Growing up in a small southwestern Ontario town, I was always aware that a few hours’ drive to the east was the cultural and nightlife metropolis of Toronto. This mecca beckoned to me from an early age. Although not physically far away, metaphysically as distant from me as Timbuktu. I vaguely recall going there with my parents and younger sister as a child when my dad had to collect something for his garage in our town of Clinton. We lived outside of town on a farm and after my father decided to rent out the farmland, he purchased a gas station. Ultimately, it would fail because my dad was such a nice guy that he found collecting overdue payments from customers an onerous task.
Another time, a few years later, I visited Toronto on a school trip to a museum, which I barely remember. Yet I do indeed recall the thrill of knowing I was in the ‘big city’, where things happened, and anything was possible. At that pre-adolescent point, I was not aware of being gay, but there were stirrings in me of an interest in what a large, diverse, cosmopolitan city could offer.
Fast forward to when I was in my penultimate year at high school, grade 12. This was in the late 70s when there was still Grade 13, which I would complete the following year before attending the University of Western Ontario. My oldest sister, Cheri, had moved back to Clinton after living in Stratford, a small city a short drive to the east, home to the Shakespearian Festival Theatre, and working in the bar at a well-known hotel there. From a young age, Cheri had epitomized the saying, ‘rebel without a cause’ and had lived life a little on the edge. Now back in Clinton, Cheri had taken a job in a bar at a hotel on the main street. After living at our parent’s home for a time, she decided to rent a yellow-brick Victorian cottage in town and asked me to live with her. For me, it was a dream come true and a chance to live away from home and within walking distance of the high school.
As with any dream, there is often – if not always – a darker side. Cheri was always ‘the life of the party’ and most nights would bring home a crew of friends and misbegotten souls from the bar when it closed. I would have to get up early for my high school classes. It cast a pall over the excitement of living in town, and I resented the late-night revelers. Cheri only rented the cottage for a few months before she decided to make another change in her life. In any case, she found the rent to be too high for what she was earning as a barmaid at the hotel. During the short time that I lived with Cheri, one of the recurring thoughts at the back of my mind was that I could be gay. I was attracted to men, but at that point thought I could be bisexual. Aside from one encounter with another high school friend when in Grade 9, nothing further had happened. Living in a small, rural town at that time, it was not an option to be openly gay. Therefore, I knew if I was going to explore this possibility further, I would need to go to the big city of Toronto.
One Sunday afternoon, having borrowed my parents’ car, on the spur of the moment I started to drive eastward out of Clinton. I drove through Stratford and continued east. I was intensely curious about what the big city had to offer but had no idea where to go in Toronto in terms of gay bars, and more importantly, I had never driven to or in the city. The closer I came to Kitchener, where I would have to leave the provincial highway and go on the fast-paced 401, the more my resolve and interest lessened. Finally, with the 401 exit just ahead, I turned the car around and headed back to Clinton, my proverbial tail between my legs. It was just too huge a task to try to manage for a variety of persuasive reasons.
Eventually, I came out at what I thought to be the rather belated age of 22. I was not a card-carrying gay, due to being the type of person who prefers not to be noticed too much. However, I certainly enjoyed making new friends and sampling what the gay lifestyle had to offer. Two of my best friends from my early 20s, Steve and Dan, remain my friends today. I worked at a clothing store in the eastern part of the London, Ontario: Vaisler’s Men’s and Women’s Clothing. I met Dan working there, while Steve and I became friends through the local gay bar scene. Eventually, Steve rented an apartment in the Old South area of the city, where I already lived.
Working at Vaisler’s, the days were retail-long, 9 AM to 9 PM, with one day off during the week and on Sundays. After I left work on Friday or Saturday evenings, there was often the alluring prospect of heading to Toronto for the night. Sometimes, Dan and I would work together on a Friday or Saturday evening and then when the store closed, we would head to Toronto in Dan’s sporty car. Ida, the manager of the women’s side, would sometimes walk over to the men’s side of the store near closing time and say to the two of us, with a knowing look in her eyes, “What are you two boys up to tonight?” Even if we had to make a quick stop at home for a few clothes, Dan and I knew we would be in Toronto by midnight – perfect timing for the bars and later the baths! I recall one time when Dan and I were sailing down to Toronto in his chariot, we had been talking and planning about our upcoming adventures in the big city. At the last moment, Dan realized that he needed to get on the Gardiner Expressway, and he swerved over at full speed, cutting off a few other drivers but somehow managing to get in the correct lane without an accident!
Like Dan, my friend Steve was always a good sport about heading to Toronto at short notice. I can recall a few times that I would get off work on a Friday evening and when at home, would drop by Steve’s apartment. I would inform him, “Steve, guess what, we’re going to Toronto this evening!” and off we would go. If I went to Toronto on a Friday evening with either Dan or Steve, both of whom had cars, I always knew that I had to be at work the next morning by 9 AM. Saturday was always the busiest shopping day in the store. After returning from Toronto to London in the early morning hours, I sometimes only had sufficient time to shower and change before going to do my 12-hour shift at the store. I shudder at the thought now, but I was young and did it with ease back then.
