by David Wayne Stewart

photo c/o Go!Toronto gotourismguides

Charlie and I stepped out of an underground parking garage and into the bright urban sunshine. After a five-hour drive from Montreal, we had arrived at the final stop on our father-son tour of Central Canada: the sprawling city of Toronto. As a steel door clanged behind us, I squinted up to read the street sign: Yonge Street. Locals call it “the longest street in the world”. Even now it was pulsing with neon lights, fancy cars, and loud music. 

“The CN Tower!” Charlie shouted. He darted out into the street to snap a pic of the city’s most famous landmark, framed neatly between two skyscrapers overhead. 

“Great view.” I observed nervously while scanning for traffic. “Wasn’t it on the cover of Drake’s recent album?” 

“Sure, Dad.” He rolled his eyes and rejoined me on the sidewalk. “If you think of two years ago as recent.”

“Fair point,” I said, then glanced at my wristwatch. “So we’ve got some time before the game. Do you want to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame?” We were on our way to see a 2018 NHL playoff game between the hometown Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins. The opening faceoff was still two hours out, and I was hoping to use that time to show Charlie some landmarks from my teenage years here.

“I’m okay,” Charlie replied while swiping a finger across his Android phone screen. “Can we get something to eat?”

“I guess so,” I mumbled. There was no point in getting between a teenage boy and his appetite. We ambled two blocks west to the bustling cafes and shops of Queen Street. Soon we found a deli, where Charlie filled his belly with hot chocolate and a ham sandwich, in that order.

After our snack break, we backtracked to Yonge Street and headed south towards Toronto’s lakefront and the Air Canada Centre. The familiar aromas of spices, coffee, and garbage carried me back to the 1980s. Back then, New Yorkers used to remark that Toronto was so clean “you could eat off the streets!” Now I was seeing Toronto through my fresh American eyes, and while its streets were exciting—crowds, honking horns, flashing lights—I wouldn’t call them clean, and I sure wouldn’t eat off them. 

A throng of Leafs fans gradually joined us as we neared the stadium. Although neither Charlie nor I was a Leafs fan (we both preferred the Montreal Canadiens, and Charlie loved his hometown San Jose Sharks), we quickened our pace as the crowds grew, shifting our attention to the excitement that lay ahead: live playoff hockey in Canada’s largest city.

***

I moved to Toronto in 1982, when I was entering Grade 10. I had migrated there from Calgary, where my family had lived for eighteen months until interest rates had soared earlier that year, and Dad’s employer went bankrupt overnight. Dad started plunking out résumés on his typewriter, but his job search stalled. He eventually shifted his approach and struck out on his own as a freelance geologist, helping mining companies to prospect for gold. Dad quickly realized that he needed to be nearer to the headquarters of Canada’s biggest mining companies, so by summertime we were packing up for the Big Smoke. 

My best friend at the time was the relentlessly funny and musically talented Christophe Beck. Chris and I had met at a French immersion school in Calgary, where we had attended the same Grade 9 class and shared a passion for eighties music and video games. I was delighted when his family moved to Toronto at the same time as mine.

Toronto was the first place I’d lived where political leaders made me feel welcome. When I was growing up in Quebec, governments closed my English school, banned English signs, and expropriated the asbestos mines where my dad worked. From there I went to Calgary, where the mayor at the time, Ralph Klein, called the many eastern Canadians moving there “bums and creeps” and told us to go back where we came from. One way that I coped with my outsider status was to hide parts of myself, such as my Englishness in Quebec, or my eastern-Canadian sympathies in Alberta. Imagine my pleasant surprise when Toronto’s civic leaders merely shrugged at newcomers like me. My days of hiding were over. 

But over time, I learned that Torontonians had their own ways of categorizing people: by where they lived and how much they earned. When Chris and I had been pals back in Calgary, I’d had an inkling that his parents were well-off, but neither of us had given money much thought. That all changed in Toronto. Pricey real estate and my dad’s post-asbestos career troubles pushed my family out to the suburbs of Scarborough, known for its endless rows of tract housing and strip malls. The downtown kids called it Scarberia. 

My parents registered me at a public high school in Scarborough called Bethune Collegiate. Bethune was like the fictional Toronto school in the 1990s CBC TV show Degrassi High—that is, teeming with immigrants. At first I instinctively tried using humour to reach across the school’s divides, just as I’d reached across linguistic groups in Quebec. I meandered from clique to clique, clumsily trying to ingratiate myself. I learned about new wave music from the Chinese kids, rap from the Italians and breakdancing from the Caribbean islanders. Headbangers taught me that the guitar band Rush used to live near our school. And preppies in trendy Roots-branded sweatshirts introduced me to alternative music like the Smiths and Bauhaus. But as a Quebec–Alberta outcast, my cross-cultural instincts fell short. I didn’t quite fit in anywhere.

