DOI: 10.3726/9781915734822.003.0005

4: Melissa’s pub, 1989

Content warning: This story contains details of substance abuse and sexual assault.

I am eighteen years old and it’s the summer before my final year of high school—the first summer I get to spend away from home.

Away from my restrictive parents and 11 p.m. curfews and the “no boys in your bedroom” rule.

Away from the hassle of having to hide my addictions from them: tobacco, alcohol, hash, weed, mushrooms, acid.

Away from those sexist high school narratives that girls are sluts if they have sex with boys, but boys are studs if they have sex with girls.

Away from the worry of what others think of me.

I’m staying with my Uncle Hugh. He lives alone in a condo in the town of Canmore, 20 minutes down Highway 1 from Banff. Hugh is my favourite uncle.

When I was young, I wanted to be like him: someone who moved out west, far away from his family in southern Ontario. Who lived with his dog by himself in an alpine town. Who skied powdery mountains in the winter and went fly fishing for rainbow trout during the summer. Who didn’t stay stuck in a life that everyone else wanted for him. Who did what he wanted. Who seemed carefree.

Tonight, I’m at a pub called Melissa’s in Banff. Banff, a world-class ski town nestled in the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, is known for its transient population of young people, ski bums, climbers, mountaineers, and partiers. Sulphur Mountain lies south across the Bow River from Banff Avenue, the main street, while Mount Rundle’s colossal, sloped rump lies to the southeast, beyond Tunnel Mountain.

Loud music pumps overhead as Kenny, Kelly, Steph, and I squeeze in among the crowd of bodies at the bar. Kenny motions to one of the bartenders. With thinning blonde hair and a clean-shaven face, the bartender looks like he is in his early thirties.

“Hi. What can I get you?” he asks Kenny over the din of loud pop music. “Highballs are a buck fifty tonight.” He surveys Steph and Kelly. Then, his eyes rest on me for a second.

“Jack and Coke. Thanks, man,” Kenny yells.

“Hey! Rye and ginger, thanks,” shouts Steph.

Kelly hollers, “I’ll have a rum and Coke, please!”

Standing on the brass bar at the bottom of the counter, I lean in towards the bartender and yell, “I’ll have a screwdriver, please.”

He smirks at me, raising his eyebrows. Using my fingers to tousle my long blonde hair, I smile back at him. Stepping off the brass bar, and pull a tube of my favourite Wet ‘n’ Wild lipstick out of my pocket and touch up my lips. Red matte. It goes well with my low-cut, short-sleeved blouse and denim mini-skirt.

The bartender fixes our drinks and places them on the bar in front of us, slinging a white hand towel over his shoulder.

Slapping a ten-dollar bill down on the bar for our drinks, Kenny announces, “This round’s on me.”

He clinks his glass against mine. “Welcome to Banff, Katie.”

“Aw, thanks, Kenny! You’re the best,” I beam.

I met Kenny one day while walking down 8th Street in Canmore with Hugh. Kenny’s dad owns the Ford dealership in town, so Kenny has decent wheels—a big, blue Ford F-Series pick-up truck. Kenny is tall and solid, like a grizzly bear. He has kind brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and short brown hair that wisps around his ears. He always wears a ball cap. There’s a space between his two front teeth when he smiles. When he laughs, he giggles like a little boy and his whole face lights up.

“Glad you could join us, Katie. We’re going to have fun tonight, girl!” Steph declares, pushing a thick strand of long, blonde, spiral-permed hair out of her face. “Melissa’s gets packed on Tuesday nights.”

“Alright,” I yell. This is my first night out to a bar since arriving over a week ago.

“Let’s get wasted!” I take a gulp of my screwdriver.

“Yahoo!” Kenny bellows. “We’ve got ourselves a wild one here.”

Kelly and Steph laugh. Kelly and Steph are Kenny’s friends—Canmore girls.

The four of us sit down at a small round table in the middle of the floor. People are milling about all around us. Flashing lights pirouette and bounce around the whole room, dancing off of gyrating bodies. Sipping my drink, I feel the weight of my life in southern Ontario, like a drab, heavy, lumpy overcoat, slip away.

