Memory Lane

"This sucks. I don't wanna be here."

Nan finally broke the silence with an expectantly negative comment. She and Buck had been sitting at the bar staring at the muted television suspended from the ceiling, idly stirring their drinks, catching random snippets of conversation from the few people around and trying to ignore the jukebox.

It was a weekday, which specific day is irrelevant since they are all basically the same in Innisfail. Nan had finished a shift waitressing and Buck was still unemployed and now they were at the bar.

Just as irrelevant were the images and corresponding captions on the television screen that held their stupid gaze for so long. This always happened at that particular vantage point of the Ooze. Inevitably no matter what was on, one would glance up and get locked in. Buck thought to himself that's probably what happens with most people where ever any TV may happen to be. When he found himself at other seats around the bar he would watch people in that particular spot, watch them as they watched the TV, all with the same vacant stare.

"Well, what do you think? You wanna bail?" Buck responded, optimistically, "Grab a bottle of wine, go for a wander?"

"Do you have your headphones? Cause I wanna listen to mine." said Nan

"Look who you're talking to." Buck said, holding his palms upward with a grin.

"Ok," she said, "let's skee-daddle."

Nan finished her gin tonic, sans olives, and pushed back her chair.

They both popped in their respective headphones, both ear-buds, zipped up their hoodies and buttoned their jackets. As they headed for the door, they waved to Sandy at her post behind the bar as she said a goodbye of which neither could hear, “Stay warm kids!”

...

As soon as they stepped outside, Nan reached into her purse, took out her pack of Canadian Classics, and lit a smoke even though the 7 Day Liquor store on the opposite side of the building was literally a forty second walk away and she would have to either extinguish it, stand outside and smoke it, or pitch it before entering. She opted for a combination of the latter two upon arrival.

Gak was manning the till, eager for the next few hours to pass when work would be finished and he could at long last cash out and walk through the back door of the establishment, into the bar, and have a beer.

"Evening folks." Gak said giving a nod with his bristly chin.

"Good evening Gareth." said Buck making a bee-line for the beer cooler. Nan carried on to the back of the shop to exchange in some brief small talk with Keeba-lalma. Keeb was picking up some supplies before going to a party, as was par for the course.

Buck placed a crinkled ten dollar bill and a bottle of black berry Arbor Mist on the counter. Six dollar bottles of twist-off-cap wine were basically the only wine he ever bought. Nan joined Buck at the till as Gak rang it through and placed it in a brown paper bag.

"Much obliged Gak, have a good one." said Buck sliding the brown bag into the inside pocket of his black pea-coat.

"You too" he smiled.

...

The pair exited the store and immediately put their headphones back in, before strolling across the parking lot on their aimless journey.

They reached the south west intersection and crossing the desolate street thought it was an appropriate time to open the wine. No sooner had the seal broke when they noticed red and blue lights flickering from the alleyway of the adjacent building.

Music blaring away in their ears, they both mouthed the word "Fuck."

Knowing they had been seen, Buck did the best he could at concealing the open liquor and held it beside him as they silently passed. The police were far too busy with a drunk driver to bother with the drunk walkers and, much to their elation, they carried on their merry little way. Nothing says sigh of relief like avoiding a confrontation with police.

To celebrate, once they were at a safe distance, Buck produced the bottle again and they handed it back and forth, trading swigs and singing out loud whatever song either one happened to be hearing, creating some mad, drunk accapella as they walked down the middle of a small town residential road.

It was a cool night, at the absolute tail end of winter when the range of Alberta weather can cover almost anything. Gorgeous sunshine for a week right before two feet of ridiculous snow which will immediately proceed to melt all over the place and make a mess of everything just as it had a week prior.

This particular evening was neither frosty nor muddy, it was nice and dry, with only a winter's wind remaining. The anticipation of spring weather was evident in the duo simply by their enthusiasm to drink outdoors.

It was this chilling breeze that prompted Buck to nod at Nan when they approached the United Church. He waved a hand cloaked in a fingerless mitten in front of her and gestured with his face to the church entrance, a set of concrete steps that would offer them shelter and enough privacy that they would not be noticed by any passers by.

She nodded and they stepped up the curb and across the dead grass. The serenity of their walk had finally settled in after the near-miss with the cops when the sudden explosion of the churches motion sensor light in the entrance shattered it once again. And once again they both cursed and squinted their eyes, experiencing some kind of vampiric contempt for light.

Fuckin pigs. Fuckin church. Fuckin lights.

Looking at one another and laughing, they continued on around the backside of the building before coming upon a bench in a small deviation of the church wall. The bench was chained to a shed.

