TORONTO, ONTARIO 1999 Winter Ok its been like a fuckin hour and Im startin to worry! I absoloutley hate waiting! I have dope but I cant do it without him Ive tried! Fuck what if something happened? Maybe he got pulled over or they jumped him coming out of Mark’s place. Or maybe he got in an accident and I wont even know? Is it wrong to worry this much about what Ill do without the down if something did happen? Of course Im concerned about their well being but I would simply just die if he never got back with it! Breathe Kim. Holy shit! Its okay cuz at the very worst case scenario theres money! I could take a cab to the bank machine and stock up for the time he spends in the hospital and get Ruben to help me hit the shit! Ill be okay. So I sat there in total silence. Turned off the stereo that was permantly on for company background noise , always on the Edge 102 and shut the tv off for the first time in days so I could listen for the elevator outside the door and here his keys rattling in his pocket as he comes towards the door to safety. Everytime I go through this waiting in agony for E to come back from Mark’s place I always say to myself next time Ill go with so I can skip all the madness and anxiety and Im sure the process would seem a whole lot faster if Im at least along for the ride uptown but whenever its time to go back he always sais “ok you comin or stayin?” And Im always feeling to nervous from the coke to want to go anywhere so I can never seem to make it out the door. “Itll be faster this way!” kisses me on the head and I smell a waft of leather Dippity doo hair gel. “just figure out something to eat and watch and shit then we’ll chill for the rest of the night” of course pretending that we believe that this lot will be enough to last all night and if not for the coke it would! it’s the fucking coke that fucks everything up. Turns a fun Heroin thing into a not so fun Coke jones head trip listening for sounds and not talking! Man oh man. So I go to the micro wave and start to heat up some tea and the thing starts beeping when its done so I jump off the counter island thing to stop the beeping as fast as possible but I cant. I just furiously push buttons to try and make it stop but to no avail and my heart is pounding really bad and the door swings open and hes home smiling with Starbucks and Im like “please make the noise stop Edwin oh my god!” so he calmly walks over and quickly pops the thing open and then the silence… Hes laughing at me and shaking his head and Im like “holy fuck I was soo freaked out what the fuck Edwin? What the fuck??” “I just thought Id get Starbucks so Mark just wanted a ride downown so I had to go to the downtown one then come back… I got fuckin pulled over but it s okay! No ticket!” I fuckin knew it! I could tell there was something fucked up why didn’t you call? Fucking two hours dude!” He looks at his watch and sais “I was only gon for like 25 minutes” "Its getting to ya angel! The fucking coke!" he laughs already sittin down in his big chair and leans over and pulls the super oversized tufted leather and super elegant ottoman towards him and arranges the silver platter we used to put the dope on and keep it all in one place so the spoons wouldnt char the expensive furnishings that came with the condominium when we moved in. I sit down beside him and already throw the tie on my left arm and extend it out towards him rested on his big knee and rocked slightly back and fourth inpatiently and heart pounding. "Here dont you wanna do a line first?" "Fuck no just give it to me!" "Good choice" He sais. It was just as he was about to draw up the heroin that I realised "oh fucking shit... were outta rigs!" He looks around the room as if he didnt want to believe it but yes there were no more needles again. We live a short distance to Shoppers drug mart but we both knew that we were not going to do that right now! I got mad and said "why the fuck in all that time you couldnt have gon to Shoppers? You can stop for an Iced Capp but just couldnt manage to go get rigs? What were you doing anyway? What were you doing that takes that long?" "I.. GOT... PULLED.. OVER.!" He sais condescendingly. "You wanted me back here so I rushed or wouldnt have been pulled over!" "Right.. its because of me you get speeding tickets once a week. Yeah ok Ed. Sure okay. So what the fuck? Can we do this?" He shuts his eyes and looks up towards the ceiling with exhasperation "do you want me to go? To Shoppers. For rigs??" "Nah fuck it. Now theres no choice.. thanks perfect.. your gonna ruin my veins!" I say and he shakes his head already in front of the sink drawing up bleach into two syringes letting it sit for a second then rinse and repeat. He hit me first as always and it was smooth. It must not have been that dull of a point so I lucked out! Complete relief! The best hits are always when youve had to wait. Unfortunatly we spend more time waiting for down to arrive then actually doing the down. He had a bit of a struggle getting his in. He always did now. Tracks and scar tissue on all the spots. Always takes him a little longer and I worry that soon it will become impossible. Ive seen some of our friends especially this guy Daniel whos a session musician and somtimes plays on E's records and has traveled with us a couple times for live shows, he has a really hard time hitting! Hes been doing heroin though since before I was alive and crack too! I would NEVER do that though. Theres somthing very ass backwards about injecting Crack cocaine! Heroin seems almost wholesome and friendly compared to that madness. The crack I mean. Last month when we were still on the tour bus coming back through Ontario it got so bad for him near the end of the trip he ended up hatching this scheme in Sault Ste Marie hospital where talked Ed (payed him) to try and break his arm on the edge of the table just so he could go to the Emerg. and hopefully get a line put in so he could get his drugs in to where there supposed to be going instead of wasting it all getting blood all over everything and everyone and it worked! They did it for him pretty much right away when he got there. They re set his arm, wrapped him up and sent him on his way with a bottle of pain meds to boot! He had to take the last three or four dates off because now he could not play guitar anymore for like six months! It was just crazy! And Bob (their tour manager) was just livid! Trippin on Ed for doin it for him but really as crazy as it sounds at the time it kinda made sense otherwise E wouldnt have supported it. The guy really was suffering! Not just from the sickness but from all the misses all over his legs and arms, just all these huge purple and red swollen welts and holes all over him he could barley play anyways! He would stay awake all through the night with the light on and the curtain drawn in his bunk and all you could do was try to tune out the desperate cursing and pleading with god just to undo this mess he had made for himself and I dont mean the blood and carnage of his injection sites I mean the Heroin life in general. Why do we do it to ourselves knowingly! I had seen all that and what he went through many times before I was even close to having a full time Heroin career but worked towards it knowingly just the same. So dramatically cool you think! Somthing to write songs about.

