Chapter 1

Jamie’s mom, Trisha. was tired. She didn’t have much fun left in her. She worked doubles at New York Bottle, came home with just enough time to shower, leave a few dollars on the counter for Jamie’s lunch, and collapse into bed before the whole cycle started again.

It broke something in him to watch her that way. Sad that her life had whittled down to work and exhaustion. Yet at the same time, he felt blessed to have her—if that made sense. What he wanted, more than anything, was to break the cycle. To give her a house where she could relax, maybe paint, maybe write, maybe do all the things she dreamed of as a girl before life steamrolled her flat.

Then a pang of guilt hits Jamie as he thinks, how long has it been since I asked her about her life?

That morning he ate cereal while she read the newspaper and drank her black coffee with a pinch of sugar.

“This Ed Koch fella,” she murmured, eyes skimming the print. “Seems like he might make a difference. My goodness I’ve never seen the country in such a bad state. Makes me sad. Did I tell you that Ricky Fabio’s young fella tried to kill himself in their garage the other day?”

Jamie didn’t know who Ricky Fabio, nor who his son was. But he humored his mom, and asked, “Geeze, what happened?”

Trisha shrugged her shoulders and took another sip of her coffee, which burned her tongue and she flinched back.  “Ouch. Goodness. Uh, Ricky says that he just doesn’t see a future for himself. Doesn’t want to end up like his old man recycling old bottles.”

“Fair point,” Jamie said, smiling. “Just kidding, mah. You know I’m proud of you no matter what you do.”

“Thanks, kiddo,” she answered, before scanning the classifieds. “You know when I was younger, watching my father go through the jobs when he came home from Korea, they were endless. A novel’s worth of jobs everyday, most with good pay and benefits. Now, there’s next to nothing and the jobs here aren’t going to keep lights on above anybody’s head. That’s why you need to go to college, kiddo.”

Jamie nodded as he took another bite of frosted flakes and wanted to tell his mom that he was barely attending school as it was. He’d been skipping more and more lately, especially since he found that record shop on Bleecker, a few months back. He’d been spending all of his time there, trying to convince Harold Atkinson, the grumpy owner, to let him work there, part-time for now, and once he showcased his vast knowledge of music across many different genres, and his salesman propensity, Harold would realize quickly how much more money Jamie could help bring in.

But Harold wasn’t interested. At least not yet.

“Listen, kiddo. I won’t be home till late tonight. Derek wants to take me out to dinner after work. I’ve said no about a hundred times, but dammit if he isn’t persistent.”

“Sure thing, Mom.” Another date, he thought, and another asshole who wasn’t going to treat her the way she deserved, Jamie thought.

“Here’s your lunch money—and a few extra bucks for the record store.” She winked at him.

He smiled. He knew how hard she worked for it. “Thanks, mom. Soon enough, I’ll be helping out with the bills around here.”

“Don’t you worry about that, Just get something good, will ya? We’ll listen this

weekend.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“It’s not that Alice Cooper, is it? He gives me the creeps.” She grinned, then broke into a line of song: You and me ain’t no movie stars. What we are is what we are. “Although I do like that song.”

“No,” Jamie said. “It’s a band called Judas Priest. They’ve got this wicked album, Sad Wings of Destiny.”

Then it was Jamie’s turn to do his best Rob Halford and belt out Victim of Changes, as his mom looked at him and rubbed her forehead.

“Good lord. What’s happened to the world?”

“Evolving,” Jamie replied.

“Devolving, me thinks.” She laughed, leaned down, kissed him on the head. “Alright, kiddo. I’m off. Those bottles aren’t going to recycle themselves.”

As she opened the door, Jamie called after her. “Have fun tonight.”

Her eyes went sad for a moment. “Oh I’m sure, I will.” She said without too much conviction, and then she was gone.

Jamie finished his cereal, and grabbed the newspaper from where his mom was just sitting. She was right, the world was in a dire state. Job cuts throughout the public sector, and a mayor who didn’t seem to give much of a shit. Jamie thought about the blackout, how him and his mom had stayed home in the dark sweating and playing board games, hoping that no one came. His mom scared to death, but wanting badly not to show it.

The newspaper was still talking about the effect of the OPEC oil embargo, fuel shortages were still spreading throughout the city, and Trisha was right, the classifieds were a sad sight.

Jamie put his bowl in the sink, and took off Delancey High, though he had a feeling he wouldn’t be staying for too long.

On the subway platform, the Guardian Angels were out in their red berets and white shirts, muscled men patrolling with a strange kind of vigilante pride. Jamie watched one of them pin a crooked-looking guy to the wall, drive a fist into his gut until the man crumpled to the filthy concrete. Justice, maybe. Or just another performance in a city that ate people alive.

Jamie shouted, “Hey! He didn’t do anything wrong, leave him alone.”

And one of the muscled men yelled back, “He pulled a knife on me kid, how about you mind your own business?”

“Consider it minded,” Jamie said, and walked on to the subway.

The train was packed and the heat was enough to turn a sane man stark raving mad..

It didn’t take long before two men fought over a seat and one flashed a knife. But nobody flinched anymore. It was just New York. The heat, the hopelessness—something had to give, or everyone would eat each other alive, Jamie thought.

He got off at Lafayette and crossed to Christopher Street, a cabbie shouting at him to watch where he was going. He shouted back that he knew exactly where he was going and pointed at the hulking brick of Delancey High. Jamie realized at a young age, that if your skin was thin, the city would kill you just for showing your face. His father hadn’t taught him much before he took off but one of the things he did say was to give back what you receive, or you’ll be receiving shit until the end of your days.

Jamie’s best friend Donny Wakeman was sitting on the steps, scribbling furiously in his notebook like always. His yellow Oxford was buttoned low at the throat, chinos pressed neat. Classic Donny—creating problems where none existed, grinding at them like life itself was a pop quiz.

“Hey, Donny,” Jamie said, slapping his shoulder and taking a seat next to him.

“Ready for another one?” Donny squinted against the sun.

“Not at all. My days here are numbered, my good friend. ”

“You’re still going on about dropping out? To what—work at Harold’s?” Donny asked.

Although they had this conversation on multiple occasions, it still boggled his mind when Jamie told him of his plans to drop out of school during their senior year. It made him frustrated and also a little sad. Jamie had once been as determined as him to get out, and now, that look in his eyes had dulled, like it had for so many.

Jamie shrugged. “That’s all I care about anyway. Music. And the girls who come looking for it.” He grinned. Donny tried to grin back but couldn’t quite pull it off.

“You’re not going to pay your mom back with minimum wage,” Donny said. “If you even get that.” Talking about the money he lifted from his mom’s purse when she was sleeping. He hadn’t done it many times, but he still felt terrible for the times that he did it. He was just so broke and tired of not having a penny to his name.

“Well, I’m not going to college. So what’s the difference?” Jamie asked.

“That attitude is the difference,” Donny said. “Jesus, how could someone so smart be so dull?”

“Don’t start with me, Donny,” Jamie said. “I’m not in the mood.” Then the bell rang, and Donny packed his stuff neatly in his bookbag and said.

“Jamie, you’re doing what you said, you’d never do.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”

“You’re letting the city beat the joy out of you. It has you right when it wants you. Not giving a shit.”

“I do give a shit, daddy,” Jamie said in mock anger. “I just don’t care about the same things as you. There’s more to life than sitting at a desk all day to study for sitting at more desks all day, to get a job where you sit at a desk all day and have a heart attack by the time your forty.”

Donny laughed at this. They argued a lot, but there was a lot of love there. “The way you eat, and smoke cigarettes. It isn’t going to be having the heart attack by 40, buddy.”

“Get to class you fucking, nerd.” Jamie smiled and they both laughed.

They climbed the steps together. For Jamie, it always felt like walking into prison—feet heavy as stone while Donny’s  were light because he knew where he was going. He was walking in the right direction.

