i have a story and im only gonna write it once. If commas or apostrophes are missing please apply them (in your brain as you read) as usage and convention dictate.
Some shit happened yesterday and I am still fucked up about it so I still haven’t slept because I’m also injured and my pain tolerance ain’t what it used to be. (If you’re a SIMPSONS fan: “The old grey mare she ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be…”)
Let me go back to the start:
i have a part time I really love but I need to supplement my income so, since COVID obliterated the service industry in March 2020, I’ve had to do other things.
That initial COVID ban, I mean the day it happened, was crazy. I had taken a one-hour nap. When my head hit the pillow I had a 12-hour serving shift that night, the Toronto Maple Leafs were doing well and the Toronto Raptors were in first place with a 53-19 record.
I was married.
I was sober.
I lived in trendy Kensington Market, Toronto with my wife/partner and we had 2 cats.
When I woke up and hour later I no longer had a job and the NBA and NHL seasons were suspended.
4 months later I would no longer be married, no longer be sober and no longer live ANYWHERE.
Let’s skip from March 2020 to August 2020.
In Aug my wife moved out and took the cats and everything else (everything else was hers. When I’d thrown away a perfectly good mattress 2 years earlier to instead use hers, a little impish voice in my head whispered “Danny. That’s a perfectly good mattress. Are you SURE you don’t want to maybe hold it in storage?” “NONSENSE!” I bellowed. “I’m in love and this is forever and all my things are old and shitty and she said she prefers HER mattress, so this is what I am doing.”)
And then it’s Aug 2020 and I am sleeping on a hardwood floor, using 2 head pillows as a “mattress.” I’m lonely as hell, and a chance encounter with an extremely lovely and gracious human being ended with me having my OWN cat. One I could actually name myself. I’d TRIED to name one of the previous 2, but my suggestions we’re not even heard, much less debated. I STILL think that “California” is a way better name for a cat with a long body, not “Church,” but whatever.
I had a beautiful kitten of my own and after debating the 2 names “Snarf” and “Cookie” for a week, I asked the kitten outright which name he preferred, and he made it very clear that he wanted his name to be Cookie.
2 weeks later I got evicted. This was a problem because ordinarily, my wonderful and supportive and kickass mother, who I love, would have let me crash with her until I found a place, but this was COVID. Sharing spaces wasn’t really safe. Even with loved ones.
I found an old, dear friend who I love more than any other friend for her UNDYING loyalty and support (when tthere has been NOBODY AND NOTHING there has always always been her. You know who you are. I cant name you bcuz your paents don’t like me and don’t know we live together and have lived together since Aug 2020 but anyway I am thanking you for taking me and Cookie in, at GREAT personal risk, because the landlord visited every week and there was a STRICT “no pets” policy. We shared a single 7 foot by 7 foot bedroom. 2 platonic ppl and a cat. Oh it was a fuckin PICNIC.
Me and my friend are life partners. We share an apartment. She has taken Cookie as her own. We share a mattress (again) because we only have one bedroom and Toronto is disgustingly expensive if we get evicted this December, we will probably have to leave this city. We’ve both been living at or below the poverty line since moving here, both in 2007. It’s fair to say I am OVER Toronto.
So. Okay. August 2020:
A guy, a girl, platonic friends sleeping on the same mattress, and a kitten who, while cute, could not seem to stop announcing his existence by mewling and meowing every 3 to 4 seconds. Anyway this was near Main St Station in Aug 2020 and we stayed there until June 2021.
During those months, Aug 2020-June 2021, I started busking outside for change to supplement my income because EVERYTHING was shut down. I’ve sang in bands for years, played guitar in bands for longer, and I felt like maybe $5 or $10 a day would help. But Main St surprised me. I was making $25-35 a day (tax free!), 7 days a week. Enough to help with rent, buy cat food, and buy dinner. At the end of every week it always seemed like we had JUST enough for rent, so I’d go out and busk again. (My friend works too, she just got a full time job too)
Performing live music is fun!
Standing outside in rain, sleet, snow, or sunshine for 4-6 hours a day (6 is my ABSOLUTE upper limit) is not fun. I have a repertoire of Top 40 bullshit stretching back through time, as any self-respecting guitar player born in the 80s would be expected to. If somebody requests a song, it usually (but not always) means they are going to pay you. So you better brush up. You gotta know yr stuff.
Fine Young Cannibals? Uh…sure. ‘She Drives Me Crazy’ or ‘Good Thing’?”
David Bowie? I only know ‘Heroes’ and ‘The Man Who Sold The World.’ Do you wanna hear either of those?
Everclear? I only know ‘Santa Monica.’ Other person: “What other Everclear song is there?” lol.
Tragically Hip? I know like….50 of their songs, just name one. I can go deep. I’m talkin Pigeon Camera & When the Weight Comes Down. I’m not a b-side king, I’m just saying, with the Hip we can go album tracks, k? doesn’t have to be a single but if you ARE gonna request a single can we NOT do ‘Nautical Disaster?’ It has like…369989528 chords for the sake of FUCK
Nirvana, Oasis, the Offspring, Rancid, Queens of the Stone Age, Coldplay, Radiohead, Collective Soul, Blue Rodeo, Johnny Cash, Eagles, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Deep Purple (NOT a band that translates well to acoustic), Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, Dinosaur Jr, Soundgarden, Cranberries, The Vaselines, Dwight Yoakam (Don’t laugh. He was Johnny Cash’s favourite singer and probably has the single greatest country yodeling voice in the history of recorded music, Have you ever heard “Thousand Miles From Nowhere”? or his cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’?). Headstones, Matthew Good. Age of Electric
And on and on and on.
I’m not bragging. I have a TERRIBLE singing voice. Just HEARING it makes my skin crawl. But I was/am trying to make money. So it stopped being fun pretty quickly. On days where I make my quota in 3 hours, I’m ecstatic. On days where it takes 6 hours, I’m annoyed. On days I don’t make my quota at all, I’m angry and depressed. But I’m ALWAYS depressed.
We moved in June 2021 & I started busking in front of the Parliament Street LCBO. My God. BY FAR the most remunerative spot I have EVER played and I have busked ALL over this city.
