18 and Life

By Chris Simnett

Growing up’s a bitch for Rob and Ian, a couple of lonely high school geeks.
It’s 1985 and the pair form a heavy metal band. Their friendship grows as strong as their musical ambition and their dream is to conquer the world of metal and get laid.
But they never make it.
A bottle thrown during a gig in a seedy bar sets off a string of events that ends any hope of them achieving their dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Simnett
• Release date: Dec 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458121783

Chris Simnett

I am an award winning writer and sports editor who worked in the newspaper industry for nearly 15 years, starting in small town Smithers B.C. and working my way up to the Calgary Herald.I currently write for Alberta Health Services as well as perform some communications advisor and project management duties.In my free time I'm a volunteer working to build a healthy tennis community in Airdrie, AB as 'community champion' for the Tennis Canada Building Tennis Communities Strategy. As part of that I coach kids and adults on the court as well as plan, run and organize tournaments, leagues, school and community tennis programs. I also run a tennis program at the Alberta Children's Hospital, where I work.

Book preview

Prologue - Rob

Do you remember that scene in Spinal Tap when the band is lost behind the stage and keeps coming back to the janitor for directions?

They can hear the crowd screaming and stomping, but just can’t find the stage?

And then Derek Smalls, the bassist, yells Hello Cleveland! Hel-lo Cleveland!

Well, that was me last month.

First, I got locked outside the club where my band, Bag End, was playing.

After the band started playing the opening song and realized I wasn’t there, our manager and roadie, Vince, went to find me and discovered me pounding on the door to the backstage area.

After he let me in, I bounded up to my mike and yelled Hello Squamish!, Hel-lo fucking Squa-MISH!

Dead silence.

It was Pemberton.

The first empty beer bottle hit me in the right shin, just below the knee and the second one nailed me in the temple.

I saw stars as I crumpled to the ground.

I didn’t know it then, but that was to be the last time I would ever stand on stage with my band.

Chapter 1 - Rob

The genesis of Bag End goes back to 1985. It was the first day of school at University Hill Secondary in Vancouver, an artsy high school on the University of British Columbia campus.

I was the new kid, a dork, a geek who was really just starting school in grade 10.

Before that, me and my three brothers were home-schooled by my mom at our farm in Ladner. I only listened to classical music then, as I was forced by my parents to take piano lessons.

So to say I was scared shitless when I pushed through the doors of U-Hill and saw the purple mohawks, leather jackets and Doc Martens of the punks that inhabited the small school of just 300 kids from grades eight to 12, was a bit of an understatement. The kids were raggedy and loud and everything seemed so scary, but exciting at the same time.

The walls and lockers were painted with images of rock stars like Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan and band logos; The Who, Doug and the Slugs, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Stones.

The school was built in the 1950s and was painted yellow with brown trim. There was a painting of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger holding a balloon next to one of the student entrances.

It wasn’t a very big school and it only had classes in two wings. The main hallway had the office opposite the library while a smaller hallway led to the auditorium and gymnasium.

The library cut into a large central courtyard that was open to the student parking lot at one end.

The surroundings felt Greek to me, but my first class was French.

It was about 10 to 8 in the morning when I walked into the classroom.

I was the first student through the doors. What a great start this was.

I felt like a bigger doofus than I’m sure I looked like in my black slacks, white shirt and thin black knitted tie.

I sat near the centre of the room at the end of a table.

I learned quickly that there are no desks at U-Hill, except in math class.

Rather, most of the teachers preferred the students sat at a series of tables and interacted with each other.

Also, all of the teachers insisted on being called by their first names.

Mickey was the French teacher and he was the second person in the room.

Mickey was clearly higher than a Vincee, if you know what I mean, and gayer than a football bat as he bounded, no, the word is flounced, into the room.

He-looooo, I mean bon-jour, he said as he flitted past.

Being a naive farm kid who had been home schooled for most of his life, I didn’t quite know what to make of Mickey.

Hi, I replied, not realizing until many years later — actually it was in our band van somewhere between Prince George and Chetwynd — that Mickey was a poofter.

Holy shit! I shouted, sitting up with a jerk at the very back of the van.

Ian was driving — that’s a whole other story, what a shitty driver — and he nearly put the van in a ditch.

What the fuck? he shouted, jerking the wheel hard to stay on the road.

Mickey was gay, I said.

And . . . , Ian said.

I just figured it out, I said. I mean, the guy bounced everywhere he went. He practically sang his lessons. The dude was playing for the wrong team.

Ian and Scott started laughing.

You just figured it out? Ian said. Just fucking figured it out? Fucking a year after he’s out of school and he figures it out. Shit. The whole school knew Mickey was a bum pirate and he and Reg were travelling the Hershey highway together.

Reg? I practically screamed. Reg?

Scott, who didn’t know Mickey or Reg from Adam, chucked a half-eaten bag of chips at me from the front seat of the van and laughed.