In class, Jamie stared out the window and thought of CBGB, and of Harold’s record store. He didn’t know what it was about the spot, but there was something special about it. He’d been to probably every record store in the city, and he just wanted to be a part of Exile. Harold didn’t seem to love his company, but Jamie thought that there were times when he started to crawl out of his shell. Those moments, albeit brief, seemed to showcase the real Harold. And from the stories Jamie had heard through the grapevine, Harold grew up in the shadow of one of the city's most interesting people.

His brother.

Here was the backstory: Harold’s brother, Benny Atkinson, had been a New York legend. When Benny disappeared—like Hoffa—the store fell into Harold’s lap.

Harold, the balding accountant who couldn’t tell Bach from Jailhouse Rock.

But Benny. Benny had stories. Sinatra’s circle. Jam sessions with Miles Davis. Tales of playing a soprano sax solo on Bitches Brew because someone passed out and Miles needed a man on the spot. True or not, stories like that didn’t survive unless you left a mark. Benny was born in the cool, cool river. Harold? Dropped on his head at the shoreline.

But Harold was what Jamie had. Not Benny. So by virtue of inheriting a store he never wanted, but felt some kind of obligation to continue running, Harold would always be reminded of his brother and never truly step out of his shadow. This created, a grumpy middle aged man, who Donny said Jamie was in fear of becoming, if he wasn’t careful.

Back in history class, Mr. Grady droned on about the Civil War, back sweat staining his shirt from teaching PE the previous class. Which was the case for many teachers pulling double or triple duty since fifteen thousand teachers had been laid off since ’75,

At this point, Mr. Grady was just a man going through the motions.

Jamie thought: maybe everyone was somewhere else in their heads. Maybe no one was happy where they were. And he thought about his mom going through recycling bottles at that very moment, and it made him sad.

Two girls giggled in the corner—Brenda Delaney and Shelley Hansen—passing notes. Grady didn’t care as a paper airplane flew in front of his face. While the class descended into case, there was Donny scribbling like his life depended on it.

When the bell rang, Jamie told Donny he was done.

“I can’t deal with this shit any longer, man. This place is going to drive me insane.”

“You’re not coming back, are you?” Donny asked quietly. His voice carried both disappointment and relief.

“What’s the point? I’m close to getting a job with Harold. On Bleecker, right next to CBGB. Selling records. Seeing the Ramones, Talking Heads. That’s life. This isn’t.” Same tired argument from Jamie, Donny thought. He didn’t want to argue any longer, Jamie had successfully beaten that out of him.

“Nothing I could say would change your mind.”

“Smart man,” Jamie said, winking.

By the time he left school and made his way downtown, his thoughts were with his mother again—her weariness, her lost beauty, the bruises she explained away as accidents. His father’s shadow still lingered, all big laughs and bigger screams, the finger that jabbed, the disdain that followed Jamie into manhood.

Finally, the bell above the door at Exile Records rang. The smell of old vinyl wrapped around him like oxygen. This was home. This was the only place he ever wanted to be, whether Harold wanted it or not.

Chapter 2

When Jamie stepped into Exile Records, the smell of vinyl hit him like a familiar embrace. To his left stood the new release section, four rows wide, where a middle-aged man in a trench coat muttered to himself as he flipped through albums, two tucked firmly under his arm.

To the right, the rock and punk section stretched along the wall, the sections where Jamie spent most of his time. On the far side, jazz and country-western held their own space, quieter but no less important. Beneath it all, boxes of discount records and dusty 45s sat piled on the floor where, every now and then, someone found buried treasure.

At the back of the shop stood Harold Atkinson behind his battered oak desk, the same spot he always occupied. It served as an extra limb, Jamie wasn’t even sure if he’d seen his legs before. To his right, stacks of 45s formed precarious towers; behind him stretched a mosaic of old record sleeves, mostly big-band covers and Sinatra clones in tuxedos with stiff smiles. Jamie always thought the wall was more Benny’s than Harold’s—something left over from the brother who had built this place into a myth. Harold had never updated it. Jamie wasn’t sure why, because he’d changed most of the other connections to his brother.

Harold’s head was buried in the paper, his lips curled in a mutter about the mayor, crime, and a city falling to pieces.

“We need resilience. We can push through it,” Harold read. “I’d like to push through that crook's head with a tire iron.”

Jamie shook his head. Adults, all they did was read the paper and curse what they read. He never understood the logic. Put the paper down, take a breath and look at the world in front of you, not just the world in print.

The man in the trench coat dropped his albums onto the counter. Harold didn’t even look up, so Jamie stepped in and rang him through. The man grumbled about the poor excuse for customer service, and the gouging prices, before leaving.

“Ray of sunshine,” Jamie said. “So what’s up, Harry?”

Harold looked up at last, snapping from his trance. “What did I say about calling me that?”

“Not to. But I thought we were friends now.” Jamie jumped up on the counter, and put the new pile of 45s on his lap and flipped through them. Harold shooed him off like a cat jumping on the kitchen counter.

“When pigs fly, my boy.” Harold said. “When pigs fly.”

“So what’s got you losing even more hair than usual? You didn’t even notice that guy buying records.”

“Ahh, so what. Not enough come in to make a difference anyway.”

Jamie leaned on the counter, cocky grin in place. “If I can provide some youthful wisdom, maybe more people would come in if you, oh, I don’t know—acted like you gave a damn.”

Harold looked at him, his eyes above the rim of his glass,sighed, swatting the thought away like a mosquito. “It’s this.” He slapped the newspaper.”It’s right here. A world spinning off its axis.”

The headline blared: Mayor Beame Announces Further Cuts to Public Services—‘We All Must Sacrifice.’

“Further cuts to everything but his own damn wallet. You know, this Koch fella might be on the fairy side, but if he can get crime under control, I’ll vote for him twice.”

Jamie had to laugh at the men of that generation. Everything a threat to their masculinity. They hated the older generation. Hated the younger generation, and hated their own the most. Harold scanned people like a hawk, looking for a lisp, or a limp, or a laugh that was too loud, or a thank you that was too pretentious, so that when they left, he could say they were what was wrong with the state of things. And Jamie would nod, roll his eyes, while thinking you’re what’s wrong with the state of things, you asshole. Look in the mirror.

“Yeah, my ma likes him too,” Jamie said, talking about Ed Koch. “She says if Koch was mayor during the blackout, the National Guard would’ve been called in to stomp out the looters.”

“Your ma’s a smart lady.”

She was a smart lady, Jamie thought.

“Don’t touch her or I’ll have to kill ya.” He joked.

The joke caught Harold off guard and it made him laugh—really laugh. A rare sound, almost foreign in the record shop. Jamie flashed a grin, proud of dragging a human moment out of him, but Harold quickly turned back to his paper, grumbling about the store. About Benny, the brother who left him with a place he never wanted, and everyone else who had the nerve of existing at the same time and place as Harold.

“I just don’t have enough people coming in,” Harold muttered. “I’m losing money. My big brother pulling a Houdini act—what, did he think just ’cause I’m an accountant I could make money appear out of thin air?”

Jamie wanted to shake him. I’m the answer! The solution is standing right in front of you.

“I’ll bring more people in, Harr—uh, Harold,” Jamie said, seizing the moment. “I’ll bring in as many people as you need.”

“Did you hear me, kid? I’m hemorrhaging money. I can’t pay you.”

As though Jamie hadn’t offered fifty times to work for free. He had just served a customer, and Harold hadn’t even noticed.

“You don’t need to pay me,” Jamie said. “I’m here all the time anyway, let me work my magic.”

“It’s illegal to have people working here for free. A little thing called labor laws—which you might know of if you went to class every once in a while.”

Jamie wanted to say overcrowded schools weren’t teaching labor laws—they were droning on about the Civil War while gym teachers doubled as history teachers. None of it prepared anyone for real life.

