the lethargists

one afternoon, back in '88, I was smoking outside the school's cafeteria when a couple of kids wearing burgundy berets and fu-manchus* sauntered up to me. i expected they were trying to score some hash. i'd been empty since f.w.'d got pinched six weeks previous and was ready to put them off. instead they said, 'are you benny craft?' I was and still am, so i nodded and they said, 'some of us are meeting tonight at the kingsway billiards. we think you should come by.'

i had no idea who these cats were. Jameson Collegiate Institute held about 800 kids, not including the evening adult courses. i knew most of them either from river parties, classes or my extracurriculars, but these ones i'd never seen. i said, 'who are you guys?'.

'i'm thurston and this is siggie.' the speaker was the shorter of the two and the prescription intensity of his buddy holly spectacles presented a frightening, owlish cast. siggie was a real tall knob. like if larry bird was a grocery store bag boy instead of an all-star nba genius. neither of them once took their hands out of their overcoat pockets.

'do we know each other?' i asked, as it dawned they might be [xxxxxx].

'i doubt it,' thurston said and his partner shrugged an ambivalent. 'Just be there. Nine o'clock.' They turned and crossed away over the football field. I smoked the rest of my navy cut and watched them take the tracks across the river.

'what was that all about?' my lab partner becky locks spoke to me through lighting up a smoke.

'don't know. something about meeting at the pool hall tonight. you know those guys?'

she exhaled, 'never seen them before. i don't think they go here.'


*only the berets were burgundy. the fu-manchus were normal colours.