Story Time

I recently spent the entire day alone in the Science Museum of Vancouver and then spent the night socializing with the hostel natives. I had two very different experiences, but instead of sharing my experience I thought I'd tell the stories of the two people I met in my adventures through socialization and aloneasizing.



Though the youngest of three, Kenyon acted nothing like the typical baby of the family. Kenyon didn't desire the attention from his parents that was now spread out between a 13 year old, an 11 year old and a 7 year old, as well as two 40 hour a week jobs. Arnold and Samantha had both been raised by hard working parents who had provided for them, allowing them to both go to the University of Toronto. There they had met, married and moved to Calgary. Now, at the age of 36 both had settled nicely into jobs working for the government. With government jobs comes paid vacations, so the two took their three kids to the big city of Vancouver to show them what homeless people and drug runners look like.
The couple had heard of the problems that Vancouver had with the homeless, so they got a hotel room on the outskirts of the city and rented a car for their daily trips to the city center. It was the second day when the couple decided to make the trek to Science World British Columbia.
Aaron, the oldest of the three children, was unexcited about the prospect of spending more than two hours in one place, let alone a boring place where they were going to try to teach him. The whole point of this trip was so that he didn't have to go to school for a week, not so that he could have more teachers lecture him on the different planets in the solar system. Marie was genuinely interested in what this science museum had to offer, but didn't want her brother to think her lame, so she feigned a mild disgust with the day's activity.
Kenyon, though thrilled to be exploring a new place with new games, never showed much enthusiasm. His weak, though pleasant smile, curiously concerned eyebrows, and furiously jiggling knees was his constant state of being, so the parents had little to worry about, but also had little reason to think their exploration idea a success.
Once in the museum, the parents tried to distract their two sons and daughter by letting them watch the museum's presentation about the wonders of pendulums, balloons, and gravity. Aaron sat in the back thinking he was too old for some stupid kid's show. Marie sat in the back pretending she was thinking she was too old for some stupid kid's show, except when the balloon popping time came and she got to be the volunteer to pop the balloon, because that part was fun, right? That part, at least.
Kenyon found himself uninterested in the fake enthusiasm from the museum employee who was just as surprised by her discoveries about pendulums as her audience, so he wandered away. Arnold followed him into the outer ring of toys, games and puzzles meant to stretch the mind as to how the body and brain worked - keeping a significant distance as to allow his son explore on his own. After struggling with his inability to unhook two ropes that were connected, Kenyon walked over to a table with two Velcro bands on it and a ball in a tunnel. He stood with his hands behind his back and read the instructions carefully. Though he didn't understand what "brain-waves" were he understood that if he put the Velcro band on his head and thought really hard the ball would come towards him.
He strapped the contraption to his head and looked at the ball, immediately the ball started inching toward the boy. He relaxed and the ball stopped moving, his forehead scrunched and he stared harder at the ball and the ball moved towards him. A smile crept over his face. His father came over and strapped the other Velcro on. "I think we're supposed to see who can relax the most and get the ball to go to the other person's side." he explained, assuming his son didn't yet understand the contraption's purpose. "I want to do it myself!" whined the boy. He didn't like the rules that the science museum came up with, but he did like the tools they gave him.
After nearly a quarter of an hour watching the ball move closer to him and comparing it with the charts that were being created on the screens to his right, the boy noticed a man a little bit too old eagerly awaiting his turn on the thought-reading-ball-toy. The near-bearded childish looking twenty-something was sitting at a computer using one of the museum's games as a front for his spying mission on the 7 year old's adventure into the mind. While he looked homeless with his gym shorts, wrinkled t-shirt, and even more wrinkled purple sport's coat laying over his arm, Kenyon knew enough to realize that those homeless people his parent's were so scared of don't go to the museum. Besides, his writing book and copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" didn't scream destitution. The leering creep jerked his head back toward the computer screen to finish his game of ... "dolphin swimming" in an attempt to not appear to be the pedophile of the museum. Kenyon couldn't stop looking back. The two exchanged glances and pretended to be staring off into the distance behind their opponent. The homeless looking gentleman was able to hide his curiosity by focusing his eyes on other objects while focusing his attention on the kid. The child didn't have this luxury. Not because he hadn't yet learned the art of focusing and staring at two different things, but because his brain was hooked up to a giant sensor. As much as Kenyon tried to look nonchalant, the up and down motion of the screens behind him and the ball's gravitation toward his side of the table gave away the child's true thoughts.
The man-child in the purple coat snickered. The curiously concerned kid grimaced. Out of spite the two stared back at their games and pretended to enjoy them as much as possible. For the hairy recent college graduate this proved to be a difficult task. Only now did he realize that the game he was playing was designed for 5 year olds. The goal was to move a dolphin around with a mouse and avoid sharks while scrolling over fish in order to keep your dolphin healthy. After each fish that your dolphin ate, a box would pop up and tell you interesting facts about that fish.
While the task of making this seem interesting was a daunting one, the stubborn boy in the wrinkled clothes was up for it. All his years as an actor served him well as he feigned a mild enjoyment in this mind numbing game of dolphin fact-finding. The younger- less experienced - liar could not keep his attention on his game of non-attention while a leering creep was enjoying some unseen treasure on a computer on the other side of the room.
Kenyon unstrapped the Velcro and strolled over to the grip testing station to test his ability to grab something tightly, all the while keeping a mindful eye on the stranger with the gross looking neck hair and surprisingly dense leg hair. After a moment of waiting for the child to get settled in, the almost-adult walked his lanky figure over to the table with the mind reader and read the instructions as though he was just now finding this game. He strapped his head into the Velcro and looked back to his former station with the dolphin game to see Kenyon settling into the computer seat.
Even at 7 years old, Kenyon found the game uninteresting. Marine wildlife was uninteresting to Kenyon, who had just seen the ocean for the first time on this trip. His pleasant smile turned to a dismayed frown, and he walked away from the computer. Student: 0, Teacher: 1.
The teacher/liar looked back to his prize and thought real hard. The ball rolled toward him. He let out a smile of success. He then tried to not think and the ball stopped. He then thought and the ball rolled toward him, then he stopped, so did the ball. This went on for all of 45 seconds before the teacher got bored. He pulled off the Velcro as his smirk turned to a scowl. Student: 1, Teacher: 1.



