HUMAN WRECKAGE
300 Club Confidential
Four-sixths of the 300 Club reunited in the ritzy wilds of West Vancouver last week. If I remember my geometry correctly, I believe that integer may be rendered as two-thirds. Jim, Marty, Tim and I rented a somewhat sprawling, gated, split-level Brady Bunch house nestled on a slope in a cul-de-sac. The view through the window above the kitchen sink was striking. Lush, manicured greenery in the foreground. Water beyond, unladen freighters in the inlet patiently awaiting their turn beneath the port gantries. The horizon was the silhouette of the University of British Columbia’s main campus. The sky was the shade of blue I picture when genuinely settled enough to appreciate “Wish You Were Here.” Cortez the Killer and JB007 were MIA, otherwise AWOL.
Friends all for some 55 years (at least). Our group’s average age now is 66, 65 the fading median on this particular trip. Functionally efficient, well-oiled. We shared the errands and chores: shopping, meal preparation, clean up and general housekeeping. A very socialist gathering. The sole unaccommodating aspect of our accommodation was the coffeemaker. It was one of those single cup things, four courtesy plastic pods beside it; all the rage. Enough for the first one up. We’d brought a proper package of coffee expecting a proper maker. Christ, back to Safeway to be gouged. Marty did a walk through of the place, recon. He, uh, finessed his way into a secured supply closet. Coffee on the house. Tim and I followed his example: we were deviously clever, concealing evidence of our high school habit on a nonsmoking property.
Jim and Marty are clean livers. That’s to say their livers are unscarred. They went for hikes every morning while Tim and I drank coffee and smoked on the covered and concealed patio outside the sliding doors to my downstairs bedroom. An idyllic interlude with an old friend is always pleasurable. Quiet conversation or comfortable silence, sometimes both, just being, sharing the other’s presence.
Our evenings were mildly regressive. The Negroni, an aperitif, might be Italy’s greatest gift to the world because not much else happened there. Jim was the toxicologist. Listen, bud, if you hold a Negroni up in a sunbeam, you’re examining a sample of Spider-man’s radioactive blood; Madame Curie’s got nothing on you, oh no. West Coast cocktail hour dovetails nicely with EDT Montreal Canadiens playoff games. And Negronis pair well with edibles. Lacking the expertise of Cortez the Killer and JB007, Marty, seeking sterling customer service, said to a pot shop clerk, “My friends and I used to smoke a lot of hash back in high school. What do you recommend?”
Maybe it came with the rental, but I believe Marty had a natural instinct to pack a wireless soundbar along with a cooler and a barbeque. Jim showed me how to swipe songs onto a custom iPhone playlist – three times. We needed an old song soundtrack to tell new stories; all of our lives are very now: death, disease and grandchildren. No more clock-punching unless we want to. And replicating the past, as fondly recalled as it may be, is insanity; we’re all still too young for dementia – excepting gummy induced early onset.
Two, perhaps three bottles of an impertinent if indifferently robust red with legs and a surgically altered nose suggesting delicate hints of leather and tobacco with dinner. Maybe a few were organic white flavour because Jim stirred up a delicious paella one evening. Befitting our vintage, supper was followed by a board game. Marty, this event’s Shitshow Ringmaster, had rustled up a used edition of Trivial Pursuit with a set of updated general knowledge cards. Tim shuffled the deck with a set of Beatles Trivial Pursuit wildcards; they made for a hard day’s night.
I believe I know as much about the Beatles as I do James Bond in the sense that admiration and questing curiosity have eaten up hours of leisure time in a brief and absurd life. I’ve read books and magazine features. I have Anthology of DVD and a pile of other video besides. I have stereo editions of every UK album and more than a few “posthumous” releases. But I’m not nutcase hardcore. I’ve neither the mono boxset nor the American Capitol releases or the Tony Sheridan stuff from Hamburg. Paul McCartney could not win Beatles Trivial Pursuit; the questions might as well be about astrophysics. Actually, it would be fun to play against him: “No, that’s wrong. I wrote it;” “No, that’s wrong. It was my idea;” “No, that’s wrong. I was the avant-garde one.”
(My newish friend Kevin – we’ve been acquainted for a mere 36 years – he of The Muster Point Project, gave me a Rolling Stones edition of Trivial Pursuit I can’t remember how many years ago. It’s still in the cellophane. Not that I’m a hardcore nutcase, a freakazoid, but no one in my circle of family and friends has ever consented to play against me. They’re all too aware I’m capable of kicking even Glimmer Twins ass.)
After the game had been put away and the losers duly shamed and humiliated, plans were hatched. Montreal in the autumn of 2027; a complete quorum required: the 300 Club is going back to high school 50 years later for remedial classes in regressive personal growth. A dog-ate-my-gummy – strike that – homework! excuse to come together again.
Dispatches from the Crooked 9 is your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything meaningless. No AI and little intelligence of any sort since 2013! My latest novel Sunset Oasis Confidential is available in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set!
