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December
29 Friday Holiday
Went
to Gillian's, Bridget there. Sat by the fire, cut lino. Got
a drive home with Gillian as they were taking Bridget to the
train. [At 12:30 I left home and walked
to Dave's. Dave was cleaning dog shit off the carpet [in the living room] (81). Just
after I arrived Sue's friends started coming. Everybody got
incredibly drunk except me [Louise
Tremblay was the ringleader in all of this. She was the most
experienced in making "jungle juice"- the 1st time
I'd ever heard the expression- which consisted of filling
an empty bottle with a little of everything in the liquor
cabinet. The Essiambres had a well-stocked liquor cabinet.
The result tasted awful, but was enough to thoroughly intoxicate
four 13-14 year old girls]. Heather collapsed in the hall. Alan had gone to Gillian's
and called to see what we would do tonite. I didn't know so
he said he'd call back.
In the meantime a cousin of the Osbournes' came and he had some
smoke
[these were neighbours of the Essiambres- Joan Osbourne was
a sometime friend of Dave's with whom he apparently made his
first forays into the downtown gay club scene in late '73 (?)].
He and Sue went into the can to smoke it and Heather
[who had wanted some too, but was locked
out]
was lying on the floor
[outside the bathroom]
screaming "I'm gonna kill you!"
etc. [addressed to Sue].
I tried to throw water in her face but it did no good, just
made her make-up run
[I had no experience in dealing with drunken hysterical girls,
but Heather was in bad shape, completely out of control. My
recollection of this afternoon is one of ineffectually running
from one crisis to the next, all afternoon long].
Around
this time Ruth + Linda arrived
[this is my only recollection of seeing Ruth outside of school]
and Dave + Linda went right upstairs to his bedroom. Around
this time another kid
[Louise Tremblay] started screaming
"I can't see!" [it
was like some weird vocal fugue- screams of "I'm gonna
kill you", "I hate you" and "I can't see"
alternating, overlapping, blending, separating, and harmonizing
in cacophonic crescendos- it was all rather surreal. I had a
moment of panic- I had heard of a connection between alcohol
abuse and blindness- but I decided Louise was mostly competing
for attention].
I called Gillian's twice more and talked to her [moments
of sober sanity in the midst of the maelstrom].
I left at around 3:30].
nite-Gillian came over, sat in the basement. Ralph came, smoked
up, went up to see the new fish [my
father had got a fishtank for the kitchen].[I
walked to Alan's that night at around 7. Gillian was there.
Alan brought down his new stereo clock-radio. Most of the night
he worked on his lino-cuts [the cover
of that Uriah Heep album?]. We had coke + chips before
Danielle came at around 8:15. Nothing much else happened. Got
picked up at 11:30. Drove Gillian home] They left at
11.
December
30 Saturday
Gillian,
then Ralph came over, sat in the basement. Not exciting. They
ate pizza for dinner. At 7:30 got picked up by Gillian's father
and went to Gillian's, sat in the study. Andy came for 45
minutes, watched TV and talked [Listened
to "Tommy". Andy came at around 8pm. Watched "Mary
Tyler More" at 8:30 and Andy left again at around 9.
We listened to more records and at 10 we watched Carol Burnette.
We waited in the kitchen until the parents came at around
11:30. By this time it was raining]. Got a ride with
Ralph at 11:30
December
31 Sunday
Ralph
and Danielle came over, sat in the basement. We cleaned it
up, vacuum etc, then talked. They left at 5:30. nite-I smoked
up and Ralph came at 7:30 [I
had my winesack [purchased in Spain
the previous summer- it would eventually get mouldy and be
thrown out] but it
was only about half filled],
we walked to Gillian's. On the way we smoked up in the golf
course [Alan had a tiny bit of hash
which he was trying to smoke in his room when I called. We
stopped at a little shack on the golf course and he smoked
it there-- gave me a toke. I drank a little of the wine and
we went on to Gillian's].. Debbie Darcey and
Paul Church were at Gillian's. Two guys came Rosy and Dave
Morris (all these people were
from Gillian's Human Relations class at BHS).
Andy came and he, Ralph and I went out and smoked up
[we didn't smoke much but it got us quite off].
[By this time Alan, Andy + myself had moved toward the fireplace
away from the others] tried to start a fire.
About 10:30 Jennifer, a girl [Louise
Doyle] and Trever (Nov 18) came [with
a bottle of champagne].. Danielle
came. [Andy left at 11:30 to see Casino
Royale [on TV]].
At 12 made peanut butter sandwiches.
[We turned on the radio when we thought it was 12 but we missed
it [which pretty much sums up the
whole evening]. From 12 to 1 Gillian & co.
talked about the HR [Human Relations]
weekend. Just as I was leaving Dave called
[he had been forced to babysit-- probably had a better
time than we did]. I just handed the phone to Jennifer
and left. Danielle, Alan + I stood outside for a while till
the parents came. Dropped off Alan].[Gillian
made a punch with strange fruit floating around in it, the
stuff of legend. This was also the worst New Year's of the
era, as we and Gillian's friend's didn't mix well...].
(82)
82. Gillian did have a group of friends from her high school
[Beaconsfield High School]. Beaconsfield had at this time a
reputation for being slightly snobby, more upper class then
any other city on the West Island. That, and high school 'loyalty'
prevented people from different schools getting along. This
is of course a generalization.
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