One day, on Parliament ST, a man I knew from Main St pulled over, and brought me a pack of guitar strings. It was so lovely. He’d noticed about 6 weeks before that, that I was down to 4 strings (any less and you’re not playing chords anymore. Your guitar is just grunting if you have 3 strings, rather than singing. So this lovely man BOUGHT me a pack of strings and FOUND me and GAVE me the pack. I pretty much burst into tears right there. It was an incredibly kind act of consideration. More the fact that he’d been DRIVING AROUND THE CITY SEARCHING FOR ME than the strings. It was amazing.
This is relevant to this story so I am going to say this now: The man who did this for me was NOT a white man. You’ll see in a minute why this is relevant.
On Parliament I was regularly pulling in OVER $60 a day. However, because the spot is so highly prized, you pretty much HAVE to get there 30 mins before it opens.
On Sundays I’d play the full 7 hours (11AM-6P,) because inevitably I’d lose 2 days a week to someone else.
One of them was a dude who once stood RIGHT IN MY FACE for 20 minutes, blowing cigarette smoke in my face (at the height of a respitoryd panemic). Finally when I asked him what he wanted, he snarled “You’re in my spot. And I actually HAVE talent.” Ouch. Tough crowd, eh?
I saw him playing the Parliament LCBO the next day. He knows the same chords I do, but his right hand is much slower than mine, and his singing voice is no better than mine either.
Every time I pass him now I do a slow clap and say, loudly (I wrote out a whole rebuttal so I know it by heart and I say it EVERY TIME I see this man):
You are SO, SO talented! You have SO much talent! I’d stand 2 inches from you blowing smoke in your face like you did to me but I’m not a piece of human garbage. Anyway, continue amazing the local residents with your astounding talent, sir! Your talent is such that it’s kinda confusing to me why you’re playing on the street, for coins, in front of a liquor store. I’m sure that it’s just a clerical error at Capitol or Atlantic and they’ll be signing you ANY DAY now. You’re too talented to stay here, unnoticed, unplucked by the music moguls of the world. In conclusion, sir, fuck you.
If this sounds like I overstated my case, the dude more than once stood RIGHT IN MY FACE at the HEIGHT OF A RESPITORY PANDEMIC, smoking and deliberately blowing smoke in my face, reminding me over and over that I was in HIS spot, and that HE actually HAS talent.
Maybe I should have more patience for asshole like this, as you will read very soon
Every city is a tale of two cities. A city of assholes and a city of nice lovely ppl.
Parliament St was great for making money but the apartment was awful an really expensive.
I also had two near fatal seizures due to some mixing medication
I also heard from my ex-wife in June 2021 that she never ever wanted to speak to me again, so I lost her and visiting the cats too (never enter a custody arrangement regarding animals. They are not legally considered “people.” They are “property.”) those cats are gone forever now. Like…tears….in…rain?
Sorry I don’t know Blade Runner that well
So moving to Runnymede was cool!
We moved here on Dec 1 2021 & I went straight out busking. The first thing I noticed is we now live in a VERY white neighbourhood. Probably 85% white?
And, as any street performer or busker or panhandler or beggar will tell you, the worst people you can try to make money from, in order, goes like this:
2nd worst: white men
1st worst (by a MILE): white women
BUT the woman thing I understand. Street people are often unpredictable and on drugs and giving money can be seen as an invitation to conversation. My roommate, who is a woman, must reclaim her personal space 4 or 5 times every day, tell some sh*thead to leave her alone, stop commenting on what he would like to do to her sexually, and then scream about how he will rape her and slit her throat when she doesn’t respond enthusiastically to some 50-year old toothless man who stinks of urine and is high on crystal meth
They call meth “tina” these days if you wanna be “in the know.”
Other code words:
Crack is “hard.”
Cocaine is “soft.”
Heroin/fentanyl is “down.”
You can probably figure out why.
Anyway, what I’m saying is…I AM NOT ANGRY THAT WHITE WOMEN DON’T THROW QUARTERS IN MY GUITAR CASE. I completely understand. I am a man, I am privy to what men say when women are not in the room (similar to what white people say when only white people are in the room, but usually FAR MORE DISGUSTINGLY detailed sexually instead of vague coded racist comments about “this neighbourhood/town/city really goin’ downhill lately.”
My point is only this:
Busking here at mayonnaise-white Runnymede, I need to make $15.80 a day, no matter what.
No exceptions. No excuses. No negotiation.
$15.80 a day, every day, 7 days a week.
I HAVE to make this amount, even with my part time job (which is my first WRITING JOB ever, which I really like) helping and my roommate working a brand-new full time job
By the way, me and my roomie are sober besties. We NEVER talk about drugs. We are like two people who, for similar reasons, were in a 5-year coma.
Former addicts talking about how terrible drugs are almost INVARIABLY leads to talk about maybe trying some, which turns to “hey do you still have ___’s phone number?” and 2 hours later both of them are high again, but because their tolerance has gone WAY down while they sober, one of them is often dead too. I know one who overdosed and died last Thursday. So there ya go.
Don’t do drugs kids. But if you do and you quit? Don’t even TALK about them.
There’s even a rule at NA (Narcotics Anonymous) where we say “D.O.C.” or “Drug of Choice” because even just hearing the NAME of a favored specific substance can trigger someone. Addicts are fragile, fragile people.
Where was I?
Don’t do drugs but if you DO don’t talk about them…white people NEVER give money to street performers…it’s funny….most white people will say “well I am involved with such-and-such organization and I regularly donate to ____, so I’m not a bad person!”
Never said you were.
But why is it that when you are actually physically confronted with the realities of poverty, ie seeing a person standing on the street trying to make money to survive, you always clutch your purses tighter and unconsciously pat your butts to make sure your wallets are there?
What possible response IS there other than “I just don’t feel like giving that guy/girl/person who identifies otherwise MY hard-earned money.” Which is your perfect right to do/say/think.
Just like it’s mine to say you are the cheapest people in the history of organized human civilization. White people living now.
Yesterday two elderly baby-boomer ladies in their 60s requested from me the following:
1. “Take It Easy” – Eagles
2. “Heroes” – David Bowie
3. “Help Me Make It Through The Night.” – Kris Kristofferson
4. “Hangin On The Telephone” – Blondie
5. “Yesterday” – The Beatles
6. “Lightning Crashes” - Live
7. “Stairway to Heaven” – Led Zeppelin (by the way, guitarists HATE playing this song. There is even a rule in guitar stores, which you might remember from a scene in Wayne’s World, where if you play “Stairway to Heaven” you will be asked to either stop playing it, or asked to leave, They don’t PHYSICALLY eject you from the store. But they DO ask you to stop playing it. It is the most overplayed, over-hyped, most banal piece of music from that vaunted lauded free love 60s-mid-70s era save for except the absolute worst song of that time which is, by a John Denver country mile, “All Right Now” by Free.) God that song is such a piece of shit. Alllll right now. Baby it’s a haaaard ride now.