Ian slapped the wheel with both hands and laughed. The van crossed the centre line and we were almost flattened by an onrushing semi.

Will you fucking watch the road! Scott said. For fuck's sake, Rob might be a naive doofus, but you can’t fucking drive. Watch the damn road, man.

Ian’s ears turned red and his knuckles went white as he gripped the wheel and steered the van back into the centre of the lane.

Ian was the next person to walk into the room.

A tall, skinny redheaded kid with glasses and zits, Ian walked with his shoulders hunched. When he sat down, he slouched in his seat, his long legs thrust out straight under the table. He sat about four seats away from me and didn't say anything.

The class began to fill up as eight o clock approached.

The room became a swirl of movement and noise as laughing and talking kids sauntered in. None of them sat near me, the new kid.

They all knew each other and were catching up on what they did over the summer.

No one paid me any mind.

A really tall guy wearing army fatigues was one of the last kids to walk in and he sat down next to me, flipping his black binder onto the desk before he fell into the chair.

The kid wore his dark hair in a buzz-cut and smelled slightly of must.

Hey, he said. I'm Dave.

I was slightly taken aback as he was the first person, besides Mickey, who spoke to me.

I'm Rob, I said.

He nodded.

Dave didn’t say anything for the rest of the class. He took some notes as Mickey rattled on about effeminate French verbs and when the class was over he put his pen in his left breast pocket, snapped his binder shut and slipped out of the room.

I was out in the hall, walking to my next class, humanities, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

You new here?

I turned around. It was the dorky looking bespectacled redhead.

Yeah, I said.

Where did you go last year?

Nowhere, I was home-schooled.

Whoa, so have you ever been to school before, or is the first time?

"I went for a few years in elementary, but I've been home-schooled since

grade four."

What’s that like? Pretty good I’d think. You get to goof off all day and watch TV and stuff.

Actually, it sucks. You’re stuck with your mom who makes you work all the time and won't let you even listen to the radio. Forget about TV.

Oh man, that sounds like it blows.

Then he walked into the corner of a locker.

The kid put his hands to his face as he went down, first landing with a thump on his ass before rolling onto his right side in the fetal position.

Are you OK? I said, bending down to look at him.

Fuck, I cut my face on that damn locker. Oh man that hurts.

He sat up and slowly pulled his hands away from his face, revealing a small cut on his left cheek with some blood seeping out. There was blood on the palm of his left hand.

It doesn’t look too bad, you should be all right, I said.

Fuck it hurts, he said.

Nice one Ian, said a kid walking past in a green trench-coat and desert boots. You gotta watch where you're going. You might kill someone one day.

I ignored the kid.

Fuck off, Toby, said Ian.

Lets go to the can and you can clean up before your next class. What is your next class?

Humanities.

Me too, come on.

I grabbed the kid by the arm and pulled him to his feet. I pulled some paper towels out of the dispenser in the bathroom and handed them to him so he could wipe his face and hand and then went into one of the stalls and grabbed a fistful of toilet paper so he could blot the wound on his cheek.

We were the late for class and our teacher, Jenny, had already started the lesson.

Welcome, boys, she said. Nice of you to join us.

The class laughed.

Ian walked into a locker and cut his face, again, said the kid in the trench coat, Toby.

I'm OK, said Ian, not looking up.

It was a two-hour lesson with a five-minute intermission in the middle.

Ian and I stuck around the classroom during the break.

I’m Ian, he said, sticking out his right hand to shake.

I'm Rob, I said.

Thanks for helping me. I’m a bit of a klutz, I always walk into things, trip over stuff and shit.

That's OK, I said.

So why are you here? Why’d you ditch the home-school thing?

My parents split up and my dad moved out here. Me and my brothers were bored on the farm and decided to live with him and check out the city."

So you live pretty close to U-Hill?

Yeah, just down the street, across University Boulevard.

Do you got video games?

Yeah, we got a Nintendo.

Awesome, do you think I could come over and play? The SUB’s got an arcade, but I don’t have any money.

Sure, we can go over there at lunch if you want, my dad won't be home, we’ll be able to play.

For the next two weeks, me and Ian played video games.

Ian was a horrible video game player. My little brothers, Ted, Peter and Jim, and I kicked his ass at Super Mario Brothers and Commando every day.

But he kept coming back for more.

Slap on the Commando! I wanna kill some kraut bastards! Ian would yell as he walked through the sliding glass doors at the back of my house. Lets spark up some vid!

Chapter 2 - Ian

I’ll never forget meeting my friend Rob.

There he was, this tall, dorky kid, really quiet, even though he seemed really smart. The first time I laid eyes on him was back in French class at U-Hill.

