Aftermath

Screaming home from Hugh's Room in a cab after midnight on my fifth night out drinking in a row, I had to suddenly bail out because I couldn't handle the ride.

I told the cabby to pull over right away. I said I'd decided to go to my girlfriend's place. I left him ten bucks for a six dollar ride, wobbled into an alley and puked all over the pavement. Then I sat down on the curb, threw a pack of cigarettes I'd bought earlier into a heap of garbage, put my head in my hands and I called Molly. I told her I'd hit the wall and I couldn't get home for a while. We talked for about 20 minutes, me leaning on some old worn-out fence next to a puddle of my own vomit, telling her I was fine, I needed this, I thought it was coming and now I knew, and it was all okay.

Then I walked home to Riverdale from Dufferin and Dupont, one step at a time. It only took me til 2 am.

Molly was asleep when I got there. I woke her up to tell her I was fine.

I'm fine.

I'm thanking my instincts, actually. The alarm went off late, but that's better than not at all. I really think I could have died in that cab. It felt like a rocket car to hell.

I'm fine.

I miss a meadow. I miss a Labrador puppy. I miss a fourteen foot aluminum boat. I miss a beaver pond and an old dirt road. I miss pine needles on the forest floor, a sixty foot hemlock tree to climb, summer sunshine and cicadas. I miss it all, but that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is, I'm MISSING it all while it rolls beneath my wheels.

Two guys at the coffee shop today: One gets a dollar in his change. The other says, "Hey, it's a Terry Fox! You gotta keep that one." The first guy bobs his head happily and pockets the lucky looney. And I remember how this morning, putting on my jeans, I checked to make sure mine was there.

Last night I told Melwood Cutlery how Stuart McLean had read my short story about Terry Fox in Gus' barbershop one morning years ago, and how he'd taken the trouble to read his favourite line back to me. Melwood asked if I remembered the line, and I did:

"I felt sad that the road was so long and hard, and the oceans are so far apart."

Twenty-six miles a day to get back home again... to get back home again.... to get back home...

It's not just the length of the road ahead. It's keeping it between the ditches on the way. The rock cut walls are jagged and cruel and they don't care if you run into them, or how hard.

I've been lucky to have shoulders on both sides of me to collapse on when I have to.

Today I woke up alive and aware and awake, and I got myself running again.