Geoffrey Ashton Brooks, February 11, 1948 - September 26, 2019

My mother married Geoffrey Brooks when I was 22. I stood at their ceremony as my mom's maid of honour. I wore a dress that my then-roomate had made for me. I took the train across the country, from my home in Halifax, to be there with them.

After the ceremony, braver people and people who knew the two of them together much better than I did stood up to make toasts and speeches and I gathered all of my nerve to express a very simple thought that was probably exactly this (at least in spirit): "I don't know Geoff very well, but what I do know is that he loves my mom and he makes her happy."

One day, a couple of years later, we were having a stupid argument. We had so few of those and I wish I could remember more of the context. Probably, I was drunk. It came out that he had been hurt by what I'd said at their wedding, that he'd understood I was saying I didn't know him. Well, I didn't. Of course I didn't - I lived three provinces away! It wasn't the point though. I couldn't understand how he could have so grossly misinterpreted me but I think I do now.

Geoff had a hard time with in-betweens, and it's a bridge that I struggled to cross. Because for him - of course he knew me! We were family! Just like that. Just like forever. Of course.

Before I was Geoff's stepdaughter I was the daughter of his old friends from university and a close friend of his son's. I spent so many evenings and weekends at his house on Bywood. The first time I ever got drunk was on his homemade wine (unbeknownst to him!) Adam was a really good friend. I had a huge crush on him at the beginning of high school in fact, and he was kind and delicate in his rejection. We acted in plays together and drove around the suburbs in his k-car and were part of a group of friends who were sad and happy and honest and angsty together during those torturous, formative years. Adam's father always greeted me - and all of Adam's friends - warmly and with a familiarity that most grown-ups didn't show. He was respectful enough (and knowing him as I do now, probably also busy enough) to keep his distance, but he didn't fade into the background like some friends' parents did. He made an impression, because he was kind, and remembered your name, and asked you questions, and listened to what you said.

The story of Cheryl and Geoff is the best story I know. Geoff has told me I get some of it wrong, but he's also told me he likes my version better, so here goes: Geoff and my father, John, were roommates in co-op housing when they went to U of T. They lived on Amelia street [or perhaps my father lived there when he was in that commune], which is where I got my name. My brother is also a Geoffrey with a G, the spelling inspired by Geoffrey Brooks' spelling [or perhaps from some other source]. They all lost touch until I started high school and began talking about my friend Adam Brooks. My parents were quick to make the connection and were able to reconnect. After high school, after my first failed attempt at university, after my parents' divorce, I called Adam to let him know I was moving to Halifax, and to see if he wanted to grab a coffee or a beer as it had been a while. He wasn't home, so I spoke with his father who asked how my mother was doing; he knew my parents had separated. She had just walked into the room and I told him so and they talked and the rest is history. I think the parts in square brackets are the parts that are embellished and I'm sure there are a couple of people around who could set the record straight, but I'd rather keep telling Geoff's favourite version. In any case, clearly, it was meant to be.

I loved Geoff, initially, because of how well he loved my favourite people. He embraced not only my mother, but my two brothers as well. He has shown so much support not only for his own two sons, but for his two stepsons as well. There are particular stories that are for them to share that got cemented into my perception of him, warmed my still somewhat reserved heart.

I really got to know Geoff in my thirties, when I moved back to Toronto - into his home, in fact, on and off, for a significant part of that decade. He did not just let me move in but welcomed me, offerimg so much support and warmth.

Geoff was kind of the opposite of me. He was the kind of person who bargained with people. He always got a good deal but I thought he was pretty abrasive. (I, of course, never got a good deal). When he saw something that needed doing he got up and did it immediately, usually enlisting those of us in his vicinity. I probably could have finished another couple of chapters of my book, but I would have never gotten that dock in the water or that battery filled without him. I have a dad whom I love very much, but he's never been the kind of dad to buy me a toolkit or teach me how to cook a steak or how to store my scooter over the winter. These are lifeskills I desperately lacked, needed, and am eternally grateful for.

Words feel like not enough. This is how I show people I care but the actions are the things.