I think the guy who wrote the words to that Free song is that idiot from Bad Company, a band that once released an imaginatively titled record called Bad Company featuring a song called “Bad Company.” Think it’s fair to say this man has the imaginative capacity of a pebble.
ANYWAY, like the unspoken Stairway rule, the unspoken rule on the street is that if you monopolize a street performer’s time (even if they kinda suck, as I admittedly do), you PAY them something.
These women asked me to play them SEVEN songs last night (before I was almost killed), most of which I have played over 200 times since I started this COVID busking thing. They then smilingly walked off without giving me a dime. It was so rude that my jaw dropped and I am not easily shocked.
A man once demanded 30 mins of music from me while holding a $20 bill out in front of my face. When I finished, he put the $20 back in his wallet and walked away.
These women weren’t as bad as THAT guy. Maybe those women just don’t know that you don’t do things like that? Maybe they did not see the gigantic guitar case full of silver coins at their feet? The same case that their two yappy dogs were trying to have sex with, resulting in the admittedly humorous situation of me warbling “we may lose or we may win! We may never he here again! So open up I’m climbin’ in yeah, take it easy…” while using my boots to try to prevent two small dogs from fucking my guitar case, while simultaneously trying not to let the ladies see that I was doing this because, at this point, I was only one song in and STILL I thought I’d get a buck or two.
I don’t hate those women, maybe they just didn’t know, maybe they just didn’t care.
The man who waved $20 in my face was deliberately being malicious. Do you want to guess what color his skin was? Go ahead. Just guess. Yes. It was a white man.
The very same type of arrogant grinning shithead, a Donald Rumsfeld type “I got away with something and I’m enormously pleased about it” grin, as Errol Morris described it in his movie about Rumsfeld, white men of our age who have irreversibly fucked this planet for financial gain, who order all their employees to “return to the office” even though people are just as productive working from home and WAY WAY happier not having to commute (billionaire bro Elon Musk), white men who ask dirt-broke students to work 6-month unpaid internships, white men. who make $16 million a YEAR while an entry level employee at that same company makes $16k a year.
That’s not a figure I made up.
That would be James Quincey, Chief Executive Officer of Coca-Cola.
Okay. I have ALMOST arrived at the villain of my story. The dude who tried to kill me yesterday.
Wanna guess what color his ski-? Okay. Sorry. I’ll stop that now. (It was a white dude.)
Busking on the street, you often get eager younger boys, sometimes girls, sometimes people who identify as neither, who are just learning how to play guitar, come up to you and either ask to play a song, or just “hang out” with you.
My heart goes out to them. I understand the excitement of learning an instrument. And people often assume you are homeless when you are busking (I’m not sure what they think you do with the instrument. Maybe they think you sleep ON it.) so when they ask to “hang” I think there is an element of “slumming” to the ask.
I know this because, to my everlasting embarrassment and shame, I did this to a busker in Calgary in summer 2002 on 17th Avenue when I was 16. He looked exhausted. He just wanted to make his quota, whatever that was, and go home. He did NOT need some wide-eyed bushy-tailed kid coming up to him and (I cannot BELIEVE I did this) asking to play a song using HIS guitar.
He said yes. He said his name was Jeremy. I assumed he was homeless. People were walking by and giving us glances of sympathy, but also disgust, and (much more often than I, an ignorant 16-year old white kid from Brampton, expected) very real glares of savage hatred, punctuated every 30 mins or so by an actual threat of violence.
These looks and threats weren’t real to me. I was acting. I was pretending. I was playing a part. I even smoked one of Jeremy’s cigarettes, even though he probably really wanted that smoke for himself, and I DID NOT SMOKE. I just wanted to feel cool. And sitting beside this busker with a leather jacket playing David Bowie songs made me feel cool and urban and kind of dangerous. I had NO IDEA how ignorant I was being nor how unoriginal the entire experience was. BUT for that same reason I try to be gracious with my time and offer my guitar to ANY younger (or even older, but that happens quite rarely) who comes up to me and asks. I always do this, both as an act of kindness to a younger person who is asking me a question, and as an act of penance for the bullshit I put Jeremy through back in summer ‘02.
The song I asked to play? “Over Now” by Alice in Chains. SMH.
I thought I was being sensitive and timely because Layne Staley had just died. In an insincere gesture of humility, for I thought I’d NAILED it, I said “you want your guitar back?” expecting Jeremy to say something like “no way, kid. You got something. You’re fuckin’ great. Play me another song.”
That’s not what Jeremy said.
ME: “You want the guitar back?” (even holding it out, anticipating him pushing it back to me)
JEREMY (exhausted, totally unimpressed and bored to boot: “Yep.”)
By the way, as I sat there with Jeremy, his voice cracked as he sang the chorus of Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes.” That note wasn’t out of Jeremy’s natural singing range. He’d just been singing all day. Wanna guess the skin color of the woman who walked by cackling, then pointedly gave Jeremy a contemptuous look and declared “Oh my GOD! That! Is! JUST! AWFUL!” Wanna guess? Nah you don’t need to guess.
OKAY. WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE VILLAIN/CONFLICT OF THE STORY:
Yesterday I’m busking front of the liquor store on Bloor beside Runnymede. My daily 7-day a week quota is $15.80.
I have to make $15.80 a day NO MATTER WHAT.
No excuses.
No negotiation.
No “I’ll pay you back.”
$15.80. Every day. 7 days a week.
Here in lily-white Runnymede it often takes 6 hours to make that money. I’d make that in an hour back on Parliament St and in 2 hours on Main. But those neighbourhoods are much much MUCH less white.
Yesterday I’m $14 in and 3.5 hours deep. I feel pretty optimistic. Maybe I can go home before it gets cold!
I’d forgotten to bring something to stand on (cardboard, one of those kitty litter carpets, ANYTHING is better than standing on bare concrete…it REALLY hurts after a while) and my calves are fucking killing me.
