A Bazaar Saturday Night.

My ongoing friendship with Bonnie was developing rather nicely and we both began confiding a bit more in each other. At times it felt like we both just needed a friend or someone to talk to. I looked so forward to seeing her at the store and sharing our two maybe three weekly coffee breaks. Bonnie was all I thought about and more than anything else I wished I was her boyfriend.

During our coffee breaks I discovered that Bonnie like me also had come from a broken home. Her mother ran off to California with her boss when she was just a little girl leaving it up to Bonnie's alcoholic father to raise both her and her brother. Bonnie was eighteen years old and she had not seen her mother for well over ten years as well she was also now estranged from her father.

Bonnie moved around a lot when she was growing up, she attended many different schools and she never had any real close girlfriends. She was now living with her eccentric grandmother in an apartment not too far from the Jungle while just finishing up high school.

To be honest, after hearing her story I was amazed how she grew up to be such an intelligent, independent and beautiful young woman. Many young women in Bonnie’s situation would have ended up a crackhead whore turning tricks down on Jarvis Street. As bad as I thought I had it, I at least had one parent who stuck around and raised me. Bonnie had practically raised herself.

I will never forget the Saturday afternoon when Bonnie’s mother without any notice just casually walked back into her life. It would be the first time in over a decade she had seen her mother.

It was a cold winter day and the store was very busy with Christmas shoppers picking up last minute items. Both Bonnie and I were working in the shoe dept. on that day. The store was very crowded, but I did notice a very attractive woman wearing a fur coat walking towards the shoe dept. I was busy fitting a pair of ski boots, when I looked back up I saw Bonnie running from the boot room. She was headed towards the lunchroom and she was crying. I had no idea what had happened, but I immediately followed her to see if she was okay. She told me that the woman who was wearing the fur coat was her mother and she had just shown up unannounced.

Bonnie was understandably extremely upset. Afterall, this was the same woman who had abandoned her when she was just a little girl. After Bonnie composed herself, we both went back out into the store and I was introduced to her mother. Bonnie’s mother confessed she thought that I was her daughter’s boyfriend after the way I had run to be with her in the lunchroom.

And, just like that Bonnie’s mother walked back into her life on that Saturday afternoon.

Bonnie's boyfriend was Greg, they had already been together for a couple years. Greg was a goaltender for the Don Mills Flyers and apparently he had been scouted by the Sudbury Wolves to potentially play Junior ‘A’ hockey. Greg’s father had told me his son’s relationship with Bonnie had cost him a career in pro hockey and he accused Bonnie of being too much of a distraction for his son. Greg also lived in the Jungle; he lived over on the east side with his parents in a townhouse.

From my perspective their relationship always seemed a bit strange. The majority of the time when they went anywhere Greg wanted one or two of his buddies to tag along. I got the impression that Bonnie was growing increasingly frustrated with always having Greg's friends around. Greg drove a big old gas guzzler Ford Galaxy and he would pick Bonnie up after her shift to take her home. Naturally, I would also be working the same shifts as Bonnie. He would come down to the store and we would shoot the shit for a few minutes before he left with Bonnie.

I envied Greg so much and I always pictured myself someday taking Bonnie home after work.

As much as I really liked Bonnie, I could never tell if she liked me the same way. To her our friendship was nothing more than that. We were just friends who worked at Collegiate Sports and went on our coffee breaks together. I needed to somehow tell Bonnie how I felt about her. On one occasion Greg failed to show up after her shift to drive Bonnie home. Bonnie was prepared to simply take the subway home, but I refused to let her walk home from the subway on her own at night. Instead of us both taking the subway, I suggested that we walk to her apartment.

She agreed.

It was during our half-hour walk that I confessed how much I really liked her and I told her how lucky Greg was to have a girlfriend like her. I wanted to kiss her goodnight once we got to her apartment, but I didn’t. I knew it would have made her feel very uncomfortable and it might have ended our friendship right there.

I sure as hell did not want that to happen.

I also did like Greg and I considered him a friend. I'd gotten him in with one of my hockey groups to play goal for us weekly at Keelesdale Arena. We always carpooled together and hit the Dairy Freeze for a burger and onion rings after those late Wednesday night games.

The spring of 1981 would surely be one that I will never forget. I was twenty years old and for the first time in my life I went on an actual vacation. I went to Ft. Lauderdale Florida during spring break with my friend Andy from the store and we drove down in his Camaro. I was at the New York Yankee and Los Angeles Dodgers spring training game the afternoon President Reagan was shot. There were so many people freaking out and many were crying while just sitting in the stands. Being in the USA on the same day their President was shot was surreal and something I will always remember.

While in Florida, I remember sending only two postcards. I sent one to my mother and the other I sent to my good friend, Bonnie.

