The Bloody Doors Off

My mum died a week before I turned 50. I got the call early on October 6, that she’d had a heart attack while at the laundromat. She was sitting in a chair, and just slumped over. I convinced my brother Kevin to pick me up so I could accompany him to the hospital in Aurora.

Which was the right call. Before we’d gotten there, doctors had to restart her heart. Wayne and Donna were on vacation (somewhere south) and I stepped outside to call them. Larry was upset with me. But this was something I needed to do. It wouldn’t have been fair for them to get the news any later than it was.

I got back upstairs and joined them in a separate waiting room. As the on call physician steeled us for the worst, as we prepared to enter her room and make our peace, mum had a second, fatal, heart attack.

We ventured into the hospital room to say goodnight.

Her face was contorted, mum’s mouth open, silently screaming. Her eyes still open.

(Thanks, doc. That hasn’t haunted me for the past seven years.)

Still raw from shock and despair, we drove back to Sutton, and to the lone funeral parlour to begin making preparations.

It hadn’t even been an hour. I dunno, I thought maybe we’d take time to process before making plans. I was numb. She would be cremated, it was decided. The funeral held at this establishment.

And, because fate, or god, or the cosmos had a way of really messing me up, my phone rang. A recruiter had a potential contract with one of the major banks in Toronto (I won’t say which, but one of their downtown branches was known as the ‘Starbucks Bank’ because the coffee roasters had a permanent placement within.)

I dunno. Maybe it was mum, trying to ease the pain. Because I hadn’t been working and needed a decent contract.

(I went in for their testing a day or two later. It was paper-based. You know those ‘spot the 5 differences’ challenge with two near-exact images and you had to circle the missing pieces — or in their case, brand mistakes (which, sidebar, how the fuck would I know what their guidelines were, having never seen a presentation before)? Yeah, well, I fubar’d it but good. End of story. Taah Daaah.)

The decision was made, very grudgingly on my part, to hold the service on October 13th.

When I turned 50.

The surprise party planned was, rightly, cancelled.

Have you ever had someone wish you a happy birthday — and give you a birthday card — while simultaneously offering their condolences?

The room was at capacity. My nephew Jason, who lives in Calgary, facetimed so he could be with us in digital spirit.

I didn’t speak. Cowardice? The writer, with a loss for words when it came to eulogizing the woman who raised him and guided him to adulthood, and stood by his side even when he kept pushing everyone away? (I’ll never get to atone for this sin. And there’s a tiny part of my soul that believes I don’t merit forgiveness, but that’s an issue to unpack with my psychiatrist. Or my next psychiatrist, as I’m literally phoning in my sessions right now. He’s helped me immensely in the past, but it’s probably time to get a fresh perspective.)

I couldn’t even fucking cry. (Wellbutrin takers know this all to well.) I welled up, but tears didn’t fall.

After, tea/coffee and those tiny triangle and rectangular cut egg salad and tuna sandwiches. That my mum served at the ladies’ euchre night when it was her turn to host.

They got me a Blue Jays jersey, something I’d wanted but couldn’t justify the cost for. They added Troy Tulowitzki’s name and number on the back. (He was traded the next year. I’ve worn it once. It’s still in my dresser.

Yeah.

The second funeral? My uncle Bern passed a few years later, also in October. His funeral was held… on my birthday.

I didn’t go. I couldn’t. It was. It was unfair. (Narrator: It wasn’t unfair, the author was selfish. Another sin he carries.)

Not sure why this bubbled up now. I guess pumpkin spice season makes me feel wistful?

Anyway.

No button to tie this blog post into a nice bow.

Just like life.

You don’t always get the ending you want.

“Son, are you doing religion?“

“Are you like me, you enjoy a good ham and cheese sandwich, but oh no! the bread is just too small and the ham is drooping and touching the dirty table you kept promising to clean with an antibacterial wipe but just couldn’t get to? Do you crave multigrain with more mass? Paper comes in eight and a half by eleven inches, so why shouldn’t your bread products? Now you can, with Ronco’s new letter-sized loaf.

