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BRICK 118 I looked at on the internet, the porn, the tight pants—but every time he lost his nerve. (When he did confront me, a year and a half later, it led to a big fight that culminated in him kicking me out of the house. I came back the next day—he wasn’t cruel enough to enforce it, and I had nowhere else to go.) Dad was a hobby photographer. He bought himself a fancy Nikon with an adjustable lens that nobody else was allowed to touch. When I was a preteen, we used to walk down to Nathan Phillips Square on warm summer nights to see the Jazz Festival or buy thick-cut fries from the food trucks parked on the corner. He used to take my picture there in front of city hall, posed in the shallow concrete dugout that doubled as a skating rink in the winter. But that spring, he didn’t take my picture at all. I didn’t want to be his subject anymore, so he found new subjects: the plants he grew on the balcony, his friends at Sunday-night jam sessions, the empty buildings he passed while walking the streets alone. The previous year, grade ten, I took a photography class with Mr. Meadows. The whole school was in love with Mr. Meadows, and rumour had it he gave his number to his favourite graduating students at the end of each year. Once I realized his favourites were always girls, I lost interest in the class. I never got the hang of photography. My film was always overexposed, the focus blurred, or else the picture was ruined by the smudge of my thumb. Most of all I hated the darkroom. I hated the chemical smell, the sinister red light. I hated dipping the paper into the developer and waiting for an image to appear. My photos never turned out how I wanted them to. I went to Pride that spring, the first time I remember going. I went to the parade with the same circle of girls from the High Park house party. We snuck beers in our bags but not enough water. I felt like a spectator. There were so many people on Yonge that I couldn’t even see the floats. We walked along Church Street. Men lined the block to get into bars. Some of them cruised me as I passed, but I didn’t have a word for that yet. I wanted to line up for the bars too, but nobody knew if the bouncers were strict about fake IDs in the Village. I had a feeling the real Pride lurked just below this one, an underground I couldn’t see. I saw other boys my age. We made eye contact as we passed each other on the street, curious in our try-hard outfits, clinging to our girlfriends. A different kind of cruising. We wanted to be noticed by each other but wouldn’t be caught dead noticing. They wanted it too, the real Pride. We didn’t know what we were looking for, but we would know it when we saw it. I took a handful of condoms from a drag queen on the street and stuffed them into my pocket nonchalantly, as if to be like Whatever, I do this all the time. We walked back to the subway by late afternoon, sunstroked, tired, a-beer-each buzzed. How anticlimactic. I went to Pride and all I got were a few free condoms and a pair of cheap sunglasses from TD Bank. We made plans to meet up later at Paula’s to pre-drink. We would use our fake IDs to get into a Pride party at Wrongbar, where there would be multiple DJs and last call was extended to 3 a.m.
page 121
That night I wore a pair of skinny dark Levi’s with black brogues, a lapis button-down unbuttoned to my sternum, and a children’s XL blazer in navy. The look I was going for was eighties L.A., which became refracted through my own limited understanding of a decade I didn’t live through, my reference being Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. To cap it off, I threw on a pair of rainbow suspenders because it was Pride, get it? I was still too nervous to use my fake ID at the LCBO, so I bought a Tetra Pak of Sawmill Creek Sauvignon Blanc from a Wine Rack that didn’t card. CASON SHARPE 119 Paula was my richest friend. Her family lived in Yorkville, in a condo on the thirtieth floor of the Manulife Centre. I gave the concierge my name in the lobby and looked down at my second-hand shoes on the white marble floor. Paula looked surprised when she opened the door of her apartment. She was in sweatpants. “Everyone bailed,” she said. I didn’t have a cellphone at the time, didn’t get the memo. “I have wine,” I said, holding up the Tetra Pak. Paula could’ve told me to go home, but she didn’t. I helped her pick out an outfit: a jean jacket over a

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BRICK

118

I looked at on the internet, the porn, the tight pants—but every time he lost his nerve. (When he did confront me, a year and a half later, it led to a big fight that culminated in him kicking me out of the house. I came back the next day—he wasn’t cruel enough to enforce it, and I had nowhere else to go.)

Dad was a hobby photographer. He bought himself a fancy Nikon with an adjustable lens that nobody else was allowed to touch. When I was a preteen, we used to walk down to Nathan Phillips Square on warm summer nights to see the Jazz Festival or buy thick-cut fries from the food trucks parked on the corner. He used to take my picture there in front of city hall, posed in the shallow concrete dugout that doubled as a skating rink in the winter. But that spring, he didn’t take my picture at all. I didn’t want to be his subject anymore, so he found new subjects: the plants he grew on the balcony, his friends at Sunday-night jam sessions, the empty buildings he passed while walking the streets alone.

The previous year, grade ten, I took a photography class with Mr. Meadows. The whole school was in love with Mr. Meadows, and rumour had it he gave his number to his favourite graduating students at the end of each year. Once I realized his favourites were always girls, I lost interest in the class. I never got the hang of photography. My film was always overexposed, the focus blurred, or else the picture was ruined by the smudge of my thumb. Most of all I hated the darkroom. I hated the chemical smell, the sinister red light. I hated dipping the paper into the developer and waiting for an image to appear. My photos never turned out how I wanted them to.

I went to Pride that spring, the first time I remember going. I went to the parade with the same circle of girls from the High Park house party. We snuck beers in our bags but not enough water. I felt like a spectator. There were so many people on Yonge that I couldn’t even see the floats.

We walked along Church Street. Men lined the block to get into bars. Some of them cruised me as I passed, but I didn’t have a word for that yet. I wanted to line up for the bars too, but nobody knew if the bouncers were strict about fake IDs in the Village. I had a feeling the real Pride lurked just below this one, an underground I couldn’t see. I saw other boys my age. We made eye contact as we passed each other on the street, curious in our try-hard outfits, clinging to our girlfriends. A different kind of cruising. We wanted to be noticed by each other but wouldn’t be caught dead noticing. They wanted it too, the real Pride. We didn’t know what we were looking for, but we would know it when we saw it. I took a handful of condoms from a drag queen on the street and stuffed them into my pocket nonchalantly, as if to be like Whatever, I do this all the time.

We walked back to the subway by late afternoon, sunstroked, tired, a-beer-each buzzed. How anticlimactic. I went to Pride and all I got were a few free condoms and a pair of cheap sunglasses from TD Bank. We made plans to meet up later at Paula’s to pre-drink. We would use our fake IDs to get into a Pride party at Wrongbar, where there would be multiple DJs and last call was extended to 3 a.m.

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