They sat down and Buck removed his headphones and turned off his Ipod. Nan removed one ear phone and turned down the volume on her cell phone.

"Gimmie that." she said holding out her hand, fingers and thumb extended to the diameter of the bottle.

Buck handed it to her and sighed lightly, looking out at the sky. It was incredibly clear.

"What were you listening to?" said Nan after swallowing the gulp of wine.

"Ummmm, afew things," said Buck, "some Waits, some Bloated Pig."

Bloated Pig was a band of fellow Innisfailures relocated to Calgary. It was comprised of Wilhelm, Vahgner, and Hemlox Wolfbane. The three of them lived together, worked at the same job and played in the band together. No wonder their music was so angry.

She smiled. "Aw, I miss those guys."

"Yeah, me too.” said Buck, taking the bottle back as she handed it over, “What were you listening to?"

"Oh just Fiddy and some other rap shit you wouldn't like." she laughed, digging around in her purse for a lighter to give purpose to the cigarette she had just left dangling in her lips.

"People must think we're just completely fucked, eh?" Buck asked semi-rhetorically.

He was referring of course, to the fact that he and Nan could often be seen walking around town, side by side, both wearing headphones, neither one speaking to the other. This was something Nan, Buck, and Crusty Bill Dangers usually did. Everyone else either drove, didn't have headphones or thought it was absurd to be in individual domes of music while spending time with someone. May as well be alone, they thought.

With Nan and Buck, however, it was perfectly normal. They both loved music as much as the other, albeit varying genres, and their friendship was such that they did not need to constantly converse simply for the sake of conversation. Silence never seemed to be uncomfortable for either party.

"Newsflash darlin': We are fucked." Nan retorted.

She had misinterpreted the comment. She thought Buck was referring to their relationship with one another and how some may find it bizarre.

A brief history lesson:

Nan and Buck met in junior high. Through afew friends they found themselves socializing in the same circle and they all became partners in crime during that glorious age when a young person discovers personal freedom and individuality.
That as well as marijuana, alcohol, punk rock, and a general distaste for authority.
Alas, this period came to an end when Nan`s family moved to a neighboring town. Her visits back were seldom and although Buck rarely saw her, the other girls in the group still kept in close contact. Somewhere around the tender age of fifteen, afew of the girls played match maker and got the two together in what would become the first cloud-nine-retarded-teenager love that either would experience.
Alas, this period would also come to an end as so many crazy young romances do. The difference, however, was that they remained very close friends. There had of course been afew bumps along the way, as a transition of that nature is never easy, but where many had failed, they had succeeded. Buck was always reminded of her whenever he listened to the droning chorus of "Hey" by the Pixies.

"We're chained. We're chained. We're chained."

No matter how much he had tried from time to time, he could not shake that girl, and although they were both certain that there was no romantic future for them, it didn't matter.
They loved each other, they were chained.

"But really," Buck said, "Who does that? I remember once when I was overseas, I was having a pint on some patio in Belfast. For once it was a nice sunny day and people were out and about and I saw this guy walking down the street, with his headphones on, playing air guitar in between bursts of air drums, singing out loud, and I thought to myself, 'That's what I look like?' Fuuuuuuck"

They both laughed. Nan was certain she'd heard the story before. Buck had a tendency to find relevance in things he had done traveling, she believed, just so he could bring up the fact that he'd been somewhere that perhaps someone else hadn't. It was a harmless stroke of his ego so she humored him.

"Tradesies." she said, offering her cigarette in exchange for the wine. Buck obliged.

Nan took another pull from the bag and gave it a little swish after wards, like she was ringing an ugly brown bell.

"Not a whole bunch left. What do you wanna do after this?"

"Well, Slickers is close, probably dead. We could go there, grab a drink, warm up and take it from there." Buck suggested.

Slickers was the so-called country and western bar located in the north-east corner of the Henday strip mall afew blocks north of the United Church. Nan drank there more often than Buck did as it was closer to her work and she was less likely to see people she may know. Buck didn't really like it. The jukebox was trash and the crowd was too juvenile. They behaved as if they'd never been drunk before and that Slickers tavern was a dance club straight out of a top 40`s music video. He was more accustomed to the docile boobery of the old drunks at the Ooze.

Even so, they needed a change of pace, it was a convenient walk and would likely be empty.

"Yeah, ok." she said, "here, kill it."

Nan handed him the wine and Buck tipped it back without a moments thought, setting the empty bottle beside the bench. They got up and once again went for their headphones.

Buck set his Ipod to shuffle, and met Nan`s eyes. They smiled and nodded at each other and then started across the grass.

