Pound · 17 June 2002
Approaching Nelson and Granville, I asked to stop so I could try to get cigarettes.
It was at a stage in life when going out for the evening meant leaving home no earlier than midnight, and it was a stage in time when Marlboro – the holy smoking grail, unavailable in Canada for reasons rumoured to involve an unwillingness to put federally-mandated French on the package – would occasionally be available under the counter at the small kiosk stores on Granville Mall.
When they could be found, these Marlboros were almost freakishly desirable. They were one: romantically-dangerously illegal, having fallen off a truck somewhere south of the border; two: far better than Canadian cigarettes (which are awful, which taste like a family fireplace on Christmas morning – all burning paper and disappointment); three: far, far better than the legit imported and French-labelled Camels and Winstons that one imagines to be made of whatever is swept up off the factory floor after real cigarettes are shipped off; and four: despite the markup of contraband, they were untaxed, and therefore cheap.
On that night I don’t remember where we were going, but I remember anticipating something memorable. We’d had some drinks, boasted and complained, listened to music and danced without much enthusiasm before piling into the car owned by the friend-with-a-car.
At Nelson and Granville I leapt out, hitting the ground with a purposeful if half-drunk stride and, like any good Canadian, avoided eye contact with anyone passing by. This being my early twenties, I was almost certainly engaged in an inner dialogue about the state of my hair.
Two stores down. No luck here, no luck there.
Passing just in front of the Roxy (a ‘rock’ club), its doors burst open and in a blur I was surrounded by what seemed like seventy jock-kegger types piling onto the sidewalk, whaling on each other. It went from an empty street to a foam of testosterone and beer in about three quarters of a second.
What registered in my mind – what I remember today, sitting here – was not surprise, or danger, or even annoyance at being delayed, at having to step over some crew-cut head as it hit the pavement. What registered in my mind was the whiteness, in the blacklight that leaked from the club, of their Nikes. They glowed, each and every pair.
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