I hope I am a less judgemental person because of Geoff. I hope that I am a more assertive person because of Geoff. I hope I am more present for my family, which is bigger than it was before, because of Geoff.

I wasn't ready for him to go. I think maybe he was, and it's okay, but I wish I'd said all the stuff. I hope he knows. I absolutely, totally know.

Thank you, Geoff, for loving my mother the way you did. She deserved a good man and you were so worthy of her love. Thank you for taking her on adventures and listening to her and sharing experiences and thoughts with her. Thank you for being yourself with her and thank you for letting her be her wonderful self. Love and happiness are still the best reasons to commit to anyone, you know.

And now that I know you, I couldn't be more pleased that you were the person who loved my mom and made her so happy.

Cover Me Up

For three years now, I have shared my life with Andy. It's the happiest I have ever been, and I had no idea it could be like this.

I was single for a very long time before I met Andy, and I was sort of resigned to it. I mean, I wanted to meet somebody, but I also felt okay with the idea that it might not work out that way. I even appreciated the adventures I had as things that would be harder to do if I had a partner to consider. And I was lucky and grateful to have truly close friendships and a very supportive family including very awesome nieces. Really, my life was not bad.

I always knew that if I were to meet someone, it would be imperative that he be smart, interesting, and have great taste in the things that matter to me, especially in music. He had to also, of course, share the same kind of values and not be a misogynist homophobe or something, and he had to treat people with decency. But I guess I thought most of the other things were negotiable. Mostly, I imagined ending up with someone who was kind of sullen, or reserved, or hated being out embracing the world and the people that I love in it. Or a dog person. Because who gets everything, right?

ME! I DO!

I'm not saying Andy's perfect, but he truly is perfect for me. After maybe three tentative dates we were both all in. He's felt familiar and it has been easy almost from the beginning.

Whenever we are together, Andy makes me feel beautiful and valued. He always let me know how glad he is to be in my company, how enriched his life is because I'm in it. We laugh together and talk closely and there is never anything I hold back. We love to spend time alone together and we also love to spend time together with the other people we love. We love to drive to little towns in Ontario and find out where the best breakfasts and butter tarts are. We love to explore neighbourhoods within the city we call home and trails on the outskirts of towns we've never heard of. But really, anything we do together is fun because we are doing it together. I hope I never take for granted how lucky I am, how good and kind and loving and wonderful this man I get to be with is.

Sometimes we talk about how we met at exactly the right time in our lives. How if I had met Andy before, he would have seemed bitter and angry with the world. And if he had known me in my drinking days I would have been sloppy and annoying and aimless. It is hard for either of us to imagine the other like that.

Andy and I discovered Jason Isbell's album together one Sunday afternoon during our first year together. It all resonates with me - such a great recovery album.

"Cover Me Up" always reminds me of Andy - how vulnerable and loving he is and makes me and how this is the brilliant and unexpected reward for putting in that time and effort to grow and become the people we know each other to be.

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Andy. You are the love of my life. Every day I am so grateful I get to share this life with you. These little words don't do us justice of course, but you know what I mean.

 Cover Me Up - Jason Isbell

A heart on the run keeps a hand on the gun

You can't trust anyone
I was so sure what I needed was more
Tried to shoot out the sun
Days when we raged, we flew off the page
Such damage was done
But I made it through, 'cause somebody knew
I was meant for someone

So girl, leave your boots by the bed
We ain't leaving this room
Till someone needs medical help
Or the magnolias bloom
It's cold in this house and I ain't going out to chop wood
So cover me up and know you're enough
To use me for good

 

Put your faith to the test when I tore off your dress
In Richmond on high
But I sobered up and I swore off that stuff
Forever this time
And the old lover's sing
“I thought it'd be me who helped him get home”
But home was a dream
One I'd never seen till you came along

 

So girl hang your dress up to dry 

We ain't leavin' this room

Til Percy Priest breaks open wide
And the river runs through

Carries this house on the stones like a piece of drift wood

Cover me up and know you're enough to use me for good

Wheat Kings

It seems every Canadian is writing about The Tragically Hip this month, and of course, because this ubiquitous Canadian band has been especially ubiquitous this summer. They are playing their very last shows, and it's sad, and admirable, and even those of us who aren't really fans are, as Canadians, so tied to this event.

