Re:Rod the Retodd

Hey - wha haaaapen!?

Maybe you, the faithful reader can help me glean whatever is the principal lesson I should be learning from the experience I had last night. First year was one of the greatest years of my life. I lived in a residence called Johston hall, the setup of which is literally a hallway lined with doors, allowing for great social interaction. It's one of the residences you hope to get into when you get into Guelph, and the 60 of us were lucky enough to be part of 3 South that year. We have always kept in touch, at least loosely, the 10 or so of us that were really good friends. There was one room of engineers I am particularily good friends with, and as almost no one went by their real name, unless it was as unusual as Marcus, the engineers were Puma, Scottie G and Driver. Good guys. Scottie G is still at Guelph finishing up is Bio Eng degree because of a fiasco which I can only say is fit not just for another entry, but for an entire other blog. Perhaps with the permission of him I will reproduce his story here one day. Puma and Driver live in a house together in Oakville working for an engineering firm there. Driver has been travelling the world on the business he does with them. He's been to Japan I don't know how many times in the last year, also he frequents the west coast a fair bit, and just a couple of nights ago he was in Chicago. I gathered from his messenger name that there was nothing he would want more than to come to Doogie's, our favourite bar, after his return, to celebrate his birthday there. Lil' Jeff, my old roomie from first year (and then housemate in second year) called me up to confirm I was coming. I told him I had a little Kandalore shindig to go to, but that after it I would be there with bells on. So yeah, Bob and I went to the dinner thing, and we were off to the downtown at around 10:30. It was great to see so many familliar faces from those times again. We had some good laughs. Somewhere in the backround there was Rod: the fine specimen of honour and dignity that is about to become the centre of this vignette. I asked Puma "so how's life treatin' ya?" And he gave me the rundown of his living situation, part of which was Rod as a housemate. This begged the question "Oh really, is he paying rent?" Now speaking of vignettes, I'm going to go back, Tarantino style again, and tell you why I asked that question.

Flash back to the year 2003 or so. It is second year, the townhouse is comprised of Chris Driver, Scottie G, Lil' Jeff, and Yours truly - at least for awhile. At some point in the year (all this is kind of blurry cause I haven't thought much about it since.) ol' Rod became our fifth housemate. Driver is from a little town called Picton, where things get kind of crazy sometimes. The Picton team sticks together, because when any one has fallen on hard times, the others are there to pick them up. I suppose Rod, a semi-tall, oafish low brow individual who has a look of perpetual dissatisfaction with his situation that people with lives remind him of, needed a place to live. What a great sentence that was. Yeah Rod needed a place. I don't know what was wrong with the place he was in, he never told me. In fact he never really talked to me at all. Never asked if he could stay in a house that I shared, use my fridge space, make messes in the living room, set up a matress in our closet, sleep in there, and generally take up space and resources for no compensation, filling the air with racism and obscenities, for approximately 1.5 months. After getting sick of seeing this shit every time I came home from life, I asked lil' Jeff what he thought about the situation. He didn't like it one bit. Finally after reaching a consensus with Scottie and Lil', I approached Driver candidly about the situation. I told him if Rod was going to stay he needed to pay rent. Driver totally understood and took the situation into stride. I suppose he knew Rod's time was limited and he let him stay as long as circumstances allowed. Rod was gone a few days later. It was an immediate relief not to have to be in the presence of someone I didn't actually talk to the second I came into my own house. Not only that, but someone who didn't mind one bit that he was going absolutely nowhere in life - that's just plain annoying to watch. Flip burgers if you have to, don't be above any work, and for god sakes, don't think you're above work in general!

Flash back to Doogie's. "Oh really, so is he paying rent?". Puma got the luck on his face like that was a touchy subject, the answer was a complicated yes, which is a no. However he said Rod had just gotten a job at a bike shop (bicycle) and was working on Norcos. He bought a Sasquatch and rode that to work every day. It sounded good, I was happy for the guy. It was about time he started doing something.

20 minutes later.

I'm sitting on the bench with Bob, little Jeff facing us from accross the table. Rod enters my field of vision from behind and flamboyantly gives me the middle finger. I give it back and point it directly at him, a practiced game puma and I have been playing since first year. It's like tag but with 'f you'. Rod threw a few more fingers my way and I got bored of it so I started talking to Lil' again, who informed me "Rod hates you man, he's not happy." Rod didn't like Lil' Jeff either, cause he was the only other person to tell him that if we had to pay, he had to pay. Apparently Rod is still a violent guy, he seems not to be able to articulate his feelings in any other way. He's tried to physically get into two fights with poor Jeff. Later I was standing by the bar, Driver bought us some shots and we did them. Rod came up. I opened conversation with "Hey, I heard you're working at a bike shop now."
"Fuuuuck yooouuu, don't fucking talk to me man."
"Okay, but I actually thought it was cool that you are working on bikes."
"Seriously, fuck off, don't talk to me."
"Rod, if you don't want me to talk to you, why the fuck would you come and stand next to me?"
"How would you like it if I knocked you the fuck out."
"ahhaha [genuine laugh] " here I irritatingly made a little sockless sock-puppet with my right hand, and opened and close its beak. This is to signify "you talk too much, I can't even hear you anymore"
Then I asked if he really thought that I was afraid of him, again, a genuine question. Rod must've been really drunk to put himself in this situation. I was starting to think about what it would be like to dismember an ignorant bigot limb from limb without any tools.

