The year I graduated high school there was a bus strike. I was back at my usual summer job on the dock of the posh Bridges Bistro on Granville Island, but we lived way up in MacKenzie Heights (on 37th at the top of MacDonald Street). That’s gotta be a good six or seven miles -uphill- from Granville Island, for those of you not from around here. I was the only one of my friends going on to university so they got to enjoy a generally leisurely summer while I worked basically every day to earn my tuition. That wasn’t going to prevent me from having my share of fun, though, I can promise you that!
We were sort of the ‘rebels’ of our high school; not in any dangerous or intentional way. It’s just that when your school is full of pink Lacoste wearing preppie kids you tend to stand out if black is the predominant colour of your wardrobe. And safety pins . . . oh yeah! haha. It was 1984 and Madonna and Micheal Jackson ruled the airwaves. My friends and I felt like we were part of a special ‘elite’ because of the effort we put into finding good music. Bands which at the time were completely unknown (and still would mostly be today if it wasn’t for the current use of a lot of their music for TV ads).
We were ‘alternative’ back before it became a label; back when old ladies in Kerrisdale used to cross the street so they wouldn’t have to pass me on the sidewalk. Back when skaters used to be beaten up, before they became a fashion icon. It wasn’t as though we were a strong-and-fast “group”, a clique; it’s just that our interests in the unusual naturally gravitated us towards each other. We’d meet up at concerts, revelling in the fact that there WERE other people like us, that we weren’t really lost in a vast wasteland of bobs and kids that got fancy sports cars for their 16th birthdays. Obligatory Christmas vacations in Hawaii, that sort of thing.
During summer it’s easy to lose touch with friends; there’s no convenient school smoking pit to meet up in at lunch time and make plans. But this time it was different, with the bus strike we were stranded. Not one of us had our own car. Well, Kyle had a motorcycle -something that instantly set him apart when he joined our class at the beginning of grade 12- but it was permenantly in need of work. Besides, you can’t pack seven of your closest friends onto a motorcycle and boot downtown. Most of these kids lived in the same area, around Cambie and 12th, but a couple of us were stuck way up on the hill across town.
A solution presented itself from an odd and unexpected source; one of the teachers at our school, Mrs. Bridal. I had her for French once. The caption under her name in my grade 12 annual was, “That’s not how we speak French in Scotland!” which made me laugh out loud because having grown up in Ontario and hearing lots of native French-Canadian speakers I can safely say that her French accent was atrocious. Add a weak Scottish brogue in there and you’ve got a lot of kids generally messing up a beautiful language. Super nice lady, though, I’ll give her that.
Anyways, she went away for the whole summer. Two months. But left her son behind at home, a boy a grade below me that I didn’t know at the time, Johnny Bridal. John decided to open his house to any of us within this loosely-conglomorated extended ‘group’. Those that had just finished grade 11 I didn’t know, except Kelly. “California Kelly” he was known as, arriving at our school mid-term and making quite a splash (with the ladies). He stood out not for wearing black with spiky hair, but for looking clean cut in his skinny tie and sharp pants. Very Ska. He’s also the only one that actually knew how to skate board properly, although a lot of the other boys carried boards around as a statement of their coolness. They had to be careful, though, in deciding where to take them because some of the tough East Van kids could decide to beat the shit out of them. That didn’t matter any more, because we were never going to have to go back to that stupid school again. Although we did one time, at least, at night to drink beer on the roof. That was stupid, Audra got the back of her sweater caught in the barbed wire climbing back down and it took three boys quite a few minutes to untangle her.
So my friend Janet Battle took me and our other buddy Johnna over to Johnny Bridal’s house one day. Other kids were there, some of which I knew; Kevin McBride was in my grade, and Bill Ritchie (he’s the one that lived close to me) was in my grade 12 Acting class. The rest of the kids were from grade 11 and I would get to know them as the summer progressed. So Johnny Bridal showed us around the house, explained the ground rules (no going up into his mother’s room; the first rule that was broken deep in the wee hours of the night after smoking hash all day when one of the boys found some girl that he wanted to try to see if he could get laid) and explained that he couldn’t be there all the time because he had to go over to his dad’s house at regular intervals. But we were welcome to stay as much as we wanted as long as we were cool, didn’t break anything, and didn’t bring 20 unwanted kids over.
I was ecstatic because, not only would I have a ready-made small party to go to after every shift, but his house was almost a stones-throw from Granville Island. I could so much more easily ride my bike over to his place at midnight after an intense evening shift than I could slug my way up that huge hill to my parents’ house. Within a couple of weeks we settled into a nice environment; most of the boys just slept on a couch, while Janet and Johnna both lived a few blocks away. Usually we just stayed up all night anyways. It was a summer of the girls drinking beer (or cider) and the boys smoking hash, watching Repo Man in endless repetition, listening to music and occasionally organizing ourselves to make it out to a concert. Lots of crazy shit happened that summer, and I’ll unravel it in some semblance of chronological order as it occurs to me.
I’m on my way to Janet’s house, then we’re going to pick up some beer and head over to Johnny Bridal’s. We’ve decided to keep the core group of house dwellers to a minimum; of course lots of people can drop by and hang out unannounced, but we don’t want too too many people to actually take up residence. Otherwise it’s too hard to keep control, make sure things don’t get too messy/broken, or prevent personality conflicts. If we all understand that our group is the only one really living there, it’ll be easier to kick troublemakers out when John’s not around. We want this situation to be able to last all summer, not just a couple of weeks!
