Chaper 1: The Cambie
It was a late August evening, the sun had just gone down and the sky was clear. The bon fires and parties had just begun in our small town of Langley.
Me and my buddy Alex had just finished work at the garage we worked at. Today we finished the body work on 1972 Plymouth Satellite. Sometime next week we'd be back in the shop to spray on the primer and get it all painted up.
After work I drove home laying a nice black patch of rubber outside Sam's garage after he told me if I smoke my tires again he will fire me. He was always joking though, I couldn't ask for a better boss. Great guy to be around, he'll let you have a good time around the shop when we're having a slow week, like making a functioning cannon out of an small old antique toy war cannon, drilling a hole for the wick and stuffing the barrel full of gun powder. To watching the hockey game mid day.
But when we're having a busy week he expects you to be on your game and not wasting any time. I've always understood that, my dad once told me "If you work hard the money will follow". That's exactly what I do.
I drove down Highway 10 towards the bypass, hung a right and followed down 255th street. I've got a USB connecting speaker in the car, I'd been listening to my music all day and was sick of it. I turned on the radio, the station was set on 101.1 a classic rock station, nothing but static. I started flipping through my presets, 104.3 static, 99.2 static, everything was static. I'd just put in this speaker system, it's a modern faceplate with a vintage look and was made to fit into the car I assumed I screwed up the wiring or something and that was causing the static to occur, so I went back to my music playlist and blasted Highway to Hell by AC/DC.
It was 6:30pm as I pulled into my driveway. As I shut the door the old hinges of the door creaked an errie metal screech, lying I mumbled I'll fix it tomorrow. I threw my jacket onto my kitchen counter, and jumped in the shower. I'd heard that it was beneficial to take freezing cold showers and that it gives you more energy during the day. I turned the tap to farleft and the icey cold water touched my back and I yelled HELL NO! and moved out of the way as I turned the tap to the far right and the steamy hot water came down. Five minutes into my shower some might assume a man was dying a horrific death, but I was doing my best possible rendition of "Don't stop Believing" by Journey.
I got out of the shower, put on some freshly washed clothes and I headed out the door. I could hear a dog barking in the distance, as well as the god dam frog living in my backyard somewhere having a helluva time. He seems to think 2am is party time and he starts croaking till the late hours of the night every single night. There's a small pond in my backyard followed by some large bushes. I know he lives in there somewhere, everytime I walk near him he goes silent and I've never seen him.
I was meeting Alex at our local bar 'The Cambie'. There is only a few bars in Langley, but this one is great. It's about a 15 minute walk from my house, it's especially great because aside from the bar, they always have a few bon fires going outside the bar on the weekends. Always surrounded by drunk minors with fake ID's.
I walked down 55th ave and took a left onto 240th street. The air felt cool, still warm enough that you could wear a T-shirt and Jeans and feel comfortable. I walked until 58th ave and took my usual shortcut down a ravine that followed some old power lines. Someone had built a wooden ramp some time ago, that leads you all the way down the ravine to a old railroad track that hadn't been used in probably twenty years. Mostly covered with moss and grass. I followed the old tracks for another 8 minutes or so, until the lit up neon sign spelling "The ambie" showed the rest of the way. The 'C' had been burnt out for probably two months now, I suppose they didn't have the money to fix it, or they didn't care, either way I know i didn't.
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I hopped the chain fence behind the bar, and headed to one of the three bon fires. Me and Alex with the workouts in the gym combined with the work in the shop we'd developed quite the physique and it seems the girls had noticed as well. I was a quiet kid in highschool, never talked much. In my junior year of highscool my best friend at the time Thomas was in 5 of my 8 classes throughout the year. I was always a bit of an antisocial guy and I found it easy to open up and be social around him. But he moved away the start of the next year, and I found myself becoming that same antisocial person, I don't know if I was afraid to talk to new people or I just didn't know what to talk about, I guess it was both. I never talked to girls until I got out of highschool, and now it seems like they want to talk to me, which I was okay with.
It was 7:35pm, I said to Alex I'd meet him here around 7:30pm or so. I walked around for a little while eventually bumping into an old friend from highscool, I hadn't seen Mark since Senior year. We talked for a short while swapping stories of what we we're doing now, he told me he went to college in the city to become a lawyer, and he's only in town to see some old friends. He will be starting lawschool soon. We parted ways, 7:55pm I decided to go into the Cambie,Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughn was playing through their jukebox and a good volume, later in the night would change into some party music at a very high level that would attract all the minors to come in here, and make their best attempt at what they call dancing?
Head bobbing and awkward shifting was not my scene, although if you got me drunk enough you could expect that I'd be on that floor dancing to whatever shitty pop music they were playing singing it as loud as I could.
The first thing I notice as I walked in is my asshole friend Alex sitting at the bar drinking a pitcher of Honey Lager to himself laughing all the while. I walked over and gave him a playful punch in the arm, enough that he felt it. Thanks for going in without me I said sarcastically. Alex laughed and said sorry Mom!
e alone in what was once my fathers house, a old house with one floor. A two car garage connecting to the house. two bedrooms, one kitchen, one bathroom and a basement. When I'm not wasting my money on new parts for the charger, I'm spending it on guitars and amplifiers. Even I admit I don't need that new shiny guitar, but I can't help myself, and hell I enjoy doing it so it's not completely a waste. I had just purchased a 'Les Paul Tribute' Electric Guitar and a JCM 800 Head and Cab a few days ago, which the neighbours now know I own as well.
It was around my nineteenth birthday when my ex-girlfriend also my first girlfriend broke up with me. Probably the shittiest three months of my life following that, but I got the great idea I should learn how to play guitar to impress girls. What bullshit that lie was, whoever the hell thinks girls dig guitar players anymore is full of shit. After a year or so of mediocre playing I dropped the mindset of attracting girls and started enjoying playing and actually began sounding decent.
My never ending quest is finding the perfect guitar tone, no matter how expensive my gear becomes I always feel like I'm missing something in the sound, such a hole needing to be filled, they tell me that the tone is in the fingers but I ignore them and continue purchasing expensive equipment. Maybe one day I'll find what I'm looking for.
My days usually consist of work 8am-4pm, I practice guitar for about an hour, watch some tv. And I'll usually spend the rest of the night working on my project car a 70' Chevelle. Once I finish the body work I'll paint it black, I once saw the car in an old movie I'd forgotten the name of. All I remember is a guy stoned out of his mind saying 'Alright', 'Alright','Alright' and driving around a perstiene black with white racing stripes 1970 Chevelle, and at that moment I knew that would always be my favorite car.
Me and Alex decided to take our vacation days at the same time, we were good friends outside of work. We see eachother way to damn much but we still have a good time and crack some terrible jokes every now and then. We both hit the gym four or five days a week and have been for two years now. Depends on how long and hard the work day was, sometimes we skip the gym and go grab a few brews. Tonight was one of those nights, It was Friday after what seemed like a never ending work week.