In the fall of 1994 I moved to Sudbury to attend Laurentian University, and I lived in residence. It was a strange experience for me. My last year of high school had been spent at an alternative school where the status quo was constantly being questioned, and where I was surrounded by artists and musicians and weirdos. Laurentian, in contrast - and especially, residence - was a very different world. I found people I liked, and even (a very few) people I connected with, but I mostly felt out of place and out of sorts there. The drinking and late nights I could keep up with, but not the loudness that accompanied them. There was a testosterone-fueled, jocky atmosphere I recognized from American movies about American high schools, but I never had that kind of high school experience until I went to university.

I don't believe The Tragically Hip are those kinds of people, but when I think about them, I think about that kind of crowd, and I imagine the band lost amid a sea of keggers, where they are both encouraging and separate. I don't know what band Sloan is referring to with the line, "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans," but it has always made me think of The Tragically Hip.

But my fondest memory of their music is of sitting in the stairwell between the ninth and tenth floors of University College residence and singing along to "Wheat Kings" in a quiet moment of respite from the loudness, the falling-down-drunk of it all. It's the sitting-down-drunk, and the sharing of songs. Even though I am not really a fan, I really love that song, and we all knew all the words and in that moment of sharing I felt okay - even good - about the place I was in.

My other favourite Hip song is Courage. I read Hugh MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night in my Canadian Literature class at Laurentian, and it was one of my favourite books for many years. It was the version sung by Sarah Polley, in one of my favourite films, The Sweet Hereafter, though, that really made me love it.

Mostly, I have always thought The Tragically Hip were kind of boring musically. Always, though, I would follow that opinion up, quickly, with, "but I really respect them." It's undeniable that the lyrics are good. It's also undeniable that the spirit of the band is good. Gord Downie and his band have tapped into something that unifies every Canadian, and not just because so many of their songs are about Canada but sure, and of course, partly because of that. Downie is a storyteller, and he is not a blind nationalist, but someone who is curious and manages to light up dark corners and show them to people who might not otherwise listen or know where to look.

I'm going to be at a folk festival in Peterborough the night of the Hip's last show, which is being broadcast across Canada, but I think I will try to steal away for a bit, to find a television set in a nearby bar that is broadcasting it (I don't think this will be difficult).

When I feel like I don't fit in, it's not usually because I don't want to, but because I don't know how. And I love it that The Tragically Hip can tear down those walls. Gord Downie is such a strange and original frontperson for a straight up rock band and that alone lets you know it's not, actually, just a straight up rock band. And what I felt, sitting in that stairwell and singing "Wheat Kings" with those other voices, was connection and inclusion.

Canada loves you, Gord Downie, and I love that.

Twenty-Five Miles

Some friendships feel so natural right from the start and with some, I have found myself surprised to discover that I'm just suddenly in the midst of one, after years of getting to know and showing up for one another. One of my most surprising and rewarding friendships is with Jackie, and today, on the eve of my week-end trip to Cleveland, I'm thinking about the first rust belt city road trip I took, with Jackie, a couple of years ago, to Detroit.

Jackie and I met as Cultural Studies students at Mount Saint Vincent University. I returned to university as a mature student, and being ten years older than most of my classmates, Jackie included, I didn't really expect to make friends there. And I definitely didn't expect to make friends with Jackie, even despite the age difference, because she seemed so serious and, well, not a drunk. I was still drinking very much then, and although I didn't show up to class drunk, I was certainly typically hungover, and certainly always aware, by that point, that it was a problem. I was guarded, secretive, ashamed of, and committed to my drinking, and there really wasn't room in my life for people who didn't drink similarly. Until that one time we got wasted together at our professor's barbeque I actually thought that Jackie actively disliked me.