After my trip to Florida I wanted to explore the possibilities of having a girlfriend. I had met a nice girl while I was in Florida and I enjoyed being with her. Most of my friends already had girlfriends and now I too also wanted to have a girlfriend. As much as it felt like I was falling in love with Bonnie, I knew deep down in my heart we would be nothing more than friends. Bonnie seemed committed to Greg as she began preparing for her first full-time summer job with the Provincial Government at Ontario Place. She would no longer be working at the store and I just assumed we would both be going our separate ways. I was crushed when Bonnie left Collegiate, but I knew that day would eventually come when our coffee breaks would be no more.

There were plenty of fish in the ocean and it was time for me to go fishing.

On Saturday April 11 1981, I was playing a late afternoon hockey game at Forest Hill Arena. After the game my only focus was on nothing more than watching Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers playoff game on Hockey Night In Canada. The Oilers were up two games against Montreal and needed just one more win to advance to the next round

After I watched the game I would then be heading right back to Forest Hill for my weekly Saturday night game at midnight with my NWAA buddies. Instead of driving all the way home and missing the start of the game, I decided to go over to Greg’s house and watch the game with him. I didn’t even know if he was home, but I drove the ten minutes over to his house in Dorney Court anyways.

When I arrived Greg was indeed home and Bonnie was also there. Immediately I could sense there was some kind of tension between them, it seemed like they had been arguing about something. I could tell Bonnie had been crying and was not very happy when I arrived. Greg’s room was in the basement and that is where I watched the game with him after Bonnie had gone upstairs to talk with Greg’s mother in the kitchen. During the second intermission Bonnie came back downstairs where she and Greg started arguing again with each other.

It was very awkward for me because all I wanted to do was just watch the game and I now found myself right in the middle of their fight. I went upstairs to leave, but before I could Bonnie stormed out of the house ahead of me. She was crying and I could tell she was very upset. I went back down into the basement and told Greg he couldn’t let Bonnie walk home by herself at night through the Jungle.

Greg told me he didn’t care and to let her go, he was not going after her. I told Greg that if he didn’t take her home I would. He told me to go ahead and be his guest, he could care less. By the time I caught up to Bonnie she was just walking out of Dorney Court. I pulled up beside her and told her to get in, I would take her home. Bonnie lived less than a five minute drive from Greg’s house. When we arrived at her apartment, she told me that she didn’t want to be alone. She knew I was playing hockey at midnight and asked if she could stay with me. She said that she would just sleep in my car while I played.

I was all messed up.

Here I had the woman who I had literally already fallen in love with sitting in my car telling me she didn’t want to be alone on a Saturday night. So how did I handle what I could only have dreamt of someday happening?

Like a total fuck’n moron that's how.

Instead of Bonnie going up to her apartment, we went for coffee. Although, this was not like any of the coffee breaks we ever shared together while working at the store. If I was to have any chance of Bonnie ever potentially being my girlfriend, my opportunity was on that Saturday night. I should have blown off my hockey game at midnight and stayed with her for as long as she wanted or as long as she needed me to. Bonnie just didn’t want to be alone and she was quietly screaming out for my company.

Once again my love for hockey superseded everything else. My priorities have always been so fucked up when hockey is involved. I did indeed play my two hour hockey game while Bonnie curled up and slept in the back seat of my Honda. I still to this very day cannot believe I went to play hockey while letting the girl I loved sleep in my car.

It was well after 2 am by the time I got changed and back out to my car. I had changed quickly and skipped the weekly breakfast at the Sky Ranch to get Bonnie home. Bonnie was sleeping and woke up when I started the car. She seemed to be in a better mood as I drove her home where we were just talking and saying our goodnights before she got out of my car.

All of sudden and out of the darkness Greg had come up from behind and opened Bonnie’s car door. He scared the shit out of both of us. He asked her where she had been for the last four hours while he waited outside for her to show up. He then told her that they were finished just before he slammed the door and walked down the street behind my car. Bonnie was crying, she was even more upset than anytime she had been that evening.

What do I do now?

I got out of my car and caught up to Greg where we both sat on the curb. I assured him that Bonnie had only gone to my hockey game. She slept in my car because she didn’t want to be alone after leaving his house earlier. She was very upset and nothing happened between us behind his back. I told him I was just trying to be a friend. I then looked him straight in the eye and I told him that if he did not go back to Bonnie and decided to keep walking, he would lose her for good.

I promised him that.

It was almost 3 am Sunday morning as I drove away from Bonnie’s apartment building. Greg had his arm around Bonnie as they headed up to her apartment. I remember thinking to myself how it could just have easily been me with my arm around Bonnie.

It had been such a bazaar Saturday night to say the least. I had blown my one and only chance to be with Bonnie when it looked like I would never even have a chance. On my drive back home I remember convincing myself that I probably didn’t deserve a girl like Bonnie anyway.

She was way out of my league and yes, I truly was a fuck’n moron.