At 14, Clayton had finished puberty. He stood taller than most of his classmates at 5'8" and already had to shave at least once a week to keep from growing a significant mustache. The gel he used to spike his hair and his wide but honest eyes had become his weapons for seducing women. Living two hours north of Toronto, Clayton experienced the dullness of living in a rural area, and assumed he was destined for greater things.
The greater things he seemed destined for didn't immediately arrive when he left for college in the big city. He stayed for two years, over which he had a hard time convincing people he was the cool guy he had come to be known as in high-school. In order to distinguish himself from the crowd he grew a mustache.
He didn't just grow any mustache. He grew a large handlebar, evil genius, twist in your fingers style mustache. It distinguished himself from the crowd, but only as the creep with the mustache and the large eyes who hit on every woman that moved, but only slept with ones who didn't. Back home they appreciated the mustache. They loved the mustache. Girls twirled the mustache in their pinky fingers, and guys envied his ability to grow such "bad-ass shit on his face." Back in college, it might as well have been literal shit on his face - the way it acted as a chick repellent. At bars he got in fights with much larger men who called him "mustache freak," and "handlebar homey." In the dorms girls would look away and snicker when he smiled and said, "Hello, ladies."
Clayton quit.
He went back to his hometown and worked for a year before heading off to travel Canada. It was the people of Toronto, not the people of the city who hated Clayton. Soon he'd be in Vancouver where everyone would once again see him as a god-of-poon. They'd appreciate his mustachioed way of life.
At 21 Clayton checked into a hostel in downtown Vancouver, and signed up for every event the hostel had planned. He was ready for his new start. First night: Yuk Yuk's stand up comedy. He joined a group of hostel-stayers. Most of them seemed to know each other, but one other outsider stood out as needing a friend. This outsider even came over and introduced himself. "I'm Nisse" The skinny but friendly dude greeted. "I'm Clayton. Where you from." "Um... Originally Maine, but I've been living in Minnesota for a while. How about you?" The guy who looked like he was dressed more to go to a beach in Hawaii then a comedy club in Vancouver said. It seemed like he was spitting this canned answer and was no longer happy spitting it. "I'm from Ontario.. What'd you say your name was?" Clayton needed repetition for this stranger's strange name. "It's Nisse." He said, holding back his desire to just say something douchey like "It's not important."
The two outsiders stuck together as the group ventured out into the city's nightlife, but it became clear through Clayton's numerous stories of fights he had been in, or fights he had almost been in, or stories of guys he had beat up, or guys he had threatened to beat up, or methods in which to threaten a much larger male, or methods to talk to girl with a boyfriend, that the two had little in common.
A typical conversation went like this:
"I had this awesome mustache."
"Yeah?"
"It was like one that was like out to here, and I could like twist it and shit."
"Like one of those evil villains? That's cool."
"Yeah, I used to get in a lot of fights because of it."
"Really? People would fight you because of your mustache?"
"Yeah. I'd just be chattin' up this girl and she'd be like, 'eww, you have a mustache!' and then she would go tell people there was a creepy guy with a mustache."
"I guess you'd be pretty recognizable if people didn't like you."
"Yeah. I thought it was awesome. But I couldn't get any girls."
"So you had to shave it?"
"Plus I was getting into so many fights."
"Because of the mustache?"
"Yeah, this dude was staring me up from across the bar, so I started staring him up. He was like 6'5" and, like he was a big dude."
"I would have avoided staring him up."
"No. You got to stare 'em back."

