Tag: wow

I walked in, haunted by ghosts, trying to look for what was left of Duncan‘s birthday party among echoes of years ago.

Again, the Railway Club.

The first time I’d ever been in, the golden drummer from WOW invited me to their next gig. Underage, but he didn’t know. His one little hello became a fulcrum for a turning point. I spent an entire weekend with the band, afterward, in a strange little house on the North Shore. Silk plastic flowers lining the driveway, stairs that circled around a defunct water fountain twisted with white lights and topped with a cherub. Meals were hedonistic; rare cheeses, lobsters, artichoke hearts, clever lessons for the tongue and teeth. We danced like pure transmissions from a desert radio tower late at night, stabbing the air with clever inspiration, and kept the hot tub perpetually thick with sweet, foaming bubbles. I was young, Moby’s breakthrough album, Play, had just come out that week, (we played it on permanent repeat), but less so the next day, and even less the day after that. We sang whale songs, described how to frame their next music video with our hands, picnicked on cliffs edging the ocean. They introduced me to wonder, to love between friends. I still carry a man’s ring on my key-chain from that weekend, given to me by the woman who’s house it was – her father had given it to her before he died, but it had never fit, and now it is mine. A fitting memento for a band that passed on, for beautiful days strung like proverbial pearls on a string of kindness I never again matched in Vancouver. I still don’t remember how I ever got home.

I wonder that I’ve come a long way since then, when it feels like I’ve lost so much.