Kelly lights up a cigarette and tells Steph and Kenny a story. It’s hard to hear what she’s saying above the thumping music. But it doesn’t matter. I like watching her as she talks. She’s pretty. Her long, straight, chestnut-brown hair is swept away from her pink cheeks and fastened with a silver barrette at the back of her head near the top. Her bangs are curled and puffed up with hairspray. Her button nose crinkles when she smiles, and her big brown eyes dance behind long, mascaraed eyelashes. She throws her head back when she laughs. I look away. Girls aren’t supposed to look at other girls. But she’s cute, and fun and full of life. I want to be like her.

Shaking my head, I drain my glass and think to myself, Time for another drink. The waitress comes by our table, and I order the next round. This time, I ask for a double.

When she returns with our drinks, I take a big swig. The vodka stings my nostrils as I exhale. As Kelly, Steph, and Kenny keep talking, I light up a cigarette.

“She Drives Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals comes on the speaker. Kelly and Steph look at each other and scream.

“I love this song!” Steph screeches.

“Me, too! Let’s dance!” Kelly shrieks. She grabs my hand and jumps up. My heart thumps. I lurch to my feet. She and Steph lead me downstairs to the dance floor. Kenny lumbers after us.

We wind our way around the sweaty, jostling bodies to the middle of the dance floor.

Hands in the air, we twirl and sway, wiggle and shake. We throw our heads back and sing as loud as we can:

Kenny shakes his head, laughing, his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He wobbles around on the dance floor and shuffles his feet. He takes his ball cap off, wipes the sweat off his brow with his forearm, and puts his cap back on.

I grab his arm and lean into his body, standing on my tiptoes.

“Thanks for bringing me here, Ken!” I yell into his ear. I pull back and smile at him, crinkling my nose like Kelly. He grins at me, showing the space between his two front teeth. His cheeks are round and flushed.

“Anytime, Katie! I’m glad you’re having fun,” he bellows. I flip my long hair back, grab his hand, and pirouette under his outstretched arm, grinding my hips into his, giggling. Looking up at the ceiling, he shakes his head and laughs. I can see the dimples in his smiling cheeks as multi-coloured lights streak across his face. The bass pounds in my chest and the muscles in my legs feel like Jell-O from the vodka. I am lightheaded.

“She Drives Me Crazy” starts to fade, and Phil Collins’ “Two Hearts” swells from the speakers. I grab Kenny’s other hand, and we move around each other, whooping and reeling. I step on his foot by mistake and fall into his arms, dissolving into laughter. He swings me around.

Kenny drops my hands and yells, “I’ll be back.”

He turns around and saunters through the damp, frolicking bodies towards the bar. The crowd swallows him up. I twirl around and dance with Steph and Kelly. We shake our heads and clap our hands to the beat, gyrating around each other.

A couple of minutes later, Kenny emerges from the crowd with a tray of four tequila shots with wedges of lemon on top. We each take a shot glass and hold it up in the air together.

“Cheers!” we holler.

Tipping our heads back, Kenny, Steph, Kelly, and I slam the clear liquid in one gulp. For a split second, I feel like I’m going to be sick. Squeezing my eyes shut, I shove the lemon wedge into my mouth and bite down on the sour flesh, sucking the juice out. A warm flush floods my body.

We dance and dance and dance. The lights flash and swirl and flicker through the darkness. Bass throbs through me. Drums pound in my ears. Perspiration drips from my forehead. My hair is damp. People’s faces are blurry. The air is moist with sweat. I meet Kenny’s eyes. We smile at each other. I sneak glances at Kelly. She sways to the music, her eyes closed. I feel dizzy, giddy.

At the end of the night, I manage to sway towards the bar and hoist myself on a bar stool. People are stumbling out into the cool summer mountain air. I don’t know where Kenny, Steph, and Kelly are. The bartender with the thinning blonde hair slides over to me, smiling.

Do you want a drink, beautiful? He asks. “Anything you want,” he adds.

“Sure, why not?” I slur. Forming words is difficult. “A seabreeze, please.”

