PART ONE
He thought of the scene a few days ago, as he'd sat with his family for Christmas dinner. He had looked around the table. One sister absent, living far away, no longer able to share in these family occasions. The other sister, family shattered by ugly divorce, children alienated by adolescence, struggling with cancer and its carnivorous chemo. His brother, surrounded by his young family, and outwardly happy, but more subdued, more melancholy in his approach to life, following the suicidal death of his best friend. Even he had not escaped life's viscisitudes, his own marriage finished, his children scarred, and two close friends dead of alcohol-induced heart failure, one in his forties, and the other, for Chrissakes, in his thirties.
He sensed that his father and mother were confused that life got more complicated and difficult as they got older, instead of simpler and more enjoyable, as they'd been promised when they were the younger generation. Now, instead of sitting on their front porch, with a pitcher of lemonade on long, hot, summer days, they were more likely to be worrying about their children, who just couldn't seem to get this life stuff right. You were born, you went to school, you got a job, you got married, you had kids, you worked, you raised your family, you got old, you had grandkids to bounce on your knee, you retired, you got older, and you died. You stayed married. There was none of this divorce stuff. You died in your sleep. There was no cancer. Children were respectful, and honoured their parents and grandparents. There were no angry teenagers.
He got up from the easy chair in the living room, and walked to the window. He looked out into the winter beyond. He was alone -- his kids enjoying the holidays at his ex-wife's. They'd phoned earlier to wish him a happy birthday. Happy, indeed! How could you be happy, when everything seemed to be in such a shambles? He wanted things back the way they were, when everyone was happy. You couldn't just go through your life without feeling some of the pain of others around you. At least he couldn't. He wanted to reach out his arms and surround everybody who meant something to him in life, so he could somehow protect them and keep them from harm. He wanted to help. Because that's really what he felt as he got older -- helplessness. An inability to assist those who'd lost their bearings and been cast onto the shoals.
He decided he needed to get out. After all, it was his birthday. He gathered up his coat, and was soon out the door. He walked. It was clear and cold, and winter nipped at him as he walked, but that only caused him to quicken his pace in an effort to frustrate the weather. He walked the darkened streets, past the playgrounds of his youth, past the storefronts he'd known by heart back in that other time. He struggled with the feelings of intense melancholy that filled him.
Finally, he found himself in front of the downtown hotel. He went in, expecting to know no one, as was the usual case when he made these rare visits to the bar where he'd spent so much time as a young man. He walked through the place, glancing here and there for a familiar face, casting about for a safe haven. Finally, he took up a seat by himself in a corner of the place and resolved to watch over it for some time, before going back to his barren, lonely apartment for the night. You just shouldn't be in bed by ten on your birthday. It somehow didn't seem right.
The hotel was almost empty, but it was a week night, so that was to be expected, even during the holidays. People just didn't drink and party the way they used to. And even though that was supposed to be a good thing, that more of the populace walked the straight and narrow, he couldn't help but think that this movement toward sobriety had coincided with a general deterioration in the morals of the world. Perhaps getting drunk on Friday night was good for the soul.
He sat for a while, watching as a few other patrons wandered into the place, some finding a seat and taking up a drink, others giving it the once over before disappearing back out the door. He saw a young woman enter. Watched as she took up a seat at the bar, unbundling from the outside cold, producing cigarettes, ordering a drink. She was an attractive young woman, perhaps young enough to be his daughter, but she still made him think of his own lonely situation in life.
He found himself continuing to regard her from his place in the darkened corner of the bar. He may perhaps even have been oggling her and thinking unclean thoughts, being as lecherous as a perverse old man let loose at his granddaughter's pajama party, certain that he was safe to perform such a forbidden action from his position of relative obscurity. He watched her as she exchanged pleasantries with the bartender -- the way she moved her head -- tossed her hair -- punctuated the air with her cigarette at she spoke. The air around her seemed to crackle with energy.
Finally, though, the bartender was called away to another duty, sorry as he might have been to leave one such as she. The girl settled down, leaning forward onto the bar. Then, she turned and appeared to look straight into the darkness that had seemed to cover him so thoroughly just seconds before. And it was like she looked straight through the obscurity and straight into him. He felt his heart jump as their eyes seemed to make contact across the room. Just as quickly, she looked away. It was over. He felt excitement just to have shared that instant with her. How long had he been without a woman? He was embarrassed. He cast his eyes downward. He could not look upon her. He had surely humiliated himself.
Still, when the waitress came, he ordered another drink. But he kept his eyes to himself, deliberately not looking toward the bar, knowing he would do nothing but stare, and rather watched a couple of the regulars pacing around a pool table. When he did dare to look at the bar again, much to his disappointment, the young woman was gone. And his disappointment was profound considering he had only seen her from across the room, because she had brought excitement to an otherwise drab and dreary point in his life.
He had one more drink, then decided it was probably okay to go to bed at eleven on your birthday. He gathered up his coat and headed out into the night. He had a mild glow on, so it didn't feel as cold as it had earlier. He walked more slowly, taking time to look into the store windows as he went, perhaps searching for some trace of his youth. But although the buildings were the same as they had been back in that other era, there was nothing familiar about them, filled as they were with the trendiness of the day.
