My former heroin dealer stops me on the street, asks me how I'm doing, buys me clothing & a frosty from Wendy's. 45 mins later a random woman asks me out...these events MUST be connected, right?
am I walking into something here?
So yesterday I’m busking on Parliament in front of the LCBO when I hear someone call my name. I look up and see standing before me my former drug dealer who I’m fairly certain (but not 100% sure) I still owe money to. But he doesn’t look angry. In fact he’s smiling. Then he says “Pack up. Come with me.”
Feeling like Jimmy Hoffa going for his last ride, I readily comply. (Something morbid in me wants to see where this is going). I gather & put the coins in my guitar case away (about 11$, for I’m less than two hours in…I’m still in Neil Young territory.)
Usually my busking “set” goes like this:
30 mins of BLUE RODEO songs: “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet,” “5 Days In May,” “Lost Together,” “After The Rain,” “Rose-Coloured Glasses” “Bad Timing” “Til I Can Gain Control Again,” “Me & Baz,” etc
30 mins of RANDOM 90s hits and then a half hour of Neil Young.
What 90s hits you ask?
“Got You Where I Want You” by The Flys
“Santa Monica” by Everclear
“Sex & Candy” by Marcy Playground
“Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots
“Lightning Crashes” by Live (yep. srsly.)
“The World I Know” by Collective Soul
“Come Out & Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)” by The Offspring
“Groovy Dead” by Rusty
Pick one or two: either “Basket Case,” “When I Come Around,” “Sassafras Roots,” “Stuck With Me,” or ”Time Of Your Life” by Green Day.
(I’m not trying to be that hipster douchebag saying “deep album cuts are just way cooler, maaaan” but “Sassafras Roots” has been my favourite Green Day song since I got the cassette at nine years old in 1995. I was in Grade 5. I love the structure, the chords. the lyrics. I love the cute little bass lick Mike Dirnt plays from the 0:09 second mark to the 0:11 second mark. I love the suburban languor described in the lyrics. Whole pop punk albums have been made based on that idea. Whole pop punk careers. Allister’s Last Stop Suburbia, most of Blink-182s stuff & every album by Junior Achiever. In my “90’s hits” I sometimes play “Somewhere on Fullerton” by Allister, the first single off Last Stop Suburbia but I try not to bcuz it reminds me of a very very specific time in my life…end of August, I was 17 years old & just got home (like…15 mins previously) from driving across Canada & a friend comes over & then all my friends come over & suddenly there’s 60 people at my house & my Dad too, & he’s as drunk as everyone else (let me be clear: that was not a typical situation. He was just happy that I wasn’t dead, cuz he’d let me drive across Canada with 3 friends & I was fuckin 17).
Anyway I’m 17 & its summertime & literally everyone I know is at my house & everyone is drinking & that song came on & the chorus sorta just stuck in my head. I KNOW it’s a cheesy song. You don’t need to tell me. But “please don’t go away/I want this feeling to stay with me forever” is kind of nostalgia encapsulated, if you will, even if it’s in a silly pop punk song. It was something else too, though. Kinda like…when you’re in Saskatoon for example, even though you’re in a city, you can feel the wide emptiness of the prairies just outside the city limits, you can feel it all around. In that same way, that night @ that party, I could feel my entire life ahead of me, waiting for me, if that makes sense. I miss that feeling more than I miss the actual social situation of partying itself.
I know it’s pathetic to say that, like…why would you miss that, and not the rest of it…?well, I do miss the rest of it. I just miss that feeling most, probably cuz now I’m the kinda guy who gets stopped by former heroin dealers & told to “come along.”
ANYWAY lemme get on with what happened, I just wanted to say that. in my opinion, “Sassafras Roots” is the root of pop punk bored-in-the-suburbs music. (Yes, I know the song “Longview” exists, I still prefer “Sassafras Roots”…just fuckin listen to it:
So my former drug dealer is walking me down Parliament & I have no idea why & I
don’t wanna ask. Suddenly he grabs me gently by arm & pulls me into a Value Village where he proceeds to buy me dress pants, a dress shirt, dress shoes, and a wallet (I lost the Soundgarden wallet I had since I was fifteen last summer & never replaced it).
Outside he turns to me with a sincere look and asks me how I’m doing. Then he brings up the fact that the last time we spoke I told him I was quitting drugs & to never, ever, under any circumstances, sell me heroin or fent again. I’d totally forgotten about that.
“Oh yeah!” I said.
He asks if I’m sober. I tell him yes.
He asks if I’m happy. I tell him no.