Meanwhile, Chris’s family settled into a tony Rosedale neighbourhood downtown, known for its winding streets, grand homes, and manicured gardens. His new house was previously owned by the Eaton family of department store fame. And his parents sent him to a nearby private school called Crescent, with ivy-covered walls and manicured sports fields.

One night in 1984, I joined Chris at a trendy party near his house, where I struck up a conversation with the son of a well-known politician. My new acquaintance offered me a beer and asked me how long I’d been at Crescent School. I gently corrected him, explaining that although I was attending the party with Crescent boys, I actually attended a school out in Scarborough called Bethune. 

“What?” he asked, cupping his ear for effect.

“BETHUNE!” I repeated.

“Gesundheit,” he snarked, pretending I’d sneezed. And he walked away.

A few weeks later, Chris and I planned another outing to meet his downtown friends, this time at the movies—probably a bawdy teenage comedy like Up the Creek, the story of a white-water rafting race gone awry. I usually relied on Toronto Transit to get around, but that night Chris was able to borrow his mom’s Volkswagen Jetta. He picked me up in Scarborough and whisked me along Mount Pleasant Road with the car windows down. Soon we turned down Yonge Street. Chris cranked up Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s hit song “Relax,” and we started cruising. The wind barely mussed our gel-laden hair. The air was cool, but not quite cool enough for a jacket. I would later learn that Americans call such temperate evenings “football weather,” but since Canadians prefer hockey, I guess that expression never caught on north of the border. 

We neared the cinema. There were no open spots on Yonge Street, so Chris slowed down to find parking. After circling the block, he muttered, “Fuck it,” then zipped into an alley and parked between two office buildings. Ubiquitous signs shouted No Parking, Towaway Zone. Chris turned off the engine and opened the driver’s door. The overhead light illuminated his dark, curly bangs, which hung over his eyes, like the guy from A Flock of Seagulls. 

“OK, let’s go!”

“You’re joking, right?” I asked, pointing at the signs. “You can’t park here.”

“Relax, dude,” he replied as he stepped out of the car. “The cops don’t work after hours. And if it gets towed, my dad will be mad, but we’ll deal with it.”

Chris and I strolled towards the cinema to meet up with his friends. I tried to take Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s advice and relax, but I worried about the spectre of another “gesundheit” moment. So I slipped on a pair of Vuarnet sunglasses to up my cool factor and conceal my Scarberia roots. My shades caused me to stumble a few times in the twilight, but I figured if the Canadian rocker Corey Hart could wear “Sunglasses at Night,” then darn it, so could I. 

Chris’s car never did get towed, and in the ensuing months, his carefree approach rubbed off on me. I took a part-time job stocking shelves at the Hasty Market in my Scarborough neighbourhood to save up for Lacoste polo shirts and Swatches of my own. Little by little, I started to fit in with the downtown crowd. I got a break when Chris invited me to join his new band, Newton Talks—until another band member kicked me out because I couldn’t afford a keyboard. But Chris’s and my friendship ran deep. He kept inviting me over, and with time I grew comfortable with his friends—and began to appreciate my urban-suburban lifestyle.

Meanwhile, one day at Bethune, my gym teacher, Mr. Sims, asked me to read a passage from our sex-ed textbook aloud in class. For fun, I assumed a cheesy radio voice and hammed it up, something like: “Public restrooms often offer condom machines for convenient access to contraceptives!” The room broke out in laughter, and kids hooted their approval. After class, Mr. Sims asked me to stay back, and I worried that I was in trouble. Instead, he asked me if I could announce the daily sports news on Bethune’s morning PA broadcast. Soon I enjoyed a modest fame at my school that allowed me to make friends and float across a range of cliques. 

By the following school year, I’d become well-enough known from my morning sports report that I was elected president of Bethune’s student council. One day an Italian kid named Rob approached me about DJing the next school dance. I was familiar with his work. He had gained notoriety DJing at local clubs under the moniker Tainted Tuna, after a Canadian government scandal of the same name. I mulled over Rob’s proposal, and my childhood bridge-building instincts kicked in once more. Seeing a chance to bring my two Toronto worlds together, I floated the idea of a double bill: Tainted Tuna could DJ the dance, while Chris’s band, Newton Talks, could play live music. 

I arrived early that evening to set up the registration table in our school’s cafeteria. Soon hundreds of students lined up all the way out to the parking lot. The dance was a sellout. Scarborough kids had come out to hear Tainted Tuna spin insane dance tunes from ska and goth bands like The Jam, Jane’s Addiction, and Canada’s own Blue Peter. And private school kids had travelled out to the burbs, for a change, to hear Newton Talks’s covers of bands like Tears for Fears, Culture Club, and a local favourite, the Spoons. 