This is where Buck slipped into a hazy time warp of sorts.

There is something about music, especially when it is the only sound a person can hear, that does something strange to the psyche. The right songs, played at the right moments can affect one in such a way that they almost hallucinate on their own bliss. When Buck pressed play on his personal stereo, this is what happened:

...

Matthew Good Band - The Inescapable Us

Buck began walking across the familiar patch of grass of the United Church. He remembered going to that church for boy scout meetings when he was eleven, just a year before he met Nan and the rest.

Buck's parents encouraged him to partake in some kind of extracurricular activity and he chose boy scouts, not because he wanted to learn how to tie knots, but because his friend Chops was in it. All scouts ever was to Buck was a night of the week when he and Chops would piss around at the church and hang out with each other. This was a time before Chops was even Chops. At this time he was still Moose. This is the name his father gave him. Moose's father and Buck's father were old friends. Such is life in a small town.

Scouts was the principle reason Buck and Chops became the incredibly close friends they did. Buck recalled one camping trip in particular where he and Chops had ditched the rest of the troop on a lake shore where they were about to light fireworks. They climbed up a bank and into some dead trees overlooking everyone else. It was dusk. The two of them talked about girls and music and just as the other boys began lighting the fireworks, the stunning beauty of the northern lights came rocketing from the horizon clear across the night sky, completely outdoing anything in the scouts' arsenal. The two boys watched in silence as the green, blue, and pink hues danced through the stars, stars that they would then decide to sleep under that very night. They were so enamored with the event that once they got back to their tent they immediately dragged their sleeping bags outside.

Buck looked to his right as he walked and could clearly see a game of touch football he had played years prior where Chops insisted their team be called "The Mosh Potatoes" Small town central Alberta was still in a very post grunge state.

Buck looked to his left and he could vividly see himself and Chops sitting on top of a group of mailboxes alongside the curb, arguing about weather or not Metallica was remotely punk rock or not based on their tendency to cover the Misfits at their shows.

That was the last year that Chops' age would allow him to be in Boy Scouts. After Chops was finished, Buck quit.

His left foot stepped from the grass onto the curb, his right then proceeded onto the street.

...

Broken Social Scene - Cause = Time

Approaching the intersection, Bucks mind jumped even further back, to the night of his tenth birthday. This birthday was still an innocent occasion. He invited over some friends from school, there was cake, hot dogs, a fire in the backyard, a sprinkler set up to keep cool and when the evening came, he and his pals jumped on their bikes and hit the town. Oh, to be at an age when the simple act of riding a bike was more than thrilling enough. No destination or purpose, just riding around.

The crew had come to the intersection he was standing in now. Buck could see them riding up the hill, under the dim streetlight. Buck anticipated what was to happen next and he watched his childhood friend Stephen crest that hill, skid out on some gravel by the curb, and fall off his bike, badly scraping his knee on the pavement.

He watched as he walked, saw the drunk adults having a fire in the yard below approach them and bring Stephen down to a lawn chair to dress his wound.

Reaching the bottom of the hill, with the scene behind him now, Buck looked back over his shoulder just in time to see those nice people`s yard turn into the overgrown mess it was now. Who knew how long that house had been empty. Buck hadn't thought about it in a long time. The only person from that birthday Buck had anything to do with now was Bizz. That was when they first met.

Looking ahead of himself again, he saw Nan afew meters further down the road performing her funny little dance/walk she did when in the right company and in the right mood. She was singing to herself and finger-dancing as she went. Reeeeal graceful, Buck thought to himself with a grin and quickened his pace to catch up.

Once at Nan's side, he looked across the street at the D&R drive through. It had been there for as long as he could remember and almost every one of his friends had at one point worked there, himself included. It took Buck three short weeks to quit, after being scolded by his short Korean boss, Cecelia, for whistling. Trying to defend himself Buck laughed and said
"C'mon Cecelia, whistle while you work, ya know?"

She looked at him with as serious an expression as she could muster and said it was distracting to him and to his other co-workers. He nodded while thinking to himself, adios you preposterous bitch.

Buck did not see any of these memories as he walked. What he saw was a scene that occurred on a night very much like this one, but in the dead of summer, shortly after his eighteenth birthday. He saw himself on his knees, bleeding into his lap from a gash on his forehead and just beyond that he saw JFK holding someone’s bicycle in the air before throwing it.

This was what one may call the climax of the absurdly drawn out altercation between Buck and one Leonard Young.