Two wildly bizarre (and in the case of the latter, very SCTV with Dave Thomas pitching) lines of dialogue crop up in my head, unbidden. While I’m doing the dishes. The large pot still needs to be scrubbed. Had to abandon, make myself a sandwich (my stomach talked to me first) and sit down in front of my gigantic, curved monitor and breathe these to life.

Ah.

There’s the problem.

Well. Not a problem.

This always happens, a failure to launch if you will.

The idea hits. (Two this time! What?!)

I type it out.

And ask myself.

Um, what’s next?

Fuck if I know.

It took me years to properly birth A Song For Rachel. I was initially struck listening to music. Concept stuff. And an image pops into my mind’s eye, a woman struggling in frigid water after falling through the ice. There was a story to break there.

And, yep, you got it. Didn’t go any further.

Until the day an odd piece of dialogue popped into my head.

Beat.
MARY (CONT'D)
You have a healthy glow. My mother inhaled a pack a
day. The only glow around her came from a lighter.
The INTERN giggles.
INTERN
Sorry.
(quietly)
Healthy glow.
The INTERN snorts, clears her
throat and straightens in her
chair, attempting to compose
herself. She fails utterly, and
breaks out laughing.
INTERN (CONT'D)
I like you, Mary.

And I had. Everything.

I don’t want to wait years. Not months, days, hours, minutes.

I want now.

Realizing how I feel artistically bereft, not having written anything of real substance in over a year.

Take Beethoven. Dude became deaf and that didn’t stop him composing. It was always there for him. Mozart. Hemingway. Steven King. (Dude, slow down a little, okay? We’d like a breath between finishing one of your novels and digging into the next.) Prince.

I do NOT compare myself to any of them. I have … a modicum … of talent. I’m allowed to call myself a playwright. And I’ve been paid, motherfuckers. More than once. I’ve made it to zoom festival main stages, and made the short list with others. Wanna see my rejection emails? There are a lot. (In the trash folder. One day I may shred.) I was mortally wounded (metaphorically) from a savage review for my second ever Fringe show. (EYE Weekly. DRIP.) And I experienced euphoria as one online arts critic called my first show in Hamilton as one of his top 3 picks.

I was busy back then. Ideas came easier. Marlo and I joined two cold reads companies that hosted live reads of new works by local playwrights. I used it as a testing ground for a short play I’d written in a response to the previous week’s prompts given to a random playwright to incorporate into a short story in 7 days. (I wasn’t the winner. But the end product of that piece, Last Call, introduced a character I’d only hinted at in another story (Snow Angels). And, not to humblebrag, but Lost in Translation was accepted by a California drama collective to produce using Zoom, and posted to their website on YouTube.

Snow Angels, Lost in Translation. Last Call. The three best brief works I will ever write.

I felt like Aaron Sorkin during Covid. I was blogging, working to better previous works. Contacted several friends and held an online reading of A Song For Rachel. And Marlo successfully pitched it and directed as part of Alumnae Theatre’s Zoom series.

And then something happened.

Like a light switch to my creative storytelling drive was switched off.

But tonight. In the span of ten minutes.

And I’m at a loss. Soon I’ll second guess and declare that I’ll revisit them in the morning and if it still feels viable, I’ll create a new subfolder for them on my desktop.

But until then, it’s gonna bug me.

Is the son doing religion?

I don’t advertise this. But I sometimes get feelings of things to come.

earliest memory

I knew the moment my paternal grandfather passed away from cancer. I was at a high school drama club party, and I got hit with a feeling. Like someone had just walked through me. I went home and fell asleep, only to be woken by the phone call.

I could predict little things: a song cued up on the radio, outcomes of sporting events.

you can dance if you want to, you can leave your cares behind

I had a best friend, Doug. He’d gotten engaged to Kim and before their wedding, I dreamt of having an argument with the date I was bringing, and watched her walk away from me and spend the rest of the evening with another friend, George.

And then the narrative skipped ahead, and she I had married.

In this moment, I’m confident you know what happened at the wedding reception.