"Not me."
"Yeah you do."
"Do you really think I want to stare up some big guy? Have you looked at me? I couldn't beat up a 12 year old, let alone some..."
"No, the thing is, you just got to put up your fists and most of the time they run."
"Nobody's scared of this."
"Then you just punch for the throat and run."
"Awesome!"
"Yeah."

By the time the group got to the second bar, Clayton looked to Nisse as an ally who would listen to his stories, and Nisse looked around for a way to get out of the conversation. Nisse told Clayton that he was tired and was going to just grab a bite to eat at a convenience store before going to bed. Clayton knew the best convenience store and went along for the trip.
"So I tried to buy some weed off this guy on the street."
"Yeah?"
"And the guy gave me this bag for like $20, but I took it home and there was like rope and dirt in it."
"Oh, that sucks."
"There was a piece of fucking rope in it."
"Yeah. You should ask for a refund."
"I should have punched the guy in the nuts, is what I should have done. But they ride off so quick on their bikes."
"Do they?"
"Yeah, the guy fuckin' Jewed me out of $20"
"..." The guy of Greenbergian descent went partially silent, having not heard terms like that since his days of middle school in rural Maine.
"Oh fuck, the convenience store closed. Fucking Asians."
"..."
"Good, there's another one across the street. Let's go there. ... If I had known this'd be such a Heeb town I'd have brought my own weed."
Clayton went back to the bar after Nisse went back to the hostel to sleep. Clayton got drunk with a bunch of people who didn't like him while he complained that he was getting drunker then he usually does, and assuming someone drugged him because they thought his drink was some hot chick's - further alienating him from the hostel crowd. Nisse went to sleep thinking about the parallels between Kenyon and his own childhood self, while also thinking about the parallels between Clayton's hometown and his own.



I think it's obvious that I had a better time when I was alone, but at what cost? How many times will I tell the story of the child who I tricked into leaving his game at the science museum? A lot fewer than the amount of times I will tell the story of the racist Canadian who fought people for his mustache's honor.
And that, my friends, is the future-past.