Straighten Your Ties / Book 1

So put your hands in the air
And don’t make a sound
If I get the wrong idea
We’re gonna shoot you
-Fall Out Boy – It’s Hard to Say “I Do”, When I Don’t

I was in a surprisingly good mood as I exited the Bell Centre that night. The end of the concert was a huge finale of confetti and streamers, which I grabbed and stuffed into my pockets for no particular reason. I already had souvenirs, that being my shirt and hoodie, but I always seemed to want something more than I already had. Greedy child, I was.

I walked up the stairs to exit the theatre and out into the long hallway surrounding it with Lucy in front of me. She came to a halt as the crowd in front of us stopped moving on the stairway, and turned to meet me. “You feeling better?”
“You cannot believe how much better I feel…” I shook my head in amazement, “I mean, fuck it, right?” I shrugged enthusiastically. “Dude, Pete Wentz looked directly at us. Did you notice?” Maybe I was overreacting, but I can still see the vivid image of him looking right at me to this day.

“I know!” Lucy smiled brightly, “He’s so hot.” Under her breath.
“I think I have a certain man-crush on that dude.” Man-crushes are so not gay, just so you know.
“Well, aren’t you cool…” She said so under her breath again. She was really talkative tonight. She would usually sit at family dinners silent, not uttering a word. You’d barely even notice that she was there half the time.
“A guy can dream, right?”
“And you were just worrying about that girl there… now you’re all about Pete Wentz.” She started moving up the stairs again.
“I have a disease that makes me jump from person to person.” I joked.
She laughed. “Seems like it.”
“I usually don’t tell lies.” Lie. As of lately, and to my parents.

“Sure sure…” Ending the meaningless conversations we had going. We reached the top the stairs and headed out into the hallway that was already crowded with flocks of poser fangirls and the people who had just come to the concert to see +44. Lucy’s mom was going to pick her up, but neither of us had gotten a call asking where we were or if the concert was over yet. We decided to hug the wall of the hallway and wait. I surveyed my surroundings as we waited. I saw the security guards lined up to my right along the hall; disallowing the entry any further down it. I watched as numerous people came up to them asking if they could use the restroom, all being declined. Things like this annoyed me. People only needed to use the restroom, which was only a matter of paces up the winding corridor. Why couldn’t they just back up a few feet and let the bathroom be accessible? It didn’t take much work at all on their part to stand there in the first place. The real job of security at concerts was usually the position of being at the front of the stage, taking crowd surfers down and putting them back on their own two feet. Yet, in Quebec, it seemed like everyone worked too hard and couldn’t allow something so simple to anyone. No courtesy whatsoever. I swear that if I were in the States somewhere, the security would be backed up past the bathrooms. Still, Quebec wanted to be different. They wouldn’t budge. They were stubborn like me, but I believed there was compromise to everything.

The merch booths were practically empty, with only the bands’ least popular items left behind to be packed up and likely shipped to the next destination on the tour. I felt bad for the stragglers. People never liked being left behind, but imagine the ugly products that never get sold. At some point, you have to have some empathetic feelings for inanimate objects.
Soon, the security guards, dressed in their black t-shirts and black pants looked at each other and nodded to one another. Just like that, us stragglers, much like the abandoned merch, were carelessly ushered through the doors out to the warm May evening.

“Yeah,” I said angrily, “Put us defenseless teens out into Montreal at night. Really good idea.” We didn’t have parents to wait for or instructions given to us, according to security. Apparently, we could face Downtown Montreal head-on. Truth: I was very scared of Downtown Montreal at the time. I had been taught to fear the city, and even after a year or so of being very close to downtown, my mother’s hereditary paranoia got to me when it came to Downtown Montreal. I feared getting stabbed or shanked or mugged or molested. All those things you were taught to be scared of. I hated my mother for implanting that one trait of my personality on me.

Nonetheless, there we were outside the Bell Centre watching a number of teens in groups discussing the night’s events. I sighed. What a loser I was, being here with my cousin when the ticket could’ve been for anyone else in the world. It was slightly embarrassing to say you technically took your cousin on a date. Her mother hadn’t called yet.