Never did get married.

christmas in july

But she did introduce me to a psychic one evening, booked an appointment for me. Before I’d said a word, she asked: “You have such wonderful stories to tell. Why did you stop writing?”

No one knew that. No one.

Her name was (is? I can’t find a social media presence) Christmas Henderson. She gave me a book of Longfellow poetry; said she didn’t know why, but it was meant to be in my hands. Shortly thereafter, I gave the book to my companion.

She loved Longfellow. It was her favourite poet.

9 1/2 weeks

In my early improv days, when I was taking intermediate classes at Harbourfront, a fellow improviser introduced me to his friend. She had a kind face, and the rest of her was inviting. My first thought as I shook her hand: “I’m going to have sex with her.” (Look, I’m not trying to be sexist or crude, and I don’t think this qualifies as cancelling me.)

I had recently come into possession of 2 tickets to Yuk Yuk’s at Yonge and Eglinton and invited her. She was enthusiastic about going. As we exited the subway, she turned to me and said, “Oh, I meant to tell you. I’m married.”

Record scratch.

Wow, I was wrong.

Only I wasn’t.

I hosted a party at my father’s townhouse (where I and my oldest brother were living at the time). He was away at a convention, I think. I had a friend DJ’ing in the dining room nook. The place was jumping. Literally. Everyone dancing in the living room and I swear the floor bounced.

She showed up at the party. And things got very interesting.

Ice cubes were involved. There was a make out session in the basement.

She said she wished she met me six months earlier. I asked why. “That’s when I got married.”

We embarked on a short, but passionate affair.

(Okay, we’re getting into cancel territory here. I did feel guilt. That was the catholic in me trying to escape its desolate plane of existence where I’d banned it to years prior. (I could not accept a lot of Church doctrine.) )

Let me say, not as an excuse. She initiated. You should’ve seen the dress she didn’t wear to the party. And I did mention the ice cubes.

It was hot. Taboo. It lasted about two months. The guilt got to her. I’d supressed mine. Broke down later. Promised never to do that again.

And kept my promise.

christmas in december

It was either December 1998 or 1999. (You’d think I’d remember that.) Working the midnight shift, the night before the office Christmas Party at the O’Keefe Centre. No, it was the Hummingbird then. I had a moment. One of my work colleagues popped into my head, unbidden. Suzi.

Sure I can predict things, but I can’t anticipate human interest. But at the party, I suggested wouldn’t it be fun if we pretended to flirt, and see if any of our colleagues picked up on it. Laughter, Hands stroking arms. We stepped outside into the crisp winter air, right outside the full wall glass windows of the party area. I suggested taking it up a notch, as no one seemed to pay us any attention. Maybe we kiss and see if anyone tells.

There were sparks. Shortly thereafter, we ran off to the underground PATH and began our adventure together.

“united 93, you are off course”

Four days before 9/11. I turned to my then girlfriend Suzi and said, “something is very wrong. something is going to happen” (or words to that effect, it was 23 years ago). I got home that fateful morning after working the midnight shift at my presentation specialist job and went to bed. Only to be woken 45 minutes later to come out and see the World Trade Centre on fire.

yes, i’m getting to the point

Someone walked through me tonight.

I’m gonna glow in the fucking dark any day now.

My lovely wife Marlo drove me to Ajax for a 2am MRI scan of my lower back. How does this relate to my tendonitis and a lesion lurking in my foot? The neurologist wants to rule out a herniated disc or pinched nerve.

Of course, the last MRI of my foot was inconclusive and THAT needs to be redone. I prodded my GP (well, her replacement while she’s on maternity leave) about not getting a new date. Turns out the requisition sent for the lumbar also included my right foot, but they will only scan one body part at a time. They texted offering a date on the last week of August (at 4:50 am). Which I can’t do. (Prior commitment.) I’m waiting for other date options.

Some day, historians will find this blog and curate it in a museum, as the origin story of Toronto’s superhero protector. Or it’s evil mastermind who removed Doug Ford from office and was heralded as Ontario’s saviour, until I instituted ice cream Tuesdays. Because no one wants to eat ice cream on a Tuesday in February.

I was hurt. I was angry. I was losing my best friend.