“You got it.” He grabs a glass tumbler, places it on the bar, adds a small scoop of ice. Fishing a carton of grapefruit juice out of the fridge, he fills the tumbler half full. He pulls a small black hose off its peg below the bar, aims it over the tumbler, and presses one of the buttons on top. Dark pink cranberry juice squirts into the glass. Next, he snatches a bottle of vodka off the shelf, fills up a shot glass, dumps it into the tumbler, and drops a maraschino cherry into the pink drink. He slaps a cocktail napkin down in front of me and sets the tumbler on top.

“Seabreeze. On the house.”

“Wow, thanks!” I smile at him. I take a swig and wince.

“That’s a lot of vodka,” I say, shaking my head and exhaling.

“Anytime.” He tosses a little piece of ice down the front of my blouse and winks at me.

He’s flirting with me, I think to myself. I grin and look away. I take another slurp of my Seabreeze. The vodka burns going down.

“Like a Prayer” by Madonna radiates the speakers.

As I sit at the bar, a few people filter slowly out the door and into the warm summer air. Two women with long blonde hair in short miniskirts have their arms around each other’s shoulders as they stagger outside, whooping and hollering. Their boyfriends shuffle out behind them.

The bartender grabs a couple of cubes of ice from underneath the bar and walks over to me. He looks at me and tosses the ice into the opening of my blouse again. The ice is cold as it slides down my skin. I toss my head back and laugh.

“So, sexy, wanna come home with me?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, smirking. “I live just a few blocks away. I can drive you home in the morning on my motorcycle.”

Am I going to get lucky tonight?, I think.

“Sure, why not?” I shrug, smiling. “I’ll have to tell my friends.”

“Great,” he says.

He tosses the other ice cube into his mouth, chews it slowly, staring intently at me. There’s a strange, fleeting feeling in my stomach that I can’t place. I take another gulp of my Seabreeze.

“I’m almost done here.” He turns and walks to the other end of the bar to serve a customer.

Swivelling around on my barstool, I see Kenny, Kelly, and Steph walking off the dance floor, laughing. They smile as they saunter towards me. Sweaty, intoxicated people continue to disperse, tilting and reeling towards the door of the pub.

“Hey Katie! There you are,” Kenny shouts over the music. “I was looking for you. We’re ready to go.”

“Thanks, guys. But I think I’m going to stay in town for the night. I have a date,” I smirk, nodding my head in the direction of the bartender.

Kenny’s mouth drops open, like he’s been slapped in the face. He surveys the bartender. With wide eyes, Kelly and Steph fish cigarettes and lighters out of their purses.

“Okay! Well, see you around, Katie. Have fun!” Steph howls as she whirls out the door.

Kelly stops, a cigarette dangling from between her lips.

“Are you sure?” she asks, putting her hand on my arm.

“Yeah, I’m good, Kelly. Thanks.” I wave my hand, dismissing her.

Shrugging, she turns on her heel, and teeters outside to the parking lot.

Kenny turns to me. “No, Katie. You should come with us.” His tone is serious.

“You don’t even know him.” His eyebrows knit together in a frown.

“Aw, Kenny, you’re sweet,” I drawl.

“It’s okay! I’m fine. He’s nice!”

“Pffft! Yeah. Nice?” Kenny scoffs, loudly. “How are you going to get back to Canmore?” He eyes me, eyebrows raised.

“He said he would give me a ride.”

Taking another sip of my drink, I swing my bare legs back and forth on my barstool.

“Katie, you’re really drunk,” Kenny pleads. I get that strange feeling in my stomach again.

“Kenny, I really am. And, you’re being so serious!”

Brushing off the expression on his face—a mixture of worry and sadness—I poke his broad chest, throw my head back, and giggle.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry! I’ll be fine!” I take a sip of my drink and smile at him, ignoring the tremor in my stomach.

Kenny looks away. He shakes his head. He looks back at me briefly before spinning around and striding out the door. I watch him vanish into the night. I finish the rest of my drink and put the empty glass on the bar. The bartender strides over to me.

“Okay, I can leave now. Let’s go,” he motions to me.

He turns back to the bar and hollers to one of the other bartenders.

“Thanks for covering for me, Mike!”

“No problem, Tim. You owe me!” Mike shouts.

