Tino Bernard in his Lakeshore Cape Cod in Long story, short

I can’t figure out why it is called Lakeshore. It’s not near any lakes. There are no shores nearby. Lake. Shore. Lakeshore. What? Were all the good names taken?

A few years ago my buddy Tino bought a place there. He was moving in from the Muskokas, “tired of the drive”, he said.  So now instead of a rancher on a country hill, he lives in a Cape Cod, in a blue collar neighbourhood two blocks away from the high school.

Near me too.

And it’s nice having friends near. He was my first friend when I parachuted behind enemy lines at my last real job, a job of roiling skirmishes and dogfights. A job where I found myself and a leggy brunette fighting corporate nazis, conmen, low-level criminals and eventually each other.

I left.

She’s still there. Crazylegs. Hotter than a warm slipper.

We happened to meet at a local coffee place a couple years ago now and from what she told me, nothing much had changed — except for most of the players. More dead soldiers, chewed up and spit out by the incorporated numbskulls who operate the profit and loss summary — if it isn’t a profit, then it’s a loss.

But she’s still there. Not top dog, but certainly a junk yard dog and I mean that in the very best way possible.

But back to Tino, sitting there in his Lakeshore Cape Cod, now retired, pushed out with a healthy severance. Tino tells an interesting story about a time when he was checking into a motel outside of Kingston. He used to be a roving photographer of some kind with a large territory, two ex-wives and a drinking problem. He was checking in and the clerk said. “Didn’t you just check out?”

“No, I just got here.”

They looked at the register and another Tino Bernard had just checked out and left. The way my Tino tells it, there was still a dust cloud in the parking lot. Seems there were two Tino Bernards in the Kingston vicinity that day.

Not much of story, I know.
But the other Tino Bernard doesn’t even know it happened.

Last updated January 29, 2019