Buck and JFK were walking back to Buck's parent’s house to crash after a night out and as luck would have it they ran into Leonard, or Lenny, and one of his friends on their bikes, right in front of D&R. Buck had been waiting for this moment. For months now he'd heard that Lenny wanted to maim him on account of Buck having hung out with his girlfriend some night awhile back. More specifically, having touched her.

A little background on this messy scenario:

Lenny's girlfriend was a young girl called Dak Shat. Long before the pair began seeing each other, Dak was a member of that same circle of friends that Buck had been introduced to with Nan so many years previous. Dak was with them for all that initial rebellion, but somewhere along the way she shacked up with Lenny and that was the end of it. She was basically under lock and key for the next seven of her very brief teenage years. Buck saw very little of her, but, as with Nan, Dak still kept in touch with Bucks older sister, Edith the Fedith. So it was one summer evening in Buck's backyard, he and Bizz came upon Edith, Dak, Nan, and Crusty Bill drinking 40's on the patio. They joined the girls and everyone had a great time. Dak got incredibly drunk and began wrestling in the grass with Buck. It seemed so innocent at the time, that was until Lenny caught wind of it and decided that Buck must pay for his transgression.

And so it was when they met in front of D&R, Buck had the ethics of what to do and what not to do with another man's lady frantically slurred out to him before getting one-punched into the ground. JFK, bless his drunken heart, tried to help out and got knocked down as well. The cyclists rode off as JFK collected Buck off the grass, and they wandered to the hospital to get stitches. At least it was over and done with.

Buck saw only afew quick flashes of this memory and with a shake of his head decided it was best not to dwell on such things, especially since every motivation for that night had disappeared. Some years later Dak and Lenny predictably split up and no sooner had she left him then her friendship with Buck had resumed. More so, their friendship became even stronger than it had been when they met, perhaps because they were deprived of it for so long. During moments of clarity, usually following fits of laughter, she would remark on all the years they had missed out on and Buck would have to remind her of all the years they still had to go.
What a manic saga.

...

Frank Black and the Catholics - True Blue

Directly to the west of D&R was A Liquor Barn outlet and directly to the north of that was the southern-most point of the strip mall Buck and Nan were heading for. It used to be a SAAN store, but was now empty.

Stepping onto the concrete between the Liquor Barn and the SAAN, Buck saw himself, no more than sixteen, dressed in the denim uniform of a skinheaded youth, lit cigarette in his mouth, hands in his pockets, trying in vain to skateboard in a pair of ten-eye steel-toed Dr. Martens.

Buck was out with Potatoes, Chops, and Bizz, who were actual skateboarders. Buck tried his hand at it around age twelve and was terrible at it. He simply lacked the persistence and the stubborn will to improve, so he dropped it. On this occasion he was trying to play a game of POSER with them, borrowing Potatoes board. Needless to say, he lost terribly.
Buck remembered how much fun it was to lose.

Rounding the corner of the SAAN store and heading north along the strip mall brought a barrage of images into Buck's view. Stepping around the building exposed him to the whole parking lot and as he walked up the mall sidewalk, Nan barely leading the way, he clearly saw Bizz grind the legion rail, which was simply a steel tube that divided up parking spaces at the Royal Legion. Bizz slid right off the end, landing it effortlessly and then faded into a session on Dave Wasted's fun box. There was Potatoes, Wasted, JFK, and Bizz all skating in an autumn snow fall, which then faded into one of many manual competitions across the parking lot, using parking stall paint marks as a gauge. JFK, the biggest sonofabitch out of all of them could almost always manual the farthest. Astounding.

As Buck's eyes continued panning from south to north across the open lot he then saw the boys having a session at the old Extra Foods curb, which was simply an abnormally high curb that everyone used to do tricks off of. These are the skate spots you find in a small town, whichever ones you can. He saw Potatoes nollie off it and roll back into the lot after wards to retrieve a lonely shopping cart. All day, skating the curb and taking back carts for the quarters they delivered, quarters with which one could use to buy fifty cent cans of pop from the grocery store, or if skating was done for the day, cross the lot and grab a VHS rental also for fifty cents.

Buck sighed. Everything was so simple. Everything was so easy.

Looking beyond the mall, Buck saw a train rolling by in the dark. The train tracks ran just north of Extra Foods, on the backside of the strip mall. He was briefly puzzled by the absence of a horn that he surely would have heard over his headphones until he realized the train was also a memory. He knew this because the train he saw chugging by was covered in Christmas lights of all different colors.

Buck had seen the train one cold winter night with Crusty Bill. It should be noted that Crusty Bill's nick-name was simply a tongue-in-cheek joke with her then boyfriend, now co-parent and soul mate, the Animal. Crusty Bill, contrary to how it sounded, was as beautiful as they come.

