Switzerland and stayed neutral. I even ate all my meals in there. In the following weeks their battle would get worse, lines would be drawn by all parties.
As the weeks rolled on the summer concert season was coming to an end and so to was the job, I had become very accustomed to. There were a few shows left as well as some minor adventures. Kiss at the shed, some pop star I can’t remember at the dome, and a few events at convention halls. By this point I was rarely aware of who I was working for, just that I had a show. This was a pretty common thing among young hungry stagehands, you know, being fucking clueless.
Getting that single bed led to a sleep and appreciation for having a bed that I never thought I'd be able to have. Though to be honest, to this day I still sleep on hard floors sometimes. Not for any nostalgic reason, no I’m not crazy, but I do find comfort in discomfort.
One day me, Beatie and our buddy Cody had a shift at the dome in the morning and another at The Shed in the afternoon. After our dome shift, we decided just to walk to The Shed. Several cigarettes and a couple of joints later we found ourselves standing at the edge of Lakeshore Blvd.
Only it had been changed. It was serving as part of the race track for Toronto's annual formula one race. Beside us was a massive set of bleachers. They had built a small tunnel into the bleacher stands big enough to accommodate golf carts, ambulances and crew vehicles. Entering was a small group of workers wearing hi-vis vests and carrying their hard helmets. They were returning from a smoke break, and they walked right past security with a friendly nod and a “Hey man.”
“B.” I said
“Yeah.” she replied; her attention also turned towards the tunnel.
“We have what, three hours till our shift at The Shed?”
“Yup!”
“I have an idea.” I said.
“Guys?” Young Cody said with trepidation.
We walk over to the tunnel, now donning our hi-vis vests with hard helmets in hand. We all stopped at the entrance to finish the rest of our cigarettes, we didn’t want to seem to eager. We finished our butts and as we threw them down, I said “Well, let’s get back to it.” and with a smile and a nod towards the security guard, we were in.
There we were: track side. I looked over at Cody, so proud of our infiltration.
“Dude people pay thousands of dollars to get this close.” Cody said
“Naw man.” B quipped “They don’t get this close.”
“No shit eh?” I said. I didn’t know much about the sport. Hell, I don’t know much about any sport. But I have seen the odd race on TV and I knew these cars where some serious feats of-
An explosion and blur of colors scared the shit out of us and the first group of cars blasted by. The ground shook and the audience roared in the stands that where now behind us. As suddenly as they came, they were gone. So fast no detail could be made out on the vehicles. I never really understood just how fast these machines traveled though I did remember driver Dania Patrick saying every time you blink you miss fifty feet of road, but that still didn’t really put it in perspective.
The crowd died down and went back to their sitting position listening to the announcer inform them of the race's progress.
Beatie look supremely confused. “People pay thousands for this?” she asked
“Yeah man, several thousand.” Cody replied.
“Fuckin’ LAME!” she said.
“Agreed. I thought it would be more than pants shitting explosions and blurs. Watching on TV is way better.” I said.
“Let's go get high.” Beatie said
“I'm in.” Me and Cody replied in unison.
For the next week the only gig I got was closing up the Amphitheater for winter and helping to set up a big Christmas tree at the TD buildings downtown. Every time I worked any of these buildings and venues I took it upon myself to learn a bit their history. I always liked history and it helps make the job a bit more interesting. The TD Towers where only kind of interesting.
They were Toronto's first sky scrapers, They were owned and built by Toronto Dominion Bank and were as black as the souls of those who worked with in their walls. From the bottom of my heart, fuck bankers and lawyers.
I think my favorite story about this complex of sky scrapers came from the now closed law firm of Holden, Day and Wilson. Back on July, 9, 1993 Lawyer Garry Hoy was showing a group of students around the twenty-fourth-floor office when he decided to show them just how strong their floor to ceiling windows were. So, he ran and threw himself at the window. Of course how else would you be able to demonstrate that other than risking your life?
Now he had done this before and harmlessly bounced off. No problem, right? Now, you COULD go out and bang a bunch of people at a night club without a condom and PROBABLY be ok. However, I wouldn’t really suggest it as a course of practice and I don’t think anyone with any level of intelligence would either. Perhaps the same train of thought can be applied in this situation, or should have been applied.
