Amie Scott

My roommate, Amie Scott, has a lot of problems. She blogs about some of them at “Crooked Antenna.” Now, I rarely read her blog –we’re very old fashioned and still have conversations– but it’s probably entertaining. God knows, her life is.

It’s been entertaining me for years.

Amie and I met twice in highschool. These were brief and unremarkable encounters. During the first one, I introduced myself as “Ryan Coke” — a devilishly clever punk pseudonym, which I invented in grade five– and she was completely unimpressed. This caught my eye. I’m always impressed by people who are not.

When we met again, I had been on a mixture of acid, cocaine, vodka, hashish and speed for three days. She still managed to remain unimpressed. But not me. I was frightened. By that stage, I was frightened of puddles. I still have no idea why I was laying in one.

At age 18 we were both living in Toronto and met again through mutual friends. We drank in parks and moved in together. Then we drank on stoops. For three years we lived in a hostel. The room was small but it was safe. The building was for freshly-landed Chinese immigrants; a people notorious for their honesty. You could leave your wallet in the shared bathroom. No one would touch it.

These were poor people but they were good people. Even the landlord was all right. Waging a private war against Asian stereotypes, he was very lazy and very bad at his job. When you have no money, that’s exactly the sort of landlord you want. Not collecting rent is more important than not killing cockroaches.

And we had no money. I was reduced to stealing black suits from thrift shops, wearing these to threads, then stealing others. We lived on a steady diet of . . . Well, nothing really. Peanut butter by the spoon. It was a happy day when we could afford bread to smear it across and malt liquor to wash it down. One Christmas, we decorated the room with a broken branch in an empty Old English bottle.

Some people think poverty is terribly romantic. They tend to think this when it’s safely in the past or firmly in another person’s life. I don’t feel this way. Nothing is safe. Nothing is firm. Hunger is an ugly and desperate thing. An old thing. This whole city stinks of food. There’s nothing romantic about it.

In time, we both found work, lost work and found it again. It was a bit like hide and seek. We finally managed to move out of that hostel and into an actual apartment, then into a better one. We’ve been living together for over ten years now. It hasn’t always been easy but it’s always been worthwhile. Amie knows me better than I know me. For some reason, she sticks around. I don’t know why. If I had the choice, I wouldn’t.

Pulling, pushing, kicking, punching and dragging each other, we’ve come a long way.

Instead of wearing whatever suit I could steal from Goodwill, I’m wearing bespoke. Instead of scrounging cigarette butts from the ground and drinking 2 dollar cans of Crest, I’m smoking a pipe and drinking a cup of freshly ground Ethiopian coffee. I no longer show up late and covered in blood, only to be thrown out early. I now show up on time –if at all– and leave when I please. It’s been a while since I fought a bouncer or broke into a car. And public vomiting? That just doesn’t happen.

And Amie is finally getting some of the due owed her. Not for tolerating or taming me –both of which are Sisyphean tasks– but for her work. For the second time, she’s showing some of her clothes on the runway at Alternative Fashion Week. She’s been mentioned in The National Post, a rag, The Globe and Mail, a slightly classier rag, and on some of the better places on the Internet. Even though I think these shows and papers are a shoddy con game, one that raises expectations without raising sales, she has her eyes wide open. She knows what she’s doing.

And I’m proud of her.

I don’t think Amie is talented because she’s my friend. She’s my friend because she’s talented. She’s always been good at whatever she’s dabbled in, which is enough to make you hate her. I once saw Amie pick up a guitar and pluck out the first notes of “In My Life” by the Beatles. She did this not only from ear but from memory. She had never played before. And she was uninterested in learning. After seeing that, so was I.

But she’s done more than dabble in the visual arts. Like Archie comics and V.C. Andrew books, it’s been an important part of her life since before I knew her. She eventually came to fashion the same way that many people do: It’s a way to make things and get paid for it. She’s been making things and getting paid for some time now. This is no minor accomplishment. I have no idea how long indie-designers usually last but I think their life expectancy is akin to that of porn stars. Since she’s started, I’ve seen a few come and go.

But Amie just keeps on. And she keeps on getting better.

As much of this is due to stubbornness as talent. A person needs both and Amie is well equipped. If she wasn’t, I’d probably kill her. I can’t stand people who lack one or the other. As far as Amie goes, I don’t even mind when she almost gets me into fights at the karaoke bar. It doesn’t bother me when I come home after a hard day’s work to find a transvestite passed out upstairs, bottles, wigs and boots strewn everywhere, and Amie laying peacefully on the couch listening to Johnny Cash. The bitch is talent and talent is hardcore. What can you do?

And the cats like her better than me. Stupid fucking cats.