They had been sitting on the train tracks behind Extra Foods, sharing a six pack of Guinness. It was a rest stop on a moon-lit drunken walk, similar to the one he was currently on with Nan, music blaring, destination unknown. They stopped at this point on the tracks because it was out of sight from any roads, hidden by the mall to the south and a hill to the north.

As is usually the case on a railroad track, lights appeared off in the distance prompting Buck and Crusty to walk up the neighboring hill and let the train pass. They stood in wonderous surprise as they saw the approaching train was covered in the neon lights of the season, with the final car spelling the words "Happy Holidays" on the side in vibrant reds and greens. It was over almost as soon as it began and the pair looked at each other, mouths agape as if they weren't sure what they had seen.
Buck didn't even know such a thing existed, and considered the odds of himself and Crusty Bill being on the tracks on that exact evening, at that precise time, and how much of a fluke it really was.
In his head, they were the only two people in the world who had seen that train, and it was just as likely that it had passed them by specifically to wish them seasons greetings.
He and Crusty Bill laughed like drunken hyenas and moseyed on down the tracks.

...

D.B.S. - Kitchen Noise

Right at this moment in Bucks recollections, when his nostalgia was at such soaring heights already, this band came on out of the hundreds of others, and gave his wander through time the finale it deserved.

This was the absolute favorite band of his very good friend, sadly departed from the world, Weenie Potter. Never, since she had introduced him to the Victoria based pop-punk group, had he listened to them without thinking of her. Those songs would remind him of her sweet face and brilliant smile every time he heard them until he was himself departed from this earthly domain.

Grade Seven Drama class. Buck and Bizz walked in that first day and saw Weenie and Nan sitting across from them. They didn't look like any other girls in the school.

So began the circle.
They bonded around being outsiders, characterized by skateboarding, music that defied the norm of small town taste, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, sneaking out late at night and constantly loitering at the Club Cafe. Some of these things are classic symptoms of youth, it was just that those kids seemed to get to them before the rest of their peers and were border line ostracized for it.

That first winter they all spent together was a revelation for all. In three short months, over many silly wasted nights, they had become as good of friends as young kids can be. Sadly, that was as long as that golden period lasted. After that, the friendships were forced to change. Nan moved, Dak was imprisoned by her relationship, Chops moved, JFK dropped out and moved, and Weenie as well was forced to change schools. They all remained friends, though it was never the same as it was for that first winter.

But nothing ever is, Buck thought to himself as they reached the bar's entrance. Every year brings changes and all era's, no matter how good or important, come to pass. There had been many good times since, as well as bad and Buck stopped to remind himself that he was currently in one of those golden age's. He always was, and always would be. The present is the most golden age of them all.

As someone once said about the late great Joe Strummer, his light shined brighter than the rest of ours and as such, burned out earlier. For that reason, we cannot resent their passing.

Such was the case with Weenie. After much personal anguish, she took her own life.

Buck stood on the sidewalk in front of Slickers staring over the empty lot, and through the distorted noise and painful wailing of the song, he could hear Nan squeaking his name. Snapping from his trance, he took out one headphone and looked at her.

"Yes?" he said.

"Are you coming in or what?" said Nan, obviously not wanting to go in alone. She had that doe-eyed expression on her face that she subconsciously used when she wanted something. Buck loved it.

"Yeah, I'm just gonna finish this smoke and this song, oldy foldy?" Buck hadn't even realized he was smoking until then.

"Ew," She said, "Hurry up, ok?" she said, shivering, and went inside.

Looking back toward the parking lot, he introspectively inhaled the smoke into his lungs, breathing it out slowly. It's a good thing that Nan had interrupted him, before he got too lost in the wilderness of his past. What he had thus far experienced that evening, to him, seemed like the tip of a very large ice berg.
Buck thought about the Kurt Vonnegut classic "Slaughter-house Five" and the concept of time presented in it. That time as we perceive it is false, that rather than the two dimensional moment to moment way our lives pass, all time is actually one instant with all things happening simultaneously.

He thought about all the moments he alone had lived right there in front of his eyes, all crammed together, all happening at once, all these faint versions of himself jostling around one another like a street in midday Tokyo. He thought about how much of the surrounding buildings and patches of pavement had imprinted his soul, and he smiled.

It's a good thing, he thought, that the universe is infinite, otherwise there would be no room for the future. He looked at the stars, said goodnight to Weenie, turned and stepped into the bar as the song echoed it's final words:

"Can your stereo go that high?"