At night, the demons come and become me.

We stood against those gray-slate walls, tough.
On Younge Street, like that.
We made trouble and we made this place. This fucking country.
Yeah, we were all tough. Tough babes. Babies.
But we took that shit down and combed our hair like that, fixed our cars like that.

I had a straight-8, Roadmaster. A Buick. When we revved that engine I swear to God everyone fainted and the chicks all came in thier tight, pink panties.

I knew some girls and we took them out sometimes and necked-down with at least some heavy-petting in the works, and on the menu.

I remember my good buddy, at Danforth Tech.
He died in my arms at lunch after a knife fight one day.
Just like that, lights out.
Many friends died on me those years.
I left high school and bought a pop-truck, worked it like that.
Scams and shams.

I started selling drugs soon after and got hot.
It was 1971 and I was driving down the Don Valley Parkway with $10,000 in my underwear.
I bought a new car that day.
Cash.

A year later I gave my girl an ounce of coke for Christmas.

She was pregnant in the fall and had a boy in 1973.

We were tough like that, against the gray walls on Younge Street.

We used to push the freaks into the lake, off of the end of the pier, into Lake Ontario.

We were tough, once.