Dominion

I see our orders come in from the side door and get placed at our table. The kitchen worker who brought it down says "Bon Appetit" to me, being closer to the table, and I half notice the missing incisor in the upper right of his mouth. Under the colored lights of the Dominion Tavern, my tomato penne looks like standard, but Mark's chicken alfredo looks like an absolute horror show of long tendrils of purple-red protein and noodles with sauce emblazoned across it and looking otherworldly.

Taking a look up from a road case of cables, Mark sees the food arrive about the same time I do and comes to sit with me, taking a bite of the alfredo with a sound of satisfaction. "This is great stuff," he says after a mouthful.

The Dominion Tavern has existed since time immemorial on York Street, and serves as a classic dive bar for those who find the Chateau Lafayette too déclassé. Positioned between what was once Zaphod Beeblebrox and Sacha's chip wagon, the Dom has survived convoys, pandemics, and political upheaval, including the much derided outdoor smoking ban enacted in the 2010s.

At around 6:00 the dinner menus are out, which was for food that was actually served by the kitchen upstairs at Barefax, another Ottawa institution, whose dancers breasts likely grazed the face of several political figures over the years.

Back in my days working at Burger King, I once made fun of what I assumed would be a poor meal at a strip club in about 2001. In the tiny cramped office looking at me in the reflection of the one-way glass that faced the lobby, Eric took a long drag off a DuMaurier, and looked at me in my reflected eyes an said, "The food has to be good there. That's where decent business guys go to relax after work."

Back in the Dom, whether it's the well seasoned beef in my bolognese, or the joint Mark and I shared in the van on the way over, I agree with Mark as I swing back a pint of Blue. As we assess what's left to do before the show tonight, I watch as the pirate looking bouncer comes in for his evening. He orders a quart of 50 and nods at Mark and I as he starts talking to the bartender.

Mark was a distinctive looking guy, and was easily recognizable in any place. If you've ever met Mark, he was one of the most honest and trustworthy guys around, and would always give an honest opinion or at least a related story. En route to a charity event at Ashbury College one afternoon, he told me about the time he worked sound at a Van Deusen family wedding and the other-worldly sound made by siblings falling into harmony.

Mark's regular assistant, Jay, was off this evening, but was around regardless, as the Dom as his regular haunt. Placing a quart of 50 on the edge of the stage, he tips one of our big main speakers up on its castors and wheels it over to a 4x4 table.

With an inexplicable nimbleness, Jay is on the table beckoning Mark and I over to load up the mains. Our delicate operation of Jay maintaining balance while hauling as Mark and I push somehow keeps the table steady enough for Jay to hop down and repeat the process again on the other side of the stage.

Once that's done, I head to the van to take in our 30 pound monitors. At an unrelated charity event in Cornwall, a DJ with a set of 10 pound Samick speakers ("and the stands barely way anything too!") will talk some shit to me a year later about how heavy my monitors are, and how difficult it must be to load in and out.

Shoving the two front and one side monitors on to the stage, I head over to Mark at the soundboard who had opened the road-case of AC cables and had started to plug things in. I take the role of duct tape (which Mark called Gaffer tape) and carefully start tracing an AC line direct from the booth to the stage, taking care to tape left, right, center on the dingy bar carpet.

Along the stage, I bring the AC up and into the back of the monitors and mains, taping them down every few feet to prevent a trip hazard, or from some delinquent from fucking with our setup.

Next are the mic stands. Mark tells me that there are three vocalists, so in addition to the short stands for the kick drum and guitar amps which were already loaded in, I awkwardly grab a few more and set them up on their tripods in roughly the position everyone will be in an hour or two.

Next are the XLRs. Mark tells me this is a key and bass band, so I shove a couple of DIs into my pockets and trace the XLRs up along the AC, taping left right center, and up to the mics with enough lead to allow bands to move around if needed.