So I’m playing some mindless original song that rips off the Smashing Pumpkins “1979” and Dinosaur Jr’s “Feel the Pain” when a guy my own age walks up to me carrying a guitar.
I do not want to play or “jam” with him but he is effusive with praise and basically begs to “jam” with me.
He says he loves my Dinosaur Jr Pumpkins ripoff song and can we jam and his name is Andres and his father plays drums in I Mother Earth (this was a blatant lie and I knew it).
He asks if he can play with me “for two minutes.” That is what he said. Two minutes.
It’s around 6PM this point. He was STILL THERE at 8PM.
Now, at first it was kinda fun playing with someone because I’m not very social anymore and having a 2-guitar attack for songs like Foo Fighters “My Hero” and Green Day’s “Basket Case” admittedly sounded pretty cool.
Less cool was Andres CONSTANTLY getting in my face (I don’t like people coming up to me and speaking an inch away from my face. It’s fucking gross and his breath STANK of booze. He was hammered, kept leaving to piss (totally trusting that I wouldn’t steal his guitar), then returning and hugging me and getting on his knees and doing the Catholic cross thing and saying how “this is ORDAINED, bro…this is ORDAINED!”
NOBODY was putting money in the case anymore. I was $1.80 away from my quota and kept thinking about just leaving and making it up tomorrow but this guy is physically keeping me there, keeps grabbing me, touching me, getting in my face…ugh.
I am still in disbelief that I let it go as far as it did last night.
Andres says he wants to play in a band with me.
He says I am his new best friend.
He says he will “take me to a place where we will make $100 in one hour.”
I have busked all over this city for many years. There is NOWHERE in Toronto where ANY street performer, I don’t care if it’s Buddy Guy himself with his polka dot Strat, makes $100 an hour.
The encounter was becoming less and less pleasant.
I could hear coins jangling in Andres’ pockets, but he kept trying to reach into my guitar case to take $2 to buy a beer from the LCBO (he already had 6 beers in his bag, and he was already HAMMERED).
I kept saying, over and over, “I HAVE to make $15.80 Andres, okay? Whatever we make above that we can split, but I am taking $15.80.”
“Bro! Of course bro! Just playing with you here today is worth all the money in the world bro!” And then “Are you sure I can’t just take a dollar…?”
“NO ANDRES! I HAVE TO MAKE $15.80.”
“Bro!”
“WE TALKED ABOUT THIS.”
“Okay, okay.” All inauthentic hangdog bullshit.
Over and over. And over. And over. It was like being in hell. I sometimes think that I really AM in hell. I certainly agree with Sartres that hell is other people.
Andres is a demon. And he carries hell with him wherever he goes.
I don’t own a cellphone and my roommate was undoubtedly worried about where I was but I couldn’t let the guitar case out of my sight. Every time Andres went to take a leak or fell rollicking on the sidewalk, he was totally obliterating any chance I might have had of maybe being ingratiating to passersby and making that $1.80, which is what I try to do.
I’m not trying to be a badass punk rocker. I am trying to make $15.80 and I will take ANY request if I know how to play it.
Now Andres is arguing with me about the right way to play and sing the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight.” He was playing it wrong.
I’m not bragging. I’m not a Pumpkinhead but I love Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, and I’d gladly play those songs alone but I’m stuck with this vain drunken asshole who only cares about himself and wants to solo over fucking EVERYTHING and can’t play for shit and….is his hand in my guitar case AGAIN????
“ANDRES! WHAT DID I SAY!”
“Bro! Bro! You KNOW I’d never…NEVER do that to you….you’re my BRO, bro. Bro!”
And now he’s launching into “Tonight Tonight” for the 50th time and I’m still not backing down. I’m not giving up this spot because it’s the ONLY spot in the area where making any money at all is possible.
So I am going to play until I have made my $15.80.
I won’t back down. I’ll even play “I Won’t Back Down” and I’m not gonna stop to show this idiot how to play a 3-chord song and I’m not gonna back down when same asshole is playing me a clear-to-any-sober-ear incorrect version of a very song I have loved since I was 10. Like…LOVED.
I have known these words more than half my life. Don’t argue with me about how to fucking play “Tonight, Tonight” and get your FUCKING HAND OUT OF MY GUITAR CASE.
“Bro! Bro! I would never steal from you. I was just dropping a flower petal in there, see?” (The petal had fallen there hours earlier of its own volition. He was not draping me in flowers. What a ridiculous fucking notion.)
Now, reading this, you are probably saying/thinking “Why didn’t you just get rid of him?”
I don’t know. Maybe because when this shit happens, something inside tells me I deserve it. It’s like that scene in Natural Born Killers where Woody Harrelson kills Russell Means, and Means, dying, says “20 years ago in my dream I saw the demon. I was waiting for you.”
I was waiting for you.
I have been on the receiving end of a LOT of beatings in my life and it’s not fun and this guy was CLEARLY nuts and was practically BEGGING for me to give him a reason to fight me.
And he got one eventually. You remember about the $15.80?
I tried to get rid of him after every song. After every single song I reminded him that I HAD TO MAKE $15.80. I said this from the start because the EVERY TIME somebody just “wants to jam,” (meaning they bring their OWN guitar to play with me) which I HATE doing, they invariably ask for some of the money that was made while were jamming.
I find this weirdly fair, if coercive.
I’m trying to make money and you horn in on my space.
But yes, people passing by tossed money into the case while we were BOTH playing so, yes, you ARE kinda entitled to HALF of what was made WHILE THE TWO OF US PLAYED TOGETHER. You don’t get half of EVERYTHING I MADE ALL DAY, while you were off smoking meth and drinking beer.
So about an hour before the liquor store closes it’s getting cold so I put my jacket on, put some socks on (I was wearing sandals) and count the money.
We have $17.40.
The ENTIRE TIME Andres jammed with me we didn’t make more than a dollar.
He was drunk. He was staggering around the sidewalk and scaring people.
He kept asking women invasive questions.
The had long since gone from initially annoying to straight up fucking hostile.
I was getting angrier at this person, but I’m counting the money and I’ve made my quota.
If he won’t go away, whatever.
I have my $15.80. The same $15.80 that I REMINDED ANDRES BETWEEN EVERY OF THE OVER 50 SONGS WE PLAYED THAT I HAD TO MAKE, AND WOULD BE TAKING NO MATTER WHAT.