Scarberians like me wore acid-washed jeans and shirts loaded with snaps and zippers, while the downtown kids donned Levi’s jeans and pink Polo shirts. I was sporting a red Scarberia shirt that I’d recently purchased at Toronto’s discount fashion store Stitches. The shirt had a Michael Jackson vibe, featuring a jet-black flap that hung down the front, covered with snaps and zippers that served no functional purpose. I decorated the flap with pins of my favourite bands: the English Beat, Men at Work, Madness, Simple Minds. 

Bethune had never hosted live music at a dance before, so at first kids milled about the dimly lit dance floor in anticipation. Suddenly lights flooded the stage. Newton Talks looked just like the bands we watched on Much Music, wearing spiked hair and black blazers with puffy shoulder pads. Chris raised his arms over his keyboard and blasted out the synth bassline for his original song, “Blind Man”. Kids swayed and bopped to the beat, and some girls even screamed, like at a Beatles concert. The band was a hit.

Forty-five minutes later it was Tainted Tuna’s turn. DJ Rob fired up the turntables, and sweaty teens danced their hearts out. I recognized the opening beats for Dead or Alive’s hit single, “You Spin Me Right Round”, and sprinted out to the dance floor with my friends. We really got into it, spinning in circles, and flicking our hair to the beat. The loose flap on my red shift flopped around, causing my music pins to occasionally swing up and hit me in the chin. By the end of the song, my shirt was drenched with sweat. But Tainted Tuna segued straight into the next song, The Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance”, and I kept on spinning. It was a dance to remember.

Afterwards, I returned home and headed upstairs to my bedroom, exhausted from a dizzying night. I peeled off my sweaty top and barely recognized my reflection in the mirror. My cheaply made shirt had leached dye, turning my torso crimson with flecks of black. 

***

Decades later, in 2007, my chameleon instincts served me again—this time in my professional life. I was a Canadian-American by then, living in Northern California and working as a public-affairs officer at the Canadian Consulate in Silicon Valley. My job involved hopping from event to event to forge diverse relationships in academia, business and government. By harnessing my childhood and high school experiences of blending into different cultural groups, I was effective at advancing Canada’s interests in the region. 

But a few years into the job, I’d sometimes get caught flat-footed when Californians made assumptions about my nationality. With my Anglo Quebec accent and my lived knowledge of Canada, my California contacts often assumed I was in the Golden State on a diplomatic assignment from Ottawa. But since I was part of the consulate’s locally engaged team of public affairs experts, I was really a hired American gun, not a Canada-based envoy. So when curious locals asked me where Canada’s foreign service might send me for my next diplomatic posting, I wondered, Should I tell them I’m an American now? Or should I continue to conceal myself, pretending to be fully Canadian? 

But wait, I’m still fully Canadian, aren’t I? Or have I been so busy fooling everyone that I’ve fooled even myself?

***

Back at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, the final whistle blew, and the hometown Leafs lost the game. As Charlie and I made our way to the exits, rowdy fans jostled us out of the stadium. Soon thousands of people were clogging up Toronto’s financial district, shouting at passing cars and storefronts. Since Charlie and I weren’t Leafs fans, we weren’t as disappointed with the score as the people around us, but we were transfixed by the unruly spectacle.

At one point, Charlie shouted over the din to ask me why I hadn’t worn the fashionable red-and-blue Montreal Canadiens hockey jersey that I’d bought a few days earlier, when he and I had visited Montreal together. 

“Think about it,” I shouted back, gesturing at the sea of blue-and-white fans around us. 

“Who cares?” Charlie asked with a shrug. 

I chuckled at Charlie’s nonchalance. It reminded me of another time that we’d attended a hockey game together several years earlier, at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I had splurged on tickets to see Team Canada versus Team USA men’s hockey, and invited Charlie’s Canadian cousin, Owen, to join in the fun. The three of us, along with thousands of others, had worn Team Canada jerseys to the stadium. As the puck dropped and the crowd roared, Charlie had seemed oddly out of sorts. But when Team USA scored partway through the first period, he’d jumped out of his seat and tore off his Canada jersey, revealing a USA shirt underneath. 

Now, eight years later, Charlie was prodding me to follow his lead by wearing my home team’s sweater to a Toronto playoff game—never mind the cranky Leafs fans around us. I couldn’t have heeded his advice even if I’d wanted to (my Montreal jersey was stowed back at our hotel), but I marvelled at his self-assurance. It was a reminder to me that even though I’m a skilled chameleon, there are times when it’s okay for me to reveal my true colours.  

***

David Wayne Stewart is a “professional Canadian” in California, helping Canadian tech regions bridge into the Bay Area ecosystem. He is currently the Advisory Board Chair of Canadian Studies at UC Berkeley, and he recently published a collection of memoir essays, “True North, Down South: Tales of a Professional Canadian in America”. His work has also appeared in Potato Soup Journal and elsewhere.