“Ah, forget that,” he said instead. “I’ll just hang around like I normally do. I’ve got a buddy at school who can print posters. We’ll host events. Bring in bands. Charge a couple bucks at the door. I’ll plaster the city with flyers. And the people who come? They won’t leave empty-handed. I guarantee it.” Jamie was feeling excited now, and when he got excited he started to talk with his hands. They were moving all over the place, as he paced around the store, explaining ideas of having Jim Croce wannabees in the corner of the store, having rock bands playing out front, or like The Beatles and play on the rooftop. He had an idea of a poster of a man in exile with a sea and sand of records, he started moving records around, placing Rumors in the glass instead of Chubby Checker, and he pointed to the mosaic, and said he’d dedicate that to the guitar madmen of the 70s. Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley, Keith Richards, Joe Perry, Alex Lifeson, and he went on.

After about ten minutes, he stopped pacing and realized he was out of breath. “Just give me a sec,” he said panting, and Harold looked at him with his arms crossed, realizing that the kid was smart. A pest, sure, but someone who understood the language.

Harold studied him. “Don’t you have school, kid?”

Jamie rolled his eyes. Why was school so fucking important? He thought.

“I do. But you know yourself, this city’s burning. Teachers don’t care anymore. Half of them are Vietnam vets teaching dodgeball because there’s no budget. How many times can a person get screwed by their own country while politicians call this the land of the free?” He gave a mock salute. “You know what I mean? I want to talk about music. I want to see bands. I want to be close to CBGB. This is where I belong. And when I get this place moving, you give me a real job, and I’ll stay until you’re too old and I take over. How does that sound?” Again, he was out of breath.

Harold smiled faintly, removing his glasses. “Quite a speech there, kid. You rehearse that?”

“Every night before bed.” Which wasn’t a complete lie. He did stare at his ceiling and envision himself running a jam packed record store with the coolest bands and most beautiful women. Sometimes, even Donny was in the dream, coming to the store in a suit, all worn out and tired, a suitcase, and a coat draped over it. He looked like he aged two decades in a couple of years. Jamie pictured him looking like Gene Hackman in The Conversation.

Harold almost laughed again, but one laugh per day was plenty. The smile faded, replaced by a shadow of thought. He hesitated, then motioned Jamie closer. The smell of Marlboros and black coffee lingered on his breath. He was thinking of his predicament. The predicament that followed him no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

The sins of the brother, Harold thought. Maybe their father too, who wasn’t much better.

“Listen, kid. You’re a pain in my ass. But you know your stuff, and your ideas aren’t bad.” Jamie could sense doubt creeping in at the end of that sentence.

“But?” He asked.

Harold rubbed his chin. His eyes looked heavier than usual.

“Ah, nevermind,” he said. “Forget it, kid. Go back to school.” Harold turned around.

“Oh come on,” Jamie pleaded. “You have to be kidding me? You can give me blue balls like that. You know I’m not leaving. You have a great story, I bet Benny would tell it.”

“Screw that asshole,” Harold said and turned back around, but now he was more than annoyed. Jamie realized he might have gone too far with it.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I went too far,” Jamie raised his hand. “But come on, Harry. Stop treating me like a kid. I’m 17 years old. I can handle whatever story you’re going to tell me. What are you protecting me from?”

Harold was protecting him from the worst of what the city had to offer. But he’d gone too far, he realized that. His head was confused because he could just tell Jamie to leave, but there was a part that he didn’t want to admit to himself. A part that actually like Jamie, and a part that could see the potential in a partnership with someone who knew music like Jamie did.

But that meant letting him in on his world, because Jamie was observant and it wouldn’t take long before he noticed what was going on.

Harold wiped his brow, and then he caved.

“Part of the reason I don’t want you here all the time is because of who I’m involved with. And yeah, I do think you should finish school. But I’ve gotten myself into bed with some bad people, and I don’t think you should be around.”

“You’re serious?”

Harold’s stare was answer enough.

Jamie tried to shake off the dread with a smirk. He dropped into his best Brando impression. “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse. Like those kind of guys?”

This time Harold didn’t laugh. Didn’t roll his eyes. He just looked sad. Jamie’s heart started to race—half curiosity, half fear. He could almost hear his mother’s voice: Jamie, your curiosity’s going to get you in trouble one of these days.

“Something like that,” Harold said quietly. “Jesus, I can’t believe I’m gonna tell you this.”

Jamie leaned in, his pulse climbing. “So how does straight-and-narrow Harold Atkinson get himself mixed up with the mob? Was it your legendary brother? Gerry, the guy who supposedly played with Miles Davis and had a four-way with Sinatra and Dean Martin? Okay, maybe I’m embellishing that last part.”

“Kid. Don’t believe everything you hear. Last thing I need is people coming in here just to ask about my brother instead of buying records. Stories about Benny don’t keep the lights on.”

“Well, did he play with Miles Davis?” Jamie pressed, dodging the mob talk, not ready to face it yet.

“According to him he did. But the story always sounded like he was drunk, saw some guy who looked like Miles Davis, and got told to take a hike. He sure as hell wasn’t on any record. I don’t even think he could play much. Maybe a little piano.”

Jamie had to admit, it was disappointing. But not the conversation he was chasing. Not now.

“Tell me more about your problem, then?” he asked, surprised Harold was opening up at all. Usually the man barely said three words. But now, it felt like a Scorsese picture—dark, dangerous, full of possibility.

Harold hesitated, then sighed. “Okay, kid. What I’m about to say stays here. Got it? I’d never tell you otherwise, but since you insist on hanging around every damn day and I can’t talk you out of it—fine. I’ll tell you, but only if you swear on your mother you’ll keep it to yourself.”

Jamie nodded solemnly. “I’m all ears.”

Harold leaned closer. “It was during the blackout…”

Chapter 3

On the evening of July 13, 1977, the world went black. Three lightning strikes, the loss of a substation along the Hudson River, one in Yonkers, and the loss of transmission lines caused the city to go black until the morning of July 14th.

The financial crisis taking place throughout the city, the heat wave, and the fear of Son of Sam still running loose led to an evening of rioting, looting, and in a couple of circumstances, death.

The terror hit over 30 neighborhoods, with Crown Heights being the worst affected. Close to 4000 people would be arrested. Over 1500 stores were damaged, over 1000 fires started. And in the midst of this was Harold, trying to protect his brother’s little record shop from looters and vandals.

“The looting on Bleecker was out of control,” Harold said. “Fires. Screaming. Women getting their purses yanked. People stomped on the ground. Stores smashed in—mostly the small ones. Your ma was right. The National Guard should’ve been there. Con Ed called it an Act of God, can you believe that? An Act of God?”

Jamie pictured the madness as Harold described it. Feeling particularly sickened by the image of a car rolling down the street in flames, and picturing if there was someone driving it, or kids in the back. The whole thought made his stomach turn.

“Anyway,” Harold continued, rubbing his jaw as if it still hurt. “I lock up, trying to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible and the next thing I know, a fist explodes against my face. I hit the ground. More fists raining down. I turtle up, ribs cracking, skull ringing. They laughed while they worked me over. A few broken ribs, a hairline fracture in my skull. And for what?”

Jamie shifted uneasily. He remembered coming into the shop not long after the blackout. Harold had looked like he’d been steamrolled, barely able to stand upright. Likely contributing to his angry demeanor.

“Then another guy with red hair hurls a garbage can through the window,” Harold said, his voice getting higher and more animated. “He strolls in, grabs records, empties the till. Thanks me with a kick to the stomach.” Harold smirked bitterly. “Real polite.”

Jamie leaned closer, hooked, and told Harold that he had a knack for storytelling, maybe he should write a book about it, and Harold continued.

“That’s when I saw it,” Harold said. “A black ’70 convertible. Wrong street, wrong night. Two guys step out and they’re like polar opposites. One tall and skinny, slicked-back hair, toothpick in his mouth, grinning like Christmas came early. The other stocky, balding, puffing on a cigar, a baseball bat in his hand.”

Jamie’s pulse quickened. He knew where this was going.

“I’d been around my brother enough, heard enough, to recognize them for what they were,” Harold said. “At first I thought they were coming to finish me off. But the tall one winks, walks straight to the thieves. Slaps the records out of one guy’s hands and beats him into the pavement. Had his mouth pressed to the curb, foot grinding down. ‘Decisions, decisions,’ he says. ‘Leave the teeth in, or make you swallow ’em?’ The kid pissed himself right there. Then the tall one yanked him up, hissed that if he ever saw him again, it’d be the last time.”