There is something to be said for the power of alcohol as a social lubricant, and I have fond memories of drinking with Jackie. That first night of confessional "I thought you disliked me!" could have been shelved as a fond memory of a person I really quite like, a friendship-that-almost-was. I have so many of those. But instead, it marked the beginning of an actual friendship that has now lasted for nearly a decade.

I think that Jackie, though she likes people, is primarily an introvert, and she can be hard to read.  People like that have a tendency to freak me out. Happy and sad are so easy for me, but the stuff in between often gets transformed into "[she] hates me." We started hanging out. She'd come to rock shows with me, and hang out at the Granite brewery with me, and then, when I gave up the booze, our friendship transitioned, more easily than many, into one that didn't revolve around alcohol. Because, really, it never had. We were school friends.

A few years ago, Jackie and I both found ourselves in southern Ontario. In different cities for most of the time, but in ones that were close enough for week-end visits. I don't know that I thought, consciously, that our friendship would just fade away, but I don't think I thought it would sustain itself the way it has, that she would turn out to be one of the closest friends I have.

Jackie lives her life in such a respectable, true-to-herself, and interesting way. When I think about how, when I first met her, I'd determined that my chaotic, alcohol-and-rock-and-roll fueled life was so separate from her peaceful, suburban, (and, yes, boring) life I have to also reflect that neither of us were, then, living the lives that we wanted for ourselves, in such opposite but equal ways.

Those of you who know me - and I'm quite sure that includes all of my readership - know that I had been trying to get to Detroit for years. When I moved from Halifax back to Toronto, proximity to Detroit was one of the things I was most excited about, and I thought I'd be taking a trip there during the first month I was back in town. But it didn't happen for another two and a half years. It was difficult to convince people to drive there with me, and I don't drive, and the Motor City could not really be done without a car.

Canadians are just crazy about the United States. Watching our much larger, aggressive, flashy, broken neighbour to the south can make us feel superior and it can also make us feel lacking. There's some very interesting stuff going on in Canada, but the United States always seems more interesting. There's some terrible stuff going on in Canada, but the United States always seems worse. I would never give up the security of living in a relatively safe country; having access to universal healthcare and knowing that my neighbours aren't all armed are two things I value very much. But I also believe there's something so romantic about living in a very fucked up situation and trying to make it better on your own or with your community, on a smaller scale. There are so many American cities that are in rough shape because of systemic racism, economic disparity, lack of access to social programs and health care, easy access to firearms, etc., etc., and Detroit is, of course, the most fucked up - and also the most heart-warmingly hopeful - American city of all.

It turns out that Jackie and I share a lot of the same values, and foremost among those is an interest in community-building. So, of course, Jackie would be the best person with whom to travel to Detroit. Inspired by my enthusiasm and her own equal sense of adventure, we finally found a week-end that worked for both of us, at the end of February 2014, in the midst of the coldest winter any of us Ontarioians can remember.

Via roads that appeared not to have been serviced for decades, we found ourselves in small businesses run by and packed with Detroit-enthusiasts, past homes that were caving in on themselves, and to a market filled with produce that was grown locally on repurposed, abandoned land. We listened to The White Stripes, and Motown compilations, and, especially, over and over, Edwin Starr singing about how far he had gone and the increasingly short distance that remained. 

A couple of week-ends ago, I spent time with Jackie at her beautiful home in Hamilton, where I met her friends and ate the delicious breakfast she prepared from food grown on the farm she works on and from neighbouring farms. We talked about the sad and happy things in our lives but I was reminded, again, of how our friendship is not just about the things that we tell one another, but about the things that we do. We keep on showing up, glad to see one other, year after year.

Tomorrow I'm going to Cleveland just to see what it's all about, with a couple of people I'm just getting to know, to see what they're all about. I've made an Ohio mixed cd. I'm hopeful and excited. People and cities and music are pretty much my favourite things, in that order.