Omg! I was digging real deep in the side pockets of the godamm gig bag to find some more picks and hoping to find the metronome that I would have left in there. Instead I found a peice of crumpled up looseleaf folded into a tiny little origami square with some lyrics on it. A song entitled 'For Kim' OMG! Did he write me this and leave it in the pocket on purpose? Omg.. he must have. O god what the fuck is it going to say? I sit here on the bed holding the thing in my left hand as I reach for my platter that I keep my spoon water tubes and filters and begin rippin open alchohol swabs with my teeth to throw down on the plate and light with my Vancouver Canucks Bic and decide I should use two hands and put the peice of paper down in front of me as if if I put it down I could lose it without ever getting to read it. I felt like I should do a wack and then open it! I know its lyrics or a poem. Its not a letter I can see through the paper what it is. So I take a deep breath and rip open a rig so I can use the orange BD insulin syringe wrappin paper to crush the pills in. I skillfully tap the powdery powder into the belly of my favorite pewtor spoon and light the first alchohol swab and drop about seven drops of water into the mix and pick up the spoon from the very end and wave it over the flame slowly and carefully. As it comes to a boil I wasnt really paying attention and it almost boiled over! I was mesmerized. I had to see what was inside that paper. POP!! Fuck I let it boil too long and the damm filter just explode in my face and little beads of boiling water landed on my bare leg. Thankfully I did not lose too much of the hit maybe a miligram so I continue but more carefully and grab the first rig , rip the shield off it and let it drop in front of me and submerse the tip of the needle into the centre of the firm end of the filter I had dropped back in and slowly withdrew the medication while my mind soared. Looked around me to see if my current best tie was near by and it was the very long and wide tensor bandage Ive been using this week. It still has most of its elast left in it. Tie off my right arm and hang it over the side of the bed here so it rushes more quickly until I start to feel that corrent level of swell so that I shouldnt have to try more than once to get the vein. Thankfully I spotted a spot on my hand near my outer knuckle area that is still in relativley decent condition and was able to flag and pust easily without incident. Then I begin lighting my after hit smoke and now it is time to open it. The first anything Ed had written me in so long but one of hundreds he had written to me/for me in the past. For Kim: I live my life tomorrow.. Shed my skin… I stay in bed with this bottle of gin… Your clumsy clown is feelin down today.. His makeup runs as he just fades away… And now I cant relate to anyone but you… I still smile as I try to hide the truth… Because the rain is here its fallin down across my face… Though I run so fast… I just cant win this race You know I paid the price .. But far beyond the cost I cant believe you’ve found me without you Im lost I cant believe you’ve found me I was lost… A photograph.. A moment caught in time… Those memories are getting harder to find… Familiar smile reminds me of old friends… Its been so long since I seen any of them… And now I cant relate to anyone but you… I still smile and I try to hide the truth… Because the rain is here.. fallin down across my face… Though I run so fast I just cant win this race.. You know I paid the price but far beyond the cost.. I cant believe you’ve found me without you Im lost.. I catn believe you found me I was lost… I still smile and try to hide the truth Because the rain is here fallin down across my face Though I run so fast I just cant win this race.. Though I paid the price but far beyond the cost I cant belive you found me without you Im lost I cant believe you found me I was lost…..