“Jesus,” was all Jamie could muster.

“Meanwhile, the stocky one, whose name was Charlie Alfonsi, swings the bat into tanother thief’s gut. Not as sadistic, but still brutal. And he’s singing: ‘Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio…’ crooning Simong and Garfunkel like he’s  Dean Martin while the kid wheezed.” Harold shook his head. “That’s how I met Charlie and his pal Ralphie—the one they call The Rat.”

Jamie grinned at the name. The Rat. It sounded like a movie villain. And Harold added that The Rat seems like an ironic name for a line of business where you’d get killed for being a rat.

“They sent the thieves crawling, then turned to me. Ralphie grinned like we’d all just played a game of stickball. ‘Mister Harold,’ he says, ‘bad part of town. You might need protection.’ Charlie agreed, said I would’ve lost more if they hadn’t shown up. I knew right away, they weren’t rescuers. They’d been waiting. The blackout gave them cover.”

Then Harold said that the blackout was a mobster Christmas. Guys parked all across the city and watched the mayhem for a couple of reasons. One, they enjoyed watching the system crumble, and two because it provided opportunity to go beat on some of the crazies and get some money at the same time. It wasn’t like they couldn’t just walk into shops and point a gun at a store’s owner's face, and say hand me the money. They could do that, and had done it, but this time the cops were running ragged, jobs cut and they didn’t know where to be because there weren't nearly enough of them to keep the city calm.

Harold’s face tightened as he continued talking about the extortion racket planned by the mafia families.. “‘We’ll keep your shop safe, you give us a cut. Simple,’ they said. I told them I was barely afloat. Charlie just shrugged—‘Then you go under.’ Said a guy would come by each week for a pickup, and he might deposit some product as well.”

Jamie leaned on the counter, eyes wide. “And you said yes?” Which he realized was kind of a stupid thing to say, because it wasn’t really a situation where you had a choice. He’d just been thrown into the dark underbelly of the city, and it was scary but he couldn’t help himself from being a little bit excited.

“What else could I do?” Harold muttered.

He remembered one more thing. Ralphie had glanced up at the sign. “Wasn’t this Benny’s old place?” he asked. Charlie had said it was. “Whatever happened to him?” Ralphie grinned faintly, winking at Harold,  as if he already knew. Then they left.

Harold explained to Jamie that if he was going to be around the store even more, and especially if he wasn’t going to school, that he’d likely see the drop off and pickups as they happened usually in the morning. He showed Jamie the selection of records behind the desk, one side had the money and the other had drugs. That was The Rat’s idea to have a place for drop offs and pickups. He thought it was quite brilliant.

Jamie looked at the records and pulled one out. Harold had cut a thin line behind the cover as a pouch and it was done with such precision, that there's no way you’d ever be able to tell. “That’s wicked, man.” Was what came out of Jamie’s mouth and for the second time since Harold started telling this story, Jamie had blurted out something stupid. He couldn’t help himself, his mind kept going back to Mr. Grady droning on with soulless eyes, and his mom bruised and battered from labour, and Donny taking notes like there was nothing else to life, and here he was, in the heart of the city.

Harold glared at him like he was crazy. “No, it’s not wicked. It’s a goddamn noose.”

“That’s why it’s perfect,” Jamie said, half-smiling, “I just gave you a plan to bring in more revenue. Who cares who you’re involved with? The city’s crawling with crime. Teachers are selling dope in high school bathrooms. You can’t escape it. Might as well use it.”

Harold groaned, rubbing his temples. “Look, kid. If you can bring people in, fine. But I don’t know when—or if—I can pay you. I want to be upfront about that.”

Jamie stuck out his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

Reluctantly, Harold shook it. “What did I just do?”

“You have just made the best decision of your life.”

Jamie hung around for a bit, asking more questions about the blackout, and his brother. Harold was talking but Jamie could tell that he was beginning to get tired of the conversation, he’d probably used up his word count for the month, just in that day.

So for a while he sat and doodled ideas for a poster. Exile Records, he thought. A good kind of exile, like when people asked what was your desert album? It could be a man on an island, records stacked on either side of him. Exile Records written in the sand.  He drew this for a couple of hours on and off as he rearranged albums, and the mosaic to feature more contemporary rockers.

He was about to leave and get Donny to help him make posters out of his drawing when the bell over the door jingled. A stocky man walked in, a record tucked under his arm. He slid the record across. Harold exchanged it for a Frankie Valli album, and there weren’t any words exchanged, until the man bumped into Jamie.

“Move it, kid.” He said, and he was gone. In and out in 10 seconds flat.

Jamie blinked. “That was just—?”

“Yeah. That was it.”

“That quick?”

“That quick.”

“Whoa.” Jamie grinned. “A real gangster. You talkin’ to me?” He slipped into a bad De Niro impression.

Harold didn’t laugh. “He wasn’t a gangster in that movie.”

“Well, whatever. Close enough.”

Jamie grabbed Sad Wings of Destiny from one of the bin. “I’ll take this. And a Frankie Valli too, for good measure.” He winked at Harold, who rolled his eyes.

“I’m meeting my buddy to get posters printed. Just a heads up, some of the events I’ll plan are for young people. You might not get it, but every age group understands money, right? Might be some characters coming into the store.”

Harold sighed. “Yeah. As long as it’s coming in. Do what you want, I guess. I feel like I’m gonna regret this.”

Jamie winked and headed for the door. “That attitude’s why it’s a ghost town in here, Harry.”

“It’s Haro—”

But the door closed before he could finish.

Outside, Jamie drifted east on Bleecker. He was heading to the subway when he noticed the man who had just entered the store slip into a restaurant called Il Monello, tucked between a cigar shop and a convenience store. Jamie decided to let his curiosity win and he crossed the street, and walked slowly by the restaurant, peaking into the window as he walked by.

Jamie saw them: a half-dozen men in three-piece suits. Ralphie, toothpick between his teeth, laughing with his head thrown back. Charlie at his side. At least, that’s who Jamie thought it was. It looked like who Harold had described in his story. There were plates of pasta steaming on the table.

One of them noticed Jamie staring. Winked.

Jamie kept walking, heart hammering.

Dangerous. The whole world was dangerous.

But Jesus, it was alive. It beat sitting in a classroom with drones and dead eyes. It beat any nine-to-five grind.

Sorry, Mom, he thought. I can’t live your life.

The city was on fire. And God help him—he loved it.

Are you there?

The tide is coming in

But I’ll cross it

For you

Let me hear your voice

I’m at the river’s edge

My foot

Then my leg

The current is strong

And now I’m wading

Through the sins

Of my past

There’s something sharp

Snapping

Below the water

But I can’t see

Then the river turns red

Are you there?

On the other side

Cause I can take the pain

If you’re waiting

With your arms open wide

The tide is getting stronger

And the pain is

Worse

As I cross

The bloody river

It rises

To my chest

And it’s nearly over

My head

I’m drowning

Then my hand grasps

At dirt

The river’s edge

I pull myself out

But I still can’t hear you

Baby, I’m here

I crossed the bloody river

Through the thick brush

I push through

Where are you?

On the other side

I see a clearing

And I hope its you

But it’s another river

I hang my head

And I cross it

Until it turns red

I can’t hear your voice

But I’ll keep searching

Across the bloody rivers

Through the sins

Of my past

I sit on the throne

A kingdom of naught

Built with the bones

Of the ones I loved

The crown it is dirt

And the wine it is blood

I sit on the throne

As it sinks in the mud

I shout I am king

And only echoes return

The reason she said

That I’d never learn

She said accept when your beat

Or you’ll end up alone

I said there’s no better companion

Than a king’s throne

But now the days they are long

And they nights don’t end

And I’m starting to think

Those voices ain’t friends

I ask what put me here?