Comfortably Numb

Katherine and I both share the memory of the first time we laid eyes on one another, with our parents and a number of other grade eight students, in Mr. Kirkwood's English classroom at Martingrove Collegiate. Some months later, in grade nine, and actually students in his English class, we discussed that day, and how we had been drawn to one another. In typical Amelia fashion, my thoughts had been, "She looks so cool. She'll never want to be my friend." In fact, she did want to be my friend, and in fact, she was not particulary "cool," despite what I and several of her young suitors initially believed.

Katherine was and is unusual, smart, wise about people in a way few people are, and unwise about certain social conventions in a way few people are, a dreamer, a writer, a loyal friend, and a truly remarkable human being. But "cool" is not even in Katherine's vocabulary.

Katherine-isms include an unbelievably poor sense of direction, especially when one lives in a city as sensibly laid out as Toronto (Had we grown up in Halifax, I am sure she would still be trying to find her way home),  long-winded voicemail messages, and, still astonishing to me is this last one - the bizzaro, opposite world ability to come across as a snob.

There is not a snobby bone in Katherine's body, which is no small feat for someone with such refined taste in literature. She is one of the least judgemental people I have ever met in my life. Yet throughout highschool, I repeatedly heard her referred to as a snob. Friends and I would sometimes refer to her as a "little grown-up," because she was uncommonly articulate and used multi-sylabic words and, having grown up without cable television and with a steady diet of classical music, was completely unaware of the popular culture touchstones that united our peers. I made fun of her a lot, about all of that stuff, and, I presume, because we are still best friends 25 years later, that she took it all in jest or, just as often, completely missed it. She talked smart and she was often lost in her own thoughts, seemingly distant, and these things, I guess, made her appear snobby. But really, I never saw how people saw that; I only knew that they did because they told me.

Katherine was also very cute and small and all of the boys were in love with her. I mean, it was crazy the boys that were in love with her - the jock boys, the nerd boys, the weird boys, even the right-wing conservative boys. Several of my crushes developed crushes on her. Perpetually single in high school, I often felt like a third wheel, and I sometimes resented it, but my resentment felt less like "Why do they like her?" and more like, "They don't even like her." Because, for the most part, Katherine dated nice, unremarkable boys. I do think they saw something special in her but I don't think they had any idea what it was.

Katherine's favourite song for a very long time, when we were in high school, was Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." While it was I who introdued Katherine to many cultural touchstones, it was Katherine who introduced me to Pink Floyd, by way, I presume, of her older brother Tony (who also introduced her, and then I, to Billy Bragg!)

Because it was her favourite song, she carried it into her earliest relationships, and for two consecutive ones, it became "their" song. Two! Consecutive relationships! "Comfortably Numb"! As inappropriate as that might seem, it isn't hard to see how that song could have resonated with someone who felt so outside of the whole high school experience that her peers - myself and her boyfriends included - were such active participants in: "You are only coming through in waves / Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying."

It is hard to paint a picture of Katherine because she isn't a type. I have never met anyone who reminded me of Katherine. And that's part of the pleasure of knowing Katherine.

Most of the pleasure of knowing Katherine involves words. It has been getting to read her writing throughout the years - she is one of the best writers I know. And it has been lengthy discussions about people - their behaviours and oddities and particular reactions to particular situations. And when I talk to her about myself and my life, I am always reminded of how she really knows me and how I am in the world, better than almost anyone.

When I have teased Katherine about certain aspects of her behaviour, she has retorted that some of these traits are Amelia traits as well, and I do see a small amount of Katherine lite in some of my behaviour. Something I like and believe about myself is that I am someone who is difficult to pigeon-hole; that I am full of contradictions. And she was and is certainly like that in the very biggest way - so concurrently wise and unwise.

Katherine has been married for several years now to a man, Andrew, who makes sense for her, and who I'm enormously happy to see her with and to get to have in my life as well. He is strange and thoughtful and smart and kind in ways that are not quite like Katherine's ways but that are complimentary. And he really sees her, which is what I have always hoped for for Katherine.

A couple of weeks ago I attended Katherine's son's 16th birthday party with Katherine and Andrew. It had been years since I had seen him and he has become, so seemingly suddenly, a teenager, with friends and enthusiasm and a passion for weird art projects. He looks like her, and I could not help recalling Katherine and I at that age. How difficult and devastating and exciting and new everything is when you're 16, and how lucky Katherine and I were to have had one another.

