Opening Night
By: Eric Amber
I think we all remember our first time. First kiss, first love, first sexual experience. Well I remember the first show at Theatre Ste-Catherine like it was yesterday. It wasn’t a show exactly. It was an event. Well, sort of.
The theatre wasn’t actually finished. The walls had no paint, wires hung from the ceiling and the stage had not even been built. In fact, I don’t even think we had light bulbs. Just a few work lamps.
My ‘friend’ (who shall remain anonymous because he is known to many) had approached me and asked if he could use the future theatre for a stag party. A friend of his was getting married and a group of his old school mates wanted a fun place to get shit faced and hangout. So of course, I said yes.
It started out fine. At first it was just a few aged frat boys in sweater vests, a tub of beers and a counter of mixed drinks but about an hour in they decided they wanted some entertainment. So my ‘friend’ and I built a makeshift stage out of old pallets and put on a ‘show’.
Being an ex street performer, I happened to have an amp and mic at hand, so at my ‘friends’ request, I did a stand up set for 20 mins or so. The ivy league McGill grads gathered around while I told a few jokes. I remember they laughed a lot but also heckled and participated in that drunken bar manner that is unwelcome in a typical stand up comedy setting but I rolled with it. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t getting paid but the biggest laugh came when, out of no where, through the 
blinding light of a workman’s flood light came a 2 inch thick, 24 inch long, curly, 10 pound Kolbassa (Ukranian sausage) that I caught mid flight (just before it hit me in the face) without missing a beat of my gags. The assemble gang roared with approval and I took my bow.
It was at this point that my ‘friend’ informed me the some of the guys had pitched in for a ‘stripper’ or two and that they would be arriving shortly.
“Oh” I said. “Ok then.”
Let me be clear. I am a heterosexual man. I like naked girls and I have no moral objection to women gettin’ naked for money. Perhaps I wouldn’t want my own daughter doing it, so in that way I might be a hypocrite but for the most part, I’m ok with it. The thing is that, when these ‘strippers’ arrived, I heard a voice in my head that said: “these aren’t strippers”.
Maybe it was the informal stripper garb they wore or the fact that they didn’t play any music or that they didn’t even dance or do any of the normal ‘stripping’ for that matter. They just showed up, took off their clothes in front of us and started eating each other out on a dirty old sofa I had found in the alley the week before.
After a few minutes of us all watching one gal clean another gal’s pussy with her mouth a few of the frat boys started looking at each other instead of the girls. That’s when the groom was brought into the mix and before long his pants were off and the rest of us found ourselves watching him get a hand job.
It’s at this point that I chose to leave. I gave my ‘friend’ the keys and told him to lock the door when they were done. I had a girl friend at the time and as any man knows, if you don’t want to have to tell the woman in your life what you’ve been up to, then it’s best not to have ‘been’ anywhere. As they say, innocence is the perfect crime.
It’s when I returned the next day that I learned what had happened the night before. It was June in Montreal and the Fringe was on. As it so happened, Mr. Chris ‘Hilarious’ Gibbs (of Hoopal Fame) was in town doing a show and he was staying upstairs in my apartment at the time. A fact I had completely forgotten about until my return home the following morning.
‘Hello Chris” I said.
‘Hello Eric’ he replied adding “Was there a party here last night?”
“Uh, yes” I said again “Did it keep you up?”
“Well, no but I could have sworn there was a man having sex with two women on your sofa.”
“Oh? Are you certain?” I replied, trying to act curiously unaware.
“Not entirely, as it was dark, and I was reading a rather good book at the time, but I do believe I heard some heavy breathing followed by a man’s voice saying: Thank You Very Much. That was all.” said Chris.
“Hmm. That’s rather curious.” I concluded
It wasn’t long before I found a number of used condoms hastily ‘tossed’ behind my sofa. At least the fellow played it safe I thought to myself as I found a long broom to sweep they away with.
Not a bad first show I guess. You can say the theatre opened with a real bang.
ps. I ditched the sofa.