So, I’ve got $15.80 in my wallet, which zips up, for just such occasions. There’s less than $2 in the guitar case. Andres looks at it sadly, then looks up at me with bullshit fake hangdog sadguy feel-bad-for-me eyes. “Bro, can I just have 3.50?”
“I’m not negotiating with you. I TOLD you. I HAVE TO MAKE $15.80. I’m taking $15.80.”
“Bro. 3.50?”
“No.”
“Bro! $3.50?”
“No. We talked about this. I told you after every song…”
He stepped to me, pissed off now. “And I told YOU that I’ll gonna take the TWO OF US to a spot where we’ll make $100 in an HOUR!”
“Oh yeah? Where is this fictitious kingdom? Huh? Where twenties fall from the sky?”
His face was darkening. We were past the point of no return now. I still didn’t give a fuck. I was kinda relieved the whole thing was almost over (if I only knew what was coming…)
My $15.80 was in my wallet, safely zipped away, and attached to my belt loop with a caliper.
He might hurt me, I thought, but he is NOT getting that $15.80.
The comment about him bullshitting me about the place where one could make $100 in an hour has visibly angered him. The whole “bro” façade fell away. I shouldn’t have, but I pushed it further.
“Your Dad does NOT play DRUMS in I Mother Earth.”
I thought that would do it. I really did. But he surprised me. His glare softened. He went back to his fake-pleading look when I thought for sure a punch was coming.
“Bro!” he begged. “I just want $3.50 for one blunt!” He pointed across the street. I looked.
That was my mistake. Amateur hour.
I’ve lost 90% of the fights I’ve been in. And probably more than 90% were avoidable, just like this one could’ve been, if I’d just shut down and acted more like my roommate always advises me and said “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME” at the very start and acted crazy…but he’d been so initially nice?
See, a conman always leads with flattery.
If that doesn’t work, he leads with embellishments. Exaggerations. (“That’s the BEST song I ever heard bro.”)
Outright lies. (“My Dad plays drums in I Mother Earth!”)
And then, finally, sneaky shit. Feints. Like pointing across the street and me looking, all “huh?” like a starving man being distracted by a FREE BURGERS sign.
Stupidly, I thought he was pointing at some cannabis shop that I somehow failed to notice all the other times I’d busked there?
I was waiting for you.
THAT’S when the punch came.
Hit me in my left temple.
I wasn’t ready for it so I staggered from the hit into the bike lane of the street where a guy on a bicycle rammed straight into my right ribcage.
The cyclist went splaying into the actual street, where he could’ve been actually killed, and I’m now face down in the bike lane, about 3 feet from the cyclist.
I don’t know where Andres is and that should have been the scariest part, but I don’t want a cyclist getting pancaked on my watch.
I had JUST seen the start of the punch coming but nowhere near early enough to duck it. I glimpsed four fingers with rings on them close enough to my eyes to resemble the grille of a Jeep. And behind the grille of that Jeep Andres’ face was a contorted mask of fury.
Okay. I am severely injured.
But there’s no cars coming. The cyclist is gonna be okay.
I feel nothing but insane relief.
The tension that has been building and building and then frustratingly falling with another hug or “bro!” or insane promise has now snapped and I FELT it snap with startling clarity despite the cobwebs in my brain. I’m fogged and I am FUCKED if Andres gets on top of me, so I make what it probably a stupid decision and roll sideways INTO the roadway next to the prone cyclist who is now getting up and getting up FAST. He hops into the bike lane, holding an arm gingerly, grabs his bicycle, and drags it onto the sidewalk. He’s okay.
I am now able to think clearly for the first time in hours. My ribs aren’t broken. Hurts to breathe and I can’t take much air in (this will become important for the next minutes of my life). But all I am doing is seething. I am (dangerously) thinking when I am in the presence of a threat who is still doing.
Here’s me: This piece of SHIT insinuated himself into my life, pushed me me ALL DAY, harassed people walking by who very likely would have given me the remaining $1.80 I needed, and couldn’t even play “Tonight, Tonight,” and…what the fuck?
I am now being dragged back onto the sidewalk.
Jesus, I think. This cyclist is Superman. Dude gets up that fast from a collision like that, saves his vehicle, and then drags a bystander to safety? How is this possible? What a MAN! I just wish he’d let up a bit around my neck cuz it’s getting hard…to…breathe…?
I am so stupid.
I looked AWAY from the threat long enough to get punched.
Then I CONTINUED LOOKING AWAY FROM THE STILL EXTANT THREAT.
My recent clarity has given way to panic.
The LCBO closes its blinds in the late afternoon because the sun is so blinding, so I can clearly see in the window’s reflection that it is Andres, not the cyclist, who has me in a chokehold, and I can see from the tensile, animalistic stance Andres has now assumed that this is now indeed a very serious situation.
This isn’t “No dude, the lyrics are ‘THERE GOES MY HERO, WATCH HIM AS HE GOES…”
This isn’t playing Blink-182’s “Dammit” for shits ‘n giggles with some annoying drunk meth head.
This is a fight now. I don’t yet know that it will be a fight for my life, so I’m still relatively calm. I’ve been in this exact situation twice before and there is now one rule and one rule only. And it isn’t “I’m taking $15.80.”
Fuck the $15.80.
The rule NOW is this: Do NOT lose consciousness.
Do NOT lose consciousness, Danny.
If a person like Andres knocks you out, you are completely defenseless. God knows what they will do to you then. You have to stay conscious
Ahead of me, looking west down the sidewalk, the cyclist is grimacing and blowing on his bloody palms, almost as if his hands are cold. He looks so far away. I can already tell he is not going to involve himself with this fight I am in. I’m on my own. Wanna guess what color the cyclist wa-
Andres tightens his chokehold.
Do NOT lose consciousness.
Andres is now teaching ME a lesson, y’see.
His rage had been brewing, as I stood there, annoyed and clueless and just trying to get away from his apocalyptic bad breath, looking up only to call out the correct chord because he couldn’t play ANYTHING right.
Andres is saying things as he chokes me. I don’t catch ANY of what’s being said except a word that sounds like “roan.” Like “Strawberry Roan?” WTF?
20 years ago in my dreams I saw the demon…
Do. NOT. Lose. Consciousness.
I was waiting for you….
Okay, I caught a word from Andres there (“shoulda…”) along with a hot blast of hellish halitosis.