Sun in an Empty Room

I always think about moving away from Hunter street when I think: Moving Day. I didn't live there for very long - just 16 months, I believe - and I had about ten roommates during my time there so it felt too transient to ever feel like home. But I think it was significant. I think I lost and learned and changed a lot during that time. I made some very significant choices that might have been the wrong ones.

In the year 2001, after spending a few months travelling across Canada, I moved back to Halifax because that was where my heart lived. My boyfriend Sean joined me there a couple of months later, because it was lucky that we both wanted to leave Toronto for the East Coast. Or we remained together in Toronto because we both knew we were going to leave, together. I don't know. I loved him, but not like I loved Halifax. I had known immediately, intuitively, that Halifax was my soulmate.

I wasn't conscious of what building a life really meant when I moved to Halifax, either the first time, in 1997, or the second time, in 2001. I experienced Halifax as authentic and freeing and creative and wild and beautiful and kind and these were the things that mattered to me when I was in my early- to mid-twenties.

Luke and Claudia had found the apartment. I had lived with them for a year on Moran street, in 1998, and they had been great roommates and friends. Sean and I had decided to live with other people to save some money and because it was initially unclear when he would actually be arriving. It was a large 4 bedroom apartment on the top floor of a house in a beautiful part of the city. They were a couple, as well, and so we had all kinds of extra space. It was nice before Sean arrived, but it was awful after.

I don't remember all the details anymore, but I will accept the responsibility for the deterioration of that living situation. I think I felt like I was trying to be a peacemaker and felt pulled in a couple of different directions. But I knew how stubborn Sean was and I knew in my gut as soon as I got back to Halifax and was reunited with my old friends, that Sean would not be a good fit despite Luke and Claudia being super easy to get along with. Luke and Claudia gave up the apartment a few months later, found a place of their own, and for the next year, Sean and I lived with a succesion of temporary roommates.

Dan was the best because he was hardly ever there. He spent most of his time in a cabin up north or at his girlfriend's house. I think he just wanted to maintain his own address and a place to store his stuff. He had band practice there in the kitchen, and his band was great, and he also made wine there.

Dimitris became fast friends with both Sean and I. He was always on and hilarious and kept up with (or at least put up with) our drinking. But the friendship was brief, one of those crush friendships, where everything's exciting and new and fun for a couple of months but starts to fade just as quickly. When Andrea and Margaret moved in, his friendship affections shifted to Margaret, and I think Sean and I both felt a little jilted. We liked Margaret a lot too, though. She and Andrea were a couple that seemed close to ending; Margaret spent way more time with us than with her girlfriend, and that felt kind of weird.

But the people, the timeline, the details, everything is hazy. It was a big turning point in my drinking career.

Sean was into a concoction he called "green death" that year, made out if some kind of green pop and probably rum but possibly gin. On his days off, he would start drinking as soon as he got up, and I remember knowing that this was going too far. He was my barometer then. If I worried about my own drinking I would rationalize that I didn't start drinking as soon as I woke up.

I remember setting limits for myself then. I was doing homecare work at the time, and I saw one of my clients at 9 am on weekdays, and I knew I couldn't be drunk while I was doing this, so midnight became my week night cut-off time. I was always drunk by midnight. I was always hungover at work.

I used to siphen off some of Dan's wine when no one was home and the fridge was empty.

Before too long I stopped doing homecare work and I got a job working at Propeller, a small local brewery, on the bottling line. An enormous perk was that our fridge was always filled with free beer. Rationalizing that I didn't have to be on my game the same way to work at Propeller, I got rid of the stupid cut-off time rule.

I was miserable at Propeller. It was a really physically exhausting job, and I was always doing it hungover. I started socializing less with people outside of my home becasue I was always so exhausted.

I still said I was a social drinker because I was, you know, socilaizing with my boyfriend every night. And Dimitris. And our friend Kelly was usually there, too. But I knew, then, that I had turned the wrong corner.

