Fiction

SUNS SET

We met at a bar. The pungent smell of spilled ale soaked within strands of the red and black polyester carpet, wafted through the room. Tom Waits droned from Bose speakers, Fumbling With The Blues.

I liked this place, every now and then, seldom came alone unless to meet a friend. It leaned a bit on the seedy side, but was unpretentious, a real down-home locally run establishment. One could be anonymous as long as one didn’t come so often to be called by name. For some reason it fit with the mood I was in, a bit lonely, a bit blue, so it’s where I landed.

The joint was filling up for Happy Hour. Salesmen from the car lot a few blocks away in for a pint before heading home for dinner, a couple of middle age women who sidled up to the bar, their sad stories written all over the angle of their slumped shoulders. In the centre of the room a bunch of neighbourhood guys hovered over two pool tables, the smooth, polished edges lined with quarters waiting for the next game.

From where I sat, they looked a motley crew. A native guy, maybe about six foot three, wearing a black, nickel studded cowboy hat and fringed, rawhide jacket, lined his cue along the green felt, marked the eight ball. His sheer height made him stand out among the construction crew in after a days work. They were stockier in stature. Their sleeves-rolled-up denim work shirts and mud-crusted boots gave off a hint of sexiness. Women liked men who worked construction.

The men shared cheap lager on tap for two fifty a glass, six bucks a pitcher, made it last even though thirst consumed them after a long day on the building site. A burly biker, his black leather vest too tight to button around his girth, sat sidesaddle on a barstool. His tattooed arms matched those of his buxom girlfriends, and he seemed to enjoy that his woman was cleaning up, kicking the ass of every pool player there.

Other folks seemed to move in and out, visitors from rural B.C. down to the big city for a conference. You could always spot them because they dressed too swanky and glanced around the room skittish, nervous-like. Local wannabe rockers skirted the room checking out young girls, and skinny, longhaired ex-hippies who lived here and there, came and went as frequently as a sunny winter day in this dog-eared town.

Only later, around seven, did I catch his eye, sitting alone against the back wall, against the backlight. He’d down his gin and tonic in a few gulps, order another. Several regulars wandered over to chat with him, seemed to hang on his every word, like he was holding court. I watched for a while, noticed this man was different from the rest, well groomed, well mannered by the way he sat back straight, hands at rest in his lap. He’d nod as he spoke, seemed attentive, interested in what people had to say.

His hair was cut short, his wardrobe well chosen, Harry Rosen. His brown shoes were of quality leather, well made, Italian perhaps. He wore no noticeable jewelry. I noticed wrinkles around his eyes that suggested he laughed a lot. When I finally saw he did, his gap-toothed grin lit up the room and I knew this was my kind of guy.

It wasn’t long before a gin and tonic landed on the table in front of me.

“I didn’t order this,” I told the waitress whose ample breasts spilled out of her tight black v-neck, pointed in the direction of the pool hall, two headlights directing traffic.

“He did, for you sugar. Enjoy.”

She winked. I turned toward the tables, looked past them in time to see a tall, ice-filled glass being raised, a mischievous grin in my direction. I could feel my face flush. I took a sip, nodded back. The drink was fresh and sweet, cold bubbles burned down my throat, a sort of cleansing. Next thing, I looked up to see him standing beside me.

“Are you waiting for someone or may I join you?”

I stumbled for a moment before saying the only polite thing.

“By all means, please sit down,” I stammered, fumbled with my drink, smoothed the lap of my skirt. “Yes, a friend of mine is supposed to meet me here after work, but she seems to be running late.”

“All the better for me then.”

“Thanks for the drink,” I said.

The conversation spun from formalities into interests; travel, love of languages, family, into motorcycles, literature, pets. The two of us couldn’t keep up with our own banter, the music of our stories out shining those of whoever was now belting out some sappy country tune with the band on stage.

It seemed like hours passed till my friend finally showed up and then he graciously left us to our visiting. As he put out his hand to shake mine, his business card slipped in to my palm, in case I ‘wanted to go out for a drink sometime’. He walked back past the busy pool tables to the corner, slid under the hazy tiffany bar lights.

Two weeks later I was sleeping two, maybe three nights a week at his tiny downtown apartment, shapeless and mundane but warm and intimate in its simplicity. The rest of the time was spent at my Westside suite. Each bit of past we shared wove us more intricately into each other’s world. We walked, talked, drank coffee, Irish whiskey, read poetry, went out dancing, walked and talked some more. We explored a sexual autonomy neither knew existed. We kissed beside the kitchen stove while coffee brewed, sleep fresh on our tongues. We kissed in front of the library under a dripping, rain-drenched sky.