This asshole must eat sardines for breakfast lunch and dinner. And then gargle with urine. There can be no other reason for….oh fuck, I’m trying to force my fingers in between his hands and my throat because now he’s jamming my Adam’s apple back into my throat and darkness is starting to form in my peripheral vision. That’s a danger sign. I’ve overdosed twice. Trust me. It’s a danger sign that the lights are going out very soon.
DO. NOT…
The other two times this happened certainly didn’t go this far. It feels like I swallowed a jawbreaker the way he’s going to work on me.
Do. NOT. Lose….
I’m clawing at his rings.
I’m trying to talk but I can’t.
I’m almost ready to beg.
I think I might die but I still have a tiny semblance of pride and awareness that people are watching. I still care that it looks bad that I am losing.
But I can’t fucking breathe AT ALL and Im starting to get really scared…
I’m twisting side to side, hoping Andres will lose his balance but he’s bent over me like an angry welder over a pipe.
He will not let go and I can’t fucking breathe and this is no longer irritating or mildly amusing or any adjective I can even think of and now I can’t even remember the sole command I’ve been repeating to myself throughout this experience.
Do. NOT. Use. Hot Sauce Less?
Please dude. Andres. This is just a misunderstanding that went too far, okay? We can work this out. Please.
As if he heard me, Andres drops to one knee and now my head is in his fucking lap. I can feel his fucking penis under the jeans. But even that does not matter anymore. All that matters now is that I get some air. I have to breathe. I HAVE TO FUCKING BREATHE.
Nobody is helping. Maybe because he’s holding me like a baby? As if comforting a child? A child he is killing?
Or maybe nobody is helping because this neighbourhood is so whi-
Fuzziness is now entering my central vision. My peripheral vision is completely gone. My sense of time is shattered. We’ve been fighting for 30 seconds. We’ve been fighting for a billion years.
I am looking right up into his eyes.
Oh shit.
There is no compassion in them. His eyes are grey like granite. He is a giant staring down at me. He is a fire breathing dragon. He is a wasted god urging on a tardy ant.
Too bad. And I’m usually so GOOD with words but I can’t talk
Do. Not. Loan? Rhonda’s Mess?
I can’t fucking…
The last coherent thought I have is the fact that (how can I possibly be embarrassed at a time like this?) the fact that…to these (SO FUCKING WHITE) passersby…me and Andres are the same. We are identical.
We are the same.
ALL AFTERNOON I’VE BEEN LIKE, “I AM NOT THIS GUY. I HATE THIS GUY. THIS GUY PISSES ME OFF.”
And to be mistaken for him…or one like him…
Now it’s like I’m wearing 50 pairs of sunglasses. Everything and everyone one the street is separated from me by some veil that I am primordially terrified of. Because the veil is death. Everything and everyone one the street is separated from me by vast distances of time and space…
20 years ago in my dreams I saw the demon…
2 pathetic idiots fighting over…how much was it? How did this happen?
How long have we been fighting?
Feels like five minutes. Feels like forever.
I was waiting for you….
How long ago was I a 16-year old kid standing on a street corner in Calgary, trying for 30 minutes to muster the courage to approach some slightly-older-but-eternally-cooler kid who was playing guitar and singing…?
Danny. Danny don’t lose it. Focus. Focus.
Try to compress your chest.
Keep the air that is IN there as long as you possibly…
Oh no.
There is none in there.
The bicycle man knocked the wind out of me…cyclist….where is he?
Oh! There he is! He’s riding away on his bicycle…riding toward Runnymede….
Riding west in a city at sunset…riding toward God
Okay. Everything now is fragmenting. I can only see form and shadow, no detail, and thoughts are forming themselves without me thinking them. It’s like I’m watching them go by.
I am not generating the thoughts I am thinking. Someone else is handling the projector. That’s as good as I can explain it. Weird shit keeps coming and going. Film in reverse. Film sped up. Not my life before my eyes. Not that cliché. Just shards of scenes.
Don’t…
Lose….
My ex-wife. I think of her name. I think of those shockingly beautiful eyes. White wedding dress. Never seen anybody so beautiful in my entire fuckin…
I CAN’T BREATHE!
was supposed to hang out w/ my friend lisa next week she’s so fucckin cool and now im gonna miss it and now she WONT KNOW it wasn’t on purpose…that I didn’t mean…
i’m still clawing at Andres hands but his hands seem to made of granite
and my arms are skinny noodles…like pool noodles…poodles. Oodles of noodle. Foodles.
loved her so so fucking much
Animalistic sounds are emanating from somewhere in my core. They aren’t coming out of my mouth, that’s for sure. My throat is constricted as surely and fatally as a clutched garden hose.
almost drowned when I was a kid…but it wasn’t like this
CAN’T. BREATHE.
Danny. Focus. Remember.
don’t…who’s….monstrousness?
Please….Andres…..Andy….please don’t do this to me.
PLEASE don’t do this to me.
….threw away all those wedding photos cuz it hurt too much
DON’T. CHOOSE. CHRISTMAS?
my hands have now fallen from the hands that are choking me my arms are now limp at my sides and I’ve never held my breath this long before and now I’m really truly fully completely fucking scared
and helpless i can’t move and i cant breathe you have to call her please please call and tell her
DON’T. MUSE. HONEST THIS?
Danny. Danny. You HAVE to stay calm. Think of your mother’s voice.
Stay calm. Somebody will come along. People have come back before from five minutes of no air and…uh…how long has this been?BUT I CANT BREATHE AND IM FUCKIN SCARED AND I DON’T CARE ANYMORE THAT THIS LOOKS BAD I JUST WANT TO BREATHE I JUST WANNA BREATHE AND YOU HAVE TO TELL HER I LVOVE HER PLEASE PLESE TELL HER I LOVE HER PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE YOU HAVE TO TELL HER CUZ I CANT AND NOW I AM BEGGING I AM BEGGING I AM FUCKING BEGGING I AM TRYING TO MAKE NOISES BUT I CANT AND NOW IM CRYING SO HARD I CAN FEEL HOW HOT THE TEARS ARE ON MY FACE AND ILL NEVR SEE COOKIE AGAIN AND THERES SO MUCH MUCUS EVERYWHERE AND YOU HAVE TO TELL HER PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
MAKE MY HANDS WORK
I WILL FIX EVERYTHING
I WILL GO BACK AND FIX EVERYTHING
IF YOU JUST MAKE MY HANDS WORK
JUST MAKE MY HANDS WORK
PLEASE PLEASE TELL HR
MAKE MY HANDS WORK
DO. NOT. CRUISE. MONSTROUSNESS.
okay now I feel light as a ballon like 5 lbs, libs? Libs. Ribs.
