Sunday Scribblings - #262 - befuddled

Sunday Scribblings - #262 - befuddled

“So, you go there every year?” I asked her for a second time.

“Yup, every April school vacation,” she answered.

“Do you have nieces or nephews that you take with you?” I asked.

“No, I wish!” she said with her face briefly scrunching up into a disappointed scowl. Then it quickly brightened again and she continued. “It’s usually me and one or two other girlfriends from work that go.”

“To Disneyworld?” I asked for a second time.

I said it as much like a comment as a question, but with the hope that my face didn’t portray how befuddled I was by the whole idea.

“It’s really fun!” She said. “Does that make me weird?”

“No, of course not,” I reassured her.

The words that left my mouth though were not the same as what was floating around my head. “Yes,” I thought. “Being a school teacher in your mid thirties and going to Disneyworld every year for your vacation, with no children, yes, it does make you a little weird.”

I wondered if that really was weird, or if I’d become so cynical from years of dating that I was now  like a character on Seinfeld, just picking out things from people to complain about. But, before I could say something to change the subject and give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe even salvage some fun on this doomed first date, her phone rang, blaring “When you wish upon a star” as her ringtone.

“Nope,” I thought. “Weird.”

We made small talk for another 30 minutes or so before I finally told her that I needed to head home and prepare for a big meeting the following morning. As I said goodbye to her outside the pub, and told her how nice it was to meet her, I couldn’t help but feel a little like Pinocchio, expecting my nose to grow at any second.

It was a beautiful spring night in New England, and because I really didn’t have a meeting the next morning, I decided to take a walk around my old neighborhood. I’d lived in downtown Boston for over a decade, but it had been many years since, and nights like this still showed me why I missed it. There are lots of great sections in this old city and everyone who’d visited may have their own favorites, but for me it’s the waterfront, particularly around the corner from the North End. There’s a little well-lit park at the edge of Long Wharf that allows you to watch planes come and go over the harbor, hovering only inches above the see-sawing waves. And leering over your back is the dazzling skyline of the Financial District, tempting you to leave the serenity of the ocean view and head into the liveliness of downtown. I always loved walking through this section at night. All the lights – it shouts “City!”

I planned to walk through the park and then stroll into Faneuil Hall to do a little people watching.

“Josh! Hey Josh!”

“Oh crap,” I thought. I knew that voice instantly. I’d heard those three words from that voice many times, over many months. a few years ago. They were usually followed though by “Can you make me some tea” or “Josh, I just need to get one more brief written. Can you make me a sandwich? Then I promise I’m yours for the rest of the day.”

It was Iris. We’d lived together for about a year, but it felt like ten, and in time actually spent together it may have only been a couple months. She worked, constantly. One Sunday after the honeymoon stage had long since dissipated and I’d tried to be patient and supportive for what seemed like eternity, I gave up waiting for her. Not just for us to go meet our friends for brunch that day, but gave up waiting for her period.

She was in sweat pants and shirt, with a leash in her hand and a tiny dog at the end of it, and a stroller in front of her. She was rolling right for me.

“Iris. Hey, how are you?”

I gave her a courtesy hug and kiss on the cheek and then kneeled down by the stroller.

“Who is this little cutie?” I asked, looking at the toddler sound asleep under a mound of blankets.

“That’s Brittany. Sometimes the only way I can get her to sleep is if I take her out with me when I walk Jonathon’s little dog,” she said tugging on the leash.

“So, you’re married now,” I said. “To someone named Jonathon, I take it?”

“Um…Yeah,” Iris said. “I married Jonathon Silver.”

“Our couple’s therapist?” I asked. “You married Long John Silver?”

“Only you called him that, Josh!” she shot back.

“No…we both did.” I said. “Anyway, whatever, I’m sorry. That’s nice. I’m happy for you. You have a beautiful daughter.”

“Thanks, Josh,” Iris said. “And I know. It is a little weird that I married our therapist, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not,” I reassured her.

But my thoughts screamed, “Yes! Yes, it is! Are you kidding me??”

I needed to end this conversation and get back to the peaceful walk that this had so rudely interrupted. I wasn’t in the mood for the whole “ghosts of girlfriends past” thing, not tonight. But, I was thinking too slowly, or maybe just thinking too much instead of acting, because she got out the question that I wanted to avoid.

“So…What’s up with you?” she asked. “Are you married? With anyone?”

“No, not at the moment,” I said, trying to end it quickly. “I’m really trying to focus on work for a while.”

“Oh, that’s nice. I quit working when Jonathon and I got married.”

“Really? Wow…That’s great,” I lied. “Well, it was great seeing you, Iris, but I gotta get going. I have a meeting in the morning I need to prepare for.”

I gave her another, even less courteous, hug and I pushed on into the park. Once I had turned the corner and was out of Iris’s view, I put on the brakes.

“Screw Faneuil Hall,” I thought. “I need a drink!”

I crossed through traffic and headed up a cobblestoned side street, into the heart of the North End. I needed something with more happy familiar memories. When I’d lived here, The Florentine Café was the place that I would head when I just needed something simple; cocktails and conversation. Oh, and the chance to try to pick up the hottest waitresses in the neighborhood. It had been about a year since I’d been to the Café and I knew that none of the same wait staff would be there. They recycled college students and twenty-something’s there before you could even get to remember their names, which was not a bad scenario back when I was also one of those twenty-something’s. But, I assumed that Pat would still be there and it being a Thursday night, expected to see him behind the bar when I walked in the front door.