He beams at me and looks back at Tim, giving him a “thumbs-up.”

”Have fun, buddy!”

I blush. Tim walks ahead of me out the door. I follow him. The night air feels fresh on my face. It’s mixed with the scent of pine trees and cigarette smoke.

“So, what’s your name anyway?” he asks, as he puts his arm around my shoulders.

“Katie.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Katie.”

“You’re Tim,” I slur. I can feel the vodka coursing through my veins, numbing my muscles, muffling the night sounds around me. I like this feeling, the feeling of not feeling my body. I feel warm. Hazy. Pliable.

“Tim, the cute bartender at Melissa’s Pub.”

I giggle, feeling pleased with myself. I’m far away from my life in Ontario. I’m going to have a one-night stand with a guy I don’t know. No one knows me here. No one will judge me.

I lean my shoulder into Tim’s as we walk. I feel woozy. My knees buckle slightly and I lose my balance. Laughing, I grab for his torso.

“Hey, hey, okay,” Tim chuckles, holding me up. “I’ve got you. Let’s get you back to my place. It’s just around the corner.”

When we arrive at his apartment building, Tim takes me downstairs to the basement where the sauna is. He opens the big wooden door. The sweet smell of hot cedar wood spills out and fills my nostrils. We step inside, strip down to our underwear, and sit on the warm bench.

He drapes one arm around my waist. It feels heavy. He puts his other hand on the back of my neck and tugs me toward him. He kisses me. I kiss him back. His arm around my waist tightens.

He nibbles my neck, hard and clumsy. The strange feeling in my stomach returns. It’s stronger this time, hammering inside me. Telling me something.

“Ow, Tim! That hurts,” I giggle nervously. I push him away.

“Slow down.” I wriggle my body, trying to loosen his embrace.

He pulls back and sneers at me with blazing eyes.

“No way. You’re gorgeous,” he growls and tightens his grip. Cold surges through me. His fingers pinch the skin on my thighs.

“Ouch, Tim! That really does hurt.” I squeal, trying not to sound scared.

He nibbles on my shoulders with his teeth and then, nips the flesh on my breasts.

“Ouch, Tim, please.”

My heart is thumping. The hammering in my stomach is relentless.

I know I’m in trouble. Thoughts flood my brain.

I have to get out of here. If I get away, where will I go? It’s the middle of the night.

How will I get back to Canmore by myself? Could I hail a cab at the gas station?

What will I tell Hugh? Kenny? Why didn’t I just go back to Canmore with Kenny?

What if I tell Tim I want to go home and he turns violent?

Fear surges through my body. Then, I can’t feel anything.

Don’t piss him off. Just go along with it. It will be over soon and then you can get out of here.

Tim stands up and grabs my hand.

“C’mon, Katie. Let’s go upstairs.”

Like a good girl, I get to my feet. As I follow him upstairs, my limbs feel like cement. I hold the banister on the way up and look behind me to make sure I remember the way out. I feel like I’m walking the plank of a pirate ship with my hands tied behind my back. Like I’m steps away from falling down into a deep, dark, cold ocean.

In his apartment, we lie on his bed and start fooling around. Yanking off my underwear, he rams his penis inside me.

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

It goes on and on.

And on.

And on.

And on.

Finally, I tell Tim that I’ve had enough. He ignores me. I tell him again. He pumps and grinds and mashes his hips into mine.

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

“Please stop. Get off me,” I beg. “Please.”

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

Shoving my hands up against his chest, I try and push him off me.

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

With the weight of him on top of me, it’s hard to breathe. I can’t feel my body, but I know it’s sliding up and down the sheets.

Crying, I pummel his chest with my fists.

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

I turn my head towards the window beside the bed. Tears run down the bridge of my nose and my temple, soaking the lumpy pillow.

Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.

I think about Kenny and Kelly and Steph.

I think about having fun with them, drinking and dancing at Melissa’s. I think about Kelly’s pretty smile and her crinkly nose when she laughs.

I think about Kenny trying to convince me to come back to Canmore with them.