And as he walked, he came upon an alleyway that led through this block and came out near the bake shop, where the department store with the great Christmas display had been. He thought again of Christmas, remembering that it was that time of year, and it came to mind that he had come to dislike the festive season with all its superficial goodwill toward men. This had once been his favourite time of year, he had basked in the bosom of his family, but now it held bitterness and badness, and he was just as glad when it was over and done with.
He entered the alley, its relative darkness smothering in on him so he had some difficulty walking on the uneveness of its surface. And even as his eyes were adjusting to the dim half-light, he saw that he was not alone.
He looked ahead and saw the girl -- the one from the bar.
"Hi, there," said the girl.
"Hi, yourself," he answered, coming to a stop.
"Out for a walk?" she asked.
"Out for a drink," he answered.
"For the holidays?" she asked.
"It's my birthday," he answered flatly.
"Bad time to have a birthday," she said. "You never get any presents."
"I've learned to cope," he answered. "My mom usually has a cake."
"That's great of her," she said.
"She's my mom," he answered. "That's what mom's do."
There was a pause in the conversation. It was a somewhat awkward pause.
They were strangers.
"You out for a walk?" he asked.
"For a drink," she answered.
"For the holidays?" he asked.
"To cheer me up," she answered.
"You need cheering up?" he asked.
"I need cheering up big time," she said. "My parents picked Christmas to
tell me they're getting a divorce. After twenty-seven years of marriage."
"That's tough," he said. "I can't imagine my parents ever splitting up.
They're like an institution."
"That's what I always thought about my parents," she said. "I thought
their marriage was as solid as the Rock of Gibralter. They tell me they
stayed together for years because of us kids. Can you believe it?"
There was another pause, as they stood in the cold, clear night, billowing clouds of vapour with each breath.
"Do you want to have a coffee?" he suddenly blurted, unsure where he'd
gained the courage to ask her.
"Sure," she answered, after seeming to think about it for just a moment.
"A coffee, or something stronger?" he asked.
"Coffee is fine," she answered. "I'm not really much of a drinker."
"Me neither," he said.
And they started off, leaving the alley and heading for a diner that was situated on the edge of town. It was mostly quiet as they walked. They exchanged a few words, but nothing of any consequence. But even as they walked, he could feel her energy extending out and touching him, even as he had felt it in the bar, and he felt arousal. He again felt embarrassment, thinking of her young age, because although she appeared older than his own kids, it couldn't be by much. There should be no such thoughts for her.
When they arrived at the diner, they found a seat in one of the booths that lined the wall. But no sooner had they gotten settled, and ordered their coffee, that she slipped out of the booth, and went to the cash register where she spoke with the guy who was busy getting their coffee. He listened for a couple of minutes, then smiled. They parted, with the waiter disappearing through a set of swinging doors behind the cash register, while she returned to the booth.
She was grinning as she sat down.
"What's up?" he asked.
"You'll see," she answered.
The waiter brought their coffee, giving the girl a conspiratorial look, before he left and passed back through the swinging doors.
"What were you doing in the alleyway?" he asked, looking over at her, but
avoiding direct eye contact, afraid of what that might bring.
"I was just walking around," she answered. "I used to cut through that
alley on my way to school when I was a kid. I liked the feeling there."
"Isn't that funny, so did I," he said. "That's why I was walking through."
"That is a little odd," she said, "that we'd both happen to be walking in
the alley on the same night at the same time."
"You're from town then," he more said than asked.
"Not any more," she answered, "but I grew up here. I'm just home for the
holidays."
He didn't answer, somewhat sheepish about the fact he'd lived here always and never moved out into the great wide world.
There was a silence. They stirred their coffee.
"Why did you need to get that feeling in the alley?" she asked, finally
interrputing the silence.
"Oh, I guess I'm a little bummed," he answered. "Feeling sorry for myself."
"About what?" she asked.
"Oh, the usual," he answered. "Heartache, despair, ruination."
"That's too bad," she said.
And just at that moment, the waiter re-appeared through the swinging doors, holding aloft a muffin with a single tiny candle burning in the middle of it. As the waiter approached the table, the girl broke into a rousing rendition of the Happy Birthday song.
He couldn't help but break into a broad grin as the waiter placed the muffin on their table, and quickly withdrew. He looked at the muffin, then he looked toward his companion. And it was at that moment that she also looked toward him, so their eyes met, and he could feel her come inside of him, flooding him with gushing, oozing warmth -- but also with carnal desire that try as he might he could not push away. She was so beautiful -- so soft, so seemingly sensual. She broke off the contact because he could not, but as she looked away, he felt she did not flee him, even though he had surely revealed himself to her.
"Make a wish!" she exclaimed, laughing.
And he did make a wish, but he kept it to himself, where it belonged. Then, he blew out the solitary candle.
They shared the muffin. All smiles and giggles. Most juvenile behaviour.
They talked about growing up in this exact same small town, exchanging information on schools and teachers and other familiarities that might have stretched across the generations, because it was for certain that they were different generations. And although it was most curious, no personal information was asked and none was given, so that they sat and bantered like old friends, but knew nothing of one another, not even a name.
Continued Part Two