By week four he’d call every day and stop by most nights. By week sixteen only the two of us seemed to matter in the world. By week twenty-four we spoke of places to live, impending family holidays, getting a dog. Next, I imagined children’s laughter ringing through our home.

Then something happened.

I don’t know what, but things changed. It could have been a moment, a sentence, a phrase spoken during a late night conversation after too much wine with too little sleep. Or maybe I didn’t see it coming through the hazy din of new love that shrouded my sense of reality. All I know is suddenly our tight ball of love began to unravel more quickly than it had been wound and I was floundering, fish out of water, gasping for air. I’d reach for him in the dark hush of night, an hour saved only for colicky babies and hormonal women. He was not there. He didn’t call, didn’t return calls, didn’t answer knocks on or love notes left under closed doors. He simply vanished.

I can’t really remember how long this period of time lasted because mostly I tried to get through each day, one foot in front of the other. The emptiness was enormous, the wound deep. Days blurred into nights into mornings of grey skies and sunshine, never remembering how much of which, when. It didn’t matter. I’d lost love before but never like this. I tried to think why this time felt so different, why after only a few months my heart could be so broken, my life ripped apart. I couldn’t find the answer. I just knew it was.

I’d walk a busy seawall, my mind and senses numb against the organic scent of seaweed on the sun-baked shore, oblivious to the usual chatter, intimate handholding, smiles of children, or hot dog stands leaning on two wheels against a noisy curb. Suns would up and down, carry me along their tidal currents, rip tides would push me pull me, spin me around. I’d always surface, not really caring where.

I didn’t answer ringing phones, collect mail, keep in touch with old friends. They were left behind to dry up like my heart had been left to do. I tried to keep connected to family but only to appease, their voices at times soothing as familiarity is, but held at a distance, careful to allow them from going too deep. I disappeared from the day to day like he had disappeared from mine.

Eventually, over a healthy slice of time, my life as I knew it before I’d met him returned. I went to work, now able to muster a meaningful smile for clients. I met with friends afterward and ate decent enough food, had a glass, maybe two, of wine. I’d laugh and hoped my friends didn’t pick up that it was too loud, coming from a forced place. I’d sneak off to the washroom, splash cool water on my face, return to the group with a fresh glow. Rarely did I look into the mirror in those rooms, not wanting a reminder of me in that raw, sorry state - still.

More often, I’d go up to the mountains, finding it the only place I could allow myself to truly experience the nagging void in my life. To smell damp moss, fungi, birch bark peeling from moist trunks, to listen to the chatter of robins and sparrows, feel the cool air on my face, all this became my solace. Such pleasant hours past, high in the alpine meadows, beyond the shaded, treed trails of towering cedars, seedlings twisted in underbrush. Peace and quiet allowed my soul to be bared, without judgment, without demands of social etiquette, without expectation, so it was there my tears could flow freely into the creek, down to the river, back out to sea.

A year later found me unexpectedly back at that midtown pub. Friends had suggested a night out to hear some live music. A really good local band was playing there, they said, so why didn’t we go?

The cab dropped us off on the corner. Before I could change my mind, redirect the cab, my three friends grabbed my elbows, gently guiding me inside.

We wended our way to a table for four in the middle of the room, adjacent to the pool tables. I kept my gaze straight ahead, at the stage. The familiar odor of stale beer hung in the air, got under my skin.

The band was good, trumpet, sax, bass, drums and lead guitar. The female vocalist sounded like a cross between Janis Joplin with her raspy, hard-edged voice, and a little of Joni Mitchell’s bird-like range. I began to relax my shoulders, settle in.

“C’mon, let’s dance,” someone in the group suddenly chimed, already up and moving her feet to the music. The other two stood and the three of them made their way toward the dance floor. “C’mon,” she repeated, gesturing to me with her arm.

“No, I think I’ll just stay here for a bit, listen to the music. You go. Have fun.”

She shrugged, turned toward the crowd moving to the front of the room.

Within a few minutes a waitress appeared at the table and placed a tall glass in front of me, a lime pressed onto the icy rim, a gin and tonic. I froze.

“It’s from the girls up on the dance floor. They said to tell you to lighten up, have some fun.”

A wave of relief swept over me. I couldn’t help laugh out loud. Slowly I turned my head toward the pool hall. I recognized the tall guy, still wearing his nickel-studded cowboy hat. I recognized some of the construction men too, still there, pushing the pool cue. Cautiously my eye wandered into the dim light beyond the tables. A hazy beam from one of the Tiffany bar lights shone against the back wall, a spotlight onto a stage. An empty stool.

I took a sip. The drink was fresh and sweet, cold bubbles burned down my throat, a sort of cleansing.