In Memory of My Heavy Metal Years

There goes the aluminum, the antimony, the arsenic the barium, the cadmium, the cesium, the gadolinium the lead the mercury the nickel, the thalium, and the tin. There goes that job spraying lawns with chemicals, driving the Merc three-quarter ton with a tank on the back and no brakes through West Vancouver, bouncing the wheels against the curb to stop and on the steep majesterial streets that afford such views that they could hire two talentless dickbrains to weed and feed front and back and back again in two weeks. That was a heavy metal job that probably killed a lot of salmon too. There goes the shotgun pellets from the pheasants we shot out in Abbotsford and Langley plucked and hung in the concrete basement in New Westminster fresh with the stink of pheasant guts. Oily, delicious pheasants roasted always with a little buckshot after a day off. There goes those summers painting houses with my brother wire-brushing off the old paint, breathing it in on the wooden ladders white guys working on a tan and saving up for the Peugot ten speed. There goes the seventies out from my body. Led Zep Humble Pie Burning Spear, and Marley too, adidas, big E Levis from Lee's Men's Wear on Sixth Street there goes that brown house paint, broken down and pissed out. There goes those years beachcombing along the Fraser from New West to Lulu Island pulling out cedar blocks that had floated free from the shake factory booms. Pulling the blocks out of that industrial muck grey green and foamy down near Scott Paper, the mill that Larry worked in until it moved production south. Then stacking and drying the blocks to split them into shakes with a birchwood hammer and an adze. There goes that industrial mix from the Fraser from the riverbank from the bars by the river. There goes sucking on a hose to get some gas into that golden sixty-six Valiant convertible with the leaky roof and the 273 and putting it right into the carb to sputter the piece of shit to life Again. Still, pretty great to have a convertible with a radio (turn the radio on roadrunner roadrunner!) and a five-gallon gas can and a piece of garden hose and a mouthful of Regular, a mouthful of Regular Leaded from the Chevron in the strip mall across Tenth Ave. There goes working on a printing press under the sidewalk of the storefront at Cambie and Hastings that was later the Caribbean place and is now going to be gentrified. There goes that time. There goes all the shitty renos on Broadway, on Hastings, on Commercial Drive, there goes the dust from that wall Mike took down with a chain saw when Talonbooks was above the foundry and there goes the foundry dust and the sweep of chemicals that would take your head off like six beers later at the Waldorf. There goes the mystery unmarked jars of cleaners and solvents and grease that Larry nicked from the mill and we used on the cars and bikes and on our hands. There goes that job at the self-serve Shell with a car wash across from the college when it was in temporary trailers just to show that education for the masses was taken seriously. And there goes, hopefully, the dust and everything from that week in September when what was stored in the three buildings of the World Trade Centre was pulverized and burnt Into the air and Nancy and I stayed in the apartment with t-shirts tied over our mouth and nose and didn't go out until we went to Milano's where the Fireman drank for free with the IRA guys leaning at the bar. There goes that time. There goes the Aluminum, the antimony, the arsenic the barium, the cadmium, the cesium, the gadolinium the lead the mercury the nickel, the thalium, and the tin. Broken down pissed out. There goes those jobs, those times there goes those relations of inside and outside, of work and nerves and fat and soft tissue and synapses. There goes that set of relationsinside and outside. There goes that body that use and surplus