I didn’t say anything to him in class — I was sitting across the room from him — but after the class ended I walked up and introduced myself. He had been home-schooled pretty much his whole life. There we were in Grade 10 and this was the first time he had ever been in school. That seemed a bit freaky. You could tell the kid was overwhelmed by the whole thing.

I kept talking to him every day. His dad was a realtor and they lived on the UBC campus, so I knew they had to be pretty rich. I figured they would have video games. I was never allowed to have video games when I was a kid. I always had to go over to my friends’ house and play them, or go to the arcade. I never had more than about 50 cents so I would play for like 10 minutes and that was it, unless I could find a game like 1942, which I could keep going on one quarter for about half-an-hour. I was disappointed if I had to play any other games because I was pretty crappy at them.

And, yep, sure enough, he had video games. So, every lunch hour we started going over to his house to play Nintendo. He had three younger brothers, Ted, Peter and Jim. They would come home from the elementary school down the road and we would play video games the whole hour before heading back to school. It was only about a five minute walk away.

Like I said, I was absolutely terrible at video games. I was terrible at everything except tennis.

I think the dream began the day I was born.

Actually, its genesis goes back to before I was even conceived. It grew into full-fledged ambition as I gestated. I’m sure the first time my dad saw me and held me in his arms he gazed down at his son and thought, This kid can win Wimbledon.

My dad grew up during the Second World War in the heart of the British midlands.

He was three years old when his dad went away to fight the Germans and nearly 10 when the old man returned.

He lived in fear of the unsynchronized sound of the German bomber engines as they buzzed overhead, bombs slung under their bellies ready to be dropped into the hell that was Britain in the early 1940s.

Dad lived with rationing, having to share one tea bag a day between his mother, two brothers and a sister. He spent his nights under the stairs or in the bathtub, huddled under a plywood board with his younger siblings while the bombs fell.

He spent his days playing soccer in the street in front of his house with rolled up socks for a ball and the smallest neighbourhood kids standing stock-still as goal-posts.

My dad spent much of his youth wondering about his own father.

When my grandfather came home from the war — after six years serving with the British Army and another year in Germany helping with the cleanup and rebuilding of the former enemy nation after World War II — he connected to my dad through tennis.

My dad took to the game quickly and soon found himself down at the local courts as often as he could, looking for people to play against.

He also learned how to play table tennis at the local community centre and quickly shot up the ranks in both sports.

He found early on that his dad had more time for him when he was successful on the court or at the table.

Like most dads, my dad wanted the best for me.

He didn’t want me to have to work for a living, but rather to achieve what his ability and generation wouldn’t allow him to do: play tennis professionally.

Professional tennis players follow the sun, he told me. "In the winter, they are in Australia and then they move to Europe in the spring. They’re in the States in the summer and fall and then they start all over.

It never snows on the pro circuit.

He gave me my first racquet when I was three. It was one of his old Dunlop Maxplys, warped from years of use and heavy as a brick in my tiny hands.

The leather grip was much to big for me to properly hold and the gut strings were frayed and the tension shot.

But I dragged that old racquet around with me the way some kids haul around a blanket.

When I was strong enough to lift it, I began hitting balls against the wall in our covered carport.

Sun or rain, winter or summer, I would go outside and bang balls, knocking the stucco off the side of the house.

My dad quickly bought me a junior-sized racquet that allowed me to hit forehands one-handed. He didn’t like my two-handed backhand, but put up with it as he knew I wasn’t strong enough to use a one-hander.

He started me off on the front lawn by softly tossing me balls to the forehand and backhand and getting me to hit them back.

He showed me technique in the living room, starting me off with the ready position, then drilling me on the backswing, footwork, forward stroke and follow-through.

When I could hit perfect air-forehands, backhands and volleys, he took me to the court where we played from the service-line for the better part of a year.

I wasn’t allowed to hit a sloppy ball. I had to be in the ready position, right hand gripping the racquet in a forehand grip, left hand on the throat, feet shoulder-width apart, lightly bouncing on the balls of my feet at all times.

He would call out the shot I was to hit and I would perform the required movements, returning the ball to him on the other side of the net.

He drilled the strokes into me so perfectly and so early that they quickly became second nature.

Hitting a tennis ball was as natural to me as walking by the time I was six years old.

At age seven I hit my first serve over the net from the baseline. I played my first tournament when I was nine.

I was well on my way by the time I was in Grade 10. I had to play tennis every day after school from four till eight as well as training with weights, running, practising constantly, the whole shebang.

But really, when you're 15 years old, what are you in to, other than girls, video games, music, shit like that?

I was a huge music fan. I discovered Def Leppard when I was in Grade 6. It was their Pyromania album that turned me on. That led to Twisted Sister, Ratt, all the ’80s metal stuff.

But let’s rewind a bit more.

My musical history began at the turntable of my parents’ old console stereo.

Remember those big wooden crates that looked like a hunk of furniture, with the lift-up lid and the turntable — the