I start sticking mics up around the stage, other than a pair of new condensers Mark had, it would be mostly SM-58s on stage which was easy, as we had what seemed like an endless supply of these workhorses.

If you've never opened up an SM-58, the interior cabling is entirely filled in with like a plastic resin allowing you, basically, to drive over them and not really need to worry about it.

Once we're all set up and squared away, and I yell in all the mics to make sure they're up and running, I head to the back patio to hang out with Jay and some regulars as Mark parks up around back to kill time before the show.

After a few more stories from Mark, and a couple more cigarettes, a 70/30 tobacco joint in the van, and a glass of water from the bar, I'm in the right headspace for the openers, who I would solo tonight. Jay, despite being off tonight, would be around anyway, but planned on getting hammered as one does, and enjoy himself. Mark, as usual, would nap in the van before the changeover at 9:30, where we'd swap over and I'd catch some sleep before teardown at 1:00.

The first show goes off well, with only a little bit of adjustment made on the fly for a couple of songs. One really irritating hipster decided to use flash photography near the front of the stage and was pushed and rolled over one of my front monitors. Someone else got a little rowdy and was hauled out by the pirate bouncer.

Right after I turn the mains back down, Mark appears looking refreshed and ready to go, so I take my cue to head back to the van to get some shut-eye. I slip out unnoticed, and turn the corner at Luxe, breathing in the cooler night air for the first time in hours.

I light up a Players that Mark gave me, and my ears begin to acclimatize to the quieter street. Walking the side of the street opposite Byward Market Square, I see the lit sign of the Le Droit offices beside a full patio outside the Empire Grill. Zak's bright fluorescent lights cast a pallor on the sidewalk as I walk past, leaving smoke in my wake. I walk past the horrible Blue Cactus and wonder what suckers are in there tonight as I turn onto clarence, and into the Capital parking lot behind the Dom.

I finish my cigarette before getting in the front seat of the van. Mark's van has no back seats in it to fit all the various speakers and road cases full of equipment, so sitting in the driver's side, I recline, and eventually drift off to the din of the market behind me.

Because Mark got here early enough, we're right up against the back fence of the Dom and so the nap was uneventful. My alarm goes off at 1:00 which was my queue to return my seat to the upright position and leave the van, and return to the Dom.

I'm rubbing my eyes as I get to the door to see the pirate bouncer standing directly in my way and hold out his hands at me, showing me the underside of about 15 rings, effectively giving him a legal form of knuckledusters.

"Can... can I come in?"

He looks annoyed.

"No buddy, it looks like you had enough. It's last call. Time to go home," he says from behind his mustache.

You gotta be kidding.

"Uh... I... work ... with Mark? The sound?"

Someone did something inside and he didn't hear me.

"What?"

"I'm working tonight with Mark."

"Oh! Shit, sorry, yeah we're just finishing up."

Great.

"Great, thanks!"

Mark, Jay and I wait around in the soundboard shooting the shit as the musicians load their stuff into a side hallway to load out through the alleyway. Once they're most of the way clear, I start collecting microphones. Mark heads over to the front of the stage and starts peeling up the tape as he pulls loose XLR cables up, then loose AC, and wads the tape up into a ball, sticky side out, and, as is tradition, throws it directly at me. Scoring a direct hit on my torso, we have a laugh and Jay and I load the rest of the cables and gear carefully into our road boxes as Mark gets the van around.

We load out around the crowd, and Jay hops up front beside Mark. I hop in the back and sit on a road case, kept safe by the two mains and larger road cases around me in lieu of a seatbelt. Slowly navigating around the drunks pouring on to the street from the closing bars, we escape the market avoiding any problems with my seating.

Pulling into the Eva James Park and Ride in Kanata, my girlfriend is waiting in her parent's Dodge Caravan to take me home when we arrive. Mark hands me a wad of twenty dollar bills, and tells me I did great work, and that he has a show for me in a couple weeks out of town. I tell him to let me know, and that I'll see him Monday on campus for the Third Years.