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A memory bubbles up in Luke’s mind. He’s performing to a sold out crowd of hundreds, at a large stadium somewhere in the United States. This isn’t a Born Ruffians show though. No, they’re long gone. This is a Jay McCarrol concert. Jay McCarrol is a famous pop star. Jay McCarrol is an asshole to his bandmates. Jay McCarrol has an ego the size of Canada. Jay McCarrol kicked his former best friend Matt Johnson out of a meet and greet. Multiple times.
Jay McCarrol shot Luke in the face in a tour bus with a golden gun.
It was an accident, so Luke’s not mad at him for that. He could practice better gun safety though. Like not keeping a loaded gun in your goddamn tour bus.
He doesn’t bring this up to the Born Ruffians. He did once, and they didn’t know what he was talking about. Jay isn’t a famous pop sensation, he’s a rather strange man who plays the piano and who tries to get a show at the Rivoli with Matt, who tried to join them a long time ago. No one really liked him.
Maybe he should go and ask Jay what the hell he did to him. The best bet for finding the two would be Rivoli. Luke wonders why this specific venue captivates Matt’s mind so much. It’s just another stage to play on in a city full of them. Maybe he chose it out of convenience when they lived nearer to it.
—
Luke stands outside the Rivoli. He looks at all the people walking on Queen street. Do they get strange memories of seeing Canadian pop sensation Jay McCarrol play a concert somewhere? Do they remember loving his music? Do they remember the countless scandals he got himself into?
He sees Jay walking up. He’s pretending to be an old man. He isn’t pulling it off very well. He hasn’t even dyed his hair, though maybe he thinks the wisps of grey hair will suffice. What could this plan even be?
Jay notices him, and tries to walk away from Luke. His walk turns into a sprint, which turns into a run. Luke’s in pretty good shape though, so he easily catches up to him. Jay stops running when he notices. He starts saying something, before realizing the beard is muffling him. Was that part of the plan?
“What the f-ck do you want?!”
His swears are censored by a bleep from nowhere. That doesn’t happen in his memories.
“Why are you in these weird ass memories I’ve been getting recently?”
Jay’s eyes go wide. He starts mumbling something to himself. Luke doesn’t know what emotion he’s experiencing right now, but it’s probably fear. He’s pacing back and forth now, his hands holding his head.
“Bird?! Why’d you abandon the plan?!” Matt says.
This is the first time Luke’s seen him in years, if you don’t count whatever’s happening in the memories. Of course he’d be older, but it’s just jarring to see. There’s skin under his eyes, his hair is even more messy, and his jeans are completely destroyed.
“Oh hey Luke! Do you guys still remember me? Wait, Jay, are you thinking of joining them?!”
“No, Matt.”
“Well, what are ya standing around for?! Get back to the plan!”
Before Jay leaves, he tells Luke to come to their house later tonight. He wants to talk with him privately. Matt would be fast asleep, and wouldn’t hear what Jay had to say. It’s important that he can’t hear this.
Luke watches the plan from afar. He’s not really sure what’s happening, but he thinks Jay might be having a heart attack. He watches as Matt tries to get help. One of their cameramen follows closely. Why do they need a camera crew anyway? They aren’t really a band, so they don’t need to film anything. Maybe they’re just for fun?
He heads back home. It’s the same home in the memories.
—
It’s a normal house. Luke wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Maybe that strange fancy mansion. But that strange fancy mansion doesn’t belong to Jay, it belongs to Drake. But he remembers Jay performing at a concert with Drake, so maybe he just lived nearby.
The inside of the house is filled with all sorts of trinkets. There’s pictures of the two friends doing all sorts of stuff. There’s a piano that’s well loved, and there’s a whiteboard that’s probably well loved too. Today’s plan has already been erased, but there’s still some marker left behind.
Jay’s at a small table. He looks like he’s regretting staying up this late. It’s probably been a long day for both him and Matt. Luke sits at the table with Jay, and no one says anything for a while. They just sit in the darkness, the only sounds that anyone can hear coming from outside.
“Can you tell me what the hell is happening? Why couldn’t you have told me then?”
“Matt would’ve heard. I can’t let him hear this.”
“I don’t fucking care man. Just explain it.”
Jay explains it all. Him wanting to leave Matt. The Orbitz. The time travel. 2008. The whiteboard. Alternate 2025. The fame. The gun. Luke’s accidental death. The CN tower. The lightning. Matt dying to save him. Erasing the whiteboard in 2008, and coming back to 2025 to see that Matt was alive and safe and not a burnt piece of flesh on Queen and Spadina. That last part was Jay’s addition.
“Look man, I’m sorry for shooting-“
“No, it’s fine. If you didn’t shoot me, would we be having this conversation right now?”
Jay looks surprised. Maybe he has thought of this before, or maybe he hasn’t. It’s funny, Luke thinks. His death was a stepping stone to getting everything back to normal. It took two deaths for Jay to change his mind. Luke and Matt’s deaths are probably the most important deaths in the history of the world. Worlds?
Luke gets up to leave, when they both hear a voice from the top of the stairs.
“So that was you! I was wondering who that was for the longest time!”
“Matt, how much did you hear?!”
“All of it, Bird. When were you going to tell me this?!”
“Never. I was never going to tell you. I didn’t want you to invent time travel again. I didn’t want you to know about us being apart for 17 years in another timeline. I didn’t want you to know that you died.”
Jay starts crying. Matt comes down and hugs Jay. Luke thinks of pitching in too, but this is between the two of them. He was just the vehicle for Matt to learn about this. Maybe that’s a good thing.
“Jay, I don’t care about any of that. I’m here with you right now! And now I know that time travel is real!”
“Please don’t. I don’t ever want to experience that again.”
“Oh don’t worry, Bird! I wasn’t planning to!”
“I can tell you’re f-cking lying.”
Whether it was a lie or the truth, no one would ever know. After calming Jay down, Matt suggested that they should all watch the Back to the Future trilogy together, Luke included. He declines. There’s practice tomorrow, so he needs to get lots of sleep. He bids the two friends goodbye. He can hear them bicker as he walks out of the door. It’s not a fight, however. It’s just them being friends. The best friends in every timeline, except for the one in Luke’s memories.
As he walks to a bus station, he gets another memory. He’s talking to other Jay about the blurb on the back of the Never Come Down reissue. Why does one need a reissue for a single song?
“You never talk about your life back then. Why is that?”
“I had a friend that wasn’t a real friend. I’m pretty sure I’ve told you this before.”
“If I did, I don’t remember.”
“Well, all you need to know is that he was a major fucking asshole,” the evil, fame obsessed alternate Jay says. His teeth aren’t sharp, unlike Jay’s pointed teeth. His hair is dyed. He generally has a bad air about him.
Luke’s glad that famous Jay doesn’t exist. He’s got a newfound appreciation for Nirvanna the Band. It’s not just two losers being annoying on Queen street. It’s two best friends unknowingly keeping a demon at bay. That’s a little overdramatic, but other Jay deserves to be called that, he thinks as he rides the bus home.