Something happened to the dynamics of my relationship with Sean during that time, too. I felt like, before, and especially when I was travelling, I was in control, and I was choosing. But it started to feel like Sean was in control, like he was choosing. I didn't want to leave him but I knew then that I didn't have the power to make him stay. And I certainly didn't have the gumption to turn our little world on its head. I opted for a less dramatic living situation and just the two of us. But very little changed when we moved to Allan street.

On moving day, Sean and I got stuck with the brunt of the cleaning. He let me sleep while he did much (probably most) of the work, and woke me up at dawn on moving day to finish the job while he got a few hours of sleep. He'd just gotten the new Norah Jones album, Come Away With Me, and he set it up for me before he retired. I cleaned the front room with that on repeat, the only soul awake, considering the past 16 months and the future, and I felt alone but a remarkable sense of peace.

We'd stay together for a couple more years, and when I moved out of Allan street it was drawn out and devastating. The break-up is a scene I remember but the moving day is not. The Hunter street move was far more dramatic and certainly a sign of things to come. Although it's Norah Jones that ruled that morning, it's The Weakerthans' "Sun in an Empty Room" that I'm choosing in hindsight.

Sun in an Empty Room - The Weakerthans

Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home
With dishes in last week's paper -
Rumors and elections, crosswords, an unending wars -
That blacken our fingers, smear their prints on every door pulled shut

Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit,
Take this moment to decide (sun in an empty room)
If we meant it, if we tried (sun in an empty room)
Or felt around for far too much (sun in an empty room)
From things that accidentally touched (sun in an empty room)

Hands that we nearly hold with pennies for the GST
The shoulders we lean our shoulders into on the subway, mutter an apology
The shins that we kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry
The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified

Know the things we need to say (sun in an empty room)
Have been said already anyway (sun in an empty room)
By parallelograms of light (sun in an empty room)
On walls that we repainted white (sun in an empty room)

Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room

Take eight minutes and divide (sun in an empty room)
By ninety million lonely miles (sun in an empty room)
And watch a shadow cross the floor (sun in an empty room)
We don't live here anymore (sun in an empty room)

This post is not inspired by a song, but by that former CBC radio host.

I want to share a story about something that happened to me. It doesn’t sound like it’s something that happened to me because the worst of it happened to and because of people who are not me. But I don’t know what they were thinking or are currently thinking about this event. I don’t know the background or the aftermath and that isn’t my story.

I used to be a regular at a bar in Halifax, as many of you know, as many of you were there. I was (and still am, just no longer actively) an alcoholic. I did some regrettable, embarrassing things during my tenure there, of course, and I watched regrettable, embarrassing things happen around me. But I never felt unsafe. On the contrary, I felt so safe, surrounded by good friends with kind hearts. And the people who ran and tended the bar, I felt, were looking out for us.

There was a couple who hung out there a fair bit and with whom I was friendly. They were drinking buds of mine. Not really friends, but potential friends I thought at one time, and people I really liked. I knew the man better than I knew the woman, because he’d spent more time at the bar and we’d had more conversations. He never seemed sketchy or unsafe, and this is maybe what gets me the most. I always thought I was a good judge of character.

One night, after last call, the three of us decided to continue drinking at a bar down the street called Reflections, which had a cabaret license that allowed it to continue serving alcohol until 3:30 am. Then I went back to their place where we continued drinking for god knows how long. Probably not that long, given the timeline. We were lost in conversation and having an excellent time and we didn’t want the party to end. This was not a particularly strange thing for me to be doing at that time in my life. I was a partier, and a drunk.

I crashed on their couch. Also, not notably unusual behaviour.

At some point, when it was light out, I woke up because I heard banging coming from upstairs, where the couple’s bedroom was. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. I was disoriented because I was not in my own bed and because I was drunk. Within a few seconds I remembered where I was and how I had gotten there. The banging continued. This, I didn’t understand. I don’t remember hearing any yelling, but I may have. I remember that the impression I had was that someone was being thrown against a wall. It sounded forceful, violent, and scary. I think I must have heard voices but I don’t remember anymore. It was a long time ago. I remember yelling up the stairs, somewhat meekly, “Are you okay?” The sounds stopped for a moment, and then filled the silence again. I got the hell out of there.