When I told my parent’s what we were going to do they weren’t too happy, but tough shit! What they hell are they going to do about it . . . apart from giving me a bed to sleep in they have no control over my life. I’ve been paying for all my own stuff except bare necessities for a couple of years, I eat at work . . . I’m not dependent on them in any way. I had some real fights with my mum during grade 12 because I refused to accept her curfew. She tried to tell me I had to be home by midnight! which was laughable becuase nothing even starts happening until midnight. I’d be at a punk show at the New York Theatre, can you see it? At 11:30 I’d tell my friends, “I have to go home now.” Yeah right. So I told her there was no way I’d be home by then, and I wasn’t. After a couple of months of fighting we came up with an arrangement; she would leave the hall light on when they went to bed and I would turn it off when I got home (at 3:30, haha). Then, when she awoke in the early hours she could at least know that I was home safe.
So when the discussion started about living at John Bridal’s house I just used the same tactic; I told them that it’s safer than trying to ride so far uphill after midnight, so that’s what I was gonna be doing. Her stupid husband didn’t like it much, not because he’s worried about me but because I challenged their authority. My mum capitulated, weakly saying she doesn’t like it much though. She’s smart enough to know the times when I will choose to listen to her from the times when I’ll go and do what the hell I want.
Janet’s ready to go but we have to wait for Johnna.
“Should I leave my bike here or take it with us?” I have to work tomorrow morning but I’m not sure if there’s anywhere to lock my bike at John’s house. Besides, we’re stopping at the liquor store and I don’t really want to be encumbered by the bike during our detour. I could just lock it outside here somewhere then pick it up on my way to work.
“I wouldn’t leave anything outside here overnight, even if it’s locked.” Janet lives in a condominium complex, I think they’re nice but she’s says it’s sort of ‘lower income’ and there’s unsavoury people skulking about in the wee hours of the night.
I feel like a geek dragging my bike along with my friends as we run our errand; I hope we don’t run into any cute boys along the way. I’m too lazy to lock my bike outside the liqour store so Johnna waits outside with it while Janet and I go in for our beer. Well, beer for me, they drink cider (yuck, sugar). Johnna’s so quiet, she’s like a Janet’s little shadow. She hardly ever says anything and I can’t quite figure out why they’re friends. But she’s not annoying in any way and when she does speak she’s reasonably intelligent so I have nothing against her. It’s just easy to forget she’s there when Janet, the boys and I get to talking.
I always have to be the one to go into the liquor store, sometimes without my friends, because I’m the only one that can pull off the whole, “Why yes I am 19, no need to ask me for ID” attitude when we get to the till. Janet can pass for 19 too, but without me there has less luck. On the rare occasion that we do get ID’d we’ve always managed to find some helpful soul outside relatively fast to buy our stuff for us. But never at the Cambie St. store, so far not one of us has been ID’d ever.
Back outside we rejoin Johnna. Our chatter revolves mostly around this new lifestyle arrangement and the various characters. Janet is developing a crush on John McRae -personally I can’t see why- so we gossip about that. Myself I’m not really attracted to any of the guys, which I think is better to keep things less complicated. John McRae seems self-centred and kind of a spoiled brat to me, I don’t know him very well but I remember him from school last year (even though he was in grade 11). At the Thompson Twins concert I spied him on the floor just before the show started; he looked remarkably like the lead singer and caused quite a stir with the little teenies. Janet called him out on that one;
“You got your hair cut just like him before the show!”
“No I didn’t.” He tried to deny it but even I could see him snickering surreptitiously.
“Yes you did! Then you got there just before the show started and all the little girls started twittering because they thought you were him.”
This, to Janet, is flirting. Myself I don’t have patience for that male “trip you up in lies then impose on your sympathy as they apologize” tactic. But Janet loves it, and gets embroilled in the nonsense every time. The other guys waver between trying to get John busted (I sense that they think he’s kind of a brat too) and that other male tactic of sticking together no matter what until one of them ‘gets the girl’. I only get involved in these kinds of discussions when someone makes a blatant error in logic, or tries to push the girl too far into something she clearly doesn’t want to do. Otherwise, she’s on her own. If you don’t want to get trapped in it, don’t engage in discussions like that. Janet almost always starts it, so I let her drown on her own. Johnna, as usual, sits quietly listening but saying almost nothing at all.
I quite like Johnny Bridal; he’s a very reasonable fellow, but he’s not here today. Bill Ritchie is kind of the background support system for the guys. Not that he doesn’t speak or is wallpaper by any means; he’s just decidedly unsexy in almost every way and no teenage girl -with her eyes firmly on what’s ‘cool’- would be attracted to him. Kevin McBride was in my grade but I generally stayed away from him because he has a raging ego. I don’t really have time for people that -unjustifiably- think they’re so much better than the rest of humanity. I can see why he’s friends with John McRae. Trevor I dont’ know at all, he seems to be hanging back assessing all the various characters in our group. I’m doing pretty much the same thing so I can’t really hold that against him. Luckily I have a huge crush on a guy at my work, so I’m not tempted by any of these guys at all.
There’s a couple of other girls here, both from grade 11. Faye and Rangae. They hang out with Kevin McBride’s little sister Marissa, but she’s not with them today. They’re a bit silly, but fun, and full-on punk (Rangae has a mohawk) so I decide to like them right away.
We pass our first night together listening to music and slowly getting drunk. The boys have gone in on a big chunk of hash that they’re all sharing instead. I watch as they suck the smoke off the hot knives for the first round, kind of giving them a hard time about what they are doing to their brain. I dont’ think kids this young should do drugs of any kind. Trevor launches into a good debate with me about the relative bad effects of alcohol over THC, and before we know it dawn is upon us.
Soon I have to go to work, and now I’m jealous because I can see they’re all settling down for a nice sleep. I’m so glad I just have an easy ride to Granville Island as opposed to all the focus I would need to go from my house. Picking up a juice on the way I ride with one hand in the morning light, enjoying the breeze and reminscing about the events of last night.
I think it’s going to be a good summer. Yeah.