The digital clock shone 11:11. The superstitious say ‘make a wish’. I refused. What if it came true?

I burnt the meatloaf in the microwave.

Sleep if for the meek.

This won’t hurt, now, didn’t it?

Rest, brave soldier. Your watch is at its end.

I will be the first to admit I am woefully unprepared for what comes next. And maybe I should just keep my nose clean.

But I need to say this, for good or ill.

---

Because of his conviction, Trump cannot vote and is barred from all but the safest intelligence reports (and probably delivered paperless so he doesn’t steal those too).  

His supporters are rage crying on TikTok, right wing Maga social media personalities are calling for a war and the Speaker of the House asked the Supreme Court to “step in”. A Republican Congressman is subpoenaing NY Southern District DA Alvin Bragg for a kangaroo court hearing.

And, oh. Trump’s rabid following are threatening to doxx the jurors who convicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records. So, you know, put fear in those who may be called to jury duty for the documents case (if Judge Cannon is recused and the engine of the law starts up again) in Florida, or the election interference case in Georgia, and the Washington, DC case where he tried to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election. Call that for what it was. An insurrection.

A majority of Qanon/MAGA folk probably own a plethora of semi-automatic and even deadlier guns and tactical gear.

America, I think you need someone to talk to. Please, don’t just “stand by and stand back”. Everyone should take a breath.

Maybe several.

Tendonitis. Nerve pain. My right foot is, for lack of a better medical term, fucked up.

Okay, it is getting better. I can walk without the cane without tendonitis pain (but I still have nerve pain in my right foot). My balance is still shit (I nearly fell over leaning back against a wall while getting undressed for the scan), so the cane goes where I go.

And earlier this morning (after midnight — has anyone watched that show? I kinda like it; it’s got potential. They tweaked the format a bit last week. I don’t like #Hashtag Wars as the elimination game) I managed to snag an MRI appointment at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH).

Marlo wasn’t available to drive me, so I Ubered. While in transit, I told the driver to drop me off at the Sammon Street entrance, and not Coxwell Avenue.

Naturally, he pulled in front of the non-emergency entrance on Coxwell. I needed to be at the entrance to K-Wing 1. Which I was told could be found on Sammon Avenue. So I shlepped south and made a right at the corner. The main entrance is quite wide; you can’t miss it.*

*What you can miss, is the second entrance less than 100 metres east, just past the underground parking. And it’s inset from the street so you could easily miss it in the midnight sky. There is also a sign on the sidewalk informing all that this is the entrance for the MRI. No. Really.

Naturally, I went in the first entrance. It was familiar. It had overhead signs to guide me to the MRI department, which took me into a labyrinth that even a minotaur could get lost in.

And I did.

I spent 20 minutes going in every direction. This made no sense. The booking agent told me that there was a phone after I got through the front doors, and dialing a four digit number would alert a security guard to let me in.

I’ll say it again. 20 minutes. And when I finally arrived at the Diagnostic Imaging reception, and followed the sign directing me to the MRI.

I was greeted by a curtained off hallway and the sound of construction.

Fuck. This is not good. Understatement.

After completing a circle back to the construction, I found my way back to the Sammon entrance.

I stepped out into the cool obsidian night and looked around. I even walked east until I hit the ramp to the underground parking. I wondered briefly about their being a door ahead of me, and discounted the notion at the speed of a fart. (This analogy does not play into the title of this blog post. Wait your turn.)

There were other, well-lit doors closer to Coxwell Avenue, but they only opened out.

By now I was getting shocked with nerve pain in my foot. I gave silent thanks for the cane, which kept me upright and mobile. I turned north at Coxwell, to the entrance the Uber driver had taken me to. The door lead me into a general reception/waiting area which twigged memories from 2013. (It hadn’t changed at all. And this time I wasn’t heading up five floors to H Wing.).

It felt. Wrong. And then this happened. I saw a sign. O, blessed message, delivered on the wings of Hermes (or a laser printer, which I suppose was the answer to Occam’s Razor. And it read:

“For access to the MRI department, use the Emergency entrance and call security.”