At my behest one particular weekend, Steve and I were motoring to Toronto in his Honda Civic after I finished work. We always took a few clothes and personal items in an overnight bag. A wearer of contact lenses since my final year of high school, I always took along my only pair of eyeglasses just in case I needed them. Of course, I knew that I would not be caught dead wearing those Coke bottom bottle glasses! When wearing my contact lenses, I was a good-looking young guy. Whenever I wore my eyeglasses – only at home mind you, when alone and in no danger of anyone seeing me – I looked like Ernie Douglas, the youngest son in My Three Sons, for those who remember that classic 60s sitcom.
As we neared the city, Steve asked me if I wanted to do some drugs. I had no problem with drinking but had steered away from drugs because I did not like being out of control. Throwing caution to the wind, I agreed. I forget now what the drugs were that we took, but I recall saying to Steve that they had not affected me at all. Out of the mouth of babes – not yet! When we arrived in Toronto, Steve and I went to a popular disco club. We knew that we would probably be going our separate ways at some point in the night, so agreed that if we parted company at any point then we would meet up at 5 AM for breakfast at Fran’s, a historic diner on College Street.
Steve and I lost each other in the crowd at the club. At some point, I could feel the effect of the drugs. I had a feeling of euphoria at first, particularly when on the dance floor. Then I started to feel rather hyper. I eventually ended up at the baths. It is a blur what transpired there, but now a new feeling was coming over me: panic! A terrible feeling of foreboding came over me: I would miss Steve at Fran’s and be stranded in Toronto. How would I get back to London? What if I did not show up at work the next morning? Would I be fired? I recall leaving the baths in haste around 4 AM and making my way to Fran’s on College Street.
When I entered the diner, Steve was not there. For some reason, I seemed to have forgotten that we would meet there around 5 AM. I sat drinking coffee and feeling paranoid and anxious. I was sure that Steve had already come and gone. He would never desert me of that I was certain. The drugs were making me panicky and irrational. When I had just about given up hope that Steve would appear, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I looked up and there he was walking toward the booth where I sat. I greeted Steve with the rapture and relief of a man dying of thirst in the desert come upon by a benevolent Bedouin on a camel. I jumped up from my seat, practically hugging and kissing Steve, which no doubt mortified him, because like me in a normal situation, he is not overly demonstrative.
Steve was in much better shape than I was and was able to calm me down. Always eminently sensible, Steve suggested we have breakfast before heading back to London. I kept up an ongoing chatter about having thought he had left already, and that I did not know how I would get back to London. I also kept thanking Steve profusely for having come to Fran’s as he had promised. He was no doubt thinking that I was on a bad trip from the drugs taken earlier! I was eternally grateful when we were ensconced safely back in Steve’s trusty Honda and making our way out of the city.
A new feeling came over me, like a wave: sorrow. I was sorry for having taken the drugs. I was sorry for thinking Steve had abandoned me. I was sorry for having let myself become so out of control, which was rare for me. Let’s face it: I was sorry! I felt that I had to punish myself somehow for my poor decision-making. I could feel tears welling in my eyes, which astounded me because I was normally not a crier. My contact lenses were stinging from having been in too long and from the few salty tears that had started to slide down my cheeks. I reached around me and grabbed my overnight bag from the back seat. I told Steve that I had to take out my contact lenses because they were torture.
After taking out the contact lenses and putting them in the container, I put on my Coke bottle bottom eyeglasses. Wanting to punish myself, in the spirit of self-flagellation, I turned to Steve and exclaimed, “This is what I look like with my eyeglasses on! See how horrible I look!” Frankly, I am surprised that Steve did not swerve off the road in surprise and terror at the spectacle before him. Instead, he just smiled and said something to the effect that I did not look that bad. He also commented that I must have been affected by the drugs after all. After that, Steve continued to drive us back calmly and efficiently to London. By the time we arrived at my apartment, I had come off my hysterical high and returned to earth. I somehow managed to shower and get ready for work. My long 12-hour shift at work that day felt endless.
Looking back on those pre-AIDS days, I have often felt fortunate and blessed to have emerged from that epidemic unscathed. One of our close friends did not. The city of Toronto has remained one of my favourite places in the world. After I moved overseas in the late 90s, I would return to Canada once or twice a year and always felt a sense of excitement as the airplane descended to Pearson International Airport and I could see Toronto below me. For many years, I would stay with Steve and his partner, Raymond at their beautiful home near Church Street for a few days at the start and again at the end of my holiday in Canada. Toronto – or TO as locals call it – remains for me an incredibly special place; a home away from home.
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John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada, living in Istanbul. He has experienced a revolution (Indonesia), air strikes (Israel), earthquakes (Turkey), boredom (UAE), and blinding snow blizzards (Canada), the last being the subject of his story, “Snowbound in the House of God” (Memoirist). The author’s story, “Ruth’s World” (Fiction on the Web) was a Pushcart Prize nominee. His gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo, is scheduled for publication.
© 2024, John RC Potter
Halfway Down the Stairs 