Why is pounds…ribs? Is not the same? How dos pounds come to lbs?
So many things I wanted to know
now I cant see at all but if you could just please make my hands work ill fix it
ill fix it ill fikx ebverythin because if i could use my hands to grab on to the world I swear \
I swear to GOD I could tear the whole world in half to just get the
FUCKING AIR THAT MUST BE BACK THERE….
..
..
..
……..
Light
A heavenwide blast of light
daylight.
Daylight and a sense of having been dragged across concrete but I can breathe I can breathe I can breathe I can breathe I can breathe I can breathe
and im sucking air into my lungs and making fucked up hiccup sounds and shit is falling out of my m,outh blood and mucous and im just breathing…savagely…animalistically…everlastingly gratefully….I do not give A FUCK what this looks like to whoever is watching because I can breathe and im breathing and im on all fours and im breathing and shit I just vomited and I think that’s a tooth? and the vomiting was scary because the PUSH of it took my breath away for a second and it was like not breathing again?
But now I can breathe just im just gonna breathe im just gonna breathe now. That’s all I am ever going to do (NO, NO SHUT UP. YOU SAID YOU WOULD FIX IT. IF YOU GOT TO BREATHE AGAIN AND NOW YOU ARE BREATHING SO YEAH, ENJOY BUT THIS AIN’T OVER, DANNY…and there’s a constant stream of snot waterfalling from my nose and I cannot DESCRIBE to you the relief
Like a person who…wanted something more than he ever wanted anything….and got it JUST when he thought he would not get it ever ever again
Like a man with a fork in a world of soup…finally finding a spoon
like hearing a song you love and putting back to the start to hear it again and swooning in the thisness of that part you love
like an orgasm
like shitting
like breathing
all at the same time
like being really drunk and lying on your back in a very warm swimming pool
like a big shot of fentanyl in the mainline vein
but that’s not what I want nor neeed I just
Okay
Okay
I’m okay
My vision is starting to come back
There is a frantic flailing to the west
I mean to. my right
where the sun was…IS…but it has nothing to do with meeeeee, man. That shit is Point Nemo to me mann I am just greedily gulping air air air
I can breathe
And im alive
And im gonna have to…shouldn’t I do something?
This is so fucking momentous.
Shouldn’t something be expected from me?
Will someone hand me an award and shove me onstage?
will I have to make a speech? There’s like….15 or 20 people standing around me…?
Might as well start now
I raise my hand to indicate my current aliveness and stand up
And immediately fall back down
Okay
Too soon
Try again later
The line are busy right now
You can try again later tho
Just breathe
I breathe. For like 5 minutes in roaring silence
You’ve never heard a street so quiet
It’s actually uncomfortable
I have to say something, this is crazy, you’d die in a silent vaccum like that
“JWKFGLDSB!!!!!”
Aghhhh that didn’t come uot right
Okay
somebody is saying something to me
It’s a soft voice
and I look up and see….a young girl in shorts? and she’s holding books in front of her chest like its that movie Never Bveebn Kissed and…what the fuck? She looks…14 or something?
She’s saying something really quietly and im straining to hear it behind the roaring river of blood in my ears and she keeps saying it until I hear it & I don’t know how long she said it for:
“Don’t try to get up.”
“NNNNHGG!”
“Shhhhh. don’t try to get up yet.”
“UUUUUHHHHHHGGGG?????”
“Shhh! Don’t try to get up.”
Okay. Okay
I will do whatever you say.
I will do whatever you say forever
And I mean that LITERALLY
Thank you 14-year old person girl. Thank you. Thank you so fucking much.
The scene is resolving itself.
I am coming back to life.
To my right on the sidewalk Andres is…facedown? Underneath what looks like…
ANOTHER 14 year old kid?
What the fuck is going ON?
Don’t swear Danny it’s not right
Well c’mon im not like automatically in the priesthood now im just breathing on a sidewalk and it feels SO GOOD to breathe even with my fucked up ribs I keep heaving and heaving air like it’s on sale like it’s goin outta style….i lift myself up to a sitting position against the lCBO wall
I look to the first 14-year old for information, information she readily and friendily supplies.
She pats the books on her chest and says in a soft voice “I’m Scout.”
Minutes pass. I think. Cities pass. Centuries.
I’m trying to process…because familiar
“Scout?” I repeat stupidly….
I can finally talk…I can finally breathe…but I’m juststaring at…Scout and saying “Like…like…..like…like…?” I know what I want to say but I can’t seem to…bring it to mind. But it’s okay because I’ve got time. I’ve got ALL the time in the…Oh! I know!
“Like To Kill A Mockingbird?” I ask.
She nods happily like I just solved a complicated math equation all by myself.
Then it hits me.
I mean…c’mon. I wasn’t born yesterday.
A drunken meth head named Andres who can’t play anything right and has hell breath was choking me out…and I got saved by Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird?
Fuck.
I died
I’m dead.
People don’t get saved from savage street fights by Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird.
I know! I’ll make a joke. The other 14-year old who haz Andres down but isn’t killing him.
I can hear the “bro! bro! bros” from here.
I’m too tired for revenge. I’m too alive for revenge.
I’ll say to Scout, “and who’s that? Jem?”
I don’t end up saying that.
I’ve only written this once and I’m not gonna revise cuz it was just such a….total headfuck what happened, I mean the last 30 seconds of the experience of being choked was so…stupid and violent but INSANELY powerful experience
Never needed something that bad before
nd while I had a sense of the unfairness of what was happening there was also a sense, a much stronger sense, of getting my comeuppance.
Like it was always going to end like this.
Like I chose a path a long time ago, y’know? I didn’t pick tennis.
I didn’t pick sci-fi cons.
I made a choice. It was always me making that choice
to hang with certain ppl and
drink with them and
do their drugs and
IGNORE that distant humming, a humming that brought with it a permanent anxiety
because I kNEW I was wasting my time
and that humming was the call.
it was MY calling
begging me to come back to it
and get my work done before my time is up
before some guy chokes me to death on a sidewalk with my head resting on his revolting cock in front of a liquor store (*don’t even drink anymore! Since feb ’17!) in a neighbourhood I NEVER liked except my roommate lives here & I lovee her & except it brought these….PEOPLE to me.