And what’s making me stay

I trade a kingdom of love

For a throne of decay

I’m sorry my love

And is it too late?

The journey was hard

With bones made out of clay

Here I am now

On my knees at your feet

And please oh please

Take this crown off of me

Well now love has replaced

The black of my heart

As you lay on my chest

In the quiet of the dark

But outside the wind howls

An old song that I know

It sings I am the king

And this is my throne

I wake up in the morning, tired. I get up, make the beds, grab the laundry basket and head downstairs. I put on a pot of coffee and make the kids breakfast, while my wife makes their lunches for school. We do the dishes together, we drink coffee together, we talk about our days and the monotony which lays ahead. Then she drives them to school with one vehicle and I drive to work with the other.

The office is quiet until it isn’t. Then it’s filled with nonsense. One of my bosses, Greg Davies, talks about Trump.

“Should be fucking killed. Should be shot in the head.”

The other boss, Andrew Tomes, doesn’t watch the news, but he likes to talk. So he doesn’t like these conversations because he’s forced to listen. When he gets his chance, he changes the subject to one he knows a lot about. People. Then everyone else is forced to listen.

Greg nods, and smiles, fake laughing at the right points, then slowly returns his gaze to the computer screen. Andrew leaves, talking to himself as he enters his office and Greg laughs.

“Christ, can he ever talk.” I smile and nod, not confident enough in the thickness of the walls, to say that my boss never shuts his mouth.

It’s semi-quiet for a little while, but then the noise starts up once again. First, with Andrew’s Zoom meetings in his office. He’s partially deaf so he speaks at volume one thousand. He tells the same tired jokes about tariffs (he doesn’t watch the news but he knows that much) and laughs before adding, “I know the meeting isn’t about tariffs because if it was, I could go on all day about it. (No he couldn’t. He couldn’t go any further than he just has.)

I share an office with Greg, and every once in a while, he tries to get the political discussion started again. “You know why he’s doing this eh?” I turn around, hoping he isn’t talking to me, but I know that he is. “I’m not really sure.” I answer. “So he can crash the market, buy a shitload of property cheap and sell it all high. He’s crazy, but he isn’t stupid. He knows who his audience is. He knows exactly what he’s doing.” “Yeah, that sounds about right.” I answer, sounding like Andrew, (We both know I could go on about this all day, if I wanted to. But unfortunately, I have work to do.)

I decide to google some news and read it quickly so that maybe I have something else to add. But I don’t, and the articles are as dry as desert air. I just don’t care, though I should. I know, I should.

Around 10am, Andrew’s wife, Julie comes in. If anyone could take the verbal diarrhea award away from Andrew, it’s Julie. It’s about her mom, always her mom. She’s pushing 90, and she is as stubborn as a mule. Greg’s her brother, Andrew’s her husband. It’s all family in the building, and so each day in the office is like a Thanksgiving reunion.

“Do you know what that woman did today?” She asks, and answers before anyone else has a chance to. “She gave seven thousand dollars to a fucking stranger.” This gets Greg’s attention, and mine too. Although it’s all being said right in front of me, I don’t look over. But I listen. Because why not? I’m bored as shit. “Some scammer called her and apparently he sounded like cousin Benny. He tells her he’s in jail in Mexico. Can you believe that? Says he needs seven grand for bail. So what does mother do? She walks down to the bank, takes out the money and a man shows up at her house and takes the cash.”

Greg and Julie talk about this for a half hour, ignore a few customers that come in, while Andrew is shouting at the top of his lungs on his Zoom call. I think about a video I saw on Facebook earlier. A man is saying that the office is where productivity lives and the home is where it dies. He’s arguing against office workers working from the comfort of their homes. “The office,” he says, “Is where the magic happens.” I look around the dimly lit office. Mother handing out her retirement savings to a man who knocked at her door has gone back to Trump. Somehow, his idiocy as a President is related to his elderly mother losing seven grand.

“Should have killed him when they had the chance.”

This is where magic goes to die.

2.

I work in a wood manufacturing plant, by the way. On the marketing side. My job is to find suitable clients across the globe who’d be interested in buying some high end hardwood. All wood that I wouldn’t be able to afford in ten lifetimes, the irony isn’t lost on me. I need to act like a big player. Big man with big money, and talk to architects, designers, and all sorts of folks with money to burn and aesthetic appeal engraved in their brain. I talk like I know, but I don’t. (Fake it till you make it, right?)

I spend a lot of time staring at a blank screen and having fake conversations with my boss. Conversations where I have balls, actual balls, to walk into his office, sit down next to him and say, “I want a raise. A nice big raise or I’m walking.”

He says, “Sure. Just tell me a number, and it’ll be on your next pay.”

And I give him a big fat six figure number. I come home and tell my wife.

We pay off our debts, and in the fantasy we even make love afterwards. Doing all the things that I’m too afraid to ask her to do.

But I say none of it. Courage isn’t my cross to bear, and in reality, I don’t even know if I deserve it. The world, it seems, has just made it hard to live comfortably. And so because of that, I feel I’m worth more than I receive. I feel like I’m worth a shitload of money, because it takes a shitload of money to live. But I don’t know what I’m worth. I don’t have a clue.

I can’t run around throwing ultimatums around. Because the reality of the conversation could just as easily go like this.

“I want a raise, a big raise or I’m walking.”

“Nope.”

“Uh, what?”

“Yeah, I said, no. Leave if you’re going to leave or go back to your desk.”

Then I’d have to walk back to my desk, my shoulders slumped and my junk between my legs. Feeling worse off than before. No more money, but a clear realization about my value and what I bring to the team. It all might just be too much to bear. Then my conversation at home might go something like this.

“Honey, I’m HOOOMMEEE! And guess what?”

“What?” She asks excitedly. “I lost my job. So no more money coming in. Say, can we do that thing that I fantasize about all the time. You know. The move.”

“Get fucked! I’m leaving. Come on kids. Daddy is nothing but a loser.”

“Loser daddy! Loser daddy! Loser daddy!” They chant as they walk out of the house in unison.

So I click away on my laptop. Clickity, click. Clickity click. And I turn around and look at Greg.

“Trump is a fucking madman. You know what I mean?”

“I could go on about it all day.” He says.

“Tell me about it. Tell me about it.”

3.

My brain and I used to be pals, you know? I can’t remember when the breakup occurred, but it seems it was a messy one. A real messy one. Trauma City.

“What did I ever do to you?” I ask it sometimes.

“You had the nerve to grow up.”

“Well what are my other options?”

“You know what they are.”

“But I don’t want that.”

“Well, if you don’t want it. Then deal with it. Deal with the mess. Clean up as best you can but don’t ever expect it to be squeaky clean. Because another shit storm is always over the horizon, you know?”

“I guess”

“You’re learning. You’re learning.”

4.

In the afternoon I drive home for lunch. It’s only a five minute drive, and with the wife and kids at work, I enjoy having a few moments of silence. A few moments where I don’t have to pretend. Sometimes there are leftovers and when there aren’t, I just pour myself a bowl of mini wheats and eat them in the silence as the cat paces and meows at me to give him attention.

The TV is off and I stare at myself in the dark reflection. I contemplate a couple of things. Having a nap, or unzipping my jeans and having a go at myself. Not because I really want to, but because I’m alone, and I don’t have many opportunities to be alone. But I end up doing neither.

I walk over to the spare room and grab my guitar from the stand and strum a few chords as I look at myself in the mirror. I can feel that I’m having one of those days. Just one of those days where it feels that each step I’ve taken had to have been the wrong one. No doubt about it. But that’s loneliness and selfishness creeping in.

“Deal with it.” My brain says.

“Or you know what your other option is.”

“Shut up, would ya?”

“Make me.”

“You’re being childish.”

“I know you are but what am I?”

“An idiot.”

“Then what does that make you?”

“An idiot.”

“Bingo. Nail on the head. Grand prize. Winner winner chicken dinner.”