*Names have been changed* It was nearly ten years ago I remember just like it was last year. I was only seventeen or was I sixteen? I thought I had lived. I had lived. A lot of living I did that year. Those three or four or five years. I don’t think about it anymore.. Only once and a while Ill hear him on the radio or see something in some magazine or whatever. It only happens once in a while but whenever it does it brings it all back flooding through my brain whether I like it or not. The sights the smells like a movie of our life that plays on the ceiling above me where Im trying to sleep. Those racing thoughts that used to plague me late at night so young and seemingly so long ago. Probably the reason why I started doing the heroin. Well that’s not exactly true. I wanted to do it. I couldn’t wait to do it. I wanted to live. Right now. I hate waiting for things! I wish Id waited. I remember when I was about 11 or 12 when I would gank one or two Clonazapams from my mothers medicine cabinet and eat them, then rail them as time went on… I just wanted to trip. The short amount of time I remember going to high school I think for grade eight back in Peterborough I would just take as many as I could get my hands on and just walk around the halls in my Red and Navy plaid St.Peters kilt and crisp white blouse and my Doc Martens that the school finally allowed to become part of the uniform as they were so much in demand by us kids at the time the board and the parents finally decided “well they do guarantee them for life and as long as their just the shoes and not those awful army boots I suppose they are very practical choice for the children to wear to school..” that it actually happened. I was so into Trainspotting that year and I had the soundtrack and I would just walk around and trip think deep thoughts and eventually get kicked out of class for something so I could chill in the detention room everyday so I could write and think my deep thoughts! It was around that same time I began “playing drugs” where I would just take a spoon out of the drawer late at night and let a few drops of water in and cook it with my lighter as if I was’cooking up’ a shot for myself. I should have known then. I did know then. Its what I wanted. I liked it there in Ontario once I got used to it and moved on from pining for the boy I had left behind in Vancouver. My first real and sexual relationship that I believe lasted a full year. His name was Trevor and his best friend was Jamie Anstey and I loved Jamie. It was Jamie I wanted. A musician. Played guitar sang was uber cool and only sixteen but to me at the time he seemed like he would have been in his twentys! He wasn’t. I think that’s where the fixation and facination with the musicians started. It had to be. I had always loved my Freddie Mercury. I was Freddie for Halloween one year when I was 8 and of course my love for Jim Morrison was infalable. Summer 98’ I had tickets to see them play at GM place so my best girl Constance Pallister and I spent the evening drinkin coolers and doing up our hair and make up trying on outfits and dancing around to the top 40 on Z.95 smoking dumarier cigarettes and feeling cool. We looked hot which was exactly the look we were going for. To stand out of the crowd and get seen by those boys in the band was all that mattered. After the show I took her around to the spot in the back of the stadium where the buses always park and watched the crews wheel out and load the tour bus and trailers back up with there equipment in big heavy black and steel trimmed ‘road cases’ and waited while posing as the roadies came out with there long hair and sweaty Nirvana t shirts back and forth from the inside of GM place to their tour bus. Then the management would come and peak out the door to see that all was quiet and would motion for the talent to come on through and that it was all good. I wait.. Heart pounding… the huge steel doors swung open and the first one I saw was the bass player and some lady then the lead singer E. then the drummer who was Chris who I had met before back in Ontario through my older cousin Jamie who played music also. As predicted and as planned the drummer Chris glanced my way and must have had his eye caught by the intense amount of glitter on our cheeks and hair and the silver tight ‘billy corgon’ pants I had bought from one of the cool rock shops down on Granville weeks before. Christian had a beautiful smile , a friendly face and small teeth. Bright green eyes and long dreaded red hair and wore a knit hat far back on his head. He waves and is walking toward me with a knowing grin he sais “well Im shocked. What a huge coincidence that you found you way to me! And all the way from Toronto?’ I giggle and bat my lashes and said “yall were fckin wicked tonite and I wanted to tell you! And this is my best friend Constance and she wanted to meet Edwin and all so I here we are..” “Cool. Cool” he sais looking away as if making sure there wasn’t anything else he should have been doing so as he could chat with some chicks for a minute. “Were gonna stay here for the night in some hotel befor tomorrow so if you guys wanna hang for a bit that’s cool! If you can handle a bunch of stinky guys in a small confined space for a while and we could smoke a doobie!” “Cool thatd be wicked lets do it!” Constance said. I really like that boy from that minute on I knew I had to have him. So gorgeous and so talented. Perhaps average in looks to anyone else but to me… his talent his writing and the strength behind any drummer totally has me mystified. Almost everything he said was deep and of course I was into deep thoughts! Total hippie Christian was. They all were. And me… I was feelin like the coolest hottest little rock chick ever at this moment. He helped me up the huge step of the pavement of the parking lot and up into the bus and this was no fuckin bus! This thing had mirrors on the ceiling and walls and doors and make up lights and stereo equipment and a full sized wet bar that was