As he hit the window the frame that held the glass in place broke free and the thirty-eight-year-old lawyer fell twenty-four stories to his death. I mean he was right, the glass didn’t break, till it hit the ground anyway, and he did bounce, just not the way he intended to. OH, and you remember the ally with the uh, chow mien puke pile I slipped in behind The Royal York, well that’s right behind these buildings.
Anyway, as I was saying. Summer was over, gigs where drying up and as The Legendary Asshole said “Get your self a job, I’m not gonna keep you busy this winter.”
So, I got my resume together and got a job driving fork for a logistics company. It wasn't bad, I got to work largely alone, which I love. It only took a week for me to find the job, something that is largely only possible in a big city like Toronto.
The daily routine became something of a comfort. Unlike being a stagehand, the job was stable and had me out of the apartment at 1400 hours every day and didn’t get home till 0100. By then Rylynn was in her room for the night and Beatie was out at work. Outside of being a stagehand she was a concert promoter at big clubs here in town. She was beginning to see some success with her company actually, so she was often out doing her thing.
Rylynn was focused on her degree; she was attending a pretty prestigious art school. It was great that they had two major goals in their life that consumed so much of their time, because the rest of their time was spent fighting. It had been escalating. Rylynn owed Beatie a lot of money but, to be honest though, Beatie was throwing a ton of hate towards her.
Beatie had money. Between being a stagehand, selling a large amount of weed and promoting shows she had plenty of cash. So, for a friend with means to be hating on another friend for money seemed odd. She knew Rylynn barely worked because of school and I mean, I forgave Rylynn's debt ages ago. I think most friends would understand and put shit to rest just to help maintain the relationship. This felt like something deeper than just a loan. Something almost, vengeful in her vitriol.
One day, well on more than one day, but this day I was woken up again. Again, it was by Beatie coming home late with a hoard of people. To be honest though this time it wasn’t the people that where being loud. It sounded like three or four guys having drinks with Beatie and talking normally. Not loud at all actually, Beatie, however was loud as fuck. talking, laughing. This bitch couldn’t whisper without waking up a deaf guy three blocks away.
I cracked my door open and saw her holding court with people in the living room, just out of eye shot.
“Hey B” I called out.
“Uh, oh hey dude.” she said, her words slightly slurred.
“Can you keep it down man, I have to work tomorrow.” I asked.
“Sorry man, I'm Italian I’m loud, I can’t help it.” she replied; the excuse did not fly though.
“Dude, that’s bullshit!” I said
“What It’s genetic.” she quipped back.
“Dude, I don’t get to walk down the street and oppress a minority and say oops sorry I'm white I can't help it. It doesn’t work like that!” I said. I could hear the guys in the living room laughing. “Just shut the fuck up.” I shut my door. I ended up only sleeping for a couple more hours before I had to get up and go to work.
I was exhausted when I just wanted B to give me some peace but no fucking dice. I went to the bathroom then walked down the hallway to see the big wreck of a mess in our kitchen. I looked over at the four guys sleeping on two couches a chair and an air mattress. I rubbed my eyes and looked again instantly recognizing who they were.
Years ago, I listened to them as a kid, and now they were sleeping in my living room. For legal reasons I can't tell you which famous Canadian rock band was currently slumbering in my living room, but they were huge in the late 90’s and early ought's. All that was missing was the singer. I would later find out Beatie had hired them to play a show she was promoting the night before. Part of the deal was she provided them a place to stay. I'm sure they would have preferred a hotel, but they got my living room and a grumpy version of me to greet them, sour face expression and all. I know it may be surprising but to this day I work with a lot of artists who sold millions of albums but thanks to those awesome record companies they are workin’ like the rest of us.
I didn’t say anything to them, I just walked to my car and went to work. Things where getting to a boiling point for me. I needed some balance and peace, between the fighting and B’s late nights bringing multi-platinum rock stars to our apartment, it was getting annoying.
As the winter rolled on so did I. The new fork gig was really starting to settle with me but, the monotony of the daily grind was a bit numbing. I felt kind of isolated. I drove to work, alone. I drove at work, alone. Then I drove home, you guessed it, alone. I actually found myself missing the minimal human interaction on public transit.
Christmas, my most hated time of the year was fast approaching. I had the normal time off, Christmas day, New Year's Eve/day. That is until the Legend himself gave me a rare winter gig, driving fork no less. New Year's Eve, load-out at Nathan Phillips Square.
