Resuming

[ Gravel Pit Trailer Edges ]

Maybe this is a story about first impressions.

I first met Bernie as I sat on a rock outside the high school in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia. I had just signed up to work there for a semester. I was finding my way back home from Miami, as I recall.

I didn’t know that the other teachers didn’t necessarily sit on the rocks out in front of the school to eat their lunches - even on sunny days. But, Bernie appeared in the September afternoon sun and said hello. And I said hello back.

Somehow, we got right into talking about music – was he the music teacher? Maybe. Maybe not. We both squinted. I remember mentioning Warren Hayes to see if Bernie was legit. Bernie recommended “Cortez the Killer” performed live by Warren at Central Park with Dave Matthews Band.

Later, I went home and looked into it. Apparently, Bernie was legit. Since then, he is the reason I know about Miles Davis, Ryan Adams, and, obviously, “Cortez the Killer”.

Bernie is also the reason that, at the age of 32, I’m still teaching. I can’t over-emphasize how important this all is to me. You see, at the end of that year in Chester Basin, I retired from teaching at the age of 28. I said I would be moving up to the North Country with my one true love to start helping out on her family’s maple syrup farm. Bernie said I would be back. I said I doubted it.

As it happened, he was right, and when the bottom fell out, I had to call on Bernie to help me find a job back in the South Shore Board. He’s helped me out of a jam or two, in fact. One of these days, you’d think I’d properly thank the guy.

~

These days, Bernie and I work at separate schools and we don’t get to hang out much to talk about big things like music, the written word, canoes, jeeps, beer, bitches, whatever. He has a young son now, too, which keeps him busy. But, feeling the momentum of the summer, I stopped in on him one morning as I was returning from checking the surf at a faraway break. Bernie was mowing his lawn. He stopped the mower, and I gave him a hug – call it a meagre attempt at a thank you. Pretty soon, we had made a plan to go on the obligatory summer road trip to… Cape Breton?

~

My only memory of the Cape comes from my childhood when, as my dad tells it, I found a pack of cigarettes and started puffing away at age 7. When my dad found out, he took me to the playground and encouraged me to smoke my brains out. I did, and got good and sick – since then, I don’t have the taste for tobacco. Dads have a funny way sometimes, or so it would seem.

At any rate, when Bernie picked Cape Breton – that was the memory I recalled between smiles over the thought of enjoying some hard road travelling.

~

Eventually, Bernie was able to clear his schedule and plan on the day. Dads have to plan ahead, or so it would seem – meanwhile, I had no plan whatsoever; no wife to check with, no son to think on, and I suppose I was a bit jealous. But that’s another story…

In the end, we left on a Saturday morning and returned on a Sunday afternoon – and we squeezed everything we could out of that fine island with the highlands in those hours between daybreak and dusk.

~

We started the driving with a playlist of songs blaring that Bernie called Stage 1. (He’s a planner, Bernie, because he’s a vice principal). I just do what I’m told – but we started playing the 3-on-3 Ipod swap game sometime after the 17^th cup of coffee. (He drinks a lot of coffee, Bernie, because he’s a vice principal). I thought it would be best to keep up, and teach him a thing or two about balancing everything out through old- fashioned hydration. Bernie looked hesitantly at the Gatorade bottles between coffees. I tried to ease his mind saying, “This shit here was made for football players down in Gainsville.” (Isn’t it funny how your phrasing and word selection changes when you’re yelling everything across a gearshift from a wind-blown shotgun seat at 120 km/hr?) Nevertheless, Bernie got on board.

I like that about Bernie – it doesn’t take him too long to get on board when something is legit. Case in point when I chose Bob Dylan’s “High Water” to bring us back over the island’s causeway sometime on Sunday afternoon. Due to the hydration trend, neither one of us had even the slightest trace of a hangover - despite drinking vodka sodas from 4pm to 3am - and Bernie proved it to be so when he was quick to ask, “Which album is this from?” I was glad to yell out, “Love and Theft!” I hope he caught the approval in my voice.

Not to be out-done, Bernie set me straight a few times on the drive with song selections from Ashley MacIssac, Estelle, and something from the soundtrack to Trainspotting that I really must look up.

I suppose therein lies the definition of true friendship – challenging one another to meet other, new points of view. Damn, one of these days, you’d think I’d properly thank the guy.

~

The cover band at the bar in Sydney took us both by surprise. We arrived early enough to catch their soundcheck, and as I looked around at the crowd of five, complete with the one-armed go-go dancer in the corner, I had the feeling that maybe we should have kept trying our luck back down by the harbour docks. But, because he’s the vice principal, Bernie made the decision to go down with the ship.

About five songs into their set, the band stepped it up by playing John Mayer’s “Gravity”. I was in the bathroom, dealing with the excessive hydration when it happened. When I came back to our table in the corner, I exchanged a glance with Bernie that he was quick to confirm – we were, in fact, in the right place, at the right time. About 30 seconds later a stagette party that would turn Lady Gaga’s head strolled through the door. Then, the band played “Pokerface” for the first of three times throughout the evening. All squalid hell was breaking loose in that deserted steel town, and Bernie and I had a front row seat.

~

It doesn’t matter now that I lost out on my blonde gal target for the evening to a muscle-freaked steroid kid. It doesn’t matter now that Bernie and I were fish out of water in Sydney. It only matters that we stepped out into the night as friends, and found out where the soul shine fits into Cape Breton.

AS IT TURNS out, the soul shine hits the Margaree Valley with its full force. So, we crossed the river that Bernie recalled from his childhood; he stated that it was the cleanest water he knew. I gazed around and felt the splitting edge of Cape Breton: the squalor of Sydney vs. the cool clean waters in Margaree. “They’re selling the houses in this valley for cheap,” Bernie said. He spoke about it in a calm way, despite the coffee. I could see he was younger than before. I took a photo to prove it – maybe something useful further on up the road. I don’t know how else to say it: it’s a humbling thing to witness someone’s soul coming home.

~

Of course, I should mention before the end of whatever this is that on the way up to Cape Breton, we passed by a gravel pit which featured a left-behind trailer. Its thin sides were rusted out and sagging. Bernie looked at it and said, “Whenever I dream about killing people, it’s always in that trailer.”

Maybe that’s the edge in him speaking – the one that helps him get through the work days, and the tests of fatherhood. The one that helps him make executive decisions for a teaching staff that may stab him in the back. The edge that helps him tell a nurse to fuck herself when she’s messing with his son. And maybe that’s the edge in him that saw fit to help me out of a jam or two. I can’t be sure. But, whatever it is, I’m thankful it’s part of him.

Yeah, one of these days, I’ll thank him for it.