I strum some more chords. The same tired chords, because I haven’t learned anything new in half a decade. Chords in the key of G, chords in the key of E, a couple of a lame attempts at a solo, and then I sing a partial song that I’d written a few years back that could have possibly been something, had I persevered and finished the damn thing, but of course, I didn’t. I sing the first line, “Here I am back home again, not a boy, maybe not a man, just a soul trying to do what he can, planting a seed in a dry desert land.”

Not bad. Pretty good. Never finished it, and never will, but not too bad.

I put the guitar back up on the stand that hangs next to a poster of the Rolling Stones. Exile on Main Street. Cool shit. Cool band.

I sit on the lazy boy for a few minutes, and realize that I’m pacing like the fucking cat. I get annoyed at the cat for pacing so much. In the kitchen, downstairs, upstairs, back in the kitchen, the spare room, back to the living room, the kitchen. Pick a spot and sit down for Christ sakes. But I’m doing the same thing aren’t I? Hard to find a place to go when it’s your skin you’re looking to escape, I suppose.

One more thought about checking out some porn on my phone before saying, fuck it, and heading back to work. So much on my mind. So much I want to say. But if I haven’t said it by now, well, what does that mean?

I drive back home

with the radio on,

except it’s no longer my home.

Just a graveyard of memories.

I’m driving back for your funeral, Nan.

I’ve written a couple of books,

and so I’ve been asked to write and read your eulogy

at the little church

on that thin stretch of gravel road

where you used to take me as a child.

I’m the writer of the family now,

my father says.

We have a little bit of time before the funeral,

so I decide to show my kids

where their dad lived when he was growing up.

I show them my high school,

Braxton’s house right next to it,

and the park where I had my first kiss.

We turn right

and then left

and right again

before a two-story house

with a red steel roof

stands just like it did

all those years ago,

except now the tiny shrub

that we planted in the front yard

is as tall as the house.

I look into the window

where my bedroom was.

How many nights

I stared outside of it.

I can almost see my younger self

looking out.

Opening the blinds

just a hair

with my thumb and forefinger,

watching my dad walk to work

in the early morning fog.

But now I’m the dad,

and the kids are in the backseat.

I turn around,

and they don’t seem to care,

but that’s alright.

They’re too young

to care about the past.

Their past is non-existent,

which is why they’re so good

at living in the moment.

Up the street we go

and turn to the gyrel—

the skatepark where I spent

my summer days

shooting hoops,

hoping that all the answers

were inside of that metal rim.

I can see Pat,

and Jake,

and Spencer,

and Fraser,

and Nate,

and Braxton

all playing their hearts out.

I can see us

sitting on the thin stretch of grass

between the fence

and the asphalt.

We’re talking.

We’re talking about girls,

and movies,

and sports.

We’re walking to the theatre

to watch a movie—

not because we know what’s playing,

but because the night is young,

and so are we.

And even if the movie is garbage,

we’ll be there together,

laughing,

and knowing

that tomorrow

is just as hopeful

as today.

We keep driving down Aaron Street,

and an old Toyota Corolla drives by

and I can see Zach inside of it.

He just got his license,

and he asks me if I want to go for a drive.

I say, hell yeah,

and we drive through town.

I ask him to put on some music,

and all he has

is a cassette

of Madonna’s Greatest Hits.

We laugh

and put it on,

and before we know it,

we’re singing Like a Prayer

with the windows rolled down—

the old windows

that you needed to crank

with all your might.

I tell my kids

and my wife

about these memories.

My wife smiles

and the kids

just want to get out of the car.

I tell them soon.

Just a few more minutes

down memory lane,

because I’m sure

that after the funeral,

I won’t be coming back.

We cross the Van Horne Bridge,

and again I’m a teenager.

I’m 16 years old

and I’ve just finished getting

twelve stitches

above my left eye.

I’m drugged up

and holding a massive teddy bear.

I’m going to see my girlfriend

because I’m late for our date.

There’s a soft snow falling

and my head is ringing,

but she’s the first real girlfriend

I’ve ever had,

and so I need to see her.

I walk and walk and walk

and finally ring on her doorbell.

Sweaty,

out of breath,

and woozy from the painkillers.

She opens the door,

and I smile crookedly

before handing her the teddy bear.

She begins to cry

and wraps her arms around me so tight

that I can barely breathe.

She kisses me,

and my God,

to be wanted that badly

is a gift.

I look over at my wife,

and remember

when she used to do the same.

Finally,

we turn around

and head to the countryside—

to the little country church

with the small gravel parking lot.

There are cars lined up on either side,

and the wind is beginning to pick up.

My hands are clammy,

and my heart is racing

with reckless abandon,

because I’m scared

to read the eulogy,

and I’m scared

at the prospect

of looking at the small dirt hole

with flowers in it

and knowing that it’s true.

She’s gone.

So is my aunt,

and my grandfather.

They’re reunited.

My father and my uncle

are now a family of two.

Once a family of five—

they’re all that’s left.

And I don’t know what to say to them.

I’ve never known,

even during the best of days.

The pastor prays for my Nan

and then asks me to come up

and read the eulogy.

I’m frightened

and didn’t expect to be called upon so quickly.

My hands are shaking

and my voice cracks a couple of times

in the beginning.

But eventually,

I get my groove

and I read stories

that make my family laugh

and even cry.

I tell them about the flowers

in the garden centre,

and I tell them

about midnight snacks.

How I loved her pork chops so much

that as a kid

I asked for them on New Year’s Eve

when everyone was in bed.

Just her and I

eating pork chops

at the dining table

as the rest of the world went to sleep.

Afterwards,

we go to the firehall,

where we eat egg salad sandwiches

and homemade cookies

and watch a photo gallery of pictures

of her and my grandfather,

and my father and uncle and aunt—

all young and happy and healthy.

Their whole lives ahead of them.

My father is quiet,

trying to joke away the pain,

but it’s hard—

I can see it in his eyes

how hard it is.

I speak with relatives,

and then it’s time to leave.

On the drive back,

I’m quiet.

My wife doesn’t know what to say,

just like I didn’t know what to say.

As the mountains fade

in the rearview mirror,

there’s a moment

where I’m sad,

and I think

I might just break down and cry.

But I realize

that the town that I loved,

and that molded me,

needed to hurt me.

It needed to hurt me

so that I could know

what it feels like

when it happens to my kids.

When life turns upside down on them,

I’ll know.

And I’ll tell them

about the little black box of pain.

The one that you think is a curse,

but is actually a gift.

Because like my Nan always said—

“Flowers can’t grow without a little rain.”

Last night I dreamed you were there. I was 18 years old again in dirty work pants. You pulled up in your old red Civic, walked out with that smile of pride on your face. And I thought, “What is there to be proud of, Nan? I’m as lost as can be. Doing work anyone could do.” But your smile remained, even seemed to grow wider.

We walked through the garden centre. The smell of petunias, geraniums, lavender, bleeding heart, all mixing into a sweet aroma. You closed your eyes and took it all in. You were in the moment, while I was somewhere else. Lamenting about the past, or fearing for the future. But you were right there, in it. Appreciating it. Appreciating each breath and the chance to talk about flowers with your grandson.

You said, “Do you know your flowers yet?”

“Not really,” I answered. And you lightly tapped me on my forearms and called me a little turkey, like you always did.

You told me about perennials and annuals and which flowers need more water than others. You told me that I had the best job in the world, and you’d love to work here. It would be your dream job.

“You can have it.” I said, and smiled. You smiled too.

We walked through the greenhouse, touching and smelling the flowers. You telling me stories about them. About how grandpa took you to a dance when you were young, and he placed a petunia above your left ear. A simple gesture, but you kept that flower and framed it, and it still hangs next to a framed picture of Jesus in your bedroom. You kneel down and pray before bed, and look at Jesus, and the flower. And it reminds you of how lucky you are.

In the dream I didn’t say I had to get back to work. I just said, “Keep going, Nan. I want to hear all about it.”

In my dream, a soft rain falls and the raindrops hit off the greenhouse but we’re safe and I have nowhere else to go. You have nowhere else to be. We have all the time in the world.