“I’m just heading to the bar,” I told the hostess when I walked in.

They keep hiring them younger and younger, I thought. But, if I told that to Pat, he would say that they’re exactly the same and that it was me who’s getting older and older. It would be ironic coming from Pat too, because he had looked to be in his fifties when I’d first started going to the Café over fifteen years ago and he hadn’t appeared to age a day since. He still had the same full head of gray hair and the kind of build that would make even the old school North End types think twice before doing anything stupid in his bar. 

He saw me walk over to an empty section of bar stools.

“Hey!” he said with a smile. “Look who remembered how to get out of the suburbs!”

“Hey Pat!”

We shook hands and I sat down on a stool.

“Martini?” he asked.

“You always know just the right thing to say, Pat.”

“Grey Goose and dirty, right?”

“Always,” I told him.

I instantly felt back in my comfort zone. Amazing how a place can sometimes do that. I swiveled around on the stool, taking it all in again. It wasn’t a pub. The Café was half restaurant, half bar, which there aren’t many of in the North End, so as always every table was filled. Other than the two stools next to me, the bar was full as well, and judging by the empty glasses still in front of those two seats, they were probably only recently vacated as well. I scanned the room for familiar faces. There were many, but I couldn’t tell you why any of them were. Until I got to the end of the bar and I saw Rick. I knew why that asshole looked familiar.

“Hey Pat,” I said softly when he got back to my end of the bar. “I thought Rick wasn’t allowed in here. Shit, I thought he wasn’t allowed in anywhere!”

“Yeah, you haven’t been around in a while. You wouldn’t believe this guy now.”

“Yeah, right.”

I looked back down at the end of the bar again. Rick checked his watch and then looked towards the back of the Café, where the restrooms were. Most of my memories of Rick were not from seeing him at the Café, or any other nice establishment. Back in the day, we’d run into him at dive bars, where we would foolishly end our nights, getting one final one before last call. He’d always seem to be at whatever place we strolled into, and he’d always be drunk, and loud, and ready to fight everyone in the bar. The first time I’d ever seen him, he bumped into me on the way to the bathroom and when I turned to see who it was, he’d put his right hand into my left eye and then shouted at me, while I was on the ground, to “Never bump into him.” He got kicked out of the bar that night and most other nights that we saw him. We all kept our distance as much as possible after that, but because of his drunkenness and our frequent meetings, he’d try to buy us drinks each time that we’d first see him, never once remembering how much of an asshole he’d ended the night being each of the previous times we’d seen him.

It was a little strange watching him there in the Café. He didn’t even have a drink on the bar in front of him. And his clothes seemed not only clean, but kind of nice. I couldn’t stop looking at him. It was sort of like the opposite of not being able to look away from a car crash, if that makes sense. But, I’d stared too long and the next time he’d looked toward the restroom, his eyes caught mine when he’d turned back. He smiled, got off his stool, and started walking towards me.

“Oh crap,” I thought.

He was only about five feet nine and a little pudgy, but he’d always been intimidating. I looked over at Pat, who saw Rick coming towards me and laughed.

“You’ll see,” he said, laughing.

“Hey, kid,” Rick said, holding out his hand.

“Rick,” I said. He’d never known my name and I’d never cared. “How’s it going?”

“Look kid, you used to live here a while back, right?”

“Yup.”

“Well, I just want to apologize. I know I must have been out with you and your friends a bunch of times at various bars over the years. I don’t remember much of those times, but I know what my reputation was, so there must have been a good reason for it. So, I just want to say I’m sorry if I was ever an asshole to you.”

“Wow, okay. Thanks,” I said. I still wasn’t sure what to make of this, but thought better of pushing it. “Can I get you a drink?”

“No thank you,” he said. “I don’t drink anymore.”

“Really? That’s great”

“I’m high on love these days!” he said, literally rocking up onto his toes as he said it. “Yeah, I got arrested a couple years ago after I beat up a guy in some bar. The public defender they assigned to me got me off on probation and then she put me on her own probation, for life. I fell in love with her the second she walked into my jail cell. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

I was speechless.

“Weird, huh?” he asked.

“No, of course not,” I reassured him.

An elegantly tall woman in a business suit started walking down the length of the bar and I watched her stop right next to Rick.

“You ready, honey?” she asked him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Nice seeing you again kid.”

“Yeah…” I said. “You too.”    

I turned back to the bar, grabbed my martini, and took a gulp so big that the only thing left was the olives.

“This guy found love?? That guy is high on love??” I thought. “How the fuck am I still single?”

“You lost?” Pat asked me. “Why the befuddled look?”

I had been staring into the mirror behind the bar for what was obviously a noticeable amount of time. Right above the bottle of Grey Goose was my face. I’d been looking into those eyes in the mirror wondering if maybe that face knew some of the answers I couldn’t figure out.

“Nah…I was just thinking,” I told Pat.

“And what have you decided?”

“Well. I’ve realized, looking back on who I’ve dated over the years and who I’m meeting these days, one thing is becoming very clear – I don’t think I even have a clue of what I am looking for.”

“But you’ll know when you find it,” he said.

“Wow…that is some serious bartender wisdom, Pat.”

“Yeah, I don’t get out much, but plenty people who do, come in here and tell me their stories. Listen and learn Josh, my boy. Listen and learn. That’s what life is all about.”

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