At this point, Mike the bouncer came up. He knew Rod was Driver's housemate and didn't seem to remember that Driver and I have been coming to Doog's together for 6 years now. Rod immediately told him that I bought Driver a shot to get him more drunk, and Mike believed it. Being an advocate of Driver, Mike warned me about doing that, and about fighting in the bar. I couldn't believe I was getting in trouble for this shit. Did I have a different choice of action? Some may say "Walk away" but I didn't trust this guy enough to turn my back on him, so really that wasn't a choice. I also am not someone with a hair trigger, and was nowhere near fighting, especially inside the bar. I leaned over to Mike and said "dude, I know you don't care about the history of this Drama, but just let me say one thing, what he just told you was a lie." Mike had a glimmer of comprehension in his eye. Minutes later Rod pushed past me, with Mike following him. "Was that him? Was that the guy?" Mike saw Rod's body language.
"Yep."
Though Mike thought he had left, I had a bad feeling. I had the feeling Rod was waiting outside. After about 15 more minutes reports from Driver, Puma, Scottie, etc. Started to filter in that Rod was infact seething outside, pacing, waiting. Apparently what really got him going was when little Jeff would shake his head at Rod and just say "Wow." something I used to do all the time. He would growl "Don't fucking do that, Marcus used to do that." Apparently I really chapped this guy's ass and didn't know it huh? I found out that Colin, a little person who is good friends with the guys had also been insulted and assaulted by Rod. How low can you go man? We had a chat where he gave me the sage advice "This world is filled with assholes man." I guess from that perspective you can see them all, if you catch my drift. Sad.
More reports filtered in that he was outside, Mike would intermittently come by and call him a pussy or a douche bag and tell me not to worry about it, but I was worried. The issue wasn't whether I could kick Rod's ass. I wish it were that simple. In fact in a world with no consequences you better believe I would have gone outside and showed him what's what before he knew what the hell was going on, but this is not such a world. Rod may think he has nothing to live for, but I have parents I have to explain myself to, a girlfriend that's worried about me, a job, future jobs, most include working with children and the ones after that include a respectable instition. Black eyes and scars that are clearly from fighting, not to mention a record with the police, are not worth teaching a lesson to a slow learner. More reports filtered in and I soon heard the police were watching discreetly from the end of the street, and an entire tactical team was on standby to basically kick both our asses should something go down. These guys don't have much to do on a Saturday night. This was not my cup of tea. Bob suggested there might be a back entrance we can take out. After about 30 more mintues of waiting, and the music and crowd starting to fizzle, we decided to make our move. In the confusion of another fight or something being chased outside, Bob and I requested an escort out the back. At this point Driver's girl 'friend' is distraught over the whole thing, and Puma's is downright pissed at him for suggesting he would step into stop Rod if something happened. The whole vibe has been doused, and everyone's tried to talk Rod out of a mistake and he hasn't listened. I didn't like the idea that I was so powerless. The cops were waiting outside, not to protect me, but to kick some ass. I had to find my own plan if I wanted to get safely home that night and sleep in my bed, and a drunken me was in no position to be formulating plans. As one of the bar tenders happily showed us out the secret back door into the old alleway, Mike apologetically thanked us for our discretion and we slipped into the dark, cold Guelph air. Next thing we knew we were on a totally different street, we took the back way out and walked all the way home, talking about the stupidity of the whole situation. I thought of Billy Madison. I thought of when Billy calls all the people he's been mean to and apologizes for it, and how it pays off because one of the dudes is a crazy sniper who then crosses Billy off his list. ahah
I realised I had been on someone's list for three years, and if I had to guess who's, boy Rod would not have been my first. Let's hope this is the last I see of the guy, let's hope he does something with his life and forgets. When you're stuck three years ago, I can see why punching and kicking is all you have left.

So what should I have learned from this? If I had not stepped up back then Rod would have stayed with us till the end of the year. What should I have done differently? He didn't give me much opportunity ever to be nice to him, so I don't see any other way I could play my cards. Well, society will always have its crooks, and there's nothing you can do about it. I guess you always have to look over your shoulder.

That's a shitty lesson.