The rain falls, but then it begins to fall harder. It reaches a point where it drowns you out, Nan. I can’t hear you.

But you just smile. You gently rub my face and a tear falls. I’m reaching the point of a dream where I know it’s a dream.

“I miss you,” I say.

“I miss you, too.” She answers.

Outside the greenhouse, I can see the sun.

You tell me I have to go.

“Remember every storm runs out of rain.” You say.

I open my eyes and I’m lying in bed. You’re gone, and the storm is still relentless.

Hi everyone! I've just released my first novella. If anyone is interested, you can purchase it on Amazon. It's titled A Walk Through the Years by Eric Johnson

Again, I want to thank everyone on this website who've posted challenges, gave me feedback on my work, and followed me. Because of you, I've been able to push myself over the last couple of years.

I'm really proud of this book and I'd love to know your thoughts, if you decide to read it.

Thanks!

`I remember the day of the 9/11 attacks. It was the day before my birthday and my mother’s, and the day of my best friend’s father’s birthday. I was too young to understand it, and it would be years before I’d fill my head with literature and documentaries on the attacks to understand what had happened that day.

My father picked me up from school, and I remember his smell and his youth. His navy blue worn Teamsters hat with black hair flowing out of the back. He looked serious, a little distraught, with a furrowed brow. He asked me how school was, and I said it was good. And then I asked him, “What’s wrong?”

And all he said was, “Something bad happened today.” And that was the end of the conversation.

We walked across Aaron Street and then down George and through Dover. My birthday was the following day and like most years, even though we were back in school, the sun hadn’t yet decided it was time for fall weather and was still beating down with the intensity of summer. I don’t remember how much we talked, or if we talked, but I remember being happy despite the circumstances.

Once we walked through the front door, we were in the living room and there was footage. I remember smoke and I remember my father standing behind the couch, watching. Because when anything intense was happening in the world, he never sat. He stood, restless, like he wanted to do something but knew he was helpless to do so.

But I sat on the couch, reading comics and sinking into the old cushions that enveloped me like a second skin. School was over, the weather was beautiful and I had my comics and my birthday, and my whole life ahead of me. I was happy and in the background was chaos.

The following morning, I woke up and walked to the dining room where the entire table was filled from corner to corner with comics and a card sitting in the middle. I felt like the happiest kid in the world, because the real world was not my world. The scenes on the news of the twin towers could have been a movie. Maybe one directed by Michael Bay, where a hero was going to go up and rescue everyone and everything would be okay. There were no stakes to real-life events for a kid, because they weren’t real. People didn’t die. The world was a haven for everyone, where people could walk home from school and sit on a couch and read comics, and get more for their birthday and then go to school where everyone smiled and said Happy Birthday, and then came home to cake with candles lit and their mom and father singing to them, and telling them that no matter what, they needed to feel special on their birthday.

As I grow older, nostalgia becomes a stronger and stronger force. And as many mundane memories from childhood slip into that dark ether where the less important moments go, all that remains is the mundane of today and the spectacular of those years. Creating a pseudo-fantasy, one that can be dangerous if not checked.

I spoke to my brother not long ago about writing a book based on our childhoods in the 90s and early 2000s. I said,

“Do you actually remember what it was like, then? Like actually remember?” He thought about it for a moment and then said.

“Not really. Some things. The movies we went to see in the theatre. The year we won the Varsity basketball championship. Things like that.”

I said, “Yeah. me too. But everyone our age is online everyday complaining that the world is shit now, and how much better it was 20 years ago.”

“Well, it was.” He said.

“How do you figure?”

He paused for a moment. “Look at this way, when you’re a kid, nothing is too late. That’s what nostalgia is. It’s the reason that people can look back at their father’s coming home drunk and beating their asses with a smile. Because even though it was likely horrible at the time, what they did was go to their room afterwards and dream. Man, in a couple of years, I’ll be out of this town. Shit like that. But now, the magic is wearing off, you see? Sure, self-help gurus will still tell you that everything is possible, but we know now that we’re not going to the NBA. We know we’re not going to play any sports professionally. You know now that you’re most likely not going to be a rock star. That’s why the past is better, because it wasn’t about what we were actually doing, it was about the possibilities of what we could do.”

“Wow.” I said and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” He asked.

“I was just thinking about 9/11.”

“That’s weird.” We laughed again.

“I know. I was remembering dad picking me up from school on 9/11 and telling me that something bad had happened. I was just remembering him younger, and stronger and walking home down Aaron and George and Dover, and the news being on the TV when I got home. I remember dad standing behind the couch, pacing like he always did. But I remember being happy, even as the news showed total destruction and the next day was the birthday when dad filled the dining room table with comics. You remember that?”

“I do.” He said. Then he laughed. “I was thinking about that not too long ago, too.”

9/11?”

“Well, kind of. It was at the same time that Brad and I stole the golf cart and crashed it. Remember?”

“Oh yeah, I remember.”

“That was the same time. I broke my arm and told mom I broke it falling off a swing. Remember? We even went to the hospital in Bathurst, where mom went off on the doctor for saying that there was no way I broke it falling off a swing.”

At that, we both erupted in laughter. Picturing my mom screaming at a doctor, yelling, “If my son says he broke it falling off a swing, then he broke it falling off a swing!!”

“Then dad taped a wooden spoon to my arm and wrapped it in gauze. Remember that? I was playing baseball at the time and we practiced that whole fall. It was fucking brutal. Throwing the ball in the front yard with a broken arm and a wooden spoon taped to it. I was just thinking about that because I remember looking at your comics on the dining room table and accidentally knocking a couple on the floor with my spoon hand and you getting upset.”

“Shit, eh? I don’t remember that. That’s hilarious.”

“Yeah, the old man really wanted me to play in the majors. For a little while there, I thought it was possible.”

“You were pretty good.”

“Yeah,” he said with a tinge of sadness in his voice.

“Your arm was broken, and you were in a shitload of pain and I was sitting on the couch as the towers fell. And yet these are wonderful memories.”

“They’re all wonderful memories. That’s the problem.”

I spent the summer of 2017 in Winnipeg training for a job with the railroad. 8 weeks at a state-of-the-art facility doing both classwork and practical work to ensure that I was good and ready to not lose a limb or cut myself in half by the time I returned home to eastern Canada.

My then-girlfriend (currently my wife) was pregnant with our first child, and we were living in a small apartment in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Before the announcement of the pregnancy, the apartment seemed like a little slice of heaven. Something of our own. A little hint of freedom. But when I came home from work one afternoon to see her sitting on the edge of the bed, gripping the duvet and nervously telling me that she was pregnant, the apartment instantly revealed itself to be what it truly was. A dump. A small decrepit building with lead-footed upstairs neighbours, and needle-using neighbours to the left with toothless smiles and irritated blotched skin.

At that time I’d just graduated from university and was working in a lumber yard while writing music and chasing dreams of becoming an acoustic singer-songwriter. I’d played a few gigs at bars and cafes around the city, and professionally recorded a few songs at a studio across the bridge by a young man who gave me a good deal because he’d just found out that his wife had another family in Europe, and just didn’t give a shit about his rates. I wasn’t climbing the charts or making any money, but I was young and filled with a self-confidence that boarded on narcissism, that seemed to be serving me well.

So when the announcement that I was going to be a father echoed in my ears, I felt my shoulders slump and I took a walk downtown past old gothic churches with sinister steeples that seemed to be mocking me in judgement. I’m no religious man but the symbols were strong and eerie, and all these years later, I can still picture them, images from the changing of the guard. When the skin was shedded, the old self was gone, and the rebirth of someone new. Someone not self-centered, someone who would provide and stuff away silly dreams of being a new Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, or whoever the hell I thought I was going to be.