I mean the 14-year olds. Who fucking saved me.
Lemme explain what happened now that Ive calmed down a bit. I wrote the fight sequence crying & hyperventilation do NOT Judge me
SO
Back in May I was busking when A kid came up to me. His name was Ethan. He was really friendly. He was from another world. Clean cut. Blonde. Good looking. A jock. He was wearing gym shorts and a white t-shirt with an athletic logo on it. With him was Scout, his girlfriend and schoolmate
A Lovely person
who seems to greet the world with this…oddly curious but NOT naïve energy
Okay. So.
Ethan asked if he could play my guitar.
He was THAT guy. He was me. But not me.
Look, I learned a long time ago that ppl I meet are NOT characters in MY life.
It doesn’t work that way. I don’t go for that Boltzmann Brain solipsism shit.
Sometimes YOU are a character in OTHER PEOPLE’S lives.
And that’s what I was that day.
So while I suppose it would be cool to write that
the day I met Ethan and Scout we played “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins or, even better, “Tonight, Tonight,” and end this story with the trio of us crooning that beautiful ending about crucifying the insincere…tonight
we’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all….tonight
we’ll find a way to offer up the night….tonight
the indescribable moments of your life….tonight
the impossible is possible….tonight
believe in me as I believe in you…tonight
that’s not what happened. Great song tho eh? Love that line about the indescribable moments of your life. Misheard it as a kid as “scrap up all the moments of your life” which is decidedly more negative and shitty and characteristically Corganish
Now, we DID play and sing TWO songs together, me standing there….
Ethan singing (softly and shyly) and playing my guitar (like he’d been for 20 years…the kid just knows how to play everything. A savant. Never took lesson. knows EVERy song but doesn’t know HOW he knows…can’t even name chords….a bizarro world Andres)
and Scout singing (at first shyly and then boldly…and then proudly…)
The first song was “Yellow” by Coldplay
And yknow what
?
I love that song
So fuck you
Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean that, I just meant
This isn’t a goddamn hipster mixtape that I get to curate w/ all those chillwave bands that make me feel like im in some hazy 80s dream
None of that.
We sang “Yellow” and one of them had to take their phones out cuz I kept insisting one of the lines must rhyme with “sun” or “fun” cuz I remember one of Chris Martin’s lines being
“oh what a thing to have done” and thinking it was just so hilariously English.
Okay?
It wasn’t irritating, I wasn’t annoyed, it was a happy ,pure, beautiful kind of thing
So after “Yellow” we did, the only other Coldplay song I know, a song I REALLY LOVE, called “The Scientist”
It all came back
So Scout’s gathering my guitar case and handing it to me and telling me I gotta go cuz I told her I cant be around when the police get here because I just got born again and I donnt wanna sit in a room with a detective
I just wanted to say thank you
Because they remembered me.
They remembered me.
I was waiting for you
Scout and Ethan remembered me
As I was grappling with and losing to a DEMON
And they ran to save me
They were leaving the library when they noticed something…“just weird and off” Scout told me after about the way the two figures in front of the LCBO were….hunched…
“It just looked….wrong.”
And they ran
together
And they ran to save me
And Ethan, 14-uyr old superjock grabbed grabbed 37 year old 190lbs Andres and threw him into some kind of un-get-outtable hold but NOT the kind of “I am killing you” chokehold Andres had ME in
And then I vomited and choked and breathed for a while
And then I remembered Scout & Ethan, the young couple from the Coldplay singalong
And it was a really beautiful moment because sometimes in life, you’ll run into a woman you knew long ago somewhere….a bartender maybe, or a dental hygienist, or a dentist or a lawyer, and….
as I said before what my roommate said about women’s instincts in public it’s like…
they can’t respond to males trying to engage with them
so sometimes you will find yourself nodding or waving or smiling at a woman and she will frown or ignore you because she might not remember you and she believes you are making advances
Im so tired from typing this out, one of my favwriters denis johnson writes about this social situation so im gonna copy and paste it, it’s about how he used to have a fav bartender because she poured singles like doubles and doubles like triples….a generous pouring bartender…you understand what I mean? Here:
I saw her much later, not too many years ago, and when I smiled she seemed to believe I was making advances.
But it was only that I remembered.
I'll never forget you.
Your husband will beat you with an extension cord and the bus will pull away leaving you standing there in tears… but you were my mother.
I understand that’s very bleak but I am just trying to express what I can’t
Which is that
in that moment where I was breathing again and Scout was comforting me
having fuckin SAVED ME
In that moment
She WAS my mother
And it’s just so good & cool to know that, to her, I’ll never be some lecherous old fuck where if I wave at her someday down the line she’ll look away and then I’d awkwardly try to explain that no no it’s not like that…
“it was only that I remembered…
I’ll never forget you…”
They remembered me
These 2 young people CLEARLY in love (tell me you love me. Come back and haunt me)
2 kids who barely knew me except for that one time…
Who just happened to leave a library as I was fighting for my life
trying to ask Andres w/ my eyes to stop killing me
looking up at him as he glared furiously down at me
and his stare was granite and I knew there was nothing there but still I stared and stared and stared up into the great pity of someone else’s horrible sad life on this planet…
can you imagine being HIM?
He didn’t even get my $15.80…
It never fell out of my wallet
He got whatever spilled outta the guitar case
He can have all the money in the fucking world
Because im me and he is he
Scout and Ethan came out of the library
And they ran to save me
And they looked at me like I was worthy of that act, worthy of being saved
And I was penitent because in my heart I’ve always despised myself a little
Yeah well
You said you’d fix it
If you could just
Get some fucking AIR AND YOU GOT IT
So maybe life is hard now
You can think like that but stop fuckin LIVING like that
Quitting drugs is easy
Now? It’s life
They picked me up and handed me my guitar and I told them I had to go and I’d just been born and they understood and they let me go and I walked home spitting blood onto my sandals but I didn’t wanna be alone just then but I also didn’t wanna deal w cops but I didn’t wanna be alone
It’s such a shame for us to part
Shut the fuck up danny don’t complain
Nobody said it was easy
You said youd fix it if you could just get some fucking AIR
And you got it buddy
You got it?
You got that?
So get to it
Get to work.
Im going back to the start