Goddammit.

And off I go, dragging my ass up to Mortimer and then east again, to Emerg. I spoke to the night shift intake worker. She confirmed my appointment in the computer database, but couldn’t give me clear directions. Thankfully, she consulted a security officer, who approached and began giving directions through another labyrinthian quest that Gary Gygax himself would have included in a module set in a medieval abandoned hospital**.

**Yes, I know hospitals don’t exist in Dungeons and Dragons. Fun fact: the first campaign I ever joined was in a high school club. As I had no clue about generating a character sheet, let alone a cool-sounding name, I leaned heavily on the DM for assistance. He dubbed my chaotic neural elf thief ‘Scrotum’. No, I didn’t clue in until half-way through the starting point. And so, I pulled a Leroy Jenkins and went feral on their asses. It was my first — and possibly best — presence attack in an RPG. (Though playing a superhero who fires a laser beam through a car’s hood before getting drop-kicked into a random family’s seventh floor apartment, and within a beat I told the trio watching television, “Don’t get up” before jumping out where a wall used to be.) A corridor was filling with water, perhaps 3 feet at this moment (the DM hated metric; he said “They didn’t use metric in medieval times, so we’re not using it here“). As the group entered the hall, I leapt from under water with a very sharp knife at the ready. It was a very short-lived campaign.

I was done with directions.

I asked him (very nicely) to take me there.

Off we went.

The first turn was promising.

The second seemed… familiar.

He was taking me the exact route I’d traversed 15 minutes before.

And it was getting perilously close to my appointment time, and I didn’t know — given they take appointments 24 hours a day — when the next person was scheduled and if I’d miss mine.

Yup, this hallway was familiar. So was the Diagnostic Imaging check-in that I’d recently passed.

And, on cue, was the curtained off section of hallway, echoing the sounds of construction equipment and chatter between the night shift. My security guard slipped past the white drapery and began a conversation. They would allow the security guard through, they said, but not me because I was a patient and not staff.

After I reiterated the problem of finding the proper entrance, a construction worker appeared and agreed to take both myself and the security guard the rest of the way. Which almost included a half-level stairway down (which made no sense, so I’m glad he realized the mistake immediately). And two minutes later, I was in K-Wing 1.

One hundred fucking metres. I walked over half an hour, when all I needed was to take a 30 second jog to my right.

Which brings me back to the title of this post.

I was feet to torso in the beast. The technician provided earplugs and sound cancelling headphones, and still that fucker was loud. I was embedded for 40 minutes. and of course you can’t have any metal, so the hopes of a television to distract me was out of the question.***

***At least my dental hygienist let me watch Animal Planet on Monday.****

****And she gave my a lolly for being a brave boy.

I spent the downtime running strange scenarios in my head, mostly What If stories that would make Stan Lee blush. Soon enough, we were done and I was instructed to sit up.

It’d been building, you see. And the plan was to get back to the dressing room before.

Best laid plans.

At least it was just one little fart.*****

*****That’s for Marlo. (No, not the fart itself. It’s an inside joke.) Happy date-iversary, honey.

And, thankfully, I wasn’t ass-deep in the tunnel when it ripped.

I didn’t write a happy mother’s day post to my mum today.

She’s been gone 7 years now, and I always think of her on days like this.

But today I didn’t.

I have other reasons to celebrate this day. But I left her out. It wasn’t intentional, and that makes it worse. At least to me.

I want to say more, but I’m tired. So very fucking tired.

I’m sorry mum. I should’ve been a better son; I could’ve called more, much more. I wasted so many years in my 30s not attending weekend dinners, because it was “too hard” to get to Whitby by GO train. I distanced myself from my family, and why?

And now I can’t get those moments back.

Give me those moments back.

Oh my god, you guys. I just out of the wildest, winding chat (with an AI chat box and 3 2 customer support representatives at Amazon (Canada).

I’m gonna clean it up, and remove/replace names for their privacy.

It felt like a David Lynch film. For over half an hour, I was trapped in the Red Room with Laura Palmer and the good Agent Cooper.

Oh, speaking of beards.