Then he takes me to Wendy’s. I tell him I’m not hungry even though I am. The dude frightens me & I’m waiting for him to either hit me or bring up the money I owe him (I can’t even figure it with the vig. It was likely less than $80 at the time, but with street interest it could easily be over $800 by now. Enough for him to want to hit me.)
He buys me a frosty, pats my shoulder, & tells me to stay positive then he gets into a Volkswagen & drives away.
Here are the shoes (yes, they were only $15.99 but they look nice, & they’re dress shoes)
Here’s the outfit.
Me, home afterwards. Not dead.
Walking home, I am NOT making this up, a WOMAN starts talking to me. Like…just talking to me.
Let be clear about something. I’m not sure how I appear to the outside world, but I’m not particularly pleased with my appearance, and I’ve always figured I’m somewhere between hideous & average. I used to drink in bars a lot. Alone. And a woman, coming up to me, starting to talk to me & expressing an interest in me has only ever happened once. Ever. (It was at Grossman’s sometime in 2010 I think?)
So I’m automatically suspicious, like: what does this woman want? Does she work for ____? Is this a honeypot thing where she asks me to hang out & then my former dealer busts out of the closet with a fucking baseball bat?
I’m serious. Women do not talk to me.
Also in the past year I have made zero effort to attract or engage the opposite sex in any kind of way whatsoever.
The woman is good looking. She’s like…a woman. She appears slightly older (and I soon find out she is). She does not appear to be a drug user, but I just cannot shake the feeling that something is off.
Anyway, we chatted for about 20 minutes. I don’t lie to women. If I’m phoneless, I tell them. If I’m homeless, I tell them. I tell the lady I just got divorced. She is unfazed.
“Still wearing the ring, eh?”
I nod.
She tells me her name is Sarah. She’s 42. She’s been married before too. Wore her ring for 18 months after signing the divorce papers. I tell her I just signed mine.
Nothing seems to scare her off. Which is odd.
I tell her I lost about half a decade of “potential income” via a debilitating opiate addiction. She nods. Again, unfazed.
Tells me she doesn’t drink anymore. Asks for my number.
I tell her my my phone’s not working right now cuz I haven’t paid the bill.
She and I make plans to meet for tonight, outside the Butter Chicken place near my apartment. I’m meeting her at 7. She says “let’s just go for a walk.”
I get home, no one follows me, no one shoots me, nothing happens.
Are these two events connected? How can they possibly not be connected? Did ____, my former dealer, set this up?
Like…I don’t really dress up much. Ever. I think the “clothes make the man” idea is abhorrent & disgusting. The man makes the man. Behaviour makes the man. Not a fucking collared shirt. BUT.
But. Would this woman have spoken to me if I was still wearing my Coca-Cola t-shirt and cut off black jean shorts?
I mean, I am carrying a mangled guitar case covered in old Sub Pop & Sebadoh stickers so it’s not like I’m a fuckin walking advertisement for Tip Top Tailors.
But are you telling me dress clothing is SO crucial, SO irresistible to women, that the first time I walk down the street wearing dress clothing since my wedding in May 2019, within ten minutes a woman stops me to talk to me and ask me out?
Is this real?
How do I even bring this up tonight without offending her (if this is just a date & she is just a person)
Like “hey, do you by any chance work for a drug dealer named ____ helping him find old debtors, lulling them into a false sense of security, & then stepping back as they get wacked like those Russian gals in that Jimmy Altieri scene in The Sopranos?” is not really first date conversation material.
Listen, I’m gonna meet Sarah where she said to meet.
I’ll go for a walk with her. BUT.
But.
If she suggests going to a hotel, motel, restaurant, her place, or any kind of place where killing humans is easy (because it’s not in public), I think I’ll just straight up ask her “hey…is this some kinda honeypot Ralph Nader shit?”
(After Nader wrote Unsafe At Any Speed, the book that single-handedly legislated seatbelts, the following happened to him. From Wikipedia:
The book became an immediate bestseller, but also prompted a vicious backlash from General Motors (GM) who attempted to discredit Nader by tapping his phone in an attempt to uncover salacious information and, when that failed, hiring prostitutes in an attempt to catch him in a compromising situation.
Nader told the prostitute that GM hired (she confronted him in a grocery store for some reason, pretending he was a client who had eluded payment. Nader has never been married. He did not get discredited by the woman. He told her to please get the hell away from him & went home, where he probably sat down & began to read the 1978 United States IRS tax code, so exciting a life did & does Nader have.)
ANYWAY, like I said, I’m too depressed NOT to see where this goes. I’m gonna meet her. I’ll letcha know what happens.
She’s blonde. Haven’t dated a blonde in YEARS.