Grey Cup Fever

A surprising tale of sweet revenge

By Lloyd Walton

Lloyd Walton is a multi-award-winning directorcinematographer, a painter with five solo gallery shows and a writer. Grey Cup Fever is abridged from his historiography, Chasing the Muse: Canada (available on Amazon, Kindle, Chapters Indigo, and Barnes and Noble).

Back in the ‘60s when I was a student at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, I tracked down an old girlfriend, Elizabeth. A few phone calls got us connected. “Lloyd, please come up for Sunday dinner with my family. We will pick you up at the north end of the subway line at noon.” Her soft voice fired feelings I had long forgotten. Standing at the top of the subway stairs, with her blonde hair backlit in the November noonday sun, I was thrilled to see how she had matured into a slender hazel-eyed beauty. My arms opened, but she stepped back, demurely holding out her hand for me to shake. “I would like you to meet my fiancé, Frank.” Abruptly, a guy with short greasy black hair edged directly between us, offering a limp handshake. “Our plan for the afternoon,” he said, “is to cruise Richmond Hill, looking for a house for Liz and I to raise a family.”

NEXT WEEKEND’S GREY CUP

Squeezing into the back seat of his two-door Chevy Bel-Air coupe, I felt like a kid being taken to the dentist by both Mom and Dad. With one hand on the wheel, and the other around Elizabeth, Frank commandeered the conversation. He boasted at how he was setting up a bleacher in his back yard and renting a big-screen TV to watch next weekend’s Grey Cup game with all of his friends.

Throughout the family dinner, Frank kept interrupting my stories by adding names for his Grey Cup party. Elizabeth was very quiet. After a tense ride back down to the top of the subway line, he gave me a look that said,“Now get lost, buddy.” They sped away into the night.

I slinked down the subway stairs and fumed the whole long cold lonely Toronto Transit Commission ride home. All week my head swirled, thinking of a moment in the car when Liz and I were alone together. Sparks from our old friendship ignited. I had the fever. And Grey Cup fever was in the air. Stories of Calgary Stampeders fans riding stallions through the Royal York Hotel lobby also fuelled my excitation. Then there was Frank. I had to get back at that son of a bitch.

With one hand on the wheel, and the other around Elizabeth, Frank commandeered the conversation.

SWEET REVENGE

Pow! It came to me. I could appear at centre fi eld for the opening of the Grey Cup, so they could see me on their big-screen TV. I made up a press pass by gluing a 50-cent, photo booth portrait next to a logo on CJIC Television stationery, the hometown TV station where I had a summer job.

Entering CNE stadium, I flashed my press pass and got waved through. A sea of bobbing Stetsons cheered as the kickoff teams moved into position. A Toronto Police constable stopped me as I was climbing over a barricade. He checked my concocted credentials, pointing and saying, “That’s the way to centre field. You’d better hurry.”

Grey Cup fever was in the air...then there was Frank. I had to get back at that son of a bitch.

Walking between the kickoff teams of the Calgary Stampeders and Ottawa Rough Riders was like walking through a deep canyon. The players, inpregame jitters, looked as nervous as I felt. A huge roar went up and I turned around to fi nd myself walking right in front of the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau.

Pow! It came to me. I could appear at centre field for the opening of the Grey Cup, so they could see me on their big-screen TV.

O CANADA

It was 1968 and there he was, the gushingly charismatic French Canadian Prime Minister with his handsome grin, savouring a raucous adulation in the heart of English Canada, not to mention the millions viewing Canada’s Super Bowl on television. I stood beside Pierre Trudeau and Ontario Premier John Robarts for the singing of O Canada while fixing my gaze to the cameras beaming out to a couple hunched together on a makeshift bleacher somewhere north of Toronto.

“Look, look, is that Lloyd?”

“Can’t be.”

“It sure looks like him.”

With a final wave to the two on the bleachers, I sauntered off the field like a cowboy riding off into the sunset. Afterwards, as winning Ottawa quarterback Russ Jackson held up the coveted Cup, I reached over and touched it, grinning too, like I had won the Grey Cup.