We kept waiting. A strange man who looked homeless, or at least a tad deranged walked along the terrace. He was walking with his arms limp, zombie-like and dead-eyed. I was pretty creeped out by the guy. Soon, he headed over to a pack of girls, and loomed over them. They all looked up at him and edged away ever so slightly. He grumbled, and they ran. This guy wasn’t fooling around with anyone either. One kid was yelling at him in French to leave him alone and that he was drunk. The man kicked him and sent him hurrying down the steps towards the street. I shook my head. This was fucked up once again. Security should’ve been out here, and not doing nothing inside. Yet, no one gave a shit, and no one would complain about this t their parents so they could contact the Bell Centre about it. Instead, we’d remain quiet and not tell our parents what really went on at concerts in hopes of being able to go to more.

The man clumsily walked over to Lucy and I. I glared back at him as he stood there staring like I was disgusting. He merely continued on his way across the terrace, and I kept an eye on him.

“Sorry about that.” I muttered to Lucy.
She rolled her eyes. Then she glanced down and reached for her pocket. Her vibrating cell phone was soon pressed to her ear.
“Hello?” She answered it. It was obviously her mother, and my aunt. “Yeah yeah… it’s done… down the stairs… yep… OK… ummm… Der, do you need a ride home?”

“Erm…” I thought my mother was supposed to pick me up, so I didn’t really know if I was supposed to stay here or not. Her cell phone was off too. I was trying to call her and she wasn’t answering. Even the home phone wasn’t being answered. It was a little abnormal, but I disregarded it for the time being. “No no. I’m pretty sure my mom’s close. Go on ahead. She’s just down the stairs, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks a bunch, Der. I had fun.” She smiled and gave me a hug.
“Not a problem,” I hugged back, “be seeing you?”

“Bye!” And she started for the stairs. I waited until her head vanished out of sight. I was there on the terrace, practically alone with only a small number of straggling teens around me. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at it questioningly. Why wasn’t my mom answering? Was she being held hostage or something? The last time I had spoken to her was when +44 went off stage. That was nearly two hours ago now.

Then it rang.
“Hello?”
“Derrick.”
“Yeah Mom?”
“Can you come home now?”
“You’re not picking me up?”
“Listen, can you just get home by metro or bus?”
“Yeah, yeah. I can take the orange line and green line at Lionel-Groulx. But why?”
“You just need to come home Derrick.”

“What the hell, Mom? You keep telling me to be careful and now you’re telling me to come home alone on the Metro at 10 o’clock? Seriously. Bullshit, mom.” She had thrown everything she had kept telling me out the window. I was actually thinking more logically than her for once.
She sighed. “Just come home. Please.”

“Fine. Bye.” I flicked my cell shut. She was fucking lucky I had a spare ticket for the transportation system in my wallet.

***

The metro car rumbled to a stop at Atwater station. I stood the whole way there, not feeling like relaxing at all. I was angry. I didn’t want to have to go through Montreal at night. Especially the metro. You’d always hear stories of stabbings and murders beneath the ground in Montreal. It seemed like the epicenter for it all.

I stepped out onto the platform, up the stairs and through the turnstiles. The station wasn’t crowded, unlike the few times I had been to the Atwater station. A homeless man sat slumped against the wall near the stairs to the street, people passing him by as they came down the stairs from wherever their Friday night had taken them or was taking them. I didn’t know where mine was headed just yet.

I exited through the push doors at the top of the stairs directly in front of Dawson College. I remembered the words of Mr. Caldwell as I turned my head over my shoulder to look at Dawson. It was dark out and only illuminated by passing cars and streetlamps. In front of me was Alexis-Nihon Shopping Complex, and to the left of that would be where the Pepsi Forum is.
I walked up Atwater. I lived near the park right across from Dawson. I didn’t have to go very far. I arrived at the stoplight and crossed on the green. And strolled up the street, past the park where everyone would smoke weed after their courses at Dawson were done with for the day, and got to my street corner. I turned. Stopped dead.

Cop car. Outside my house.
All I could think was, This better not be about April.