I was pretty sure this was going on: He was beating the shit out of her.

Here, I know, I did exactly the right thing. I left the presumably violent situation and I called the police as soon as I could locate a payphone.

I looked at their street address and repeated it over and over in my head so I wouldn’t forget it. I walked up towards Gottingen street, which wasn’t very far away but felt like miles. I was drunk and sleep deprived and I was suddenly in the midst of people rushing to work like it was a regular day. I think I was in shock. I had been fortunate enough to never have experienced that kind of violence first-hand, and it really stunned me. I searched for a payphone. These were few and far between because most people had cell phones by then. I finally  found one and I called 911 and I told them the address and that I thought there was a domestic situation.

I got home in a daze and I told my roommate about it and I must have slept, but I don’t know how the rest of that day went.

That night there was a music event at “my” bar, and I was working the door, as I frequently did, in exchange for free beer.

I told people what happened. I told my friends, who knew him too. They believed me and they were shocked too.

Some time over the next few days a friend of the abuser came into the bar and relayed that the abused had been taken to the hospital after the police were called, and the she had been badly beaten. I overheard him telling this to the bartender. I didn’t say anything and I don’t know why. I hated the way he said it though, like he was just relaying some gossip, like it was interesting rather than horrifying. This friend of the abuser still hung out with the abuser, which I knew because I saw them both sitting at the bar together way too soon after the incident. The bartender served them both, like nothing had happened. This went on at the downstairs bar while I was sitting at the door in the upstairs bar, and someone came upstairs to let me know he was there.

I wish I’d been louder about this part of my story because this part really hurt me. I don’t know what they were actually thinking but I know that the men who worked at that bar continued to serve the abuser even though they knew he had beaten the shit out of his girlfriend and scared the shit out of me. I don’t think they disbelieved me but I don’t know how they could do that.

The abuser wasn’t a regular anymore, and I think he mostly tried to avoid me, but I know he still popped in on occasion, and once, when I was sitting at a table by the window, he walked by and banged on the glass right in front of me, intentionally intimidating.

I had a disappointing conversation with the abused in the aftermath. I’d been worried about her, and had wanted to get in touch but hadn’t known how. We spoke outside the bar once. She asked me if I’d been the one to call the police. She said she assumed I had been but wasn’t sure. She told me it had been really good for their relationship, that it had straightened him out, and that they were much healthier now. That he used to abuse her regularly but didn’t anymore. It broke my heart.

Should I be saying his name? I know his name. I know some of you facebook friends of mine know his name, too. Maybe he has changed, has gotten help and is truly a better and remorseful person. If I say his name though it’s like saying her name and her story is not mine to tell. She can tell it if, when, and how she wants to.

I wish I’d been louder about how betrayed I felt by some of the people at that bar. I felt like it wasn’t my right because it wasn’t my bar and maybe that’s true, except it is my right to talk about how I feel. And when I saw him in there with mutual acquaintances, I wish I’d said, “How could you? Don’t you care about what this man has done? Don’t you care that he makes this place unsafe? How can you sit there with him?”

I don’t know what anyone except for me believes about what happened, and may continue to happen, for all I know. I have never heard his side, and I imagine his friends have.

But I think I should talk about it because this is one of the things I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this week, and I think it’s an example of how our culture makes it easy for people to get away with abusive behaviour. Everybody knew, and everybody was still nice to him. He got away with it. I don’t even know how complicit I was and am in this myself.

I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I relay this story, because it’s not really something that happened to me. But the actual waking up in their house and calling the police and walking home part of the story, this is one of - if not the most - traumatic things that has ever happened to me. I really did feel in a state of shock. And I think about her, and all of the other people I know who have actually been victims of violence, and I feel so goddamned lucky. How fucked up is it that I feel lucky, and exceptional, to have never been a victim of violence?