That evening I sat in a coffee shop on Queen Street, near the back by the discount rack of books that smelled like stale cigarettes, and years of neglect. The chair was old and sunken deep, and beside me was a painting of a boat navigating an angry storm, dark, and malicious. I sipped on my coffee and thought about decisions, because anyone who’s a parent knows that those months fly by and the longer you put off some form of a structured plan, the bigger your chances are of holding a newborn, looking in their soft innocent eyes, and saying, “Sorry. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Then I travelled back in time to my teenage years in Campbellton. We lived in a house with stained white siding and a steel roof at the bottom of a hill in a working-class suburb. Whether this was a dream, reality, or a nostalgic cocktail of the two, I’m not entirely sure, but this is the way that I remember it. I’d lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as it slanted downward at a 45-degree angle, I’d hear my father and mother downstairs, talking. He was getting ready for work. I’d hear three soft kisses in succession and then the closing of our front door with a loud thud. I’d run to the window and peek through the blinds like I was Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window and stare at my father as he walked up the hill into a thick malevolent fog that transported him into the world of men. A world of danger, where the God was steel, and steel was an unforgiving and vengeful God. An Old Testament God. And my hands would shake as his body moved towards it. Stained overalls, a Teamster hat, a metal lunch bucket, a coffee thermos, and steel-toed boots tied with long laces wrapped around the top of the boot, one, maybe two times, and he was gone. That world frightened me as a kid, and I thought I’d outrun it forever.

But as I finished my coffee that evening, I realized that I was a man. Not much younger than my father was then, and it was time to embrace my bloodline and head back home, to the God of steel.

“What do you think about me asking my dad about seeing if he can get me on at the railroad?” I asked Morgan.

“There’s no railroad here.” She answered.

“No. There isn’t. We’d have to move. But it pays well, and we could have a house by the time the baby is born.”

“What about our friends? What about your brother?” She asked.

“We’d still see them. Just not as much.”

And she cried. But not tears of regret or longing, but rather tears of acceptance, and understanding that it was a good plan, or at least, the best plan in our limited options. So, I called my father, and the process began. A series of interviews, aptitude tests, and physicals got me to my training dates. The summer of 2017, when my son was due.

Then more tears followed as we realized that I’d likely be at the other end of the country when our son was born, and that Morgan’s parents would have to move her to a post-industrial town in the northern part of the province, where she didn’t know a soul, and she’d have to stay there, alone, pregnant, and hot as she waited for me to return so that we could start our new life.

She agreed.

On the evening before I was set to fly out, I didn’t sleep. I wrapped my arm around her belly and rubbed it throughout the evening, listening to her softly snore, and the steady rhythmic traffic outside the window. This had been our home, and in the morning it would no longer be home. The notion that the following evening I’d be sleeping in a hotel a thousand miles away had my heart racing and my skin cold. Was I making a mistake? Did I give up on this place too easily?

Too late now.

That evening is still tattooed on my brain. Her belly, my hand rubbing in a clockwise motion, the decisions of being an adult, how in the snap of a finger, it all changes.

The eight weeks spent out west were strange, but not without a ray of hope. I met some great guys. Guys that I’d still consider friends all these years later. Though we weren’t all navigating the same storm, we were all lost at sea, all seeking companionship to ride out the storm and see where we ended up. And in that aspect, we weren’t alone.

The courses weren’t overly difficult, but there was an overlying fear of failure. Guys did fail the course there, and you were sent off with a handshake and the best of luck as you hopped on a plane and flew back home without a job. I’ve since learned to handle my business and work under pressure in the subsequent years, but this was a major challenge for me, with stresses and anxieties that were as foreign as the prairie landscape of Manitoba.

Towards the end of the course, I received a text from Morgan telling me that she was going into labour. I could have flown back but there was an issue with doing that. If I went, then I wouldn’t graduate with my class and I’d have to wait and finish up with another class when they got to where I currently was with their education. Not ideal. There was also the very real, and rational fear that if I were to meet my son, kiss his head, look into his eyes and his mother’s and hold them, and for the first time understand what having a family truly meant, that there was just no way on God’s green earth that I’d hop on a plane and come back. That would restrict me, and all of this would have been for nothing.

So on a Saturday in late July, Morgan went into labour and I watched via FaceTime in my hotel room. I went through the highs and lows, and the unbearable pain of not being there. I watched as Morgan screamed, and I transported myself back to the evening before I left, just me and her round belly, and all the questions of the world that I couldn’t answer. And I asked myself once again, “Was this all a mistake?”

Then after hours, our son was born. But there were complications in the delivery. Shoulder Dystocia is what they call it, and it’s basically when a baby's shoulder gets caught above the pubic bone, when they finally delivered my boy, they rushed him off to the NICU in a panic. Just like that, “Where’s Lukas?” I asked. And Morgan screamed, “Where’s my boy? Where is he? Where is he?” And she cried, and I cried, and I threw my phone across the hotel room looked out at the city skyline, and closed my eyes. Wishing I was back home, like the Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home.

There were some mild complications, but after a few hours we were able to see my boy in a tube in the NICU and it broke my heart. The doctors said he’d be fine, that they just needed to monitor him and a few days later, he was out.

Then came the day when it was time to go home. We all went to the airport and sat and waited with anticipation. My class all graduated, except for one and we were feeling pretty proud and unbelievably excited to be home. Morgan moved from Fredericton to Bathurst, which was about an hour south of where I grew up. The job required an immense amount of travel, so we rented an old house in a nice neighborhood, and her parents moved her in with the help of my brother, and a couple of my buddies.

As I sat in the airport, I thought about the whirlwind of changes. I’d lived in a University city, living in a small apartment with Morgan, working in a lumber yard, playing guitar. I was returning with a new job, in a new city, in a new house that I’d never seen, and a baby that I’d never met. It was a lot, to say the least.

The flight got delayed a couple of times as tornado warnings were delaying and cancelling flights all over the country. And I felt that urge to cry again. I just wanted to go home, why was it so hard to just get back home? After hours, we hopped on a flight to Montreal, and then I got on a small plane from Montreal to Bathurst.

As the plane approached the tarmac in Bathurst, my new home, I felt an unbelievable zest for life. And as we landed, I could have planted my lips on the asphalt and held them there for the world’s longest kiss. I was home, and that part of my life was finished. A friend of mine named Ryan drove me to my place, and I had no idea where it was. I didn’t know the city that well, and I just gave him the address. Once we reached the house, Morgan waited outside for me, holding my son and I thanked Ryan and his wife for driving me, then I grabbed my suitcase in the trunk and walked down the driveway and held them both, right outside on a warm August afternoon. Tired and depleted, I just held them. I remember Ryan telling me that his wife cried as she watched us, thinking the moment was so beautiful. Once we went inside, I couldn’t stop looking at him.

“Do you want to hold him?” Morgan asked. And I’d realized that I’d never held a baby before in my life.

“I do. But I’m nervous.” I answered.

“You don’t have to be nervous.” And she handed him to me. I picked him up and held him in the palms of my hand. I kissed his forehead and told him that that was it. No more long trips away from him, that I was going to be around. I was going to be around. My hands shook nervously, and everything around me was foreign, but at the same time, I smiled. It was all perfect too.

I had a few days to rest, and then it was time to head back home, into the fog.

Then one morning, I woke up and grabbed my work clothes that were piled in front of my closet. Lukas was sleeping in a bassinet next to Morgan and I walked over and kissed him on his forehead. It was dark. Too early, and as I went downstairs to brew some coffee, I realized that the course was just the beginning. This was where the work actually started.

I hopped in my car, turned on the radio, and drank my coffee as I drove an hour north on Highway 11. The summer was slowly turning into the fall, and a fog was rising over the lakes as I drove towards the God of steel.

I was just a kid, I thought. A room filled with posters. A mind with no more depth than basketball and girls, movies, and music. I was just a kid, strumming my guitar, and sitting with my friends along a thin stretch of grass between the asphalt and the fence. We were spinning basketballs on our fingers and imagining a basketball scout taking us away from the smokestacks and the grinding, screeching sounds of steel on steel as the railroaders shunted freight cars in the yard along the riverside. I was just a kid who’d run away from that world. Who went to a liberal world of free love and music, and hope and dreams, and here I was. The fog enveloped me. It was time to see what was on the other side.

I was going home.