all shiny and lux looking. Guitars and chorus amps magazines strewn across the bunks cards on the floor that had fallen offt the table. You could see quite clearly that 7 or 8 guys had been living out of here for months! So we hunh right there in the lot for hours it seemed while the crews loaded more and more gear underneath and into the trailers as we talked to the guys and Im trying so hard to sound unimpressed by the whole thing and ask general questions that showed my coolness with the situation and not fan girl stuff that would bore them to death. After a while and a few drinks it felt natural. We laughed a lot! Ed the singer was very handsome. Far more handsome than I had remembered form Ontario and of course from pictures Id seen on Much Music and what not. Edwin had a very deep manly voice that was so alluring. He was strong . Huge arms. Gorgeous chiselled features and as the conversations went through the phases he began to move closer to where I was sitting so we could talk to each other and be able to hear over everybody else and the shouting and partying. He asked me so many things mostly about Vancouver and what it was like to grow up there. We spoke about music about drugs about real estate about so many things that I forgot to be nervous because it was then that I realised that these guys are not rock stars internationally famous and celibacies. They were Canadians. Guys from Toronto that started a band that got huge right here in our own country but were in fact very very real! I thought I already knew that.. Everyone does. But I didn’t. Not till that night. E asked for my email address so we could chat again somtime and if I ever went to Toronto to look him up and he could take me somewhere cool. “you and your friend” and I was hooked. Ed was so different than I thought he would be he was so … well normal. And he liked me. And I liked him. It was when we discovered how many things we had in common but in particular Freddie Mercury was both of our passionately favortie artists ever! Now this was rare. I knew things about Queen he didn’t know and he knew things about Queen I never knew. He told me about meeting Brian May last year in Seattle at a benefit for AIDS that they were at. Told me so many things and it was so important to him that we were just like the moon and sun. Like no one else was even there. All the noise and all the clinking of liquor bottles and loud music was like.. Not there anymore. He got me a cab and rode in it all the way to my house with me from the hotel in which we had ended up. It was so sweet. He held my hand in the cab. Huge hands. He smelled of Preffered Stock aftershave and cigarettes and sweat. He smelled beautiful! April 2010 It was weird , the same day I was in the mall shopping for a new pair of black demin skinny jeans on the overhead speakers in the store I could hear it. E’s voice. The most familiar voice in the world to me. It wasn’t a song I remembered.. Its been so long . The last time we spoke was over a year or two ago and I didn’t think he’d made any music since then? Mind you I avoid thinking of him at all costs and if that means shutting out all sources or musical update than so be it. It hurts too much . Too much had happened and I had finally been able to move on. Start a new life new people. Without the music that had once been so dear. It had become easy natural to breathe again. For the most part. However, could I have done it without the use of constant bi hourly dosage of intravenous opiates? Probably not however.as soon as I got home from the mall I cooked up an eight and a half got it in right away without incident and I just couldn’t help myself.. The curiosity I had to know.. What was that song? Was it him though? Perhaps not? No I KNOW that voice theres no mistake in that. It had to be a new band a new record a new single. Omg. www.youtube.com search term “Edwin from the band I mother earth” and it came up in my face one after another after another. Its true! Hes back. Back in the saddle. That must mean hes clean.. For the most part. No more cocaine oclock and all that. I learned quickly that once again my dear Edwin had some how scraped himself off the floor and had been playing in a new group compiled of a couple guys that I knew or had once known also. Mike from O** **** P**** , Jeff from his old band the T** P**** and another old friend of ours Amir from a lesser known band that Ed and I both used to hang with all the time. It made me jealous.. Not that he was out there again but that as a couple of days roled by and I started learning more and reading and hearing more of what hed been up to and the recent sucsess of this new band of his I felt as if I was missing something. Not necessarily him cause I don’t think I would ever want to go back to that but music…; that was my life my love. The business the bars the smoke streets of Toronto that had been so dear to me… my old friends that feeling the blood drugs and rage. I didn’t know what to do. It all came at me so fast after just making a few clicks on the internet after hearin E’s stupid voice that there had been all this goin down with my old friends and my city that it made me so jealous and sad. I missing it. My calling. I was supposed to produce and be there now! Fuck! Do another hit Ill think about it later I cant take it now for fuck sake! I would have known that he had formed C**** K**** if I had listend to the radio at all or something but I deliberately keep it all away from me for a reason. So I could move on and move past it all! And I did. But now Im not sure I made the right choice? Did I need to give up what I loved about life and that city and everything because of a shitty ending to an even shittier teenage relationship? A relationship that was way too intense to begin with? Yeah I guess I did didn’t I. Im gonna do another hit and I will think about it later. Brain is now shutting off.! Oh wait now… I wish I still had an electric so I could at least play once in a while I love to play. Oh fuck!!!!!