Every New Year's Eve the city has a free show at Nathan Philips square in front of city hall. These days there isn’t much to it, but back then it was a pretty huge build and a country wide broadcast hosted by Kevin Frankish, a Popular television personality here in Canada land.
I was just there for the overnight load out, not the big show. But we still got to catch the end of it. It wasn’t just me that got the call for this gig. Both Rylynn and Beatie got hired as did young Cody. He actually lived outside of the city, so he has been surfing our couch that week while he worked the stage build. He liked staying with us. To be honest I think he was just trying to nail Rylynn. If you follow my colloquial metaphor.
It had snowed that day, but that didn’t stop thousands of Canucks from coming out and ringing in 2012. Hell for all we knew the Mayans could have been right and the apocalypse was upon us so everyone just said screw it, drink up. A little booze can help one deal with the biting cold while enjoying the free show before the fire and brim stone rained down from the heavens, or whichever god's kingdom it is that will be destroying us this evening.
We had to push our way through the crowd, packed so tightly into the square their noise and energy was palpable. Beatie and Rylynn lead the way as usual. I watched them as they laughed and enjoyed the evening. Something about working on a show can really pull frenemies together. But seriously, it was nice to see them at peace, even if just for the night.
The show was damn near done by the time we fought our way back stage to the production office where our crew stood huddled together, coffee in one hand cigarettes in the other. It was minus 15 (I don't know what that is in American. Get with the rest of the planet guys) and lightly snowing as we waited for the crew lead to do his tool box meeting before we got started.
We could hear the crowd begin to count. Five, Four, Three. To be honest it hadn't really registered in my head that we would be getting our marching orders as people rang in the first few minutes of the year.
“LISTEN UP!” a tall white bald man said from the front door of the production office. His faded green high vis and worn hard helmet showed years of abuse. Everyone there gave him their complete attention, especially the riggers.
“Happy new year's guys.” he said as the small group let out a quick cheer. “Now let's be careful out there. It’s cold, it’s late and it’s slippery. Watch out for your brothers and sisters out there, keep each other safe.” he said. As he spoke, Kevin Frankish came off the stage and was caught off guard at the large group of dirty stagehands filling the air with smoke standing there. Coiled, cat like and ready to get to work.
“Whoa, you guys really don’t waste, anytime do you?” He said “Have a good night guys.”
The group bid him a loud farewell as he smiled awkwardly and went on to his green room in city hall just behind the large stage.
“OK GUYS LISTEN UP FOR YOUR NAME AND CREW ASSIGNMENTS!” The large Bald guy yelled getting every one's attention again. The night for me was pretty busy. Driving around on snow increased my fork lifts stopping distance twenty-fold. So, it was a little tricky but all in all it was a good night.
As the shift came to a close there was this odd moment as the sun rose. It started snowing again. No wind or anything, just big fat fluffy snowflakes fell upon the hi vis army of stagehands. The sun reflecting off the nearby building provided a unique beam of light, nature's own little show for us. We had millions of dollars in gear for that show, but nothing stuck in my head more than watching snowflakes dance in and out of a beam of sun light as they landed softly on the helmets of the workers.
I’ll be honest though, beauty aside, it made working and absolute cunt. Pushing our cases through snow, pulling up covered cables, and don’t even get me started on driving a Toyota-built industrial forklift in that shit or in any wet or snowy condition- let me settle it for you, it's shit. You turn the wheel and nothing happens. So, people had to bring cases to me so I could stack them. It was too dangerous for me to drive around while so many people where walking around. But we all got it done and by 10:30 we were back at our place in Parkdale.
Though, we were not alone. We had brought Cody back of course but also This guy named Monkey and his nineteen-year-old son (a second-generation stagehand) along with a few other people that escaped my memory. Beatie and Rylynn cooked a pretty epic meal while we all drank and smoked weed and joked around. It was like having our own little stage family.
We sat and ate while Beatie cooked bacon for the first time in her life, which was a topic of conversation for a good ten minutes. For the first time I felt like I had a real genuine connection with people for being me. Just Jae, just a grunt with nothing special and an odd approach to things, but in this line of work that is an asset, not a liability. When I finally went and curled up on my single bed I slept at peace. For the first time in years, I went to sleep truly at peace.
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