I stood in line at the bus station with a metal lunchpail full of bananas and heart shaped meatloaf sandwiches. I wanted to ask everyone around me, "So now Im twenty, isnt that supposed to mean something?", but they all had other places they were going. Twenty minutes earlier, I had hesitated on telling anyone I was really and truely going, but I decided that the trip might be harder alone, so I had called Matthew.
I couldnt help but look from the clock to the door. I was going whether he came or not, and I was hoping his feelings wouldnt be hurt.
Red Converse all stars under the guidelines into my line to leave this city behind me for the first time in a long time. He was here, and we were going.
I had received a package from my grandmother. Brown paper and packaging tape enclosed an ancient orange folder with the words "my readings" scrawled on the front in her strict school marm script. Inside was a treasure of yellowed papers and ill aligned photo copies. There were letters from my mother when she was still trying to convince my dad to get married. There were old library clippings she had never returned. There were newspaper clippings from recitals she had been in as a young girl. I couldnt have asked for a more considerate and personal gift.
We read them back and forth under the pinlight of the greyhound, along with "To Kill a Mockingbird", until we awoke in Vancouver.
We walked past a movie being filmed, a celebration of the Chinese new year in the international district, and booked a smoking room in a tiny Ramada downtown.
Through a hazy conversation and 3 walks around the same block, we ended up in a basement bar listening to a punk rock band. The 93 cent pizza was making me a little sick, but the Southern Comfort would soon remedy that in its own way. I sat back and watched the shirtless but dressed in tattoo band jump around and be happy. I was happy.
I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. The guy we had met on the street that had sent us here was smiling over me. "You came! Happy birthday, Ill dedicate a song to you"
And he left to set up. "Hello, we are All State Champion"
They were great. I bought a CD, and met a guy who worked at a canadian cable radio station. He said he had seen these kids play with modest mouse and other bands whose names I knew, but now cant remember.
A hipster kid sang me a song and gave me a fake moss covered bouqet of flowers. "You need this, believe me"
I believed. I kept one of the flowers to pin to my coat.
There wasnt a tobacconist open, so we went to the hotel and slept.
In the morning we went down to the breakfast room. A dad and his son were having breakfast and generally running around the room. "Look!" the dad shouted, pointing to Matt's feet, "You guys have the same shoes!"
I looked at the scuffy miniature red converse the kid wore with such pride. That kid was going places. So were we. Canadian bus stop with a metal sign. "Read the Buzzer"
It was time to come home.