I peer through the window into the night. Searching for the colossal form of Mt. Rundle, I plead silently that she will turn into a gigantic superhero made of Paleozic sedimenatary rock and appear outside Tim’s apartment. That, with her boulder-sized hands, she will rip off the wall of his bedroom and come thundering in, raging like she’s been asleep for millions of years and is ready to cause some feminist shit. That she will pull Tim off me and grind him into a pile of mucky flesh, and broken bones, and smeared blood under her massive, stoney fists. That she will yank me off the bed, and cradle me in her mammoth craggy arms, as she storms away from the apartment. That she will throw me up on her wide rocky shoulders and we will rumble down Highway 1 together, heading back to Canmore. To Hugh’s place. To my bed there. To safety.

But nothing happens. It’s pitch-black outside and I can’t see anything out the window. Mt. Rundle isn’t coming to save me.

No one is coming to save me while this man does what he wants to me. Rapes my body.

My body. My sweet, naïve, eighteen-year-old body.

The body that has carried me through this life so far.

That walks through alfalfa fields and forests of maple on our farm in southern Ontario.

That embraces our beloved pets: two dogs, numerous goats, a potbelly pig, a cat.

That lays down in fields of long, yellow summer grasses, gazing up at the blue sky.

That is filled up with music and plays guitar and loves to sing.

The body I have known and tried to love my whole life.

The body that feels deeply.

The body that tried to warn me.

The body that I betrayed.

My heart is splitting into pieces. This is what I get for being so easy. For going home with some guy I don’t know. Maybe if I fall asleep, this will be over once I wake up.

I stop resisting. Tim is still on top of me as I close my eyes. A grey fog saturates my mind. Then, everything goes dark.

I wake up later in the night. He is still on top of me.

Pound. Pound. Pound.

I close my eyes again, letting the darkness wash over me.

**********

The next morning, I open my eyes. The sun is shining outside, Mt. Rundle is bathed in light.

Tim is snoring beside me. He is drooling on the pillow. There is a stinging ache between my legs. What happened last night creeps into my mind.

“Hey, Tim. Wake up.” I shake his shoulder.

“I have to work today.”

He groans and rolls over. He opens his eyes and looks at me. His eyes are hollow. Whatever attracted me to him last night at Melissa’s Pub is gone.

“Yeah,” he moans, rubbing his eyes. “I’m getting up.”

Wordlessly, we roll off his bed and pull on our clothes. Suddenly, I gag. Stumbling to the bathroom, I pitch forward over the toilet and throw up. I have a searing headache, but I decide to not ask for any aspirin or coffee. I just want to get out of there and go back to Canmore. At the sink, I rinse my mouth with the hottest water I can stand and exit the bathroom.

As we leave, Tim closes and locks the apartment door behind us. We walk down the stairs, push the door open, and go outside into the wide-open air.

The sweet, pungent fragrance of pine trees soothes me. I open my mouth and fill my lungs with the biggest breath I can manage to pull in. A couple of crows are discussing the day’s pursuits in a treetop down the street. A grey jay swoops down from a rooftop to inspect us, searching for a possible handout: a morsel of muffin or croissant. No such luck today.

Tim trudges to the curb where his motorcycle is parked. I follow. He shoves a key into the ignition of his motorbike and it roars to life. He hops on, puts on his helmet, and hands me the extra one that’s attached to the back of the bike. Jamming it on my head, I do up the strap under my chin and get on the back of the bike. Looking for handles to hold on to beside my seat, I see none. I will myself to wrap my arms around his waist. I feel like I’m going to be sick again. I take a deep breath and pull my abdominal muscles back as hard as I can so that my torso doesn’t touch his back. He pulls away from the curb and heads towards Highway 1, east. To Canmore.

When we arrive at the edge of town, I ask Tim to drop me off on the corner of Railway Avenue and 8th Street by the Drake Inn, five blocks from Hugh’s condo. I don’t want Tim to know where I’m living for the summer.

He maneuvers his bike up against the curb. I slip off the bike, remove the helmet, and hand it back to him, smiling weakly.

“See ya around,” he says.

“Yeah. See ya,” I reply.

He revs up his engine and speeds off.

I turn and start walking north up 8th Street. I never see Tim again.